All right, everybody, welcome to Iran Book Show on this, uh, what is it, Thursday, first show of November 2022, can you believe it's already November? God, this year has gone by and fast. Although it seems like as you age, every year goes by fast. And they seem to get faster and faster. It's, it's not right. It should be the other way around. But anyway, it is what it is. And here we are on the third of November. I am in New York as the title might suggest in New York City. I'm actually in a hotel room out my windows that way. I'm looking over. I'm looking right down. What am I looking down? I think that's Broadway right down Broadway all the way to all the way basically to Columbus Circus. Um, yeah, so I can see, I can see all down Broadway and right on Times Square, which is pretty cool. Although filled with people.  I'm here for some business meetings. I will be flying home tomorrow. So expect shows on the weekend from home. Won't be home for very long. I travel next week to Indiana. I'll be speaking at the University of Indiana in Bloomington. So if you're in the area, please come join us. The event is open to the public. That will be on Wednesday. No, that'll be on. Yeah, on Wednesday. Then on Thursday I'm speaking at Akron University Akron University. That's just outside Cleveland. So again, if you're in the area, if you're in Cleveland somewhere, drop by. I'll be speaking around noon. So both these talks in the middle of the day. The one in Akron is I think at noon. The one in University of Indiana is probably around, I think three o'clock in the afternoon. Ike says there's nothing in Indiana. Not much. But there is Indianapolis. And there's the University of Indiana Bloomington. So I will be, I will be there. And let's see what I say Akron. And then I'll be speaking in Denver, Colorado on Friday and then heading back home. And the week following that I will be giving a talk in Costa Rica. So if you guys are in Costa Rica, hopefully you come and see me talk. And in Mexico City. So Costa Rica, Mexico City, Mexico City is hosting an event and Latin America, Einrand Center Latin America Conference in Mexico City. So busy schedule pre Thanksgiving and then I'll be home for weekend Thanksgiving. And then I'm off again to University of Texas in Austin and I'm doing a debate CS Lewis versus Einrand. That's an interesting one CS Lewis versus Einrand. Diagnosing the causes of cultural decline. What are the reasons? What are the solutions? And then the and then I'll be in Connecticut to Connecticut to give a talk and that'll be it for the year. Then I can rest December is basically I'm chilling in December doing a lot of these shows and chilling December most of January will relax until we start traveling like crazy again. Alright, so where are we? Catherine is here. Catherine Mendez is here. That means you're going to be reminded about the super chat on a regular basis from Catherine Mendez. She is here to encourage you to support the show. I do have a bunch of super chat questions from last time. But I promise to get through all of those and no, that's not right. We've got oops, this doesn't look like it's working today. What's going on with Oh, I didn't press start. Alright, there we go. So, yeah, super chat questions are problems to answer all the super chat questions tonight as well, as well as the ones from the other day. And we'll get to everything and the goal is $650. And hopefully you'll show you'll show your support and your love in the super chat. Alright, so we've got a bunch of topics to cover today. Yeah, we don't have Europeans on today because I started so late that I'm sure the Europeans are too late for them. So it's all up to you Americans and probably heavier emphasis on the west coast and on the east coast today because of the the late time. I'm sure a lot of people already ready asleep 9pm 9pm here on the east coast. Alright, so we're going to talk about windfall taxes. We'll talk about these really election, some observations about these really election and what one can learn from it. We'll talk about the Brazilian elections, some observations they I know a little bit more a little bit more about Israel than I do about Brazil. But you know, it's interesting to talk about the Brazilian elections and what we can expect for the future of Brazil. But let's start. Let's start with the US. Let's start with President Biden, basically going on television and threatening. Yeah, threatening the all companies, the US all companies, basically saying to them, You either start taking your profits and investing them in more all production, or we're going to tax them. We're going to basically steal them from you. We're going to take them from you.  It really is hard to know where to begin. I mean, Biden, like most leftists are clueless when it comes to economics that they clueless when it comes to incentives. And of course, in this case, you know, they are in complete denial or more appropriately in complete evasion of the consequences of their own actions, of the consequences of their own actions. So if you remember, in the debates with Trump, when he when Biden was running for president, Biden basically declared that he wanted to end the oil industry. In the left, generally for the last, I don't know, 1020 years has been advocating for eliminating fossil fuels as a source of energy. They have restricted the building of pipelines. They have restricted the opening up of new areas for oil drilling. You know, probably the maybe the best thing the Trump administration did while Trump was in was in office was the opening up of offshore drilling of many other areas. Generally energy policy was a strength of the Trump administration and Biden and the Democrats have declared that they would reverse all that and they've done much to reverse all that. And clearly we have an administration that is dedicated to and has been dedicated to and declared that it will become even more dedicated to in the future. The annihilation of this industry, the entire industry, and they are dedicated to providing disincentives, at least they were until recently, disincentives for drilling for new oil, for new oil new oil explorations for investing in all explorations. Indeed, I remember a year ago in January of 2022 before the war in Ukraine before anything. I was at an investment conference in Miami and met somebody I've known of the years and he was starting a new fund and what they were doing was raising money. And he basically said, look, the oil companies will not invest in new production because the atmosphere in Washington, but the atmosphere, the ESG atmosphere ESG environment society governance, driven by black rock and others, the atmosphere from shareholder activists from pension plans who are shareholders from the largest shareholders in the country, culpers and culsters, the California pension plans. Everybody is telling all companies, you must not drill.  You are causing the climate to change. So stop drilling. We want prices of oil to go up. We want there to be a shortage of oil, because that'll drive investment into windmills and solar panels and other magical animals. That's right. I owe a review of that movie, Magical Animals and Other Strange Beasts or something like that, which I will do this coming weekend. I saw the movie, so I will do it.  If you remember, I think it was Exxon had three board members elected who were basically elected under the platform of we want Exxon to stop drilling for oil. We want Exxon to diversify away from oil. We want it to become some other company other than an oil company, complete insanity. Now, when the wind shift like that politically, unfortunately, most of these oil companies are going to say, yeah, I mean, every time we drill, every time we start new production, every time we invest in capital expansion, every time that happens, we get hammered. We get hammered in the marketplace by these institutional investors. We get hammered by the government. The government wants our necks. So let's not invest. And let's just, you know, benefit as the price goes up from the windfall profits that exists because what happens? What happens in a normal market? Well, in a normal market, if there's a shortage because of war because of, I don't know, some supply constraints, then prices go up. Prices go up. Companies look at that and say, whoa, prices are up and they invest in more production. They go drill for oil. They go drill for oil, which supplies more oil, which causes prices to come down. Every market is the same. It always happens. This is kind of the beauty of a free market is that it self-corrects, that supply matches demand, that prices gravitate generally downwards. This is why it's unnatural, for example, for home prices in the United States to only go up. And the reason for that is supply constraints, political supply constraints, because when prices go up, you've got a massive incentive for home builders to build massive quantities of homes, which drives the prices down.  Problem is that when you constrain supply, either through regulations or through other forms of pressure, as Biden, Democrats and their allies throughout the culture have done for years now, then what you get is an industry that says, we're not going to invest. We're just going to watch prices go up. We're going to benefit. We're going to weaken the windfall profits and we're not going to invest them. We're going to give it to the people who deserve them, who have invested in our company and basically our shareholders. We're going to give it to the owners. We're going to give these profits to the people who are the ones who are brave enough and strong enough and committed enough to invest in fossil fuels. And this, of course, is causing Democrats to flip out, because what has happened is before the war in Russia, they seemingly didn't care. They thought they had this all handled. Yes, prices were going to go up a little bit, but overall that would drive investment into solar and wind and so on. But what's happened is prices have gone up a lot, and as a consequence of that, what has happened is Democrats are not very popular. The Biden administration is not very popular. As a consequence of the war in Ukraine and constraints and supply and an OPEC restricting supply. What you have now is a limited supply. Demand is still strong. Otherwise we head into recession demand will weaken and prices are up and all companies are making a lot of money. Russia is making a lot of money. Saudi Arabia is making a lot of money and Democrats are going to lose big in the elections next year to a large extent or to some extent because of gas prices. People are blaming them as they should for high gas prices. So Biden is furious because the market is not working. The market is not working the way it's supposed to work. Well, when you don't allow the market to work, when you threaten the market, when you penalize the market, when you put political pressure on the market. Yeah, it doesn't work Biden. Go take an econ 101 class. So they're panicking. They're going to lose the election next week. They might lose it very big and they want to do something that will lower gas prices, that will lower energy prices. So they need to get the all companies to invest and all companies are saying, we're not going to invest as long as you have this anti fossil fuel mentality. We're not going to invest just so you can screw us later. Some Biden says, OK, you don't want to invest so we're going to tax this profit. In other words, we're not going to allow the the owners of your companies to actually make money.  Now, it turns out that Biden doesn't have the votes to get a windfall profits tax pass. It's just blowing air, which is often what he does. Oops, my computer just went flying. But just the idea of threatening. Now, it's, you know, it's stunning, you know that people can't see the consequence of their own actions. The left can't see that they have created this problem that they are going to suffer from. They're the ones who caused all companies not to be investing in new production. Yeah, they're going to they're going to lose an election maybe because of that. Sills them right. They deserve everything they get. Now, beyond that, well, it is true that all companies right now are making a lot of money. Most of the time, all companies are not particularly profitable businesses. It's super competitive. There is plenty of supply out there, you know, in an environment where you can actually access it. Margins are generally pretty low. Profit margins and profitability is fairly low. It's lower than the average I think of the S&P 500. It's lower in other words than other companies. Often there are periods in which all companies lose money when there is after period where everybody's invested in production. Everybody's invested in drilling. All prices can tumble to levels. You remember what was it in 2020 where people were paying you to take their oil because all prices were so low. And they and it was being stored everywhere and people were running out of capacity to store. So they were giving it away. So in those days, all companies had negative margins. In other words, they were losing money that the government had jumped into volunteer to soften the blow that they created because of COVID restrictions. I mean, no. And they shouldn't have. Let the cycles happen. But part of the cycle is that they're going to be periods in which the company makes a lot of money. And then other periods when they make very little money. It's none of the government's business. Just stay out of it. I mean, the whole tax regime that we have is completely irrational and immoral and badly structured and badly incentivized. And it's a complete disaster. But the idea that today I'm going to increase taxes tomorrow. I'm going to triple taxes because you're making too much money today is just so nutty. It's so non objective. It's so random. It's so a feature of arbitrary power of the kind of power that can be wielded whenever and at whatever. Am I frozen? Oh, it looks like I'm frozen. Not in a very nice pose. Can you guys hear me? You guys hear me, but you can't. But the image is frozen. Let's see what we can do about this. What can I do? Trying to unfreeze the photo, the picture, not that it's not that the picture is crucial, not that you're here to look at me. In particular, my guess is you're mainly here to listen. Audio is working. We'll have, I think, yeah, we should have picture in a minute. All right, there I am. I'm back. So I think I'm back. Yep, we're back. All right, video is back.  Clueless is about incentives and how incentives work. You want to get prices down of oil? I'd like all prices to come down. You want to let prices come down? Change your attitude towards fossil fuels. Change your perspective. Start talking about the wonders and the fact. I mean, I'm looking out in the skyline of New York. I'm literally in the middle of Manhattan, near Times Square, and I see all the lights out there. All fueled by fossil fuels. I mean, it's a beautiful site. It's an amazing site. It's one of the greatest sites on planet Earth. The site of great human achievement. The site of great industriousness. A site of, you know, people working and achieving and building and creating all fueled by fossil fuels. None of this could exist without fossil fuels.  I look down on all the cars driving along. Not that many actually. Broadway looks deserted. Anyway, fossil fuels. And yeah, maybe the planet's getting warmer, but you're not going to fix anything. You're definitely going to make things worse. By criminalizing fossil fuels, by making fossil fuel production evil and portraying it as such. The consequence of that is less production will happen. Prices will go up. So if you really wanted to go down, reverse course. Biden should come out with a speech saying, I made a mistake. I demonized the fossil fuel industry. I'm sorry. It's time to reverse course. I'm going to approve, open up federal lands to drilling. I'm going to open up a new era for American oil production. Off the coast, Atlantic, Pacific, up in Alaska, all over the United States. And natural gas, oil, you can frack. As long as you're not violating other people's property rights, go for it. And prices would come down tomorrow. They'd come down immediately because everybody would know that future prices would be low. OPEC, you know, the cartel run by Saudi Arabia would be panicking. The Russians would be ecstatic. Do you want to really hurt the Russian economy? Drill, baby, drill. That'll do it as much as any weapons you sent to Ukraine. Just free up the energy market in the United States. So don't do it and don't defeat the Russians. Do it in order to benefit the Americans. But the consequence of that is going to be massive collapse of the Russian economy. It's just collapsing anyway, but this will accelerate it and destroy it because it's an economy based almost completely on the sale of fossil fuels. And we, the United States, is holding the price high artificially because we have a government in power that is anti-progress, anti-economic growth, anti-fossile fuels. And guess what? This is the consequence. All right, let's see. Yeah, I mean, let's say you could pass a windfall profit tax and let's say you started taxing windfall profits. What would happen? Would all prices go up or down? Well, you know, they certainly would go down. They certainly would encourage all companies to invest the money.  And by the way, windfall profit taxes have existed in the United States.  Republicans, when they empower, often advocate for them when prices go too high of oil and they want to punish the oil companies and they want to send a message and they want to, whatever. It's political theater. It's bad economics. It's bad policies, bad political theater. And, you know, the nice thing is the Democrats are going to pay the price for it next week. I wish that paying a price for the Democrats meant something other than Republicans winning. But I guess we have a two-party system and if the Democrats are going to suffer, the Republicans are going to gain. So we're going to have to suffer through the Republicans actually gaining. But Democrats deserve it, just like Trump deserved to win. In this case, the Democrats deserve to suffer the consequence of inflation, which for the most part, not exclusively for the most part, they're responsible for, partially because of their energy policies. All right, let's see. I'm going to do the 20, I've got $100. I'm going to do the 20 and above super chat questions and then we'll talk about these really elections. And if you want to ask me a question that I answer now, it has to be $20 or more. All right, Harper Campbell, $100. Thank you, Harper. That is very generous. Thanks for the support. So Harper says, I don't get popular contemporary thinkers in quotes like Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson, a lot of credit because all they do is cash in a corrupt culture. The wave has been provided for them to write on. When you get on JP's level in 20 years, that will be a real accomplishment. Do you know how old that will be in 20 years? It better happen sooner is all I can say because in 20 years. I mean, let's just be realistic here in 20 years. I'll be 81 to do this. Experian is speaking on a regular basis in front of audiences on this as many times as I do today, as Jordan Peterson does at the age 81. Not easy. Not easy. I mean, the fact that the sad reality is that these are in a sense, these should be my peak years.  I still have the physical capabilities and I have the experience of all the years of doing what I've done. I have the knowledge of the experience. I have hopefully the wisdom.  It's now. It's the next five years should be peak. Peak Iran should be in the next five years in terms of production. So waiting 20 years, it's going to have to be somebody else. That's just the reality. Now it could be that by then we figure out aging and there's a there's a there's a, you know, pill I take and energy will stay as high as it is today. And I'll be as young as I am today and nothing will change. And I certainly hope that happens. I'm skeptical, but I hope and I'll do what I can to make it happen. But that is the reality we live with. It better happen sooner. And I agree with you that they're cashing in. But look, there are a lot of thinkers out there that are cashing in. It's still interesting to follow Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris because they are cashing in big time. So pretty much every intellectual in the world today is part of the wave. He's conventional. He's part of what's going on in the culture. Yet Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris from two different places in the culture have managed to really, really ride this wave to be super, super successful. I mean, really super successful. And that is interesting. That is interesting and worth studying and observing. And I also say that both Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson have interesting things to say. There's something worthwhile in listening to them. Not a lot, not on everything, but I do. I enjoy listening to Sam Harris even when I disagree with him. I enjoy listening to Jordan Peterson even when they disagree with him because there's something special about both of them that has made them the superstars that they are. It's not just there's a wave. Well, there are lots of people, but why them? Why are they the ones that the wave is pushing up? Why are they the ones that are super successful? It's because they have something interesting to offer and they are incredibly bright and they have a particular way of communicating, which is super appealing to people. And I certainly will say that I'm jealous of that ability and of the response that they're getting. I'm not envious, but I am jealous. I would love to have that. And I think not only would I love it, but it would be a sign that the world is really about to change. All right, let's see. All right, we got some $20. All right, John, this is a question for the last show. John says, lots of Republicans I know seem to have become conspiracy theory junkies. I don't know how to argue with them. Skills in deep programming would seem useful here since arguing ideas with them seems futile. Yeah, I don't know how to argue people out of conspiracy theories because it's not like facts matter to them. They don't. I still meet people who are convinced 9-11 was an inside job. And you can talk until you blow in the face. It doesn't matter. They're done. They mind in a sense is fried. And, you know, on the left, you have the same kind of mentality of, first of all, on the far left, you have plenty of conspiracy theories. But you also have the mentality of, well, socialism will work next time. On the right, this susceptibility to conspiracy theories is very much a product of religion. I mean, think about it. Religion is the biggest conspiracy theories of all time and go try to argue against religion. And yet it's a massive, in a sense, conspiracy theory. It's a conspiracy theory with some mystical invisible being pulling all the strings. But it is very frustrating. The people who seemed, who seemed rational, who weren't, didn't seem appear to be religious, have been so captivated and so captured by the conspiracy theories. But it has the same kind of use of a faith, use of unreason, use of a sense of a form mysticism and, you know, and trying to prove a negative and asserting the arbitrary. So they assert something arbitrary and then they expect you to prove it's wrong, which is impossible, of course, and wrong cognitively. You can't deal cognitively with the arbitrary. But it's very frustrating and very interesting. And yeah, I mean, the right as the Republicans have completely lost it. But it is interesting, the combination of religion with conspiracy theories. You know, and I'll do a show on this, but Flynn, the first national security adviser to Trump is on a tour right now of and he's a he's a QAnon, at least sympathizer, at least he plays that part. And he's on a tour of churches right now, of these radical churches. And it's all conspiracy theory stuff. And it's all supported by ministers and churches and evangelicals. And he's on a tour and you watch video of these events. It's scary, guys. It's scary. Very, very scary. Oh, lots of questions coming in. I need to get to these other topics. We'll get there. James asks, I ran has barely made a dent in the West. How is she going to impact North Korea or Iran? Are we deluding ourselves to think we're going to see any significant changes in the world in less than 200 years? Why does she have to make a dent in North Korea or Iran? Why is that relevant? North Korean Iran are insignificant in the big scheme of things. So she's not going to make a dent in Iran and North Korea anytime soon. I don't think you're right. I also don't think you're right in saying she hasn't make a dent in the West. I think she's made massive dents in the West, massive, massive dents. I think she's had a massive influence. The reason we're relatively wealthy in the West today, to some extent at least, can be attributed to Ayn Rand, to Adler Shrugged. I think she inspired dozens and dozens and dozens of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world to create the wealth, create the products, to create the industries that we all benefit from. She inspired the people surrounding Ronald Reagan, inspired Ronald Reagan himself. She inspired the people surrounding Margaret Thatcher and the people surrounding, and I don't know about Margaret Thatcher herself, but certainly the people around her. She had an impact on the Nixon administration and getting rid of the draft. She had an impact, a massive impact on a lot of people starting in the 70s and 60s, 70s and 80s. Those people went on to have incredibly productive careers. There was a period in which pretty much a majority of Fortune 500 CEOs, if you'd asked them about Ayn Rand, they would say she had a huge impact on their careers and on their productive careers. That's huge. That's not a dent. That's a massive dent. So I don't think it's relevant what happens in North Korea and Iran in that perspective. As far as I can tell, the battle is going to be fought in the West and American in the West. It might be fought elsewhere, but probably in the West and that's where we're going to win it or lose it. And if we win it, Iran and North Korea will take care of themselves. Michael says, I often hear in university courses that humans can't be objective because we have biases we don't even know about. How do we know we have biases we don't know about? We only know about the biases we know about. Anyway, is this from Kant? It's like we're being punished or condescended to for attempting to be truth seekers. Yeah, absolutely we're being punished for that. And of course, if you have a bias, the only way to discover it is through reason. So there's all this behavioral economics and behavioral finance where they look at people's biases and people behaving irrationally. They're not taking the right variables into account. They're not weighing the future, right? All kinds of ways in which people are not being completely logical, not being completely rational. Well, that's great because the more research is done about things like that, the better we become as thinkers. And the only way to discover biases is by using reason, by using logic, by using rationality. So biases don't undermine rationality. They just suggest that rationality requires work, which is not anything surprising. We know as objectors, we know that rationality is not automatic. The reason does not function in an infallible way and in an automatic way, that it requires effort. And when one doesn't put in the effort, the consequences are that we are going to make mistakes. You can call those biases. And unfortunately, most people on many issues don't put in the effort. They don't engage. Is this from Kant? In a sense, he gets the ball rolling by divorcing reason from reality, but it's not just Kant. And again, some of the work that's being done on biases is legitimate. It's just that it's like there's a desire out there to put people down, to put human beings down, to make us look inferior to what we really are. Again, I'm looking out on the skyline in New York. Wow, what a species. What a species. Kant undermines human reason. And anybody, Christianity undermines human reason. All of these ideas are going to be destructive to success as human beings. And it can result in condensation towards the truth seekers. Okay, Dave Goodman says, looking forward to your review of Shoshank Redemption. Coming soon. Promise. A drowsy lilyama. What are your thoughts on the horror genre? Do you think there are virtues in horror, particularly in literature and film?  I don't enjoy it. I don't watch it. I avoid it. I mean, I've seen it in the past. I just don't like it. So I avoid horror. I don't think I'd randomly liked horror movies, but Lenin Pekov does. So, you know, I certainly, the fact that I don't like horror does not dismiss the genre. I think the genre can be interesting. It can project heroism. It can project heroes. It just, you know, has a certain malevolence to it and has a certain granting of efficacy to evil, which I don't like. And I don't sympathize with it all and don't enjoy it all. So I'm sure somebody who enjoyed horror and somebody who appreciated it could explain why. And I think it has to do with good and evil, the fight between good and evil and the challenge of good and evil and the ability to project heroism within a particular context. But I don't like it. And if I don't watch a lot of it, I really can't comment on most of horror. Andy says, how much, if any, did the Fed cause prosperity during the 20s? Historians use this at the Dean Coolidge. Is this a mark against him and Mellon? No, I mean, I don't think there's a significant evidence to suggest that the prosperity of the 1920s was all a bubble. Now, there's so many towards the end of the 20s. I think after Coolidge is out of office. The Fed makes significant mistakes. It lowers interest rates too low. It increases the money supply in ways that it shouldn't. And it has to do with the way the Fed manages the gold reserves and the way the British, the Bank of England manage the gold reserves and the way the Fed related to the Bank of England. So it's a lot of technicalities, but basically the Fed screwed up and did inflate to assert that that caused the 20 boom. The 20 boom was a consequence of pent-up demand generated through World War I. It was caused by a boom in production, primarily by boom in production. And you can measure that. There was massive amounts of innovation, massive amounts of expansion of products that already had been invented from electricity and automobiles to the beginnings of flight. I mean, this is a great decade in terms of production, innovation, progress, wealth creation. It's only in the last couple of years of that decade that the Fed completely screw up in terms of inflating the money supply, creating a stock market bubble or helping to create a stock market bubble, and then screwing up once the bubble bursts, turning a recession into great depression. With a lot of help from Hoover and the Inferno deal. And so it's not answered just basically. It's just not true. And I know a lot of people who claim this, but 1920s are real. There's real production. Bre asks, the reason time seems to go faster when you get older is your brain edits out repetition. You and I have been on hundreds of airplanes. How many do you remember? New experiences is the cure, even if they are unpleasant. Oh, I don't want unpleasant new experiences. I have new experiences all the time. I mean, traveling, I'm going to new places. I'm speaking in front of new groups. I'm giving you talks. So I don't think there's a shortage of new experiences.  So I don't remember much at all of anything. I don't remember. I don't have a distant memory. I don't have short-term memory. I just don't have good memory. Never have had. I certainly don't remember my childhood. I don't remember much of my kid's childhood. I don't remember. I just don't remember. So everything is new and exciting to me because I don't remember anything. Kidding. But yes, it's interesting that people have different psychology. Some people remember every little detail about the past. Other people like me barely remember the past. But yes, I'm sure there are lots of reasons why time seems to go faster. Partially, I'm not sure that time really does seem to go faster. It might be a very subjective experience. I may have been saying exactly the same thing when I was 40. I'm not sure I can compare my sense of time with my 40s to my sense of time with my 60s. It seems like it's going faster, but I don't really know that that's... I don't know how to objectify that. Tom is saying, is Leonard writing a fiction book now? If not, what's he up to these days? He's not writing a fiction book. He is involved in a nonfiction project. I am not disclosing that project. I'll leave that to Leonard to disclose the project. It wouldn't be fair for me to jump in with that kind of disclosure. I know one of the passions he has right now is both listening and studying and understanding. He did operettas and he still is listening to operettas, but he's also expanded beyond operettas to music songs from the early part of the 20th century and has, I think, some interesting things to say about them, the lyrics, the music. And I think that's generally broadly, I don't think he's writing a book, but broadly something is interested in and writing on. So I don't think that I'm revealing anything too private. But from the early part of the 20th century, not the early part of the 21st century. So, you know, look forward to something coming, I think, from that. All right, let's quickly do the Israeli elections. So Israel held elections, the fifth elections in like a year, two years, something like that, ridiculous. They keep having elections, they couldn't form a coalition, but this election looks like it's pretty definitive. It looks like Netanyahu, the longest serving prime minister in Israeli history, will be able to form a coalition. It looks like you'll actually have a fairly strong coalition of 65, I think, very committed votes to him. It's going to be the most religious government in Israeli history. It will be the most right wing government, not in the economic sense at all, but in the nationalist, religious, anti-individual liberty sense that Israel has ever had. Indeed, it's hard to imagine a government worse than what Israel is going to get now. I have never been a fan of BBs. I thought he has always been a compromising, weak power luster. He, too, he gives a great speech in English, best speeches ever. BB speeches at the UN, BB speeches for the Congress, BB speeches on American television. He's fantastic in English. He's horrible in Hebrew. And he is, I think, generally a destructive anti-liberty, anti-capitalism, anti-freedom force in Israeli politics. The government here is about to form one comprise of three other political parties. Two political parties that he's formed governments with before, but this time will have a disproportionate power because the majority will be so small he'll depend on them for every vote. And they're the ultra-orthodox, ultra-orthodox religious Jews. They're the ones who wear black. They basically have a mentality of people from the 18th century. They like BB because they care little about Israel's security. They don't serve in the army.  They care little about anything, economic liberty and anything like that. The only thing they care about is that, A, they want to make sure that young people, they're young people, they're ultra-orthodox religious young people, but don't serve in the military. Everybody else is forced into a draft. They want to make sure that their kids are not, that they are allowed to go and study and pray in the Yeshiva instead. So that's priority number one. So priority number two is that the Israeli government heavily subsidize and it has in previous Netanyahu governments and it's going to do so even more this government, heavily subsidize men to not work. I don't know if you know how the ultra-orthodox function, ultra-orthodox function where the men don't work. The women work. The men study all day. They pray and they study. They, you know, maybe they dabble in some business, maybe they dabble in work, but most of them do not work. The women do their work. The women raise the kids. The women take care of the home. The men do God's work. They pray and they study. And what the ultra-orthodox Jews, Jewish political parties want and they've received from BB and they will receive it again in spades this time is massive subsidies for these men not to work. Now, this is what's fascinating about Israel is this is the largest, this is the fastest growing population in Israel. This is a population whose demographics are going to dwarf any other group in Israeli society. They have more kids than other Jews, they have more kids than Arabs, they have more kids than anybody. And yet they produce nothing. They don't work. They don't produce. They don't create. They live off of the state. They are massive beneficiaries of the welfare state. And this is a group cultivated from and cultivated by and supported by BB. It's a group that again doesn't care about Israeli security. They don't care about the army. They don't care about the Arab threat. All they care about is that they are subsidized to go and pray every day and that they don't have to work. There is no more corrupt a group in Israel. I mean, I don't think the communists say any worse than these guys. The societies are primitive, barbaric, religious fundamentalists of the worst kind. So that's one group that BB will form a government with. One of the reasons that the rest of the political spectrum in Israel so hateful of Netanyahu is because the secular political parties in Israel have tried over and over and over again over the years to form governments that did not include these religious parasites. And you know, and to do that they have to exclude BB because BB won't join a government unless the religious parasites are part of it. So it's unbelievable. And look, it's not insignificant because the amount of money, the amount of resources, the amount of time, the amount of effort that goes into appeasing these ultra religious groups. Now let's add to the third thing. They want all the stores to be shut down on Saturday. They want buses to stop running on Saturday.  They will throw stones at your car. They want to control much of civil marriage laws in Israel. They are massive violators of individual rights, massive imposers. I mean, Israel is closer to being theocratic than at every point in time in the past because BB won. Now, so that's the two ultra religious, ultra orthodox political party. The other political party, the third political party that won an amazing anywhere between 13 to 15 mandates is a political party called religious Zionism. This is a political party that's composed of a number of different smaller political parties all on the religious right, not ultra orthodox. These are more like orthodox Jews. Yarmulke wearing, still religious, you know, more like in terms of their religiosity, more like Ben Shapiro. But these are not all of them, but there's elements within this political party. The elements within the political party that are explicit racists, haters of Arabs, you know, and, you know, they even more than the ultra orthodox. See, the ultra orthodox community, the ultra orthodox political parties, all they really care about is the ultra orthodox political parties in the ultra orthodox community. It's all they care about. They don't care about Israel. They have no commitment to Israel. They have no interest in Israel. The religious Zionism party, these orthodox Jews, they care about Israel. They are big Zionists. They want a one state solution. They want to get rid of the Palestinians. They want to kick them out of Israel. But not only that, they want to reform secular Jews. They want to impose their religiosity on secular Jews. They want to make Israel a religious state because they care about Israel. They don't just care about their own small community. They want to grow the community of religious fanatics. This is with 14 mandates. You know, while there are elements there that have some elements within this political party that has some free market views. These are the worst kind of statists, fascist theocrats that one can imagine. BB has already said that some of the worst people in this political party, including one of them who is an explicit racist, are going to have positions in the government. They're going to have power. This is like, this election is the worst possible outcome for Israel. I can't think of a realistic outcome that's worse than this. Now, what's interesting about Israel and what's interesting, what's I think important to note is that Israel has no left. It has no left wing. So I want to go through the political parties in order of the membership in the Knesset in parliament. So the Likud is the largest, that's BB's party. The Likud is the largest with 32 mandates. This is out of 120. The Likud is the center right political party. It is centrist on economics and right wing on issues of nationalism. I believe there was a pretty centrist on national security issues. They're pretty bad on national security issues. Yashatid is the Yashatid that means in English there is a future as 24 mandates. They are a centrist party. They're not socialists. They're not for massive distribution of wealth on certain issues in economics. They're better than the Likud. They're not massive compromises with the Palestinians. They want more of a settlement than the Likud does. They're not right wing but they're not left in anything. They're not left in foreign policy. They're not left in national security. They're not left in economics. Yashatid is basically just center.  So hard national security expertise but also hard positions on national security. So that's center. We've got center right center. Then you've got religious Zionism, far right. Then you've got national unity. National unity again is a political party started by people who left the Likud. This has been and again some more generals. This is basically a right of center political party. The only characteristic this right of center political party has that makes it different from the Likud is that they don't like BB. They don't like Netanyahu. So they will never form a coalition with Netanyahu but they are in pretty much every important on every important issue. They're indistinguishable from the Likud. They're just straight right in center. So we have one of the four biggest political parties to a right of center. One is far right and one is center. What's the fifth largest political party? Shaz, which is ultra orthodox. The six political parties, the one, two, three, four, five. The six political party is UTJ, another ultra orthodox political party. Still no leftist party, not a single one. The fifth political party is UAL. Now here you could argue this is a leftist political party. This represents the Arab vote. And so does the next size political party, which is Hadash, Ta'al, another Arab political party. I think this one's more of a Marxist political party. But anyway, they're both leftist Arab political parties. And then finally, the smallest political party of all of them and the last political party to actually enter parliament is labor. So the Jewish left, if you will, the non Arab left has four seats out of 120. The Arab left has, you know, Arab slash left, not all the arrows they are left, but the Islamist political party was kicked out. So what's left is kind of Arab left Arab nationalist. They have 10 mandates. So at most, at most, the votes for a left wing political party in Israel, about 10% of the votes, 10%. 90% of the votes are centered to center right, to right, to far right. And indeed, most of the votes here are right. The center has 24. So the left has 10%. The center has, let's say 20%. And the right has 70%. The right center right has 70%. I mean, that's stunning. That's stunning. If the right got along, if they could all come together, they would single-handedly dominate Israeli politics. And they do. The right is the only show in town in Israel. It's just which right? And in Israeli politics, less about ideas, less about political parties, less about political positions, and much more about personalities. And this is what Bibi has created. He's created a politics of personalities. The only reason people vote for Likud is because they like Bibi. And the reason they vote anti-Likud is because they don't like Bibi. And that's it.  And again, all the ideas, basically, dominate Israeli politics. A center right. There's very little to differentiate the political parties in Israel. But the left has no, the left economically, the left. And remember, Israel was a socialist country for many years. Labor used to be the biggest party in Israel by far. It formed most of the governments in almost all the governments until 1977 were formed by labor. And it was dominant until about 10, 15 years ago, at which point it basically died. The left died. I think the left died really in the second Intifada. But economically, people talk about redistribution and socialism. But Israel is, there's just no, there's no energy for that. There's no sympathy for it. Israel is, in every really topic, a center right country. And it's, but it's not even close. No other country I know in the world has such a, such a dominance of a particular worldview. Interesting. All right. So that's Israeli politics. The death of the left in Israel, I guess. Let's see. What should we do? Should we do Brazil quickly? Super so quickly, and then we'll go to super chat. By the way, last night, I had a phenomenal meal at Rosella, which is, which is this amazing restaurant that, you know, you run Brooks show listeners often go to in when they're in New York. And if they don't go to, they should go to. It was, it was a fantastic meal. It was, you know, it was really, it was really amazing. And of course, the, the chef at the restaurant is a friend, a friend of the run book show, an objectivist and an all round fantastic guy. So I encourage you when you're in New York, go to a Zella and and ask, you know, ask for, ask for kind of the shifter, just bring you what, what, what he likes. You won't regret it. It's a fantastic meal, fantastic meal. All right. Let's see. Anyway, Rosella, don't forget. Let's see. Yes, we're going to talk about Brazil. So Brazilian elections held different outcome than in Israel in Brazil, like pretty much the entire, the entire, pretty much like the entire Latin America, all of South America is dominated by the left. So it's pretty amazing that over the last two years, every single country in South America has flipped from a relatively liberal right wing government to a dominantly left wing government, every single one of them, even a country like Columbia that never has never elected a left wing president elected one. Chile, who was poor and kind of went free markets and became rich because of the free markets, because of the capitalism elected a leftist president and is reversing much of the free market policies that were in place. In other words, the left is just, you know, if you go to, you can go right across, right across South America. You can start with, you know, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, of course, Bolivia. Maybe Ecuador is the exception. Is Ecuador the exception? I think Ecuador is the only Latin American country today that's not governed by a crazy left wing government. Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, of course, they're all dominated now by the left. And of course, Brazil is the last one to fall. Now, I don't think Brazilians are quite as leftist as other Latin American countries. I think Brazil has the misfortune of having a Bolsonaro or a Trump-like person running on the right. I think Lula could have been defeated by somebody better than Bolsonaro. I'm not sure because Bolsonaro and a Trump have a certain charisma and appeal to certain people. But, you know, a lot of people voted for Lula just to avoid another term of Bolsonaro's, just like a lot of people voted for Biden, just to avoid another term by Trump. So, but it seems unquestionable that Latin America has taken a massive turn to the left over the last just a couple of years, two, three years. And that it's about time people start learning from that, that it's going to take a lot more than economic arguments. It's going to take a lot more than populist politics to change the dynamics of these countries. What it's going to take is a real political, philosophical, intellectual revolution. Defeating the left will only happen when we defeat collectivism and altruism. The left keeps coming back. I mean, I thought the left was dead forever in Chile. It's dominant today. I thought the left would never win in Colombia. It's just one big time. So the only way to defeat the left is to actually crush it, completely crush it. And to crush it, you have to crush it intellectually. You have to crush it philosophically. And nobody's doing that, right? Nobody has the ideas, nobody has the program to actually crush them other than objectivism. There's nobody out there that presents an actual challenge to the ideas behind the left. Even if you might get a swing to the right, ultimately, on at least the issues of economics, the swing will happen right back to the left because they hold them all high ground. And as long as that high ground is not challenged, as long as their morality is not challenged, as long as their collective is not challenged, they will keep pushing on economic issues on economic liberty issues, they will keep pushing the pendulum to the left. All right. So, Bolsonaro is doing a trump while he lost the elections. He hasn't conceded, but he's engaging in the transition. And he's telling the people demonstrating against Lula's election to stop. So, he's accepted the results, but he's not conceding. In other words, he's leaving his options open to do a trump and to pretend like he never lost, to pretend that the election was stolen, just like Trump did, and to build up his credibility based on that. You know, I don't think he buys him anything. I don't think he will buy him anything, but you know, it looks like Lula will be president of Brazil. We'll see how bad he will be. As my Brazilian friend say, it's basically ruled by gangsters. Lula and his gang are gangsters. It's not even that they're committed socialists, committed leftists. They're committed to thieving and stealing and the massive corruption that comes with it. All right. All right, let's do some super chats. PBS, how does the freeway, carpool, low occupancy lane relate to individual rights? Why should the solo individual driver yield to those carpooling according to arbitrary state rules? Yeah, I mean, it doesn't relate to individual rights. Of course, individual rights would dictate that the government shouldn't own the roads, but given that it does, it sets the rules, but the rules can be equal treatment before the law. They can be rational. They can make some sense or they can be capricious and suddenly the carpool lanes are complete capriciousness. They have nothing to do with safety. They have nothing to do with maintaining the roads.  We don't anyway. I don't think it really works. Supposedly they're there to reduce traffic jams. Again, if you've ever traveled in, you know, it's a way to, you know, if you've ever traveled to California, you know that it hasn't solved any of the traffic problems. Ignorant Richard is saying, you don't know what's going on in Brazil, Yuan. Best to wait and watch.   I know exactly what's going on in Brazil. I have more connections in Brazil than you will ever have in your entire life. I've been to Brazil more times than you have ever been. You have no concept of what's going on in Brazil. You don't know Brazil.  Of spouting off about issues you know nothing about and not admitting when you're wrong and not, you know, not fessing up to your own errors. So go away, Richard. What are you doing here? What are you doing here? All right, Ali asks, I was following a couple of conservative Republicans on Twitter soon after Elon Musk took over. They turn into bashing individuals on the left instead of the right is anti-left, go after the left to make fun of the left. There is no real actual intellectual content that they're advocating for. There's no intellectual argument. There is, whoops, am I frozen again? No, the video seems to be working. There's no intellectual content to the right. There's no intellectual argument. There's no, there's no actually debate going on. There's attacking the right, attacking the left, trashing the left, doing everything. Internet is freezing. Oops, looks like something's frozen. Okay, it goes in and out. No principles, no ideas. All right, yeah, Ali, I agree with you. It's sad and pathetic and depressing that these are the people who suppose we represent liberty in this country. Jeffrey says, I was late to the show. Please start over. Nope, can't do that. Sorry.  Don't be late. All right, let's see where are we? Mike, thank you. Mike, $100 a great deal. Appreciate your work, Mr. Booker. I really appreciate the support. Thank you, Mike. That gets us a lot closer to our goal for today. So $100 left. So that $100 got us $100. So hopefully somebody will step in here and get us over our goal for tonight. Although it is late, I know many of you are, yeah, I mean, Richard is both poor and cheap. Never asked a super chat question. Just make snide comments on the side. Okay, that is a speciality. That is what he's particularly good at. All right, let's see. All right. Ah, Armin, thank you. Armin just did $200, got us over our goal. Thank you, Armin. Armin says, thanks for the great show. Side note, I could be wrong, but I have a sense that you are not concerned about global warming and environmental issues. Could you help me understand why we shouldn't be? I'm not. I have to admit I'm not concerned about climate change. I'm not concerned about environmental issues. Primarily because the solution to climate change and the solution to almost all environmental issues is technology and it is property rights. The solution to climate change is the kind of technologies that protect us from the climate. It's buildings that can resist hurricanes. It's conditioning. It's heating in the winter. It's the human mind's ability to take a harsh environment. I mean, how do people live in Northern Europe? It's taking that technology and using it in spite of climate change to make life habitable, to make it livable. You know, Amsterdam is below sea level. Amsterdam is below sea level. It's a long, long time ago, hundreds of years ago, they built dikes to protect Amsterdam from the seas rising and to protect it from flooding. Why isn't that the solution for all the places like Florida and other places that might flood in the future? And if places like that do flood in the future, is that life-altering in a sense that people will just move. They'll move to places that are not being flooded. Human beings have moved because of climate change before. We have migrated. We'll continue to migrate and there's no reason why if you buy property by the ocean, I should stop using fossil fuels to live my life so that you never get flooded. You know, one way to prevent people from living in places that might get flooded is for the government to stop subsidizing their insurance and to let insurance companies price it. Price it based on their real damage that might be caused when climate change happens. So I just see so many market mechanisms to control this and to deal with it and to allow us to survive no matter what the weather is. I mean, indeed, global warming is unpleasant, but global cooling would be a lot worse, a lot worse. Having another ice age would be a lot worse. It's just going to happen whether it's man-made or not. Climate will change and we as human beings will adapt to it using science and technology. Now, that doesn't mean there shouldn't be investment and alternative energies. They should. It makes sense if we can drive the price down, but it doesn't make sense to stop using fossil fuels because if we stop using fossil fuels, a standard of living will decline much, much, much faster and our quality of life will decline much, much, much faster than anything the weather can do to us. Climate change is less of a threat to human well-being than ending fossil fuel uses. So the solution is if you want to, if fossil fuels are doing damage and you want to over time reduce fossil fuel usage, the solution is nuclear. And one of the ways you know that the environmentalists are not completely honest is their opposition to nuclear. Yeah. If they really wanted to reduce fossil fuel use, they would be the biggest supporters in the world of nuclear energy. Now, other issues in environmentalism, clean air, clean water, everybody's for clean air and clean water, but those are issues that are solved through private property. Those are issues that are solved through the court system. Those are issues that are solved by showing that a particular pollutant hurts human life and suing the companies to pollute. It's by people demanding cleaner. And free countries tend to be cleaner than non-free countries. So what we want is more free countries. We want is more technology. What we want is more innovation. By the way, technology leads to cleanliness because one of the things technology does is it increases efficiency. And what does efficiency mean? It means less waste, less pollution. The whole movement towards greater wealth, greater technology adoption, greater efficiency, greater productivity is the move away from pollution and away from waste. So that's the solution. So I don't get excited about environmentalism and I want to get excited about climate change because I can see very clearly what the solutions are and the solutions are more economic liberty, not more government oppression. Oh, Tessa, Tessa saw the debate at UT between Alex Epstein and John Dodget about climate change and about fossil fuels. So Tessa, you should write up a little report here. I'll read it out. How did it go? John Wayne says, Dodget, straw manning half the time. I'm curious how you think Alex held up how he dealt with the straw manning. Because that's all they do. That's all our opponents in the left do when we debate them is they straw man because they don't have arguments to come back at us. And yes, Amin, if you want to understand my position on fossil fuels and climate change, the best person out there, the best person out there is on this issue is Alex Epstein. You should get his new book, Fossil Future and you should read his work. Look up Alex Epstein, Fossil Future. It's on Amazon. It's on everywhere. And that is the book that I would say presents the most important information about the whole issue of climate change from an objective perspective. Brian Kaplan, the libertarian philosopher, is doing a whole series of posts about Alex's book. He's a huge fan, he's a huge fan of it. Michael. Okay, so now we're doing a bunch of super chat questions under $20, way over our goals. So thank you everybody, particularly Amin, particularly Mike, who really pushed us over the top pretty quickly here. Michael asked, there is no way Trump even runs again. He's too old and overweight and the GOP establishment will lock him out. I think you're overly optimistic. I think it's going to be hard for Trump not to run again. He's too much of a narcissist not to try to win again. Amin, thank you for another $50. Wow, Amin is super supportive of the show today. Thank you, Amin. Let's see, where are we? That was Michael. Here's more Michael. Michael says, is Halloween a nihilistic holiday? No, no, I don't think so. It's a fun holiday. People get dressed up, they go party. I don't particularly like the idea of trick or treating. It seems like blackmail to me.  I'm going to do something bad to you. But overall, it's just a fun holiday. It's dress up and you get candy. There's nothing nihilistic about it. Colt jumps in with a $20 question. He is now updating us and his parents. Now that I've got my parents on board, I'm not going to bring the anti-Trump message to my brothers. My oldest brother will be easier. Oh, he is. I'm not going to bring the anti-Trump message to my brother. So I am. My other brother will be harder. He has the dangerous religion of environmentalism. Yeah, this is why you need to read, if you haven't read yet, Alex's book and maybe get your brothers to read Alex's book and that'll hopefully get the environmentalism out of him. But glad you've got your parents on board. And now, yes, time to get the rest of the family and the rest of the people and one mind at a time. One mind at a time. Micah says, if Trump miraculously wins again, will Antifa and Ant an alt-right return in force, will there be many more Charlottesville in the future? Yeah, I think if Trump wins again, Trump is an agent of chaos that's part of his shtake. He likes the chaos. He thrives on it. And I think you'll see more chaos in our future if he wins again. Liam, do you agree with the quote, a great man is harder than himself, a small man is harder than others? Not exactly. I don't like quotes like that. I don't like quotes like that. I can talk again. Because they oversimplify and they generalize and it's not very useful. It is true that a small man is harder than others, but look at the movie Whiplash, where he drives the students and really pushes them. Is that a small man? He's not a small man doing it. He's somebody who has high standards. So I just don't like these quotes, because they're not... They're not... The magazine was on Joe Rogan. I'm not surprised. But he also has interviewed me. It's Shema. Michael Shema is the chief editor for Skeptic Magazine. He's the one who approached me about writing the piece. It'll be out next month. And Michael Shema did a long interview with me. I don't know if you haven't seen it. It's definitely worth watching. Daniel asks, I wonder what you're on thinks of Andrew Tate. I really don't think much about Andrew Tate. I don't know much about Andrew Tate. The little I've seen. I'm not impressed. It's part of this manosphere and this attitude towards women that I generally do not like. Florida Nick. I hope the Iran protests are successful for me too. But in all the videos I've watched, there are no American flags. Does that mean anything? Yeah, it means that A, they understand that if they wave American flags, it will hurt their cause. It won't help. That and me. And it changed the focus of demonstrations away from what they're really about. That's getting rid of the theocracy. It's not about America. It's about getting rid of the theocracy. And America has nothing to do with it. So I'm glad that they're not waving American flags. Plus America does deserve it because America is not giving them the kind of support that they deserve. So I'm not sure we deserve having our flag waved around. But no, I'm not surprised. It's a good strategic move. Don't use the American flag. This is not about America. For Iranians, America doesn't represent liberty and freedom. Don't use it. The power of these demonstrations is that they're focused on the theocratic nature of the regime. They're focused on their attacks on women that are based on religion. Property and individual rights. Why need government? Well, where does the law come from? So how are you enforcing law? Where does the law come from? Who sets the law? Who determines the law? Which law are you enforcing? Whose law are you enforcing? Property rights.  But what if there's a conflict around property rights? What if you think your property line is here and your neighbor thinks it's over there and you get it just fight it out? You have weapons, he has weapons and you fight it out. What about somebody who uses these weapons and technology irrationally, immolally to aggress against somebody else who's you'll protect yourself. What if the guy, what if the guy who's taking your property has bigger guns than you do and he takes it over? Is there no recourse? The problem with anarchy is it's unwork... I mean, there are many problems with anarchy. But it's unworkable because it's immoral and therefore impractical. Rafael, Skyuron, you are so good. I'm wondering if you could convince me of socialism if you were one. What arguments that you use in favor of socialism before I had the shrugged thanks for coming to Portugal? I mean, I don't remember I was also very young. I don't think I could convince you of socialism. But at the end of the day, at the end of the day, the best argument for socialism and I think the argument I used was there was the only moral system that if altruism is the moral code and nobody challenged altruism, then socialism was the only political system consistent with altruism. And I think that's how I would have phrased it back then. Not in terms of altruism, but in terms of living for other people, sacrificing for other people, other people are your focus, then socialism is the system. What else is there? Michael asked, is there a difference between being wanted and being valued? Well, I mean, if value does not being valued does not have to be rational, then no, values are that which you act to gain or keep.  It's the acting to gain the want that makes it a value. So to the extent that they're acting on it, then you're valued to them. You are being valued. But that doesn't mean it's rational. That doesn't mean a pro-life rational value. Michael, is objectivism a science? What distinguishing philosophy from science? What gives philosophy the authority to have video power over certain scientific discoveries about quantum phenomena? Objectivism is not a science. Objectivism is a philosophy. Philosophy is the foundational knowledge on which science functions. There is no science without philosophy, without philosophical assumptions about the world, without a certain philosophical understanding of the world. Science is done. For example, philosophy has a theory of knowledge, all knowledge including scientific knowledge. It precedes in the hierarchy of knowledge. It precedes science. So if a scientific discovery contradicts a philosophical axiom in the scientific explanation, your fundamental axioms of knowledge, because science is knowledge. And if it contradicts it, you've got a contradiction. Contradictions should not, don't exist in reality. And you need to solve them. You need to figure out what the problem is. Liam says, what makes BB such an effective politician? Is Israel moving in a more religious, fascist direction like the rest of the West, or has BB surround himself with more free market people? No, he has not surround himself with more free market people. He abandoned free markets years ago. He used to be a free market person. But the last time he did good free market stuff was about 15 years ago. He has not surround himself with good free market people. In the contrary, he's alienated a lot of the free market people, alienated and have moved away from him. What makes him an effective politician is that he's a demagogue. He knows how to manipulate people. He knows how to manipulate the situation. He's a smart political maneuver. He knows how to give the right amount. He's a good negotiator. He knows how to manipulate people. He's a people manipulator. And he's very good at that. Is Israel moving towards religious fascist? I mean, Israel as a population is not because the fact is that the majority of Israelis are secular. The majority of the people I think who vote for Liddy could, for BB's party are secular, but they form a coalition and give disproportionate power to religious fanatics. And in that sense, Israel could enter a period of relative religious kind of fascism. It won't survive because most of Israel is not that. Most of Israel is secular. Secular, sentence, secular right. But secular. Russians. It's just what characterizes it as Russians, but they're very secular. But the secular center right and they refuse to sit in a coalition because they don't join any of BB's coalitions because they refuse to sit in a coalition with a with a religionist. Good for them. I'm all for them. Michael says Israel is the lowest form of communication. Well, I don't think it's communication. What makes people abandon the humanity and resort to it? Wim, worship, mysticism, a commitment to a higher cause, it's not an interaction. James Taylor says, have you seen Chuck Schumer watching over and applauding Joe Biden? Like Joe used the party for the first time. There's a zero chance this man runs in 2024. I hope you mean Biden. I hope. I mean, wouldn't it be an amazing world if neither Trump nor Biden ran? I mean, that would be really cool. James asks, what begins in rage will end in shame? Often true. Often true. Gale says, I've been realizing that the hatred of FF and industrialization what is FF? Hatred of FF? What am I missing? An industrialization has been going on for 100 years. I have come to realize the demonization of FF and industrialization is going on for 100 plus years. Yes. I'm not sure what the question is. Yeah, I mean, 19th century think about Dickens in England and think about the mudrackers in the United States.  Yes, I mean, they were going after Rockefeller back then. FF is fossil fuels. Thank you. Ian, it's been going on since the days of Rockefellers been going on since the progressives started to significantly, significantly start to become significant intellectuals in America in the mid to late 19th century and since then, they've only grown in power. The left has grown and grown and grown and now everybody left and right demonize industrialization and call the industrialists the rubber bands and want to break up big tech and big business and use antitrust and they're all anti-business today but this is the leftist agenda that started with the progressive movement in the 19th century. Michael asked, why are objective able to see connections others can't? Do we have superpowers? Are they the rarest of minorities that actually choose to be honest? No, I mean the superpower is the valuing reason seeing the world as one Lenin-Pikov's taught us to integrate and the importance of integration and focusing on integration as an aspect of reason as a key aspect of reason and we just pay attention to it we know everything is connected to everything at the end of the day so we pay attention to it. We devote energy to it I mean great composer and great conductor he was one of the great conductors of the late 19th century early 20th century but he had a really really sad life that is very much reflected in his music Michael asked, why is rapid growth in anti-Semitism often a precursor to authoritarianism although most Jews and Israelis I talked to don't seem too worried about Kanye West because authoritarianism almost always relies on some form of tribalism and as such the vilification of the other the vilification of those who do not belong to a particular tribe and in this case the Jews have always been a very convenient their outsiders they're very successful outsiders they have this they have this people view them as manipulative there's already a tradition of it they're capitalizing on whoops frozen again but long history of it as they are and we'll do the rest of them next time but the hotel internet connection here is lousy I'll be back home on Saturday there'll be a show on Saturday I'll make up all these I'll cover all these super chat questions on Saturday alright everybody have a great night thank you for all the super chatters thanks for the support really appreciate it and I will see you from Puerto Rico on Saturday not exactly what time but on Saturday will be the next show bye everybody


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Shit's Creek is the best show ever Okay Okay, ready? Okay, guys welcome back to my channel today's video is going to be super fun because I have my mom here Hi, and today we are going to be talking about how she told me I was adopted And you know, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that I'm adopted. We don't look alike at all We don't So the first part of this video is going to be how my mom told me I was adopted and The tactics she used and in the second part of this video My mom is going to share some tips on maybe how you can tell your child that they are adopted And before we start, okay, I want to say that I'm sorry for the lighting change. I use natural light Sherry, I'll let you take it away. How did you tell me I was adopted? I guess I never wanted to have a Situation where I had to have a sit-down talk and chat with Alex about honey, there's something I need to tell you You're adopted. Yeah, I know it really would not have made any sense since we didn't look alike And no one around her looked like her and it was pretty obvious that maybe that wasn't where She came from whatever I just happened to find something And I don't know if I actually bought this book or if someone gave it to me or if I got it from the adoption agency I really don't even know where it came from But I used a book called when you were born in China a memory book for children adopted from China It's a pretty lengthy book, but I read through this book lots and lots of times And I picked out the things that I thought were relevant to kids at certain ages This book was like Alex's bedtime story book and I read it to her probably a couple times a week from the time We got home from China because I thought it was important just to ingrain in her Early on that she was adopted so I would we would never have to have that situation She'd know why she was adopted this book does a very good job of explaining What happens in China the one-child policy it talks about abandoning children But it talks also about how all those people in China loved you when you were little and they took care of you until Your family was able to come from wherever they came from to adopt you So it gives a lot of good background a lot of what might have happened to you and a good explanation of how this is just a General idea of what happens, but you have your very own story But it's a story of a lot of little girls in China So I use this book and do you remember me reading this book to you at all not really That's the funny thing. I don't know that's probably the reason why I don't really remember having a honey You're adopted because it was always you always knew a constant thing even though I don't I don't Subconsciously remember you read this to me. Okay, but I do when we lived in celebration our old house I remember I don't know how well I was but we were sitting on the couch and Sherry pulled this book out and she's like, do you remember when I read this to you and because we lived in Ohio for a bit That's where they're from. So I was like, no not really So I think we went over it or something like as I was older Yeah, we did because the book is let's see how many pages and the book was written in 1997 and you were born in 96 so we traveled in 97 so it was something that was very these babies I know it was very contemporaneous Lucky me you're lucky my shot It was very contemporaneous to what was going on at the time But I didn't read the whole book to her every night because a little child is not gonna understand some of the things that are in here So it's 42 pages. I didn't read 42 pages every single night But I would pick and choose things that I thought were relevant like somebody who was like a year old or somebody who was two years Old or three years old. So I kind of add things in Talking about the Chinese economy and how China isn't poor But it's not a rich country either and talking about this kinds of things really a two-year-old really doesn't care about that Four-year-old doesn't care about that but those were things I would add in this time would go time went on About what things were like in China, but the things that I did focus on was the actual one child policy at the time at the time and the abandonment and how people there loved you and How you know everyone took care of you to make sure you stay healthy until your parents could come get you and that's kind of Just started from that and then added in there a lot of pictures and things of China in China Which you know again a three or four-year-old didn't really care about that But we did show a lot of the pictures of other little girls from China pictures inside different orphanages in China So even though they weren't exactly in her orphanage They were other orphanages so she could kind of grew up knowing that this was the kind of place where she was for a year and There were other little girls in orphanages and I think having the the shaman reunions over the years Yeah helped with that also because everybody understood. So this is what I use this this was the tool the tactic Yes, that that I use because it was it was just such a good thing and I would highly recommend that to anybody I will link this down below So if you guys want to get it and read it yourself, you can I guess you normalised it as some people might say Like you normalize that I didn't come from your body. So sherry share this story I don't know if she told me this like not too long ago the story of when I came home from grade school This is when we lived in Florida I asked like where my real parents were or like why do they not want me and then there's the time where I thought I Wasn't Chinese. Yeah, there are a couple of different things and that was probably in the first second grade Maybe once when you're in Ohio I can't really remember which one was like kindergarten first or second grade Okay, there were just a few times when things would come up Yeah, because even though you were firmly ingrained in the fact that you knew you were adopted Yeah, but there was still some other questions that would come up and we were always very open about answering any of those Questions, but sometimes little kids don't quite understand what adoption means Especially other little kids that haven't read this book, right? So once you came home and I don't even remember what the context was but you just said well, you know when I used to be Chinese I didn't do that and What do you mean when you used to be Chinese? I think it was at celebration school I don't know.  So you wanted to know what had happened at celebration school I think so what had happened to them why they died. I don't know who it would it was I know Boy, I remember I can't remember which little boy It was in your class. He said your parents her parents had died and so you wanted to know if they had missed you and if they I'd mm-hmm, and I said well first of all, you know, I'm your parent and I don't know if they died. I don't think so Because being an orphanage is that doesn't necessarily mean that this little boy's probably watched little orphan Annie And has the wrong idea about orphanages in China and you said well, he knew that he said he knew So you were giving me some pushback About parents being dead if you were in an orphanage. So being the kind kind person I am I said well, has he ever been to China? I don't think so and I said well, I have and you have Has he ever been orphaned? No, I said well, then he doesn't know anything about it We know all about it But all we know is that there were two people that created a baby and that baby was you what happened to them after that We don't know they're probably still alive We don't know that and we'll never know whatever happened to them where they are if they had more children We're not going to know any of that information But just being in an orphanage does not necessarily mean in China that your parents are dead Yes, we were at a public pool And Alex was probably two maybe three and I was in the pool with her and she was standing there There's this little boy. It's always like little boys that do that. I guess little boy walk by and he looks at her He stares at her for a minute and he walks away And they like swims back over Satter and looks up at me this happened in Ohio, right? It is And you know, Ohio is pretty white. It was very funny. The pool we were in the area We were in was very white and so he's like looking at her I finally like about the third time he comes swims around, you know, and stops. It looks at her Looks at me and he goes, what's wrong with her eyes? I said, I laugh every time Nothing? Why? And he looks at me and he looks at her and he goes, well, can she see? And I said, yes, I said her eyes look different than your eyes, don't they? And he goes, yeah I said, well, that's because she's Chinese. He goes, oh What's her name? Her name is Alex So he goes away and he comes back with these other kids He brings this whole group of little kids over and gathers them around Alex and points to her and says hey That's Alex. She's Chinese but she can see. Oh my gosh. That's a really good story It was just very fun.     He looks up at me and says are you her grandma? And I said, no, but I think I hear your mom calling you Write a question for you. Okay.  Oh, yeah, I am adopted I wonder that there's some times that I do think that but I don't focus on it Like even if it does dawn on me that like, oh, I am different. I don't see myself as different I think that's the the key where I don't know Maybe you can take from this if you see yourself as different and if you focus on what's different about you You're gonna be different for my cousin's wedding, for example, like I'm going to be the only Chinese person Sometimes I don't even remember that I'm number one adopted or number two Chinese Because it doesn't dawn on me that I am that so when someone's like, oh, where are you from like? Oh, Columbus, Ohio, and then I'm like, they're like, no, where are you really from? And I'm like, oh, I was born in China But then and then I had to go into my spiel, which if you don't know my spiel Then I'll link that video up in the cards or something but like hi, I'm adopted when I was one I have two gay moms, but I'm not gay, you know, that's spiel We were checking into when we lived in Ohio We were coming here on vacation and we checked in at Old Key West And the person driving the little golf cart to take us to our room was Asian Alex there like in the back seat and he turns on he goes. Oh, where is she from? And I said, we're from Ohio Oh Okay, well, uh, well she looks Asian It sounds weird, but like I see myself more as white because I have been around white people More I guess but also too. I remember and this is something you recently shared with me about one of the Shaman sister parents. Yes. So one of one of the moms in the shaman reunion group Shared with me once that she never really wanted to focus on her daughter being Chinese and she was white or she was adopted and other kids were not because she wanted her to feel like she was More the same and less different. Right. She want to focus on those differences. Yeah And I think that's my mindset and I didn't even know that and Sherry just shared that with me I'm like, I think I've been thinking that all along So that was really like a profound thing when I found that out because like I don't focus on like what's different but also I'm just gonna throw in here really quick that I Went to a dance studio and there was a lot of Filipinos So I was surrounded by more Asian people and it did feel more like community And like I wasn't a different person or like outcast So I think that really helped but I don't know how I feel if I grew up in a Predominantly like white neighborhood in Ohio, like I don't know how I would feel but I can tell you that I went to a very like diverse high school if you haven't seen the video link it down below I went to an art school and then I also went to a dance studio where there was more Asians So I did get a taste of like more seeing more my Asian people I guess and we did start out when you were little and we were in Ohio We're taking you to events families with children from China and they always did events They started like Saturday groups. You could learn mandarin You could do Chinese arts and crafts and it all kinds of things to help connect kids to their Chinese culture And we went to a few of the events and you just never liked it She was never know the only thing you liked was walking in the dragon parade and getting the money in the Never change That was the only thing you ever really liked. Yeah, those events we went to so I'm glad that you didn't force upon my Culture because it's not I don't identify with it. I mean that's different for everybody But like for me, I just didn't and I'm glad that you didn't force it So moving on I want to ask my mom what is her advice on telling your child or children that they are adopted Well, I think that probably honesty is the best policy just from the get-go from the start Yes, absolutely from the very start You don't like 16 and then you're like sweetie happy birthday But your biological parents are not here. I mean maybe not traumatic. I don't know but Think that just being honest up front and living with it because it's part of who you are Yeah, and where you came from and secrets always come out I know a long time ago kids who were adopted their records were sealed if you did a domestic adoption your records were sealed The birth mothers were told kids would never be able to get in touch with them And when you're adopting like that usually more than just you and the child would know or just you and whoever The adults are but other people in the family know what's going on So, you know eventually uncle Joe or somebody, you know has a couple of drinks and slips out your kids adopted I could see those things happening within a family that if it was kept a secret It could be hurtful and I also think too. I just have like two things on my mind number one is If your kid has any questions always tell them what you know Like you've always told me what you know and they've always been supportive if I want to find my birth parents They would be supportive of that. I mean, I don't have the bank account nor the dreaming desire to find my birth parents But they were never like We're insulted. You know, like some people could be no, I think it'd be very interesting actually Yeah, if there was a way to do it But right in the 90s if you were abandoning your daughters on the streets Then you probably wanted to get away and not have any record of that and probably could not be found Right, I mean, it's not like you're just going to a small town to find a woman who gave birth 25 years ago, you're going to a country of billions of people Yeah, if I ever like get to some level of success where I have like financial Stability and like I have funding or whatever Then I think that'd be a really cool series to do like on my YouTube channel or just like something like that I think it'd be really cool, but also I need a really good translator because I Am nowhere near close to communication. It'd be interesting to see what they look like Yeah, and to get medical history.  Yeah, that's a good thing to follow. By the way, you're adopted Okay, yeah, and for all the people who think that like I mean to her and she's mean to me or whatever I don't know.  We are even Valerie. We're proud of that Yeah, we're gonna do a mom time pretty soon I don't know man. You don't want to see him when they start drinking cuz We are proud of our miss Marty pants. It's a good smarty pants. All right So I think that is gonna be it for this video if you have any other questions And make sure to leave them in the comments down below Give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it do it for her And we have more videos coming don't forget to subscribe and I'll see you guys in my next video. Bye