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Dec. 25, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
56:23
1239 The Meaning of Life - Merry Christmas!

The secret.

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Good afternoon, everybody. Hope you're doing well.
It's December the 25th at around 1pm, I think.
Ooh, that is the sidewalk of slippery death.
Let me return to the main road and continue.
Well, Merry Christmas, of course.
I hope that you're doing very well.
And I thought, as a minor preview, or as a mere preview, that...
It might be worth talking about my thoughts on a perennial problem of philosophy, or I suppose a problem which you could say all philosophers feel obliged at one time or another to take a stab at, and I'm not going to pretend to be any different, so let's have a look at the meaning of life.
What is the meaning of life?
Why are we here?
And this is going to be eventually a three-part video series, but I thought that it might be of interest to you to have a foreshadow, a taste of the general tripartite argument, and, of course, you can let me know what you think.
So, the first thing that I would maintain most strenuously and vociferously is the basic fact, the basic reality, That there is no meaning to life.
There is no meaning to life.
In this, I side with the existentialists.
Existence precedes essence.
There is no meaning to life.
In the same way that there is no virtue in the world.
There is no such thing as virtue in the same way that there is such a thing as Iraq.
Or Iraq. But, maybe not Iraq.
So there is no such thing as virtue.
And what does that mean?
Well, it means that there is nothing outside us that gives meaning and purpose to our life.
There is nothing external to our consciousness that imbibes meaning, purpose, direction to our life.
The universe does not care Whether we succeed or fail, or what we succeed or fail at.
Pluto doesn't care if you strangle a kitten or rescue an orphan.
The universe is utterly indifferent to the choices that we make, and there are no external gods or devils who praise or damn the choices that we make.
There's no virtue There's no truth.
Truth does not exist in the universe.
Accuracy is a relation between thought and externality, between ideas and matter, which has objective definitions, so I'm down with that.
But there's no truth in the universe. There's no meaning.
There's no virtue. It's morally, spiritually, meaningfully empty.
And people face that void and falter.
And it's hard to look into that void, into that absence of meaning, into that absence of virtue, into that absence of ought in the arid land of is.
So we falter.
We avoid looking at the meaninglessness of life.
And I think that's a terrible, terrible error.
And I think it is a causal root of a vast majority of the world's evils.
And I hope we'll be able to make some sense about why.
But just to reinforce the point, right, we accept that the bacteria in our intestines, that their lives have no meaning, right?
They're not on a mission from God.
They're not striving to bring order to the universe.
There's no meaning in the existence of the bacteria in our intestines.
We also accept that there is no meaning in the existence of our intestines.
Our intestines are not fully imbibed with spiritual meaning and purpose and questing.
In fact, for our intestines, We, the rest of us, are just a great mechanism for making another intestine, right?
All our little toe is using the rest of us as a big lever to make another little toe.
That's the point of...
And really, it goes down to the DNA level, fundamentally.
So, we accept that the bacteria in our intestines, that their lives have no meaning, our intestines' lives have no meaning, neither is there meaning in the lives of our leg, our spleen, our liver, our bile ducts, our esophagus, our...
aureoli...
And so, if there's no meaning, there's no meaning to life because we fully accept that life is not synonymous with meaning because bacteria are alive.
I guess viruses are still half and half.
And we accept that trilobites, bacteria, single-celled organisms, that their lives have no meaning.
Ah, we'll extend it to cats, right?
So, If every...
And we fully accept that, of course, the existence of a rock has no meaning.
A tree, maybe. A tree has no meaning.
A tree is not engaged in a purposeful and directioned goal in the universe that is spiritual, intellectual, moral.
It's just trying to reproduce, right?
And I can hear the determinants muttering, and I'll get to that in a sec, right?
But we accept that Life is not synonymous with meaning because we accept that that which is alive, bacteria, single-celled organisms, worms, that their lives do not have meaning.
We accept that all of the organs within our own bodies, except perhaps our brain, that their existence, their life, has no meaning.
And we can't treat the brain, in this sense, as a fundamentally separate organ.
I mean, the brain is not the crowning achievement of the body.
The little toe doesn't even care about the brain.
Except so far as the brain serves the little toe's desire to make another little toe.
Which is not meaning or purpose, but blind DNA replication.
Now, just to touch on this, and I don't want to divert the argument, but people will then say, determinists will say, that's exactly what we're saying!
Whitey! Right?
What we're saying is that the brain is not different from anything else in the universe and therefore you can't...
Ascribing free will to the brain is like ascribing meaning to the intestine.
Well, but the difference is that I do not require meaning to interact with you.
Whereas I do not require meaning to debate with you.
Whereas you require free will to debate with anyone.
Like it or not. And secondly, meaning is not an observable phenomenon in the way that free will is, right?
We see people making choices, making decisions.
We accept that they make choices and make decisions.
Or if we don't accept it, no one would ever know, because you wouldn't bring it up.
You would never try to affect their behavior or anything like that.
So, it's different from...
This question of meaning.
I can tell you that there's no meaning, and I'm not relying on the existence of meaning to tell you that there's no meaning.
Whereas you cannot tell me there's no free will, because you're relying on free will to change my mind about whether I can change my mind.
And telling me I can't change my mind, but trying to get me to change...
So, there's no logical contradiction in me saying there's no such thing as meaning, in the same way that there is a logical contradiction, both empirical and logical contradiction, In a determinate saying, there's no such thing as choice, and I want you to change your mind about the fact that there is.
So, I understand all of that.
Let's put that aside and return to this question of the meaning of life.
So, clearly, there is no meaning.
And when I say clearly, I don't mean that I've proven it.
I'm just saying that there is no external Mythology that shapes and gives purpose to our lives that exists objectively.
There's no God, and the universe doesn't care what we do.
Our little toe, frankly, if we can't get a voluntary sexual partner, our little toe is, in a way, overjoyed if we rape someone, because it gets to make another little toe, and it doesn't care how.
So there's no meaning in biology, there's no meaning in life, there's no meaning in consciousness, there's no meaning in the universe.
And by meaning, sorry I should have mentioned this, what I sort of fundamentally mean is an external source values purpose, direction and a point to your life.
So let's look at some examples of people who believe that their lives do have meaning, and of course the most fundamental are the religious.
We're just talking about our good old friends, the Christians.
The Christians, of course, accept, believe, and proselytize that their lives have meaning, and the meaning is serving God's will, getting into heaven, Saving souls, fighting the good fight, being a soldier in God's army of righteous virtue, accepting Jesus, loving Jesus, loving your neighbor.
Right. In an ultimate weasel sense, dodging rational objections from atheists.
But they believe that their life has meaning.
And they're wrong.
There is no moral purpose to the universe.
There is no external source of moral purpose to any individual's life.
It's like dieting.
The universe cares nothing whether you're fat or thin.
Pluto does not care, both the fictional dog and the former planet, and perhaps the imaginary deity of the underworld.
Now, if you choose to diet or gain weight if you're underweight or whatever, then that's your choice.
The universe doesn't care. So, when we contrast the factual meaninglessness of life with the mythologized or fictional or imagined meaning of a Christian's existence, I think we can understand...
The difference. They make up this soap opera of the sky, which they can step into, and it drives meaning and, quote, purpose and value and all that in their lives.
Patriotism, of course, is another imaginary meaning machine, right?
A mythological machine to create meaning for someone Without effort, without them actually having to define and work towards it and be virtuous.
So one of the things that you will hear about America and Noam Chomsky and I think it's Hegemony or Survival, Survival or Hegemony, has a great critique of this.
So this idea that America is the shining city on the hill, Full of Wilsonian idealism out to make the world a better place and genuinely cares about freedom and democracy.
It is the one indispensable moral nation consumed by a burning desire to spread reason, democracy, and freedom throughout the world.
And it is in stark contrast to these cynical nations of the old world who merely parrot virtuous phrases while pursuing base self-interest for the ruling classes.
And whereas America is suffused with this Idealism and mistakes are sometimes made, but it's always accidental.
This is the story of America, and other countries have the same story.
I was raised on the myth of the virtue of the Battle of Britain and the virtue of the British Empire, the white man's burden, blah, blah, blah.
So every tax farm has its mythology, which makes the cattle easier to rule, because they cheer The farmer is more profitable because you don't need to build as many fences.
So people do this, for sure.
Merry Christmas! People do this all the time.
They infuse themselves, or they bond themselves, or they merge.
With a collective fantasy of virtue and purpose, right?
What is the purpose of America?
To spread virtue throughout the world.
It's on a moral and noble mission, and so on, right?
And they attach themselves to a prefabricated and external mythology, which then turn around and pillages and exploits them until they die.
That's the price, right?
The price for fusing with an imaginary mythology is exploitation, corruption, and a form of Fiscal and time-based slavery.
We can look at other examples of this just very briefly.
We have racism, where people say, well, our moral mission is to keep the race pure and to keep the immigrants out and to keep America white and Christian and retarded and so on, right?
And That gives people meaning and purpose.
It doesn't really, but that's the fantasy, right?
It gives them meaning and purpose. What is the purpose of my life?
Well, to keep the nobility of the race and culture and society pure, and so on.
So, that's another example.
And we could go on, and I think you get the general point that people plug into this mythology...
Which is supposed to give their life meaning, and all it does is enslave them.
Because there's no God, the Christian ends up having to obey the priest, of course, right?
Because there is no country, the sheep will end up having to obey the political leaders.
Right.
Alright.
Hi.
So...
There is no meaning, but we have a desire for meaning.
Many people have a desire for meaning.
I don't, but many people do.
Now, why do people have a desire for meaning?
Well, I'll tell you what I think, and you can tell me what you think.
People have a desire for meaning because something's missing from their lives.
Something is absent.
A sense of contentment of what I would generally call the fruits of virtue, which is, you know, happiness, security, love, a sense of benevolent, virtuous and courageous efficacy and noble goals and striving to achieve that which is best in the world, or to aid that which is best in the world.
In the absence And I'll make that argument later.
Just go over it briefly.
Go over the prequel briefly.
So, when people are unhappy to some degree or another, they feel a desire for meaning.
And to give you a rather basic and graphic example, when you think of a great orgasm, you don't In the midst of that orgasm, you do not feel that's your life.
You do not think about the missing meaning of your life, right?
Because you're in the throes of ecstasy, and things, frankly, couldn't be a whole lot better, if at all.
And so you don't worry about the meaning of life when you're in the throes of a wonderful orgasm.
Similarly, You can supply your own.
I'm just talking about some common ones.
When you've had a great meal and you're perhaps reclining and dozing or chatting peaceably and amiably with people, you don't worry about the meaning of life.
Why? Because you're happy.
When you have striven for and achieved a challenging and worthwhile goal and you get that flush of victory, when I fought and battled my way through graduate school to end up with an A on my master's, when I finally got the call, I was supposed to graduate in May, I didn't get the call that I had passed and gotten an A until September.
And when I got that call, I was overjoyed and I did not worry about the meaning of life for some time.
When a woman or a man you want to go out with says yes and you're very excited, you don't worry about it.
So we think of the meaning of life when we're unhappy, when we're depressed.
Right? And it's not entirely self-generated, but I'll just talk about the circularity that I see.
So when you say...
What is the meaning of life?
We understand from that statement that you are experiencing something as missing from your life.
Something is not there that you would like to be there, that you would prefer to be there, that would be good to be there.
Something is not there which is an absence, is a missing, right?
Like you're hungry or, I don't know, you lost a finger, right?
Something's missing which you would really like to have not be missing.
So, it is a state of deficiency, right?
Wanting the meaning of life is a confession of a deficiency.
There's nothing wrong with confessing deficiencies, but we want to make sure that they're both real and realistic.
Now, why is it...
But the question is, why do people feel the desire for or the need for the meaning of life in the first place?
In other words, you're not happy and then you feel like your life needs meaning.
You must be unhappy in order to ask the question, what is the meaning of life?
And basically what people mean by that is, what is the meaning of my life?
In other words, you must be experiencing meaninglessness.
You must be experiencing unhappiness in order for the question to even occur to you in any meaningful way.
When you're happy...
You need not chase the meaning of life, because you are happy.
And there's no deficiency.
Happiness is a state of completeness and fullness without deficiency.
So, when you're happy, you don't need the meaning.
So, the reason you ask the question is because you're unhappy to begin with.
So, the desire for meaning is the opposite of happiness.
It's not the polar opposite, but it's oppositional to this basic reality of happiness.
If you're happy, you don't need to pursue the meaning of life, because you're happy.
So the desire for life to have meaning arises from unhappiness.
Now, generally, if we're unhappy, you know, just logically, biologically, in the absence of readily available and corrupting mythologies that are supposed to inject meaning for money and in the absence of readily available and corrupting mythologies that are supposed to inject we will make a move to make ourselves happier, right?
But since those who want to sell you, quote, meaning, right, the religion, state, and family, family's a big one, right?
Family is everything. The meaning is in the family.
The virtue is in the family.
All that nonsense. Those who have a desire to sell you meaning will of necessity or must of necessity provoke in you meaninglessness, right? And that's pretty fundamental and essential.
I mean, there are things which people buy Which do not arise out of a provoked need, right?
So people... It's not advertising that makes us buy food, right?
But hunger. I mean, advertising may influence the food we buy, but fundamentally food and shelter is not the result of propagandistic advertising, but basic human need.
So, from that standpoint, the question is, would we experience a desire for meaning If we were never depressed, and I'm not talking transitory unhappiness, like I stubbed my toe or I failed at this or that, right? But I mean a fundamental and basic unhappiness, a depression.
Guy running in the snow.
Well, no. So, those who want to sell us the cure for unhappiness must first sell us unhappiness.
And how do you sell unhappiness to people?
Well, You give them false meaning as children, right?
USA, USA, right?
White race. Family is virtue.
Jesus loves you. Muhammad exploded for your sins, whatever nonsense it is.
So, you give people false meaning when they're children, which creates unhappiness, and we'll get to that argument in a bit.
And then, when they're unhappy, you offer them more, right?
Like any addiction, right?
You make people unhappy, and then you offer them...
Like, you give people an illusion of meaning, which makes them unhappy, which we'll get to.
And then, when they are unhappy, they turn to you for additional injections of false meaning, which is why religious intolerance and Patriotism and all those other ugly things tend to escalate over time, right?
Because it's like a drug.
It's like the same reason that heroin use tends to escalate over time, because it is a substitute for a naturally occurring state that requires constant escalation to maintain a tolerance, right? Like, heroin is a substitute for the naturally occurring state of happiness, and therefore it actually reduces our happiness, and therefore we need more heroin.
hero.
It's the same thing with mythological meaning.
So people will, in the absence of that fundamental ennui, dissatisfaction and depression, people can't sell you meaning.
We may cry out God's name during an orgasm, but that does not mean that we need Him to love us in that moment because we are unhappy, right?
So, a child who is raised on the artificial meaning, and all meaning is artificial, a child who is raised on the artificial meaning of Jesus loves you will be unhappy.
And again, I'll get to that argument in a second.
And his unhappiness drives him, because of the propaganda, to search for more meaning.
And searching for more meaning drives him further into the obedience and enslavement of relying on somebody else's external mythology to create purpose and value within your own life.
We are happy when we are free.
We are happy, right?
Reason equals virtue equals happiness.
Because there is no meaning to life, anybody who offers you an external source of meaning and value is automatically irrational because they're selling you something which does not exist.
The same way someone says that Jesus loves you, they're selling you a love that does not exist because Jesus does not exist.
Certainly not. As a sky ghost with a Gravy, culty, hugginess, right?
So anyone who tells you that you can plug yourself into this soap opera of whatever dimension they're starting with, religion or family or politics, people do this with politics too, right?
What is the meaning and purpose of my life?
Well, I tried to get Ron Paul elected, but this, or Barack Obama, or who, John McCain, it doesn't matter, right?
It's not your story. A story invented by other people.
It actually enslaves you.
Social contract, politics, all this nonsense.
So anyone who attempts to sell you meaning, just add Jesus, stir and drink, quaff deep of the meaning, is automatically offering something which does not exist as if it does exist that's irrational, right?
I mean, it's not irrational in terms of being a con artist, but it's irrational in terms of truth.
And so, selling meaning is a con game.
And it's a very effective con game.
Who are you? You are a Jew!
You have meaning.
Five thousand years of struggle.
Promised land, promised people, chosen people.
Part of the great drama of infighting tribespeople from the desert.
God loves you. God has a plan for you, they say, right?
God has a plan for you.
Which means I, the priest, have a plan for you.
And it's not going to benefit you.
Is that only going to benefit me?
So when people are offered meaning and they snap up at it greedily, it's because they were formerly, because meaning, the illusion of meaning was formerly inflicted upon them as children.
And this can be as supposedly innocuous as your sports team matters.
Whether your sports team wins or loses matters, and it's all nonsense.
Of course it doesn't matter.
There's no meaning in who catches a ball, for Christ's sake, what costume they're wearing.
So, people are raised on the illusion of meaning, which is irrational, which makes them non-virtuous and which is irrational, which makes them non-virtuous and it makes them unhappy.
And then, to cure the unhappiness...
What do they do to attempt to cure the unhappiness?
Well, they attempt to grab hold of more meaning from a universe that has no meaning.
You see this? Unhappiness leads to a desire for meaning.
The pursuit of meaning in a meaningless universe leads to greater unhappiness, greater ennui, greater depression, greater misery, which in turn...
Drives people to continue to attempt to chase down this questing beast, this imaginary antelope called meaning.
And this is how the cycle perpetuates, right?
And it's a grim and sad spectacle.
Culture, of course, is the idea that there is meaning in the bigotries of your accidental environment, right?
There's not. So, to some, I know I'll finish up the argument in a sec, but to some, right, there's no meaning in the universe, obviously, whatsoever.
The desire for meaning is the opposite of happiness, right?
Meaning, the desire for meaning arises out of unhappiness, a feeling that something is missing from your life.
And it is provoked...
Nobody wanted six-pack abs in the 19th century.
That sort of came out of, I don't know, the Rocky films or whatever, right?
So now there's the ab trimmers and stuff like that.
People provoke needs which are not innate in order to profit from them.
And it's part of the free market, but this is not the free market.
This is the proselytization and indoctrination of children.
It's not the free market any more than being raised in a cult.
It's the free market.
It could be a little windy here, but let's give it a shot.
So people inflict unhappiness through the irrational dangling of illusory meaning in front of children, which causes them to feel meaningless, right?
I mean, if you think that obeying a priest...
Gives your life meaning, then you're incorrect.
It doesn't. Because there's turtles all the way up, right?
Because he's obviously not obeying anyone.
Because there's no God, right?
He just tells you he is, right?
Sorry, it's so windy.
Let me pause this for a sec.
Alright, so that's a little better.
So, I've talked a lot about negatives, right?
Because you have to clear the rubble before building anew.
And so now, let me finish off this Christmas cast by supplying something which I think is of genuine value, of objective value, which can help drive out The desire for meaning,
which is an expression of unhappiness, which only leads to further unhappiness because it is the pursuit of something which does not exist.
I mean, to take an example or an analogy, if you were raised thinking that you need an invisible pink unicorn in order to be happy, then you're going to feel what?
Well... That not having an invisible pink uniform, unicorn, or both, is a source of unhappy.
You're unhappy because you're missing something.
People tell you that you're missing something.
God's love, patriotism, service to your country, obedience to your parents, love of your clan, or race, or class.
So people say, well, you need an invisible pink unicorn in order to be happy.
Then you're going to grow up feeling that you're missing something.
And that's going to lead you to want to buy an invisible pink unicorn, and there are five billion assholes to plan it over who are more than happy to take your money in return for an invisible pink unicorn called meaning and value, purpose.
And then you get the invisible pink unicorn, which doesn't exist, and guess what?
It no salve your unhappiness.
Because it doesn't exist.
It's not even a placebo, right?
It might be a placebo over a very short period of time.
It's a no-salve problem. And so, the people who sell you the invisible pink unicorn whose hunger in you they created in the first place will say, well, you see, what you really need is another one.
And another one, and another one, and another one, and another one!
Right? And this is how the cycle goes.
Until your brain is broken, and you have invested too much to turn back, and then, in order to maintain your illusion in the efficacy and virtue and practicality of what you're doing, you join People who have the invisible pink unicorn farms and who sell them to other people out of the artificial need that it's been created.
So, that's how it works.
There are no invisible pink unicorns.
There is no meaning in the world.
But people feel that they need it, that it is lacking in their lives, and they will pay To be admitted to the invisible pink unicorn farm called religion, and culture, and patriotism, and the virtue of the family, and so on. And then, why, looky la, it solveth not their problems, and the resulting woe only increases the demand for the unicorns.
So, what is the solution to all of this?
But before, sorry, just before we go to that, I mentioned that the pursuit of these unicorns makes people unhappy, right?
And the pursuit of meaning makes people unhappy.
Well, why? Well, there is a discipline, you could say, which most philosophers have recommended, right, and which theologians...
Invariably do not and object to.
And this discipline is called consistency.
And consistency is very important in the achievement of happiness.
Sorry, let me just...
I guess it's Christmas, so people haven't de-iced their sidewalks, so it's quite the stars on ice deathtrap.
So... Consistency.
Well, why are we interested in consistency?
Because... Let's take the example of a religious person.
How does religion contribute to or make them unhappy?
Well, people say, I believe in God because God exists.
I believe that Jesus loves me because Jesus existed, was a man-god who died for my sins and went to hell to rescue Socrates and all this amazing D&D nonsense, right? They say, I believe because it's true.
And then, when, and they say God is virtuous, and all-powerful, and all-knowing, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Well, what happens when they run into rational oppositions to this, right?
Disproofs of all this nonsense.
Way back, before FDR, I debated with the fellow who said, as I've mentioned before, well, uh, People in the ancient world must have seen Jesus do some extraordinary stuff because they were willing to die and be martyred because of their worship of Him.
This is like saying that the guys who killed themselves to go join the Sky Comet have proven that the Sky Comet was God.
Or that suicide bombers Whose fundamental problem is not a desire for virgins, but being virgins, and all that entails and means.
Sorry, pause again, it's kind of snowy, kind of windy.
And so, when he was faced with this, you know, logical contradiction, of course a large number of emotions It arose within him, and I could see all of those, as those of us who've debated things like taxation equals force,
and God does not exist, and so on, have seen many, many times, in people we have debated with, this evasion, and this fogging, and the descent into Switzerland speak, and it is an ignoble spectacle,
Somebody says, I believe X because X is true, and you prove that X is not true, and they continue to cling to their belief in X, it is an ignoble and kind of disgusting spectacle.
And the problem with that, well, one of many.
Hi.
Is that it is impossible to turn into an evasive weasel and to maintain your self-respect.
right?
If you make a truth claim, which is then proven to be false, and you do not respectfully adapt your beliefs according to your principles of, I believe it because it is true, if it is proven to be false, then you must stop believing in it, right? But that's not what people do, right?
They're just not weaseling and changing the topic.
Those of you who've listened to Boot Camp No.
2, we recognize that.
I mean, if you listen to Christina and the Priest, you see all of this weaseling going on all the time.
Right, so the guy who founded Mormonism...
Wrote down all of the stuff which he said was divinely inspired, prayed on this fellow for money, and the fellow's wife took the writings and said, okay, well, if they're divinely inspired, you should be able to reproduce them, no problem.
And he ended up having to lie and weasel and say, oh, wait, no, those were from the devil.
Now these ones are from God, and he wrote them all out again.
This is the same thing that goes on in Islam, of course, where...
All these decisions that are made about the stuff that Muhammad says.
Was he inspired by God or by the devil?
It's all nonsense, right?
Might as well delve into the psychology of the Urak Hai.
Sorry, I have like six windshields on the microphone, but it is staggeringly windy today, so I do apologize for any roar.
I can only say that however uncomfortable it is for your ears, I promise you it's more uncomfortable than mine.
So the problem with searching for something which does not exist is you have to lie to yourself and you have to say that it does exist.
And because it is addictive behavior where the pursuit of satisfaction breeds greater dissatisfaction, which breeds greater desire for the pursuit of satisfaction, round and round, escalation and escalation, you get so involved and so embedded That recognizing the unreality of what you're up to becomes too costly.
It costs your family, your friends.
It's the invisible apple from podcast 71, I think.
It returns to early horror of being lied to, manipulated, exploited, and so on.
And so you end up with...
It's more than a dual consciousness.
It's more than double-think, but a fundamental aspect of the double-think is...
I believe X because X is true.
Someone has proved to me that X is false.
And now I must fog, lie, prevaricate, evade, dismiss, attack, flee, condemn, undermine, slander, libel.
That is ignoble behavior.
That is shameful behavior.
Nobody would say, I admire a liar.
Nobody would say, I admire someone who puts forward an arrogant truth statement when it is proven false, changes his story, and attacks people personally.
nobody would say that is admirable and virtuous behavior.
So when people say taxation isn't forced because of the social contract and you prove that the social contract is utterly invalid, which as I've done can be disproven in five minutes, and they just start changing which as I've done can be disproven in five minutes, and they just start changing and shifting and lying and making out You see this all the time.
All the time. It's ignoble behavior.
It's base, it's cowardly, it's It's vile.
It's repulsive.
I'm not saying the impulse.
We all have the impulse. Nobody wants to be wrong.
But, you know, having the twigs and berries, the stones to man up, or woman up, and say, yep, I've got to work on that one, right?
We recognize that that's admirable behavior.
We recognize that bearing false witness after making arrogant truth statements that suddenly running and evading It's repulsive.
And this is why irrationality leads to unhappiness, because defending irrationality relies upon such ignoble behavior, such lies, such manipulations, such falsehoods, such intimidation,
such evasion, such smarmy, sneaky, Gollum-style behavior that no one can love Such a weasel, particularly the weasel himself or herself.
It is not possible to love and respect such vile and cowardly and destructive behavior.
And this is all the more true because the liar, the evader, must evade his lies and evasion from himself, which causes him to have to blame others And pull out all sorts of sophistical tricks and bullying, manipulation, humiliation, all to maintain a false statement.
And that leads to unhappiness because we must lie to ourself.
When we defend the irrational, when we maintain the impossible...
When we affirm the impossible, we must manipulate and lie and evade and attack and avoid and spread lies and spread rumors and attempt to invalidate the person because we cannot invalidate the argument.
We resort to slithery, subterranean, sneaky and savage behavior in order to maintain the lie which we know is a lie.
I mean...
If we didn't know it was a lie, we wouldn't resort to such tricks, right?
Such underhanded and ugly manipulations.
And this is why reason equals virtue equals happiness.
If you found your beliefs on the irrational, on the pursuit of meaning in a meaningless universe, In the belief that something is real and achievable when it is unreal and therefore not achievable, and in fact the pursuit of meaning leads to greater unhappiness, because you are saying something is missing from my life which can never be added, which creates continual and escalating frustration, especially because you have the surface story that it can be achieved and added.
If you feel that you need the pink uniform, the invisible pink unicorn, in order to be happy and then you go off in hot pursuit of it, then your original unhappiness is only enhanced and augmented and made you are made more unhappy by the fact that you can't find this unicorn for any length of time and and therefore you have the original unhappiness
which leads you in pursuit of meaning, you have the failure to achieve that which does not exist, which is frustrating, you have the lost time spent in pursuit of this, You have the opportunity cost of that lost time.
In other words, you could have been spending it pursuing some real truth and real meaning.
And as a result, your original unhappiness is multiplied many times, many-fold.
And that, of course, leads you in further pursuit.
Anyway, we went through this, so I think you understand.
So, contradiction, irrationality, defending the undefendable, affirming the impossible, is...
It makes you unhappy because you cannot respect yourself when you end up having to pull the kind of nonsensical tricks that anybody and everybody has to pull when defending the impossible.
Throwing sand in people's eyes, evading, lying, manipulating, misrepresenting, misquoting, changing the topic.
All of the bullshit tricks that we have all seen for many years.
It's not possible to maintain self-respect.
When you do these ignoble things, because you are both affirming and denying that consistency is a virtue.
I say, I believe this because it is consistent with the truth.
You say, oh, it's not consistent with the truth.
Well, then I have to start evading and prevaricating and so on, because I am saying that consistency and inconsistency is a virtue, and I am In a cowardly way, I'm hanging off from the consequences of my own premises because I dislike the conclusions.
And that's cowardly, and that's evasive, and that's manipulative.
And particularly when you use ethical arguments, as all arguments based on the pursuit of imaginary meaning, as if it's not imaginary, rely on.
And so, meaning, the pursuit of meaning, the desire for meaning, which is fundamentally irrational and exploitive, and arises from indoctrination, the indoctrination of children, you need a pink unicorn to be happy, I will sell you one.
You can never see it. And then when you try to ride it and hurt yourself, you'll come back even more unhappy and I'll sell you two, etc., etc.
It makes people so unhappy because you cannot respect yourself.
You cannot have pride in who you are and what you are doing.
If you weasel and golem in your attempts to defend the undefendable and to affirm the impossible.
All of the ugly, manipulative, shitty little tricks that people end up having to rely on in order to affirm the impossible causes them to dislike themselves.
Because if you described such a person to anyone, they would say this is not noble behavior.
This is ignoble, manipulative, and destructive behavior.
And we cannot like love as an involuntary response to virtue.
We have to behave virtuously in order to love ourselves.
If we do not love ourselves, we cannot be happy.
If we are not happy, we are tempted to pursue the purchase of illusory meaning, which makes us more unhappy.
And this is my Christmas present to you, my lovely listeners.
The reason that we pursue consistency is that without logical and empirical consistency, we simply cannot behave In a self-respecting manner.
We can't, right? If I say the initiation of force is wrong, and then someone tells me about child abuse, and I say, no, no, no.
It stops at the family door.
And then, how do I defend that?
Well, I have to start making up nonsense.
Mythology. It's not abuse.
It's different in the family.
Why? It just is, right?
I have to just end up relying on a bunch of nonsensical tricks and Irrational manipulations in order to maintain the inapplicability of the non-aggression principle to family matters.
That's ignoble. That's cowardly.
That's both using and violating universality simultaneously.
That is vile.
And therefore, if I do that, I cannot respect myself.
And if I cannot respect myself...
I cannot admire myself.
If I cannot admire myself, I cannot be happy.
In the same way, if I find my wife contemptible, I cannot have a happy marriage.
The difference is I can divorce my wife, I cannot divorce myself.
My own opinion, my own good opinion of my choices and decisions is essential for me to be happy, and I fully accept that these choices and The consequences can be very difficult.
When I began to bring up the family and it opened up a floodgate of people wishing to apply Reason and Virtue, UPB, NAP, to their own personal lives, then there were consequences,
and those consequences have at times been dire, but they have also been entirely satisfying, and I am incredibly proud of the way that I have worked with these challenges and have thrown myself into Consistency, which is the requirement for happiness.
The search for meaning is a symptom of unhappiness.
It is the opposite. It is in the oppositional camp to happiness.
Consistency is saying that I am worthy of my own good opinion, that I must earn my ecosystem's good opinion of me in the same way that I must earn anyone's value in a free exchange, in a free market, And this is why this is so important,
right? We say, I will not keep corrupt people who wish harm to me in my life, but our desire to pursue meaning, to sell ourselves out for the heroine of relief from the need to be virtuous and courageous and live with integrity and consistency, that is us being corrupt towards ourselves.
It's our dark side, right? We get...
Bad people who won't change out of our lives.
We don't have that option with ourselves, so the only choice we have if we wish to really achieve and maintain happiness is to reject the illusion that people can sell us meaning and to recognize that consistency and virtue are the only way to gain our own good wishes and respect for ourselves and to be happy.
And when we are happy, we do not need meaning because we have joy.
And I wish you all the joy this Christmas.
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