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May 20, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:22:53

764 Sunday Call In Show, May 20 2007

Withdrawing from Iraq, a fan of Uncle Joe, Agnosticism/Catholicism and Stef's manipulations! ;)

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	Well, good afternoon everybody.
	Hope you're doing well. It's just after four o'clock on May the 20th, 2007, Sunday, Eastern Standard Time, in the year of our Lord, 2007.
	So, I hope that you are having a wonderful weekend.
	Here, it's a long weekend. And by long weekend, what I mean is I'll never have to go back to work for an office job.
	And by that, I mean long weekend lasting hopefully 40 or 50 more years.
	So I hope that you're having a wonderful weekend.
	And thank you so much for joining on this chat this afternoon.
	And we've had some ideas for topics, and I'll leave the one that I was going to do.
	I'll do that as a podcast. And there is a question which somebody has put forward where he said that he can't think of any particularly...
	Sorry, he says, I can always learn more about how to present the idea of a stateless society to smart friends.
	I failed miserably.
	The other day. And that always is a challenge.
	That is always a challenge. Naturally, of course, you don't want to be enslaved to presenting arguments to friends.
	And it struck me while I was thinking about the show, while I was doing my heavy prep work, which usually involves just peeing, getting ready for the show, it did sort of strike me that, you know, when we debate with religious people, and this is, I don't know, this is a pretty advanced technique.
	Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't, but I'd rather you people try it than me.
	When we debate with religious people, we are fairly comfortable with the idea of the burden of proof being on them.
	The burden of proof is on the religious folks and that's something that we know as sort of fairly experienced atheist debaters that we should put that onus on them.
	Because the stateless society is not a positive prescription.
	The stateless society is not a positive prescription.
	It's not something that we need to prove.
	I don't think it's bad to have this in the back of her pocket, you know, like how things could work in a stateless society, but it's not actually something we need to prove.
	The existence of a government is so contrary to how everybody lives their life in day-to-day situations, I mean, except for like the police themselves, the military themselves, The existence and process of a state is so counter to how everybody lives their own personal lives that I would say that the people who are statists or minarchists need to prove their proposition.
	I think that would be a reasonable way to approach it.
	So here's a debating tip, and I promise to try it out and see how it works, but it just sort of struck me.
	When you're talking with someone who says, well, I don't believe that a stateless society could work or a stateless society is nonsense, there's sort of a combination of an argument that we've had for a long time and this sort of new argument where you could say, okay, well, you, my esteemed opponent in this matter, You don't use violence to achieve your ends.
	I don't use violence to achieve my ends.
	Certainly by debating, and this is Hoppe's argumentation ethics, but certainly by debating, we are accepting that peace and voluntarism and civility and discourse are how civilized human beings resolve their differences.
	So, the norm is voluntarism, debating, rationality, pacifism, and that's what we, you and I, are expressing in this debate.
	Now, you want to introduce something that's very much the opposite of what you're doing with me, right?
	I mean, you're not putting a gun to my neck and saying, believe in the state, right?
	That hopefully will never come, at least in these lands.
	But you are proposing something that is the complete opposite.
	Of how you're living your life.
	So I don't think that the proof, the onus of the proof lies on the anarcho-capitalist.
	I think that the onus of proof lies in those who want to say that violence, who want to argue in a pacifistic manner that violence is the way to solve problems.
	Because, of course, there's a very blatant contradiction, as we all know, to argue in a pacifistic manner that violence is the best solution to problems in the form of the state and so on, is a direct and complete and total contradiction.
	Either violence is a good way to solve problems, in which case, why are you debating?
	You should just be pulling a gun out and threatening me.
	Or violence is not a good solution.
	It's not a good solution for George Bush and a bad solution for other people.
	It's not a good solution in the morning and a bad solution in the afternoon.
	It's not a solution that's good if 51% of people like it.
	It's either good or it's bad.
	So I wouldn't argue about the stateless society.
	I think that's too, at least with somebody who's not initiated at all, I think that's kind of confusing.
	You say, well, is violence a good way of solving problems or a bad way of solving problems?
	And then the person is left with a choice.
	If it's a good way of solving problems, of resolving disputes, not self-defense, but resolving disputes, resolving questions, helping the poor, providing cheap prescription drugs to the elderly, whatever.
	If violence is a good way of solving problems, then clearly arguing for it is totally contradictory.
	And if it's a bad way of solving problems, then they're already an anarchist.
	So there's a lot, I mean, there's a number, number, number of different ways to approach it, but I generally find that simply asking questions, and it may be worthwhile, and I just posted this last week's show.
	It took me a while.
	I tried sort of doing it by hand, normalizing the levels.
	Too much of a pain in the neck. So I finally found a program which I think will do a good job.
	But in the debate that I had with our Dutch friend, I just asked a bunch of questions, right?
	I didn't tell them a stateless society is the only moral ideal and everyone else is wrong and bad.
	I'm not saying anyone else is saying that, but you just ask a series of questions.
	Is violence good or bad?
	Just build the case that way.
	You can't ever win an argument through force of personality.
	You can sort of appear to win an argument through force of personality, but it doesn't mean anything.
	Force of personality is just like occupying another country.
	You'll get some obedience while you're there, but the moment you leave, Everything pops back to its regular shape.
	So debating a stateless society, debating any kind of truth, is a lot more, I think, about asking questions than it is about making speeches, he said, while in the middle of a long speech.
	But I think you get the idea, so that would be my way.
	Now, another thing to say, how to explain to socialists that socialism will never solve problems, evidence, ethics, implications, etc.
	Well, it's a similar kind of argument.
	First of all, the first thing that you need to do in debating, if you have any doubt that the person is an honest debater, right?
	So if you feel that the person is a dishonest debater, and what I mean by that is that they're just either acting out family stuff, or they're just spouting the party line, or they're just pompously putting themselves forward as the knower of all things political and moral and social, or whatever, right?
	If you feel that they're going to be a dishonest debater, Then you need to define terms.
	I don't think the definition of terms is as important when you're dealing with an honest debater.
	That most elusive and rare of creatures.
	But if you're dealing with a dishonest debater, then you need to define what socialism is.
	See, argument is almost always complicated only by people's resistance to definitions.
	Debating is about obscuring and manipulating definitions.
	I mean bad debating, the debating that is very common, the debating that we see in law courts, the debating that we see in the political arena, these sorts of debates.
	But you can't ever prove that socialism won't solve problems.
	Because it's semantics.
	Until people can communicate to you in a concise and objective and rational manner what socialism is, Then you're just going to be arguing semantics.
	You have to always say, in a sense, I don't accept the premise of the question.
	So when somebody says, well, socialism is the best way to do X, Y, and Z, you disprove that.
	Well, I don't think you have to.
	I think that what you have to do is say, well, what is socialism?
	Well, it's a way of organizing society so that the government allows for or redistributes income to the most needy and blah blah blah blah.
	Well, that's not really what socialism is.
	Because if you're talking about redistribution, then I'd redistribute some of my income to my children.
	I'm not a socialist because of that.
	Charities redistribute income.
	So that's not socialism.
	So what is socialism? I can redistribute dirt from the back end of my garden to the front end if I'm digging a swimming pool.
	Redistribution of wealth or of resources is not the definition of socialism.
	I mean, on a ski hill, the skiers are redistributed from the top of the hill to the bottom and then back to the top.
	So the redistribution of wealth or resources is not the definition of socialism.
	So you just have to keep asking questions.
	And you can do that Columbo thing.
	I don't really understand.
	Actually, that's a terrible Columbo.
	He's vaguely Italian.
	I don't understand. But I don't understand what socialism is.
	And when you keep peeling back the layers, you will eventually get, if you're persistent enough, and you're not trying to teach them anything.
	You're asking them in that Socratic manner.
	I know nothing. You teach me.
	And you can use the accent.
	That doesn't hurt. Unless they're Italian, in which case it probably will hurt quite severely too.
	You're a blank slate.
	You're a three-year-old. Explain it to me like I'm three years old.
	And at some point they're going to have to just sort of fess up that what they mean by socialism is the forced redistribution of wealth.
	The theft of wealth At the point of a gun.
	Now if you can get them to admit the simple honest truth of socialism that it is a minority of people pointing guns at other people based on the manipulated will of a majority and if you resist the will of that minority you are thrown in jail where you get very unpleasant things done to you Then you've won the argument.
	See, it's just about asking questions.
	It's not about telling people that a stateless society is good.
	Whoever puts forward the proposition is the person who must make the argument.
	So I would say don't put forward the proposition that the stateless society is great.
	But say, oh, you're a socialist, right?
	Well, you know, help me understand this, because I really don't understand what you mean by socialism, right?
	You really do understand what socialism is, is violence.
	But you don't understand, what do you mean by socialism?
	And they'll say, well, it's redistribution, it's charity.
	It's like, well, charities do that.
	And you wouldn't say that charity's a socialist, right?
	No, they're charitable. That's voluntarism, that's private donations, whatever, whatever, right?
	So I would never try to explain to a socialist that socialism will never solve problems.
	I think that I would try and get somebody to admit that socialism was violence.
	Now, if they get to that point where they say, yes, socialism is violence.
	You've cornered me, you bald bastard.
	It's violence. Once you've lifted the lid, once you've lifted the velvet off the gun in the room, Once they understand that they're advocating the use of violence to solve problems, then they're going to do one of two things,
	right? They're going to get really angry, or they're going to go, huh, you know, I never saw it that way before.
	And then you say, because those are weasel words, you say, I'm not sure what you mean by that way.
	Like, is there another way to look at it?
	Did we miss something in the definition?
	And they're going to say, no, I don't think so, or yes, and you work them some more.
	So what you mean by that is you've never seen the truth about what it is that you're advocating, and you can be gentle and kind and say, well, there's no reason why you would.
	I mean, everybody lies about this stuff, and I'm not saying that you're lying about it, but you were lied to about this stuff.
	Nobody told you the simple thing, that socialism is a gun, and a red-hot gun at that.
	And then they may be sort of curious about it and say, well, then they may say, well, if violence, I don't think violence solves problems, and certainly if I did, then this debate makes no sense, right?
	Because we're not using violence here.
	I don't believe violence solves problems, but how on earth could society be organized without the use of this kind of violence?
	And then you can say, well, there's some ideas.
	A lot of smart people have been working very hard on this very problem because now that we've kind of gotten that this is socialism, the government, this is all violence, naturally those who get this start to put an enormous amount of effort into trying to figure out both how it could work without a government, how to communicate in a positive way these sorts of ideas.
	But you're not trying to impose.
	Once you unmask the definitions of what people are talking about, you either end their ignorance or they end the debate.
	Most times, I'm telling you, nine times out of ten, if not 99 times out of 100, they will get really angry or they will get superior or they will do a passive-aggressive thing where they'll say, oh my God, look at the time, I have to go somewhere, but thanks for the debate, I'll certainly get back to you, and they never will.
	Because everybody gets deep down where this leads.
	The truth is always so close.
	The truth is always just under the surface.
	The truth is always right there for everyone, and that's why everybody has to work so hard to ignore it and pretend that it's not there.
	So that would be the approach that I take, which is passive.
	Which is passive. Just ask questions.
	If you say, I don't think socialism solves problems, and then they say, well, I think socialism does solve problems.
	Then you say, oh, well, maybe you and I have a different definition of socialism.
	So what's your definition of socialism?
	Just keep asking questions.
	It's a very passive process.
	You can't impose the truth on someone.
	You've got to tease it out.
	It's like a A really hyperactive, hopped-up-on-three-espressos ferret.
	You've got to just calmly...
	It's like trying to get a wild bird to land in your hand.
	You've got to be patient, and it's about receiving.
	It's about listening. It's about asking questions.
	It's not about telling.
	And I know that I'm the most ridiculous person in the world to be saying that with 750-odd monologues, but when I debate with people, I do try to ask more questions.
	Then rather just tell people the way it is.
	Because that doesn't help them.
	You have to trust people that they're going to think.
	And you also have to trust yourself that if they choose not to think, it's not your fault.
	If they choose not to think, if they get angry, if they storm off, if they threaten this, or if they get passive aggressive, or if at the end of the debate you just feel kind of weird and creepy.
	Because that happens a lot. That happens a lot.
	At the end of the debate, whatever happened, you look back at it and you just feel like, bee!
	You know, like kind of, ew, something weird and subterranean kind of happened there.
	Something weird and convoluted and dark and squelchy and oogie and complex happened.
	But that's just because the truth is, oh, it's right there.
	The truth is always right there and everybody knows it and people squirm and fight and dig and cuss and storm off and sigh and roll their eyes to avoid it.
	The truth is a train that is constantly thundering down everybody's tunnels and everybody knows it and everybody feels it and simply being able to get them anywhere close to those train tracks is quite an achievement but you can't control what people do.
	You really, really can't control what people do.
	So, recognize that you can simply ask questions.
	99 times out of 100, you're going to get precisely nowhere.
	And it's going to feel gross.
	And it's going to feel frustrating.
	And you're going to self-incriminate a little bit.
	And you're going to feel like, oh man, I wish I'd done that better.
	I should have done something different.
	Or if I'd have tried this approach or tried that approach.
	And there's ways that you can tweak it.
	But I don't know if you can think back to when you, yourself...
	Learned about philosophy or freedom or libertarianism or economics or ethics or whatever it is.
	When I first read about this kind of stuff when I was 16, nobody was asking me questions.
	Nobody led me by the hand down this road.
	I saw it and I was like, I'm going to get me some of that.
	That is some damn fine stuff.
	I'm going to get me some of that.
	And no one could stop me No one could stop me learning about all of this stuff, despite the disapproval of family, the hostility of family and friends, the indifference and hostility of professors, the incomprehension and eye-rolling of girlfriends.
	Despite every single scorn, spit and calumny that was thrown my way in the pursuit of these ideas, you couldn't hold me back from pursuing the truth.
	However, Badly I may have done it at times.
	You couldn't hold me back.
	And those are the people that you want to spend your time with.
	Those are the people you want to spend your time with.
	The philosophers that we're looking for are incredibly rare.
	Like the virtuous women and men that we want in our lives.
	Incredibly rare. So don't think that there's some incredible trick that you can use.
	To get the truth out of people.
	Ask them questions. See if they're interested in knowledge or if they're just posturing.
	And if they're just posturing, don't waste your time.
	Don't waste your time. And the reason that you're as gentle as possible, and I know I'm saying look for those people who are going to tear into philosophy like a jackal into your leg, or some such more pleasant metaphor.
	But the reason that you want to be gentle and ask questions is so that when the person erupts or Shuts down the conversation or gives you the thousand-yard stare or whatever maneuver they're going to do to keep the truth at bay.
	You can at least leave and not bring up that conversation again with the person without feeling like there was anything else you could have done or should have done.
	Questions? They're not chatting while I'm talking, are they?
	Freedom crack! Oh, it's a good thing we don't have that webcam running.
	Oh, is my shoe untied?
	Let me show you my freedom crack, sorry?
	Alrighty, so, if you can...
	D, eh, eh, from Morocco, eh?
	Hey. Hey. This is Dave.
	Hello. Hi. Hello, can you hear me?
	Go on. Okay, um...
	I was at a party on Friday night and as you know and a lot of people on the board know I teach in an American school so I hang out with a lot of teachers and I was at this party on Friday and somehow we started talking about the Iraq war and I tried really hard to use the argument for morality and just to, you know, We shouldn't be there.
	There's no excuse to be there.
	And if we're going to leave, or if the U.S. is going to leave, the U.S. Army, they should just go now, not leave.
	Just leave right away.
	And I couldn't get the point across, and I tried for a long time.
	And finally I just said, you know, would one of you like to come on the show?
	Because I have someone who's willing to shape my thinking, and I think he can say it a little better than I can.
	And one of them agreed, so she's here.
	Excellent! Hello, hello, hello.
	Natasha says hi. Here's Mariana.
	Hello? Hello, Mariana.
	The first thing I'd like to ask you before we get into all of this, what was your take on To Kill a Mockingbird?
	My what? On To Kill a Mockingbird?
	What was your take? My thoughts.
	Oh, it was perfectly done.
	It was a beautiful production.
	He worked really hard and the kids really brought it together.
	It was great. Excellent.
	So, that's good. At least we have a great review of that, no matter what else happens.
	Yeah, he's a talented director, so...
	Okay, good. Good.
	Well, I appreciate you coming on.
	I know that when somebody says, come listen to this crazy British guy on the internet, he'll help, right?
	I mean, like, if you come down this alley, there's a guy in a box who's really going to set you straight.
	So, yeah, I really appreciate you.
	No, no, I was skeptical, but I see that you have a big following, so I'm willing to listen.
	Well, excellent. I actually don't want you to listen.
	I want you to talk, if that's alright with you.
	If you could just tell me what it is that you think.
	And honestly, I mean, I'm really, really happy to get a contrary view here.
	So I'm pretty sure that I have some idea of what David said to you.
	And if you could sort of tell me your side of things, that would be great.
	I'd appreciate that. Well, my side was sort of short.
	I was willing to accept that there might be a way in which we should stay a couple months longer to prevent, if we could somehow prevent or postpone this pending sort of civil war.
	And I was willing to take, you know, advice from the experts if there's evidence that if we finish this support network or this security, whatever, some wall or something, if there's something that could prevent You know, a thousand people from dying in the future, then I'd be willing to allow whatever instability is happening to happen for another couple of months.
	That's all I was really saying.
	Right, okay. I mean, that's a very, very excellent argument, and I'm certainly not going to fault you for making it, because if I understand it correctly, there's a kind of, and I don't mean to make this sound cold, but there's a kind of calculus or rational calculation here,
	which is that, let's say that it costs another 50 troop lives over the next couple of months, but we get to save 10,000 Iraqi lives or something like that, that for you, the pile of bodies that would sort of rise up if we left,
	and I use we in the sort of, I'm roughly in North America kind of way, but if we left and there's 10,000 bodies if we leave, but if we stay and there's only like 50 or 100 bodies, that that's a net positive?
	Is that roughly close to where you're coming from?
	That's what I was thinking.
	It's the classic cost-benefit analysis, and most people, a lot of people, think that's not really a moral thing to do.
	And I'm not sure, but I was just suggesting that if we could really save a lot of lives in the future, that it might be a little hasty to just hightail it out when we have the change in administration.
	Right, right. No, I mean, I certainly do understand that.
	And I don't disagree with the cost-benefit approach in all situations.
	I mean, for instance, we do this all the time when it comes to setting the speed limit on our highways, right?
	Now, I know that you're in Morocco. The speed limit is largely theoretical, but...
	True enough.
	If we had a speed limit of 10 kilometers an hour...
	Sorry, you're from the States, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, sorry, 10 qubits per hour.
	Sorry, 10 miles an hour.
	Then we'd have no fatalities, right?
	30,000 people a year would live because there would be no fatalities on the highway if the speed limit was like 10 miles an hour, right?
	Right. On the other hand, I don't know how many people would be shot in road rage because it would take people five hours to get home from workers.
	I don't know, right? But we do have a cost-benefit all the time, right?
	If I want to drive to pick up a video, I'm doing something that could get me killed, right?
	I mean, you never know, right? Some guy is high on crack or arguing about the Iraq war on a CB or something, and next thing you know, like, I'm decapitated or something, right?
	So we do these kind of cost-benefits all the time.
	So I don't disagree with that approach in all situations.
	So that particular aspect of the argument doesn't bother me.
	But I think it's sort of fair to say, and I'm sure that we're coming from the same standpoint here, and certainly let me know if we're not, and we'll try something else, but that violence is not like the way to solve problems.
	The main issue that you have, if I understand the ethics side of it, I mean obviously you're not saying that, you know, well, one American life is worth 500 Iraqi lives and blah blah blah, right?
	Right, right, right. So, there is a moral aspect to it that's involved, and what you really dislike is the fact that these people are going to be subject to violence, whether they're killed or raped, and of course, all of this horrible stuff is going on in Iraq, and it's not all the Americans' fault.
	I mean, there's bad people over there that have nothing to do with America, exploiting it.
	But your issue, I think, if I understand it correctly, is that you just don't like people being subjected to violence against their will, right?
	Yeah, yes, definitely.
	I was just saying, that is my issue.
	I want to have as little of that as possible.
	And I guess even though I wish we'd never gone in and I want to get out as fast as we can, I want to get out in a way that's going to stabilize the country in the long term.
	I don't know if we have the capacity to do that, but I would be really interested and I hope that our government is thinking about that.
	Right, right. Well, I mean, I think we all do.
	I mean, if there was a way to reduce the amount of violence in the region, there would be nobody who would not be behind it, right?
	I mean, there's no question that there would be nobody who would not be on your side.
	And so I think, if I understand it correctly, the difference of opinion that we may have is not, do we want less violence in the region or do we want less violence in the world?
	The question is, how is that going to be achieved, right?
	I mean, and the difference is that you believe That if we stay for another couple of months, we could help prevent a civil war and so on.
	And I think you may, I mean, maybe you know a lot more about this than I do, but I think it's fair to say that there's no way to know that ahead of time, right?
	No, that's true. And I think maybe that's where Dave and I were disagreeing.
	I have this faith in whoever's doing these analyses that they're going to produce pretty good projections about what Whatever we're doing, what impact it's going to have on Iraq and Baghdad.
	Maybe this isn't true, Dave, but I think my faith was in these people who were making suggestions for how we proceed, and Dave was saying, you can't know, and since we can't know, it's our obligation to just get out.
	Right. I mean, Dave has his own way of arguing.
	I'm not going to gainsay any of that.
	But I'd like to take a slightly different approach, and you can let me know if I'm making any sense or what.
	Do you think that David has the right to disagree with you about whether staying is good or bad?
	About what? About whether staying in Iraq is good or bad.
	Yes. Yeah, oh yeah.
	Sorry, you wouldn't say to him, you know, Dave, not only are you a good director, but also you are such an evil guy for saying that we should leave Iraq that I think you should be thrown in prison, right?
	No, I don't. I didn't feel that way.
	Right. So you fully support the right to have disagreements with regards to this policy matter, because otherwise, I mean, there's no freedom.
	There's, you know, just one person gets to impose their opinion.
	And you would never sort of say to David, I think that you should be thrown in prison for disagreeing with me.
	No, not at all.
	Okay, good. Well, see, we're making enormous progress so far.
	It may not feel that way, but I think we are.
	So the next part is that I'm sure that David has perhaps bored you to tears with this idea of a stateless society and this, you know...
	We're going to ride the corns off to the sunset where there's going to be no government and milk and honey will flow from the trees and so babies will be born knowing how to mow the garden and so on.
	I'm sure that you're aware how the military is funded.
	Yeah. I mean, vaguely, yeah.
	Well, I think that you're aware of the basics, right?
	So where does the military get its money from?
	From the taxpayers.
	Right. And what happens to the taxpayers if the taxpayer says, I don't want to fund the military?
	The IRA tracks them down and they usually go to jail.
	Well, first of all, I'd like to congratulate you on conflating the IRA with the IRS, because I actually think that's much closer to philosophy than you think.
	I hope we can overlook that.
	I'm sorry, that's a little bit discriminating.
	I would like to put that down as a Freudian slip, but that's okay.
	So, no, no problem at all.
	Clearly, in the realm of, like, David strongly does not want to pay his, let's pretend that you're in the States, I don't know if you guys are paying US taxes or whatever, right?
	Dave strongly does not think that it's a good idea to stay in Iraq.
	You believe, and I'm not going to argue with you because really we don't know, right?
	I mean, you and I don't have the information, maybe some people do, but those are the same people who said there were weapons of mass destruction, the insurgency was on its last legs, blah, blah, blah, right?
	So they may not have a huge amount of credibility, but basically there's no way to know, right?
	We certainly don't have the information to make that decision.
	We can only look in our hearts and our conscience and say, what is the best course of action?
	So, I'd like to sort of suggest, let me know if this sort of makes any sense, that if you support Dave's right to disagree with you, then I think, and you can tell me if this makes sense or not, I think you logically have to support his right to not pay taxes to support the military.
	Because if you say, well, you're free to disagree with me, but you have to Pay for it anyway, or you're going to go to jail, then he's not really allowed to disagree with you, right?
	It's like me as a store owner saying, well, you don't have to buy here, you don't have to buy my goods, but I'm going to take the money from your bank account anyway, right?
	So if he has the right to disagree with you with regards to the deployment of the military and the length of that deployment, then I think, and again, tell me if I'm wrong, I think that logically you have to support his right to not pay for that.
	Yeah, logically, yes.
	Now, you said that, like, logically.
	Yeah, okay, yeah, logically, but...
	But I think that's...
	Sorry, go ahead. Well, I was going to say, I think where we're going to disagree is just that in general, and maybe this makes me a sellout in this crowd, but I guess I believe in deferring to...
	I mean, just for the sake of order, deferring to the government and trusting to make these decisions.
	But I know... I mean, I... I don't support the current administration.
	I know it doesn't always work out, but I think that's the fundamental place in which we differ.
	There are a lot of things I don't want to pay taxes for either.
	Sure, sure. Somebody has to make the decision.
	Well, I agree with you there that somebody does have to make decisions, but let's just, for the moment, I mean, I doubt that I'm going to convert you into an anarchist at least without another seven minutes or so.
	We're just kidding. But let's just say for the moment that somebody does have to make the decision.
	I think it's fairly clear that the decision is not clear-cut, right?
	The decision whether to stay in Iraq or not is not very clear-cut at all.
	And if you are going to allow David to have the right to disagree with you, then I think it's not right, and again, I want to use a sort of heavy moral language, this is just sort of the way that I think, and let me know what you think, but I think that you do have to support his right if you don't like violence being imposed upon people, and that's your concern for the Iraqi people, which I share, and I think it's absolutely appalling what is going on over there.
	They're facing The equivalent American deaths of 9-11 every day, I mean, relative to population count.
	I mean, it's absolutely disastrous and hellacious what is happening to the Iraqis.
	You've got over a million people who have fled the country and they're living in refugee camps where God knows what is happening to them.
	So, I think that we're on the same page as far as the horrors of what's going on there.
	The solution is very complex, and lots of people have different ideas about it.
	And I think that, if I could just ask David a question, I think that David would support your right to make decisions with your money about what you wanted to fund, whether you felt, say, that with your own money, whether staying in Iraq was more important than, say, giving to a charity or Or, you know, keeping the money for yourself or doing whatever, right?
	Whatever you felt was best with your money, I'm sure that he would support your right to do that.
	But I think that with regards to Iraq and with regards to a lot of other things, I think we have to respect the right of disagreement, right?
	That's how society progresses, is we disagree with each other, we reason things out.
	But the moment that taxation comes in and a law comes in, the debate becomes sort of academic.
	So I think that the key question is not so much, will Iraqi lives be saved or will Iraqi lives be lost, because we don't know that.
	The question is, does David have the right to disagree with you without getting thrown in prison?
	And if that is true, then I think, forget about larger society, because we just talked about Iraq for the moment.
	I think that you do have to logically support his right to disagree with you in a meaningful sense, which means that he can disagree with you and also not be thrown in jail for not supporting it financially.
	Yeah, I do.
	Okay, yes. I'm going to say, yeah, that question, because I think you're going somewhere else, right?
	This is like a... Oh, she's trying to get ahead of me.
	Ooh, did you see that? No, I'm not.
	I'm not. I just... When I answer that question, yeah, I think, well, then what's next?
	Then who's going to pay for everything?
	And is it all going to be selective?
	And how is this going to work practically, I guess?
	Now, that's an excellent question.
	David may have mentioned that I have a few podcasts on the topic.
	I think there's only about two or three.
	Nook, you're absolutely right.
	There's no conceivable way that I'm going to be able to convince you of that because that's a huge question and I could be totally wrong.
	I'm not even going to try to convince you of the larger question because the question at hand was with regards just to the specific issue around Iraq.
	I don't think that David would throw you in jail for disagreeing with him.
	I mean, he might if you didn't like his play.
	That's why I asked that question at the beginning.
	We get along pretty well otherwise.
	Right, right. Okay, good. Except for this whole jail thing, that sounds good.
	So, I mean, David would support your rights to make decisions with your money and if you felt the funding was appropriate, blah, blah, blah.
	But I think that's sort of a typical thing that is a good thing to have, sort of a two-way kind of street.
	And that's sort of the first...
	Now, as far as how society gets organized, there's no government, it's chaos, it's madness, it all looks like some sort of horrible Mad Max movie, or everyone's got Mohawks and swastikas on their heads and is driving around in bad mutant cars.
	I understand all of those concerns, and I think that we have some fairly good answers to that kind of stuff, but, you know, that's yours to sort of decide.
	That's sort of the main question, the main sort of criteria or perspective that I wanted to get across in this side of things.
	Yeah, okay. The interesting thing, this will be brief, but the last thing I want to say is just that, I mean, I want to think more about, you know, how effective, this is sort of unrelated to what you're talking about, but how effective the people who are making What decisions for Iraq are?
	Since they are making these decisions for us, that's the real question for me.
	I'm willing to trust that there's somebody who might be able to advise us in a way that would save some lives.
	And maybe Dave's not, and that seems like maybe that's the same issue, but is there something like...
	I mean, should I be less trusting, I guess, without necessarily wanting to not pay taxes?
	Right, right. Well, for me, I would be totally annoying, because that's generally what I'm best at.
	And what I would be totally annoying about is that I would sort of suggest, and, you know, I don't mean to be Mr.
	English Teacher nitpicky, but it seems like the right crowd to do that.
	But I would sort of try and focus a little bit more on the language that you use, because they're not making choices on your behalf.
	They're enforcing their choices upon you, right?
	You didn't want to go to war.
	Right. So you didn't have a choice about that.
	They took your money, and if you didn't pay your money, they'd throw you in jail.
	And I'm not trying to be like a total rabble-rouser.
	I'm just sort of trying to point out the basic facts of your interaction with the state, right?
	They decide to go to war.
	This is not a consultative decision.
	This is not something where you get to have a say.
	They take your money. And if you don't pay the money, which they used to buy bombs to go and blow people up overseas, said people then get rather annoyed and come and fly planes into your building, and then you go and kill more people, and then they come and kill more people on your side, and then you go and kill...
	Like, this just goes on. This is human history, right?
	In a nutshell. It's this sort of...
	It's this tidal wave of blood going back and forth across continents, right?
	People just getting killed. Other people reacting, like the Hatfields and McCoys, sadly now with nuclear weapons.
	And so I would sort of focus on the language.
	I mean, you're using the language like, well, I like this doctor, right?
	And this doctor gives good advice.
	And maybe Dave doesn't like this doctor and he thinks he should get a better doctor.
	But that's not the situation that's occurring here, right?
	I mean, if you like this doctor, then you should go to this doctor.
	And if Dave says, well, a gynecologist isn't for me, say, then he should go to a different doctor.
	But that's not the situation with regards to the state.
	With regards to the state, I mean, to be, you know, not trying to be crazy sounding guy, but, you know, if you don't pay your money, then they throw you in jail.
	And if you resist, then they'll shoot you, right?
	I mean, if you resist, the cops coming to take you away.
	I mean, this is just the basic facts of the situation.
	Yeah. So I would just sort of say that if you want to trust people, and we all do that all the time, right?
	I mean, I trust my doctor to give me some hopefully decent advice, right?
	So we do defer to people in authority all the time, but I don't think that we should ever give that authority the power to compel us to obey them.
	Like, I'm not going to give my doctor a gun and say, make me healthy, and if I do anything not healthy, shoot me, right?
	That wouldn't be a very good one.
	Right, right. And so, I would just say, if you feel drawn towards looking at this relationship that you have with your government in a sort of voluntary, I trust them, I don't trust them, well, it's kind of not that relationship, if that makes any sense, right?
	Like, it's a relationship where you kind of have to do what they say completely.
	Yeah. Or really bad things are going to happen to you.
	Probably not as bad things to you as if you were David, because I'm sure that the female prisons aren't as bad as the male prisons, but bad things all around.
	There's a whole lot of badness floating around in that kind of situation.
	And that's sort of, I mean, that's the fundamental issue that, I guess, anarchists or, I don't know, I hate the word because it just makes it sound insane.
	Molotov throwing lunatics, right?
	But... When people are really into pacifism, and you and I, I think, are of the same soul in that way, in that we really, really despise violence.
	We really, really...
	I mean, it is the most terrifying thing in life, is the idea that someone's going to take a gun and grab you, and just whatever, you're in their power, they're going to do whatever they want to you, and that's, of course, what you hate and fear so much within Iraq, and what I hate and fear so much about what's going on in Iraq, that violence is the greatest and most evil scourge in human society.
	And so we're of the same soul, if I can use that phrase, in that way, right?
	It's just that what I've tried to do with that definition is to look at where violence shows up everywhere rather than just the most obvious places, if that makes sense.
	Yeah. Yeah.
	No, that makes sense.
	And I hadn't... I don't know.
	I hadn't thought about...
	Well, I hadn't thought about having a relationship with my government, but...
	Really, I think that's what I was assuming I had.
	That's what I assume that I have, but it's not quite like that.
	Well, yeah, I mean, there definitely is a lot of talk, and I certainly understand that talk about, you know, we vote, we participate, we this, we that.
	It kind of isn't that way in a lot of ways.
	There's no other relationship in your life that you have where someone can throw you in jail for disagreeing with you, right?
	I mean, that's not the world that you and I live in among our friends, our boyfriends, our girlfriends, our work, our families, our extended families.
	I mean, there's no guns at my family dinners, right?
	We don't do this in rubber bands occasionally if we get really ticked off.
	There's no guns in this conversation.
	There's no guns with my wife.
	There's no guns at work.
	I don't ever see them.
	The only place where guns show up for me is when I get a letter from the tax service.
	That's the thing that I'm the most scared of because that's where violence shows up for me.
	I think, obviously this war in Iraq would have been completely impossible If people had to pay $20,000 or $30,000 per family in order to start it, nobody would have paid them.
	Nobody would have paid them. But the fact is that people just take that money from people by force, and that's how they got the money for the war.
	So for me, I'm more about prevention than I am about cure.
	That's sort of the role of a philosopher.
	It's like a nutritionist, right?
	A nutritionist isn't going to help them when you've got lung cancer, but they hopefully can.
	Give you food that's going to prevent sort of bad things from happening to you.
	So the way that I see it is that there is no war without taxation.
	You just can't pay for it.
	You can't afford it. And so I think that you're sort of looking at it like, well, we're already in this mess.
	We need some radiation therapy, we need surgery, we need this.
	And I'm more about, well, how did we get here?
	And on sort of how that could not happen again in the future.
	And I don't see any way to do that.
	If you can get billions of dollars from people at the point of a gun, it's just going to mess people up, people in the government and so on.
	Do you want to talk? What now, Scott?
	What would you suggest to her to do now to solve it?
	I think what she should do is she should go back and brood and listen to this again and then figure out every mistake that I made and come back guns blazing next week.
	That would be my suggestion.
	Because this is just a theory, right?
	Honestly and totally. I mean, I'm not a dictator of the brain.
	I've tried it, but my wife won't let me.
	She's actually more that inclined.
	But yeah, I would say just mull it over, right?
	The world has been a mess for 100,000 years.
	It's not going to be solved overnight.
	But I think the first thing we need to do is to recognize the root causes of these kinds of horrible disasters like Iraq.
	And to me, it comes because The government has the power to take the money to pay for these kinds of genocidal atrocities from people against their will.
	You don't get people going around.
	You get schools having bake sales for dollars to get school supplies.
	The army doesn't do that.
	Some guy is saying, hey, listen, can you knock on your door saying, hey, can you cut me a check for $40,000?
	I really want to go and invade Iraq.
	You just don't see that, right?
	They just take the money, and because they can just take the money, these kinds of wars and disasters will always occur, right?
	So I would just say there's nothing that needs to be done.
	I just sort of mull around. And if you want to listen to some podcasts, then I think that would be great.
	I think that you'd really enjoy them.
	And we talk a lot more than about just the Iraq war.
	We talk about other wars. No, I'm kidding.
	We talk about, you know, relationships and how this shows up, because this isn't all just about the government, right?
	Human relationships also have these kinds of problems where we assume that we're participating in something when it's usually, well, sometimes it's not the case, right?
	So we really try and focus on that stuff as well.
	So, you know, I think it's a very important conversation.
	I think that we're trying to work on something kind of new and weird but cool here.
	So, you know, if it's something that would be of interest to you, listen to some podcasts and listen to this one.
	Like, I'll post it, and I'm sure that, you know, Dave may be kind enough to give you a CD. And if you play my speech slower, then it's usually more comprehensible.
	So don't do that, for sure.
	Well, thank you so much.
	Well, thank you. I really do appreciate getting that kind of perspective.
	And again, if I, you know, you find that you're on listening to this or thinking about it that I've been talking out of my armpit, do me the courtesy or the kindness.
	Please come back and tell me where I'm wrong because I really don't want to be wrong about this stuff.
	It's not good when philosophy...
	No, no. I think you've made some points that are going to be really important for me to think about.
	I think your listeners are like, who is this girl?
	But I'll be back.
	I'll be back. Can you do that in an Arnold voice or is that asking too much?
	No, I'll be asking too much.
	Dave, can you do it? She'll be back.
	Yeah, Dave can do it.
	I'll be back. Oh, that's good stuff.
	That's quality entertainment right there.
	Well, thank you again so much.
	I really, really do appreciate it and do come back and chat with us again.
	Okay, thanks a lot.
	Thank you. Have a great day. What time is it where you guys are, by the way?
	Oh, 8, almost 9.
	9 p.m.? 9pm.
	9pm. Excellent. Okay.
	Well, we'll be going through until about 4am.
	So, if you can't sleep...
	You know, if you can't sleep, tune into the show, listen to a podcast.
	It actually is pretty much like injecting Novocaine directly to your brain.
	Uh-uh. No way.
	Plus, it lets me talk to you in your sleep, where I go really low and try to get into your unconscious.
	So, donations, donations, donations.
	No, I'm just kidding. All right. Well, thanks very much for dropping by.
	I really do appreciate it. And do come back and chat with us again.
	Thanks, Seth. Bye-bye.
	Bye. Alright, we have some patient fellow, or felless, who has been waiting for me to stop talking.
	Optimistic, but Obnosis, I think, if I've gotten that correctly.
	Does he have a mic?
	mic, is he available?
	I don't even hear the background hiss.
	Obnosis Jones.
	Are you around?
	I clicked and went off.
	I'm used to somebody with a vaguely Turkish accent coming in saying, hello?
	Hello? I heard a click.
	I did. I did.
	Oh, it's okay. That was a long time for the first donation mention, some kind of record.
	You know, I gotta tell you, Christina, this cult thing is just not coming along the way that I planned.
	These people are far too not culty for my tastes.
	It's just not working out well at all.
	Yeah, thanks again to that person, and thanks to your patience as I have beat around the bush considerably, so I really do appreciate it.
	Marianna, yeah. Alright, did we have anybody else who had a question, comment, issue, problem, suggestion, complaint?
	I'll just see if anyone else has any other questions, if you're listening in.
	If you have any other questions. All right.
	Oh, Greg has good ones.
	So we have topics from Mr.
	G. Topics.
	Ron Paul. Agnostic or liberal Christian.
	Happiness. End or effect.
	From Jake. Urbanization.
	Prerequisite to freedom. Running from philosophy.
	My experience with my brother. The simulation of friendship.
	Our relationship to staff. Secular humanism really is a religion.
	Yes. Alright, I think we've dealt with those, so pretty much we can move on.
	Anything else about that? See what happens when Greg has no job.
	See, that's the beauty of philosophy, that I ask you to donate and then I get you fired.
	Isn't this just a wonderful way to approach human liberation?
	We like to call it liberation from financial reality.
	Alright, so I'm just looking for the guy who posted his questions.
	Just before you get in, Greg, I had somebody who said he was going to try and get someone else who had questions or criticisms.
	Smaxim, I think you're in.
	Rock Proctor. Oh, I'm so sorry.
	Do you want to take a moment and put some cold water on your face?
	Yeah, cold water. Whoa, whoa, whoa.
	I'm on. Did you manage to rank your skeptical friend in?
	No, I emailed him, but he's a musician who just quit his job in the finance world, and I think he's probably actually still sleeping.
	Right, right. Yeah, so his schedule's upside down.
	Thanks for going over those tips about how to ask questions and stuff.
	Yeah, we squared off, and, you know, I did okay.
	And he's a great guy, and he wants a free world, too.
	But he's like, well, we just, you know, democracy is the best we can do.
	So, you know, I had a hard time kind of getting him down from that.
	But there's always next time.
	What you should have done is got full voice cordoned and said, well, if democracy is so good, let's vote on it.
	Yeah. You've got to change his mind.
	Right, right, right. Yeah, so thanks.
	I mean, I had a bunch of other questions too, but you saw that list of things.
	But there's nothing pressing for me, so if you want to move on, that's fine with me.
	Okay, excellent. All right, I'll just wait for a second then for Christina to finish typing this stuff in.
	Sorry, no fun on the show, sweetie.
	I am so technically green, I don't know what I should be typing.
	Oh, that's wireless.
	Wireless. Do we have open Wi-Fi at our house?
	Yes, we do. And so, why?
	Somebody have any questions? Oh, wait, there's some cars in the parking lot.
	Hello, listeners! I'll put some pants on.
	Fine. Backyard.
	You know what? We should have a backyard party.
	We just got our patio stuff, patio furniture, so this is all too cool for words.
	Alright, we have a gentleman whose age perhaps is 57.
	I'm sure it's not an IQ issue.
	So let's have the gentleman on board.
	Nice to hear from some new listeners who generally have questions.
	Yes, hello. Well, the other day I heard...
	I believe it was a Republican say that universal healthcare was an awful decision.
	On the country's part, if a democratic leader decided on it.
	And I think that's a bunch of bullshit.
	Personally, I think universal healthcare is probably one of the best social programs this country could ever hope to offer.
	So you're a fan, and I just want to make sure I understand this, you're a fan of socialized medicine, right?
	Yes. Okay, great.
	Could you tell me what you mean by socialized medicine?
	By universal healthcare?
	Yeah, what's your...
	Well, basically, anyone in the country should be able to get healthcare for a low to no cost.
	Sure, sure. Well, I mean, I would be behind that, too.
	I think that that would be fantastic.
	So how's that going to be achieved?
	Well, I'm hoping through taxes.
	Right, okay. So, you would favor, what, 10 or 20% more taxes on people to pay for this?
	Yes. Okay, great.
	Now, what happens, like, would you say that somebody is allowed to disagree with you on that?
	Yes. I'm sure a lot of people disagree with that.
	Right, right. I mean, I would be one of them.
	Now, for me, if you wanted to pay for universal healthcare, right?
	Would you say that it would be wrong for me to prevent you from doing so by force?
	Explain again. Sorry, could you elaborate on that?
	Really badly. Like three negatives don't make a positive or comprehensible statement.
	If you, you as a big fan of socialized medicine, if you felt that it was important to fund and you wanted to fund it, you wanted your taxes to go into universal healthcare, would you say that it would be wrong for me to prevent you from doing that by force?
	Using force, well...
	No, I mean, I think people should be able to use force for anything they want.
	Sorry, can you just say that last statement again?
	I hope I misheard you. Go on.
	I mean, I think force is a good thing to have, especially with the government.
	The government should be able to tell people what they can and cannot do.
	Oh, okay. Okay. Well, that certainly makes a bit more sense with your position on socialized medicine.
	So the government should be able to tell people, well, we're just going to have socialized medicine, and if you don't like it, we're going to throw you in jail.
	Like, if you don't want to pay the taxes that support it, we're just going to throw you in jail.
	Exactly. Right. So you believe that the way that socialized medicine should be achieved is through threatening people with jail or being shot.
	Exactly. Right.
	So, you think that violence is the way to solve human problems?
	Yes. What's your point?
	Well, why are you debating then?
	What do you mean? Well, if you think that violence is the way to solve human problems, why are you bothering to debate?
	You and I are not using violence here, right?
	Well, because we're online.
	Sorry? Or online on Skype.
	I can't really hurt you right now.
	I would right now if I could, but...
	Right. Okay.
	Well, I tell you this.
	I tell you this, my brother.
	You have an admirable consistency to your philosophy.
	I must say that is something...
	Well, I believe in the...
	I believe utmost in Stalinism.
	Right. Okay.
	That's great. Well, he certainly did have one of the more dictatorial mustaches of the 20th century, so...
	He built the wonderful nation of the USSR. I don't see how...
	You could possibly be denying his leadership.
	Absolutely. Well, listen, I must tell you that that is a deliciously consistent philosophy.
	I'm completely and totally positive that you're pulling my leg, but I really do appreciate you...
	What do you mean pulling your leg?
	You don't believe in Stalinism?
	Come on. Do you think we should bring back slavery as well?
	Why are you laughing? I don't get it.
	Are you mocking me?
	I think I am. You're mocking me.
	Come on. You don't call into a philosophy show about anarchism and talk about the virtues of Stalinism.
	I mean, that's great.
	This is anarchy?
	Yes. Radio or something?
	Yeah, this is... I'm sorry.
	I mean, if you are serious...
	Are you kidding me? Oh, man.
	Yeah, this is an anarchist philosophy show where we talk...
	Are you kidding me? I thought I saw atheism.
	I'm sorry? You saw atheism and you thought communism, right?
	What? So you saw atheism and maybe you thought communism, is that right?
	I get it. I swore I saw communism in here.
	Maybe with the word anti?
	So you're a communist, is that right?
	So you're sort of a fan of Stalinism?
	Yes. Okay.
	Okay. So, can you tell me this?
	And I won't drag this debate out any longer than you think, because it may be that we just have completely different definitions of whether I should be hurt by you or not.
	And I would probably vote for, like, not getting hurt by you, since that's all right with you.
	Vote? Yeah, voting's not good.
	Right, no. You and I both agree on that, brother.
	Voting is definitely the worst thing in the world, other than, say, outright gulag-style dictatorships.
	So you think that Stalin should be able to use whatever force he wants, or someone like Stalin should be able to use whatever force he wants to get his way, right?
	Yeah, the people don't know what they want.
	But Stalin, who's one of the people, does.
	He is the people. So, what?
	Is he like six people sort of stacked up in a trench coat?
	I mean, I don't understand if he is the people.
	I mean, he's separate from the people. I mean, he is the people.
	He knows what all the... I mean, he is the deciding factor of all the people's decisions, which is a good thing, because the people don't know what they want.
	They don't understand. They're not educated.
	But Stalin, you feel, was educated?
	Yes. Because, you know, he was educated in a seminary, right?
	He was training to become a priest.
	Yes. Right, so how did Stalin achieve this knowledge of what the people want?
	Well, I mean, he is the deciding factor because he is the dictator.
	Therefore, if he's the dictator, he knows he is the deciding factor of everything and anything.
	I certainly do understand that, but I'm just curious how that's justified.
	Like, can I say that I'm the decider of everything and then just start shooting people?
	Yes. Well, no, because...
	I mean, Stalin...
	I mean...
	He was elected into office, was he not?
	Well, you can't say elections are valid because you just said the people don't know what they want, right?
	I mean, the Communist Party, though, which is different from the people.
	Well, yeah, okay. So if I get five friends together, we call ourselves the Communist Party, can I start shooting people if they don't obey me?
	Well, generally, if there's...
	I mean, if you have the power to do that, go ahead.
	I highly doubt you have the power in this country.
	This horrible, freedom-loving country.
	Are you an American?
	Yes. Right. Okay.
	Well, look, I've got to tell you, you're definitely hoeing a lonely row there with the communism these days in America, and I certainly do have some sympathy for that.
	And I think that you and I, though, I think we have some pretty opposite ideas on how politics should work, since I'm for about a completely no-state society, because I don't think that the people know what they want in a national sense either, but I don't think that any politician, Stalin, George Bush, or anyone else has any idea what other people want either.
	That's why... Well, you're talking about a utopia there.
	You're talking about the perfect society in which people do not commit murder, in which people do not But if you were in a police state, which is a good thing, a police state, which is a very good thing, this would not happen.
	You don't think there's murder in a police state?
	Not as much, no, no, no.
	If you put a cop on every doorstep, it would not happen.
	How many people do you think were killed under the Soviet leadership in the 20th century?
	The people that were killed needed to be killed for the sake of the country.
	No, no, but you said, we're going with factual statements, not opinions, right?
	So you said there's less murder in a police state, right?
	I would say so.
	If you had a cop on every doorstep, there would be less murder.
	You said you were a fan of Stalin, right?
	So how many people, I mean, if you have an opinion, you should back it up, right?
	So how many people died in Russia in the 20th century under communism?
	Probably a lot. Probably what?
	Do you have a guess? I'm gonna go for millions.
	Well, how many millions? I'm gonna go for maybe two or three million.
	Okay, well, the correct answer is a little over 70 million people.
	Oh, well, that's not too bad. Just Russia, right?
	That's not too bad, though. China is the sort of equivalent, right?
	Yes. So the only thing that I can say, then, is that clearly your opinion that there's less murder in a dictatorship is not true, right?
	Well, most of those murders were by the dictatorship.
	They weren't by person to person.
	What do you mean? There was no people involved in those murders?
	There's a dictatorship, which are the governing people of the country, and then there are the citizens.
	I believe in a police state, citizens would not kill each other as much as the dictatorship would kill citizens.
	Well, sure, but they're just people, right?
	Stalin was a person?
	No, Stalin was beyond a person.
	What, he was like a dancer? What do you mean, beyond a person?
	He was a person in a... I mean, anyone who can rule like him must be beyond human.
	You mean because he'll kill a lot of people?
	Well, he killed the people who needed to be killed.
	And who is it who decided who needs to be killed?
	Stalin. Right, so he just said this person needs to be killed.
	Yes, exactly. Right, and that's sort of something that you think is a good thing?
	Yes. Right, so you do realize that Stalin would want you killed as well, right?
	No, I mean, he killed the people who didn't believe in his reign, and I think that's a good thing.
	People shouldn't deny their governments.
	Can I ask you sort of a related question, if you don't mind?
	Yes. Because, I mean, look, I mean, you're admirably frank about your opinions, and I certainly do understand that they're rather unusual opinions.
	Can you tell me about your family?
	My family? Yeah.
	Well, I guess, I mean, what is this?
	I don't see what it has to do with anything.
	Humor me. Okay, well, my family.
	Not Stalin's.
	I mean, what are you talking about? My family, personally?
	Yeah. Okay, well, um...
	Where do I begin?
	Um... I guess...
	Well, I'm English.
	And, uh...
	Let me think here. I guess it's just so kind of...
	Do you want me to ask you some annoying little questions?
	My family relations. However, um...
	No, no, no.
	I think I got it. Here, just a second.
	Well, I mean, I was English, right?
	My mother was, uh...
	From England, which in my opinion is a horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible country.
	And anyway, I don't know, the details of my life are quite inconsequential.
	Very well, where do I begin?
	Let me ask you a question, if you don't mind, because I don't want you to just go on a narrative.
	I'm sort of after something specific here.
	Were you ever exposed to any violence as a child?
	I would say so, yes.
	What sort of violence? Well, I lived in Detroit.
	Detroit, England? No, my mother was English, but she came to America and I lived in Detroit.
	And what's the violence you're exposed to?
	Beatings, random beatings, murders, drive-bys, you know, the typical.
	Right, right. Typical for Detroit and, say, the seventh circle of hell.
	Did you ever experience any violence within your own family?
	I don't know. My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark.
	Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy.
	The sort of general mail-in-A that only the genius possess and the insane lament.
	Well, thank you very much.
	I certainly do enjoy the quote from Austin Powers.
	It's been quite wonderful talking to you.
	I do appreciate that.
	Let's move on to somebody else who might have something intelligible to contribute to the discussion, but it certainly was quite an exciting alternative.
	James, you're on, my friend.
	Hi. It was probably about ten minutes ago, towards the beginning of that, that you said that voting was a terrible thing.
	Yes. Yeah.
	What makes it terrible?
	Well, and I don't mean to dodge the question, but what makes it positive for you?
	Just so I know sort of what it is that I'm addressing.
	Well, what makes it good is that even though it is a very minute amount of power, it still gives the people The ability to choose their leaders.
	Even though it's picking between a bunch of shit sandwiches, it's still a choice.
	Right. Okay. Do you think, though, that if I... And again, this is like admirable frankness day, so I certainly do appreciate the fact that I don't have to convince you that it is, in fact, the deli full of shit sandwiches.
	I'm glad that we don't have to do that part.
	Do you sort of understand that, and I'm not saying that you agree with it, but do you understand that if it were possible to have a nice piece of pastrami on rye rather than a shit sandwich, Well, yeah. Right.
	So, I mean, I don't believe that we need a government.
	In fact, I think that society would be far better off in the absence of things like governments, in the absence of things like religion, in the absence of things like, you know, the cult of the family where you said I have to love your family no matter what, where people were really free.
	to judge and decide for themselves based on the values that they held and so since I'm perfectly convinced based on the fact that I never use violence in my life and my life is you know successful and happy and I don't know anybody who uses violence our friend with the meat helmet Stalin fan accepted perhaps that non-violence works in a very positive way so when I look at voting I'm saying well I get to choose my master.
	That doesn't mean I'm not a slave.
	And I don't compare the choice of one master to another.
	I compare the choice of one master to another to the choice of not having a master at all.
	And then I think at least you can understand...
	I'm not saying that I'm right. I'm just saying that's my perspective.
	Well, yes.
	And that is... Yeah.
	That is in a perfect world.
	But... In a world where there are guns and where there are, like, nuclear submarines and, you know, when we are a slave, what can we do about that?
	Well, you can't do anything about it in terms of the government, right?
	I mean, unless you want to go live off the grid, right?
	I mean, go and sort of, you know, live in the woods and grow your own berries and stuff like this, right?
	And there's nothing you can do with regards to the government.
	I mean, there's nothing, nothing, nothing whatsoever that you can do with regards to it.
	Running for office won't help.
	Changing your vote won't help.
	Not paying your taxes would just get you thrown in jail.
	There's nothing you can do with regards to the government, but that doesn't matter too much.
	There's lots of things that you can do in your personal life To bring the maximum amount of potential freedom, right?
	Which means don't take on unchosen obligations.
	You know, like if you love your family, then that's wonderful.
	Like your parents and so on, your siblings.
	Great, you know, spend time with them and have a wonderful time.
	If you don't love them or they don't value what you value or they scorn you or they roll their eyes or...
	You see the people that you want to see, that make you happy, that enrich your life, that give you a positive and happy vibe about the planet and your place in it.
	And people who don't do that, you don't see.
	And there's no unchosen obligations.
	You're not obligated to pay taxes because some You're not obligated to go out with people you don't love.
	From that standpoint, what we really focus on, since we can't do anything about the government, is to focus on the maximum amount of rational and ethical liberty within our own personal lives.
	And that's way better. I would rather be married to my wife and be paying 60% taxation than be married to some unpleasant woman and have no taxation at all.
	I'm much more free. with the life that I have and so I really try to focus on with my wife's help, she's a psychologist, I really try to focus on what can we do to be free given that we can't do anything about the state and that the freedom that is with our own personal life is much more important and relevant to us anyway.
	Does that sort of make sense? Yeah, but if you're paying 60% taxes, aren't you like sort of indirectly funding people to be killed?
	Oh, I don't think it's indirect at all.
	I think it's direct funding.
	For sure. Absolutely. Do you have a problem with that?
	No. Of course I have problems with it.
	I'd rather it didn't exist.
	But if someone's got a knife to my throat, I'm going to give them my wallet.
	If you want to get yourself thrown in jail, I'm not going to disagree with that choice.
	But if someone's got a knife to my throat, I give them my wallet.
	And I don't feel like, oh, I shouldn't.
	It's like, well, they've got a knife to my throat.
	Right? And if people are going to throw me into these horrible torturous prisons and rape rooms and so on if I don't pay taxes, then I'll pay taxes.
	Right? I mean, it's not my fault.
	I didn't invent the system.
	I wasn't sort of like floating around in the ether before I was born saying, hmm, you know, what kind of horrible corrupt system can I put in place to be born into?
	This is just the world that I was born into.
	Right? I'm not going to take Moral responsibility for what other people do with my money after they take it from me by force, right?
	I mean, I will take some responsibility insofar as if I think I have better ideas, I will put out as much effort as I can to communicate them, right?
	To try and make the world a better place.
	But yeah, no, it absolutely bothers me that the money that is taken from me by force is used to fund troops over in Afghanistan and so on.
	This is Canada. But what can I do?
	I'm not going to go to jail. I'm not going to be torn away from my family.
	I'm not going to be torn away from doing the work that I'm doing in the podcasts and on the board and in these shows because I think that's going to make the world a better place.
	I don't think that me going to jail is going to make the world a better place because people wouldn't even understand the argument about why it's wrong for me to go to jail.
	I have to make that clear. Maybe when everyone understands that, then I'll happily go to jail.
	But right now, it's way too early for that.
	Is it our responsibility to try and unfuck the world?
	That's great. No, no, I don't think so.
	I think it's your responsibility to live with some degree of courage and integrity, but no.
	I don't think that it's anybody's responsibility to try and save the world.
	It's certainly not like the world is trying to save us, right?
	In fact, most people really dislike it when you tell the truth.
	No, I mean, you don't want to end up being a slave to freedom, if that makes any sense.
	Like, you don't want to end up feeling like, oh God, every time I go out for a dinner party, I have to thump the table and scream about anarcho-capitalism, or whatever your particular brand of freedom is.
	Because then you don't have any choice either, right?
	Then you just become a foot soldier in the philosophical war against the forces of darkness or something.
	And I don't think that's reasonable.
	I mean, I think that you should try where possible and where it's going to be fun for you and where it's going to be interesting for you or where you feel that it's very important to speak your mind.
	But no, I don't think that anyone's obligated to do that.
	All right, that's all I got.
	Okay, well, thanks. I hope that I was of some help.
	I really do appreciate you dropping back.
	All right. I think we just had a technical issue.
	We'll be back in a flash.
	Alright. Mr.
	Dami V, I think that you are on.
	Hi, Steph. Hi.
	Um... Okay, I guess you can hear me.
	I have a new headset on and I'm not sure when I'm on and when I'm off.
	Am I there? You are.
	Oh, okay, good. Seth, I hope I'm not bringing up old news and what that, but you're having brought this up in a recent podcast.
	I just wanted to kind of revisit the agnosticism kind of debate.
	I think there's a possibility that you've either mischaracterized the agnostic position as I see it, or there's also the possibility that I'm in fact an atheist just kind of stubbornly refusing to admit it, which I may or may not have a motive for being that way.
	I put money on me being wrong, but perhaps you can let me know what the argument is, so go for it.
	My position on agnosticism is just I really feel that I need to know that I know what I know and that I'm not just expressing an opinion.
	And in that sense, I feel that there are things that are out there that I have not equipped to have any real knowledge of.
	And to purport a knowledge of that would be incorrect.
	It would be inaccurate in my claiming to have that knowledge.
	Now, I will preface it by saying this.
	I think in every argument that you made against agnosticism, I pretty much agree with you that those are valid arguments if, in fact, an agnostic held that position.
	But the idea that there is a possibility of there being an existence.
	I'm not talking about a guy sitting in a chair.
	I'm just saying that there's a possibility of things being outside of our scope of awareness that could theoretically exist, but owing to the fact that they don't manifest themselves in any significant way can be pretty much left as being irrelevant.
	But not necessarily non-existent.
	Right. Sorry, did you have more to add?
	I want to make sure I've got the full perspective.
	I think that's mainly where I'm coming from.
	I think, in a sense, I remember you're referring to Christina as having been a deist, but not making the turn into agnosticism as being something that you could accept.
	But my position actually would be that a deist Claiming to know that there is a god outside of our universe who doesn't interact with us would be equally in error.
	Right, right. So I think I understand what you're saying is that to be mildly technical, Any knowledge statement about God is something that can't be made.
	His existence is non-existence because it's simply outside our frame of reference and our experience.
	So it's like sort of saying, do unicorns exist outside the universe?
	Well, you can't answer it, either positively or negatively, because you can't even parse it in a sense.
	Does that sort of make sense? That's exactly it.
	Kind of like the null set example.
	I mean, a unicorn could be out there, it's fairly unlikely as far as I'm concerned, but it's possible that I'm wrong about that.
	Right. Now, you do understand, though, that this statement that you can't make any positive or negative knowledge claims about God wouldn't just apply to God, right?
	Right. I mean, there could be another universe where I don't know.
	The orcs are battling the elves in Middle-earth, right?
	Mm-hmm. So then if somebody says to you, I'm sorry for all the geeky references, but hey, that's what I work with.
	If somebody says to you, is Lord of the Rings fiction, do you say, I don't know?
	Um... From the standpoint of Tolkien, I think it would be fiction because I don't think he would be able to know it was out there either.
	Does that make sense? I think that's an excellent piece of weasel word.
	I'm going to have to press you. I almost heard you squeaking at that point, so I'm going to just push it a little further if you don't mind.
	Oh, I absolutely don't mind.
	But if I say to you that Middle-earth does not exist, do you tell me that I'm incorrect?
	No. Well, yes and no.
	I think you're incorrect.
	Now that's an answer.
	That's right.
	Well, let's put it this way.
	Lord of the Rings is fiction because the author himself says it's fiction.
	Well, no, but that doesn't matter.
	His opinion shouldn't matter, right?
	Because in some parallel universe, Lord of the Rings could have occurred exactly as Tolkien describes it, right?
	Oh, it could. Sorry?
	It could. It could, but whether or not it does, I would think is irrelevant.
	Well, no, because you're saying that we can't make a knowledge statement about God because he could exist in some alternate dimension.
	But I think then it's equally true to say we can't make a knowledge statement about the truth or falsehood of Lord of the Rings because it could be true in some alternate dimension.
	I think that we can't make that...
	Well, there would have to be a need for that knowledge statement in the first place.
	Realistically, anything that exists outside the universe has no bearing, one way or another, on what happens here.
	Well, sure, I know, but I'm just following your argument with regards to God, right?
	And I think, and I'm not trying to pick on you or anything, but I think it's interesting that you feel more comfortable making this statement claim about God than you do about Lord of the Rings, right?
	I mean, I can feel, and again, I'm not trying to sort of pin you or be nasty, but I can sort of feel that you feel a bit ridiculous saying that Lord of the Rings might be true in some alternate universe, right?
	It feels a little silly, doesn't it?
	Yeah, and at the same time though, I don't know that there's anyone that's making the argument that it either does or doesn't exist and that it matters whether or not it does.
	Well, whether it matters or not is irrelevant, right?
	I mean, if you're making a knowledge statement, then it doesn't matter whether it matters or not, right?
	Because whether it matters is subjective, right?
	I'm sure there are psychotics out there who totally believe that they're Aragorn or something, right?
	I'm sure there are, you know, maybe the guys who go to the D&D conventions dressed up as the Uruk Hai are right on the edge of this sort of fantasy, right?
	So there are people out there To whom the reality of Lord of the Rings is very much an important issue, right?
	People who've got mental illnesses or people who think they're Napoleon and whatever, right?
	I mean, I think that if you met somebody who said, I have just popped in from another dimension, I am Aragorn, son of Arathorn, or blah, blah, blah, right?
	I don't think you would say, well, there's no way to tell if that's true or not.
	Well, I would argue from the standpoint that I don't believe it's possible to pop in and out from another dimension as That we don't have any evidence of that ever having happened.
	Ah, yes. You see, now you're drifting nicely and gently into the atheist camp, right?
	Okay. Because there's no evidence, right?
	Right. And in fact, the atheist camp is not focused on...
	It's the strong atheist camp, at least, and I don't mean to speak for all atheists, but this is sort of my perspective of it.
	The problem with God is not a lack of evidence, right?
	I mean, I don't have any evidence that Mount Everest exists.
	I've never climbed it. I've just seen pictures.
	They could be all cleverly faked in Photoshop for all I know.
	Right? So I believe that Mount Everest exists because, you know, it's consistent with the facts of reality and, you know, there would be a pretty cunning and point plot to convince me that it did exist if it didn't.
	But I also have never met my great-great-great-great-grandfather for obvious reasons because he was invisible.
	But clearly, I believe that he existed, right?
	I don't have any evidence, right?
	I don't even know what his name was, right?
	So it's not a lack of evidence that creates problems with the existence of God.
	It is that God is a self-contradictory concept at every single conceivable level.
	It is beyond 2 plus 2 is 5.
	It is beyond 2 plus 2 is green.
	It is beyond a square circle.
	It is a completely and totally self-contradictory concept at every single conceivable level.
	I agree. And given that contradictions don't exist within reality, It's not possible for God to conceivably exist.
	Even if you take away the Darwinian argument that says that complexity can only arise over a long period of time and that you can't have a highly, the highest, the most complex organism or the most complex entity in the universe can't have existed prior to the universe because complexity only arises through evolution over time.
	So even if you take away all of those arguments, the very idea of consciousness without material form, the consciousness is defined as, in effect, Of material form.
	It's like saying there's gravity without matter.
	Well, gravity is defined as an effect of matter, and consciousness is an effect of matter, of the matter within the brain, the matter in energy.
	So, putting forward the idea of God, even if you forget about all the cryptic and fairy tale nonsense and the morality of it all, it's a completely self-contradictory concept.
	And so, if people are going to say, and I'm not saying this is, you know, your heartfelt argument or anything, But if people are going to say, well, we can't make any knowledge claims about God because there's some alternate dimension where He may exist, then you can't make any knowledge claims about anything.
	You can't even make knowledge claims that you can't make knowledge claims about God.
	You can't make any, because in every conceivable possible alternate universe, whatever you're arguing for could be proven false.
	Whatever arguing you're arguing against could be proven true.
	So, the problem with agnosticism is if you say, well, we can't make any knowledge claims about God, well, you can't make any knowledge claims about anything.
	See, and Steph, I agree with you completely on that, and this is where I'm mainly feeling that maybe I'm just, as my daughter always tells me that I do, maybe I'm just picking nits, and I'm looking for something to argue about where I have nothing to argue about.
	I mean, my position, really, It's unlikely that there's a god anywhere, at least as a personification of anything.
	I believe that there had to be some cause for the universe to exist if it had a beginning, and that's only if.
	I'm kind of assuming the Big Bang happened.
	If it did happen, it happened for a reason.
	What that reason is, I have no idea.
	But I also believe, and I don't know why, that contradictions can't exist.
	And therefore, there couldn't be somebody that both exists or doesn't exist, or is material and isn't material, all that kind of stuff.
	But what goes on outside the universe, though, I still feel that I have to come down on the side of I don't know and admit that it's an opinion that there is no god person out there, just to be completely precise.
	As far as anyone who believes in God is concerned, that I know of, I'm an atheist.
	I don't believe what they believe.
	But at the same time, I kind of feel awkward about the idea of saying that I know what's outside of our ability to perceive.
	Completely. Maybe I can know partially.
	I don't know. Right, but even the knowledge statement that says I can't perceive what's outside the universe is a positive knowledge statement which you can't make because maybe there's nothing outside the universe.
	You can't make any statement about any fact whatsoever if you believe that it could be contradicted by something that may or may not be outside the universe.
	And the problem that I have with agnostics is they only apply this To God.
	I don't see them, like, I don't think that you would argue that Hitler was a great guy, because in some, like, I'm not going to say Hitler was a bad guy or whatever, or pick your whatever, maybe our Stalin-quoting-joking friend, but I don't hear them say, and I'm not picking on you, I'm just sort of in general, I don't hear agnostics say, well, there's no way to know if the Nazis were bad, because in some alternate universe they could be good.
	That just doesn't occur.
	I don't see agnostics saying, I don't know if I can speak to you and you can hear sound because in some alternate universe that may not be sound or this may not be English or it may be something opposite from what it is.
	And it's really only because it's in the realm of God.
	But what maybe you can help me to understand is what is the emotion?
	Because you've already said that you believe that contradictions can exist.
	So there's no point... No, I said they can't exist.
	I don't believe they can exist.
	Oh, you don't believe contradictions can exist?
	No. But that's, again, that's my opinion, judging by what I've seen and what I think happens in this universe, and I've never seen a contradiction exist.
	So you don't think that contradictions can exist?
	No. So then God as a contradictory definition can't exist.
	If the definition that you have of God is a contradiction, it's impossible.
	And I don't make room for For theists who do things like believe in the Bible.
	Like I said, for anyone that knows me well enough to have gotten into a religious argument with me, they would consider me to be an atheist.
	Because I will readily argue against the position.
	I just got a little confused, and I'm sure that this is just me missing the boat on something.
	Can you put forward a definition of God that you feel is not contradictory or self-contradictory?
	I can't. Okay, so every definition of God that you've heard put forward or can conceive of is contradictory, and you also believe that contradictions cannot exist.
	That's right. I mean, isn't that just the, that's it, right?
	That's the whole argument. Yeah.
	I mean, I have not heard a definition of God that I can accept.
	Well, sure. And that I cannot argue against.
	Right. I mean, it has to be contradictory because if it's not contradictory, it's not God.
	It's some big brain thing, right?
	Whatever, right? So then it seems to me that you're a strong atheist.
	If every definition that you can conceive of, of God's existence, is contradictory, and you also believe that contradictions cannot exist, then, you know, ergo, God cannot exist.
	Well, that's more or less the way I see it.
	We don't need these alternate dimensions and I'm sorry for dragging you through the whole...
	I'm the one that brought up the alternate dimensions.
	All I was saying is that I can't say that I know what is or isn't out there.
	I would assume that a contradiction isn't out there because it's my opinion that contradictions cannot exist out there any more than they can in here.
	In our universe, I don't think contradictions are possible, only to the laws of physics.
	Right, and there's two possibilities for these alternate universes, right?
	Even if we assume that they exist, and I'm totally fine, I'm no physicist, maybe they do, right?
	There's two possibilities for these alternate universes.
	Either A, they can be measurable in some manner from this universe.
	In which case, they will be subject to empirical testing.
	We can run a phone line in there and see if anyone picks up or whatever.
	They'll have some effect on this measurable universe.
	That's sort of the one possibility.
	The other possibility is that they will never have any conceivable, measurable, potential, actual, possible effect on this universe.
	In other words, it is exactly the same to say does not exist as to say alternate universe.
	That which does not exist cannot be measured in any way, shape, or form.
	It's an absence of tangible or material.
	Right. So if there's some alternate universe, either we can measure its impact, in which case it's subject to empirical testing and it's part of science and its effects at least are part of this universe and we can measure and test something, or it will never be visible, never be testable, never be measurable, in which case it's just a theoretical construct, it's a convenience for quantum physics people, and in real-world terms it's exactly the same as non-existence.
	Right. If God is in another dimension, he's either going to be measurable or it's going to be identical to non-existent, in which case saying God does not exist is exactly the same.
	Right. Realistically, I have no trouble asserting that it's to our best benefit, if we want to live a healthy life, to live it as if there is no God, whether there is one or not.
	But if there is one, it has to be outside of our Well, I'm going to be annoying again and just call you back on something here because we just went through the argument that if contradictions can't exist, And God is a contradictory concept, then God can't exist.
	And now you're saying, well, if God did exist, he'd be outside of this.
	I mean, again, maybe I missed something in terms of our debate, but I thought we just thought that God doesn't exist, and now it seems to me that you're going back to, well, if he did, he'd be outside of experience, and this and that.
	There is no, as far as I understand it, by your definition, there is no question about the existence of God.
	There are... I'm completely lacking in a definition of God that makes any sense to me.
	I don't believe that I can state with complete confidence that I'm speaking from knowledge, from my own knowledge,
	that there isn't something outside the universe that created it, that created this universe, And it's that little thing that for me is a problem, if you want to call it that. It makes you feel uncomfortable.
	But tell me this then. What would you be comfortable in saying is absolutely true?
	Existence exists.
	You do realize that in some alternate universe, existence might not exist.
	I don't think I can get my brain around that one.
	Again, if you're going to say that contradictions can exist and be valid in some alternate universe, which, again, I think we're going back and forth, which is no problem, but if you're going to put any sort of knowledge claim statement forward, then you're saying this is true regardless of alternate universes, in which case you're saying you can make a positive knowledge claim statement regardless of other universes.
	If you think that other universes which may have contradictory properties to our universe invalidate knowledge claim statements made with any certainty, then you can't say anything about anything, if that sort of makes sense.
	Like, you can't sort of pick and choose and say, well, God is subject to this alternate possible universe thing, but nothing else is, right?
	Either it's a principle of knowledge validation or it's not.
	If it is a principle of knowledge validation, then you can't say anything positively true about anything because there's this alternate universe.
	If it's not, then clearly there's no God and blah blah blah.
	But we don't live in that alternate universe.
	I certainly agree with that.
	And that would imply that what goes on out there is none of our business.
	Right, so it's irrelevant to knowledge claims that we make to say that there's some other universe wherein it may not be true, right?
	So then we're back to contradictions don't exist, God is a contradictory concept, therefore God does not exist.
	The possible existence of other universes is irrelevant, because if it's relevant, then no knowledge claims can be made with any certainty about anything.
	Right. And since you're making a knowledge claim which says, potentially, that God can't be said to not exist because of other universes, you can't even make that knowledge claim if the other universe thing argument comes into play.
	Like, once you pull out the other universe argument, then it applies to everything.
	not just God, it applies to every knowledge statement that you make.
	So it seems like the best thing is to leave it alone.
	Thank you.
	Well, you can't bring it into an argument, logically.
	You can't bring the other universes into an argument, because then you can't make any knowledge statements.
	It's like saying, in programming languages, does this number equal a null?
	Well, you can't. You can't make that comparison, right?
	Does God equal a square circle?
	Well, it's just the contradictory concept warring with a contradictory concept, right?
	And two wrongs may make it right, but two contradictions don't make logic, right?
	See, but you also can't Interrogate the null field for the non-existence of something.
	Well, sure, yeah. I mean, once you bring the null in, you can't say anything about anything.
	You can't say that it's wrong to believe in God, or it's right to believe in God, or God does exist, or God doesn't exist, or 2 plus 2 is 4, or the world is round.
	You can't say anything if you bring the null in.
	And that's true. You can't just keep that centralized on God.
	If you bring the alternate universe null hypothesis in...
	then it applies to everything, and you can't make any knowledge claims about anything.
	Okay.
	But in that sense still, in saying that there is no God, I think it's necessary to be careful that you're referring to the only area that we can have knowledge, and that's in the universe that we inhabit.
	Is that correct?
	The moment you bring the other universe thing in and say that our knowledge is limited because of this other universe, you can't say therefore it's necessary to be cautious because that's making a knowledge claim statement.
	Maybe in this other universe it's not necessary to be cautious at all, in which case you can't say that it's necessary to be cautious.
	The moment you bring the null hypothesis of the alternate universe in, you can't make any knowledge claim about anything whatsoever because in that alternate universe, the exact opposite could be true.
	And you don't know that because you can't experience it.
	Do you know what I mean?
	You bring that in, it eclipses every conceivable positive or negative knowledge statement that you could make.
	I still feel that what goes on out there is of no relevance to what happens in our universe and that anything can happen there and that I can't make a claim one way or the other I certainly do understand that.
	Now, this kind of argument never occurs with theists, because we never get to this point, because they would have to admit there's no god in this universe, which they won't do.
	Well, certainly that you need for your kid to get well, or, you know, it's going to send you to hell.
	Right, exactly, exactly.
	But let me ask you this, because I think that we've run the gamut of rationality, and so you can listen to this again, and again, if I've made countless errors, just let me know, and I'd certainly be happy to retract them.
	But tell me about the feeling that occurs for you, because I think what's happening, and tell me if I'm wrong, I'm going to make some really wild-ass, in philosophical circles, these are called WAGs, wild-ass guesses, and you can let me know if this makes any sense.
	I always call them swags.
	Swag, silly wild ass guess.
	Right, absolutely. Good, brother, we're on the same page.
	I'm going to guess, and I'm going to be annoyingly psychological in this guess, so again, you can just let me know whether this makes any sense or not.
	Sure. I'm going to guess that strong opinions in your family were not encouraged when you were young.
	Certainly not by me.
	You weren't allowed to have them, and I would guess that other people were.
	Yes. Right.
	Absolutely. I'm sorry?
	Yes, you're absolutely correct.
	Okay, so it was a little bit, or perhaps not such a little bit, of an authoritarian household wherein other people's whims were kind of like law, but not only were you not allowed to have whims, you weren't even allowed to have rational opinions.
	Well, I went to Catholic school, so...
	A lot of that goes on there.
	Oh, absolutely, but I'm sure that that was even more embedded within your family as a sort of direct experience with your parents and siblings.
	Yeah, my father was definitely verbally abusive, never physically, but definitely his opinion, which were often pretty weird crank theories, kind of held sway in the family, to say the least. Well, first of all, I'd really like to compliment you to coming on an internet philosophy chat show, given that you've had some really bad experiences with weird theories.
	So I certainly do appreciate you coming on this show and giving us the benefit of the doubt.
	That's wonderful. I'd like to put it forward as a possibility.
	Introspection will tell you there's nothing that I can say that's going to prove anything here.
	I'd like to put forward as a possibility that the difficulty that you have making positive knowledge claims is due to the fact that this was punished.
	I mean, it's aversion. You feel uneasy emotionally.
	And this doesn't mean my argument's right or anything.
	I'm not trying to convince you with psychology.
	I'm just saying it's a possibility.
	That when you express the positive knowledge opinion as a child, had an opinion of any kind especially a reasoned opinion especially and obviously you're a very intelligent very logical fellow that you were punished for this right so basically what I'm saying is if you could just go back you know 30-40 years or whatever and if you could just stick this fork into an electrical socket that would be great and naturally you're like I don't really like sticking my fork into an electrical socket so when I say that you have every logical right and almost a requirement as a thinker To make positive knowledge claims,
	it's going back deep into your history and provoking anxiety because you were constantly punished for making knowledge claim statements as a child or having opinions.
	And I certainly know that the more irrational our parents are, and being sent to Catholic school is a strong indication of that, then the more rational your opinions are, The more you're going to get punished.
	In irrational families, stupid bigotries are almost rewarded.
	Any kind of rational thinking...
	One person's prejudice does not threaten another person's prejudice.
	What threatens prejudice is rational thinking.
	You are very drawn to rationality, both by nature and by your history, because you need to sort of figure things out, because you were told so many lies, so many horrible and brutal lies.
	So you're drawn to rationality, but I think it's emotionally difficult for you to do that.
	I was saying to somebody the other day, it's sort of like looking at those magnets.
	You've got two strong magnets, and you're trying to push the opposite poles together, and it gets close, but then it skids away.
	And that's sort of the feeling that I get with this kind of debate.
	So I just sort of put it out there as a possibility to think about If you were to go out into some public arena and say, there is no God, you know, whatever, whatever, what sort of feelings that would provoke in you and whether they would be at all similar to what might have happened to you as a kid when you would be certain about anything?
	That makes a lot of sense, Stephanie.
	It really does. I'm just going to cut you off because that's it.
	No, if you don't mind, just mull that over again.
	I'm not trying to sort of sneak in the wind of an argument based on psychologizing, but just sort of put it forward.
	That's the feeling that I get, which doesn't mean anything other than it's a possible feedback that might be of use to you.
	But mull it over and do come back and let me know what you think.
	Okay, thanks a lot, Steph. Thank you.
	I really appreciate it. Great chat.
	Very smart fellow. Thank you so much.
	Alright, so I think we've driven just about everyone away, except for...
	Have we? Oh, really?
	Yeah, those bastards should have been in here earlier.
	Hello, Mr. G. Oh dear, have we woken him up?
	Greg, it's time for you to talk.
	Is it, uh...
	I didn't realize I was looking to talk.
	Ha ha! Well, you had a whole bunch of topics in, and I could either scroll up just to try and find them, or you could pick the one that you felt was most important.
	Yeah, which one do you want to pull apart here?
	Oh, you found them, honey? He posted them again.
	Oh, isn't that sweet? You choose.
	I've had enough choices so far.
	All right, let's see.
	Our relationship is dead. Oh, okay.
	You want to do that one then? Yeah, I'm going to give the mic to Christina though.
	No, that was me.
	I was having a chat with someone this afternoon and he said something that struck a chord with me because I had very similar sort of experiences when I first stumbled along on this.
	And that is confusing what we have with you here on Freedomain with what I would call real friendship.
	And I was kind of wondering what your take on that would be.
	I guess this is going to sound kind of cynical, but because of the degree of depth that we go into in terms of personal histories, emotions and feelings and all that emotions and feelings and all that kind of thing,
	How to put it?
	It kind of sets up a certain...
	Like an intimacy, but not like exactly the same as the friendship intimacy.
	Yeah, it sets up an expectation of friendship-level intimacy, I think, that is...
	I'm guessing is inappropriate.
	And... Maybe misdirected?
	Well, I'll give you two seconds and I really will keep it short and then you can sort of see if it makes sense based on what you're saying.
	And I think it's an excellent topic to bring up.
	First of all, the reason, just for those who aren't aware of this, the reason that Greg has had a tough time seeing this is that most of Greg's friends do ask him for PayPal donations in order to spend time with him.
	And so it is a little bit more confusing for Greg than it would be for most people.
	So that's obviously one aspect that we can deal with perhaps another time.
	But I think I would agree with you, but I would go further insofar as that the depth of experience that we're talking about and the intimacy of our histories that we're talking about in this show is something that is deeper than just about everybody's friendships, I would say.
	Right.
	I mean, it certainly is deeper than even most of my friendships.
	Right.
	So I think that the level of intimacy, which is genuine, which is not, you know, I don't think people are making up stories except for Mr. Meat Helmet guy.
	I don't think people are making up stories or manipulating or anything.
	Like, I think there is a genuine and real intimacy in what people talk about in terms of their histories.
	And I think that's very helpful.
	And I think that's, I mean, it's more than helpful.
	It's one of the most powerful things that we do as a community.
	I think that what happens, though, is that this is deeper than most people have been in any relationship prior to early family experiences.
	Early childhood experiences with family is probably the last time that people were directly connected to these kinds of feelings that people have.
	Because a lot of growing up and being sort of an adult is walling off your original experiences and carving out some alternative socially approved personality so that you can fit in or so you can get ahead or just so you don't feel the anxiety of your history.
	So if our theory about the last fellow was true, obviously he's a smart guy who wants to know the truth, but his debating style is informed by his desire for rationality and his discomfort with any positive knowledge statements which is to do with his personal history.
	Right?
	So...
	By pointing that out in this debate, I was attempting to bring his history to his consciousness, so that he could say, well, maybe this isn't about the existence of an alternate universe, and maybe it's about Dad standing over me and yelling at me.
	So I think that what we do in these conversations, where we find ourselves running into irrational pockets of resistance within our own personalities, that we can't solve with reason, because they were inflicted through irrationality.
	The problems that we have in our personalities that prevent us from being happy We weren't reasoned into them.
	They were inflicted on us, right?
	I mean, you don't get reasoned into having a bruise on your arm, right?
	Somebody just hits you with a bat or something, right?
	So I think that by saying, well, where it is that I'm irrational, I'm so sorry, I totally lied about going on for a short amount of time.
	But where we run against these pockets of irrationality, the feelings that are buried in there are very volatile and very primal and very early, which is to say very rich and very authentic and very true.
	But the scar tissue and the defensive reactions to those feelings are also true, right?
	So when we hit a conflict, as we've sort of seen recently, people, I think, project their family situations, not their sort of friendships.
	And obviously that's inappropriate.
	It's not inappropriate to react to a situation based on family history.
	It is inappropriate to act out a situation, right?
	To just unconsciously project and deal with everyone as if they were your family.
	I think there is a strong degree of volatility that people don't have with their families, that people don't have with their friends, that goes back to a very early and primal situation where there's a great degree of emotionality, a great degree of vulnerability.
	That's the key. The scar tissue that peels off exposes a very raw wound at the base of the soul or the depths of the core of the soul for most people.
	Most people are in an environment in their family of origins, in their current relationships with lovers or wives or friends, where this is not something that they feel safe or secure in doing.
	And it needs a, let's just say, a quasi-professional environment where this stuff can be talked about.
	And that can be a therapist's office that can also be, to some degree, the board, though it's no substitute for I think that there is a lot of volatility.
	I think that you don't necessarily want to mistake the intimacy that you get into in terms of trying to work through some of this stuff and being honest on the board with a real relationship with a real friend any more than when I was When I was seeing my therapist for two, two and a half years, so three hours a week, that I thought that she was my friend.
	She was my coach and she was my advocate and she was totally there for me, but it's not quite exactly the same as friendship.
	And so what does it say then when someone might so easily confuse the two?
	Well, it's loneliness, right?
	Sorry? Sorry.
	It's loneliness, right? When you've lived a life where you haven't had any real contact at a level of depth that we all yearn for, right, Greg?
	I mean, we all yearn to talk to people honestly and deeply about...
	I mean, not exclusively. I mean, I like to go and see Shrek 3, right?
	Which is not going to be a deep experience, but will be fun.
	But we like to have the option to speak honestly and deeply about our experiences as human beings and what matters to us and what's going on for us and what we think and feel.
	And for most people, it's like you don't even know you're thirsty until you come to the oasis, right?
	And once you come to the oasis, you just drink until you get sick, right?
	So there is a certain amount of overindulgence, in a sense, that can occur, which is boundary issues and this sort of merging that we've talked about before, where this sort of fusion, where you just sort of unite without any sense of self, right?
	And that's a phase, and it's a necessary phase, and there's nothing wrong with it, but it's certainly not the end of the journey.
	So then you don't think that there's really anything that needs to be done to reassert the distinction there?
	You just kind of let it happen?
	Well, I think that we know sort of instinctually how to handle this stuff that, you know, when somebody is, you know, dying of thirst and hits the oasis, you don't give them three drops, right?
	I mean, that's tortuous, right?
	So I think that it's okay to be, you know, to embrace that kind of honesty and to be positive and friendly about it.
	But yeah, for sure, if somebody goes too far, then yeah, you absolutely have to push back and set up some boundaries.
	Not in a sort of aggressive way, but sure.
	I mean, if somebody's emailing you 50 times a day with their family history, then you have to say, listen, spam dude, I mean, this is something that a professional should be dealing with.
	I can't, as somebody you know over the internet, deal with this level of intimacy.
	Like, I can do a dream analysis, I can't do two years of therapy with someone, right?
	I mean, so... Definitely.
	But people do that because they don't want to see a therapist, right?
	So it's not helpful to get involved to that degree with somebody over the internet, I think.
	Right, and at the same time also, if you do have a local personal friend, you wouldn't be expecting them to do therapy on you either.
	No, therapy is not friendship.
	Therapy is not friendship at all.
	Because the people you choose before you go into therapy, you've chosen precisely because they can't and won't do that.
	So therapy usually spells the end of a good number of friendships, but therapy itself is absolutely and totally and completely not friendship.
	Right. So, what is it then that you would say would be a...
	Because up to this point, we've sort of defined friendship in the negative.
	What would you say defines friendship in the positive?
	You always wait until the end for these easy questions, don't you?
	You're like a bear trap all weekend.
	You know, like, hey, if I put a really tough coil and spring in here...
	I mean, to me, friendship is a relationship of equals who share values and not just philosophical values, right?
	I mean, there may be philosophical values that I share with people that I would never be friends with because maybe they just don't have a sense of humor or maybe they're You know, they don't like art the way that I do or whatever, right?
	So, I mean, there's necessary but not sufficient requirements of friendship, which is that you both have an identity that's not dependent upon, you know, social approval, that's not dependent upon manipulation.
	So there has to be true self-connection, right?
	And that's necessary.
	That's not sufficient because there have to be other sort of aesthetic values that I think unite and make it pleasurable, not just productive, right?
	Like if I'm in business with someone and we both share the same values of honesty and integrity, our business relationship is going to be very efficient.
	That doesn't mean we're going to be best buds, right?
	But so it's productive and positive to have people with the same values in your life.
	But there's the alchemical factor X, the ambrosia of friendship, which comes out of Just, you know, a sheer delight in each other's company that comes out of shared values and shared personalities that go beyond just, you know, well, we both believe that existence exists or something that's hugging, whatever, right? I mean, there's more to it than that.
	But it is a relationship of equals, right?
	And that's why therapy can't be friendship, because therapy is a doctor-patient relationship.
	That's why a coach can't be your best friend.
	That's why a teacher can't be your best friend, because it's not an equal relationship, right?
	And so, from that standpoint, I think that the goal is to build up as strong a self as possible, to be as reality-focused as possible, and to trust your instincts as much as possible, so that you can really connect with people and have that kind of beautiful relationship that comes out of equals.
	So then, would you say then that it's possible at all, for example, to have what you would call that kind of friendship with anyone on the Internet, for example?
	I think you can have that kind of friendship with people on the Internet, for sure.
	I mean, there's many examples in history of great friendships that were largely carried on through correspondence, right?
	Boswell and all people like that.
	And Winston Churchill kept an enormous number of friends, you know, when he wasn't battling depression for having been a war murderer.
	I mean, Winston Churchill has an enormous number of friendships alive almost exclusively through correspondence.
	So whatever form of communication is delightful and pleasant to you, and it can be people who meet on the board who are in the same sort of level of development or whatever, who are going through similar sort of trials, right?
	I mean, two people on the same team can be best friends, right?
	They just don't necessarily can't be best friends with the coach or the teacher, right?
	So, yeah, I think it can absolutely, completely and totally happen on the Internet, particularly now that you have webcams and you have Skype, so it's free to talk and you have email.
	I mean, it's all very... It's more than just, you know, letters.
	I mean, the Internet's much more intimate than letters, and if letters can keep a friendship alive and sustain and grow it, then for sure, so can the Internet.
	But, I mean, those are different...
	Kinds of friendships than you would have, say, in person.
	Go on. I guess what I'm suggesting here is that maybe there needs to be a whole class of words for the different kinds of people that you have at different layers of your life, right? Ah, Greg, always wanting to under-complicate things.
	What we need is a biological classification system, zoologically based, but with sedimentary layers, you see?
	There's friendship, and then there's webships, and then there's Skype ships, and then there's...
	I don't know. Well, I guess what I'm saying, though, is that...
	I mean, not everyone in your telephone address book is a friend, right?
	But you...
	Say, I can call a friend and get, you know, two tickets to wherever.
	He's not really a friend.
	He's just some guy you know who you can get tickets from, right?
	Right, right. Like he's the guy who works at the strip club.
	Sure. Yeah, I understand. So why keep using the same word for all those different...
	Well, we have acquaintanceship, we have friends, and we have acquaintanceship, which is, you know, just some, you know, my neighbors, right?
	Hey, how's it going? What's new?
	Okay, I'm bored, I'm leaving. And then we have, like, friends that we socialize with and we do stuff with, like the friends that Christine and I will call to go see We Will Rock You are not exactly, you know, high philosopher kings, but they're great fun to do social events with, and a guy likes karaoke and doesn't mind my occasional passion for it.
	And then there's like best friends, right?
	I mean, so, you know, acquaintance friends and best friends.
	I mean, that to me is fine.
	I mean, certainly you can add to it if you like, but I'm not sure that the internet is the key divider between those things.
	Well, I guess to zero back in on where I'm going with this, I guess what I'm suggesting is that we're not We're not really friends with you.
	We're more like acquaintances in that sense.
	I wouldn't characterize it that way.
	But certainly, I mean, just you and I, even outside of the show, we've had a couple of conversations that have been very intimate and very sort of revealing on both our parts, right?
	And certainly I've revealed to more on the shows than most people would have ever gotten from friends or family or anyone else in their life, right, in terms of personal history and unpleasant personal habits and all that kind of stuff.
	So... I would say that acquaintanceship is not...
	In terms of...
	Like when you and I first spoke, right?
	I mean, there was a difference at least in let's just...
	And I don't want to... This is never meant to sound condescending or anything because, you know, if I hadn't been lucky, it would have been reversed, right?
	But... You were just starting out.
	You were just trying to figure stuff out.
	It was tough for you. You were very self-deprecative.
	You would give up your position at the drop of a hat before you turned into a raging sumo tiger guy.
	There were places for you to go.
	It was certainly evident to me, but it was harder to have a conversation with you back then.
	I hate to sort of put it this way, because it sounds sort of silly, but there's ways in which you're further ahead than me by miles.
	But in this sort of area or this conversation, it's easier to speak to you now as an equal.
	And the whole purpose of a teacher, if I can sort of style myself, Mr.
	Miyagi fellow, the whole purpose of a teacher is to stop being a teacher.
	The whole purpose of a philosopher is to not have to teach.
	Any good teacher, as Nietzsche said, a student does not repay his teacher by not surmounting the teacher.
	I hope to put enough stuff out there that people are going to come back and teach me all the stuff that I don't know.
	That, to me, would be the greatest achievement.
	So, in a sense, yeah, I think you can, but you have to be sensitive to that transition and respect it when it occurs.
	You can grow into friendship with somebody who's a teacher, but I don't That then no longer is a teacher-student relationship, right?
	I mean, then it's just, okay, so now you've learned my jiu-jitsu moves and you can kick my ass so we can just fight and spar and have fun, right?
	It's no longer, you know, you're not like a seven-year-old in an oversized dojo or something, right?
	So, you know, there is that transition point, which I, as somebody who's sort of vaguely self-styled mentor, tries to be very, very sensitive to in people so that I don't overwhelm them with feelings of being further ahead when their ego is not strong enough to handle it.
	But when their ego does become strong enough through a process of introspection and philosophy, then I fully respect their growth in that area and give them all, you know, all the black belts that they've earned, right?
	Not that they're mine to give or anything.
	I'm just using this as a metaphor.
	for.
	So I think it can grow into that for sure.
	And I don't think that when you and Bill and I talk about the website, I don't think I come across as, you know, let me speak from on high about what's going to happen.
	We're just like three guys trying to figure some stuff out to make it work.
	So I think that there are those times that that works well.
	And to be sensitive to that growth in yourself as well as Where I'm at and to grow past me, that would be fantastic.
	I think that would be great. So I wouldn't put it quite in the category of acquaintanceship.
	I think that there is a coach and student relationship that then, when you've taught someone enough tennis that they can beat you regularly, then you're no longer their coach, right?
	right and then you could just be two players so but then you acknowledge that there's a sort of i mean there has to be a sort of a certain distance in order for that to work The teacher-student relationship.
	Well, it's not that there has to be, there just is.
	There just is. And you'll experience this, right?
	I mean, particularly as you go out on your wonderful trip that I envy, and it's great, right?
	But when you go out on your trip and you start talking to people in the world, right?
	Not that you don't now, but I mean, when you're sort of overseas and you're going on this trip and you're talking to people, You will, I mean, based on the fact that you've done just a fantastic and staggering and wonderful amount of work over the past 18 months, you will see people's defenses in play, and what they do will be enormously evident to you very, very quickly.
	Like, the defenses that are invisible to them will be glaringly obvious to you.
	I mean, when you get... To a fairly good degree of self-knowledge, basically people's false self messages, they scroll across their foreheads like lights in Times Square, right?
	And it's not that complicated to see exactly, exactly, exactly what is going on.
	And that is going to be an inevitable distance between you and those people, because you know them better than they know themselves, and usually far better than they know themselves.
	And that's a volatile thing to say, but it absolutely is just true.
	And when you get there, you just get it, right?
	You just see it. I was talking with Smaxim in the podcast that we released about his board participation, about sort of my evil manipulative side.
	I was like, I see exactly what's going on with people, and I'm not even going to give you a sense of whether accuracy or percentages, but for me, it's all pretty obvious.
	It's no magic. It just comes from self-knowledge and years of working at it.
	You hope you get better, right? But you can see exactly what's going on for people, right?
	And, you know, did I know that this last caller had issues with his family because he couldn't make a positive knowledge statement?
	Well, sure. But you can't sort of lead off with that, right?
	Because then it just seems totally manipulative.
	But there are times when you have to hold off and let people get to that knowledge themselves, right?
	They have to run themselves a little ragged before you can give them the answer.
	Because otherwise, they'll just view it as a manipulative...
	Like, if this guy said to me, well, I'm not sure that I'm a strong or weak atheist, and I'm not sure that I'm agnostic, and I said, oh, that's just because your father wouldn't let you make any decisions, right?
	He'd say... You don't be an asshole.
	You're being an asshole. You're not even responding to the issue.
	So there are times when you have to hold your knowledge back in order to let people get to where they need to get to.
	And you'll see this very clearly, and I'm sure you already are, which is one reason why you left your place of employ.
	But you will very, very easily see the knowledge will come to you without you even trying to find it.
	It will just sort of pop up for you exactly what people are doing.
	Which is almost completely the opposite of what they claim to be doing.
	And that just is a distance.
	I mean, you can either respect it or recognize it or not, right?
	But if you're a 6'7", 270-pound guy and you wrestle with a Boy Scout and you don't recognize there's a difference, the Boy Scout's going to get hurt, right?
	That's true. That's true.
	But at the same time, there's the problem of...
	How to put this...
	What is it? Over-enthusiasm?
	Is that too condescending?
	No, I understand that. I mean, that's sort of the gulping of the well because you've been thirsty your whole life and didn't even know it, right?
	But it's a professional kind of...
	Philosophy is a healing relationship, right?
	Like, I just turned 40, right?
	So I guess in a couple of years, I've got to start letting my doctor put his finger up my ass, right?
	Now, that's pretty intimate, right?
	I mean, that's pretty intimate, and I don't often let friends do that, at least not in public, so that's pretty intimate, but I wouldn't confuse that with, like, friendship, right?
	So there's a lot of intimacy, and I'm sorry to use a metaphor that's so bowel-oriented about sort of talking about the past, but But there is some truth in that, right?
	That the reason that I'm showing my ass to my doctor is because I want to make sure everything's okay in the old poop chute, right?
	That's not the same as being friends with my doctor, although that's far more intimate than I would be with your average friend at an inner body.
	Again, assuming that we're public.
	Right, which means never invite your proctologist to a dinner party, right?
	Right, right, absolutely.
	But I mean, in a healing relationship, it's important that you don't mistake the intimacy that is unusual in that relationship with exactly the same as the give and take of, you know, because it's not mutual, right?
	I mean, at least my doctor doesn't let me put my hand up his ass, right?
	At least it's a shame because he's got a nice one, but...
	It's not mutual, right?
	And it's professional and it's paid and that's the whole point.
	Even for the people who donate and even the people who don't, there's that expectation.
	So it's a sort of professional relationship and it's a good place to test intimacy and to learn to grow intimacy.
	The same way that going to a nutritionist is a good way to learn how to eat better.
	But it's not the same as being in a friendship.
	Learning about friendship, learning about intimacy, overcoming personal barriers.
	This is a great forum and I think one of the best around to do that.
	But that's all training to go out and play the game without the coach.
	The coach doesn't come on the field with you.
	The coach is in the room doing weird things with chalk and blackboards and stuff.
	But the coach doesn't come out and then you go out and you play.
	And this is the coach house.
	You go out and play. And the coach can't come with you, right?
	So that's not the same.
	Right. And that's kind of what I was getting at at the beginning, is that you can be friends with other players on the team, but you can't be friends with the coach.
	I think that's quite true.
	And to go back to your spring metaphor, the water, you have two choices, right?
	You can either let the person drink until he vomits, or you can try to pull back on his head a little bit and tell him, hey, you might want to slow down a little there, dude.
	Yeah, in fact, you would say, I'm pulling you away from the well.
	You'd be even more than that, because if you know they're going to get sick, they're going to die if they get drowned and they're drinking or whatever, right?
	Then you just, you actually, you pull, you drag them if you have to away, right?
	If they're going to hurt themselves.
	So absolutely, for sure.
	For sure. I mean, that is part of it, and that is a power relationship, right?
	That you know that they're going to get sick, like your kids with candy, right?
	You know that you're going to eat all that candy, then there's going to be less for you.
	Sorry. What I mean is that it's going to be, that's the story, right?
	But for me, that's the fact.
	The story is that they're going to get sick.
	You know that, right? You don't just give them the candy, right?
	You just, you know, even if they kick and scream, you just have to take the candy away because they're going to get sick.
	And that is a power relationship based on knowledge.
	And there's nothing wrong with that.
	I mean, again, my doctor has a power relationship relative to me.
	So does my dentist. I don't know what the hell they're doing.
	I just hope I feel better when I leave.
	Right. So I guess it's just a matter of understanding clearly that what you're saying is not, I want to be your friend, but I want to teach you something.
	Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
	I've got some knowledge that I've worked on and that I've also myself been taught, right?
	I mean, everyone who's a coach was at some point, you know, a kid in diapers who didn't know anything, and I'm no exception, right?
	But there's some stuff that I've been taught and that I've learned along the way that I really want to share with people because I think that people have this amazing and powerful and wonderful ability for joy and so on, and it's a pain in the ass to get there, but...
	It's well worth it.
	So yeah, I definitely want to share that, but it's not a relationship of equality.
	It's equalized, and this is why I harp on the donations.
	It's equalized by donations.
	My relationship with my doctor is non-dictatorial because I pay him.
	donate who think I'm dictatorial, because they don't get that it's a reciprocal relationship.
	I mean, that's true.
	I mean, it sounds facetious, but nobody who's ever donated money has ever accused me of being dictatorial.
	And I think that the cause and effect is backwards from what people would normally assume with that.
	It's not a dictatorial relationship because they've stepped up and paid for the value they've gotten.
	So they would never think of me as a dictator, because they're not dealing with me as a parent.
	That's another reason why donations are important.
	We don't donate to our parents.
	We donate to our teachers.
	And that's why donations...
	I know people are taking a big step forward when they donate because they're getting out of the parent-child paradigm with me and they're getting into a relationship of equality.
	And that's why I encourage people to do it, along with all the goodies that I like to buy, which I then just plow directly back into this damn show.
	Yeah, so I mean, that's the way to get out of that, right?
	People who feel it's dictatorial should just donate, and they won't feel that way because they'll be participating in a non-foo-based way.
	Right, and maybe that's where the sense of kind of ickiness comes from when people confuse the fact that they're donating for the value you have to offer versus paying for a friendship.
	Right. Or, you know, if I'm a parental stand-in, right, and certainly for some of the younger people on the board, and maybe even some of the ones who aren't so young, that definitely occurs.
	I mean, there's no doubt I'm putting myself forward as an authority figure, right?
	And I'm not trying to do that.
	I mean, it's just inevitable.
	You can't rationally put forward a superior knowledge claim without putting yourself forward as an authority figure.
	I mean, there's just no way to avoid it, and I don't think there's anything wrong with it, right?
	Right. But if people are angry at their parents, then they will have a very complicated relationship with me if they haven't worked through that, right?
	And they will feel resentful about the very idea of donating because it feels like they then should be nice to their parents who were bad to them or something.
	It all gets very sort of messy and confusing and complicated.
	And the key thing is to just be patient and to wait for them to work that kind of stuff out.
	So you become a sort of metaphorical proxy for...
	For all the other relationships in whoever this else is.
	Right. And that's healthy.
	For them to do that, it's called countertransference.
	And you can look it up if you don't know the term.
	But in the therapeutic relationship, it is absolutely essential that it's transference.
	Sorry, it's transference. Countertransference is when I do it back to them, right?
	But I try and avoid that.
	Yeah. To be perfectly frank, and I don't mean to offend anybody, but when people attach to me as a father figure, that's very healthy.
	Because it means that they're detaching from their existing father who was abusive.
	So then they attach to me as a father figure, and it means that I then have to take a hold of a lot of craziness that they've got in their relationship.
	A lot of ambivalence, a lot of ambiguity, a lot of love-hate, a lot of complication.
	It's a tough load to carry at times, but it's absolutely essential because By transferring their psychological energies to me as a sort of stand-in for a father figure, I then can act in a different manner than their father did and break the hold of that original story, that original mythology about their father.
	That's the issue.
	That's how you do it. And there's no other or better way to do it that's ever been figured out.
	And that's where all this worry over power disparity comes from.
	Not the fact that you have the ability to ban people, but the fact that they...
	They sense the power disparity in that.
	There's a lot of danger there.
	Right. They either are then going to recognize that I act differently from their own father, or let's just say it could be their mother, given that I could get squeaky at times, and my man tits are coming along beautifully, but given that we'll just assume that it's the father for the moment, what's going to happen is that we're in a battle over their soul.
	And again, not to sound overly dramatic, but this is totally what happens.
	Either people are going to get me to become abusive, If they're projecting their tortured father relationship onto me, then either they're going to manipulate me into becoming abusive.
	Or I'm going to break the hold that their father has over them.
	Just by not being abusive.
	It's not any magic to it.
	But they've transferred their allegiance, which means they're attempting to recreate or to change.
	It's either going to change or it's going to be recreated when they transfer their allegiance over.
	And it's got nothing to do with me.
	I'm just some authority figure that they've picked up.
	It could be anyone. I'm certainly glad that it's me because I think they've got more of a better chance with me than with other people.
	But that ambivalence, that tortured relationship that they have, Either they're going to turn me into their dad, or I'm going to turn them into someone more rational.
	I mean, this is just putting it very boldly, and it's more complicated than that, and blah, blah, blah, but I'm just putting my cards on the table, right?
	That this is the battle.
	Either their past is going to overwhelm me, or my present is going to overwhelm their past, right?
	And so that's why it's very complicated to deal with people who are going through that level of transference, and that level of ambiguity, and ambivalence, and And confusion and aggression and fear and respect and to some degrees even love.
	It's a lot of its projection, right?
	It's quite a lot of intellectual and emotional energy to hang on to and to not react to and not engage with in any kind of hostile manner while still being firm, right?
	right?
	And the people who then will not be able to exist in the relationship without perpetually turning me into their father must leave the relationship until such time as they can come back and deal with it in a more sensible way, right?
	So the people who just hang around sniping that I'm dictatorial and mean and vicious and hypocritical, it's got nothing to do with me, it's just that they're trying to turn me into their dad because there's been a shift in their original relationship, right?
	With their father and if I'm not their dad, right?
	If I'm not their dad, then it's going to be enormously painful for them.
	I get what the stakes are, completely and totally.
	I wasn't planning on talking about this, but why not?
	We're here. I totally get that if I'm not their dad, they're going to feel like shit.
	Because they say authority is abuse.
	That's the story. That's the mythology.
	Everybody in authority is abusive.
	And that's how they forgive, quote, forgive their father.
	That's how they can, at the cost of their future and their souls, but this is how they got through.
	They say, well, it's not my dad.
	It's authority that's evil.
	So then they listen to some podcasts about a guy, blah, blah, blah.
	And they then will say, okay, well, this guy's in authority, so he's got to be evil.
	Because all authority is evil.
	It wasn't my dad, it was authority that was the problem.
	So then what happens is, I'm not evil.
	I don't think I am, so I'm not evil.
	And so this threatens the story, this threatens the mythology, this threatens the core belief that authority is evil.
	Now, if authority is not evil, in other words, if they accept that I, as an authority, am not evil, but in fact virtuous and good, Right?
	Then there's only one thing left that can be evil, and that is their father, specifically and individually.
	Not authority, not fathers in general, not people who know, not people who have power, but their dad, particularly and individually, was a bad guy.
	And that's a whole lot more painful than authority is bad, right?
	Because then it becomes personal, then it becomes historical, then it becomes the original pain.
	That they just hate and fear and loathe and despise and it's awful.
	They literally feel like I'm pushing them off a cliff by being a nice guy.
	I mean, I totally get that, right?
	And they lash out and they get upset and they get angry.
	And they may not be at a time in their life, either procedurally or economically or emotionally, or they may not be and probably aren't many times at a time in their life where they can deal with it, right?
	So then I just have to say, well, you're wildly out of control in your projections onto me.
	You are attempting to turn me into a bad guy in order to save your dad, in order not to re-experience the pain that you had by being abused by this bad guy.
	You made it abstract, right?
	Someone in authority acts differently, it becomes personal, right?
	Because then it's about their dad, not about generalized authority figures.
	And so, yeah, it's totally, it's a battle to the death in many ways, and I won't give an inch, right?
	I mean, and so it's very tough for a lot of people.
	Right. In a sense, it puts you in a very dangerous situation if you're not always switched on.
	Well, I mean, that's the great thing about philosophy is that you are always switched on, right?
	I mean, it doesn't become like...
	I mean, there are a couple of times, and certainly, I'm not saying it's easy.
	Like, I'm not saying, oh, I waltzed in here on my perfect magic carpet of self-actualization and, you know, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
	Do nothing to touch me! I am the perfect armor of actualization.
	No, it is tough at times, for sure.
	And I absolutely have to talk it over with Christina sometimes quite a lot.
	And make sure that I'm not counter-transferring, that I'm not slipping into a role that other people are setting up for me, that I'm not falling into the false self traps that people are setting up for me.
	It is not easy, for sure, but this is how we build a free world, right?
	One person at a time.
	Yep. That makes total sense.
	No shortcuts. There are no shortcuts.
	And I sure spent a lot of damn time and wasted a lot of damn time thinking that they were, but they're just not.
	You have to fight for everyone's soul individually.
	Yep. One conversation at a time.
	Right. That was all I had on that one.
	Great. Well, I'll be sure to edit this out so nobody knows my evil manipulative side.
	Ha ha ha ha ha!
	All right. Well, thanks, Greg. I mean, that was an excellent, excellent question.
	I hope that the answer was of some satisfaction.
	If anyone else has any last-minute, absolutely quick, total questions about anything that came up, I'm certainly happy to answer them.
	Otherwise, we shall pick up.
	I finished the last landing page today, the one on politics, which I posted, if you can let me know.
	I'll collate them all tomorrow, and I'm going to record the videos for the landing pages tomorrow.
	This should be up by Tuesday at the latest and then we can start advertising again.
	So I guess nobody else is waiting.
	Thank you so, so much everyone for listening and being part of this wonderful conversation and by wonderful I mean your participation makes it what it is.
	So thank you so much everyone for taking the time and the energy to post on the board, to listen to the podcast, to be part of this conversation.
	We are doing some unbelievable good for the world and I really, really appreciate your support.

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