Yaron Brook: Ayn Rand and the Philosophy of Objectivism

Lex Fridman (01:33.040)

no matter how mundane or radical

Yaron Brook (01:36.720)

or even dangerous they were considered to be.

Lex Fridman (01:40.360)

Ayn Rand was, and I think still is, a divisive figure.

Yaron Brook (01:44.480)

Some people love her, some people dislike

Lex Fridman (01:46.880)

or even dismiss her.

Yaron Brook (01:49.200)

I prefer to look past what some may consider

Lex Fridman (01:51.400)

to be the flaws of the person

Lex Fridman (01:53.720)

and consider with an open mind the ideas she presents

Lex Fridman (01:57.880)

and Jaron now describes and applies

Yaron Brook (02:00.720)

in his philosophical discussions.

Lex Fridman (02:02.920)

In general, I hope that you will be patient

Lex Fridman (02:05.400)

and understanding as I venture out across the space of ideas

Lex Fridman (02:09.760)

and the ever widening Overton window,

Yaron Brook (02:12.720)

pulling at the thread of curiosity,

Lex Fridman (02:15.040)

sometimes saying stupid things,

Lex Fridman (02:17.080)

but always striving to understand

Lex Fridman (02:19.200)

how we can better build a better world together.

Yaron Brook (02:23.280)

If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube,

Lex Fridman (02:25.680)

review it with five stars on Apple Podcast,

Yaron Brook (02:27.920)

follow on Spotify, support it on Patreon,

Lex Fridman (02:30.600)

or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman.

Lex Fridman (02:34.360)

And now, here's my conversation with Jaron Rook.

Lex Fridman (02:39.320)

Let me ask the biggest possible question first.

Yaron Brook (02:42.560)

Sure.

Lex Fridman (02:43.400)

What are the principles of a life well lived?

Yaron Brook (02:47.280)

I think it's to live with thought,

Lex Fridman (02:51.920)

that is to live a rational life, to think it through.

Yaron Brook (02:55.920)

I think so many people are in a sense zombies out there.

Lex Fridman (02:59.600)

They're alive, but they're not really alive

Yaron Brook (03:01.880)

because their mind is not focused,

Lex Fridman (03:03.920)

their mind is not focused on what do I need to do

Lex Fridman (03:07.960)

in order to live a great life?

Lex Fridman (03:10.000)

So too many people just go through the motions

Yaron Brook (03:12.880)

of living rather than really embrace life.

Lex Fridman (03:16.720)

So I think the secret to living a great life

Yaron Brook (03:19.720)

is to take it seriously.

Lex Fridman (03:22.680)

And what it means to take it seriously

Yaron Brook (03:24.440)

is to use the one tool that makes us human,

Lex Fridman (03:26.960)

the one tool that provides us with all the values

Yaron Brook (03:29.040)

that we have, our mind, our reason,

Lex Fridman (03:31.640)

and to use it, apply it to living.

Yaron Brook (03:34.840)

People apply it to their work,

Lex Fridman (03:36.720)

they apply it to their math problems,

Yaron Brook (03:38.840)

to science, to programming.

Lex Fridman (03:41.880)

But imagine if they used that same energy,

Yaron Brook (03:43.640)

that same focus, that same concentration

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to actually living life and choosing values

Yaron Brook (03:49.560)

that they should pursue,

Lex Fridman (03:51.880)

that would change the world,

Lex Fridman (03:54.240)

and it would change their lives.

Lex Fridman (03:56.160)

Yeah, actually, I wear this silly suit and tie.

Yaron Brook (04:00.280)

It symbolizes to me always,

Lex Fridman (04:02.240)

it makes me feel like I'm taking the moment really seriously.

Yaron Brook (04:06.400)

I think that's really, that's right.

Lex Fridman (04:08.440)

And each one of us has different ways

Yaron Brook (04:10.920)

to kind of condition our consciousness.

Lex Fridman (04:14.400)

I'm serious now, and for you, it's a suit and tie.

Yaron Brook (04:17.720)

It's a conditioning of your consciousness

Lex Fridman (04:19.560)

to now I'm focused, now I'm at work,

Yaron Brook (04:21.520)

now I'm doing my thing.

Lex Fridman (04:22.840)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (04:23.840)

And I think that's terrific,

Lex Fridman (04:26.000)

and I wish everybody took that.

Yaron Brook (04:28.000)

Look, I mean, it's a cliche, but we only live once.

Lex Fridman (04:32.040)

Every minute of your life, you're never gonna live again.

Yaron Brook (04:34.800)

This is really valuable.

Lex Fridman (04:36.480)

And when people don't have that deep respect

Yaron Brook (04:41.000)

for their own life, for their own time, for their own mind,

Lex Fridman (04:44.800)

and if they did, again, one could only imagine,

Yaron Brook (04:49.120)

look at how productive people are.

Lex Fridman (04:50.840)

Look at the amazing things they produce

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and they do in their work.

Lex Fridman (04:54.520)

And if they applied that to everything, wow.

Lex Fridman (04:58.480)

So you kind of talk about reason.

Lex Fridman (05:00.240)

Where does the kind of existentialist idea

Yaron Brook (05:05.120)

of experience maybe, fully experiencing all the moments

Lex Fridman (05:10.560)

versus fully thinking through?

Lex Fridman (05:14.640)

Is there an interesting line to separate the two?

Lex Fridman (05:17.760)

Why such an emphasis on reason for a life well lived

Lex Fridman (05:21.800)

versus just enjoy, like experience the moment?

Lex Fridman (05:26.480)

Well, because I think experience in a sense

Yaron Brook (05:28.360)

is the easy part.

Lex Fridman (05:31.480)

I'm not saying it's how we experience the life that we live.

Lex Fridman (05:37.000)

And yes, I'm all with the take time to value what you value,

Lex Fridman (05:43.240)

but I don't think that's the problem of people out there.

Yaron Brook (05:46.680)

I don't think the problem is they're not taking time

Lex Fridman (05:48.640)

to appreciate where they are and what they do.

Yaron Brook (05:51.080)

I think it's that they don't use their mind

Lex Fridman (05:53.360)

in this one respect, in planning their life,

Yaron Brook (05:57.800)

in thinking about how to live.

Lex Fridman (06:00.080)

So the focus is on reason is because

Yaron Brook (06:02.360)

it's our only source of knowledge.

Lex Fridman (06:03.880)

There's no other source of knowledge.

Yaron Brook (06:05.240)

We don't know anything that does not come

Lex Fridman (06:10.080)

from our senses and our mind,

Yaron Brook (06:12.480)

the integration of the evidence of our senses.

Lex Fridman (06:15.200)

Now we know stuff about ourselves

Lex Fridman (06:16.680)

and I think it's important to know oneself

Lex Fridman (06:18.280)

through introspection.

Lex Fridman (06:19.720)

And I consider that part of reasoning is to introspect.

Lex Fridman (06:25.640)

But I think reason is undervalued, which is funny to say,

Yaron Brook (06:29.840)

because it's our means of survival.

Lex Fridman (06:31.360)

It's how human beings survive.

Yaron Brook (06:33.000)

We cannot, see, this is why I disagree

Lex Fridman (06:35.720)

with so many scientists and people like Sam Harris.

Yaron Brook (06:38.600)

You mentioned Sam Harris before the show.

Lex Fridman (06:42.440)

We're not programmed to know how to hunt.

Yaron Brook (06:47.080)

We're not programmed to do agriculture.

Lex Fridman (06:49.040)

We're not programmed to build computers

Lex Fridman (06:51.640)

and build networks on which we can podcast

Lex Fridman (06:53.880)

and do our shows.

Yaron Brook (06:55.320)

All of that requires effort.

Lex Fridman (06:58.080)

It requires focus.

Yaron Brook (06:59.720)

It requires energy and it requires will.

Lex Fridman (07:03.360)

It requires somebody to will it.

Yaron Brook (07:05.840)

It requires somebody to choose it.

Lex Fridman (07:08.560)

And once you make that choice,

Yaron Brook (07:11.200)

you have to engage that choice means

Lex Fridman (07:13.560)

that you're choosing to engage your reason

Yaron Brook (07:15.960)

in discovery, in integration,

Lex Fridman (07:19.240)

and then in work to change the world in which we live.

Lex Fridman (07:23.120)

And human beings have to discover,

Lex Fridman (07:26.400)

figure out, solve the problem of hunting.

Yaron Brook (07:29.120)

Hunting, everybody thinks, oh, that's easy.

Lex Fridman (07:31.640)

I've seen the movie.

Lex Fridman (07:32.680)

But human beings had to figure out how to do it, right?

Lex Fridman (07:36.280)

You can't run down a bison and bite into it, right?

Yaron Brook (07:40.760)

You're not gonna catch it.

Lex Fridman (07:41.600)

You're not gonna, you have no fangs to bite into it.

Yaron Brook (07:44.120)

You have to build weapons.

Lex Fridman (07:45.560)

You have to build tools.

Yaron Brook (07:46.440)

You have to create traps.

Lex Fridman (07:47.680)

You have to have a strategy.

Yaron Brook (07:49.520)

All of that requires reason.

Lex Fridman (07:52.040)

So the most important thing that allows human beings

Yaron Brook (07:56.520)

to survive and to thrive in every value

Lex Fridman (07:58.800)

from the most simple to the most sophisticated,

Yaron Brook (08:01.400)

from the most material to, I believe, the most spiritual,

Lex Fridman (08:04.600)

requires thinking.

Lex Fridman (08:06.320)

So stopping and appreciating the moment

Lex Fridman (08:10.240)

is something that I think is relatively easy

Yaron Brook (08:14.480)

once you have a plan, once you've thought it through,

Lex Fridman (08:17.600)

once you know what your values are.

Yaron Brook (08:20.600)

There is a mistake people make.

Lex Fridman (08:21.920)

They attain their values and they don't take a moment

Yaron Brook (08:25.720)

to savor that and to appreciate that

Lex Fridman (08:27.800)

and to even pat themselves on the back that they did it.

Lex Fridman (08:31.360)

But that's not what's screwing up the world.

Lex Fridman (08:33.200)

What's screwing up the world

Yaron Brook (08:34.320)

is that people have the wrong values

Lex Fridman (08:35.800)

and they don't think about them

Lex Fridman (08:37.320)

and they don't really focus on them

Lex Fridman (08:39.000)

and they don't have a plan for their own life

Lex Fridman (08:41.520)

and how to live it.

Lex Fridman (08:42.600)

If we look at human nature,

Yaron Brook (08:44.320)

you're saying the fundamental big thing

Lex Fridman (08:46.760)

that we need to consider is our capacity,

Yaron Brook (08:49.080)

like a capability to reason.

Lex Fridman (08:51.600)

So to me, reason is this massive evolutionary achievement

Yaron Brook (08:56.600)

in quotes.

Lex Fridman (08:58.960)

If you think about any other sophisticated animal,

Yaron Brook (09:02.280)

everything has to be coded.

Lex Fridman (09:04.800)

Everything has to be written in the hard way.

Yaron Brook (09:07.280)

It has to be there.

Lex Fridman (09:08.800)

And they have to have a solution for every outcome.

Lex Fridman (09:11.080)

And if there's no solution, the animal dies typically,

Lex Fridman (09:13.280)

or the animal suffers in some way.

Yaron Brook (09:15.680)

Human beings have this capacity to self program.

Lex Fridman (09:18.560)

They have this capacity.

Yaron Brook (09:20.280)

It's not a tabula rasa in the sense

Lex Fridman (09:24.320)

that there's nothing there.

Yaron Brook (09:25.280)

Obviously, we have a nature.

Lex Fridman (09:26.880)

Obviously, our minds, our brains

Yaron Brook (09:29.200)

are structured in a particular way.

Lex Fridman (09:31.160)

But given that, we have the ability

Yaron Brook (09:35.120)

to turn it on or turn it off.

Lex Fridman (09:37.320)

We have the ability to commit suicide,

Yaron Brook (09:39.440)

to reject our nature, to work against our interests,

Lex Fridman (09:43.600)

not to use the tool that evolution has provided us,

Yaron Brook (09:48.120)

which is this mind, which is reason.

Lex Fridman (09:50.760)

So that choice, that fundamental choice,

Yaron Brook (09:54.280)

you know, Hamlet says it, right, to be or not to be.

Lex Fridman (09:58.440)

But to be or not to be is to think or not to think,

Yaron Brook (10:01.880)

to engage or not to engage, to focus or not to focus.

Lex Fridman (10:05.880)

You know, in the morning when you get up,

Yaron Brook (10:07.720)

you kind of, you know, you're not really completely there.

Lex Fridman (10:10.560)

You're kind of out of focus and stuff.

Yaron Brook (10:12.680)

It requires an act of will to say,

Lex Fridman (10:14.880)

okay, I'm awake, I've got stuff to do.

Yaron Brook (10:17.520)

Some people never do that.

Lex Fridman (10:19.280)

Some people live in that haze,

Lex Fridman (10:21.600)

and they never engage that mind.

Lex Fridman (10:23.440)

And when you're sitting and try to solve

Yaron Brook (10:26.200)

a complex computer problem or math problem,

Lex Fridman (10:29.400)

you have to turn something on.

Yaron Brook (10:31.920)

You have to, in a sense, exert certain energy

Lex Fridman (10:36.160)

to focus on the problem to do it.

Lex Fridman (10:38.080)

And that is not determined in a sense

Lex Fridman (10:41.160)

that you have to focus.

Yaron Brook (10:43.160)

You choose to focus, and you could choose not to focus.

Lex Fridman (10:46.200)

And that choice is more powerful than any other,

Yaron Brook (10:49.360)

like, parts of our brain that we've borrowed from fish

Lex Fridman (10:52.160)

and from our evolutionary origins.

Yaron Brook (10:54.640)

Like this, whatever this crazy little leap in evolution is

Lex Fridman (10:58.040)

that allowed us to think is more powerful than anything else.

Lex Fridman (11:00.640)

So I think neuroscientists pretend they know a lot more

Lex Fridman (11:05.560)

about the brain than they really do.

Yaron Brook (11:07.440)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (11:09.080)

And that we know. Shots fired.

Yaron Brook (11:11.720)

I agree with you.

Lex Fridman (11:12.560)

And we don't know that much yet

Yaron Brook (11:14.760)

about how the brain functions and what's a fish

Lex Fridman (11:16.960)

and what, you know, all this stuff.

Lex Fridman (11:18.760)

So I think what exists there

Lex Fridman (11:21.400)

is a lot of potentialities.

Lex Fridman (11:24.880)

But the beauty of the human brain is it's potentialities

Lex Fridman (11:28.720)

that we have to manifest through our choices.

Yaron Brook (11:32.880)

It's there. It's sitting there.

Lex Fridman (11:34.440)

And, yes, there's certain things

Yaron Brook (11:36.280)

that are going to evoke certain senses, certain feelings.

Lex Fridman (11:42.640)

I'm not even saying emotions

Yaron Brook (11:43.760)

because I think emotions are too complex

Lex Fridman (11:45.320)

to have been programmed into our mind.

Lex Fridman (11:48.120)

But I don't think so.

Lex Fridman (11:49.480)

You know, there's this big issue of evolutionary psychology

Yaron Brook (11:52.000)

is huge right now and it's a big issue.

Lex Fridman (11:55.760)

You know, I find it to a large extent as way too early

Lex Fridman (12:02.760)

and in storytelling about expo storytelling about stuff.

Lex Fridman (12:08.000)

We still don't, you know, so for example,

Yaron Brook (12:10.360)

I would like to see if evolutionary psychology

Lex Fridman (12:12.240)

differentiate between things like inclinations,

Yaron Brook (12:17.000)

feelings, emotions, sensations, thoughts, concepts, ideas.

Lex Fridman (12:23.600)

What of those are programmed and what of those are developed

Lex Fridman (12:27.080)

and chosen and a product of reason?

Lex Fridman (12:29.520)

I think anything from emotion to abstract ideas is all chosen,

Yaron Brook (12:33.920)

is all a product of reason.

Lex Fridman (12:36.720)

And everything before that, we might have been programmed for.

Lex Fridman (12:42.440)

But the fact is so clearly a sensation is not a product of,

Lex Fridman (12:45.880)

you know, is something that we feel

Yaron Brook (12:48.680)

because that's how our biology works.

Lex Fridman (12:50.720)

So until we have these categories

Lex Fridman (12:54.240)

and until we can clearly specify what is what

Lex Fridman (12:58.720)

and where do they come from,

Yaron Brook (13:01.320)

the whole discussion in evolutionary psychology

Lex Fridman (13:03.200)

seems to be rambling.

Yaron Brook (13:04.320)

It doesn't seem to be scientific.

Lex Fridman (13:06.400)

So we have to define our terms, you know,

Yaron Brook (13:08.840)

which is the basis of science.

Lex Fridman (13:10.000)

You have to have some clear definitions

Yaron Brook (13:12.080)

about what we're talking about.

Lex Fridman (13:14.760)

When you ask them these questions,

Yaron Brook (13:16.360)

there's never really a coherent answer

Lex Fridman (13:18.520)

about what is it exactly.

Lex Fridman (13:20.440)

And everybody is afraid of the issue of free will.

Lex Fridman (13:22.760)

And I think to some extent, I mean, Harris has this,

Lex Fridman (13:26.800)

and I don't want to misrepresent anything Harris has

Lex Fridman (13:28.720)

because, you know, I'm a fan and I like a lot of his stuff.

Lex Fridman (13:33.160)

But on the one hand, he is obviously intellectually active

Lex Fridman (13:37.200)

and wants to change our minds.

Lex Fridman (13:38.760)

So he believes that we have some capacity to choose.

Lex Fridman (13:41.920)

On the other hand, he's undermining that capacity

Yaron Brook (13:44.360)

to choose by saying it's just determines

Lex Fridman (13:45.800)

you're gonna choose what you choose.

Yaron Brook (13:47.360)

You have no say in it, there's actually no you.

Lex Fridman (13:51.640)

So it's, you know, and that's to me completely unscientific.

Yaron Brook (13:55.880)

That's completely him, you know, pulling it out of nowhere.

Lex Fridman (14:00.480)

We all experienced the fact that we have an eye.

Yaron Brook (14:03.640)

That kind of certainty saying that we do not have

Lex Fridman (14:06.720)

that fundamental choice that reason provides

Yaron Brook (14:09.320)

is unfounded currently.

Lex Fridman (14:12.000)

Look, there's a sense in which it can never be contradicted

Yaron Brook (14:15.840)

because it's a product of your experience.

Lex Fridman (14:20.840)

It's not a product of your experience.

Yaron Brook (14:21.920)

You can experience it directly.

Lex Fridman (14:24.080)

So no science will ever prove that this table isn't here.

Lex Fridman (14:29.120)

I can see it, it's here, right?

Lex Fridman (14:31.160)

I can feel it.

Yaron Brook (14:33.360)

I know I have free will because I can introspect it.

Lex Fridman (14:36.400)

In a sense, I can see it.

Yaron Brook (14:37.960)

I can see myself engaging it and that is as valid

Lex Fridman (14:45.640)

as the evidence of my senses.

Yaron Brook (14:47.520)

Now I can't point at it so that you can see

Lex Fridman (14:49.720)

the same thing I'm seeing,

Lex Fridman (14:51.400)

but you can do the same thing in your own consciousness

Lex Fridman (14:53.560)

and you can identify the same thing.

Lex Fridman (14:55.200)

And to deny that in the name of science

Lex Fridman (14:59.160)

is to get things upside down.

Yaron Brook (15:00.560)

You start with that and that's the beginning of science.

Lex Fridman (15:04.720)

The beginning of science is the identification

Yaron Brook (15:07.320)

that I choose and that I can reason

Lex Fridman (15:10.720)

and now I need to figure out the mechanism,

Yaron Brook (15:13.320)

the rules of reasoning, the rules of logic.

Lex Fridman (15:16.720)

How does this work?

Lex Fridman (15:17.680)

And that's where science comes from.

Lex Fridman (15:19.560)

Of course, it's possible that science,

Yaron Brook (15:21.200)

like from my place of AI would be able to,

Lex Fridman (15:25.680)

if we were able to engineer consciousness or understand,

Yaron Brook (15:30.960)

I mean, it's very difficult

Lex Fridman (15:32.120)

because we're so far away from it now,

Lex Fridman (15:33.440)

but understand how the actual mechanism

Lex Fridman (15:36.760)

that consciousness emerges.

Lex Fridman (15:38.600)

And in fact, this table is not real,

Lex Fridman (15:40.600)

that we can determine that it,

Yaron Brook (15:45.040)

exactly how our mind constructs the reality

Lex Fridman (15:47.480)

that we perceive, then you can start to make interesting.

Lex Fridman (15:51.640)

But our mind doesn't construct the reality that we perceive.

Lex Fridman (15:54.480)

The reality we perceive is there.

Yaron Brook (15:56.320)

We perceive a reality that exists.

Lex Fridman (15:59.800)

Now, we perceive it in particular ways

Lex Fridman (16:02.160)

given the nature of our senses, right?

Lex Fridman (16:05.040)

A bat perceives this table differently,

Lex Fridman (16:07.200)

but it's still the same table

Lex Fridman (16:08.520)

with the same characteristics and the same identity.

Yaron Brook (16:12.880)

It's just a matter of, we use eyes,

Lex Fridman (16:16.160)

they use a radar system to,

Yaron Brook (16:18.040)

they use sound waves to perceive it,

Lex Fridman (16:19.880)

but it's still there.

Yaron Brook (16:20.840)

Existence exists whether we exist or not.

Lex Fridman (16:22.960)

And so you could create, I mean, I don't know how,

Lex Fridman (16:27.040)

and I don't know if it's possible,

Lex Fridman (16:28.480)

but let's say you could create a consciousness, right?

Lex Fridman (16:31.000)

And I suspect that to do that,

Lex Fridman (16:33.600)

you would have to use biology, not just electronics,

Lex Fridman (16:37.080)

but way outside my expertise.

Lex Fridman (16:40.600)

Because consciousness, as far as we know,

Yaron Brook (16:42.640)

is a phenomenon of life,

Lex Fridman (16:43.640)

and you would have to figure out how to create life

Yaron Brook (16:45.360)

before you created consciousness, I think.

Lex Fridman (16:48.360)

But if you did that, then that wouldn't change anything.

Yaron Brook (16:51.880)

All it would say is we have another conscious being.

Lex Fridman (16:53.680)

Cool, that's great.

Lex Fridman (16:54.720)

But it wouldn't change the nature of our consciousness.

Lex Fridman (16:58.080)

Our consciousness is what it is in respect.

Lex Fridman (17:01.360)

So that's very interesting, I think this is a good way

Lex Fridman (17:04.560)

to set the table for discussion of objectivism is,

Yaron Brook (17:09.480)

let me at least challenge a thought experiment,

Lex Fridman (17:12.360)

which is, I don't know if you're familiar

Yaron Brook (17:14.200)

with Donald Hoffman's work about reality.

Lex Fridman (17:17.280)

So his idea is that we're just,

Yaron Brook (17:20.480)

our perception is just an interface to reality.

Lex Fridman (17:23.440)

So Donald Hoffman is the guy you see on Vine?

Yaron Brook (17:26.560)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (17:27.400)

Yes, I've met Donald and I've seen his video.

Lex Fridman (17:28.840)

And look, Donald has not invented anything new.

Lex Fridman (17:31.840)

This goes back to ancient philosophy.

Yaron Brook (17:34.040)

Let me just state it in case people aren't familiar.

Lex Fridman (17:38.200)

I mean, it's a fascinating thought experiment to me,

Yaron Brook (17:41.480)

like of out of the box thinking, perhaps literally,

Lex Fridman (17:44.120)

is that there's a gap between the world as we perceive it

Lex Fridman (17:50.480)

and the world as it actually exists.

Lex Fridman (17:52.800)

And I think that's, for the philosophy,

Yaron Brook (17:55.040)

objectivism is a really important gap to close.

Lex Fridman (17:59.720)

So can you maybe at least try to entertain the idea

Lex Fridman (18:03.640)

that there is more to reality than our minds can perceive?

Lex Fridman (18:09.360)

Well, I don't understand what more means, right?

Yaron Brook (18:13.400)

Of course there's more to reality

Lex Fridman (18:14.800)

than what our senses perceive.

Yaron Brook (18:16.440)

That is, for example, I don't know,

Lex Fridman (18:19.320)

certain elements have radiation, right?

Yaron Brook (18:24.200)

Uranium has radiation.

Lex Fridman (18:25.160)

I can't perceive radiation.

Yaron Brook (18:27.120)

The beauty of human reason is I can,

Lex Fridman (18:31.200)

through experimentation,

Yaron Brook (18:32.440)

discover the phenomena of radiation,

Lex Fridman (18:34.320)

then actually measure radiation.

Lex Fridman (18:36.760)

And I don't worry about it.

Lex Fridman (18:37.640)

I can't perceive the world

Yaron Brook (18:39.040)

the way a bat perceives the world.

Lex Fridman (18:40.400)

And I might not be able to see certain things,

Lex Fridman (18:43.160)

but I can, we've created radar,

Lex Fridman (18:44.960)

so A, we understand how a bat perceives the world,

Lex Fridman (18:47.800)

and I can mimic it through a radar screen

Lex Fridman (18:50.280)

and create images like the bat,

Lex Fridman (18:53.280)

its consciousness somehow perceives it, right?

Lex Fridman (18:55.720)

So the beauty of human reason is our capacity

Yaron Brook (19:00.240)

to understand the world beyond

Lex Fridman (19:02.840)

what our senses give us directly.

Yaron Brook (19:05.200)

At the end, everything comes in through our senses,

Lex Fridman (19:07.840)

but we can understand things

Yaron Brook (19:10.320)

that our senses don't provide us.

Lex Fridman (19:11.520)

But what he's doing is he's doing something very different.

Yaron Brook (19:14.920)

He is saying what our senses provides us

Lex Fridman (19:17.400)

might have nothing to do with the reality out there.

Yaron Brook (19:20.640)

That is just a random, arbitrary, nonsensical statement.

Lex Fridman (19:25.680)

And he actually has a whole

Yaron Brook (19:27.240)

evolutionary explanation for it.

Lex Fridman (19:28.840)

He runs some simulations.

Yaron Brook (19:30.640)

The simulations seem, I mean,

Lex Fridman (19:32.400)

I'm not an expert on this field,

Lex Fridman (19:33.720)

but they seem silly to me.

Lex Fridman (19:35.320)

They don't seem to reflect.

Lex Fridman (19:36.720)

And look, all he's doing is taking

Lex Fridman (19:38.680)

Immanuel Kant's philosophy,

Yaron Brook (19:41.040)

which articulate exactly the same cause,

Lex Fridman (19:43.200)

and he's giving it a veneer of evolutionary ideas.

Yaron Brook (19:48.920)

I'm not an expert on evolution,

Lex Fridman (19:50.360)

and I'm not an expert on epistemology,

Yaron Brook (19:52.240)

which is what this is.

Lex Fridman (19:53.560)

So to me, as a semi layman,

Yaron Brook (19:57.080)

it doesn't make any sense.

Lex Fridman (19:58.760)

And, you know, I'm actually,

Yaron Brook (1:00:02.020)

between men and women, we're not the same,

Lex Fridman (1:00:03.820)

which I know comes at a shock to many people.

Lex Fridman (1:00:06.020)

But she...

Lex Fridman (1:00:11.060)

She's working on a character.

Lex Fridman (1:00:12.340)

She was working on a particular vision, right?

Lex Fridman (1:00:15.420)

She considered herself a man worshiper.

Lex Fridman (1:00:18.860)

And a man, not human being, a male.

Lex Fridman (1:00:23.020)

She worshiped manhood, if you will, the hero in man.

Lex Fridman (1:00:28.540)

And she wanted to fully understand what that was.

Lex Fridman (1:00:31.980)

Now, it has massive implications for ideal woman.

Lex Fridman (1:00:35.260)

And I think she does portray the ideal woman

Lex Fridman (1:00:36.900)

in Atlas Shrugged, in the character of Dagny.

Lex Fridman (1:00:40.780)

But her goal is, I think her selfish goal

Lex Fridman (1:00:46.420)

for what she wanted to get out of the novel

Yaron Brook (1:00:49.140)

is that excitement, partially sexual,

Lex Fridman (1:00:52.580)

about seeing your ideal manifest in reality

Yaron Brook (1:00:56.220)

of what you perceive as that which you would be attracted to

Lex Fridman (1:01:02.300)

fully, intellectually, physically, sexually,

Yaron Brook (1:01:05.260)

in every aspect of your life.

Lex Fridman (1:01:06.580)

That's what she's trying to bring into it.

Lex Fridman (1:01:08.060)

So there was no ambiguity of gender, so there was a masculinity

Lex Fridman (1:01:11.340)

and a femininity in her work.

Yaron Brook (1:01:12.780)

Very much so.

Lex Fridman (1:01:14.300)

And if you read the novels, you see that.

Yaron Brook (1:01:16.500)

You see that.

Lex Fridman (1:01:17.340)

Now, remember, this is in the context of, in Atlas Shrugged,

Yaron Brook (1:01:21.420)

she is portraying a woman who runs a railroad,

Lex Fridman (1:01:25.500)

the most masculine of all jobs you can imagine, right?

Yaron Brook (1:01:28.420)

Running a railroad, better than any man can run it.

Lex Fridman (1:01:31.700)

And achieving huge success,

Yaron Brook (1:01:33.380)

better than any other man out there.

Lex Fridman (1:01:35.780)

But, but for her, even Dagny needs somebody to,

Yaron Brook (1:01:42.420)

needs a man, in some sense, to look up to.

Lex Fridman (1:01:47.300)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:01:48.220)

And that's the character whose name I won't mention

Lex Fridman (1:01:51.340)

because it gives away too much of the plot.

Lex Fridman (1:01:53.180)

But there has to be that.

Lex Fridman (1:01:54.780)

I like how you do that.

Yaron Brook (1:01:55.820)

You're good.

Lex Fridman (1:01:57.060)

You're not, a lot of practice, a lot of practice.

Yaron Brook (1:01:59.620)

Nothing, brilliant.

Lex Fridman (1:02:01.020)

Because you convey all the important things

Yaron Brook (1:02:02.700)

without giving away plot lines.

Lex Fridman (1:02:04.500)

That's beautiful.

Yaron Brook (1:02:05.340)

You're a master.

Lex Fridman (1:02:06.180)

So she's, so she's very much,

Yaron Brook (1:02:09.300)

she, she described herself once as a male chauvinist.

Lex Fridman (1:02:15.340)

Okay.

Yaron Brook (1:02:16.180)

She very, she likes the idea of a man opening a door for her.

Lex Fridman (1:02:20.940)

But more metaphysically, she identifies something

Yaron Brook (1:02:25.940)

in the difference between the way a man relates to a woman

Lex Fridman (1:02:28.980)

and a woman relates to a man.

Yaron Brook (1:02:30.180)

It's not the same.

Lex Fridman (1:02:32.100)

And let's not take too far of a tangent,

Lex Fridman (1:02:35.300)

but I just, as a side comment, I, to me, she represented,

Lex Fridman (1:02:41.260)

she was a feminist to me.

Yaron Brook (1:02:43.140)

Perhaps there's a, perhaps technically,

Lex Fridman (1:02:45.740)

philosophy, you disagree with that, whatever.

Lex Fridman (1:02:47.540)

But the, you know, that to me represented strong,

Lex Fridman (1:02:52.620)

like she had some of the strongest female characters

Yaron Brook (1:02:55.380)

in the history of literature.

Lex Fridman (1:02:56.780)

Again, this is, this is a woman running a railroad in 1957.

Yaron Brook (1:03:00.180)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:03:01.020)

And not just a woman running a railroad,

Lex Fridman (1:03:02.620)

and this is true of the Fountainhead as well.

Lex Fridman (1:03:05.020)

A woman who is sexually, in a sense, assertive,

Yaron Brook (1:03:09.740)

sexually open.

Lex Fridman (1:03:13.540)

This is, this is not a woman who, you know,

Yaron Brook (1:03:15.700)

this is a woman who, who, who embraces her sexuality.

Lex Fridman (1:03:20.380)

And, you know, sex is important in life.

Lex Fridman (1:03:22.740)

This is why it keeps coming up, right?

Lex Fridman (1:03:24.540)

It's, it was important to Ayn Rand.

Yaron Brook (1:03:25.900)

It was, it's important in the novels.

Lex Fridman (1:03:27.380)

It's important in life.

Lex Fridman (1:03:28.940)

And for her, one's attitude towards sex

Lex Fridman (1:03:32.340)

is a reflection of one's attitude towards life.

Lex Fridman (1:03:34.460)

And it, you know, and what attitude towards pleasure,

Lex Fridman (1:03:36.700)

which is an important part of life.

Lex Fridman (1:03:38.380)

And she thought that was an incredibly important thing.

Lex Fridman (1:03:41.900)

And so she has these assertive, powerful, sexual women

Yaron Brook (1:03:48.900)

who live their lives on their terms 100%,

Lex Fridman (1:03:54.100)

who seek a man to look up to.

Yaron Brook (1:03:56.940)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:03:57.780)

It's not, it is psychologically complex.

Lex Fridman (1:04:00.660)

It's more psychology than philosophy, right?

Lex Fridman (1:04:02.300)

It's psychologically complex and, you know,

Yaron Brook (1:04:05.100)

not my area of expertise, but this is,

Lex Fridman (1:04:07.700)

there's something in, she would argue,

Yaron Brook (1:04:10.420)

there's something fundamentally different

Lex Fridman (1:04:12.780)

about a male and a woman, about a male and female,

Yaron Brook (1:04:16.140)

psychologically in their attitude towards one another.

Lex Fridman (1:04:18.820)

Yeah, but as a side note, I say that,

Yaron Brook (1:04:21.980)

I would say that, I don't know philosophically

Lex Fridman (1:04:25.500)

if her ideas about gender are interesting.

Yaron Brook (1:04:28.940)

I think her other philosophical ideas

Lex Fridman (1:04:30.740)

are much more interesting.

Lex Fridman (1:04:32.300)

But reading wise, like the stories it created,

Lex Fridman (1:04:36.180)

the tension it created, that was pretty powerful.

Yaron Brook (1:04:39.460)

I mean, that was, that's pretty powerful stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:04:43.300)

I'll speculate that the reason it's so powerful

Yaron Brook (1:04:45.660)

is because it reflects something in reality.

Lex Fridman (1:04:47.380)

Yeah, that's true.

Yaron Brook (1:04:48.660)

There's a thread that at least.

Lex Fridman (1:04:50.140)

And look, it's really important to say,

Yaron Brook (1:04:53.380)

I think she was the first feminist in a sense.

Lex Fridman (1:04:56.340)

I think in a sense, the feminists have

Yaron Brook (1:04:57.900)

promoted feminism into something that it shouldn't be.

Lex Fridman (1:05:00.780)

But in the sense of men and women are capable,

Yaron Brook (1:05:05.980)

she was the first one who really put that

Lex Fridman (1:05:08.580)

into a novel and showed it.

Yaron Brook (1:05:10.660)

To me, as a boy, when I was reading Alice Shrugged,

Lex Fridman (1:05:15.540)

I think I read that before Fountainhead,

Yaron Brook (1:05:18.180)

that was one of the early introductions,

Lex Fridman (1:05:20.460)

at least of an American woman,

Yaron Brook (1:05:21.820)

I had examples of my own life of Russian women,

Lex Fridman (1:05:24.180)

but of like a badass lady.

Yaron Brook (1:05:26.900)

Like I admire, like I love engineering.

Lex Fridman (1:05:30.180)

I had loved that she could, you know,

Yaron Brook (1:05:32.380)

here's a lady that's running the show.

Lex Fridman (1:05:34.340)

So that at least to me was an example

Yaron Brook (1:05:36.660)

of a really strong woman, but objectivism.

Lex Fridman (1:05:38.980)

Objectivism.

Yaron Brook (1:05:39.820)

So, and so she developed it for a novel.

Lex Fridman (1:05:42.020)

She spent the latter part of her life

Yaron Brook (1:05:43.980)

after the publication of Alice Shrugged

Lex Fridman (1:05:45.380)

really articulating her philosophy.

Lex Fridman (1:05:46.820)

So that's what she did.

Lex Fridman (1:05:47.740)

She applied it to politics, to life, to gender,

Yaron Brook (1:05:50.780)

to all these issues from 1957 until she died in 1982.

Lex Fridman (1:05:54.260)

So the objectivism was born

Yaron Brook (1:05:56.100)

out of the later parts of Alice Shrugged.

Lex Fridman (1:05:57.900)

Yes, definitely.

Yaron Brook (1:05:59.300)

It was there all the time,

Lex Fridman (1:06:00.460)

but it was fleshed out during the latter parts

Yaron Brook (1:06:02.940)

of Alice Shrugged and then articulated

Lex Fridman (1:06:04.340)

for the next 20 years.

Lex Fridman (1:06:05.180)

So what is objectivism?

Lex Fridman (1:06:06.660)

So objectivism, so there are five branches in philosophy.

Lex Fridman (1:06:09.900)

And so I'm gonna just go through the branches.

Lex Fridman (1:06:13.180)

She starts with, you start with metaphysics,

Yaron Brook (1:06:15.060)

the nature of reality.

Lex Fridman (1:06:16.780)

And objectivism argues that reality is what it is.

Yaron Brook (1:06:20.220)

It's kind of goes Hawkins back to Aristotle,

Lex Fridman (1:06:22.820)

law of identity, A is A.

Yaron Brook (1:06:24.900)

You can wish it to be B,

Lex Fridman (1:06:27.020)

but wishes do not make something real.

Yaron Brook (1:06:29.460)

Reality is what it is and it is the primary.

Lex Fridman (1:06:32.620)

And it's not manipulated, directed by consciousness.

Yaron Brook (1:06:37.420)

Consciousness is there to observe,

Lex Fridman (1:06:42.980)

to give us information about reality.

Yaron Brook (1:06:45.900)

That is the purpose of consciousness.

Lex Fridman (1:06:48.220)

That is the nature of it.

Lex Fridman (1:06:50.340)

So in metaphysics, existence exists.

Lex Fridman (1:06:54.580)

The law of identity, the law of causality,

Yaron Brook (1:06:57.180)

things act based on their nature,

Lex Fridman (1:07:01.100)

not randomly, not arbitrarily, but based on their nature.

Lex Fridman (1:07:05.420)

And then we have the tool to know reality.

Lex Fridman (1:07:08.420)

This is epistemology, the theory of knowledge.

Yaron Brook (1:07:11.420)

A tool to know reality is reason.

Lex Fridman (1:07:14.340)

It's our senses and our capacity

Yaron Brook (1:07:16.620)

to integrate the information we get from our senses

Lex Fridman (1:07:19.140)

and to integrate it into new knowledge

Lex Fridman (1:07:20.700)

and to conceptualize it.

Lex Fridman (1:07:22.580)

And that is uniquely human.

Yaron Brook (1:07:26.420)

We don't know the truth from revelation.

Lex Fridman (1:07:32.100)

We don't know truth from our emotions.

Yaron Brook (1:07:35.220)

Our emotions are interesting.

Lex Fridman (1:07:36.900)

Our emotions tell us something about ourselves,

Lex Fridman (1:07:39.540)

but our emotions are not tools of cognition.

Lex Fridman (1:07:42.380)

They don't tell us the truth about what's out there,

Yaron Brook (1:07:45.180)

about what's in reality.

Lex Fridman (1:07:47.660)

So reason is our means of knowledge

Lex Fridman (1:07:50.860)

and therefore reason is our means of survival.

Lex Fridman (1:07:54.340)

Only individuals reason,

Yaron Brook (1:07:56.180)

just in the same way that only individuals can eat.

Lex Fridman (1:07:59.140)

We don't have a collective stomach.

Yaron Brook (1:08:00.900)

Nobody can eat for me and therefore nobody can think for me.

Lex Fridman (1:08:05.700)

We don't have a collective mind.

Yaron Brook (1:08:07.260)

There's no collective consciousness.

Lex Fridman (1:08:09.420)

It's bizarre that people talk about

Yaron Brook (1:08:11.780)

these collectivized aspects of the mind.

Lex Fridman (1:08:14.980)

They don't talk about collective feet

Lex Fridman (1:08:16.700)

and collective stomachs and collective things.

Lex Fridman (1:08:18.780)

But so we all think for ourselves

Lex Fridman (1:08:21.780)

and it is our fundamental basic responsibility

Lex Fridman (1:08:25.340)

to live our lives, to live, to choose.

Yaron Brook (1:08:29.900)

Once we choose to live, to live our lives

Lex Fridman (1:08:32.740)

to the best of our ability.

Lex Fridman (1:08:35.140)

So in morality, she is an egoist.

Lex Fridman (1:08:38.060)

She believes that the purpose of morality

Yaron Brook (1:08:40.420)

is to provide you with a code of values and virtues

Lex Fridman (1:08:43.540)

to guide your life for the purpose of your own success,

Yaron Brook (1:08:47.780)

your own survival, your own thriving, your own happiness.

Lex Fridman (1:08:51.100)

Happiness is the moral purpose of your life.

Yaron Brook (1:08:54.300)

The purpose of morality is to guide you towards a happy life.

Lex Fridman (1:08:57.700)

Your own happiness.

Yaron Brook (1:08:58.740)

Your own happiness, absolutely.

Lex Fridman (1:09:00.540)

Your own happiness.

Lex Fridman (1:09:01.820)

So she rejects the idea

Lex Fridman (1:09:03.140)

that you should live other people.

Yaron Brook (1:09:04.860)

That you should live for the purpose

Lex Fridman (1:09:06.140)

of other people's happiness.

Yaron Brook (1:09:07.740)

Your purpose is not to make them happier,

Lex Fridman (1:09:09.340)

to make them anything.

Yaron Brook (1:09:10.220)

Your purpose is your own happiness.

Lex Fridman (1:09:12.020)

But she also rejects the idea

Yaron Brook (1:09:14.520)

that you could argue maybe the Nietzschean idea

Lex Fridman (1:09:18.040)

of you should use other people for your own purposes, right?

Lex Fridman (1:09:22.080)

So every person is an end in himself.

Lex Fridman (1:09:24.440)

Every person's moral responsibility is their own happiness.

Lex Fridman (1:09:28.160)

And you shouldn't use other people for your own,

Lex Fridman (1:09:30.120)

shouldn't exploit other people for your own happiness,

Lex Fridman (1:09:32.040)

and you shouldn't allow yourself

Lex Fridman (1:09:33.300)

to be exploited for other people.

Yaron Brook (1:09:34.960)

Every individual is responsible for themselves.

Lex Fridman (1:09:38.740)

And what is it that allows us to be happy?

Lex Fridman (1:09:40.800)

What is it that facilitates human flourishing,

Lex Fridman (1:09:44.680)

human success, human survival?

Lex Fridman (1:09:46.960)

Well, it's the use of our minds, right?

Lex Fridman (1:09:49.000)

It goes back to reason.

Lex Fridman (1:09:51.240)

And what does reason require in order to be successful,

Lex Fridman (1:09:56.140)

in order to work effectively?

Yaron Brook (1:10:00.120)

It requires freedom.

Lex Fridman (1:10:02.200)

So the enemy of reason, the enemy of reason is force.

Yaron Brook (1:10:07.000)

The enemy of reason is coercion.

Lex Fridman (1:10:09.120)

The enemy of reason is authority, right?

Lex Fridman (1:10:12.840)

The Catholic church doing what they did to Galileo, right?

Lex Fridman (1:10:16.800)

That restricts Galileo's thinking, right?

Yaron Brook (1:10:19.160)

When he's in house arrest,

Lex Fridman (1:10:20.400)

is he gonna come up with a new theory?

Lex Fridman (1:10:21.640)

Is he gonna discover new truths?

Lex Fridman (1:10:23.720)

No, the punishment is too, you know, it's too dangerous.

Lex Fridman (1:10:29.140)

So force, coercion are enemies of reason.

Lex Fridman (1:10:34.400)

And what reason needs is to be free,

Yaron Brook (1:10:39.060)

to think, to discover, to innovate,

Lex Fridman (1:10:42.680)

to break out of convention.

Lex Fridman (1:10:46.320)

So we need to create an environment

Lex Fridman (1:10:48.680)

in which individuals are free to reason, free to think.

Lex Fridman (1:10:52.400)

And to do that, we come up with a concept,

Lex Fridman (1:10:55.640)

historically we've come up with a concept

Yaron Brook (1:10:57.200)

of individual rights.

Lex Fridman (1:10:58.760)

Individual rights define the scope of,

Yaron Brook (1:11:01.520)

define the fact that we should be left alone,

Lex Fridman (1:11:05.540)

free to pursue our values, using our reason,

Lex Fridman (1:11:09.400)

free of what?

Lex Fridman (1:11:10.240)

Free of coercion, force, authority.

Lex Fridman (1:11:12.400)

And that the job of government

Lex Fridman (1:11:14.840)

is to make sure that we are free.

Yaron Brook (1:11:17.180)

The whole point of government,

Lex Fridman (1:11:18.400)

the whole point of when we come in a social context,

Yaron Brook (1:11:22.960)

the whole point of establish a government in that context

Lex Fridman (1:11:25.540)

is to secure that freedom.

Yaron Brook (1:11:30.960)

It's to make sure that I don't use coercion on you.

Lex Fridman (1:11:34.640)

The government is supposed to stop me,

Yaron Brook (1:11:36.040)

supposed to intervene before I can do that,

Lex Fridman (1:11:38.080)

or if I've already done it,

Yaron Brook (1:11:40.440)

to prevent me from doing it again.

Lex Fridman (1:11:43.880)

So the purpose of government is to protect our freedom

Yaron Brook (1:11:47.040)

to think and to act based on our thoughts.

Lex Fridman (1:11:49.940)

It's to leave individuals free to pursue their values,

Yaron Brook (1:11:53.380)

to pursue their happiness, to pursue their rational thought,

Lex Fridman (1:11:59.100)

and to be left alone to do it.

Lex Fridman (1:12:01.560)

And so she rejects socialism, which basically assumes

Lex Fridman (1:12:06.480)

some kind of collective goal,

Yaron Brook (1:12:07.800)

assumes the sacrifice of the individual to the group,

Lex Fridman (1:12:11.000)

assumes that your moral purpose in life

Yaron Brook (1:12:13.080)

is the well being of other people rather than your own.

Lex Fridman (1:12:17.000)

And she rejects all form of statism,

Yaron Brook (1:12:20.560)

all form of government that is overly,

Lex Fridman (1:12:26.640)

that is involved in any aspect

Yaron Brook (1:12:28.680)

other than to protect us from forced coercion authority.

Lex Fridman (1:12:33.600)

And she rejects anarchy, and we can talk about that.

Yaron Brook (1:12:36.600)

I think you had a question in the list of questions

Lex Fridman (1:12:39.480)

you sent me about anarchy.

Lex Fridman (1:12:41.040)

And I'm happy to discuss that.

Lex Fridman (1:12:41.880)

I just talked to Michael Malice about anarchy,

Lex Fridman (1:12:43.480)

so I don't know if you're familiar with him.

Lex Fridman (1:12:45.720)

Yes, I'm familiar with him.

Lex Fridman (1:12:46.760)

So yeah, so she would completely reject anarchy.

Lex Fridman (1:12:49.840)

Anarchy is completely inconsistent with her point of view,

Lex Fridman (1:12:52.440)

and we can talk about why if you want.

Lex Fridman (1:12:54.120)

So there is some perfect place where freedom is maximized,

Lex Fridman (1:12:57.200)

so systems of government and that.

Lex Fridman (1:12:58.920)

Absolutely.

Lex Fridman (1:12:59.760)

And she thought that the American system of government

Lex Fridman (1:13:01.560)

came close in its idea,

Yaron Brook (1:13:04.080)

obviously founded with original sin, with the sin of slavery,

Lex Fridman (1:13:08.460)

but in its conception, the Declaration of Independence

Yaron Brook (1:13:11.320)

is about as perfect a political document as one could write.

Lex Fridman (1:13:14.620)

I think the greatest political document in human history,

Lex Fridman (1:13:17.080)

but really articulated almost perfectly and beautifully.

Lex Fridman (1:13:21.920)

And that the American system of government

Yaron Brook (1:13:23.160)

with the checks as balances,

Lex Fridman (1:13:25.120)

which is with its emphasis on individual rights,

Yaron Brook (1:13:27.540)

with its emphasis on freedom,

Lex Fridman (1:13:29.440)

with its emphasis on leaving individual freedom

Yaron Brook (1:13:32.200)

to pursue their happiness,

Lex Fridman (1:13:33.360)

an explicit recognition of happiness as a goal,

Yaron Brook (1:13:36.600)

individual happiness, was the model.

Lex Fridman (1:13:39.200)

It wasn't perfect.

Yaron Brook (1:13:40.480)

There are a lot of problems to a large extent

Lex Fridman (1:13:42.280)

because the founders had mixed philosophical premises.

Lex Fridman (1:13:45.400)

So there were alien premises introduced

Lex Fridman (1:13:50.500)

into the founding of the country,

Yaron Brook (1:13:52.220)

slavery obviously being the biggest problem.

Lex Fridman (1:13:55.040)

But it was close.

Lex Fridman (1:13:56.840)

And we need to build on that

Lex Fridman (1:13:59.000)

to create an ideal political system

Yaron Brook (1:14:01.240)

that will, yes, maximize the freedom of individuals

Lex Fridman (1:14:06.200)

to do exactly this.

Lex Fridman (1:14:09.440)

And then of course she had,

Lex Fridman (1:14:10.640)

so that's kind of,

Yaron Brook (1:14:12.320)

that's the manifestation of this individualism

Lex Fridman (1:14:15.400)

in a political realm.

Lex Fridman (1:14:16.720)

And she had a theory of art.

Lex Fridman (1:14:18.000)

She had a theory of aesthetics,

Yaron Brook (1:14:19.520)

which is the fifth branch of,

Lex Fridman (1:14:21.560)

she have metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics.

Lex Fridman (1:14:25.040)

And the fifth branch is aesthetics.

Lex Fridman (1:14:26.840)

And she viewed art as an essential human need,

Yaron Brook (1:14:31.680)

a fuel for the human spirit.

Lex Fridman (1:14:34.120)

And that just like any human need,

Yaron Brook (1:14:36.200)

it had certain principles that it had to abide by.

Lex Fridman (1:14:40.160)

That is just like there's nutrition, right?

Lex Fridman (1:14:42.720)

So some food is good for you

Lex Fridman (1:14:43.960)

and some food is bad for you.

Yaron Brook (1:14:45.120)

Some food, some stuff is poison.

Lex Fridman (1:14:47.720)

She believed the same is true of art,

Yaron Brook (1:14:49.600)

that art had an identity,

Lex Fridman (1:14:51.600)

which is very controversial today, right?

Lex Fridman (1:14:53.840)

If you put a frame around it, it is art, right?

Lex Fridman (1:14:57.240)

If you put a urinal in a museum, it becomes art,

Yaron Brook (1:15:01.080)

which she thought was evil and ludicrous,

Lex Fridman (1:15:05.040)

and she rejected completely.

Yaron Brook (1:15:07.120)

That art had an identity

Lex Fridman (1:15:09.080)

and that it served a certain function

Yaron Brook (1:15:11.400)

that human beings needed it.

Lex Fridman (1:15:13.560)

And if it didn't have,

Yaron Brook (1:15:15.160)

not only did it have the identity,

Lex Fridman (1:15:17.160)

but that function was served well by some art

Lex Fridman (1:15:20.040)

and poorly by other art.

Lex Fridman (1:15:22.600)

And then there's a whole realm of stuff that's not art.

Yaron Brook (1:15:24.840)

Basically, all of what today is considered modern art,

Lex Fridman (1:15:28.680)

she would consider as not being art.

Yaron Brook (1:15:31.280)

Splashing paint on a canvas, not art.

Lex Fridman (1:15:35.400)

So she had very clear ideas.

Yaron Brook (1:15:40.080)

She articulated them not,

Lex Fridman (1:15:42.480)

so I would say not in conventional philosophical form.

Lex Fridman (1:15:46.280)

So she didn't write philosophical essays

Lex Fridman (1:15:49.160)

using the philosopher's language.

Yaron Brook (1:15:51.800)

It's why, partially why I think philosophers

Lex Fridman (1:15:54.400)

have never taken it seriously.

Yaron Brook (1:15:56.080)

They're actually accessible to us.

Lex Fridman (1:15:58.280)

We can actually read them.

Lex Fridman (1:16:00.360)

And she integrates the philosophy

Lex Fridman (1:16:02.920)

in what I think are amazing ways with psychology,

Yaron Brook (1:16:07.160)

with history, with economics, with politics,

Lex Fridman (1:16:09.480)

with what's going on in the world.

Lex Fridman (1:16:11.440)

And she has dozens and dozens and dozens of essays

Lex Fridman (1:16:14.640)

that she wrote.

Yaron Brook (1:16:16.240)

Many of them were aggregated into books.

Lex Fridman (1:16:19.760)

I particularly recommend books like

Yaron Brook (1:16:22.880)

The Virtue of Selfishness,

Lex Fridman (1:16:25.160)

Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal,

Lex Fridman (1:16:28.760)

and Philosophy Who Needs It.

Lex Fridman (1:16:32.120)

And I think it's a beautiful philosophy.

Yaron Brook (1:16:38.000)

I know you're big on love.

Lex Fridman (1:16:38.960)

I think it's the philosophy of love.

Yaron Brook (1:16:41.600)

We can talk about that.

Lex Fridman (1:16:42.600)

Essentially, it's about love.

Yaron Brook (1:16:44.120)

That's what the philosophy is all about

Lex Fridman (1:16:45.640)

in terms of it applying to self.

Lex Fridman (1:16:49.120)

And I think it's sad that so few people read it

Lex Fridman (1:16:54.800)

and so few intellectuals take it seriously

Lex Fridman (1:16:57.400)

and are willing to engage with it.

Lex Fridman (1:16:58.720)

Let me ask, that was incredible.

Lex Fridman (1:17:01.960)

But after that beautiful whirlwind overview,

Lex Fridman (1:17:04.280)

let me ask the most shallow of questions,

Yaron Brook (1:17:06.240)

which is the name Objectivism.

Lex Fridman (1:17:12.840)

How should people think about the name being rooted?

Lex Fridman (1:17:16.600)

Why not individualism?

Lex Fridman (1:17:18.120)

What are the options?

Yaron Brook (1:17:19.280)

If we had a branding meeting right now.

Lex Fridman (1:17:21.200)

Sure.

Lex Fridman (1:17:22.040)

So she actually had a branding meeting.

Lex Fridman (1:17:23.880)

So she did this.

Yaron Brook (1:17:24.920)

She went through the exercise.

Lex Fridman (1:17:25.960)

Objectivism, I do not think,

Yaron Brook (1:17:27.640)

I don't know all the details,

Lex Fridman (1:17:28.880)

but I don't think Objectivism was the first name

Yaron Brook (1:17:32.000)

she came with.

Lex Fridman (1:17:32.840)

The problem was that the other names were taken

Lex Fridman (1:17:35.280)

and they were not positive implications.

Lex Fridman (1:17:38.240)

So for example, rationalism could have been a good word

Yaron Brook (1:17:41.240)

because she's an advocate of rational thought or reasonism,

Lex Fridman (1:17:45.200)

but reasonism sounds weird, right?

Yaron Brook (1:17:47.320)

The ism because of too many Ss, I guess.

Lex Fridman (1:17:50.080)

Rationalism, but it was already a philosophy

Lex Fridman (1:17:52.920)

and it was a philosophy inconsistent with hers

Lex Fridman (1:17:55.440)

because it was what she considered a false view

Yaron Brook (1:17:59.040)

of reason, of rationality.

Lex Fridman (1:18:01.080)

Reality ism, you know, just doesn't work.

Lex Fridman (1:18:04.440)

So she came on Objectivism.

Lex Fridman (1:18:06.320)

And I think actually, it's a great word.

Yaron Brook (1:18:10.120)

It's a great name because it has two aspects to it.

Lex Fridman (1:18:15.400)

And this is a unique view

Yaron Brook (1:18:16.440)

of what objectivity actually means.

Lex Fridman (1:18:19.240)

In Objectivism, in objectivity is the idea

Yaron Brook (1:18:22.360)

of an independent reality.

Lex Fridman (1:18:24.760)

There is truth.

Yaron Brook (1:18:26.960)

There's actually something out there that we,

Lex Fridman (1:18:28.640)

and then there's the role of consciousness, right?

Yaron Brook (1:18:32.440)

There is the role of figuring out the truth.

Lex Fridman (1:18:36.160)

The truth doesn't just hit you.

Yaron Brook (1:18:40.040)

The truth is not in the thing.

Lex Fridman (1:18:42.880)

You have to discover it.

Yaron Brook (1:18:44.440)

It's that a consciousness applied to,

Lex Fridman (1:18:49.560)

that's what objectivity is, right?

Yaron Brook (1:18:51.880)

It's you discovering the truth in reality.

Lex Fridman (1:18:55.880)

It's your consciousness.

Yaron Brook (1:18:57.320)

It's your consciousness interacting.

Lex Fridman (1:19:00.160)

And thereby posing the individual in that sense.

Lex Fridman (1:19:02.600)

And only the individual could do it.

Lex Fridman (1:19:03.800)

Now, the problem with individualism

Yaron Brook (1:19:06.160)

is it would have made the philosophy too political.

Lex Fridman (1:19:09.960)

Right.

Lex Fridman (1:19:10.880)

And she always said, so she said,

Lex Fridman (1:19:13.760)

she said, I'm an advocate of capitalism

Yaron Brook (1:19:16.600)

because I'm really an advocate for rational egoism.

Lex Fridman (1:19:20.360)

But I'm a advocate for rational egoism

Yaron Brook (1:19:23.640)

really because I'm an advocate for reason.

Lex Fridman (1:19:26.040)

So she viewed the essential of her philosophy

Yaron Brook (1:19:28.960)

as being this reason and her particular view of reason.

Lex Fridman (1:19:34.800)

And she has a whole book.

Yaron Brook (1:19:35.640)

She has a book called

Lex Fridman (1:19:36.680)

Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology,

Yaron Brook (1:19:39.400)

which I encourage any scientist, mathematician,

Lex Fridman (1:19:42.120)

anybody interested in science to read

Yaron Brook (1:19:43.720)

because it is a tour de force on,

Lex Fridman (1:19:48.240)

in a sense, what it means to hold concepts

Lex Fridman (1:19:52.960)

and what it means to discover new discoveries

Lex Fridman (1:19:56.880)

and to use concepts and how we use concepts.

Lex Fridman (1:20:03.160)

And she has a theory of concepts that is completely new,

Lex Fridman (1:20:09.160)

that is completely revolutionary.

Lex Fridman (1:20:11.200)

And I think is essential for the philosophy of science.

Lex Fridman (1:20:14.320)

And therefore, ultimately,

Yaron Brook (1:20:16.000)

the more abstract we get with scientific discoveries,

Lex Fridman (1:20:18.800)

the easier it is to detach them from reality

Lex Fridman (1:20:22.160)

and to detach them from truth,

Lex Fridman (1:20:24.320)

the easier it is to be inside our heads

Yaron Brook (1:20:26.720)

instead of about what's real.

Lex Fridman (1:20:30.360)

And there are probably examples

Yaron Brook (1:20:31.400)

from modern physics that fit that.

Lex Fridman (1:20:33.840)

And I think what she teaches in the book

Yaron Brook (1:20:36.760)

is how to ground your concepts

Lex Fridman (1:20:38.680)

and how to bring them into grounding in reality.

Lex Fridman (1:20:41.520)

So Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology,

Lex Fridman (1:20:43.520)

note that it's only an introduction

Yaron Brook (1:20:45.400)

because one of the things she realized,

Lex Fridman (1:20:46.960)

one of the things that I think a lot of her critics

Yaron Brook (1:20:49.320)

don't give enough credit for,

Lex Fridman (1:20:51.080)

is that philosophy is, there's no end, right?

Yaron Brook (1:20:55.040)

It's always growing, there are always new discoveries.

Lex Fridman (1:20:57.360)

There's always, it's like science,

Yaron Brook (1:20:59.480)

there's always new things.

Lex Fridman (1:21:00.520)

And there's a ton of work to do in philosophy,

Lex Fridman (1:21:06.520)

and particularly in epistemology and the theory of knowledge.

Lex Fridman (1:21:08.640)

And she was actually,

Yaron Brook (1:21:10.000)

given your interest in mathematics,

Lex Fridman (1:21:11.320)

she actually saw a lot of parallels

Yaron Brook (1:21:14.600)

between math and concept formation.

Lex Fridman (1:21:18.520)

And she was actually, in the years before she died,

Yaron Brook (1:21:22.520)

she was taking private lessons in mathematics,

Lex Fridman (1:21:24.960)

in algebra and calculus,

Yaron Brook (1:21:27.800)

because she believed that there was real insight

Lex Fridman (1:21:30.280)

in understanding algebra in calculus

Yaron Brook (1:21:32.560)

to philosophy and to epistemology.

Lex Fridman (1:21:38.240)

And she also was very interested in neuroscience

Yaron Brook (1:21:41.760)

because she believed that that had a lot to tell us

Lex Fridman (1:21:44.760)

about epistemology, but also about music,

Yaron Brook (1:21:48.080)

therefore about aesthetics.

Lex Fridman (1:21:50.000)

So, I mean, she recognized the importance

Yaron Brook (1:21:54.800)

of all these different fields

Lex Fridman (1:21:56.200)

and the beauty of philosophy

Yaron Brook (1:21:58.000)

is it should be integrating all of them.

Lex Fridman (1:21:59.960)

And one of the sad things about the world in which we live

Yaron Brook (1:22:02.400)

is again, we view these things as silos.

Lex Fridman (1:22:04.720)

We don't view them as integrating.

Yaron Brook (1:22:06.200)

We don't have teams of people from different arena,

Lex Fridman (1:22:10.000)

you know, different fields, you know, discovering things.

Yaron Brook (1:22:13.120)

We become like ants, specialized.

Lex Fridman (1:22:16.840)

So she was definitely like that.

Lex Fridman (1:22:19.480)

And she was constantly curious,

Lex Fridman (1:22:21.840)

constantly interested in new discoveries and new ideas

Lex Fridman (1:22:25.680)

and how this could expand the scope of her philosophy

Lex Fridman (1:22:30.200)

and the application of her philosophy.

Yaron Brook (1:22:31.640)

There's like a million topics I could talk to you,

Lex Fridman (1:22:33.520)

but since you mentioned math, I'm almost curious.

Yaron Brook (1:22:35.160)

We only got three hours.

Lex Fridman (1:22:36.240)

Oh, okay.

Yaron Brook (1:22:37.080)

I'm almost curious.

Lex Fridman (1:22:40.720)

I don't know if you're familiar

Yaron Brook (1:22:41.640)

with Gayle's incompleteness theorem.

Lex Fridman (1:22:44.160)

I'm not, unfortunately.

Yaron Brook (1:22:45.080)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (1:22:45.920)

It was a powerful proof that any axiomatic systems,

Yaron Brook (1:22:51.120)

when you start from a bunch of axioms,

Lex Fridman (1:22:53.840)

that there will, in that system,

Yaron Brook (1:22:57.880)

provably must be an inconsistency.

Lex Fridman (1:23:00.920)

So that was this painful like stab

Yaron Brook (1:23:04.520)

in the idea of mathematics that, no,

Lex Fridman (1:23:07.440)

if we start with a set of assumptions,

Yaron Brook (1:23:09.960)

kind of like Ayn Rand started with objectivism,

Lex Fridman (1:23:12.960)

there will have to be at least one contradiction.

Yaron Brook (1:23:17.680)

See, I intuitively am gonna say that's false.

Lex Fridman (1:23:21.000)

Philosophically, but in math, it's just true.

Lex Fridman (1:23:25.320)

And that's...

Lex Fridman (1:23:26.160)

It's a question about how you define,

Yaron Brook (1:23:28.240)

again, definitions matter,

Lex Fridman (1:23:30.200)

and you have to be careful on how you define axioms.

Lex Fridman (1:23:32.800)

And you have to be careful about what you define

Lex Fridman (1:23:34.880)

as an inconsistency and what that means

Yaron Brook (1:23:36.880)

to say there's an inconsistency.

Lex Fridman (1:23:38.520)

And I don't know.

Yaron Brook (1:23:39.360)

I'm not gonna say more than that,

Lex Fridman (1:23:40.200)

because I don't know.

Lex Fridman (1:23:41.360)

But I'm suspicious that there is some...

Lex Fridman (1:23:46.360)

And this is the power of philosophy.

Lex Fridman (1:23:47.600)

And this is why I said before,

Lex Fridman (1:23:49.000)

concept formation is so important.

Lex Fridman (1:23:50.560)

And understanding concept formation is so important,

Lex Fridman (1:23:52.960)

for particularly, again, mathematics,

Yaron Brook (1:23:54.200)

because it's such an abstract field.

Lex Fridman (1:23:55.840)

And it's so easy to lose grounding in reality

Yaron Brook (1:24:00.280)

that if you properly define axioms,

Lex Fridman (1:24:03.680)

and you properly define what you're doing in math,

Yaron Brook (1:24:05.600)

whether that is true.

Lex Fridman (1:24:06.520)

And I don't think it is.

Yaron Brook (1:24:08.240)

This is a...

Lex Fridman (1:24:09.080)

Yeah, we'll leave it as an open mystery,

Yaron Brook (1:24:11.160)

because actually, this audience,

Lex Fridman (1:24:14.720)

there's literally over 100,000 people that have PhDs.

Lex Fridman (1:24:19.000)

So they know Gaydo's The Compliance Theorem.

Lex Fridman (1:24:21.360)

I have this intuition that there's something different

Yaron Brook (1:24:25.040)

to mathematics and philosophy

Lex Fridman (1:24:27.240)

that I'd love to hear from people.

Lex Fridman (1:24:28.880)

Like, what exactly is that difference?

Lex Fridman (1:24:31.480)

Because there's a precision to mathematics

Yaron Brook (1:24:36.000)

that philosophy doesn't have,

Lex Fridman (1:24:39.100)

but that precision gets you in trouble.

Yaron Brook (1:24:42.680)

It somehow, it actually takes you away from truth.

Lex Fridman (1:24:46.340)

Like, the very constraints of the language used

Yaron Brook (1:24:49.840)

in mathematics actually puts a constraint

Lex Fridman (1:24:53.400)

on the capture of truth that it's able to do.

Yaron Brook (1:24:56.160)

I'm gonna argue that that is a total product

Lex Fridman (1:25:00.520)

of the way you're conceptualizing

Yaron Brook (1:25:02.800)

the terms within mathematics.

Lex Fridman (1:25:05.720)

It's not in reality.

Yaron Brook (1:25:07.640)

Yeah, so you would argue it's in the fact

Lex Fridman (1:25:10.440)

that mathematics, in as much as it's detached from reality,

Yaron Brook (1:25:13.760)

that you can do these kinds of things.

Lex Fridman (1:25:15.200)

Yes, and that mathematicians have come up with concepts

Yaron Brook (1:25:20.200)

that they haven't grounded in reality properly

Lex Fridman (1:25:25.200)

that allows them to go off in places

Yaron Brook (1:25:28.200)

that don't lead to truth.

Lex Fridman (1:25:29.960)

That's right, that don't lead to truth.

Lex Fridman (1:25:31.480)

But I encourage you then, I encourage you

Lex Fridman (1:25:34.280)

to do one of these podcasts with one of our philosophers

Yaron Brook (1:25:38.800)

who know more about this stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:25:42.200)

And if you move to Austin,

Yaron Brook (1:25:43.680)

I've got somebody I'd recommend to you.

Lex Fridman (1:25:45.640)

And I'd love to hear from you.

Yaron Brook (1:25:47.960)

I've got somebody I'd recommend to you.

Lex Fridman (1:25:50.320)

Can you throw a name out, or no?

Yaron Brook (1:25:51.920)

Yeah, I mean, I would talk to Greg Saumieri.

Lex Fridman (1:25:54.600)

When you say our, can you say what you mean by our?

Yaron Brook (1:25:58.200)

I'd say people who are affiliated

Lex Fridman (1:26:00.600)

with the Ironman Institute are philosophers

Yaron Brook (1:26:02.720)

who are affiliated with objectivism.

Lex Fridman (1:26:05.200)

And Greg is one of our brightest, and he's in Austin.

Yaron Brook (1:26:08.720)

He's just got a position at UT,

Lex Fridman (1:26:11.560)

so at the University of Texas.

Lex Fridman (1:26:13.720)

And he would want, Ankar Gatte would be another one

Lex Fridman (1:26:16.200)

who works at the Institute and a chief philosophy officer

Yaron Brook (1:26:19.160)

at the Institute.

Lex Fridman (1:26:20.000)

That's awesome.

Lex Fridman (1:26:20.840)

And there are others who specialize in philosophy

Lex Fridman (1:26:24.520)

of science who I think Greg could probably give you a lead.

Lex Fridman (1:26:28.720)

But these are unbelievably smart people

Lex Fridman (1:26:31.320)

who know this part of the philosophy much better than I do.

Yaron Brook (1:26:34.480)

What, can you just briefly perhaps say

Lex Fridman (1:26:36.640)

what is the Ironman Institute?

Yaron Brook (1:26:38.560)

Yeah, so the Ironman Institute was an organization founded

Lex Fridman (1:26:42.640)

three years after Ironman died.

Yaron Brook (1:26:44.760)

She died in 1982.

Lex Fridman (1:26:47.480)

And it was founded in 1985 to promote her ideas,

Yaron Brook (1:26:51.160)

to make sure that her ideas and her novels

Lex Fridman (1:26:55.240)

continued in the culture and were relevant.

Yaron Brook (1:26:58.320)

Well, they're relevant, but the people saw the relevance.

Lex Fridman (1:27:01.880)

So our mission is to get people to read her books,

Yaron Brook (1:27:04.320)

to engage in the ideas.

Lex Fridman (1:27:06.320)

We teach, we have the Objectivist Academic Center

Yaron Brook (1:27:10.080)

where we teach the philosophy,

Lex Fridman (1:27:12.760)

primarily to graduate students and others

Yaron Brook (1:27:14.800)

who take their ideas seriously

Lex Fridman (1:27:15.880)

and who really want a deep understanding of the philosophy.

Lex Fridman (1:27:20.880)

And we apply the ideas.

Lex Fridman (1:27:22.680)

So we take the ideas and apply them to ethics,

Yaron Brook (1:27:25.080)

to philosophy, to issues of the day,

Lex Fridman (1:27:28.200)

which is more my strength and more what I tend to do.

Yaron Brook (1:27:31.160)

I've never formally studied philosophy.

Lex Fridman (1:27:34.760)

So all my education philosophy is informal.

Lex Fridman (1:27:39.640)

And I'm an engineer and a finance guy.

Lex Fridman (1:27:43.360)

That's my background.

Lex Fridman (1:27:44.600)

So I'm a numbers guy.

Lex Fridman (1:27:45.760)

Well, let me, I feel pretty undereducated.

Yaron Brook (1:27:52.280)

I have a pretty open mind,

Lex Fridman (1:27:54.840)

which sometimes can be painful on the internet

Yaron Brook (1:27:57.120)

because people mock me or,

Lex Fridman (1:28:02.760)

if I say something nuanced about communism,

Yaron Brook (1:28:06.840)

people immediately kind of put you in a bin

Lex Fridman (1:28:09.120)

or something like that.

Yaron Brook (1:28:10.760)

It hurts to be open minded to say,

Lex Fridman (1:28:12.660)

I don't know, to ask the question,

Lex Fridman (1:28:15.100)

why is communism or Marxism so problematic?

Lex Fridman (1:28:19.260)

Why is capitalism problematic and so on?

Lex Fridman (1:28:21.920)

But let me nevertheless go into that direction with you.

Lex Fridman (1:28:26.840)

Maybe let's talk about capitalism a little bit.

Lex Fridman (1:28:29.820)

How does Objectivism compare,

Lex Fridman (1:28:32.800)

relate to the idea of capitalism?

Yaron Brook (1:28:36.080)

Well, first we have to define what capitalism is.

Lex Fridman (1:28:37.880)

Cause again, people use capitalism in all kinds of ways.

Lex Fridman (1:28:40.940)

And I know you had Ray Dalio on your show once.

Lex Fridman (1:28:44.000)

I need to listen to that episode.

Lex Fridman (1:28:46.320)

But Ray has no clue what capitalism is.

Lex Fridman (1:28:48.680)

And that's his big problem.

Lex Fridman (1:28:52.520)

So when he says there are real problems today in capitalism,

Lex Fridman (1:28:56.860)

he's not talking about capitalism.

Yaron Brook (1:28:58.200)

He's talking about problems in the world today.

Lex Fridman (1:28:59.880)

And I agree with many of the problems,

Lex Fridman (1:29:01.440)

but they have nothing to do with capitalism.

Lex Fridman (1:29:03.400)

Capitalism is a social, political, economic system

Yaron Brook (1:29:08.680)

in which all property is privately owned

Lex Fridman (1:29:13.360)

and in which the only role of government

Yaron Brook (1:29:15.280)

is the protection of individual rights.

Lex Fridman (1:29:18.040)

I think it's the ideal system.

Yaron Brook (1:29:19.920)

I think it's the right system

Lex Fridman (1:29:21.040)

for the reasons we talked about earlier.

Yaron Brook (1:29:22.320)

It's a system that leaves you as an individual

Lex Fridman (1:29:24.440)

to pursue your values, your life, your happiness,

Yaron Brook (1:29:27.360)

free of coercion and force.

Lex Fridman (1:29:28.920)

And you get to decide what happens to you.

Lex Fridman (1:29:32.120)

And I get to decide if to help you or not, right?

Lex Fridman (1:29:34.400)

Let's say you fall flat on your face.

Lex Fridman (1:29:35.580)

People always say, well, what about the poor?

Lex Fridman (1:29:37.280)

Well, if you care about the poor, help them.

Yaron Brook (1:29:39.840)

Right.

Lex Fridman (1:29:41.040)

Just don't, you know, what do you need a government for?

Yaron Brook (1:29:43.760)

You know, I always ask audiences, okay,

Lex Fridman (1:29:46.920)

if there's a poor kid who can't afford to go to school

Lex Fridman (1:29:49.760)

and all the schools are private

Lex Fridman (1:29:50.780)

because capitalism is being instituted

Lex Fridman (1:29:54.360)

and he can't go to school,

Lex Fridman (1:29:55.200)

would you be willing to participate in a fund

Lex Fridman (1:29:57.160)

that pays for his education?

Lex Fridman (1:29:58.920)

Every hand in the room goes up.

Lex Fridman (1:30:00.440)

So what do you need government for?

Lex Fridman (1:30:02.460)

Just let's get all the money together and pay for schooling.

Lex Fridman (1:30:05.920)

So the point is that what capitalism does

Lex Fridman (1:30:08.340)

is leave individuals free to make their own decisions.

Lex Fridman (1:30:11.160)

And as long as they're not violating other people's rights,

Lex Fridman (1:30:14.120)

in other words, as long as they're not using coercion force

Yaron Brook (1:30:17.320)

on other people, then leave them alone.

Lex Fridman (1:30:20.240)

And people are going to make mistakes

Lex Fridman (1:30:21.880)

and people are gonna screw up their lives

Lex Fridman (1:30:23.100)

and people are gonna commit suicide.

Yaron Brook (1:30:24.440)

People are gonna do terrible things to themselves.

Lex Fridman (1:30:27.320)

That is fundamentally their problem.

Lex Fridman (1:30:29.080)

And if you want to help,

Lex Fridman (1:30:30.880)

you under capitalism are free to help.

Yaron Brook (1:30:33.780)

It's just the only thing that doesn't happen

Lex Fridman (1:30:35.960)

under capitalism is you don't get to impose your will

Yaron Brook (1:30:38.920)

on other people.

Lex Fridman (1:30:40.480)

Now, how's that a bad thing?

Lex Fridman (1:30:41.760)

So the question then is how does the implementation

Lex Fridman (1:30:47.320)

of capitalism deviate from its ideal in practice?

Yaron Brook (1:30:54.840)

I mean, this is what is the question with a lot of systems

Lex Fridman (1:30:57.440)

is how does it start to then fail?

Lex Fridman (1:31:00.820)

So one thing maybe you can correct me or inform me,

Lex Fridman (1:31:06.200)

it seems like information is very important.

Yaron Brook (1:31:10.480)

Like being able to make decisions, to be free,

Lex Fridman (1:31:15.960)

you have to have access, full access

Yaron Brook (1:31:19.120)

of all the information you need to make rational decisions.

Lex Fridman (1:31:23.600)

No, that can't be.

Yaron Brook (1:31:25.720)

Because it can be right, because none of us has full access

Lex Fridman (1:31:28.720)

to all the information we need.

Lex Fridman (1:31:31.200)

I mean, what does that even mean?

Lex Fridman (1:31:32.320)

And how big, how much of the scope do you wanna do?

Yaron Brook (1:31:35.640)

Let's just start there.

Lex Fridman (1:31:36.480)

Yeah, we don't.

Lex Fridman (1:31:37.320)

So you need to have access to information.

Lex Fridman (1:31:39.780)

So one of the big criticisms of capitalism

Yaron Brook (1:31:41.880)

is this asymmetrical information.

Lex Fridman (1:31:44.220)

The drug maker has more information about the drug

Yaron Brook (1:31:46.760)

than the drug buyer, pharmaceutical drugs.

Lex Fridman (1:31:50.780)

True, it's a problem.

Yaron Brook (1:31:53.720)

Well, I wonder if one can think about,

Lex Fridman (1:31:55.720)

an entrepreneur can think about how to solve that problem.

Yaron Brook (1:31:58.040)

See, I view any one of these challenges to capitalism

Lex Fridman (1:32:01.160)

as an opportunity for entrepreneur to make money.

Lex Fridman (1:32:03.560)

And they have the freedom to do it.

Lex Fridman (1:32:04.840)

Yeah, so imagine an entrepreneur steps in and says,

Yaron Brook (1:32:07.340)

I will test all the drugs that drug companies make,

Lex Fridman (1:32:11.440)

and I will provide you for a fee with the answer.

Lex Fridman (1:32:15.880)

And how do I know he's not gonna be corrupted?

Lex Fridman (1:32:18.460)

Well, there'll be other ones and they'll compete.

Lex Fridman (1:32:21.680)

And who am I to tell which one of these is the right one?

Lex Fridman (1:32:25.080)

Well, it won't be you really getting

Yaron Brook (1:32:26.760)

the information from them.

Lex Fridman (1:32:28.800)

It'll be your doctor.

Yaron Brook (1:32:30.520)

The doctors need that information.

Lex Fridman (1:32:33.140)

So the doctor who has some expertise in medicine

Yaron Brook (1:32:35.960)

will be evaluating which rating agency to use

Lex Fridman (1:32:39.240)

to evaluate the drugs and which ones then

Yaron Brook (1:32:41.460)

to recommend to you.

Lex Fridman (1:32:43.040)

So do we need an FDA?

Yaron Brook (1:32:45.440)

Do we need a government that siphons all the information

Lex Fridman (1:32:48.320)

to one source that does all the research, all the thing,

Lex Fridman (1:32:51.040)

and has a clear incentive, by the way,

Lex Fridman (1:32:52.960)

not to approve drugs.

Yaron Brook (1:32:55.020)

Because they don't make any money from it.

Lex Fridman (1:32:57.480)

Nobody pays them for the information.

Yaron Brook (1:32:59.200)

Nobody pays them to be accurate.

Lex Fridman (1:33:00.680)

They're bureaucrats at the end of the day.

Lex Fridman (1:33:02.400)

And what is a bureaucrat?

Lex Fridman (1:33:04.080)

What's the main focus of a bureaucrat?

Yaron Brook (1:33:06.640)

Even if they go in with the best of intentions,

Lex Fridman (1:33:08.960)

which I'm sure all the scientists at the FDA

Lex Fridman (1:33:10.800)

have the best of intentions, what's their incentive?

Lex Fridman (1:33:13.320)

The system builds in this incentive not to screw up.

Yaron Brook (1:33:17.020)

Because one drug gets value and does damage,

Lex Fridman (1:33:21.960)

you lose your job.

Lex Fridman (1:33:23.760)

But if a hundred drugs that could cure cancer tomorrow

Lex Fridman (1:33:26.800)

don't ever get to market,

Yaron Brook (1:33:29.060)

nobody's gonna come after you.

Lex Fridman (1:33:31.520)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:33:32.360)

And you're saying that's not a mechanism,

Lex Fridman (1:33:35.760)

and that's conducive to like...

Yaron Brook (1:33:38.200)

You see, the marketplace is competition.

Lex Fridman (1:33:39.400)

So if you won't approve the drug,

Yaron Brook (1:33:41.160)

if I still think it's possible, I will.

Lex Fridman (1:33:43.720)

And it's not zero one.

Yaron Brook (1:33:45.200)

You see the other thing that happens with the FDA

Lex Fridman (1:33:47.160)

is it's zero one.

Yaron Brook (1:33:48.000)

It's either approved or it's not approved.

Lex Fridman (1:33:50.320)

Oh, it's approved for this, but it's not approved for that.

Lex Fridman (1:33:52.540)

But what if a drug came out and you said, right?

Lex Fridman (1:33:56.960)

You told the doctors,

Yaron Brook (1:33:59.160)

this drug in 10% of the cases can cause patients

Lex Fridman (1:34:05.080)

an increased risk of heart disease.

Yaron Brook (1:34:07.480)

You and your patients should,

Lex Fridman (1:34:09.640)

we're not forcing you, but you should, right?

Yaron Brook (1:34:12.600)

It's your medical responsibility to evaluate that

Lex Fridman (1:34:15.440)

and decide if the drug is appropriate or not.

Lex Fridman (1:34:17.420)

Why don't I get to make that choice

Lex Fridman (1:34:19.040)

if I wanna take on the 10% risk of heart disease?

Lex Fridman (1:34:21.720)

So there was a drug, and right now I forget the name,

Lex Fridman (1:34:24.480)

but it was a drug against pain,

Yaron Brook (1:34:26.320)

particularly for arthritic pain, and it worked.

Lex Fridman (1:34:29.280)

It reduced pain dramatically, right?

Lex Fridman (1:34:31.560)

And some people tried everything,

Lex Fridman (1:34:33.220)

and this was the only drug that reduced their pain.

Lex Fridman (1:34:35.760)

And it turned out that in 10% of the cases,

Lex Fridman (1:34:39.320)

it caused the elevated risk.

Yaron Brook (1:34:42.160)

It didn't kill people necessarily,

Lex Fridman (1:34:43.880)

but it caused elevated risk of heart disease.

Lex Fridman (1:34:47.000)

Okay, what did the FDA do?

Lex Fridman (1:34:49.040)

It banned the drug.

Yaron Brook (1:34:50.880)

Some people, I know a lot of people who said

Lex Fridman (1:34:53.560)

living with pain is much worse than taking on a 10% risk.

Lex Fridman (1:34:58.400)

Again, probabilities, right?

Lex Fridman (1:34:59.520)

People don't think in those numbers.

Yaron Brook (1:35:01.320)

10% risk of maybe getting heart disease.

Lex Fridman (1:35:03.160)

Why don't I get to make that choice?

Lex Fridman (1:35:04.620)

Why does some bureaucrat make that choice for me?

Lex Fridman (1:35:07.480)

That's capitalism.

Yaron Brook (1:35:08.840)

Capitalism gives you the choice,

Lex Fridman (1:35:11.100)

not you as an ignorant person.

Yaron Brook (1:35:13.080)

You with your doctor and a whole marketplace,

Lex Fridman (1:35:17.040)

which is not created to provide you with information.

Lex Fridman (1:35:20.100)

And think about a world where we didn't have

Lex Fridman (1:35:23.680)

all these regulations and controls.

Yaron Brook (1:35:28.680)

The amount of opportunities that would exist

Lex Fridman (1:35:31.960)

to create, to provide information,

Yaron Brook (1:35:35.000)

to educate you about that information,

Lex Fridman (1:35:36.920)

would mushroom dramatically.

Yaron Brook (1:35:39.520)

Bloomberg, you know, the billionaire,

Lex Fridman (1:35:40.980)

Bloomberg, you know, how did he make his money?

Yaron Brook (1:35:42.960)

He made his money by providing financial information,

Lex Fridman (1:35:45.560)

by creating this service called Bloomberg

Yaron Brook (1:35:47.480)

that you buy a terminal and you get

Lex Fridman (1:35:49.560)

all this amazing information.

Lex Fridman (1:35:50.840)

And he was before computers, desktop computers.

Lex Fridman (1:35:53.720)

I mean, he was very early on

Yaron Brook (1:35:55.240)

in that whole computing revolution,

Lex Fridman (1:35:57.360)

but his focus was providing financial information

Yaron Brook (1:35:59.800)

to professionals.

Lex Fridman (1:36:02.040)

And you hire a professional to manage your money.

Yaron Brook (1:36:04.380)

That's the way it's supposed to be.

Lex Fridman (1:36:05.880)

You know, you have to have,

Lex Fridman (1:36:08.400)

so you as an individual cannot have

Lex Fridman (1:36:11.160)

all the knowledge you need in medicine,

Yaron Brook (1:36:12.800)

all the knowledge you need in finance,

Lex Fridman (1:36:14.080)

all the knowledge you need in every aspect of your life.

Yaron Brook (1:36:16.240)

You can't do that.

Lex Fridman (1:36:17.240)

You have to delegate and you hire a doctor.

Yaron Brook (1:36:21.120)

Now you should be able to figure out

Lex Fridman (1:36:23.040)

if the doctor's good or not.

Yaron Brook (1:36:24.180)

You should be able to ask doctors for reasons

Lex Fridman (1:36:26.800)

for why you have to make the decision at the end.

Lex Fridman (1:36:28.920)

But that's why you have a doctor.

Lex Fridman (1:36:29.760)

That's why you have a financial advisor.

Yaron Brook (1:36:31.040)

That's why you have different people

Lex Fridman (1:36:32.800)

who you're delegating certain aspects of your life to,

Lex Fridman (1:36:36.400)

but you want choices.

Lex Fridman (1:36:38.400)

And what the marketplace provides is those choices.

Lex Fridman (1:36:41.520)

So let me then,

Lex Fridman (1:36:44.120)

this is what I do.

Yaron Brook (1:36:45.520)

I'll make a dumb case for things

Lex Fridman (1:36:47.640)

and then you shut me down

Lex Fridman (1:36:48.920)

and then the internet says how dumb Lex is.

Lex Fridman (1:36:51.120)

This is good.

Yaron Brook (1:36:51.940)

This is how it works.

Lex Fridman (1:36:52.780)

I'm good at shutting down and they're foolish

Yaron Brook (1:36:57.400)

in blaming you for the question

Lex Fridman (1:36:59.820)

because you're here to ask me questions.

Yaron Brook (1:37:02.840)

Let me make a case for socialism.

Lex Fridman (1:37:06.640)

So.

Yaron Brook (1:37:09.640)

It's gonna be bad because that's the only case

Lex Fridman (1:37:11.640)

there is for socialism.

Yaron Brook (1:37:12.720)

That's reality.

Lex Fridman (1:37:13.640)

So perhaps it's not a case for socialism,

Lex Fridman (1:37:16.880)

but just a certain notion that inequality,

Lex Fridman (1:37:22.760)

the wealth inequality,

Yaron Brook (1:37:24.320)

that the bigger the gap between the poorest

Lex Fridman (1:37:28.120)

or the average and the richest,

Yaron Brook (1:37:30.400)

the more painful it is to be average.

Lex Fridman (1:37:34.960)

Psychologically speaking,

Yaron Brook (1:37:36.960)

if you know that there is the CEOs of companies

Lex Fridman (1:37:41.520)

make 300, 1000, 1 million times more than you do,

Yaron Brook (1:37:45.940)

that makes life for a large part of the population

Lex Fridman (1:37:50.480)

less fulfilling.

Yaron Brook (1:37:51.560)

That there's a relative notion to the experience of our life

Lex Fridman (1:37:55.200)

that even though everybody's life has gotten better

Yaron Brook (1:37:58.160)

over the past decades and centuries,

Lex Fridman (1:38:02.000)

it may feel actually worse

Yaron Brook (1:38:05.240)

because you know that life could be so,

Lex Fridman (1:38:08.160)

so much better in the life of the CEOs

Yaron Brook (1:38:11.920)

that yeah, that gap is fundamentally a thing

Lex Fridman (1:38:17.200)

that is undesirable in a society.

Yaron Brook (1:38:21.200)

Everything about that is wrong.

Lex Fridman (1:38:22.700)

Okay.

Yaron Brook (1:38:25.040)

I like to start off like that.

Lex Fridman (1:38:27.040)

Which, so I mean,

Lex Fridman (1:38:30.480)

so my wife likes to remind me

Lex Fridman (1:38:33.080)

that as well as we've done in life,

Yaron Brook (1:38:36.080)

we are actually from a wealth perspective

Lex Fridman (1:38:38.200)

closer to a homeless person than we are to Bill Gates.

Lex Fridman (1:38:41.080)

Just a math, right?

Lex Fridman (1:38:42.080)

Just a math, right?

Yaron Brook (1:38:44.840)

It's a good ego check.

Lex Fridman (1:38:46.120)

When I look at Bill Gates,

Yaron Brook (1:38:47.800)

I get a smile on my face.

Lex Fridman (1:38:49.240)

I love Bill Gates.

Yaron Brook (1:38:50.080)

I've never met Bill Gates.

Lex Fridman (1:38:51.360)

I love Bill Gates.

Yaron Brook (1:38:53.360)

I love what he stands for.

Lex Fridman (1:38:54.760)

I love that he has $100 billion.

Yaron Brook (1:38:57.560)

I love that he has built a trampoline room in his house

Lex Fridman (1:39:01.120)

where his kids can jump up and down in a trampoline

Yaron Brook (1:39:03.520)

in a safe environment.

Lex Fridman (1:39:04.880)

Can we take another billionaire?

Yaron Brook (1:39:06.600)

Because I'm not sure if you're paying attention,

Lex Fridman (1:39:09.380)

but there's all kinds of conspiracy theories

Yaron Brook (1:39:12.340)

about Bill Gates.

Lex Fridman (1:39:13.800)

Well, but that's part of the story, right?

Yaron Brook (1:39:15.540)

They have to pull him down

Lex Fridman (1:39:16.740)

because people resent him for other reasons.

Yaron Brook (1:39:19.080)

That's strange.

Lex Fridman (1:39:19.920)

But yes, we can take Jeff Bezos.

Yaron Brook (1:39:21.500)

We can say my favorite, historically,

Lex Fridman (1:39:24.880)

just because I like a lot about him, was Steve Jobs.

Yaron Brook (1:39:30.600)

I mean, I love these people.

Lex Fridman (1:39:32.720)

And I can't, there are very few billionaires I don't love.

Yaron Brook (1:39:37.560)

In the sense that I appreciate everything they've done

Lex Fridman (1:39:40.160)

for me, for people I cherish and love,

Yaron Brook (1:39:46.020)

they've made the world a better place.

Lex Fridman (1:39:48.360)

Why?

Yaron Brook (1:39:49.800)

Would it ever cross my mind that they make me look bad

Lex Fridman (1:39:54.900)

because they're richer than me

Lex Fridman (1:39:55.920)

or that I don't have what they have?

Lex Fridman (1:39:58.360)

They've made me so much richer

Yaron Brook (1:40:03.680)

that they've made inventions that used to cost millions

Lex Fridman (1:40:08.040)

and millions and millions of dollars accessible to me.

Yaron Brook (1:40:12.120)

I mean, this is a supercomputer in my pocket.

Lex Fridman (1:40:16.920)

Now, but think about it, right?

Lex Fridman (1:40:18.540)

What is the difference between,

Lex Fridman (1:40:20.080)

and I'll get to the essence of your point in a minute,

Lex Fridman (1:40:22.560)

but think about what the difference is

Lex Fridman (1:40:24.680)

between me and Bill Gates in terms of,

Yaron Brook (1:40:27.600)

because it's true that in terms of wealth,

Lex Fridman (1:40:29.360)

I'm closer to the homeless person,

Lex Fridman (1:40:30.840)

but in terms of my day to day life,

Lex Fridman (1:40:32.920)

I'm closer to Bill Gates.

Yaron Brook (1:40:34.880)

You know, we both live in a nice house.

Lex Fridman (1:40:36.880)

His is nicer, but we live in a nice house.

Yaron Brook (1:40:39.240)

His is bigger, but mine is plenty big.

Lex Fridman (1:40:42.160)

We both drive cars.

Yaron Brook (1:40:43.640)

His is nicer, but we both drive cars.

Lex Fridman (1:40:45.840)

We both drive cars, cars, 100 years ago, what cars?

Yaron Brook (1:40:50.160)

We both can fly, get on a plane in Los Angeles

Lex Fridman (1:40:54.280)

and fly to New York and get there in about the same time.

Yaron Brook (1:40:57.060)

We're both flying private.

Lex Fridman (1:40:59.400)

The only difference is my private plane

Yaron Brook (1:41:01.240)

I share with 300 other people and his,

Lex Fridman (1:41:04.720)

but it's accessible.

Yaron Brook (1:41:07.120)

It's relatively comfortable.

Lex Fridman (1:41:08.680)

Again, in the perspective of 50 years ago, 100 years ago,

Yaron Brook (1:41:11.360)

it's unimaginable that I could fly like that

Lex Fridman (1:41:14.040)

for such a low fee.

Yaron Brook (1:41:15.480)

We live very similar lives in that sense.

Lex Fridman (1:41:18.840)

So I don't resent him.

Lex Fridman (1:41:20.160)

So first of all, I'm an exception to the supposed rule

Lex Fridman (1:41:23.800)

that people resent.

Yaron Brook (1:41:24.840)

I don't think anybody, I don't think people do resent

Lex Fridman (1:41:26.800)

unless they're taught to resent.

Lex Fridman (1:41:28.320)

And this is the key.

Lex Fridman (1:41:29.680)

People are taught and I've seen this in America.

Lex Fridman (1:41:33.120)

And this is to me the most horrible shocking thing

Lex Fridman (1:41:37.520)

that has happened in America over the last 40 years.

Yaron Brook (1:41:40.400)

I came to America, so I'm an immigrant.

Lex Fridman (1:41:42.320)

I came to America from Israel in 1987.

Lex Fridman (1:41:45.720)

And I came here because I thought this was the place

Lex Fridman (1:41:48.400)

where I could, where I'd had the most opportunities

Lex Fridman (1:41:50.840)

and it is, most opportunities.

Lex Fridman (1:41:52.880)

And I came here because I believed

Yaron Brook (1:41:54.280)

there was a certain American spirit of individualism

Lex Fridman (1:41:58.820)

and exactly the opposite of what you just described.

Yaron Brook (1:42:01.120)

A sense of I live my life, it's my happiness.

Lex Fridman (1:42:06.320)

I'm not looking at my neighbor.

Yaron Brook (1:42:07.640)

I'm not competing with the Joneses.

Lex Fridman (1:42:09.560)

The American dream is my dream.

Yaron Brook (1:42:11.680)

My two kids, my dog, my station wagon.

Lex Fridman (1:42:14.540)

Not because other people have it, it's because I want it.

Yaron Brook (1:42:17.480)

In that sense, and when I came here in the 80s,

Lex Fridman (1:42:21.740)

you had that.

Yaron Brook (1:42:22.800)

You had, you still had it.

Lex Fridman (1:42:25.220)

It was less than I think it had been in the past.

Lex Fridman (1:42:28.080)

But you had that spirit.

Lex Fridman (1:42:29.440)

There was no envy.

Yaron Brook (1:42:30.320)

There was no resentment.

Lex Fridman (1:42:31.240)

There were rich people and they were celebrated.

Yaron Brook (1:42:34.160)

There was still this admiration for entrepreneurs

Lex Fridman (1:42:37.520)

and admiration for success.

Yaron Brook (1:42:39.660)

Not by everybody, certainly not by the intellectuals,

Lex Fridman (1:42:42.660)

but by the average person.

Yaron Brook (1:42:45.080)

I have witnessed particularly over the last 10 years

Lex Fridman (1:42:47.920)

a complete transformation

Lex Fridman (1:42:50.100)

and America's become like Europe.

Lex Fridman (1:42:52.460)

I know, are you Russian?

Yaron Brook (1:42:54.220)

Yeah. Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:42:55.060)

It's become Russian in a sense where,

Yaron Brook (1:42:59.440)

you know, they've always done these studies.

Lex Fridman (1:43:02.260)

You know, I'll give you a hundred dollars

Lex Fridman (1:43:05.380)

and your neighbor a hundred dollars

Lex Fridman (1:43:06.820)

or I'll give you, what was it, I'll give you a thousand

Yaron Brook (1:43:11.480)

dollars but your neighbor gets $10,000

Lex Fridman (1:43:14.000)

and a Russian will always choose the hundred dollars, right?

Yaron Brook (1:43:16.540)

He wants equality above being better himself.

Lex Fridman (1:43:20.700)

Americans would always choose that gap.

Lex Fridman (1:43:24.500)

And that's changing.

Lex Fridman (1:43:25.340)

My sense is not anymore.

Lex Fridman (1:43:26.760)

And it's changing because we've been told it should change.

Lex Fridman (1:43:32.140)

And morally you're saying that doesn't make any sense.

Lex Fridman (1:43:34.960)

So there's no sense in which, let me put another spin.

Lex Fridman (1:43:38.860)

I forget the book, but the sense of,

Yaron Brook (1:43:41.740)

if you're working for Steve Jobs and your hands,

Lex Fridman (1:43:45.460)

you're the engineer behind the iPhone

Lex Fridman (1:43:48.220)

and there's a sense in which his salary

Lex Fridman (1:43:51.300)

is stealing from your efforts.

Lex Fridman (1:43:53.940)

Because I forget the book, right?

Lex Fridman (1:43:57.300)

That's literally the terminology is used, right?

Yaron Brook (1:43:59.920)

This is straight out of Karl Marx.

Lex Fridman (1:44:02.380)

Sure, it's also straight out of Karl Marx.

Lex Fridman (1:44:05.220)

But there's no sense morally speaking

Lex Fridman (1:44:08.140)

that you see that as the theft.

Yaron Brook (1:44:09.660)

The other way around.

Lex Fridman (1:44:11.020)

That engineer is stealing off of,

Lex Fridman (1:44:12.620)

and it's not stealing, right?

Lex Fridman (1:44:14.220)

It's not.

Lex Fridman (1:44:15.700)

But the engineer is getting more from Steve Jobs

Lex Fridman (1:44:18.380)

by a lot, not by a little bit,

Yaron Brook (1:44:20.420)

than Steve Jobs is getting from the engineer.

Lex Fridman (1:44:23.300)

The engineer, even if they're a great engineer,

Yaron Brook (1:44:26.100)

there are probably other great engineers

Lex Fridman (1:44:27.360)

that could replace him.

Lex Fridman (1:44:29.420)

Would he even have a job without Steve Jobs?

Lex Fridman (1:44:32.120)

Would the industry exist without Steve Jobs?

Lex Fridman (1:44:34.940)

Without the giants that carry these things forward?

Lex Fridman (1:44:38.500)

Let me ask you this.

Yaron Brook (1:44:39.340)

I mean, you're a scientist.

Lex Fridman (1:44:41.100)

Do you resent Einstein for being smarter than you?

Lex Fridman (1:44:45.840)

I mean, and VM, are you angry with him?

Lex Fridman (1:44:48.260)

Would you feel negative towards him

Lex Fridman (1:44:51.440)

if he was in the room right now?

Lex Fridman (1:44:52.620)

Or would you, if he came into the room,

Yaron Brook (1:44:53.980)

you'd say, oh my God.

Lex Fridman (1:44:55.300)

I mean, you interview people who I think some of them

Yaron Brook (1:44:58.220)

are probably smarter than you and me.

Lex Fridman (1:45:00.460)

And your attitude towards them is one of reverence.

Yaron Brook (1:45:03.180)

Well, one interesting little side question there

Lex Fridman (1:45:06.960)

is what is the natural state of being for us humans?

Yaron Brook (1:45:10.800)

You kind of implied education has polluted our minds,

Lex Fridman (1:45:15.620)

but like if I, because you're referring to jealousy,

Yaron Brook (1:45:19.580)

the Einstein question, the Steve Jobs question,

Lex Fridman (1:45:22.580)

I wonder which way, if we're left without education,

Yaron Brook (1:45:25.980)

we would naturally go.

Lex Fridman (1:45:27.460)

So there is no such thing as the natural state

Lex Fridman (1:45:30.060)

in that sense, right?

Lex Fridman (1:45:31.900)

This is the myth of who so is a noble savage

Lex Fridman (1:45:37.860)

and of John Walls is behind the veil of ignorance.

Lex Fridman (1:45:42.460)

Well, if you're ignorant, you're ignorant.

Yaron Brook (1:45:45.740)

You can't make any decisions.

Lex Fridman (1:45:47.180)

You're just ignorant.

Yaron Brook (1:45:50.640)

There is no human nature that determines

Lex Fridman (1:45:54.500)

how you will relate to other people.

Yaron Brook (1:45:56.500)

You will relate to other people based on the conclusions

Lex Fridman (1:45:58.940)

you come to about how to relate to other people.

Yaron Brook (1:46:01.900)

You can relate to other people as values

Lex Fridman (1:46:06.860)

to use your terminology from the perspective of love.

Yaron Brook (1:46:10.260)

This other human being is a value to me

Lex Fridman (1:46:13.560)

and I want to trade with them and trade,

Yaron Brook (1:46:16.380)

the beauty of trade is it's win, win.

Lex Fridman (1:46:19.020)

I want to benefit and they are going to benefit.

Yaron Brook (1:46:21.420)

I don't want to screw them.

Lex Fridman (1:46:22.580)

I don't want them to screw me.

Yaron Brook (1:46:24.060)

I want us to be win, win.

Lex Fridman (1:46:25.540)

Or you can deal with other people as threats, as enemies.

Yaron Brook (1:46:31.500)

Much of human history, we have done that.

Lex Fridman (1:46:34.540)

And therefore, as a zero sum world,

Lex Fridman (1:46:37.300)

what they have, I want, I will take it.

Lex Fridman (1:46:41.860)

I will use force to take it.

Yaron Brook (1:46:43.060)

I will use political force to take it.

Lex Fridman (1:46:44.580)

I will use the force of my arm to take it.

Yaron Brook (1:46:46.180)

I will just take it.

Lex Fridman (1:46:47.620)

So those are two options, right?

Lex Fridman (1:46:51.020)

And they will determine whether we live

Lex Fridman (1:46:52.640)

in civilization or not.

Lex Fridman (1:46:54.580)

And they are determined by conclusions people come to

Lex Fridman (1:46:57.420)

about the world and the nature of reality

Lex Fridman (1:46:59.260)

and the nature of morality and the nature of politics

Lex Fridman (1:47:01.420)

and all these things.

Yaron Brook (1:47:02.780)

They're determined by philosophy.

Lex Fridman (1:47:05.060)

And this is why philosophy is so important

Yaron Brook (1:47:07.620)

because the philosophy shapes,

Lex Fridman (1:47:10.700)

evolution doesn't do this.

Yaron Brook (1:47:12.340)

It doesn't just happen.

Lex Fridman (1:47:14.420)

Ideas shape how we relate to other people.

Lex Fridman (1:47:18.100)

And you say, well, little children do it.

Lex Fridman (1:47:19.880)

Well, little children don't have a frontal cortex.

Lex Fridman (1:47:22.540)

It's not relevant, right?

Lex Fridman (1:47:24.380)

What happens as you develop a frontal cortex,

Yaron Brook (1:47:26.980)

as you develop the brain, you learn ideas.

Lex Fridman (1:47:32.140)

And those ideas will shape how you relate to other people.

Lex Fridman (1:47:35.180)

And if you learn good ideas,

Lex Fridman (1:47:36.980)

you relate to other people in a healthy, productive win, win.

Lex Fridman (1:47:41.380)

And if you develop bad ideas,

Lex Fridman (1:47:43.820)

you will resent other people and you will want their stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:47:47.740)

And the thing is that human progress depends

Lex Fridman (1:47:50.220)

on the win, win relationship.

Yaron Brook (1:47:52.440)

It depends on civilization, depends on peace.

Lex Fridman (1:47:55.440)

It depends on allowing people,

Yaron Brook (1:47:57.780)

going back to what we talked about earlier,

Lex Fridman (1:47:59.220)

allowing people the freedom to think for themselves.

Lex Fridman (1:48:02.620)

And anytime you try to interrupt that,

Lex Fridman (1:48:05.020)

you're causing damage.

Lex Fridman (1:48:06.140)

So this change in America is not some reversion

Lex Fridman (1:48:09.420)

to a natural state.

Yaron Brook (1:48:11.340)

It's a shift in ideas.

Lex Fridman (1:48:15.620)

We still live, the better part of American society

Lex Fridman (1:48:19.480)

and the world, still lives on the remnants

Lex Fridman (1:48:23.420)

of the Enlightenment, the Enlightenment ideas,

Yaron Brook (1:48:27.420)

the ideas that brought about this scientific revolution,

Lex Fridman (1:48:30.720)

the ideas that brought about the creation of this country.

Lex Fridman (1:48:33.060)

And it's the same basic ideas that led to both of those.

Lex Fridman (1:48:36.420)

And as those ideas get more distant,

Yaron Brook (1:48:41.060)

as those ideas are not defended,

Lex Fridman (1:48:43.420)

as those ideas disappear, as Enlightenment goes away,

Yaron Brook (1:48:47.320)

we will become more violent, more resentful,

Lex Fridman (1:48:52.000)

more tribal, more obnoxious, more unpleasant,

Yaron Brook (1:48:56.640)

more primitive.

Lex Fridman (1:48:58.180)

A very specific example of this that bothers me,

Yaron Brook (1:49:02.640)

I'd be curious to get your comment on.

Lex Fridman (1:49:04.940)

So Elon Musk is a billionaire.

Lex Fridman (1:49:10.040)

And one of the things that really,

Lex Fridman (1:49:14.720)

maybe it's almost a pet peeve,

Yaron Brook (1:49:16.240)

it really bothers me when the press

Lex Fridman (1:49:18.480)

and the general public will say,

Yaron Brook (1:49:21.360)

well, all those rockets they're sending up there,

Lex Fridman (1:49:24.900)

those are just like the toys,

Yaron Brook (1:49:26.480)

the games that billionaires play.

Lex Fridman (1:49:29.940)

That to me, billionaire has become a dirty word to use,

Yaron Brook (1:49:36.480)

like as if money can buy or has anything to do with genius.

Lex Fridman (1:49:41.480)

I'm trying to articulate a specific line of question here

Yaron Brook (1:49:52.080)

because it just bothers me.

Lex Fridman (1:49:53.940)

I guess the question is how do we get here

Lex Fridman (1:49:57.200)

and how do we get out of that?

Lex Fridman (1:49:58.480)

Because Elon Musk is doing some of the most incredible things

Yaron Brook (1:50:02.240)

that a human being has ever participated in.

Lex Fridman (1:50:05.360)

Mostly, he doesn't build the rockets himself,

Yaron Brook (1:50:07.480)

he's getting a bunch of other geniuses together that have.

Lex Fridman (1:50:10.480)

That takes genius.

Yaron Brook (1:50:11.440)

That takes genius.

Lex Fridman (1:50:12.320)

But where do we go and how do we get back

Yaron Brook (1:50:16.480)

to where Elon Musk is an inspiring figure

Lex Fridman (1:50:19.000)

as opposed to a billionaire playing with some toys?

Lex Fridman (1:50:23.200)

So this is the role of philosophy.

Lex Fridman (1:50:25.120)

It goes back to the same place.

Yaron Brook (1:50:26.560)

It goes back to our understanding of the world

Lex Fridman (1:50:28.540)

and our role in it.

Lex Fridman (1:50:30.280)

And if you understand that the only way

Lex Fridman (1:50:32.680)

to become a billionaire, for example,

Yaron Brook (1:50:34.840)

is to create value.

Lex Fridman (1:50:36.200)

Value for whom?

Yaron Brook (1:50:37.600)

Value for people who are gonna consume it.

Lex Fridman (1:50:39.800)

The only way to become a billionaire,

Yaron Brook (1:50:41.240)

the only way Elon Musk became a billionaire is through PayPal.

Lex Fridman (1:50:45.600)

Now, PayPal is something we all use.

Yaron Brook (1:50:47.560)

PayPal is an enormous value to all of us.

Lex Fridman (1:50:50.040)

It's why it's worth several billions of dollars

Yaron Brook (1:50:52.680)

which Elon Musk could then earn.

Lex Fridman (1:50:57.680)

But you cannot become a billionaire in a free society

Yaron Brook (1:51:01.640)

by exploiting people.

Lex Fridman (1:51:02.920)

You cannot because you'll be laughed.

Yaron Brook (1:51:05.840)

Nobody will deal with you.

Lex Fridman (1:51:06.880)

Nobody will have any interactions with you.

Yaron Brook (1:51:09.160)

The only way to become a billionaire

Lex Fridman (1:51:10.640)

is to do billions of win, win transactions.

Lex Fridman (1:51:15.340)

So the only way to become a billionaire in a free society

Lex Fridman (1:51:18.440)

is to change the world to make it a better place.

Yaron Brook (1:51:21.720)

Billionaires are the great humanitarians of our time,

Lex Fridman (1:51:24.640)

not because they give charity,

Lex Fridman (1:51:26.360)

but because they make them billions.

Lex Fridman (1:51:29.200)

And it's true that money and genius

Yaron Brook (1:51:32.760)

are not necessarily correlated,

Lex Fridman (1:51:35.420)

but you cannot become a billionaire

Yaron Brook (1:51:37.360)

without being super smart.

Lex Fridman (1:51:38.960)

You cannot become a billionaire by figuring something out

Yaron Brook (1:51:42.380)

that nobody else has figured out

Lex Fridman (1:51:44.560)

in whatever realm it happens to be.

Lex Fridman (1:51:46.160)

And that thing that you figure out

Lex Fridman (1:51:48.400)

has to be something that provides immense value

Yaron Brook (1:51:50.700)

to other people.

Lex Fridman (1:51:52.440)

Where do we go wrong?

Yaron Brook (1:51:54.400)

We go wrong, our culture goes wrong

Lex Fridman (1:51:56.760)

because it views billionaires as selfish.

Lex Fridman (1:52:02.700)

And there's a sense in which,

Lex Fridman (1:52:04.120)

not a sense, it's absolutely true.

Yaron Brook (1:52:06.380)

The billionaire doesn't ask for my opinion

Lex Fridman (1:52:08.680)

on what product to launch.

Yaron Brook (1:52:11.540)

Elon Musk doesn't ask others

Lex Fridman (1:52:13.880)

what they think he should spend his money on,

Lex Fridman (1:52:15.960)

what the greatest social wellbeing will be.

Lex Fridman (1:52:18.560)

I mean, there's a sense in which the rockets are his toys.

Yaron Brook (1:52:21.920)

There's a sense in which he chose

Lex Fridman (1:52:24.520)

that he would be inspired the most.

Yaron Brook (1:52:28.280)

He would have the most fun

Lex Fridman (1:52:30.200)

by going to Mars and building rockets.

Lex Fridman (1:52:32.720)

And he's probably dreamt of rockets

Lex Fridman (1:52:34.480)

from when he was a kid

Lex Fridman (1:52:35.440)

and probably always played with rockets.

Lex Fridman (1:52:37.400)

And now he has the funds, the capital

Yaron Brook (1:52:39.080)

to be able to deploy it.

Lex Fridman (1:52:40.760)

So he's being selfish.

Yaron Brook (1:52:43.860)

Obviously, he's being self interested.

Lex Fridman (1:52:45.620)

This is what Elon Musk is about.

Yaron Brook (1:52:47.280)

I mean, the same with Jeff Bezos.

Lex Fridman (1:52:50.440)

There's no committee to decide whether to invest

Yaron Brook (1:52:54.920)

in cloud computing or not.

Lex Fridman (1:52:57.000)

Bezos decided that.

Lex Fridman (1:52:58.960)

And at the end of the day,

Lex Fridman (1:53:00.840)

they are the bosses,

Yaron Brook (1:53:01.880)

they pursue the values they believe are good.

Lex Fridman (1:53:03.740)

They create the wealth.

Yaron Brook (1:53:06.080)

It's their decisions, it's their mind.

Lex Fridman (1:53:08.960)

And the fact is we live in a world

Yaron Brook (1:53:10.980)

where for 2000 plus years,

Lex Fridman (1:53:14.500)

self interest, even though we all do it,

Yaron Brook (1:53:18.160)

just more extent to the less,

Lex Fridman (1:53:20.600)

we deem it as morally apparent.

Yaron Brook (1:53:23.980)

It's bad.

Lex Fridman (1:53:24.960)

It's wrong.

Yaron Brook (1:53:26.120)

I mean, your mother probably taught you the same thing

Lex Fridman (1:53:28.180)

my mother taught me.

Yaron Brook (1:53:29.220)

Think of others first.

Lex Fridman (1:53:30.960)

Think of yourself last.

Yaron Brook (1:53:32.740)

The good stuff is kept for the guests.

Lex Fridman (1:53:35.680)

You never get to use the good stuff.

Yaron Brook (1:53:38.340)

It's others.

Lex Fridman (1:53:39.700)

That's what the focus of morality is.

Yaron Brook (1:53:41.560)

Now, no mother, even no Jewish mother

Lex Fridman (1:53:44.940)

actually believes that, right?

Yaron Brook (1:53:46.920)

Because they don't really want you to be last.

Lex Fridman (1:53:50.640)

They want you to be first and they push you to be first.

Lex Fridman (1:53:53.480)

But morally, they've been taught their entire lives

Lex Fridman (1:53:56.400)

and they believe that the right thing to say

Lex Fridman (1:53:59.800)

and to some extent do

Lex Fridman (1:54:01.240)

is to argue for sacrifice for other people, right?

Lex Fridman (1:54:06.840)

So most people, 99% of people are torn.

Lex Fridman (1:54:12.420)

They know they should be selfless,

Yaron Brook (1:54:17.920)

sacrifice, live for other people.

Lex Fridman (1:54:20.000)

They don't really want to.

Lex Fridman (1:54:21.920)

So they act selfishly in their day to day life

Lex Fridman (1:54:25.020)

and they feel guilty and they can't be happy.

Yaron Brook (1:54:28.460)

They can't be happy.

Lex Fridman (1:54:29.300)

And Jewish mothers and Catholic mothers are excellent

Yaron Brook (1:54:31.480)

at using that guilt to manipulate you.

Lex Fridman (1:54:33.920)

But the guilt is inevitable

Yaron Brook (1:54:35.120)

because you've got these two conflicting things,

Lex Fridman (1:54:38.360)

the way you want to live

Lex Fridman (1:54:39.360)

and the way you've been taught to live.

Lex Fridman (1:54:42.020)

And what objectivism does is that at the end of the day

Yaron Brook (1:54:45.500)

provides you with a way to unite morality,

Lex Fridman (1:54:49.180)

a proper morality with what you want

Lex Fridman (1:54:52.720)

and to think about what you really want,

Lex Fridman (1:54:55.080)

to conceptualize what you really want properly.

Lex Fridman (1:54:58.160)

So what you want is really good for you

Lex Fridman (1:55:00.080)

and what you want will really lead to your happiness.

Yaron Brook (1:55:03.360)

So, you know, we reject the idea of sacrifice.

Lex Fridman (1:55:06.760)

We reject the idea of living for other people,

Lex Fridman (1:55:08.480)

but you see, if you believe that the purpose of morality

Lex Fridman (1:55:14.120)

is to sacrifice for other people

Lex Fridman (1:55:17.220)

and you look at Jeff Bezos,

Lex Fridman (1:55:19.760)

when was the last time he sacrificed anything, right?

Yaron Brook (1:55:22.120)

He was living pretty well.

Lex Fridman (1:55:23.520)

He's got billions that he could give it all away

Lex Fridman (1:55:26.220)

and yet he doesn't.

Lex Fridman (1:55:27.680)

How dare he?

Yaron Brook (1:55:28.800)

You know, in my talks, I often position,

Lex Fridman (1:55:34.180)

and I'm gonna use Bill Gates,

Yaron Brook (1:55:35.200)

sorry guys, drop the conspiracy theory.

Lex Fridman (1:55:37.960)

They're all BS, complete and utter nonsense.

Yaron Brook (1:55:41.320)

There's not a shred of truth.

Lex Fridman (1:55:42.920)

You know, I disagree with Bill Gates

Yaron Brook (1:55:45.480)

on everything political.

Lex Fridman (1:55:47.420)

I think he politically is a complete ignoramus,

Lex Fridman (1:55:50.980)

but the guy's a genius when it comes to technology

Lex Fridman (1:55:54.160)

and he's just thoughtful even in this philanthropy.

Yaron Brook (1:55:57.960)

He just uses his mind and I respect that

Lex Fridman (1:56:00.300)

even though politically he's terrible.

Yaron Brook (1:56:01.680)

Anyway, think about this.

Lex Fridman (1:56:04.000)

Who had a bigger impact on the lives

Lex Fridman (1:56:06.880)

of poor people in the world?

Lex Fridman (1:56:08.520)

Bill Gates or Mother Teresa?

Yaron Brook (1:56:11.760)

Bill Gates.

Lex Fridman (1:56:12.600)

It's not even close.

Lex Fridman (1:56:14.560)

And Mother Teresa lived this altruistic life to the core.

Lex Fridman (1:56:17.400)

She lived it consistently.

Lex Fridman (1:56:19.200)

And yet she was miserable, pathetic, horrible.

Lex Fridman (1:56:21.680)

She hated her life.

Yaron Brook (1:56:22.940)

She was miserable.

Lex Fridman (1:56:25.200)

And most of the people she helped didn't do very well

Lex Fridman (1:56:27.480)

because she just helped them not die, right?

Lex Fridman (1:56:30.760)

And then Bill Gates changed the world

Lex Fridman (1:56:32.800)

and he helped a lot by providing technology.

Lex Fridman (1:56:35.080)

We even, philanthropy gets to them.

Yaron Brook (1:56:37.160)

The food gets them, much fancier, more efficient.

Lex Fridman (1:56:39.560)

Yet who is the moral saint?

Yaron Brook (1:56:42.240)

Sainthood is not determined based on

Lex Fridman (1:56:44.640)

what you do for other people.

Yaron Brook (1:56:46.120)

Sainthood is based on how much pain you suffer.

Lex Fridman (1:56:50.180)

I like to ask people to go to a museum

Lex Fridman (1:56:52.080)

and look at all the paintings of saints.

Lex Fridman (1:56:54.640)

How many of them are smiling and are happy?

Yaron Brook (1:56:57.420)

They've usually got arrows through them

Lex Fridman (1:56:59.260)

and holes in their body

Lex Fridman (1:57:00.760)

and they're just suffering a horrible death.

Lex Fridman (1:57:02.720)

The whole point of the morality we are taught

Yaron Brook (1:57:06.360)

is that happiness is immorality,

Lex Fridman (1:57:11.800)

that happy people cannot be good people,

Lex Fridman (1:57:15.200)

and that good people suffer

Lex Fridman (1:57:17.280)

and that suffering is necessary for morality.

Yaron Brook (1:57:20.760)

Morality is about self sacrifice and suffering.

Lex Fridman (1:57:26.320)

And at the end of the day,

Yaron Brook (1:57:28.400)

almost all the problems in the world

Lex Fridman (1:57:30.000)

boil down to that false view.

Lex Fridman (1:57:34.160)

So can we try to talk about,

Lex Fridman (1:57:37.580)

part of it is the problem of the word selfishness,

Lex Fridman (1:57:39.840)

but let's talk about the virtue of selfishness.

Lex Fridman (1:57:42.920)

So let's start at the fact that for me,

Yaron Brook (1:57:45.160)

I really enjoy doing stuff for other people.

Lex Fridman (1:57:48.120)

I enjoy cheering on the success of others.

Lex Fridman (1:57:54.000)

Why?

Lex Fridman (1:57:55.400)

I don't know.

Yaron Brook (1:57:56.440)

It's deep in that.

Lex Fridman (1:57:57.280)

Well, think about it.

Lex Fridman (1:57:58.100)

Why?

Lex Fridman (1:57:59.240)

Because I think you do know.

Yaron Brook (1:58:01.400)

If I were to really think,

Lex Fridman (1:58:05.800)

I don't want to resort to like evolutionary arguments

Yaron Brook (1:58:08.640)

or like this is somehow different.

Lex Fridman (1:58:10.360)

So I think.

Lex Fridman (1:58:14.040)

So I can tell you why I enjoy helping others.

Lex Fridman (1:58:16.960)

Maybe you can go there.

Yaron Brook (1:58:18.200)

Like one thing,

Lex Fridman (1:58:19.120)

cause we should talk about love a little bit.

Yaron Brook (1:58:21.120)

I'll tell you there's a part of me

Lex Fridman (1:58:23.000)

that's a little bit not rational.

Yaron Brook (1:58:26.640)

Like there's a gut that I follow

Lex Fridman (1:58:29.600)

that not everything I do is perfectly rational.

Yaron Brook (1:58:32.520)

For example, my dad criticizes me.

Lex Fridman (1:58:36.600)

He says like, you should always have a plan.

Yaron Brook (1:58:38.680)

Like it should make sense.

Lex Fridman (1:58:40.040)

You have a strategy.

Lex Fridman (1:58:41.360)

And I say that,

Lex Fridman (1:58:44.120)

I left, I stepped down from my full salary position

Yaron Brook (1:58:46.680)

at MIT.

Lex Fridman (1:58:47.840)

There's so many things I did without like a plan.

Yaron Brook (1:58:50.160)

It's a gut.

Lex Fridman (1:58:51.040)

It's like, I want to start a company.

Lex Fridman (1:58:53.640)

Well, you know how many companies fail?

Lex Fridman (1:58:55.320)

I don't know.

Yaron Brook (1:58:56.160)

It's a gut.

Lex Fridman (1:58:58.800)

And the same thing with being kind to others is a gut.

Yaron Brook (1:59:02.600)

I watched the way that karma works in this world

Lex Fridman (1:59:06.440)

that the people like us,

Yaron Brook (1:59:07.840)

one guy I look up to is Joe Rogan,

Lex Fridman (1:59:09.880)

that he does stuff for others.

Lex Fridman (1:59:12.200)

And that the joy he experiences,

Lex Fridman (1:59:15.360)

the way he sees the world,

Yaron Brook (1:59:16.800)

like just the glimmer in his eyes

Lex Fridman (1:59:20.760)

because he does stuff for others

Yaron Brook (1:59:22.600)

that creates a joyful experience.

Lex Fridman (1:59:24.200)

And that somehow seems to be an instructive way to,

Yaron Brook (1:59:27.760)

that to me is inspiring of a life well lived.

Lex Fridman (1:59:31.520)

But you probably know a lot of people

Yaron Brook (1:59:32.960)

who have done stuff for others who are not happy.

Lex Fridman (1:59:36.640)

True.

Lex Fridman (1:59:37.960)

So I don't think it's the doing stuff for others

Lex Fridman (1:59:39.920)

that just brings the happiness.

Yaron Brook (1:59:41.080)

It's why you do stuff for others

Lex Fridman (1:59:42.480)

and what else you're doing in your life

Lex Fridman (1:59:44.120)

and what is the proportion.

Lex Fridman (1:59:48.400)

But it's why at the end of the day, which is,

Lex Fridman (1:59:51.240)

and it's the same.

Lex Fridman (1:59:52.360)

Look, you can maybe through a gut feeling say,

Yaron Brook (1:59:55.240)

I wanna start a company,

Lex Fridman (1:59:56.680)

but you better start doing thinking

Yaron Brook (1:59:57.960)

about how and what and all of that.

Lex Fridman (20:02.480)

you know, I have this Yaron Book Show.

Yaron Brook (20:04.240)

I don't know if I'm allowed to pitch it,

Lex Fridman (20:05.480)

but I've got this Yaron Book Show on YouTube.

Yaron Brook (20:08.320)

I'm a huge fan of the Yaron Book Show.

Lex Fridman (20:11.080)

I listen to it very often.

Yaron Brook (20:12.760)

As a small aside, the cool thing about reason,

Lex Fridman (20:17.960)

which you practice,

Yaron Brook (20:19.880)

is you have a systematic way of thinking

Lex Fridman (20:21.880)

through basically anything.

Yaron Brook (20:24.320)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (20:25.360)

And that's so fun to listen to.

Yaron Brook (20:27.520)

I mean, it's rare that I think there's flaws in your logic,

Lex Fridman (20:32.640)

but even then it's fun,

Yaron Brook (20:34.480)

because I'm like disagreeing with the screen.

Lex Fridman (20:37.280)

And it's great when somebody disagrees with me

Lex Fridman (20:39.040)

and they give good arguments,

Lex Fridman (20:40.480)

because that makes it challenging.

Yaron Brook (20:42.200)

Anyway, sorry.

Lex Fridman (20:43.040)

You know, so one of the shows I want to do

Yaron Brook (20:45.200)

in the next few weeks is one of my philosophy,

Lex Fridman (20:47.720)

bring one of my philosophy friends to discuss the video

Yaron Brook (20:50.240)

that Hoffman, where he presents his theory,

Lex Fridman (20:52.760)

because it surprises me how seductive it is.

Lex Fridman (20:58.360)

And it seems to be so,

Lex Fridman (21:00.240)

first of all, completely counterintuitive,

Lex Fridman (21:01.920)

but because, you know, somehow we managed to cross the road

Lex Fridman (21:05.800)

and not get hit by the car.

Lex Fridman (21:06.960)

And if our senses did not provide us any information

Lex Fridman (21:10.040)

about what's actually going on in reality,

Lex Fridman (21:12.160)

how do we do that?

Lex Fridman (21:13.600)

And not to mention build computers,

Yaron Brook (21:16.000)

not to mention fly to the moon

Lex Fridman (21:17.560)

and actually land on the moon.

Lex Fridman (21:18.600)

And if reality is not giving us information about the moon,

Lex Fridman (21:21.760)

if our senses are not giving us information about the moon,

Lex Fridman (21:24.560)

how did we get there?

Lex Fridman (21:25.600)

You know, and where did we go?

Yaron Brook (21:27.080)

Maybe we didn't go anywhere.

Lex Fridman (21:28.840)

It's just, it's nonsensical to me.

Lex Fridman (21:30.880)

And it's a very bad place philosophically,

Lex Fridman (21:37.080)

because it basically says

Yaron Brook (21:38.640)

there is no objective standard for anything.

Lex Fridman (21:40.760)

There is no objective reality.

Yaron Brook (21:42.440)

You can come up with anything.

Lex Fridman (21:43.560)

You could argue anything.

Lex Fridman (21:44.640)

And there's no methodology, right?

Lex Fridman (21:46.000)

My, I believe that at the end of the day,

Lex Fridman (21:48.120)

what reason allows us to do

Lex Fridman (21:50.000)

is provides us with a methodology for truth.

Lex Fridman (21:52.160)

And at the end of the day, for every claim that I make,

Lex Fridman (21:54.720)

I should be able to boil it down to see,

Yaron Brook (21:59.000)

yeah, look, the evidence of the census is right then.

Lex Fridman (22:02.560)

Once you take that away, knowledge is gone

Lex Fridman (22:05.000)

and truth is gone.

Lex Fridman (22:06.200)

And that opens it up to, you know, complete disaster.

Yaron Brook (22:09.640)

So, you know, to me why it's compelling

Lex Fridman (22:12.720)

to at least entertain this idea,

Yaron Brook (22:16.160)

first of all, it shakes up the mind a little bit

Lex Fridman (22:18.920)

to force you to go back to first principles

Lex Fridman (22:24.080)

and, you know, ask the question, what do I really know?

Lex Fridman (22:27.360)

And the second part of that that I really enjoy

Yaron Brook (22:31.440)

is it's a reminder that we know very little

Lex Fridman (22:35.400)

to be a little bit more humble.

Lex Fridman (22:37.320)

So if reality doesn't exist at all,

Lex Fridman (22:40.560)

before you start thinking about it,

Yaron Brook (22:43.040)

I think it's a really nice wake up call to think,

Lex Fridman (22:46.640)

wait a minute, I don't really know much about this universe,

Yaron Brook (22:51.160)

that humbleness.

Lex Fridman (22:52.640)

I think something I'd like to ask you about

Yaron Brook (22:54.960)

in terms of reason, when you,

Lex Fridman (22:58.160)

you can become very confident

Yaron Brook (23:00.880)

in your ability to understand the world

Lex Fridman (23:03.040)

if you practice reason often.

Lex Fridman (23:04.840)

And I feel like it can lead you astray

Lex Fridman (23:07.920)

because you can start to think,

Yaron Brook (23:10.440)

it's, so I love psychology

Lex Fridman (23:12.960)

and psychologists have the certainty

Yaron Brook (23:15.400)

about understanding the human condition,

Lex Fridman (23:17.880)

which is undeserved.

Yaron Brook (23:19.560)

You know, you run a study with 50 people

Lex Fridman (23:21.600)

and you think you can understand

Yaron Brook (23:23.720)

the source of all these psychiatric disorders,

Lex Fridman (23:25.640)

all these kinds of things.

Yaron Brook (23:27.160)

That's similar kind of trouble

Lex Fridman (23:28.920)

I feel like you can get into

Yaron Brook (23:31.880)

when you overreach with reason.

Lex Fridman (23:35.320)

So I don't think there is such a thing

Yaron Brook (23:36.560)

as overreaching with reason,

Lex Fridman (23:38.240)

but there are bad applications of reason.

Yaron Brook (23:40.520)

There are bad uses of reason

Lex Fridman (23:42.120)

or the pretense of using reason.

Yaron Brook (23:44.400)

I think a lot of these psychological studies

Lex Fridman (23:46.760)

are pretense of using reason.

Lex Fridman (23:48.160)

And the psychologists have never really taken

Lex Fridman (23:51.080)

a serious stat class or a serious econometrics class.

Lex Fridman (23:53.600)

So they use statistics in weird ways

Lex Fridman (23:55.760)

that just don't make any sense.

Lex Fridman (23:57.320)

And that's a miss, that's not reason, right?

Lex Fridman (23:59.440)

That's just bad thinking, right?

Lex Fridman (24:01.120)

So I don't think you can do too much good thinking.

Lex Fridman (24:05.880)

And that's what reason is.

Yaron Brook (24:07.360)

It's good thinking.

Lex Fridman (24:08.560)

Now, the fact that you try to use reason

Yaron Brook (24:14.280)

does not guarantee you won't make mistakes.

Lex Fridman (24:17.000)

It doesn't guarantee you won't be wrong.

Yaron Brook (24:18.840)

It doesn't guarantee you won't go down a rabbit hole

Lex Fridman (24:21.760)

and completely get it wrong.

Lex Fridman (24:24.320)

But it does give you the only existing mechanism to fix it.

Lex Fridman (24:29.160)

Which is going back to reality,

Yaron Brook (24:30.320)

going back to facts, going back to reason.

Lex Fridman (24:32.600)

And getting out of the rabbit hole

Lex Fridman (24:34.760)

and getting back to reality.

Lex Fridman (24:37.320)

So I agree with you that it's interesting

Yaron Brook (24:40.160)

to think about these, what I consider crazy ideas

Lex Fridman (24:44.640)

because it, oh wait, what is my argument about them?

Yaron Brook (24:47.760)

If I don't really have a good argument about them,

Lex Fridman (24:49.840)

then do I know what I know?

Lex Fridman (24:51.040)

So in that sense, it's always nice to be challenged

Lex Fridman (24:53.880)

and pushed and oriented.

Yaron Brook (24:55.960)

You know, the nice thing about objectivism is

Lex Fridman (24:58.320)

everybody's doing that to me all the time, right?

Yaron Brook (25:00.240)

Because nobody agrees with me on anything.

Lex Fridman (25:01.760)

So I'm constantly being challenged,

Yaron Brook (25:04.080)

whether it's in, by Hoffman on metaphysics

Lex Fridman (25:07.440)

and epistemology, right?

Yaron Brook (25:08.400)

On the very foundations of analogy and ethics,

Lex Fridman (25:10.480)

everybody constantly, and in politics all the time.

Lex Fridman (25:13.960)

So I find that it's part of, you know,

Lex Fridman (25:18.480)

I prefer that everybody, there's a sense

Lex Fridman (25:20.200)

in which I prefer that everybody agreed with me, right?

Lex Fridman (25:22.520)

Because I think we'd live in a better world.

Lex Fridman (25:24.400)

But there's a sense in which that disagreement makes it,

Lex Fridman (25:27.600)

at least up to a point, makes it interesting

Lex Fridman (25:30.280)

and challenging and forces you to be able to rethink

Lex Fridman (25:35.640)

or to confirm your own thinking

Lex Fridman (25:37.320)

and to challenge that thinking.

Lex Fridman (25:39.520)

Can you try to do the impossible task

Lex Fridman (25:42.240)

and give a whirlwind introduction to Ayn Rand,

Lex Fridman (25:46.200)

the many sides of Ayn Rand?

Lex Fridman (25:49.280)

So Ayn Rand the human being, Ayn Rand the novelist,

Lex Fridman (25:53.800)

and Ayn Rand the philosopher.

Lex Fridman (25:56.040)

So who was Ayn Rand?

Lex Fridman (25:57.760)

Sure, so her life story is one that I think is fascinating

Lex Fridman (26:04.160)

but it also lends itself to this integration

Lex Fridman (26:07.400)

of all of these things.

Yaron Brook (26:08.840)

She was born in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1905

Lex Fridman (26:12.600)

to kind of a middle class family, Jewish family.

Yaron Brook (26:16.440)

They owned a pharmacy, her father owned a pharmacy.

Lex Fridman (26:20.560)

And, you know, she grew up, she grew up,

Yaron Brook (26:25.000)

she was a very, she knew what she wanted to do

Lex Fridman (26:28.960)

and what she wanted to be from a very young age.

Yaron Brook (26:31.160)

I think from the age of nine,

Lex Fridman (26:32.320)

she knew she wanted to be a writer.

Yaron Brook (26:33.600)

She wanted to write stories.

Lex Fridman (26:34.960)

That was the thing she wanted to do.

Yaron Brook (26:37.320)

And, you know, she focused her life after that

Lex Fridman (26:41.480)

on this goal of I wanna be a novelist, I wanna write.

Lex Fridman (26:46.120)

And the philosophy was incidental to that in a sense,

Lex Fridman (26:50.000)

at least until some point in her life.

Yaron Brook (26:52.680)

She witnessed the Russian Revolution,

Lex Fridman (26:55.680)

literally it happened outside.

Yaron Brook (26:57.000)

They lived in St. Petersburg

Lex Fridman (26:59.320)

where the first kind of demonstrations

Lex Fridman (27:01.360)

and of the revolution happened.

Lex Fridman (27:03.440)

So she witnessed it.

Yaron Brook (27:04.520)

She lived through it as a teenager,

Lex Fridman (27:07.680)

went to school under the Soviets.

Yaron Brook (27:10.880)

For a while, they were under kind of on the Black Sea

Lex Fridman (27:15.160)

where the opposition government was ruling

Lex Fridman (27:18.040)

and then they would go back and forth

Lex Fridman (27:19.760)

between the commies and the whites.

Lex Fridman (27:21.800)

But she experienced what communism was like.

Lex Fridman (27:23.800)

She saw the pharmacy being taken away from a family.

Yaron Brook (27:26.680)

She saw their apartment being taken away

Lex Fridman (27:28.880)

or other families being brought

Yaron Brook (27:30.520)

into the apartment they already lived in.

Lex Fridman (27:33.840)

And it was very clear given her nature,

Yaron Brook (27:38.600)

given her views, even at a very young age

Lex Fridman (27:42.040)

that she would not survive the system.

Lex Fridman (27:44.640)

So a lot of effort was put into how did she get out?

Lex Fridman (27:48.360)

And her family was really helpful in this.

Lex Fridman (27:51.240)

And she had a cousin in Chicago

Lex Fridman (27:54.080)

and she had been studying kind of film at the university and...

Lex Fridman (27:59.440)

This is in her 20s?

Lex Fridman (28:00.440)

This is in her 20s, early 20s.

Lex Fridman (28:03.200)

And Lenin, there was a small window

Lex Fridman (28:06.800)

where Lenin was allowing some people

Yaron Brook (28:09.240)

to leave under certain circumstances.

Lex Fridman (28:12.440)

And she managed to get out to go do research on film

Yaron Brook (28:15.800)

in the United States.

Lex Fridman (28:17.120)

Everybody knew, everybody who knew her

Yaron Brook (28:19.200)

knew she would never come back,

Lex Fridman (28:21.120)

that this was a one way ticket.

Lex Fridman (28:22.480)

And she got out, she made it to Chicago,

Lex Fridman (28:24.520)

spent a few weeks in Chicago, and then headed to Hollywood.

Yaron Brook (28:28.840)

She wanted to write scripts, that was the goal.

Lex Fridman (28:32.440)

Here's this short woman from Russia with a strong accent,

Yaron Brook (28:38.160)

learning English, showing up in Hollywood

Lex Fridman (28:41.680)

and I wanna be a script writer.

Yaron Brook (28:43.600)

In English.

Lex Fridman (28:44.480)

In English, writing in English.

Lex Fridman (28:46.520)

And this is kind of one of these fairytale stories,

Lex Fridman (28:51.160)

but it's true, she shows up at the Cecil B. DeMille Studios.

Lex Fridman (28:56.400)

And she has a letter of introduction from her cousin

Lex Fridman (28:59.720)

in Chicago who owns a movie theater.

Lex Fridman (29:02.040)

And this is in the late 1920s.

Lex Fridman (29:05.920)

And she shows up there with this letter and they say,

Yaron Brook (29:08.440)

don't call us, we'll call you kind of thing.

Lex Fridman (29:10.400)

And she steps out and there's this massive convertible.

Lex Fridman (29:15.400)

And in the convertible is Cecil B. DeMille.

Lex Fridman (29:18.000)

And he's driving slowly past her

Yaron Brook (29:20.120)

right at the entrance of the studio.

Lex Fridman (29:21.520)

And she stares at him and he stops the car and he says,

Lex Fridman (29:23.840)

why are you staring at me?

Lex Fridman (29:25.720)

And she says, she tells him a story from Russia

Lex Fridman (29:28.200)

and I wanna make it in the movies,

Lex Fridman (29:30.060)

I wanna be a script writer one day.

Lex Fridman (29:31.560)

And he says, well, if you want that, get in the car.

Lex Fridman (29:35.000)

She gets in the car and he takes her to the back lot

Yaron Brook (29:38.200)

of his studio where they're filming The King of Kings,

Lex Fridman (29:40.360)

the story of Jesus.

Lex Fridman (29:41.960)

And he says, here's a pass for a week.

Lex Fridman (29:45.160)

If you wanna write for the movies,

Yaron Brook (29:47.280)

you better know how movies are made.

Lex Fridman (29:49.680)

And she basically spends a week in there.

Yaron Brook (29:51.680)

She spends more time there.

Lex Fridman (29:53.120)

She managed to get an extension.

Yaron Brook (29:54.480)

She lands up being an extra in the movie.

Lex Fridman (29:56.080)

So you can see Ayn Rand there is one of the masses

Lex Fridman (2:00:00.480)

And to some extent the why,

Lex Fridman (2:00:01.800)

because if you really wanna be happy doing this,

Yaron Brook (2:00:03.760)

you better make sure you're doing it for the right reason.

Lex Fridman (2:00:06.760)

So I'm not, you know,

Yaron Brook (2:00:08.280)

there's something called fast thinking,

Lex Fridman (2:00:10.280)

Carlman, the Daniel Kahneman.

Yaron Brook (2:00:14.400)

Daniel Kahneman talks about,

Lex Fridman (2:00:15.640)

and there is, it's, you know,

Yaron Brook (2:00:19.560)

all the integrations you've made so far in your life

Lex Fridman (2:00:21.960)

cause you to have specialized knowledge and certain things

Lex Fridman (2:00:25.080)

and you can think very fast

Lex Fridman (2:00:27.080)

and your gut tells you what the right answer is.

Lex Fridman (2:00:31.440)

But it's not, it's your mind is constantly evaluating

Lex Fridman (2:00:34.800)

and constantly working.

Yaron Brook (2:00:37.560)

You wanna make it as rational as you can,

Lex Fridman (2:00:39.280)

not in the sense that I have to think through

Yaron Brook (2:00:41.000)

every time I make a decision,

Lex Fridman (2:00:42.480)

but that they've so programmed my mind in a sense

Yaron Brook (2:00:45.880)

that the answers are the right answers,

Lex Fridman (2:00:48.880)

you know, when I get them.

Yaron Brook (2:00:53.720)

So, you know, I like, I view other people as a value.

Lex Fridman (2:01:00.640)

Other people contribute enormously to my life,

Yaron Brook (2:01:04.200)

whether it's a romantic love relationship

Lex Fridman (2:01:07.320)

or whether it's a friendship relationship

Yaron Brook (2:01:09.400)

or whether it's just, you know,

Lex Fridman (2:01:12.520)

Jeff Bezos creating Amazon

Lex Fridman (2:01:14.960)

and delivering goodies to my home when I get them.

Lex Fridman (2:01:18.480)

And people do all that, right?

Yaron Brook (2:01:20.600)

It's not just Jeff Bezos.

Lex Fridman (2:01:22.120)

He gets the most credit,

Lex Fridman (2:01:23.040)

but everybody in that chain of command,

Lex Fridman (2:01:24.720)

everybody at Amazon is working for me.

Yaron Brook (2:01:27.320)

I love that.

Lex Fridman (2:01:28.520)

I love the idea of a human being.

Yaron Brook (2:01:31.520)

I love the idea that there are people capable

Lex Fridman (2:01:34.520)

of being an Einstein, of being, you know,

Lex Fridman (2:01:37.600)

and creating and building and making stuff

Lex Fridman (2:01:40.400)

that makes my life so good.

Yaron Brook (2:01:42.400)

You know, most of us like,

Lex Fridman (2:01:45.480)

this is not a good room for an example.

Lex Fridman (2:01:47.440)

Most of us like plants, right?

Lex Fridman (2:01:50.000)

We like pets.

Yaron Brook (2:01:51.400)

I don't particularly, but people like pets.

Lex Fridman (2:01:53.240)

Why?

Yaron Brook (2:01:54.080)

We like to see life.

Lex Fridman (2:01:57.120)

Human beings are life on steroids, right?

Yaron Brook (2:01:59.800)

They're life with a brain.

Lex Fridman (2:02:01.040)

It's amazing, right, what they can do.

Yaron Brook (2:02:03.560)

I love people.

Lex Fridman (2:02:05.240)

Now that doesn't mean I love everybody

Yaron Brook (2:02:07.160)

because there's some,

Lex Fridman (2:02:08.040)

there are really bad people out there who I hate, right?

Lex Fridman (2:02:10.680)

And I do hate.

Lex Fridman (2:02:11.960)

And there are people out there that are just,

Yaron Brook (2:02:14.120)

I have no opinion about.

Lex Fridman (2:02:15.520)

But generally the idea of a human being

Yaron Brook (2:02:18.680)

to me is a phenomenal idea.

Lex Fridman (2:02:20.000)

When I see a baby, I light up

Yaron Brook (2:02:22.600)

because to me there's a potential, you know,

Lex Fridman (2:02:26.920)

there's this magnificent potential

Yaron Brook (2:02:29.600)

that is embodied in that.

Lex Fridman (2:02:31.080)

And when I see people struggling and need help,

Yaron Brook (2:02:34.080)

I think they're human beings.

Lex Fridman (2:02:36.600)

You know, they embody that potential.

Yaron Brook (2:02:38.600)

They embody that goodness.

Lex Fridman (2:02:40.760)

They might turn out to be bad,

Lex Fridman (2:02:43.200)

but why would I ever give the presumption of that?

Lex Fridman (2:02:45.320)

I give them the presumption of the positive

Lex Fridman (2:02:46.920)

and I cheer them on.

Lex Fridman (2:02:48.840)

And I enjoy watching people succeed.

Yaron Brook (2:02:52.120)

I enjoy watching people get to the top of the mountain

Lex Fridman (2:02:54.720)

and produce something.

Yaron Brook (2:02:56.080)

Even if I don't get anything directly from it,

Lex Fridman (2:02:59.040)

I enjoy that because it's part of my enjoyment of life.

Lex Fridman (2:03:03.320)

So the word, to you, the morality of selfishness,

Lex Fridman (2:03:08.240)

this kind of love of other human beings,

Yaron Brook (2:03:10.320)

the love of life fits into a morality of selfishness.

Lex Fridman (2:03:13.840)

Cannot, because there's no context

Yaron Brook (2:03:18.760)

in which you can truly love yourself

Lex Fridman (2:03:21.880)

without loving life and loving what it means to be human.

Yaron Brook (2:03:24.880)

So, you know, the love of yourself is gonna manifest itself

Lex Fridman (2:03:28.880)

definitely in different people, but it's core.

Lex Fridman (2:03:31.560)

What do you love about yourself?

Lex Fridman (2:03:33.360)

First of all, I love that I'm alive.

Yaron Brook (2:03:35.880)

I love this world and the opportunities it provides me

Lex Fridman (2:03:39.600)

and the fun and the excitement of discovering something new

Lex Fridman (2:03:43.640)

and meeting a new person and having a conversation.

Lex Fridman (2:03:46.920)

You know, all of this is immensely enjoyable,

Lex Fridman (2:03:51.200)

but behind all of that is a particular human character.

Lex Fridman (2:03:54.120)

There's a particular human capability

Yaron Brook (2:03:55.600)

that not only I have, other people have.

Lex Fridman (2:03:57.880)

And the fact that they have it makes my life

Lex Fridman (2:03:59.960)

so much more fun because, so it's,

Lex Fridman (2:04:03.680)

you cannot view, you know, it's all integrated

Lex Fridman (2:04:07.360)

and you cannot view yourself in isolation.

Lex Fridman (2:04:09.320)

Now that doesn't place a moral commandment on me,

Yaron Brook (2:04:14.680)

help everybody who's poor

Lex Fridman (2:04:16.520)

that you happen to meet in the street.

Yaron Brook (2:04:18.600)

It doesn't place a burden on me in a sense

Lex Fridman (2:04:21.560)

that now I have this moral duty to help everybody.

Yaron Brook (2:04:25.640)

It leaves me free to make decisions

Lex Fridman (2:04:27.800)

about who I help and who I don't.

Yaron Brook (2:04:28.920)

There's some people who I will not help.

Lex Fridman (2:04:31.560)

There's some people who I do not wish positive things upon.

Yaron Brook (2:04:36.680)

Bad people should have bad outcomes.

Lex Fridman (2:04:39.480)

Bad people should suffer.

Yaron Brook (2:04:41.800)

So.

Lex Fridman (2:04:42.640)

And then you have the freedom to choose who's good,

Yaron Brook (2:04:44.720)

who's bad within your.

Lex Fridman (2:04:45.560)

It's your decision based on your values.

Yaron Brook (2:04:47.720)

Now, I think there's an objectivity to it.

Lex Fridman (2:04:49.760)

There's a standard by which you should evaluate

Yaron Brook (2:04:52.080)

good versus bad.

Lex Fridman (2:04:53.080)

And that standard should be to what extent

Lex Fridman (2:04:55.000)

do they contribute or hurt human life?

Lex Fridman (2:04:57.560)

The standard is human life.

Lex Fridman (2:04:59.600)

And so when I say, look at Jeff Bezos,

Lex Fridman (2:05:01.560)

I say, he's contributed to human life, good guy.

Yaron Brook (2:05:04.200)

I might disagree with him on stuff.

Lex Fridman (2:05:05.840)

We might disagree about politics.

Yaron Brook (2:05:07.240)

We might disagree about women.

Lex Fridman (2:05:08.920)

I don't know what we agree.

Lex Fridman (2:05:10.280)

But overall, big picture, he is pro life, right?

Lex Fridman (2:05:15.320)

I look at somebody like, you know, to take like 99.9%

Yaron Brook (2:05:19.440)

of our politicians and they are pro death.

Lex Fridman (2:05:23.880)

They're pro destruction.

Yaron Brook (2:05:25.520)

They're pro cutting corners in ways that destroy human life

Lex Fridman (2:05:29.320)

and human potential and human ability.

Lex Fridman (2:05:31.160)

So I literally hate almost every politician out there.

Lex Fridman (2:05:35.440)

And I wish ill on them, right?

Yaron Brook (2:05:38.000)

I don't want them to be successful or happy.

Lex Fridman (2:05:40.120)

I want them all to go away, right?

Yaron Brook (2:05:42.200)

Leave me alone.

Lex Fridman (2:05:43.040)

So I believe in justice.

Yaron Brook (2:05:45.200)

I believe good things should happen to good people

Lex Fridman (2:05:46.760)

and bad things should happen to bad people.

Lex Fridman (2:05:47.920)

So I make those generalizations based on this one,

Lex Fridman (2:05:52.560)

you know, on the other hand, if, you know,

Lex Fridman (2:05:54.080)

I shouldn't say all politicians, right?

Lex Fridman (2:05:55.680)

So if I, you know, I love Thomas Jefferson

Lex Fridman (2:05:57.520)

and George Washington, right?

Lex Fridman (2:05:59.360)

I love Abraham Lincoln.

Yaron Brook (2:06:00.520)

I love people who fought for freedom

Lex Fridman (2:06:02.680)

and who believed in freedom, who had these ideas

Lex Fridman (2:06:04.720)

and lived up to, at least in parts of their lives,

Lex Fridman (2:06:07.520)

to those principles.

Yaron Brook (2:06:08.360)

Now, do I think Thomas Jefferson was flawed

Lex Fridman (2:06:10.360)

because he held slaves?

Yaron Brook (2:06:11.280)

Absolutely.

Lex Fridman (2:06:12.880)

But the virtues way outweigh that in my view.

Lex Fridman (2:06:15.520)

And I understand people who don't accept that.

Lex Fridman (2:06:17.560)

You don't have to also love

Lex Fridman (2:06:19.280)

and hate the entirety of the person.

Lex Fridman (2:06:21.080)

There's parts of that person that you're attracted to.

Yaron Brook (2:06:23.360)

The major part is pro life and therefore I'm pro that person.

Lex Fridman (2:06:26.520)

And I think, and I said earlier

Yaron Brook (2:06:28.520)

that objectivism is a philosophy of love.

Lex Fridman (2:06:30.040)

And I believe that because objectivism is about your life,

Yaron Brook (2:06:35.440)

about loving your life, about embracing your life,

Lex Fridman (2:06:38.240)

about engaging with the world,

Yaron Brook (2:06:39.960)

about loving the world in which you live,

Lex Fridman (2:06:42.600)

about win win relationships with other people,

Yaron Brook (2:06:44.800)

which means to a large extent loving the good

Lex Fridman (2:06:48.280)

in other people and the best in other people

Lex Fridman (2:06:50.720)

and encouraging that and supporting that

Lex Fridman (2:06:52.280)

and promoting that.

Lex Fridman (2:06:53.440)

So I know selfishness is a harsh word

Lex Fridman (2:06:56.440)

because the culture has given it that harshness.

Yaron Brook (2:06:58.960)

Selfishness is a harsh word

Lex Fridman (2:07:00.320)

because the people who don't like selfishness

Yaron Brook (2:07:01.920)

want you to believe it's a harsh word.

Lex Fridman (2:07:04.240)

But it's not.

Lex Fridman (2:07:05.640)

What does it mean?

Lex Fridman (2:07:06.560)

It means focus on self.

Yaron Brook (2:07:09.000)

It means take care of self.

Lex Fridman (2:07:10.840)

It means make yourself your highest priority,

Yaron Brook (2:07:13.360)

not your only priority,

Lex Fridman (2:07:14.880)

because in taking care of self,

Lex Fridman (2:07:16.720)

what would I be without my wife?

Lex Fridman (2:07:20.320)

What would I be without the people who support me,

Lex Fridman (2:07:24.440)

who help me, who I have these love relationships with?

Lex Fridman (2:07:30.280)

So other people are crucial.

Lex Fridman (2:07:31.880)

What would my life be without Steve Jobs, right?

Lex Fridman (2:07:36.920)

A lot of things you mentioned here are just beautiful.

Lex Fridman (2:07:41.360)

So one is win win.

Lex Fridman (2:07:42.840)

So one key thing about this selfishness

Lex Fridman (2:07:45.800)

and the idea of objectivism is the philosophy of love

Lex Fridman (2:07:48.720)

is that you don't want parasitism.

Lex Fridman (2:07:52.240)

So that is unethical.

Lex Fridman (2:07:54.400)

So you actually, first of all, you say win win a lot.

Lex Fridman (2:07:58.320)

And I just like that terminology

Lex Fridman (2:08:00.240)

because it's a good way to see life.

Yaron Brook (2:08:02.280)

It's tried to maximize the number of win win interactions.

Lex Fridman (2:08:06.560)

That's a good way to see business actually.

Yaron Brook (2:08:08.320)

Well, life generally, I think every aspect of life,

Lex Fridman (2:08:10.920)

you wanna have a win win relationship with your wife.

Yaron Brook (2:08:13.800)

Imagine if it was win lose.

Lex Fridman (2:08:16.000)

Either way, if you win and she loses,

Lex Fridman (2:08:18.200)

how long is that gonna sustain?

Lex Fridman (2:08:20.440)

So win lose relationships are not in equilibrium.

Lex Fridman (2:08:25.200)

What they turn into is lose lose.

Lex Fridman (2:08:27.080)

Like win lose turns into lose lose.

Lex Fridman (2:08:29.800)

And so the only alternative to lose lose is win win.

Lex Fridman (2:08:34.280)

And you win and the person you love wins.

Lex Fridman (2:08:36.880)

What's better than that, right?

Lex Fridman (2:08:38.440)

That's the way to maximize, so like the selfishness

Yaron Brook (2:08:42.480)

is you're trying to maximize the win,

Lex Fridman (2:08:44.480)

but the way to maximize the win is to maximize the win win.

Yaron Brook (2:08:48.200)

Yes, and it turns out,

Lex Fridman (2:08:49.600)

and Adam Smith understood this a long time ago,

Yaron Brook (2:08:51.800)

that if you focus on your own winning

Lex Fridman (2:08:55.360)

while respecting other people as human beings,

Yaron Brook (2:08:57.960)

then everybody wins.

Lex Fridman (2:08:59.120)

And the beauty of capitalism,

Yaron Brook (2:09:00.240)

if we go back to capitalism for a second,

Lex Fridman (2:09:02.200)

the beauty of capitalism is you cannot be successful

Yaron Brook (2:09:05.080)

in capitalism without producing values

Lex Fridman (2:09:08.800)

that other people appreciate

Lex Fridman (2:09:10.240)

and therefore willing to buy from you.

Lex Fridman (2:09:12.120)

And they buy them, and this goes back to that question

Yaron Brook (2:09:14.960)

about the engineer and Steve Jobs.

Lex Fridman (2:09:16.520)

Why is the engineer working there?

Yaron Brook (2:09:18.960)

Because he's getting paid more than his time is worth to him.

Lex Fridman (2:09:22.560)

I know people don't like to think in those terms,

Lex Fridman (2:09:24.280)

but that's the reality.

Lex Fridman (2:09:25.720)

If his time is worth more to him than what he's getting paid,

Yaron Brook (2:09:27.960)

he would leave.

Lex Fridman (2:09:29.880)

So he's winning.

Lex Fridman (2:09:32.160)

And is Apple winning?

Lex Fridman (2:09:33.120)

Yes, because they're getting more productivity from him.

Yaron Brook (2:09:35.280)

They're getting more from him

Lex Fridman (2:09:36.600)

than what he's actually producing.

Yaron Brook (2:09:40.920)

It's tough because there's the human psychology

Lex Fridman (2:09:44.120)

and imperfect information.

Yaron Brook (2:09:45.720)

It just makes it a little messier

Lex Fridman (2:09:47.840)

than the clarity of thinking you have about this.

Yaron Brook (2:09:50.360)

It's just, you know, because for sure,

Lex Fridman (2:09:54.240)

but not everything in life is an economic transaction.

Yaron Brook (2:09:56.920)

It ultimately is close, but it...

Lex Fridman (2:10:00.520)

Even if it's not an economic transaction,

Yaron Brook (2:10:02.240)

even if it's a relationship transaction,

Lex Fridman (2:10:05.560)

when you get to a point with a friend

Yaron Brook (2:10:08.640)

where you're not gaining from the relationship,

Lex Fridman (2:10:11.400)

friendship's gonna be over.

Yaron Brook (2:10:12.560)

Not immediately, because it takes time for these things

Lex Fridman (2:10:14.720)

to manifest itself and to really absorb and to...

Lex Fridman (2:10:17.200)

But we change friendships, we change our loves, right?

Lex Fridman (2:10:20.200)

We fall in and out of love.

Yaron Brook (2:10:22.000)

We fall out of love because we're not...

Lex Fridman (2:10:23.920)

Love, so let's go back to love, right?

Yaron Brook (2:10:27.000)

Love is the most selfish of all emotions.

Lex Fridman (2:10:29.160)

Love is about what you do to me, right?

Lex Fridman (2:10:31.920)

So I love my wife because she makes me feel better

Lex Fridman (2:10:34.360)

about myself.

Yaron Brook (2:10:36.520)

So, you know, the idea of selfless love is bizarre.

Lex Fridman (2:10:41.560)

So Ayn Rand used to say, before you say, I love you,

Yaron Brook (2:10:44.960)

you have to say the I.

Lex Fridman (2:10:48.400)

And you have to know who you are

Lex Fridman (2:10:50.480)

and you have to appreciate yourself.

Lex Fridman (2:10:52.080)

If you hate yourself,

Lex Fridman (2:10:53.520)

what does it mean to love somebody else?

Lex Fridman (2:10:55.520)

So I love my wife because she makes me feel great

Yaron Brook (2:10:58.560)

about the world.

Lex Fridman (2:11:00.400)

And she loves me for the same reason.

Lex Fridman (2:11:02.520)

And so Ayn Rand used to use this example.

Lex Fridman (2:11:05.640)

Imagine you go up to be spoused the night before the wedding

Lex Fridman (2:11:10.360)

and you say, you know, I get nothing out of this relationship.

Lex Fridman (2:11:14.680)

I'm doing this purely as an act of noble self sacrifice.

Lex Fridman (2:11:18.680)

She would slap you, as she should, right?

Lex Fridman (2:11:23.120)

So, you know, we know this intuitively that love is selfish,

Lex Fridman (2:11:27.760)

but we are afraid to admit it to ourselves.

Lex Fridman (2:11:29.800)

And why?

Yaron Brook (2:11:30.640)

Because the other side has convinced us

Lex Fridman (2:11:33.000)

that selfishness is associated with exploiting other people.

Yaron Brook (2:11:36.520)

Selfishness means lying, cheating, stealing,

Lex Fridman (2:11:39.240)

walking on corpses, backstabbing people.

Lex Fridman (2:11:43.360)

But is that ever in your self interest truly, right?

Lex Fridman (2:11:47.800)

You know, I'll often be in front of an audience to say,

Yaron Brook (2:11:50.240)

okay, how many people have you ever been in a relationship

Lex Fridman (2:11:52.320)

and say, okay, how many people here have lied?

Lex Fridman (2:11:54.600)

I'm kidding, right?

Lex Fridman (2:11:57.040)

How many of you think that if you did that consistently,

Lex Fridman (2:12:00.840)

that would make your life better?

Lex Fridman (2:12:03.360)

Nobody thinks that, right?

Yaron Brook (2:12:04.960)

Because everybody's experienced how shitty lying,

Lex Fridman (2:12:09.800)

not because of how it makes you feel

Yaron Brook (2:12:11.360)

out of a sense of guilt.

Lex Fridman (2:12:12.480)

Existentially, it's just a bad strategy, right?

Yaron Brook (2:12:15.320)

You get caught, you have to create other lies

Lex Fridman (2:12:18.200)

to cover up the previous lie.

Yaron Brook (2:12:19.920)

It screws up with your own psychology and your own cognition.

Lex Fridman (2:12:23.800)

You know, the mind, to some extent, like a computer, right,

Yaron Brook (2:12:27.880)

is an integrating machine.

Lex Fridman (2:12:29.680)

And in computer science, I understand

Yaron Brook (2:12:31.120)

there's a term called garbage in, garbage out.

Lex Fridman (2:12:33.720)

Lying is garbage in.

Yaron Brook (2:12:35.000)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:12:36.000)

So it's not good strategy.

Yaron Brook (2:12:38.920)

Cheating, screwing your customers in a business,

Lex Fridman (2:12:42.760)

not paying your suppliers as a businessman,

Yaron Brook (2:12:45.120)

not good business practices,

Lex Fridman (2:12:47.080)

not good practices for being alive.

Lex Fridman (2:12:49.320)

So win, win is both model and practical.

Lex Fridman (2:12:52.960)

And the beauty of Heinemann's philosophy,

Lex Fridman (2:12:55.040)

and I think this is really important,

Lex Fridman (2:12:57.240)

is that the model is the practical

Lex Fridman (2:12:58.760)

and the practical is the model.

Lex Fridman (2:13:00.320)

And therefore, if you are a model, you will be happy.

Yaron Brook (2:13:04.680)

Yeah, that's why the application

Lex Fridman (2:13:08.040)

of the philosophy of objectivism is so easy to practice.

Lex Fridman (2:13:11.840)

So like, or to discuss, or possible to discuss.

Lex Fridman (2:13:15.160)

That's why you talk about all.

Yaron Brook (2:13:16.480)

I'm so clear cut.

Lex Fridman (2:13:17.560)

Yeah.

Yaron Brook (2:13:18.400)

I'm so vigorous about my view.

Lex Fridman (2:13:19.400)

And that's fundamentally practical.

Yaron Brook (2:13:20.920)

I mean, that's the best of philosophies is practical.

Lex Fridman (2:13:24.440)

It's in a sense, teaching you how to live a good life.

Lex Fridman (2:13:27.680)

And it's teaching you how to live a good life,

Lex Fridman (2:13:30.160)

not just as you, but as a human being.

Lex Fridman (2:13:33.280)

And therefore, the principles that apply to you

Lex Fridman (2:13:35.440)

probably apply to me as well.

Lex Fridman (2:13:37.200)

And if we both share the same principles

Lex Fridman (2:13:40.040)

of how to live a good life, we're not gonna be enemies.

Yaron Brook (2:13:44.480)

You brought up anarchy earlier.

Lex Fridman (2:13:46.840)

It's an interesting question

Yaron Brook (2:13:49.560)

because you've kind of said politicians.

Lex Fridman (2:13:52.040)

I mean, part of it is a little bit joking,

Lex Fridman (2:13:54.000)

but politicians are not good people.

Lex Fridman (2:13:57.320)

Yep.

Yaron Brook (2:13:58.440)

So, but we should have some.

Lex Fridman (2:14:02.080)

So you have an opposition to anarchism.

Lex Fridman (2:14:05.840)

So they, first of all, they weren't always not bad people.

Lex Fridman (2:14:08.360)

That is, I gave examples of people

Yaron Brook (2:14:10.800)

who engage in political life

Lex Fridman (2:14:11.880)

who I think were good people basically.

Yaron Brook (2:14:14.080)

And, but they think they get worse over time

Lex Fridman (2:14:17.160)

if the system is corrupt.

Lex Fridman (2:14:19.960)

And I think the system, unfortunately,

Lex Fridman (2:14:21.920)

even the American system, as good as it was,

Yaron Brook (2:14:24.560)

was founded on quicksand and have corruption built in.

Lex Fridman (2:14:28.560)

They didn't quite get it.

Lex Fridman (2:14:30.400)

And they needed Ayn Rand to get it.

Lex Fridman (2:14:31.920)

So I'm not blaming them.

Yaron Brook (2:14:32.920)

I don't think they share any blame.

Lex Fridman (2:14:34.440)

You needed a philosophy in order to completely fulfill

Yaron Brook (2:14:39.280)

the promise that is America,

Lex Fridman (2:14:40.800)

or the promise that is the founding of America.

Lex Fridman (2:14:42.280)

So the place where corruption sneaked in

Lex Fridman (2:14:45.320)

is the lack in some way of the philosophy

Lex Fridman (2:14:48.400)

underlying the nation?

Lex Fridman (2:14:49.600)

Absolutely.

Lex Fridman (2:14:50.440)

So it's Christianity.

Lex Fridman (2:14:53.080)

It's, you know, not to hit on another controversial topic.

Yaron Brook (2:14:57.120)

It's religion, which undercut their morality.

Lex Fridman (2:15:01.800)

So the founders were explicitly Christian

Lex Fridman (2:15:05.880)

and altruistic in their morality.

Lex Fridman (2:15:09.960)

Implicitly, in terms of their actions,

Yaron Brook (2:15:11.800)

they were completely secular,

Lex Fridman (2:15:12.880)

and they were very secular anyway.

Lex Fridman (2:15:15.240)

But in their morality, even, they were secular.

Lex Fridman (2:15:17.680)

So there's nothing in Christianity that says

Yaron Brook (2:15:20.000)

that you have an inalienable right to pursue happiness.

Lex Fridman (2:15:23.200)

That's unbelievably self interested

Lex Fridman (2:15:25.120)

and based on kind of a moral philosophy of ego,

Lex Fridman (2:15:28.400)

of an egoistic moral philosophy.

Lex Fridman (2:15:30.080)

But they didn't know that.

Lex Fridman (2:15:31.120)

And they didn't know how to ground it.

Yaron Brook (2:15:33.080)

They implicitly, they had that fast thinking, that gut.

Lex Fridman (2:15:36.040)

They told them that this was right.

Lex Fridman (2:15:37.520)

And the whole enlightenment, that period,

Lex Fridman (2:15:39.640)

from John Locke on to really to Hume,

Yaron Brook (2:15:44.880)

that period is about pursuit of happiness,

Lex Fridman (2:15:47.280)

using reason in pursuit of the good life, right?

Lex Fridman (2:15:50.280)

But they can't ground it.

Lex Fridman (2:15:51.480)

They don't really understand what reason is,

Lex Fridman (2:15:53.240)

and they don't really understand what happiness requires.

Lex Fridman (2:15:56.840)

And they can't detach themselves from Christianity.

Yaron Brook (2:16:00.040)

They're not allowed to politically.

Lex Fridman (2:16:01.400)

And I think conceptually,

Yaron Brook (2:16:02.720)

you just can't make that big break.

Lex Fridman (2:16:05.080)

Rand is an enlightenment thinker in that sense.

Lex Fridman (2:16:07.160)

She is what should have followed right after, right?

Lex Fridman (2:16:10.960)

She should have come there and grounded them

Yaron Brook (2:16:13.320)

in the secular and in the egoistic

Lex Fridman (2:16:18.080)

and the Aristotelian view of morality

Yaron Brook (2:16:19.960)

as a code of values to basically to guide your life,

Lex Fridman (2:16:25.240)

to guide your life towards happiness.

Lex Fridman (2:16:27.240)

That's Aristotle's view, right?

Lex Fridman (2:16:31.200)

So they didn't have that.

Lex Fridman (2:16:34.000)

So I think that government is necessary.

Lex Fridman (2:16:38.400)

It's not a necessary evil.

Yaron Brook (2:16:39.520)

It's a necessary good, because it does something good.

Lex Fridman (2:16:43.840)

And the good that it does

Yaron Brook (2:16:45.800)

is it eliminates coercion from society.

Lex Fridman (2:16:48.000)

It eliminates violence from society.

Yaron Brook (2:16:50.000)

It eliminates the use of force

Lex Fridman (2:16:52.680)

between individuals from society.

Lex Fridman (2:16:55.360)

And that...

Lex Fridman (2:16:56.840)

But see, the argument like Michael Malice would make,

Yaron Brook (2:16:59.360)

give me a chance here,

Lex Fridman (2:17:02.440)

is why can't you apply the same kind of reasoning

Yaron Brook (2:17:05.960)

that you've effectively used for the rest

Lex Fridman (2:17:08.760)

of mutually agreed upon institutions

Yaron Brook (2:17:12.160)

that are driven by capitalism,

Lex Fridman (2:17:14.040)

that we can't also hire forces

Yaron Brook (2:17:17.240)

to protect us from the violence,

Lex Fridman (2:17:19.240)

to ensure the stability of society

Yaron Brook (2:17:21.560)

that protects us from the violence.

Lex Fridman (2:17:24.920)

Why draw the line at this particular place, right?

Yaron Brook (2:17:28.440)

Well, because there is no other place to draw a line,

Lex Fridman (2:17:30.840)

and there is a line.

Lex Fridman (2:17:32.600)

And by the way, we draw lines at other places, right?

Lex Fridman (2:17:36.280)

We don't vote.

Yaron Brook (2:17:45.240)

We don't determine truth and science based on competition.

Lex Fridman (2:17:49.200)

Right, so that's a line.

Lex Fridman (2:17:51.520)

But first of all, some people might say...

Lex Fridman (2:17:53.680)

I mean, there's competition in a sense

Yaron Brook (2:17:55.360)

that you have alternate theories,

Lex Fridman (2:17:57.360)

but at the end of the day,

Yaron Brook (2:17:59.080)

whether you decide that he's right or he's right

Lex Fridman (2:18:01.720)

is not based on the market.

Yaron Brook (2:18:04.680)

It's based on facts, on reality, on objective reality.

Lex Fridman (2:18:09.400)

You have to...

Lex Fridman (2:18:11.440)

And some people will never accept that this person is right

Lex Fridman (2:18:14.280)

because they don't see the string.

Lex Fridman (2:18:17.000)

So first of all, what they reject,

Lex Fridman (2:18:19.160)

what most anarchists reject,

Yaron Brook (2:18:20.480)

even if they don't admit it or recognize it,

Lex Fridman (2:18:23.600)

is they reject objective reality.

Lex Fridman (2:18:26.640)

In which sense?

Lex Fridman (2:18:27.920)

So like, okay, I get it, right.

Lex Fridman (2:18:29.480)

So there's a whole...

Lex Fridman (2:18:30.960)

So the whole realm of law

Yaron Brook (2:18:36.600)

is a scientific realm

Lex Fridman (2:18:39.880)

to define, for example, the boundaries of private property.

Yaron Brook (2:18:45.400)

It's not an issue of competition.

Lex Fridman (2:18:47.480)

It's not an issue of,

Yaron Brook (2:18:50.480)

I have one system and you have another system.

Lex Fridman (2:18:53.760)

It's an issue of a big competition.

Yaron Brook (2:18:55.800)

It's an issue of objective reality.

Lex Fridman (2:18:57.880)

And now it's more difficult than science in a sense

Yaron Brook (2:19:00.840)

because it's more difficult to prove

Lex Fridman (2:19:03.600)

that my conception of property is correct

Lex Fridman (2:19:05.520)

and you're correct.

Lex Fridman (2:19:07.680)

But there is a correct one.

Yaron Brook (2:19:10.200)

In reality, there's a correct vision.

Lex Fridman (2:19:12.280)

It's more abstract.

Lex Fridman (2:19:14.480)

But look,

Lex Fridman (2:19:16.560)

somebody has to decide what property is.

Lex Fridman (2:19:19.920)

So my property is defined by certain boundaries.

Lex Fridman (2:19:24.920)

And I have a police force

Lex Fridman (2:19:27.160)

and I have a judiciary system that backs my vision.

Lex Fridman (2:19:31.040)

And you have a claim against my property.

Yaron Brook (2:19:33.960)

You have a claim against my property.

Lex Fridman (2:19:35.120)

And you have a police force and a judicial system

Yaron Brook (2:19:38.240)

that backs your claim.

Lex Fridman (2:19:40.720)

Who's right?

Lex Fridman (2:19:41.800)

So our definitions of property are different?

Lex Fridman (2:19:45.160)

Yes, our definitions of property

Yaron Brook (2:19:46.400)

or our claim on the property is different.

Lex Fridman (2:19:48.960)

So what if we just agree on the definition of property and...

Lex Fridman (2:19:54.200)

But why should we agree, right?

Lex Fridman (2:19:55.760)

Your judicial system is one definition of property.

Yaron Brook (2:19:58.720)

My judicial system is not.

Lex Fridman (2:20:00.320)

You think that there's no such thing

Yaron Brook (2:20:02.920)

as intellectual property rights.

Lex Fridman (2:20:05.240)

And your whole system believes that.

Lex Fridman (2:20:07.360)

And my whole system believes there is such thing.

Lex Fridman (2:20:09.600)

So you are duplicating my books

Lex Fridman (2:20:12.160)

and handing them out to all your friends

Lex Fridman (2:20:14.280)

and not paying me a royalty.

Yaron Brook (2:20:16.000)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:20:16.840)

And I think that's wrong.

Yaron Brook (2:20:19.640)

My judicial system and my police force think that's wrong.

Lex Fridman (2:20:23.960)

And we're both living in the same geographic area, right?

Lex Fridman (2:20:27.880)

So we have overlapping jurisdictions.

Lex Fridman (2:20:31.560)

Now, the anarchist would say, well, we'll negotiate.

Lex Fridman (2:20:34.600)

Why should we negotiate?

Lex Fridman (2:20:35.760)

My system is actually right.

Yaron Brook (2:20:37.440)

There is such a thing as intellectual property rights.

Lex Fridman (2:20:39.280)

There's no negotiation here.

Yaron Brook (2:20:40.560)

You're wrong.

Lex Fridman (2:20:41.560)

And you should either pay a fine or go to jail.

Yaron Brook (2:20:44.280)

Yeah, but why can't...

Lex Fridman (2:20:45.520)

Because it's a community, there's multiple parties

Lex Fridman (2:20:48.480)

and it's like a majority vote.

Lex Fridman (2:20:49.920)

They'll hire different forces that says,

Yaron Brook (2:20:52.640)

yeah, Yaron is onto something here

Lex Fridman (2:20:54.760)

with the definition of property and we'll go with that.

Lex Fridman (2:20:57.080)

So are anarchists pro democracy in the majority rule sense?

Lex Fridman (2:21:01.320)

Well, I think so.

Lex Fridman (2:21:02.160)

I think anarchy promotes like emergent democracy, right?

Lex Fridman (2:21:07.680)

Like the...

Yaron Brook (2:21:08.520)

No, it doesn't.

Lex Fridman (2:21:09.960)

I'll tell you what it promotes.

Yaron Brook (2:21:11.240)

It promotes emergent strife and civil war and violence,

Lex Fridman (2:21:15.960)

constant uninterrupted violence.

Yaron Brook (2:21:18.240)

Because the only way to settle the dispute between us,

Lex Fridman (2:21:20.880)

since we both think that we are right

Lex Fridman (2:21:23.240)

and we have guns behind us to protect that

Lex Fridman (2:21:26.920)

and we have a legal system,

Yaron Brook (2:21:28.080)

we have a whole theory of ideas,

Lex Fridman (2:21:30.160)

is you're stealing my stuff.

Lex Fridman (2:21:33.720)

How do I get it back?

Lex Fridman (2:21:35.560)

I invade you, right?

Lex Fridman (2:21:37.440)

I take over, and who's gonna win that battle?

Lex Fridman (2:21:41.880)

The smartest guy?

Yaron Brook (2:21:43.000)

Oh, the guy with the biggest guns.

Lex Fridman (2:21:44.440)

See, but the anarchists would say

Yaron Brook (2:21:46.360)

that they're using implied,

Lex Fridman (2:21:48.280)

like the state uses implied force.

Yaron Brook (2:21:51.680)

They're already doing violence.

Lex Fridman (2:21:53.000)

Because they take the state as it is today

Lex Fridman (2:21:56.040)

and they refuse to engage in the conversation

Lex Fridman (2:21:58.760)

about what a state should and could look like

Lex Fridman (2:22:01.200)

and how we can create mechanisms

Lex Fridman (2:22:04.080)

to protect us from the state using those.

Lex Fridman (2:22:07.000)

But look, my view of anarchy is very simple.

Lex Fridman (2:22:10.320)

It's a ridiculous position.

Yaron Brook (2:22:12.440)

It's infantile.

Lex Fridman (2:22:13.560)

I mean, I really mean this, right?

Lex Fridman (2:22:14.960)

And sorry to Michael,

Lex Fridman (2:22:16.480)

but and all the other very, very smart,

Yaron Brook (2:22:19.320)

very, very smart anarchists.

Lex Fridman (2:22:20.760)

Because anarchists is never,

Yaron Brook (2:22:23.320)

you won't find a dumb anarchist.

Lex Fridman (2:22:25.680)

Right.

Yaron Brook (2:22:26.520)

Because dumb people know it wouldn't work.

Lex Fridman (2:22:28.800)

You have to have, it's absolutely true.

Yaron Brook (2:22:31.680)

You have to have a certain IQ to be an anarchist.

Lex Fridman (2:22:35.800)

That's true, they're all really intelligent.

Yaron Brook (2:22:37.400)

All intelligence.

Lex Fridman (2:22:38.240)

And the reason is that you have to create

Yaron Brook (2:22:42.640)

such a mythology in your head.

Lex Fridman (2:22:45.840)

You have to create so many rationalizations.

Yaron Brook (2:22:49.440)

Any Joe in the street knows it doesn't work

Lex Fridman (2:22:52.640)

because they can understand what happens

Yaron Brook (2:22:55.560)

when two people who are armed are in the street

Lex Fridman (2:22:59.240)

and have a dispute and there's no mechanism

Yaron Brook (2:23:01.960)

to resolve that dispute.

Lex Fridman (2:23:03.680)

Yeah.

Yaron Brook (2:23:04.640)

That's objective.

Lex Fridman (2:23:06.320)

And this is where it gets subjective.

Yaron Brook (2:23:07.840)

That's objective.

Lex Fridman (2:23:09.440)

The whole point of government is

Yaron Brook (2:23:12.200)

that it is the objective authority

Lex Fridman (2:23:14.800)

for determining the truth in one regard,

Yaron Brook (2:23:18.840)

in regard to force.

Lex Fridman (2:23:21.560)

Because the only alternative to determining it

Yaron Brook (2:23:25.600)

when it comes to force is through force.

Lex Fridman (2:23:27.920)

The only way to resolve disputes is through force

Yaron Brook (2:23:31.120)

or through this negotiation, which is unjust

Lex Fridman (2:23:33.160)

because if one party is right and one party is wrong,

Lex Fridman (2:23:34.760)

why negotiate?

Lex Fridman (2:23:35.880)

And this is the point.

Yaron Brook (2:23:38.600)

I'm not against competition of governance.

Lex Fridman (2:23:41.760)

I'm all for competition of governance.

Yaron Brook (2:23:43.720)

We do that all the time.

Lex Fridman (2:23:44.680)

It's called countries.

Yaron Brook (2:23:46.200)

The United States has a certain governance structure.

Lex Fridman (2:23:49.120)

The Soviet Union had a governance structure.

Yaron Brook (2:23:50.800)

Mexico has a governance structure.

Lex Fridman (2:23:52.760)

And they're competing.

Lex Fridman (2:23:54.160)

And we can observe the competition.

Lex Fridman (2:23:55.880)

And in my world, you could move freely

Yaron Brook (2:23:58.640)

from one governance to another.

Lex Fridman (2:24:00.240)

If you didn't like your governance,

Yaron Brook (2:24:01.520)

you would move to a better governance system.

Lex Fridman (2:24:03.840)

But they have to have autonomy within a geographic area.

Yaron Brook (2:24:07.240)

Otherwise what you get is complete and utter civil war.

Lex Fridman (2:24:10.720)

The law needs to be objective.

Lex Fridman (2:24:13.120)

And there needs to be one law over a piece of ground.

Lex Fridman (2:24:15.360)

And if you disagree with that law,

Yaron Brook (2:24:16.800)

you can move somewhere else where they may.

Lex Fridman (2:24:18.560)

This is why federalism is such a beautiful system.

Yaron Brook (2:24:21.480)

Even within the United States, we have states.

Lex Fridman (2:24:23.960)

And on certain issues, we're allowed

Yaron Brook (2:24:25.760)

to disagree between states, like the death penalty.

Lex Fridman (2:24:27.960)

Some states do, some states don't.

Yaron Brook (2:24:30.000)

Fine.

Lex Fridman (2:24:30.920)

And now I can move from one state if I don't like it.

Lex Fridman (2:24:33.720)

But there's certain issues you cannot have disagreement.

Lex Fridman (2:24:36.040)

Slavery, for example, this is why we had a civil war.

Lex Fridman (2:24:39.080)

But let me, one other argument against anarchy.

Lex Fridman (2:24:43.600)

Markets exist where force has been eliminated.

Lex Fridman (2:24:49.080)

Sorry, can you say that again?

Lex Fridman (2:24:50.000)

Markets exist where the rule of force has been eliminated.

Lex Fridman (2:24:55.680)

The rule of force?

Lex Fridman (2:24:57.080)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (2:24:58.120)

So a market will exist if we know

Lex Fridman (2:25:02.680)

that you can't pull a gun on me and just take my stuff.

Yaron Brook (2:25:05.680)

I am willing to engage in transaction with you

Lex Fridman (2:25:08.080)

if we have an implicit understanding

Yaron Brook (2:25:10.840)

that we're not gonna use force against each other.

Lex Fridman (2:25:13.240)

So force has something special to it.

Yaron Brook (2:25:15.600)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (2:25:16.440)

It's a special, it overrides,

Yaron Brook (2:25:18.800)

because we are still agreeing we can manipulate each other.

Lex Fridman (2:25:21.800)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (2:25:22.840)

But force we can't.

Lex Fridman (2:25:23.680)

Force kind of,

Lex Fridman (2:25:25.240)

so there's something fundamental about violence.

Lex Fridman (2:25:28.320)

Force is a fundamental force.

Yaron Brook (2:25:30.640)

It's the anti reason.

Lex Fridman (2:25:32.480)

It's the anti life.

Yaron Brook (2:25:34.480)

It's the anti force against another person.

Lex Fridman (2:25:38.680)

And it's what it does is shuts down the mind.

Yaron Brook (2:25:41.600)

Right.

Lex Fridman (2:25:43.040)

So in order to have a market,

Yaron Brook (2:25:45.920)

you have to extract force.

Lex Fridman (2:25:49.280)

That's fascinating.

Lex Fridman (2:25:50.120)

How can you have a market in force?

Lex Fridman (2:25:53.000)

When I, there's an Instagram channel called nature's metal

Yaron Brook (2:25:56.480)

where it has all these videos of animals,

Lex Fridman (2:26:00.960)

basically having a market of force.

Yaron Brook (2:26:03.160)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (2:26:04.000)

But that shuts down the ability to reason

Lex Fridman (2:26:06.040)

and animals don't need to because they can't.

Lex Fridman (2:26:08.000)

Exactly.

Lex Fridman (2:26:08.840)

So the innovation that is human beings

Lex Fridman (2:26:10.960)

is our capacity to reason.

Lex Fridman (2:26:12.440)

And therefore the relegation of force to the animals.

Lex Fridman (2:26:16.000)

We don't do force.

Yaron Brook (2:26:17.440)

Civilization is what we don't have force.

Lex Fridman (2:26:20.200)

And so what you have is you cannot have a market in that,

Yaron Brook (2:26:25.400)

which a market requires the elimination of it.

Lex Fridman (2:26:28.960)

And I don't debate formally these guys,

Lex Fridman (2:26:32.240)

but I interact with them all the time, right?

Lex Fridman (2:26:34.240)

And you get these absurd arguments where,

Yaron Brook (2:26:37.120)

David Friedman will say, that's Milton Friedman's son.

Lex Fridman (2:26:39.840)

He will say something like, well, in Somalia,

Yaron Brook (2:26:42.760)

in the Northern part of Somalia

Lex Fridman (2:26:43.960)

where they have no government,

Yaron Brook (2:26:45.360)

you have all these wonderful,

Lex Fridman (2:26:46.560)

you have these tribal tribunals of these tribes

Lex Fridman (2:26:51.200)

and they resolve disputes.

Lex Fridman (2:26:52.920)

Yeah.

Yaron Brook (2:26:54.040)

Barbarically, they use Sharia law.

Lex Fridman (2:26:57.080)

They have no respect for individual rights,

Yaron Brook (2:26:58.760)

no respect for property.

Lex Fridman (2:27:00.320)

And the only reason they have any authority

Yaron Brook (2:27:02.520)

is because they have guns and they have power

Lex Fridman (2:27:04.880)

and they have force and they do it barbarically.

Yaron Brook (2:27:08.600)

There's nothing civilizing about the courts of Somalian

Lex Fridman (2:27:14.080)

and they write about pirates because they view force.

Yaron Brook (2:27:18.120)

They don't view force as something unique

Lex Fridman (2:27:20.360)

that must be extracted from human life.

Lex Fridman (2:27:23.200)

And that's why anarchy has to devolve into violence

Lex Fridman (2:27:26.160)

because it treats forces just,

Lex Fridman (2:27:27.640)

what's the big deal with negotiating over guns?

Lex Fridman (2:27:32.360)

So we covered a lot of high level philosophy,

Lex Fridman (2:27:34.600)

but I'd like to touch on the troubles, the chaos of the day.

Lex Fridman (2:27:41.400)

Yeah.

Yaron Brook (2:27:42.480)

A couple of things.

Lex Fridman (2:27:43.800)

And I really trying to find a hopeful path way out.

Lex Fridman (2:27:51.000)

So one is the current coronavirus pandemic,

Lex Fridman (2:27:55.080)

or in particular, not the virus,

Lex Fridman (2:27:57.120)

but our handling of it.

Lex Fridman (2:28:00.480)

Is there something philosophically, politically

Yaron Brook (2:28:04.800)

that you would like to see,

Lex Fridman (2:28:06.120)

that you would like to recommend,

Yaron Brook (2:28:08.120)

that you would like to maybe give a hopeful message

Lex Fridman (2:28:11.040)

if we take that kind of trajectory

Lex Fridman (2:28:12.760)

we might be able to get out?

Lex Fridman (2:28:14.280)

Because I'm kind of worried about the economic pain

Yaron Brook (2:28:18.200)

that people are feeling that there's this quiet suffering.

Lex Fridman (2:28:22.000)

I mean, I agree with you completely.

Yaron Brook (2:28:23.560)

There is a quiet suffering.

Lex Fridman (2:28:24.640)

It's horrible.

Yaron Brook (2:28:26.080)

I mean, I know people.

Lex Fridman (2:28:27.560)

I go to a lot of restaurants.

Yaron Brook (2:28:29.400)

One of the things we love to do is eat out.

Lex Fridman (2:28:31.680)

My wife doesn't like cooking anymore.

Yaron Brook (2:28:33.800)

We don't have kids in the house anymore,

Lex Fridman (2:28:35.920)

so she doesn't have to.

Lex Fridman (2:28:36.760)

So we go out a lot.

Lex Fridman (2:28:37.600)

We go to restaurants.

Lex Fridman (2:28:38.440)

And because we have our favorites and we go to them a lot,

Lex Fridman (2:28:40.520)

we get to know the owners of the restaurant, the chef.

Lex Fridman (2:28:44.760)

And it's just heartbreaking.

Lex Fridman (2:28:46.880)

These people put their life, their blood, sweat, and tears.

Yaron Brook (2:28:51.040)

I mean, real blood, sweat, and tears into these projects.

Lex Fridman (2:28:53.960)

Restaurants are super difficult to manage.

Yaron Brook (2:28:56.960)

Most of them go bankrupt anyway.

Lex Fridman (2:28:59.520)

And the restaurants, we go to a good restaurant.

Lex Fridman (2:29:01.760)

So they've done a good job

Lex Fridman (2:29:03.040)

and they offer unique value.

Lex Fridman (2:29:08.200)

And they shut them down.

Lex Fridman (2:29:10.640)

And many of them will never open.

Yaron Brook (2:29:13.880)

Something like the estimate 50, 60% of restaurants

Lex Fridman (2:29:16.120)

in some places won't open.

Yaron Brook (2:29:17.600)

These are people's lives.

Lex Fridman (2:29:18.600)

These are people's capital.

Yaron Brook (2:29:19.520)

These are people's effort.

Lex Fridman (2:29:20.520)

These are people's love.

Yaron Brook (2:29:22.000)

Talk about love.

Lex Fridman (2:29:22.840)

Love what they do.

Yaron Brook (2:29:24.280)

Particularly if they're the chef as well.

Lex Fridman (2:29:26.480)

And it's gone.

Lex Fridman (2:29:27.560)

And it's disappeared.

Lex Fridman (2:29:28.400)

And what are they gonna do with their lives now?

Yaron Brook (2:29:29.520)

They're gonna live off the government

Lex Fridman (2:29:30.600)

the way our politicians would like them.

Yaron Brook (2:29:32.520)

Bigger and bigger stimulus plans

Lex Fridman (2:29:34.160)

so we can hand checks to people

Yaron Brook (2:29:35.720)

to get them used to living off of us rather than.

Lex Fridman (2:29:38.360)

It's disgusting and it's offensive

Lex Fridman (2:29:40.480)

and it's unbelievably sad.

Lex Fridman (2:29:42.760)

And this is where it comes to this.

Yaron Brook (2:29:44.440)

I care about other people.

Lex Fridman (2:29:45.360)

I mean, this idea that objectivists don't care.

Yaron Brook (2:29:46.880)

I mean, I love these people who provide me with pleasure

Lex Fridman (2:29:50.640)

of eating wonderful food in a great environment.

Lex Fridman (2:29:54.760)

And there's something inspiring about them too.

Lex Fridman (2:29:56.680)

Like when I see a great restaurant owner,

Yaron Brook (2:29:58.480)

I wanna do better with my own stuff.

Lex Fridman (2:30:00.440)

Yeah, exactly.

Yaron Brook (2:30:02.080)

They're inspiring.

Lex Fridman (2:30:02.920)

Anybody who does it is excellent.

Yaron Brook (2:30:04.680)

I love sports because it's the one realm

Lex Fridman (2:30:07.000)

in which you'd still value and celebrate excellence.

Lex Fridman (2:30:10.800)

But I try to celebrate excellence everything in my life.

Lex Fridman (2:30:13.280)

So I try to be nice to these people.

Lex Fridman (2:30:16.600)

And with COVID, we went more to restaurants,

Lex Fridman (2:30:20.200)

we did more takeout stuff.

Yaron Brook (2:30:23.200)

We made an effort, particularly the restaurants,

Lex Fridman (2:30:25.400)

we really love to keep them going,

Yaron Brook (2:30:27.360)

to encourage them, to support them.

Lex Fridman (2:30:30.040)

The problem is philosophy drives the world.

Yaron Brook (2:30:35.360)

The response to COVID has been worse than pathetic.

Lex Fridman (2:30:40.520)

And it's driven by philosophy.

Yaron Brook (2:30:43.080)

It's driven by disrespect to science,

Lex Fridman (2:30:46.440)

ignorance and disrespect of statistics,

Yaron Brook (2:30:48.960)

a disrespect of individual human decision making.

Lex Fridman (2:30:52.320)

Government has to decide everything for us.

Lex Fridman (2:30:55.200)

And just throughout the process and a disrespect of markets

Lex Fridman (2:30:59.160)

because we didn't let markets work to facilitate

Lex Fridman (2:31:02.360)

what we needed in order to deal with this virus.

Lex Fridman (2:31:05.080)

If you look at the place, it's interesting

Yaron Brook (2:31:07.320)

that the only place on the planet

Lex Fridman (2:31:08.640)

that's done well with this are parts of Asia, right?

Yaron Brook (2:31:11.880)

Taiwan did phenomenally with this.

Lex Fridman (2:31:14.440)

And the vice president of Taiwan is an epidemiologist.

Lex Fridman (2:31:18.120)

So he knew what he was doing.

Lex Fridman (2:31:20.080)

And they got it right from the beginning.

Yaron Brook (2:31:22.200)

South Korea did amazing, even Hong Kong and Singapore.

Lex Fridman (2:31:27.280)

Hong Kong is just very few deaths.

Lex Fridman (2:31:31.040)

And the economy wasn't shut down in any of those places.

Lex Fridman (2:31:34.480)

There were no lockdowns in any of those places.

Yaron Brook (2:31:38.600)

The CDC had plans before this happened

Lex Fridman (2:31:43.200)

on how to deal with good plans.

Yaron Brook (2:31:45.120)

Indeed, if you ask people around the world before the pandemic

Lex Fridman (2:31:48.440)

which country is best prepared for a pandemic,

Yaron Brook (2:31:51.440)

they would have said the United States

Lex Fridman (2:31:53.080)

because of the CDC's plans

Lex Fridman (2:31:54.760)

and all of our emergency reserves and all that

Lex Fridman (2:31:56.840)

and the wealth.

Lex Fridman (2:31:59.560)

And yet all of that went out the window

Lex Fridman (2:32:02.040)

because people panicked, people didn't think,

Yaron Brook (2:32:06.320)

go back to reason, people were arrogant,

Lex Fridman (2:32:10.560)

refused to use the tools that they had at their disposal

Yaron Brook (2:32:14.440)

to deal with this.

Lex Fridman (2:32:15.600)

So you deal with pandemics, it's very simple

Lex Fridman (2:32:17.560)

how you deal with pandemics.

Lex Fridman (2:32:18.400)

And this is how South Korea and Taiwan and everywhere,

Yaron Brook (2:32:20.600)

you deal with them by testing, tracing and isolating.

Lex Fridman (2:32:26.680)

That's it.

Lex Fridman (2:32:28.000)

And you do it well and you do it vigorously

Lex Fridman (2:32:30.280)

and you do it on scale if you have to.

Lex Fridman (2:32:32.240)

And you scale up to do it and we have the wealth to do that.

Lex Fridman (2:32:35.080)

So one question I have, it's a difficult one.

Lex Fridman (2:32:40.520)

So I talk about love a lot

Lex Fridman (2:32:43.200)

and you've just talked about Donald Trump,

Yaron Brook (2:32:45.560)

I guarantee you though this particular segment

Lex Fridman (2:32:47.880)

will be full of division from the internet.

Lex Fridman (2:32:51.280)

But I believe that should be and can be fixed.

Lex Fridman (2:32:57.040)

What I'm referring to in particular is the division

Yaron Brook (2:33:00.440)

because we've talked about the value of reason.

Lex Fridman (2:33:04.240)

And what I've noticed on the internet

Yaron Brook (2:33:06.120)

is the division shuts down reason.

Lex Fridman (2:33:10.200)

So when people hear you say Trump,

Yaron Brook (2:33:12.480)

actually the first sentence you said about Trump,

Lex Fridman (2:33:14.600)

they'll hear Trump and their ears will perk up

Lex Fridman (2:33:17.240)

and they'll immediately start in that first sentence,

Lex Fridman (2:33:19.720)

they'll say, is he a Trump supporter or a Trump?

Yaron Brook (2:33:22.760)

They're not interested in anything else after that.

Lex Fridman (2:33:24.520)

And then after that, that's it.

Lex Fridman (2:33:26.480)

And what, how do, so my question is,

Lex Fridman (2:33:30.680)

you as one of the beacons of intellectualism,

Yaron Brook (2:33:34.600)

quite honestly, I mean, it sounds silly to say,

Lex Fridman (2:33:37.560)

but you are a beacon of reason.

Lex Fridman (2:33:40.680)

How do we bring people together long enough

Lex Fridman (2:33:44.360)

to where we can reason?

Yaron Brook (2:33:48.360)

I mean, there's no easy way out of this

Lex Fridman (2:33:51.040)

because the fact that people have become tribal

Lex Fridman (2:33:54.560)

and they have, very tribal.

Lex Fridman (2:33:57.600)

And the tribe, in the tribe reason doesn't matter.

Yaron Brook (2:34:03.600)

It's all about emotion.

Lex Fridman (2:34:04.640)

It's all about belonging or not belonging.

Lex Fridman (2:34:06.400)

And you don't wanna stand out.

Lex Fridman (2:34:08.000)

You don't wanna have a different opinion.

Yaron Brook (2:34:10.160)

You wanna belong.

Lex Fridman (2:34:11.200)

And it's all about belonging.

Yaron Brook (2:34:13.400)

It took us decades to get back to tribalism

Lex Fridman (2:34:18.360)

where we were hundreds of years ago.

Yaron Brook (2:34:20.560)

It took millennium to get out of tribalism.

Lex Fridman (2:34:23.120)

It took the enlightenment

Yaron Brook (2:34:24.280)

to get us to the point of individualism,

Lex Fridman (2:34:26.160)

where we think in reason, respect for reason.

Yaron Brook (2:34:28.400)

Before that, we were all tribal.

Lex Fridman (2:34:30.160)

So it took the enlightenment to get us out of it.

Yaron Brook (2:34:31.960)

We've been in the enlightenment for about 250 years,

Lex Fridman (2:34:34.480)

influenced by the enlightenment and it's fading.

Yaron Brook (2:34:38.040)

The impact is fading.

Lex Fridman (2:34:39.920)

So what would we need to get out of it?

Yaron Brook (2:34:42.280)

We need self esteem.

Lex Fridman (2:34:45.000)

People join a tribe

Yaron Brook (2:34:46.800)

because they don't trust their own mind.

Lex Fridman (2:34:50.000)

People join a tribe

Yaron Brook (2:34:51.840)

because they're afraid to stand on their own two feet.

Lex Fridman (2:34:54.160)

They're afraid to think for themselves.

Yaron Brook (2:34:55.920)

They're afraid to be different.

Lex Fridman (2:34:57.160)

They're afraid to be unique.

Yaron Brook (2:34:58.360)

They're afraid to be an individual.

Lex Fridman (2:35:00.840)

People need self esteem.

Yaron Brook (2:35:02.440)

To gain self esteem,

Lex Fridman (2:35:04.600)

they have to have respect for rationality.

Yaron Brook (2:35:08.840)

They have to think and they have to achieve

Lex Fridman (2:35:10.800)

and they have to recognize that achievement.

Yaron Brook (2:35:14.760)

To do that, they have to have respect for thinking.

Lex Fridman (2:35:19.760)

They have to have to respect for reason.

Lex Fridman (2:35:22.160)

And we have to, and think about the schools.

Lex Fridman (2:35:24.800)

We have to have schools that teach people to think,

Yaron Brook (2:35:27.640)

teach people to value their mind.

Lex Fridman (2:35:29.920)

We have schools that teach people to feel

Lex Fridman (2:35:32.680)

and value their feelings.

Lex Fridman (2:35:33.800)

We have groups of six year olds sitting around a circle

Yaron Brook (2:35:36.280)

discussing politics.

Lex Fridman (2:35:37.640)

What?

Yaron Brook (2:35:38.480)

They don't know anything.

Lex Fridman (2:35:39.680)

They're ignorant.

Yaron Brook (2:35:41.000)

See, you don't know anything when you're ignorant.

Lex Fridman (2:35:43.280)

Yes, you can feel,

Lex Fridman (2:35:44.560)

but your feelings are useless as decision making tools.

Lex Fridman (2:35:49.160)

But we emphasize emotion.

Yaron Brook (2:35:51.360)

It's all about socialization and emotion.

Lex Fridman (2:35:53.720)

This is why they talk about this generation of snowflakes.

Yaron Brook (2:35:57.520)

They can't hear anything that they're opposed to

Lex Fridman (2:36:00.560)

because they've not learned how to use their mind,

Lex Fridman (2:36:03.440)

how to think.

Lex Fridman (2:36:04.320)

So it boils down to teaching people how to think two things,

Lex Fridman (2:36:08.320)

how to think and how to care about themselves.

Lex Fridman (2:36:11.400)

So it's thinking of self esteem and the connected,

Yaron Brook (2:36:14.440)

because when you think, you achieve,

Lex Fridman (2:36:16.840)

which gains you self esteem.

Yaron Brook (2:36:19.000)

When you have self esteem,

Lex Fridman (2:36:20.320)

it's easier to think for yourself.

Lex Fridman (2:36:23.560)

And I don't know how you do that quickly.

Lex Fridman (2:36:26.240)

I mean, I think leadership matters.

Yaron Brook (2:36:29.560)

So, you know, part of what I try to do

Lex Fridman (2:36:32.160)

is try to encourage people to do those things.

Lex Fridman (2:36:35.240)

But I am a small voice.

Lex Fridman (2:36:37.000)

You asked me when,

Yaron Brook (2:36:38.240)

early on you said we should talk about

Lex Fridman (2:36:39.400)

why I'm not more famous.

Yaron Brook (2:36:41.080)

I'm not famous.

Lex Fridman (2:36:42.160)

You know, my following is not big.

Yaron Brook (2:36:43.480)

It's very small in the scope of things.

Lex Fridman (2:36:47.040)

Well, yours and objectivism and that question,

Lex Fridman (2:36:49.840)

could you linger on it for a moment?

Lex Fridman (2:36:51.960)

Why isn't objectivism more famous?

Yaron Brook (2:36:56.320)

I think because it's so challenging.

Lex Fridman (2:36:59.000)

It's not challenging.

Lex Fridman (2:37:01.080)

It's not challenging to me, right?

Lex Fridman (2:37:03.160)

When I first encountered objectivism,

Yaron Brook (2:37:06.040)

it's like after the first shock

Lex Fridman (2:37:08.000)

and after the first kind of,

Yaron Brook (2:37:10.200)

none of this can be true.

Lex Fridman (2:37:11.240)

This is all BS.

Lex Fridman (2:37:12.880)

And fighting it, once I got it,

Lex Fridman (2:37:16.000)

it was easy.

Yaron Brook (2:37:17.840)

It required years of studying,

Lex Fridman (2:37:19.240)

but it was easy in the sense of,

Yaron Brook (2:37:20.480)

yes, this makes sense.

Lex Fridman (2:37:22.760)

But it's challenging because it upends everything.

Yaron Brook (2:37:25.920)

It really says what my mother taught me is wrong.

Lex Fridman (2:37:28.880)

And what my politicians say left and right is wrong.

Yaron Brook (2:37:32.760)

All of them.

Lex Fridman (2:37:33.720)

There's not a single politician

Lex Fridman (2:37:35.480)

on which I agree with on almost anything, right?

Lex Fridman (2:37:39.280)

Because on the fundamentals we disagree.

Lex Fridman (2:37:42.200)

And what my teachers are telling me is wrong.

Lex Fridman (2:37:45.360)

And what Jesus said is wrong.

Lex Fridman (2:37:48.400)

And it's hard.

Lex Fridman (2:37:50.560)

But the thing is,

Lex Fridman (2:37:52.040)

so you talk about politics and all that kind of stuff,

Lex Fridman (2:37:54.640)

but you know, most people don't care.

Yaron Brook (2:37:56.320)

The more powerful thing about objectivism

Lex Fridman (2:37:58.800)

is the practical of my life,

Yaron Brook (2:38:02.240)

of how I revolutionized my life.

Lex Fridman (2:38:04.920)

And that feels to be like a very important and appealing,

Yaron Brook (2:38:10.080)

you know, get your shit together.

Lex Fridman (2:38:12.200)

Yeah, but this is why Jordan Peterson

Lex Fridman (2:38:14.600)

is so much more successful than we are, right?

Lex Fridman (2:38:16.360)

Why is that?

Yaron Brook (2:38:17.440)

Make your bed or whatever.

Lex Fridman (2:38:18.800)

What's that?

Yaron Brook (2:38:19.640)

Make your bed.

Lex Fridman (2:38:20.480)

Yeah, because his personal responsibility is shallow.

Yaron Brook (2:38:24.320)

It's make your bed, stand up straight.

Lex Fridman (2:38:25.760)

That's what my mother told me when I was growing up.

Yaron Brook (2:38:27.440)

There's nothing new about Jordan Peterson.

Lex Fridman (2:38:29.600)

He says, embrace Christianity.

Lex Fridman (2:38:32.160)

Christianity is fine, right?

Lex Fridman (2:38:34.040)

Religion is okay.

Yaron Brook (2:38:36.000)

Just do these few things and you'll be fine.

Lex Fridman (2:38:38.080)

And by the way, he says, happiness, you know,

Yaron Brook (2:38:42.360)

you either have it or you don't.

Lex Fridman (2:38:43.640)

You know, it's random.

Yaron Brook (2:38:44.720)

You don't actually,

Lex Fridman (2:38:45.560)

you can't bring about your own happiness.

Lex Fridman (2:38:47.200)

So he's given people an easy out.

Lex Fridman (2:38:49.160)

People want easy outs.

Yaron Brook (2:38:50.200)

People buy self help books

Lex Fridman (2:38:52.560)

that give them five principles

Yaron Brook (2:38:53.920)

or living in, you know, shallow.

Lex Fridman (2:38:56.200)

I'm telling them, think,

Yaron Brook (2:38:58.920)

stand on your own two feet, be independent.

Lex Fridman (2:39:02.560)

Don't listen to your mother.

Lex Fridman (2:39:04.920)

Do your own thing, but thoughtfully,

Lex Fridman (2:39:07.560)

not based on emotions.

Lex Fridman (2:39:09.400)

So you're responsible not just

Lex Fridman (2:39:10.760)

for a set of particular habits and so on.

Yaron Brook (2:39:14.800)

You're responsible for everything.

Lex Fridman (2:39:17.160)

Yes, and you're responsible.

Lex Fridman (2:39:18.480)

Here's the big one, right?

Lex Fridman (2:39:20.040)

You're responsible for shaping your own soul.

Yaron Brook (2:39:26.160)

Your consciousness,

Lex Fridman (2:39:27.920)

you get to decide what it's going to be like.

Lex Fridman (2:39:30.960)

And the only tool you have is your mind.

Lex Fridman (2:39:33.440)

Your only tool is your mind.

Yaron Brook (2:39:35.600)

Well, your emotions play a tool

Lex Fridman (2:39:37.120)

when they're properly cultivated.

Yaron Brook (2:39:38.520)

They play a role in that.

Lex Fridman (2:39:40.320)

And the tools you have is thinking, experiencing,

Yaron Brook (2:39:43.080)

living, coming to the right conclusions,

Lex Fridman (2:39:46.080)

you know, listening to great music

Lex Fridman (2:39:47.720)

and watching good movies and art is very important

Lex Fridman (2:39:51.800)

in shaping your own soul and helping you do this.

Yaron Brook (2:39:55.240)

It's got a crucial role in that.

Lex Fridman (2:39:58.400)

But it's work.

Lex Fridman (2:40:00.720)

And it's lonely work

Lex Fridman (2:40:03.520)

because it's work you do with yourself.

Yaron Brook (2:40:04.880)

Now, if you find somebody who you love

Lex Fridman (2:40:06.960)

who shares these values and you can do with them,

Yaron Brook (2:40:09.200)

that's great, but it's mostly lonely work.

Lex Fridman (2:40:11.960)

It's hard, it's challenging, it ends your world.

Yaron Brook (2:40:15.680)

The reward is unbelievable.

Lex Fridman (2:40:17.880)

But even at that, think about the enlightenment, right?

Lex Fridman (2:40:23.280)

So up until the enlightenment, where was truth?

Lex Fridman (2:40:25.920)

Truth came from a book.

Lex Fridman (2:40:27.920)

And there were a few people who understood the book.

Lex Fridman (2:40:29.840)

Most of us couldn't read and they conveyed it to us.

Lex Fridman (2:40:32.520)

And they just told us what to do.

Lex Fridman (2:40:33.760)

And in that sense, life's easy.

Yaron Brook (2:40:35.200)

It sucks and we die young and we have nothing

Lex Fridman (2:40:38.400)

and we don't enjoy it, but it's easy.

Lex Fridman (2:40:41.600)

And the enlightenment comes around and says,

Lex Fridman (2:40:44.400)

we've got this tool, it's called reason.

Lex Fridman (2:40:49.120)

And it allows us to discover truth about the world.

Lex Fridman (2:40:51.560)

It's not in a book.

Yaron Brook (2:40:52.920)

It's actually your reason allows you

Lex Fridman (2:40:54.840)

to discover stuff about the world.

Lex Fridman (2:40:56.440)

And I consider the first,

Lex Fridman (2:40:57.760)

really the first figure of the enlightenment is Newton,

Lex Fridman (2:41:01.320)

not Locke, right?

Lex Fridman (2:41:02.440)

It's a scientist.

Yaron Brook (2:41:03.480)

Because he teaches us the laws of mechanics,

Lex Fridman (2:41:07.920)

like how does stuff work?

Lex Fridman (2:41:10.040)

And people go, oh, wow, this is cool.

Lex Fridman (2:41:13.200)

I can use my mind.

Yaron Brook (2:41:14.560)

I can discover truth.

Lex Fridman (2:41:16.160)

Isn't that amazing?

Lex Fridman (2:41:18.040)

And everything opens up once you do that.

Lex Fridman (2:41:19.840)

Hey, if I can discover,

Yaron Brook (2:41:21.800)

if I understand the laws of motion,

Lex Fridman (2:41:23.880)

if I can understand truth in the world,

Lex Fridman (2:41:25.560)

how come I can't decide who I marry?

Lex Fridman (2:41:28.440)

I mean, everything was fixed in those days.

Lex Fridman (2:41:29.880)

How come I can't decide what profession I should be in?

Lex Fridman (2:41:33.040)

Right, everybody would belong to a guild.

Lex Fridman (2:41:35.120)

How come I can't decide who my political leader should be?

Lex Fridman (2:41:38.440)

That's, so it's all reason.

Yaron Brook (2:41:40.520)

It's all, once you understand the efficacy of your own mind

Lex Fridman (2:41:43.200)

to understand truth, to understand reality,

Yaron Brook (2:41:45.160)

discover truth, not understand truth, discover it.

Lex Fridman (2:41:48.160)

Everything opens up.

Yaron Brook (2:41:49.240)

Now you can take responsibility for your own life

Lex Fridman (2:41:51.240)

because now you have the tool to do it.

Lex Fridman (2:41:53.880)

But we are living in an era where postmodernism tells us

Lex Fridman (2:41:57.160)

there is no truth, there is no reality,

Lex Fridman (2:41:59.080)

and our mind is useless anyway.

Lex Fridman (2:42:01.680)

Critical race theory tells us

Yaron Brook (2:42:03.640)

that you're determined by your race

Lex Fridman (2:42:05.400)

and your race shapes everything

Lex Fridman (2:42:06.920)

and your free will is meaningless

Lex Fridman (2:42:08.560)

and your reason doesn't matter

Yaron Brook (2:42:10.200)

because reason is just shaped by your genes

Lex Fridman (2:42:12.720)

and shaped by the color of your skin.

Yaron Brook (2:42:15.000)

It's the most racist theory of all.

Lex Fridman (2:42:17.120)

And you've got our friend at UC Irvine telling them,

Yaron Brook (2:42:21.160)

oh, your senses don't tell you anything about reality.

Lex Fridman (2:42:24.280)

Anyway, reality is what it is.

Lex Fridman (2:42:25.440)

So, you know, what's the purpose of reason?

Lex Fridman (2:42:28.200)

It's to invent stuff, it's to make stuff up.

Lex Fridman (2:42:30.000)

And then what use is that?

Lex Fridman (2:42:31.000)

It's complete fantasy.

Yaron Brook (2:42:32.800)

You've basically got every philosophical,

Lex Fridman (2:42:35.760)

intellectual voice in the culture

Yaron Brook (2:42:37.560)

telling them their reason is impotent.

Lex Fridman (2:42:40.920)

There's like a Steven Pinker who tries,

Lex Fridman (2:42:43.640)

and I love Pinker and he's really good

Lex Fridman (2:42:46.040)

and I love his books,

Yaron Brook (2:42:48.640)

but, you know, he needs to be stronger about this.

Lex Fridman (2:42:52.320)

And there's a few people on kind of,

Yaron Brook (2:42:54.080)

there's a few people partially in the intellectual dark web

Lex Fridman (2:42:56.520)

and otherwise who are big on reason

Lex Fridman (2:42:58.400)

but not consistent enough and not full understanding

Lex Fridman (2:43:01.560)

of what it means or what it implies.

Lex Fridman (2:43:04.080)

And then there's little old me.

Lex Fridman (2:43:05.680)

There's a little old me and it's me against the world

Yaron Brook (2:43:10.240)

in a sense, because I'm not only willing to accept,

Lex Fridman (2:43:13.160)

to articulate the case for reason,

Lex Fridman (2:43:16.720)

but then what that implies.

Lex Fridman (2:43:18.680)

It implies freedom, it implies capitalism,

Yaron Brook (2:43:20.680)

it implies taking personal responsibility over your own life.

Lex Fridman (2:43:23.360)

And there are other intellectual dark web people

Yaron Brook (2:43:25.280)

get to reason and then, oh, politics, you can be whatever.

Lex Fridman (2:43:28.960)

No, you can't, you can't be a socialist and for reason.

Yaron Brook (2:43:32.440)

It doesn't actually, those are incompatible.

Lex Fridman (2:43:35.200)

And you can't be a determinist and for reason.

Yaron Brook (2:43:38.280)

Reason and determinism don't go together.

Lex Fridman (2:43:40.680)

The whole point of reason is that it's an achievement

Lex Fridman (2:43:43.640)

and it requires effort and it requires engagement,

Lex Fridman (2:43:45.600)

it requires choice.

Lex Fridman (2:43:47.360)

So it is, it does feel like a little old me

Lex Fridman (2:43:49.720)

because that's it.

Yaron Brook (2:43:51.560)

The allies I have are allies.

Lex Fridman (2:43:53.520)

I have allies among some libertarians over economics.

Yaron Brook (2:43:56.760)

I have some allies in the intellectual dark web

Lex Fridman (2:43:58.680)

maybe over reason,

Lex Fridman (2:44:00.000)

but none of them are allies in the full sense.

Lex Fridman (2:44:02.760)

So my allies are the other objectivists,

Lex Fridman (2:44:04.560)

but they're not a lot of us.

Lex Fridman (2:44:07.680)

For people listening to this,

Yaron Brook (2:44:10.320)

for the few folks kind of listening to this

Lex Fridman (2:44:12.360)

and thinking about the trajectory of their own life,

Yaron Brook (2:44:17.760)

I guess the takeaway is reason is a difficult project,

Lex Fridman (2:44:23.920)

but a project that's worthy of taking on.

Yaron Brook (2:44:27.280)

Yeah, difficulties, I don't know

Lex Fridman (2:44:30.040)

if difficulty is the right word

Yaron Brook (2:44:31.160)

because difficult sounds like it's,

Lex Fridman (2:44:33.000)

I have to push this boulder up a hill.

Yaron Brook (2:44:35.200)

It's not difficult in that sense.

Lex Fridman (2:44:37.000)

It's difficult in the sense that it requires energy

Lex Fridman (2:44:39.040)

and focus, it requires effort,

Lex Fridman (2:44:41.720)

but it's immediately rewarding.

Yaron Brook (2:44:43.960)

It's fun to do.

Lex Fridman (2:44:45.880)

And it rewards immediate, pretty quick, right?

Yaron Brook (2:44:51.600)

It takes a while to undo all the garbage that you have,

Lex Fridman (2:44:53.960)

but we all have that I had that took me years

Lex Fridman (2:44:56.640)

and years and years to get rid of certain concepts

Lex Fridman (2:44:58.600)

and certain emotions that I had that didn't make any sense,

Lex Fridman (2:45:01.960)

but it takes a long time to fully integrate that.

Lex Fridman (2:45:04.960)

So I don't want it to sound like it's a burden,

Yaron Brook (2:45:09.240)

like it's hard in that sense.

Lex Fridman (2:45:11.480)

It does require focus and energy.

Lex Fridman (2:45:13.760)

And I don't want it to sound like a Dr. Spock.

Lex Fridman (2:45:16.760)

I don't want to say, and I don't think I do

Yaron Brook (2:45:18.640)

because I'm a pretty passionate guy,

Lex Fridman (2:45:20.360)

but I don't want it to appeal like,

Yaron Brook (2:45:22.080)

oh, just forget about emotions.

Lex Fridman (2:45:24.400)

Emotions are how you experience the world.

Yaron Brook (2:45:26.880)

You want to have strong emotions.

Lex Fridman (2:45:29.680)

You want to live, you want to experience life strongly

Lex Fridman (2:45:33.720)

and passionately.

Lex Fridman (2:45:35.720)

You just need to know that emotions are not cognition.

Yaron Brook (2:45:39.560)

It's another realm.

Lex Fridman (2:45:40.680)

It's like, don't mix the realms.

Yaron Brook (2:45:42.440)

Think about outcomes and then experience them.

Lex Fridman (2:45:45.360)

And sometimes your emotions won't coincide

Yaron Brook (2:45:47.320)

with what you think should be.

Lex Fridman (2:45:49.920)

And that means there's still more integration to be done.

Yaron Brook (2:45:53.640)

Yaron, as I told you offline,

Lex Fridman (2:45:55.960)

I've been a fan of yours for a long time.

Yaron Brook (2:45:58.200)

It's been, I was a little starstruck early on,

Lex Fridman (2:46:01.720)

getting a little more comfortable now.

Yaron Brook (2:46:02.560)

I believe that's gone.

Lex Fridman (2:46:05.960)

I highly recommend that people

Yaron Brook (2:46:09.280)

that haven't heard your work,

Lex Fridman (2:46:11.320)

listen to it through the Yaron Brook Show.

Yaron Brook (2:46:15.480)

The times I've disagreed with something I've heard you say

Lex Fridman (2:46:18.760)

is usually a first step on a journey

Yaron Brook (2:46:21.880)

of learning a lot more about that thing,

Lex Fridman (2:46:24.320)

about that viewpoint.

Lex Fridman (2:46:25.720)

And that's been so fulfilling.

Lex Fridman (2:46:27.240)

It's been a gift.

Yaron Brook (2:46:28.080)

The passion, you talk about reason a lot,

Lex Fridman (2:46:32.040)

but the passion radiates in a way

Yaron Brook (2:46:35.320)

that's just contagious and uninspiring.

Lex Fridman (2:46:38.080)

So thank you for everything you've done for this world.

Yaron Brook (2:46:40.920)

It's truly an honor and a pleasure to talk to you.

Lex Fridman (2:46:43.440)

Well, thank you.

Lex Fridman (2:46:44.280)

And my reward is that if I've had an impact

Lex Fridman (2:46:48.200)

on you and people like you, wow.

Yaron Brook (2:46:49.920)

I mean, that's amazing.

Lex Fridman (2:46:51.240)

When you wrote to me an email saying you've been a fan,

Yaron Brook (2:46:54.080)

I was blown away because I had no idea

Lex Fridman (2:46:56.720)

and completely unexpected.

Lex Fridman (2:46:58.320)

And every few months I discover,

Lex Fridman (2:47:02.280)

hey, I had an impact on this world

Lex Fridman (2:47:03.800)

and people that I would have never thought.

Lex Fridman (2:47:06.560)

So the only way to change the world

Yaron Brook (2:47:10.720)

is to change your one mind at a time.

Lex Fridman (2:47:13.600)

And when you have an impact on a good mind

Lex Fridman (2:47:18.040)

and a mind that cares about the world

Lex Fridman (2:47:20.120)

and a mind that goes out and does something about it,

Yaron Brook (2:47:22.480)

then you get the exponential growth.

Lex Fridman (2:47:24.760)

So through you, I've impacted other people

Lex Fridman (2:47:27.760)

and that's how you ultimately change everything.

Lex Fridman (2:47:31.760)

And so in spite of everything,

Yaron Brook (2:47:34.200)

I'm optimistic in a sense that I think

Lex Fridman (2:47:37.000)

that the progress we've made today

Yaron Brook (2:47:39.760)

is so universally accepted,

Lex Fridman (2:47:41.800)

the scientific progress, the technological progress,

Yaron Brook (2:47:44.280)

it can just vanish like it did when Rome collapsed.

Lex Fridman (2:47:48.720)

And whether it's in the United States or somewhere,

Yaron Brook (2:47:51.160)

progress will continue, the human project

Lex Fridman (2:47:55.680)

for human progress will continue.

Lex Fridman (2:47:57.560)

And I think these ideas,

Lex Fridman (2:47:58.920)

the ideas of reason and individualism

Yaron Brook (2:48:00.760)

will always be at the heart of it.

Lex Fridman (2:48:02.480)

And what we are doing is continuing

Yaron Brook (2:48:05.640)

the project of the Enlightenment.

Lex Fridman (2:48:06.960)

And it's the project that will save the human race

Lex Fridman (2:48:11.920)

and allow it to, for Elon Musk

Lex Fridman (2:48:14.880)

and for Jeff Bezos to reach the stars.

Yaron Brook (2:48:19.040)

Thank you for masterfully ending on a hopeful note.

Lex Fridman (2:48:22.560)

Yaron, a pleasure and an honor.

Yaron Brook (2:48:24.320)

Thanks.

Lex Fridman (2:48:25.680)

Thanks for listening to this conversation

Yaron Brook (2:48:27.240)

with Yaron Brook and thank you to our sponsors,

Lex Fridman (2:48:30.480)

Blinkist, an app I use for reading

Yaron Brook (2:48:32.520)

through summaries of books, ExpressVPN,

Lex Fridman (2:48:35.400)

the VPN I've used for many years

Yaron Brook (2:48:37.360)

to protect my privacy on the internet,

Lex Fridman (2:48:39.920)

and Cash App, the app I use to send money to friends.

Yaron Brook (2:48:43.400)

Please check out these sponsors in the description

Lex Fridman (2:48:45.880)

to get a discount and to support this podcast.

Yaron Brook (2:48:49.360)

If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube,

Lex Fridman (2:48:51.760)

review it with 5,000 Apple Podcast,

Yaron Brook (2:48:54.000)

follow on Spotify, support on Patreon,

Lex Fridman (2:48:56.720)

or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman.

Lex Fridman (2:49:00.000)

And now let me leave you with some words from Ayn Rand.

Lex Fridman (2:49:03.960)

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark

Yaron Brook (2:49:09.320)

in the hopeless swamps of the not quite,

Lex Fridman (2:49:13.080)

the not yet, and the not at all.

Yaron Brook (2:49:15.920)

Do not let the hero in your soul perish

Lex Fridman (2:49:19.000)

in lonely frustration for the life you deserved

Lex Fridman (2:49:22.240)

and have never been able to reach.

Lex Fridman (2:49:24.800)

The world you desire can be one.

Yaron Brook (2:49:27.360)

It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.

Lex Fridman (2:49:32.360)

Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.

Yaron Brook (30:00.800)

when Jesus is walking by.

Lex Fridman (30:03.000)

She meets her future husband on the sets

Yaron Brook (30:05.560)

of The King of Kings.

Lex Fridman (30:07.320)

She lands up getting married,

Yaron Brook (30:09.160)

getting her American citizenship that way.

Lex Fridman (30:12.120)

And she lands up doing odds and ends jobs in Hollywood,

Yaron Brook (30:15.840)

living in a tiny little apartment,

Lex Fridman (30:19.340)

somehow making a living.

Yaron Brook (30:20.680)

Her husband was an actor.

Lex Fridman (30:22.000)

He was struggling actors were difficult times.

Lex Fridman (30:26.560)

And in the evenings, studying English,

Lex Fridman (30:28.760)

writing, writing, writing, writing,

Lex Fridman (30:30.440)

and studying and studying and studying.

Lex Fridman (30:31.840)

And she finally makes it by writing a play

Yaron Brook (30:34.640)

that is successful in LA and ultimately goes to Broadway.

Lex Fridman (30:39.640)

And her first novel is a novel called We The Living,

Yaron Brook (30:44.720)

which is the most autobiographical of all her novels.

Lex Fridman (30:47.880)

It's about a young woman in the Soviet Union.

Yaron Brook (30:51.480)

It's a powerful story, a very moving story,

Lex Fridman (30:55.200)

and probably, if not the best,

Yaron Brook (30:58.360)

one of the best portrayals of life under communism.

Lex Fridman (31:02.160)

And how powerful.

Lex Fridman (31:02.980)

So you would recommend the book?

Lex Fridman (31:03.820)

Definitely recommend We The Living.

Yaron Brook (31:05.160)

It's her first novel.

Lex Fridman (31:06.560)

She wrote it in the spring of 2000.

Yaron Brook (31:08.400)

First novel she wrote in the 30s.

Lex Fridman (31:11.360)

And it didn't go anywhere.

Yaron Brook (31:13.240)

Because if you think about the intelligentsia,

Lex Fridman (31:16.000)

the people who matter, the people who wrote book reviews,

Yaron Brook (31:20.280)

this is a time of Durante,

Lex Fridman (31:23.400)

who's the New York Times guy in Moscow,

Yaron Brook (31:25.920)

who's praising Stalin to the hills and the success.

Lex Fridman (31:29.740)

So the novel fails, but she's got a novel out.

Yaron Brook (31:34.240)

She writes a small novelette called Anthem.

Lex Fridman (31:36.800)

A lot of people have read that, and it's read

Yaron Brook (31:38.880)

in high schools.

Lex Fridman (31:39.800)

It's kind of a dystopian novel,

Lex Fridman (31:42.160)

and it doesn't get published in the U.S.

Lex Fridman (31:45.800)

It gets published in the U.K.

Yaron Brook (31:47.120)

U.K. is very interested in dystopian novels.

Lex Fridman (31:50.240)

Animal Farm in 1984,

Yaron Brook (31:54.000)

84 is published a couple of years after, I think,

Lex Fridman (31:57.380)

after Anthem.

Yaron Brook (31:58.880)

There's reason to believe he read Anthem.

Lex Fridman (32:01.580)

And George Orwell read Animal Farm.

Yaron Brook (32:07.620)

Just a small aside, Animal Farm is probably top.

Lex Fridman (32:11.100)

I mean, it's weird to say,

Lex Fridman (32:12.960)

but I would say it's my favorite book.

Lex Fridman (32:14.860)

Have you seen this movie out now called Mr. Jones?

Yaron Brook (32:17.580)

No.

Lex Fridman (32:18.420)

Oh, you've got to see Mr. Jones.

Lex Fridman (32:19.580)

What's Mr. Jones?

Lex Fridman (32:21.020)

It's a...

Yaron Brook (32:22.020)

Sorry for my ignorance.

Lex Fridman (32:22.940)

No, no, it's a movie, and it hasn't got any publicity,

Yaron Brook (32:25.620)

which is tragic, because it's a really good movie.

Lex Fridman (32:28.180)

It's both brilliantly made.

Yaron Brook (32:29.620)

It's made by a Polish director.

Lex Fridman (32:31.540)

But it's in English.

Yaron Brook (32:32.940)

It's a true story,

Lex Fridman (32:34.300)

and George Orwell's Animal Farm is featured in it

Yaron Brook (32:37.540)

in the sense that during the story,

Lex Fridman (32:40.200)

George Orwell is writing Animal Farm,

Lex Fridman (32:42.540)

and the narrator is reading off sections of Animal Farm

Lex Fridman (32:47.300)

as the movie is progressing.

Lex Fridman (32:49.340)

And the movie is a true story

Lex Fridman (32:50.920)

about the first Western journalist to discover

Lex Fridman (32:55.660)

and to write about the famine in Ukraine.

Lex Fridman (32:58.660)

And so he goes to Moscow, and then he gets on a train,

Lex Fridman (33:01.020)

and he finds himself in Ukraine,

Lex Fridman (33:02.220)

and it's beautifully and horrifically made.

Lex Fridman (33:05.740)

So the horror of the famine is brilliantly conveyed.

Lex Fridman (33:10.460)

And it's a true story, so it's a very moving story,

Yaron Brook (33:13.020)

very powerful story, and just very well made movie.

Lex Fridman (33:16.540)

So it's tragic, in my view,

Yaron Brook (33:18.540)

that not more people are seeing it.

Lex Fridman (33:20.340)

I was actually recently just complaining

Yaron Brook (33:23.220)

that there's not enough content

Lex Fridman (33:25.800)

on the famine in the 30s of stuff.

Yaron Brook (33:29.460)

There's so much on Hitler.

Lex Fridman (33:30.580)

I love the reading.

Yaron Brook (33:32.500)

I'm reading, it's so long, it's been taking me forever,

Lex Fridman (33:35.860)

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

Yaron Brook (33:37.740)

Yeah, I love it, but.

Lex Fridman (33:39.380)

Well, I've got the book to compliment that,

Yaron Brook (33:40.980)

that you have to read.

Lex Fridman (33:42.140)

It's called The Ominous Parallels.

Yaron Brook (33:44.180)

It's Lennon Peacock, and it's The Ominous Parallels,

Lex Fridman (33:47.060)

and it's about the causes of the rise of Hitler,

Lex Fridman (33:52.740)

but a philosophical causes.

Lex Fridman (33:54.220)

So whereas The Rise and Fall is more of a kind of,

Yaron Brook (33:58.500)

the existential kind of what happened,

Lex Fridman (34:02.900)

but really delving into the intellectual currents

Yaron Brook (34:07.700)

that led to the rise of Hitler, highly recommend that.

Lex Fridman (34:11.820)

Basically suggesting how it might rise another.

Yaron Brook (34:15.780)

That's The Ominous Parallels,

Lex Fridman (34:17.220)

so the parallel he draws is to the United States,

Lex Fridman (34:20.460)

and he says those same intellectual forces

Lex Fridman (34:22.660)

are rising in the United States,

Lex Fridman (34:23.820)

and this was published, I think, in, published in 82.

Lex Fridman (34:28.820)

It was published in 82.

Lex Fridman (34:30.260)

So it was published a long time ago,

Lex Fridman (34:31.740)

and yet you look around us,

Lex Fridman (34:34.600)

and it's unbelievably predictive, sadly,

Lex Fridman (34:37.220)

about the state of the world.

Lex Fridman (34:38.740)

So I haven't finished Iron Man's story.

Lex Fridman (34:40.140)

I don't know if you want me to finish it.

Yaron Brook (34:41.460)

No, no, no, but on that point, I'll have to,

Lex Fridman (34:44.340)

let's please return to it, but let's now,

Yaron Brook (34:46.820)

for now, let's talk.

Lex Fridman (34:47.860)

Let me also say, just because,

Yaron Brook (34:49.580)

I don't want to forget about Mr. Jones,

Lex Fridman (34:51.680)

it is true, the point you made,

Yaron Brook (34:54.420)

there are tons of movies that are anti fascist,

Lex Fridman (34:57.580)

anti Nazi, and that's good,

Lex Fridman (35:00.900)

but there are way too few movies that are anti communist,

Lex Fridman (35:03.860)

just almost not, and it's very interesting,

Lex Fridman (35:06.900)

and if you remind me later, I'll tell you a story about that.

Lex Fridman (35:09.300)

But so she publishes Anthem, and then she starts,

Lex Fridman (35:13.900)

and she's doing okay in Hollywood,

Lex Fridman (35:15.740)

and she's doing okay with the play,

Lex Fridman (35:18.060)

and then she starts on the book The Fountainhead,

Lex Fridman (35:21.620)

and she writes The Fountainhead, and it comes out,

Yaron Brook (35:25.220)

she finishes it in 1945,

Lex Fridman (35:28.300)

and she sends it to publishers,

Lex Fridman (35:33.660)

and publisher after publisher after publisher turn it down,

Lex Fridman (35:37.060)

and it takes 12 publishers before this editor reads it,

Lex Fridman (35:41.860)

and says, I want to publish this book,

Lex Fridman (35:44.760)

and he basically tells his bosses,

Lex Fridman (35:47.060)

if you don't publish this book, I'm leaving, right?

Lex Fridman (35:52.340)

And they don't really believe in the book,

Lex Fridman (35:54.700)

so they publish just a few copies,

Lex Fridman (35:56.500)

they don't do a mat lot,

Lex Fridman (35:58.580)

and the book becomes a bestseller from word of mouth,

Lex Fridman (36:00.900)

and they land up having to publish more and more and more,

Lex Fridman (36:02.900)

and she's basically gone from this immigrant

Lex Fridman (36:07.500)

who comes here with very little command of English,

Lex Fridman (36:10.060)

and to all kinds of odds and ends jobs in Hollywood,

Lex Fridman (36:14.820)

to writing one of the seminal, I think, American books.

Yaron Brook (36:21.900)

She is an American author.

Lex Fridman (36:24.020)

I mean, if you read The Fountainhead, it's not Russian.

Yaron Brook (36:27.500)

This is not Dostoevsky.

Lex Fridman (36:29.180)

It feels like a symbol of what America is

Yaron Brook (36:32.760)

in the 20th century, and I mean, probably, maybe you can,

Lex Fridman (36:38.260)

so there's a famous kind of sexual rape scene in there.

Yaron Brook (36:42.460)

Is that like a lesson you wanna throw in

Lex Fridman (36:44.780)

some controversial stuff

Lex Fridman (36:46.440)

to make your philosophical books work out?

Lex Fridman (36:49.340)

I mean, why was it so popular?

Lex Fridman (36:51.980)

Do you have a sense?

Lex Fridman (36:53.260)

Or is it just?

Yaron Brook (36:54.100)

Well, because I think it illustrated,

Lex Fridman (36:55.780)

first of all, because I think the characters are fantastic.

Yaron Brook (36:58.940)

It's got a real hero, and I think the whole book

Lex Fridman (37:02.840)

is basically illustrating this massive conflict

Yaron Brook (37:05.860)

that I think went on in America then, is going on today,

Lex Fridman (37:09.280)

and it goes on on a big scale, politics,

Yaron Brook (37:12.500)

all the way down to the scale

Lex Fridman (37:13.980)

of the choices you make in your life.

Lex Fridman (37:16.180)

And the issue is individualism versus collectivism.

Lex Fridman (37:21.100)

Should you live for yourself?

Lex Fridman (37:22.420)

Should you live for your values?

Lex Fridman (37:23.660)

Should you pursue your passions?

Lex Fridman (37:26.980)

Or should you do what your mother tells you?

Lex Fridman (37:29.060)

Should you follow your mother's passions?

Lex Fridman (37:31.620)

And it's very, very much a book about individuals,

Lex Fridman (37:40.860)

and people relate to that.

Lex Fridman (37:42.620)

But it obviously has this massive implications

Lex Fridman (37:45.700)

to the world outside,

Lex Fridman (37:47.100)

and at the time of collectivism just having been defeated,

Lex Fridman (37:50.980)

communism, well, fascism,

Lex Fridman (37:53.580)

and the United States representing individualism

Lex Fridman (37:58.620)

as defeated collectivism.

Lex Fridman (38:01.420)

But where collectivist ideas are still popular

Lex Fridman (38:03.820)

in the form of socialism and communism.

Lex Fridman (38:06.260)

And for the individual, there's constant struggle

Lex Fridman (38:09.100)

between what people tell me to do,

Lex Fridman (38:10.940)

what society tells me to do,

Lex Fridman (38:12.100)

what my mother tells me to do,

Lex Fridman (38:13.260)

and what I think I should do.

Lex Fridman (38:15.260)

I think it's unbelievably appealing,

Yaron Brook (38:17.580)

particularly to young people

Lex Fridman (38:18.860)

who's trying to figure out what they wanna do in life,

Yaron Brook (38:21.500)

trying to figure out what's important in life.

Lex Fridman (38:24.620)

It had this enormous appeal, it's romantic,

Yaron Brook (38:27.340)

it's bigger than life, the characters are big heroes.

Lex Fridman (38:29.940)

It's very American in that sense.

Yaron Brook (38:31.660)

It's about individualism,

Lex Fridman (38:32.940)

it's about the triumph of individualism.

Lex Fridman (38:35.500)

And so I think that's what related,

Lex Fridman (38:38.900)

and it had this big romantic element from the,

Yaron Brook (38:42.980)

I mean, when I use romantic,

Lex Fridman (38:44.260)

I use it kind of in the sense of a movement in art.

Lex Fridman (38:49.900)

But it also has this romantic element

Lex Fridman (38:51.620)

in the sense of a relationship between a man and woman

Yaron Brook (38:54.180)

who's, that's very intriguing.

Lex Fridman (38:55.660)

It's not only that there's a,

Lex Fridman (38:58.180)

I would say almost rape scene, right?

Lex Fridman (39:01.340)

I would say, but it's also that this woman

Yaron Brook (39:03.620)

is hard to understand.

Lex Fridman (39:04.980)

I mean, I've read it more than once,

Lex Fridman (39:06.900)

and I still can't quite figure out Dominique, right?

Lex Fridman (39:09.500)

Because she loves him and she wants to destroy him

Lex Fridman (39:11.620)

and she marries other people.

Lex Fridman (39:13.020)

I mean, think about that too.

Yaron Brook (39:14.220)

Here she's writing a book in the 1940s.

Lex Fridman (39:18.580)

There's lots of sex.

Yaron Brook (39:20.700)

There's a woman who marries more than one person,

Lex Fridman (39:23.700)

has having sex with more than one person,

Yaron Brook (39:25.860)

very unconventional.

Lex Fridman (39:27.340)

She's having married, she's having sex with work

Yaron Brook (39:29.860)

even though she's not married to work.

Lex Fridman (39:31.060)

This is 1945.

Lex Fridman (39:33.100)

And it's very jarring to people.

Lex Fridman (39:36.940)

It's very unexpected, but it's also a book of its time.

Yaron Brook (39:39.820)

It's about individuals pursuing their passion,

Lex Fridman (39:42.420)

pursuing their life and not caring about convention

Lex Fridman (39:45.540)

and what people think, but doing what they think is right.

Lex Fridman (39:50.100)

And so I think it's,

Yaron Brook (39:54.340)

I encourage everybody to read this, obviously.

Lex Fridman (39:56.340)

So that was, was that the first time

Yaron Brook (39:58.300)

she articulated something that sounded like a philosophy

Lex Fridman (40:03.940)

of individualism?

Lex Fridman (40:04.900)

I mean, the philosophy's there in We The Living, right?

Lex Fridman (40:08.660)

Because at the end of the day, the woman is,

Yaron Brook (40:12.620)

the hero of We The Living is this individualist

Lex Fridman (40:16.060)

stuck in Soviet Union.

Lex Fridman (40:17.300)

So she's struggling with these things.

Lex Fridman (40:20.260)

So the theme is there already.

Yaron Brook (40:22.380)

It's not as fleshed out.

Lex Fridman (40:23.900)

It's not as articulated philosophically.

Lex Fridman (40:26.380)

And it's certainly then Anthem, which is a dystopian novel

Lex Fridman (40:29.820)

where this dystopia in the future has a,

Yaron Brook (40:33.660)

there's no I, everything is we.

Lex Fridman (40:37.580)

And it's about one guy who breaks out of that.

Yaron Brook (40:40.940)

I don't want to give it away, but breaks out of that.

Lex Fridman (40:43.460)

So these themes are running and then we have,

Lex Fridman (40:48.060)

and they've been published,

Lex Fridman (40:48.980)

some of the early Ayn Rand stories that she was writing

Yaron Brook (40:53.060)

in preparation for writing her novel,

Lex Fridman (40:54.740)

stories she was writing when she first came to America.

Lex Fridman (40:57.300)

And you can see these same philosophical elements,

Lex Fridman (41:01.140)

even in the male, female relationships and the passion

Lex Fridman (41:04.780)

and the, you know, in the conflict,

Lex Fridman (41:07.980)

you see them even in those early pieces.

Lex Fridman (41:10.820)

And she's just developing them.

Lex Fridman (41:12.340)

It's same philosophically,

Yaron Brook (41:13.900)

she's developing her philosophy with her literature.

Lex Fridman (41:17.780)

And of course, after The Fountainhead,

Yaron Brook (41:20.020)

she starts on what turns out to be her Magnus Opus,

Lex Fridman (41:22.540)

which is Atlas Shrugged,

Yaron Brook (41:24.300)

which takes her 12 years to publish.

Lex Fridman (41:26.140)

By the time, of course, she brings that out,

Yaron Brook (41:28.700)

every publisher in New York wants to publish it

Lex Fridman (41:31.020)

because The Fountainhead has been such a huge success.

Yaron Brook (41:34.220)

They don't quite understand it.

Lex Fridman (41:35.380)

They don't know what to do with Atlas Shrugged,

Lex Fridman (41:37.140)

but they're eager to get it out there.

Lex Fridman (41:39.740)

And indeed it, when it's published,

Yaron Brook (41:41.340)

it becomes an instant bestseller.

Lex Fridman (41:43.540)

And the thing about the,

Yaron Brook (41:44.660)

particularly The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged,

Lex Fridman (41:46.500)

but true of even Anthem and We the Living,

Yaron Brook (41:49.100)

she is one of the only dead authors

Lex Fridman (41:53.220)

that sell more after they've died

Yaron Brook (41:55.340)

than when they were still alive.

Lex Fridman (41:56.300)

Now, that's true maybe in music,

Yaron Brook (41:58.500)

we listen to more Beethoven than when he was alive,

Lex Fridman (42:00.420)

but it's not true typically of novelists.

Lex Fridman (42:02.980)

And yet here we are,

Lex Fridman (42:06.940)

was it 50, 60 years after,

Yaron Brook (42:09.820)

63 years after the publication of Atlas Shrugged,

Lex Fridman (42:13.020)

and it sells probably more today than it sold

Yaron Brook (42:15.660)

when it was a bestseller when it first came out.

Lex Fridman (42:17.580)

Is it true that it's like one of the most sold books

Lex Fridman (42:21.580)

in history?

Lex Fridman (42:22.420)

No.

Yaron Brook (42:23.260)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (42:24.100)

I've heard this kind of statement.

Yaron Brook (42:24.940)

Any Tom Clancy book comes out,

Lex Fridman (42:27.180)

sells more than Atlas Shrugged.

Lex Fridman (42:28.580)

But I've read, I've heard statements like this.

Lex Fridman (42:30.780)

So there was a very,

Lex Fridman (42:32.820)

and I shouldn't say this, but it's the truth,

Lex Fridman (42:34.620)

so I'll say it,

Yaron Brook (42:35.460)

a very unscientific study done by the Smithsonian Institute,

Lex Fridman (42:40.820)

probably in the early 90s,

Yaron Brook (42:42.700)

that basically surveyed CEOs and asked them,

Lex Fridman (42:47.220)

what was the most influential book on you?

Lex Fridman (42:50.180)

And Atlas Shrugged came out as number two,

Lex Fridman (42:53.460)

the second most influential book on CEOs in the country.

Lex Fridman (42:57.020)

But there's so many flaws in the study.

Lex Fridman (42:58.700)

One was, you want to guess what the number one book?

Yaron Brook (43:01.460)

Bible.

Lex Fridman (43:02.300)

The Bible.

Lex Fridman (43:03.140)

But the Bible was like,

Lex Fridman (43:05.740)

so maybe they surveyed 100 people.

Yaron Brook (43:07.020)

I don't know what the exact numbers were,

Lex Fridman (43:07.860)

but let's say it's 100 people,

Lex Fridman (43:09.860)

and 60 said the Bible and 10 said Atlas Shrugged,

Lex Fridman (43:12.900)

and there were a bunch of books over there.

Yaron Brook (43:15.020)

So, I don't...

Lex Fridman (43:16.220)

That's, again, the psychology discussion

Lex Fridman (43:18.060)

what we're having right now.

Lex Fridman (43:18.900)

Exactly, well, and it's one thing I've learned,

Lex Fridman (43:21.580)

and maybe COVID has taught me,

Lex Fridman (43:23.580)

and there are very few people

Yaron Brook (43:27.020)

who know how to do statistics,

Lex Fridman (43:29.540)

and almost nobody knows how to think probabilistically,

Yaron Brook (43:33.300)

that is, think in terms of probabilities,

Lex Fridman (43:35.500)

that it is a skill, it's a hard skill,

Lex Fridman (43:38.180)

and everybody thinks they know it.

Lex Fridman (43:39.580)

So I see doctors thinking they're statisticians

Lex Fridman (43:42.300)

and giving whole analyses of the data on COVID,

Lex Fridman (43:45.340)

and they don't have a clue what they're talking about,

Yaron Brook (43:46.940)

not because they're not good doctors,

Lex Fridman (43:48.500)

but because they're not good statisticians.

Yaron Brook (43:49.900)

It's not...

Lex Fridman (43:52.220)

People think that they have one skill,

Lex Fridman (43:53.620)

and therefore it translates immediately into another skill,

Lex Fridman (43:55.900)

and it's just not true.

Lex Fridman (43:58.780)

So I've been astounded at how bad people are at that.

Lex Fridman (44:03.580)

For people who haven't read any of the books

Yaron Brook (44:05.740)

that we were just discussing,

Lex Fridman (44:09.220)

what would you recommend,

Lex Fridman (44:11.420)

what book would you recommend they read,

Lex Fridman (44:14.060)

and maybe also just elaborate

Lex Fridman (44:17.100)

what mindset should they enter

Lex Fridman (44:20.620)

the reading of that book with?

Lex Fridman (44:22.780)

So I would recommend everybody

Lex Fridman (44:24.900)

read Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.

Lex Fridman (44:26.900)

And in one...

Lex Fridman (44:27.740)

In that order?

Lex Fridman (44:28.980)

So it would depend on where you are in life, right?

Lex Fridman (44:31.580)

So it depends on who you are and what you are.

Lex Fridman (44:35.260)

So Fountainhead is a more personal story.

Lex Fridman (44:38.180)

For many people, it's their favorite,

Lex Fridman (44:39.660)

and for many people, it was their first book,

Lex Fridman (44:41.380)

and they wouldn't replace that, right?

Yaron Brook (44:46.900)

Atlas Shrugged is a...

Lex Fridman (44:49.300)

It's about the world.

Yaron Brook (44:50.820)

Right.

Lex Fridman (44:51.660)

It's about what impacts the world,

Lex Fridman (44:54.020)

how the world functions,

Lex Fridman (44:55.540)

how it's a bigger book in the sense of the scope.

Yaron Brook (44:59.180)

If you're interested in politics

Lex Fridman (45:01.580)

and you're interested in the world,

Yaron Brook (45:03.620)

read Atlas Shrugged first.

Lex Fridman (45:05.460)

If you're mainly focused on your life, your career,

Lex Fridman (45:08.100)

what you wanna do with yourself, start with Fountainhead.

Lex Fridman (45:10.380)

I still think you should read both

Yaron Brook (45:12.020)

because I think they are...

Lex Fridman (45:13.940)

I mean, to me, they were life altering,

Lex Fridman (45:16.620)

and to many, many people, they're life altering,

Lex Fridman (45:18.820)

and you should go into reading them with an open mind,

Yaron Brook (45:21.820)

I'd say, and with a...

Lex Fridman (45:24.500)

Put aside everything you've heard about Ayn Rand.

Yaron Brook (45:27.020)

Put aside any...

Lex Fridman (45:28.740)

Even if it's true, just put it aside.

Yaron Brook (45:30.540)

Even what I just said about Ayn Rand, put it aside.

Lex Fridman (45:33.260)

Just read the book as a book,

Lex Fridman (45:35.500)

and let it move you and let your thoughts,

Lex Fridman (45:39.580)

let it shape how you think,

Lex Fridman (45:43.500)

and you'll either have a response to it or you won't,

Lex Fridman (45:48.980)

but I think most people have a very strong response to it,

Lex Fridman (45:52.140)

and then the question is,

Lex Fridman (45:55.540)

are they willing to respond to the philosophy?

Lex Fridman (45:57.260)

Are they willing to integrate the philosophy?

Lex Fridman (45:58.700)

Are they willing to think through the philosophy or not?

Yaron Brook (46:01.700)

Because I know a lot of people

Lex Fridman (46:02.940)

who completely disagree with the philosophy, right?

Lex Fridman (46:06.340)

Here in Hollywood, right?

Lex Fridman (46:07.620)

Lots of people here in Hollywood,

Yaron Brook (46:09.340)

love The Fountainhead.

Lex Fridman (46:11.340)

Interesting.

Lex Fridman (46:12.180)

Oliver Stone, who is, I think, a avowed Marxist, right?

Lex Fridman (46:16.740)

I think he's admitted to being a Marxist, he is.

Yaron Brook (46:19.660)

His movies certainly reflect a Marxist theme,

Lex Fridman (46:24.700)

is a huge fan of The Fountainhead,

Lex Fridman (46:27.260)

and is actually his dream project, he has said in public,

Lex Fridman (46:30.380)

his dream project is to make The Fountainhead.

Yaron Brook (46:33.060)

Now, he would completely change it, as movie directors do,

Lex Fridman (46:37.500)

and he's actually outlined what his script would look like,

Lex Fridman (46:40.020)

and it would be a disaster for the ideas of The Fountainhead,

Lex Fridman (46:43.460)

but he loves the story,

Yaron Brook (46:44.620)

because to him, the story is about artistic integrity.

Lex Fridman (46:47.780)

Ah, yeah.

Lex Fridman (46:48.980)

And that's what he catches on.

Lex Fridman (46:50.180)

And what he hates about the story is the individualism.

Lex Fridman (46:53.060)

And I think that his movie ends

Lex Fridman (46:56.020)

with Howard Rourke joining some kind of commune

Yaron Brook (46:58.620)

of architects that do it for the love

Lex Fridman (47:00.660)

and don't do it for the money.

Yaron Brook (47:02.100)

Interesting.

Lex Fridman (47:02.940)

But so, yeah, so he can connect with you

Yaron Brook (47:04.420)

without the philosophy,

Lex Fridman (47:05.260)

and before we get into the philosophy,

Yaron Brook (47:07.460)

staying on Ayn Rand,

Lex Fridman (47:10.420)

I'll tell you sort of my own personal experience,

Lex Fridman (47:12.780)

and I think it's one that people share.

Lex Fridman (47:15.140)

I've experienced this with two people, Ayn Rand and Nietzsche.

Yaron Brook (47:19.540)

When I brought up Ayn Rand when I was in my early 20s,

Lex Fridman (47:24.020)

the number of eye rolls I got from sort of, you know,

Yaron Brook (47:28.580)

like advisors and so on, that of dismissal,

Lex Fridman (47:33.580)

I've seen that later in life about more specific concepts

Yaron Brook (47:37.260)

in artificial intelligence and technical,

Lex Fridman (47:38.980)

where people decide that this is a set of ideas

Yaron Brook (47:42.500)

that are acceptable and these sets of ideas are not.

Lex Fridman (47:45.380)

And they dismissed Ayn Rand

Yaron Brook (47:49.140)

without giving me any justification

Lex Fridman (47:52.100)

of why they dismissed her,

Yaron Brook (47:54.780)

except, oh, that's something you're into

Lex Fridman (47:57.980)

when you're 19 or 20.

Yaron Brook (48:00.500)

That's the same thing people say about Nietzsche.

Lex Fridman (48:02.580)

Well, that's just something you do when you're in college

Lex Fridman (48:05.620)

and you take an intro to philosophy course.

Lex Fridman (48:08.740)

So, and I've never really heard anybody cleanly articulate

Yaron Brook (48:15.460)

their opposition to Ayn Rand,

Lex Fridman (48:17.620)

in my own private little circles and so on.

Yaron Brook (48:20.420)

Maybe one question I just wanna ask is,

Lex Fridman (48:24.340)

why is there such a opposition to Ayn Rand?

Lex Fridman (48:27.820)

And maybe another way to ask the same thing is,

Lex Fridman (48:30.740)

what's misunderstood about Ayn Rand?

Yaron Brook (48:35.100)

So, we haven't talked about the philosophy,

Lex Fridman (48:37.380)

so it's harder to answer right now.

Yaron Brook (48:38.980)

We can return to it if you think

Lex Fridman (48:40.140)

that's the right way to go.

Yaron Brook (48:41.380)

Well, let me give a broad answer

Lex Fridman (48:43.300)

and then we'll do the philosophy

Lex Fridman (48:45.100)

and then we'll return to it,

Lex Fridman (48:45.940)

because I think it's important to know

Yaron Brook (48:47.460)

something about her ideas.

Lex Fridman (48:49.380)

She, I think her philosophy challenges everything.

Yaron Brook (48:55.540)

It really does, it shakes up the world.

Lex Fridman (48:58.180)

It challenges so many of our preconceptions.

Yaron Brook (49:01.500)

It challenges so many of the things

Lex Fridman (49:03.500)

that people take for granted as truth.

Yaron Brook (49:07.820)

From religion to morality to politics

Lex Fridman (49:10.580)

to almost everything,

Yaron Brook (49:11.620)

there's never quite been a thinker like her

Lex Fridman (49:13.740)

in the sense of really challenging everything

Lex Fridman (49:17.220)

and doing it systematically

Lex Fridman (49:18.540)

and having a complete philosophy

Yaron Brook (49:21.380)

that is a challenge to everything that has come before her.

Lex Fridman (49:23.980)

Now, I'm not saying they're on threads that connect,

Lex Fridman (49:27.660)

they are, right?

Lex Fridman (49:28.500)

In politics, there might be a thread

Lex Fridman (49:30.100)

and in morality, there might be a thread,

Lex Fridman (49:31.740)

but on everything, there's just never been like it.

Lex Fridman (49:34.820)

And people are afraid of that

Lex Fridman (49:37.940)

because it challenges them to the core.

Yaron Brook (49:39.780)

She's basically telling you to rethink almost everything.

Lex Fridman (49:44.580)

And that is that people reject.

Yaron Brook (49:47.820)

The other thing that it does,

Lex Fridman (49:49.540)

and this goes to this point about,

Lex Fridman (49:51.580)

oh yeah, that's what you do when you're 14, 15, right?

Lex Fridman (49:54.260)

Yeah.

Yaron Brook (49:55.580)

She points out to them that they've lost something.

Lex Fridman (50:00.540)

They've lost their idealism.

Yaron Brook (50:02.860)

They've lost the youthful idealism.

Lex Fridman (50:05.940)

What makes youthfulness meaningful

Yaron Brook (50:09.980)

other than we're in better physical shape,

Lex Fridman (50:13.340)

starting to feel, because I'm getting older.

Yaron Brook (50:16.660)

When we're young,

Lex Fridman (50:19.420)

sometime in the teen years, right?

Yaron Brook (50:21.420)

There's something that happens to human consciousness.

Lex Fridman (50:24.540)

We almost awakened and knew, right?

Yaron Brook (50:27.260)

We suddenly discovered that we can think for ourselves.

Lex Fridman (50:30.780)

We suddenly discovered that not everything our parents

Lex Fridman (50:33.860)

and our teachers tell us is true.

Lex Fridman (50:36.140)

We suddenly discovered that this tool, our minds,

Yaron Brook (50:39.460)

is suddenly available to us to discover the world

Lex Fridman (50:42.700)

and to discover truth.

Lex Fridman (50:44.660)

And it is a time of idealism.

Lex Fridman (50:46.620)

It's a time of, whoa, I want to, you know,

Yaron Brook (50:49.740)

the better teenagers, I want to know about the world.

Lex Fridman (50:52.260)

I want to go out there.

Yaron Brook (50:53.220)

I don't believe my parents.

Lex Fridman (50:54.340)

I don't believe my teachers.

Lex Fridman (50:55.420)

And this is healthy.

Lex Fridman (50:56.380)

This is fantastic.

Lex Fridman (50:57.940)

And I want to go out there and experiment.

Lex Fridman (50:59.820)

And that gets us into trouble, right?

Yaron Brook (51:01.460)

We do stupid things when we're teenagers.

Lex Fridman (51:03.420)

Why?

Yaron Brook (51:04.260)

Because we're experimenting.

Lex Fridman (51:05.100)

It's the experiential part of it, right?

Yaron Brook (51:06.740)

We want to go and experience life.

Lex Fridman (51:08.980)

But we're learning.

Yaron Brook (51:09.980)

It's part of the learning process.

Lex Fridman (51:11.420)

And we become risk takers because we want to experience.

Lex Fridman (51:15.420)

But the risk is something we need to learn

Lex Fridman (51:16.980)

because we need to learn where the boundaries are.

Lex Fridman (51:19.340)

And one of the damages that helicopter parents do

Lex Fridman (51:21.780)

is they prevent us from taking those risks

Lex Fridman (51:23.180)

so we don't learn about the world

Lex Fridman (51:24.380)

and we don't learn about where the boundaries are.

Lex Fridman (51:26.580)

So the teenage years are these years of wonder.

Lex Fridman (51:30.420)

They're depressing when you're in them

Yaron Brook (51:32.740)

for a variety of reasons,

Lex Fridman (51:33.740)

which I think primarily have to do with the culture,

Lex Fridman (51:35.420)

but also with oneself.

Lex Fridman (51:38.060)

But they are exciting, the periods of discovery.

Lex Fridman (51:41.980)

And people get excited about ideas

Lex Fridman (51:45.460)

and good ideas, bad ideas, all kinds of ideas.

Lex Fridman (51:48.660)

And then what happens?

Lex Fridman (51:50.300)

We settle.

Yaron Brook (51:51.140)

We compromise.

Lex Fridman (51:53.180)

Whether that happens in college

Yaron Brook (51:55.220)

where we're taught that nothing exists and nothing matters

Lex Fridman (51:57.580)

and stop being an idealist, be a cynic, be whatever.

Yaron Brook (52:01.300)

Or whether it happens when we get married and get a job

Lex Fridman (52:03.820)

and have kids and are too busy

Lex Fridman (52:05.140)

and can't think about our ideals and forget

Lex Fridman (52:06.940)

and just get into the norm of conventional life

Yaron Brook (52:09.900)

or whether it's because a mother pesters us

Lex Fridman (52:13.460)

to get married and have kids

Lex Fridman (52:14.500)

and do all the things that she wanted us to do.

Lex Fridman (52:17.380)

We give up on those ideals.

Lex Fridman (52:19.780)

And there's a sense in which Ayn Rand reminds them

Lex Fridman (52:24.820)

that they gave up.

Yaron Brook (52:25.860)

That's beautifully, that's so beautifully put and so true.

Lex Fridman (52:29.980)

It's, it's worth pausing on,

Yaron Brook (52:34.260)

that this dismissal,

Lex Fridman (52:38.500)

people forget the beauty of that curiosity.

Yaron Brook (52:41.580)

That's true in the scientific field too,

Lex Fridman (52:44.260)

is that youthful joy of like everything is possible

Lex Fridman (52:51.820)

and we can understand it with the tools of our mind.

Lex Fridman (52:56.180)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (52:57.020)

And that's what it's all about.

Lex Fridman (52:57.860)

That's what Ayn Rand's ideas

Yaron Brook (52:58.900)

at the end of the day all boil down to,

Lex Fridman (53:00.340)

is that confidence and that passion

Lex Fridman (53:02.500)

and that curiosity and that interest.

Lex Fridman (53:05.260)

And if you think about what academia does

Lex Fridman (53:08.820)

to so many of us, right?

Lex Fridman (53:10.300)

We go into academia and we're excited about,

Yaron Brook (53:12.740)

we're gonna learn stuff.

Lex Fridman (53:14.140)

We're gonna discover things.

Lex Fridman (53:16.220)

And then they stick you into sub sub field

Lex Fridman (53:18.420)

and examining some minutia

Yaron Brook (53:20.500)

that's insignificant and unimportant.

Lex Fridman (53:22.820)

And to get published, you have to be conventional.

Yaron Brook (53:25.580)

You have to do what everybody else does.

Lex Fridman (53:27.060)

And then there's the tenure process of seven years

Yaron Brook (53:29.660)

where they put you through this torture to write papers

Lex Fridman (53:32.220)

that fit into a certain mold.

Lex Fridman (53:34.180)

And by the time you're done,

Lex Fridman (53:36.700)

you're in your mid thirties and you've done nothing.

Yaron Brook (53:38.940)

You discovered nothing.

Lex Fridman (53:39.900)

You're all in this minutia in this stuff

Lex Fridman (53:43.020)

and it's destructive.

Lex Fridman (53:44.340)

And where's holding onto that passion,

Yaron Brook (53:48.100)

holding onto that knowledge and that confidence is hard.

Lex Fridman (53:52.220)

And when people do away with it, they become cynical

Lex Fridman (53:55.500)

and they become part of the system

Lex Fridman (53:57.340)

and they inflict the same pain on the next guy

Yaron Brook (54:00.300)

that they suffered because that's part of how it works.

Lex Fridman (54:03.420)

Yeah, this happens in artificial intelligence.

Yaron Brook (54:06.020)

This happens when like a young person shows up

Lex Fridman (54:08.940)

and with like fire in their eyes and they say,

Yaron Brook (54:11.500)

I want to understand the nature of intelligence.

Lex Fridman (54:14.500)

And everybody rolls their eyes.

Yaron Brook (54:18.100)

Well, for these same reasons,

Lex Fridman (54:20.220)

because they've spent so many years

Yaron Brook (54:21.780)

on the very specific set of questions

Lex Fridman (54:25.060)

that kind of they compete over and they write papers over

Lex Fridman (54:30.060)

and they have conferences about.

Lex Fridman (54:31.660)

And it's true that incremental research

Yaron Brook (54:34.020)

is the way you make progress answering the question

Lex Fridman (54:36.100)

of what is intelligence exceptionally difficult.

Lex Fridman (54:38.820)

But when you mock it, you actually destroy the realities.

Lex Fridman (54:45.340)

When we look like centuries from now,

Yaron Brook (54:47.860)

we'll look back at this time

Lex Fridman (54:49.300)

for this particular field of artificial intelligence,

Yaron Brook (54:52.620)

it will be the people who will be remembered,

Lex Fridman (54:55.500)

will be the people who've asked the question

Lex Fridman (54:58.020)

and made it their life journey of what is intelligence

Lex Fridman (55:01.500)

and actually had the chance to succeed.

Yaron Brook (55:04.740)

Most will fail asking that question,

Lex Fridman (55:06.660)

but the ones that like had a chance of succeeding

Lex Fridman (55:09.500)

and had that throughout their whole life.

Lex Fridman (55:12.700)

And I suppose the same is true for philosophy.

Yaron Brook (55:15.060)

It's in every field.

Lex Fridman (55:16.060)

It's asking the big questions and staying curious

Lex Fridman (55:20.140)

and staying passionate and staying excited

Lex Fridman (55:22.820)

and accepting failure, right?

Yaron Brook (55:26.100)

Accepting that you're not going to get it first time.

Lex Fridman (55:27.900)

You're not going to get the whole thing.

Yaron Brook (55:29.580)

But, and sometimes you have to do the minutia work

Lex Fridman (55:31.860)

and I'm not here to say nobody should specialize

Lex Fridman (55:34.300)

and you shouldn't do the minutia, you have to do that.

Lex Fridman (55:36.700)

But there has to be a way to do that work

Lex Fridman (55:38.820)

and keep the passion and keep it all integrated.

Lex Fridman (55:41.900)

That's another thing.

Lex Fridman (55:42.740)

I mean, we don't live in a culture that integrates, right?

Lex Fridman (55:46.420)

We live in a culture that is all about this minutia

Lex Fridman (55:51.060)

and not, and medicine is another field

Lex Fridman (55:53.540)

where you specialize in the kidney.

Yaron Brook (55:55.380)

I mean, the kidney's connected to other things.

Lex Fridman (55:57.060)

You've got to, and we don't have a holistic view

Yaron Brook (55:59.900)

of these things and I'm sure in artificial intelligence,

Lex Fridman (56:02.220)

you're not going to make the big leaps forward

Yaron Brook (56:04.980)

without a holistic view of what it is

Lex Fridman (56:07.980)

you're trying to achieve.

Lex Fridman (56:08.820)

And maybe that's the question of what is intelligence?

Lex Fridman (56:10.700)

But that's the kind of questions you have to ask

Yaron Brook (56:14.260)

to make big leaps forward, to really move the field

Lex Fridman (56:17.340)

in a positive direction.

Lex Fridman (56:19.300)

And it's the people who can think that way,

Lex Fridman (56:21.940)

who move fields and move technology,

Yaron Brook (56:24.060)

who move anything, anything is, everything is like.

Lex Fridman (56:27.340)

But just like you said, it's painful

Yaron Brook (56:28.820)

because underlying that kind of questioning is,

Lex Fridman (56:32.620)

well, maybe the work I've done for the past 20 years

Yaron Brook (56:35.300)

was a dead end and you have to kind of face that.

Lex Fridman (56:40.060)

Even just, it might not be true,

Lex Fridman (56:42.060)

but even just facing that reality is just,

Lex Fridman (56:45.820)

it's a painful feeling.

Yaron Brook (56:47.740)

Absolutely, but it's, that's part of the reason

Lex Fridman (56:50.540)

why it's important to enjoy the work that you do.

Yaron Brook (56:52.340)

Right.

Lex Fridman (56:53.180)

So that even if it doesn't completely work out,

Lex Fridman (56:54.780)

at least you enjoy the process, right?

Lex Fridman (56:56.260)

It was not a waste because you enjoyed the process.

Lex Fridman (56:59.260)

And if you learn, as any entrepreneur knows this, right,

Lex Fridman (57:02.700)

and if you learn from the waste of time,

Yaron Brook (57:05.460)

from the errors, from the mistakes,

Lex Fridman (57:07.500)

then you can build on them and make things even better.

Yaron Brook (57:10.220)

Right, and so the next 20 years are a massive success.

Lex Fridman (57:16.180)

Can we, another impossible task,

Lex Fridman (57:18.780)

so you did wonderfully on talking about Ayn Rand,

Lex Fridman (57:22.580)

the other impossible task of giving a whirlwind overview

Yaron Brook (57:25.900)

of the philosophy of objectivism,

Lex Fridman (57:28.980)

the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

Yaron Brook (57:30.580)

Yeah, so luckily she did it in an essay.

Lex Fridman (57:33.580)

She talks about doing a philosophy on one foot.

Lex Fridman (57:37.220)

But let me integrate it with the literature

Lex Fridman (57:39.500)

and with her life a little bit.

Yaron Brook (57:41.740)

She wanted to be a writer, but her goal,

Lex Fridman (57:45.460)

she had a particular goal in her writing.

Lex Fridman (57:48.220)

She was an idealist, right?

Lex Fridman (57:50.140)

She wanted to portray the ideal man.

Lex Fridman (57:52.620)

So one of the things you do when you want to do something

Lex Fridman (57:55.620)

is what is an ideal man?

Yaron Brook (57:56.460)

You have to ask that question.

Lex Fridman (57:57.780)

What does that mean?

Yaron Brook (57:58.780)

You might have a sense of it.

Lex Fridman (58:00.660)

You might have some glimpses of it

Lex Fridman (58:03.940)

in other people's literature, but what is it?

Lex Fridman (58:07.420)

So she starts reading philosophy to try to figure out

Lex Fridman (58:09.660)

what do philosophers say about the ideal man?

Lex Fridman (58:12.740)

And what she finds horrifies her

Yaron Brook (58:14.540)

in terms of the view of most philosophers of man.

Lex Fridman (58:16.660)

And she's attracted, certainly when she's young,

Yaron Brook (58:20.820)

to Nietzsche, because Nietzsche at least has a vision

Lex Fridman (58:24.660)

of grandeur for man, even though his philosophy

Yaron Brook (58:28.460)

is very flawed and has other problems

Lex Fridman (58:30.060)

and contradicts man in many ways.

Lex Fridman (58:32.100)

But at least he has that vision of what is possible to man.

Lex Fridman (58:36.060)

And she's attracted to that romantic vision,

Yaron Brook (58:38.100)

that idealistic vision.

Lex Fridman (58:40.140)

So she discovers in writing,

Lex Fridman (58:41.660)

and particularly in writing Atlas Shrugged,

Lex Fridman (58:43.020)

but even in the Fountainhead,

Yaron Brook (58:44.620)

that she's gonna have to develop her own philosophy.

Lex Fridman (58:47.340)

She's gonna have to discover what she can do

Lex Fridman (58:50.100)

and she's gonna have to discover these ideas for herself,

Lex Fridman (58:52.740)

because they're not fully articulated anywhere else.

Yaron Brook (58:55.820)

The glimpses again of it in Aristotle, in Nietzsche,

Lex Fridman (59:00.300)

but they're not fully fleshed out.

Lex Fridman (59:02.020)

So to a large extent, she develops a philosophy

Lex Fridman (59:05.780)

for a very practical purpose, to write,

Yaron Brook (59:08.860)

to write a novel about the ideal man.

Lex Fridman (59:11.260)

And Atlas Shrugged is the manifestation of that.

Yaron Brook (59:14.580)

By the way, sorry to interrupt, as a little aside,

Lex Fridman (59:18.940)

she does, when you say man, you mean human.

Lex Fridman (59:22.420)

And because we'll bring this up often,

Lex Fridman (59:26.300)

she does, maybe you can elaborate

Yaron Brook (59:28.820)

of how she specifically uses man and he in the work.

Lex Fridman (59:33.340)

We live in a time now of gender and so on.

Yaron Brook (59:36.220)

Well, she did that in the sense that everybody did it

Lex Fridman (59:40.300)

during her period of time, right?

Lex Fridman (59:41.500)

It's only in modern times where we do he slash she, right?

Lex Fridman (59:45.340)

Historically, when you said he, you meant a human being,

Yaron Brook (59:48.580)

unless the particular context implied that it was a...

Lex Fridman (59:51.580)

But in Ayn Rand's case, in this case, in this one sentence,

Yaron Brook (59:55.700)

she probably meant man.

Lex Fridman (59:58.780)

Not that, because she viewed that there are differences