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Feb. 21, 2010 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:53:01

1589 Freedomain Radio Sunday Show Feb 21 2010

Michael Badnarik drops by to chat about his recent death, dealing with mystical therapists and difficult bosses.

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	So, Mike, it's great to hear from you, my friend.
	I was, of course, like everybody, very concerned to hear about this rather exciting health journey that you went on.
	So, other than the brief stuff that I saw on the Internet and a couple of emails from people who knew, what happened and how are you feeling now?
	Well, the important thing is that I'm feeling back to 100%.
	So everything that happened in the past, there's no reason to worry about it because it's over.
	I'm doing really well.
	I was dead for 10 minutes.
	You know, your standard stuff.
	But because I'm a little bit more stubborn than the average person, I've made a full recovery.
	The doctors are not quite sure what to make of it.
	At one point, they thought that I would have to use a walker the rest of my life.
	Wow. Yeah.
	And you were having lunch with some friends, right?
	And did you remember feeling funny or weird at all?
	Or did you just wake up in a hospital after seeing some relatives?
	What happened was they gave me some drugs at the hospital that they lovingly refer to I remember getting showered and packed on Saturday morning.
	I do not remember my buddy showing up to pick me up.
	I do not remember the five-hour ride to Wisconsin.
	I do not remember reading his little girl A Bedtime Story.
	I don't remember speaking on the steps of the Capitol, or not the Capitol, but the courthouse.
	And I also don't remember that helicopter ride to the hospital.
	Wow. So, I mean, it's like stepping out of the shower and then waking up in the hospital bed.
	And when I did wake up, my best friend was there, and his first question was, do you know who you are?
	Sure. And I thought, well, God, that's pretty condescending, you know?
	I said, of course I know who I am.
	And he says, well, do you know what day it is?
	And I was conscious that I was supposed to speak.
	My little political thing was going to be on December 21st.
	And so I was guessing, oh, I don't know, December 22nd, December 23rd.
	And I thought he said, it's February 6th, oh, January 6th.
	No, really? Oh, yeah.
	I was unconscious for 16 days.
	Wow! And you say you have no memory of any of that, right?
	None. Wow.
	There are no fuzzy recollections that I'm trying to put in chronological order.
	I remember nothing.
	Wow. Wow.
	So when they say milk of amnesia, I mean, they were not kidding.
	Holy crap. Now, did they keep you unconscious because they thought they might need to operate, or did that just sort of happen of its own accord?
	They were deliberately keeping me unconscious.
	They never operated.
	I don't know... Well, I guess it was because my heart was only pumping, oh, 20 to 30 percent of what it should.
	Right. And the doctors were speculating that if I was lucky, my blood flow would get up to 50% and I would have to use a walker the rest of my life.
	Right. So I guess they didn't want you to be very active because they were concerned that it might interfere with the blood flow, right?
	Yeah. But my blood flow is back to 100%.
	I am at least as ornery and stubborn, if not more so, than I was before.
	Well, you know, it's one thing to check off on life's fears, you know.
	Dad, been there, done that, not afraid of it anymore, so let's keep moving, right?
	Right. Well, I've been a Boy Scout, not Boy Scout, but a skydiving instructor.
	And, you know, we jump out of perfectly good airplanes.
	We know that life is...
	We know that if we don't do the right thing, we don't pull the ripcord, we're going to die.
	And at the end of the weekend, we're hugging each other and telling each other how much we care and take care of yourself so that you can come back next weekend.
	So I bring that up because they had a counselor come into my room.
	She and I became friends, but it started off kind of shaky because the first thing that she said was, you know, you've been given a second chance.
	As if perhaps I had the heart attack because I wasn't taking care of myself or perhaps I didn't value life too much.
	Well, like I said, as skydivers, we know the value of life.
	We know that it's tentative. And so I said, you know, you've been given a second chance.
	She goes, what are you talking about?
	I haven't had a heart attack. I said, no, but you did wake up this morning, and that's not a guarantee.
	Amen. That's true.
	You know, just because you didn't feel sick, I said, I didn't feel sick before this happened.
	I was feeling, you know, 100%.
	You know, I was kicking ass and taking names.
	Right. Well, you know, it's true that of all the things that you think is going to bring down a sort of professional parachute instructor, you don't think it's going to be a lunchtime hoagie.
	You think it's going to be something a little bit more dramatic.
	But I'm glad that you're feeling better.
	Now, did they talk about what actually happened to your heart?
	Was it a blocked artery or something like that?
	Yes. I had a heart attack about 11 years ago and the blockage was on the back side of the heart and it affected the atriums the two vessels at the top of the heart which is not a good thing but it could be worse this one the blockage was on the front of the heart and it directly affected the ventricles the part of the heart that does all the significant pumping And it was a 100% blockage.
	Wow. And so they went in and they did kind of a roto-rooter thing for the...
	They put two stints in my heart 11 years ago.
	And those were a little bit blocked.
	But they had a 100% blockage on the front.
	And they just did an angioplasty.
	They used a little balloon and they blow up the balloon.
	And so they opened it up and my heart was experiencing atrial fib that the top and bottom of the heart are supposed to be in kind of a rhythm one right after another.
	Right. And Well, they weren't dancing together, basically.
	You know, they were operating almost on their own, and so even though my heart was doing something, it wasn't being very effective.
	Right. Now, did you lose...
	They always say in these situations that time is muscle, right?
	That the longer your heart goes without being oxygenated and working.
	Did you lose any muscle at all, or was that relatively okay?
	Relatively okay.
	Oh, that's great. Relatively okay.
	I was getting ready.
	The speeches were over and we were on our way to go to lunch.
	We never actually got there.
	And I was in the passenger seat of somebody's SUV.
	And fortunately for me, they had two people in the SUV that knew CPR.
	Yeah.
	And so these two people started CPR.
	They called the hospital, which the hospital was only three blocks away.
	But we were all from out of town.
	We'd never known that.
	And so they called 911.
	The ambulance came around the corner, and the paramedics used the defibrillator paddles three times.
	Wow.
	And after three times, my heart still didn't start.
	Well, frequently, and fortunately for me, they didn't, but frequently after three tries, they look at the clock and record the time of death.
	Yeah, that's normally the he's dead, Jim, moment, right?
	Holy crap.
	So the doctor at the hospital Apparently he was having a good day and he decided one more time.
	And so he used the heavy industrial strength paddles.
	And my heart started.
	They airlifted me by helicopter to a much better hospital.
	And they had tubes down my throat, down my nose.
	I lost about 25 pounds because I was getting...
	I was on a real heavy liquid diet.
	They were pumping down the tube into my stomach.
	Like I said, I was unconscious.
	My girlfriend came out and stayed at the foot of my bed for two weeks.
	I don't remember her even being there.
	Mom and Dad came out.
	Dad is a real tough guy.
	He couldn't even stay in the room to watch me because he was so disturbed.
	My brother sat at the foot of the bed, didn't say anything, refused to leave.
	So, yes, everybody's concern was well-founded.
	But even after they had me on these drugs, I'm not supposed to be able to lift a finger.
	And I kept waking up, pulling tubes out of my throat, and looking for my pants so I could leave.
	Right, right. Well, you know, it's funny to think that, in my mind, I always think about, at what point in the past would you just have died, right?
	So was it 20 years ago, or 30 years ago, or maybe even 10 years ago, in terms of the technology, the speed of the response, the availability of what they can do?
	It is funny to think that this is obviously 100 years ago you would have just died and 50 years ago you would have died but maybe it's just 10 or 20 or 25 years that the technology has been around to get you back to life and to get you back to health and that really is an amazing thing when you think of where you bounced in history to be able to continue living.
	It's a wonderful thing. Well, there are probably places in the United States today where I would have died.
	If there weren't people in the van that knew CPR, If the doctor at the hospital hadn't been arrogant enough to try it one more time, and they sent me to the best hospital in the United States, Now, did you get any finger-wagging about lifestyle choices?
	I mean, I don't know much about your lifestyle, other than I know you are a blisteringly hard worker.
	Did you get any finger-wagging about perhaps overwork or other things that might have contributed, or is it just something that you're going to have to live with and monitor?
	He just dropped.
	You might want to ask that question again.
	Okay, thanks. Let's not say he dropped.
	Get off. Oh, hi.
	Sorry, we just lost you for a second. I'm back.
	I was just asking, did you get any finger-wagging about lifestyle?
	I don't know much about your lifestyle, other than I know that you're a blisteringly hard worker.
	Did you get any finger-wagging about any lifestyle choices that you might have to make?
	Of course. Everybody was shaking their finger at me.
	You know, now you're going to have to, you know, put an end to your evil ways.
	It's like, what evil ways would that be exactly?
	You know, I've never smoked cigarettes in my life.
	I gave up alcohol after college.
	I mean, I don't drink a whole lot of caffeine.
	And, I mean, I'm taking all of the food supplements that the person is supposed to take.
	I mean, it's like, what is it that, you know, everybody automatically assumes that, you know, you're living life on the edge, you know.
	I said, my only vice is chasing fast women.
	I said, but that's the only exercise I get.
	Right, right.
	Well, listen, so you're fully recovered now?
	Are you back on the circuit, back on the road?
	I think you mentioned in an email that you were beginning to teach your classes again.
	I'm almost back on the circuit.
	I had my website redesigned.
	I'm very excited about that.
	It looks pretty and terrific.
	And I start teaching classes March 6th, and I have a class scheduled every weekend in March, April, and most of May, first three weekends of May.
	This is the Constitution Scholar, is it.org or.com?
	.org. ConstitutionScholar.org.
	No, the email address is scholar at constitutionpreservation.org, and the website is simply www.constitutionpreservation.org.
	All right, sorry about that.
	Okay.
	And is there anything that has really changed for you as a result of this process?
	I mean, obviously, you're a man who relishes his life as it is, but I can't help but imagine that there's the additional sort of breathing in the fresh, sweet air every day a little bit more now.
	No.
	No, not really.
	When somebody has a car accident and they walk away from it, they have this epiphany.
	It's like, oh my God, I could have died.
	Life is so important.
	And for about two weeks, you know, they're talking to their friends and telling everybody, and then they just fall back into the same routine that they always have.
	You know, you get very Cynical and jaded, you take everything for granted.
	Well, I didn't take my life for granted before.
	I mean, every morning I wake up, I realize that, well, today's going to be a bad day for the government.
	It is just something, either you appreciate liberty, you appreciate your life, and you are conscious of the fact That you are mortal.
	I mean, we don't know how much time we have.
	I got out of the hospital.
	I went to my parents' home in Indiana to recuperate.
	And I'd only been there for two days when a football player for the Chicago Bears, a young man, 26 years old, getting paid big money to play professional sports, he went back to his family's home.
	I think it was in North Carolina or South Carolina.
	And he died of a heart attack in his sleep.
	26 years old.
	And you don't think the professional football team is going to give this kid a contract without having the doctors look him up one side and down the other.
	He probably had probes in every orifice of his body.
	And he's 26 years old.
	My girlfriend is a flight attendant.
	Back in 2003, I was in Colorado.
	She flew out to the state convention to visit with me.
	A fellow flight attendant, a lady friend of hers, wanted us to come out for dinner Friday night.
	She had just flown in.
	She was tired. She said, let's do it Sunday night.
	Let's do it later. I said, let's go tonight.
	You may be tired tonight, but you'll probably be more tired on Sunday.
	And, you know, there's always the possibility that we just blow it off completely.
	I said, you never know when you're going to get a chance to see her again.
	So I talked it up and we went to the woman's house Friday night, had dinner.
	I took photographs.
	Two weeks later, my girlfriend called in tears.
	The woman came home from a flight, felt a little bit tired, went to bed and never woke up.
	Oh, same thing, sort of a hard snack at night.
	Yeah, well, we don't know.
	I don't remember if it was a heart attack, but she went to bed and died in her sleep.
	Right. And, I mean, I literally took the last photographs of this woman alive.
	Right. We don't know when we're going to die.
	You know, live life to the fullest.
	You know, you've got to go with it.
	If you postpone it, If you wait until tomorrow, you may never get another chance.
	That's true. The last thing you ever want to, as the dying words on your lips, is coulda, shoulda, woulda, right?
	Right. You drink deep of the cup of life, because you never know when the guy in black is going to wrench it from your hand and dash it on the floor.
	So I'm with you there.
	I mean, that's one of the reasons why I sort of quit my career and went into the sort of philosophical route, because I just really thought about what am I going to think about looking back on my deathbed about how I've spent my life.
	And to spend it in the pursuit of virtue and the communication of truth is much more meaningful than producing another software package or, you know, whatever.
	So I'm with you about, you know, you can't exactly live life like every day is your last, but you sure as heck don't know how many sand grains there are upside of the narrow tube.
	Well, I think you should live every day.
	Maybe not as your last, but, you know, like this could be your last week.
	I believe it was the Cherokee Nation used to have a saying, today is a good day to die.
	And it wasn't a morbid outlook.
	It wasn't like, oh my gosh, terrible things are going to happen.
	Basically, it was an expression of the fact that I have lived my life to the fullest.
	I have all of my...
	I don't have any unresolved issues.
	You know, I'm not I don't owe anybody any money.
	I, you know, I'm not, you know, in a fight with anybody, you know, that I've done as good as I possibly could.
	And, you know, if I should happen to die, I would have no regrets.
	Right. And, you know, we, as Americans, as a people, we take so much for granted.
	You know, we take it for granted that the electricity is going to be on.
	We've gotten so reliable that you flip the switch, and if the lights don't go on, you flip the switch two or three more times.
	I was living in California, and we had been experiencing a series of blackouts.
	And so I was pumping gas, and I went into the office to pay for the gas.
	And while I was in the office, the lights went dark.
	I mean, it was daytime, so it wasn't You can still see, but obviously, all the power had gone out.
	And a few moments later, a woman came running in and said, I can't pump any gas.
	And I said, well, we've had a blackout.
	And she goes, but I have cash.
	And she said, I don't care if you've got gold bars.
	You know, there's no electricity.
	There's no way to get the gasoline out of the underground tank into your car.
	And people are so disconnected from their survival, they assume that there will always be food on the shelves at the grocery store.
	They assume that the American government would never do anything that would violate their life, liberty, or property.
	Well, people are starting to wake up.
	People are starting to figure out that fiat money is worthless, that You know, the people who are currently in government are pretty much evil, and so people are finally looking for a different solution.
	We've got all sorts of liberty candidates showing up.
	Ron Paul did a really great job shaking people up during the last presidential campaign.
	We have a woman here in Texas who's running for governor that's getting widespread support in May.
	Put the Democrats and Republicans out of business here in Texas.
	In September of last year, I attended a rally at the Austin Capitol here in Texas, and there were 400 people at the rally.
	And the rally was for Texas secession.
	To hell with the other 49 who were leaving.
	And to have 400 people standing in front of the Capitol, So what do you have planned for this year?
	I guess your plans, as you say, haven't really changed too much since your brush with the Grim Reaper, but what are your plans for this year?
	What should people be looking out for in the Bad Narek Express?
	Well, I am determined to teach my constitution class every single weekend.
	I want to get much larger classes.
	Normally, I've been teaching classes of 20, maybe 30 people.
	I'd like to be teaching classes of 100 people each weekend.
	I would like to start speaking more often at universities during the week and trying to pull all of these different groups together.
	I mentioned earlier that we have...
	The Campaign for Liberty, which is what's left over from the Ron Paul campaign.
	We've got the Tea Party rallies that everybody hears about.
	There are people who supported Glenn Beck with his 9-12 project.
	Second Amendment groups are really taking a lot of publicity.
	And so we have all these people promoting liberty in their own way.
	And if I can help to facilitate, it's like, hey, we're all in this together.
	It doesn't really matter what banner we're under.
	We want smaller government.
	We want to eliminate taxes, and we want the government to work for us.
	We don't want to have to work for the government.
	So establishing, or rather re-establishing a constitutional republic here, liberty and freedom and prosperity, That has always been my goal.
	And I used to tell people, it's not my highest priority, it's my only priority.
	Well, the only thing that's changed since my hospital stay is that I now have a second priority.
	I still want to restore liberty, but they took such good care of me at Gunderson Lutheran Hospital that I would really like to become rich.
	So that I can build another wing on the hospital.
	Right. Right.
	Right. The liberty wing.
	The liberty wing.
	Well, I think I was obviously very, very concerned when I first heard about it, particularly when I heard how long your heart had stopped beating for, because that is not obviously good for the brain to be deprived of oxygen for that long.
	And so I was very relieved.
	I was going to send some card or flowers, but I was told not to because you were unconscious.
	They're just going to stink up the room.
	I was so glad to hear from you.
	I heard even before you emailed me that you were feeling 100%, that you were much better.
	I'm very relieved about that.
	The initial reports of what happened were...
	Very alarming.
	So I guess congratulations to your mad Viking-like tenacity in clinging to this side of the black curtain.
	So I'm very, very relieved to hear how well you're doing.
	Well, there were several suppositions on why I'm still alive.
	My favorite guess is that I refuse to turn over my guns at St.
	Peter's Gate. Right, right, right.
	Right. That certainly could be one.
	Yeah, sorry, can't say.
	Wait, you mean this place has unlimited executive power in the form of God?
	I'm not coming in there!
	That's the thing. No constitution, forget it!
	I'm out of here. Send me back.
	Yeah. Work to do. Well, it was.
	It was definitely stubbornness on my part, cleaning the life.
	I Once I regained consciousness, my goal was to get out of the hospital.
	My parents and my doctors would really like me to sit on the sofa in my pajamas, surrounded by pillows, eating tapioca pudding for a while.
	There's no reason for me to be alive if I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing.
	That is not how you roll, if I remember rightly.
	That's not the way I roll.
	If I'm alive, if I'm breathing, I am lighting the fires of liberty.
	And as I said, every day I wake up, it's a bad day for the government.
	And we are getting really dangerously close these days to restoring liberty.
	People are interested in the Constitution, and I am very, very hopeful for the near future.
	Well, that's fantastic. Now, I'm going to just – I better continue with my sort of regular Sunday show, but I just – I had so many people who wanted to know how you were, and I really do appreciate you taking the time to call in.
	And once again, I just wanted to say how glad I am personally that you pulled through with such flying colors.
	It really is quite – Thank you.
	Certainly go and check out Michael's website and keep me posted about where you are.
	If you're around at all anywhere around the west coast in early July for Libertopia, I'm going to be down there giving a keynote speech.
	So if you'd like to drop by or if you're anywhere close, it would be great to see you again and do keep in touch.
	Is your radio show back on?
	Are you doing that again or is that on hiatus for the time?
	No, I'm not doing the radio program because it doesn't bring in any money.
	I mean, I do have few necessities, and eating and sleeping are high in the priority level.
	I know, my friend. Funding freedom is not the easiest thing in the world, I'll tell you.
	Yeah, but in my own defense, I only eat and sleep so that I can continue lighting the fires of liberty.
	I mean, it's not for me that I'm doing those things.
	Right, right. Right.
	And you eat gasoline and Indian food so your farts can further help light the fires of liberty, which I think is really that.
	And that may have had something to do with what happened to your heart, but that really is a most impressive dedication to the cause.
	Yeah. Well, thank you so much, and I want to thank all your listeners for their concern and well wishes.
	And everybody is now absolved.
	I'm back to normal. Now you can start worrying about those bastards in government.
	All right. Well, thanks a lot, my friend, and take care.
	Okay. Thanks so much. Bye-bye.
	Well, that was Michael Bednarik.
	You may know him.
	I was on his radio show a couple of times.
	And I also had a, I think, fairly spectacular debate with him in Philadelphia last year.
	And he is a, you know, he and I probably don't agree quite when it comes to the most effective ways to bring about freedom.
	Not that that matters at all, because right now the important thing is that he's feeling better and he has the health.
	I appreciate that. And let us continue now with our regularly scheduled Sunday afternoon chat fest.
	I just wanted to mention something that I was thinking about before the show.
	To Michael's point about, you know, we really don't know how long we have to live.
	We never know when we're going to be felled by a bus, a meteor, or some horrendous artery blockage in our hearts.
	One of the things that I've always tried to remember And this may be, and not to sound ageist, this may be a little bit lost on the younger people because it's not something I particularly thought about until I got older, but I think it's really, really important to not end the day without making sure that the people in your life who you love know that you love them.
	And I think this can happen if you have a conflict with someone or whatever, but I think it's really, really important to let the people in your life I would sort of hate to be felled by some ghastly stroke or something if I'd had a conflict with someone in my life and sit there and think, oh, I never told that person.
	I didn't resolve that conflict and I'd die with that in my heart.
	And so I think it's really, really important to try and resolve conflicts as much as possible and reach out and find the love that may sometimes be scraped a little bit bare in your relationships.
	But Most importantly, as far as that goes with relation to you, I really wanted to tell everybody who's listening to this, and I can't really think of any exceptions to that, I freaking love this community.
	I absolutely adore and worship this community.
	Every now and then I sort of brush up against other communities on the web for whatever reason.
	And I must tell you, you know, this philosophical community is really, really amazing.
	There are so, so many people.
	You know, baring their heart and souls and minds and looking inward and introspecting and reasoning and taking on the tough issues and going out and talking to people and focusing on inner virtue and inner truth to bring that light to the world.
	It is just an incredibly inspiring community to, I guess, have founded and to be a part of.
	And I really view myself as just a part of this community now.
	I just love this community and I love the people who are so brave, so courageous.
	So trusting and who are really investing a lot of resources.
	I know a lot of people have had conflicts in their relationships because of philosophy.
	I know that a lot of people have poured time and dollars into going into therapy, into reading books, into journaling and really opening their hearts to people around them.
	That is such an incredible and impressive thing to see.
	I just wanted everybody who's listening to this or seeing this It is a beautiful, beautiful thing to see.
	This is an incredible community, the like of which I do not think has existed before.
	Thinking back, I mean, the template that I sort of try to work with as much as possible is the Socratic template, right?
	What Socrates was doing in ancient Athens, which was really the prototype pre-technology for this kind of community.
	And it really was, I mean, obviously it was a much smaller community because of the technology, but a lot of the people were really focused on Asking the really abstract questions.
	And, of course, I love the abstract questions.
	But, but, but, the degree to which people are introspecting and really pursuing the fundamental Socratic doctrine, which I think even Socrates forgets, as we all do, that the first law, the first law of philosophy is know thyself.
	Know thyself. And I will, I will, I will this week get done The Bomb of the Brain Part 4.
	I've just been trying to get some We're good to go.
	I mean, with very rare exceptions.
	The questions that people are asking, the honesty that they're putting out there, the really tough questions that people are putting out there, not tough like, you know, they require knowledge of quantum physics, but tough like, these are really, really difficult questions.
	Problems people have with their spouses, problems people have at work, problems people have with their parents, problems people have with their friends, problems people have with themselves.
	That is a really, really amazing thing to see.
	And it is a community with a lot of strength and a lot of spine and a lot of sinew and a lot of guts and a lot of heart and a lot of reasoning skills.
	And I just wanted to say I'm really just incredibly honored to be a part of it.
	I just incredibly respect the dedication and work that people are doing in muscling down, putting their shoulder to the wheel to move that huge rock Of cultural prejudice and illusion from the cave door that leads to the Lazarus of the true self that we can all bring back to life.
	It is an incredible thing to watch and it is a beautiful thing to watch and I just wanted everybody to know how much I value that, just in case I have a heart attack later today.
	So, I just wanted to mention that and I think we have some people who wanted to have some thoughts and some...
	Some conversations, I think, have been waiting for it.
	Is that right? Speak up.
	Somebody has asked, what is your opinion on becoming a public school teacher?
	I think it's a challenging row to hoe, so to speak.
	I think it is very tough. I think that when people think of becoming public school teachers, they think of themselves and a classroom.
	But that's not what becoming a public school teacher is.
	Becoming a public school teacher is yourself and 12,000 layers of bureaucratic administration and unionization.
	And then there's a classroom at the end of it.
	And if you have the kind of strength to hack your way through all of that stuff, fantastic.
	I think you can do some great good and certainly you can help some kids.
	But don't forget about the bureaucracy and all of that in that plan.
	Somebody has, so yeah, ask around.
	Certainly, read John Taylor Gatto.
	I mean, the guy who did Stand and Deliver, the Edward James Olmos film, I think before he got promoted to, I think, captain of the Starship Galactica.
	He did a film. That guy also got kicked out of the system.
	So, look into the bureaucracy that people are facing, I would say, before making that decision and see, just so you don't go in and waste time trying it and then find that you can't fight your way through the bureaucracy.
	Somebody's asked, I have a question.
	Since your interview with Dr.
	Schwartz, I have read internal family system therapy.
	There are no IFS therapists in my country, so I'm thinking of doing the therapy alone.
	I have recently finished therapy for past issues, childhood abuse and neglect, and I have defued where necessary.
	Do you think your ecosystem work would have been successful if you'd done it whilst not seeing a therapist?
	That is a tough question.
	First of all, I mean, please accept...
	My amazingly deep sympathies for the childhood abuse and neglect.
	I just really, really want to express my deep, deep, deep sympathy for that.
	That is a terrible place to have to start from and congratulations, kudos and massive praise for the work that you're doing on self-knowledge and on exposing these issues within yourself and working through that.
	So just deep sympathies, massive respect for that.
	Can't really be said often enough.
	Now, this person is asking, do I think my ecosystem work would have been successful if I had done it without seeing a therapist?
	I'm not sure that I could have done the ecosystem work without seeing a therapist.
	I don't think that I would have had the courage to, because I had no framework, no conceptual framework for that at all.
	I think it's fair to say that I don't think, I mean, I'd had a fair amount of training in some of the ecosystem work simply because I'd been an actor and a playwright and a novelist.
	And so on. And, you know, not exactly a very successful one, but certainly had done a lot of work in that.
	And I think about this now because I'm reading one of my old historical novels and I'm just really, really impressed with the quality of the dialogue and the characters.
	And they are very, like each character has an ecosystem.
	The ecosystem has a ecosystem.
	It's like one of those sort of Russian dolls within dolls that turns into a kaleidoscopic fly's eye reproduction of it all in 10 different dimensions.
	So I don't think I had any framework.
	For looking at the personality as an ecosystem of competing personalities, each with their own sub-competing personalities.
	And so I don't think, I think I would have tried to turn it into a book, a novel, and I think it would have distanced itself.
	I think a lot of novel writing or playwriting or movie writing is around channeling the ecosystem into some external thing so that you don't have to confront it.
	And so I don't think that I could have done it without that.
	Now, you have this aspect of knowledge that I didn't at the time because I went through my therapy, I guess, quite some time ago.
	This stuff was out, but of course I had no idea about it.
	He wrote this book primarily for professionals within the mental health field.
	So I don't know.
	I don't think it's a harmful thing to explore on your own.
	I certainly would have a therapist around And tell the therapist that you're doing this kind of work so that you have someone to talk to in case you run into stuff that's really surprising.
	But I certainly did the vast majority of my therapeutic work outside of therapy.
	I mean, I was in therapy for three hours a week, but I probably did, I don't know, 15 to 20 hours of journaling a week and introspection.
	I was also doing yoga. I was getting aromatherapy massages.
	I meditated, right? So I was, you know, full-on intensive care for the self for a couple of years there.
	I did a lot of work outside therapy, and you can certainly do that, and I would certainly recommend having a therapist around when you delve into the stuff, or at the very least, having a close friend who understands what it is that you're doing.
	The ecosystem, at least in my experience, can be quite overwhelming, and I think it's really important to stay in conversation with people about that.
	Yeah, somebody taking a state job, is it evil?
	You know, this is It's a very tough question and I really don't have any particularly insightful answers.
	I sort of would say two things.
	First of all, everything that is involved in participation in a state of society is a continuum.
	There is no, well, I'm in a state of society or I'm not in a state of society, right?
	You live in the woods.
	Somebody delivers your milk.
	Well, they've used a government road to get there, right?
	And you could sort of go on and on.
	But there's no way to extricate yourself from the influence of a status system.
	Even if you end up living in the woods because you can't stand the government, you're still living in the woods because of a status system.
	So you're still there because you're influenced by statism.
	So there's no way to escape it.
	And that having been said, I wouldn't recommend going into the military, right?
	So there's There's gradations, and I think we each have to pick that which we're comfortable with.
	I think frontline thug enforcement, you know, going and arresting people in the war on drugs, I think is a terrible and corrupt thing to do.
	To me, that's not even a black or white issue.
	That having been said, I would not say that everyone who does it is evil.
	For the simple reason that, as I've argued before, morality is a kind of technology.
	And people can't know before they know.
	And I think until UPB, or maybe there's other moral arguments out there that are better or as good, but until, at least for me, until UPB, there was just no way.
	And UPB is a tiny flicker in the night sky of human thought.
	It is not a sunrise as yet.
	So I think that if you have been raised, and I wrote about this probably five years ago on my blog, if you have been raised to believe that soldiering is moral, that you're protecting the freedoms, that, you know, The first world war guys all died so we could live free and all this kind of nonsense.
	If you're just raised in propaganda and everyone in your family is for it and your school is for it and your politicians for it and everybody weeps and folds the flag as if it is the living tissue of a living God.
	How on earth are you supposed to figure that out?
	That to me would be sort of like expecting a caveman to know that the world is round.
	It is not a just and valid thing.
	Now once you've been exposed Do better ideas, then the responsibility and the choice begins to accrue.
	But I do not believe that people who've never been exposed to more rational kinds of thinking are morally responsible for the choices that they make.
	They're simply in a state of pre-knowledge.
	And I don't think it's fair to say to people you should...
	I mean, I think I'm a pretty damn good philosopher, and I think I have solved a lot of thorny and challenging and long-lasting philosophical problems.
	And it took me 25 years of near constant study.
	I mean, how is some 18-year-old looking at joining the army who's supposed to do that?
	I mean, it's just not even reasonable to expect it.
	So I don't think it's right to throw good and evil around in the absence of knowledge, the knowledge on the part of people as to what they're doing.
	So that would be my suggestion.
	Somebody said, I just listened to Everyday Anarchy, and the end was sort of discouraging with regard to my academic ambitions.
	Is there any hope for success while maintaining intellectual honesty in academia?
	How did you get through graduate school thinking the way you do?
	Well, I was not an anarchist in graduate school.
	I was a sleazer-kist, which is a minarchist who dodges the question of taxation by draping some madness voluntary prism over the black light.
	Of coercion. You know, that I sort of was of the opinion, well, you know, they ask you at the cash-out if you're going to let people add taxes because of whatever, and then you say yes or no to that.
	But of course, I didn't really dodge because I didn't really think about it, and I hadn't been confronted on it because I'd never spoken with an anarchist, didn't really know the position existed with any intellectual credibility, but I didn't really think about, well, what about competition and all these other kinds of things.
	So I was not...
	An anarchist, I was an objectivist minarchist of the standard dodge taxation while never really thinking about it.
	That's as far as I could go at the time before I had enough self-knowledge to vault past my mentors.
	So it wasn't quite as bad for me, but I'm very glad that I stopped in academia when I did.
	I'm enormously thrilled that I did my master's and I had the best time I ever had in school.
	I was doing my masters and so I can completely understand why people want to do it but there's a whole lot of difference between paying to go to a masters and then doing a PhD with the intention of getting a job.
	I think that they'll let you get by in your masters but I think that it would not be the case for your PhD.
	I think you would face a lot more resistance and then you would face even more resistance in trying to get a job.
	So I think it is...
	And I think if you are a libertarian or objectivist or anarchist and you are an atheist, I think that is particularly troublesome because a lot of libertarianism has a Christian coin floating around it.
	So I think that is a...
	I think that's a big challenge.
	So I would just be careful.
	I think that you can do great work and I can only really speak up to the master's level.
	I think I did pretty good work up to the master's level.
	I really can't speak much beyond it, but...
	It's a whole different kettle of fish.
	And of course the problem is once you've sunk three to five to seven years into getting a PhD, you have to be really great friends with your professors in order to get a job.
	They have to write you letters of recommendation.
	They have to know your work.
	They have to respect your thinking.
	They have to understand your technical or historiographical skills in whatever field you're in.
	They have to really like you in order to...
	To write your letters of recommendation and to give you the kind of contacts that are gonna get you hired.
	And it's really tough, particularly if you're at the TA level.
	I mean, people have to really like you.
	And the students also have to really like you.
	And when students run into a really clear-thinking philosopher, it's really tough.
	I mean, how do you mark someone down the first time they encounter a truly rational thought?
	I don't know how to answer those questions, and so I was not particularly keen.
	I will say, though, that I've not seen any academic anywhere who has been as consistent as we are in this conversation.
	You know, Murray Rothbard was, to me, great on the state, but terrible on the political action front, and even more terrible with regards to religion.
	There are other people, we don't have to sort of get into any details, who are, you know, again, they're maybe more on the atheist side, but then they're more on the objectivist or anarchist side, or maybe they're more on the anarchist side and they're really bad, and maybe they're okay on the atheist side, but then they're really addicted to political action.
	So I think that the empiricism and rationality that we bring to bear in this conversation has not, to me, at least been replicated by an academic that I know of.
	Again, what do I know? I don't know every academic, but That to me is the problem.
	Or maybe they're really good on atheism and anarchism and opposed political action, but they're just not interested in self-knowledge in that sense.
	Or they don't understand the role that childhood experiences have in shaping social institutions, and then they're just trying to deal with symptoms rather than causes.
	So I just...
	When I look at it, there are tens and tens of thousands of academics around, none of whom are, I think, remotely as consistent as we are here in terms of reasoning from first principles.
	And following the evidence, you know, following the evidence, following the evidence, that's really what it's all about for me.
	I am always, always, always, my fallback position, my starting position is empiricism.
	And people mistake that in the position that I have quite a bit.
	And, you know, I might as well just mention it here.
	They think that, I mean I get these letters all the time.
	What's your problem with Christianity?
	I don't have a problem with Christianity.
	Why do you oppose political action?
	Because empirically it doesn't work.
	Why do you talk about childhoods?
	Because scientifically and empirically, they're really, really important in how society is shaped.
	In fact, they are, according to the latest research, and maybe people haven't kept up with the latest research, but according to the latest research, childhood is everything.
	Somebody posted a talk on addiction this morning.
	The guy was saying, when a child is growing, when they're a baby, two toddler, their brains, I mean, this doesn't blow your mind, nothing will.
	Their brains are making one million new connections every second.
	Every second.
	One million new connections.
	Every second. And every connection that they make is a million connections they haven't made.
	And so, it's not to me like, oh, I just like to talk about childhoods.
	No. Actually, I find it, it's difficult to talk about childhoods.
	But, like it or not, that's what the evidence points to.
	And people who don't like it, you know, it's like people who don't like evolution.
	Why are you so into evolution?
	Well, because it's factual, because it's proven, because it's true.
	And people will always try to recast empirical evidence The acceptance of empirical reality and science as some sort of psychological problem or perspective.
	You know, he's obsessed with childhood or he's anti-religious or anti-political action.
	It's like, man, wouldn't it be great if political action would work?
	Wouldn't it be great if we didn't have to go into self-knowledge and deal with any of the scar tissue left over from our own histories?
	That would be fantastic. What a wonderful way.
	And what a much easier way that would be to be free.
	And how much more money I could have if I were into political action.
	Unfortunately, that's just not where the evidence points.
	And if we want to differentiate ourselves from the state and from religiosity and other things, we just have to follow the arguments.
	We have to follow the facts.
	We have to follow the science. We have to follow the empiricism.
	And that's what I bow to.
	Can show me a study which says childhood experiences do not shape adult patterns of thinking, of criminality, of love, of interaction, of prosperity, of the capacity to reason.
	Well, I will change my opinion because that's what I do when the facts change.
	But so far, people who've opposed me don't come up with studies that have disproven both my studies and the studies of the experts that I've been talking to.
	So I think that's, I just, I'm really an empiricist and academics don't Have the consistency.
	And I think there's lots of reasons for that.
	And I've gone into those reasons in Everyday Anarchy and some of my podcasts.
	But I think it's...
	If you can find an exception, if you can be the exception to the general rule of academia, I think it's important to know how you're going to do it and to figure out why.
	Why, oh why, oh why so many academics have failed in the...
	Hey. Hi.
	What's on your mind? Oh, hey.
	This is Tom.
	I called you like a couple weeks back about a dream.
	With cargoes and all that good stuff.
	Right, right. How's it going?
	Yeah, going good.
	Going good. I've been in therapy now for a couple months now.
	It's going pretty good.
	I think my therapist is more of a Zen Buddhist type.
	And the last therapy session we had, she was kind of...
	I think she was a little uneasy with me being an atheist.
	Hmm. And I explained some things to her.
	I don't remember exactly what I said to her, but she made a point, too.
	Because, you know, how we feel that the unconscious mind is where people perceive that God, you know, that word projection into the world of God and all that.
	And she...
	I had mentioned something about having this profound wisdom that we have about our own lives.
	And... She was like, see?
	Kind of like, you know, like it wasn't in my mind, in my unconscious mind, that it was actually, she was referring to a God or a higher being or something like that.
	So I've been having thoughts of possibly not having any more therapy sessions with her because of this, because I really don't think she's going to be capable of taking me to where I need to go.
	Sorry, so she's discussing her religious beliefs with you?
	Not really.
	She's alluded to different ways of helping me to cope with past feelings with my family, like grounding, and she mentioned meditation, she mentioned some other things that led me to believe she was into this Zen Buddhism kind of stuff.
	How was she with anger?
	I'm not sure what you mean.
	What I mean is that I think that it's fair to say that if you've experienced a lot of injustice, particularly as a child, there's a phase, at least, where you're going to be angry about it, right?
	Oh yeah, that was at the beginning.
	And how was she with that?
	Good, good. She, uh, Very empathetic, very, like, on my side, or very understanding.
	She said I had every right to be angry, that I needed to get those feelings out.
	She noticed that I was bottling them up inside, was not letting those emotions out.
	So she's been really good about helping me bring that out.
	Right. Well, that's great.
	That's great. Oh, yeah, no doubt.
	She's helped a lot.
	And would you say that your relationship with the therapist, aside from the issue of religiosity or Buddhism, is generally positive and helpful and worthwhile?
	Yeah, I would say so, yes.
	Right. My worries is she's not going to be able to take me far enough.
	Yes, sorry, and I agree with that, and I hope, I mean, of course you understand, this is just my opinion, right?
	I mean, I don't know the therapist, and I'm not a therapist, but this is just my opinion, and the reason I'm going to share my opinion with you is I went through a very similar thing with my therapist.
	She was really into, she believed in some seriously mystical stuff, like flying yogis, and she was, I mean, she had some stuff like, that was really jaw-dropping to me, like I really had a tough time Dealing with some of the aspects of her mysticism.
	And so I've been where you are, at least with regards to this issue.
	But what I said to myself was, look, I don't need my dentist to be an atheist.
	I don't. I want them to be a really good dentist.
	In fact, I would choose a good dentist over an atheist dentist any day of the week, right?
	Because I'm a real chicken when it comes to mouth pain, right?
	So... I want the best dentist.
	They can be a Marxist-Leninist who believes in UFOs for all I care.
	What I want is for them to be really good at what they do.
	And I know that that's more extreme because this is not exactly like a dentist.
	But if she's good at helping you to get in touch with your feelings, to express your feelings, to take yourself more seriously, to process your history and so on, I would let...
	That was my choice, and I don't regret it.
	And again, obviously no one can tell you what to do, but my choice was to say, this woman is really good at helping me explore this subconscious thing.
	And of course, I was going through this whole ecosystem stuff at the time, which was as startling to her as it was to me, and she hung in there during this completely insane wild ride.
	Over a year where I had all these voices and all of these wild conversations and arguments with myself and characters.
	It was insane.
	And she hung in there and I thought, well, maybe I'll find somebody who's more of an atheist, but maybe they won't be as courageous with this stuff.
	And so if she's really good with the emotional stuff, and she's not a philosopher, she is a therapist, right?
	And so she's not going to have the kind of consistency from an intellectual standpoint that you want.
	But you're not going there for her expertise as a philosopher.
	You're going there for her expertise in self-exploration and self-knowledge.
	So myself, I said, okay, occasionally she will say stuff that just makes my jaw drop, and I guess she moves in circles where people's jaws don't drop when that happens.
	And I'll just say, okay.
	And I didn't even talk to her about my anxiety and thoughts about that because I already knew that I had anxiety and thoughts about her mysticism and I didn't need help in that.
	What I needed was help in managing what was going on in my unconscious.
	And she was really, really good at that.
	So if you're getting great emotional work out of her and it's working for you from a sort of self-knowledge standpoint, I just, you know, wave that stuff off, you know, like...
	You know, somebody's working really, really well on your teeth, and they say that, I don't know, it's the saints that tell me where to drill.
	Okay, maybe that's not the best example, but you know what I mean?
	Doing the core work that works for you, my suggestion would be to say, well, it would be kind of weird if she had rationally consistent positions because she's not a philosopher.
	Like, that'd be kind of weird.
	It'd be like a witch doctor discovering The law of thermodynamics or the inverse square law or the theory of relativity.
	It would be weird if a witch doctor did that because they're not a scientist.
	It would be kind of weird if she had logically consistent positions because that requires a pretty lengthy and detailed study of philosophy.
	It's almost like a confirmation of the value of philosophy that people who don't study it end up with inconsistent positions.
	I would just wave that off.
	It's par for the course. And I don't think that you're going to find a therapist who's going to mirror rational positions everywhere, but you're really going to her just for the emotional work.
	And if that's working, I would stick with it.
	Yeah, I would have to say it is.
	And I mean, it was a concern of mine, and I just wanted to kind of throw that at you to see what you thought.
	And so my mind is at ease now about that.
	I'm not even going to worry about it, because I just wanted to mention, again, my experience with therapy, you'll know when you've reached the limits of what your therapist can do, but you'll know that in your heart, it won't be like, oh, there's this intellectual argument that doesn't fit, and there's a kind of recoiling.
	You'll kind of just know when you've bled the value of that relationship dry.
	You'll just kind of know as you move forward.
	It's not really so much of an intellectual recoiling as it is.
	There's just a growing sense of closure, and you're just ready to move on.
	Right. Now, is it normal for someone to have a dream about their therapist?
	Have you gone through an experience similar to that?
	Like during your therapy, while going through therapy with your therapist, actually having a deep dream about her?
	Oh, yeah. No, absolutely.
	Absolutely. And I would say that, you know, that's a sign that the therapy is going well because you kind of want to internalize those perspectives.
	I had dreams about my therapist, absolutely, and I would bring those dreams in with my therapist.
	I even had a slightly erotic dream about my therapist that I had to bring in and talk about.
	Yeah, because she was a female therapist and she was relatively young.
	And, I mean, it wasn't like I wanted to date her or anything.
	This is just what was going on in my unconscious.
	So it's, you know... But it's a private place.
	Mine was... I would have to say my dream about my therapist was kind of on the erotic side, too.
	It was... I've never had a dream so crazy.
	I mean, yeah, the cargo oil thing was pretty crazy, but I mean, this was...
	I mean, sometime I'm going to have to tell you about it and have you...
	Well, I would talk about that one with your therapist.
	And the reason I would talk about that one...
	We are. We are....is because there's so much information that's in that dream that's related to specifics about your therapy.
	I would guess that... But yeah, to me, it's perfectly normal.
	I'm not saying it's always comfortable, and I sort of remember saying, well, I've got to bring this one up.
	And she was great with it, right?
	Because a therapist is trained to understand that when you go deep into yourself, it's not just your emotions, but it's some of your instincts that get kicked up as well.
	And of course, sexuality is another instinct, so I think that's important.
	Yeah, when I started telling her about it, she perked up in her seat and got her pad and paper, and she was like, oh, wow, this is great.
	And I'm like, why?
	She goes, because you just had a dream about me.
	I'm like, what? Right, so a therapist should be pleased, I think.
	A therapist should be pleased that she's in there rewiring, you know?
	It's sort of like if you bring your car in and it's a real mess, when you come back, you want to see the car up there and the guy elbow deep in grease fixing your car.
	And so it means that she's in your unconscious, which is, I think, where the therapist kind of wants to be as far as the effect of what she's doing, if that makes any sense.
	Oh, yeah. Her reaction was like she was all excited.
	I think, yeah, she finally got...
	Well, I mean, she had other things that she could rely on that she was actually doing me some really, you know, doing me some good, but that one really got her excited.
	Yeah. No, and that's the challenging thing, is to just bring up everything that is going on in your mind with the person that you're paying to listen to.
	So I'm really glad that it's working out for you, and congratulations on this kind of work.
	It's fantastic. Well, thank you.
	Yeah, it is. It's quite the ride.
	I love it. I really do.
	Oh, yeah. Therapist is the best.
	Yeah, everybody should do it.
	Everybody should do it. I completely agree with you.
	There is nobody alive who hasn't done a lot of it who shouldn't just do it.
	I really, really suggest that people try it no matter what.
	Yeah, definitely.
	Definitely. Real quick, I just wanted to say that recently, actually just last night, I listened to one of your older podcasts on Humiliation.
	Right. And that one, man, I tell you what, that hit me hard.
	It really brought some things up.
	And in that podcast, you talked about how we somehow project it to other people.
	We have this, like, outward, you know, where we give people these signs that they can humiliate us and treat us like shit.
	Right. A lightbulb went off in my head.
	I'm like, Jesus Christ, that's how I've been treated by everybody around me.
	But I'm trying to understand how is it that I'm projecting this...
	Because I'm not a big guy, but I'm stocky.
	I work out, so I don't come off as a wimp.
	I don't understand what it is that people get this sense of their...
	Them being able to humiliate me.
	Right, right. You know, that's what I'm trying to, after listening to that podcast, I'm trying to wrap my mind around that.
	Maybe I'm just like too nice, too easygoing, or...
	I don't know.
	Well, but you're trying to make it about you, right?
	Like it's something that is just part of your way of being and your way of interacting with the world.
	But nobody's born like that, right?
	Nobody's born wanting to be a pushover.
	I mean, I'm telling you, being a dad is like the most amazing thing ever.
	It's a real challenge at times.
	But my daughter is incredibly assertive.
	And that has nothing to do with aggression.
	She's just very assertive. I mean, if I want to pick her up and she wants to do something else, she has this great little firm ninja sweep of her hand.
	Because she knows that I have to reach under her armpits to pick her up, because that's the standard way of picking her up.
	And she knows if she sweeps her arm around, like a sort of little pudgy windmill, if she sweeps her arm, I can't pick her up.
	And she doesn't do it aggressively.
	She's not at all angry.
	She's just saying, I don't want to be picked up right now.
	And she just does that little sweep.
	And it's very firm, and it works perfectly, because unless I want to really overbear her, which I never do, then I can't pick her up.
	Again, it's not angry.
	It's not aggressive. It just is assertive.
	When she wants something, she will point at it and she will make that sound that is designed to drive you slowly insane until you give the child what she wants.
	It's like a broken rag.
	She'll literally do it for an hour if you let her.
	It doesn't escalate.
	It's very assertive.
	I want, I want, I want.
	99.9% of the time, it's fine and she can have it.
	And we're not born that way.
	We're not born that way.
	And so, I think that we are trained to have unstable relationships with other people's aggression.
	Because it comes out of the family.
	And it also comes out of school, right?
	It comes out of the teacher. It comes out of the priest at church.
	It comes out of a lot of places.
	I don't think that people in general have an unstable relationship with assertiveness.
	But I think that we are just used to facing aggression with compliance.
	You face aggression. This is what you do when you're a kid.
	You either rebel in a crazy way that usually ends up with you in prison in the long run, or if you have a little bit more wisdom, you comply.
	So we face aggression with compliance.
	And that is just a habit that's laid into us.
	It's inflicted upon us.
	I don't think it's natural. At all to a human being, but it is just what you do when you're in a brutal hierarchy.
	So I wouldn't just say, well, maybe it's something I'm just mysteriously doing.
	It's just what you're trained to do.
	Well, yeah, and you explained it so perfectly in that I knew exactly, I knew the exact feelings that you were, you're like a deer in headlights.
	You're like, you're like frozen when someone does this.
	And I was like, man, that's exactly how I feel when someone does that.
	And right now I'm dealing with an issue with my boss.
	Because he'll just, out of the blue, boom, he'll humiliate me in front of the other workers.
	He'll be like, are you sure you know how to do this, Tom?
	And I've been in the business of doing what I'm doing for over 10 years.
	This guy's a tourist.
	I mean, he's a boss.
	But he's a tourist. You know what I'm talking about.
	He's there playing like he knows what he's doing, but he don't.
	He knows I read a lot.
	He knows I'm intelligent. He knows I'm very well self-educated, and I know my shit.
	And I don't think he likes that, and that's why he does that.
	He'll try to humiliate me in front of other workers and other people.
	And at the time, I'm just like...
	I'm trying because it would be so easy for me to just really put him in his place and just humiliate him back.
	But I know what the end result that could be is I'll end up getting fired or losing my job.
	And I don't want to do that.
	I'm trying to find balance.
	That may not be the ideal solution even if you weren't going to get fired.
	Okay. I mean, this is a seriously advanced ninja, and I'm sure as hell not saying that I'm perfect in this way and shape, but what I aim for is something like this.
	I don't want to be the kind of guy who fights back.
	I want to be the kind of guy that doesn't get picked on in the first place.
	Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's not like I'm looking for a fight.
	I just want people to treat me decent like I treat them.
	I'm not looking to...
	Yeah, and how do I do that?
	I mean, what kind of ways...
	Can I deal with situations like that?
	Do I just, like, not take it personal?
	Every time someone pulls some shit like that on me and I just keep telling myself...
	Well, give me an example.
	Roleplay him for a sec.
	What sort of stuff would he say?
	Oh, say I'm in the middle of doing a job or two different jobs at the same time.
	And he's like, hey, Tom, do you know that that job that you're on now, that goes on a separate ticket?
	Do you know this? And I'm like, yeah, that is a separate job, so obviously it goes on a separate time sheet and list of materials and all that stuff to do the job.
	It's just so poignantly obvious, but he talks to me like I'm this child.
	Well, why don't you try this?
	And this is just what popped into my head, and I promise it won't get you fired, but it might help.
	So he asks you, just give me that question again, and I'll give you what I would say.
	And maybe it'll work, maybe it won't.
	Okay. He would say, hey Tom, do you know that goes on a separate ticket?
	Oh, I'm sorry. Have I given you some indication that I don't know that?
	Very nice. I like that.
	Because that puts the onus back on him to prove, to make the case as to why, right?
	Very much so. If he says, you have, then say, well, I don't remember.
	Perhaps you can tell me. And then he's going to be floundering, trying to come up.
	And if he says, well, no, you haven't, then it's like, well, then there's not much point in asking me the question.
	I mean, that would be my suggestion.
	It puts the onus back on him to make the case.
	Right. Oh, I like that.
	And I did that once in the very first job that I had as a professional programmer.
	Right. I had a boss.
	He's one of these guys. You think he's really scary, but he turned out to be kind of like a teddy bear with, I don't know, razor spikes for hands or whatever, right?
	But he was okay. He would come over when he gave me my first assignment, which was a big complex COBOL program.
	And he would come over literally like twice a day saying, is the program done yet?
	Is the program finished? Is it done?
	Is it done? And of course, he knew that I was nervous and he was just messing with my head.
	You know, I'm not saying it was nice, but he decided it wasn't that big a deal.
	Anyway, so at one point I stood up in front of the program and I put my hand on his shoulder and I said, I'll tell you what, Jim.
	When I am finished the program, I know where your office is.
	I promise that I will...
	Walk directly to your office, I will knock on the door, and I will say to you, I'm finished, and that will help you avoid constantly having to wander over here and ask.
	And he looked at me, he was really shocked, right?
	And then he just said, fine, that's it.
	And he pretended that the computer was voice activated, and he said, right, call up the document fired dot dot doc, or something like that.
	He just laughed, right? It was the best that I could do because he was really starting to make me nervous, but I didn't want to get angry at him because that's falling into a trap and saying I can be bugged.
	And some people get annoyed when I say this stuff because I'm not that witty or whatever, right?
	But the reality is I'm not going to hide it.
	I said, I promise I'm not going to hide it from you when I'm done.
	I promise I'm not going to pretend that it's not done when it is.
	You will be the first person I tell.
	And he just laughed, and we got along pretty well after that.
	He actually ended up inviting me out to one of his poker tournaments because he was a professional poker player, where, strangely enough...
	Clean him out? I'm sorry?
	Clean him out? You know, this is the weird thing, and this is why I don't gamble, because the one time that I did, I took $100 out of the bank that day thinking, basically, I'm just going to set fire to it over a 20-minute period, right?
	I ended up walking out of there $500 richer.
	And I've never played poker since because it's like, there's just no way I'm going to be better.
	And it was so annoying for people because they kept switching the games.
	You know, let's play Texas Flash Nipple Tweak Hold'em Poker or something, right?
	And I was like, I don't even know what that game is, right?
	And then I put my cards down.
	Does this win? And they'd be like, ah!
	Yeah, yeah, right.
	Is that like beginner's luck?
	Yeah, it totally was beginner's luck.
	Yeah, I've experienced that. I experienced that with Yahtzee when I was 11.
	I kicked everybody's ass in one night and I thought, now I'm never playing Yahtzee again because this ain't gonna happen.
	Yeah, you can't game somebody who's playing randomly.
	You just, you can't predict their behavior because they're not following any patterns.
	And so I learned a lot about how to make money if you're only going to do it once and about market anarchy.
	And so anyway, it was a fun night. But anyway, I'm just saying that you can sort of say like a joke, like have I ever given you an indication that I don't know this, right?
	I mean, is there any reason why you're asking me this question?
	And that can...
	It can get people out of a kind of groove, because he's just stuck doing his childhood stuff, right?
	And you don't want to be stuck doing yours.
	Someone has to change the pattern before it keeps repeating, right?
	Right. Yeah, that's what I want to do.
	I mean, for myself, I really care less about him.
	I mean, seriously. But yeah, I would like to change that pattern so he doesn't use it on me.
	Yeah, and you need to change that pattern for sure.
	And that's what I was trying to do with this guy, was to, you know, to change the pattern.
	I mean, people so easily fall into these grooves of history, right?
	Like, we're just like looking for a groove.
	And you have to do something different.
	And responding to a put-down with an aggression is not getting out of the pattern.
	It just sets up more of a conflict.
	And all that's going to do is escalate, in my opinion.
	And if you respond with sort of curiosity and good humor, it breaks the pattern.
	You know what it's like? It's like if two people are pulling on a rope on either side, they're doing a tug-of-war.
	Two people are digging and they're pulling.
	If one person just gets up and lets go of the rope, the other person has to change their stance.
	They have to, because you're not playing paint.
	That's sort of what I would suggest.
	I like that metaphor.
	It really changes my thought about the whole thing.
	If I keep that in mind...
	Yeah, I like that.
	I really do. That's very helpful.
	The whole tug-of-war thing.
	It's exactly what you're doing.
	It's exactly what you're doing.
	Yeah, or another way of looking at it, if someone walks up to you and they want to shake your hand and you keep your hands in your pocket, they're not going to pretend to be shaking your hand, right?
	They have to do something because you're not mirroring their behavior, right?
	So I think it's really important to just try different things that are outside the paradigm of the interaction so that people, they kind of short-circuit and then it kind of frees them as well.
	Correct. Well, thank you very much, Steph.
	You're welcome, and keep us posted about how things are going with your therapist, but that certainly would be my suggestion.
	If you've got a good one, we emotionally hang in there, and thanks for calling in.
	Hey, we'll talk to you later.
	All right, take care, man. You too.
	Bye. Bye. Steph, quick question.
	Yar! I'm sure that this is, you know, patently obvious to everyone but myself.
	But I'm having a hard time seeing the difference between the advice that you gave the last caller and what you said to me in our recent conversation.
	So, you know, him...
	Oh, you mean around your business relationships?
	Yeah. So, I mean, him employing a mystic, that's cool.
	But me working for and with them, that's not cool.
	Sure, sure. Well, first of all, he's in complete control of the relationship because he's the customer, not a business partner.
	So that's sort of one aspect.
	And that's a great question that you're raising, and I hope I'm not going to give any kind of glib answers because your questions really are always very, very good.
	So please let me know if your glibometer goes off and if I'm weaseling out or something.
	But this is sort of what has struck me.
	I think that you would agree that about the dentist thing, that the dentist doesn't have to be an atheist.
	In fact, you would choose a good dentist over a bad dentist who was an atheist, right?
	We sort of understand that that would be a sensible thing to do, right?
	Well, sure. I mean, because the limit of the relationship you have with him is, you know, he works on your teeth and you don't see him again for a year.
	Right. So, ah, see a dentist every year.
	What it is to be young. Anyway, so this guy is...
	He's getting really great emotional work from his therapist, so she is acting with great integrity in the realm of helping him with his emotions.
	That's why I kind of asked about the anger, because the one thing that seems to be true about Buddhists is that they have a great deal of problem with anger.
	They seem to be quite behind the whole passive-aggressive thing, but they do seem to have a great deal of problem with anger, because, of course, it indicates a lack of, quote, maturity and responsibility in that paradigm.
	And so the reason that I asked that question was, is she a rational therapist who also happens to have a little bit of mystical stuff scrapping around, right?
	Or is she foundationally a mystic?
	And that informs her psychological practice?
	Or that defines, in a sense...
	So if she's like, I've been a Buddhist since I was five, I believe that all anger is immaturity, and that's how I conduct my practice.
	That would be an indication to be of somebody who was foundationally into mysticism and that informed every aspect of their behavior as a therapist or most aspects.
	Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, sure.
	I mean, I'd gotten that far on my own.
	Go on. Oh good, okay.
	So, if she's a good therapist but has a few irrational beliefs, that to me is like being a good dentist but having a few irrational beliefs.
	But in the instance of the conversation that you and I had, it seemed to me that the people you were having problems with were foundationally irrational.
	The mysticism was really core and spread out from there, rather than being some small clouds in an otherwise blue sky, if that makes sense.
	Ah, okay. Yes, yes.
	I see what you mean. Really?
	No, that's too easy. Now I feel edgy.
	You're circling around behind me with a shiv, aren't you?
	No, I mean, again, I don't want to be glib.
	And I certainly, I think your question is really, really good.
	And maybe I'm, you know, because when I met my wife, she had some deist, quasi-religious viewpoints and so on.
	But it wasn't the foundation of her belief.
	So if your example to me was like, you go to a dentist, you don't know what the hell they're about.
	And they're about to drill with you.
	And they say, Jesus tells me where to point the drill.
	That would be somebody whose religious beliefs were seriously over-informing their professional practice, right?
	Right. At that point, it's like, I tell you what, just get this lead shield off me and I'll pay on the way out.
	My Jesus is telling you to put that drill some other place entirely.
	So your Jesus and my Jesus are going to get into a big mud pit and battle halos like two amateur magicians.
	My Jesus can tell you where to stick that thing.
	Right, right, right.
	So that would sort of be my...
	And I try to figure this out when I meet people.
	If they sort of seem to be sensible and rational, but they have a few irrational ideas floating around, then they're open to reason, right?
	And they just obviously haven't gone through this ridiculous multi-year process of examining...
	Every belief you hold and try to get them all to line up in any kind of neat row.
	And that's one thing, but if the beliefs are right down in the core of their character and infest or infect everything that they do, that to me is a very different situation entirely, if that makes sense.
	Right. I mean, it's the difference between the sort of non-considered belief, as you talked about, your sort of Waffling anarchy in grad school versus this particular woman who has, like, ditches and revetments and flaming oil poised against reason.
	So, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you may not...
	I mean, this is to take a silly example, right?
	But you may not have a problem dating a guy who says, I play Dungeons& Dragons a couple of times a year.
	But you may have a problem dating a guy who shows up for the dinner date in full plate armor.
	I mean, there's a difference between a habit that is somewhat extraneous to the personality and something which is clearly and rather insanely activating his entire personality, if that makes any sense.
	I don't know. The plate armor might be sexy.
	That's right. And it's only plate armor.
	I have nothing on it. That would hurt.
	Only when he walks, there's a heavy clanging sound.
	Is that a possibility, right?
	He's got one of those. Anyway.
	Oh, yeah. Okay, so thank you.
	I appreciate that, and I definitely see where you're coming from.
	I agree. Excellent.
	Shaving. Is that a canoe in your cockpit, or are you just pleased to see me?
	I don't know why all of my knights are vaguely Australian, but that's just the way it goes.
	Vagely Australian and speak like Mae West.
	Mae West?
	I don't know what age she was in the movies you're seeing, but...
	Alright, do we have any other questions?
	A new low step. Oh, come on.
	You haven't listened to that many podcasts if you think that's some kind of low for me.
	Somebody has asked, how will the state and society deal with destructive demands like child prostitution or murder for hire?
	Well, I hate to be annoying and boring, but I would refer you to the practice on child protection that occurs within...
	Within Practical Anarchy, there's a whole chapter on DROs protecting children.
	I'm not saying it's going to answer every question, that would be a whole encyclopedia, but I hope that it will help.
	Fundamentally, for those who want the two-second version and who don't want to fast forward through the endless chatterbox head of Practical Anarchy, it has always struck me as somewhat surprising that parents are not held liable for the actions of their children.
	I mean they are of course to some degree.
	When I was a kid I threw a rock and it bounced off some guy's car and I think my mom had to pay to get it repaired or something like that.
	But when your child becomes a criminal the costs of that child's criminality as a teenager, I'm not talking later as an adult, are not born in general in the current world by the parents.
	And that's because parents vote and children don't.
	But I think in a free society Parents, particularly parents at risk, would face much higher premiums to ensure their children if they did not attend parenting courses.
	And I also believe that in a future society it will be very easy technologically, at least quite easy, to figure out how a child's brain is developing and look for markers of sociopathy, look for markers of a lack of empathy, look for markers of a lowered capacity of the neofrontal cortex to process the results of choices,
	look for impulse Problems or lack of impulse control all of these things will be biological markers within the brain will be caught and remedied early just like diabetes should be and other things that are can become chronic but are quite easily preventable and so these kinds of things it would just be part of a regular checkup right now we check the child's body but we don't do a brain scan to find out how the child is doing and that's because there's no particular incentive for people to do that and it's a very volatile discussion to have with parents who may be abusive of course But in the future, that won't be the case.
	So I think that these things are going to be much more prevented than cured, if that makes any sense.
	All right, we do have time for another question.
	I thought our good friend X-Cultist was dropping by today.
	Perhaps I was mis-under-informated.
	Hi, Steph. Hello.
	This is John Corvide from the boards.
	Oh, hi, John. How's it going? Pretty good.
	I had a question about the discipline podcast you did about a week ago.
	Ah, yes. I'm sorry, just before you start, just before you start, can I just say one thing that I think is kind of interesting?
	I promise I won't cut into the time that you have.
	For those, nobody's mentioned this to me yet, but you may have noticed it unconsciously.
	I have found a new program or a new aspect to the program that I use that allows me to truncate silence.
	And what that means is that any time that I pause for more than three quarters of a second, it will cut that pause down by about 33 to 40%.
	And it regularly will take about 10% off the length of a podcast.
	So I just wanted to point out that you're getting much more compressed syllables per podcast dollar at the moment.
	And nobody's said, you're rushing!
	But nobody's also said, you're going too slow still.
	So I hope that that's helped.
	You may not have noticed it, but I started doing it a couple of months ago.
	Anyway, I did it to that podcast and it took it down.
	10 or 15%.
	So I'd like to do it to the earlier podcast, but it doesn't work on MP3 files directly.
	So anyway, I just wanted to mention that, but please go on.
	Okay. Yeah, I actually had noticed that.
	I didn't know what was causing it, but that's cool that you mentioned it.
	Before, there was a guy on YouTube.
	His name is Loren Howe.
	His ID is lorex2013.
	And he, through his video editing, sometimes his videos sound that way also.
	And I thought that it was just an editing thing you were doing.
	I didn't know it was like a tool that you were automating that.
	Yeah, no, it's pretty cool for sure.
	Okay, so I'll go on with the question.
	You did mention that Primarily, the type of discipline you were talking about in the podcast was when an authority figure imposes rules as a form of punishment, or rather when they punish someone for not following whatever rules that they have set up.
	And my question was just about some overlap between some of the things you were saying, between that form of discipline and the other form that's more Practice.
	It's just when you're trying to achieve a goal and you keep practicing something to follow rules or guidelines, like maybe even if it's just getting up in the morning at a certain time or trying to practice.
	Let's say you're a guitar player and you're practicing and trying to get the notes right, that sort of thing.
	Anyway, there was some overlap between just one example that pops out.
	is when you were talking about the general that's in Afghanistan and you were saying that um I'm paraphrasing big time here like I don't know the exact specifics so just feel free to correct anything but um so my interpretation is it's like on CNN they were saying that this guy gets up and you know only eats one meal a day and runs like five miles a day and Or,
	sorry, to take another example that's pretty common in the Jewish community, it's like, Hitler was a workaholic, right?
	So... You know, it would be nice if Hitler had been a little bit lazier.
	In fact, it would be nice if Hitler had been a whole lot lazier, but he was really driven and very disciplined.
	And that was not for the world's betterment, but sorry, come on.
	Yeah. Well, yeah, so I got from what you were saying that for sure, you know, he wasn't someone that anyone should aspire to emulate.
	But on the other hand, you know, I mean, it's like, I think technically speaking, he's a symbol of the type of discipline that comes from oppressive authority.
	Like, he's just a couple steps away from the drill sergeant that screams, you maggots, you know, and, you know, drop and give me 50, and that kind of thing.
	And that's the type of, like, again, there's the overlap, you know, because on the one hand, you have an authority figure who's bullying and oppressing, but on the other hand, Just being able to do something and do it correctly and practice it until it's done right, that's the other definition of discipline.
	And basically, my question is, I mean, if you could kind of maybe just say a few words about that, you know, just to kind of...
	Right, right. So it's like a guy who wants to be a great pianist, he needs to do scales for a long time, right?
	Right. Right, right.
	I mean, that's an excellent, excellent question, and this is exactly why I think this is such a fucking great community.
	People are so smart. I think it's a great question, and you can let me know what you think of this answer.
	I think that the difference in my mind is that the guy who's doing the piano is doing it for his own benefit.
	He's not being exploited by somebody else or he's not being forced to obey somebody else or he's not doing something that profits somebody else.
	It is for his own particular benefit and it is based upon the necessary steps to achieve his goals.
	I don't have to look too far afield for that.
	There's a lot to do with FDR. It's like 80% You know, dumbass, retarded grunt work, you know, like fixing up audio files and syncing video files with the audio and the interviews that I do, getting all the video in video.
	I mean, it's a lot of stupid shit that you have to do to make all this stuff work and upgrading the website and dealing with GoDaddy about bandwidth issues and, you know, all of that just crap that goes on.
	And if, you know, if I have to update another XML file with the feed, I mean, it just drives me completely mental to have to do it.
	But it is necessary because, you know, like anything that you do, right?
	I mean, if you're If you're on a tour and you're a rock star, you travel for two days to do a 90-minute show or a two-hour show, right?
	And most of that is just sitting around getting jet lag and all that, right?
	And then you go and you do your show and then you go to some other city and whatever, right?
	But just sitting on the bus feeling vaguely carsick most of the time and then you go and do a show and that's the nature of the beast, right?
	And this is certainly true in the theatre world, right?
	You'll rehearse for six to eight weeks for, you know, a five-day show sometimes, right?
	But the difference is that that discipline is generated from an internal desire, right?
	So, to me, it's the difference between...
	If you saw the movie...
	Oh, man.
	You know, the one with the crazy pianist, Ahmed Moolestal, was the father.
	I can't remember the name of the movie, but he was the guy.
	He showed up on the Oscars.
	I'm sure somebody will type it into the chat window.
	Shine! That's the name of the movie.
	If you've ever seen the movie Shine, the discipline is imposed by the father.
	And the father bullies the child into rehearsing.
	And this pushes the child, arguably, towards his breakdown.
	And so, if you want to be a great basketball player, and you will get up in the morning and do it, because you have a great desire, and you recognize that there are things that are necessary in order to achieve that, that you have to do your stretches, and you have to do your drills, and you have to do your layups, and you have to study the plays of the opposing team, and so on, then you will get up and do that.
	It's not like you'll like it, and you'll need some discipline to do it, but it's all predicated on your own personal desire to achieve a goal.
	If, on the other hand, to take a stereotypical example, you have a dad who's a failed basketball player and who regrets it every day of his life, who pushes his son to get up, get up, get up, and go practice, and this and that, right?
	That, to me, he will then say, you have to do it because discipline is important, and discipline, discipline.
	But desire means that you can do things that you don't necessarily want to do in order to achieve a goal.
	For sure. But...
	To have something imposed from you from outside for the satisfaction of someone else's wants when it's not internally generated, that's the kind of discipline that I'm talking about that is, I think, unhealthy.
	Okay, yeah, that makes sense.
	Wow. Either you people are being easy on me or I'm having good answers.
	That's good. I'm glad that was helpful and thank you again.
	That's a fantastic thing to bring up and I really appreciate that.
	Sure, no problem. Thanks for clarifying.
	And, let's see, guest C93E. Could you just tighten that up a little bit because we only have a few more minutes?
	Yeah, I read Andre Agassi's autobiography about the dad who drives him too hard.
	And, of course, we've seen Tiger Woods.
	His true self is finally pulling the switch on his lifestyle, right?
	Because... He doesn't want to be there.
	There's no better way to get out of doing this sort of stuff than to completely detonate your career and to have that breakthrough.
	This is just a guy saying, I'm done.
	Someone's just said, I've applied for a job as a teacher at a free school.
	And I was wondering if you had any thoughts on that particular educational philosophy.
	Well, other than offering a free quote school through FDR, I don't, I'm afraid, know enough about it to say anything remotely intelligent.
	So if you'd like to send me something, I would be happy to look at it, but I don't know enough about the education of the free school system to know, to say anything intelligent about it.
	All right, well, I will put out another picture.
	Oh, the pictures, it's all for the pictures.
	I'll just see if there's, just while we wait for any last questions.
	Hey, Steph? Hello.
	I have a question, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to make it concise enough for the end of the talk.
	We can go over a bit if you need to.
	Alright. There's this basic kind of sentiment I find within the community here at FDR that it's...
	It's kind of hard to survive in the world around us in a lot of ways like it's hard to make friends and it's hard to you know certainly people struggle with university and basically all the challenges of being fairly rational and I I mean I'm struggling with it a lot myself and I I'm kind of like I'm noticing,
	well, for me, the case is I've just, you know, socially isolated a lot to...
	I don't know.
	But I don't even know exactly how to express it, but I wonder, like, do you have advice on how to get past that?
	Can you tell me a little bit more about what you mean?
	Sure. I think...
	Partially it's a problem of optimism in a lot of ways.
	Like kind of the power of becoming an anarchist or a libertarian is that you're capable of shucking off alliances.
	And I think you've talked about it in despair in a lot of ways that Or it was in depression that you said that to try and kill off basically a rational person, you basically make them lose their ability to love or to love the world or to love people.
	And I've noticed that, certainly with myself, but with people in the chat where I'm here pretty regularly, that we just don't have a really strong love for the world as it is, you know? Sure. And your question is?
	How to achieve that?
	I mean, how to... How to achieve love for the world?
	Yeah. No, that's a fantastic question.
	And what do you think?
	Oh, I mean, I've heard your Utopia video, so I know that the premise is that it's a lot easier to love, sort of the potential for the future.
	Right. Sure.
	I think I could go off in a lot of different directions in it.
	I think if you have sort of a love of yourself and sort of an alliance within your own, you know, Miko system, it's probably a lot easier to handle the reality of the world as it is.
	Right. Well, the first thing that I would say is that you can't love the world as it is by willpower.
	You can't make yourself love the world, in my opinion.
	Because I think that we can only love virtue.
	And if you don't believe that the world is virtuous, then I don't think that you can make yourself love the world.
	I think it would be unhealthy to try, if that makes any sense.
	Yeah. So I think that's the first...
	The first reality, I think, to look at.
	You have to be empirical with regards to yourself and say, not should I love the world, but do I love the world?
	And if I don't love the world, why don't I love the world?
	And I think that there are some very good reasons not to love the world as a whole.
	And I think that the more that you're into philosophy, the more that it is, I think, the more you can make a good argument how tough it is to love the world.
	Because the world, as a whole, pretends to love reason and evidence and virtue, right?
	That's all people ever really talk about.
	And then, when you present to them reason and evidence that they don't like, they then change their story, right?
	Most people, anyway, in my experience.
	And so, there is a lot of hypocrisy in the world.
	And there is a lot of fear.
	And there is a lot of aggression in the world that is unjust and all of these sorts of things.
	And so I really, really do accept and understand your difficulty in loving the world, and I believe that I share it to a large degree.
	And so I would definitely say that it is a challenge.
	And I don't have it as my own goal to love the world.
	I just don't have that as a goal because it's not really under my power.
	It's like just picking, in a sense, it's like picking a random stranger and saying, my goal is to love you.
	Well, I don't have power over whether I'm going to love a random stranger, because I don't have power over the capacity of love within myself.
	That is something that is, I believe, summoned by the virtuous behavior of other people in my life.
	And I would love to love the world, but the world has to be better Than it is in order to garner my love, if that makes any sense.
	It just, it has to be better.
	Now, I could then say, well, I just, I'm not going to love the world because the world is not better.
	And, you know, damn it all to hell and become, you know, Joe Krabmeister, right?
	And that's, maybe that's right.
	I don't think it is, but maybe it is.
	But my choice is...
	To charge the world into being better.
	I want to create a world that's easy to love.
	I want to create the world where people want to meet their neighbors.
	I want to create a world where people are eager to go to parties.
	Where believing in the scraps of reason and evidence that we've been able to piece together in this conversation is not the mark of goddamn Cain on your forehead.
	It's not the scarlet letter on your forehead where you have to hide and suppress and dodge The valid rational and true beliefs that you hold for fear of offending the frightened, the aggressive, the irrational, the superstitious, the cultish, the patriotic, the religious, the statist.
	I want to do my part to create a world where the truth-tellers and the rational are not the ones who are ashamed to open their mouth and say what is on their minds, but rather The crazies are the ones who are afraid to open their mouth and say what is on their minds.
	And they know that and we know that which is why it's a win-lose proposition and why there is going to have to be quite a lot of suffering from irrational people if there will be a lot of suffering from irrational people if rational people win the day.
	Just as there is suffering for the rational people now that irrational people have won the day.
	And it is a win-lose proposition And that's why I get impatient sometimes and that's why I get angry and that's why I use war metaphors because I do believe that it is a war.
	And the irrational people don't want to give up their hold over the hearts and minds and guns of society.
	The priests don't want to give up.
	The politicians don't want to give up.
	The public sector workers don't want to give up.
	The bad parents don't want to give up their hold over things in this world.
	So it's a fight. They know what's at stake.
	I think sometimes we forget.
	I keep trying to remind myself.
	But it's a win-lose proposition.
	For reason to enter this world, many irrational people are going to have to suffer.
	There's just no way around it.
	And I find it surprising that people are surprised about this.
	I mean, libertarians the world over know that if they get their way, a lot of public sector workers are going to be out of a job.
	And they're going to be very angry, they're going to be very upset, they're going to be very hurt, they're going to be very bitter, and they're going to be very unprepared.
	And the same thing is true with irrational people as a whole.
	So irrational people currently run the world.
	That's as true in many ways now as now as it was back in the day of Socrates.
	And you can't love irrationality.
	You can't because it's manipulative and it's destructive and it's exploitive and it's harmful and it's toxic and it's abusive.
	So you can't love it.
	And it is a battle.
	It is a battle. Because Reason only wins with the rational.
	Reason does not win with the irrational.
	There are other things that win with the irrational, which we don't have to get into here, but there is a battle element to it, which is why I think that anger is a healthy emotion.
	So, I don't think that we can make ourselves love the world.
	The best that I have been able to do, and I'm not saying it's great, and I'm not saying it's my final destination, the best that I've been able to do It's to feel some sympathy, some sympathy for what people have experienced that has made them that irrational and that hypocritical and that false.
	And that to what degree they trumpet these virtues and then when asked to live by them they utterly fade and crumble like a sad old soap bubble wall.
	What they must have had to go through To clamor and trumpet in praise of virtue, and then when asked to live one tenth of one percent of the beliefs that they so wantonly want to inflict upon others, they crumble, fail, and attack those who have the temerity to ask them to live by what they treasure, what they claim to value.
	The best that I can come up with is some grudging sympathy for what they must have suffered to become such hypocrites.
	That's the best that I can do.
	Maybe it's not good enough, but I think it's pretty good.
	I think it's pretty good. Now, as far as loving the world goes, I wouldn't try and make myself do it at all.
	The way that I look at it is I look at it like I'm a man on a river.
	I'm squatting in a river, and the river is actually pretty cold, and there are biting turtles, and I don't have a cup.
	And I'm sitting in this river, and This silt and this mud and this sand is all washing past my feet.
	And there's lots of crap in the river.
	Leaves and twigs and dead birds.
	There's lots of crap in the river.
	And I have this pan, this pan with the sieve on the bottom, like a gold panning.
	And what I'm doing is I'm just sifting through.
	And you think of this like you're a gold panner.
	And of course I did this, so the metaphor is not entirely misplaced for me.
	And I've got all this crap going through my sieve.
	And half the time I'm picking out bird poo and dead leaves and rotten wood and stones and all that.
	And you just... I don't love that.
	I don't love that. I'm there for the gold.
	I am there for the gold.
	And now I'm not going to hate all the junk and detritus that...
	I have to pan through to get to the gold.
	I'm not going to hate all of that stuff, because that's just the nature of the beast.
	If you want the gold, you have to pan through a whole lot of sand.
	That's just the way it is.
	Gold is rare. Now, I don't think, given that most of my time is going to be getting crap out of my sieve and just throwing it back in the river, I don't think it makes much sense to say I'm only going to be happy when I'm in the presence of gold.
	I'm only going to be happy when I find that gold.
	Because that means that I'm going to spend most of my life unhappy.
	What I'm going to do is I'm going to say, the majority of my time is going to be non-gold.
	I'm there for the gold, and I love looking for it.
	I wish it were more common, but it's not yet.
	But where there is gold, and you understand, gold is not an individual.
	Gold is, in each mind, there is the possibility of gold.
	In other words, in each mind that you encounter, There is the possibility that you can spark and ignite some level of curiosity about truth and reason, philosophy, self-knowledge, the world, virtue, integrity, honesty, goodness.
	All of the things that make us truly blaze into a sunshine of light.
	And I spend a lot of time looking for that kind of gold In people.
	And trying to get them to see it.
	Because it doesn't matter if I can see it, if the other people can't.
	If other people can't. And I love the search for gold.
	I love the challenge of trying to find the gold.
	And when I find the gold, it's wonderful.
	Because if there were no gold, then you're just panning your bathtub and you're not going to get anything, right?
	But there is always the possibility of finding something that you can fan into, something that you can love.
	Or start to love. And I think that is the best that we can do at the moment.
	And if it's the best that we can do, I think that we should not regret that it's the only thing that we can do.
	I mean, as we were talking with the guy the other day, if you can only get 50% on a test, then 50% is a perfect score.
	And if the best that we can do in the world is to keep digging in the dirt and shaking the sand to find the gold, In people and in ourselves, then that is the greatest love that we can have in the world and for the world.
	And I think that is a very exciting venture.
	And I think, again, people in the future will thank us so much for doing what we're doing.
	But I certainly do agree with you that it is a challenge.
	It is a big challenge.
	And I look for scraps of reason.
	I look for scraps of the true self.
	I look for the gold and the silt and the slag and the crap And in that gold is the faint echoes of the original soul shining through all of the crap that society heaps on it to control, to subjugate, to manage, to exploit,
	to plunder. I look for the amazing, amazing strength and resilience of the original soul and I find a way as best I can to put 90,000 volts of thought through that and to bring it back to life.
	And often enough, often enough, It does come back to life.
	And that is a resurrection that we should be enormously proud of.
	And I know it's not a lot, but it is the very best, I think, that can be done.
	And we are incredibly fortunate to have the tools to do it.
	Does that help at all?
	Yeah, that's what I was looking for, Steph.
	Okay, good, good.
	Alright, well listen, I'm going to get back to some A little bit of parenting here, but I really, really want to thank everyone.
	A fantastic show. You know, as I said, these Sunday shows are just meat and drink to my week.
	And it is amazing the degree to which we have fantastic things to talk about even now after years of doing these shows.
	And I don't see any end in sight.
	And so I just want to thank everybody so much for joining, for listening, for supporting.
	If you do have some shekels, the post-Christmas crush can be a little tough on the FDR income.
	So if you can throw a little bit my way, I would certainly appreciate that.
	There is, in all of this poetry, there is some pragmatics of meat and drink.
	But I would certainly appreciate it if you can.
	And thank you, of course, so much for everyone who supports this conversation, this amazing, amazing conversation.
	And thank you so much for those who are dropping by to listen to The Sunday Show.
	And have yourselves an absolutely fantastic week.

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