Civilization & The Role of Religion; Song Reviews | Yaron Brook Show - Yaron Brook Show

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Speaker 1 (00:02):
A lot of them quoted the lists of last christ
and any individual loss. This is the show.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Oh right, everybody walk up to here on book show
on this what is it? It's November thirtieth, It is
the last day of November. It is the beginning of
that you know, period between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Christmas is
just around the corner. New Years around the corner. Twenty
twenty six is around the corner. Anyway, Today we're going

(00:40):
to talk about civilization and the world of religion in it.
Primarily we'll talk about civilization and uh, and.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Then we will I will do some reviews.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Of songs that about a year ago you guys asked
me to review, and I apologize I have been in
negligent in not getting these reviews sooner.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
So today we're going to do the songs.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
My hope is the next weekend I'll do I'll start
on some of the TV shows.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
I think there's one movie that I have to review.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
There's a couple of like there's a biopic and a
forty minute expose a and then we've got a book
by Ivola that I need to review. So my goal
is to do all of that by the year, by.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
The end of the year. Hopefully we can get all
that done by the end of the year. So Saturday
shows moving forward.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Today Sunday no, but Saturday shows moving forward, we'll have
a substantive theme and then reviews every Saturday. So I've
got my work cut out for me. Got a lot
to read, a few episodes of to see. Yeah, I've
got right now, and those of you who listen to
this later whatever. If if this needs correction, please let

(02:02):
me know. But what I have is after these songs
I've got, and let me know if I missed any songs.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
If I've finished all the songs.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
I've got Bla Black Adda, I've got a Star Trek episode.
I've got two monologues from and Or. I've got a
movie either Ford Versus Ferrari or foresa Aman Max Saga.
And then I've got forty minute expose a Thellar must

(02:30):
cheating scandal, and a twenty twenty four bio pic called
better Man, and then write the Tiger book by Vola.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
So that's what I've got left. If I'm missing anything,
let me know and we'll make it up. But anyway,
let's jump in to a discussion of civilization and I purpose.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
So let me just say that a lot of this
is just my thinking coming out of a seminar I attended.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
When was this a week ago? I think?

Speaker 2 (02:58):
I think a week ago Tennis seminar in Austin, Texas
with a with a bunch of really really smart people
and people you guys know, and my author, Donald Watkins,
but Greg Solo, Mary and Jason Ryans and Jason Crawford,
and a bunch of other people, many of whom I
think all of them, almost all of them, I think

(03:20):
all of them. I've interviewed at some point on the
show to talk about kind of the whole ideas in history,
how to look at history, and then an evaluation of
Donna in my book, and an evaluation of.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
Jason Crawford's book.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
He's also got a book coming out, so we and
all of it relates to history ideas, how to view
the ark of history and so on, and so this
is kind of today is going to be a riff
of kind of my idea is coming out of that
seminar and how it applies to the topic of the

(03:53):
book that Don and I are writing, which is currently
titled Western Civilization Versus Religion. Who knows what the final
title will be, and hopefully the book will be going
out to try to see if we can get publishers soon,
and hopefully we will finish the book by the middle
of next year and get published by the end of

(04:13):
next year or the beginning of the following year.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
We'll see.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
So these are thoughts as they are gelling with, you know,
based on the seminar and based on everything else that
I've been doing. So first note that I didn't call
this Western civilization the discussion today because I mean, really,
I think it is an important point that if when

(04:38):
looks at history there is one story of civilization, it
happens that from the Enlightenment or maybe from the Renaissance
on that civilization was centered in the West, primarily Western
Europe and in America, but since again become global to
a large extent, Western civilization today is a global civilization.

(05:03):
So what we're going to talk about today is the
arc they historical arc they historical development of civilization. I
think it's as important to note and I think.

Speaker 3 (05:16):
This was a perspective coming out of the seminar which.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
I always had, but really sharpened it. It really sharpened it,
and it made it explicit in a sense, and that
is the civilization is a process. It's a process that
is continuously building on the past. It is continuously building
a knowledge. It is continuously if it's moving in the

(05:42):
right direction, continuously improving. It's a civilizing process. And this
is why we can talk about Egyptian civilization of I
don't know three thousand years ago, and I don't know
much about very ancient civilizations three four thousand years ago,
maybe five. And but you know, if they lived that

(06:02):
way today, we wouldn't consider them civilized. We consider them barbaric.
But in the context of the time they were civilized.
And then you've got a building. You know, the next
civilization rises and it builds on the previous civilization, improves
on it, makes it better, advances it. And there are

(06:24):
periods in human history we can talk about those. Whether
there's no civilization, it disappears, or at least it's manifestation, disappears,
even though you know there are people preserving it in
the background and in hiding and in secret.

Speaker 3 (06:43):
But it often just.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
You know, disappears, and then when it comes back, it
is building on past knowledge. And just like knowledge builds,
just like we stand on the shoulders of giants before us,
of people who discovered and and and presented us with
knowledge of the past.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
We build on that knowledge.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
So civilization is ever evolving, ever growing, ever deepening, ever
you know, ever getting closer to you know, an ideal.
Let's talk about what civilization is before we get kind

(07:28):
of to the history of it, you know. So I'm
just reading kind of a standard kind of description of civilization.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
A complex human society.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
We developed forms of government, culture, social structure, and technology.

Speaker 3 (07:42):
You know, probably put in law, you know.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
A system of some kind of system of law, some
kind of semblance of law, and social structure technology. Typically
it's characterized by you know, a stable food, supply ofization,
written language, and.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
And and and and you.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
Know, some kind of some kind of relative to what's
around it and relative to what came before, some economic
you know, stability and and and uh and benefit a
higher standard of living of what's around it, and benefit
you know, less uh less starvation less uh less being

(08:27):
exposed to the elements.

Speaker 3 (08:31):
Governments and laws. There's a structure, culture, there.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
Are there are you know, ideas and there is uh
there is you know, as certainly there's an attempt at
some level, and we started at a very primitive level,
and we advanced with civilization. An attempt to understand the
world around us, you know, which ultimately become science, an

(08:56):
attempt to understand the world in philosophy. Science and philosophy
and religion is a as I Man described it, a
primitive form of trying to understand the world around us.

Speaker 3 (09:08):
It's a.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
You know, typically it's it's a written language. There's a
written language. There's a wave of communication, there's an effective
way of communication. There's technological advancement. There's an improvement in
the standard of of of of living again at various rates.

Speaker 3 (09:26):
There's art.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
There's some form of aesthetics, whether it's simple drawing or
the sculptures of the Egyptians all the way up to
the Renaissance and the amazing arts of the Renaissance. There's
architecture again, from the Pyramids to uh, you know, grand
buildings in Rome.

Speaker 3 (09:48):
To mosques, cathedrals.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
Uh and uh and alternate, you know, and and Frank
Loyd right, there is development in architectu Architecture again is developing.

Speaker 3 (10:02):
So there is there is that.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
So so those are all the kind of the features, the
expansions of a civilize of civilization, of a of a
civilized world, and you could think of, you know, Andrews says, freedom,
you know, freedom as an idea right ultimately in ultimately

(10:31):
civilization requires freedom.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yes, but early civilizations were not free. Uh.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
We still say Egypt was a civilization because in the
context of its time, it was relatively prosperous. It had
a system of government and laws. It had some stability,
political stability. It had, you know, arts, it had it
had a system of arts. It had an attempt to

(11:03):
try to understand the world through religion in their case,
and a written language, and some technological advancement. Of course,
the pyramids architecturally quite stunning in how technologically advanced they are.
So civilization has these external manifestations we can cause about,

(11:29):
we can talk about the cause of all of these.
What leads to all of these, and ultimately what leads
to successful civilization.

Speaker 3 (11:42):
Is man using his mind. Man, you know, engaging with
one second, something's going on here? Man engaging with the
world around him.

Speaker 4 (11:59):
Why is this not second?

Speaker 3 (12:07):
All right?

Speaker 2 (12:09):
Man engaging with the world around him, learning to understand
that world, and then using his mind to change that
world to fit his wants.

Speaker 3 (12:23):
Needs desires, right.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
So I mean think about the amount of thought, the
amount of planning and thinking and thinking, the amount of
the application of reason, of rationality that had to go
into building the pyramids.

Speaker 3 (12:38):
I mean, the permits are not easy to build.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
You know, you had to you had to carve out
the stones, you had to transport them to where they
were built, you had to figure out their sizes, you
had to figure out how.

Speaker 3 (12:50):
To lift them.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
And even though slaves and you know who knows who
who actually did the physical labor, they had to be
a real mind behind it. So the fundamental feature of
civilization is a mind at work.

Speaker 3 (13:09):
A mind at work.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
And civilizations improve, grow, develop. What you see is the
human mind being applied to more and more things, to
more and more of reality, to more and more of

(13:33):
man's needs. I mean, think about the complexity of early
agricultural civilizations because at the time they were civilizations relative
to the Noman's nomadic tribes, which continued for if we
first started agriculture in you know, what is it, twelve

(13:55):
thousand years ago at around ten thousand BC. Then, and
some of my dates are going to be off. I'm
not a professional starian, but a long long time ago.
If agricutures around ten thousand BC, we still have nomans today.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
We certainly had nomans well.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
Into the you know, twentieth century in Arabia, in the
Middle East and northern Africa still has nomans today. Nomadic
lifestyles or nomadic tribes exists as side by side with
the beginnings of civilization throughout or the development of civilization

(14:37):
throughout human history. You know, it's an interesting, interesting question
why not more people joined the civilized and adapted civilization.
But it was side by side for very you know, forever,
to some extent still today, there were one hundred gatherers,
but there were also hoodahs and you know, and nomadic,

(15:02):
nomadic people who didn't settle down. And it's impossible really
to create civilization unless you settle down.

Speaker 3 (15:12):
This is why civilization is very much related to urbanization.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
Civilization goes hand in hand with towns and cities. You know,
the size of the cities, the extent of people living
in cities is a measure an indication of civilization and
the growth and the existence of civilization in any particular time,

(15:37):
in any particular period, in any particular place. But think
about the first people that settled on agricultural communities and
the difficulties that that entailed, the knowledge that they had
to accumulate in terms of planting and harvesting and efficient
use of the soil.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
And then getting water from whatever river.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
Gocial societies initially were very close to the rivers, but
getting the water found the river to where you were
planting the irrigation systems, and you go back thousands of
years and what you find in all kinds, all different
parts of the world, complex systems of irrigation, which are
the real, probably first among the real first technological achievements

(16:25):
of man. I mean large scale technological achievements in the
bone and arrows, the technological achievement, all tools of technological achievements.

Speaker 3 (16:32):
But this is on a grand scale.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
You know, getting water to do what you wanted to
do is not easy, not easy. Creating a system of
irrigation is a complex, is a real achievement.

Speaker 3 (16:48):
You know.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
Fluid dynamics that was the one class in civil engineering
that was really really that and strength and materials were
the two most difficult glasses I took. And yet you
know they figured out without the math, they figured out
much of the fluid dynamics to get the water to
where they needed it to go and.

Speaker 3 (17:12):
So that they could irrigate vast areas. I mean, one
of the things that I learned in the book I read.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
I read this book called Lost Enlightenment about the Golden
Age of Islam in Central Asia, is how green Central
Asia was in the pre Islamic era and through the
Islamic area until about I don't know, twelve thirteen hundred

(17:39):
and eighty. And the reason was not a climate change.
It wasn't that there was more rain the are the
temperatures were different or something like that.

Speaker 3 (17:46):
People looked at that and it's not.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
It was green because people had devised these complex irrigation
systems to move water from where the rivers were and
plenty of rivers in that area to where they were
growing stuff. And Afghanistan was this was an amazing flourishing
place during this period. And now it's what we know

(18:12):
it for is a barren desert with no culture, no civilization,
you know, the anti civilization because anti human life. So
in an important sense, right, civilization is pro human life.
It's it's a facilitator of human growth, flourishing at whatever

(18:34):
level the civilization has achieved and civilization is something that
is constantly getting better. It's getting better in making human
life better. And you know when we say with the
civilization is the best, it is. It's the best by
the standard of individual human floishing. It's the best by

(18:56):
the standard of the ability of their individual down this
stand the world around him to thrive materially, to learn
and experience you know, spiritual values, freedom, but the ability

(19:16):
to use his mind in such a wide array of
issues and topics.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
So Western civilization is.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
Has built on all previous ones, but it's all one sequence.
It's all one process.

Speaker 4 (19:35):
You know.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
Counter to this idea that there were there was the
dark Ages and knowledge disappeared from a planet, that's just
not true.

Speaker 3 (19:43):
You know, civilization has just shifted to somewhere else. It
didn't go away. I mean, there was a period where
it was you know in the in the in on
the down and and and had faded, and it certainly
disappeared from the West for a thousand years, but in
no other parts of the world.

Speaker 2 (20:04):
It came back and flourished and out did what it
was before the fall of Rome. And then as it
went away, it started rising in the West. So that's
kind of the this flow of civilization, this this ark
of of this this it's not really an ark, this

(20:27):
progress of civilization. I mean you can think of it
as you know, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and and you can see,
for example, the Greek civilization.

Speaker 3 (20:40):
Greek civilization is the is the in a sense.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
The fountain head of so much of what is what
we consider civilization today. Why because if in Mesopotamia and
in Egypt, while there were there's growing knowledge, this growing
understanding of the world, there is solutions to certain technological problems, irrigation,

(21:04):
for example, the building of large scale, large scale architectural projects.
You see that, the establishment of laws and written language
for the first time in human history.

Speaker 3 (21:17):
The laws might not be ideal, but there's the beginning
of that. And by the way, I'm going.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
To in my discussion here, there are two civilizations I'm
going to be.

Speaker 3 (21:34):
Ignoring because I don't know anything about them. Well, maybe
more than two, but certainly two that are related to
the story we're telling, that interacted with the story we're
telling and therefore probably play an important role that needs
to be better understood. And the two civilizations I'm talking

(21:55):
about in.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
India and China and China. I think people know a
little bit about India. We know almost nothing about at
least I know almost nothing about, other than they did
some amazing stuff during periods in their history, like the
development of algebra. They discovery the Arab what's called the
Arab numerical system, but really is the Indian numerical system.

(22:19):
And the discovery, which is us shattering and from a
mathematics science perspective, changes everything. Is the discovery of the
number zero uh and the the use of the number
zero that is that is uh, you know completely you know,

(22:39):
that is completely striking, it's completely revolutionary.

Speaker 3 (22:47):
Anyway, I'm not going to talk about Indian Chining because
I don't know anything about the Indian chin. They are
kind of parallel civilizations.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
They eb and flow within they they reach a certain
height and they don't break through like the West does.
And that's really the fundamental difference. And we can speculate
why they don't break through like the West breaks through,
but it would be pure speculation because I just don't know,
you know, and I don't know anybody who studied it.

Speaker 3 (23:18):
The West breaks through, and.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
We can see why the West breaks through, and then
maybe look to see if those those those things that
led to West to break through exist in the India
and in the China civilizations, and I think you'll find
that they don't. And that's that's the cause of relationship.
Andrews says, Asian history is hard to evalue it philosophically.

(23:45):
Aristotle didn't infiltrate in my knowledge, but that's not true.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
Right, So Aristotle was huge in Central Asia.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
He completely explains the the Islamic Golden Age in Central
Asia and Islamic Golden Asians primarily in Central Asia. And
you know, I Astoto arguably makes it to India, I
mean partially because the Central Asians were in direct communication
with India, but also direct communication with China. I don't

(24:17):
know of evidence of his presence in China, though it's
hard to believe. I mean, it's hard to believe that
he wasn't because given the communication between the Central Asians
and China.

Speaker 3 (24:27):
But he certainly was in India.

Speaker 2 (24:29):
And of course part of that, part of that we
don't It's hard to tell how much of it. But
part of that is because Alexander, Alexander the Great Right
the Concra conkered all of Central Asia, made it into
the Indus Valley kind of the northern India left a

(24:50):
lot of Greeks throughout that area. Greeks were left there,
including teachers, is all kinds of people who then settled.
Many of them stayed and settled in that area. So
Greek ideas were very much a part of Central Asia.

(25:11):
And then if I suspect India as well. Right, so again,
what is this evolution And we're not gonna we're not
gonna get very far today. Today will be kind of
a an just the intro, and then we'll keep digging
deeper in future.

Speaker 4 (25:29):
Future shows.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
Man's quest to understand the world, to understand himself and
to understand the world, to use his reason to discover
knowledge really that and then to adapt, sorry to adapt
his environment to fit his needs.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
It's to understand the world and.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
To adapt nature, adapt the environment to fit man's needs.
That is the process of civilization. That is the threat.
Through civilization, we you know, manage the river system turning
into you know, water for agriculture, and we start building

(26:15):
cities and we develop agri We develop architecture, architectural abilities
and knowledge in order to be able to live in
a city. You know, you start developing even in the city.
You know, basic source systems, basically ways to bring water
to a population that needs to drink. And then you
have to think about transporting from the fields to the city,

(26:39):
and now you have to think about different mechanisms of transportation.
And again you you know, you create political higher keys, and.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
That's the process.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
But in that that is all driven by a quest
for knowledge and a quest to apply that knowledge to
changing the environment to fit your needs. That's what the
story of humanity is about when it is successful, and you
can see it improve with each successful civilization. Of course,

(27:10):
part of that is using that knowledge and using those
abilities to express yourself in for example, of in art.
So if you think about Mesopotamia, Egypt, or the the
Biblical you know, land of Israel, or you know the Jews,

(27:32):
they are explaining the world, you know, in terms of
in terms of a very primitive approach to science and
technology that gets them by, right, gets them by in
terms of agriculture and so on, but not more than that,
and then beyond that any kind of more abstract questions

(27:55):
why are we here, what's the purpose? What is reality?
How do we know reality? That kind of questions metaphysics
epistemology large in morality and even questions of politics, those
are primarily defaulted to some form of religion, and defaulted

(28:15):
in the sense of religion, it defaults to authority, and
this is why these cultures have very hierarchical uh political structures.
The higherarchy of knowledge. Knowledge comes down from God, through
his prophets, through whoever speaks to him, comes down in books,

(28:38):
it comes down from the priests. That's where knowledge comes from.

Speaker 3 (28:46):
And at least when.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
It comes to the abstract ideas again metaphysics, the philosophical
ideas as we understand him today, can maybe figure out
certain things about the actual physical world and make it
work in its own behalf, but not much more than that,
And of course there's a cap to how much even.

Speaker 3 (29:09):
There they can do. I mean, Greece's great achievements.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
Is that the Greeks start asking these big philosophical questions
and not looking to the gods as an explanation for everything.
Although they still have gods, they now look to discover
the truth about the nature of things, not just how

(29:39):
to manipulate things to get the water to where you
wanted to go, but to try to understand the very
nature of the world around them, and as a consequence,
they develop ideas about philosophy, the nature of reality, the
nature of knowledge, what is good and is bad, and politics.

(30:02):
I mean, think about the achievement of relative economic freedom
at least for a certain portion of the population under
Athens and Athenian democracy, which is I mean, think about
that as compared to the strict hierarchy. And you know
that exists in an Egyptian, of Mesopotamium or any of

(30:25):
these societies where individuals have no voice in their own
governance at all. So Greece is the first civilization. While
entertaining religion starts actually breaking free of it in a

(30:46):
more systematic way, asking the big questions and looking to
human reason to answer them. And most of the answers
are wrong, right, But it's the asking the questions that
get people to start thinking so that we can get
to right answers. And it's the idea that right answers

(31:06):
are possible available and that we must use a proper
method in order to discover them.

Speaker 3 (31:15):
So, you know, Jason Ryan says, wonderful, wonderful lecture on
the Greek Enlightenment at oakonn Wood this year.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
It's still not it's still on twenty twenty six and
twenty twenty five. I don't know if it's up online yet,
but when it does come online on YouTube, you should
definitely watch it if you haven't.

Speaker 3 (31:42):
Seen it already.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
And the only problem with this lecture, and it was
a real problem, is that it's way too short. That is,
he has so much material that it really should be
a series of lectures. It should be a series of
lectures on the Greek Enlightenment. And he talks about the
great achievements in Greece. So it's not an accident that

(32:07):
Greece is where you see these amazing discoveries in science,
in astrology, in sorry, in medicine, in trying to in
understanding the world around us, in mathematics, and of course

(32:30):
with Aristotle, kind of a system to discover knowledge, the
invention of science, the methodology of science. Astronomy, not astrology,
of course, astronomy. It's interesting that in ancient times, and
at least in the and I don't know if this

(32:51):
is true Greece, but at least in the in the
Muslim Golden Age, one of the great motivations the astronomy
us for the purpose of to do astronomy was for
the purpose of astrology.

Speaker 3 (33:06):
They were real.

Speaker 2 (33:06):
Believers in astrology, and in order to in order to
determine what the stars tell you about the fate, your fates,
about what is coming, you need.

Speaker 3 (33:14):
To actually figure out what the stars.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
You know, where they weren't may be able to make
predictions about where they were going. So, you know, astronomy
was done to a large extent for the purpose of astrology.

Speaker 3 (33:29):
But astronomy, yes, I apologize for that confusion.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
So you get science, you know, you get you get
the use of that science now, at least with in architecture,
even get to some extent, the use of the science
for art for aesthetic purposes.

Speaker 4 (33:55):
You know.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
And you can see the progress being made from Egypt
to Greece, the explosion in science, the explosion in philosophy,
the explosion in knowledge, and as a consequence, the cultural
consequence of that is just a massive evolution in terms
of in terms of art.

Speaker 3 (34:15):
And maybe you know.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
The best preserved art that we can actually see and
compare is in sculpture.

Speaker 3 (34:21):
And if you can see Greek sculpture.

Speaker 2 (34:24):
And Egyptian sculpture, you can see how early Greek sculpture
is very much mimicking Egyptian sculpture, and then it starts developing,
it starts being better than Egyptian culture. It starts breaking
through the bromide, the stiffness, the two dimensionality, the repetition,

(34:47):
and the immobility of Egyptian sculpture, and you start seeing
a definitive, idealized you know, Greek sculpture evolving from that.
And then you've got the classical Greek sculpture evolving into
the Hellenistic Greek sculpture, where now there's movement and emotion.
It's almost like the Romantic period of Greek civilization. And

(35:12):
you see that, you see real emotion, you see real passions,
you see real emotions conveyed in marble and in bronze.
And you can take just sculpture and you can see
the arc going from you know, from Egypt through the
Hellenistic period and Greece, and you don't really get that

(35:36):
in sculpture what the hellen Is achieve. You know, you
don't get it again for you know, over fourteen hundred years,
and in a sense of emotional conveyance, maybe as much
as nineteen hundred years, you don't get until the nineteenth century.
But you get it someone you get in the Renaissance,

(35:56):
and someone in the Baroque, and then you get it again.

Speaker 3 (35:57):
In the nineteenth century. That dynamism, that action.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
That but certainly you don't get into Rome other than
copies of what the Greeks did, and you don't get
anything for a thousand years in Christian Europe. So in
many respects, civilization is breaking away from religion.

Speaker 3 (36:20):
It is the slow process, and it's slow, and it
has to be slow. Of relying less on the idea
that knowledge comes to us from.

Speaker 2 (36:33):
A mystical being or beings, and embracing more and more
of the idea that knowledge is available to man. Knowledge
is directly available to man needs to use his reason
to discover that knowledge. And then more and more and
more of the universe comes under you know, the category of.

Speaker 3 (36:54):
Things knowable to man, and then of course the u
of that knowledge to improve man's life in this world.
And you see in history again, in the history of civilization, you.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
See this process go from Sepotamia Egypt, and then of
course Greece is when it takes the big leap forward.

Speaker 3 (37:18):
It changes everything, and you know, Greek.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
Civilization to some extent, it's starting to die already under
the Roman Empire.

Speaker 3 (37:28):
It's not the same. It doesn't have the dynamism, it
doesn't have the originality.

Speaker 4 (37:33):
It is.

Speaker 3 (37:37):
Weighted down by a kind of a cynicism and a
skepticism that is part of Rome.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
And then and then what dominates starts dominating Rome, and
it starts dominating Roman ideology is a return in a sense.

Speaker 3 (37:52):
Backward looking return.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
To religion as explaining things, the sense in which during
the Roman Empire, during Roman civilization, the beginning of the
end of Roman civilization is as the civilization starts looking
more and more to various religions, but predominantly ultimately Christianity.

Speaker 3 (38:19):
As the tool the way to know the world.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
And of course, you know, though kind of geopolitical reasons
why Rome is destroyed. It's not that Christianity destroys it.
But even if Rome is not destroyed by the Barbarians,
sacked by the barbarians, even if it continued, if it
continued along the path that it was going on, science
was dying, Art was dying, Knowledge was dying. What was growing,

(38:56):
What was growing was the role of religion, word of mysticism.
I mean, to a large extent, it can be said
that religion kills the civilization and maybe doesn't kill directly
the Roman Empire. That has to do with a lot
of other stuff. I mean the people who literally sack

(39:19):
Rome Christians, but of course at that.

Speaker 3 (39:20):
Point Rome is also a Christian, just Christians have different sects.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
I mean, the civilization of that period really peaks during
the post of Statilian era Ariston then the post of
Statilian era, but even then it's it's it's dying. Even
in Greece, as you know, Athenian democracy has ended, and
the Macedonian Empire takes over, and you know, Rome then

(39:48):
of course conquers Greece and takes all of that period over.
I mean, science and knowledge continues in Greece and then
later and Alexandria, where you know, livelies are built and
and great scientific projects and philosophical projects are engaged in.

Speaker 3 (40:05):
But it's decaying.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
It's on its way out, and it's on its way
out at the same time as Christianity is gaining strength.
And the reality is that where Christianity comes to dominate,
civilization disappears. From four hundred to fourteen hundred, I mean,

(40:34):
there's some technological advances, but very few.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
The economies in shambles.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
There's no architecture until the twelfth century when you start
getting cathedrals. But it's basically cathedrals. It's the only thing
that can be built and is architecturally successful. There's no science.
There's no science. There's no even astronomical not astrological, astronomical observations.

Speaker 3 (41:02):
None. Christianity kills civilization when Christianity dominates, I mean dominates
where it is everywhere. Now, it hasn't given up on
Greek but it's taken what I would consider the worst
of Greece, the Platonic mystices and the neo Platonic mysticses

(41:26):
of the Greeks. When Christianity dominates, civilization dies.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
And then if you look, you know, when roam falls.
The Byzantine Empire is still around. But does the Byzantine
ever Empire never reaches any dramatic heights of civilization. Yeah,
they build some impressive buildings, and they're still have fantastic libraries,

(41:58):
and they preserve a lot of the not everything, but
a lot of the old Greek knowledge, and they have,
you know, the periods in which the successful in terms
of conquest, and they're quite wealthy. Suddenly in compared to
the Christian Christian West. They are quite wealthy, primarily because

(42:21):
they are connected in ways that the Christian West is not,
to the trading roads all around uh, you know, through
Asia to the Silk Road, and they're connected trade wise,
and they're connected within the Mediterranean. But the Byzantine Empire

(42:42):
is stagnant. The Byzantine Empire is not a dynamic civilization.
It is not improving, it is not getting better, it
is not building. It's primarily a civilization to the extent
that is even civilized, that is preserving, it's preserving the past.
And that's it's great virtue is that preserves, not destroys

(43:02):
the past. Much of the past is destroyed in the
West under Christianity. In the East under Christianity, the past
is at least preserved, but progress is minimal. The next
civilizational boost forward, the next big explosion of knowledge of science,

(43:26):
a philosophy of writing, even of art, and at least
in a sense of poetry.

Speaker 3 (43:33):
And and writing.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
Less so in the in in sculpture and painting, primarily
because of the religion dominated there is comes out of
the Golden Age of Islam, and the Golden Age of
Islam is explicitly by the writings of the people during
that period is a building on Greek civilization. The Golden

(43:59):
Age ISLAMI is very much the translation of Greek wooks
into the dominant in intellectual language of the time, Arabic.
And it's a dominant, the dominant so lost my trade

(44:23):
of thought there. So what you get is a translation
of the works of the Greeks. The one thing they
don't translate many of the plays that are translated, so
the aesthetics is not really translated, but the philosophy is translated.
Aristotle is translated, most of Aristota is translated, and then
you get philosophers all over, particularly the eastern part of

(44:46):
the empire, Central Asia, all the way to Baghdad, which
is in Damascus, linking through there you get real progress.
So whereas the Byzantine Empire is stagnant into sellectually, little
has happening philosophically, scientifically in the Muslim Empire. There's a

(45:07):
certain excitement and thrill. And why it happens there and
not elsewhere that I don't know, but it happens, and
I think it's not accidental that it happens in Central Asia.
Central Asia is this hub of many cultures, multiculturalism, I
mean many cultural influences. It's got the influences of Indian civilization,

(45:29):
the influences of Chinese civilizations, the strong influence of Greece.
And during a period from you know, the eighth century
to the eleventh twelfth centuries, you get a great flourishing civilization.

(45:49):
I mean major astronomical observations, you know, observatories being established
to study the stars. You get major problem in mathematics,
medicine at a period where the Christian West there's zero
going on with medicine, there is zero going on in astronomy,

(46:12):
there is zero going on in science.

Speaker 3 (46:16):
What you see in.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
This area that is being flooded by Greek ideas is
huge developments in all these areas, and for whatever reason,
a willingness of the Islamic authorities at least for a
period of about three hundred years to tolerate this, to

(46:40):
allow it.

Speaker 3 (46:41):
I mean it's diminishing over time.

Speaker 2 (46:43):
They're willing to tolerate it less and less over time,
and ultimately they're not willing to tolerate it at all,
and it all goes away. But for a while there
it's flourishing. I mean, you get writers during this period,
even expressing atheistic ideas in philosophy, you suddenly get advocates

(47:03):
for reason and science as explaining everything in a very
minimal role for a god, if any at all.

Speaker 4 (47:11):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
But you also get a lot of new Platonists, you
get you get just a wide variety of writers. But
the thing that really is being pushed forward is mathematics
and and UH and UH and science particularly, you know,
science more broadly, and then in particular UH medicine, and

(47:34):
ultimately that knowledge that is created by these thinkers and philosophies, philosophers,
these translations of Aristotle and the Greeks and everything. Ultimately,
as the civilization in East Asia dies and Baghdad dies,
and the Mongols destroy the entire place, and it really
never really recovers, but primarily because it becomes dominated by

(47:59):
guess what I mean, if you really look at what
it is that destroys the golden age of Islam, it's
Islam as Central Asia and Iraq become more and more
dominated by Sufi's Sufi's Islamic mystics, by the ideas on

(48:22):
the one hand, Sufi mystics on the other hand, strict
obedience to the Islamic laws as passed on in the
Qur'an and the hadiths, the sayings of Muhammad, and a
strict adherence to Islamic law, to Shariah, and a rejection

(48:42):
of what you know of reason, of rationality, of science,
which is explicit in people like al Ghazali. As Islam
raises to dominate and suppress learning and suppress science and
suppressed reason, civilization dies.

Speaker 3 (49:05):
So Islam kills the Islamic civilization. And it it keeps.

Speaker 2 (49:14):
It keeps going for a little while in Andalusia, in
South Spain, where the libraries are thriving, and we have
the last of the great philosophers and and again UH
historians and UH and and thinkers and UH intellectuals of

(49:34):
of the Islamic world, the last of them in Northern
Africa and in.

Speaker 3 (49:39):
And in southern Spain. And it's you know, it's it's
the it's the fall of Constantinople, which leads a lot
of Christians to flee to the West and bring with
them the books of ancient Greece that the libraries, pieces
of the libraries. And it is the fall of Cordoba,
and you know, Toledo and Cordoba and and and the

(50:03):
South of Spain, and and the the discovery by the
Christians of the libraries. And even before the fall of
those libraries, Christians were traveling to the South of Spain,
even though the southern Spain was ruled by Muslims, and
studying in those libraries, and translating the the the Greeks

(50:23):
from Arabic into Latin, and bringing the books back to Paris,
and and Bologna, and and and.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Uh to to the to the west, and building the
beginnings of a foundation of the rise of what we
call Western civilization. And of course Western civilization pushed the
boundary ultimately even further in you know, during the Renaissance,
they are slowly shrugging off, peeling off religion. They are

(50:56):
slowly marginal marginalizing the role.

Speaker 3 (51:00):
Of religion and expanding the worl for reason, expanding the
worl for the individual, expanding the worle for individual. Discovering knowledge.

Speaker 2 (51:10):
And it first manifests itself in the arts and in philosophy.
Then it manifests itself in physics, in astronomy, and in
other areas in physics, and ultimately what you get is
an explosion of the scientific revolution. With Newton and the
Enlightenment and explosion in philosophy with John Locke and Enlightenment thinkers,

(51:33):
which leads us to the prosperity we have today. But
it's all one civilizing process which touches different geographic areas.
And what's unique about it is that it involves marginalizing religion.
But it's not moduling religion for the sake of marginalizing religion.
It is modulating marginalizing religion to give space for reason.

(52:02):
And as the efficacy of reason is discovered appreciated, so
greater and greater and greater scope is granted to reason,
up to the point of reason can now guide our morality.

(52:22):
Metaphysics right, reality is what it is pistemology. We have
reason to discover the truth and reason can actually discover morality,
which is inman's discovery. But was hinted that during the Enlightenment,
that attempting to do it. During the Enlightenment, they don't
quite get it, but they're trying. They recognize that that's
an important project. It's what's necessary to do, and that's

(52:47):
the civilizing process. It's about the marginalizing of religion and religion.
And here the importance is that religion is fundamentally anti civilization.

Speaker 3 (53:03):
It's anti progress.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
Now, sure you can have religious societies in which there
is progress, because the meaning of religious society is that
people are religious at home, but they're secular everywhere else.

Speaker 3 (53:18):
They're using reason everywhere else.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
But the more religion is dominant in terms of its epistemology,
in metaphysics, in the culture, the less knowledge there is
the progress there is, the less civilization there is. And
the more religion is dominant in morality, in ethics, the

(53:47):
less freedom there is, and therefore the less prosperity there is.
So the whole project of civilization is in some sense.

Speaker 3 (54:01):
Getting away from religion, and the more we bring it in,
the more we lose that thing that is what makes
us civilized.

Speaker 2 (54:18):
So civilization religion are two opposing forces. I would say
that religion is an anti civilization of forts.

Speaker 3 (54:26):
It's a reactionary force. There's no It's not an accident
that people like Michael Knowles want us to go back
to twelve twenty.

Speaker 2 (54:35):
They want to go backwards to an uncivilized period. Twelve
twenty is not civilized. It's by every measure of civilization.
The only thing you can say that was being built
that had any significance were cathedrals, and they don't actually
have any significance for human life. The old point of

(54:56):
building cathedrals to make you look small, to make human
beaks feel small. Even cathedrals in a sense of anti
civilization of forces, because they're trying to elevate religion and
a god above you. The civilizing process is a secularizing process.

(55:18):
It is a process towards reason, towards individualism, towards ultimately capitalism.

Speaker 3 (55:29):
And human flowishing.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
All right, we're gonna call it there because I've already
gone a long and I've still got the move the
song reviews to do.

Speaker 3 (55:38):
And we'll do those. We'll do those now, but to
be continued. So there's a lot to say about this.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
There's a lot to say about every single aspect of this.
I see John is at his insulting stupidity again as usual.
And you know, civilization and the civilizing forces a fundamentally secular,

(56:10):
even if they have compartments, they're places in their minds
in the culture that are religious. It's the religion dragging
you down, it's the secular dragging you up. And we're
all we've never had a purely secular civilization. So we're
constantly being pushed down, pulled up, pushed down, pulled up.

(56:31):
Even in Greece you had religion. Even Greeks were challenged
by the fact that they believed in the gods, and
to the extent that they believed in the gods, that
was a force pulling them away from civilization.

Speaker 3 (56:49):
All right, let's do this. I'm gonna answer the questions
that relate directly to this now. And by the way, we're.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
Reaching the end of the first hour and we haven't
made it to our target for the first hour, which
is two fifty, so we're forty nine dollars short. With
the last day of the month, I have a monthly target.
We really need to make our targets today, and we're
going to go beyond two hours today. So hopefully there's

(57:31):
some people out there who are incentivized motivated by the
values they're receiving, assuming they're receiving any values. You know,
John obviously isn't because he thinks I'm stupid to.

Speaker 3 (57:48):
Trade with me value for value.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
We need to get to some of these targets to
get out monthly targets. All right, let's so let me
just review the questions and see to see which ones
are directly related. Okay, Andrews says, how would you respond

(58:11):
to a conservative who acknowledges that reason is crucial for
man's mind but claims that faith is necessary for man's spirit. Yeah,
I mean, look, Christians say that today. They didn't say
that a thousand years ago, but they say that today
because a thousand years ago they would not acknowledge reason

(58:32):
is crucial for man's mind. That's why they were so
poor and so, you know, completely uncivilized at the time.
Why there was no science, there was no progress, there
was no there was no architectural progress, there was no

(58:54):
technological progress, there was nothing.

Speaker 3 (58:56):
There was stagnation because they.

Speaker 2 (59:01):
Enveloped reason and they rejected reason completely, whether explicitly or implicitly.
So now, given the success of science and given the
successive reason, uh, they have embraced reason in part of
life up to a point, not too much, as long
as we can manage it and as long as that

(59:22):
is intrude.

Speaker 3 (59:23):
Or now dogma. Uh.

Speaker 2 (59:25):
And now it's supposedly just good for your spiritual What
they mean by spiritual is that it's good for your
it's good for morality, right, it's important for morality, and
it's it's important for achieving meaning and so.

Speaker 3 (59:40):
On and again.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
This is this is primitivism, This is uh, the anti civilizing.

Speaker 3 (59:46):
This is a rejection our philosophy.

Speaker 2 (59:49):
And you know, religion as a it's a primitive philosophy.
We you know, all the claims of religion has made
in terms of morality and in terms of spirituality have
been you know, rebuted by philosophers for hundreds of years now.
Religion has no claim over every any aspect of our lives.

(01:00:12):
It does no claim that cannot be you know, made
by reason. It doesn't have any exclusivity over any realm,
in any realm which makes a claim well by what standard?

Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
How do we know this?

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
And it's always a religious claim, which means a claim
unngrounded in reality and therefore easy to reject. Morality can
be established on reason, as Ironmanders shown, what realm of
spirituality requires belief in some omnipotent omniscients whatever, being on

(01:00:55):
a on a book written thousands of years ago that
claims to have knowledge about and turns out to be
wrong and pretty much everything and his self contradictory. So
it's just a false dichotomy. It's a mind body split
that doesn't exist. Mind and body are integrated. It is,

(01:01:19):
you know, there's no positive argument. I mean, you'd have
to make an argument of why only religion can explain spirituality.
I mean, meaning comes from your own values and your
own goal in life, and the primary meaning of life
is to live again. Morality can be induced from you know,

(01:01:40):
man's life and the requirements of man's life.

Speaker 3 (01:01:44):
What wrong? You know?

Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
Aesthetics arts is incredibly spiritual, but can be understood by
understanding man's nature, his conceptual nature, his need for the
concretization of his abstract ideas, and the nature of art.
So have you one of the so called spiritual or
mystical or beyond reason claims religion makes you can actually

(01:02:07):
ground in an understanding of reality and understanding of the
nature of man, in other words, in reason.

Speaker 3 (01:02:15):
Uh, the dumb.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
Chasbat says, Rebel number one, what have Romans ever given us?
Rebel number two? The aqueduct Life of Brian. Yeah, the
aqueduct is pretty cool. It's pretty amazing technology. For the time,
I mean, for a thousand years there was none of it.
It disappeared, the ability, that ability to move water. Somebody

(01:02:42):
says that ran Book is not a religious person. No,
I am an atheist, always been a pretty much, always
been an atheist since the age of six. So no,
I reject religion completely. Uh them, Okay, we'll do that later.
That is getting married, today's academic climate.

Speaker 3 (01:03:05):
Kids education, visiting Italy.

Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
I'm looking for questions related to this topic, anti Semitism.
All right, that smoke could collapse something else? Something else?
Is it actually a good thing? Millennials are getting married?

(01:03:31):
Something else? One second? Oh yeah, here's a John says,
if Christianity ended the Roman Empire, why did the Eastern
Empire last until fourteen fifty three, which was more religion
religious in the West. You're making stuff up, as I said,

(01:03:54):
I did not say Christianity ended the Roman Empire. I
was careful not to say that it was a contributing factor.
There's no question about that. And I said it was
actually sacked by other Christians. Christians sacked Christians. And I said, they, John,
you just don't listen, you you you. I said that,
you know, geopolitics ultimately determined the sack of Rome. The

(01:04:18):
fact that it couldn't uphold, it couldn't defend its borders.
The fact that you know, these Germanic tribes were being
pushed west, these Geomantic tribes that were convoting the Christianity,
the Barbarians war christian Uh. So Christianity contributed. It contributed
to stagnation in Rome. It contributed to stagnation in the West,

(01:04:41):
and in the East. It contributed to uh, you know,
the Byzantine Empire stagnation.

Speaker 4 (01:04:47):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:04:47):
And the business empires.

Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
In lack of capabilities to actually grow and flourish and
be successful. It expanded and trunk and expanded a trunk,
all based on military successes here and there. And it
maintained its wealth primarily because it was directly connected to
the Silk Road and didn't suffer from the kind of fragmentation.

(01:05:13):
It got lucky because you know, the Barbaric tribes were
much more focused on moving west than they were coming south.
And because of geography, because it was much easier to
defend Constantinople than it was to defend Rome.

Speaker 3 (01:05:30):
For a variety of reasons.

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
So the variety of historical geopolitical reasons why the Byzantine
Empire continued, but it continued as a Christian empire, and
therefore it wasn't successful, and I wouldn't call it a civilization.

Speaker 3 (01:05:44):
It wasn't.

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
Again, it was a stagnant place. It was not a
place of development. It didn't achieve a Renaissance or Enlightenment
or anything.

Speaker 3 (01:05:53):
Really.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
Science pretty much stagnated there. It flourished in the Muslim world,
it didn't flourish in the in Constantinople. It didn't flows
in the Byzantine Empire.

Speaker 3 (01:06:07):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
You know, art declined in If you compare Greek declines
into Roman, Roman is basically copying Greece, and for Rome.

Speaker 3 (01:06:21):
Rome sculpture and art declines.

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
When it comes to the Byzantines. You just don't get
a thriving I don't know Alexandria once. Once the Roman
Empire falls and Byzantine is is uh survives. So yeah,
Christianity and of its off itself continues in the form

(01:06:47):
of an empire in Byzantine, but not in the form
of a civilization. Not if civilization means growth, improvement, more
increasing knowledge, increase and understanding of the world around us,
it decays, it stagnants. That is the essence of the
Byzantine Empire. There's very little that happens. Uh and uh again,

(01:07:10):
it's only picked up that growth of civilization is only
picked up in the in the Islami Golden Age, and
that dies once Islam becomes dominant. And then it has
you know, there's still attempts at new knowledge here and there,
like under the Ottoman Empire they build an observatory and
then and then, you know, the religious authorities decide that
that is no good and it's inconsistent with Islam, and

(01:07:32):
they tear it down. So Islam kills civilization just in
the same way the Christianity kills civilization. It's a destroyer
of the civilized. And then John has a second obnoxious question.
Let's see, Newton and Locke were Christians. Are you stupid?

Speaker 3 (01:07:53):
Yeah, I know there were. I know they were Christians.

Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
I mean, I know it will shock you, John, but
actually know that they were Christians. But their achievements are
not Christian. Their achievements are anti Christian. I mean, but
you know, Newton, what he discovers, he's not discovering out
of the Old Testament or the New Testament. What he discovers,

(01:08:16):
you know, is new knowledge based on reason, not on revelation,
based on observation and math and induction and a scientific method,
not based on revelation. So Newton and Locke are incredibly compartmentalized.

(01:08:36):
They can hold religion in one compartment and they can
do the other work in a different compartment. But to
the extent that the compartment that held religion in it
grew to try to explain, to use those that knowledge
the religious knowledge to try to explain the physical world,

(01:08:57):
Newton could have never done what he did.

Speaker 3 (01:09:00):
Extent that Locke would have allowed religious knowledge to extend
into the ideas, the political ideas he had, he could
have never developed them.

Speaker 2 (01:09:10):
There's no individual rights in the New Testament. There's no
political liberty in the New Testament. There's no religious tolerance
in the history of Christianity in need.

Speaker 3 (01:09:27):
I mean, Locke is writing just after the horrific blood
bath of the City or War, where Protestants and Catholics
are slaughtering each other. So the idea that Locke and
Newton au Christian and that's what allows them to achieve
their achievements is ignorant. What do you call it? Stupid?

Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
It is stupid, John, So, yes, they hold on to that,
you know, it holds them back. Newton could achieve so
much more if you'd be willing to challenge that belief philosophically,
But they also live in a time where almost nobody's
challenging that belief. It's really hard to challenge that belief.

(01:10:15):
You get really persecuted if you challenge that belief.

Speaker 3 (01:10:17):
As it is, Newton held ideas about Christianity that were
very unconventional, like I think you rejected at Trinity and
kept those ideas to himself.

Speaker 4 (01:10:34):
So yeah, let's see.

Speaker 2 (01:10:44):
And can it become arbitrary to decide in advance that
any good must come from secular site and any bad
must be religious size? Well yeah, if you just decide
that out of the blue. But if you look at
what brings about the good right, what process led us

(01:11:05):
to discover the laws of physics, the application of reason
to moving bodies, to the system, the stars above us,
scientific observation, induction, the scientific method, all things that are secular.

(01:11:27):
You know, if you if you look at if you
look at if you look at art, what led during
the Renaissance to the identification of perspective and getting perspective rights.
I'm sorry, wonder Freeman, it's not imagination. Imagination is good

(01:11:48):
for writing science fiction novels. But what leads to great
scientific discoveries. Is induction. Is is genius and induction, it's observation,
it's seeing the world and inducing from it. Induction is
the fundamental way in which we know the world. And
I know that is a source of disagreement, but that

(01:12:11):
is reality. I just don't understand people, you know, not
getting that. If you if you see a child and
how a child learns, you can see him inducing.

Speaker 3 (01:12:20):
You can see him inducing.

Speaker 2 (01:12:22):
He doesn't have imagination, he's not testing out theories. He's
seeing things in the world and he's saying, Okay, let's
see if that happens again, and let's se if that
happens again, and then inducing. A principle from that. Children,
everything they learn they learn through a process of you know, observation, experimentation,
and induction. They you know, the simplest concept derived from that.

Speaker 3 (01:12:55):
So if you look at a perspective, how did they
come about perspective? Why was perspective introduced into art during
the Renaissance and before not in the age of Christianity
when Christianity dominated as spheres of life, Because that's the
point in which we're looking at reality. We're trying to
understand reality we're developing mathematics, we're studying geometry. We're using

(01:13:21):
reason to understand the world.

Speaker 2 (01:13:24):
And perspective is a consequence of using reason to look
at spatial reality and using geometry to figure out how
it all lays out. So everything that is good is

(01:13:47):
a consequence of the use of reason, of the use
of observation, of the use of scientific method and induction.
In any realm, if you look at economic if you
look at political liberty, political liberty comes from the recognition,
not of religious commandment, better recognition of the sanctity of

(01:14:08):
the individual human being, of the value the worth of
an individual human being. And what kind of society makes
it possible for the individual human being to thrive and
to live and to live well. A society which extracts
force from it, which does not allow people to deal
with one another through violence.

Speaker 3 (01:14:29):
You see that in lack.

Speaker 2 (01:14:31):
Arguments derived by reason from observations. In reality, you start
with observation and you reason from that.

Speaker 3 (01:14:41):
That's so all the good comes from that and bad.

Speaker 2 (01:14:48):
You know, violence, dogma, blind obedience, all come from religion.
All come from religion, and they come from religion which
negates reason. They cripple your mind they make. They tell

(01:15:11):
you don't use reason in this realm. You can use
it over there, but don't use it in this realm.
And any realm where you don't lose reason is a
realm of decay, stagnation, you know, retrograde, going backwards, and
ultimately destruction. So you can say, not arbitrary, but you

(01:15:38):
can say based on the facts that one one process,
a process based on reason, leads the progress, and one process,
a posts is based on.

Speaker 3 (01:15:45):
Faith, leads to you know, decay.

Speaker 2 (01:15:52):
All right, Uh, Carl Meisenbe says, I think you're going
too easy on religion. It cripples the minds of with
horrible philosophy. Yeah, I mean, look, this is not I'm
not trying to talk about all the evils of religion.
I'm trying to put it in the context of civilization
and the idea of civilization, of religion being a drag

(01:16:13):
on civilization, of religion being a counterweight.

Speaker 3 (01:16:17):
To civilization, a counter force the civilization. And the more
you take religion seriously, the less civilized you become.

Speaker 2 (01:16:26):
And you see that in the Muslim world, you see
that in the Christian world. You will see that in
any world, in any world, you will see that whenever
religion rises, civilization decays. And I don't know of any
example in history. So I'm not talking about all the
different ways in which religion cripples the mind. That would

(01:16:47):
be a different lecture.

Speaker 3 (01:16:48):
A different show, a different program. All right, real spark.

Speaker 2 (01:16:56):
The world advances with Western civilization is despite the slave trade.

Speaker 3 (01:17:00):
But do you see any good things come came out
of Eastern civilization, African civilization, indigenous civilization. Very little that
I know of came out of indigenous civilizations or African civilization.
Although if you considered Egypt African civilization, then for its
time and place, it moved the needle forward, it moved us.

(01:17:27):
I don't know if you get Greece without Egypt.

Speaker 2 (01:17:30):
Right, These civilizations are not discrete, they don't stand on
their own. They're constantly communicating with one another, they constantly engaged.
So yes, certainly Egypt, to the extent it's a African civilization,
had a huge impact on Greek civilization, which had a.

Speaker 3 (01:17:53):
Huge impact on Western civilization.

Speaker 2 (01:17:55):
Western civilization does not arise out of nothing, It's not
out of a void. And then if you say East civilization,
and absolutely I mean God, I mean the concept of
the number of the number zero, the whole numerical system
we used. It comes out of Eastern civilization in India
in this case, you know, the printing press, which is

(01:18:17):
so so so crucial to the Renaissance and to the Enlightenment,
to the spreading of ideas and to the expansion of
civilization starting in the fifteenth century, you know, and onward.
That's invented in China. Gunpowder is invented in China, so
it comes from China. So much came from China in

(01:18:39):
terms of in terms of the material that wasn't used
by the West to build on. So Chinese civilization definitely added.
Indian civilization definitely added, Egyptian civilization definitely added. It's a
cumulative effect. Western civilization doesn't come out of nowhere. It
comes from knowledge passed to it from the past. And

(01:19:05):
Greece doesn't come out of nowhere. Greece exists because of
knowledge that it gains from Africa, i e. Egypt, Mesopotamia,
even India or Central Asia that that flows.

Speaker 3 (01:19:20):
I mean, people were trading and therefore interacting and therefore
engaging in a in a in an exchange of ideas
pretty much since the beginning of time, Paul Right Thomas
Aquinas separated them into reason, reason in the Divine, which

(01:19:41):
had a profound effect on the developer of humanism. Yes,
I mean, uh, Aquinas at least separates realms, which is
the divine and which is the which is the reason
that the one left for reason?

Speaker 4 (01:19:55):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (01:19:56):
But and to the extent and.

Speaker 2 (01:20:01):
Ultimately it quite as as wrong because there's only one realm,
and that is the realm of reason.

Speaker 3 (01:20:05):
There's no realm of divine.

Speaker 2 (01:20:07):
But in those areas where you have where he identifies
reason as the guide, that's where you get development. That's
where you get progress, and everything else is silted in
the realm that's supposed to be the divine, and we
keep chupping away at that, and that's where you get.

Speaker 3 (01:20:24):
Expansive and increase. Let's see, Nick.

Speaker 2 (01:20:36):
Says I recently came across the claim that the Medievals
viewed the Bible more figurately than literally. Thoughts you know,
they were, they were thinkers throughout the thought of the
Bible more figuratively. But that was a constant conversation within
the Catholic Church, is how to address the Bible and
to what extent was it literal? And to what extent

(01:20:58):
was it figurative? And that that is a conversation which
you constantly have. But the people who are for the
literal one when that debate at least until kind of
the Renaissance, until late for for a long time, you know,
thinkers who thought it was just figurative were persecuted by

(01:21:19):
the church, by.

Speaker 3 (01:21:21):
The authorities of the church.

Speaker 2 (01:21:23):
But yeah, I mean, that's a conversation that always happens,
happens within Judaism, happens within Christianity. It doesn't solve the
problem even if it's figurative, figurative towards what what?

Speaker 3 (01:21:33):
What is the truth?

Speaker 2 (01:21:35):
That it's still conveying truth, maybe not literal truth, but
still conveying truth. Is the truth in the books because
they were written by God or by somebody inspired by God? John,
do you agree with objectivists who say iron Man was
morally perfect?

Speaker 3 (01:21:55):
Isn't that semi religious? What were her flaws? I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:22:02):
I mean, I don't think she I don't know. I
didn't know her. I didn't know her personally. I don't
find that interesting at all. She's not a god, she
shouldn't be treated like a god. But on the other hand,
she you know, was our teacher and was a great
philosopher and a great thinker. And I think, based on

(01:22:24):
everything that I know about her life, that she lived
to the best of her ability, the light the life
based on a philosophy. She practiced what she preached and
she lived it. And I think she lived a successful,
happy life. I don't know what morally perfect means. Did
she never evade ever, ever, on any issue ever?

Speaker 3 (01:22:46):
You know, I don't know. I wasn't there she was,
but she was amazing. She was an amazing human being.

Speaker 2 (01:22:52):
I mean this idea of you know, you should strive
for your own mal perfection. Stop trying to judge other people.
You know, you don't know if they're all the perfect.

Speaker 3 (01:23:01):
You don't know when and what they evade, and where
they evade and how they evade. So you know, it's
it's hard enough.

Speaker 2 (01:23:08):
To figure out and to strive for your own to
value it yourself, all right, Linda says, based on this show,
you're going to love Quincodere's adultry novels on your shelf. Yes,
they are on my shelf. I saw them on my

(01:23:29):
shelf the other day. They're right there, not on this shelf.
They're In the Bookshelf over There, where the fiction is,
Andrews says, paraphrasing, rand, you don't adopt atheism because of
a lack of a god, but because you accept reason
is an absolute This is is this valid correlation. One

(01:23:50):
doesn't get to atheism by being a cynic, but by
being a scientist.

Speaker 3 (01:23:54):
Well, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:23:55):
I mean, look, I don't think that's a that's a
real thatomy, right, I became an atheist at the age
of six. It would be ridiculous to say I was
a scientist at the age of six. It would even
be ridiculous to say that I somehow explicitly accepted reason
at the age of six.

Speaker 3 (01:24:16):
I found.

Speaker 2 (01:24:18):
The story of religion ridiculous. I thought it was silly.
It didn't make any sense to me, so I abandoned it.

Speaker 3 (01:24:26):
It wasn't that I had a rigorous methodology of reason
that I was judging it by. So you know, the
thing is that.

Speaker 2 (01:24:36):
People were telling me this is the way things are,
and I looked at it and I said, that doesn't
make any sense to me. I don't get it, and
I just walked away from it. It wasn't even a deliberate,
thought out decision. It was just a rejection of fantasy
for being fantasy. So I didn't experience discovering re and

(01:25:00):
then using reason to figure, oh, well, there's no it's
that there's a sension, which my motus at Paranda was
reality oriented.

Speaker 3 (01:25:10):
And if your reality oriented, then you never you know,
you never really.

Speaker 2 (01:25:19):
Attracted by something that is, uh, you know, by definition,
detached from reality.

Speaker 3 (01:25:30):
All right, let's let's do these. Let's do these.

Speaker 4 (01:25:44):
What what is this? All right?

Speaker 3 (01:25:53):
Um, let's do these music reviews. So you know I'm
way behind on these. I promised them a long time ago.

Speaker 2 (01:26:04):
So let's go through them and let me give you
all the caveats that I do about these.

Speaker 3 (01:26:10):
Right, you guys paid me to do these. But the
reality is that I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:26:18):
Really anything about popular music, I mean, other than what
I like and so what I tell you and I know,
and I'm not a musicologist, so I can't in detail
break down a piece of music and tell you what
it is about it that I like or don't like,
or what it is about it that I think is
good or not good. I can give you my impressions.

(01:26:41):
So this is my personal opinion. This is not objectivism.
This is not the objectivist position on any of these
God forbid, right, this is Iran's reaction to these songs
and sometimes today lyrics to the extent that the lyrics
are meaning. And you know it's basically it's basically it.

(01:27:04):
So you know, don't don't attribute to me some you know,
some depth here. There's no depth. This is just for fun.
This is just entertainment. And you know, as long as
you pay me to do this, I'll do it. But it's, uh,
it's of some value, I guess for you guys, if

(01:27:26):
you're interested in what I think about things. All right,
we will start the first song that I was asked her.
If you're not, I can't play you the music. Unfortunately,
because I can't play you the music because of copyright issues.

Speaker 3 (01:27:42):
YouTube freaks out if I play other.

Speaker 2 (01:27:45):
People's songs on my show, So I can't play you,
but you can go listen to them if you want.

Speaker 3 (01:27:51):
But the first the first.

Speaker 2 (01:27:52):
Song is won by Metallica, and I think this was
shaw'sbot who who asked me to review this a long
time ago. One by Metallica. Oh let me do this.
I do have the lyrics for all the songs available here,
so you see you can you can see you can

(01:28:13):
see the lyrics will squall down them a little bit.
But this is obviously it's Metallica, so it's it's it's
heavy metal.

Speaker 3 (01:28:20):
This is a real you know, it's an anti war
movie movie. It's an anti war song. It is based on.

Speaker 2 (01:28:33):
You know, in a what's it based on a play
or a book, on a novel? I guess Johnny got
Is Johnny got Is Done Gone by Adulton Trombo. It's
about a horrific case of somebody going to war, losing
his limbs and losing his face, and then what's the
point of being alive. It's an angry song. I mean,

(01:28:56):
this is true of most of the Metallica's music, right,
They're angry, the rebellious, they're rising up against. It is
a song you know that is anti war and you know, look,
you know we're talking about this is the voice of
this guy who's just had his whole body blown to smithereens.

(01:29:17):
And to that extent, yeah, I mean, there's a lion
that says nothing is real but pain. Yeah, I get
that all he has is pain and it can't be stopped,
and all he wants is to die.

Speaker 3 (01:29:28):
I mean hold my breath as I wish for death.

Speaker 2 (01:29:32):
Oh please God, wake me, And by waking he means
kill me, you know, put me into this other world.

Speaker 3 (01:29:42):
Back in the room. It's much too real in Pump's
life that I must feel but can't look forward to reveal.
Look to the time when I'll live.

Speaker 2 (01:29:53):
Fed through the tube that sticks in me just like
a wartime novelty tight machines that make me be cut
this life off from me. I mean super depressing, uh,
super angry. I mean I can't say I enjoy a
song like this.

Speaker 3 (01:30:13):
I get it.

Speaker 2 (01:30:14):
I get the anger, I get the frustration, I get
the wishing to kind of make it an anti war.

Speaker 3 (01:30:22):
This is this is what war does to people.

Speaker 2 (01:30:24):
But all these war anti war songs, they never what's
the alternative? You know, what causes war? Where does what
come from? There's never any of that. There's just yelling
and screaming and and and and the the the existential
angst that comes from this nine. In terms of the music,
the melody is pretty simple. It's driven by a beat

(01:30:47):
like most rock and rock music and suddenly heavy metal.

Speaker 3 (01:30:52):
The voice is angry.

Speaker 2 (01:30:53):
So so the singer is definitely conveying the emotion of
the song, and they do that well. They are pretty
instrumentals throughout. So there's quite a few instrumentals that are
that have a melody and are quite pretty. But there's
a there's a voice over constantly from from the movie uh,

(01:31:15):
based on on the novel.

Speaker 3 (01:31:17):
And and and that is always distracting.

Speaker 2 (01:31:19):
So anything pretty, anything you know, that that leads you
to a positive emotion, is constantly crushed by this voice over,
by this reality of this horror that the song is conveying.

Speaker 3 (01:31:34):
So does it convey the horror? Well? Does it convey
the horrow? Well?

Speaker 2 (01:31:41):
Yeah, so in that sense it conveys horror. Well, it's
not the kind of music I want to listen to,
And it's not. It doesn't have any complexity.

Speaker 3 (01:31:53):
That's the other thing. It's angry, it's it.

Speaker 2 (01:31:56):
It conveys horror, but there's no complexity, there's no subtlety, there's.

Speaker 3 (01:32:04):
No varying emotion. There's one emotion throughout, anger.

Speaker 2 (01:32:10):
Even again, even when there's an attempt to something else,
it gets it gets crowded out by this.

Speaker 3 (01:32:18):
Sound overlay that's played over it. That that makes it
go away.

Speaker 2 (01:32:21):
So yeah, I'm not I'm not a particular fan of Metallica.

Speaker 4 (01:32:29):
For among those reasons.

Speaker 3 (01:32:31):
Okay, we get another second song, also by About is
also a Oops is also a anti war song, but
this is from a completely different perspective.

Speaker 2 (01:32:42):
This anti war song is more political. This is an
anti war song from Black Sabbath. This is war Pigs,
and this is a song against the generals and the
politicians and the culture that sends men to to die
and and blow subs up, and they benefit from from
the they.

Speaker 3 (01:33:03):
Make money off of it.

Speaker 2 (01:33:06):
You know, this is this is more about politics. This
is more about This is more from the hippies perspective.
An anti war song from the sung by hippies who
have no clue about war and don't know anything about
war other than what they read about in the newspaper.
You know, generals gathered in their masses just like witches
at black masters, evil minds, the plot destruction, sorcerer, death's

(01:33:29):
construction in the fields, the body's burning as the war
machine keeps turning death and hatred to mankind, poisoning their
brainwashed minds. Oh lord, yeah, now I get it, you know,
the anti anti war theme. I'm all for anti war,
but there has to be more than that and again

(01:33:49):
what dominates this is anger.

Speaker 3 (01:33:51):
Anger. It's dark, there's no outs, there's no solution. It's
very powerful.

Speaker 2 (01:33:58):
The music is power for the use of the electric guitar,
the drums. It's very drum heavy, so there's a lot
of power. There's a lot of drama. Again, it's the
music fulfills the content of the song.

Speaker 3 (01:34:12):
That is.

Speaker 2 (01:34:12):
It's anti, it's you know, crushing, it's defeating, it's angry, it's.

Speaker 4 (01:34:20):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:34:20):
Politicians hide themselves away. They only they only started the war,
they should Why should they go out to fight?

Speaker 3 (01:34:28):
They leave that to the poor.

Speaker 2 (01:34:30):
Yeah, time will tell on their power minds, making war
just for fun, treating people just like pawns and chests.
Wait till their judgment day comes? Yeah, ware does the
judgment day come from? I guess God. No, nobody knows.
Right now in darkness. Now, in darkness, world stops turning
ashes where their body is burning. No more war pigs

(01:34:52):
have the power. Hand of God has struck the hour
they have judgment. God is calling on their knees. The
war pigs crawling, begging mercies for their sins.

Speaker 3 (01:35:02):
Satan laughing, spreading his wings. Oh Lord.

Speaker 2 (01:35:04):
Yeah, So no solutions nothing out of it. You know,
there war pigs are crushed. But you know, so what, Yeah,
you get the power, you get the anger. I mean,
this is an era of hard rock and metallic rock
and all of that that is very angry and and
and and and very upset at the world and and

(01:35:26):
lots of social commentary.

Speaker 3 (01:35:28):
Uh and.

Speaker 2 (01:35:30):
You know, uh this is black sabotage thinking the British
band the fear of getting dragged into the war, and
and and now wanting to go to Vietnam. So this
is an anti Vietnam war. Uh So, there's no there's
no beauty here, there's no alternative, there's no esthetically pleasing elements. Yeah,
there's there's a there's a melody there somewhere. Yes, there's

(01:35:54):
some great rifts in the final sequence, which is quite long, uh,
I think five minutes, but it's quite pretty. But in
the end, again it's it's it's kids who are angry.
They don't understand, they're ignorant and and they're just yelling
into a microphone in great frustration about the world in

(01:36:18):
which they live with no solutions and can see no beauty,
can see no positives in the world around them. Uh
So I mean and and and the words are okay,
but there's no there's no great sophistication in either the
previous lyrics or these lyrics.

Speaker 3 (01:36:38):
They're straightforward.

Speaker 2 (01:36:40):
Hate the man, hate pigs, hate the cops, hate hate war,
hate the politicians, hate the generals. All right, get it
we get it right. I live through this period. This
is my music, if you will. This is the this
is the seventies, this is when all this music was written.
This is this is what I lived through.

Speaker 4 (01:36:58):
All right.

Speaker 3 (01:36:59):
Now we're going to something completely different, and I mean
completely different. This is John.

Speaker 2 (01:37:06):
This is from John, and this is this is Taylor Swift.
And this is shake It Off. Shake It Off, which
is a huge hit. I don't know, sold five point
four million copies just in the first five years it
was out. This is twenty fourteen.

Speaker 3 (01:37:23):
Just huge.

Speaker 2 (01:37:24):
Taylor Swift, of course is huge. And I'm sorry, but
this is this is I don't know, this is nothing.
There's nothing here. This is John Glue.

Speaker 4 (01:37:35):
John.

Speaker 2 (01:37:36):
I'm not sure I'm pronouncing his name right, but he
put a lot of money into these songs. And I
feel horribly that I haven't given these reviews because it's
probably a year ago.

Speaker 3 (01:37:45):
It's at least a year since he did this. There
is there's just nothing in this song. It's upbeat, it's
super rhythmicle, it's bom boom, boom boom. There's a simple beat.
I find it super boring. I can't. I can't listen.

(01:38:06):
I mean I listened to the whole thing twice. I
can't really. I watched the video. Video is boring. I
get what's going on here, you know, shrug off your
your small problems.

Speaker 2 (01:38:19):
Come and come and party with me. Let's party. Don't
don't take life too seriously. Let's party. Let's let's have
a good time.

Speaker 3 (01:38:26):
Let's play. Play, play, play play. That's the lyrics, right,
I stay out too late? What is it? Got nothing?
Got nothing in my brain, that's true, Got nothing in
my brain. That's what people say. M M, that's what
people say. I got too many dates, haha, But I
can't make them stay at least that's what people say.

(01:38:46):
M That's what people say. But I keep cruising. That is,
she doesn't care about what people say. Can't stop, can't
stop moving.

Speaker 2 (01:38:53):
It's like I got this music in my mind saying
I'm gonna be all right.

Speaker 3 (01:38:58):
But this is candy.

Speaker 2 (01:38:59):
It's it's like eating a little bit of sugar. And
it's just there's no emotional depth here. There's nothing interesting
about this. And musically, I I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:39:12):
If there was a music colleget on maybe I could
ask him. But there's just.

Speaker 2 (01:39:18):
Nothing musically of any value here other than uplifting in
a beat to dance to, you know, to shake, shake
your booty too.

Speaker 3 (01:39:28):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:39:29):
Boom boom boom. That's that's it, right, because the players
got to play, play play play.

Speaker 3 (01:39:34):
I mean, even even the lyrics are silly. They're just
not interesting. So I just, I mean, I just don't
get it. I don't get the peel. I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:39:47):
But this is true of everything. You know, if I
open the radio today and listen to songs, I just
find musically they just have nothing. It's just shallow, shallow musicality,
all musicality.

Speaker 3 (01:40:03):
So I didn't like it. I found it boring. It
was a I found this one boring, all right. Another
Taylor Swift song. Whoops, I don't want that.

Speaker 2 (01:40:19):
This one's called the Man. Now, this one, at least
there is a little bit more interesting. This is kind
of a feminist song. It's a song about if I
did all the things that I do. You know, if
I was a man, how would they be perceived that? Yeah,
what could I get away with that I can't get away.

Speaker 3 (01:40:37):
With as a woman.

Speaker 2 (01:40:39):
If I was a man, so it has a little
bit b you know, more, I would be complex.

Speaker 3 (01:40:44):
I would be cool.

Speaker 2 (01:40:45):
They'd say I played the field before I found someone
to commit to.

Speaker 3 (01:40:49):
And they and that would be okay for me to do.

Speaker 2 (01:40:52):
Right as a woman, it's not okay for her to
do to play the field, but as a man, it
would be okay for her to do every congress I made.
Would make more of a boss to you. I'd be
a feared leader. I'd be an alpha type when everyone
believes you. That's what's that like. I'm so sick of
running as fast as I can, wondering if I'd get

(01:41:14):
there quicker if I was a man. Right, so this
is kind of the thing, you know, would I advance more?
Would I progress more? Would I achieve more? If I
was a man.

Speaker 3 (01:41:23):
I think a lot of women think this who are
pursuing careers, and I'm so sick of them coming at
me again. Because if I was a man, then I'd
be the man. I'd be the man. I'd be the man.
You know, think about her, You know how much she
was a tack for supposed you of permsecurity.

Speaker 2 (01:41:41):
If she was a man, she would never be a
tech for that right, you know, they'd say a hustle,
put in the work. They wouldn't shake their heads and
question how much of this I deserve?

Speaker 3 (01:41:54):
What I was wearing, if I was.

Speaker 2 (01:41:56):
Rude, could all be separated from my good ideas and
power moves? So I get the sentiment of the song.
I like the sentiment of the song. It is a
cleverness to it. I I you know, I like. I
like the lyrics generally, but again, there's no musical value here.
There's just nothing of interest. It's just it's boring.

Speaker 3 (01:42:17):
Again. It's uplifting. You can dance to it, but it doesn't.
It doesn't move me emotionally. It doesn't. It doesn't cause
me any kind of spiritual experience. I don't. And this
is the thing. I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:42:34):
The first songs I get that anger, and these songs
I get. I don't know, sugar, I don't get anything. Really,
it's uh, it's uh. It's shallow emotionally. And art needs
to move you. Art needs to needs to cause you
to experience something, to really experience.

Speaker 3 (01:42:57):
A strong a strong emoe and a strong sense of being,
and and to take you into a different world and
take you into a different universe. This doesn't it? It
kind of I don't know a right more.

Speaker 2 (01:43:15):
This again from John? These all from John. This is
miss You I Miss You by Incabbus.

Speaker 3 (01:43:23):
I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right, but incabus
all right. So this is a simple love song.

Speaker 2 (01:43:29):
It's really nice that lyrics are nice, nothing sophisticated.

Speaker 3 (01:43:33):
Here to see you when I wake up is a
gift I don't think could be real. I didn't think
could be real. I know that you feel the same
as I do. Is a threefold utopian dream. You do
something to me that I can't explain. So would I
be out of line if I said I miss you.

Speaker 2 (01:43:50):
I see your picture, I smell your skin on the
empty pillow next to mine. You have only been gone
ten days, but already I'm wasting away.

Speaker 3 (01:43:59):
I know I'll see you again where the fall or soon.
But I need you to know that I care and
I miss you.

Speaker 2 (01:44:06):
Miss you, simple, straightforward, nothing sophisticated. Fine, I mean, not
great poetry, but okay, it's expressing a clear sentiment. The
thing I have with this song is I find the
music in the background and the style of the singing

(01:44:26):
completely in dissonance with the words. It doesn't come across
as romantic, it doesn't come across as emotional. The music
doesn't convey longing, it doesn't convey missing. The melody is weird,
the singing style is weird. There's no emotion, it's stiff,

(01:44:51):
it's cold. It completely fails as art in my view.
I mean, whereas the first two songs, Metallic and Black
Sabbath get angry and you get anger, at least you
get what they want you to get. Yeah, the words
are saying one thing, longing, love, and the music does

(01:45:12):
not match it. There's no matching. Very frustrating, very frustrating.
So I don't like Incabus because of this. And maybe
here's another So the music seems dissonant, in dissonance with
the topic. The melodies again weird, no emotion to it.

Speaker 3 (01:45:33):
And then the second song by them, so you also
had me do this song, which is called Warning Again.
The lyrics lyrics are pretty good. They're about you know
what's so wrong with being happy?

Speaker 4 (01:45:50):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:45:50):
Or there's something.

Speaker 2 (01:45:52):
About I suggest we learned to love ourselves before it's
made illegal. So bat your eyes go be otherworldly, count blessing,
seduce a stranger. What's so wrong with being happy? Kudos
to those who see through sickness?

Speaker 3 (01:46:06):
Yeah? Oops, over and over and over and over. Whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:46:12):
When when she woke in the morning, she knew that
her life had passed her by, and she called out
a warning, don't let her.

Speaker 3 (01:46:18):
Life pass you by.

Speaker 2 (01:46:20):
I suggest we love to learn, learn to love ourselves
before it's made illegal.

Speaker 3 (01:46:25):
When we learn, when will we learn? When we will change?
When will we change just in time to see it
all fall down? So it's a there's real pessimism here
as well as this call out to for for for
something positive. Those left standing will make millions writing books

(01:46:48):
on the way it should have been. Uh, when she
woke in the.

Speaker 2 (01:46:52):
Morning, she knew that her life had passed her by.
We had that already, and then floating in this cosmic
floating Oops, let me get it floating in this cause jacuzzi,
we are like fogs oblivion to the water starting to boil.
No one flitches, We all float face down when and
then back to uh, don't let life pass you by?
So it's it's it's a it's a.

Speaker 3 (01:47:14):
A call to take life and live it.

Speaker 2 (01:47:18):
And and an acceptance of the fact that that probably
won't happen, that life will pass you by. But again,
I find the music to be incredibly dissonant, the singing
to be unemotional.

Speaker 3 (01:47:34):
I don't like the way he sings. I guess I
just don't like incabis.

Speaker 2 (01:47:38):
And I find it really, yeah, dissonance and and unconnected
and not satisfying at all, not not satisfying at all.

Speaker 3 (01:47:48):
So uh, the music is just the melodies.

Speaker 2 (01:47:53):
You need melody, and you need somewhat complex melody, you
need real melody, and you can't have al that's just
underlined by a beat.

Speaker 3 (01:48:01):
And that's all it is is beatpatpat people with a
I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:48:05):
I watched yesterday, I watched My wife and I watched
a documentary on Paul Simon. I mean Simon and Golfic
Cal had some unbelievably beautiful melodies, just gorgeous. Give me
a beautiful melody anyway, any day, any day, I mean
those melodies, and you know, sound of silence or what.

Speaker 3 (01:48:26):
Do you call it, Well, anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:48:32):
There were a bunch of them. Great and then Paul
Simon's career afterwards, just beautiful. I'll take a melody any day,
over a beat, over a dance, over anger, over any
of these things. And you can convey real ideas. I mean,
Simon Gothicker songs, whether the Sound of Silence or or

(01:48:53):
you know in the corner stands of boxer and a
fighter by his name the Boxer. I mean, there's real
ideas there, there's real meaning, there's there's a real existent
there's even existential angst in the boxer. But the melody
is so beautiful that you're intrigued, you're drawn in, and
it causes you to think about the song.

Speaker 3 (01:49:08):
You actually think about it. Same with Bob Dylan. You
can listen to Bob Dylan's song. There's poetry and there's
a beautiful melody that is carrying it, that's carrying the poetry,
and it causes you to think about it. It causes
you to actually engage with the woods that are being said.
With incabus, the music is distancing me from the woods

(01:49:29):
that they're saying, so it's rejecting. All right.

Speaker 2 (01:49:31):
Finally, a classic I think this is again Shaw's about
This is Freebird by Leonard Skinner.

Speaker 3 (01:49:39):
You know this is a classic classic of classical rock
from the nineteen seventies. This is nineteen seventy three, and
this is a classic hippie song. This is about the
whole sense of freedom is really feeding from responsibility, Freedom
is really feeding from being attached to a person.

Speaker 2 (01:50:01):
Freedom is just be you know, this idea of just
leaving and just going. You know, if I leave here tomorrow,
would you still remember me? For I must be traveling
on now because there's too many places I've got to see.
If I stay here with you, girl, things just couldn't
be the same because I'm as free as a bird

(01:50:21):
now and this bird you cannot change, and the bird
you cannot change, and the bird you cannot change. Bye
bye girl. It's been a sweet love. Yeah, yeah, though
this feeling I can't change. But please don't take it
so badly.

Speaker 3 (01:50:34):
Because Lord knows I'm to blame. So, you know, simple lyrics,
basically a hippie.

Speaker 2 (01:50:39):
Song about just wanting to wonder, just going out there
and wandering and leaving and not being committed and not
being attached and not the things, not the people, not
to anything really, So you know that that is a song. Now,
you know this is a song that. You know, it's
again a classic rock song. It's it's it's got a melody.

(01:51:02):
It's it's melodic. You know, there's suddenly parts of it.
It's pretty long, seven eight nine minutes, uh, but it's
quite enjoyable and melodic. It's got a a great five
minute guitar closing riff thing that is that is pretty cool. Uh,

(01:51:25):
the electric guitar there, and and what it does with
the rhythm and the beat.

Speaker 3 (01:51:29):
So yeah, I mean it's a cool song. I once
in a while enjoy listening to it. Again.

Speaker 2 (01:51:34):
It's seventy three, so it was you know, I was twelve,
But it's it's kind of the music that I grew
up on.

Speaker 3 (01:51:42):
I enjoy it.

Speaker 2 (01:51:43):
I'm much prefer and it's gonna to uh to Black
Sabbath or to Metallica who are angry and yelling at you.

Speaker 3 (01:51:52):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:51:52):
This this has a certain beauty to it and a
sort of longing for this kind of freedom to it.

Speaker 3 (01:51:58):
You I get that.

Speaker 2 (01:51:59):
It's it's light, it's fun, and.

Speaker 3 (01:52:04):
Yeah, it's good. I mean again, I can't listen to too
much of this. There's not a lot of emotional complexity here.
It's a single tone single, you know, emotion song.

Speaker 2 (01:52:16):
Even though it's long. It has those nice guitar riffs
which are fun to have. I mean, it's the kind
of music I can listen to periodically and enjoy, but
not something I can get a steady diet of.

Speaker 3 (01:52:28):
I would get bored with it. All right, those are
my music reviews, my song reviews.

Speaker 2 (01:52:38):
Next week, I hope to have Blackata Star Trek and
and or.

Speaker 3 (01:52:44):
At the very least done for you.

Speaker 2 (01:52:46):
So and if you want me to review more songs,
if you get any value out of this, it's what
one hundred dollars per song I think two point fifty
for an episode of a TV series, five hundred for
a movie or short book. So that's what it's like,

(01:53:06):
if you'd like, if we want to restart the reviewing
process now that I'm committed to getting through them and
getting actually getting actually done.

Speaker 3 (01:53:16):
So yeah, all right, thanks guys, Thanks to all of
you who contributed to that. That was a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 (01:53:29):
Let me just quickly remind you that at the end
of January January thirtieth, of February second, there will be
a conference a RAMS day weekend. Objective is conference and
Fort Mayas, Florida.

Speaker 3 (01:53:39):
I'll be there. Harry will be there, Alan.

Speaker 2 (01:53:41):
Canna, Shshanna Milgramjeen Maroney, Peter Schwartz, Don Watkins. There'll be
a panel with me and Harry and Peter talking about how.

Speaker 3 (01:53:50):
Would we solve problems in alas of fair society like
roads and stuff the poor. I don't know whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:53:57):
You know, and so great event, lots of socializing, lots
of great people come and prices are going up December thirtieth.
To sign up, you can do so at rans with
an asset D and rans day con all one word
rans day con dot v b v H dot com,

(01:54:19):
rans day rands day con dot THEBVH dot com. They
should come up with a simpler r L. I really
think that is a difficult you ol.

Speaker 3 (01:54:29):
All right, anyway, join us, Join us. It'll be a
lot of fun. All right, Back to Superchat, Back to
super Chat and then after dinner.

Speaker 4 (01:54:39):
All right.

Speaker 2 (01:54:39):
Oh, one other thing, one other thing for those of
you online right now, My son is looking for work.
Might as well use my show to see if anybody
has a job for him. See he's a software engineer.
Uh and uh it lives in the LA area, so
it's particularly interested in some in the LA.

Speaker 3 (01:55:00):
Area or that he can do remotely.

Speaker 2 (01:55:03):
If you're looking for a software engineer, you can find
his details on LinkedIn. You go to LinkedIn, put in
Neve and Ivy Brook. I think he's the only an
iv Brook in the world, say n I V Brook.
And yeah, if if, if you have a company, if
you have a project, if you have something that you

(01:55:24):
need a software engineer for, be great.

Speaker 3 (01:55:27):
You know, interview him.

Speaker 2 (01:55:28):
You know, don't don't hire him based on my would,
but at least give him a shot by interviewing him.
Nick says, Neve really good guy. He is a really
really really really good guy. So I can say that
about about Neives. So, uh, check him out on LinkedIn,
or if you if you don't know how to get

(01:55:49):
in touch your THEAM or something like that, just send
me an email that you're.

Speaker 3 (01:55:52):
On at your on bookshow dot com and I'll put
you in touch.

Speaker 2 (01:55:54):
But yeah, if anybody has any kind of work related
to software engineer, then yeah, let me know, let him know.
He just I just he worked. His last job was
at Amazon. He was a software engineer at Amazon for
what three years something like that, two three years. All right, Okay,

(01:56:20):
we're just gonna do these BIODA. We're gonna start with
twenty dollars.

Speaker 3 (01:56:23):
We're ninety one dollars short of the goal, so ninety
one dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:56:28):
I really want to make that five hundred dollars goal,
which we've only got three minutes to make. We've got
three minutes to get to ninety one, so somebody, somebody
needs to do a stick of one hundred bucks, A
question for one hundred bucks so we can get there quickly.
But it would be great if you guys help me
get to the goal for the month, which is going
to require us to get at least the ninety one dollars,

(01:56:50):
if not a little bit more than that, probably one
hundred ninety one dollars to really get there. But ninety
one is a good start, so let's try to get
to the five hundred dollars we at four nine. Now,
I'd really really really appreciate it trade value for value,
in particular, if they're people out there, if there are
any sharks, any of you own book sharks who can
write or can do one hundred dollars or fifty dollars

(01:57:13):
or twenty dollars question, that would be amazing. Eight twenty dollars,
I mean for twenty dollars questions would get us a
long way there?

Speaker 3 (01:57:19):
All right? Doctor?

Speaker 4 (01:57:20):
Whoops? What did I just do? Undo? All right?

Speaker 2 (01:57:25):
Doctor says, what do you say to someone who feels
guilty buying from Amazon marketplace because Amazon forces the smaller
partners to charge less?

Speaker 3 (01:57:35):
Why does he care?

Speaker 2 (01:57:38):
I mean the Amazon Marketplace, the smaller partners get an
opportunity to sell to millions of people, and if they
didn't get on Amazon, they couldn't access the customers that
they access, they would make a lot less money. And
by the way, they are there out of a choice.

(01:58:00):
They could have tried to sell on other platforms that
could have tried to sell independently Amazon. They should be
so thankful to Amazon for providing them with this amazing
platform and with the payment mechanisms and all the benefits
you get from buying an Amazon to grow their customer
base and to grow their visibility in the world out there.

Speaker 3 (01:58:24):
So I think, you know, get a life, Get over it.

Speaker 2 (01:58:26):
Stop feeling sorry for people actually pursuing their own self
interest in maximizing their own lives by working with Amazon.
They're much happy about it than you are. And instead
of going out there and supporting them by buying stuff
from them. You want to penalize them by boykinting Amazon.
It's completely upside down, completely upside down. And of course

(01:58:53):
they're not they're the only they're not forced to pay less.
They're expected to pay less or get paidless or whatever
it is. It's it's it's voluntary that nobody, nobody puts
a gun to the head. If they don't want to
work on Amazon, they can go on another. There's plenty
of other platforms. Lots of people sell an eBay, and
lots of people just sell directly.

Speaker 3 (01:59:11):
You don't have to be on Amazon. You choose to
be on Amazon, and there's.

Speaker 2 (01:59:14):
A cost to it, and you do the trade off
and you decide, yeah, Amazon is worth it.

Speaker 3 (01:59:19):
That's while John Amazon, and you want to penalize people
for that. That doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 2 (01:59:27):
Wes, Thank you, Wes. I watched the movie and Most
Violent Year yesterday based on your recommendation. Great film with
a businessman of integrity. Yeah, I really like that film.

Speaker 3 (01:59:39):
It's very undertoned, very kind of understated the way it's filmed,
the way it's acted, but really strong and really good
philosophically and and really good and positive positive portrayal of
a businessman. Thank you, Wes. I did a little review
of the movie.

Speaker 2 (01:59:58):
At some point, Andrew paraphrasing, ran, you don't adopt. Oh
we did that already, We did that. Yeah, all right,
another Andrew, would you say that we live in a
society of people more physically safe than in all of history,
yet whose feelings are diametrically opposite to that? And your

(02:00:21):
theory is that that is a result.

Speaker 3 (02:00:22):
Of placing emotions above reasons.

Speaker 2 (02:00:26):
We suddenly live in the most safe society in all
of human history. I mean, violent death is way down,
way down. In Europe, violent death is gone from about
forty per one hundred thousand, which was at about the
level of El Salvador before Boukele And did that so

(02:00:48):
just horrific forty p one hundred thousand to one per
hundred thousand. The United States is maybe four to five
for the six p one hundred thousand, depending exactly.

Speaker 3 (02:00:59):
Where and when.

Speaker 2 (02:01:00):
But that's that's amazing progress. We feel bad partially because
we don't know we don't know history, We know nothing
about the past. We don't know how bad life could
be and how bad life has been. Uh, And because
we're overly emotional. But mostly it's because we're ignorant and

(02:01:24):
because our news a media, a culture emphasizes the negative
over and over and over again. This is part of
Christian guilt, right. It can be this good, something must
be wrong. We can't be this rich just and and
that's it. There has to be some bad stuff. And

(02:01:45):
then for the bad stuff is emphasized over and over
and over again, and elevated and repeated and over and
over again.

Speaker 3 (02:01:53):
So it is, it is.

Speaker 2 (02:01:56):
You know, we live in a culture of negativity. And
partially it's I think, kind of a sense of guilt
that wait a minute, what did we do to deserve
all this?

Speaker 3 (02:02:06):
And that's Christian guilt.

Speaker 2 (02:02:08):
It's also just a certain malevolence that our secular philosophy
has ingrained in us, and malevolence about the world and
malevolence about existence. All right, Lincoln says, Hi, Ron, I
am in a process of important discussion with my girlfriend,
and we're planning on getting married after college in three
years after we both finish undergrad following your advice and

(02:02:32):
sex and living together before marriage, which will be helpful.
The issue we're facing is education of potential future kids
after law school. Will make enough to send kids to
private school but they are almost all religious Catholic schools.
Do you believe the educational benefits and avoiding government propaganda

(02:02:56):
is worth putting up with religiosity of the private schools?
All right, So I'm not sure I completely understand all
the question. But you say here both finishing undergraduate, following
your advice on sex and living together before marriage, which
will be helpful.

Speaker 3 (02:03:11):
Oh so you are following my advice on that.

Speaker 4 (02:03:13):
Good.

Speaker 2 (02:03:14):
So the only the question is about schools. I think
you have to go and and and evaluate.

Speaker 3 (02:03:20):
The school on a concrete basis. I'm sure there will.

Speaker 2 (02:03:25):
There are Catholic schools out there that are pretty secular
and they're just good eigh quality schools. And of course
it depends on the alternative. How bad are the government
schools in the region. So every region, every school district
is going to be different. You also could look for
better secular private schools. They do exist. I know in
California they exist. But also that's not a guarantee. But

(02:03:50):
you just need to wherever you're going to live, you're
going to wherever you get jobs. I guess you're going
to have to go to the schools and evaluate them
when your kids are young before You've got plenty of
time to do all this, because first you know, you've
got pre k in kindergarten and for that and i'd

(02:04:11):
say through third grade you can probably rely on Montessori.
Montessori is excellent. Again, you have to find the right
Montessori school. There's a lot of resources online and there
are a lot of objectives Montessori teachers you can consult
with and objectives Montessori experts, and I would just say,
give them a great Montesssori education at the early ages.

(02:04:35):
And while you're doing that, figure out what the best school.

Speaker 3 (02:04:38):
In your region is, and go and visit the Catholic
school and figure out how much this Catholic doesn't really
play a role to the extent that it does. Don't
send them there to the extent that it doesn't. Maybe
it's okay, So you've got to evaluate, and maybe the
government school is not that bad, and maybe they're private
schools that even better. You just have to evaluate the

(02:04:59):
particular schools in the particular region. But you're safe for
the first eight nine years because of Mona. Sorry Hakkun says,
giving you a concern about today's academic climate. What general
advice would you give for approaching undergrad? Also, since I
applied to Santa Clara University, what are your thoughts on

(02:05:21):
the school? I mean, I think the approach undergrad is first,
think about where you're going. It depends on your degree,
depends what you want to study. Find a university where
you think the real scholars there that will teach you.

Speaker 2 (02:05:35):
Forget about politics, focus in. Is their real scholarship being
done there, is their real knowledge that they're going to
convey to you. That it's not right wing propaganda, left
wing propaganda or mainly left wing but could be right wing,
That it's not propaganda, it's not driven by some agenda,
but they are actually serious people who want to teach

(02:05:55):
you something. You might not agree with everything they teach you,
but that's okay. You're never gonna agree with everything. We
shouldn't agree with everything. So you want to go to
a place that's going to challenge you, that's going to expose.

Speaker 3 (02:06:05):
You to great literaate to the great thinkers, and and
and just approach undergraduate that way.

Speaker 2 (02:06:12):
Go to school where that's going to happen. I don't
know that much about Santa Clara. It depends on what
degree you're getting. It has a decent business school. I
don't know about other departments and how good they are
and what they teach.

Speaker 3 (02:06:27):
Even though it's a Catholic school, they have they only
have like.

Speaker 2 (02:06:30):
One theology class requirement, and taking a class in theology
is not a bad idea. You get to learn how
bad religion is from the religionists themselves.

Speaker 4 (02:06:41):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:06:43):
It's a pretty campus. It's it's it's a nice place.
It's it's a really nice place to go to school.

Speaker 3 (02:06:48):
But I would say, really, look at who are the
professors going to be in the field that you're studying,
and do you think you've got something to learn from
them that should be the standard? Well, still a lot
of questions and not a lot of time, okay, Jennifer.

Speaker 2 (02:07:03):
Isn't there difference between music that is complex, well played,
melodic but just doesn't float your boat in music that
is discord, repetitive.

Speaker 3 (02:07:11):
Very simplistic.

Speaker 2 (02:07:13):
There's a big difference between chopsticks and mozart. Yeah, absolutely,
I mean, uh, a huge difference.

Speaker 3 (02:07:23):
And the challenge is to be able to tell the difference,
and for that you have to be exposed to it.

Speaker 2 (02:07:31):
You have to give it time. The complex ones. The
simple one is easy. You have to give it time.

Speaker 3 (02:07:36):
Yeah, you have to. You have to be patient with it,
you have to let it affect you. You have to
learn a.

Speaker 2 (02:07:42):
Little bit about it, particularly when you talk about classical
and then when it comes to popular music. Yeah, you
have to be able to find that kind of popular
music and find complexity in popular music.

Speaker 3 (02:07:54):
There's not a lot of it. But at least what
I want from popular music is is beauty is melody.
That's what I want.

Speaker 2 (02:08:05):
I don't need a beat, I don't need anger. I
don't need frustration, although maybe I did when I was
a teenager and related a little bit to it.

Speaker 3 (02:08:15):
But not a lot.

Speaker 2 (02:08:16):
Like I love Pink Floyd, and I love Pink Floyd
primarily because they generate beautiful melodies. Yes there's anger there,
Yes there's frustration. Yes there's darkness, but there's just a
beautiful melody wish you were here, you know, shine on you,
crazy diamond. There's just they're just beautiful melodies, and I
find that inspiring.

Speaker 4 (02:08:37):
I find that inspiring.

Speaker 3 (02:08:40):
Uh, let's see see. Yes, there's absolutely difference.

Speaker 2 (02:08:44):
Objectively, I just don't want to make the claim that
I know objectively that I can differentiate between them at
particularly right, I can different to some extent Taylor swift, shallow, monotone,
Beethoven phenomenal, deep, complex.

Speaker 3 (02:09:03):
But in between, I'm not sure I'm qualified. Andrew.

Speaker 2 (02:09:09):
I think your answer to the following question is a
good way to connect between material and spiritual values. How
is it rational, rationally selfish act for you to advertise
for your son on your show when it's not when
it's not you getting the job? Yeah, I mean because somebody,

(02:09:31):
because you want to benefit those you love. You want
to help those you love, You want to you get you.
You are spiritually rewarded by their success. Their happiness is
part of your happiness.

Speaker 3 (02:09:44):
You know you you want the people you love to
do well in life. It's a value to you.

Speaker 2 (02:09:51):
They represent in as human beings, they represent a value,
and therefore their success entertaining values as a value. So
and that's ritual now material. It doesn't add to my
bottom line. It's not that I have to send him,
you know, less money on a Monti basis. I don't
send him any money on a Monty basis. So it's
just that he will be happy, and therefore he's a value. Right,

(02:10:16):
it's a value, so and it's a spiritual value. Not
sure though that achieved the goal you were setting up, Lincoln.
I look forward to visiting Italy next March over spring
break for the first time since I was a child.
I'll be visiting Rome, Florants and or Vieto. Should be

(02:10:38):
a fun week, admiring great art and history. I do
FITZI and Vatican museums, and will enjoy some wonderful food
and finally try wine.

Speaker 3 (02:10:51):
All right, I'm not sure there's a question there.

Speaker 2 (02:10:53):
I guess there's no question, but yeah, I mean, I'm
excited for you to experience Italy.

Speaker 3 (02:10:59):
I mean that is great. That is really really amazing. Okay,
b Bradley, you explained the difference between status and hierarchy
beautifully and connected it to self esteem and firsthand self worth.
Many pieces finally clicked for me. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (02:11:16):
Sex, status and self esteem is a topic many struggle with. Yeah,
I mean, I think that's right, and I did that
in my interview with the What Is It Stitch and
Adam on that show. I posted that interview up on
my channel and that was a good exchange and they
pushed me on it, which gave me an opportunity to
say stuff I haven't really said anywhere else because I've

(02:11:38):
never thought in terms of status. It wasn't a concern,
and you guys haven't asked me about it. But that
would make a good show on the relationship between status
hierarchy and self esteem and egoism and the relationship between
all those and you know, so I really think that exchange, Yeah,

(02:12:01):
that was really valuable. I'm glad you enjoyed it and
benefited from it. Maybe maybe we should have Christian slice
that exchange out and the post it under something like status,
just just a separate video. I'll do that, okay, Andrew
says probab to be a YBS member. I was going
to ask if one if one can claim that reason

(02:12:24):
is morality, but then thought that would emit action choice thoughts.
I mean, I mean, reason is the cardinal value under morality.

Speaker 4 (02:12:39):
You know.

Speaker 2 (02:12:39):
But but but it's the but you have to implied
in that is that you will act on the reason.
It's not just hypothetical but reason and the action that
it requires, the actions in reality it requires all morality. Yes,
the application of reason to action is morality is being

(02:13:01):
mall not moraly, is being mall Okay Lincoln Again, I've
noticed anti Semitism being pretty common among the anti Federal Reserve,
globe gold bug market crash predictions subset a fani a
financial especially recently. I think these deserve to be taken

(02:13:22):
somewhat seriously given the debt and market valuation. Any advice
on identifying the smart ones in finance, Oh God, I
don't know.

Speaker 3 (02:13:34):
You know, the.

Speaker 2 (02:13:38):
Smart ones in finance are not going to be telling
you a simplistic story about the world. Then are going
to be declaring every year there's going to be a crash.
Then I'm going to be telling you, you know that
that the world that the only bad You know that
the only thing we're bad in the world is that
we're not in a gold standard. I think you want

(02:14:00):
uh thinkers, people who think and view the world in
complexity and see the value of productive activity and see
America as being productive and see the value in the
stock market, and don't have a one dimensional view of
the world out there.

Speaker 3 (02:14:20):
Michael is more lost by indecision than wrong decision. M
I don't know the tool related.

Speaker 2 (02:14:31):
I think because indecision leads them because you have to
decide in one in the end of the day, decisions
have to be made. In decision leads to bad decision
or wrong decisions. I don't know, but indecision is a big,
big issue, I think, And Geffney says, as opposed to
the anti Semitic loans on Twitter, these are at least

(02:14:53):
finance guys.

Speaker 3 (02:14:54):
But there's still loons.

Speaker 2 (02:14:55):
There's still a looney element to them, and the very
fact that Dany Semitic rules them out as people I
would take any financial advice from all Right, Michael, is
it actually a good thing millennials are getting married at
lower rates, they're being more selfish and not settling for

(02:15:15):
somebody they don't love, justice, society, approval and status. I mean,
it depends why they're doing it. So I don't know
why they're doing it. I don't know why they're getting
married so late. If it's for that reason, if it's
because they don't want to settle, if it's because they
want to be more mature when they make the decision,
then sure it's a good thing. But if it's for
other reasons, because they're being hedonistic, or they're being shallow.

Speaker 3 (02:15:39):
Or.

Speaker 2 (02:15:41):
They've got ridiculous standards, or a bunch of different things.
If they're being irrational about it, then no, then it's
not good. So it really depends on why. And I
don't know enough millennials to be able to tell you why.
But yeah, I mean, don't get married for the sake
of getting married. Get married because for real reason, real spark.

(02:16:03):
Was it second handed? When Brando in on the Waterfront
says he could have had class, could have been somebody
he needed to be boxing champ in order to do this,
is it's second handed? No, I don't think it's second handed.
I mean, the point is not I could have been

(02:16:25):
liked by the people.

Speaker 3 (02:16:26):
It's it's that I could have achieved something in life.
He I mean, part of the tragedy of the movie is.

Speaker 2 (02:16:36):
That he doesn't do what he originally wants to do,
what he can actually achieve in and he, in a sense,
he settles. And and so I think it's it's it's
I don't think it's second handed to one to achieve. Now,
maybe the achievement is reflected in a kind of a

(02:16:56):
second handedness of I could have been somebody to some
but it could have been somebody to myself.

Speaker 3 (02:17:02):
I could have had.

Speaker 2 (02:17:03):
Class, which represents I could have been more than I
am now. So I think he's striving to achieve something.
He's striving to achieve which I don't think could have
been a contender. I don't think that's second handed. I
think that's you know, he wanted to be a box.
He wanted to contend and he didn't. And he didn't
want to do it because people would love him. He

(02:17:23):
wanted to do it because he would gain self respect
from it, self esteem from it.

Speaker 3 (02:17:31):
Tom Start stoppad died. Did you like any of his plays?

Speaker 4 (02:17:41):
You know?

Speaker 2 (02:17:42):
I have to admit that I haven't seen any of
his plays. I'm looking at a list of them just
to see if dodge my memory. But I don't think
i've seen his plays.

Speaker 3 (02:17:55):
Sadly, it seems like, you know, theater I'm not strong in,
and the theater I know something.

Speaker 2 (02:18:03):
About is old. It's not more modern. So I wish
i'd I've heard good things. I wish I've seen somehow
a pinta, mainly because they were made into movies and
I saw them as movies. But I haven't seen Tom
Stop Started Sadly, I'm ignorant. Lincoln. I was ten when

(02:18:24):
I rejected faith, when I was told to my told
by my religious teacher bread and wine became the literal
body and blood of Christ. Yeah, that would turn you off,
even if you I mean makes you accounnibal kind of.

Speaker 3 (02:18:41):
It's a little weird, John.

Speaker 2 (02:18:44):
The Byzantines effectively invented hospitals and were motivated by Christian
principles of charity. Also had the first separation of corpor
of conjoined twins.

Speaker 3 (02:18:55):
A few things. One, charity is not important.

Speaker 2 (02:19:01):
I don't think charity is an important virtue, so I
don't think that it makes them any more civilized. Again,
I don't agree with you about hospitals, right, I mean,
there was the equivalent of hospitals in Greece.

Speaker 3 (02:19:14):
They didn't call them hospitals. There was the equivalent of
hospitals in the Muslim world.

Speaker 2 (02:19:21):
And now I don't know if that comes with four
Buzantines or post business TEMs. I'd have to go research hospitals.
But even if they invented hospitals doesn't really change anything.

Speaker 3 (02:19:33):
First separation of conjoined twins great, right, I mean, the
businessing empire survived for over a thousand years, over thousand
years from I don't know to sorry four hundred.

Speaker 2 (02:19:50):
Let's just round it out to four hundred AD to
fourteen hundred AD over a thousand years.

Speaker 3 (02:19:56):
And that's their achievements, not much, not much.

Speaker 2 (02:20:00):
And the hospitals that they had, the medicine that they
were practicing in the hospitals was Greek or Muslim. Very
little came from them themselves. The great treatise on medicine
were written by Greeks or by Muslims. John, do you

(02:20:22):
dispute Ran cheated on her husband and this caused him
to drink too much? What did the archives say about
if about Frank's drinking.

Speaker 3 (02:20:30):
I do dispute that Ran cheated on her husband. To
cheat means to lie, to deceive, to do it behind
somebody's back. She didn't cheat on him. She slept with
another man, but told him she was sleeping with another man.

Speaker 2 (02:20:44):
He knew about it, so that is not cheating. But
do I dispute that she slept with another man while
she was married?

Speaker 3 (02:20:54):
No, I don't.

Speaker 2 (02:20:55):
I consider it. I actually considered it. One of the
things I like about Nyron rant that she did that.
You know, as I've said in the past, she was.

Speaker 3 (02:21:05):
A radical, breakthrough, breakthrough thinker, and that she would be
conventional when it comes to sex and relationships would be shocking,
So she experimented.

Speaker 2 (02:21:21):
She tried something. She thought she was in love with
two men at the same time. That's radical and unusual,
and she acted on it. I don't see that as
a vice at all. I see that as incredibly courageous.
It didn't work out, which I think it doesn't work out.

Speaker 3 (02:21:37):
Most of the time. It doesn't work out.

Speaker 2 (02:21:39):
It's not something can be done very easily, if at all.
Bet she tried good for her. Did that cause him
to drink too much? I know, I know of no
evidence to suggest that. I don't know that he drank
too much. The evidence is very mixed on that. There
are plenty of people who say that he didn't drink

(02:22:01):
that much. That is that the people who want to
smear or iron Rand say that he did. Other people
have said that he didn't a drink, and I've no
reason to believe that that is what caused him to
drink too much, and.

Speaker 3 (02:22:14):
Neither of you.

Speaker 2 (02:22:15):
So you're getting it as secondhanded from people you know
antagonistic iron Rand, and the fact that you place any
particularly importance on that is striking. I don't place much
important on it. Like Leonard Peakoff, who hung out with
iron Ran during those years, maybe more than anybody denies

(02:22:37):
that he drank. Mary answer is, who is very close
to iron Ran during those years, denied the Frank drink.

Speaker 3 (02:22:45):
You know, Harry binswrong.

Speaker 2 (02:22:47):
Well, I don't know if Harry was there when Frank
was around as much, but certainly Mary an Sewers and
Leonard were there all the time and denied it. So
I don't consider her sleeping with another man while she
was married as a model flaw. It was a mistake,

(02:23:10):
but I don't consider it the mail flaw.

Speaker 4 (02:23:18):
All right, let's see.

Speaker 2 (02:23:24):
Oh oh great, the right loves hating on secular Chris Christmas.
But I find it amazing we turned a holiday about
worshiping a destructive faith into celebrating wealth and our prosperity
as a nation. Yeah, it's a beautiful holiday, in a wonderful, wonderful.

Speaker 3 (02:23:40):
Secular holiday the way it's practiced in the US.

Speaker 2 (02:23:44):
Oliver, I read a non partisan, unique group with capitalist
center right values. I lead a non partisan UNI group
with capitalist center right values as an objective.

Speaker 3 (02:23:53):
Is now I'm unsure I can still represent it, can I?

Speaker 4 (02:23:57):
Well?

Speaker 3 (02:23:58):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (02:23:58):
I mean, it was secular it's secular center right, it's capitalist,
it's not partisan.

Speaker 3 (02:24:05):
You know, I don't know how religious it is. But
but why not? Hey, by the way, what why don't
you invite me to come and give a talk to
your group and and create a create an event around.

Speaker 2 (02:24:15):
It in in uh in Sweden. We've talked about this, Oliver.

Speaker 3 (02:24:20):
So I don't know.

Speaker 2 (02:24:21):
I'd have to know more about the what that means
to lead it. That is, to what extent are you
expressing ideas? Are forced to express ideas? Or sanctioning ideas
you really are posted?

Speaker 3 (02:24:33):
I mean we I'd need a lot more concrete to
figure that out. If if you really feel like you're
violining your integrity, then yeah, you shouldn't lead the group.
Maybe stay a member without leading it.

Speaker 4 (02:24:49):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (02:24:49):
By the way, you should invite me to give a talk?
All right? Uh's a s.

Speaker 2 (02:24:56):
A k U fan Obama deportations three million and Trump
poet point six million. What's the difference between them in
this one area? PS, I'm not a Trump fan. I
mean the big difference is that Obama basically deported them
at the border.

Speaker 3 (02:25:13):
They crossed the border and they.

Speaker 2 (02:25:15):
Were detained and immediately turned around and deported back or
put in planes and sent back or whatever it was.

Speaker 3 (02:25:23):
He didn't send ice to hunt people down in their workplace.
Ice didn't roam the streets in little gangs with faces covered,
fully armed and bulletproof vests and arrest people at their workplace.

Speaker 2 (02:25:37):
There's a big difference between that. So the numbers might
not be reflecting it. But that's because Trump has sealed
the border. People aren't crossing to send back, so he
has to in order to get his numbers up. He
has to literally go to people's workplaces and drag them
out of there, which is something Obama did very little of.
That's the difference, all right, Again, s a Q tried

(02:26:01):
the same question about Islam. Google blocked try to hide
the fact that it's about Islam, so misspell Islam. Do
things like that to try to get the question across Andrew.
It does great damage to the psyche to think that
love is impractical and therefore is irrational. Absolutely, it destroys

(02:26:23):
the capacity to love. It destroys the motivation to go
find love because it's irrational.

Speaker 3 (02:26:31):
Saq.

Speaker 2 (02:26:32):
If a country approves jailing, unaliving, killing apostates, gaze cheetahs
and the immigrants from there, are saying they will outbreed
outvote us. Is it wrong to hold immigration from from
the well not in and of itself right. They haven't

(02:26:54):
said that they want Just because the country approves a
jailing apostates and gays and cheetahs doesn't mean that these
particular people believe in jailing those people. And look, a
West that is confident in its values, a West and
inconfident in its.

Speaker 3 (02:27:12):
Ability to assimilate people who.

Speaker 2 (02:27:13):
Disagree with it, doesn't worry about these things because these
people will be assimilated. They might come over thinking they
still hold those values, but they are going to be
They're going to be dissuaded for that within one generation
by this assimilating culture. So the only reason this is

(02:27:33):
an issue is because our culture is so timid and afraid.
But if you want to complain about something, complain not
about the immigrants.

Speaker 3 (02:27:41):
Complain about the timidity and the fear of our culture.

Speaker 2 (02:27:45):
Second, to the extent that we are willing to declare
that these people are at war with us because they
reject our civilization, want to turn it upside down, and
are willing to use violence in order to attain that,
to the extent that were willing to clare Islamism an
enemy ideology, then the people who hold an Islamist perspective

(02:28:08):
could be banned from immigrating. They're holding the ideology of
the enemy. But that requires us to again have the
courage and the forthright to say that the enemy and
then ban them.

Speaker 3 (02:28:21):
But short of.

Speaker 2 (02:28:22):
Any of that, on what basis are you gonna stop
people from emigrating real spac Why but why did hippies
replace Western civilization for indigenous civilization?

Speaker 3 (02:28:37):
Also does that.

Speaker 2 (02:28:38):
Country song rich Man of Richmond dovetail with alt right?

Speaker 3 (02:28:45):
Why did the hyppies.

Speaker 2 (02:28:46):
Replace Western civilization for digenous civilization? Because they worship the primitive.
They worship the anti civilization they and it's not there
is no suscene as indigenous civilization. For the most part,
it's indigenous whatever, it's indigenous societies, but there's no civilization there.
It's because they worshiped the primitive and they went the

(02:29:07):
direction of the primitive towards the primitive. I did a
whole analysis of Richmond and Richmond of Richmond when it
came out, and yes, at Dovestales with the grievance mentality
of the ult right, but also of the left. So
It's a song that fits both left and right. It's
all about grievance. It's all about other people's faults. It's
all about the financiers, the bad guys, the people, the intellectuals.

(02:29:32):
It's all about It's all about grievance. It's all about
a rejection of you know, the people who being successful.
All right, we're gonna do these four questions and I'm
out of here, Lincoln. I nearly went to Santa Clara,
wonderful school, but Arizona wonderful philosophy, politics and economics program

(02:29:54):
and low cost made difference. Yes, Arizona has a really
good PP and E program. Neo, you should be separating
these kinds of shows so it's easier to find later
on in playlist and label them in parts.

Speaker 3 (02:30:09):
I will.

Speaker 2 (02:30:10):
Once I get a few of these shows, I will
separate into playlists. I'll create playlists, although very few people
use the playlist's feature in YouTube unfortunately. SAQ, are you
familiar with Raymond Ibrahim, author historian. I think on some
Crusade books, the Two Swords of Christ and if so,

(02:30:31):
is he worth reading? No, I'm not familiar with them.
I haven't read books on the crusade. I would like to,
but I haven't yet gotten it. It's part of my
big history reading. It's on my Big History reading list. Drin,
you are very good on Adam's show.

Speaker 3 (02:30:49):
You should do these interviews more often to get challenging
questions irresponding to them. That's when you excel. Yeah, I
mean I need to be invited, right. You should encourage
show hosts to invite me on their shows.

Speaker 2 (02:31:04):
S AQ, do you think that we should at this
point to klay Islam an enemy and ban it. I'm
in Canada, so might be different than the United States,
but we are at that point. No, I don't think
you should declare Islam and enemy. You should to clay
islam mists, people who want to use Islam to convertual culture,
people who want to use Islam with violence. They should

(02:31:26):
be a band. We should declare war on them, not
an Islam quad religion on Islam, mysts qua ideology within
the religion. And yes, I've been saying that since two
thousand and one, that is for twenty five years, four years,
twenty four years.

Speaker 3 (02:31:45):
Andrew.

Speaker 2 (02:31:47):
When I was young, I was proud to be a
Jew in a real intellectual, young male sense, I valued
being a minority, qua minority, and a corresponding hostility towards
the majority. What mystical driven mistake and in what mystical
driven mistake and emotions? Yes, very I mean it's it's

(02:32:08):
you know, but it's also during viltruism, there's a sudden
you get a certain thrill from being persecuted for being
a persecuted minority. I remember we used to compete as
kids whose dad was poorer. Like you gained virtue by
coming from a poorer family. You gain virtue by being

(02:32:31):
some kind of poor, a victim suffering in some way.
The more you suffer, the more virtue you get. And
I think that is part of the pride of being
uh an oppressed minority, a victim victim. All right, Lincoln says,
in the process of working with the school's PP and

(02:32:52):
a program to find a date for you to speak
on campus about capitalism, hopefully we can find a date soon.
I hope so that would be That would be exciting.
I haven't given a talk at Arizona State. This is
Arizona State.

Speaker 3 (02:33:05):
I think in a very long time that'll be cool.

Speaker 2 (02:33:09):
All right, guys, have to run for dinner. I will
see you all tomorrow twice. Two shows tomorrow have you
been swaying It?

Speaker 3 (02:33:15):
In the evening and a regular news show at two pm.

Speaker 2 (02:33:22):
East coastin So two shows tomorrow, see you guys tomorrow.
This is Oh, this is University Arizona and Tucson. Haven't
been in University of Arizona in Tucson in a long time,
so that would be That would be fun. That'll be great.
I'm looking forward to that. I didn't know they had
a good PP and E program. You'll have to tell
me more about it. Bye, everybody, see you soon.

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