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June 8, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:03:59
788 Family and Statism Part 3

A testable methodolgy for determining the validity of political activism that you can try yourself!

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Good afternoon, everybody. Actually, good morning, everybody.
I hope you're doing well. It's Steph. It is June the 7th.
Hey! It's my brother's birthday.
So, thank you so much for joining in this conversation on this...
Oh, it's a beautiful day. I'm out here in Ottawa, the seat of our nation's capital, which is a very...
Very well stocked with military types, let's put it that way, because of course we have missions in Kandikar and so on.
We're off there killing Muslims because that's worked out so well for Christians out the past thousand years.
So that's what we're up to.
And what else?
Oh, I saw children waving to a soldier.
Amazing. Children couldn't have been more than six or seven years old.
Waving to a soldier who waved back, you know, and this image of soldiers giving children candy is pretty constant.
Firemen holding burned babies and so on, this strong protector father, godly types.
But it's amazing, it's just amazing how early this all begins to happen for children.
This worship of coercion, this worship of violence.
But that's neither here nor there.
I mean, that's just something which is by the by.
Now, in the conversations that we've had recently with regards to anarcho-capitalist theory in general, and specifically with regards to voting as a means for achieving change in society, I wanted to do the last couple of podcasts a little bit after people had, and I, had talked a lot about the abstract and the political.
Because I've always said, from the very beginning, that the political is a mere outgrowth of the personal, the status and effect of the family.
So I wanted to dig into the discussions about government and voting and Ron Paul and so on.
So that I could sort of close the loop and bring people back into an understanding of how all of this stuff comes out from the political, sorry, from the personal, from the family.
And I started to do that.
I sort of figured I'd finish it off today on this walk.
And for those of you who've expressed some concern about my cardiovascular health because I occasionally become short of breath when I am walking, it's...
Not because I'm in bad health.
I'm actually in excellent, excellent health.
But there's a couple of things.
I mean, it's hard to do a sustained thought in a breath.
Doing these kinds of podcasts, the breathing is as complicated as an opera singer is at times.
You have to make sure that you have enough of a breath to finish your thought.
Also, I find, and I'm not sure why, but I find that...
I get a little bit more of the thrill, a sort of hyper-excited thrill, when I'm podcasting while walking than when I'm podcasting while driving.
And I'm not sure exactly why that is.
It may be to do with the fact that people are passing by or whatever, but I'm not sort of in the Volvo bubble.
But it's also just the...
It's a bit of a savage thrill, at times, getting these ideas out in this format, and that can be quite a workout in and of itself.
So, don't worry, my friends.
I'm not about to keel over.
So, in the last podcast, we talked about how, if you believed, if voting was the way to solve the problems of the world...
Then you would believe that the intermediation of a third party could turn evil into less evil or evil into good.
And so of course I put the challenge out just as a refresher to say if you can get your parents or other bad people that you know in your life, if your parents are bad, into therapy then that would be great.
That would be a tenth of a percentage of a point of the way towards the argument that voting could deal with the evils of the state.
Now, I'd like to sort of reverse that, because...
I'll tell you why afterwards.
But first of all, I'd like to reverse that proposition.
And what I'd like to do is I'd like to say, or put forward the theory, that if you try to turn bad people into good people through the use of a third party and your influence over it, get your parents into therapy and so on, If you try to rehabilitate the corruption within your family of origin, then it's very painful.
It's very painful to run smack dab up against the incredibly humiliating powerlessness that you have with regards to your family.
And if your family's bad, I mean, I just go out on a limb here and completely guarantee that this is what's going to happen.
So, when you try to get the parents who say that they love you and they worship you and they would do everything for you and everything they do is about you and, you know, there's nothing but love and scrumptious goodiness all around, when you've heard those words for 20 or 30 or 40 years or more, then when you try to...
Make good on all of those checks that have been written in your name.
You take them to the bank and say, hey, let's cash these babies in, huh?
And you try to get your parents to, you know, your parents say, we love you, we respect you, we think you're wonderful.
These are all words, right? And then you put the rubber on the road and you say, well, great.
If you love and respect me and think that I'm so wonderful, then take my advice and go to therapy.
Oh, dear. Oh dear.
I'm afraid that's when it all comes crashing down, and there is much woe in the land.
And that's something that I think is very, very important to understand.
That we avoid these kinds of conversations for very specific reasons.
Somebody says, oh, I love you, I love you, I love you, and I respect you, and you're wonderful, and this and that.
We are very afraid, deep down, because we know the truth, but at a higher level, we're very afraid that this is all just nonsense.
This is just words that someone is saying to us to drug us, to numb us, to keep us around, because it's so much easier to say good than be good.
It's so much easier to say good once eligible.
Who cares, right? It's so much easier to say love than be love.
It's so much easier to say rational and integrity than to be rational and have integrity.
And, of course, the fact that they use these words as a cover for the absence of these actions, and the actions described by these words, is significant, because it means that they know ethics, they know the value of ethics, and they use ethics to control and disrupt other people.
Nicht so gut, eh?
So we don't want to test The bonds that we have with our parents.
And we just talk about our parents, but this could apply to just about anything.
We don't want to test the bonds that we supposedly have with our parents.
We really don't. Right?
In the same way that if there's a railing that looks really rickety, you know, this is some high Catalina-style bridge over a chasm, We're walking this bridge and there's a railing along the side and it's splintered and it's rickety and bits of it are falling off and it's got termite holes and woodpeckers drilling away at it.
As we watch, bits of it are falling and fluttering away and little wood bits into the canyon.
We're not going to lean our full weight against it.
Because that would be to fall and die.
So with regards to our parents, we take the same approach.
They say, oh, we love you, we trust you, we respect you.
And this is, of course, in any rational universe, if these words were actually true, then we would have credibility.
If somebody says, I love you and I trust you, You should have some credibility with that person, right?
That would make some kind of logical sense.
What would love and trust mean if it didn't include credibility?
If I say to my doctor, I really trust you, and then reject every cure he gives me, what does that mean?
It means I don't trust him. The actions.
So we're terrified to penetrate these web of words.
These web of words. We're terrified...
I've seen the truth about the greatest.
The greatest corruption is to use virtue for evil.
The greatest corruption is to use virtue for evil.
To know that nobility and truth and honor and dignity and love and respect and all these sorts...
To know that these are good things and valuable things And then to use those good and valuable things to create slavery and destruction in others.
A counterfeiter is, in my view, worse than a thief.
You can protect yourself against a thief, you can't really against a counterfeiter.
And parents are counterfeiters of virtue.
They're not thieves of virtue.
The government is a thief of virtue.
Parents fundamentally are counterfeiters.
A counterfeiter, as we've talked about before, a counterfeiter recognizes the value of currency and then debases it.
And he's only able to debase it because other people recognize the value of currency.
He knows the value of that which he's undermining and destroying.
And parents are counterfeiters to the nth degree.
Not all, but the ones that are under discussion at the moment.
So we don't want to ask things of those who claim to love us.
We don't want to put that love to any kind of empirical test.
We don't want to put that love to any kind of empirical test.
And why? Why don't we want to put that love to any kind of empirical test?
Well, for the same reason that we don't want to lean On the rotten railing on the bridge over the chasm.
Because we know it's going to fall.
And so we don't push against that railing.
And we don't put the test of love and loyalty and respect from our family.
we don't put it to the test and all of this is hyper crucial in my opinion so Hyper-crucial. The logical test for can a third party turn evil to good, or evil to less evil, is our family.
That's all very obvious in hindsight, I'm sure.
But there's a reason why people prefer this quasi-Platonic realm of let's work with the state as the key.
Let's work with the state.
Let's work with abstracts.
let's go to the ideal world of forms rather than apply ethics to our immediate and personal relationships.
And it is because we don't want to put things to the test in our personal life.
Because it's going to be too painful.
Right?
The state...
God! Somebody posted on the board and said, but Steph, your entire philosophy has been about getting rid of the state.
No! Not so.
Not true. Not true.
Not true. It would be highly irrational to propose a solution To the problem of unhappiness, which you had no control over.
I mean, happiness is a lack of control, right?
This is why illusions are so dangerous.
Because you think you have control, but you don't.
Living in illusion is like trying to pilot a plane...
By manipulating the food on your lunch tray and thinking that you're flying the plane.
Well, you're going to crash. And you're going to be bewildered.
It's like trying to drive your car by pushing the buttons on your iPod.
Left, right, oh, it's not working!
Something's wrong! Well, it is.
Happiness comes from control over your life, and control over your life comes from Effectively interacting with reality.
Effectively interacting with reality.
And, most fundamentally, the greatest barriers to happiness are illusions about our relationships.
Very few of us have illusions, in a schizophrenic sense, about reality itself.
Very few of us are peculiarly upset by our inability to walk on water or fly.
It is the illusions in our relationships that are the greatest causes of our unhappiness.
Not the relationships themselves.
But our illusions about our relationships are what make us unhappy.
And it certainly is true that most people have illusions about their relationships with the state.
I vote. I participate.
I can control it. Nonsense.
Not true. The only people you get to vote for are those already bought and paid for, who are detrimentally and diametrically opposed to your interests, because the only reason that people get money for political campaigns is because other people expect favors in return.
I mean, who get voted in, not the people on the outside.
So sure, we have illusory relationships, With our government.
We have illusory relationships with God.
And we're just stalking nothing.
Religion is stalking nothing.
And we have illusory relationships with our families.
So, Now, in this podcast series as a whole, from the very beginning, I couldn't start with the family.
Couldn't start with the family.
It's too personal. It's too volatile.
You've got to understand the structure.
You have to at least respect the analysis of relationships that occurs in the abstract realm, in the political realm, in the theological realm.
I mean, I had to get you to trust my methodology with regards to things that you were already half in agreement with, the state and God.
And then once you respect the methodology, I have a slightly better chance of confronting your illusory relationships with your family, your friends, your lovers, whatever.
Slightly better. Slightly better.
It's only slightly. Slightly is all I can get.
Slightly better is all I can conceivably get.
Ninety percent of people will drop off the conversation when it comes to the family.
But I think that the conversation about universally preferable behavior and statism and theology and illusory relationships with the government and with God That raises that, or lowers that from 95% to 90.
That's one person in 20.
That means a lot to me.
But most people will drop off the map when it comes to applying philosophy to your personal relationships, dispelling illusion in the realm of personal relationships.
And that's no critique.
So did I. For many years.
I hope that the people who storm off or fade away will come back.
Because the theory's there now, right?
And now they have a theory with a testable methodology.
Illusions about your personal relationships make you the most unhappy.
Ethophronia excluded.
And so the reason that people like to work with irrational principles in the abstract is so that they don't have to put them to the test in the immediate.
it.
The reason, fundamentally, that people want to believe in Ron Paul is so that they don't have to accept the truth about their parents.
The reason that people are drawn to supporting a third-party political intervention to ameliorate the evils of the state is because they don't want to accept the truth about their parents.
And this may sound outlandish to you, and that's perfectly possible.
I'm certainly happy to hear arguments to the contrary, but I'll tell you the methodology that I have.
When people are certain about abstractions, which they have not proven empirically within their own life, Then they're addicted to those abstractions so that they don't have to put those principles to test in their personal life.
Oh my god, that was convoluted.
Let's try it again, shall we?
Ooh, good latte.
When people are certain about abstractions...
When people are certain about principles in the abstract, that they have not put to the test in the personal, they have certainty in those abstractions so that they don't have to put those things to test they have certainty in those abstractions so that they don't have to put
A belief in voting for Ron Paul, in other words, is prompted by a desire to avoid reforming the parents.
Thank you.
A belief in the capacity of a third party to reform the state is clung to because Of a complete lack of belief and a lack of desire to approach that in one's personal life.
Let me, with your kind indulgence, let me give you a parallel example that I think might help at least explain what I mean by this.
See, when somebody says, the government should do X, Somebody says the government should do X. Let's say that I have a research project X. And I say the government should fund my research project.
What I'm really saying is that my research project has no value objectively.
The value in the sense of subjective, semi-subjective.
I mean, we all value food and water, but some of us value iPods versus tents in different ways.
But if I say the government should fund my research project, what I'm really saying is that I know that my research project has no value, or certainly not enough value to be funded voluntarily. or certainly not enough value to be funded voluntarily.
Whenever somebody wants the government to do something, they are immediately and totally and completely saying, "I don't think it has any value.
In fact, I know that it doesn't have any value.
Apple doesn't go, I'm assuming, in general, to the government to say, we need money for iPods.
We need money to develop and sell iPods.
Why? Because people are already buying iPods.
People have proven that iPods have value by voluntarily parting with hard-earned cash for the sake of said iPods.
The moment that somebody says the government should do something, they're saying that because they know for a fact that people don't want it.
People don't want it.
The knowledge that they have is the opposite of what they say.
Bye.
And we know that because the methodology that they're taking to achieve their goal.
My God, I am convoluted this morning.
Let's hope it's because the ideas are complex rather than I just lost the ability to be succinct.
Not succinct. Non-tangential?
Actually, not too tangential this morning.
Nobody puts forward the proposition saying that my research should be funded because nobody wants to fund it.
Right? Obviously they must say that their research should be funded because people really want the research.
But they just kind of don't know it or, you know, whatever, right?
But they have to say that people want the research.
The research has value.
But at the same time, because they want to use force to achieve that value, clearly it has no value.
It's like a rapist saying, this woman really wants to sleep with me.
That's why I have my knife to her throat.
Well, let me put it to you this way, my friend.
If you have a knife to the young lady's throat, she probably doesn't want to sleep with you.
In fact, I can say that for sure she doesn't want to sleep with you.
Unless there's some sort of macabre role-playing going on.
So people will say, this is voluntary and people want it, and then stick a gun in their face.
And they stick a gun in their face because they know that people don't want it.
They use the word voluntarism.
This is democracy in a nutshell.
The voters vote for X. Nonsense.
I never voted for income tax.
Nonsense. So, the methodology that people propose, coercion versus voluntarism, shows that they believe the opposite, deep down.
And that's a very, very important thing to understand, I believe.
So when people sort of violate the NAP, non-aggression principle, and look for a political solution, it's because they don't believe that it's possible, deep down.
If you propose a state-based coercive solution to the problem of the state, you're like the guy who says my project called Freedom should be subsidized.
Well, it's because you don't think it has any value.
You don't think it's possible. You don't think it's going to provide value for people.
And I know it's a bit of a paradox that people say, well, I want to use the state to get rid of the state and so on, but again, here we have the non-empirical approach, which is kind of important, right?
Somebody says, I want to use the coercive power of the state and voting in order to diminish the coercive power of the state through voting.
then without a doubt they are saying that they don't think it's going to work and they don't think it has value.
So you have a paradox.
Paradox.
People who propose coercive solutions know that there's no value in what they're proposing.
Because otherwise they wouldn't want coercive solutions.
They wouldn't need coercive solutions.
Now, people who propose coercive solutions specifically have to avoid testing those coercive solutions.
Ooh, we're getting even more convoluted now.
I mean, if I say to whoever's going to be funding my research project...
Morning.
If I say, this project has value, objectively...
That's why it should be funded by tax money, blood money.
If I say that my research project has value, objectively and independently, then clearly the natural response would be, well, then you don't need government money.
If I can put a business case forward...
That says, I have already proven that if I make 10,000 units of X, I'm going to make a million dollars.
And I already have pre-orders for 10,000 units of X. 10,000 widgets.
I've already got the order signed up.
People have already given me the money.
They're just waiting for the order.
So now, I need subsidized funding to make these things.
Well, clearly, the person then who would be in control of the subsidized money would say, well, you don't need this because you've already got the orders.
You've already got the money. Right?
You don't need coercive money.
You don't need to point a gun at people.
Right? Trying to rape a woman after she's had sex with you.
Doesn't make any sense, right?
If you've already got the money and you've already got the orders, then you don't need coerced money.
So, if you put forward a proposition which says, my proposal has value, then clearly, then clearly, and it needs to be funded through coerced money, through coercion. Clearly you face the challenge of, if it has value, why do you need force?
If you claim the woman's going to make love with you voluntarily, why do you need the knife?
So, whenever you propose a coercive solution, you are explicitly rejecting testability.
And you have to, because you have to claim that it has value, but then you have to deny any criteria for establishing that value.
Any objective criteria? I know this is all horribly complicated, at least it feels that way to me, but I really think it's very important.
Whenever you propose a coercive solution, you are specifically and explicitly rejecting testability.
So you have to claim that it has value, otherwise it's a simple cash grab.
Everybody has to say that the welfare helps the poor and people want to help the poor.
Old age pensions reflect the will and desire of society not to have old people starve to death on cat food.
So when you propose a coercive solution, you must both say it has value, and you must specifically reject the criteria by which that value could be measured.
And that's the paradoxes.
It's the heart of coercive solutions.
But the fundamental aspect of a coercive solution is the rejection of testability.
Go back to the widgets.
X-widgets. You say these have value, and therefore the production needs to be subsidized.
But then somebody says, well, you get the orders and come back to me.
You go get the orders, you come back, the business says, well, you don't need subsidies.
You've got the orders, you've got the money. You've already proven the value, therefore you don't need the subsidy, right?
You've already proven the value.
You don't need the subsidy.
Coercion is a rejection of testability.
Okay.
Let's go one layer deeper.
Why do you want to reject testability?
Why does somebody who proposes a coercive solution, since a coercive solution specifically rejects testability, why would somebody want to reject testability?
If I genuinely believe, let's just say I invent a pill that causes people to lose 10 pounds a day with no negative health effects.
Let's say, that's my business plan.
I can sell these for a dollar and make 99 cents.
Well, obviously everyone's going to want them.
Everyone who's overweight or whatever.
Obviously, a buck ain't too bad to pay, and there's a lot of profit in it.
I make billions. Just in the U.S. South alone.
Well, clearly, I don't need a subsidy for that.
Clearly, I don't need to coercively go and get money from, quote, investors, right?
Taxpayers or whatever. I don't need a subsidy for that.
Obviously. Because the value is clear and objective.
I won't be able to make enough of these to sell them.
And the hootie plant will become extinct.
So, So clearly, I'm not going to have any problem with testability in this situation because it's going to pass with flying colors.
Right? Ten pounds a day.
One dollar. No adverse health effects.
Yes, test it all you want.
Open it up to all the focus groups you want.
The more, the merrier. Einstein was so confident of his...
thesis, gravity-bend starlight, that he was very happy when people went to test it on the boat and look at the eclipse.
Because when you're sure of something, testability is great.
And...
Testability only enhances your credibility.
So, when you propose a violent solution to a particular problem, it's because you know that it's false. it's because you know that it's false.
You know that it's false.
You know that you're trying to put one over on somebody.
Deep down. I'm not saying consciously, necessarily, but...
you reject testability because you know that it's false.
And so what people are then drawn to do, if they say that something has value, but they explicitly reject the testability of it, is they create imaginary universes is they create imaginary universes where testability and proof can be whatever they want.
Yeah.
When somebody knows that a proposition is false, whether that proposition is the state is good, God exists, vote for Ron Paul, Then they're immediately drawn to create a universe, to imagine a universe, I should say, wherein that testability can never be proven or unproven.
The truth of a proposition can never be proven or disproven.
Right? And that's because they know that it's false.
100 years ago, 150 years ago, I would probably have been totally down with political solutions.
It would be wonderful. A whole lot easier than talking with people about the family.
I would have been totally keen on these kinds of solutions.
I'm guessing. But this is what happens, of course, when you talk to people.
Who are putting forward a positive prescription, right?
People say, well, why are you fighting with Ron Paul?
People are, because I'm not putting forward the proposition.
Inaction is not a proposition.
Or action in a different way, right?
If somebody says to me, you should do X, they have to approve that proposition.
Somebody says to me, go vote.
That's a positive action.
They've got to prove that, right? I'm not fighting with them, and they're fighting with me.
Because they're saying, do X. And I say, what's the proof?
And they can't answer. So, when you say, subsidize product X because people really want it, and then you do a poll, and people say, I don't really want it.
You say, well, it has value to society as a whole.
It has value to future generations.
People won't be happier if they buy my product, but they'll be unhappier if my product is never on the market.
Right?
That's not testable.
Right?
This is back to the example of the toothache and the happy dance.
So you've got some virulent toothache and I say, do a happy dance and it will make your toothache better.
And you do the happy dance for two weeks and your tooth is totally killing you.
The pain is just unbearable.
And, of course, you've had two weeks of not getting your tooth dealt with, which means it's going to be that much worse to deal with in the future.
And you come to me and say, this stupid dance doesn't work.
Thank you.
And I say, well, sure it works.
And you say, no, my pain is, oh my god, my pain when I came to you was a 4, now it's a 10.
And I say, yeah, but if you hadn't done the happy dance, it'd be an 11.
And I say, well, how do you know?
What's your proof? Do you have a control group?
Do you have a controlled experiment? Do you have double blind?
Do you have, right?
No. No, you don't.
You're just making up an alternate universe where failure to do it, right?
Failure to do the happy dance results in a worse toothache.
There's no test for that. Never been tested, just making it up, right?
Why? Because you want to avoid testability because you know that it's false.
That's why when I say to people who propose political solutions, well, they've been tried for 150 years and look at the size and power of the state.
And they say, well, yes, but if they hadn't been tried, imagine how much worse the state would be.
Well, that doesn't follow.
But they're certain of it, right?
Evidence doesn't faze people who are being defensive about their families, fundamentally.
Evidence doesn't faze people who are being psychologically defensive.
Evidence doesn't matter. They'll use evidence, but it won't really matter.
We're going to cross into it.
Counter-evidence doesn't.
Guy talking about 9-11, you know, controlled demolition and so on, right?
Twin Towers. And he says, well, steel only melts at 2700 degrees, blah, blah, blah.
And I said, well, steel doesn't.
I said, I don't know what happened, right?
But I certainly... It's a merry-go-round, right?
I say, it's a merry-go-round. This story, that story, this expert, that expert.
It's a maze, right? It's a hole with no bottom.
And even if proven, it wouldn't free people from the state.
So I say, but nobody says that the Twin Towers fell because steel melted.
They said it fell because steel weakened.
And steel loses 90% of its strength at 750 degrees.
And he said, no it doesn't.
And I said, so you disagree with the proposition that steel loses 90% of its strength at 750 degrees Celsius?
And he says, yes, I disagree with that.
And I found a pro 9-11 website that he had referenced in the past that says exactly that, that steel loses 90% of its strength at 750 degrees Celsius.
And he says, oh, I thought you meant Fahrenheit, which would be like 1,200 degrees.
And I said, well, first of all, I said Celsius, and second of all, even if you had made that mistake, you would be more inclined to agree with me, not less inclined.
If the temperature is hotter, if you thought the temperature was hotter that I was talking about, you'd be more inclined to believe that steel would lose its strength, not less inclined.
And then he wouldn't answer that.
So evidence doesn't matter. Maybe just make up stuff, right?
Because they know that it's false. And they know that it's false and they want to avoid testing it.
Not because of 9-11, not because of Ron Paul, but because of their families.
And their own lives and their own choices.
Very same guy with regards to this standoff with regards to tax evasion that's occurring somewhere in the U.S.? Posts an all-caps post, the building is currently on fire, his house is currently on fire, and then comes back to edit it and says, wait, actually, no, the building might not be on fire.
Turns out there was no fire at all.
And so I posted, somewhat sardonically, did the building fall down?
Why? Why did I post that?
Because it's funny.
To me, anyway. I mean, it's funny.
Somebody who can't even get their facts straight about something that's occurring in real time It's perfectly certain about what happened in burning buildings six years ago.
That's just funny. If we can't be sure about what's happening in the present, certainty about detailed, complex and controversial and contradictory interpretations of events that occurred five or six years ago for which the evidence is gone can't be ascribed to greater level of certainty.
The irony, of course, is lost.
Those with a faith-based approach to certain truths.
So, addictions to principles in the abstracts that have not been tested in the immediate is specifically designed to reject empirical testing.
The reason people leap to the abstracts rather than test in the personal is because they know that the personal test would fail.
They know that the personal test would fail.
That doubt drives them on to an even greater focus.
and belief in these abstract things.
Like the guy who's standing by the lake and says, I could just walk over if you want.
Thank you.
Human beings have the capacity to walk on water.
And you say, well, you're a human being.
You walk on water. Show me. No, no, no, no, no.
I'm talking about human beings in the abstract and water in the abstract.
Human beings have the capacity to walk on water.
And here's 19,000 pages of physics which prove it.
And you say, well, I mean, I'd sort of be interested in these 19,000 pages of physics if you could just take three steps on that water.
That's all I'm asking. You're making the claim that human beings on the abstract have the capacity to walk on water on the abstract.
Well, you're a human being in particular, and he has a body of water.
Take three steps, and maybe I'll look at your...
I'd certainly be more likely to look at your 19,000 pages of physics.
It's like when I talk to Christians and they say, God answers my prayers.
I say, great! Pray to God and ask Him to tell you something about me that you can't know.
Just meet someone and say, oh well, you say that God gives you answers, fantastic.
Then you pray to God and you tell me where I was born.
Well, it doesn't work like that.
It never works like that.
It's never designed to work like that because they know it can't work.
It doesn't work. People only talk about non-testable abstracts because they know that the principles are false.
They can't let go of the principles because that would cause them pain in the present.
They can't let go of the criteria of proof because they have some shred of intellectual integrity.
But they can't actually make the proof because the proposition is false.
It's a tortured, tortured landscape.
Tortured mental landscape. Horrible, horrible situation to be in.
Grindingly humiliating, right?
And the only hope, of course, is that people aren't going to call you on it.
That's the only hope you've got. People aren't going to call you on it.
Well, that's not me, right?
I'm going to call you on it.
Just as I called myself on it.
I did all this for decades.
I study philosophy in the abstract.
I don't really live it in the present.
Ethics is a science of the future, not a discipline of the present.
I took that approach for an enormous, enormous amount of time.
So I understand... You want to believe in Ron Paul because you don't want to confront your family.
You want to believe that you have the power to change the state because you want to avoid the fact that you don't have the power to change your parents.
Wow, look at that, I can be succinct.
But hey, what succinctness without 47 minutes and 51 seconds of theory?
But it is important to understand the theory.
If you don't understand the theory, you're just like somebody pushing in one side of a balloon.
That side goes in, the other side goes out.
You just play whack-a-mole with your defenses unless you understand the principles.
Principles are the opposite of defenses.
Defenses are fragmentations of principles.
defense is just double think and so why am I pounding so hard on this topic Because I care about Ron Paul and whether people go to vote for him?
No, of course I don't care about that.
Not really. I'll be perfectly honest, of course.
I've always said personal comes first.
I don't care whether you vote for Ron Paul or not.
I don't. I fundamentally don't care whether you vote for Ron Paul or not.
That's just a symptom. And the future isn't going to come down to a few people voting for Ron Paul or not.
I don't care about that.
I do care about your happiness.
I really, really do care about your happiness.
And the reason that I want to peel these layers off of illusion about the state and your capacity to affect it is so that we can get to the truth of the matter, which is your relationship with your parents.
When somebody advocates an abstract principle that they've never put into practice in their own life, you know it's a defense.
You know that they're focusing on that abstract principle to avoid putting it into practice in their own life, because that would be very painful and costly.
And that's what distorts the principle.
That's why it feels like you're wrestling with fog.
That's why the story always changes.
That's why the examples always change.
It's defense. It's doublethink.
That's why evidence means nothing.
That's why imaginary criteria, imaginary universes are created.
We're in state activism, where the current massive power of the state, massive and escalating asymptotic power of the state, has somehow been reduced in this alternate universe with no proofability.
You know that you're dealing with a defense when there's no proof or disproof.
And when people resist Putting that theory into practice in their personal life.
I can absolutely, completely and totally guarantee you that everybody who is pro-Ron Paul did not listen to the last podcast and say, Wow, that's fantastic!
I have a testable way to see if these theories of mine are going to work.
How wonderful! I feel bad I didn't think of it before!
That's great. I'm going to forget the Ron Paul thing.
I'm going to go try it out on my parents because then I'll be able to prove it with my parents and be able to shut Steph up and prove him wrong.
How wonderful that would be.
I would be thrilled. I would be thrilled.
I absolutely guarantee you that that's not what's happening.
I absolutely guarantee you that the pro-Ron Paulites, now that I have given them a methodology to test their theory in their personal life where they actually have some effect and control, are pissed off.
Are pissed off. are pissed off.
And I can accept that and I can understand that.
When I first stayed into the void of my own hypocrisy, the void of my own dark side, which I have talked about and not hid from anybody, I was pissed off too.
I was angry. I was frustrated.
I wanted to lash out. And I'd suggest don't do it.
It won't make you happy. I might dig the hole that you're in and turn it into a permanent chasm in a grave.
Don't do that. But I confront you on this stuff not because I care about whether you vote for Ron Paul, but because I care about whether you get free of the tyranny in your life.
Because I care about whether you get free from the tyrannies in your life.
Because I know that illusions about relationships are the greatest cause of unhappiness.
And I also know, and I'm perfectly clear, and have been perfectly clear from the beginning, That the illusion that you have is not about Ron Paul, but about your parents.
I also know that I can't talk about things with your parents immediately.
And we have to go through that other process, right?
Just as the people who wrote to me or posted on the board how shocked and appalled they were that I banned Niels or whatever, right?
I know that they don't give a rat's ass about nails.
What do they know? What do they care? They're defending themselves and their family.
it's nothing to do with nails people always want to gravitate towards something else where there's no testability because you see if if people really did want to convince me they know that I'm empirical They know that I always will gravitate towards empirical and testable first.
I don't talk about the scientific method for nothing.
I didn't experiment on myself for 20 years before opening my mouth for nothing.
So people know that I'm empirical.
So if people really wanted to help me with regards to something like what happened with Niels or any of the other nonsense that's gone on, They wouldn't have been shocked and appalled and called me brutal and dictatorial and all this other kind of nonsense, right? They would have said, Steph, you are lacking a particular kind of knowledge which I can teach you about how to turn corrupt people into good people.
And here is the steps.
And I will step you through it with Niels.
Give me Neil's number. I will call him.
I will record it.
And I will tell you and show you with that recording how to turn corrupt people into good people.
Again, that's not to say Neil's corrupt.
I don't know, right?
But I'm just sort of giving you an example.
Like if I keep saying that milk tastes like shit and makes me sick all the time, people will say, oh, Seth, you see what the problem is?
You're not refrigerating it. Right?
Here's how you refrigerate it, here's why you refrigerate it, and it'll taste a whole lot better if you refrigerate it.
As opposed to people writing me to say, oh, stop whining about milk.
Milk tastes great. Milk is good.
Don't be bullying milk.
Right? Just give me the solution.
But people don't give me the solution, right?
So if I'm skeptical about how a third party can transform evil into good, people should not argue with me about how in some alternate universe if political action hadn't been tried.
I mean, they know that I'm not going to respond to that.
This is completely non-empirical.
It's exactly the same as the argument that God may exist in some alternate universe, which I've trashed six ways from Sunday.
What they would do is they would prove that in their personal life, and they would show me how it happened, And then they would take those same principles and they would transform somebody I banned on the board to somebody I wanted on the board.
And then I would have to say, wow, that's some powerful alchemy.
That's some deep mojo you have there, my friend.
Teach me! Teach me your ways.
This is magic.
this is power right but people don't do that and then whenever I say but you need to do it at a personal level you need to test these ideas empirically and locally first before being certain in them in the abstracted general sense right Instead of telling me human beings as a whole can walk on water as a concept, take three steps on the water.
That will impress me far more than six million arguments.
10 hours of YouTube videos about 9-11.
But people specifically reject that.
Specifically reject that.
And they specifically reject the arguments that are parallel.
I don't notice a whole lot of atheists in the world...
Saying that we need to vote in a really good pope to get rid of the church.
I've never met an atheist, never heard of an atheist, strong atheist, who says, if we can just vote in the right pope, that's a step towards getting rid of the church.
No, it's not. It affirms the church.
It just affirms a different church.
Maybe even a smaller church.
Maybe even a church that doesn't.
Say that you can't use condoms in Africa.
But it doesn't get rid of the Church.
And if atheists had been saying the way that we need to get rid of the Catholic Church is to vote in the right Pope, and they'd been saying it for 150 years, and the popes would be getting more and more powerful, the Church had been getting more and more powerful over the last 150 years, wouldn't you just get a little frustrated that the next atheist who came along wouldn't you just get a little frustrated that the next atheist who came along and said, well, you see, we just need to vote for the right Pope to get Well, we've been trying that for 150 years.
The church has been getting bigger and bigger.
People say, yes, but you see, if we hadn't been voting for the right pope, the church could have been even bigger, would have been even bigger.
Well, that's just nonsense, right?
That's religious. That's faith-based.
That's irrational. And kind of sad in a way.
I mean, these are very, very smart people on the board, right?
I say this having gone through that same sadness myself for many years.
And the real situation that I'm trying to talk about here, just to continue on with the religious parallel, is that you can't is that you can't get rid of religion.
You can't make that a goal.
It's beyond your power. You can't get rid of religion and it doesn't really matter.
You can't get rid of religion in the world.
But what you can do, my friends, what you can do and should do and must do is you can get rid of religion in yourself.
In yourself. You can get rid of religion in yourself.
And that's really all I've ever been concerned with.
Is getting rid of religion in you.
Getting rid of statism in you.
Getting rid of tyranny and brutality in you.
Not in the world. Fuck the world.
Leave the world to me.
For now.
For now.
You can't get rid of religion.
I'm gonna go in.
But you can get rid of religion in you.
You can't get rid of the state, but you can get rid of statism in you.
That you have control over.
That you have power over.
That you can affect.
And so to the people who are focusing on Ron Paul...
And still have their parents around, and still have those tyrannies around, and still don't know what they want to do with their life, and are still stuck, and are still stymied.
I'm telling you, my friends, it doesn't have anything to do with Ron Paul.
You're avoiding the pain of realizing that you're helpless with regards to your family, and so you imagine that you have some power with regards to the state, and that keeps you enslaved to your family.
Imagining you have power keeps you enslaved.
If I'm in prison and at any time, any moment, I can will myself into a matrix of pure personal satisfaction, to take an extreme example, I'm going to stay in prison.
If you imagine that you're free when you're actually in prison, the real prison is imagining that you're free.
Because you don't fight to get out.
The fantasy of control It's the real prison of helplessness.
If you've got your lunch tray in front of you in the pilot seat in the plane, and you think you're flying the plane by jiggling your jello, then you're going to try and fly the plane and you're going to go down with the plane.
But if you understand that you can't fly the plane, you can jump out with a parachute, my friends.
And you don't have to go down with the plane.
Our life is not an infinity of choices.
Our life hardens over time.
Our direction hardens over time.
That's why I work so hard to change people's direction.
To get them to wake up to the reality of their environment, of their situations.
Forget about the state. Forget about whether you can control the state.
Forget about voting for this or voting for that.
Take the only kind of control that you do have.
Take the only power that is granted to you by the very nature of being human.
Take the power of personal choice and a repudiation of fantasy, of illusion, of tyranny, of false beliefs and false relationships.
Put all your relationships to the test.
That's what I keep talking about.
That's why I say that the exit to the cage is in the center.
If you think you have a good relationship with your parents, but you don't talk to them about anything that's personal and valuable to you, then put your theory to the test.
That's all I ever talk about here.
Put your theory to the test. Put your theory to the test.
And if you resist putting your theory to the test, it's because you know that your theory is false.
And you cling to it because it's very painful to see what's on the other side of that.
And I totally understand that, and I totally sympathize with that.
I know I sound critical, but I don't feel that way.
I feel an enormous amount of sympathy.
And I'm trying to pry these devils of illusion off your back.
I'm trying to claw this blindness from your eyes.
Fakhram Paul, free yourself from your parents.
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