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July 9, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:20:45
1104 Humor as Defense (a conference)

When laughter is not laughter...

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Time Text
Alright, so...
Yeah, I wanted to, I guess, have a little chat.
Oh, we got an echo.
If you could put your headphones in. And if you're not talking, if you could mute yourself, please.
That would be great. How do I mute myself?
There's the button on the bottom left by the pause.
The little microphone with a slash through it.
Thank you. And...
So...
There was somebody who was in the chat room earlier tonight.
We shall give him the famous name, Bob.
And he was talking about...
He was just misfiring on all cylinders, accusing us of promoting hatred towards people.
I didn't understand any of his arguments, but he was pretty broken up and propagandized and so on.
But not so propagandized that...
He didn't know exactly what topics to avoid the violence of the taxation.
The violence of taxation and so on.
So I missed a bunch of it.
And he was, you know, talking about, oh, you pay your fair share of taxes and Medicare is to give people dignity in their old life or whatever and so on.
And I guess when I came back a little bit later, everybody said that they'd been laughing at this fellow or they found him funny and so on.
And that just didn't seem...
I don't know.
It didn't seem quite believable, if that makes sense.
And I mean, that could just be me or whatever.
But for the people who were in that call, if you could just sort of let me know what...
what you experienced, if that was your feeling, because there was something about that that didn't seem quite right, if that makes any sense.
Okay.
Is that because people don't have mics or they don't want to talk?
Yeah.
I didn't see it.
Phil. Oh, hi, Phil.
I joined very late, and I was actually the fellow who said that I thought it was kind of funny.
Now, I walked into the room very late, and I just seen him sort of writing in all caps all these things and all these sort of accusations about what people at Freedomain were standing for, I guess, or whatever he thought it was.
I came in very late and I just thought it was sort of funny that he was, like, sort of yelling at everybody.
So I came in all caps.
And I guess I said, you know, that seemed kind of funny because I was kind of chuckling.
And then you said to me, well, I think you said derisive laughter is just a veiled or something like that.
It's a self-defense.
And I was just really curious about that because I had never thought of it that way.
I just sort of thought of him as kind of a, you know, a guy who...
Like a lot of people, just really didn't see all the propaganda that is in his life.
And I sort of thought of it as somebody I couldn't help, so why not just laugh about it?
I was just curious what you thought of that, because it's surprising that you said that.
Yeah, I wasn't trying to speak particularly to you, but there was a bunch of people who said, you know, oh, I'm eating popcorn watching this, and I'm just reading some of this stuff.
It's fun, and, you know, haha, that's so funny, and laugh out loud, I found it fun.
Yes, that was so entertaining while it lasted, somebody else said, and so on.
And it just seemed...
And what I said was, derisive laughter is a false self-defense, and I sort of believe that.
Because, I mean, this guy is, we don't know anything about him or whatever, but he wasn't funny like he was making jokes, right?
I mean, that much was clear.
He certainly wasn't witty or anything like that.
So, it was sort of like watching somebody who doesn't know that he's disabled attempt to do A sort of hurdle jump or something like that, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, I see what you mean.
Obviously he's not going to go from being a complete statist to being an anarchist in one city.
That sort of makes sense, yeah.
Right, and since the response as a whole seemed to be, isn't it funny that somebody's mind is so messed up?
To me, I sort of view it in a similar way as I would view somebody who is going through some sort of mental kind of epilepsy.
I mean, sorry, again, if you're not speaking, if you could mute your mic just on the bottom left of Skype, I'd appreciate that.
I'm just getting some breathing. But...
When someone comes in and they're full of propaganda and they're volatile and they are aggressive, then what I see...
I mean, we see the tip of the snowflake on the top of the iceberg, which is this fellow coming in to spew all this propaganda.
And I don't even mind people who...
View propaganda.
Sorry, I don't even mind people who spew propaganda.
What I do mind is if they simply cannot think at all.
I mean, there are people who've been propagandized who are actually quite agile thinkers and can accept and talk about basic realities.
I mean, I'm thinking sort of the people who are more on the sort of Democrat or lefty side who are more critical of U.S. foreign policy or militarism or whatever.
Those people can think, even if they're propagandized, but this guy was not even in that category.
He was just reading off a bunch of government brochures or something, and The only way that you could tell if his brain was working was based on the topics that he was avoiding.
And the way that I view that is somebody, I sort of see this history stretching behind.
And I see a beautiful mind that we're all born with, that we all possess as our birthright, that is, you know, whacked and mutilated by a variety of statist, religious, and more particularly familial propaganda.
And that doesn't mean that I don't extend myself and love to these people or anything like that, because life is short and you can only spend a certain amount of time.
But if we can't save a patient, I don't know that it's funny, if that makes sense.
If I could jump in here real quick.
Sure. Sorry, just before you do, and I'm sorry to interrupt you, this is not meant as any kind of criticism or anything.
I'm certainly hoping, I don't want to come across as a finger-wagging chastiser.
I just, to me, it's kind of heartbreaking to see these kinds of, and it is irritating and this and that, but I don't want people to sort of say, well, I didn't mean that it was really, and I'm not trying to sort of second-guess anybody's response, but it's not a critical thing of mine.
I just, I mean, maybe I'm missing something I'm perfectly open to.
Maybe I'm taking it too seriously or whatever, but I'm sorry, please go ahead.
Yeah, I forgot who I was talking with earlier.
Forgive me if you're on the call, I forgot your name, the British fellow.
But anyway, I just thought to give him the benefit of the doubt, he didn't have his full attention on the chat window, I don't think.
And he probably wasn't, I don't know, just passively looking at the window, maybe?
I don't know. I'm sorry, who are we talking about?
The, uh, sorry, the guy, the subject of the conversation, the status guy who came in and was spouting whatever.
Okay. But, um, like, there were so many gaps between his messages every now and then, like, when we would ask a question, he'd He wouldn't respond every now and then.
He'd respond to something that was asked way earlier or whatever.
I just don't think his full attention was on it.
Just to...
Okay. And why...
I'm sorry, I'm not sure what I see the relevance of that as.
Well, I'm just saying like if...
Like, the reason we couldn't, may not have, like, been able to debate with him or argue very well, like, the reason he may have came off as kind of a troll or whatever was because he wasn't paying attention, I guess?
Oh no, he was a troll.
I mean, or it was trollish what he was saying.
And of course, even if we accept your premise that he was debating about war and ethics and the salvation of the poor with a group of people that he said he hoped were going to be sort of positive and intelligent… If he was debating such very serious topics while being distracted by something else on his computer, that is also just an example of a brain that is not particularly in tip-top shape, you could say, right?
Yeah, that makes sense.
Like, I mean, you don't want the surgeon playing with the PlayStation at the same time, right?
Yeah. That would indicate a problem in terms of prioritization, you could say.
Unless he's on the final boss, you know.
Right, well, yeah, then of course.
But then you wouldn't distract yourself by coming in to talk about ethics and virtue, right?
Or I just wouldn't have started the surgery.
Right, right.
Sorry, somebody else was going to say something?
Steph, I was just thinking, I don't know if that's why I was laughing.
I don't think I was laughing at him.
Now that I look back at it, and I think about what was actually causing the amusement for me, Because obviously this guy, you know, I agree with your metaphor.
It would be like, you know, a person in the wheelchair trying to jump over a hurdle.
You know, you obviously wouldn't laugh at that.
Wouldn't laugh at that person, you know, failing to do that.
But for me, I think it was more just that, you know, I'm relatively new to FDR in terms of some of the people who are, I'm sure, on this call.
You know, I've only been listening, I guess, for...
About like four or five months now.
I know some people have been involved for like a couple years, I guess.
Especially you. So, I guess for me, I was sort of laughing in amusement and happiness that I've been able to escape what this guy is going through.
You know, I don't know if I was amused as much as just really happy.
I was like, all right, well, this is really a shame for this guy.
You know, that he's been...
You know, such a state where he can't really see how, you know, happy his life could be, but at the same time, for me, I've gotten so much happier over the past few months, and, you know, I owe a lot of that to, you know, some of the thoughts you've thrown my way, Steph, which I thank you for.
But I think that, for me, it was like, I'm really glad that I, I guess it's kind of like a, you know, I'm glad that's not me type of thing, I guess.
You know, I don't know if that's really a good reason to laugh as much as just be kind of If I understand your metaphor correctly, what you're saying is that I'm out of the wheelchair and now it's funny because other people haven't gotten out of the wheelchair or can't.
Well, I don't know if I would say it's funny as much as I'm happy that I'm out of it, I guess.
You know, I don't know if I would say it's funny today.
Sorry, I'm going to be annoying and nitpicky, right?
And this is not to true point of you, I'm just pointing it out, right?
You didn't say, I'm relieved that I'm not that way.
You said, this guy is funny.
Uh, yeah.
Yeah. I'm sorry.
My friend is listening in right now, and he's laughing at me.
Look, I mean, it's not comfortable, and I'm fully sensitive to the fact that it's not comfortable to look at this side of ourselves.
And I have it. I'm not...
I'm certainly not preached from any pulpit which is immune to this.
I have it. I feel frustration and irritation with people who attack me in various...
you in this category of attacking this guy or whatever.
But...
So it's not easy to look at ourselves in this light, right?
And I'm not trying to sort of corner you and pick on you, but the facts are the facts, right?
And we just have to work with the reality that most of the people who spoke about the aftermath of this unpleasant incident claimed that it was funny or entertaining or whatever.
I don't believe that that's true for a moment.
Like, deep down, I think that it's a defense.
I think that people want to distance themselves because they don't want to feel the pity, they don't want to feel the horror, they don't want to feel the ugliness, and so they distance from themselves and they try to create this ironic throne that they can sit above.
You know, like a Buddhist being amused by the craziness and silliness of the world.
but just not how the world is, right?
The world is so crazy and silly That, you know, there are wars and prisons and taxes and governments and religions and so on.
And I'm not for a moment saying that you don't and other people don't feel the horror of that.
But I think that there's a defense called, I'm going to be amused by this, you know, like Queen Victoria.
Oh, we are not amused. I'm going to be amused by this because that indicates some sort of emotional distance and maturity.
I don't think that it does, but that was sort of the sense that I got.
I guess what I was wondering is the whole time, I mean, I guess I just thought to myself, what does this single guy, this individual, sure, he's representative of a lot of people, like, in terms of there's a lot of people like him out there, but I really kind of thought, you know, what does this guy have to do with me?
You know, he's just some guy who I'm not going to be able to, you know, talk any type of sentence to right now, you know, or, you know, so it's just kind of like, Well, you know, it's such an ironic shame that there's no way I can even talk to you, you know, without you, like, sort of yelling at me.
And I guess I just sort of was, like, kind of chuckling at that.
I mean, I guess that's the wrong response.
Or not the wrong response, but an immature response.
But I just had a little bit of trouble understanding why.
I don't have a big answer as to why.
I mean, I think that's why this is an interesting call for people to explore their reactions.
And look, I mean, you don't have to have been on this particular chat thing or whatever to have had those reactions to people.
But, so, I mean, other people, I'm certainly happy to keep talking to you, but other people can talk about it if they've had similar experiences.
But this idea of, oh, it is so amusing how crazy people are, is something that's quite common.
Now, I also think, just based on what I saw earlier on in the conversation, that people got impatient with this fellow very quickly.
When somebody comes across that propagandized, going straight to, but taxation is evil.
And I'm not perfect this way either, but this guy was saying, well, Medicare helped my grandmother because without which she would die.
So this is his premise, that if you don't like Medicare, you want my grandmother to die.
And so what I typed was, well, I think all sane and moral people want the poor people to get quality health care, even if they can't afford it.
And I think that is certainly true.
I mean, who would want a system where poor people would not get health care if they needed it and couldn't afford it?
I mean, that would be a wonderful thing to have in the world.
So I was trying to find agreement on that and just saying, well, but it's the coerciveness of the violence of the solution that troubles me because I don't think violence can solve problems and blah, blah, blah.
But what I found was people were just like, well, taxation is violence.
Taxation is violence, right?
And they went straight to that argument without gaining agreement that we all want the same thing, at least from that standpoint.
So I think that...
If we distance ourselves from the response or the end result of our interactions, and we say, oh, this person's just crazy and how silly and how ironic and it's so funny and blah, blah, blah, I think we kind of miss the empathy that we need in order to be able to at least have...
Like, if we give it our very best shot, try and, you know, talk to this person and give them agreement, and if we don't want to, then we just don't have to say anything, right?
But I just felt, from what I saw, this guy got just a little bit jumped in terms of, you know, well, it's evil.
It's evil, right? It's evil. Taxation is evil.
You go to jail. It's evil, right?
And that's a lot for somebody who's that propagandized to swallow.
Not because... The concept that taxation is evil is so hard to grasp.
It's ridiculously evil to grasp, and we all understand it deep down from the moment we pay our first tax on our first candy bar.
And it's like you say, well, the price is this.
Why do I have to pay more?
Well, you can't buy it without that, right?
So everybody understands that, but the challenge that someone like this faces is not that The concept that taxation is evil is so impossibly hard.
It's like having to understand the mathematical reasoning of the theory of relativity.
It's a dead simple concept, but the fact is that no one told him that his whole life.
That's the reason that he avoids it.
It's not to discover the truth about taxation, but to discover the truth of his environment.
The invisible apple, if we go all the way back to Podcast 70, the invisible apple that everyone told him was real, which was the virtue of taxation and the health of the government, So he's viewing not the argument, but he's viewing the complete separation from his social environment if he accepts the argument, and that's why he avoids, and that's why he resists.
It's got nothing to do with the fact that he's blanking out and evading the basic evil of taxation.
He understands that perfectly well, but it is his social environment that we would be ripping him out of the Borg, ripping him out of the matrix, that he is resisting, and this, of course, is the case With Christians and people who worship the family in that culty way and so on.
And so when we see that, what I see is a desperate fear.
I can almost smell it. It's a desperate fear of, if I accept the truth, then I will accept that nobody ever loved me.
Because they did not love me enough to tell the truth.
And, even worse, those who claim to love me.
We'll reject me if I bring even a basic simple truth like taxation equals violence to them.
They will throw me off the goddamn train without even looking back.
These people who claim to love me and to care for me so much.
And then, where will I be?
Lost in the wilderness of the internet with some few digital companions.
So, it's this fear.
Of the knowledge of the corruption of those around him that these kinds of people are so choked by, are so frightened by.
And pounding them with the conclusion, when the conclusion is dead simple, without helping them to understand, and I don't know if this is even possible, I don't know if it's possible in the chat room, but working to help them to understand that they're frightened not of the truth, but working to help them to understand that they're frightened not of the truth, but of other people's
Because this avoidance of a basic moral fact tells you everything that you need to know about the brutality and hypocrisy and corruption of his familial and social environment.
And it's not funny.
When people are that afraid and spew that much propaganda, and they are that terrified of learning the truth not of taxation, but of the people around them and the corruption of their environment and the lies that they've been told, it's just not funny.
if that makes sense. And again, I don't want to sound like I'm some sort of finger-wagging thing.
We all get deep down that it's not funny, but there's this defense called I just found it amusing.
And that's sort of what I want to talk about.
Not, oh, you people with your no compassion or no empathy, I don't want to be that kind of finger-wagging school teacher, but there is this reaction of, well, that was just funny, right?
And I think that we all get deep down that it's pretty tragic.
If I could jump in again, just real quick.
I was talking about this with a few of the guys earlier.
This is just my opinion, but on just using the chat channel, I found, I'm not saying the guy is completely illiterate or anything, but that it's just a bit harder to convey ideas over a chat channel than it is verbally.
Is that fair to say?
Oh, for sure it is.
For sure it is. And I think that we all feel that desperation, right?
And this is even more true, and I think, you know, when people make sort of basic typing errors or spelling errors or whatever, it's really tough, right?
It's like the state bot comes in and can't even type, you know, because this is all just input-output kind of stuff.
It definitely is tough, and it is very hard to lead people Towards an understanding that they're afraid not of anarchism or philosophy or the truth, but of being attacked by their fellow slaves.
That is a big, big idea to get across to someone.
What you might do is you might refer him to a book or a podcast, or if you have the patience and you wanted to give it a shot, you might invite him to a private channel.
In the chat room, you might say, do you have a mic?
We can switch to the voice chat.
I mean, there's lots of...
Lots of options.
Or you can just not talk, right?
But I think what happens is when we see this kind of stuff compounding at us, this is our childhoods, right?
I mean, unless it's totally different in everyone else's country than it is in Canada or England or Africa, then this is exactly the same kind of insistent crap, this bigotry, this vileness that we all got as children.
And we had to struggle out of it and struggle away from it.
And this was, of course, a lot of people in our lives who would tell us this kind of stuff.
I don't ever think that I will be distant enough from my past, and I don't think I'd ever want to be, where I would then say, but I am amused at these lies, right?
Because the lies are just not amusing.
The lies are terrible, right?
I agree.
So what is the process for people?
What are the feelings that go on before the haughty, ironic, Marie Antoinette let them eat brioche kind of humor?
Well, initially, like the sort of miscommunication, hard to convey the ideas thing, I think initially it starts out as like the frustration, like, why doesn't he get it, you know, kind of thing.
And then eventually you're like, whatever.
Now, do you, I'm sorry, where are you in the podcast series?
Oh, I've just kind of used the, before the Philosophization came out, I listened to like 200 or something podcasts just by manually searching through them, but I'm not like on a schedule or anything, if that's what you're asking. I mean, but you've heard some of the ones around why it is so hard for people to accept some basic truths that really shouldn't be that hard to accept, like violence is bad and so on.
Yeah, yeah. So, as to why this fellow, I mean, we may not remember it consciously at the time, but as to why this fellow would be so evasive, right?
Because, I mean, you could see he was doing a pretty good duck and roll there when it came to those questions, right?
Yeah. Yeah, of course.
I mean, it was like trying to nail Jello to a wall or push a piece of string, right?
He was doing a damn good job of the duck and roll.
And... And we know why.
I mean, if the truth were easy, then we'd be doomed, right?
Because if we, as a species, as a race, had not achieved some of the basic truths, by this time in our development, we'd be kind of hosed, right?
Because it would mean that we simply couldn't ever possibly get it.
But the truth is really hard, right?
Even if you want it, it's really hard.
Anyone else want to speak before I interrupt again?
I don't think you interrupt the silence, so go for it.
Well, I think you've pretty much summed it up.
Do you want to focus this entire conference call on this subject, or can we go off on a small tangent, maybe?
Never. Tangents never.
Well, I would like to know what people's emotions are, if they want to talk about them, that lead to this...
Crazy, broken-minded guy was funny.
But if people don't want to talk about that, then we can certainly go off on a tangent because then there'll be no other place to go.
So let's just give a second in case anybody else wants to talk about that.
A few people mentioned in the chat window that they had some recognition about what it is that I was saying.
So if you're on the call, if you could...
Unmute yourself. That would be great.
Yeah, unmute yourself as well, otherwise we won't be having much of the earring.
Caller, you're on the air.
Well, just as an aside, Steph, are there any similarities between this, say, and the incident with the hamster fellow?
Remind me. I think there may be, but if you could remind me about that.
I remember the Hamster fellow made a whole podcast on it, but I think there was some, oh, this guy is so funny and blah, blah, blah, right?
Right. There were a bunch of us in the chat room yucking it up about him, and I think it was Colleen, actually, that got upset by that.
Right, because those who don't know, there's this guy who's created, I don't know, he's done like eight videos in one night about podcasts, or videos that I've put out.
And he's actually got, I think he's got a YouTube channel called Anti-Steph Bot or something like that.
He has all kinds of, he has like a whole anteater colony up his ass about what it is that I do.
And he's a pretty terrifying fellow in many ways, right?
Like a lot of repressed and controlled rage and so on.
And it doesn't particularly trouble me.
I've never watched a guy's video, but I did watch one based on somebody.
We were talking about it. And it's scary because what I see is I think about...
His children, right?
That this is how he would be talking to his children, that this is how he would be talking to his grandchildren, that people would grow up around this, that these are people that he poisons when he comes in contact with, and so on.
And I view...
I mean, this may be a mannequinian or a sort of duality streak in my brain, but I view people who can't be saved as enemies.
I don't view them as clowns.
Right? So I don't...
Like, people who can't... Get to the truth, even a basic truth, because they're too defended, they're too broken, they're too aggressive, they're too crazy, they're too whatever.
This is a dividing line.
Reason and evidence, science, rationality, philosophy, it's a total dividing line.
And, you know, we can woo, and we can give free books, and we can do the hanky-panky, shaky-brakey, achy, hairdo-whatever-we-want songs to get people over.
We can make jokes, we can put out karaoke songs, we can do whatever to get people interested in and motivated by philosophy, by the truth.
But if they don't We make it over, then they're out there doing the opposite of what we're doing, right?
They're out there poisoning people, not providing antidotes to poison.
Particularly, I mean, what always seems to happen is that the people who go off the rails on this conversation don't end up neutral towards philosophy or certainly towards FDR. They tend to go out with all kinds of hate on, which they keep on for quite a while.
So, I view these people like I want to save them, but the metaphor which we've used before, like with a MASH unit, you know, the ER where we're trying to find the patients that we can save, the patients that we don't save, they don't die, right? I know that sounds all kinds of creepy, but what they do is they go out and they talk about how bad anarchism is and how bad philosophers are, or at least how bad Free Domain Radio is, how they're all crazy.
They become enemies of what we're doing here.
I wish that wasn't the case.
I'm not trying to invent enemies.
I'd much rather not have enemies.
There are some people who need the enemies and so on.
But the people who...
Really don't make it through what we're talking about.
They will spend a lot of time, and this is just understanding people's psychological defenses, right?
They will just, they can't leave it.
They can't leave it alone. They can't just go and say, well, I didn't quite get what they were talking about there, but I guess there's some useful stuff there, but I couldn't quite follow it.
They don't do that, right? We all know what happens when people blow out of this conversation.
We all know what happens with them, that they either actively or passively go out and trash what it is that we're doing here.
And that's not funny, right?
It's not funny that they go out.
And that's why I'm trying to be so careful in managing these conversations.
I certainly don't always succeed.
I think that I've always been trying to do my best with it.
But I'm very aware that if I blow something, all I'm doing is, because I'm aware of what people's defenses are like, I'm totally aware that all I'm doing is going out and creating a countercurrent to FDR, a countercurrent to...
Philosophy. People are going to go out and they're going to trash us in one form or another.
And maybe they'll be really energetic about it, like some people that we know, and they'll really work at it, right?
So it's not funny to me because it's not a game, right?
I mean, this is, for me, and I don't know about for you guys, but for me, it's about trying to get rid of things like war and prison.
And so on. And the despair of the underclass in the welfare state and so on.
I mean, that's my goal as best as I can achieve that, scrubbing this virus of God from the face of the planet and so on.
And so a loss creates an enemy.
Because people can never be neutral about ethics.
Never, ever, never be neutral about ethics.
So if we win, fantastic.
But there's no draw in philosophy.
There's no neutrality.
There's no draw. There's no live and let live.
There's no agree to disagree with ethics in particular.
There's win or there's lose.
And it's win big and it's lose big.
And winning big is cause for massive celebration.
And losing big... He's not.
Cause for celebration, for laughter, for ha-ha, I forget my popcorn or whatever, right?
I think...
Alright. Are you done with the monologue?
Oh, sorry. I am indeed. Okay.
Whoever that was, if you'd like to go first.
Hi. This is Jason.
I was just going to say, I noticed, too, while I was thinking about all this, that there seems to be...
Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, a certain degree of skepticism about how possible it is to change people's minds, you know, using the chat room or people's minds who come in with an opposite viewpoint.
And I was just sort of noticing that some of the same people who were trying to laugh it off were the same people who were saying it's really hard to convince people.
Of doing things. So I was thinking maybe that that sort of skepticism, I'm not using the right word here, I've forgotten the word I was thinking before, but that sort of skepticism about people's abilities to have curiosity and things like that maybe even play into the laughing, the laughing it off, you know, when Yeah, no, I mean, I think you're right.
I think you're right. Of course, if people genuinely believe that the chat room is not a good venue for making these kinds of major transitions, then people, in my opinion, should be proactive about that, and they should not debate with somebody like this.
And if they see other people, you know, there's this thing on the bottom left.
It's the thing which says whisper.
And what that allows you to do, of course, as everybody knows, is to Communicate with somebody without seeing it.
So if I see someone named Frank engaging with somebody who's trolley, then surely I should whisper to Frank and say, I don't think this is going to be productive for you, and so on, right?
Because most times people will come in and they'll taunt and then they're looking for a reaction and they're looking for people to get upset.
And of course if you come to an anarchist or philosophy forum and you start talking about God or the virtues of the state or whatever, like I might as well go to, I don't know, the – I don't know, some – National Association for the Advancement of Colored People website and talk about how great the KKK is.
Right? I mean, it's just obvious baiting.
Right? And I'm not saying this...
I don't know if this guy was...
Because I wasn't in the conversation for very long.
I don't know if this guy was up to.
But, of course, we help each other with that, right?
I mean, we are a community.
I mean, I know that it seems like a bunch of guys, men and women on a typewriter, on a keyboard at home, but it is a community, right?
And we help each other. We watch each other's backs.
And if somebody's getting sucked into troll land, give them a hand, right?
Help reel them back.
Because the moment you start engaging with somebody, you're in.
Right? You get into the ring, you don't get out until one of you is down, right?
I mean, getting into the ring is a big deal in my book, right?
And if you get into the ring with someone, then you either fall out, right?
You say, you know what?
This isn't going to work. And what you do is you say to the person, right?
To be honest, is you say...
I'm sorry, but I don't feel like I can do a good job of explaining this stuff to you, but perhaps you might want to listen to this podcast or whatever resource you might want to deal with and back out, right?
You get out of the ring and you say, I don't want to fight anymore, right?
Or you go in and you try and change that person, right?
And if you go in and you try and change that person and you fail, then you failed, right?
And failure isn't funny, right?
So, that's all I'm sort of saying.
Or you can just not engage. You can help other people not engage if you think it's real troll baiting and so on.
But, as a community, if we get into a conflict with someone as a community, we're all responsible.
The people who are regulars, the people, even if you don't even know the person, even if it's guest one fighting with guest 666, it doesn't matter.
You can still whisper and say, I don't think this is going to be productive, whatever, right?
But if we get into a kind of shit fest with someone, as a community, we're all responsible, right?
Yeah, and I was trying to work through whispers to try to diffuse the situation.
I think I came in like right toward the end of it where it was kind of, like you said, everybody was sort of just all at once on this guy.
And I was trying to work through whispers.
Worked through With Whispers to try to diffuse the situation as much as possible, try to get people to not engage.
But I think that's where I encountered this doubt or this skepticism that I was talking about before.
And so, I don't know, it's sort of hard sometimes when it's a situation that's already that far escalated to, or I've found anyway, it's tough to...
I get people to sort of...
Yeah, calm down, yeah.
Sure, but I mean, you can try and fail that too, right?
Oh, sure, sure. Right, and you can just say, can I just suggest that everybody take 60 seconds and not type, right, just so we can let things settle down a little bit, because blah, blah, blah, I think we're all interested in the same thing, but we seem to have gotten on opposite sides of the fence, if you want to, right?
Now, if you don't want to, then you can just suggest to the people who are fighting to not fight, and if they don't, Take your advice.
You can leave the chat room and come back or whatever, right?
But there's things that we can do continually or you can, and I've done this a number of times as well, if somebody is being annoying enough that it's disruptive but not so annoying that they've done anything that would be worthy of kicking them, I just change the subject.
Oh, I read this interesting article.
What do you guys think? And then just try and draw people off in another direction, right?
There are so many options.
But see, the chat room is a little micro-anarchic community, right?
Do we help each other? Do we support each other?
Can we defuse conflicts, right?
Or does it get into yelling matches?
Well, having yelling matches in an anarchy chat room is not the best advertisement for a state of society.
Now, of course, this is not the same as anarchy because there's no DROs and blah, blah, blah, but You know, this is a public space, right?
So I used this metaphor once before.
I'll just mention it again here.
This was in a premium cast.
But, you know, when you're in the chat room and some guest comes in, you can think of yourself like you're a car salesman.
I know that that's, you know, you don't necessarily have to wear the loud jackets or whatever.
So you're working at a, I don't know, like a Jeep dealership, right?
Now, I mean, if someone comes into a Jeep dealership, And you're the car salesman.
And they come in and they say, Jeeps suck!
Right? It's like, oh, that's interesting.
Tell me more, right?
If you want to. Now, you could call security or whatever if they're being totally annoying.
But if you're not too busy, if there's no other customers, right?
Then, of course, the first question, if you're a car salesman and someone comes into your dealership and says, your cars suck, what would your first question be?
Why do these cars suck?
Why? Yeah, or even more fundamentally, why are you here, right?
If they suck, why are you here, right?
It's those jeep trolls.
Yeah, if I hate the fact that Miami is 9 million degrees and humid in August, I don't fly to Miami and say, it's hot here!
It's too hot. Miami sucks in August.
As I say, walking around Miami, tugging on everyone's sleeve and saying, Miami sucks in August!
Right? Because I say, well, why are you here?
I have to be here. I have a job, right?
I asked that guy what he was doing here.
He was calling everybody stupid and I said, if you think we're talking BS, then why are you still hanging around?
And he never responded.
But that's a little aggressive, in my opinion.
Yeah, on reflection, I believe it was.
You know, like, well, if we're all such idiots, you're an idiot too for being here then, huh?
Right? I mean, there was... I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but there was one guy who was like, oh yeah?
What happens if you don't pay your taxes?
Huh? Huh? It's like, oh man.
Come on, people! We're better than this, right?
But you ask, you say, well, why are you here, right?
And psychologically, of course, the only reason...
That someone comes to an anarchist forum and says anarchists suck is because they're very curious about anarchism, right?
Well, they want to see what's going to happen.
Well, but it's, I mean, of all the things that they might want to see happen in the world, they've decided to come and see what would happen in an anarchist forum, right?
Right, but what I'm saying is they're more interested in the reaction than they are necessarily in...
Well, but remember, they could go to any forum in the world, right?
They could go to, I don't know, a gardenist forum and say, gardening is the rape of the earth, right?
That's true. They could go to a Freddie Mercury forum and say Freddie Mercury was not the most talented pop and rock singer ever born.
Well, I mean, okay, let's stay within the bounds of reality.
But they could go anywhere, but they'd come to this forum, right?
Yeah. If I go repeatedly to a Christian forum and talk about how much I hate God, could it at least be said that I have a somewhat ambivalent relationship with God and Christianity?
That's true, but there are those folks that might be coming here from a political, say a political forum or something like that, just for the sake of provoking.
Well, but why would they go to anarchists, right?
Well, because anarchism is the opposition to politics, right?
Well, but if they know that anarchism is the opposite to politics, they're already really aware of what anarchism is to begin with, right?
Which means they're not coming here by accident.
Because if he's a Republican, he's not going to a Democrat chatroom and saying, you know, Obama sucks ass, right?
Sometimes they do.
Sometimes they do, for sure, but this guy didn't.
He's coming to an anarchist chatroom.
Right. It's not accidental, right?
Now, I don't mean that every troll is necessarily a secret anarchist, right?
He could be coming here because he is a secret anarchist, you know, like the guy who's blatantly homosexual who just can't stay away from scorning and spitting at the gay bar.
You know, it could be that, or it could just, you know, whatever.
I mean, it could be some other reason, but if someone comes to the Jeep dealership and says, Jeep suck, then the question is...
Why? I mean, if you start to argue that Jeeps don't suck, then you're sort of missing the point, right?
Right. Why didn't they go to a GM dealership or whatever?
Yeah, why would you drive all the way over to a Jeep dealership to say, Jeeps suck?
Right, if you really believed it.
Yeah, I mean, there's lots of things that I think suck.
I don't spend a lot of time saying that they do.
That's true. And that actually sort of answers the second question I had around this notion of actually having failed anything, right?
Because if somebody comes into the chat room yelling and screaming about how we all suck and we don't manage to convert him, or however you want to phrase it, I didn't exactly see that as a failure, quote-unquote. Well, it's not a failure if you fail to convert someone, right?
Because fundamentally it's up to them.
However, if you set your goal to reason with someone and you fail to reason with them, then you have failed.
But you failed for one of two things.
Either you failed because the person was open to reason and you failed to reason with them, or you failed because you tried to reason with someone who wasn't open to reason.
Okay, yeah, that answers my rejoinder, which was, you know, what's your definition of success, right?
If you're arguing with people who are inarguable, then, I mean, you've failed before you've even started, really, right?
Absolutely. Sorry, go ahead.
I was going to go back to something you said a bit earlier.
Just overall from this discussion, I think one of the best things we could take away is how you kind of made it personal, like the collateral damage of trolling back at him or whatever, like after he leaves the ring, like what happens then?
I think that kind of...
Might help a little bit, like, open our eyes to...
We're actually hurting FDR, you know?
Well, I mean, and, you know, should you really...
Work yourself into a frenzy to help FDR, probably not.
But if you have a goal called, I want to make the world a saner and healthier place, then having someone going away with a toxic impression of a resource that you find valuable to help that, it's bad for you and your goals, right?
I mean, certainly nobody owes FDR anything in particular, but for your goals, if this is something that you want to spread philosophy, you want to spread this methodology in the world to make the world a better place for you and your kids, then it's, you know, a little bit more negative that way for sure, if that makes sense.
Yeah.
So, yeah, the other question that I had was what happens when this guy dropped or when I dropped this guy, what was people's sort of emotional honesty afterwards what was people's sort of emotional honesty afterwards about what had just happened, right?
Because it's not just for this other person, of course, right?
But it's for the community as a whole.
Everything that we do when we're part of a community, at least part of a philosophical community, everything that we do has a very strong impact on everything else.
So, if...
And remember, if you could mute if you're not talking, I'd appreciate it.
If you are saying, like right after someone leaves, and it's been pretty trolly and unpleasant, if you turn around and say to other people, well, that was just funny.
You know, that was entertaining.
That guy was so retarded that he was funny, right?
Well, I think that it has a very strong impact.
In fact, I know that it has almost a defining impact.
On how everybody else processes what just happened, right?
So when people were saying after this call, sorry, after this chat room interaction, when people were saying, oh, that was just hilarious how crazy that guy was, oh, that was just funny, oh, that was just a joke, right?
What were other people's feelings about that?
Well, I mean, for me, I felt odd about it.
Like, I didn't...
Like I said earlier, I wasn't in on the entire conversation, but when I came in toward the end of it, I kind of immediately started to not enjoy the interaction and was sort of trying to slow it down, but I saw that wasn't going to happen.
It just sort of felt like a steamroller had run through and that...
And that there wasn't a whole lot of curiosity floating around in the conversation.
To me, what I was thinking of is not just what it was doing to the guests to have that interaction, but what it might be doing to the people who are Sort of ridiculing and laughing at the guest,
shouting at the guest, while the interaction was going on, just sort of, I don't know, that's what I was thinking of after he got booted, was, you know, what it, kind of what you've said before, Steph, about what it does to a person to do wrong, or to do, you know, like, not wrong, but just to be like that, to kind of be a jerk to a guy.
Or to laugh at something, what it does to you as an individual, if that's how you cope with it, just sort of teaches you to do it again next time.
Well, I think that's very true, but I'm thinking more in terms of if people's defense to something that was pretty unpleasant, if people's defense is to derisively laugh at it, and they chat About that.
Like, they type that into the chat window.
Oh, that was just so funny.
Oh, that was so ridiculous, it was funny, or ha-ha-ha, whatever, right?
What that does is it actually, I mean, we're so amazingly sensitive as people, all of us.
And we pick up on the cues that are being presented around us, right?
And so, when one person says, oh, I just found that funny, right?
Then the enormous temptation for someone else is to say, yes, I found it funny too, ha ha ha, right?
Yes, it was so ridiculous it was funny.
Like, it spreads out like ripples in a pond, right?
The anti-processing, and I would say the emotional inauthenticity, which doesn't have anything to do with falsehood or lying or anything like that.
But it's just like, well, I feel uncomfortable with what just happened.
I don't know exactly why, so I'm just going to laugh at it or pretend that it's funny and distance myself from it emotionally.
Sorry, go ahead. Right, and to me, that reminds me of family stuff, definitely.
That's sort of how, at least from what I'm thinking just now in my family, that's how a lot of extraordinarily uncomfortable situations got diffused, was just to...
Right, and that's why I say I think that it's a familial defense.
Because when we say something is X, then of course what we do is we stop asking questions about it, right?
Because then we don't know exactly what happened or how we felt.
And we deny ourself a lot of wisdom when we come up with defensive answers, right?
I mean, we all dislike the answer of, oh, the state will do it, or, oh, God made the world, or whatever, because we all recognize that that's A non-answer, right?
And philosophy is relentless in its undoing of non-answers, right?
And I think the answer of, oh, that's just funny, is just such a kind of non-answer that I think denies us a lot of very important information and wisdom for ourselves, right?
Well, fundamentally the key is curiosity with the self, right?
Because I can remember...
some years ago laughing at things that now I wouldn't find funny at all and at the time if you told me don't laugh at that of course I mean it would have been I would have found that ridiculous but to suggest instead the question why do you find that funny It gets the thought processes,
the juices flowing, and it gets you thinking about it, right, at least.
So that even if you find it funny, you might have the inclination to wonder why.
Well, yeah, I mean, I think that's right.
Sorry, go ahead. And then from there, it just kind of builds on itself, right?
Because as you work through those ideas and those thoughts, it kind of changes you.
And then you stop finding certain things funny that you used to just because you realize how baseless some of it was.
Right, and in fact, cruel, right?
And isn't humor, I mean, there's a couple of things about humor that are very important, sort of on the podcast list.
We don't have to talk about it right now, but one or two of them is that, first of all, isn't it always the great taunt of the philosopher or of the moralist to be called humorless?
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. And so when we say, I don't think that's funny, or I don't find that funny, or help me understand what is funny about this, aren't we just always?
I mean, isn't that a defense from others that we've all experienced countless times?
Yeah. You've got no sense of humor.
It's just a sense of humor, man. Relax.
It's just a joke. Right, exactly.
That's what I got from my friend, or my ex-friend.
Yeah, stop taking things so seriously, man.
Relax. Life's a ride.
Have fun. Right.
Have no standards. Be cruel.
Right. Now, one of the things I think that has really helped in FDR is, I mean, we're pretty funny, right?
I mean, certainly nobody can accuse me, well, people could accuse me of not being funny for sure, but they cannot accuse me of being humorless, right?
Because I certainly, I find my own jokes funny, whether that's universal as a matter of opinion, but I'm certainly not humorless, and I think it's important for an ethicist to have a good sense of humor, right?
But the defense of cruelty or the defense of indifference or the defense of defensiveness, so to speak, is to say...
That it's funny, right?
Like there's these, you know, if you have an older brother to take a cliche or whatever, right?
And they, you know, he'll come and...
I think I mentioned this before.
My brother put a whole thumb's worth of red hot wasabi in one of my sushi things when I went to the washroom.
I came back and I thought I was having a heart attack or something.
It was so painful. And of course he was laughing.
I didn't find it funny, but he's like, it's funny.
It's funny. You don't have a good sense of humor.
So humor is something that is...
A cover for a kind of coldness sometimes.
And it's also, and I'm not talking about anyone in the chat window, this is just a general topic, but it's also something that it's a perfect spice to add insult to injury, right?
So if you humiliate someone or you embarrass them or you scare them or you harm them in some way...
Then they have received a slight or a negative at your hand, and then you can also then add insult to injury by saying that they lack humor for finding injury not funny, right?
So they get the injury and then they get the insult of being called dour and serious and not humorous and so on.
Right? And being the one that is funny or the one that laughs all the time is sort of a way of...
It sort of gives you an opportunity to avoid having to feel anything painful, right?
Turn everything into a...
When you're laughing at everything so loud that you can't hear your own pain.
Oh, for sure. And the reason that you do it is not just for yourself, but it becomes viral, right?
What you do when you find things funny that aren't funny and you communicate how funny everything is and blah, blah, blah, what you do is you cut off other people's experience of something that may be unsettling or disturbing, right?
Because they're like, oh, I guess it's funny.
I find it funny too, right?
And they go off on that bandwagon, right?
Right. Numbing not just yourself, but the whole room.
Right. And that definitely did happen in the chat room, right?
Because not one person that I could see said, that was kind of disturbing, right?
That was kind of unsettling.
That was kind of unusual. That was kind of not nice.
And the weird thing, too, is that if you color it like, well, it's funny, then what happens is...
You lose your antennae for the next time, right?
Because if you sit there and you go, well, that was weird.
That was kind of dark.
That was kind of odd.
That was a little disturbing. Then you sit there, you RTR with yourself, you figure out what's going on, you talk about it with other people, you get into all this family stuff, this history stuff, our complicated relationship with humor and with the cruelty that humor can sometimes have within it.
I mean, there's a huge amount of self-knowledge that is available, right?
If we resist the temptation to laugh at things that aren't funny.
And if we take that route, then the next time someone comes along and says, you want to kill my grandmother, we'll be sensitive to that.
We won't say, oh, this guy's just funny, right?
We'll actually be sensitive to what's happening and we can make much wiser and more informed decisions about how to handle the situation.
And that interaction also, just from a From an emotional standpoint feels a lot better like when you have that interaction with somebody than to be arguing them down as well.
It will certainly and without a doubt make you much more effective as a communicator.
I mean I can guarantee you that.
And effective doesn't mean that you necessarily will win people over, but if you're the only one sensitive to a situation in a room and everyone else is being cold or defensive, you can do some very powerful things in that conversation.
Because in interactions, there is a kind of war.
And it's subtle, right?
But especially in the aftermath of interactions, there's a war between defense and depth.
And often it's a very unconscious war.
But when people started saying, oh, that guy was just funny, right?
Oh, it was hilarious, right?
That's people setting up the canons called shallow, right?
And then people get, they either go over to that side, or they set up canons on the other side called, that's not a true answer, that's not an authentic answer.
And then they risk the canons of it's funny going off and calling them humorless and they don't get it and it's a joke and this guy was an idiot.
Like all those easy and frankly retarded and unworthy of the brilliant crew answers.
And it's a battlefield between defense and depth.
Between pet answers and rich curiosity.
And we all get that, right?
Because anybody could have said, actually, that wasn't funny.
I'm sorry to interrupt.
I think it may have been after you left the chat, but actually a couple of us did do just that.
And we did sort of find some depth in it.
Some kind of connections that weren't being made for everybody sort of got drawn out.
Right, right. And I think that's fantastic.
And I mean, this brilliant crew is so far enough along that you just need a little nudge, right?
But we feel that.
We feel like, oh my god, if I say this isn't funny, in a sense, all the fires of hell are going to rain down upon me because that was our experience.
As children, right? As children, we had families who had these emotional stories, or usually defensive and unemotional stories about what was happening.
And if we dared to raise our hands and speak of our true experience, what would happen?
Well, we'd be attacked and rejected, of course.
Yeah, for sure. So, speaking the truth of our own experience...
Is, I think, pretty essential.
Speaking that truth of our own experience is pretty essential in, you know, how do we help the world?
You know, how do we help the world?
Well, we can't dismantle the state, we can't shut down the churches, we can't break the cult of the family, right?
But when we have this dividing line in a conversation where we go to shallow or we go to depth, where we go to defense or we go to honesty, We go to pad answer, we go to curiosity.
That is where we make the difference in the world, in my opinion.
That is where we can do the most to change the world.
Well, if nobody has anything else to add, then I won't keep going along, but if anybody did have anything to add, I'd be happy to hear it.
I was just thinking about my own experience.
Not in this particular chat, but in the Darwin's hamster experience.
I was sort of a go-along, you know?
I mean, I wasn't watching the videos or anything, but I would sort of chuckle as other people were making the jokes, you know, in the chat.
And I don't really remember any feelings at all I think it was Colleen, like someone mentioned before, who had said something.
Then I felt a little bad about it.
And then when the conversation we had later, the podcast, I think it was a conference call, that I actually started to feel some of this...
Because I didn't realize I was doing it until it was pointed out.
I don't really have much more to add than that, but certainly, as far as the experience goes, but certainly that was how I had to be when I was growing up, too.
I had to do the go-along, or else that would be not so good.
Oh yeah, for sure. Now we, you know, people are cold and cruel and then we are, you know, humanless and weird for talking about our genuine experience.
But of course, with genuine experience comes both fun, genuine fun, but also genuine unpleasantness at times, right?
But of course, it's the unpleasantness that we need in order to help the world, in order to, you know, to hell with the world, just to help ourselves, right?
To have better, more productive and happier relationships in our own life.
We need that discomfort, right?
We don't want to wish it away any more than we want to wish away the pain of appendicitis, right?
We need that pain so that we don't get some horrible internal alien explosion going on.
Sorry, go ahead.
No, I was just sort of saying that, right.
I was agreeing with you.
Yeah, and I mean, it's so hard for us to simply state our own experience without it sounding like an attack, right?
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I can identify with that.
Because it's like, you have to go up against this monumental...
Well, I mean, when you're a kid, it's monumental, right?
So you have to go up against this monumental defense, really, which is being presented in front of you.
And, like, almost like a...
I just feel like a mouse almost.
Just saying, I really didn't like that, you know?
But, I mean, obviously...
You want to be assertive about it, but I mean, I guess the first, maybe every time you do it, you just feel so small and so far away.
If that makes any sense.
Oh, it makes total sense.
It makes total sense because this was blocked in us.
This natural self-expression was blocked in us when we were.
Very small and very young.
We have to go back there to reclaim it.
So I completely understand what you're saying.
But this, of course, is the amazing thing about this conversation in particular, which is that, I mean, this is the absolutely fascinating thing about philosophy and the way that we talk about it here.
Because we say, well, we want to overthrow philosophy.
Sorry, just one sec. Let me just get my recording back.
Hang on one sec. It's recording here if you need recording.
Oh, thanks. Yeah, we say that we want to overthrow the state, we want to overthrow the church, we want to overthrow the automatic veneration of the family, right?
We are... Revolutionaries or rebels in the most fundamental sense of the word, right?
And the question is, can we overthrow two or three false selves in a chat room first?
Can we lift up the cup of coffee?
Right. This is, to me, why this conversation is so successful.
Because, frankly, I could give a shit about overthrowing the state.
What I do care about is, can people talk honestly in the chatroom?
We say, the state is a lie, the state doesn't exist, the state is false.
Well, if people are being false in the chatroom and saying stuff is funny when it's not...
Can we speak up? That is revolutionary, right?
That is rebellious.
And if we can do that, then can we speak up in person when people are doing the same thing?
And if we can do that, can we speak up in larger groups, right?
But can we, if we want to overthrow the state because it is false, And we want to scrub God from the sky because he is false.
Can we combat a little falsehood in a chat room?
Right, a lifetime of small habits, right?
Yeah, I mean, you know, can we lift up, as James said, can we lift up the coffee cup first?
And that's what's always troubled me about, you know, this political libertarian.
We can overthrow the Fed. It's like, can you overthrow the illusion of God before you overthrow the Fed?
It's a little easier, right?
Yeah, just in your own mind, let alone other people's minds, right?
Right, right, right.
And that's why I'm constantly challenging people.
To live with courage and philosophical and personal integrity in your personal relationships, in your life.
Can you overthrow the hold a girlfriend has on you?
In my own sense, right?
Can I overthrow that?
Can you assert your personal freedom and desires in your own life before talking about for other people to be free?
Right, exactly. I mean, it's all these obsessions that libertarians have.
I was just thinking about this today.
I don't know what the answer is. We'll talk about it another time.
What is this obsession?
I think the obsession with fiat money is just because people speak a lot of nonsense, which mentally or unconsciously gets translated into fiat money, and that's what people want to get rid of.
I mean, libertarians, they do talk a whole lot of nonsense.
And it really is amazing.
Like, if you want to get rid of false currency, can you at least get rid of false statements in your own life?
And I don't mean get rid of or anything like that, like, you know, banish people or anything like that.
But if you want to speak the truth about power to the government, can you speak the truth to people in your own personal life about the truth of what you think and feel?
Because if you can't do that, and that's a tough thing to do, right?
It's easier to rail against the state than it is to say to people, I know you're all laughing, but I don't find it funny.
Right? You know, that very thing came up in the chat room this morning, too.
What do you mean?
The question of...
I lost the phrasing.
Was it the status friends guy?
Yeah. All my friends, they're all obsessed with the idea of action.
We have to take action.
And I'm like, well, have you spent much time talking to your wife, your girlfriend, your family about this stuff?
I just got totally ignored.
Huh. Right?
Totally not even recognizing what I'm saying as a form of action, just as though I was being snarky.
Yeah, that's irrelevant.
Why would you even bring that up?
They didn't even respond.
It wasn't even like...
They didn't say, well, what are you talking about?
They just... As if Greg was blocked.
Well, but they knew exactly what he was talking about, right?
Well, of course. Of course. And then they got into a discussion about...
Activism and the efficacy of political activism and just kind of watching this chat go by, you know, every couple of minutes looking at it, it's like, wow, this has gone off the rails quite a bit.
And this is why libertarians don't work, right?
Libertarianism doesn't work because everybody gets that they're just a bunch of tough talkers, right?
Right. I'll take on the fucking state, but I won't talk honestly to dad, right?
Everyone gets just a posture.
It's just nonsense, right? Where's the actual traction?
Well, show me you can lift the coffee cup and I'll start listening to you about lifting the building, right?
Yeah. Well, and the thing about that is that it's not only not doing any good, it's actually creating a giant wall of Negative that we have to get through first before we can ever hope to do any good,
right? Because the fact that people get this, that they know that most folks who are spouting these ideas are doing it because they're basically because they're living in a kind of state of hypocritical avoidance Oh, the cowards, right? Right.
So then when someone genuine comes along, they're just automatically suspicious of it, right?
Not just on the level of, well, could it work, but even on the level of, well, everyone who's ever come to me with this before has just been a bullshitter, so you must be too.
Oh yeah, no, that's why I say that there's...
Nothing that people could do to hamper the cause of freedom more than be your typical libertarian, for sure.
It discredits the people who are doing the work in our personal lives, right?
Right, right, exactly.
This is the guys. These are the people who say that the state is the ultimate evil and are married to status.
I mean, this is all just...
I mean, it's an intellectual posture.
It's just nonsense, right? And I understand it.
I mean, Lord knows I was that way for a long time myself, so it's not like I don't have a lot of sympathy for the position.
I really do. But, you know, at some point, you kind of have to start doing it or shut up about it, right?
Right, right. That's exactly right.
So, yeah, so I just, I mean, I just wanted to bring this up as I saw it in the chat window, and I just, you know, we've got to have that commitment to honesty, right?
As a community. Because we can't be any braver than our least brave action, right?
As a whole. And if it's too unnerving for us to, you know, when people are kinda talking a bunch of trash about their emotional reactions, not because they're mean or anything, it's just their defenses, right?
But if we don't have the courage to speak up in those kinds of situations, And to deepen and enrich the conversation, which is where true freedom lies.
Defenses are incredibly inhibitive, right?
They really strangle our freedom.
If we fail In the courage of speaking up honestly in those kinds of situations.
It's one of the reasons why the chat room is there, right?
So that people can practice this kind of courage.
And so you can see the effects of what happens, right?
As I did say, that's not funny, at least I don't think it's funny, right?
Then, as people have mentioned, the chat did become a little deeper and richer after that, right?
And that's good, right?
And when I was talking last week about the shallowness in the chat room, As I started talking about the need for more depth and less distracting, endless, shiny jokiness, and so on, a guest popped out of the woodwork and began talking about his emotional experience of FDR. It's incredible when you do this what changes in the world that you live in, right? Not just on the board, but everywhere.
When you start talking honestly, and without attacking people, but honestly about your direct emotional experience, And trust your instincts about when people are trying to snow you or snow themselves, more likely.
It is amazing what changes.
That is revolutionary.
I agree. But I think also that those sound waves are only going to echo back from certain people.
Not from everybody, but...
Well, it's hard to prejudge, right?
I mean, for sure, it doesn't work with everyone, but it is something that we can't predict usually ahead of time very easily.
No, you're right about that.
You're absolutely right about that. And it's not because it's unpredictable, but it's because we don't have experience.
Until we do that regularly, we don't have experience in what that's like.
And so we don't know the degree to which it's going to affect things.
We gain more and more knowledge as we go forward on what works and what doesn't, but until we do it consistently, it's hard for us to really be able to predict in advance, if that makes sense.
Right, which gets us right back to the small habits, right?
Yeah, it's definitely the small habits will give you the indefaculable courage to take on the larger issues.
For sure, for sure, for sure.
If we start talking with the small habits, we then get more and more comfortable talking about the bigger things with people and these kinds of habits.
Once you do it once, it's hard to avoid it because it just is such a wonderful thing to do for everyone, for yourself, for the world, but most importantly for yourself.
Well, and that's why, not that I impose rules on myself, but that's why I like to stay focused on certain keywords because they kind of help me maintain that, maintain consistency in those habits, right? You know, things like curiosity and integrity and empathy and that sort of thing.
Not that they're some sort of rule or standard that you absolutely have to live up to, but if you keep those words in your mind all the time and stay focused on them, then it's a lot easier to exhibit the habit that flows from them, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, no, for sure.
It's like any sport, right?
There's a lot of falling down and a lot of getting yourself up.
And yeah, somebody just said, remind yourself to be yourself just popped into my head.
And it's true. I mean, this is what the fool Polonius says in Hamlet.
Above all, to thine own self, be true, and then it shall follow as night follows the day.
Thou canst not be false to any man.
And that's part of the genius of Shakespeare, right?
Was that he has a character called yourself, which is part of everyone, right?
So... So yeah, I just wanted to mention that and to bring that up just as a reminder for people that your own genuine, authentic emotional experiences, you should be honest about them and get used to that challenge.
And it is a big challenge and it's a hard thing to do, but it will absolutely change your life in a way that getting rid of the Fed and getting rid of the government and getting rid of religion wouldn't do, right?
That is the way to do it, in my opinion, so...
Thank you everybody so much for taking the time out this evening to have a chat about this.
I think it was something that I just wanted to mention.
I really do appreciate it and have yourselves a wonderful, wonderful night.
Thanks. I thought it was helpful.
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