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Dec. 15, 2006 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
43:27
558 Trust and Authority

Is asking for credibility using an 'argument from authority'?

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Time Text
Good morning, everybody.
Hope you're doing well. It's Steph. It is, gosh, what time is it?
7.52 on December the 15th, 2006.
And I hope you're having a great morning, afternoon, slash, evening, slash, wee hours.
Now, I wanted to read a fine email from a fine listener who had some criticisms of something that I had talked about.
He says, I came late to the dance of the whole prostitution thing.
I agree with your premise of exploiting the abused.
However, you said a couple of things in the first part of the trilogy and one in either the second or the third part that stood out for me.
You used the argument from authority by giving your credentials and Christina's credentials and then saying at some point one must rely on the experience and knowledge of the authority because the knowledge and experience isn't transferable.
To literally paraphrase you, this is like saying, look at the alphabet after my name, so you should trust me on this one.
You also cracked on a guy for quoting Einstein in a call-in show and said that Al's expertise was in physics and not philosophy, and that anyone who hasn't studied philosophy shouldn't be listened to.
Another argument from authority.
Second, you mention that your statistics come from a system where prostitution is illegal and not from a free society, but we just have to go by those anyway.
I really think you should compare your theory to statistics from Europe where there's a long tradition of legal prostitution.
I have a gut feeling that the statistics would be similar to that of the US of Canada.
However, your argument hasn't been compared to a legal system of prostitution.
So that is perfectly valid, for sure.
It may be that you would find different statistics, but the core of the argument around prostitution is that it's sort of impossible to be able to have sex for money with, like, a dozen men a day unless you've been abused.
It's sort of like saying that self-mutilation is just a hobby, right?
That you could end up self-mutilating even if you've never been abused.
Well, it's sort of like saying people just spontaneously bleed without any ill health effects, right?
I mean, that you look at certain behaviors as symptoms of psychological dysfunction or as evidence of abuse.
And there is no way That a sane and healthy human being would put herself or himself in the position of extreme danger that prostitution will always and forever entail.
There's simply no way to be pinned under a person twice your size and have him pound away at you without there being some concomitant danger involved in that.
And there's just no way that you can...
Take the sexually intimate act and simply dissociate it from your life, from what its biological purpose is, which is to create children and just turn it into a sort of recreational pleasure hole for others.
There's just no way that you can be a healthy person and end up in that kind of a profession.
So, yeah, I mean, for sure, we could certainly look at the statistics, and that would be an interesting thing to do.
The one thing that I... Okay, so, now, as to the second point, which is the question around the argument from authority, of course, nobody should believe anything just because somebody on authority has said so.
But, there is such a thing as an argument from authority that if somebody, and this is sort of around reputation, this is sort of around credibility is efficiency sort of thing that I've talked about before.
So, you know, when you start dating someone, you don't know exactly what they're like, and you're trying to figure out what they're like, and you see how they treat the waiters, and you see how they behave with others, and you see the kind of stories they tell you, and you're sort of trying to find out who that person is.
And then, based on that first date, maybe you have another date, but, you know, you don't say after your first date, let's get married, right?
But... Love really is centered around the predictability of character.
So as you grow and do fall in love with someone, then it's the predictability.
I shouldn't try those words without a coffee.
It's the predictability of that person's behavior and the reliability of that person's character that makes that person someone that you love.
And, you know, they say about reputation, it takes a lifetime to build up and can be destroyed in an instant.
And that's very true when it comes to trusting someone.
So, I agree that there's no way that you should...
That you should believe someone because they've got some alphabets after their name.
Of course, that makes total sense to me.
You have to look at motive, you have to look at personal character, and there's no PhD in integrity, right?
In fact, you might actually reasonably be able to argue that a PhD in many ways and circumstances, particularly in the soft sciences and in the arts, is quite the opposite.
From what we would call integrity.
So, no, you shouldn't believe somebody because they have an alphabet, right?
There's tons of economists who all believe that statism is a great thing and they're all very well educated and so on.
And that's, of course, an argument from authority doesn't really mean anything.
However, that having been said, I think that there's also...
An argument that destroys credibility or an opposition to an argument that does not recognize credibility.
And that I find sort of troublesome and that's sort of what it is that I was trying to talk about.
I haven't sort of got around to doing the general review of the show.
I've sort of got some notes, but I haven't done the whole review.
But I will say that things have stood up pretty well.
You know, the arguments that I've been putting forward, that I've been having with people, they've stood up pretty well.
I mean, it was...
And there's some testable stuff here, right?
So I said that the Iraq war was going to be a disaster and they were going to get out when they started running out of money.
I mean, there's lots of things that I've put forward as sort of testable things which have some degree of validity.
I said that government power was going to continue to grow and that the government would only reduce its deficits when it was paying too much money out in interest.
So there's some, you know, we've put forward some testable hypotheses here.
I've put forward some pretty rational arguments from the very beginning, like the series of the Introduction to Philosophy.
I know it puts some people to sleep, but it is really building the case, and not over an enormous amount of time, right?
Five hours or so, four hours maybe, to go through the series of the Introduction to Philosophy, And that's a pretty, I think, a fairly solid introduction to philosophy.
So, clearly, I am not somebody who...
I don't just sort of come by my opinions because that's sort of what I feel like today.
And if you sort of listen to any of the poems that I wrote 20 years ago, there's quite a consistency in what it is that I've believed.
I didn't make the final leap to no state until about a year ago or so, a little more than a year ago.
But... I have always used the same methodology for approaching these problems.
It's just that for about seven years, none of it counted because I was in business and didn't really work on this stuff at all.
So, does that mean that you should believe everything that I say?
Well, no, of course not.
But I wonder the degree to which what I put across becomes...
It's easier to believe the more often that I put across arguments that are logical and consistent.
This is an exaggerated metaphor, so I apologize for that, but if you go to a doctor for 20 years and the doctor has diagnosed all of your ailments correctly, Do you think that on the 21st year, assuming that no organic or mental illness has taken hold of your good doctor, do you think that somehow in your 21st year he's going to suddenly turn into a really bad doctor?
Do you think that after Pavarotti has spent a lifetime singing high-quality stuff that you're not going to buy a ticket because he'd be like, well, on that day, he just might choose to sing badly?
Well, no. The reason that Pavarotti gets paid a lot of money is because of his consistency, because he consistently sings well.
So, there is a certain amount, and we have this with favorite bands, we have this with favorite authors, we have this with favorite thinkers, that there is a kind of consistency which means that you don't have to go and rooting through all of their source materials because you trust them.
Because you trust them.
And of course, I'm not asking for anyone to trust me.
You can do what you like. But if I've put forward some ideas that are Reasoned through and valid.
I mean, some of the stuff can't be reasoned through, like the dream analysis and certain aspects of the true self, false self.
They don't actually show up. Or maybe they would on a polygraph, but they don't show up on an MRI scan.
Or maybe they would there too.
But I don't have those facts to back it up.
Those are more metaphorical things, right?
Those are more on the art of living rather than the morals of living.
So some of the stuff that I put forward is not empirical, and I try to be clear about that kind of stuff.
And some of the stuff that I put forward is more rational and empirical, and I put forward the evidence for that kind of stuff and the rationality, the reasoning through it.
So if...
I mean, and I've put out an enormous amount...
I mean, as you're aware, as somebody was posting on the board yesterday, God, Steph, when are you taking your two-week vacation so I can catch up?
And somebody else said, yeah, you know what's going to happen when he comes back from the two-week vacation.
He's going to have two weeks more of podcasts.
Maybe not quite two weeks.
Coffee break. Oh, that's good.
One more step. It's so good to be free.
So, the thing that I would sort of suggest as a possibility is that if you've listened to a couple of hundred hours of these conversations...
And the Sunday shows are very important because they also show me interacting, right?
And they also show me debating with people who disagree, sometimes quite strongly, sometimes quite druggily.
But I do talk about...
So the Sunday shows are important because they're around interaction.
So you can see that a respect to which I deal with other people or the way in which I can be firm with people or however, right?
Because I'm obviously suggesting stuff that's quite a lot.
I'm suggesting quite a lot of changes in your life that would make you happier.
And the key thing, I think, is also to see, well, has Steph taken his own pills or is he just a prescriber, right?
I mean, it's an important question to have, right?
So that's why I talk about my history and that's why the Sunday shows are important and all these kinds of things.
So that I can show you, yes, it works.
Yes, it works.
It works, it works, it works.
Because rationality is what makes us happy.
and empathy and integrity are an honesty and they're all the good virtues.
And they're pretty traditional.
And what I say is fairly traditional in very many ways.
I just sort of extend it out to its logical conclusions, or at least as far as the logical conclusions are that I can get them.
I'm sure that there are many more that I can't get to.
So am I saying that you should believe it because I say so?
Well... No.
But I am saying that at some point, trust is an important thing.
That doesn't mean that, oh, Steph said it, therefore it's true.
But it does mean, and this is sort of the humility that I keep harping on, it does mean that if I've been right about a lot of things, or you've gone and verified, and I get requests for empirical evidence a number of times a week, and I do my best to try and send back the source materials...
But, I mean, when I say do my best, I mean if I heard it on the radio, I'll spend a little bit of time Googling it, but if I can't find it, I'll say I heard it on this radio show or something like that.
But, it means that if I've been right about a lot of things, then it should be the case that I have established some credibility.
I mean, if I'm just standing around screaming there should be no government, then I may be right, but I don't have any credibility.
And not a lot of people take notes from the random street preachers and go and validate them.
It's like, well, maybe the devil really is up his ass.
Let's get an x-ray, right?
I mean, we don't do that. But...
When somebody who has displayed a fair degree of intellectual integrity and a fair degree of honesty both about himself and about the purpose of what he's doing and who's backed up most of what he said where it can be backed up with reason and evidence and has gone through the entire methodology of how to determine truth from falsehood according to the application of the scientific method of philosophy and so on.
Somebody who's sort of bent over backwards to put forward criteria for disproof and so on, right?
At some point, I would suggest that it becomes reasonable that you can trust that person.
Like, you can trust me. Now, of course, if I say something that's completely haywire, then your trust in me is going to get blown, right?
I was just reading something about Hans Hoppe, who thinks that homosexuals should be run out of communities or stuffed back into the closet or whatever, right?
Well, that's not good.
And it's hard to know exactly where that kind of irrationality shows up elsewhere in his works, right?
Who knows? So, there's a certain amount of, oh, really?
He's one of those guys who's, you know, like that, you know?
I don't know where else that shows a certain amount of trauma, shows a certain amount of unwillingness to stick to principles, which also occurs with the libertarians and their stances on immigration.
So, I think that at some point, if you don't trust...
Someone that you have a relationship with, and like it or not, I guess you like it if you're listening to this, but you have a relationship with me.
You have a relationship with me, and I have a relationship with you to the degree with which you will email me your posts on the board or whatever.
But you have a relationship with me.
And if for a couple of hundred hours of wide-ranging topics and some fairly exquisitely, excruciatingly difficult, logical progressions, I've kept my course fairly well, not perfectly, never perfectly, but fairly well, well enough, then it seems in a way a little paranoid not to start to trust me.
It seems. It seems a little paranoid not to start to trust me.
It would be sort of like...
I don't know. If Christina had some boyfriend before she met me, laughable idea.
If Christina had some boyfriend before she met me, and that boyfriend had been unfaithful to her, and then every time, like now, literally after we've been married for years and so on, and unfaithful is not going to happen, then... If every day I came home, she were to sniff my collar and say, does that perfume I smell, you cheating rat-fink bastard?
Well, at some point it would be like, you know, I don't really think this is about me anymore.
If I have been sort of faithful and dealt with her openly and honestly and acted in a trustworthy manner, then for her, To continue to be suspicious of me every time I glanced at a woman for her to get angry or every time I came home and said, oh, I had a meeting with a woman at work or, you know, for her to get jealous.
And again, I'm sort of painting a broad brush here, so to speak, but I apologize for that too.
But it's the old question, right?
Like, at what point do you start trusting people?
At what point do you start trusting me?
And if the answer is never, then I think that's kind of churlish.
I think that's kind of stingy.
To be honest, I think I've earned it.
To be honest, I think I've earned it.
And to withhold a trust after listening to me for a long time is stingy.
It's churlish. It's miserly.
It's okay to bestow trust.
It's okay to get betrayed.
If I wake up tomorrow and say, I'm going to let the great god chicken stick his head up my ass and use me as a ventriloquist because that's where the answers have been coming from all along, then maybe you can decide not to trust me.
That's perfectly fine as well.
But I would say that I've earned some trust from people.
Which means that if you, like, if you, oh, yeah, Steph's right about this and Steph's right about that, but this one thing, man, that makes me angry and Steph's totally lost it.
Well, the problem is, and this is the challenge when you trust someone, is that you can't just yank that trust away on a whim, right?
There has to be evidence. There has to be evidence.
And so when this gentleman is complaining, and I certainly understand why, that I might use an argument from authority, to some degree, it's an appeal to trust.
Look, I haven't steered you wrong so far.
I haven't steered you wrong so far.
I don't have any ads, either on my website or in my show, so I'm not beholden to advertisers.
I don't charge for the podcasts, so I'm not dependent upon listeners.
That's one of the reasons I've kept my job.
So I'm probably pretty objective.
I'm always willing to be corrected.
I make a good deal of fun of myself.
I put entire songs out, mocking myself, so that you understand that it's not about vanity and control and pomposity and superiority for me.
But it's, you know, brothers helping brothers to understand the world.
To recover the knowledge that was innate to us and destroyed by society.
for us to reclaim and recover the wisdom that human beings have rarely had and certainly lost now.
But yes, I do think that I've earned your trust. .
And what that means is that, for me, again, do whatever you like, but what it means to me is that, given that, for instance, Christina is a wonderful, sweet, generous, kind, wise woman, if she does something that makes me angry, then I sort of have two choices, right?
I can either say, well, damn it, she's blown it.
Damn it, she's just lost it.
And just get angry.
Which is to say that her prior virtue counts for nothing.
Her prior integrity counts for nothing.
Her prior kindness counts for nothing.
And I can just instantly paint her with this brush of like, oh, she's just a witch.
And she's just trying to manipulate.
She's like all the other women. Whatever nonsense I would come up with.
But it would mean that there's no accumulated store of virtue which would condition my response.
It would be just as if some idiot cut me off in my car.
That's the amount of attachment that I would have if she crossed me.
There's no build-up of trust and there's no reward for virtue.
Virtue is like... When you do something right in a relationship, then you're depositing money in the bank, right?
You do something right, and then when you do something wrong, you're taking money out of the bank.
We all have these balances, right?
We all have these balances, and we all have our manipulations, which are counterfeiting.
I mean, there's lots of metaphors you could use in this area.
And there's also compound interest, right?
So, I mean, if you deposit, you know, $10 a year into your bank account of benevolence, then it's not $100 at the end.
It's much more than that because everyone can be good for a day, but to be good and have integrity for 10 years is very, very difficult.
So, there's a lot of compound interest.
The longer that virtuous behavior lasts, the more it's valuable.
The longer that integrity continues, the more it's valuable.
It's asymptotic almost.
And so I have been depositing integrity and virtue and honesty and rigor and these sorts of things into the bank account of our relationship.
I have been faithful to you in the course of this relationship.
And if then, if something I do irritates you, and everything that I have done that has pleased you means nothing, and suddenly you can just get mad at me, call me a fool, call me irrational, call me biased, just say that I've got psychological problems, right?
All of this sort of stuff, right?
With no reference and no regard to the hundreds of hours that we've spent Well, that I've spent talking to you and maybe you've spent talking to me in a variety of ways.
The hundreds of highly concentrated conversations, the hundreds of hours, mean nothing.
Mean nothing. I could just be some guy walking off the street saying, you have low self-esteem.
Suddenly, I'm just all wrong on this issue.
Well, I think that's stingy.
I think that's bad.
I really do. I really think that's bad.
And I think that I'm guessing that if you look around your life, that trust in virtue is not a strong feature that you have.
I'm not expecting everyone to...
I'm not expecting everyone to believe me on the first podcast.
Of course not. That's nonsense.
But I think that if you build up trust, then dealing with me in a positive way is just.
It's justice. Pretending there's been no deposits in the Integrity Bank account is unjust when there have been.
And I've made Deposits.
I think for a lot of people, this may be the first sustained conversation of integrity that they've ever had in their lives.
So I think I've put some money in.
And then for everyone, oh, you're broke.
You've got nothing. There's no money in the account.
I think that's unjust.
So what does this metaphorical stuff translate to in reality?
Well... If I say something that annoys you, or that you think is just totally off the wall, then I think it's totally unjust to say, well, he had a good run, but now randomly he's lost it.
Steph relies on evidence and reason and intuition in certain psychological areas.
But states the difference.
But now, he's just gone crazy.
Just in this one sort of area, this one pocket, whatever it is.
There's been a number, the free will, prostitution, whatever it is.
In this pocket, he's just lost it.
He's got this crazy, irrational bubble just sitting here.
And it's totally isolated from the rest of his personality.
Well, that's not how psychology works.
If I had a crazy bubble somewhere, and I may, I don't think I do, but if I had a...
And sorry, that doesn't mean that I'm right about everything.
It just means that if I'm wrong, I'll accept reason and evidence.
But if I had a crazy bubble in some core area, like volition or sexuality, it would show up.
It would show up.
It would show up elsewhere.
There's no such thing as isolated weirdness in a personality.
There's no such thing as totally normal.
We're the crazy corner.
And the crazy corner shows up when you look for it everywhere.
And it's usually not that hard to see.
So just sort of suddenly saying, well, okay, so Steph's had integrity and he's been corrected and he's appreciated being corrected and he asks for evidence and he gives reasons.
It's not just opinions. But now that he's done something that bothers me, I'm going to give him a crazy corner.
Steph's just crazy in this area.
Well, that's totally unjust.
It's totally unjust.
And of course, it has a lot to do with this little thing we call projection.
Because if you yourself have a crazy corner, then it's a whole lot easier to just say, well, Steph's crazy here.
But there's no evidence for that, right?
In fact, there's quite a bit of evidence that I don't have a crazy corner.
I mean, has there been a shortage of topics we've talked about?
And the crazy corner doesn't mean that I don't have opinions that are wrong.
Doesn't even mean that I don't have opinions that aren't thought out too well.
Doesn't mean any means that if I'm corrected, I appreciate it.
And even when I don't appreciate it, I still take the correction.
I mean, the crazy corner is not having ideas that are correct in every instance.
But it's rejecting correction that's valid.
That's crazy. And I think I've shown my complete willingness to be corrected and to accept evidence and so on.
It's wonderful. I don't want to be wrong about this stuff.
You can see from the work that I put into working these beliefs up from the ground that I try and make it all hang together.
I think I do a pretty good job of it.
So after this amount of time of us conversing together, it's unjust to just up and call me crazy. .
And it's self-destructive on your part.
Because it's too easy.
It's too easy.
If something bothers you about what it is that I'm saying...
You have two choices, right?
Well, you have three, but really there's two, right?
So the first one is you say, oh, Steph's just crazy.
He doesn't know what he's talking about. He's got a weird hang-up, and then you can start talking about my past and my childhood and this and that and say, well, this explains it all or whatever, right?
And that gets you totally off the hook, right?
You don't have to think about things.
You don't have to look at the evidence. You can just spout off, right?
You can make me wrong and you can withdraw emotionally, right?
And that's very hard for you, right?
Because, I mean, what do I care, right?
But there are people in your life who you love or who love you or who claim make these claims.
And if you are the kind of person that just says, oh, you're crazy, right?
If something bothers you, oh, you're wrong, you're crazy.
Well, that's a bad habit, right?
It's a bad habit for two reasons.
One is that it will drive good people out of your life.
And the second is it will invite bad people into your life.
So if something that I say really troubles you, then you can just withdraw and make me wrong and tell me I'm a fool and I'm stuck up and I'm squeamish about sex and I don't understand science.
You just give me all of the calumnies and castigations in the world.
And that, quote, solves the problem for you, right?
Because, oh, that's crazy.
As if I have not established any credibility with you at all.
And that's absolutely going to undermine your capacity to love the people who are directly in your life and to trust them.
And it also gives you an excuse, right?
I mean, if you don't understand how important credibility is and how important consistent and virtuous behavior is, then you won't find love and you won't achieve love.
Love just requires a consistent virtue.
There's no shortcut.
So... That's sort of the first way that you can deal with something I say that makes you uncomfortable.
Now, if, on the other hand, you can take another approach, which I would certainly recommend, that if something I say makes you uncomfortable, you can say, well, either Steph is making an error in fact, or he's making an error in logic or I have a crazy corner I have a crazy corner
Now, if I'm making an error in fact, then you can simply send me the correction and trust that I will, yes, in fact, read the correction on air, correct my thinking, and thank you for it.
I mean, that, again, I've done that before and consistently, and I've never flamed somebody for correcting me on fact.
So have I earned the trust in you that I will do that?
Yes, I have.
And to withhold it from me is an act of injustice.
Or I've made an error in reasoning, which is perfectly possible.
Again, you don't have to trust me in terms of what it is that I say in terms of the content, because I can be wrong.
I don't do primary source material research and everything I talk about.
That would take a thousand lifetimes.
So maybe I've had incorrect information.
Maybe I've made some incorrect leap of logic out of error or whatever.
Or maybe even out of some buried psychological problem that I don't know about, but you can't assume that.
And so then what you do is you say, well, Steph, you said this and then you said this and then you said this and I don't see how that fits.
I don't see how this follows. That seems to be an error.
As this person is doing, right?
Sending me, Steph, you shouldn't make the argument from authority.
It's a perfectly valid question and criticism.
And so I'm trying to sort of explain what it is I mean by that.
I'm not going to tell you that credibility means nothing.
That would be hypocritical of me.
Because it sure as heck means something with my wife, like with regards to my wife.
It also means something with regards to the thinkers that I respect.
So for me to say, well, credibility means nothing, and I would buy LPs and CDs from bands that I liked without even hearing a single song, because credibility is efficiency.
It doesn't mean that they were always great albums, but I would wait with bated breath for albums to come out.
So, for me to say credibility doesn't matter would be false and would be hypocritical based on sort of how I live my life.
So, if I've made an error in reasoning or an error in fact, you send me the facts or you ask me or tell me if I'm absolutely, totally, flagrantly wrong, then you tell me, Steph, you're wrong on this and here's why.
And you step me through it.
Respectfully. And why respectfully?
Because I try to treat the listeners with respect.
And I demand mutuality.
I demand that you treat me as well as I treat you.
And, yeah, if we end up totally getting angry at each other, let's stop talking.
And if you treat me badly, then yes, I'm going to get angry.
So, for sure. But if you treat me, I mean, I'll try to treat you respectfully the first time that we interact, and after that, I'll treat you like you treat me.
But if I have been respectful to you, or if I have been respectful about ideas and truth and listeners in general, you don't get to flame me.
I mean, you can do whatever you want, but it's unjust, and it's harmful to you.
It's harmful to you. I'll move on, right?
But you will have done something that is unjust and that's bad for you.
I mean, that cuts things out like love and peace of mind and self-trust and happiness out of your life, right?
I move on and I'm happy and you don't.
Because injustice is a boil that you just keep returning to until you solve it, right?
I mean, if you act in an unjust manner.
I'm not saying anything about...
This is not the guy who wrote to me or anything like that.
These are perfectly valid questions.
I'm just sort of giving you my approach to it, right?
Which is, of course, don't believe anything because I say it.
But there is a certain justice in the realm of trust and credibility that is very important.
And failing to provide it is unjust.
Now, if I've made an error and you send me a factual or a logical correction or some such thing, then that's great.
Now, of course, if I then curse you out for correcting me and feel humiliated and get angry and start screaming and this and that, then, yeah, okay.
Obviously, I've lost all credibility with you, as I should, and so forget it.
But if you get angry, I mean, you can't get angry at error.
You can get angry at maliciousness.
You can get angry at hypocrisy, manipulation, bullying, violence, corruption, lies, vices of many different flavors.
You can get angry at those, for sure.
Those things are conscious. Error is not conscious by its very nature.
Because if it were conscious, then it would be manipulation.
So, error is not conscious.
if it's conscious that's different now if you're getting angry then it's because you believe that I'm manipulating you or that I'm lying or that I am consciously distorting this that or the other in order to I don't know screw people for my own sadistic pleasure mentally right so
But, clearly, that's an unjust view on who I am as a human being, right?
That's libel. It's libel.
It's within your own mind, right?
To say, oh, Steph, I'm going to get angry at Steph because Steph is manipulating and Steph is controlling and Steph is abusive and Steph is this and Steph is that.
That's unjust.
That's not me.
Right? That's not me.
And there is injustice occurring there.
there.
It's just that I'm not the one who's doing it.
So if you get angry at me, then the most fruitful place to look is in your own history.
Where have I seen this before?
Is this behavior that's familiar?
What am I really afraid of?
Am I really so desperately afraid and angry that Steph has made an error?
Well, no, of course not.
Of course not. Is this an endless test wherein Steph has to walk a totally fine line, and if he steps one inch to the left or one inch to the right, he's going to get slammed by me?
Well, have I ever been? Was that my brother?
Was that my father? Was that my mother?
Was that my uncle? Was that my teachers?
Is there some history that I've had with this?
You know the drill, right?
I mean, you know the drill by now.
And not that anger is wrong.
I'm not going to say that anger is wrong.
But anger at error, I don't get angry at people who make errors.
I get angry at people who insult me after I present them with the facts.
I get angry at people who bully and manipulate.
I get angry at people who swear at me.
I get angry at people who call me names.
I don't get angry at people who make errors.
How horrible would that be?
And also, what a terrifying world that would be to set up for myself, because I make errors.
I'm going to make errors from here until the end of time.
So why would I want that?
That wouldn't be any good.
So if you look inwardly and figure out, and again, this does not mean, oh, every time, because this is what people are going to get out of this if they're feeling defensive.
And of course, you can't preemptively get rid of people's defenses because they are going to be whatever they want them to be.
But people are then saying, oh, so this is such a cult that now Steph is saying that anytime you disagree with Steph, you have a psychological problem.
Right? I mean, that's not what I'm saying at all.
What I'm saying is that if you believe that I'm in error, Then getting angry is unjust.
If you believe that I'm manipulative and controlling and nasty and evil, then engaging with me makes no sense.
You don't argue with crazy people.
It's a temptation I constantly have to...
It's a cliff edge I have to constantly will myself back from.
It's one of my weaknesses.
So if you get really angry or upset or troubled or disturbed or frustrated or all these kinds of things, then you look inward first and make then you look inward first and make sure that it's not your own history.
And the last thing that I'll say is that when I take empirical evidence over unsupported theory, Any day of the week, month, or year.
So this gentleman also had a criticism, which I'm perfectly happy to entertain, that quoting Christina's 14 years of working with prostitutes in a mental health situation, and knowing not just them, but their world, right?
I mean, she hears about the world.
She doesn't just hear about individuals.
And she's worked with all different kinds of prostitutes, from highly expensive call girls all the way down to But Christina's detailed first-hand experience is more important to me than people saying, well, she seemed fine when I banged her.
Like about prostitutes, right?
So, you know, the fact that Christina had a decade, almost a decade and a half of working directly with prostitutes It means more to me than a bunch of people who neither seem to be studying the facts nor understanding the theory, but are simply saying there's nothing wrong with it.
I think quoting somebody's experience that is direct is pretty important, right?
It's pretty important.
Because the scientific method is that observation trumps theory, right?
That's the scientific method.
If I say that the rock falls down and the rock falls up, my theory is wrong.
So if people say, well, there's lots of happy hookers around, and my wife has spent a long time working with them, and it's not true at all, then the theory is false.
So I didn't sort of quote and say, well, you should believe Christina because Christina said X. That's my job.
I didn't say that.
What I did say was that Christina has had significant and extensive, more so than anyone else in the debate, personal experience working with prostitutes.
And she reports a uniformity not just in the people that she has treated, but in the people that they talk about and the world that they talk about and so on, that there's a chilling kind of uniformity.
And the reason that I quoted Christina was not, Christina said it, therefore it's true, but Christina has empirical observation that contradicts the theory completely and utterly of the happy hooker.
So that is not an argument from authority, that's an argument from evidence.
Christina just happened to be the one who had the evidence.
So that's not an argument from authority.
That's, you know, hey, look, the rock falls down.
Your theory that the rock falls up is incorrect.
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