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May 14, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:01:40

1353 Sunday Show May 10 2009

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	Yes, Izzy is growing fast, actually.
	Yesterday, was it? We gave her her first solid food.
	Live squid.
	It's a Greek tradition.
	Don't ask. The amazing thing is she actually speared them herself.
	We have a little koi pond in the background.
	We put some baby kraken in there and we gave her a little harpoon and she was very nimble.
	Actually, she swam and took one down just using her bare guns.
	She really is quite a tough little mite.
	Alrighty, Pooh. Well, thank you everybody so much for joining us on this day of May, known as the 10th.
	May the X. And we hope you're having a wonderful, wonderful day.
	Happy Mother's Day to all the benevolent, munificent Fabulous mothers out there.
	We just went for a Mother's Day brunch.
	Isabella decided to take us out for breakfast and so we went to the huge giant hanging teats restaurant because she wanted us to enjoy the kind of experience that she has as a baby.
	It was quite fabulous. They swaddled us in giant swaddles and then they...
	Sorry? They diapered us.
	Oh, sweet heaven. That is going to be such a relaxing afternoon for me.
	In fact... Sigh.
	And then these giant arms pressed our faces up against these massive giant flesh-shaped feeding bags.
	We suckled, stroked, punched, kicked.
	And then, which was really cool, a very large man burped a swan on each shoulder, which was just fantastic.
	And then what we did was we enjoyed the meal several more times by spitting up a good chunk of it on the floor.
	So it was really quite a wonderful brunch.
	Highly recommended for people who absolutely want to go through The Full Tilt Boogie baby experience, it is really fantastic.
	And then a giant head made funny faces at us, which I decided not to laugh at because I've outgrown it, much like my baby daughter who's now a little over four and a half months old and has outgrown my funny faces in a way that I have not and her mother only occasionally has.
	So I hope that you had a wonderful mother today.
	Things are doing fine up here in the Central Northern compound.
	Isabella is doing magnificently.
	Except, of course, a little bit with the sleep.
	It comes and goes.
	I tried, in fact, to sleep in the family bed last night, but the theory is that Isabella is guarding her side of the bed, and so what she did, it was actually kind of cool, she would take a sock off, insert it into her gummy saliva-based mouth, and then it would get very cold and wet, and then she would expertly fire it from her crib using a little, sort of like a medieval thing, A catapult, but there's another word for it.
	I can't remember what it is. I'm sure that somebody knows.
	And what would happen is it would just land on my forehead, waking me up.
	And it being excessively wet and sticky, I had a certain amount of trouble going back to sleep.
	And eventually she won.
	And I was banished to the spare room where I slept quite wonderfully.
	And then she took over my side of the bed.
	So she's already annexed the breasts.
	And now she's going from my side of the room.
	I'm sure that I would be doing my next show from the car and the show after that from the ditch.
	So slowly but surely she is expanding to take over that which she believes, and I can't argue with her, is rightfully hers.
	So it's very exciting from that standpoint.
	So other than that, I am going to be speaking in Philadelphia Wearing a glad bag and tinfoil on my head in front of a church at about 3 a.m.
	in the morning before being arrested as part of a civil protest for the protection of crazy talk.
	No, I will be speaking at a conference in Philadelphia on July the 4th, which is a Saturday.
	And it is a group of people who've been studying everyday anarchy and practical anarchy and who have questions.
	The first and foremost being, why the hell don't you prove me more carefully?
	And we'll just sort of go from there.
	So if you can make it, To Philadelphia.
	It promises to be an exciting speech.
	They say they have 500 to 2,000 attendees, so it might actually be larger than New Hampshire.
	I'm looking forward to it greatly.
	And it will be a similar kind of format where I will just do my jazzy, goofy dance in front of the audience, making jokes and trying to avoid all of the difficult questions on the planet.
	So if you can make it to Philadelphia for July the 4th, I would really appreciate it.
	It will be quite exciting.
	We will be recording it, of course.
	And it will be released as a hologram through RTD2, which is really how I've often wanted to be presented.
	I will, of course, be wearing the full Obi-Wan Kenobi gear with, as you can well imagine, absolutely nothing underneath.
	Because it's all about anarchy.
	So, if you have questions, comments, issues, problems, now is the time to sprecken sie brain.
	We are all ears.
	We have Christina here.
	If you have questions about early childhood that can be responded to with burps, gurgles, raspberry noises, and the occasional squeal, I will be more than happy to help.
	And so will Isabella. Hello?
	Hello! I'm not sure if this is related at all, but just a couple of years ago, I was a pretty hardcore nihilist.
	I was like, fuck the world, do whatever the hell you want to do.
	Fuck other people for your own good.
	I was pretty bad. And that was like two years ago.
	Not even. It was a year ago.
	Sure. And you understand, right?
	Maybe you do, maybe you don't.
	And not because you're obviously very, very intelligent.
	And you, by the way, have an incredibly creative brain, which is a huge...
	This is why I'm spending so much time on this, right?
	Because you're so fucking creative and smart that you're well worth throwing a couple of life rafts at, right?
	But you understand where the nihilism comes from relative to this no bond, right?
	I never thought of it before.
	I thought it was actually me. I thought it was always me.
	I never thought it was them at all, no.
	I never thought it had anything to do with them.
	In fact, from what I've always heard, compared to other mothers, my mother would say, I'm a good mother compared to other mothers.
	You see other mothers, those are bad mothers.
	I'm a good mother.
	I mean, you should see them. Yeah, but you know, it's a general truth of life that the people who protest the most about their quality tend to be those who are the most crap.
	I guess, yeah. No, no, listen, I mean, it's really true.
	I can't imagine Tom Hanks at a party running around saying, oh, no, no, I'm a really good actor, you know, I'm a really good actor.
	Other actors are crap, but I'm really good, right?
	Guy's got a couple of Oscars on his shelf.
	He doesn't need to say anything, right?
	I don't think I've ever put out a podcast where I say, I'm quite insightful and a pretty good philosopher.
	Can you imagine how silly that would be?
	I mean, because if I am, I don't need to say it, and if I'm not, saying it won't do any good, right?
	Yeah, that's a good point, actually.
	I don't think I've ever said I'm a really good husband, right?
	I mean, I am and I'm not, right?
	I mean, and saying it won't mean anything.
	But tell me how the nihilism comes out of this non-bomb, this rejection.
	Well, you want me to tell you what my nihilism was like?
	No, no, I know what nihilism is like, at least I think I do, but tell me how your history with your mother had an influence on your nihilism.
	And I say this to you as a tough question.
	I mean, you're a smart fellow, I'm sure you'll get it, right?
	Because you know this, right? You know this deep down.
	How did the mother I just met in the role play produce Annihilist?
	I never really thought that it did.
	But... I mean, I don't think, if I do know it, I don't think I consciously know it.
	I mean, I hear you say it, so I can just repeat what you just said, but that doesn't mean I... The mother I met in the roleplay is a nihilist, and is the most dangerous kind of nihilist because she is a nihilist who uses ethics to control other people, but doesn't believe in those ethics at all.
	But just uses them to control other people.
	So there are nihilists who say...
	The first generation nihilist doesn't believe in right and wrong, but recognizes that right and wrong are useful ways to con other people into giving you what you want.
	Through guilt. I did that too.
	I did that too, actually, to other people.
	Sure, sure. Now the second generation nihilist tends to be those who say, fuck ethics, fuck the world, it's all bullshit, right?
	Right. Because...
	They have recognized that ethics is something that is used to control and humiliate and bully them, right?
	Yeah. And so they say, fuck ethics, right?
	And they say, fuck religion, fuck Christianity.
	Fuck religion, fuck Christianity, right?
	Especially that. Fuck social norms, right?
	Because they think that those things are pressing them.
	Yeah, it's a hatred.
	It's like, no, I'm not taking your shit anymore.
	Yeah, yeah, throw the baby out with the bathwater, right?
	It's like, ethics were only used to ever control, bully, and humiliate me, and this happens in school as well as in family, right?
	Ethics were only ever used to control, bully, and humiliate me, so fuck ethics.
	Fuck all of the platitudes of society, right?
	That's the second generation nihilism.
	They don't use ethics, they just rage against, quote, ethics that were used to bully and control them, right?
	Yeah. Right, yeah.
	Yeah. And that's why your mother kept changing Subjects, whenever we get close to the truth, because it's like, oh shit, this counterfeit bill isn't working, try this one, right?
	This line of bullshit isn't working, I'm going to switch to another one.
	Baffle, confuse, bewilder, keep disoriented, keep confused, right?
	Right, because if we stick to one, then you have to admit that it's logical, but if you did, then you'd lose your position, but that's not...
	Yeah, that's not possible, that's not boxing, right?
	Yeah, that's just bullshit.
	It is. It is, right?
	And the really tragic thing is it relies, of course, upon your respect for good and bad and right and wrong, right?
	Because if you have no respect for right and wrong and your mother says, well, you owe me this and you owe me that and you say, well, fuck, I don't give a shit what I owe you.
	I don't care about obligation.
	You were such a fucking sucker to get up and take care of me when I was a kid, even when you didn't want to.
	Too bad, mom, sucker.
	Too bad. I don't owe you nothing, right?
	And I did say that, actually, at one point, you know, at the height of my nihilism phase.
	Yeah, I actually said that.
	I understand, right? But then what happened is you came across me or someone like me who annoyingly began to talk about virtue, and you're like, fuck!
	Fuck! So I can't just say fuck virtue now, because I have some respect for it, but now my mother's using virtue to control me, so I'm really stuck, right?
	Yeah, because I do want to be a...
	I don't want to be a bad person.
	I do want to be a good person.
	You actually do, and that's fucking heroic, if you don't mind me saying so, from where you came from.
	That is an incredible thing.
	You should just give yourself six different grapple bear hugs from every angle and dimension for that.
	That is a beautiful and wonderful thing.
	But what that means now is that the more you get into ethics, the more you're going to be susceptible to people controlling you through ethics, right?
	Yeah. I want to be a good person, so the other person's going to say, well, you know, being a good person is obeying me, and you're like, fuck, I don't want to obey you, but I do want to be a good person.
	But I don't want to obey you, but I do want to be a good person.
	And then you're going to go back to being the Joker and watching the world burn, right?
	Right. Well, shit, this doesn't work, right?
	Yeah. And that feeling of like, and then you feel like you're in your own trap.
	And then you feel, oh, the world is so bad because if I ever try to do something good, I'm just going to end up being somebody else's trap.
	That's why the world sucks because every single time I try to find virtue, I end up getting fucked every single time without fear.
	Exactly. Exactly.
	And look, you're not crazy or stupid to feel that way because it's really true.
	No, it's really true. Look, I mean, I've been doing this crazy job for a couple of years.
	You don't know, or you probably do know, actually, you would be one of the people who know the most.
	The amount of cynicism that I get over an appeal to virtue, right?
	The moment I start talking about virtue, people start like, oh shit, back away slowly, hang on to your wallet, right?
	And your kidney, because he's coming for something, right?
	Yeah. That's why, like, not charge and give everything away.
	Free books, free podcasts, whatever.
	Pay if you want. I don't care.
	Educate yourself. Enjoy. And that's, I mean, partly because I want to get the message out as much as possible, but partly because there's so much cynicism, and rightly so.
	And they can't say you're scamming.
	Then they can't say, well, I'm not charging you, so obviously I'm not scamming you, right?
	Because then, you know, if you weren't charging, they'd say, oh, you see, you've got to buy all this shit.
	It's a cult. And then they start spewing out these emotional words, being like, oh, no, no, no, Stefan, he just does this shit, blah, blah, blah.
	He starts speaking about... That's the thing, right?
	I'm sure they correct you most when they say, no, no, no, no, UPB, that's a bunch of bullshit.
	You don't know what ethics is.
	You don't know what ethics is like. I'm sure more than anything else, they come to you and say, no, no, your theory of ethics is bullshit, right?
	Well, they do, yeah.
	They swing between, you know, it's a therapy cult and, you know, you're a bad philosopher because whatever, right?
	But that is the pole that people operate on, where, you know, a commitment to virtue is basically putting a big X on your forehead and saying, you know, insert some foreign object here, right?
	Or, you know, cynicism, where you end up kind of raging and unhappy and alone...
	And it's like, okay, so I'm going to be the happy simpleton who's exploited out of my love of patriotism, the flag, and being taxed by, you know, the criminal gangs that run the countries, or I'm going to be the truth-teller who's bitter and hated and reviled and cast out into the wilderness like Gollum on a bad day, right? And those things never struck me as particularly positive options, which is why I sort of wanted to create a door number three called, hey, let's have ethics without getting fucked, right?
	Yeah, and then you see those people who really are patriotic, but you look at them and you're like saying, I don't really think these are bad people.
	I think they just really lie to believing that what they believe is actually good.
	And you look at them like, dude, this isn't good.
	You really are a good person.
	I can see it in the way you act and the way you talk.
	You're not an asshole.
	But what you're saying is good.
	It's not. And they're like, no, no, no, no.
	It's just, oh my god, it's so much shit.
	It's so much bullshit.
	Yeah. Oh my god!
	It is. It is.
	And, you know, half the people aren't conscious of it and half the people are vaguely conscious of it as a useful tool, right?
	The thoughts that fly around in the world are almost exclusively parasitical counterfeit crap.
	And, you know, we're working as hard as we can here to be rigorous from first principles and so on.
	But, you know, what I found is, as you find when you talk to your mom, right?
	You talk to your mom about ideas, right?
	You talk to your fake mom about ideas or whatever, right?
	You find that when you, it's not that hard to go 12 minutes down the road and come up with a logical disproof of someone's position, right?
	That wasn't hard. But what does happen is then you run into emotional defenses, right?
	Which is why we focus on psychology quite a bit here, right?
	Because people's capacity to understand the truth is really, really simple.
	I mean, how complicated is the non-aggression principle?
	How complicated is it?
	Fundamentally, it's really not.
	But the reason we get so complicated is because we get emotionally goosed, scared, anxious, angry, frightened, because of historical whatever-whatevers, right?
	And that's why we sort of focus on, because that's what we run into.
	It's not that people say, well, violence is bad, and therefore taxation equals force.
	We shouldn't have taxation, blah, blah, blah.
	That's not, I mean, that's not, you know, working your way through the mathematical proof of the theory of relativity.
	That's like three minutes maximum if you've got to speak slowly and use hand puppets, right?
	But what happens is you start running into a lot of psychological defenses, and that's why we focus a lot here, at least for a while, on psychology, because it's like, okay, well, if we've got the truth, but people get too screwed up when they hear about it, how can we make them less screwed up, or at least find those who are going to be less screwed up and not waste your time on those who'll never get it?
	Right, because I mean, what's the point of having the new drug that's going to cure everybody if they think it's poison, right?
	Exactly. They say, no, no, no. I mean, what's the point?
	It's like saying, look, I can cure your cancer.
	No, no, no, no. Bullshit. You're going to kill me.
	Bullshit. You're going to kill me. Everybody's telling me that you're a fucking murderer.
	Why should I trust you? Hell no.
	I'm not taking your crap. In fact, they don't even think they've got cancer, right?
	They think that what you're going to give them is cancer, right?
	And in a way, right, in a way, they're right, right?
	Philosophy makes you sick before it makes you well, right?
	Yeah, so does chemo. So does chemo.
	That's exactly right. But to go through chemo, you've got to recognize that you've got cancer, right?
	Otherwise, it just looks like self-abuse, which is where a lot of people get stuck, right?
	And I've always been upfront about that, right?
	In my very first book, the very first thing is like, this is going to fuck you up, right?
	Sorry, it's not me. It's just the way that, you know, when you start to tell the truth in a pretty corrupt world, things get kind of messed, right?
	Yeah. So, you know, I've never sort of tried to hold out to, hey, it's an easy ride, baby.
	You know, just lay low.
	We'll glide by on the down low and get to the land of milk and honey.
	It is deep medieval combat that we're involved in.
	And I just, you know, I just happen to be so constituted that I kind of like that fight.
	But a lot of people get kind of goosed, right?
	Yeah, because I mean, like, even when I'm listening to you, right, like, I sometimes listen to your podcast, I'm like saying, oh, that makes sense.
	But even so, like, sometimes I always worry, like, I'm listening to it, I'm like, oh, that makes sense.
	But I still shouldn't trust it, because I may be brainwashed.
	Right, and you shouldn't trust me.
	Look, seriously, you shouldn't trust me.
	You should trust yourself. You should trust reason and evidence.
	For God's sake, don't take what I say on face value.
	I really do try to differentiate when I've got something that's true versus something that's just a theory or something for which I don't have any proof but which I think there's evidence for and so on.
	But yeah, absolutely. I mean, feel free to get enthusiastic but never substitute anyone's judgment for your own fundamentally.
	Yeah. Yeah.
	Oh, man. What an emotional day this has been, man.
	You're not alone in that.
	It's Mother's Day, right? It's Mother's Day.
	I mean, we've had some conversations up here that are pretty significant, too, right?
	So I think you're not alone in that.
	It is a day.
	I mean, I've sort of mixed feelings about these kinds of days, you know, Mother's Day, Father's Day, or whatever, right?
	I mean, I think it's good to focus on the positive goods that can come out of beneficial parenting.
	But at the same time, it should be like a continual day.
	Like, I don't sort of wait for our wedding anniversary to tell my wife that I love her and think she's the most amazing person ever.
	I mean, I try and say that every day.
	So it's nice to have a little thing, but sometimes it can be too much of a substitute.
	And, of course, I have a certain amount of...
	You know, when FutureShop sends me a catalog saying, you know, buy a pink laptop for Mother's Day, I think something might be kind of missing from the appreciation of parenting.
	Or when they say... And I thought this was actually kind of sexist.
	I mean, they know what they're doing.
	What do I know, right? But...
	But there was this little portable internet stick.
	You know, you jam it into a USB port, you can connect to the internet.
	And it's like, especially designed for women, it twists open like a lipstick.
	And I thought, really? They can't get involved in technology unless it looks like lipstick?
	I just thought that was kind of silly.
	That is, yeah. All technology has to be in a pink casing.
	Like a guy, any color, but pink is the woman's color.
	Everything is good. I wanted to email them and say, look, as a dude, I'll buy one of your internet sticks, but only if it opens up like a penis.
	That's the only thing that I can buy it.
	Otherwise, unless I'm sticking a dick in my computer, I'm just not interested.
	But, so far...
	Some people would like that, actually. Some people would like that.
	They'd be like, oh no, definitely. Find the vibrate switch, right?
	Absolutely. That's such a, oh my god, penises, penises.
	Right, right.
	We should probably stop here before we mix too many penis jokes in with Mother's Day and get all kinds of Freudian on our own asses.
	Have we had enough here?
	Do you mind if I take another caller if that's alright?
	Yeah, man. Thank you very much, dude.
	Thank you very much, man. You're welcome.
	Do keep me posted and, you know, stay in conversation with your mom if you can.
	Just keep focusing. Try and get to the feelings, right?
	Because I really get the sense that she's going to jump out of any logical box you construct, right?
	Definitely, yeah. Try and get to how she feels.
	If you can get to how she feels and talk honestly about how you both feel, you know, that could be fantastic.
	But if you stay on the intellectual fencing stuff, it's just going to decay, in my opinion.
	I think so, too. All right.
	Thanks, man. Keep us posted.
	I know that you've gotten great feedback on the call.
	And thank you for, you know, opening your heart and your head so exquisitely in this call.
	You just did fantastically. Thank you, man.
	I'll see you later. Thank you.
	All right. Who wants to follow that?
	Just kidding. I want to roleplay, but I want to roleplay with an entire schizophrenic Italian family.
	Go! Just kidding.
	An abstract question would be just fine.
	Hello. Hello.
	I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on this idea.
	It's something that I've been thinking about for a little while, and that is that a lot of brilliance in people in various ways comes out of child abuse.
	Does that make sense to you?
	As a self-constained statement, I sort of get what you're saying, but if you could explain it a little bit more, just to make sure that we're talking about the same thing.
	Attributes of a person that are remarkable in some way, particularly intellectually, often seem to come out of some kind of child abuse.
	It's funny, a couple of weeks ago, there's a couple of different TV programs I watch, and two of them independently kind of mentioned this thing as well, so I'm wondering if you had any thoughts on that theory as a whole?
	Okay, just tell me a little bit, because creativity, artistic, intellectual, scientific, I mean, what is it that you're talking about in terms of achievement?
	It could be any number of things.
	I mean, for me, I think I'm kind of fairly rational, probably more than the average, and that could have been a response to my mother's huge irrationality.
	One of the TV shows that I was watching a few weeks ago, I don't know if you've heard of it, it's called Lie to Me.
	Are you familiar with that?
	Oh yeah, I've actually been watching those.
	I'm quite a fan of Tim Roth.
	I think he's a really, really great actor.
	And so I started watching it just because I quite like Tim Roth.
	But I've actually found it to be quite interesting.
	Yeah, I don't think the storylines are fantastic, but I'm interested in all the micro-expression stuff and everything.
	But in one of those...
	One of the episodes he mentions of his protege, the woman, I can't remember her name, but she's like a natural at it.
	She's like very good at reading people's emotions and he mentions that people who are naturals tend to have come from kind of abusive childhoods because they needed to be able to detect like when they're in danger and things like that.
	So that's why they've developed their senses.
	So in terms of things like that, in terms of rationality or other intellectual I know a lot of your insights have come from things relating to your childhood that perhaps weren't great things to go through.
	So I'm wondering, do you think as a whole theory that this thing, it could be something there?
	Right. I do.
	I do and I don't. Sorry to be annoying, as usual.
	I do and I don't. And again, this is all just Nonsense theories.
	I mean, I've thought about these for quite a while, so it's a great topic.
	I'll give you a few thoughts, and then you can tell me if it makes any sense, if I'm entirely talking in a Scottish brogue.
	I used to think, more in terms of creativity, that when a soul is pounded repeatedly as a child, it cracks, and inside is a kind of white light.
	That kind of seeps out. Like if you've ever seen the cover for the movie Alien or the book, there's this egg with this big whitish-greenish light coming out.
	I mean, it's not the best metaphor, but that's sort of what I sort of thought, that the soul is like an egg, and when it's pounded, it cracks, and out of the cracks come this incredible white light, which is sort of creativity and an access to kind of psychological energy that doesn't seem to be there among people who have not gone through such a kind of strain.
	I don't think that quite so much anymore, and I'll tell you why.
	I don't know of a single great project manager who came from an abusive household.
	And project management is an art as well as a science, right?
	Because a lot of people who come from really abusive backgrounds tend to have a kind of, I mean really abusive backgrounds, right, tend to have a kind of a chaos, right, in their lives.
	They don't tend to have the kind of negotiation skills and I don't know.
	Of academics, the academics that I've known personally or that I've seen who I know a little bit about their background, I don't know of an academic who's come from a really abusive background.
	So I don't think that abuse gives you the capacity to excel in whatever area you choose.
	I think that abuse gives you particular strengths and weaknesses and But, and I think it's important to know what those are, if you've been through that kind of history, not because my theories mean anything, but just, you know, it may be important to sort of look at, to sort of pick and choose that which you can be the most effective at.
	But what I will say is this, I think that when a culture is rotten, and all cultures, in my opinion, of course, are rotten, but I think that we're able to see how rotten our culture is now because we have access to More cultures to the internet.
	We can see, you know, what they used to write.
	Voltaire used to write these stories in the 18th century, which was, you know, how does the world look to a Martian, right?
	To someone landing from Mars.
	And it was all pretty funny, right?
	Like, I mean, how society works when you look at it from the outside is all kinds of stupid, screwed up and ridiculous.
	But it's hard to get that outside view, but we have it now to a much greater degree than at any time in history, right?
	We can talk for free over the internet.
	We can read articles from Al Jazeera about America.
	We can look at dissident press.
	We can look at things that are counter to our own culture.
	So we're not all growing up in a small town with one church, right?
	So I think that when we get that the culture is corrupt, those who have had to rebuild themselves from scratch because of an intense shattering of the soul during child abuse...
	Have a much greater traction in originality and creativity.
	Like, I've never been particularly scared by ideas that are threatening or upsetting to me.
	Why? Because, well, it's a number of reasons.
	I think most importantly it's because I just don't believe the platitudes of society and never really have, right?
	Because I kind of got that everyone talked about virtue and goodness and protection of the innocent, but no one interviewed in my childhood, though hundreds of adults knew about it in three different continents.
	So it's kind of hard. I just didn't believe the ethics.
	So when I heard about ethics that kind of condemned society, it wasn't to me...
	I wasn't going to take it personally, like, ooh, this means my mom and dad are bad people.
	So I could just say, well, that's interesting.
	I wonder what the reasoning is behind it.
	And I didn't... So I think that we can have a lot more creativity and originality when it comes to criticizing our culture if we've kind of not been protected by that culture.
	And so I think that's one aspect where we can do some really great things.
	I think there are also, of course, two kinds of people who deal with their, if you've got a significant history of child abuse, there are the people who act out and there are the people who, through those people who do act out, end up provoking more problems, chaos and sadness and destruction and evil and corruption in the world because of their acting out.
	And there are another kind of people, hopefully us, who end up doing the right things.
	With our history and, you know, working it out, getting to the truth, and then can do our part to make the world a better, healthier, and happier place.
	And the people in the former camp, I sort of view, like, I've never seen any of these movies.
	I think I've seen a clip or two.
	The movies, the series called Saw, right?
	Which seemed to be kind of redundant.
	I mean, it's a movie, of course you saw it.
	It is apparently about, you know, a series of tests where you've got to chop off your arm and gouge out your eyeball and stuff like that, and the Tarantino stuff, you know, with really excessive and sick violence and so on.
	Those kinds of people, you know, pretty much would have been guaranteed to have pretty bad childhoods, and they're not creating things of beauty, truth, and light in the world to make it a better place, but rather reinflicting trauma on others, causing dissociation, spreading dysfunction.
	So, I think it's a complicated question.
	I think it can definitely help you be more original and creative in the world.
	And at the same time, though, I think it can also cause you to act out and make the world a worse place, right?
	I mean, the soldiers, you know, screaming down the barrel of a gun, shouting, get some!
	Are not exactly dealing with their childhood physical abuse in a productive way, but rather have turned self-slaughter into the murder of others.
	So, I think it's challenging and a complicated question.
	So that probably isn't much of an answer.
	Though I think there's a correlation, but I think it can go either way.
	and I don't know what would make any predictable difference that way if that makes any sense oh do we lose him oh I think he's off Oh, well, perhaps you can listen to this.
	Let me know what you think once you...
	Are you back? I'm back.
	You're back. Siri, you lost some of that, right?
	Yeah, I just missed that last bit.
	You want to listen to it?
	We can talk again? I'm just saying it can go both ways, right?
	People who've got child abuse can end up acting it out in terms of the military or, you know, ugly and violent art like the Saw movies and so on.
	So it can really go both ways.
	But I certainly do think that when the culture is going through a self-skeptical phase, which is when a new culture gets generated, and hopefully it's not a culture, but rather just the truth, then I think those who have been skeptical of that culture, because it has not protected them, right?
	The people who are protected by Louis XIV are not going to be against Louis XIV, right?
	And so the people who've been protected and helped by the existing culture, which are business leaders and political leaders and academics and so on, They've all been helped and protected by the current culture, so they're not going to be that critical about the current culture, not fundamentally.
	Whereas the people who've not been protected by the current culture, which is people who have become aware of their own history of child abuse and the complicity or lack of proactive response that the culture had with regards to that child abuse, like no one made the anonymous call to get protection, nobody intervened, they tend to be less They find criticisms of their existing culture less problematic because they weren't protected by their culture.
	So I think that that can really spur original and creative thinking, or at least not provide a big barrier to that kind of original and creative thinking among people, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, that does make sense.
	The way I got onto this question, I think it was more around kind of individual remarkable abilities.
	The way I got onto it is, as you know, with insomnia and depression and things like that, it kind of destroys you mentally, like your ability to think, your ability to remember things, your ability to reason, all of that stuff kind of disappears.
	What I found is after I went through that, and of course I had ACT and things like that, some of those things came back more so than others did, like to where I was beforehand.
	Sorry, some of which things? I'm sorry, I just missed that for a sec.
	Some of the mental aspects, like ability to think about things, ability to remember things, ability even kind of spelling, grammar, all those kinds of things get affected.
	And they slowly came back for me.
	But the one that didn't really come back for me was my memory.
	My memory was kind of something that was kind of freakish beforehand.
	And I started doing kind of a lot of research on it.
	I thought originally it was an effective ECT because that has kind of memory effects.
	But it's unheard of that there are long-term effects.
	And so I kept reading and I came across This case of a woman who can remember absolutely every detail of her life from when she was about six years old or something like that and there was a traumatic event in her life that triggered that and as a response to that trauma her mind started doing these amazing things and she could remember literally everything.
	It was actually really bad for her because her past was continually playing in her head and she couldn't get rid of it.
	But also I thought perhaps my memory was a similar Type of thing from when I was young.
	We moved around a lot, so I had similar incidents to what she had, although my memory was nowhere near as good as she was.
	I was wondering if that was the case, then perhaps going through FDR and working out some of these issues took away the reason for me to have Like, a good memory.
	I didn't need to have that sense of control or consistency or whatever.
	I didn't need to create this thing in my head to protect myself from what was going on.
	And so, because that stimulus was gone, then the effects from that stimulus also When?
	Does that make any sense at all?
	Oh, I really think it makes a lot of sense.
	And I think it's an absolutely fantastic and incredible point.
	And I will try not to fuck it up too badly if I talk about it in terms of how I understand it.
	But tell me if I'm off base, of course, as always.
	Yeah, one of the core purposes of FDR is to get you all to forget.
	Absolutely, completely and totally it is to fuck with your memory completely.
	And in a good way. In a good way.
	Right? Like a physiotherapist, you go to a physiotherapist because your arm really hurts.
	The whole point is for him to get you to forget that your arm hurts by healing it, right?
	You don't want to have that memory anymore, right?
	Like when I pulled a muscle in my forearm doing some weights last year, it took forever to heal.
	And now I can't even remember how it felt because, you know, how bad it was because we don't actually have any memory of pain, right?
	I mean, that doesn't really stick in our memory the way that sight does.
	And so the whole point is to, you know, I don't remember, right?
	Now, I do remember that it was a problem and therefore I don't do that particular exercise anymore because I'm old.
	But yeah, the purpose is to get you to forget.
	And that is around processing the past, right?
	Things stick in our head because they have important things for us to learn and we haven't learned them yet.
	And then when we learn those things, those memories fall away.
	Yesterday, Isabella was having a nice long nap and it was rainy up here.
	And so I completely shocked Christina by saying, let's clean out the basement, right?
	We've been living here for five years.
	We bought a bunch of stuff. Everything I buy, the box goes into the basement and, you know, it was getting a little too full.
	And so we went down to the basement and I was looking at like old novels.
	I came across a book of poetry that I published in 1984.
	Nine or something. Like, God knows what is that.
	Oh, God. I think that's a ridiculous amount.
	30 years ago, or 20 years ago, it's a huge amount of time ago, right?
	And for the first time ever, looking at old books of poetry, I looked at my contract for the company that I founded from 1996 or 1995.
	I looked at An old manual for a piece of software that I wrote way back then.
	I looked at the screenshots of the manual for the very first version of the software that I wrote for the company that I co-founded.
	And for the first time ever, I felt no sadness about all of that stuff.
	I felt like that was a wild time, that was an exciting time, that was a scary time, that was a fun time, and I'm very happy about what I did and I'm very proud about what I did.
	And I boxed it all up and I, you know, and I labeled it and I put it away and I may never, ever take it out again.
	I'll never go down and take it out, but it may, you know, when I move around or whatever.
	But it really was around...
	I really...
	You know, when you look at old things and sometimes you feel this real sadness, and I remember saying to Christina, I said, you know, I bet you I don't feel sad because of FDR. Like, if I was some software executive and I was looking at all these books of poetry and I was working for someone else but I used to be this big entrepreneur or whatever, maybe I'd feel like, oh, you know, I should have done more or whatever happened to that side of me or whatever.
	But because, you know, I dealt with the past as, you know, to a huge degree...
	I am doing exactly what I want with my life.
	I couldn't conceive of a better way to spend my life than having conversations with you all about the truth and virtue and all of the good that comes out of that.
	So I look back at that stuff.
	I didn't feel like it was bad.
	I didn't feel like I missed it.
	I didn't feel like there was any sorrow involved in it.
	It was great to look back at all of that stuff.
	And, you know, we all have that when we move, right?
	We go through all of our stuff and so on.
	So I remembered it all, but it didn't have any emotional charge to it.
	You know, I was just, it was happy.
	And I felt very content. And I have felt very content over the past few weeks about my history.
	You know, the things that I did, the good and the bad and the indifferent, the things that were done unto me, the things that I did unto others.
	I feel very calm and very happy about it all.
	And so I think that there is an aspect of forgetting the past once you've learned the lessons from it, right?
	Like once you're fifth level in French, there's not a whole lot of point keeping your first level French book, right?
	Because you've already learned and incorporated that so you can just kind of Get rid of it.
	And I think the same thing is true of memories.
	Once you've incorporated the lessons that the memories have for you, and you can live those lessons in the present, I think the point is to some degree that there's not much point hanging on to those memories anymore.
	It is like hanging on to your first book of words, right?
	I mean, it might be kind of cool to look at it once every 10 years and remember, but you've already learned it, you've already integrated it, you're already doing it, and so there's not a lot of point Hanging on to the memories that you've already incorporated and integrated into your life, if that makes any sense.
	Now, did I completely go off base from what you were talking about and cover it over with my own story, or was that anything close?
	I think that half got it.
	That has definitely happened.
	There's a lot of things. 50%!
	That's 49% better than usual, so I'll take that with some pride.
	But sorry, go on. Yeah, there's a lot of things that I just don't remember, and that's all fine, but it's also...
	My memory ability has decreased significantly.
	As an example, when I was in high school or whatever, I basically was completely lazy.
	I didn't have to study at all. I just remembered everything the first time I heard it.
	And now, at uni, I have to work my ass off compared to what I used to do.
	The actual ability to remember things has decreased significantly, if that makes sense.
	Right. There could be any number of reasons for that, and let's just explore a few, if that's alright with you.
	Yeah. Were you in a relationship when you were in high school?
	No. Did you study more at all?
	I guess you said you'd just read it once and forget it, right?
	Oh, I didn't forget it.
	I'd remember it in high school. Sorry, you'd read it once and wouldn't forget it.
	Sorry, you're right. Yeah.
	Right, right. But you weren't in a relationship, right?
	No. You were...
	Pretty passive, right? Again, I'm going back two years since we first talked, but if I remember you talking about there was a certain amount of passivity in your life back then, right?
	Yeah, that's right. Right.
	And so there weren't a lot of distractions.
	You were just kind of going with the flow, right?
	Yeah, that's true. And so you didn't have much ambivalence.
	I mean, obviously it was there unconsciously and manifested itself in this, you know, very, very deep depression.
	But you had, in a sense, kind of given up, right?
	I mean, you weren't fighting for your own happiness.
	You weren't fighting for your own freedom.
	You weren't involved in a meaningful romantic relationship or any romantic relationship.
	Your friendships were scant, if any, right?
	So you kind of like, you know, you were like an invalid, right?
	I mean, not like. I mean, in many ways you were because of the depression.
	So the guy who's stuck in bed eight hours a day will remember everything that he's read because he doesn't have anything really to compare it to or to distract himself with.
	Yeah, but This memorability that I had was well before the Depression.
	It was kind of all through my life up until the Depression, if that makes sense.
	That's true, but it wasn't like you had a great life until the Depression, right?
	Quite the contrary. Right.
	So, I mean, I'm just saying it's possible that you weren't distracted by a bewildering array of pleasurable and happy alternative experiences and circumstances that would have interfered with your prodigious memory capacities, right?
	right?
	Yeah, that makes sense, I guess.
	I can also tell you something that is interesting, interesting that when I was going through my 18 months of insomnia and intensive therapy and so on, I mean, I had the most amazing dreams.
	I had the most creative artistic bursts and so on.
	But that's because I had basically retreated into a hole and was just doing one thing, which was dealing with this, right?
	Thank you.
	Right. And so when you're kind of undistracted by other things, you know, like if you lose all your other senses, your hearing is going to be really, really, really acute, right?
	Yeah. Right, so if your focus in life is narrowed down to a tiny thing...
	And I'm not saying your focus was on school.
	Like, I get that it wasn't. The school was just easy.
	But basically, you were using your entire abilities very little relative to what you're doing with them now, right?
	I guess so, yeah.
	It wasn't just school, though.
	It was kind of everything.
	If I read a book, I would remember, like, everything about it.
	And, you know, facts or whatever, I could remember everything.
	And now I find it kind of really hard.
	Right. And let me just ask you this again.
	Did you find it useful to be able to do that?
	I found it very useful, yeah.
	Because of school, right?
	School was definitely one part of it.
	I mean, because I found it so boring, I didn't have any motivation to do anything.
	So without that memory...
	I definitely would have kind of failed it, but I also found it very useful in kind of personal interests, like things I would read about or whatever, because I mean, just remembering things is generally useful.
	Well, is it? And I'm just going to put this out as a possibility that, you know, creativity is a kind of forgetting.
	It's a kind of forgetfulness in many ways.
	Because if you...
	You know, if you get lost, you find a new path to something, right?
	If you know exactly how to get somewhere, you just go there on autopilot, right?
	But if you don't, then you'll find new ways of doing it, right?
	So creativity is an aspect of forgetfulness, right?
	I guess so, yeah.
	You sound entirely unconvinced by everything I'm saying, which is totally fine.
	Maybe I'm speaking complete nonsense.
	But if you feel that the best...
	Sorry, no, that's not a good way of putting it.
	But... I think the best contributions come not out of memory, but out of creativity.
	The best contributions in life, right?
	I mean, if I had memorized all of Aristotle, I might not have written UPB, because if I needed to think about ethics, I'd just go remember Aristotle, right?
	Yeah, that makes sense.
	And so, creativity comes out of...
	It has something to do with not having a memory of everything you've read before.
	And certainly when it comes to mathematics, right?
	I mean, creative thinking trumps memorizing equations.
	Now, it's not like memory has nothing to do with it, right?
	But if all you do is memorize equations, you won't be a very good mathematician, right?
	Right. And so you have to assemble things in a new way rather than memorize what is already there.
	Yeah, that does make a lot of sense, actually.
	And I think that part of your work in FDR has really aroused some of this creative aspect of yourself, right?
	Yeah, definitely. And you want to, I think, you want to contribute original thoughts.
	You certainly have the horsepower and great intelligence to do so, but you want to be able to contribute original, impassioned thoughts to the world community at some point, right?
	Yeah, I've been thinking about that a lot lately, actually.
	Right, and so you don't need memory as much when you have creativity, right?
	Yeah, I can definitely see how memory could be a hindrance to creativity.
	And traditionally, I've been not very creative at all.
	Right. Now, did you watch the New Hampshire speech that I did by chance?
	I've listened to the audio, and I watched the 10-minute one, but I haven't seen the new one yet.
	Right, right. So if you listen to that speech, and if you watch it, you'll see it even more so, clearly that is a speech I could never have memorized, right?
	Right. I mean, my entire preparation was three bullet points on a piece of paper.
	Yeah. Can't fight evil.
	I can't even remember what the other ones were.
	But even if I'd memorized the first bit, I couldn't have memorized the audience interaction part, right?
	Yeah, that's right. So memory would have done me almost no good in that speech, right?
	Right. Because if someone had asked me a question and I had tried to plug in something that I'd already memorized, it would have come across as fake, right?
	Yeah. I had to be, you know, passionately engaged with the audience in the moment, thinking on my feet.
	And that is not something that memory is going to particularly help you with.
	Now, it's not like memory is irrelevant.
	I did pull an example out of Practical Anarchy about the mall and roads that I remembered.
	But fundamentally, memory would have interfered.
	Like, if I memorized a speech and then tried to go off book, it actually would have interfered because I would have been comparing what I was doing with the speech I'd memorized, right?
	Yeah. So memory can be a hindrance to authenticity and creativity and passionate engagement with whoever you're talking with, right?
	Like when I jump into an improv like the one I did earlier, clearly there's no memory, no preparation that can ready you for that, right?
	Right, of course. And so memory has its great uses, but...
	Creativity is often, I think, opposed to memory.
	And memory and creativity work in opposition to some degree.
	At least that's been my experience. And again, that's just my sort of thoughts.
	An actor will memorize the lines, and that's the actor's job.
	But I think we all understand that it's still not quite as creative as it is to write the lines, which is the playwright's job.
	And the playwright can't be writing the lines from memory.
	Otherwise, it's called plagiarism, right?
	Yeah. Yeah. So if you're moving from actor to playwright, memory becomes a hindrance, right?
	Like if you're a songwriter and you remember every single song all the time that you've ever heard, it's going to be almost impossible for you to become a songwriter, right?
	Yeah. Because all you're going to do is, you know, yesterday, oh wait, I know that song, then you won't be able to create a new song, right?
	Right. Now, if you've never heard any songs, you can't be a playwright either, or a songwriter either, because I don't know, you write some god-awful Chinese Martian opera nonsense that no one can understand.
	But I think you need some memory, but I think an excess of memory definitely has aspects of attention with creativity.
	Right, yeah, that puts a really nice way of looking at it, because I've I don't know, I've been thinking fairly negatively about it.
	I found it really annoying that I haven't been able to remember things.
	But looking at it in that life, yeah, I really like that.
	Yeah, I think it could well be your unconscious way of saying, look, we don't have to be a pack rat of information and obsessively hang on to everything because we can think for ourselves now.
	Right, right. I mean, my general approach is whatever's going on is for the best.
	I know this harkens right back to this fantasy mom we engaged with earlier, but I just assume that if I'm losing a particular ability, it's because another ability is emerging.
	Now, I mean, it may not be the case.
	Maybe I just need more iron, right?
	But generally, that's my approach to look at...
	What is emerging rather than what is falling away.
	And if nothing is emerging, then obviously I need to figure out what the problem is.
	But I would always look and trust that if an ability is falling away, it's because you don't need it anymore, right?
	Or you don't need it as much anymore because you have greater confidence in other areas.
	Like when you become really good at public speaking, you don't need to memorize your speech.
	And so, you know, then your body says, okay, well, we don't need as much memory anymore.
	Let's turn the juice over to creativity instead where we get more traction.
	Yeah, that does make a lot of sense.
	Excellent. Excellent.
	And sorry, is there anything else you wanted to talk to about that?
	Do you want to sound like you want to mull that for a bit?
	Oh, no, that's fantastic.
	Thank you very much. Great, great.
	Well, I'm glad to be of help.
	And just, again, I just think it's, I think about this at least once a week, just how thrilling it is, what's happened to you as a result of your engagement with philosophy and just, you know, Massive congratulations and props to you for the amazing and fantastic work that you've done in this realm.
	And it is just a beautiful thing to see.
	Oh, thank you. You know, thank you to you.
	I mean, you've allowed me to do all this, so you deserve a huge amount of credit.
	I just wave a map at people.
	You all got to climb the mountain, right?
	I mean, you're the complete heroes.
	I'm just a cartographer.
	So congratulations. It's a deep thrill to see that.
	Thank you, Steph. All right.
	All the best. Okay, well, I think, unless anybody has a completely yearning-burning last-minute five-second question...
	Oh, do I have any additional information on my Philly gig?
	No, but I can tell you I will be dressed as a steak sandwich and will be entirely delectable thereof.
	So let me just have a check here.
	I think I have an email with a little bit more information.
	I should really put these things into more folders.
	All right, well, you all think of a question if you have any more, and I will cut this quite a bit out.
	Let me just see if I've got...
	I just want to say, I know I took up a lot of time, and I don't want to take up any more time.
	Now I'm going to have to start charging.
	Now you can be cynical again. Sorry, go on.
	It was actually funny because in that break, I wanted to take a break.
	I was up and walking around.
	I had to drink water so I could calm down because it's emotional.
	It's like a catharsis. I wanted to get my body calmed down.
	But in that moment, actually around the end of our conversation, my mom walked in.
	And I was like, wait, my mom walked in.
	Did you have speakers on? No, I'm just kidding.
	Well, I had headphones, but she knew that I was talking pretty loud.
	And she's like right in the next room.
	And I was like, you know, she walked in, she was like, and I signaled within my hands, like, just give me five minutes, you know.
	Later on, I asked her, and she was talking to me, and she was like, that man you're listening to, like, I heard you talking about church, and I heard bullshit, like, I heard those words, church and bullshit.
	That man you're talking to, that's the man who's teaching you all this crap, right?
	He's the one who's making you think like this.
	Excellent. Please alert the media.
	We have another mother in the head. Sorry, go on.
	And I was telling her, well, mom, if you think he's a bad man, go talk to him, right?
	I mean, I think if you think he's brainwashing me, go talk to him.
	But she was like, no, no, no, I have nothing to say to him.
	I have nothing to say to him. Nobody should be trying to change your mind.
	And I'm like, well, mom.
	If I'm drinking alcohol and doing all sorts of bad things, you don't think you should try to change my mind?
	Of course, you just brush that off.
	It's like, no, you should try to change your mind.
	I gotta tell you, I gotta be really annoying and tell you again, and this is gonna be tough, right?
	I mean, you got to talk about how she feels.
	You guys get into intellectual debates, you're gonna get nowhere.
	I've got to do that. It's not in my nature.
	I know it's not in your nature, but listen, I'm telling you, it's not going to work if you take this approach.
	It's not. I mean, it's really not.
	I can't predict anything, right, other than everything I've seen before, right?
	But that's just my annoying bit of, you know, annoying reminder, right?
	That, you know, talk about, you know, how does it feel that I'm talking to this guy?
	How did you feel? Like, you've got to get into the feelings because that's where the real connection in emotions is.
	That's where in relationships is.
	That's the thing. For me, it's easy for me to be logical, but for me to just talk about feelings, that's not the first thing that comes to my mind.
	I'm like, well, if somebody says something irrational to me, I just tell them, well, that doesn't make any sense to tell me why it makes sense, not why are you getting so mad.
	Did you read or listen to Real Time Relationships?
	No, you probably haven't, right? Everyone's telling me to.
	I'm going to get around to it. I'm going to get around to it.
	No, no, take your time. Your brain will harden in about four years and then it'll be too late.
	But hey, you know, you've got all the time in the book.
	Just take whatever time you need, my friend.
	No, listen, read it. It's not as bad as you think.
	I mean, I know you think it's going to be all kinds of elf, goopy, huggy, you know, hippy, dippy.
	It's not. I mean, I'm a philosopher, right?
	So I'm trying to make it rational.
	I try to make it compelling.
	And it's not going to be what you think, I guarantee you.
	And don't be the guy who's like, I'm not going to read it.
	I'm not going to read it. Fine, I'll finally read it.
	And it's like, man, why didn't I read this before, right?
	I mean, just give it a shot, right?
	And trust me, there's a lot in there for your inner nihilist to just deliciously eat up, I promise you.
	So just give it a shot.
	All right, man. I'll give it a shot.
	I'll give it a shot. Fine.
	Fine. I don't know.
	It's just like it's hard because I generally hate to read.
	It's like when somebody tells me, dude, you gotta read this great book.
	I know you will love it. Like knowing who you are, I know you're gonna love it.
	I'm like, you know what I'm listening to?
	It makes sense. But I just can't quite see myself sitting here and reading the book.
	It's just like I'd rather be watching television.
	Right, well, no, listen, just throw it on an mp3 player and take it to the gym or take it to a strip club or take it for a walk.
	I don't care, right? But you can throw it in an audiobook.
	It's funny, it's engaging, and, you know, it's the most important thing that you can read where you are in your life at the moment.
	And it will really give you a good excuse to be even more cynical.
	So, you know, that's my carrot as well as a stick.
	Yeah, yeah.
	No, and seriously, because if you're going to have a better relationship with your mom, that's where you've got to start.
	And the intellectual stuff is not going to get you very, very far.
	In fact, it will in your life in the future, but in this particular instance, just go with the audiobook.
	You know, give it 20 minutes, you know, and if you think it's complete crap, then get rid of it.
	But just give it 20 minutes.
	It'll be really worth it, I think.
	I can't believe I have to convince people to read free books.
	Good Lord. But seriously, give it a shot.
	I think you'll really like it.
	Yeah, I'll give it a shot. Alright, sorry.
	I'm just going to give people some info about...
	Let's see.
	The purpose of the event that I'll be speaking at is to get people to realize the level of courage it took for the founders to break away from Britain's tyrannical government and also help them to realize solutions to the problems that they can make happen in their own lifetime.
	Some speakers will be on the side of limited government, however, I'm trying to bring other valid points of view to the discussion.
	Locke and Rose spoke on anarchist topics at our last Philadelphia event, which was built around the End the Fed movement.
	His speech was quite well received.
	Locke and Rose, L-A-R-K-E-N-R-O-S dot com.
	He's scheduling six speakers in total.
	He's expecting between 500 to 2,000 attendees as we are in the process of finalizing a venue.
	And then he asks me if I have a fee to speak at events, which I'm still mulling about.
	I think I'll not charge for the next one, but maybe for thereafter.
	He said, we would sincerely be honored to have you speak.
	Many of our members organizing the events of subscribers to your videos, and we have even had several reading groups in one of our subgroups around everyday anarchy and practical anarchy.
	The ideas will be received.
	We'd love to see you to be able to discuss these themes to a larger audience in Philadelphia.
	So, anyway, that should be fun.
	Look, I guarantee you, I'll...
	Give a fun and good speech, right?
	I mean, I can't obviously talk about the conference as a whole because I don't know much about it, but definitely if you can come, it'll be a lot of fun.
	You know, this sounds kind of goofy and all kinds of bono, but, you know, See Me Live, it's still a very different experience than, you know, going to some stinky old webcam footage on the internet.
	So, just mention that.
	What is the name of the group? Sweet Mother of God, I wish I could tell you.
	I really do. I'll post it on the board once I figure it out.
	I haven't quite got it sorted out yet.
	But I will. Because that's all kinds of professional.
	Oh yeah, barbecue. Tinyurl.com forward slash 2009 FDR BBQ. Yeah, it's coming up, right?
	What is it, next weekend? Two weekends from now.
	Yeah, so two weekends from now.
	Sorry? Three weekends from now?
	Well, that's too long. Yeah, it's 29th, 30th, 31st through to the 6th if you want my couch.
	Just kidding. So, yeah, come on by.
	Sign up for that if you can.
	Try not to drop by if you haven't signed up.
	That would be a bit awkward just because we have to do some planning ahead of time.
	So that's my only request.
	All right. Well, that's it.
	Thank you so much for a wonderful show.
	As always, there will be some people arriving early.
	I will certainly be available for mild socializing pleasures.
	And so we're not going to be like, you know, four hours on Saturday and that's it.
	We can't do kind of what we did last year, which was have the five-day FDR Lovefest just because, you know, of the baby and Christina's now back at stinky work and all that kind of stuff.
	So we can't quite do all of that.
	But, you know, it certainly won't be, you know, quick.
	The blast doors are open. Go talk to staff.
	Oh, no, they're closing, right?
	I'll certainly be available for more than that.
	We can go for a nice hike. Maybe...
	On Sunday on Rattlesnake Point and speak ourselves because we'll be all hoarse from doing lots of Britney at karaoke.
	All right. Well, thank you everybody so much for a wonderful listener convo.
	You people are truly electric cattle prods to my frontal lobes and occasionally my neocortex.
	So thank you so much for the excitement and thrill and challenge of speaking with the all brilliant folks.
	And thank you for the opportunity to...
	To talk about your lives in such a private yet public arena, it is a great, great privilege to have you open your hearts and minds up to this conversation, and I always try to remind myself of that.

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