Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 So, uh, welcome to everyone. Uh, this is the Atlas society. I'm Scott sch and this IST ask me anything with Atlas society, senior fellow, Rob TRUS. And, uh, like I said, we do have a lot of, uh, Instagram questions. We wanna encourage, uh, people to, uh, ask him anything. That's what this is about. Um, and so, uh, I, um, I'm gonna get started, but I would encourage people to raise their hands. And, uh, I would also encourage you to, uh, share the room, um, bill, by the way, I saw you on Twitter going, uh, back and forth with one of the Orthodox fellows. And, uh, you, you made some really good points. Um, but, uh, Rob, let me get started with you. Um, a lot of the questions are about, uh, you know, in, in relation to the shooting in Texas, they wanna know either your position on gun control or object's position on gun control.
Speaker 1 00:01:05 Okay. So, um, you cut out there a little bit, but I assume you asked the question cause you muted yourself. <laugh> uh <laugh> uh, so the, the, I think, you know, object position on gun control. I mean, objectiveism per se, many individual objectives have a position, but I, as a philosophy, it doesn't really say anything about that. Now as a philosophy, though, it does say that, you know, individual rights is the basis of, of government. And so, you know, while we delegate the, uh, use of, of, uh, the official use of force to the government, I think, you know, you can't delegate entirely your right to self-defense to the government. Uh, so, you know, you have to be able to own guns in order to be able to have the right to, to defend yourself, uh, in a dangerous situation. And, you know, the, one of the things they do in this is, you know, every time there's a shooting, there's an incident like this.
Speaker 1 00:01:59 They say, oh my God could, for red, did these, these deaths, they never tally up, you know, how many lives are saved by people being able to, to protect themselves, you know, using, uh, uh, using their own, using their own weapons, which is a real thing that happens. I mean, it happens there's, you know, probably the last I looked there was something like hundreds of thousands of incidents, every, which people will use a, a weapon to, to protect themselves, their family, their homes, et cetera. Right? So you have to look at it in that context, but all the other context is that, uh, uh, the, you know, the, the, the, when you, when you delegate gov the power to use force to the government, you know, the Al the problem is always, you know, who, who watches the Watchman, um, that is, you know, when you've given them all power over you, you have to then make sure the government is controlled.
Speaker 1 00:02:53 And one of the ways in our system, one of the ways that the government is controlled is it does not have the only, it's not the only entity that has the ability to use force. It's not the only entity that has weapons. Now, this doesn't mean that, you know, we're, we're in a state of anarchy. It simply means that the power to use force is distributed through I at all different levels, uh, including the fact that, you know, it's distributed, there's the federal level versus the state level. It, and it's distributed to the fact that, you know, you have an armed citizenry, you have, uh, uh, citizens who are, you know, veterans, you have citizens who, uh, have their own weapons. So you have something that's there as a counterbalance to the power of the government. And you see that in all sorts of cases around the world, uh, you know, people say, oh, how come, how is this applied to anything?
Speaker 1 00:03:41 Well, there's all sorts of cases in the world, oftentimes where you see it work the other way, where a citizenry is, I think in Venezuela, while bathing at the citizens were disarmed through an extensive gun control regime. And then, you know, basically made into made utterly helpless before an extremely tyrannical government. That was, you know, so it can go out and it can, the government forces go out and shoot people in the streets. And they basically have no fear, but it's going to be able to fight back, right? So I don't wanna make too much of this, but, you know, people, people ignore the extent to which part of the, uh, design of a free society is to have some counterbalance. So the government's use of force so that it cannot become tyrannical. All right. So all that has to be balanced as the, the whole social system under which individual criminal acts will happen, but the number of people killed in mass shootings is a, you know, so one of the things people say, oh my gosh, this is a horrible thing.
Speaker 1 00:04:36 It's a disease, it's an epidemic. The number of, of these events and the number of people killed in them is very small, are, you know, so it, it's the basic problem that you're gonna have in, you know, mass shooting is, is one example. There's all sorts of examples of places where, you know, you're going to have to trade off freedom for security. You know, there's a trade off to do freedom and security, you know, that you could have crackdowns. Now take an example of this. One of the big things that is being said similar to this is, well, no, the problem isn't guns, the problem is mental health. We have to have mental health efforts and red flag laws and all these things to basically to crack down on finding, uh, and identifying and, uh, um, dealing with people who have mental problems. Well, that's also something this, that, that is filled with all the same trade offs as the gun control thing, because if you're gonna say, oh, well, anytime somebody's an oddball, a weirdo, anytime somebody, a suspect, we think he's mentally, uh, unstable, you know, we're gonna be able to do all sorts of things to intervene and to take away his right, his civil rights.
Speaker 1 00:05:43 You are also creating a situation where you are, you know, for, for, in, in, in pursuit of security, you're gonna be, uh, taking away people's freedoms and giving the government excessive power. And you going end up using that power against a whole lot of people who are just oddballs and weirdos who were, or, or who are mentally ill, but who are harmless, uh, and you're going to be, you know, excessively your, uh, so the problem is based on me making a whole bunch of victims in order to prevent other victims from being created. So again, when the government, when you give the government power over us, you know, the government has to have power the law to maintain, but that power has to be limited because if you try to create a state, that's obsessed with security in every respect, and it's going to stop every criminal and every criminal, um, E every possible criminal act, you end up giving that, you know, you end up carrying, creating a, that, that state itself becomes a menace to people's freedom. And it creates a whole bunch of victims in pursuit of trying to prevent us from. So that's my general sort of 30,000 foot view of, of this situation.
Speaker 0 00:06:59 Yeah, that's good. I, I like to say that, uh, they're eventually gonna say that anyone for capitalism has a mental disorder <laugh>, um, bill, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2 00:07:12 Yeah. I, uh, definitely got into this one over on Twitter. Um, the issue that, uh, I, uh, addressed there was whether the police had a moral obligation to go in, in spite of the alleged risk to their lives. My answer is absolutely yes. And that it would had an obligation, even if it was a certainty that one of them might have died. Um, Bayer and other people who I was interacting with, um, disagreed. Let's just say, what's your take.
Speaker 1 00:07:47 Yeah. Well, that's, you know, one of the interesting things, when you talk about the gun control debate and the issue of gun control, one of the things that always comes up is that actually the courts have actually ruled on this, that, um, a, a policeman does not have any OB, any legal obligation to go, come to your defense. If you're being attacked, you know, and they could know that you're being attacked, they feel at all unsafe, they feel there's any risk at all to themselves. They have no obligation to actually come to your defense. And that's of course, one of the cases for why, you know, you can't have complete gun control because if the idea is that, well, you, because the police are here to defend you, well, the police actually have no to defend you. One of the things that came out this recent mass shooting is, you know, they had the guy cornered for like 40 minutes and he was still killing people for like 40 minutes before they went into attack.
Speaker 1 00:08:37 Now, the question is, so legally it's actually settled as a matter of, of law that the policeman does not have the obligation to charge in if HES there's some, some risk to himself. So then the question, is there an obligation there? I would say an expectation, I think definitely I'm on the side that, yes, there's morally, there's an expectation that you will take some degree of risk now, you know, I don't think, you know, uh, there are certain situations where if, if it's a high degree of risk and you're a certain you're gonna get killed, I wouldn't say no. I would say you have an obligation to do it, but, um, you know, you have the, a lot of these cases, you, you have the fact that these people have been trained, they've signed up for it. It's like if you go into the military, right.
Speaker 1 00:09:23 Uh, there was, I think during the, uh, Iraq war, there were a couple of cases of people who wanted to, who tried to quit the military and basically saying, well, I signed up to get, uh, education and to get, you know, help I get through college. I didn't think I was actually gonna be sent to do a war. Well, you signed up in the military. What did you think this was about? Right. So if you sign up to a police officer, you are often signing up in order to take risks, uh, uh, in order to defend in order to protect other people, that's sort of part of the job. So I think some, you have a moral expectation and a moral obligation. I would say to take some degree of risk, I would say, you know, not necessarily an extremely high degree of risk, you don't, it's not to sacrifice yourself, you know, uh, sort of recklessly, but, uh, in this, and, and, and that's sort of, the disappointment is there's been this great militarization of the police and they have this, all this macho sort of SWAT team, I think in the, in Uvalde that were at Texas where this happened, they had this whole thing about, you know, it's a tiny little town, not very many people.
Speaker 1 00:10:23 And they, this whole thing about this highly trained SWAT team that they have. So there, I think part of what leads to people complaining about this in this case is this real macho posturing about how tough we are, and we're highly trained and we have a SWAT team. And then when the time comes to actually put that into practice, you know, it's a Potemkin thing. They're not really ready. Uh, you know, so I, I think, um, but like I said, I, I, I, don't like to try to draw super big conclusions out of these things, because these are rare events. They're rare events that happen on a regular happen on a sort of, you know, occasional basis. You, you, that, uh, it's like, it's not really an unusual thing that, that there's some mass killing or a serial killer or a, uh, a guy sets off a bomb.
Speaker 1 00:11:11 Uh, I think the biggest killing actually at a school, uh, biggest killing of, of a biggest mass murder of people at a school in the United States happened like a hundred years ago, a guy who set off a bomb, like a truck bomb outside of school, because he was, you know, disgruntled for some reason. So, you know, this sort of thing sort of happens as part of, it's an unfortunate part of the normal risks and dangers of life. And it's a relatively small danger compare things that one big problem I have is people saying, oh, my kids don't feel safe in school. Or, you know, we have to have this, uh, policy implemented to totally lock down all schools and make them into fortreses and arm all the teachers. And it's a hysterical overreaction, uh, to something, you know, is a, it's, it's a smaller risk than much smaller risk than getting hit than the getting in a car accident. I think it's probably a smaller risk than getting hit by lightning. It it's, you know, it's a very, very small level risk, but it's something that gets blown out of proportion because it Stokes certain partisan, you know, uh, it's something that can be used for partisan ends. It could be used to promote certain legislation that people wanted for some other reason.
Speaker 0 00:12:26 Good,
Speaker 2 00:12:27 Go ahead. I was going to point out that, um, the training materials that these, uh, police officers had in fact instructed them that in a situation like that they were required to go in and if they weren't willing to do so, they should seek another line of work. I mean, that's almost, uh, so I, I disagree with the proposition that at least in this case that they did not have a moral obligation to go in, even at, at, in the event of a high risk, that's what they were paid to do. They were a SWAT team. They were not just an ordinary cop.
Speaker 1 00:12:58 Yeah. And like I said, it's like, it's like, um, signing up for the military and then saying, oh, you know, I refused to actually be sent into war. It is what you signed up for.
Speaker 2 00:13:09 I guess we go to Instagram right now.
Speaker 0 00:13:13 <laugh> yeah. Um, and, uh, you thought it was a 30,000 foot view before this could be even applied to that question from a higher view, uh, comments on the theory of the social contract.
Speaker 1 00:13:26 <laugh>, that's a, that's the geosynchronous orbit view, right? <laugh> the theory of the social contract just in general. Okay. Well, I, I actually have a lot to say about the theory of the social contract and one of the things I I've written about this not too long ago, I think, um, one of the things I find very interesting about iron Rand's approach to politics is that in a lot of ways, her approach is very Lockian right. It's, it's very much in step with John Locke's views on the nature of government and the role of government and all that, except that she does away with the social contract. And it's kind of, you don't notice it because it's not there. <laugh> right. That's like noticing the dog that didn't bark, but the dog that didn't bark in iron Rand's political theory is no trace whatsoever of the social contract.
Speaker 1 00:14:15 Now what she replaces the social. Now, let me just back up for those who are not necessarily familiar with this terminology. So the social contract is an old idea. It goes back to Thomas Hobbs in the 16 hundreds and, or, sorry. I think he was even earlier, uh, Thomas Hobbs and, uh, in the 15 hundreds and, and, uh, John Locke in the 16 hundreds. And there's various versions of it with, uh, John Choto in the 18th century. Um, and it's the idea that the basis for government is an implicit social contract in which we agree to give the government power, to enforce, to use use force and to enforce laws, uh, for our protection. Uh, but that contract, you know, it's a two way contract is that they get certain powers that they have to use for our protection. Cause they've be given those powers for our protection.
Speaker 1 00:15:08 There are certain limits to government's power that has, you know, there are certain things that can't do because it's here to protect us, not to rule over us or not to not to be the predator of themselves. Right. So this is, um, and there's various different versions of this. So like Thomas Hobbs, first guy who came up with this had the idea that, you know, you needed the Levi Leviathan, the Levi Leviathan is the, the, the biggest fish, the largest beast out there. So the idea is you, you know, every, any one man, a as a single individual, trying to protect your rights, you are not gonna be strong enough to be able to protect yourself. But if everybody bands together into a giant LA Leviathan, a giant beast, uh, uh, composed of many men working together, then we're strong enough to protect ourselves and to, you know, impose social order and, and, and basically keep from having keep, uh, prevent there being a war of all against all as he put it.
Speaker 1 00:16:02 Uh, now he's the one who said, though, that, you know, you basically, you have to give the government all this power and just, and he had relatively few limits that he put on that power. He basically said, look, you know, the, he, he, he basically advocated for the big Levi and government as the devil know, right. The w know is better than as better than the devil. You don't know it it's, it's, it's it, whatever evils are imposed on us by a big powerful government are less than the evils that we would experience in the state of nature in this war of all against all John Locke is the closest to, well, I would say with the objectives view is, which is that he's a, he insisted he was much more insistent. And this is the basis for United States. Government is the basis for the founding fathers.
Speaker 1 00:16:45 The idea that no, no, no. We gave the government power only in order to protect us in order to protect our rights, protect us rules. Our, you know, our rights to life, Liberty and property are the purpose for which government was given this power. And therefore government has to be strictly limited so that it can't violate those rights itself. And then we're gonna put all sorts of checks and balances. And this is the contribution to the founders. We're gonna put all sorts of checks and balances and limits on government in order to make sure it doesn't overstep those balance, you know, and it with, with some success. But <laugh> not as much as we would like. Um, now the problems with the social contract viewpoint though, can be seen in the version done by Jean Jacque Russo, which is basically that you, uh, give to the gut.
Speaker 1 00:17:33 You know, when you, when you form a society, you basically give all power over the individual to the collective. And this became the, they there's various sort of collectivist versions of the social contract. And the idea is just by being a member of society, you have implicitly given society, this enormous power to dictate to you about all different aspects of your life. And, you know, there's usually a fi leaf for how well, as long as it's done democratically it's okay. Right. And it's the collectivist idea. You've given power to the collective to control the individual. And you've just signed up for this as part of the social contract. And so you'll hear people say, oh, a welfare state, because it's part of the social contract. And the basic problem with that is did you ever sign the social contract, right? If this is an agreement, a compact made among all the people, did you ever make that agreement?
Speaker 1 00:18:23 Did anybody ever ask you, well, obviously they didn't now Iran gets around this idea cuz and that's the IPL. I think that's the implicit collectivism of the social contract is that this, this virtual agreement that someone asserts has been made and you know, it's always just an assertion. It's not usually there, there, there's usually very little basis in saying that anybody actually ever voted for it, but this vague assertion that well there's some agreement that has been made and you are bound to it just by simply by being there. The collective has agreed on this and you as the individual must serve the collective, there's a collectivist basis for that idea of the social contract. Like I said, the locking version is way better, but it's there sort of inherent in the, in the idea there is this potential for that collectivist interpretation. So what Iran did is she did something different and she, I think the social contract may only make sense, not as a literal description of how society works, but as a thought experiment, basically saying, what agreement would you make if you were asked to make one, right.
Speaker 1 00:19:28 So it's really asking you to say what kind of society to live in, what kind of society, uh, what kind of social organization do I think would be, would best allow me to thrive and pursue my values. And then, you know, that's the, what you're gonna come up with as your version of the social contract. So it's really just a thought experimenting experiment, asking you on what terms would a society be best organized. And that's basically the version that iron Rand does. She does, does the social contract. He asked, he uses the, uh, analogy of the desert island. So this is in, I think it's the nature of the nature of government is the sh which she did this. She asked you to imagine, uh, uh, uh, on a desert island, you know, desert island, you know, I don't say desert island, but living on an island by sort of Robinson cruso style and how much worse off you would be, all the different things you wouldn't be able to do.
Speaker 1 00:20:25 You know, you wouldn't be able to benefit from other people's knowledge. You wouldn't be able to trade with them. You'd have to do everything yourself and how, how much more limited you would be. And then she says, I imagine all the benefits that there are to be gained from living in a society that have, you know, you can trade knowledge with other people. You can train goods, you can participate in the division of labor. You can have all the benefits of plugging into this larger, um, economic and social cooperation. And she said, but that's can, you know, your ability, the benefits you get from society depend on the idea that you are actually benefiting, uh, that, that you are being able, that you are voluntarily doing this and that, that the society is not being a parasite. And she points out, you know, a society that decides it's going to sacrifice you for the great, uh, and she points you, you know, like Soviet union or living in the Soviet union or living in Nazi Germany, you know, being in a concentration camp is worse than being in a desert island.
Speaker 1 00:21:27 So the point of the desert island analogy is to say basically the terms on which a society is organized and the terms on which the government is established have to be such that they create results that are better off that if you, that, that, that leave you better off than if you were, you were simply on your own, they have to allow for the voluntary cooperation and the freedom to pursue your own values that allows you to benefit from being in a society and working with other people. So she's basically comes up with a version that doesn't require this sort of mythical social contract, um, uh, but, but allows you to bring up the questions basically of under what terms of cooperation between people do we actually benefit versus under the terms under which you will be exploited or, um, or, or injured or, or oppressed.
Speaker 0 00:22:21 That's a whole rich vein of conversation with even, uh, you know, collaboration versus collectivism, but I, I do wanna bring Brian up, uh, Brian, welcome to the stage.
Speaker 4 00:22:34 Hey, I, I appreciate this conversation is very timely. I, I just went on vacation and got back a few days ago and I actually took Russo's social contract with me and, and read it, uh, and took some notes in the margin. And there were two things that stood out to me. One, he thought of freedom in a, in a unique way that I had not really considered. And, and so it was, it, it seemed contradictory and I'd like your thoughts. And, and then another part that I found interesting. So he basically says from my understanding that, um, freedom has two different meanings or two different levels. Freedom is on the one hand, uh, to mean that no man should rule another. And he, I think he basically means slavery. And so he's basically saying that no man should be enslaved or an enslave of other men.
Speaker 4 00:23:28 And so that's freedom from, you know, being owned or enslaved, but then he also says that as that man should be totally dependent on the government. And, and, and so I, I don't know how he reconciles that. I, I mean, I see the book where a lot of different points he makes just seem really contradictory. And especially on those terms, I, I mean, yeah, I, I see where he's saying that, you know, the government has a right or he thinks the government has a right to kind of impose, you know, it's will for the greater good and, and all that stuff. But, um, then in the, so maybe get your thoughts on that. And then the second part question I have is in the, in the second chapter of the first book, he says, man's first law is to watch over his own preservation, his first care, he owns to himself.
Speaker 4 00:24:25 And as soon as he reaches the age of reason, he becomes the only judge of the best means to preserve himself. He becomes his own master. And when I read that, I showed it to, to my wife and my son who has recently read, uh, you know, Atlas shrugged in the fountain head. And I said, this sounds like something I Rand would say, or at least a layman's, you know, version of what iron Rand might say. And, uh, so you're, you're maybe Rob, you could speak to those two questions or yeah. You know, am I, am I missing something on that first part in the way that he defines freedom? And, and then the second question about, you know, um, did iron Rand ever mention, you know, her alignment with what I just read from Russo on that second part? Mm-hmm
Speaker 1 00:25:13 <affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative> okay. So that's, that's really interesting stuff. Um, now I, you had the advantage of, for me in that you have read that book a lot more recently than I have. So I'm going to be going from some rather old and general memories about Russo. So I'm not gonna be able to speak, you know, the specific passages I'm not gonna have at the tip of, at the, uh, uh, tip of my tongue, so to speak, but two things, one on that second quote. Yeah. That's I remember that second quote. That is a great quote. And it reminds us that Russo was coming up as part of the enlightenment. He was one of the enlightenment pH. So he was, well, he, I wouldn't say he's one of them, but he was, he came up among the enlightenment pH SOS of the 18th century. So these were the, you know, the, the guys who were very influenced by Locke enlightenment ideas.
Speaker 1 00:26:03 And I think, you know, it's some thing that happens with the manual con that on the one hand, he's totally undermining all those ideas, but at the same time, he also spends a lot of time kind of paying lip service to them because that was the cultural muu in which he, in which he lived, right. That was the cultural influence that he had on him. Now, what I was so imported here, and this has something to do with the contradictory aspect of his view of freedom, the big idea that he imported was the idea of the general good. And the general will, right. And this is the idea. So this is a major when you, when, when you use the term democracy and I, I was, I always kind of cringe at using the term democracy because it has these two very meanings, right? Democracy means rule by the people, the people rule, and it could have that lock in meaning, which is to say that, you know, the government is living in its powers and it has to answer to the people that has to seek the consent of the governed for, for everything it does.
Speaker 1 00:26:57 And that's the, in sense, the that's how father sense of the term democracy, but there's another term and that other, other, another version of the term democracy, and that's the version that comes from Russo. And that's the idea that, you know, democracy, when the people rule the people rule, not as individuals going out to vote one at a time, they rule as a collective, that the, the people is an entity that has a general will and a general good that's distinct from the, from the, um, decisions or the interests of its individual citizens, right? So government isn't just the, the, the, the people is not just a conglomeration of individuals. It is itself, this kind of super entity that has its own will and its own interest and its own good. And the purpose of democracy then is to basically to represent the interests and, and, and, uh, uh, the interest and views selective as against those of the individual.
Speaker 1 00:28:02 And then what, what Russo ends up doing in creating this concept of the general will, is being saying you are free. EV if you are coerced to, to go along with the general will, you're, you're so free because it, the general will is the will of the people. And therefore we're free because we're, we're obeying the will of the people. Now, we all know all, you know, from experience and, you know, it's pretty obvious that there is no, because we are just a collection of individuals because there is no super entity that has a general will. The what's generally considered to be the will of the people is really the will of some faction or interest group among the people who have, you know, pushed for and imposed a particular policy, whether that's, you know, leads to the pure, I mean, the permanent bureaucracy of Washington DC, or it's some faction that managed to get, get a goofball elected to the office of, to high office in the recent past and decided they were going to impose whatever they, whatever they wanted.
Speaker 1 00:29:04 So, you know, it's really just, you are being subjected to the will of other people, but there's this elaborate rationalization that he helped create that no, no, no, you're not really, you're not really unfree. You're not really being oppressed because this represents the general will the will of the people as a collective. Um, and you know, it's, it's, it's in essence, he saying, this is what you, this is, this is what you would, you will, without even knowing it, uh, by, by means of your participation in the collective. So this is the sort of, you know, the, the oppressive version of quote unquote democracy, which really just means rule by whatever faction can get a hold of the government at the moment. Um, anyway, I think this is one of the, but this is the constitution you keep seeing, uh, pop up in Russo is that he has this enlightenment element, this sort of John Locke influenced outlook.
Speaker 1 00:29:55 That is the, the social environment among the PSOs that he was dealing with. So he sort of pays lip service to it while taking these ideas and kind of twisting them around. Now, I think the other thing, and I'm like, here's where my memory's a little hazy, but I think the thing he may also be react to his concept of freedom where freedom becomes not freedom to freedom to, for the well as the founders put it freedom for the pursuit of happiness, but rather that freedom means you have to be provided with the things that you want in life. You know, if you don't have to go out and create them for yourself, they have to be provided to you by government that if government doesn't providing you things that you need to do to do whatever you want, then you are oppresses the modern welfare state concept of, of freedom, right. And again, he's taking this idea that a freedom that was commonplace and widely accepted among the enlightenment philosophical, uh, of his age, he was paying lip service to it, and then twisting it around to me in this opposite.
Speaker 4 00:30:58 Yeah. E even, uh, a few times in the book he apologizes for <laugh>, uh, the seeming contradictions and, and he, and he'll say something, uh, to the effect. Now don't question me on this, or don't press me on this. Or I know this seems contradictory. So, I mean, I, I just read those statements and it, it was, it was clear that even he was, I think, aware of how confusing or contradictory, even though he tried to get into detail, like what you're saying, he was saying that, um, the, the general will, is basically composed of the degree to which we share values among, uh, the citizens. And those, you know, let's say 75 or 80% of people who support, let's say free speech, you know, uh, that is the general will, or, or the greater good or, you know, whatever, whatever term he used. Yeah. And, and then he would acknowledge that, and we can never have a hundred percent, uh, you know, agreement on any value or any, you know, movement. So, um, it was just to me, full of contradictions.
Speaker 1 00:32:02 Yeah. Yeah. Um, like I said, I think part of his thing is that he was this, you know, he and K are kind of imagining that way in that they have elements of sort of enlightenment classical liberalism put in there. You know, like I said, I think it's cuz it was them, it was popular at the time. It was sort of the hard at work coming up with the rationalizations basically for how we can, how we can get back to, I think he, you know, in Rao's case, I think he was fascinated with the idea that a primitive that a tribal existence was superior to modern society. Tribal existence is in a sense, in a sense collective, right. It it's, I mean, but not Noy, you have the, the tribes sitting around and, and, and there will goes, and you as the individual have nothing, no, no. Say against the will of the tribe, this very sort of primitive, proto modern or pre-modern, uh, uh, way of doing things. And he was totally fascinated with that. And I think wanted to basically find a way within the enlightenment context to make an argument that would make this, you know, this, this, this tribalist approach to life, uh, seemed like it made sense
Speaker 5 00:33:26 If I might. Sure. I think that this contradiction that is, is, uh, a universal with the, uh, philosophers of Liberty and, uh, of individualism because, um, genetically mankind is a, uh, both individualistic and groupish, that is, we are tribal. We, we sometimes move in herds, but we can also be individual like a, a lone mountain lion that only meets other mountain lions for procreation. So it it's, and that's, um, in our nature. And so this is a contradiction in terms of understanding human nature and then the laws of human nature, however, you might be of the, their origins so that it's it's, um, individualism versus collectivism is always a, um, a problem for, uh, philosophers of, of human nature. That's it?
Speaker 1 00:34:40 All right. So something that responds, I think, I think you've been on here before and, and you, if I'm correct, you're the same guy. You, you, you like to talk about genetically what we're pre predisposed to I'm
Speaker 5 00:34:51 Yes. I believe in sociobiology. And then,
Speaker 1 00:34:55 Um, so I'm super skeptical. I'm super skeptical of a lot of that, the idea that we have a genetic predisposition for this or that, I think that a lot of that can be explained simply by us observing the conditions of life and the one of the conditions of life is. So let's go back to what I talked about iron Rand, talking about being on a desert on a deserted island, right? If you're stuck on island yourself, you are clearly in way worse position than if you are in the middle of a, you know, thriving, free society, right. Where you can cooperate with other people. And so we all notice some extent that we are better off cooperating with other people being part of a, uh, a, some kind of social organization. And the question basically is, so I wouldn't say it's that there's a consci between collectivism and, and individualism.
Speaker 1 00:35:40 I would say there's two things. There's individual thought and effort is required for everything, because, you know, you, you have to be, be thinking about these questions and figuring out problems for yourselves. And we all grasp that. Or we all, anybody who, anybody who applies themselves honestly, will grasp that. But at the same time, cooperation is necessary. So you have individual initiative and cooperation. Now, when you state it as individual initiative and cooperation, it doesn't sound like a contradiction. It sounds like just two things that need to be coordinated properly. Right. So then it just becomes, how do we create rules of cooperation that allow for individual initiative and allow for individual, um, allow for individual descent? I mean, that's one of the crucial things that we discovered, uh, you know, as, as in part of the modern world, one of the crucial discoveries was the hugely important role individual, and that, you know, people being able to object and go off in different ways and do something that's outside the mainstream often leads to huge breakthroughs, uh, new ideas.
Speaker 1 00:36:46 It often leads to the correction of false social, you know, um, the, the social consent when the social consensus goes off, the rails, those individuals out there who are dissenting from that and complaining about it and bringing up the, uh, objections are doing us all a great service. So basically, you know, the modern, modern, modern, liberal society, and by liberal, I mean, not in that partisan 20th century sense, but in the political philosoph sense, meaning a free society, the liberal system of a free society that we've created is basically a recognition of the need for unleashing individual initiative within a cooperative system. And making sure that the rules are Cooper, that the individual still has. The <inaudible> still has the ability to dissent when he wants to while still being while, while making cooperate while still having cooperation be possible. So I think we've kind of, you know, the, the interesting thing is we, the modern liberal society is actually a great answer to that developed a great cost over many centuries.
Speaker 1 00:37:56 Um, and so what we have to do is we have to better understand what the terms are of how you have a Cooper, a society that, of a cooperative society that also allows for the unleashing as individual initiative and individual thinking, and oftentimes dissenting opinions. Um, so you have independence and cooperation at the same time. How do you make those sink together? And it, you know, it's doable. We know it's doable, cuz we, we, we basically live in, uh, to a large extent. We live, you know, even with all the faults and all the problems and the backsliding that we have, uh, that we're always fighting against. That's essentially the society we're living in for a couple of hundred years. So we know that a solution to that is possible. You can come up with find those two things and then it's just a matter of defining and defending how it is, what the, uh, deserted island analogy that, you know, you, you you're way better off living cooperating with other people, but at the same time, it has to be on terms that allow you as the individual to actually benefit from that cooperation and to use all the benefits of your individual judgment.
Speaker 1 00:39:13 By the way, I wanna go farther on this idea though, of man as a social animal, because I think that's something it tends to be a little under discussed in objectiveism because we came out of a context, you know, the 20th, the great collectivist century, the century of collectivism, the 20th century is, you know, in iron Rand develops reviews, um, in the context of, uh, uh, of the fight against Soviet communism, which was so thoroughly collectivist that, uh, I, I wanna talk a little bit about that. I don't think you need to go to sociology, I think, but we do have, there is a biological basis for man's existence as a social animal. And you mentioned something about how, you know, we're not like mountain lions that only meet to meet and then go off on our own way. And I think that's the crucial part human beings, right?
Speaker 1 00:40:00 If you look at it, you know, if born human being they're basically completely helpless and the reason and it, and it takes them <laugh>, uh, for those of us to have kids though this, it takes them a good 18 years to be, to become capable of actually going out and, and being independent and doing things on their own. Right? So, and now the reason for that is biological. It's the fact that we have these giant complex brains and it goes down to the fact that, you know, one of the theories out there is that, um, humans basically have a gestation period of 18 months, right. But half of it happens outside the womb. And the reason for that is if you, if you let the, you know, if the, the, cause, you know, the think of a, a horse, a horse, when it's born, uh, you know, stumbles around for a little bit and within an hour is walking, right.
Speaker 1 00:40:52 And it takes a human being nine or 10 months to learn how to walk. And basically what the upside of this theory is, is that, well, actually, we'd be able, if we were born nine months later, we would be able to walk out and, and walk and see, and all the other things that other animals can do right outside of the womb. The reason we're not the reason we're born nine months earlier, as so much more helpful. Basically the reason why we're born essentially nine months premature compared to a horse is because of these giant brains that we have, that if, if you waited for 18 months, the child will not be able to make its way outta the birth canal cuz its head would be so freaking big. Right? So there's sorts of weird things about humans as a species that come from the fact that we have these giant complex brains.
Speaker 1 00:41:38 And the upside of that for us, of course, is we get this immense survival value from being able to think creatively and solve problems that basically have a conceptual capacity. It makes it's huge survival value that just, you know, is far beyond anything. The, the animals have we reshaped the environment everywhere we, everywhere human beings have gone on the earth. We have, we have totally reshaped the environment for every other species. And so we have this huge survival value from it. But the cost of that survival value is that you have, you know, nine months of being essentially the first nine months, first nine months to a year of our life were completely helpless and required total total care. And we have this long, long period of education. And the more sophisticated we get as a species, you know, the longer, the period of education is required to obtain basically the, the, the estate of art of human knowledge that's available. So the snapshot of this is that the brains that, that give us the power to also make us require a complex
Speaker 1 00:42:46 In which we are intensely cared for and in, uh, relationships motivated by love and affection for, you know, very long periods of time. So basically emphasis that humans have on sociology, on having family, having mating structures, where we, you know, we, where we find a partner and meet for essentially for, for a life or for long periods of time, all of that really comes from the requirements of having these big complex brains. And so that, so that whole trade off of the huge benefits from cooperation combined with though the whole point of the benefits of cooperation is to unleash the ability of the individual mind to think that's all sort of baked into the biology of the human being, uh, and from the fact that, and from the fact of these big heads and big brains that we have.
Speaker 5 00:43:44 I agree with everything you said, Rob, I just didn't hear anything that refuted sociobiology or environmental or evolutionary psychology.
Speaker 1 00:43:54 Well, I think the problem, so just to define it and I don't, I don't know if we could, should necessarily argue it today, but the problem I have with evolutionary psychology is I don't see the mechanism by which these things are programmed into us. And in fact, I think it goes against what new, I know these giant complex brains that have this tremendous survival value. Well, a huge part of that. They aren't pre-programmed that they're self programming, right? And the ability to have a reprogrammable brain one, we program ourselves and can reprogram and change is a huge part of that survival value. So I'm highly skeptical of the idea we are somehow. And I, and I don't think anybody's ever articulated the exact mechanism by which these things are programmed into our brains. How is it that the, the, how is it the brain? How is that? How is it encoded the genes to make your brain cells demonstrated? And that's my reason, my skepticism for evolutionary psychology. Gosh, I know it's tremendously popular right now.
Speaker 5 00:45:04 I have to apologize, but I have a lousy connection here and you're clipping out a lot and I fear that I am also
Speaker 1 00:45:11 Is anybody else? Am I clipping off for anybody else?
Speaker 5 00:45:14 No, it it's me. I'm
Speaker 1 00:45:16 For me as well.
Speaker 5 00:45:18 I've got a bad signal here. I'm sitting there on a
Speaker 1 00:45:20 It's possible more than one of us does. Yeah. Um, alright. So I, I say saying that I'm skeptical of that, that evolutionary psychology has demonstrated the mechanisms by which ideas are programmed into our brains. And I think that on the contrary, the, the human, the pull Val whole point in value of the human brain is that it is self programming and reprogrammable. Uh, Brian, you wanna, that's a cool other topic for it popped in with a question.
Speaker 4 00:45:54 Hey, yeah, the, the reason I popped in was different from the, the Russo social contract. I just kind of thought it was interesting and kind of chimed in, but the original reason I, I came into the room was, um, you know, I've been, uh, seeing some of the movies that the, the daily wire, you know, Ben Shapiro's group is coming out with. And he is, um, you know, talking about trying to, uh, you know, get something outside of Hollywood going, you know, in terms of movies and, and, and programs and things like that. So I know you guys put together the, the, the Anthem novel and, and series and all that. And, and so I was, I've been wanting for years for, uh, you know, someone like y'all to put together like a, uh, you know, a movie, either fountain, head Atlas, shrugged, Anthem, something that does it justice, you know, I know the movies came out several years ago and, you know, they weren't really all that good. But, um, you know, I think maybe with, uh, Shapiro having his own studios, now, it would be possible to put, you know, something together like a six or eight or 10 part series, you know, on, on the, on her two longer novels, but maybe even something with Anthem, you know, would be a good start. I'm wondering if you guys have explored any collaboration, uh, along those lines.
Speaker 1 00:47:25 Well, if anybody's done that, I wouldn't, I wouldn't know about it, but if, uh, Jennifer can tune pipe in, if there's something in the works. Yeah. It's, it's, I mean, you know, could, Shapiro's a conservative, which means that he may have some interested in, and I ran Atlas shrug, but also he's kind of on the other side, on a whole bunch of the philosophical issues that, that, that, that relate to objectiveism. Right. So, uh, you know, he's, he's gonna be very deeply ambivalent about individualism, uh, very deeply indivi ambivalent about reason and rationality as the primary value, because of course he's religious and thinks we need a religious foundation for society. So I think he's among the conservatives. He's probably more likely to be on the semi sympathetic end, but he's gonna be ambiguous. So maybe he won't do it. I'm totally in. And I love the idea though, of people saying, instead of getting sitting around complaining about the mainstream media or complaining about Hollywood, that try to get money up, try to get money together, try to get funding, try to go out and do something and create something of your own.
Speaker 1 00:48:26 And, um, having, having done, uh, a lot of thinking about how to adapt Atlas shrugged and that sort of thing, I'm actually a huge advocate of the, that it would rate as a mini series. In fact, what I would like to see would be like, you know, take each major section of ATLA shrug to make it a season, so to speak of a mini-series and, you know, the way they do with, you know, these stupid, I mean, they they've done think of all the money and efforts has been put into stupid stuff, like game of game of Thrones, which I am not a big fan of. Uh, and, and, uh, but yeah, they put like cinematic production values into this and, you know, CA these, uh, I'm not sure, I can't remember exactly how long the seasons were for game of Thrones, but you have like eight or 10 hours to, to put the story of one of the novels in this series.
Speaker 1 00:49:16 I think you could easily adapt Alice shrug to be each ma, you know, each of the three major sections is a season and each season is like six or eight or 10 episodes. I don't think it can go beyond 10 cuz she had, she had 10 chapters in each section. I don't know if that would break down to 10 episodes, but it would be on that order. And I think you be in a lot of detail and capture detail of it, which is the basic problem with, you know, adapting Atlas strike is there's. It is actually a hugely densely packed book, a lot of stuff's going on in it and a lot of nuance and character development. And when you try to shorten it to something shorter, you lose a lot of that. And because the theme is so different, so unusual, so not what people are expecting and not what people are sort of predisposed to understand that.
Speaker 1 00:50:05 I think you need that to get deep into the charact and develop them gradually. And uh, you know, I think the great promise of doing this as a movie is that a book by its very nature calls on the reader to fill in all the details for himself. So if John, you know, John gold or Hank Rudin, or one of these characters comes up, you're given certain descriptions of him and what he says and how he looks and all that sort of thing, but to make him fully real and concrete, you have to fill that in for yourself. And I think a lot of people because these characters are so <inaudible> mainstream. So outside of people's expectations, people will say, oh, I thought that character was terribly UN unrealistic and what they, I couldn't figure out how to Ize him and make him realistic. And the great value for a movie is if you had a good filmmaker who really understood these characters that he could say, okay, let me do that for you. You know, let me cast the right person, give him the right dialogue, give, give the right, uh, details, uh, get the actor to, to understand the character so that I can show you what this character looks like, what he sounds like. I can give you the full concrete reality of this character. And I think that, you know, that that's a huge value. That's be added by, by making a book. So I'm hoping somebody will do that eventually. But, um,
Speaker 4 00:51:23 Yeah, I think Shapiro is just, uh, I, I I've heard him, you know, talk about iron Rand and you know, he, the way he frames it, he's, he's sympathetic to a lot of, uh, you know, the argument she makes, uh, you know, especially, uh, on economics. So I think he would at least be open to it. And then if he would just give, you know, the creative license to, to some, you know, experts, uh,
Speaker 1 00:51:48 Well, I, yeah, I I'm available. I'm available. I have, uh, I have many interesting objects for that. Uh, but no, I, I, hopefully some days somebody will do it, but it's a matter, like, you know, the, the word develop exists for a reason, right? So is the Hollywood development health? The idea is that you have, somebody has a great idea for the movie. Every says, oh yeah, that's a great idea. And then 10 years go by and the movie doesn't get made because they couldn't get quite the right people and somebody disagreed on it and somebody funded it. But then he, he got fired by the studio and then the green light, you know, got, got removed. So, and this is a, it's a weird business where a lot of things that you think ought to go through don't, I mean, Netflix has been throwing money, Willy nilly at, at, at funding, all sorts of movies that I guess they' wrap against them right now is that they basically, they green lit everything and made a lot of junk and now they're getting in trouble. Now they're experiencing the problems from that. Um, so, you know, they, they sort of indiscriminately funded a whole bunch of virtual productions, uh, using billions of dollars that they gotten in from wall street. And, um, somehow nobody decided that, Hey, maybe this, you know, this novel, this best selling novel with the, you know, huge impact on the 20th century, maybe this should be something we'd do it's. I, I, I would hope somebody would eventually figure that out and figure out how to do it.
Speaker 5 00:53:09 The us Supreme courts block booking decision wrecked Hollywood forever.
Speaker 1 00:53:15 Mm yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5 00:53:19 I, you know, a couple of years ago, Zach Snyder was talking about making the fountain head
Speaker 0 00:53:24 And remaking it. And he ultimately said the political climate did not exist for him to be able to do so anytime in the near future.
Speaker 1 00:53:32 Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, that's, that's gonna be part of the problem. Yeah. I, I have skepticism about how good Jack Zach Snider would be at it, but I hope somebody will try, you know, I don't wanna shoot it down before it happens. Sure. Um, I
Speaker 0 00:53:47 Thought the second was shrugged was, you know, underrated. I mean the plane chase scene. I, I thought there were some really good moments.
Speaker 1 00:53:55 I thought the second was the best of them. And I, you know, I also like the fact they had a lot of actors. I mean, a lot of, they weren't like huge Hollywood stars, but they were like the guys you see regularly on TV who are really good com I like their Rearden so much that I can't remember the actor's name, but, you know, he, he sort of plays, he, he, he shows up with a, a tough grizzled old detective. Right. You know, you need him on a TV show. He's the guy who shows up, I'm tracking my brain trying to remember his name, but the guy, they had Rudin in the second movie and he tracked so much better with who I think Rearden is than, than anybody who's done, uh, done. You know, he looks like a tough guy who worked his way up out of the, out of the, out of the, or mines of, of, of Northern Minnesota.
Speaker 1 00:54:39 Right. So, um, yeah, I thought, I thought they had some good actors and, and as generally I thought it was the, it got the closest to, to sort of realizing the vision. Yeah. It's a tough, it's a tough novel to adapt because people aren't, you know, people aren't used to it, people, it it's so unusual and it's outlook on life that if and Hollywood people like to fall back on safe standard cliches. And if you do that, you're, you're roadkill doing Atlas shrug because the cliches don't work <laugh> these characters are so non cliched and so original. And it's so unusual.
Speaker 0 00:55:14 Well, I mean, she's also the kind of special villain of certain parts of the left and yeah. So as they've taken dominance
Speaker 1 00:55:24 Well, and when in the fountain head, you know, you have the whole first, uh, scene with RO RO and, and, and Dominique that I think is, I think you'd actually have to do it somewhat differently. You have to adapt it a little bit more today. I mean, the so-called rape quote unquote rape scene, although it's not really a rape, but if you're explaining that it's not really a rape, you're probably in trouble. Right. So <laugh>, I think you'd have to redo that in some way to, to capture the essence of it while changing the details to get you out of the me too, uh, trouble. But even that might not be enough in this, in this current environment, cuz people are, you know, people, people hate iron Rand for reasons other than the literary qualities of her books. Right. They hate her because she challenges all a lot of their philosophical and political views in a very powerful way. So because they hate her though. They're gonna look for you that confined to, to say, aha, see we told was evil.
Speaker 0 00:56:21 Great. Uh, well, let's try to get, uh, S here. Thanks for joining us. Do you have a question for Rob? Are you able to unmute with the microphone button?
Speaker 6 00:56:33 Hello?
Speaker 0 00:56:34 Hi.
Speaker 6 00:56:35 Hi, greetings y'all um, well, I mean, I just think it's really question, um, really interesting that you're talking about Hollywood. I am everything like that. And I just, I'm just really happy that you guys are talking about. I ran. Um, and I just think it's really interesting about in regards to Hollywood because Iran was part of Hollywood. Right. And, um, she was just a really amazing, there's a old YouTube video of her and, um, I believe it's Phil Donahue and she really puts him in his little, you know, she really makes him pause. Also, there was another interview with her intensive eyes and her quick with, uh, um, with, um, uh, the, one of the newscasters back then. And it's really interesting. It's black and white. You see him actually smoking cigarettes? Yes.
Speaker 1 00:57:24 Yeah. And it's, it's sponsored by Philip Marlow by, by, uh, not Philip Marla by, uh, William, uh, William.
Speaker 6 00:57:32 Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:57:32 Philip Morris, I think William Philip Marlow William Morris. It's Philip Morris, right. It's sponsored by Philip Morris, the cigarette company and the whole conversation takes place in this haze of cigarette smoke. I think it's
Speaker 6 00:57:42 Hilarious. Yes. And I love it though, but I mean, I don't know. I just, I was just asked to be part of y'all to join. Um, it's just that, um, in regards to Robert, um, it's just a commentary, not really question. It's just a thing is that like, um, I ran is very much of a thinker. Right. And she's very individualism and there's something beautiful about how it worked because he's masculine, what's wrong with masculinity, what's wrong with, um, stepping out of the box and building your own and say, you know what? It is mine, and therefore I'm gonna take it because it's mine. And the thing is with Hollywood, they're just so used to like, oh, did I say the right thing? Oh, oh, if I don't, oh my God, I meant the sky is somewhat blue. Not really blue. Are you gonna, are you gonna meet too?
Speaker 6 00:58:29 Me? Are you gonna like ban me? Yeah. You know what I mean? And it's like, we need, we, no offense. We need the GEZ back. You know? And I ran had GEZ same thing with Margaret that, you know, some of y'all may not be, may not agree with that, but it's just that where I'm coming from, is this a really quick, um, um, my, my grandmother, her family was divided by, um, the Berlin wall. And so when I was little, I used to go to Germany and I saw west Germany, east Germany. And now I go back to the states and compare contrast. And the thing is I ran lock and compare and contrasting, and gosh, darn Hollywood hates to use that compare and contrast God, you have to think you have to use your mind.
Speaker 1 00:59:13 Um, that, that that's great. Totally. I agree with a lot of that, uh, with the minute I've got left. I wanna say something about
Speaker 0 00:59:20 That. Sorry about that.
Speaker 1 00:59:21 Oh, that's fine. Absolutely. We're we're just getting up to our time limit. Um, they just, one last thing before we, before we end here, which is, there's a fascinating thing. That's a lot of Hollywood people who are big iron ran fans and especially fans of the fountain head. And I think it's because of that theme of artistic integrity of following your own vision. And I think there are a lot of Hollywood people who like that or who like, would like to think that they, that, that, that describes them. Right? And in some cases I'm skeptical about how much it really describes them, but it's a it's and they're self flattering moments. They would like to think that they're like Howard RO pursuing their own independent vision. But at the same time, this goes back to the theme we had earlier about, you know, individual initiative and cooperation and trying to get those to work together.
Speaker 1 01:00:05 Hollywood is a hugely cooperative thing where to get anything, to work, to get anything through Dow development, hell you need to get a whole lot of people to agree with, to, to agree with it. You get a whole lot of people to green lighted, very few thing. It's very hard to do anything just purely on your own because it's so resource intensive. If you need so much money. And so many people, it's such a huge crew to make a movie. So it's a place where that paradox of how do you have individual initiative and individual artistic vision within this hugely cooperative thing where everybody has to agree to help you do this. Those, those conflicts really are intensified in Hollywood. And I think that's how you get a lot of people who are iron ran fans and probably would love to make a movie, the fountain head. But because of that, you know, when Cooper, when the need for cooperation goes bad and becomes group, think that becomes collectivist. Then you have a situation where you'd love to make this movie and you can't do it because the politics are wrong.
Speaker 0 01:01:05 Excellent stuff. Uh, tomorrow at 5:00 PM Eastern, the Atlas society ask Spencer Jacob. Then at 6:30 PM, professor Steven Hicks will be back here on clubhouse for, and ask me anything about ethics Thursday here on clubhouse at 4:00 PM. Eastern Richard Salzman is discussing why stakeholder capitalism is fascistic. So that should be a good one. Thanks to everyone for joining us. Rob, thank you for doing this and, uh, we'll see you all, uh, tomorrow.
Speaker 1 01:01:37 Thanks everyone.
Speaker 0 01:01:38 Take care. Thanks.
