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March 15, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:20:02

1302 Sunday Show March 15 2009

The view from a cult, and why we all must be leaders.

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	Well, thank you everybody so much for joining us.
	This is Sunday, what they often call the March of 15th, 2009.
	And beware the Ides of March.
	Yes, indeed. Beware the Ides of March, which I guess means no Caesar salads today, or you're likely to get a crouton up the nose or down the windpipe.
	So just something to be aware of that salads, while often healthy, Can also be deadly, and I think that's the lesson we want to get from ancient history.
	So, I guess the news, for want of a better way of putting it, is that I went down to the Free State Project's annual shindig, the Liberty Forum, in Nashua, New Hampshire. Christina and Isabella and I drove down.
	And pretty much when you have a baby, driving to New Hampshire is a similar time frame to rowing to Beijing.
	And given that Beijing is quite a lot inland, that metaphor actually works beautifully.
	So it was a fairly lengthy go-round to drive, but a lot of fun.
	And Isabella was charming and wonderful, of course, to travel with.
	Christina, on the other hand. Now, Christina was wonderful too.
	So we had a great time.
	We were down there from Thursday. We left and drove back on Monday.
	Met some very nice people.
	Isabella was very fascinated by, curious about, and excited to meet all of the crowds.
	And she only didn't like applause, so in that sense, she is the complete opposite of the applause slut daddy.
	And she was just great, and so I saw a couple of speeches, and then I did a speech on Sunday.
	And I've had some questions as a podcaster, too, about it.
	I'll just You mentioned something that I think is interesting.
	People have said, well, how did you prepare for it?
	I think it's interesting, other than, of course, sacrificing the requisite chickens and eating a vast amount of their entrails.
	The way that I prepared for it, and this may be of use if you have something similar to do, the way that I prepared for it was not to prepare for the content, but to prepare for the form.
	I mean, I'm pretty much down with the content by Now, doing endless speeches as I have for so long, I'm pretty much down with the content now.
	And so what I prepared, and the only notes I had, I had four little bullet points that I had jotted down that wanted to make sure that I hit those points, because sometimes I get self-tangented into the stratosphere.
	But... Of course, I did an ecosystem consultation.
	I sat down. We're all in alignment.
	And why is it that we want to do this?
	And all that. And of course, the reason that I took the speech and I think the reason that the speech was so successful.
	And if you do want to listen to it, you can go to tinyurl.com forward slash nhspeech and listen to it there.
	The video should be out hopefully in a couple of days.
	The reason that I wanted to do it was...
	Fundamentally to bring some happiness to people.
	And not happiness in terms of the speech, although people did seem to be happy to be watching the speech or to be participating really.
	It was more of a working back and forth session than a speech I did like 20 minutes or half an hour and then we did an hour and a half of audience participation.
	And the goal was to bring happiness to people.
	In other words, since reason equals virtue equals happiness, to bring happiness My happiness, front and center, and that's not an easy thing to do, to bring happiness to a crowd.
	I mean, sometimes it feels kind of vulnerable.
	To bring happiness to people, to get them interested, perhaps, in the kind of philosophy that we talk about here, listen to some podcasts or whatever.
	But the fundamental goal was to bring happiness to them, and I think that's why I responded very positively.
	And my fundamental goal was not to change their mind, because I have no control over that.
	And, of course, if you interact with someone with the goal, of changing his or her mind then you are automatically in a sort of hierarchical relationship that they will consciously or unconsciously resist so that doesn't really work.
	When you interact with people with the goal of bringing them some genuine value, happiness and satisfaction in other words not to impress ideas or conclusions upon them but hopefully to give them an example of a methodology because I'm never wed to a conclusion as I've mentioned before but rather a methodology Then I think they get that you want them to be happy.
	If you're a doctor who wants to do an operation because you want to buy a boat, people will sense that.
	If you're a doctor who wants to do an operation in order to help improve someone's quality of life, that person will feel that as well.
	My main preparation was to recognize why I took the gig and to make sure that I focused on bringing happiness, curiosity, fun, the joy that I've always talked about as the goal of philosophy to the audience so that they could get a sense of how happy philosophy could make them or this approach that we take here to get them interested in studying philosophy whether it's through FDR or some other mechanism and to expand them beyond the merely political and merely political is a diminutive term which I don't mean exactly that but more than just the political approach which seemed to be very central to that weekend so basically What I'm saying is that you have to...
	Well, I felt that I had to really like the audience to see the best within them so that they could see the best within themselves.
	And with that affection, happiness, and you could almost say love approaching the audience, they responded very positively to that.
	And I think it's a reasonable lesson, right?
	Which is that if you can't approach people with affection and positivity, it's usually best not to approach them at all.
	And if you can't approach anyone with happiness and positivity...
	Then you might want to work on yourself before going out to communicate about philosophy in the world.
	So I just wanted to mention that as an approach that hopefully you will find interesting and helpful and useful.
	So that's it for my introduction.
	Quite substantial activity has been generated from the conference.
	I sold a whole bunch of books and we hit our very first ever 100 Plus, actually it was 102.5 gigabytes of downloads, not counting books, so just podcasts.
	102 gigabytes of downloads one day, I think it was Wednesday this week, and of course some of that, or a lot of that is the speech itself, but that's some fine responses.
	I'm very, very pleased. The organizer of the event, a fine gentleman by the name of Chris Lawless, who never needs a mic, He sent me a note saying that he had high expectations but the speech surpassed even those and that they were still buzzing about it on the Tuesday after the Sunday after the speech about how much fun it was and so on.
	So I think it's a good home run for us as a community and of course though I'm the one who's front and center in these kinds of things I think it's important to remember that everybody who participates in this conversation almost everybody contributes to the quality Of this conversation and I could not have done as good a speech without the curiosity,
	energy, participation and of course financial support of you, the magical elf-like, sylph-like, dryad-like listeners.
	And so thank you again so much for driving the quality and excitement of this conversation which makes it all possible.
	Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
	So, that's it for my introduction.
	We have people who wish to have a chittle-chattle today.
	I am here.
	The gorgeous and talented Christina is here in her patented spandex Sunday show costume.
	And I'm, of course, wearing one of the thigh-high boots and not on my leg.
	And Isabella is, thankfully for herself, perhaps because she can't understand English yet, asleep in the next room.
	But I'm sure she will be up before the show is over because, like me, she's always terrified of missing anything.
	That's fun and exciting. So please step up.
	Unmute yourself if you have questions, comments, issues, problems.
	And I am all donkey ears and then some.
	Hello, Steph.
	Hello.
	Hello.
	Can you hear me? No.
	Yes. Okay, this is Richard.
	Let me know if the sound is not okay on your side.
	I can hear you very clearly on my side.
	You are clearer than my conscience.
	Okay, thank you. Okay, I want to just focus on a specific thing or else I'm going to just wobble my words and trip over myself.
	Okay, so here I go.
	I was born in a cult here in Montreal, Quebec.
	I want to ask, just to start up, I have a question and it goes like this.
	Is it normal to have a remainder of one's life, quasi-normal, if you still don't have any Any fond,
	pleasant memories of your parents or your siblings or anybody whatsoever from the first 22 years of my life in the cult?
	I certainly don't want to interrupt and let me just make sure I understand your question.
	Your question is basically, and let me know if I'm way off base, your question Richard is, Is it possible to have a normal life with nothing but unpleasant memories of the first 22 years?
	Oh, yes.
	Well, I would say yes.
	I would say yes. I'm not going to say it's easy.
	But my experience has been, and all of this of course is just an opinion, but this has certainly been my experience.
	I'll stand by my experience, though not all of the actual facts of the conclusions.
	But my conclusions have been that...
	If you've had a horrendous and abused childhood, and yours, of course, you've posted a little bit about the cult on the board, and of course it is huge, huge, massive sympathies and hugs for the terrible, terrible, terrifying circumstances that you were born into, and of course what that all meant in terms of your parents staying there and your siblings' involvement and so on.
	So first of all, just massive, massive sympathies for all of that.
	But my experience has been, Richard, that if you have a really tough childhood, you either get a chance for bliss or misery.
	What you will never have a chance for is the life of quiet desperation that apparently most of the middle of the roaders lead.
	I understand. Right, so I think that you have the chance for a greater happiness than the average, but you also, of course, have a tendency towards a greater unhappiness than the average.
	And the metaphor that I've used before, and I'll just touch on it briefly here in case you haven't heard it, because I know you're relatively new, is that if I'm born and my family has congenital heart defects, a heart murmur or some sort of arterial blockage or whatever, then I'm either going to be really unhealthy or what I'm going to do is I'm going to exercise,
	I'm going to be very careful about what I eat, I'm going to get my heart monitored on a regular basis, and I'm actually going to end up healthier, So I'm either going to be sicker than the average or healthier than the average, but I'm never going to be average.
	That's not possible.
	I think we have the choice to go either way, but it's not possible to be average.
	If I come from a family with a strong history of diabetes, obviously I'm going to exercise, watch my food, watch my sugar intake, get my blood sugar and my glucose levels monitored regularly.
	So I'm actually going to end up with a lower likelihood, like genetic factors aside, with a lower likelihood of getting, because I have a higher likelihood of Getting diabetes, I'm going to end up with a lower likelihood of getting diabetes even than the general population.
	So the trials, tribulations, sufferings, and traumas which occur to us early in life give us a tendency towards a sadder life than the average.
	But they also give us the incentive for a healthier and happier life than the average.
	And the choice really is what we do with the knowledge of the sufferings that we've experienced.
	And I think if we Work on self-knowledge, on self-empathy, we can end up with greater strength, greater character than the average.
	And that's not much of a consolation prize, but when you do achieve it, it certainly seems like the suffering almost becomes worth it, if that makes any sense.
	Yes, it makes complete sense, Steph.
	And I just want to thank you in advance before I forget.
	See, me, Objectivism, Neotech and many other sources helped me get out of the cult.
	I totally, completely escaped.
	I escaped by just leaving a little note on my desk.
	This was planned for a long time, over the span of one year.
	And I escaped through my bedroom window while I locked my door of my bedroom while the rest of my family was at the church, if you will.
	And I have rented my first apartment without any clue, anybody else finding about it.
	And I drove like 40 kilometers away and I had tears just streaming down my face and I've never looked back since then.
	And I've listened and watched so many of your videos and listened to your podcasts and You're the only place, source, area in this universe, as far as I'm concerned, that knows what the heck he's talking about and that it's so powerful for me in so many ways.
	And going earlier, you mentioned about, you know, you're either going to go insane, go worse, or much better and much happier.
	Okay? Just before I discovered FDR by accident while surfing the internet in December last, I was just this close to committing suicide.
	And I just cannot thank you enough other than the hard cash that I've donated so far, which is so much It's coming so much from deep in my heart, without any guilt, that financial support.
	And also, coming back again to what you said, either you're going to go worse, like speaking in a physical state, you're going to have diabetes if you don't take care of yourself and so on.
	And that is the first thing and basically the only thing Area that I have mastered so incredibly well to an extremely high level where today, you know, I'm never sick, basically.
	I never have colds, I never have headaches, and so on.
	And now I'm working through FDR information sources to get The mental part above water, if you will. I certainly do appreciate that.
	I mean, I think that's very high praise.
	And again, I always try to deflect, not out of any sense of false humility.
	I certainly do have my vanities and I appreciate what you're saying.
	But, you know, the quality of the conversation here is a collective effort, right?
	I mean, there is stuff that I come up with, as you know, I do have some questions and I certainly don't want to interrupt anything that you want to talk about.
	No, do ask now.
	Ask your questions. Go far away.
	Despite some of the opinions of some people, I actually don't know much about cults.
	I've certainly never been near one.
	And so, you know, if you could tell me a little bit about, and if I remember you were 22 when you left, is that right?
	Yes.
	So if you could tell me a little bit about the salient characteristics of the cult and the history, and also if you could tell me the stages that occurred for you after you left that you felt left you in a state of suicidality, I would certainly appreciate it if it's not too difficult for you to talk about.
	Yes.
	Yes, absolutely.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Okay. The cult's name is La Mission de l'Esprit Saint.
	Okay. All the literature is in French.
	Okay. There's basically three chapters, Montreal, Laval Tree.
	Laval Tree is a small town on the coast of the St.
	Lawrence River, a seaway, if you will.
	Okay. And the third chapter is in Downey.
	That's a suburb of Los Angeles.
	Well, to give you much more information, it's online now.
	Last week, a mainstream journalist from the Montreal, one of two Montreal French newspapers, there's the Journal de Montréal and then there's La Presse.
	The La Presse journalist Marie Allard discovered my postings on FDR. How wonderful is that?
	And she sent me a long email, and she wants to talk to me, she wants to see me, she wants to interview me, because she specializes in education, the quality or the lack of, in public and private areas, and now she's venturing into education in cults and religions and sects.
	S-E-C-T, sect.
	Yeah. And so she discovered me like that.
	But initially, I just jumped on it.
	I said, wow, that's amazing that you discovered my posting on FDR and all that.
	And yes, I want to meet.
	I want to talk to you and so on. But I said, a few minutes later, I emailed her again in China.
	I said, well, yes.
	Okay. I'm willing to answer a few questions.
	No more questions. In other words, I want to spend the least amount of time with you doing this.
	And I've changed my mind.
	I'm not going to meet in person because I have already wasted 22 years, the first 22 years of my life.
	And I know so much now, more than ever, that my time, your time, everybody's time is the only thing.
	Anybody cannot manufacture more.
	So I said, there you go.
	And that's it.
	Sorry, what were the aspects of the cult that were...
	I mean, obviously, this is tough stuff to talk about, and you don't have to.
	I'm just genuinely curious and want to know what the aspects of the cult were that are the most troublesome.
	Yes, okay. There's only about 1,500 members, okay?
	It's decreasing year by year, thank goodness.
	Okay, they expose...
	Many similar teachings as Jehovah's Witnesses, general Catholicism, religion, Judaism, and all that.
	Namely, there's Jehovah's Christ, but there's another one after Christ, Jesus.
	And it's ours. Our Guru came in the early 20th century.
	And his name went by Jean-Richard de Laflèche.
	And he was apparently, you know, the third coming after Jesus.
	And he was about to finally save Earth from itself, you know, humanity from itself.
	I'm sorry to interrupt. The third coming after Jesus, who was the one in the middle?
	Oh, no, sorry. I'm sorry.
	There's three, right? There's Jehovah, Jesus, and...
	Oh, okay. Then this guy.
	Everything I've brought up, there's a third one called Jean-Richard de Laflèche.
	So I'm guessing that the cult doesn't exactly worship modesty.
	Okay, I think I got that. Yeah, exactly.
	So, of course, they still believe that the sun is the devil and that they marry among themselves, even among first-generation cousins.
	So there's plenty of physically and mentally retarded people in there.
	Oh, because of intermarriage within the same gene pool?
	Yes, absolutely. Women, mothers, they're highly discouraged or nearly banned from having a job while having a family.
	So they stay at home and they produce as many babies as they can physically tolerate, while the father is the almighty authority in the home.
	Right, so they're not so much into conversion as they are into breeding because it's easier to inflict this crazy stuff on innocent children than it is to convert rational adults or semi-rational adults, right?
	Yes, Steph, it's eugenics.
	Sure, yeah. They say if you think just about positive thoughts all the time as a mom, you'll have a perfect kid, basically.
	You won't be corrupted by especially urban influences, you know?
	So, I mean, the first 22 years of my life at Lavaltree is a very rural, pasture area.
	You know, it's uncorrupted by the urban areas where it's densely populated by corrupted devilish people, which is, I think, the opposite.
	In other words, anybody who's not in the cult.
	Now, how does it work financially?
	Do they take people's earnings so they all work collectively on a farm, or how does it work in terms of its economics?
	Oh, by sheer clever manipulation of the guilt trip.
	Yes, donation.
	They call it Thai. Thai in church often.
	Yes, they just cajole you, manipulate you into a parting With a huge chunk of whatever excess money you earn.
	And the tithe is often 10%, at least as far as I understand it.
	Would it be around that figure? Was it larger or smaller?
	Oh, yes! At least 10%.
	See, I had one sister and four brothers.
	And of course, you know, to get a real good job or career, it's, you know, often it's in the cities or more urban areas.
	So, you know, me, us, it costs that much more to travel long distances to, you know, from where we live in a very farm-like area, very rural to far away to get any kind of decent jobs.
	And of course, any higher education is Is highly frowned upon.
	I had to fight my parents to go to seizure, to college.
	And get this, in 1986, I was the only boy at 17 years of age in an early childhood education class to work in daycare.
	Right. And my main goal, my number one goal to go into this three-year program was not to work as a daycare worker, but to find out, at least try to find out what the heck I miss and what happens at that age because I have zero happy recollection and warmth One affection for my parents,
	my brothers, sisters, and anybody in the cult!
	I am a robot!
	Right, right.
	And so did you go to public school in the cult?
	Was it more secluded? How did that work when you were younger?
	I went for six years.
	Six years of elementary schooling and illegal, unregistered, unknown A small school of about 20-some students from the cult that even the government didn't know about it.
	Oh, so it was a kind of unregulated private school and you were kept out of the mainstream schooling system, is that right?
	Yes. Oh, I'm so sorry.
	My mother was my own teacher, one of her sisters, one of my aunts, and get this, Because we couldn't afford it as a general, the cult, okay, collectively.
	The finances were not enough so that they could so-called educate us in beyond elementary school.
	You know, we had no chance.
	We had to go to high school in the corrupt, non-cult wall, if you will, okay?
	And I went to Joliet, Joliet High School.
	It's a small English high school.
	Anglophone High School in Joliet, about 300 students at the time.
	Perhaps today it's even close because the Anglos are going out of Quebec progressively.
	And I entered there at 11 years old as a junior, and I was so incompetent, so incredibly shy.
	And I mean, incompetent very much in the social context with...
	Members of the opposite sex with girls, even though back then I didn't know that I wasn't straight.
	I only discovered it when I was 27 years of age.
	When you say wasn't straight, do you mean gay or bi or some combo?
	I am quite a well-known queer person here in Montreal.
	I used to work as a professional drag queen.
	Right. Okay. Got it.
	So there's that additional layer of complication, right?
	Because, of course, if they're religious, then the homosexuality would be considered rather than a genetic, let's say, characteristic.
	It's not a condition because that indicates that there's something wrong with it.
	But instead of recognizing that it's a genetic characteristic resulting from particular hormone baths in the womb, they, of course, would consider it, and tell me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't they consider it something...
	You know, evil and satanic impulses towards other men and so on.
	Yes, that's absolutely right.
	And thank goodness for you and me listening to one of your podcasts on homosexuality and the more recent one where you mentioned this book, Why Men Can't Iron?
	Yes. And now I understand and I'm so much less confused and more at peace with myself, with my own sexual orientation and all that.
	Because, I mean, before that, I was really a lot less confident in answering, especially patients.
	Patients' questions at the hospital where I work, which I just totally love my job.
	I'm the only physiotherapy assistant at the local hospital I work for.
	Before that, I was just totally dumbfounded and just mad inside my head.
	Every time a patient asks me, especially these little sickly ladies, they ask me, You must be so good to your wife and your kids and so on.
	And I just was dumbfounded.
	I didn't know what to say for many years.
	And at the end, I was starting to plan what to say if it was going to happen again and totally be deceitful with myself by saying, yes, I'm married and I have two kids and a boy and a girl.
	And I told myself, if they ask more than that, you know, do they like school?
	How old are the kids? I would say, well, I would prefer not to talk about it right now and focus on your rehabilitation and not, you know...
	Right, right. Okay, and the kind of education that you received in this...
	Off the beaten track, to say the least, school that you went to, was it mostly religious?
	I'm guessing there wasn't a whole lot of science and maybe not a whole lot of math.
	What was the content of the religion that you, was you saying that your mother was the teacher?
	Yes. It was very rudimentary stuff, you know.
	So much so that I do really think that I taught myself to read and write, Steph!
	I taught myself to read and write, almost!
	Right, right. There's, you know, everybody knows the Britannica Encyclopedia, okay?
	But there's a lesser well-known, more for younger folks and so on.
	It's called Grosje, Grosje Encyclopedia, okay?
	It's like a 22 volume and there's annual, there's one annual volume that comes out and so on.
	So I've read that back and forth through and through many times because that was the only thing other than the Time magazine that my father was allowed to Not anybody in the cult was allowed to subscribe to Time magazine or other corrupted devilish magazines, in quotation. Because my father was part of the executive committee and in 86 he became a priest.
	We called them the serviteurs.
	Okay? So, I often regularly ask my father, are you finished with the Time magazine?
	And he was always mad and irritated every time I asked him for the Time magazine.
	And so, you know, from...
	For many years before, I discovered direct mail, stuff that I could buy through the mail and send away through Time Magazine and elsewhere.
	And then once you're on direct mail, you know, you get on the mailing list and they send you more stuff from other sources.
	Before that, it was just Time Magazine and Grosje encyclopedia that I got any basic real scientific knowledge.
	And one of my favorites was Albert Einstein.
	Right, right. And Tesla, which you also mentioned in your podcast, which I haven't listened to yet.
	There's so many. It's so great.
	Listen, Richard, I'm sorry to interrupt you because I had this book set to one side because I've been getting lots of questions about some of the evidence behind the sort of the gay brain, so to speak.
	Which is actually my definition of philosophy, but for some people it's a little different.
	Would you like to hear a few paragraphs about some of the science behind it?
	Yes, sure. Okay.
	Go ahead. This is from page 41 of the book, Why Men Don't Iron, The Fascinating and Unalterable Differences Between Men and Women.
	So it says, they say, it seems obvious that hormones will determine our gender.
	But until very recently, the further...
	Sorry, Steph? I'm sorry? Hello, Steph.
	You know what? I have already listened to that.
	And also, I'm going to buy the book.
	I have already listened to that.
	Okay, then don't worry about it. I'll do it as a podcast then later.
	I won't bore you if you've already heard it.
	But I'm so sorry. So then you went to high school.
	Your science knowledge, of course, was pretty backwards.
	Some of your math knowledge was pretty backwards.
	And of course, your social skills were tough, right?
	Yeah, for sure, because you're only used to dealing with people who are propagandized and who aren't necessarily even close to honest or open or authentic.
	Yes. We are made to feel not to have especially no pride in ourselves.
	No real, authentic, earned pride that one can achieve by accomplishing, creating benevolent values for self and others.
	Pride doesn't go to me.
	It goes to earthlings.
	It goes to our gurus out there in the vava, in heaven somewhere.
	Well, and of course, sorry to interrupt, but it's been my very strong experience that religious organizations of every stripe and hue, and particularly more extremist ones such as yourself, are going to be very hostile towards psychology, the study of the self, self-knowledge, and so on, because If you go down the road of self-knowledge, you realize that religion is a psychological projection, which is not good for those who want to retain power.
	Yes, and Steph, you have no idea how worldwide, and specifically myself, how benevolent, how much you help me.
	And I put the FDR link To every website that I have.
	I have many websites and pages and so on and stuff online.
	And I yak about FDR so much everywhere I go, at work and so on, that I just can't get enough.
	And you know what?
	You're the only one that talks about the link between child abuse, which I've had so much, Like so many other people.
	And why we have, you know, governments and coercion and initiatory force everywhere.
	Right. I mean, certainly there are lots of people in the psychohistory side is very good for this that talk about child abuse and certain forms of violence.
	But definitely the anarchist psychology stuff is something that, I mean, maybe other people have worked on it, but it's certainly something that, with the help of Christina, we've been pushing forward here.
	Now, what was it about your childhood experience that you would characterize, and I'm sure quite rightly so, as abusive?
	What were the aspects of it that were the most disturbing for you?
	Okay. I was not allowed to question anything.
	I have such vivid, crystal clear memories of questioning my mom.
	My mom about questions of Okay, so, you know, okay, so if God exists, you know, have you ever seen him?
	What does he look like?
	And so on and so on and so on.
	And I remember that I was driving my mom to exhaustion with all the questions, the natural benevolent questions.
	Like you focus so much on having questions Good curiosity about learning.
	And I have so much of that still amazing to this day.
	Perhaps if I didn't escape from the cult just weeks or months before I did, maybe it was going to be too late for me.
	Yeah, well there certainly is that possibility, right?
	That enough harm Occurs that the road back becomes virtually impossible.
	So, you know, again, massive kudos, congratulations, and honor, all honor, flowers and bows to you for getting out of such an incredibly difficult situation.
	Steph, dancing, all forms of dancing, even among married couples in the cult.
	West band. West band.
	Why? Because it is just one more thing that may tempt you to commit adultery.
	How awful and silly is that?
	So is that why today, like forever, I think, as far as I can remember, I just love and practice ballet.
	And one of my heroes in the ballet area is Rudolf Nureyev and here in Canada, Rex Harrison.
	Right, right. It's amazing.
	I had to lock my door of my bedroom, okay, in the middle of the night so I could dance in the dark.
	For as long as I could.
	Yeah, something as basic and as wonderful as dancing, I mean, but of course, right, they want to make every physical pleasure is against the mortification of the spirit, right?
	So, the opposition to all forms of pleasure, whether it's sex or sensual eating or dancing or masturbation, all forms of physical pleasure, of course, are considered to be anathema to those who want to profit from debasing the spirit.
	I mean, why did I? As soon as I escaped the cult, I isolated myself completely from the world for five years, from 22 to 27, and I read until my eyes burned out every evening, almost every evening, especially on the whole weekends, for five years.
	At the National Montreal Library in Sherbrooke.
	Well, you had a lot of catching up to do, right?
	Not just re-education, but de-education and then re-education, right?
	Well, exactly. Exactly.
	So much. Disintegrating what I've gotten and integrating more valuable stuff.
	And it goes on to this day.
	I'm sorry to interrupt, but what happened was it, do you think, that set you on the path, as you say, that you felt suicidal somewhat recently?
	What do you think happened in that area?
	Oh my god, goodness.
	It's very much an issue of lack of self-esteem.
	It has to It has to be linked to that.
	Lack of self-esteem and being so alone for so long.
	I still have nobody except the first and only person that allowed me to have me as a friend in her life, okay?
	I met this lady in 1996.
	November 96. And in hindsight, because I'm going into therapy now, I just finished my sixth session, okay?
	And I cannot thank you enough for urging people to try therapy.
	Because for the longest time, I always viewed it like most men as a sissy thing to do, as a New Age stuff for women, not for men.
	In hindsight, I never knew why I met this girl and I stayed with her and we went clubbing and so on.
	The main thing we have in common was dance music.
	And that's it.
	Okay? That's it. Okay?
	And in hindsight, because of therapy and so on and listening to SDR, I know now, in hindsight, that we were in a similar context at that time.
	We were both alone Miserable.
	Depressed. We both didn't have any friends.
	And so we just came together as magnets.
	And today she's the only one that I can call anytime on speed dial that ever returns my calls and so on.
	Everybody else It has always declined me.
	In hindsight, now I know much more why.
	It's because I have never allowed myself to trust other people enough to have any semblance of a long-term relationship.
	Right. Can I be totally annoying and just maybe give you another way of looking at one?
	No, no, no. Steph, Steph, Steph, get this, okay?
	Just to get to know me much more quickly there, is that feel free, please, to interrupt and be annoying in quotation as much as you want.
	Okay, good. You said that it was a lack of self-esteem that was a possible contributing factor towards suicidality?
	Perhaps. I still have a lot of self-knowledge to do, but perhaps that is just one of the many things lacking.
	Right. And I would say that a lack of self-esteem, when self-esteem goes down, my experience has been, you know, the personality can't stand a vacuum, right? There's no such thing as a lack of self-esteem, in my opinion.
	What actually occurs for us in my experience, Richard, is that we get an escalation of self-attack, not a lack of self-esteem.
	Like when I'm feeling calm, I don't sit there and say, I have a lack of anger, right?
	I mean, that's not how I... What I say is, I feel calm.
	And in the same way, given what you had said about suicidality, which is, of course, the ultimate form of self-attack and self-erasure...
	That it was not a lack of self-esteem, but rather an escalation of self-attack, which of course would have been layered into you because religions are all about attacking the self.
	Does that make any sense?
	Again, I don't want to lead you down someplace that's not valid, but tell me what you think.
	Yes.
	Yeah, you said it.
	Self-attack. An avalanche of self-attack.
	Our natural self rises and loves and enjoys and is happy with the world.
	I see this in my daughter. That can't deflate.
	When we're sick, let's say we have an infection, it's not a lack of an immune system, it is the presence of bacteria or a virus that is attacking us.
	It's the same thing with self-esteem.
	It's not that we lack it, it's that we're being attacked.
	By herself, by a sort of historical torture device that is almost always implanted when we're very young.
	But again, sorry to interrupt, please.
	I'll shut up now. Go ahead and tell me what you think.
	Yes. Yeah, self-attack.
	I mean, before I encountered FDR, I never focused ever, never, ever on this notion of self-knowledge and this notion of self-attack.
	And the possibility that it's not all my fault, that the blame is not 100% all on me for my childhood problems.
	And that's something that I noticed earlier when you were talking about it, and I can't remember the exact phrase, but I think what you said was, I already wasted the first 22 years of my life.
	And of course, That indicates a kind of ownership that is completely irrational, right?
	I mean, I understand why you would feel that way, but, you know, if you're born into such a destructive environment, it's not that you wasted the money.
	It's not that you wasted the time or you wasted the years.
	You were born in prison.
	You didn't commit a crime and were imprisoned, right?
	Yes, exactly. And I just got to say this, Steph.
	Most men often don't believe this, okay?
	For the longest time, I thought there was no hope for me to have any entering of a happy life.
	Because I did not get any, any benevolent affection from my family, my parents.
	I have zero, I mean, I have zero fond memories of my mom.
	My mom playing with me, telling me bedtime stories, walking with me down the street and doing anything.
	Gosh, and you know what?
	I often get complaints from work, much less so today since FDR. I've been told many times that I'm too gentle with the patients that I take care of.
	My voice goes too much in a feminine register.
	And this is another thing.
	I have always felt very feminine and extremely gentle and so on.
	The people, especially since I escaped from the cult, And in the queer community, you may notice that among men, okay, it's like, among men there can be so robotic and unaffectionate.
	Even though they have hardcore sex and all that, but they don't kiss.
	It is so unaffectionate.
	It's insane.
	Yeah. Yeah, I had, as I mentioned, I had four gay guys and a lesbian as a roommate when I was going to do my master's.
	And this couple, you know, they basically, they had sex, they met, and then they went on a date.
	You know, it's like the complete opposite of anything I would be used to.
	And there is, of course, a coldness and a physical utilization of strangers in the gay community, in certain aspects of the gay community, where, you know, sex is less intimate than a kiss.
	And that is kind of tragic, you know, because we all have a very strong need for affection.
	Certainly Isabella will choose cuddling over food often, and she is very, very physically affectionate and needs that.
	It's as important to her as food, and I don't think we ever lose that.
	So it is a real tragedy that there's more physical utility from other people's bodies than holding and kissing and that kind of affection.
	See, my father beat me and we're six, one sister, five brothers.
	My father dealt with his irritation of us with his long leather belt in the middle of the night.
	So he came down the stairs, And he said, if we were on our backs already, he said, turn over on your stomach.
	And if we were just a split second too slow, he would hit us anyway.
	You know what, Steph, if I was going to see my father today, which he's no more.
	He died of stomach and intestinal cancer in 98.
	Which I found out because my sister called me and she said, oh Richard, your father is going to die in about two weeks.
	And I'm calling you if only because we want to give you his death certificate.
	Right, yeah, that makes sense.
	Yeah, and I don't know.
	In hindsight, if I knew FDR back then, I would not have gone.
	So I went.
	And I had massive indifference when I've looked at him in his hospital bed.
	He lost like over 100 pounds because he lived on this earth to eat for pleasure, as opposed to me.
	Since the age of 22, I eat to live in an optimal way.
	I eat to live in an optimal way.
	Nothing else. I hate to eat.
	I am never hungry, Steph.
	I've never been drunk in my life.
	Ever! Is that because meals were associated with beatings?
	You understand.
	I'm so, so sorry. That this would be anything that anyone would experience, and it's just a terrifying thing to be beaten by somebody many times your size using what is in effect, you know, a belt that would be three or four times the size we would know now.
	I mean, it's completely terrifying, but is that your association, the mealtimes, with this kind of violence?
	I don't think so, because I really think that I changed my diet because of the Atkins diet, okay?
	High protein, low carbohydrates, more like a controlled carbohydrate diet as opposed to an out-of-control carbohydrate diet.
	And of course, I praise that to high heaven and so on.
	But of course, over the years, just like Atkins over the years, he added more antioxidants to blueberries and the other berries and so on.
	And more vegetables to round out the diet, not just meat and so on.
	But that is basically it, okay?
	And of course, Cooper Aerobics, the Aerobics books in 1972, it's called Aerobics, and also combine the two.
	But since then, I've dropped a lot of the Aerobics, and I'm doing weightlifting, like you say on your profile, since a few years ago.
	I find that that is even more powerful because beyond 35, 40 years of age, it's the best way to maintain muscle mass.
	Oh, and to keep your weight down, right?
	Because the muscle mass is continually burning calories.
	I was a bit sick this last couple of weeks.
	I wasn't going to the gym and my calorie intake dropped like 40%.
	I just wasn't hungry.
	Then I went back to the gym this week and now I'm all kinds of hungry again.
	It is the only way that I know of to maintain weight, given that I like to eat.
	Weightlifting is the only way that I know to be able to, you know, to continue to weigh the same despite the slowdown of the aging process.
	Absolutely. And I'm glad that you understand that.
	Because unlike many other people, I find you so much fully integrated.
	Fully integrated with the abstract, with the physical, the emotional, with the other stuff.
	Oh, he was going to say spiritual.
	That's fine with me. That's fine because we would use it in a different way, of course, than the people who raised you would.
	Talking about spiritual, I finally started putting on my dating profile online.
	For many years, I just didn't feel I was worth enough for anybody to spend any time with me.
	Now, sorry to interrupt you, but we drifted a little bit away, and that's fine, but we drifted away from what we were talking about a little bit earlier, which was what you think that led you to suicidality.
	Yes, Steph, I am so notorious for drifting away.
	Oh, yeah, well, me too, right?
	We're like two dandelions in a high wind here trying to hug, right?
	So let's get back to that aspect, if that's right.
	Yes, so speaking of my father again, I remember my father, okay, all the time, When the weather would allow.
	He had meals at the tables, especially lunch and supper.
	I mean, he dressed with tiny little micro shorts and sandals, nothing else.
	No top at the dinner table.
	And even though the whole cult is very much based on avoidance Of sex of any kind other than procreation.
	And I find that so ugly, you know, with this big, massive beer belly.
	It's just disgusting.
	I never had the courage to even suggest to him that, you know, put a shirt on, Dad.
	And of course, it's all in French, you know.
	I've got to be annoying and interrupt you again.
	That would not be my definition of courage.
	Because you say, I did not have the courage to suggest to my, as you say, brutal, sadistic, child-beating father that he should put a shirt on.
	That's not courage, any more than jumping into a lion's den while freshly marinated is courage.
	That's just foolhardiness, right?
	To indicate that you were cowardly for not inviting a beating from a man larger than you, who had historically beaten you for many years, That to me is prudence and intelligence and cunning and wiles and smart.
	It is not a lack of courage.
	The language that we use to describe ourselves is the moral universe that we live in.
	And that's why I'm always bugging people to be very precise about their use of language with regards to themselves.
	The words that we use either hug us or hit us.
	Who we are as people and how we judge ourselves is entirely bound up in the language that we use to describe ourselves.
	And to me, to describe yourself as having a single shred of deficiency in courage when you escape from such a brutal cult would be entirely misplaced, right?
	That you're one of the most courageous people who's ever shown up, at least in this conversation, And to me, anything that you would say to yourself that would indicate any lack of courage would be entirely unjust to the courage that you have shown in your life and in your environment.
	So this is just what I like to nag people about, if that makes any sense.
	Steph, you are so right.
	Because for the longest time before I discovered FDR, I had zero respect for the unconscious, okay?
	Because even though neotech objectivism is so rational, they're still missing a big part.
	And one of them is, like, neotechs wrote that, oh, dreams!
	Yeah, anything that has to do with dreams, it's just a, get this in quotation, a garbage disposal mechanism!
	So I always dismissed any and every dreams, even so-called good dreams, that I've ever had since I escaped the cult.
	Right, and you can look on the BBC documentary recently, which has got quite a good scientific analysis of dreams, that they are very specific learning and reinforcement devices that do aid...
	In our knowledge and understanding of the outside world as well as of course of the inside world.
	So the stuff that I've talked about for many years in terms of dreams does have some, I mean certainly now, does seem to be having some significant scientific backing.
	Just to remind you that reason and evidence always wins the day here.
	And that dreams are well worth looking at.
	Not just in terms of the self-knowledge that you can get through the examination of the symbols, but there is some pretty objective and well-validated scientific evidence for The value and meaning of dreams.
	Okay. Can I bring up a dream that I have recurring often?
	You can bring it up. If it's really complicated, just because I want to keep the show available to other people as well.
	If it's a big, deep, and complicated dream, we'll do it another time.
	I totally forgot that other people were lined up, Steph.
	Okay, you know what?
	I'm going to call another day then.
	I don't want to monopolize this.
	Well, Richard, shoot me an email.
	I haven't done a dream analysis in a while, and I certainly would be happy to help out.
	So just write down the dream and email it to me, and we'll set up a time to have a talk about it.
	Okay, thank you so much.
	And thank you so much again.
	I'll see you at the barbecue.
	I'll see you at the barbecue, and it was really, really nice to chat with you.
	And again, congratulations on A, getting out of the cult, B, building a life for yourself, C, avoiding the ultimate self-attack of suicide, And I'm certainly very glad to have you as part of this philosophical conversation.
	And congratulations so much on getting into therapy.
	I know that that's a huge and difficult step.
	And I love it.
	It is. It is. And you get the right therapist.
	You put the right work in.
	There's nothing that can beat it in terms of excitement and happiness.
	But until you do it, it's hard to explain exactly how and why.
	So congratulations. Exactly!
	Yes. Okay, bye-bye.
	Okay, thanks. Thanks. All right, we have...
	Two people with French surnames and strange accents are done, and so we can introduce somebody else with a non-strange accent.
	if you have questions, issues, comments or problems anything you would like to comment on open thy larynx and I open my ears if comments or problems anything you would like to comment on open thy larynx and I open my ears if no Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Well, I have something kind of new, an idea.
	I was wondering if you could step into a role of the priest.
	Oh, I was going to do Candy Apples the Milkmaid, but okay, we can try the Priest thing too.
	I just listened to your Christine and the Priest again.
	I hadn't heard it in quite a while, and I went back to it just to remind myself.
	What you're really saying is, Steph, for Christ's sake, put out some new podcasts.
	I actually have six in the pipeline, so sorry about the delays.
	I had some time to watch some to and from New Hampshire, but they'll be coming out later today or early tomorrow.
	Well, it's giving me time to catch up on other things.
	You had this argument, and maybe you could start there, that I felt some degree of frustration trying to figure out how I would respond to that because it was about how...
	Oh, well, we know that these people aren't...
	Believers in God because they aren't happy.
	And the reason why they're not happy is because they don't have enough faith or they don't believe enough.
	Are you remembering that?
	I'm sure that it would be pretty easy to summon more details.
	I mean, I think we've all heard that argument before, that...
	You know, a certain belief will make you happy, and if you try believing in it and it doesn't make you happy, it's because you don't believe hard enough, right?
	Right, right.
	Yeah, I couldn't quite figure out what was wrong with that.
	Well, it's an argument from effect, right?
	And also, it's an unverifiable argument from effect.
	We talked about, boy, this is going way back to one of my first conversations with Ricky the Magnificent, who grew up in Jehovah's Witness, Right.
	That because he's attractive, if not downright sexy, that when he was a teenager, and his sister is very pretty, yeah, she looks very much like Christina Aguilera.
	Let me finish the sentence, sweetie.
	She doesn't look as good as you.
	I mean, she's only mortal, darling.
	Anyway, so as two attractive, I guess, kids and teenagers, they would be trotted out as advertisements, and you, of course, know All of the pictures of the Christian families with the smiling dad and the beaming, eyes-terrified wife and the sort of empty, cheesy smiles on the children and so on, that there is an advertisement of happiness that comes out of particular groups.
	And saying that this belief will make you happy is...
	Of course, whether the belief makes you happy does not mean that the belief...
	I mean, because heroin will make you happy as well, that doesn't mean that heroin is a philosophy.
	And there's a kind of happiness that comes from giving up the struggle for truth, giving up the struggle for authenticity and identity.
	There is a relief that comes out of that, that people, a euphoria of giving up the struggle for independence, Integrity, true original thought being who you really are, that is, as we all know, that is a great struggle to achieve.
	Once you've achieved it, it becomes a great joy to possess and to grow with, but it's a hell of a struggle to achieve that and to give up climbing the mountain over to the true self and then to collapse into the foggy, stifling, yet syrupy, smooth arms of some sort of collective identity gives people an enormous amount of relief.
	And, of course, what people pay priests for and politicians for is the cessation of the struggle for identity.
	They're paying to avoid the necessity of identity.
	And, as I talked about in some recent videos, the selling of a prefabricated identity of every kind of collectivist kind, whether it's religion or nationalism or even ethnic or racial or cultural or whatever, The selling of a prefabricated identity is often grabbed with extraordinary gusto and almost, well, and not almost, but desperation by people who are desperate to avoid the challenges of outgrowing the stereotypes and bigotries of inherited histories.
	And so when people say, you know, and I remember talking to some woman on a plane that was going to Hawaii and she was saying, oh, you know, I lived this life of drugs and And sleeping around and, you know, drinking and so on.
	And then I found, you know, Jesus and everything became better and so on, right?
	Just trade one addiction for another, right?
	And it's hard to say which would be worse on your kids.
	So when people say, well, you know, I found religion, I was born again, and I gained a great deal of joy, what they're saying, in my opinion, is...
	Well, when I was thinking things through, when I was sort of operating just on traumatized history, when I was a PTSD victim, I was making bad decisions or no decisions, and then when I surrendered into a kind of collective identity, I began to make, quote, better decisions.
	In other words, decisions were made for me.
	Both of those are avoidances of responsibility and the challenges of developing a true identity in the face of the hostility that the world has towards authenticity, as a reminder of...
	A cowardly surrender to the collective.
	So there's that kind of happiness that people get.
	The relief from having to be who they actually are and think for themselves.
	And of course that is really an argument for the falseness of a belief, not the truth of a belief.
	And so that's the first challenge, right?
	Happiness doesn't prove anything.
	And happiness, claims of happiness don't even prove happiness, right?
	I mean someone can say that they're happy, they can be a very polished Sociopath and very much appear happy to the uneducated or the untutored or those who are avoiding their own instincts.
	So, happiness doesn't prove the truth of any proposition, even if the happiness is genuine, and the claim of happiness in no way proves that happiness is real.
	So, saying that God or religion makes you happy doesn't have anything to do with the existence of God, right?
	And it doesn't have anything to do with the actual existence of happiness, because that is self-reporting, which is the problem that all psychology suffers from, is the problem of self-reporting, at least stuff where they can't directly peer into the brain.
	Does that help at all?
	Right, it's kind of a non-sequitur type of thing.
	I'm happy, therefore God exists type of thing.
	Yeah, and you could perhaps make the argument that a belief in God It gives people some relief.
	And it does, right?
	I mean, clearly it's not, you know, there's no drug that only makes you feel worse, right?
	Other than chemotherapy, which is not particularly sold on the streets as an instant high.
	So heroin has the genuine properties of making you very happy, as does cocaine, in the short run.
	And the same thing is true when you give up the struggle for knowledge and you just accept bigoted superstition and a collective identity.
	There's a huge relief in that for many, many people.
	And the price you pay, well it's really the price your children pay, but the price that you pay doesn't show up for many, many years.
	And then what happens is by that time you're so embedded that you start to feel less You're comfortable in that collective identity and you start to feel that your life is draining away and you aren't who you are.
	You get kind of depressed. But then, of course, what the priests say is that it's because you don't believe hard enough and you get that kind of prop up.
	It's like, well, what the hell do I have to say to get you to keep donating?
	You keep giving me your tithe or whatever, that's a different situation.
	But I don't believe that mysticism makes people happy.
	I do believe that it gives them relief.
	Like heroin from the challenges of personal truth and integrity and virtue, but I certainly don't believe that illusions lead to genuine happiness.
	Yeah, I struggle with the religion side of things more so than the...
	I mean, as far as being on the atheist side of the debate down here in the Bible Belt, because it's just...
	Religion is just so...
	Yeah, in many senses of the word.
	Another reason why I need to move out of here or something.
	Yeah, if you can get out of the South, and particularly out of Texas.
	I was watching the Oliver Stone film W the other day.
	I brought it up thinking that it was how to teach letters of the alphabet to Isabella, but it wasn't.
	It's like Malcolm X. It's interesting because I've heard this from George Bush.
	Before, you know, like if it wasn't for being born again, I'd be sitting on a bar stool in Texas having a beer, right?
	Because I guess he gave up drinking or whatever.
	And I'm sure that there are a couple of hundred thousand Iraqis staring lifelessly at the sky through the earth and worms who would be more than happy if our friend W had not discovered religion.
	And if he just remained a minor barroom drunk, then hundreds of thousands of people would still be alive today.
	So that's not, to me, much of an argument for religion, but rather against it.
	An argument against it. And of course he'd be in the barroom, because that would be just a different short-term relief.
	Right, but at least one that doesn't start wars.
	Right. And I kind of, I did a podcast myself the other day, just on this.
	I kind of reasoned myself to realize that religion is Not only like drugs, but like heroin, but significantly 10,000 times.
	I mean, if George Bush had gotten into heroin, they'd still be alive, you know?
	So it's significantly more destructive than drugs.
	Well, as you can, I'm sure, understand psychologically, by becoming born again, George Bush did not solve his Destructive streak.
	He merely turned it outwards and amplified it, which is always the case.
	When we turn self-hatred outwards, it always gets amplified.
	A thousand people have to pay for every prior self-attack upon ourselves, so it does not solve the problem of destruction and violence, which is what he was acting out ahead of time, because he was beaten and screamed at by his mother, tortured frogs like any genuine sociopath.
	When we turn our aggressions outwards, particularly when we hook them up with this fantasy magical divinity and omniscience, this is where we do get terrorism and wars and so on.
	It's not solved the problem of destruction.
	It merely inflicts it upon other innocents, right?
	And that is the real shame of it.
	Right. And while I was listening, I did notice that you made...
	Your arguments, just as the priest, were really good arguments if all of these things that you were arguing for were projected inward and not outward, if they were about your inner self and about your unconscious.
	If you replaced God with unconscious, then a lot of the arguments you were making would have been very useful.
	Right, and I mean, prayer works insofar as you ask an omniscient entity and you get an answer, but the omniscient entity is your unconscious.
	I used the word omniscient somewhat loosely there.
	But the argument that I made in that, I think it's Podcast 300, is really identical to the arguments that were going on in the second boot camp about the social contract.
	And it's simply a switch in definitions, right?
	Christina was quite upset.
	With Podcast 300, I would say God exists, and Christina would then say, well, would prove that God does not exist.
	And then I would say it's a matter of faith, right?
	Right, go ask God.
	Yeah, these two are completely opposite arguments, right?
	If I have a belief in God because God objectively exists, then it's not faith, it's science, right?
	I mean, I have a belief that the world is round because the world is round, not because it doesn't take faith, right?
	It's an acceptance of the evidence.
	And in that podcast, I would say, you know, I believe in God because God exists, and God would be disproven.
	And then I would say, well, it's a matter of faith, right?
	And of course, faith is the belief in the exact opposite of that, which is true, right?
	It's a redefinition of error as truth.
	And then when Christina would attack faith as bigotry and so on, then I would go back to God existing.
	It's just a spin, right? In the same way that when it comes to democracy or statism, People will say that we are responsible for obeying the social contract because we enter into it or stay in it voluntarily.
	So then it's like a contract.
	It's voluntary. And then we point out that if it's voluntary, we should be allowed to disagree with it.
	And then the gun in the room comes out and people say, well, no, it's forced.
	And then when we focus on the force and say, well, the initiation of the use of force is unjust, then they switch back to it being voluntary.
	In other words, you stay, therefore you agree.
	And this is a constant switch.
	And if you look at all perennial arguments, and this one, of course, social contract's been going on for 3,000 years.
	If you look at all perennial arguments, faith and reason, social contract, and lots of other ones, you will always see that there's just rotating definitions.
	You know, that if you say...
	That the social contract is enforced, you're told that it's voluntary.
	And then if you say, well, okay, I'm going to treat it like it's voluntary and not obey it, then you're told that you have to obey it because it's forceful.
	And then when you point out that force is immoral, you're told, no, it's voluntary because you stay.
	Right? So you can just...
	It's very simple, these rotating definitions that occur.
	I believe in God because God exists.
	Well, God doesn't exist. No, no, no.
	I believe in God because it's a matter of faith.
	Right? And so you can't really debate these people, I guess.
	Because I keep trying to, like, how do I, you know...
	Grasp these slippery eels of these people that constantly redefine their terms and their debates.
	Do you like them as people?
	No, I can't say I'd have any respect for them after they keep redefining.
	Well, don't date with people you don't like.
	Right. Right.
	I mean, that's why I stopped the determinism nonsense.
	I just lost all respect. It's like I'm not doing this anymore because I know that I can't have a productive conversation with people that I don't like.
	I can't. They won't get anything.
	I'm just wasting my time.
	I'm discrediting philosophy.
	I could be talking to somebody more enjoyable or beating my head against a wall, which would be still more enjoyable.
	So check your own feelings.
	Do I like this person? See, the truth is a massive gift that we can bestow upon another human being.
	It's a cure for the cancer of unhappiness and loneliness.
	Self-attack.
	The truth is a massive gift, right?
	Now, if you have a Ferrari that you want to give to someone and they're like, well, I don't drive because it's bad for the environment.
	Do you sit there and say, no, no, no, no, you really have to take this Ferrari?
	Do you sit there and keep trying to press the key into their hand and tell them that a Ferrari is good and this and that, right?
	If you have someone who's dying of cancer and you have a pill that cures cancer, and they sit there and say, I don't want to take your pill, And there's a whole city full of other people who are dying of cancer who want to get better.
	Do you sit there not giving the pill to other people because you're going to fight with this guy to try and get a pill down his throat as he bites you?
	Fuck him. Go to somebody who wants the pill.
	It's getting easier to drop these kind of people out.
	It's just, it's still, you know, it's not an easy thing to do to just give up on It gets easier.
	It's just not easy. Well, but that's because you're being selfish.
	Because it's about your feelings, right?
	Right. It's about me in some way, for sure.
	I'm sorry? It's about me in some way.
	Yeah, you're not thinking of the people you could be helping, right?
	You're thinking, well, I don't feel comfortable giving up on this person.
	You're also not thinking of the degree of respect that you and this other person are going to give to the truth, right?
	If you try to apply reasoned arguments and evidence to people who are irrational, or rather anti-rational, since you can't be irrational, people who are anti-rational, then you're just joining them in their anti-rationality, right?
	Because you're saying that I can reason people into the truth despite the fact that they directly oppose and discredit reason.
	Yeah, that's the contradiction there.
	Yeah, so you're discrediting and weakening your own efficacy and sense of power.
	You're discrediting and weakening the power of philosophy to yourself, to others, to anyone who knows about this conversation.
	And you're not getting the truth to people who actually have an interest in improving their own lives and learning how to think for themselves and so on, right?
	Right. Because it's about you and your feelings, right?
	Right. Well, is there another...
	Because you know if these people are really slippery like that, then it's got to be something else.
	It's got to be something in their history.
	I guess even then there's not really...
	But that's easy. Then bring up their history and see if they're interested.
	And if they're not, if they're neither rational nor introspective, there's nothing you can do.
	Because all they're going to do is manipulate and project, right?
	Right. There's a guy I know I used to work with.
	He actually got me on the volleyball team where I ended up meeting Christina, so all hail to him.
	He was married and had a kid, and he was having big problems in his marriage.
	He took his wife to marriage counseling.
	She didn't want to go, but she ended up going because things were going very badly.
	After about 40 minutes, Of talking with this guy and his wife, his therapist, said, you know, well, if you could just said to the wife, you could just wait outside for a few minutes.
	I just have something I need to discuss with your husband.
	And so she went outside and the therapist came up to him and said, are you happy with her the way she is?
	He said, no. He said, well, then you've got to make a decision because I'm telling you as a professional, she's not going to change.
	Wow. 40 minutes, right?
	How long have we been at this? How long have you been at philosophy?
	Three years. Yeah, and you were probably interested in science and thinking and stuff beforehand, right?
	Yep. So, you're now a professional, right?
	Right. That's kind of...
	Yeah, there's a bit of despair around that.
	Like... Let's see if I can sort of reason you into this, because I can't seem to reason myself out of it.
	Yeah, yeah, give me the case.
	Tell me how we should just spend time with these people.
	I'm happy to hear. Maybe I'm wrong, right?
	Go for it. Well, not so much that I should spend time with these people, but that it's reason you into the fact that I think that it's bleak that I will run into...
	The outlook is bleak as far as running into people that are like me and like us, like all hardcore into the truth.
	Well, sorry, if you're still debating with people who are anti-rational, you're not hardcore into the truth.
	Right, because the truth is you can't debate with people who are anti-rational.
	So you're not yet hardcore into the truth if you still want to debate with people.
	That's just a point, a minor point that I want to make.
	And of course, your odds of running into a rational person, if you're spending your time debating, quote debating, with anti-rational people, the odds of you running into another rational person are that much less, because you're hanging with the wrong crowd, right?
	Right, I'm not helping matters.
	No, you're actively hurting matters, right?
	Like, I mean, if you're snapping yourself in the leg, you don't say, well, I'm not actually helping my health, right?
	No, you're actually hurting your health, right?
	And the disaster scenario that I have that has me clinging to this, this, my last pinky finger to this flagpole,
	I guess of, of, I guess of, of, of trying to change people that obviously won't change is that, is that so few people want to change that, I'll never run into anyone that won't change.
	Sorry, could you just step me through the logic of that?
	It seems like a bit of a topology, but maybe I've got it in the wrong.
	Well, if If the world is in the state it's in, and everybody has been raised badly, and most people out there support the state, and they're fairly at least into the religious tolerance, if not semi-religious in some way.
	They're raised in state schools.
	I mean, the vast majority of them, those that aren't, are private Catholic schools or something like that, which isn't any better.
	If that is the majority, the vast majority of people in the world, then outlook's not so good at running into anybody in my day-to-day activities that wouldn't be anti-rational or I mean,
	how many people are there of us that have been really into the conversation?
	Maybe like, what, 50?
	60? That are highly involved?
	Well, okay, but let's just take...
	I don't want to get too much information before we look at some principles.
	So what you're saying is that these people are rare.
	But there's not none of them, right?
	Right. They're just...
	They are so rare that...
	I mean, even the age range of all of us, I mean, we got the oldest as 40 or 41, and the youngest is 18 or so.
	So the age range is quite vast.
	The... The where we live is quite...
	No, no, look, you don't have to make the case for me.
	I mean, I understand, right?
	Right. So, I mean, let's say that these people, you know, people who want to think and reason, they're very rare.
	I'm not going to say that that's completely accurate because I have a different view than you do, right?
	It's sort of the hub of the wheel, so to speak.
	But let's say that they're very rare, right?
	Right. Right. So, let's compare them to diamonds, right?
	Okay. And if you know anything about diamond mining, which I doubt you do, I just know because my dad's a geologist, and I've visited a bunch of them in Africa, the amount of excavation that you have to do to find a diamond is staggering.
	It's millions to one.
	In terms of, you know, weight or whatever, right?
	You have to do two tons of earth to get three diamonds or whatever, right?
	Right. Well, I thought your Raiders of the Lost Ark x-ray glasses metaphor was really good.
	Oh, thanks, but I'm going to change it now because a new metaphor for an old idea is all I've got left in terms of originality since I became a dad, so I'm afraid this is all I've got left.
	All right, I'll let you. Okay.
	So, what you're doing is, if I come to you and I say...
	I want you, Nate, to invest in, you know, Steph's house of mining for diamonds, right?
	That's my company, right?
	Okay. And because diamonds are so incredibly rare, what I'm going to do is I'm going to get one acre of land.
	I'm going to start looking for diamonds in the top soil.
	And when I've finished, I'm going to go back and start again on the same acre.
	And I'm going to do that over and over again.
	Until I find a diamond.
	What would you say to that business plan?
	That's highly inefficient.
	Well, would you invest? No.
	Okay. Why not?
	Well, because it's only one acre and I'm not even sure if the methodology you'd be going through first even would be very efficient.
	Right. What you would say to me is, hey, look, I mean, if you find five diamonds in that one acre, fantastic, but it's not reproducible, and the odds are you'll never find anything, right?
	Right. Okay, so because diamonds are so incredibly rare, there's no point looking someplace you've already looked before.
	Right. Do you see what I mean?
	I can see what you mean.
	I just can't seem to translate that to...
	Okay, diamonds are rationality, right?
	Right. So if you've talked to someone who is anti-rational, and you've talked to them a couple of times, you've given reason and evidence, and you just get back hostility or negativity or whatever, right?
	Disinterest. Right?
	Then you've already looked at that acre, right?
	And there's no diamonds. So what's the point of going back and looking again?
	I'll... Try debating from a different angle.
	I'll try starting from this end instead of this end of the one acre and see if I can find a diamond.
	Now, maybe it's true that you missed one.
	Maybe. But nobody would take that as a business plan, right?
	I'll go back for a fifth time because maybe there is a diamond in that one acre of topsoil.
	I just missed it. Yes, maybe there is, but that's not a good business plan for finding that which you say is very rare, right?
	Okay, but let's add a new aspect to the metaphor because this is true in many ways.
	Acres of land are also rarely come upon that are for sale.
	You mean dating, right?
	Not even dating so much.
	I'm even having this problem with friends.
	I mean, you know, women In the Texas area, at least, or just...
	They're held hostage by the church.
	I understand that, right? Yeah.
	So then you're saying, okay, I'm looking for diamonds, and I'm on a glacier.
	So what's the next thing to do?
	Get off the glacier.
	Get off the freaking glacier, because there's no diamonds there, right?
	I mean, you're in the heart of nationalistic, patriotic, religious country, right?
	Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the old king of the hill thing.
	Now, there may be a diamond in a glacier, but nobody's going to make that a business plan, right?
	No. No, I need to get out of the glacier.
	No, you don't need to move, right?
	Just understand that it's really, really rare to find a diamond where you are.
	Now, that doesn't mean you have to move, but it does mean that there's even less point combing over the same ground you've already looked at, right?
	Right. I mean, if you...
	Let's switch the metaphors, right?
	If you want to look for pearls in oysters, right?
	Pearls are these little, you get a grain of sand goes into an oyster shell that creates this coating around it to protect it from the rough edges, you get this beautiful pearl, right?
	So if you want to look for pearls, the way that they do it is they have to yank up the pearls from below the ocean, ocean floor, and then they have to open up the oysters, right?
	Find the pearls. I think that's how it was.
	Right. Now, they don't check the oysters they've already checked, right?
	To see if maybe they missed a pearl.
	No. And of course, what they really want is a pinpoint x-ray so that they only pull up the oysters that have the pearls, right?
	Yes. Now, the first thing you do with philosophy is you open up the pearls, you open up the oysters to see if there's a pearl, right?
	You talk to someone to see if they have any curiosity about rationality and introspection, right?
	Right. I'm with you so far.
	Right, and then the next thing that you do after that is you develop, after a certain amount of habit, you develop the x-ray vision so that you know whether or not someone has, whether an oyster has a pearl before you even open it up.
	But basically what you've got is If you've got 20 oysters, you keep opening them up and checking, closing them, opening them up and checking, right?
	Saying, man, oysters with pearls are really rare.
	And it's like, well, of course they're rare.
	Because you keep doing the same ones.
	For you, they're non-existent.
	So you're asking people to be more rational than you are.
	And that's completely irrational, right?
	Oh, rationality is so tragically absent in the world, right?
	And saying, well, pearls are so tragically absent in these oysters, I'm going to open these 20 up again and see if I miss something.
	Okay, I'm going to open these 20 up again and see if I miss something again.
	Boy, you know, that's just a shortage, right?
	But you need to be rational to both attract and see rationality in other people, right?
	You're right. I just need to let go.
	Well, complaining about the irrationality in the world without seeing the irrationality in yourself isn't going to do you much good, right?
	No. No, and this definitely helps with this constant talk that's going on in my head about this.
	I've been debating this in my head for a long time.
	Debating what? Just the argument I gave you, that these people are rare.
	I think this is very, very helpful.
	Yeah, the fault is not in the stars, but in ourselves, right?
	To quote Hamlet.
	Once you are as shiningly rational as you can possibly be, and you can't find any rational people where you are or anywhere else, Then I think you have the right to complain.
	I don't have that right, because I'm still not as shining irrational as I'd like to be.
	But if you get there, then I think you have...
	Like, if you have the x-ray vision and you can see all the oysters in the ocean and you can know for sure that there are no pearls, then you can say, gosh, there are no pearls in the ocean, right?
	That would be...
	Okay, so when I get to that point, then I can complain about this.
	Yes, but you won't get to that point.
	Because the more rational you become, the more you will attract or evoke rational people.
	Because what you're saying right now to anyone who may be interested in rationality, Nate, is rationality makes you lonely and bitter and negative.
	Want to join? Yeah.
	I guess that's not too attractive.
	Well, no. It's not at all attractive.
	God, you're fucking me like crazy today.
	Sorry about that.
	It's a Swiss. Yeah, I think I'm just scared.
	So that's...
	I'm sorry, can you say that again?
	I'm scared.
	I'm scared of being...
	Accepting that...
	I can't quite pinpoint what I'm scared of.
	Well, what I'm saying is pretty obvious, right?
	Right. I mean, what you're saying is that I... Right.
	And also that...
	Trying the same thing over and over is the definition of insanity.
	Well, it just means that you're attempting to achieve something else, right?
	Right. Or avoid something.
	Well, it just means that you have a great deal of anxiety around enthusiasm, right?
	Which is why you're having a tough time disengaging from people who bring you despair, right?
	Yeah, I had a... Someone the other day, I mentioned that, you know, I was interested in someone else and that I had some concerns, you know, about some red flags I saw.
	And she says, well, you can't avoid disaster or something, you know, just kind of came out of nowhere with some kind of assertion like that.
	Like, you can't avoid anything.
	Like, if I cross the street, I can't look both ways and avoid a car, getting hit by a car.
	So therefore, you know, I can't avoid relationships that are going to turn out disastrous.
	And it was just really...
	And who was this who said this?
	Just an old friend on Facebook that I had made some comment on my status message and, you know...
	Okay, and what did you do as the result of her saying that?
	Well, I just ended the conversation.
	I didn't talk to her after that.
	Why? Well, because...
	What can I say to that?
	She wasn't curious at all.
	I mean, she wasn't saying, well, why do you say that?
	I'm sorry, did you feel that you were being curious by not continuing the conversation?
	Oh, wait, sorry.
	RTR plus UPB means everyone except Nate has to be curious.
	Sorry, I forgot to put that in the footnotes.
	It's the NAIT exception, which is very important.
	It will absolutely be in the next edition.
	I do apologize for that massive oversight on my part.
	In the moment, I wasn't sure how I could be curious about, like, because I just felt anxiety.
	Right, and what does RTR suggest in that situation?
	I feel anxiety when you said that.
	And I don't know why, and I feel anxious about even bringing this up.
	See, once you do it, you get the right to complain about other people not doing it.
	But frankly, it doesn't seem very credible for me for you to complain about other people's lack of curiosity when you're not willing to be open and honest and vulnerable with them.
	With all due respect, right?
	I mean... Right.
	But I realized later that I could have been curious by asking, you know, how do you know?
	Well, but that's not RTR. What you felt was anxiety, right?
	And so, questioning her on her motives, that's not RTR, right?
	Right. And this is not to pick on you, because this is a general question.
	This is a podcast that's coming out this week, which is how often do you refer to principles when making decisions, right?
	And I get a sense that a lot of people have listened to a lot of podcasts and read a lot of books, but they don't particularly refer to principles when trying to make decisions.
	It's like, well, that was interesting.
	I've read a lot of science. Now I'm going to throw a bridge together any way I feel like it, right?
	Right. I studied engineering, now I'm just going to build it the way I feel like it.
	And the purpose, of course, of philosophy is to have principles that you can reference when making decisions, right?
	So when you're faced with a decision where a friend does something that hurts you, then do you reference a principle when deciding what to do in that or do you just do what you feel like?
	I kind of thought that I was kind of going with my gut when I didn't respond.
	Well, gut is not a principle, right?
	I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm all for the instincts, for sure, but the instincts in the absence of philosophy usually just remain prejudiced, right?
	Right. So when you had this, as you say, she's an old friend, so I assume the relationship has some value and that she's worthy of your time, and she was certainly worth talking to about this kind of stuff, right?
	So when it comes to measuring the value or discussing the value of curiosity, is that a principle that you reference when something comes up like this?
	Right? Is honesty, openness, and vulnerability, or what we many somewhat succinctly call RTR, is that a principle that That you use to guide yourself in situations where you want to withdraw or you feel offended or you feel like not talking.
	In other words, do you read diet books and then just eat whatever the hell you want or do you, you know, read diet books and then modify your...
	Right, because I tell you, it's been a long time, Nate, since I've heard you talk about applying a principle in a situation.
	I've heard a lot of complaints about situations not going your way or things not going the way that you like and so on, but I've not heard...
	Basically what I've heard is you saying, well, I'm not applying any of the diet principles, but I'm really mad that I'm not losing weight or in gaining weight, right?
	Yeah, and I definitely didn't apply it in this particular instance either.
	Right, and so, again, I don't want to be overly harsh.
	I mean, this is just what I've observed, right?
	I mean, again, I have this weird view...
	I have Soren's eye on everything, right?
	And this is just what I've observed, is you've complained a lot about things, but I have not heard you saying, you know, this principle that I believe in, whether it's RTR or UPB or something else completely outside of whatever the hell we're talking about here, you know, I have this principle called honesty, called integrity, called courage, called virtue, called whatever it is, and it was really tough to apply in this situation, but I did it, and here's the result.
	Well, I can give you an example.
	Please do. The other day, I wrote on the board about this self-attack situation.
	I talked to you briefly about it and about the sprinkler that I left on, and me and Joey had talked about it to some degree, and then I went and talked to my therapist about it, and she tended to agree with Joey, and so that I was just setting standards.
	Well, not really standards, but I think you had called them excuses to self-abuse.
	I need to sort of lower my expectations to, you know, being human.
	No, no, and I understand that, and I do appreciate that, and I don't want to dismiss that completely, but that's a situation where you were already experiencing discomfort and you wanted relief from that discomfort, right?
	Right. That's different from what I'm talking about.
	Where you will willingly accept an increase in discomfort for the sake of pursuing a principle.
	Or acting with integrity to your values.
	Oh, okay.
	It's the difference between how do I get out of a burning building and help me go back into a burning building to rescue a cat called Virtue.
	Or something like that. Right.
	I'm trying to think of a recent thing.
	Like, we have this, and again, you've become an example of this, and it's not fair, right?
	But, you know, we're just going to use you as a teaching aid to be, you know, this is unfair, but just bear with me for a second, right?
	Right. Is that, you know, what we do is we try to develop principles that we can apply, and we certainly have worked on a very practical philosophy that is around action in the moment, right?
	Honesty, openness, virtue, courage, and all these kinds of actionable virtues, right?
	Right. And just kind of what I've noticed, and this is just annoying naggy guy, and again, I'm not certainly saying that I do it all perfectly at any particular time, but is that there doesn't seem to be a lot of Dedication to the virtues that we've talked about here.
	Like people say, well, you know, I've read them and I've absorbed them and so on.
	But there's not a lot of people saying, well, here's the standard or the virtue that I believe in, whatever it is, honesty, integrity, vulnerability.
	And here's a situation where it was difficult to do, but I did it.
	And here was the result, right?
	Either I changed my mind about virtue or I learned more about this or whatever.
	It's not everyone, right? But I've just sort of noticed that there seems to have been a bit of a falling away from the application of the abstract virtues that we all in general agree with, right?
	Right. What would it look like, and I don't know if this question is going to be annoying or not, but It's only fair that you be annoying.
	I often am, so go for it.
	What would it look like if...
	What would you expect to see if I were to apply these things more consistently or more often or use the principles in the diet book to actually put them into action?
	What would you expect to see?
	Because I haven't posted a lot on the board and I haven't...
	That's why I don't know what kind of updates you would expect to see.
	Well, what I would expect to see is I wouldn't expect to hear you complain about the rarity of rational people while pursuing irrational goals yourself.
	Oh, okay. That would be sort of one thing.
	So you would expect not to see certain things?
	Sorry? So you would expect not to see certain things like that?
	Well, but when you don't pursue irrational goals, you're obviously pursuing rational goals, in which case you're going to be happier, right?
	Right. I mean, not immediately, but, you know, you will be working on becoming happier, right?
	The other thing that I would expect to see, particularly from you, is more positivity, right?
	More enthusiasm, more happiness, more acceptance of success, more, you know, that kind of stuff, right?
	Because you're not being... Positive for the last couple of months, to say the least, right?
	Well, I've felt more positive.
	Well, off and on, I guess.
	Well, and if other people have experienced that in a way that I haven't, feel free to type in the chat window.
	And again, this is not a pile on Nate session.
	This is just you asked, right?
	So I'm just trying to give you my honest response.
	When you had this conflict with your old friend, right?
	And friendship is a very, very important aspect of life.
	When you had this conflict with your old friend, I would assume that you would have said, well, this is a friend who's done something that has hurt and upset me, so I'm going to talk with my friend about what has hurt and upset me.
	Rather than, well, I just stopped the conversation, right?
	Right. When it came to finding more rational people in my life, like if you say, well, I'm spending a lot of time debating with irrational people or anti-rational people, and I feel despair over the number of anti-rational people in my life, that would be such an obvious contradiction that it would be hard to take seriously, right?
	- Okay. - And I'm not saying that any of this is easy, right?
	But, of course, we need principles because things aren't easy, right?
	Yeah. Like, we don't need a GPS to walk around our house because it's easy.
	If I'm driving to New Hampshire, thanks again, Greg, I need a GPS because it's a long, complicated drive with a baby in the car, right?
	We need principles when things are tough, right?
	Not when... We don't need a diet to eat chocolate cake.
	Well, let's say...
	Let's bring up the example you gave about the guy that you were debating, the relativist, I think, at the table in New Hampshire.
	When you stopped debating him, you gave him a fair amount of time, I guess.
	You had this conversation and At some point, you gave up and decided, well, it's not worth continuing.
	Yeah, I mean, I gave him, I knocked down every one of his arguments for relativism, and then basically he just looked at me and said, well, I'm going to have to think about it, right?
	And, you know, give the guy the good grace of a civilized exit, right?
	Maybe he will, maybe he won't, but I certainly didn't want to press the point then.
	Right, so when somebody comes at me with, like, a blatant assertion about something, and And it doesn't show any curiosity that I've seen, then why would I continue talking to him?
	Well, why do you? Well, I didn't.
	Sorry, I thought that we started this by you saying that you continued to talk with irrational people.
	Maybe I misunderstood what you were saying.
	Well, I didn't continue talking to her.
	No, no. We're not talking about people.
	We're talking about trend, right?
	Okay, let's start again.
	Do you have a problem with having anti-rational people in your life or in your conversations?
	Oh, okay.
	Okay, so, yeah.
	You do?
	Only in that I keep running into new anti-rational people.
	Okay, and do these new anti-rational, do you have more than one conversation with these people, or do you have, I mean, do they get embedded, I mean, or do you just meet people who are anti-rational?
	I just keep meeting people who are anti-rational, and then I just stop.
	Do you care about the best potential within them?
	Do you love what is possible about who they could be?
	Or do you feel resentful and irritated that they're irrational?
	I would say the latter.
	I would say so too, right? Yeah.
	And I think that that's kind of robbing them a little.
	Because they could change if...
	It's not their fault that they're irrational.
	The culture is irrational, right?
	Right, but if they're not...
	I mean, you're asking them to love the potential for reason in themselves, but you can't love the potential for reason in them.
	You're asking them to do something that you're doing the opposite of.
	Right. Be enthusiastic about rationality, you say to them, right?
	But you're not enthusiastic about their possibility for rationality.
	No, I'm not.
	I think that there's no chance.
	How do I change them?
	How do I make somebody curious?
	You can't. Right, and that's why you were negative about my speech, right?
	Because in my speech, I showed that when you approach a room of 350 or 400 people with enough positivity, you can get an enthusiastic response, even though I would disagree with many of those people about many things.
	Well, you definitely proved that.
	Right, so that means that if you want to help people, and in so doing, create a rational and happy circle of people in your life, then I think it behooves you to be happy and enthusiastic about their possibility for rationality.
	I mean, when Christina said, I believe in a god, when we were first dating, and I just said, well, that's it, another stupid mystic, I'm out of here, right?
	Right. That would have been a great tragedy, right?
	Oh, for sure. If she said, I vote liberal, which she did, I think.
	Yeah, then I'd be like, oh, another damn statist.
	Forget it, right? Right.
	Then, well, I'd be getting a whole lot more sleep at the moment, right?
	But it wouldn't be as good...
	Well, I mean, the greatest joy in my life is the two ladies in the room.
	And that's also to assume that she didn't have something to teach me, right?
	I mean, she's taught me an absolutely enormous amount, right?
	Wipe front to back, wipe front to back.
	No, I'm just kidding. But she's taught me an enormous amount that is in a very core part of what we do here at FDR, right?
	Which is the unity of psychology with philosophy.
	You not only evoked it in her, but she contributed a lot to the whole thing.
	Usually, right? An enormous amount.
	Right, and if she had looked at my lack of knowledge in certain areas and dismissed me, or if I had looked at her lack of knowledge in certain areas and dismissed her, that would have been a terrible shame, right?
	Now, if I could just take this end of the cable here, the end of this conclusion that if I'm enthusiastic about the potential for rationality in others, then I can evoke that in them.
	Well, no, you can't evoke anything in anyone, but it sure raises the odds, right?
	Right, okay, well, then it can raise the odds.
	And the problem is that I'm not enthusiastic about their potential rationality.
	You're dragging your ass around saying, I have something, I have a magic pill to cure your energy deficiencies.
	Right? Your attitude belies your words, right?
	Reason equals virtue equals happiness, you say.
	I am rational, I am virtuous, I am Not happy and enthusiastic, right?
	Right. Though I can say I'm more...
	Sorry, you can't say what?
	I can say that to the degree of comparison between now and three years ago, I am far more happy and enthusiastic about things.
	I would say you're less unhappy and self-destructive.
	I think that you still have to cross the bridge to real enthusiasm.
	Again, this is my perspective and opinion.
	None of this is true. This is just, you know, you're asking, so I'm saying, but this is not any definition of you.
	This is just my perspective and opinion, if that makes any sense.
	Well, and you wouldn't be right if I am not enthusiastic about the potential for rationality in others.
	Well, and what it means is that you're not enthusiastic about the potential for rationality in yourself.
	Which is what you're saying to me is, look, Steph, rationality is isolating me and making me despair, right?
	And maybe that's the source of this.
	Yeah, that is the source, right? You're not enthusiastic about rationality in yourself, and therefore you can't be enthusiastic about the rationality in others, and therefore it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, right?
	Look, you have no choice but to become a leader.
	And this is true for everyone who listens to this.
	I don't know, I probably should have mentioned this earlier, right?
	Right. But you have no choice.
	If you are a philosopher, you are a leader of men.
	Like it or not.
	Because you are certainly no longer a follower, right?
	And we cannot exist in isolation.
	We are social animals.
	If you are a philosopher, if you study philosophy, you are a leader.
	like it or not.
	So if this is isolating me and I don't like it...
	It's because you're not leading.
	And if you're going to be a leader, you have to be enthusiastic.
	You have to motivate people.
	You have to excite people.
	You have to get their mojos a-pumping, right?
	Well, maybe if I take some leadership classes or something, because I just...
	I've never been a leader.
	You already know how to lead because you're doing the opposite of it, right?
	And anybody who does the opposite knows something, right?
	Like if I say go north and you say I have no idea where north is and you head exactly south, then you know exactly where north is, right?
	Yeah, I guess you could... Right, so if you have diminished enthusiasm or negative enthusiasm, despair, right, when put into the role of a leader, then you just have to do the opposite, right?
	I'm not saying it's easy, but you know what to do.
	You don't need leadership classes, in my opinion.
	I mean, you just have to practice being enthusiastic, though it may very well feel like you're doing self-dentistry in a public square.
	You have to just open up the spigots of enthusiasm, right?
	And because I had, you know, when I met Christina, I was not yet an anarchist, but an objectivist, a minarchist, very much into philosophy, certainly scads of self-knowledge.
	I had to do food and so on, right?
	So I had to be a leader in that aspect of our relationship and lead her to An understanding of what I was doing, and then she has leadership, or had leadership, and still has leadership in other areas of our relationship.
	But when it comes to being, you can't be original and not be a leader.
	Because if you're original, you're either isolated or you're leading people.
	You can't be this original, right?
	Be a secular atheist and An anarchist.
	And into therapy.
	And into self-knowledge.
	And into reasoning from first principles.
	Right? And anti-statist, anti-agnostic, anti-religious, anti-irrationality, anti-superstition, anti-nationalism, anti-culture.
	Again, I don't know if you believe all of this, but some schmattering of these things, right?
	Yeah, all the things.
	I can't do that and not be a leader.
	Yeah, you can't do that and then expect people to be on the same wavelength.
	You have to lead them.
	With happiness and enthusiasm, there's no other possibility.
	Does that mean faking it to some degree?
	Because right now, I'm not enjoying the isolation.
	I know. I get that.
	And you're happy to say that I'm not enjoying the isolation to others, right?
	Because you're leading people anyway, right?
	You're going to lead people no matter what you do.
	And the moment you're leading people down to the Nate's pit of lonely despair, right?
	Everybody, step on this escalator.
	It goes down like an ice chute, right?
	Right? Everybody's a leader here.
	You're either leading people up or you're leading people down.
	Right? So you don't have the choice to not be a leader because you're thinking for yourself, right?
	But it wouldn't exactly be honest to pretend that I'm enthusiastic, would it?
	Is this one of those willpower things where willpower is valid?
	Where I'm just gonna have to pretend?
	Sorry, where is it that I've ever said that the purpose is to pretend?
	That's why I'm pointing this out.
	No, you have to confront your despair honestly and start projecting it on the world and recognize that it's a phenomenon that is within you, that you are creating and inflicting upon the world and not Extrapolate it and expend it out into the world like it's coming at you, like some mysterious Martian ray from the moon.
	Whoa, I couldn't follow that one.
	The despair is within you.
	The irrationality is within you.
	That's where it needs to be confronted.
	It will not be solved in the world.
	Right. Right, so you confront the despair and the irrationality.
	You confront your fear of being a leader.
	And look, Nate, I understand. I really do understand and I sympathize.
	It's not like our childhoods prepared us for leadership, right?
	No. To say the least, right?
	No. But if you weren't, you know, I believe in the unconscious.
	I believe in the power of the ecosystem.
	If you couldn't do it, you never would have listened past the first podcast because you knew where it was going to lead.
	And our natures are not so cruel as to put us into situations where we will inevitably fail at that which we most desire.
	You're not that masochistic.
	Well, I've gone over my history quite a bit.
	So, the first place I should look for this is maybe...
	It means, sorry, I'm going to just...
	It means that you're getting secondary gains or assignment the box of relief in the present from staying small and expecting the impossible, right?
	I mean obviously when you were a kid you expected and wanted your parents to be reasonable and kind and so on and they weren't, right?
	So you're used to not getting what you most want, right?
	Right, I'm used to that.
	And you are getting some secondary gains From playing small fry, disappointed guy, right?
	Right, trying to get the results of being big by staying small.
	Yeah, so what does it cost you to step up and be a real leader?
	What does it cost you to be enthusiastic?
	What's going to happen if you're happy and enthusiastic?
	About reason and evidence and the truth and virtue.
	People are going to do what they do with you.
	They're going to start hurling apples and tomatoes and they're going to start...
	Well, I'm going to, of course, attract people and you've attracted a lot of friends.
	Right, so the answer is that the moment you begin to become a leader, you're going to self-attack.
	Right, because saying that the sum total of what's happened to me is apples have been thrown at me is so irrational and anti-empirical that it clearly is a projection, right?
	I mean, I'm running the biggest and most successful philosophy conversation the world has ever seen.
	I just gave you the keynote address at one of the biggest libertarian forums.
	Good point. You're right.
	Four to five downloads a year, 100,000 video views a month, and I'm able to make a semi-decent living out of donations, right?
	Totally right. You're totally right.
	Right, so the idea that the most successful philosopher in the history of the world, you know, whether you consider that good or bad entertainment or philosophy is not right, but the most...
	I'm a successful philosopher, largely as a result of technology rather than any of my particular gifts.
	But to say that the most successful philosopher in the world, that the only thing that happens is that people attack him, is anti-empirical.
	Because you're not one of those people, right?
	Even if it was just you and me, at least there'd be one exception to the apple-throwing people, right?
	Exactly. Exactly.
	So what that means is that you will attack yourself.
	If you step up into a leadership role with enthusiasm and positivity and love, right?
	Right. So it's that critic or whatever part of me that's self-attacking that I need to get down with.
	Right. I mean, you have...
	Listened to enough and learned enough about yourself that leadership is the only possibility, and now you're in the impossible situation, temporarily, of having prepared yourself for a leadership that you will attack yourself for achieving, right?
	And you can't give up on the leadership thing because you can't go and unlearn what you've learned.
	It's like trying to forget English, right?
	Or math. You can't do it.
	So there's no way to go but forward, which is to confront...
	the self-attack that arises from assuming a position of power and authority.
	That fits like a key in a lock.
	Okay.
	Right. And when you assume a position of power and authority, which is what reason and evidence And originality and authenticity and virtue give you, then you will not have to find the right people because you will create them.
	You don't need to go looking for pearls if you can make a pearl, right?
	That would be awesome. And that gives you more power over the situation because right now you have no power.
	You're just digging around in the earth with a stick hoping to find a diamond, right?
	Right. But this is the recipe for diamonds.
	The recipe for truth in the world is leadership and affection in the realm of enthusiasm and motivation, right?
	And this definitely explains the feelings I had after your talk with Phil the other day and the empathy call.
	The second one. Right.
	Right. And this is, I mean, and I really do appreciate you sticking through this aspect of the conversation because it's really tough, right?
	I mean, it is, this is the tough part, right?
	Because we all, I mean, a lot of us, not we all, but a lot of us had these difficult childhoods or situations where we were, even if we had happy childhoods where in public schools or whatever, we were too large for our circumstances, mentally and emotionally and so on.
	And so we're used to feeling confined and small, and now, through our pursuit of philosophy and self-knowledge, we emerge as leaders, because it's impossible to be followers and we don't want to live apart from our fellow men, right?
	We're not going to go live in the woods, right?
	So we have no choice but to be leaders, and that challenges the small mammal under the feet of big reptiles hiding small strategy that we had as children, for the most part, right?
	I'm going to assume that this is not a moment of decision because I was about to ask you if and when you were in this exact spot.
	Oh, I'm always in this exact spot.
	I'm not a born leader.
	I am not a born leader any more than I'm a born public speaker or anything like that.
	So no, this is a continual challenge for me, which continues to grow as a challenge as the size and scope of the conversation continues to grow.
	So I'm right there in the trenches with you, brother.
	I'm struggling as much as anyone in this realm.
	And there's no template for what I do.
	There's no history, there's no template, there's no do it this way, there's no philosophy podcasting for dummies, right?
	Right. But we can definitely say two degrees of progress.
	You're way over there.
	You're the farthest ahead.
	Well, you could say that, but compared to what, right?
	Compared to me. Well, but compared to what?
	This isn't your job, right?
	True. I mean...
	And of course, you're still in the realm of self-comfort as opposed to ideal action, right?
	In other words, it's uncomfortable for me, therefore I'm not going to do it, right?
	Okay, yeah. And I understand that, and that happens to me as well, right?
	But... The great challenge of committing yourself to a cause, and the cause of course is not me or FDR or anything like that, just for Richard's comfort, but the cause is the truth and the happiness and the health of the world, right?
	When you commit yourself to a cause, the great challenge is to overcome the false self, the petty self, the small self, right?
	And to say, well it's not about my immediate comfort, it is about the good of the cause That I'm dedicated to.
	And the cause could be something as personal and simple and powerful as your own happiness, right?
	It doesn't have to be anything to do with a big external cause, right?
	If the cause is your own happiness, and you say, well, RTRSA is a value that I accept, honesty and vulnerability, then for the sake of my own happiness, I am going to put aside my immediate discomfort and pursue that value.
	Pursue that I can act to that value.
	I mean, that's... Ambivalent about going down to New Hampshire, and of course what made the decision for me in conversation with Christina was, you know, what is good for the goal that I've set myself of trying to bring as much reason as I can into the world.
	And we both thought about it and discussed it and said this, going to New Hampshire, you know, though scary and challenging and never done anything like it before, will further the goal of attempting to spread the truth.
	Or we'll find out that I'm completely bad at it, would stammer, trip over myself, and would never do it again and find out that that's not a way for me to do it, right?
	So it wasn't with reference to what do I want to do in terms of that particular feeling in the moment.
	Because if it was just what I wanted to do, I wouldn't have gone.
	But it was because it was with reference to the larger goal of what it is I'm trying to do with my life.
	And that's what Made the decision.
	It wasn't about my feelings in the moment.
	It was about what was good for the cause that I had subscribed to as a whole.
	And again, that cause doesn't have to be anything external.
	It can be something as simple as your own happiness.
	But it is with reference to that that a decision was made.
	Not with reference to my own immediate feelings in the moment.
	Or what I thought might or might not happen.
	Alright, so I can pretty much sum that up to...
	Not sticking with what is comfortable, but with what the goal is.
	Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
	And that's why we need values, right?
	Because if that which was comfortable was always the right thing to do, we wouldn't need...
	Just as if we only ever wanted to eat the healthiest possible food, we'd never need nutrition.
	Yeah, this is that principle, that same principle applied to this.
	And it's not easy, because I talk about instincts and this and that, right?
	But I think that when you start digging around in this, and I could be completely wrong as always, but my instinct, Nate, is that...
	My gut sense, which is no proof of anything, is that when you start digging around, you will find a desperate enthusiasm and desire for leadership that will shock you.
	Because if you did not have a desire for leadership, you would never have gotten involved with philosophy.
	Right, and now I can understand that if...
	The immediate comfort of not growing large is the problem.
	Why I might have had that kind of frustration with the priest about the happiness of religion, I guess.
	Yeah, the happiness thing.
	And you also would not have felt, as you said in the call about the New Hampshire speech, That you wanted to do it?
	Do you remember that? I did say I wanted to do it.
	Sorry? Yeah, I did say I would want to do something like that, but I would be terrified of...
	Yeah, but see, you just focus on the terror.
	What I'm saying is lift the terror and focus on the desire.
	Because without the desire, there's no terror, right?
	Right. I watch Baryshnikov, as Richard mentioned earlier, right?
	I watch Mikhail Baryshnikov do a dance.
	I don't feel a lot of stress because I want to be the next Baryshnikov, right?
	Yeah. I only feel fear and anxiety for things which I really want that I'm afraid I'm not going to get, right?
	This is not to compare myself to Baryshnikov, but you know what I mean, right?
	That's definitely why I felt such...
	Intimidation, as I think I put it.
	Right, because you want to do the same thing.
	You want to have that same level of enthusiasm and leadership that you saw me rip off somehow in New Hampshire.
	That is why you got into philosophy.
	That's why it's tough for you to take this next step.
	If I were you, that would be my goal to work on, is to get more in touch with my desire for leadership.
	and to get more in touch with the inhibitions and focus on what it is my goal is going to be in the long run in terms of bringing truth and reason to the world and thus creating the kind of companionship that at the moment I'm just grubbing around in the dirt trying to find when instead I could take a leadership role and create that in my own life.
	Well, I just had a thought that this may be why I sort of forgot about the acting class.
	About the what? About the acting class that I missed the other day.
	It could be. It could be.
	Because that involves getting up in front of people that...
	And I'm kind of scared of it.
	I'm really scared of it, actually.
	Right. And I was scared of going to New Hampshire, right?
	Because I wanted to do well.
	Right, so that which we're scared of is what we want to do, right?
	And you don't have a choice, right?
	Can't go back? No. No, I can't.
	I can't go back. I don't...
	Right? Yeah, I don't want to sit in this limbo anymore.
	No, no, you don't you don't I got something to talk about on Tuesday with my therapist Good. Well, I'm sorry about this.
	I hope this wasn't too horrible.
	And I do appreciate your patience as we work through this.
	Was this useful or helpful?
	Was there other stuff that would have been better to talk about or more useful to approach?
	Oh, this is right on target.
	This is where I need to go next.
	Beautiful. Okay, well, thank you so much.
	Sorry, go ahead. I was just going to ask what your experience of talking to me was.
	I was a little foggy. It was good.
	It was just a little bit of fog, but I thought that was actually more cute than anything else in a non-diminutive way.
	So, no, I do appreciate it because I know that you're not alone in this.
	I know that it feels like you are maybe, but I absolutely can guarantee you that there are lots of other people in this community who are facing this kind of crossroads.
	And so you going up and taking the bullet for everyone, I think, was a huge service to others.
	And I think that you should be very happy about that.
	Great, great. Well, thank you very much.
	Well, thank you, Nate. I really do appreciate that.
	And thanks, of course, to Richard for his excellent feedback and demonstrations of courage and honesty in the moment and in his history as well.
	So thank you, everybody, so much for coming.
	Don't forget about the barbecue, amiendo.com forward slash omgfdrbbq09, if I remember rightly.
	If someone could put that in the chat window, who knows it?
	I'd appreciate it. I will actually get the right URL out if I've gotten it wrong.
	I remember it was some Godforsaken acronyms that were going on.
	I'll post it on the board if I can't get it in the chat room.
	It was OMZ. You went?
	OMZ? OMZ, yeah.
	OMZ. Could you give the whole URL? Yeah.
	Just one moment. Oh, my Zeus.
	Right. That's it? Yes, oh, my Zeus.
	From the Socrates video.
	I guess. Amiando.com.
	amiando.com/omz/ftrbbq2009.html Now that is one user friendly URL. Maybe we can tiny URL that one.
	Yeah, probably. All right.
	Well, thanks, everybody, for a great, great show.
	Thanks, as always, to the listeners and to the people who are providing comments in the chat room, which we now can hold 40 users, which is good to know.
	And I look forward to your donations.
	Thank you to the new subscribers.
	Please feel free to subscribe. I'm still handing out the MECO System podcast like a An arrogant slut under a street lamp swinging my purse.
	And so I will send you the links to those.
	Sorry about the paucity of podcasts.
	I have a good set coming up. And I look forward to getting your feedback.
	And I will talk to you next week, if not before.

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