Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey everyone, and welcome to the 261st episode of objectively speaking. I'm Jag, CEO of the Atlas Society. I'm very excited to have Zoltan or Zol Sendes with us today to talk about his book, the Objectivist's Guide to the Galaxy. Answers to the ultimate questions of life, the universe and everything. And as you all can see, I, I have made quite a few bookmarks. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm really excited to talk about it with Zoell. So welcome. Thanks for joining us.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Hi Jag, thanks for inviting me.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: Absolutely. And also folks, I did a review of this book on the Atlas Society website, so we're going to put that up through the links as well.
So, Zo, I couldn't help but notice some similarities between your family's story and that of Ayn Rand in terms of fleeing totalitarian communism. Your parents were Hungarian.
How did you come to be born in a refugee camp in Austria?
[00:01:12] Speaker B: Well, towards the end of the Second World War, the Soviets were invading into Hungary and my father and mother had a wagon with two horses and they, my older brother was three months old at the time and they grabbed him and started going toward the Austrian border. And it was quite an experienced line of refugees going along.
But before they got to Austria, an airplane came in and strafed the column of refugees. My parents grabbed my baby brother and jumped under a bridge.
But one of the horses was killed and the other one shot in one leg. So it ended up being three legged. And they had to use that three legged horse to keep pulling the wagon towards Austria. And my dad had to help push the wagon up the hills. But they made it. They had to go night and day to get into the British sector in Austria, where they ended up in a refugee camp run by the British.
And there wasn't much there.
The camp was a bunch of long tents where they had multiple families in one tent and the families would put up blankets between the various locations to try to get a little bit of privacy.
But I came along a year and a half later and of course they didn't have anything. So my crib was an old crate that had been abandoned.
So life was very hard, but I ended up being born there in this refugee camp.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: Now your father was a very academic, Learned man, had 2 PhDs, but in terms of getting an emigre visa that was given on condition of him working in a farm. Right. Tell us about that story and what happened.
[00:03:12] Speaker B: Well, there's sort of two parts to that story. One is that Canada actually had A law. We immigrated to Canada, but Canada actually had a law that if you were an educated person, you could only be French or English.
Other nationalities couldn't come in and be educated.
So my father got sponsorship from farmer to go to a farm in Canada.
But unfortunately, before we were about to leave in the springtime, I got scarlet fever and I was taken to a hospital and quarantined for a couple of months where I couldn't see anyone other than the nurses.
The by the time I got out and we got new arrangements going, we ended up arriving in Canada on this farm in the middle of October.
And there was nothing there. There's nothing you could really grow in October in Canada.
And they had no money, very few possessions, didn't speak English. So it was very difficult. But my dad found a job in an auto parts factory, went to work there.
But the farmer sued, saying he had to stay on the farm.
And without really being able to speak much English, he had to persuade the judge that, well, we'll all starve to death if we stay on the farm.
So he did end up working on the farm for several years.
It was still a tough time. I remember one time he was laid off and some people brought some boxes of canned food around so we'd have something to eat. So it was still difficult. But eventually we came out of that.
[00:05:02] Speaker A: And eventually your dad did manage to finally get an academic post. And then tragedy struck. What happened?
[00:05:11] Speaker B: Yeah, he. He ended up first getting a job at the University of Windsor in Canada, and then at a university position in Georgia, then Michigan State and then finally in Carnegie Mellon University.
That's odd. That's where I taught.
That university was Central Michigan University and things were going well. But on my. I was 19 at the time and he was home and I was home and all of a sudden he collapsed.
So I called an ambulance and they took him to the hospital and he had a brain tumor and died three months later.
And I remember on his deathbed there in the hospital, just telling my mother, gee, I finally got our lives together and now this happens.
It was all extremely sad.
[00:06:10] Speaker A: Well, you know, with all of these very traumatic experiences that, that happened to your parents to, to you, you know, growing up, in some cases almost, you know, on the semi starvation level. How do you feel like that influenced you? And, and how did finding objectivism help, help you to think about understanding your life, understanding this? I mean, I could see that someone might have had these experiences and say, the world is unfair, the world is chaotic, the world is nonsense.
[00:06:50] Speaker B: The interesting thing Even though our lives were difficult and poor, I was a happy child, I think, partly if you have good parents, and mine certainly were.
They carry along and, you know, my parents, my brother, I was never.
I was. Had a happy childhood, I'd say, even though there wasn't much to eat at times. So it's kind of attitude, I think, in the way your life develops.
I did get out of that an ambition to do better. I know, you know, my brother and I, we're kind of outsiders and poorer than most of the people in Canada.
So, you know, we strove to achieve things. So I think it did provide incentive to work hard and try to achieve something.
And of course, eventually finding Ayn Rand.
It really helped make all the ideas clear and beneficial.
[00:08:00] Speaker A: How did you get into engineering?
[00:08:03] Speaker B: Well, as a child, I was always interested in building things and how things worked. And so I had several projects going on all the time.
So I studied math and physics and decided on engineering as a good career. And I was always consumed by technology and science, so it was a natural fit for me.
[00:08:31] Speaker A: How did you come to see the value of computer simulation in the early 1980s? And can you describe the finite element method for our audience?
[00:08:43] Speaker B: Well, actually, in 1970, I went to pursue my PhD in at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, working with a wonderful professor by the name of Pete Sylvester, and he was one of the first to do electromagnetic field simulation.
Just the comment electromagnetics is all around us. I mean, light is an electromagnetic wave, but of course, the signals that are propagating, taking our image back and forth, are our electromagnetic waves as well.
And back then, the computers were really primitive by today's standards. I remember being outside of the.
There was a huge room with an air conditioner that you couldn't enter, and we used punch cards, which you had to submit and then wait for it to come back to solve these problems. And so it was a very different experience.
I worked on electromagnetic field simulation during my graduate work and then continued to work on that afterwards.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: You started off in academia.
Tell us a little bit about what your area of research and teaching was and then how you ended up founding Ansoft and what the company does.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Okay, I guess the, you know, I was always interested in electromagnetics.
Now, the equations were developed in 1860 or so, and they describe how electromagnetic fields work, but they're very difficult to solve. They're partial differential equations.
And so in the computer, what you do is you break it up into a bunch of smaller pieces.
I guess I just realized, like the bricks or the stonework behind me, you have this lump and you break it up into small pieces and then model the fields in each one. The computer puts it all together. In any event, I ended up at Carnegie mellon university in 1982 and doing research in this area.
And an individual came by from Alcoa.
And Alcoa makes aluminum. And they make the aluminum. The molten aluminum is poured into a mold and that then forms an ingot which when it's cooled is solid.
But as it's going through the mold, it'll have all sorts of distortions from, from the mold. So they wanted to develop a contactless mold system.
If you put a coil around the molten aluminum and put an alternating current in it, it'll just induce the opposite currents in the molten aluminum and the force from the opposite currents will push it apart.
So the electromagnetic field, in this case this magnetic field, will, will actually hold the molten aluminum without anything touching it.
And so they were designing this technology and they wanted a computer program to model it.
And so I said, well, I'll go get a graduate student and we'll start working on this problem right away.
And he said, no, no, we don't want you to do research.
We want you to start a company and, and create a commercial program that we can actually use to design products.
And so that's what I did. I accepted his proposal. He gave us a contract to start a company and create the software program.
And of course he used it for this particular application. But Electromanage applies to thousands of things, billions. And so we could sell the software for other applications.
And so slowly, one set at a time, we kind of grew the company from this initial beginning with alcohol.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: Wow, that is one of those forks in the road that if you had not met that person, your life would be on a different trajectory. So speaking of things that put one's life on a different trajectory, how and when did you discover Ayn Rand? Was it the fiction, the non fiction? Was it a friend?
[00:13:30] Speaker B: I guess I was about 30 at the time and there was a colleague at work that was an objectivist and he was trying to persuade me all the time to read something by Rand.
You know, one of those things that unless you, until you read it, you don't really realize what you're missing.
And it took me a while before I read and the first book I read was the Fountainhead and of course I loved it. I think it's a fabulous book. And you know, as we all know, and then I read Atlas Shrugged and the other work. So it really was a Wonderful experience.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: So. And it ultimately inspired a book about the ultimate answers to the ultimate questions of life, the universe, and everything. So let's talk about your new book, the Objectivist's Guide to the Galaxy. As I mentioned, from all of the bookmarks, you gave me a lot to chew on. What inspired this undertaking of a book originally and what. What most surprised you about the process of writing a book?
[00:14:48] Speaker B: Well, I guess there's a saying among professors, if you want to learn a subject, teach it. Now I'm not teaching anything anymore, but I thought, well, I want to explore the relationship between science and Objectivism, so let me write a book about it. And I thought that it would be very helpful because I know many Objectivists have very low education in terms of scientific principles. And so I thought it would be very useful for Objectivists to have a better foundation in science.
And then it occurred to me that it works the other way as well. Perhaps there'll be a lot of scientists who read the book and then discover Objectivism.
So.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: So is that your target? You kind of have a segmented target audiences, both Objectivists and also non Objectivist scientists.
[00:15:51] Speaker B: I think it's useful for both. I really had the Objectivist in mind who really wants to learn more about science and how Objectivism relates to science and vice versa.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: So in your acknowledgments, you mentioned consulting with Atlas Society founder David Kelly and our senior scholar, Stephen Hicks. How did they help contribute to your thinking?
[00:16:17] Speaker B: Well, Stephen read some early drafts of what I wrote and was very helpful in straightening a few things out.
And also his philosophy chart, where he provides the essential elements of medieval, modern and postmodern philosophy. I find that to be a very useful concept or item to be working with in the book.
David and I had some conversations on induction and on the nature of space.
And so he was very helpful in a couple of the chapters that I wrote.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: So the title of the book is sort of a playful nod to the cult favorite, Douglas Adams, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. And your introduction, you describe feeling disappointed with the Hitchhiker's Guide.
I couldn't help connecting Adam's postmodern meta narrative with the despairing who is John Galt?
When it was expressed to mean that the universe is unknowable, unfixable, really, a verbal shrug to express the futility of seeking answers. Do you see that connection? And how does Objectivism and your book offer a radically different proposition?
[00:17:51] Speaker B: Yes, that's a very interesting question. It never occurred to me this connection. But you're right, in both cases, the question is really talking about how you don't know. It's impossible to answer that question.
Now, of course, Rand answered the question Atlas Shrugged in Galt's speech, but Adams basically just wrote the number 42 as the answer to this ultimate question of life, the universe and everything.
And recently I saw a post where someone wrote, gee, when he read the number 42 in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, he laughed out loud. It was so funny, and it puzzled me.
There's nothing funny about the number 42.
But then I realized he laughed because the number 42 is kind of poking in the eye. Anyone who says, gee, they have any real fundamental knowledge. Anyone who says, gee, I know the answer.
They don't believe it, and so they have to laugh and make a joke of it, right?
[00:19:05] Speaker A: Well, it's probably laughter. That covers up a deeper anxiety, I would say. And the way that who is John Galt? Is used by many of the characters in Atlas Shrugged, there's a reason why Dagny finds it so infuriating, because she herself is on a search for answers. And this kind of resignation that answers are not possible is anathema to her. And one of my favorite scenes in the book is when she and Mary Riordan are about to take the first train on tracks made of Riordan metal. And she's decided to call it the John Galt line in order to reclaim this message. And when a reporter asks her, who is John Galt, she shoots back defiantly, we are. So I think that's why so many people have connected to the. The phrase, to the question less as admission of futility and more as kind of a defiant response to those who would say things are otherwise.
So what's remarkable about your book is how you integrate the hard sciences like physics, math, biology and engineering with philosophy.
I was wondering, do you consider philosophy to be a science and therefore is objectivism a science?
[00:20:46] Speaker B: Both philosophy and science begin with the three axioms that existence exists, consciousness exists, and identity exists.
And so they all have the same origin. Now, science focuses more on the metaphysics, what exists.
But it has to use epistemology to figure out the answer.
Philosophy is more on the epistemology side. How do we know it?
But then the hit in that statement requires science to figure out what it is. So I think the two are together. It's very hard to decouple science and philosophy. They work, have to work hand in glove to give meaningful answers.
So is one or the other. I just Say both are together essential to arrive at, arrive at truth.
[00:21:44] Speaker A: Yes, yes, I agree with that. To me, that's why, and you might disagree that we tend to see philosophy as a science and that science must be open to inquiry and elaboration.
Science and philosophy are different than, let's say a body of literature, right? That that was created by one person and, you know, has copyrighted and cannot be changed. As opposed to science and philosophy, which needs to. Is not necessarily about consensus. It is about, it is about inquiry. So you describe philosophy as divided into four historical movements with a 250 year battle between modernism and postmodernism. What are the roots of modernism? And how did Isaac Newton's Principia change the relationship between man and his thoughts of existence?
[00:22:50] Speaker B: Well, Newton's work, the Principia Mathematica, really took nature and how things move and explained it using first principles and mathematics, and particularly in terms of orbits of the planets. He showed that they work through natural laws and that all movement is really through a natural law.
This showed that you don't have to go to find God to find the truth. You can find the truth by examining this world reality.
And because he did that, the Age of Enlightenment developed. That led into the modern world where people are really looking at things that exist, trying to understand them and trying to work with them. So it really changed from the medieval philosophy or religion and superstition to reason and logic and experimentation.
I think Newton's book is by far the most important book in human history to transform the world from a backward, superstitious era to the modern era that we enjoy today.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: So we've talked about the roots of modernism. How would you describe the roots of postmodernism?
[00:24:27] Speaker B: Well, that's an unfortunate turn in history.
Postmodernism was a term coined by Jean Francois Leotard, a French philosopher who didn't like the result of science.
And so he kind of developed this new postmodern philosophy, but he really drew on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant from the 1700s, where Kant basically said that you can't really know things as they are because everything you know comes through your senses and your senses will distort what you see. So there's the world we live in, but we can't really know true reality.
And Leotard then said, well, how do you know truth? Well, it's the collective truth. The only truth you have is the group. And every group has its own truth.
And whatever most people think, that's how you define truth. But of course, when it's group truth, then you have conflicts and communism and collectivism and all sorts of horrible things. So postmodernism has its origins in Kant's philosophy, but it's grown more and more destructive through the decades. And now, as you probably know, a lot of postmodern philosophy drives the academics and a great deal of bad events around the world.
[00:26:11] Speaker A: Yes, of course, as I think Stephen did a wonderful job of in his definitive book explaining postmodernism and which we tried to distill in our pocket Guide to postmodernism after the, you know, failure of communism and Soviet Union became so apparent that there was an effort to repurpose class division, class struggle, oppressors, oppressors to all kinds of identity groups. And this idea of lived experience and that structural racism, structural, all of these nebulous and nefarious forces that I think those who buy into it really develop a victim mindset. And it's one of the reasons why you see so much unhappiness and confusion among the left who've been indoctrinated with these philosophies.
So going back even earlier from postmodernism, modernism, you talk about the Chauvet caves discovered in 1994, which contain prehistoric drawings, paintings dating back some 30,000 years. What do they tell us about cognitive development and the cognitive revolution in human beings? And what is the relevance to modern man in terms of how we form concepts?
[00:27:48] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a fascinating question. In terms of evolution, when did conceptual thinking originate? I mean, animals are on the perceptual level, they don't have concepts.
And the question is, when did people first develop concepts? Now Homo sapiens, I should. Yeah, Homo sapiens have been around for about 330,000 years, but there's no evidence of concept formation way back then.
And until about 30,000 years ago, there was no art, nothing of substantial that was created by Homo sapiens. But then around that time period, you have cave paintings and figurative models being formed. So all of a sudden people are making objects, which shows a conceptual ability. Art is.
You have to have concepts in order to appreciate art. Animals simply can't appreciate art.
And so the archaeologists maintain that there was a revolution, a cognitive revolution, or the tree of life mutation, as they call it. Around 30,000 years ago, that changed Homo sapiens from thinking on the perceptual level to forming concepts.
And ever since, once you're able to form a concept, the brain develops more and more ways of thinking higher level concepts.
So it's really been a 30,000 year evolution to develop the conceptual ability that we have today.
[00:29:43] Speaker A: So, speaking of caves, I thought you made a provocative connection between the 1999 sci fi blockbuster blockbuster the Matrix and Plato's allegory of the cave. What do they have in common and why the persistent impulse in philosophy to doubt the evidence of the senses?
[00:30:06] Speaker B: Well, I think in terms of mathematicians in particular, they're very much Platonists.
And the reason for that is that, you know, you can see two dolls over here or two balls over there and you can count to the number two, but the number two doesn't exist as such in metaphysical reality. It's a higher level concept. First level concepts are things you point at like dolls or balls, but the number two you can't point at.
Now there is good reasons to say that it's derived from reality and we can go through that, but the point is all these higher level concepts and mathematics is 100% higher level concepts are things you can't really point at. They're just concepts formed in man's mind as tools or knowledge to help interact with reality.
So there's a lot of people particularly, you know, mathematical oriented, they, they don't understand the connection between reality and numbers. And so then they, they say, well, there's a Platonic universe and you know, like in the Matrix, it's all a simulation.
Serious quotes, unquote. Scientists have actually written books saying that the universe is just a mathematical simulation, that nothing is really real.
It's a stupid idea, but it doesn't seem, it doesn't seem to be, we don't seem to be able to stamp it out even though it is stupid idea.
[00:31:58] Speaker A: Well, I think your book will take a good stab at stamping it out. Now I'm going to get stamped out if I don't answer or at least bring up some of these questions that we have from the audience. I'm very thrilled to see that we have a lot of people here saying, I was looking for a good book and they're going to be picking yours up.
Iliacin asks, reflecting on your family's experience as an immigrant, do you think the issues surrounding immigration today are parallel the past, or is today's situation unique?
[00:32:34] Speaker B: I think there are parallels to be drawn. I think even back in my day, not anyone would come could come. It was limited to, you had to have some qualifications or some ability. In our case, farmer sponsor our way here.
So, you know, immigration of course should be allowed, but there has to be control so that criminals and terrorists don't get across the border.
But I think in Terms of parallels, it really was much more restricted earlier on than is today.
[00:33:20] Speaker A: All right, Alan Turner asks, having seen the rise of computers over the past 50 years or so, do you think progress is still advancing at the same pace or are we starting to slow down?
[00:33:34] Speaker B: Progress is still advancing. And one of the comments there is computers get faster because there's software to simulate. You could not build, say an iPhone that you have today if it wasn't simulated first. There's, they're so complicated that it's only through computers and the, the physics is so involved. It's only by simulating these things that we can build them. And now when the computer gets faster, then you can simulate more. So it's a process that just speeds up the simulation. So this, the computers will keep increasing. Now, of course, the big event which everyone is aware of is AI is all of a sudden take this dramatic turn.
And I think everyone sees it's one of the three times in history where something comes out chat GPT and people can see right away that year that this is going to change the world dramatically.
And so I think that technology in the hardware, but also in the software, especially AI now is going to revolutionize the world over the next few decades.
[00:34:52] Speaker A: It's very exciting. Yeah.
So getting back to your book, let's talk about Tabula rasa. The fact that humans are born without innate ideas. Is that consistent with genetic variability in intelligence, ability or temperament? And does such variability present any challenges to the idea of free will?
[00:35:17] Speaker B: I don't think that those two ideas are really in conflict.
Tabula rosa and the variability and intelligence and such.
You know, a baby is born with billions of neurons and trillions of synapse connections.
But they have to think as they grow and make the connection stronger and weaker.
There's someone more genetic ability for intelligence or some trait may be able to perform that better, but it's available to anyone.
Anyone is free to think the way they like and promote the positive features of their character or emphasize a negative one. So I don't think there's a conflict between those two.
Was your other part?
[00:36:20] Speaker A: Yeah. So, you know, I was reflecting back on a dinner we had a while ago in which you shared a term that you had coined to the term was self smart as a way to encapsulate the ethics of long term rational self interest. Of course, Rand chose to provocatively capture this with her virtue of selfishness. Do you think that such branding has contributed to misconceptions about objectivism?
[00:36:55] Speaker B: Well, I think, you know, Rand was a genius in terms of philosophy and literature, and we all owe her a great debt. But unfortunately, she wasn't the best at marketing.
And I think the most unfortunate thing she did was say that, gee, I am selfish.
Because as she writes in the Virtue of Selfishness, for most people, when you say selfish, it means the brute who's going to trample over people and steal things and be a horrible person.
And yet that's the word she uses for describing pursuing your own interests.
So I think that word is very, very difficult to.
I think if Rand hadn't used that word, we would be much farther along in being able to spread objectivism through the wider society. But today, if you tell someone, gee, Rand is a selfish person, why don't you read her books?
They. It turns them off.
It's a word that it's very difficult to rebrand, a very negative word like that.
No one wants to be thought of as a brute.
[00:38:21] Speaker A: Yes. Well, you know, I think just as Rand described Dagny as overconfident in assessing her ability to save her railroad, to, you know, save the world, to keep it steady on her own shoulders, I think perhaps Rand also may have had a bit of overconfidence in her ability to change a. A perception of a word which was, you know, deeply Ingr. Trained as a negative into a. Into a positive. But at the same time, she also certainly captured people's attention. So speaking of Rand, as we did in our most recent video, she showed that she obviously was the victim of a lot of viciously unfair attacks. Now, for her admirers, this may have contributed to this kind of siege mentality in which there's a fear of acknowledging any mistakes.
And I fear that that fear presents a danger of conflating a personality with principles, whether with regard to Rand or other thinkers. Do you see that as well?
[00:39:39] Speaker B: Well, I think principles are.
If you go through the logic and begin with existence and. And work your way up, the principles are sound regardless of other character personality traits. So I think the philosophy stands, the basic principles on their own.
Now, I, you know, I wouldn't want to say anything negative about Gran because I owe her so much. And she, she was such a great and wonderful person, but she was a human being, not a God. And so any human being is going to make a mistake here or there, but for us, we shouldn't emphasize anything like that.
There are plenty of people who will criticize her.
[00:40:30] Speaker A: Yeah, no, my point is not that we should criticize her or go out of our way to, but that being through a sense of justice Wanting to repay the debt that we have incurred by benefiting so much about her shouldn't lead us to try to evade things that. That were true or that were unfortunate or that were contradictory.
We should also be in touch with. With reality.
So, now, my personal favorite chapters in the Objectivist Guide to the Galaxy concern character and ethics. You argue that character is built through repetitive choice of where to focus the mind. You write, quote, thinking about something modifies the neural connections in the brain, reinforces your thought patterns, and locks in good or bad behavior. Each person is responsible for what they think about, and hence the type of person they become. End quote. Can you give us an example, even a hypothetical one, of how this works in practice?
[00:41:47] Speaker B: Well, first off, let me just say that the common saying in biology is that neurons that fire together come to be wired together, basically.
And there are. There are experiments that people have done in animals to show that the neural wiring in your brain is dependent on where you focus, where the brain is focused. So it's a scientifically established fact at this point. Now, I'll take my own personal case, because I know that one. As I mentioned, at a young age, I was very interested in science, engineering, and I.
I worked on math and physics. And of course, the more I did that, the better I became at it and the more more skilled I had.
Obviously, the neural connections get strengthened by. By using it.
So in terms of character, doing positive things like studying and trying to apply oneself, I believe leads to a good character, where someone who says, oh, I don't want to study for that math test, I'm going to figure out a way to cheat.
That person is strengthening the parts of his brain that focus on how do I cheat and ends up with a bad character.
So it really is the thoughts you have literally rewire the circuits in your brain and then will make you a better person or a worse person.
[00:43:30] Speaker A: So Rand's quote that art is the indispensable medium for the communication of a moral ideal is probably the quote that I use the most in trying to explain the Atlas Society's strategy of leveraging artistic content, like our graphic novels or animated book trailers, even music videos, to reach new audiences. But your chapter gave me a much deeper understanding of why art is so indispensable, because it helps human grasp normative concepts concerning alternatives on how to behave. Perhaps you could walk us through this process using one of Rand's novels, of how the characters and their choices concretize normative concepts and choices for the readers.
[00:44:24] Speaker B: Well, probably the. The best one there Is the Fountainhead my favorite book, because the Fountainhead really is about integrity and as she says, the integrity not just in architecture or building, but in a man's soul.
And Howard Rourke goes through many struggles. I mean, he's expelled from university, he's offered commissions that he can't accept because they destroy his values.
He has many of these struggles, and yet he perseveres with his vision and comes out with a heroic end.
And I think that's a character that. That I certainly have related to in thinking about things when I. When I did have a conflict, sort of, what would Howard Rourke do? How would he handle it?
And I think it's very helpful to have a character like Roark in mind when one is facing difficult conflicts and decisions.
[00:45:37] Speaker A: Yes. You know, it reminds me of Rand's explanation of the mass appeal of James Bond. She said the obstacles confronting an average man are to him as formidable as Bond's adversaries. But what the image of Bond tells him is, quote, it can be done. The. The sense of life it conveys is not one of a chaotic, malevolent universe in which we are at the mercy of capricious forces, but a benevolent one in which the right choices can help us ultimately prevail against great odds. Are there other works of art that have connected with you in that sense?
[00:46:26] Speaker B: Before I go there, I just want to mention that art and movies have gone downhill so much. I mean, there's a sick mentality. Even James Bond in the latest movie is kind of a weaker character than before.
And, you know, gangsters and various criminals are treated with respect, or I'm not sure what the right word is, but semi heroes in many movies today.
So unfortunately, we're living in a very that time. For art, in terms of positive, I would recommend the novels of Wilbur Smith.
Wilbur Smith is a South African author and he writes very dramatic scenes with great characters doing wonderful things.
And he's got several series of books that are very enjoyable to read. So obviously they're not as intellectually stimulating as Rand's books. Nothing even comes close to that. But he does have a great sense of life and positive image for heroes.
[00:47:44] Speaker A: So looking back over your involvement with Objectivism, what are some of the ways in which you've seen the movement change over time?
[00:47:55] Speaker B: Well, I wish it had changed more in many ways, even 50 years ago, when I first became aware of, was always an outside movement with a very small percentage of people understanding that it's a true philosophy. The world really does work like that.
But the vast majority of people around us just don't pay attention and don't understand it.
And we're still in that phase. We haven't reached a critical mass.
Now, what you're doing in the Atlas Society, I hope, can bring us to that critical mass. We certainly need more people to understand Objectivism, to be aware of what it, what it means and what it stands for. And hopefully what you're doing will allow us to, to get there and really make a change in the world. But it's been disappointing for me that here this wonderful new philosophy and it really hasn't taken over the world by storm the way it should have.
[00:49:13] Speaker A: Well, to the extent that the Atlas Society's growth is a proxy for the potential of the growth of Objectivism.
You know, quadrupling our revenues, growing our student conference by 50% year over year, putting out things like our animated book trailer of Atlas Shrugged, drawing 12 million views, and doubling book sales of the novel.
I'm feeling pretty optimistic. And one of the things that I wouldn't say that I have seen as a change, but definitely this, our scholars who have been involved with Objectivism for decades is just the remarkable growth and interest in objectivism overseas. I mean, you know, we have our videos in English, but then we've translated them into 12 different languages. And in particular, a video that gets a million views in English will get 5 million views in Spanish and 6 million views in Hindi and 8 million views in Arabic. So I think the world is changing in ways that aren't necessarily perceptible on the surface. I think a lot of that has to do with preference falsification and collective illusions. But I think, you know, that's wonderful.
[00:50:43] Speaker B: News, but surprising to me because somehow I guess I've been United States centric in the thinking Rand wrote here. It's really the USA that has, well, for almost 250 years led the world in freedom.
But I think today it is floundering, as we all know.
And it may be that there are other places in the world where freedom can come about. I'd be certainly thrilled if it happens. And we really do see a rise in liberty around the world.
[00:51:23] Speaker A: Oh, I definitely. Earlier this year, we launched Atlas Society international with our 20 John Galt schools around the world and our new European conference. And I mean, we could have easily 50 schools given the demand in Africa, in Latin America, in Asia, in the Middle east, in India.
It's really.
But you know, what you're saying is important because, you know, to it's going to be American philanthropy. That's going to, you know, be able to fund that kind of expansion because sadly, the, the philanthropic tradition is not the same in, in Europe. And understandably, American donors are interested in funding American programs. So.
So 50 years ago, this is another challenge that we're facing. You know, 70% of young people read novels on a daily basis for fun. Today that percentage is 12%. With young people spending upwards of nine hours online a day, how should those who care about Ayn Rand's ideas go about connecting with new audiences?
[00:52:43] Speaker B: Well, I think what you're doing is going online and creating the videos and the graphic novels and such.
I think that's the right direction.
I'm not probably figuring out how to reach better that way, but I think what you're doing is definitely the right approach.
[00:53:05] Speaker A: Well, it's as. As opposed to what you're doing, which is, if not rocket science, then, you know, definitely science. Marketing is not a science. It's just a matter of looking at your market, looking at your product, looking at you consumption patterns, and then finding a way to serve your target audience with the kinds of products that they want. I used to work at Dole Food Company and I remember that there were governments and charities that were concerned about certain deficiencies in certain countries. And so could we find a way to have bananas that had more iron to help with blindness in certain countries because people were eating bananas? So in a way it's similar. It's like, okay, people are eating bananas or people are reading graphic novels, people are watching, you know, animated videos. Then I'll just find a way to, to make sure that they contain, you know, we adapt Ayn Rand's novels and, and find a way to make our banana contain objectivism so well in just the few minutes that we have. I don't know either if there was anything else that maybe we didn't get to, that you wanted to mention about your book or, you know, perhaps again, given that our audience at our conferences and online is made up of young people and students and young adults, perhaps any advice that you'd give to young engineers or entrepreneurs aiming to make a transformative impact on their field.
[00:54:49] Speaker B: I think in terms of advice, the best advice is to follow your dream and pursue it. You have to think long range.
I know when I started the company there are all sorts of data issues that come up and produce impediments, but you've got to have that vision for where you want to go.
Think long range, find something that you're really interested in, something new and original, and pursue it.
And don't be sidelined by some minor issues that come up along the way. You really have to have the vision and stick to it.
[00:55:35] Speaker A: Well, I agree with you. Find the thing that you love doing that you would do even if they didn't pay you. Just don't, you know, let your bosses know that. Fortunately, I think they do know that at the Atlas Society, do the thing that you will just lose yourself in for hours, find your default mode, and then. And then just keep persevering against all odds and being mindful of what you focus on. And, you know, as the old adage, so a thought, reap a habit. So a habit, reap a. A destiny.
Well, reap a character and then reap a destiny. So I think that's really great advice. And I am going to be. He's not giving me an answer now, but between now and June of next year, I'm going to be working on Zahl to see if we can get him to come and give some of that advice to our audience at Galt Skulch next year and sign a few of these because again, I'd love to get these into the hands of more people so those don't deprive yourself. Go out and get the book. Zal, thank you very much. It's just been a wonderful hour to spend with you and thank you for the amazing achievement that is your book.
[00:56:52] Speaker B: Well, thank you very much, Jennifer. Very pleasant talking with you.
[00:56:56] Speaker A: All right, well, thanks all of you for joining us today. Be sure to join us next week. I am going to be. Well, actually, I'm not going to be off on Wednesday. We are going to have Atlas Society senior scholar Stephen Hicks and Richard Salzman talking about public choice theory and the politics of self interest.
I know you guys were really patient last week with our planned interview with Martin Gurry, author of Revolt of the Public. We've got him rescheduled, so check that out on our events page and I'll see you for that interview as well. Thanks, everyone.
