The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Book Show. All right, everybody. Welcome to Iran Book Show on this Thursday night. It's, yeah, hopefully everybody's had a great week and looking forward to the weekend. We're going to talk again, God, about World War III. It seems like just a few weeks ago we talked about World War III. But I really want to focus on the Middle East and maybe also consider some historical speculation or historical connections. And maybe I didn't make last time that I thought makes sense. But something is going on in the world. There's no question. The number of armed conflicts around the world is escalating primarily in the Middle East, but not exclusively in the Middle East. And it's unclear that we're seeing any kind of end to it. It's not obvious, at least not obvious, to the mainstream and to the, I'd say to the politicians what the solution is and how to get over all of this. There clearly is a global kind of realignment going on and I think it's worth thinking about why is this happening, why is it happening, what's going on exactly, and how does this end or does it end? Where do we go from here? Where do we go from here? So let's talk about it. Maybe I want to bring in a particular context in mind. And historical analogies, I mean history does not repeat itself, but there's certain things that happen in history that are useful to consider. The things in history that are useful to consider in terms of the dynamics, kind of the global dynamics, power dynamics between states and that lead to war and have led to world wars in the past. And I think that the interesting dynamic is the dynamic pre-World War I. Now I am not a historian and I'm certainly not a historian expert in that period and I'm open to other ideas or open to alternative explanations if you guys have them. But I thought I'd speculate a little bit about what I think is partially going on in the lead up to World War I that maybe is a little similar to what's going on right now. I don't think the outcome has to be the same. I'd be surprised if it was because we live in a different era. We live in an era primarily that has nukes. One and two, we live in an era that has instant communication. And I think that that changes a lot. That changes, I think, many people's attitudes towards war, tolerance for war, ability to deal with war. And so I think those two things are different. Of course, the ideas are what shape history in the end. But here there might be more similarities than differences. Think about World War I. World War I 1914 becomes kind of the end of a long period of peace. About 100 years or almost 100 years of peace since the Napoleonic Wars. I mean, there have been skirmishes. There have been wars here and there. But fundamentally, no big wars, no major wars between the empires, between the major powers in Europe or in the rest of the world. There is obviously skirmishes or small wars going on in Asia or China. There was going on in Europe. But none of them of the scale of the Napoleonic Wars and certainly not of the scale of the 30-year war, the 100-year war, and other wars from Europe's past. But so it comes at the end of a long period of relative peace. It also comes at the end of a relatively long period of prosperity, of incredible economic growth, fastest economic growth in history, primarily in Europe and the United States, but also to some extent in parts of the rest of the world kind of impacted by what is going on in Europe and in the United States. So you definitely have a rising wealth, rising prosperity, rising trade, huge amount of trade, globalized trade, globalization. It's also a period of great demographic changes, mass migration, mostly from the poorer parts of Europe into the United States, but not only the United States. Massive migrations from poorer parts of Europe to places like Argentina and Brazil and all of really Latin America. So different patterns of mass migration, but huge mass migration, unprecedented, I think in human history, in terms of the amount of people entering into the Americas broadly. So it's a period of peace, a period of prosperity, a period of migration, a period in which civilization is shifting. The industrial revolution has changed the nature of work. It's changed our standard of living. It's changed our relationships, I think, to one another. And it's made the world smaller. It's much easier to get from place to place. People have more time, more wealth to travel. It's also a time in which there's been, if you will, one dominant empire, particularly on the seas. And that dominant empire was great, but throughout the 19th century, it protected the sea lanes. Obviously, it was involved in a colonial enterprise, really that spanned the entire globe. Other empires were on and off challenging it, whether it was the Russian Empire. But Russia didn't really challenge Britain that much. It was a war on Crimea. But mostly, Russia was more engaged with conflicts with the Ottoman Empire, a struggle between those two empires. The Ottomans, of course, were in the decline already in this period. Their great ambitions to take Europe were long forgotten. And they were clearly in decline. And then you had rising empires, or people who thought that they were as good as the British, or whether that was Germany, and of course, France and Spain, which were kind of neither here nor there, never really attained the significance of the British Empire, but never gave up on the desire for empire. But one of the things that categorizes the early 20th century is, from an ideological perspective, a significant erosion in the ideas of the Enlightenment arise in the idea of kind of German romantic ideology. A decline, a beginning of a decline, at least at the universities, at the level of the intellectuals, of the individualism that so characterized the 19th century, arise starting in the early and in the mid-19th century of nationalism, ethnicism, tribalism of all kinds, of all sorts, all over Europe. And so there was a real decline in, I think, the respect by the intellectuals of the ideas of the Enlightenment that was starting to filter down into the population in the form primarily of nationalism, tribalism, and just cynicism, skepticism. Also in Great Britain, in particular, the dominant empire, the dominant military force, to that point, there was definitely a beginning of a skepticism of cynicism about empire. There was the beginning of why are we doing this? Why are we protecting the sea lanes? Why do we have colonies all over the world? Why is all this? And clearly the beginnings of asking a lot of questions. And maybe the beginning of the end, I think, is already being seen of the British Empire in the early 20th century. Now, if you parallel this with the world in which we live today, we live today in an era that comes after a long period of relative peace with no big wars, an era since World War II, in which there be no world wars, but there's been no real, until Ukraine, no real ground war in Europe. I mean, a little bit in the Balkans, but no real ground war in Europe. Some wars in Asia, but relatively small. And so parallel to the 90th century, we saw a period of prolonged peace. We also saw over the last, what is it, 60, 60, 70 years, we've seen, well, no, 60, 70, 80 years, we've seen a prolonged increase in prosperity, a long period of growing prosperity, and very, very high economic growth. Now, that is true in the West, but what makes this period different than the period before is the global nature of this. Now, this prosperity is rising across the world. It is rising at speeds reminiscent of the 19th century. But now, the benefits are far more universal. The benefits are global. But I think the key to understanding the parallels is, and by the way, ideologically, if you think about it, there was a certain confidence coming out of World War II, a certain, maybe, reigniting of certain elements of the Enlightenment. Really, a belief in science and technology, an American belief in American exceptionalism, in the unique position America was in in America that dominated the world, but was benevolent, that did not conquer, did not colonize an America, that kept the shipping lanes open, an America that helped countries become freer, not the other way around, a certain Enlightenment confidence in the ability of science and tech to bring us out of it. And we saw a massive boom in innovation, in technology throughout the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. And those Enlightenment ideas have been attacked from the beginning, right? We know that since the 20th century, in America, in progressives. But round two, I'd say, of that attack, round one culminated probably with the presidency of FDR. But round two probably started in the 60s and just as eroded that American confidence since then, slowly, systematically. Yeah, things were better in the 80s and 90s, but that erosion continued. The left just kept hammering away at the American sense of life, at American ideals, and at the Enlightenment, the ideas of the Enlightenment, the fixity of reason, the idea of individualism, the idea that individuals is what matters, and the idea, ultimately, of the kind of political freedom that was uniquely American, that was not purely democratic. And we're at a point now where America is a fading empire. Not an empire in the sense of a colonizing empire, but in a sense of the dominant power in the world that in many, many respects, one could argue, kept the world safe, kept the world from war, kept trade, chugging along, held the Soviet Union in check, and the United States is in decline. Now it's been a decline, you could argue for a long time, but I think the decline has become evident over the last 20 years in a way that I don't think was there in the past. You can kind of see it in the 70s, 60s and 70s, but there was the Soviet Union over there, and America still stood from Mish, from Mish. Opposite the Soviet Union, it still had this mighty military force, it still could not be matched, and it still had a certain swag and a certain confidence to it. I would say that since 9-11, that swagger, that confidence is gone. And maybe, you know, the expression, the best expression of that is the fact that America today is becoming more and more insular, less and less interested in what's happening in the world, less and less interested in protecting trade, and less and less interested in trade. I mean, since World War II, the United States has single-handedly kind of brought free trade to the world. The world, pre-Trump, at least, had more free trade than the world that ever had. More countries traded with more other countries with lower barriers, tariffs and other barriers, than ever in all of human history. It was a massive boon to trade, and that globalization, that trade is now looked down on, disfavored. People on the right and on the left now want to see America retrench, stop caring about the sea lane, stop caring about opening up the trade routes, on-shoring, bringing all manufacturing home, and becoming insular. It's very similar to what was going on in Great Britain, just before World War I, and there's certainly between World War I and World War II, which is this growing anti-colonial, anti-empire movement within England that ultimately won the day, and a lot of it had to do with the cost of empire. I mean, people think that colonialism was this opportunity for the British to exploit the world, but the fact is that the British spent more money on colonialism than they ever brought in. It was a net drain on the British taxpayer, on the British treasury. So I think there are a lot of similarities. And of course, World War I was just a preamble to World War II, but that's because nothing was resolved in World War I, none of the elements were resolved. Germany still wanted to be an empire, and it was held back. Britain was still in decline, but didn't lose. America seemed to be rising as the replacement for Britain, but it wasn't definitive. The British still seemed to fairly dominant, or at least viewed themselves as dominant. The whole thing, the whole problem with World War I, and the reason we had a World War II, is the World War I ended without conclusion. It ended without a definitive outcome. It ended without clear cut unequivocal winners and losers. And it needed a round two to make clear who the winners and losers were. And the round two, of course, the United States won, and pretty much everybody else lost. Britain's power was diminished, Europe was split into two. It was it, it was the United States, Soviet Union, and that was it, Soviet Union was poor. The United States was the power in the world, and it was just a question of how much did it want to use force in order to prevent communism from spreading, probably tried to do too much of that, but it dominated. Nobody challenged America, partially, because by then the US had nuclear weapons, and there was just no point in challenging it. Today, the United States is in decline. There's just no question about it. We've lost it. We've lost the confidence, we've lost the will, we've lost the swagger, and Donald Trump is a great representation of that. Donald Trump is about America as a place of fear. Donald Trump is an America that is looking backwards, not forwards. Donald Trump is not about an America that protects trade. Donald Trump is anti-trade. Anti-trade, I mean what I say, not just anti-treat with China, but anti-trade. Indeed, the number one thing that Donald Trump is gonna do first days in office is a 10% tariff on all trade. So, and no interest in American exceptionalism. Donald Trump does not believe America's exceptional. And I think Americans don't believe American exceptional. There's nothing particularly interesting, there's nothing particularly special about America. And therefore, what are we defending and why are we defending it and why should we patrol the sea lanes of the world? And just like I think alternative powers in the beginning of World War I or pre-World War I started to see the decline of the British Empire and thought this was an opportunity for them. I think this is what Putin, Xi and Iran are seeing. Really, I think it started in 9-11, but you could argue it really started in 1979 with the lack of response to the taking of the American embassy into Iran. The fact that we didn't do anything about that, ultimately Reagan exchanged weapons for the hostages. And Iran never was called to suffer the consequences of, in a sense, declaring war in the United States. But certainly since 9-11, America has been nothing but weak, I mean mighty militarily, but weak, weak-minded, weak-spirited, weak morally, weak in terms of its willingness to assert itself, weak in terms of being able to identify and stand up to its own values. I mean, what America projects the world today is weakness on all fronts. And it is, and again, this is not just Biden, Biden is weak as it comes, but they're all being weak. Bush was maybe the weakest. He lived through 9-11 and he couldn't define the enemy. He couldn't call it by its name. He couldn't link it to Islam. He couldn't attack the people accounted. He couldn't win a war in Afghanistan or in Iraq. Obama was the first president to acknowledge this weakness explicitly, to identify it and to say there's nothing special about America. We're just one nation among the nations. There's no American exceptionalism. There's no, we should not lead, we should follow. Indeed, it's a country of sin. There's nothing special here. Don't look here. And yeah, I keep going in Afghanistan. I keep going in Iraq and yeah, I keep building up the military. But mostly out of inertia, not out of a strategic vision about what you needed to do in order to, what American interests constitute and how to protect them. And then Trump, God, talk about weakness. Negotiate and grovel before North Korea. Negotiate with the Taliban, sign a peace deal with the Taliban. Wanted to invite the Taliban to the White House. Maybe bin Laden couldn't have a seat there. Completely give in to Ogoan, Kawa before Putin, Kawa before Qixi. Weakness, weakness, weakness, weakness, weakness. And committed to leaving Afghanistan without winning, without getting anything in return. Dancing with the sheiks. First foreign trip Trump made was the Saudi Arabia where he danced with the sheiks because Obama was in Saudi Arabia bowing to the sheiks.  Embarrassing, humiliating, weakness, weakness. And then Biden, of course, with the pathetic, cowardly, horrific retreat from Afghanistan. Although, you know, to Biden's credit, I think he's tougher on Qixi than Trump was and he's certainly tougher on Putin than Trump was. And you see, our enemies notice this. They see it and they will take advantage of it. Iran over the last 20 years has taken advantage of every single sign of weakness of the United States. It's taken advantage fully, and now basically has control over the entire fertile crescent from Lebanon to Syria to Iraq to Iran. They have troops throughout that. They have organizations, militias, paramilitaries, terrorists, whatever you wanna call them, throughout from, that wasn't the case.  The only reason it can't do anything with it is because it's weak, it's poor, it has nothing. It has nothing to offer anybody. And the reality of the Muslim world is, and as we're seeing it right now, Iran and Pakistan are the brink of war. I don't think they'll go to war. Neither country can afford a war. Both countries are unbelievably poor. And that's the thing about the Muslim world. It's poor. But it sounds just that it's poor.  Like one of the things that motivates Pakistan and Iran to go after each other and not to work together is that Pakistan is basically Sunni, and Iran is basically Shiite, and the Shiites and the Sunnis don't like each other. They sometimes work together. Hamas is Sunni, and it gets support from the Shiite Iran. They work together when there is a common enemy and it's big enough and it's threatening enough, Israel.  ISIS hates al-Qaeda. I mean, Khizballah and Hamas were in the same territory. They'd probably fight each other. Palestinian Authority and Hamas fight each other. ISIS and the Taliban are fighting each other.  It was Muslims bombing Muslims. They can't get their act together. They always say, oh, there are two billion Muslims in the world, or three billion. I don't know what the number is. It doesn't matter, because they don't like each other. They're not gonna all rally together to come for us. So what we're seeing in the Middle East, I think similar to what you saw in different parts of the world, pre-World War I, is an attempt of the weaker players out there to try to score some points given the weakness America has.  And the idea, if you had told somebody in 2002 that 20 years later, the Taliban will be back in power doing everything that they did before. And there'd be no difference that Afghanistan would be basically exactly the same as it was before the United States. And this is after 20 years and thousands of American kids dying and being wounded. After all of that, nothing would change. Everything would be the same. I think everybody would be shocked. Even I would be surprised, although I kind of predicted it. It's hard to actually believe that predictions like that would come true. It's so bizarre and insane. But this is what weakness does. It's not that the Taliban is strong. It's not that Iran is strong. It's not that Islam is strong. It's that America is weak. And now you've got the Iranians in the Middle East flexing their muscles all over the place. Bombing Pakistan, bombing Iraq, using the Houthis. They know they can't win a war against the United States. They know they would suffer horribly if even yet a half of war with the United States. But they're not afraid of war with the United States because they know the U.S. will do nothing. Yes, the U.S. will bomb a few positions of the Houthis. They'll bomb a few of their rocket launchers. The Iranians will send them all. I mean, the United States could literally cripple the entire Iranian economy in hours, hours. And Iran is not afraid of that, which is shocking and stunning and, but that's the world in which we live. Russia has been prodding. Putin has been prodding the U.S. and the West for 15 years. He bemoans the collapse of his own empire, the shutting down of the Soviet Union. He invaded Georgia in 2008 and the West basically did nothing. So what the hell? He invaded, in the meantime, he sent his troops to Syria during the civil war there. I mean, if America is gonna be weak and Iran is kind of weak, why not position the Russians as the dominant force in parts of the Middle East? Now Russia's weak so it can't really be a dominant force, but it controls Syria today or it controls significant areas in Syria and has a significant leverage in Syria and it gives us a real powerful port on the Mediterranean from which to project power. What is going on in the chat today? We've been overrun by people from India. I don't know if these Indian commentators for real. I have no idea if they're real or not, although some of that looks like Sanskrit or some Indian letters. I don't know if these are trolls or these are people who really love me or I have no idea, but if you do like me, then just tone it down a little bit. Dominating the chat with love, love, love does not help and do not promote anything. So let the conversations that happen on the chat happen without the love symbol dominating everything. All right, I guess it's good for the algorithm. A lot of views and a lot of activity on the chat. I guess that's good. Please stop, I don't know if this is helping, but please stop to the extent that I have any impact. American weakness, Putin's prodding, trying out, pushing buttons. And 2022 was a perfect time for Putin to launch his ultimate attempt to be take Ukraine. It was post COVID, the West was distracted. The West was authoritarian. The West was divided, dysfunctional. I think Putin thought he would have an easy time taking Ukraine, didn't work out. Indeed, I think that if China was stronger, if China was ready, China would have used American weakness and the fact that Russia at the end of the day is super weak and Iran at the end of the day is super weak, China would have used it, whether to take Taiwan or whether to flex its muscles somewhere in the world.  It just doesn't have the internal resources to do it. I don't know if you've noticed, but over the last few months, they have been massive, do you call it layoffs, purges in the Chinese military.  China spends a huge amount of money on defense, but a lot of that money goes into the pockets of generals. A lot of that money is just pure corruption. It's not like the US, the US is probably corrupt, but not on the scale of China. And a lot of those high tech weapons systems that the Chinese have might not work. They might not run, they might not have the quantities they claim they have because of all that corruption. Xi is trying to have fire them all and replace them, but the Chinese system is a system of corruption. So, Doug Beter saying, explain with lots of question marks, I have no idea what that means. Explain what? Explain to whom? What are we talking about? Ask a question, make a comment, explain doesn't mean anything. Sorry. So, yeah, go and ask something or make a more interesting comment. I just don't understand what you're talking about. Frank says I should change the title of today's show, interested in what you think the title should be. Anyway, the world could really be at the brink of World War III because of American weakness. I think there's only one thing preventing it from happening. I mean, well, no, two things preventing it from happening, two things. And this is why I don't think there's gonna be a World War III in the Middle East or anywhere else. And the two things preventing World War III are one, nuclear weapons. The fact is that people, and I think justifiably afraid of a war between China and America or America and Russia or even China and Russia of any two nuclear powers because it's could very well become a war of annihilation. So clearly mutually assured destruction is holding people back. I think the second reason there's no World War III and I don't expect there to be one anytime soon is the fact that the gap in wealth and the gap in power, military power between the good guys and the bad guys and here I broadly identify the West as the good guys and the bad guys being Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and anybody who affiliates with them. The gap between those is just too humongous for the bad guys to contemplate actually going up against the good guys as long as, as long as the West does not completely surrender itself. So World War III would require the United States and Europe to defend themselves. And if the United States and Europe do defend themselves then Russia, China, Iran, whatever have no chance. And the thing is, well, many people in the West don't know this and many people in the West doubt the West's own ability and Western power. Russia, China, Iran know exactly what would happen. They know exactly what's at stake. They know perfectly well they cannot survive any kind of war with the United States. So World War III is unlikely not because the world is not kind of a wage to make it possible. I think it is. The conflicts are there. The weakening great power is there. The ambitions of a Russia and a China are there, particularly Russia. The ambitions of Iran and the Islamic world are there. The reason there's no war and there won't be a war is because they're not in a position yet to really threaten the West. So what could lead to World War III? What could lead to World War III as a continued decline of the West? A continued weakening, not just of its economies, of its military, but a continued weakening of its will. In a sense, you could argue that will is, that will is already as weak as it could be. But look, the Western rally around Ukraine, I think Russia paid attention. I think China paid attention. There was a rally. One of the real, real, real horrible things that the Republicans are doing right now and a Trump is doing right now is he's projecting to the Russians, he's projecting to Putin right now. If you can just stick around until November, you'll get what you want. Just stick around until I become president. Then you'll get what you want. And the Republicans are basically saying, we're not gonna, all that unity that happened, and this is why I think Biden was a lot tougher than most people give him credit. All that unity around protecting Ukraine, no, that's out, the Republicans are saying. We don't wanna support Ukraine. We're not gonna support Ukraine, no matter what. Who do you think that helps? Who do you think that emboldens? That increases the probability of war. It doesn't decrease it, it increases it. It makes it more likely, not less likely. More likely, not less likely. The weaker America is, and America not supporting Ukraine is weakness. America not supporting Ukraine, particularly after it has supported Ukraine until now, is defeatism. It's worse than leaving Afghanistan because the enemy in this case, Russia, is much worse for America than the Taliban. So Republicans right now are projecting vis-a-vis Russia much greater weakness, much, much greater weakness than even Biden has. And that's another step towards Gamora, another step towards World War III. The weaker we are, the more likely it is our enemy will try to exploit, enemies will try to exploit that weakness. And right now, Republicans and Democrats are as weak as I think America has ever been. Can't provide weapons to Ukraine. It's not even putting troops on the ground, weapons. I mean, the bill to provide weapons to Israel has not been passed. Eager to force Israel to cut a deal, eager to get Israel to negotiate any table to stop the war, unable to stop the hoodies from preventing the sea lanes, unable to protect American soldiers in Iraq and Syria. You could argue legitimately, why are they even there? They don't do anything. Legitimately, you can ask that question. But if they're there, shouldn't we be defending them? Isn't it our moral responsibility to be defending them? If we get a World War III, it'll be because of the current American weakness, which will not be sold by Trump. He is the embodiment of that weakness. He is the representation of that weakness. Europe has always been weak. Maybe American weakness will wake them up a little bit because they'll have to defend themselves. Maybe we can hope, although it's probably a little delusional. Again, if there's gonna be a war, it'll be on us. I don't expect it anytime soon because as weak as we are, we still got a bigger sticks than the other guys, much bigger sticks. They need some time, not so much so they can build up their militaries, although in China's case, they will. Iran, North Korea, Russia will not. They don't have the resources. But they need time for America to get even weaker, if that's possible. And I think it is because I see who's running for president for another four years, so you've got another four years of weakness, no matter who wins. And then what? Where do we go for either four years of Biden or another four years of Trump? Where do we go after that? I don't know. I don't know how low one can sink and still survive and still thrive. So I don't expect the World War III, but the parallels between today and the beginning of World War I and World War II are there. The rise of a crazy left, weakness across the board, the Santas is toast. Weakness across the board. Indeed, our foreign policy, the only good Republican is Haley. She's problematic on other stuff, but at least on foreign policy, she's good, unequivocal. The Santas is weak on Ukraine, weak generally in American foreign policy, and he won't run in 2028. He's finished.  He's toast in 2028, toast finished, ain't happening. There'll be many other better candidates than the Santas in 2028, but I don't think they can get elected because the fact is the standard has been set and the standard is Donald Trump. The standard is not any one of these. The parallels with the First World War are there. The differences, our enemies are not strong enough to challenge us. They're just not strong enough at this point. All right, I'm curious if you guys actually have questions on this topic and what's going on in the Middle East right now on the Israel War, on anything else. Give me one second, I'll be back. Super hot and humid in here, primarily hot. All right, to ask questions, the way to ask questions is to use the Super Chat. The Super Chat is available. There's a link below there where it's a little dollar sign. You can ask questions. We've got about 140 people watching live right now. I don't know how many of them are trolls, but we have 140 watching right now. We've raised very little money, so please consider this show is only made possible from contributions by people like you. You can send rupees, absolutely. YouTube will convert the rupees into dollars and pay me in dollars. So you can definitely use rupees. Feel free, all you guys in India, to use the Super Chat, whatever amount you can. Whatever amount you think it's worth it. Use it to support the show, no problem in terms of conversion of the currency. But so yes, feel free to ask questions that way. You don't need to redeem, you just do it. Wow, look at this, it's amazing. All right, I've got a few questions, not many. This is gonna be a short show. Don't forget to like the show before you leave. That doesn't cost you money at all. I've had people use rupees and do it. Just press that dollar sign at the bottom there and you can use the Super Chat with rupees or whatever you wanna use it. All right, here we're getting some foreign currency. We're getting Swedish Kronas have just been transacted. I can't help you guys. All right, let's see, what do we wanna do? Okay, as I said, you gotta get questions on this topic, on anything going on in the Middle East. Obviously, a complete mess. All right, Andrew, objectivist could agree with a statement and make America great again. How do you think the make America great again people conceive of that saying? What do they and Trump mean versus what an objectivist would mean by American greatness? I don't think Trump means anything by it. I don't think it has cognitive standing in his mind. I think for Trump, it's a slogan that worked. It's a slogan that got people excited. He tries this in his rallies. He'll say something and you'll see how people respond. And if it gets a big cheers and excitement, he'll keep repeating it and make America great again. It's a slogan. What does it mean for him? Elect me, that's what it means for him. Elect Trump. It's some conception of once upon a time, maybe it's the 50s, it's not clear. Remember, Trump was unhappy with the United States in the 80s, he thought the Japanese were kicking a butt and was opposed to trade with Japan in the 1980s. So it's a slogan that works. Again, Trump, there's no cognition there. There's no ideas there. It's not like he's promoting something. It's not like he is for something. Fear and vote for him. That's about it. And anything else is dependent on the audience. It depends who he's talking to and depending what he thinks the response will be. So there's no agenda. Not really. So making America great again is a completely empty concept for Trump. What does it mean for his followers? It means different things to different people, I think. To the old Tea Party is, I think it somehow they believe it's bring back the constitution of the founders without really understanding what the constitution of the founders mean or what they are. I think that it means for some of them, I would turn to the 50s. I mean, a big issue for them. And again, remember, Trump voters, the real passion of Trump voters are old, working class, non-college educated, but old, right? It's a nostalgia for something in the past. When a man was a man and a woman was a woman, when families were the center of American life, I don't know when there was, but they have this mythology about the 50s. I mean, some of them are nostalgic to the 70s because their memory's bad. They've got a little bit of memory loss. So they think the 70s weren't that bad. But it's a nostalgia for when Americans worked in industry, we produced stuff. That is what make America great again means to them. It means industry. It means men being men, women being women. It means the past, the past, the past. When Ronald Reagan said, let's make America great again, he was oriented towards the future. He was oriented towards what's next, towards growing America. These people are oriented towards the past, but not the past of the founding fathers, not the past of principles, they have none. Not the past of individual rights, they have none. Not the past of capitalism, they don't understand what that is. And this is why social issues are more important to them, right? Again, women are women, men are men. Vast majority of Americans are white. And life, from their perspective, is simple. It's not, and it wasn't, and they were poor and they really don't wanna go back and become as poor as they were back then. They have no conception of that, but that doesn't resonate. They have, again, this mythology of what life was like in the past, and that's what they hold on to, and that's what they care about. So it's, make America great again, to a large extent, is really a meaningless concept. It's more about nostalgia than about make America great, which should be about technology and innovation and progress, and greater freedom and greater individual rights, and more, and better, for the Trumpists. It really is kind of a vague, emotionalist notion of America was once great. Life was once amazing. It's not anymore, Trump will do it, and it's the left that destroyed it, the left that destroyed America. And what we need is somebody to fight the left, because without the left, America's just good, like that, like that. It's shallow, insignificant, and meaningless at the end of the day. And it's sad because the people who associate themselves today with America, right, they make America great again, they associate themselves with America, are the people who I think least understand what America is about. They're the people who least interested in progress and innovation and economic growth and the use of technology and artificial intelligence and biotech and dumping old religions and embracing something new and being American, which is innovative and forward-looking and striving and embracing change and embracing progress and embracing technology and the new and the secular, none of that. I know that the Indians are making the chat unbearable.  And they're all asking me to help make a contribution, but I don't have any ability to help you. You either can make a contribution or you can't. If you can't, then that's fine, but try not to overwhelm the chat with irrelevant stuff. That's all. You can make contribution in rupees if YouTube allows it. I don't have control of it. If you can figure out how to block them all, do it. It's too hard for me to do that while I'm doing everything else. All right, so, I mean, the great tragedy of what's going on right now is that so many people associate Americanism now with Donald Trump. They associate Americanism with the Make America a Great Again movement, which is an anti-American movement. It's not a pro-American movement. And a big chunk of this is not understanding what America is. America is individual rights. America is the idea of capitalism, of individualism. And that Trump and his followers have none of that. And they don't have the understanding of rights. And they don't talk in that language. You don't hear that language. In Make America a Great Again rallies, you don't hear the language of individual rights. You don't hear the language of freedom. You don't hear the language of capitalism. You hear the language of personality worship. All right. Kayfax says he's sending some American rupees my way because American rupees come through. So please send many, many more American rupees my way because we're way, way behind and I need your support to keep this channel going. Let me see, what did I wanna say? Reminder that, again, this show is supported through contributions of people like you. And we've got a bunch of questions here at the $2 to $10 level. Please either add to that or do some 50, 120, whatever dollar questions that would be great if you could do that. And what else did I wanna say? Yes, remind you to come to OConn. Please come to OConn. To come to OConn, you can go to ironman.org slash start here. You can register there. OConn is an amazing Objectivist Conference. Indians, you should all come from India to Anaheim, California to attend our conference. I think you'll have a blast. And you get to meet the speakers. You get to meet other Objectivists. You get to meet a whole community of people. There'll be 500 people there. You'll find new friends. It'll just be amazing. So please join us in Anaheim for the Objectivist Conferences 2024. I will be there. I will be speaking as will many other people. So join us. All right, Daniel asked, are there any examples of pragmatism in history before Dewey and James, even as far as back as ancient Rome or ancient Greece? Christianity, for example, seems to have always meshed well with pragmatism. Well, here it depends what you mean by pragmatism. Do you mean people behaving pragmatically? Well, yeah, all of history. Most people, most of the time. Because the reality is that the moral systems that exist and the ideological systems that exist in the world that have been preached and advocated for and embraced are not practical in a sense that they don't lead to a good life. They don't lead to success. Altruism is a good example. Altruism leads to death. Nobody really can live a consistently altruistic life. So what do you do? Pragmatism, not as an ideology, put a size on it. Pragmatism basically says, I'm just gonna do what I think will work right now. As a system of thought, it's basically just a formalization of the attitude of, I'm just gonna do what works. The principles I've learned all suck.  They don't work. They're not good principles. So I'm gonna abandon the bad principles. I don't have any good principles to replace them with. So I'm just gonna go by what works, what I think I can get away with. Yeah, what I can get away with.  And I think that's how people have behaved through most of history because that's all they've had. They've had bad principles. So they've abandoned them. They wouldn't have survived if they hadn't abandoned them. So survival required the abandonment of the bad principles and embracing not pragmatism, but a pragmatic approach to life and the world. Now again, some people, well, rational people discovered some principles that worked in some areas of life and applied them there and in other places they didn't have them. As an ideology, as a theory, as a way of telling people this is how you should live as a positive advocacy for a particular way of life, I think, and I'm not an expert in history of philosophy, but I think James, the Dewey and James are the first. Should be James and Dewey. I think James comes with a foot Dewey. They're the first to really present an ideology of shortism, an ideology that rejects principles. Not an idea that, well, the principles we have don't work so we have to figure out something else and how to live or have to come up with, this is why people come up with all kinds of rules of thumb and they try to come up with some kind of common sense principle. So the whole idea of common sense is an attempt to deal with the world in which the principles, particularly moral principles, don't work, they're crap, you can't live by them. So we need something else to live by so common sense is an approach to how to live by, how to live without the principles of altruism and how to still survive and even try to thrive. And of course, people did throughout history come up with some principles, but most people just, the reality is that for most of human history, I think it's true that most people just lived day to day. They didn't have enough knowledge to project into the future. They didn't have enough knowledge of the world to have principles about really anything. They accepted religion. They lived by certain dogmas that seemed to kind of work. And then when they counted anything new or anything that was a little bit outside of the box, they just winged it. And when, because the principles often didn't work, they didn't really live by them. So there are all these principles, for example, in Christianity about sex and virginity and, but nobody, I mean, you read about all kinds of history, it appears in history and almost nobody practiced it. They just winged it. And winged it was better than practicing bad principles. There's nothing worse than bad principles. Principles that lead to death, which is altruism, what altruism ultimately is, if you take it consistently and seriously, it is an ideology of death. It's only objectivism that has finally brought us a morality that is practical. Where the moral is the practical, the practical is the moral. But that's because morality in objectivism is derived from the nature of man and the nature of reality. It's derived to be practical. That's what we learn about it. I mean, that's how we derive the principles from reality, from what works. People lived and survived because they figured out, again, common sense, rules of thumb, principles without calling them principles. And they evaded things like altruism, or not evaded, but ignored the principles of altruism in order to be able to stay alive, in order to be able to thrive. All right, thanks, Daniel. Wow, I'm not sure what's going on today. All right, Chris says it's not letting me send my super chat for some reason. I'm not sure why. I don't know if the super chat is having problems. I mean, there's certainly a few of them today. So I don't know if there's some problem in the super chat or not. I keep trying, think of it a little bit, maybe change the question. Sometimes they trigger words, maybe don't spell out a word that might be controversial or if you think it's tricky. Just think about how to, it's not accepting rupees. I don't know why usually it does accept rupees. So make sure that it try to do a sticker with just a minimal amount. Try to, yeah, I mean, all I can say is experiment and try different things on it. I don't have an answer for you. I'm not at YouTube. This is a YouTube feature that I have no control of. All right, Andrew says, interesting talk. How does altruism relate to your topic tonight? I think altruism is why they're associated with peace, but does it make war more likely? And if so, how? Yeah, I mean, altruism, altruism weakens the good. So, you know, the United States' weakness is primarily a consequence of altruism. Linda just succeeded. That's good. Thank you, Linda. It's, altruism tells you that you are not as valuable as them.  And again, so that then you have to ask the question of, well, then how can I fight for myself? How can I stand up for myself? I have to care about my enemy as much as myself. If I take Christianity seriously and love that enemy to the other cheek, then how do I stand up for myself? How do I assert myself? Asserting yourself in any context as an individual or as a country, as a nation, requires self-esteem. Self-esteem requires a self. It requires a willingness to fight for one self. Altruism undermines self. Therefore undermines self-esteem. Therefore undermines your ability to stand up for yourself, to be assertive. When you care more about enemy casualties than you do about your own, you can't win wars. When you care more about offending the enemy than you care about truth and justice, how can you win? When you care more about the other, particularly if the other is poorer than you, and therefore you feel guilty for the wealth and success that you have, you can't win. And why do you feel guilty for the wealth and success that you have? Altruism. And it's the same thing that was undermining the British Empire. It was the lack of confidence in the values that the British were bringing to the world. It was the lack of confidence in what England stood for, liberty, freedom, free trade, which a large extent resulted from, again, that, no, England did some horrible thing in its colonial, in its colonies, and I certainly don't want to justify colonialism and everything the colonies did. And at the end of the day, as I said, it was a net drain on taxpayer, so it was not a self-interested thing to do. But the confidence that the British had went away as altruism became a bigger and bigger and bigger deal. And the same is happening to the United States, the same is happening to Israel. It is why they cannot, they cannot seem to win, right? You know, typing in a dollar amount into the chat does not constitute super chat. You have to literally press the button that is featured at the bottom of the chat here that is called super chat, which allows you to do a super sticker, super chat, or join as a member. Those are features that are available through YouTube at the bottom here. You can't just type in an amount into the chat. That doesn't count. The super chat is down at the bottom. In my screen, it's at the bottom of the chat. I don't know where it is for you guys. It's next to where you type in the content of the chat. Right next to that, there is a button with the dollar sign on it. That is the super chat button. That is what you use to make a contribution, not just typing into the text of the chat. That doesn't work. And maybe they're just messing with me. That is quite possible. All right, Andrew, I think I answered your, I mean, the reality is that peace, let me say this, peace comes from strength. Peace comes when the good assert themselves. Peace comes from victory. Victory is how you attain peace. You defeat the enemy, and then there's peace. When the United States defeated Germany in World War II, there was peace. When it defeated Japan, there was peace. Peace comes primarily through victory. It's very rare, very rare in all of human history. But peace comes from negotiation. The peace comes from deal-making. Peace comes from victory. One party defeating the other. Sometimes the bad guys, defeating the good guys, you get peace then too. Peace is not always a good thing. That's pretty good. That's pretty funny. Paul Gupta says, the Pakistanis are stealing the super chat. These Indians are trying to do a super chat and the Pakistanis keep stealing it from them. By the way, if you see a membership, you can become a member. That's another way you can support the show and ask a question as a member. So if you see membership, press on membership and try it that way. All right, anonymous user says, did Russia, USSR steal nuclear technology from the US? Yeah, I mean, there's no question about that. The USSR had spies during the Manhattan Project. They had spies within the scientists, Oppenheimer, whether it was a communist or not. Probably it was not a Russian spy. But there were people around Oppenheimer that were Russian spies who were feeding the Russians information about what was working and what was not working as the Americans were developing the nuclear bomb. Later on, people like the Rosenbergs and others leaked more information to the Russians. The Russians could not have built a nuclear bomb as fast as they did without stealing the technology from the United States. They clearly, without question, stole the United States. Stole the technology from the US. And it's very well documented. It's not speculation. It's not some conspiracy thing. There were Soviet spies everywhere in the 1940s and 50s. Communism was a respected ideology that many American intellectuals adhered to. In the 30s, it almost dominated the intellectual life in places like New York. But all the way through the 60s, communism's ideology that American intellectuals adhered to really started to fade in the 60s as the horrors of a Stalin regime started to come out. Which answer should I make a short anonymous user? The one on nuclear technology? Because I don't think that's... Yeah, I don't think that's new information. Well, maybe it is. You asked the question, so maybe it is. Maybe people don't know it. All right, I'll let Christian know. Christian, if you're listening, make the nuclear into a short. All right, Richard asks, I wonder if Trump supporters love his illusion of strength, his detractors fear his illusion of bully, of a bully. If so, Trump supporters fear his strength as an illusion, please challenge these ideas. I think that Trump supporters do love the illusion of strength, the pseudo strength. They love the tough guy, the bully in him. They love the... You know, when Donald Trump insulted Carlisle Fiona and called her ugly, and he went after Ted Cruz's father, and he made up all kinds of stuff about everybody else, I found it despicable and disgusting, and the kind of human being that should never occupy the White House, somebody who resorts to those kind of insults. But his fans loved it. They loved that he was somebody who was willing to be a bully. They want a crude bully. That's what attracts, makes him attractive to them. The tired of mealymouth pandering weak. They want the ugly, disrespectful bully, and I'm not talking about bullying the left, I'm talking about bully because he was bullying the right.  They love it when he calls them names. I mean, their mentality is the mentality of the, you know, the schoolyard where a lot of the kids gravitate towards the bully because, I don't know, because he gets away with it. But he gets away with it because they allow him to get away with it. I don't know what's the, what's the attraction to the bully? I mean, that's a good question. And the bully has thin skin. You stand up to him, they fold, or they lash out and they expose themselves to be even uglier. Remember when Donald Trump went after John McCain? I mean, John McCain. I mean, I don't have a lot of respect for John McCain, but the way in where Donald Trump went after him was just so disrespectful and ugly, like taking somebody who's sad as a prisoner of war and calling him a loser for being shot down, for being caught by the North Vietnamese. He's a loser because of that. He deserves the treatment he got, the torture because he was shot down.  I mean, maybe I'm at a loss for words, which is weird for me. What is it about people that attracts them to that? Their own low self-esteem? Their own desire to be bullies?  I mean, maybe what attracts them, it's an illusion, but it also what attracts them is the, I definitely think this attracts them, is the anti-intellectualism. He hates intellectuals. He's anti-intellectual. He's the opposite of intellectual. He talks like an anti-intellectual. And as such, he's not a fighter.  There's a difference between a fighter and a bully. And indeed, McCain was a fighter. I didn't like his politics, but he was a fighter. Trump was a bully. That's all he was. All he is. He's not a fighter. A fighter assumes you're fighting for something. Trump is not fighting for anything except the appeal he has for his audience. He's fighting for that, to preserve that appeal. If so, Trump supporters fear his strength is an illusion. I definitely think they fear it, but I don't think they, I think, yeah, I think they fear it's an illusion, but they're so self-delusional that it'll never become an illusion from them. And this is why, no matter what facts you give them about Trump's weakness, no matter what facts you give them about Trump being anti-American, no matter what facts you give them about Trump being a disaster on foreign policy and being horrible in terms of economics and all this, no matter what facts you give them about the loss of jobs in manufacturing in America because of his steel tariffs or whatever, no matter what facts you give them, it doesn't change their opinion of Trump as strong. And this is being great for America because facts don't matter to them anymore. Facts disappear into the background. And of course, Trump has a presence of a bully. He's, you know, he's got a, he's got a, he's big. He's got a big physical presence and he dominates the stage. He's got a charisma and all of that, you know, plays. The question is not Trump. Trump is who he is. It's just who he is. It's why is Trump so appealing? What is it about Trump's message, if you want to call it that, that people find so interesting? But there is no more in Trump than a narcissistic bully. It's basically what he is. He stands for nothing. And the people he's surrounded himself with are people who will support that, but that their ultimate agenda is much bigger than Trump's. And this is part of the real danger that Trump represents. I'll do a show on this. Trump is not the real danger. It's that now you have him surrounded with, surrounding himself by people who support him, but who have an agenda that is far more vicious than his. It's a nationalist agenda. It's a central planning agenda. It's an agenda of statism. Trump will go along with it because he doesn't care because he doesn't have an agenda. They will dominate and this is why his second term will be a lot worse than his first term because his second term, they're already planning for it. They've been planning for it for three years. They have people in place. They've readied their arguments. They've readied their staff. They've readied people to fill in all the positions and it's not going to be good people now who take the regulatory positions. It's people dedicated to taking the regulatory positions in order to manipulate the American culture and American economy to achieve their ends and their ends are more statism, more authoritarianism. Yes, very scary. All right, all right, guys. We've been going out a long time. I don't know what's going on today, but we're way behind on the Super Chat. Further behind on the Super Chat, then we've been out a long time.  All right, let's see. Dog Beast says, explain. I still don't know what it is you want me to explain. I still don't get it. Sorry. Frank says, new title, not betting on World War III happening. I can change the title. If you think that'll get me more views, I'll change the title. I need to paste that title in somewhere. All right, anybody have a better title than Frank's? Let me know. $2 Super Chat will get you consideration. Ed says, I just want to thank you for turning me on to Melee. Absolutely my pleasure. I'm glad to turn people on to Melee. He's be terrific. Frank says, in Lodge of Arabia, O'Toole says, I didn't come here to watch a tribal bloodbath. Can you talk on warring clans he encountered? Who were they? Well, they were, you know, tribes in Arabia, in different parts of the Middle East, Arab tribes in Syria and Jordan, in Saudi Arabia, tribes that had been there for hundreds and hundreds of years, from even before Islam, from pre-Islamic periods, there were all kinds of tribes, some of them nomadic, some of them settled in the Fertile Crescent, that's in the northern part of this, of the kind of Lodge of Arabia tale, and all the way through down into Saudi Arabia. Indeed, I mean, Lodge of Arabia was part of the challenge that the British faced in that Lawrence and other British had promised all these tribes a lot of things if they sided with them in fighting the Ottomans during World War I. And when they finally won in World War I, and suddenly Britain has Saudi Arabia, and it has, what was it in Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon is a French, Syria is partially French, and they have Egypt, and now they have to figure out what tribe, what promises they're going to fulfill and which not. And they basically, the French and the British sit down with a map and they take a ruler and they start drawing lines to create borders. I mean, something that's hard for people to comprehend. There are no countries in the Middle East. There were never countries in the Middle East. The idea of a nation never existed in the Middle East. There were Muslim empires, there was the Egyptian Empire, there was the Persian Empire, there was the Islamic Empire. There was maybe these people on the other side of the mountains who were Yemenites, but they didn't have a country per se. I mean, most of history is Anarchy. Most of history is not the state. And what the British did is created nations. They drew lines and they tried to include certain tribes in certain geographic areas. And then they had to decide who the rulers of the different nations would be. And what they basically did is they said, who are the tribes you made promises to? And a lot of promises were made to two tribes. Basically, the British promised Saudi Arabia to two different tribes. To the Saudis, Saudi Arabia was named after them. And to the Hussein family. Anyway, the second family. They couldn't give the same plot of land to both people. They basically said, okay, Saudis gets out of Arabia. And the other family, they got Jordan and they got Syria. And they took two brothers and they made one of them king of Jordan, the other one king of Syria. And they're Hashemites, thank you. And the Syrians were like, wait a minute. This guy's not part of our tribe. Why is he king here? And the British said, well, we promised we kind of cut a deal. Not interested, we don't want him as king. So ultimately they had to pull him from Syria. Literally, this happened, right? They pulled him from Syria and made him king of Iraq instead. And the Iraqis were like, yeah, whatever, we'll take him. I mean, ultimately they deposed him and replaced him and replaced him with different dictators. But basically that's the story. It's why Jordan has the king that they do not, because he has, there's a kingdom of Jordan that goes back hundreds of years and there's a succession of kings. No, the British invented Jordan and they invented a royal house out of a tribe that they had promised Saudi Arabia to. They gave him Jordan instead.  Saudi Arabia has oil. Jordan has basically nada, nothing. No water, no oil, no people. I mean, nothing. And then the other, again, the other Hashemite got Iraq in the end. And didn't last very long because again, he was a fauna. He wasn't there. So that's part of the story. I mean, even within the Gaza Strip, there are tribes within the Gaza Strip, within that two million population. There are clans. There are clans that are tribes built around families. And each one of those clans, they stick together. And so Arab society is very tribal and those tribes exist and you see that in lots of Arabia and in lots of Arabia, the tribes are fighting for influence with the British so they can get the spoils of war. No more to Randroid. Thank you for the sticker. I know Jonathan did a sticker early on. I missed a bunch of stickers. I missed thanking a bunch of stickers and I don't have access to them now. Wes, thank you. $50 in a sticker. That is fantastic. We really appreciate that. Caroline, thank you from Mexico. We really appreciate the support. All right. Let's see. So that is Frank. We did that question. All right. Akira asks, who do you think will win the election? I think Biden will win the election, sadly. I mean, it's sad no matter who wins. I think Biden will win the election unless, of course, Biden is completing capacity, which is possible. I mean, once you get a little bit of dementia, it can go very fast and he could be completely wiped out before the election. Democrats might have time or might not have time to put up somebody instead of him. Again, the only reason Biden could win an election is if he's running against Trump. And I've said this for years now.  I don't think it's... It's not for sure that he'll lose. Anything could happen. But, you know, any other Republican, pretty much any breathing Republican, could beat Biden except for Trump. Now, Trump might win. So I don't know. Right now I'm saying 60-40 Biden. But that's a high probability of Trump winning. So I'm not ruling that out at all. Kim, how do you access a moral versus immoral job in this mixed economy? I don't know what that means. Access. What does it mean to have a moral versus immoral job? What is a moral job? What is an immoral job? I don't know how you define that. How you categorize jobs like that. It seems a little strange to me. You got to find a job you love doing something productive. That is a moral job. You know, is the company going to be perfect in terms of how do you assess a moral versus immoral job? But I'm not sure what moral versus immoral job is. Yeah, you know, don't go work for the government. Don't work for a company whose values you despise. But other than that, I'd say a moral job is a job where the company is decent and you get to do productive things that stimulate you and are interesting to you and are really worthwhile for you. That's a moral job. And the way to do that is to go and interview and to look and to search and to try in. You got to try. There's no simple way of doing it. Gail says, aren't we at war officially? I don't know who we are at war officially with ourselves. I don't know. I don't think we're officially at war with anybody. We've kind of given the president the authority to engage in military action short of war. But no, we're not at war officially with anybody. We're dabbling with the hoodies. We dabble here, we dabble there, but we don't commit to anything. We're not even supporting the Ukrainians or really the Israelis right now who are at war officially. But we barely support them. What is B&J comment? I don't know what B&J is. Yeah, I sometimes engage in the chat and realize I have no idea what you guys are talking about. I apologize. How would World War III look?  And the United States engaging on both fronts with China and Russia. And who knows what happens to them at least at the same time. All right, let's see. Doug, these Indians are making chat unbearable. Sorry, nothing I can do about it. Larry, you can block them, by the way. Do you see any other South American countries following Argentina's example and turning towards capitalism? Maybe Chile turning back towards that. You know, given that they've decided they don't really want socialism. I don't see anything beyond that. Doug Beest, I apologize on behalf of my race as an American Indian. This is not a true representation of my nation and people that I love go away trolls. Okay. Anonymous user, you need more YouTube chat moderators. I guess so. Linda was just testing. Thank you, Linda, for the support. Doug Beest, how does one build self-esteem? Ever since my girlfriend left me, I've been really struggling with this thought. You build self-esteem by setting rational goals that further your life, working hard and attaining those goals, recognizing what you did in attaining those goals and since patting yourself. It's living a moral life. It's living an ambitious life. It's pushing the envelope and trying to achieve and to do stuff and to make stuff and making sure you're rational, you're really rational throughout. All right. Apollo Zeus. Trump is an a-hole and so is Biden. Trump fake tough guy, stolen valor of a sword.  Thank you, Apollo.  Thanks you. Keep calm. All right, guys. Thank you. I appreciate the support. I will see you all tomorrow morning for another news roundup. Thank you all. Please like the show before you leave. It costs you anything. Helps you with the algorithms. A huge amount. See you all soon. Bye, everybody.