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April 11, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
15:18
705 Self Expression Part 2: A response to a youtuber's objections

Thanks to a watcher for some excellent criticisms

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Good evening, everybody. Hope you're doing well.
It's Steph. It is time for a response to the last podcast that I did on self-expression.
So no listening out of order, you people.
Let's get this thing straight.
It's anarchy, but not chaos.
So, I did a podcast, blah, blah, blah, I was on vacation, donations dipped, and I nagged in a highly philosophical manner, hopefully.
And so, I got a fabulous response, and I'm going to read it, and then give you my thoughts, and then you can tell me what you think.
I have thought about your video, sayeth a listener.
While you make a good point about straightforwardness in communication, I have a few criticisms of your analysis.
First, let me preface this by saying that I only make these arguments because I value you and your podcasts.
No offence is intended.
I say this, though I don't think it necessary.
You seem very slow to take offence.
I'm glad that that was the last three words there.
One, let's think about what it would have meant if donations increased while you went away.
It would have meant that the donators valued your absence more than your presence.
Give him money. Maybe he will stay in the Bahamas.
This would have been weird indeed, perhaps even offensive.
Two, how do you know that they were aware of how much they would miss you?
I think we frequently only truly see how much we value a thing when we lack that thing for a time.
Actually, I feel that very much with oxygen.
The decrease in donations shows how much they valued your presence versus your absence in their lives.
Numero trois. You may object saying, look at employer-employee relationships.
Of course a boss gives paid vacation because he sees that it makes the worker more productive.
But his economic reactions are based on a certain knowledge about how that employee will act in the future.
He knows that the employee has only two weeks of paid vacation, not five.
Since our interactions with you contain no such guarantees, How could you expect us to continue paying you over that time?
I guess the time on my vacation.
The economic relationships have different information and future expectations in the form of one having a contract and the other not.
And thus are very different.
Quatorze! Let's consider that you invite a friend over to a party.
You pay for his food, drinks, and entertainment at your party.
This friend then says, if you care about me, wouldn't you pay for this same food and drink even if I don't come to your party?
I mean, don't you value me?
Of course I value the friend's happiness.
However, I do not value his happiness outside my presence as much as I value his happiness within my presence precisely because he is my friend.
Again, if you invited a friend over to a meal at a good restaurant and a movie afterwards and he said, why don't you eat at Ruth's Chris and I will eat at Nobu?
It's still your treat, right?
I might not be upset that he wanted only to meet for the film, but I sure as hell would not pay for him to eat dinner away from me.
No offense, but in the name of the very honesty you argue for, I think your analysis here is off.
Frankly, just as the friend should be, should in the above examples, Frankly, just as the friend should in the above examples, you should have expected donations to fall off.
No one said anything because it was implicit.
Excellent series of arguments, and I hugely appreciate this kind of response.
Keep me on the straight and narrow, make sure that I'm not coming up with anything too wild or wacky or crazy.
So I'll give some sort of responses, and you can let me know what you think.
Let's take a look at the first point that he says.
What would it mean if donations increased while you went away?
It would mean that donators valued my absence more than my presence.
I don't think that logically follows.
At least that's not how I would have taken it.
If... I go away and the donations increase, what I would take out of that is that people wanted to make sure I was coming back.
So if I was some employee, and we'll deal with the employer-employee relationship, which I have some doubts or questions about in a moment, but...
If I went on vacation and my boss had some thought or feeling, he really recognized how much he valued me and how nothing was getting done while I was away and his whole business was falling apart, just to take an extreme example, Then it seems likely that he would offer me a raise or he would at least continue to pay.
Forget the contract just for a moment.
If my wife ever seemed to be interested in leaving me because, say, I'm currently radioactive, then I would not say, well, I'm not going to pay her any attention because I'm not going to reinforce that kind of behavior.
That's exactly when I would double up the buying of video cards, electronics equipment.
Oh wait, no, that's why she'd be leaving me in the first place.
Woman, what do you like again, honey?
Salads, perfume, jewelry.
No, though you can't get those things at Future Shop.
Anyway, Where was I? Anyway, so I would say that if I'm away, donations could increase, and then people would say...
What I would take out of that is people really recognize that they missed me, and blah, blah, blah.
So I don't think it would be offensive or logical for donations to increase because people would rather me not be in their lives, because, of course, all they have to do is not listen to podcasts or watch videos, and the mission accomplished.
They don't need to not pay me, right?
So... Number two, how do you know that they were aware of how much they would miss you?
I think we frequently only truly see how much we value a thing when we lack that thing for a time.
The decrease in donations shows how much they valued your presence versus absence in their lives.
Again, I'm sort of having trouble, you could be totally right, I'm having trouble just following that, just in my own sort of heart and mind, because if you value someone, and then they're drifting out of your life, shouldn't you redouble your efforts to make them happy, to whatever, whatever? I mean, I would certainly say that that could be a valid argument, which would seem to go against the grain of what you're saying, but again, let me know what you think.
Now, you may object saying, look at employer-employee relationships.
Of course, a boss gives paid vacation because he sees it will make the worker more productive.
Well, I would say, economically, that's not the case.
That's not why employers give employees vacations, because it will sort of make them more productive.
The reason that employers give employees vacations is that if they don't, no one will come and work at their place, right?
So, that's sort of why they do it.
So, I would sort of say that it's more of a competition thing.
I mean, bosses are not evil people.
They're benevolent and nice and sometimes nasty, but why they offer wages...
I mean, everybody would like you to work 18 hours a day for no pay, but it's the competition for workers that requires the offering of a...
Sorry, the camera's acting up a little bit.
So the reason that bosses will offer you vacation is because of the competition for workers and what workers will settle for, and of course sometimes because there are laws.
Not that I agree with them, but there are there.
Now, some belief that the worker is going to continue to be productive in the future is obviously a valid reason as to why employers will grant vacations to employees.
This is really up to you whether 704 podcasts, or I guess when I want on vacation, 698 podcasts, Over a sort of 16-month period, whether you feel that's productivity that's going to continue in the future, you may or may not be aware of the fact that I'm in my last couple of weeks of paid work because I'm going to move to do free domain radio videos and audio.
God helped me full-time. So I would say that as far as the commitment goes to producing quality work in this venue or in this format, I think that you probably have more assurances from me that I'm going to aim to do that, since I'm going to rely on it as my sole source of livelihood, relative to any employee that you might have who might quit and get another job, or just get addicted to heroin, and since I've already gone through the whole horse thing, I don't need that anymore.
Overall, I think that you can be fairly confident that I'm going to be producing good work, and continue to be producing good work, because this is what I've been able to do just part-time.
Once I get into it full-time, there will be at least 8 to 10 hours of podcasts a day.
Because, at Free Debate Radio, quality is quantity.
So I think that that's not a very good...
I mean, for me, again, let me know what you think.
It's not a very good argument to say, well, we don't know if Steph's going to do anything in the future, so why would we pay him?
The other thing that I would say...
Oh, actually, no, we'll get to that in a sec.
So the fourth argument, let's consider that you invite a friend over to a party.
You pay for his food, drinks, and entertainment at your party.
A friend says, if you care about me, wouldn't you pay for the same food and drink even if I didn't come to your party?
Perfectly valid. I'm not going to argue a cent about that.
But what I sort of wanted to be clear about with the people who did not donate, there's a regular pattern of donations now, it's been running for about 10 months, and I've got sort of the hang of it by now, when people are going to donate and when they don't, and what the average is per month.
So I don't have any beef with people who would have Who donated in the normal course of events or who had donated in the past and decided not to donate in those two weeks, totally fine.
But what I am aware of is that there were people who statistically should have donated in those two-week period who decided not to donate in that two-week period.
And that was really sort of what I was talking about.
So, saying that you're going to pay for a friend and then he wants you to pay for him even if he's not showing up, That, to me, is not quite the same, because I wasn't asking people who were regularly paying to pay more when I was on vacation.
I was really just talking to those people who had decided not to donate while I was on vacation.
So I think it's a little bit different, but again, let me know what you think.
Again, he says, if you invited a friend over to a meal at a good restaurant and a movie afterwards, and he said, well, you treat me to a dinner somewhere else, and then I'll meet you for the film, you're of course not going to pay him to eat dinner away from you.
I totally agree with you.
So, here's where I have no beef with anyone, and I'm sorry if I wasn't clear in the last podcast.
The suggested honor system donation for the Freedom A Radio podcast is a whole 50 cents for a podcast.
Usually 30 to 45 minutes of, I think, fairly high-quality philosophy, some not-so-high-quality jokes, and some very exciting driving.
So, my beef, or my complaint, or my question, or my sort of offering to the people who didn't donate, who would have, I had no beef whatsoever with people who had paid me 50 cents a podcast.
I had donated almost $350.
Or those who were subscribers or the people who had paid the sort of honor system donation for the podcast.
And then while I was away, they were fully caught up with their donations.
And then when I was away on vacation, I wasn't producing any new podcasts.
And therefore, they weren't paying me for anything.
I have no problem with that.
If everybody did that, I would actually be podcasting from a space station of my own construction.
That I have absolutely no issues with.
I guess the issue that I had, since we're going to focus just on the economic side, I focused on the psychological aspect in the last video podcast, The issue is that people who would have donated who didn't donate,
statistically, because donations dropped an enormous amount while I was on vacation, there is an argument to be made, and I made this argument before, so I won't really make it again, other than to say that there was a form of displeasure and withdrawal that was going on through not donating, which was not clear and direct in terms of communication with me.
Clearly, if what I have done in the past is providing to you value in the present, Then it doesn't matter whether I'm on vacation or not.
So if I say, well, I'm not going to go and see the new Tom Cruise movie because Tom Cruise is currently on vacation, or I'm going to go and see the new Tom Cruise movie, but I'm going to sneak in and I'm not going to pay for it because he's not currently working on that movie.
Well, by definition, all of the podcasts of mine and the videos that you're consuming, I'm not working on in the present.
So, there are all these people who are chewing through the...
I've had well over a million downloads of podcasts and video views.
There are all these people who are consuming what it is that I've put out, which I think is wonderful.
I think it's great, and this is not a nag for donations.
But, by definition, people are chewing their way through the podcasts and videos.
There's no conceivable way that...
Everybody's caught up, and everyone has donated.
I mean, I know that for a fact. That's fine.
This is just an experiment in sort of a business model.
That's fine. But by definition, the people who are going through my podcasts are consuming something that I've put out that is of value to them, which I think is great, and I'm not working on that.
I'm not driving around with a podcast card saying, you know, man, would you like any podcasts?
I have a fresh bouquet of them for you right now.
Everything that people are consuming is stuff that I've produced previously, so it doesn't matter if you're on podcast 300.
And you've got another 400 podcasts to go, which at one a day is going to take you over a year, so obviously you need three or four a day.
If someone's on podcast 300 and I'm on vacation, it doesn't matter one bit that I'm on vacation and they still have 400 podcasts to go.
The only people who, I mean, this is in the totally ideal, perfect world, the only people who could legitimately not, I think, just from a sort of honor standpoint, who would legitimately not donate the 50 cents a podcast or a video, Would be those who had caught up, who had paid me for the podcast that they had consumed, and then said, well, I'm not going to pay him anymore because I'm fully caught up.
I've paid him for everything he's produced that I've consumed, and so now that he's on vacation, I'm not going to pay him anymore.
That's like paying for the electricity that you use.
You go on vacation, you turn off all your electrical appliances, you don't pay for that electricity.
I totally accept and understand that.
What I was talking about was something a little bit different, so I won't go into a huge amount of detail, but that was sort of the difference that I was working with.
A fantastic, fantastic letter.
I really appreciate it.
Very, very well thought out, very well communicated, and I'm certainly open to hear corrections on what it is that I'm saying, but I just wanted to point out Thank you so much for listening.
Yes, I'm going to say it.
And I look forward to your donations.
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