Speaker 1 00:00:01 All right. Well, great. It looks like, uh, it's seven 30. We'll go ahead and get started. Thank you for joining us today. I'm Scott Schiff hosting the ATLA society, senior fellow Robert. Trinky doing an ask me anything and, uh, we have lots of questions from our various channels, uh, but we wanna encourage live questions. So as Rob is answering these, uh, just raise your hand and we'll be glad to bring you up on the stage to talk about this. Uh, Rob, thanks for doing this. Any, uh, opening thoughts before we jump into things,
Speaker 2 00:00:42 I don't have any opening thoughts that are special. I don't, I didn't see anything in the news that was especially urgent, uh, today. Um, although if F wants to bring something up, please do, uh, I, I, I, I like the, uh, in the spirit of this to just open it up and, and it's with a mixture of excitement and trepidation that I ask. So, so what are all these questions gleaned from the inter
Speaker 1 00:01:03 All right. Let's, uh, jump into them. Um, this, uh, now it's interesting because they sometimes come in as like groups of questions from an individual. And so, uh, this first one is from, uh, dementias, uh, is the name and they're just kinda like three that are together, you know? Um, I had to look up, uh, some of these words, but, uh, he says thoughts on meta modernism, explain how it relates to postmodernism. And then he also has another one about what to do about the postmodernist approach. Most colleges keep teaching Stu
Speaker 2 00:01:46 Well, okay, so lemme take that one. So yeah, you sent me this one earlier and I said, okay, I gotta look up what meta modernism is. I, uh, you know, with postmodernism, I always thought, I thought things were already pretty meta when it got to postmodernism, but we have like an extra meta layer thrown on top of that. Uh, so I looked it up from what I can, it's like a compromise between modernism and postmodernism now, modernism in philosophical terms, like as opposed to sort of ordinary human terms or, or artistic terms, you know, in, uh, in ordinary human terms, modern just means up to date. It means contemporary in artistic terms, modernism refers to the artistic and literary movements of the early 20th century in philosophical terms. Modern basically means the Renaissance, you know, from the Renaissance on it's modern, as opposed to, uh, ancient Greek philosophy or medieval philosophy.
Speaker 2 00:02:41 Uh, so, and, and modern in the, in the, in that philosophical tends to mean really, uh, the, the idea and, and provided the foundation and moved into the enlightenment. So it generally means, you know, a belief in science and in reason, and in the idea that we can accurately describe, uh, the world as it actually exists, right? So we can gain knowledge of the world that we can be certain of that knowledge as opposed to postmodern. So now again, we're using philosophical terms, so I have to translate it in, in philosophical terms post generally new means anti <laugh>. So postmodernism basically means a rejection of that idea that we can use reason and science to gain knowledge of the world in favor of a more radically subjectivist kind of approach where well everybody's so influenced by their, um, preexisting as, and the, uh, assumptions they've been socialized into.
Speaker 2 00:03:43 And they're so, um, influenced by these cultural narratives that therefore nobody can ever really know the truth. And it, it really comes out of the philosophy of Emmanuel cut. The idea that are your nature, the nature of your mind is the, is. So I is by certain pre-programmed categories that you've, that in cons view, they were inherent in your nature in later versions. They're programmed into they're socially constructed and programmed into, by society, but you're so influenced by these. You can't get outside that perspective and you can't see the world as it really is. And that's the Poston, you know, postmodernism, but in the 20th century is sort of the culmination of that viewpoint. So it's radically subjective and meta moderate seems to be some sort of way to create a compromise between the two. But my attitude is why create a compromise between the two, why not question the, the postmodernist assumptions at the root.
Speaker 2 00:04:36 And I think that's what we need to do. I mean, that's, I think the big thing that iron Rand has to offer philosophically on that, on this sort of epistemological foundational level, and especially to academic philosophy, is her answer to that C argument. Uh, and, uh, so I dunno if anybody wants me to get into that, but my answer would be that you have to question that basic assumption, the idea that somehow the nature of our minds is molded in such a way that we're so warped by certain, in, in bright assumptions that we can't really see reality. And of course, you know, the, the sort of easy way to refute that is say, look around you. I mean, we, you put a man on the moon. I, I just got, I'm very excited. I just got Starlink to delivered. This is Elon Musk thing.
Speaker 2 00:05:23 We put up this network satellites, it gives you a rural internet. It's like, it's like 50 to a hundred times faster than what I was limping along on before. Um, I'm gonna have to become an annoying Elon Musk fanboy now. Uh <laugh> so, but the point is that, you know, we're able to send satellites in the space and put internet it in the sky so that some guy living in the middle of, of rural Virginia can get, uh, uh, uh, can get, you know, high speed broadband internet, the idea that we can't, you know, that we're somehow unable to really unknow reality as it really is, is kind of ridiculous. Now we can go into the philosophical arguments and all that later, uh, by the way, if anybody wants to ask me my opinion of Elon Musk, cuz I'm sure that's on a lot of people's minds right now, and I've got thoughts on that, but, um, uh, that, that's my short answer to that question. And I guess the short answer to the second part of how do you fight postmodernism is you need another set of ideas that answers that and provides a different philosophical framework. And I think IRA's views on epistemology and on the nature of the mind, the, uh, her, her view of her answer to con is so powerful that it can really sweep away all of them.
Speaker 1 00:06:33 That's good. So it's kind of like a third way, uh, you know, know they try to split the difference. I'm not, I'm not the bad postmodernist, I'm just a meta modernist.
Speaker 2 00:06:43 Well, I think what, from my short reading of it, I think what they're trying to do is they realize that the sort of cynicism or detachment, the ironic detachment of postmodernism is a dead end, right? This idea that, well, there everything's just a narrative. The nothing's really true. So therefore you can't get invested or worked up in anything and, you know, taking in the current environment, there's, you know, there's a war in Ukraine where people are being slaughtered, the idea that it, it doesn't really matter. And that nobody can say the truth kind of does seems inadequate to that moment. So they're trying to, they're trying to what sees better amount meta modernism seems to be about is they're trying to come up with a way to allow some form of sincerity, but without really fundamentally challenging the postmodernist assumptions.
Speaker 1 00:07:33 Yeah. I can see why, uh, Rand would be a better, uh, prescription. Um, <laugh> Lawrence, thank you for drew. Joining us. Do you have a question for Rob
Speaker 2 00:07:47 You're muted?
Speaker 1 00:07:49 Yeah. Are you able to unmute, Well, we can come back to Lawrence in just a moment. He may have got caught up in something. Um, I have this, uh, these other to from, um, Aus Haval. Uh, what are your thoughts on factual feminism and thoughts on third wave feminism? <laugh>
Speaker 2 00:08:14 Oh boy. Oh boy. So I'm not the biggest expert on this. I'm I'm not even the biggest expert on postmodernism. You should, you know, the posts me questions, lob those, uh, at Steven Hicks. Cause he's, you know, he's dug into this more deeply than I have. I, I, I know the outlines of it, but he's, he'll, he'd be able to give you more detail. Um, so I don't know, third wave feminist. I have a Vegas notion of and factual feminism. I mean, that's sort of associated with Christina Hoff summers, uh, who I know a little, but, um, and I've, I've encountered her work as well. Um, uh, uh, and it's this idea of tr I like the idea of trying to bring factual analysis to bear rather than sort of ideological preconceptions. Right. And so things like when there was this discussion about, oh, there's a campus rape epidemic that they would look at people like her would dig into and say, well, you know, look at the actual facts and figures and show how this was, you know, vastly overstated and vastly overblown, which, you know, again is sort of validating the common sense thing.
Speaker 2 00:09:16 You know, that if, if, if rape was as common as the rape epidemic, people were talking about, you know, no parents would ever send their child, send their daughter to a, to a college because it would be, you know, it would be a, a totally unsafe place to go, uh, be like send them to the housing projects back in the seventies. So, um, they, they, so they brought the facts to bear. I, my comment on that is I wanna question, and this goes gonna tie into the Poston one. I wanna question the concept of feminism, this idea of an is based around a personal identity group identity in this way. So the wider context, which is what ties into post modernism is that the standard politics and the standard view of life that's, that has taken hold as sort of the elite college educated circles these days is this idea.
Speaker 2 00:10:09 You find a group, you find some group defined by imutable physical characteristics, or at least, you know, standard physical characteristics. Like you find a racial group or a, uh, religious group, or it's usually a racial group, or it's a, a gender group, right. A gender identity. And you define yourself around that identity and your membership in a group that has that identity. Now the gender group ha ha have the gender groups have multiplied over the years. That's I think the difference between third way feminism of what we have now is third way feminism. There was men and there was women, right? And now there's men and there's women and there's, uh, however many other genders in between, but it's this idea of, of having this sort of, you have a group identity and you have find all questions and everything about you around that group identity.
Speaker 2 00:11:02 And now it's, it's, it's true that there can be for if your membership in your, in a member of a, a racial group or you're a, a woman, uh, you can have certain issues that are gonna be unique to that group. Uh, oftentimes as a legacy, see of, you know, past discrimination or whatever. Um, so, you know, the, uh, if you're, if you're black in America, there's a history there of discrimination, possibly some things are riskier for you in the wo in, in, in, in the, in everyday life, then, then they would be, uh, uh, for, for someone who's not. Or if you're a woman there, I, I think it's a little obsolete, but there are, and have been, uh, certain assumptions for example, about what kind of job you would do. Now. I think we talked, we might get into talking about star Trek later here.
Speaker 2 00:11:49 So I, I was just thinking about the old original series. You noticed that the, the only members of the, of the regular crew, the only female members of the regular crew are basically a receptionist and a nurse, right? They, they were comfortable gender roles circa 1967, right. <laugh> and, and it took longer at the star Trek franchise for you to have, you know, female captain and, and, and women in other different roles that were not the stereotypical sort, the 1950s sixties, uh, uh, of feminine work roles. So there are these issues that are unique to those, but the idea of defining everything and having it be a whole philosophy and worldview defined around everything's different for me and my attitudes, my thoughts, my whole philosophy of life should be different because I'm a member because I'm black or because I'm a woman or I'm at I'm at the intersection between these various different identities.
Speaker 2 00:12:44 That is the postmodernist thing, because where that comes from is it comes from that same content assumption that who you are, your identity, the, uh, um, uh, the socially constructed conditions that, that, uh, that you came up in determines everything about your worldview. And, you know, it, that we don't all live in the same reality. You live in a different reality shaped by your identity by your socially constructed identity. And I live in a different reality shaped by my socially cons identity. So it goes back to that whole content postmodernist approach where we can't really confront, we're not all living in the same reality, dealing with the same issues, capable of sharing the same ideas, we're all divided by our group identity membership. And I think feminism, as you know, the whole concept of feminism as a distinct philosophy, uh, as opposed to, you know, equality or something like that, that I think comes up through that assumption of group identity is everything. And that's the part I would want to, I say, you go back and you question that at the root
Speaker 1 00:13:52 That's good. Uh, I'm remind I'm a big Billy Joel fan. And I, they were asking him, you know, you're not a, a fisherman. What, what are you doing writing about their play? He's like, I'm a writer. That's what I do. I try to take,
Speaker 2 00:14:08 I get a song. He did a song about the Vietnam war. I'm trying to remember what the name of the song was song, wasn't
Speaker 1 00:14:14 It that's right.
Speaker 2 00:14:15 Yeah. And of course he never served, but he said he had friends who said, you gotta write a song about this, Billy. And they would tell him his stories. Then he wrote a song. And yeah, it's this thing that you didn't have to have the experience to be able to figure out how to convey the experience.
Speaker 1 00:14:30 Yeah. And that's why, I mean, I think the fact that they're saying these are different realities for your different identity groups, that why Rand's ideas are, uh, the, the best antidote. Uh, but I, I don't wanna, uh, monopolize the conversation. Lawrence, thank you for joining us here on the stage. If anyone else has questions, we invite you to join us as well.
Speaker 5 00:14:51 Hello. Hello. Can you hear me now?
Speaker 2 00:14:53 Yes. Yeah, I can hear you.
Speaker 5 00:14:55 All right. Perfect. Uh, so I'll, I'll, I'll bite, Rob. Uh, I'll ask you about Elon Musk, but I was gonna ask, uh, actually just more in general about this, uh, interesting sort of just this actions we've seen over the past week of, um, the board then I guess, Vanguard coming in and buying a whole bunch of shares. There seems to be a lot of different groups buying for power in, uh, Twitter over shares, or at least to counter Elon Musk at the very minimum. What's your take on all
Speaker 2 00:15:24 That? Yeah. Yeah. All right. So yeah, the first of all, I wanna, gosh, there's so much to say here. Okay. So let me start with one thing. First of all, I don't know why anyone would ever wanna bother to own Twitter. Um, it is not a profitable thing. Um, and the thing I think people get Twitter has this weird thing where it doesn't really have that much, many users compared to other social media networks. And most of its users don't spend any time talking about politics. I mean, you know, Taylor swift getting up and posting something in the Mor, you know, Taylor swift gets up in the morning and posts something. She gets, you know, a thousand times more engagement than I'm ever going to get on Twitter, but it has this weird position in the psyche, in the American psyche, or at least the psyche of the chattering classes.
Speaker 2 00:16:11 But because all the media people are on Twitter, like all the, the entire, uh, uh, you know, all the editors, all the assistant editors, all the young reporters and all that, they're all the time. And so because of that, it has this weird wa the dog kind of quality where it does have it in impact on what gets discussed and what stories get covered and what doesn't and my worth the worst, um, uh, genre of journalism right now is the journalist who's embedded on Twitter. And you see these articles where it's like the whole article is here's what an outrageous thing somebody said on Twitter today. You know, as if, as if Twitter is the thing that, you know, people posting random things on Twitter is what you were there to report on. Like, it's like, it's a, a, um, uh, like it's the most important thing that's happening in the world.
Speaker 2 00:17:03 Uh, so it has this weird outsized influence. So that's the first thing I wanna say is it's kind of a weird thing. And frankly, I think Elon Musk should, would be 10 times better off and would much greater service to the world if he focuses time and effort on doing something like building rockets, right. He's been out there. The good thing about Musk, I'm gonna give a more, a wider assessment in a second, but the good thing about Musk is he's one of the few guys coming outta Silicon valley, who's out there been doing real things in the real world, like building stuff he's built rock, he would do way better off putting his time and effort and money into starting another venture like that, that would actually build something that's useful. So that's my T rate on that. I also don't think Elon Musk is going to save us, you know, there's this, I think it, it produced a lot of excitement in the conservative Twitter sphere because the idea that, oh, well, you know, we're getting bit mistreated and, and discriminated against by the people at Twitter.
Speaker 2 00:18:00 Elon Musk will come in, he'll put a stop to all that. Eh, I'm not sure he is. Um, and I, I don't wanna get too much into this, but I, I have a large AR larger argument about how I, I actually disagree with what a lot of people have to say about Twitter. I think Twitter doesn't have too much moderation. I think it has bad moderation, but I don't think it has too much moderation. It has the wrong kind of moderation, but I think moderation moderating a, a, a social network is essential for making it minimally useful of mean Twitter. I would say you put it in the category of minimally useful. Um, I've been on the internet since like 1988, you know, back before we actually had the web, we just had like green texts on the screen and it was used prodigy. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:18:44 I was never a prodigy, but this was like used in that discussion groups, you know, the university, um, there an objective, uh, oh gosh, there was a guy who ran out of a server in California at some university in California, ran like the very first, uh, objective, email, UBS bolt discussion group. Yeah. Um, and so I've been around since then, and, and I've had it experience to know that you have to have some level of moderation cause otherwise, basically the crazy people will drown you up. Cause one of the rules of the internet is the crazy people always have more time than you and are way less willing to let somebody else have the last word. So, uh, I've seen forums get sort of like overwhelmed with the, the, the crazy people, uh, who drown everybody else out and make a at, you know, less my, my inverse square law of the internet is that the, the quality of a person's contribution to a forum tends to be inversely related to the quantity, right.
Speaker 2 00:19:40 That if somebody's posting all the time, the likelihood they're gonna have something interesting to say is way less, like, is much smaller than the guy who actually has a job that is doing expertise. Who's doing stuff out there in the world and can only find time to post here and there. All right. So that's my tirade about that, that Elon Musk is not going to be the solution to what L's Twitter. Um, but I wanna talk about Elon Musk as a character. Cause I think he's interesting as a, as a personality and as a phenomenon, um, I've described him before as a greenwashed iron ranch hero. And the greenwash part is, you know, greenwash is this thing that you put an environmentalist gloss on something to make it socially acceptable. Uh, and he's sort of that way, cuz you know, he, he built an electric, he made electric cars.
Speaker 2 00:20:24 Cool. Right. He didn't just build an electric car. He built a cool fast luxurious electric car. And so because of that, he sort of, you know, the environmentalist could sort of attach themselves to him as he was making the dream of electric cars happen so that we could get rid of fossil fuels. Now that's not going to happen either. But because of that, he sort of was able to get into the public psyche in a way that other rich guy, rich, other billionaires, other flamboyant billionaires could not do. And he has that a little bit of that iron Rand hero kind of quality to it. If you look at it, you know the idea of like, he's this one guy, uh, an engineer who becomes a businessman, an industrial realist and he's, uh, scoffed at, by the establishment and then proves them wrong. I mean, there's all these sort of Henry Hank Rearden John GU kind of Howard Brook kind of overtones to him. Not that I think he actually is exactly comparable those people, but there is a little bit of that element right. Of the, the Renegade billionaire, who, who proves, who, who is doubted by everyone and proves them all wrong. There's a little bit of that greenwash iron Ryan hero aspect to 'em, which is, I think what makes them interesting.
Speaker 1 00:21:38 Someone on how,
Speaker 2 00:21:40 Oh, go ahead.
Speaker 1 00:21:41 I was gonna say someone on Twitter, uh, this week posted that, uh, Elon trying to buy Twitter was their new, uh, favorite Iran novel.
Speaker 2 00:21:51 <laugh> <laugh> exactly, exactly. That. That's a great, a great line. I think that sums it up. Um, now asty though that's sort of the public he has now. Here's the thing a couple of years ago. Um, well I was looking for someplace to hide I out during the, uh, 2016 election, uh, I <laugh> you find, I was trying to find a saner corner of the world during the 2016 election. I started and ran for a while until the, the money guys ran out of money and it got canceled. But, uh, I started and ran a, uh, a, uh, a website called real clear future, which was under the real clear policy. And it was looking at you remember that one? Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:22:32 I, it's not still around,
Speaker 2 00:22:35 No, it's around 17, the, the money, like I said, the money guys ran out of money. It's the story of life. It happens all the time. Uh, you sign up a website and I'm the content guy and somebody else is the money guy. And various things happened at real clear and, and they didn't, it wasn't making enough money to continue it. So it got canceled. Unfortunately I had a lot of fun writing it, but it, the real clear future was really about emerging technology. It's about stuff that's like five to 10 years out and the very first glimmers of it ever first coming and, you know, basically, is it real, is it, or is it, is it, is it an illusion? Is this really gonna happen? How, how realistic is it? How far out is it, you know, if like fusion, is it still 15 years in the future?
Speaker 2 00:23:19 Like it has always been. And, uh, uh, so by, by virtue of editing that publication, I had basically, it was on the Elon Musk beat and I was like, okay, Elon Musk said something this morning. Was it brilliant to visionary? Or was it complete flim flam? And it was kind of a coin to, right. So what I would put is brilliant of visionary is SpaceX and Starlink I'm, I'm loving Starlink, uh, uh, I'm very grateful to have it. So space is SpaceX is star length. The idea of making space flight much cheaper, much, uh, more frequent, much more reliable. That's an amazing accomplishment. So that's the bro of visionary part. Uh, then there's stuff like hyper loop, right? This idea we're gonna this network of, to tubes through the ground and we're gonna have a vacuum inside the tube and you're gonna travel at the speed of sound.
Speaker 2 00:24:09 And it was a totally unrealistic idea. It has not gone anywhere. Uh, he hyped it all over the place and it was flim flam from the beginning neurally, which is this idea we're gonna have a brain implants that will help you improve your, improve, your memory and your mental functioning that's problem. Also flim flam, um, Tesla I review is sort of a mix of the two on the one hand. So electric cars before him were kind of an environmentalist hair shirt, right? They were think of the Prius, right? There were these little, it's not a fully electric, but it it's, it's a hybrid, but they were these little, you know, it was a small tin can of a are totally unglamorous. It was, it was your way of showing how much you were willing to give up for the cause of environmentalism. Right? And he took the idea of, wait a minute, let's take an electric car and let's make it a roader.
Speaker 2 00:24:59 Let's make it a sports car. Let's make it fast. And cool. Let's give it a, a ludicrous mode where it goes extra fast, has this incredible acceleration. So a lot of that was, was, was really cool. Now I think I personally think a Tesla is way overpriced. Um, I did a calculation once about how, you know, you're never gonna pay for gasoline, but that's really priced into the fact that you, you, you could have bought an equally nice gasoline powered car for about half the money. Uh, so you can end up paying, you know, you save like $30,000 in gasoline after spending $50,000 more for the car, but it is a cool car. The fly flam part though, that comes in is the full self-driving cuz he's been talking about, oh, we're gonna build full self-driving into these in and the, uh, what is because the, the, um, what's the name for the, the version he has the, uh, autopilot
Speaker 1 00:25:53 X, Tesla X.
Speaker 2 00:25:55 No, no, the autopilot, the auto, I think he actually calls it autopilot. Right? The idea of the self, the, the partial self-driving thing that, that they come with.
Speaker 1 00:26:02 Okay. Yeah, I know that's one of the functions.
Speaker 2 00:26:05 Yeah. And so that is a problem because, and I, I, I know a guy, uh, uh, Neer, Neer, Meer who, uh, um, uh, who writes about this and has, uh, sometimes gets in Musks crawl because he, he writes about how, how far the actual reality of full of dress self driving, how, how, how fall, how far the Tesla falls short of the full reality of self driving, cuz the technology just really isn't there, but Musk has kind of been hyping it and promising people, oh, the, you know, the, but Tesla you buy today already becomes equipped with everything you need for full self-driving. So it'll just require a software update in the future, but it's really, probably never, I mean, it's almost certainly never going to happen. So again, there's that element of flam, flam at attention seeking along with really big legitimate achievements. So that's why Musk kind of drives me nuts.
Speaker 2 00:27:02 And I see the Twitter thing as being part of that aspect of his character, the attention seeking, cause you know, him wanting to buy Twitter as an investor. It doesn't make sense for him as a use of his time compared to the much more productive things he could be doing elsewhere. It doesn't really make sense. I think it makes sense because suddenly everybody in the political world, everybody in the media world is talking about Elon Musk, ALO. And so I think it's that kind of attention seeking aspect of his personality that, that I find to be the sort of the, would that be the Jer or the hide? That's the hide part of the J
Speaker 1 00:27:39 Well, he seems capable of multitasking at the very least. He
Speaker 2 00:27:43 That's true. I, and I think he sometimes bites off more than he can chew. I mean, uh, the other thing he was supposed to do with Tesla is they were going to have this super hyper automated factory. And that turned out to be way ahead of its time. And you know, the idea is that if, if, if it were possible, one of the big automaker would've already done it <laugh> so another thing we bit off, more than he could choose. So I think there is that element that he sometimes gets a really brilliant idea that doesn't actually doesn't actually work. I think
Speaker 1 00:28:15 I I'm glad he is, even the stuff that's failing. He's, it's good that he's trying. Um, but
Speaker 2 00:28:21 I, well, you, I think that's that, that IRAT hero aspect of that aesthetic of it, of here's a guy out doing exciting and, and, and all these, all these crazy new ideas and all these unusual things. I mean, we should have, we should be celebrating that aspect that we should have more of that, of the expectation that everybody should be out there, you know, starting new ventures and coming up with new ideas and trying to create something.
Speaker 1 00:28:44 Yeah, absolutely. Well, uh, bill, thank you for your patience. Do you have a question for Rob,
Speaker 6 00:28:51 Um, first off, uh, the, uh, person you were referring to doing the objective thing back in the whatevers mm-hmm <affirmative>, uh, was that possibly Paul Dixie,
Speaker 2 00:29:01 Uh, which, which of it was it?
Speaker 6 00:29:05 You, uh, you were saying something about a, a forum or a, a mailing list.
Speaker 2 00:29:10 Paul fixie is a name that, uh, I know he had a list. Yes. A name, a name for the distant pass. There was something called the Orion list, cuz the Orion was the name of the server and it was at a university in California and then Bob and Bob Stubblefield had a list in the, then there was like all that philosophy out objective or H humanities thought philosophy out. There were several different ones on Usenet. Yeah. So yeah, there was this whole, you know, flurry of them back then. I think Paul Bixie had one of them. The real fun part about that is one of the guys that used to argue against on those was Jim was a guy named Jim Bo whale.
Speaker 6 00:29:47 Yep. I was gonna mention him
Speaker 2 00:29:48 <laugh> who would go on of course to be the founder of Wikipedia. And I actually met him again, uh, a few years back, uh, at an event and we sat around chatting about, you know, the good old days, uh, in the late eighties on, on, on the objective discussion groups.
Speaker 6 00:30:04 Yeah. Okay. I was going to mention, uh, Jimbo because I was also on that list. Um, but actually that's not the reason I, I put my, uh, hand up, um, my particular interest these days is, um, you know, where is this country going? One of the discussions that, that I've had with a number of people are, are, and I, you may, I may have asked you this once before and if I had it, I'll go into a different question. Um, but what would you say are the prerequisites that the fundamental things that a proper society has to have my own answer is, uh, court, uh, government accountability and free speech. What would yours be?
Speaker 2 00:30:46 Well, I think free speech is the fundamental, um, because you have to have the ability to debate and argue and discuss. Um, I actually think that's in better shape than most people think I'm, I'm a little less impressed by, you know, so somebody's got shadow banned on Twitter. Well, okay. That's a small part of what's actually going on out there. Um, I see, for example, in my case, it's so much easier to get an audience and reach people in the day and age of the internet, uh, through all the different things mean that the old gatekeepers of the media have, have been knocked flat sometimes for good at, and sometimes for ill, but there, there are so many more opportunities to get ideas out there, uh, than there used to be. So that's the, the fundamental there, but I also see, you know, I think property rights, um, and the fact that you have a vibrant economy in which people are able to go out and, you know, you got, you can get a guy like Elon Musk who goes out and makes a fortune and, and has this ability to do things totally independent of, of what the establishment thinks.
Speaker 2 00:31:49 I mean, that's the great part about the story of Theon Musk, regardless of what he actually does with it is the fact that there are guys like that. So I've been writing a bit recently about Russia and what's going on in Russia in the last 20 years. And one of the big turning points in Russia was back in 2004, there was a guy named Nick hill Kovski who had, who he's one of these billionaires who had popped up, you know, by basically taking over state owned assets after the collapse of the Soviet union. And he had made, become a billionaire and he was eventually targeted for prosecution for this sort of trumped up prosecution. And it wasn't cuz he was somehow more corrupt than all the other Russian billionaires. Uh, in fact he was probably less corrupt. It was because he was supporting political activity that was independent of Putin and that was why he got targeted.
Speaker 2 00:32:35 And so this whole approach that was taken in Russia that cemented itself over the last 20 years is this idea that yes you could make, you could be a billionaire. You could have control over this big oil company. You could have a ridiculously large mega yacht in, in the, uh, Mediterranean, but you don't step foot into politics. You don't have anything to do with politics. That's the monopoly controlled out of the Kremlin. That's the Russian system. They've gone back to this sort of strong man rule all centralized around one person. And I think the, the best thing about America is we don't have that. And I think it's actually a fair ways out until the, uh, the, the conditions of creating that are still very far in the future. So you could have, you know, a Renegade billionaire like Elon Musk or there, you know, tons of guys who have less money than that, but still have enough to, you know, give to the out society or, uh, subscribe to my newsletter or do something else that will spread ideas that, that independent, uh, vibrant economy with independent sources of wealth, where people are able to go out and, and, and support ideas and support ventures and support new, doing new things, uh, without having to get without being under, you know, the, the thumb of any one centralized authority.
Speaker 2 00:33:51 I think that's, that's the greatest thing about that, that we still have that we should, uh, appreciate.
Speaker 1 00:33:59 Good stuff. Thank you.
Speaker 6 00:34:01 I was gonna ask where, where do you stand on our present court system? Cause I that's another important idea.
Speaker 2 00:34:06 Yeah. The present court system.
Speaker 6 00:34:09 Yes.
Speaker 2 00:34:10 Yeah. I don't, that's not really my area of expertise, so I can't say too much. Uh, you know, I like somebody who actually has to deal with the court system on a regular basis, you know, a lawyer or constitutional lawyer would be better, uh, aimed to that. I have seen some disturbing stuff about the kind of the woke stuff that's going on at like Yale law school, things like that, where the, uh, the lawyers who are being educated at the, at the elite schools are not being educated in here's how to understand the law. Here's how to analyze the law. They're being educated. And here's how you can be an activist supporting this one particular political viewpoint. Although I still think that there is a limit to how much, you know, that the, the professors at the colleges actually can program their students to actually do all of this stuff. A lot of people go through college thinking, okay, I'll just do the work I need to do to get through the class and then go out and, you know, do what they really want to do. So I don't, I think that's a danger, but I think it's, it's one that's gonna be eating away over a long period over, over the long term. But like I said, that's not my field. So I, I, the quantity of it, like how big of how big a phenomenon is, this is something I don't have a, um, a
Speaker 1 00:35:21 Good, uh, yeah, we'll see where it goes over time. Uh, Joslyn, thank you so much for your patience. Do you have a question for Rob?
Speaker 7 00:35:29 Yes. Thank you for having me up here. And um, so unethical things have been done in the us where I live stuff like Tuskegee that went on, not for decade or two but 40 years. Uh, many doctors were complicit. I came forward in 2013 with the same symptoms as the, um, victims of Havana syndrome, the diplomats Canadian and American diplomats in Cuba. So I came forward three years, like I said, I heard the same noise that was heard by some of them, which I have an audio video recording off. I have the same symptoms I came forward with. Uh, my story was documented because I went to the FBI and I went to a reporter because I knew my pain was externally triggered from, uh, I knew there was physics involved. I didn't know exactly how it was done. It was recently determined by the academies of sciences, that it was an energy weapon, something that could be easily concealed in a backpack in a small suitcase, be in a log in a parked vehicle next to your dwelling. So my question is a lot of, um, people in the us may think this is just happening to diplomats and governmental personnel, but it's, I'm here in clubhouse to bring awareness that this is not just happening to them. It's happening to ordinary folks. It happened to me. My question to you is for people who do this, um, nefarious a for these people who are puffed a law, what do I have? What, what, how could I fight back?
Speaker 2 00:37:25 All right. I'm, I'm not gonna be able to a really provide an answer to this. There's a real controversy over, out there over whether Havana syndrome is, is real or, or what it is or what, what the, what the possible side basis of it is. I have not followed that story. I don't know anything on that. So I really can't. I really can't speak to that.
Speaker 7 00:37:47 Well, just maybe just for personal knowledge, it is real functional MRIs have shown decreased white matter. I, yeah,
Speaker 1 00:37:56 I'd
Speaker 7 00:37:56 Have to, if I could just add a little bit for those people in the room who are not aware of this,
Speaker 1 00:38:01 Just one I, I do, we do wanna kind of give everyone a chance. I, I appreciate that, but if we have more time, maybe we'll get more, more into stuff, but I do wanna go to John, John, we appreciate your patience. Do you have a question? Do you know how to unmute yourself? John? There you go. Got it. All right. Um, on, uh, um, uh, darn, uh, on postmodernism, I thought, um, that really the issue there is that there's, um, it's a, it's a loser's argument. They're losing to modernism, to facts, logic and reason with regard to feminism. I think that's similar. That's a special appeal of the egalitarian losers who wanna make the appeal to envy and want to broaden the audience by adding special interest groups with regard to Musk, didn't he get a lot of subsidies. And I think that he's making business decisions based on the modern political reality that you have to position yourself towards.
Speaker 1 00:39:17 I wanna use the word fascist in a nonnegative non-negative way that it we're less negative. That is not as a rash, not as a racist way, but as a form of government way. That is oligarchy where, well, yeah, where, yeah, it's a combination of the corporate and the political suite working together as co-partners. And in that sense, I think that's what he's reflecting. The modern reality that this is a, a, a non-racist fascist state is what we're dealing with. And then I think with regard to lawyers, I think their problem is that as it's impossible for them to be anarchists, they, they are sworn to uphold the system to be part of and to be integral in the system. And speaking as a lawyer personally, that's the problem I see now that's enough. That's the end of my comment.
Speaker 2 00:40:17 It's a lot in there. Let me try to remember what it all was. Uh, well, okay. So this idea of the, sort of the losers doctors and I, I don't like that now, I, the style is sort of, you know, chest thumbing of we're the winners and you're the losers because part of the culture war out there and oftentimes becomes a lot of posing, right. Other than reality. Um, and I actually think it's one area where, so I, I read an article years ago called confessions of a reluctant culture warrior. And I definitely am a reluctant culture warrior because I see a lot of the stuff that goes out there on the culture war, and often on both sides, uh, is this sort of symbiotic relationship where these people all get attention by arguing back and forth over what did this person say on Twitter?
Speaker 2 00:41:04 And it's like, there's a whole real world out there where you could go build rockets <laugh> and not focus on what somebody said on Twitter. And so it becomes this sort of fake activity. And I noticed, I think that really sort of taken over our politics. That there's a lot of. Um, so I saw that, uh, Ron DeSantis, governor Florida apparently had a whole special legislative section focused on Disney and also focused on him coming out and saying a bunch of stuff about Twitter and the shareholders of Twitter and about Elon Musk. And I'm thinking you're the governor of Florida. You have no say over any of this. This is, you know, it has nothing to do with your actual job as a politician, as the governor of Florida, you, but it's become a pattern that, that has diversion to our politics, where you get people who get into the news and get a lot of attention in politics by making, you know, pronouncements in the media and especially on social media, over things that they actually have no control over in their job as politicians.
Speaker 2 00:42:06 They don't, they're not proposing legislation. They're not, uh, there's no executive action that they, that Ron does can take to affect Twitter shareholders totally on Disney. He can well Disney, he can. And he, I think the idea is he's going to, and I want, I'll talk about that later if he, anybody wants to bring up that. I, I think talking about fascist, uh, uh, politics, we have the problem of, of changing Disney's regulations, not cuz you thought there were bad regulations, but because they, they ticked you off poli uh, by opposing legislation that you wanted, uh, it's it's smacks of political reprisal, but I'm talking about like the, he rod Sanders saying something about, about Twitter and the, and the, the board of directors on Twitter and, and all of this. And it was like, he was saying it because it's in the news that he can get lots of attention by saying it, but it has nothing to do with what he can actually do as governor.
Speaker 2 00:42:56 Uh, there's another guy, Madison Koor, who is this, uh, member of Congress who came in, uh, who has this, you know, history of, again, going out and saying outrageous things and getting a lot of attention, but he has, you know, he's tough, never proposed any legislation. He's never actually accomplished anything. I think he hasn't shown up for a whole bunch of votes. And, um, you know, it's a lot of the stuff he gets attention for it's stuff that has nothing to do. He, uh, he, he boasted at one point, he, he doesn't have a, um, a policy team, a team of, of, of advisors who are working with him on crafting legislation or advising him a policy. He's built his whole staff around communications in other words, around getting attention <affirmative>. And I think Alex on the left Alexandria Acaia Cortez is very much the same thing.
Speaker 2 00:43:40 You know, she's not, it's not that she's pushing through legislation or having a real impact on what gets done it's that she is generating lots of attention on social media. So there's the sense in which I think the, the culture war issues have be become this distraction where you argue about the smallest possible, irrelevant things back and forth, uh, while ignoring the things that we actually, you know, that actually ought to get done. And that reminds me, I read a, I wanna recommend a really interesting article. I came across, it was published, I think last July, uh, at a slow, slow, boring is the name for a blog created by Matt alas. And he's somebody who has sort of gone from being a lefty to being a little more central left. And he published a fascinating article about secret Congress. So go, go, Google secret Congress is this idea that's come across, uh, among political scientists.
Speaker 2 00:44:36 Secret Congress basically means that there's all sorts of legislation that's getting done so long as nobody pays any attention to it. Right? So, so as the long as you get, you know, like a, a Republican and a Democrat get together and say, you know, we really need to do this. And they work together behind the scenes and people, and, and it gets passed by this big bipartisan majority and nobody ever notices it. So there's all sorts of stuff being done in Congress. That's being done by quote unquote secret Congress. And some of it is probably, I I'm sure some of it's bad. I, I have some specific examples and some of them were things I wouldn't have liked. Some of it's good. Uh, some of it's some good things that are being done out there. Some things you would want Congress to do are being done, uh, certain legal reforms and, and criminal justice reform.
Speaker 2 00:45:18 Now a little bit of criminal justice reform, uh, some other kind of reforms that I thought were were worthwhile. But the funny thing is it's like you can do something in Congress so long as you keep the people on Twitter doing the culture war, you keep them from noticing it and you keep the people doing the constant partisan battles on cable television. As long as it doesn't come, come to their attention, the minute it comes to their attention, and it gets labeled as a Republican bill or a democratic bill or a right wing thing, or a left wing thing, then basically all hope for getting this legislation. The legislation pass is doomed and is gonna die because it's suddenly become a political football and you can't get anybody to do a BI BI bipartisan vote for it. And so it's this really interesting idea that there's actually all this stuff going on that happens precisely because it doesn't get any attention from the culture war and the culture or war being in into some, I'm not that I'm completely dismissing the importance of the culture war, but that we have to keep in the context that a huge amount of what goes on in the culture war is it goes on to bring attention to the various people who are involved in it, but has very little to do with what actually needs to be done or is being done.
Speaker 2 00:46:32 I think we need to keep that context.
Speaker 1 00:46:35 All right. Uh, we'll uh, with that in mind, we'll go to Keith Keith.
Speaker 8 00:46:39 Thank thank you very much, Scott. Uh, Rob, I have an objective movement question and looking backward a little bit looking forward. Um, so there was a time back in the eighties, uh, and nineties when organized objective was very heavily focused on trying to get young people jobs at universities, and you're gonna change the culture through that mechanism. Um, and for various reasons that worked maybe with some, maybe there's some couple of good success stories, but really didn't work out well. Um, at least not the way people would've wanted it looking in the current environment. So I'm looking forward now. Um, and given, you know, how you are constantly thinking about tactics and how to fight the culture war and the positive impact, is there a role to play still or is that, is that still an important aspect, uh, to fighting the culture as getting, uh, young objective jobs as professors and universities? Or is that ship sailed?
Speaker 2 00:47:34 Well, I don't think the ship has sailed. Um, so let me, my, my, uh, approach on this has always has long been all of the above. I mean, that's sort of, you know, I, who am I, I'm not an academic I gave, I, I, I gave up on the idea of going ahead academia a long time ago, decided it was not what I really wanted to do. And I went into being, you know, a journalist and sort of a scrappy online journalist, uh, in, in the new modern, the, the new digital media era. Uh, but my, so I've got a book, actually. I I'm finally turning this into a book. I wrote a, to, uh, like 15 years ago called what went right. Sort of presenting my view of how ideas have an impact in the culture. And, uh, I think, you know, one of the frustrations with the sort of eighties and nineties version of this was the emphasis on the universities, I think was fine, but it was the emphasis on the universities to the exclusion of anything else.
Speaker 2 00:48:32 And, uh, I, my, I have more of a sort of all, all of the above strategy that you simply find interesting people who have interesting things to say, who are doing good work in whatever field they happen to choose to do. Cause, you know, you can't say, oh, you ought to be an academic. Somebody has to want to do the job, right? So if I, if somebody like me gets inflamed by the idea of I'm gonna go be a journalist and a political commentator, I'm gonna do my best work. If I'm doing what I want to be doing, I'm gonna have the biggest impact. If I'm doing what I want to be doing, you have to find people who want to be artists, people who want to be scientists. Uh, I think it's by that all the above strategy that objectives will have an impact.
Speaker 2 00:49:14 Now I do think there's definitely a role for people in academia to play because you, you do get to teach the next generation. Um, on that, I would say two things happened. One is, unfortunately the Iran Institute was doing a lot of big stuff on that. And then they kind of blew it all up because of the MCAS. There's a, for those who are in the movement might, you know, the, the word, the MCC McCaskey affair might, uh, might ring a bell. You had this guy, John McKowski, who was actually organized this thing that was being pretty effective at getting objective placed in university positions. And then there was a schism and there was a disagreement that he got booted out in the, this whole initiative of his kind of got blown up and that stalled it out. The other thing I've noticed is we've had some success stories to some people who have gotten into, you know, well regarded positions and universities.
Speaker 2 00:50:03 I sometimes this is me as an outsider. I sometimes have the misgiving that I think they sometimes will take objective ideas and sort of translate them to the much more bland and dull and, and, and, um, the, the sort of, uh, esoteric language of academia. Whereas, you know, if that's part of the reason I didn't go into academia is if I were in there, I'd be saying we have to stop talking like academics. We need to start writing and plain English like real human beings. And, and, and, uh, you know, one of the things I find most refreshing about I Rand's philosophy is that she wasn't an academic. She didn't write in a, you know, her most technical stuff. Uh, like the introduction to objective ology is in a more formal language, but it's nowhere near as ABST Struse as what sort of passes for, for most of what you find in academia.
Speaker 2 00:50:54 And I think that approach to philosophy is what our, the, the whole way you approach philosophical questions and talk about them, I think, is what we should be trying to improve. In addition to the actual content ideas that there should be a fresher, more vibrant, more directly looking at reality kind of approach, uh, approach to it, and not so much less translate these bright, fresh objectives ideas into the AE hieroglyphics of, uh, of the university philosophy departments now that's, and again, that's my perspective as an outsider. Uh, somebody like, you know, who's, who's more connected to that. I, if they wanna tell me, oh, you're you you're wrong? And it's actually better than that. I I'm, I'm not gonna argue it because I'm not, that's not, that's not my world. So I don't that well. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:51:42 All right. Well, that's a good stuff. I think, uh, you know, there, there is a school thought that it says academia needs more of a disruption and maybe that's what you're talking about going in and doing
Speaker 2 00:51:55 Well. Yeah. That's part of it too. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I have been looking for, uh, you know, will online education basically make the college, the, the, the, the, the, the traditional structure of the universities all obsolete and that's, you know, I've been expecting I've, I've been waiting for that to happen, and it hasn't happened. So maybe it won't, but I think the potential is definitely there and would be very interesting.
Speaker 1 00:52:19 I have to see how that plays out. Well. Um, I do wanna get to at least, uh, this one other question, uh, that we have from Instagram, um, it's, uh, white side. If the pursuit of happiness is one of our goals, what if a person enjoys being altruistic
Speaker 2 00:52:40 <laugh> okay. Well, that's, um, well, that, that sort of ties into, it's an old argument of what, if you enjoy being altruistic. Well, first of all, <affirmative>, you have to define what altruistic means, because if altruistic means you are actually sacrificing that, which you enjoy, um, then contradict, yeah. By, by, by the nature, it is, it is, it is making, you are suffering. You are losing, you are for it to actually be a sacrifice. So, for example, good example, um, I'm talking to you right now from, while I'm sitting out in my car, outside of my kid's school, uh, waiting to pick up my oldest son. Now I put a lot of time and effort on this kid, right? So, um, and I spend a lot of time with him. I, I give up certain things that I might otherwise enjoy in order to spend time on him with him and, and make sure he is getting the best education I can give him all that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 00:53:37 Is that a sacrifice? Well, obviously it's not because I enjoy spending time with him. It's one of the best things in my life is having kids. So, you know, now the thing is, what if the kid, what if my, now this is total opposite of my actual son, but what if my kid was rotten? What if he was indifferent to me? And, and, uh, you know, basically imagine the worst, most spoiled, most unpleasant kid you could come up with. And then I was still, you know, the, the, basically this person was now, it's hard to say that about a child because, okay. A parent is always gonna have this connection to a child, no matter, you know, E even Ted Bundy's parents probably still had some kind of connection to him. Uh, but let's say, you know, put it in the relationship of, like, let's say you're married to someone and your spouse is a totally rotten person and treats you badly.
Speaker 2 00:54:25 Well, at some point that becomes an abusive relationship. Right? And you don't, you know, you aren't actually getting anything out of it. Now that, and that's the second thing is that there's this attempt in, in justifying altruism to say, well, what if you enjoyed being altruistic? But it really means that you're going to get your happiness by putting the source of your happiness in the Val in, in putting the source of your happiness in another person. And that goes, you know, IRAD was not just against, uh, a CRI, not just a critic of altruism as a philosophy beneath that. And what she really started with, with the fountain head, you know, the first really philosophical books she wrote was this idea of putting your goal in another person, as opposed to putting your goal in yourself. And really that, that, that boils down to putting your goal and the source of your ideas, the source of your motivation in reality, versus putting it in the mind of other people.
Speaker 2 00:55:24 So if, if all you're thinking about is people, there's no reality to your goals, no real basis for what it is that you're doing or why you're doing it. And you are literally, you know, you're, you're making yourself dependent on and affect the slave of another person's consciousness. And I don't think that is possible for that to lead to happiness. You have to have your own in standards. You have to have your own ideas of what's good and, and what's bad. And, and what goals you have in life that are defined by you and not defined by, you know, another person. So that's the most fundamental answer to that is that, you know, before the ethics of altruism, there comes the sort of the metaphysical issue of, uh, individualism or, or, you know, the, uh, having your values contained in yourself and based on reality, versus having your values contained in other people and in the subjective ideas of other people, that's a very short, like, you know, indication of the theme of the fountain head. So go read the fountain head is really the answer I'm giving here. <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:56:30 John quick thought. Yes. Um, I just wanted to say that if you talk to the geneticists, they will tell you that genetics operates at the level of the individual's genes, not the groups. And I think that's responsive to what Rob just said.
Speaker 2 00:56:48 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but I think in, in the life of an individual, it, you know, you're, you're, you're not experiencing as a genetic thing, you're experiencing it as something happening in your consciousness, right. Uh, yes. That, that, you know,
Speaker 1 00:57:01 We, we, we, we live in groups and our genes mean that we're a groupish animal, but we operate as individuals.
Speaker 2 00:57:11 Yeah. So I, I wanna say I'm skeptical of the genetic explanations for human behavior approach, because I think to a large intent, we are, uh, part of our genetic heritage is that we are given a brain that is capable of programming itself. Right. So it doesn't come pre-programmed with pre-loaded software that was evolved for us. We are, we come with brains that are capable of, of creating of, of programming themselves, creating their own programming. That's not pre-programmed. And that's the whole point of the human brain is that it's not pre-programmed, it can do all these amazing things because it can program it self. But that gives me a lot of skepticism for sort of the, uh, uh, behavioral genetics kind of approach. But that's like a whole other topic. Maybe I'll do a clubhouse on it sometime.
Speaker 1 00:57:56 Yes. I'd like to see it covered someday. And I, I think too much is made of the naturalistic fallacy. I think there's an awful lot of truth in genetics, biology and sociobiology.
Speaker 2 00:58:10 Well, I think we share a question about that sometime. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:58:12 That's good. Uh, well, uh, thank you, uh, John, thank you to everyone for participating. I wanna let you know, there are lots of good events this week, tomorrow at, uh, 5:00 PM Eastern scholars ask, uh, with Richard Salzman interviewing TAs founder, David Kelly, then Thursday at 4:00 PM. Eastern back here on clubhouse. Uh, Richard Salzman will be talking about egoism as foreign policy. And then Friday morning is the big one at 9:30 AM Eastern, uh, Richard Salzman and Rob will, will be offering their different takes on Ukraine with David Kelly moderating I'm, uh, you know, impressed the Atlas society can have scholar discussions when they have different positions. So really looking forward to that, um, you can find all of
[email protected], um, their ATLA.
Speaker 2 00:59:07 I will, I'll be meeting with pistols at Dawn
Speaker 1 00:59:10 <laugh>. I'm looking for, I you're gonna have to grab some popcorn for that one. Um, but, uh, in the we're
Speaker 2 00:59:16 We're gonna keep it civilized
Speaker 1 00:59:18 <laugh> that's, uh, that's the, uh, benefit of the open approach. Um, <laugh>, I'm, I'm Scott Schiff for the outlet society. Uh, we wanna thank everyone for participating today. I hope you can catch those other sessions. Thanks for doing this, Rob, and, and look forward to seeing you Friday. Thanks everyone.
