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Feb. 9, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:03:49

976 Sunday Call In Show Feb 10 2008

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	Well, thank you, everybody, so much for joining us.
	Actually, I'm going to start again. Let's not start with an error.
	Let me get the date wrong first. Hang on.
	Well, thank you, everybody, so much for joining.
	It is February the 10th, 2008, shortly after 4 p.m.
	Eastern Standard Time.
	Thank you so much for joining us for the regular Sunday cavalcade of philosophical intimacy.
	And if you have questions, comments, issues, or problems, why don't you start right away?
	Just a brief and annoying nag from your host.
	So, just some updates, minor business notes, updates.
	The RTR book has been selling well.
	Thank you very much to those who have picked it up.
	I did get a copy of the print version, actually both versions, which is the compact version and the extended version.
	And just so people know what the difference is, the compact version has all the core text.
	It's 282 pages.
	It has no links or transcriptions of the podcasts.
	that were done based on some board excitement and the extended version is 421 pages long And it has links to the podcasts which are the RTR-based podcasts where we work through particular conflicts or issues because that was one of the most popular parts of the symposium in Miami was the role-playing and the working through the conflicts that people could see sort of relatively clearly.
	So the extended version is available.
	I got the books.
	I think the cover looks great. I'm very pleased with the book as a whole.
	I did find, though, that the gutter is not quite big enough.
	And what that means is that when you open the book around the middle, the text is just a little bit too close to the spine to make for the most comfortable reading.
	So I've increased that and resubmitted it to Lulu, ordered some extra ones.
	You can pick up a copy at the moment.
	I'm not advertising broadcasting it, and I haven't reviewed the final one, though.
	It should be fine.
	Made some minor tweaks to the cover and got some very nice feedback about the book, which is very exciting and nice.
	And I will read that to you as a sort of third-party validation of what I think is the power of the book, which I think is certainly the most effective thing that I've written in terms of really improving the freedom and quality of your life.
	So here's a short piece of feedback, which starts with a large bit of hyperbole.
	But this is somebody who said, Real-time relationships, a thank you note.
	Message. Hark! What light from yonder window breaks?
	It is the east! And Stefan is the sun.
	Actually, it's closer to the moon because it's more reflected light.
	But he says, um, disregard above.
	I am absolutely delighted in spite of this feeling I felt not half an hour ago, this high that obliterates everything in my dusty memory, that anything in my dusty memory could have hoped to remember.
	I find I can't say anything more meaningful than a simple thank you.
	I'm pretty sure I've just implemented your RTR to unravel a Gordian knot of a relationship.
	As I was driving away, I felt the most intense happiness and sheer exhilarating freedom, almost a well bubbling up inside me filled with glee, almost made me feel guilty, like I got off way too easy considering the level of craziness involved.
	Without getting into specifics, this girl and I were doing this weird interaction with both of us apparently thinking the same exact thing, namely, something does not feel right.
	Before this conversation, I was guilt-ridden about the possibility that I could be hurting this person somehow with my cowardice, my inaction, my living in the illusion.
	I think I have some idea what love is, and this definitely wasn't it.
	I felt this anxiety from the very beginning, but I chose not to let it get out of hand.
	So we're having a conversation, and I'm giving her the old truth bit, professing my undying loyalty to truth and the non-initiation of violence, decrying the evils of all forms of control.
	Somehow, the conversation shifted to our relationship, and I found myself at a crossroads.
	And I hear the words, to be totally frank, come out of my mouth.
	Famous last words, right?
	The truth has set me free.
	The rest of the conversation was effortless, with me almost in blind shock to reality unfolding in front of me.
	By simply communicating my experience, everything just fell into place, almost like there was a logic puzzle I solved a few steps early, and I was just tying up some loose ends, all because I decided to really live and be true to truth, if that makes any sense.
	As I was driving away, I sort of came to grips with what I just did.
	The veil was broken for a split second, and I was truly happy with what I had done for probably the first time in my life.
	Life-affirming, to say the least.
	I don't mean to gush.
	I just wanted to share this feeling.
	Sincerely, name.
	And it is a lovely email to get, of course.
	That is some good, good stuff.
	And... It's $12.
	Write me the book. You can get it for $12 and you can go all the way up to the extended print version for $28 or something.
	$12 cheaper than a movie.
	You know, three lattes.
	Three large lattes.
	And about seven or eight minutes of a therapist's time.
	Audiobook. 14 bucks or, you know, maybe 10 minutes of a therapist's time for nine and a quarter hours of what I conservatively think is the best relationship advice on the planet.
	So, you want to pick up a copy of that book.
	Don't put it off. Don't delay, especially after the fabulous procrastination video.
	Start getting your life moving in the right direction in terms of personal freedom.
	And start living philosophy in your relationships.
	Get this book.
	If you can't afford it, no problem.
	Greg will buy you a free copy.
	He takes mostly cottage cheese in payment.
	Just send it to him in a bag. But be sure to double ziplock it because you will be mailing it and we don't want any mess.
	So if you can't afford it, just let me know.
	I will send you a free copy. You can pay me later if you like it.
	So we'll get this into people's hot little hands, and you should get a hold of the copy if you haven't got it.
	And thanks to those who have already ordered it.
	This is the last book I'll be writing for a while because I want to see what the shape and fall that is from this book before working on another one.
	So again, thanks to those who bought it.
	if you haven't bought it, freedomainradio.com forward slash books dot html.
	So that's it for me.
	I'm going to open up the simulated internet phone lines and open the conversation up to whoever has questions or issues or problems or with the comments.
	So I'm kind of curious about this question.
	This thread on property rights on the board.
	And not so much because of the content per se.
	And it's the one where the guy is arguing that coercion is a necessary prerequisite to property rights.
	Right, that all property needs to be defended through force.
	And since property rights, as far as I understand it, since property rights are relatively subjective, defending them requires the initiation of the use of force, therefore all property is a violation of UPB or of ethics in general.
	Is it something like that?
	That's essentially what he's arguing.
	More or less the anarcho-socialist argument that all property is force.
	So, he hasn't been doing a very good job of making his case, Sorry, sorry to interrupt.
	He's been doing a good job of something though, right?
	Right, exactly. Because you're assuming, or that would be based on the assumption that what his purpose is, is to try and make his case, right?
	That's true. That's very true.
	But that's also why I'm kind of curious about this thread, because it's been going on for, what, well over a week now, and there are dozens and dozens of posts to this thread, and most of them are just sort of It just struck me odd that there would be so much activity on this one thread,
	and I just kind of wondered what your take on it was.
	My take on it is that people are not certain, right?
	So when somebody comes along and takes a path, let's say, at the root of, let's just call it our philosophy, the FDR philosophy or UPP or whatever, when somebody comes along, and takes a real hack to the core of it then people react and they react by piling into the argument and you can tell that it's a reaction because they're not showing any curiosity that they're getting sarcastic you know,
	this kind of stuff, right? and they're unable to let it go and they come back and so on and it's the same thing with the determinist threat, right?
	that people are still getting getting suckered into the determinist trap I mean, so It comes from a doubt.
	It comes from a doubt. And it comes from fear.
	A doubt and fear. Fear and the fight factor in philosophy.
	And so people, they say, oh my god, well, property must be defended by violence and property is not established, then the foundation of anarcho-capitalism, which is property rights and non-agrician principle, Then it's completely invalid.
	And, oh my god, I donated to somebody spreading the wrong word.
	You know, I thought I had the answer, and it turns out that we don't.
	And people have a lot of uncertainty and fear, and they don't go into that in an honorable way, right?
	Like, they don't say, you know, when I see this thread, I feel really anxious.
	I feel really scared.
	Like, why if you're totally wrong?
	I mean, that to me would be an honest response.
	That would be an RTR response to that kick in breath.
	Because if the guy, I mean, the guy was not making very good arguments, and of course the entire argument against property requires self-ownership, i.e.
	he's responsible for his posts, and where I am, and of course he has exclusive use on a computer that he has exclusive use, Then someone is using the property of my server to make the argument against property.
	Arguing against property rights is exactly the same as yelling into something that has no such thing as sound.
	It's one of these self-teating arguments that I talked about in UPB. But I think people had a very strong amount of reaction to it.
	And this guy was just...
	I mean, he's fishing with discharges, right?
	I mean, he's not interested in making a coherent argument.
	He's interested in getting a reaction.
	And the community seemed to...
	Serve up the reaction in the same way that they serve up a reaction to the business and in the same way that they serve up a reaction to the determinists, right?
	And, I mean, it's something I can do about it, right?
	I mean, I can't go in and put a reaction into it, but that would sort of be my take on it, that people aren't just being honest about something that unsettles them.
	And they're talking about the, quote, argument rather than the feelings which are motivating them to continue this non-argument.
	That would sort of be my... I mean, how many times have we gone over this determinist thing?
	And some people are really getting it, right?
	A, it requires free will to argue against free will, and B, if we accept the determinist position, absolutely nothing's going to change based on an acceptance of determinism, and C, if determinism is true, Then there's no such thing as true or false, right or wrong. Everything's just playing its way out in a mechanistic way from the Big Bang world, right?
	So you can't say, free will is a false position, or you should believe a true position, any more than you could say, if you're a rock bouncing downhill, it should land here and not here.
	And if it lands here, it's wrong.
	And if it lands here, then it's right.
	Or that the Earth is the right It's the morally right or epistemologically accurate distance from the sun.
	I mean, it just is what it is. So people are starting to get that kind of stuff.
	But, yeah, I mean, people, what they do is they throw their hooks in the water and they see if they can get a reaction.
	And people should, I think, a suggestion would be that people should talk about their feelings.
	And they can do this privately.
	They can do this with other board members.
	They can do this in their journey.
	They can talk about their feelings, but don't respond to the argument, which obviously is completely self-defeating, which is something that we know by now.
	So that's my thoughts about it, but I'm certainly happy to hear.
	I mean, I could be completely wrong about this.
	It's just my thought, but I'm certainly happy to hear what other people think.
	And what makes a person, I mean, especially somebody who's been here a while, not just resistant to discussing their emotional reaction to a thread like that, but even sort but even sort of...
	Evading their own knowledge of it.
	Sort of avoiding actually talking about their emotional reaction to it.
	Well, we were, sorry to interrupt, but we were talking about this just the other day on a sort of post, any exit phone call.
	And, see, the thing, let's just talk about RTR for the moment, because that's the hot topic.
	RTR is something like learning jujitsu.
	Because people were saying, well, I don't have any problem RTRing with other people who understand the concept of this kind of emotional honesty, invulnerability, and so on.
	I don't have any problem RTRing with people like that.
	And it's like, well, yeah, right?
	In the same way that if you're in a dojo learning jiu-jitsu, you don't have any particular problem sparring with people.
	At the dojo, right?
	I mean, but that's not the point. We're not training here in order to practice our jiu-jitsu on each other, but in order to go out and to break up fights in the world, so to speak, right?
	So, the purpose of jiu-jitsu is not to train with other students.
	I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, but it's a means to an end.
	And, of course, the means to an end is to be able to defend yourself against people who are actually aggressive.
	So, the purpose of philosophy is not particularly or necessarily to debate rationally with reasonable people any more than the purpose of medicine is to apply cures to people who aren't sick.
	So, I think in this situation, this person, this Puppy Hats fellow on the board, who's talking about there's no such thing as property, and then evading, and then, you know, it was clear that he was not in it for knowledge, and he was not in it for truth, and he was not in it for consistency.
	So, he's acting in a completely unconscious and hostile manner, and it's screwed up, right?
	Right. And you either don't engage with crazy people, Or you engage with them and they take you down.
	You can't make them sane, right?
	Whatever led this fellow before with these distorted and weird arguments cannot be solved or cured through a rational argument, right?
	He's not doing it because he wants to know the truth about property rights.
	He's doing it because it gets a reaction out of people.
	So, I think that we need to recognize that when other people are acting in an unconscious manner, that's what we most need, to be honest with our feelings.
	Right, sorry, so if this guy comes on the board and says there's no such thing as property and it makes you feel nervous or edgy or you feel kind of freaky or creeped out, then what you do is you say, I feel kind of creepy and freaked out by this whole thing.
	Is anyone else feeling that or whatever, right?
	I don't know why, blah, blah, blah.
	And then if the person says, well, I guess that's how you feel when your precious little premises are toasted by my massive intellectual gargantuan argument...
	By my Borg-like intellect.
	Well, then you go, okay, so this guy responds to emotional vulnerability with sadist triumph.
	And you say, okay, so clearly he's not interested in the truth.
	He's just interested in screwing other people up and dominating them through his tricksy logic, right?
	least like you want to RTR that you need to do it.
	There's no backup position to RTR.
	It's not like, well, RTR with people who...
	I'm going to be honest with people who I'm comfortable being honest with, but then I'm just going to throw it out the window when somebody else comes along.
	I mean, that's when you...
	You most need your jiu-jitsu, not when you're sparring with the other people in the room, in the dojo, but you most need it when somebody's coming at you with a knife.
	Maybe the person that we're most uncomfortable with RTR-ing is ourselves. - So where did we get to when we got to the end there?
	Where were we? Um...
	The whole, I can tell you, the jujitsu training thing and actually going out.
	Yeah, it's the people who are the least conscious and the least self-aware that are going to suck us down the rabbit hole the worst.
	And that's when we most need to be honest.
	When it feels the least comfortable, that's when we need the most to be honest, right?
	So if you're the jiu-jitsu student, it's when the guy's coming you at a knife that you most need to use your jiu-jitsu because it's about self-defense, right?
	So you don't say, well, I'm only going to use self-defense in a structured environment with other students.
	But when a guy's coming at me with a knife, I'm just going to curl into a ball, right?
	Because the whole point of studying self-defense is to be able to deal with the guy who's got the knife, right?
	So it is when people are the least conscious, the least self-aware, the most manipulative, the most self-righteous, the most blind to themselves and their own motives, that's when we need to be most self-aware and most honest.
	And then we can see how we feel when we come back.
	Like when we say the truth about our experience of the other person.
	And that doesn't have to be engaging, right?
	I mean, if you're in the there is no property thing and you say, well, if I'm really honest about myself, this is not a pleasant interaction to me or for me.
	Then you say, okay, well, then why would I want to do something that's not pleasant, right?
	And it's having enough self-trust, right?
	Because what people do when they're manipulating you is they say, the only reason you would have negative feelings is because you're hypocritical, right?
	That's how people snare you.
	That's how they use your feelings against you, right?
	So if someone posts something stupid, like there's no such thing as property, right?
	Using his property, his body, my property, right?
	All that kind of stuff. And then you say, well, I don't want to debate with you because I don't enjoy this, right?
	They will immediately say, immediately, like without even thinking about it, they will immediately say, the reason you don't want to debate with me is because you know that I'm right and you're running away from the truth and you're too scared to go up against me and all that kind of stuff, right? That's immediate.
	And if they do that, if they express no curiosity about why you don't want to debate with them, then you know that you're right, that they're manipulative, that they're not interested.
	If you say, I don't really feel like continuing this debate because I don't feel good.
	I don't feel like this is a really good and positive interaction.
	And if they say, oh, well, tell me what you mean.
	It's not positive. Like, I'd like to know more.
	I don't want to give people a negative interaction of experiencing with me or debating with me.
	But if they say, ah, that's just because you're a chicken and you know I'm right, well, that's a good thing to know, isn't it?
	Yeah, I would suggest that people haven't done that because they knew he would respond that way.
	Well, that's true, but if they knew he would respond that way, why would they continue the debate?
	Steph, this is Ross. I was wondering if I could interject something here.
	Sorry, Rod, you're not scheduled to talk for another six weeks.
	Oh, right, right, right.
	Sorry, I just didn't get your paperwork.
	Extra paperwork right here, buddy.
	In my pants.
	Got it. Okay, let's not start there.
	So this dude has successfully baited me into dipping into his thread now and then.
	And the...
	I guess if I were to speak as honestly as I could with the guy, I would just say, look, you're pissing me off terribly and I want you to leave because I think you're pissing in the pool here.
	Do you think I'm being honest there?
	And if I am, how do you think he'd react to that?
	I don't think that you're being honest there myself.
	Okay. Because you just, I mean, first of all, if you are really fully and truly sure that he's pissing in the pool, then obviously you can't get rid of him, right?
	Because, you know, it's at least a $400 donation to Greg to get bounced.
	Actually, it's more like protection money, and I have to pay it too, so I understand all of that.
	But if you really are genuinely sure, without a doubt, that he's toxic, right, what would be other ways of doing it?
	I don't know, I just encourage everyone to stop responding to him, but that...
	But exactly, right?
	Because if he's really toxic, if he really is pissing in the pool, then you getting upset with him is exactly what he wants, right?
	Yeah.
	If people are being irrational and provocative, then when you get angry at them, isn't that exactly what they're trying to get a hold then when you get angry at them, isn't that exactly what they're I mean, for instance, if you look at the board that's composed of some of the people who didn't particularly have a lot of success, so to speak, in this conversation, you can see that it's full of a lot of rage, right?
	So there are people who get involved in debates in order to baffle, to confuse, to frustrate, to murkify, to, you know, and I'm pretty good at spotting those kinds of people now, and you can clearly see the debates that I don't get involved in.
	But those people are not interested in the truth.
	They're interested in messing other people up, in making other people angry.
	They are, as I affectionately call them, the older siblings.
	No, I'm just kidding. I know there's some good older siblings, but they're just provocateurs, right?
	And so if you're genuinely certain of that, then otherwise what you're doing is you're saying to a hijacker on a plane, let's really get the NSA set up here, but you're then saying to somebody who's hijacking a bus, Hey, I want you to leave this bus because you've got a gun and you're waving it around.
	Well, but that's the point of hijacking, right?
	Right. So what you want to do is get other people off the bus, right?
	Especially the driver, right?
	So he's left alone.
	Okay, so...
	There's something funny about that.
	Why do I feel worse about...
	Taking that approach than I do about trying to just get this guy away.
	What's blocking me from actually just saying that simply, I think we should just leave this dude alone, everyone, and maybe he'll go away.
	Why is that more difficult for me than what my response has been?
	I couldn't tell you, but tell me what it makes you feel.
	Like if I say, Rod, you're not allowed to yell at this guy.
	What does it make you feel?
	Actually, I'd feel kind of good because then at least there'd be something that I could say, okay, good, I can no longer talk to this guy.
	I'll just flat out ignore him. Well, sure, but as somebody who's a longer-term listener and somebody who's very sophisticated in this conversation, right?
	Because we're on sort of part three, slowly and painfully, which is around freeing other people, right?
	And freeing other people means that it may well be worth if you want, right?
	I mean, if this is a motivation enough to you...
	You can either send them email messages saying, look, I really do believe this guy is toxic.
	I don't think he's that interested in the truth.
	Here's my evidence and I'm going to stop debating with him.
	I suggest you do the same.
	Or you can set up a Skype call and invite the necessary people and have a chat.
	There's lots of things that you can do other than pretending to debate this guy, right?
	Or saying, I think you're a troll.
	Get lost, right? Because if he is a troll, he's going to be like, yeah...
	Excellent! You know, I'm getting exactly the result that I wanted, and if he's not a troll, it's going to be offensive, right?
	Right. This goes back to that thing that we spoke about, I don't know, probably a couple months ago, where the last time I engaged in just a blatant troll, and I was engaged with the troll, and I remember we were talking about how I have this, you know, the arrogance and error thing that just drives me up a wall.
	Actually, you recently spoke about this with our favorite Australian just the other day in one of the latest podcasts where you said one of the main reasons that you figured out UPB is because you're just sick and tired of so much certainty and error.
	Yeah. I mean, I very much...
	I can... I empathize with that feeling so much because, I mean, that's, I think, the last great hurdle for me as far as things that literally take me over and I have almost no control to stop is this, when I see people that are completely arrogant in a completely incorrect position, it just burns me.
	Like, it boils my blood and it's a great deal of effort to try to control that, actually.
	Well, I don't think that you should control it myself, right?
	It's healthy. It's healthy.
	Because what these people are doing is they're like a virus that's invading your system that is provoking the reaction of anger.
	So people who start messing around with there's no such thing as property rights.
	I mean, I was going to post something and say, oh, that's fantastic.
	Well, I'm now going to assign this server to your property.
	Here's the bill. Can you pay it every month?
	And see, put your money where your mouth is, so to speak, right?
	Or, you know, I'd like you to send me the contents of your bank account because there's no such thing as property, so you don't have any right to it, right?
	Right, right. I think I just realized something when you said that whole don't fight the anger thing.
	It just reminded me, of course, that my response to the anger is what's not true.
	The anger is absolutely true.
	true it's a true reflection of what's going on but my response then is the old me response and i need to get better at the new me response i guess and that's the uh...
	respond to the anger in a in a healthy and productive way instead of engaging with it and just flaming on with it yeah i mean if i understand it rightly and obviously you know tell me what the truth is but you want to dominate a dirty fighter Right, right, exactly.
	I mean, let's parse that out for a moment, right?
	Because that's pretty important, right?
	Yeah. And that's just, that's the feeling that I really want to get, or not that I want to get, but that's the feeling that I do get, and I want to, like you said, I want to dominate a dirty fighter.
	And, I mean, this goes back, you know, there were many instances when I was younger where if there was some jerky kid, like a bully, on the playground picking on people, I'd go up to him and I'd pick the fight with him and just, you know, thrash him for a little...
	Right, right.
	That's a little different from the board stuff.
	I mean, there's part of me that, I mean, much though I would have sympathy for a kid who's a bully in terms of his own history, the important thing is to not have him terrify.
	Here, unfortunately, we had an interruption in the show, which we pick up again in a second.
	Anyway, so, sorry Rod, we were just talking about this desire to dominate, and you were talking about people that you were bullying, or sorry, the bullies that you were fighting against.
	To some degree I have some sympathy about that as a response that you would have as a kid, but that's a little bit different from an intellectual argument, right?
	Oh, absolutely. On a board, right?
	Because it's not physically intimidating anyone, and it's entirely voluntary to participate in the threat.
	Right, right. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out, like, well, you know, again, the last time that we spoke about things like this, you know, my weakness for troll bait is, I think, something to do with, you know, the...
	I was stuck with a tormenting brother for so long and had to learn how to, you know, verbally combat him in order to sometimes cow him a bit, but...
	Not really sure how it all connects.
	Well, I think one of the things that you brought up with one of our favorite Australian listeners was the question of whose agenda are you running?
	That's sort of a very fundamental thing.
	When you feel swept up in an interaction, the question is whose agenda are you running?
	So I've talked about a million times that if your parents were cruel or sadistic to you, then if you end up over at their house as an adult, it's not because you think they're such great people.
	It's because they want you to be there, right?
	Right.
	And in the same way, when – it's different when we're kids because you can't get away from your siblings when you're a kid, however much you might want to, or your parents, right?
	But the question is, whose agenda – like, it's a question to ask when you're not feeling good about something, right?
	Whose agenda am I running, right?
	Whose story am I, whose mythology, whose script am I reading, so to speak, right?
	Now, it's clear with the fellow who was talking no property rights and this and that, that he would very much prefer to be debated with or have people debate with him as if he were a rational human being, right?
	Right. As if he respected evidence and logic and so on, right?
	Right. You know, actually, when you're just saying this, I just realized that I'm also finding myself frustrated with my fellow FDR members.
	Well, I think that's what you were saying earlier, right?
	Like you're sort of watching everybody throw themselves off this lemming cliff, right?
	Right, right. And it's the...
	I think actually when I look at this, I'm actually more frustrated with The guys that I've known for ages on this chat, or on this conversation, more than I am with this troll guy.
	Go on. I want names.
	No, I'm just kidding. Let's smoke them out.
	I find one strange thing here is that when I'm getting frustrated with them, I'm actually...
	I'm tempted to gang up with them on this guy instead of confronting them and saying, we know better than this, you know?
	Well, but see here, again, you're doing an expert job of doing the RTR sidestep, which is a dance move that we're all programmed with, right?
	Right, okay. Because if you feel frustrated with your fellow FDR people, what should you say to them?
	I'm frustrated with my fellow FDR people.
	And I don't know why.
	Because you don't, right? I mean, it could be that you're frustrated because...
	I mean, it could be six million reasons, right?
	Or even if you know the answer, it may only be one of a constellation of answers, right?
	No, this is actually... This is a very, very good point, because this is a question that I had from the RTR book, is the part with the conversation between the daughter and mother...
	And the RTR method of saying, I'm feeling this, but I don't know why, but I'm almost always convinced that I do know why.
	And it seems dishonest to me when I say, and I don't know why.
	But you don't know why.
	And the reason that it's an excellent point to bring up, right?
	But let's say that you're frustrated with me.
	You can say, I'm frustrated.
	I felt frustration, Steph, after you did X, right?
	Right. But you may know why you're frustrated, but you don't know why I did X, and until you know why I did X, your frustration remains at least partially in the dark for you, right?
	Okay. So, the next part of this, then, is that...
	Wait, sorry, I just want to make sure, is that point reasonable?
	It is reasonable, and the risk that I feel there is in saying that is that even if I say that to whoever it is that I'm expressing this to, I feel that it's going to remain in the dark because it's completely up to them to then provide me with Right, no, and I just wanted to, because what I gave was a pretty complicated point, and I just didn't want to rush past it, right?
	So, just to give a silly example, right?
	Like, if we're supposed to meet Saturday at 8, and I don't show up, you're going to feel frustrated with me, and you can say to me, Steph, I felt frustrated when you weren't there.
	But then if it turns out that it was supposed to be Sunday and I have the email or the text message, then you're going to say, oh, my frustration was incorrect, right?
	Or if I say, well, sorry, my foot exploded or something.
	I had to go to emergency and I had no cell phone or my cell phone battery.
	There's going to be things that...
	Or if I say, oh, man, I'm totally sorry.
	I completely forgot.
	The next three dinners are on me because that was just totally rude.
	Your frustration would ebb.
	Whereas if I just say... Yeah, well, so what?
	Get over it, right? Then your frustration is probably not going to ebb, right?
	So until you know my motivation for what it is that I'm doing, your frustration is going to remain somewhat in the dark because you don't know why I'm doing what I'm doing.
	You know that it's causing you frustration or you feel frustration afterwards.
	But you don't know for sure, right?
	So if somebody doesn't pay you back $100, you're going to feel frustrated.
	If it turns out that they absolutely, totally and honestly thought it was a gift and not a loan, then your frustration is going to evaporate, right?
	So we know that we're frustrated, but we don't know exactly the validity of that frustration until we interact in an honest and open manner with the other person, right?
	Yes, that makes sense.
	Now, bear with me as I... Admit more confusion.
	Fine. When is it that we get to go back to the days when I am absolutely confident in my instincts because I really liked those days.
	Now I'm feeling like I have absolutely no confidence at all in my instincts and it's confusing me.
	No, but I'm trying to give you confidence in your feelings.
	Right? Because if you say, Steph, I'm totally frustrated with you because you just didn't show up when we were supposed to, and then it turns out that you were wrong, right?
	Then you're going to feel less confident in your feelings, right?
	Ah. Whereas if you say, Steph, after you didn't show up Saturday night, I felt really frustrated.
	So this is a calibration technique.
	Well, it's just saying what is true, what is actually true, right?
	Which is that, Steph, after you didn't show up Saturday night, I felt and feel really frustrated.
	Now, if it turns out that you got things totally wrong, well, then you still can trust your feelings, right?
	But as soon as you put the conclusion in your feelings and say, well, I'm mad because we were supposed to be there Saturday and you just didn't show up and blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
	Then if it turns out that you're completely wrong, you're going to be less confident and sure about your feelings, right?
	Yeah, okay, so here's the...
	It's that line, this is how I feel, and I don't know why.
	I really feel like I'm being dishonest there, because I could say, this is how I feel, and I'm convinced that it's because of this, maybe.
	And that sounds more honest to me.
	Even if that conviction may be an error, at least I'm not saying, and I don't know why.
	Because I really do feel that I do know why.
	Well, first of all, feeling that you do know why is not a feeling.
	There's no feeling called I know why.
	That's a thought, right? That's a conclusion.
	Well, I feel convinced.
	Is that a feeling?
	No. You think that you're convinced.
	You have a... Like, the feelings are the raw things, right?
	And the stories or the conclusions are what we do with those, right?
	So, for instance, you may feel frustration...
	But there's no such thing as a feeling called, I'm right.
	I'm right is a thought or a conclusion or a story or whatever.
	And so, when I say trust your feelings and be honest, when you say, I feel frustrated, that is true, right?
	And if you say, I felt frustrated after you did X... That is also true, right?
	There was a cause and an effect.
	We don't know if it's after this, therefore because of this, but we know that that's all very true.
	You were totally standing in the spotlight of truth when you say, I felt frustrated after you did X, right?
	Now, if...
	I felt frustrated after you, you son of a bitch, had stood me up for the 20th time in a row and said, eh, you know, there was a hookers and blow party, I just decided not to show up, stop being such an uptight asshole, chill, relax, go with the flow, blah blah blah, right?
	Now then I'm pretty sure that my frustration is occurring because for the last 19 times I've said that I don't like it when you show up late or don't show up at all, I've got to make plans, it's rude, you don't like it when I do it to you, blah blah blah, right?
	So if you've just blown me off for the 20th time, and I'm sure about how I feel, That I'm frustrated and disgusted and blah, blah, blah, feel used, manipulated, blah, blah, blah, right?
	Like, I used to have a...
	There was a guy in my life. I won't go into who it is.
	There was a guy in my life, I guess about ten years ago.
	And I used to...
	We used to try...
	We were both bachelors right back then.
	This was back in the prehistoric days.
	And... I used to say to him, hey, let's go to a club this weekend, or let's go see a band, or whatever, whatever, right?
	And I'd say this to him on, like, Monday.
	Say, let's go out Saturday and do X. And he'd say, let me get back to you on that.
	Right? And then maybe Friday night he'd call me and say, yeah, I think I can go, right?
	Now, I knew for sure that he was saying...
	Okay, I'll go out with Steph to see this band only if a woman doesn't call me up, right?
	Or, you know, something else that I want to do more comes along.
	So I knew he was just keeping me in the holding pattern.
	And if anything better came along, he was just going to shuffle me right off the deck, right?
	I was going to flip right off his social conveyor belt.
	So, you know, I said to him, you know, I sort of feel like he was psychologically adept, or at least he was trained in that, so I said, you know, it kind of bothers me, I feel this and this and this, and he's like, I think you're overreacting, blah, blah, blah, right?
	Now, after this just kept going on and on, and I was never able to make any plans with this guy, at some point, when I was certain that I was never going to be somebody that this guy was going to treat with respect, right, or when it was like, well, he kind of likes me, But he always feels that something better might come along that he can do socially.
	Well, I no longer talked to him about it and he was no longer my friend, right?
	So what I mean is when you are absolutely certain, then you won't have that conversation with someone, right?
	Like the same way I don't call up my mom and say, you know, I think you were a bad mom.
	Right. Yeah, this...
	Sorry, and so what I mean by that is when you have certainty about a negative interaction, you don't need RTR anymore.
	So the only reason that you would have a conversation, like if you said, my fellow FDR listeners are all gutless pussies, right?
	They're just never going to understand.
	They're never going to get it.
	They're going to constantly pile in with troll marinade all over their nuts, right?
	If you really genuinely and truly believe that, then there'd be no need to have.
	Like if you were absolutely and completely and totally certain of that, there would be no need to have an RTR conversation, right?
	Okay. So, the conversation I need to have with my fellow FDR chums here is because I do want to, I absolutely want to I don't want to just say, okay, FDR, it's been fun, but buh-bye now because it's just nothing but troll slinging here.
	Right. Recently, I've been away from the boards for a little while for various reasons.
	I've been busy and stuff like that, but I've been participating less in it because I do feel that the trolltastic nature has been increasing lately, and it's just not as much fun for me to visit I completely understand that, of course, right? And the challenge is, if you want to do it or not, it's up to you, right?
	But the challenge is that you can either say, well, this resource is no longer providing to me the same kind of enjoyment that it used to, so I'm going to curtail my involvement with it.
	It's all perfectly valid, right?
	Or you can say, I am not going to let this environment degenerate.
	And so I'm going to step up and take a leadership role to clean things up.
	And the reason that you would do that is because it would be helpful in your life as a whole.
	I mean, FDR, particularly the boards and also the chatroom, is a fantastic practice area, right?
	Right. So rather than say, well, what is the board providing to me, say I have a reciprocal relationship with the board or with the community and I am going to take a leadership role and get people to understand if I can see something that they can't, I'm going to work to set them free and improve the quality of the board through taking a leadership role rather than just see if the board provides me what I want, if that makes sense.
	It does, and this is something I've been feeling rather guilty about recently.
	I don't feel as though I've been reciprocating enough for what I've gotten out of this whole experience.
	I don't feel as though I've given back enough to reciprocate for that.
	Go on. I don't know.
	There's something... Sometimes I feel like I'm not qualified to help people out with some things.
	I'll very frequently just lurk on threads and follow along with them via the email updates on them and stuff like that.
	It's almost like a voyeuristic thing where I feel like I wish I could go in and help and lend a shoulder to people and stuff like that, but most of the time I feel like it's not my place to do that, and I'm not really sure why that's the case.
	Do you know one of the toughest things about FDR, Rod?
	What's that? One of the toughest things about FDR, and this is more true of the videos than it is of the audio, is whenever I want to shoot a video, like I set up my camera, and I have to sort of check how it doesn't get a lampshade in or crap like that, right?
	One of the toughest parts of that is remembering to take down all of the framed degrees On the back wall of my study, right?
	The PhD in philosophy, the PhD in psychology and sociology, the postgraduate work in economics, because I don't want to look like I'm bragging with all of this kind of stuff.
	The PhD in English literature, you know, as a novelist.
	In sociology in terms of family examinations.
	And dear God, the PhD in Jungian dream analysis, that just feels totally over the top.
	And also I would be concerned that people might notice that I printed them myself and misspelled Harvard.
	Anyway, of course there is no accreditation for the new world.
	There is no accreditation for the new world.
	The first guy to invent economics doesn't have an economics degree.
	Socrates did not go to philosophy school.
	So there is no accreditation that you can get that is going to shore up your confidence in this area.
	Hippocrates did not go to Harvard Medical School.
	Yeah, I'm wondering if this belief is being generated by a perception that I'm not living the values myself, perhaps. I sure am.
	Okay, good. Suddenly the noise was gone and I just wasn't used to it.
	Wait, wait, Steph didn't talk for five seconds?
	Connection must be broken! Ah!
	Sorry, go on. Tap, tap, tap.
	Is this thing on? Hello, anybody out there?
	I can't see beyond the spotlight. So it's...
	I don't know, it seems like it was the...
	I think since I've been back from the Miami trip, I've been feeling like...
	I've been feeling kind of like a chump for some reason.
	I'm not really sure exactly why, but it's...
	Because you laid out like $125 for that?
	I'm so sorry. The original poster we had...
	Sucker! We're actually going to use for the next part of the RTR book.
	But anyway, go on. So the...
	No, it's... I don't know.
	There's something... I can't really put a finger on it, though.
	And I think this is why I'm feeling that I'm not fully accredited or something like that.
	I'm not really sure. But this is a bit of a catch-22, or a chicken and an egg situation, right?
	Because the really annoying thing about the RTR conference is that you can do this shit Every day, right?
	And the UPB, the once a month you meet a guy who's interested in debating ethics, it's great, right?
	Right, right. And on truth, it's like, you know, if you pull the Bombay off your family, well, then they whistle down and you're done, right?
	Fly on. But as I sort of said, the RTR thing is annoying.
	It becomes this gadfly that buzzes around you, right?
	Which says, do it now, do it now, do it now, do it now, right?
	And so it really raises stakes in terms of success or failure, right?
	Right. So, I mean, the jujitsu, this is more like walking or breathing than jujitsu in a sense, right?
	Because jujitsu, you just sort of sit around until some guy comes at you with a knife and then you hope you remember your stuff, right?
	But the RTR thing is much more immediate.
	That's why it is destabilizing for people, right?
	Because it's like, shit, I can do this all the time, every day, every interaction that I have, if I want, right?
	Right. So it's hard to feel, like when you get the RTR thing, and we spent a lot of time in the conference you read or you listened to the book, right?
	So with the RTR thing, it's hard to feel, like it really raises the standard of success, right?
	Yeah. That it's not just about winning a debate intermittently or getting rid of your family.
	Those are all discrete situations, right?
	But RTR is a breathing continuous thing, right?
	And, of course, you don't even need anybody else in the room to RTR, right?
	Because the essence of thoughts preceding actions, and we should not communicate our conclusions but rather our experiences, that is with yourself, right?
	RTR is primarily with yourself.
	It's only tangentially or as an effect, the process with other people, right?
	Right.
	Yeah, this is something that for a while I've been...
	That period of time last year where I was de-booing and making all this progress in my life, I felt like a total champ, you know?
	you know, just like 10 feet tall and bulletproof, like I said before.
	And recently I've felt like a complete coward because I've seen opportunities for the RTR, I've seen The situations where it could be applied, and it should be applied probably, in order to get me to a place that I'm happier.
	But I just completely chicken out.
	And I'm wondering what gave me the strength to do the decruing and stuff, but now when this relatively Simple thing to do is just completely kicking my ass.
	Well, sure. First of all, it's not very RTR, if you don't mind me saying so.
	Chicken shit, kicking your ass, coward kind of stuff, right?
	Because you're not curious about why you're not doing it, right?
	You're not saying, you know, I have this impulse to do it, and then I have this fear or this indifference or this avoidance or whatever, whatever, right?
	I mean, that's not RTR, right?
	Because you're giving yourself a conclusion.
	Oh, I'm a coward, right? Rather than being curious about why you are Or are not doing things.
	Does that make sense? Yeah, and the question I have about how to RTR myself is that how do I have a conversation with one participant?
	Who says there's one participant?
	My god, man, we're an ecosystem.
	Haven't you noticed that? Isn't there a part of you that wants to RTR and another part of you that's like, no, don't!
	Right, but they're both me.
	It's difficult to...
	I don't know. I remember you mentioned before during that long period of just your...
	I think it was during your insomnia period that you're writing down conversations of the different voices in yourself.
	Sure. And I think that's freaking awesome.
	I wish I could do that, but I always feel like I have just one voice and it's just the most...
	Wussified voice there is because it's always noncommittal.
	It's always... Because I really can't figure out how to get these voices to be certain in...
	Like, how to isolate a certain part of this voice and not make it mash together in one big noncommittal liking chocolate and vanilla at the same time type of voice.
	Does that make any sense? Totally makes sense.
	I want to get chocolate fighting with vanilla in a total cage match.
	But all I'm getting is like, well, I kind of like Chocolate Engine a lot.
	Right. Earlier you said that you only have one voice and it's a totally wussified voice, right?
	Yeah. You realize that's two voices, right?
	Oh, there's one observing the wussified voice.
	Well, there's one calling it wussified, right?
	Yes. Well, it's calling itself a wuss.
	Does that make sense? I don't know. See, I'm trying to wriggle out of this now.
	Right. Right. Right.
	Well, I'm more than happy to take on a roleplay, if you like, wherein you can be the voice of aggressive Rod is the wuss, and I can be the RTR negotiator.
	Okay, giddy up. All right.
	Settle up, brother. Okay, so...
	So, give me the speech about what a wuss you are.
	Okay. I'm going to take an example from recent history and say...
	Alright, wussy boy. There was a time just three weeks ago when you were hanging out with your best buddy and his girlfriend was making...
	We had both of you quesadillas while you were watching TV or something like that.
	This was late at night and she was in the kitchen making quesadillas and she was doing a magnificent job and at one point in time she asked if we had had enough and your buddy said Yeah, maybe another one.
	I said I was fine, and I guess she only heard me, and the buddy thought that she was making another one or something like that.
	And then later on when she stopped making them, he got a little angry with her and said some not-so-nice things to her.
	And the whole time I was watching this, we were watching this, what's he, you?
	We were thinking, I want to talk to him about this because he's treating his girlfriend poorly, and I don't like to see that at the same time calling him my friend.
	And I never got around to that conversation that I feel I need to have.
	And so I think you're a total coward because you didn't talk to him about that.
	Okay, fantastic. Got it.
	So I'll call you Bitchy Voice, okay?
	Just because that's the phrase that comes to mind.
	Okay. So, Bitchy Voice, how come you didn't say anything in that moment?
	Because you had the wheel at the time.
	I don't know. No, but it's important, right?
	Like, if your bitchy voice comes to you and says, you chicken shit, mother hump, or whatever, right?
	Then it's like, well, that's great, but basically what you're doing is, we were being picked on in a bar, and you, who are this big 220, 240 pound muscle bouncer guy, was nowhere to be seen, right?
	But then the moment we leave the bar, you sort of pop into existence and say, you should have taken him, right?
	But it's like, if you're so big and strong, why don't you take him?
	Yeah, but the big and strong guy doesn't have the gentle touch, so to speak, for these interpersonal communications.
	He's just going to be aggressive and mean, not empathetic like you are, Mr.
	Wuss. Right, so what you're saying is that the bitchy voice is as bad, if not worse, at resolving conflicts than the wussy voice, right?
	Can you say that again? You got Mr.
	Roboto there for a second. The bitchy voice is as bad as the wussy voice at solving problems, at solving personal communication issues, right?
	Right, because bitchy voice is a club and wussy voice is a sniveling pansy that runs away.
	Okay, got it.
	But I'm not sure exactly how the bitchy voice gets to be superior when he's as bad as the wussy voice at solving problems.
	Right. Like if I say to you, Rod, I can't believe you can't solve this math problem, right?
	Only an idiot wouldn't be able to solve the math problem, and then you hand it to me and say, show me how to solve it, and I say, I don't know how, right?
	Do you understand? That doesn't make much sense, right?
	Yeah. So if this big, tough, bitchy voice...
	is really good at solving problems, then the bitchy voice should take over and solve the problems, right?
	But the bitchy voice says, oh, well, I don't have control of the helm.
	It's like, well, how tough are you then if you don't even have control of the helm?
	If you can't wrestle away control of the helm from the wussy voice, how tough are you?
	Yeah, but I suck at problem solving.
	Right, so why should I take your advice?
	Why should I take your advice that I'm a wuss if you suck at problem solving?
	I mean, if you suck at problem solving, and your idea of solving this problem is to call me a wuss, how can you have any credibility with me?
	Hey, where's our friend, not wuss, but empathetic?
	No, no, this is the wuss tough guy, Chad, right?
	Yeah, yeah, oh, dang it.
	Okay, so how come you're such a wuss, then?
	I'm sorry? How come you're such a wuss, then?
	Like, help me to understand...
	Because if we both want to solve problems here, wuss, tell me why you're such a dang wuss and why you can't solve problems either.
	Because I know why I can't solve problems.
	It's because, like, whenever I try to pet the canary, I break its head off.
	Well, sure. But one of the problems that you have to solve in terms of relationship stuff is to stop calling me a wuss, right?
	Like, you can't say, my way of solving conflicts is really bad, and you and I, Mr.
	Wussified Voice, have a conflict that I'm going to solve by calling you a wuss.
	Like, you have to apply the same humility to your relationship with me as we do to your judgment of me around everyone else.
	If you say, "I can't solve problems," then clearly you calling me a wuss is not a problem solution, right?
	Okay.
	Man, my mind is so bent right now.
	Okay, so... Okay, back in character.
	So, Mr.
	Wuss, can I call you Mr.
	Not-So-Mean-As-Me?
	Do you know of any way that we can get together and reach a common goal that we both seem to have, which is to try to solve this problem?
	Well, the first thing that I would suggest is that I need you and you need me, right?
	I obviously need to be a little bit more alert and a little bit tougher in social situations.
	So, you know, kudos for you.
	There are some bad people getting in the club and I need you to be the bouncer, right?
	So, I need...
	The strength that you have to offer, right?
	Like, I can't do this alone.
	I can't will my foggy body into a, you know, 240-pound bouncer dude.
	So, the stuff that you've got to offer, I totally need.
	Now, we can't be, you know, Joe Bouncer guy in every situation, but I absolutely, completely and totally need that strength, that strong aspect, that tough aspect of your personality.
	I really, really, really need it.
	If you feel that you're not needed or not welcome, then I want to reassure you that you totally have valid stuff to say.
	Love the tattoos.
	You like this one?
	When I flex my muscle, it makes it kissy.
	This is nice.
	I'm flattered. I'd like for you to continue by saying which part of me Mr.
	Candy Ass, Lily Liver, do you like the most?
	Which part is useful to you?
	Oh, I'll tell you. I'll tell you, you know, Mr.
	Tough Guy. I can tell you for sure the most valuable, by far the most valuable aspect that you have is that you know when someone's a bum.
	And I don't listen to you.
	And I should listen to you because you know when someone's a bum.
	And you sit there and you whisper into my ear, ditch him, he's a bum!
	Right? And I sit there and say, well, I don't know, we've been friends for a long time, and he's got some nice qualities, and I guess I just chickened out.
	And that's because I'm scared of the knowledge that you have, right?
	Right. So, you're telling me that this guy who's being a jerk to his girlfriend is a bum.
	And he's not going to listen.
	He's going to be really defensive.
	And you're not just going to see the fact that he's a jerk, but you're going to see the fact that she's a jerk.
	Because when you bring it up, I bet your dollars to donuts, she's going to attack you as well, right?
	Hmm. Interesting.
	Okay, so here's a question, Mr.
	Wuss. Why is it that you...
	I'm curious.
	Why is it that you want...
	To avoid it, because I remember you saying that if you touch this, it's like a third rail, and you just might be jeopardizing the friendship.
	Why would you want to salvage a relationship with this dude if you really have some strong hunches?
	If I have these strong hunches, and you say that these hunches are good, but I'm having these strong hunches that Maybe not such a great guy underneath this stuff.
	Well, I can tell you why, and if you want me to confront these people...
	See, here's the thing, right?
	If I get rid of all my friends, I'm left alone in my brain with a guy who calls me a pussy.
	Oops. If you want me to be more comfortable...
	With being, quote, alone, then you've got to be a little nicer to me, right?
	I don't want to just have the only guy left in my head, a voice calling me a pussy.
	Because at least they're nice to me on the surface, right?
	And it's not like you're not right, but if you're a little gentler to me, right?
	Like if you view me as someone to be helped, shepherded, and protected, and something that we can sort of grow into being each other, right, and cross-pollinate the strengths of our various aspects...
	If you view me like that, then I'm not sitting there going, oh great, so I have no friends, just a voice in my head calling me a pussy, right?
	Like, if you're going to support me, then I'm less nervous about being alone, and then we can make a transition to a higher quality of people.
	What are we doing? Um...
	Because what you're like, you know what you're like?
	You're like, you know, with all due respect to your strength, right?
	But the way that our interaction works right now is you're like an abusive husband yelling at his wife, like, why don't you have any friends?
	Right? Like, because you've torn me down to like one Adam, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	All right, I see that.
	So if you give me advice rather than calling me a pussy, like nobody, you wouldn't like it if somebody was yelling at you that you were a pencil dick, whatever, right?
	Yeah. I mean, that wouldn't be very motivating for you.
	And it's not motivating for me when you call me a worse than a coward.
	That doesn't motivate me any more than it would motivate you.
	And I know that you have incredibly valuable things to tell me.
	You have insight into people that I can't even dream of.
	You totally see the end result of these conversations.
	And I need that information from you, but if you're yelling it at me, then I got my friend snarling at his girlfriend, my girlfriend being a professional victim, you yelling in my ear that I'm a pussy, and I'm supposed to come out on top here?
	A little stressful, you know?
	A little stressful. How about being on my side so that we can work together?
	I don't mind being a tightrope walker, but it's not very nice if you're shooting gun pellets at me at the same time as I'm trying to cross it.
	You're setting us up for failure, right?
	You're an integral part of why I chicken out, so to speak.
	You're raising the stakes so high!
	Yeah, yeah. Alright, okay.
	You make a good point, wuss.
	See, if I made a really good point, you might have another nickname for me now, but go on.
	All right. All right, Poindexter.
	No, I'm sorry. Call me Frodo.
	Yeah, okay.
	Gosh, I get... Yeah.
	Why do I not feel so big and burly anymore?
	Why do I feel like I could take on ten cops?
	I'm sorry. Because we want to be a team, right?
	I want to listen to you.
	I want to listen to you because you're totally here to help me.
	You're totally here to help me, right?
	But unfortunately, because when we were a kid, right?
	Because I know where you came from, right?
	I mean, yeah, yeah, you've got all these insights.
	That's great. But I know where you came from.
	And where you came from was the fact that I could not...
	And here we had another slight interruption in the show, which continues now.
	I'm afraid that this next part is going to have to be an artful reconstruction, because the recording quality dipped to the point where it was pretty unrecognizable, so I'll be playing both parts in the psychodrama.
	So Rod began by saying, that makes sense.
	And I said to his angry guy or his burly guy, you've got a lot of frustration because we had to eat shit off the floor, right, for many, many years.
	And you're going to be mad about that, and that totally makes sense.
	But it's not my fault that we were born into the family we were born into.
	And I had to do what I did so that we didn't get the shit beaten out of us on a regular basis.
	Or get left in a snowbank, which was a real possibility to us at the time.
	And then Rod's angry dude said, I got pretty pissed off at you for showing up so often and doing what you did.
	Because, you know, I didn't like watching that happen.
	And then I said, okay, so you got mad at me for showing up so often.
	And look, that's fine.
	Maybe it was totally inappropriate for me to take the wheel.
	But what should we have done instead?
	Like, what would have been a better solution?
	And Rod said, uh, we should have called up Mr.
	Expert Tunneling Guy and gotten the heck out of there.
	And I laughed and said, hey, you see how many voices there are?
	But seriously, like, here's the thing.
	If we did the very best that we could in a really difficult situation, then calling me pussy is just continuing the abuse of our parents.
	Right? I mean, you don't want to be them because they were the ones beating up on us, right?
	And then Rod said, yeah, that voice was more of my brother's.
	And I said, look, I'm totally open that maybe the submissive aspects that occurred for us, maybe that submissive thing that I did, was not the right solution.
	So if there was a better way of doing it, I'm totally keen to hear.
	And then Rod said, yeah, I'm not totally sure there was a better way, come to think of it.
	And I said, well, then, if what we were doing was practical, I mean, if we were like a field mouse standing in front of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, we don't call the field mouse a chicken for running away, right?
	Rod said, right.
	And I said, and if you're mad at me for bowing down to these bullies, and there was no other option, then who are you really mad at?
	And Rod said, uh...
	The bullies?
	And I laughed and said, well, you've got all the insights.
	You've got all these insights.
	You tell me. And Rod said, uh...
	I don't know.
	Whenever I stood up to them or spoke back to them, I sort of felt bad in the aftermath because it never really got me anywhere.
	And I said, well, it did get somewhere, right?
	It wasn't like you had absolutely no effect afterwards.
	It wasn't like you didn't speak at all.
	I mean, they didn't act like you weren't standing up to them right at all.
	And Rod said, that's true.
	So I said, what effect did it have?
	I mean, you were there. And he said, well, it did allow us to occasionally stand up for ourselves, but it always failed.
	And I said, well, of course, because we were a kid, they were our parents, we had no friends, we had no allies, and so there was no chance for us to be able to consistently stand up for ourselves.
	And Rod said, yeah.
	And I said, well, there's not much point, it's not very just to blame me for not breaking out of a prison when the whole world is a prison for us when we were a kid.
	And Rod said, this is true.
	So I said, so if you're mad at me because we didn't stand up for ourselves, we didn't stand up to them, but there was no possibility of us standing up for ourselves, then you're kind of repeating what you hate.
	Because you hated the fact that we were being bullied, but now you're unjustly bullying me.
	And can you see that if your response to being unjustly bullied is to unjustly bully me, that it's never going to get you what you want?
	Peace, security, and strength, real strength.
	Not just bullying me and calling me a pussy, but real strength.
	And Rod said, I do see that.
	So then Rod said that Mr.
	Wuss, me, was doing a really good job of standing up to Mr.
	Angry, and The personal character that he was playing.
	So then he asked me what I would like to be called, as Mr.
	Wuss in himself.
	And I said I would like to be called Mr.
	Needs Your Muscle. And Rod laughed and said, that's awfully vulnerable of you, Mr.
	Could Use My Muscles. And I said, absolutely, but it's true.
	And he said he really appreciated the sentiment behind that.
	And I said, well, but one of the reasons you're frustrated and angry is because I'm not listening to you.
	And he said, yeah, yeah.
	And I said, well, it's true.
	I'm not treating you like a valued part of the team.
	Because I viewed you as like a bull in the china shop who's just going to, I don't know, strangle rabbits or something.
	But if you get that you're a totally valuable part of the team, Team Rodzilla...
	And we're going to listen, and you're going to have your input.
	Like, I'm totally happy to listen, because, like, I got the wheel, right?
	I mean, for better or for worse, I was the one who was Darwinian Lee selected to take the wheel of her personality.
	So you can't get a hold of the wheel, but I want to give you the wheel.
	And I really want to listen to what it is that you have to say.
	Like, I'm totally happy to give you all of that credibility.
	To bring you into the inner circle of the personality?
	All you gotta do is not yell at me and call me a pussy, right?
	I mean, is that unreasonable?
	And Rod said as his angry guy, no, that's not particularly unreasonable.
	And then he said, I have a question for you, Mr.
	Wuss. When I have, or when I give you the recon on these guys, and I say, hey, there's a guy over here doing some pretty rotten stuff, I don't have the touch necessary to do anything with this.
	But, like, I've got the scope on this one.
	Who do I hand it to when I'm finished with the recon?
	Like, do I hand it to you? Or do we find another guy in this crowded house that we live in here?
	And I said, well, I can tell you what I'd like, and then you can tell me if you think it's reasonable or not.
	And he agreed, and I said, well, this is what I would like.
	I would like for you to say, this is not a good guy.
	This is not a good guy.
	Now, what I don't want you to do is to yell in my ear, he's a bastard!
	Get him! Or, you're a pussy!
	And he agreed, and I said, because this is kind of stressful for me.
	It's like going up to someone who can't sleep and yelling, go to sleep!
	Right? I mean, it doesn't really work.
	We need to relax into our courage.
	I mean, we can't slap ourselves or lash ourselves into being courageous, right?
	Because that's just another kind of bullying, right?
	I mean, you don't want me to conform to you in the way that we all had to conform to our parents, right?
	And Rod agreed to that.
	So when you scope out a bad guy or a difficult guy, a guy's going to cause us problems.
	I'd really like it.
	Let me know what you think, but I'd really like it.
	If you would sort of whisper in my ear and say, you know, this is a bad guy.
	We don't have to deal with it right now.
	You don't have to do something right now.
	I'm not going to yell in your ear that you've got to do something now.
	But we'll have a chance to discuss it later on the drive home or whatever.
	And then you can tell me about this as a bad guy and I can say, well, how did you know?
	And what signs did you see?
	And what do you think we should do in the long run?
	And what's going to be the outcome of if we confront this guy?
	We can have that debate and I will totally, totally listen to you.
	But in the moment, if you just yell in my ear, I've got to confront this guy or I'm a total pussy and you're screaming at me, that just doesn't work for me at all.
	I mean, let me know what you think.
	Right, so we have the stimuli.
	We sit down as team members afterwards and go over the evidence, the clues, the keys, or whatever.
	And we can go over it as teammates and rationally and calmly look at the evidence and figure out what it is that we want to do through a dialogue with each other rather than you yelling in my ear and me hiding under the kidney or something.
	Because when you yell in my ear, you just sound like mom or dad or my brother, our brother.
	And you don't get what you want.
	You don't get to be heard. You don't get to have an effect.
	You don't get to protect and defend us, which is kind of what you're designed to do.
	But you just yell at me, and then I go underground, we all go underground, and then you feel even more frustrated because you don't get what you want, which is to be heard and to help protect us.
	So by all means, in the moment, if you see a bad guy, tell me and say, you know, be cautious, be aware, be concerned, be alert, this is a bad guy, and I'll really listen and modify my behavior.
	It doesn't mean I've got to confront the guy right away.
	It doesn't mean I've got to listen to you yelling at me because I'm hoping that you won't be if you're heard.
	But I'm more than happy to listen to you in the moment, be cautious and be alert around somebody who you think is a bad guy, and then we discuss the evidence later and figure out what we're going to do together.
	Because you were born out of the frustration of our parents yelling at us and abusing us and calling us names.
	And so if you do that to me, we're just continuing the cycle.
	So I will be perfectly happy to listen to you, to take your counsel, because you see things that I don't.
	You get a danger that I don't.
	And I totally want to be informed by that.
	And I will absolutely listen to you and take your counsel, but, you know, please, you've just got to stop yelling at me and screaming at me and call me names.
	And Rod said, yeah, I totally get that.
	And he said, I have a request for you then, Mr.
	Needs My Muscle. And I said, what, stop working out?
	And he laughed and said, yeah, stop working out.
	He said, no, no, you have a tendency, he said, and I think I know where this comes from, to say, you know, don't rock the boat.
	You know, whatever happens, you say, oh, no foul or whatever, maybe if we just sort of lay low for a while and kind of smooth things over, and the last thing we want to do is make a scene, and, you know, when you say that stuff...
	It kind of reminds me of Mom.
	And we all know where that got her, don't we?
	And I said, yeah, yeah, you know, I can totally see that.
	I really can. And I said, yeah, that's kind of gross on my part.
	And Rod said, yeah, you know, like when we looked at Mom having her relationship with Dad for like 40-odd years, I don't know, it was a pretty gruesome and horrible relationship.
	And that ends up teaching some pretty crummy lessons to young kids.
	And they're still dealing with those lessons and probably will be for the rest of their lives.
	And they don't really like that.
	I have it on good information.
	And that's not a good role model for you to model your behavior after.
	And I said, I agree.
	It's not a good role model at all.
	And then I said, I just had a thought, Mr.
	Big, Tall, Strong and Handsome Fellow.
	I had a thought that these fragments or these aspects of a full personality, what they are, or what we are, is a bunch of templates just floating around in our mind.
	So, like, how do we deal with things?
	Well, we have these templates imprinted on us, like the way the ducks imprint on the mother duck.
	Just templates on how to deal with things.
	And I really think that if we got all these templates together...
	And reasoned with one another and provided evidence and feedback and insight with one another, like around a big conference table.
	I bet you that combined feedback, interaction, wisdom, listening, evidence, and instinct, together, that is a real and full and rich personality.
	And Rod said, as his angry guy, we'll arm wrestle.
	And I said, for sure, absolutely, we can arm wrestle.
	Just give me some muscles so we make it even.
	But I said, wouldn't it be so much nicer if we could sit around this table and reason with each other rather than having me or this ego bounce around like a pinball just bouncing off various things, various impulses and reactions and emotions and desires and wants and fears and all that kind of stuff.
	And Rod's angry guy said, you know, when you used that pinball metaphor just now, that really struck a chord in me.
	That really hit me pretty hard.
	We've been acting like this pinball bouncing around for a long, long time.
	And I said, right, right, it feels like we're in motion, right?
	Like it feels like we're making decisions when we're bouncing off or between this desire and that impulse and that fear and that worry and that...
	Emotion. It feels like a personality, right?
	But it's not. Really.
	Until we're all together.
	And then we can evaluate all of the aspects of the knowledge that we have.
	We can be the unified council of the head or whatever.
	We can actually reason through things.
	We can get the perspectives and the wisdoms from each aspect of our personality.
	And come to unified decisions or perspectives so that we can be self-propelled rather than just bouncing off, oh, I'm afraid I'm going to bully myself or I think I should do this or I want to do that or I'm angry about it.
	Just rather than bouncing off everything, we can sit around a conference table, reason with each other, be patient, provide evidence, know that everyone's going to get their word in, and then we can actually be self-propelled and have a real personality that is empirical and rational rather than just bouncing off fears and desires and all that sort of stuff.
	And then Rod said, you sure are smart, Mr.
	NeedsMyMuscle. And then Rod said, you sure are pretty smart, Mr.
	NeedsMyMuscle. And he said, I'm curious, since you have so many of these great ideas or insights, what methodology should we use during these conference table, round tables, or discussions to figure out who's right?
	I'd like to sit around the table, I'd like to get my input in, but I still don't know how it is that we're going to determine which of us is right.
	And I said, well, but it's the aggregation of all of us that is right.
	Because if only one of us gets to be right, it's almost always going to be at the expense of others.
	I mean, I think that we all have something to bring to the table, right?
	And then Rod's Mr.
	Angry said, wait, wait, wait, this isn't this wussy thing called democracy, is it?
	And I said, hell no.
	Like, I mean, in a democracy, right, somebody's at the top, somebody's the leader, and who has the final say on the course of action?
	And I said, I think that it sort of works like this, and you can tell me if it makes sense to you or not.
	I said, if we all get around the table and we all talk openly and honestly with each other and provide feedback in a non-pressurized, non-self-castigating environment, we will talk and reason it out amongst and between ourselves, and not without conflict.
	We're all a passionate group, but we will, through that process, all figure out exactly the right course of action.
	And be in agreement with that course of action without domination, without win-lose.
	And we will know through consultation with each other exactly what the truth is.
	And when we get to that point where we are all in agreement through mutual understanding, respect, consideration, listening, debate, when we get to that place where we are all in alignment, we will be unstoppable.
	Because while we're bouncing like a pinball and yelling at each other and fractious and not even in the same room, but just slandering each other and getting mad and getting frightened and hostile, we're completely paralyzed in terms of what we can achieve in the outside world.
	If we sit here and reason with each other around the table, get ourselves all in alignment, everybody has a voice, everybody is respected, why then we will be unstoppable in the outside world.
	What makes us weak is lack of curiosity with each other.
	Lack of curiosity, lack of respect, lack of listening, lack of debate.
	That's what makes us weak.
	Real power, real strength is listening to each other, listening to all of the aspects of ourselves, coming to a unified decision.
	Then we are absolutely all-powerful in the outside world.
	And then Rod paused for a bit and he said, yeah, yeah, I really like that idea.
	I really, really, really like that idea.
	As long as I'm careful.
	Right. Well, you know, this is sort of what I think will happen.
	We're all here for a reason.
	We're all selected out of our history for a reason.
	We all have strengths and we all have weaknesses.
	But together, you know what we're like?
	We're like the free market, right?
	So, unfortunately, it's been a bit of a command economy, right?
	Like I've sort of been the Russian czar who lets people speak or the Soviet Politburo chief who commands the economy.
	It doesn't work, right? If we look at sort of like we're like a free market that we can divide up the labor, we have strengths and weaknesses and so on, then I think that that's probably a better...
	To me, it's better than a democracy to look at us as a free market that we're divvying up the labor, we have strengths and weaknesses and so on.
	In terms of how we communicate all this stuff to others, to me...
	If we look at ourselves like, you know, Walmart or something like that, right?
	Then we have these departments, right?
	And so if somebody says, hey, Rod, I think that you're a great guy.
	I'd like to talk to you about this, that, and the other, and he's respectful and so on, then we send him to philosophy, right?
	And, you know, then whoever's good at that or whoever's awake at that time can work on that issue.
	And if someone comes along and says, Ron, I think that you're a total dick, and not in a good way, and, you know, you're full of shit and this kind of stuff, then we send him down your alley, right?
	And you can deal with it.
	Because we all have strengths, and of course, we're just part of one ecosystem that's dealing with everybody else's ecosystem, right?
	So really get complex.
	I think it's too complex to come up with a rule ahead of time in the same way that a free market is too complex to rule from the top.
	But I think if we stay flexible and say, you know, the lab comes in, the conversation comes in, the interaction comes in, and it's like, hey, who wants to take this, right?
	And whoever's the most appropriate will spring into action, if that makes sense.
	That's a good point. It's when a pretty girl shows up and says, hey, you're kind of cute.
	Where do we send her? Which department?
	Well, if she is your kind of white trailer park trashy thing, then we'll send her and her tramp stamp over to you, right?
	And if not, then, you know, we can have the menagerie 1990s with everybody.
	Gotcha, okay. I like that plan.
	That's pretty good. I like that...
	Yeah, I like that.
	Sorry, Greg has just said he'd like to talk to the manager of his lingerie department.
	Ah, yes. So, obviously, we're going to need a woman to quote man that department, so to speak, but that's all something we can talk about, right?
	But, you know, this gives us so many more options, right?
	So much more choice, right?
	We can be serious, we can be funny, we can be aggressive, we can be playful, we can be intimate.
	Because we're all here, and we all have these capacities, right?
	And together it makes what's called a personality, right?
	But it is an ecosystem internally, right?
	That's why RTR is primarily because when we all get together and we're all aligned, we are literally and completely unstoppable.
	But when we're and come down with each other, then we just won't have the kind of effect and power in the world that we need.
	Or why not? Yeah.
	You know, little bud, I think you've taken some of my spine there.
	Well, thank you. Look, it's only because you're willing to listen to reason, unlike some people on the board.
	So, you know, I mean, kudos to you as well, right?
	I mean, it's a lot easier to speak without, you know, that big, medium space around my neck.
	Okay, I'll holster this for a while.
	So, Ryan, how was that for you?
	Did that sort of make sense?
	Is that a way of working that is reasonable?
	That was pretty fantastic, actually, and I wasn't really...
	Like, I never could figure out what was useful to celebrate in my head, because they were always talking at once, you know?
	Right, right. And I was always assuming that that meant that they were all just one, you know, personality that just...
	Bounces everywhere with no rhyme or reason.
	Right. Right.
	It's because you're not listening, right?
	Because everybody...
	So you can't forget it, bro.
	Right. Yeah. And it is, I mean, it is...
	I have a book that maybe someday I'll publish, which is sort of my history of inventing this kind of stuff or trying to work with this kind of stuff in my life.
	My particular club band, his name was Lord Gruel, G-R-U-E-L, because all he didn't catch Sorry, it was like, and he was like this cracky old guy who lived on a mountaintop, who was just the most aceric son of a beast that you could ever imagine.
	And he still comes out when we have to name Raul.
	But, yeah, no, this is, this is why I say everybody is an ecosystem.
	The personality is a cacophony.
	It's a symphony, right?
	And we get them all together because it's fantastic.
	But otherwise, it's just fast, right?
	It's actually kind of cool when you say that.
	It is a bit startling sometimes to see Lord Grohl show up, but it's rather...
	It's kind of fun to see it, too, though.
	Well, people get often, and I've had this experience throughout my life, particularly since my early 30s, since days of therapy and so on, that, you know, I'm a funny guy, I'm a fun guy, and playable, and so on.
	But, you know, there's a line that crosses where it's like, Oh, fun guy is going to kill the kid, right?
	And not the fun guy is going to come out.
	And all startling people, right?
	Because they don't understand that you can have a playful side and a tough side, right?
	And they misread me, right?
	Just used to that being the only one person who is out and they can push, then I have to self-attack rather than to defend myself.
	Assertively, right? It's always very, very surprising to people.
	Of course, if you do that ahead of time, then it could probably be more reasonable, but maybe not.
	But yeah, it is always a surprising one.
	So how do you think, when I bring this up about the girlfriend thing, I definitely want to hit him with the truth here because it's pretty obvious what's going on.
	I don't want to just club them over the head with it, so, because there are good ways to say, watch out here, to be able to, you know, estimate...
	Well, I mean, I certainly understand where you're coming, but the thing is, you're immediately trying to use these aspects of your personality, right?
	Yeah. Well, but you need to ask the curiosity aspect, right?
	Uh-huh. Right, so you said you're a tough guy, let's go back into the rules for justice if you don't mind.
	So, what's happening if we talk to our friends about this?
	Well, there's a pretty good chance to flick him in the nose a little bit too hard, and the whole thing's going to spiral out of control, so...
	No, what's he going to do, no matter how to bring it up?
	He's capable of handling this conversation.
	I think so. I'm worried about whether or not I'm going to be able to...
	Well, shoot, that's a good question.
	Yeah, see, it's the thing, you guys question honestly with curiosity, because Joe Tough Guy knows something that you need to know, right?
	Yeah. Is he going to be able to end this conversation?
	Not yet. No, not, not.
	He's not. Is his girlfriend going to be able to handle this conversation?
	No. Is their relationship going to survive this conversation?
	Slow chance.
	Okay. If they understand when you bring this up with them, that the conversation is very unlikely to survive.
	Sorry, their relationship is very unlikely to survive the conversation.
	If they understand immediately when you bring it up, what are they going to do?
	They're going to say...
	Oh, no, that's not a problem.
	No, no, no, no, no.
	I don't know where you got that.
	No, see, you don't understand.
	See, that was okay, see.
	Yeah, it's not as bad as what you think.
	Okay, and then you have what choice in that situation?
	Well, I can say...
	I feel like I'm being harmed here.
	Or I can say, okay.
	Right, now, they're going to put you in an impossible situation, right?
	Right, right. When you're trying to help them.
	Yeah, that's true. So they're going to respond in a multifaceted way when you're trying to help them, right?
	Yeah. Right.
	So, what is tough to know about this friendship?
	Rather shaky. I don't think that's...
	Well, Tophka, I also know that other points of the friendship have dramatically improved over the last year or so.
	Because there was a time when this buddy of ours used to have a clue or pretended to not have a clue that taxation was violence, and now we're pretty He's on the team on this one.
	And it did take quite a bit of persistence on that one, but he did come around on that.
	Alright. Now, did he come around because he understands the first principles about aggression in relationships, or did he come around because of the intellectual argument?
	He came around through...
	Ah, this is interesting.
	He came around more through the...
	maybe the economic side of it, but also through the Alex Jonesy side of it, if you want to use that as an adjective.
	Right. It's the...
	because he's still stuck in the...
	I saw a ghost watching, I'll see it, phase.
	Recently lost a...
	This is interesting because this relationship was formed...
	Immediately after, his mother died.
	And since then, he's been kind of trapped, and I feel as though he's been trapped in an idealization of his childhood and his family.
	And it rather startled me how rapidly he dove into this relationship after his mother died.
	And so, a lot of this development over the last year has been It has been given the fact that he's at least reaching a better approximation of what's really going on, but I'm distressed that he's, you know, still kind of missing a very big blind spot there.
	One thing that's been very impressive to me, though, is recently he's been pointing up about some of the violence that he experienced as a child.
	And that's something that's new.
	It's a cracking idealization.
	Right, right. Right, okay.
	So, I'm guessing that a part of you has hope for this relationship, and a part of you believe that it's doom.
	Yeah, I fear the doom, but there is a great deal of hope there.
	Okay, I understand that.
	Because this girlfriend of his has actually told me that, or she's actually told me that, The guy has a lot of respect for me, and I can feel it.
	I can feel that increasing as time goes on.
	Right. Okay.
	So part of you believes that it's a relationship that can catch up to you, right?
	Because, I mean, you don't want to have relationships in your life where you're perpetually, like friendships, right?
	Where you're perpetually tutoring people, right?
	Ah, hey, there's another voice that is in this conversation sometimes, and that's Mr.
	Impatient. Mr.
	I keep forgetting how long it took me to get here.
	He's kind of a dick, too.
	Oh dear. Oh dear, now we have to start over again.
	What did you just call Mr.
	Impatient? Oh!
	Okay, sorry.
	He's, uh...
	He makes me a bit cross sometimes.
	Is he not allowed to sit at the conference table?
	Do you find it affected a lot of people out?
	Well, he's, uh...
	He's... Frequently there, and that...
	That's, uh...
	Often times a problem, because your patients can be quite abusive to people when they're not, uh...
	Catching up at work speed.
	But you know why Mr. Impatient is at risk, right?
	Uh... What? Lack of view for ourself?
	Because she's not listening.
	Okay. To who?
	To Mr. Impatient.
	He's got incredibly valuable stuff to bring to the table.
	All right.
	So, well... I'm not seeing her right now.
	You can help me out. Okay, let's do that.
	Let's put on your Mr.
	Impatient voice. Tell me what you think about all this.
	He knows something. Come on, chop it up.
	Let's keep moving. Yeah, what's up?
	Mr. Impatient here. So what are you impatient about?
	We're just talking about this friendship, right?
	So what am I not hearing?
	Oh, this guy is taking forever, you know, I've been explaining this stuff for, gosh, how long now?
	A couple years. And this dude is like, you know, oh, gee, I don't know, I don't see that violence.
	That taxation isn't violence.
	No, no, you know, after about a good, freaking eight months or something like that, he finally starts seeing this whole thing about, like, taxation being taken from us without us, you know, even funding and all that stuff like that.
	And he's finally getting that.
	And I've been telling him about that stuff for just as long, and Geez, dude, this hair is like, what the heck?
	How long does it take, you know?
	I mean, shit, it only took me...
	Well, never mind, it took me a little while, but, you know, hey, this guy should be getting a lot faster, because I'm here to show him how.
	Now, you said that it only took me a certain amount of time.
	So, Mr. Impatient, when you first heard the argument that taxation was violence, and it was explained to you logically, how long did it take for you to accept it as a reasonable position?
	Didn't take much at all, actually, on that one.
	You know, this economic stuff, it kind of, like, broke me pretty quick, like, you know, the whole voluntary thing.
	The non-aggression principle, that's what it was, yeah, yeah, I remember that thing.
	When someone laid me upside the head with that non-aggression principle thing, I was like, yeah, sign me for that, I like it a lot, come on.
	Right, okay. So, like, 30 seconds, a minute, two minutes, like, how long did it take for you to go?
	Well, this argument makes sense.
	That one felt like a lagging move from the head right there.
	Okay, so it's a matter of seconds, right?
	Yeah, pretty quick. Okay, and look, I mean, you could be, I think, proud of that.
	It's not easy to see the obvious scene when it pointed out to you, as we know from most other people, right?
	Now, you made the leap from zero to NAP in two seconds, right?
	Yep. Now, this guy, this friend of ours, has made the leap.
	How far? Let's say the NAP that you're at is 100%, and not knowing the argument is 0%.
	Where's this friend at, in terms of percentage?
	Let's see. If instantly is 100%, you said?
	No. Really totally understanding the argument is 100%.
	Yep.
	Not knowing the argument at all is 0%.
	You went from 0 to 100 in a couple of seconds.
	Oh, crap!
	Damn, damn, damn.
	Thank you.
	Alright, sorry about that.
	Rod, you were just talking...
	Mr. Impatient was going to answer the question as to where this friend was on the understanding of the taxation as violence continuum in percentage terms.
	Well, the taxation is violence continuum.
	I think he's doing pretty good on that.
	I think he's got that around 85, maybe 90.
	Still a little bit not getting the whole thing about government roads and all that crap, but he'll come around.
	He's doing all right. Okay, that's good.
	So we have a ratio of about one second to one minute, right?
	Sure. So it took you eight to nine seconds.
	It's taken him eight to nine months, right?
	Yep. So, I can totally understand why you're going completely mental with frustration.
	Oh yeah. It got me bonkers.
	Okay, so tell me about that.
	Well, you know, it's like, hey, this stuff, it's not rocket science, right?
	You know, when you say initiation of force, taxation you can't do without guns, you know, how much further do you have to go?
	I mean, let's say, take away the guns, you got no taxes, right?
	He's kind of getting it, you know, but he's still, the thing he doesn't quite understand is that when...
	When we say no taxation, he's like, oh, what about the roads?
	Can't do without that stuff, you know?
	So sometimes he's still not quite understanding.
	So he doesn't really get the argument from morality, right?
	He's all bundled up in the argument from effect?
	Yeah, a lot of effect going on there.
	A lot of effect. Okay.
	Now, do you think that you are alone in terms of being able to grasp this stuff very quickly, or do you think there are lots of other people that can grasp, or some other people, let's say, who can grasp it as quickly as you did?
	Well, you know, truth be told, I think people get it right away, actually.
	Well, certainly a lot of people do, right?
	I mean, because you just know from these listeners to Free Domain Radio that there's lots of people who get it right away, right?
	Yep. Okay, so if I understand this right, Mr.
	Impatient, one of the things that's driving you completely mental is the fact that we've spent eight months getting somebody 80% away to something we got 100% of in a few seconds, and you're looking at all the people that we could have gotten to where we are in 10 seconds, right? Yeah, but we don't know those people.
	Well, there's a reason why we don't know these people, right?
	And what's the reason why we don't know these people?
	Because we only got a few friends left and we're trying like the dickens to get them to understand, right?
	Well, but Mr. Impatient is feeling differently about that, right?
	Because he's feeling impatient with this guy, right?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what's he saying?
	A waste of time. What are we doing with our time here, you know?
	I mean, how many times we got to go out and hang out with this guy and talk to him about this stuff before he's going to get it, you know?
	As opposed to finding other people who are going to be quicker, right, at picking this stuff up, right?
	Do you know how much time it takes to find other people to hang out with?
	Well, we just spent eight months doing something else, right?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true.
	So that's going to retard our progress a little bit, right?
	Yeah, a little bit. Now, also, this is just one thing that you got in eight seconds this guy hasn't gotten in eight months.
	Just one thing, right?
	Now, how tough is everything else that you've learned in your philosophical journey?
	Pretty tough. You know, I've been a little slower on some of these other things.
	Well, so the very fastest thing that you got, this guy's taken eight months.
	You've been listening to this stuff for about two years now.
	So when is he going to catch up?
	Statistically. Well, let's see.
	I'll probably be trying to tell his kids to convince Dad to figure this stuff out.
	Okay, so when's he going to catch up?
	When we're old. And on what grounds do you say he's going to catch up when we're old?
	Is it because you're going to really slow down your learning?
	No, I don't know. I keep thinking that since, you know, he's making good progress on a lot of stuff, so he's got the potential.
	No, he's not making good progress.
	Oh, well, yeah, I guess.
	Mr. Impatient doesn't think he's making good progress at all.
	Because if you could do it in eight seconds and you can't do it in eight months, that's not good progress, right?
	Yeah, who let that guy in?
	Mr. Patience. No, seriously, like, if it takes me about ten seconds to memorize how to get to Best Buy, and then somebody else I'm trying to teach to become a cab driver has only learned about three-quarters of the directions after eight months, is he ever going to be a good cab driver?
	Nope.
	It takes eight years to become a good doctor, right?
	But if you can figure out philosophical basics in ten seconds, and someone else is still struggling with them after eight months, right?
	That's kind of cruel. Are you telling me that I'm right?
	Mr. Impatient? Yeah, you're totally right.
	Yeah. That doesn't mean we're going to call this guy and say, look, you retard, we're ditching you from the ice cream truck, right?
	But you're right to be impatient.
	Because he is taking forever to get stuff that we got in 10 seconds.
	I mean, that would be...
	You know what it would be like?
	Like, I can count to 10 in 10 seconds, right?
	How would you feel...
	If you had to listen to somebody for 8 months counting to 10?
	I'd be looking for sharp objects.
	Yeah, you would be going completely mental, right?
	Yep. So Mr.
	Impatient is not a dick, right?
	Unless he's 17.
	Oh wait, sorry, that's a different thing.
	Sorry. Like, he's right.
	Right, right. Darn right I'm right.
	So, yeah, so, you know, sit down at the table and tell us.
	Right, because, because, if instead of talking to one person and getting them 80% of the way in eight months, I could talk to a thousand people and get them 100% of the way in two days...
	Given that I want to live in a free world, wouldn't it be better to do the latter?
	Yeah. Hey, I got a question for you.
	Yes? Mr.
	Wiser than Mr.
	Wuss should be. I think someone lets Mr.
	Wise sneak in here, so that's alright.
	It's cool. Not so bad, buddy.
	Hey, when we talk to this guy, you know, we as a group, we figure this stuff out.
	You know, anyone want to let me talk for just a little moment to this guy?
	You think maybe I can voice a little bit of an opinion to him?
	Is that alright? Mr. Impatient, you mean?
	Yeah. No. No, you don't get to talk to this guy because you're right about him.
	Uh, what?
	Huh? No, you get to talk to us and we get to make decisions based on the input of everyone, right?
	Right, right, right. But let's say this guy is functionally retarded when it comes to being philosophical, right?
	Okay. Would it be reasonable to say, you just get this stuff really way too slowly?
	You're driving me mad, right?
	There's some truth in that, though.
	But if it is true, there's no point telling him.
	Aha. It's just cruel then, right?
	Like if I'm trying to play basketball with a guy who's three feet tall because of my own weirdness, right?
	Is there any point yelling at him that he's too short?
	Not much, is there?
	No! It's cruel!
	Better things to do. And I got better things to do.
	And why would you make him feel bad for something he just can't do?
	Yeah, that's a good point. Yep, yep, yep.
	I got that. All right.
	So we've got to make a decision about this guy.
	Are we going to continue to pour our scant and short resources into trying to turn him into something he's not to paint over the painting, so to speak?
	And if we're not going to do that, do we want him as a friend if we never talk with him about philosophy again?
	Which we may want to do, right?
	I have a friend or two that I don't talk about philosophy with, but that's fine.
	You know, I've got a thing here, Mr.
	Impatient here. I'm thinking...
	There might be one good way to rip this bandit off good and quick-like.
	We could go and have a really good, really vulnerable chat with the guy and see how it goes.
	What do you think about that? Well, this is what I think you should do, in my opinion.
	Because you're getting everyone together, and I think that's great.
	Right, right.
	You should write down the names of these characters and you should write a play about this guy.
	Play, whatever.
	Just let everyone talk and transcribe it.
	It's going to be a lot easier than you think once you get used to listening to yourself.
	And everybody should put forward their theory about what's going to happen, right?
	Okay.
	And then you should go and have the conversation and you should see who's right.
	Because we're about testing.
	We're about testability. We're about rational empiricism, right?
	We make predictions and we, right?
	And that way you can get a sense of who's going to be better in particular situations.
	Ooh, hey, I like that.
	Everybody gets their say.
	Everybody gets to put their money down and you can make it a bet, right?
	The winner gets a back rub. But you can put this down and you can say, okay, well, this is the theory.
	Everybody says this is going to happen, this is going to happen, right?
	And then if someone's right, you go, good for you, right?
	And if somebody's way off base, then you say, I wonder how you ended up getting it so wrong, and you talk about that, right?
	You say, back of the bus, you.
	Yes, I know that's going to be tempting.
	You! You were wrong, you never get to speak again.
	Never! Okay, yeah, I like that.
	That's very results-oriented.
	I like that a lot. It's testable, right?
	We always want to have a testable methodology.
	Yep, yep. So does it make sense, like when I was saying earlier, that we all have these voices, we all have this ecosystem, and it's very helpful, right?
	And people's resistance to the freedom, this is a trippy way of looking at it, but it's easy to understand.
	When we get the multiplicity of our own personality structure, I mean, it's exactly what you'd expect.
	We need lots of different personalities in the same way that we don't just have one organ, right?
	We don't just have one organ called the body.
	We have something for processing blood.
	We have something for processing urine.
	We have something for breathing. We have something for moving blood around.
	We have, you know, something for digestion.
	We have something for excrement.
	We have a wide variety of different organisms which produce something called human life.
	And we have a wide variety of personality aspects which produce something called a character, a personality.
	And the reason that people are so hostile to the free market is because they are dictatorial with themselves.
	If we understand that we are a free market internally, and the best ideas float to the surface, and there's the survival of the fittest, then we should reciprocate and listen with ourselves.
	If people don't understand that, they'll never get the free market.
	And they'll always be hostile to it, right?
	And if people want to dominate themselves rather than have a team working within them, if they want to have one guy who says this is the way it is, then they're going to be statists, right?
	Because they're going to see that mirrored in the government.
	And that's why I say, and they'll have a god who says this is it, right?
	So that's why I say that anti-statism, anti-religion, is a personal project.
	It's not about, should we have a tax revolt?
	I mean, it's all meaningless, right?
	Because until we can get our internal state to match the external reality, we're never going to have any real certainty or any real credibility.
	Right. And then we're unstoppable, in my opinion.
	I agree. This has been, like, way more fun than I ever thought it could be.
	Right. If you get used to this process, right, it's great.
	I mean, I always talk about tangents in my podcast, but it's just a whole bunch of people jostling for the mic, right?
	Right, right, right, right.
	No, this is really, really cool.
	I had no idea that, well, obviously at the beginning of this call, I had no idea that I could do this, and it was quite fun.
	Freedom in radio. Strength in numbers.
	Everyone thinks that we're talking about other people.
	It's just ourselves.
	The more of me there is, the stronger I am.
	This is very good for my ego to think that I'm everything.
	No, I'm just kidding. We are.
	It's old enough. Sorry, go on.
	The cool thing is the...
	What's really, really cool about this is that instead of feeling like I am just a big game of Plinko, or I'm just the Plinko chip in a big game.
	By separating these things out, it really did give me, just now, a much greater sense of control over these just totally reactionary tendencies.
	Right, right.
	And the beautiful, beautiful thing about this, Rod, is that when somebody comes up and disagrees with me, I don't get offended because I disagree with myself all the time, right?
	I mean, yeah, join the party, you know?
	Pick a number, right?
	And so when people say, oh, UPB is wrong, it's like, I thought UPB was wrong the whole time I was writing it.
	That's why I tried to make it right.
	So I'm not upset because I'm constantly doubting this.
	I mean, there's a whole ecosystem of checks and balances go on within ourself, right?
	Comparison to reality, to reason, to other people's opinions.
	There's a lot of forward-looking instincts that we have within us that sees the outcome, right?
	The thin slicing, right? Sees the outcome in very small bits.
	But when you have an ecosystem yourself that has a great deal of variety and back and forth and challenging and debate and disagreement and so on, Obviously, it's exciting.
	It's much more fun to have a crowd, so to speak, right?
	A party of one.
	An army of one. Oh, my God.
	Wait, that's taken. But then when somebody comes in and disagrees with you, it's like, yeah, I mean, join the party, right?
	Of course we all disagree. I mean, that's how things move forward, right?
	Through these kinds of disagreements and conflicts and listening and debating and so on.
	And if we do that with ourselves... We're not going to get drawn to go back to where we started in this call.
	We're not going to get drawn into these puppy dogs threads and so on.
	Because we're going to say, right, we're going to sit there and say, this guy doesn't believe in property.
	Strong guy, what do you think?
	He'd be like, he'll just lean over and spit on the ground, right?
	Life's too short, right? You know, like, once you get that kind of, I guess, once you get to sort of pass the photograph of the interaction around the conference table, you get a pretty good sense of what you should do.
	Yeah, that's cool.
	This is great.
	I'm definitely...
	This is big, actually.
	I'm learning a heck of a lot here in this one short eight-part conversation.
	Right. And it comes from...
	Not, I'm a pussy, but I wonder why I did what I did.
	And I wonder why I would call myself a pussy.
	Who here is calling me a pussy, right?
	This kind of thing, right? Right, right.
	Look at me and say that.
	And then you have to end up marrying somebody who has access to a lot of medication, as I did, right?
	Because you let them all out, and then you've got to wrestle them down with heavy, heavy pharmacology.
	But, you know, it's still very exciting.
	Or chocolate. Or chocolate, exactly right.
	Cool. No, this is good.
	Okay, well, let me leave you to mull on that.
	I'll just open it up in case anybody else had another question.
	Just on the off chance.
	Somebody said that this call goes on from 4 p.m.
	until Steph takes his next breath, so...
	I have Mr.
	Hyperventilation, who comes along once every hour or so.
	But, yeah, did anyone else have a short, relatively short question or issue or comment?
	I think some people have joined who have not been here before.
	I think there was a lot of similarity in this.
	This has been a real helpful segmented conversation.
	So, I mean, in regards to my old friend, Mark, who recently suddenly appeared on the boards...
	It seems really similar or familiar.
	Well, I think we all have these kind of kind of relationships in our life where we feel like we're almost painting people into a corner until they agree with us.
	That's not particularly satisfying.
	Right. And it took Mark...
	Well, it's still... I mean, Mark was like at 90% NAP, you know?
	He never quite made it.
	Well, and of course, 90% NAP is not NAP, right?
	Right. I mean, anything less than NAP is not NAP, right?
	You can't have, well, I'm 90% into science and 10% into astrology.
	It's like, well, then you're not into science, right?
	I'm 90% into reason and I'm 10% into faith.
	Well, then you have no reason, right?
	Right. That makes sense.
	And given that we know that people can get this stuff in a rush...
	Why would we want to?
	Like, given that we know that we can be like Luke Skywalker and lift the X-Wing with our mind, why would we want to take this bath escape down and try and raise the Titanic, right?
	Why? We know that there's another way of achieving clarity and truth with people.
	I've not had anybody who's written to me and said, you know, after 300 podcasts, Steph, I sort of began to see what you were saying.
	People either write to me and say, man, this blew my brain open from the very beginning, or they write to me and say, you're so full of shit, your eyes should be brown.
	Yeah, it's either one or the other.
	Yeah, it's one or the other.
	We know that. We know that.
	We know that from our own experience.
	We know that from the experience of those around us.
	So given that we can levitate planets with our mind, what are we pushing all these rocks around for?
	I don't know about the levitating planets, but...
	Yeah, I think I get what you mean.
	I can't believe people are correcting me on my Star Wars trivia.
	Yes! Yoda ends up lifting the X-Wing.
	It's so good when people manage to really plug into the essentials of what I say.
	You're around a bunch of geeks.
	And I'll retent if you are.
	All right, so does anybody else have any questions or issues or anything that they wanted to bring up at the close of this Sunday show?
	Thank you.
	No. Okay. Well, thank you so much, everybody, for your patience during the intermittent spikes and dips and peaks and valleys of today's call.
	I'm going to obviously shovel the whole mess over to Greg to clean up, and he will curse my name for days, if not weeks.
	So thank you so much, and have yourselves a wonderful, wonderful week, and we will pick you up in about a week.
	And don't forget, bye! Real-time relationships.
	The logic of love. It will change your life.

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