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Nov. 28, 2010 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:41:50

1799 Freedomain Radio Sunday Show, 28 November 2010

The coming war in North Korea? Are narcissists responsible? The diplomatic wikileaks scandal!

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	Hi, everybody. It's Stefan Malkin from Freedom Main Radio.
	It is the 28th of November, 2010.
	And remember, people, I urge you to come down to the Freedom Summit at freedomsummit.com.
	That's in Phoenix, Arizona, to chat with some superstars of the freedom movement.
	And I will be, I think, parking cars and handling coats.
	So we might get a chance to chat in between the taking of the coats, the parking of the car, and the massive tips that I'm going down there for.
	So I hope that you'll be able to come down.
	A couple of clarifications.
	One, people are saying to me that the TSA scandal, the sort of lactating booby handling scandal, is good because it wakens people up to what's going on with the state.
	Maybe that's true, maybe it's not.
	I didn't mean that the outrage of the average citizen with regards to the state was crazy and unjustified.
	What I meant was that it was crazy and unjustified for libertarians to be upset about this because we all know.
	I mean, if they kill 100,000 Iraqis, it's not like, you know, groping down the odd braggler is going to be beyond their moral standard.
	Just sort of wanted to point that out, that that's sort of what I meant.
	So I'm sorry if I was unclear about that, which I obviously was.
	I'm sorry about that. Number two, people have asked me what my opinion is about the war posturing that is going on.
	Well, it's not complicated.
	It's very, very easy to understand.
	There are internal difficulties within both countries.
	In North Korea, there's a succession problem as King Yong-il and his son are handing over power.
	Whenever there's a transition of power, there is the problem that you might have an outsider come in or that the Nepotistic totalitarianism of the regime becomes clear and that's not good for the citizens because the tyranny is more obvious and so during times of nepotistic transition in a dictatorship during the time of any major change in power is when you're very likely to have the provocation of an external conflict so that People are distracted by that and then the powers that be can change hands with fewer people focusing on that.
	Of course, the US problems are very clear.
	The war is a disaster.
	The economy is a disaster.
	It's lost, what, 10 million jobs over the past couple of years.
	The recovery is not going to happen.
	Unemployment remains stuck.
	42 million Americans are on food stamps up from about 20 million a couple of years ago.
	It is slipping into Well, it's slipping out of first world country status, so it has every incentive in the world to go and start poking its fingers in the hornet's nest in Asia.
	So that's basically all that's going on.
	I don't think it's going to go to war.
	America recognizes that it has no resources available.
	It needs to borrow. I mean, this is the ironic thing is that it needs to borrow from China to go to war in Asia.
	So it's not going to be able to do that.
	China has slowed, if not stopped, its purchasing of US treasuries, which is why the Fed is stepping in to buy them and basically the man heavily in debt loaning money to himself in order to It's completely insane, but that's fine.
	There's a huge amount of popular rhetoric and intellectuals who are making sure that nobody understands just how insane the situation is so that they can act all shocked and surprised when it all goes to hell in a handbasket at high velocity.
	So it's just the countries are in trouble.
	The leadership is in trouble. The economics of the country are in trouble.
	The population is getting restless.
	And so what you want to do in those situations, if you are an evil, amoral, political scumbag, is you want to go and provoke some external conflict.
	It's more posturing than reality, though.
	North Korea barely has any resources to go to war.
	America barely has any resources to go to war left.
	And so it's just going to be a bunch of posturing designed to unite the country for another month or two and give the talking heads on TV, right?
	You have to share... You have to shake something shiny over there so that those empty-headed bubble brains are going to go swarming all over there and talk about that.
	The constant invention of distractions is fundamental to the maintenance of any hierarchical dictatorship.
	And so they have to invent these conflicts in order to unify the population and to give the talking heads something to talk about other than the actual problems facing the American people or the Western people as a whole.
	Are the American people really bothered that two South Koreans got killed?
	Does it really affect their standard of living?
	You may be upset in an abstract moral standpoint that any kind of death is bad, But far more people were murdered in the time it took for two South Koreans to get killed by bombardments from North Korea.
	Many more people were murdered in the U.S. and many more people were jailed in the U.S. during that time period.
	And so it's got nothing to do with American safety and security, but it does give the talking head something to talk about and it does distract people from their immediate problems in the moment.
	So that's all that's going on with that.
	Nothing particularly interesting or amusing.
	Isabella's up to nine word sentences.
	It's just amazing. And today, she actually put on her shoes herself.
	She put on her shoes herself.
	That to me, but she's 23 months.
	It just blows my mind.
	And she's just a fantastic joy and a delight.
	So just giving you a quick update on that.
	The way she uses language now is really, really interesting and sometimes startling to me.
	So we were at A play center.
	I took her to a play center the other day, and we were rolling around, and she came across a little book.
	And the book had a picture of a turtle playing the flute.
	And Isabella said, turtle eating music.
	Which I think is, you know, you can't argue with that kind of poetic creativity.
	You just can't argue with it.
	Shoe update, she did in fact put her shoes on the wrong feet, but the fact that they were on feet, rather than what Daddy often does is confuse himself and put them on his hands or elbows, I think is a huge step forward, so...
	She's just doing fantastically.
	We're really enjoying, looking forward to having fun in Arizona.
	It's cold, has a witch's elbow up here, so it'll be nice to get to someplace a little bit warmer, and I'm certainly looking forward to having the chance to chat with everyone who comes who's down there.
	Another minor update. I've been asked to go back to Libertopia next year and to MC the event, so I'm looking forward to doing that.
	I've already started working on all of the landslide of bad jokes that I am, I guess, known for, if not infamous for.
	So I hope that you'll be able to join us in Libertopia next year.
	It's in October, and I will publish more details on the website.
	I know it's a long way away, but you can't be too prepared, because I was in the Boy Scouts.
	I would like to come by...
	To your in-home studio for an interview.
	And I said, well, studio may be a slight exaggeration, but I can pretend that I'm interrogating you with some bright lights and we can sit in a room.
	That's as far as I can probably take it.
	But it was a very enjoyable conversation.
	A very learned and erudite man.
	And I hope that he will come back on the show.
	So that's it for the intro.
	We will get on with the show now.
	So if you have questions, please, please let me know.
	Hi. I was wondering if I could have a quick question about narcissism.
	Sure. I was looking through some of the donated podcasts and there's something that has kind of been rattling around in my head for the last few days and it's something I can't quite resolve which is that all the bomb in the brain stuff We're saying that things like narcissism are inflicted on people.
	This is something that's developmental and they can't choose not to be a narcissist, right?
	No, I don't think I've made that statement.
	I think that last statement is probably further than I would go and I think further than most researchers would go and of course we're just using these terms from an amateur standpoint but I don't think that I would say that there is...
	I mean, other than direct physical brain injury, and even then, the neuroplasticity of the brain is extraordinary, the degree to which it can rewire itself and bypass itself.
	The change that is possible for human beings is enormous.
	It's amazing what people can do if they have enough sort of will and incentive.
	There are problems that are extremely hard to treat.
	The borderline personality disorder, which is described, you know, chaos and drug addiction and criminality and so on and promiscuity and just an extremely disordered life.
	That seems to be very hard to treat and there are few psychologists, to my understanding, who are willing to take on those kinds of patients.
	They're very exhausting and debilitating to deal with.
	And so there are some that seem to be very hard to treat, but that also seems to be changing.
	As a researcher mentioned to me, Greg...
	Oh, what was his last name?
	Greg Siegel. S-I-E-G-L-E. He's in the archives.
	Even something like schizophrenia does seem to have some responsiveness to talk therapy, which is something that I had no idea about.
	It's very interesting. So I think change is still possible, but...
	So I just wanted to sort of clarify that last point, but please go on with your question.
	Okay. Well, that might make my point somewhat mute then, but the thought that was rattling around my head was that I think it was something to do with, you said something about mirror neurons in the brain?
	Yes. If you lose them, then you can never get them back.
	Yeah. Well, again, sorry, just to clarify that, again, I think you may be...
	If I've said that, please let me know, and I'd like to correct that.
	There are some mirror neurons that are somewhat controversial.
	Some people say that it's quite clear.
	Other people say that it remains obscure.
	Mirror neurons are those neurons which fire.
	Like, if you watch somebody else eat a lemon, you may find that your own mouth...
	Salivates, like you end up with extra saliva.
	Or if you've ever watched, you know, those cheesy but occasionally enjoyable home video shows, like America's Funniest Home Videos, if you see someone get, you know, a good old golf ball to the gonads and you sort of cross your legs and go, oh, man! And sort of you feel that twinge.
	That is, as far as I understand it, that's what mirror neurons are.
	So you see somebody else doing it, and the neurons fire as if it's happening to you.
	And that seems to have something to do with the development of empathy.
	But there are those who say that it's not as simple as that, it's more controversial, which I'm sure the brain is seemingly endlessly complicated, so I'm sure it is more than that.
	And I don't know whether it's been proven that you can't get those neurons back, or you can't I mean, the brain is enormously self-healing and self-correcting, which I think is like they've done, for instance, I'll just give you some sort of brief example, right?
	So they've done studies where I think somebody, this is from memory, so forgive me if I get some of the details wrong.
	They've done studies where somebody loses a finger.
	And when you move your fingers, they can find specific areas in the brain that lights up.
	And if you lose a finger, the brain rewires itself so that the neurons that were involved in controlling the finger that is missing now fuse with one of the fingers next to it.
	And you gain, in a sense, more dexterity through that finger.
	Of course, people who lose their vision gain additional senses in terms of hearing and touch, and that is a physical remapping within the brain.
	So the brain is very dynamic in terms of its ability to change and rewire itself.
	I think it's very hard to find a limit to the possibility of change within the brain, but that's not to say that we all start with the same thing.
	It is a challenge.
	Some people get a really healthy diet when they're children and they grow up with their health sort of intact from a dietary standpoint.
	Other children are fed junk and crap and sugar and pop and all that sort of stuff.
	And they grow up with, you know, perhaps they're overweight or they might even have diabetic symptoms.
	That doesn't mean that they can't change their diet as adults, but it means that they're going to have a challenge with regards to those foods that they've sort of become addicted to as children or have been forced to become addicted to based upon what's available to eat in the home.
	So I'm not sort of trying to say that we all start with the same thing, but I have not particularly found Okay.
	Well, because what my question would have been then was that if, say, something like narcissism was something that had been inflicted on you and you had absolutely no choice about, then that seemed to kind of conflict with me about the stuff in UPB, which is that where there's no choice, there's no morality.
	I completely agree with you, yeah.
	And that would seem kind of like...
	It seemed kind of very, something very wrong in the statement that you can't blame somebody who's a narcissist for doing something evil because they don't have a choice about it.
	But then, you see what I mean?
	That was kind of the train that was running through my...
	No, and it's an excellent question.
	Let me analogize it just to...
	They can't change it, but...
	Right. So it's sort of like, to take a sort of stereotypical example, let's say that there's some girl who's playing dumb in order to get a guy, right?
	Because she's afraid that the guy is going to say, oh, she's too intelligent.
	I don't want to have anything to do with her.
	So she pretends to be dumb.
	That clearly is a choice.
	However, somebody who receives a railway spike to the forehead and has permanent neofrontal cortex damage It's going to face a reduced intelligence just because of physical damage, let's just say.
	And so that person is not playing dumb.
	They've been rendered dumber by a physical injury.
	And so the second person, you wouldn't sit there and say, hey, listen, you've got to stop pretending to be dumb because you're not dumb because he actually is.
	I mean, relative, he's got brain damage or whatever, right?
	So I think that's the difference.
	Now, to me, the central decision point...
	about moral responsibility is very simple and very clear.
	It's not easy to apply and it can sometimes be subtle but the test itself for moral responsibility is very simple.
	The test for moral responsibility is does the person use morality in his or her conversations with others?
	the test for moral responsibility.
	So if I want to know whether somebody speaks Mandarin, what do I do?
	Well, I can ask them, they can pretend or whatever, but I can observe them unseen in a room full of people who speak Mandarin and see if they understand.
	Or I can bring someone into a room and have him calmly say some horribly insulting or threatening thing in Mandarin in a neutral tone and see if the person's face changes color or if their pulse quickens or whatever, right?
	And so if somebody can speak the language of morality, then he is morally responsible.
	And so a narcissist...
	We'll very often try to control other people by using ethical or moral or universal standards-based judgments.
	So, for instance, if you say no to a narcissist, and the narcissist says, as they often do, well, you're just selfish.
	You're just totally selfish.
	Well, that is an appeal to a moral standard, right?
	A moral standard called Not being selfish is good.
	Being selfish is bad.
	You care about morality.
	I'm going to use a moral or ethical standard to attack you.
	Now, that person is speaking the language of morality.
	They're speaking the language of standards.
	And because they're speaking the language of standards, they are morally responsible.
	If somebody never uses any kind of ethical or universal or preferable standard in his dealings with others, then he's not morally responsible.
	It's the old thing.
	Like you are responsible for the crime if you try to hide it, right?
	So if you strangle a guy right in front of the police station while the cops are having their coffee and donut break and then you just sort of proudly walk up and shake the cop's hands and say, hey, officer, how are you doing?
	Then clearly you're insane, right?
	But if you concoct an alibi and you hide the body and you, I don't know, you sand the fingerprints off the body and I don't know, whatever you would, I'm not exactly an expert on this, but whatever you would do to try and hide the crime, then clearly you know that it's disapproved of, you know it's negative, you know it's wrong, you know there are Punitive consequences.
	And so you have the ability to weigh the consequences of your actions and choose not to get caught and so on, which means that you have some knowledge.
	In fact, you have great knowledge of maybe the morality, but certainly the legal standing of what it is that you're doing.
	And that's, I think, one of the tests that would probably be applied.
	So to me, the moment that somebody uses a moral standard, then they have entered into The realm of moral responsibility.
	Narcissists and verbal abusers in particular.
	Verbal abusers always operate using morality as their weapon.
	Always operate using morality as their weapon.
	Or universal standards at least.
	The moment that you use the weapon, then the weapon can be used against you.
	The moment that you pick up a gun, And fire it expertly, you cannot claim to have no knowledge about guns and their purpose.
	So that's my sort of standard, and I think that most people who are disturbed, mentally disturbed, in this kind of way, in fact, I would say that they actually have a greater knowledge of morality than most people.
	Mentally healthy people do.
	And what I mean by that is, a man who counterfeits currency knows a hell of a lot more about how currency is made than you and I do.
	And here I am assuming that you're not a counterfeiter, because you don't work for the Fed, right?
	So somebody who is counterfeiting currency knows how it's made, knows the kind of paper that's used, knows the kind of ink, knows the patterns and a very great level of detail.
	As somebody who's counterfeiting a work of art, He has to really study the artist that he's counterfeiting.
	He has to really know how that artist used brushstrokes and colors and subjects and even frames.
	They have to carbonate.
	The guys who come up with forgeries of any kind, if you're going to forge some sort of stock certificate, you have to have a great deal of knowledge about the inks and the paper.
	So people who use morality...
	As a weapon to control, dominate, subjugate, and humiliate others, have a very deep and powerful knowledge of ethics and of morality and of human nature, which is that they know that people in general really want to be good,
	are really sensitive to moral criticism, And are earnest about wanting to live consistently and with integrity in the same way that a counterfeiter knows that people really like to buy and sell things and they like using currency and so on.
	And he relies on that in order for his...
	So I think that in a sense, people who use morality in a destructive way are far more culpable from a moral standpoint than your average person.
	So if you and I pass a counterfeit bill without knowing...
	We're not really morally responsible, but if we are very knowledgeable about it, then we are much more culpable.
	So the greater knowledge is the greater responsibility, and I would submit that almost nobody has a greater knowledge of morality other than, I think, people who are interested in this conversation and who understand UPB. Nobody has a greater knowledge of morality than the ruling classes, than Obama and Bush and Putin and Medvedev and Blair and Brown.
	All of these people have an extraordinary knowledge of morality, an extraordinary knowledge of the susceptibility of human beings to moral arguments.
	They know how desperately we want to be good and how much we yearn for the peace of mind that comes from integrity and virtue.
	And that makes them all the more evil, in my opinion.
	Yeah. But what still confuses me, then, is that...
	So it's not immoral as long as they don't use a moral argument?
	That doesn't seem to quite...
	Well, no, I mean, I didn't say that.
	What I'm saying is that, to me, the first and most important test of moral responsibility is looking at a moral argument, if somebody is making a moral argument.
	I didn't say it was the only conceivable test, but it's the first one that I would apply.
	Right, okay. Right.
	Okay, well, that makes a lot of sense.
	And... Just as you sort of go, because I understand that this is a question for you, and you don't have to talk about why, but this must be a question that's important to you because of somebody in your life.
	You can talk about it if you want, you don't have to, but no question comes out of nowhere, and there's a priority for questions that is driven usually by personal necessity rather than abstract interest.
	And so if you have somebody like this in your life, if you begin to look at the arguments that he or she is making...
	Start to look for universal principles.
	Start to look for standards of behavior.
	And you'll see very quickly and very clearly that they're everywhere.
	That they're everywhere.
	When you start to see people debate, I can't watch a movie now.
	I can't watch a television show.
	I can't watch anything without constantly seeing It's like standing at the North Pole looking up and trying not to see the Northern Lights when they're on, right?
	You can't really look at anything else.
	In fact, it's hard to look at the stars.
	So most people look up and they just see the stars.
	All I see when I see art, all I see when I hear conversations at the mall is moral maneuvering.
	Is moral maneuvering.
	So I just use this metaphor in a podcast I'll put out later, but I think it's a pretty good one.
	If you want to know how human beings interact in the absence of philosophy, and most people don't have any philosophy in their lives, Then take two pieces of paper, put them flat on a tabletop, and push them towards each other.
	What happens? Oh, sorry, I thought that was a rhetorical question.
	So can you say it one more time?
	I didn't quite catch it. If you take two pieces of paper, put them down on a flat tabletop surface, and then start sliding them, put your hands on top of them, start sliding them towards each other, what happens?
	Well... I guess when they meet, one goes over the top of the other?
	Right. They meet, they both buckle up, right?
	Oh, right, yes. Right, and then one is going to slip over top of the other, and then they're going to go flat again, right?
	Yeah. But that's what happens with human beings, because we can only meet where we can negotiate, and we can only negotiate when we have reason and evidence, and we can only have reason and evidence when we have philosophy.
	When two human beings interact, it's like two pieces of paper coming towards each other, They have a conflict or they have a subtle kind of under the table conflict which is the paper buckling up and then one of them slides over the other one and one then becomes dominant and the other one becomes submissive.
	And that's what happens in interactions with people and once you start to see that you'll see it everywhere.
	Whenever you meet people or whenever you introduce yourself to people you will see that maneuvering.
	It's not conscious, it's not necessarily of malicious intent but it's something that we all have to do because we all have to resolve differences in our relationships.
	And if we can't negotiate, then we have to have some other way of resolving differences.
	And the only way to resolve differences if you can't negotiate is dominance and submission.
	That's the only two things you can do.
	You can either reason or you can dominate.
	That's the only two ways to resolve differences, the inevitable differences that arise in all human relationships.
	And the best way to dominate is through morality.
	That's why I've always said morality was invented as a tool of domination.
	To take it from the masters is unthinkable.
	It's unheard of. And so, yeah, look for that.
	When you're negotiating with whoever it is that you're talking about for real, see what happens.
	See their negotiation for a dominant position.
	See how they try to take the moral high ground, because that's the best ground to take.
	If you can take the moral high ground, you can win in any conflict you have.
	If you have the moral high ground, you win in any conflict.
	And that's why everybody always wants the moral high ground, The people who are the best at taking the moral high ground end up running the government.
	Not the real moral high ground, but the accepted moral high ground.
	The sort of culturally accepted moral high ground.
	So the people in the government, they care about the poor.
	They want to help the poor. They want to help the old.
	They want to protect the nation.
	They want to do rights. They want to punish criminals.
	They want to educate the children.
	This is the moral high ground that they occupy.
	And people say, well, let's overthrow them.
	Well, we can't overthrow them. Because they're on this incredible high ground, surrounded by this castle called virtue.
	And we can't take that castle.
	We can't take that castle.
	As long as people believe that the government is virtuous, the castle can never be taken, because it can never be broached.
	It can never be overthrown.
	The only thing you can do is take down the castle.
	You can't ever climb over its walls.
	All you can do is take down the castle from underneath, which means you don't try and go over it.
	You attack the foundations. You burrow under it.
	And it collapses down. Strike the root.
	Strike the root. Yeah, that's right. That's right.
	So that is sort of my program.
	So to get back, just keep an eye on this.
	It's my suggestion. Keep an eye on this.
	Once you start to see this, it will be very hard to see anything else.
	And I think it will help clarify your relationships enormously.
	Yeah, that sounds great.
	That's great. Thank you. Let me know how it goes, if it is indeed somebody in your life.
	Anyway, let me know how it goes if you don't mind.
	And also, before I go, I'd like to say to anybody who's listening, if you're curious about listening to any of the Donator podcasts, I would definitely advise it.
	It's well worth it. Thank you.
	There are some great, great Donator podcasts, and they're largely composed of listener conversations of listeners who wanted to keep them premium for various reasons, but yeah, they are highly, highly recommended.
	Well worth it. Thank you so much, and thanks for the pitch.
	Thank you. All right.
	Thank you. Look at that.
	We are 29 minutes into the show, and we're time for the next caller.
	Look at that. It's almost like I'm speaking at hyperspeed.
	Or... Hello?
	Hello? Can you hear me?
	I sure can. Hi.
	Hi, how's it going? I was wondering if you could...
	Can you hear me now?
	Not too well. You might just want to speak a little slower.
	How about now? That's good.
	I was wondering if you could explain more about the conscious having a good intent that you talked about in the podcast a couple days ago.
	What was it about? Do you recall the podcast?
	Was it an introduction to evil?
	It was the other one after that.
	It was a listener conversation.
	Oh, was it about the dreams?
	Yeah, yeah. Like that the unconscious was trying to tell you something through your dreams.
	And I was wondering if you could explain a little bit more about that.
	Do you have any? I mean, I can ramble about it.
	I just want to make sure that I sort of fix what it is that you want to hear.
	Was there anything in particular that you'd like to hear?
	Yeah, I was wondering how the unconscious can have an intent because I consider an intent a conscious or like a decision that you make or they make or whoever makes.
	Like to have an intent is to do it on purpose.
	And I think for me that I think that the unconscious It just is.
	It does things and it reacts to things, but I don't consider it to have an intent necessarily.
	And look, you may be right, but then can you explain why there are dreams and why dreams are particular and why dreams often do seem to be related to what occurs during the day?
	I think that there's a lot of stuff in our unconscious that our dreams pull from.
	It's just like a big pool of stuff that's in there.
	And then when we dream, that's what pops up.
	But how does the unconscious choose what to show in dreams?
	Or just use choose.
	I know you may have a problem with that too.
	Just use it sort of loosely. I don't think it chooses.
	I just think it happens randomly.
	Or it could be like whatever had the most impact on you that day.
	So maybe it was more significant.
	So... Maybe it could be a choice.
	And again, I know choice.
	Choose may be like intention for you, so I want to be delicate with that.
	But out of the enormous sea of material, right?
	Because remember, the unconscious is not just limited to what happened during the day.
	The unconscious can produce anything in dreams, right?
	It's the ultimate Lucasfilms or it's the ultimate Walt Disney Studio, right?
	And it can produce anything. And so there must be some methodology as to why that is occurring.
	Because it isn't random, because it does seem to be related to things that are important.
	And also, when the dream is analyzed, there does seem to be some enormously important information in there.
	I don't know how many dream analyses you've listened to, but they've almost always been extremely helpful and relevant.
	And... Positive in terms of an important truth that is obscured to the dreamer.
	Does that sort of make any sense? I think I agree with that.
	I guess it's just been a...
	This confusion over the language.
	Well, look, I understand because it sort of feels a little bit like if there's more of me in there that has the same characteristics as...
	As I do, like if I will and choose and have intentions, and my unconscious wills and chooses and has intentions, it's kind of creepy.
	It's like suddenly realizing you're living in a pretty haunted house, right?
	I don't necessarily see it that way that the unconscious has an intent.
	No, no, you're not understanding what I'm saying.
	What I'm saying is, I'm sorry if I'm not being clear, what I mean is, if it's true, That the unconscious does have an intent that would...
	I mean, I remember when I sort of first realized or accepted this or believed it, if you want to put it that way, that I recognized that I was able to have a kind of conversation with my unconscious.
	That was very, very unusual.
	I mean, one of the ways that this occurred for me to begin with was in the act of writing plays.
	In the act of writing plays, you're clearly not having a conversation with somebody else.
	You're not communing with the dead.
	You're not talking to God.
	You're having a conversation with yourself.
	And we all have this because we have arguments with ourselves.
	So, should I do this?
	So with Izzy, she wants to jump off the couch.
	She's really into jumping these days.
	And she wants to jump from higher things.
	And so when Izzy says, Dada, go sit on the couch.
	I'm going to do it by myself.
	I'm going to jump from this high cushion by myself.
	I'm torn. So part of me says, I want her to be free and I want to respect her decisions.
	Another part of me says, that's pretty damn high.
	I don't know about that.
	And she's always right.
	She's always able to do what she's able to do.
	So when she says she's comfortable, but I feel torn about it.
	So I think it's important to recognize we do have these dualities.
	If you pick up, I don't know, if you want to pick up and read A Long Day's Journey into Night, it's Eugene O'Neill talking about his actual family where he recreates his mother instinctively and instinctually and very powerfully.
	She was a morphine addict and his father was a famous actor and he tells a lot about his family history in that play.
	He actually gives himself the name of a child that died, which is also very telling.
	He had a brother who died shortly after birth and he gives himself The name of that child who died.
	And he himself had a very difficult time writing the play.
	He was weeping.
	His wife said he would come out of the study red-eyed and trembling and shaking.
	And he was so terrified of the play that he'd written that he would only let it be performed ten years after his death.
	So he was obviously going in and dealing with things that were unconscious and very powerful.
	The alter ego of his mother within his mind was speaking very powerfully and clearly to him.
	With Tennessee Williams, you can see this continually going on in his plays, that there is a battle between hyper-masculinity and hyper-femininity.
	And the classic one of those is Stanley Kowalski versus Blanche DuPois in A Streetcar Named Desire.
	And this is something that we just see going on a lot, that there's a very powerful conversation that can be had with the unconscious.
	For instance, as I mentioned in the Dreams podcast, Let me just get the name of that so that people who want to listen to that can find it.
	The Dream Podcast is 1794.
	Look at that. We're in the French Revolution.
	That when you begin to analyze your dreams or to explore your own dream experiences, your unconscious rises up.
	Like a dragon, you poke with a sharp stick.
	It rises up and begins to pour dreams at you.
	Like somebody lost on a desert island who hasn't spoken in years is going to just keep talking.
	Or a philosopher, say, who likes his caffeine.
	And so there is, I think, clear evidence that you can have a relationship with With your unconscious.
	The conscious choices that you make also have physical changes within the brain, right?
	So they've done studies of people before and after.
	Talk therapy. No surgery.
	No drugs. Only words.
	Words are like a chiseler's tool in the brain.
	They can change the way it operates.
	They can change the way it works.
	And that is...
	Having a conversation with your unconscious.
	And the unconscious responds in sometimes indirect and oblique ways, but it responds to interest, it responds to curiosity, it negotiates.
	And it's important to have a good relationship with your unconscious because it isn't going anywhere, and it does not like to be repressed.
	And most people, I think, the reason that parenting gets so messed up is most people have the same relationship to the unconscious.
	The conscious mind has the same relationship to the unconscious, at best, that parents have with their children, and that the state has with its citizens, and that the god and the priests have with their parishioners.
	Which is that maybe some counter negotiation might be somewhat allowed, but the final decision always occurs in the conscious mind.
	The unconscious may propose, but the conscious mind always disposes in most people's formulations.
	And that does not seem to be the healthiest approach.
	So, to say that the unconscious has intentionality, I think it's fair to say that it does, insofar as dreams are specific and meaningful, and contain great knowledge, which the unconscious holds, which is not possessed by the conscious mind.
	And the proof I would put forward to that is to just listen to the podcast on dream analyses, or, you know, you obviously don't have to go to me, there are Lots and lots of works on dream analysis out there.
	Freud's on the interpretation of dreams is very good.
	I think Jung wrote some great stuff on dream analysis.
	And I have my own amateur methodology for it.
	But I think if you listen to those, you'll say, well, there is some purpose in the unconscious.
	I'm not saying it has...
	It doesn't have a willpower and intentionality in the same way that the conscious mind does.
	The unconscious tends to work more with the future and more with universals and more with values and The conscious mind is, I don't know, I'd like to go and get a cookie.
	I guess that comes from unconscious impulses as well, but the conscious mind says, I've got to get in the car, I've got to go and drive and get a cookie or whatever.
	And I think that's great, and that's a very useful thing for the unconscious to do, for the conscious mind to do.
	But I do think that it's important to at least explore the possibility of having a relationship with your subconscious.
	I think that is very important to explore.
	You know, maybe you'll find that it's not a particularly powerful thing.
	I think you'll find that it is, but none of this show comes with a guarantee.
	And so I think it's worth exploring.
	But I agree with you that the word intention is not the same for the conscious mind as for the unconscious mind.
	I'm just not sure I can think of a better one.
	If you can think of a better one, I'm certainly happy to hear more about it.
	No, that helps a lot.
	I totally agree with everything you said.
	But I think that to have a relationship with your unconscious, you have to do it consciously.
	Or else you'll just be like everyone else who just interacts with their unconscious and unhealthy way, usually.
	And I think that to bring out the intent and the unconscious, you have to ask it.
	And that's I think that's the only way, or at least the way I'm seeing intent as, that you can't have unconscious intent, because then you can superimpose intent on anything.
	Yeah, I think so.
	But let me ask you this.
	I'm sure you've heard of the problems of self-fulfilling prophecies in relationships, right?
	So some guy is continually afraid that his girlfriend is too good for him.
	That she's going to find out that he's not that great, that she's going to leave him for some other guy.
	And he starts obsessing about this and he starts pestering her.
	Are you sure you love me? I saw you look at that guy.
	Are you sure you don't like him better?
	And he goes on and on and on until one day she leaves him, right?
	And then he says, Aha!
	I knew it! I knew she was going to leave me without realizing that it was the fears that he had that weren't processed that brought that into being.
	Well, Some of those fears and some of that anxiety, if not a considerable amount of it, is coming from the unconscious.
	And there is a kind of intentionality because it is a repetitive, purposeful, but self-destructive behavior that occurs, right?
	And those impulses are coming from the unconscious and it's not random behavior.
	It has some sort of end goal.
	The end goal, I would argue, is that the self-esteem is too low for the relationship and either the self-esteem must be raised or Or the relationship must be eliminated in order to maintain the low self-esteem.
	But unfortunately, the self-esteem can't be raised because if the self-esteem is raised, then that threatens all the other relationships that he has with his family and so on that are all dependent upon him having a low self-esteem, right?
	So he can't raise his self-esteem, so he has to eject the relationship.
	There is a kind of equilibrium that the unconscious is seeking to restore, right?
	If you can't have something in your life That is counter to your self-esteem.
	You can't have it in the long run.
	It's not going to work. If you have low self-esteem and you have some high self-esteem aspect to it, then either your self-esteem has to rise or the high self-esteem aspect has to be eliminated from your life.
	It all has to sort of even out.
	That's the way. Because the unconscious is about universals, right?
	So if the universal is low self-esteem and you have a high self-esteem aspect to it, then you're going to want to eliminate that.
	Well, not want to, but it's going to end up that way.
	Because there's a constant chafing between your low self-esteem and the high self-esteem manifestation.
	That could be getting a great job.
	It could be getting a great girlfriend.
	It could be losing a lot of weight, right?
	Which may say, oh yeah, I've lost all this weight now.
	I have to act badly in some other way to compensate.
	Until the underlying self-esteem issues are dealt with, I think things tend to line up.
	So there is a kind of intentionality to that, which is to say that things must be pretty universally worked out in the unconscious.
	Otherwise, whatever exceptions there are, Will change.
	And the same thing is true the other way.
	So if you have high self-esteem and you have some low self-esteem area in your life, then either your self-esteem will lower, which is a pretty hard thing to do.
	It's kind of upwardly sticky.
	Or the low self-esteem area in your life will be eliminated.
	And of course that was, you know, through my process of sort of self-knowledge and going through therapy and studying philosophy, my self-esteem raised from very catastrophic levels when I was younger, very, very low levels.
	And it's sort of like, I don't know, there's this particular way to do it, right?
	So if you imagine that you've got a bunch of people in a giant rubber raft called self-esteem, and there's very little air in it, and they're hanging on to other people who are in the water, right?
	So they've got their arms over the edge of the raft, they're hanging on to people who are in water.
	Now, when you study philosophy, when you go to therapy, you have self-knowledge, and you improve your relationship with yourself, you listen to your unconscious, you journal or whatever, what happens is you're pumping air into that raft, this giant raft, where you've got people hanging over the edge, other people hanging on them.
	That's kind of a stable situation.
	Some people are in the water, some people are in the raft, but it's fairly stable.
	But when you start putting air into that raft, it starts to rise, it starts to lift up, it starts to inflate.
	And when it starts to inflate, it rises up from the water.
	And now people who are hanging off your arms, they start to get heavier and heavier.
	As the raft inflates, more air goes into it, starts to rise up.
	Now either people are going to come into the raft with you, or they're going to fall back in the ocean.
	But it's not sustainable.
	And the water is the unconscious.
	That's what supports all of this nonsense.
	But when you have differentiation, when you have self-esteem, you rise up.
	People are either going to come up with you and continue to rise, or they're going to fall off back into the ocean.
	Most people don't want that decision point, which is why they studiously avoid that kind of self-knowledge.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yeah, definitely. I agree.
	All right. Well, yeah, keep me posted if you do see stuff that shows up in terms of intentionality.
	And if you can think of a better word, I would certainly appreciate that.
	Okay, thanks. Thanks.
	As somebody said, couldn't one say that the reason the unconscious has intentionality is partly because it represents unexpressed historical intentions?
	Well, I will tell you that I think you're right.
	I agree with you. The intentionality in the unconscious is very muddied.
	Because of prior trauma and the still pretty bad way that children are generally raised, we have other people's intentionality within us, which is counter to our own intentionality.
	So, I mean, a pretty typical example that comes straight out of Alice Miller is thou shalt not be aware.
	So if you're raised in an abusive household, the intentionality of the abusers is for you to not be aware of the abuse, for you to blame yourself for the abuse, or recast it, which is the same thing, recast it as just punishment for being, quote, bad or disobedient or willful or whatever.
	And certainly to never talk to people outside of what actually goes on within the house.
	That intentionality gets rooted in your unconscious.
	We internalize all personalities around us.
	We have no defense mechanism for the internalization of external personalities.
	No defense mechanism.
	There is no boundary possible ever for the internalization of external personalities.
	It is an automatic process.
	It's how culture is transmitted.
	It's how religion and nationalism and all this sort of shit is transmitted.
	There is no defense.
	Against the internalization of external personalities, which is why you have to be so careful with the people that you spend time with.
	Now, it doesn't mean that if someone yells at you at a mall, you're going to yell at yourself for the rest of your life.
	I mean, there is some way of mitigating and some way of minimizing, but there's no way, if you spend any significant time with anybody, there is no way to avoid internalizing Their personality.
	And if their personality is toxic, you have just absorbed a toxic shitball that you can never excrete.
	And this is why it is so important to be discriminating with who you spend your time with.
	Everyone we meet for any significant amount of time, anybody we choose to spend any significant amount of time with, we internalize.
	So the reason that the unconscious gets so contradictory and so split is very simple.
	It's that when we are in situations where our own intentionality is a problem, is attacked, then we internalize, we have to repress our own preferences.
	And we also have to internalize and repress The intentions of others that our intentions never be expressed.
	Boy, that's convoluted.
	Let's try that again, shall we? So, if I'm beaten because my parent is a sadist, then I have to repress, well, initially suppress and eventually repress my desire not to get beat.
	I also have to internalize my parents' unconscious desire That I not talk about the beating and that I blame myself and all of their preferences.
	And this is all very contradictory, very messed up, and results in significant splitting within the personality.
	I have been watching with Izzy some of the Toy Story movies.
	She really likes them. I can't blame her.
	I think they're delightful and very imaginative and very funny.
	The one thing that is a consistent theme in Toy Story 2 and 3...
	It's that Buzz Lightyear, who's the military guy, Buzz Lightyear has no continuous personality.
	So I'm not giving anything away.
	I won't go into any details. But Buzz Lightyear has his personality replaced or has split personalities with no horizontal integration because he's a military guy.
	Some of his personalities have completely different attitudes.
	Some of them speak different languages, no different dances.
	I mean, it's It's very funny, but it's also very true.
	Right? As he says at one point, Sir, I have no doubt.
	Whatever diet I had in me got pounded out in the academy.
	Right? Doubt is growth.
	Doubt is progress. Doubt is humanity.
	Doubt is curiosity. Got pounded out of him in the academy.
	Right? As the result of significant physical and verbal abuse, he's remained completely split.
	And there are actually buttons that you push.
	Anyway, but this is sort of an example that I was thinking about.
	That... Intentionality is confusing in the unconscious because it is multiple and contradictory, and that's not innate to us.
	It's only specific to our experiences.
	Well, you know, we could just have a conversation about what you guys would like next, or what you would like to see in the show next, or somebody would like more shows about the false self-true self.
	Is there any particular aspect of that that you would like to see explored in more detail?
	Would I ever consider online tutoring on Skype?
	I'm not sure that's different than what I'm doing.
	No, Libertopia speech is not yet out.
	It's on its way to me and it will be going up soon.
	How can you recognize a false self?
	That's a good question. What do I think about the New World Order conspiracy theories?
	I'm not a big fan of the New World Order Conspiracy theories.
	I think that the way that things are going to change is from the personal and the immediate radiating outward.
	I am always, always, always extremely skeptical and sometimes corrosively critical of people who believe that corruption is somewhere out there beyond Pluto, is somewhere in The deep realms of otherness up at the top of the hierarchical pyramid and so on.
	And the same problem I have with the 9-11 people, with the truthers and so on.
	To get into arguments about thermite and new world orders and one government and hidden agendas and shit like that.
	It's like, forget all of that.
	The hierarchy is an effect of our personal relationships.
	The state is an effect of our personal relationships.
	That's all it is. And if you want to start changing the world, you focus on your personal relationships where you can actually get some shit done.
	You can actually get your shit done.
	To me, the New World Order guys and the truthers, they're like enormously obese people complaining that there's some grand conspiracy to put more fat into the diet of people.
	It's like, okay, but put down the Twinkie.
	You know, because virtue and integrity and power and authority and autonomy and philosophy all begin with yourself.
	It all begins with putting down the Twinkie.
	It doesn't begin with grand conspiracies about the sugar content of Twinkies.
	In fact, I think that people focus on the grand conspiracy of the sugar content of Twinkies rather than putting down the Twinkie so that they can keep eating the Twinkies.
	So people who focus on where was Obama born What brought down the Twin Towers?
	And is there a new world order?
	And are they building FEMA camps in the swamps of Louisiana and so on?
	Well, that simply is a way of avoiding what needs to be done in personal relationships.
	What needs to be done in your relationship with yourself?
	What needs to be done in your relationship with those around you?
	I'm incredibly suspicious of people who come up with grand stuff that is never conclusive.
	Think of all the people. Who poured incredible energy into who shot JFK? Who shot JFK? You know, three million North Vietnamese can get slaughtered by the U.S. government, but if one white guy with a bristle-cut hairdo and a bad back who's banging Monroe gets shot, oh my God, we've got to pour...
	It's just kind of racism in that, right?
	It's like... The white leader gets shot.
	That's bad. Three million North Vietnamese get slaughtered.
	Oh, well, let's not focus on that.
	That's proven. Let's focus on the one white guy.
	And people get drawn to this contentious stuff which can never be resolved.
	In fact, well, the JFK thing has largely been resolved.
	I think there was a two-volume book that came out a couple of years ago that put every single question to rest.
	And it's why you don't hear about the JFK stuff anymore.
	And that was, what, 30 or 40 years.
	Hundreds of thousands of people pouring incredible amounts of energy.
	Bad movies made about who shot JFK. Good Seinfeld parodies with loogies about who shot JFK. And what did it achieve?
	What did it achieve?
	Well, nothing.
	Less than nothing. Because there's the hidden costs of all of that.
	All the stuff that didn't get achieved.
	All the conversations about honor, truth and integrity and virtue that didn't occur.
	Because people were just pestering other people about this stupid shit.
	About multiple shooters and grassy knolls and thermite and new world orders and stuff like that.
	Start with your personal relationships.
	Start with your relationship with your children.
	Start with your relationship with your friends.
	Start with your relationships with your family, with your wife, with your husband.
	With your parents, with your priest, start there.
	There is no way.
	There is no way to change the world from the outside in.
	There is no way to focus on the distant and change the world, because the world is an effect of that which is closest to us, not that which is most distant from us.
	You know, a snowball going down a hill.
	Right? Everybody is drawn to the big WAP when the massive avalanche crashes into the picturesque little Swiss village.
	Burying it alive!
	Dogs digging their owners out.
	Children being passed up through holes in the snow.
	Drama bum bum bum bum bum bum.
	And everybody focuses on that.
	And they say, ah, we need to build massive walls around the village.
	We need to move the village.
	We need to... No, no, no, no.
	You need to go to the snowflake at the top that started it all.
	And that's your personal relationships.
	That's the only way to change things.
	I haven't done much on journaling.
	That's a good question.
	That's a good comment.
	Journaling might be interesting.
	I should maybe just read bits of my therapy journal, which is...
	A staggering number of pages.
	Maybe a little bit of that might be helpful.
	Maybe people would be interested in my own dream analysis from before FDR. Who knows?
	These are suggestions for shows.
	A series of roundtables on intimate relationships.
	Day-to-day living, negotiating preferences, dealing with separateness and togetherness.
	Yeah. Dreams and dream analysis.
	Pop culture movie analysis.
	Reviews. Yeah, okay.
	I like doing the reviews as well, although it's tough for me to get to movies these days.
	But if you have movies that you would like me to take a look at that are available, I think that would be very interesting.
	I like doing those. They're quite a challenge.
	Oh, I also read recently this myth that we only use 5% or 10% of our brains.
	That's actually not true.
	It's not true at all. We use 100% of our brains, according to the latest research.
	A spotlight on trauma therapy and perhaps the interview would be enlightening and how it differs from general psychoanalysis.
	Do you mean sort of PTSD therapy?
	Yeah, I'd like to focus more on the...
	The concentrated videos with graphics, they seem to have the most traction with people.
	I sadly don't have as much time as I'd like to do those.
	They just take so long.
	And so I'm getting some and listing some help with that.
	The Sunset of the State, I think, is now the biggest one.
	And thanks again to Think Twice Productions.
	They're working on a new one. But I think those are the ones.
	Because the question for me is, do we need more shows, right?
	Yeah. I'm still enormously pleased and sometimes frankly quite surprised that I still have any useful stuff to say after so many shows.
	But I'm certainly glad that I do.
	And I just can't tell you how much I love and appreciate and enjoy these conversations on Sundays and with listeners and all of that sort of stuff.
	And... But my question is always, you know, is show 1803 going to be that?
	Like, is there a law of diminishing returns?
	Should we focus on getting new people into the conversation?
	Should we focus on plowing on?
	Are our supply lines getting too short?
	It's always a challenge about doing a new show versus circling back.
	You know, I could redo the intro to philosophy as a series of animated videos.
	I think that would be interesting.
	And that would draw new people into the conversation.
	So I could do UPB in a 15-minute video with the two guys in the room and guns and all that kind of stuff.
	I think that would be a very interesting project to work on.
	An animation of philosophy for kids I think would be a great deal of fun to work on.
	There's still this possibility of a...
	Of a movie script and so on.
	Oh, listen, I am always doing podcasts on coffee of one kind or another.
	I could do spotlights on philosophers.
	Absolutely. A history of philosophy would be great.
	It would be a big project. I do have, and thank you again to the research team who worked on gathering the family as state metaphors and arguments from various philosophers, That is something that I would like to work on next, which is a short book, just detailing the degree to which the state is explicitly argued as an effect of the family, so that we can sort of make that clear.
	I think that's something that is such a central thesis to what we do here that needs more.
	So yeah, there's a lot of things to do.
	Things will change a little bit.
	Izzy is almost two, and I should be going to preschool in a year, year and a half, and if we go that route, so that will give me a lot more time.
	Right now, it is very much catch as catch can in terms of getting things done for FDR. It's a big challenge.
	I mean, that's not going to be forever, but taking on big detailed projects is tricky, to say the least, at the moment.
	But yeah, if you have any other thoughts or comments or questions, I think that would be great.
	Have I heard about non-violent communication?
	Fuck yeah. Yes, I have heard about non-violent communication.
	There was a guy a couple of years ago who posted about it on the board, I think.
	Yeah, I mean, I think it's great.
	I think that non-violent communication, I think, is important.
	I've certainly always discouraged the use of name-calling and so on, and the drawing of moral conclusions prior to knowledge, right?
	I think it's very, very important that we communicate our feelings Without jumping to conclusions.
	I feel angry. I felt very angry when this happened, but I don't know why.
	And have an exploratory conversation around that.
	I am concerned, based upon my admittedly limited understanding of nonviolent communication, that I'm very concerned that morality and conclusions are taken out of the equation.
	And that's something that, again, if people know more about it, please let me know.
	But that was my concern in looking at it a couple of years ago.
	I guess the question is, to what degree do you guys think that the public speaking is useful?
	I mean, it's a massive amount of work to do those, and it pushes a lot of stuff out of the way.
	A practical guide to getting started on self-knowledge.
	That's interesting, yeah. I will put that on the list, too.
	Thank you. Do I think it increases traffic to the website or spreads the word?
	I'm not sure. I'm not sure about that.
	I couldn't give you an empirical answer to that.
	I think that it does bring some new people.
	I think it helps a little bit.
	I mean, credibility is always a challenging word because it's half on the true self and half on the false self.
	I think that credibility can help.
	And I think the fact that I've spoken at conferences helps.
	So I'm not just a guy in the room, but I'm a guy in a bigger room or a different room.
	And I think that can be helpful.
	I think that the sort of comfort and good humor and ease that I bring to these conversations I think is positive and perhaps admirable to some people.
	I think that's helpful.
	So I think there's some value, but I mean, again, it's a massive amount of work.
	I mean, each public speaking engagement, particularly ones in the U.S., is like two weeks of work, at least.
	Yeah, so more people that I've known for longer on the show.
	I think that's great. I think that's a good idea.
	I think that's a good idea.
	Yeah, I'd like to do that. I'd like to do that.
	We've sort of been talking about...
	I've just sort of been talking about roundtables on more advanced or post-therapy or post-significant therapy approaches to relationships.
	I think that would be great. So yeah, that's a very good...
	I would like to do more debates.
	I really enjoy the debates.
	But we are having trouble finding debating partners.
	Either because I'm a very good debater or a very bad debater.
	I'm just having trouble finding debating partners.
	I've certainly made some overtures to people who've shown some interest, but they do tend to fade away, which I think is a shame.
	Oh, I did get a question from somebody who asked for clarification on why I mentioned at the libertarian speech that Ayn Rand used the argument from a fact.
	Well... Ayn Rand made a pretty catastrophic error in her dismissal of anarchism.
	And that error was to say that anarchism is impractical.
	Anarchism will not work.
	The quote she had was something to this effect.
	So you have a crime committed in District A and these people have their own police.
	And you have a crime committed in District B and these people have their own police.
	The guy, the criminal from From A goes to place B and then you have no way of resolving the dispute.
	Well, that is a terrible argument.
	It is such a terrible argument from a philosopher that you would really have to look at bomb in the brain stuff to figure out why she would make such a ridiculous statement.
	Just because Ayn Rand couldn't think of how it might be solved, to say it can't be solved because I can't figure out how it can be solved It is, frankly, narcissistic in the extreme.
	It is narcissistic in the extreme.
	I'm not trying to diagnose her personality.
	I'm just saying that particular statement.
	I can't figure it out.
	Therefore, it is impossible.
	It's such a narcissistic, self-serving, self-obsessed argument is to say that my personal limitations are the limitations of reality is to step one above God in the hierarchy of existence.
	So that is a consequentialist argument.
	That's an argument from effect.
	Because certain practical difficulties, in my view, will arise from a consistent application of the non-aggression principle, we can never consistently apply the non-aggression principle.
	In other words, it is the consequences of particular ideas that matters, not the consistency of those ideas themselves.
	But the moment that you start arguing for consequences, you completely surrender to the state.
	You completely surrender to the state.
	The state is entirely based upon the argument from effect.
	We want to help the poor.
	The poor get money under statism.
	The poor get subsidized healthcare under statism.
	The poor get an education under statism.
	That is the effect. The cause is always bypassed, is always ignored.
	Always. And...
	To focus on the effects of ideas rather than their internal integrity is to throw away the ideas completely.
	This is what I talked about way back in my debate with good old Jan Helfel, that we either are going to organize society according to principles or according to effects.
	But the moment that you start arguing from effects, you are justifying car theft.
	If I take this car, I have a car with very little effort.
	Yay! It's a big plus for me.
	And that is catastrophic, right?
	We say that a car theft is wrong because it's a violation of property rights and it doesn't matter.
	Like, let's say the guy who's getting the car says, I can't think of any other way that I can get this car.
	Well, the fact that you can't think of any other way to get this car doesn't matter.
	You're still violating property rights.
	The same way that Ayn Rand can't figure out How DROs could cooperate doesn't mean that she gets to violate the non-aggression principle because of the failures or limitations of her own imagination.
	Or, because we all will fail to imagine how the future will look like to one degree or another, and all will be a significant degree, the humility to say, I don't know.
	Don't ask me to invent the future.
	The point is that we should not be using force against each other.
	Well, you know, the problem with, I mean, there's lots of problems with Ayn Rand, lots of great virtues, but lots of problems.
	I mean, she had an absolute standard.
	Any shred of irrationality in a belief system renders the whole thing invalid and blah, blah, blah.
	She'd set up this system where she couldn't make mistakes, and therefore she had enormous difficulty admitting that she had made mistakes or was wrong.
	I am not bound by such perfectionism, I can tell you that.
	I make a lot of mistakes and try to correct them where I can or where they're pointed out to me.
	And I certainly don't say that if somebody finds a mistake in the philosophy that, on my application of philosophy, that everything that I say is wrong.
	And yeah, so she just elevated things to a standard of perfection and she had trouble saying, I don't know.
	And anarchism is fundamentally about saying, I don't know.
	Anarchism is two things. It is saying, I do know principles and I don't know effects.
	I do know that we should not initiate force.
	I do know that we should respect property.
	We should respect ownership. I don't know how DROs are going to work in 300 years.
	I don't know how fires are going to be put out in the 25th century.
	I don't know. Anarchism is...
	Absolutism on principles and rational doubt on effects.
	Whereas, of course, statism is the opposite.
	Statism is absolutism on effects, we must help the poor, and extreme relativism on principles.
	No, like, huge doubt on principles, huge certainty on effects.
	Yeah, so people say, you know, maybe a move more towards mainstream culture.
	Listen, that's not going to happen.
	It's not going to happen.
	It is not, not, not going to happen.
	Mainstream culture wants to have absolutely nothing to do with philosophy.
	It's not personal to me. It's not personal to you.
	It's not personal at all. Mainstream culture is a series of prejudicial buckets.
	And as long as you fit into one of those prejudicial buckets...
	There is a home for you.
	Right? So, you can be an anarchist like Chomsky if you're a leftist.
	You can be an atheist like Hitchens as long as you're a socialist.
	You can be a free marketer as long as you're sympathetic to religion.
	There are these grotesque, body-warping holes that you have to fit into in order to have a place in mainstream culture.
	You can't think for yourself.
	You can't think outside of the box of prejudices.
	You can't reason in a straight line from first principles because that exposes everybody else's distortion and people do not want to see how distorted they are.
	There is proof of anarchism, even in mainstream culture, in how laws and rules and standards are so universal.
	There's no law that says you can't print a picture of an Iraqi victim of U.S. imperialism.
	There's no law that says that.
	There's no censorship. Yet the war has been going on for almost 10 years, and not one single picture in the mainstream media has ever been shown of the victims of this war.
	This is just proof of anarchism.
	Social standards. What makes the world run?
	Not laws. So, there is no place.
	Let me tell you the secret to peace of mind in this life.
	Let me tell you the secret.
	Five words. Five words will give you peace of mind in this life.
	Five words that were extremely hard to come by for me, but which I will share with you now, For no fee, whatsoever.
	Five words will give you peace of mind.
	The five words are these.
	It's earlier than you think.
	It's earlier than you think.
	In the arc towards the personhood of children, the benevolent and peaceful cooperation in the raising of children from parents and children, it is earlier than you think.
	In the awakening to the core of violence, At the heart of our society, it is earlier than you think.
	In empathy for the victims of violence, be they people in jail domestically or people buried under rubble overseas, it is earlier than you think.
	In the slow expansion, in prying apart the bivalves of prejudice from the empathetic heart of the species, it is earlier than you think.
	It seems later to us because we're already there.
	But when we look around, we're not being followed except by people who want to throw stones.
	It's earlier than you think.
	Things take 150 to 200 years to change.
	We are not yet, my friends, at year one.
	It's earlier.
	Then you think. So relax.
	Relax. You can't make this go faster than it goes.
	You can make it go slower by focusing on things you can't control, by being personally irascible and unpleasant and difficult and offensive.
	You can make it go slower.
	But you can't make it go any faster.
	It's earlier than you think.
	Because reason and evidence cannot change the mindlessness of people who were never convinced by reason and evidence.
	We have a crowbar called reason and evidence, but a crowbar only works on something that is solid.
	A crowbar will open a wooden crate.
	A crowbar will not do much to...
	A big wall of soap bubbles.
	A crowbar doesn't do much to water or fog or air or gas.
	A crowbar can only work on something solid.
	A crowbar can only open the walls of a mind that has walls.
	A mind that is empty, that is formless, that is gaseous.
	Reason and evidence can have no purchase.
	Just as you cannot convince a frog of a mathematical proof, people will not change.
	Because there is nothing in them to change.
	It's like trying to repair a car that isn't there.
	You can mime it, but there's nothing happening.
	You cannot change the minds of people Until they accept reason and evidence, until they subjugate themselves to reason and evidence.
	Unfortunately, human beings are subjugated to people, and the moment that you are subjugated to a human being, you can no longer subjugate yourself to reason and evidence, because those two are the opposite.
	Subjugating yourself to people, or being subjugated to people, which is what happens to children, is the opposite of bowing to reason and evidence.
	You can't bow to a king And to philosophy in the same direction.
	They're the opposite directions.
	You cannot bow to Obama and to reason.
	They are the opposites.
	A man to turn himself into a citizen must become formless.
	Like water being poured into a jug.
	You cannot pour a big block of ice into a jug.
	You can only pour that which has no shape into culture, into obedience, into subservience, into statism, into religiosity, into nationalism, into culture.
	You can only control that which has no shape.
	You cannot appeal to the reason of a skull.
	And people who conform to power as so many people are ground down into doing, people who conform to power We'll never be accessible to reason.
	And the vast, vast, vast majority of people in this world are liquid being sloshed around and poured from bucket to bucket of power.
	At work, at home, school, at church, at city hall, with a speeding ticket, with a parking ticket, With the summons, with the tax bill, they simply fluidly slosh through the pipes of power with no shape to themselves.
	You cannot sculpt water.
	There must be something that is firm in order to have a material to work with.
	We cannot become Michelangelo standing in the sea.
	Humanity must become far more Firm in order to have any kind of shapeability to reason.
	And people are so humiliated in being subjugated to the mere whims of bullies in authority that for them shape would be agony.
	For them shape, firmness, resolution, integrity, reason, virtue, even the slightest hints of it is incredibly humiliating.
	So people are disagreeing with me?
	Perfectly fine. These are my arguments.
	And you should never disagree with me.
	And you should never agree with me.
	That's very important. You should never disagree with me.
	And you should never, ever agree with me.
	I get complaints, right?
	So people say, Oh, you know, there are people, I listen to a lot of your podcast, Def, and there are people in my life who say, Oh, you just agree with everything he says.
	Then I sort of feel compelled to say, no, no, I disagree with him on this.
	Don't fall into that trap.
	I've mentioned this before.
	Don't fall into that trap. Don't fall into the trap of agreeing or disagreeing with me.
	Because I'm meaningless.
	I'm not important in philosophy.
	I'm insignificant in philosophy.
	No individual has any power, influence, or effect in philosophy.
	The only thing that matters is the quality of the arguments.
	And in these kinds of arguments, they are empirical arguments.
	Then it's not arguments from first principles.
	These are arguments from evidence.
	Look, if you have a better way of changing people's minds, of awakening people, if you have better evidence or a better approach, please let me know.
	I think I can count myself, again, this is not due to any particular genius on my part, but largely due to the technology, This is the largest and most successful philosophical conversation in about the last four billion years.
	I think it's had the greatest success.
	I think it's had the greatest effect on people's lives.
	If you have a better way of doing it, first of all, you should start your own show, and I'll come work for you.
	Seriously. If you have a better way of doing it, I don't mean this facetiously, and it's not a game.
	I'm dead serious.
	If you have a better way...
	Of bringing reason to people, of exciting and interesting them in the life of self-knowledge and of integrity, virtue and wisdom.
	I will help you.
	If you have empirical evidence of ways in which your message has been positively received, fantastic.
	I've got hundreds of thousands of people whose lives have been bettered by this show.
	If you have better statistics, if you have a greater reach, if you have a better effect, I'm begging you, let me know.
	This is not about my ego.
	This is not about my show being the best.
	This is about whatever is best to bring reason to the world.
	To light the fires of philosophy in the damp logs of the human mind.
	If you have a lightning strike that brings the whole forest up, I am with you.
	Rubbing the clouds together, straddling the sky.
	I'm there. But when people say to you, I mean, my suggestion is, right?
	I mean, I think the reality is if people say to you, oh, you just agree with everything that Steph says?
	Say, no, I don't agree with anything Steph says.
	And you damn well shouldn't.
	However, I agree or I accept the logic of his arguments, X, Y, and Z. I accept the validity of his evidence, A, B, C. And if you can find a flaw in the logic or in the evidence, let me know.
	Let Steph know. He will correct himself on air.
	He will improve the arguments.
	So no, I don't agree with anything Steph says.
	But if you can find a flaw in his arguments, I will certainly change what I accept, because I accept reason and evidence.
	People will try to cast you in the role of somehow being obedient to my opinions.
	Don't let them do that because this is not about my opinions or your opinions or any goddamn person's opinions.
	This is about what is true.
	You know, can you imagine going to some physics convention and saying, oh, you guys are all just a slave to Einstein.
	Whatever he says, you agree with.
	I mean, they'd look at you like, what the fuck is wrong with you?
	Doesn't have anything to do with Einstein's opinion.
	His shit be proven, brother.
	Oh yeah, this is a movie idea that I'm sort of kicking around, that a guy has awoken from being deep frozen.
	You know, like he was sick and he was put in a deep freeze rather than dying.
	He works into the future. Sees a free society, interacts with a free society, lives and breathes in a free society.
	And then he's put on trial.
	Turns out he's the president. He invaded another country and is put on trial for war crimes in a free society.
	Treated as a private citizen who...
	And there's a twist to the ending that I won't get into here, but I just sort of reasoned out.
	But that's the idea. And look, I'm open to...
	If there are better ways for me to do things, I am absolutely open to what people have to say.
	There should be some DeLoreans in it.
	Absolutely. And jokes about Calvin Klein's.
	Is it a good idea to buy silver and gold?
	I think so. I think that it's a fine idea to buy silver and gold.
	I wouldn't necessarily stock it someplace online because the government would just snatch that stuff if it gets desperate enough.
	But yeah, I think it's a fine idea.
	Look, I'm not much of a financial expert.
	I sort of know more theory than practicality.
	But yeah, it seems like a good investment.
	Yeah, you have to get a parrot and an eyepatch, of course.
	Absolutely. And some significant parrotitude.
	But yeah, I think it's a good idea.
	No, seriously, I mean, fiat currency is going the way it's going.
	Just donate to FDR. I mean, obviously, you know, or some other place where you think philosophy is going to save the world.
	That's the only thing that's going to really change things in the long run.
	I mean, it was certainly a big part of my decision point in...
	I mean, I could have continued doing FDR part-time and continue to have, you know, the...
	I mean, if I put together the income from FDR plus my salary as a software executive and the stock options, oh, man...
	I've been living pretty damn high on the hog.
	But it was perfectly valid for me to continue working full-time and doing FDR part-time.
	I've already been doing it for, I think, a year and a half or two years, and it certainly was fine.
	But I think, for me, it was like, well, if the system is going to hit significant problems, then it's very important to get the word out sooner rather than later.
	So, I mean, nobody will ever invest in FDR more than I have.
	I mean, I'm not asking people to do stuff that I haven't done.
	So I would say, are you going to invest in the future of the world, which I think is in philosophy in some manner or another, or are you going to invest in gold?
	I think gold is fine.
	I also think that philosophy is a better investment.
	But look, the currency is not going to disintegrate.
	Look, don't let the survivalist craziness into your head.
	It's not going to go that way.
	The ruling class is really smart.
	They're just going to cull the dependent class.
	And by that, I simply mean they're going to turf people off the welfare and social security rules.
	That's all that's going to happen. All they're going to do is they're going to recognize, shit, we've gone too far.
	We've bought too many votes with the dependent classes.
	The ruling classes, like any farmer, knows exactly how dependent they are on the productive classes.
	Farmers know they have to have a bull to make more Cows.
	And if they have too many dependents, they will simply, as they do, right, then they will simply get rid of them.
	And they'll go back, like they simply will, there'll be a massive collapse of statism.
	The ruling class will continue.
	The time for the end of the ruling class is a long, long way off.
	More than a century. But they're going to, they're not dumb.
	They're going to recalibrate. All they're going to do is they're going to loosen the shackles on the productive classes And they're going to toss overboard those who have the least power in society.
	And this is why I keep saying the only people who are actually caring about the poor and the old are the people advocating for a fundamental change in the way we're doing things.
	They are going to loosen...
	They know exactly how necessary the productive class is to maintain their own power, so they're just going to...
	They don't care about the poor.
	They don't care about the old. They don't care about education.
	They don't care about... Those are just excuses.
	That we use to steal people's money.
	If they're stealing too much money, they'll throttle back.
	They're not going to OD. They're not Sid Vicious.
	They're too smart for that.
	They're just going to figuratively throw the dependent classes overboard and loosen the shackles on the productive classes.
	So it's not going to go to the dark ages.
	And remember, I mean, there's the emerging economies, there may be some invention that comes out that keeps them going for longer, there's just lots of things, so.
	Oh yeah, the WikiLeaks, right?
	Oh man, this WikiLeaks thing is too funny.
	Revelations are coming out that Diplomats lie.
	Well, of course they lie.
	The pretty word diplomatic means to lie.
	I'm going to be diplomatic about how much she weighs.
	In other words, I'm not going to say she's fat.
	I mean, the whole word is lying.
	I just think it's funny. The profession that lies is lying!
	Oh my god! I mean, that's like being shocked that the head of Coca-Cola is pro-soft drink.
	I mean... I can't believe it.
	Coca-Cola just took out a contract with an advertising company promoting that Coke is a good thing to drink.
	What the hell?
	And next up, you know, teenagers like to sleep in and have sex.
	The thing that people call news is really astounding.
	The lying profession is lying.
	I just think that's very funny.
	Somebody says diplomacy, the ask of saying nice donkey while you find a big enough stick.
	Yeah, I mean, look, society is a number of layers, right?
	I mean, sexually and extreme physical abuse victims become the criminals, and the milder physical abuse victims become the workers, the verbal abuse victims who act out become the bosses, and the truly messed up entitled sociopaths become the rulers.
	But I mean, this is right. Government by and for the majority is too funny, right?
	I mean, the government is...
	I mean, the American government is called Canada.
	It's called a number of other countries completely panicked about what's going to come out in WikiLeaks.
	I mean, it's news to me is...
	Oh, I don't know.
	It's too funny. Like, you can't get reports of the dead in Afghanistan, which is actual news, I suppose.
	It's not really news that people are dead there, but it's news that they're continuing to die and how many die.
	I think that's news, right? Yeah.
	But you will get as news that diplomats are not up front.
	Do I think it can be effective to spread philosophy through music?
	I think you could do just about anything with music.
	So yeah, I think philosophy is a...
	I mean, you can't really teach philosophy through music, but you can awaken an interest in it for sure.
	By the way, how good was that interview with the problem with Canada author?
	I'm not sure what you mean.
	I'm not sure that I can judge that.
	I enjoyed the conversation for sure.
	I mean, we're certainly not on the same page as far as some of the things go, but, I mean, when I'm interviewing people, I mean, you can tell me if they think this is right or wrong, when I'm interviewing people, I'm there to help bring out their ideas.
	Lord knows people get enough of hearing my ideas on this show, so I'm there to evoke their ideas.
	I have no problems having conflicts with people.
	If it's a debate format, I'm good to go, but that's not how it is for me with interviews, so.
	Oh, sorry, it wasn't asking me.
	It wasn't asking me at all.
	Sorry. Yeah, look, the guy's really well-educated.
	He's a good writer. You know, if you want to read a well-written book, don't read one of mine.
	I mean, that's a well-written book.
	I think he's very good with a turn of phrase and a very effective rhetorician in a good way, right?
	So I think it's worth looking at, for sure.
	He seemed quite surprised that I've actually read the whole book.
	Somebody says, I really appreciate all you do.
	I don't have a job, so I try to promote all your work, but I still feel like a freeloader on here.
	Well, I would invite you to not feel like a freeloader at all.
	I would really invite you to not feel...
	Look, if you have no money, you have no money.
	You can't get blood from a stone.
	If you have no money, you have no money.
	You know, if I want to do a podcast, but I didn't bring my recorder, I can't do a podcast.
	So listen, if you can promote, then...
	If you can promote FDR or promote whatever you think is serving philosophy and liberty the best, promote away if you've got time.
	Fantastic. Do that. If you don't want to promote and if you don't want to donate, then don't promote and don't donate.
	But for heaven's sakes, try to avoid feeling guilty.
	Guilt is almost never going to lead you to someplace good.
	Guilt is almost never going to lead you to someplace good.
	If you do feel guilty or if you are curious as to why you aren't supporting something that is really important to you, I think it's important to ask yourself why.
	Just, you know, be curious. You know, I'm not supporting.
	I'm not donating. I could do something or the other, but I don't want to.
	The important thing there is not to feel guilty or to say, well, it's just because I'm a freeloader or I'm bad or whatever.
	See, that's not knowledgeable.
	Coming to conclusions about yourself prematurely is like saying God created the universe.
	It is a pseudo-answer that discourages the pursuit of further questions.
	So I would really avoid calling yourself a freeloader.
	I think that's a negative term.
	I don't think it's true if you are promoting the site.
	But even if you've downloaded all the podcasts, listened to them all, and haven't done a damn thing to help out the show, I still wouldn't call yourself a freeloader.
	I would just say, I wonder why.
	What would it cost me to get involved in supporting philosophy?
	Yeah, look, I mean, it promised to pay when you have a job.
	Yes, of course it means something to me.
	It absolutely means something to me.
	It means that you care.
	Look, I mean, I'm a capitalist.
	I recognize that to some degree the value of what I'm doing is measured by money.
	That is a very real fact.
	The value of what I do is to some degree measured by money.
	And if nobody was paying, then it would be because nobody was seeing any particular changes in his or her life.
	I mean, if you think about it, right, so a book...
	Let me just sort of go and give you an example, right?
	So I've got Ali's book here.
	This is Alison Gopnik's book, The Philosophical Baby.
	So this is The Philosophical Baby, so let's just have a look.
	This book is...
	Forget about the notes.
	That doesn't really matter. So it's 247 pages long.
	It took me about... Three hours to read, and it cost me $27.
	It's a hardcover.
	So three hours to read, let's just say $30 for tax or whatever, right?
	So that was $10 an hour.
	And that's not what I'm asking for for a podcast, right?
	Most of my podcasts, when I was...
	Driving, we're close to an hour, 45 minutes, depends on the traffic, 45 minutes to an hour, for which I asked 50 cents.
	So I'm 20 times cheaper than Alison Gopnik.
	And she has an income, right?
	She's already paid as a professor.
	And she has prior books, and I'm sure she gets speaking fees and this and that, right?
	So this book is not her sole source of income.
	FDR is my sole source of income, and I'm charging 1 20th what Alison Gopnik charges.
	Now... This is no particular, I mean, it could be anybody, or it doesn't really matter who it is, right?
	But if people are willing to pay for Alison Gopnik's book, then the book has value.
	There's no such thing as abstract value, right?
	I mean, this value is only in the tangible, what people are willing to exchange.
	I can say that I have something that's worth a million dollars, but if nobody will give me a penny for it, it's not worth a million dollars.
	It's worth what people will pay for it.
	It's worth what people will pay for it.
	And it is humbling to think that the most successful philosophy conversation in history gets 1% or 2% of donations from people who listen.
	It's humbling. Now, that might mean that the show needs significant improvements.
	I'm certainly open to that.
	I think I'm doing the best that I can.
	I certainly try to be inventive and passionate and creative.
	I've learned, oh my god, I've learned so many things.
	About how to produce stuff.
	I have no idea how to make a podcast when I first started.
	No idea how to make videos.
	No idea what sort of images to choose or how to narrate or any of those sorts of things.
	No idea how to work with a camera and all that.
	So, you know, I put in no idea about lighting, no idea about microphones, all this sound cards and all that kind of stuff.
	So, yeah, I mean, I've done, I think about the best that I can.
	I'm proud of what I've done.
	I think it's been a damn fine effort, and I still continue to be pleased at what I'm able to produce and what people find value in.
	But, yeah, if it doesn't have value for people, then the question to me is, well, does philosophy have value, but what I'm doing doesn't?
	In which case, that means that I'm not being very good at philosophy.
	Maybe that's possible. Or is...
	Does philosophy as a whole not have value?
	It's just sort of a hobby.
	Well, if it's a hobby, then people shouldn't pay for it.
	I guess maybe you pay a little bit for a hobby or whatever, right?
	But people should pay if they're putting it into action because supporting the show is part of putting philosophy into action, right?
	I mean, that's part of acting in the world to promote reason.
	Cheapos like me won't donate, sorry, even though I really like it.
	That's interesting. And why?
	No, I'm not going to make it a pay-only site.
	I'm not going to do that. Because there's too many people who don't see the value in philosophy until a year into it.
	I mean, and that's more true of me than anybody.
	No, you see, if I make it a pay-only site, somebody says, maybe if it were a pay-only site, I might pay.
	But you see, that is surrendering your integrity to somebody else's decision, right?
	Then I'll pay. But that is to say that the responsibility for payment is somebody else charging rather than you saying, this has value to me.
	You can just pretend it is a pay-only subject.
	That's your internal integrity.
	But philosophy is not the kind of thing where, you know, I'm going to...
	Like if you pay $10 for some album on iTunes, you can preview a couple of the songs.
	Maybe you probably have heard them on the radio or you know the band or whatever, right?
	So, like all the people who went and downloaded 20 billion Beatles albums on iTunes, they have some idea what they're getting into, because everybody knows at least 20 Beatles songs, if not more.
	In fact, there's probably not a Beatles song that's been played that you've never heard before anywhere, right?
	But they kind of know what they're getting, and it's sort of an immediate gratification thing.
	You can begin to enjoy the album the moment that you download it.
	And in fact, sometimes listening to it For the first couple of times, it's really revelatory, and sometimes it diminishes over time, or sometimes it's the other way around.
	But you have to listen to a fair amount of philosophy, and then you have to do that teeth-gritting, jump-off-the-cliff, implement it in your life.
	And then you have to sometimes spend money on therapy, and you have a huge amount of tumult, and only after all of that process do the real permanent benefits begin to really pay off.
	And so you simply can't charge people ahead of time.
	It's just a basic reality of where philosophy is, so...
	I'm surprised how you get the donation model working.
	I don't get the donation model working.
	You get the donation model working, not me.
	I simply ask for donations and make cases for it, and people donate or they don't, but I really don't get it working.
	And it's not as bad as it used to be.
	I mean, the bandwidth costs at the beginning were really bad, but it's much cheaper now.
	Which is good, because there's a lot of downloads now.
	Alright, any last questions or comments?
	Yeah, sorry, this wasn't such a listener-chatty show, but hey, that's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, we like it.
	Oh yeah, you're much...
	Thanks for all you do, Steph.
	I appreciate that. The pleasure is entirely mine.
	It is an incredible privilege.
	It is an incredible honor.
	It is a deeply humbling experience to...
	Be involved in this kind of conversation.
	And as always, the true quality is in the listenership.
	The quality of the show is determined entirely by what you guys take from and make with the conversation.
	So the honor is all mine.
	The pleasure is all mine. So thank you so much for listening.
	Thank you so much for supporting. Thank you so much for those of you who are donating time or money or effort.
	It is massively appreciated, I think, not just by me, but by others who...
	Get the conversation with your help.
	I can only reach so many people.
	If you post a video somewhere and somebody gets interested in philosophy, that person will have you to curse and thank over the next few years.
	And their kids and the future will be one person freer.
	And that's how it changes.
	And that's how it spreads.
	So thank you so much, everyone.
	Have yourselves an absolutely wonderful, wonderful week.
	And I don't think there'll be a Sunday show next week because I will be in Arizona land.

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