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June 30, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
49:15
814 Ron Paul and Weightlifting

My perspective on a recent debate

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Good morning, everybody!
I hope you're doing well, it's Steph. It's time for our walkies, and I have decided to talk finally about...
Our good friends, the Ron Paul advocates, and to reveal my nefarious plan all along and what was going on and why I was doing what it was that I was doing.
And hopefully it will make sense, some sense at least, of my approach and perspective and the approach and perspective of other people in this conversation, and then you can let me know what you think.
This is not to reopen the Ron Paul debate, but to talk about why at least I took the approach that I did.
Now, here's a basic fact that is worth understanding ahead of time.
Could be my limitations, could be my lack of imagination, lack of creativity, or just plain old lack of brains.
But this is a fact that I think is important to know about me.
I'm a Libra, and anyway...
I don't know how to get rid of the state.
I don't know how to get rid of the state.
Don't know. State, me no.
Get rid of not. And that's pretty important.
Because, of course, I do get the what-should-we-do stuff, right?
And I wrestled with this question for many, many years.
What do you do?
What do you do?
And it was only when I gave up on political solutions and focused on personal issues that I gained real liberty in my life.
You don't want to be a slave to liberty, right?
So, as I've talked about before, if you become really interested in political freedom, you study libertarianism, Austrian economics, all the other goodies...
Oh, and by the way, sorry, I just realized something which I'm going to change in future podcast compilations or when I compile the podcast individually.
Some people have emailed me and said, dude, your breathing is really labored and you're just hiking.
You might want to check into your health.
The issue was that...
I was compiling the podcast with volume normalization, or I make the volume even throughout the podcast.
So what would happen is the program that I used to even out the volume of the podcast ended up, like when I'm just not talking but breathing, it would end up amplifying that because it would say, ooh, it's really quiet, let me raise that volume. So I'm not actually on an iron lung, it just sounds a little bit like that, but I will...
Endeavor to sort of minimize that, so the volume variability may be a little bit greater, but at least you won't have the impulse to do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on your iPod.
So, yeah, I don't know how to get rid of the state, and I have a theory that is sort of twofold, as I've elaborated a few times.
Which is that you can gain personal freedom.
You don't gain freedom by attempting to control things that you can't control.
Fundamentally, right? You're not going to gain freedom by racking your brain for the rest of your life on how to live forever.
It's just going to diminish the quality of your life and not change the outcome.
Unless you're some super genius geneticist.
In which case, hi.
How you doing? So you don't want to be somebody who frets his life away worrying about the national debt and the freedom of future generations.
From a political standpoint.
And problems which are caused over millennia are not solved in a lifetime.
The problem of the state, the problem of the family, the problem of religion, the problem of tyrannical manipulative concepts...
Portrayed as instances and entities will not go away in our lifetime.
Will not. But if you make that your goal, then you're going to be unhappy, because you're not going to be able to achieve your goal, and your goal is going to be the definition of the purpose and value of your life, and you will beat your head against the wall, and you will be unhappy.
And that doesn't work on every level, right?
That just doesn't work on every level.
First of all, of course, you are going to be unhappy, which is scarcely an advertisement for the philosophy that you are unhappy.
Espousing. Join me in my miserable pit of political futility, alienation, and bitterness, right?
Yay! Side me up!
So that won't work.
And of course, it won't get rid of the state, and it won't make your life happy, and it won't cause you to have much credibility with other people, which will further increase your alienation and bitterness, right?
So that, you know, no worky very much.
Because that's the death spiral that all too many libertarians get into, get involved in, right?
Which is, they recognize...
The deeper you go into knowledge and the wiser you become, the more you realize how painfully ignorant the average person is about things that they claim to know, right?
That's the irritation. Surgeons don't face this, right?
A surgeon with 20 years experience knows a hell of a lot about the human body and how to productively mutilate it.
So, they look at the general population and say, well, I know a heck of a lot more about surgery than they do, but that's okay.
Because the general population is not claiming to know, not claiming to have expert knowledge of surgery.
Not claiming to have expert knowledge of surgery, so there's a knowledge gap.
But there's not an arrogant pomposity on the part of the ignorant.
And the great challenge, of course, of philosophers is, since Socrates onwards, and probably before him too, to get people to admit that they don't know stuff.
Especially around ethics and social organization, child raising.
I mean, they don't know stuff. Everyone thinks they know.
Very few people do know.
And until people admit ignorance, you can't teach them anything.
If you think you know where you're going, there's no point...
If you think you know exactly where you're going, there's not much point me pulling out a map, right?
Especially when the map says you're going in the exact wrong direction and you feel it is the exact right direction.
You've taken this route a thousand times before.
It's your commute and I'm telling you drive in the opposite direction.
Right? No one's going to listen. So...
When you become knowledgeable about society, politics, economics, and then...
Ethics, psychology, art, relationships, and so on, the more personal stuff, you realize that people don't know stuff, right?
And they don't know that they don't know it.
They think they know it, so they don't look.
And they lecture, right, in a very annoying fashion.
And that, of course, increases bitterness.
And as you increase bitterness, you drive more people away from you.
And I don't believe in lovey-dovey, rub-the-belly Buddha stuff where you're happy-happy because one of the Buddhists asked me when I said, this is what bothers me, and some people sort of come in and say, Steph, you're wrong, right?
And it turns out that they're completely wrong.
And it bothers me, right? Because I'd rather people come in and say, Steph, I think I found a flaw in your argument.
But I've been working on this stuff for 20-plus years, and when people who are young and dabblers come in and immediately assume that they're right and I'm wrong, could be, but you're going to have to work pretty hard to correct me.
Not that I don't welcome it, I do, but when people come in and just say, oh, Steph, you're wrong, it bothers me, right?
And the Buddha says, well, why does it bother you?
This is exactly what you'd expect people to do who are not knowledgeable in these areas.
It's likely, yeah, but I don't want to correct, I wouldn't want to correct error if it didn't bother me.
It doesn't bother me that people speak Urdu, so I'm not dedicating my life to eliminating Urdu.
So, it doesn't mean that the foundational aspect is being bothered, but you can't have a value without being troubled by its negation.
I mean, you just can't. You can.
And of course, the Buddhist solution to get rid of all values is not, to me, a real solution.
So, I refuse to love life because I know that I will die.
Nope. Not for me.
Not for me. Not for my black Irish soul that wishes to live deep and long and richly.
So, of course, my solution is to work on your personal relationships, which I think will Make you a happier person with greater peace of mind, and fundamentally like a more attractive person living with integrity.
Everybody loves the abstract virtue of honesty, but when it comes to telling the truth about your life to your parents, people want a lot of other things, right?
So you live the virtues, and also as you live the virtues and you realize how hard it is to live the virtues, you gain empathy for the people who don't want to do it, right?
You don't necessarily gain sympathy for those who claim they are doing it when they're clearly not, but you will gain empathy, which is a good thing.
Peace of mind comes from understanding the world.
So my theory, of course, work on your personal relationships, gain freedom for yourself and your personal life.
I believe that As we live the value, no unchosen positive obligations, which is the foundation of state and religion and the brutal localized dictatorships of most families.
As we live the values, the values will spread.
If we just talk about the values, they don't spread.
Other than verbally, which who cares, right?
Living the values is the only way to spread the values.
Living the values in your personal life, not by writing letters to the editor about this or that regulation and posting on blogs about the evils of the government.
I mean, that's not living your values.
It's talking about values in the abstract.
You live your values, you gain credibility, and you gain certainty.
A lot of people who post about politics and philosophy or who email or who write letters or who talk about it, they're not certain and they're hoping that other people will join them and make them more certain.
Once you live your values, there's no doubt.
There's no doubt. And that certainty is what spreads the values.
At least that's been my experience and everything that I've seen.
You live honesty, you'll spread honesty.
You talk about honesty... And so the only way to get rid of the state is to eradicate in the minds and souls, more importantly in the souls of people, the idea of no unchosen positive obligations.
Sorry, to eradicate the idea of unchosen positive obligations.
And the only way we can do that is by living it.
Right? Show, don't preach.
I know as a quasi-preacher that may sound funny, but I can only do this because I've lived them for many years, these values.
So it works on every level.
You become more personally free from bad relationships and from the tyranny of hoping for a political solution you cannot affect.
And you become more credible, and this is how the ideas will actually spread.
And you become a better parent and raise your children in accordance with rational values, which is a new generation.
Now if you raise your children with no unchosen positive obligations, they will grow up and will have as much emotional resonance with the state as you and I do with the worship of Zeus.
And that's the way.
You break the emotional resonance of these ideas with people, which means openly living the opposite.
Far more powerful than words.
So that's my theory about how to break the power of the state.
Live the opposite. Show people that it works.
Don't just talk. Live.
Do. Communicate.
Experience. Express. And be free.
Be free. It works personally.
I believe that it works politically.
It's just a slow solution.
That's all. But that's okay.
What, did it take two generations to get rid of smallpox?
That's okay, because it doesn't matter.
If you're living as free as you can in your personal lives, then the state becomes less important.
Because I have a great marriage and a wonderful wife who supports me, I can do this full-time, which means I pay far fewer taxes.
The state has almost no control over me, and I don't end up getting stuck on government roads.
I don't end up having to pay all these taxes for gas.
So I'm so much freer because of my relationship with my wife, which is a direct result of the values that I espouse here.
See? Wife espouse.
It all ties together.
It's all the cunning fabric of freedom right here.
So let's move along to the Ron Paul people.
And by this what I mean is I just use Ron Paul people, the RPPs, simply as a shorthand for those people who believe that voting or a political solution is the way to free us.
Now, getting rid of the state, and of course the Ron Paul people will say that we're not talking about getting rid of the state but limiting its power, And I understand that, and I appreciate that, but clearly that's not a viable solution.
It's not a viable solution to say, I hope to slow the acceleration of the growth of the state in some minor manner.
That's not a solution.
That's at best a stopgap.
It's a way of slowing down the bleeding of somebody who's very sick.
That's not the same as sewing them up and making them well.
Maybe slowing down the rate of increase that somebody is bleeding out is not...
How to make them well. It's not medicine, right?
It's certainly not going to save their life.
It may just slow down their death by a couple of minutes.
That's not medicine, right?
So it's not a solution.
So I have to talk about reducing or eliminating the government.
Now, I'm a not-too-dense fellow.
I thought for 25 years on these topics...
Doesn't mean that I'm right, of course, right?
But it does mean that I've spent...
A hell of a long time thinking about these issues.
And the best that I've been able to come up with, sad though you may think it, is this, you know, be free personally.
And that will, that's the best thing you can do to get rid of the power of the state.
And I say this for very logical reasons, and I say this for very empirical reasons.
People have been trying for thousands of years to use the power of the state to get rid of the state, and it never ever works.
Libertarians and Minarchists and classical liberals have been trying it for 150 or 200 years, and it has never worked, and so I've just tried to work with the facts.
Like, it doesn't work. So why?
So getting rid of the state is the biggest intellect.
This is the holy grail of philosophy.
A political side of it, for sure, right?
I mean, talk about personal, God, and families, and so on.
But as far as the political side of things go, and of course as far as the majority of the planet goes, which has far more state interference than we happy few in the West do, greetings my friends in China.
I am doing what I can.
But that is the 800-pound gorilla.
That you've got to wrestle down with one hand tied behind your back.
So I'd like to introduce an analogy, if you may, that naturally came to me at the gym.
So somebody says that they say, "I want to bench press 500 pounds." And that's great.
So the way that I would tell that person to bench press 500 pounds is to start small.
You know, start with 50 pounds.
Start with 75 pounds.
Work your way up. Have a spotter, right?
Watch your diet.
Make sure you don't break your bones, right?
Don't pull your tendons.
Just work up gradually.
Have protein supplements, right?
All of these sorts of things. If you want to go bench press 500 pounds, then you work your way up.
You start with that you can do, and you work your way up.
Now, the way that the Ron Paulers look to me, the RPP, the way that they look to me is...
So somebody on the phone says, no, no.
You can just go straight to lifting the 500-pound weight.
You don't need to work your way up.
You don't need to do that which is easiest and that which you can manage to begin with.
You can just go straight to the 500-pound weight.
And I say, that's astounding.
And I am somewhat skeptical.
Because that makes no sense to me.
However, for ever being curious, either about unknown capacities of humankind or humankind's capacity for rank self-delusion, I say, excellent!
Meet me at the gym and show me what you can do.
And so, we meet at the gym.
And lo and behold, you seem to be about a buck ten, 110 pounds.
And you really don't seem to have any muscle.
In fact, you seem kind of flabby.
But you say to me, Oh, I know how to lift 500 pounds.
Hell, I'll even do it standing.
No weight belt. No spotter.
I know how to lift these here 500 pounds.
And I say, well, if you tell me that you can lift these 500 pounds, I'm impressed.
I mean, I'm astonished pretty much, but I'm impressed too.
Because boy, if you can do that, we can revolutionize the entire science of weight training.
make a fortune.
Turn everyone instantly into somebody with the strength of Arnold Schwarzenegger, even if they look like that skinny kid with the Atari t-shirt.
Road Trip, I think, was the movie.
Anyway. So then I say, well, great.
Show me that you can lift these 500 pounds.
And you say, no, no, listen, I don't do that.
Like, I don't show you that, but I know that I can do it.
And I say, well, now I'm really confused.
You tell me you can lift 500 pounds.
You sure as heck don't look like someone who can lift 500 pounds.
And now you're telling me you can't demonstrate it.
Now, I do know...
That everyone who's tried to lift these 500 pounds of the past has simply injured themselves badly.
Ruptured their spleen, cracked their spine, broken their arms.
But you tell me that you've found some way to do it without working your way up?
Wow. Ask for a demonstration, you say, nope.
Can't give you a demonstration.
Can't. But trust me, I know.
I can do it. And I say, well, okay, um...
So, you can't demonstrate the lifting of the 500 pounds that you claim you can do.
So, let me ask you to do this.
Why don't you lift these 5 pounds?
Here's a 5 pound weight.
Let me at least show...
Let me see your form, right?
You know so much about weightlifting that you can lift 500 pounds without working your way up?
That's a... My mind is boggled.
So let me at least see your form, you who know so much about lifting weights, let me at least see your form with five pounds.
So at least I can understand your approach, how you know so much about weightlifting, you have to work up to it.
That you can achieve what everyone else has broken their back trying to.
That you can lift this weight.
That you can get rid of the state.
You know how to do it. Fantastic!
And you don't even need to walk your way up to liberty.
You can just go straight to the state.
Fantastic! Go straight to 500 pounds.
Here's five pounds. Show me Your form.
Show me what you do if you're not going to show me the 500 pound lift.
And you won't even lift the five pounds.
Or you try to lift the five pounds and you fail.
Now, tell me this.
At what point am I allowed to say you don't know and you don't know how to and you can't lift 500 pounds?
You don't look like you can do it.
Skinny, weak. You refuse to show me, and you can't even lift the 5 pounds.
At what point can I say, you know what?
I don't care what your theories are about how you say you can lift this 500 pounds.
You can't do it. You cannot do it.
People say, well, but I've got these arguments and if you put your back this way and you do this and you do that, it's like, dude, I don't care about your arguments.
You can't lift five pounds?
Don't talk to me about how you can lift 500 pounds.
Don't talk to me about how you...
How you can rid the world of tyranny.
How you can eliminate, control, diminish, enslave the state.
How you can produce generalized human freedom.
You can free the world, you say.
I can lift 500 pounds, 5,000 pounds, 50,000 pounds.
I can lift the planet.
I can free the world.
And I know how.
I vote.
But if you don't have freedom in your personal life, what that says to me is you believe you can lift 5,000 pounds when you can't, in fact, lift 5 pounds.
That you know how to liberate the world, you say, but you can't free yourself.
That you know how To free the world from enforced tyranny in the form of the state.
That you know how to free the world from enforced tyranny in the form of the state.
But you can't free yourself from mere obligation in the form of family, friends, or bad relationships of one form or another.
I, you say, can stand in a vital, virile, and effective manner before all the guns and bombs of the armies and the states around the world.
And I know how to eliminate that power.
All right.
But I am so guilt-ridden that I pick up the phone when the mom I don't like calls.
Trust me that I can lift 500 pounds, though I clearly cannot lift even five.
I can eliminate abstract tyranny that is forced with guns and bombs and enslavement of every kind.
I know how to eliminate violent tyranny in the abstract, though I cannot eliminate merely manipulative tyranny though I cannot eliminate merely manipulative tyranny in my life.
That's the way that I see it.
So that's why, you know, I mean, I've put this podcast out, which some of you may or may not have heard, but it was that people's personal lives have an effect on their credibility.
What if somebody says to me, Steph, I know how to get rid of the state.
I know the best way.
It's voting, you see.
Out of all the possible conceivable options of ways that we can work to eliminate tyranny in the world, in our own lives, in the lives of those around us, I have settled on voting.
With regards to the state, well that person, since I don't know how to get rid of the state, they must know an enormous amount more about personal liberty and liberty as a whole and Philosophy?
They must know a heck of a lot more about it than I do, because I'm not even close to having a plan that is concrete and actionable, either than the one that I've described, about how to get rid of the state.
Such a person must be so far ahead of me that I can only kiss the hem of their garment, as far as wisdom and understanding goes.
They are my personal deity when it comes to that.
I am their acolyte and their slave if they know so much about how to get rid of the state.
They must have cleaned up all of their personal relationships long before it ever even occurred to me.
They must be the most elementally free human being on the planet because they know how to take down the state, which means that their personal relationships must be miles behind them in terms of being clean and dealt with.
They must be the most efficacious, powerful, competent, fulfilled, radiantly joyful human being on the planet.
If you can lift 500 pounds, you must have worked your way up to that years ago.
So when I struggled to lift 150 pounds or bench press 200 pounds, you must have gone through that phase years ago to get to 500 pounds.
That's just logical. You must be way fitter than me or have way more natural talent than me.
I'm still struggling with the 200 pounds.
You're already way over 500.
So you must have gone past where I am years ago to get to how we bring down the state.
Took me...
And again, it doesn't mean...
You could just be naturally talented, and I may not be talented at this.
I mean, there's natural strength when it comes to weightlifting.
Am I overworking the metaphor?
I don't think so.
Let's keep going.
So, you must have blown past where I was, where I am, years ago, right?
Yeah.
So after 25 years, or I guess 20 years odd, I figured out a way that I think we can get rid of the state.
Work on personal relationships, free your children, defu, where appropriate.
And it works, right?
Because you have empirical evidence of people who are freer because they've listened to the show.
Lots of them. Lots of them.
Mailbox overflowing with people who take...
The rational philosophy we talk about here, apply it to their own lives and become free and happier.
Although it stings a little, quite a lot, in the transition.
As I write in The God of Atheists, the truth will set you free, but often you have to be pretty cornered first.
So what I'm struggling to lift, you must be so far past it.
Thank you.
The struggles that I'm having, and I'm still trying to figure out exactly how I feel about my parents as I talked about in 808, and having recently still attempted a business position without recognizing that philosophy is the most valuable thing that I can do.
Like, the struggles that I still have in my life, you must be, like, years past them.
Because I find that the gains, like the gains in weightlifting, the gains in any health regimen, are...
There's a law of diminishing returns, right?
So the first couple of months that you start working out, you can double or triple or quadruple your strength.
But after that, it becomes diminishing, right?
When you start lift a bench pressing, going from 100 to 150 pounds is relatively quick.
150 to 200, relatively slower.
Two to 250, you get the idea.
So if you're over 500, And the diminishing return...
You must be like...
It must have been years and years and years since you passed where I was.
Where I am now. In which case, great!
I will turn over the microphone of Free Domain Radio to you, and I will sit at your feet and learn.
Because there's no point in me writing my own operating system when I can buy it for a couple hundred bucks.
or a couple hundred hours of unpaid labor if you're into Linux.
So, I mean, I'm more than happy to turn the mic over to people who are way further ahead than I am.
Thank you.
So, the people who say...
Excuse me, I almost tripped. The people who say, I know how to get rid of the state, holy crap, like, take the mic.
You're, like, way ahead of where I am, and the freedoms that I've been able to achieve in my life must be way in the past for you.
Way back. Like, you don't think about those any more than I think about...
How tough it is to climb stairs.
So, in the realm of rehabilitating the soul, you are like past a Jedi master.
It's like we both had our legs broken, I'm struggling to walk, and you're already doing wind sprints and hurdles.
And I'm like, how did you get there?
I'm all ears. Teach me!
So then, when I look at the Ron Paul people, the political solution people, the people who say voting is the best way to get rid of the state, then I assume that they have passed my level of freedom years before, because I'm not there yet.
But then, what do I see?
When I say to these people If you can lift 500 pounds and you won't show me, at least show me lifting the 5 pounds.
If you know how to get rid of the state, but you can't show me or won't show me, because they can't show me how it's worked, because there's no voting that's gotten rid of the state or even diminished it, other than some theoretical alternate universe where it might have grown even faster, which is not exactly freeing yourself, right?
So when I say to these people, wow, you know how to get rid of the state.
So you must have already dealt with your personal relationships since that's much more.
We have control over that.
Well, we have no control over the state.
You think voting, whatever, right?
But where you do have control and power, you must have liberated yourself prior.
You must have. You must have.
You must be so elementally free in your personal relationships and move so far past questions of freedom that I'm just like less than a speck in your rearview mirror.
But then, when I talk to these people, what do I see?
Well, I don't see freedom.
I don't see that these are free people.
I don't see that these are people who've solved the problems of unchosen positive obligations in their personal lives.
I see people afraid of their parents.
I see people afraid of bosses, advisors, other people in their life.
I see people afraid of themselves. I see people afraid of their lovers.
I see people subject to wild and wide varieties of personal tyrannies, who nonetheless, since they can't lift the five pounds that they actually have control over, want me to believe that they can lift the 500 pounds of getting rid of the state.
And so that's why, to me, personal relationships mean a lot.
And this isn't just the Ron Paul people.
This is stuff on the board as well.
Right? So, if somebody is going to be on the board, and of course you can do this, and you could be right, but this is the way that I view it, and it might be helpful for you and your relationships with people as well.
Right? If you come up and you correct me on sort of very fundamental things, right?
You call me a bully or whatever, right?
Then your level of wisdom is important.
Your level of wisdom is important.
I need to know whether it's worth taking the time to dissect your arguments.
I need to know, because I don't have an infinity of life to muck about with every conceivable slur or criticism.
I have to pick the ones that I delve into.
So, if you come to me...
And you say, Steph, the way that you interact with people is really bad.
Then I must assume that the way that you interact with people is really good.
Because my own example is that theoretical understanding doesn't mean much.
You have to actually do it.
You have to actually do it.
So, the way that you interact with people must be fantastically better than the way that I interact with people.
Right? You must have better friendships.
You must have a better marriage. You must have a better professional environment.
Right? Because if you know so much about how to interact with people, then you must have learned this and put it into practice within your own life.
You must have. Because if your advice is so good, obviously you must have taken it.
If I tell you, eat X, Y, and Z to lose weight and I'm very fat, then either I haven't taken my own advice, in which case why am I giving it, or I have taken my own advice, in which case it doesn't work.
So yeah, if you're going to tell me how to live, you must know how to live really, really well, because I think I've got a fairly good clue about it.
At least I hope so, after all this time and effort.
So yes, I want you to know that your personal life has a bearing because we're talking about philosophy here.
Your personal life doesn't have any bearing on how best to tie a knot.
Your personal life doesn't have any bearing on 2+2=4.
But your personal life does have a bearing On how to live.
And if you say to people, I know so much better than you do how to live, then your personal life must be magnificent.
It must be incredibly fulfilling.
Because you're not saying to people, I know what courage is in the abstract.
You're saying, I know how to be courageous because you're telling people how to change their actions.
Two plus two is four as a theoretical.
You're saying, if you say to me, Steph, I can...
You could be so much more courageous.
In action, right? Not, Steph, I think there's a better definition of courage than the one you're working with.
But, Steph, you should be more courageous.
You can be more courageous.
Fantastic. Then you know how to be more courageous.
So the first thing that I'm going to look for is your courage.
Right? Right? Especially if it's counterintuitive.
If I think I've been studying nutrition for 25 years and know a good diet, and then you tell me that the complete opposite of that diet is the way to go, the first thing I'm going to look at is, are you slimmer than me or healthier than me?
Because I don't have the time to investigate every conceivable diet in the planet.
The all-butter-fat and ball-bearings diet might be the best thing in the world, but it doesn't seem to make sense to me.
So when somebody says, Steph, you need to do the opposite of what you're doing in order to have good relationships, and I think that I have great relationships, then just from the process of elimination or the process of efficiency or whatever you want to call it,
I've got to look at your relationships and say, well, if you're going to tell me to do the opposite of what 25 years of studying and thinking has taught me to do, if you're going to tell me to do the exact opposite or do something significantly different, then I'm going to need then I'm going to need to look at your implementation of it.
Right?
If you want me to do the opposite of what works for me, you need to show me a better life. - Thanks.
So, if I'm training to lift 500 pounds, by eating right and incrementing my exercise and doing the right number of reps, if I'm working up to 500 pounds and you tell me, no, Steph, what you need to do, you see, is not lift any more weights, sit on the couch and eat pretzels and candy, then you will be able to lift 500 pounds, then I'm going to say, show me!
I'm not going to dig into your 15 volumes about how this is achieved in a theoretical way because I don't have time.
Life is short. Show me!
That was my complaint with the Buddhists.
Show me! If you think that I should have compassion for other people and that works best, don't lecture me.
Show me! Because if you don't believe that you should, why should I bother?
If you don't believe your own ideas, why should I bother investigating them?
I mean, that's just the principle of efficiency, right?
So, if you tell me that I shouldn't lift weights in order to get to 500 pounds, that I should do the exact opposite of everything that's worked for me so far, then the least you can do...
It's show me how you followed your own advice and you sat on the couch, stopped lifting weights and eating pretzels and candy, and now you can lift 500 pounds.
Because I'm not going to sit there and do the opposite of what I think is the right thing in the hopes that I'm going to be able to lift 500 pounds when you can't explain to me how it works and you can't show me that you can lift 500 pounds.
Like, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to sit there, stop going to the gym, sit on the couch and eat pretzels and candy, just because you say so!
Just because you say, Steph, you're doing the wrong thing, you should do the opposite thing.
Show me that you can lift to 500 pounds, I'm all over it.
it.
Like, dude, dude-esque, I'm all over it.
Because lots of people, right, will...
We'll use this kind of universal correction thing, the argument for morality, right?
And to bully you, to intimidate you, to be superior to you.
Like all these kinds. They're manipulative, right?
It's abusive. I'm not picking on anyone here.
It's a fact. We all know this.
So, you know, if the 300-pound nutritionist comes up and says, I know exactly how you should lose weight, even though you're relatively slender, I know exactly how you can become perfectly trim and healthy.
It's like, well, I've been following my diet, and I've been losing a lot of weight, and I've got lots of energy, I'm very happy, I'm very healthy.
And then you come wheezing up the stairs at 300 pounds and tell me to do the opposite?
And I say, but you're overweight.
And you say, ah, ad hominem, what's that got to do with anything?
Well, it's kind of got a lot to do with stuff, right?
Because either you're following your own diet, in which case you're 300 pounds, which I don't want to be, or you're not following your diet, in which case you don't believe in it, so why should I be your guinea pig?
Be your own guinea pig!
If you have values, you live them, and you show people how great those values are through your life!
Not through your nitpicking and your lecturing and your superiority and your corrections and your this and your that.
If you put yourself forward as an expert on how to live, then it's okay for people to have a look at your life.
It's okay for people to have a look at your life.
If you say, candies, bed rest, and pretzels are the way to lift 500 pounds, then people have a right to come to your house where you're sitting on the couch eating pretzels and candy and say, great, lift me the 500 pounds, and if you can't, then you can't cry, well, you guys need to spend weeks studying my 15 volumes of how this all works.
No, we don't, actually!
No, we don't. I don't, maybe.
You can if you want, but I'm not going to bother.
Because I know a scam when I see it.
I know. As somebody who self-scammed himself for a long time, I know a scam when I see it.
So, if y'all know how to get rid of the state, don't talk about it.
Go get rid of the state!
Right? I know how to be free in the personal sense.
At least I know something about it.
And I don't lecture people to defoo while going over to my bad family.
I don't lecture people to be courageous in the cause of freedom and then sit in a high-paid job.
I don't lecture people about integrity and then refuse to admit when I'm wrong.
Thank you.
I don't lecture people about how to have good relationships while getting divorced from my wife.
Show me how you're getting rid of the state and I will be your slave.
But don't lecture me about how you know how to get rid of the state.
You lift the 500 pounds.
Well, you can't even lift the five pounds of your personal relationships.
It's ludicrous.
It's ridiculous.
You fix your personal relationships.
Then at least you're getting close to catching up to where I am.
Fantastic. I love people who overtake me.
It saves me a lot of work. Sometimes it's nice to be able to take the channels that other icebreakers have gone through rather than having to break my own channel all the time.
Go ahead. Go ahead.
Go ahead. Fantastic. But don't get mad at me when I get skeptical of the fact that you can lift 500 pounds when you can't even lift the five.
Thank you so much for listening.
I really do appreciate it.
And I look forward to your donations.
And I will see you on the boards.
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