Talking Brook: ‘Yaron Brook Show: Zuckerberg on Wealth, Navarro's Muse'

Dr. Yaron Brook brings his expertise in parsing through newspapers to his show. He claims that the best paper, The Wall Street Journal, still has errors, flubs, and outright “nonsense.” He disagrees with economists like Thomas Sowell who contends that economics is about “scarcity” but still holds him in esteem. Dr. Brook challenges the scarcity notion. He says that economics is about production and trade. He finds that we live in abundance. He offers the example of how you can take “gunky stuff” like oil and make it into something that can be made into a human value to be consumed. Epistemology (respect for facts, reality, and the mind) and ethics (defining a proper code of morality) ought to drive economics to the good doctor.

Dr. Brook exposes the assistant professors and doctoral candidates who hold their tongue on speaking out against others in academia. He describes the second-handers and the destructive persons who evade and worship nihilism, respectively. Like a biologist dissecting an insect, Dr. Brook examines the root cause of all the ills in the world: unreason, evasion, and the hatred of the good for being the good. Without launching into a theological kerfuffle, the idea of Original Sin surfaces and Dr. Brook breaks down how it relates to the religious and the secular. He holds that it is about not having the right to life, success and money are questionable, and something horrible is around the corner and down the block. We’re experiencing, to Dr. Brook, that life is so good that to some people, we can’t be good and that we must find some terrible thing that is going to kill us all. Something has to stop us from living the good life.

Whether it’s overpopulation (1960s), global cooling (1970s) or global warming (late 1970s-present) the idea is that humanity must be knocked off the pedestal to fit with the moral view that things can’t be good. Dr. Brook goes further. He says that things can’t be good when we’re free. He has a conviction that invention of detrimental ideas must crop up in times where life is for the most part very good. Free will and reason ought to serve as rejections to the thought that we’re all vicious sinners. Dr. Brook says that self-interest is an achievement. So, there is a search for evil and “bad stuff” around us because of this idea of how man is allegedly and inherently wicked.

There must be a fight for “facts, evidence, logic.” Dr. Brook upholds that the rejection of altruism will suffice in a world gone nutty. But not only that, the advocacy of rationality, selfishness, and capitalism will save the human race. Dr. Brook segues into the Mark Zuckerberg interview with Dana Perino. Right off the bat, Zuckerberg makes the claim that he doesn’t deserve his billions, and not just him, no one else. Dr. Brook says that Zuckerberg doesn’t realize the value, win-win relationships, and trade involved in making someone a billionaire. To religionists, no one should have a billion dollars because a subjective God is about stopping humans from being “too” wealthy. Dr. Brook also points out that there needs to be individuals who stand up in the business sector who are prideful of their wealth.

Mr. Zuckerberg says that “some people do good things” and “help other people.” Justice entails trading with other people, according to Dr. Brook. The standard is not aiding others but with greeting them as traders. At this point, Dr. Brook’s enthusiasm is thoroughly piqued. He has a passionate connection to what Zuckerberg presents as solutions, even if he disagrees with what Zuckerberg claims. Dr. Brook illuminates the underlying meaning to what Zuckerberg says by bringing to bear that he thinks that the government can do a much better job at handling funds. What Dr. Brook continues to highlight is that the standard is the individual human life. He completely disagrees with some things that Zuckerberg says but it’s a stimulating interview nonetheless and is worth watching in full. Dr. Brook thinks that Zuckerberg is a marvelous businessman but has a mixed personal life. His altruism clashes with his good, selfish motivations.

The show then goes away from the Mr. Zuckerberg interview and onto Peter Navarro. Dr. Brook sarcastically calls him his “favorite economist.” Dr. Brook holds that it’s “bizarre” that he should use an alter ego in a nonfiction book and cite himself as a source. Chinese food is not one thing that China should be attacked for in this day and age. “Human rights...social score system, and their attitude towards Hong Kong” are all issues for which China should be criticized.

Dr. Brook rolls right along and talks about the Tulsi Gabbard interview with John Stossel and how she basically “wants the same thing that other Democrats want.” In a minor interruption to the new topic, a commenter says that they eat “Icelandic food.” Dr. Brook takes a fly swatter to this speech and says that Chinese food is multilayered and “amazing.” Back to Gabbard and Stossel. The listeners and viewers pick up on the fact that Assad is a “murderous despot.” Dr. Brook notices Gabbard’s reaction. His ever so subtle way of presenting ideas like Gabbard rolling her eyes at the idea that Assad is a tyrant is certainly telling. On the right, Trump negotiates with the leader of North Korea. On the left, Gabbard has a soft spot for this totalitarian. Dr. Brook holds that the “enemy of your enemy is not your friend.” Gabbard offers examples throughout history where United States leaders met with Stalin (Roosevelt), Khrushchev (JFK), and Mao (Nixon). Now, she gives another instance with Reagan and Gorbachev but this was during a “winding down” and Dr. Brook is still skeptical about whether this meeting was a good thing.

Moral courage ought to be given to the protesters in Hong Kong, Dr. Brook mentions. He says that he’s “heartless” because he would not have supported the US in intervening in Germany to save Jews. He is selfish and healthy minded in this way of thinking. He doesn’t advocate for building sewer systems or dropping food packages in countries that despise and pose a threat to the United States. The great tragedy of the modern era is that “no one fights to win anymore.” The questions that nobody talks about are why we go to war? What are America’s interests? How best do we protect those interests? On to the Super Chats.

Dr. Brook says that Big Pharma makes money by making our lives better. They deserve all of their money and the R&D is such that they have to make money from these drugs in order to experiment and make new things. A private market is essential in the face of government’s overbearing presence. The next question concerns the New Atheists. Only thinking to a point is what Dr. Brook says about them. They’re not that deep. They claim to be for the mind and reality but cannot see how challenging altruism is much more difficult. It’s ingrained. It’s so deep within the culture that to go up against the morality of thousands of years is something that these people refuse to do. Dr. Brook holds that the New Atheists are tainted by the idea of “imperfection” in human beings and that people can’t be “completely free.”

The internet provides a sense of motivation for Dr. Brook. He knows that the web has boosted his following. A question concerning life and death prompts Dr. Brook to say how murder is destructive more to the murderer than the victim as he or she must evade. Additionally, they must live with the fact that others want to destroy them (if they don’t kill themselves). Dr. Brook handles a hypothetical about whether Germany would’ve won the war with the use of nuclear warfare.

“One of the values of speaking with other people is the reflection back on your values,” Dr. Brook says. He claims that you speak to people that you care about to fuel your spirit because your friend is a value. Friendship is “ongoing... and permanent” and something that you can share with in this context.

Dr. Brook saves the last question as dessert. He unloads all kinds of recommendations for a places for a questioner to walk, eat, and adore.