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Nov. 27, 2006 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:08:29
530 Anger Management

How to swim when there's a shark in the water

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All right, people.
It's time for us to continue on a little chat about what is going on on the board these days, the Free Domain Radio board, which has turned kind of volatile and exciting over the last week or so.
And I think it's worth having a chat about it because, obviously, it is an interesting...
I wouldn't say exactly test of anarchic principles, but it is a very interesting example of what can happen in a society when somebody comes in who is kind of disturbed, right? And what can happen to everybody else's sense of equilibrium?
Something that Christina has told me about a couple of times where when we talked about this with regards to her position in the hospital working on a psych ward or in a mental health unit, The one thing that was always a big problem was the The borderlines, right? The borderline personality disorder, a very, very interesting thing to look up and quite common.
It's a personality disorder that is characterized by highly chaotic and problematic personal relationships, occasional brushes with the law, if not continual brushes with the law.
There's elements of antisocial personality disorder, formerly called psychopathy and sociopathy and so on, involved in these kinds of personalities.
And this is the board.
This is just sort of what Christina was telling me.
And on the mental health unit, They would always have to work really hard to get these borderlines out of the environment because they would simply cause an enormous ripple effect of pretty unusual or crazy-making behavior to go on through the environment.
So one of the things that a borderline would do is they would come in and they would say to the nurse who says...
They come in and the nurse says, oh, here's a blanket, here's a change of clothes, here's a shower...
Here's something to eat.
And they'd say, oh, you're the best nurse ever.
You're wonderful. Thank you so much.
Blah, blah, blah. And then what would happen is they'd say, well, I want to smoke.
And the nurse would say, well, I'm sorry, but the smoking room is only open at lunchtime.
It's like, well, when's lunchtime?
Well, it's a couple hours away.
Well, I've got to smoke!
And the nurse would say, well, I'm sorry, but blah, blah, blah.
And then they'd say, well, I'm going to go outside to smoke then.
And they'd say, well, technically you're on this kind of form, so we can't let you go out of the ward and so on, right?
And then there'd be this temper, and then there'd be this pleading, and then there'd be this charm, and then all of this kind of stuff would go on.
And it's all kind of disorienting and so on.
And it is the kind of behavior wherein these people always try to force the nurses to be the bad guys, right?
I mean, they sort of won't take limits on their own behavior, and they're provocative and passive-aggressive and wheedling and cajoling and hostile and praising and this and that.
And what would happen is then the nurse is sort of forced into a bad cop, you know, where she basically has to say, no, you can't smoke and this and that and the other.
And then they, you know, the nurse that they formerly loved, now they hate and like all this kind of stuff.
And then what would happen is these borderline personality cases...
Would end up causing absolute havoc on the ward.
Now, I fully realize that the equation of the free domain radio boards with a mental ward is not the most felicitous, but I think it is helpful just to have a look at the ripple effect that these kinds of personalities can have in certain kinds of situations.
So, and it's nothing this extreme, this is just sort of a minor, or an example of what occurs in a major way, which is occurring, I would say, sort of forwardly theorizes occurring in a minor way on the free domain radio boards, which is that...
What would happen on the hospital wing would be that the borderlines would then go around sewing and creating all of this dissent and conflict and people who were not normally aggressive would become a lot more aggressive, right?
Because for two reasons.
One is that The actions of the borderline personality disordered patient would cause the nurses to have to become more assertive.
And therefore, that level of assertiveness, what it would do is it would then provoke other memories of aggression or abuse in the hearts or in the memories of the people, everyone else on the ward.
And so the borderline would come in.
There'd be this love-hate relationship with the nurses.
They'd get angry. They'd storm around.
They'd go to other people and say, what is this, some kind of prison?
My God, I can't even have a smoke.
This is ridiculous. I've never been in anything.
How can you just sit there? Doesn't it bother you?
And get all these other people kind of riled up.
So these other people would get riled up and then the nurses would suddenly be viewed as these petty dictators or suddenly there would be this whole flashback to childhood for a lot of people where the nurses would be considered to be just exercising power.
This great old WKRP in Cincinnati where Johnny Fever, Dr.
John, Dr.
Johnny F, was talking to his daughter's boyfriend and said, you know, please don't do X. And whatever X was, it was perfectly reasonable.
And the kid leans back and goes, power trip, man.
You know, that the nurses are only not wanting these patients who are highly disordered to smoke in their rooms or to, you know, smoke around other people.
And also because there's laws, right?
It's not like the... It's not like the nurses make up the rules, it's just the way things are.
And so what would happen is that Christina would tell me that a lot of the administrators would feel cautious about Getting these borderline patients out, like out of the hospital, because they'd be concerned about a lawsuit or a suicide attempt or something like that.
But she said there's this one doctor who would just say, you know, get these people out, right?
Because they just, you get one of these people admitted on a Friday, and then by Monday, everybody's, you know, uncooperative and sullen and angry and shrieking and yelling and this and that, right?
There is a kind of infectiousness to certain kinds of personalities that when they enter into a social situation, everyone gets destabilized.
And I put myself perfectly in this category as well.
I spent a good chunk of the weekend talking with Christina, and we recorded two podcasts which I decided not to post because I thought things were dying down.
But now today, they're sort of flaring back up.
And so I think it's worth talking about this from the perspective that, you know, for sure, we had somebody come in who was, I guess, is what technically is called, not technically, but is sort of colloquially called a troll, right?
Somebody just comes in and starts flaming and baiting and passive-aggressing and so on, and causes lots of upset and insults and so on.
And this has caused other people, I would say, in my opinion, what I'm sort of sensing, this has caused other people to become more aggressive, right?
So what has happened is somebody has come in who's passive-aggressive and causes conflicts and splits and so on, and that has caused me to have to say, well, it didn't cause me, I have chosen to say to this person that if you continue being passive-aggressive and hostile and insulting towards me, then I'm going to ban you, right?
So this is like the nurse saying to the patient, but you can't smoke until such and such a time.
Those are the rules.
And although I think that the rules about smoking a little bit more arbitrary for me, the rules about like, don't insult me is, you know, don't insult me.
You know, there's, there's, when I was a waiter or, you know, in the service industry, you'd get these insulting people and so on.
And you wouldn't, you wouldn't be able to tell them, you know, get out of the restaurant or whatever because you know you would generally have a boss who would say oh Although sometimes that was perfectly acceptable or allowable.
Actually, I remember once when I was a waiter, some kids stole my tips like somebody had left a cash tip.
And some kids stole it. I had to chase them out into the parking lot and shake them down to get the money back.
It was really quite astounding.
But... So if you're getting paid for it, then, you know, if you're some poor schmo behind the counter at McDonald's and someone comes in who's abusive, you know, to a small degree you'll take it.
To a larger degree you'll call the cops, but you kind of will take it more than otherwise you would, right?
Like if you're on a date with someone and that person, like if I go out on a date with a woman and that woman then starts being abusive towards me, I'm not going to take it at all.
I'm just going to get up and leave, right?
And if...
And that's much more the case than I would be if I was some sort of service organization where I would be concerned about bad-mouthing from people even if they're crazy and worried about repeat business or whatever, right?
So, the interesting thing, of course, is that Free Domain Radio is entirely a voluntary...
I mean, it's not charitable or anything, although it's certainly not for profit, but it is a voluntary interaction that I sort of put out there because I enjoy it for the most part, although not so much this weekend.
So, it's not even a service industry that we're in, so why would I go sort of on a blind date with someone, which is kind of what happens when somebody signs up for the board.
And we've had... Gosh, like 120 board members this last month.
So it's not too surprising that there are a couple of people who may be drawn to anarchistic philosophies because they believe that it is about an absence of all restraint or an absence of any kind of rules or reciprocity rather than an absence of a centrally coercive monopoly.
Those two things are not exactly the same, but it's not always clear to everyone.
But if I'm sort of on a date and somebody starts insulting me, I am going to not put up with it for very long.
That wouldn't be a very sensible or rational thing to do.
So even in the service industry, you don't put up with abusive behavior for very long.
You'll put up with it for a little while.
But certainly in a voluntary relationship, nobody with any self-respect is going to put up with Abusive or passive-aggressive or insulting or demeaning behavior.
Much though I love the collaboration and I love the community, fundamentally I'm responsible for the board.
And of course I am to some degree in a service industry because I am interested in making this a full-time occupation for myself in one form or another.
That's not only what I want, but it's also where I think I can do the best.
Good for the world. And so I do have to maintain the quality of the experience for other people, right?
So if I'm running a swimming pool, even if it's a charitable swimming pool, and somebody is standing down at the end of the swimming pool, taking a nice long pee into my swimming pool, that obviously has quite a strong effect on the other people's enjoyment of the swimming pool.
So It doesn't really seem that it would be a particularly sensible thing to do to say to that person, well, I think that it's perfectly fine that you pee into the swimming pool.
I wouldn't want to be dictatorial and tell you that if you keep peeing, I'm going to have to take you out or remove you from the swimming pool, right?
Now, there's a number of conflicts that have come about because of this sort of area or the entrance of these personalities or this personality or these personalities.
I would just say it's one, but it's sort of spread to some others.
There are a couple of conflicts that have come up, and I think that they're all quite interesting to talk about, at least I hope that they're interesting to talk about, because I'm going to talk about them.
So I hope that you're going to enjoy it too.
But the first one is Steph the Dictator, right?
So Steph the awful dictator who says to somebody, if you continue to insult me and disrupt my board, I'm going to ban you, right?
So this of course is arousing vast cries of fascist and dictator and somebody has even said, as I mentioned yesterday, That Steph has pulled out the gun in the room and is now using force rather than reason and I knew it was going to come to this and blah, blah, blah, blah, right? So this is the splitting that is occurring, right?
So people are obviously on the board because they think that I have some decent podcasts and people who call in have good things to say and that the posters are, you know, enjoyable and smart and, you know, I certainly believe that to be the case.
And then when somebody comes in who's disruptive, right?
And there's certainly no question that I don't sort of just...
I just don't up and start lighting into people for no reason.
The whole year-long history of...
I guess an eight-month history of the board, we've had, you know, precisely one banishing and so on.
So it's certainly not my habit to just sort of generally light into people.
And even when I criticize people in podcasts, I try to do it in a way that is motivating and positive, which is, of course, how I... Would expect to be treated in return, or would appreciate being treated in return.
I wouldn't say that I would necessarily expect it, but I would certainly appreciate it.
And so then, of course, when I say that I have to ban this person and the number of family metaphors that flies around the board when this occurs, the number of family and state metaphors that flies around, particularly family ones, is considerably increased, right? So as soon as I say, look, if you continue to insult me and disrupt my board, I'm going to ban you.
Immediately, people become horrified.
Not everyone, I'm just talking to some people.
They become sort of shocked and appalled.
And now I'm a dictator, and now I'm using force, and now I'm repressing free speech, and now I'm being a bully, and now I'm this, and now I'm that.
And this, of course, is exactly what the disruptive, borderline personality disordered person wants, right?
I mean it again. Maybe he's totally right, and I am some sort of dictator that I'm not aware of.
I don't think so, but maybe.
But, of course, nobody is reasoning with me, right?
They're just starting to call me names, right?
They just sort of say, you're just brutal, you're mean, you're threatening someone, you know?
It's that and the other, right?
And I'm not exactly sure how saying to somebody that if you continue to insult me, I'm not going to let you continue to use my board.
I'm not sure exactly how that's sort of an evil, vicious threat or anything like that.
Although it certainly does seem to be that people believe it is, and I've asked for those people to give me some definition of what they mean by the use of the word force.
Because it seems to me like force is taking a club to someone's head or waving a gun at them or sticking a knife in their ribs, simply saying that if you keep coming to my pool to pee in it, I am not going to let you come into my pool, right? And of course, this is the cyberspace.
So, you know, there's no...
I mean, he can go any of the other 10 billion pages out there.
He can go and do whatever he wants.
He just can't come and deposit bits of information on my server, right?
I mean, that's... It scarcely seems to me to be the initiation of the use of force.
And... To me it's sort of equivalent to you go on a blind date with someone and they insult you and you decide that you don't want to go out with them again, right?
And all that means is that they can go out with any of the other three billion women in the world who would go out with him.
He just can't go out with you, right?
I mean, you have just decided that you don't want to go out with him so you're not restricting his behavior in any other conceivable manner.
You're simply exercising your right of freedom of association by refusing to associate with someone, right?
Forced association It's a pure violation of freedom of association.
And so people are sort of jumping all over me like I'm the bad guy, right?
So there's this guy who comes on who's insulting and demeaning and passive-aggressive and disruptive and so on.
Then I say, well, you know, I sort of give him the option, right?
First of all, I give him some warning shots and say, I don't appreciate this kind of language or this kind of approach or this kind of behavior.
And then I say to him quite directly that if you continue to engage in this kind of behavior, I'm going to ban you from the board, right?
From my board, right?
And suddenly, right, some people, right, to some people, the history of the interaction is vanishes, right?
And suddenly I've turned into like some...
Drunken dad wielding a broken bottle and a belt who's about to hit some kid for simply expressing his point of view.
And I've turned into some mad government censor who is going to throw someone in jail for publishing that 2 plus 2 is 4.
You know, there's all this kind of stuff that goes on, right?
And, you know, my strong suggestion to people out there, my strong suggestion is fight this chaos.
Fight the chaos that these kinds of people bring into a civilized interaction.
You're not doing the world of rationality and wisdom any good by getting angry at me.
Because if abuse is your main criteria, then obviously getting mad at me doesn't really make any sense.
Because obviously I'm just reacting.
I'm not out there just lighting into people and starting to abuse them.
People who would be very proactive and positive with the idea of self-defense at a physical level, certainly, and would not say to somebody, well, look, the moment that you get set up by a third party unknown to you, you must now get married to that guy.
I mean, that would be a ridiculous argument.
Because I don't go around inviting people to come to the board.
There are very few people I do, like if they email me and I think that it's going to be useful for them.
Or if I publish their letter on the board, I'll mention it.
But I don't go around inviting people to the board.
So people just sort of come by and sign up and start chatting, which I think is wonderful for the most part.
And so it's not me who's going out and soliciting people.
I didn't go out and ask some girl out and then decide I didn't like her, right?
I just sort of ended up with this person on my bus, so to speak.
They just got on the bus, and it's my bus.
And there's some passenger who's yelling at people and taking a dump in the back seat and so on.
And now, if I say, you have to get off my bus, suddenly I'm depriving him of the right to get from A to B, which is pure nonsense.
He can do whatever he wants to get from A to B. He just can't do it on my property.
So I do think that that's really quite interesting.
Now, the other thing as well is that we have a lot of people on the board, I guess, who believe or who have some belief that a centrally coercive authority is not a good thing.
And so the response that I have sort of put forward is something like, well, if...
If property is privately owned and there's no sort of centralized state ownership, then private property rights will be used to eliminate the possibilities of escalations of situations to abuse or towards violence.
And this, of course, is, to me, a very good example of how that exactly works, right?
I'm sort of the mini-GRO. And there have, of course, been some people who've complained and said, well, Steph, you don't have anywhere posted what is allowable and what is not allowable.
On your board.
And therefore, how can you say to people, now you have crossed the line?
Where there is no line, right?
Where you have no rules, how can you blame people for not having rules?
And I certainly appreciate and understand that argument.
But of course, when I invite people over to dinner, to a dinner party, And they say, can I bring a friend?
I don't necessarily say, sure, but be sure to tell him there's no peeing in the punch bowl.
And I'd appreciate it if he didn't steal anything and don't stick a fork in my dog and, you know, don't do all of these things, right?
I generally don't.
To me, there's just a basic civilized way of interacting that I'm not going to go and sort of delineate all of the negative things that will occur.
Now, What results from that is that I believe that since I don't have a big list of all the to-dos and don't-dos and so on on the board, what I believe is then incumbent upon me is to give somebody a warning, right? And say, this is not behavior that I tolerate, and if you are going to continue to insult and disrupt, I'm going to ban you.
That, to me, is a way of saying that is not acceptable behavior, right?
So, this is a case of sort of damned if you do and damned if you don't, right?
So, if you post a whole bunch of rules up there, then someone's going to find an exception, they're going to argue about the rules, or they're going to look at all these rules and they're going to say, well, that's dictatorial, right?
So, I mean, that's not going to work.
That's not going to get you any points anyway, right?
And then, if I ban someone without discussing the banning or the potential ban, if I just ban someone, Then, without reference to these rules, then I'm called dictatorial.
If I ban them with reference to the rules, then I'm told that I'm not allowing them to discuss it and it needs to go back and forth and so on.
And, of course, if I then decide to give them a warning and give them the choice to change their behavior, if they want, or not be part of the board, Then I'm accused of threatening someone and being violent and being dictatorial and so on, right?
So, the amazing thing is that, like, for a large number of people, and not a shockingly large number of people, but for a large number of people, the only bad person in this interaction is me, right?
I mean, that to me is a really quite an instructive phenomenon, right?
And it's very useful. What does history in the long run care about a ripple in the free-domain radio boards?
Not a lot, but there's an important thing to be extracted from this.
There's an important lesson to be extracted from this, which is that...
When you are put in impossible situations, don't play, right?
There's that great movie War Games with Matthew Broderick from the 80s, I think it was, where the computer takes over in this sort of Terminator style.
The computers take over and tries to find a way to win nuclear war and is about to launch all the missiles and trials all these permutations and combinations, right?
And... The computer finally decides not to launch a nuclear war because he says, funny game, the only way to win is not to play.
And that certainly is the case in this situation.
Whatever is being kicked up by this conflict for you, I mean, if you feel that I'm like the worst dictator in the universe or that I'm using force by not allowing somebody to pee in my swimming pool, If you feel that I'm sort of like the worst guy in the world and you feel that it's very important to post about how,
you know, fascistic and nasty and so on I am, right, the only thing that I would say is something that I've said before, which, you know, given that there's now 530-odd podcasts you may have missed, which I, you know, certainly understand, so no problem there.
But, you know, the thing that I would sort of ask in general is that you have a sort of short and limited lifespan and everything that you do is a whole bunch of other things that you can't do.
And every moment that you spend writing to me about what a bad guy I am is a moment that you're not spending writing articles about freedom or talking to people about freedom or, you know, I guess even just kicking back and watching a movie and being free of all that.
But when you sort of write to me or post to me and say to me that, Steph, you're a dictator, Steph, you're using force, Steph, you're, you know, you're stripping this man of his freedoms and so on, right?
It's like, anyway.
When you're doing that, what you're saying is that this is the most important issue in terms of domination in the world, right?
This is the most important issue in terms of the unjust exercise of authority in the world.
Because everything you do is your highest priority at that moment.
So if you feel that there's a grand injustice occurring in the world, or a whole series of grand injustices, of course, which there are, and the one that you choose to focus on is me saying to somebody, don't pee in my swimming pool, then you are implicitly and quite logically,
I think, saying that Steph's potential ban of an insulting and disrupting person who won't respond to repeated requests for, you know, additional information when he's making accusations and so on.
That the greatest injustice, the injustice that I'm going to spend the next 10 minutes on, rather than all of the other injustices in the world, is Steph and a potential ban on an anarcho-capitalist board tucked away in the corner of cyberspace.
That's what you're saying.
Now, there's no rational universe in which my potential ban of a disruptive poster is the biggest conceivable injustice in the world that you need to spend your time focusing on.
It's because it is clear to the outside eye, and with Christina's help I've tried and I think managed somewhat successfully to lever myself to somewhat of an outside eye, it is absolutely clear to the outside eye that what is occurring is childhood stuff for you.
That what is occurring is childhood stuff for you.
So what's happening is this guy, through intentionally disruptive behavior, has provoked me into a ban.
Or I have chosen, based on, I think, pretty logical and objective criteria, I've chosen to threaten somebody with a ban.
Or to warn somebody that if they continue with their behavior, I'm going to ban them.
And so immediately what happens for a lot of people, and this is why these borderline personalities are so effective at what they do, What then occurs for a lot of people is suddenly I become every unjust authority they've ever experienced in their life and in their history.
I become like the evil teacher, the bad parents, the evil corporation, the nasty boss, the evil government, the lying politician, the evil censor, the whatever, the gulag god of infinity.
I become sort of every negative authority figure that they've ever experienced.
And the person who's sort of been insulting and demeaning and disruptive becomes every freedom-fighting, child struggling to be free, Sandinista kind of rebel who wants to put a stop to unjust and brutal and arbitrary authority, right? That's the game that gets injected into people's heads.
And don't get me wrong, I understand that for a lot of people it's a great and fun game.
Like it's a real thrill to sort of lash out at a sort of supposed authority figure and to tell them what a mean person they are and how they're stripping everyone else's freedoms, how the board is a total lie because you call yourself Freedom Aid Radio but you won't let people speak.
And how, you know, Steph, I'm a hypocrite and I'm dictatorial and fascistic and violent and arbitrary and brutal and blah blah blah.
I know that it's a great deal of fun to get into that kind of stuff and to feel like a real hero of the freedom movement for writing insulting things to an anarchist board administrator.
But in any sort of rational hierarchy of values of the importance of the injustices in the world, if you are very much concerned with the unjust and exercise of arbitrary power, I'm not sure that I would be in the top 10 trillion.
Even if what I was doing was wrong, let's just say that I was being a mean guy and banning the second guy in eight months because I'm just a mean guy and I don't like the smell of his cologne.
Even if I was just being everything that you say I am, Is this really the biggest issue that you need to invest in, right?
And of course, a lot of people think that it is, right?
A lot of people are posting a lot of juicy topics about, you know, what a bad guy I am, and some people are saying, what a good guy I am, and then other people are saying, oh, so you're just a Steph acolyte defending Steph, and that means that you're, you know, a crony, and you're a...
There's lots of juicy and insulting and virtuous, self-pompous, vitriolic stuff floating around.
And I understand that for a lot of people this is a fun pose to strike, but it really is damaging to yourself.
It really is damaging to yourself.
You think you're taking the part of a child, right?
You think you're taking the part of defending an unjustly aggressed against child.
But that's your false self speaking.
You are not. You are actually taking an unjust parental approach to this situation.
Right? You are absolutely taking an unjust parental approach to this situation.
Because, you know, it's not good to insult people.
I think that I've established enough credibility with the podcast where I've, you know, thanked people for admitting, for telling me that I'm wrong, and where I've accepted correction many, many times, and so on, and don't attack people, don't flame people, don't swear at people, except politicians and bad parents.
You know, I think there's some credibility that I've earned, right?
So the fact that this doesn't hold any weight with people means that it's not an empirical situation for them, but rather a historically triggered situation for them.
And so you feel like by rushing to the defense of somebody I'm aggressing against and calling me a dictator, that you are on the side of goodness, heroism, nobility, and virtue.
But it's not the case.
It's not the case at all.
What's happening is you're actually attacking the person who is doing the right thing, right?
You're attacking the person who's doing the right thing, and you're excusing and siding with the abusive person, right?
I mean, that for sure is what's going on.
So you're actually the bad parent in this.
You're not defending the virtuous child in this situation.
You are embodying the bad parent, right?
And this is the grave danger of allowing historical injustice Because what is worse, to insult someone repeatedly, or is it just worse to say, I'm not going to stand for that insult?
Calling the person bad who refuses to be insulted is not a very just thing to do.
It's not a very noble and just thing to do.
Now, people, of course, are making up all of this wonderful highfalutin stuff about how I'm stripping people of their right and this and that and the other.
Which really, of course, makes no sense at all, right?
A woman has the right to not go out with a guy.
I have the right to not let someone on my board.
Somebody who has a dinner party has the right to exclude somebody, especially if that guest is not invited.
If you have a party and just a whole bunch of people show up and one of them starts trashing the place, you have the right to get them off your property, right?
Of course, right? Otherwise, rape is legal, right?
If you can't push people back from a violation of your property or an unwanted intrusion in your property, then rape and stabbing and murder are all perfectly moral.
And in fact, to resist rape or to resist being stabbed would be immoral, right?
To try and say, my body is my property and you don't get to use my property without my consent doesn't make any sense.
Another metaphor that I posted on the board, which sadly has not been commented on by all the people on their high dungeon about what a bad guy I am, It's something like this.
Because I'm providing a service here which this guy is not paying for and wants to take advantage of, right?
I'm very happy that most people want to take advantage of it.
I think it's wonderful. But if I keep...
Let's say I'm just some guy and for whatever reason you've got into the habit of lending me your car.
So you lend me your car.
Now... The unfortunate aspect about lending me your car is that I keep denting it.
I return it and it's dented and there's ash all over the seat and it smells like 50 Camel cigarettes and half a bong.
And their cigarette burns in the upholstery and then so you get this back and you say, hey, you know, I really don't appreciate it when you borrow my car and you sort of return it in a bad shape or you dented and all messed up on the inside, right?
And you're like, oh, no, it was like that when I got it.
Or you say, oh, okay, well, I'll try and do better next time or whatever, right?
Or you just ignore me and walk off, right?
Well, then the next time you lend me the car, I do it again.
I return, it's got dents, and I put a light bulb out, a front light out, and there's a crack in the windshield, and now the sunroof won't close, or whatever.
It still works, but it's not great.
Then you say, listen...
I really don't want you to do this to my car, right?
I mean, this is something that I'm offering you, right?
And I'm not charging you for it, so I'd really appreciate it if you didn't.
And you mutter something, I mutter something, and you wander off, whatever, I wander off.
And then the next time that I do it, I borrow your car and I bring it back after you just put money into fixing it up and so on.
And then I come back and the back tail light is out and the muffler is hanging and the tires are bald because I've been doing donuts in the parking lot and, I don't know, one of the rearview mirrors is sort of hanging off the door and the antenna is busted off, right? And you say, look, you know what?
If you borrow this car and return it to me this way again, I'll give you one more shot.
If you sort of haven't listened to me saying, I'd rather you don't do this, I, you know, don't do this.
And then I finally say, if you do this again, I'm not going to lend you my car anymore.
Am I suddenly a car thief?
Like, if I say this to you, or if you say this, sorry, I got the metaphor backwards.
Please reverse this in your mind.
Am I suddenly a thief? Like, if I pay you 50 bucks a month for three months, and then I decide to stop paying you 50 bucks a month, and we have no contract, it was just something that was charitable for me, Am I then responsible for stealing 50 bucks from you for the rest of your life?
Like if somebody signs up for the $18 a month subscription to Free Domain Radio and then they decide to cancel their subscription, do I sue them for being a thief?
Of course not, right?
When somebody voluntarily provides a free service for you or lends you something or whatever and then you abuse that privilege, Then, of course, you have the right to cease extending your generosity to that person.
I mean, come on, this is not brain surgery, right?
And this is how you know that people are sort of not thinking about a rational, philosophical thing in the present.
But merely, and rather, they are simply getting all sucked back into past injustices with their family and bad parents.
And suddenly, because I'm...
And people have used this, right?
They say, you know, you are...
How is what you said, warning him that if he doesn't stop being aggressive and insulting and disruptive, that you're going to ban him?
How is that different from a parent warning a child?
Well, it's infinitely different, of course.
I'm not this guy's parent.
That would sort of be the one kind of obvious thing for me that would come up.
You know, and I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh, but when you're outside of this kind of historical vortex, it is a little funny, right?
Because, I mean, saying that I'm...
Like, a parent has almost infinite power over a child that is forced to live in that parent's house, has no option...
The child has no options to get out.
And the parent has almost sole care, custody, and control, can control the food, can control the bedtime.
I mean, the parent, we hope, is a benevolent jail guard, but fundamentally is a jail guard, right?
So the idea that what I'm doing is in any way, shape, or form equated to what a parent does, or the power that a parent has over someone, It's clearly projection from history.
It's clearly putting me into the role of parent.
And in this way, the bad guy wins.
In this way, suddenly it becomes bad to assert your desire and your right to be treated well.
Suddenly, the guy who insults and disrupts becomes the underdog hero, and the person who refuses To be insulted and refuses, out of also care and concern for fellow board members, does not let somebody come in and insult people, that person, i.e.
me, becomes the bad guy.
So going around insulting people and so on becomes virtuous behavior.
Saying I don't accept and will not approve of and will not allow on my property this insult to myself or to others who I care about.
That becomes immoral behavior.
The lady who's a communist has written back and said that she doesn't think that I'm a dictator, but that I am using force.
So I'm not a universal dictator, but I am definitely somebody who is an evil guy for using violence.
Certainly the initiation of the use of force is evil, and since she believes that I am initiating the use of force, that I'm evil.
Calling me evil is something that I don't think she's aware of what she's doing, so I'm certainly willing to work through it a little longer.
But, boy, it's just, it really is quite amazing that suddenly, like, up is down, black is white, and this is the effect of the borderline invasion of the personality, the polarization of the personality, where anybody who exercises any kind of boundaries is the bad guy, right? So you've been infected by the sort of borderline personality disorder, and those of you who sort of feel themselves sliding towards this kind of polarization and attacks upon me as a bad guy and so on, You know, and I just say, resist that, right?
And don't resist it because of me, right?
Don't resist it, what the hell do you care about whether I get upset or not, right?
But resist it because of you, right?
Resist it because of you, right?
The reason that you want to be very clear about where you come down, if you want to come down on any side, the reason why it's important for you to come down and to be very aware of where you come down on this moral question is...
For your own personal happiness and the joy and richness of your own personal relationships.
So if you see somebody who gets attacked and then stands up for themselves and you get mad at the person who stands up for themselves and doesn't allow for that attack to continue, if you get mad at that person, then this is going to have an enormous effect on your own personal relationships.
And you don't have to believe me on this one.
I wish you would. But really trust me on this one that if You get mad at people who assert their own boundaries.
If you get mad at me for saying, I do not accept this abusive behavior, I will not support with my time and money and energy, Because I run the board and pay for it, I will not support this kind of abusive behavior.
And why people think I would be anti-state and then support with my own money and my own time and resources abusive behavior on my watch is amazing to me.
Absolutely astounding. That's completely amazing to me.
But of course, you know, this is what happens when these kinds of personalities start kicking around.
But the reason that you want to be very clear about this and you want to fight this kind of borderline infection is because in your own personal relationships it's going to have an enormous effect.
If you get mad at somebody for asserting their desire to be treated well, and you start defending somebody who's abusive and insulting, that's going to have a strong effect on your own.
What you emotionally will accept in your own relationships will be highly affected by the stand that you take in issues like this.
Not just, it's all come down to this issue, but issues like this.
The kind of behavior that you will accept within yourself is a sort of universal standard.
And if you get upset and start insulting people who are asserting their right to be treated well, or at least not to be treated badly, that's going to have an enormous effect on your own personal relationships.
And that's something really to examine.
What relationships are you really defending when you attack me?
What relationships are you really defending If you feel that it's a bad thing for somebody to stand up for themselves and to refuse to support hostile and destructive behavior, if you feel that that's the wrong thing to do and that the people who are abusive are somehow in the right and somehow are noble and virtuous and having their freedoms taken away by evil people,
what upside-down, back-to-front abusive relationship are you actually defending in your life?
Whether it's something that you have perpetrated or something that's been perpetrated against you, I guarantee you it's not about me.
I absolutely guarantee you that the amount of intensity and focus that people are putting into this debate, it's really like, forget about me.
Forget about me. Forget about the board.
Forget about all this nonsense.
Focus on the principles within your own relationships.
Do you have the right to say to people, no, you can't treat me like that.
I will not support you treating me like this.
Right? You can go and yell at other people.
You can even yell at me if you want, but I don't have to pay for the phone that lets you do it.
I don't have to pay for the megaphone.
I don't have to bus you out to stand in front of my house and yell abuse at me.
You can go and do it in your own home.
You can go and start a blog that's, you know, stephasitdictator.com, whatever you want.
But don't ask me to pay for with time and energy to support your abuse of me and my friends on the board, right?
I mean, that would be a lunatic thing to suggest, right?
So the fact that it's not visible, right, it means that there's some other relationship.
And that's what we want to focus on, because I'm trying to help people here.
This isn't about me defending myself.
I'm fine. What I'm really concerned about, though, is that people are not seeing how their stance in relationship to this altercation is being derived from And being strongly influenced, if not dictated by, other relationships that they have.
What I think is happening, if you don't mind a little bit of amateur psychologizing, but of course if you did, you wouldn't have gotten this far, so excuse me while I go on a rampage tangent slash thought storm, that I, by standing up and saying, I will not support your abuse of me and my friends, I'm not taking away any freedoms of yours, right?
I'm just taking away my support of your destructive behavior.
If I stand up and say that, that creates anxiety for some people who themselves know that they need to do that in their own lives.
Let me talk to you directly, if you don't mind, and get out of the third person.
Let's kick back with the first.
Me getting up and saying, I'm not going to support your destructive behavior.
Why would that cause anxiety and hostility in you?
Why would you get mad at me?
Well, clearly it's because you know you need to do it.
You know you need to do it.
And I'm making you anxious because I'm doing it.
And if you believe that it's impossible to do it or it's bad to do it or it's the wrong thing to do it and so on, then when I do it, it's going to confront those suppositions.
Or if you say, well, there is nothing abusive or you can't win against abusive people or whatever, or it's impossible or it's evil and wrong to do it, then when somebody who, you know, I certainly work to try and be a good person, when I stand up and do it, Why would that create hostility in you?
Why would that create anger in you?
Why would that make you feel like you wanted to condemn me?
Maybe I'm doing the wrong thing completely and totally, but you sure know that just going around condemning people doesn't help them.
So I'm certainly not trying to condemn people here.
I'm really just trying to point out something that may be useful.
This is my theory. I'm not saying it's true.
This is something that may be useful. Try it on.
See if it fits.
See if it makes your hips look good.
But why is it that it would cause hostility and anger in people for me to refuse to support someone who was aggressing against me?
Why? Why would that make people aggressive towards me?
It certainly can't be because I'm a bad guy, because it sure as hell isn't bad to refuse to buy somebody a club with which to hit you.
I mean, to use an exaggerated metaphor, but I think you sort of get the idea.
It's not a bad thing to do, but even if it was a bad thing to do, even if I was, you know, dictatorial and so on, I'm clearly not a malevolent human being.
I have this deep-seated evil.
I need to destroy other people's souls or anything like that.
If I am making a moral error, I am making a moral error with the best of intentions, let's say.
I'm making a moral error with the best of intentions.
And of course, this is exactly what I assumed of the gentleman who I ended up threatening to ban, right?
So when I did the podcast on the Commie Bunny thing, and he said I was all wrong, I said, well, absolutely.
I'm theorizing, so tell me where I'm wrong, and I'll be happy to be corrected and read it out on air and so on.
And so, you know, if I've made a mistake, correct me and so on.
You know, this can all happen pleasantly and benevolently, right?
Like, the other issue that maybe we can talk about another time, the people are sort of really mad that I'm saying that, you know, all other things being equal, somebody who goes to a prostitute has a lower self-esteem than somebody who doesn't.
There's people getting all mad about that.
And, of course, as I sort of pointed out in the Sunday show, rightly or wrongly, I certainly have some reasons for what it is that I'm saying, right?
That doesn't mean that I'm right. But it means that it's a thought-out position, which again doesn't mean that it's right, but it means that it's not just an off-the-cuff opinion, right?
Try and come up with stuff that is just sort of, why would you want to listen to my stupid opinions, right?
The important thing is to listen to something that sort of is logical and makes sense.
So, people are getting sort of all fussed and mad at me about that opinion.
And so, you know, some people are saying that, you know, I'm dictatorial because of that and so on, right?
But none of this makes any sense to me.
I mean, other than through this sort of theorizing.
Because if I was that guy, like if I was somebody who just put out blanket stupid insulting opinions, then...
Nobody would be listening to me, of course, right?
But even if they were, they would say, well, I listen to this guy because he says such stupid things that he's funny.
And that would sort of be the response that people would have.
They certainly wouldn't try and reason with me, right?
Like if you see some guy in a street corner with that sort of wiry, homeless, Rastafarian hair, you know, wearing a yachting outfit top and a glad bag set of pants, you're probably not going to sit there and try and reason with him, right?
Because he's clearly not sane, right?
So if I was just putting out opinions that made no sense and I was never open to reason and so on, then you wouldn't debate with me, right?
I mean, it would make no sense.
But if I am open to reason and do respect argument and evidence, then insulting me It makes no sense.
We're just looking at it logically.
This is also true. If I really was a gruesome, evil, nasty dictator, then people wouldn't debate with me.
They only call me a nasty and brutal dictator, or whatever.
I'm just making up terms here.
I can't remember all of them. People only call me a mean person because they know that I'm not.
I mean, because if I really was a mean person, then the moment that somebody said that I was mean, I would just ban them, right?
I mean, the moment that somebody said anything negative about me or disagreed with me at all, then I would just ban them, right?
So people wouldn't come onto the board, they wouldn't stay on the board, they wouldn't engage in debates.
They know that they're protected by my virtue, which is why they feel more secure, I think, in lashing out at people.
People are, you know, it's the problem of cyber courage, right?
I mean, but it's an important thing to understand that, you know, the reason that people get all fussed at me is because I am open to rational argument.
And that's why it's irrational for them to get abusive or aggressive towards me and call me delusional, megalomaniacal or, you know, insulting or all these kinds of things, right?
I have an opinion.
Now, I have reasoning behind that opinion, which I went into in Sunday's show.
I think the reasoning is good.
Doesn't mean, because otherwise I wouldn't put the opinion out.
Doesn't mean that it's right.
But it means that if you want to respond to it, just telling me that I'm, you know, insulting you because whatever, right?
Or that I'm delusional.
Doesn't really make any sense.
Because if I was delusional, you wouldn't argue with me.
If I wasn't interested in logic and reason, then you wouldn't debate with me.
But if I am interested in logic and reason, then insulting me doesn't make any sense.
So what I said to the guy who called me delusional was...
There's really no need for this, right?
If I put out a post which says, I think that people who have prostitute and cocaine parties are disturbed, or it's evidence of a dysfunction in their mind, or a psychological dysfunction, If I put that forward and somebody feels like that is not a supported opinion, which of course it's not, right?
Obviously I can't write the reasoning behind all of my posts, right?
Otherwise all of my posts would be far too long and nobody would read them and blah blah blah, unlike the podcasts.
But if somebody feels, like I said, you know, if you feel that I've put forward an unsupported statement and you think that it's incorrect, then just ask me for my reasons.
That's all. Just ask me for my reasons.
If you want to debate, now if you think I'm just, you know, a blowhard and I'm just saying all this nonsense, then don't debate with me.
But if you're going to debate with someone, then you just have to ask them for their reasons.
And then if I've made a mistake, we can all be so civil.
We can all be so pleasant.
We can all enjoy this process.
It doesn't have to ratchet up in the way that it has for some people over the last couple of days or last, I guess, half week or maybe four days.
It really doesn't have to go that way at all.
I'm perfectly willing if somebody says to me, well, what is your reasoning behind this?
I put forward my reasoning and they can then tell me where I'm incorrect.
And that's wonderful. And I appreciate that.
But what happens, of course, is that...
Again, this is a very brief sort of psychological theory, rightly or wrongly.
This is sort of my belief that...
When you say to somebody that going to see a prostitute is evidence of low self-esteem, and they have gone to see a prostitute, and I had this confirmed with one person today, then obviously they're going to feel like I'm saying, you have low self-esteem.
And of course I am.
I'm not going to hide behind any of the logic.
If I say that a certainly lower self-esteem, all other things being equal, more or less, or if the only thing you knew about somebody was they go to prostitutes, or they don't go to prostitutes that There would be a lower self-esteem thing on the go-to-prostitute side that this person has gone to prostitutes and is not proud of it.
And so when I point out that it's a mark of low self-esteem, which is not exactly...
I'm not saying it's immoral.
I mean, it's just, you know, whatever, right?
Then, you know, like in the same way that if somebody self-mutilates, that's not an example of high self-esteem.
Like if they cut themselves with knives or whatever, right?
Or if they commit suicide or try to, that's not a mark of high self-esteem.
And, of course, it got so silly today that I said to a person, would you consider self-mutilation to be a mark of low self-esteem?
And they said no, right?
He said no, which, of course, is pure nonsense.
And, you know, I said, have you studied psychology?
And he said, not a bit, right? So it's like, well, don't you get kind of annoyed when people come up with all these theories about economics while having never studied economics, right?
I mean, it's kind of annoying, right?
Psychology, which I've been studying for like 20 years, is a complex and difficult and challenging and exciting science, like economics, like philosophy, and so on.
And so, again, it doesn't mean that I'm right.
But if you just want to ask for opinions rather than get insulted, when I say that people who go to prostitutes on average would have a lower self-esteem and people get all aggressive and insulty with me, what does that tell me?
It tells me that they have low self-esteem.
You don't know, you can't see, but I promise you it is so obvious from the outside.
I don't know if you think you're getting away with a big thing, or you think that you're fooling me, or you think that if you get aggressive, I'm not going to notice, or you think that if you insult me, I'm going to curl into a ball, and I'm not going to notice, and this and that and the other.
I absolutely promise you, it is so completely transparent that when I say, here's an indication of low self-esteem, and somebody says, I've done that, and you're a total jerk for telling me this, and it's total bullshit, that opinion.
All I know is that I've hit a nerve and you feel bad about it and you're attacking me in a false self kind of way in the hopes that I'm somehow going to think that this is assertiveness when all it looks like is really pathetic weakness.
And I mean this with sympathy.
I'm not trying to insult you.
But it's so completely and totally obvious to somebody who's got any training or any understanding of psychology that when people get aggressive it's because they feel bad about what they've done.
When people get aggressive it's because they're guilty When people get aggressive at something you say to them, it's usually because it's true.
And if you don't know anything about psychology or don't know how this looks like from the outside, it's exactly the same as a kid who's yawning and barely able to keep his eyes open saying, no, I'm not tired.
Well, of course you're not, right?
It's so obvious. So, this is just sort of what I want to point out, that when you have the impulse to be aggressive towards someone, the first thing that you need to do, this is fundamental anger management, right?
First thing that you need to do, count to ten, don't act in haste and repent at leisure, and figure out what are the thoughts that preceded your anger.
And then figure out if there are any parallel situations in your past that That might have given you sensitivity to this topic.
So, if I say, I'm going to ban someone, and you feel this swirling, rising geyser of rage, or anger, or contempt, or because I am just such a nasty, brutal authority figure, right?
You don't post.
You count to ten, and you ask yourself, have I ever encountered Bullying authority figures before that I might be confusing with this situation.
Maybe. I'm not saying it's the case.
Maybe I am a nasty bully.
Who knows? But you just introspect and you try and figure out, has this happened to me before?
Am I being triggered? Is this similar to something in the past?
Because when you have a very strong reaction to a proposition, it means that you're emotionally invested, which means that If hostility is the result, it may mean that you have unresolved issues and unresolved business.
It doesn't mean that you're wrong. I mean, I've had my passionate yelling podcasts and so on.
I swear I'm not saying that passion is the opposite of reason.
I don't believe that at all.
But when you feel hostility towards somebody that is not supported by reason, Like when I feel hostility towards governments that kill hundreds of millions of people, or when I feel hostility towards Christians who teach their children about hell, or when I feel hostility towards people who abuse their children, I think that there's some reason for that that's just and universal.
But if somebody has a mistaken opinion, or an opinion that you believe to be mistaken, Then the important thing is to sort of understand, is it just this moment that is causing the reaction?
So when I say post something on the board and I say people who have hookers and blow parties have dysfunctional elements within their personality.
Then when you get angry and you feel like I'm just dictatorially throwing things down from on high and I'm just delusional and this and that, and I'm sort of drinking my own Kool-Aid and stuff, the question to ask yourself is don't sit there and post, because if you're wrong, it means you're abusing someone.
If you all are wrong about me and I'm not dictatorial, but rather am assertive, which is healthy, Then you're abusing me.
I don't want you to do that, not because I can't take it, but because it's bad for you.
It's bad for your soul to do it.
And it lends you to be subject to abuse.
When you hurt others, it means that you will get hurt by others.
A spear is a stick sharpened at both ends.
You can't plunge it into me without plunging it into yourself in one form or another or into someone else around you.
So if I post something, And this, not just me, anyone, right?
If I post something and you feel that that's an arbitrary and delusional dictatorial statement without reasoning, without backup, and it's designed to X, Y, and Z, count to ten.
Ask yourself, have I had any experience with people who arbitrarily dictate things and take their opinions as absolute with no proof?
And I guarantee you, if you're angry at a post that I've put forward without supporting evidence, I guarantee you it's got nothing to do with me.
Or that, at best, I'm a vague trigger to some real past injustice.
And if you get angry at me and start abusing me, rather than getting angry at the person who abused you initially, then you become the bad parent.
You're not defending the innocent child.
You become the bad parent.
And you become abusive.
And don't Do that.
Don't do that for yourself.
Don't do that for yourself.
Because if you have a habit of flying off the handle and abusing people, how can you ever have peace of mind within your relationships?
How can you ever have peace of mind, calm, relaxation, tenderness, vulnerability, openness?
Because you're sowing a minefield around you.
Whatever we do that's harmful to others, we fear.
In return. And I don't want you to live a life where you're volatile and attacking people and then afraid of repercussions and afraid and stuck in this sick cycle of aggression and fear.
I don't want that for you.
You don't want that for you.
You're better than that.
And none of this indicates that I'm right.
This is not about me. This is about you.
This is about you breaking a cycle of hostility and it's really about you stopping defending the people who really hurt you by attacking people who trigger stuff in the present unjustly.
Don't do that. Don't do that.
Because it's got nothing to do with me.
It's got nothing to do with what I post and what I say.
If you get triggered, that is what you need to introspect on.
That is where your wounds are, and they're not to do with me, and they're not to do with people in the present.
They're to do with things in the past.
And don't let the people who hurt you in the past win by causing you to become abusive in the present.
Don't let the people who hurt you in the past win by having your life get screwed up in the present.
Triumph over history.
Triumph over evil.
Triumph over corruption.
Triumph over abuse.
By breaking the cycle.
I hope this has helped. Thank you so much, everyone.
Oh, wait. There's one other thing I forgot to mention in this podcast.
Excuse me for going beyond the ending.
But the one thing that is very interesting and which you will always notice when psychological defenses are at play with people, and this is sort of a good way of testing this, Is that they will always, always, always exhibit the behavior they condemn.
This is a general principle for understanding human behavior in defensive situations.
So a few things that will occur that I'll point out that I think are useful.
I just went to the gym, so a few minutes before I get home.
The fascinating thing, really...
When you call somebody a bully, you are being a bully.
When you say that someone is intolerant, You are being intolerant.
And I know that there's lots of counter-arguments to this, and I'm not expecting you to swallow this pill, if indeed it is swallowable, like a fish stick sideways.
But give me just a minute or two if you don't mind, and we'll see if we can make some sense out of it at least.
People condemn me on the boards, and I get emails like this as well.
People condemn me for condemning others.
But, of course, if condemning others is a problem, then condemning me is hypocritical, right?
It's not the same as self-defense, right?
Because violence is a problem, and therefore reluctant violence in defense, where it's not provoked, is justified.
But when people get angry at me for getting angry at someone else, there's a sort of fundamental contradiction.
So the people will always exhibit The behavior that, if it's a defensive situation, they will always exhibit the behavior that they're condemning, and it will happen immediately.
So, for instance, one gentleman, when I posted my opinion about sort of coke and hooker parties, Without a lot of, in fact, with almost no corroborating, actually no, I don't think there was a single shred of corroborating evidence other than the general philosophy of self-respect and to some degree sexuality, which I've talked about for 528 podcasts, there was no corroborating evidence.
So he got angry that I had put forward a proposition with neither logic nor corroborating evidence.
So he said, it's pure nonsense.
You're totally wrong.
And then there was some insulting stuff about how delusional I was.
Now, clearly, if putting forward an opinion without corroborating evidence is wrong, then...
Saying that someone is wrong for doing it without putting forward any corroborating evidence is equally wrong.
This is what I mean when I say that a spear is a stick sharpened at both ends.
When you are being defensive, you deploy the methods you decry.
To use a Middle English term.
You use the very weapon that you claim to hate.
And this is a very, very good rule of thumb to figure out if you're being defensive or not.
So this is another reason why it's so important to count to ten.
Are you attacking someone and using exactly the same methodology that you're attacking?
So, somebody who responded back to me, this was in an IM conversation today, said that my theory was bullshit, you know, about the hookers and low self-esteem and so on.
And that it was insulting, basically.
Now, the fascinating thing, of course, is that if it is wrong to insult people, then saying that my theory is bullshit Is insulting, right?
I mean, it means that he says he's not finding fault with my argument, which I spent quite a bit of time on on Sunday.
He's not saying, well, there's a flaw in your argument and, you know, this and that, right?
He's just saying that what I'm saying is bullshit, right?
Which is, you know, a stupid way to argue, right?
It's immature, right?
And it's sort of pathetic. But he's basically angry because he feels that I've insulted him.
And so he wants to fight back because I've insulted him by saying that there's evidence of low self-esteem if you frequent whores or if you go to whores.
And so if me, like if he's got the right to be angry with me because I've insulted him, then it's because insulting someone is a bad thing, right?
This is the part that the false self and defensive mechanisms simply don't get about the argument for morality, that it is universal.
You cannot use the same, you can't logically and morally use exactly the same tactics that you are attacking someone else for, because that's the essence of hypocrisy, which is the essence of a false argument for morality that applies to other people but not to you.
So, this, I think, is just a very, very important thing to understand.
If you feel that somebody has put forward a baseless accusation, then you either don't respond to it, because if they're, you know, that irrational, if you really believe they're that irrational, then don't respond to it.
Or, if you do respond to it, you can't respond with a baseless accusation back.
I mean, you can! It just looks kind of, you know, a little retarded in a way, right?
Because it's just so obvious that you're deploying the same tactics.
So this guy says, oh, nonsense, Steph, you have baseless opinions and you're delusional.
It's like, well, on what evidence are you saying that I'm delusional?
It's another baseless opinion.
So I just wanted to point this out in a minute or two before I got home that...
Because we're all raised so unconsciously and so on, it can take a real bit of squinting to see this.
But whenever you use the same tactics that you're attacking, whenever you deploy the same emotional immaturity that is upsetting you, you know that you're being defensive and you're acting on the past.
You're not acting on the present.
And there's something fundamentally false that's going on because you're claiming to be acting in the present on some abstract principle when you're simply photocopying the past over and over.
Okay, that's it. Promise. Last time.
Last time I talked today. Yeah, I think so.
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