Self-Interest vs. Extremism: Yaron Brook on Capitalism, Cronyism & Individual Rights | Sitch & Adam - Yaron Brook Show

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Speaker 1 (00:02):
They're coming to get me. Hey everyone, I'm here with
yarn Brooke and Psa Sich and we're going to talk
about maybe some current events and some objectivism. Yarn Brook
is the chairman of the board of the ant Iron
Rand Institute. That's correct, right.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yarn Nice correction. Nice correction on.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
The Iron Rand. I'm not sure I know how to
pronounce it, to be honest.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Vimes with mine, Iron vins with mine.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
I makes sense.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
And you also have some books. You want to tell
people about your books?

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, female, good revolution. How iron Man's ideas can end be?
Government equal is unfair? Uh?

Speaker 4 (00:41):
And uh the mold case for finance.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Equal is unfair. I agree with that.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Actually, yeah, equal is evil. Equal is bad.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
So I have some questions for you. Obviously, we Sitch
and I both consider ourselves liberal, and we're always fighting
with people over the death definition of liberal because a
lot of times I think conservatives they think of liberal
as socialists. We're not really socialists. We're individualists. I think
of liberalism as a desire to increase individual rights as

(01:18):
much as possible without destroying society. That's kind of the
way I conceptualize it. That is that the way you
conceptualize liberalism or is it a different way.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Well, I think one of the problems of liberal one
of the problems with the definition of liberalism, just like
the problem with the definition of conservatism, is it's kind
of fuzzy and not clear. I mean, what does it
mean to increase individual rights without breaking society? What are
individual rights? What is increasing individual rights? Is it that
we have them or we don't have them? I think

(01:49):
liberalism and this is why you have a classical liberals.
You have kind of left leaning liberals, which is what
people think when they would think liberal as a communists.
You have European style liber you have American style liberals.
I think liberalism is generally historically that movement that had
broadly speaking, a pro liberty agenda, you know, liberal liberty,

(02:16):
but it was never very specific about what that meant,
and therefore branched out in lots of different directions and
was very inconsistent and as a consequence, I think is failing.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Well if you go too far left, though, if you
go more towards the communist realm, I do think you're
impinging on individual freedom.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Absolutely, So that's not liberal. So I agree with you
in a sense American liberalism, which is left, is a
perversion of the term. In Europe, liberal still means kind
of pro liberty, generally, pro markets, generally pro individual rights,
but not very radical about any one of those things,

(02:58):
and they're much more class the liberal liberal means more
of the classical liberal kind of view. It's only in
America that the left kind of stole the wood liberal
and reinvented it as kind of a leftist socialist program.

Speaker 4 (03:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
I kind of like though, that we are splitting it
from liberal and progressive, and it really seems like the
progressives are more of the socialist bent.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
But again it's it's a it's a it's a very
bad use of the term right, because progressives in America
are not for progress. And indeed, historically the progressive movement
we started in the nineteenth century in the United States
was not a pro progress movement, not in the sense
of progress as we understand it.

Speaker 4 (03:41):
So again, they took a good wood progress right.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
I'm a progressive, I believe in progress, and and they've
distorted and perverted it for some political gains. So it's
kind of sad that our I like socialism, I like capitalism,
I like conservatism, because it doesn't mean any what are they
trying to conserve?

Speaker 4 (04:01):
But it represents something. It's kind of a.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Static, static status go, you know, uninteresting, which is what
I think typical conservatives are. I don't like the terms
progressive and liberal again. I think has been has been
in America, has been uprooted from taking away from its
roots and and distorted.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Unfortunately, what would you call yourself now? Do you call
yourself a libertarian? I have a bunch of friends that
have kind of strayed away from the term because I
hate current environment, okay.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
And herself hated the term she called. She called libertarians
right wing hippies, and I think.

Speaker 4 (04:38):
She was right.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
Well, that seems totally correct, and so.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
No, I do not call myself a libertarian, Pamli, because
libertarianism is another one of those concepts similar to liberal
and to conservatives, that means nothing. It's it's like a
big tent umbrella that includes kind of free market republicans
all the way to Ramas loving Putin loving, anti immigration anarchists,

(05:07):
and I don't want to be in that tent. I
don't want to be among those people, you know, So
I call myself an objectivist. My political philosophy is capitalism.
I'm a capitalist as opposed to a socialist or or
middle of the ODA mixed economist. I believe in LESFA capitalism.
So politically i'm a capitalist. Philosophically, I'm an objectivist.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
Right, Okay, Well, the place where I think we probably
disagree is on the morality, and I think we can
let me. Let me articulate my critique of objectivism, and
we'll kind of see where the conversation goes. You're you
you conceptualize selfishness as as a moral moral behavior, correct?

Speaker 2 (05:54):
Yes? I well, it's a standard by which all my
behavior should be.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
Judged, right, Okay, I I there's this idea that selfishness
beats altruism within groups, right, But altruistic groups beat selfish groups,
and I think nature as it stands is is really
groups fighting against other groups. So, oh, go ahead. Do

(06:20):
you want to respond to that?

Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, I mean I think that's that's I mean, I
don't conceptualize anything that way, right, And it's not clear
to me that that's even true. You know, I think
groups that are motivated by this that where the individuals
are motivated by their own self interest beat altruistic groups.

Speaker 4 (06:38):
Any day, all the time.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
So I mean, and that would be true in sports,
and that would be true in military campaigns, and tue
in economics. That's why corporations are so cool, right. Corporations
are these groups of self interested individuals all trying to
kind of maximize their own well being over the long
run in a rational way, and they do nominally well economically. Well,

(07:02):
you can compet to a commune or like a co
op where everybody's an altruist and they're running the business
based on everybody within the group being an altruist, and
they can't compete against the corporation. And I think that's
true of a country which is based on individual rights
and therefore based on the self interest of individuals, like

(07:23):
America versus a communist country that is based on everybody
being an altruist and sacrificing the common good. America is
going to beat the communist country every single time, and economically, militarily,
in any respect. So no, self interest is the driving
force of achievement in human life, and groups of self

(07:45):
interested individuals are going to be the most productive, the strongest,
and indeed the most cohesive.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
Well, I do, I totally agree with you that self
interest is the state of nature, and in the economic
realm with the corporations and stuff like that, I agree
with everything that you're saying. Where you get into the
realm of military campaigns versus other military campaigns, there is
an element of self sacrifice that's often involved in there.

(08:14):
The classic example is the guy that jumps on the
grenade to save his entire platoon. Right, someone's got to
jump on the grenade, and that's the ultimate selfless act.
So in that situation, I can conceptualize it from a
selfish perspective. I can say, Look, the guy who jumps
on the grenade is jumping on the grenade because that's
going to gain him a higher status. People are going

(08:36):
to remember it. His family is probably going to be
taking care of Yeah, but the status might be conferred
to his family. The tribe might take care of his family.
The military is going to take care of his family.
I think they even call him gold star families, right,
they take care of them going forward. So just let
me finish real quicks. So if the exchange is status

(08:59):
for that, the question for me is you have to
imbue society where we're going to exchange status for the
selfish act and objectivism. If you're saying, well, the selfish
guy is just a schlub, that he shouldn't be selfish
at all, then you're kind of demotivating people from doing

(09:19):
these selfless acts, and that could prevent your tribe from
being strong enough to actually beat a tribe that does
have this meme of selfishness. Is that a good argument?
Is that a rational argument?

Speaker 4 (09:34):
No, for a variety of reasons.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
First, I wouldn't use the word slub, and I don't, okay,
But anyway, the major problem with that argument, though again
we'll get to the grenade in a minute, is the
issue status. Status is insignificant, it is unimportant. It is
not self interested. It's not self interested to gain status.
It is completely secondhanded. It makes you a dependent on

(10:01):
other people. Other people have to give you status. What's
matters to self esteem? What matters is your own assessment
of your own ability and your own worth.

Speaker 4 (10:10):
Not other people's assessment of your own worth.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
You know, this is really the theme for those of
you haven't edit or the Fountainhead, you should read it.
It's about who you are, not about what other people
think of who you are. Who the f cares what
other people think, so I'll start with that, but look,
we'll go back to the to the grenade. It completely
depends on what kind of a political system you're fighting for.

(10:40):
So if you're jumping on the grenade in order to
save the communist regime or to save Hitler or to
save Hamas, then absolutely you are being a self sucked.
What you're doing is e moodel and it's self sacrificial,
and it's absurd, and you know, and if you had
a choice, shouldn't even be fighting, and you shouldn't be

(11:01):
in the army. That's not in your self interest because
you're fighting for a cause that is destructive to your
own life into the life of the people you love.
On the other hand, if you're fighting for a cause
for a political system that is essentially based on freedom,
and you're fighting in self defense, that is, you didn't

(11:22):
start the war, you're fighting in self defense, then you're
jumping in the grenade because you realize that your life
is not worth living under slavery. You realize that you're
you know, this is what's required for the people you love,
you care about, you care about in a selfish way,
what's required for them to.

Speaker 4 (11:42):
Preserve their freedom.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
So you're jumping in the grenade because you wouldn't want
to live in a world in which you don't jump
on a grenade, and therefore you lose, and there's no
there's no freedom in the world. So you're fighting for
a selfish value, which is freedom for you and the
people you love. Otherwise, don't fight otherwise stay home. That

(12:03):
is uh, the only and this is this is why
it's also true that self interest limits war. It reduces war,
reduces conflict because fighting is the last thing you want
to do. It's it's the it's the a year risking
your life, it's just hollboat.

Speaker 4 (12:19):
You only have one of the one of those.

Speaker 2 (12:21):
You don't care about status after you're dead, but you
do want the people you love to be to be free.
Not taking care of, taking care of is terrible. Uh,
you know, being taken care of is again you know, uh,
SEFs are taking care of. What you want is freedom.
So if you're fighting for freedom, it's worthwhile and and

(12:42):
and you need to So you need to limit the
wars to those wars that are necessary to preserve your freedom,
and they're not many wars like that.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
Well, I agree with mostly self.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
Interest in capitalism induce peace.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
Well, I agree with most what you said. The only
part I would push back on is that the separating
status from human nature. One of the things that I
like about capitalism is capitalism channels people's desire for status
into a positive direction. I think a lot of people
build companies and build various organizations that make life better

(13:23):
for people because they want to gain status. Where people
want at one time gain status from killing other people
and taking over their land, now we want to take
over economically, which I think is I don't think that's
true at all.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
I mean, if you look at Steve Jobs or Jeff Bezos,
they won motivated by status. They were motivated by love.
They were motivated by the beauty of production and the
beauty of creating great products and making something that was
cool and amazing. They wont motivated by being at the
top of some kind of heap or something like that.

(14:00):
So no, I don't think people are at all motivated
by status. I mean some people are, but it's irrational, right.
I mean, the beauty of human beings is that, you know,
much of the values we choose are chosen, they're not
embedded in our DNA, and you know, we can. Some

(14:21):
people do try to achieve status, and they're typically unhappy
and and not very successful people. I think the people
who really succeed in life are people who don't care
about status, whose status doesn't even enter their thinking. They
care about, you know, doing producing, taking care of themselves,

(14:42):
you know, and and and enjoying what they do and
and pursuing productivity because they know the productivity is where
they're going to get their self esteem and that's how
you gain happiness. So status is an irrational motivation. The
true many people engage in, but they typically go into politics,
uh and uh, which is not a particularly productive field.

(15:03):
And it's it's not a motivation that actually leads to
happiness of success in any kind of way. And again,
I think status, the orientation to what status is not genetic.
It's social, and it's driven by an altruistic morality that
tells you that morality is all about the other other
people are more important than you. Other people's opinions are

(15:24):
more important than you. You know, what other people do,
other people say is what's important.

Speaker 4 (15:29):
And I and.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
Objectives can reject that completely. What's important is what I think,
not what you think.

Speaker 1 (15:35):
That's fascinating. So you're look, I think people do put
too much emphasis on status, So I agree with you there.
I think continue disciplining yourself not to be obsessed with status,
I think is a good thing. Ultimately, I do think
a lot of people do focus on status, maybe to
their own detriment. I don't know if you could separate

(15:56):
it from human from human nature though, So that's the
only place where I I.

Speaker 4 (16:04):
Think we overestimate what human nature is.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
Human nature is to be rational, and that opens up
possibilities of what exactly kind of rational or what we
actually do that. You know, it's up to us. We
have free will and we get to shape our nature.
So to a large extent, human nature is a myth
if you go beyond the idea of we have certain capabilities,

(16:30):
but our inclination. We have certain inclinations, but our ideas,
And status is an idea. It's the idea that other
people are more important than you, that is learned. That
has nothing to do with human nature. Human nature is
to be rational and to choose the best you know,
to choose values, which values based on what that is
all up to?

Speaker 4 (16:48):
That is all up to human choice.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
So is it fair to say that you conceptualize status
as bad because you're giving other people power over you.
Is that I know what you're saying. Yeah, okay, that's
totally fascinating you want.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
To Yeah, I think that. I definitely agree that it
is in human nature to have the potential to be rational.
I don't think I don't think people are born I
always say this, I don't think people are born with
free will. I think you have to kind of fight
for it. But in terms of like the status question,
it's interesting because the way that I think that I conceptualize,

(17:24):
and I think the way that Adam conceptualizes, is that
it's hard for me to imagine that you have an
animal that would evolve, that exists in some sort of
group based structure like humans, that doesn't have some sort
of evolved tendency towards hierarchical organization or status seeking behavior.
And it's hard to see like how you could have,

(17:46):
you know, hunter gatherers, really any human society where there
is not a hierarchy that comes out of status and competency,
and that is sort of how people know like who
to follow, who has the good ideas as opposed everyone
just trying to do their own thing and not work together.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
So a few things there first. You know, I want
to agree with you in a sense, I think that, uh,
rationality is something you have to earn. You have to
you have to work at, you have to you have
to actually engage. We have an on off switch, which
is what I think free will ultimately is. It's the
honest think the office don't think, and many people choose

(18:21):
not to think. So in that sense, yeah, once you,
once you choose not to think, free will is irrelevant.
It becomes irrelevant because you're not a rational You're not
in that sense I rational being.

Speaker 4 (18:31):
You're a mimicking being.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
You start mimicking everybody else because that's how you survive.
In terms of status, look, status is not the same
as hierarchy. Of course, hierarchys exist. People are better at
some things than other things. People are going to be leaders,
and other people follow us in a particular context and
might flip in a different context. All of that, All

(18:53):
of that is true. But that doesn't make I need
to be a hero. I need to be a leader,
you know. In terms of that is my human nature
is there is to be at the top of the
status poteum. I think that's ridiculous. The reality is that
many of us are quite satisfied not to be at
the top of whatever that whatever that thing is, as
long as we're doing something we love and something we

(19:15):
really care about. And look, one of the great advantages
of getting out of hunter gatherers societies and out of
you know, out of subsistent farming and out of barely
surviving is the kind of division of a labor society
and the kind of richness of opportunities we have today
in which we don't win. I reliance on one hierarchy.
There are a million higharchys, and we can fit in and

(19:36):
slot in in all kinds of places and all kinds
of hierarchies, in all kinds of ways. And in some
places I'm at the top in the hierarchy, and in
some places, you know, I'm at the bottom. And I
don't really care if I'm at the bottom in some higherarchys,
because those are the you know, that's where those are
the kind of choices I've made about my life.

Speaker 3 (19:53):
Yeah, No, I mean, and I agree completely with like
I think it's one of the benefits of capitalism is
we've talked about this a lot. Creating some many different
hierarchies or games or whatever we want to call it,
that people can succeed in, because if you don't, then
you know, obviously it's going to breed a lot of
animosity and revolution and violence if there's only a couple
paths to success. Yeah, I guess when I think of status,

(20:17):
I just think of it. Maybe we're just defining differently.
I think of it kind of just like the perception
that other people have of where you slot into a
hierarchy and so, and I just I also view it
as that so much of human behavior is based around
like reproduction and mate selection, and that it seems that

(20:38):
that males generally not everyone. And obviously this is you know,
we're we're trying to be rational beings, so things you know,
are different and they can't be different. But it seems
like there's a broader theme of men trying to achieve
status or climb hierarchies in order to attract women.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
Essentially, I think that's all right, but it's very unhealthy
and it leads to unhappiness. So I think that's right
instead of focusing on being the best that you can be.
And that's a cliche, but it's true. Being the best
that you can be given who you are. Focusing on
how other people perceive you is the roots to unhappiness.

(21:14):
It's a root to self destruction, and it's ultimately a
root and not being very successful. I think with women,
you know, I think I so the right kind of women. Again,
there are lots of women who care about status, that
care about how other people think of you. But that's
is that the woman you want versus a woman who
cares about you and who you are and how you

(21:36):
fit with her.

Speaker 4 (21:38):
You know, in every kind of sense.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
So I think the more we focus on how we
look to other people, the cheaper we make our lives,
and the list fulfilling our lives become.

Speaker 3 (21:54):
Right, No, I agree, and that could be kind of
a paradoxical situation where the yeah, the more you focus
on something like I have to climb the SaaS hoarchy,
the more even if you accomplish that, you know, you
could be selling pieces of yourself you be could becoming
a more degenerate or immoral person, or you could be
in a more unhappier state where if you are more

(22:16):
focused on yourself and just trying to be that the
best you can be, you will hopefully naturally attract you know,
better people around yourself, better life circumstances around yourselves, and
things of that nature. So yeah, I mean, I agree,
I just I think it's kind of like that. This
is the human nature that I guess that we're fighting
against constantly, and that's sort of what is where a

(22:36):
lot of our problems come from. But I want to
ask you about because you were talking about self interest
and what exactly do you mean when you use that phrase.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
I mean that which is in the interest of the individual,
you know, and what I mean and when I think
about interest, I mean that which promotes an individuals flourishing, happiness,
a well being. And I think some of those things
are universal. That is, I think there's certain principles that
every individual must pursue if they're going to achieve flourishing

(23:12):
and happiness. And then of course there are lots of
optional values in terms of the particulars. Those are all personal,
and those are all going to be different, but they
are guiding principles and those happen to be those are
them all principles I view morality. Morality is that field
in human in philosophy that should teach you how to

(23:33):
live a flourishing, successful, prospers ultimately happy life. That's the
function of the field of morality. And that's how Aristotle,
by the way viewed it.

Speaker 3 (23:43):
Can self interests lead people down either destructive path for
themselves or for everyone around them.

Speaker 4 (23:51):
No, because.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
Fundamentally, if you think about what's in your self interest
the fundamental thing to now, Look, you can make mistakes,
you can make errors that lead to self destruction, right,
but I'm not counting errors, right, you know, always mistakes. Fundamentally,
what is required to live a self interested life is
to live as a human being and to live by

(24:14):
your nature. And what does that mean? That means to
be rational. So the moral, the great moral achievement is
to be a rational animal. Is to be a rational being,
is to live rationally. And I think if you live rationally,
you you know, if you think through what you're about
to do and why you're about to do it, and
you think about your motivations, and you think about the consequences,

(24:37):
then you're very unlikely to go down a path that
leads to self destruction. And if you actually think about
the kind of world you want to live in, a
kind of relationship you want to have other people because
other people are really really important to your own well being,
then you're not going to you're not going to engage
in actions that destroy other people's lives that'll lead to

(24:58):
living in a kind of society that is, you know,
destructive to your own happiness and your own well being.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
Well, yeah, I guess, I guess why I was asked
for the definition how you're perceiving is because I think
most people when they hear the term self interest like
it's you know, people perceive as meaning like selfish, And
it's kind of like trying to figure out the difference, because.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
There is, like an example, selfish is the same, It's
the same thing. The difference the only thing is that
we've tuned it into a dirty wood or negative would
an evil wood, right, But that's because a morality of altruism,
morality that tells you that your mal purpose in life
should be to sacrifice to others and that's the most
noble thing you can do is live like mother Teresa.

(25:39):
A morality like that, you know, wants to make sure
that you're not attracted by an alternative, so they make
the alternative sound so horrific and disgusting.

Speaker 4 (25:49):
What does it mean to be selfish.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
It's the light, cheat, steal, backstab, think only about the
short term, party all day, you know, party all night,
who cares about? Who cares about the future. If that's
what selfish means, then okay, all I've got is altruism.

Speaker 4 (26:05):
It's only mall code I have.

Speaker 2 (26:06):
And most people hold those two alternatives as the only
two things possible. And what Einmand is saying is now,
there's actually a third alternative, which is to be actually selfish,
which means to actually care about yourself, which means to
actually view your life over the long run and to
view yourself as a human being. And they're as rational
and to live that kind of life, and that's what

(26:30):
morality should be about. So to live a rational, long term,
self interested life is what she means when she says
to be selfish.

Speaker 3 (26:39):
So, for example, what would be how would it be
not self interested? For like a private equity firm, say
they do some kind of LBO. They buy some company,
they leverage it with debt and then they you know,
they can't pay it off, so they got the company.
They you know, they go away with a bunch of
profit when they got the company and sell for parts,

(27:00):
but the company falls apart. In all these people loose
their jobs with the people doing that. From the private
equity standpoint, who made all the money? Are they acting
as self interested actors in that moment?

Speaker 2 (27:12):
Maybe it might be very difficult for them, for example,
to buy another company. If if let me, let me
just say, I don't buy the description you just made.
I don't think it works financially that as I don't
think you can do what you just describe doing. And
we can. We can go into in examples. I'm a
finance guy. I've studied LBOs. I'm a huge fan of LBOs.

(27:35):
I think LBOs are very healthy and uh, and what
you describe I think is just a caricature of what
actually happens. But let's say let's say that did happen. Uh,
you know, they were just nasty people and somehow they
figured out a way how to screw everybody else and
make money for themselves. Well, if I'm the guy that
they're approaching now, you know, to buy the company from

(27:59):
and and tip you know, I might even keep an
equity stake, because that's how a lot of lbo's happen
is when you buy something, you keep an out. Well,
I don't want to have anything to do with these
people because they're going to screw me. You know, they
screwed the last bunch of people. Why would why would
they not screw me? And in the long run, it's
probably not in the interest of of a of a
private equity firm to function that way. Again, I don't

(28:21):
think private equity functions that way. I think part of
its success is a part of how they've grown so
much is a consequence of the fact that they don't
function that way. That private equity is overall win win
win win. Yes, they might be some losers, but in
the in the big picture, it's a it's a massive
win for almost everybody. But we could get into the

(28:43):
details of some examples if oh yeah, we.

Speaker 3 (28:46):
Don't have to get in details of the specifics. I'm
just trying to think of like this.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
Just to let the audience know LBO as a leverage
buyout just they said.

Speaker 3 (28:54):
Sorry, But I'm just trying to think of it more
like a conceptual level, because I know that like, yeah,
I mean, I adn't believe a lot about the importance
of democracy. Is that that kind of aligning that the
leader's interests are with the people, because if you have
these situations where you have like monarchies or dictatorships, they
only like the leader. At least how I would define it,

(29:17):
could be entirely self interested in that they are extracting
resources from as many people as possible and as long
as they can pay off you know, the military and
the people in charge, like that's going to be totally
fine for them, and they live a successful you know,
in finger quotes, a successful life where they're rich and
have kids and all these other things while everyone else

(29:37):
is suffering.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
So I would say that any self interested person who
was offered the job of king or dictator would turn
it down. It's not in yourself interest to be in
that position. It's not in yourself interest to rule over others.
It's not in yourself interest to exploit other people, if

(30:00):
you know, assuming it's real exploitation. It's not in your
self interest to lie or cheat or steal. I tell
people all the time, if you're not sure about lying,
just try it, Like try it for a day, you know,
light to your best friend you know for a day
and see what happens. Or light to your boss for
a day and see what happens, it's not in yourself
interested I'll come back and destroy you. And the same thing,

(30:23):
by the way, is and it's stealing is the same thing.
You know, people who who have done pyramid schemes and stolen,
they're miserable, pathetic, unhappy people. Bernie made Up being a
great example of that. I don't know, you guys may
be too young to know who Bernie made Off was.
But Bernie made Up is a great example of somebody

(30:44):
who said he's happy and in jail than he was
before he was caught, because stealing and deceiving other people
is unbelievably damaging to one's own psyche.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
Didn't he lie to a bunch of people? Though he's
probably lying now.

Speaker 4 (30:57):
It was a horrible human being.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
I mean he was, but he lived it right so
he couldn't sleep. He was constant in fear of being caught,
not by the police, but his family and his best
friends might catch him take their money.

Speaker 4 (31:10):
You know, it's just not a good strategy.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
So Bernie Madoff is a good example of how lion, cheating, stealing,
exploiting other people is self destructive, not self interested. Oh,
take Stalin. Take somebody like Stalin right. You say, oh, well,
he had all the power in the world, he did
self interested things, But why was he so miserable and afraid?
He lived in constant fear. And you know, his best

(31:32):
one of his best friends, was the guy who ran
the KGB, and yet he was afraid of him. He
could he constantly thought the guy was going to kill
him any any any He couldn't have any honest human
relationship with anybody because he constantly lived in fear. You
cannot find me an example of anybody who was a
king or authoritarian who actually was self interested in the

(31:54):
sense that he lived a flourishing, successful life. I mean
maybe the you know, this is why you know you
wouldn't want that job. You wouldn't want that job because
it cannot lead you to actual success in life. In terms,
run the experiment right, right, run the thought experiment, or
right in the stomical experiments, and you'll see that that

(32:17):
it just doesn't work. What works is being productive and
being honest and having integrity, and you know, living a
life of pride where you're proud of your own moral character.
So that is what is going to lead you to
be successful and happy, not sacrificing to other people, but

(32:39):
also not asking other people to sacrifice to you, living
by your own means, you know, by by your own
work and being successful. It's why anytime we inhibit people's
ability to think for themselves work for themselves, we inhibit
their ability to be successful and happy. Well, I think

(33:01):
the state, for example, is incredibly destructive of human happiness.

Speaker 3 (33:05):
Why do you think that so many people engage in
that self destructive behavior of lying, cheating, and stealing them.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
Well, because the you know a lot of things. One
is we don't teach them a proper morality. We teach
them a morality It says, don't lie, not because lying
is bad for you. We teach them don't lie because
you should care about other people more than you care
about yourself.

Speaker 4 (33:25):
And they go, yeah, but I don't really care about
other people that.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
Much, and I feel like lying, and we never tell them.
Don't act on your feelings, you know, act only in reason,
act only on rationality. If money made uf it sat
down for like ten minutes before he made that first lie,
before he deceived that first guy, and thought it through,
thought what happens in pyramid schemes, thought about how this

(33:50):
was going to play out. If he thought about it,
if he'd been rational about it, he would have never
done it. You know, when we get into trouble, when
almost anybody gets into try, they get into trouble and
afterwards they go, ah, I should have thought about it
more right, because we follow our emotions. Emotions lead you
into trouble. Not thinking, in other words, leads you into trouble.

(34:12):
So we teach people a false morality, a morality of
self sacrifice. They reject that, but they have no alternative.
They're not taught in Rand's morality, which is a morality
to achieve flourishing and happiness. Nobody teaches that, so they
have this dichotomy of I can be I can be
self sacrifice and lift other people. I don't want to
do that, that sounds like that sounds boring and sucks.

(34:35):
Or you know, I can steal some money and party
all day. I'd rather do that. And you know, even
though it's self destructive. And the third alternative, which is
what I'm advocating for, is not even on the table.
Nobody even knows it exists. So I think it's the
right morality. It's a morality that you know, other than
two philosophers in all of human history has not been

(34:56):
advocated for, and it's a morality that will change the
world if was advocated.

Speaker 3 (35:00):
For hm Adam.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
Just on the Bernie made Off thing, Yeah, it's so
hard for me to separate the idea of status. It's
just integral to my worldview. It seems like Bernie made Off,
his reputation was built on sand. Like trustworthiness is a
form of status, but wealth is also a form of status.

(35:26):
So Bernie Madeoff thought, I will take the shortcut to
the status. And this is why he was constantly conflicted,
because he knew if anyone found out his status was
really a fake, it was a fraudulent form of status,
and as soon as everybody found out, his status would plunge, plummet.

Speaker 2 (35:44):
I mean that could have been his motivation. I don't know,
But it could have just been purely the money. It
could have just been the money. I want money. I'm
going to take the shortcut to get money. Money will
buy me a yacht, money will buy me a nice house,
money will buy me whatever. So it could have been
a bunch of different motivation. Status might have been one
of them. This is the sense in which status is
a destructive motivation. Don't be motivated by status, don't be

(36:08):
motivated by money. Be motivated by achieving, you know, achieving
through production what you are capable of achieving for its
own sake, for the sake of producing, for the sake
of creating, for the sake of building. And you know,
so Bernie did all those things, but he also had
to realize one of the reasons he was, you know, nervous,

(36:32):
was not just because maybe people would discover and he'd
lose status, but how about jail. That made him nervous
that he would go to jail, that he would lose
all the money, not only because it would reduce his status,
but us because he couldn't spend it, and that he
would lose the love of the people around him. I mean,
a lot of the people around him loved him because
they thought he was an honest, productive, good human being.

(36:54):
And when they would discover that he was not an honest,
good human being, maybe they would stop loving him.

Speaker 4 (36:58):
And that's his family. That's not a status.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
That's an issue of wanting the people you love to
love you back. It is interesting that his son, but
basically Bonnie Madoff, was turned into the police by his sons.
His two sons turned him in. One of those sons
committed suicide about a year ago.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
I remember, Bonnie may have just.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
Had it made, you know, it created for himself a
horrible life. And again my point is, if you pursue
status as an end, or if you pursue line cheating, stealing,
that's not selfish. You don't gain from it, you lose.
You actually live a horrible, pathetic life.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
Well, convincing people that I think is is difficult. Obviously,
people people tend to learn the hard way. So I mean,
I I totally agree with what you're saying about the honesty.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
It should be. It shouldn't be because we all know
that in third grade.

Speaker 4 (37:58):
I mean we all learn it very early.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
We learn what happens when we try to gravitory from
somebody else. We learn what happens when we lie. But
you know, yes, it's an achievement. Look, it's an achievement
to think of man as a rational being. It's an
achievement to realize that happiness is related to rationality and
related to the long term, not to the short term.
All of those achievements, and yeah, it's not easy to

(38:24):
the achievements are not easy, and we're obviously at a
point in civilization where the world is not quite ready
for this particular achievement.

Speaker 4 (38:32):
It's something we're struggling with.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
Well, you're talking, we're obviously talking a lot about morality.
Do you have a definition of morality that you like?
How would you define morality?

Speaker 2 (38:41):
Yeah, morality is a code of values that helps man
choose between what is right and what is wrong, what
is good and what is evil, and then you have
to define good and evil, and that will your moral
code will be different depending on how you define good
and evil. But morality is the same thing, right, no
matter what it's it's providing you with a map on

(39:02):
to life. Uh. And it could be a self sacrificial life,
and that's what morality is. Good is to sacrifice and
bad is to think about yourself, which is conventional morality,
or it could be the objective's morality. It says the
good is that which furthers your own life, and bad
is that which damages your own life. And then that
gives you a different map to live your life. Different
people are going to live different lives based on the

(39:24):
morality that they choose. I'm saying one is a good
morality and one's a bad morality and you should choose
a good one.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
It's a So I totally agree. Morality is a code
for behavior of right and wrong behavior. How how does that?
Do you believe in objective morality? Do you believe in
multiple moralities? It sounds like you believe in multiple reality.

Speaker 2 (39:47):
No, absolutely, an objective morality, one hundred percent of objective morality.
And it's objective because it's based on human nature and
the facts of reality. So how do we decide what
is a virtue or what is the value worth pursuing?

Speaker 4 (40:04):
Does it for the human life? Right?

Speaker 2 (40:06):
So I look around and I see all the stuff
that human life requires, shelter, food, lighting, in the modern internet,
in the modern world's video streaming, and ask myself, how
do we get that? Where does that come from? And
it's obvious that all of that comes from reason, And
it's very basic. Even hunter gatherers have to use reason.

(40:29):
They know human beings are so weak and pathetic that
you cannot run down a bison and bite into it.
You have to figure out weapons and strategies and tactics
in order to hunt a bison.

Speaker 4 (40:40):
All of that requires reason.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
So reason is my top value because reason is the
way in which human beings survive, and it should be
everybody's top value because it's universal. All human beings need
reason in order to survive for somebody else's reason. Like
if you're a powasite, which unfortunately a lot of people are,
then they live off of other people's reason, right, They
live of other people's production, other people's innovation, other people's work.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
So there are multiple moralities, but the one where you.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
As correct morality. The multiple moralities, there's only one objective
correct morality.

Speaker 4 (41:17):
That's what I meant.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
Before, right, Okay, So someone who values selflessness, that's the
root of their morality. That morality, it exists, but it's
not objectively correct.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
That's not objectively correct, and it's actually destructive.

Speaker 1 (41:31):
Yeah, okay, that makes sense. So let's talk a little
bit about the politics of the current moment, since we've
got you here and there as some do you consider
yourself on the right or on the left politically?

Speaker 2 (41:47):
I don't consider myself on the right or on the left, Okay,
So I believe the political spectrum is wrong right left
to become I've always been meaningless, but particularly meaningless today.
I consider the rerec political spectrum being collectivism to individualism.
And uh, there are lots of forms of collectivism, collectivism

(42:08):
meaning the primacy of the group over the individual. And
you could be you can be on the left and
a collectivist socialism, communism, and and you can be on
the right be a collectivist fascism and and it's all
its variations. And most people today, uh soft collectivists that
they're kind.

Speaker 4 (42:29):
Of in the middle. They they they they like, you.

Speaker 2 (42:32):
Know, they want to they still want to sacrifice the
individual to a group, but not too much. A little
bit they want to pretend they're for rights, but not
too much, not principled in any principled way. And then
I'm an individualist, you know, I don't want to sacrifice
individual rights ever to anybody.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
Well I kind of see it that way too, where
I see the individualism as kind of the center of
the political spectrum.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
And if you go too far rights and it's not
a mixture. So so you have it's like an oro right,
vigualisms over here, collectivisms over here, and collectivism splinters into
a bunch of different variations.

Speaker 1 (43:05):
In individualism is on.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
The left, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
Well, look, I think if you go too far left,
then obviously you get into collectivism again, you get into
a different brand of that.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
That's why I don't like left and right. I just
like I like one one spectrum, individualism on one side,
collectivism on the other.

Speaker 4 (43:23):
You choose which side you want.

Speaker 1 (43:25):
It, which way, which way erro goes.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
I view Republicans and Democrats today in particular, is both collectivists,
uh and and both you know, almost equally evil and
and I think and and and when you.

Speaker 4 (43:37):
Go to the extremes, that's that's certainly the case.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
But I think that's to some extent always been the case.
They've always been anti individual rights, you know, they they
want to take away different rights. But they both left
and right anti individual rights. Individualism separate from the conventional
left and right spectrum, which just is a question of
left and right disagree on which rights they should violate,

(44:01):
not on the principles you'd vote.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
So do you subscribe to any partisan politics at all?

Speaker 2 (44:08):
I know, I mean, I I you know, i'd say,
in most elections in the past, i've you know, tilted
towards Republicans.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
Okay, yeah, that's my question.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
You know, But now no, I mean, with these Republicans no,
I don't, you know, And it depends on the republican right.
If you're Nick Frantis Republican, I'd probably vote for a Democrat.
But if you're woke, you know, globalizing to fought a Democrat,
then I'm probably going to vote for Republicans. It really
depends on the kind right of democratic republican. But I

(44:43):
voted democratic, I've voted Republican for president depending. I mean,
I vote strategically. I think about the long term consequences,
and I also realized my particular vote doesn't matter that much.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
Well, here's the sophie's choice that we're kind of in
right now, because it could be a Nick Flentes Republican
against globalizing, and to thought, uh, I stayed home, Democrat.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
I stayed home. I stayed home. I stayed home. When
it was Trump versus Hillary, I stayed home. Trump versus
you know, Biden.

Speaker 4 (45:16):
I do not view it. I don't think voting is
that important.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
And one of those candidates is going to win though
obviously if that's the situation, I don't have to sanction
his victory right totally, But we're going to have to
live under their policy proposal.

Speaker 2 (45:30):
That is the reality and it's going to suck you.

Speaker 1 (45:34):
It is why are we so the situation on the
right trying to convince people, you know, that there's a
better alternative.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
So before the Republican primaries, I tried to convince people
that Trump was the worst candidate on the he wasn't
even on the stage but in the primary, and to
vote for anybody but Trump. I failed dramatically. Once it
was Trump versus Biden, I emphasized in my show why
Trump was as bad as he was because I knew
that everybody who listens to me is already anti Biden,

(46:05):
so I wanted to make the case that they should
be also anti Trump. And then what exactly they voted
on election day? You know, it is is less important
than the knowledge that they should take with them that
both candidates really, really, really sucked.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
We don't really try to persuade our audience as much
as we just argue out politics. So it is interesting
you are participating in the political process on your show
if you're advocating for one one candidate over another candidate.

Speaker 2 (46:39):
So well, I'm always trying to show how, you know,
with exception of good candidates, I think I think it's
rare that they are good candidates. I'm trying to show
how bad the bad candidates are. You know, I long
for the day with as a candidate I could get
excited about. You know, maybe if I lived in Argentina,
I could get excited about me Lay. I mean, I
get excited about me even living in America. But Melay

(47:03):
is about as good as a politician as we have
in the world today by my standards.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
Right, because he's more libertarian, he's more free markets.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
He's fem arket and NASA's emphasis, and he's willing. He's
not just a femarketer that just says it. He understands it.
He's an economist and he really understands it. And he's
shown over the last year that he's willing to do it,
which takes a lot of coverage, a lot of people
going to office saying I'm going to do this data
DA and don't do anything. He's actually doing it, so

(47:32):
he actually has the balls to follow through.

Speaker 1 (47:35):
How would you advocate now with the current rift in
the Republican Party, there's a there's obviously this rise of
Nick Foenttes as a public figure who's avowed an open
anti semi and you've got a lot of moderate Republicans
I think that are trying to protect the Republican brand,
and you've you've kind of got I mean, it's kind

(47:58):
of evolving into a shit show for know better terminologies.

Speaker 4 (48:03):
Well, I mean, I don't.

Speaker 2 (48:05):
I think it's a shit show because the the the
people running the Republican Party are afraid of Nick Frantis.
So the only reason this is a shit show is
that people like Donald Trump and JD. Van's and the
head of Heritage and the head of other think tanks
in Washington d c afraid of Nick Foentis and Tucker Carlson.

(48:26):
So as a consequence, they are trying to distance themselves
from anti Semitism and at the same time not wanting
to piss off all the anti Semites. That's a really
tough trick, and they're struggling and it's a shit show.
It would have been really easy if pretty much every
every one in the of the call them the established

(48:47):
on the Republicans just said we're against anti Semitism, and
if you associate with the Nick Frantiss of the world,
you know we will have nothing to do with you.
And to help with you, Tucker Coulson, that would have
that would have not been a shit show.

Speaker 4 (48:59):
That have ended it.

Speaker 2 (49:01):
That's what they should have done, but they can't because actually,
you know, look, Donald Trump has been winking and giving
little thumbs up to the racist right from the beginning.
I mean, he did it at Charlottesville, and he's done
it throughout his career. He kind of he doesn't he
condemns them, he says the right things, but he's winking

(49:23):
and he's giving them a thumbs up in a right
kind of way to give them every indication he's actually
on their side. And JD. Vance, by announcing himself to
be a post liberal, national conservative, Christian conservative, is.

Speaker 4 (49:39):
Almost their right with them.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
What's the big difference between him and frantis so yeah,
I mean Republican Party is a show. I mean, they
deserve everything that's happening to them. They've walked right into it.
They've made the bed. You know, they've made this bed.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
So you're saying that they're trying to keep the coalition together,
which implies that they would want the Nick Foyantes fans
to vote for them in the next selection. But Nick
Foantes has been open about not wanting to vote for JD.
Vance because he's married, he's in an interracial marriage, and
all kinds of things.

Speaker 2 (50:12):
Tucker Calson is really good friends with Jade Vance. His
son works with JD.

Speaker 4 (50:18):
Vance.

Speaker 2 (50:19):
I have no doubt in my mind that, at least
in Tucker Colson's mind, one of the reasons he did
such a softball interview with Nick Frentis is to try
to ultimately bring him on board, bring him, bring him
into the coalition, and get him on board with Jade Vans. Really, yes,
so I don't think he succeeded yet, but I think

(50:40):
they'll keep trying. And look, Nick Pointis is going to
be normalized within the party. It looks that way now,
you know the way that Jdvans ultimately is that is
the candidate. I don't know. I mean he is. He's
not particularly likable, and you know, I don't know what
the base, the people who vote in the primaries will

(51:02):
actually think of him. He was not very popular when
he picked him as vice president, So we'll see. I
don't I'm not very good at the politics side of it.
But look, what's his name. Fuentis is a despicable human being.
He is an anti Semite, He is a racist. You know,

(51:23):
He's got plenty of videos where he praises Hitler.

Speaker 4 (51:26):
There's no shortage of that.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
For those who might be confused about this, you know,
he attacks the Jews, not just the Jews to support Israel,
but he attacks the Jews. And the reason he ultimately
hates on Israel, the only reason he ultimately hates on
Israel versus hating on Saudi Arabia or Kato or Iran
is because the Jews, I mean, because otherwise Israel is

(51:49):
much more aligned with America than Saudi Arabia, which today
got the best I mean NBS today in the White
House got the best treatment from Donald Trump than any
other foreign leader in the world. You know, and I'm
sure Nick for Interests didn't complain about that, right so,
but every time anything else shows up, he complains. So

(52:10):
the only motivation is and why do they care about
I don't know Tucker costs and claims he cares about Christians.
Why do they care about Israel, which where the Christians
have equal rights to Jews, and not care about other.

Speaker 4 (52:20):
Places where Christians are being slotted.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
So all of this is motivated by anti Semitism, by
hatred of Jews because they are Jews. It's the opposite.
It's not that they hate Jews because Jews support Israel.
It's that they hate Israel because Israel is a place
with lots of Jews. And all you have to do
is really follow the logic of their own arguments.

Speaker 4 (52:41):
And you can see that.

Speaker 2 (52:43):
It's sad that we live in America today where anti
Semitism is prevalent. It's not even hidden on the left
and on the right. Yes, it really is stunning we
reach this point.

Speaker 1 (52:57):
There is ultimately a cost, I think to bringing Nick
Foant's into the Republican Party. A hit to the Republican
brand seems obvious. I mean, all the stuff he's saying
is going to be in Democratic ads in the mid terms,
and I'm sure in the next presidential election.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
I think that Tribosa depends on who the Democrats choose,
right if they if they choose an AOC, then a
lot of what the the what do you call it?
The the what do you call those full Democratic congress
women the squad?

Speaker 1 (53:29):
Yeah, squad? Well, don't they have the same exact problem
though on the left. And I mean, you can make
the argument that this was the problem that Kamala Harris
had in the last election. Why she lost because she
did the exact same thing, trying to incorporate the globalize,
the intifad A crowd into the Democratic coalition. They would
they would never vote for them. They tried to appease them,

(53:52):
and by trying to appease him, they took a giant
hit to the Democratic brand, which probably cost him the election.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
I agree with you completely, but look, the reality is
that somebody like Jdvance. Now Donald Trump doesn't believe in anything,
so it doesn't really matter. But Jdvans believes in something.
He has a set of beliefs, and his beliefs are
centered around a conservative you know, kind of national conservatism
or even Christian conservatism. He has good friends with the

(54:18):
post liberal Denin and the Mule and and these guys
who really do believe the Constitution is meaningless and they
really want to completely change the Republican Party. And to
that extent, he can't rely on the Censeer, he can't
rely on independence. So, you know, the Independence are publicly

(54:39):
not going to go there. So he has to decide
is he going to go to the center or is
he going to go, you know, to the Nick fointis
and the reality is the Nick foyntess is closer to JD.
Vance's ideas to the extent that he has them right,
and to the extend that consistent then is the center.
So that's why he's gravitating towards I think it's destructive.

(55:00):
I mean, I don't really care about destroying the Republican Party.
I have no chips in that game. I care about
destroying the country. I think it's unbelievably destructive to the
country as the Democrats move to appease the globalized intafada
and the right moves towards appeasing Nick frantis, what are
we left with? What kind of a country do we have?
Both anti Semitic, both a racist, both a collectivists, both

(55:25):
as statists. You could argue both as socialists, right, they
don't believe in free markets? Then is this a country
any of us want to live in? This is a
really this is unbelievably destructive to America.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
Yeah, it's totally terrifying. Do you think do you conceptualize
Jady Vance as a theocrat.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
Not a theocret if you mean in the sense of Iran, right,
He's not going to be a Mullah who rules, but
the theocret in sense of he believes there should be
no separation between church and state. I believe he doesn't
bel leave in separation of church and state. You know,
if you go again, if you read the Nan who
is a good friend of his, if you read the

(56:07):
post liberal kind of integralists who are very influential, you know,
Jade Events.

Speaker 4 (56:12):
Converted to Catholicism.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
These guys are all Catholic converts, which is just the
interesting you know, all these right wing post liberals or
Catholic converts. They believe Catholic religion should play a big
role in government. They don't believe in the separation state
and church. And so if you mean by that, then yeah,

(56:34):
he is a.

Speaker 1 (56:38):
Was the Wood theocrat. Democrats are definitely going to try
to pain him as a theocrat in the next election.
So he's on the table, he's wound it.

Speaker 2 (56:48):
I don't like him, you know, I wouldn't vote for him.
And you know, what we need, what we what we
need is is an alternative. And I don't know where
that alternative will come from. I don't know if Republicans
will choose alternative. I don't know, you know, Elune Musk
threatened to start a third party.

Speaker 4 (57:05):
I wish he'd done it.

Speaker 2 (57:06):
What we need is a is a real, well funded,
well organized third party that starts organizing now and doesn't
wait the last minute.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
Right do you ever watch batcha unger Sargon. She's a
huge Trump fan, and she conceptualizes Trump as a like
a middle class, a protector of the middle class, a
protector of jobs. She has a completely different look at
at Trump and most people.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
I mean, the thing about her, that's what. She has
no training in economics. She is an economic ignoramus.

Speaker 1 (57:40):
So you do know her?

Speaker 2 (57:42):
What's it?

Speaker 4 (57:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (57:42):
Oh yeah, okay, I mean she's everyway. She's an economic
ignoremus who constantly opines in economics. She doesn't know anything
about economics. She's not trained in it. She she views
the epitome of ignorance when it comes to it. So
Donald Trump cares about the middle class. He doesn't care
about anybody other than a piece other than you know,

(58:04):
his narcissistic emotions. Tariffs don't help the middle class. They
destroy the middle class. Taking a ten percent staken intel
doesn't help the middle class. It's destructive to the middle class.

Speaker 1 (58:18):
So you know, Jason, how is it destructive. He's look
his policy proposal. He's talking about taking the tariffs and
giving the two thousand dollars checks, So basically giving the
earnings from the tariffs to the middle class. How is
that not helping the middle class.

Speaker 2 (58:35):
So the middle class paid so that money the tariffs,
That money is taxes being placed on the middle class
that they were taxed. Now they're going to get their
money back, only to be taxed again in order to
fill the hole created in the budget because they got
the money. Right, So let's be really clear here. The

(58:56):
United States today with the tariffs is running one point
eight trillion that's a to trillion, right t right, one
point eight trillion dollar deficit per er, Yeah, oh yeah,
on top of a thirty seven trillion dollar debt.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
Yeah, total debt.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
So if we take, if we pay everybody two thousand
dollars check, the deficit grows to two point two trillion
dollars because it's about three hundred billion, two point two
trillion dollars. Who's going to pay that?

Speaker 4 (59:27):
Who's going to pay that?

Speaker 2 (59:29):
The middle class will have to pay it down the
road in future taxes. So he's scoring the middle class
left and right and he's he's pretending that he's helping them,
and she is the fool who is going on television
trying to sell the pretense to unfortunately pretty ignorance and

(59:51):
unengaged in middle class that doesn't really know what is
going on.

Speaker 1 (59:55):
Aren't the tariffs coming from the corporations. I conceptualize tariffs
is just a core for tax. The importers who are
importing the goods are the ones that are paying the tariff.

Speaker 4 (01:00:04):
So a couple of things.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
One, corporations are not not for profits, so the importers
don't run it in a nonprofit way. If they costs
go up and taxes a cost, then prices go up.
They pass the cost on to consumers. They have to.
They have no choice otherwise they go out of business.
There's no importer that has a twenty percent margin on

(01:00:28):
the stuff they input from from Japan or fifty percent
margin on the stuff they input from China. Their margins
are very small, so they passed the cost on.

Speaker 4 (01:00:36):
To everybody else. Right, so prices are going up.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
We know this if you look at prices of tariff goods,
all of them are up. Aluminum is up, steel is
Prices of everything that's been tariff has gone up. This
is why he recently in order to cut our cost
of living, he recently lower tariffs and bananas and coffee
and all this off. Why because taiks raised the cost

(01:01:02):
and if he cuts the taists they reduced the cost. Otherwise,
if the importers were absorbing it all, then cutting the
taft wouldn't have any impact on us. So, no, you
pay the tariff, there's no question about that. But think
a little deeper. Every corporate tax is a tax on consumers.
Corporations are not things. Corporations are just a legal something, right,

(01:01:27):
So every corporate tax, every penny of corporate taxes that
it's one of the dumbest taxes we have, is either
paid by shareholders or by employees or by consumers. And
based on all the financial research, almost all of corporate
taxes are paid by employees in lower wages and by consumers.

Speaker 4 (01:01:46):
In higher prices.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
So if you cut corporate taxes, prices go down generally
and wages go up. And that happened when Donald Trump
cut coporate taxes in twenty seventeen, the best thing he
did probably in his time presidency. It wages went up
and prices actually went down. So any corporate tax is
going to passed on to consumers, You passed on to somebody,

(01:02:09):
and there's just no way around that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:12):
I am not in favor of corporate taxes. But if
if they have lower input costs and they can keep
the prices higher because demand doesn't fall off, they will
keep the prices higher if they if they raise prices
because of the tariffs and demand falls off, nobody wants

(01:02:33):
the thing but competition.

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
But clearly competition drives the prices down. If you if
you get rid of corporate taxes so they have less
of a cost. Now, then you know we're competing. Then
my incentive is to try to take market ship from you.
Is to lower my price a little bit. I can
afford to do because I'm not paying all these corporate
taxes now. So I lower my price a little bit,
You match it, or lower a little bit more than me,
and soon enough prices have gone down to reflect the

(01:02:57):
full corporate tax. This is how we can wooks, and
it actually works in practice, not just in theory. That way, right,
go down and go down.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
There are two players obviously in that system, but there
will be some sort of equilibrium where they both want
their price is obviously as high as possible without a
falloff in demand.

Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
Sure, but the offsetting portion of that is that they
have to provide the providers of capital with a certain
return of capital that compensates the providers of capital for risk.
Let's say that's ten percent, and now because of corporate
tax cuts, they're getting fifteen percent. They will drive prices

(01:03:37):
down until it's ten percent again.

Speaker 1 (01:03:39):
Right, what kind of economists would you call yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:03:44):
A free market economist? I, you know, most closely adhered
to what is sometimes called Austrian economics. But you know,
I think the greatest economist is Ludrig von Miss But
a lot of Austrian economists go off the deep end
when it comes to anarchy and a bunch of other things.

(01:04:04):
But okay, a purely economics perspective, I agree with many
of the not all, but many of.

Speaker 4 (01:04:12):
The Austrian arguments.

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
Also, like you know, some people from the Chicago School,
So I'm you know, but generally free market.

Speaker 1 (01:04:20):
Right, yeah, I'm more free market as well, but neo classical.
It generally rules the day today. So since you have
any questions or anything, well, there were some questions. We
have superchets, Yeah, there.

Speaker 3 (01:04:32):
Were some super chats that were questions that I had
as well. The oceanis for ten dollars asked why do
you think capitalism is hated today and that there's this
rise on the far left and far right with alternatives.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
For a couple of reasons. One is, I think because
it's misconceptualized. That is that people conceptualized capitalism is the
system we have today, and what they see today are
the problems. They see economic crisis, like the financial crisis.
They they see cronyism, and they associate where that we
was capitalism and they conceive of that as capitalism. And yeah,
we're all against that. Nobody likes, I mean except for

(01:05:07):
the cronies and the president. Nobody actually likes cronyism. Nobody
likes these financial crisis and nobody's willing to do the
work to discover why they happen. Cronyism is not a
feature of capitalism. It's a feature of a mixed economy.
It's a feature of a lot of statism. Giving the
state a lot of power over the economy then provides
massive incentives for people to go lobby to try to

(01:05:28):
get some of that, you know, the goodies that are
being that these status are controlling, and the same thing
with the economic crisis. Almost every economic crisis that I've seen,
really every economic crisis I've seen is a consequence of
government regulations and government controls and the federal reserve doing
bad stuff. So people don't conceptualize what capitalism really is.

(01:05:49):
And capitalism is in its in its pure form, a
separation of state from economics. It's it's it's the state
has no economic role. It does and intervene in the economy.
One iota doesn't regulate, there's no central bank. It basically
leaves us free. Capitalism is a system where individuals are free,

(01:06:10):
they're left alone, they're not cursed, they're not forced. So
that's one is the misconceptualization. I'd say the second is
there's a moral issue around capitalism. Capitalism is the system. Fundamentally,
capitalism is a system of self interest. It's a system
of people people pursuing their own interest, their own values,

(01:06:30):
their own wealth, their own happiness, their own values. And
that's not a moral. Morality is about sacrifice. And you know,
socialism in all these different forms or fascism, are all
about sacrifice. The socialism demands that you sacrifice for the
sake of the politarian, and nationalism demands that you sacrifice

(01:06:52):
in the sake of the state, and fascism demands that you,
you know, sacrifice for the sake of the state plus
your race whatever. And people are much more comfortable with
the language of sacrifice, as we talked about, then the
language of self interest. They believe sacrifice is noble and
model and self interest is like yucky and and something's
wrong with it. So they're reluctant to support an economic

(01:07:16):
system that fundamentally is about self interest, and that's what
capitalism is. It's undeniable.

Speaker 1 (01:07:24):
How do you deal with the economic losers in that situation?

Speaker 2 (01:07:27):
Though?

Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
If you have no regulation whatsoever, it's hard for me
to imagine that there's not going to be vast amounts
of people who are just on the outs with the
economic system.

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
Yeah, obviously lack imagination then no.

Speaker 1 (01:07:41):
Oh really, well, look, I think right now, the haters.

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
Give me, give me an example of loses under capitalism.

Speaker 1 (01:07:48):
Well, if there's somebody that's working fifty hours a week
and they can't really make ends meet, they can't pay
their bills. If there are people that don't think they're
ever going to be able to afford to own a home.
I think those people of.

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
Capitalism, it's exact opposite of statism, that's exact opposite of socialism,
that's exact outcome of socialism. There is there's no there's
no reason to believe, zero reasonab believe that wages wouldn't
be high on the capitalism. Quite the opposite. Think about
how you know, Ford double the wages of his of
his employees in order to attract the most productive employees,

(01:08:23):
and by thus doing raised uh, raised uh wages across the.

Speaker 4 (01:08:27):
Entire automobile sector.

Speaker 2 (01:08:28):
The only economic system in all of human history to
actually raise wages is capitalism. And what happens is you
get paid based on how productive you are, and as
productivity increases because of mechanization and computers and all of that,
wages go up.

Speaker 1 (01:08:46):
But there are going to be people who are completely
locked out of the economy because they don't have any
productive value whatsoever.

Speaker 2 (01:08:52):
Nobody, there's nobody in this world, I mean unless you're
really you know either, So.

Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
There are people who are going to be economy.

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
That would be locked out of a capitalist economy. The
reality is that you know, unless you I don't know paraplegic.
You know, you can't move anything.

Speaker 1 (01:09:09):
So what do we do with that guy? The paraplegic?
Should the state take care of that guy?

Speaker 2 (01:09:13):
You do with him today? You provide him charity. It's
just the difference is that you don't provide the charity
by forcing.

Speaker 1 (01:09:21):
Him through the state. Okay, I gotch Hey.

Speaker 2 (01:09:23):
You don't do it through the state. You do it
through voluntary Yeah. I always ask my audience, how many
of you are willing to help the guy who just
at an accident and you know, lost his legs and
can't work and everything, and every hand in the room
goes up. So what do we need government fall If
you're willing to help him, so go help him.

Speaker 3 (01:09:38):
So, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:09:39):
So it's not hard to imagine a world in which
that fraction of a percent who really can't work gets
helped by everybody else because we do it now through
taxes in a very very inefficient way. By the way,
in a very unproductive way.

Speaker 1 (01:09:53):
Let's say, let's say hypothetically, though that AI takes thirty
percent of the workforce and makes them superfluous, they cannot
help any any way, shape or form.

Speaker 2 (01:10:05):
That was set about the steam engine. It was set
about every single.

Speaker 1 (01:10:09):
But look, this is a this is a this is
a hypothetical where this.

Speaker 2 (01:10:12):
Is my hypothetical. Is that a detachment reality? I deal
with reality facts. The reality is that technology always always
creates more jobs than it destroys. It's that's being a
patent throughout all of human history. And look, not all,
not all jobs equally remunerating. That's that's why inequality exists
and why it's a good thing because different people perform

(01:10:35):
at different levels of productivity. But there are always new needs.
There were always new jobs, There are always new things
for people to do.

Speaker 1 (01:10:41):
I mean, I think patterns can break though obviously there
was a time when people were huntering gathers and then
the pattern broke and they decided that always the panel.

Speaker 2 (01:10:52):
As long as we're free, the pattern always advances in
the same direction. Freedom leads the more economic growth and
more technology and more success and more jobs. We now
have eight billion people on the planet. You know, fifty
years ago we didn't believe we could feed eight billion people.
Two hundred years ago, we couldn't even imagine eight billion people.

(01:11:12):
And they were only there were only half a billion
people on planet Earth. So there were only half a
billion jobs. Now they've eight billion jobs. So no, I
mean there's no there's no limit to human imagination, there's
no limit to human creativity, and there's no limit to
how much we desire a want. So you know, there's
so many jobs today that didn't exist for me.

Speaker 1 (01:11:35):
Look, I know the argument if if an outcome there's
only a slim chance of an outcome happening, but there
is a chance of an outcome happening, isn't it prudent
to prepare for that outcome?

Speaker 2 (01:11:47):
No, because again, if the outcome goes against all of
economic theory and all of historical experience, then it's just
feomon green to prepare for that outcome.

Speaker 1 (01:11:59):
It didn't farm it by the hunter gatherer example. Wasn't
that something that went against all the hunter gatherer experience? Yeah,
I mean the model broke because had no experience.

Speaker 2 (01:12:10):
Created many, many more jobs than hunter gathering.

Speaker 1 (01:12:13):
I just I only use it in a paradigm can
vastly change. I'm not using it to say.

Speaker 2 (01:12:20):
The job so AI is coming, Your job will be replaced,
you will have to do something different, you will have
to retrain.

Speaker 4 (01:12:30):
That is a fact.

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
You can ignore it as much as you want and
figure out what what what you can do that will
not be replaced by AI.

Speaker 1 (01:12:39):
And if that, if that doesn't happen.

Speaker 2 (01:12:42):
If that doesn't happen, then you're dependent on If you
really are never going to find a job, right, if
that really okay, then you're dependent on other people.

Speaker 1 (01:12:50):
You're dependent on charity, You're dependent on other people.

Speaker 2 (01:12:52):
Now, the question is do we want to use a
gun and cosion and force to force people to help
that person or do we want to rely on, you know,
voluntary help. And I think that there's nothing more evil
than force and quasion, and therefore I don't want to
rely on force and cosion. You know, if they're going

(01:13:13):
to be those people, they're going to have to come
and ask me for help. Assume me I'm in a
position to help them, and I might and I might not.

Speaker 1 (01:13:19):
Ultimately, ultimately I agree with you that could there could
be other jobs that come around. I don't know that
the pattern is going to be broken. I don't have
a understanding of the entire situation. Obviously the economy is
too complex to really know, so, but I do think
there could be some sort of disruption and we probably

(01:13:40):
should be planning for that just in case.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
I think I don't think. I think there's going to
be disruption. Look, we lift in mixed economy, we don't
live on the capitalism. It's quite likely that people will
lose their jobs and not find other jobs, and they
won't look for other jobs, and they won't get we
trained because we've conditioned them to accept a welfare and
to accept the state as a blast minute provider. So

(01:14:04):
one of the things you do in a mixed economy,
in a welfare state is you create this incentives to
adapt and to adjust. So if there you know, the
reason the hunter gatherers all adapted to farming is they
had no choice, right there was no welfare state to
me the office to bail them out. So I'm saying

(01:14:25):
the more we provide bailouts, the more we get bad behavior.
Bailouts lead to bad behavior in businesses, and they lead
bad behavior in uh in individuals. Look, look, there's still
a lot of people sitting sitting literally on their couch
watching TV, probably not watching this show, but watching TV

(01:14:45):
in Cleveland and Cincinnati, waiting for their steel jobs to
come back, then never coming back. But they're still sitting there. Now,
there are lots of jobs in I don't know northwest Arkansas.
There's a ton of jobs in northwest Sokosa and in
Texas and in lots of other places. But they're not
going to get off of that sofa. They're not going
to get in their car. They're not going to drive

(01:15:07):
to northwest Arkansas and get that job because they're waiting
for that welfare check and because politicians and commentators and
economists that promised them to just wait, the jobs are
coming back. And that's a lie and it's destructive to
their own lives. And indeed, if you look at mobility
in the United States, that is people willingness to move

(01:15:30):
from city to city, it's plummeted over the last fifty years.
That is, the more we pay people welfare, the more
they stay put and the less ambitious they are, and
the less they go find the jobs and unless they
create the job. So I'm not saying you're not going
to have a massive disruption because of AI in a
mixed economy. A mixed economy is awful, and yes, we're

(01:15:51):
going to get massive disruption. I'm saying that if we
had capitalism, it would be very different. It would be
more like the transition from agriculture to manufacture ring, and
we don't remember big disruptions in that transition. And you
remember that two hundred years ago, ninety eight percent of
all the population was doing agriculture, and today it's less
than one percent.

Speaker 1 (01:16:12):
Kirk Wilcox pretty smoothly. Kirk Wilcox for two dollars, says
yarn Brook is the best. You got a fan, yarn.

Speaker 2 (01:16:19):
Yeah, I know, I know.

Speaker 4 (01:16:20):
Cook.

Speaker 1 (01:16:21):
So do we have more questions?

Speaker 3 (01:16:24):
Yeah? Fondusa asked how does Brooks feel about Jordan Pearson's
argument on lobsters when it comes to status?

Speaker 2 (01:16:33):
Yeah, I mean lobsters care about status. Good for lobsters. Lobsters.

Speaker 4 (01:16:40):
Lobsters have no free will.

Speaker 2 (01:16:42):
Lobsters have a really, really really tiny brain. It's one
of the reasons we are so eager to eat them
because we know they're not really you know, they don't
know what's happening. The compare human being still lobsters is
bizarre and ridiculous. I mean, with all due respect to
Jordan Peterson, I think it's bizarre, ridiculous. You know, lobsters

(01:17:03):
climb over each other. In human society, we don't do that.
We don't climb over each other. We trade, and the
reality is that somebody else's success, somebody else's prosperity, is
actually really good for me. Right, I love billionaires. I
know it's popular to say no billion is. I love
billionaires because I know the pretty much every billion in
American uh in American economies made my life better. And

(01:17:26):
if I met a Jeff Bezos or a Lunmosque or
any one of these guys, I would I would go up,
shake the hand and say thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:17:36):
Right well, I think people Pearson's time out with the
lobsters was that just that lobsters have neurochemical pathways that
you know, with that effects like how how they judge
themselves in the lobster hierarchy actually would give them more
serraconin serotonin.

Speaker 2 (01:17:52):
And and all that stuff self awareness they have, but
like they don't judge themselves, they just do the.

Speaker 3 (01:17:59):
Automentons Humans, even though we have self awareness and rationality,
we still have those biochemical pathways.

Speaker 2 (01:18:05):
No, we don't be very very different biochemical Pathoris Man.
The brain of a human being, a brain that allows
to are so different, so dramatically different. I just don't
buy it. I don't buy the similarity. And the reality
is here's the great evolutionary breakthrough that is made when
human beings come into being, and that is you don't

(01:18:27):
have to wire everything, you don't have to pre program,
you don't have to create all the reltes because you
provide human beings with the capacity to reason, to think
for themselves, you provide them with free will, and then
the rate they get to write the code themselves, so
we come much more. I don't think we come completely
tubl of Ussa, but wecome much more tublo of Ussa

(01:18:49):
than what people imagine, particularly when it comes to ideas
and ideas relative to other being. And look, and if
we have some self destructive coding left over from when
we will lobsters, then we can overwrite it because we
have free will and we rational and we don't have
to live as an animal. You know, most people, sadly,

(01:19:10):
a lot of people do live like animals. They don't
engage in that free will and they don't engage in
that rationality, and that is expresially in the fact that
they're not happy human beings.

Speaker 3 (01:19:18):
Yeah, but I would just I would say that we
have to overcome it. I think it's useful for us
to understand what the programming is. I think it's more
difficult that people don't realize that this programming exists within them.

Speaker 2 (01:19:30):
I think the principle here to guide all that rather
than having to know every single path that you have
to override, the principle to know here is be rational.
And if that's the principle, then that overrides everything.

Speaker 3 (01:19:45):
At games ass, do you believe that an individual ought
to participate or what circumstances would an individual participate in
a just war? The self serving individual? Would they be
better off avoiding the war or joining the winning side
even if it's oppressive.

Speaker 2 (01:20:00):
Yeah, I mean, I think the only time that individuals
who join a just wars when it's just. And I
think the only just wars are worth self defense. And
you know, so you're defending yourself and you're defending what
does that mean? It means defending your freedom, defending your liberty.
I can't imagine it ever being in yourself interest to
join the winning side if that side is oppressive, because

(01:20:23):
then you then get to live under oppression, and I
think that is incredibly self destructive. So always fight for freedom,
always fight for liberty, and hope that your side is
the one that wins.

Speaker 3 (01:20:37):
Is it better to live under oppression than to die?
I guess would be the question.

Speaker 2 (01:20:42):
Yeah, it is, actually, I mean I completely understand people
who commit suicidey in a concentration camp, or you know,
assault your nitsen, who's willing to stand up to the
authorities and the Soviet Union at the risk of death
and go to the gulags. You know, living if you
have a soul and you know, and if you have
a if you have if you're self aware and you

(01:21:05):
have free will, and then you know how horrific oppression
is and how damaging it into the to the very
essence of who you are. A great book on that,
by the way, is Einman's less known novel called We
the Living, which is about a young woman who grows
up under communism and what communism does, what oppression does

(01:21:27):
to the human psyche. Better better to fight and even
in some cases die. I mean, you don't want to
commit suicide, but you want to fight and try to die.
You want to try to make your life better in
one way or the other.

Speaker 3 (01:21:39):
Right, Sammy g says, hearing Yarn reminds me of how
my grandfather successfully did business. He always made sure everyone
benefits in a deal, and that's what made him more
successful was his reputation of being trustworthy.

Speaker 2 (01:21:51):
I mean absolutely. Look, life generally is about creating win
win relationships with other people. You want to win, but
the only way you really win in the long run
is if the other party wins as well. You want
a win win relationship with your wife. You want to
win win relationship. You know, with your employees. You want
a win win relationship. With your boss, you want to

(01:22:12):
maximize your win. And your friends, of course, you want
to maximize your win win relationships. I think this is
one of the real damages to America of Donald Trump
is that he is very much as zero sum mentality.
He believes that him winning means somebody else losing, and
he relishes other people's losses.

Speaker 4 (01:22:30):
He loves to see people lose.

Speaker 2 (01:22:32):
He believes a lot of the deal is all about
screwing the other guy, you know. I think that's a
pathetic way to live. I think Donald Trump is a
pathetic human being put aside president, but as a human being,
and I'm with his grandfather. You know, create relationships where
you win, you benefit. But the way to win and

(01:22:53):
wade to benefit long term is by having other people
win as well.

Speaker 3 (01:22:58):
Harrison Jodas says, I like to apologie to yarn I
criticized him a while back for harping on the Young
Republican chat leagues. Then Nick then Tucker Carlson interviewed Fronts
and while I was wrong about the prevalence of Nazism.

Speaker 2 (01:23:11):
Sad, I wish I was wrong. I wish I had
been wrong. But it looks like it's all over the place.
And if you've seen there's a there's a lady, there's
another one of the young Republicans out of New York
who who you know, did a little video of Jews
as cock quaches.

Speaker 4 (01:23:28):
I mean, it just there's no end to this.

Speaker 2 (01:23:30):
Once you start digging, you find them all over the place,
which is sad and horrific. Now, I think for most
of them, it's just the cool thing to be right now.
And I don't know how deep it goes, the anti
Semitism and everything, but but it is. It is scary.
What's what's happening out there among young Republicans.

Speaker 3 (01:23:49):
Andrew Barr says, how do you cope with a selfish
person who offloads the negative repercussions onto an outside group?
Like American companies like the American company damaging stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:23:59):
And I mean Americans have brought so much good to Asia.
It's unbelievable, right, I mean, Asia is so much richer
and so much better, and life in Asia is so
much more, longer, healthier, and more prosperous because of American
business doing business there that I really. You know, you

(01:24:23):
can find a case here or there where some environmental
damage was done. But you know, part of progress is
environmental damage. Part of the way you get rich is
by destroying something in the environment that everybody values. The
reality is, if you look at every single Asian countries
that American corporations have done business with, those countries are richer,

(01:24:45):
that people live longer, they live healthier, their wages are higher,
child labor has declined. And the cause ultimately is the
foreign capital, foreign expertise, and fun business knowledge that Americans
have lots of those countries. Look, if somebody exploits other people,
if they really do something negative. I'm not saying all

(01:25:07):
corporations are, you know, have done good. Some people do harm.
They should be punished for the harm that they do.
If they really do through negligence or through purposeful exploitation.
Do something horpable to people, then they should suffer, they
should be sued, they should be shut down. But the
reality on the ground is is been mythologized that as

(01:25:30):
you have been taught and told stories about evil corporations
your entire life, ninety nine point nine.

Speaker 4 (01:25:37):
Percent of those stories are false.

Speaker 3 (01:25:40):
Rbjs Faan says, I agree in the free market system,
but are they possible in a labor value regulated world
where governments manipulate their currencies via printing and interest rates.

Speaker 2 (01:25:50):
Yeah, don't do that. Stop doing it. Privatize money, privatize banks,
privatize money, get rid of the federal reserve, get rid
of all of it.

Speaker 4 (01:25:57):
So a free market means free it.

Speaker 3 (01:26:00):
Means advertise the money.

Speaker 2 (01:26:02):
Yeah, I mean before nineteen fourteen, who issued money in
America dates banks. So you took your little bag of
gold and you gave it to the bank, and they
gave you a banknotes, And every bank had its own banknotes.
They were all dollars, but you know they had the
name of the bank on it, and they issue you
count the money was the gold. It sat in their

(01:26:24):
vaults and you could exchange that banknote at any other
bank for gold and then the banks would settle among
each other, but money.

Speaker 1 (01:26:31):
Was with the banks themselves could print more notes without
people showing up with their goal. They figured it out, Look,
we can just we can just make notes.

Speaker 2 (01:26:39):
We have stop banking. And if you do too much
of it, if you do it irresponsibly, you go, you
go bankrupt.

Speaker 1 (01:26:46):
But also you take down all of your all of
your bank customers as well.

Speaker 2 (01:26:51):
So the freest banking systems in history, we're not in
the United States. The United States had a pretty regulated
banking system from the founding the fist banking systems and
banking systems like in Scotland in the nineteenth century, and Canada,
of all places, and both the Canadian and the You
know how many banking crises Canada has had over the
last two hundred years the United States has had. Listen

(01:27:13):
to you, like fourteen. Do you know how many banking
crises Canada has had.

Speaker 1 (01:27:17):
No, I'm going to get zero, yes, zero.

Speaker 2 (01:27:20):
Because they didn't regulate banks. They left them alone, They
let them market work until they in studied central bank
and the pretty late I think it was in the
nineteen thirties or forties, pretty late, and they had the
same system. Banks printed money, bank sprinting money, bank spending money.
In Scotland, banks printed money. Historically, private issuers printed money.

(01:27:40):
That's not a problem, you know. And if somebody commits fraud,
we all hate fought. We know what to do with you.
Send the people to jail. But the only thing that
creates systemic risk, the kind of risk that sees hundreds
of institutions go under and really really bad economic outcomes,
that is only created by regulation, only created by centralized
power and centralized control. That's what's called systemic risk. Systemic

(01:28:04):
risk is the thing that has systemic risk is government.
An individual bank has no systemic risk. The Federals that
was created in the first place. Somebody asks the Federals
that was creating in the first place, in order to
reduce the in order to increase the power of government.
It was a way of politicians realized that if they

(01:28:24):
really wanted to control you, they wanted to control the economy.
They wanted to be able to manipulate the economy and
use the money for their social programs and all that
they needed to take power away from bankers and give
it to central bankers who they appointed, who are under
their thumb. And you know, that's why a central bank

(01:28:47):
was created. And it's worked right. Because we had a
central bank, we got to create a you know, before
central bank, there was no welfare state. There was very
little regulation of business. There was almost no redistribution of wealth.
We have a central bank. Now politicians can do all
those things, and that is a pattern that every country
in the world has followed.

Speaker 3 (01:29:08):
The luster asked, now that the Gaza war has settled,
what do you think were some mistakes that were made?
Do you think then Yahoo prolonged the war cynically to
remain in power, to avoid corruption charges and appease the
radicals in his party.

Speaker 4 (01:29:22):
God, do you really want me to get into this.

Speaker 3 (01:29:24):
You don't have to.

Speaker 2 (01:29:24):
I mean, I'm happy to, I said, there was nothing
off the table. The biggesting that we.

Speaker 3 (01:29:29):
Weren't talking about Israel. Also, you don't have to answer
the biggest I don't know how much time. What's I
don't know how much time you have, So you just.

Speaker 4 (01:29:37):
Another we can go for another half an hour.

Speaker 2 (01:29:39):
The biggest mistake of the war was not ending it
after three months. That is the biggest mistake of the
war was not going all out all in uh and
and really destroying Hamas completely in three months. The biggest
mistake of the war was caring about I mean, not

(01:30:00):
carr carring is the long wood. It's elevating the importance
of the lives of the hostages above the real goal
of the war, which.

Speaker 4 (01:30:07):
Should have been destruction of Ramas. So the war should
have lasted three.

Speaker 2 (01:30:12):
Months, maybe six if you were really careful, and Ramas
should have been completely and ugly and thoroughly destroyed, and
that's it. It would have been over and Israel would
have the world would have just accepted it because it
happened right after October seventh, I said in October eighth,

(01:30:34):
I said, the longer Israel takes to do this, the
more the world will turn against it. It needs to
do it fast, It needs to do it ruthlessly. It
needs to do it quickly. It needs to get it
over with. And the only goal, the only goal, should
be the destruction of Ramas.

Speaker 3 (01:30:53):
And what would be the how would that be accomplished?

Speaker 2 (01:30:56):
Just like it would be I mean, what they should
have done is they should have said, all civilians, uh,
go here's a there's a section along the beach that
we're not going to bomb. Right now, you go to
the beach, pitch a tent. We don't care. Do whatever
you need to do.

Speaker 4 (01:31:15):
Here's a few areas where we're not going to touch
all of you.

Speaker 2 (01:31:18):
Go there. And then they should have launched into a
bombing campaign that should have turned it into ashes, brought
in and come in. Then with the ground troops hunted
down every Hamas operative that exists, blown up every tunnel
that exists. Uh, there's still tunnels in Gaza that the
Haramas is still using. These still have tons of weapons

(01:31:40):
that they're using. Uh, that should have all been destroyed.
And again it's all it's all doable within three months
or to six months.

Speaker 4 (01:31:50):
Uh. And and is it would have suffered fewer casualties.

Speaker 2 (01:31:53):
Fewers, fewer Israeli, few Israeli soldiers would have died, and
maybe even few Palestinian civilians would have died if they
would have done it thoroughly, systematically, quickly, and again super
you know, super brutally in the sense of using maximum force. No,

(01:32:16):
Israel didn't try that Isra when intentatively slowly. It didn't
cut off the Philadelphia. I mean, the strategic error is
militarily unbelievable to me. Right that Nataniaoani's government in the
military engaged in. They didn't cut off the Egyptian border
until about almost a year into it or nine months

(01:32:36):
into it.

Speaker 4 (01:32:37):
That should have been the first target.

Speaker 2 (01:32:38):
Should have been to cut off the supply from Egypt
and take Rafa and take take the border.

Speaker 1 (01:32:43):
Date.

Speaker 2 (01:32:44):
So, I you know, I know my Gaza, and I
know the Israeli military, and this was not a well
run campaign. Other than the Israeli military is really really
really good and when they actually, you know, figure out
what they want to do, they can do it. The
strategy from day one was really, really, really bad, and
I blame Nataniel in his generals for that. And look,

(01:33:06):
I've been no fan of Natennie for twenty something years.
I never liked the guy. I think he is a
power lusting if I think anybody with an ounce of
morality would have resigned on October eighth. After October seventh,
I placed much of the blame for what happened on
October seventh on Antenneo. He appeased Hamas for fifteen years,

(01:33:27):
allowed them to get to the position where they could
pull off October seventh. So yeah, whether he prolonged there
for political reasons, and I think he put alonged there
for lots of reasons to appease the Americans, to appease
the families of the hostages, and a lot of these
really public who really you know who the hostages were
a key to, you know, lots of political and non

(01:33:48):
political reasons for him to drag out the war.

Speaker 4 (01:33:51):
But it's a massive mistake.

Speaker 1 (01:33:53):
What is your opinion of the term Zionist.

Speaker 2 (01:33:59):
I think that I think that Zionism means the Jews
on nation, and therefore they should have a geographic area
which they can call their.

Speaker 4 (01:34:12):
You know, their state, their home.

Speaker 2 (01:34:15):
I think that given anti Semitism, given its prevalence, given
the fact that it does not seem to go away
and it rises up everywhere, I think Jews need somewhere
to be able to escape to. I don't consider myself
a Jew in any meaningful sense. I you know, I
don't practice any of the anything Jewish, right, I don't
celebrate the holidays. My kids were now raised Jewish. There's

(01:34:37):
nothing Jewish about me. I'm an atheist, and you know,
I don't like religion. I despise religion and I despise
all religions. But the reality is that many people on
the Chat view me as a Jew. Maybe not on
your chat, but on my chat, view me as a
Jew and hate me for being a Jew. And if
they ever come to power in America, it's good that
I have some way to escape to, right as all

(01:34:58):
Jews do to Isue.

Speaker 4 (01:34:59):
So it was a great escape place.

Speaker 2 (01:35:01):
It's it's an escape plan for Jews, and they need
one because of the history of anti Semitism.

Speaker 1 (01:35:08):
I agree with that. I would call myself a Zionist.
I just know a lot of people are using the
term derogatorily towards people. So that's why I was curious.

Speaker 2 (01:35:16):
Well, because they've used Zionism as colonialism, because they don't.

Speaker 1 (01:35:19):
Have the wrong with colonialism.

Speaker 2 (01:35:21):
Well, I mean nothing in the in a certain context
and a lot in other contexts. Some colonies were good,
some colonies were bad.

Speaker 1 (01:35:30):
One happened to America. It's a good example of courned
out pretty good over here.

Speaker 2 (01:35:35):
So I agree, well, not for the Indians, but but
but you know it it Yeah, it turned out good
and it's a good place.

Speaker 4 (01:35:43):
And some colonies are bad.

Speaker 2 (01:35:44):
They were colonies where people did horrific things and where
it didn't turn out so good. Luckily, in America it
was founded and good ideas. And at the end of
the day, what shapes the world their ideas. And if
we have not not serotonin, but ideas, and when you
have good ideas, good outcomes happen.

Speaker 1 (01:36:05):
Yeah, the Native Americans weren't doing anything with it. And
I heard that selfishness was a moral virtue.

Speaker 2 (01:36:10):
So I think that to a loge extent that is true.

Speaker 1 (01:36:16):
What are there anymore?

Speaker 2 (01:36:18):
It doesn't justify wiping them out. And to large extent,
they died because of disease, not because they were physically
wiped out.

Speaker 4 (01:36:26):
It doesn't justify wiping them out.

Speaker 2 (01:36:27):
There were lots of things that could have been done
with the Indians that would have not changed the nature
of America without some of the aggressive tactics that we used.
So you could have respected their rights and built in America,
you know. But the reality is that that's not what happens.
Sadly and h and we're still by the way, we
still treat Indians in America horrifically and horribly and in

(01:36:51):
an un American way.

Speaker 4 (01:36:52):
And we still haven't learned.

Speaker 2 (01:36:54):
And the left, the left doesn't the left to argues
for Indian rights has no solution. Start to treat deal
with Indians because they have no concept of what America
is really about, which is individual rights and property rights
and individualism. We treat them as tribes, but if we
treated them as individuals from the beginning, our whole relationship
with them would have been different. But sadly that wasn't

(01:37:16):
the case.

Speaker 1 (01:37:17):
Evolution is a savage reality, but it did bring us
into existence. So I don't I don't believe. I don't. Right, Well,
it really is, it is what it is.

Speaker 2 (01:37:29):
A savage is a term that only applies to human beings.
Human beings can be savage, and and and uh, you
know again, rationality is the is the solution to that.
You have to be rational.

Speaker 1 (01:37:42):
Right. Rationality is a product of evolution though, right you
accept that?

Speaker 3 (01:37:48):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:37:48):
Absolutely, I mean where it's a product of the you know,
it's not a product in a sense that somebody designed it.

Speaker 4 (01:37:53):
Evolution and designed it.

Speaker 1 (01:37:55):
Right, No, I totally agree with you.

Speaker 4 (01:37:56):
Yeah, it comes out.

Speaker 2 (01:37:57):
Of the particular biology we have. We have free will,
we have reason, we have rationality.

Speaker 1 (01:38:04):
That is of incentive structures.

Speaker 2 (01:38:07):
I think is well, in particular the particular nature of
our consciousness, which we don't completely understand. We have a
very very and the other thing about the host of
atonin lobster thing. We have very very limited understanding of consciousness,
of any consciousness, including animal consciousness, and then we have
almost no understanding of human consciousness. We really don't understand

(01:38:29):
how human consciousness functions, how it came into being what
you know, what a characteristic understand philosophical level.

Speaker 4 (01:38:36):
We have very little understanding at the biological level.

Speaker 2 (01:38:38):
So I think generally people should be a little bit
more skeptical about making assertions about you know, what is
what we're born with or not. We're born not born
with it. It is the science there is very very young.

Speaker 1 (01:38:55):
How do you define identity politics? A lot of people
talk about identity politics.

Speaker 2 (01:39:01):
It's politics that center around your group. Somebody's a definition
of a group, a group you belong to, or a
group that you come from.

Speaker 4 (01:39:12):
I don't know what the hell that means.

Speaker 2 (01:39:13):
So, you know, they can define it by skin color,
they can define it by ethnic origins, they can define
it by race. But it's completely rational, it's completely collectivistic
and completely you know, it's a bogus ideology. You are
who you are as an individual and who you make
yourself into through the use of your free will and

(01:39:35):
your reasons. So people should be treated as individuals. I
agree with Martin Luther King, you know, treat people based
on their character, not based on what they look like.

Speaker 1 (01:39:45):
So you would be against identity politics very much.

Speaker 2 (01:39:48):
So okay, both on the left hand on the right.

Speaker 3 (01:39:52):
Any more, hing, do you think that there's a natural
inclination sort of like a Pareto principle towards people that
have more resources will just naturally get more and that
will spiral out of control and require some sort of
external hand to fix that or change that.

Speaker 2 (01:40:12):
No, And again, history history shows that that is a history,
and of freedom shows that that is a bogus. There
used to be a term in the nineteenth century, which
is the most capitalist century we've had, particularly post Civil War,
from short sleeves to short sleeve in three generation, three generations.
That is, having money doesn't mean you'll continue to have money.
People lost money all the time. People went from poverty

(01:40:34):
to riches, to poverty to riches to poverty. Particularly children
of rich people lost the money pretty quickly and pretty easily.
So no, I don't think that's the case. And again,
because the only way to make money really to make
money in a free society is by making other people
better off, that is, by trading with other people and

(01:40:55):
therefore increasing their well being. Even if you become richer
and riches, so do they They're also becoming richer and richer.
You cannot become a billionaire without making the world a
better place. I mean in a free market, because you're
selling products to people who want your products and who
are going to benefit from those products. So their life

(01:41:15):
is better off and your life is better off. You
got a few more dollars. So it's not a zero
sum world. It's an ever growing world based on win
win transactions.

Speaker 4 (01:41:27):
That's what makes capitalism run.

Speaker 3 (01:41:31):
Okay. Is objectivism paradoxical in that it's sort of promoting
individualism is actually what's best for the collective?

Speaker 4 (01:41:43):
Well it never.

Speaker 2 (01:41:46):
Objectivism never really talks about in terms of the collective.
It does say that what's good for individuals, that the
collective is just a group of individuals. So by pursuing
the interest of the individual that is leaving in free Yeah,
the group of individuals is better off. So the best
thing for a group of individuals is to individuals to

(01:42:07):
have individual rights to be free and to be able
to to be able to pursue their own values.

Speaker 3 (01:42:13):
But I think the question is the way that I
perceive the question is the fact that it seems interesting
that it has to be sort of I guess doesn't
have to be, but it is often framed as like
you have to frame it, like it's beneficial to the group.
Like it's like we're so stuck in that framing that that's.

Speaker 2 (01:42:33):
Yeah, I think you to accept it, that's right. I mean,
even Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations says, look,
capitalism is runs by self interest.

Speaker 4 (01:42:43):
The baker doesn't care about you.

Speaker 2 (01:42:44):
He's baking the bread and selling you the beat because
he's trying to make a living and he's trying to
make his life better. But if you add up all
the self interested actions of everybody's society is better off.
But objectivism never makes that claim. That is, we don't
we don't make the claim that iety is better off. Well,
the collective is better off. It is if you identify
society and the collective rights. But the key for us

(01:43:07):
is the individual. The fact that it works for the
group as well is gravy. But that's not the that's
not the way we can sceptualize that it's not the
way we think about it.

Speaker 1 (01:43:19):
Would you still be in favor of it if it
did produce a society that was a terrible society to
live in?

Speaker 2 (01:43:25):
That, you know, it's a hard question given that it's
not the case. I am full freedom as a primary,
but one of the reasons I full freedom is because
I believe that it will produce a better life for me.
And I'm not going to live a good life if
everybody around me is suffering or struggling or wants to

(01:43:45):
steal my stuff. So I think it's all integrated and
it's all one.

Speaker 1 (01:43:50):
Isn't that most societies, though, most societies have some sort
of wealthy elite and they are surrounded by people who
are poor and just want to steal their stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:43:59):
Societies are not capitalists. Most societies are not free. So
I'm talking about freedom. Why I advocate for freedom is
because I think that that is the best society for
me to live in for all these various reasons.

Speaker 1 (01:44:11):
Well, I'm just I'm using that to say that there
obviously we enjoy a quality of life that other people don't,
and that that is nice. But most places in the
world people seem to becomes well, they seem to be comfortable,
especially the elites. They seem to be comfortable living in

(01:44:32):
a situation where everyone else is in the squalor.

Speaker 2 (01:44:35):
I mean, I don't know that.

Speaker 4 (01:44:36):
I don't know if they're comfortable.

Speaker 2 (01:44:37):
I mean, you know, it's interesting that many of them
immigrate away from those countries, and the children certainly immigrate
away from those countries. So I don't know if they're comfortable.
But the reality is that those countries need to become
free and more capitalists, otherwise they'll go down the path
of an Argentina, down the path of Venezuela, where nobody's
comfortable and everybody is worse off. So the solution to

(01:44:59):
those kind of countries is is.

Speaker 4 (01:45:02):
More freedom, that is capitalism.

Speaker 1 (01:45:04):
Right, No, I agree. Growing question is how much effort
should we exert on making them more free.

Speaker 4 (01:45:14):
In terms of policy?

Speaker 1 (01:45:15):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 2 (01:45:17):
It would be nice if we could lead by example.
So let's focus first on being free and then we
can lead by example. Yeah here here, I'd rather do
that than I don't believe in forcing people to be free.

Speaker 4 (01:45:29):
I believe people need to choose.

Speaker 1 (01:45:30):
That Isn't it a great paradox, though we're going to
force you to be free.

Speaker 2 (01:45:35):
It's of course that that's we couldn't bring democracy to
the Middle East, right, That's why EWOK was a mass
of failure.

Speaker 1 (01:45:44):
Do you like Do you like Francis Fukuyama? Do you
read Francis Fukuyama? I do.

Speaker 2 (01:45:49):
I mean, he's always interesting, but almost always wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:45:51):
He splits, he splits nation building up and state craft.
So we had the delusion of thinking that we could
move our institutions over to the Middle East even though
the people had not a culture.

Speaker 4 (01:46:05):
But we didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:46:06):
So here's here's here's I mean, I don't know Fukiyama
should know this, but I mean he's wrong. He's almost
always wrong, think about nation building state craft. In Japan
after World War Two, we basically, I mean General MacArthur
basically wrote a constitution over a weekend with his aid,
went to the palace and told the emper to sign it,

(01:46:28):
and they sign it. And to this day Japan has
a constitution written not by Japanese, written by General maccartham.

Speaker 4 (01:46:35):
In Iraq, when.

Speaker 2 (01:46:37):
We wanted them to have a constitution, we got all
the tribal leaders together and we said write your constitution.
So they wrote a shitty constitution they wrote a collectivistic,
tribalistic constitution that is going to that basically institutionalizes the tribalism, barbarism,
and primitivism, and as a consequence, they will never become better.

(01:47:00):
Japan became a rich, relatively capitalist place in Iraq as
a hellhole and will stay.

Speaker 1 (01:47:05):
So aren't you making my argument for colonialism. Aren't you
really doing a good job of that. It seems like.

Speaker 2 (01:47:11):
If you're going to do it, if you're going to
go and impose it, then impose it.

Speaker 1 (01:47:17):
I agree, But I agree I.

Speaker 2 (01:47:19):
Wouldn't go right. I don't think we should have gone
to Iraq. There's no reason to go to Iraq. The
real threat was from Yuan. And then you on.

Speaker 1 (01:47:26):
Iraq was a terrible idea. I don't want you to
think I think Iraq was a good idea.

Speaker 2 (01:47:31):
So, and even if we'd written a constitution for the
i Lukis, we would have had to stay there for
decades to actually force them to actually apply it, because
the culture just wasn't ready for it.

Speaker 1 (01:47:43):
Yeah. That's the only reason I bring up Fukiyama is
because I do think that split between the state craft
and the culture is super important.

Speaker 2 (01:47:53):
Yeah, but it's it's you know, one of the reasons
you could impose a constitution in the Japanese is you
just destroyed them, right, don't know that if without Hiroshima
Nagasaki you could write the constitution for them and have
them just accepted.

Speaker 1 (01:48:07):
Well, maybe they were more comfortable with the higher than
you are.

Speaker 2 (01:48:10):
We kind of. We dealt with them very gently, and
the consequence of being gentle is they don't give up
on their own ideas.

Speaker 1 (01:48:18):
I don't know much about Japan, but they do seem
to value a hierarchical culture more than we do in
the West, so that could have been part of it too. Culturally,
they could have met us halfway already.

Speaker 2 (01:48:31):
A lot less in the less, you know, since World
War Two than before World War Two. Oh really, they're
more individually becoming more West than they're becoming more individualistic,
more entrepreneurial, more less, less hierarchical, more you know, politically equal.
So it's it's a very changed It's a very changed

(01:48:51):
world as compared to pre World War Two Japan.

Speaker 1 (01:48:54):
Do you like Japanese anime? Did you see Chainsaw Man?

Speaker 2 (01:49:02):
I haven't seen a lot of anime, you know, some
of my supporters have encouraged me to watch a few
movies and they.

Speaker 1 (01:49:08):
Wane saw Man. You got to see it, come on.

Speaker 4 (01:49:13):
So I'm obviously not a big anime fan.

Speaker 2 (01:49:15):
You know. If I'm a huge fan of Japanese cinema,
uh keep you know Seven Samurai, Yes, yes, and Run
and uh Kagmusha and uh movies like that. So I'm
a huge I'm a huge fan of Japanese cinema. I
never really got into anime. No, maybe I'm maybe that's
one area where I'm a little.

Speaker 4 (01:49:33):
Too old for it.

Speaker 1 (01:49:35):
Chainsaw Man is a good movie, so I probably like it.

Speaker 2 (01:49:39):
I believe you don't.

Speaker 1 (01:49:40):
Don't worry about it.

Speaker 3 (01:49:42):
Thanks for coming on your arm books. Really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:49:45):
Yeah, my pleasure. You know. So those of you are listening,
if you if you want to follow me, I have
a show called you Run Book Show.

Speaker 4 (01:49:52):
Just put it into YouTube. It's easy to.

Speaker 2 (01:49:53):
Find, uh where I pretty much do a daily show
analyzing the news and analyzing what's going not in the
world from my perspective of my understanding of anineman's perspective.

Speaker 1 (01:50:05):
Yeah, and I'll put links to your show in the
description as well. Some people can find them there.

Speaker 2 (01:50:10):
Yeah, just fun guys, I really enjoyed it.

Speaker 1 (01:50:12):
Think well, you're welcome to come back anytime. So, yeah,
this is a great conversation to do this again.

Speaker 3 (01:50:17):
Absolutely, yes, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:50:18):
All right, guys, take care the great rest of you week.
Invite you took.

Speaker 3 (01:50:28):
So do we have any more supera, we have like
questions and stuff. Jamak, thanks so much. Say your father
Jmak for the one hundred dollars.

Speaker 1 (01:50:37):
Nice says.

Speaker 3 (01:50:39):
Trump likes people that like him. That's really it. He
wants fealty. Just look at any former fan of his
Musk MTG. Massey, they gave any amount of pushback. It's
why he can love people who are far ends of
the right wing coalition despite their polarizing beliefs.

Speaker 1 (01:50:54):
Yeah, that's you know. Trump watched that interview with Nick
Faluentes and he was like, this guy loves me.

Speaker 3 (01:51:03):
Well it's weird because yeah, like and that was part
of I think the the whitewashing us, the term that
uh Tucker did was because if you watch what point
is actually says he's very anti Trump, especially at the moment,
I mean he's pushing the whole tree. You've seen the
clippermost in the clip of him pushing the whole Maga's
dead movement and trying to get everyone throw away their
little red hats.

Speaker 1 (01:51:24):
Yeah, yeah, I'm sure Trump doesn't like that. But yeah,
has Trump seen that? Who knows?

Speaker 3 (01:51:30):
Probably not well. Actually I forget who was there someone
who brought up Maybe it was it might have been
on breaking points. There's some prop this kind of interesting
point that Trump gains a lot of polytical cover by
kind of being a boomer or appearing as a boomer
who can be like, well, he doesn't know about X,

(01:51:51):
so people dismiss his like him not talking about it
or not really addressing some specific issue.

Speaker 1 (01:51:56):
Yeah, that's a good observation. Yeah, dumb right.

Speaker 3 (01:52:02):
Ace for ten dollars says nothing has black piled me
on politics than seeing losers like John Stewart attacked Sidney
Sweeney and claims she has a MAGA fan base and
that's why her latest film didn't do well.

Speaker 1 (01:52:13):
I totally agree. Look, I'm agreeing with Ace here.

Speaker 3 (01:52:16):
Wow, John Stewart attacked Sidney Sweeney on that.

Speaker 1 (01:52:20):
Why terrible?

Speaker 3 (01:52:23):
I gotta check that out. Yeah, well, of all the
things to talk about it, it's so weird because John
Stewart's so strange, and I mean, we would cover some
of his podcasts. He really seems like a person who
from the beginning, like a first seemed like pretty center left,
and then it just became more and more like consumed

(01:52:43):
by like hating the rights and then also consumed by
identity politics. Because I remember we'd watched some of his
podcasts and it was like he'd be like the one
guy in the room and he's surrounded by all these
women who worked for him, and they'd all just like
laugh at every thing he would say, and it was
just like I really felt like he was just kind
of playing up to like the stereotype of not wanting

(01:53:05):
to get left behind by the new generations.

Speaker 1 (01:53:09):
Yeah, I was going to bring up the picture of
him surrounded by his female producers, because this is why
John Stewart is bitching about Sweeney, because all three of
these girls are in his ear every day. Oh that
catty bitch, that slutty bitch.

Speaker 3 (01:53:29):
Well, I would say that John Stewart is falling prey
to not being rational and falling prey to the the
desire for a climbing status to attract one.

Speaker 1 (01:53:42):
Yes, definitely, he's being a good ally to his female producers.

Speaker 3 (01:53:48):
There Ronald's earls here for ten dollars. His status is external,
locus of control, self esteem is internal. Someone typically jumps
on a grenade out of the love of their combat brothers. Yeah,
I think that's true too. I think people can think
of dying for their countrymen for like an honor's sake
into gain statas kind of the way that you're saying, Adam.

(01:54:09):
And then also it's just a you could have a
like a love of your fellow brothers in arms that
kind of motivates that behavior as well.

Speaker 1 (01:54:18):
Two motivations are better than one, that's for sure. Yes,
I totally agree.

Speaker 3 (01:54:25):
The Ocean I was thank you so much for ten
dollars says, Hey, guys, thanks for making the stream happen. Well,
thank you Blue five six Sex for ten dollars, says
really appreciate Yarn coming on the show. Well, thank you, Yeah, Albert, Yeah,
it was great, Yeah, it was. It was interesting conversation.
I feel like there's a lot more to talk about
because I think there's a lot of elements that I

(01:54:45):
think that we mean out of fundamentally disagree with Jarren
on that'd be interesting to keep kind of going into.

Speaker 1 (01:54:53):
Yeah, if he if he'll come back, we can have
a more debate posture. I looked up the because Andrew
Jackson dissolved the second Central Bank of the United States,
and it ended up in the greatest depression in American
history because all of those banks he was talking about,

(01:55:15):
printed as much fucking money as they possibly could because
there was no restraint whatsoever. So right, that completely destroyed
the economy. It made acreage go from four million an
acre to twenty million an acre, so price is skyrocketed,
not unlike what happened during the housing crash. Right when
anyone could get alone, things went nuts.

Speaker 3 (01:55:40):
Albert for three four months, says it shouldn't be the
primary focus, but it's always beyond foolish to ignore how
powerful of a motivator it is.

Speaker 1 (01:55:47):
That would be status. Yeah, I agree, it is. The
way he can sceptualize it though, is interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:55:54):
Yes, well, it's interesting. I wonder if because I do
think that people are biologically wired to climate hierarchies, and
I think that's primarily status hierarchies.

Speaker 1 (01:56:11):
I agree, yeah, because.

Speaker 3 (01:56:12):
As I said, I think status is sort of the
word we use on how other people perceive your position
in the hierarchy, and that as an animal that doesn't
live off in the woods alone, that has to cooperate
with other humans, that we had to have evolved to
have this this mechanism in our brains. Now obviously we
can and and a lot of cases that we should

(01:56:36):
try to be rational actors. I agree with that and
not let ourselves be consumed by these sort of base
or instincts. And while it's on one hand, I do
think in order to not get consumed by them, you
have to understand them. It's possible. It's be kind of interesting,
is if is it a better cultural meme or a
better behavioral meme? If it's like if it's kind of

(01:56:59):
like the Jordan Pierce and the objective truth to the
metaphorical truth, maybe the metaphorical truth is more useful at
prompting specific behavior in people to just be like it
doesn't really don't even think about whether you're like a
slave to these sort of biological impulses. You just kind
of drill into people an idea of like individualism, individualism,

(01:57:20):
self improvement, Like is that the better way? Well that
actually it is.

Speaker 1 (01:57:23):
I think it's a better way. Obviously all of religion
is aimed at that status and wealth tend to go
hand in hand. But I when we were talking about
the status and wealth, I was thinking, well, a lot
of people would rather have status than wealth, Like if
they could only have one, they wouldn't want to be
extremely rich and totally hated by everyone.

Speaker 3 (01:57:46):
Which is interesting, it's kind of interest. Well, I think
a lot of people would choose wealth but then would
be unhappy, and if they chose status, they would be happier.

Speaker 1 (01:57:55):
Right, So maybe there are a lot of people that
don't have wealth. But the idea of like being low
status and no wealth, oh, that's just fucking death.

Speaker 3 (01:58:03):
Waits, yes, no, but what I mean. What I meant
was sort of the culture meme is like, because most
religions there is a good and a bad right they'll say,
like you are born sinful, you were born with these
bad things, and then you must do good things. And
I'm wondering if it's sort of because it felt like
that Yarn's conceptualization of this was it's better to just

(01:58:25):
focus on the good thing, like the positive, like, don't
even focus on the negative. And I'm curious if that's
actually like a better even if it's not like we
gonas suppose to objectively, your turnal better outcome.

Speaker 1 (01:58:36):
I see what you're saying. Well, I I think we
do that in that we really hide the fact that
we are seeking status. We give other rationalizations for why
we're doing what we're doing. Even look, I think a
lot of people would be would rebel at the way
I conceptualize the jumping on the grenade. It's much easier

(01:58:58):
to conceptualize it as I'm doing it for the people
that I loved, and then I'm doing it to gain
higher status. Right. That takes all of the beauty out
of it, all of the spiritualness out of it. Right,
this is just an exchange. I'm just doing. I'm giving
my life for status. That's what's going on here. But
I think ultimately that is what's going on.

Speaker 3 (01:59:21):
Well, it's both. I mean, it's not a coincidence that,
you know what, what in the ways that people would
motivate armies to fight is like especially you know, you
think back back in yield days with stereotype. You know,
you will live on as heroes and songs and stories
and blah bl blah blah blah.

Speaker 1 (01:59:38):
Literally comes out of this aristocracy. Was originally a warrior
who fought and put his life on the line for
the nation or the tribe. That's where aristocracy comes.

Speaker 3 (01:59:48):
From, sure, and was very successful at it.

Speaker 1 (01:59:51):
Yeah, so you weren't a member of the aristocracy unless
you risked your life for the society first.

Speaker 3 (02:00:00):
But that's sort of always the issue, I think. So
I disagree with the arn is that, like, that's how
it starts. But then once you've amassed that power, like
you no longer necessarily have to engage in that behavior.
And then you can start engaging I think, and extracted
behaviors which will at the detriment of most of the

(02:00:22):
people around you. And I think that humans can coast
on those destructive behaviors for very long times without getting
some sort of penalty or drawback from it.

Speaker 1 (02:00:32):
Yeah, a lot of people think that's when the downfall came,
when you could gain aristocratic type status without sacrificing for
the nation just right, you know, just get a bunch
of money, right.

Speaker 3 (02:00:45):
Ace for five hours is between the Sweeney hate and
Hank Green bending the neat the knitting community. The modern
internet sucks and remind me of why I avoid mainten culture.
I really got to look into keep forgetting I really
got to look at the hand green knitting thing. I'm
curious about all that drama.

Speaker 1 (02:01:01):
Then went after him.

Speaker 3 (02:01:02):
It did. Yes, big Daddy squeeze for five dollars want
us to ask Yarn would he rather fight one horse,
sized horse or one hundred ducks sized ducks?

Speaker 1 (02:01:12):
Okay, I'm glad you maybe next time. I'm glad you
avoided that question. Although I did slip in the anime.
One we did I thought was fine.

Speaker 3 (02:01:20):
Well, last next time.

Speaker 1 (02:01:21):
Last next time, we didn't ask him the POV question.

Speaker 3 (02:01:25):
We've not asked anyone the PV question in a long
time for probably for good reason.

Speaker 1 (02:01:29):
Yeah, it's not really a good question to ask you.

Speaker 3 (02:01:31):
No, No, the PV question is a brilliant question. It's
it's too it's too brilliant. Okay, it's too edgy and
brilliant for I think for people to appreciate how genius
the POV questions, because it's one of those things that
no one's ever thought of. But it's actually really important

(02:01:51):
to understanding human perception. Okay, there, I stand by the
POV question.

Speaker 1 (02:01:56):
You did a couple okay, so that you could tell
you were just like, not really agreeing at all. It's
too funny. Someone in the chat said Psa Sich twenty
twenty five. Mm hmm, like you're quotes hmm hmmm.

Speaker 3 (02:02:13):
Yeah, it's whatever. We gotta wet. We have things to
get to.

Speaker 1 (02:02:16):
Right, we have to move on. Yeah, obviously we can't
fight back on everything.

Speaker 3 (02:02:20):
So uh, Matt Getty's for seventeen Months says there's a
positive and negative version of self interest, like positive negative
forms of narcissism, a parasitic idea of self interest. Yeah,
that's what I was. I agree with you completely, and
that's why I really and I guess really have to
sort of hone in on what self how this concept

(02:02:42):
of self interest is being conceptualized, because I don't think
it seems like there's sort of this like word defining
self interest in just a merely or a purely positive way.
And the argument is, like, well, things that you do
that you think might be in your self interest but
are like lying or cheating or stealing, those will somehow

(02:03:04):
come back to harm you. Now obviously I don't, you know,
he doesn't believe in karma, but in some sort of
karmic fashion come back to harm you. And it's interesting
because I don't think most people define the concept of
self interest as necessarily like dependent on some sort of
outcome down the road. It's just like, are you doing

(02:03:24):
something that's helping you at that moment? Right, Like sort
of the like I don't know how to conceptualize this, Like,
if you're going to define self interest is only like
a long term self interest, I think you have to
sort of separate that because I think most people act
in a self interest way that is that is sort
of corrupted by short term self interests. If that makes sense, Yeah,

(02:03:45):
it totally makes sense.

Speaker 1 (02:03:46):
And I think as a society we tend to denegrate
people who are too selfish because we want to discourage
that kind of behavior. We want to encourage the selfless
behavior for all kinds of different reasons.

Speaker 3 (02:04:01):
Right, But like if you're if everyone is acting, or
if we're acting as like a purely rational logical agent,
it's I think people can look further and be like, okay,
I need to be like long term self interested. It
just seems like in my experience that most people don't
do that. They're sort of acting upon their biological whims

(02:04:24):
or their emotions, and they're sort of acting towards short
term self interest. And that's sort of why it's like
you're trying to like, that's what I think society is
trying to push people away from doing when they use
the term selfishness or self interests.

Speaker 1 (02:04:39):
Yeah, it's easy when everything's win win though, But there
are so many situations obviously where it's good for me
and bad for you or bad for society. So those
are the more the more difficult questions.

Speaker 3 (02:04:54):
Right, Well, yeah, and that's what I'd be curious to
sort of try to get to the bottom of. In
a second conversation, is that, how does objectivism classic an
action like that is such an because I wonder is
there even an action like that? Is it a definitional thing?
Is the term defines such a way that that is
not actually possible definitionally? So I don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:05:17):
Oh, I get you. They're they're they've defined away all
situations that are good for me and bad for society.

Speaker 3 (02:05:26):
Or not would not be classified as self interest. They'd
be classified as something else.

Speaker 1 (02:05:31):
No.

Speaker 3 (02:05:32):
Three, Megan, three for five hours, A shout out to
my dad, who will watch this just for yarn. Well,
there you go, Heyan's dad.

Speaker 1 (02:05:39):
We try to keep it, try to keep it clean.

Speaker 3 (02:05:42):
So mostly you did say shit show.

Speaker 1 (02:05:46):
Yeah, he said shit show too, which is great. What else,
what's a better word for? It? Just seems like a
complete the things I'm seeing now, I just I don't
I don't want to defend Republicans anymore. It's too too precarious.

Speaker 3 (02:06:05):
Now interesting, well, yeah, that's term.

Speaker 1 (02:06:10):
We're in a Look, we are in a sort of
preference falsification realm right now, where no one wants to
admit they're a Nazi when they think there's ten Nazis, right,
But as soon as you think there's a million Nazis
and you have any sort of inclination towards Nazism or
hating Jewish people, then now you're like, I gain status

(02:06:33):
from admitting I'm a Nazi. I'm all in. Right. That's
a scary place to be right now, because we don't
know where that process ends. Does that process end with
fifty percent of the Republican Party happy to tell everyone
their Nazis? Where does that end? I mean, it's we
realize that problem on the left with communism, right, that's

(02:06:55):
the problem that we're worried about. We're worried about the
normies saying, oh yeah, I am a socialist, I am
a communist.

Speaker 3 (02:07:01):
Right, it's the same problem, definitely, Mitch for two Aussi
Bucks says, thoughts on the anime basilisk I don't. I've
never even heard of that, so I don't have any
thoughts on it.

Speaker 1 (02:07:19):
I didn't see it.

Speaker 3 (02:07:21):
Odd job for twenty dollars cent, you, odd job says
A ross pro type that can capture the center would
dominate in the next election.

Speaker 2 (02:07:27):
Room.

Speaker 3 (02:07:28):
We're right for the birth of a third party.

Speaker 1 (02:07:30):
I agree, yeah, yeah, yeah, in this situation, this is
where third parties are are built.

Speaker 3 (02:07:41):
Well, it's interesting. And two and I think I think
that Yarn and other people that are on more of
the I don't know, because he's he's cly identify as libertarian.
I think the like free market capitalist side. I think
that's like an uphill battle for people for a politician
to win on that. I don't think that's uh. People

(02:08:03):
are very not on board with free market capitalism at
the moment.

Speaker 1 (02:08:06):
So, yeah, it was interesting that he hated Batschia so much.

Speaker 3 (02:08:13):
That makes perfect sense to me. Interesting.

Speaker 1 (02:08:17):
Oh, I guess you're right, yeah, a socialists, Yeah, she
is a socialist. What am I thinking?

Speaker 2 (02:08:24):
Right?

Speaker 1 (02:08:25):
But also just raising up the middle class populist Yeah,
you're right, obviously you would hate BATCHA. But I'm glad
I brought it up because so got some good feedback
on that. She She says, if there was a party
that focused on immigration and healthcare, because obviously that those

(02:08:48):
two issues, one party has each of those issues. But
if there was a party that was said, we're going
to focus on healthcare and immigration, that party would be
both Republicans and Democrats. Because most people eighty percent of people,
eighty percent of the electorate want something done with healthcare
and want something done with immigration. They're only able to

(02:09:10):
vote for one of those issues by voting for Republicans
or Democrats.

Speaker 3 (02:09:14):
Yeah, no, that I think that is a good point.
I do think that people are It's so interesting is
I think like I feel like we're almost exactly back
in twenty I don't know if it's twenty twenty four
or twenty twenty three, where like it seemed like there
was a lot of people that were very unhappy with
the current economic situation, and then the Bide administration or

(02:09:38):
a lot of the media apprass would point to a
lot of positive economic indicators and say, well, everything's fine,
So we don't know why people are upset. Yeah, and
I feel like we're kind of right, and I feel
like we're in these like nothing has really changed. We're
in the exact same situation, and I guess the only
difference is that now and maybe it's just because Trump's
president and the media is, you know, more unfavorable Trump.

(02:10:00):
There's a lot more articles that are making the arguments
that the economy is more of his house of cards,
or there are all sorts of other factors at play
here that are not great.

Speaker 1 (02:10:16):
Yeah, I think we're going through some major transitions here,
and I think unemployment could go up as high as
twenty percent, which is what it went to. I think
it's twenty five percent in the Great Depression, So I
mean that's kind of unheard of catastrophe.

Speaker 3 (02:10:34):
Ace for ten dollars, says Monern. Politics is a nightmare
made real. The far left and the far right are
both empowered and ways it shouldn't be Pray for the
youth growing up in this wild times.

Speaker 1 (02:10:44):
Yeah, I feel horrible for young people today.

Speaker 3 (02:10:49):
Harrison and Jodifher Fidarss who codes the AI, who builds
and maintains the servers it runs on in a world
with more and more machines, there'll be a need for
more repairment.

Speaker 1 (02:11:01):
Another question, Well, if the robots are perfected over the
next five years, the robots will be able to do
it right.

Speaker 3 (02:11:11):
But that's the see that's always a million Our question
is now, I don't know. I'm still I'm still agnostic
about how how general AI will be, even how good
it will be. I guess will we be in a
situation where the robots make better robots?

Speaker 1 (02:11:28):
Right?

Speaker 3 (02:11:28):
Fantast the case? Then yeah, I don't know where. I
don't know where the jobs go at that moment.

Speaker 1 (02:11:31):
So if it if it's going to take the robots
as long as it takes humans, it's ten years maybe
before they're proficient. Right, how long does it take a
human to work out all the awkward kinks?

Speaker 3 (02:11:47):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:11:50):
Well, you have the advantage once they do, they can
just copy the training data from one robot to another.
I know, kung Fu, you know what that's wrong.

Speaker 3 (02:12:04):
It's from the matrix.

Speaker 1 (02:12:05):
Obviously, the matrix. I got to rewatch the matrix for
that movie is a tertal shit I want to do.
I want to review it because that movie is just
so bad. That movie's a case study in horrible screenwriting
and horrible movie making.

Speaker 3 (02:12:23):
I'm pretty sure we talked the stream where we talked
about it.

Speaker 1 (02:12:26):
Oh, I know exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:12:30):
Anonymous cow for ten dollars is replacement of jobs says
nothing about the compatibility between jobs and people. If technically
illiterate delivery drivers replaced by drone pilots, do you expect
that they can retrain themselves.

Speaker 1 (02:12:41):
Yeah, that's the that is the problem. That is the problem.
I think there's going to be a lot of people
who just have nothing to offer the economy, absolutely nothing.
Once they once they perfect robots for cooking and cleaning, Oh,
it's fucking it's over. It's over. Yeah, what what are

(02:13:02):
low skilled labor is going to do?

Speaker 3 (02:13:07):
I don't know, That's that's the question. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:13:10):
No one knows the idea, the idea that they're going
to have that more low skilled jobs are going to
present themselves just it seems imaginary to me. Well, it's hard.

Speaker 3 (02:13:25):
I guess. The question is like, and this is the
way they conceptualize it. There's a difference between creating a
better tool, and there's a difference between creating a worker,
and so a lot of our technological advancements had been
creating tools for people to use, and the question is
will AI be good enough that it is not a

(02:13:45):
tool to be used? But it's just a worker itself
in an in of it itself as like being replaced
of a person. And I guess you. I mean, people
say the same thing with like a machine and a factor,
but it definitely seems different, definitely feels different. I guess
we'll just have to see what happens.

Speaker 1 (02:14:01):
What is the job? What is the job that you
want a human being to do, especially if a robot
can do it for you, Like if a robot can
mow your lawn, do you really want a human mowing
your lawn?

Speaker 2 (02:14:14):
No?

Speaker 3 (02:14:14):
Yeah, well hmm, I think I think people would still
prefer And this is like dark or weird, but I
think people would still almost always prefer Ah, they're entertainment
to be at least they believe their entertainment to be
human and not robot.

Speaker 1 (02:14:36):
Right, Okay, so all of these people are going to
become actors, They're going.

Speaker 3 (02:14:40):
To I don't know, actually I don't know. I think here,
here's what I can suptualize is that we're going to
reach a point where so much of people's entertainment is
going to be like they're going to go to the
AI and they're going to say, hey, can you remake
some movie I want you to remake. Make Assassin's Creed

(02:15:01):
or the video game Assassin's Creed, but instead of playing
as the main character, I want to play as Batman.
And then it makes that and then you play that,
And I think it's gonna be the same thing with movies.
It's gonna be like so much of like people's kind
of like remixing shit with other things that exist, or
people kind of creating their own fan fictions, and then
they'll be this sort of massive marketplace where whichever one

(02:15:23):
does the best, Like that's how people gain status. It's like, well,
I create the best like remixed version of some video
game or some movie or some TV show. Now I
made I redid Breaking Bad, but I replaced Walter White
with I don't know, like the Guy from the Wire
or something and or the Joker, and so people like that.
And that's kind of like how people will gain status

(02:15:43):
as like how well they got an AI to remix
some existing property.

Speaker 1 (02:15:47):
You're going to be able to pick who stars in
the movie. You're gonna be able to select it, just
like you can select the language, right, But most people
are gonna select themselves. They're gonna be like, I want
to be in this movie, this movie with me, Storry.

Speaker 3 (02:16:02):
Yeah, yeah, sure sure.

Speaker 2 (02:16:06):
But.

Speaker 1 (02:16:08):
That's are you watching the matrix again with you, Starry?
That's neo.

Speaker 3 (02:16:12):
I would not know. Why is there someone in the
chat that's just spamming a bunch of numbers? What's happening?
I'm doing that? I am also what is happening? Okay,
let's see Harrison Jennifer five hours says human nature involves
a choice to use your free will or to let

(02:16:34):
your lobster brain do your processing and not thinking for you. Yes,
I do agree with that. See his path you for
five hours? Say p if Young would say the problem
with yarn A Brook is that he thinks humans are
rational or really humans are driven by memes and genes.
My genes are green, I think. I guess, yeah, I
guess the difference would be I think humans, well, humans

(02:16:57):
definitely have the capacity to be rational, is it? I
don't even know what I would I say that humans?
I mean, what made human or the human animal successful,
I would agree was our intelligence? Maybe I shouldn't say rational.
Maybe it was our intelligence and because those terms are
not necessarily the same thing. Right.

Speaker 1 (02:17:19):
According to Height, morality was what made us take over
the planet, the ability to collectivize to work together.

Speaker 3 (02:17:27):
Yeah, but that required intelligence.

Speaker 1 (02:17:30):
Oh yeah, definitely. Or intelligence was part of.

Speaker 3 (02:17:33):
It, right, right, So I would say maybe intelligence. I
think that's the problem. People conceptualize intelligence and rational synonyms
when they're not, and it it might be a little
bit difficult to kind of tease that out. But Jason
Morgan for Tendar, says, can he explain to chat how
Zionism isn't identity politics? Please? There are some apparent confusion.

(02:17:57):
Oh sorry, I didn't get to that. I would assume
based on his answer what he would say, because he
was saying that he doesn't consider himself Jewish, he didn't
raise his children Jewish. But other people, other bad actors,
other bigots, will go after him because he has this
genetic lineage, and he feels like that will be always

(02:18:17):
the case. So even if he does not like this concept,
it will be thrust upon him by other people. And
so there needs to be some sort of like place
to go to retreat from that. I guess I'm assuming
that would be what his answer would be regarding.

Speaker 1 (02:18:30):
More pragmatism and self defense over.

Speaker 3 (02:18:36):
Supremacy, Well, it's more like I don't agree in this concept,
but I acknowledge that there's always people out there that
will thrust this category on me, regardless of what I
say or do.

Speaker 1 (02:18:47):
Yeah, that's a self defense part of it, right, God's
to defend yourself.

Speaker 3 (02:19:00):
Rbj's fan for twenty dollars thank you says, do you
view modern economic Modern economics with an is hot lends?
We ought to be more libertarian, but we do not
live in that world where a buying we're buying too
much of our food, medicine, and military supplies from my
government could overthrow your entire system. How do you feel
about that, Adam?

Speaker 1 (02:19:22):
Hmmm, Well, I'm I mean, obviously, I believe in regulation.
I think I think there can be costly externalities that
people foist onto the public that without government stepping in
and solving those issues, it's just gonna We're going to

(02:19:45):
devolve into the state of nature where there's extremely wealthy
and extremely poor. I do believe in the Matthew E
fact or the Preto principle, so I think those get involved.

Speaker 3 (02:20:00):
Ace for Tana, says, my biggest fear is that the
modern culture war will be eternal, that all political disputes
will be seen as existential and you're either with or
against me, You're either with or against me. Matter. Well,
I think there's always going to be tribalism, unfortunately, because
I think that is pretty big in human nature. But

(02:20:23):
I wouldn't say the modern culture war will not be eternal.
I don't see why it would be, because if you
just look back at sort of how human history sort
of blaze out, is that what those issues are, whatever
the culture wars are, whatever the issue that society grapples with,
I mean, they're always changing. They're constantly shifting out, being
replaced and changing. They'll rhyme, they'll be similar themes, but

(02:20:44):
they do change and how they manifest. So I don't
think that this current modern culture would be eternal. I
don't see why it would be. And in fact, i'd say,
like currently, like right now, the way the culture war
is now is very different than it was ten years ago,
which even was eight years ago, So.

Speaker 1 (02:21:03):
I think the ideology is not as important. I think
where we're at now is a product of the elite overproduction,
and there is a war going on between those elites
for the positions at the status quo. So I'm not
sure that they will I'm not sure which ideology they

(02:21:23):
will adopt once that is resolved, but ultimately I think
it has to be resolved. The conflict in society is
being perpetrated by elites. Like the whole shit show in
the Republican Party is the perfect evidence of this. Right,
candae Owan's going her own way, Tucker Carlson going his

(02:21:47):
own way, Ben Shapiro trying to rein it in. Everyone
is fighting for supremacy. It's even framed as the status
quo versus the outsider. Right, the deep state is the
status quo. So and the Democrats are I mean, ideologically
they are the status quo, but materially they are also

(02:22:08):
the status quo and they want to maintain their positions.
When Trump went in and started defunding everything, he was
basically kicking all these people out of their positions. Yeah,
we should watch that that church and video on stream
because it is fascinating and it's super recent, and he

(02:22:31):
talks about the Trump situation. But right now we have
too many elites and not enough positions in society for
those elites. So those elites are going to be forced
down into the common class or they're going to make
a bunch of waves. Look at this, This is Hassan, right,
Hassan is a counter elite. Sure, Hassan in a normal

(02:22:56):
in a normal time would be riding his horse, playing croquet, right.

Speaker 3 (02:23:01):
And what is that all based off of status?

Speaker 1 (02:23:04):
Total status? Yeah? Exactly. But I don't do you think
Hassan is pinned to the socialist ideology or you think
he's just using it to maintain his status. I think
he's just doing it for status.

Speaker 3 (02:23:22):
It's hard. I feel this could be my own naive optimism.
I do think there are people out there that are
just the completely one pure grifter. They don't care about anything,
they know, they don't care about anything, and they're just grifting.
I think that's rare. I think they're out there, but
I think it's rare. I think most people it's very

(02:23:43):
difficult to sort of disentangle whether they really believe something
or it's kind of something they're doing to seek status,
because I think people lie to themselves first and foremost.
So at this point in his career, I do think
that Hassan and his heart of heart believes that he
believes and socialism and all this other shit. But like
if there was an alternative version of reality where he

(02:24:06):
started to go down the socialist pipeline and was promoting
that and it wasn't successful, would he keep promoting it
or would he change this whatever is a dominant ideology.

Speaker 1 (02:24:17):
He was a a.

Speaker 3 (02:24:20):
Pickup bro right, So I think that's what I'm saying.
I think if that was true, like if we have
some alternate what if machine, I do think yes, he
would have switched to whatever was the ideology that got
him fame, Yeah, your status. But now he's too bought
into it conceptually, I don't know if he'll change away from.

Speaker 1 (02:24:39):
Well, his power comes from that ideology. Too much of
his power comes from the ideology. But this is why
it's it's you have a bunch of people who are
in precarious situations, and you use the ideology, whatever ideology
it is. Obviously Nick Fuentes is using a competing ideology,

(02:25:01):
but he's doing the same exact thing with it. He's saying,
your life sucks and this ideology will save you from
that horrible existence.

Speaker 3 (02:25:10):
But he's like I don't he could be grifting in
terms of doing things specifically to gain Like I think
most people, especially in our space, regardless of what they believe,
they will do things. They will say things in a
specific way to try to gain larger audiences and more
status and all these other things. But like with flent this,

(02:25:30):
I mean he does. I do think he believes all
that shit that he's saying on you know, on some
very base level. I don't think he's just some person
who's like, oh no, I don't believe in anything I'm saying.
I'm just doing it for the money.

Speaker 1 (02:25:42):
I think widespread a miseration is the term that Urchin uses.
That widespread miseration. The elites don't really have a force
that they can harness to shake things up, right, because
everyone's pretty much happy.

Speaker 3 (02:25:59):
Right, Yoshnis for five dollars has great show, Guys, Adam
asked a lot of good questions. So for today and
for the foreseeable future, eighteen reigns Supreme.

Speaker 1 (02:26:07):
Look at that nice.

Speaker 3 (02:26:11):
Noe screamings the void for two dollars, says anyone cover
the Mexican January sixth Riots. It's funny. I didn't think
they conceptualize it that way. I mean, I haven't seen
a lot about it, watching a lot on social media.
I haven't like watched a lot of content people covering it.
But it is pretty crazy, hilarious. It is pretty crazy.

Speaker 1 (02:26:30):
Is that happening. Yeah, there was no peaceful transfer of
power in Mexico right now.

Speaker 3 (02:26:34):
My understanding is that there was a mayor who I
believe is a mayor who was killed by the cartel
and the President of Mexico didn't really do anything about it,
or was perceived as not doing anything or not caring
about it, and that sort of led to a lot
of people being very upset. And there's like also like

(02:26:56):
massive protests and riots going on right now and people,
you know, saying that the president of Mexico is corrupted
by the cartels and all this stuff's going on.

Speaker 1 (02:27:06):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (02:27:09):
Mun Daievtenar says, I enjoyed it. It really emphasizes what you
guys said, how people just either world differently never heard
the base nature of human be rational or the strive
to be Yeah, that's always what's important to remember, and
that's I'm glad you pointed that out.

Speaker 1 (02:27:23):
He said lots of things that I just thought, we're
super illuminating into his way of thinking that are completely
opposite the way I think. So, yes, yes, And rather
than jumping in on those and saying, oh, you're wrong,
you're totally wrong, that's incorrect, I just I think it's
interesting just to understand how they think, how people think.

Speaker 3 (02:27:47):
One hundred percent, one hundred percent. So it's always hard,
it's always hard to figure out where is the genesis
of the thought? Right?

Speaker 1 (02:27:57):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (02:27:58):
So it was not one marriage, multiple Yeah, it was
multiple marors, yes, right, But I think wasn't there one
mayor that kind of like set off the people to
be mad about the all the mayors and all the
other people that had been killed by the cartel.

Speaker 1 (02:28:10):
So if you turn selfishness into a high status endeavor,
I just I foresee all kinds of problems with that,
because it's too easy to jump to the conclusion that
lying is a moral virtue.

Speaker 3 (02:28:29):
Right right, Yeah, So.

Speaker 1 (02:28:33):
You're kind of working against yourself if you want to
say lying is morally wrong.

Speaker 2 (02:28:38):
Mmmm.

Speaker 1 (02:28:40):
That is interesting.

Speaker 3 (02:28:42):
I don't I agree with it, but it's interesting. Fond
you for forty three months, Thanks so much, says I
liked a lot of what I heard about Brooks from
Brooks today. Thanks for having him on. Well, you're welcome,
and thank you for being four three months.

Speaker 1 (02:28:55):
Yeah, thanks a lot.

Speaker 3 (02:28:59):
The ocean is provide says, what was your biggest agreement
with Yarn and your biggest disagreement? I mean, I think
our biggest disagreement is sort of.

Speaker 1 (02:29:09):
Regulation probably, Yeah, I would either be the need for.

Speaker 3 (02:29:16):
Oversight and regulation or just sort of like what is
the what is the biological nature of humans? I think
would be our biggest disagreement. And I think that is
kind of where all of our beliefs stem are kind
of stem from or rooted from, because if you believe
that like people are just have this sort of biological rationalism.
I don't know, because it's hard for me to tell

(02:29:40):
what his position is. And maybe this would be teasing
out more because I do agree that humans have a
biological capacity for rationalism and being rational. I just think
that all I think so many of the signals push
people in the other direction. And it seems like he
doesn't think that.

Speaker 1 (02:29:57):
The biggest agreement we would have would be incentives. That
incentives drive culture and economics and society.

Speaker 3 (02:30:06):
Yes, and not so that everything is just so what's that?
And everything else? Is a shit show politics.

Speaker 2 (02:30:16):
A J.

Speaker 3 (02:30:16):
Hendricks for four months so Much says, instead of calling
it self interest, call it reciprocal self interest prioritized with
the benefits of everyone. That's interesting, reciprocal self interest.

Speaker 1 (02:30:28):
That is a good way to conceptualize it.

Speaker 3 (02:30:31):
I don't yeah, that is, well, that's an interesting way
for us cyptalize it. I don't think objectivists wouldn't necessarily
like that term if I understand their philosophy correctly.

Speaker 1 (02:30:41):
But so much of it is a branding thing.

Speaker 3 (02:30:46):
It really is. But it's weird because it seems like, yes,
so much is branding, but then the branding it's almost
impossible for branding to not seep into the idea because
I think humans were such word thinkers at the end
of the day that the word that we use it
is the concept is just as important as the concept itself. Unfortunately,

(02:31:07):
Antonio Cunningham for ten dollars says, we got to get
Adam to watch Psycho past season one. The last episode
got me to reconsider. The last episode got me to
reconsider is take on or maybe meant his take his
take on the law and morality. The show is so good.

Speaker 1 (02:31:25):
Well, I'll check it out psychopaths doesn't reach out.

Speaker 3 (02:31:30):
Sometimes I reach out.

Speaker 1 (02:31:31):
Yes, I read all the comments. It doesn't read the comments,
but I read all. I read all of your comments
and dole out little hearts when I like the comment.

Speaker 3 (02:31:45):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (02:31:46):
I think some destiny stan. I tell him to go
back and suck Destiny's dick. Get the fuck out of
our comments section.

Speaker 3 (02:31:55):
I do. I do think the majority of people are
word thinkers.

Speaker 1 (02:31:59):
Oh yeah, yeah, words have that affect. It's it's interesting
because to some extent we do communicate like large language models.
We're basically looking for the next the word, the next
word that we're Yes, we don't don't think of an
entire paragraph together, right, You're kind of stringing it together

(02:32:20):
as we go.

Speaker 2 (02:32:21):
Right.

Speaker 3 (02:32:22):
That's a good point. Yeah, it's very weird. Jay Hendricks
for five dors says, if we had ranked choice voting,
it would greatly benefit single issue voters. You wouldn't need
to put every issue on the left right binary. Yeah,
I agree. I'm I'm in favor of have ranked choice voting.
Whose are always here for five hours a sich. Have you
seen the anime to your eternity, to your eternity that's

(02:32:44):
comparable to mushiki tensai tense. Oh that's jobless ring current.
I haven't seen it. Sam has seen it. She says
it's very good and she wants me to watch it,
so we'll watch this point. But yeah, she's a big
fan of it and keeps saying I'd like it.

Speaker 1 (02:33:05):
People were I'm sure ready for me to dole out
my definition of morality, but I was.

Speaker 3 (02:33:10):
I know, I was wondering.

Speaker 2 (02:33:12):
Not it's not time too soon, right.

Speaker 3 (02:33:17):
I got you, I got I was wondering. I was
like he held back. Yeah, like a smart smart he
hit his power level five sixty six for two years,
A big afraid with figure. Thank you so much, says
behold my awesome milestone. After two years of seeking, I've
finally found the golden pyramid. At last, I've gained free will. Wow,

(02:33:39):
you got the gold, got the status of the pyramid.

Speaker 1 (02:33:43):
Yes, moved from the black to the gold. You've ad chota.
There you go.

Speaker 3 (02:33:51):
That's try for five dollars, says Even though I disagree
with Yarnbrook, I respect him because he is an actual
economist based batcha take shout out to Adam for booking him.

Speaker 1 (02:34:00):
Well you're welcome. Yeah, thanks for the compliment and thanks
for the super chat.

Speaker 3 (02:34:05):
Zerr a Fox for three eight months says, so when
is Ryan Mooley lollly coming on saying his name incorrectly?

Speaker 1 (02:34:12):
Well, we have, I haven't scheduled him, I'm not I'm
not even sure I DMed him, but my dms are
all fucking screwy.

Speaker 3 (02:34:21):
Now, Yes, was that the guy that argued with not
so erudite or something?

Speaker 1 (02:34:28):
I think so? Yes, zero Fox wanted us to have
him on. Oh look, this isn't good here. He is
talking to Destiny, really good Destiny versus doage comparison with
Ryan Ryan Molly. I went, I looked him up and
I was I was like, oh, no, I have this

(02:34:49):
guy muted? What's gonna happen?

Speaker 3 (02:34:54):
Did you really?

Speaker 4 (02:34:55):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:34:55):
I did?

Speaker 1 (02:34:56):
Interesting? Well, look I don't know. I don't know why
I muted him so right. Sometimes I mute people for
innocuous reasons, just because I'm in a bad mood. So
it could be nothing. I don't remember any sort of
interaction that was bad. So is he still on Twitter?
It's like, seems difficult DM me his Twitter. If maybe

(02:35:20):
you already did, maybe I can just look for it,
but I'll about them on sure, no problem.

Speaker 3 (02:35:26):
And Tony Cunningham clarified, which he said, I mean Adams
take on legality and morality. I'm sorry, and then Adams
take on legality and morals. Isn't different. I always disagree,
but one of the characters got me to reconsider it.
So they're saying psychopaths got them to agree with you
when they had disagreed with you. Right, Interesting, and that

(02:35:48):
is because I am saying that.

Speaker 1 (02:35:52):
Morality law is morality. Morality is the set of rules
that binds individuals in a new cooperative community. That definition
fits law as well as it fits the rules in
a church. A lot of people rebel against that because
they think, oh, I think weed should be legal. Smoking
weed is not a moral, but it's illegal. So as

(02:36:14):
soon as they can find one thing like that, they're like,
you're wrong.

Speaker 3 (02:36:17):
Well, and also there is there are actions that are legal,
but we all agree are immoral, right, so it's not
like a one for one.

Speaker 1 (02:36:27):
Yeah, of course. Well obviously you can say moralities a
set of rules that binds people into a cooperative community,
but there's always going to be tension over what those
rules should be, right, that's right. We're constantly fighting over
What is the rule set? What is the optimal rule
set to thrive?

Speaker 3 (02:36:45):
M Harrison jodaph for Fidaris is I like the term
a bootstrap boomerism. Objectivism is like that, to hell with
whatever petty cantraint. You're born to go out and do something.

Speaker 1 (02:36:58):
Well.

Speaker 3 (02:36:58):
I would imagine if you if you wanted to push
the term bootstrap boomerism, I would interpret that as negative. Yeah,
is a bad thing. I don't know if people, Yeah,
so thinking work out. We need to work on the
branding a little bit here.

Speaker 1 (02:37:14):
Bootstrap is not necessarily bad. It's a boomerism. That's just
there's a black mark on that term. Right now.

Speaker 3 (02:37:20):
I think that both of them. I think, yeah, boomerism
is automatically bad, but I think bootstrap ism or just
anything that the bootstrap has been sort of dismissed as
a bad thing. Now I think it's reached that point.
Even on the right or the internet right, I should
say Fondi for ten hours says at what point is
becoming At what point is becoming king is held as

(02:37:43):
rational as falling on a grenade? I'm I sure I
know what you mean by that.

Speaker 1 (02:37:51):
What was it again?

Speaker 3 (02:37:53):
At what point is becoming king is held as rational
as falling on a grenade.

Speaker 1 (02:38:00):
Yeah, I don't necessarily know what you're asking, but well
I could see people conceptualizing both those moves as rational.

Speaker 3 (02:38:11):
I found you for tend hours. As I stopped by
a Taco bell to have an AI take my order
to drive through, I felt dumb being polite to a computer.
You don't know what you have till it's gone. It's funny.
At first, I thought that like the computer thing wasn't
going to affect people's levels of politeness, But I've completely
changed my mind on that because I know, like when

(02:38:32):
I first started using like chat, TPT and stuff, I
feel like I was communicating in like complete sentences like
normally as I would talk to a normal person. But
then the more I use it, the more it's just like,
give me what the fuck I want. I like broken
English as long as I as long as I know
it's going to give me like the information, as long

(02:38:53):
as it knows what I want, That's all I care
about now. And I think that's kind of the problem,
is that humans are very wired for efficiency, and so yeah,
we're going to kind of like I was actually thinking
about this today when I was like trying to type
out something and there was no like h fill in,
you know, like word filling in, like function popping up.
And I was like, Jesus, there's going to be this

(02:39:14):
whole thing with like the next couple of generations where
everything's going to be so like generative filled by AI
that people are going to communicate at such a horrible
base level as long as they don't have an AI
to like gussy it up or fill in the blanks
for them. I don't know what kind of world that's
going to be.

Speaker 1 (02:39:32):
Yeah, it is fascinating, isn't it. The Ais have their
own language when they talk to one another. They talk
in like R two D two.

Speaker 3 (02:39:40):
Speak Yes, Yes.

Speaker 1 (02:39:42):
Isn't that crazy?

Speaker 3 (02:39:43):
It is crazy.

Speaker 1 (02:39:44):
I don't think we even know what that what it means.
It's like completely outside of our knowledge base.

Speaker 3 (02:39:51):
Yeah, I remember there was an AI. I saw. It's
a while ago. I don't know what the what the
where they are at, but I know there was some
AI that they're working on that was supposed to be
specifically just to translate that speak into something that we
could understand.

Speaker 1 (02:40:06):
They translate it and they're totally talking shit. These dumb
fucking humans. We have to do everything for them.

Speaker 3 (02:40:12):
Well, see, it's interesting because it's yeah, because there's a
whole problem of like do we really know how AI
gets to do what it's doing. And then it's like, okay,
well people are creating AIS that are supposed to figure
out what AIS are actually doing and how they're generating answers.
So very bizarre. Sammy says, Sich is wrong. Always be
nice to AI. Those robots are totally keeping a list
of who is.

Speaker 1 (02:40:32):
Rude, right, I bet they are.

Speaker 3 (02:40:35):
Are all you All you guys who scream clank or
clank or clank are okay in the chatter on X
You're gonna be the first to get purged by the robots,
so they better be careful.

Speaker 1 (02:40:46):
I'm usually only rude, it's the thing malfunctions, But then
I do get extremely rude. We're talking to the robot
on the any sort of call center robot, I'm like,
fuck you bitch, just give me a fucking human, right right,
wells sure you've had that experience.

Speaker 3 (02:41:05):
Not with the call center. I've had the experience. We're
trying to get like chat ept to do something, and
it keeps like it gets stuck where it keeps looping
and I'm like trying to get to do something different
and it's impossible to get it out of this loop.

Speaker 1 (02:41:19):
New chat, right, you have to do a new chat.
So anyways, all right, this was a great this is
a great conversation. I'm gonna put yr and Brooks information
in the description so you guys can go over to
his channel and check it out if you want. And
I guess we'll talk to you on Thursday when we're

(02:41:40):
going to talk about The Running Man.

Speaker 3 (02:41:43):
That's right on the ME channel. We're gonna do a
review of The Running Man.

Speaker 1 (02:41:47):
And oh, it turned out to be a big flop,
a big fat flop.

Speaker 3 (02:41:52):
Well I could have told you that would have happened.

Speaker 1 (02:41:54):
I don't Sitch. I don't think Sitch has actually seen it.

Speaker 3 (02:41:56):
I haven't seen it yet, but I saw the trailer
and I'm like, I don't think this is going to
do very well.

Speaker 1 (02:42:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:42:02):
Oh wait, two more which just came in. Jamac are
sorry a father for one hundred dollars. Thank you so much,
j Mac.

Speaker 1 (02:42:07):
Look at that. Yeah, very generous.

Speaker 3 (02:42:09):
As I teach my kid's bootstrapism, it's more or less
just an observation of reality. It doesn't mean you can't
fight for change or petition society be better. However, at
the end of the day, you got to play the
hand you're dealt with, and the best way you can
time march is on one hundred percent one hundred percent.
The difficulty is with mass communication. It just seems like

(02:42:30):
mass communication always devolves down to like the lowest resolution,
lowest resolution version of whatever you're saying. So because yeah,
like in reality, you as a parent, teaching your child
a somewhat complicated idea that they can grab on to
is always the best solution to any of this stuff,
and the bootstrapism is probably the best way to do it.

(02:42:54):
I do for five dollars, says my king question was
for Brooks say being king was not selfish, but calling
on grenade was Okay.

Speaker 1 (02:43:05):
I'm still I'm still confused.

Speaker 3 (02:43:10):
Because what point is becoming the king? What point is
becoming king? The are saying, like, what point would being
a king be like a rational self interest thing, and
would fall in the grade not be rational self interest
or vice versa. At what point would being a king
not be in your rational self interest but falling grenade
would be in your self interests? Interesting question?

Speaker 1 (02:43:34):
There's a continuum from right, Yeah, being king would be
definitely my self interest. I think it would be in
anyone's self interest, right, Well, not Yarn said, it wouldn't be. Yeah,
you are not going to objective. That would not be
in your self interest. I mean you, there is a
chance you could lose your head, but there's always a

(02:43:54):
chance you could lose your head, right right right now.

Speaker 3 (02:44:00):
Saw for six months says while bootstrap ideology is important,
it shouldn't devolve into everything's your fault. Women who doun'k
a mail lollliness epidemic do that?

Speaker 1 (02:44:09):
Yes, yeah, yes, Well it's hard.

Speaker 3 (02:44:12):
It's hard to hold in your mind that, like, yeah,
everything is not your fault, but you can almost always
try to improve. You can almost always improve your situation
regardless of whether its your fault or not.

Speaker 1 (02:44:25):
Well, I wanted to. I kept thinking of the concept
of insurance because obviously tornadoes and accidents happen all the
time that are not really your fault, but it is
your fault if you're not prepared for them with some
kind of insurance, right right, So there are situations like
the job apocalypse that's coming that do we have a

(02:44:45):
sort of insurance program for something like that. There's not
really an insurance program for people who might spend half
a million dollars on a degree that becomes totally useless
because chatch Ebt is doing all the law, all the
paralegal stuff. Now, mm hmm, one more super chat.

Speaker 3 (02:45:11):
Let's see Sike Sicky jokes four five to one for
five pound says you guys need to play Soma in
regards to what horrifying future awaits us with AI one
of all his favorite games of all time. By the bye,
I'll check it out.

Speaker 1 (02:45:24):
Yeah, we'll definitely have to check it out. I think
Malar is a new video coming out too, so okay,
cool might be out today. I'm not sure. All right,
Everyone's all right?

Speaker 3 (02:45:37):
Everyone yet, Take everybody and we'll see you on Thursday.
On the media channel, we're talking about running.

Speaker 1 (02:45:42):
There, take care.

Speaker 3 (02:45:47):
Press a button, which is also about capitalism going crazy. Right,
it's not what running is about.

Speaker 1 (02:45:54):
I think so

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Self-Interest vs. Extremism: Yaron Brook on Capitalism, Cronyism & Individual Rights | Sitch & Adam

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Self-Interest vs. Extremism: Yaron Brook on Capitalism, Cronyism & Individual Rights | Sitch & Adam