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Nov. 7, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
54:37
903 Darkness Visible - A Listener Analysis

Learning to face what we already know...

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Good afternoon, everybody.
Hope you're doing well at staff. It is 2.26pm Wednesday, the 7th of November 2007.
And just a reminder, I get this question not often, but I wanted to just mention that if you are interested in donating, which of course I massively appreciate, then the donation levels are Bronze Donator, 0 to 50 bucks, which is, I guess, 0 to 100 podcasts if you listen to them, You get a couple of podcasts that are bronze-plus people, donators.
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Recycling is the way to go.
For $50 to $100, which is 100 to 200 podcasts, you get some more podcasts.
There are 55 or more, closing in on 60, I think, premium podcasts now available.
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It's not cheap, but it certainly is effective.
And what happened was I threw some donation cash into StumbleUpon yesterday, and from our average 400 to 500 hits a day, yesterday we had 1,700.
And 24 hits, which of course is very good.
So I hope that you will continue to donate and continue to allow me to have the cash to both eat, live, and spread the word of the amazing conversation that we're having here.
So I just wanted to mention that.
Also, I have begun the process of recompiling the earlier podcast to a higher quality format.
I've recorded a new introduction to these shows, which is very short and introduces people to an audio quality that they will not hear again from any podcast.
But I have begun improving the quality of the podcasts that are out there.
It's a bit of a slow process.
I have to recompile them.
I have to put the mp3 tags in again.
And if anybody knows any Visual Basic, Visual Studio 05 Plus programmatic way or add-in or plug-in for working with MP3 files, I would surely, surely love to automate this process.
But I don't have any programmatic way of working with MP3 files that I know of.
But if there is something that I'm not aware of, I'm sure there is.
If you could let me know, that would be great.
So, moving right along, let us go to a conversation that a listener had with me, based on a listener conversation.
And it doesn't really matter who it is, we'll call him Ralph, and Ralph's friend will be called Bob.
And so he basically said, after listening to our conversation, I could see how I was holding back, and I think I know why that is.
Before our talk, I was kind of intimidated to talk to you because of some recent board activity.
My friend was one of the board members banned for sending the private message.
For those who don't know, this is a private message that was sent to Through the Free Domain Radio message system, which was designed to draw people away from Free Domain Radio and to an anti-Free Domain Radio site in a truly soap opera-ish twist in the realm of philosophy.
And I have no objection to an anti-FDR site floating around.
I actually think it's a very good thing.
But I don't particularly want to pay for bandwidth and processing costs to have people slag me, call me a cultmeister, and draw people to that anti-FDR site.
I mean, if you want to act against me, that, of course, is your perfect and fine prerogative, which I would never object to or interfere with, but don't ask me to fund it, and don't use my resources to call me culty.
That's just... It's pretty sleazy.
Anyway, so he said, What do you think about this?
And so I replied to Ralph, and I said, well, what did you think of Bob's actions?
This is the guy who used FDR's message system to sort of diss me in the conversation and so on.
He said, I was most upset that he was advertising for a competing site through your private message system, and when he called FDR a cult.
He said he wanted to handpick certain people, so that is why he used the private message.
But his actions were very destructive to FDR. I was not in very much contact with him while this was going on, but I still feel apprehensive towards FDR. He is the only person I physically know and talk to who doesn't think I am just a radical kid.
I felt hurt by his actions on the board, even though they weren't directly pointed at me.
I would never do the things he did, but the fact he was banned makes me feel anxious, and I feel like I need to watch what I say.
I think that is why I was so quiet during our call today.
And I said, do you think that what Bob did was wrong?
He said, yes, his actions were definitely wrong.
He was also wrong about UPB. If I realize these things, then why do I still feel anxious to speak on the boards and with you on the phone?
And I said, well, what has happened with your relationship with Bob?
He said, well, I live here and he goes to boarding school somewhere else and so on.
He said, I have spoken to him once since this happened, but we aren't allowed to talk very much due to the rules at the school.
He can't use the internet now because of the rules at the school.
He said, I haven't decided what to do.
He is the only person that I physically know that doesn't think I'm a radical.
When we lived together, we would discuss podcasts, board issues and other philosophy books we were reading all the time.
Do his actions mean it's better for me to end my friendship with him?
I have considered him my only true friend for a long time.
And I said, if I were you, this is what I would do.
I would write Bob a letter, since he can't use the internet, and I would talk to him about how I felt about his actions, as well as the anxiety you felt while talking to me.
If he shows genuine remorse for his actions and curiosity about your anxiety and helps you explore it, then he is a good friend.
If, however, he, quote, uses your anxiety to run his own agenda, then he is not, in my opinion, a good friend and you should hold out for better companions, however hard that might be.
Then I asked if I could use this question in a podcast, if I anonymized it, and he said yes, so...
So, let me sort of go over this.
I'm going through a thing with my few remaining friends, which is...
That there is some friends who agree with me to some degree at an intellectual level, but who don't live any of the values.
This is why this recent article that I wrote, My Secret Life, was so difficult for me to write.
And those people who are in my life, but it's sort of happening less and less in terms of interacting with people, right?
So I have a friend... I've talked about before.
His mother died, and I did a podcast on that, I guess, about a year and a half ago, a year ago.
And he's kind of depressed.
Depressed because his mom's died, and he really focused quite a bit on his relationship with her to the exclusion of...
Other things, like dating.
And we talked about it and so on, and I gave him some suggestions.
And he obviously had issues that couldn't be dealt with in a conversational situation.
So I told him he had to go and see a therapist, and Christina got him the name of a therapist, and we gave him the number.
And did he call? No. He didn't call.
He hasn't found any way to solve the situation or to work on the problem in any fundamental or foundational manner.
And his life is just not progressing or moving.
He's a very smart guy, and intellectually he's a whipcrack, but just can't get the values going in his life.
And what I've found is that I'm just less interested in talking to him, because it's the same conversation.
You're screwed if you grow, and other people don't, right?
Because your conversations...
They change. They grow.
They move into new areas.
You develop new areas of self-knowledge.
You learn more about your interactions with people.
You grow, you grow, you grow.
And this is particularly true if you're in a loving marriage.
And, you know, when you grow, you kind of, kind of realize that other people, well, not so much.
Not so much with the whole growing thing.
And what happens then is that you begin, at least for me, I sort of begin to realize that the conversations that you have with people tend to be, well, pretty repetitive.
They tend to be the same conversation over and over.
What's happening at work?
How are things? Did you go to any concerts?
Did you read any good books lately?
And that's sort of about it.
There's not much, if any, of a strong, intimate, doesn't have to be every conversation, but progress, movement, you know, development of X, Y, and Z. And so what happens is it just kind of gets boring,
right? So this gentleman who's been a friend of mine for like 30 years, and I met him when I was 11, and unfortunately, though, he's not changing.
Not growing, not changing. Now, this was not a problem when I was merely theoretical in my evaluation of the world, right?
This was not a problem in that situation.
So when we were discussing ideas as, hey, you know, look at these cool shiny objects that are sort of like Stone Age implements we have dug up from some archaeological site, when we were in that mode, and we spent many, many, many years in that mode, Then the conversations were all very interesting, because we were just talking, you know, just talking.
There was no real traction with the ideas.
There was no real movement in terms of implementation, right?
So... We have fascinating conversations about the nature of reality and what is a sadist and how these things develop and all these kinds of things.
And they were all fascinating conversations, and I've pillaged some of those conversations for a few podcasts.
But, you know, when you really start putting these ideals or ideas into practice, then what happens is...
You just don't, at least I don't, find those kinds of conversations to be nearly as interesting.
And so I just become less interested in having those conversations at a merely theoretical level, or a purely theoretical level.
And this has particularly, of course, been the case since I've really started moving into the realm of real traction and action in philosophy.
And I just get less...
When you get out of your own rut of repetition, and the rut of repetition tends to be focused around a merely theoretical conversation.
Aquinas said this, and God is not real because of that.
And all of that stuff's great.
I love that stuff.
But when you really do start to put stuff into action, then the theoretical aspects of things, or the ideas which do not translate into any effect on action...
They just become...
I don't know, how do you say it nicely?
How do you sort of say it?
They become sort of dull.
Right? And I don't...
Again, this could also just be getting older, right?
When you get older, at least for me, you do kind of get the idea that you ain't gonna live forever, and because you're not going to live forever...
What is it that you want to spend your time?
What is it that you want to spend your time on?
Now, I'm 41. I'm nowhere near death's door.
I've got another, hopefully, 40 or 50 years to go.
But nonetheless, as you get older and also when you realize that you can either invest your time into ideas that mean nothing other than sort of intellectual curiosity, you can either spend your time on ideas that add up to nothing other than a mildly distracting entertainment from a philosophical standpoint, like a Sudoku or something like that.
You can either spend your time on that stuff Or, like Ron Paul, or you can spend your time on stuff that's actually going to change your life, and through changing your life, have a strong effect, if not always pleasant effect, on the lives of others, right?
So this is where you get to as you move forward in this conversation.
And I guess this is like 9 millionth podcast, so we can talk about this.
But that aspect of things is something that...
It's really sort of taking root in my mind, right?
So as you get older, you get that life is short and you can spend your time talking about stuff that's never going to change anything, or you can actually book stuff into practice and really have some effect on your life and other people's lives and so on.
Anyway, so I think we get the general gist of that, but that's sort of where I've gotten to in my life, right?
So these questions of friendships and limitations and progress and Saltification and stagnation and stasis and boredom and so on are all very, very interesting to me, so that's one of the reasons why I wanted to podcast on this,
right? I mean, there's only so many times that you can hear somebody complain about job ennui before you sort of realize that they're not going to change, they're going to continue to complain, and enabling that complaining is not a good thing, right? It's not a good thing for you, it's not a good thing for them.
So, with reference to this conversation, I think that, and this is useful for the person, it's Ralph here, that I'm talking about, but I think it's also useful for other people as well to have a look at how you could take an approach to evaluating these kinds of conversations.
So, I think where you have to be really wary of things...
In yourself and with regards to other people.
And wary doesn't mean jumping all over people and attacking them or anything like that.
All I mean by wary is you need to pay attention and slow down what it is that you're saying.
And where you can really see that is in terms of omissions and inaccuracies.
And people who are sophisticated, and I think that's pretty much everyone...
People who are sophisticated tend to do this in a very subtle and sophisticated manner, so to speak.
And so I'll sort of talk about this, and hopefully it will be of some help or some interest to you.
So, how is this moral question of Bob's behavior, the guy that I banned, of Bob's behavior, how is that question put forward, right?
How is Ralph, the person who's talking to me or asking me questions...
How does Ralph frame this problem, right?
When I ban someone just for being difficult and obstructive and exhausting, but not abusive, I mean, this is my general principle, right?
And if somebody is just like arguing everybody into an exhausted kind of circle and not making any progress and not, you know, acknowledging arguments and then abandoning those acknowledgements and You know, being dismissive, but not abusive, not saying, you asshole, but whatever, right? And when you can just feel the tension escalating in the conversation, which is fine, but if it never has any kind of release or denouement or whatever, then what I do is I ban people or I ask them to leave.
But I don't mind if they come back and browse.
I don't mind if they want to pick up their posts.
I don't mind if they want to stay in contact with people using the IM system, the messaging system, or the inbox, the email system at FDR. It's just that their posting is a problem.
If they're not abusive, then...
I don't have any problem with them still.
They can download podcasts.
I just don't want them to post.
They can download podcasts. They can do whatever they want.
I just ask them not to post on the board.
And so, if somebody then abuses that privilege, Right?
Because nobody has any right to use the free-domain radio surfer, and nobody has any right to come to my house and have dinner at my house, and I don't have the right to go on a date with your sister, and, you know, like, nobody has the right to use other people's resources, right?
So it's a privilege, right?
And, like, coming to my house for a barbecue is a privilege, right?
And so on. So, when I ban somebody for being difficult and obstructive and negative, but without being abusive, yeah, they can still use the...
download the podcast, whatever.
It's fine with me, right? It's just that particular kind of board interaction that is not productive.
So, then...
but then if people use that to...
You know, spread negative and horrible and hateful things about this conversation or me.
Then I do an IP ban.
An IP ban is their computer can't get to my server for podcasts.
People get really upset about that, right?
But generally, it's not out of hostility that I will ask someone to stop posting.
It's just consuming a lot of cycles, a lot of resources, and not getting anywhere.
Right? So, that's when I sort of ask people, you know, it's like if you go on a date with someone and they just, they're just kind of boring or narcissistic or whatever, right?
Then you, you know, you don't hate that person.
You just don't want to go on a date with them again, right?
So, if they call, you'll, you'll put them off or anything, but you're not going to, you know, unless they keep calling and get scary, you're not going to block their number or anything.
That's sort of the way that it occurs.
It occurs for me, right?
So, So when this gentleman is talking, and this kind of detail is really, really essential to look at, right?
And that's why it's really important to, when you get a communication, particularly in the form of email, that you slow down, don't respond too quickly, sort of figure out how you feel, review the information that's being provided to you in the post or the podcast or whatever.
Breathe. And this is just slowing down your reaction to make sure that you end up with a healthy or true self reaction or instinct rather than a defensive or reactive or false self kind of whiplash instinct like, oh, you're a bastard or whatever.
I mean, that's not the stuff that we want to have in terms of elevating the conversation or eliminating a conversation that can't be elevated.
So... When Ralph frames why he was hesitant about talking to me or why he felt sort of emotionally closed off while talking to me, he said, because of some recent board activity, my friend was one of the board members banned for sending the private message.
Now, when you get this kind of information, it's important, and again, I pounded this into the ground, probably will again, but pounded this into the ground with the Socrates podcast, the Socrates part two.
And when you get this kind of communication, it's important to read carefully.
It's important to read carefully in just about every situation, but in these kinds, it's important to read carefully.
So, I was intimidated to talk to you because of some recent board activity.
Well, that's not really true.
And then when he says, my friend was one of the board members banned for sending the private message.
Well, that's not true either.
I don't ban people for sending private messages.
Because, you know, there's hundreds of private messages flying around every day or two in the free domain radio system.
So, the idea that I'm banning people for sending private messages is...
It's so clearly not true that it's an evasion.
You know, with all due respect to this gentleman who wrote to me, I'm just sort of pointing this out because it's important to see how we process these things as well.
That is an evasion because clearly I did not ban anybody for sending the private message.
I'm not saying any of this to defend myself.
I'm perfectly comfortable with my actions, but just so that you can understand, when people communicate to you, what they avoid saying is usually the most important thing if there's this kind of stuff, right?
So what does he say then?
So then I said, well, what did you think of Bob's actions, right?
Because he's the one who feels like randomly people just get banned or, you know, whatever through Free Domain Radio for sending private messages or something as innocuous as board activity, right?
These are all evasions.
It wasn't recent board activity that intimidated him.
It was me banning this, doing an IP ban on his friend.
So, I said, what did you think of Bob's actions?
And I'll sort of say why I said that at the end.
He said, I was most upset that he was advertising for a competing site through your private message system.
Right? Well, again, this is not really true.
It's not a competing site.
It's not a competing site.
Every internet site that has anything to do with this kind of conversation, or philosophy, or politics, or economics, or I mean, the internet is a competing site.
And I regularly will post articles from other websites, and of course, I'll even post articles from other podcasts, and so on.
And it always is the case, or could be the case, that people go over there and say, wow, this is way better.
That wouldn't be right, but let's say.
They go over there, oh man, this is way better.
Then Free Domain Radio, I'm going to stay here.
And that's always their prerogative and choice.
Competing sites is not the issue.
And when he called FDR a cult, he said he wanted to handpick certain people, so that is why he used the private message, but his actions were very destructive to FDR. I mean, the gathering of people together who are interested in philosophy into the board of FDR has been an investment I like 11,000 posts and God knows how many frighteningly countless number of hours invested in I'm bringing this conversation,
nurturing it forward, trying to manage it as best I can, and to herd the cats towards productive conclusions, myself included.
But the gathering together of people who are interested in this is a significant investment of mine.
And I'm going to guard it somewhat ferociously, and that doesn't mean that people can't come and go whenever they want.
Of course they can! But what it means is that if you start pillaging this capital that I've gathered together of like-minded people to basically...
Like, if you use the people that I've gathered together and expended an enormous amount of time, energy, and money to gather together, if you then use the mechanism, the technology, to attack that investment, then I'm going to be...
I'm going to react strongly, and I'm going to be very guarded, and I'm going to be very protective of the investment that I have put together in this community, right?
And so that's sort of inevitable, right?
So the idea of advertising for a competing site, that's not particularly accurate.
So when he called FDR a cult, that is more accurate.
He wanted to handpick certain people, so that was why he used the private message.
But his actions were very destructive, To FDR. And again, that is both true and false at the same time, so this person feels uneasy because he's right on the border of an unpleasant decision, I would say.
Of course, this is my theory. So, when he called FDR a cult, he said, I was most upset that he was advertising for a competing site through a private message system, and then when he called FDR a cult...
And so there we have, I was upset by these actions.
And that's quite different from these actions were wrong.
Again, this is all stuff that you need to be very aware of when you're in communications with people.
It's not designed to make you paranoid, but just designed to help you understand everybody's a philosopher and everyone is a genius.
And we really need to read carefully, just as we would If we're reading through Shakespeare or some challenging writer like Dante or whatever.
Or sometimes me, perhaps.
But he said, I was upset and so on.
And he said, but his actions were very destructive to FDR. Not just his actions were very destructive, but destructive to FDR. He said, I was not in very much contact with him while this was going on.
But I still feel apprehensive towards FDR. And he said, I felt hurt by his actions on the board, even though they weren't directly pointed at me.
I would never do the things he did, but the fact that he was banned makes me feel anxious.
And I feel like I need to watch what I say.
Now, the interesting thing is that he says that he needs, he feels he needs to watch what he says, not around Bob.
The person I banned or whose actions upset him considerably.
But around me, right?
Again, this is very, very important when you're talking to somebody or trying to analyze what's going on in a sort of productive or efficient manner.
He doesn't say, well, I feel anxious about talking to Bob.
He says, no, Steph, I feel anxious about talking to you, to Steph, right?
And that is something that's very, very important.
And he said, it makes me feel anxious and I feel like I need to watch what I say.
Now, I'll let you in on a...
It may be a secret to you, it may not be a secret, but particularly when people are younger, 99.9999% of the time, when they're talking about anything and everything, they're talking about themselves.
Because we have so many smashed boundaries in our lives and our egos are so gas-bagged up and spread across the cosmos that we almost always mistake the world for ourselves and ourselves for the world.
Our ego boundaries are diffused and spread out and trampled over and rolled over and smashed and so on.
So the difference between our ego and the world tends to be Unclear when you're young.
Okay, this is an odd little story.
This is sort of an example of what it is I'm talking about.
When I was in theater school, I played, as you can imagine through typecasting, a Balinese fisherman in a play.
And I did this sacred love dance to another...
To a woman in the play, which was quite challenging and exciting, and I wish I still had a video.
And what I did was I presented her with a fish, and my then-girlfriend and I spent a weekend coming up with an artificial fish, right, a fish that we sort of stitched together and put together and so on.
And I brought this fish in, thrilled about how it looked and the expression on its face, and I thought it was great and funny.
And the director didn't like it, and she basically ended up saying, go out and buy a real fish and just present that to her, right?
Because this is a realistic play, despite the fact that I was cast as a Balinese fisherman.
But I felt really upset, right?
And I felt hurt, and I felt rejected, and I was upset.
And of course, because I had ego-identified with the fish, right?
She wasn't rejecting me, she was just rejecting the fish, right?
The fish that you made doesn't work for the play.
And of course, in hindsight, she was completely right.
But that's what I mean. The fish and me become the same thing.
We ego-identify with these things, right?
So, almost always when somebody says, Steph, I feel uncertain, or I feel cautious, or I feel nervous, or I feel apprehensive to talk to you, What I get from that is that what they're really saying is, I feel uncertain and I feel apprehensive about talking to myself,
honestly. And what that says to me is, Steph, I'm hiding something and I'm nervous that talking to you is going to reveal that something to me.
And so they say, well, Steph, I feel nervous talking to you, but the reality is that they feel nervous talking to themselves, honestly.
So that was sort of my theory, and so I continued with the questions, and I said, do you think that what your friend Bob did was wrong?
And he said, yes, his actions were definitely wrong.
He was also wrong about UPB, which was one of the debates that caused the non-IP ban, the don't post request.
And... There's an interesting kind of evasion here, which is one evasion and one misdirection, right?
So, when I say what he did was wrong, and he said yes, his actions were definitely wrong, he was also wrong about UPB. Now, actions can't be wrong, right?
An action can't be wrong.
If I strangle someone, I'm wrong.
It's not that the action of strangling is wrong.
It's me who's doing the wrong thing.
It's a choice that I've made to strangle someone.
It's not the act of strangling that is wrong.
Because a boa constrictor can strangle you, and that's not immoral, right?
It's the choice. So there's a slight thing.
These actions were definitely wrong, but actions can't be wrong.
Choices that result in actions, the choices are incorrect or corrupt, and the actions result from that, but it's the conscious choice that is the root of that, right?
And again, this is a very smart, sophisticated person.
He knows all of this stuff, right?
And then he says he was also wrong about UPB, right?
So what he's doing is he's using the word wrong in two contexts, right?
And misapplying it in the first, which is the important or moral one.
So I was talking morally wrong, and then he says he was also wrong about UPB, which moves the word wrong from moral to logical, right?
It's strangling somebody who's immoral is wrong, and saying 2 plus 2 is 5 is wrong, right?
But it's not immoral, right?
And he said, if I realize these things, then why do I still feel anxious to speak on the boards and with you on the phone?
So naturally, because of course there's an unresolved tension here, and I'm pretty aware of what it is, and anybody who's not Ralph is probably pretty aware of what it is.
It's just hard for us to see these things ourselves.
So I said, well, what has happened with your relationship with Bob?
So he says, if I realize that Bob did some wrong things, why do I still feel anxious to speak on the boards and with you, Steph, on the phone?
And I said, well, what has happened with your relationship with Bob?
And he said, well, I didn't speak to him much since this happened, but I haven't decided what to do.
He's the only person that I physically know that doesn't think I'm a radical.
When we live together, we discuss podcasts, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
He said, do his actions mean that it's better for me to end my friendship with him?
I have considered him my only true friend for a long time.
And here's where we sort of get to the core of the issue, which is that this person, like, he doesn't say that knowing Bob has inspired me to be a better human being, right?
Right? It's important to always focus on what is not being said.
The truth is in the unconscious for people who are unconscious of stuff.
And it's in what is omitted.
That's why Socrates didn't mention the word murder.
So, he said that we would discuss things when we lived together.
We would discuss podcasts, board issues, and other philosophy books we were reading all the time.
Now, one of the things that I relentlessly focus on in this conversation is that discussion that leads to action is fruitless and a waste of time and actually destructive to philosophy as a pursuit.
Because every time you have a value that you don't act on, you disconnect even further for yourself and for others.
The connection between values and actions, between philosophy and integrity.
Between courage as a virtue and courage as a decision, which results in an action.
So, what this person to me is basically saying is, well, what do you mean I have to implement these values?
The reason that I feel anxiety is that I only want to talk philosophy.
Right? Right? And that's why I have these three questions.
The first, what did you think of Bob's actions?
Right? In other words, what is your evaluation morally of what Bob did?
And then I say, when he wouldn't answer the question, or when he answered it subjectively like, I was upset.
See, that's a feeling, right?
And I said, what did you think? I didn't say, how did you feel about Bob's actions, right?
So when people answer the wrong question, it's because they don't want to answer the right question, clearly.
So if I say, what did you think of Bob's actions?
And he said, I was most upset.
I was anxious. I felt bad.
Well, I didn't ask what you felt.
I asked what you thought.
What was your evaluation of Bob's actions?
And that's why I said, do you think that he did wrong?
And he said, yeah, his actions were wrong, right?
And he was wrong about you, BB, but, you know, close enough, right?
We can work with that. And I said, well, what has happened to your relationship with Bob, right?
What did you think of his actions?
Did you think what he did was wrong?
And what has happened with your relationship?
And this, of course, is the connection between evaluation and action, which is really the core of what it is that we're talking about.
We spent the first 182 podcasts talking about theory, and then the next 6 million will be talking about application, practicality, putting your values into practice.
And that's what I wanted to know.
So it's great that this person is somebody that you enjoy discussing philosophy with, but given that this person did something that you say is wrong...
What has the result of that knowledge and that evaluation been?
And if you say, well, yeah, he did something that was wrong, but frankly and fundamentally, it doesn't matter to me.
Like, I'm perfectly happy to hang with somebody who made a pretty immoral decision because I enjoy discussing philosophy, right?
And what that says deep down is philosophy is a mental game that I use to avoid morality.
Morality is the action, the choice, the decision that results in action.
So what this person is saying is, I am drawn to discuss because I do not want to act.
And what that means, of course, is that this person has a great natural integrity and does want to act.
We don't defend against things that we don't want.
If this guy wants to act with integrity, then he's going to have a great deal of defenses and anxiety around any demand whatsoever.
I don't have a great deal of defenses about, Steph, would you like to be a ballerina?
I don't have any tension about it, because having already done the lead in Nutcracker, you don't need to prove anything anymore after that.
So, this person does not want to connect the words with the deeds, and is studiously avoiding connecting the words with the deeds.
And so, the reason that I know...
And my solution to these things is not, well, tell the guy to take a hike.
He's a corrupt son of a bitch and just make him go away.
That's not my... I mean, that doesn't get anyone anywhere, right?
And of course, that may be considered sort of culty.
But... And of course, what does it matter what I think, right?
The important thing is that you get to the truth about your relationships.
So, what had not occurred...
Was that this person, Ralph, had not had a sit-down either through regular mail or whatever it is, whatever methodology that could work.
And when people don't do that, it's for a good reason.
We'll get to that in a sec. But Ralph had not had a sit-down with Bob and said, you know, step me through what's going on With this decision of yours to call FDR a cult, to attempt to sort of badmouth, to drag people to a very hostile to Steph or FDR forum.
You know, this is a guy who gave you, you know, lots of free podcasts and resources.
Yeah, I think he donated.
But the issue is, you know, what was going on for you, right?
Because it seems like that's kind of a catty and hostile thing to do.
Right? I wasn't too comfortable.
I thought you were wrong about UPB, and I thought you fought way too long, and really, you had some emotional thing going on.
And then when you were asked not to post, and Steph very generously let you continue to download the podcast and use his server resources and his bandwidth and his message system and so on, and then you kind of really abused that privilege by using Steph's resources to attack Steph and...
To insult his character in such a fundamental way.
Like, I absolutely will not tolerate being called a cultist.
That is an unbelievably savage and vicious attack upon what it is that this conversation is all about.
And so people approach, people let loose with the word cult at their peril around me, right?
You better have a damn good case if you're going to call me a cultist.
And if it does turn out that I am some sort of cultist, then I will absolutely correct things, but you better not use that term loosely, right?
You might as well be out there calling my wife a whore, unless you have video, you are not going to be on the sunny side of my street.
So, you'd say, well, this Steph generously allowed you to continue to use his resources, even though he disagreed with what you were talking about, which I thought was incorrect about UPB, and found the conversation to be nonproductive and draining and exhausting.
And then you kind of set up this anti-FDR forum and you use Steph's resources to call him culty, which is highly insulting for a philosopher.
And so help me understand what the process was here.
That's what didn't happen.
So what happened was Ralph...
I judged, and I think rightly so, Bob's actions to be wrong, to be immoral, to be hypocritical, to be corrupt, whatever it is.
Not evil, but wrong.
And that's why I said, well, what has happened to you with your relationship with Bob?
And I knew for sure that Ralph was not going to write back to me and say, well, what's happened is I've had a four-hour conversation with him about this.
And I've been curious and I've tried to help him figure out what the sequence was and how he felt and whether it was similar to any situations he had as a child.
He has studiously avoided that conversation.
And if you remember a very early podcast called The Billion Dollar Proposition, people say, well, you know, he doesn't have access to email, I never get around to it, I don't have time.
Nonsense. Nonsense.
If this person was a really good friend and you had an issue with him that was threatening the friendship and you knew that talking about it would help, then you would do that.
And if somebody paid you a billion dollars to sit down for an hour and write this guy a letter, would you do it?
Well, of course you would, right? So, when somebody says, oh, you know, Bob is just so important to me in my life.
I mean, this is, you know, he's easy.
We talk about philosophy and he's my only close friend and this and that.
Then I would say, if Bob does something wrong, why are you afraid to...
If you guys are so close, if this is such a great friendship, then why are you afraid to help Bob out of his error?
People always say this, oh, we're so close, I love my mom, I love my dad, his friends, we're so close.
It's like, well, why haven't you talked to him about this very important issue?
If you feel that he's done something wrong, and he's a friend of yours, then you should help him.
You should help him.
Because if this era continues and if he has a sort of vicious or reactive or abusive streak where he just sets up crazy negative forums when he's crossed or whatever, that's kind of a bitchy and hysterical response to a slight or a wrong or a perceived slight or wrong or whatever.
If that's his habit and you allow him to continue in that habit...
His life is going to be miserable!
Because what happens when his wife or his children contradict him?
Is he going to set up angry boards and use his kid's email account to bash his kid to his friends or his wife at work?
If somebody's got a really bad habit and you claim to care about him, then when you see that bad habit, you should help him.
And if you don't help him, Then you're not a friend.
Forget about whether he's a friend.
You're not a friend. And that's, of course, the real knowledge that Ralph is avoiding.
The real knowledge that Ralph is avoiding is that he knows exactly what's going to happen if he talks to Bob about this.
He knows exactly what's going to happen when he talks to Bob about his concern about what Bob did.
He knows that Bob is going to attack him, is going to manipulate him, is going to undermine him, is going to use him as a prop for his mythology.
He knows that.
He knows that.
Why? Because he just saw it happen.
He just saw when somebody criticizes or questions Bob, Bob then becomes a hysterical and bitchy attacker.
He saw that!
And he saw that Bob is no real remorse, and thinks that he did the right thing, and is only reinforcing his mythology, and so on.
And he also knows that Bob is absolutely fascinated by philosophy, but has problems processing that one plus one is two.
Significant problems processing that, right?
And what does that say? Well, that both Bob and Ralph, to a smaller degree, are using philosophy as a kind of paralysis.
They're using philosophy to justify their own negative behavior.
Bob's in terms of attacking people who criticize him, and Ralph's in terms of letting that happen to a friend that he claims to care about.
See, that's the truth. And the truth, of course, is wrapped up in every part of this interaction.
Philosophy is not to be talked about, as I have talked about endlessly.
Philosophy is not to be talked about.
It is to be talked about and understood and then acted upon.
The purpose of philosophy is action, not thought.
Because thought will not bring you happiness.
Action, action, action will bring you happiness, not thought.
I mean, you've got to have knowledge.
Knowing nutrition will not cause you to lose weight.
Changing your diet will cause you to lose weight.
Learning that smoking gives you cancer will not prevent you from getting cancer if you smoke.
Stopping smoking will do that, hopefully.
And that clarity is entirely what is...
So it's avoided and underplayed and misdirected and confused and submerged in this interaction.
And you see it's very clear.
Everybody tells everything in the first few minutes, in the first post.
It's all right there.
And it's right there for him too.
So there is a core truth in Ralph that Ralph wants to avoid.
Which is the relationship between philosophy and action, and his own cowardice in not talking to Bob about his thoughts and feelings about what Bob did that was wrong.
He wants to avoid all of that.
Now, he knows, he's been around in this conversation long enough to know, that through some sort of evil or perhaps good gypsy curse on my crib when I was younger, I see this stuff in blazing clarity.
Right. Right. So when he says, well, Steph, I'm nervous to talk to you, it's because he knows I'm going to tell him the truth if he asks me, and I may even if he doesn't.
In this case, I did ask if I could use this for a podcast, but he knows what's going to happen.
In the same way that he knows what Bob's reaction to any kind of questioning is going to be, he knows what my reaction is going to be when he brings this stuff up with me, which is that I'm going to build a case for what is true.
And what is really going on.
Not the stuff that's being evaded at the surface, but why it's being evaded deep down.
And that aspect of things is something that is so important to understand.
I mean, I asked three little questions here, and I knew the answer before I started posting the first one.
I'm really trying to get you guys to up your game to the point where this becomes a habitual reaction, so that you stop reacting at the surface things, right?
Nate has posted some stuff on the board about an interaction he had with a, quote, friend of his.
You can see the same thing going on.
You need to scan for what's not talked about.
You need to scan for what's evaded.
You need to scan for what's not present.
What's not obvious, and we talk about economics.
Economics is the discipline of looking for the hidden or non-obvious costs rather than the obvious benefits.
And that's really what I'm trying to focus on in this podcast.
Look for what's not there.
Look for what's skipped over.
Look for what's missing. Look for what's redefined.
Look for what's distorted. Because that's the rock that you need to hit on the false ship.
So you can swim to real land.
Ooh, what a crowded metaphor.
But I wanted to talk about that, because I've been missing doing these podcasts for a while, but I also wanted to point out to you that this kind of process can be very efficient.
Now, I know that Ralph knows all of this about Bob.
I hope he's written the letter already.
And if he hasn't, he's not going to, so this doesn't matter, right?
But what good would it have done for me to say, yes, you should break with this person's friend, or you should break with Bob because he's a bad guy and this and that and the other, right?
Because he's avoiding that knowledge.
And so if I do convince Ralph to break with Bob or whatever, then he's still going to continue to avoid that knowledge, which means the next friend's going to be exactly the same until he gets to the core stuff, which is family history.
So this is why I always say, the way out of this kind of blindness is the foggy center of the cage, not rattling the bars and sprinting away.
The trapdoor in the middle is the real route out.
That's why I say, talk to this guy, send him a letter, reveal your heart, open your concerns, and then what happens is you confirm your initial thoughts.
So if you dread doing that, like if you sit down to write that letter and say, you know, well, Bob, I had these problems and I feel bad about this, that, and the other, and so on, Then, if you feel dread doing that, and then a bad result occurs, you get attacked, that's a godsend!
That is gold, baby!
That is a beautiful thing.
If you sit down and you're terrified to write this letter, and when you get the response back, you are terrified to open it, That is so helpful for you.
That is so important.
That is so essential for you.
And that's why you have to do these kinds of things.
If you dread writing a letter saying, Bob, and you dread getting the response, and you get the response, and you dread to open it, and then you open it, and the response is abusive, you're like, I guess I knew it.
Otherwise, I wouldn't have dreaded it.
I guess I knew it. That's why I dreaded it.
And now it's confirmed, right? So this David Heinrich fellow who launched a massive and bizarre attack, a public attack on me in a libertarian group, when he first sent back his response to the IP ban, I was so nervous to open it.
I was so afraid to open it.
I asked Christina to do it because I just had a sort of a beady up kind of day and I was a bit drained.
And his response was fairly pleasant.
And I thought, well, not pleasant, but not, you know, raging crazy.
And I was like, oh, I guess I was dreading this for no particular reason.
And then, of course, the next day or two, a weird attack began.
And so, of course, the dread then was confirmed, right?
And that's why we have to do that which we're frightened of, because we need to find out That our fear is valid, is real, and then use it to avoid those situations in the future.
Anyway, I hope that this has been helpful.
Thank you so much for getting back on the, well, for listening to the old podcast bandwagon again.
I will try to keep these afloan, but thanks so much for, you know, your kindness, your generosity, your listening, your spreading the word.
We had a fantastic, fantastic, fantastic month.
As I mentioned, this last month, biggest month we've ever, ever had, and I am enormously, enormously pleased.
I'm thrilled about that.
We had 247,981 FDR podcasts downloaded, as well as 20,000 YouTube views and lots of other good stuff, and books sold, hundreds of books sold, and so on.
So thank you so much for making this also possible and also great.
And I look forward to donations.
Pick up your books if you're going to buy books.
For the holiday season, please pick them up now because it'll take a little while for you to get them.
If you want to order a couple of copies, just let me know and I will set you up with a good price, my friend.
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