Some Future Day

MarcBeckman: [00:01:00] [00:02:00] Yaron, it's great to see you today. Thank you for joining Some Future Day. How are you?
Yaron Brook: My pleasure. Thanks for having me on, Mark.
MarcBeckman: Let's start with objectivism. it seems like we're in a world right now that could be categorized as too selfish, yet Rand has written quite a bit, and you have spoke quite a bit on Why the concept of selfish is important. I'm wondering if you could break that down for me, please.
Yaron Brook: God, when I think about the world right now, I think, I don't think selfish, I think self destructive. Uh, I think suicidal, which is the exact opposite of selfish. If you think about what selfish really means, selfish means taking care of self. It means pursuing a successful life, a, a, uh, achievement, uh, growth.
It means flourishing, human flourishing, and [00:03:00] ultimately. Happiness. And yet we live in a society where people are depressed and feel guilty and, uh, where we seem to engage in political, uh, political insanity. And we, we seem to be committed to both national and almost international, regression, not progression, not, not, not growth, not success on pretty much every front, socially, economically, culturally, in, every front, we seem to be going backwards.
So. Ayn Rand stood for the idea of rational self interest, of long term rational self interest, which she considered selfishness that, right? To be selfish, to take care of self, meant to be rational, meant to think long term. to think long term, not to emote. Not to do whatever you felt like doing, not to pursue your whim, but to be rational, to think, to, to, to engage in, in actual, with [00:04:00] reason.
So, no, we, we live in the exact opposite of a, of a selfish, uh, world. We live in a very self destructive, and if you look at our foreign policy, for example, which is, Everywhere these days, it seems like we are committed to self sacrifice, not to self emotion, but self sacrifice. We seem to, we seem to be willing to lay down, for the, for the weakest players out there in the world and, uh, and not actually fight and promote our own interests.
MarcBeckman: don't we owe it to the world? Isn't it like, doesn't the United States have to be in that position where, um, where, where, you know, helping all of these communities? I think yesterday you might've seen the state department issued a letter surrounding the president of Iran's death. It almost seems insane to me that here's an individual who's responsible for killing literally thousands and thousands of people dating back to the revolution.
They clearly don't like the United States and everything we stand for, but [00:05:00] yet our state department is issuing an apology. I think our, our, uh, one of our members of the United Nations stood up in, in, um, deference to this, president of Iran. So
Yaron Brook: at the Security Council in the United Nations. I mean, what a travesty of justice. I mean, how, if you're a young woman in, um, in Tehran who has been demonstrating against, uh, the regimes, uh, forcing you to, to cover your, to, you know, to cover your, you know, body and Your hair and your face, and you've seen your friends being murdered by this regime, and you've seen young men and young women who've stood up to the regime hanged from cranes in the middle of town.
then you see the world, the United States, and others, uh, paying their respects to this monster who uh, who died over the weekend. It just must be horrible for you. It in many respects is the is the opposite of kind of the, I think the attitude of You know, that to some extent, somebody like Ronald Reagan represented vis a [00:06:00] vis the Soviet Union, where I think that the dissidents in the Eastern Europe took took courage and and gained a certain moral confidence because he dared to stand up to the monsters, or at least verbally stand up to them.
But look, this is American Foreign Policy 5. I really wonder, I should do the research. Did the State of Monument issue the same kind of thing when Stalin died or when Mao Tse Tung died? I wouldn't be surprised if they did, if they shared condolences to who murdered tens of millions of people. so, yeah, I mean, this is so antagonistic to everything this country stands for.
And if you think about the poor, let's think about what America owes the world, if it owes anything.
MarcBeckman: Yeah.
Yaron Brook: about the poor and the oppressed in the world. What are the poor in the rest of the world, what What can
America do that would benefit them the most? Well, what America could do to benefit them the most is Live up to its principles, [00:07:00] that is, America as a symbol, America as a torchbearer of liberty and freedom is an incredibly powerful force in the world.
The reality is that in the post World War II era, country after country after country became freer, not because of American military might, because we gave them foreign aid, but because They want, they didn't want to be poor and they had a model, which was the United States, an imperfect model, but it still was a model.
We've
given on that model. I mean, we gave it up, uh, years ago, certainly. I consider the Obama administration to be the first anti American administration. didn't do any better, uh, you know, we're just one more country, who cares? We kill journalists just like Putin does. There's no difference between us and the Russians.
Uh, we've given up on shiny city on the hill. We've given up as a model. For liberty, for freedom. We've even now given up, both in the Trump and the Biden administrations, [00:08:00] on foreign trade, which is one way in which we enrich the world by trading with them, value for value, win-win relationship. So, uh, and instead, we are, we are, we are, you know, groveling before them and sacrificing for them, and we spend billions on, foreign aid, often to our enemies, not to our, and we, we have demonstrations in the streets when we give the foreign aid to our friends and, and, and nobody makes a peep.
You don't hear a sound when we give, uh, when we give foreign aid to our enemies. Uh, so America, more importantly, America doesn't owe anybody anything. America didn't achieve its wealth by exploiting others. America didn't achieve its wealth uh, Uh, by, uh, by sacrificing for other people, America achieved its wealth quite the opposite, by, uh, focusing on protecting the individual rights of its own citizens, allowing its citizens to be free, as imperfect as we did it, we, we, we never achieved perfection at that.[00:09:00]
Uh, that's how we achieved our success, and, uh, to the extent that America is successful, to the extent that America is rich, uh, to the extent that America's open to the world, to that extent, the rest of the world benefits from that, and to the extent that America serves as a model ideal, it benefits the world.
But sadly, we seem to be completely rejecting that and denying all that and turning our back on ourselves. And as a result on the world as well.
MarcBeckman: So, you know, you talk about, um, this irrational behavior where the United States has been funding enemies and I, I think it's, it's, you know, quite obvious and fair to say that we even funded Hamas. we're living in like world war II. The Age of Dumb. It's almost like the world has turned upside down with regards to being rational and realistic.
Do you think there's like a, if you, assuming you agree with me, was there like a specific demarcation in time, Yaron, where like all of a sudden this, like just the obvious and, and the, um, common sense approach to the [00:10:00] world just turned upside down and, and now we've entered this age of dumb,
Yaron Brook: I mean, we definitely entered an age of dumb, but I would argue there's a sense in which we've always been dumb. Uh, we've never quite recognized what made us, what made ourselves great. We've never embraced reason and rationality fully. We've never embraced. know, actually looking at the world and being realistic about what's going on in the world fully.
I mean, look at Chamberlain in Munich with Hitler. I mean, how dumb do you have to be to that you're going to bring peace to the world? Oh, look at it. America in 1917, entering World War I. Why? I mean, the tens of thousands, or maybe it's thousands of Americans who died over there in Europe. What did they achieve?
What was the purpose? You know, what were we doing it for? I mean, there's so much, or, or, the founding, I mean, go back to the founding fathers, did, do you really think that [00:11:00] you can live with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and slavery, and this won't be a disaster? I mean,
MarcBeckman: right?
Yaron Brook: that it's going to lead to bloodshed and horrors?
Uh, so, uh, there's a sense in which. never really been willing to commit ourselves to reality, to pursuing what makes sense and to pursuing logic and rationality. And there's a, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that, you know, the first question you asked me is that we reject this idea of self interest.
We reject the idea of, of individual rights and certainly over the last hundred years we've done it. And so I think what the consequence is, is. Over the last, I'd say, hundred years, have systematically, slowly gotten dumber, if you will. Oh, I would say not dumber, but less rational, more irrational, less caring about the individual, less caring about what the country really stood for, less an understanding of the Constitution and [00:12:00] Declaration at every level.
I don't think today, the nine Supreme Court justices, I don't think there's one. I really don't think there's one who understands the constitution, understands the Declaration of Independence, because not a single one of them could define individual rights. If you ask them, say, what is the definition of individual rights?
What individual rights actually mean? Not a single one of them. These are the Supreme Court. Now, I think that's been true for probably a hundred years. So, I think the deterioration started a hundred years ago, think that, uh, that the shocks of 9 11 um, the great financial crisis and COVID, one of them made us a little dumber in, in a, in a bigger kind of, they were shocks to the system.
We were heading in that direction anyway. But these were shocks to the system emboldened our enemies. Our response to them was so pathetic to each one of them. Our response [00:13:00] was so pathetic, so anti American, so ridiculous that they just emboldened The anti Americanism that is embedded in America, all the anti American sentiments that is bottled in the left and I think in the right have come to the surface.
And now we're reaping the evil that is the result of all that. But really, I think over the last years, 9 11, Financial crisis, COVID are monumental events that will look back historically and say, that's when the world changed. Those three events really changed America for the worse.
MarcBeckman: It's almost like there's this like psychological barrier where individual Americans don't want to boast about the accomplishments, the successes, and the values of American ingenuity, American entrepreneurship, capitalism, um, we're almost operating at a mass level now from a place of, you know, Um, [00:14:00] appeasement from a place of, um, almost embarrassment.
And I'm curious if you agree with me, why, right? Like, why, like, why are, again, staying on this concept of, uh, the age of, of, of, you know, dumb, which I'm just like throwing around with you right now. Like, why, like, why won't the Americans be proud of, Uh, individual freedom, individual liberty, like why, why are we, uh, timid with regards to boasting about these incredible values that are embedded in our constitution?
Yaron Brook: Well, because our intellectuals have long abandoned the idea that economic and technological progress are virtues. Uh, you've got, you've got, uh, they've abandoned the idea you should be proud. I mean, that's true. I mean, in Christianity. Being proud is a vice and the left considers individual pride a vice as Obama reminded us, you didn't build that.
You know, you didn't do it. It's community. It's whatever. [00:15:00] you know, we live in a world where intellectuals teach us that everything is deterministic. So you can't take credit for anything. It's just your genes and your upbringing and you're just a, you're just a cog in a machine. This is what Obama was projecting.
But this has deep philosophical roots in, uh, you know, in academia. the left is dominated by egalitarianism that says we're all basically same and we should be treated, not just treated by the law, but we should all have the same outcome. And that is an ideal, a kind of an egalitarian ideal. And indeed, are successful, You must have done it at somebody's expense.
You are therefore an oppressor. And if you are poor or unsuccessful, you must have been held back. So therefore you are oppressed. our Christian morality, which still dominates everything that we do, even if even among atheists, the Christian morality that says that your meek shall inherit the earth, That we should sacrifice to the poor, the poor, [00:16:00] the standard of value.
You know, it, it basically reinforces this idea that the oppressed are the good. Again, the, the, the, the poor are the good and the oppressors, the successful are bad. so you've got both on the right and on the left forces, intellectual forces, manifest themselves in the culture in a variety of different ways, but intellectual powerful forces saying, Look, the real value in life is, is among the oppressed.
And those who are the oppressors should be held back, should be restrained. And we see that in everything you see. You know, that affects our economic policy. We hate successful businessmen. We hate successful businesses. So uh, right now, you know, the FCC and, and the government is going after. All these successful, amazing companies.
I mean, just some of the greatest companies in human history. And they want to break them up because they have monopolies and, uh, monopolies usually raise prices and you [00:17:00] go, what price is Google raised, right? Where's Google hurting me exactly? but it doesn't matter. They're the evil. And. And by the way, again, this is bipartisan.
So J. D. Vance, who is an up and coming superstar on the Republican side, is a huge fan of Lena Kahns, who is the current chairman of the FCC, who is associated with the left. And the left and the right, again, are uniting in their hatred of successful business and successful technological business. So intellectually, Intellectually, because of a morality that says the meek are the virtuous, success is to, is to be with suspicion and broken up politically.
Uh, you know, altruism, that's the morality that says other people, that's what you should care about morally. Be willing to sacrifice yourself for other people. That is infecting our foreign policy. It's infecting the way we view successful companies. It's affecting the way we view [00:18:00] success versus failure.
It's affecting everything that, uh, how, how we view, uh, the world around us. In your terminology, It's altruism, in a sense, and unreason that are making us dumb. those are the causes, the intellectual causes.
MarcBeckman: it just it just seems so irrational like you use this hundred year mark as a way to highlight and if you think back over the past hundred years I'm sure you would agree like the most relevant the most profound nations have been those that embraced um, Entrepreneurship and technology and growth, yet now we're in this moment in time, as you noted, where you know, almost free market capitalism is being shunned.
in your opinion, like, why does democracy need free market capitalism today more than maybe, you know, over the past two or three decades?
Yaron Brook: Well, I mean, we've always needed capitalism and we've been, again, moving away from free market capitalism for a long, long time. I don't think we've ever had what I would consider perfect, [00:19:00] perfect, uh, free markets. I think we've always wanted to regulate them and control them. We've never trusted markets, uh, sadly.
Uh, tragically, really, uh, because I, I, I think that, uh, I think that as a consequence we're poorer. I think as a consequence we're less free. certainly sometime around the early part of the 20th century, probably around 1913-1914 with the administration of Woodrow Wilson, we started a slow turning away from everything has to do with free markets and capitalism.
FDR moved us dramatically away. from from markets and since then, we've kind of been drifting downwards. We've allowed certain industries in particular to stay free enough, so that they continue to innovate and to continue to move us forward. But even there, there's a limit to how much freedom we allow.
And right now we're reaching a point where, okay, tech industry, we've allowed you enough freedom, you've [00:20:00] grown, too big now, we don't like you, so we're gonna start regulating you as well. And we're killing the golden goose, we're killing, you know, what actually sustains the US economy and moves it forward, which is Silicon Valley and its equivalents around the country.
It is that spirit of entrepreneurship. It is that spirit of innovation. It's that spirit that says we can do anything and we're going to try and we're going to explore and we might fail, but who cares? We'll just try again later. That spirit is, is slowly being squeezed by our regulators. That's, that spirit, by the way, was long ago killed in other industries.
Uh, it somehow sustained itself in tech. And now it's slowly being squeezed and they're trying to kill it in tech as well. And then what? Right. And, and, and then, then it's a slow decline from there because, because there's nothing else, there's no other place where. where we still allow people to actually have, uh, any semblance of freedom.
So
MarcBeckman: Well, [00:21:00] it's kind of funny like when you talk about big tech and regulation, I think it's an interesting analysis to look at big tech and then the young emerging entrepreneurial businesses and that dynamic as it relates to regulation. So, for example, I believe that a lot of these big tech leaders, Zuckerberg, um, Altman, et cetera, are getting in front of Congress and Calling to be regulated in a way that's totally disingenuous.
Really what they're looking to do is I think they're saying like regulate us for quote unquote safety reasons, but in reality, they're just trying to stay the monopolies that they are. They want to grow their power. Um, but effectively that will have a chilling effect. theoretically on the entrepreneurs, on the small businesses that will push our marketplace forward.
Um, so I'm curious, like if you see that dynamic and, and, um,
Yaron Brook: I, I agree with most of that, but, but put yourself in Zuckerberg's shoes, right? So what was it, about 10 years ago, Congress
starts [00:22:00] inviting you in front of It And starts lambasting you for doing what you do saying to you, we're going to crush you unless you change. We're going to regulate you. We're going to control you.
We are not going to let you stay free. And Zuckerberg keeps hearing this message over and over again. He's trying to run a company, he's trying to do his best, and yet they keep coming after him. And they were after him, right, in 2015, 2016, Russian interference, all this stuff, you know. And he's saying, look, I don't want any of this.
I don't want politics. You know, I'm not, I'm not. And they're saying, doesn't matter, we're coming after you. So then he goes home and he says, okay, they're coming after me. What am I going to do? Am I going to just lay here like a, uh, uh, like a nobody and let them, you know, do whatever they want to me? Or am I going to try to mold this and shape this so that I can come out of it?
Okay. now, know, he could have maybe fought it. And I think he started to at [00:23:00] some point, but he got crushed. He got crushed by the press. He got crushed by the public and he got crushed by politicians. He decided. I can't fight them. I can't just roll over. So I'm gonna try to manipulate them. And, and that's a choice he made.
Is that a, is that the wrong choice? You know, I would have loved to see him fight. would have loved to have these, I mean, my dream is for Congress to invite one of these businessmen over and for the businessman to say, to show up. And after the first question to stand up and say, do not recognize your authority to demand that I be here.
I will not answer your questions. You don't know my business. You don't know anything about me. You're all a bunch of losers who've never employed anybody and who've never run a business. Who are you? Who are you to sit in judgment of me, turn around and walk out? Now that would be a [00:24:00] earthquake. I don't know any businessman with a balls to do it.
Not even Elon Musk. So, Uh, but it would be great to see. I mean, I remember during the great financial crisis, these businesses, they called the bankers over and the bankers would sit in front of Congress some congressman or senator would say, know, um, you know, what about those collateral debt obligations, you know?
And I would love to one of those congressmen, one of those bankers to say to the congressman, congressman, what is a collateral debt obligation? I mean, you're throwing this word around, do you know what it means? I'm, I'm willing to put money as the Congressman would have to then over to his, uh, you know, uh, interns and say, go, go check on Wikipedia what, what this is, because, because they have no clue what they're talking about so my view is these businessmen are A, engaged in self defense, they have to protect themselves, so they have to lobby.
Now, when they do that, are they going to protect themselves against competition? Thanks. [00:25:00] Absolutely, and that, is that wrong and evil? Absolutely. But let's put the fault, the blame, where it actually belongs. And the blame belongs with the politicians and blame, blame belongs with us. Because we give the politicians the power.
We give the politicians the authority. We cheer the politicians on when Katie Porter, that And now, we have a horrible human being, congresswoman from Southern California, who takes whiteboard every time she's in front of a CEO, and asks him these complicated questions, and then doesn't let him answer the question, and just paints him as just an evil bastard. horrible people that we have allowed to be in the govern us and you know, CEOs of big tech are doing the best that they can. And yes, they, they, they are going to manipulate the system to their favor. That's a tragedy, but that's a tragedy of the system we created. It's a tragedy of a system our politicians are enforcing and our blame should be focused on our politicians, not on the business [00:26:00] leaders.
MarcBeckman: So, you know, it's kind of interesting because when you mentioned that these politicians are not capable of understanding the businesses, the specialized businesses in particular, like technology, And then you see these, like, heavy anti tech politicians, like Josh Hawley, like Elizabeth Warren, and yet, you know, they think they're protecting the public, but in fact, it might have a chilling effect on, on the public.
I'm wondering if you could talk to that a little bit, like, is there, is there, I, I know you might want to bash Josh Hawley for a second, go ahead and tee off on, on Elizabeth Warren. But I'm wondering, like, is there a solution, Yaron? Like, do we need regulation at all? Like, should the marketplace just regulate itself?
Yaron Brook: I mean, I'll just say, I don't think they care about the safety of the public. I don't think Josh Hawley. Consider this the safety of the public for one iota. I certainly don't think Elizabeth Warren does. these are powerlusters. These are people who enjoy the limelight. And look, both of them are smart.
I'm not going to say that Josh Hawley is not super smart. What, what, [00:27:00] did he go to Yale? He went to an Ivy League school? I guess that means you're smart, uh, at least technically. But these people are corrupt. Ideologically, they are monsters. They want to run our lives. They believe they are smarter than we are.
They believe, they want power over us. They want power over business. Maybe it could be. You know, I'm not a psychologist, but maybe this covers up some inadequacies they have themselves. But these are people who are powerlusters. You know, Elizabeth Wan, does Elizabeth Wan really think that inflation was caused by greedy supermarkets?
I mean, is she really that stupid? I don't think so. But I think she knows it's a great line. She hates business. She wants to regulate supermarkets. She'd love to have price controls because that gives her the ultimate power. she is going to You know, articulate a [00:28:00] line that I think a lot of the public, because they haven't studied economics, because they don't know, because they're busy living their lives, and they're ignorant, will buy, that inflation was caused by supermarkets.
I mean, it's one of the dumbest statements in all of economic history, right?
Together with Trump's statement that trade is lose-lose right? I mean, these people, either they're really, really stupid, and and in the case of Trump, I think that's quite a possibility, or they think we're really, really stupid, and they sell us these dumb lines in order to attain power.
And I think they're successful in doing it because, because nobody pushes back. But these two statements about trade being stupid, You know, we we lose because we have a trade deficit, which is, you know, you know, third grade economics, right? And Elizabeth Warren, inflation is caused by supermarkets being greedy.
It It shows that what they're really after is not knowledge, but power. All they care about is power. All they care about is control. And they're leveraging [00:29:00] the fact that we are too busy. You could say too dumb, but I think American people are not dumb. They're just too busy. To actually check on our politicians and actually, and actually correct them.
And here the blame is on. And I, and I don't think I'm answering your question. So, uh, you might have to ask it again. The blame here is on the intellectuals, the people who should, who should actually educate us, who actually explain things to us and actually tell us what's actually going on in the world, uh, are the intellectuals, the people who, who write op eds in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the people who appear on television, the people who, you know, for, for busy professional, who can Who needs to know what's going on in the world can turn to something and somebody and they can explain it to him quickly and easily and simply.
They, for the last hundred years, but certainly over the last couple of decades, completely betrayed the American people. You know, again, since 9 11, certainly, they've completely betrayed the American people and allowed politicians to lie to [00:30:00] the American people to make stuff up in an effort to Pursue power and pursue control and the intellectuals have supported the politicians instead of telling the American people the truth about what's actually going on.
MarcBeckman: But why, Yaron? Like, it's hard for me to believe that politicians, elected officials, are not really looking out for the best interests of their constituency. They're not looking out for the best interests of me and you and our families. but you seem to believe that
actually. I don't believe they're looking after that for when I own it. Now, maybe they have convinced themselves some deluded states that they are, but they're evading. They know they're not, and they're doing it in spite of that. And look, this is not new. You know, why, why, why did, uh, you know, why did, uh, uh, kings and queens and councils and tribal leaders do what they did for millennia?
Yaron Brook: You know, why did they, [00:31:00] religious leaders lie To the congregations, why do political leaders lie to us all the time and have for all of history? I mean, I think the United States was unique in all of history in that it, in its declaration and constitution basically said,
MarcBeckman: the
Yaron Brook: people are sovereign.
You guys know better how to live Your lives then we know how to run your lives. But that's like a blip in all of human history. that's like lasted like a hundred years in in a human history that's lasted a hundred thousand years. And I think part of it has to do with. You know, going back to Plato, right?
Plato believed, and I think he's been the most influential philosopher, most influential thinker in all of history. Um, Plato believed that most of humanity was not capable of taking care of itself, You need to be guided, had no brain, uh, basically his metaphor of the cave. We sit in a cave, all we see is shadows.
We never see [00:32:00] anything real. We just see the shadows of the real things. therefore we don't know what's true and what's not, what's right and what's wrong. Uh, what's going on? And we need philosopher kings to guide us. We, they go outside and they see outside the cave and they know the truth and they see the sun and they They, they, they need to teach us and they need to, they need to guide us.
They need to dictate our lives to us. I mean, here's the Republic and Plato's Republic, decide everything for us. And that's, that's the world in which, you know, politicians live. They think, or they have deluded themselves into thinking, that they need to guide us. So somebody like Elizabeth Warren, you know, goes through this, I think, rationalization.
She says, if we blame Biden's spending and stimulus package for inflation, then Biden might lose the election. If Biden loses the election, Trump will win. Trump is really, really bad for the American people. Really awful. So we need to do whatever we have [00:33:00] to do in order to elect Biden. way in order to re elect Biden is to deflect.
Inflation onto somebody else. It's to convince the American people it's not Biden's fault inflation is there. And therefore, I will come up with stories. I've got a bunch of economists who are willing to come up with stories that deflect inflation onto business and Americans hate business or don't trust business to begin with.
So this is a good opportunity to leverage that all in order to like, uh, Biden. And, and. And about Trump. Trump, at some point, somebody said to him, asked him a question in a Q& A and said, But what you said was not true. It was a lie. And Trump said, but it worked. And
MarcBeckman: That's incredible.
Yaron Brook: exactly his mentality. And it's exactly most of our politicians mentality.
And another, if we link it up to another philosophy, there's a A very uniquely American philosophy that goes back to William James and John Dewey called pragmatism. And [00:34:00] pragmatism basically says, whatever works, that's good, right? lying works, okay, you know, and it's all short term, short term because we can't project about the long term.
And, and there's no such thing as principle. Principles are out because reality is too complicated. Things move too fast. We're not capable of, you know, Projecting into the future. So whatever works in the short run, that's what we do. That's what works. That's what's good. And that is, that and Plato, that mixture is what guides our politicians.
And they think that they are doing, yeah, they think they're helping us by electing, in Elizabeth Warren's case, they think they're helping us by electing Biden over Trump because we are too stupid to elect him ourselves, so they're going to lie to us in order to get him elected. Which is a good
MarcBeckman: So it's, it's, it's very extreme, right? Like when you talk about, um, Biden, you're talking about far left progressive. When you talk about Trump, you're talking about the right. What do you think it will take? And do you think it's feasible at all to find somebody, um, to turn the [00:35:00] face of politics around, to get it back to where you think it's a good thing, where it's not just about the power grab and actually, um, people are representing their constituency and looking out for their constituency's best, best interests.
Do you think that's even feasible again?
Yaron Brook: Well, it's gonna take a real intellectual revolution and, and you know, we might get somebody a little bit more moderate than Biden or Trump at some point, it's hard to see and that won't last for very long because moderation doesn't usually last for very long unless you really have an intellectual shift.
I don't see where the intellectual shift comes from because part of our problem is we expect too much of our politicians, you know. The politicians take care of their community. I mean, the whole point of politics is not to take care of us. The whole point of politics is not to do what's good for us.
The whole point of politics is to protect us. That's it. Protect us from crooks and frauds and murderers and terrorists foreign invaders. And they can't even do that, right? They can't even do that. Defund the police, right? So you get [00:36:00] crime spikes let's give money to Iran. That'll really help.
Protect us from terrorists and for, so our politicians don't do that. And we don't, we, and we don't call them on it. Nobody calls, nobody called Biden, or very few people call Biden on releasing funds to Iran or trying to negotiate a deal with them. Nobody called Trump a peace deal with the Taliban.
Nobody called Trump on groveling before the, uh, brutal dictator of North Korea,
MarcBeckman: Why not? Why aren't people calling them out for this
stuff? people don't believe in anything anymore. So this is why it's an, it's gonna be an intellectual revolution. What you need. It's the return to the mentality. The philosophy, the ideas are the founding of this country.
Yaron Brook: Basically, the ideas of, individuals have reason. They have the capacity to take care of themselves. They have the capacity to figure out what's good for them. Politicians stay out, uh, political leaders stay out of the way. Individuals can take care of themselves. then the idea that what matters are individuals, [00:37:00] not groups, not tribes, not collectives, but individuals.
Individuals should be left free to live their lives because government intervention is always the use of a gun, the use of force, force should only be used in self defense. And therefore the role of government is a self defense role. It's to protect us, it's to provide self defense against the criminals and against the The Terrorists and Foreign Invaders and otherwise.
So it's to create a space that is free of violence, so that we, individuals, can take care of ourselves. Now that is the exact opposite of all the political thinking that exists today, both on the left and the right. All politicians go into politics because they want to take care of you, of me. Or they want to have power over us.
Uh, they, the, the, the whole principle is, and this is why in, in, in the 19th century, to be a politician, wasn't that big of a deal because you didn't have a lot of power, you couldn't do that much. Uh, you [00:38:00] basically were there to kind of keep up to date with what And we've been doing a lot of work with property rights and other protections of rights, and make sure these rights were violated.
Farm policy was important, always is important, because of potential violations, invasion and things like that. But otherwise, there was nothing to do, right? Congress didn't meet very often. Uh, uh, you know, most congressmen were expected to have a profession, to work, because they only met for like less than half, for like three months a year or something like that, because there wasn't anything to do.
the kind of politics we need to come back to. I, you know, I always celebrate when the government shuts down, because everything Congress does today is damaging to us. So what, what we need to return to is a world in which Individuals are trusted to live their lives for themselves, and that's going to require a shift in our thinking about education, it's going to require a shift in thinking about individuals, thinking about reason, and certainly going to require a shift in thinking about politics.
[00:39:00] do think politics is downstream from culture, and I do think culture's downstream from ideas. We have to change ideas, which will change the culture, which will change our politics. And there are no shortcuts, which is a depressing thought, because this takes a long time.
MarcBeckman: Yaron, could you name a couple of like modern day thinkers that can sit at the top of the pyramid that you just described at that idea tier?
Yaron Brook: I mean, good thinkers?
MarcBeckman: Yeah,
Yaron Brook: Not consistently good thinkers, no. I mean, there's certainly people who have better ideas in certain areas, but I would say And, you know, there's some good economists, uh, uh, you know, there's some good defenders of the enlightenment. I'm all for, you know, people like Steven Pinker defending the enlightenment, but would I take political advice from him?
No. uh, you know, I'm all for Sam Harris on certain issues and the way he approaches certain issues, but then he's completely corrupt when it comes to something like free will. you know, so I think that, I think there's, You, you know, [00:40:00] uh, thinkers today are, uh, are, uh, y you know, a lot of the, the thinkers who tend to be on the right are now becoming more and more religious, not less religious.
So they're becoming more and more influenced by, by religion, which I think is a corrupting force. And thinkers on the left, uh, are become more and more corrupted by, uh, kind of postmodernism and, and the woke. there's some people kind of in the middle struggling to not be woke and not be religious, and there are not many of them.
Uh, but they're mediocre, right? And they're not very good. So there's some, there's some people who are kind of left of center that are trying to be moderate. But moderation, it's not time for moderation. It's time to be radical. It's extreme to be time to be extreme
for freedom, extreme for liberty. And there's just, I don't know of a voice that's like that.
I mean, again, there's some economists that do a good job, but as a consistent voice for liberty and freedom, Rand, going back to Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand was, was kind of it. [00:41:00] And, uh, uh, we don't have that today. We don't have even more moderate voices. Like, I don't know if Von Mises, who was a great economist or, or, or Friedman, or even, you know, Well, even Hayek, who wasn't that great on many things, uh, you know, is a superstar as compared to what we have today.
MarcBeckman: So society is devoid of thinkers today.
Yaron Brook: It's a void of good thinkers. Yes. It's very much devoid of good thinkers. There's a real vacuum of, uh, of good thinkers who can think consistently across, uh, across areas. I
MarcBeckman: So it's not just at the political level you're on. Like, I think it goes down to the street too. Like if you look at, um, you know, all the protests, quote unquote, that we've seen in major cities, including here in New York city, um, you know, this isn't really civil, uh, disobedience to me. It's, it's again, just playing back into this concept where they're not good thinkers.
They're not really Rational, um, and, and intelligent thinkers is just maybe as you alluded to [00:42:00] earlier, like they're taking the narrative of groupthink, oppressed versus oppressed, oppressor. Um, what would Rand say as it relates to civil disobedience today? And what, what's her philosophy as it relates to civil disobedience?
Yaron Brook: mean, she was, she supported civil disobedience, uh, on a number of premise. One, that the cause was a good cause. And two, that, um, that you are willing to pay the consequences. That is, if you engage in civil disobedience, you're going to get arrested and you should accept that. You shouldn't fight it. You know, it's, it's, it's why you're doing what you're doing.
You're trying to engage in what is civil disobedience about? It's not a revolution. about raising awareness for a particular cause. Getting arrested is part of that, part of the process of civil disobedience. But, I mean, she would look at what's going on today and, and just, she would, she would be horrified, as I think many of us are.
I mean, [00:43:00] cause that these people are, are, are for is one of the most evil causes Ever, right? I mean, they are basically promoting the rape and murder, uncontrolled rape and murder of of Jews in particular, but not only Jews, anybody who's affiliated with the Jewish state, uh, murdered.
advocating, aggressively advocating for genocide. And, you know, and, and the treatment they get is, well, you know, they, they, they might be wrong, but they have a right to protest. They certainly have a right to protest. They don't have a right to take over people's property and they don't have a right to occupy buildings.
They have a, you know, they can protest, but nobody is condemning them for the evil that they represent. literally, uh, you know, compare them to the Civil Rights Movement, or even compare them [00:44:00] to the 1968 of Columbia, which was horrible and, and, and disgusting. 1968, uh, you know, which was against the war in Vietnam, and they occupied a building and they did things that were wrong, right?
But at least they were fighting for something that was reasonable, right? They stopped the war in Vietnam, we don't want a draft, these were young kids that didn't want to go to war. So it had a real impact on their lives and it had a real impact on Americans. they're occupying Colombia for a conflict that has no relevance to their life, it's far away, they're siding with the really, really bad guys.
They're siding with evil. And there's no consequence to that. It's like, Yeah, okay, they're overdoing it. They shouldn't have occupied the building and they were a little violent. But here they're arguing, you know, a river to the sea, they can't name the river, they can't name the sea. So that's their stupidity and ignorance.
uh, they, uh, but the, the, the, basically river to the sea is a call for genocide. Um, it's a [00:45:00] call for one state. Where there are no Jews, where do those 8 million Jews go? Who knows? I mean, they go home. They go back to where they came from, right? You know, global jihad. Global jihad is basically all Westerners.
What is jihad? What is jihad? Or global intifada. Sorry, global intifada. What is intifada? Intifada is a revolution. A revolution against what? A revolution against Israel and Jews. It's about killing Jews. Intifada was buses blowing up, suicide bombers walking into cafes and blowing themselves up and killing civilians.
killing school children. That's what Intifada means. These people advocating for the worst kind of evil, literally, the destruction, murder, and rape of indiscriminately. They're advocating for this and they're being hailed by some as heroes and by many with indifference. And there's almost nobody actually saying, you people are evil, you should be [00:46:00] ashamed of yourself.
And, you, you know, you shouldn't be silenced because we have free speech, but you should be shamed. You should be shamed in every institution. I mean, think about. The Institution of Harvard or the Institution of Columbia or the Institution of Penn accepting this and just saying, well, you know, there's disagreements and, and, uh, they have a voice and it's legitimate.
And, and I mean, imagine if the Nazis were, were, were, were, were, right now there's no difference here. Imagine if the Nazis were marching on the Harvard, what do you call the Harvard, um, square there.
MarcBeckman: Harvard
Yard. Harvard Yard or if the Ku Klux Klan was marching at Harvard Yard, I mean, it would be unthinkable, but what's the difference?
Yaron Brook: In many respects, You know, what does global intifada mean if not lynching, if not lynching
MarcBeckman: Right,
Yaron Brook: right? It's exactly
MarcBeckman: truly.
Yaron Brook: same as Ku Klux Klan, it's exactly the same as the Nazis, yet that these people [00:47:00] are treated with respect and uh, and as if, and with legitimacy to their point of view.
MarcBeckman: Let's break it down a little bit further. It's kind of interesting. If you look at the individual protester, do those protesters think that there is an actual cause that they're fighting for? Like when you talk about, when you reference the Vietnam War or civil rights in the sixties, right? With like Kennedy and, and MLK, like that seems very different than where we are today.
So do the protesters today Think that they're doing something that's important. Do they think they're moving society? Is it maybe just even something like a deeper psychological issue where they feel like they're validating their existence and therefore they're a part of a movement?
Yaron Brook: I mean, I think that, I think you can split the protestors up into various, I think some people are just joining the protest because it feels good to be part of a movement and do something. And they have, and they're clueless. They're just, they're just ignorant, stupid people. You ask them what does intifada mean, you ask them what river, what sea it is, they have no idea.
there are people who [00:48:00] believe that, yeah, the Palestinians are being oppressed and the Palestinians deserve to have their own state. And they don't know the details and they don't know what's going on. And they. They're not, again, they're kind of a combination of dumb with this general notion of Palestinians seem poor they seem to be oppressed, and my professors have told me that the Palestinians are oppressed, so I should support the Palestinians, because they're oppressed, and I know the Israelis are the oppressor, and therefore they're the bad guys.
So they're just buying in kind of in a dumb way. Mild way in, in a dumb kind of way, to what their professors have taught 'em. And look, let, let's be very, very clear. All these protestors are being promoted and are the consequence, direct consequence, not indirect, direct consequence of what they're being taught in the classroom.
This is a direct cause and effect the, the professors are to blame. So let me get to the third group, which is the most important group, third group, and this includes the professors. And, and, and the student leaders of these things. [00:49:00] These are nihilists. These are people who want to see Western civilization burned to the ground.
They hate America. They hate Israel. They hate Israel because it represents Western civilization. They don't give one iota about Palestinians, they don't care about Palestinians one bit. They just want to see it all burn. these are the nihilists who joined the Nazi party, these are the nihilists who, uh, you know, uh, were at the forefront of what was it, Mao's, uh, cultural revolution, go kill all the scientists, go kill.
These are people who enjoy they enjoy burning down. Unbelievably, there turns out that not just a few of those, there are a lot of those on American campuses led by nihilistic professors who've been teaching them benefit, you know, really a nihilistic philosophy, a philosophy, you know, call it identitarianism, woke, [00:50:00] postmodernism, which is pure nihilism.
hatred the good for being good. It's it's it's it's it's hatred, hatred as the primary motivation for doing anything. Because are no values, there is no meaning in the world. All you can do is fight the oppressors in the name of the oppressed and burn it all down. And, um, you know, this is hatred for America, which is at the core, a big part of this.
Nihilism demands that because we're successful, because we're entrepreneurial, because we're individualistic, because we're
MarcBeckman: It's so irrational,
Yaron Brook: why they hate it. It's irrational. But again, human beings being rational like new revolutionary, right? Um, this is, you know, we live here in the 21st century, but
MarcBeckman: depressing,
Yaron Brook: has only been a thing for 250 years.
And then it was a thing maybe for a while in Greece. But all over the [00:51:00] rest of history, rationality was out, you know, we believed in all kinds of gods and all kinds of mystical nonsense. We did what our leaders told us to blindly. Most people didn't have time for rationality because they were too busy dying, uh, you know, subsistence farming or, or, or, or watching their kids die because over half the kids died before the age of 10.
People don't know this, but before 300 years ago, that was life. or non life. So the whole idea of rationality is new. whole idea of using reason is new. And maybe we're just not ready for it yet. And, and we're going to have to go through another period of complete disaster before we wake up uh,
MarcBeckman: dark,
Yaron Brook: human nature really is.
I mean, Aristotle
MarcBeckman: darkness.
Yaron Brook: as the rational animal. We fight that every day. It looks like in our culture.
MarcBeckman: Well, like going back to the concept of rationality and tying it to regulation, um, do you think that's rational?
Yaron Brook: No, I mean, you know, it assumes so many things. It assumes the [00:52:00] regulators know what they're doing than the industry itself. I mean, where, when is that ever the case? I mean, do, do, do the regulators who are usually Just political bureaucrats, do they really understand AI? Does anybody in the government really understand what's going on?
I mean, the industry itself is struggling to figure out what's actually going on with AI. And our regulators should know. And so all they can do is shut stuff down. And I'm sorry. regulators have is a blunt tool. They have force.
MarcBeckman: Right.
Yaron Brook: the only legitimate use of force is protect individual rights, to protect us from fraud, to protect us from criminals.
Industry is not criminal. Now they commit fraud so when they commit fraud put them in jail, but until they commit fraud you have nothing to regulate. There's no reason to use force against business people.
MarcBeckman: Well, it's kind of interesting, Yaron, if you break down artificial intelligence and, and, um, [00:53:00] governments and big businesses with regulation. So this concept of centralized artificial intelligence versus decentralized artificial intelligence, I don't know if you've covered this area yet, but it's really interesting if you start to see like.
The race to the top between China and the United States, centralized AI driven through the United States and China, I think, could be equally as dangerous. Take it a little, a step lower. I think the idea of centralized artificial intelligence from corporations, Including companies like Google and Microsoft.
I think that could be dangerous. I think Zuckerberg is doing actually an incredible job right now with regards to open source, um, and meta for AI. He's actually really been advocating, which people didn't think he would do. But have you looked at this dynamic? It's really an interesting thing. If you start to think about it, like the power of artificial intelligence, if it's controlled by these central entities, China, US, Microsoft, Google, it could be equally as bad in my [00:54:00] opinion.
Yaron Brook: don't put Microsoft and Google in the same bucket as China and the US. Yeah, AI in the hands of China and US. really, really scary. And you can see that in China, where they've got AI monitoring people, you know, facial recognition, and what you do, and algorithms determining whether you get a loan, or you don't get a loan, based on your social score, and how you behave, and whether you've criticized the regime lately, or anything like that.
And, and that's just the beginning, I mean, they're just going to get more and more sophisticated and therefore more and more controlling. So AI in that realm, where it is backed up by guns, backed up by force, backed up by regulations and by rule of law or the rule of unlaw, um, that is dystopia. That is the, the, that is really evil and that is what should be shunned and that's why government should stay away from AI.
you know, have, uh, minor uses for it in military, but other than that, government should not be allowed to use AI even, um, [00:55:00] I, I'd go that far, uh, but, you know, I don't have any problem with Microsoft and Google, none at all, um, you know, as long as they, they have to compete uh, as long as I, you know, I have alternatives, then, uh, go for it.
And, uh, yeah. What, can they, I'm not afraid, I don't worry about
MarcBeckman: if they're training, if these big corporations are training the corpus of an LLM, then their agenda is what will come through the LLM. I think you've seen, like, you mentioned Woke, for example, a minute ago, like, I think you saw just a month ago or so, um, a lot of Woke comments coming through, a lot of Woke commentary coming through some of the big corporation, um, AI.
Yaron Brook: we saw a backlash to that and you know, what's the alternative? know, the whole, the whole point of LLM is you're training it on known knowledge.
MarcBeckman:
Well, the alternative is open source, right? Like what Meta is trying to do, where we have a lot of different points of view, all [00:56:00] building and creating more innovation on top of, of AI.
Yaron Brook: but the points of view that the AI is going to learn from are the majority points of view. The majority points of view are awful. A terrible, a horrible, right. So, so, you know, so most
MarcBeckman: I agree.
Yaron Brook: so let's say the LLM gives a high score to academic res academic papers because, you know, it's academia, you know, but academia is overwhelmingly dominated by the left.
So, uh, it's gonna give a higher score to anything that happens, or leftist bias. And I can't blame the LLM or the programmers. How, how are you gonna rank them? How are you going to give scores even if it's open source? What are you going to do? I mean, the fact is that people on the right don't go into academia, they don't write, so they have a few think tanks, but the number of papers they produce far, uh, far smaller than the number of papers the left produces.
So the left is going to dominate LLMs. Just accept that. You know, the idea that somehow you can avoid [00:57:00] that is absurd unless you have a right wing LLM. then you're doing exactly The same thing but the opposite.
MarcBeckman: the same thing.
Right. by definition cannot be objective objectivity requires a human mind. Only human beings can be objective.
Yaron Brook: Objectivity means human beings identifying reality. Objectivity doesn't mean taking into account all points of view because most points of view are nonsense. Objectivity means the search for the truth which means interacting directly with reality and only human beings can interact with reality. Only human beings can tell LLM what's true and what's not.
What is objective and what's not. So the LLMs by definition are going to give us societal bias. And we just have to accept that and then
MarcBeckman: I'm, I'm laughing because then you get these like big anti tech politicians who really aren't familiar with the technology at the level you're talking about. And like, essentially, if they're not looking at it from the human side, the objective side, are they just regulating math? You know what I mean?
Like, that's all they're [00:58:00] doing, right? At the end of the day, an LLM is algebra.
Yaron Brook: They're regulating the outcome of math, Right. of a statistic algorithm. That's all an That sounds
MarcBeckman: so absurd,
Yaron Brook: a kind of statistical algorithm that, and basically, if woke dominates the media, the LLM will be woke. And if Christianity dominates the media, the LLM will be Christian. The LLM can't discover truth.
Truth is not something an artificial thing contemplate. It can't because it doesn't contemplate. I mean, artificial intelligence has no intelligence. It's not intelligent in the human sense. It doesn't integrate data from sense collection and actually conceptualize it. It just accepts. it's being given and it manipulates it using statistical tools.
All that can do is, you know, it create, it can tell you what is commonly available out there. It [00:59:00] can't tell you what is true.
MarcBeckman: but it could empower the individual, right? Like, so if you think about generative AI and its ability to help the individual create right music, right scripts, create videos, create films, and then, you know, give them economic opportunity to compete against the legacy. Let's say creative fields, Hollywood, publishing, um, fashion industry.
The individual could flourish from using these technologies. They would never be able to compete with big film studios, but now they can in a more efficient way from a time perspective, a money perspective, and even creatively,
right?
Yaron Brook: AI is this amazing tool that's going to change the world. not going to change the world because the machine is going to do the thinking for us. going to change the world by providing us with a tool that makes us much smarter and gives us access to a way of information and ability to manipulate data.
Like if you've seen this, this stuff, text to video stuff is stunning. It's, it's, it's [01:00:00] stunning the ability of, uh, of, of, of AI to create video. Right. Not to copy video, but to create it. So, uh, this is a, this is a tool that's gonna be, that's gonna change everything. It's, it, it, it allows us to take massive amounts of data in biotech and out, uh, how proteins fold and, uh, and, uh, come up with new proteins that we've never even been able to conceive of.
And,
MarcBeckman: Yeah,
Yaron Brook: tell us truth, . It's just gonna give us information though when we need to decide is it true or not? And we need to then guide it in order to create something of use of benefit. But it is going to change the world. And I think that the result of that is people are afraid because they don't understand it.
They don't know it. And nobody's making the effort to explain it to them. Everybody's so obsessed with AI is going to become conscious, going to take over the world. That's what all, uh, you know,
MarcBeckman: AGI.
Yaron Brook: sci fi movies are about. Instead of actually some adult, [01:01:00] some AI scientist, just Explain this to us. And for example, explain to us why it won't come alive.
You know, life is a biological phenomenon, for example, and not a zero one phenomenon. And there is a difference between biology and computers. They're not the same. And mean, and explain to us how our lives are going to be better from this. I mean, there is a movement in Silicon Valley of kind of tech optimism.
Uh, uh, that, uh, you know, Mark Andreessen and others are talking about, and I'm excited about that because that's the,
MarcBeckman: Me too. Can
Yaron Brook: bring reason and rationality to this discussion. Um, but our politicians are going to, you see, politicians feed on fear. The fear is how they attain power. They, can, you know, you're afraid, they convince you that your fear is justified, And then they convince you that only they can relieve you of the fear.
Trust them, [01:02:00] they will take care of it for you, and that's how they attain power. Whether it's fear of immigrants, or fear of trade, or fear of the other, fear of Jews, fear of, uh, fear of AI, don't worry, we've got it under control, just vote for us, and we'll take care of it.
MarcBeckman: technology push back against that, Jeroen? Can technology, for example, help those individuals who are living in oppressive regimes to, you know, get free speech, to topple governments? We, you know, during the Arab Spring, we thought that social media was going to help, but it really hasn't done anything. If you look back in time now, it really has not helped.
They're still living in oppressive regimes. So does tech, it's kind of interesting. I've had conversations with colleagues in China, for example, where Focusing on cryptocurrency. They've said to me, this is great. I can now get paid how I want to be paid without government intrusion. I could use NFTs to move content back and forth that I wouldn't be able to access.
Otherwise, including like Netflix movies, um, can [01:03:00] technology help those individuals in repress in oppressive regimes?
Yaron Brook: Yes, but technology primarily amplifies whatever's in the culture. in Arab Spring, for example, in Egypt, what, what, what the, what the technology amplified was the Muslim Brotherhood. And then so, so, so when you got an election, you had Muslim Brotherhood won and everybody was surprised. I wasn't. I was like, Oh, okay.
Look, the technology didn't change the culture, the culture was Muslim Brotherhood, the technology did is amplify them, and, and, and gave them a voice, and then they took over, and then everybody regretted the Arab Spring, right, because it led to that, you know, technology, technology. And, you know, the Arab Spring led to civil war in Egypt, in Syria, which has killed tens of thousands, nobody cares, and displaced millions, and just been horrific and barbaric.
that's what it led to, and what did technology do? It amplified a million different [01:04:00] horrible voices within Syria, because it's not like there are any good guys in Syria, right? They're just degrees of evil in, in, among, among the different Syrian parties fighting each other. They all hate. They're all bad.
You're all anti freedom, but they're all anti freedom in different ways and in different variations and all hate each other. So technology does that. Now, if you already want to be free, then yes, if you're in China and want freedom, then yeah, you want to get your money out. You know, crypto is a good way to get your money out of China, uh, using crypto.
If you, if you want to watch a Netflix movie, you can do that. But is that going to change the regime? Is that going to have an impact on your day to day life beyond being able to move your money around or, or watch a movie that they don't let you? Maybe in the very long run, because you'll, you'll get used to having a little bit of freedom, but they had more freedom 10 years ago.
I mean, I was in China up until 19, 2018, I was in China pretty regularly and [01:05:00] freedom was increasing in many respects. And then starting in 2016, 17, 18, it started clamping down and what did the Chinese people do? They accepted it. So, the fact that they have a little bit of freedom doesn't mean they're not willing to give it up.
MarcBeckman: Is it like a human condition where like we, we individuals anywhere on the planet don't want freedom or we shy away from freedom?
Yaron Brook: It's certainly not the case, as George Bush said, that, what is it, freedom is in the heart of every human being on the planet?
Freedom is a massive achievement, a massive achievement, for, you know, how long have human beings been around? You know, as, as Homo sapiens, a few hundred thousand years. How many of those years have been really free?
Have human beings been free? Like 300? Including the city states in Greece, maybe [01:06:00] 400, 500 years, we've had freedom. The rest, Mm hmm. 99 percent of human life is being lived under no freedom. The reality is that freedom is a massive achievement. And you can't appreciate what's going on in the world unless you realize kind of how much people fought for freedom and how, and, the kind of intellectual battle that they had to fight.
Greece and the Enlightenment are the two most important periods in human history, because they're the periods in which people fought for freedom. They fought for the ideas that necessitated freedom. you know, today the Enlightenment is proo prooed by the left because it advocates for reason and individualism.
It's proo prooed by the right because it's anti religion. Everybody's abandoned the indictment. If you abandon the indictment, you abandon liberty, you abandon freedom. And people are willing to do that, you know, in the name of comfort, in the name of security, in the name of, I don't have to think for myself, life is rough.
Um, it's [01:07:00] shocking.
how many people live in Russia today. Just accept Putin. They just accept it. They don't fight it. They don't, you know, maybe, maybe they don't like him, but they don't fight it, and they're not even willing to get up and move, right? So a lot of young people, when the war broke out, left Russia to Kazakhstan and Georgia, but a lot stayed.
look at Iran. Um, 30, 30 percent of the population is, is, you know, pretty secular and would love to replace the regime and have gone out and demonstrated. 30 percent is pretty, really, really conservative and believes in this regime. they want to be slaves. And then there's 40 percent that just doesn't care.
They're kind of, they're just struggling with day to day life and they're not willing to change anything and they, they don't want to be free enough go onto the streets or to risk anything for it. So you've got 30 percent who doesn't want to be free. 40 percent who is not willing to risk anything for freedom and 30 percent who want to be free, but they're only 30%.
I mean, how many people in America, [01:08:00] how many American people in America would have signed the declaration of independence and gone to war with the British? If you put it to a vote in the colonies, it would have failed far less than 50 percent were willing to. What was the end of the declaration of independence?
We, we, we, we stake our, uh, our, uh, lives, property, and honor. Right, because they knew that if they lost, they would be hung, their property would be taken from them, and they put everything on the line, and some people rallied to their cause, some people thought, eh, too busy, and some people sided with the British, and that's always the case.
luckily for humanity, the founding fathers won, right? But the reality is that it's always a minority that fights, really is willing to fight for freedom. um, that minority is shrinking because of bad ideas.
MarcBeckman: Yaron. At the end of my show, each guest [01:09:00] finishes a sentence that I begin, um, and it starts with the name of the show, Some Future Day, which is a cool reference to James Joyce. So I'm wondering if you could do that with me.
Yaron Brook: Sure. We'll
MarcBeckman: Okay, so in some future day, individual liberty and freedom will become,
Yaron Brook: become the mainstream, we'll become, uh, dominant in our culture.
MarcBeckman: alright, Yaron, thank you so much. You've given me so much of your time today and sage wisdom, amazing talking to you. I really appreciate it. Is there anything else you want to add?
Yaron Brook: Now, people can follow me on, uh, on the Iran Book Show, I'm on YouTube, they can follow me on Twitter, just my name, and I have a website, iranbookshow. com.
MarcBeckman: Awesome. Yaron, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. It's great seeing you today. [01:10:00] [01:11:00]