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April 25, 2010 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:55:42

1650 Freedomain Radio Sunday Show, 25 April 2010

A role play with a distant father, the philosophy of the word 'because' - and more on my ethical theory of universally preferable behavior (UPB)...

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	Hi everybody, it's Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Aid Radio.
	It is the 25th of April 2010.
	I was thinking of moving the barbecue a little forward because the talk in California has been shifted to October, so I was thinking of moving it forward to July, early July, I guess July 4th.
	A lot of people have off in the U.S. We'll post that on the board, but let me know what you think.
	If there's not that much interest, we'll keep it where it is, but it's just a possibility.
	So, for many years now, I have been arguing about That destructive, toxic, negative, or abusive relationships are bad for you.
	And not just in terms of your soul, so to speak, but also in terms of your health.
	Well, some research appears to be catching up, as it often does, to what philosophy makes self-evident from first principles.
	And there's been a story for quite some time that marriage is good for your health.
	You know, if you get married, you'll live longer, fewer illnesses, less risk for diabetes and depression and all this kind of stuff.
	And that has been further refined recently to good marriages.
	So, effects of marital discord.
	Now, they don't talk, of course, about families here.
	How could they, right?
	Too explosive, still, for us to focus on that directly, except here, out here in the Wild West of the Internet.
	But a marriage is a chosen relationship, and if there's lots of discord, we can assume that non-chosen relationships, i.e.
	parent-child relationships, which have significant discord, would be even more negative or deleterious to your health.
	So effects of marital discord have now been measured on the body, and there are a number of significant issues.
	So they ask couples, so they sit couples down, and they ask them to have a conversation about typical discordant things within marriage, like sex and housework and money and things like that.
	And the couples that have stress, that have conflicts, that have ugliness in their conversations, and we can assume that it's better when they're being videotaped in quasi-public than if they're at home alone.
	But very rapidly, effects of marital discord create documented, elevated risks of heart disease.
	Wounds on the skin take longer to heal.
	There was this little wound that was left on the skin, and when couples had a fight, it took an extra day to heal.
	Immune system weakens.
	Herpes outbreaks may be triggered.
	There is an increased risk of depression, increased risk of mood swings, elevated stress hormones, elevated risk of diabetes.
	And the research that has recently come out indicates that A stressful marriage can be as bad for the heart as a regular smoking habit.
	And I will post this on the message board, but I really wanted to talk about this just very briefly.
	Just to mention that A, it's really important who you get married to.
	One of the most important decisions that you would ever make in your life is who to get married to.
	But if we put in the helplessness and involuntarism of family relations, if they're destructive or abusive, we could assume that these negative effects are worse.
	So, of course, if I were to say to people, you should quit smoking because it's bad for your heart, which it is.
	Everyone thinks it's the lungs, and of course it is, but it's also the heart.
	But if I say to people, you should quit smoking, you should quit having a relationship with tobacco because tobacco is toxic to your system, people wouldn't be shocked, right?
	But if I say to people, I suggest that it is advantageous to get rid of relationships that cannot be reformed or salvaged or turned into a non-toxic relationship, For your psychological as well as your physical health, people are all kinds of sharks.
	It's just because we still have this weird mind-body split.
	Like, toxic tobacco is something that you should absolutely not have in your life.
	Toxic relationships, on the other hand, you can't possibly leave them.
	Anyway, it's fascinating and sad, the degree to which this still remains unknown or misunderstood within society.
	But, you know, it's important to be patient.
	These kinds of shifts do take time and I'm certainly looking forward.
	I don't think the research is going to be imminent because people just don't want to touch this stuff.
	But to me, it would be absolutely fascinating to hook up parents and children to exactly these same kinds of situations and have them have discussions about rules and housework and cleaning and chores and other things which can cause parental child conflicts and find out the degree to which the children's health can be compromised and the parents, of course, through toxic or destructive or negative interactions.
	That to me would be very important.
	I am absolutely not holding my breath for that research to occur because it remains a radioactive topic that people simply have a very tough time getting a hold of, getting their teeth into.
	But it is a sad fact of life that the most toxic substance that most of us are ever around is other human beings.
	I don't mean to sound like I'm coming out of Satra's no exit, you know, hell is other people, but this is the scientific reality.
	So I just sort of wanted to mention that as something to keep in mind.
	When you look at the relationships in your life, that it is potentially causing significant harm to you to be around toxic or destructive people.
	So I always say, try your very, very best.
	To improve your relationships.
	And if you can't improve your relationships, there are consequences to staying.
	And I think that's very, very important to remember and to try and figure out.
	Well, that's it for my introduction.
	I have put out a new script for those who are interested on heroism and comic books, which I'm looking forward to recording this week.
	But I am now open for listener comments, issues, questions.
	I had an email from a fellow I hope dropped by who had a dream that he wanted to talk about, which we can perhaps do.
	But if you have questions, issues, comments, or anything that you think philosophy might be able to help you with, please speak up with the now.
	I would like to talk to you, Steph.
	Sure. Yeah.
	I... I just had a minor correction from the last call, from the call last week.
	My son is not, my youngest son is not seven, he's eight and half a year.
	Oh my god, now I have to go back and change everything that I said.
	Sorry, come on. Yeah.
	No, the real topic I would like to talk about is the childhood experience with my father.
	I found it very I'm engaging and interesting and thought-provoking to talk about you this last time, but I was not quite prepared.
	And now the week has given me some time to think about an issue.
	That is still bothering me.
	It has to do with the concept that I learned from you that it is possible to have feelings from another person or feelings that work in the interest of the other person and not in my self-interest.
	I don't know if that is applicable in my case, but I think that's confusing me in the case here.
	The way I wanted to approach this is I wanted to share two instances that I found very typical of destructive interactions between me and my father.
	And then I wanted to talk about the feelings that I have that I'm not sure what they mean and how to process them.
	So the first instance would be that I maybe was 17 years old and I had gotten interested in psychology and had read books about psychology from the library.
	And was talking about it at home.
	And then my father would say that psychology or psychotherapy is not useful because it cannot change people.
	And that was not a statement out of the blue because prior to that we had frequent discussions about his interrupting all the time, conversations between other members of the family.
	And we would ask him to wait until there was a time to interrupt.
	And he would refuse because he would say that he was just that way and he couldn't change.
	So there was an issue about changing.
	And then Well then he said psychology cannot change people and after a while I had read some interesting case study in a book and there was in my judgment showing up very clearly signs of deep change within a person or a family and then I would bring this to him and his answer would be that Yeah,
	there is change, but that's not a change of the person.
	It's just a change in behavior.
	And yeah, so that was one instance.
	And I think for me, I would get mad at his response because, I mean, now in hindsight, I can see it more clearly how manipulative and how evading and how hypocritical this answer was.
	But at the time, I just felt like he had hit me in the stomach.
	And I was angry and confused, but I couldn't see through his maneuver.
	And yeah, so I got confused and very angry at him.
	Sorry, and I think that means that you were getting something...
	Emotionally, and I mean, as you know, I have a massive respect for the instincts and the emotions, and I promise not to interrupt and take over this story, but I have a massive amount of respect for the instincts and the emotions, which are so often far more rational than the conscious mind.
	So your emotions in that moment with your father, my guess would be...
	Got, as you said, that was something hypocritical and slimy.
	And what is it that you think now, since I know you couldn't articulate it at the time, and if you'd been in a safer environment, you probably could have, but what do you think you were reacting to in that moment?
	Well, my evaluation of this interaction today would be that I just needed a second to think.
	Oh, it's tricky. It's a tricky thing.
	So it is tough to unwrap, for sure.
	I'm just a bit excited that I'm talking here, and so I need to focus a little.
	Let me try taking a swing at it, and then you can tell me whether, unless you would like to keep going.
	I can take a swing at it. No, no, I... I have this.
	Just a second.
	I think what I got was his utter and determined hostility towards my curiosity about what psychology can do with people.
	And of course also he was very much determined to To destroy the possibility that people can be changing because then he would stand there as a coward who had failed to change and failed to make adjustments when it is very well possible and that his excuses before would be invalid.
	And I think all this He got that I was discovering possibilities that he wanted to get me off this trail.
	So it was, I think, a very intense fight, in a sense, that I was curious about some possibilities that would threaten him.
	And he was very determined to thwart my curiosity.
	That would be my estimation of this.
	Right, right. Well, I mean, I agree with you on many of those points.
	There are two points that I would disagree with.
	The first is that you said that he wanted to thwart your curiosity about psychology and he wanted to do this to you and this and that to you.
	I don't believe that that is true.
	And you understand, this is just my nonsense opinion, but I just, and I'll tell you why.
	Because I don't think it was about you.
	You know, one of the really chilling things that I think people have to deal with if they have these kinds of distant and critical people in their lives, whether it's parents or whatever, is the degree to which when we're children, we personalize these things.
	Well, she's mad at me.
	She's upset with me. He's upset.
	But at least for me, as I got older, one of the things that I found very liberating was that it had nothing to do with me, fundamentally.
	And again, I can't answer that for you.
	I just sort of put that out as a possibility.
	But... I think what you were reacting to in such a visceral way was the contradiction was right there in the moment.
	Right? So let's depersonalize it a bit and let's talk about you and me.
	So I come up to you and I say...
	No, you come up to me and you say, Steph, people are capable of change.
	And I tell you, you are not correct and you should stop trying to get me to believe that.
	Right? Well, what am I saying?
	I'm saying that you should change.
	Yeah. Because this is really important, and I think you've been a blessing over it.
	If you come up to me and say, Steph, people are capable of change, and I say, no, they're not.
	You should stop asking me that.
	You should stop thinking that they are.
	I'm saying to you, you should change, because people are incapable of change.
	Yeah. That is a massive contradiction, right?
	Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I think that's what's so enraging at the moment.
	It is such a contradiction.
	I mean, fundamentally, it's the determinist argument all over again, right?
	And I think that's probably what drove you kind of crazy.
	The other thing, too, is that did your father try to get other people to change their thoughts or behaviors when he was around or when he was a parent and you were a kid?
	Yeah, of course. When you were a kid, you should do this and you shouldn't do that.
	Yeah, he would constantly nag.
	Right. So how does that fit with people can't change?
	Because if he spends his whole life trying to change you, if you're capable of change as a little kid, then surely he's capable of change as a mature and educated and intelligent adult, right?
	Or any kind of adult for that matter, right?
	Mm-hmm. I feel like you're glossing over this stuff.
	I'm not sure exactly why.
	What do you mean, glossing over this stuff?
	Like you're mm-hmming me, but I think this is more than...
	No, I think...
	It's not criticism, I'm just sharing my experience.
	No, but I'm thinking, I mean, that's very true, and I see it.
	I saw it right when you first started to talk about this.
	All right, can we try a role?
	Okay, yeah. Okay, so I'll be you, and you'll be your dad.
	How's that? Okay.
	Okay. I'm not going to do you as a boy.
	Hello, Father! Anyway, so I'll just try this, right?
	So I come up to you and I say, Dad, I'm really, really interested and excited by psychology and its capacity to effect change within people or give them the tools by which they can change their behavior.
	What do you think? Yeah, I mean, that's not working.
	People can't change. Oh, so people can't change.
	That's like a universal statement?
	Yes. Oh, that's fascinating.
	So wait, so does that mean that you accept that I can't change?
	Yeah, you could say.
	No, this is not a could say.
	You just said it was a universal statement.
	I'm just trying to understand what you mean.
	So do you accept, or is it true then, that I cannot change?
	Yes, in a sense, yeah.
	You cannot change, yeah. Okay, so can you help me to understand why it is that you seem to be expending a lot of effort to get me to change things, things that I believe or things that I do or things that I say?
	You're quite critical, which means that you think that I should change certain things in my life.
	So I'm just trying to help, just help me to understand how when you say, I can't change, that fits with you spending a lot of effort trying to change me.
	Yeah, when I say people can change, I mean that the personality cannot change.
	That's the general way how they are cannot change.
	But of course you can decide to do this or to do that and to follow rule or not.
	So there's a distinction.
	And when I nag you or remind you of stuff, then I think you can remember this and maybe next time you do it better.
	But the way people are cannot change.
	I'm not sure what you mean when you say the way people are.
	So I can change what I do.
	I can also change what I think.
	And you're saying there's some other part of me that can't be changed.
	And I'm not sure what that means.
	Yeah. I mean, I'm...
	Take me as an example.
	I'm very anxious when it comes to rejection.
	And I think that can change.
	It will always be the case.
	That can't change?
	Yes. Okay.
	So does that mean that you have never legitimately criticized me for emotional states that I have?
	Let me make it easier for you, Dad.
	What is it about me that you accept as unchangeable?
	Yeah, you're just this bookworm and very interested in all theories and you will end up sitting in a room and reading books and I think that's not going to change.
	Okay, but you have just described activities, but you said that activities can change, and what you described in yourself is emotional states.
	So what emotional states in me do you accept are unchangeable?
	You're not funny.
	you that's not an emotional state.
	You know what?
	I think you're trying to nail me here, and I don't like this.
	I mean, it's difficult, but it's clear that there's a distinction, and I can't say this here right where the line is, but I mean, it's obvious that there's a distinction.
	A distinction between what?
	Sorry, a distinction between what?
	An action and the personality or the general patterns of a person.
	Alright, so you don't want to answer anything specific about me.
	That's okay. We can come back to that another time.
	Perhaps what you could do, Dad, and I appreciate you having the patience because I really do want to understand how it is that you think and what it is that you think.
	I really do want to understand your philosophy about these things because you're a big authority figure.
	You've had a lot of influence over me and it's very important for me to understand your thinking in this area so that I can make sense of where you're coming from and that's very, very important to me.
	To talk about this stuff.
	But I was wondering if you could tell me then, if you don't want to talk about the things in me that cannot change, I was wondering if you could talk about the things in you which can change.
	Yeah.
	What can change in me?
	Well, I...
	Well, when I first had this function at work in which I had to give speeches, I was very anxious about this.
	But I learned to cope with it.
	Now I'm relaxed when I have to make a speech and I don't even prepare and so that's a change.
	Okay, I appreciate that.
	And I'm really not trying to get you.
	I'm just trying to understand. Because earlier you said that your anxiety about rejection, social rejection, couldn't change.
	But I think you've just given me an example about how your anxiety about a fear of rejection, I guess, from your audience has changed.
	And I'm just trying to understand the difference between the two.
	Okay. Again, Again, I appreciate your patience, and I know this stuff is tough to figure out, but it really is enormously helpful for me that you're spending the time.
	I guess, well, yeah.
	I mean, what...
	Do you want me to ask the question again?
	No, I know the question.
	I'm thinking about it. Okay, no problem.
	Take your time. It's a good question.
	It makes sense, the question.
	Well, I learned to cope with this situation, making a speech.
	And it's about social anxiety.
	That's right. But I think...
	I mean, I don't have a lot of friends.
	And I'm not very social.
	And I'm not...
	I don't like to go to big meetings or social events and I think that's not going to change.
	Okay, so certain preferences that you have aren't going to change.
	Is that fair to say?
	Like you're not going to suddenly start getting into ska or punk rock.
	You're going to like the music that you like.
	And I think that's fair.
	I mean, if you like classical music, you're not likely to wake up when you're 70 and get into thrash metal punk country or something.
	I appreciate and I understand that.
	So, I was wondering if you could perhaps tell me a little bit, because what you've talked about in terms of changing is something that you wanted to change in yourself, like you wanted to speak more fluently and effectively in public settings.
	I wonder if you could tell me, since as a father, as an authority figure, you have spent a lot of time, I'm not saying I begrudge it, I'm just saying it's a fact that you spent a lot of time attempting to correct things in me, So I think we can assume that there's a difference between the things that we want to change in ourselves and the things that other people want us to change,
	right? Because you've spent a lot of time trying to get me to change to conform to things that you think are helpful or important, and I'm not saying that they're not.
	So there's a difference between what you've described, which is something that you wanted to change for yourself because of the consequences to you.
	I was wondering if you could tell me What is possible to change within you that other people would want to change?
	Because that's been your approach as a father, right?
	That you want things to change within me.
	I'm not saying unjustly or badly, but these are not things that I innately wanted to do, like eat candy and stay up late, because nobody needs to nag a kid to do that.
	But there is a category where things will change within you because other people...
	Want to. And you don't have that desire to change within yourself, you just kind of have to accept that other people want those things to change, and therefore you should change them and you'll figure it out as you go along.
	So what is it in you that, for instance, I could influence you to change?
	I don't know.
	Let me bring something up.
	When I came up to you quite enthusiastic about psychology, you told me that people can't change and you had no interest.
	You seem to have no interest in the topic, right?
	Well, I have an interest because I think that the ability to change people By psychotherapy is often overestimated.
	And how do you know that?
	Well, what I read in magazines, and I mean, people talk about this psychology stuff even at work, and they seem to be very enthusiastic about it, and I think that's naïve.
	Sorry, so you're saying that you've read scientific articles that say that psychotherapy does not cause changes or fundamental changes in people.
	No, no, I didn't read scientific articles.
	But I mean, the results of scientific studies by scientific journalists are transferred in the pop literature.
	And that's also, I think, a valid way of picking up information.
	Okay, so you're saying that you've read articles that say that psychotherapy doesn't have any real capacity to change people?
	Yes, yes.
	And have you read any other articles that have a different view?
	Yeah, I've seen presented also this opinion, but it didn't convince me.
	But you understand that there's two sides to the argument, right?
	Yeah. So you understand it's kind of frustrating when you have contradictory information and I come up to you with some enthusiasm and you say to me, as if there's no contradictory information, you say to me, psychology can't change people.
	People don't change. As if it's just a basic and obvious fact, like the world is round and birds fly through the air.
	We were talking about things that you would change based upon Some outside influence, right?
	I would prefer it that when I bring up something that I'm enthusiastic about, that you perhaps take 10 to 15 seconds or more, I think would be even better, to listen to me and find out what it is that I'm enthusiastic about.
	And if you're going to present contradictory information, at least be honest enough to tell me that it's complex, that it's not obvious, that it's not simple, that it's not, well, people don't change, right?
	Can you understand how that made kind of frustrating and upsetting for me?
	Yeah, I understand this, but, well, I think you're a bit touchy.
	Sorry, so you think that it wasn't the best way to handle it, and now you're kind of putting me down?
	You're saying it's my sensitivity, not the fact that you might have been a bit rude and peremptory or abrupt in your response to what I was saying?
	Yeah, I think it's...
	I mean... I think that's...
	Also, if I'm a bit touchy and you say that people can't change, what's the point of telling me that?
	Well, I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say.
	I'm telling you what I would prefer as your son.
	When I come up to you and I'm enthusiastic about something, that you don't just drop a negative bomb on it.
	Which is in contradiction to what you have read about the subject, but rather spend some time trying to figure out what is causing me to become interested or excited by this.
	To actually ask me some questions, rather than the moment I come up with something I'm enthusiastic about, immediately start talking about your own opinions.
	especially when you present those opinions as if they're fact, when you actually know better.
	Maybe I can remember this next time and then be more cautious.
	I'm going to go to the next slide.
	No, no. I'm not asking you to be more cautious.
	I think that what you did, if you don't mind me saying so, was kind of rude.
	Because you made it about your opinions rather than my enthusiasm.
	You didn't ask me any questions.
	And you gave me a conclusion that was completely the opposite of my enthusiasm when you actually have read that it's not true.
	Or at least it's not certainly true that I'm wrong.
	That's kind of rude, right?
	And it's certainly not very honest.
	And it's certainly not very curious or respectful towards me and what I'm enthusiastic about.
	Well, now I'm feeling accused.
	You're taking this every word so earnestly.
	Should I carry a rule book with me?
	I don't know what to do with it.
	Well, the first thing that I would prefer is I think that you were kind of rude.
	I'm not saying it was the end of the world, but I think it was kind of rude.
	I think it was a little defensive.
	I don't think it was very honest.
	And I feel quite dissatisfied with how you reacted to my enthusiasm.
	And the reason I'm bringing this stuff up, Dad, is I don't want to pin you against the wall and make you angry or upset.
	I tell you why I'm doing this.
	The reason why I'm bringing this up and sticking by what I think are fair principles of interaction.
	The reason that I'm doing this, Dad, is I really, really, really want to preserve my desire to share my thoughts and feelings with you.
	I'm fighting hard to preserve my My desire to share what I'm enthusiastic about with you.
	And I can tell you for sure that if I keep having interactions like this, I am very quickly going to not want to share my enthusiasms with you.
	And I'm sure you can understand why.
	And we've already talked about it, right?
	And I don't think there's anyone in the world who would face that kind of negativity in their enthusiasm and still want to continue to be enthusiastic and share those enthusiasms.
	I'm fighting hard so that I can keep Wanting to share things with you that I'm thinking and feeling.
	That's why I'm sticking by my guns here.
	Because I don't want to the next time I feel enthusiastic about something.
	I take a yoga class.
	And I come up to you and I say, I just took this yoga class.
	It was really fantastic. And you say, yoga is bullshit.
	I will think about that.
	I'm not saying that's exactly what you said.
	But you know what I mean, right? The next time I'm enthusiastic about something, I really want to feel the desire to come and share my enthusiasm with you.
	But I'm telling you I won't feel that if I continue to have these negative responses to my enthusiasms.
	So I'm really trying to work hard, I'm fighting hard to keep this communication open.
	I know it feels like I'm trying to corner you and maybe it feels that way, but really what I'm trying to do is to fiercely guard my enthusiasm for talking with you.
	Well, I don't understand what's so important for you about this.
	I know you don't understand what's so important.
	That's why I'm trying to have the lines of communication stay open.
	So, I was very interested, and I still am, in psychology, right?
	And you don't know why I'm interested in psychology, because you just immediately said, psychology is crap, nobody changes.
	So you didn't ask me any questions about...
	What I was enthusiastic about, right?
	And so it's true that you don't know why this is important to me.
	You don't know why I was enthusiastic about psychology.
	And what I'm saying is I really want to have these conversations with you, but I need you to not, you know, pour a ton of bricks on my little enthusiastic kitten, so to speak, so that I can actually have these conversations with you, if that makes sense, right? so that I can actually have these conversations with you, I mean, I'm not saying you have to agree with me, but can you at least sort of understand where I'm coming from, that it's tough to want to share your enthusiasm with someone who kind of tells you it's all crap right up front and doesn't ask you any questions?
	Yeah, I can understand this.
	yeah. Okay.
	Fantastic. Fantastic.
	And so you will at least think about doing it in a different way if I come up and I'm enthusiastic about something else?
	Yes. Yes. All right.
	Fantastic. And just to break out of the roleplay, here's where I would stop.
	I was actually thinking earlier of pushing for an apology because I think an apology would be really helpful, but I didn't think that your dad would go there at this particular time.
	So I think that's as far as it could go.
	What do you think? Yeah, I think I had quite a similar patterned interaction with my dad.
	It was amazing.
	I had even gotten to this point that he admitted, but he didn't change his manner.
	And he said that right up front, people don't change.
	He said that people are very honest.
	All you have to do is actually listen to people and they're incredibly honest.
	He said, I'm not going to change.
	He's not talking about people. He's not talking about psychology.
	He's saying, I'm not going to change.
	And how was the role play for you?
	How did you feel?
	How do you feel now? Yeah, it was fascinating how closed his heart was.
	He wouldn't let him be affected by the passion of his son.
	That I felt very clearly.
	So I could say, yes, I can do it next time differently, but I wasn't committed.
	No, and I got that he wasn't going to do it any differently next time.
	At least that was my perception or experience, because otherwise he would have apologized, right?
	Yes. Yeah.
	He didn't get the damage to the relationship.
	He just wasn't...
	There was no relationship.
	It was all about him.
	Right. And he wasn't willing to say, here's what I felt when you came in enthusiastic.
	I felt anxiety.
	I felt this. I felt that, right?
	And he also didn't say, and I'm sorry, just to point out, he also didn't say, he didn't say, you know, I can totally understand how it would be really frustrating for me to give you all of these rules when you were a kid and then to say people don't change.
	And then when I tried to explain it to make all kinds of logical and factual mistakes, so to appear like I don't know what the hell I'm talking about after having inflicted rules on you for so long, right?
	If he'd said that, it would have been like, wow, fantastic, what a breakthrough, right?
	But it certainly felt to me like he was just really being positional, like he just wanted to not concede any points unless he absolutely had to, and he wasn't going to apologize, and he was going to blame you if at all possible, and so on.
	No, he never apologized once in his whole life to me.
	And I'm telling you, I mean, I apologize to my daughter at least once a week.
	You know, it's just even things, I mean, things I do accidentally, right?
	You know, like I'm trying to help her not fall, and then she falls, right?
	I'm, oh, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, right?
	Oh, I'm so sorry, right? Or if I have to put her into her car seat when she doesn't want to go, I'm sorry.
	I mean, I spend a lot of time apologizing as a parent.
	I think that's a natural.
	And I do even as a husband.
	So I think that's, to me, a life without apologies is a completely defensive life.
	I just can't imagine how you could go through a life without apologizing.
	In a sense, left, right, and set. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	I'm still at the point where you said, it's not about me.
	And I get this, but the problem for me is, it is at me.
	And so there's an interaction, and it's energy towards me, and it's destruction towards me.
	And so I'm entangled with him.
	Although I know it's only about his defensiveness and his childhood and he's circling around himself.
	I know this. I'm the stimulus that has to be defended against.
	And so he's interacting with me in a sense.
	Not me personally, but just the stimulus I am with my passion and my curiosity.
	Well, let's go back to the roleplay, because this is, I think, what is so helpful about these kinds of roleplays, is that when you were playing your father, how curious were you about me, as you were?
	Not at all. Not at all.
	In fact, you were actively avoiding everything that I was saying.
	And you were continuing to insult me as your father, right?
	Oversensitive. And I go, I guess I'll just be cautious because you're so nutty and crazy.
	I'm supposed to have a bunch of rules and all that, right?
	I mean, it was very insulting, right?
	Yeah. So, the reason why role plays are very important, and these kinds of ecosystem conversations, in my opinion, are very important, is that they really help us to understand the degree to which we show up for other people.
	Like, do you...
	And at no point did I feel visible in that conversation.
	At no point did I feel that any relaxation in the tension or defensiveness on the part of your father.
	It's just my feelings, right?
	Because I don't know your dad.
	I'm just telling you what I experienced because I don't know the facts, right?
	And there's no truth in this other than this is what I actually experienced.
	But I did not experience that your father was willing to concede a point, was willing to own up to a contradiction, was willing to apologize for the dishonesty of saying no one can change when he's actually read articles that claim both things.
	I mean, that's just dishonest, fundamentally.
	And not to say, you know what, I reacted to that strongly, and I'm sorry, right?
	That was not the right thing to do.
	Right? So, at no point, and I began to, I had to fight getting more angry during that conversation.
	I mean, I really wanted to go for your dad during that role play.
	Like, I really just wanted to corner him and say, wait a sec, you inflicted all of these rules on me, and you don't even know how to define them?
	Are you kidding me? Uh-huh.
	I did this. Of course, of course you did, right?
	And the reason that I did that, and this is what I always, always, always say to people, right?
	The reason that I did that, that I didn't do that, rather, I didn't lose my temper and go for the jugular.
	And of course, this is how I would handle one of the first conversations with a parent or with someone in my life I had significant problems with, because I want to give every possibility for positive change.
	I really want to give every possibility for positive change.
	That way, either the relationship gets better, fantastic, or it doesn't.
	In which case, I can at least look back and say, hey, I gave every opportunity.
	For this person, there was a buffet, and if they chose to starve to death, I can't spend my whole day force-feeding them, right?
	So that's what I would do.
	And then what I would be persistent, right?
	So if the next day or the next week, the same thing happened again, I would say, okay, wait a sec, Dad.
	We just had this conversation last week.
	Can you see how this applies to this situation?
	And so on. And just, again, try and be as positive.
	And I really did want to have the opportunity to be enthusiastic with your dad, so to speak.
	And I mean, wouldn't that be great?
	If that could be achieved.
	But that's why I didn't go that other route, although I can certainly understand the temptation.
	But I think if you want to know the degree to which it's about you, just remember what it was like to be your dad in that conversation.
	And And to me, I did not feel visible.
	I felt managed. I felt insulted.
	I felt controlled. I felt distanced from.
	And I felt a lot of anger on the part of your dad for even being questioned.
	And I really got that he was never going to admit any kind of faults or contradiction.
	And that is entirely about him.
	That has nothing to do with empathy for the other person.
	No, of course.
	Then I understand what you're saying and I completely agree.
	I'm not saying that releases everything because we're still tangled.
	We're all tangled psychologically with our families no matter what, right?
	But I hope that gives you some sense of that.
	I mean, I certainly did a lot of role plays with my own family members when I was in therapy and also in my journal.
	And I completely got after a number of them.
	And it's worth doing them in your head.
	You can do them with friends. You can do them in your journal.
	It's worth doing these role plays.
	And when you're in the...
	Alter ego of your parent or whoever it is that you're doing the role plays with, just try to get a sense of whether you're even visible in that, or whether you're just some pawn to be moved around to avoid admitting fault.
	And I think that can be really helpful.
	Can I ask another question?
	Sure. Because, I mean, it's related to this, because I wanted to get to the feelings, and I have this...
	When I talk about this stuff, and share these stories, then there is...
	I have...
	How should I say this?
	It feels like a knot of feelings.
	Over my heart.
	And there is pain in there.
	There is disgust in there.
	There is rage in there.
	It feels like I'm suffocating in a sense.
	And it feels that it's in my body.
	It's not that I really feel this knot.
	But I can discern the qualities in there.
	And it's all mixed together. And it's always when I talk about this, and I'm not sure that's what I was talking about in the beginning.
	Is that his feeling of reacting to me?
	Or is it my feeling reacting to him?
	And why is it so hollow and not so connected?
	It's strange. Maybe you have some idea what is this.
	Right, right. Well, I don't know.
	Obviously, I'm just a guy on the web, but I can tell you what I think, and you can take it for what it's worth.
	Your dad, in that roleplay, seemed to get very tense when principals came along.
	Yes. Does that make sense to you?
	Yeah, totally. So tell me what your experience was of roleplaying your dad when principals came along.
	When I would accept that there are valid principles, then I would have to submit to them.
	And that would cut my arbitrariness and my room for defense.
	Right. You can't manipulate.
	Manipulation is the opposite of principles, and principles are the opposite of manipulation, right?
	Which is why, you know, priests don't jump out of buildings and pray for God to catch them, right?
	Because you can't manipulate gravity.
	You can only manipulate little children, right?
	And so on. Okay, so...
	So I think it's worth taking some time to dwell in that emotional space of what it is like for your father when principals come to town, right?
	Because... A, that's very important for you to figure out your family, and B, it's very important to figure out society, because it's not like your dad is the last person you're ever going to meet who's going to be hostile to the limiting power of principles, right?
	Yeah. I have this feeling not also when I discuss with irrational people, so it's the same.
	Everybody gets really tense about principles, because principles limit action, and when you limit action, you limit acting out.
	When you limit what you can do, and then when you limit acting out, you can't project.
	So principles means that you can't act out.
	When you can't act out, it means you can't project that it's all the other person's fault.
	You can't put all of your bad feelings into the other person.
	What that means is that all the bad feelings come back to you, and you have to deal with them, and people really don't want to do that, because that's very difficult.
	You're basically asking them to drink a big vat of horse piss.
	Basically, that's what it sort of feels like, right?
	And so people don't want principles.
	Yeah, because principles lead inevitably to self-knowledge, right?
	Because you can't blame other people.
	You can't externalize. You can't project.
	You can't act out once you have principles.
	Or if you do, you can be restrained according to those principles.
	So people violently resist principles because principles lead to self-knowledge, to the reality that it is our own emotions that we have to deal with.
	And so... When you begin to bring into your relationships principles, people get very tense, very frightened, very angry.
	And they will attempt to get you to feel that so that you will drop those principles.
	You've got this sword in your hand, and you step into the arena, and there's a magic spell that makes the sword turn into, like it becomes 500 degrees, the sword handle, and immediately you throw it down.
	And that's what people try to fill you up with all of their anxiety and their rage and their fear about principles.
	They try and fill you up so that it becomes unbearable to be around them and have principles.
	Right? And then they'll say, you can't leave.
	And therefore, you have to let go of the principles.
	And so I would really focus on that.
	And you can just do this again, role play, journaling, therapy, whatever it is that you're doing, and all of them is great.
	If you want to figure out what are your feelings and what are the other person's feelings, my rule of thumb has always been, if I'm in an interaction, what is beneficial to me?
	So I remember, it doesn't matter the details, and I'll just give you an example from a business environment.
	So I was in a business environment where the company claimed that it could install its software within three months.
	And I had just come back from a meeting with the head of implementation, who said that they were pushing 24 months in one company, and they still weren't finished.
	And that was their biggest installation.
	And there was another company, they were at 18 months, and they still weren't finished, right?
	And we were at a meeting.
	The board of executives was at the meeting with the investors.
	Now, of course, the investors had put the money in some time back before all of these implementations started.
	And around the table, it was asked, do you have any input?
	Do you have any concerns or any issues that you want to bring up?
	And I was pretty new to the company.
	I've been there, I think, only about six weeks.
	And... The CEO looked at me and he knew I'd been talking to the head of implementation.
	And in his face was real terror.
	For obvious reasons, right?
	If I were to say to the investors, well, wait a minute, we sell this thing for three months and it's, you know, six to eight times longer and still not done, we've got a problem.
	They would be really upset because they invested their money on a certain expectation of return, which if, you know, as soon as you touch labor to software, the profits go down enormously.
	And his fear came into me in that moment.
	I became afraid of opening my mouth and saying something, right?
	And I became afraid of retribution afterwards, and I became afraid of all of the things that are natural to the situation.
	And so I had a desire to speak the truth.
	I had a desire to bring, as I was paid really good money to do, to bring the realities of the problems to the table.
	So that they could be dealt with.
	But it was against, in a sense, it was against everyone else's interests, even the investors, because the investors would then have to go back to their company and say, holy crap, right?
	This has been hidden from us for some time, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
	And they then looked bad.
	So everybody around the table knew what I was about to say and really, really didn't want me to say it.
	Yeah. And that's how we get this stupid thing called ambivalence, right?
	I can imagine.
	And so, do you know what I did?
	No. I can tell you what I did.
	I didn't say it would. Because it's pointless.
	If nobody in the management team wants this fact out in the open, what's the point?
	I mean, no one's going to act on it.
	They're all just going to explain it away or hide it up or gang back up on me or whatever, right?
	Now, if there was someone who said, no, I really need to know, and that someone had some kind of power, then yeah.
	I mean, if there was another executive there who'd been covering up but the CEO really wanted to know, I would absolutely have said it, and I've done that before many times.
	But in this situation, I was like, eh, nobody wants to know, so I'm not going to tell anybody what's the point, right?
	It's not going to change anything.
	Mm-hmm. Sorry, I don't mean to get into a particular business meeting that I had, but I would say that in those situations, it's important to figure out whose incentive are the emotions you're experiencing serving?
	Who does it benefit for you to feel?
	If I feel fear about bringing this fact to a meeting, clearly that benefits certain people in the room, and therefore the feeling must be coming from them.
	It doesn't benefit me to withhold this information.
	It doesn't make me feel afraid to speak this information because it's just a fact and business is about dealing with facts.
	Yeah. But when I was, okay, I feel all this fear, it can't be coming from me because why the hell would I feel fear?
	It must be coming from other people who, if I speak the truth, they're going to experience some negative consequences.
	Hmm. And so when you have this complex knot of emotions, I would return to your principles.
	So if I'm honest, if I'm forthright, if I stand up for my values or reasonable universal values in relationships, like honesty and curiosity and affection and all these kinds of things, if I raise the standards of my relationships, obviously that's going to benefit me, right? And it's also going to benefit others who actively want to raise...
	The standards of their relationships, right?
	Yes. But it's not going to benefit people who would rather those relationships end than raise their own standards, right?
	So, you know, stick to the principles.
	Your principles drive your desires and then look at the feelings, right?
	So if you're thinking of being honest in a relationship with someone, which I hope everybody is, then you're going to feel some anxiety about that honesty.
	Is that anxiety coming from you or coming from the other person?
	Well, it's beneficial for you to be honest.
	It's going to be beneficial if the other person also has a secret desire for honesty, which I assume you would know even if they've never said it.
	But if they don't want to be honest, or if honesty with you is going to have terrible ripple effects on their other relationships, then they're going to really not want you to be honest.
	It's like follow the money in politics.
	Follow the benefit in emotions.
	Yeah, I know this effect with anxiety.
	I mean, that's, I think, a standard example.
	And that helped me very much, but the strange thing about this feeling knot is that I, and maybe that's the next question I have to ask myself, I cannot really connect these feelings to possible actions.
	Because, yeah, that's the strange thing.
	Because when I'm getting anxious, my whole body reacts and I feel it's anxious and Then I can sort this out, whether it's following my benefit or another person's benefit.
	But with these emotions, it's very...
	They are so hollow.
	They're in the body. I don't feel them quite.
	It feels like they are dissociated, but still I can discern the different qualities when I meditate on them.
	So that's very confusing. Do you mean it's kind of like a tense emptiness?
	No, it's not emptiness.
	No, no. Sometimes it's more sadness, like I want to cry.
	But when I try to go with it and really go into this sadness, the sadness disappears.
	It's not intensifying or it's not opening up.
	And then other times I get more angry and more hateful.
	Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, I think I know.
	Okay. I think I know.
	When I talk... Yeah. Okay.
	No, go ahead. Finish your thought, please.
	Yeah, when I talk more passionately about the bad stuff that has been done to me, then I get more angry and it's more active, this knot.
	But it's... It's not that I want to go and clear something up or it's not mouthing into action.
	And so, yeah, that's more feeling.
	It feels like isolated or like a victim or...
	I don't know.
	It's strange. No, I think I understand, and I think it's not strange.
	This is not to say I have the answer, but this is what my gut is telling me, and it may be right, it may be wrong.
	Now, to what degree, my friend, did you experience emotions around you when you were a kid as genuine?
	That's interesting, yeah.
	Not very much. My mother was more depressed and very controlled with her emotions.
	My father was absent.
	There was just no emotion.
	Sometimes anger, okay.
	But this sadness, this longing for contact, this being upset, that's a good lead.
	Do you know why I'm asking or do you want me to keep talking?
	Yeah, please explain more.
	I think I'm...
	Well, I've had to do a lot of sorting out between genuine emotions and manipulative sentiments because I grew up with...
	I mean, I can barely remember any genuine emotions in my childhood from those around me.
	I got a lot of hysteria.
	I got a lot of anger or rage, I guess you could say.
	But it was all manipulative, right?
	So, you know, when you're genuinely angry at something...
	The feeling doesn't come and go.
	Like, it doesn't just pop up and then flare off.
	Like, when you experience a genuine emotion, it has a sort of bell curve thing, you know?
	Like, you feel it, it gets stronger, or it may come on suddenly, but it doesn't go away, just like lickety-split.
	Whereas if you are manipulating somebody with, quote, emotion...
	Then the emotion will be quite sudden and will be quite intense.
	And then the moment that you get what you want, it will vanish.
	That's what is manipulative, right?
	So my own mother could be yelling at us in a towering rage, but then the phone would ring and she'd think it was her boyfriend and she'd pick up and go, Hi!
	Yeah. But if you're genuinely enraged at something, you can't switch like that.
	No.
	You can't.
	And this happened also when, if my mother was upset, right?
	So if she wanted something, she wasn't getting it, she'd throw herself on the ground, she'd kick and scream, she'd knock things over.
	But then the moment she got what she wanted, she'd be fine.
	So these aren't genuine emotions.
	They're just manipulative sentiments.
	They're fake feelings.
	Yeah. Yeah, it fits very well.
	I once had a week where I was on my own and I tried to explore those feelings.
	And when I followed this pain, I got on my knees and I was like praying before a high statue.
	My face was scrambled by pain and I was crying, but I wasn't sad.
	So all the emotions are there, but it's not a genuine feeling.
	No, that's right. It's not a genuine feeling, and you know the difference between a genuine feeling.
	I remember one time, and I've mentioned this before, I'll just touch on it briefly, that I was in theater school, and I was doing a relaxation exercise while at the same time attempting to do a scene with another fellow.
	So we were sitting across, we were reading these lines, and the...
	A very intense acting teacher from New York.
	From New York! She was telling us, you know, like, breathe and relax and just look into each other's eyes, look down, simply read the line to each other and so on, right?
	And so this kind of connection plus relaxation, suddenly, like, I just, I burst into tears.
	And I swear to God, you could have given me a million dollars to not cry at that moment, and I wouldn't have been able to do it.
	It was that strong and that deep.
	And it took me a long time to recover from that crying fit, right?
	So it took me like 10 or 15 minutes, and then one of my classmates was nice enough to bring me a candy bar, which was very nice of him.
	But that experience of genuine and deep emotion is very different from when my daughter wants something and she's kind of whiny.
	Yeah. And then she gets it and she's fine.
	I don't fault her for it because she's 16 months old.
	That's exactly what she should be doing.
	But that's not a genuine feeling.
	A genuine feeling when she's having a belly laugh or if she's bumped her head and she's crying or whatever.
	Those are genuine feelings.
	Not, I want a popsicle, I'm going to whine and complain and pretend to cry, and then the moment I get the popsicle, I'll be fine again.
	That's not a genuine feeling.
	That's a manipulative feeling.
	And again, I don't fault her for it because that's exactly what she should be doing.
	Because she's 16 months, not 46, right?
	And so the reason that I'm thinking about this is when you said these feelings appear very strong, but when I attempt to get close to them, they evaporate.
	Well, I would assume that's because they've been these hollow manipulative pseudo-emotions that you may have been surrounded with as a kid.
	Yeah. Yeah, that's very interesting.
	Thank you very much. I think that's a very new insight and it's bang on.
	Yeah. Excellent.
	I will go into this. Yeah.
	All right. Let me know how it goes if you get a chance.
	And great work with the roleplay, by the way.
	It's amazing just how that stuff works.
	No trained actress.
	I mean, I guess me, but I mean, not really acting, but it's amazing just how fluidly we get all this stuff, right?
	So good job. Yeah, thank you.
	Thank you, man. That was a really, really good conversation.
	All right. Well, thank you. Sorry for the lengthy chat, but we have time for another couple of questions.
	I wanted to mention to our good friend, Economics Junkie, I have not forgotten your question about self-defense.
	I am continuing to work on it, and I'm sorry that I haven't got it finished yet, but it is an exciting challenge.
	Not because it doesn't fit, but just because there's so many different ways of proving it, and I want to sort of make a sort of succinct and helpful case.
	So I haven't forgotten about the fitting self-defense still logistically into UPB, but it's not done yet, but I'm continuing to work on it.
	So yeah, we have time for questions.
	You can type one into the chat window if you would like, or you can...
	Unmute yourself in Skype, or if you don't have Skype and you would like to phone in, you are more than welcome to do that.
	Just let James P. in the chat room know that you're going to call.
	You can call 315-876-9705.
	Hey, Steph, it's Nima. it's Nima.
	Oh, hi. Hi.
	I was wondering if you had any comments on that other post that somebody recently posted about UPB, where he was questioning the proof that UPB exists.
	But UPB doesn't exist.
	That's what I always find confusing about those posts.
	I do remember the post, but UPP doesn't exist.
	I'm not sure enough people have had this issue so that it means that it's a problem with communication or a problem with the writing, although certainly it's on my list of things to adapt or to change for the next volume.
	And Economics Junkie, you know, for what I think was a good review in some ways, had the same issue, which was that he said, well, UPB exists, but UPB doesn't exist.
	And I think that's, I think it's really, really important to remember.
	But sorry, go ahead. Sorry, UPP doesn't exist any more than the scientific method exists.
	It's a methodology. It's not a thing.
	You can't prove that it exists.
	You can derive it, I guess, like logic.
	But it doesn't exist in and of its own right.
	Okay. Well...
	I guess, how did you phrase it in your book, then, when you prove that if you argue against it, you accept its existence?
	Well, that's what I argued in this, right?
	Or that's what I responded to in this thread.
	So this is his...
	I just got to the thread.
	And I appreciate you bringing this up.
	This is his paraphrasing of the argument.
	So he says, one, UPB exists if and only if there are certain things that all people at all times and at all places should prefer over other things.
	That's not the argument in UPB. First of all, UPB doesn't exist.
	Again, it's a methodology.
	It's a process.
	It's not a thing.
	Now, I do say near the beginning of the book, and this is where people get confused, I say there is evidence for universal beliefs.
	And therefore, we can say that it's something worth trying to figure out.
	So every culture says this is true.
	Every culture says this is moral.
	Every religion says this is moral.
	It's an absolute. They teach children about ethics and good and bad and gods and devils.
	They teach them all as absolutes.
	And so there's lots of evidence that...
	People believe in UPB, because they always present their own arguments as universal and true.
	And you could even see this in the roleplay, right?
	That this dad was presenting his arguments as universal as true, and then when contradictions were exposed, began to change the topic and all this and that.
	So in the beginning of the book, I say, UPB, if it is going to be a valid theory, there should be some evidence that human beings...
	Believe things that are universal already.
	That will certainly help us. Now, it's certainly true that a lot of people believe in ghosts, but that doesn't mean that ghosts exist.
	It's not the case that everybody has to believe in UPB. It's not the case.
	Certain insane people may have no conception of valid stuff.
	People in a coma, people who are asleep, people who've just received a brain injury, people who are unconscious, whatever.
	There will be some people who don't accept UPB or who will accept it very briefly and then reject it when it displeases them or whatever.
	So, at the beginning of the book, I say there's evidence for the existence of universality in that just about every human being proposes his or her beliefs as a universal truth.
	But it's not necessary that every human being believe in universality for universality to be valid for a number of reasons.
	First of all, it's impossible, as I mentioned with certain examples that would be, I think, impossible to get over.
	And secondly, if everybody already believed in UPP, there'd be no point arguing for it.
	It'd be like arguing for the existence of gravity.
	Well, every sane human being already accepts that there's such a thing as gravity.
	And so there's really no point arguing for it.
	So that first premise, I can understand how people might get to it through a quick reading at the beginning of the book where I sort of talk about some of the evidence for the validity of UPB, but it's not a proof of UPB. And then he says, number two, he says, We are also committed to the claim that it is not the case that there are certain things that all people should prefer over other things.
	This follows from premise one.
	UPP is not about people.
	UPP is not about what is in people's heads, what they believe or what they don't believe, any more than the scientific method is about what people do or don't believe.
	It's like saying that mathematics can only be valid if everybody is a good mathematician.
	Well, it doesn't matter.
	It doesn't matter if there's only one human being who's a good mathematician.
	Pythagoras on a desert island somewhere.
	Mathematics is valid or not.
	It doesn't matter what...
	Like a mathematical proposition is valid or invalid.
	And it doesn't matter whether people are good mathematicians or bad mathematicians.
	If they believe in UPB or reject...
	It doesn't matter. The question is...
	Does a theory require logical consistency and empirical evidence?
	And I think that of course it does and I think that anybody who argues against that is automatically using UPB to attempt to overturn it.
	So it doesn't matter what people believe about UPB. It doesn't matter whether people accept universality or reject it or accept evidence or reject it.
	It doesn't matter what is in people's heads.
	The very first guy who figured out that the world is round was obviously the only guy who knew that the world was round.
	But that doesn't mean that his belief was any more or any less valid.
	So it doesn't matter what's in people's heads.
	Number three says, it is impossible to claim that it is not the case that there are certain things that all people should prefer over other things without implicitly claiming that there are certain things all people should prefer over other things.
	Therefore, it is impossible to claim that UPB does not exist.
	Again, I would not accept that as a characterization of UPB. It doesn't matter what's in people's heads, what people accept.
	Now, again, I can understand that people would get confused if they're not reading very strictly, because I do talk about there being evidence for universality and that people always use universality to establish their positions.
	But whether they do or whether they don't, it doesn't matter.
	And UPB does not say all people should or must accept universality This or that proposition or this or that argument doesn't say that at all.
	What it does say is that for an argument to be valid, it has to be logically consistent, universal, and hopefully conformed to the evidence if it's available.
	But at the very least, it has to be universal and logically consistent.
	That's all it says. It doesn't say what people have to believe or can't believe or should believe or do believe or won't believe or could believe.
	All it says is that theories must be logically consistent and conformed to evidence if available and, of course, universal.
	That's all it says. So when people bring in what people believe or don't believe, they're not getting it.
	And, I mean, Economics Junkie did have some criticisms.
	I've done a podcast on this, but I had a bit of a cold, so I may need to re-record it.
	It's a bit bluesy, so to speak.
	But people have problems with UPB as a book, and I'm not saying it couldn't be improved.
	For sure it could be, I'm sure. But it's interesting that they don't have problems with any of my other books, right?
	So why is it that just sort of one book – like most of my other books, people sort of praise for clarity and simplicity and good metaphors and so on.
	And people run into all kinds of static about UBB. And I would say it's because – not because I just suddenly became a bad writer – Or a confusing thinker for just that one book and not in all of my other podcasts and not in all of my other five or six books and not in my articles and not in my blog posts or not in my message board posts.
	I'm generally praised for clarity and simplicity in my arguments.
	And I believe that's the case with UPB. But I think one of the reasons people have such a tough time with UPB is that UPB as a book runs straight up against static.
	And the static is the ethics that we have been taught our whole lives.
	And I think that is something that is very different.
	It's like trying to learn, you know, like you're trying to learn Chinese, and up pops an orange, and they say orange, and then whatever the Chinese word is, the Mandarin word is for orange, and then somebody yells pineapple in your ear.
	Well, it would be very hard.
	To learn a language if somebody kept yelling the wrong word in your ear.
	But when people read UPB, all their religious training, their statist indoctrination, their whole cultural nonsense about ethics is yelling pineapple into their ear.
	And so it's really tough for people to get their way through that noise that UPB is attempting to get past.
	And I think that's one of the reasons why people say, well, this metaphor was bad, or this example was unclear, you know, and this is why people get out of UPB stuff which very clearly is not in UPB. Like, when I say UPB is exactly the same as the scientific method, everybody understands that it doesn't matter whether people accept the scientific method or not.
	It's valid because it accurately is a methodology for accurately describing and predicting what happens in reality and formulating theories about the behavior of matter and energy.
	They understand that. But suddenly when you get to ethics, we've got all this noise and static and weirdness in our head from, you know, religion, from culture, from media, from family, from friends, from newspaper articles, like all of the crap ethics that we're stuffed to the gills with.
	People come into that and it's like...
	They go into the UPB room and they come out with something called XQZ to the third, right?
	And they say, UPB says this.
	No, no, no. And you'll notice that the reason that I know this is because people don't quote the book.
	Right? And when people do quote the book, the debates tend to go a lot better.
	And this is why I don't get into written debates with people about UPB, because there is so much prejudicial static about ethics in our head that it's like determinism.
	It's really, really hard to cut through that.
	So when people quote from the book, and they say, well, UPB says this...
	And then UPB says this, and these two things are contradictory.
	That's great. You know, that's something definite to be sorted out.
	But when people say, I'm going to paraphrase UPB, or what I came away with from UPB was this, and then they just go off on their own trip, I don't think that's a criticism of the book.
	Although that's not to say that the book is not challenging, but I think, again, it's because of the static of cultural prejudice around ethics, not necessarily because of UPB itself.
	So I hope that doesn't sound like too much.
	Yeah. This is Economics Junkie, by the way.
	Oh, hi. Hi.
	And also, right, sorry, the last thing I would mention too, and again, I won't bother putting this podcast out because, again, I had a bit of a cold, but the other thing I wanted to mention was that you did talk about problems with the metaphors and so on, but you didn't provide any examples, right?
	So I'm always a bit concerned when I talk about the need for reason, examples, and evidence when it comes to making a point, and then people say, well, there were these bad metaphors and there were these repetitive arguments, but there aren't But I also made it clear that it's my opinion.
	If you're going to say that, I think you said there was some annoying metaphor, I'm not sure even what that means, but if you don't provide evidence of a metaphor that is problematic or annoying, then to me that's kind of cheating.
	You're saying, well, it's just my opinion, but it's kind of a fact.
	So when asked for evidence, you say it's an opinion, but you put it forward, it's like, well, it just is, right?
	But it wasn't supposed to be criticism of the theory that there are some metaphors that struck me as annoying while I read through the book.
	So I don't think it's interesting to anybody.
	That's why I didn't mention it.
	Well, no, no, no. But it's in the article, right?
	And again, you could be right.
	I mean, maybe there are lots of annoying metaphors just in that book, though I generally consider the metaphor king.
	Rightly or wrongly, I'm generally considered to be pretty good with metaphors.
	But if you're going to put an argument in that says metaphors are annoying, as an author, I mean, just as an author, I would certainly appreciate examples.
	I understand that.
	If I did that, I feel like it wouldn't really serve the purpose of the article.
	But it's in the article!
	Right? So if you make a claim, right?
	Well, no, but it's tangent or not, right?
	It's in the article, right?
	I'm just saying that I think stylistically, if you're going to make a claim, then you should provide some evidence.
	But I'm also, for me, it's really helpful, right?
	You understand it's sort of annoying and frustrating, which is not to say you shouldn't do it.
	I'm just telling you that it's annoying and frustrating that if somebody says, this writing is problematic, right?
	And they don't give you any examples.
	I'm not sure. Then am I supposed to read the book saying, well, there are all these problems with these metaphors, which I thought were good.
	I don't know what they are, but maybe I could make sense.
	You know what I mean? Evidence is really, really helpful when it comes to improving something.
	But it did do that, too.
	I did post some things that I found inconsistent, and I didn't get a whole bunch of responses to that.
	And I understand that, because it's not really a pleasant thing to do.
	Sorry, was that in your article itself?
	No, that was in a forum post that I posted a little while before that.
	My suggestion is, my suggestion has always been that if you have, if people have criticisms, this is a general thing, it's not specific to you, and you haven't been around since the days of the great UPB battles, so you wouldn't be expected to know this.
	I always say to people, you know, call in on the Sunday show and let's talk about it, because Sure.
	Sure. Sure.
	is logical consistency is a value, but that's using UPB.
	And that's why I asked him, is it a universal value?
	Because if it is, that's UPB.
	An argument for UPB that is invalid validates UPB.
	So let's say that I make some argument for UPB that's logically inconsistent.
	The only way you could overturn that is saying it's universally preferable for there to be logic and consistency.
	And that's why it's such a bulletproof argument.
	And again, that's a hard thing to see because you have to think about arguing itself rather than the content of an argument.
	and that's a challenge.
	Now, in your book it says debating sorry, the very act of debating contains an acceptance of UPB.
	That's the way you phrased it.
	That's different from it exists or not, right?
	Oh, look, I've been very clear throughout the book that UPB does not exist.
	Ethics doesn't exist. Morality does not exist.
	That's pretty clear, I think. So I'm just trying to understand what this fellow posted here in this forum post because I think he got confused with my...
	That's not a maybe.
	For sure, that's phrased incorrectly.
	And I mentioned that in the podcast.
	But UPB doesn't exist.
	And as soon as you start talking about existence, you start to talk about mere empiricism, i.e.
	what do people believe. And that's not a useful way of talking about it.
	Sure. I think his argument is that Debating requires...
	You're saying debating requires an acceptance of UPB. And he...
	Here's an example of, you know, when I debate with you whether or not Santa Claus exists, then I still don't think that everybody should believe that Santa Claus should exist, because for some kids it might be better for whatever reason.
	I don't know. Well, but see, but UPB is not about the content of belief.
	It's about the truth or falsehood of belief, right?
	So, yeah, some kids may have fun believing that Santa Claus exists, but that has no bearing on whether Santa Claus actually exists or not, right?
	Right. But if I argue that...
	But then does the act of debating really accept UPB? That would be my question.
	Oh, absolutely. Sorry, I have to say yes to that.
	And this may sound like a tautological argument, but a debate is a logical series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
	That's where I got my logic from with Monty Python.
	But a debate is an appeal to reason and evidence.
	And if it's not an appeal to reason and evidence, it's not a debate.
	It's indoctrination. So if you say to a kid, Jesus died for your sins and you'll burn in hell if you ever question it, that's not a debate.
	That's just terrifying the shit out of some helpless kid with terrible consequences.
	That's not a debate.
	But the moment that you are actually having a debate or a conversation to establish the truth of a proposition that relies on any kind of standard that's not just mere opinion, right?
	So if you and I have a debate about which is better, vanilla or chocolate ice cream, it's not a real debate, right?
	It's me just basically saying, well, I like this and I like that.
	But as soon as we say, does ice cream contain dairy products, right?
	Then we have a sort of factual statement, the fact of which can be established, and then we have to look for reason and evidence, and then we are automatically accepting UPB. If there's a truth statement that is binding upon the other person, like if I say, oh, I really love this jazz artist, and you say, well, I really love this blues artist, and we're sharing with the hopes that each other will like the music, but it's not binding, it's not moral that we like the music that the other person is playing, right?
	But if I'm saying the world is round and you're saying the world is banana-shaped, we're having a debate that...
	And the reason we're having that debate is because we assume that the result is binding upon the other person.
	Right? Because if I say to you, I think the world is banana-shaped and there's nothing that will ever change my mind about it.
	It's not... There's no evidence.
	There's no reason for it. It's just a belief that I have, like a dream that I had.
	You're not going to debate with me because I've clearly said that.
	But if I say the world is banana-shaped and here's my evidence for it, then you will disprove that evidence and blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
	But we assume that if I say reason and evidence is my standard, that when I encounter...
	Better reason and evidence that I will...
	It's incumbent upon me to then change my belief in accordance with the standards of debating and the standards that I have accepted implicitly or explicitly in entering into a debate.
	So you can't debate if we say the debate is around establishing an objective truth or evaluating an objective proposition, then debating by its very nature is a UPB activity.
	Okay. Now, what about the Santa Claus example?
	No, go for it. What is the Santa Claus example?
	Well, he said that if I enter into a debate with you and I try to convince you that Santa Claus does not exist, does that really mean that I... I think that it's universally preferable for everyone to believe that Santa Claus does not exist.
	No, because it doesn't...
	Sorry, if you're entering into a debate with me where you're saying Santa Claus does not exist, and I say I will accept reason and evidence about the existence of Santa Claus, then we are both in agreement that reason and evidence are universal standards.
	So we're both engaged in a UPB activity, right?
	Okay, so it's the acceptance of reason and evidence, which is then considered universally preferable.
	Okay. It's the magic word because, right?
	And this is a good... It's not perfect, but it's a good way of figuring it out, right?
	So... How do I know Jesus loves me so?
	Because the Bible tells me so.
	As soon as somebody says, because, bam-o, baby, UPV, all the way.
	If somebody says, I like ice cream, you don't say to them, why?
	Why? Why do you like ice cream?
	Because the Bible tells me so.
	No, there's no why as to why somebody likes ice cream.
	Really, right? I like sunsets.
	I prefer sunsets to sunrises.
	I guess, why? There's no real why to that, right?
	But as soon as somebody says, Hamina, Hamina, Hamina, because, then they just crossed over to UPB land and are subject to all of those standards, right?
	So if somebody says, God exists...
	There is a because there, right?
	There must be a because there.
	Because the Bible tells me so.
	Because I had a vision. Because, you know, 2000 years of Christianity can't be wrong.
	Because there's some because there.
	Okay. And as soon as somebody says, because, then what they're saying is, my beliefs are passively derived from that which is.
	I believe the world is round because of this reason and evidence.
	I believe that two and two make four because, because, because.
	I believe that Einstein's theory of relativity is correct because, right, of the experiments and the bending of light around eclipses and blah blah blah, right?
	Or the fact that they think they sent an atomic clock in a plane around the world and it slowed by a tenth of a millionth of a second or something, right?
	So I accept...
	So when somebody says because, they're saying, well, what's in my head has come in passively by me because it has met certain standards of belief.
	When somebody doesn't say because, then...
	We're not arguing. And they're just making a statement.
	I like Brown.
	Why? Well, there's no because, right?
	Right. And when people sort of say, you say the taxation is violence, they say, no, it's not.
	And why do they say it's not?
	They say it's not because there's a social contract.
	They say it's not because you get to vote.
	They say it's not because you can go and change the system, right?
	So whenever there's a because, they're saying standards, reason, evidence.
	This is no longer just opinion.
	There's a because. And a because is the big thing to look out for.
	Like they say, atheists...
	I know I'm killing the point, but let me just make one more.
	And I'm sorry for pouring a ton of bricks on this question.
	But people say, you can't say there's no God because in some alternate universe, God could exist.
	And you can't never know for sure, right?
	So there's always some argument.
	The moment somebody says because, it's like, bammo, UPB. If there's no because, there's no UPB and there's no debate.
	There's just a sharing of preferences, I suppose.
	Right. So my explanation of that part of UPB was flawed in that sense, I guess.
	And that's what impelled this fellow to attack that point, I guess.
	Well, yeah. I mean, if he's saying that UPB is dependent upon the content of belief, then of course UPB can't be valid.
	Because there's no conceivable way that everyone who's alive believes X, right?
	I mean, some kids are too young, some people are senile, some people have never been… He didn't say that.
	He just said, but I mean...
	No, he said, one, UPP exists if and only if there are certain things that all people at all times and at all places should prefer over other things.
	Right. But that's content of belief.
	And you can't ever measure for that.
	You can't ever test that. But he says should.
	He doesn't say what they actually believe.
	Well, but then it's completely not measurable, right?
	As soon as you should or not, I mean, what does it mean?
	Now... I think what you can say, I mean, if I were to try and paraphrase what he was saying in sort of UPB speak, I would sort of say that nobody who uses reason and evidence can reject reason and evidence.
	Like nobody who says reason and evidence is the standards of belief can reject reason and evidence as standards of belief.
	That's just an A is A thing.
	That's straight out of Aristotelian logic, right?
	Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
	But that's, but yeah, as far as the content of belief goes, then, right?
	Because then what he says is that there are times when you might have a proposition that you hope other people won't believe and so on.
	But that doesn't, that's not about UPB. All right.
	Look, it's a bitch.
	It's a mother fracker, as they say, down in a very white hood.
	It is a bitch.
	UPB is a complete bitch.
	It bitch slapped me up and down the aisle for 20 years.
	It's horrible. It's completely horrible.
	And it's unbelievably simple.
	It really is. I mean, it's embarrassing how simple it is.
	But the only reason it's so tough is that we're so used to ethics being based on effect or pragmatism or some sort of nonsensical involuntary social contract or consequentialism or existentialism or, you know, all of this junk that occurs in the realm of generally...
	It's either religious...
	Weird, creepy, religious absolutes, which are cherry-picked based upon the personality of the religious person, right?
	If you're a mean guy, you go Old Testament.
	If you're a nice guy, you go New Testament, to sort of take a rough division.
	So it's either that stuff, which is clearly mental, or it's all of this really heavy abacus calculus kind of consequentialism or...
	Utilitarianism was like, well, we'll give up certain rights in order to secure other rights and we'll take a little bit from the rich to help the poor and that's better because of some bizarre calculus.
	So it's either crazy irrational absolutes from religion or squishy, crazy brain porridge-making calculus from utilitarianism.
	And to go back to something as simple as reason and evidence, reason and evidence, reason and evidence, it seems weird because we're so used to overcomplicating stuff with ethics.
	And that's what I have to keep remembering.
	I swear to God, when I get a UPB question, the thing I have to do, it's a Yoda thing.
	Relax your mind.
	Imagine you are four years old.
	It really is like that.
	It's like, don't think too much.
	UPB is simpler than you think.
	UPB is simpler than you think.
	And that's part of what I have to do.
	Like, if I could just shave off 80% of my frontal lobes, whenever I got a UPB question, I'd answer it.
	Like, the answer to the self-defense one is so ridiculously simple, I'm embarrassed that I couldn't think of it.
	But that's because I start to...
	I start to complicate it because I'm so used to ethics being so monstrously complicated.
	But anyway, sorry, that's just a brief tangent about it.
	All right.
	And I'm glad that I didn't trash our good friend, Economics Junkie, since I didn't realize I was talking to him.
	Not that I had. Anyway, I certainly do appreciate it.
	And I thought you did a really good review, in my opinion.
	Not just because of the praise, but I mean, I appreciated it.
	I thought it was smart and well-written, too, which is something that is not as common as...
	Right. It's not really supposed to be a review.
	It's more like it's a summary for myself to...
	To really understand, I guess.
	Try to think through it for myself.
	Sometimes it's easier for me to write out stuff Oh, listen, I agree with you.
	That's the whole reason the book exists for me in the first place, is that it's a lot easier to write it out and do all of that stuff.
	So, no, I appreciate it.
	And, I mean, I just wanted to say, I mean, thank you for, I mean, you gave the book some significant praise.
	I mean, obviously, to be up there with Rothbard, ethical theorists, I just, I think is, I mean, I'm blushing.
	It's hugely a wonderful thing to do, so I appreciate that.
	And that's, to me, it's always going to be my reference from now on, you know, whenever I talk with ethics to somebody.
	Well, I appreciate that.
	And I promise as well, I'm going to go on a UPB tour next year where I'm going to do speeches and answer questions because...
	Nice. I really want to do more work to get the theory out there.
	And of course, I think which is more important.
	I remember a story that I heard many years ago about the guy who invented Ethernet.
	And he made, of course, a squintillion dollars off it or whatever.
	And he ended up teaching, I think, a course at some Ivy League school on computer science or whatever.
	And he would have his students over to his massive Ivy-walled mansion.
	And one of his students was over one day, and he was saying...
	Oh, man, this place is beautiful.
	It's amazing. You've got a pool in your toilet.
	I don't know what the hell he was looking at, right?
	But it's some beautiful thing, right?
	And he said, man, I wish I had invented Ethernet.
	And his professor said, are you crazy?
	I didn't get all this money because I invented Ethernet.
	There were like 20 guys who came up with networking standards back in the day.
	The reason that I have all this money is not because I invented Ethernet, but because...
	I spent 10 years pounding up and down the country, going to every single convention I can find, begging, bribing, bullying people to adopt this as a standard.
	It wasn't because I invented it.
	That was the easy, easy, easy part, and lots of other people did that.
	It was because I pounded the pavement, getting it into people's hands and making them use it.
	And that is something that has always struck with me.
	And so I'm very happy to have done UPB. I'm sure that it could be improved.
	And I know that I push back against criticism sometimes, and I hope not entirely unfairly.
	But what I really want to do is to help people to get over the humps.
	That are considerable in understanding the theory and to get peppered with questions and to get peppered with problems.
	And through that to come up with either a better book or a whole bunch of transcripts or at least videos of me getting the snot pounded out of me in the UPB room.
	So that's something I'm definitely looking forward to do.
	Right. Imagine someday in like school, imagine there was a class UPB. And for an entire year, kids would just be going through ethical propositions on their chalkboard and analyze it.
	Oh, yeah. And they wouldn't need a year.
	I mean, if UPB had time, they wouldn't need a year because they wouldn't have all the static to overcome, right?
	They wouldn't be trying to learn one language while somebody was yelling the wrong words from another language into their ear.
	So, you know, I think kids could do UPB in a month or two if they were sort of at the right age.
	And, of course, I've also thought of doing kids' ethics, right?
	It's really, really important that parents have great tools to teach ethics to their kids.
	Because if you don't have great tools to teach ethics to your kids, you have to substitute the argument from authority, which is not good for children.
	So that's another thing that I'm thinking of.
	Right. Problem is, I don't think public school teachers would put UPB out there into their classrooms, right?
	Because violence is bad.
	Hey, do you know you're here by force and your parents are forced to pay for this whether they like it or not?
	So when they tell you violence is bad, they don't really mean it.
	They mean violence is bad for you in the playground, but for them it's really good in terms of their paychecks, summers off, and retirement packages.
	I don't think the teachers would really want to play that to their kids.
	But for those parents who did want to get the ethics across to their kids without gods or governments or bullying, I would like to have a resource available.
	Well, thank you again so much.
	And it's economicsjunkie.com.
	Thank you. I appreciate that.
	And I think we have time for one more quick question.
	If anybody has anything...
	Yeah, somebody said the first thing they do is realize they're being forced to sit in school and then UBB is entirely anti-UBB. And then leave.
	And then leave. I've got it.
	I'm done. In fact, only the people who didn't get it would have to stay in public schools.
	That would be a real incentive for kids, I think.
	Let's see here. Steph, can you explain this apparent contradiction, at least in my mind?
	How can the government have debt where they can print all the money they want?
	Well... Because when you print lots of money, you devalue this.
	I mean, I've thought about this as a way of teaching kids about economics.
	It would be so simple, right? You would have a bunch of figurines that they would be trading, and you'd have a bunch of paper money that they'd be trading these figurines for, and then you would just hand one kid a whole bunch of paper money that was not...
	Matched by an increase in the figurines, and within about 30 seconds, the price of the figurines would drop by half.
	And people would go, oh, so printing money, kids would say, oh, so printing money causes inflation, which means each of my dollars is worth less.
	I mean, it would take literally 20 minutes to teach this to kids in a way that they would never forget.
	But of course, that's not important because, you know, we have to be indoctrinated with how important Valley Forge was rather than what is actually affecting us in the real world.
	And so how can governments have debt when they can print all the money they want?
	Because if the governments attempt to pay off their money, pay off their debts by printing money, what happens is inflation goes hog wild.
	And the moment inflation goes hog wild, the first thing that it does is push up interest rates.
	So you can't pay off your debts by printing money because your interest rates, if you print 10% more money, your interest rates will go up by at least 10%.
	And so you won't actually have any, you won't be printing, sorry, you won't be paying off any money, if that makes sense.
	And that partly is a result of the success of the Austrian school.
	school, that principle is really clear to people around the world.
	So, um, but you can also look at, uh, the Zeitgeist addendum film.
	I think it's Money is Debt.
	It does a fairly good job of explaining it.
	I wouldn't necessarily go into the other economics or the stuff that they talk about, but it's a pretty good job.
	You can find lots of videos on this about Money is Debt.
	That's some useful stuff.
	Do you have a metaphor for I am the metaphor king?
	Well, interestingly enough, I am the metaphor king is a metaphor because being king of metaphors is there's no such thing.
	Oh, Izzy Pixie.
	Oh my god, we haven't had any IzzyPix.
	We're waiting for a question. I'll throw the IzzyPix in.
	She's doing fantastically.
	She is a real delight and joy.
	We took her to a pet store today and she just went completely mental with, uh, with the fun.
	Uh, somebody has said, is it fair to say that empathy is a psychological source of morality?
	I think it's necessary but not sufficient.
	Empathy is universality, fundamentally, right?
	And that's what's tough for people to remember.
	Empathy is universality.
	Empathy is, you're a human being, I'm a human being, I feel bad when this happens, you feel bad when this happens, all of that kind of stuff.
	That is... That is empathy.
	You can't have philosophy without empathy.
	You can't have universality. You can't have ethics without empathy.
	So I agree with you that it is necessary but not sufficient.
	You can have a kind of strange empathy, more like sentimentality, where the suffering of others is so unbearable that I can't stand to have any rational standards in my life.
	So the welfare state or whatever, I think that's a problem.
	If the current economic system is bank, what is the alternative?
	The alternative is always the same thing, in my opinion.
	The alternative is a voluntary and peaceful society where you don't use violence to achieve your goals or your ends and Now, this is an interesting question.
	Are all my ecosystem characters non-organic?
	They're all I've bumped into at the moment.
	If there are organic ones, do you want to get rid of the non-organic ones?
	Sorry for this is sort of a mildly technical, if amateur psych theories can be considered technical.
	It's sort of an amateur approach to this, but...
	I think what you mean by organic is aspects of yourself that are natural to yourself versus those that come in through other people I have found that there are organic Aspects to my own ecosystem.
	But I had to hack and sort of thwack my way through a whole bunch of inflicted characters, so to speak, that came in through others.
	So I think there are, but they're sort of like hope at the bottom of Pandora's box.
	You have to hack your way through a lot of stuff to get there.
	Am I still dealing with those non-organic characters?
	Not a huge amount. A serious question about your daughter.
	Would you support her if she wanted to become a politician?
	I would absolutely not support her if she wanted to become a politician.
	No. Unfortunately, I don't believe that there's any path to happiness that involves a massive compromise of my values.
	And so I would not support her if she wanted to become a politician.
	I would make the arguments against it, and if she chose to do it, obviously that would be her choice, but I would not be out there cheering at her rallies.
	I really have always taken to heart what Socrates said...
	I'm sorry, what Aristotle said, that...
	We must hold, you know, much though we love our family and friends, we must hold the truth higher than family and friends.
	And so, no, I would not support her if she wanted to become a politician.
	But I can't imagine, I can't imagine that she would want to become a politician.
	I just, you know, any more than I, unless she gets some brain damage, she's not going to grow up to be some anti-Semitic racist either, right?
	So that's just not stuff that I worry about.
	Human beings aren't that... Aren't that random?
	It's like saying, well, what if my wife wanted to become a priest?
	Would I support that? Well, no.
	But she's not going to want to become a priest because human beings aren't random.
	Steph, do you have any recommendations on books about the treatment or cause of schizophrenia?
	I don't, but I will suggest that you look up Daniel Mackler, M-A-C-K-L-E-R, on the web.
	And you can also look at my interview with Greg Siegel, S-I-E-G-L-E, I think it is, not the bird, which is on YouTube.
	He talks about some schizophrenia as well.
	There does appear to be, and I say this, of course, having just heard it from experts, but there does appear to be some talk therapy that has Some effect when it comes to dealing with schizophrenia.
	So you might want to check that out.
	Steph, I'm struggling with UPB. Could you run the following through the UPB framework?
	It is improper to take a photograph of a beautiful meadow owned by somebody else.
	Well, the thing you have to do with UPB, remember, always strip away the specifics.
	So it doesn't matter whether it's a beautiful meadow, because that doesn't matter at all.
	Improper, UPB has two categories.
	Well, three, I guess. Neutral, I like ice cream.
	Aesthetically preferable actions, it's better to be on time.
	And UPB, good and evil, which is rape is wrong, or rape is bad.
	So improper may fit into APA. I think you could say, what is the moral status of taking a photograph of a beautiful meadow owned by somebody else?
	Or taking a photograph of anything where other people's property might be involved?
	Well, the first thing I would say is that there's this level of practicality that's important.
	I don't know that it's possible to take a picture of anything without involving someone's property, I guess, unless you point straight up at the sky and hope there's not a plane in there, right?
	So if you take a picture on a beach, there are, you know, people in bathing suits, they own their bodies, you're taking pictures of their property and so on.
	So I think that practically it's fairly impossible to establish that as a proposition that you That doesn't mean that that makes it automatically false, but it's something that is, I think, cause for suspicion.
	I think that you could...
	You could make the argument that, is it a kind of theft to take a picture of, say, you standing in front of somebody's house?
	Well, no, you're not really taking anything away from them, which I know gets close to an intellectual property argument or whatever.
	But certainly taking a picture is not immoral.
	You could say that, you know, taking a picture with a telephoto lens through somebody's mostly closed curtains and when they're in the nude and publishing that on the internet would be a violation of privacy and that may be something that would be discouraged in a rational society but I think that there would be some pretty special circumstances for that but I can't see how taking photographs as a whole would be problematic.
	And it's not proper or improper.
	It's our theories around taking photographs logically consistent and in accordance with evidence and common sense.
	That would sort of be my way of approaching it.
	From all the interviews you have now done, who is the person who has impressed or even enlightened you the most?
	Well, I think that I certainly found that I most enjoy the interviews with the subject matter experts in psychology.
	I think those guys are just doing some very, very interesting stuff.
	So I think those people are doing some really cool stuff.
	It would be sort of hard to narrow it down.
	There certainly have been some who've been disappointing to me in terms of content or whatever.
	But for the most part, they've been enjoyable.
	Let's see. Steph, how do you deal with the constant, nearly obsessive, compulsive pursuit of knowledge for a potentially subconscious purpose of self-validation?
	I call it the James Bond complex.
	Wanting to be competent, at competent level in every field you've heard of.
	Well, I certainly appreciate that, and I may be the last person to give anybody advice on not wanting to be a polyglot.
	But what I would say is that...
	It's important to be comfortable with not having answers.
	I mean, I think that's really, really important.
	Comfortable with not? I don't know.
	It's a perfectly valid thing to say.
	And anybody who thinks it's not is just a bully, right?
	And is lying themselves because they must also come up with that phrase if they're to be intellectually honest.
	So I think it's okay to say, I don't know.
	And that's, of course, the beauty of a voluntary society is you get to say that a whole lot.
	I don't know. I don't know how this could work.
	I don't know how that could work. But I do know that violence, right?
	I don't know who everybody should marry, but I'm damn sure they shouldn't be raping each other, right?
	I don't know how all wealth would be created in a free society, but I do know that theft is wrong.
	You know, that theories that support theft can't be logically consistent.
	So I think it's very important to look at not the habits, but what's driving them, the underlying causes, what's driving them underneath.
	So what happens at the end when you have to say, like, what is your emotional experience?
	Hi, boo-boo.
	Hi, boo-boo. Uh-oh.
	Uh-oh. Did we drop something?
	Gone. Gone?
	Gone. Oh, Boo-Boo, should we sing some songs?
	Enough philosophy. Camera.
	Camera. Right. Boo-Boo, should we sing?
	Twinkle, twinkle, little.
	How I wonder what you.
	Up above the world so.
	Hi, like a diamond in the.
	Oh, do you see a ball, Boo-Boo?
	That's your bally ring. All right, should we try the song again?
	Twinkle, twinkle, little.
	How I wonder what you up above the world so high like a diamond in the...
	Uh-oh. What did you mean for, Boo-Boo?
	Uh-oh. Okay, about this one.
	Um... Doe, a deer, a female.
	Fair, ray, a drop of golden.
	Me, a name, I call my...
	Far, a long, long way to...
	So, a needle-pulling thread...
	I think she's too distracted by the room.
	Uh-oh. Did you have a nice bathy, Boo-Boo?
	Ooh, you smell very nice.
	Better than me. Yeah, that's not too hard.
	Okay. It's okay, Boo-Boo.
	We're all done with the show, so I would come right down.
	Bye, Boo-Boo. Be right down, my love.
	Alright, show's over, people. I will talk to you guys later.
	Thank you for an absolutely wonderful show.
	And thank you so much to the callers in who had some great, great stuff to say.
	And have yourselves a great, great evening.
	And I will talk to you guys soon.
	Have a wonderful week. Thank you, of course, all so much for your support.
	And I will post about the change in the barbecue, potential change in the barbecue.

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