Little radical fundamental principles of freedom, rational, self interesting and individual wants.
This is the Uran Brook Show. All right, everybody, welcome to you
on book show Thursday equals twenty stop that beats me. Okay, all right,
Um, anyway, today we've got an exciting show I think for everybody.
Let me just make sure that the stuff works. Okay, now it's
still give me once and continue every once in a while, everything has to
be we whatever. All right, there we go. All right, We've
got Greg with us today. Um, and I'm excited. I know many
of you are too. And I've been anticipating asking questions. So we're going
to dedicate most of the show today to answering your questions. So feel free
to come up with um with questions. As I said, anything that I've
said during a show, ask a philosopher that well, this is your opportunity
to ask a philosopher. And we're gonna we're gonna start by covering a bunch
of different topics and then and then cover you. So, um, I'll
introduce great quickly. But I think you all know Greg. But he's a
senior scholar philosophy at the Salem Center for Policy at the McCombs School of Business
at UT Austin UM. He holds a Bring Him Fellowship for the Study of
Objectivism at the Center and as a director of the Centers Program for Objectivity and
Thought, Action and Enterprise. Hey, Greg, it's good. Oh,
thank you, thank you. That is that is high praise. So I
appreciate that. Um. Let's see, so Greg actually does listen. It's
the podcast. I'm I and I'm I'm honored by that by that fact.
So it's it's really it's really nice. So let's see. You know,
I tended when was it? I can't even tell a month or two,
two ago, two months ago, something like that. I attended a seminars
at the Center, at the Selim Center on on racism. So you do
these workshops periodically, tell us a little bit about the format that thinking about
behind it, you know what the purpose is, and then we can delve
into the actual topics. Experiment with the format from time to time. But
the idea is to get UM people together to talk through a topic. And
there are several different types that we do. U. One, can can
you ever be hear what's going on downstairs? My son's that's fine. One
format is what I call kind of like a pow wow kind of conference that
it's not really good temperate, but where people are relatively aligned in the premises
that they're coming to the issue from, usually as objectivist or objectivist sympathetic people,
and where just trying to think through an issue, get our you know,
process new information on it, or thicket through. And the workshop on
racism was like that. I have another workshop on what I'm calling work to
be Done in ethics coming up in a tople of weeks, and most of
the ones I've done this year have been like that. Others of the workshops
are ones where I just try to get together a broad range of people,
usually including some objectivists besides myself, working on a topic the future interest,
and those tend to have a format more where there are works in progress being
discussed and something like that. I organized the conference says it was last epidemic
year on work and well being, the role of you know, career in
one's well being. There's a whole literature on well being in philosophy, which
I think is interesting, one of the more interesting things going on, and
it doesn't talk that much about career and work, and so that the idea
was to bring those those topics together. We had people who are known for
their writing home O beating there and from a range of ideological perspective on that
one. The one on racism that the Uran ur apt was. The occasion
was the Cists anniversary of Rand's essay on Racists written in nineteen fifty three.
Um, and you know, it seemed to be the city's anniversary of the
Civil Rights Act, which was one of the things she writes about in that
in that essay. And I had the sense there's just a lot to say
to kind of there's a lot of thinking that needs to be done about what's
happened in the last sixty years, what to make of the claims Rand made
in hindsight and recommend what things were she predicting that actually occurred, How did
it it fit with it? Um? And so I just got um the
most of what I think, where the smartest people with objectivism together on that
of people who have in one way or another special interest or knowledge about this
topic. That there's some students. I was working those fewer people who were
around, and we were just kind of talking the issues through and hoping that
that will put us all in a better position to comment on this issue in
particularly next year and sixty four. Right, that's just going to be a
lot of occasions for this, I hope. So let me ask you,
so, So my guess is that a lot of people listening are thinking,
I mean, racism, what's there to talk about? Isn't this isn't this
pretty a clear issue? We're against it? And I man wrote the essay
and you know, and why why? What are the kind of the subtle
or the or the complicated, or the things we really need to talk through
and think that are relevant right now, relevant today that we have to have
a position on That's non that's not obvious. Well, one thing is part
of what really impressingly about I rand As I was writing the copanion dynagram and
or editing the companion, but but co writing the chapter on her commentary on
the events of her time, is that she didn't just have opinions on abstract
issues racism's bad, communism, a fan or whatever. She had a story
of what was going on in the world, what issues were important, what
trends were there, what things were coming to for what was the effect of
this election in knocking this issue out of the headlines to this other one.
I mean, she had a real kind of take on the history of her
time, and that was motivating her to choose the issues that she chose to
talk about, to emphasize them and the emphasize others, and to have the
take she had on I would vote for to give an election when the election
didn't matter, and when it did, and what other things matter, and
understanding the role of race and racism in American politics over the past sixty years
and before um is I think something really word and I think, would you
think rethink the role I was playing in politics in her time better? With
some hindsight we saw how some of these movements developed. But also I think
she made a lot of um, she makes some predictions about what we should
expect to happen. Is to say that I think are not enough heated.
So my sense growing up was that people tend to regard racism as the left
issue, and they treat it as um whatever time you know, you're you're
you're talking in They treated that as it was a real problem in the past,
is fixed now and and all the things people want to do about it
now are bad, and they're bad because there's not a problem anymore. There's
a problems been fixed for most of them, and that that kind of feeling
about it was the way people have acted about it in the eighties that I
was married with, in the nineties and the two thousands and now, And
I just don't think that it's a plausible position, and it's not a position
that I think is in keeping with what she says in that article. So
she thinks that as you make your laws more race conscious, and in particular,
as you developed towards a more and more of a welfare state, what
you should expect to see is increasing racial animosities, and that it should be
particularly hard on the groups who are the minorities who are the victims of historic
precudices. And I've come to think that that's true. Not everything that people
who are on about racism these days claim is real is real, and their
solutions to it are usually things that are going to make the problem worse.
But if one has the kleinditive sense everything got fixed sometime in nineteen sixty four,
in nineteen seventy two, well, I don't think that's realistic. And
I think if you think about what the fixes we're supposed to be laws that
force people to integrate in their private businesses, laws that really pervert employment contracts
and education and so forth. You wouldn't expect those to talk about. But
moreover, there were things in the culture that were really good and pushing in
an a racist direction, such that people were set up with Jim Crow weren't
going to tolerated anymore. And and so I think there's it's not like every
single ball A lot was right about the civil rights movement, as well as
some things that were wrong with the laws that came out of it and with
the direction it tooks. It's a kind of complicated historical thing going on where
there's a movement that has a lot of good at it and some significant bad
and that gets worse over time, and understanding its effects on the country,
having effects of the laws of it. And also there's something this is going
beyond Ram's piece, but there's a questions to why the movement of the nineteen
sixties and early nineteen sixties was framed in terms of civil rights, which I
think is a good and positive framing, and a lot of what they were
advocating for was good and a lot better than what happened advocated for in terms
of racial justice earlier than that or later in that, and so there are
questions about why that was happening, and you know how to understand this development.
Yeah, and you know, clearly we're living in a period in which
racial issues have become you know, more of an issue, more of a
problem, and they really all around us would obviously be alm in twenty twenty
and everything around that, and you know, understanding where that comes from,
critical race theory, understanding where that comes from with the context for that is.
And yeah, political sides are around racial issues, Um, how little
of what's suggested a solutions to them? Our solutions. I think you see
this in so many issues. We've become factualized and tribalized, and um,
things are perceived as being pro or anti some group as most the pro or
anti sub principle, and it ends up, you know, harming every yeah
one of the people. Yeah, good, Sorry. There are certain kinds
of law and institutions though that when they're in a society, are going to
tend to um madnify the effects of prejudices people have that they're not they're not
there explicit for you, but they're their prejudices that they're you know, maybe
not willing to express openly, and that will tend to UM preserve status for
people who are politically connected and knowledgeable about how to use the political system and
preserve lack of access to to um opportunities from people who don't. Uh.
And what kinds of things are like that? Well, um, the biggest
is a public education system where you take a major factor of the economy and
a major factor of people's lives and something that's to do with a very personal
value that people cherish my kids and how they're going to rage and you collab
and devise it, and so you make it that there's this system that's stoling
out education to everybody m at a collective you know, and there's collective decision
making about it. You can't come in and choose where you're going to go
unless you do at a mani pulative us system. And whatever prejudices and fears
and worries and concerns people have are going to they've got client together there.
And what's going to happen is that people who are good at getting politically connected
are going to be able to get something that semi good for their kids and
people who are are not going to be able to do. Likewise, when
you have laws that are non objective and unenforceable, unenforceable at scale, like
a war on drugs, what's going to happen is it's going to get enforced
more on the people who are going to make less of us think about it
getting encoursed on them. They have less access to high pricavoitism. So there
are kinds of predictable things in the system. And then when you have the
process of hiring an association sets that it's made litgic litigious around hiring and firing
of people of protected groups, what you're going to get is a lot of
box checking around bath so that everybody is trying to be diverse in a politically
correct, socially acceptable way and nobody is free to you're the kind of real
entrepreneurial work that would be involved in having the most productive workforce you could have
that integrates categories of people that weren't well integrated into it in creative, dynamic
way. And so I think you see a lot of features in our economy
that you would expect to cause kind of stagnation and resentment on issues where there
had been a lot of prejudice, and I think that continues to exist.
Is not the main story or the whole story of the twentieth century or twenty
first century, but it's one of the factors that are there. And I
think rather they're reacting to claims of persistent or institutional racism by saying there's no
there, there, there's nothing that these are maybe misconceptualizations worth thinking about what's
actually going on here. Which of the unjust policies we're already familiar with might
be involvetimism and how do these things play out? So that's one of the
things I've been thinking about, it having a racism And this all comes out
of kind of the analysis of a mixed economy and the politics pool. And
once you have a mixed economy, it's just a question which tribe you associated
with to get your leverage. And one of the tribes that people associated with
is a racial tribes or color skin tribes because they've viewed that way in because
it gives them a big gives them a leverage. It's really really you're talking
about this in an article in Nations Unity. Yeah, is one of our
not enough read pieces. Yeah, and it's interesting because you don't think of
Inanda's being concerned about a nation's unity, right, And she has this perspective
and unity that is quite interesting and quite um and really important, particularly today
when we're seeing such a disunited United States in the in the article on races
of which she talked about groups that have come to act because their own destroyers
and business then are often by advocating types of policies that um, you know,
end up getting them persecuted more. And um she thinks the leaders of
the civil rights movement are you know, giving the business leaders a run for
their money on that front. Uh, in nineteen twenty three when he's right,
this is Martin Luther Kings, which you know M Marcus Garder L Yeah,
I mean relatively speaking, these are good guys. Yeah, it's compared
to anything we have today. These are good people. Um. But I
think there's she's making some point. Yeah, there's a lot. You can
see a lot about it in history. Well. I found I found the
workshop really valuable, um, partially because a lot of history came out that
I wasn't familiar with. And I got to meet Isaiah Slade, who I
later interviewed on the show, which I thought was was terrific and he was
a good yeah, just a lot. I really enjoyed getting can He's such
a right guy that's really gotten going and we stopped it and yeah, and
a real future intellectual who's going to have a voice out there, I think
so. I think that's that's important. And having somebody like that at the
workshop is incredibly valuable because his knowledge of objective he's still young, he's still
new to objectivism in many regards. Having him the exposed to everybody is incredibly
It goes both ways. We benefited from him, and I'm sure he benefited
a lot from exposure to some of the leading objectivist to intellectuals. In part,
there were some weather problems that Austen to follow the game. He ended
up staying out here for the better part of a week after that a week,
okay, a lot more time interacted. There are a number of really
right young people who I think are coming to philosophical and political issues in a
way that's deeply influenced by objectivism and apart from all of the political tribes,
and um, I think this is doing that. Not the only one,
but Mohammed was also at that conference, and you know, I've been talking
a lot about stuff. So um, you said you have some you have
a workshop coming up on ethics, and yeah, so tell us a little
bit about what the goal is and where you see kind of the work on
ethics going from here. The next workshop we're doing is going to be next
not just coming with him, but the weekend after, and it's on work
to be done in ethics, and it's mostly academics with a background an objectivism,
including students, but also some people who are do more popular writing.
And we're getting together to read some of the you know, some sets of
articles in contemporary athts, somebody objectivists, most not, and get a kind
of read on some of the literatures that are out there. And basically from
each topic we're covering with the workshop, I'm dividing it into two sessions,
and the first one is just like, can we get to the bottom of
this issue and figure what we think is right and on there? What's the
truth here? The second one, the survipolions work to be done an athletics
is Okay, what kind of writing projects might there be here? Primarily I'm
thinking academic kind of writing just because of the people, but also popular writing.
Um. And one of the things I'm trying to reinforce somewhat for myself
but for everyone else there too, is that there's two separate bits of thinking
you need to do, like what's true? And then now, okay,
what can I write on this? Who's the audience I would be writing for?
What are their premises already? What you know, they're not coming out
from the same perspective I had. And um, there are a few young
red students who who are interested in as it who are going to be part
of this. But also, um, you know so little the philosophers.
If you guys are familiar with UM, we'll be there and we're just going
to be sort of strategizing what areas are worth researching more, what projects might
be for writing. And this has meant to kind of inspire work going forward.
And and here do you mean you know, theory in terms of something
expanding on what Rand has already written on ethics in terms of theoretical stuff or
application application to culture politics. Most of what we're doing at this workshop is
theory stuff in meta ethics. What is human well being? Like, what
is the role of reason in life? There's an interesting work being done on
that and now and the weston is how can we engage with it? How
can we um you know, get some trap to us at work. But
there are also two fields where there are a number of people doing more applied
work in ethics. One of them there are concentrations. One of them is
bioethics and medical athets, just a few people who have found issues doing early
in their careers doing work on that. And the other is business ethics.
And as it happens, just who is available for this conference. Most of
the business as its people can get here in the medical asths of people.
But so we're doing a period issues in medical ethics and bioethics. Well yeah,
I have a follow up by Zoom or something on the business. Well
yeah, I mean the bioethics is fascinating. I mean, I was I
mentioned today the Audicle today and on the show The Audicle. I don't know
if you've heard the news show this morning about the uh they're taking a skin
cell and turning it into a I mean, it's fascinating stuff and gene editing.
I mean, there's so much that is going to happen that is going
to push the boundaries of how we think about human beings, about reproduction,
about design of babies. I think in the next twenty thirty years. Yeah.
I remember when the mouse stem cell study first came out. Yeah,
because my wife and I were trying to get pregnant and trying by artificial meats
and the problem was getting enough egg. Yeah, we could just do this.
It's off and now they they could do it, you know male.
Yeah, I think so, and and but also raises ethical issues. So
I think it's a it's an exciting time to be in that field as some
of these boundaries of being being pushed in terms of in terms of what and
how how to pursue this research. It's also the ones that just connected to
what we're doing a conference. One thing that I don't really understand too well
is in Europe how some of the doctoral programs and post docs work. Is
that people kind of in America, you you get accepted to a program and
you find someone who will agree to be u dissication to provis when you write
a dissication. But some of what happens in Europe is you're accepted into a
particular program to work on a particular project. Often that's a cross disciplinary and
there are a couple of people who've been through the OAC who have are in
these kind of programs and their doctoral research is associated with some ongoing multidisciplinary project
to do with bioles and research on environmental contaminants into what effect they might have
on health and what ethical that you have, or there are a couple of
different things that it's not the person's own project then, but there are really
issues in the project and they're thinking about how do I, you know,
find work to do, how do I do things affect it within these contacts,
And there are a couple of people with found the opportunities like this.
So I think it's it's worth our getting our act together to think about what
does it look like to apply the objectives deficits. Yeah, absolutely all right.
So we've got a few questions I think here on on the on the
racism issue, surmainers will just jump into those. Adam, Yeah, we
can talk, we can we can go in and out of the questions.
Um, Adam has a question. Um, thank you, Adam. That's
very generous of you. Uh. Did did rand discuss a delineate between racism
hating someone based on race versus prejudice that is coming across a menacing looking person,
um, you know, being a grandmother in the dark. Alley does
the view? Does does she view pre judgment versus racism um of an individual
based on a class such as age, race as rational? Um? She
doesn't. Can my knowledge talk about that in the article on racism. She
has a very wide conception of racism. So it's a it's it's basically ascribing
more moral characteristics to people based on their lineage. Um. So it's not
even you know, black, white, or or as large as what you
might call a raise the Japanese, the English or whatever. If you you
know, think he's from a good family and therefore his dreams or sting,
he's probably a venture or whatever. You know, that's um, that's the
same the same thing he that called family values the kind of meni racism.
And so one of the things we talked about is, you know, okay,
granted the business broad kind of racism, of biological determinism, what are
the other concepts that we um, you know, my call racism and how
do they relate? Um? But she does. If you're talking about snap
judgments, you might make them somebody there from they're hearing. She certainly does
talk about it them. I mean she thinks that's what an emotion, right,
It's a snap assessment. You have them something based upon you know,
automatically calculated by your subconscious, based upon um, you know what appears to
you, and you could have them for people, and the various things about
them can trigger you and people. I don't think those emotions as such are
either rational or irrational, but you have to think about how to act on
them. Can you trust them? You can't regard them as a source of
knowledge. You might have to act on your emotions and you know, if
you have a split second decision to make that to what they're therefore, but
you need to recognize that they're not accurate. And I think now this isn't
something Rand says herself. But if you're in a situation you're in a career,
for example, where you're finding that you often have to act on snap
judgments. You know, someone who runs in differing buildings and us direct be
people or a police officer or whatever it might be, then you might really
want to think about what you can do to uh, you know, tune
these kind of snap judgments to be more accurate, And I think it's a
psychological question what you can do and what works and what doesn't do exactly well,
I think I think part of what he's asking is, so if you're
if you're in a dark alley and you're in a city where, uh,
you know, disproportionately crime is committed by uh, you know, black people.
Let's say so members of particular ethnicity or raise or something, and somebody
of that ethnicity approaches you, is it irrational to take into account that ethnic
background or that color skin in deciding whether it across the street or to run
away or to do whatever, whether that's the emotion or whether rationally if you
if you're thinking it through, Yeah, if we're talking about you have time
to make a rational assessment that are you're trying to think it through? You
always have so much other information besides the color of their skin and their physiopommy,
how are they walking and they're moving to a two quickly or slowly?
How are they dressed? This is going on? What you know? Are
they looking right at you? We're looking away? And I suspect that people
are overinfluenced by racial sey types of these things. But of course you should
take it down all the information you have. I just wonder that people sometimes
think that's what they're doing, and it's time yea, and they they come
to snap decisions or they or they base their decisions on emotions. They're not
actually using reason in making those coming to the conclusions. Right, thank you,
Adam. We've got another Adam. The other says immigration laws have been
historically interwined with racism, especially anti Asian racism. Why are obstacles to immigration
so seldom integrated into the discussion of racism. I think that's a really good
point. It's a good point on a few levels. Um. So,
further way, we have the Chinese exclusion app which was awful, and um,
you've had other you know, the whole history of debates over immigration have
had to do with with with race. Um. But also there's another way
to the fact. If you have laws on the books, let's say that
you can't racially discriminate, right, Um, then I think that bad is
a reason for people to be less open to immigration. They suppose you think,
for example, that people coming over from a certain Muslim country are likely
to bring their value their people from the health or whatever it is. There's
some place where you think their culture is bad, the people who are coming
over from this place are going to bring their culture and in et ceteras,
it's it's it's it's somehow going to be bad, whether you're right or wrong
on that. Right, But suppose you have that kind of concern, well,
it's a lot different. We're gonna have to deal with them. Don't
don't hire these kinds of people if you think because they're there, you can't
keep them out of the country. To some of the people who want to
be able to whole deal with them, and then let's similar to the event,
it's no, it's not your problem, right, Um, But if
you're forced to be blind to these kinds of same considerations that you yourself,
whether correct and you're in concent correctly, um think are relevant to hiring once
the people are in the country. Um that I think you know, there's
a reason to worry that people are being shoved down your throat. The less
you are free to build the association, the more lawsibility there is the resentment
of people being in a feeling you're feeling like they're voice. These issues are
really connected, and I think most of the opposition, or very much of
the opposition to immigration does come from racial prejudices, and I think you are
unjustified and getting wrong. UM. Nevertheless, I think this dynamic UM plays
into all right, So UM, so let's talk about some of the other
workshops that are coming up. There's the ethics on that's in a couple of
weeks, and then what follows that. So we have two that we're doing
in June that you're coming out for. Ye a few other people are on.
I usually talk about these publicly better than we So UM. One is
on philosophy of economics, and the occasion for that is there are a couple
of UM people in graduate programs and economics are going into economics, and I
believe we're going to get robbed tar out for that last they booked the good
and we're going to talk about kind of UM issues at the intersectional philosophy the
connomics that are of particular interest to objectivists or people as a background and objectivism
particularly given the kinds of economics that they're they're likely to study and they're going
to study them. And then the other one that's connected to that only and
that there's a lot of common interests is uh we want to get some people
together to think about the role of UM, probability, mathematics, statistics in
good reasoning, and we used to go right and Rome with that. There's
a lot of emphasis on Bayesianism in the pencilcle rationalist community coming out of Silicon
Vallee and outs, where a lot of these people are very influenced by called
Paper and UH and others UM. Of course the docific influence on them as
a kind of transmission belt for paper people who've read this book. There have
been some UH some books, so I thinks have a lot right about them,
Like there's a book The Scout Mindset by I forget her name on it
rationally rather than defensively UM. But there's a lot of UM ways that they're
thinking about using probability that I finally got to do the hest of others and
seem like there's something right about them, but also something's wrong about them.
And so I know you've had the same observation and others have it. And
probability has been discussed by objectivist epistemologists here and there over the years, but
not I think really gone to it up depth about And so this is the
gathering of people who either know epistemology well and who are know the use of
staffs well for one reason or not to do with Ye. Yeah, I'm
looking forward to both of those. I mean, the the stat one also
kind of rose to my attention because I read Pinker's book on rationality and and
really for Stephen Pinker, rationality thinking generally comprises of basically doing probabilities, or
big chunk of what he considers thinking is getting the probabilities right. And and
I know a lot of people who think that way, and almost all of
them people in the financial world, where you do a lot of probabilities,
and who are good poker players. Again, because poker is a probability game.
It's it's it's about knowing the probabilities of every hand. And that intersection
about what it what, what it what? What constitutes? What epistemological status
does probability have? I think is very interesting. UM. And in some
cases some of what people are suggesting are talking about around probability. UM.
In case where I don't think it's literally correct, UM strikes me as a
kind of two concrete version of something that is correct. More attracted, like
when you're doing a certain kind of thing you want to attract probabilities literally and
think about, well, how often did my predictions come out? Did all
those things I thought were thirty percent likely to you know, two third of
them come out right or not? And then how am I little adjustment?
Is the kind of thing um, the scott All exam you're talking about about,
UM, that kind of thinking seems to be just right for certain kinds
of things. Yes, if you're making predictions, for example, UM.
For other kinds of thinking, I think it's not plausible, but there is
something that you need to be doing that that to kind of you know,
that's the version of it in some fields. What's the word? You know?
Another what's the abstraction? What did it look like to be checking integrating
your work over time, error checking UM and and UM and refinding your methods
of knowing and judging? Yeah, I mean, I think I think there's
there's a lot there's a lot of work to be done in that area that
objectives haven't yet done yet. You know, there's there's been some relationship to
it, but there's a lot of work to be done. Yeah. Great.
The literal stats you know you need to use not just you put a
number on your hunches, which you have. There's too much of what goes
on congressionality community, but where you know you're actually doing regressions and things.
Um, you know what's good and bad use of statistics, and you you've
had some shows on us that have been I have been really good. Yeah,
I mean I'm I'm I think i'm I'm fairly good at catching some of
the bad uses of statistics. But but move on a practical level. But
again there's there's a lot of thinking and there's a lot of you know,
they have been There has been a lot of work done by non objectivists about
how to lie with statistics and how statistics can be a distorted and a lot
of that work is is good work. It's um, it's true. Apollo
Zeus says, any duke, Yes, any any I know any duke?
Any duke is she? She won the world Championship with poker a couple of
times. She's the most famous female poker player. And I have I have
a book here signed. She's a she's a friend, so she's a character.
She would be interesting to talk to her about statistics and how how she
runs the odds in her mind as she's playing poker. I mean you need
a unique mind to do that. Uh, I know. Do you play
poker? Great? Well, no, well I don't play it. Well.
I enjoy it because of the banter. I enjoy harassing the other poker
player and trying to get under their skin. But other than that, I'm
not a very good poker player. There was a period when the app store
first came out of the iPhone, one of a couple of apps, and
I was playing it a lot as I was doing it bad, trying to
get mind dog that I got better at it then. And I remember I
went to I was at Vegas for something, and I sat at the table
and just kind of sad. I'm hardly bad until I had a really good
hand and one a few hundred dollars, and then I'm said, I'm never
playing games. Yeah, well that reminds me. I should pitch okon to
this crowd. You guys should all come to okon. And one of the
one of the fun things we do with okon is played pocus. So there
was a poker tournament, which is a lot of fun. That's true.
That's true. And I do play in the ocon games and I do try
to get under people's skin, and I think I'm quite effective at it.
It's a lot of fun. There's a lot of bands that goes on,
which is which is fun? Um. So with the economics the philosophy ecnonomicis
give us some um idea of topics that are kind of cross between economics and
UH and philosophy. I mean they can think of one obviously, with with
well up talk coming, he famously wrote an article about objective value and the
objectivist conception of objective value versus the Austrian conception of a subjective value series of
value in economics that Healy relate to the philosophical series of value. That's one
topic. I need input of other people. And one of the thing that
about to sending email out about to a few people is what other topic?
There are some others? Um. A lot of the the economists that are
good, A lot of the Austrians and others are attracted to anarchism and some
other ideas that are an audious objectivism. Why use that and how do we
understand how we navigate that? Um? What about the views of human nature
that are often assumed in economics, like human beings are maximizers and so forth?
Is that true? It's not true? Okay, well then um is
it wrong? Let it be In economics it's an approximation that's good enough for
certain purposes, not for others. How does what you say? What about
the ways that are kind of like uasai economic that people try to model things
like in for example, public choice theory or various types of game theory that
are applied to foreign policy for real politics, it's just a valid kind of
method or not as they valid in some cases about in other cases? How
does it relate to a more principled ways of thinking about our policy? Whew?
You take seriously go to an evil behind a lot of these things,
a kind of assumption that there's a particular way that people are motivated and that's
kind of uniform across people. But that's not true. So how much does
it matter if that's not true? And for which of these cases does it?
What would an economics that took more seriously position and the diversity of values
look like? What is value formation and how does that relate to a series
of value with the economics Going back to Tar's work a paper, to what
extent do you find how is rend view of value distinctive, particularly with regards
to that it's not all some fixthed end that you just calculate the means to
some end that we all share people of different values, some rational and some
irrational. What it did for value to irrational? I was it formed?
Um? And so forth. Yeah, I mean, I think when you
read what is Capitalism, it's astounding how epistemological that auticle is. And so
there's a whole question about the relationship between epistemology and economics, whether it's around
objective values. Um. Also, I think it's interesting to talk about the
whole behavioral economics literature, the the the biases, the Colman and others who
have documented kind of biases that people have UM in the economic behavior to the
numbers and math and rationalitics, statistical devices also, as it turns out,
bridging conversations, but some of the work being done by the people as advices
and research interested. Yeah. Yeah, yes, the whole behavioral biases thing
is is a big deal in academia and in a lot of different fields.
I mean, um, um, Okay, let's let's go back to the
questions um Andrew asks can Gregg expound in man's life as the ethical standard and
each man's life as his purpose. All those two principles in different contexts,
are they connected? I think they're connected. So for each person his own
life is his purpose. That's equivalent to his happiness being his purpose. But
because happiness is the emotional state you feel when you're succeeding and living in your
life is going well, when you're living in a way, it's going to
sustain your time when your your joints are non contradictory because all your values are
this interaction. UM. So that is the purpose as an individual's life or
happiness, the standard of man's life UM. And the standard is abstract where
the purpose is concrete. The standard is like a principle for a now a
type of thing human beings that you use to create a particular thing a life
for yourself. So in if you're if you're a doctor, that's um,
you know, um operating on somebody's body. Um. Your goal is is
that person's health, right, that's what you're trying to achieve, but you
work out how to achieve it by the standard of human health. You know
what a spleen is for in general, if it's for anyzing And now the
arts meant to work in general, it's for a human being, and you
use that knowledge to guide you to help fix up this particular person um Likewise,
you use knowledge of human life in general, what kind of thing it
is, what components it needs to um to make your own life better,
to make your to make a human life for yourself. The one thing I
want to kind of add to that that's maybe a little less obvious that has
been more and more parted by taking on this topic lately, is and which
isn't is obviously suggested by the medical analogy, is how much creativity is involved
in coming up with a life for yourselves in the in the end, in
pursuing your own life. In the healthcare case, you might think it's there's
one way the organizers of us to function, and if yours are and I'm
going to try to steer them into that nature or you know, apply drugs
or surgery is needed to get it into that niche. And it's all the
same for everybody. But what makes a human life work is much more abstract
than that there is at a concrete level, though one way we all live
to get that there's one way that human means if you have to go very
extract. You have to be rational, We have to be productive, we
have to be purposeful. Therefore, our lives have to be organized around goals,
not have half begaun Those goals have to be productive, at least the
central one. Otherwise you're going to quickly run those resources and then everything would
pulling against one another. We need to be justin at the other version.
But these are every's every abstract you can you know, you know, hurting
the sheep or writing philosophy books or composing a symphony or you know, baking
a loaf of bread, and you know, and any of these things to
be your your avocation or a parent or whatever, and you can still deal
with these principles. So a lot of what's involved in making your own life
for yourself is figuring out coming up with a life to yourself. One of
the cardinal values for endous purpose and purposes your choice of the happiness which your
reason is going to proceed to achieve. And I don't think that choice is
just you choose happiness as opposed to unhappiness or not making a choice at all.
No, you choose like this, this is what my life's going to
be about. And the principles of ethics. I think it is sort of
like the principles of composition, Like if you're making an artwork, or you're
going to make your own specific artwork. You're writing at my shrug, you're
painting the Mona Lisa, you're writing this song, or who's sculpting the data.
There's some particular sculpture you're making with a theme and everything integrated around that,
And the principles of art are about how to do that, how to
make whateverything you're making wells that it functions as a sculpture, as an artwork,
And likewise, the principles of ethics, or how to make a human
life to yourself, what principles does it have to have to hang together into
a self sustaining all that will sustain you across the human life then able to
live a able you to be happening. All right, thank you, Andrew.
Oh wow, okay, this is from India. Hello from India.
In Rand's novels, people are black or white heroes of villains, but in
the real world a person's psychology, knowledge and context make it difficult to slot
them. So young readers get confused and can be obnoxious to which people around
them, and he thoughts, this is funny because we're actually just talking about
this before the show started, about how young objectivists have a hard time categorizing
people and they treat them in appropriately as a consequence of this. Yeah,
I don't think you could overstate the extent to which it's true. In Ram's
novels, there were complex characters Um Gail Wine and hero or villain, well
elements of each, Even Guy Frank, an overall bad guy that has some
real redeeming characteristics that set him apart from um, from some of the other
um weird and throughout most of the novel, right, a hero but acting
on the wrong critical than Datney Hacker for that matter, I'm acting self destructively.
He's the guiltiest man in the room. What a different disco, A
room that includes Jimmy Tacker, right, yeah, and all kinds of really
artable. So it's not, Um, there's more. It's not everyone's all
black or all white in her novel. Um, it's that the gray that
there is, the complexity is resolvable down into bits of black and white,
kind of like with yourn shirt and uh, and you don't need that many
steps to do the resolvent In real life, I think it's a lot more
complicated, a lot more steps, a lot more subtle. Piece. I
think it is ultimately resolvable into this act was good or bad, This aspect
of this person's character is good or bad. This part of their life,
their professional life, their family life, their romantic life, that whatever is
good or bad. But it takes work to sort those things out, and
that it might be, you know, pretty small compartments you have to get
down to to get to where they're pure water or pure or the other.
And there's a lot of thinking about how the different factors interact. But I
think that's true, and it's you know, it's part of what one learns
and learning how to judge people. Ran past an article on the cult of
moral brain is that talks a bit about that well, And I think I
think for young people who've just been exposed to objectivism and just study objectivism,
it is objectively very difficult. You're you're trying to do the kind of work
that Greg described, but you don't have the experience. You're sixteen, seventeen,
eighteen twenty, you don't know exactly how to do it, and it's
it's very easy to um make mistakes and to be obnoxious, to treat people
in ways they don't deserve in because you don't just don't have the context and
you don't have the knowledge of how to applied. But part of how you
learn is by failing at it. It's by doing it and trying and falling
flat on your face. And it's not like people who don't have idealistic philosophies
to draw the objectivists do any better. They regard everybody is missed and ready,
don't have very high standard, try to go along to get along,
and you know, often mess up their lives doing it. World judgment is
really important. A lot of people don't make, don't pronounce pristiculously wrong moral
Texicans because they're too cowardly to make more of this at all. And you've
got to, you know, it's an important part of life to make them,
not only to shout them from the rooftop, but to be thinking about
the people you need. What's good about it, what's bed about it,
what's good about it, what's better about What do I want to emulate and
myself of his actions and support him doing it? And what things do I
want to not and um, and you know that's you know, most people
aren't doing that anymore. And one of the things that objectivism makes theories you
need to do it, but then once you recognize the need to do it,
are to do it? Well, need to learn it. Yeah,
and young people, young people stumble around doing that until they figure it out.
Um, and it's hard, all right, let's see Michael asked design
rans epistemology break down. If we're all schizophrenic or do some schizophrenic people know
how some deep at some deep level that then not registering reality as it actually
is. I don't know. I'm not sizophendics so far as I know.
I think if if everybody were schizophendic, who would be quite a bad situation
would be in. I assume or understand that there are degrees of schizophrenia.
There are people who are in the midst of a psychotic episode and can't make
sense of anything around them, or or only can with the utmost of effort,
and you know, a kind of heroic struggle. And there are other
people who occasionally have you know, who aren't in that situation, and you
know, maybe occasionally have a hallucination but can tell that they're hallucinations. I
assume there are milder and more intense forms and milder and more intense episodes.
If we take the kind of most intense kind of thing, we're having hallucinations
and can't tell what's true from what's false, and what's real from what's not.
Then yet any epistemology is inefflatable in that pend sad you're not in control
of your mind, you're not able to um, and there's they're very little
activity said to you, and if there was, you wouldn't be able to
process it and take it in. And so that's not what epistemology is for
for um. I'm sure there are you know, milder or borderline cases,
or you know, cases where people are suffering from serious mental illness but not
so serious that they're all the time unable to be in touch with reality,
where then you know, epistemological guidance is development to them to help them understand
what's going on with them and what kind of help they might mean to seek
and what to do. But it's um, you know, difficult and tragic
situation, but a little and it's not very well understood. I don't think,
and I don't think all the gradations are are well, I don't understand
them, and I'm not sure how all the professionals. Yeah, and this
idea that Waltz getsophrenic is a little episode. All you have to do is
look around the world, assuming we're seeing the world as it is, and
see skyscrapers and and uh and advanced technology and iPhones and things like that,
to know that some somebody at least does not schizophrenic. Otherwise none of this
could be created. What would it mean to say we're all Ye means a
particular condition? Does that even mean the same thing as psychotic or crazy?
You're you're seeing things, it's a particular diagnosis. Yeah, um that you
you know, you need to know something about it to make you can't If
everybody has it, then nobody doesn't mean any Yeah, and it has to
contrast with something normal, And if we're all schizophrenics, there is no normal.
Maybe, so it's it's yeah, it's Liam asks what gives philosophy Vieto
power over scientific claims? Yeah, I mean I would love this Vieto power
language, as though we philosophers are apparent, But there is some truth to
it. And so a little at phrase Harry's sometimes maybe I remember, Harry,
do you think about it? Is that philosophy's role is to integrate our
knowledge. It's to bring it all together into one's You have a lot of
different special sciences studying different things, but you have to have a kind of
perspective on how does knowledge fit together, What are the ultimate fundamentals from which
all of these sciences branched out, and what holds the multidimcently have an overview
perspective on the world. And if something sucks that it contradicts the fundamentals on
which all knowledge is based, and or if it would and or it precludes
knowledge from integrating, then there must be something wrong with it. And so
in that sense, it's it's philosophy's job to mind the integration and the fundamentals.
It's philosophy's job to point out when one of these kinds of errors is
made. It So in that sense, you know, you would take it
as veto powers the one to call out. But I don't think it's job
therefore is to say, you know what, the mechanics is out, this
branch of evolution is out, this thing or whatever, like you know,
to throw scident, take your disciplines out. It's job is to say something's
wrong here, This thing as it's being formulated, et cetera, is wrong.
Maybe it's a it's just an error in formulation, and there they are
a real important truth here that just needs to be kind of cleaned up or
disinbbu with it. Maybe the whole field is garbage made. But that's not
the kind of thing philosophy can tell. It can just tell if you're saying
there's no such thingious cause and effect, if you're saying that we are deterministic
puppets and therefore that we can't know anything. If you're saying, um,
that we're not in touch with who, we can't be in touch with reality.
If you're saying we're all schizophrenic. Uh, something's gone wrong. Ye,
Now what exactly? And what might be salvageable from what you're saying?
What might be a tremendous value that's gotten, you know, mixed up into
a hash with some other things. You can just this conclusion that you really
need someone's depend get real expertise in the field to sort of out and tell.
So KFEX thank you k X for the fifty dollars Kfex says um popping
in just to say thank you, Greg. Your woke made it easier for
me to understand objectivism and better apply its ideas to my life. Your old
can talk a few years ago. Principles and post of values is absolute gold.
Thank you. Yeah the women didn't know. Oh yeah, yeah,
that was a good talk. It was a good It was a fun confidence.
I enjoyed that confidence. It was a nice theme for the confidence.
Okay, Greg, are you're still glad you voted for Biden? He just
announced he'll be running for second term. Do you actually think Trump has a
chance of winning? Um? I don't know. Yeah, Trump has a
chance of me I mean, he won once. There's a sizable number of
people who love him no matter why he does. And I think he's less
than fifty fifty shot would But if he's the nominee and he's not certain to
be, then I want to go. He's pretty likely to be, so,
yeah, he definitely has a shot of running and um, and I
hope he doesn't. Am I glad I voted for Biden? Yeah, I
think he was an easy choice. Biden's awful. He did a bad president
but he's been a bad president in pretty typical ways. There are a couple
of things he did that are worse than I expected, but not by much,
and a couple of things that are better than I expected, though again
not by much. He's crummy. I wish he wasn't president, but given
the options we have or he might be, he's better than most of the
people on the left who could have been the Democratic nominee, and he's better
control. Yes, Um, I like numbers asked. Is it a sanction
to work with an alco capitalist like Brian Kaplan? Um, I have worked
with him, as you said, I've done it, did a podcast with
and you're gonna do a debate with him in a dat I don't think sanction
is and work with or binary in that way. Either someone is you know
such that they're not to be sanctioned so you have never never have anything to
do with them, or um uh, you're doing something to do with an
attention in them. I think it's much more. You think about what is
the meaning of this interaction? What am I saying by having this interaction was
this person? Um? What am I endorsing about them by doing that?
And in what contexts, and so I do think it's a sanction if you're
working with an atarcho capitalist in any way or even debating with them in any
way that carries the implication. Here we are people who are fundamentally aligned,
but we have what we regard as a you know, uh, intramural difference,
you know, a fairly trivial price between us within our team. Fundamentally
we're together, but then there's this issue of difference that we have, and
then we're having that issue out. And when I interact with America capitalists,
I very much try to explode any implication to that thing. I interact with
them in the way that I would interact with a Marxist. There might be
some things on which we agree, but there are a lot of things on
which we don't, and I don't take the agreements is fundamental to disagreements,
except for the agreement that this kind of intellectual exchange is worth having in this
context. M Now Capitlan' is an interesting case because he's not there. There
are America capitalists who I think are fundamentally about mealism and tearing things down,
and that's their kind of thing. Um. I think that's kind of what
dominates the Music Institute at this point, and I think it was what dominated
rossbarg is the kind of leading light of it. I don't think that Brian
Kaplan as that kind of person in his motivation. Um, and so I
like where I don't like other people that I you know, I think brans
politics the way I think of the politics, and some of the kind of
leptists that I deal with, you know, are good on this or that
issue. I am excitful want this of that issue, but really well on
other issues. Good. Yeah, I was gonna I was gonna say that
it's it's sanctioned is not exactly that. And as you said, not all
and alc capitalists are the same. I mean, there are some people that
you wouldn't want to do anything with, you wouldn't want to engage in any
kind of debate with, because there's such nihilists, and there are others that
like byan that that I think that you can actually engage with on certain issues.
Let's a Richard ask, is there a branch of philosophy that deals with
meaning, like a combination of teleology, exiology, and semantic clarity. Can
you point to any references about meaning for filling higher needs flirt too, senses
of meaning at least at work here. So philosophy of language in the twentieth
century, and then this kind of moved into philosophy of mind in the late
twenties and twenty first century talk a lot about what it is for a word
or a proposition to be meaningful, kind of semantic, to content, to
kind of stuff, and so in that sense, you know, those brands
of philosophy do that. I think they tend to do it in a way
that's too detached from aistemology. So they kind of think like, there's something
that happened to refer to be meaningful, all right, now it's meaningful,
is it's true? Whereas I think that meaning is something that you ab strapped
out from the activity of knowing. And the thing to be studying is the
activity of knowing things. And if you're in the business of trying to know
something, sometimes you have something that is a theory that's false, and it
has meaning because of the role it's playing and being based on certain evidence and
projecting in a certain way, but it gets it wrong into it it's false.
And I think that this is an important to understanding what's wrong with the
arbitrary. And I think it's an important thesis of it follows from the objectivisty
of knowledge that semantics and epistemology are deeply connected. Now that you ask them,
I think you mean by meaning here not just the meaning of words,
though you mean to include that, but having a life be meaningful and things
like that, UM, having your life be directed on things. And I
don't think there's a name branch of philosophy that does that, but pragmotism as
a school of philosophy, not as the you know, do whatever works kind
of pragmotism, although they're related, but pragmotism is the school of philosophy UM
talks a lot about human activity, including goal directed activity and so forth,
and the processes of having meaning with being connected to that. So you can
see in kind of pragmatist authors UM a sense of how these kind of things
can be related. And UM, someone like Bob Brandam, who's a blossom
professor at Pittsburgh where I study, would be an example of someone who who
thinks along these lines. UM. Now, I think I don't mean to
endorse this kind of view, but I do think there are connections. Knowledge
is for the same of action. I think meaning comes out of knowledge and
knowledge consider it is there for the singers, I think there's there's it's right
to see a connection between these things. Um. The the pragmatists really stress
mental activity and would be the activity of the whole organzas to your activity in
the world as the source of all of this, um, But in a
way that makes it subjective. So it's it's it's mental activity creates meaning,
uh, create purpose, et cetera. But there's not a kind of basis
for that in reality, UM, And I think you do. You think
this is a subjectivist side. The other side of the alternative tends to see
meaning involves passively hitching yourself to something which is a source of meaning of what's
good or another. And I think the right alternative visit you do have to
findos make meaning for yourself both a sunantic meaning and purpose of meaning, but
you do it in a fact based way. There's a way to do it
in the fact based way, including based on the facts that give rise to
the need for this whole activity. But I don't know of UM where you
can find much retailians and read some of the pathetist authors for a sense of
how they think these issues fit together, and maybe somewhat of the literature and
well being in philosophy, which I mentioned earlier. I think is one of
the more interesting things going on connecting to philosophy these days. They's some talking
about meaning in life. So what do you What do you views the relationship
between meaning and purpose meaning in the in the mall sense, in the in
the purposeful sense. Um I mean, I think the purpose is a kind
of more technical term in philosophy. Is I use this meaning it a little
bit more metaphorical, but part of you can find meaning in what you're doing,
right, And I guess you can find purpose in what you're doing,
but it means something different. I think the more connected your activities are two
purposes that you understand and wholeheartedly endorsed for good reasons, and that you are
the happiness that you've chosen to pursue with your life. The more meaningful you
find your life, the more meaningful you find what you're doing. It doesn't
just seem like one damn saying after another that I've got to do, but
as it's infused with the sense of this is part of the life I've chosen
to live and you want to try to make as much of your life as
possible like that. And then there are shortcuts to meaning, shortcuts to seem
like there's some point to what you're doing. Shortcuts to purpose, which involves
in effect secondhandedly to ticking over a purpose or pretending it's a mystic pull both
from the blue thing of the book, the purpose driven life, where your
purpose ends up to be a slave to God or you know, almost cult
where your purpose is to serve humanity and the whole well. And then Jodan
Peterson uses meaning constantly, kind of as an intrinsic something out there that you
need to find. You have to find meaning. Yeah, and I think
that's that's wrong. I think the giving this is one of the things um
Gli did and Howard or To talk a lot about in the Fountain Gap,
and that they bond over right, the idea that people looking for meaning they
have to find myself and so forth, and they're looking outside of themselves.
It's it's something you need to create, but not in the subjectivist way where
anything you create you know you're going to write without capital letters or whatever,
and that's the meaning of your life. You have to create a human life
and a life for yourself with the kind of creature you are, and whatever
meaning they're going to be is going to exist in the context of that system,
that life which if you're going to create it, if you're gonna it's
either debt if you're going to have it, Yeah, purpose for you?
What I mean you have to absert the features features based on the final organism
you are and the fact that you've rise to this whole enterprise. Right.
Andrews asked why are social issues dominating political discourse? And how big of a
national schism do you think a bull the bullshit issue will create? Um?
So, what was the first petion? How? Why are social issue dominating
political discourse? Well, in part because of the political tribes don't disagree on
others. So, I mean in the two thousand in the twenty sixteen election,
which candidate was more anti capitalist? I think Trump was. But it's
just edging it out. I mean Hillary reads no capitalists. But there's so
there's so little difference in their days of economication. Ye, And there's no
difference on their views like issues regarding rights, uh not in general. You
know, one particular field, the Democrats are better on reproductive rights, and
the Republicans are better on certain economic rights, although not all of them.
UM, like mineral rights for example, they're better own um. And the
Democrats are worse on certain technologies, you know, fossil fuels and the rights
to do what one will with them, but you know, probably better on
biodap, although not by So it's like it's it's on issues of rights and
things. On issues of political principle and issues of the economy, they're not
very different from one of them. You have to measure it in the parts
of pavilion or parts pervilions to get even the like AOC versus you know,
um, whoever you call a centrist Republican now um um, what's his name?
The speecher, um McCarthy, Democratic Democratic Um. There's just not that
much difference on the economic stuff, on the right stuff on the other issues.
So how do you, you know, get attention and get your people
to vote out the other person. It's it's personal attacks and it's um cultural
issues. And I think this is the case on both sides. There's um
a kind of flocking two issues where you can vilify not just the other people,
but other blocks of voters or make it seem like there's a kind of
menace in the country and a certain of people who are these people with their
guns or these people with their drag shows or whatever it is, and um
and illicit discussed reactions. UM. So I think that's that's why it happened.
How people will abortion to be its stuff, I don't know. UM.
I mean, it has been an excuse in the country for a long
time. But I think part of what we're seeing is that the support for
the banning of abortion is a lot weaker than the anti abortionists thought it was
so long as they didn't so long as the structure of the court was such
that anti abortion laws couldn't get upheld, there was a lot of enthusiasm for
f a symbolic gesture passing these laws that pretend that that embryo is from the
beginning? Are you know, are full fledged people um that see no difference
between um. You know, as I go from the thirty two year old
um, those kind of laws were very popular when you know, it didn't
cost anything to pass them affect anyone, just like repealing Obamacare was very popular
when it wasn't actually going to get repealed. Um, once you should have
been that's not I'm not meeting them in those at the middle. But then
as soon as it actually happens, when the laws get them to effect,
then it turns out that a lot of people, including a lot of Republicans,
don't don't want them, don't want these laws. More So, I
don't know will the Republicans moderate. I think insofar as it's going to be
a schism over this, it's going to be within the Republican Party between the
people who are you know, diehards on this issue. We want to ban
all abortions in the Matagua and we don't care if it acrost us votes and
the people who are who are not and um. One of the more positive
things I could say about Trump, who somewhere like to task if he's not
a die heart about this issue. He was an opportunist anti abortion and now
he's you know, opportunists on telling people to back away from him. And
if that side of the Republican Party wins out over the Religi decided that I
think will probably end up with a lot of states moving to something more like
a European model where you have, um, you know, less of abortion
freedom than you ought to, but not these better crazy art being laws in
six weeks love well and an abortion pill laws, which is even which is
even worse. All right, James, A long time to get to that
better place, even if we do didn't do it. Yes, I agree,
it's gonna there's no easy path there because so many people have committed themselves
to a certain position. Um. And it's and it's again it's associated with
the tribe. One thing that's striking to me is how few people view this
as an issue. There a few people with an objectivism thinking about it.
About Yeah, this as an issue in twenty sixteen, in two thousand and
eight, um or whatever, twelve all the different I have viewed it as
a significant issue for a long time. I thought we were a justice or
two away for a losing row. Um. I thought that the first well,
and to this day I think there are a lot of a lot of
even objectivists who think Trump's greatest achievement is the Supreme Court. So I just
don't think people put enough weight on this issue of abortion. Particularly man don't
put enough weight on this issue of abortion. And of course, the person
who put the most weight on it, and a US the importance of this
to some extent is I manned. I mean she didn't vote for somebody like,
I mean, Ronald Reagan right now seems like a saint. He seems
like, you know what, wouldn't we give to have a Ronald Reagan running
for president right now? And yet I didn't vote for him because primarily because
not only, but primarily because of this issue of abortion. Yeah. Part
of that that we should recognize and thinking about is what he represented me.
Yeah. The good about Ronald Reagan was in a way happening anyway he needed
to figure told us, but there was a real pro market, anti status
backlash. And you can see that we had thatcher when we had Fraiture.
It was this kind of international thing that was happening. Reagan was the guy
who would call us around in America. He could have been around someone else,
or so we might have thought. UM. And part of what is
legacy is I think the central isn't those those at liberties that are associated with
him, which we're looking for a political champion, but the merging of that
with UM, with religionism, and it might have been that just where the
culture was was that that was only what was going to happen, and you
know it's the wather Agian. It would have been someone else. But whether
that's true or not, that's what his cannibisiating represented historically. That's what he's
winning the Republican primary represented historical. Um. And that's um that I think
was she was such as for her, Yeah, I mean she recognized that
he was bringing them all majority the Christianity deep into the Republican Party and entrenching
it there. And um, that turned out to be one hundred percent right.
I mean it's it's it's amazing the age of mediocrities or that it's really
um shocking to read that and just how how I mean she said things like
in nineteen eighty like, you know, don't call me a conservative. I
don't want to be associative with these people they're trying to do with the Iatola
to Iran. Yeah, um, ye know she was not a moderate on
this kind of issue. No. But as to the point I think that
the I liked the previous Supreme Court. I liked the court with Kennedy.
Ye, it wasn't gonna stick for very long. Um, And uh,
you know, it just so happened that the forces were arrayed in the place
that kept him a relatively good status, where the best part of the Republican
appointed justices acted to stay on the worst part of the Democrat appointed justices,
and the best part of the Democrat of what you justices act to stay on
the worst part of the Republican apport justice. We have to see where the
new equilibrium is. There were some good things about this court, but some
really bad things, and see where where it shakes that. But but the
overturning of Roe was I think a real horror. And part of what was
so horrible about it is that it did it while casting shade on the lockman
or like you could imagine a kind of conservative who at least is applutting.
The better things about conservativis own path wants to bring that bath but is in
different to socialism. But what it's saying is just like we realize there are
no rights in the economic realm, there's no right to your body either,
and that is really disgusting. Yeah, and Alito has a special physic health
for that. Yeah, Alita things particularly bad. It will be interesting what
they do tomorrow, because we should hear tomorrow about the abution pill um,
and the fact that they had to delay it means there's a debate going on.
I thought there was a chance that unanimously would they would throw out the
Texas ruling. UM, and expecting they will end up throwing out the deist
ruling. But I expect so too. Yeah, exactly, Um, James
says, when is it fair to say you're in a light boat scenario and
can initiate force for your own survival? When when free speech is When is
it when free speech is abolished? This strikes for me is too yeah abstract
to really answer this way. You know, it's not like you so so
you're in USSR and free speech has been abolished, at least you don't just
start killing people left and right. And you've got to think about, like,
what specific situation are you in where you think that you can Um.
You don't want to give your vibe. It's you know, it's zero sum
and um. There are some situations on the untatorship where it happens, but
not most of them, not most of the time, all right, Clough.
For something to be a lifeboat scenario, it has to be short lived.
It has to be a kind of emergency where UM, if only you
get out of this situation, you'll be able to go back to living a
normal life by normal by the normal rule, and something makes it impossible in
this situation, which you can get out of by doing it. So if
you're at in a situation where like you're at the boarder and you can escape
the USSR or North Korea or wherever by doing this thing that would otherwise be
immoral and would involve harming someone else, and then once you're on the other
side, you know, our life starts again. Those are the kind of
situations where we can come up with examples and weigh them. But if it's
you know, you're going to go on being a slave in a slave can,
that's not an emergency scenario. That's a scenario where life just impossible and
morality maybe doesn't apply, but not in the way of a life boat.
Exceptions that you can exceptional contingencies and you can end and if we'll get back
to the business of living. I mean, it strikes me that the question
really is asking when is it okay to start of revolution because it brings in
the free speech issues, So you know, when when do we get to
the point where we can initiate force in order to liberate ourselves, And I
think, yeah, good, I think that's right. But then then I'm
very skeptical of revolutions by force. I think they're very rarely necessary. When
they're possible, yeah, um, you need to have enough people to win,
and not just to win, but that are going to be able to
cohere and create a stable system of government afterwards. And I can only really
think of one case in history where I'm searching it was justified, and that
was the American Revolution. And that wasn't a whole bunch of people rising up
becoming That was local governments declaring themselves independent of another wider government that they were,
you know, um, you know, in subservient too. And I'm
sure there are probably other cases like that. I just uh where where that
where that might be similarly justified. The other ones I can think of,
though, weren't actually violent. They were protest movements or things like that.
Um. Usually freedom has come about by relatively slow transition and then the creation
of some kind of parliamentary body body, and that parliamentary body then asserting its
authority over an autocratic like give the parliament versus the king, and things like
that rather than guerrilla warfare type things. Maybe it could happen, but you
know, it's hard to come up with a case almost all the time.
The fact that you need to use guerrilla kind of warfare tactics shows that you're
not in a place that is capable of free government if you want. There's
not a population table. Yeah, fed help, I asks, since IOE,
have you noticed in university philosophy course teaching the idea of induction and unit
measurement emission as Peacoff is spoken on, like in logical leap and acoms of
induction. Well, since he was published before I was born, So yeah,
I wasn't in a position to observe before that changed afterwards. I don't
think it's widely read by people in philosophy department, so I don't think it's
had that kind of an influence. Um, I'm talking about whether they're positive
or negative trends in views about induction. But I don't think I Qui in
particular has has been a cause of that. And he doesn't really talk about
induction. I mean it has a couple of promising remarks and cantalizing things,
and particularly in the appendix and and their ideas that that letter you know,
later letter Pika later used to develop a theory. But um, you know
it's not that's not an IVF. Clark asks, do any academics you work
with in philosophy departments have the slightest respectfuying RAND? All Your students more interested
in RAND than they would decade ago. Yeah, so they're they're definitely academic.
I've worked within philosophy departments who have respect for program. A handful of
people in particular stand out UM, the U and people in other departments too.
You can how much, since, of course sometimes UM students students in
classes where I teach her are usually and I never teach a whole class course
on ortias. You know, we're teaching the curve of figures views on the
topic, and she'll be one of them. Are often very receptives find her
interesting, including people who aren't antecedently, you know, predisposed to like her.
That its politics don't align or whatever. It's not, of course all
poligens UM. It's hard to tell how much they're influenced by thinking I like
her, momos the professor, while although I'm surprised by how often students don't
know which you see endoor civities. I know, I try not to tell
them. I think I could restell um. But generally students, you know
a lot of students see something positive with her, and then I think take
on some of her ideas. Um are they how do they come to me?
Though I haven't noticed a big difference in the time I've been teaching in
whether the streaments are antisedingly interested in Manum. Usually, you know, at
least some people will ask, will be familiar with, some will positive views,
and some wile afte interviews okay, quickly they usual most of them want
to read and roll of work of fiction that they won't see the connection to
what we're really right away, So you know, doesn't dominate the special Michael
asks, are you overall optimistic about ability to spread objectivism and gradually change the
culture? Do you think you will see real positive change in your lifetime?
Yes, but not as objectivism exactly. So I'm optimistic about and this is
the same thing matter anyway, I'm optimistic about the ability of objectivists to move
the conversations in the right direction, to make the conversation better and whatever.
By the conversation, I mean, like if you look at how the way
people talk about energy now is no diiceably better because of the ideas that Alex
has has been advocating for it. He's become a big name in the field.
But even people who don't maybe don't know his name, like you'll see
just better talking points about energy better, the viuser you know, discussion is
just better. Do to his influence and do the his useful objectives. And
I think if you look in the field of intellectual property, you'll see how
a mossubs influence. I think already I mentioned a well being literature in philosophy.
Already that literature has been influenced indirectly by high Rand in positive directions by
people who were sort of semi objectivists or had an objectivist phase but with it
but retain certain ideas. And I think, um, there have been some
good popular books on well being that you know, to have an influence on
people's lives that indirectly there's some of that market. I think there's a potential
that will be more and more about it. Likewise in some different fields in
philosophy that is once written in you know, academic corners, but also you
know, outside of them, so I think, you know, it comes
through people having particular influences on particular fields that don't look like one and one
of this is objectivism, but you can see if you look deeper how it
is having influence. Um. And then eventually I think a lot of that
I talked to, Oh, there's a whole school here of objectivist intellectuals who
are seeding a lot of this and behind a lot of this and stuff where
um. But I think that I I think I will see the when they'll
start to be a recognition of that fact that a lot of positive changes coming
from the same intellectual or a lot of change with people that it's positive or
not that I think is coming from the game indectual family yep, right,
Richard ass is the US undergoing a cultural revolution where leftist ideology and filtrates media,
academian law, for example, derivatives of critical race theory have at least
some visibility today. I think the questions one hundred years later, I think
it happened. It happened a long time ago. In addition to influencing what
did you say, law, media and other things, it's influenced the churches,
It influenced the parenting. It influenced a whole lot of other things,
and it's busy. It's metastasized a long time ago. One hundred years.
Maybe it's too much, but certainly by the sixties it had and some of
it, you know, more than a hundred years ago. I think now
the same kinds of ideas are all over the place, and they're reproducing themselves
all over the place in pulpits, in conservative think tanks, in left distinct
tanks, and university departments with you know, minor variations, just like the
same ideas were reproducing themselves amongst fascists and communists in the early twentieth century with
minor variations. It wasn't the fascist. We're all getting in from the communist
because the communist stolf From the fact there was an overall direction where it started.
I think, well, I don't know, because the Hagel was perparse,
but the and fist of all these people, but these kinds of well
springs of bad ideas had gotten into all the main organs of the culture,
including the organs that see themselves as opposed to one another, and the process
by which they fought one another was just adopting slight variations of one another bacause
I don't think there's a kind of particular acceleration where bad leftist ideas are moving
from campus to other parts of life. They've been there and they're developing alone
their trajectory there, both in left and right basket. Now, if we
talked about se sific ideas, like the particular ideas about the environment or about
diversity at particular ways of looking at idea, then you can charge the force
of this particular idea spread from campus to this place at this time. But
I don't think that's the main story of what's of what's happening with the culture.
I think the mainjories is things that are deeper wrong that did ultimately,
you know, spread from academic continustions outboard, but that the bulk of that
work was done a long time ago. All right, Hopa Campbell asks,
is there anything? Is there anything you think Roan could be doing better?
Maybe I should answer that or anything. Friends, I really like this show.
Um, I think it's um certainly the best regular programming you know from
an objectivist projective. But that's such a damning by day praise. If it's
a low bar, there isn't you know anything anywhere near in the league of
them. I think it's really important that, um, that this is happening.
Um, so I think it's a fantastic show. But I'm sure you
know when I when I noticed something, I'll you know it's in the emails.
Yes, he does with you on that. Ye, thank you great
as a pet peeve about the pronunciation of one or two words, so maybe
that. I'm sure there a lot of my pronunciation is terrible. I can
only see things all right, Ian says, is the ivanced society still active
and engaging with non objectives philosophers? Yes, but we're trying to figure out
what to do with it because and how to change what we do with it
going forward, because I no longer think think the kinds of programs we would
have there are the best forums or engaging with unobjectivist philosophers. UM. Only
you that we've now sound better forms you. We're doing it. So I
mentioned the kinds of conferences that I put on in terris M. I just
put on an amangdis put on where it wasn't about I ram is anything at
the IMAM society guess to be was just about a topic. And we had
some objectivists and non objectivist philosophers engaging over the topic. I found that when
we've done that kind of thing, more good has come up with than when
we did the kind of programing we do with the RS, where we would
have you know, somebody right about I'm ramm the continent. We have a
commis stolar company to talk about it. That format of program So I think
there's other kinds of given the kind of opportunities that there are now, there
are probably other kinds of programming that it's better for the RS sessions to be
focused on. That's where you know, advantages versus that style of session.
But that's something that the steering community is deliberating about it thinking about. Uh,
I don't know how much I say. My own prefforts would be that
more of the papers at the a RS conferences will be in the nature if
I'm rant scholarship, and maybe we'll have multiple people with a background than her,
rather than whether their objective has been people spend considerable time thinking about her,
and um, the other kind of mobage been taking place in the other
world. But we'll see partly what opportunities ye good, Let's see Harpocollins Campbell
asks, Um, did you see Stephen Hicks debate with Craig Biddle about whether
the objectivism is the statics and system? I saw an ad for it.
I didn't know what happened yet. Yeah, I think it's still it's still
going to happen. I don't think. I don't think it's happened already.
Yeah. Are you planning on seeing it? Um? I assume it's at
a conference that I'm not going to. I don't know. I mean,
if it's time YouTube by my watch it, Okay. I don't think.
I think I know where I stand on those issues. I think I know
where both of those people stand at it, and I don't know. You
know, I wouldn't expect to learn much, but I sometimes feel a professional
responsibility to keep up on things like this. So if you know, if
I see a link to a YouTube video, but I'll probably watch it.
Uh, Michaels, Did we have any radical individualist presidents or were they all
collectivists of varying degrees? I think you know, Washington, Adams, Jefferson,
and Madison were pretty damn good in their different ways. Um. Each
of them had had problems, and I wouldn't call them collectivists. I would
say they were all individuals. I would say that Lincoln is. I think
Lincoln is primarily individual factors. Though he made some mistakes, there are some
things he did wrong. Um, I'm sure there are some of those,
Hugo Quinn to see Adams. I think I'm not a kind of historian.
I don't know all of the figures. But um, already too many presidents
I think, well after Linking, maybe Cleveland, maybe Cleveland even yeah,
I don't know that much about even even some of the better ones turned out
really bad. Like Coolidge is often thought of by my appolist is very good.
But Coolidge presided over the national relation of the airwave, which is all
the worst things done. And um, I think it was terrible in immigration,
right, wasn't Coolidg's terrible in immigration? I don't know where. Okay,
I thought the Big Immigration Act was passed on the Coolidge in the twenties,
the first one that really blocked blocked immigration. It would makes sense time
wise, but I'm not about so there's no you know, other than I
know the early American presidence pretty well. Um yep, um, let's see
Liam says. If Trump wins the nomination and gets absolutely destroyed in the general
election by an eight two year old demanded, man, will we see a
real shift in the GUP towards a more rational limited government party? I don't
know. I'd like to think so. We to some extent we thought when
Biden won this in twenty twenty, that would happen. I thought that,
I mean, when it was as close as it Why it wasn't that close,
but when it was as close as it was, rather than a blowout,
Um, yeah, I mean when Trump won the Republican domination in twenty
sixteen, I think it showed that America was a less good country than most
of us thought it was. Ye. I think it's still historically a great
country. It's still better than any plays out. But I thought we were
going to do that yea. Um, And given that he won that,
given that it was possible from to both win the nomination and then when the
presidency, but even winning the nomination, I think it's a more important thing.
Um. Nothing else that's happened since should be too surprising. Um,
nothing feeling that happened with him? Who surprised me? Since then? A
country that's willing to vote for him once couple be willing to vote for him
again. And I think everything that happened, people who were surprised by it
were kidding themselves. I think the response to COVID, the response to losing
in in in twenty twenty, all of that was baked into what we knew.
He was the kind of mean one the nomination. So what will snap
people out of him? I don't know. I don't think there's a kind
of moment where everybody's just going to change their mind. I think it would
be a gradual, you know, gradual transition away towards more positive values.
Um, if someone on the right arises making a more positive case for something
about it, you could imagine, you know, Jimmiscott or Nicky Henley or
someone h doing something. We haven't seen much of it yet, And um,
I don't know when that will happen. I don't think Biden's unpopular ens
that he's not going to have a I think he probably willing to get to
Trump, but I don't think he would have the kind of blowout that's had
a proportion to would happen before. Maybe the Trump people will just kind of
get tired of, you know, losing over and over again and they'll go
home. But um and I think that that's probably more likely what will happen,
and that you know they will be these conversion experiences, But I don't
know, and I don't know the times again, ye Liamos asks and if
Trump wins the second term, will he be able to get anything done?
Or will the GOP morph into a full fascist, populist reactionary party. Are
yeah, an no. More that it does that, the more likely he
will be able to get the kind of things I've done that would be would
be terrified. But we should be asking these kinds of questions about um,
you know the Democrats too, What would make them change their minds? They
get better? Um? So I don't know. I think it's it would
be a very bad thing for the country if you want again, um,
certainly versus someone like Biden, there's a lame milk toast. Um uh.
And I mean he's pathetic and in corrupting various ways and and bad, but
all within normal bounds. If it were someone like Bernie Sanders, you could
you know, see like it's a new load for the last n the new
load for the right. And what are you going to make of it.
But that's not the case with Biden. He's this same old contemptible jump that
all presidents left and right at them for for decades. Some of his people
are worse than they have but you'd expect that, right, because the whole
movement is moving left right is petially bad. I think the worst. I
know, um, but you would expect. I mean, there's always that
are in worse people within the administ patients. There were some good people within
the Trump like actually good people, and certainly some people who were better than
would have been the alternatives. Definitely a Democrat administration, but you know,
again likewise on some issues there are better people than the Democratic Okay, next
few questions all by Wick Zong uh So. Wick asks, you guys have
viciously criticized Trump over the last seven years. Thank you we have. Is
it appropriate when he is persecuted by the entire system he is a victim victims,
nothing to about, Yeah, and it doesn't exonerate you from the evil.
Maybe deserves his victimhood status, right, I mean I don't think yeah,
but um, I don't think that's the story of them in general.
But no excuse. Yeah, So, I you know, I certainly don't
regret and tend to continue to criticize and viciously as long as he's in politics.
Well, what is important to not do and to make sure that we
don't do it, That we should keep ourselves honest about in our hatred or
Trump, which I think is just that I think one should Adam is not
to use it as a justification for being soft on accepting of evils that present
themselves as opposed to it, just as opposition to those evils shouldn't make one
soft on sympathetic to again or to anything else that that pops up and you
know, classifies itself as writer or anti lab It's very easy to fall into
kind of team sports and politics, and I think one has to recognize that
we're in a world where the culture and the political culture is bad and broken
and wrong, and as a result, all the major movements are going to
be bad, and some of them are going to be worse than others at
certain times. It's not that there's like some permanent political faction that's good and
it's for the good in a country that has two dominant political parties or two
dominant political faction, which is how any country with voting tends to shake out.
You know, either there are two parties as in our country, or
in a parliamentary system there are many parties, but to tend to be the
down on. What you have to think about is not which party is good
or which is evil. You have to expect that the country is going to
be in the hands of one party sometimes in the hands of the other party
the other time. And if you're thinking about your life over a lifetime,
it's not that one of those is going to win and the other is gonna
lose. It's that power is going to be shared and switch back and forth.
And what you have to focus on is which things are making one or
the other or both sides worse or bad. And there have been periods where
both sides have been getting better on significant issues. Both sides went from being
not really pro free trade to pretty prow free trade over the course of the
seventies through the nineties. Now both sides being anti creature, right, that's
that thing kind of happened. Both sides went to being pretty pro abortion from
being anti abortion or from abortion being illegal in the country over the course of
the sixties in the seventies. Now one side has gone to being really anti
abortion and maybe maybe they'll start to retreat from that on various issues, you
know, one side will get better or worse. And what I'm more focused
on, you know, is what's going to make the Republicans a little bit
better or a little bit worse, or a lot better or a lot of
And likewise, for the Democrats, so Bernie Sanders winning the nomination or something,
or AOC becoming Speaker of the out of Company, it would be a
really bad thing or the factions that it would make, it would empower the
worst side of the Democrat and the Democrats are going to be half of who's
ruling us for the foreseeable future. Whereas you know, moderate milk toast candidates
who are good on abortion only moderately bad relative to Republicans on the economy,
Um, don't have much to say, you know, like nothing, practice
duckings are you know, the best we can hope for from the Democrats,
and so we should be hoping for it and from the Republicans. It's the
same thing. Do you get people like that or do you get real nialist
destroyers and uh, and do you get you know, people like a Paul
Ryan or someone like that, who has you know, some good ideas in
some fields and and nothing in most others, or or do you have someone
like a Trump? And it's that distinction that matters much more than distension between
the Democrats and the Republican to win the particular Yeah, green Um wake us
asks, what's your evaluation if charm Charles Murray's work on race? Um,
I think charms Murray's contemptible, not primarily because of his work on race,
although I think his work on race I've been I read The Belt Curb very
very long time ago. I don't remember all the details. I don't finding
I didn't find it first races, But I think there's a general deterministic mindset.
He has a kind of thinking that we're made mostly by our biology,
and a real and not by our choices, and a real collectivist dick impulse,
but running throughout his thinking. And I'll tell you the thing that most
horrified me when I read it by Murray, much more than anything he said
about race. Again, I think he's wrong and bad and a lot of
things he says about race, But this is the thing that most concerned me.
Wasn't his book coming apart where He was bemoaning the fact that if you
were really smart, way back in the day, whenever he thinks it was
good m a smart man, you know, you go to college with other
men, but there'd be no women there. And you go back to your
hometown and find the smartest girl in your you know, hometown who wouldn't be
that smart, and you get married to her and have kids whose intelligence would
be average, maybe a little bit raised by your intelligence, but brought down
by your wife. And if you were a really smart women in the town,
you know whatever, you bury the local farmer. But now that women
go and get educations to the smartest men find the smartest women, and they
can come together and they can be super smart and have super smart kids,
and then there won't be in there for people in the country who won't be
very stupid able. And he why, I think it's silly to think that
that that happens, is what's happening. But to the bemoaning of the fact
that intelligent people can find one another, that's disgusting, it's despicable. And
if if you think something like that is happening, you're like, finally the
best of you know, smartest, most ambitious, most, whatever positive try
you think you have of both genders are able to develop themselves to the utmost
and get to know one another, and you regard that as anything less than
a past it wonderful thing that any possible downside of which he is marginal and
could easily be dealt with. I think he's there's something really spiritually despicable about
that, and I think of him as this kind of decrepid, envious,
collectivest soul strolling around through the earth, spreading his sick misery. So that's
when I think of him spiritually. Now, what do I think of his
figures? He's not I find what he's There's something odd in this kind of
fixation on IQ, a lot of which I think is kind of bogus.
The science. I think there's something strange about the way it's driving his work.
I think the things that that John mcwater has written in response to him
about about it, I think are largely right and have a kind of wisdom
to them. On the other hand, he's treated as a kind of evil
non person who anyone talking to is therefore, um, you know, continning
some kind of thought crime or whatever. And I think that's awful. It's
awful that there was violent when he spoke at Middlebury, and that's totally unacceptable.
On the other hand, the response to it by saying, well,
he's you know, wonderful and one of us because other people don't like him
is not the right response to that. But um, you know, he's
one of these kinds of people. I don't regard him as any kind of
an ally in the fight or freedom. Um. I don't regard him as
as pointing to staffs that are otherwise hitting that people don't know. Everyone knows
there's a lot of uh, you know, disproportionate racur prime and African American
community and so forth. That's not you know, some great revelation. Um.
There are a lot of questions about why and what to do about it.
But I don't think he should as much. I don't know. Um
from Wick again, what do you think about Fire defending Amy Wax? Um?
This one I find a little more. It's a similar issue in a
way. So I think LAX's views are also pretty contemptible. Yeah. I
think Fire's conception of free speech in general, much wider than the Lax issue,
is mistaken. There are things that they're very good on, but they
don't think they really understand the issue of free speech. They come out of
the free speech movement of nineteen sixty five, the kind of protests at Berkeley
into the fourth which ran condemned at the time for the very reasons that are
relevant now. They're one of their kind of things that all the kind of
free speech folks down from the ones that fire are very proud of was the
acoused defense of the Nazis right to march it Skokie. But the Nazis didn't
have a right to march it Scipe if not a moral right, and the
laws shouldn't be set up to have that right. Now, if we're going
to let everybody else launch, you can't just exclude the Nazis until in that
sense it's true, But there's a kind of sense that free speech means everybody
being tolerant of everything, and therefore when somebody's idea, thought, speech are
intolerated by some party, that therefore that group is a persecuted minority like that
other questioner asked about Trump and people should rally to their side, and I
don't think that's true. It's not a violation of anyone's free speech, not
to want to have dinner with them, not to want to talk to them,
not to want to debate them. To regard to this, beyond the
pan and some of the things that Wax has held, I think should place
her outside of most pans that said, she has tenure at a university.
There's a ten year contract that specifies under what terms she could be fired or
not buyed to. So for it that those kind of contracts, for better
or worse, be respected, I think it's important to be part of how
you defend your rights is through contracting and making contracts with you know that you
can rely on it. And so if it turns out that attempts to dismiss
Amy run afoul of her contract, then she should be defended and it made
sense or fire to defender. And I don't know that's an issue of exactly
how their contract is written, but some of the things I've heard her say,
I think they're incompatible with being with being a teacher. If you're teaching
people and you're saying publicly like my Asian students are this way and my Black
students are that way. Even if that's true, it's not, it's not,
which I don't think it is, but it's not. You have certain
responsibilities to about how you discuss the people who you're teaching or in your charge
in that sense, but I think are part of taking on that kind of
a job, and I think that some of the comments made a violation of
that. And she's part of a really ugly current in American thought that starts
later after the Civil War, where you get a certain kind of distortion of
liberalism that comes to think that freedom is and a respect for freedom and I
wanted to vote for the system that will keep us free is part of some
special feature of white Europeans and only white Huropeans having, can have, or
are likely to ever get, and so that the key to keeping the free
nation is to make it unfree and get rid of freedom of association in various
ways so as to keep it white. That is I think a really horrible
of you that have a really horrible history was related to some of the horrible
laws that we talked about before, and it's what whacks as Defendom is a
proponent. And I think it's been a real mistake on the part of advocates
of free speech that they've not just said, you know, it might be
wrong that this horrible woman get fired, given her given her contract and the
principle of which are waning universities, but the regarding her as an ally or
a friend. And I was at the Stamford Conference on Academic Freedom where she
was, and I was bothered by how friendly reception she got. By even
now, I think you should know that. Were you concerned about the financial
about financial prospects when you chose an intellectual career? Yeah, but I had
reasons to be less and I had to the first thing, Like, when
I went into college, I had the sense that you have to go somewhere
and get some degree in something that sets you up for some job. But
if you get the wrong degree and you can't get a job in that thing,
you know, so you end up in the Bowery somewhere. And I
didn't quite literally do that, but it's kind of the premise I was operating
more and after my think I told this story before, maybe even on the
show, but after my freshman year in college, by which time I was
very interested in philosophy and I got out of trumb I got a job through
a camp agency, basically doing the lowest kind of data entry thing you could
do at an office. It was it was an office that was it was
part of the ATAM data And I realized that not well run, this data
that I'm entering is going to be obsolete by the end of the summer when
I was supposed to be done entering it. Plus I'm moving data from a
moving sort whatever. So I ended up writing some scripts to automate that job.
I didn't have any particular background in programming. I learned a little bit
of programming when I was a kid and then forgot it. And you know,
it wasn't the language as I was using that, but its just I
was thinking, like, this isn't the way to do things. I was
paying attention to why I was being asked to do when I was doing,
how it was fitting into the larger workflow. What could I do to make
it better? Right at this? And I ended up getting basically promoted to
writing other programs to do other things like that. And I just paid a
lot of attention to, like what's going on at this business, who's good
at their job and who isn't, who's recognized for being good at their job?
But it was what's making this place run? And I realized, yeah,
I could do well here, I could get promotions here, I can
go work, or I can go to another company and do something like this.
The things that are making me able to add value aren't that I have
this degree or this piece of paper or this particular piece of knowledge, but
that I'm being rational. I'm thinking about what the point of this work is.
And it makes sense. It's like at Les Sharp says, there's the
mind, and the mind makes things work, and it's not always a person
at the top. And you can find a place to add value. And
the next summer one of my best friends did the same thing. You can
have a job also data entry at another place. Found things he could you
learn to code and you knew less about putting a good idea, was pulling
me up, how do I do this function or whatever? Wrote some software
for them, did some other things, ended up as a vice president of
that company, and then went on left with the CEO of that company to
go found another company and had a you know, a good career in business.
And and I just had the sense that oh, if you think,
if you're thoughtful, if your industrious, if you're looking for opportunities, there
are ways to work your way up and make money. So I'm not it's
not life. I'm gonna be a bomb at the philosophies of work out.
And moreover, the one thing, given my interest in my skill sets that's
really fostering what's good about what I value in myself and makes be able to
do this is possible. So I'm not losing anything my study. And so
that was my first decision when I was in college, that may be very
confident in pursuing a philosophy major and thinking that the philosophy is relevant and I
can find a way to use it in business, but I need to or
in some other field. And then the other thing that made me more confident
is by the time I was in graduate school and getting out of graduatedool,
there are more and more opportunities through handsom and through a RII to do work
as an specifically objectivist intellectual. There was interested I ran that a market for
or non for work on her that made possible none inventional scholarly for your path.
And most of my work has been, you know, in one way
or another part of that. So I realized that that existed, and I'm
very pleased mind and grateful for those opportunities. But I also like all the
market and so that that was you know, possible, and that influenced some
decisions about how open I was on what I work for, what things I
wrote, not saying that every decision I need with right or perfect or my
career it is you know, part of being productive is thinking what is there
a market for? How can I make there be a market for the things
I wanted to yep um, which says why should we criticize the right?
When the left dominated the major institutions academia, media, Hollywood, tech,
medical establishment, et cetera. I don't understand the question, and the last
dominated some institutions, the rights dominates others. They're both important factors in the
culture, and they feed off on another. They're not enemies. They're part
of one system by which ideas propagated and and take hold. And why should
we in particular criticize the right that is me and your because the people who
are apt to listen to us already are more aware of constrong with alec Yeah,
why do you give so little credit to Christian tradition when many good ideas
arise from it? Though the good ideas I influenced by Greek philosophy, they
still manifested itself in this tradition. I don't think. I'm not convinced any
good ideas didn't come from that treasure. Whatever dominant type ideology there is,
whether it's a religion or a philosophy, other ideas that are around independent of
it, will get a created to it and maybe spread or passed along with
it, wrapped up in it. And there are some good ideas that got
spread and wrapped up with Christianity and some people's minds, you know, sandwich,
but I don't think any of them come from it or were developed because
of it. There might be some, I'm not you know, closed to
that possibility. I could think of some possible ones, truly, if you're
interesting. But I don't really think the good ideas that having come from it,
and I don't think it gets credit for the you know, things that
traveled along with it, despite being contrary to its nature. And the same
goes for Islam, and the same goes for Judaism, and the same goes
for Eastern religions that you know, I'm sure the same thing is true of
in Hinduism and Buddhism and so forth, and the same goes for various you
know, nominally secular creeds like Marxism. You could say all certain intellectuality goes
along with that, or interesting history goes along with that, and those things
are true, and it's good that people are interested in arguments during history,
but it's not due to anything about Marxism. It's just those things gets hyped
into some people's you know, got tied up with Marxism. But some people
and some people's passed through those good things for through it, but not for
any reason. You know. That's you to what's distinctive about bad ideology.
The same with Christianity, same with this long say with Junias. That's how
I think about that um as you say, anything good, It's possible in
my mind that had some role in UM in breaking down um views of anate
different innate differences among people that justify authority, just of my political authority,
that we each have it in an individual relationship with God and as therefore were
all equal in our connection with God being a metaphor or all equal in our
connection to reality and um et cetera. There's a kind of egalitarianism in Christianity
which I think is overall bad. But UM was perhaps in some contexts a
UM, you know, counter force to UM a kind of tribal worship of
power or chieftains, and you know, maybe had some others that I'm not
convinced of that, but I can see some case from So speaking of Christian
governments almost all theocracies run by empowered lasses for almost all of its history,
makes me think that whatever elements might have been compatible with that. So,
you know, hitch hikers not saying the sexual to the s kfax ass As
a follow up, speaking Christianity, what's the origin of the idea that Christianity
is the foundation of individualism? I hooded in the Wild recently and have been
wondering about it since. UM there's a period where ran sympathetic to this idea.
I think it's in UM. In Roles Wild, they're Lane and it
is about Patterson somewhat UM, maybe more Lane than than Patterson. UM.
But in some of the kinds of intellectual libertarian intellectuals, some of the Paul
themselves libertarian individuals, intellectuals of the forties. UM. I don't know where
it originally comes from. You can see, I mean, there is a
real individualism in lock and Locke is a Christian and some of how he puts
it is tied up with um, not really Christianity so much as a kind
of general seism that he has. He is a Christian, but the parts
of it that he draws on in his political writings are much more generalized views
about than as a specifical as Christian. So there is you know, that
history of it developing, Um a lock. You know how how locks he
has developed and were received. That's like you developed, But I haven't traced
the claim who first was saying in and grabbedto Christianity and how to describe.
Brand's kind of interesting on this because she if you look at her early notes,
Um, when she's first writing, she's these Christianity. It's like the
enemy. It's the perfect kindergarten for communism. She wants to see may be
known as the harshest critic of religion and the greatest enemy and so forth,
and it's a source of all hypocrisy. It's just, I mean, you
can't imagine them who are anti religious rum around the late forties, early fifty
fifties, Um, she's you know, still about religious anti religions, still
an atheist and still very fiery about that, but allowing that um, Christianity
might have been important spreading individualism, that she might have more in common with
some of the better christianstinuers. She came to have a lot of respect for
appliments, for example, Um. And but you know, by the mid
sixties and certainly into the seventies, she became very interned about professional religionists taking
over the conservatives movement. As a communist at the liberal movement, she thought
those things for analogists, she thought it was happening, though it had happened
by the time of Reagan. And you don't find anything positive about religion after
that. Uh. Paulo asks, have you read The Senses as Perceptual Systems
the book? I assume so, if you mean Gibson's book, then yes.
But Manning, I mean like twenty years ago. Okay. Leam asks,
yep, Will so security be the first major socialist system to be privatized
since it's going bankrupt much sooner than expected and it's the easiest way to transfer
it to private system. I have no idea. Yeah, I mean I
doubt I doubt it. I think it's one of the last uh Ian asked,
have you read much about the Niana n y a y a school of
Indian philosophy which had a strong emphasis and epistemology. No. Interestingly, I
heard an interview about it just earlier today, M book. It was recently
translated, um, and then the book seemed interesting, But I haven't read
much about it. I don't know very much about Indian or Chinese philosophy.
UM. I think they're worth someone studying, and they're worth my you know,
learning a little bit more than I do, maybe a lot more,
but starting with a little. But you know, a lot of things they're
worth looking into, and there's always a much science. I don't know what
I'll get doing. Kfax asks Alex Epstein is doing great wook and energy policy,
but which industry would you like to see the next Alex take on?
I don't really love the question. It so much depends on the person and
what they know about and have a passion for it, you know. But
some industries where I think something could be done, and I'm trying to help
some things get done. One is healthcare, and I'm planning. I have
a group of people beating the talk about the healthcare industry and planning to type
of confidence about it. UM. So healthcare is the point. UM.
Probably finance would be good. UM. And you know Run has done some
something that you wrote down together with the books on finance. I think there's
a lot more that could be done. This kind of you clearly vilified industry
UM and important to most people don't don't recognize UM tech like AI and I
get it. It's hard to UM, they're not in the same sense as
you know, you need a very different approach to the industry said than the
it's not that they're seeing as the villains exactly also progressive, you know more
and more they are. UM, it's more where you need to be doing
is reframing the issues UM that the industries Contenderal, which in Galaxy has done
a lot of the industry imagery. I kind of sense a kind of challenge
involved in the tech industry is just different, less more measurements to be changed
to port the strateud of yea, yeah, I agree with those. Mark
says, UM, what is going on with the Salem Center and similar think
tanks right now and what would be some ways to get involved and take to
action UM muture what counts as a similar think tanks as I think that the
Salem Center is kind of eclectic. It's a group of academics on campus who
have views outside of the mainstream, which views aligned with one another on being
pro capitalism and pro free markets, but not necessarily on much out So there
are some people work there I agree on a lot of other things on people.
You know, it's it's not all. It's not all one thing,
um. I think in general, the two things you can do for a
group that you're interested in, whether it's the Salem Center by program half,
the Saling Center or the Center in general, or any other group worthin tank,
is you can follow them and see what programming they have and what you
might want to get involved in. So in our case, you could follow
our YouTube channel and you can see what comes up on the YouTube channel and
watch it. You could get on our mailing list, which you could do
with Sale and Center got organ You can get mailed about our events and cut
out to them and so become a consumer of their content. And then if
you really value the content, I want to get more involved. You could
donate money or you could volunteering tool and one opportunity that they might do that
will depend on the the organization. We don't have a quite a volunteering program.
But if somebody you know, road and said I'd like to help you
guys out, what can I do? Depending on when it was out there,
we get an idea. Um Marcus says, asks our thoughts on the
Austrian School, and then you're twenty twenty three, twenty four plans thought somebody
Austrian School. I'm not an economist. I'm not that knowledgeable about economics,
so I don't know how much to you I am really qualif I could say
about it what I've read of on mesas in particular, and to a lesser
understand how I've learned from and think there's some wisdom there are there are also
some philosophical errors. UM. I found Rob Tar's piece which you mentioned before,
on a series of value and the different schools of economics and Particulmunia stakes
on the Austrians very suggestive and in you know, inspiring of thoughts. But
I don't know enough about all the thinkers in the school too, um,
you know, to to be certain everything about this about an expert on it.
UM. I think it's it's kind of tragic that this kind of thinking
about economics has gotten tied up with anarchism, as it has largely through through
Rothbart and when they were deeper causes of that than just the influence of this
this I'm a linking figure. I'm not sure I could think of some things
that might be um because that's sort of a general fut about it. And
and the sort of popular Australian writers they tend to always be predicting to include
and you know be you know stopped. Yeah, all right, Action Jackson.
The other one, Oh your plans for twenty twenty three, twenty four.
So for the next year I'm teaching. I'm teaching a few classes that
Texas. Up course of the year, I'm going to We're probably having a
conference on healthcare policy in the fall, precise states to be determined in personnel,
that's something I'm looking into. Conference ethical issues in the spring, and
probably some smaller workshops and um, I don't want to into all the ny
projects papers and books that I want to be off the door. So Action
Jackson says, Nice Gibson SG back there. Who are some of your favorite
guitar players and or bands? Well, that's only one they want to any
over there that's out of shot that I have a lot of guitars UM some
of my favorite with guitar players and band UM well favorite bands of Pinos.
I don't think there's any comparton him the overall musicianship and influenced UM. But
I really I play a lot of blues. I listened to a lot of
blues and I like UM blues players particularly, I love Peter King and who
lets understand Albert and Freddie. I love the money Waters bands and al with
Wolf bands, Little Walter UM. For that's kind of where my guitar playing
influenced kind of tastes in music are. That's the kind of music I mostly
play. That's musically UM. Also about Dylan UM, the band that is,
the Leave on Home, Robbie robertson band UM particular guitar players UM all.
Since there's an SG there, I should mention UM Jan Alman and now
Derek Trucks both SG players at least in slide you really fantastic players. On
seeing the Jesse Trucks band sometimes in May when they come to Texas. UH,
people playing now, I think he's the best guitar player in the end
of Blues, Influences, Trucks um Action. Jackson also asks are there any
blogs you frequently visit or recommend reading resources? How about something you think we've
never heard of? Any topics resources, news, economics, tack, etc.
Wow, um oh sub stack these days yeah. Um. And then
I read and or listen to some of very wise and stuff um The Dispatch
particularly. I really like their legal podcast with sarahs Gary David French, which
is called Advisory Opinions. Whether one degrees or disagrees with their particular takes on
the look, they're very kind of informati about what is going on on the
dock end and one of the legal issues that are that are coming about.
Um. So I listened to that podcast a lot. Um. Oh we
talked about Richard Hanania. Oh yeah, Richard we were talking about before.
He's associated with the with the sales up there, um, but really mostly
independent after the intellectual something gives talks here once in a while, his his
blog and some staff. I guess it's been really good in the past few
months. On a surprising number of visually only got onto it a few months
ago, but almost everything I've read by him has been been really interesting.
Um on different particular issues. This is a podcast ring the blog, but
there's a podcast, the History of Philosophy podcasts, but I think it's really
valuable on the history of philosophy, uh, and some of them too.
Indian philosophy. He has a main podcast stream that's the history of Western philosopy,
but then he has a secondary one that I think already did these three
Indian Philosophy now is doing the history of a Mechanic philosophy, and then it's
going to be the History of of Asian philosophy of East Asian TWENTIESE West.
And it's you know, a little twenty minute episodes on different subjects, but
they're very good ways just on a little bit about a lot of different things
and think about what we might want to read more about. UM. That's
in philosophy. My friend Nat Typeman has a podcast book Elucidations, which is
a really good philosophy podcast. UM, Like, I listened to a fair
number of that's really good. And then will interview people from widely different specializations,
different areas and get them talking in a way that makes what they're working
on accessible to all my audience. And I find that really interesting and valuable
exercide that I have my record. So those are some of the podcasts I
listened to. I listened to more podcasts than I read blogs. Um,
when I'm reading is mostly books or a newspaper. Sabrice says, for most
people, your identity is the less the least important thing about out you.
Training kids to make identity the most important thing in their life seems like a
path back to the Bronze Age. Well, I mean, I think if
you really think about what your identity is, it's crucially important to you.
But it's not being white or you know, half Jewish, half Italian by
descent, which I am, or or you know, middle class or something
like that. Your identity is that you're a human being with a mind,
and then a mind that focused itself on certain values and made your life about
certain things. That I has certain virtues and yeah, okay, this other
stuff is true of you, and it might be relevant in various ways,
but it's not the ceter thing. Um. There's a really nice piece on
identity and education and developing an identity by Matt Bateman on the web page of
Montessorium. Montessorium is a think tank associated with with Higher Round and Matt Batement's
a philosopher there and he and I were involved with a kind of the group
that was discussing through identity issues as they came up in education and one of
the albums of that with Matt writing this essay and one of the point he
makes it know, adentity is important. It's wrong to think of your identity
as about whether you're gainor's tread or black, or while you're old or young.
It's you know, those things have some role, but they're they're a
minors. Good HELLI let's see Gail says healthcare needs much attention. Thank you,
Greg, and you'on and then well end was Zach saying love the interview,
thanks for this, Thank you, Zach. All right, two plus
hours as usual. Um, there's a lot, a lot of lots of
questions, thank you. Oh one more thoughts on the new University of Austin.
Will you be working with them? Um? I mean I don't have
any relationship. I don't have any professional relationship with them as of now.
I have some I know people who do. UM thoughts on them. I
like the idea of forming a new university. I like the idems. You
don't like the president universities trying to do it better M and H in particular.
I think one of the things that you want to have when you form
a new university is a good attitude towards the diversity of ideas being you know,
shared on campus and being discussed. However, they don't think they have
too much more than that yet, and I think they need a lot more
than that. I think they need a view about what's gone wrong with the
other universities. They need a view about what is their value propositions that they're
offering people, how they're going to give them a superior education, and then
how they're going to organize their their company and their business, and they're hiring
practice and so for us to solve the problems and as other universities to to
be, you know, to not be to their life and maybe just rebooting,
you know, like you just start something that's exactly the University of Chicago,
but you started again to day. You know, maybe that would help
you. Just like when you reboot your computer or do a new load of
the operating system, you get out of a lot of problems. Maybe that
helps, and maybe they will do something like that. But it seems like
they're not they happy that there's going to be a new kind of university.
They don't seem to know much about what it is. When I had conversations
with the founder of it, it's happened that, you know, with him
a bunch of people at one point, and we were talking about them.
In the things they didn't have answers to surprised me. I would have thought
they would have been a more worked out view, for example, on tenure
and what's rather wrong with it and how you're going to try to solve the
problems it's meant to solve. And the other thing that bothered is when you
looked at who they initially had as advisors, was a really good list and
had a lot of people. I liked it at a Stephen Pinker was among
them. Lead the moue with among these people. Have a lot of respect
for them. But then when they made their first hires, I wasn't as
impressed with who they hired. And one of the first hires was I forget
her name, Brett Weinstein's wife. Yeah, was a biologist and the main
thing she was on about there was um something kind of blackish um to do
with the with the pandemic. I forget if it was UM that internected was
the wonder drug or something else, but something that that was kind of all
she was talking about in the news about UM. It didn't strike me as
a promising first hire in a science department. Whatever one thinks about the particulars
of the politics about about that drug, it wasn't UM. And it felt
like it was becoming a kind of UM refugee camp for the cancel, which
is not a recipe for being a good school. Even if there needs to
be refugee camp for the cancel, UM, that's not enough. And and
I think around that same time, Stephen Picker backed out the initiative, and
I think that that was sad that I think UM he was a kind of
good influence on it, so UM, and I think he might have been
just guessing, might have been uncomfortable with that higher I don't. I don't
know. So they're trying to do something very hard. I think it's good
that someone started new university. I'm rooting for them, but I've not been
as impressive i'd hope to be with the steps I've seemed so far. And
but hopefully they'll creek up in really good um or at least competitive with the
other university. And maybe if they don't, but they manage to Greek something
that at least, you know, as some students, it'll be an inspiration
to other people to try something else. Until we guess play really good?
All right. Finally, Kfax says, how much of a super chat donation
would it take to get Greg to shred or gently play something on the live
stream you're on. That's up to you. How much? How much to
be how happy to play? Do it? Play? Play a little bit
and we'll make that the exit music for the show. Can you hear this?
One's not? All right? Maybe loud enough? Can you hear it?
Don't play something is now? Really no? You'd have to put the
mic. Yeah, all right, but I don't think. Oh right,
pay up k Facts. I don't know fifty bucks. Come on, let's
let's make it to eight hundred bucks. Where's k Facts? He does that
and he disappears on us zoom is noise isolating out. I think we get
the volume up enough, we can do it. I'm all right, this
is a treat, guys. Yeah, yeah, might be ours there we
go, Kay, Facts just paid up and Hugh came in and all right,
so we've got a whole array of supporters. Now, thank you,
kay, facts can hear it at all? Nothing? Greg? Can you
hear me? Because we can hear you, Greg, Greg, Greg,
Greg, Greg, Greg Greg. He can't hear us, Greg. He's
jamming and he can't hear us. No, can hear they can hear anything
from the guitar. It's interesting. Is your mic directional? Can you direct
it? Can you put it right in front of the all right, nopem
gut tar channel. Any any advice on how we can get this to work.
That that I heard something there? Now one more try you guys can't
hear anything right now? All right, it's a zoom it's a zoom filter.
I think I think it's a problem with zoom. I think that if
they assume it's noise, I guess, and they filter it out. You
have to said, zoom sound to professional music. I don't know how to
do that. I'm looking. I'm looking at audio settings. Yeah, I
would go to instead of auto, I would I would get rid of auto
performance. Yeah, put like yeah, try that. I'm trying that.
I'm gonna fighter in the house and see here. Last I still can't hear
anything. It's weird hear that. No, no, you can't hear anything.
All right, well then for some reason we can't no matter what I
do, So I apologies, but um we tried. Guys. Sorry,
you'll have to come to ocon. Maybe maybe Greg will do performance better at
okon there you go, all right, Thanks Greg, uh, thanks to
all of you. Thanks with the super chat is. Thanks kay facts,
so you can fulfill your your wish. Um I guess I owe you some
free super chat answers um and um ok left out a guitarist. People were
asking favorite guitarists, so maybe in lieu of playing I'll just mentioned one or
two others. Yeah, I really um like periods of music when new things
are coming together that happened before. And one of the periods I like a
lot of music the period when sort of white kids in Chicago were getting into
the black blues music was being played in the clubs and they started to be
kind of integration and cross pollination. And one person to come out of that.
But I really like is Mike Bloomfield, the guitar player. Particularly he's
playing on the first two Butterfield Blues banned albums. So if you look at
the Pull Butterfield Louse band. The album is called the Pull Butterfield Close Band
on the album East West. I really like the guitar player, so if
you can't hear me, you could hear him means a lot better at the
same good Well, Thank you Greg, This is uh, this is a
real pleasure. And thank you guys for all the super check questions and for
being here. And I will be back sometime tomorrow. I don't know what
time. Tomorrow is a crazy day, but I will be doing a news
round up at some point tom on. Then over the weekend we'll have some
additional shows. Have a great night. It's late over here already. Have
a good night. Greg. I'll see you soon, I guess in a
couple of months. And I'll see you all of you guys tomorrow. Bye
everybody. Ye