Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is a conversation with
euron Brooke one of the best known
objectivist philosophers and thinkers in
the world objectivism is the
philosophical system developed by Ein
Rand that she first expressed in her
fiction books The Fountain Head and
Atlas Shrugged and later in non-fiction
essays and books yaron is the current
chairman of the board at the IR Rand
Institute host of the Yan Brook show and
the co-author of free market Revolution
equal is unfair and several other books
where he analyzes systems of government
human behavior and The Human Condition
from the perspective of objectivism
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let me say that I first read Atlas
Shrugged and the Fountain Head early in
college along with many other literary
and philosophical works from n haiger
Kant lock Fuko wienstein and of course
all the great existentialists from kard
to kamu I always had an open mind
curious to learn learn and explore the
ideas of thinkers throughout history no
matter how mundane or radical or even
dangerous they were considered to be IR
Rand was and I think still is a divisive
figure some people love her some people
dislike or even dismiss her I prefer to
look past what some may consider to be
the flaws of the person and consider
with an open mind the ideas she presents
and yaron now describes and applies in
his philosophical discussions in general
I hope that you will be patient and
understanding as I venture out across
the space of ideas and the ever widening
oron window pulling at the thread of
curiosity sometimes saying stupid things
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Lex Friedman and now here's my
conversation with yuron
Brook let me ask the biggest possible
question first sure what are the
principles of a life well
lived I think it's to live with uh with
thought that is to live a rational life
to to think it through I think so many
people are in a sense zombies out there
there are alive but they're not really
alive cuz their mind is not focused
their mind is not you know focused on
what do I need to do in order to live a
great life so too many people just go
through the motions of living rather
than really Embrace Life so I I I think
the secret to living a great life is to
take it seriously and what it means to
take it seriously is to use the one tool
that makes us human the one tool that
provides us with all the values that we
have on mind a reason and to use it
apply it to living right people apply it
to their work they apply it to their
math problems to science to to
programming but imagine if they use that
same energy that same Focus that same
concentration to actually living life
and choosing values uh that they should
pursue that would that would change the
world and it would change day lives yeah
actually you know I wear this silly Suit
and Tie
it it symbolizes to me always it makes
me feel like I'm taking the moment
really
seriously I think that's really that's
right and and each one of us has
different ways to kind of uh condition
our Consciousness I'm serious now and
for you it's it's a student TI it's a
it's a conditioning of your
Consciousness to now I'm focused now I'm
at work now I'm doing my thing yeah
right and I think that's that's terrific
and I I wish everybody took that look I
mean it's a cliche but we only live once
every minute of your life you're never
going never live again this is really
valuable and and when people people
don't have that deep respect for their
own life for their own time for their
own mind and if they did again you know
one could only imagine look at how
productive people are look at the
amazing things they produce and they do
in their work yeah and if they applied
that to
everything wow so you kind of talk about
reason
where does
uh the kind of existentialist idea of
experience maybe you know fully
experiencing all the moments versus
fully thinking
through is there uh interesting line to
separate the two like why such an
emphasis on reason for life well lived
versus just enjoy like experience well
because I think experience in a sense is
the easy part I'm not saying it's it
it's it's how we experience the life
that we live and yes I'm all with the
take time to to to Value what you value
but I think I don't think that's the
problem of people out there I don't
think the problem is they're not taking
time to appreciate where they are and
what they do I think it's that they
don't use their mind in this one respect
in planning their life in thinking about
how to live so the focus is on reason is
because it's our only source of
knowledge there's no other source of
knowledge we don't know
anything with you know that does not
come from our senses in our in our mind
the integration of the of the evidence
of our senses now we know stuff about
ourselves and I think it's important to
know oneself through introspection and I
count consider that part of reasoning is
to is to is to
introspect but I think reason is
undervalued which is funny to say
because it's our means of survival it's
how human beings survive we cannot see
this is why I disagree with so many
scientists and and people like Sam hav
you mentioned Sam hav before the show um
we're not
programmed to know how to hunt we're not
programmed to do agriculture we're not
programmed to build computers and build
networks on which we can podcast and do
our shows all of that requires effort it
requires Focus it requires energy and it
requires will it requires somebody to
will it it requires somebody to choose
it and once you make that choice you
have to engage that choice means that
you're choosing to engage your reason in
Discovery in
integration and then in work to change
the world in which we live and you know
human beings had to discover figure out
solve the problem of hunting hunting you
know everybody thinks oh that's easy
I've seen the movie but human beings had
to figure out how to do it right you you
you can't run down a bison and bite into
it right you're not going to catch it
you're not going to you have no fangs to
bite into it you have to build weapons
you have to build tools you have to
create traps you have to have a strategy
all of that requires
reason so the most important thing that
allows human beings to survive and to
thrive in every value from the most simp
to the most sophisticated from the most
material to I believe the most spiritual
requires thinking so stopping and
appreciating the moment is is something
that I think is relatively easy Once you
have a plan once you've thought it
through once you know what your values
are there is a mistake people make they
attain their values and they just and
they just they don't take a moment to
savor that and to appreciate that and to
even Pat themselves on the back that
they did it right but that's not what's
screwing up the world what's screwing up
the world is that people have the wrong
values and they don't think about them
and they don't really focus on them and
they don't have a plan for their own
life and how to live it if we look at
Human Nature you're saying the
fundamental big thing that we need to
consider is our capacity like capability
to reason so to me reason is this
massive evolutionary achievement right
in quotes right um if you think about
any other sophisticated animal
everything has to be
coded everything has to be written in in
the hard way it has to be there yeah and
they have to have a solution for every
outcome and if there's no solution the
animal dies typically or the animal
suffers and some way human beings have
this capacity to self- program they have
this capacity it there's not it's not a
A
aasa in the sense that there's nothing
there obviously we have a nature
obviously our minds our brains are
structured in a particular way but given
that we have the ability to turn it on
or turn it off we have the ability to
commit suicide to to to reject our
nature to work against our interests not
to use the tool that Evolution has
provided us with which is this mind
which is reason so that choice that
fundamental choice you know uh uh Hamlet
says it right to be or not to be but to
be or not to be is to think or not to
think to engage or not to engage to
focus or not to focus you know in in the
morning when you get up you kind of you
know you're not you're not really
completely there you're kind of out of
focus and stuff it requires an act of
will to say okay I'm awake I've got
stuff to do some people never do that
some people live in that Haze and they
never engage that mind and and when you
when you're sitting and trying to solve
a a complex computer prr problem or a
math problem you have to turn something
on you have to in a
sense exert certain energy to focus on
the problem to do it and that is not
determined in a sense that you have to
focus you choose to focus and you could
choose not to focus and that choice is
more powerful than any other like parts
of our brain that we've borrowed from
fish and uh from our evolutionary
origins like this whatever this crazy
little leap in evolution is that allowed
us to think is more important than
anything else so I think
neuroscientists pretend they know a lot
more about the brain than they really do
yeah um and that we know fired yeah I
agree with you and and and we don't know
that much yet about how the brain
functions and what's a fish you know all
this stuff so I think what what exists
there is a lot of
potentialities but the beauty of the
human brain is it's its potentialities
that we we have to manifest through our
choices it's there it's sitting there
and yes there's certain things that
going to evoke certain uh senses certain
feelings I'm not even saying emotions
because I think emotions are too complex
to have been programmed into our mind uh
but I don't think so you know there's
this big issue of evolutionary
psychology is huge right now and and
it's a big
issue you know I find
it to a large extent stand as way too
early and in storytelling about expost
storytelling about about stuff we still
don't you know so for example I would
like to see evolutionary psychology
differentiate between things like
inclinations feelings emotions
Sensations thoughts Concepts ideas what
of those are programmed and what of
those are developed and chosen and a
product of reason I think anything from
emotion to abstract ideas is all chosen
is all a product of reason
and everything before that we might have
been programmed for but the fact is so
clearly a sensation is not a product of
you know is is is something that we feel
because that's how our biology works so
until we have these categories and until
we can clearly specify what is what and
where where did they come from the whole
discussion in evolutionary psychology
seems to be rambling it doesn't seem to
be scientific so we have to Define our
terms you know which is the basis of
science you have to have some some clear
definitions about what we're talking
about it when you ask them these
questions there's never really a
coherent answer about what is it exactly
and everybody is afraid of the issue of
Free Will and I think I think to some
extent I mean Harris has this and I
don't want to misrepresent anything
Harris has because I you know I'm a fan
and I I like a lot of your stuff right
but on the one hand he is obviously
intellectually active and wants to
change our minds so he believes that we
have some capacity to choose on the
other hand he's undermining that
capacity to choose by saying it's just
determined you're going to choose what
you choose you have no say in and
there's actually no you he he he so it's
you know so that and that's to me
completely unscientific that's
completely him you know uh pulling it
out of nowhere we all experience the
fact that we have an
eye that kind of certainty saying that
we do not have that fundamental choice
that reason provides is uh unfounded
currently look there's a sense in which
it can never be contradicted because
it's a product of your
experience it's not a product of your
experience you can experience it
directly right so no science will ever
prove that this table isn't here I can
see it it's here right I can I can feel
it I I know I have free will cuz I can
introspect it in a sense I can see it I
can see myself engaging
it and that is as valid as the evidence
of my senses now I can't point at it so
that you can see the same thing I'm
seeing but you can do the same thing in
your own Consciousness and you can
identify the same thing and to deny that
in the name of science is to get things
upside down you start with
that and that's the beginning of science
the beginning of science is the
identification that I choose and that I
can reason and it now I need to figure
out the mechanism the the the rules of
reasoning the rules of logic the you
know how does this work and that's where
science come from of course it's
possible that science like for my place
of AI would be able
to if we were able to engineer
consciousness or understand I mean it's
very difficult to because we're so far
away from it now but understand how the
actual mechanism of that Consciousness
emerges that in fact this table is not
real that we can determine that it uh
exactly how our mind constructs the
reality that we perceive then then you
can start to make interesting but our
mind our mind doesn't construct the
reality that we perceive the reality we
perceive is there we perceive a reality
that exists
yeah now we perceive it in particular
ways given the nature of our senses
right a bat perceives this table
differently but it's still the same
table with the same characteristics and
the same identity it's just a matter of
we use eyes they use a radar system to
you know they use sound waves to
perceive it but it's still there
existence exist whether we exist or not
and so you could create I mean I don't
know how and I I don't know if it's
possible but let's say you could create
a Consciousness right and I I suspect
that to do that you would have to use
biology not just Electronics but you
know way outside my expertise um because
Consciousness as far as we know is a
phenomena of life and you would have to
figure out how to create life before you
created Consciousness I think but if you
did that then that wouldn't change
anything all it would say is we have
another conscious being cool that's
great but it wouldn't change the nature
of our Consciousness our Consciousness
is what it
is respect so that's very interesting I
think this is a good way to set the
table for discussion of objectivism
is let me at least challenge a thought
experiment which is uh I don't know if
you're familiar with uh Donald Hoffman's
work about reality so his idea is that
we're just our perception is just an
interface to reality so Donald Hoffman
is the uh is the guy you see ofine yeah
yes I've met Donald and I've seen his
video and look Donald has not invented
anything new this goes back to ancient
philosophy let me just state
in in case people aren't familiar I mean
it's a fascinating thought experiment to
me uh like of out of the boox thinking
perhaps literally is that uh you know
our there's a different there's a gap
between the world as we perceive it and
the world as it actually exists and I
think that's for the philosophy
objectivism is a really important Gap to
close
so can you maybe at least try to
entertain the idea
that that there is more to reality than
our minds can perceive well I don't
understand what more means right of
course there's more to reality than what
our senses perceive that is uh for
example I don't know certain certain
elements uh have uh radiation right
uranium has rad I can't perceive
radiation the beauty of human reason is
I can I can through experimentation
discover the phenomena of radiation then
actually measure radiation and I don't
worry about it I can't perceive the
world the way a bat perceives the world
and I might not be able to see certain
things that but I can we've created
radar so a we understand how a bat
perceives the world and I can mimic it
through a radar screen and create and
images like the bat its Consciousness
somehow perceives it right
so the beauty of human reason is our
capacity to understand the world beyond
what our senses give us directly at the
end everything comes in through our
senses but we can understand things that
our senses don't provide us but but what
he's doing is he's doing something very
different he is saying what our census
provides us might have nothing to do
with the reality out there that is just
a random arbitrary nonsensical statement
and he actually has a whole evolutionary
explanation for it run some simulations
simulations seem I mean I'm not an
expert in this field but they seem silly
to me they they don't seem to reflect
and look all he's doing is taking
Emmanuel Khan's philosophy which
articulate exactly the same cause and
he's giving it a veneer of of of
evolutionary uh ideas I'm not an expert
on Evolution and I'm not an expert on
epistemology which is what this is so to
me as as a semi Layman it doesn't make
any sense and uh you know I I'm actually
you know I have a I have this shiron
book show I don't know if I'm allowed to
pitch it but I've got this shiron book
show first of all let me pause a huge
fan of the BR I listen to it very often
as a small aside the cool thing about
reason which you practice is you have a
systematic way of thinking through
basically anything yes and that's so fun
to listen to I mean it's rare that I
think there's flaws in your logic but
even then it's fun cuz I'm like
disagreeing with the screen when and
it's great when somebody disagrees with
me and they give good arguments because
that makes it challenging any you know
so so one of the shows I want to do in
the next few weeks is is one of my
philosoph bring one of my philosopher
friends to discuss the video that that
Hoffman where he presents his St
because it surprises me how seductive it
is and it's seems to be so first of all
completely counterintuitive but but but
because you know somehow we managed to
cross the road and not get hit by the
car and if our our our sensors did not
provide us any information about what's
actually going on in reality how do we
do that that's and not not to mention
build computers not to mention fly to
the moon and actually land on the moon
and if reality is not giving us
information about the moon if our senses
are not giving us information about the
moon how did we get there you know and
what did where did we go maybe we didn't
go anywhere um it's just it's
nonsensical to me and it's it's a it's a
very bad
place
philosophically because it basically
says there is no objective standard for
anything there is no objective reality
you can come up with anything you could
argue anything and there's no
methodology right my I believe that at
the end of the day what reason allows us
to do is provides us with a methodology
for truth and at the end of the day for
every claim that I make I should be able
to boil it down to C
yeah look you the evidence of the senses
is right then once you take that away
knowledge is gone and Truth is gone and
that opens it up to you know complete
disaster so you know to me why it's
compelling to at least
entertain this idea first of all it
shakes up the mind a little bit to force
you to go back to First principles and
you know ask the question what do I
really know and the second part of that
that I really enjoy is H it's a reminder
that we know very little to be a little
bit more humble so if reality doesn't
exist at all before you start thinking
about it I think it's a really nice
wakeup call to think wait wait a
minute I don't really know much about
this universe that humbleness I think
something I'd like to ask you about in
terms of reason when you you can become
very
confident in your ability to understand
the world if you practice reason often
and I feel like it can lead you
astray because you can start to think
it's so I love psychology and
psychologists have the certainty about
understanding The Human Condition which
is undeserved you know you run a study
with a 50 people and you think you could
understand the source of all these
psychiatrics The Source all these kinds
of things that's similar kind of trouble
I feel like you can get uh into with
when you when you overreach with reason
so I don't think there is such a thing
is overreaching with reason but there
are bad applications of reason there bad
uses of reason or or or the pretense of
using reason I think a lot of these
psychological studies are pretense of
using reason and and uh these
psychologists have never really taken a
serious stat class or a serious
econometrics class so they use
statistics in weird ways that just don't
make any sense and that's a Mis that's
not reason right that's that's just bad
thinking right so I I don't think you
can do too much good thinking and that's
what reason is it's good thinking and
now that the fact that you try to use
reason does not guarantee you won't make
mistakes it doesn't guarantee you won't
be wrong it doesn't guarantee you won't
go down a rabbit hole and and and
completely get it wrong but it does give
you the only existing mechanism to fix
it right which is going back to reality
going back to facts going back to reason
and and and and getting out of the
rabbit hole and getting up back to
reality so I agree with you that it's
interesting to think about these what I
consider crazy ideas because it oh wait
well what is my argument about them if I
don't really have a good argument about
them then do I know what I know so in
that sense it's always nice to be
challenged and pushed and and oriented
you know the nice thing about
objectivism is everybody's doing that to
me all the time right because nobody
agrees with me on anything so I'm
constantly being challenged whether it's
in by Hoffman on metaphysics and
epistemology right on the very
foundations of my knowledge in ethics
everybody constantly and in in politics
all the time so um I find that it's part
of you know I prefer that everybody
there's a sense in which I prefer that
everybody agreed with me right because I
think we live in a better world but
there's a sense in which that
disagreement makes it at least up to a
Point makes it interesting and
challenging and forces you to be able to
to rethink or to confirm your own
thinking and to challenge that thinking
can you try to do the impossible task
and give a whirlwind introduction to IR
Rand
the the many sides of ir Rand so IR Rand
the human being IR Rand the
novelist and irand the philosopher so
who was irand should so so her life
story is is one that I think is is
fascinating and but it also uh lends
itself to this integration of all of
these things she was born in St
Petersburg Russia in
1905 to kind of a middle class uh family
Jewish Family they they owned a pharmacy
a father owned a
pharmacy and uh you know she grew up uh
she grew up uh she was a very um she
knew what she wanted wanted to do and
what she wanted to be from a very young
age I think from the age of nine she
knew she wanted to be a writer she
wanted to write stories that was the
thing she wanted to do and uh you know
she focused her life after that on this
goal of I want to be a novelist I want
to
write and the philosophy was incidental
to that in a sense at least until some
point in her life she witnessed the
Russian Revolution literally it happened
outside they lived in St Petersburg
where the first kind of demonstrations
and and of the Revolution happened so
she witnessed it she lived through it as
a
teenag um went to school Under the
Soviets uh for a while they they they
were under kind of the in on the Black
Sea where the opposition government was
ruling and then they would they would go
back and forth between the commies and
the whites but but she experienced what
communism was like she saw the pharmacy
being taken away from her family she saw
their apartment being taken away or
other other families being brought into
the apartment they already lived in um
and uh it was very clear given her
nature uh given her views even at a very
young age that she would not survive the
system uh so a lot of effort was put
into how do we get how how does she get
out and her family was really helpful in
this and she had a cousin in cousin in
Chicago and uh she had been studying
kind of film at the University and uh
this is in her 20s this is in her 20s
early 20s and uh lenon there was a small
window where Lennon was allowing some
people to leave under circum certain
circumstances and she managed to get out
to go do research on film in in the
United States everybody knew everybody
who knew her knew she would never come
back that this was a oneway ticket and
and she got out she made it to Chicago
spent few weeks in Chicago and then
headed to Hollywood
she wanted to write scripts that was
that was the that was the uh the goal
here's this uh you know short woman From
Russia with a strong accent uh learning
English showing up in in Hollywood and
you know I want to be a script writer in
English in English writing in English uh
and U and this is kind of a one of these
fairy tale stories but it's true she
shows up uh at the cisa B demill
Studios and she she has a let of introdu
ction from her cousin in Chicago who
owns a movie theater and this is in the
19 uh the late
1920s and she shows up there with this
letter and they say you know don't call
us we'll call you kind of thing and she
steps out and there's this massive um
convertible and in the convertible is CB
de Mill and he's driving slowly past her
right at the entrance of the studio and
she stares at him and he stops the con
he says you know why are you staring at
me and she says you know she tells him a
story for Russ and you know I want to
want to make it in the movies I want to
be a script writer one day and he says
well if you want to if you want that you
know get in the car you she gets in the
car and he takes her to the back lot of
his Studio where they're filming the
King of Kings the story of Jesus and he
says here has a pass for a week yeah if
you want to be if you want to write for
the movies you better know how movies
are
made and uh she basically spends a week
and then she spends more time there she
managed to get an extension she lands up
being an extra in the movie so you can
see I man there in in one of the masses
when Jesus is walking by she meets her
future husband on the set of uh of the
king of kings she lands up uh getting
married getting her American citizenship
that way uh and she lands up doing odds
and ends jobs in Hollywood living in a
tiny little apartment um somehow making
a living her husband was an actor he was
you know struggling actors were
difficult times uh and in the evenings
English writing writing writing writing
and studying and studying and studying
and she she finally makes it by writing
a play that that uh is successful in in
um in LA and ultimately goes to Broadway
um and uh she writes her first novel is
a novel called We The Living which is
the most autobiographical of all her
novels it's about a young woman in the
Soviet Union it's a powerful story a
very moving story and
probably if not the best one of the best
portrayals of Life under communism and
the book definitely recommend we the
living it's her first first novel she
wrote in the
30s and it didn't go anywhere because if
you think about the intelligencia the
the the the people who mattered the
people who wrote book reviews this is a
time of Durante in who's the New York
Times uh guy in Moscow who's praising
Stalin to the
and the success so the the novel fails
uh but but she's got a novel out she
writes a small novelet called Anthem a
lot of people have read that and it's
it's read in high schools it's it's kind
of dystopia novel uh and uh it's won't
it doesn't get published in the US gets
published in the UK UK is very
interested in dystopian novels Animal
Farm uh and in 1984 84 is published a
couple of years after I think after an
there's reason to believe he read he
read Anthem uh that and uh George read
Animal Farm yeah just the small Side
Animal Farm is probably top I mean I
would it's weird to say but I would say
it's my favorite book which have you
seen this movie out now called Mr Jones
no oh you've got to see Mr Jones what's
Mr Jones it's sorry sorry for my
ignorance no no it's a movie it hasn't
got any publicity which is tragic cuz
it's a really good movie It's both
brilliantly made it's made by a Polish
director but it's in English it's a it's
a true story and and gej Well's Animal
Farm is featured in it in the sense that
during the story JoJo was writing animal
farm and and he's the narrator is
reading off sections of animal f as the
movie is progressing and the movie is a
true story about the the first Western
journalist to discover and to write
about the famine in Ukraine
and so he goes to Moscow and then he
gets on a train and he finds himself in
Ukraine and it's it's it's beautifully
and horrifically made so the horror of
the famine is brilliantly conveyed and
then and it's a true story it's a very
moving story very powerful story and and
just very well-made movie so it's tragic
in my view that not more people are
seeing it that's I was actually recently
just complaining that there's not enough
content on the the famine the 30s of you
know of of Stu there's so much on Hitler
like I love yeah the reading I'm reading
it's so long it's been taking me forever
the the rise and Falls the Third Reich
yeah I I love it but well I've got the
book to complement that that you have to
read it's called the ominous parallels
it's Lon peof and it's the ominous
parallels and it's about it's about the
causes of the rise of of of Hitler
better philosophical causes so whereas
the rise and fall is more of a kind of
uh uh the the existential kind of what
happened um but really delving into the
intellectual uh intellectual uh currence
that led to the rise of Hitler and maybe
highly recommend that and basically
suggesting how it might rise another
that's the ominous parallel so the
parallel he draws is to the United
States and he says those same
intellectual forces AR rising in the
United States and this is this was
published I think in published in 81 '
82 was published in ' 82 so it's
published a long time ago and yet you
look around us and it's unbelievably
predictive sadly about the state of the
world so I haven't finished IR Man story
I don't want I don't know if you want me
to no no no but on that point I'll have
to let's please return to it but let's
now for now let's talk let me also say
just just because I I don't want to
forget about Mr Jones it is true the
point you made that tons of movies that
are anti-fascist
anti-nazi and that's good but there are
way too few movies that are
anti-communist just almost not yeah and
it's very interesting and if you remind
me later I'll tell you a story about
that but um so she publishes Anthem and
and then she starts and she's doing okay
in Hollywood and and she's doing okay
with with the play and then she starts
on her on on the book The Fountain Head
and she writes The Fountain Head and it
comes out um she finishes it in uh 1945
and she's um she sends it to Publishers
and publisher after publisher after
publisher turn it down and it takes 12
Publishers before this this editor reads
it and says I want to publish this book
and he basically tells his bosses if you
don't publish this the book I'm leaving
right um and they don't really believe
in the book so they publish just a few
copies they don't do a at L and the book
becomes a bestseller from word of mouth
and they end up having to publish more
and more and more and and it's you know
she's basically gone from this immigrant
who comes here with very little command
of English and and to all kinds of odds
and ends jobs in Hollywood to you know
writing one of the seminal I think Book
American books she is an American Author
I mean if you read The Fountain Head
it's not Russian the not DKI it feel it
feels like a symbol of what America is
in the 20th century and I mean probably
maybe you can so there's a famous kind
of sexual rape scene in there is that is
that like a lesson you want to throw in
some controversial stuff to make your
philosophical books work out I mean is
that why why was it so popular uh do you
have a sense or was well because I think
it Illustrated first of all because I
think the characters are uh a fantastic
it's got a a real hero and I think it
the whole book is basically illustrating
this massive conflict that I think went
on in America then is going on today and
it goes on on a big scale politics all
the way down to the scale of the choices
you make in your life and and this the
the issue is individualism versus
collectivism should you live for
yourself should you live for your values
should you pursue your passions uh
should you or should you do do what your
mother tells you should you follow your
mother's
passions and uh that's and it's a it's
it's very very much an individ a book
about individuals and people relate to
that but it obviously has this massive
implications to the world outside and at
the time of collectivism just having
been defeated communis well not Fascism
and and uh in and you know the United
States representing individualism right
is defeated defeated
collectivism but where collectivist
ideas are still popular in the form of
socialism and communism and for the
individual there's constant struggle
between what people tell me to do what
Society tells me to do what my mother
tells me to do and what I think I should
do I think it's unbelievably appealing
particularly to young people who trying
to figure out what they want to do in
life trying to figure out what's
important in life um it it it had this
enormous appeal it's romantic it's
bigger than life the characters are big
heroes it's very American in that sense
it's about individualism it's about the
Triumph of
individualism and uh so I I I think
that's what related and it had this big
romantic element from the I mean when I
use romantic I use it kind of in the in
the sense of uh um a movement in art but
it also has this romantic element in the
sense of a relationship between a man
and a woman who's that's very intriguing
it's not only that there's a uh I would
say almost rape scene right um I would
say but it's also that this woman is
hard to understand I mean I I've I've
read it more than once and I still can't
quite figure out Dominique right because
she loves him and she wants to destroy
him and she marries other people I mean
think about that too here she's writing
a book in the
1940s it's there's lots of
sex there's a woman who marries more
than one person has having sex with more
than one person very unconventional she
having married she's having sex with rck
even though she's not married to rock
this is
1945 and it's um it's very jarring to
people it's very unexpected but it's
also a book of its time it's about
individuals pursuing their passion
pursuing their life and not caring about
convention and and what people think but
doing what they think is right and U and
and so so I think it's it's it's uh I
encourage everybody to read it obviously
so that was was that the first time she
articulated start articulated something
that's sounded like a philosophy of
individualism I mean the philosophy is
there in we the living right because at
the end of the day the the woman is the
the hero of we the living is this
individualist stuck in Soviet Union so
she's struggling with these things uh so
the theme is there already it's not as
fleshed out it's not as articulated
philosophically and it's suddenly the
anthm which is a dystopia novel where
the this dystopia in the future has a
has uh there's no I everything is we and
it's about one guy who breaks out of
that I don't want to give it away but
but breaks out of that so these themes
are running and and then we have and we
and they've been published some of the
early irand stories that she was writing
in preparation for writing her novel
stories she was writing when she first
came to America and you can see these
same philosophical elements even in the
male female relationships and the
passion and the you know you in the
conflict you see them even in those
early pieces and she's just developing
them and same philosophically she's
developing her philosophy with her
literature and of course after the
Fountain Head she starts on what turns
out to be magnos Opus which is at
Shrugged uh which takes her 12 years to
publish by the time of course she brings
that out every publisher in New York
wants to publish it because the fountain
headit has been such a huge success um
they don't quite understand it they
don't know what to do with Atlas
Shrugged but they're eager to to get it
out there and indeed it's when it's
published it becomes an instant
bestseller and the thing about the
particularly the F head and and Al shrug
but true of of even anthem and we the
living she is one of the
only dead authors that sell more after
they've died than when they was your
alive now you know that's true maybe in
music we listen to more Beethoven when
he was alive but it's not true typically
of novelists and yet here we are uh you
know uh what was it 50 you know 60 years
after the 63 years after the publication
of at Shrugged and it sells probably
more today than it sold when it was a
bestseller when it first came out is it
true that it's like one of the most sold
books in history no okay I've heard this
kind of statement any Tom Clancy book
comes out sells more than atly Shrugged
but or read I've heard so there was a
very and I shouldn't say this but it's
the truth so I'll say it a very
unscientific study done by the
Smithsonian Institute yeah probably in
the early 90s that basically surveyed uh
CEOs and asked them what was the most
influential book on you and at came out
as number two the second most
influential book and CEOs in in the
country but but there's so many flaws in
the study one well you want to guess
what the number one book Bible the Bible
yeah but the Bible was like you know so
maybe they serveed 100 people I don't
know what the exact numbers were but
let's say it's 100 people and 60 said
the Bible and 10 said Atlas Shrug and
there were a bunch of books over there
so you know I don't that's again the
psychology discussion what we're having
ex well and it's it's one thing I've
learned and maybe Co has taught me and
and uh nobody you know there are very
few people who know how to do statistics
and almost nobody knows how to think
probabilistically that is think in terms
of probabilities that it is a skill it's
a hard skill and everybody thinks they
know it so I see doctors thinking their
statisticians and giving whole analyses
of the data on covid and they don't have
a clue what they're talking about not
because they're not good doctors because
they're not good statisticians it's not
e you know people think that they have
one skill and therefore it translates
immediately into another skill and and
it's just not true
um so I've been astounded at how how bad
people are at
that for people who haven't read any of
the books that we were just
discussing what would you
recommend what book would you recommend
they read and maybe also just elaborate
what
mindset should they enter the reading of
that book with so I would recommend
everybody read Fountain Head and Aly
shrug and in what order so it would
depend on on where you are in life right
so it it depends on who you are and what
you are so found head is a more personal
story for many people it's their
favorite and for many people it was
their first book and and they wouldn't
replace that right um if Al shrug is a
it's about the world right it's about
what impacts the world how the world
functions how it's a biger book in the
sense of the scope if you're that if
you're interested in politics and you're
interested in the world read Atlas Shrug
first if you're mainly focused on your
life your career what you want to do
with yourself start with fad I still
think you should read both because I
think they are I mean to me they were
life altering and to many many people
they're life altering and you should go
into reading them with an open mind I'd
say and with a put aside everything
you've heard about irand put aside any
even if it's true just put it aside even
what I just said about IR man put it
aside just read the book as a book and
let it move you and let let let your
thoughts let it shape how you think um
and and it'll have you know it either
have a you'll either have a response to
it or you won't uh but I think most
people have a very strong response to it
and then the question
is do they are they willing to respond
to the philosop are they willing to
integrate the philosophy are they
willing to Think Through the philosophy
or not because I know a lot of people
who completely disagree with the
philosop philosop philosophy right here
in Hollywood right lots of people here
in Hollywood love the Fountain Head
interesting Oliver Stone who is I think
a a vowed Marxist right I think he's he
I think he's admitted to being a Marxist
he is his movie certainly reflect a
Marxist theme um is a huge fan of the
fountain head and is actually his dream
project he has said in public his dream
project is to make the Fountain Head now
he would completely change it as movie
directors do and he's actually outlined
what his script would look like and it
would be a disaster for the ideas of the
but he loves the story because to him
the story is about Artistic integrity ah
yeah and that's what he catches on and
what he hates about the story is
individualism right and I think that his
movie ends with Howard walk joining some
kind of commune of Architects that do it
for the love and don't do it for the
money interesting but so yeah so you can
connect with you without the philosop
and before we get into the
philosophy staying on iron
Rand I I'll tell you sort of my own
personal experience and I think it's one
that people share I've experienced this
with two people IR Rand and
N when I brought up IR Rand when I was
in my early 20s the number of ey rolls I
got from sort of you know like advisers
and so on
that of dismissal I've seen that later
in life about more more specific Concept
in artificial intelligence and Technical
where people decide that this is this is
a set of ideas that are acceptable and
these sets of ideas are not and they
dismissed
irand without giving me any
justification of why they dismissed her
except oh well that's something you're
into when you're 19 or 20 that's same
thing people say about nature well
that's just something you do when you're
in college and you take an intro to
philosophy course so and I've never
really heard anybody cleanly
articulate their opposition to IR Rand
in in my own private little circles and
so on maybe one question I just want to
ask
is why is there such opposition to iron
Rand and maybe another way to ask the
same thing is what's misunderstood about
iron
Rand so we haven't talked about the
philosophy so it's harder to answer
right now we can return to it if you
think that's the right way to go well
let me let me give a broad answer and
then and then and then we'll do the
philosophy and then we'll return to it
because I think it's important to know
something about her
ideas she I think her philosophy
challenges
everything it it really does it shakes
up the world it challenges so many of
our preconceptions it challenges so many
of the things that people take for
granted as
Truth uh from religion to morality to to
politics to almost everything there
never quite been a thinker like her in
the sense of really challenging
everything and doing it systematically
and having a complete philosophy that is
a challenge to everything that has come
before her now I'm not saying they AR
thread that connect they are right in in
politics they might be a threat and in
immorality they might be a threat but on
everything there's just never been like
it
and people are afraid of that because it
challenges them to the course she's
basically telling you to rethink almost
everything um and that is that that
people reject the other thing that it
does and this goes to this point about
oh yeah that's when you do when you're
14 15 right yeah she points out to them
that they've lost
something they've lost their
idealism they've lost their youthful
idealism yeah what is what makes
youthfulness meaningful other than you
know we're in better physical shape yeah
starting to feel because I'm getting
older yeah when we're young we you know
sometime in the teen years right there's
something that happens to human
consciousness we almost awaken a new
right M we we suddenly discover that we
can think for ourselves we suddenly
discover that not everything our parents
and our teachers tell us is true we
suddenly discover that this tool our
minds is suddenly available to us to
discover the world and to discover truth
and it is a time of idealism it's a time
of whoa I want to you know the better
teenagers I want to know about the world
I want to go out there I don't believe
my parents I don't believe my teachers
and this is healthy this is fantastic
and I want to go out there and
experiment and and that gets us into
trouble right we do stupid things when
we're teenagers why because we're
experimenting it's the experiential part
of it right we want to go and experience
life but we're learning it's part of the
learning process and and and we become
Risk Takers because we want experience
but the risk is something we need to
learn because we need to learn where the
boundaries are and and one of the
damages that helicopter parents do is
they prevent us from taking those risks
so we don't learn about the world and we
don't learn about where the boundaries
are so the teenage years of these years
of Wonder they're depressing when you're
in them for a variety of reasons which I
think primly have to do with the culture
but also with oneself but there are
exciting the periods of Discovery and
people get excited about ideas and good
ideas bad ideas all kinds of ideas and
then what happens we
settle we
compromise whether that happens in
college where we're taught that nothing
exists and nothing matters and start
being be a be annihilist be a cynic be
whatever or whether it happens when we
get married and get a job and have kids
and are too busy and can't think about
our ideals and forget and get just get
into the norm of conventional life or
whether it's because a mother pester us
pesters us to get married and have kids
and do all the things that she wanted us
to do we give up on those
ideals and there's a sense in which
irand reminds them that they gave up
that's beautifully that's so beautifully
put and it's so
true
it's it's worth pausing on that
uh this
dismissal people forget the the beauty
of that Curiosity that's true in the
scientific feel too is
Uh I that that youthful Joy of like
everything is possible and we can
understand it with the tools of our mind
yes and that's what it's all about
that's what Iron Man's ideas at the end
of the day all boow down to is that
confidence and that passion and that
Curiosity and that interest and if you
you know think about what Academia does
to so many of us right we go into
Academia and and we're excited about
we're going to learn stuff we're we're
going to discover things and then they
stick you into sub subfield and
examining some minutia that's
insignificant and unimportant and and to
get published you have to be
conventional you have to do what every
body else does and then there's the
tenure process of seven years where they
put you through this torture to write
papers that fit into a certain mold and
by the time you're done you're in your
mid-30s and you've done nothing you
discovered nothing you you you're all in
this minutia in this stuff and it's
destructive and
where holding on to that passion holding
on to that knowledge and that confidence
is hard and when people do away with it
they become cynical yeah and they become
part of the system and they inflict the
same pain on the next guy that they
suffered because that's part of how it
works yeah there's uh this happens in
artificial intelligence this happens
when like a young person shows up and
with like fire in their eyes and they
say I want to understand the nature of
intelligence and everybody rolls their
eyes be well for these same reasons
because they've spent so many years on
the very specific set of questions that
um
that kind of they compete over and they
write papers over and they have
conferences about and it's true those
that incremental research is the way you
make progress answering the question of
what is intelligence exceptionally
difficult but when you mock it you
actually destroy the the reality when
when we look like centuries from now
look back at this time for this
particular field of artificial
intelligence it will be the people who
will be remembered will be the people
who asked the question and made it their
life journey of what is intelligence and
actually had the chance to succeed most
will fail asking that question but the
ones that like had a chance of
succeeding and had that throughout their
whole life uh and I suppose the same is
true for philosophy it's in every field
it's it's it's asking the big questions
and staying curious and staying
passionate and staying excited and
accepting failure right accept accepting
that you're not going to get it first
time you're not going to get the whole
thing but and and sometimes you have to
do the minua work and I'm not here to
say nobody should specialize or you
shouldn't do the Manos you have to do
that but there has to be a way to do
that work and keep the passion and keep
and keep it all integrated that's
another thing I mean we don't live in a
culture that integrates right we live in
a culture that is all that is all about
you know this minutia and not and and
you know medicine is another field where
you you specialize in the kidney I mean
the kidney is connected other things
you've got to and we don't have a
holistic view of these things and I'm
sure in artificial intelligence you're
not going to make the big leaps forward
without a holistic view of what it is
you're trying to achieve and maybe
that's the question what is intelligence
but that's the kind of questions you
have to ask to make big leaps forward to
really move the field in in a in a
positive direction and it's the people
who can think that way who move fields
and move technology who move ev anything
anything is is is everything is like
which just like you said is painful
because underlying that kind of
questioning is well maybe the work I've
done for the past 20 years was um was a
dead end and you have to kind of face
that even just it might not be true but
even just facing that reality yes is is
just it's a it's a painful feeling
absolutely but but it's that's part of
the reason why it's important to enjoy
the work that you do right so that even
if it doesn't completely worked out at
least you enjoy the process right it was
not a waste because you enjoyed the
process and if you learn as as any
entrepreneur knows this right and if you
learn from the waste of time from the
errors from the mistakes then you can
build on them and make things even
better right and so the next 20 years
are are
a a massive success can we uh another
impossible task so you did wonderfully
on talking about Iran the other
impossible task of giving a whirlwind
overview of the philosophy of
objectivism the philosophy of Vine Rand
yeah so luckily she did it in an essay
you she she talks about doing a
philosophy on one foot um but let me
integrate it with the literature and
with her life a little bit she wanted to
be a writer but her goal she had a
particular goal in her writing uh she
was an idealist right she wanted to
portray the ideal
man so one of things you do when you
want to do is what is an ideal man you
have to ask that question what does that
mean you might have a sense of it you
might have certain glimpses it glimpses
of it in other people's literature but
what is it so she starts reading
philosophy to try to figure out what a
Philosophers say about the ideal man and
what she finds horrifies her in terms of
the view of most philosophers of man and
and she's she's attracted certainly when
she's young to n because n at least has
a vision
of of of grandeur for man even though
his philosophy is very flawed and has
other problems and contradicts man in
many ways but at least he has that
vision of what is possible to man and
she's attracted to that romantic Vision
that idealistic Vision so she discovers
in writing and particularly in writing
out shrug but even in the fountain that
she's going to have to develop her own
philosophy she's going to have to
discover these ideas for herself because
they're not fully articulated anywhere
else they glimpses again of it in
Aristotle in in in N but they're not
fully fleshed out so to a large extent
she develops a philosophy for a very
practical purpose to write to write a
novel about the ideal man and and and Al
shrug is the manifestation of that by
the way sorry to interrupt uh as a
little aside she does when you say man
you mean human and the and because we'll
bring this up often I she does I mean
maybe you can elaborate of how she
specifically uses man and he in the work
we live in a time now of gender so well
she did that in in the in the sense that
everybody did it during her period of
time right it's only in modern times
where we do he/ she right it
historically when you said he you meant
a human being unless the particular
context implied that it was a but in Ein
man's case in this case in this one
sentence she she probably me
man not that because she a she viewed
that there are differences between men
and women were not the same which I know
comes at a shock to many
people but
um she she's working on a character she
was working on a particular Vision right
yeah she considered herself a man
worshipper and a man not not human being
a man male she worshiped manhood if you
will the the the the the hero in man and
she wanted to fully understand what that
was now it has massive implications for
ideal woman and I think she does put for
the ideal woman in in in in Atlas Shrug
in the character of dagy but her
goal is you know I think her selfish
goal for what she wanted to get out of
the novel is that excitement partially
sexual about seeing your ideal manifest
in reality of what you perceive as the
that which you would be attracted to
yeah fully intellectually physically
sexually in every aspect of your life
that's what she's trying to bring into
so there was no ambiguity of gender so
there was a masculinity and a femininity
in her work very much so and if you read
the novels you you see that you see that
now remember this is in the context of
in Atlas Shrug she is portraying a woman
who runs a railroad the most masculine
of all jobs you could imagine right
running a railroad better than any man
can run it yes and achieving huge
success better than any other man out
there
but but for her even dagney needs
somebody to needs a man in some sense to
look up to yeah and that's the character
who name I won't mention because it
gives away too much of the plot but
there has to I like how you do that
you're good you're not a lot of practice
a lot of practice not brilliant cuz you
convey all the important things without
giving away plot lines that's beautiful
you're master so she's so she's very
much she she described once as a male
chauvinist okay she very she likes the
idea of a man opening a
DOA but more metaphysically she
identifies something
in the difference between a way a man
relates to a woman and a woman relates
to a man it's not the same and let's not
take too far of a tangent but I just as
a side
comment I to me she
represented she was a feminist to me
perhaps there's a perhaps technically
philosophically you disagree with that
whatever but the you know that to me
represented strong like she had the some
of the strongest female characters in
the history of literature again this is
this is a woman running a railroad in
1957 yeah and not just a woman running a
railroad and this is true the fountain
hit as well a woman who is
sexually in a sense assertive sexually
open uh this is this is not a woman who
you know this is a woman who who who
Embraces her
sexuality and uh you know sex is
important in life this is why it keeps
coming up right it's it was important to
i it was it's important in the novels
it's important in life and for her one's
attitude towards sex is a reflection
one's attitude towards life and you know
what attitude towards pleasure which is
an important part of life and she
thought that was an incredibly important
thing and so she has these assertive
powerful U sexual
women who live their lives on their
terms
100% who seek a man to look up to yeah
now this is psychologically complex it's
more psychology than philosophy right
it's psychologically complex and you
know not my area of expertise but this
is there's something in She would argue
there's something fundamentally
different about a male and a woman about
a male and female psychologically in
their attitude towards one another yeah
but but as a side note I say that uh I
would say that I don't know
philosophically if her ideas about
gender are interesting I think her other
philosophical ideas are the much more
interesting but reading wise like the
stories it created the tension it
created um that was pretty powerful I
mean that was that's that's pretty
powerful stuff I'll speculate that the
reason it's so powerful is because it
reflects something in reality yeah
that's that's true there's a thread that
at least and and look she it's it's
really important to say she I think she
was the first feminist in a sense
uh I think in a sense the feminist have
proved feminism into something that it
shouldn't be but in the sense of men and
women are
capable she was the first one who really
put that into a novel and showed it to
me as a as a as a as a boy when I was
reading Al shrug I think I read that
before F in the head that was one of the
early introduction at least of an
American woman I had examples in my own
life for Russian women but of like aad
badass lady like I admire like I love
engineering I love that that she could
you know here's a lady that's running
the show so that at least to me was an
example of really strong woman but
objectivism objectivism so and and so
she developed it for novel she spent the
latter part of her life after the
publication of atas shrug really
articulating her philosophy so that's
what she did she applied it to politics
to life to gender to all these issues
from 1957 until she died in 1982 so the
objectivism was born born out of the
later parts of atas shrug yes definitely
it was there all the time but it it was
fleshed out during the later parts of
alas shrug and then articulated for the
next 20 years so what is objectivism so
objectivism so there are five branches
in philosophy and it it and so I'm going
to just go through the branches she
starts with you start with metaphysics
the nature of reality and objectivism
argues that reality is what it is it's
kind of uh goes Hawkins back to
Aristotle law of identity a is a you can
wish to be be but wishes do not make
something real reality is what it is and
it is the primary and it was it's it's
not it's not manipulated directed by
Consciousness Consciousness is there to
uh you know to observe to to give us
information about reality that is the
purpose of Consciousness that is the
nature of it so in
metaphysics existence exists a it the
law of identity the law of causality
things are you know the the things act
based on their nature not randomly not
arbitrarily but based on their nature
and then we have the tool to know
reality this is epistemology the the
theory of knowledge our tool to know
reality is reason it's our senses and
our capacity to integrate the
information we get from our senses and
to integrate it into new knowledge and
to conceptualize it and uh and and that
is uniquely human um uh we don't we
don't know the truth from
revelation we don't know truth from our
emotions our emotions are interesting
our emotions tell us something about
ourselves but our emotions are not tools
of cognition they don't tell us the
truth about what's out there about
what's in reality so reason is a means
of knowledge and therefore me reason is
our means of
survival only individuals reason just in
the same way that only individuals can
eat we don't have a collective stomach
nobody can eat for me and therefore
nobody can think for me I we don't have
a collective mind there's no Collective
Consciousness none it's it's bizarre
that people talk about these
collectivized aspects of the mind they
don't talk about Collective Feats and
Collective stomachs and Collective
things but so we all think for ourselves
and it is our fundamental basic
responsibility to live our
lives to live to choose to once we
choose to live to live our lives to the
best of our
ability so in Morality she is an egoist
she believes that the purpose of
morality is to provide you with a code
of values and virtues to guide your life
for the purpose of your own success your
own Survival your own thriving your own
happiness happiness is the moral purpose
of your life the purpose of morality is
to to guide you towards a happy life
your own happiness your own happiness
absolutely your own happiness so she
rejects the idea that she should live
for other people that you should live
for the purpose of other people's
happiness your purpose is not to make
them happy or to make them anything your
purpose is your own happiness but she
also rejects the idea that you could
argue maybe the N idea of you should use
other people for your own purposes right
so every person is an end in himself
every person's responsibility is their
own
happiness and you shouldn't use other
people for your own shouldn't exploit
other people for your own happiness and
you shouldn't be allow yourself to be
exploited for other people every
individual is responsible for
themselves and what is it that allows us
to be happy what is it that facilitates
um human flourishing human success human
survival well it's the use of our minds
right go goes back to reason and what
does reason require in order to to be
successful in order to to work
effectively it requires Freedom so the
enemy of reason the enemy of reason is
force the enemy of reason is corrosion
the enemy of reason is Authority right
the Catholic Church doing what they did
to Galileo right that restricts
Galileo's thinking right when he's in
house arrest is he going to come up with
a new theory is he going to discover new
truths no it it it it's the punishment
is too you know it's too dangerous so
Force coercion um are enemies of of
reason and what reason needs is to be
free to to think to to discover to
innovate to break out of convention um
so we need to create an environment in
which individuals are free to reason
free to think and to do that we we we
come up with a con conceptt historically
we've come up with the concept of
individual rights individual rights
define the scope of Define the fact that
we should be left
alone free to pursue our values using
our reason free of what free of corion
Force Authority and that the job of
government is to make sure that we are
free the whole point of government the
whole point of when we come in a social
context the whole point of establish a
govern in that context
is to secure that freedom it's to make
sure that I don't use cion on you the
governor is supposed to stop me supposed
to intervene before I can do that or or
if I've already done it to prevent me
from doing it
again so the purpose of government is to
protect our freedom to think and to act
based on our thoughts it's to leave
individuals free to pursue their values
to pursue their happiness to pursue
their rational
thought and to be left alone to do it
and so she rejects socialism which which
basically assumes some kind of
collective goal assumes the sacrifice of
the individual to the group assumes that
your moral purpose in life is the
well-being of other people rather than
your own uh and and she rejects all form
of statism all form of government uh
that is you know overly uh that that is
involved in any aspect other than to
protect us from Force coion Authority uh
and she rejects Anarchy and we can talk
about that I I I I think you had a
question in the list of questions you
sent me about
Anarchy to Michael malice about Anarchy
so I don't know if you're familiar with
him yes I'm familiar with him so so yeah
so she would completely rejects Anarchy
anak is completely inconsistent with
their point of view and we can talk
about why if you want so there's some
perfect place where freedom is maximized
so systems of government that absolutely
and and she thought that the American
system of government came close in its
idea obviously founded with original sin
with the sin of slavery but in its
conception the Declaration of
Independence is about as perfect a
political document as one could write I
think the greatest political document in
human history but really articulated
almost perfectly um and and beautifully
and that American system government with
the check's Balan balances with which is
with its emphasis on individual rights
with its emphasis on freedom with its
emphasis on lead leaving individual free
to pursue their happiness an explicit
recognition of Happiness as the goal
individual happiness was the model it it
wasn't perfect there a lot of problems
to a large extent because the founders
had mixed philosophical premises so so
they were there were alien um uh
premises introduced into the founding of
the country slavery obviously being the
biggest problem uh but it was close and
we need to build on that to create an
ideal political system that will yes op
maximize the freedom of individuals to
do exactly this um and then of course
she had so that's kind of uh that's the
manifestation of this individualism in a
political realm and she had a theory of
art she had a theory of Aesthetics which
is the fifth branch of of of she have
metaphysics epistemology ethics and
politics and the fifth branch is
Aesthetics and she viewed art as an
essential human need a fuel for the
human spirit and that just like any
human need it had certain principles
that it had to abide by that is just
like there's nutrition right so some
food is good for you and some food is
bad for you some food some stuff is
poison she believed the same is true of
Arts that art had an identity which is
very controversial today right if you
you know today it's if you put a frame
around it it is Art right if you put a
unal in urinal in a in a museum it
becomes art which he thought was was
evil and and and ludicrous and she
rejected completely uh that art had an
identity and that it served a certain
function that human beings needed it and
if it didn't have not only did it have
have the identity but that function was
served well by some art and poorly by
other art um and then there's a whole
realm of stuff that's not art B
basically all of all of what today is
considered Modern Art she would consider
not being art you know splashing paint
on a canvas not art um so she had very
clear
ideas uh she articulated them
not so I would say not in conventional
philosophical form so she didn't write
philosophical essays using the
Philosopher's language it's why
partially why I think philos phers have
never taken us seriously they're
actually accessible to us we can
actually read them and she integrates
the philosophy in what I think amazing
ways with
psychology with history with economics
with politics with what's going on in
the world uh and she has dozens and
dozens and dozens of essays that she she
wrote uh many of them were aggregated
into books uh I particularly recommend
books like uh uh the virtue of
selfishness
capitalism the unknown
ideal uh and and uh philosophy who needs
it and you know it's it's a I think it's
a it's a it's a beautiful philosophy uh
you know I know you're big on love I
think it's a philosophy of love we can
talk about that essentially it's about
love that's what the philosophy is all
about and when it apply in terms of it
applying to self um and uh you know I I
think it's sad that so few so few people
read it and so few intellectuals take it
seriously and are willing to engage with
it let me ask that was incredible but
after that beautiful Whirlwind overview
let me ask the most shallow of questions
which is the name
objectivism of where like how should
people think about the name being rooted
why not individualism what what are the
options if we like had a branding
meeting right now sure so she actually
had a branding meeting so she she did
this she went through the exercise
objectivism I do not think I don't know
the all the details but I don't think
objectivism was the first yeah name she
came with the problem was that the other
names were taken and they were not
positive implications that it so for
example rationalism could have been a
good word because she's an advocate of
rational thought or Reason ISM but
reason ISM sounds weird right the ism
because of too many s's I guess
rationalism but was already a philosophy
and it was a philosophy inconsistent
with her
because it was it was a it was a what
she considered a false view of of reason
of
rationality um
realism you know just doesn't work so
she came in objectivism and I think
actually it's a great word it it's a
great name because it it's it has two
aspects to it and this is a unique view
of what objectivity actually means in
objectivism in objectivity is the idea
of an independent reality there is truth
mhm there's actually something out there
that we and then there's the role of
Consciousness right there is the role of
figuring out the truth the truth doesn't
just hit you the truth is not in the
thing you have to discover it it's that
it's that a Consciousness applied
to that's what objectivity is right it's
you discovering the truth in reality
it's your
Consciousness interacting and thereby
pulls in the individual in that sense
and only the individual could do it now
the problem with
individualism is it would have made the
philosophy too political right and she
always said so she said she said I'm an
advocate of
capitalism because I'm really an
advocate for rational
egoism but I'm a rational for I'm an
advocate for rational egoism really
because I'm an advocate for reason so
she viewed the essential of her
philosophy as being this uh reason and
her her particular view of reason and
she has a whole book she has a book
called uh introduction to objectivist
epistemology which I encourage any
scientist mathematician anybody
interested in science to read because it
is a tur of force on on on in a sense
this the the the what it means to hold
Concepts and what it means to discover
new discoveries and to
use to use Concepts and how we use
Concepts and she has a theory of
Concepts that is completely new that is
completely revolutionary and I think is
essential for the philosophy of science
and therefore ultimately for the more
abstract we get with scientific
discoveries the easy it is to detach
them from reality and to detach them
from truth
the easier it is to be inside our heads
instead of about what's
real and they're probably examples from
monop physics that fit that and I think
what she teaches in the book is how to
ground your Concepts and how to bring
them into grounding in reality so
introduction to objectivist epistemology
and note that it's only an introduction
because one of the things she realized
one of the things that I think a lot of
her critics don't give enough credit for
is that philosophy is there's no no end
right it's always growing there always
new discoveries there's always it's you
know it's like science there's always
new things and and there's a ton of work
to do in in
philosophy uh and particularly in
epistemology and Theology and she was
actually giving you interest in
mathematics she was she actually saw a
lot of parallels between math and
concept
formation and she was actually you know
in the years before she died she was
taking private lessons in mathematics in
algebra and calculus because she
believed that there was real insight in
understanding algebra in calculus
to um philosophy into
epistemology and and she also was very
interested in Neuroscience because she
believed that that had a lot to tell us
about epistemology but also about music
therefore about Aesthetics so I mean she
recognized the importance of all these
different fields and how and and the
beauty of philosophy is it should be
integrating all of them and one of the
sad things about the world in which we
live is again we view these things as
silos we don't view them as integrating
we don't have teams of people from
different Arena you know different
fields you know discovering things we we
we become like ants specialized so she
was definitely uh like that and she was
constantly curious constantly interested
in in the in discoveries and new ideas
and and how this could expand the scope
of her philosophy and the application of
her philosophy there's like a million
topics I can talk to you but since you
mentioned math I'm almost only got three
hours only I'm almost curious uh I don't
know if you're familiar with Gay's
incompleteness theorem I'm not
unfortunately okay it was a a
powerful proof that any axiomatic
systems when you start from a bunch of
axioms that there will in that system
provably must be an inconsistency so
that was this painful like stab in the
idea of mathematics that no if we start
with a set of assumptions kind of like
an started with objectivism Y there will
have to be at least one
contradiction see I I intuitively I'm
going to say that's false
philosophically but in math it's just
true and it's it's a question about how
you define again the definitions matter
and you have to be careful on how you
define axioms and you have to be careful
about what you define as an
inconsistency and what that means to say
there's an inconsistency and I don't
know I'm not going to say more than that
because I don't know but I'm
suspicious that there is some uh and
this is the power philosophy and this is
why I said before concept formation is
so important and understanding concept
formation is so important from for
particularly again mathematics because
it's such an abstract field and it's so
easy to lose grounding in in reality
that that if you properly Define axioms
and you properly Define what you're
doing in math whether that is true and I
I don't think it is this is uh yeah
we'll leave it as an open mystery cuz
actually this
audience you know there's literally over
100,000 people that have PG and so they
they know G's the complet theorem I I I
have this intuition that there's
something different to mathematics and
philosophy that I'd love to hear from
people like what what exactly is that
difference because um there's a
Precision to mathematics that philosophy
doesn't have but that Precision gets you
in trouble it somehow it actually takes
you away from truth like the the very
constraint of the language used in
mathematics actually puts a constraint
on the on the capture of truth that it's
able to do so I'm going to argue that
that is a comp a total product of the
way you're
conceptualizing the the terms within
mathematics it's not in reality yes so
it's you would argue it's in the fact
that mathematics in in as much as is
detached from reality that you can do
these kinds of things yes and and you
and you've and that mathematicians have
uh come up with Concepts
that they haven't grounded in reality
properly that allows them to go off on
on in places that have that don't lead
to truth that's right that don't lead to
truth but I encourage you then I
encourage you to to to to do one of
these uh podcast with one of our
philosophers who know more about uh
about this stuff um and if you if you
move to Austin I've got somebody I'd
recommend to you and can you throw a
name out or no yeah I mean I would I
would I would talk to GRE sary you say
hour can you say what you mean by hour
I'd say people who are affiliated with
the adman Institute of philosophers were
affiliated with objectivism right and
Greg is one of our one of our brightest
and and he's in Austin he's just got a
position at at UT uh at the University
of Texas uh and he and he one on Kate
would be another one who actually works
at the Institute and a chief philosophy
officer at The Institute that's awesome
and uh and there are others who
specialize in Phil of science who who I
think Greg could probably uh give you a
lead but but these are unbelievably
smart people who know this part of the
philosophy much better than I do what uh
can you just briefly perhaps say what is
the irand Institute yeah so the irand
Institute was a organization founded um
three years after Iran died she died in
1982 and it was founded in 1985 to
promote her ideas to make sure that her
ideas and her novels are uh continued in
the culture and were relevant well they
they're relevant but what the people saw
the relevance so our mission is to get
people to read her books to engage in
the ideas we teach we have a the
objective is the academic center where
we teach the philosophy uh primarily to
graduate students and others who take
the ideas seriously and who really want
a a a deep understanding of the the
philosophy and uh we apply the ideas so
we take the ideas and apply them to
ethics to philosophy to issues of the
day um which is more my strength and
more what what I tend to do I've you
know I've never I've never formally
studied philosophy so uh um all my
education in philosophy is informal and
um you know I'm an engineer and a
finance guy that's that's my background
so I'm I'm a numbers guy well let me uh
I feel pretty
under
educated I have a pretty open mind
which sometimes can be painful on the
internet because people mock me or you
know you know if I say something nuanced
about
communism people people immediately kind
of put you in a bin or something like
that it's it hurts to be open-minded to
say I don't know to ask the question why
is uh communism or Marxism so
problematic why is capitalism
problematic and so on but let me
nevertheless go into that Direction with
you uh maybe uh let's talk about
capitalism a little bit how does
objectivism compare relate to the idea
of capitalism well first we have to
Define what capitalism is because again
people use capitalism in all kinds of
ways and I know you had Ray Dalo on on
your show Once I haven't I need to
listen to that episode but Ray has no
clue what capitalism is and that's
that's that's that's his big problem um
so when he when he says the real
problems today in capitalism he's not
talking about capitalism he's talking
about problems in the world today and I
agree with many of the problems but they
have nothing to do with capitalism um
capitalism is this is is a social
political economic system in
which uh all property is privately owned
and in which the only role of government
is the protection of individual
rights I think it's the ideal system I
think it's the right system for the
reasons we talked about earlier it's a
system that leaves you as an individual
to pursue your values your life your
happiness free of corosion of force and
if and and you get to decide what
happens to you and I get to decide if to
help you or not right if you let's say
you fall flat on your face people always
say well what about the poor well if you
if you care about the poor help them
right just don't you know what do you
need a government for you know I always
ask audiences um okay if if there's a if
there's a poor kid who can't afford to
go to school and all the schools are
private because capitalism is being
instituted um and he can't go to school
would you be willing to participate in a
fund that that pays for his education
every hand in the room goes up so what
do you need government for just let's
let's let's get all the money together
and pay for schooling so the point is
that what capitalism does is leave
individuals free to make their own
decisions and as long as they're not
violating other people's rights in other
words as long as they're not using
cision force on other people then leave
them alone and and people are going to
make mistakes and people are going to
screw up their lives and people are
going to commit suicide people are going
to do terrible things to themselves that
is fundamentally their problem and if
you want to help you under capitalism
are free to help it's just the only
thing that doesn't happen under
capitalist is you don't get to impose
your will on other people now how's that
a bad thing so the the question then is
how does uh the implementation of
capitalism uh deviate from its ideal mhm
in practice I mean this is what is the
question with a lot of systems is how
does it start to then fail so one thing
maybe you can correct me or inform
me it seems like information is very
important like being able to uh make
decisions to be free you have to have
access full access of all the
information you need to make rational
decisions no that can be because it can
be right because none of us has full
access to all the information we need I
mean what does that even mean and how
how big how how much of the scope do you
want to do right let's just start there
yeah don't so you need you need to have
access to information so one of the big
criticisms of capitalism is there's
asymmetrical information the drug maker
has more information about the drug than
the drug buyer right pharmaceutical
drugs um true it's a problem well I
wonder if one can think about an
entrepreneur can think about how to
solve that problem see I view any one of
these challenges to capitalism as an
opportunity for entrepreneur to make
money and and they have the freedom to
do it yeah so imagine an entrepreneur
steps in and says I will test all the
drugs that drug companies make and I
will provide you for a fee with with the
answer and how do I know he's not he's
not going to be corrupted well there'll
be other ones and they'll
compete and who am I to tell which one
of these is the right one well it won't
be you really getting the information
from them it'll be your doctor the
doctors need that
information so the doctor who has some
expertise in medicine will be evaluating
which rating agency to use to evaluate
the drugs and which ones then to
recommend to you so do we need an FDA do
we need a government that siphons all
the information to One Source that does
all the research all the thing and has a
clear incentive by the way not to
approve drugs there's only because they
don't make any money from it they nobody
pays them for the information nobody
pays them to be accurate they're
bureaucrats at the end of the day and
what is a bureaucrat what's the main
focus of a bureaucrat even if they go in
with the best of intentions which I'm
sure all the scientists that the FDA
have the best of intentions what's their
incentive the the system builds in this
incentive not to screw up because one
drug gets P you and does damage you lose
your job but if a 100 drugs that could
cure cancer tomorrow don't ever get to
Market nobody's going to nobody's going
to come after you yeah and you're saying
that's
not that's not a mechanism that's
um the marketplace is competition so if
you won't approve the drug if I still
think it's possible I will and it's not
01 you see the other thing that happens
with the FDA is 01 it's either approved
or it's not approved mhm oh it's
approved for this but it's not approved
for that but what if what if what if a
drug came out and and and you said right
you told the
doctors this drug in 10% of the cases
can cause patients an increased risk of
heart disease you and your patients
should we're not we're not forcing you
but you should right it's your medical
responsibility to evaluate that and
decide if the drug is appropriate or not
why don't I get to make that choice if I
want to take on the 10% risk of heart
disease so there was a drug and right
now I forget the name but it was a drug
uh against pain particularly arthritic
pain and it worked it reduced pain
dramatically right and some people tried
everything and this was the only drug
that reduced their pain and it turned
out that in 10% of the cases it it
caused the elevated risk didn't kill
people necessarily but it caused
elevated risk of heart
disease okay what did the FDA do it
banned the drug some people I know a lot
of people who said living with pain is
much worse than taking on a 10% risk
again probabilities right people don't
think in those numbers 10% risk of maybe
getting heart disease why don't I get to
make that choice why does some
bureaucrat make that choice for
me that's capitalism capitalism gives
you the choice not you as an ignorant
person you with your doctor and and a
whole Marketplace which is not created
to provide you with information and
think about think about a world where we
didn't have all these regulations and
controls the the the the the amount of
opportunities that would exist to create
to provide information to educate you
about that information would mushroom
dramatically you know Bloomberg you know
the billionaire Bloomberg you know how
did he make his money he made his money
by providing financial information by
creating this service called Bloomberg
that you buy a terminal and you get all
this amazing information and he was
before computers desktop computers I
mean he was very early on in that whole
Computing Revolution but his Focus was
providing financial information to
professionals and you hire a
professional to manage your money that's
the way it's supposed to be you know you
have to have so you as an individual
cannot have all the knowledge you need
in medicine all the knowledge you need
in finance all the knowledge you need in
every aspect of your life you can't do
that you have to delegate and you you
hire a doctor now you should be able to
figure out if the doctor's good or not
you should be able to ask doctors for
reasons for why and you have to make the
decision at the end but that's why you
have a doctor that's why you have a
financial advisor that's why you have
different people who you're delegating
certain aspects of your life to but you
want choices and what the marketplace
provides is those choices so let's let
me then this is this is what I do I'll
make a dumb case for things and then you
shut me down and then the internet says
how dumb Lex is this is good this is how
it works good at shutting down and and
they're foolish in uh blaming you for
the question because you're here to ask
me questions let's let's make let me
make a case for
socialism so it's going to be bad
because that's the only case there is
for socialism that's reality so then
perhaps it's not a case for socialism
but just a certain
notion that
inequality the wealth and inequality
that uh the bigger the gap between the
poorest or the average and the richest
the the more painful it is to be
average psychologically speaking if you
know that there is the CEOs of companies
make 300 a th000 1 million times more
than you do that makes life for a large
part of the population less fulfilling
that there's a relative notion to the
experience of our life that even though
everybody's life has gotten better over
the past decades and
centuries it may feel actually
worse because you know that life could
be so so much better in the life of
these CEOs that uh yeah that Gap is
fundamentally uh a thing that is
undesirable in a
society everything about that is wrong
[Music]
okay I like to start off like that yeah
which so yeah I mean so my wife likes to
remind me that as well as we've done in
life we are actually from a wealth
perspective closer to a homeless person
than we are to Bill Gates just the math
right just the math
right it's a good go check when I look
at Bill Gates I get a smile on my face I
love Bill Gat I've never met Bill Gates
I love Bill Gates yeah I I love what he
stands for I love that he has hundred
billion dollar I love that he has built
a trampoline room in his house where his
kids can jump up and down in a
trampoline in a safe environment can we
take another billionaire because I'm not
if you're sure if you're paying
attention but there's all kinds of
conspiracy theories about Bill Gates so
let well but that's part of the story
right they have to pull him down because
people resent him for other reason
that's strange but yes we can take Jeff
Bezos we can sa you know my favorite
stoically just because I I like I like a
lot about him was was Steve Jobs um I
mean I love these people and I can't
there are very few billionaires I don't
love in a sense that I appreciate
everything they've done for
me for people I cherish and love they've
made the world a better place why would
it ever cross my
mind that they make me look bad because
they're richer than me or that I don't
have what they have they've made me so
much
richer that they've made inventions that
used to cost millions and millions and
millions of dollars accessible to me I
mean this is a
supercomputer in my
pocket now but think about it
right what is the difference between and
and I'll get to the essence of your
point in a minute but think about what
the difference is between me and Bill
Gates in terms of because it's true that
in terms of wealth I'm closer to the
homeless person but in ter in in terms
of my day-to-day life I'm closer to Bill
Gates you know we both live in a nice
house his is nicer but we live in a nice
house his is bigger but mine is plenty
big we both drive cars his is nicer but
we both drive cars cars 100 years ago
what cause we both fly can fly get on a
plane in Los Angeles and fly to New York
and get there about the same time we're
both flying
private the only difference is my
private plane I share with 300 other
people and here's but it's accessible
it's relatively comfortable again in the
perspective of 50 years ago 100 years
ago it's unimaginable that I could fly
like that for for such a low feet we
live very similar lives in that sense um
so I don't resent him so first of all
I'm an exception to the supposed rule
that people resent I don't think anybody
I don't think people do resent unless
they're taught to resent and this is the
key people are taught and I've seen this
in America and this is to
me the most horrible shocking thing that
has happened in America over the last 40
years I came to America so I'm an
immigrant I came to America from Israel
in
1987 and I came here because I thought
this was the place where I could where
it had the most opportunities and it is
most opportunities and I came here cuz I
believ there was some a certain American
Spirit of
individualism and exactly the opposite
of what you just described a a a sense
of I live my life it's my happiness I'm
not looking at my neighbor I'm not
competing with the Joneses the American
dream is my dream my two kids my dog my
station wagon not because other people
have it because I want it and that sense
and when I came here in the
80s you had that you had you still had
it it it it was less than I think it had
been in the past but you had that Spirit
there was no Envy there was no
resentment there were rich people and
and they were celebrated there was still
this admiration for entrepreneurs and
admiration for Success not by everybody
certainly not by the intellectuals but
by the average person I have witnessed
particularly over the last 10 years a
complete
transformation and America's become like
Europe I know are you Russian yeah yeah
it's become Russian in a sense where you
know they've always done these
studies um you know I'll give you $100
and your neighbor $100 or I'll give you
or is it or give you uh ,000 but your
neighbor gets $10,000 and a Russian will
always choose the $100 right he he he
wants equality above being better
himself yeah Americans would always
choose that Gap sense is not anymore and
it's changing
because we've been told it should change
and morally you're saying that doesn't
make any sense so there's no sense in
which let me put another spin I forget
the book but the sense of if you're
working for Steve Jobs and you your
hands you're the engineer behind the
iPhone and there's a sense in which his
salary is stealing from your efforts
because I forget the book right that's
literally the terminology is used this
this is straight out of K MOX well sure
it's it's also straight but out of car
MOX but like there's no sense morally
speaking that you see that the other way
around that engineer stealing off of and
and it's not stealing right it's not but
the engineer getting more from from
Steve Jobs by a lot not by a little bit
than Steve Jobs is getting from the
engineer the engineer even if they're a
great engineer they're probably other
great Engineers that could replace him
would he even have a job without Steve
Jobs would the industry exist without
Steve Jobs without the Giants that carry
these things forward and let me ask you
this I mean you're a scientist yes do
you resent Einstein for being smarter
than
you I mean you NVM do you are you angry
with him would you would you would you
feel negative towards him if he was in
the room right now or would you if you
came into the room you'd say oh my God I
mean you interview people who I think
some of them are probably smarter than
you and me yeah for sure and your
attitude towards them is one of
reverence well one interesting little
side question there is what is the
natural state of being for us humans you
kind of implied
education has uh polluted our minds but
like if I because you're referring to
jealousy the Einstein question the Steve
Jobs question I wonder which way if
we're left without education would we
naturally go so there is no such thing
as the Natural State in that sense right
this is this is the myth of of Russo's
uh uh noble savage and of John Walls is
behind the veil of ignorance well if
you're ignorant you're ignorant there
you can't make any decisions you're just
ignorant you're there is no human nature
that determines how you will relate to
other people you will relate to other
people based on the conclusions you come
to about how to relate to other people
you can relate to other people as
values to use your terminology from the
perspective of love this other human
being is a value to me and I want to
trade with them and trade the beauty of
trade is its win-win I want to benefit
and they are going to benefit I don't
want to screw them I don't want them to
screw me I want this to be
win-win or you can deal with other
people as threats as
enemies much of human history we have
done
that and therefore as a zero sum world
what they have I
want uh I I will take it I will use
Force to take it I will use political
force to take it I will use the force of
my arm to take it I will just take it so
um those are two options right and and
they will determine whether we live in
ization or not and they are determined
by conclusions people come to about the
world and the nature of reality and the
nature of morality and the nature of
politics and all these things they're
determined by
philosophy and this is why philosophy is
so important because so philosophy
shapes it's Evolution doesn't do this it
doesn't just happen ideas shape how we
relate to other people and you say well
little children do it well little
children don't have a fontal cortext why
it's not relevant right what happens
with as you develop a fontal cortex as
you develop the brain you learn
ideas and those ideas will shape how you
relate to other people and if you learn
good ideas you relate to other people in
a healthy productive
win-win and if you develop bad ideas you
will resent other people and you will
want their stuff and the thing is that
human progress depends on the win-win
relationship it depends depends on
civilization depends on peace it depends
on allowing people going back to what we
talked about earlier allowing people the
freedom to think for
themselves and anytime you try to
interrupt that you're causing damage so
this change in America is not some
reversion to a natural state it's a
shift in
ideas
we we still live the better part of
American society and the world still
lives on the remnants of the
Enlightenment the Enlightenment ideas uh
the ideas that brought about this
scientific revolution ideas that brought
about the creation of this country and
it's the same basic ideas that led to
both of those
and as those ideas get more distant as
those ideas are not defended as those
ideas disappear as Enlightenment goes
away we will become more violent more
resentful more tribal more obnoxious
more
unpleasant more primitive a very
specific example of this though that
bothers me i' be curious to get your
comment on so Elon
Musk is a billionaire yeah and one of
the things that really maybe it's almost
a pet peeve it it really bothers me when
the press and the general public will
say well all those rocket they're
sending up there those are just like the
toys the games that billionaires
play that to me billionaire has become a
dirty word to
use like as if
money can buy or has anything to do with
Genius Like I I'm trying to articulate a
specific um line of uh question here
because it's just it just bothers me I
guess the question is like why how do we
get here and how do we get out of that
because Elon Musk is doing some of the
most incredible things that a human
being has ever participated in mostly
not he doesn't build the Rockets himself
he's getting a bunch of other Geniuses
together that have that takes genius
that takes genius but why where did we
go and how do we get back to where Elon
Musk is an inspiring figure as opposed
to a billionaire playing with some toys
so this is the role of philosophy it
goes back to the same place it goes back
to our understanding of the world and
our role in it and if you understand
that the only way to become a
billionaire for example is to create
value value for whom value for people
who are going to consume it the only way
to to become a billionaire the only way
Elon Musk became a billionaire is
through PayPal now PayPal is something
we all use PayPal is an enormous value
to all of us it's why it's worth several
billions of dollars which Alon musk
could then you
know earn but you cannot become a
billionaire in a free Society by
exploiting people you cannot because
you'll be you'll be laughed nobody will
deal with you nobody will have any
interactions with you the only way to
become a billionaire is to do billions
of win-win
transactions so the only way to become a
billionaire in a fee Society is to
change the world to make it a better
place billionaires are the the great
humanitarians of our time not because
they give charity but because they make
them billions and it's true that money
and genius are not necessarily
correlated but you cannot become a
billionaire without being super smart
you cannot become a billionaire by
figuring something out that nobody else
has figured out in whatever realm it
happens to be and that thing that you
figure out has to be something that
provides immense value to other people
where do we go wrong we go wrong our
culture goes wrong because it
views billionaires as self-interested as
selfish and there's a sense in which and
not a sense it's absolutely true the
billionaire doesn't ask for my opinion
on what product to launch Elon Musk
doesn't ask others what they think he
should spend his money on what the
greatest social well-being will be Ellen
I mean there a sense in which the
Rockets areest toys there's a sense in
which he chose that he would have he
would be inspired the most yes he would
have the most fun by going to Ms and
building rockets and he he's probably
dreamt of rockets from when he was a kid
and probably always played with rockets
and now he has the funds the capital to
be able to deploy it
so he's being selfish obviously he's
being self-interested this is what Elon
Musk is about I mean uh the same with
with uh Jeff beus there's no committee
to decide with whether to invent you
know to to invest in cloud computing or
not BOS decided that and at the end of
the day they are the bosses they pursue
the values they believe are good they
pursue they create the wealth it's their
decisions it's their mind and the fact
is we live in a world where for 2,000
plus years self-interest even though we
all do it to small extent or the less we
deem it as
abhorent it's bad it's wrong I mean your
mother probably taught you the same
thing my mother taught me think of
others first think of yourself last the
good stuff is kept for the guests you
never get to use the good stuff you know
it's others that's what the focus of
morality is now no mother even no Jewish
mother actually believes that right
because they don't really want you to be
last they want you to be first and they
push you to be be first but morally
they've been taught their entire lives
and they believe that the right thing to
say and to some extent
do is to argue for sacrifice for other
people right so most people 99% of
people are torn yeah they they know they
should be
selfless sacrifice live for other people
they don't really want to so they act
selfishly in their day-to-day life and
they feel guilty and they can't be happy
they can't be happy and Jewish Mothers
and Catholic mothers are excellent at
using that guilt to manipulate you but
the guilt is inevitable because you
you've got these two conflicting things
the way you want to live and the way
you've been taught to
live and what objectivism does is it at
the end of the day provides you with the
way to unite morality a proper morality
with what you want and to think about
what you really want to to conceptualize
what you really want properly so what
you want is really good for you and what
you want will really lead to your
happiness so you know we reject the idea
of sacrifice we reject the idea of
living for other people but that's but
you see if if if you
believe if you believe that the purpose
of morality is to sacrifice for other
people and you look at Jeff
Bezos when was the last time he
sacrificed anything right he's living
pretty well he's got billions he could
give it all away and yet he doesn't how
dare he you know in my in my talks I
often
position and I'm going to use Bill Gates
sorry guys dro the conspiracy theory
they're all Bs complete and utter
nonsense there's not a shred of Truth he
you know I disagree with Bill Gates on
everything political I think he
politically is a complete ignoramus but
the guy's a genius when it comes to
technology and and when he's just
thoughtful even in his philanthropy he
just uses his mind and I respect that
even though politically he terrible
anyway think about this who who had a
bigger impact on the lives of poor
people in the world Bill Gates or Mother
Teresa Bill Gates it's not even
close and Mother Teresa lived this
altruistic life to the core she lived it
consistently and yet she was miserable
pathetic horrible she hated her life she
she she she was miserable and most of
people she helped didn't do very well
because she just helped them not die
right yeah and then Bill Gates changed
all and he helped a lot of by providing
technology even philanthropy gets to
them the food gets them much F more
efficient yet who is them all
Saint sainthood is not determined based
on what you do for other people Saint it
is based on how much how much pain you
suffer I like to ask people to go to a
museum and look at all the paintings of
saints how many of them are smiling and
are happy they've used to got arrows
through them and holes in their body and
they're just suffering a horrible death
the whole point of the morality we are
taught is that happiness is
immorality that ha happy people cannot
be good people and that good people
suffer and that suffering is necessary
for Morality morality is about sacrifice
self-sacrifice and and
suffering and at the end of the day
almost all the problems in the world
boil down to that false view so can we
try to talk about part of it the problem
of the word selfishness but let's talk
about the virtue of
selfishness so let's start at the fact
that for me I really enjoy doing stuff
for other people I
enjoy being uh cheering on the success
of others why I don't know it's deep
think about it
why cuz I think you do
know if I were to really
think I I don't I don't want to resort
to like evolutionary arguments are like
this
is so I I
think so I can tell you why I enjoy
helping others maybe you can go there
like one thing cuz we'll should talk
about love a little bit I'll tell you
there there's a part of me that's a
little bit not rational like there's a
gut that I
follow that uh not everything I do is
perfectly rational like for example my
dad uh criticizes me he says like you
should always have a plan like it it
should make sense you have a strategy
and and and I say that you know I left I
stepped down for my full cell position
on MIT I there's so many things I did
without like a plan it's the gut it's
like I want to start a company well you
know how many companies fail I don't
know I % I it's a gut and the same thing
of being kind to others is is a gut like
I watch the way that Karma Works in this
world that the people like us one guy
look up to his Joe Rogan that he does
stuff for others and that the joy he
experiences the way he sees the world
like just the the the glimmer in his
eyes because he does stuff for others
that creates a joyful experience and
that somehow is seems to be an
instructive way to that to me is
inspiring of a of a life well lived but
you probably know a lot of people who
have done stuff others were not
happy true so I don't think it's the
doing stuff for others that just brings
the happiness it's why you do stuff for
others and what else you're doing in
your life and and what what is the what
is the proportion but it's why at the
end of the day which is which is and
it's the same look you can you can maybe
through a gut feeling say I want to
start a company but you better start
doing thinking about how and what and
all of that and to some extent the why
because if you really want to be happy
doing this you may better make sure
you're doing it for the right reason so
I'm not you know there's something
called Fast thinking colan the the the
the the the Daniel Conan no Daniel colan
talks about and and there is it's it's
it's you know all the Integrations
you've made so far in your life cause
you to have specialized knowledge in
certain things and you can think very
fast and and and your gut tells you what
that what the right answer is it's but
it's not it's it's your mind is
constantly evaluating and constantly
working um you want to make it as
rational as you can not in the sense
that I have to think through every time
I make a decision but that they've so
programmed my mind in a sense that the
answers are the right answers you know
in in in uh when I get them
so you know I like I view other people
as a
value other people contribute enormously
to my life uh whether it's a romantic
love relationship or whether it's a
friendship relationship or whether it's
just you know Jeff Bezos creating Amazon
and and delivering goodies to my home
when I get them and and and people do
all that right it's not just Jeff Bezos
he gets the most credit but everybody in
that chain of command everybody at
Amazon is working for me I love that I
love the idea of a human being I love
the idea that there are people capable
of of being an Einstein of being you
know and and creating and building and
making stuff that makes my life so good
I you know most of us like this is not a
good room for an example most of us like
plants right we like pets I don't
particular but people like pets why we
like to see life yeah human beings are
life on steroids right they're life with
a brain it's amazing right what they can
do I love people now that doesn't mean I
love everybody because there's some they
really bad people out there who I hate
right and I do hate and there are people
out there that are just I have no
opinion about but generally the idea of
a human being to me is a phenomenal idea
when I see a baby I light up
because to me there's a potential you
know uh there's a there's this
magnificent potential that is embodied
in that and when I see people struggling
and need help I think they're human
beings they you know they embody that
potential they embody that goodness they
might turn out to be bad but why would I
ever give the presumption of that I give
them the presumption of the positive and
I cheer them on and and I and I and I
enjoy watching people succeed seed I
enjoy watching people get to the top of
the mountain and and produce something
even if I don't get anything directly
from it I enjoy that because it's part
of my enjoyment of life so the word so
to you the morality of
selfishness this kind of love of other
human beings the love of Life fits into
a morality of selfishness can't not
because it it's it you there's no
context in which you can truly love
yourself
without loving life and loving what it
means to be
human so you know the love of yourself
is going to manifest yourself
differently in different people but it's
core what do you love about yourself you
you first of all I love I love that I'm
alive I love that I you know I not love
this world and the opportunities it
provides me and the the the fun and the
excitement of discovering something new
and meeting a new person and and having
a
conversation uh you know all of this is
is is is immen enjoyable but behind all
of that is is a particular human
capability that not only I have other
people have and the fact that they have
it makes my life so much more fun
because so it's it's you cannot view you
know it's all integrated and you cannot
view yourself in isolation now that
doesn't that doesn't place a moral
commandment on
me uh help everybody who's poor that you
happen to meet in the street it doesn't
place a burden on me in a sense that now
I have this moral duty to help everybody
it leaves me free to make decisions
about who I help and who I don't there's
some people who I will not help there's
some people who I do not wish positive
things
upon bad people should have bad outcomes
bad people should suffer so and you have
the freedom to choose who's good who's
bad within your your decision based on
your values now I think there's an
objectivity to it there's a there's a
standard by which you should valuate
good versus bad and that standard should
be to what extent that they contribute
or hurt human life the standard is human
life and so when I say look at the Jeff
beos I say he's contributing to HBA life
good guy I might disagree with him on
stuff we might disagree about politics
we might disagree about women women dis
I don't know what we agree but overall
big picture he is pro-life right I look
at somebody like you know to take like
99.9% of our
politicians and they are pro death
they're Pro destruction they're Pro
cutting Corners in ways that destroy
human life and human potential and human
ability so I literally hate almost every
politician out there and I wish ill on
them right I don't want them to be
successful or happy I want them all to
go away right leave me alone so I
Believe In Justice I believe good things
should happen to good people and bad
things should happen to bad people so I
can I make those generalizations based
on this one you know on the other hand
if you know I shouldn't say all
politicians right so if I you know I
love Thomas Jefferson and and and George
Washington right I love Abraham Lincoln
I love people who fought for freedom and
who believed in Freedom who had this
ideas and who lived up to at least in
parts of their lives to those principles
now do I think Tom jeffson was flawed
because he held slaves absolutely but
the virtues way outweigh that in my view
and I understand people who don't accept
that you don't have to also love and
hate the entirety of the person there
parts that person that you that you're
attracted the major part is pro-life and
therefore I'm Pro that person and and I
think and I said earlier that
objectivism is philosophy of love and I
I I believe that because objectivism is
about your life about loving your life
about embracing your life about engaging
with the world about loving the world in
which you live about win-win
relationships with other people which
means to a large extent loving the good
in other people and the and the best in
other people and encouraging that and
supporting that and promoting that so I
know selfishness is a harsh word because
the culture is given it that harshness
selfishness is a harsh word because the
people who don't like selfishness want
you to believe it's a harsh word but
it's not what does it mean it means
focus on self it means take care of self
it means make yourself your highest
priority not your only priority because
in taking care self what would me what
what would I be without my wife what
would I be with without the people who
are who who who support me who help me
who who who I have these love
relationships
with it it so other people are crucial
what would my life be without you know
Steve J Steve Jobs right a lot of uh
things you mentioned here are just be
beautiful so one is win-win so one key
thing about this uh selfishness and the
idea of objectivism is a philosophy of
Love is that you don't want parasitism
so that goes that is unethical so you
actually first of all you say it win-win
a lot and I I just like that terminology
because it's a good way to see life it's
try to maximize the number of win-win
interactions absolutely that's a good
way to see business actually right well
life generally I think every aspect of
life you you want to have a win-win
relationship with your wife imagine if
it was win lose either way if you win
and she loses how long is that going to
sustain so win lose relationships are
not in
equilibrium what they turn into is lose
lose like win lose turns into lose lose
and the so the alternative the only
alternative to lose lose is win- win and
you win and the person you love wins
what's better than that right that's the
way to maximize so like the selfishness
is you're trying to maximize the win but
the way to maximize the win is to to
maximize the win win yes and and it
turns out and Adam Smith understood this
a long time time ago that if you focus
on your own
winning while respecting other people as
human beings then everybody wins and the
beauty of capitalism if we go back to
capitalism for a second the beauty of
capitalism is you cannot be successful
in capitalism without producing values
that other people appreciate and
therefore willing to buy from you and
they buy them at and and this goes back
to that question about the engineer and
Steve Jobs why is the engineer working
there because he's getting paid more
than his time is worth to him
I know people don't like to think in
those terms but that's the reality if
his time is worth more to him than what
he's getting paid he would
leave so he's
winning and is Apple winning yes because
they're getting more productivity from
him they're getting more from him than
what he's actually producing it's it's
tough it's tough because there's uh
human psychology and imperfect
information it just makes it a little
messier than the the clarity of thinking
you have about this it just you know
because I for sure but not everything in
life is an economic transaction It
ultimately is close but even if it's not
an economic transaction even if it's a
if it's a if it's a relationship
transaction when you get to a point with
a friend where you're not gaining from
the
relationship friendship's going to be
over not immediately because it takes
time for these things to manifest itself
and to really absorb and to but we
change friendships we change our loves
right we fall in and out of love love we
fall out of love because we're not love
so let's let's go back to love right
love is the most selfish of all
emotions love is about what you do to me
right so I love my wife because she
makes me feel better about myself yeah
so you know the idea of Selfless Love is
bizarre so Ein Rand used to say before
you say I love you you have to say the
I and you you have to know who you are
and you have to appreciate yourself if
you hate yourself what does it mean to
love somebody
else so my I love my wife CU she makes
me feel great about the world yeah and
she lives me for the same reason and so
I Randy used to use this example imagine
you go up to your um to be spouse the
night before the wedding and you say you
know I get nothing out of this
relationship I'm doing this purely as an
act of noble self-sacrifice
she would slap you yeah as she should
right so it no we know this intuitively
that love is selfish but we afraid to
admit it to ourselves and why because
the other side has convinced us that
selfishness is associated with
exploiting other people yeah selfishness
means lying cheating stealing walking on
corpses backstabbing
people but is that ever in your
self-interest truly right I you know I I
I'll offer be in front of an audience to
say okay how many people here have
lied you know kidding right how many of
you think that that if you did that
consistently that would make your life
better nobody thinks that right because
everybody's experienced how shitty lying
not because of how it makes you feel out
of a sense of guilt existentially just a
bad strategy yeah right you get caught
you have to create other lies to cover
up the previous lie it screws up with
your own psychology and your own
cognition you know the mind to some
extent like a computer right is an
integrating machine and in computer
science I understand there's a term
called garbage in garbage out lying is
garbage in yeah so it's not good
strategy cheating uh screwing your
customers in a business not paying your
suppliers as a businessman not good
business practices not good practices
for being alive so win-win is both model
and practical in the beauty of ir man's
philosophy and I think this is really
important is that the model is the
Practical and the Practical is the m and
therefore if you are marrow you will be
happy yeah that that's the the con
that's why the application of the
philosophy of objectivism is so easy to
practice so like or to discuss or
possible to discuss that's why you talk
about clearcut I'm not ambiguous about
my view and it's fundamentally practical
I mean that's the best of philosophies
is is practical yes it's in a sense
teaching you how to live a good life and
it's teaching you how to live a good
life not just as you but as a human
being and therefore the principles that
apply to you probably apply to me as
well and if we both share the same
principles of how to live a good life
we're not going to be
enemies when you brought up Anarchy
earlier uh it's an interesting question
because you've kind of said politicians
I mean part of it just is a little bit
joking but politicians are you know not
good people yeah so but we should have
some so so you you have an opposition to
anarchism so they first of all they want
always not bad people that is I gave
examples of people who engage in
political life who I think were good
people basically um and and but they
think they get worse over time if the
system is corrupt and I think the system
fortunately even the American system as
good as it was was founded on quicksand
and have corruption built in uh they
didn't quite get it and and they needed
Iran to get it I'm not blaming them I
don't think they they show any blame you
needed a philosophy in order to
completely fulfill the promise that is
America the promise that is the founding
of America so the the place where
corruption sneaked in is a lack in some
way of the philosophy underlying the
nation absolutely so so the
it's it's Christianity it's it's it's
you know not they hit on another
controversial topic it's religion uh
which un which undercut their morality
so the founders were explicitly
Christian and and altruistic in their
morality implicitly in terms of their
actions they were completely secular and
they were they were very secular anyway
but in their morality even they were
secularist so there's nothing in
Christianity that says that the that the
you have an inable right to pursue
happiness that's unbelievably
self-interested and a and a based on on
kind of a m philosophy of ego of
egoistic moral philosophy but they
didn't know that and they didn't know
how to ground it they implicitly they
had that fast thinking that gut that
told them that this was right and the
whole Enlightenment that period from
John lock on to really to to um to Hume
that period is about Pursuit of
Happiness using reason in pursuit of the
good life right but they can ground it
they don't really understand what reason
is and they don't really understand what
happiness requires and they can't detach
and F from Christianity they're not
allowed to politically and they I think
conceptually you just can't make that
big break Rand is an Enlightenment
thinker in that sense she is what should
have followed right
after right she should have come there
and grounded them in the secular and in
the egoistic and the oratian view of
morality as as as a a as a as a code of
values to basically to guide your life
to guide your life towards happiness
that's Aristotle view right
um
so they didn't have that so you you know
so I think that government is necessary
it's not a necessary evil it's a
necessary good because it does something
good and the good that it does is
eliminates corosion from society it
eliminates violence from society it
eliminates
the use of force between individuals
from society and that but but see the
argument like Michael M
make give me a chance here yeah is uh
why can't you apply the same kind of uh
reasoning that you've effectively used
for the rest of uh mutually agreed upon
institutions that are driven by
capitalism that we can't also hire
forces to protect us from the violence
to ensure the stability of society that
protects us from the
violence why violent why draw the line
at this particular place right well
because there is no other place to draw
a line and they and there is a line and
by the way we draw lines other places
right um we uh we don't vote we don't um
we don't
have we don't determine truth and
science based in
competition right so that's a that's a
line
but first of all some people might say I
mean there's competition in a sense that
you have alternate theories but at the
end of the day whether you decide that
this he's right or he's right is not
based on the market it's based on facts
on reality an objective reality you have
to you and and some people will never
accept that this person is right because
they don't see the Stream So first of
all what they reject what most
anarchists reject even if they don't
admit it or recognize it is they object
they they reject objective
reality and in which sense so like right
so there's a whole so the the whole
realm of
law is a scientific
realm to Define for example the
boundaries of private
property it's not an issue of
competition it's not an issue of of of
um of I have one system and you have
another system it's an issue of
objective reality and now it's more
difficult than science in a sense
because it's more difficult to prove
that my conception of property is
correct and you're correct but there has
there is a correct one in reality
there's a correct vision it's more
abstract but
look somebody has to decide what
property is so I have I have Define my
property is defined mhm by certain
boundaries and I have a police force and
I have a Judiciary System that backs my
vision and you have a claim against my
property you have a claim against my
property and you have a police force and
a judicial system that backs your
claim who's right so the our definitions
of property are different yes our
definitions of property or our claim on
the property is different so why why
we just agree on the definition of
property and but why should we agree
right your judicial system as one
definition of property my judicious
system is now you you think that there's
no such thing as intellectual property
rights and your whole system believes
that yeah and my whole system believes
there is such thing so you are
duplicating my books and handing them
out to all your friends and not paying
me a royalty yeah and I I think that's
wrong my judicial system and my police
force think that's wrong and we're both
living in the same geographic area right
so I we have overlapping jurisdictions
yeah now the anarchist would say well
we'll negotiate why should we negotiate
my system is actually right there is
such a thing as intellectual property
rights there's no negotiation here
you're wrong and you should either pay a
fine or go to jail yeah but why can't
because it's a community there multiple
there's multiple parties and it's like a
majority vote they'll they'll hire
different forces that says yeah youran
is is is on to something here with the
definition of property and we'll go with
that so Anarchist Pro democracy in in
the in the majority rule sense I think
so I I think Anarchy you know promotes
like emergent democracy right like no it
doesn't it it it I'll tell you what it
it promotes it promotes
emergent uh strife and civil war and
violence constant uninterrupted violence
cu the only way to settle the dispute
between us since we both think that we
are right and we have guns behind us to
protect that and we have a legal system
we have a whole theory of ideas is is
you're stealing my stuff how do I get it
back I invade you right I take over you
know and and who's G to who's going to
win that battle the smartest guy no the
guy with the biggest guns see but the
anarchist would say that they're using
implied like the state uses imp
Force they're already doing violence
because they they they take the state as
it is today and they refuse to engage in
the conversation about what a state
should and could look like and how we
can create mechanisms to protect us from
the state using those those D but look
this is my view of Anarchy is very
simple it's a ridiculous position it's
infantile I mean I really mean this
right and and I'm sorry to Michael but
and and all the other very very smart
very very smart an because Anarchist is
never you won't find a dumb Anarchist
right because dumb people know it
wouldn't work you have to have it's
absolutely true you have to have a
certain IQ to be an anarchist that's
true they're all really intelligence all
intelligence and the reason is that you
have to
create such a mythology in your head you
have to create so many rationalizations
any Jo the street knows it doesn't work
because they can understand what happens
when two people who are armed are in the
street and have a dispute and there's no
mechanism to resolve that dispute yeah
that's objective that's SE and this is
where it gets the objective that's
objective the whole point of government
is that it is the objective Authority
for determining the truth in one Regard
in regard to force
because the only alternative to
determining it when it comes to force is
through Force the only way to resolve
disputes is through force or through
this negotiation which is unjust because
if one part's right and one part's wrong
why negotiate
and and this is the point I'm not
against competition of governance I'm
all for competition of governance we do
that all the time it's called countries
the United States has a certain
governance structure the Soviet Union
had a governance structure Mexico has a
government structure CH and they're
competing yeah and we can observe the
competition we and in a in my world you
could move freely from one governance to
another if you didn't like your
governance you would move to a better
governance system but they have to have
autonomy within a geographic area
otherwise what you get is complete and
utter Civil War the law needs to be
objective and there needs to be one law
over a piece of ground and if you
disagree with that law you can move
somewhere else where they me this is why
Federalism is such a beautiful system
even within the United States we have
States and on certain issues we're
allowed to disagree between states like
the death penalty some states do some
states don't fine and now I can move
from one state if I don't like it but
there's certain issues you cannot have
disagreement slavery for example this is
why we had a civil war but let me one
other argument against
Anarchy markets
exist with forces has being
eliminated sorry can you say that again
Marcus markets exist where the rule of
force has been
eliminated the rule of force yes elate
so a market will exist if we know that
you can't pull a gun on me and just take
my stuff I am willing to engage in
transaction with you if we have an
implicit understanding that we're not
going to use Force against each other so
the force has a something special to it
yes it's a special it overrides cuz we
are still agreeing we can manipulate
each other yes but Force we can force
kind
of there's something fundamental about
violence force is a is a fundamental
Force it's the anti-reason it's the
anti-life it's the anti- force against
another person and it what it does it
shuts down the mind right so in order to
have a market you have to extract
Force that's F how can you have a Market
in
force yeah when I there's an Instagram
Channel called nature is metal where it
has all these videos
of animals basically having a market of
force yes but that shuts down the
ability to reason an animals don't need
to because they can't exactly so the
Innovation that is human beings is our
capacity to reason and therefore the
relegation of force to the animals we
don't do Force civilization is where we
don't have force and so what you have is
you cannot have a market in that which a
market requires the elimination of it
and I you know I I don't debate formally
these guys but I interact with them all
the time right and and you get these
absurd arguments where you know David
Freedman will say that's Milton
freedman's son he will say something
like well in Somalia in the northern
part of Somalia where they have no
government you have all these wonderful
you have these tribal uh uh tribunals of
these tribes and they resolve disputes
yeah barbarically they Sharia law they
have no respect for individual rights no
respect for property and the only reason
they have any Authority is because they
have guns and they have power and they
have
force and they do it barbarically
there's nothing civilizing about the
courts of Somalian and and they write
about Pirates and because they view
Force they don't view Force as something
unique that must be extracted from human
life and that's why Anarchy has to
devolve into violence because it treats
Force as just what's a big deal we
negotiating you know over guns so we we
covered a lot of high level philosophy
but I'd like to touch
on the troubles the chaos of the day
yeah a couple of things and I really
trying to find a hopeful path way out
so one is the current Corona virus
pandemic or in particular not the virus
but our handling of it is there
something philosophically
politically that you would like to see
that you would like to recommend that
you would like to maybe give a hopeful
message if we take that kind of
trajectory we might be able to get out
because I'm kind of worried about the
economic pain that people are feeling
that there's this quiet
suffering I mean I agree with you
completely there is a quiet suffering
it's horrible I mean I know people you
know I I go to a lot of restaurants what
one of the things we love to do is is
eat out my wife doesn't like cooking
anymore we don't have kids we don't have
kids in the house anymore so she doesn't
have to so we go out a lot we go to
restaurants and because we have our
favorites and we go to them a lot we get
to know the owners of the restaurant the
chef the and it's just heartbreaking you
know these people put their life you
know they Blood Sweat and Tears I mean
real Blood Sweat and Tears into these
projects restaurants are super difficult
to to manage most of them go bankrupt
anyway and and the restaurants we go to
a good restaurant so they've done a good
job and they've they've they they offer
unique
value and they shut them
down and you know many of them will
never open you know something like they
estimate 50 60% of restaurants in some
places won't open these are people's
lives these are people's Capital these
are people effort these are people's
Love talk about love they love what they
do particularly if they're the chef as
well and it's gone and it's disappear
and what are they going to do with their
lives now they're going to live off the
government the way our politicians would
like them bigger and bigger stimulus
plans so we can hand checks to people to
get them used to living off of us rather
than it's disgusting and it's offensive
and it's unbelievably sad and this is
where it comes to this I care about
other people I mean this idea that
objectivist don't care I mean I love
these people who who provide me with
pleasure
of eating wonderful food in in a great
environment is there something inspiring
about them too like when I see a great
restaurant I want to do better with my
my own stuff yeah exactly it's it's it's
they're inspiring anybody who does it is
excellent I love sports because it's the
one realm in which you still value and
celebrate Excellence I but I try to
celebrate Excellence everything in my
life so I I you know I try to be nice to
these people and you know with Co we we
went more to restaurant if Believe it or
and we did more takeout stuff we made an
effort particularly the restaurants we
really love to to keep them going to
encourage them to support them the
problem is the problem is philosophy
drives the
world the response the covid has been
worse than
pathetic um and it's driven by
philosophy it's driven by disrespect to
science uh ignorance and disrespect of
Statistics uh a disrespect of individual
human decision-making government has to
decide everything for us a and and just
throughout the process in a disrespect
of markets because we didn't let markets
work to to to facilitate what we needed
in order to deal with this virus if you
look at at the pl it's interesting that
the only place on the planet that's done
well with this are parts of Asia right
Taiwan did phenomenally with this and
the vice president of Taiwan is a
epidemiologist so he knew what he was
doing
and they got it right from the beginning
South Korea did did amazing even Hong
Kong and Singapore it's you know Hong
Kong is just very few
deaths and economy wasn't shut down in
any of those places there were no
lockdowns in any of those
places the CDC had
plans before this happened and how to
deal with good plans indeed if you ask
people around the world before the
pandemic which country is best prepared
for a pandemic they would have said the
United States because of the cdc's plans
and all of our emergency reserves and
all that and the
wealth and yet all of that went out the
window because people
panicked people didn't think go back to
reason people were
arrogant uh refused to to to to use the
tools that they had at their disposal to
deal with this so you deal with
pandemics it's very simple how you deal
with pandemics and this is how South
Korea and Taiwan and you deal with them
by not by uh
testing tracing and isolating that's it
yeah and you do it well and you do it
vigorously and you do it on scale if you
have to and you scale up to do it we
have the wealth to do that so one uh
question I have it's a difficult one um
so I talk about love a lot and you've
just talked about Donald Trump I
guarantee you they'll this particular
segment will be full of division from
the internet
yes but I believe
that should be and can be fixed what I'm
referring to in particular is the
division because we've talked about the
value of
reason and what I've noticed on the
Internet is the
division shuts down reason so when
people will hear you say Trump actually
the first sentence you said about Trump
they'll hear Trump and their ears will
per up and they'll immediately start in
that first sentence they'll say is he a
trump supporter or a they're not
interested in anything else after that
and then after that that's it and what
how do so my question
is you as one of the beacons of
intellectualism quite honestly I mean it
sounds silly to say but yeah you are a
beacon of Reason how do we bring people
together long enough to where we can
reason I mean there's no easy way out of
this
because the fact that people have become
tribal and they have very
tribal uh and and the
tribe uh in the tribe reason doesn't
matter in the it's all about emotion
it's all about belonging or not
belonging and you don't want to stand
out you don't want to have a different
opinion you want to belong and it's all
about
belonging it took us
decades to get back to tribalism where
we were hundreds of years ago
it took Millennium to get out of
tribalism it took the enlightenment to
get us to the point of individualism
where we think for in reason respect for
reason before that we were all tribal so
it took the enlightenment to get us out
of it we've been in the enlightenment
for about 250 years influenced by the
Enlightenment and we're and it's fading
the impact is fading so what would we
need to get out of it we need
self-esteem people join a tribe because
they don't trust their own mind
people join a tribe because they're
afraid to stand on their own two feet
they're afraid to think for themselves
they're afraid to be different they're
afraid to be unique they're afraid to be
an
individual people need self-esteem to
gain
self-esteem they have to they have to
have respect for rationality they have
to think and they have to achieve and
they have to recognize that
achievement um to do that they have to
be they have to have respect for
thinking they have to have to respect
for reason uh and we have to and and
think about the schools we have to have
schools that teach people to think teach
people to to Value their mind we have
schools that teach people to feel and
value their feelings we have groups of
six-year-olds sitting around a circle
discussing politics what they don't know
anything they're ignorant see you don't
know anything when you're ignorant yes
you can feel but your feelings are
useless as as as decision-making tools
but but but we emphasize emotion it's
all about socialization and emotion this
is why they talk about this generation
of snowflakes they can't hear anything
that that they're opposed to because
they've not learned how to use their
mind how to think um so it boils down to
teaching people how to think two things
how to think and how to care about
themselves so it's it's thinking of
self-esteem and they're connect it
because when you think you achieve which
gains you gains your self-esteem when
you have self-esteem it's easier to
think for
yourself and I don't know how you do
that quickly I mean I think leadership
matters so you know part of what I try
to do is try to encourage people to do
those things but I am a small voice you
you asked me when early on you said we
should talk about why I'm not more
famous I'm not famous you know my
following is not big it's very small in
in a in in the in the in the scope of
things well yours in objectivism and
that question could you Linger on it for
a moment why isn't
objectivism more famous I think because
it's so challenging it it's it's not
challenging to me right when I first
encountered
objectivism it's like after the first
shock and after the first uh kind of
none of this can be true this is all Bs
and fighting it once I got it it was EAS
it was easy it required years of
studying but it was easy in the sense of
yes this makes
sense but it's challenging because it
upends everything it really says what my
mother taught me is wrong and what my
politicians say left and right is wrong
all of them there's not a single
politician on which I agree with on
almost anything right because on the
fundamentals we
disagree and what might teachers are
telling me is wrong and what Jesus said
is wrong and it's hard but the thing is
so you you talk about politics and all
that kind of stuff but you know most
people don't care the the the more
powerful thing about objectivism is the
Practical of my life of how I
revolutionize my life and it that feels
to be like a very important and
appealing you know get your
together kind of yeah but this is why
this is why Jordan Peterson is so much
more successful than we are right why is
it make your bed or whatever make bed
yeah because his personal responsibility
is
shallow it's make your bed stand up
straight it's what my mother told me
when I was growing up there's nothing
new about Jordan Peterson he says
Embrace Christianity Christianity is
fine right religion is okay just do
these few things and you'll be fine and
by the way he
says happiness you know you either have
it or you don't you know it's random you
don't actually you can't bring about
your own happiness so he's given people
an easy out people want easy outs people
buy self-help books that give them five
principles for living a you know shallow
I'm telling them think stand on your own
two feet be independent don't listen to
your mother do your own thing but
thoughtfully not based on emotions so
you're responsible not just for a set of
particular habits and so on you're
responsible for everything yes and you
respon here's here's the big one right
you're responsible for shaping your own
soul your
Consciousness you get to decide what
it's going to be like and the only tool
you have is your mind your only tool is
is is your mind well your emotions play
a tool when they're properly cultivated
they play a role in that and the tools
you have is thinking experiencing living
coming to the right conclusions you know
listening to great music and and watch
watching good movies and and and and art
is very important in shaping your own
soul and helping you do this it's got a
it's got a crucial role in that but it's
work and it's lonely work because it's
work you do with yourself now if you
find somebody who you love who shares
these values and you can do with them
that's great but it's monly lonely work
it's hard it's challenging it's ends
your world the reward is
unbelievable but but even at the think
about think about the enlightenment
right so up until the enlightenment
where was truth truth came from a book
and there were a few people who
understood the book most of us couldn't
read and they conveyed it to us and they
just told us what to do and in that
sense life's easy it sucks and we die
young and we have nothing and we don't
enjoy it but it's easy and then
Enlightenment comes around and says
we've got this tool it's called reason
and allows us to discover truth about
the world it's not in a book it's
actually your reason allows you to
discover stuff about the world and I
consider the first really the first
figure of the enlightment is Newton not
Lo right it's a scientist because he
teaches us the laws of mechanics like
how does stuff work and people go oh wow
this is cool I can use my mind I can
discover truth isn't that amazing and
everything opens up once you do that hey
if I can discover if I understand the
laws of motion if I can understand truth
in the world how come I can't decide who
I marry I mean everything was fixed in
those days how come I can't decide what
profession I should be in right
everybody belong to a guild how come I
can't decide who my political leader
should
be that's so it's all reason it's all
once you understand the efficacy of your
own mind to understand truth to
understand reality discover truth not
understand truth Discover it everything
opens up now you can take responsibility
for your own life cuzz now you have the
tool to do it but we are living in an
era where postmodernism tells us there
is no truth there is no reality and our
mind is useless anyway critical race
Theory tells us that you're determined
by your race and your race shapes
everything and your free will is
meaningless and your reason doesn't
matter because reason is just shaped by
your genes and shaped by your color of
your skin the it's the most racist
theory of all and you've got you've got
our friended you see Irvine telling them
oh your senses don't tell you anything
about reality anyway reality is what it
is so you know what's the purpose of
reason it's to invent stuff it's to make
stuff up then what use is that it's
complete fantasy you've basically got
every philosophical intellectual voice
in the
culture telling them their reason is
impotent there's like a Steven Pinker
who tries and I love Pinker and he's
he's really good and I love his books
but you know he needs to be stronger
about this and there's a few people on
kind of there's a few people partially
in the intellectual dark web and
otherwise who are big on reason but not
consistent enough and not full
understanding of what it means or what
it
implies and then there's little old
me and and it's me against the world in
a sense because I'm not only willing to
accept to to to articulate the case for
reason but then what that implies it
implies Freedom it implies capitalism it
implies taking personal responsibility
over your own life and there other
intellectual dark web people get to
reason and oh politics you you can be
whatever no you can't you can't be a
socialist and for reason right it
doesn't actually th those are
incompatible and you can't be a
determinist and for reason reason and
determinism don't go together the whole
point of reason is that it's an
achievement and it requires effort and
it requires engagement it requires
choice so it is it does feel like little
old me because that's that's it I the
Allies I have are allies I have allies
among the some Libertarians over
economics I have some allies in the
intellectual dark web maybe over reason
but none of them are allies in the full
sense my allies are the other
objectivist but we're just they're not a
lot of
us for people listening to this for the
few folks kind of listening to this and
and thinking about the trajectory of
their own
life I guess the takeaway
is a reason is a difficult project but a
project that's worthy of taking on yeah
and difficult is I don't know if
difficult is the right word because
difficult sounds like it's you know I
have to push this boulder up a hill it's
not difficult in that sense it's
difficult in the sense that it requires
energy and focus it requires effort but
it's immediately rewarding it's fun to
do and it's rewards uh
immediate pretty quick right it takes a
while to undo all the garbage that you
have but we all have that I had that
took me years and years and years to get
rid of certain Concepts and certain
emotions that I had that didn't make any
sense but it it takes a long time to
fully integrate that so I I don't want
it to sound like it's a burden like it's
hard in that sense it does require focus
and energy and I don't want to sound
like a Dr Spock I don't want to and I
don't think I do because I'm pretty
passionate guy but I don't want it to
appear like oh just forget about
emotions emotions are how you experience
the world you want to have strong
emotions you want to live you want to
experience life strongly and
passionately you just need to know that
emotions are not cognition it's another
realm it's like don't mix the Realms
think about outcomes and then experience
them and sometimes your emotions won't
coincide with what you think should be
and that means there's still more
integration to be
done y on as I told you offline I've
been a fan of yours for a long time it's
been I was a little star struck early on
getting a little more comfortable now
gone
the I I highly recommend that people uh
that haven't heard your work listen to
it to the Yon Brook show you know the
times I've disagreed with something I've
hear you say is
usually a first step on a journey of
learning a lot more about that thing
about that Viewpoint and that's been so
F feeling it's been a gift the
passion you know you talk about reason a
lot but the passion radiates in in a way
that's just uh contagious and on
inspiring so thank you for everything
you've done for this world it's it's
truly an honor and a pleasure to talk to
you well thank you and and it's it's my
reward is that that if I've had an
impact on you and people like you wow I
mean that's that's amazing when you
wrote to me an email saying you being a
fan I was blown away cuz I had no idea
and completely unexpected and and I you
know every every few months I discover
hey I had an impact on this Pro and
people that I would have never thought
and they so you know the only way to
change the
world is to change your one mind at a
time and uh and and when you when you
have an impact on a good mind and a mind
that cares about the world and a mind
that goes out and does something about
it then you get the exponential growth
so through you I've impacted other
people and that's how you get that's how
you ultimately change everything and and
so I'm in spite of everything I'm I'm
optimistic in a sense that I think that
the progress we've made today is so
universally accepted the scientific
progress the technological problem it
can just vanish like it did under when
Rome collapsed and and whether it's in
the United States of some way progress
will
continue the the the the human project
for human progress will continue and I
think these ideas ideas of reason and
individualism will always be at the
heart of it and uh you know what we are
doing is continuing the project of the
Enlightenment and and it's the project
that will will save this save the human
race and and allow it to to for ellon
musk and for um Jeff bezus to reach the
Stars thank you for masterfully ending
on a hopeful note youran a pleasure and
an honor thanks thanks for listening to
this conversation with euron Brook and
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at Lex Freedman and now let me leave you
with some words from Iron Rand do not
let your fire go out Spark by
Irreplaceable spark in the Hopeless
swamps of the not quite the not yet and
the not at all do not let the hero in
your soul perish in lonely frustration
for the life you deserved and have never
been able to reach the world you desire
can be one it exists it is real it is
possible it is
yours thank you for listening and hope
to see you next time