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Sept. 12, 2010 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:54:07

1745 Freedomain Radio Sunday Show Sep 12 2010

Ditching drugs, teaching kids about religion, investing in government bonds, and truthers! (some help from Chomsky on that one)

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	Well, hi everybody, it's Stefan Molyneux.
	It is the 12th of September 2010.
	Look at that! Only 12 days before my birthday, when I turn Magnum 44.
	I believe it is going to be my most macho year.
	I'm hoping for at least another four chest years would be nice, I feel.
	I'm sorry there was no show last week.
	We were deluged with philosophers and thinkers and lovers of wisdom at the Freedom Aid Radio mothership on its low orbit around the Pluto of the future.
	So thanks again everyone for coming up.
	It was just wonderful. I look forward to these every year and surprisingly strong singing turnout for karaoke night which was just great and thanks everybody for making the trip and we're glad that you had a great time and thanks everybody who sent some very kind thank you notes for the trip.
	Isabella has crossed the threshold, ladies and gentlemen.
	She is now doing four-word sentences.
	And I think one of her first four-word sentences, we took it to the gym in the summer.
	There's a gym near Christina's clinic offices.
	And we took Isabella there during the summer, and it was really empty and dead during the summer.
	And so she could roam around the gym doing whatever she wants while ostensibly there for a class.
	She, of course, was the only child who not only wouldn't follow instructions, but genuinely had no idea what instructions actually were.
	So it was quite a bit different from the other children, as I've mentioned before.
	But when we went back this last Sunday for the fall session, it was mad crammed and busy.
	And wow, she really didn't like it.
	She wasn't allowed in the big gym very much.
	We were in the kiddie gym, which she didn't like.
	It was very crowded. We were told three times to keep the child with the group.
	It was dangerous for her to be roaming around.
	And so afterwards, Isabella said, Ebea, no like gym.
	Be a no-like gym.
	And also Bear Fall Down TV. Because there's a commercial where some bear falls down.
	And that combines a lot of things she likes.
	TVs, bears. And the always favorite, falling down.
	So yeah, we're probably not going to put her back.
	She was actually really great with the crowds at the barbecue.
	And I was really proud of her.
	I mean, she was a little slow to warm up.
	But of course...
	I told her all week that people were coming and that she needed to really hang on to her binky.
	And she did. And so there were only minor tussles about the binky, which is good.
	And so she was really, really great with the crowds here, but she just didn't like the gym when it was that crowded.
	Because then you kind of really do have to get in line and follow instructions.
	Her parenting style combined with her native personality does not a dictatorship make, does not a rules-based family system make.
	And so it's going to be quite interesting to see occasional uneasiness about how this is going to play out, but I'm confident that it's all going to work out very, very well.
	But she just can't be in a structured environment at the moment.
	Or, I guess, a hierarchical or top-down.
	So we'll see where the anarchy of infancy goes, but I'm very excited to see.
	But she's just doing absolutely fantastically.
	And she also did complain about the number of large people at the gym, which I can't help but agree with her.
	Anyway, enough intro.
	Let's get straight to the questions.
	I believe we have a caller from China, the country, not the plate.
	Is that right? Hello.
	Hi. Hi.
	Hi, Steph. Oh, it's all yours.
	Oh, okay. Yeah, well, it's really late here.
	It's like quarter past four, and to be perfectly honest with you, I'm really nervous.
	I've never done anything like this before, so just putting it out there.
	Understood. Go ahead.
	Yeah, I sent you an email a few days ago.
	So basically, I'm in a situation now where, you know, I've been here for about a year and I was living with my girlfriend for the first 10 months here.
	And, well, basically, to be blunt, it sort of turned to shit and broke up with her a couple of months ago.
	And now I've got my own apartment in an area that's very quiet with not many foreigners.
	I've basically been going through lots of cell phones.
	Self-therapy. I got into David Mackler and your website quite a lot.
	It's been helping a great deal.
	Thanks a lot. I feel like I've kind of hit a wall now.
	I've sort of just scratched the surface, but I can't really go deep.
	I'm starting to go a bit crazy now.
	I'm losing sleep and stuff.
	I'm probably not a very good environment for it because I'm really on my own.
	I'm going to try and battle it out.
	I thought I'd come on here for a chat and see if that would help me out a bit.
	Sure, sure. I'm sorry to hear.
	Did you go to China to be with your girlfriend or did she come with you or how did that work?
	No, not at all. Actually, I was just backpacking.
	I've been a big fan of backpacking.
	Actually, a couple of years ago, two and a half, three years ago, Before I got into my travel, because I needed to escape home, I had lots of issues.
	I don't really need to get into all of that, but we can.
	I sort of really needed to escape and travel with my outlet.
	I did give you a message, but my friend introduced me to you.
	And I went on your website and I kind of actually at first, like two, three years ago, still living with the parents, I denied, you know, the truth and I refused to accept what you had to offer Steph, which is wonderful information.
	And so at that time I kind of blocked it out and I got angry and I even sent you a Facebook message and then blocked you from Facebook for a while.
	I'm sorry, I really am.
	No problem. No, no.
	Listen, I understand it's very volatile stuff and it's very challenging stuff, so I appreciate that, but don't give it another moment's thought and please continue.
	Thank you, yes. Well, and then, you know, you actually advised against travel before I dealt with my issues, which was probably a good thing.
	I went and travelled, and all I really did was hang out with the other young tourists and just get completely wasted every night, to be honest, in multiple countries.
	I mean, I'm sure I grasped some level of, you know, some other deep experience, but I don't know, really.
	Really, it was more of a drinking fest.
	But it was more of my escape.
	And then I went back home and worked for a bit.
	I travelled backpacks around the world for close to a year.
	And I was working as a labourer before at home in construction.
	I don't have a degree.
	I was never academic at school.
	I kind of took drugs and smoked all through school.
	And then I found myself working in construction, saving money, and went on this trip.
	After buying multiple motorbikes, getting bored, I went on this big world trip and went back home, worked in construction and then came overseas again and decided to stay in a country.
	I love Asia, so I just decided to stay in a country and I chose China and it was kind of a bit spontaneous that way.
	I did like an English teaching course.
	I met my girlfriend there and that was in Thailand and then we moved to Beijing together and we lived together for 10 months.
	Six months of the relationship.
	And I've learned this since, you know, with the information I've read.
	It's like the love bomb phase, I guess.
	It was wonderful. It was excellent.
	I was invincible. I was on top of, you know, my life in the first sort of four to six months.
	And then I don't know really what happened.
	It really started going really bad.
	And I started, towards the end of the relationship, I started sort of diving back into this information, which I keep drawing back to, you know, psychology and philosophy and this kind of stuff.
	I don't know. I just keep going back to it.
	I find it fascinating. I started to realize some truth.
	I just broke up with her.
	Not for another girl. Not for anything.
	I broke up with her. For the last two months now, I've been living in this apartment by myself, teaching English basically in my free time, which I do have a lot of free time.
	I've been staying sober for the first time in my life, and that's been a bit of a shock.
	I'll go out and meet my friends.
	Well, I went out last weekend and they all said, Nick, where have you been?
	What have you been doing?
	I said, I've been doing some self-therapy and they all laughed it off and said, come on, come have another rum and coke.
	It's just kind of like, I don't know.
	I want to battle this out.
	What I'm scared of, Steph, is falling back into that state.
	I want to grow through this.
	I'm sick of being depressed.
	It's not a happy lifestyle.
	It's not pleasant.
	No, I agree. Well, listen, congratulations on your sobriety.
	That is a huge, huge thing.
	And for people who've not seen or dealt with this kind of stuff, these kinds of addictions, well, it's just magnificent.
	I think you should just be incredibly proud.
	You'll be able to maintain it, I think, with the right work.
	You've just added probably 10 to 15 years to your lifespan.
	You've Thank you, Seth. Yeah, I've really, really been trying.
	Yeah, I don't want to fall back into that trap.
	Right, right. Okay, and I'm sorry to hear about things with your girlfriend.
	It is really tough to try and sort out a relationship while it's breaking up.
	You know, it's like trying to take flying lessons when you wake up and you're approaching the runway.
	Or like trying to take driving lessons when you're already skidding.
	So it's tough, and I appreciate your desire.
	And I think it's a wise one.
	You know, I think it's a wise desire to try and sort things out before you move forward.
	and I think that you it sounds like you're in a pretty good environment you don't have a lot of distractions you can really really focus on this of course the challenge is if I understand it rightly you don't you don't have access to a therapist right?
	I don't. Like you said, the environment is good in that sense, and in the last two months, it's not just getting over the relationship with her.
	I've realized some really crazy truths about my parents, and thankfully, they had the respect to me.
	It's been really painful, and it still is, but they've given me that respect.
	I don't really know how I'm going to talk to them.
	I've been reading like crazy.
	Your website, Dave Mack, Alice Miller and Lloyd DeMoss.
	I heard your audio book with him.
	Excellent stuff. Thanks for that, Seth.
	I don't know how I'm going to approach the folks.
	That's another thing that's sort of been keeping me up at night as well, that thought lingering there.
	Right. You're right, the environment for developing a relationship with myself and having this time to myself, it's great because most of the people here don't speak English.
	It's not like you're distracted by a lot of TV and movies, right?
	No, nothing like that.
	I teach about 16 hours a week and then the rest of the time I go down and play some basketball and read and it's basically just me.
	Right, right.
	So, I want to make sure that given how late you stayed up, or how, I mean, I don't know, somewhere between late and early, I think is the phrase.
	I want to make sure that you get as much value as possible out of this conversation.
	Is it my understanding that you're sort of trying to figure out what you can do without a therapist or just with the resources that you have at the moment?
	Yeah, yeah. That's kind of, yeah.
	Right, right.
	And... And I know this is a tough question to ask, and you may not have an answer, which I completely understand, but have you thought of or do you have a particular goal?
	Like, how would you know if you've succeeded, right?
	The first thing you should do before you try anything is to say, well, what would success look like?
	So I just want to ask you, and just off the top of your head, if you haven't thought about it, what would success, like, if I give you some of my idiot thoughts and they're useful, how will we know whether you've succeeded?
	Yeah. Yeah, to start you off with a nice easy question.
	So wait, let me just sort of grasp that.
	What you're asking me is, what are my goals?
	Yeah, so let's say I say, like, you know, if you want to, let's say I was a nutritionist and you want to lose weight and you say, okay, I want to lose 30 pounds and then we would have a goal where we'd say, okay, you've now lost 30 pounds and I want to keep it off, right?
	So you lose 30 pounds, you keep it off for a certain amount of time and that would be success, right?
	If you want to become a doctor, your success is whether you become a doctor.
	If you want to become a lawyer, your success is passing the bar, right?
	Because one of the challenges of self-knowledge, I mean, it is, of course, a continual process.
	I mean, I'm continuing to learn new startling and sometimes quasi-erotic things about myself.
	And so it is a continual process.
	But at the beginning, I'm just curious what would success look like to you?
	What would it look like to have succeeded in the pursuit of self-knowledge, just let's say over the next six months?
	Alright, over the next six months, I think I can give you a pretty honest answer to that.
	I'd like to see a serious change in my behaviour.
	I engage with people and I'm normally the centre of the attention.
	It's all fun and my friends like me for that respect, but I have this way about me around people where I'm very sarcastic towards myself and I paint a picture of myself that's not true.
	That's one thing I really want to change.
	Another thing is, of course, my addictive nature to alcohol and drugs.
	Once I start drinking, that's it.
	And I'm only 22.
	Because I'm only 22, I really want to deal with this stuff now, before it's too late, you know?
	Yeah, I hear you. I've still got some brain left, so...
	Hey, listen, if you're following this show, it's more than some.
	I really genuinely believe we have the smartest listeners on the planet, and just having had 50 of them up to my house, I believe that even more now.
	Okay, so you're looking for continuing to stay off the drugs and alcohol and to refrain from putting yourself down or presenting a more negative or cynical view of yourself than you actually believe.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, I'll tell you, I think that last thing is really fucking brilliant because one thing that's very true in life is that if you're willing to put yourself down, if you're willing to diminish yourself, if you're willing to make yourself look small – And pseudo-humble, or if you're willing to portray the human soul as a drab, greedy, grasping little thing, then you will never be short of popularity.
	Because that is the fundamental drug that everyone is after.
	The fundamental drug that everyone is after, that everyone is addicted to, that is so destructive, is smallness.
	It's smallness.
	I mean, you wouldn't believe how many times I get attacked for being, quote, grandiose or having high ambitions or thinking too highly of myself or whatever.
	It is really alarming to people if you stop putting yourself down.
	It is really alarming to people if you stop using all of these sitcom approaches to human nature, you know, where everybody just pretends to be good but it's really just after something petty or everybody just...
	Puts themselves down and stays small and doesn't take a stand on anything and rolls their eyes when anything serious comes up and this addiction that we all have to staying small, to staying inconsequential, to staying meaningless, to staying skeptical to our own greater natures.
	I think it's really, really brilliant and powerful for you to have identified that as something that gets you popularity.
	You'll never be short of people who will praise you for letting them off the hook of their own greatness, of their own potential for greatness.
	And you will never accumulate more enemies than if you offer people greatness and they fail the test.
	That's an old phrase by Nietzsche that no man will forgive you for failing the greatness that you can offer him.
	So I just wanted to point out that I think that is a very, very powerful thing that you're doing to refrain from being cynical and skeptical about yourself.
	I just think that is really good.
	Thanks, yeah. Well, I mean, when I did see my friends, it was like an automatic switch.
	When I saw them recently for the first time in a few weeks, it was an automatic...
	And they're not really real friends here.
	They're just a bunch of other foreigners that are teaching here.
	I haven't really developed any...
	This is the thing, throughout my whole life, I haven't really developed any close, deep relationships with anyone.
	And that's what I'm starting to realise.
	Because when I do sit down and talk with them...
	You know, try to talk on a deeper level.
	It's just like... I don't know.
	I'm expected to be this person who's light-hearted, who's shallow, who's, you know...
	And people laugh when I make these ridiculous jokes.
	You know, these prejudiced absolute...
	These complete generalizations.
	And that's the picture I've been painted to have.
	And the more and more I think about it, the more and more I realize, as a child when I was growing up, It's got something to do with my parents, for sure.
	So much of my childhood is blocked out, but the more I think about it, I do remember times with mum and dad, you know, where they'd say, oh, you know, here's our three kids, it's the older boy, and then here's Nick, you know, he's the black sheep, ha ha ha, or he's the, you know, it's just like, fuck, I don't know, it's really, yeah, I don't know, I don't know what to say, yeah.
	No, I understand. The people have a, you know, I mean, I think families can be absolutely wonderful in terms of helping people and essential, I think, in terms of helping people get a free and flexible sense of self.
	But sadly, all too many families seem to be about...
	Keeping people in little boxes of cliches about keeping people in little coffins of expectation and conformity.
	Like, you are X. You are the black sheep.
	You are the clumsy one. You're the one who talks too much.
	You're the one who whatever, right?
	You're the jock. You're the whoever.
	And I think that stuff can be really dangerous for self-knowledge and for growth.
	So I just wanted to point that out.
	I don't think you're alone in that at all.
	And one of the things that was important for me, just in terms of personal growth, was recognizing that there were people in my life who were strongly committed and invested into a particular vision of me or a particular circumscription of who I was and what I was capable of and what I was all about.
	And if I wanted to outgrow that, I needed to change those people's minds.
	And if I couldn't change those people's minds, I had to leave them behind.
	I think that's a choice that everyone makes individually, but that certainly was the choice that worked for me.
	So I think I really understand you when you say that there's a particular kind of stereotype.
	That those around are holding of you, and then there's this war, this war that goes on, and it's a war usually under the table, where you say, I'm not going to be this, I'm going to outgrow this stereotype, and then people try to put you back into that stereotype, and it can get quite ferocious at times.
	Yeah, yeah, no, that makes perfect sense.
	Yeah, I mean, like, when I, recently I've said to them, and my ex-girlfriend, I've seen her since, you know, I'm going through this self-therapy thing, and I've been thinking these thoughts about You know, my parents, and I'm trying to deal with that and grow through it.
	I'm not particularly getting angry at them and blaming them, but at the same time, they affected me and made me narcissistic and obese and addictive.
	They had an effect on it.
	My friends would say, you know, Nick, what are you talking about?
	They did their best. What's wrong with you, Nick?
	You're sounding all weird.
	Where have you gone?
	We loved you the way you were.
	Get back in the box.
	Stop asking questions that make me uncomfortable.
	I understand.
	This is a real battle.
	It's a real battle. Fundamentally, there is no such thing as self-knowledge because that is the indication that the self is a single thing.
	Right? It's like knowledge of the universe is not one fact or one thing.
	It's a whole process. It includes, you know, biology and chemistry and astrophysics and geology and archaeology and history.
	I mean, this is knowledge of it.
	So it's a multidisciplinary thing.
	There is no such thing fundamentally as self-knowledge, right?
	There is simply knowledge about what is.
	Knowledge about what is true. Knowledge about what is real.
	And the truth is that we generally have not one self, but many selves.
	You have a self that conforms to your family.
	You have a self that wants to be independent of that conformity.
	You have a self that wants to do drugs.
	You have a self that doesn't want to do drugs.
	You have a self that wants to get along with your friends.
	You have a self that wants to outgrow those limitations if they can't be negotiated away.
	So there is almost like it's knowledge of herself and knowledge of herself is directly involved with knowledge about other people.
	is directly involved with knowledge about other people.
	So when I learned more about myself, I learned a lot more about the impacts that other people had had on me.
	So when I learned more about myself, I learned a lot more about the impacts that other people had had on me.
	And so I learned about their nature.
	And so I learned about their nature.
	When I learned about myself, I began bringing that truth to those around me, and I learned very quickly how well or how badly they handled the truth, or at least my truth about myself.
	When I learned about myself, I began bringing that truth to those around me.
	And I learned very quickly how well or how badly they handled the truth or at least my truth about myself.
	So everything that we learn about ourselves has strong, significant and deep impacts on our knowledge and our relationship with those around us.
	So everything that we learn about ourselves has strong, significant, and deep impacts on our knowledge and our relationship with those around us.
	So self-knowledge is really everything you learn about yourself.
	So self-knowledge is really everything you learn about yourself, you will then learn about those around you when you bring those truths or those questions or those histories to them.
	So it is knowledge of everything, really.
	And that's why philosophy, I think, is so essential, because you can't pursue the self-knowledge, which leads to a knowledge of those around you, which leads to a knowledge of the world as a whole.
	Like you can't see the lies of culture until you learn the truth about yourself and then try and bring that truth about yourself and the world to other people and see how bitterly they can resist that.
	You don't see the indoctrinations of culture when you're inside it.
	It's only when you step outside it.
	So the pursuit of knowledge with regards to yourself, which is a worthy and noble place to start, I find very quickly turns into the pursuit of knowledge.
	Or the discovery of knowledge about everyone around you, everyone around me.
	They are revealed through me going into myself.
	It's almost like the more I learn about myself, almost automatically, the more I learn, whether I like it or not, about other people, if that makes any sense.
	That makes perfect sense.
	That feels like exactly what I'm going through.
	And it's really interesting because...
	Just in the last two months, this is why I'm starting to sort of freak out, because I can see myself half wanting, like, really wanting to go back to the way I was, but it feels like, you know, I can't undo what I've done now.
	I mean, I feel like I've changed so much in such a short time.
	I really don't know how to handle it properly.
	I mean, I've been getting into this, you know, like, I'm constantly every day reading psychology, I'm in love with it, and philosophy, and I just, I can't get enough.
	And I'm starting, like you said, I'm starting to see everything differently, and half of me has got this overwhelming feeling of freedom and confidence and control.
	And the other half is just really, really depressed.
	And I don't know how...
	Like, does that go, Steph?
	Does that depression just, like, leave sometime?
	Yeah, it does.
	In my experience, it does.
	It is...
	You know, just to speak personally, it was a terrifying and awful precipice.
	Like, standing on the edge of a cliff for me...
	When I finally, finally, I was much older than you are, so again, congratulations to you for doing it so early, but when I finally truly began to be myself, I began to get a very strong, overwhelming, and terrifying sense of just how committed people were around me to me not being myself, to me conforming to other people's expectations, to me joining them in the cult of smallness that is so much at the root of culture.
	And so I really, I think I get it.
	And I'm not trying to put my experience onto yours.
	I'm just talking about what I experienced, that when you begin to become who you are, and then you try to share who you really are, your true thoughts, your true feelings, not conforming to other people's pleasures and expectations and needs, but to bring who you really are into your relationships.
	It's like you're running down a hill towards people who have their arms open and smiles on their faces.
	And for me, when I then ripped off my mask and my false clothing and I ran down, in a sense, naked and who I genuinely was, suddenly those smiles and those outstretched arms turned to shields and to spears. suddenly those smiles and those outstretched arms turned to shields And I felt like I was going to be not just gored but repelled back, get away.
	I became something toxic.
	I became something dangerous to other people.
	And it was exhilarating to drop the mask.
	It was exhilarating to no longer...
	Feed the drug of other people's expectations with my very essence and my very soul and my very being to no longer have a continual Aztec self-sacrifice of that which is greatest within me for the sake of other people's need for smallness and pettiness and inconsequentiality.
	It was a terror.
	And I felt that exhilaration, but I also felt this anxiety, which was partly mine and also partly other people's.
	Like, they really didn't want me to change.
	You know, unstable and dysfunctional relationships are all about rigidity.
	It's like the state. It's like religion.
	It's all about rigidity. It's not about curiosity.
	It's not about growth.
	And whenever you stop conforming to that rigidity, you are shaking a significant house of cards that That really is the souls of others or the soullessness of others.
	And so when you stop conforming to people's expectations, it threatens their very sense of identity or rather reveals their lack of identity.
	And that is a very terrifying thing for other people and for us.
	Yeah. Well, I feel I'm split.
	Half of me, because I'm spending so much time alone, but when I occasionally go back and see these people...
	Sure, that's very natural.
	And it normally comes after a period of where I start talking about, you know, I've been going through self-therapy and getting into psychiatry and thinking about things in my life and they'll say, oh yeah, you know, tell me about it.
	And you actually start telling them about it and they say, oh, Oh, I don't know, Nick.
	You shouldn't blame other people.
	You shouldn't blah, blah, blah. It's like, no, no, no, it's not.
	This is a growth process.
	This is good for me. And they say, no, no, no, no, no.
	It's bad. It's whatever.
	And it's just like, ugh.
	And then instantly you go, oh, don't worry.
	And then you make a joke.
	And it's like, I'm still me.
	And it's kind of like a defense.
	It's kind of like, don't worry.
	I'm still me. You don't have to be because I kind of want them in my life because it's all I've got.
	Sure, sure. I totally understand.
	Personally, I don't think you should feel bad for doing that.
	I think that's a perfectly natural response.
	You know, part of us wants to be who we genuinely are without lies, without subterfuge, without evasion.
	And part of us really wants a community of people around us for very sensible and useful reasons.
	I mean... My wife and I are raising a very high energy, high intelligence, exciting, challenging daughter with no help, with no extended family, with virtually no friends.
	It's hard. It is hard, hard, hard.
	But I have to go with our good friend Nietzsche here, right?
	He says something like, if you become who you truly are, you will often feel alone, you will often feel frightened, you will often feel horrified, but no price is too high for the privilege of owning yourself, of being who you are.
	And that's what comes out of it in the long run, but there certainly is a seesaw battle between hope and despair for quite some time.
	Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
	Yeah, I really want to get through it because I'm scared of falling back.
	Falling back, like taking steps backwards and just getting on the drink and turning into who I was, you know?
	And there will be people in your life who will feel some relief at that.
	Maybe not consciously and maybe not malevolently, but it seems likely that they're...
	I mean, if you've had that and people haven't moved heaven and earth to stop that, then...
	There may be people in your life who will prefer that for their own reasons.
	Basically everyone I know I think would prefer it if I kept going out on the weekend.
	I'm a source of entertainment and they say it proudly, you know, and I hate it because for some reason I just get into these old stories of things that I'm ashamed of and I'll say it openly to people I first meet after I've had a few drinks and it's nothing to be proud of, you know, and afterwards I'm really depressed about it.
	I don't want to be that person, basically, but yeah.
	Right, but there's a lot of pressure to be that kind of person, and it's what you know.
	It's the language. I said this before.
	It's like learning a new language.
	You constantly want to slip back into using your old language because that's easier.
	That's what you speak and trying to learn a new language.
	As you know from being in China, I mean, if you met 10 people who spoke English, you'd probably socialize with them and speak a lot more English, right?
	Whereas if you don't have those people around, you're kind of forced to learn this new language.
	Right, right, yeah. Yeah, it's hard.
	It's hard going. It is.
	But I've found, though, interesting, I'm teaching kids and I absolutely love my kids.
	And in a non, you know, don't analyse that word too much.
	I mean, what I mean is I really feel a deep empathy for the kids I teach.
	And, you know, I've found in the last month or so, I've really started to...
	To have a better connection with them.
	Like, they are respecting me more.
	A four and five year old kid, you know.
	And I don't know how that happened, how that came about, but just in the last two months I've noticed a big change in that.
	Where instead of going into a class hungover, you know, I'm now going into a class kind of, you know, fresh and sober and thinking and really responding to what they're saying straight away.
	And they seem to, you know, come into class and say, Hi Nick!
	Really happy to see me now.
	So I've noticed a big change in that way, which is a positive out of this.
	Huge. And by being real around children, you are having a very large effect, even if you never speak about a single idea with them.
	By just being real around children, you are giving them a possibility that they may not get in any other particular way.
	Yeah, well, I mean, as you know, you've spoken to...
	Someone else who's teaching kids in China as well.
	I've heard that podcast and as you spoke to him, the situation here is pretty bleak.
	I mean, the kids here are treated pretty rough and, you know, to see it firsthand, it's quite harsh.
	But I do my best, you know.
	And you may want to say hi to that guy.
	I think he's there without a girlfriend.
	So you might want to say hi to that guy.
	At least you'll be in a similar time zone.
	So that might be a little more helpful if you guys had some chats or connected.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, I sent him an email last week and he got back to me.
	So hopefully we're meeting up next week and I might make a new friend who actually listens to me.
	So I'm really excited about that.
	Yeah, he's a great guy. Somebody's mentioned in the chat, which I think is a good idea.
	I don't know much about support groups, but places like AA, I don't know if they have any out there, but I've heard that they have some utility, but of course it's up to you, but I just wanted to pass that along.
	Sure, thank you. So I don't have any huge advice other than, you know, stay off the booze of drugs, of course.
	If you haven't watched the Bomb and the Brain series on YouTube, I'd strongly recommend that.
	It talks about self-medication as the addiction that results from...
	Childhood trauma, I think there's a lot of science and a lot of good medicine in there.
	None of it coming from me, of course, because I don't have any particular expertise in those fields, but all of it coming from the experts.
	You can go to fdurl.com forward slash bib to watch the series.
	I strongly recommend that.
	Keep journaling, keep reading, talk to people who get it wherever you can find them, online or offline.
	That would be my suggestion.
	Free domain chat room, that's pretty much it.
	Actually, I want to say a big thank you to Dave Oh, Dave B? Everything you're putting out there,
	Steph, and this chat, surprisingly, even though it's 10 to 5, I feel...
	You're energized with terror now, right?
	Yeah. Even though it's 10 to 5, I'm smiling for the first time in a while, so thank you.
	Alright, and look, I mean, you can get in touch with me if you need.
	My hours can be a little bit all over the map, so it may not be too bad for us to chat in terms of the hour switch, but I just hugely admire what you're doing.
	It is a hard thing to do.
	I kind of went into hibernation mode when I was working on this stuff for about two years.
	I barely dated it. I was just living in a room and going to work.
	So that's...
	I understand where you're coming from.
	So I just hugely admire what you're doing.
	And there is beyond light, there is a new world at the end of the tunnel.
	But I know it's a challenge.
	Yeah, all right. Thanks a lot, Steph.
	I really, really appreciate it.
	Yeah, cheers. You're absolutely welcome.
	And keep in touch. Keep me posted if you can.
	I will. Cheers. Hopefully catch you on the chat room.
	Yeah. And the important thing is to become such a great person that your girlfriend for the rest of her life kicks herself for not staying with you.
	I think that's the motivation that has always driven me.
	I'm just kidding. But, you know, let's end with a slight joke.
	All right, man. Take care.
	And I think we have another caller queued up.
	Is that right, Mr. J? All right.
	See you, Steph. Thank you. All right.
	Take care, man. Get some sleep.
	All right. Good night. Absolutely right.
	Oh, there he is. All right.
	Oh, wait. Yeah, Mark, I think you're next.
	Mark. Mark of the Beast.
	Hello? It's a mime-free call.
	I should probably have mentioned that at the beginning.
	Somebody did ask if there was video.
	We don't have that, but we certainly don't have it right now.
	You mean of this show?
	Yeah, yeah. A video because we have the video Skype that's coming.
	Oh, yeah, yeah. No, there's no video just because broadcasting it out to however many people are watching is more than it's really worth it.
	For what it's worth, I did figure out what the problem was.
	It was something on my end.
	So, next time, we won't have this kind of hangout.
	User error? I think that's the first time that software has ever been ascribed to user error.
	I never, ever had that.
	Really? I mean, that has to be a first.
	It has to be a first. Well, I mean, we have several people on the call who indicated they want to chat.
	I mean, there's no particular order, so whoever jumps in, I'd say.
	Yeah, whoever jumps in, just while we're waiting for that, somebody has a question.
	Schadenfreude. Healthy or unhealthy?
	Schadenfreude is a form of blood sausage that you actually take rectally.
	So I would say it really depends on whether it's frozen or not and how flexible you are.
	Just kidding. Oh, it is the day for bad jokes.
	Sorry, are you on? No.
	Yeah, can I jump in? Sure.
	Okay, you can hear me? Good. Hey, I just want to say how much I appreciate what you do.
	It's changing my life.
	I was going to ask a question about self-knowledge.
	Do you do dream interpretations?
	Yeah, I've done dream interpretations in the past.
	They tend to be fairly lengthy, but I've certainly done them in the past, and they're not really dream interpretations.
	I don't think there's really such a thing as a dream interpretation.
	I have a fairly good brain for metaphors, and so when people do talk about dreams, I can sometimes throw in a few thoughts that I have about the dream that can be helpful, if that makes any sense.
	Sure. I was just wondering, because this one's kind of a recurring one that happens like every night, and I guess I'll just say the main theme is a car or a vehicle, and Usually what happens is I'm kind of locked inside and people are trying to get into me or try to attack me and there's like nothing I can do about it.
	It's pretty frightening and I was just wondering if you had any insight on something like that.
	How long have you had the dream for?
	Probably about 10 times.
	Since when? Just over the last couple months.
	And did anything in particular happen, you know, car-related or anything like that before you began to have these dreams?
	And this may have been something you saw on TV or something that you read about or saw a picture of somewhere.
	No, not really.
	Actually, I gotta say, last night I had a car-related dream.
	I was driving around doing delivery, you know, as a delivery driver, and anyway, when I finished, my boss called me, who happens to be my mom, and this isn't real life.
	I mean, the dream is a dream, obviously, but She called me and she asked me if I had an accident that I hadn't reported or that I needed to report.
	And I got real angry, real intense, and it really actually surprised me how angry I got.
	And I just started yelling at my mom through the phone.
	And it really disturbed me because I usually don't get that angry.
	And I'm wondering...
	You know, if she has something to do with this, or...
	Well, let's just go back.
	So you're in the recurring dream.
	You're in a car, and people are surrounding your car, and they're trying to get at you, and it's kind of frightening?
	They're usually trying to break in.
	I haven't seen that many zombie films, but if I remember rightly, the correct protocol at that moment is to hit the gas and just drive through them or over them to get away.
	And you don't do that.
	Do you know why you don't do that in the dream?
	No, I don't.
	Every time it's a different response.
	Actually, one of them that I had, which was very strange, is I was actually in the back of a pickup truck and we were moving down the highway and this guy jumped into the bed from another pickup truck.
	We were going 50 miles down the highway or whatever.
	I believe my wife was in the car, or in the bed of the pickup, and he attacked her, and I kicked him in the face, and he went flying onto the highway and got ran over by a car.
	And I just remember how horrible I felt.
	I basically killed the guy, but he had attacked my wife.
	Right. That's interesting, yeah, because I was going to say that the reason why you might not hit the gas in the dreams is that you're afraid of hurting these people who are attacking you.
	Yeah, that could be true.
	I can see that.
	Now, these are just thoughts, right?
	So I don't know anything to do with your situation.
	I'll just throw some thoughts out. You can tell me whether they make any sense to you or not.
	Sure. Now, sometimes when we are in family or work or social situations, people can kind of put us down.
	And then when we confront them, they're hurt.
	They're upset. So I used to have a friend many years ago.
	I think I'm going to go.
	But it did begin to trouble me after a while that this was the sole topic, it would seem.
	And this wasn't the case when we were in private.
	When we were in private, he was actually very interested.
	I used to drive him to work, and we were listening to audiobooks on Jung, and he would talk to me about his dreams, and he was really interested in self-knowledge.
	But then when we would get into a social situation, he would kind of turn and I thought that it was a kind of one-upmanship or a leveling where he'd sort of say things to put me down.
	And yet when I brought this up with him, if I brought this up with him in public, like I think we've had enough silly Steph stories, let's move on.
	It'd be like, oh, well, you can't take a joke.
	There would be that kind of passive-aggressive thing.
	When I'd bring it up in private, he would sort of pretend to be upset or hurt that I brought it up and misunderstood what he was trying to do.
	You're like, hey, I'm just trying to lighten things up.
	I'm just trying to – I can't believe you would take it that way or be so oversensitive or whatever.
	And the reason I'm bringing that up is that if you feel like you're being attacked but you feel like asserting your boundaries, asserting your mobility, asserting yourself is going to hurt the people who are attacking you.
	And attacking is a strong word.
	but thinking negatively of you or putting you down or leveling.
	If you feel that assertiveness is going to hurt people around you that you care about, then you're kind of in a no-win situation.
	And dreams, in my experience, dreams that are repetitive, are all around no-win situations.
	So I can't stay in the car because I'm going to get attacked.
	I can't drive over these people because I don't want to hurt them, and so I'm stuck.
	And so if you're in a situation, you don't have to tell me yes or no unless you want to, right?
	I'm certainly happy to hear either way.
	If you're in a situation where you feel that you're not being supported or you're being put down by some portion of those around you, but you also feel like you can't assert yourself without really hurting those people, then you're kind of stuck, right?
	You're kind of cornered and there's not much that you can do.
	And that's when I find that the broken record dreams are all about no-win situations.
	Does that ring true?
	Does that make any sense? Absolutely.
	They're actually...
	Woohoo! Hole in one!
	Yay! Sorry, go on.
	Seriously, the relationships in my life are kind of falling apart.
	And part of it, I think, I'm really into philosophy.
	I'm real into, you know, moving towards a voluntary society.
	I'm real into it.
	And, you know, people around me just aren't.
	And a couple examples.
	I got a friend that I actually live with.
	And I feel a little bit of a disconnect between me and him.
	We've been friends forever.
	And I almost feel like he's trying to sabotage my other relationships in my life.
	For example, my wife.
	And I'm not saying that lightly.
	I mean, that's a real hard thing to say.
	And then I've got my parents, who I work for my mom.
	And just about six months ago, I mean, this has been going on for a couple of years where I was growing up and raised in a religion that I really just, over the last couple of years, I've really kind of gone away from.
	And I've always been real afraid to come out with that.
	Well, I just came out with that about six months ago.
	And that's been really hard for my parents.
	My mom has taken a real passive-aggressive kind of attitude on that and It's just whenever I'm around here.
	I feel this Negativity like she just cannot accept that my dad can't accept my philosophy.
	He cannot accept the non-aggression principle my dad He's openly hostile to me and my mom's you know she pretends like she's not but I The little comments she makes under her breath.
	I think she's hurt.
	I can't control that because I'm not going back to a religion, to a mindset that is just retarded.
	I'm sorry I can't find another word to put for it.
	Does that make any sense?
	I'm not really sure how to break through this.
	Right, right. Oh my god.
	I mean, I just felt, I feel so emotional hearing you talk about it.
	I feel teary.
	I mean, I feel so sad about the situation that you're in.
	It is tough.
	And I mean, I wish there was a magic healing wand that brought illumination to the superstitious, but there isn't.
	I just want to make sure to check. Sorry, go ahead.
	I was just going to add just one little positive thing.
	I am not living with my parents.
	So, I'm kind of an old fart.
	I'm almost 30, you know.
	Please, please don't use old fart and still in your 20s because that puts me somewhere, I think, being born in the Middle Ages.
	Well, You know, I do have some volunteerist friends, and I'm ten years older than most of them, so, you know, I just don't know of anybody that's as old as I am.
	But, you know, I've moved out of my house, and I've got three kids, and I'm kind of establishing my own life, you know, but it's just, I don't want to, you know, I'm not sure what to do with this relationship with my parents.
	Let me just check the timing here.
	So when did you come out as an atheist?
	Six months ago, like openly.
	Right. And when did your dreams, you said it was a couple of months that you've been having these dreams.
	Do you think it may be related in timing to you coming out as an atheist?
	I think possibly.
	I mean, it's not like you've had the dreams for five years and you came out six months ago or you came out six months ago and you have the dreams last week.
	It's somewhere in the vicinity of that time frame, right?
	Sure. The one positive note on this, too, is my wife, you know, she's been in the same religion that I was in, and just about six months ago, she came to me and said, you know what, I've had it with this.
	This is nonsense. This is bullcrap.
	And, you know, that gave me a lot of strength to come out for myself.
	And the one problem with that is she was a lot more open, and she really came out first.
	And so, I mean, what do you think my parents think when they see her, who she is, and then, you know what I mean?
	And really, I mean, I've been keeping it in for years, and she hasn't, and she just came to this realization that Overnight.
	As far as I know. I mean, I don't know what's inside her fully.
	You know what I mean? But it's just like my parents are blaming her for who I am.
	Sure. My self-esteem is not depending on them, but I wish that they would just let me be my own man.
	Because everything that I do wrong that they don't like or whatever, it's like I'm being influenced by somebody else.
	They couldn't have raised somebody that would think on their own enough to maybe reject the principles that they taught me, if that makes any sense.
	Right. I mean, look, for an adult child to reject a parent's false beliefs is a mark of good parenting.
	I mean, the things that I believe that are false, which I'm sure there's a number, I would not consider it a success as a parent if my daughter were never to reject those false things.
	So, I mean, I've put an argument out that homosexuality is biological in nature, that I've gotten from a number of magazines, articles, and books.
	But let's say that it's proven false.
	Well, then I'll retract, and I would certainly hope that my daughter would then abandon that belief, since it was wrong, and accept whatever new evidence and rationality was there.
	But let me ask you this.
	Are your parents able to let go of the topic of religion?
	With you? Or does it keep kind of coming up in these little barbs?
	It comes up, like, I mean, okay, for example, I think my wife lost her wallet the other day, and she said something to the effect of, well, you know, you'll find it if you pray, you know? And they know that you're an atheist, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	And so, I mean, just by saying that, I almost think that's a little passive-aggressive because they know where I'm coming from.
	It's just like, what is she trying to communicate with me by saying that?
	You know what I mean? It's like, so I didn't really give that much of a response, you know, and then she goes over to my wife and she starts talking, you know, about me and about how You know, I was rejecting her advice and that maybe she would accept the advice to pray about her wallet or whatever.
	And I mean, yeah, we found our wallet and we found it by tracing our steps from the night before.
	Believe it or not, that actually kind of works sometimes, you know.
	Oh, no, I know. Yeah, absolutely.
	Putting that out there. Right, right.
	Right. Well, then there is a kind of repetition in this, right?
	In that they're acting as if you haven't lost your faith, right?
	Yeah. You know, and that could be like, I'm just, I want to see this from their perspective, obviously.
	You know, if they, I mean, it's like, one thing that I've learned is that people, they have their little lens that they see through, and you can smack them in the forehead with something, and if that does not fit in their worldview, then they will not accept that they've just been smacked in the head.
	You know what I mean? And so it's like, how can I communicate to them the way I feel, you know, nicely, gently, peacefully, and effectively?
	And how can I mend this?
	Because, you know, like I said, I'm not going back to it.
	And that wouldn't be a mandate anyway, because that doesn't really take care of the problem.
	That's just me submitting to the nonsense.
	Right. Well, I can tell you what I think.
	Of course, nobody can tell you what to do in this kind of situation, but I can tell you what thoughts have occurred to me.
	Okay, cool. Is it unfair to say that, sorry, the people who are crowding around your car in the dream, I get an image of zombies, which is not to say that they are, but what is their status?
	Are they just people who, like, can you not reason with them?
	I mean, are they going, brains?
	I mean, what is the status of the people around you, around your car in your dream?
	They're not rational.
	I don't know how to...
	It's like there's something they want from me.
	I wouldn't call them zombies necessarily, but they are very intent on violating me somehow.
	And I'm not talking sexually, obviously.
	Yeah, yeah. No, I understand. I understand.
	So, I mean, they're real intent on breaking in, on stealing stuff from me, from beating me up, or whatever it is they want to do.
	You know, I mean, so...
	Well, look, I mean, this is the challenge.
	And you understand, these are all just my opinions, right?
	So, I'm just some idiot on the internet, but I'll throw out these opinions and you can see if they make any sense, right?
	I have always found that people who do not respect my boundaries need to be pushed back.
	They need to be pushed back.
	They do not respond to a reasonable request for a respect of a difference in belief.
	So you're not marching up to your parents and trying to convert them to atheism or pretending that they're atheists, right?
	Of course not.
	I have no desire to do that.
	Right, so you are saying, you agree, you believe this, I don't, let's drop it, let's agree to disagree, and so on.
	It's not worth it, I'd rather have a relationship than combat over non-existent things, right?
	Yeah. Now, if your parents or whoever are not of that same approach, then they're going to keep bringing it up and keep bringing it up, and they're going to bring it up in these oblique kinds of ways where they just pretend that you are not who you are, that you are some good Christian boy, right?
	That is my experience, yes.
	Right. And you can try talking about it with them, and you can try reminding them.
	But in my experience, it's just my experience, it could be completely different for you, but in my experience, you just have to push back.
	There has to be a scene. If a reasonable request, like stop pretending that I'm religious.
	Please, stop pretending that I'm religious.
	It bothers me. It upsets me.
	I don't like it. I'm not going to pretend that you're an atheist.
	Don't pretend that I'm a Christian.
	That's a reasonable thing to request, isn't it?
	Sure. What do you think is going to happen if you say that?
	You know, I don't know.
	And it's really easy for me.
	Yes, you know. You know. You know, come on, this is your parents, you know.
	And I'm not trying to...
	You could be fine, but don't tell me you don't know, because you've known these people for, as you said, almost 30 years, right?
	If you don't know them, you don't know anyone, right?
	I guess I don't know is just an excuse for not answering a question, huh?
	Yeah, I've heard that one before.
	And I do it to myself too, but you know.
	If I were to say that, they would probably...
	They'd probably be very upset.
	Yeah, but what I mean is, what do you think would happen next week or next month?
	Do you think that they would respect your preference?
	Well, I don't think they would respect it, but...
	Given my mom's very passive-aggressive way of dealing with things, I mean, she's not bold and up-forward about what she believes, and it's just because she feels uncomfortable with it, obviously.
	And so she would probably just put that in the back of her mind and let it fester.
	And then more comments may come up or whatever, right?
	Yeah, as it builds up over the next year or whatever.
	Right. Yeah, so look, I mean, it may be that your dream is telling you that you're just going to have to really make yourself clear about this.
	You know, if not for you, also for the sake of your kids who are going to be spending time around your mom and dad and who I assume you're not going to raise to be, you know, devout little Christians.
	So you're going to have to be firm.
	You're going to have to... Drive over some toes, so to speak, to get your legitimate and, I think, reciprocal needs met.
	In my experience, people who don't listen to reason, who don't listen to reasonable requests, who won't respect differences of belief, you just have to be more assertive.
	And if there needs to be a scene, then there needs to be a scene.
	But I think that for there to be a relationship, there at least has to be a live and let live reciprocity.
	Thank you.
	sure that makes sense and i think that's i think that's what your dream is about that's that's my guess but uh i mean you know there's no way to know for sure but that that would be my my guess sure so right now you're stuck right you They're not respecting your beliefs, and you're not asserting your demand that they do so.
	Well, yeah. Obviously, it gets complicated more because I work for my mom.
	Oh, yeah, of course. I've got that personal relationship I'm trying to keep, and I've got the business relationship.
	Right. And this stuff enters into the business relationship, which I'm really – I mean, do you think I should quit my job and separate myself from that?
	Oh, dude, you're asking me questions that I can't – this is something you would discuss with your wife and your family as a whole.
	Of course. I mean, would that be unheard of for you or – I mean, would that be something to consider?
	I'm looking for options to...
	You're looking for options other than sitting down and having this conversation, right?
	Well, I mean, I suppose you could say that.
	It seems like it.
	I could be wrong, but it seems like it, which I understand.
	understand.
	I mean, it's a terrifying conversation to have, to sit down and say, look, you keep talking to me as if I'm still a Christian.
	I'm not.
	It's not a phase.
	Even if it is a phase, I need you to respect where I am at at the moment.
	I'm not going to try and convert you to atheism.
	I'm not going to talk to you as if you're atheists, but I really need you to respect where I'm at.
	Even if you don't respect the content, I need you to respect that that's where I'm at and not pretend otherwise, because it's upsetting to me.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Bye.
	Bye.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Look, it's not an abusive thing to say.
	It's reciprocal. It's a UPB because you're doing it too, so it's a reasonable thing to ask for.
	And look, it's going to be confusing to your kids.
	If your kids are over with you and their grandparents and they're telling you to pray and you don't believe in God, that's confusing for them, right?
	Yeah, sure. That actually brings up another question.
	You know how kids are.
	They love grandparents. And it's like, I'm concerned about the amount of influence that I allow them to have over my kids.
	And obviously, that'll stir some huge issues.
	If my kids never come around, I shield them from them.
	And I don't want to shield my kids from...
	You know, anything, because I'm not, you know, that would be extremely hypocritical for me.
	Listen, I would tell you straight up what I think about this, and I'm very strong about this, and you can ditch it as complete bullshit if you think so, but I'll tell you what I think straight up.
	Look, I would not let people talk to my daughter about her sin.
	I would not let people talk to my daughter and tell her that the best and most noble being in the whole universe died because she was sinful.
	That she was the cause of a murder of the very best human being who ever lived.
	That to me is staggeringly abusive to a child.
	I would not let anybody tell my daughter that she was always being watched, that she was always being judged, and that she had to obey a ghost, or the ghost would put her in hell forever.
	Children, you and I can look at those things and say, well, that's pretty strong, or that's sort of a metaphor, or who believes that?
	But children are not adults.
	Children do not have...
	The ability to reject information that is obviously false.
	I mean, there's a reason that we tell three-year-olds about Santa Claus and not 40-year-olds.
	So, I am extremely strong on the reality that you do not expose your children to religious teachings as if those teachings are true.
	I'm not going to hide the fact that there is religion in the world for my daughter.
	I mean, there are people who believe these things.
	These things are not true.
	And I suppose you will teach, or your daughter will learn eventually about Greek mythology and about every other thing that people have believed.
	Absolutely. Religion is an important part of cultural heritage.
	Religion is an important part of the world.
	In the same way that I will teach her about fascism, and eventually she will learn about the Nazis.
	But that doesn't mean that I want to expose her to Nazi indoctrination and for her to become a Nazi.
	I just want her to learn about Nazism because it's part of history.
	Sure. You know, I have to laugh.
	Your response to that actually is pretty profound to me.
	Because, I mean, those are the words that I've been looking for.
	You know what I mean? It's like, that is just beautiful.
	And... Look, how much would you have given to have never been told as a child that you were sinful and corrupted and tempted by the devil?
	How much as a child would you have given to have never been threatened with the internal fucking microwave of hell?
	I mean, that shit is crazy.
	Can I share just a short little personal anecdote about that?
	Yeah, please. When I was about probably seven or eight or nine, somewhere in that time frame, I remember going to a Sunday school class and my Sunday school teacher was teaching us about the plan that our Heavenly Father has for us.
	And this teacher, she brought up about where you go after you die.
	And she mentioned something about, you know, a good place and a bad place.
	And then she said, but you all are going to the good place because, you know, you're innocent or, you know, or whatever, because you're doing...
	You know, whatever her reasoning was.
	But, see, the thing is, is I specifically remember doing something bad the night before.
	You know, I probably touched myself or whatever.
	I don't know. But anyway...
	When I heard that, in my mind I was thinking, oh yeah, all of my friends in this room are going to go to the good place and I'm going to go to the bad place.
	And I have to tell you, I'm just about to cry right now, but...
	I went to some therapy kind of stuff last year, and I explored some of that stuff, and I just realized how much of a profound influence that has for a child to believe that he's going to be going to hell.
	You know, it's just, it's horrible.
	I mean, you know, and I got to look at some of my negative thought patterns, my negative habits, and a lot of that I can...
	the tribute to that instance you know that point in time when i and and she didn't even have to say it you know i said it to myself yeah you know you understand yeah so yeah yeah i mean this shit this shit is told to children because it works The children have no defense against adult authority.
	They have no defense against it.
	They have no comparison. They do not have philosophy.
	They do not have wisdom.
	They do not have experience.
	They must swallow whole...
	Whatever shit sandwich the culture and the religion is feeding to them, they have no choice.
	They have no capacity to fundamentally reject these things.
	So it is so essential that you control and manage what is going into your child's mind as much as you would control and manage what goes into your child's stomach.
	Sure. So going back to my question there, if I take my kids over there, I know that they're going to be getting that.
	And even if it's in subtle ways, I know that that's what my parents are going to be serving them.
	But you can go over and you can be with them, right?
	So that there's some capacity to manage the message or whatever, right?
	Well, sure. I mean, my mom was trying to talk me into having her take my kids to church with them today.
	She was like, no way for that.
	But, you know, I mean, it's just, yeah.
	Let me give you one other thing, too, if you don't mind, just hopefully to make the case even stronger.
	I've talked a lot about how destructive it is to threaten children with eternal hell and judgment and original sin and all that kind of shit.
	But... But it's not just the negative.
	The love of Jesus, the love of God.
	God loves you. Jesus loves you.
	I think that, to me, is equally and sometimes more damaging to children.
	Because... Saying that you are the fetish of a ghost, I don't think gives children a very healthy sense of what human love is all about.
	What mature, eventually mature love that they're going to have is all about.
	It's an old truism that Jesus is the boyfriend who never disappoints.
	Right? Because Jesus, you know, he just loves you.
	It's just a love bomb. And God just loves you.
	God loves you. And I remember being told that kind of stuff when I was a kid, that Jesus loves you.
	Oh, why? Why does Jesus love me?
	Does he also love the mean kids who torture other kids?
	Does he also love the kids who trip other kids?
	Yes, he loves them too. So basically, Jesus just loves everyone.
	Jesus is just a hot whore.
	Jesus just loves everyone.
	Oh, but he can turn on you if you disobey him.
	He can turn on you and send you to hell forever.
	And hell, of course, was invented by Jesus.
	At least the Old Testament God let you die and rot in your grave without an eternal vengeance.
	It takes a special kind of passive aggression to come up with hell.
	But the idea of being loved by a ghost, of being stalked obsessively by a ghost who could read my mind and who loved me, I mean, that's some creepy ass shit.
	If any human being did one tenth of one percent of what God and Jesus are supposed to do in terms of watching and judging, I mean, they'd be locked away faster than that crazy bitch who said she was Leonardo DiCaprio's wife and stalking him.
	It is really dangerous to associate love with non-existent beings because it opens children up to needing that love and then being manipulated, right?
	Because it's not real. Nobody can come up to me and say, your wife doesn't love you.
	I mean, they can come up to me and say it.
	I'm just going to laugh at them, right?
	Because I know how much she loves me.
	But when you say to a child, God loves you, Jesus loves you, it's an imaginary love.
	And because it's an imaginary love, it can be taken away.
	Oh, Jesus doesn't love you now.
	Oh, shit. So you become enslaved to people telling you whether this imaginary being is loving you or not loving you.
	So it turns love into a kind of enslavement to the whims of unstable people.
	And that is not at all a healthy message.
	I think it's a profoundly unhealthy message to give to children.
	My imaginary friend really loves you.
	Oh, now he really hates you.
	Oh, he loves you again. Hates you, loves you.
	Oh, he loves you. Gonna burn you in hell.
	No, he loves you now. I mean, holy crap!
	How is that going to give a child any sense of stability and permanence and trust in loving relationships?
	Yeah. I'll tell you right now that the love that I have for them just surpasses any of that.
	I mean, there's nothing I would not do for my daughters.
	I can't say any more than that to do it justice.
	No, I hear you.
	I absolutely hear you.
	I completely and totally understand that.
	I mean, they are everything.
	They are everything. And they need your protection.
	They need your protection. Because they cannot judge whether gods exist or not.
	They cannot judge what awaits them after death, if anything.
	They simply cannot judge.
	And maybe, when they're 20, they'll judge and say, okay, it's buddy Jesus for me.
	Well, they can make that choice as adults, of course, right?
	But you need to keep your children free from indoctrination.
	That is essential, in my opinion.
	Well, good. Of course, I agree with that.
	Sorry, let me just say one last thing, just with regards to your dream.
	I want to make sure I get to the next caller, because we've spent quite a time.
	Oh, that's fine. But you also said that your parents blamed your wife for some of your atheism, right?
	Oh, yeah. And in your dream, who was the guy attacking who jumped into the flatbed truck?
	My wife. Right.
	Do you see the connection? I think that there could be a connection there.
	I think there could be.
	I think the key thing to do is to talk about this with your wife and meditate about it and write about it.
	Talk to a therapist if you can, but see, you know you're on the right track if the dreams stop repeating themselves or if they change fundamentally.
	Or, you know what you can do is, in the dream, if you're at all conscious of this or you're conscious of the choice, try hitting the gas.
	Yeah. Drive over some toes.
	It's just a dream. It's not like you're doing anything really harmful, but just try and then see if that breaks the repetition of the dream.
	Cool. Thanks a lot.
	I'll stay on that.
	Alright, and congratulations for what you're doing.
	I know I heap out steaming piles of praise in this show, but I just wanted to just give you my huge kudos for what you're doing in terms of raising your children free of superstition, terrifying superstitions, and your obvious commitment and love as a father, and massive congratulations to your wife as well.
	For what she's doing, I think it's just completely beautiful.
	You guys, I swear to God, you will have statues erected to you in 150 years, most of the listeners on this show, because what we're doing is that important.
	But huge, huge congratulations and admiration from me, at least.
	Well, I certainly appreciate that.
	Thanks. All right.
	I'll be back to Schadenfreude.
	Hi, Steph. Hello.
	Hi. Can I talk?
	I believe you are.
	Well, first I want to thank you very much for all these shows you have given.
	I have thanks to you.
	Yes, get rid of a lot of bad relationships and I'm also improving some other relationships and also finding new relationships that are much better.
	And yes, much goes to you.
	But I would like to ask you a question about investing money.
	Do you know Harry Brown, his permanent portfolio?
	I know Harry Brown's permanent portfolio only to the degree that he talked about it in his Sunday show from a number of years back or his weekly show a number of years back and that I believe he's into 25% stocks, 25% bonds, 25% gold and 25% cash so that you are balanced.
	You have a balanced portfolio for any economic extremity.
	Is that fair? That's exactly correct.
	But now I have this permanent portfolio, but I have some doubts about it on the moral sense.
	So you have 25% cash and 25% bonds, and both are investment in government bonds.
	So actually 50% of the portfolio are government bonds.
	Well, first, I think it will be a very bad investment, but at the other hand, I will agree with Harry Brown that it is possible that it will prove to be the best investment also.
	So you cannot know that for sure.
	But what I'm sure about is that morally, it's a really horrible investment.
	And I don't know.
	I was hoping that maybe I can get rid of them based on some moral theory.
	Rather than the other argument.
	But for that, I would need your help to know if it is right reasoning to say, look, government bombs, it's not morally good.
	So for that reason, you can kick them out of your portfolio.
	And what's the argument as to why it's morally bad to own government bonds?
	Well, you've learned me that.
	Because they do bad things with the money.
	Well, yeah. I mean, they do some things that are necessary with the money.
	I mean, the government has a monopoly on roads.
	Roads need to be repaired. The government has a monopoly on certain kinds of healthcare, depending on where you are.
	The government does use it to provide healthcare.
	And so some of these things would have to be provided in a free society.
	So it's not like, I don't know, which country do you live in?
	You're in the Netherlands. Okay, so it's not like you're the belly of the beast imperial power of America or anything like that.
	So, I mean, the Netherlands is fairly benevolent, at least relative to some of the war machines out here in the further west.
	It's investing in stuff that is, you know, some of which would be necessary in a free society.
	So it's not like you're paying for government death squads in Guatemala or, you know, bunker-busting bombs for Afghanistan or Iraq, right?
	Yes. Yes, also.
	What's your tax rate, my friend?
	Just on capital or on work, you pay 50% taxes.
	And are you paying taxes also on your capital gains, on your investments?
	Yes, also. It's 1% per year.
	Right, so over 50% and probably closer to 60% or 70% or more over the lifetime of your investment is going to the government, right?
	Well, that's very general.
	When you invest capital, yes...
	No, no, sorry, let me be more specific.
	It is very specific that your salary is being taxed at 50%, right?
	Yes. Now, when you buy government bonds, you are giving your money to the government, and they are going to pay you back that money, the interest over a certain period of time, and then you can sell to get your principal back, right?
	Yes. And roughly what percentage is your government bonds paying out at the moment?
	4% for the long-term bonds and almost no percent for the short-term bonds.
	And is there inflation in the Netherlands at all at the moment?
	Right now, very low inflation.
	Right, okay. So you're getting a few points back.
	Do you think, let me make this argument, do you think that if somebody steals your bicycle, that you have the right to take it back if you find it unattended?
	Yes. I agree with you.
	So the government is taking your money.
	That's a system that was set up long before you were born.
	And through government bonds, you can take some of it back, right?
	Yes, but at this moment, Steph, it's very possible that in a few years I will lose a lot of money on those government bonds.
	No, no, no, no.
	We're talking about the ethics.
	We're not talking about the pragmatics, right?
	Because your question was around the ethics, right?
	Ah, yes. Right, so forget about gains or losses.
	I mean, I can't speak to gains or losses on Netherland government bonds.
	I have no idea, right? But I can hopefully come up with some useful stuff around the ethics of it, right?
	Oh, yes. I will tell you my secret.
	Ah, I've got a secret.
	I am now revealing.
	I am revealing the secret without even the webcam and the donkey.
	But this is the secret.
	The secret to freedom, my friend, is to live like there is no government.
	To live like there is no government.
	So I pay them. I've got an accountant.
	He makes sure everything is tickety-boo, and he pays off the government.
	And then I don't really think about it.
	The government that much.
	I have to give them my money.
	I don't have to give them my attention as well.
	If the mafia comes to your store and says, give me $1,000 a month, and you decide to give them the $1,000 a month, then give them the $1,000 a month.
	But don't give them one second more.
	Of your mental energy.
	Because then you're paying double or triple.
	So if you sit there tossing and turning all month, oh, this thousand dollars is so unjust, so wrong, these thugs, they're so nasty, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	Then you're paying a thousand dollars plus 20% of your mental energy.
	Now the thousand dollars you have to pay if you're going to do that route.
	The 20% of your mental energy, you don't have to pay that.
	I mean, don't throw good thoughts after bad money.
	So you have to pay this money, you have to pay this 50% or go live in the woods or whatever, which in the Netherlands may not be that much fun.
	So you pay the government your money and then you live like there's no government.
	You live like there's no government.
	Don't fret about it. Don't worry about it.
	Don't read the newspaper and get all tense about it.
	I mean, I do some of this stuff for the show, but even I've been sort of falling away from the true news stuff just because it's so boring.
	It's always the same thing.
	The government is lying.
	The truth is the opposite of what's being claimed.
	Blah, blah, blah. I mean, it's just boring.
	The government is just boring.
	It's always going to fail.
	It's always going to lie.
	It's always going to be brutal.
	It's always going to house sociopaths.
	It's always going to be...
	I mean, eventually you just get bored.
	The mafia is always going to do bad things.
	But at least they don't claim to be virtuous.
	The government will always claim to be virtuous.
	So you just live like there's no government.
	So you've got an investment choice.
	One of those investment choices is government months.
	It's just another investment choice.
	I mean, if I were you, I would make the decision based on rational calculations of what I wanted in my portfolio.
	I wouldn't give a second thought as to the ethics and the right and the wrong, because there's no end to that, right?
	You understand? I can't walk on government roads because blah, blah, blah, right?
	If I pay my 50% taxes, then the government is going to use that to do bad things.
	Pay them. Pay them.
	Pay them and live free within your own mind.
	Pay them off.
	Make your choices.
	Make the compromises that you need to make to live in a system that you did not make.
	Which we all love, I think.
	But you don't have to give them your time and attention and energy as well.
	Steph? I don't have to buy government bonds either.
	No, you don't. So make the decision based on a rational calculation.
	But forget about the ethics of the situation.
	There is no ethics of the situation.
	The money's been stolen from you at gunpoint.
	And what does it matter after that?
	If you get some of it back, great.
	If you don't want to, then don't.
	But there's no ethics after your money gets stolen.
	Now you're in a state of nature.
	If you can steal it back, steal it back.
	I mean, you know, honestly and through the rules or whatever, right?
	But there's no ethics after the money.
	The money's stolen.
	And after that, I don't see where the ethics are.
	Well, for me, the moral dilemma is that Harry Brown, he learned me that you really need to invest in your money that you cannot afford to lose.
	You really need to invest it in a permanent portfolio because only then your capital will be protected in every climate.
	And he's very right about that.
	But the consequence being now that half of my money is lent to the government.
	And that's what I don't like.
	It's not lent to the government.
	The government has destroyed so many investment opportunities through the taxation that you're subject to that you're not lending the government money.
	You're forced, in a sense, if you want any decent returns, to give some of your money to the government.
	But it's not a choice.
	I mean, if you were in a free society, you wouldn't say, well, what I really want to do is invest in a monopoly of violence.
	And you wouldn't go around to create that, and you wouldn't have any luck selling it.
	So nothing to do with the government is a choice.
	And I mean, yes, you can choose whether you want to invest, but there's no morality in that.
	I mean, to take an extreme example, it's like you're in a concentration camp and you're like, well, I don't want to break the window to escape because that's destroying property, which isn't mine.
	It's like, no, you're in a concentration camp.
	You can stay, you can break out if you want, depending on how much risk you want to take or whether you want to wait it out.
	But there's no morality in the decision.
	Morality occurs in a situation of voluntary choice.
	And given how much control the government has in the Netherlands, given how high the taxation rates are, given how much other investment has been killed off because of that, you're in a situation of base pragmatism.
	You're not in a situation of...
	Free choice, right? So if you lock me in your basement and I have to break a window to escape, I'm not going to worry about the ethics of destroying your property.
	But if you haven't locked me in a basement, I'm walking down the street and I just decide to go and kick in your window, well, then that's an ethical situation because I'm in a situation of free choice.
	There's so little free choice, if any, that's left in a statist environment, particularly one like the Netherlands where you guys have a government as big as some people think my ego is.
	Right? So you can choose to invest.
	You can choose not to invest.
	I wouldn't say that either one of those is a particularly moral decision, though.
	Don't have morals higher than the people you're dealing with.
	That's the sucker game that ethicists and moralists and philosophers always get caught in.
	Don't have really high moral standards when you're dealing with a predatory agency like the state.
	It's just a pragmatic choice.
	Anyway, that's my argument.
	I mean, I hope that it's of some use.
	Well, I was hoping to find a way out of those government bonds.
	And if you want to, look, sorry, if you want to, then go ahead.
	I just don't think you should feel compelled to by some moral decision because you're in a statist environment in the economy.
	Well, but that's what Harry Brown succeeded in doing, just that, giving a really strong moral argument to buy those government bonds.
	And the moral argument he gives is that it's the only way to protect your capital in every climate.
	And so that's the moral, and he's right about that, so that's, now I'm morally obliged to, and I also did it, to buy those bonds.
	Right. But is it the correct reasoning from Harry Brown?
	Well, I mean, well, yeah.
	Can you imagine doing that yourself, having a permanent portfolio?
	I certainly can.
	And there are some things that I don't particularly feel too good about, right?
	So somebody's posting in the chat window about, you know, investing in Halliburton, which is a government contractor.
	Well, yeah, I personally wouldn't be a big fan of investing in organizations that directly supply weaponry to the state.
	But I also recognize that it's not black and white, because what about the people who, let's say, I invest in a truck company?
	Well, Halliburton buys those trucks and uses it to ship the guns to the state.
	What if I invest in a mining company?
	Well, the mine extracts metal from the ground, which is then used to build the guns.
	What if I invest in whatever?
	A factory that makes a glassware?
	Well, I don't know.
	Maybe the powder for the guns is shipped in that glassware.
	I mean, there's no way to escape or avoid it.
	To me, that's just a huge quagmire.
	Now, I generally prefer not to do it, but I don't...
	The moral issue is that there's an agency that can initiate the use of force at whim.
	The moral issue is not fundamentally how do you find a way of protecting your money from the continual inflationary rate by the government.
	I mean, if you can find some way to do it, maybe it involves investing in things that are unsavory, but to me, that's not a fundamental moral issue.
	The fundamental moral issue is the initiation of force.
	You are not initiating force by choosing to invest in the government.
	If you choose to keep your money in cash, the government is going to take some percentage points of your money through inflation every year anyway even if you hide it under your mattress.
	If you put it in the bank, the government is going to take some money through its taxes on banks, its corporate profits taxes, its taxes upon whatever service fees you get charged.
	There's simply no way to get your money away from the government.
	You see, even if you convert it to gold and hide it under your bed, It's still going to be subject to some inflationary pressures, and the government can just make that illegal any time that it wants, as it has done repeatedly in the past, and then your gold becomes a liability.
	So in those kinds of situations, I just think it's really important to focus your moral energies on helping people to understand the moral evil of the initiation of force and of the state and of the indoctrination of children.
	I think that's the key thing to focus on.
	I wouldn't spend a lot of time and energy worrying about my investments from a moral standpoint.
	I think the important thing is to be free within your mind.
	And I think that my wife got some government bonds from, I don't know, someone in the past.
	And yeah, we've cashed them in.
	I mean, I just, there's so many important moral issues to deal with in the world.
	I'm just not going to sit there and worry myself to death about what percentage of money could be going to the government from these bonds as opposed to some other place.
	And I mean, my government is involved in a war in Afghanistan.
	So yeah, some of the money from those government bonds is doubtless going to fund those wars.
	So I'm going to speak out passionately against the immorality of war and the immorality of institutionalized violence.
	I'm just not going to spend my time and mental energy worrying about 50 bucks here or there or 150 bucks or 5,000 bucks here or there to the government because they just own that anyway.
	Okay.
	Thank you very much, Steph, for your feedback.
	Yeah, I'm sorry if it wasn't satisfying, but those are just my opinions, and I'm not going to say I'm going to go to the Ramparts for them, but that's certainly where I'm coming from.
	Okay. Thank you very much, Steph.
	Thanks, Matt. Take care.
	Bye. All right.
	I think we may have time for one more caller if you do not have a monster topic, but have a smaller one.
	Ooh. Somebody says, Steph, read your recent 9-11 vid.
	How can someone as intelligent, evidence-led, and generally skeptical of government propaganda as yourself believe something as ridiculous as the official 9-11 narrative?
	Are you aware that over 1,200 architects and engineers are on record as saying that there is overwhelming evidence to suggest that Building 7 was taken down by controlled demolition on that day, including physical evidence of high-tech incendiaries, nanothermite found in the WCC dust?
	Or is it a tactical decision that you have decided to adopt a mainstream view on this issue?
	Alright. Let's do the 9-11 thing.
	If you want, I can do that for 10 minutes.
	I have never said that I accept the official 9-11 narrative.
	The official 9-11 narrative is that they hate us for our freedoms, right?
	I mean, what nonsense.
	I've completely debunked that.
	So, I have never said that I accept the 9-11.
	I assume that the government is lying to us about 9-11, just as they lied to the general public about why they bombed the living shit out of innocent civilians in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
	Just as they lied about people getting into...
	Korea, just as they lied about the Gulf of Tonkin incident that was supposed to have sparked off the Vietnam War, just as they lied about the amount of damage being done to Cambodia, just as they lied about the body counts in Vietnam, just as they lied about the origins of the Gulf War, just as they lied about the origins of 9-11.
	I assume that they're lying.
	Of course they're lying. Of course they're lying.
	How do you know the government is lying?
	It's breathing. So yeah, I assume that.
	I don't believe...
	I personally don't believe that...
	There were no planes over New York.
	I don't believe that planes were stuffed with dummies, that people were shuffled off the planes and then put in mincemeat grinders and then the bodies were scattered.
	I just don't believe any of that.
	I just don't believe any of that.
	There's so much evidence.
	I mean, God, think of the amount of evidence that we have about 9-11.
	Video footage from every conceivable angle.
	And there was that one Zapruder film for JFK. One Zapruder film for JFK. And people were wasting time on that bullshit for 30 fucking years or more.
	Now it's finally gone to rest because everyone swarmed over to 9-11.
	Well, Jesus Christ.
	The United States, JFK got the U.S. into a war which killed millions and millions of North and South Vietnamese and Cambodians and was a direct cause of the further genocide against the Cambodians through the Khmer Rouge.
	And so, what's so astounding about the truther movement, and I'm sorry if I'm a little impatient, it's not to do with you, it's just that every time I mention anything to do with 9-11, I get 6 million people swarming me on YouTube and on my inbox saying all this kind of stuff.
	Oh, it's completely obvious, controlled demolition, blah, blah, blah.
	Who gives a shit? I mean, it's like, I went through all of this shit with JFK, people who said that JFK was shot by, I don't know, 12 people and a gremlin and the Grinch.
	And It's like three fucking million Asians are slaughtered by the US government, but the only death that people care about is one guy with back pain and the Prince of Marilyn Monroe's ass on his hands.
	One guy is the only thing that people care about.
	Got three million bodies on the one side that are completely incontrovertible.
	That are not denied, fully accepted.
	And that's a low estimate. Three million bodies on the one side.
	Half a goddamn Holocaust.
	And everybody swarms all over and is just obsessing about JFK. One guy who died.
	So, let's say the CIA killed JFK. One body, three million bodies.
	Or 25 million bodies, if you want to count the true costs of U.S. imperialism.
	Or, to count the...
	The Native Americans who were slaughtered by the millions.
	So this is what is so strange to me about the 9-11 truthers.
	It's like, why would you want to pick the one goddamn thing that is the most controversial, complicated, and unprovable thing that you could find?
	Government conspiracy to kill Americans?
	The government lied America into Iraq immediately.
	Where almost twice the number of Americans have died than died in 9-11.
	And that's incontrovertible.
	Nobody who's got any brains or who's looked it up ever defends the ridiculous way in which America got into Iraq.
	So there's the government lying and covering up The deaths and murders of, obviously, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, but also thousands of Americans.
	I don't know what the death count is.
	Four or five thousand now, and twenty thousand wounded, and that's just combat deaths.
	I mean, many other people have died in training, and accidents, and so on.
	So, to focus on 9-11 is, to me, a cowardly out.
	I don't mean everyone's a coward. I'm just saying, like, cue the argument, and then tell me how I'm wrong.
	Government lied about Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
	Government lied about Korea.
	Government lied about Vietnam. Government lied about every war that it's ever gotten into.
	You know, read The War Racket by Harry Brown, to speak of a good writer, and you'll see.
	So why pick the one where there's all of this contradiction?
	The Gulf of Thamkin is clear.
	It's a clear hoax. It's admitted.
	It's understood. It's done.
	There's no controversy. So why not focus on that?
	And the fact that there is no controversy about the Gulf of Tompkins hasn't changed a goddamn thing.
	According to Noam Chomsky, there was a group in the American government who used to periodically leak new information about the JFK shooting just to keep, quote, activists away from the real bodies.
	Ooh, JFK, ooh, this, ooh, the Zapruder film, ooh, this angle, oh, let's get Oliver Stone involved and Kevin Costner's really convincing and blah, blah, blah.
	It's the same thing with 9-11.
	I mean, Jesus Christ, it's been nine years now.
	It's been nine years.
	And there still is no smoking gun.
	There still is no proof.
	People say, well, there is proof.
	No, there is no proof.
	There's evidence here and there.
	There's 1,200 people signed this.
	You know, fucking 20,000 people have signed about global warming, and I don't believe that for a moment.
	It's anthropogenic global warming.
	The truth is not democratic.
	I don't care how many people sign petitions here, there, and everywhere.
	You simply cannot replace a master's or a PhD level in structural engineering by spending a couple of hours looking at videos on the internet.
	You can't do it.
	If you can do it, then let's get rid of...
	These stupid programs and just have people look at a couple of videos on the internet and we'll call them masters or PhDs in engineering.
	You can't do it.
	The evidence is all gone.
	It's all been buried. It's all been taken away.
	It's long gone. There's no paper trail.
	There's nothing. So let this shit go.
	You don't need it. You don't need it.
	As I said before, it's like trying to convict Ted Bundy on a highly contested parking ticket.
	Wow, we've got a photo of Ted Bundy's car going through a red light, but we can't be quite sure because it's a little bit blurry, but from this angle it seems to be more like Ted Bundy, and there's a guy in it who looks like Ted Bundy, but we're not quite sure.
	It's like you've got dozens of bodies that he's already confessed to.
	Why, why, why would you bother worrying about a parking ticket?
	And I know it's a harsh thing to say that 9-11 was a parking ticket, but in terms of the death count, the body count of the American government, it is a parking ticket.
	And I fully accept that the US government was responsible for 9-11.
	I mean, you go over to these crazy countries and you keep killing people, even if you go to non-crazy countries and keep killing people, then you're responsible.
	So you've got this brutal foreign policy, And you train the Mujahideen to bankrupt the Soviets and then they turn around and want to bankrupt the American government too because we're as oppressive or you're as oppressive in the Middle East to use the collective as the Russians ever were.
	So yeah, US government is responsible for 9-11 because they put the Shah into power in 1953 in Iran because they funded Saddam Hussein and put him in power in Iraq because they went in and invaded Kuwait.
	Because they caused the deaths of millions of Iraqis through the embargoes throughout the 1990s.
	Yeah, I have no problem with it.
	But you don't need 9-11 to establish that the US government is responsible for 9-11.
	You don't need the controversy.
	You don't need controlled demolition.
	You don't need, where did the wings of the plane go in the Pentagon?
	You don't need blurry footage with frames missing.
	You don't need any of that stuff.
	You don't need little flashes on the bottoms of planes, which may be the sun and may not be, and blah, blah, blah.
	You just don't need it.
	And it's such a waste of energy that could be used for so many more productive things in bringing the incontrovertible truth about the state to people.
	Because right now, you can just, oh, the 9-11 stuff, oh, that's crazy.
	It's like the birther stuff. Who gives a shit what piece of paper hovered around in proximity to Barack Obama when he was born?
	It doesn't matter if he's born on the Muslim Mecca of Pluto.
	It doesn't matter.
	It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
	You have so many incontrovertible arguments for the immorality of the state at your fingertips.
	To focus on 9-11 is to avoid having the real conversations, the against me argument with people about the incontrovertible nature of statist violence.
	You don't need any of that stuff.
	And to focus on it is simply a way of avoiding the core conversation that you need to have with people about the immorality of the state.
	Somebody said, but when you make vids of 9-11 and reference the official narrative, you undermine your credibility.
	With who? With who?
	With people who are chasing after the Chimeric ghost of 9-11 rather than having real conversations about virtue and ethics.
	I mean, I've known all of this.
	I've seen all of these conspiracy theories before.
	9-11 is not new.
	This is not my first time around the block.
	I've seen all of this stuff before.
	What was the point of 30 years of people obsessing about JFK? What was the point?
	What did it gain anybody?
	Which just bored a hell of a lot of people and confused and alienated a hell of a lot of people and wasted...
	You can't even imagine how many hundreds of millions of hours of otherwise available activism and advocacy for truth and virtue was wasted on that stupid assassination.
	It just doesn't matter anymore.
	It's an avoidance mechanism.
	It's to do with childhood trauma.
	It has nothing to do with the pursuit of a moral case against the U.S. government.
	It doesn't have anything to do with that.
	That moral case is already proven.
	It's already established. People are stepping over the genuine bodies to chase after a ghost.
	And there's a reason that they're stepping over the genuine bodies.
	Yeah, so my friends find it hard to watch your vids because they say, well, he can't even get his facts right on 9-11.
	Well, fine! Then your friends probably shouldn't be watching philosophy.
	Your friends probably should not be watching philosophy if they think that my lack of interest in pursuing this topic of 9-11...
	Is the sign of some grave problem with my integrity?
	Then they should do. Then they can continue to read their websites and they can continue to watch their videos with the ominous music and the little glints of light from here and there and what happened here and maybe there and this and that and the other and this guy says this.
	And when they said pull WT7, maybe they meant pull WT7. They can do all of that shit if they want.
	I'm actually going to go out there in the world and try and encourage people to be better parents.
	I'm actually going to go out in the world and I'm going to try and get people to talk to other people about virtue with the actual arguments of philosophy rather than the bullshit cloud dust of whatever happened to 9-11.
	So people can spend their time doing that.
	They can spend their time now nine goddamn years later obsessing about what happened with a particular plane glint from the belly as it went into the plane at slow motion They can do that nine years later.
	Whereas I'm going to talk to experts and try and get the message out about peaceful child rearing and living virtue in your personal relationships and becoming a beacon or a gateway through which people can see the world of the future because of your own personal freedom.
	And the truthers can go their way, and I will continue to go my way.
	And if I lose a few truthers along the way, well, that's just the cost of doing business, of actually getting some shit done in the world, rather than just obsessing about a potential crime from nine years ago, which will soon become 10, 11, 20, 30, 40 years ago, and people will still be fussing about it.
	Whereas those of us who are actually taking on the true causes of immorality, We'll actually be laying some bricks down for a foundation for a new world, while other people will still be huddled over their computers looking at grainy videos from 30 or 40 years ago, wondering why their obsessions haven't freed the world.
	So yeah, if I alienate a few truthers, well, I can live with that, because my only other option is to give credibility to the truthers and imagine that this perspective is going to have anything to do with freeing the world.
	But it's not. It's not.
	Even if it were perfectly proven tomorrow...
	That everything that the most outlandish truther says is true won't change a goddamn thing.
	The Bomb of the Brain series will tell us all about that.
	Even if it were proved tomorrow that Dick Cheney's doppelganger twin flew the planes into the World Trade Center with David Icke's lizard pope as co-pilot, Won't matter.
	People will then just reformulate their allegiance to the state in some other way, because the allegiance to the state comes from the allegiance to the family.
	And so providing counter evidence to do with planes flying into buildings won't make a damn bit of difference.
	It won't. No, it's...
	Look, it's just psychological trauma.
	These are people who...
	In my theory, it's just a theory.
	I mean, they just put it out there, right?
	Because it isn't... Why? Why do people focus on this?
	Well... I believe that it's a way of avoiding the true pain of childhood, right?
	Lots of people had abusive parents that nobody saw as abusive.
	They didn't see their parents as abusive.
	Their parents were pastors or well-respected people in the community and then secretly at home they were drinkers and beaters and God knows what else, right?
	And so they've got this pattern where they're trying to bring this trauma to light, they're trying to bring this abuse to light, and they keep getting rejected by everyone in their community who says, oh, your father's a wonderful guy, a lovely guy, even if you bring anything up, he would never do that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	So they've got this pattern, this Simon the Boxer pattern of trying to expose a crime and continually being rebuffed and rejected for that.
	And rather than deal with that history, it then gets translated into 9-11, where they're continually trying to go to society, to mainstream society, and trying to get this 9-11 stuff out and continually being scorned and rejected.
	It's part of a psychological pattern, a Simon the Boxer thing that comes from early childhood.
	It's got nothing to do with the actual world trade center of good heavens.
	This is why it goes on and on and on, nine years later.
	Because it doesn't serve the truth.
	It serves to shield people from the trauma of their own histories.
	Anyway, that's my perspective, for if you wanted it.
	Somebody said, I used to be a truther and I still know truthers now that use this to avoid childhood.
	Just what you and Steph are saying now.
	Yeah, look, hey, disagree.
	Look, I mean, the truthers are, you know, this is just my opinion.
	This is not a moral issue.
	I mean, the truthers aren't out there strangling the homeless, right?
	They're in pursuit of something that they feel is very important.
	I've made my case against it.
	Truthers are welcome to say he's full of shit.
	He's a paid, must-have, disinfo agent, whatever, right?
	They're free to continue focusing on what they're doing.
	Everybody tries to put their best efforts into building a better world.
	I don't doubt in many ways the sincerity of the truthless belief and desire to get to the bottom of things and reveal about the evils and blah blah blah.
	I have an entirely different opinion.
	I think I've got a lot of facts and evidence to back up where I'm coming from.
	But hey, you know, maybe I'm completely wrong.
	Maybe the childhood thing is completely wrong.
	And if the U.S. government's complicity in 9-11 is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we'll get a better world without a government.
	Maybe. It's not my particular belief at all.
	But, you know, keep on trucking if that's where you want to go.
	Yeah, I looked into 9-11 stuff many years ago.
	I mean, it is quite fascinating, for sure.
	It's just, you know, it's unresolvable, and it's a huge waste of energy in this stuff that, if you want to talk about the evils of the state, I mean, there's so much.
	I mean, jeez, just talk about the evils of psychiatry, for Christ's sake.
	I mean, the fact that they're drugging 100 million people around the world for illnesses that don't even exist on any blood test or any medical scan.
	I mean, talk about that stuff.
	That's something that is incontrovertible, that the evidence is very clear and that there's no controversy about and that many, many people die.
	Many, many people die throughout the world or kill others.
	Seemingly, or at least according to the evidence, is a direct result of the destabilizing effects of these psychotropic drugs.
	The fact that there's almost no patient consent.
	Informed consent for psychotropic drugs.
	And people think that they have this chemical imbalance in the brain for which there is no test and no evidence.
	This voodoo, non-science or anti-science of psychiatry and drugging.
	I mean, that's something you can spend your energies productively combating.
	But, jeez, 9-11. Good lord.
	Anyway. Well, we're getting some more questions.
	I absolutely and truly, hugely appreciate it.
	We've had a stellar, stellar turnout.
	So thank you, everybody, so much for listening.
	I'm just going to have to shut the show down, though, because I'm going to get back to my parenting or whatever.
	But I really do appreciate everybody dropping by.
	I certainly do appreciate everybody's continued support of this program.
	I mean, this is a listener paid for program.
	So I really do thank you for that.
	And I really do thank everybody who calls in.
	You guys are just amazingly brave.
	I am emotional with admiration.
	When I hear about what people are doing with philosophy in their lives, it is truly stellar and beautiful beyond words.

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