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Sept. 27, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:26:30

1159 Boot Camp #2: The Social Contract (Pro) - audio to a video

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	Alright, well thank you everybody so much for joining us for FDR Boot Camp number the second.
	This is going to be the one on the social contract.
	So, of course, the social contract is something that...
	Libertarians and anarchists of all stripes and hues and plaids run up against all the time, and I thought it might be worthwhile.
	I'll try playing devil's advocate for the social contract position, after which I shall have a long shower, but I will try taking the position of stone evil and seeing if we can't find good ways to counter the arguments.
	So, with that having been said, I'll give a short introduction to the typical way that the social contract is brought into a conversation.
	And the first aspect is that people say something like this.
	So, in a state of nature, when there's no government, there's no society as a whole, there's no tribe, when we are, so to speak, au naturel, There is perfect freedom, perfect liberty.
	We don't have to pay any taxes.
	We don't have to obey any laws.
	We don't have to stay on the right side of the road.
	Dogs living with cats, anything can happen.
	But that is, of course, nature red in tooth and claw.
	Life is nasty, brutish, and short, as Hobbes would say.
	And so what we do is we get together as a community, as a society, as a tribe, as a group, And we say, okay, you know, this perfect freedom thing is real nice in theory, but unfortunately it ends up with a fairly large degree of violence, of war of all against all, of grabbing the resources and so on.
	So what we're going to do is we're going to get together As a community, and we're going to agree that we are going to surrender certain rights in order to get a hold of or to maintain greater peace and equality.
	So we're going to give up the right to grab whatever property we want, to wage war against each other, and we're going to live having given up certain of our rights in order to maintain greater peace and tranquility within our society.
	So the libertarian position, which says that the social contract is bad or wrong or invalid, is only correct if you can't leave the tribe or if the social contract is being imposed through some sort of outsider.
	And the abrogation of or the giving up of certain rights in order to maintain other rights is a necessary part.
	We have to give up certain property rights in the realm of taxation in order to be able to maintain all of our other property rights.
	There's no such thing as 100% property rights because if you have 100% property rights, society devolves back into a war of all against all.
	There's no social contract.
	And so we do give up certain liberties in order to maintain the remaining liberties, but we still end up with a far greater amount of liberty thereby.
	So we can analogize it to, you don't have to have a job, I guess you could be a beggar on the streets and so on, but we all generally find that we have more liberty When we give up eight hours a day in order to secure liberty for the weekends, so to speak. So we end up with greater financial security and greater life satisfaction if we give up certain freedoms in order to defend and justify all the remaining freedoms.
	So that's a very brief introduction to the social contract.
	We certainly do need to have the ability to leave and to find a more compatible social contract.
	It's not a valid social contract if you're in North Korea and it's forbidden for you to leave.
	It's not a valid social contract if it's imposed from outside, and it's also not a valid social contract if there's no mechanism by which the people can decide to renew or change that contract.
	But of course, in a modern democracy, the contract can be changed and renewed and altered when societies find it important enough.
	So if you feel the social contract needs to be changed, you can get involved in politics, you can get involved in writing, you can get involved in public speaking, and you can Change the social contract, and that's happened many times throughout history.
	We have a social contract now that disapproves of slavery, approves of equal rights for women and minorities, and has rights for children, and disallows for child labor, and so on.
	So the social contract is a fluid and flexible contract, but as long as we live in a society and choose to stay there, then we are bound by that social contract, and we must obey that social contract, and if we find elements of it absolutely Can't be stood.
	We can't stand them. Then we either change to another location or we work to change that system.
	But that is the essence of the social contract argument.
	So who would like to take a stab at bringing that Leviathan down, so to speak?
	Jump in. Don't make me edit this.
	It's video. I hate editing video.
	Or would you like Saki the hand puppet to take it?
	Oh, remember to unmute yourself.
	Right. So are we taking the pro or the con here?
	I'll take the pro. You take the amateur.
	Just kidding. You take the con.
	You take the con. Okay.
	So... Oh dear, Christina's shaking her head.
	Christina's pretty good. We're only a few minutes in and that's already happening.
	That's already happening. Against the social contract, essentially, is what you're asking for.
	Yes. Okay, um...
	Do you owe your parents anything for your birth?
	Well, I don't think that would fall under the social contract.
	That would fall under, I guess, more a theory of family relations or reciprocal ethics.
	Right. But just as an analogy, in the same way that you don't really owe your parents for your own birth, you don't owe...
	The people around you that call themselves whatever country they call themselves for the accident of your existence in that country, right?
	Well, I think that we certainly can't blame someone in Minnesota for someone who's born in Ohio.
	I would absolutely agree with that.
	I'm not sure what relevance that would have to the social contract, but I certainly am happy to exceed that point.
	I'll concede that point. I'll concede that point.
	The social contract is basically an implicit obligation, right?
	An implicit, unchosen obligation.
	By accident of where you're born and when you're born, you owe the people around you for your existence.
	If that makes any sense?
	No, it's not that we open up our existence, and it's not entirely accidental.
	The social contract really only kicks in when you become an adult, because before that, you were under the dominion of your parents.
	The social contract kicks in when you have an adult, when you have the choice about which community you wish to live in.
	Okay, but if you're making a choice, then it's not really...
	I mean, the choices you're making are voluntary, right?
	Sure. So then the contracts you're engaging in aren't really social in the collectivist sense.
	They're entirely individual, right?
	So if I choose to live in a particular community, say a community that has...
	Like, what do they call those?
	A commune? You know, where you have to sign a contract full of conditions in order to purchase a home.
	Oh, like a condo agreement or something like that.
	Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
	you're engaging in an agreement with individuals on a voluntary basis in order to live there so it's not really a social contract in the sense that you don't have a choice well sure but you could imagine that if you are born into and we'll just take this example right so you're born into a condo you You are not immediately unbound from the condo agreement, right?
	The condo agreement is between the people who own the condo, or the people who, you know, run the building, and the people who live in it.
	So if you're born into a... it's not like you're no longer bound by that condo agreement if you're born into a condo.
	It's the same thing if you're born into a country.
	I mean, if you don't like the condo, then you can go live some other place, right?
	But if you're going to live in that condo you do have to abide by the rules and that's just the deal of being born into a particular group.
	Right, but you said earlier that It doesn't apply to children, so I'm not sure what you meant by being born.
	If you're born into a condo, your parents are responsible for you following the condo rules.
	When you become 18, you're responsible yourself.
	Let's say your parents die when you're 18 and they leave you the condo, you don't get to then say, well, I'm not going to abide by these rules, because those are the conditions of living in the condo building.
	And if you don't like them, you can sell the condo, you can move elsewhere, you can find a better condo or you can go live in the woods or whatever, but if you're going to live in that condo, if you're going to live in that society, these are the rules that you have to obey.
	And they're not restrictive or anything.
	It's like, don't kill, don't steal.
	Contribute something towards keeping the hallways clean and all the collective stuff that goes on.
	Don't dump your garbage in the hallway.
	I mean, reasonable things that is to be expected from living in a community is where...
	But if there's some esoteric rule that you don't like, you want to become a Wiccan and sacrifice cats in your living room, then you have to go find some place that will let you do that or set up your own condo or go live in the woods, as I said.
	Or purchase a home with a large enough lot in an area that doesn't have property restrictions.
	I guess that could be the case for sure.
	So I guess what I'm trying to understand is, what in your mind is the distinction between that and the social contract?
	Well, this is a metaphor for the social contract, right?
	Living in a condo is living in a community.
	Right, okay, so there's really no difference between the two.
	Well, I don't want to get into all of the differences between the two, because that would be a complicated discussion, but I would say that it's a reasonable analogy to start with.
	Well, there has to be at least some distinction that's important, otherwise...
	Why even have a thing called a social contract?
	Well, why don't you tell me how it's unreasonable for people who have a condo building to impose rules upon those who live within the condo, conditional upon them not forcing you to stay, and also that you get a voice in the condo board if you want to change those rules?
	I would say that...
	Wait a minute, just to clarify, what was the question again?
	You're asking me what I don't like about that?
	Yeah, tell me, let's just stay with the condo analogy, and then you can tell me what you feel is unjust or what you feel about having rules that you agree to live by if you're going to live in a community that you're in a community and have a say in it.
	I don't have a problem with it at all.
	It's a choice you make, alright?
	I mean, anywhere you want to live is like, you know...
	Any kind of clothes you want to buy or any kind of food you want to eat or whatever, there are conditions that are going to come along with that, right?
	Like if you rent a car, you rent really not to drive it off a cliff, right?
	Sure, sure. And those are explicitly stipulated in the contract that you sign with the company renting you the car.
	And the same is true for a condo agreement, right?
	Everything is explicitly stipulated, and you can either agree to it or not agree to it, because that's part of the product that's being offered, right?
	The conditions are part of the product.
	Yes, yes.
	And there are...
	Just in a practical sense, there are many, many, many products out there to choose from.
	So in practical terms, there's a real choice to be made there.
	You can live in this community, you can live in that community, you know, anywhere in the world, right?
	Sure. And each choice is going to come with its own set of products.
	Conditions, right?
	And benefits and pros and cons and all of that.
	So I don't really have a problem at all with condo agreements, homeowners association agreements, anything like that, because you have a choice, right?
	Right. And in the same way, when you look at a country...
	Or a province or a state or a town or whatever, you have choices.
	There are close to 300 countries, I think, around the world, each of which is composed of dozens of states and counties and municipalities.
	So there are literally thousands of choices of where to live that best suits your particular preferences for a social contract.
	So there is a lot of choices that you have And of course you can choose to live completely outside of the social contract or you can choose to get involved and to take the social contract that is the closest to your preferred way of living and alter it through negotiation with the majority or the people who vote in order to get it to be right along the lines of what you want.
	And that gives you an enormous amount of choice and possibility when it comes to living in the world.
	So, are there any conditions at all in any of these sorts of agreements that you think would be not allowable?
	Well, sure. I mentioned two of them at the beginning, right?
	The first is that you have to be allowed to leave, right?
	Otherwise, it's just enslavement, right?
	I mean, that's why slavery is not a valid social contract.
	It's not allowed to leave. Exactly. And you also have to have the capacity or a possibility of having a voice in changing the social contract so that it's not just imposed against you arbitrarily.
	I think the third one is it shouldn't be imposed by somebody completely outside the community, so that probably would be less valid.
	But yeah, those conditions, and there would be some others, I'm sure.
	But those conditions should not be...
	I mean, I would say also in general, it should be as universal as possible.
	So you should not have, for instance, rulers or politicians who impose a law like taxation that they themselves would be immune to because it...
	Then it's kind of like a top-down kind of thing.
	So, I mean, there are some general, you know, where modern, democratic, roughly free market societies, they fulfill all of those.
	You're free to leave. You can alter the conditions of the society that you're living in.
	It's not imposed from outside.
	And the laws that politicians pass, they themselves are subject to.
	Again, it's not perfect because nothing is perfect, but it's a very close approximation of an ideal social contract.
	But what I'm trying to understand, though, is if it's my property, like say I own the building, or a group of us own the building, and we're offering properties for sale in the building, why we couldn't include as conditions that once you sign this lease you can never get out of it.
	I mean, if people can actually read that and consider that as, you know, intelligent people capable of reading and understanding text, why can't I have that in my contract?
	Well, that's a generally acceptable advice.
	Well, that's a generally acceptable advice. Like you can't sign yourself, you can't sign away your own rights in perpetuity.
	That's sort of not a valid legal thing to take.
	So that would be generally the way.
	There would be very few courts that would ever uphold anything like that.
	Well, I'm not really concerned what courts would or wouldn't uphold.
	What I'm dealing with here is the concept or the question of the disposition of my own property, right?
	Well, sorry, just to interrupt you, though, remember, it's only your property because the society as a whole protects your right to it, right?
	It's only your property and gets to stay your property because there is a communal collective defense force called the police or the court system or whatever, the prisons, which will enforce your retention of that property, right?
	So saying that you have property independent of a social contract is a misnomer, I think.
	The property only remains in your possession because there is a social contract that is enforced collectively.
	So what you're arguing then is that property is an effective force.
	Well, you're...
	The security of property requires a collective defense, which is part of the social contract.
	As I said at the beginning, we could live with no social contract whatsoever, but then there'd be no such thing as property, really.
	I mean, other than what you could defend with a club or something, because we have a social contract around the respect for property that's enforced through the taxes paid to enforce police and court decisions and prisons and so on.
	And that is what gives you the right to retain your property, right?
	So saying that you have property independent of the social contract, I would say, is a non-starter from a debating point.
	So, all right, so let me see if I understand this completely.
	There really is no difference then between a social contract and an individual contract because they both require force in order to facilitate them, in your view.
	Well, I mean, but it's a question of the proportionality of force, right?
	So the question is, What is the minimum amount of force that we can live with in a society?
	And the best that's ever been come up with so far is sort of democratic, free-market democracy.
	Yes, I mean, obviously there is force in a social contract, in that people who disobey the laws are aggressed against.
	There's no question of that. But for the vast majority of people, there is far less force.
	In a democratic social contract than there would be in a state of nature, you know, where people just club each other to get what they want.
	So yeah, there's definitely, there's force used in the social contract, but it is far less than just about everybody would experience without the social contract, which is why the social contract is generally accepted by the majority of people, is generally considered valuable by the majority of people, and why it has developed to such a high degree in the Western democracies in particular.
	So, and this is a little bit of a tangent, but let me see if I understand what you just said there.
	It's okay, it's not okay for people to club each other to get what they want, but it's okay to club each other to keep what you want.
	Is that right? Well, sure. I mean, property rights, if someone steals from you, I mean, you don't grab a club and go club them down, right?
	Most people will call the police, where it is dealt with in a much more peaceful manner, where people don't get clubbed, but rather get arrested and tried with evidence, and they have the right to confront their accusers, they have legal representation.
	It is a much more civilized way of dealing with the question of property than just whatever you then club people to defend.
	So, in your view, the concept of property, I mean, it's not a concept at all.
	It's just an effect of the fact that I'm willing to punch you in the eye if you try to take my iPod.
	Sorry, I don't quite understand that.
	Sorry. Well...
	Well, I guess where I'm getting confused is I don't understand how there can be a contract at all if there's no property, and what you're arguing is that property is nothing more than just a conceptual shorthand for, I'll kick your ass if you take my iPod.
	No, no, no. See, but property...
	I mean, there's the state of nature where you club whoever you want to get whatever you want, right?
	That's not really property, that's just rule of the strong, right?
	That's just some Nietzschean, some horrible master-slave situation.
	So there's that. But when you actually have a concept of property, that relies upon a social contract where people agree to respect it and agree to submit their property disputes to The impartial arbitration of the state, and so really property comes into existence in the way that we understand it now, when you have a social contract where people are willing to submit their disputes.
	They're not going to grab clubs and go pound each other, but they're going to submit their disputes to the impartial arbitration of the state, and that's why property is retained.
	And of course, very few people do have those disputes to the point where they go to court, because the majority of people innately respect and appreciate the social contract to begin with.
	I mean, very few people end up being thieves and very few people will, you know, you have people over to a dinner party, you don't have to count the chairs when they leave because they respect the social contract and its right for property.
	That's how a non-violent society really comes into being, is that you have a centralized agency which is supported by a social contract that people are willing to respect voluntarily, right?
	The government doesn't have to send people to pick up your taxes.
	Most people will pay it voluntarily because they respect and recognize the social contract.
	If it was just a complete rule of force, it would be sort of impossible, right?
	It's because people respect and appreciate the security and collective defense that the social contract brings to them that they're happy to pay for those, well, maybe not happy, but willing to pay for the services provided.
	Well... Let's just take a break here while you mull that over, because I don't think that we're actually getting to attack the social contractors yet, so are there other people who'd like to jump in who are chomping at the bit with criticisms of the social contract as it's portrayed?
	I got something, I think.
	Jarman. We are.
	So this is coming straight from the crotch cam.
	First, the question, going back to the condo association issue, I think one thing that needs to be separated out, I mean, I understand that it's a metaphor for the social contract, is the nature of the entitlement behind the condo association.
	If we hold that there is an owner to this condo association, then it's up to him at his own discretion and he will be susceptible to the consequences to set whatever voluntary conditions he desires for somebody to join the association.
	Would you say that characterization is correct?
	Or would you say that the property just wouldn't exist at all?
	It's not voluntary desires, right?
	I mean, the social contract is not, you know, kumbaya, let's dance around the campfire and everybody gets together and agrees.
	There are clearly disagreements in the social contract.
	You look at things like capital punishment and abortion and drug use.
	Should it be criminalized? Should it be a misdemeanor?
	I mean, there's lots of disagreements about how the social contract should be enacted.
	I mean, everyone's down with the basics.
	Don't kill, don't steal, don't rape, don't assault and so on.
	That's totally fine. But there certainly are areas where there is a lot of controversy, and that's why you need the flexibility of a democratic system to allow people to get together and work out these differences, you know, through debates, through swaying other people into a position that you prefer, and that sort of thing.
	But it's certainly not voluntary.
	It's certainly not...
	If it was voluntary, then there would be no enforcement, right?
	And we all recognize that the police and the laws that are passed through the just legislature are not voluntary, but are in fact imposed upon people Or rather, they are aggressed against if they aggress against the social contract and break the rules.
	Well, you kind of made a claim right there that if it were voluntary, then there would be no enforcement.
	Would you agree that for the people who would be members of this social contract, they benefit from the social contract, right?
	That's the whole point. That's the whole argument that Rousseau made, that Hobbs made, that the presence of enforcement would...
	I'm sorry to interrupt, but not everyone benefits from the social contract, so a guy who really wants to be a thief would probably benefit from the absence of a social contract to some degree, right?
	Somebody who just wanted to club people and get stuff.
	But the vast majority of people who want to live peaceful lives enormously benefit from the social contract.
	Okay, so, well, would you say that they also enormously benefit from the component of the social contract that entails enforcement?
	Yes, absolutely. They benefit, again, it's not like, maybe there's 20% loss of liberty in the social contract, but there's 100% loss of liberty in no social contract, so it's a net benefit.
	So, I mean, it seems that there's kind of an implicit assumption being made that people, if it's in their interest to have some sort of enforcement, wouldn't Choose some means beyond your restricted definition of a social contract in order to attain enforcement.
	So like you used earlier at the beginning of the broadcast, you mentioned a job, that getting a job can get you more liberty, even though you would imagine a homeless guy is maximally free because he has no obligations, yet putting himself in a job eight hours a week actually attains him more liberty.
	That's kind of like a metaphor for the social contract.
	In the same regard, I mean, to use that metaphor further, it would be like saying, you know, either be a street sweeper or be homeless, that your definition of the social contract is sort of precluding other ways of voluntary association that could lead to enforcement?
	Well, no, see, but that's the beauty of a democratic society, is that You can voluntarily decide to completely bypass the law and you can try and work out through mediation, through other kinds of ways of interacting with people.
	The law is the port of last resort.
	It's where you go when everything else has failed and it is the final arbiter for these kinds of disagreements.
	But, I mean, when people get divorced, a lot of times they will hire mediators rather than go through the court system.
	So you have lots of options about how to resolve your disputes within a society.
	If your car gets stolen and you want it gone, then you don't have to press charges at all.
	There's lots of options about how to deal with these kinds of conflicts in a democratic society.
	Well, there's another assumption there that your options, those types of options are never restricted, but they are, right?
	You don't have the choice of supposing that the institutions would fail to adequately protect your property, as we've seen in practice, right?
	That the police response time on a burglary is two to three hours, that, you know, they'd rather wait for the guys to leave than never recover your stolen property and so on.
	So there's an implicit assumption that the state would never have a means of interfering with those types of options of enforcement, right?
	And in that way, right, we can say that, you know, the state holds a monopoly or what would be generated under the social contract, whether you call that a state or not, would have a monopoly over a certain kind of, you could say, enforcement or conflict resolution, namely the use of force.
	Well, I mean, I appreciate your point.
	And you could be right, but the way that I... I'm just looking at my own life, the way that I deal with problems, you could say that there are problems within policing.
	And remember that policing simply results from the general social contract, which is that people have preferred, as a whole, in a democracy, to put fewer resources into policing than into other things, right?
	So, I mean, if everybody really wanted a policeman on their front lawn, the social contract would provide it.
	It's just that your taxes would go up quite a lot, or other services would suffer.
	So, the response time of the police to a burglary is the result of prior decisions within the social contract.
	And what people have generally decided, as far as I understand it, what I've decided, is I've said, look, I want to live in a safe neighborhood.
	I want to not be ostentatious with the things that I own.
	I don't park a Rolls Royce, even if I had one.
	I wouldn't park it in the front lawn.
	I have preferred to go with a security system that is hooked to a private alarm company.
	And I would rather have lower taxes and face an increased chance of being stolen from rather than have higher taxes and a lower chance of being stolen from.
	And you may say, well, I prefer something else.
	You might want to hire a security guard.
	Lots of companies do that because they don't consider the response time of the police to be adequate.
	But this is all the complex sort of ecosystem of decisions that are made within a social contract about where people want to put resources in cure versus prevention and so on.
	So do you think that your autonomy and your decisions are equally reflected in the social contract?
	I mean, yeah, I agree that there is sort of an ecosystem of decisions, but is it possible for one group, subgroup in the social contract to have more power than another group?
	Well, yeah, and that group is the majority, right?
	Right, and why should the majority have power?
	Or, I mean, do you think that the majority should have more power?
	Well, I mean, the social contract recognizes that the group as a whole is the one that is going to make the decisions over the majority of, I mean, not the basics, we have a Bill of Rights, we have a constitution, but over some of the more esoteric social policies, there is going to be a, you know, to reflect the changing nature of society, there is going to be a response and a debate within the collective, within the majority, to figure out which direction we go in certain esoteric areas.
	Well, I mean, I think that if you take the Bill of Rights or these core things as a given, right, and you say, okay, well, this is just the agreement that we're going to have this, you know, this democratic vote, right?
	I mean, you can imagine a company's board of directors, right?
	It's more of a voluntary thing that, you know, they have a majority vote.
	But I think then we sort of have to move the problem back to what makes the Bill of Rights or Constitution valid.
	I'm saying, ultimately, is the social contract at its root?
	What determines the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, all that stuff?
	Is that more majoritarially determined?
	Well, in practical terms, there's culture, right?
	And we have a culture in the West that generally strives to respect individuals and provide flexibility in decision-making and have a hopefully responsive political system where the politicians listen to the voters and provide some leadership and we sort of muddle through as best we can.
	And it's the best system. As Churchill said, democracy is the worst system in the world except for every other one that's ever been tried.
	So there is a general culture which we can accept.
	Nobody's going to sit there and successfully advocate the return of slavery because that's a cultural hurdle that fortunately we have passed as a society.
	So, there is some basic cultural realities that we have to deal with, but yes, I mean, the majority, you know, society is designed to serve the needs of the majority.
	The society is not designed to serve the needs of some random schizophrenic, because then we'd all be jumping around like Mexican lima beans on a trampoline.
	But society is designed to serve the needs of the majority, and in fact, there's really no other way to do it, because if the majority doesn't agree with something like taxation or for, you know, collective defense, then they simply won't pay their taxes, and you could then lecture them all you want, but it simply wouldn't matter.
	So whether we like it or not, the majority is how society must work, because if the majority doesn't agree with it, it won't work no matter what you say.
	So would you say that consent is a necessary condition for a social contract to be valid?
	Would you rather universal consent?
	No, no. Universal consent is not at all part of the social contract, because if universal consent were possible, there would be no need for a social contract, right?
	Because the social contract is around us surrendering certain minimal liberties in order to gain many more liberties that we wouldn't have otherwise, and it's because we recognize that human beings, in the absence of a social contract, in the absence Of an enforcement mechanism called the state or whatever, that human beings would simply live in a state of nature or anarchy or whatever, and that would be a negative state.
	So, without a doubt, universal consent is not only impossible, but would make this social contract invalid.
	I mean, you would point this, right?
	So what are the necessary conditions for a social contract to make it valid?
	I mean, clearly, I think you would distinguish between an invalid social contract and a valid one.
	Like earlier, you said North Korea wasn't a valid social contract, right?
	Well, I've now said it twice.
	Perhaps you could repeat them back to me just to see if you're listening, because if you're not, I won't say them a third time.
	Well, that you'd be able to leave, and that you have the ability to change it.
	Mm-hmm. Right.
	So... I think the question shifts to why these conditions are valid.
	So, I mean, the ability to change.
	I mean, ultimately, right, you can reject, you can say, well, this is a perfectly acceptable iteration of the social contract, but I think that even in North Korea there's the ability to change.
	It's not impossible for people to demand, you know, more butter this week as opposed to an egg another week.
	How would they do that from falling into the category?
	I mean, as far as I understand it, they get shot or sent to slave camps if they even question anything about the government.
	They can't protest. They can't get together.
	They can't agitate. There's no free assembly, free speech.
	They can't influence their politicians there.
	I mean, they have about as much influence over their politicians as your average herd of cattle does over the farmer.
	But I think ultimately it's a difference in degree and not kind.
	So maybe you could say North Korea is in total lockdown.
	But, I mean, would you say that the United States would be a more free country than some other Western nation in terms of freedoms?
	Or would you say that all the Western nations are on par?
	Look, there are...
	There are certain things which would be different about the United States than in other countries, for sure, but all that does is reflect the will of the majority.
	So, for instance, in the United States, the role of religion in politics is much greater than it would be in, say, Scandinavia or Sweden.
	However, that simply reflects the social contract as a whole, which is that people as a whole are much more religious in the United States.
	So there would be certain things where an atheist, say, would feel more uncomfortable in the United States than in Sweden.
	But that is simply a result of the existing social contract, which accurately reflects the fact that a lot of Americans are very religious.
	But that doesn't address the issue as to how change comes about in these countries, right?
	I mean, you start getting into non-falsifiable territory when you start saying, well, there are cultural reasons why the social contract prohibits changes in the social contract, right?
	So I don't think that answers the issue as to how...
	I'm sorry, sorry. How did we get to prohibiting changes in the social contract?
	If changes are prohibited in the social contract, it's no longer a social contract.
	Right, right. So what I was pointing out with the whole difference between Western Europe and America is that in some countries in Western Europe, it's harder to achieve change, right?
	There's maybe, or rather, maybe in America as opposed to Western Europe, right?
	You have to grease more palms of the politicians and so on, right?
	I mean, I'm saying...
	Sorry, I'm just trying to understand what you mean.
	Are you saying that it's harder to achieve democratic change in the US than in, say, some other country?
	Right. The institutions are certainly different.
	So the amount of mobilization needed to get a change, even if it's the majority or whatever is considered legitimate under your social contract, is certainly different.
	And can you tell me how? I'm just not sure I follow that.
	How is it that it's harder to have change in the United States as opposed to, say, France?
	Well, I mean, in fact, I'm not sure whether it's France is easier than the United States or the United States is easier than France, but there is certainly a difference in the ability to change in either, and it would come about based on, let's say, the structure of the electoral system, the power of any special interests that have been able to capture regulatory agencies or...
	Sorry to interrupt you, but let's say that all of this is true, and I'm sure that it is.
	But all of that is just the result of prior agreements in the social contract.
	So if America has lots of farmers, which it does relative to, say, Iceland, then those farmers are going to have more special interest sort of effects or influence over legislation.
	But that's just because people like to eat and there's lots of farmers in America.
	So it's not... I mean, whatever alterations there are...
	Or whatever differences there are between these societies actually speaks to support the social contract rather than to nullify it, because it means that the social contract is changing to reflect local preferences and conditions.
	Well, I mean, I think in a way that argument can be leveled for anything, and again it sort of turns into the non-falsifiable type of argument, right?
	I mean, you can always say, well, it's the result of prior decisions, and in a way, organically, that's the case.
	Did those prior decisions conform to at least the explicit goals of the social contract or some of the conditions of the social contract?
	So, is farmers being able to, for example, take subsidies from other taxpayers?
	Is that valid under the social contract?
	Well, sure. Because the legislation to provide those farm subsidies was voted upon and is accepted by the majority of the population who pays taxes without a revolution, without a tax revolt, without anything like that.
	And since, of course, the farming community represents 1 or 2% of the American population, if the rest of the population no longer wanted these farm subsidies, they would simply tell their politicians through their votes they no longer wanted them, and there's no way that 2% of the population can hold the rest of 98% of the voting population hostage, and therefore it would change in a heartbeat.
	So, could we level this argument?
	So, pretty much the voting and the legislative process and so on are what made this chain of decisions valid.
	Could we say that Iran's parliament, when it passes a law to subsidize, let's say, farmers in the north at the expense of farmers in the south, that that is a valid choice of the social contract or a valid decision under the pretext of the social contract?
	Well, I mean, the question is, of course, does Iran allow its citizens to leave and do they have an active and possible participation in the political process?
	What constitutes an active participation in the political process?
	Well, the right of free assembly, the right to start political parties, the right to free speech, and all these kinds of things, and the right to appeal to and influence the decision-makers in the political process, and so on.
	All of those would be valid ways of being allowed to openly influence.
	I don't even know if women can vote over them.
	I mean, I don't know, right? So, I don't know the degree to which they have the kind of democratic freedoms that we have here, or we enjoy here.
	But the degree to which they don't, then it would not be a valid social contract.
	So, pulling away from Iran for a moment, you've introduced freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and so on, so you would say those are necessary under the social contract.
	Those fall under the concept of the ability to change that you put forward as a condition.
	Yes. If you don't have the ability to influence a social contract, then it can't be considered binding.
	Okay, so do you believe that there can be differences in degree in the abilities and manifestations of these?
	Or furthermore, would you say that a restriction on any of these would make a social contract comparatively worse than another?
	Sure. Right.
	So, tying it back to the France and the U.S. issue, there are certainly gulfs in terms of those rights of freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, among other things, right?
	Look at how campaign contributions are structured in the United States as opposed to France.
	Look at how the media is controlled, right?
	I mean, all of these...
	there are a number of factors that constitute a complex ecosystem of, I guess, factors that would affect the effectuality of one's ability to change a social contract.
	Sorry, did you say how the media is controlled?
	You've put a lot of stuff in there.
	I just want to pause on that one.
	You said how the media is controlled.
	Is that right? Yes.
	But I would argue that the media is a perfect representation of the social contract because the media is certainly not enforced upon the general population.
	Nobody is forced to watch any particular TV show.
	And the media is simply interested in grabbing eyeballs.
	The job of the media is to serve up eyeballs to advertisers or ears to advertisers, so to speak.
	So I would say that the media is a perfect representation of the social contract.
	It simply reflects the preferences of the voluntary viewer or listener to the media.
	So I'm not sure what you mean when you say the media is controlled?
	Well, I think controlled may be too strong of a term, but you can definitely say that there are things that limit the competitiveness of the media.
	And when there's a limitation on competition in any market, you cannot say that the outcome of the market necessarily represents the preferences of consumers.
	Well, sure, but let's say that there are limitations.
	Obviously, there are licensing issues and FCC regulations on the media, but if the majority did not want that to be the case, it would change, right?
	So it simply is reflecting the valid will of the majority that these things are in place.
	And again, we can say, well, that should be different, but then we have the job of convincing the majority to change its mind.
	Do you think that the majority's mind is not endogenous to the social contracts?
	Do you think that perhaps...
	Would you rule out the possibility that the presence of the force...
	The presence of the force is nice.
	That... The force is strong and the being a crutchy one.
	Would you say that people's preferences are not affected by the ability of the government to use violence?
	I mean, in a way, you're sort of suggesting that people's preferences are this exogenous whole that's unchanging and that their decisions always reflect a genuine or straightforward representation of their preferences?
	There is no doubt that human beings' decision-making capacities are limited by the application of force.
	That is the entire point of the social contract is to say that we give up certain freedoms in order to gain more freedoms through a general enforcement of the social contract.
	So there's no question.
	And there's no question that there is a non-universality.
	Again, I don't want to keep going over these points, right?
	But there's no question that there is a non-universality of belief, because if there was a universality of belief, we wouldn't need a social contract.
	Well, of course, of course, but I think that still dodges the issue as to...
	As to whether...
	I mean, so basically, let's walk back to the media argument.
	I put forward that because of a number of regulatory considerations and so on, that the media doesn't reflect a competitive market.
	And I've used that to advance the claim that it doesn't reflect the preferences of viewers.
	And you responded by saying that, well, the setup of the regulatory agencies is a reflection of people's preferences.
	But... To which I put forward the question, does the presence of force in the government affect what those people's preferences are?
	In a way that does not do them justice.
	Let's say that the force is used in the media to limit competition or whatever, but that force is only there because of the prior preferences of the majority of voters.
	Or at least their acceptance of the situation.
	So yes, the force is definitely there, but only as a result of the preferences of the voters.
	So to back up historically into the genesis of the social contract, could the social contract be an ex post facto description of something that came about via the imposition of one group We have the imposition via force of one group over another group.
	Because it seems that that explanation again falls into non-falsifiable territory, right?
	There's no possible, tangible evidence I could ever give to refute that.
	I absolutely agree with you that there is a certain...
	I mean, it's not like a bunch of warring tribes or noble savages all sat down in a plenary council and decided to go forward with a social contract that they all signed with the blood of their pet rabbits or something.
	I fully agree with you that it is an ex post facto metaphor or way of understanding the genesis or the creation of a civil society.
	That having been said, we can, I think, reasonably understand that it was preferential to what came before, because otherwise it would not have continued and evolved to such a high degree as it has in Western democracies.
	It was preferable to what came before, which is why we say you give up some rights in order to maintain a far greater set of rights.
	And in the same way, we don't say that a social contract is simply the imposition of force.
	As I've said before, and I may have to say again, the imposition of force does not justify the social contract because you do have to have the right to participate in it, to state your case, to alter the views of the majority, to participate in shaping it.
	And you have to have the ability to not be forced to stay within it.
	So it's not simply the imposition of force that justifies or creates a social contract.
	The social contract is an evolution where everybody gets to participate in creating what is justifiably enforceable within society.
	But it is force.
	It is the use of force.
	You can keep talking about it and saying that it's not the use of force, but it is force.
	It's the same thing as a rude third guy coming in on a microphone.
	It's force. Good illustration.
	I don't think, I mean, if you watch this again, I don't think that you'll ever find a time where I have said that it's not force.
	It is force. Absolutely.
	But it's less force than a social contract, where it would just be a war.
	I don't know that we've seen the evidence of that.
	It's not only force, but it's also the denying of my ability to have self-defense.
	I'm disarmed by this.
	I'm disarmed by this.
	You are disarmed by the social contract.
	That's very true because the social contract has to be enforced through overwhelming force.
	But you're subject to much less violence than you would be if there were no social contract and it was a war of all against all.
	Thank you.
	And you're saying that, but where's the proof of that?
	And you've listed several guys who supposedly have various levels of social contracts, some of which are pleasant, some of which are not, but we haven't talked about anybody who doesn't have a social contract yet.
	Okay, I'm happy to talk about who are the people who don't have a social contract.
	Nobody. There's force on everybody.
	Right, and it would be great if we could snap our fingers and make everyone peaceful and no longer need a social contract, but the fact that every human being in the world is subject to a social contract, I think is an indication that it is beneficial to society as a whole.
	It's an indication, those are just words, but I'm a pacifist, and the system that you're describing removes the possibility of somebody being a pacifist and being able to defend himself against people who are not pacifists.
	Well, I think that's an excellent point.
	I certainly do applaud your pacifism, and what I would say is that...
	No, I would absolutely applaud your pacifism, but what I would say is that the best way for you to overcome the social contract is to talk to people about pacifism, get the majority of people to be interested in practicing pacifism, and that way the social contract will inevitably alter to give you the kind of liberty that you want.
	We'd all love to have the eloquence and rhetorical power to convince people that force was never a good solution, nobody should steal, nobody should kill, nobody should Rape, nobody should assault, in which case we would no longer need a government or a social contract or anything like that.
	So I would absolutely applaud your pacifism and say that once the world, or at least the majority of people, accept your approach to life, then the social contract will change.
	But if the majority of people reject You're still talking.
	I'm such a pacifist, I'm even reluctant to interrupt you.
	That's how much of a pacifist I am.
	I had to be rude to interrupt you.
	The system that you're describing completely obliterates the possibility of a pacifist.
	Unless I can use force to convince my friends to not use force.
	I don't believe in force.
	How could I possibly use your system?
	A pacifist could not possibly use the system that you're describing to effect change, because that would be using force.
	I would have to wrestle the force away from you to convince my friends to not use force, and that's a contradiction.
	Well, except that in a democracy you don't wrestle power away from other people.
	All you would do is you would create the pacifist party and you would go and convince people to be pacifists and then you would become a political leader and you would use your authority to strike down laws and aspects of the social contract that you found objectionable, which you could get the majority to agree with you about.
	So I don't think you would be eliminating it.
	How are we going to convince other people to be pacifists?
	How are we going to enforce the pacifism?
	I don't know. Convincing and enforcing are not the same thing.
	If you can convince the majority of people that the laws that are passed in a democratic society are bad, and we should eliminate most, if not all of them, then you can absolutely get that done within the social contract.
	And it has to how. I don't have the magic wand, but you would end your effort.
	Does the guy who's in charge, and it's a guy, or two guys, or three guys, whoever's in charge of the social contract, how do I convince my pacifist friends that it's okay that we choose these guys who are using force to enforce the social agreement?
	How do we convince them to accept force?
	How do you convince them to accept force?
	No, how do...
	Boy, you guys can help me if you've got suggestions.
	You know what I'm trying to say.
	The social contract uses force to enforce the social contract.
	I'm a pacifist. I don't believe in using force, except for in self-defense.
	Right, right.
	So how can I enforce a pacifist contract?
	Well, you don't. Sorry to interrupt, but what you do, if I can humbly suggest this, what you do is you put together the pacifist party and you go and talk to people or record podcasts or videos from your home and you say to people, we need to stop using force to enforce the social contract.
	The social contract, if you can convince enough people, will inevitably shift that way and you will end up, in a sense, with a voluntary social contract if the majority of people wish to go in that direction.
	And it will be enforced through force?
	No, no, no. If you can convince everyone to stop using force, there'll be no need for a social contract, so to speak, and we will all have angel wings and pixie wings and pixie wings.
	Am I going to be able to keep the cop from using force against me while I'm doing this?
	Well, sure, because you would use the democratic political system to convince people that we don't need police, to convince everyone to be virtuous from dawn till dusk and every hour in between.
	And then you would eliminate the police through the political process.
	There would be no more enforcement and we would all eat honey and bees.
	What is a political party?
	Well, a political party is a mechanism, of course, by which you will attempt to convince people to give you their trust in order to alter the social contract, to your preference, which would be to eliminate most, if not all of it, if I understand it correctly.
	And earlier you were talking about the 98% of the majority exerting control over the 2%.
	Why, as the 2%, am I supposed to yield to your force against me?
	Well, because the alternative to the social contract is the war of all against all, right?
	At least that's the theory. Again, I don't have any empirical proof because we didn't have video cameras back in the Paleolithic age, but the theory is that when there was no social contract, people didn't voluntarily subjugate themselves to generally accepted social rules, And in force and against those who didn't voluntarily subject themselves to it,
	in force against those who stole and robbed and killed and so on, that society was much worse, much more violent, much more dangerous, particularly for the vulnerable in society, the old, the pregnant, the children and so on.
	So when we began to have more universal rules around what is acceptable within society and we began to impose those rules on the outliers or the outlaws, society became less violent.
	So the reason I would suggest that you should submit yourself to the social contract is because it's like submitting yourself to the dentist.
	It's like, yeah, it sucks for a little while, but you're much better off in the long term.
	So I'm going to abdicate my will so that we don't have all against all, but now we have majority against minority.
	And it could be a majority of 51% against 49%.
	If I'm in the minority, I would be better to be all in all if I'm a minority.
	You would be better to be three?
	I would be better to be involved in aggression all against all if I'm the minority.
	Because at this point, I definitely have 51% against me.
	All in all, all I've got is my immediate neighbors and those situations.
	Right. That's an excellent point, for sure.
	Let me give you two responses to that.
	The first is that if it's 49 to 51 and you're on the 49 side, surely that should cause you to spend some energy convincing the 1% or 1.01% to alter their position.
	When things are that close in society, there tends to be a lot of involvement with people who are attempting to sway the social contract one way or another.
	It's not like, if it's 99 to 1, then the 1% is not going to spend a huge amount of effort, because it's like, okay, uncle, I give, right?
	But if it's, you know, 49 to 50.1, then for sure you should put lots of effort into getting your point of view across.
	And of course, let's say it doesn't happen this time, in another couple of years, there's another election, and you can make your case, you can build your case through that time to get those few percentage of points of people over.
	So that's the first thing that I would say.
	The second thing that I would say is that Clearly, You don't do what you say, right?
	So as a pacifist, you say, well, I'm in the minority and I don't want to support the social contract, and therefore it would be better for me just to have a war of all against all, but you don't do that, right?
	Practically, you do obey the social contract, even the parts that you disagree with, because, of course, there are other parts of the social contract that other people disagree with that you approve of, and they obey it as well, right?
	So that's...
	It's not that you aren't going out in a blaze of the social contract, right?
	I mean, you are respecting it the way that other people respect it, and so we have to sort of look at how we actually live rather than the sort of theoretical Mad Max situation.
	Can I just ask a question?
	But yes! Let's go with the non-bearded one.
	Okay. Well, I'm just curious because you've said a lot about...
	I'm not going to blink because you finished your question, so don't take too long.
	Okay, I will. You said a lot about the origins of the social contract being this war of all against all, and to me that seems to be some sort of implicit description of human nature.
	Would you say that's correct?
	I myself believe that human nature is much more affected by culture than genetics, and we can see that looking at different cultures around the world and how different people are.
	I don't think it's a description of human nature, but I think it was a description of society before, We began to subject our angry, greedy wills, such as we had, to a more generally accepted set of rules.
	Okay, because I'm kind of confused about when you say we had these angry, greedy wills, how that suddenly changed for the people who were in the government, who created the government.
	When did that whole transition take place?
	Well, I think that what happened was people who, I mean, again, there's no proof.
	This is just a way of looking at it.
	But I think the way that it happened was people got sick and tired of fighting all the time, and they just decided to appoint an arbiter.
	And to submit their wills to that person.
	And they say, okay, well, sometimes it'll go against me.
	Sometimes it'll go for me.
	But on balance, it's a hell of a lot better than hitting people with clubs, right?
	So people just basically said, let's just appoint someone who's, you know, the wisest and the smartest guy in the village or the huts or the caves or whatever.
	And that person is going to be the person that we're going to submit our will to.
	And... They gave, you know, a tenth of their crops to this guy who then could hire a couple of policemen to keep the peace.
	And people just said, oh my god, this is so much better than us running around in the woods clubbing each other whenever we get upset.
	So it's not that, I mean, ideally, the social contract, and this is more true in modern democracies than it would have been in the past, The social contract is not imposed upon a population but is generated from the preferences of the population and that's why it is maintained for the most part without force at all and why most people will pay their taxes and submit to laws against drunk driving voluntarily rather than go out in a blaze of glory, gun down cops and ship all their money off seas in gold bars hidden in the belly of dolphins or something.
	So, this idea that the social contract generates a government through the practical preferences for a less violent society.
	Just to interject real quick, it sounds like you've made a historical claim right there, right?
	That this is the genesis of the social contract, or this is the genesis of the state, right?
	I mean, you're saying that this claim could be backed by history?
	No, I'm sorry. I'm saying it can't be proved.
	What I am saying is it's a useful metaphor Obviously, we don't really care about the social contracts of Paleolithic tribes.
	We don't care what contracts written on bison hides were made between Cro-Manians and Neanderthals.
	What we care about is the current social contract and the social contract of the future.
	And that has to be based upon the voluntary participation and inclusion of citizens.
	So I'm not making factual claims because there's no evidence that I know of, because this almost all occurred in three language situations.
	There's simply no records of it.
	But we can assume that people did find it preferable to have an arbitral that was a wise guy, so to speak, rather than a club.
	Well, in order for that metaphor...
	Sorry. Somebody was going to go?
	No, let's go on, if that's all right.
	Unless you had a point you wanted to add.
	I just wanted to get back to her question.
	Because she's had time to brew some really evil questions.
	And so I don't want to deny her the opportunity.
	Otherwise, she'll end up, you know, vomiting black blood on the webcam or something.
	And that's usually... Anyway, sorry, go on.
	Okay, so...
	I'm just...
	Because what I think of within a democracy, people who are attracted to power or people with sort of not so good natures, would they go for a system wherein they're less accountable for their actions or for where they're more accountable for their actions?
	Well, I mean, again, we're talking an ideal situation, but in a democracy, they're accountable.
	They have to appeal to the people.
	They would be accountable to the people.
	Whether they would prefer a more or less accountable system, I don't know.
	Maybe every politician wants to be a dictator, which is why the social contract and democratic voting is so important.
	Well, I mean, it's just kind of this or that question.
	I mean, would an evil person be more attracted to a situation of less accountability or more accountability?
	I think an evil person would probably be attracted to a situation of less accountability, which is why the social contract is sort of an evolution from the clubbing scenario.
	And not the fun clubbing, you know, with the cocaine and the hookers, but the other kind.
	Well, The reason I ask that is because I don't really hear any stories about cops going to jail.
	I don't hear any stories, you know, when politicians get caught, you know, they hardly...
	I mean, you know, everybody knows they pretty much get away with everything.
	So I would say there's less accountability in that situation than there would be in, say, an everyday job.
	I mean, would you not agree with that?
	Well, I guess three very brief points.
	The first is that there's no question that the social contract is not perfect.
	There is no human institution that is perfect, which is why we need the constant feedback of the democratic process.
	So I agree with you. There are certain things that I would prefer in terms of more accountability.
	And so, as a concerned voter, it would be up to me to pursue that.
	So that was my first point.
	The second point, though, is that you could very easily look at, and I think reasonably so, You could look at something like lack of accountability for cops and you could say, look, the social contract has come down on the side of giving cops leniency because if the cops feel that they can't act, then society ends up being not protected because cops are sitting there thumbing through a 1,200-page rulebook when they're in the midst of a pursuit of someone.
	So as a society as a whole, we've decided to give the cops more latitude because it makes them a more effective police force.
	And if people wanted to tie the hands of cops and, you know, force them to go to jail every time they arrested the wrong jaywalker, then we would end up with a different kind of society where cops would feel pretty paralyzed and people would not prefer that.
	So that's sort of another...
	That's another approach for sure.
	So those would be my responses to that.
	You know, if you feel that cops and politicians should be more accountable, then I would put that into the public debate and make that part of the agenda for the next election.
	Okay. One thing I keep noticing you're saying is that society prefers this, or, you know, obviously the majority has decided this, and if we're accepting democracy as a system wherein the majority gets its way, Why do we need to enforce it?
	Well, because there is the minority who doesn't want to do it, right?
	Obviously, right? I mean, if you pass a law that says you have to stop on red when there's a traffic light, then there will be a bunch of people who don't want to stop on red, who just want to, you know, take their chances with the t-boning.
	So... You know, you have to enforce it because there's a majority of people who don't want to agree.
	Again, if you could get homogenous agreement, you wouldn't need a social contract at all.
	I mean, there would be no need for...
	There would be no crime.
	I mean, we'd live in paradise and some other planet, right?
	Okay. I can see that.
	I mean, I can see your point on the traffic light thing.
	But, I mean, I mean, for the vast majority of government institutions, where you're trying to finance something like national defense or you're trying to finance welfare, if the majority of people are already willing to pay for if the majority of people are already willing to pay for it, then why exactly do you need to enforce Well, I would say it's because of this.
	It's because the majority has looked at the risks of non-compliance and found them to be too high.
	So even if I say, look, all, I guess, seven of us would pay for welfare, the risks of noncompliance, given that poor children are dependent upon welfare checks and people have made decisions on that, and if those welfare checks don't go out, then children starve in the streets and so on.
	What we've done is we've looked as a collective, we've looked at the risks that people won't We agree to do it voluntarily, and we say, look, those risks are too high, given the dangers to the vulnerable that would be engendered by a lack of donations to the welfare state.
	And so we've said, look, the overhead of charging people for it gives us certainty, and yes, it's a little more expensive because we need a bureaucracy and we need the tax processing stuff, but given that the costs of noncompliance to charity in this form would be so high, we've looked at it as a society and said, We're going to make it compulsory.
	I mean, maybe we all believe that everyone would do it voluntarily, but the cost of having it compulsory is so little and the disaster of it not being enough would be so great that we've just decided to take out that extra bit of insurance and make it a law rather than a preference.
	It sounds like we're getting into stuff that's largely really theoretical.
	I mean, you're kind of assuming a lot.
	I have one final question, one final argument.
	And the question I have is this.
	Would you say that a social institution should accept its own justification as a valid...
	If someone were to come with a similar problem to it, should it accept its own justification for existence and its application to that problem?
	I think I understand it.
	I saw some freaked out five minute thing on the internet that I didn't follow at all.
	Just some babbling Brit head.
	Well, that to me seems much more theoretical than whether we should enforce a welfare state.
	The question is, does it matter?
	And I'm sorry to put it in those kinds of pragmatic terms.
	It's just that if the majority of people have decided to submit to a social contract, and it's not like...
	On the important stuff, it's not like 51% of people don't want people to murder and 49% of them do want to murder, right?
	I mean, it's like 99.9% to 0.01%, and I particularly don't have any problem enforcing don't murder on the one in a hundred people or one in a thousand people who would consider it otherwise.
	So, given that, let's say, our cultural prejudices or our generalized ethics are against things like murder, rape, and theft, and assault, and so on, You know, does the social system justify itself?
	Well, it doesn't matter. Those things are bad.
	The vast majority of people accept that.
	They want to prevent the nasty minority of people from doing it.
	Whether it theoretically justifies itself or there's some external god or theory that could or couldn't do it, it doesn't really matter.
	You're still not going to change people's minds about whether murder is bad.
	The majority of people don't want a society where you can have rape and murder and theft and assault.
	And how they justify it doesn't really matter because it's the majority.
	And if you want to change that and say to people, well, you should allow these things, then I guess you could try and change the social contract or eliminate it to reflect that.
	That's where society is at the moment.
	It's justified through our cultural traditions, through the beauties and glories of the Judeo-Christian ethic, and so it's a little hard to change that kind of weight of history, I would say, without trying to overturn a whole lot of stuff.
	Man, I'm going to have to take a long shower, I'm telling you.
	I'm sorry. I feel so dirty.
	And not in the way that I like.
	I was amazing the bullshit that she could come up with.
	Anyway, sorry, go on. Christina, is your head about to explode?
	Did you want to put in a rebut?
	Do you want to come and sit here and do it?
	Let me turn the mic.
	Christina's going to give us a rebut.
	And I'm going to pretend that it's my belly talking.
	No, I'm not. I'm just kidding. I have a hard time formulating thoughts when there's a debate going on.
	Can you hear me a little bit? Oh, sorry.
	Can everybody hear me okay?
	Can you guys hear me? Sounds good.
	I have a hard time formulating my thoughts when there's a debate going on and a discussion, but the one thing that kept going through my mind throughout all of this is the issue of the majority rules.
	I'm not sure if I'm going to pose this as a question.
	Like I said, formulating my thoughts is really difficult.
	But I have this suspicion that nobody tells me what to do in other areas of my life.
	Nobody tells me who to marry.
	No, really, you don't.
	Okay. Social contract is matriarchal in our household, but go on.
	Nobody tells me who to marry.
	Nobody tells me what school to attend.
	Nobody tells me what car to buy.
	Nobody tells me what house to buy, what furniture to buy, what time to get up in the morning, or anything like that.
	And so the idea that somebody else, that a group of people can tell me or can impose their preferences upon me is something that I find fundamentally flawed with the social contract.
	Again, I think that's where we need to go in this discussion.
	I haven't had a real chance to formulate my thoughts more deeply to argue that point to its conclusion, but I think that's where this debate needs to go.
	There's freedom.
	In every aspect of my life, so to speak, in my day-to-day stuff, except I don't have the freedom to choose whether or not I want to pay the taxes for, for instance, up until, well, even now I don't have a child.
	Hopefully the baby will be born healthy and we'll be able to raise our child.
	What if I don't want to send my child to school?
	What if I want to homeschool my child?
	Why should I be forced to pay for education taxes and for the public school system?
	I don't have a right to choose that.
	I know that you would say, well, then I should go somewhere else or I should go out and live into the woods.
	Or try and change the social contract.
	Or try and change the social contract.
	The question I have also is, how informed is the majority?
	How can we ensure that the majority, that each and every person who is voting, can make these decisions?
	It has a clue. It has a clue, right?
	About whether I want defense, whether I want...
	What if I don't have elderly parents or I don't care whether or not they are...
	But you should care about other people's elderly parents.
	But the point is, I would be able to make that decision myself and donate money, donate my resources, my time, my effort, if I cared about the issues that are important to me.
	And I don't like the idea that other people can impose their preferences upon me.
	This is about universally preferable behavior.
	And people don't have the right or should not have the right to impose their preferences.
	Right. I don't know.
	That's sort of where I want to go.
	I think you'll probably be able to debate every single point I make.
	No, that's great. For a woman who's getting kicked in the kidneys, you're doing a fantastic job of bringing up points.
	Okay. So how would you argue that, or would you?
	Well, let me just go back to our bottom left Jimbo category.
	James, how do you feel that the debate has been going, pro and con the social contract?
	Now, I'm not going to turn it. We'll have to do this next week.
	I'm not going to turn it because it's a long conversation.
	I don't want to turn it around, but we can try turning it around next week.
	But how do you feel that it's gone in terms of the criticisms and the pro and the con for the social contract?
	Hmm. Oh, I've startled you.
	Well, there's definitely some... Were you in your happy place?
	Heidi Klum, is she there?
	And that sardine oil that you like?
	Anyway, sorry, go on. - No.
	Now, I had thoughts now.
	I can't think. I can't remember. Well, we can throw this out to a general.
	I mean, I want to wind up in a minute or two, just so we don't bring down YouTube.
	But how do people feel when sort of watching or listening to this, you know, me taking the sort of evil side of the social contract?
	How do people feel that it sort of went in terms of the pros and cons?
	Yes, Wavy. I've got a question.
	Yes, Wavy. The question is, we were talking about how the social contract started earlier, like how they begin, like what the genesis of the social contract is like.
	And so, if I understand it right, you described a scenario where the majority decide to change something and that decision slowly shifts the social contract back so that they can enforce that on other people, right? On the minority? Yeah, on the minority of bad people.
	Right. So, if I'm right, is the social contract limited to predefined geographical areas or can arbitrarily defined geographical areas have their own social contract?
	So, like, the state of North Carolina could have its own social contract versus, like, the United States had its social contract?
	Yes, and in fact, I would say, again, going back to beautiful Steph, the social contract can absolutely be set around arbitrary lines of political districts or whatever, but only if those arbitrary lines are themselves arrived at through the process of a social contract and a voluntary kind of democracy.
	I have a social contract that I want to propose real quick.
	I propose a social contract that says that we are right, that the social contract is invalid, and you're wrong.
	And as long as we vote on it, then you're right.
	We're right and wrong. Yes, but of course it would only be valid if the social contract is valid.
	It would be in all contradiction at this point.
	That you're going to use the social contract to invalidate the social contract.
	There's this book called UPV.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Can I make another point?
	Christina, would you...
	The government doesn't exist in reality.
	And so the fact that we are giving a group of people the authority to impose...
	I've got an echo.
	I can't think.
	Take your headphones off and make your point then.
	Okay.
	And the fact that we are giving a group of people the authority to make decisions again, that strikes me as Wrong, for lack of a stronger word.
	Well, it's not UBB compliant, for sure.
	It's not UBB compliant, and I think that, again, my head is just swimming.
	It's a really tough debate.
	Look, I mean, it's been going on for 2,000 years or more then, so it's a tough debate.
	So what gives... I mean, if these people are just...
	The government doesn't exist.
	It's composed of people.
	Those people are no different than I am.
	Just because they walk into a particular building in the morning doesn't...
	They don't change chemically, biologically, physiologically in any way so that their ideas and their opinions have more validity or credibility than my ideas and my opinions.
	Their capacity to enforce a law or a preference is immoral.
	I mean, you stated it more than argued it, but I completely agree with the conclusion, for sure.
	Okay, so again, my thoughts are kind of all over the place.
	And Steph, take it from there.
	No, I mean, I think, again, because it's a long show, and I really do appreciate you guys did a fantastic job of bringing up the issues about the social contract.
	I think just for the sake of people's sanity and comfort, we should maybe pick it up next week and I'll try taking the opposite position so you guys can try arguing for the social contract and I'll try arguing against it and we can see.
	But it's a tough argument to overcome, right?
	I mean, at least I think the position that I was taking was, you know, fluid and greasy and slimy and, right, I mean, it's truly...
	What have we got here?
	It is like trying to punch fog, right?
	Absolutely. I made a number of logical fallacies and changed topics a huge number of times to be truly evil and evasive.
	I want to point out what those were, but I think it would be worthwhile sitting on this and trying to come up with the counter-arguments because I think it would be more fun then.
	Does that make sense for people?
	We never forgot about your definition of what a contract is, let alone a social contract.
	Yeah, I kind of noticed that. And without the definition, I can make it be whatever the hell I want, right?
	It's voluntary, it's peaceful, it's violent, it's participatory, it's inflicted, it's, you know, it is whatever it needs to be to get through the next point.
	So, next week, we'll try switching sides, and you guys can take on the Cloak of Infinite Darkness.
	And I can try taking on the voluntarist position and we can see how it goes from there.
	How does it sound? Cool.
	How many people are about, yay, close to an aneurysm?
	Any? Christina?
	Yes? Excellent.
	Well, hopefully it's frustrating next week, but this is what it's like to debate with somebody about the social contract, isn't it?
	Don't you feel like you're just fighting a kind of fog?
	Definitely. I felt that I was susceptible to being dragged along.
	You're like my dog on the leash and just dragging me along the sidewalk, you know, into non-falsifiable territory.
	It's like every argument, it's like what happened in this thread.
	It was like an argumentative Ponzi scheme.
	You would introduce a new fallacy and more fallacies than I could fix, right?
	You're going to be conscious.
	Right, but knowing when to stop that process and to back it up, I mean, this is why we need a boot camp, right?
	Because this stuff is really, really, really tough to argue.
	And of course, it's a brain virus we've all been infected with, right?
	So it's like that old ache when it rains if you're old and have arthritis, right?
	I mean, sorry, that's a metaphor, not really appropriate to you kids, except as your kid, Greg.
	But it's really tough.
	Like, this is why I wanted to do this boot camp, because it's really tough to argue these points, at least it certainly has been in my experience.
	So I think that Seeing the pro side to the social contract, switching sides going for the anti-social contract side, and it's such an elemental debate.
	If you can't overcome the social contract, you can't argue for voluntarism, in my opinion, because people think it is voluntarism, right?
	So I thought we could switch.
	We'll switch next week, and I'll try taking down the social contract and see how it goes, and you guys can try going for the pro side.
	What do you think? Well, just a quick point.
	I would like to argue that what happened was not actually a debate, because probably about 10-15 minutes into this, it really didn't matter what any of the four of us were saying to you.
	You would just say whatever you wanted to get out of it, or to avoid it, or evade it.
	Well, that's true, though, but the reality is I got away with it, right?
	Right, because we've continued arguing.
	Well, whatever you continue doing, I wasn't retracting points, right?
	And this is part of the boot camp thing, right, is that you have to corner people and get them to retract their points, right?
	So when Chewie said something about the media being controlled, I got him to retract that point.
	And not because, you know, I necessarily agree with that position, But just because if you can get someone to retract their points, then they lose face in the debate.
	Because we're talking about a public debating situation here, right?
	So you want to create the appearance of being correct.
	And so even if I was weaseling everything, and I was weaseling a hell of a lot, of course, the reality is that I got away with it.
	And in a public situation, I think that the voluntarist position came off weaker than the...
	because I didn't back down from any points, right?
	So I think from that standpoint, it's important to just know when to nail someone from that standpoint, right?
	Because if I never concede anything, I automatically won the debate just by appearance, right?
	Well, I'm just trying to compare that, what you're saying, and my experience of today's debate with the definition of debating that we established last week, and I'm having a hard time fitting the two of them together.
	Well, sorry, did you mean because this was supposed to be the collaborative style of debate rather than the chess style of debate?
	Well, that was the impression that I'd gotten that it would be more collaborative rather than adversarial.
	But, I mean, I'm happy with the adversarial if we want to go that route.
	Well, first of all, the adversarial is what you're most going to start with.
	The challenge is to turn it from adversarial into adversarial.
	A collaborative debate.
	And until you can get me to concede some illogic, there's no way it's going to be collaborative because I will feel that you don't have anything to offer to my existing knowledge.
	So it just becomes me defending my position.
	If you can't chip away anything that I'm saying, I'm not saying nobody did, right?
	But if you can't get that across, if you can't get me to concede, it's not going to become collaborative because I already know the truth, so to speak, and I'm trying to educate you, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, that clarifies it.
	Thank you. Sure.
	All right. Well, thank you, guys. Fantastic.
	I know that it's frustrating.
	It's good for you to see Evil Staff.
	He does a podcast called Freedom and Slavery.
	And I hope that you will check it out at prostate.com.
	So thank you so much.
	I can't wait for me talking about the glories of the Judeo-Christian ethic and the wonders of democracy to show up in the next Freedom Aid Radio Mixtape.
	Thank you so much, and I will see you guys next week.

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