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Jan. 14, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:14:49

598 Call In Show Jan 15 2007

DROs, human nature, empathy and relationship woes

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	Alright, so I guess we will start.
	Alright, let's start now. Thank you so much everyone for joining us.
	It's 4 o'clock, just a little bit after, on Sunday, the 14th of January 2007.
	I just make that look easy when I actually have the clock in front of me.
	So, thank you so much for joining us.
	This is Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
	We are closing in on 600 podcasts.
	Somebody had worked out over the last year that I did 1.6 podcasts every day.
	It's a little shocking when you put it in that kind of perspective, but psychologically it's a very rich field for those who wonder how much I was listened to as a child.
	I'm sure there's quite a bit that people could work out about all of that, but I really appreciate this ongoing conversation.
	So, we've had a question posted by a new poster on the Free Domain radio boards, which are an excellent, excellent resource if you wish to connect with like-minded or, dare I say, right-minded people in the world of anarcho-capitalistic or philosophical approaches to the challenges of both personal, familial, and political liberty.
	We've had a fair number of pop-up lurking gophers arrive on the scene after sort of slithering around the boards in an anonymous manner for quite some time.
	It's rather surprising to me.
	Sometimes I see up to 150 anonymous users on the boards having a look over things, and they may be burrowing fairly far back in time to look at some of the earlier debates that we had and some of the more exciting debates that we had on things like Free will and prostitution and all these other kinds of juicy topics.
	So I really appreciate all of the new board members.
	I think we're up to about 435 people who come by and share their thoughts on the board, so that's great.
	We had a question come up about this dispute resolution organization model.
	That I just wanted to touch on briefly here, but we've got some excellent philosophical topics for today.
	So, somebody had posted a question who's a new person on the boards and said, I've been listening for a while, but my mother had A complicated accident in a car with somebody else and they had sort of agreed not to exchange details, which is not uncommon these days because people don't like dealing with insurance companies too much these days.
	It's complicated and it can get messy and of course you can end up with fairly punitive results out of it.
	But he said, my mother got involved in this complicated accident and so how would a DRO or a free market society handle this?
	And these kinds of questions, I really do appreciate them, and I certainly really appreciate and respect the space that they're coming from.
	But what I would caution people about when discussing anarchistic philosophies is that we really can't predict the shape that solutions are going to take.
	You can't predict the stock market as everybody knows.
	The motion of a stock is sort of a Brownian motion and you can't figure out the stock market ahead of time because it's impossible to figure out the decisions, the sort of free and uncoerced series of decisions that are made by large numbers of people Over just about any period of time and somebody's done a study where this says it takes about 15 seconds for new information to be integrated into the stock market because everybody who knew the information beforehand is poised or there are software programs all routing this kind of stuff out and looking for trends.
	So you can't predict the stock market.
	You certainly can't predict what shape sort of insurance companies going to take in a free market, but I will say this that Free markets are not operating in the realm of auto insurance at the moment.
	And this is largely, I would say, because of three things.
	One is that the government owns the roads, and the government does not have any particular interest in reducing the number of accidents.
	There's Dutch studies at the moment that seem to indicate that getting rid of rules on the road, getting rid of medians, getting rid of traffic lights, getting rid of stop signs, and so on, Reduce the number of accidents because people are much more careful when they don't have these kinds of guideposts to work with.
	They're much more alert. They look around.
	And so there's lots of possibilities about how to reduce the amount of accidents that occur in traffic.
	The government has no particular interest in those at the moment, so that's not such a good situation.
	The other, of course, is that the system of suing and the tort law system is causing an enormous amount of people to flee government solutions in these kinds of areas because You can just get sued to a ridiculous degree.
	Somebody I know had this sort of happen where he had bumped a car and the guy in the other car ended up saying to him, no, no, no, I'm fine, I'm fine, whatever.
	They shook their hands and moved along, but what actually happened was this guy ended up suing him.
	For $800,000 and this person I know had to hire a private detective to go and follow this person around who said he was incapacitated and could not work and so they took pictures of him lifting wheelbarrows and doing his gardening and stuff like that and it got very silly because there's such a gold mine to be made in unjust lawsuits and so We're kind of operating in a sort of increasing grey market of dispute resolution,
	but without any private agencies being allowed to compete in this area.
	So that's another reason why the free market system is not allowed to operate.
	We don't really know.
	We can certainly take some good guesses, I think, about how a free market system might operate.
	But the real answer in the DRO model or in the dispute resolution organization model, the stateless society model is, well, how does it look?
	However you want it to look.
	I mean, it's like saying, it's like I give you a mirror and you say, hey, what's in it?
	It's like, well... Whatever you want.
	Just point it at anything you want and you'll get to see it.
	You can look around corners.
	You can look in the mirror. You can do some vagina monologues, gymnastics on your own self, if you like.
	But it's going to be a reflection of what people actually want.
	It's very hard for us to get out of this idea that there is a central authority that is going to make the rules for everyone and enforce those rules for everyone.
	It's very hard for us to get used to the idea That the DRO society, the stateless society, will provide what we want, assuming that we're not the only person who wants it, right?
	Like if I live in an all-Muslim country and I like pork, it's not very likely that my local supermarket is going to stock it, although I'm sure I can order it over the internet from the infidels or whatever.
	It's very hard for us to get out of the mindset that says, well, how is this going to work?
	And what is it going to look like?
	And how is it going to deal with this problem?
	And how is it going to deal with that problem?
	And to take a very brief analogy before turning it over to general questions, when we looked at, or if you take time to look at, the abysmal, nightmarish mess that was the Soviet command and control economy in the realm of agriculture, From, I guess, 1917 to about 1990.
	It was a huge, complicated mess where nobody ever got what they wanted and everything was always out of stock and you had to line up for hours to buy bread.
	And then somebody said, well, maybe we should not let the government be the only one that runs this and it should be open to running everyone.
	And then people said, well, how would this work and how would that work and how would the other thing work?
	Well, you can go kind of crazy trying to answer those questions.
	And I certainly do understand that it's interesting.
	It's interesting to think about, and it certainly is a fun and fertile area to play around with make-believe economics, but the real answer is that nobody knows.
	The DRO model is something that I've sort of developed and put forward as a framework for helping people to understand Because sometimes it's quite a leap for people to sort of go, okay, well, I guess if we get rid of the government, there will be roads that will be accessible by people other than the super-rich and so on.
	It's a way of just sort of answering questions, but when you get down to really specific details, at some point it does become sort of, well, What are the logos of the DRO company's going to be?
	I don't know. And the last thing I wanted to mention on this is that there is an interesting experiment going on in the wiki world.
	And I'm sort of learning a bit more about this.
	I thought it was a Hawaiian dance.
	So I was a little bit disappointed when I found out what it actually was.
	But in the wiki world, people are trying to understand the world of...
	or trying to make a definition of dispute resolution organizations.
	These private agencies which are used to resolve disputes that can't be resolved through, you know, just people's integrity and so on.
	And... It's important to remember that these are merely stepping stones.
	The most economically efficient way to resolve disputes is to prevent them.
	The best way to prevent disputes is good reputation.
	The best way to prevent disputes from arising that are going to be economically disadvantageous to the participants is through a good reputation.
	It's something we don't really remember as much anymore now that we live in a highly status society and an increasingly status society, but reputation is an enormously positive thing.
	It's an enormously economically advantageous thing.
	People are always concerned that DROs are going to grow, they're going to have too much power.
	They're always concerned DROs are going to grow, but DROs are transitional objects.
	They're like the training wheels for your economic career.
	When you start coming in, To an economic transaction, whatever it's going to be, you get a job or, I don't know, maybe it would include a paper route, though I strongly doubt it, but when you start moving into an economic interaction kind of world, Then you are going to require some kind of assurity or guarantee that you're going to do what you say you're going to do.
	And this may be somebody who's sponsoring you, right?
	This may be your father or your mother may put up particular kinds of bonds for you.
	So if you're going to take out a loan for 500 bucks, maybe they'll put up the bond.
	And that's how you gain your reputation.
	You pay that back. But it's very economically inefficient.
	If there's a better substitute to involve third parties in your disputes and to pay the percentage of whatever it would be the percentage of your economic transaction to that third party to resolve your disputes and so on.
	So what's going to happen is as you begin to move into your economic life and you do everything that you say you're going to do and you build up your reputation and your character and your reliability, your integrity, your honesty becomes well known.
	We have these ratings agencies that will give you positive or negative ratings based on your successful payment of debts or conformity to standards within your Within your contracts and these agencies will bypass the need for DROs.
	I mean, DROs are only going to be for a minority of people in the economic world or for people who are doing enormous or transnational or at least transcontinental kinds of deals.
	So DROs are going to be constantly limited by the fact that everything which is overhead is constantly being worked at to be eliminated.
	by the sort of capitalist free market principles of efficiency.
	Everything which is overhead tries to be eliminated.
	And we can see this of course going on through certain kinds of internet shopping.
	So DROs are overhead and one of the reasons that they're going to be constantly limited in their power is that people are going to constantly try and find ways to eliminate them from the transaction.
	That's what's going to keep their power to a minimum.
	So one of the suggestions that I came up with was that If there's complications about discovering who's at fault in a car accident, then DROs, what they could do, of course, is they could put black box technology into cars, which would record the last 20 seconds or the last 30 seconds at any given time in an anonymous fashion that could only be unlocked by a third-party key and all of this kind of stuff to preserve your anonymity and so on.
	So this kind of technology could be used To determine who would really be at fault in a car.
	Or maybe it would be recording perpetually, but it would only release the last 30 seconds if there was an impact and there would be no other way to unlock it or whatever.
	I mean, who knows, right? There's lots of different ways that you could do it.
	And when I put this sort of idea out, somebody immediately posted and said, well, here comes DRDROs, the big brother, they're recording everything you do, they're tracking you, they're this and they're that.
	And I'm still rather amazed that people don't get this part as yet.
	I mean, I can sort of understand it because it's a real shift, but I am a little surprised because...
	There's sort of two things I'd like to say about this, and I'll try and keep them brief.
	Let's see. The first is that if somebody believes that all organizations innately grow to become corrupt and dictatorial and big brothery kinds of institutions, that there's a constant threat that if somebody puts a black box in your car, automatically you have to start wearing tinfoil around your head because they're going to be stuck.
	It's not to control your mind with psychic waves and there'll be crop circles showing up in your teacups and so on.
	If people believe that this is what human institutions are all about, then they really should be very pro the DRO model.
	There seems to be, at least I can't find any historical examples, there seems to be no way To control corruption, other than through two related patterns of behavior.
	The first is voluntary interaction.
	Voluntary interaction is the only known antidote to human corruption, so that if somebody displeases you in the way that they behave, that you can cease to interact with them.
	So if your grocer overcharges, you stop going to the grocer.
	And if your husband starts drinking, you could divorce him.
	And there's these endless, endless examples of the only way to control institutional or personal corruption is through freedom of association.
	Now, the second principle that opposes corruption is competition.
	Because, as people always say, what if there's only one grocery store in the small town and you either order from there or you don't?
	Well, they can just raise their prices and so on.
	Well, no, they can't for two reasons.
	One is that other people can come in and compete and the other is that people can decide to leave the town.
	Or they can order over the internet, or their groceries over the internet, or they can grow their own food, or they can all get together and put together enough orders that people are willing to drive the food out.
	So competition, which is a byproduct really of freedom of association.
	Once you have freedom of association, as a natural result, you will get competition.
	When you are free to choose who you interact with at a personal and economic level, You will not only get a minimization of corruption, but you'll get an increase in the desire for positive service.
	There is a reason that Walmart, whatever you think of their business practices, there's a reason that Walmart fights so hard to lower prices.
	It's because of competition and because you can shop anywhere you want.
	When I sort of throw an idea out there, When people say, well, that would just be Big Brother-y and then they'll be tracking everything you do, it's like, well, then don't sign up with that DRO. It's something I just...
	I really don't understand.
	It's like people then think that I'm making some sort of edict from my...
	From my car or something or from my house where I'm saying, well, the way it's going to work, see, is all these cars are going to get black boxes installed and then that information is going to be hacked by some hyper-thin Eastern European kid who's good at hacking things and then all that information is going to be out of the internet and then people are going to track your movements.
	I mean... It's just it's one possibility of how the problem could be solved.
	And of course, if you don't want to do it, then either don't choose a DRO that does it or choose a DRO that does it.
	But if you decide to reject it, then they'll just charge you a little bit more, right?
	Because then the cost of investigating any accident that you will have will be more expensive.
	And the objectivity of the resulting investigation will be more controversial.
	So if you decide not to have a black box installed in your car, that's no problem.
	But you then have to pay for the economic costs of it being more complicated to determine who's at fault.
	So whenever you have something that requires more labor, naturally you have to pay for it.
	And of course I included that, but people fear this, right?
	They fear these institutions that are going to somehow take over and And corrupt and watch you and they fear that the DROs are going to implant tracking chips in the base of your spine and so on.
	I just think if people are concerned about that, then that's not going to happen.
	It's simply not going to happen.
	That's the free market. If people don't want it, it won't happen.
	And if people do want DROs to implant tracking chips in their heads, Who are you to stop them?
	That's free choice. People can do whatever they want.
	So, anyway, that was my sort of...
	Let me just...
	Ah, logos. Okay, so we've had a comment about DROs, and it says, The revolution will be sponsored by Gap, the Khaki and Camel Collection, and it will star me as you.
	You will play yourself, or Brad Pitt playing you, or you playing Brad Pitt playing you.
	The revolution will be a teacup in a storm, or a bottle in a message, or a door to a key.
	The revolution will always come with fries, because the revolution will be televised.
	Oh, yes, I couldn't have said it better myself, though I'm not sure what is being said.
	Wait a minute, please. And then there is something which somebody asked me sort of to define corruption.
	Well, corruption is a complicated topic, but basically it's mostly to do with a sort of fraudulent representation of how things are, right?
	The government says there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
	There aren't any. We go and invade.
	Next thing you know, right?
	I mean, all this nonsense.
	And then they say, well, we're winning the war on terror.
	And this is all corruption because it's completely misleading.
	I've been reading a very good book or listening to it, an audio book, called Imperial Life in the Emerald City, which is a description of all of the decisions that occurred during and after the invasion of Iraq.
	I mean, it's absolutely shocking.
	Not that shocking, but still, to have it all confirmed, it's quite shocking.
	So, for instance, the guy who, I can't remember his name, he was the police chief during 9-11 in New York.
	His mother was a prostitute who was, I think, murdered when he was four.
	Sorry? No, that's here.
	So there's this guy who was the 9-11 police chief in New York in 9-11, and he was tapped to go over to Iraq to set up or to train the Iraqi police force.
	The general commissions requested that 6,500 or 6,100 Experts go over to train the Iraqi police force.
	They sent one guy, who was sort of an expert, and literally within a week, he was back in the U.S. saying, well, things aren't as bad as I thought.
	You know, things are coming along well.
	Things are doing well. Of course, he's a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, so he was sent over there for his star power and for the fact that when he came back, he would use his credibility, which he'd earned, sort of quote, earned from the 9-11 stuff, And so he came back and he said, well, you know, it's all in good shape.
	We're making great progress, which of course is played all over Fox News and all of the other Republican slave channels.
	And yet whenever he went out, right?
	So whenever he went out in Iraq, he had...
	Twenty armed guards, and he traveled around in a limousine that had, you know, three-quarter inch thick bullet-proof glass and chassis that could withstand a direct hit from the space shuttle, I think. And this is corruption, right?
	This is where you know something, that you know your intention, or you know that the reality is one thing, but for political or economic gain, you're representing it as something else.
	This happens all the time in sort of the modern stock market, which is a far cry from what would occur in a free market stock market.
	So for me, that's a little bit more than straight evil, but corruption is when you know that something doesn't work, but you sell it as if it does work, right?
	So if you know that your car Is a few hundred kilometers away from falling apart, but you sell it and tell somebody that it's in great shape, then that's kind of like corruption.
	And if you are a DRO and you say, well, we're putting these black boxes into your car to track just the last 30 seconds and we'll only have access to them if there's an accident and so on, but you know that there's a backdoor key that lets you analyze their driving records so you can sell it to road companies so that the road companies can Plan how to expand their roads and so on.
	You don't tell people that, well, that's kind of corruption.
	So if people are really worried about corruption, being lied to, being manipulated, being controlled, then it seems to me incomprehensible that they would be against a DRO model, that they would be against a voluntaristic competitive model where the customer comes first.
	Of course people are capable of doing this kind of nonsense and lying for their own self-interest.
	This is a basic fact of human nature and there's biologically advantageous reasons why People have retained this ability, let's say.
	But I can't imagine why the DRO model would be criticized the more somebody worries about the possibility of corruption and lying in organizations, unless there's some alternative to the DRO model that I've never thought of, which I would be more than happy to hear about.
	If people feel that human institutions are corrupt and dangerous, then I can't imagine Why voluntary association and competition would be something that would alarm them.
	The more scared they are of disingenuous and corrupt institutions, the more they should want the DRO model.
	So the DRO model, the anarchistic model, is something that if you're not scared of government, then there's no reason to be frightened of a DRO model.
	And if you are scared of government, Then you should be all the more for the DRO model, because everything that you're frightened about in government largely occurs because of a lack of competition and a monopoly of the use of force, and a lack of freedom of association.
	People have to pay for the war in Iraq whether they like it or not.
	People have to pay $2,000 a year for the war on drugs whether they like it or not.
	I just can't quite understand that, and I'm probably not doing a very good job of explaining it, that this is still...
	Going on for people, but I can only assume that they are...
	Because it's not that tough to understand, right?
	If you're scared of power, you should want a free market solution.
	If you're not scared of power, then there's no reason to hold on to a state solution.
	That's not that complicated.
	So the only thing that I can imagine is that people are trying to work out their parental issues through an approach to politics, that what's really going on is people talking about mommy and daddy or teachers rather than the state and the free market because it's really not that...
	I mean, there's stuff that's tough to understand about free market economics and voluntaristic solutions.
	But there's stuff that's not.
	And a fear of institutions as an opposition to a free market solution is not one of the things that's tougher to understand.
	So I can only assume that people have this issue because they are doing the psychological thing that is hard to understand why people are not libertarian if you don't sort of see that.
	If I'm not frightened of power, I would love the status model.
	I just want me to be at the head of it.
	That's funny. Very good.
	And then the DRO model minimizes corruption because it encourages truth.
	Oh yes, absolutely.
	Competition does encourage honesty.
	Competition completely and totally encourages honesty if honesty is a value.
	If honesty is a value.
	If honesty is not a value, then A free market does not encourage honesty.
	A free market, one of the reasons people don't like a free market is it accurately reflects what people actually want.
	This is one of the things that is kind of funny.
	So in a religious culture, let's say that there was no state support for religion in the Muslim world.
	Bang! Tomorrow. Well, it's not like everyone would become rational and scientific the next day.
	There was not official state support for religion throughout the 19th century and early 20th century in America, and religion hung on.
	So when people prefer lies, then they get religion.
	A free market doesn't always produce truth, but a free market is an accurate reflection.
	Of the values that the people are actually holding.
	This is one of the things that people don't like, especially moralists who think that people should be more elevated.
	And they'd say, oh, you know, well, the free market just produces soap operas that waste people's lives.
	It's like, well... What's wrong with soap operas?
	What's wrong with people spending time watching soap operas if that's what gives them pleasure?
	This kind of moralizing about other people's preferences is also one of the roots of statism and also is one of the roots of a more dictatorial approach to personalities.
	And it'll just arise from a vaguely religious guilt about how you spend your time.
	But yeah, certainly if people are concerned about black boxes in their cars being used to track them or being used to do nefarious things, then the free market will instantly solve that problem.
	Instantly solve that problem.
	The way that it works, of course, if you've never been an entrepreneur you wouldn't know this necessarily, but the way that it works is if I'm going to be the guy Who comes up with the black box solution, right?
	So let's say the DROs are saying, you know, there's got to be a way to make this.
	We're getting into lots of disputes that go nowhere about these car accidents.
	And so I go, bing, hey, I've got a good idea.
	Let's use a black box technology just like they use in planes.
	Just record the last, you know, I'll record everything.
	I'll record the conversation in the car.
	I'll record the squelchy backseat noises when the teenagers borrow the car.
	I'll record everything and I'll broadcast it directly to the internet.
	That's sort of my business plan.
	So then I'm going to go and try and get some investment.
	And the investors are going to say, I wouldn't buy that because that seems like a real invasion of privacy.
	And my teenagers don't do that kind of stuff anyway.
	They're not sinful that way.
	And so the investor, sorry, me as the entrepreneur, I'd go, oh, okay, well, I'd go to a whole bunch of investors and they'd all say the same thing.
	I'm not investing in building this thing that records everything.
	Nobody's going to want that. There's going to be an invasion of privacy.
	And so then I'm going to go, okay, well, man, what if I just cut it down to record the last 30 seconds and I put an encrypted key on it and it would be locked in some special place and you'd only, like the way that airbags go off only if there's a sudden shock, it will only actually store the last 30 seconds, like it's continually storing and erasing, but it will store the last 30 seconds more permanently if there's a shock or a crash or a bump or something like that.
	And I go through all of these processes and then I go back to the investors and say, okay, well, The DROs are spending a million dollars a day investigating car accidents.
	With this thing, we can cut it down to $100,000 a day, which is going to save them whatever, $300 million a year.
	I'm going to sell it to them for $10 million.
	They get their ROI inside of three weeks.
	And here's how we are going to...
	I deal with the question of security and you give long lists of the security experts, the sign-off, the encryption, the standardized technology that you're going to use and so on.
	And only then do you go to the DROs and say, hey, I've got a prototype.
	Would you be interested? Would you like to go a trial run and so on?
	And then the DROs are going to say, well...
	Gee, I don't know. We'd love to save that kind of money.
	Trust me, that's money we're just basically setting fire to on the front yard of our headquarters at the moment.
	But I'm going to have a really tough time selling this kind of stuff to my customers.
	Everyone's going to be paranoid that we're collecting information.
	So, you know, I'd love to buy it from you, but I just, I can't sell this to people.
	And they'd do that by, they'd get a customer group in, and they'd pay people to come in, and then they'd say, okay, well, what if we started tracking your car driving with the black box, and here's the things we put in place?
	And people would say, you know, I don't want that at all.
	That's too invasive. It's tracking me.
	I don't feel trusted. It's not secure.
	Well, then the DROs would say, yes, but your car insurance will go down by 50% if you sign up for this.
	Well, that's different, right? Then people are like, huh, okay, well, if there's a benefit, right, then maybe I can, but I'm really going to have to trust you guys and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
	So it's not like the DRO just suddenly snaps its fingers in black boxes.
	There's a whole series of checks and balances before any idea goes to market.
	The DROs just don't sort of make up these black boxes and throw them in your car secretly.
	I mean, there's a whole process that people go through.
	So anyway, so I just wanted to sort of point that out.
	What do we have here? One theory on the greater prevalence of religion in the U.S. If people don't want their privacy invaded.
	Well, sure, absolutely.
	We don't have any problem with our purchases being tracked by credit card companies.
	In fact, we like it, right?
	I mean, I assume my wife, you prefer it, right?
	Yeah, but...
	Right, she's got fraud protection.
	She also gets to be reminded of what she bought.
	It's very useful if you're doing a budget that this information exists electronically.
	You can download it into Quicken or Money or something.
	So we don't really have any problem with that.
	We do have a problem if our data is not secure, but we don't have a problem with that kind of stuff.
	So you just have to be paid for these things, right?
	I mean, if there's a black box in your car, everybody understands there's a benefit to the DRO. They just want you to share the sugar.
	People just want you to share the goodies a little bit.
	So if they pay you for this increased risk of privacy, Then nobody's going to have a problem with it.
	If the DRO paid you a million dollars to put a black box in your car, people wouldn't care if it recorded your fart volume, right?
	I mean, fantastic, you know, I'll take the million bucks, you can put a scud in my car if you want.
	It's just a matter of sharing the economic benefits.
	Okay, so DROs can provide anything as long as there is a consumer demand for it.
	So the trick is to get people to want what you want.
	I'm not sure I understand that.
	Well, DROs can provide anything as long as there is consumer demand for it.
	Well, that's not true of DROs in particular, but any capitalist organization.
	Cost-benefits formula.
	Yeah, for sure. Listen, it's very hard, and I can tell you this as an entrepreneur, it's very, very hard to read the public.
	Think of all the movies that are produced every year and how many of them bomb and how many of them become classics.
	Everybody who makes a movie wants that movie to be a classic.
	Every time I do a podcast, I want it to be...
	Engraved in stone. It's just more often written on the water.
	But it's very hard to read consumer demand.
	It's very hard to figure out what it is that people want and what they're willing to put money for, hard-earned money.
	Because every dollar that somebody spends on your product is a dollar they're not spending on everything else, including sticking it in the bank, leaving it to their kids and so on.
	So it's very hard.
	I know that people feel like this, not people here so much, but...
	People feel that capitalists have this incredible power to define what it is that people want, right?
	There's lots of Masha McLuhan and Foucault and Derrida and people like this who are very keen on telling us that All of her desires are manipulated by capitalists and advertising runs her life and so on.
	That's really not true.
	It's very hard to figure out what people want.
	And, of course, these same people who talk about how much power a 30-second commercial has over us never seem to be the people who say that 14 years of government indoctrination should be ended because it's far more dangerous than capitalist propaganda.
	But, no, it's very hard to figure out what people want.
	DROs don't have that much power.
	That's the beauty of a voluntary association society.
	All right. So, if you have any questions or comments or would like to bring something up, we do have some good topics that were suggested from the board today.
	Sorry, sorry. At what point does advertising go from convincing to manipulating?
	Well, there are certain areas, I think, particularly in pointing advertising at the young, the very young, I think that can be challenging from an ethical standpoint.
	I would say that almost all advertising by its nature is kind of manipulative.
	There's this fairly, at least for me, fairly memorable Simpsons where there's this girl who's very pretty who's at a boat show.
	I think it's a boat show. And guys are lining up to get her autograph or to, you know, touch the boat or something like that.
	And so the guys are coming up and they say, first guy says, do you come with the boat?
	And she's like, hee hee hee hee!
	And then the next guy comes up and says, do you come with the boat?
	And she's like, hee hee hee!
	So, sorry, that's more like a horse weenie than a sexpot laugh, but my ability to do the sexpot laugh is sort of minimized.
	But, yeah, I mean, everybody's aware that the bikini model doesn't come with the motorcycle, but there's a fair amount of manipulation in getting you to associate sexiness with a motorcycle, right?
	And... When I was younger, I went out with a girl who really liked motorcycle-like leather pants and a leather jacket.
	And she told me this, and naturally, I was completely convinced that I should go out and get both, right?
	Even though I didn't have a motorcycle, I just felt that was important because that's what's considered sexy.
	There's that Friends episode as well where Jennifer Aniston dresses up as Princess Leia.
	Just a moment. Okay, I'm done.
	And I think that Ross dresses up as the Navy guy in the white.
	And so, yeah, I mean, we all want to be attractive to the opposite sex, and whoever can convince you that there's a certain thing to do, right?
	There's those Axe commercials.
	What's that? The village people, I think all of them.
	Absolutely. It's true, I don't drive a motorcycle, although after I eat Indian food, you might think I do.
	But too much information.
	Oh, please. Almost 600 podcasts, and now we're talking too much information?
	I think not. Yeah, podcast or motorcycle would be kind of hectic, no question.
	Although videocast from a motorcycle would be very, very important, especially in the rain, right?
	That would be excellent. And actually, come to think of it, a helmet wouldn't be that far from the forehead people are seeing already.
	Maybe I could get a helmet with a little fringe, like a tonsure fringe of hair at the back.
	Who knows, right? But what the hell are we talking about again?
	Something useful, I think.
	So yeah, there's a lot of manipulation that goes on in the realm of advertising.
	For instance, there's lots of people who have this belief that no-name brands are not as tasty or as good or as high quality as name brands.
	And taste test after taste test has proven that people can't tell the difference because almost always it's the same manufacturer They just sell it to two different people.
	They sell it to somebody who repackages it, who's what's called a VAR, a value-added reseller, who repackages it and puts Kellogg's on the Raisin Bran, and then you think it's high quality, but the no-name Raisin Bran is usually made by the same manufacturer, not two different manufacturers.
	It's usually the same kind of stuff, maybe some minor differences, but...
	There's lots of things that go on that's irrational in the marketplace, but who cares?
	That doesn't matter whatsoever.
	People are more than willing and perfectly free to fund their irrationalities.
	If you think that Kellogg's Raisin Bran tastes better than No Name Raisin Bran, who cares?
	You can spend your money like that.
	It may not be true, and in your own blind taste test, I have the suspicion about light lager beers, you know, that nobody, ah, I drink this or I drink that.
	I think that most people could never tell the difference between all these different kinds of beers.
	I agree, you know, Guinness and a lager beer is different because Guinness is made actually from the sump water that comes out of bilges, but I think that most people can't tell stuff apart and people have these sort of irrational preferences.
	Irrationality is not immoral in the context of the free market.
	I don't think irrationality is immoral at any time.
	I don't think...irrationality to some degree is immoral if it's inflicted upon children.
	Question? Oh, right. But I don't think...irrationality is not immoral at all.
	It's irrational to prefer one sports team over another, but people seem to like to do it because guys get the testosterone rush when their team wins, so I don't think that there's anything immoral about irrationality.
	It's immoral to expect other people and to force other people to subsidize Your irrationality.
	My hostility towards sports is because I get taxed at the hilt to pay for all this nonsense, not because people like watching sports, which I consider to be pretty boring.
	A problem with irrationality is that we have to subsidize it.
	We have to subsidize irrationality.
	There are certain kinds of irrationality that are particularly problematic in that If you won't see the gun in the room, like if you admit the gun is in the room and then you forget about it, then I think that's sort of a problem.
	But if people have their own irrationalities, I don't care.
	Like, why do I dislike religion?
	Because religion is going for the power of the state at the moment.
	Why do I dislike religion?
	Because religion feeds the idea of the state.
	If somebody's a Christian who lives five blocks away and there's only one in the world, well, I'm not going to do a single podcast on it.
	I don't care, right?
	I don't do podcasts about Scientology because Scientology isn't going from my wallet through the state.
	All right. Yeah, the objection is to force and not to rationality.
	That's correct. But the objection is to force that is considered to be virtuous or force that is perceived as virtuous.
	I think that really is the challenge.
	And there are certain kinds of irrationalities that are inconsequential or insignificant.
	There are other kinds of irrationalities that are much, much worse and much more dangerous, which is where we should, I think, focus on.
	All right. Here's a visual joke.
	Somebody just sent a picture of a bald guy with a big mustache on a motorbike.
	Not too, too close to me.
	I don't think he's got my cheek divots, but anyway.
	Alright, so enough of that, enough of me.
	If you have a question that you would like to ask or a comment that you would like to make, I would appreciate hearing from you.
	This is more about yourself than about myself, so let's have a look and see.
	I think we do have...
	Okay, well, feel free to jump in with questions or comments.
	We will go through the list of things that were put on...
	All right, so he briefly wanted to talk to me and has decided against it.
	Fair enough. All right, so what we've got here.
	Human nature. Who got it right?
	Hobbes, Rousseau, Hume, Wilson, or someone else.
	Do we have, quote, a nature?
	Is it a whole thing or a composite of many things?
	If many, what are those things and how do they fit together?
	How do things like aggression and submission, admiration and contempt, and selfishness and altruism fit into the model?
	Should a proper society promote or encourage a given view of human nature?
	If so, how and why? Is the notion of the DRO agnostic to the existence or non-existence of a human nature?
	Or does it rely on some conception of human nature?
	If so, is it flexible enough to withstand historical and scientific modifications of that concept?
	Is this just an empty debate, as some have argued?
	Well, Greg, the good and interesting thing is that the answer to every single one of those is yes.
	So let me move on to the next question.
	Just kidding. Stefan, by what mythology do you live?
	Good question. Yes, maybe you can expand on that question while I have a look at the other one.
	Well, I think that human nature is something that we can definitely look at, comprehend, and understand, primarily and first and foremost from a biological standpoint.
	I think that...
	Like all things in life, you look to the physical first.
	Not to the metaphysical, not to the superstitious, not to even the psychological, but you look to the physical first.
	So this all ties in very much to this idea of the gun in the room, right?
	So lots of people obey the state, lots of people like the state, lots of people believe in God, but the basic question is, is this stuff real?
	Is there physical evidence for it?
	And people don't like to look at the gun in the room But closing your eyes when there's a train coming at you does not make the train pass through you.
	Or you through the train.
	So I would say that we always start our examination with the physical.
	And, of course, the only reason that we're here is that we have successfully adapted to our environment.
	And now, of course, we have reached the nadir, perhaps, of evolutionary advancement relative to all other species in that we are now expert, not just adapting ourselves to our environment, but adapting our environment to ourselves, right?
	So we can live in very cold climates in very great comforts, and we can live in hellholes like...
	The Middle East, where the temperature is just ridiculous, and feel comfortable because we have this ability to mold our environment.
	I think that there are certain givens in human nature that economics is definitely based upon, right?
	Economics is based upon the assumption.
	Two assumptions, right? One, that all resources are limited, and the second, but human desires are not limited, and second, that people respond to incentives.
	The fact that people respond to incentives is not at all surprising.
	That's why we're here.
	Evolution is basically the idea that organisms respond to incentives, the basic incentive being successful reproduction.
	And we were watching The Secret Life of Plants by Richard Attenborough.
	Oh, just fabulous!
	Oh, just wonderful!
	So enthusiastic! And he's got that sort of fakely not there voice, the same thing that...
	What's this blobby does?
	The God Delusion guy. Dawkins!
	Richard Dawkins! Oh, lovely!
	And so...
	Watching that kind of stuff is fantastic, wonderful, beautiful.
	The magic and glory of nature simply can't be expressed by me.
	It's just too mind-blowing and phantasmagorical to speak about.
	But if you get a chance to watch anything by Richard Attenborough, it's biology porn and you'll become exhausted.
	So I think that it's fairly safe to say that anything that you rely upon, people deciding to act towards, to maximize their own self-interest, in a pretty amoral standpoint, right?
	Human beings will maximize their own self-interest in a pretty amoral standpoint.
	If you give people access to large amounts of money through state programs, then you corrupt the population.
	Right? You corrupt the population.
	I would add a third one that I've sort of been starting from the beginning, which is that human beings are moral-based life forms, ethical-based life forms, and almost no human being can act without being mentally ill without a moral justification.
	And that, to me, is both the greatest weakness and the greatest strength of our species.
	We are the only moral-based life form that I know of.
	I mean, I know that there's morals and ethics to some degree, there's mutual cooperation and so on.
	And altruistic behavior, not in the Randian sense, but in a sort of more generous kind of way.
	But I think that human beings are moral-based life forms that I have never, ever talked to a human being about any fundamental issue without there being a rank justification for their own position, their own beliefs.
	And I find this to be a great weakness in that if religion and the state get a hold of children and families in particular, but let's just talk about religion and the state, If religion and the state get hold of children early enough, then, as the Jesuits say, give me somebody until they're seven and they're mine for life.
	And so if some institution gets a hold of a child's moral conditioning, then that child will then replicate that virus pretty much over and over.
	So I think that we can assume that resources are finite human desires or not.
	We can assume that people respond to incentives, and I'd like to add a third one to that, which is that human beings run on morality the way that physics runs on physical laws or That mass attracts mass, but according to the law of gravity, that gases expand when they're heated.
	Thanks again for people helping me expand my scientific metaphor base from one rock to a rock plus gas.
	So, strangely appropriate, as we mentioned before.
	So, yeah, I would say that's why people get so horribly uncomfortable when we confront them about the gun in the room, and we confront them about their families, you know, and we had to ask a therapist last night, but this guy said, well, I love my mother, and then provided this extraordinary sequence of facts that would make love impossible, and how comfortable is that person going to be to a challenge in this area?
	Well, very uncomfortable indeed, so...
	Does the coma patient cease to be a moral life form?
	Well, I think that's a very interesting question.
	I can certainly give you my opinion on that.
	My opinion on that is that no man can be forced to keep another man alive Whether that man is a coma patient or not.
	So I can't be used as a means to somebody else's end.
	This is a bit of Kantian ethics as well.
	Human beings are ends in themselves that should not be treated as means to somebody else's end.
	So in the same way that I should not be forced to support somebody else who can't pay for himself, but I can voluntarily help that person, but I can't be forced to, A person, a man in a coma, nobody must be forced to support that person.
	So if they need life support, if they need this, if they need that, no human being should be forced to provide that person a life.
	And then people say, well, that's terrible.
	People in coma should live.
	Well, then it's like, that's great. Then they will, because you care about them, right?
	It's the same thing that we always find out with the poor, right?
	So when we say... Well, we should not be forced to help the poor.
	Oh, then the poor will all starve to death.
	It's like, no, they won't because you care about them, right?
	So you'll help them. So a coma patient ceased to be a moral life form.
	Yes, I would say that the coma patient has ceased to be a moral life form.
	And we know this to be the case because if we could, beyond a shadow of a doubt, prove that That somebody who committed a murder did so while they were sleepwalking and not in conscious control of their behavior, we would seek for that person treatment rather than punishment because they would not have to be morally responsible for that.
	So if somebody has a diminished capacity to control their own actions, then their moral capacity goes down concomitantly in the same way that if I force you to do something heinous by putting a gun to your head, Then you have a diminished responsibility for what it is that you do because I'm forcing you to do it.
	So if you're supposed to hold a secret and somebody injects you with four vats of sodium pentothal, then the fact that you give up that secret, I think, would not be morally wrong because you're drugged, right?
	So yes, I would say that where conscious control is diminished, and of course in a coma patient that is totally diminished, then you cannot consider that person to be a moral agent, and thus they cannot demand responsibility.
	It's different for children, right?
	I mean, if you're a child... If your child is asleep, they don't cease to be a moral agent, right?
	So, I mean, if you have made a commitment to care for someone, like a child, and your house starts burning down, I'm going to just take a silly example here.
	Your house starts burning down, you kind of got to go and take your child out of the house, even if the child hasn't woken up and is screaming.
	And you can't say, well, my child is not a moral agent because they're asleep, and therefore I don't have a right to, I don't have any need to save them or anything like that.
	But overall, I sort of find these sorts of discussions about moral responsibilities of parents sort of pointless.
	I mean, I think they're interesting from an intellectual standpoint, but parents care for their children all throughout the animal kingdom.
	And if somebody has that capacity, they will exercise it without philosophy.
	And if they don't, no amount of philosophy will change them into a caring parent.
	Yeah, so if you care about the coma patients, then you can give money to support them.
	The doctors may well choose to keep somebody alive just out of their own Hippocratic oath and so on.
	But you can't be forced to pay for that kind of stuff.
	So, yes, as far as human nature goes, I would say that there's those sort of three things.
	One is more economics, but people respond to incentives and justify everything they do from a moral standpoint.
	That's why I really focus on moral questions, moral education.
	Of course, I'm not the only philosopher to do so, but that's why I really focus on psychological stuff.
	We also know that human beings exist almost more in a social world than they do in the physical world.
	Which again comes directly out of what it was that allowed us to survive during the great haul up from the single-celled organisms of about a billion years ago, that human beings seem to exist far more in a social world than they do in the real world, right?
	So if you grew up in the world of Jesus camp, Then your reference points for truth are mixed, right?
	So you have the reference points for truth like, oh, a train's coming at me, I better get off the tracks, right?
	Or I'm driving in the wrong lane, I better switch.
	That's sort of one of your reference points, but the other one around sort of metaphysical reality and the nature of an existence of God and so on, You then go to the Bible and you go to your preacher and you go to those like believers.
	That's where people seem to get a good deal of their reality processing from.
	And that makes perfect sense, right?
	Because the greatest threat...
	I mean, there were two enormous threats to human beings throughout history.
	The natural world and the social world, right?
	So if you did not obey your tribe, most often in history your tribe would kill you or at least cast you out, in which case you would be...
	Nobody would protect you while you slept and get eaten or something, so...
	Human beings, they have this odd sort of mix, and this is a bit more theoretical, let me know what you think.
	They have this odd sort of mix because human beings, they are addicted to this social world, this social processing of reality, but at the same time, they always reframe it as if it's not a social world.
	That's the fascinating thing, and that's why philosophy exists, because of this dichotomy.
	Philosophy could not really exist if people didn't try and reframe their obedience to social norms as objective philosophical truth.
	Sorry, that's not too clear, based on Christina's face.
	I picture you in the face of everyone else who says, am I going to get to ask you a question today?
	Well, Christina will let me know if anyone's wasting to talk.
	Oh, I can't hear you.
	All right, let me finish this point, then I'll put it up.
	But if Christians, and I'll just pick on Christians, could be any group, if Christians simply said, I believe in God, not because it's true, but because that's what's approved of in my community, then that's a very different statement than saying, I believe in God because God exists.
	So if they believe in God, because God exists, that's an objective, philosophically examining kind of statement.
	But if they say, I believe in God, or I'm claiming to believe in God, or I say that I believe in God because my social group will attack me if I don't say that, that's not a philosophical claim about reality.
	That's just an admission of fear of the group.
	But human beings are so constituted, and I'm not sure I can exactly say why.
	Maybe somebody else can say it.
	Human beings are so constituted that we simply cannot say, I'm frightened of my parents.
	I'm frightened of my group.
	I am frightened of my state.
	I'm frightened of being disapproved of, or attacked, or rejected, or scorned, or humiliated, or put down, or ostracized, or whatever.
	I'm a social animal, so sue me, right?
	I am scared of the disapproval of the group, and therefore I say all of these things.
	Human beings seem to be constitutionally unable to do that.
	What human beings always, consistently, and forever do is they say, I have reasoned this out And this is my conclusion, that it is not obedience to the group that has formed my opinions, but it is an objective and rational examination of the facts that has formed my opinion.
	And where the facts are not available, such as in religious belief, then people say, well, I've had a revelation.
	I just know that it's true.
	I've prayed and that's my answer.
	I've experienced God directly.
	Human beings simply cannot admit to themselves the amount of social terror that they live in, that we all live in.
	If you could just type a little bit more about that and say it versus realizing it.
	Yeah, I mean, it's certainly possible, but the default position is we ingest an enormous amount of social bullshit because it's force-fed to us as children through threats of disapproval and sometimes violence.
	And then we have to reframe that as objectively true statements.
	As objectively true statements.
	I mean, we've all had this where we just start talking to somebody and they say, well, you can't have private roads because then only the super rich would afford them or people would just shut off people's access to roads and charge them a million dollars, a kidney and three children to get on the road and so on.
	And this is not stuff that people have...
	Thought through. They certainly haven't done experiments.
	I'm going to put a private road together with a public road and see what happens.
	They haven't done the examination of the history.
	In fact, if you tell people that roads all were started off as private and were very successful, but then road building was taken over by the government and was banned in the same way that has occurred with almost every other government, industry, education, and the post office, and the military, and so on.
	That the most successful and the originating sources of these services were private, but the government takes them over, they become whatever, right?
	They've never done this kind of research.
	They never understand any of these kinds of things.
	So they just listen to and absorb all this nonsense and then spout it out again.
	But they can't say, well, look, I mean, if I start talking about private roads, My family is going to shit all over me.
	Or they can't say, look, I might agree with you, but look, I'm trying to get a career going as an academic here.
	There's just no way in my leftist socialist circle that I could ever get a job if I argued for free market solutions.
	It's just impossible.
	In the same way that you will get Republicans who will wide-eyed and passionately tell you that the republicanism is all about small government.
	Why? Well, because they've read some pamphlets, right?
	So they've listened to Fox News about how the Republicans, they're just all about small government.
	And you point out the minor and inconvenient fact that the government has grown the very fastest in the history of the republic under the Republicans.
	And, wow, that's because of the war on terror.
	It's like, well, whatever the reason, you can't say that the Republicans are for small government.
	So people, the constitutionally resist, Getting a clear-eyed view of their own cowardice and conformity, which is what allows the cowardice and conformity to continue, which is why we have such a real challenge with this kind of stuff.
	All right. Well, people have been very patient, waiting for me to finish the ramble.
	So, who do we have? All right.
	All right. Let me find him on my mystical list.
	ALI 7550, are you on?
	Yes. Hi, how's it going?
	I was just curious about that.
	Yes, I was just curious about you thinking about humans.
	I wanted to do the deduction, and yes, it is proven what you've been saying, but the way humans think and act, do they actually have their meaning or purpose for them?
	You have a purpose of why you're doing this.
	Can you give me a purpose of your life?
	The purpose of my life? Yes.
	And I'm sorry, I'm going to have to just extract that part because it was fairly garbled where you were coming from.
	I'm sorry? Keep going.
	Oh, thanks. The purpose of my life is whatever I choose it to be, and I have sort of in particular decided to devote my life to the dissemination of a rational and scientific approach to particularly ethics, but to all relationships that human beings have with each other, with reality, with the state, with their families, with their lovers, with their friends.
	I have sort of dedicated my life, at least those parts where I'm not doing my day job, I've dedicated my life to the dissemination of rational philosophy, because I really think that's the greatest good that I can do with the short time that I have on the planet.
	Yes, I see, but just wondering, you know the book of the Bible, they say in the Christian and other Bibles, they say that God's face can't be seen, but they say Jesus' face is not God's face.
	Oh, I'm so sorry.
	You're kind of gobbled.
	Can somebody who's running the chat add this gentleman to the chat?
	I want to be able to answer your question, but I'm just getting a fair amount of cutout.
	Let me just see. Whoever's running the chat...
	I'm trying to say... Sorry, go ahead.
	Let's try it again. Okay.
	All right, I'm trying to say, they say in the Bible, they don't say it's going to be seen, but they say in another Bible or the same Bible that you just say it's resembling God.
	Okay, I think I got some of that, and I'm just going to repeat it back to you and let me know if I've got it.
	That in certain parts of the Bible it is communicated or it's written down that God cannot be seen, but in other places within the Bible it's written down that God can be seen.
	Is that correct? Yes, they say that Jesus' faith resembles God.
	Right, right. Right, so is your question sort of what a sort of rational philosophy, or at least my approach to philosophy, make of all of this?
	I just want to know, if that is true, but they say that God cannot be seen, then why do they add that God's faith is Jesus' faith?
	Well, I would say that it's because none of the stuff that's written down in the Bible is true.
	I mean, the question that you would ask, I would say, I mean, one of the ways that you could approach this is...
	There's sort of two theories about the Bible as a whole, right?
	So one theory is that it's the divine word of God, that God moved the hands of the people who were writing the book down, and so on.
	And that's sort of one theory.
	It's a series of stories that were written down over five or six centuries or longer, thousands of years for the Old Testament and about 150 to 300 years after the death of Jesus, whenever that occurred, and there's a 200-year spread where that's considered to have occurred,
	that all of these things are written down by a whole series of people For their own particular motives, whether those motives were religious piety or the fact that they were mentally unbalanced and were having weird kinds of visions.
	And of course, a lot of the monks in the Dark Ages went through long periods of fasting, and fasting has been known to produce mad visions and hallucinations in test subjects.
	So the one question is, is it really the divine sort of written down word of God?
	And the other question is, is it written down by human beings who may have genuinely believed in what they were writing, but which we should not take with any more seriousness or with any more desire for consistency as we would from like Grimm's fairy tales, right? Where they say, you know, well, in one of these fairy tales, you can see the centaur or the dragon, but in another one of these fairy tales, You can't see the dragon.
	Or it actually would be more accurate to say that in sort of European mythology, a dragon flies, and it's usually red, and it breathes fire.
	But in Chinese mythology, a dragon is mostly invisible and is more of a spirit.
	And then say, well, which one is it?
	And we'd say, well, it doesn't matter because neither of these two descriptions of dragons have anything to do with reality.
	And I would say the same thing about the New Testament and the Old Testament.
	Sorry, go ahead. One more thing.
	The research you're doing, has it gotten you anywhere important?
	I like the way you work and the words you are saying.
	I just want to know, have you gotten any major resources and places that you live in?
	Sure. I'm sorry.
	I'm just catching little bits, and please correct me.
	I think you may have been added to the chat window by now.
	Please correct me if I'm wrong. Sorry, go ahead.
	I still enjoy it.
	Right, right. There's something about my research methodology and so on.
	Well, I mean, I'm 40 years old, and I'm guessing from your voice that probably sounds like three geological ages from where you live right now, which I can certainly understand, but believe it or not, I was actually your age once, and if the Buddhists are right, we'll be again.
	Actually, they're not right, but that just popped into my head.
	My own sort of background in history, I guess I was about 16 when I started reading philosophy and theology and psychology, and I won't even tell you how many books I've written on the subject, sort of read on the subject.
	I have done undergraduate or graduate work at three of the most prestigious, and I only say this just because I don't want to, like I'm not just some guy in a room who's never gone through any sort of academic training.
	I've done undergraduate work At York University for an English degree, at McGill University for a history degree, and then I did graduate work and got a master's in history, particularly on intellectual history, the history of ideas, which was my master's thesis.
	So I've had some fairly good training from that standpoint.
	But no, I mean, as far as the Bible goes, I can't read Hebrew or Aramaic or anything like that.
	But I also can't read German either, but I know that Grimm's fairy tales are not true.
	Okay. Well, I hope you didn't know what I said.
	But, yes, from the most of the people of Victor City was saying, just for a little bit, sorry to check out, maybe should I write down a short version now or even long?
	You know, it might just open people's eyes.
	Right. I want you to go to Victor.
	I hope you get on that.
	If you or I can tell you right here.
	Has anyone been able to add this gentleman?
	We have a chat window running.
	The problem is I'm only getting like every fourth word that you're saying.
	And I'm really sorry about that because I'd really like to sort of talk more clearly to you.
	And it's funny, you know, because when you're cutting out here, I keep walking around my room like I'm on a cell phone.
	Of course, that doesn't do any good because we're over the Internet.
	But we're just going to see if we can get this guy in.
	I'm just trying to say it.
	I hope you see my website and tell me the things I've been writing about life.
	Well, I appreciate that.
	Listen, and obviously I can tell that you're a younger person, and I just wanted to tell you from this sort of great chasm of years that divides us that, and I don't want to put you on any kind of mission or anything like this, right, but just sort of between you and I, The fact that you're interested in philosophy at your age is a truly beautiful and wonderful thing.
	And you read as much as you can about philosophy and absorb as much as you can about philosophy.
	And I know that it's very tough because talking to your friends about philosophy can be really tough, especially when the topic of religion comes up.
	I know that it can be scary.
	I know it can be alarming. I know that it can be unnerving.
	But it's an amazing thing that you're doing.
	Being interested in the realm of ideas at your age is a fantastic thing.
	You can go really far in this world by learning about the truth and about science and about rationality and to whatever you can do without freaking out or alienating everyone around you to the degree that you can talk to other people and get them interested in ideas and maybe send them to my podcast or to other podcasts that you find stimulating.
	You'll be doing an enormous amount of good in the world.
	I can't get to people your age Yeah, I thank you for that.
	I'd really like to review your research.
	Even so, it doesn't matter.
	I know you have done a great thing.
	Thank you very much. Keep listening.
	Feel free to join the boards where you can get lots more intelligent answers than I can give because you've got a collective Borg brain.
	You're probably even too young for Star Trek references.
	My God, I feel old just about now.
	You're in the chat window, I think, and if you wanted to type any additional questions in there, but I certainly appreciate your positive thoughts, and I just, you know, I can't tell you how much I admire your willingness to sort of think and reason and ask questions, and it's a magnificent thing.
	This is the core of the best stuff that you can do with your life is to examine these kinds of ideas, so good for you.
	Well, yes, I don't understand how it looks like.
	I hope you're in it.
	So, will I see your name Stephen?
	Is that it? My name is Stefan Molyneux, and the website where these conversations are, I guess, generally available, I've got quite a few, I'm not even going to tell you how many, because then you'll look at spending the rest of your life listening to them, but it's a free domain radio, F-R-E-E-D-O-M-A-I-N-R-A-D-I-O, gee, I feel like I'm in a spelling bee, freedomainradio.com, and there's a message board there where you can chat with other people.
	Oh, you've got it, okay, good, good, fantastic.
	Now, did you, if you wanted to type...
	Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, and you're...
	Oh, thank you. Christina, is that the person you wanted me to talk to?
	No, Christina's my wife.
	She's a psychological associate, so she works with people who are sort of questing in their life from that standpoint.
	But you can type into that chat window, and I can certainly see what's going on there.
	This is my wife she's listening to.
	She just typed in the website so you could see it.
	She's nice. Thank you.
	She's very nice. Okay.
	Well, I hope I'm not wasting any of your time.
	I'm gonna ask him a question just click on waiting I don't want to show anybody down so it was nice meeting you I I have a few more questions.
	I don't want to waste your time.
	No problem. Listen, I'm happy to answer them, but it would be better if you type them into the chat window just because you're getting a little bit cut out and it's hard to sort of follow off.
	So I'm going to turn off your mic just for now, but just type them into the chat window.
	Thanks so much for taking the time.
	And we're here every Sunday, usually come rain or shine, so feel free to drop by.
	I'm not sure if you're dialing in over a modem or whatever is occurring that might cause some sort of Slow down.
	Or maybe you're on the space station.
	We're not sure. Okay, so do we have somebody else waiting to talk?
	No? No?
	Okay. Well, we'll just wait for this fine young gentleman.
	Gentleman? Is that what you got? I think I got a gentleman.
	I never want to get the gender wrong, but when people are young, it's a little hard to tell.
	So, all right.
	We had another question which has come in, which people wanted to talk about.
	On the show today, here's what's on my mind at the moment.
	I think the Randian superhuman do it on my own, pull myself up by the bootstraps, tough guy attitude that some capitalists adopt as counterproductive.
	I don't think he mentioned that I adopt that.
	Do you think he doesn't think that I'm a tough, tough, anyway, let's not come in there.
	I think it puts people off on an emotional level.
	Of course, I don't advocate coercive social programs, but maybe we could advocate a culture of helping each other.
	I recognize, of course, that a lot of poverty is chosen in some sense, but I think people aren't so much concerned about helping others as they are concerned that they would be, quote, on their own should they get fired.
	In a connected thread, I've been wondering what hope there is to convert people who make decisions based on emotions.
	I was watching a union song video on YouTube called Which Side Are You On?, and I couldn't see how this kind of propaganda would be irresistible to an emotional decision maker.
	Should the end-capped solution be to simply make better emotional arguments, or maybe this huge section of society should be ignored?
	Making emotional arguments makes me feel icky.
	Right. Icky.
	Just for a...
	This is an Aristotelian term for a new young friend.
	From the Greek, ikoros, meaning icky.
	So... So, as to the first thing, yes, my God, I totally agree with you.
	For those who heard me on the Peter Mack Show, somebody was talking about how jobs, you know, this standard fear that people have, jobs are being lost to China and this and that.
	And people were saying, so you think that people should just, you know, be left to fend for themselves and you think that pollution should just be allowed to, you know, people should just be allowed to do whatever they want, right?
	And my particular response, sort of right or wrong to that, was I think that it's very important to connect with our compassion and our empathy, right?
	Because there is, as we all know, right, there is the appearance of things and then there is the reality of things.
	And those two things, especially when the state is involved, are not often the same thing.
	To take a very basic example, who cares more about the poor as somebody who advocates social programs or somebody who advocates a free market?
	Well, the person who advocates a free market cares a lot more about the poor than the person who advocates social programs.
	There was something in the newspaper this weekend up here in Canada like...
	Like America, we have our concentration camps for natives, right?
	So we have them for the native Canadians or what are called the First Nations peoples, the tribes of indigenous occupants or peoples in Canada, in the same way that you have the Sioux and the Apache and the Chippewa and so on in the United States.
	I've actually spent some time up north when I was a gold panner and I spent some time around these kinds of places I mean, they're just absolute complete nightmares and total hellholes.
	They are hell on earth.
	And this is where, of course, this is where social programs lead, right?
	I mean, this is where the government has all the power in the world, where people get all the free goods in the world.
	Fundamentally, human beings grow through resistance, right?
	We grow through, in a sense, to some degree, through struggle.
	And I don't mean physical or violent struggle.
	I mean sort of challenges, right?
	We grow. Human beings mature in a state of voluntary association.
	You don't learn to negotiate with your wife if she can never leave you.
	If you're in some horrible top-down hierarchical society where you buy your wife at the bazaar and then you just control her every move, you never learn to negotiate because you just get to tell them the way it is and if they disagree, you beat them.
	Just to take an absurd example, and the same thing is true, of course, with parents and their children.
	Human beings don't grow, don't connect with reality in a situation where they're forced to interact with each other.
	And so it seems to me entirely natural that in a situation where the government has complete control and funds everyone and so on, that you get this Infinite despair where the suicide rate of the young people in these kinds of camps or these reservations is many, many times higher than the general population.
	Unemployment is 40 to 60 percent.
	Alcoholism is rampant.
	Child abuse is endless.
	And these people have incomes that they can have all the money in the world and they live like animals.
	I mean, they live worse than animals.
	Animals at least will tend their nests.
	I mean, it's just a complete mess.
	And this is the result of, if we take the most charitable interpretation, this is the result of people who are genuinely trying to help by using force.
	Right? So they take money from taxpayers at the point of the gun.
	And then they give it to these native populations because, let's just say, that they genuinely want to help.
	I don't think that anyone who's doing it now genuinely wants to help because the evidence is all in, right?
	But let's just say the people who set it up genuinely want to help.
	Well, they don't help.
	They don't do good things for these people.
	So I think that we should recognize that we genuinely do want to help people, that we are genuinely compassionate By advocating voluntary, peaceful, for mutual benefit, with mutual regard, solutions to the world's problems.
	That we are compassionate to the poor and the sick and the old.
	That certainly what motivates me is compassion and empathy and sympathy for people.
	That is an enormous and very deep motivation for me.
	Why do I hate the Food and Drug Administration?
	Because it gets 60,000 people killed, just to take an example of one drug that's been legal in Europe, but it's a beta block, I think, for heart attack victims, been legal in Europe for the last 30 years, still banned in the United States, caused 60,000 deaths, well, in my mind's eye, I see these families.
	I see these people dying.
	I see the funerals. I see the mourning.
	I see the sadness. I see the graves.
	I see all of this.
	60,000 people.
	It's just one little thing that the government does.
	270 million people killed by governments in the last century, even outside of wars.
	I see that, right? When you read or listen to the Gulag Apigalago or any of the memoirs from the Holocaust, you can see, you can feel all of this kind of stuff.
	And preventing this kind of horror, I think, there's no better way to spend your life than to work to try and prevent or reduce this kind of horror from recurring.
	So I think that this idea that there's this Howard Rockian kind of attitude that people can adopt, and Lord knows I adopted it when I first encountered the books because I thought it was cool and tough, But I think that we need to have sympathy for the concerns that people have.
	As for emotional people, well, I think that emotional people we should really try to engage.
	I really think that we should try to engage with emotional people.
	But we can only do that by being passionate ourselves.
	And passionate does not, of course, mean yelling or irrational.
	But I think that we really should allow our hearts, wear our hearts on our sleeve, be vulnerable, be passionate, be angry, be tearful, be whatever.
	I mean, maybe you can't get there in your conversations with people, and I'm not saying you should come across like some Tennessee Williams hysteric, but...
	The problem is if we only engage with the blandly rational, if I can use that phrase, then the people who are the passionate rhetoricians and the oroticians, the great speakers of the world, will always dominate people's emotional lives.
	So the fire and brimstone preacher will look a whole lot more certain than the tentative scientist.
	And Richard Dawkins is a little bit this way, too.
	So, you know, no disrespect to Dickie D. But I think that we do need to engage our emotions if we're going to win this fight.
	Certainly, the philosophical arguments that have been going forward from the time of Socrates onwards have done precious little to embed science and reason into people's minds to the point where in the 21st century, I think 40 or 50 percent of Americans think that Jesus is coming back in the next 30 years.
	So clearly they're doing something better than we are.
	And I think that what the religious speakers are doing much better than we're doing is being passionate, is inflaming people's emotions, getting them excited, getting them juiced about the powers of science and the wonders of nature and the joys of rationality and the beauty of the scientific method.
	And they love good and they hate evil.
	Whereas a lot of philosophers and libertarians prefer good and define evil.
	That's not very powerful or very passionate.
	So I think it's important, but it's tricky.
	All right, so we have Fernando.
	Why do I want to burst into song?
	Oh, I just ate it myself and my tastes.
	Yes, Fernando. I hear something, but not words.
	Zen Ken, you requested the mic?
	Did he fall asleep?
	Did I go on too long? All right.
	Okay. Well, we'll have to mute that.
	Gentlemen? You know what?
	All right.
	Alright, so let's move on to our next one.
	Is there a line between empathy and contempt, or is empathy a precondition for contempt?
	Is empathy universally preferable behavior?
	Edit. On second thought, I guess it's not behavior, but I guess I'm still curious.
	Honey, do you want to...
	Is there a line between empathy and contempt, or is empathy a precondition for contempt?
	Well... I think I understand the question, so let me sort of take a brief swing at it, and then you can tell me whether or not it makes any sense for you.
	Empathy is a very packed and complex word, and it often is conflated or joined together in definition with the word sympathy.
	So if a guy is in a bar and he wants to pick a fight with me, Then, if he comes up to me and he's sort of got a snarl on his face or his eyes are narrowed, he's got a mean look on his face or something, then even when I see him walking towards me...
	I'm going to feel adrenaline pump.
	I'm going to feel both anger and fear.
	The fight or flight mechanism is going to be activated because I'm empathizing with his emotional intent.
	I'm correctly reading the situation that here's a guy who wants to get into a fight with me Probably because he knows that I find like a...
	I think that the technical phrase is a brownie or a small girl guide.
	A lot of sort of hand waving at the end of my arms and that kind of stuff.
	So he...
	I'm correctly reading his emotional intent.
	I'm empathizing. With what's going on.
	Now, I'm not sympathizing with him.
	I'm not saying, well, it's really great that he wants to watch me do my jujitsu brownie moves, but I'm certainly empathizing.
	If I'm talking with someone about the truth or about philosophy, and I talk to them, let's say that they like some government program, and then they say, well, but it's right that we have this government program, and then I go through the gun in the room argument, right, that they're all funded through violence and so on, and he's saying that violence should be used to solve human problems, and then if I use the argumentation ethics approach and say, well, but you're debating with me, but you're suggesting that for the poor we use violence, why is that different, whatever, right?
	If I see his reaction to this fairly uncomplicated argument, it's not that complicated to say, well, are taxes voluntary or coerced?
	It really doesn't take people very long to figure that out as a question.
	They might throw a whole load of cloudiness your way, but it's really pretty easy to solve.
	Now, if I get...
	That this person is avoiding answering the question, or this person sees, if I get in my gut, that they see the gun in the room, and then they just wish it away within their own mind.
	And you can see this when you debate with religious people too, right?
	So when they finally get, that they see, when you see them see that there is no God.
	And you can see this when you debate with people, and it really doesn't take that long.
	You can see them see that there is no God or you can see them see the other side of the question.
	And what they do in that moment, you can perceive that in an empathetic way.
	So they lean over the cliff and they look down into the abyss of there being no God.
	And then they withdraw from that and they just go on spouting on about how there is a God because they can't handle it emotionally.
	But they're not honest enough to say, oh my God, you just totally freaked me out.
	Like maybe there is no God and I just got that whole view, but I can't process it.
	It's too intense for me. I would totally respect that as a response.
	People don't have to change their mind, especially about such an important topic immediately.
	So, if you are debating with somebody and you can see them begin to lie because they're seeing the truth.
	If you're debating with someone and you can feel them begin to lie because they see the truth.
	When I was very young, I don't know, about four or five years old, I was engaged in some competition with my brother and his cousins, and even then I felt very hyper-competitive with my brother and so on.
	And we were playing...
	Maybe it was five or six.
	We were playing Scrabble or something like that, and there was some score that I thought was incorrect, and I foolishly went and just started arguing against it.
	And then they sort of went through the reasoning with me, and I got that the score was correct and I was in the wrong, but I kept fighting anyway, because I was a kid, and this was sort of my approach.
	And I went then from error to a lack of integrity, and I was a kid, so it's not exactly like a big crime or a big sin, and of course all of that was provoked through other things in my family, but when you're arguing with an adult and you feel them see the truth, and then you feel them fight against the truth or pretend that they...
	And you can stop them and say, you know, I really got...
	I got that you really got something there.
	Can you tell me a little bit about that?
	And they say, oh, I didn't get anything.
	You were totally wrong. Then, for me, at least it's hard not to feel contempt.
	Because if somebody's arguing with you and they're claiming to be dedicated to the truth, but then they reject the truth when you tell them about it, that's pretty bad, right?
	I feel angry and I feel contemptuous because I feel like I'm just part of somebody's crazy self-justification and that they're wasting my time.
	But if I'm a salesperson and somebody comes into the Mercedes dealership And they're, you know, beautifully dressed.
	They got the Armani. They got the Gucci.
	And they sit down with me and I spend the whole day negotiating with them about a car.
	And then when it comes to signing the paper, they say, oh, I don't have any money.
	I found this suit outside.
	I am actually totally unemployed and I'm living in a trailer park down by the river on a steady diet of government cheese.
	Then part of me is like, well, why are you wasting my time and why are you coming in here knowing full well that dressing in a beautiful suit and negotiating for a Mercedes is going to be taken on good faith as somebody who's interested in buying a car?
	Or if somebody says, I will buy this car from you if you can give it to me for $30,000.
	And then you sweat and you do the numbers, you go talk to your boss, you come back two hours later, and then you say, okay, here's your $30,000 car.
	And they say, no, I've changed my mind.
	Now it has to be $25,000.
	Well, that's kind of frustrating, right?
	I mean, that's kind of annoying. That's a lack of integrity.
	And this happens when you debate with people, right?
	You debate with people and you say, okay, well, what would be your criteria for not believing in God?
	And they say, well, if you can prove that the idea of God is self-contradictory, then I won't believe in God.
	And then you prove that the idea of God is self-contradictory, they just move the post, right?
	Then it's hard not to feel contempt for these kinds of people.
	And that's important.
	It's important to be able to feel contempt from people so you stop wasting your time with people who aren't interested in the truth but are just trying to justify themselves.
	All right.
	We have some more people waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting.
	All right.
	What have we got here?
	Daniel Z5, was it?
	Ooh, some people coming in.
	Welcome, everybody.
	Stefan Molyneux for YouTube, Brandon Radio.
	Daniel Z5, I do believe you are on.
	Amen.
	Hello.
	Hello. Hey, how are you?
	I'm fine, how are you?
	I'm fine, thank you. Where are you?
	I'm in Canada. Oh, I'm from Israel.
	You're from Israel? Well, how's the weather down there?
	Nice and toasty, I imagine. Yes.
	All the people is in addition to me?
	To us? Yes, you are live.
	I guess, what do we have now? We have 40 people on the air, and this also, just in case you're worried about the identification of your voice and your location, this is also published as a podcast.
	This is a show about philosophy.
	Okay, we need to talk about politics.
	You can certainly talk about politics.
	It's certainly a subset of philosophy, hopefully, to be ejected at some point, but go ahead.
	Okay, I have some question.
	I can talk with you free?
	You can totally talk free.
	You can cuss, you can swear, you can do whatever you like.
	We're not regulated here.
	I have a girlfriend.
	She dumped me.
	I don't know what to do. Oh, you don't know what to do?
	How long were you going out for?
	A month. No month.
	A year. A year?
	Okay. And why did she dump you?
	I don't know.
	Okay. Well, what happened?
	She's come to me and told me, I dumped you.
	I don't want you anymore.
	And would you say...
	Sorry, go ahead.
	I don't know what to say.
	I'm very sad. Right, right.
	Well, listen, I have gone through what you're going through a number of times, and so I totally understand that it's heartbreaking.
	And it's more heartbreaking and much harder when you don't know why.
	And I think that's very, very, very tough.
	So I certainly have a lot of sympathy for the pain that occurs when you just get unceremoniously tossed off the island without having any idea why.
	But how was your relationship with this girl going before she dumped you?
	Oh, so good.
	We are like friends.
	We live together and go to movies, you know.
	Right, and are you Jewish?
	Yes, of course.
	And she was Jewish? Yes.
	Okay, no, I'm just checking because I remember getting dumped by a Jewish girl and couldn't figure out why.
	And then it was because I wasn't so much a son of Abraham.
	So I just wanted to check that, you know, just to make sure that I wasn't going to miss something obvious.
	And if you don't mind me asking, how old are you?
	I'm 16.
	You're 16. Okay, and how old is she?
	16. She's 15, okay.
	No, 16. She's 16, okay.
	That's probably good for some legal reasons that we wouldn't want to get into here.
	And you went out for a year, because that's a long relationship when you're 16, right?
	Yes, of course. You guys were together a long time.
	How did you get along with your parents?
	Oh, I met your parents and my father met her father and do the relationship.
	So they didn't disapprove of you because religious parents are...
	Now, are you a secular Jew or are you a religious Jew?
	What? Are you religious or are you more secular?
	I don't know. Okay, so do you go to synagogue?
	Do you pray at the Wailing Wall, or are you more not for the synagogue, not for the religion?
	We are not for the religion.
	Okay. And was she the same way?
	Yes, I think. You think?
	Ah, see, now we're starting to get somewhere, because these are the kinds of questions, you know, I don't want to see your heart get broken again, because brother to brother getting dumped sucks, as you know.
	These are the kinds of questions that, maybe not the first date, but pretty soon in the relationship, You should probably talk about, right?
	Like, how do people feel about religion?
	How do people feel about politics?
	How do people feel like they should raise their children?
	What are their values?
	what do they think is good and bad in life and society.
	I don't want to say that you should maybe just corner these girls and say, tell me all about your philosophy, but it might be useful sooner rather than later, and certainly by a year, to figure out what your girlfriend's, what her values are.
	What does she believe in?
	What does she not believe in?
	What does she think is good?
	What does she think is bad?
	Did you talk politics with her at all?
	Because I know that's a pretty big topic in Israel.
	Sometimes.
	Thank you.
	And did you both have the same views on politics?
	What do you mean? Well, did you both believe the same things, more or less, about politics?
	I mean, neither of you really believe in God, is that...
	Ah, yes, yes, yes.
	We're talking sometimes about politics, and we are...
	I get it.
	Yes. Yes. Okay.
	Now, before she dumped you, were you still seeing each other a lot or were you seeing each other less over time?
	In the school. Right, but you know how like you hang out after school when you're a teenager, right?
	Were you seeing each other the same amount or were you seeing each other more or less before you broke up?
	More. More?
	Wow. Now, did she want to see you more or did you want to see her more?
	I want to see her more.
	And she agreed? Yes, of course.
	Now, did you want to marry this girl?
	What? Did you want to marry this girl?
	I know you're only 16, but I'm just asking.
	What were your plans?
	Of course, I want to marry her.
	So you wanted to marry her, and did you know if she wanted to marry you?
	No. I love this girl.
	I know. That's a tough question to ask when you're 16.
	Look, I'm not trying to put any pressure on you.
	I'm just trying to understand the parameters.
	So you wanted to marry her, and listen, I mean, I totally get that what's going on is totally heartbreaking.
	You wanted to marry her, but you don't know if she wanted to marry you.
	Now, why did you want to start seeing her more, more recently?
	I don't give it.
	You said that you wanted to see her more, more recently.
	And why did you want to see her more?
	Because I love her. Well, but you loved her the whole time, right?
	Yes.
	Now, how did she react when you wanted to see her more?
	Good.
	She and me too.
	I called on the phone.
	I asked her if she wanted to come to me.
	And yes, she came.
	And then, one day, after you're seeing her more, she comes to you and she says, we're over.
	Just like this.
	No warning. What?
	There was no warning, no signs, no clues that you were going to say this.
	No. Well, I've got to tell you, my friend, and I don't mean to add to your troubles, but this may be advice that may be helpful that may not be.
	You can let me know. If you don't know that there's something wrong, but there is something wrong, then there's something wrong.
	Sorry, that's complicated. Did you ask her when you were going out?
	Did you say, are you enjoying this relationship?
	Did you check in with her?
	Like, you know, if you run a business, right, you will ask your customers, right, you see this in restaurants and places, right, where they say, did you enjoy your service?
	Did you enjoy your food?
	Do you like the restaurant?
	This is always happening in business, right?
	Like they say, Are you enjoying being in my restaurant?
	And I would say that for yourself, because if you don't know what happened, and maybe you'll never know what happened, but for the next time, and there will be a next time, you sound like a very sexy guy, so there will be a next time.
	Next time, what I would like you to try is this.
	Every month, You sit the girl down and you say, are you enjoying being my girlfriend?
	Is there anything that I could do that would make me a better boyfriend?
	And that way you'll know whether she likes being your girlfriend and then hopefully you won't get, you know, punched in the heart like this.
	Does that make sense?
	Yes, of course. Just keep asking the people in your life whether or not they are enjoying your company, whether or not they're happy.
	I keep asking my wife, is there anything that I could do to make you happier?
	And then she usually says, if you could stop asking me so often, what makes you happy?
	What could make me happier?
	I mean this really seriously.
	We need to keep asking the people in our life if there's anything that we can do to make them happier, if we love them and we want to keep them.
	I get that you love this girl.
	It should be more important for us to do this with the people that we love than for a restaurant or a cell phone company to do this with its customers, if that makes sense.
	Okay. Thank you very much.
	Listen, I really appreciate that.
	I hope it goes well. If you can ask this girl what happened, it will help, but you may never find out.
	But just in the next relationship, keep asking if the girl is happy.
	Okay, thank you. I hope that was helpful.
	Thank you so much for calling in. Okay.
	Goodbye. Goodbye.
	Bye.
	Thank you so much.
	Thank you.
	Huey?
	Mustafa.
	Is he gone?
	Mustafa, you have left us!
	How sad. Really?
	Gone? Totally gone? Absolutely gone.
	Completely and totally gone. No not being gone.
	Left. Okay, great.
	Well, that's anything in the chat window that I need to...
	A debate that's not about me?
	Mustafa's back. Ah, he's back.
	Okay. Mustafa, Mustafa, Mustafa Ibrahim.
	All right, let's get you in here.
	All right. Mr.
	690, you are on the air.
	Yes, please, go ahead. Hello?
	Hello. Yeah, can you hear me?
	I sure can. Okay, what's your name?
	My name is Stefan. Huh?
	My name is Stefan.
	Stefan? Yes.
	You serious? Like, you try to be close to my name?
	Did I get your name completely right?
	My name is Mustafa.
	Ah. Oh, I think I did Mustafa, right?
	Yeah. Mustafa.
	Well, welcome aboard. What can I do for you?
	I just have questions about what do you think about the people that get married on the internet?
	Oh, they meet over the internet and they get married?
	Is that... Yeah.
	Would you like to answer that one?
	Because you've had more experience with that than I have.
	Now, my wife is a psychologist in the family, so I'm going to let her answer this, plus a friend of hers went this route, so...
	Hi, Mustafa. It's Christina speaking.
	Mustafa. It's Christina speaking.
	And I have a little bit to say about internet dating.
	I've known several people who have met individuals, partners over the internet.
	I can think of two relationships, two people that I know quite well who had relationships over the internet.
	One actually married...
	One actually married the man that she met, and the other one had a long-term relationship.
	And in both cases, the relationships have gone sour.
	I think it's very, very, very dangerous to get involved.
	I mean, internet dating, it's there.
	It's here. I mean, it's out there.
	People are doing it. We have all these sites here in Ontario.
	We've got Lava Life. We've got...
	Oh, whatever. There are a bunch of different internet dating sites, and I think that it's very difficult to find someone over the internet that you can actually truly know.
	I think there's a lot to be said for meeting somebody in public.
	The first impression is always, always, always important.
	We learn about people through their behavior.
	We learn about people through their body language.
	We learn about people through the way they interact with us as well as with other people.
	That's not to say if you meet someone over the internet that you're not going to have an opportunity to get to know that person one-on-one, but it's very, very difficult.
	And it's a very different kind of dating than obviously...
	I'm married.
	I've been married for four years, so it's been a long time since I've been dating.
	I don't think you dated before we got married, did you?
	He's not showing me before.
	And I never did internet dating, so, I mean, it's different from my experience.
	I know it's out there. I just, I think it's very hard to really know someone over the internet.
	You need to spend a lot of time with that person, talking with them, body language, just learning about who they are, and that's not going to happen over the computer.
	Why, have you met someone special?
	No, really. Yeah, it's risky.
	It's very hard to know exactly how it is to go about meeting people.
	When I was single, generally, again, I'm no dating expert, but my experience has been that if you pursue activities that you like, I mean, I happened to meet my wife at a volleyball game, I was actually trying out for the girls team in drag, for obvious reasons.
	But we met playing sports, so at least I knew she was going to be active.
	At least I knew that she was going to be courageous because it was a mixed league and she's about the size of...
	Garden gnome on steroids.
	And so I knew that she was brave.
	I knew that she was a good team player.
	I knew she had a good sense of humor.
	I also knew that she was not insecure because it's tough to go out, you know, when you're a fairly shortish lady to go out and play volleyball with a bunch of thuggish guys, myself included.
	So I could get quite a lot of information just about my wife, or my wife-to-be, just by meeting her on a volleyball court, right?
	So on the internet, you don't have any of those things.
	You don't get... You don't get verbal cues.
	You don't get body language.
	You don't get all that kind of stuff.
	So it's not impossible, but I think that you should approach it very skeptically, right?
	There's that old New Yorker cartoon where there's a dog at a computer saying, you know, on the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog.
	And I think that could be quite true.
	So I'd be, you know, keep your wits about you.
	It definitely is a buyer beware kind of environment.
	And that's all about the question that I have.
	Thank you about your information.
	Sure. Well, good luck. And just remember to keep asking people about their values.
	It's very important. Don't get involved with people.
	Don't give your heart away until you know what people's values are.
	So who else do we have?
	All right.
	We have somebody else.
	I'm going to have to go in order because this one's sorted in order.
	Yeah. Yeah.
	There is no fairness on the Internet, I'm afraid.
	Oops. All right.
	Sorry. My controls are going haywire, so let me just go back to this.
	And we have Bellis Desire.
	You had a question. Would you like to speak now?
	Hey, how you doing? I'm good.
	How you doing? I'm all right.
	Just here in the chat.
	Can you hear me good?
	I can hear you very well.
	Thanks. Okay.
	Well, I think online is really good with the connection service as far as dating and stuff.
	That would never work.
	As far as personal friends and stuff like that, it does seem to work.
	But anything beyond that, it's not worth it.
	Have you had sort of experience in this sort of way?
	Like you showed up for a date and there was like an Asian trucker or something?
	Or was it not that traumatic?
	No, actually, the only one that I met online is my wife, and I'm still with her to this day.
	So when you say it doesn't work, I'm not sure I'm following your reasoning completely there.
	You know, you really don't know the past of the person, and it catches up to you.
	Like on anybody. Right, right.
	It's a lot easier to, I mean, I don't know exactly how to put it in a nice way, and I'm sure your wife is the complete exception to this.
	It's a lot easier to lie on the internet, right, or to present a different kind of persona.
	There's, you know, 90% of communication between people is non-verbal.
	It's body language, it's You know, facial tics and sweating and self-groping and nose-picking and all the other stuff that goes on with people's behavior.
	You don't get much of that on the Internet.
	People can really polish up their responses.
	They can pretend to be somewhat different from who they really are.
	That's very difficult to fake face to face, but it's a lot easier to fake on the Internet.
	For instance, I'm a chihuahua.
	Not many people know that. And if I was in front of you right now, all you'd hear is a small, shrill barking.
	So this is just an example of what I'm talking about.
	Oh, wow. I know.
	It's cool. That's why I don't do the webcam, because I think I'd lose credibility.
	Do you go to Taco Bell? That's right.
	Well, you know, since I lost that gig, I've really had to backfill quite a bit, and this is now my new gig.
	I'm the philosophical chihuahua.
	Oh, so now you're south of the border.
	Yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right, that's right.
	All right. That sounds great.
	Did you have any other comments?
	No, actually, no.
	If anybody is actually looking for a job or to make money, you can contact me.
	All right, well, feel free to right-click on Bellis Desire, and thank you so much for listening.
	We will now move on to the next.
	Thanks. Hey, how are you? I'm good, how are you doing?
	Yeah, I'm good, thank you.
	Good evening.
	I'm from South Africa.
	Oh yes, I have visited there.
	Have you? Yeah, my father used to live in South Africa.
	I visited him when I was six and again when I was 16.
	Beautiful country. I've got quite a complicated situation now.
	I've got a girlfriend. Currently I'm not living in South Africa at the moment.
	So, yeah, I've got a girlfriend and I've been going out to this girl for about seven years now.
	And about a month ago, I have to keep She went to the doctor and they did some tests.
	That test. Yes.
	And I found out that she was HIV positive.
	I'm sorry, can you just repeat that last statement?
	There were some tests about the...
	Was it your daughter?
	No, no, no. She went to the doctor.
	Oh, the doctor. She had some tests and what were the results?
	Yeah, I found out that she was HIV positive.
	Okay. Yeah, and I went for a test as well about a week ago, and they came out negative.
	Negative for you, right?
	Yeah. Oh, well, good for you.
	I mean, that's a... I'm so sorry you had to go through that.
	That's a real nail-biter, to say the least.
	But sorry, go ahead. Yeah, and...
	You know, it's a very, very, very difficult situation for me, and, you know, I'm thinking, you know, I've been with her for all this time, and something like this that time, and then, you know, and then I found out that I'm HIV-COVID, negative, and then that she is HIV-COVID, and, you know, and it's just, So traumatic, man.
	I don't even know what to do.
	Now, I'm sorry that I missed this earlier.
	How long have you been going out with her?
	For about seven years.
	Seven years, right. Now, what's her story about how she contracted the virus?
	Because it can be dormant, I think, for up to ten years, though, of course, I'm no doctor, but what's her story?
	Um... And there's no way to tell based on the profile of the diagnosis how long ago she might have been infected,
	is that correct? No, not yet, but then I think she's going for some other tests in about a week or two weeks time.
	Right. Yeah, and then we'll be sure.
	Okay, well, I mean, this is the internet, so I'm going to be blunt and forgive me and feel free not to answer any questions.
	Do you love her? Yes, I do.
	And what is it that you love about her?
	Everything. I'm sorry?
	No, I love everything about him.
	Personality, everything.
	Well, yeah, I understand what you're saying, but what is it specifically about this woman that you love?
	Is she a very courageous person?
	Is she honest?
	Is she virtuous?
	Yes, she is a very honest and virtuous kind of person.
	She's very understanding.
	Yeah, there is a lot of attitude that is very honest.
	Okay, and has your...
	I'm sorry, I'm getting a lot of background.
	Let me just I'm just going to try.
	Sorry about all that. Maybe just try and unmute you again.
	I'm not sure if the background was coming from you.
	Oh, it is. Okay. But does your heart, you know, in your heart of hearts, we usually have a pretty good idea About what to do next with our lives.
	Do you have...
	Is it the case that something within your heart of hearts is saying maybe that you don't want to stay with this woman, but you feel like it's wrong to feel that?
	Is that what the conflict is?
	Yes. Yeah, that's correct.
	In my heart of hearts, you know, there is a part that shows you, I mean, you know, of my life, you know...
	I'm so sorry. This must be very frustrating for you, and I'm sorry that I can't hear you very well.
	There's an enormous amount of background noise, and I'm having trouble catching what you're saying.
	No, no, it's not your fault.
	I mean, this is the joy of the new technological frontier.
	But I would say this, that...
	That we as human beings don't owe each other anything.
	You don't owe her your love.
	You don't owe her your time.
	You don't owe her your allegiance.
	You don't owe her your loyalty.
	I know you've been together for a long time, and that means that you owe nothing to her.
	I mean, I've known my wife for five years.
	We've been married for four years.
	If she decided to leave me tomorrow, That would be entirely her decision.
	There is nothing that we owe each other.
	There is no accumulation of debt or of obligation that we have towards each other.
	If you love this woman and you are passionate about her virtue, Then her being HIV positive is definitely a blow, but it's manageable, right?
	I mean, there's protections that you can take, there's precautions that you can take, which will make it a manageable crisis or a manageable difficulty.
	But I think that what your heart of hearts is telling you It's that this woman is not somebody that, if she comes with HIV symptoms or HIV diagnosis, that this is not somebody that is worth that kind of difficulty.
	And if that's what your heart of hearts is telling you, then I for one would listen to it, however difficult or painful that is.
	We also don't like sometimes the judgment that might come from other people, where they say, ooh, that nasty South African guy, you know, his longtime girlfriend, she was HIV positive and he just ran off.
	And sometimes we don't like that kind of judgment that might come to us, but it's your own integrity and your own heart and your own virtue and your own responsibility to your own health and your own happiness that is the most important in life.
	And if this is not the woman for you, then I would not go through the charade of continuing the relationship.
	I do think that if you've been together for seven years and she contracts either through, I guess it would be the most common either through drug use or through sexual relations, if she contracts HIV, that's a pretty significant question that I would have.
	I mean, that's a pretty significant question about fidelity or about some sort of life that I don't know about.
	If she was somebody in the past who engaged in such risky behaviors, and of course I know that in Africa as a whole this is a pretty big epidemic, if she's somebody who in the past engaged in these kinds of risky behaviors and didn't tell you That's another indication that this may not be the person who's the best person for you or for anyone.
	Because if she did have unprotected sex in a continent where AIDS is very common and if she didn't tell you about that or if she shed needles or engaged in anal sex or any of the other kinds of risk factors involved in this and didn't tell you, Then that's pretty risky.
	I mean, that's a big risk to take with your health.
	So I think that either there was infidelity on her part with a risky partner, which she didn't tell you about, which is a very bad thing, in my opinion, or She did things in the past which exposed both her and thus inevitably you to this kind of desperate health risk, which is also not a very good thing.
	So I think that what your heart of hearts is telling you is that this is revealing something fairly unpleasant about a woman that you love, and I would not myself...
	I think that's a deal-breaker for me.
	I mean, it would be for me. Again, everyone has their own conscience to follow, but I think that if somebody exposed my health to these kinds of risks and didn't tell me, Then that would be a deal-breaker as far as love went.
	Yeah, well, yeah, it is, right?
	I think so, because, you know, I'm thinking, you know, of course, my life to live, and, you know, if something like that comes up, and, you know, you really ask yourself some questions, you know, where did it all,
	like, started, and what happened, and, you know, and, yeah, just doing a lot of, like, Talking to myself at the moment and just trying to see, you know, where do I sit in all this and, you know. But, yeah, but thank you.
	Thank you for listening.
	And, yeah, I really have to, you know, do a lot of thinking and a lot of consideration.
	And, yeah, let's make a correct decision, I think.
	Hi, this is Stefan's wife, Christina.
	And I just want to tell you that I didn't hear all of it.
	I had to step out of the room for a couple of minutes.
	But I think I caught the gist of what's going on here.
	And I just want to say that, you know, I'm sorry this is going on for you.
	It must be a very difficult thing to do, but I think, you know, having heard what Steph was saying to you, I would have to agree with him wholeheartedly, 100%.
	You have to put your life first in this situation, HIV and AIDS. As we know, I mean, they are manageable, and people with this disease or with this virus are living longer and longer, but it's still a very fatal disease, and you need to put your own life first.
	There is no shame in saying, I can't be with this person.
	Particularly, we don't know the circumstances under which she contracted this virus, and Again, we only know what you've told us.
	We don't know the circumstances under which she contracted this virus, but unless it was through a blood transfusion, and God knows that hasn't been happening at all lately because of all the increases that they've done in ensuring the quality of blood, it was probably through some other activity like sharing a needle or indiscriminate sexual activity with someone who was infected as well.
	I would say that there's a problem in the relationship there already.
	I can understand that you've been with her for seven years and it's a very difficult situation that you're in, but you have to put yourself first, absolutely yourself first in this situation.
	Think about what you need, what you want, and think about your future and your life.
	And he's right.
	We don't know anybody, anything.
	We have to focus on ourselves.
	And that's not being selfish.
	There's nothing wrong or immoral about that.
	It's just having integrity, particularly in a case like this.
	All right. All right.
	Thanks for all your encouragement and your eyes.
	Yeah, thank you.
	Right. It is a very hard decision.
	You know, I would look upon...
	I'm not a religious man, as I'm sure you can guess, but I would look upon this positive diagnosis that you've received, that you are HIV-free.
	That's a shot across your bowels, and if you keep going, you may not be as lucky, so I would definitely make my peace with getting out.
	All right. Okay. Thanks so much, yeah?
	Right. And listen, don't be afraid to talk to a counselor.
	This is something that is a very hard thing to go through.
	And for heaven's sake, don't start dating again too soon.
	The generally perceived wisdom is that it takes about half as long as you've been in the relationship to get out of a...
	to sort of overcome it.
	So thanks so much for calling.
	Stay in touch. Come by.
	We do talk about relationship issues in the show at freedomainradio.com.
	You may find some solutions there that might be of help, but...
	Yeah, I would definitely, that would be a deal breaker for me.
	Not so much the getting the ailment, but the risky behavior that would have threatened my health.
	Who's the next one?
	Therimele? T-H-E-R-Y. I'm not even going to try and pronounce this one.
	you have a question?
	Therry Mallet.
	Therimele. Theory of mallets.
	Are you live? Are you on?
	Are you going to talk with us?
	Yes, yes, I'm on.
	Hey, how's it going? Hi, how are we doing?
	Good, good. Good.
	So, it's my first time.
	I enjoy your conversation.
	So, it's very interesting.
	There's nice issues.
	There are nice people.
	That's great. I'm glad.
	Did you have a question? Not precisely, just I want to try to talk to you if you have some issues to discuss or something like that.
	Sure, if you'd like to.
	Go ahead. So, I'm telecommunication engineering.
	I live in Anne-French.
	I live in Anne-French.
	So I work for many countries.
	So actually now I'm in Qatar, in the Gulf.
	And how's that going?
	Good, good.
	It's a nice country, nice people.
	It's okay, it's okay.
	Safety country, yeah?
	Yeah. So where you come from?
	I was born in Ireland, I grew up in England, now I live in Canada.
	Ah, okay, very good.
	I'm doing the tour of the colonies.
	Okay, okay, good.
	So, if you have any questions or have any things to discuss, I don't know.
	Well, listen, I generally sort of receive the questions during the show.
	We have someone else, I think, waiting.
	So, mull it over.
	If you have a question, we generally talk about philosophy.
	As you can see that we've had some more specific applications of philosophy to personal relationships for the last couple of callers.
	But if you have questions about philosophy or politics or religion or personal relations, we cover it here.
	No, politics, I don't think so, because it's very wide things, so everybody has something, some different opinions, so I don't like to discuss In general, I don't like to discuss politics.
	Right, right. Okay, well, listen, if you've got any, feel free to come back in.
	Just click on the sort of request mic thing.
	I'm going to mute you just for a moment because we have somebody else who wants to chat, but feel free to come back on.
	Oh, did he just leave us?
	Ray... R-E-F-A-T-2-0-6-3.
	You have the mic.
	Oh, did he just leave? I think you have the mic.
	Would you like to speak? Say something I can hear.
	It says he's on, right?
	Let me just turn up my volume here in case he has a silent mic.
	Oh, I'm sorry, baby. I didn't mean to blow your ears out either.
	My wife's listening on the headphones.
	All right. I'll just try...
	Is he saying anything?
	Has he left? He's back!
	Yeah, no, I'm just trying that, so let's see if he's got anything.
	No? Alright.
	Well, we've been going for two hours and twenty minutes, eh?
	So let me just, if anybody else has any sort of final questions, feel free to speak now or hold your peace until next week.
	So if you had any sort of questions, I'd be more than happy to answer them.
	And I'm just going through the list of anybody who Pinged me there while I was rambling and chatting around the room.
	Yeah, we can do 588 next week, if you like.
	So, where I will be adopting a French accent, I think, for the whole show.
	Sorry? Yeah, to go with me.
	And it will be a stereotypical and vaguely offensive French accent, like most of my imitations.
	Do we have any other questions coming in?
	Okay, well, thanks so much, everyone, for listening.
	I really appreciate it. It's been a wonderful show.
	I appreciate the people who are opening their hearts to the Internet questions and answers.
	That's right. So we will be doing the Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkey show next week, and it will be most offensive for everyone.
	Wait, we have one last gentleman who wishes to ask a question.
	Take us home, Dave Dufour.
	How are you? I'm good.
	How are you doing? Pretty good.
	What's your schedule on these?
	I just sort of came in on the tail end here, and I wondered what the...
	Oh, man. You know, if you'd have been here just a few minutes earlier, we just finished solving the last problem in the world.
	So, I'm so sorry.
	You know, that would have been life-changing for you, so that's a real shame.
	We start at 4 o'clock Eastern Standard Time, which I guess is sort of New York time, 4 o'clock on Sundays, and we go for about sort of two to two and a half hours.
	If you'd like to sort of get a gist of the kinds of conversations that we have here, I run a podcast at Free Domain Radio.
	You can listen to a couple of shows there if you like.
	and we talk about everything sort of philosophical, political, personal, psychological, artistic, and everything in between, basically using sort of Socratic conversations and logical philosophy and so on.
	So that's generally the approach that we take.
	I'm sure you'll enjoy the shows if you like ideas, and feel free to...
	Did you have any sort of immediate questions that are going to be ridiculously easy to answer?
	No, no, I just sort of happened upon this in the Skypecast directory, so I just didn't know I wanted to know when it was coming back again, because it looks interesting, partly because I think you have some...
	I looked at the website, too, and it appears we have a little...
	A little shared philosophy as far as the libertarianism and Possibly objectivism?
	Oh, yes. Oh, absolutely.
	I was a randroid from the beginning.
	I have expanded a little bit in certain areas from there, but without a doubt, that Aristotelian, slavish, randian approach is definitely...
	It gets my motor running, so if you have similar approaches, I'm sure...
	And now, I've got...
	Well, we can talk about this next week, but be sure to come back in, and we can discuss more about it, because...
	I've now moved over to the joyful land of Libertopia, known as anarcho-capitalism, which is a stateless society.
	So I go a little bit further than Ayn Rand does, but that would be certainly an interesting topic for discussion.
	And we can have the Converter Wars next week, if you like.
	Perfect. All right.
	Well, thank you. What's your first name again?
	Dave. Dave. Well, thanks very much.
	Do try and come back next week, and if you'd like to drop by the boards or listen to a couple of podcasts, I'm sure you would find them stimulating, if not entertaining.
	Great. All right.
	Thank you. Well, thanks very much.
	I appreciate it. Thanks, everyone, for calling in.
	Again, thanks to those who have shared some of their personal trials and tribulations.
	The Internet is a place where we can have these kinds of conversations that can be quite powerful, and I really do appreciate those who shared girlfriend and relationship woes, as well as those who've been asking challenging philosophical questions.
	So with that, we will sign off for this week.
	Thank you so much for listening.
	Have yourselves a wonderful, wonderful week.
	And I will talk to everyone next week.

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