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March 23, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:38:25

1021 Sunday Call In Show Mar 23 2008

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	Well, hi, everybody. Thank you so much for dropping by.
	The call-in show was slightly delayed because of technical thrills and excitements.
	It is Monday?
	No, it's not. It is Sunday, March the 23rd, 2008.
	And I hope you're doing fantastically.
	Happy dead Jewish zombie dude guy day to all of the people out there.
	And I'm going to...
	This is just a preview of a podcast I'm hopefully going to...
	Or a videocast I'm going to get going tomorrow.
	Oh, and just by the by, I hit almost 2,000 views on YouTube yesterday, which I must say is not too bad.
	So, this is from an article in the Global Mail, Saturday, March 22nd, 08, from News A3, taking Christ out of Christianity, leaving, sadly, just inanity.
	And this is from a woman who's named Mrs.
	Vosper. She has written a book published this week, With or Without God, Why the Way We Live is More Important Than What We Believe, in which she argues that the Christian church, in the form in which it exists today, has outlived its viability, and either it sheds its no longer credible myths, doctrines, and dogmas, or it is toast.
	She is considered one of the best if unconventional minds within the United Church, Canada's largest Protestant Christian denomination.
	She holds a Master of Divinity degree from Queen's University and a PhD in Elvology from the University of Tolkien and was ordained in 1992.
	She founded and chairs the Toronto-based Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity.
	Other Christian clergy and theologians have talked about the need to dramatically reform the doctrines of a faith that, with the exception of its vibrancy in the United States, has lost huge numbers of adherents throughout the Western world.
	It once dominated as Christendom.
	In Canada, where 75% of the population self-identifies as Christian, only about 16% attend weekly services.
	A number of leading theologians in Britain Where the decline in adherence is more dramatic than in Canada, are on the same path.
	People like Richard Holloway, blah, blah, blah, who cares, blah, blah, blah.
	But this is the part that I think is the most interesting.
	She says there's been virtually a consensus among scholars for the past 30 years that the Bible is not some divine emanation, or, in Miss Vosper's acronym, Tawagfat, the authoritative word of God for all time.
	But a human project, filled with contradictions and the conflicting worldviews and political perspective of its authors.
	And yet, she says, the liberal Christian churches, including her own, won't acknowledge that it is a human project, that it's wrong in parts, and that in the 21st century it's no more useful as a spiritual and religious guide than a number of other books.
	She says now that the work of biblical scholars has become publicly accessible The churches and their clergy are caught living a lie that few people will buy much longer.
	I just don't think we complicate those in the pews long enough to transition into a new kind of community that doesn't keep people away.
	She wants salvation redefined to mean new life through removing the causes of suffering in the world.
	She wants the church to redefine the resurrection as starting over new chances.
	She wants an end to the image of God as an intervening all-powerful authority who must be appeased In order to avoid divine wrath, rather she would have congregations work together to define God as according to their own worked out definitions of what is holy and sacred.
	So, I mean, this of course, I'm not saying this is mainstream Christianity by any stretch of the imagination, but here you can see the beginning of what in many ways could end up being the end.
	And that doesn't necessarily mean a good thing.
	Christianity ended in Russia in 1917 for a certain period of time, at least politically, during the Russian Revolution.
	None of us would call that a massive leap forward, but rather backwards or sideways into a gulag.
	But here we can see that the bullshit, she don't work so well no more.
	And here we can see that this is just a con, right?
	It's like, oh shit, they're not buying the myths.
	They're not buying the bullshit.
	They're not buying the superstition.
	So let's redefine it as something else.
	Let's just make up some other bullshit that hopefully people will swallow.
	Why? So they can keep giving us money.
	These guys think... This woman argues that the church needs to focus on things like ending world poverty and global warming.
	Which, of course, is just...
	Religion and socialism is just with God or without God.
	With the state and this kind of mysticism, you get socialism.
	Without it, you get... And with God, you get religion.
	And you could see this as the twisting kind of thing.
	It always reminds me of the end of the Terminator 2 movie where Arnold Schwarzenegger puts that silver thing into the globule guy, into the vat of fire, and he twists into every single person he's ever tried to become in order to try and escape his fate.
	That, of course, is the kind of horror that goes on with these kinds of people.
	Because, of course, if it's been known for some time that what they're selling is complete and total bullshit, right, as she's saying, well, the problem is that because of the Internet, word is getting out about what biblical scholars are saying, which is very similar to what happened when Luther got a hold of the Bible and translated it into what was then called the vulgar or the vulgate, into the which is very similar to what happened when Luther got a And people actually read what the Bible said.
	Then you've got a splintering of Christianity now that people can get a hold of these biblical scholars and their actual analysis of the amount of bullshit and misdirection and bad translation and so on that goes on to what is called biblical analysis, that they're just not going to buy it anymore.
	And, I mean, the success of capitalism, the success of medicine, the success of science can't remain unnoticed.
	Unnoticed. And at least, I know it's not so much in the United States, but certainly in Western Europe and in Canada, to be overtly religious is just considered to be kind of retarded these days.
	I mean, we don't know any overtly religious people.
	There are people who are religious, you don't know about it.
	But to be sort of in your face and try and save you and Jesus and this and that, it's considered maybe half a step up from shaving your head and trying to grab change at the airport from people.
	So, it's very interesting, of course, to see just what these bullshit artists do.
	Oh, shit, they're not buying the God thing anymore.
	Global warming! Poverty!
	Speeding! Moral centers, whatever, let's make up a myth.
	Let's redefine God. Hey, you're not going to give me money for God anymore?
	What do you want to define God as, and will you give me money for that?
	Nope. Okay, let's redefine it as this.
	Will you give me money for that? Nope.
	See, it's got nothing to do with religion.
	It's got nothing to do with God.
	If this woman no longer believes in a God, shouldn't she give all the money back that she took over the years?
	Yeah, shouldn't she give all the money back?
	Yeah, she should give all the money back.
	I mean, if you've been selling something, if you've been selling salvation to people for money, if you've been taking money for Something which you claim to be true, and then you say, oh shit, now that you've found out what the real scholarship is, you no longer can believe it?
	You shouldn't redefine it to just, I mean, if you have even a shred of ethics or integrity, you should say, holy shit, we should give all this money back, because what we were selling isn't true.
	What we were selling doesn't work.
	What we were selling is false. What we were selling is a lie.
	I mean, shit, that's how it even works on eBay.
	Can we at least hold...
	The self-appointed clergy, the moral defenders of the souls of mankind, can we at least hold them to the same moral standards we would hold somebody we ordered a DVD set of the second episode of Friends from Arkansas to?
	No. The fact that what they sell is a lie doesn't give anybody the impulse to ask for their money back.
	Also, of course, if she is moving...
	I haven't read the book, and I don't think I could actually have the stomach to plow through this amount of saccharine-sick, shitty crap.
	But what I don't see in this article, and what I doubt is in the book, is this woman saying, well, shit, you know, if there's no God, then there's no such thing as the church.
	If there's no such thing as the church, then we better revoke our tax-exempt status and stop paying property and income taxes.
	I wonder if she's going to say that.
	I wonder... I wonder if that's a movement that she's going to be getting into.
	I somehow doubt it.
	Anyway, that was sort of it for an intro.
	I'm going to do a little bit more on that.
	I'm going to do a little bit of this.
	I want to look up some of this biblical scholarship so we can see.
	I don't know what she's talking about because, I mean, I gave up on biblical scholarship once I found out the whole virgin birth thing was just a, quote, mistranslation and, of course, was shared with dozens of other religions as well.
	But I'd like to check out sort of what people are saying about this biblical scholarship and what the average congregationalist is getting a hold of that is making them so skeptical.
	But I'll do that a little bit later this week.
	So anyway, that's it for my intro.
	Rantlet, I guess you could say.
	Don't forget to check out The Philosophysician at freedomainradio.com.
	We're getting a couple of things, about 10 feeds a day, people using it.
	I've been posting some of the better feeds on the board at freedomainradio.com forward slash B-O-A-R-D.
	Don't forget to pick up your copies of the books.
	The $79 shipping included book deal is now done, over, finished, gone.
	Sorry if you didn't make it.
	It may come back again, but not for quite a while.
	As a backup, though, we have all four of the Freedomain Radio audiobooks, including the audiobook of The God of Atheists, the audiobook of Untruth, The Tyranny of Illusion, Universally Preferable Behavior, A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics, and Real-Time Relationships, The Logic of Love and Real-Time Relationships, The Logic of Love for $49.
	It's over 40 hours, high-quality audio, just in case you just weren't hearing enough of my voice.
	So, come by freedomainradio.com, pick those up.
	You can get all four PDFs for $39.
	And I would say that these are amazing, wonderful, powerful, life-changing books, and guaranteed the God of Atheists will make you laugh.
	And if you don't like the stuff you get, just let me know.
	I will give you a complete and total refund, because I am not in the clergy.
	So, thank you so much for that pitch.
	Don't forget to go by freedomainradio.spreadshirt.com to pick up your FDR swag.
	And now I turn it over to the lovely Talented.
	Velvet-voiced.
	Listenership. Have you gotten any good feedback, Beck, from your Banana Republic Help a DRO Poor video?
	Yeah, there's lots of comments on that.
	It's... Sadly enough, I haven't gotten any offers as a comedy writer from using the fabulous Banana Republic joke, but apparently fruit comedy is on the outs these days.
	Or fruity comedy, we're not sure.
	But yeah, there's been some positive feedback on that.
	Of course, every...
	Every hasty typist on the planet seems to descend upon YouTube when anything remotely intellectual is put forward, and so there have been some comments, as usual in the YouTube world, that are not particularly helpful or enlightened, but certainly people have found it very, very helpful.
	And I guess the one that was a complete throwaway for me, Job Interview Skills, just topped 30,000 views, so that's some free advertising for us, I guess.
	And I perhaps should re-record that so that it's not me yelling away in a bad mic at a car.
	I haven't quite decided.
	So yeah, that's cooking a lot.
	Yeah, I really liked that argument.
	I never heard that version as far as basically if you want welfare, you need a dictatorship essentially.
	I really liked that.
	I think the only other spin I've put on it myself is basically to say that If you have 51% of people, and that supposedly represents the majority, then you've got to figure how much of your tax dollars are actually going to helping the poor.
	And if you did the numbers on that, I'm pretty sure if you gave 20 bucks or something like that.
	It's probably more than what's actually going to the poor, and you can choose what charity that goes to, and actually 51% of people actually supported that.
	Then you'd figure, what's the need of the state then?
	That would be my spin on that.
	And when you look at the amount of money that goes to the poor relative to what goes to The bureaucrats and all that kind of stuff, it's pennies on the dollar that actually ends up making it into the hands of the poor, and what happens is you get this massive swelling of bureaucratic ranks and so on, and of course the endless rules, right?
	Because if you give people lots of welfare, then it's a disincentive to work.
	And if you allow them to work on top of welfare, they'll use the welfare as a base and then have a part-time job to increase it.
	So you've got to cut that back and you've just got to have rule after rule after rule after rule.
	Which causes the bureaucrats to multiply, yay, like the bottle flies on an eyeball.
	So, yeah, this is the kind of stuff that, but to me, that argument is not particularly clinching.
	What I'm always trying to do, rightly or wrongly or successfully or unsuccessfully, is to just come up with an argument that people can't wriggle out of.
	Or if they do, you're never tempted to argue with them again, right?
	So I'm always trying to say, look, by your own definition, this can't work.
	This is impossible. And that's what the argument for morality and the banana republic argument is really all about.
	Because somebody could say, well, yeah, but still, I prefer to...
	I prefer that everybody donate to the government or get taxed by the government because even if less money per dollar makes it to the poor, there is so many more dollars that are out there because of this taxation that, you know, there's lots of things that people could argue if you take the ethical standpoint out of it.
	And so if you can say to people, look...
	As I sort of say in that, what you want is a dictatorship.
	And if you're comfortable with that, then I'm going to run screaming from you.
	But what you need to establish your system, to have your system work, is a dictatorship.
	And you're going to have to give ultimate power to a very few people and then expect or hope your system will only work if they use that power in a perfectly ethical way.
	And, I mean, there's just nobody on the planet who's going to argue that, I think.
	Yeah, well, I certainly thought your argument was a bit stronger.
	I just, I thought about, that was my version of the argument before, but certainly I'll be using that one in the future.
	Well, and people don't like to use, I mean, not saying you, but people don't like to use the moral argument.
	They don't. I mean, you saw this debate on...
	Yeah, just listen to that.
	And he said, of course, that the UPB argument won't work and doesn't work.
	So naturally, of course, if somebody says, I took your pill and didn't feel it.
	Oh, sorry, your pill doesn't work.
	I'll say, well, did you even take it?
	And if they say no, then obviously I know that their resistance to it is psychological and not empirical.
	And, of course, people don't like using it.
	The argument for morality because it is so explosive.
	And a huge amount of intellectual and libertarian ink is spilled in the water in an attempt to avoid this moral argument because it puts you right up against people's ethical natures and the true realities of your relationships, personal, business, political, familial, and so on. So people would love to create, I'm not saying you, right, but people love to create lots of complicated arguments about stuff that don't ever require them to have to face the moral Certainly.
	Did that conversation ever come to any solid conclusion?
	Like, I wasn't really sure when I came to the end.
	I was like, okay, so now what?
	What was your experience of the conversation?
	I felt like, you know, because I thought like at the beginning when he was talking more about the more Randian philosophies, I'd be like, Okay, I can agree with most of that.
	It seemed like you guys agreed on a lot, and then I was almost kind of confused on what the, I mean, I guess I'm not 100% sure on what the actual outcome was.
	Of it at the end, as far as like, it kind of felt like the one with Aaron, where it's just like he started in the same spot almost, where it's like, okay, we agree on a lot of things, and then you started talking about UPB, and then it's like, I didn't feel like I got the strong sense that, you know, okay, I can see how that, and I'm going to give that a try kind of thing.
	But maybe I mislistened.
	Well, what was your experience when he said that the definition of virtue is that which supports a long and happy life?
	That was his definition, right?
	Mm-hmm. And when I pointed out to him that these could very easily be subjective and mutually exclusive terms, what was your experience at that moment?
	I would say that was pretty confusing and kind of a way to cloud.
	It definitely felt cloudy in the sense that I could have been avoiding something.
	I'm not 100% sure.
	Well, I mean, tell me what you mean by cloudy, if you could, just a little bit, because I'm curious what people's responses are to these arguments, and there's certainly other ways that I can go with them, but I'm always curious what people's experience are.
	When they see somebody put forward a proposition that in about three minutes is pounded into dust, I'm just wondering what people's experience is of the other person's, like of Sean's response to that.
	Sure. I guess I would say cloudy because it seems like, or I shouldn't say seems, but I would say that it's trying to slip subjectivity into the debate on something where you're trying to make it more concrete with UPB. Well, but sorry, I appreciate that, and I agree with you, but for me, when something is self-evident, I don't need to pursue it, right?
	So if someone comes up to me and says, I have proven a unified field theory which explains the behavior of all matter, right?
	And they hand me this 100-page proof, and on the first page it says, 2 plus 2 is 5, right?
	And then if I say, well, on the very first page of your thousand-page proof, you have an incorrect assumption, which must mean that the remainder of the proof is invalid, right?
	Yeah. Like reading a physics paper on the first page, it says fairies are the cause of all things in the universe.
	Right, so if somebody says, look, I'm dedicating my whole life to discovering unified field theory, here's my proof, and they hand it to someone, and then the root of that proof is proven to be contradictory within about three minutes.
	If somebody is really concerned with finding a valid unified field theory, what should they do?
	They would... I suppose they'd be curious about what the truth is.
	I mean, if someone says it's something else, then they'd want to know what their proof was so they can make the comparison.
	I'm sorry, I have no idea what you just said.
	I'm sure it makes sense, but just not to be.
	Oh no, I'm sorry. Maybe I'm being incoherent today.
	Sorry, I might have to start over on that.
	Well, let me just ask the question again, right?
	So, I come up to you and say, I have proven...
	A unified field theory.
	I give you a thousand-page proof, and you glance at the first page, and it says, if we assume that 2 plus 2 is 5, then, and you say, well, wait a minute, 2 plus 2 doesn't equal 5.
	What should my response be, if I'm rational and if I'm really concerned about the truth?
	I guess you refute that first, and then say, well, if all your arguments follow this false premise, then I have trouble taking you seriously.
	Again, I think I'm seeing where the cloud in this comes from, and I'm not sure that it's coming from Sean and myself.
	Possibly. Because I'm not sure what you're saying.
	It all sounds a little vague to me.
	I'm going to try one more time.
	If I come up to you and I say, I have proven unified field theory, and my proof requires that 2 plus 2 is 5, and you say, but 2 plus 2 doesn't equal 5, and I don't refute you, I certainly feel frustrated and angry.
	As far as my feeling, I guess I'm not sure how to answer your question.
	If I am genuinely concerned with the truth, and you prove to me that one of my premises is contradictory, what should I say?
	What should I do? Ask for the proof?
	No. No, because I don't have to have a proof in order for somebody else's thesis to be wrong, right?
	I don't have to have unified field theory to prove that a unified field theory based on 2 plus 2 is 5 is incorrect.
	Okay. Uh...
	Once again, I guess I'm not sure exactly what the response you're looking for is, because, I mean, if someone said 2 plus 2 is 5, and they say all these things follow from that, then I would say I'd have to address that first.
	Right. And what if I said, okay, I agree with you that 2 plus 2 doesn't equal 5, but let's move on.
	Oh. Are you asking what my experience of something like that would be?
	Well, yeah. I mean, would I be being honest?
	Would I have integrity? This kind of stuff.
	I would say certainly not.
	Right. Right.
	If I really am interested in mathematical consistency and proof, and I base something on 2 plus 2 is 5, and somebody says 2 plus 2 isn't 5, and they prove it to me, and that doesn't slow me down at all, what does that tell you?
	That they're not interested in the truth.
	Right. Or if they are, they're interested in whatever their need is, instead of, you know, they're willing to discard the truth for whatever gives them pleasure or whatever it might be that they want.
	Right, right. Avoiding pain.
	Using this concept called truth to achieve some other end than the truth, right?
	Or to dominate you.
	I mean, if I put forward UPB, and someone comes up and says, and I've spelled out UPB in this short article, even syllogistically, right?
	So I've taken as much work as I can out of the minds of people and said, look, here's my syllogisms.
	They're broken down into, you know, a series of statements that are not more than seven in length, right?
	So this is the proof.
	And so far that has stood for, I guess, over three years with a whole bunch of people throwing themselves against it, and I think that it stands, right?
	But if I put out a proof for ethics and break it down into syllogistical format, and somebody proves to me within a minute or two that my syllogism is contradictory and inconsistent and subjective, and I'm claiming that it is objective, then clearly I have to say, holy shit, I better start again, right?
	Yeah, if it's something fundamental like that, then certainly you'd have to rewrite the entire thing if that were true, essentially.
	I'm building a castle on a lake, right?
	So I'm going to have to start again somewhere else, right?
	Yeah, exactly. Now, do you remember when Sean was saying in our conversation, he said, well, the problem is that people are very concrete, right?
	Yeah, I do remember that.
	And then I said, well, it seems to me that there are some very significant motivations that people have that aren't concrete, and religion and patriotism are two that come to mind, right?
	What was his response to that?
	I don't remember exactly.
	Well, I'm not surprised because it was a very confusing response, right?
	What he basically said was, well, God is both a very abstract and very concrete idea, right?
	Oh yeah, I remember that too.
	That didn't make much sense to me at all.
	So, again, he is an approach to truth, right?
	He puts forward a thesis which says that the problem is that human beings are motivated only by concrete things.
	I provide some empirical examples of how the greatest motivations in life for people are not concrete at all, but in a sense are anti-concrete, So he puts forward a thesis, and I provide evidence to the contrary, and what does he do?
	And it's irrefutable evidence, right?
	I mean, people are highly motivated by patriotism and religion, just to name, even if we don't want to get into the family stuff, just to name a few, right?
	And sports teams, right?
	I mean, that's a pretty abstract thing to get addicted to, right?
	So he says people are too concrete, and that's the problem, that they only deal with concretes.
	I provide irrefutable evidence to the contrary, and what does he do?
	Does he say, oh, I guess you're right.
	People aren't concrete. I'm going to have to withdraw that statement.
	Yeah, that definitely bugged me right there, where essentially now concrete means, is subjective now.
	That's what I got, where it's like, well, you see, concrete might be objective, but if you're saying, well, God is a concept, and this concept is concrete in people's heads, and that's the problem, it didn't follow too much for me.
	What do you mean when you say it didn't follow too much?
	Did it follow a little bit? It didn't follow.
	I'm sorry, I'm going to Sweden.
	Man, we just got calls from Switzerland.
	Switzerland, yeah, sorry.
	I'm going to Switzerland right now today.
	Right. No, it didn't follow.
	Well, what we saw, of course, was somebody who puts forward a thesis, is provided evidence which contradicts his thesis, and then he simply redefines his thesis in a contradictory way in an attempt to jam two opposing concepts under the same rubric, right? Yeah.
	I would say it's probably the same thing that minarchists are doing, where they say, like, well, freedom's not that.
	We redefine freedom to this, and that's what freedom is.
	Yeah, I mean, it's like if I say, well, my thesis says that balls fall up, right?
	And then someone says to me, no, here's video, balls falling down.
	And I say, well, yes, but my thesis includes that balls fall both up and down at the same time, then clearly I'm just not being particularly...
	I wouldn't say that particularly honest, right?
	No, I wouldn't say so.
	Right. And there were countless examples, for me, at least, in this conversation, right, where he would just, you know, make stuff up to cover his thesis, even if he was presented with internal inconsistencies or empirical evidence to the contrary, right?
	Yeah. At the beginning of the conversation, I thought it might go in a better direction than it did, but yeah, when you really started to bring up some of his contradictions, I would have liked if he said, oh, I didn't think of it that way.
	I guess maybe I should reevaluate or something like that.
	I didn't get the strong sense like you guys were kind of working together to find the truth as opposed to...
	I'm sorry to interrupt you. You said you didn't get a strong sense that we were...
	Were you getting a weak sense that we were doing that?
	Um... I guess at the beginning, I could have seen that happen just because of the similarity of your guys' ideas in some fundamental areas.
	Sorry, I'm just going to have to... What's happened is because of the excess of gas in the FDR pod, my oxygen mask has dropped from the ceiling.
	What I'm going to do is just help Christina on with her oxygen mask because of the excess of fog in the cabin.
	And then I'm going to put my...
	Okay, please.
	Sorry, continue. Okay, I got no sense that you guys were working together towards the truth.
	Look, I'm sorry to be abrupt, and I really do apologize for this.
	Sure. He was not working towards the truth.
	Right? It wasn't that we both weren't working towards the truth, right?
	He was actively not trying to achieve the truth, but to defend a contradictory thesis, right?
	Yeah. And it didn't bother him at all in the conversation when I proved that his thesis was both subjective and contradictory.
	Didn't bother him at all, right?
	He just changed the topic, right?
	And it also didn't bother him that he was redefining concepts that were completely opposed to match his somewhat off-the-cuff thesis, right?
	Yep.
	It didn't bother him that he claimed to have read UPB 1.5 times and didn't seem to understand it at all, right?
	It also didn't seem to bother him that he'd put out a video highly critical of UPB without understanding it and that he agreed that UPB was a good framework.
	He certainly didn't write to me the next day and say, you know, on reviewing this and on reading this again or listening to this debate again, I've realized that my criticisms of UPB were invalid, and so I've decided to pull the video, right?
	Yeah. You know, it's funny, I guess, because at the beginning of the conversation, I kind of got that idea that, you know, maybe he Could be a scientist, I guess, in the way that I kind of think of that, where you're trying to use a methodology to reach the truth.
	At the beginning I did get that sense, but then later on, when you started to actually question him, then it's pretty obvious that that wasn't true.
	I'm sorry, it was pretty obvious?
	What part of it was not obvious?
	I'm doing terrible today, man.
	Man, oh man, you're like that creature from Lost, you know?
	It's like I've got to have golden goggles on just to try and scope you out.
	I've got to have night vision goggles on and feel for ghosts.
	What do you think is going on for you?
	Why is it so hard to come to what I thought was a fairly obvious conclusion about the intellectual integrity in certain areas of the debate?
	You know, I'd have to say, like, this is kind of a reoccurring thing for me, where essentially, you know, even in our past conversations, I would say a bit, or I would try to minimize things when I would talk about my parents and stuff.
	It seems really similar right here, because I'm hesitant to say that he's wrong.
	But why? I suppose because I'm afraid of being incorrect.
	And if I stay in Switzerland, then I kind of have that place where I can be correct or I may be incorrect.
	I can switch sides.
	I suppose it's kind of a way to do that, if that makes any sense.
	Um, no. No, okay.
	Let's try again on that.
	Sorry. Can you switch to Urdu?
	Maybe try that clicking noise, and I'll try a MOS decoder.
	I'll, uh, let's do it in PHP. Right.
	Alright, uh, give this another try.
	What does it cost you emotionally to say that was not a very honest debate on Sean's part?
	Or rather, you know, that Sean wriggled out of stuff, Sean didn't seem to be bothered by his own contradictions, Sean didn't say to staff, you know, I didn't understand UPB, I think I've got a better appreciation of it now, so I'm going to go back and review the videos where I've criticized it, and so on, right?
	Yeah. So what does that cost me emotionally to say that?
	Yeah, to speak the facts, right?
	Well, you know, I could see myself saying that, certainly, because I think there's good points that support that.
	I'm trying to figure out why I don't feel strong.
	Hello, testing. Hello.
	You said there were good points that support that.
	Well, I would say that's true.
	I mean, there's a recording.
	Right? You're not going off your memory of this after being beaten and thrown in the sack, right?
	Yeah. There's not good points which support it, right?
	There's a recording.
	Hello.
	Hello.
	Well...
	Oh. Sorry, you might have cut off a little bit at the end, I'm not sure.
	It's not that there are good points that support it.
	There is a recording, right?
	Yeah. Like, if I say I've got a video of you walking down the street and I show you the video, do you say, well, there's some good points supporting your thesis?
	Uh, no. What did you say?
	I didn't say that. I guess I walked down the street, right?
	Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and you bringing up these contradictions that would have been...
	I would have liked it if you would have said, oh, I can see what you mean.
	I'm probably going to have to reevaluate that.
	I'm not sure what liking it has to do with anything, if you don't mind me saying so.
	Well, no, that's irrelevant to it.
	It doesn't matter if I like it or not.
	in Madison's true.
	Right.
	So what would it cost you to say, man, that Sean totally snowed you, Steph, right?
	Or tried to. Or whatever, right?
	What does that feel like to defog, right?
	We got the defoo, now we got the defog.
	I guess I feel kind of uncomfortable in certain areas, certainly.
	I definitely feel uncomfortable with that.
	I'd say, take the fogginess.
	I would feel uncomfortable.
	I'm sorry, Sean, your sound is just terrible.
	Have you got anything else eating up your bandwidth?
	Uh, not right now.
	Let's see. Sorry about that.
	Is it occurring for my voice as well?
	We just might have too many people in the call.
	We just might have to kick off the people who are only listening.
	No, I think it looks fine. Okay.
	Um... Alright, well, we'll...
	Does I sound okay now? So what is the emotion?
	If you come out and you say, look, you knew who was bullshitting, right?
	That's not a subtle thing, right?
	No, yeah, I don't think so.
	I mean, you also saw my face, right?
	Was it on video? Oh, okay, so sorry.
	Well, if you did see it on video, then you would have seen my face.
	But you knew that he was evading, right?
	Yeah, certainly.
	So, if you know that he's evading, what's wrong with saying he's evading?
	Um... I'd like to say nothing, but my actions don't seem to reflect that.
	Well, what it means is that you have a story about certainty, right?
	You have a mythology about certainty, right?
	So certainty is bad because...
	Um...
	I guess because I might be wrong.
	But you're not wrong in this case, right?
	I don't think so.
	You don't think so? I can't think of any reason to say no.
	But you're still not saying no, right?
	Yeah. That's the thing.
	I'd like to say no and say no with confidence, but yet I have trouble being clear.
	And, uh, you know, and taking a leap to say, uh, yeah, he was totally stealing his stuff.
	Well, who gets screwed in this interaction, right?
	I mean, let's just look at the cost-benefits before we go into the emotional side.
	Do you mean, uh...
	Who are you protecting and who are you throwing under the bus when you do this?
	Um... Myself?
	No. It does not protect you to pretend doubt and uncertainty where none exists.
	My mom? Well, let's just talk about this debate.
	My ass has certainly been like that.
	Let's just talk about this debate that we had with Sean, right?
	Because that was the original stimuli, right?
	Yeah. It protects him.
	Right. And who does it throw under the bus?
	Me. No.
	Or, well, you, because I'm not...
	Yes, me, of course, me, right?
	Yep. Because you're saying, well, you know, Steph, it was sort of an unsatisfying debate, I wasn't entirely sure that you guys were on the same page, or whatever, right?
	And you're talking to me about it, not to him, right?
	Yeah. Why? Um, I guess, well, from looking at it straight, I mean, it's because you'll actually listen to me and it seems he would evade.
	Right, so not to put it in too harsher terms, right?
	But you shit on the more reasonable person, right?
	Um, yeah, in this case.
	And, you know, I mean, I have all the sympathy for your history and this and that, but we're just talking about your actions in the present.
	I can understand that. It wasn't my intention.
	I apologize for that.
	No, no, that's fine. Look, I totally understand it wasn't your intention.
	I don't feel that I was shit on.
	I'm just saying, sort of, this is what was occurring, right?
	Yeah, that's true.
	Right, because you were basically fogging his bad actions at my expense, right?
	Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
	Now, I'm sure...
	That when your parents acted badly towards you, you didn't enjoy it when they fogged their bad actions at your expense, right?
	No. Certainly not.
	Right, because they're all with the justifications and the fogging and we did the best we could and you could be really difficult and we come from a different time and the resources weren't available and fog, fog, fog, right?
	Yeah. Which means that you being angry is irrational and unjust, right?
	Yeah. If they have good reasons for doing what they did, or if their actions are defendable in some kind of foggy manner, then your upset or anger towards them becomes an unjust kind of bigotry, right?
	Yeah. So, you didn't like being on the receiving end of that kind of fog, right?
	No, not at all.
	But now you know what it's like on the other side, right?
	Consciously. Yeah. Yeah.
	I guess, if anything, that podcast is a cheap lesson.
	Well, I hope so. Look, and I don't mean to come down hard on you, right?
	I mean, look, I have all the sympathy for the lessons that you had to learn and what you had to do to survive, right?
	But just in general, there is this great curse when you are the most rational and reasonable person in a particular interaction, and let's just say it's me in this one for want of a better argument.
	When people know that you're not going to attack them, Then people will look at you fighting with someone who's not being honest or not doing anything, doing something with integrity, and they will always rush to correct the most reasonable person, right?
	Yeah. Now, this is not exactly what you did, to be fair and to be honest, right?
	You didn't come in here and say, Steph, why were you picking on poor Sean, right?
	But we do see this kind of stuff pretty continually, right?
	Like there was a guy who came on the board recently...
	Who kind of launched into me and said, you know, Steph, you just complained too much about your family, right?
	And that's why people think it's a cult or something, right?
	And of course, I don't see...
	I mean, my mom's not that hard to find, right?
	Everybody knows my last name.
	They know she lives in Toronto. My mom's not that hard to find.
	I don't know anybody who's called up my mom to say that, right?
	Yeah. And so when they look at a family situation where the parents are beating down and abandoning and brutalizing a child, And again, I'm not putting you in this category.
	I'm just sort of saying that this is a pretty continual thing that occurs, which we all have the temptation to do, which is we will just pick on the most reasonable person and fog them and express discontent or upset towards them.
	So this guy sees basically a history where a child was repeatedly beaten down by his parents and by his siblings.
	And the only person he sees fit to criticize is the child, right?
	The adult child who talks about the abuse, right?
	Yeah. It's just like the cult accusations.
	Instead of going and picking on the Catholic Church, they come and pick on you with the guy with the board and the website.
	Right, right, for sure. And it is a kind of tribute, right?
	If nobody picked on me, it would be because I was abusive, right?
	The fact that so many people want to come by and pick on me or pick on us, right?
	Because it's not just me. It's been you too, I'm sure, at times as well.
	Whenever you talk to people about your passion for philosophy or thought or ideas or even FDR or whatever, right?
	It is actually a badge of honor to be the one that people come to pick on, right?
	If you'd gone to Sean to complain about me, I would not have been flattered.
	Does that make sense? So there's a kind of tribute in what you're doing, which is that you can come and say that Steph, this was an unsatisfying interaction, and you're talking to me about it, right?
	Rather than saying, wow, you know, this guy totally did a snow job to one level or another.
	So that's kind of, because you're coming to me and not to Sean...
	That kind of goes with the thesis, right?
	Because I was receiving all this nonsense from him and staying polite and positive, right?
	So that you know that you can come and talk to me about it, right?
	So it's kind of a compliment, but at the same time, I don't think that you want to take that as a sort of approach to life in general, if that makes sense.
	No, I can understand that.
	Thanks for pointing that out.
	I mean, there's probably something about that that was wrong.
	Yeah, we all want to try and report the reasonable and the rational and the kind people as much as possible.
	I mean, just in general, right?
	I mean, whatever you water grows, whatever you piss on doesn't grow, right?
	So it's just a matter.
	And this is not for me, right?
	This is for you in your life, right?
	Because you don't want to have this habit where you see an irrational person and a reasonable person And you go in and fog the reasonable person to prop up the irrational person, right?
	Yeah, that's no good.
	Well, for you, it's going to keep the reasonable people out of your life, and it's going to make you an excellent minion for the unreasonable people, right?
	Yeah, it's going to attract unreasonable people.
	Yeah, they'll be like, ooh, fog machine.
	I can use that for my show, right?
	Yeah. And I can see parts of my past where that would be beneficial to me, having that type of the fog machine, essentially.
	Oh, absolutely. There's no question that that was essential.
	Not useful. That was essential for you when you were a kid.
	Yeah. Because, I mean, in many ways, you were the most reasonable person in your family, right?
	I would certainly say so.
	Yeah, you were the one who had to give way and...
	Make the compromises and appease people and so on, right?
	Yep. Exactly.
	So for you, certainty invited attack, right?
	Yes. And I figured that there had to be something there in my past that it's making me not come out and just at the beginning and just say, well, he's totally smudgy, Steph. And I can say that with certainty and...
	Well, and the reason that I'm spending so much time on this, and I really do appreciate you bringing this up, I mean, I really do.
	I think it was great. It's because I got a whole number of emails, both in my inbox, there was a couple of on the actual debate itself, and in my YouTube inbox, of people basically saying, why did you let them off so easy?
	What did you respond to that?
	Well, I've just... Basically, I haven't responded to too many of them because I've been kind of busy, but I'll just sort of say it here, is that it's not important for me to be certain that he's wrong, because I don't want to substitute my certainty for other people, right?
	I don't want other people to look at my certainty and become certain from that.
	I want people to look at the evidence and become certain from the evidence, right?
	Yeah. Exactly.
	And that's probably why you felt discombobulated after the debate, right?
	Because I wasn't coming up with a conclusion.
	But you had 90 minutes of continual evidence, right?
	But I don't want to be a scientist for people, right?
	Because that's not the point of what it is that I'm trying to do.
	I don't want to come to conclusions for people.
	I want to give people evidence so that they can think for themselves, right?
	Yeah. I want people to be scientists, not to look at me, if that makes any sense.
	Yeah, exactly. Because if I'd come to a conclusion, there would have been resolution for you, but no learning, right?
	No. You'd just be hand-holding to a conclusion.
	Right, which wouldn't have helped you the next time that you're in a situation where you have to assess the evidence, right?
	Yeah. Or we're going to have to deal with someone similar in the future.
	Right.
	The whole point of being a teacher is to not give the answer, right?
	I mean, that's one of the problems with, for me at least, one of the problems with libertarianism or objectivism, this kind of, is that Rand and these guys all given answers, right?
	These are your conclusions. But I don't think that works.
	Actually, I know it doesn't work, because it hasn't.
	Yeah. Because I had a list, two pages long, of everything that he'd said that was contradictory.
	And I could have nailed him on every single one of them at the very end in a massive tire tribe and then hung up, right?
	Which would have been very satisfying for people and would have taught them precisely nothing.
	Yeah. How annoying am I? No, but I think it was good that you pointed that out to me.
	It's certainly something I'm trying to be more aware of, because I know I use a lot of foggy language and things like that.
	And for you, that equals being reasonable, right?
	Because the only people who were certain in your life in the past were assholes, right?
	So certainty equals being an asshole, and being tentative equals being rational, right?
	Yeah. And from a conscious point of view, I mean, consciously when I think about it, I say, of course, that's not true.
	But I guess, and that's why I was thinking, like, is my actions are representing what I know consciously.
	Right, and I agree with you, and I think that one of the things that I'm trying to do with the next phase of this conversation is kind of, and this is going to sound completely condescending, and I don't mean it this way at all, so I apologize in advance for the use of the metaphor, but it's the only one I can come up with.
	It's just kicking people out of the nest, right?
	Go do it. Yeah.
	Because it's only in the doing it that the real joy and pleasure comes, right?
	Because studying philosophy and thinking and learning and self-examination in the past and this and that, that's all fantastic and that's all essential, right?
	But at some point, you've got to graduate from medical school and actually start cutting into people, right?
	Yeah. And, I mean, you've certainly been in the conversation long enough, and I have an enormous amount for your introspective abilities and your intelligence and your commitment.
	But, um... Even when I spend a lot of time in Switzerland?
	I'm not sure you have an exit visa from Switzerland yet.
	I think you're going to have to just duck the guards and take to the hills.
	I think you're right.
	Before Ron Paul builds his wall!
	Yeah. I've noticed this is also kind of a similar pattern that Allison has at certain times, too.
	Using the foggy language.
	Her parents have some eerie similarities to mine.
	Oh, it's not that eerie. It just may seem that way.
	Yeah. And this is good stuff, right?
	And you've heard me nagging people endlessly over the past month or two when people give me fog lingo, right?
	And they say, well, it seems a little bit like this.
	And I'm like, okay, well, tell me, if it is ambiguous, that's fine.
	Then tell me what part is not like this, right?
	And they're like, oh, yeah, okay, well, fine.
	It's not like this. So, that's just part of defogging us, right?
	Because it certainly is true that assholes are certain.
	I mean, that's one of the definitions of being a jerk, is that you're certain without good reason.
	But the fact that assholes are certain and wrong doesn't mean that philosophers cannot be even more certain because we're right and we've reasoned from first principles, right?
	Yeah, I think the way to put that into practice would just be to ask myself.
	If I say, if X seems this way, then I should also be asking myself, well, how does it not seem that way?
	You know, I should be asking that too.
	So I can kind of help myself defog a bit.
	Or, defog! You're gonna need a pretty strong wind from Kansas coming through that, baby.
	No, I understand. It takes a little bit of discipline to sort of look into that, right?
	But whenever you feel tentative, just say, well, I don't want to be unjustly certain, but let me reason through it so it's not just the default position of self-fogging or fogging others, right?
	And, of course, you can practice this with your girlfriend and talk to her about this, and she might find it useful.
	Because I'm sure she's got the same complaints about you, right?
	That he's like Casper sometimes, right?
	Yeah. On certain subjects, certainly.
	Although it's not Casper the Friendly Ghost, and a little bit it's Casper the Fuck You Ghost, right?
	But that's okay. I mean, that's part of what fucking is all about.
	I gotta be aware of that if I want to change it.
	I would say, yeah. Well, thanks.
	I do appreciate you bringing that up.
	I mean, that was, I think, a very important topic.
	And I guess it's important to mention to people why it is that I'm doing what I'm doing.
	I think everybody knows that I can't.
	I can tear into people if necessary, so if I'm not doing it, right or wrong, I do have a sort of idea or reason as to why, and we shall see if it works.
	Thank you so much. Is it okay if we move on to if anybody else has a question?
	Oh, I'm on. Hello?
	Okay. I had just a general question about the theory of the Miko system.
	Yes. Um...
	Well, if I understand it correctly, you know, these parts of us that seem kind of troublesome at times developed to protect us at times.
	And when I listen to some of the listener conversations where you're role-playing with how you would go about having these conversations with yourself, I can do the sort of thing where you're empirically debating about You know, whatever. But then you get to a point where you're like, well, I understand that, you know, in the past you developed to, you know, help me with this, or you're getting revenge on me for this.
	And that's sort of the part that I just, I'm really having trouble with because I don't always, like, understand why that certain part of me exists.
	Do you have, sorry to interrupt, do you have access to probably, I would say, maybe half a kilo of powdered lithium?
	Just kidding. Because there's two ways we can go here, right?
	So, just pointing out. If you don't have access, and it probably would be a good half a keg of lithium, at least that's what worked for me for about 20 minutes.
	If we don't have access to the med bombs, then we can take another approach.
	Can you tell me what in particular you're talking about?
	I mean, what aspects of yourself or what conversations you've been having?
	Is there any reason why it's volumes now?
	I'm sorry. Let's just say things like the greedy parts or the vain parts or things like that.
	I just don't understand what good they ever served.
	Or could ever serve, right?
	Okay, so can you tell me a little bit your call with the greedy part or the vain part?
	It's fine. If you could just tell me a little bit more about these aspects of yourself and what you've been conversing with them about.
	Well... Sort of like...
	When I'm...
	Sorry, is that where we're going?
	What? Are we talking to the hesitant part of you now?
	Is that where we're going? How many people are in the room?
	Sorry, go on. Well, for instance, the part of me that sort of starts to self-abuse about things like You know, fitness or things that just really aren't that important, like looks or something.
	Looks or something? Looks, right?
	Yes. Are you related to Sean, just out of curiosity?
	Do you guys have a similar passport or something like that?
	Okay, so let's just talk about looks.
	And to me, this is a great topic, if you don't mind, because Lord knows we all see these airbrushed wonderbodies staring down from the magazine racks in the drugstores, right?
	And every time...
	I've been thinking for a while of doing a podcast on women's magazines called, really, are you guys retarded?
	But I haven't. I wouldn't want to be necessarily alienating the fantastic new segment of female listeners.
	But you can see those magazines, and it's all about, you know...
	It's basically about vagina management as far as I can see.
	You know, how can I be attractive?
	What can I do? Who should I have children with?
	How should I mix work and family? I mean, this seems to be just a massive management exercise.
	And of course, there's very little of any intellectual value in there, right?
	I mean, of any kind, even psychological.
	The endless ads for external makeup and so on and clothes and shoes and all this sort of nonsense.
	So I think that we can look at vanity.
	And this is from a male perspective.
	This occurs as well.
	It's not like Men's Health is a Mensa magazine.
	But just talking about the female side, there is a challenge in women around vanity or around physical appearance.
	Yes.
	Excellent. So tell me about your relationship to that, if you would not mind.
	Well, it's just...
	It's really frustrating because I understand that it's just...
	It's not that important proportionally to the amount of time that I think about it, where I'm just...
	I'm sort of worried about self-abuse about things that I'm eating or something like that.
	And it's just frustrating because I realize just how stupid it is, you know?
	And is it around things that you can or have some control over, such as weight or body image issues or exercise, as you say?
	Not that I'm saying you have any problem with weight.
	I don't think you do for what it's worth.
	But is it around things that you can control?
	Or is it like, I don't know, if only my cheekbones were higher or something like that?
	Or if I were taller or whatever.
	I don't know what it might be.
	Is it stuff that you feel that you mostly have some control over?
	And you worry about that control?
	Or is it kind of a sigh, I wish I had X, Y, and Z, which there's no real way to control?
	It used to be more about things I couldn't control, but now it seems to be more about things that I can control.
	Right, right. Well, I know that Christina's solution is to shift the control to controlling me, and that seems to have worked for her.
	The puppet mistress, as she is known around the household.
	And that seems to have given her a fair amount of relief.
	And, of course, me. I don't have to control anything anymore either.
	But in case that's not a viable option.
	So it's shifted more towards things like weight or body image or exercise, that kind of stuff.
	Yeah. Yeah. And what percentage of the day would you say you think about these things or they cross your mind?
	I mean, the waking day.
	Never won't count dreams. Um...
	Maybe...
	Like...
	Five or ten percent.
	Right. And that's actually, I think, below the average for women as a whole, right?
	So you're not doing too badly from that standpoint.
	I mean, I certainly know that at least twice a day I will check and see if I've gained any weight.
	I don't know if I could have eaten enough to gain weight between breakfast and dinner, but still, just in case, right?
	I mean, is my muffin spreading?
	Am I raisin bran? Am I low-fat cranberry?
	I need to check, right?
	So it's just something that happens, right?
	And it's probably been about 12 years since I haven't sucked my belly in.
	So these are things that are not just unique to women, so I certainly do understand all of that.
	But you have a debate around this aspect around vanity.
	And do you feel that if you did everything that you wanted to do or you could fantasize doing, do you believe that you would be satisfied?
	Like if you did eat exactly what you felt was the best thing and if you went to the gym exactly the right amount, do you feel that that would be satisfying for you?
	I really don't know.
	So it's not a particularly goal-oriented activity, right?
	That's just something to note, right?
	Right. Okay, okay, that's good.
	And for you, I think it would be reasonable if we can say that it's not a good idea to have no concern for your appearance, right?
	Right. I mean, going out with, you know, a glad bag and a captain's hat to go to work, you know, might be efficient, right?
	I don't know, spray on cheese or whatever, right?
	I mean, it might be efficient, but it's not particularly productive, right?
	Right. And, of course, around appearance, there are certain things like, you know, showering and bathing and so on, brushing your teeth.
	That's partly hygiene and partly appearance, right?
	So, I don't think that we want to get down to 0% here, right?
	Right. You don't want to pull a Howard Hughes and end up clattering around like a tree slop with 14-inch toenails, right?
	I mean, we don't want to live on that planet, right?
	Right. Okay, so we're looking for a kind of balance here, right?
	Clearly, you feel that you are thinking too much about vanity or physical appearance or whatever, but the solution is not to banish all those thoughts from your mind, right?
	Right. Can you tell me a little bit about...
	The history of appearance in your family, or I guess particularly from your mother.
	What's your mother's relationship to appearance?
	I know that she is just very self-critical about her weight.
	I mean, that's all I can think of at the moment.
	And is she overweight? Yeah.
	I mean, are we talking Dr.
	Phil with a crane, or just a little bit?
	What would you say, Rich?
	Like, she's...
	Yeah, I'd say like a normal, overweight, middle-aged woman.
	So, like, 30 pounds?
	Maybe 40, 50 pounds overweight.
	40 or 50 pounds overweight.
	Okay, so she would be classified, if I understand this rightly, unless she's very tall.
	She would fall into the sort of obese category on the body mass index, right?
	Yeah. Okay, so she's not just a little chunky.
	She's not just a little heavy. She's like obese, right?
	Not morbidly obese.
	I know she can fit through doors and stuff, but she's obese.
	Right, right, right.
	Okay, okay. And what do you think the purpose of your mother's fretting about weight while continuing to do those activities that keep her weight up?
	up?
	What do you think the purpose is of fretting about something that she has no intention of actually changing?
	Um I don't know I bet you do. Yeah.
	I don't know why people still say this to me, but they do, and I think it's kind of cute.
	Sorry, go on. But do you mean like fretting about it to herself or to other people?
	Well, I bet you that fretting about it to herself is far more than fretting about it to other people, right?
	So either. It doesn't matter, right?
	But why does she fret about it?
	Because, I mean, unless you're like just one of the tiny, tiny percentage of people with some weird glandular issues, weight is just a lifestyle choice, right?
	Yeah. And you can do things.
	And look, I'm not like, you know, nobody's going to be scrubbing their laundry on my stomach anytime soon, but I have maintained the same weight with a few pound variation up and down since I was about 20.
	And I mean, I've done that through a fairly sort of conscious attempt to just give up stuff along the way, right?
	I don't eat chips, I don't eat chocolate, I don't eat candy anymore.
	And that kind of stuff, you switch to skim milk and I don't drink pop anymore.
	I drink club soda with a little bit of orange juice.
	You just have to wind things down as far as your caloric intake goes.
	Yeah, your metabolism slows down 10% per decade after 30, and no matter what you do, you've got to up your expenditure 10%, or you've got to cut your food intake by 10% per decade, or you're just going to gain about a pound or two pounds a year, which doesn't sound like much, but it adds up pretty quickly.
	So, I mean, your mother certainly has the information, and there's a bunch of choices that she could make.
	So, unless, again, she's glandular, she's just choosing to be fat, right, and choosing to complain about it, right?
	Right. And that doesn't mean that it's easy to quit, or I'm not trying to trivialize it and just saying, you know, hey, well, stop, because, I mean, food for women in particular is a very, very complex subject, which I'm barely competent to speak about at any depth.
	But what is the purpose for your mother of being overweight and complaining about it?
	I...
	Sorry.
	Anyway, um...
	I'd say to...
	I mean, this doesn't sound like the answer, but to have something to complain about.
	Well, I'm sure there's something to do with that.
	What about your parents' sex life?
	Sorry. I'm sorry, but this is an important thing, right?
	I mean, this is a poor issue when it comes to women and weight, right?
	Oh, right. Do you think that they still have sex?
	No. Right, okay.
	So that's one aspect, right?
	Because weight gain among women is often a kind of keep that thing away from me kind of thing, right?
	Right. So that would be one aspect of it, to make themselves unattractive, right?
	Yeah. So that's one of the secondary gains to being overweight, right?
	Yeah. And there's things like, well, people expect less of you, that you also, if you are addicted to shame, if shame is your Simon the Boxer thing, then being overweight gives you, dare I say, ample opportunities to experience shame, right? When you try to fit into clothes, when you go clothes shopping, when you go to the mall, if you're ever invited to the beach.
	I mean, there's endless opportunities to milk the old shame cow if you are overweight, right?
	Right. And do you think any of that is pertinent or relevant to your mom?
	As far as her being addicted to shame, I do know some things about her history that would have created that.
	Like you being a bad daughter or not?
	Disobedient? Oh, I understand.
	Is Rich crying? Do you need to put him on?
	Just kidding. Disobedient girlfriend!
	No, I'm sorry. I don't need to project all of my issues onto everybody else.
	I'm sorry. I'm getting back in the box.
	I have a little thing, like a little box, a little face mark that's sort of like that thing in that Tarantino movie in Pulp Fiction.
	Anyway, we don't have to go into that right now.
	Actually, I do, but you do.
	So there's a shame thing for her, a shame addiction.
	There's intimacy avoidance with regards to the husband and so on.
	So there's a lot of dense psychological issues that are bound up in not feeling good enough or being addicted to negative emotions, right?
	Right. And I'm hesitant to ask this, so just let me know whether this is a valid question or not.
	To what degree do you think that that stuff also affects you in terms of shame stuff, right?
	Because worrying about weight, again, it has some validity.
	I mean, I can't for the life of me imagine how it is that people end up 50 pounds overweight.
	Like, I just can't... Like, don't you notice that you can't see your feet anymore?
	Like, don't you just... I mean, from a relatively slender position.
	I had a friend once.
	He married his wife. His wife was like a buck ten, like 110 pounds or whatever.
	And she ended up being over 200 pounds within like eight years of starting the marriage.
	And to me, that's just messed up, right?
	I mean, don't you notice that you just are like not who you were or more than who you were?
	Doesn't the husband notice? You know, honey, I'm going to have to stage an intervention between you and the boss at Double Glazed, right?
	I mean, To me, there's a whole process that goes towards becoming obese that requires a fair amount of fear in the environment, right?
	Because the reason that husbands don't intervene if their husbands start to gain weight is because they're afraid, right?
	Right. So, is your dad afraid of your mom?
	Um... I don't say in general he's afraid of her, but in that area, yeah, I'd say he is.
	Ah, interesting. We have an honorary Swiss passport for you.
	But you know why I said that, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Why? Because...
	I'm sorry.
	Um... Is he miming the webcam on?
	Because that was a foggy answer.
	Yeah, and because you can't just be afraid of somebody you claim to love in a particular area, right?
	Right. Right?
	It's like, I'm only afraid of Christina when she actively strangles me in my sleep every other time.
	Although she always claims to be dreaming.
	So... Right.
	But if he's afraid of her in this area, then he's afraid of her, right?
	Right. We can never be less afraid than our most afraid moments with our partner, right?
	In general. Right.
	So, there's a lot of passive aggression in here as well, right?
	Yeah. Because she's...
	Not that you would, but if you were to sit down and say to her, Mom, I'm going to sit down here and we're going to work out this weight issue.
	And if this means you've got to go to a fat farm for two months and we've got to completely revamp everything, you're going to deal with this.
	Because it's bad for your health, it's bad for your joints, it's bad for your heart, it's bad for the conjugal naughtiness with Dad, it's bad for all of that kind of stuff, right?
	And you were to just sort of stand firm on that kind of thing, what would happen?
	She would probably break down in tears.
	Yeah, that may be the first step.
	And then what? And then she'd get pissed at me.
	She sure would, right?
	She sure would.
	Because to be overweight is to put people who care about you in an impossible situation, right?
	It's like having any kind of dangerous habit, whether it's eating or smoking or drunk driving or whatever.
	It puts people around you in an impossible situation because you're broadcasting.
	Your unhappiness and your self-alienation and your shame addiction and all of these terrible, terrible things, right?
	And of course, the cycle of things like insomnia, chronic pain, depression and too much weight.
	These are all kind of tightly wrapped in a lot of people, right?
	So you're broadcasting all of this stuff to everyone around you, but the moment they try to intervene, you make them suffer, right?
	Right. So there's a lot of dysfunction wrapped up in that, right?
	I mean, my mom, of course, well, not of course, but my mom was fetishistically attached to her own slenderness, and my brother is very concerned about this.
	Aspect of things as well.
	And my mother, I mean, the vanity was quite considerable, right?
	I mean, she actually had a nose job, I guess about 20 years ago, maybe.
	Because, you know, she thought, well, gee, why didn't I ever get remarried?
	I know. It's not because I'm an evil psycho bitch.
	It's because my nose is too big, right?
	So, the solution, right?
	It didn't seem to work.
	And I could see my mother would continually...
	She'd pass by a mirror on the street.
	Not a mirror, sorry. A sharp window, you know, that if it's sunny, you can see yourself reflected.
	And literally, like, it was obsessive.
	Every single time, she would pass...
	One of these shop windows, she would check herself out.
	It was like OCD, right?
	She had to touch every sidewalk crack with her toe or something.
	It's like she could not. It's like, I wonder if I've gained weight over the past three steps.
	It literally was that much, right?
	And so I'm happy to get it down to twice a day.
	Did somebody inject fat into my frontal lobes over lunch if I napped?
	I mean, I'm happy to get it down to twice a day.
	That, to me, is considerable progress.
	Plus, of course, I'm next to the calendar wife here, so I've got to stay late.
	That's right. So this stuff is going to have some effect on you and the degree to which you think about these things, right?
	It's just an infection that passes from generation to generation.
	Right. Now, isn't it great that we've been talking for like 20 minutes or half an hour, got no solutions whatsoever?
	Do you think that's an accident? Trying to come up with solutions.
	Well, I mean, the only thing that I can suggest, it's the only thing that's worked for me, if this helps at all, right, is that the vanity part of you was essential to your survival as a child.
	I guarantee you. And do you know why?
	No. How about you?
	Any of you? Anybody?
	Bueller? Anybody?
	You in the back with your hands up.
	The one who's made up like RuPaul.
	Anyone? Well, okay.
	Did your mom take you to church?
	Were you dressed in the frilly smocks and so on?
	All the other things that we had in common?
	Yes. Okay, so give me an example of when your mom would dress you up in the patent leathers and frilly smocks and curly cues in your hair and all that kind of stuff.
	An example? Like church?
	Church? Okay, so you would be dressed to the nines to church, right?
	Yeah. Yeah. Okay, and let's say that you just didn't want to do that, that you said, look, Jesus walked around in a smock, right?
	Jesus didn't even have a belt.
	I don't even think he had boxers on, right?
	Right, and I did do something like that.
	Right, so you said, look, I mean, if Christ came to this church, he wouldn't be let in.
	Like, what kind of sense is that?
	And that's a line from Christina, right?
	Right. And this, of course, when she said that she had an admiration...
	For that kind of slovenliness, man, I knew I had to marry her.
	So if you just said, no, I'm not going to be a vanity piece.
	I want you to take my clothes, I want you to sell them, and I want you to give the money to the poor, just like Buddy Jesus says, right?
	What would have happened? Well, I mean, that actually kind of did happen, and I said, like, I think what I said was, like, if, you know, God loves the poor, why are we coming to church looking really rich?
	And I, um, I think I got, it was like when I was around ten or so, I just wanted to come to church in jeans, and I think I did get away with it, but it was, like, very disapproving sort of thing.
	Right. So you did get away with it, right?
	Mm-hmm. And what happened for you then?
	Because that's a victory of sorts, right?
	Yeah. And what happened then for you in your teens, right?
	Because if you went through this thing where it's like, appearance doesn't really matter, did you go through any period where it did begin to matter more when you were a teenager?
	Oh, yeah. Yeah.
	So what happened there?
	Did Jesus abandon you?
	What... Well, I didn't believe in God at that point, but...
	Sorry, go on. We didn't go to church when I was a teenager or anything, but...
	Yeah, when I was a teenager, we...
	I... It was...
	Mostly about, you know...
	Trying to get dates, I guess.
	Yeah. Right.
	That mostly has to do with nakedness.
	I don't know what these magazines are all about.
	But anyway, we can do that another time, perhaps.
	So, in terms of sexual attractiveness, it then became, of course, very important for you when you were a teenager to attract the dudes.
	And so then the physical vanity became more important, right?
	Right. Now, again, I think being attractive is nothing wrong with it.
	Again, I'm trying to find the sort of mean here, right?
	The Aristotelian mean, the sort of balance thing, right?
	But clearly, if we focus on the externalities to the point where it costs us internally...
	Then that becomes an issue, right?
	I mean, that becomes sort of a problem.
	If we focus on only the internals to the point where we're sort of sitting in our own pigpen filth, that is not particularly productive.
	But at the same time, if we focus only on the externals and we ignore our soul, so to speak, then that becomes sort of a problem too, right?
	Right. So why is it that you were trying to attract these shallow guys?
	You didn't date any geeks, right?
	Huh? You didn't date any geeks, right?
	Oh, all I dated were geeks.
	Then why did you need to look good?
	Look, women dated only geeks, the magazine, the fashion industry would be completely...
	For geeks, it's like a pulse, right?
	I mean, that's the requirement, right?
	A pulse and the willingness to look through the fiend folio on a Saturday night.
	That's all that they're looking for, right?
	So how is it that you need all of this vampiness to get the geeks?
	I don't understand. Um, I don't either.
	Um... I really, I mean, I just...
	I just never, ever got asked out, so it was just like, I guess, just anything sort of thing going on.
	And would you have considered yourself a feminist as a teenager?
	No. No.
	No? Okay. And why do you think you didn't get asked out?
	I would think that it came from my insecurity, but...
	And I'm sorry, I don't understand, because you said you dated only geeks, but you didn't get asked out.
	So did you ask the geeks out?
	Yes. Ah, okay, okay.
	And did they say no to you unless you dress better?
	No. Okay, so you see there's some missing pieces here, right?
	Yeah. Was it that you were trying to attract people other than geeks, but settle for geeks?
	No. And there's nothing wrong with this man.
	I wish you'd gone to my high school when I was your age, but that's a different matter.
	But was it that you wanted...
	Because you didn't need that for the geeks, right?
	I guess I'm not really with you there, because I just thought that that's all any guy wanted.
	I mean, at the time.
	That's the extent. Yeah.
	So you felt that men, or dare we call them moys, because they're so good, right?
	Ben? No, that's confusing.
	So you feel that the moys would not have been interested in you because of your intelligence or your wit or your, you know, education or your curiosity or any of those kind of stuff, or your willingness to say the sentence, wow, those are some beautifully painted figurines.
	Right. So at this point in your life, you didn't have a sense of any value that you brought other than flesh and looks, right?
	Well, I mean, I thought I had value in other areas.
	I just didn't think that any of that was what they were interested in.
	So, you felt that that was part of the value that you had with female friendships or relationships?
	I didn't really have female friendships or relationships.
	Okay. So, were there any relationships where you felt that your value, other than the willingness to go out with geeks, which, again, I'm not saying that's a non-value, but were there any relationship where your inner beauty was something that you could Your inner beauty was part of.
	No, I don't think so.
	Okay, take a moment, because we can't go through Falkland.
	Right. I'm sorry.
	No, no problem. Yeah, there just wasn't anything like that.
	I mean, I did have a few friendships where it was kind of based on a sense of humor, but that was about it.
	So you could make people laugh and that was a value, right?
	Right. Okay, okay.
	Alright. So your value to other people was, to the Muiz, was based on your looks, right?
	And your perception then of these men, boys, Would not have been very positive then, right?
	Right. Well, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but tell me, I mean, that's what seemed to me to make sense, right?
	Yeah. So, you wanted the desire of boys that you did not respect, right?
	Yes, that is true.
	So, can you step me through that?
	Because that... I mean, it's not like I've never been there, but I just want to make sure I understand it from where you're coming from.
	Well, it was kind of like, okay, if guys are interested in me, then I'll have value.
	The you being your body and looks, right?
	Yeah. Not the you that we would understand, right?
	Right. Right, like, if I have a car, girls will like me.
	But of course, they like the car, right?
	Yes. Okay, okay.
	And I'm assuming that that has changed to some degree since then, right?
	Oh, yeah. Because you're like, man, if some...
	If a bald guy can get happily married, then that's another road to go, right?
	Just kidding. And giving me a wig.
	So that has changed to some degree for you, right?
	I mean, you wouldn't say that your relationship with your boyfriend is entirely your looks and your body, right?
	Oh, not at all.
	Not at all? I'm just kidding.
	Keep him off the line. Well, I wouldn't say that at all.
	No, but sure, okay.
	So, at what point did that begin to change for you, and why?
	I'd say toward the very end of high school, when I got into objectivism, and I started to get into philosophy, and I'm...
	I just went through a really important time of personal growth then.
	Right, so you were like, hey, where'd the smart geeks be at?
	You're the cave of objectivism, do not go alone.
	Have somebody tie a rope to you, you may be chewed.
	Okay, so then you began to have a more sort of intellectual connection to the men?
	Yes. And did that have any effect upon the physical side of things for you in terms of physical vanity?
	Yeah, I... Yeah, it's just...
	I still had it to some degree, for sure, but it really just became sort of the...
	one of the real unimportant secondary things.
	Got it. Okay, I think I know what the answer is as to how your vanity helped you.
	If you don't mind, I think we can close off the crime scene now.
	We've dusted and I think we're good to go.
	Do you mind if we take it for a spin?
	Sure. Okay.
	If you had said, as a teenager, that I am not going to have any relationships that aren't based upon my intrinsic value, my thoughts, my emotions, my feelings, my deepest sense of who I am, what would have happened to your family relationships?
	They couldn't have existed.
	They could not have existed.
	So, your vanity was to keep you in the orbit of your family at a time when you were not able to be independent.
	Right. Hey, this is one of your rights that I don't feel quite convinced of.
	Yeah, no, neither do I. Well, that was a very polite write.
	I do appreciate that. It's like...
	Um...
	I can see that, logically.
	Like... Logically, it just makes sense.
	But I just didn't feel it for some reason.
	Right. Right.
	Do you have a pen? I'm gonna try saying it again.
	No, I'm just kidding. Um...
	Um... You shallowed yourself out, right, from 10 to what, I guess 17 or 18?
	I'd say 16.
	Okay, so for 10 to 16, right?
	So for like six years, you kind of bottomed out a little shallow there, right?
	Uh-huh. And what was your relationship with your family like in this time period?
	Pretty terrible. Right.
	Right. So you had people who were rejecting you for who you were, right?
	During this time period.
	Right. So...
	Right. Go on.
	I don't want to interrupt you on that thought.
	That... Yeah, that makes sense, because...
	If I had put that together to say...
	If, yeah, if I only accept relationships of people who accept me as a person, I would have...
	I hadn't really seen that.
	It would have become conscious to me that they didn't accept me as a person at all.
	Right. Right.
	Right. So you had to avoid that knowledge, right?
	So you had to shallow out your criteria for relationships just in order to continue to have food and roof over your head, right?
	Right. And then when you became old enough to become a little bit more independent, what happened?
	I was able to not avoid that anymore, I guess.
	Yeah, as far as I understand it from your bio, you joined the rap band called Fuck The Mascara, right?
	Yes. Yes?
	Yeah, I guess so. See, that wasn't convincing either.
	I was hoping you were going to break it up.
	Well, it's not like I went completely the other way.
	I just... Yeah, you didn't go all primate.
	I mean, I understand that, right?
	But you deepened your criteria for the value of relationships, right?
	Yes, yes. So your vanity navigated you through, what you called your vanity, navigated you through a very difficult and dangerous part of your life, right?
	Yeah, that's true. And the reason that we need to integrate these parts which we find distasteful, and I don't know if you remember me talking to our Oreo nihilist, this fellow from last, I think last Sunday and the week before, that he needs to be able to see nihilists in order to be safe.
	You need to be able to see vain people in order to be safe, right?
	Right. In order to see them coming, in order to avoid them, in order to get their number, right?
	Now, this vain part of you saw the vanity and shallowness of your parents when you weren't even conscious of it, right?
	Yes. And altered your behavior accordingly.
	Yes. And then it magnificently and bravely gave up its grip upon your makeup, so to speak, when you could be different, you could be deeper, right?
	Yes. So that's pretty good, right?
	I mean, you basically had Barbie as a bodyguard.
	Yeah, I guess so. I never would have thought to look at it that way.
	Well, part of you does understand that completely, right?
	Yeah. And that's what I mean when I say that we have to respect these aspects of ourselves that arose to help us, right?
	I mean, we don't just sort of suddenly start becoming self-destructive, right?
	And the amazing thing is how, I mean, this is part of the, to me, this deep and divine, dare I say, quasi-divine kind of unconscious knowledge that we have, which is like, oh crap, right?
	I am becoming deeper because I'm getting into my tweens and teens and so on, so I can't go there.
	I know that I can't go there, so I have to go the opposite and be shallow and only focused on appearance, because if I start to go deeper...
	I'm going to detonate the family, right?
	And then that part of you says, okay, I think I sniffed the fact that we're now old enough to be somewhat independent, so I can ease back on that and we can start to pursue deeper relationships, right?
	And it's amazing. Yeah.
	And that's what I mean when I say, like, the ecosystem is an astounding, astounding ability or power.
	That's why I say we're all geniuses and we're all philosophers, right?
	I mean, it's hard to even understand that in hindsight, but you did it instinctively at the time, right?
	Yeah. That is the power and the magnificence of the human mind.
	In my opinion, this is the most amazing aspect that we have.
	That we protect ourselves in incredibly sophisticated ways at the age of ten, at the age of five, at the age of two.
	It's just astounding.
	Yeah. So, um...
	Sorry, you were going to say?
	And just, I mean, so I understand, like, the way that you would go about figuring out how a part of you developed is to first, I mean, start from very early history and just...
	I mean, what are the best sort of questions to ask?
	Um... Well, I mean, I would sort of say myself, like if I have a thought that is occurring, recurring to me, that I would sort of consider negative, right?
	Then what I would do is I would say, why is this here?
	You know, where is this coming from?
	Where did this start? You know, was there a time in my life before this happened?
	Did it peak at any point?
	Has it diminished since?
	And I try to engage myself in conversation.
	I mean, again, this is part of the whole crazy ass counterintuitive ecosystem thing.
	But if I can't sort of find the thought behind it, then I will engage it as if it is an actual person, right?
	And say, okay, what's going on?
	What am I not listening to in myself that you need to keep coming back and haunting me, right?
	And of course, we know this, that there's the thing called conscience, and there's also all these myths about the ghosts that haunt us until we listen to them, right?
	That the ghosts that can only rest in peace when their secrets have been told, and so on.
	We know this is all over the place in human mythology, and I think because it represents a very real psychological phenomenon, that aspects of ourselves that are defenses, you could say, are aspects of ourselves that arise out of stress or trauma We don't reintegrate those.
	You know, we never call the soldiers back inside the city, and so they kind of turn on us, so to speak.
	But they want to rejoin, they want to be civilians, and they want to lay down their arms, but we have to respect them for what they did.
	And we have to not keep pushing them away, right?
	Because if this aspect of yourself, right, this Barbie character or whatever, if this aspect of yourself arose out of you being rejected, you rejecting this character is only going to make it worse, right?
	Right. So you have to do the opposite of what provoked it in order to integrate that aspect of yourself.
	Right. So if this character arose because your parents were treating you and opposing your depth and opposing your intelligence for obvious reasons, they don't want your intelligence the same way that the counterfeiter doesn't want the counterfeit detection machine.
	If this character arose out of rejection of you because you were deep, then the opposite of that is to accept the depth of your shallowness, which of course is a completely counterintuitive thing, but I think is very reasonable in the framework that we're talking about here.
	Right. Yeah, that helps, certainly.
	Good. Well, thank you.
	That was a challenge.
	Girly World is... I normally don't go in alone, so I appreciate that.
	We were very gentle. Okay, well, was there anything else you wanted to talk about with that?
	Oh, no. That's it.
	Okay, well, thank you very much.
	I appreciate your patience. It took a little while, but that's unfamiliar estrogen territory for me, so I try to do my best.
	These things that I couldn't quite understand.
	So thank you very much.
	I appreciate it. Thanks so much, everybody, for dropping by this fabulous Sunday, sometime in March.
	That is a little too much.
	March the 24th.
	And I look forward to your donations.
	Drop by pickupsandbooks, throw us some cash, sign up for your subscriptions, and check out the premium podcasts, of which there are now, I believe, well over 100.

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