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Feb. 1, 2006 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
35:43
80 Advice to the Young at Heart
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Good afternoon, everybody!
It's Steph.
It is four o'clock on Wednesday, the first of February 2006.
I'm just on my way home, and I had an email from another fine young gentleman last night who has started a libertarian club, or society, at his university.
And he was kind enough to lean upon my various scraps of wisdom to see if he would benefit from getting some advice on how they could approach things.
And hopefully I can make it more concise than that sentence.
So, of course, here it is.
If I were a young man, here's what I would be doing if I were a young man in university starting a libertarian movement.
Now, I did actually go to a couple of libertarian functions when I was younger, but everybody seemed quite mad, and I didn't really feel that it was a productive place for me to be.
However, I think that, you know, back 20 years ago when this was the way things were, libertarianism was far less advanced than it is now.
So I think that, you know, probably people are less mad.
in the movement, and the youngest, of course, are the most sane.
I get, quite frankly, a lot of very, very intelligent, if not the most intelligent, questions and comments from youngsters.
You know, which would sort of make sense.
I mean, you want to try and get them when they're young, right?
You want to try and help people to understand clear thinking before they've made a lot of life mistakes, and certainly before they've had children and taught children incorrect things, because that's a very hard thing to come back from.
So this gentleman said, you know, should we spend our time focusing on this, that, or the other?
I can't remember.
There was some... I looked it up last night.
There was some I think an eminent domain lawsuit and things like that.
And frankly, you know, this is my two bits of opinion, so, you know, I'm not going to try and prove anything logical here.
I'm simply going to talk based on my own experience and what I think is a reasonable approach.
So, you know, be warned, there is no proof here.
This is all opinions.
I'm like the guy at the end of the bar telling you just how it should be.
So, you know, grain of salt, time, it is.
So, no, I would not spend a single shred of time on something like eminent domain.
You know, the state is a hydra.
You simply cannot productively try and cut off one head and think that you're making progress.
I mean, it's like going around trying to get rid of slaves using this type of whip.
You really can't end slavery except by ending slavery.
You can't fight the government except by ending the government.
Fundamentally, it doesn't work.
And this is, of course, why the libertarian movement has had such spectacularly little success over the past 80 years.
I mean, as far as social movements go, we suck like a vacuum.
And that's entirely predictable based on this approach of let's try and argue this, that, or the other aspect of government.
Rather than say, which is sort of logically and morally consistent, that if we are against the use of violence, right, and it's really where the line falls, whether it's libertarianism or, you know, anarcho-capitalism or anarcho-syndicalism, for those who like Monty Python movies, those kinds of things all sort of boil down to one choice, right?
Do you want to use violence to Do you think it's valid to use violence to solve problems?
Or do you believe that it's not valid to use violence to solve problems?
I mean, that's really the only question in human life.
And, you know, by the by, and I can talk about this, and this is an official segway, but it's okay, since this is the podcast of nothing but opinions, I think a segway is allowed!
So, one gentleman wrote to me and asked me, give me an example of a successful libertarian society, or a successful free market society.
I find that question kind of funny, and it's interesting to me that somebody would ever ask that question.
And the reason that it's funny to me that somebody would ever ask that question is it just shows how lodged in bizarre abstracts we are in our lives.
You know, I mean, I guess the simple answer of, show me a successful libertarian society, I would say, you!
You know?
It's not some abstract thing out there in the American frontier in the 19th century or, you know, Holland in the 18th century or, you know, The internet boom of the nineties, I mean, if you want to look for a successful libertarian or free market society, it's pretty easy.
You know, you just look at your own life.
You are an example of a successful libertarian society.
And there's really nothing more to it than that.
So that sort of would be my suggestion, as far as that goes.
Don't worry about abstract political this, that or the other.
All you need to do is, quite simply, to understand what a society looks like that's not violent, All you really need to do is to look at your own life and you will absolutely see that you yourself don't use violence in any way, shape or form.
At least I assume you don't.
And that your friends don't use violence.
And you don't force your wife or your husband to stay married to you.
And you don't force your employer to employ you or anything like that.
So a free market society is you.
So, you know, if somebody sort of asks you and says, well, you show me where pacifism works, you know, my sort of response generally is to say, well, you know, who have you beaten up lately?
You know, you have a nice shirt there.
Did you get it from, you know, by stealing?
Did you shoplift it?
Did you, you know, what does a free society look like?
Well, it kind of looks like you do.
So that's sort of what I would say about that, and it is so interesting to me that people say, well, how could non-violence possibly work, when, gosh, I don't really know anybody who's used violence in their life.
You know, other than, you know, maybe when we were kids, or, you know, of course you do see it with parents to some degree.
But, you know, that would be an example of a...
Libertarian, anarchistic society.
I mean, you could even include, if you wanted, people who'd taken other people to court, but even if you excluded those people, you still had a vast majority of people don't use violence, right?
A vast majority of people resolve their disputes peacefully or, you know, give up on the dispute or whatever.
I mean, very few people even take each other to court.
So, you know, that's the society.
It's the world, right?
That's the society that I'm talking about.
I mean, we just talked about North America or sort of Western Europe.
But, you know, 99% of the world is perfectly peaceful.
99% of the world uses reason or, you know, some other mechanism to resolve disputes.
Even if it's, you know, sort of conceding defeat based on shyness and insecurity, that's still a methodology for resolving disputes.
So, You know, the free market is the world.
You know, there's this small dominant cancer of, you know, thugs and brutes and sophists who rule over us, but, you know, they're very much in the minority.
You know, it's a couple of percent max.
The rest of us are all perfectly peaceful and perfectly willing to resolve our disputes without resorting to violence.
In fact, the taste for violence is very much an abnormality in the human psyche and results from enormous violence and pressure that's brought to bear on children when they're very young.
So, you know, I mean, malnutrition will produce a brittle bone structure and, you know, extreme abuse will produce a violent nature, but that's not the sort of facts of the matter of the world at all.
I mean, I don't really know anybody who uses violence at all as an adult, and so The libertarian society is the natural state of human beings.
I mean, this is what everybody does.
There's a few people who will use violence if they're told to, but even those people have to be sort of bullied and forced and, you know, have to have layers of propaganda draped over them to the point where their true self is almost completely obscured.
So anyway, to sort of give the short answer, I could sort of go a couple of podcasts on that, but You know, for the short answer to, you know, can you show me a successful libertarian society?
I'd say, yeah, everyone except the police and the military.
Right?
Everyone except the police, the military, and maybe some prison guards.
Yeah, and you know, what percentage of the population is that?
Well, it's pretty small.
So, you know, everybody else is peaceful.
And nobody else wants to go and wage war and shoot people.
And even those people have to be incredibly pressured and bullied into becoming those kinds of killers for hire or attack dogs.
So, yeah, look in the mirror, my friend, and you will see the perfect libertarian society.
It's not a very abstract place to go.
You know, it's just your life.
So back to what might be a valid thing to do for a young libertarian group.
There's a couple of things that I would do.
This is training for a black belt.
You don't just wander out into the world.
And start shooting your mouth off about Murray Rothbard articles that you've read.
You only get one chance to convert someone.
You only get one chance to really get in there and help somebody free their mind.
And if you blow that chance, they will never ever be available to you or to anybody else in the movement again.
So please, please be very careful.
When you're going out there and talking to people, don't take it personally.
Don't get angry.
Except under certain conditions, which I'm not one to talk about never getting angry.
You know, under certain specific conditions, of course, but don't get irritated.
Don't get like, oh, how come you guys believe this nonsense and stuff like that?
Because, you know, you have one chance to touch a human soul and to free it.
It's not everybody's fault that they've been raised in error.
It's not everybody's fault that everybody lied to them and that they face enormous social, economic, emotional, familial, friendship repercussions If they decide to taste the fruit of truth or even lick its skin to turn the metaphor into something fairly horrible.
So, you know, you are a physician among the wounded, you know?
Don't be a jerk.
That's my philosophy.
Don't be a jerk.
It really comes down to that.
Jerk?
Not be.
Don't.
Not so much with the jerkiness?
Something like that.
I think I feel a bumper sticker coming on.
But don't be that physician who's out there snapping and yelling at people for being mutilated and wounded.
The minds that you move among in society are broken, destroyed, decayed, turned against themselves, crippled, and they have no idea.
What we call normal in the world is mentally ill.
It is completely dysfunctional.
It is self-destructive.
And nobody knows it because everybody's like that.
So, you know, recognize that you are a physician in the middle of a plague where nobody knows that they're sick.
So be gentle.
Be very, very gentle.
Be curious.
Be open.
Be open to correction.
Admit the possibility of error at every step.
Because that's only honest.
That's only logical.
We all could be wrong.
God himself could come down and manifest himself in my bedroom tonight, in which case I'm going to have a freaked-out podcast in the morning.
But, you know, based on all the available evidence, based on this, I mean, this is the case, right?
I mean, this is to be scientific.
So the first thing that I would do is, you have to, I would not worry about fighting any sort of silly political battles about this, that or the other, because you just You're just not even snipping off one head of the Hydra.
I mean, you've got to go for the core.
If you want to sort of take up arms against evil in the world, you have to know what you're doing.
You have to be, you know, you have to be the jujitsu master.
You have to be, you know, cunning of word, hand, sword and tongue.
And you have to know what you're fighting, because it's a foggy battle, let me tell you.
And you really have to know what you're doing.
So, you know, when you are the sensei, when you can snatch this pebble from my hand, then you can wax on, wax off, get out there and start to do some strikes and blows for good.
But it's a lot of preparation.
It's a lot of work.
So what I would do is, you know, to not to sort of toot my own horn.
It's just what I think is the most effective, right?
Or what I found to be the most effective.
You need to, you know, pair off.
Pair off and critique each other's communication style.
You need to take the opposite position, right?
So, you know, welfare.
You know, have somebody hammer you on the question of how the libertarian state would help the poor.
Learn how to turn it around and make it an enjoyable discussion for the other person.
Learn how not to lecture.
Learn how not to quote endless reams of statistics and bore people.
Learn how to be entertaining.
Learn how to be curious.
Learn how to be funny.
Learn how to make people laugh at their own prejudices.
It's kind of funny how you can get this stuff done.
There's somebody that I know.
I'm not going to give any identifying characteristics.
She had a daughter who experienced a minor degree of inappropriate behavior.
In a certain situation.
And so, of course, this woman had formerly before, but even furthermore, sort of street-proofed her own kid.
You don't accept anything like that, blah, blah, blah.
And then she also had somebody else in the office she worked in who kept coming up and giving her back rubs.
You know, you look tense, honey.
You know, that kind of stuff.
Totally inappropriate behavior in any environment that's not, you know, a romantic relationship.
And so I said, well, you know, you should sort of tell him that you don't like it or you find it issues like, oh no, I just turned my chair so he can't get behind me and so on.
And I said, oh, so I mean, I just want to understand this kind of thinking, right?
So you feel that it's very important to street-proof your own child, but when it comes to your own sort of, you know, body and physical integrity and personal space, not so much.
Right?
So, you know, I wonder if that may not be considered not the most consistent of approaches, right?
And she laughed and, you know, she sort of got the point in a gentle way that, you know, you should really practice what she preaches because the real fact of the matter is that probably the reason why her daughter experienced this kind of thing is that the mother puts up with it and what we do is far more important than what we say, especially around children.
So, I mean, that's sort of an example.
It's a totally tiny and minor example.
of how you can get someone to laugh at themselves and recognize that they may not have all of the answers.
So, you know, don't be irritable.
Don't be that guy who's like the libertarian loudmouth who just tells people that they don't know smack about this and they don't know smack about that and they've just been programmed and they don't know what's going on and they're sheeple and robots and all this kind of stuff.
So don't be that guy, and don't be that girl.
And so what you need to do is, you know, sit down, read your Plato, read the Socratic dialogues in particular, read the story of Socrates, read how his persistent curiosity was the foundation of philosophy.
Read some Nietzsche.
Read The Antichrist.
Fantastic book.
Nietzsche will just detonate your assumptions in ways that are just fantastic.
Here's a quote from Nietzsche that I've always loved.
He said, Vanity is the fear of appearing original.
Vanity is the fear of appearing original.
I mean, isn't that fantastic?
Doesn't that just blow your mind?
Because, of course, vanity is wanting to be important in the eyes of others.
And in the eyes of others, the standard things are always impressive, right?
Beauty, wealth, height, I don't know, hair, who knows, right?
But there's all these standard things.
that other people consider to be high status, and if you're original, then those things mean nothing, right?
I mean, if you're original, you think for yourself, and so vanity is the fear of being original, and rather just getting a second-hand self-esteem from others who are, you know, going to go for the obvious, right?
So I just think Nietzsche will just sort of widen your brain.
He's like a crowbar on your assumptions, even, of course, all of the objectivist assumptions as well, libertarian assumptions.
So, you know, my suggestion is sit down in pairs, And to take the opposing side, like, you know, learn to become the sensei, learn to become the master communicator, of which I am like a tiny part of the way to where I want to be.
So, you know, I don't look upon myself as any kind of master communicator, but I'm sort of doing my best and trying to enhance my skills because you want it to be pleasant for people.
I mean, education should be pleasant.
Education should be exciting.
Education should be It should make you glow.
I mean, good Lord, why do it?
Otherwise, the purpose of life is not to be educated, but to be happy.
But if education is fun, and enjoyable, and thrilling, and like the spelunking tour of the gods, then who wouldn't want to get on board and join you?
So, sit down and take the opposing view.
Take and hammer from the opposing view and learn how to deal with those hammerings graciously, and with good humor, and with curiosity, and with a smile, and with a, you know, you absolutely could be right.
You know, the Columbo thing, you know, it's like, okay, explain it to me like I'm three years old.
That's what my boss always says.
He's a very, very intelligent man.
When somebody comes on with a big sort of fistful of information or sort of points a fire hose of facts at him and just says, hey, have a drink from this.
You know, he says, OK, I don't understand.
I mean, I just don't understand.
Explain it to me like I'm three or four years old.
And that's, of course, what you can do, right?
So someone talks about the welfare state.
They go, OK, I've never really understood the welfare state.
Explain it to me like I'm three years old.
And then, if you've got a whiteboard, this is fantastic.
What you do is you put a little guy up there.
You draw the little head and the arms and the legs.
You know what King Lear called this bear-forked animal, right?
Just put a little guy up there.
This guy's the politician, right?
And he talks to the policeman who holds a gun.
You draw the policeman with a gun who holds a gun to this guy who's a taxpayer.
Then the taxpayer gives the money to the politician, who gives some of it to the policeman, and then a small amount to the poor.
And what's the difference?
Why does this guy have a gun, get to have a gun, and this guy doesn't?
Explain it to me like I'm three years old!
Instead of you having to explain how some theoretical libertarian society would work, just have them explain to you how they know this is right, how they know this is good.
And if they're certain that it's good, just have those whiteboarded things up there and say, well, why does this guy get to have a gun?
Is he different from this other guy?
What if they switch places?
What happens when the guy with the gun takes off his uniform?
I just don't understand it.
Explain it to me.
Because, of course, that's the Socratic method.
Explain it to me like I'm three years old.
People put a lot of corruption in complexity, right?
Complexity hides a lot of corruption.
And, you know, you just put the guys on the board.
So there's this politician, there's this poor person, there's this middle-class person, there's this prison guard, there's this policeman.
I mean, just help me understand how this sort of makes sense morally.
And that's a fascinating thing to approach, because it's not threatening.
You're the smart guy.
You're the socialist.
You're the smart guy.
So explain to me how this works, because I just don't understand.
Right, so they say, oh, there should be no property.
It's like, OK, but who gets to use the car?
Well, the state decides.
OK, so there is property.
It's just this guy who calls himself a politician has the right to use property or to tell other people they can.
But this other guy who's, you know, not in the Politburo, he doesn't get to decide.
Like, how does that work?
I don't understand how you can have two different rules for the same species.
It's that simple.
You've got to just open up the doors of your mind and let other people try and educate you, and then point out their inconsistencies.
Not in a hostile way, but it's like, I just can't understand how you can say that 2 plus 2 equals 4 for this guy.
He's not allowed to use violence.
The poor guy is not allowed to use violence to get money from the taxpayer.
But the politician is allowed to order this guy to do the violence for him.
Like, how could 2 plus 2 equals 4 for the poor guy?
He can't use violence.
But 2 plus 2 equals the opposite of 4 for the policeman who must, not even can, but must use violence.
So there's this guy who comes up to you who's poor, who wants money from you because he's a thief, and you actually can't give it to him.
You're not supposed to give it to him, because theft is wrong.
You use self-defense or whatever.
But then some other guy comes up and says, I'm collecting on behalf of the poor, and if he's not in a blue uniform, then you can defend yourself.
But if you are, it's wrong to defend yourself.
Help me understand.
All of this complexity and how on earth it could conceivably be solved, right?
Like I was having a chat, as I've mentioned before, with one of the sales people from my company.
I was in New York on business and he said, you know, oh, you know, we should just have gun control and get rid of all the guns.
I'm like, well, that's fantastic.
I think that's wonderful.
So nobody has any right to have any guns.
He's like, that's correct.
I'm like, okay, so you disband the military and you get rid of the police force.
I think that's fantastic.
And he's like, well, no, the police have to have guns.
I'm like, oh, so you're really not... I mean, I'm confused then, right?
So you say nobody should have any guns, but then you say some people should have guns.
Well, the police have to have guns.
It's like, well, why do the police have to have guns?
Well, because they're dangerous criminals.
Well, if they're dangerous criminals, why is it only the police who get the guns?
You know, and what's the moral difference between a policeman and someone else?
Like, it's both the same species, right?
We can assume that there are two twin brothers who grew up with exactly the same intelligence and exactly the same capacities.
One of them becomes a policeman and must use force against others, must carry a gun and point it at people who disagree with the government.
But his brother may not, even though they're genetically identical.
Why is one guy forced?
It's only moral for him to use force, and another guy simply can't use force.
They're both genetically identical, same age, same intelligence.
How is that logically possible?
You've got two opposite moral rules for the same creature.
It's not logical.
That's the part I can't understand.
You can be persistent and kind and generous and curious about all of this, And, you know, explain it like I'm an idiot.
Like, I just can't seem to grasp this.
Everybody else gets it, but I can't, because it takes a lot of confidence to let people lecture you who don't know what they're talking about.
But they then will start to discover their own flaws in reasoning and the things that they think that they know that they don't know.
Now, they then can get irritable with you.
I mean, they can either get excited and it's like, you know, I never thought of that.
And, you know, especially if you're in university, that may be the case.
But, you know, more likely they're just going to start getting irritable with you, right?
And then, you know, the sugar, I guess, or the carrot is, you know, help me, like I'm three years old, I don't understand it, I'm going to put this stuff on the whiteboard, this is the transaction that I just can't follow.
Right?
Because then you're saying, there are moral rules, but they're different for everyone, and they're different at different times of the day, and so on.
And whether you're wearing this clothing or that clothing, or whether you've spoken this oath or that oath, I mean, it doesn't make any sense to me.
Now, if they start to get irritable, and they suspect that you're just playing dumb to make fools of them, which is, of course, what happened to Socrates quite a bit, which is what ended up with him, you know, chugging a vial of hemlock, Or I think as one kid wrote in an essay, that Socrates died of wedlock.
Anyway.
You know, these people will become irritable with you.
In which case, you know, you just simply say, OK, so it's OK.
I understand that you're irritated with me, but you're really just saying you don't know.
And that's OK.
I mean, there's lots of things that I think I know.
Like, I think I know how to drive somewhere in town, and it turns out that I don't.
There's no shame in that, right?
There is, however, you know, a real lack of intellectual integrity if you continue walking around saying that you know when you don't know.
Right?
So now we've got somewhere in this discussion, you can say to somebody who gets angry with you because you keep pestering them with questions that they don't want to answer in the Socratic method.
So you say, OK, well, we have gotten somewhere, though, which is we do know that what you're saying is not logically consistent, or what you think you believe is not logically consistent.
And that's OK.
Logic is very hard.
I'm not saying I have all the answers, but we have at least established this.
And I understand it's irritating, and I understand that everybody likes to be certain, and I really want to be certain, too.
That's why I'm trying to not take anything for granted, and having people explain it to me in this way, because I really want to be certain.
So, you know, all sympathy, let's continue talking about it, because I think I have some ideas that might help resolve this stuff.
They're kind of shocking to me, or at least they were when I first heard them, but maybe, you know, they would be of interest to you.
And so the person's like, no, forget it, right?
Then you say, OK, so basically you're just kind of like a hypocrite, right?
Or like a fraud.
I mean, if the person wants to lecture you about what is true and they end up realizing that they don't know what is true, but then they just won't have any more conversation, then you can at least say to them, OK, well, will you at least refrain from talking about this stuff as if it's true until you figure this out?
If they're like, no, this is what I believe.
This is right.
I don't care for your logical trickery, blah, blah, blah.
It's like, OK, well, then we're not going to have another conversation because You're kind of hypocritical, right?
Like you're saying that you know things are true when you don't know that they're true.
And that's not right.
I mean, you shouldn't claim to know something that you don't know.
That's sort of important when it comes to intellectual honesty and integrity.
So, you know, there's no problem getting angry at people.
You don't generally, I suggest, call them jerks or whatever.
But, you know, you sort of do have to point out the facts, right?
That they're claiming that they know something that they don't, and now that you have revealed that they don't really know it, they are going to continue to claim that they know it.
Now they're fully responsible for their knowledge, right?
All sympathy to the people who brought up on propaganda and don't have any clue what's true or false, but think they know.
But once you point out that they don't know, if they continue to act in error, Then, for me, it's important to just point out that this is intellectual hypocrisy of the first order.
It's actually a corrupt form of thinking.
But, you know, that's sort of the last thing that you do, right?
You don't leave people with approval for corrupt mental processes, for hypocrisy, for especially moral hypocrisy, which is, you know, the greatest cancer in the world.
So you don't leave people with this kind of like, well, we'll agree to disagree sort of thing, and I know that libertarians aren't particularly prone to that, but you do it in a sort of kind, curious, polite, courteous manner, and You know, invite them into exploring things which aren't true.
And, of course, you can always make reference to the world and say, well, you know, I mean, everyone believes this, but, you know, you'd think that if everyone believed this and it was true, the world would sort of be a little bit better off than it is and so on.
So that's what I would do.
If I were a young libertarian in a group, I would say, you know, let's sit down and let's figure out how we're going to communicate at the essence of things, not at, oh, this eminent domain thing, and maybe that war on drugs, or that asset forfeiture, or this thing.
That stuff's fine, you know, don't get me wrong.
There's nothing wrong with learning it, but you're not going to get anywhere by attacking the war on drugs at all, right?
You might get a couple of people who say, yeah, maybe we should, you know, lax up on the drugs, man.
And they may not be druggies, it's just that I have like two imitations that I can do and there's only one that's barely any good and I don't think it's the druggie one.
But, you know, so what if you get someone to agree with you that maybe drugs should be liberalized?
I mean, that's just a specific symptom of the deeper problem of using violence to solve problems, and the deepest problem of using morality, which is considered to be true, but which is actually completely false, to cover up the fact that this violence is occurring and that it's not moral at all.
So, you really want to try and cut to the heart of things, but that's really difficult.
I mean, either it's really difficult, or I'm not that bright.
Either one could be the case.
The reason that I say it's really difficult is it took me like 20 years of fighting with people to come up with it.
So I hope that it's not so obvious that I just sort of flattered around for 20 years for no reason.
But it's really difficult to get to that point.
I mean, there's a reason that Socrates is so famous, right?
Because it's very hard.
I don't think Ayn Rand had much luck with it.
I saw lectures from Nathaniel Brandon.
He didn't have much luck with it.
I think Harry Brown is quite good at it, but Harry Brown doesn't use the argument for morality very much because he's a bit more of the argument-of-effect kind of guy.
But I haven't seen people who are very effective at this.
And you hear lots of libertarian tricks about how to communicate to people and so on, and figure out what's most important to them, and speak to that.
But that doesn't work.
I mean, if it worked, we'd be doing a heck of a lot better as a movement than we did.
So my two cents into the baffling question of, if we're so right, how come nobody listens to us, is because we don't practice this open-ended curiosity that invites people into the truth.
The truth should be a fantastic, exciting, multiplayer, online, on-brain game that people want to participate in.
You don't go out with a girl and tell her all the reasons why she should absolutely fall in love with you, and how you're such a great guy, and this and that.
You want to be open, excited, curious, and happy, and let her discover all of your great qualities for herself.
So that you're not imposing and telling her everything.
And it's the same thing with libertarianism.
You don't want to go in there and tell everyone about exactly how everything is.
There's no room for them to breathe in that equation.
There's no room for them to grow.
And even if they agree with you, they probably won't like you.
And it's not important that they like you.
We are vessels for the truth.
It's important that people get exposed to the truth and forget about your own ego and your own personal desire for intellectual grandeur.
And just, you know, be a vessel for the truth.
And, you know, it's like when you introduce... Let's say that you have two friends and you think they'd be great to date each other, right?
And you introduce those two friends, you are not obsessing, I hope at least, you're not obsessing what they think of you, right?
You sort of want to know what they think of each other, right?
Because you're trying to fix up two people in a romantic date, at least, or relationship.
So what they think of you doesn't really matter.
What they think of each other is important because you're introducing the two.
The same thing exactly is true when it comes to philosophy or the truth.
You are introducing someone to the truth, to a logical or consistent way of thinking.
What they think of you is not important.
What they think of the truth is important.
And so, you know, learn the fine art of self erasure that is not in any sense Buddhist, but is, you know, I mean, our deepest self is our logical self and our rational and empirical self.
And so it's not putting any sort of false self vanity in the way and just saying, I want to be able to be as effective a communicator as possible, because really what's the point of being a libertarian if you're not really going to work at communicating?
Because otherwise it's just kind of an irritating contrary position that nobody likes and everybody disagrees with, and it makes your life kind of Shafy and kind of, you know, all the time.
So you want to try and find as joyous a way of communicating and as open and curious and courteous a way of communicating these ideas as possible.
And that's really hard.
As I say, given that I may just not be very good at it, but maybe it is really hard.
At least I think it is.
So I would sort of split into groups and figure out that part of things and work hard.
You know, because it is hard.
And, you know, make it fun, right?
How easily can you trip each other up?
How can you guilt each other?
How can you, you know, give that kind of pinch slip, don't you care about the poor, you brutal libertarian bastards?
Where are the weak spots that you have in your communication with people?
Where does your vanity or your history or your early wounds get in the way of clear communication of the truth?
You want to map that within yourself.
Get the self-knowledge that is required to know what you're strong at and what you're weak at, and really learn to use the argument for morality in an open and curious way.
And then, talk to people!
You know, find ways of getting people involved in your movement.
I mean, we have to bring people into this movement, right?
And we have to do it because it's fun!
I mean, man, is it fun to explore the truth!
It's just, it's the best part of my day, these podcasts, you know, other than the time that I spend with my wonderful wife.
Yes, that's it.
But, you know, half the ideas come from chatting with my wife, if not more.
You know, bring people in because it's fun.
That's what I would work on.
You don't rush off into battle the moment you're old enough to lift a sword.
And again, no disrespect to the young, because I'm only figuring it out in my late thirties, but you don't do any of that stuff.
The moment you say, oh, maybe I want to be a warrior for truth, then what you do is you start practicing.
And you do long bouts of swordplay before you go to battle.
Or, if you prefer a more sporty metaphor, You don't get to the Super Bowl the moment you're interested in being a football player, right?
You practice, and you practice, and you play, and you get better, and you practice, and you practice, and you play, and you get better.
And it's only through that that you become, and again, I'm only a tiny percentage of the way there as far as where I want to go, But it's only there that you become someone who can really make a difference in people's lives because it's very hard to communicate to the truth in a way that motivates people rather than makes them upset or angry or fearful.
So I hope that this helps.
That would sort of be my big plan.
And then have open debate nights where you're just curious and open and happy and wondering.
So, let's invite people into our garden, rather than dragging them into the cellar, I guess you could say.
You know, you get more flies with honey than with vinegar, or something like that.
So, be as happy and positive as possible, because the pursuit of truth is the great endeavor of mankind.
And those of us who are born a little bit ahead of the general group of people, I think, should be kind and considerate and curious and as helpful as possible to others.
And then, you know, slam them when they turn out to be jerks.
I mean, I'm not saying be, you know, some sort of Zen person who never gets angry, because anger is very healthy.
But, you know, start off with curiosity and with the best intentions and with the full belief that people are going to want to come along on this exciting journey called the discovery of truth and reality.
So I hope this has been helpful.
I know it's a bit of a ramble fest, but I think that the essence of it is useful, that communication and learning how to communicate is the essence, and don't sort of rush straight out into battle and worry and then wonder why maybe you get cut down more than you should.
So thanks again for listening as always, and I will talk to you soon.
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