The Crisis of Meaning; Reviews | Yaron Brook Show - Yaron Brook Show

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Speaker 1 (00:02):
A lot of the fundamentalists of windows and an individual loss.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
This is the show.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
All right, everybody, welcome to your run book show on
this Saturday, December sixth. I hope everybody is having a
good weekend, had a good week and uh yeah, enjoying
your time off. All right, Today we're going to talk
about the crisis of meaning that it exists out there.

(00:40):
We're told it exists out there. No, I think it
does exist out there. We'll talk about what it means
and where it comes from and kind of what the
solutions are to it.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Uh, And then we're going to do some reviews.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
We've got a couple of we Go one TV episode, uh,
and couple of a couple of what there's a kind
of a documentary type movie, and a couple of monologues
from and or that also also included, so you've got

(01:21):
that to look forward to.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
And let me just pull something up here.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
No, not that, not that, not that, uh not that,
Okay that I'll have to.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Just in a minute.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
All right, let's get started. Remember, you can ask questions
about anything. Doesn't have to be about the topic of
the show, So feel free to ask about anything, and.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Come on. Update this thing. Will not update. It's not updating.
It will in a minute.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Uh, you can ask about anything. Super chat is available.
Uh what do you call it? Stickers available support to
show all of that good stuff. Let's jump into the
crisis of meaning? What what what is the crisis of meaning?
I mean, it's basically this notion that people out there
in the world feel that there's no meaning to their lives.

(02:24):
In other words, a certain direction less less direction less.
They feel hollow. They they might be able to, they
might have access to and they might have kind of
the material needs that they want. They might even make
a good money, uh, and have a nice house and

(02:44):
and and have stuff. But in spite but in spite
of that, they.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
What's the point of it? What's the point of life?
What's the meaning of life?

Speaker 1 (02:56):
They're generally unhappy, they go through midlife crises, or really
most of the people right now, I think that where
this crisis of meaning is applying.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Most of these people.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Are young. They're young, and their life has been fairly comfortable,
and they're educated, and they might even have good jobs,
and you know.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Some of them have made a lot of money.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
You know, so I know people in Silicon value who
who go out there and they make they make a
lot of money, very young, and then it's like, yeah,
but what's it awful? What's the purpose of life? What
am I going to do with all this? And and
they lost, they drift or young people who they don't

(03:48):
like work, you know, as a consequence, I think of
at educational system. They don't they haven't found anything.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
They really like.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Uh, they just want to drift. They want to be
in there, you know, in the basement playing video games.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
I got, I got.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
I got blamed for hating video games, so saying this,
but this is not anything about video games. This has
to do with the people, and a lot of it
has to do with, well, what's the point I go
to work, I make money? What's the point? I think,
you know, part of it is. And it seems when
you look, so what happens is they start looking for causes,

(04:30):
they start looking for places where they can find meaning.
And we'll get to that. And it does seem to
me that this is striking men much more than it
is women. It's it's much more prevalent, prevalent. It seems
that it's trunts more prevalent among young men than among

(04:50):
young women, and you can see that there are all
these movements that claim to provide meaning, whether it's you know,
whether it's religion, or whether it's nationalism or any of
these things primarily, or whether it's Jordan Peterson who identified
this crisis of meaning early on. They're almost predominantly they're

(05:16):
predominantly male. They're predominantly men, and they are they are
seeking meaning, purpose. They don't know what life.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
Is about it.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
It is interesting that it's striking men more than women.
I think will get to why. I think that is.
You probably heard me talk about this before, but there's
been a real shift that men have not adjusted to
and and that you know, women are far more I
don't know, comfortable with. So so what's going on and

(05:52):
what's the cause of this crisis of meaning? And is
it new? Is it happening new? I mean it's not new,
because I mean Nietzsche talks about this in the nineteenth century, right,
I mean, he talks about the crisis of meaning. And

(06:14):
for Nietzsche, and I think for a lot of people,
for Jodan Peterson, for example, much of the crisis of
meaning has to do with the loss, and the loss
that they identify is a loss of religion. So Nietzsche says,
you know God is dead, you know humanity in a

(06:34):
sense killed him. And now what.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
Without God? What is the purpose of life? Without God?

Speaker 1 (06:40):
What is the meaning of life? How do we find it?
And how can they be one? If the world is
just guided by I don't know, by by physical physical characteristics,
by by inertia, by nature.

Speaker 2 (07:04):
If there's no.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
If there's no other life, if there's not a kind
of an eternal, eternal afterlife that one achieves, if one
lives a certain life, then what is what is the meaning?
And I think Jordan Peterson agrees with him, I mean
Jordan Peterson basically says that the concept, the reason for

(07:29):
the particular crisis of meaning we're living in right now
among men is it's multi dimensional. But one of the
causes is the loss of religion, the loss of this tradition,
the loss of these guiding principles that told us exactly

(07:50):
what we're supposed to do and what we're supposed to
live for from some kind of external authority, whether it
be the authority of family, whether it be the thought
of God, whether it be the authority of other institutions.
We've lost that authority and Therefore, you know, men have
lost meaning. And part of it is it manifests in

(08:15):
aimlessness and unwillingness to take responsibility over their own lives
and then responsibility over the lives of others.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
For Jordan Peterson, responsibility.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
Over that lives of others is a crucial element in
attaining meaning.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
But responsibility for their own lives.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
And this is the thing about make your bad and
stand up straight, and and and and be a man.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
Right.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
It's taken responsibility for your own life. But they've lost
all this because.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
This external force. Religion, tradition.

Speaker 1 (08:57):
Have basically became irrelevant in the modern world. And once
they become irrelevant in the modern world, we're aimless.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
We don't know where to search.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
And John tells us look out there for meaning, find
a cause that some finds something you can be responsible for,
Find something that you outside of you, that you can
take responsibility for, and make that, in a sense, your meaning.
But it has to be outside of you, and to
find it you have to connect with and often with

(09:29):
the tradition, with some kind of dogma, with the god,
with a religious authority. Now, I think this whole explanation
is fundamentally false, and I think it's false because I

(09:52):
think it's ridiculous to assume it's ridiculous to hold that
religion provides you with meaning, or the tradition provides you
with meaning, or that ever it ever provided most people
with meaning. I mean, the reality is that in the
pre industrial age, in the pre pre industrial evolution age,

(10:18):
of the population were barely surviving. They had no conception
of thinking about meaning. And the people who considered meaning,
you know, found it in the pursuit of their own values,
found it in the pursuit of their own life. The

(10:40):
people who followed religious dogma and believed that they would
find meaning in religious dogma were just unhappy, miserable people.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
There was no meaning in the dogma.

Speaker 1 (10:54):
There's no meaning in living for an afterlife because there
is no after life. So, you know, living for a purpose,
living with meaning that it's false. That is a fantasy,
that is nonexistent. It's not a meaningful life. It's a

(11:16):
pretense for meanings for life. It's fake, it's pseudo, it's
made up. It's a fantasy. I mean, God didn't die.
God was always dead. The difference is that at some

(11:36):
point people came to realize there was never any God,
and they're all being a sham and all fake. And
a lot of people were sacrificed for some greater cause
that didn't exist. A lot of people were sacrificed for
some afterlife there wasn't there. A lot of people lived
their life in great anticipation of an afterlife that isn't there,

(12:00):
and wasted their time, wasted their lives, wasted the potential
for meaning in their life, for the sake of a fantasy,
for the sake of something that wasn't real. And to

(12:21):
some extent, the same is true of all the other
kind of sources of meaning that people claim exists, you know,
in a traditional sense national identity, well, it doesn't exist,
not in any kind of meaning for sense. Sure, I'm
an American, you're French, you know, East German, but it

(12:42):
can't give you any meaning. It's just where you happen
to be born or where you emigrated too. And you
might you might be, you know, pretty happy with where
you live, and you might, you know, be pretty happy
that you know, share a lot of values with the
people around you. But that in and of itself cannot
give you meaning. And when people try, just like with religion,

(13:05):
when people try to get gain meaning from the national identity.
What happens, well, a lot of people die, they're sacrificed
for that nation.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
I mean.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
One of the things that gives a nation, provides meaning
for people in nationalism is war. The progressive thinker was
something quality in the late nineteenth century early twentieth century
in the United States. You know, often said that a

(13:43):
nation needs war in order to you to muster the resources,
the passion, give people meaning, give people a cause to
unite around something. Indeedeok, Peter Brooks, not Peter Books. Books
the New York Times write the new conservative was a
new conservative, writer.

Speaker 2 (14:05):
Wrote just before nine to eleven.

Speaker 1 (14:09):
As it mattered what was his first name Brooks something
Brooks famous, famous kind of conservative. David Books, Thank you,
David Books wrote right before nine to eleven.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
He wrote, he wrote, what.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
American people need, what they need to unite us and
to give purpose and meaning is a war. Well they
got the war nine to eleven. Don't think it helped
with purpose and meaning, But a bunch of people died,
A bunch of Americans died.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
I mean he literally wrote that.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
It's one of those stunning pieces that you find and
you go really that he really said this right before.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
Nine to eleven.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
Now I don't think he brought it about, but he
got what he wished for, and I don't think it
turned out the way he expected. Certainly didn't out well
for America or Americans, and certainly didn't turn out well
for the soldiers who landed up having to go fight
for this war. Nationalism, when that becomes meaning, there is

(15:14):
no meaning. You cannot gain meaning from a group by
absorbing yourself into a group, by becoming part of a tribe,
by becoming part of a group, What you actually are
doing is destroying meaning in your life, subverting meaning in

(15:34):
your life. And I'm not against patriotism, but patriotism, even patriotism,
is not going to give you a meaning. Patriotism might
be a consequence of the values you choose and of
them meaning you're ultimately find in your life or making

(15:55):
your life. But nationalism, nationalism, the placing of the state
above all as the source of meaning for your life,
is going to lead to the sacrifice of a great
number of people in some kind of war for the
sake of the nation. Some people get meaning from or

(16:22):
claim to get meaning. They don't get meaning from religion.
They don't get meaning from national identity, and some people
think they get meaning from family structure. Again, family is
very important and a beautiful thing and important to pursue.
It's a great value in life. But do you think

(16:43):
you're just gonna get meaning from being in a family,
getting married, having children. This is why people at midlife crisis.
This is why people feel like they haven't really done
what they wanted to do in their life, haven't really
fulfilled their life because family is not enough. It might

(17:06):
be an important element in a good life, but you're
not going to get meaning from others, even your children, none,
unless well you can't. They could be part of your meaning.
If again, as we'll talk about you, you find meaning,
discover meaning, create meaning in the right kind of way.

(17:30):
You know, community or whatever, it's all the same garbage.
It's all wrong. And of course, religion, nationalism, community and
even family structure when it's done for the sake of meaning,
and when it's done, you know, for the sake of

(17:50):
tradition or for the sake of this this has to be.
This is what you're supposed to be, This is what
you're supposed to do. It's all external and it's all
basically dogma and authority dictating what you should and shouldn't do,
what your purpose should be. So you see this, you

(18:14):
see secularization being blamed for a loss of meaning. No,
secularization is the realization the true meaning, the only kind
of meaning, real meaning, actual meaning, is to be found

(18:36):
in this world. How you do that it is still
an open philosophical question we have to answer, but it
has to be in this world. The secularization is just
a recognition that the fantasy humanity lived under for thousands
of years doesn't actually provide meaning. Nobody actually lives a

(18:58):
better life by pursuing a fanta see, by pursuing an
afterlife that doesn't exist, by pursuing a god that is
not there. So secularization is just this waking up to
the need for meaning and replacing dogma with real meaning,

(19:25):
with real meaning. Other people might blame individuals. Sorry, individualism, individualism.
You know, now you're all alone and and now you're not.
You can't find meaning in the collective, in the group,
in the tribe, in the nation, and the fill in

(19:47):
the blank.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
Only individuals can find meaning, and they need to find
it in themselves. Meaning cannot be a product of dogma,
cannot be a product of placing others above yourself. Meaning
has to be a product of you placing yourself as
the most important thing in the world for you, and

(20:13):
therefore figuring out what your values are for you. Now
that's hard, you know, releasing yourself from dogma and just
following orders. It is challenging, but that's life. That is

(20:35):
truly the meaning of life. It's the liver as an individual,
it's the liver's a valuer.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
So the conventional.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
Approaches to solving the meaning the search for meaning problem
which exists today because I think what happened, what's happening
today is materially we're comfortable. More and more and more
people are reaching the stage are in life can ask
the question validly asked, the question.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
What is life full? What is the meaning of all this?

Speaker 1 (21:20):
What should be my purpose? They're not struggling to survive
as their ancestors will. They're now wealthy enough and educated
enough in a sense that they can actually ask questions.
They're actually in a position to ask those questions. And
it's almost everybody's in a position to ask those questions.

(21:44):
And unfortunately, the guidance they get from the world around them.
It's horrible. It's horrible. I mean, Nietzsche is right.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
In a sense that.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
If people don't get an answer to the question, if
they don't get an answer to a question they can
embrace define meaning, then they many of them, will lose
interest in values broadly. And this is kind of the

(22:25):
source of nihilism. The source of nihilism is the conclusion
that yeah, it's all meaningless, nothing matters. What the hell
values don't matter. I don't care about values. And it's
a short step from there to be to become an
active destroyer of values, particularly when you're young and want

(22:45):
to do something, but you can't do something for the
cause of something meaningful, for the cause of values, because
you don't believe in values, because you've written them off.
So in a secular world where you can't send the
young men to go die for a false cause nationalism, religion,

(23:12):
go fight and die for that cause, those young men
would likely to sit around and become nihilistic or just
turn it all off. I think a lot of people
just turn it off, you know, meaning they become cynics,
but not quite cynics enough to engage in nihilism. They
just turn off the whole idea of meaning and purpose.

(23:35):
They go and they live life kind of the life
that's expected of them. They get a job. They kind
of like their job, but you know, not super enthusiastic.
They create a family and they're okay with the family,
and they live okay lives. And generally they turn around
and anytime they hear an ideal or value or something

(23:56):
like that, they put poo it and they embrace the cynicism.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
Did you see so much?

Speaker 1 (24:03):
Some and a growing number embrace, you know, nihilism. And
I think nihilism becomes more and more common and popular
because it's it's hard to be nihilistic alone. I mean,
suicide is probably the result of lonely. People who are
lonely are nihilistic. It's much easier to be nihilistic in

(24:26):
a group. And I think social media and communications generally.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
Where and.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
You know, online personalities can get people who roused up
around a kind of a nothing matters, let's go burn
it all down kind of cause.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
And you see that.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
You see that with fo Intus and casting on the right,
you know, particularly for Indus with young people, and you
see that with the with the woke kind of attitudes
on the left. It's it's basically just a things down,
burn values down, destroy values. The whole agenda of egalitarianism
as a as a ism is.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
The destruction of.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
Values, of being able to differentiate good from bad, which
is crucial to valuing.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
So yeah, so you get a rise.

Speaker 1 (25:33):
So again I think Niche is right, and that you
get a rise in a real rise in nihilism as
a consequence of people searching for values, searching for meaning
and not being provided with a false meaning, not being
brainwashed into pursuing false meanings but s don't and as

(26:00):
a consequence, but not being provided with any true meaning,
so becoming cynical and rejecting everything and losing it all.
And you're seeing that in young people today, particularly young men,
because in the past, I think for men, and again

(26:23):
you've heard me say this before, but for men, in
the past, a lot of men got this sense of meaning.
I don't think they got real meaning, but they got
a pseudo meaning, a pretense of meaning, or at least it,
oh yeated.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
It focused their attention.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
Through a certain view of masculinity, a certain view of
you know, creating a family and protecting the family and
providing for the family that gave them some sense of satisfaction.
I don't think it's meaning in a sense of what's
available to human beings in our full potential, but it

(27:02):
gives you something. And you know, as that has gone away,
as women have said, you know, we don't need you
to protect us, We don't need you to provide for us.

(27:26):
Men are little adrift because that last piece of tradition,
right if religion, nationalism, but then family and particular role
in the family is part of the traditional source of
meaning goes away, or at least appears to go away,

(27:47):
because women are basically saying we don't need your traditional role.
We might need something else but that you have to
discover and that you have to earn. But the traditional
role we don't need anymore, because hey, in a modern
society where mind is valued instead of muscle, we can
take care of ourselves, we can earn a living. We

(28:08):
don't need you as much as we used to. Men
and more drift than ever. I mean, you see this
that much of this search for meaning is among what
people call in cuels, you know, guys that just don't
want to have anything to do with women because they
don't know how to do it, how to deal with them,
They don't know, they don't know how to relate to them,
they don't know how to approach them, and they feel

(28:31):
completely insecure in their presence. Nihilism is big there again
because this last source of meaning coming out of tradition
has been taken away from them, has been eliminated.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
Some men more than women are drift. I think women.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
Maybe women are drift too, but they express a differ
and maybe I just don't know how they're expressing it differently.
I mean, partially it's their attraction maybe to kind of
radical left nihilistic views. You know, women are attracted more
to kind of nihilism of the left. Men seem to
be more attracted the nihilism of the right. Nihilism of

(29:17):
the right is more viewed as more muscular, more masculine,
more action oriented.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
Nihilism of the left is.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
More emotional and you know, intellectual, pseudo intellectual. But you know,
both men and women. I mean, but the nihilism is there.
But I think part of the reason women are less

(29:55):
troubled by or less engaged in in this conundrum around
meaning is I think they find it again. I think
for women over the last forty years, the fact that
so many opportunities open up to them, the fact that

(30:20):
they can go out there and have a career, live
an interesting life as women of career, the fact that
they can now materially take care of themselves. That's where
they found meaning. They found meaning in work and career,
and you know, also in family and the creation of family,

(30:45):
but on their terms rather than on terms that were
dictated to them in the more distance past. So I think,
to a logic extent, what we're seeing as a crisis

(31:06):
among men more than anyone else.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
A right.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
So what is the solution to the crisis of meaning?
And here I think it's important note I mean people
need a meaning, They need purpose, they need a reason
to do stuff, they need a reason to live. Life
requires an answer to why and what for. And the

(31:40):
crisis that we're seeing is not a psychological crisis. It's
not a spiritual crisis in the sense of a crisis
of religion. It's not an individualistic crisis in the sense of,
oh God, when we had collectivism, wasn't life so much better?
It wasn't. It's not a crisis of modernity or technology.

(32:02):
It's a crisis of philosophy, because philosophy is the field
that has to answer these questions, what fall, why should
I live? What's the purpose of life? And you know,
I think the people who ultimately, you know, escape this

(32:25):
crisis of meaning find meaning in their life, find meaning
in their life because they you know, even in spite
of the bad philosophy that they're being taught. And maybe
maybe some of them Readine Rand and maybe you know
a lot of them don't. But they because people found
meaning before in man. They embrace reason, They use reason

(32:51):
to choose values. They recognize the centrality of their own life,
and they choose to live flourishing lives. They recognize implicitly
or explicitly, usually implicitly, that in a sense, life is

(33:11):
its own reward if you live it well. A good
life is its own reward, A flourishing life, a successful life,
being good at living capital l remember capital l living
is its own reward. The ward is ultimately happiness and

(33:32):
a way to achieve the good life. I mean, at
the end of the day, meaning, what is the meaning
of life? The meaning of life is life. The meaning
of life is living well.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
It's flourishing, It's.

Speaker 1 (33:50):
To live with everything everything that entails for human being
to live to your fullest capacity. A meaningful life is
a purposeful life, a life a purpose. Everything that you

(34:10):
do should have a purpose. The purpose is ultimately your happiness,
your success, your well being as a living entity, your survival.
But survival in the broadest sense possible is survival in
the sense of success at living. And that means having

(34:32):
a central purpose, and your central purpose, your central purpose
that integrates it all is that which makes your survival possible,
which means your productive endeavors, your productive work. So recognizing
the importance the primacy, not importance, the primacy of your life.

(35:00):
Recognizing that to pursue your life requires reason. This is
Einran's Great Revolution, intellectual revolution, that pursuing that life requires reason.
That reason is the tool by which you must choose values. Values,
the things you actigate and keep. Values, the things that

(35:23):
you want that you want rationally, that is, you want
because they make your life meaningful, They add to your life,
they make your life better. And among those values the
centrality of productive work of a career, that is meaning

(35:50):
you know. In Jordan Pedison's ruminology, taking responsibility, Yes, it's
taking responsibility to live the best damn life you can
for yourself. You make your life meaningful by living a
good life, by pursuing rational values, and by being a whole,

(36:22):
integrated human being. A meaningful life is, at the end
of the day, a purposeful life, goal directed life, a
life connected to reality, to facts, a life that you
have chosen, that you have chosen based on your personal

(36:43):
values and based on your nature as a human being.
So you get a sense of meaning when you live.
You live consciously in pursuit of your goals, in pursuit
of your values. If you're rational and if your reality oriented,

(37:11):
and if you're committed to the pursuit of values, you
will have no crisis of meaning.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
You will have no mid age crisis.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
I mean you will constantly be rethinking your values and
reevaluating them and judging them and evaluating them, and two
different stages in life, accommodating different stages of life. But
the meaning of life is living, and as long as

(37:45):
you're living, living in the full sense of the word,
you're not going to suffer from a crisis of meaning.
So to an extent that there's a crisis, it's a
crisis of the rejection of reason. Rejection of ration. There's
a crisis, a crisis of meaning today because there's a
rejection of individualism, and not just individualism, not primarily political identification,

(38:14):
but a rejection of individualism is a moral foundation. I mean,
altruism makes it impossible to have a life of meaning.
You don't get meaning from sacrificing to others. You get
meaning from self, and altruism tells you the self is unimportant.

(38:36):
You get meaning from pursuing values, not from duty. Altruism
teaches you the duty is what's important, not your happiness,
not your values. Altruism makes you suspect productivity. Productivity is
about pursuit of your values, your income, your wealth, your actions,

(39:00):
and ambition, ambition which drives anybody who is serious about
his career or productive endeavors. Ambition is selfish, after all,
and altruism rejects ambition.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
I mean, meaning requires that.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
Your life matter to you, really matter.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
I'll say that again.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
Meaning requires that your life matter to you, really matter.
So the crisis of meaning is just the crisis of philosophy.
It's the crisis of rejection of reason and the crisis

(39:56):
of rejection of egoism. To embrace meaning is to embrace egoism,
and to embrace reason is the only way to manifest
that egoism. So we must to solve the crisis of

(40:18):
meaning in our world. We must rebuild reason, confidence and reason,
reject altruism, and embrace rational self interest, choose the central
purpose and integrating purpose career for most of us, and
then pursue achievement and pride. Pursue pride. Pride is an action.

(40:43):
Pride is not just something you feel. Pride is something
you have to act.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
And then, you know, surround yourself.

Speaker 1 (40:55):
With the values that matter to you, with the people
you love, with the work you're passionate about, with art
that inspires you, with friends that excites you that you
know a real values to you. It goes back to

(41:19):
your own's rules for life. You know, love, embrace love
for everything that is meaningful to.

Speaker 4 (41:27):
You, your work, your partner, your friends, the art that
you have.

Speaker 1 (41:38):
Surround yourself with beauty inspire yourself. All right, So that
is my view on the crisis of meaning. Not you know,

(41:58):
the solution is not what almost every conventional thinker tells
you it is.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
The solution is.

Speaker 1 (42:08):
You individualism, you really caring and taking responsibility for your
own life and doing it rationally. And it's the crisis
meaning is the same crisis we have in every other
aspect of the world in which we live. Again, it's
origin is the rejection of reason and rejection of rational

(42:29):
self interest or egoism, and therefore the solution has to
be the embrace of egoism and reason. All right, cool,
let's see where are we. All right, We've got about
fifteen minutes for the first hour. To remind you again,

(42:51):
you know, we have goals for each hour of the
show about sixty seven dollars sixty seven dollars short of
of our first hour goals. So first our goals, So
please consider coming in with a question. You can ask
a question about meaning, purpose, or you can you can

(43:13):
ask a question about anything else, So answer any questions.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
So I'm gonna I'm.

Speaker 1 (43:18):
Gonna look quickly about around of the questions see if
any of them relate to what we just talked about.

Speaker 2 (43:24):
And if you have a question that related relates to
what we just.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
Talked about, then I jump in with the question because
I'll answer those first, and then after that I will
go and do the the reviews I promised you. I've
got some reviews so we've got star Trek and or
and uh and uh yeah, something gonna learn musk, which

(43:49):
you might find interesting.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
All right, so let's see.

Speaker 1 (43:54):
No, that's not a meaning, that's a meaning. That's not
a meaning. Uh all right, so Ian says, He says,
have you read have you read the article why do
so many people think Trump is good? By David Brooks.

(44:16):
His diagnosis has to do with the crisis of meaning,
is focused on authority and community. It's totally wrong, but
it's interesting. I've not read it, but I'm not surprised. Again.
I mean, Trump is a manifestation of the crisis of
meaning in the sense that people, when they can't look
to themselves to find meaning, they look outside themselves. And

(44:38):
this is what, of course, people like Jordan Peterson have
taught them to do. They look to join tribes, They
look for authority figures to tell them what they should
do and how they should behave And I very much
think that that is the orientation of Trump's supporters. This
is a cool try to belong to you know, you

(44:59):
can you share common goals, and you you share a
common I don't know, passion around Trump and the groups
where you can chat about this and talk about this,
and and you can yell at the people who disagree
with you. I think people who are searching for meaning
and can't find it a much more susceptible to tribalism,

(45:23):
and and and and again. Donald Trump is just a
manifestation of a certain type of tribalism. And so yes, uh,
I think that it doesn't surprise me. David Brooks is smart,
I mean, wrong on pretty much everything he believes, and

(45:44):
he's very very much become a communitarian, much more than
he used to be, and is quite wrong on the
solution to the problem of meaning. But I do think
that that people find meaning. And you know, in a sense,
Trump has called them to a crusade, you know, drain
or swamp, you know, make America great again. These all

(46:08):
crusading kind of a purpose greater than yourself, which every
politician tells you. Trump has called you for something greater
than yourself, and it's a pseudo meaning. It provides you
with pseudo self esteem. And of course it's all fake
because Trump doesn't care whe iota about making America great again,

(46:30):
about draining the swamp. He is the swamp, and his
swamp animals are bigger than the previous swamp animals. But
you know, people believe that they're part of a crusade,
and crusades don't provide meaning, they provide pseudo meaning. They
provide a pretense of meaning. They'll leave his supporters empty

(46:53):
at the end of the day. They'll feel betrayed because
they are being betrayed by the fact that they don't
gain any meaning from this as they discover that, you know,
the Trump is an empty vessel. There's no there there.
There's a long rant I think today or yesterday by

(47:16):
Nick Foyenttis to his people about how horrible Trump is,
how much of a swamp animal Trump is, how he's
betrayed everything they believe in, how he's not America first,
how you know, and and I Nick Foyts is doing
that because I think that's a lot of people a
feeling that it's become so obvious even they can't ignore it,
and that'll that'll lead them to become more cynical and

(47:39):
even more nihilistic. It only plays into Nick for Intus's hand,
into his into his nihilism, the fact that even Trump,
even Trump, couldn't live up to it. So, you know,
that's my interpretation again. Religion is is is a source
of fake meaning, and America First, or the tribe of

(48:03):
Trump or whatever you want to call it, is another source.
MAGA is another source of fake meaning.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
They're not happy. Indeed, if you.

Speaker 1 (48:13):
Know people who support Trump, they're typically angry, very angry.
And that is that that is the main emotional driver.
I'm going to read this cho about even though it's
not related. You missed my superchat at the end of

(48:35):
yesterday's show, in which I explained what contrahibularities means. Now
the word may never know in the world, may never
know hints what's the most pointless book since How to
Speak French was translated into French. Well, actually have your
super chat from yesterday, and I was going to read it,

(48:58):
but you know, I'm I'm gonna start skipping your superchat shows.
But if you come back the next day with a
fifty dollars reminder of the super chat that we had yesterday,
so I'll just skip them and guarantee my fifty dollars
chasbad road yesterday that contract. Fibu Ritise is the nonsense

(49:19):
would the black Adder invented in order to be fuddled
Dr Johnson after he claimed to have every English would
in his dictionary in one of the funniest episodes of
any show ever made in human history. The dictionary episode
of seeing season three of Blackadda has to be one

(49:42):
of the funniest things ever done. And one aspect of
it is this confra whatever would the Black Adda invents
in order to completely refuddle doctor Johnson. If you've never
seen Black Adda, you got to see Black Adda. It
is truly, you know, again, one of the funniest shows ever,

(50:04):
and this is one of the funniest episodes ever. So
thank you Chazbot for reminding me of that. I did
not remember the word.

Speaker 2 (50:12):
Let's see.

Speaker 1 (50:16):
Yeah, Jennifer says, I mean, I mean out in the
workforce for many years and it still amazes me how
good it makes me feel when I do something smart
at work. Yeah, I mean. The reality is that we
get most of our self esteem from the things we produce.
It's where we spend time, It's where we spend our

(50:37):
productive effort. It's where we apply our minds and you know,
our talents, our skills, abilities, and when we achieve something,
that's when we get a boost. Oh yes, I can achieve.
I am of this world, for this world, I can
do stuff, so absolutely.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
Uh the dumb.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
Right right, Andrews says, what do you think causes the
notion that many have the meaning is only to be
found outside of work? Well, I mean, I think that's
a that's a direct consequence, a direct result of altruism.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
As so many things are right.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
Work is fundamentally self fish. It's self interested. Work is fulfilling,
it's it's a it's a it's a requirement of your
survival as an individual human being. An altruism demands is
that it's others, and this is why so many thinkers

(52:05):
have tried to frame work in terms of other people.
Even the Austrians tell you that you don't work for yourself.
You know, capitalists or business owners actually work to serve
their customers, and that the purpose of your work is
service to your customers, which is completely God completely nonsense,

(52:26):
but it's a way for them to fit in their
advocacy for capitalism with their altruism. And God forbid. You
work for yourself, for your own values, for your own purposes,
for your own meaning. The Protestant work ethic is like
work is you're working for God in the service of God.

(52:52):
So you know, they have to rationalize work some way
because it's self interested, and you can't get meaning from
self interest. Meaning is something that comes from outside of you.
It comes from you doing duty, not pursuing your chosen values.

(53:16):
All right, we've got a few other questions. We're going
to keep those for after I do these reviews. So
let's focus on the reviews now. You can keep asking questions.
It's encouraged to ask questions. We're forty dollars short of
out one hour goal, so keep asking questions so we
can make that goal. You can also do stickers if
you don't want to ask questions, that's great as well.

Speaker 5 (53:38):
Let me do what am I doing. I don't want
to do that. I want to do the opposite. I
want to do this.

Speaker 1 (53:45):
All right. I have a few things to review and
then we'll go back to answering questions. You know, I
was going to review Blackada two episode Beer from Drinking Beer,
but my wife wants to watch it as well, and
we couldn't find a time where we were both gonna

(54:06):
watch it, so that shot was about we'll have to
wait until next week. But I promise next week we'll
have Black auted two Black Out of the episode on
the Beer and I'll review that. That'll be fun. You know,
I don't think my I think Black Added is one
of our favorite shows. So we'll watch it together.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
All right.

Speaker 5 (54:26):
Why is it doing that? That's weird? Just give me
one second. I have to change something here page with
There we go.

Speaker 1 (54:38):
Okay, So the first the first one is a episode
of Star Trek Star Trek the Next Generation. This is
season five, episode twenty one. It's called The Perfect Meat,
The Perfect Meat. And this is an episode in which

(55:00):
in order to establish a peace between UH two fighting
factions who used to be united but fell out over
a woman, they are now they are now at war
and and UH the Enterprise is involved in in in

(55:20):
a ceremony is going to establish peace between them. One
of the parties has they have a a A I guess,
the ability to mutate women, to mutate UH to a point,

(55:41):
to be empathetic, to read other people's emotions. And then
they in a sense are conditioned, I think, by by
their genes to fulfill the desires of.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
Their mate, to fulfill the desires.

Speaker 1 (56:01):
Of UH the you know, the the other side who
asked for this. Shawsbud asked. It wasn't Shawsbud who asked
for this.

Speaker 3 (56:12):
I'll tell you in a minute.

Speaker 2 (56:16):
Who asked for it. This was.

Speaker 1 (56:23):
Uh, Evan Evan asked for this. Evan Evan grass As
for this review, he had originally asked for a different review,
the manager of a Man, but somebody else had asked
for measure a man before him, so he shifted to
the perfect Meat. Anyway. I mean, it's it's a it's

(56:46):
it's a it's a fascinating episode. So so anyway, you
know the supposed to on this on this planet, men
being born like this is pretty frequent, but a female
being born with this capacity is very rare. This female,
when she's born with this capacity, goes through a process

(57:09):
because she's going to be you know, sex is going
to be a big part of fulfilling.

Speaker 2 (57:14):
The fulfilling the desires and wishes of the male.

Speaker 1 (57:18):
They go through a period in which they become they
emit pheromones and they become super desirable to a man.
Above and beyond the fact that they adjust. Everything they
do is geared towards the man's the everything this woman

(57:41):
does is geared towards the man's desires.

Speaker 2 (57:46):
That she consents, so it's you know, she's completely.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
Malleable. Every a new man comes in, she changes in
order to become the ideal of this new man who's
just entered into her life. And at some point a
particular male is imprinted on her and she becomes she
only desires him and his and and fulfillment of his wishes, passions, desires.

(58:16):
And the idea is there's going to be this ceremony
where this, uh, this female, this woman is going to
be presented to the leader of one of the worrying
the other worrying group, and she is going to be
She's going to have him as the imprint, and she
is then going to be the perfect mate for this

(58:37):
other party. Right, She's going to be the perfect mate
because she will fulfill or the desires. She'll know exactly
what he wants when he wants them, and she'll you know,
this is some male fantasy of the perfect women.

Speaker 2 (58:50):
They can read emotions.

Speaker 1 (58:52):
And she's also incredibly knowledgeable, so very well educated, very knowledgeable,
knows everything, uh. And part of this is that she
and she spends a lot of time with Picard the
of course, the captain of the of the enterprise. Before
the ceremony happens before she meets up with this h

(59:16):
leader of the other group. And uh, he is of
course very drawn to her because I mean she is
she knows exactly what to say, she knows exactly when
to say it. Also again she she's releasing the for
these pheromones which enhance her desirability I guess towards him.

(59:41):
But you know, she she knows what he's interested in.
So Picard is very intellectual and and therefore she she
can have a conversation with him about things that interest him,
right about the things that he is interested in, the
things that he is passionate about. So it's not just physical,
it's an intellectual attraction.

Speaker 5 (01:00:02):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
And he's constantly fighting this desire to sleep with her,
the desire to make her his own versus his responsibility
as you know, as as part of the you know
federation to see this peace treaty go through. She is

(01:00:24):
of course obligated by duty not to be a she
doesn't have to be a virgin for this, so she
could and she's eager to sleep with because and she's
trying to seduce him constantly, but she is committed to
ultimately having this relationship and becoming the permanent mates of
this other other planet's leader. And there's a sense in

(01:00:52):
which by so there's very much this idea of duty,
her duty.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
She is duty bound no matter what.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
And and this is this particularly you get with the
with the kind of ending of the episode, and the
ending of the episode, she it's it's the morning where
she's going to go to the ceremony and this new
leader is going to be imprinted on her and become
in a sense, her mate for life. But something happens,

(01:01:25):
and uh, it's early, and she what gets imprinted on
her is not this other ruler, but what gets imprinted
on her is becaud and basically, and yet even though
because is now her soulmate for all intents and purposes,

(01:01:48):
and and she is in love with him, a true love,
I guess to the extent that something exists for a
being like this, she now must, out of a complete
sense of duty, go with the guy, because if she'd
been imprinted with this new guy, she would have loved him.
But now she will never love him. She will always

(01:02:08):
love be caught. And yet she's obligated by duty to
fulfill this other guy's every whim and wish every fantasy,
every desire. So in many respects, this is incredibly tragic

(01:02:30):
because you know, she will never be happy. She is
doing what duty demands of her. She is being sacrificed
if you will buy her people. Yeah, that's standing. She
goes off with this other guy, that's the end. She's
being sacrificed with other people, because who is you can

(01:02:52):
imagine in a different context, would be you know, is
in love with her. But of course he's also realizing
that it's very hard to draw a line and what's
real and what's not right, And the fact that she
gets imprinted on something means she has no free will
with regard to it. So it's very much uh this

(01:03:15):
you know, fantastical, uh kind of creature if you will,
a woman, but really without free will. And yeah, I
mean it was interesting, it was fun to watch. It
was interesting. Uh, it's definitely provocative. The uh, the it's

(01:03:36):
definitely a fantasy for I guess a lot of men
who just want a woman who will I guess Matt
Walsh would love a woman like this, right, a woman
that will do everything that he wants, that has in
a sense no values of her own, all her values,
I mean she's a creature of it's not even altruism

(01:03:56):
because because it's it's it's not that this is a sacrifice,
because to sacrifice, she has to have sacrifice your own values.
But she has no values of her own. Everything is
the whole way in which she's built biologically, I guess
is that her value is the only value, is to

(01:04:18):
satisfy her partner, her male partner's desires. That's what she's
built full, that's all she wants. So incompatible with her
own happiness because she's not, you know, incompatible with his
happiness because he's not getting it because she you know,

(01:04:39):
she's not getting it out of a sense of her
free will, but her duty, her automatic necessity. But the
story is interesting, I mean, it's it's very enjoyable. I
think a lot of Star Trek, certainly the original Star Trek,
but I think also the following Star the next generation

(01:05:03):
are very philosophical. They create interesting situations, interesting circumstances. They
don't always solve them and address them the way you
would want them solved. But look here it is ultimately
presented as a as a tragedy.

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
It's definitely a tragedy.

Speaker 1 (01:05:23):
So here she sacrifices everything for the goal of this
peace treaty or life, because you know, whatever value she
actually has, again, they're not real values because they're not
attained through free well, they're not attained through choice.

Speaker 2 (01:05:40):
They're attained in a sense automatically.

Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
All I remind you, you get to set the topics
that I'm going to be talking about in a little
while once I finish these reviews by asking questions. So
please cander doing a super chat and asking questions. Okay,
So these are two from Chasbat that have to do

(01:06:08):
with Andor. These are two clips on YouTube, and you
can find there are these great clips on YouTube from
and Or. And is a series, a TV series on
Disney Plus. Uh, it's it's in the Star Wars universe.
But I actually think that of everything I've seen in
Star Wars, and granted I haven't seen a lot, and
I'm not a big fan of Star Wars, I think
by far, and Or is the best thing I've seen

(01:06:30):
coming out.

Speaker 2 (01:06:31):
Of the of the Star Wars universe.

Speaker 1 (01:06:35):
It's the most intellectual, it's the best representation of kind
of the fight for liberty and the fight for freedom
what it means. It also has a great concretization, representation
of the way in which authoritarianism, the way in which

(01:06:57):
it manipulates, the way which controls and takes over, and
how the extent to which often it's the silence of
good people. It's the passivity of good people that makes
it possible for evil to be successful.

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
But it's really focused.

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
On a hero, on a reluctant hero and a man
who doesn't want to be involved. This is exactly the
kind of good guy who just lets things happen, who
doesn't want to get involved. You know. It reminds me
of kind of movies from a long time ago which
had always these kind of common man, reluctant heroes. They
don't want to be involved. They were a little cynical.

(01:07:39):
It's like cas a blanca, you know, in a sense,
or to have have not if you've never seen that,
a Humphy Bogot movie, which is excellent to have I
have not. But then when they become heroes, they become
real heroes.

Speaker 2 (01:07:50):
Because they know what they transition.

Speaker 1 (01:07:53):
They they find the values for which it's worth fighting for,
and everything then becomes over in and around the value.

Speaker 2 (01:08:02):
So it's really really good. No, the hero is not
Hans Solo.

Speaker 1 (01:08:06):
The hero here is Ando, who's a much better, I
think hero than.

Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
Hans Solo is. So these are two scenes.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
The first one is from and O episode ten, which
is a scene in which the leader of the revolution,
the leader of the people, trying to undermine the empire,
fighting against the empire, is confunded by one of its
agents by like in a sense, you know, what are
you sacrificing for this?

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:08:38):
The leader of the Revolution is this odd kind of
relics dealer, antique delay, if you will, who lives a
seemingly pretty luxurious life, goes to big parties, interacts with
all kinds of people, and he gives the spiel two
or three minutes long about what he's given up to
be the revolution leader, and and it's very dramatic, very powerful.

(01:09:05):
I think it's way too negative in many respects because
he doesn't talk about what he's gained and what he's
living for. But it's it's it's really really powerful. What's
he given up for the revolution? Everything life? I mean,
he knows he's going to die in end, he knows
he's going to be caught, he knows that's inevitable. But

(01:09:28):
he's given up friendship and and love and and uh
and uh kind of uh every you know aspect of life.
And what's he given it up for. He's given it
up for a fight for freedom. And one of the
things he says is really tortures him is that he

(01:09:51):
is condemned. He says, he's condemned to use the tools
of the enemy in order to defeat them. In other words, violence, deception, manipulation,
and you know that that makes it hard. And that's
a theme that goes through and Or Is, particularly this
particular character, the extent to which he is.

Speaker 2 (01:10:16):
He is, he is like that.

Speaker 1 (01:10:19):
It's powerful, it's strong. It needed to have some positives
in terms of okay, so why are you doing it?
If it's so bad, if you're sacrificing so much, if
you're giving up so much, what's it for?

Speaker 2 (01:10:34):
What's the positive value?

Speaker 1 (01:10:35):
That is? I think missing shows what might correct me.
But I think that's missing from it. But again, I
highly recommend the show. It's it's really it's really really good.
The second kind of scene is a scene one second,

(01:10:59):
it's a scene from episode twelve of Andor. It's a
scene where is it Ando's mother. It's it's it's somebody
related to Ando himself who has been killed. But I
guess take the message before she died, and this message
is not projected at a hologram in the middle of
this planet town city that is being oppressed by the

(01:11:24):
by the Empire. It's his mother shows about to it's
his mother, and it's quite a beautiful scene. I mean,
she makes this argument that we mean sleeping. We've let
them take over. We've let this wound, which is the Empire.

(01:11:48):
You know, we fester in the middle in the sense
of the galaxy. We've done nothing to fight it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:56):
She says.

Speaker 1 (01:11:56):
The Empire is a disease. It thrives in the darkness,
and it's in the dark because we refuse to shine
the light on it, you know, and we pretend that
they that we can continue to live under the boot

(01:12:17):
of the Empire. You know, they go away and then
they come and they go away, and when they go away,
we think we're free, and we're not. We're still under
their boots. She says. The dead have lifted me with
their truth, and the truth ultimately is you have to fight.

(01:12:40):
You have to fight the empire because you know your
life can have no meaning. There's meaning again being under
the boots of this oppressive force of this you know
wound that that that you know it's not going to
heal itself. The only way the galaxy or whatever it

(01:13:01):
is can heal is if we shine a light on
the empire. And the only way to shine a light
on the empire is by fighting it. So really powerful,
really good in a sense, the combination of the two
work well because she is giving more of the reasons
why we fight, Why it's worth it, why you have

(01:13:22):
to give up, what you give up, what's the purpose
of it, and that is healing. It's it's to live
in freedom, to live, to be able to live a
good life, which is impossible.

Speaker 2 (01:13:34):
Under authoritarianism.

Speaker 1 (01:13:39):
All right, one more review.

Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
This one is from John and it's let me just
see you one second.

Speaker 3 (01:13:51):
Uh, let me just make sure and I've.

Speaker 2 (01:13:57):
Got it right.

Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
This isn't from John Gloyd and who did a lot
of the songs from Last Time.

Speaker 2 (01:14:09):
Anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:14:09):
This is a documentary kind of expose, a forty minute
expose that you can find on YouTube called the Elon
Musk cheating Scandal. It starts off we're talking about the
fact that.

Speaker 2 (01:14:23):
Eln mask I don't know if you know this.

Speaker 1 (01:14:25):
But Alonmusk claimed that he had been unbelievably successful on
this video game called Path of Excel, and people really
challenged him because it was clear that, I mean, it
was clear that when he played, he lacked basic fundamentals.
He wasn't that good at it. And to get to

(01:14:45):
kind of the level that he claimed he was at
a Path of Excel, you had to be really really
really good, and to be really really really good you
have to devote huge amounts of time to these games,
and a loon Musk is not totally busy, so he
didn't know how to play at the high level. He
lacked basic skills, and people called him out on it.

(01:15:08):
And it turned out that Musk was paying people to
play the game for him, and then he took credit
for their success, and he supposedly admitted to all of this.
I remember when this broke and it really made me think, God,
I mean, if he needs to lie about success at

(01:15:33):
a video game to create some kind of pseudo self esteem.

Speaker 2 (01:15:40):
That is not good.

Speaker 1 (01:15:42):
That is not good and unbelievably weird, given he's the
richest man in the world and has obviously been successful
in so many other kinds of things. It's just strange,
but it really indicates, I like of self esteem, that.

Speaker 2 (01:15:57):
A self esteem is not automatic.

Speaker 1 (01:15:59):
When you succeeded something, it requires you to recognize it,
evaluate the significance, and it requires a moral code. It
requires self esteem requires that you uphold a certain moral
of you. And here you've got one of those productive

(01:16:20):
people on the planet not appreciating his productive nests and
not living up to the mall standards that life requires,
and then getting caught lying about a video game in
order to what boost some pseudo because he can't get

(01:16:41):
self esteem because he's lying now. And then when you
you know, when he was found out, he had a
really childish response, but ultimately he admitted to it. Now,
what this documentary really focuses on is another of musks lies.

Speaker 2 (01:17:00):
The latest video games.

Speaker 1 (01:17:02):
Muskin, several interviews, has claimed that he a long time ago,
was one of the world's best quake players Quake as
a video game quake players.

Speaker 2 (01:17:14):
He claims that this was in the nineties.

Speaker 1 (01:17:18):
He's been making these claims, supposing for decades that he
was one of the best players in the world, that
he was a part of a team that won a tournament,
that there was in a tournament, maybe the first semi
pro tournament in video games, and he won second prize,
and that prize was thousands of dollars. Anyway, the documentary

(01:17:39):
analyzes this claim and tries to figure out is it
toore is it not? And you know, at the end
of the day, so he goes through and it's kind
of interesting how he figures it out, and you learn
a little bit, just a little bit about the whole
gaming culture and these competitions and tournaments and stuff like that.
But it turns out that Musk is half line or

(01:18:04):
half misremembering this. I found this part not particularly interesting.
I mean, musc is clearly exaggerating. He was never one
of the best players of the game. He probably did
come in second in a pretty small and relatively insignificant tournament.

(01:18:25):
The second prize was seven hundred and fifty dollars, not
thousands of dollars. I don't know. This video makes a
big deal out of this. Now granted Elan an interview
after interview after interview after interview says the same thing.
But you know, o case, he's exaggerating. So it's clear

(01:18:46):
that he wasn't one of the best players in the world.
There were lots of other better players who just didn't
participate in this tournament because it was a kind of
a second rate tournament, and the video goes into all
of that. He might have come to but he probably
wasn't that good in spite of coming in second. One
of the reasons he came in second was he had

(01:19:07):
better internet connection, and the quality of the internet connection.

Speaker 2 (01:19:11):
Mattered in those days. In that particular tournament.

Speaker 1 (01:19:14):
It didn't matter. In other tournaments they adjusted for internet speed.
This one didn't. When asking the best player of Quake
in the world at the time, he remembers playing against
Musk and he thinks Musk was not very good, so
to me, this one. It's weird that must keep saying this.

(01:19:39):
It's weird that so much of a self esteem is
tied up in this idea that he was a great
video game player. But this seemed less than.

Speaker 2 (01:19:49):
The first one.

Speaker 1 (01:19:51):
The first one he just made something up boldly and
literally had other people. He paid other people to play
the game for him. I mean that one was a
con that he set up and ultimately had to admit
to it because everybody so through it. This one is
like a you know, he kind of you could easily
think that he did coming second in this tournament. He

(01:20:13):
might misremember the prize money, and he might not realize
that there were much much better players. I don't know,
or maybe he's just exaggerating, or maybe he's lying. He
could be just plain old line. So it was interesting.
It tells you something about Elon Musk's character, which is
not positive.

Speaker 2 (01:20:33):
What it tells you about his character, it's not positive.

Speaker 1 (01:20:35):
It's again that he has this need to be He's
also claim to be a top twenty Diablo player, another
video game. Of course, if you followed Elon Musk over
the last year, you know he lied constantly about Doge.

(01:21:01):
He lied about how much money they would cut, he
lied about particular cuts when they happened. He lied about
what they could and couldn't do. I mean, he lied
nonstuff for about a month about Doge, and now it
was obvious. So it looks like Trump. It looks like
Trump lying Trump. Yeah, that would make sense that subconsciously

(01:21:24):
I would say that, But it looks like Musk lies. Now.

Speaker 2 (01:21:30):
He can't be lying all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:21:32):
You couldn't build SpaceX, Tesla and these other companies if
you really were dishonest constantly, But there's a part of
him that requires, I don't know, affirmation that I guess
drives him towards lying about some of these things.

Speaker 2 (01:21:53):
And it ultimately is pretty sad.

Speaker 1 (01:21:58):
And pathetic really for somebody as successful as he is
to lie about things like this. But there you have it.
It is what it is and definitely definitely sad. But
the evidence is pretty I think, pretty strong that he

(01:22:22):
lies about video games, and particularly given that we know
he lied about Dogit, I don't find it that's surprising.
It's not that shocking. Ultimately, all right, that is the
review for today. I still have and if I haven't,
I still have one of the.

Speaker 2 (01:22:40):
Short stories and Folks in.

Speaker 1 (01:22:41):
The Road to review Black Adda, the episode on Bea.
I have the movie Ford versus Ferrari, the twenty twenty
four biopic Better Man Write the Tiger book by Evola,
which I've started.

Speaker 2 (01:22:57):
Reading, so.

Speaker 1 (01:23:00):
You know, Ali, we're going to get to it by
the end of the year.

Speaker 2 (01:23:04):
I will be.

Speaker 1 (01:23:04):
Reviewing right the Tiger by Ivola by the end of
the year. I don't know if Ali's listening on now.
And then we have a new one that was added
by John Glue again that is a song by Incabus
called Drive, so we'll try that one as well.

Speaker 2 (01:23:21):
So that's what I've got to laugh now.

Speaker 1 (01:23:23):
If I'm missing anything, please let me know if you
if you send me money to to review something and
I haven't, then tell me, and I'm happy to. I'm
happy to do it. So and of course you can
do new reviews. It's one hundred dollars per song, two

(01:23:43):
fifty first episode of a TV show, five hundred for
a movie, five hundred plus for book, particularly if it's
a thin book.

Speaker 2 (01:23:55):
Yeah, those are the ones.

Speaker 1 (01:24:00):
H All right, let's jump to the questions again. You
can ask me about anything but the topic of today
or anything else, and.

Speaker 2 (01:24:30):
Let's see, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:24:32):
Michael Oncome made a great point that racism is a
form of automatic superiority.

Speaker 2 (01:24:41):
No matter how big of a loser you are.

Speaker 1 (01:24:44):
As an individual, you still have ranking over others automatically
just from your biology. Yeah, absolutely, I mean on call
is always a.

Speaker 2 (01:24:54):
Great way to phase these things.

Speaker 1 (01:24:56):
But it's really it's a point i am rand has
made made earlier on I mean, you gain pseudo self
esteem from the achievements of other people. I'm a jew,
choos win lots of Nobel prizes. I must be really good. No,
there's no relationship between me and the people who want
Nobel prizes because we happen to be of the same

(01:25:20):
I don't know, genetic lineage or something. No relations. I
can gain no pride from their achievements. I can gain
no benefits from their achievements. I mean I get benefits
from their achievements co achievements, not from the fact that
they happen to belong to the same tribe I do
A long time ago. And you know, so, I think

(01:25:43):
that people who are attracted to racist ideologies, people with low
self esteem. People are looking to gain self esteem from
the achievement of other people. And you know inferiority complex. Yeah,
it comes from the low self esteem from inferiority complex
about themselves, the individual identity, and therefore they must look

(01:26:05):
for others to give them a sense of any kind.

Speaker 2 (01:26:09):
Of sense of achievement they don't have. Thank you, Michael.

Speaker 1 (01:26:19):
By the way, in the second hour, we've got quite
a bit to achieve.

Speaker 2 (01:26:23):
The goal for the second hour.

Speaker 1 (01:26:25):
You can just stick up two dollars, five dollars, ten dollars,
twenty dollars as a trade value for value with me.
And yeah, so feel free to do that. You can
also ask a question, of course, which is great. I
love questions because then we get content Michael, who asks
lots of questions and contributes a lot to the show,

(01:26:46):
both in content and in funding. You said yesterday that
wealth doesn't make society more benevolent, as evident by America today,
freedom does. But the only way to create wealth is
through freedom. In America still the fierce country and Earth.
Well that's not really true, right, So Saudi Arabia is

(01:27:07):
very rich, at least a subcultural within Saudi Arabia, Uae
and Katta are very rich places. They're not free. They
happen to be on top of oil and if they
are very rich from selling that oil, and I don't
think they're particularly benevolent. So it's the freedom that makes

(01:27:30):
you benevolent. So again coloration causation, it's a freedom that
makes you benevolent. Yeah, it's the freedom for most places
that makes you wealthy. And indeed, it's the freedom in
the West, in a place like America that makes the

(01:27:52):
Saudis rich because it's our freedom that is made as
consumers of their oil. Alessa say this, maybe maybe it's
more than freedom. It's a saying individualism that is the
caring about the individual and his life. Because Europeans are free,

(01:28:13):
relatively speaking, they're not particularly benevolent, and I think that
has to do with the fact that they're much more inherently. Inherently,
they're much more culturally collectivistic. Collectivism breeds resentment, resentment towards
the other because you're supposed to live for the other.
Individualism when you're living for yourself is a benevolent ideology,

(01:28:34):
and you know the other is living for himself, and
you interact with them based on trade. It's mutual benefit.
And if you don't want to interact with the other person,
you don't. You just don't interact with them. So it's
it's the it's it's self esteem and individualism and freedom

(01:28:56):
that make you benevolent. Egoists are the most benevolent people. Andrew,
I find Marxism Christianity connection interesting in that Marxism is
essentially a materialistic philosophy. Yes, Rand said, then materialism is
mystical in that denies consciousness. Is that relevant to Marxism? Yes,

(01:29:21):
I mean Marxism denies free will, it denies the consciousness
we are automatons basically being driven by historical necessity, by
the necessity of our class, necessity of the genes, necessity
of our economic circumstances. But individuals don't matter anyway. It's

(01:29:45):
the class that matters. And the class interactions are determined
by the necessity of history, which is all mysticism. It's
all the negation of thought, of anything concept. Sure, it's uh,
the the placing this force that is driving history as

(01:30:11):
it's a it's a completely mystical, irrational force. So in
that sense, it's God that is driving this process.

Speaker 2 (01:30:19):
And and think about it.

Speaker 1 (01:30:20):
I mean, according to Augustinian Christianity, you have no free will.
You're predetermined to go to heaven or hell. Nothing you
do in life really matters in terms of determining whether
you go to heaven or hell. So it's it's it's
it's all predetermined. God has predetermined everything because he's omniscient,
omnipotent and yeah, and and so he's determined.

Speaker 2 (01:30:43):
Everything is determined. It's the same kind of mysticism.

Speaker 1 (01:30:50):
You know, Marxism just replaced class and and historical determinism
for God. Andrew, Yes, today I said, I got righteously
pissed at the YBS News show. You said, fine, but
hope it's not a primary value to get pissed. It
isn't aside from entertainment. I use YBS to learn to

(01:31:13):
be a better thinking person. I know I'm not alone.
Thanks Edrew. I appreciate that, and I yeah, I had
no doubt that that was the primary so, but I
appreciate you saying it. I was more concerned about you
going away from all my show was pissed, and that
was that being too big of a big of a

(01:31:34):
part of life. All right, Michael. If Nick Frantis is
so concerned with the next generation of Americans that they
won't be white enough, why is he so anti women
in dating? Well, I think he is anti women and
dating because because, well because he can't handle women, because

(01:31:57):
you know, he lacks, uh, the rationality and the self
esteem and and kind of the the basic masculine traits
to be able to deal with a woman. I mean,
he I think he has h you know, he doesn't
know how to deal with him. I don't think generally

(01:32:18):
he knows how to deal with other people, certainly not women.
I think they intimidate him, they scare him. He's afraid
of them, and he also sees them as beneath him.

Speaker 2 (01:32:29):
He sees women as inferior.

Speaker 1 (01:32:32):
He has said this.

Speaker 2 (01:32:33):
Almost with disgust.

Speaker 1 (01:32:34):
Can you imagine me actually kissing and and and and
having sex with with a woman like like the disgusting inferia. Now,
I don't think he's he's gay, but I think he's.

Speaker 2 (01:32:48):
Asexual in essense.

Speaker 1 (01:32:51):
And of course he there's a sense in which Nick
is he takes his Cathoicism maybe seriously maybe, And what
does Catholicism teach us about sex? Sex as dirty? Sex
is the source of original sin. The purpose of sex
ultimately is procreation, but you have to go through this

(01:33:17):
dirty thing in order to procreate. Nick, like monks in
the past, just doesn't think it's worth it.

Speaker 2 (01:33:25):
He'd rather be celibate at this point.

Speaker 1 (01:33:30):
So I think he's putting his personal preferences above the
benefits of the white race. Yeah, let's see, Daniel. Can
you give the optimistic compessimistic argument for bitcoin and your

(01:33:54):
take on where you think the truth lies? Well, I
mean the optimistic case of bitcoin is that God, how
to you know? I need to convince myself of this
right to be able to articulate it.

Speaker 2 (01:34:11):
It's that.

Speaker 1 (01:34:14):
At some point people become so disabused, disgusted by h
fiat money that they or maybe there's a financial crisis
and fiat money collapses and fiat money loses its value
and people are looking for a new medium of exchange,

(01:34:37):
a new thing to use as money, to replace it,
and that they The optimistic case is that at that
point they turned to bitcoin. Now it's hard to imagine
that happening. This is why it's a superly optimistic case.
And to do that, Bitcoin would have to, you know,

(01:34:58):
it's it's purchasing I would have to stabilize, and that
would mean so everybody would rush the bitcoin in order
to replace fiat money. That would drive its price way up.
But at some point it would stabilize. Demand for bitcoin
would stop and it would start. It would start being
used as the medium exchange, the thing we use to

(01:35:22):
buy stuff. And in order to become a medium in exchange,
it would have to replace every dollar in circulation. In
order to replace every dollar in circulation, it's price in
dollar terms, but also in purchasing power terms would have
to go through the roof. Or think about it differently,
it would have to there would have to be enough
bitcoins to make it possible to buy everything in existence,

(01:35:44):
and so it's it's it would have to go up
in value dramatically. I think the calculation is to do this,
bitcoin would have to be somewhere around I don't know,
somewhere between one to three million dollars per bitcoin, probably
closer to three dollars in today's dollars. Now, they're lots

(01:36:07):
of reasons why that is unlikely to happen. There are
lots of reasons why. Inherent in the structure of bitcoin
is volatility, and because there's volatility built into the structure bitcoin, basically,
because bitcoin has a finite number of bitcoins, you can
never go over a certain number.

Speaker 2 (01:36:28):
But the demand for.

Speaker 1 (01:36:29):
Bitcoin fluctuates, the supply doesn't change, can't adapt to the demand,
and therefore it will always fluctuate in price. I think
it makes it a less effective, less effective money. I
think that if stoci had built bitcoin with a mechanism,
I guess nobody's figured out how to do this with

(01:36:49):
a mechanism by which you know, the mining of bitcoin
becomes hotter and horter at some point, but it's but
more bitcoin is being mined at the rate of productivity increases,
and maybe that could be related somehow to energy price,

(01:37:10):
so that the supply of bitcoin is infinite, but it
can only be mined at a certain pace, a certain
very determined pace, and that determination is linked somehow with productivity.
That would make bitcoin much more useful as money if
it's going to become money. At some point, you're not

(01:37:35):
mining any more bitcoin. At some point, all the bitcoins
that exist exist. Bitcoin is capped at a certain number
where there's no more beyond it. So that's one of
the flaws and bitcoin now there is it depends on
electricity and the existence of electricity, so it's not particularly
good for kind of end of the world scenarios, for

(01:38:00):
dark ages scenarios, and you know, you could have lots of.

Speaker 2 (01:38:07):
Competitives to bitcoin.

Speaker 1 (01:38:09):
That is this absolutely the only thing that sustains bitcoin
if and when it becomes money is that people use
it as money. But you know, if people if people
decide that there's some other coin, you could have multiple
and many coins, and there's nothing there's nothing inherent in

(01:38:35):
bitcoin that makes it better unique as compared to other
potential coins. And indeed, I think you could probably design
a coin a cryptocurrency that is better at being money
than bitcoin. For example, this idea of not having a
finite quantity, but anyway, that's optimistic. The optimistic is fear

(01:38:58):
councies collapse and and uh uh, people all jump on
the jump on the uh bitcoin to replace fiat money,
and it becomes the global currency, the standard global currency.
I can't remember how many. I think it's a long

(01:39:18):
time before they completely mind out. But of course it's
going to be a long time before bitcoin becomes money.
So because every year, every year was it's a four
years something like that. I think every four years the
quantity of bitcoins to be mined a year is cut
in half until it reaches zero. But because it's not nothing,

(01:39:44):
it's it's a particular it's a particular combination of of
zeros and ones that can only be created in a
certain way.

Speaker 2 (01:39:51):
It can only be used in a certain.

Speaker 1 (01:39:52):
Way, and and that that that that that is documented
in a certain way. It's not nothing. You know, it's something.
It's just a question of is it worth anything, But
it's not nothingness. You know, a computer program is not nothing.

(01:40:14):
A combination of computer of bits of a particular program
is not nothing. Kubada says, there are one point five
million more to mine.

Speaker 2 (01:40:32):
Yeah, let's see.

Speaker 1 (01:40:39):
Oh, the pessimistic one is yeah, I mean, I think
that's even more straightforward. People realize that a bitcoin is
never going to become money, whether it's because governments will
never allow it, central banks will never allow it, or
because people are just not going to go for it.
They'd rather have gold in their pocket than bitcoin in

(01:40:59):
their memory car or there might be a crypto currency
that arises that is just better than bitcoin. There's actually
no reason why the first has to be the.

Speaker 2 (01:41:14):
Best, and.

Speaker 1 (01:41:17):
As a consequence, people sell it and it collapses and
it goes it goes to zero or close to zero
in value. Of the two, I think the pessimistic is
more likely, but I think the most likely is that
it continues to be incredibly volatile, that people still buy
it and sell it based on passion, you know, and

(01:41:40):
not really based on any kind of economic analysis. I
don't know how you do the economic analysis. I mean,
I have some ideas on how I would do the
economic analysis, but I think it's it's very difficult to
get a very high value for bitcoin if you do
any kind of meaningful economic analysis. So I'm more on
the pessimistics an optimistic side, although I don't think it's

(01:42:01):
just going to collapse to zero, because I think there
are true believers out there who will keep it afloat.
Michael says, while objectivism may not dominate in our lifetime,
it is likely objectivism will be a household name in
our lifetime. It will have a legitimate standing in people's psyche.

(01:42:22):
I mean, I hope, so. I think it's important for that.
It's important that that happen. But it's I don't know
whose lifetime we're talking about, mine or yours. It's much
more likely in yours, Michael, than in mine. My lifetime
is not that long. Yours is many decades more than mine,
I suspect, So, yeah, I think in yours it's that's very.

Speaker 2 (01:42:43):
Likely, Michael says.

Speaker 1 (01:42:47):
Nick foinds just when on Stephen Crowder, Yeah, he's doing
the rounds we are watching mainstream conservatives shift into normalized Nazism. Well, yes,
but he also notice if you watch him on Nick
Stephen Crowder, he comes off very differently than when he
does his own show. There's a really, really good video

(01:43:08):
by Coleman Hughes on this phenomena. Of Nick foyantis presenting
himself one way to kind of the popular podcasts and
completely differently to his only audience in his own channel.
But they're buying it. I mean, they're mainstreaming him. Somebody

(01:43:36):
said Crowder made Tucker look like Ben Shapiro. Yeah, they're
all treating with kid gloves because they all want his audience.
They all want his audience, and they all kind of
vaguely agree with him. Michael. Can anyone be a millionaire
if they want it enough? I don't know if anyone.

(01:44:01):
If you're in down syndrome, probably not. If you have
a very low intelligence, probably not. But yeah, I think
most people with average intelligence can if they wanted, if
they wanted enough, and they're willing to work for it
and they really invest the thinking that's required to get there.

Speaker 2 (01:44:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:44:23):
The first millionaire in China was the guy who sold
sunflower seeds and built like a network of suntaf fleet sellers,
and he had a special recipe that he came up
with and he you know, that was the first millionaire
in Chinese history, in modern Chinese history. Andrew. Conservatives often

(01:44:47):
claim that liberals make stuff up to be outraged about
and are constantly enraged. But on conservatives too, it makes
sense that the facial expression of a tribalist is a
small Yeah. I think it's true of both sides. The

(01:45:08):
dominating emotion they have as anger, and they're constantly looking
for things to be angry about. They're constantly searching for outrage,
They're constantly searching for things to be pissed off of it.

Speaker 2 (01:45:22):
I think that's true of both sides. I don't think
that's true.

Speaker 1 (01:45:25):
It's true of the emotionalism and the irrationality of people generally.
People out there, Daniel says, how disappointed are you you
didn't win the FIFA World Cup Peace.

Speaker 2 (01:45:43):
Prize this year.

Speaker 1 (01:45:44):
I didn't know there was a FIFA World Cup Peace Prize,
So I guess I'm not disappointed at all because I
didn't even know it existed. You have to know something
exists to be disappointed you didn't get it. But you know,
I generally am not.

Speaker 2 (01:45:59):
The point of whin I don't win prices.

Speaker 1 (01:46:05):
Yeah. Jason Washington State stop HB twenty one hundred proposed
five percent excise tanks on employers when they hire someone
making one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars more. God
that's insane. St you want to drive out of the

(01:46:25):
state high paying jobs. We don't want high paying jobs
in the state of Washington. We want them to go
other places. It's just insanity. What the left does, you know,
to try to squeeze, you know, producers for everything that
they have, and they keep coming up with new creative
ways to do it and keep ignoring not only the

(01:46:49):
immorality of it, but also the the consequences of the action.
Raphael from Portugal, how you on many people today are
secular but still say they believe in something like some
vague spiritual element. So is God really dead? And how
do you respond to this position? Well, I mean, I

(01:47:14):
don't know. I mean in the United States, certainly God
is not dead. I mean seventy percent plus of the
population seventy percent claimed to be religious and another fifteen
sixteen percent claimed to be believe in something as you say,
and only fifteen percent atheist agnostics. In Europe, the numbers

(01:47:35):
might be different, but it's still so. In America, God
is not dead. God is still there. Organized religion might
be dead, but even that, Americans are pretty organized. In
Europe the numbers are different. There's more, but yeah, I mean,
I don't think God is dead.

Speaker 2 (01:47:53):
Sadly, I wish he was.

Speaker 1 (01:47:57):
He should have died a long time ago, but keeps
coming back. And part of the reason he keeps coming
back is because people like Jordan Peterson resurrect him, keep
resurrecting him, keep bringing him back into people's lives. Now,
this belief in something is first of all, I think

(01:48:18):
it's better than believing in religion and God because something
doesn't provide you with dogma. Something leaves it open at
least for you to consider which values to pursue, to consider,
to consider how to live your life. Now, mostly people

(01:48:39):
who believe that fall into kind of patterns of conventionality.
But again, I think that's better than belief in a
religion institutionalized and then but it's still mystical. It gives
you no guidance. It is it prevents you from actually

(01:49:05):
fully embracing reason, and therefore it prevents you from actually
fully living your life. So that's how I respond to
that position. It's crippling you. That believe in something cripples
you because it leaves a whole realm of life where
you won't let reason go, where you won't apply rationality,

(01:49:28):
and that means the whole realms of life in which.

Speaker 2 (01:49:32):
You cannot be successful.

Speaker 1 (01:49:37):
All right, guys, thank you really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:49:42):
Thanks for being here.

Speaker 1 (01:49:44):
I won't have a show tomorrow. I'm going to take
the tomorrow's show. I'm going to take take tomorrow off.
Next Sunday, we'll do a member's only show. I'll let
you know what the theme of that is because you'll
probably have to prepare them. You'll probably have to read
something in advance, but I'll let you know that during

(01:50:05):
the week, so stay tuned. But I will see you
guys on Monday. Monday, we've got two shows. We've got
the regular show I think it's a two pm East
Coast time, the news show, and then we'll have an
interview with Gene Moroney, one of your favorite guests, I
think with Gene and evening. So if you have any

(01:50:27):
questions for Jane, then prepare them for Monday. For Monday,
so I will see you on Monday. Have a great
rest of your weekend. I hope you enjoyed today's show
and create a meaningful life for yourself. Sue values, take

(01:50:49):
your life seriously. Live with the capital L.

Speaker 2 (01:50:54):
Bye, everybody,

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The Crisis of Meaning; Reviews | Yaron Brook Show

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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;}The Crisis of Meaning; Reviews | Yaron Brook Show