1 00:00:00,520 --> 00:00:02,799 It's a loyalty you. If you have to acknowledge you want to be here, 2 00:00:03,080 --> 00:00:09,080 ask not what your country can do for you, Ask what you can 3 00:00:09,119 --> 00:00:16,280 do for your country. Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the 4 00:00:16,359 --> 00:00:20,000 Ricochet Podcast with Rob long and me, James Lollax. Peter Robinson is out 5 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:24,519 and today we talked to Richard Epstein about Oh TikTok, Supreme Court evs, 6 00:00:24,559 --> 00:00:27,239 you name it, we got it. So let's apps. It's a podcast. 7 00:00:27,320 --> 00:00:32,759 By Dance has had to apologize in the past for failing to follow appropriate 8 00:00:32,799 --> 00:00:38,079 political control from the CCP. And we also have major American investors who have 9 00:00:38,159 --> 00:00:42,479 billions on the line having invested in ByteDance, that are now using that money 10 00:00:42,920 --> 00:00:47,079 to lobby against any action in the House in the Senate. America is a 11 00:00:47,159 --> 00:00:53,000 nation that can be defined in a single word. How the foot, excuse 12 00:00:53,039 --> 00:00:57,119 music? Welcome everybody. This is the Ricochet Podcast. It's number six hundred 13 00:00:57,119 --> 00:01:00,960 and eighty four. I'm James Lelyax in newly snowy Minneapolis. After a barren 14 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:07,680 winter, We're getting dumped here supposedly on Sunday eight inches. Oh. Rob 15 00:01:07,719 --> 00:01:11,439 Longs in New York, where I assume the snow is long gone, and 16 00:01:11,799 --> 00:01:15,239 that there are hints of spring of the air. People are as are there 17 00:01:15,280 --> 00:01:19,359 there won't in Gotham have a spring to their step. Eustace Tilly is looking 18 00:01:19,359 --> 00:01:23,439 at a butterfly through his monocle. Wow, good, useless Tilly reference. 19 00:01:23,959 --> 00:01:27,200 It's freezing, actually got cold. And so there's a lot of people wandering 20 00:01:27,200 --> 00:01:30,040 around looking baffled like this was not supposed to happen. But you know, 21 00:01:30,680 --> 00:01:34,400 well you want baffled, you want baffled. Okay, let's stay, let's 22 00:01:34,439 --> 00:01:38,840 talk baffled. I guess we're about at the four year anniversary of that thing 23 00:01:38,959 --> 00:01:46,439 that happened, the whole shutdown, And it's remarkable for me to look around 24 00:01:46,439 --> 00:01:49,920 the office and say that, you know, there's about four or five more 25 00:01:49,920 --> 00:01:53,480 people in today than there were four years ago when everybody went home for good. 26 00:01:55,719 --> 00:01:59,159 I get unaccountably angry when I start to think about this stuff again, 27 00:01:59,319 --> 00:02:01,439 about what we want through and it doesn't happen. It doesn't help when the 28 00:02:01,480 --> 00:02:07,719 New York Times, for example, we'll have headlines like this, what the 29 00:02:07,840 --> 00:02:12,960 data says, oor data about pandemic school closures? Four years later? Now, 30 00:02:12,960 --> 00:02:15,000 gosh, I wonder, I really wonder here, I'm stroking my chin, 31 00:02:15,199 --> 00:02:20,520 stroking my chin. I's got an eyebrow cocked spock like, let's go 32 00:02:20,560 --> 00:02:25,360 to the cut line. The more time students spent in remote instruction, the 33 00:02:25,400 --> 00:02:32,199 further they fell behind, and experts say extended closures did little to stop the 34 00:02:32,240 --> 00:02:38,520 spread of COVID. Imagine that you take the entire school population, put them 35 00:02:38,520 --> 00:02:40,960 home behind a screen, and they're not learning as much as they do when 36 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:45,159 they have to go someplace and sit in the class. Rob is this is 37 00:02:45,360 --> 00:02:51,520 stunning a development to you as it is to me. No, it's not 38 00:02:51,599 --> 00:02:55,960 a study development. I mean, obviously I'm tormenting two things. One is, 39 00:02:57,000 --> 00:03:00,680 I feel like we need to keep reminding ourselves what happened so that we 40 00:03:00,800 --> 00:03:08,199 remember that often the the initial response of our you know, of the bureaucrats 41 00:03:08,199 --> 00:03:14,199 who sort of could it turns out how a enormous amount of control we we 42 00:03:14,360 --> 00:03:16,319 question. But the second thing is, we just need to educate ourselves about 43 00:03:17,439 --> 00:03:23,039 risk and what risk really is. And we need to listen to experts, 44 00:03:23,120 --> 00:03:27,000 and certainly this one expert that you and I know very well, Jay Baticharia, 45 00:03:28,360 --> 00:03:32,360 and we need to be prepared, I think, in the future to 46 00:03:32,439 --> 00:03:36,560 push back on this stuff. I mean, the way the way the world 47 00:03:36,560 --> 00:03:38,039 works will push back on it, and it will be something really terrible. 48 00:03:38,080 --> 00:03:42,520 Like you, we really should stay indoors, you know, right right the 49 00:03:42,560 --> 00:03:47,039 way we will win the last war. But as a sort of general I 50 00:03:47,080 --> 00:03:53,520 don't know, morality tale. What we learned is that people will. People 51 00:03:53,560 --> 00:03:58,400 will will when when when it caught, When it caught, when when your 52 00:03:58,400 --> 00:04:05,759 liberties are truncated, when you are when the when the economy shut down, 53 00:04:06,800 --> 00:04:14,639 when children are sent away from school and hospitals are essentially closed to any anything 54 00:04:14,639 --> 00:04:18,839 other than COVID. When all that stuff comes, it comes from people trying 55 00:04:18,839 --> 00:04:24,680 to help you. It won't come from, you know, villains twirling their 56 00:04:24,759 --> 00:04:30,399 mustache. It will come from people in a lab coat with a stethoscope. 57 00:04:30,600 --> 00:04:34,040 It will come from the people who really think they're doing the right thing. 58 00:04:34,720 --> 00:04:39,439 Right. We tend to be, we tend to be. I think we 59 00:04:39,519 --> 00:04:43,000 tend to be scared of villains. I think properly right, and Stalins and 60 00:04:43,040 --> 00:04:46,199 Hitler's they're terrible, right. But it seems like the twenty first century is 61 00:04:46,240 --> 00:04:51,480 going to be about people trying to help me and save me and protect me 62 00:04:53,040 --> 00:04:59,199 and basically raise me like a veal, you know, you shoe box somewhere, 63 00:04:59,279 --> 00:05:01,680 because who knows you do otherwise I give everybody up. I give everybody 64 00:05:01,720 --> 00:05:03,959 a pass. On the first month of this stuff, when we didn't know, 65 00:05:04,360 --> 00:05:06,360 I mean we didn't know. I mean we did, but we didn't 66 00:05:06,399 --> 00:05:10,759 know everything, and it was an unfolding situation, and it seemed it was 67 00:05:10,800 --> 00:05:14,040 not unreasonable to say, hey, go home for a couple of weeks, 68 00:05:14,120 --> 00:05:18,959 let's let's let's all just see. But two things. One them them they 69 00:05:20,000 --> 00:05:25,800 knowing from the start that these masks were strapping around our face were in efficacious, 70 00:05:26,879 --> 00:05:32,879 and then making them a a prerequisite for entering civilization unless you had one 71 00:05:32,920 --> 00:05:38,839 of those things. And two, the notion that it's two weeks to stop 72 00:05:38,879 --> 00:05:41,600 the spread was never what it was going to be. They knew it was 73 00:05:41,639 --> 00:05:45,600 going to be longer than that, and so they defended those two things. 74 00:05:45,639 --> 00:05:47,240 And they did not tell us the truth because we couldn't handle the truth. 75 00:05:47,240 --> 00:05:51,399 We were just little children who would not behave properly. We'd rip off our 76 00:05:51,399 --> 00:05:56,360 masks and go face free into the world. And then whoever so, I 77 00:05:56,399 --> 00:06:00,000 mean, in the first we were expecting having seen these things in China, 78 00:06:00,160 --> 00:06:04,240 you know, with the tanks going down, trucks going down the streets, 79 00:06:04,279 --> 00:06:11,639 spraying bleach everywhere, welding people into their apartments. Early videos of people dropping 80 00:06:11,680 --> 00:06:15,480 on the street dead. We expected here in America that we would that they'd 81 00:06:15,480 --> 00:06:18,199 be stacked how like cornwood, and there would be death, death, death, 82 00:06:18,279 --> 00:06:21,399 death, death. Well it didn't happen. I mean, what happened 83 00:06:21,439 --> 00:06:25,800 was we put old people into nursing with sick people into nursing homes and killed 84 00:06:25,800 --> 00:06:29,040 a lot of them. We intubated in an awful lot of people, put 85 00:06:29,079 --> 00:06:30,680 rest, put them in respirators, which turned out not to have been the 86 00:06:30,759 --> 00:06:36,040 right idea. But I got the feeling pretty early on that this was not 87 00:06:36,800 --> 00:06:43,639 Ebola level stuff. This was yeah, kind of like flu that we'd had 88 00:06:43,680 --> 00:06:46,000 before in two thousand and eight, because I remember we had a flu panic 89 00:06:46,040 --> 00:06:51,839 in two thousand and eight. So it they will, yes, want to 90 00:06:51,879 --> 00:06:56,800 do something for our own good. And the problem isn't that they seem they 91 00:06:57,000 --> 00:07:00,079 seem to have squandered the good will that we gave to the last thing that 92 00:07:00,160 --> 00:07:05,040 the last institution that we really seem to trust with the lab code guys, 93 00:07:05,079 --> 00:07:08,680 the science guys, right right right, Well, I mean, you know, 94 00:07:08,759 --> 00:07:11,680 we can still trust them in a way, right, I mean, 95 00:07:13,839 --> 00:07:18,839 irrespective of your feelings of vaccine mandates or how the vaccine was sold, it 96 00:07:18,879 --> 00:07:31,600 is incredibly amazing that we got a very effective diminishure of COVID symptoms medicine, 97 00:07:31,839 --> 00:07:35,560 I'll just call it. That in a very short amount of time. Suggests 98 00:07:35,560 --> 00:07:38,920 that when you, when you really put your mind to it, you can 99 00:07:38,920 --> 00:07:41,879 do some amazing things. Now you may say, was it's officially tested, 100 00:07:41,959 --> 00:07:44,519 all those things could be true. I'm not even litigating that, but I 101 00:07:44,560 --> 00:07:46,959 mean I'm talking because I'm One of the things I'm saying is that it happened 102 00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:51,600 so fast, and that's pretty good. Uh. And I think all those 103 00:07:51,600 --> 00:07:56,879 things are true about the external you know, what happens in DC or what 104 00:07:56,920 --> 00:08:00,480 happens at the CDC, or what happens where bureaucrats gather to make ru Okay, 105 00:08:00,519 --> 00:08:03,160 that's true. Well, I think we need to do some as citizens, 106 00:08:03,199 --> 00:08:07,399 need to do some self reflection. You know, there's a very good 107 00:08:07,519 --> 00:08:11,319 Lenten time we have a week before a holy week to do some reflections. 108 00:08:11,439 --> 00:08:16,959 What were we asking of our government? What were we asking of our of 109 00:08:16,040 --> 00:08:20,360 our bureaucratic overseers? And I think we were asking too much from them. 110 00:08:20,399 --> 00:08:24,920 I don't think that they were irrational in thinking that we wanted them to fix 111 00:08:24,959 --> 00:08:28,759 everything, and we wanted them to do it quietly, and if that meant 112 00:08:28,759 --> 00:08:31,080 we had to like curtail some of our freedoms, we were happy to do 113 00:08:31,120 --> 00:08:35,600 it. I don't think they were. I don't think they were freelancing here. 114 00:08:35,639 --> 00:08:37,840 I think we have, over time, as a very rich society, 115 00:08:37,919 --> 00:08:43,559 is a very rich country, have kind of let ourselves get a little flabby, 116 00:08:43,039 --> 00:08:46,679 and we've decided that government's going to teach our kids and teach them everything, 117 00:08:48,240 --> 00:08:50,080 and that the world's going to be safe, and we're gonna, you 118 00:08:50,120 --> 00:08:54,200 know, by buy a product and I use it wrong and it gives me 119 00:08:54,240 --> 00:08:58,840 an electric shock. I get to sue. We have kind of decided that 120 00:08:58,879 --> 00:09:01,399 we wanted to live in a no risk situation and not pay any price for 121 00:09:01,440 --> 00:09:07,679 it. And so, yes, I think that there's a huge government overstep, 122 00:09:07,679 --> 00:09:09,440 and I think the bureaucrats always take more than they need to take, 123 00:09:09,480 --> 00:09:16,159 more than they are that they should be allowed to. But we've asked them 124 00:09:16,200 --> 00:09:20,679 to do a lot of stuff that our four bears would be shocked by. 125 00:09:20,679 --> 00:09:22,360 I think I would disagree that where you phrase that. I don't think we 126 00:09:22,519 --> 00:09:26,720 asked them to do this. I think we acquiesced to an incremental series of 127 00:09:26,799 --> 00:09:31,720 diminutions of liberty and choice. We went along with it. We didn't ask 128 00:09:31,799 --> 00:09:37,440 them. We didn't ask anybody to put up do not trespass tapes around toys 129 00:09:37,480 --> 00:09:43,559 and seeds at a Walmart. Yeah, we didn't ask them to stick her 130 00:09:43,600 --> 00:09:46,200 on the floor six feet distance things, which is based on nothing. They 131 00:09:46,279 --> 00:09:52,759 knew it. We didn't ask them if could you please kindly shut down the 132 00:09:52,759 --> 00:09:54,559 heart. I used to have to go to the when I went to the 133 00:09:54,559 --> 00:09:58,000 hardware store. You couldn't go in. You can go in like a man 134 00:09:58,080 --> 00:09:58,720 and just, you know, look at the bolts and the nuts and the 135 00:09:58,759 --> 00:10:01,440 rest of it and talk about this and get some popcorn out and pet the 136 00:10:01,480 --> 00:10:05,159 dog and all the other things we do at the hardware store. You had 137 00:10:05,159 --> 00:10:07,840 to go up to the front door, tell them what you wanted. Somebody 138 00:10:07,879 --> 00:10:09,200 would go in the back and see if they could get it and then bring 139 00:10:09,240 --> 00:10:13,440 it back. So you had this line on a weekend of these you know, 140 00:10:13,960 --> 00:10:18,360 of tired men with their masks outside six feet apart apart because we didn't 141 00:10:18,399 --> 00:10:22,000 ask for any of that we asked them to be sensible, and sensible stuff 142 00:10:22,000 --> 00:10:28,000 we would have followed. But the totally sudden we're going to control all the 143 00:10:28,080 --> 00:10:33,600 things for your own benefit, we can't apecially COVID. Yeah, I agree 144 00:10:33,600 --> 00:10:35,720 with that. I agree with all that. I just think that it was 145 00:10:35,759 --> 00:10:39,879 part I mean, and I'm not excusing it. I'm just trying to put 146 00:10:39,919 --> 00:10:46,879 a little bit of the onus on us. I mean, they didn't put 147 00:10:48,919 --> 00:10:54,480 If you buy a bucket at hump Depot, most of the bucket, the 148 00:10:54,480 --> 00:11:01,440 exterior of the bucket are warnings, uh huh, that you could that children 149 00:11:01,480 --> 00:11:09,320 could drown in the bucket. I want what you got to You got a 150 00:11:09,320 --> 00:11:11,799 home depot, You buy a bucket. It is an orange thing because it's 151 00:11:11,879 --> 00:11:16,759 dangerous a bucket, and it says on the side and has a little picture 152 00:11:16,799 --> 00:11:20,000 of a kid bending over with his head in the bucket because I guess kids 153 00:11:20,000 --> 00:11:26,120 have drowned in buckets before. We somehow let ourselves get to a position where 154 00:11:26,159 --> 00:11:33,519 we were concerned that people didn't know how to use a bucket, and that 155 00:11:33,600 --> 00:11:39,159 leads to in an emergency, which I guess COVID was a lot of like 156 00:11:39,200 --> 00:11:43,279 it sets the sets the table for a lot of bad stuff. So we 157 00:11:43,399 --> 00:11:46,399 have to be willing to we have to be willing to live in a slightly 158 00:11:46,440 --> 00:11:54,840 more uh unsupervised world that I think we have as an Americans, which is 159 00:11:54,960 --> 00:11:58,799 natural, the natural outcome of being rich and successful and wealthy and everything's great. 160 00:11:58,840 --> 00:12:03,679 You get a little you just get a little little soft Two things about 161 00:12:03,679 --> 00:12:05,320 that. One, I was taking out of the garbage yesterday and I got 162 00:12:05,320 --> 00:12:09,480 out a new bag, new plastic bag, and I was fitting it in. 163 00:12:09,559 --> 00:12:11,480 I saw, as usual that it's sat on the side about this garbage 164 00:12:11,480 --> 00:12:15,919 bag. This is not a toy. And I thought, and I thought 165 00:12:16,039 --> 00:12:22,720 Marcel Duchamp would really be happy to know that his idea caught on. No, 166 00:12:24,279 --> 00:12:26,799 is not a toy. But the second thing is is you're right, 167 00:12:26,960 --> 00:12:31,000 and that we have come to accept everything that we have now, which is 168 00:12:31,080 --> 00:12:35,000 basic civil order. And we have civil order. I walk outside and there's 169 00:12:35,000 --> 00:12:37,399 not warlords out there extorting me to cross the street for a couple of doubloons. 170 00:12:39,159 --> 00:12:43,720 That the buildings stand. I'm looking out the window. I see plumes 171 00:12:43,759 --> 00:12:46,519 of steam coming from the power plant, which means that it's generating power. 172 00:12:48,120 --> 00:12:50,000 The elevator is going to work in the building here the food will be available 173 00:12:50,960 --> 00:12:54,080 down at the pizza restaurant if I don't. Everything solidly works and is prosperous 174 00:12:54,519 --> 00:12:58,799 and is great. I'm in a marvelous office building, a miracle of technology 175 00:12:58,799 --> 00:13:03,080 there, tinkering away with the margins at it. I will drive home tomorrow 176 00:13:03,120 --> 00:13:05,240 in my car, which works on a street, which is fairly good. 177 00:13:05,799 --> 00:13:11,559 And everything works when you grow up in that generation after generation that becomes built 178 00:13:11,600 --> 00:13:15,240 into the people. I think this idea that we have to focus on the 179 00:13:15,279 --> 00:13:18,200 one thing that bothers us the most, which is capitalism, and once we 180 00:13:18,240 --> 00:13:22,320 get rid of that, everything will continue to work, but it will be 181 00:13:22,759 --> 00:13:26,200 pure and wonderful, and without realizing, of course, that the very thing 182 00:13:26,240 --> 00:13:30,440 that they want to destroy is the very thing that makes all of this stuff 183 00:13:30,480 --> 00:13:35,679 possible. And so yes, we are coasting on we you know, we 184 00:13:35,759 --> 00:13:39,240 are shoving all of the seed corn into microwave bags, as I like to 185 00:13:39,279 --> 00:13:43,000 say, and raising a generation of people who do, who have seemingly no 186 00:13:43,159 --> 00:13:46,320 idea what it took to get to this point and how much actually it takes 187 00:13:46,360 --> 00:13:50,159 to maintain it. So if that's related to what you just said, I 188 00:13:50,159 --> 00:13:52,759 hope it is, because that was my intention. Yeah, it was fray 189 00:13:52,799 --> 00:13:54,960 related. Fray related, I think all about I mean, I think that's 190 00:13:54,960 --> 00:13:58,000 all true. I would I would say, you know, it happens over 191 00:13:58,039 --> 00:14:00,399 time, happens slowly, doesn't. I mean, it just happen. It's 192 00:14:00,519 --> 00:14:07,159 kind of we We just expect to walk out the door and everything be safe 193 00:14:07,159 --> 00:14:11,120 and clean, and if it's not, we want to sue somebody or hire 194 00:14:11,120 --> 00:14:13,799 a bureaucrat to make sure it is the Roman. The Roman bureaucrat who was 195 00:14:13,840 --> 00:14:18,360 taking time away from the you know, from his inscribes and his engraving of 196 00:14:18,399 --> 00:14:22,720 whatever the latest pointless law was, went down to the baths of Diocletian and 197 00:14:22,879 --> 00:14:26,200 was accustomed to being warm in the in the calidarium and cold and the frigid 198 00:14:26,200 --> 00:14:28,399 areum, and the water would come out of the spouts and all the rest 199 00:14:28,440 --> 00:14:33,399 of it. And all those guys expected that to happen, because there were 200 00:14:33,399 --> 00:14:37,840 guys who were main who were galloping along the aqueduct, however, many miles 201 00:14:37,879 --> 00:14:39,519 away, to make sure that there wasn't something that got in there and impeded 202 00:14:39,559 --> 00:14:43,000 the flow of water. And when you get to the point where the Roman 203 00:14:43,399 --> 00:14:48,519 guy is trying to wash his hands and there's no water and he doesn't know 204 00:14:48,639 --> 00:14:54,720 why, right, right, that's when you're in trouble. Here's a chilling 205 00:14:54,799 --> 00:14:56,600 thing. I know. We got to go to our guest, Ridgeda Seine, 206 00:14:56,600 --> 00:14:58,519 because I'm very excited to talk to him. I got a bunch of 207 00:14:58,519 --> 00:15:03,440 things talk about with him. Here's here's the chilling thing I heard. And 208 00:15:03,679 --> 00:15:05,120 this goes back to the seventies. So you can't really blame it on anybody 209 00:15:05,200 --> 00:15:13,440 or any particular you know policy. But when you hear the phray three Mile 210 00:15:13,519 --> 00:15:20,639 Island, you think nuclear power plant accident. You think you know radiation, 211 00:15:22,000 --> 00:15:24,159 and you know it's not Chernobyl, but you think that's something bad happened. 212 00:15:24,159 --> 00:15:31,360 There of a friend of mine who's he's been in this business for a long 213 00:15:31,399 --> 00:15:33,240 time and they make geig your counters, a bunch of other things, and 214 00:15:33,279 --> 00:15:37,840 they've got this company in Long Island for one time and his father started it. 215 00:15:37,720 --> 00:15:41,840 They're sort of brain act family. And he remembers as a kid being 216 00:15:41,399 --> 00:15:46,440 the state police coming to his house in the middle of the night and dragging 217 00:15:46,480 --> 00:15:48,799 his dad out of bed and saying, we need you, we need you 218 00:15:50,759 --> 00:15:52,559 because there's been a disaster three Mile Island. He was there at the very 219 00:15:52,559 --> 00:15:56,879 beginning, And what he says is the most amazing thing about Three Mile Island 220 00:15:56,960 --> 00:16:07,799 is that nothing happened. The plant was fine, nothing leaked, nothing broke, 221 00:16:10,360 --> 00:16:15,240 and this thing, this, this nothing that happened was enough to drive 222 00:16:15,279 --> 00:16:22,559 the country into hysteria. And to how many dominoes you want to like tip 223 00:16:22,600 --> 00:16:25,440 over here? I like to tip them all over because I like I like 224 00:16:25,559 --> 00:16:30,919 stories. So because of a nothing thing that happened that didn't happen, and 225 00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:37,000 the outrageous hysterical reaction to a non event, we ended up not building anymore 226 00:16:37,159 --> 00:16:41,679 nuclear power plants, not making them better, not building smaller, smarter, 227 00:16:41,159 --> 00:16:45,720 safer ones. We ended up not building them at all. Rely more on 228 00:16:47,000 --> 00:16:48,919 the bad coal that we are that it's going to kill us all apparently, 229 00:16:49,200 --> 00:16:56,840 but also more on foreign oil. We handed over trillions of dollars to bad 230 00:16:56,919 --> 00:17:00,960 people who hate us, and we use this money wisely. And they did, 231 00:17:02,039 --> 00:17:07,880 they bought stuff, and then they also supported Alcata And it was all 232 00:17:07,920 --> 00:17:15,559 because of a weird crackpot reaction to something that didn't happen. So there's a 233 00:17:15,559 --> 00:17:22,000 certain story. There's a certain COVID story too. So that's that's my that's 234 00:17:22,039 --> 00:17:26,799 my Friday. Morrow for the day. I read yesterday on Twitter somebody was 235 00:17:26,799 --> 00:17:30,839 describing a program that Richard Nixon had proposed, which was to build one thousand 236 00:17:30,039 --> 00:17:38,440 nuclear reactors in America, a thousand, one thousand everywhere, which today would 237 00:17:38,519 --> 00:17:45,279 supply two of the energy that America needs. Of course, we can't have 238 00:17:45,319 --> 00:17:48,799 that because of Three Mile Island, because Jane Fonda made a movie and all 239 00:17:48,839 --> 00:17:52,759 the rest of it, and we all got scared and wanted to go back 240 00:17:52,799 --> 00:17:55,200 to the sun because the sun is good. The sun is wonderful, the 241 00:17:55,240 --> 00:17:57,680 wind is good, the wind is sweet. They're all morally, I know. 242 00:17:57,680 --> 00:18:02,200 We got to Richard before we do it, to say I did talk 243 00:18:02,240 --> 00:18:04,720 to a guy once a long time ago who was you know, you know, 244 00:18:04,799 --> 00:18:07,480 on the right, on our side stuff. And he said, and 245 00:18:07,519 --> 00:18:10,759 he's an engineer, and he's aid, sort of another brainiac, and he 246 00:18:10,759 --> 00:18:14,799 said, you know, the thing bad it is that the Sun probably will 247 00:18:15,039 --> 00:18:18,319 supply most of our energy when we figure out how to collect it. And 248 00:18:18,359 --> 00:18:22,559 he had he said, this this is a technological problem we haven't solved, 249 00:18:22,960 --> 00:18:26,720 but if we do, it could be amazing. He said, But of 250 00:18:26,720 --> 00:18:30,559 course that's you know, maybe fifty sixty seventy hundred years the way, but 251 00:18:30,640 --> 00:18:33,000 it is a simply a technological problem that we could solve, which then goes 252 00:18:33,039 --> 00:18:36,319 back to the idea of like, okay, well, then what are we 253 00:18:36,359 --> 00:18:38,079 teaching kids in school? I hope we're teaching them about this stuff. Instead, 254 00:18:38,119 --> 00:18:44,599 we are not teaching about this stuff. We are teaching them about how 255 00:18:44,680 --> 00:18:49,160 gender is a construct rather than how to like collect the power that comes to 256 00:18:49,279 --> 00:18:55,920 us for free of one billion, trillion jillion nuclear explosions every second. That's 257 00:18:55,920 --> 00:18:59,880 what the sun is apparently, or something like that. Anyway, I'm done 258 00:19:00,240 --> 00:19:02,880 the important issues. So maybe it was good that they were out of school 259 00:19:02,920 --> 00:19:07,880 for four years. Well, moving right along, we welcome out of the 260 00:19:07,880 --> 00:19:10,640 podcast Becauchet writer. As a matter of fact, one of our faves, 261 00:19:10,720 --> 00:19:15,519 Richard Epstein. Lawrence a Tish professor of law at New York University, senior 262 00:19:15,640 --> 00:19:18,759 lecture at the University of Chicago, and a senior fellow with the Hoover Institution. 263 00:19:18,920 --> 00:19:22,440 Richard, thanks for joining us. Hello, everybody, I wanted to 264 00:19:22,480 --> 00:19:26,039 The EPA has got a new rule that they've come out that's going to require 265 00:19:26,039 --> 00:19:30,319 the automakers to make lots of electric vehicles and hybrids and then slash carbon emissions 266 00:19:30,319 --> 00:19:33,960 from gasoline powered models. Biden says that he wants, you know, sixty 267 00:19:34,000 --> 00:19:37,440 seventy percent of it to be electric by twenty thirty four. This is a 268 00:19:37,480 --> 00:19:41,039 diminut. This is a revocation of people's choice when it comes to the kind 269 00:19:41,039 --> 00:19:45,119 of automobile they want, and it has incredible ripple effects when you go through 270 00:19:45,119 --> 00:19:49,400 the infrastructure that we use to distribute gas throughout our cities and our country. 271 00:19:51,079 --> 00:19:56,359 Is there any legal thing that the opposition party can do to get around this 272 00:19:56,640 --> 00:20:00,160 or are we powerless to just have this regulation reche our lives? Well, 273 00:20:00,240 --> 00:20:03,119 I don't think anybody is going to be powerless. I mean, this is 274 00:20:03,160 --> 00:20:08,440 so sufficient. But let's sort of take the simplest point. He's president until 275 00:20:08,480 --> 00:20:11,559 the end of this year, maybe another term. He's trying to dictate the 276 00:20:11,599 --> 00:20:15,920 policy that's going to exist up to twenty thirty five and beyond. This is 277 00:20:15,920 --> 00:20:21,640 a classic illustration of governmental overreach, trying to take away from the next generation 278 00:20:21,759 --> 00:20:26,200 it's ability to do what this generation wants to do. So the first thing 279 00:20:26,240 --> 00:20:29,400 to remember is this is all being done by executive order. It's not being 280 00:20:29,400 --> 00:20:33,720 done by legislation. You get a Trump presidency and everything that's in place at 281 00:20:33,720 --> 00:20:38,319 this particular point is in fact going to disappear. It turns out January twenty 282 00:20:38,359 --> 00:20:44,319 first is the most important day in any admission administration, because what happens is 283 00:20:44,440 --> 00:20:48,240 the previous guys find that all their favorite stuff is now going to be removed. 284 00:20:48,279 --> 00:20:52,759 Biden did that with respect the Trump when he took into office, and 285 00:20:52,880 --> 00:20:55,680 most of the Trump stuff is pretty good. Most of the Biden stuff is 286 00:20:55,720 --> 00:20:59,480 awful. So that's the first line is that you can project. Secondly, 287 00:20:59,480 --> 00:21:04,240 on the leadlegal side, there is right now this incredible debate going on about 288 00:21:04,279 --> 00:21:08,839 the scope of administrative law and what an agency can do and what a president 289 00:21:08,880 --> 00:21:14,519 can do. And the position that the Biden administration is taking is that any 290 00:21:14,559 --> 00:21:18,240 broad command to make things better allows them to do anything that they want to 291 00:21:18,279 --> 00:21:22,119 do under any circumstances. It's pretty clear that that kind of rule will be 292 00:21:22,119 --> 00:21:26,599 gone as a matter of law by the end of this term. We don't 293 00:21:26,640 --> 00:21:30,960 know exactly how much it's going to be cut back, but the major questions 294 00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:34,319 doctrine in the West Virginia case and the local case, these are all cases 295 00:21:34,319 --> 00:21:40,440 which are doing one way within another for the ability for unilateral actions to be 296 00:21:40,519 --> 00:21:45,319 taking place without the express authority of Congress, and so I think that that's 297 00:21:45,359 --> 00:21:48,440 going to be a serious charge. There's also I think going to be a 298 00:21:48,480 --> 00:21:53,119 serious kind of constitutional charge as to whether or not these regulations are actually confiscatory 299 00:21:53,559 --> 00:21:57,640 in the fact that they take huge amounts of invested capital that people have in 300 00:21:57,680 --> 00:22:00,880 certain technologies and they're saying, you have to get rid of it. Why 301 00:22:00,920 --> 00:22:03,920 do you have to get rid of it? Well, what the administration doesn't 302 00:22:03,960 --> 00:22:08,400 know about global warming? It's the entire corpus of literature with respect to global 303 00:22:08,440 --> 00:22:12,319 warming. I mean, they are truly ignorant. This is and they could 304 00:22:12,359 --> 00:22:17,319 never quite ask themselves the question, if you decide to shut down on one 305 00:22:17,359 --> 00:22:21,400 technology, what's going to happen with the ills that are associated with other kinds 306 00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:26,119 of technologies. Solar energy is not the end all. I mean, if 307 00:22:26,119 --> 00:22:29,640 you were to look at the normal situation, this same government says, when 308 00:22:29,680 --> 00:22:33,559 you cover a plot of land one acre rather not one acre one square met 309 00:22:33,640 --> 00:22:36,680 or wide, it turns out it's a form of pollution with respect to the 310 00:22:36,759 --> 00:22:38,799 circle, and you have to get our approval to do it. Then when 311 00:22:38,839 --> 00:22:42,880 they cover the landscape with solar planels, which are much more damaging, they 312 00:22:42,920 --> 00:22:47,720 say we ignore all the collateral damages that they start to take. So it's 313 00:22:47,720 --> 00:22:51,680 going to happen if somebody's going to file a suit and go through the entire 314 00:22:51,880 --> 00:22:55,960 litany of the new perils that you're introducing in the areas to stop the old 315 00:22:56,000 --> 00:22:59,920 one. And then you mentioned the stuff with respect to evs and hybrids. 316 00:23:00,200 --> 00:23:03,880 Well, I think at this point it's a pretty clear step to say that 317 00:23:03,960 --> 00:23:07,960 the electronic vehicle is doomed if it's going to be a sole situation. I 318 00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:14,759 know so many family incidents of people in my own family right who rented because 319 00:23:14,759 --> 00:23:18,519 they couldn't get anything else. In an electronic vehicle which stalled out on the 320 00:23:18,599 --> 00:23:22,000 road forty miles with two small children in the back seat, you're hobble into 321 00:23:22,039 --> 00:23:26,880 a station to get it charged. One of the three stations is inoperable, 322 00:23:26,880 --> 00:23:29,559 and the other two have lines with three and four people in front of them. 323 00:23:29,960 --> 00:23:32,839 So it turns out that an hour and a half joined in the fossil 324 00:23:32,880 --> 00:23:37,119 fuel car is a three hour wait at one of these turning stations, and 325 00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:41,119 people will not tolerate that. Hybrids, you don't have to Mandata hybrid if 326 00:23:41,160 --> 00:23:45,000 it makes some good sense. People are going to start to buy them, 327 00:23:45,279 --> 00:23:48,079 and in fact, in many cases they do make good sense. A hybrid 328 00:23:48,119 --> 00:23:53,079 in terms of its environmental degradation, is much less dangerous than it's an electric 329 00:23:53,160 --> 00:23:59,480 vehicle, because the electronic vehicles require that you get rare earths and this requires 330 00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:03,000 a huge amount mining, which creates all sorts of runoff, slag and old 331 00:24:03,039 --> 00:24:07,759 fashioned pollution. If you could cut that down by a factor of twenty twentyfold 332 00:24:07,799 --> 00:24:11,799 and get five percent of it and have gasoline and shift back before between the 333 00:24:11,799 --> 00:24:15,640 two of them, it's a dominant solutions. And you've seen all the rental 334 00:24:15,680 --> 00:24:22,319 car companies right they're dumping their electronics vehicle because nobody wants to drive those miserable 335 00:24:22,359 --> 00:24:26,720 things. And so this is the third situation that you have, is there 336 00:24:26,720 --> 00:24:32,319 will be a huge consumer backlash with respect to this stuff. It's already taking 337 00:24:32,400 --> 00:24:37,079 place in Pennsylvania because the Biden administration, mean another one of its food situations, 338 00:24:37,400 --> 00:24:41,559 has said that we don't want to import natural gas to foreign countries. 339 00:24:41,799 --> 00:24:45,640 Well, that means you have to shut down many of the wells, and 340 00:24:45,720 --> 00:24:48,440 that means that the people in the business have to be out of business, 341 00:24:48,440 --> 00:24:51,680 and it means that all the people will get royalties for the work that's done 342 00:24:51,680 --> 00:24:55,920 on their land will go without royalties, These things will not go unnoticing and 343 00:24:56,000 --> 00:25:00,559 elections, and already Biden has shown some signs of backing off this stuff, 344 00:25:00,559 --> 00:25:03,319 and my guess the political pressures will lead them to do more. But it's 345 00:25:03,319 --> 00:25:07,960 so problem about these guys that are all ideologues of the worst nature. They 346 00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:11,440 never see any trade off. They only see everything in terms of black and 347 00:25:11,480 --> 00:25:15,480 white. And when they even talk about global warming, you look at the 348 00:25:15,480 --> 00:25:21,680 securities regulation, it's striking. There isn't a single number in that entire litany 349 00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:26,559 of lungs that taking place what they simply do under these circumstances. They get 350 00:25:26,599 --> 00:25:29,519 up there and say, we have to save the planet from carbon dioxide, 351 00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:33,279 and they never ask the following question, given the total emissions and the responses 352 00:25:33,279 --> 00:25:38,519 in places like China, if you cut down with disclosures by x percent of 353 00:25:38,599 --> 00:25:42,599 American pollution, if how much is it going to result in climate change? 354 00:25:42,759 --> 00:25:47,880 The answer is probably over the next fifty years, it's zero point one percent 355 00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:52,079 the degree that's going to happen for billions of dollars. There's no sense of 356 00:25:52,119 --> 00:25:56,079 the trade offs and no awareness of the fact that every time the United States 357 00:25:56,119 --> 00:25:59,279 decides to pull back, the Chinese are going to say there's less of a 358 00:25:59,319 --> 00:26:02,200 problem because they not doing anything. We men will fill up the void. 359 00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:07,640 This is an administration which is tone deaf and completely uninformed about the way things 360 00:26:07,720 --> 00:26:11,799 go, and I do think that they're going to face a fierce political reaction. 361 00:26:12,440 --> 00:26:17,359 It's already happening in Pennsylvania. It will happen in other kinds of states 362 00:26:17,359 --> 00:26:21,799 where this is sensitive, and I hope that they will return to their senses. 363 00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:25,359 But let me mention one other thing, which I think is always the 364 00:26:25,440 --> 00:26:29,200 case. What happens is when people start talking about fracking, they say, 365 00:26:29,279 --> 00:26:32,759 do you remember what happened in two thousand and nine or two and eleven, 366 00:26:33,200 --> 00:26:36,200 And the answer is yes, we do. If you then look forward. 367 00:26:36,240 --> 00:26:41,359 The question you have to understand is that these are manageable technologies in which the 368 00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:45,119 advances are simply a normous, so that basically speaking, in a ten year 369 00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:52,240 period, every major kind of environmental hazard that's associated with fracking is reduced by 370 00:26:52,599 --> 00:26:55,200 in order of magnittone. So it used to be one hundred, it's now 371 00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:57,920 going to be ten. And you don't want to ignore all of these huge 372 00:26:59,079 --> 00:27:03,920 changes in advance. It's much more difficult to have an advance with respect to 373 00:27:03,039 --> 00:27:07,799 solar energy or with respect to wind because the basic problem of storage is one 374 00:27:07,839 --> 00:27:11,720 that they cannot solve in any feasible way. I have a friend named Buddy 375 00:27:11,799 --> 00:27:15,759 Francis Men who has run this site called the Manhattan Contrarian, and what he 376 00:27:15,839 --> 00:27:18,839 does all the time is he says, this is what you have to do 377 00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:23,720 in order to make these conversions work, and it's just simply crazy. So 378 00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:30,359 I tried to experiment myself and take your your cell phone, it's got a 379 00:27:30,359 --> 00:27:33,000 little battery in it, disconnected, and see what happens to the amount of 380 00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:37,000 leakage that takes place. And it turns out, in this ideal environment, 381 00:27:37,039 --> 00:27:40,519 if you don't charge it, within a day or two, you've lost half 382 00:27:40,559 --> 00:27:44,599 your power. Well, you're trying to store solar energy or wind energy for 383 00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:48,640 period, I mean you have to spend more energy to keep the thing from 384 00:27:48,759 --> 00:27:52,839 disapining than you're worth. I can know how to store a fossil fuel energy. 385 00:27:52,839 --> 00:27:56,079 I put it in a bucket, shut the door, and make sure 386 00:27:56,119 --> 00:28:00,000 that it doesn't blow up. So this is in fact, that inexcusable, 387 00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:04,319 inexcusable set of tragedies now that are being forsted upon us on this issue, 388 00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:10,400 Trump is better on other issues. I dare not say, well, I 389 00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:12,759 wish you had some opinions on that matter, which I'm sorry, but that 390 00:28:12,839 --> 00:28:18,640 was so warm up it? Yeah? Can we can we shift from energy 391 00:28:18,720 --> 00:28:22,079 just just a bit? There are two sort of issues now that I think 392 00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:27,240 are maybe related, maybe not related, the vaguely First Amendment. One is 393 00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:38,839 Murphy versus Missouri. Yes, and the other is TikTok you make me smile, 394 00:28:40,079 --> 00:28:44,480 I'm I'm I'll just start with the second one first. I am sympathetic 395 00:28:44,559 --> 00:28:48,720 to the argument that the communist government in China is terrible it needs to be 396 00:28:51,519 --> 00:28:59,400 stood up to and curtailed and punished for its overreach. But I'm also sympathetic 397 00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:07,200 to the idea that people have to do what they do, and like the 398 00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:12,240 idea of banning an app seems like a mistake and a violation of First Amendment 399 00:29:12,279 --> 00:29:15,839 et cetera, et cetera. It depends on what there's things going on, 400 00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:21,240 and I think you're looking at it from the wrong end of the barrel as 401 00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:23,680 it work. I have no doubt that much of the speech that takes place 402 00:29:25,519 --> 00:29:30,039 on a site like TikTok or anywhere else is fully protected in terms of what 403 00:29:30,160 --> 00:29:33,160 it hopes to do and so forth. It's also the case that the Chinese 404 00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:38,640 government it wants to engage in disinformation campaigns, can find lots of other vehicles 405 00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:42,400 through which to do it, so that shutting down TikTok is not going to 406 00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:48,519 stop that particular element unless the rest of the media world decides to take up 407 00:29:48,519 --> 00:29:51,720 to it. That's not the concern that one has with TikTok. And the 408 00:29:51,839 --> 00:29:56,440 concern that one has with TikTok and I cannot verify, is that these people 409 00:29:56,480 --> 00:30:00,160 collect the enormous amounts of information about everybody who works on this system, and 410 00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:03,839 that the company that operator but says, oh, we'll keep our operations out 411 00:30:03,839 --> 00:30:07,799 of China. And I don't believe the Chinese when they make any promise about 412 00:30:07,839 --> 00:30:11,119 anything. And I think this has to be done against that background that they 413 00:30:11,559 --> 00:30:18,039 completely disreputable trading partners. And so if they can continue tormoscis information, the 414 00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:22,440 real risk to securities at the back end where they collect information and data. 415 00:30:22,599 --> 00:30:26,799 Think about what the American views is on that we are absolutely freaked out about 416 00:30:26,839 --> 00:30:30,359 privacy, and rightly so, and so what we do is we have all 417 00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:34,119 sorts of rules that put in various kinds of walls to make sure that information 418 00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:37,920 which is collected from one progress cannot be used for another. They won't do 419 00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:42,839 anything of that particular sort. And so the position that we took in this 420 00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:48,119 country, which is sell this off to an independent operator and let them do 421 00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:51,799 it and you get paid for it, they won't even talk about that because 422 00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:56,000 if they do create that kind of separation, the primary benefit for them is 423 00:30:56,039 --> 00:30:59,319 going to be lost because they won't be able to do data harvesting on a 424 00:30:59,359 --> 00:31:03,559 massive scale. But you're focusing on only one issue, why I understand, 425 00:31:03,559 --> 00:31:10,319 which is the data the data harvesting problem. But more often than not, 426 00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:14,039 when I'm looking at these sort of certainly the congressional and them sort of media 427 00:31:14,039 --> 00:31:19,480 debates, it's about propaganda. It's about the chi comms are gonna di store. 428 00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:26,400 This is not an argument that I care about. Really. The propaganda 429 00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:30,200 argument is a serious argument, but it's not unique to tic TAC. I 430 00:31:30,200 --> 00:31:33,279 mean, as far as I'm concerned, everyone ab our media companies has an 431 00:31:33,359 --> 00:31:37,039 enormous problem. You mentioned the stuff that's going on in the Biden place with 432 00:31:37,079 --> 00:31:41,880 respect to the supervision. That's a classicalization of disinformation being put forward by our 433 00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:45,640 government, only in this particular case it turns out to be our own. 434 00:31:45,839 --> 00:31:49,400 And I thought the Supreme Court was much too kind when they said, well, 435 00:31:49,559 --> 00:31:53,079 it's all matter of government speech. Well it's not all a matter of 436 00:31:53,119 --> 00:31:57,599 government speech, because these were not public statements of policy. They were private 437 00:31:57,640 --> 00:32:02,559 threats and private promises to carryers. And I regard that as utterly unacceptable in 438 00:32:02,559 --> 00:32:07,519 a democratic state. But going back to Tikta, it's the back end that 439 00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:10,880 really matters. And in terms of the free speech, what happens if they 440 00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:15,400 decide to pull the apparatus from the United States, another platform which has the 441 00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:20,279 same operating characteristics will come into place, and all of a sudden you can 442 00:32:20,319 --> 00:32:22,720 have the same kinds of videos that made the place so popular to begin with. 443 00:32:23,119 --> 00:32:27,880 And so I think the free speech can migrate, And therefore we ought 444 00:32:27,880 --> 00:32:31,440 to comment most seriously on the question of how much is this a threat? 445 00:32:31,799 --> 00:32:35,279 And here, rob I mean the thing I wanted to say, which I 446 00:32:35,319 --> 00:32:38,920 think is always true under these cases, but makes this so hard is all 447 00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:44,480 the relevant information is to some extent classify, and if it's classified, it 448 00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:47,480 it's not really perfect for public debate, and I don't like having to trust 449 00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:52,400 public officials on anything. And so if you ask me what my basic argument 450 00:32:52,559 --> 00:32:58,039 is, I am relying on the following brim pride. The Chinese have never 451 00:32:58,119 --> 00:33:02,279 are respected in any form of obviously never respected any form of intellectual property, 452 00:33:02,599 --> 00:33:07,119 have always engaged in hostile activities against every company that tries to do business in 453 00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:10,920 there. They steal secrets right and left. I just don't think they're all 454 00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:15,480 trustworthy active and so therefore I think, look, either you sell it off, 455 00:33:15,839 --> 00:33:19,599 which the speech can survive, or if you want to keep it, 456 00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:22,519 we'll find some other platform. They will not sell it off because if they 457 00:33:22,559 --> 00:33:27,559 had to sell it off, they probably could not even purge the algorithms that 458 00:33:27,599 --> 00:33:30,279 they have in there of their insidious qualities. In fact, I'd even go 459 00:33:30,359 --> 00:33:34,480 so far to say is that they sold the whole thing off, they're going 460 00:33:34,559 --> 00:33:37,000 to be bugging the stuff that they're setting them up, and you have to 461 00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:42,480 go through a massive disinfecting program to make sure that there are some moves that 462 00:33:42,519 --> 00:33:45,759 are built into the software which could then relay some information back to the Chinese 463 00:33:45,799 --> 00:33:50,599 through some back channel. I mean, my level of distrust is total. 464 00:33:50,759 --> 00:33:52,359 And so the question that we're going to ask you is not, given what 465 00:33:52,400 --> 00:33:55,799 you've seen in the Taiwan Straits and what you've seen everywhere else with the you 466 00:33:55,920 --> 00:34:00,400 guys and so forth, is there any reason to believe were that any Chinese 467 00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:06,799 official states I don't have said this fifteen years ago, but I sort of 468 00:34:06,799 --> 00:34:09,320 agree with you. But can I just pitch this idea to you that I 469 00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:13,679 haven't even thought through so you can shoot it down instantly? Is that if 470 00:34:13,679 --> 00:34:16,960 we believe in the idea of free trade, that free trade is generally a 471 00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:24,599 good thing. Yes, if it's fair and free right, meaning no one's 472 00:34:24,599 --> 00:34:30,679 putting their phone on the scale. Couldn't you, maybe waggishly or in a 473 00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:36,239 troll like fashion, say to the chi cooms, look, TikTok's fine, 474 00:34:37,639 --> 00:34:43,280 but you can keep it. You just have to open it up in China. 475 00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:47,079 Just have to let Chinese people use it freely. No, of course, 476 00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:51,599 all that one may they have another group that could spy on in another 477 00:34:51,639 --> 00:34:54,199 way. Look, one of the things about free trade, and this was 478 00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:58,719 quite by accident. When I was at Hooper about ten years ago, I 479 00:34:59,119 --> 00:35:01,519 chanced to meet some my friend who is going to talk about free trade in 480 00:35:01,519 --> 00:35:07,199 the military national security issue, and there's a non classified conference and they allowed 481 00:35:07,199 --> 00:35:10,280 me to attend, And the moment you sit there, you realize that nobody 482 00:35:10,320 --> 00:35:15,519 in the military is a free trader, if what you mean by that expressions 483 00:35:15,519 --> 00:35:17,719 They say, you take a military stuff that's made by a grumm and airport 484 00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:22,199 company and you sell it to whoever wants to buy it. So you sit 485 00:35:22,280 --> 00:35:25,039 there and you start to listen to the kinds of stuff that they talk about. 486 00:35:25,719 --> 00:35:30,119 There's no such thing as just selling it to Somebody's sold on all sorts 487 00:35:30,119 --> 00:35:35,079 of elaborate conditions. These are conditions that are not imposed by the vendor necessarily. 488 00:35:35,519 --> 00:35:38,079 They're often imposed by the United States government, which says, this country 489 00:35:38,079 --> 00:35:43,239 doesn't rate this kind of technology. And what you see is that there are 490 00:35:43,239 --> 00:35:46,840 restrictions on used, restrictions on how these things are modeled, instrictions on how 491 00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:51,639 they're going to be upgraded in one form or another. So that agreements that 492 00:35:51,760 --> 00:35:57,199 are made with respect to military hardware are in fact subject to reams of investigation 493 00:35:57,239 --> 00:36:00,480 of one form or another. It is generally not appreciate it, including by 494 00:36:00,559 --> 00:36:06,559 me in some sense, is to just how convoluted licensing agreements are and sales 495 00:36:06,599 --> 00:36:10,199 agreements are when you're dealing with sensitive technology. The definition of a sale is 496 00:36:10,239 --> 00:36:15,800 simply saying I'm going to use something in exchange for money consideration called the price, 497 00:36:15,159 --> 00:36:20,000 and buying a newspaper is a sale as this buy a piece of military 498 00:36:20,039 --> 00:36:23,559 hardware. But there the similarity ends. And so the problem that you have 499 00:36:23,719 --> 00:36:30,159 in this field is if every other kind of technology which is adaptable for military 500 00:36:30,239 --> 00:36:35,000 purposes can be subject to export restrictions in what I would regard as a legitimate 501 00:36:35,039 --> 00:36:38,159 exercise of national security, then one of these platforms, which is a double 502 00:36:38,199 --> 00:36:42,639 ganga and works in both ways, has to be treated more or less in 503 00:36:42,679 --> 00:36:46,039 the same kind of way. And what this does, unfortunately for us, 504 00:36:46,199 --> 00:36:50,880 is that it means you have to trust the judgment of people will put in 505 00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:53,280 these positions to see just how much the stuff you're going to sell and how 506 00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:58,599 much not. So take the United States sport relationship with Israel, right, 507 00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:01,159 we sell them a lot of stuff, they sell us a lot of stuff. 508 00:37:01,639 --> 00:37:05,880 But one of the things that they have is sharing agreements of information about 509 00:37:05,880 --> 00:37:09,039 all the stuff that's sold back and forth across this particular line. And you'll 510 00:37:09,079 --> 00:37:14,079 make that agreement with some companies you'd never make them with other countries under these 511 00:37:14,119 --> 00:37:17,199 circumstances. And it's very common for some to say is, look, you're 512 00:37:17,320 --> 00:37:21,199 doing this. You want our mitilitary stuff, We're going to give you the 513 00:37:21,239 --> 00:37:22,679 B package. We're not going to give you the A package. And then 514 00:37:22,679 --> 00:37:27,719 they'll negotiate up and down on all these items, changing the price and changing 515 00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:31,199 the security. So I don't think the free trade model works particularly well. 516 00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:35,280 It works well with steel, right, I mean, you don't want to 517 00:37:35,280 --> 00:37:40,159 have mister Biden putting a national security kabash on to deal with nippont the takeover 518 00:37:40,280 --> 00:37:45,320 us Steele, which is designed to playcate certain resentments in his party, his 519 00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:49,719 coalation. But this stuff, I'm afraid. I mean, I wrote a 520 00:37:49,760 --> 00:37:52,239 book called Simple Rules for a Complex World. I really believe in that book. 521 00:37:52,840 --> 00:37:58,239 But another book to be written about exceptions to simple rules. And it 522 00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:02,000 turns out, whenever there's uncertain about the future use of force, it's always 523 00:38:02,039 --> 00:38:06,760 an analysis of two different kinds of errors that you have to deal with, 524 00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:10,800 right, And so when you're dealing with all of these trade situations, is 525 00:38:10,840 --> 00:38:15,440 the gain from trade worth the security risk it's being traded? And whenever you 526 00:38:15,519 --> 00:38:19,360 do these kinds of analyses. They have to be done at the margin. 527 00:38:19,599 --> 00:38:22,519 Now, whenever they're done at the margin, you're going to have honest disputes 528 00:38:22,559 --> 00:38:25,400 by competent peoples to what should be done. In my case, in this 529 00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:30,400 case, I don't think TikTok is close to the line because this is not 530 00:38:30,519 --> 00:38:35,039 somebody whom we'd sell any military equipment to voluntarily. And so if we get 531 00:38:35,079 --> 00:38:40,199 military stuff we packaged as disguised usage of back end day, I think we 532 00:38:40,320 --> 00:38:45,599 have to be much more careful about it. I can't be conclusive about this, 533 00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:49,079 and I know that there's some opposition in the Senate, but I think 534 00:38:49,079 --> 00:38:52,360 they're going to have to be a lot of public and private deliberations on it. 535 00:38:52,599 --> 00:38:55,039 But I do not think that the bipartisan result that you've got in the 536 00:38:55,119 --> 00:39:02,119 House could be easily attributed to partisan politics. For a second before Rob gets 537 00:39:02,159 --> 00:39:05,719 him, because I know Rob wants to ask more about the Supreme Court decisions. 538 00:39:06,159 --> 00:39:08,039 The problem with TikTok might be, though, even if we buy it 539 00:39:08,039 --> 00:39:13,079 and you talk about purging the algorithm, is that's true. It's not the 540 00:39:13,119 --> 00:39:15,519 fact that it collects data and sends it back to China that worries a lot 541 00:39:15,559 --> 00:39:20,239 of people. It's the fact that it is sort of a brain worm transmission 542 00:39:20,239 --> 00:39:25,760 device that the Chinese have exquisitely tweaked in order to platform the worst sort of 543 00:39:25,760 --> 00:39:31,360 aspects of American society and the worst sort of silly, frivolous nonsense that we 544 00:39:31,639 --> 00:39:36,800 fritter away our time staring at our glowing rectangles, while the Chinese kids themselves 545 00:39:36,840 --> 00:39:38,719 are looking at TikTok versions that tell them to go to school and be good 546 00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:43,800 at math and be patriotic. And we were talking before you got on here 547 00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:46,559 about how we as a society have sort of willingly put ourselves in a position 548 00:39:46,639 --> 00:39:51,639 of softness. If we got TikTok back and put it into American hands and 549 00:39:51,719 --> 00:39:57,880 somebody came up with a competitor that said we are the wholesome alternative to TikTok, 550 00:39:58,159 --> 00:40:04,119 it would fail because people want to go to the carnival and see the 551 00:40:04,159 --> 00:40:06,559 geeks in the family being the bear. Debilding and rest of bating is my 552 00:40:06,639 --> 00:40:09,480 thought. Anyway, that's so, yes, I mean, you're right. 553 00:40:09,599 --> 00:40:15,400 I mean, the single most important thing about education in the United States and 554 00:40:15,519 --> 00:40:21,840 has become standalistic great universities and the DEEI movement is about to basically destroy huge 555 00:40:21,840 --> 00:40:24,960 amounts of what goes on. I am just utterly shocked at the kinds of 556 00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:30,480 stuff that I read, which I regard as just intellectual dribble, having huge 557 00:40:30,559 --> 00:40:35,559 influences in a major American universities. But this is a problem that goes far 558 00:40:35,639 --> 00:40:39,280 beyond ticktak. What it is is we've created a system in which the diversity 559 00:40:39,320 --> 00:40:45,519 culture is so powerful that anybody who wants to teach science and science is no 560 00:40:45,639 --> 00:40:49,440 longer regarded as progressive or in light. And I mean his man named Stanley 561 00:40:49,480 --> 00:40:53,800 Goldfarb, who has an operation called Do Not Harm, who described the experiences 562 00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:58,960 he had before he was fired at the University of Pennsylvania when they try to 563 00:40:58,960 --> 00:41:01,840 make sure that pathology she was in the curriculum, and all these characters wanted 564 00:41:01,840 --> 00:41:06,800 the tools to talk about underserved minorities and so forth. And the odd thing 565 00:41:06,840 --> 00:41:09,880 about it is, you're deserving everybody in this particular world if you're spend your 566 00:41:09,880 --> 00:41:15,719 time talking about things, because what medicine is often about is making incremental advances 567 00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:19,960 in technologies that a huge import in the way in which things run. So 568 00:41:20,039 --> 00:41:22,480 let me just give you a simple example of what you want to do in 569 00:41:22,559 --> 00:41:25,199 medicine. You have to take care of old people and they need to take 570 00:41:25,199 --> 00:41:29,679 a pill die And if you have to give the same pill five times a 571 00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:31,360 day, it's going to take a nurse's aid and they're going to be a 572 00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:35,519 huge numbers of errors. Then there's going to be somebody saying, well I 573 00:41:35,639 --> 00:41:37,840 missed the dose. I'll double the dose and that's probably a mistake, and 574 00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:40,519 you get all sorts of things. Somebody comes along with a one to day 575 00:41:40,599 --> 00:41:45,880 pill and it turns out that the service obligations are cut by ninety percent and 576 00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:50,960 the reliability goes up by ninety cent. But that's what you want to help 577 00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:52,599 poor people, and you want to help folks. What you need to do 578 00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:59,599 is to get yourself technologies in which the ability to transmit the technologies to individuals 579 00:41:59,639 --> 00:42:02,960 feeding is going to be facilitated, which will reduce the need that you have 580 00:42:04,079 --> 00:42:07,440 to have for tend in care with respect to elderly people and increase the reliability 581 00:42:07,480 --> 00:42:13,239 of the transmission. So what's going on here is you just basically kill our 582 00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:15,679 heroes. I mean, my friend Jeff Flier, Libertarian used to be the 583 00:42:15,679 --> 00:42:20,679 dean of Harvard, and the moment he left the New Dean came in and 584 00:42:20,719 --> 00:42:22,239 I think it was a sheet. What they did is they looked at all 585 00:42:22,239 --> 00:42:27,039 the great pictures of the scientists on the wall. They're white males, and 586 00:42:27,079 --> 00:42:29,719 so they take them all off and they say, well, how can an 587 00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:31,760 Asian woman work in that environment? Well, this is how you work in 588 00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:35,800 that vira. See those guys up there. If you work really hard, 589 00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:38,440 maybe you could be on that Sulm show. And you want to join them. 590 00:42:38,480 --> 00:42:42,559 You don't want to pretend that they don't exist. So we have a 591 00:42:42,679 --> 00:42:46,039 culture of mediocrity. I've been told, and I suspect it's true that one 592 00:42:46,039 --> 00:42:51,079 of the problems that Boeing has with respect to its engineering is that it has 593 00:42:51,119 --> 00:42:53,880 a DEI program, And there is no place for that kind of stuff when 594 00:42:53,880 --> 00:42:58,119 you're dealing with human lives and safety. And if you want to look at 595 00:42:58,119 --> 00:43:01,119 PG and E it whin's all of the words. But every kind of product 596 00:43:01,119 --> 00:43:05,760 that they try to make is subject to all sorts of difficulties. And then 597 00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:07,119 you have to look the state on fire, yeah, and then you put 598 00:43:07,159 --> 00:43:12,880 the state on fire the same thing in Hawaii. These are all sorts of 599 00:43:13,199 --> 00:43:17,360 situations where sound husbandry is not practiced, and that anytime something happens, you 600 00:43:17,480 --> 00:43:22,000 never attributed to human management. You always attribute it to global warming. Even 601 00:43:22,039 --> 00:43:27,000 in times when the temperatures are going down, it's not going to be one 602 00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:30,679 tenth of a degree that's going to explain a tenfold increase in the destruction of 603 00:43:30,760 --> 00:43:35,199 wildlife and so forth. It's human management. And you know, one of 604 00:43:35,239 --> 00:43:38,280 the nice things is that one of the congressmen said, look, I'm going 605 00:43:38,360 --> 00:43:43,440 to show you two air photographs one of the coke lands from Georgia Pacific, 606 00:43:43,519 --> 00:43:45,920 and these are immaculate and they're always taken care of. And then you look 607 00:43:45,920 --> 00:43:51,800 at the government land which specialized in leaving dead wooden places kindling for future fire. 608 00:43:52,360 --> 00:43:54,599 And where do the fire start. They start on the place where nobody 609 00:43:54,639 --> 00:43:59,599 actually tends to the forest, saying that nature must take its course. We 610 00:44:00,159 --> 00:44:04,360 have to do is to completely rethink the way in which we take our stuff 611 00:44:04,679 --> 00:44:07,920 and to remember that excellence and merit are the only things that produce long term 612 00:44:07,920 --> 00:44:13,719 improvements with the overall operation of a system, and we don't do that. 613 00:44:14,480 --> 00:44:16,119 And so, I mean, you look at the president, it's terrible. 614 00:44:16,599 --> 00:44:20,719 One of the other areas that I work in, unfortunately has to do with 615 00:44:20,880 --> 00:44:24,679 military stuff. I'm proud to say that I am now the lawyer who's suing 616 00:44:25,440 --> 00:44:30,639 Joe Biden. Shall we say, well, because what he's done is replaced 617 00:44:30,679 --> 00:44:35,719 all the experts on the various military service boards on the grounds that they didn't 618 00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:38,800 agree with his politics. So it's through somebody like hr McMaster off one of 619 00:44:38,840 --> 00:44:43,039 these committees so he could put one of his trolls in their place. And 620 00:44:43,079 --> 00:44:46,360 it's completely illegal by any standard. And we got a Trump judge who wrote 621 00:44:46,360 --> 00:44:51,320 an absurd opinion saying, while the president's entitled to have the people he wants 622 00:44:51,320 --> 00:44:54,519 to advise, and when the statute says they have to be bipartisan and independent 623 00:44:54,800 --> 00:44:58,880 in the way in which they start to operate, Well, what's happened to 624 00:44:58,960 --> 00:45:02,800 the service academy, right, Well, it turns out the alumni which used 625 00:45:02,840 --> 00:45:08,199 to be the source of the next generation fierce family inheritance and they basically are 626 00:45:08,280 --> 00:45:12,960 disgusted with this. The enlisted men are reduced, and so we have an 627 00:45:13,119 --> 00:45:16,159 army which is getting weakened in terms of the average calibri it's performance. And 628 00:45:16,199 --> 00:45:20,599 then we get a president who sufficiently wise and said, in the world of 629 00:45:20,679 --> 00:45:24,559 the most dangerous situation, we'll project power by reducing our force. This is 630 00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:30,280 not a sustainable situation that we have. And I'm afraid that what you're seeing 631 00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:37,639 here with TikTok, it's a tiny tip of a very large iceberg in which 632 00:45:37,679 --> 00:45:42,400 it turns out the virtues that I grew up with and which drove my life. 633 00:45:42,440 --> 00:45:45,239 When I was young, people said to me, we don't love you. 634 00:45:45,599 --> 00:45:49,920 You want to do something performed, And they basically said, if you 635 00:45:50,039 --> 00:45:52,440 fail and you're not going to make it, and if you succeed, you 636 00:45:52,559 --> 00:45:57,199 are. And my father always used to tell me, he says, never 637 00:45:57,239 --> 00:46:00,679 sit on your laurels, and that's an expression where after a horse rate to 638 00:46:00,679 --> 00:46:02,559 put the walls out and you sit right. And he always said to me, 639 00:46:02,639 --> 00:46:06,840 you're only good is what you did yesterday. I mean, that's the 640 00:46:06,840 --> 00:46:09,760 way I was raised. And you know what it made. It really made 641 00:46:09,800 --> 00:46:13,519 a difference to put the fear of God in me from the time I was 642 00:46:13,599 --> 00:46:16,480 ten years old, and it has basically worked. But if you say to 643 00:46:16,559 --> 00:46:21,360 everybody, oh, don't you worry about your failures, because we have failed 644 00:46:21,400 --> 00:46:24,719 you. And therefore what we must do when we work in this situation is 645 00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:29,519 to make you feel happy and secure in your environment. So that you don't 646 00:46:29,559 --> 00:46:32,639 have to face any antagonism of discord. What you're doing is you're setting up 647 00:46:32,639 --> 00:46:37,320 people for faith. And that's what we are doing in the United States, 648 00:46:37,360 --> 00:46:40,480 and this administration is doing it. The entire educational establishment, at the most 649 00:46:40,480 --> 00:46:45,280 parts, is more interested and comfort than it isn't excellent. And I have 650 00:46:45,400 --> 00:46:49,480 to tell you, if you don't feel pain when you're doing your work, 651 00:46:49,480 --> 00:46:54,320 you're not working hard enough. I mean, that's terrible newds, that's humble 652 00:46:54,400 --> 00:46:59,119 news. I mean time in my life I've always had to face that row. 653 00:47:00,880 --> 00:47:04,679 Do you notice any pushback on that? I guess what I would say 654 00:47:04,760 --> 00:47:07,400 is that the one I mean, maybe it's a tiny, little green shoot. 655 00:47:07,440 --> 00:47:12,719 I'm not sure how to take it. But during one of the things, 656 00:47:12,719 --> 00:47:15,360 one of the many things that happened during the lockdowns or during the school 657 00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:22,320 closures, I should say, his parents started to notice just how bad teachings. 658 00:47:22,159 --> 00:47:28,559 And then when COVID was essentially licked and over and subdued properly, and 659 00:47:28,639 --> 00:47:31,199 we kind of knew that school children were not in any danger. The schools 660 00:47:31,199 --> 00:47:36,679 remain closed in a lot of places, pression and it felt to me like, 661 00:47:36,800 --> 00:47:40,719 Okay, this is the moment for school choice. This is the moment 662 00:47:42,599 --> 00:47:49,639 for a more independent, more entrepreneurial, more parent driven, more market driven 663 00:47:52,800 --> 00:47:58,800 movement in education. Did you did did you feel that way? Do you 664 00:47:58,840 --> 00:48:00,599 see that happening? I mean, because it seems to me like the answer 665 00:48:00,599 --> 00:48:04,760 to all the questions we're talking about, right, the answer the question about 666 00:48:05,079 --> 00:48:07,440 technology, the answer the question about health, The answer the question about excellence 667 00:48:07,440 --> 00:48:15,920 starts somewhere in school with a rigorous, thoughtful, but the kind of education 668 00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:23,639 that you had in New York City in one in nineteen forty eight. Okay, 669 00:48:23,679 --> 00:48:25,760 well I was going to I was going to name the year, but 670 00:48:25,800 --> 00:48:30,239 okay, that's yeah, right, right, right, Yes, sir, 671 00:48:30,280 --> 00:48:34,199 miss Lipmann told me how to carry numbers. You know, I still remember 672 00:48:34,239 --> 00:48:37,039 my teachers with the greatest respect because what they did is they taught me to 673 00:48:37,079 --> 00:48:42,519 do. And I think what you're really seeing here is the huge blue versus 674 00:48:42,559 --> 00:48:45,599 Red chasm. All of the school choice movements that you see are taking place 675 00:48:45,679 --> 00:48:50,840 in red states, and the very effect of all the tax reductions are taking 676 00:48:50,920 --> 00:48:54,000 place there. All the educational innovations are taking there. And it's not just 677 00:48:54,199 --> 00:48:58,519 charter schools, which are fine in many ways, although the conditions could be 678 00:48:58,559 --> 00:49:02,639 fatal. What happens as people or device shadows schools of themselves. So I 679 00:49:02,679 --> 00:49:06,360 want to homeschool my kid, and you want to homeschool you're a kid. 680 00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:08,960 Well that's not going to work very well. So ten parents get together, 681 00:49:09,039 --> 00:49:13,519 they get a set of materials that are supplied by a homeschool authority, and 682 00:49:13,599 --> 00:49:16,960 they take the instruction amongst themselves. Dis question is whether you want to test 683 00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:21,079 them. Fine, test them. They're going to outperform public school kids every 684 00:49:21,119 --> 00:49:25,440 time. They're not going to get the sort of deceptions about social promotions that 685 00:49:25,679 --> 00:49:30,679 teachers are willing to give. Because parents really care about their welfare of their 686 00:49:30,679 --> 00:49:32,360 own children. And so I think all of that is good. It's what 687 00:49:32,559 --> 00:49:37,320 changed the election right in Virginia when they had to go to they fight a 688 00:49:37,320 --> 00:49:40,320 couple of years ago. So there are but it is that there are huge 689 00:49:40,360 --> 00:49:45,719 classing forces. The political dynamic, however, is very unstable for two reasons. 690 00:49:46,400 --> 00:49:51,440 One, this is highly dichotomists. There is no overlap. The most 691 00:49:51,639 --> 00:49:57,000 liberal Republican is more conservative than the most conservative Democrat and vice versa, so 692 00:49:57,039 --> 00:50:00,039 you get much more thing. And also, I mean it's hard to find 693 00:50:00,119 --> 00:50:05,559 a middle position between the two narratives of the way in which the United States 694 00:50:05,639 --> 00:50:09,079 is going. And therefore what happens is any time you have reform, it's 695 00:50:09,159 --> 00:50:13,639 going to be contentious if it's done at the national level, and it's going 696 00:50:13,719 --> 00:50:16,400 to be a fairly good or very bad if it's done at the state level. 697 00:50:16,400 --> 00:50:20,760 I mean, everything that's happened in New York City with respect the education 698 00:50:20,840 --> 00:50:23,679 and so forth, it's not so good. And so parents are leaving, 699 00:50:24,599 --> 00:50:30,039 People vote with their feet. There are very few people moving from Texas to 700 00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:35,840 California, from Florida California, and the reason is that in the one state, 701 00:50:35,880 --> 00:50:38,800 what happens is the public has found them. But you have in California 702 00:50:38,760 --> 00:50:44,559 a governor who's very elegant, very rich, very suave, and very uninformed. 703 00:50:45,280 --> 00:50:47,760 And what he does is he's able to push these terrible programs through. 704 00:50:47,760 --> 00:50:52,679 They all backfire, and then it's always the same explanation that probably had with 705 00:50:52,800 --> 00:50:58,400 the failure of our last housing program is very simple. What went wrong in 706 00:50:58,440 --> 00:51:02,079 that particular case was that we didn't do enough. If we had done more, 707 00:51:02,119 --> 00:51:06,039 we would have done it better. And so what you do, we'd 708 00:51:06,079 --> 00:51:07,639 spend enough, Yeah, we didn't spend enough. We didn't do this. 709 00:51:07,800 --> 00:51:13,400 The expenditures bear no relationship to the performance in the education. Much of it 710 00:51:13,440 --> 00:51:16,039 is monopoly rens that go to teachers. And so you look at a charter 711 00:51:16,159 --> 00:51:20,480 school and the course for pupil is basically about half of what it is in 712 00:51:20,519 --> 00:51:23,440 a public school and the performance levels are higher. Well, the thing to 713 00:51:23,519 --> 00:51:28,480 do with that is to say, well, they are basically siphoning off the 714 00:51:28,480 --> 00:51:30,559 best of our kids, and we have to shut this down so we can 715 00:51:30,599 --> 00:51:35,599 have the evil kids remain in the public school system as poorn. But of 716 00:51:35,639 --> 00:51:38,159 course that's not the way it works. Even if you have random selection for 717 00:51:38,280 --> 00:51:43,480 charter schools, they always outperformed the public schools. My son, for many 718 00:51:43,599 --> 00:51:45,960 years actually worked in this space, and he would tell the kind of story 719 00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:50,519 that actually tears your heart. In two there would be two kids. One 720 00:51:50,599 --> 00:51:52,679 was in a charter school and one was in a public school. The charter 721 00:51:52,760 --> 00:51:57,079 school kid was nine and the public school kid was twelve. And it was 722 00:51:57,119 --> 00:52:00,679 a nine year old who was trying to teach n ask to his older brothers. 723 00:52:00,840 --> 00:52:05,079 Why was that because of the failure inside the public school system. I 724 00:52:05,119 --> 00:52:08,599 mean, if we don't basically turn our heart on failure and try to do 725 00:52:08,639 --> 00:52:13,280 those things that work, we will always turn out to be worse off than 726 00:52:13,320 --> 00:52:16,280 we could otherwise be. I mean, I find this very sad in many 727 00:52:16,280 --> 00:52:21,280 ways. When I went to Columbia College, I had an education that was 728 00:52:21,320 --> 00:52:25,960 world class. It wasn't because we had very fancy dormitory ruins or deaths or 729 00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:30,599 any of the sort. It's just that we had a shared commitment to excellence. 730 00:52:30,599 --> 00:52:32,199 And I could still remember, you know, I wasn't sure what I 731 00:52:32,239 --> 00:52:37,039 was going to write for mister A. Kent Hire on my first esset in 732 00:52:37,800 --> 00:52:40,119 when I was seventeen year olds to fine what a professional is, and you 733 00:52:40,159 --> 00:52:44,679 know what happened. It's now sixty years later, and I still think about 734 00:52:44,719 --> 00:52:46,880 that same question that was put to me when I was a freshman, and 735 00:52:46,960 --> 00:52:50,760 I understand, right, the problem is, Richard, you don't understand. 736 00:52:50,880 --> 00:52:52,880 It's not about a commitment to excellence. It's about a commitment to equity, 737 00:52:52,920 --> 00:52:59,280 which people believe is necessarily leads to excellence. But it's a whole different definitional 738 00:53:00,039 --> 00:53:02,679 and we lead the accidents at all what it does. And we have at 739 00:53:02,760 --> 00:53:07,840 least to coddling or at least at basically telling gifted kids you can't advance because 740 00:53:07,880 --> 00:53:13,239 poor kids. You know we did when we actually have to go. But 741 00:53:14,639 --> 00:53:19,239 why are you right about that at this Ricochet site, because we do want 742 00:53:19,239 --> 00:53:21,559 to hear he had to do it first grade? Yes, tell us what 743 00:53:21,599 --> 00:53:23,440 you had to do it. And it was a class of thirty six kids 744 00:53:23,440 --> 00:53:28,559 with one teacher, Missus Lippmann. And no teacher can teach thirty six kids, 745 00:53:28,639 --> 00:53:30,920 right, but the classness of them was so strong. What she told 746 00:53:30,920 --> 00:53:35,320 me, I'm pretty good at man, will you help Stevie will learn his 747 00:53:35,440 --> 00:53:37,519 fractions? And so I march over to the table and teach one of my 748 00:53:37,599 --> 00:53:43,199 classmates that kind of stuff. Well, it was not uncommon. Now, 749 00:53:43,239 --> 00:53:46,440 of course we do that, and you know it was appreciated on both sides. 750 00:53:46,920 --> 00:53:50,559 He liked the help and I like the sense of being able to help 751 00:53:50,639 --> 00:53:54,159 somebody else. And so you never had a discipline problem. Richard, thanks 752 00:53:54,159 --> 00:54:00,519 today for the wide arranging conversation it's been and we'll see you back in Ricochet. 753 00:54:00,599 --> 00:54:02,760 Take it easy, great, take it thanks Richard, Bye bye. 754 00:54:04,320 --> 00:54:08,039 Signor did you do that at first? I think we did that in first 755 00:54:08,079 --> 00:54:10,920 grade? Well what was that? Helping people? Yeah, you had to 756 00:54:10,960 --> 00:54:14,360 go like I think at some point we're on like they would put us in 757 00:54:14,400 --> 00:54:16,360 little tables you had to could have worked together, and I think that was 758 00:54:17,199 --> 00:54:22,079 I got broken out though in first grade because I could read better than some 759 00:54:22,079 --> 00:54:24,079 of the other kids, and so I had I had a set of books 760 00:54:24,079 --> 00:54:28,840 that were the next level up. So everybody else got to read everybody else 761 00:54:28,920 --> 00:54:30,679 communal stories that they were talking about. And now I was sitting back there, 762 00:54:30,719 --> 00:54:35,599 you know, the smart kid with the glasses who had to read this 763 00:54:35,679 --> 00:54:38,679 other stuff. Well, because my heart goes out just a little Stevie though, 764 00:54:38,719 --> 00:54:43,079 I mean, I mean love Richard, and I think it was great 765 00:54:43,079 --> 00:54:45,239 that he did it. But I think little Stevie must have thought at some 766 00:54:45,239 --> 00:54:47,480 point when he saw Richard approaching his desk, like, oh no, let 767 00:54:47,519 --> 00:54:52,960 me just can I just can I just stay in my ignorance just a little 768 00:54:52,960 --> 00:54:57,880 bit. Well before we go, we should probably uh yeah, I think 769 00:54:58,039 --> 00:55:01,760 some things we could talk about here. I suppose Minneapolis decided to get away 770 00:55:01,800 --> 00:55:06,880 with Go, do away with Lyft and Uber by raising the prices, which 771 00:55:06,880 --> 00:55:10,559 is interesting because I myself have stopped using Uber because the prices have become ridiculous 772 00:55:10,599 --> 00:55:15,800 and have gone back to traditional cabs because they're better. So you know, 773 00:55:15,920 --> 00:55:19,239 I'm kind of on the fence about this, but again it's tackling the important 774 00:55:19,239 --> 00:55:22,280 things. Still legally in New York, right, you still can get an 775 00:55:22,360 --> 00:55:25,119 Uber in New York. Yeah. Are they so entrenched that there's absolutely no 776 00:55:25,320 --> 00:55:29,480 thought that anybody would try to get rid of them? Well, I don't. 777 00:55:29,599 --> 00:55:34,880 I mean, think about the great contribution of Uber and Lyft was they 778 00:55:34,920 --> 00:55:38,880 made the taxicabs better. Taxicabs in New York City are much much better than 779 00:55:38,920 --> 00:55:45,519 they would have been without competition. Competitions stood, it's not quite as easy 780 00:55:45,559 --> 00:55:49,960 to do the workaround with the taxi that you can with an Uber, where 781 00:55:49,960 --> 00:55:53,800 you sort of set your destination and then you can go. They'll figure that 782 00:55:53,880 --> 00:56:00,159 out. I think it stills really popular. But I'll tell you here's a 783 00:56:00,239 --> 00:56:07,480 very twee example. There was a specific kind of hell in Paris. Trying 784 00:56:07,519 --> 00:56:12,840 to get a taxi in the old days, you had to call the kid, 785 00:56:12,920 --> 00:56:15,480 either find the taxi rank that was somewhere around, or you had to 786 00:56:15,480 --> 00:56:19,519 call a number and the number nobody ever answered, and you wouldever show the 787 00:56:19,559 --> 00:56:22,400 taxi was coming. This was just horrible. I know, I understand these 788 00:56:22,400 --> 00:56:30,039 are first world problems. But then along came Uber and the taxi companies, 789 00:56:30,079 --> 00:56:35,000 at least in Paris, responded by making it much better Uber. Like I 790 00:56:35,480 --> 00:56:37,079 was just I was in Paris for a few days before I went to Morocco, 791 00:56:37,559 --> 00:56:42,519 and you know, you're getting a taxi is the easiest thing in the 792 00:56:42,519 --> 00:56:44,920 world, so much easier than anything else. It is an app. You 793 00:56:45,000 --> 00:56:47,239 just tell where you are and the taxi comes. It's like Uber, but 794 00:56:47,280 --> 00:56:52,440 it's not. It's a taxi. It's cheaper and it's so much better. 795 00:56:52,519 --> 00:57:00,400 And like so, I feel like the competition was good. The problem with 796 00:57:00,440 --> 00:57:01,840 it, with all the problem with Uber and Lyft and in some of very 797 00:57:01,840 --> 00:57:06,880 liberal things, it's the problem in general with the idea of the of the 798 00:57:07,039 --> 00:57:10,280 gig economy. Right that you are, you're kind of working on your own 799 00:57:10,440 --> 00:57:14,440 and there aren't that many safeguards, et cetera, et cetera, And that 800 00:57:14,480 --> 00:57:16,199 could be true. I don't I really don't take I don't know enough about 801 00:57:16,360 --> 00:57:20,199 what it's like to work for those companies except to say that people seem to 802 00:57:20,239 --> 00:57:23,280 want to work for these companies, and that should indicate that they're not onerous 803 00:57:23,400 --> 00:57:28,159 or hideous. What's interesting about the gig economy, I think is that a 804 00:57:28,199 --> 00:57:30,679 lot of people in that who are in that economy, not just uber and 805 00:57:30,719 --> 00:57:34,400 lyft, but if your door dash or maybe whatever kind of like freelancing things 806 00:57:34,400 --> 00:57:42,199 they do is they're discovering just how high their taxes are because they've got to 807 00:57:42,199 --> 00:57:45,599 pay them themselves. And there is something about that magic pay stubbs you get 808 00:57:45,840 --> 00:57:51,280 that's magically has it removed, and it hurts a little bit when you get 809 00:57:51,280 --> 00:57:53,079 it. But if you just you just focus on the number on the check, 810 00:57:53,159 --> 00:57:55,920 you don't notice what the government takes out. But if you have to 811 00:57:55,920 --> 00:58:01,440 write a check to the government every pay period or every quarter or every year, 812 00:58:02,000 --> 00:58:05,960 you should yeah, yeah, yeah, you start to notice just like 813 00:58:06,039 --> 00:58:08,039 how bad it is, I think. And there's the war against the ten 814 00:58:08,119 --> 00:58:13,079 ninety nine economy, the war against the people who are independent contractors because they 815 00:58:13,079 --> 00:58:15,840 believe that they're all being exploited. That nobody, nobody in this nobody has 816 00:58:15,960 --> 00:58:20,199 volition, nobody has an agency, and all of these things that we're all 817 00:58:20,320 --> 00:58:23,079 just at the ponds. And the mercy of yes, indeed, competition making 818 00:58:23,119 --> 00:58:25,440 things better. You would think, to go back to what we were saying 819 00:58:25,480 --> 00:58:29,880 before, that the charter schools would make the public schools better, that they 820 00:58:29,920 --> 00:58:36,800 would redouble their efforts on excellence and discipline. But well, hey, we've 821 00:58:36,840 --> 00:58:38,199 covered a lot of ground here, and that's what we do at Ricochet. 822 00:58:38,280 --> 00:58:42,519 Either on the main feed, which anybody can read and a schmoke can walk 823 00:58:42,519 --> 00:58:45,159 through the door and see even the Chinese Communists, even the chikops. But 824 00:58:45,239 --> 00:58:47,239 if you want to go to the member feed, where a lot of the 825 00:58:47,400 --> 00:58:51,599 really interesting, where the conversations start that eventually make it to the member feed, 826 00:58:51,639 --> 00:58:53,559 you've got to be a member, and it's cheap, and you should 827 00:58:53,599 --> 00:58:58,679 do it because a you will find a community that you've been waiting for looking 828 00:58:58,719 --> 00:59:01,440 for all your life of the Internet, and be you'll be helping it Ricochet 829 00:59:01,599 --> 00:59:07,079 thrive and prosper from election to election to election. This podcast brought to you 830 00:59:07,119 --> 00:59:09,480 by the Ricochet Audio Network, and if you go to the site you will 831 00:59:09,480 --> 00:59:14,360 see exactly how many fantastic podcasts there are, not just the flagship, which 832 00:59:14,360 --> 00:59:16,440 will be back next week with Peter Robinson, but might I add the Diner 833 00:59:16,679 --> 00:59:21,679 where I actually just talk for thirty five minutes until I'm so sick of the 834 00:59:21,719 --> 00:59:24,800 sound of my voice that i have to leave. I can I just jump 835 00:59:24,800 --> 00:59:30,079 in, I know I'm going You don't talk it's a sound it's a sound 836 00:59:30,840 --> 00:59:34,760 experience. It's not just you talking. There's there's like you create a whole 837 00:59:34,760 --> 00:59:38,079 thing. It's a it's a it's an audio theater. It's fun. It's 838 00:59:38,079 --> 00:59:40,400 great. It is and I have a great producer who gives us part of 839 00:59:40,400 --> 00:59:44,800 that. But it's it's lots of fun. The Diner. I've actually been 840 00:59:44,840 --> 00:59:47,119 writing about and talking from the Diner for decades, going back to college, 841 00:59:47,199 --> 00:59:51,159 actually going back to the eighties, so this is a place with which I'm 842 00:59:51,199 --> 00:59:53,119 well familiar. Anyway, you folks, this is your first podcast. Go 843 00:59:53,199 --> 00:59:57,400 back and read or listening to about six hundred and eighty three more of them, 844 00:59:57,480 --> 01:00:00,639 and we'll talk to you next week. Five star reviewed out music would 845 01:00:00,679 --> 01:00:02,480 be really great. I know you're not going to do it. I've been 846 01:00:02,639 --> 01:00:07,599 begging you for years, but this might be the time when Guild finally throws 847 01:00:07,599 --> 01:00:09,599 a dart at your heart and you go do it. Can't hurt anyway, 848 01:00:09,800 --> 01:00:14,199 Rob, It's been great. Enjoy your weekend in New York. I will 849 01:00:14,239 --> 01:00:17,320 do the snow when I get home here, all seventeen feet of it, 850 01:00:17,400 --> 01:00:22,000 and we'll see everybody in the comment, said Ricochet four point zero. Next 851 01:00:22,000 --> 01:00:30,039 week, next week, Ricochet join the Conversation