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Jan. 30, 2011 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:44:31

1841 Freedomain Radio Sunday Show, January 30, 2011

Do you need a Plan B for your life dreams? A noble listener intervenes to save a child, and Universally Preferable Behaviour explained in detail!

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	Hi everybody, it's Stefan Molyneux, Sunday, January the 30th, 2011.
	It is show Pi x 12 million.
	Thank you so much for joining us on this never-ending journey.
	And if you would like to chat, please do.
	And I'm not going to have any particularly big introduction.
	I did a review of Zeitgeist moving forward, which I think is actually moving backwards to something a lot more primitive and well-tested in the annals of economic decline, i.e.
	central planning, socialism, communism, and so on.
	So you are welcome to chat.
	I think we have somebody on the line who wants to dive in.
	Is that correct? Yes, that is.
	How can I help you?
	What's on your mind, my brother?
	Yeah, my question has to deal with the time.
	You know, I guess some of the mechanics of when you decided to just walk away from working altogether.
	And just said, you know, therapy, this is what I want to do for a while.
	This is something that I've been thinking of.
	But my problem is, is that just a couple of things.
	I mean, I've got one, like I'm out here in California and I don't know.
	I think that one thing that's maybe causing me to jump towards taking a new contract is that I'm in kind of a toxic relationship that I just want to get out of.
	And so that's like one of my, I think, puppet strings if you will.
	Sorry, the toxic relationship, is that at work or is that somewhere else?
	It's at home.
	It's with a friend.
	For me, there's just so many problems that just cannot be handled and cannot be resolved either in my own mind.
	And so it's something that I think that In the back of my own mind, I've already noticed that I've wanted to separate and move on.
	I just haven't taken the proper steps yet.
	Is the question sort of, how do you know when to ditch your career and head to something new?
	No, not necessarily.
	I think for me, Here's the deal, is that the potential contract job is in Pennsylvania, and my alternate, but maybe it's just a difference that when you'd sold your business that you had, you know, you had obviously, and that was certainly a major factor, would I be correct?
	No, listen, I mean, I've never had enough money to make decisions without regard to money.
	You know, there's some people who have a million dollars or something like that, and then they can make decisions that are pretty...
	Independent of mere money considerations, all of the decisions that I've had to make in my life have been with limited financial resources and risks.
	They've involved significant risks.
	And so I think I may be closer to where you are than you think.
	I sold a software company.
	He must be wealthy.
	Well, no. Unfortunately, this is one of the reasons why I developed a bit more of a moral critique of the modern world is that there was a fair amount of not optimal behavior on the sale of the company and there was stuff that went on that was pretty bad.
	And anyway, so yeah, as far as making decisions when you have limited resources, it's a huge challenge.
	It's a huge challenge and I really feel for you.
	And I mean obviously nobody can tell you and there's no way you can't even in a sense tell yourself what to do in this area.
	But I will tell you what helped me to make the decision, and then you – maybe this will be of value to you.
	Maybe it won't be. Maybe it will be of value to you, hopefully, if he's one other person.
	I appreciate hearing this.
	Go ahead. Well, for me, the decision was – To look backwards rather than to look forwards.
	That's always the challenge because when you look forward, what you see is a very thin bridge going across a very wide chasm with no particular end in sight.
	The far end is shrouded in fog and where you are may not be that comfortable but at least it's stable and so on and so there's this fear of putting your foot on that other bridge and hoping it's going to take your weight and not wanting to fall and so on and that's all a huge challenge.
	But what it was for me was to think about not the first step on the bridge.
	That to me was not particularly helpful because that's always scary and there's always a million reasons to not put your first step on that bridge.
	For me, it was what is it going to look like?
	What is this decision I have to make now?
	What is it going to look like 10 years from now?
	What is it going to look like 20 years from now?
	What am I going to think about it when I'm on my deathbed?
	Because someday, if we're lucky, we're all going to be sitting in a doctor's office and hopefully when we're old and wrinkled and the doctor is going to say to us, oh boy, I now know what's going to kill you.
	I now know how you're going to die and here's the time you have left and it won't be much and we'll have a lot to take care of and we'll be in declining health and energy.
	So it's going to be a great challenge to deal with that.
	So I think, well, once I get the news that I'm going to die, looking back hopefully 50 years, what decision would I be most proud of from the end of my life?
	Looking backwards from the future, because that's really where the decision is going to play out.
	So rather than looking up the hill, Where it always looks too high and it always looks like you just can't navigate.
	The rocks look too shaky and so on.
	Imagine being at the top of the hill and looking down.
	Would you be happy to have made that choice?
	So think of yourself in 10 years.
	Think of yourself in 20 years or 50 years.
	Think of yourself on your deathbed looking back on your life.
	What's the decision that would have been the one you would have most proud of?
	I think that to me was the way to make the decision because looking up And looking forward, I mean, it's almost impossible.
	But projecting yourself forward in time, which is one of the amazing things that we can do as human beings, projecting yourself forward in time, looking back and say, 10 years from now, what would be the best decision?
	What would be the most exciting decision for me?
	That was what helped me the most.
	And so I thought, well, okay, so I could, you know, they were offering me a massive amount of money for just two days of work a week.
	And I thought, well, that's a lot of money.
	It's a lot of money, and it's not a lot of work, and I could continue to work a little bit on the side, but I know what happens in software, and I know what happens in part-time work.
	It grows. If you're on a trip, they need you to fly somewhere, they need you to go to China for two weeks, and then what, right?
	When you say, no, no, no, I can't, because I'm only on for two days a week.
	So, what I said to myself was, if I dilute myself and I say, well, okay, I'm going to do a little therapy, a little work, I'm going to write a little bit, then I'm probably not going to be that great at any of it.
	But if I really focus my energies on producing what I hope will be a great book and really applying myself in therapy...
	Will I look back and say, I'm glad that I focused 150% on those things which are really important to me?
	Or will I look back and say, well, I made a few extra bucks and diluted my concentration and slowed everything down?
	And for me, it was, I wanted the focus.
	I wanted the focus. To succeed in anything takes a lot of focus and a lot of persistence.
	And I didn't want to look back and say, if I'd given myself more focus, it might have worked.
	Like, so... The writing, like a novel writing career, did not work out for me.
	But I don't look back and say, well, it didn't work out for me because I had all this split focus.
	It didn't work out for me for a variety of reasons that are complicated and not really that important here.
	But I don't look back and say, well, the reason it didn't work out for me might have been because I didn't give it 100%.
	So, that's sort of, you know, avoiding future regret, I think, is a very, very important thing in life.
	And so, I would really strongly advise you to project yourself 10 or 20 years down the road or on your deathbed thinking back about your life and say, well, what decision would you look back with satisfaction and say, whether it worked out or not, I did give it everything I had and that's as much as I can do.
	I could agree with that insight because for me, especially, I'm 38 years old and it's really something where projecting into the future like that is what I need to think of.
	That has been ringing in the back of my mind and kind of been The unseen hand that is also sort of guiding me on this decision as far as what to do.
	Right. Yeah, and that's the best advice that I can offer.
	We are not taught to aim high in this life.
	You know, we are not taught that.
	We're not taught that in religion.
	We're not taught that in government schools.
	We're not taught that In college, all you ever hear about is Icarus.
	He puts wax on his wings and he flies too close to the sun and he plunges to his doom into the ocean and dies because he tries to fly too high.
	And what else? Oh, pride!
	Pride cometh before a fall.
	And don't you also notice that every single time you see somebody who has an excess of enthusiasm...
	In a movie or a play or a TV show, they always get smashed or smacked down.
	So you see some kid who's in World War I. He's really enthusiastic.
	He's eager to serve his country.
	He charges over the hill and he gets shredded and blown up.
	And anybody who's really enthusiastic, come on, guys, let's do X. There's this heavy iron-footed boot of cynicism and negativity and rage in a way that comes crashing down on that person.
	And so it is a very risky thing to have ambition in this world.
	It is a very risky thing to have hubris.
	It is a very risky thing to try great things because there's so much propaganda about how, you know, you have to stay low, you have to stay with the sheep, you have to stay small, or there's no point doing anything.
	And everybody's going to make fun of you.
	For trying to be bigger things.
	Yeah, I can hear you.
	I had one more question related to that.
	Do you think that with regards to having a job that too many people maybe place emphasis on having an anchor or a job versus trying to pursue Personal and self-growth.
	Can you tell me, give me an example, a sort of specific thing that you may have heard in this area.
	I just want to make sure I'm understanding what you're saying.
	Well, I talked with a friend of mine, his mom, and she seemed to think she put emphasis on having an economic anchor or something to kind of anchor yourself to in life, you know, being You know, fill in job here, whether it's software engineer, mechanical engineer, you know, whatever.
	And for me, it's all well and good, but it's just that, you know, from observing myself, you know, the emotional tripwires that I've observed myself hitting through the years, You know, I just don't know if at this point that a job is kind of a viable option.
	And I'm thinking that, you know, this goes in line with what you're saying about projecting into the future.
	Would that be correct?
	Or maybe I don't know.
	I think...
	I mean, there is always a concern that people have whenever you're trying something risky, which is to say, well, you need to have a backup plan.
	And I can really understand that.
	I can really understand that.
	It is... If my daughter wants to become a jazz mime artist or something like that, there will be part of me that's like, hey, that's really great and creative and part of me that's going to say, well, but why not?
	You sort of need to have a backup plan.
	But I think that is a bad idea in general.
	I think that's a bad idea in general.
	I think that anything that you wish to achieve that is not flipping burgers somewhere, anything that you want to achieve that is of any particular substance or significance, You need to, need to, need to put 150% into it.
	You need to go full tilt boogie and that way you either clear the wall, you know, it's like going with a skateboard up a ramp over a wall.
	If you don't go fast enough, you're definitely not going to do it.
	You're definitely going to hurt yourself.
	So if you're going down that hill and there's a little ramp and you want to jump that wall, then you need to get some speed going.
	You need to build up some speeds faster.
	If you don't have that speed, you're definitely – you shouldn't be on the hill.
	And so if my daughter says I want to become a jazz mime artist or something, then for me it would be like, okay, let's figure out what you need to do.
	If you want my advice at all, which you may or may not want, but let's figure out what you need to do.
	And let's go 150%.
	Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it.
	And then you can – you either clear the wall or you don't.
	But you don't end up with any regrets.
	So I'm not a big fan.
	I mean, you've got to eat, right?
	I'm not a big fan of Plan B. I think you give 150% to Plan A, but you also give yourself some short circuit, right?
	So I've told this story before.
	I'll just mention it briefly. It was a pretty decisive moment in my life that I went out for dinner with a client of my brother's company back when I was a young man involved in theater.
	This guy was like, hey, what are you doing?
	I said, oh, I'm at the National Theater School.
	I'm taking acting and playwriting.
	He's like, oh, yeah, my brother's an actor.
	He lives in New York. And I was like, oh, how interesting.
	How's he doing? And he's like, well, it's tough.
	You know, he... He's 35 and, you know, he's got some commercial work and he did one or two small films and he gets a couple of off-Broadway roles.
	Nothing leading or whatever.
	So he's, you know, he's getting by.
	But, you know, he's getting older.
	And he's now at this place where he doesn't have any other skills.
	You know, he's 35.
	He's just getting by.
	But he wants to have kids.
	He wants to have a house.
	He wants to, you know, settle down and all that.
	And so he keeps thinking like he's always got some audition that he's waiting to go for and that could be a big break and so on.
	And he's always waiting to hear back from someone.
	So it's really tough for him to quit.
	But at the same time, he's not really making enough to make it.
	And I think that is a very, very tough place to be in.
	And I think that you need to give yourself massive permission and jetpacks and afterburners to go after what you want.
	But there has to be some sort of point at which you have a cutoff where you say, I don't think you really want to get stuck in that kind of situation.
	That just seems like all kinds of horrible.
	So I just wanted to mention that.
	In retrospect, with respect to your own experience, Could you say, after going through your therapy, that it helped you in terms of more revealing your inner desires or compulsions for what you'd really like to do?
	That's an interesting question.
	I hadn't thought of that. Let me try thinking about it.
	Obviously, you're no longer...
	Go ahead. Yeah, I mean, I don't do the software stuff.
	That's interesting. You know, this is what I think about that.
	It's a great question. I think that when I was in therapy, I mean, I was in therapy for three hours a week, which is a lot for almost two years.
	And I was also spending another eight or nine hours, at least a week, Doing journaling and recording my thoughts and feelings and doing exercises.
	It was a part-time job for me.
	It was 12, 13, 14 hours a week and I filled 10 notebooks of impressions and thoughts and processing everything.
	It's interesting because I don't think that it revealed to me that I was interested in philosophy.
	I don't think that it revealed to me that I liked technology or any of those things.
	What it did reveal to me, though, was that my writing talent was fairly considerable.
	And I wanted to do more with that.
	Now, I had written when I was younger.
	I had written in theater and I had written a couple of novels and so on, which I was pleased with.
	But the creative process of being in therapy and working through all of this stuff from a journaling standpoint really blew wide a lot of creativity for me, and I began to do some very creative writing out of that process.
	So I think that therapy can not only help you focus in on what you're good at and what you really like to do, but it can also help reveal, in a sense, what you're good at and what you like to do.
	Yeah, and for me, it's...
	You know, sometimes it seems to me emotions can be as thick as a pea soup, like a fog that just really can cloud the rational brain.
	I think that's part of what my motives are that I'm certainly looking for myself with pursuing such a path.
	And, you know, certainly think that I'll come out a lot better on the other side, for sure.
	Yeah, look, you don't want to live a life of willpower.
	Yeah, you don't want to live a life of willpower.
	And in the absence of desire, you have willpower.
	And what I mean by that is if you have some job that you don't like, then you have to will yourself to go to that job.
	It's like, oh, I don't really want to go, but I gotta go, and all that sort of stuff.
	And... That's not a life that's any fun and I think that's a life that slowly exhausts you.
	I mean I've had so many jobs that I didn't like just because I came from a dirt poor background and had to really claw my way up from dishwasher to chief technical officer.
	But along the way, there were lots of jobs that I didn't like and I hated going to.
	And that's a life of willpower and you can make yourself do a lot of stuff if you're driven by fear or obligation or doubt.
	Or the need for approval or whatever.
	But that's a life of willpower.
	And I think that's a substandard life.
	And I think that a life of desire is much, much more preferable.
	You know, I've often thought, I think it's a pretty common thought, but maybe you've thought it too, you know, I look at someone like Jack Nicholson.
	Well, Jack Nicholson hasn't had to make a movie for money in probably 40 years.
	You know, I guess he was an easy rider, probably made a lot of money off that.
	I don't know if he got any points, but...
	Five easy pieces in the early movies.
	He made a lot of money and wisely managed.
	He could have just said, well, that's it.
	I'm done. I'm retiring.
	I'm done. I'm over with.
	That's good. I've made my money and all that.
	But he kept making movies.
	Marlon Brando hated making movies because there was just so much sitting.
	Making movies, having made a movie myself, 95% of it is sitting around waiting for everything to get ready.
	It's really boring. And Marlon Brando said, you know, you'd give the monologue off your entire career, hit every note perfectly, and then the director would come into his megaphone and say, that was great, Marley.
	Listen, can you do it again?
	But just tilt your chin up a little bit.
	The light was too shadowy on your eyes.
	It's like, oh, like it just gets exhausting.
	And he also said that, I think it was Last Tango in Paris where he pulled a lot of monologues out of his own history and really wrung himself dry emotionally and just didn't want to go and do that anymore because it's so exhausting.
	So he didn't want to make movies and he stopped making movies and he, you know, wolfed down Big Macs on a Tahitian island somewhere and I'm not sure he had that great a life.
	One of his kids was a murderer, another one killed himself.
	I mean, it's a pretty bad life.
	But he didn't have to make movies so he didn't want to and Jack Nicholson does want to make movies so he keeps making movies.
	Does Sting need to put out another album?
	Well, no. The guy's worth like $150 million.
	That's enough to keep you in tantric yoga pants from here to eternity.
	But he keeps doing it because he likes it, because that's a life of desire versus a life of willpower.
	And I think it's terribly sad.
	It's terribly sad, the number of people in this world who have to live a life of willpower and not a life of desire.
	And what I find is that therapy can really help you to find your desire and find your calling to the point where you can pursue it Without that much willpower.
	I don't have to sit to say to myself every day, oh, I have to do another podcast.
	I mean, I look forward to them.
	I enjoy them. Public speaking.
	I mean, I look forward to it.
	I enjoy it. I would do this if I had a trillion dollars in the bank.
	And that's a great place to be.
	That's a wonderful life to live.
	But it's hard to do it and you have to earn it.
	Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's where I'm looking to go.
	That's the place where I'd like to be.
	My other thing that I'm looking at, too, that is sort of preventing me from wanting to take a Pennsylvania position, I mean, the money's there, but I just don't want to move up to that cold, nasty environment now.
	Right. Look, if it's not something that...
	If it's not something that...
	If weather is holding you back from it, then it's not the right thing for you, right?
	Like, I mean, if my wife suddenly got, God knows how or why, got reassigned to Nunavut or the Arctic or something, then that's where I'd go because that's where she is, and I'd be bummed out about the weather, but nonetheless, that's what I would do.
	And if, yeah, if the weather is a consideration, then it probably isn't your heart's desire.
	Like, if somebody said to me, look, you can only podcast...
	From Glasgow. Or whatever, right?
	Well, okay, you know, sucks, but I'll go to Glasgow because I love philosophy and this is the best way in history to do it.
	So that would be, you know, if it's not that, if weather is a barrier, then it probably isn't your heart's desire.
	Yeah, you're right.
	You're right. And I've identified this, too.
	I mean, it would be a purely financial move on my part, purely.
	And, you know, I kind of envisioned it this way, that I would go there, I'd work for a year, I'd leave my stuff in a mini-storage in Arizona, and then after the years, I'd come back.
	But I don't know. I feel like I've lived a lot of my life that way, where I've kind of always put things off and kind of plagued myself.
	Well, and money for what, right?
	Money for what? That's always the question.
	So you make more money, and so money for what?
	You know, so let's say you have more money, so you're going to buy stuff with it, but you still have to go to work all day, and then eventually you're dead, and what's the point of being the richest guy in the graveyard, right?
	I mean, so I focus a little less on money, a little more on pleasure.
	I mean, for me, it would just be a means by which I could continue, you know, living kind of some sort of lifestyle where I could stay at home, I could sit up and journal, I'm just afraid at 38 that maybe it's really time.
	I can't keep Putting things off the way I'm doing and, you know, there will always be some kind of other jobs.
	But you can, right? Sorry, let me just – I don't want to make sure I get to the other callers, but this is my strong suggestion, my friend, is that if you're going to take a job in Pennsylvania because there's good money and it allows you to focus on therapy, then I would say go to Pennsylvania and spend 15 to 20 hours a week focusing on therapy.
	Dig in and do it because life is short.
	If you're going to focus on self-growth, and look, take this with all the grains of salt in the world.
	I'm a bit of a 150% or zero kind of guy.
	I want to run a marathon or I want to sit on a couch.
	I don't want to do much in between.
	But I say if you're going to go for self-growth, if you're going to go for personal growth, which I think is a wonderful, wonderful thing to do, Then do it.
	And if Pennsylvania helps you to do that, then do it.
	But do it. You know, do it.
	Really do it. And throw yourself completely heart and soul into it and extract as much as you conceivably can from that time and that amazing opportunity.
	That would be my suggestion.
	And if you're not going to do it, if you're going to do something else, then whatever else you're going to do, really do it.
	And put yourself out there...
	To the vulnerability of enthusiasm.
	Enthusiasm is like blood in the water to the feasting sharks of the false self that circle around us all the time.
	Be enthusiastic about therapy.
	Be excited about it. Be switched on by it.
	Or be enthusiastic about something else.
	But whatever you're going to do, Be the beacon called enthusiasm.
	And it's true. It'll draw six million trolls out of the woodwork to whom enthusiasm is a great threat because they've been crushed or they've crushed others.
	And it is a light that burns.
	It burns their eyes.
	It's like Dragon Gollum up to a heat lamp.
	But allow yourself the vulnerability of enthusiasm because that will eventually in the long run – what that does is it drives the golems away and it brings your fellow elves of optimism to your bosom.
	So I would say be incandescent in enthusiasm.
	Whatever it is that you're going to do and don't do things by half measures because the one thing that is never half measure is dying.
	That is full tilt boogie into the grave with no turning back and no light at the end of the tunnel.
	So I would say allow yourself the vulnerability of being enthusiastic and it will trouble a lot of people.
	But so what?
	Well, thanks for those thoughts.
	I really do appreciate it, and I think that that is what I needed to hear, so I really do appreciate that.
	Yeah, I mean, look, I get constant criticisms of, like, well, he thinks that he's revolutionizing philosophy, and it's like, well, so?
	I mean, so what?
	Maybe I am, maybe I'm not, but so what?
	You know, I mean, everybody who's done everything, you know, like...
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I think it's a great thing. I think it's a great thing.
	Everybody who's achieved everything has carved their way through 10,000 people saying it'll never happen, you can't do it, you're vain, you're crazy, you're arrogant, you're deluded, you're megalomaniacal, you're this, you're that.
	They try to get you to view yourself in a cynical light.
	They try to pull you out of yourself and look at yourself in a cynical, petty little light.
	Don't let them. Don't let them do it.
	That is a sacrifice that is unnecessary.
	We have to pay our taxes.
	We have to obey the law.
	We have to stop when the flashing cruiser wee-wee-wee's up behind us.
	But we don't have to surrender our sovereign beauty to small-minded, petty little grubby people who simply are afraid of their own power and size.
	That's my strong suggestion.
	And they'll continue to think small like that regardless.
	Oh yeah, no, you're not doing them any favors.
	You're certainly not doing yourself any favors by living small and by surrendering yourself to people who have nothing of value.
	Well, thanks for this conversation, Steph.
	You took a sledgehammer to my fog on this topic.
	I really do appreciate it, man.
	Well, I appreciate that, but I will point out that in that metaphor, you can't hit fog with a sledgehammer.
	Let's just hope I took a strong wind and some sunlight.
	It's like I'm swinging there, dislocating my shoulder because I can't connect with anything.
	But I appreciate the sentiment.
	If you don't mind, we move on to the next caller.
	Oh, absolutely. Have a great day, man.
	Thanks, man. You too. And we have some people on the call and I'm sorry, I mean, for people who are in the chat room, James is away this week.
	He's doing selfish stuff like taking care of stuff in his own life.
	Shocking! And completely, completely unrelated to exactly how people are supposed to serve me at all times, no matter what their personal situation.
	So naturally, he will be receiving the philosophical wethead brain scalp spanking through the mail.
	But yeah, he doesn't have a note.
	He does not even have a note.
	He wrote a note himself. What kind of autonomy is that?
	I don't know. Exactly what to say.
	I'll probably do a whole show on James's betrayal.
	But anyway, if you could unmute, if you have a question or a comment, I'm more than happy to hear.
	Hey Seth, can I go?
	Okay, so I intervened yesterday when a parent was abusing her child.
	Oh, you posted about that on the board, right?
	Yeah, and I ended up feeling a lot of self-attack afterwards, like I could have done more.
	Right. Listen, what was the title of your post?
	I'd just like to read it because people haven't heard it, and I thought it was a very good post.
	I wanted to talk about it, so I'm glad you called it.
	The title is Don't Be a Bystander.
	Bystander, right. Alright, do you mind if I read it?
	So you wrote, I saw a woman slap her child at Earth Fair, an organic grocery store in Southern Carolina that's comparable to Whole Foods.
	I told her, shaking, that's not alright.
	Children or people, would you hit an adult?
	She said, yeah, if I felt like it.
	My heart was pounding. I walked up to her daughter and said that what her mother did was not alright.
	Her face was red, her arms were crossed, and she stared at the ground.
	This is the girl I assume. At this point, I was afraid the woman would strike out at me, so I went to the manager who spoke to a woman working at customer service.
	She said that she couldn't do anything because she didn't witness the incident.
	Then I had her phone the police as I kept tabs on the abusive mother.
	The mom stormed out of the store, her daughter trailing behind her asking, where are you going?
	I felt powerless and cried.
	I thought of walking out the store, writing down the license plate and phoning the police.
	Then I realized that they would do absolutely nothing and I felt even more powerless.
	I started to self-attack.
	I wished I had said, children who are abused resort to drugs and alcohol to dissociate.
	Your abuse will take years off her life.
	I assume that you have been abused by your parents and you are exactly revenge on them emotionally through emotionally and physically abusing your child.
	Your daughter is helpless.
	She depends on you to give her not only food, water and shelter but care, respect, admiration and love.
	You can break the familial cycle of abuse first by examining your own and listening to the helpless child within.
	You will then see that your daughter deserves what was cruelly taken from you.
	I was scared that she would hit or shove me, and I'm quite fragile since I was still healing from last month's knee surgery.
	Still, I am probably more intimidating than her child, so maybe she wouldn't have hurt me.
	On the drive home, I was distracted by thoughts of kidnapping that child and being her helping witness.
	I would trust her, validate her feelings, and offer her protection and love.
	I think that I was brave to intervene, but I wish that I had done more.
	I hope I communicated to her.
	Whatever. Sorry, that whatever she does does not warrant abuse.
	I hope that she has someone with whom to share her experiences who can give her the sympathy she deserves.
	Well, tell me more. I mean, I have my thoughts about what you did, and they're almost entirely positive.
	But tell me more about what your thoughts have been since then.
	Well, I felt a lot of a stress attack, but after...
	A couple hours had passed.
	I felt more positive about the way I reacted.
	But I really want to figure out why I felt intact rather than congratulated myself for doing that.
	And do you have any thoughts about that or would you like me to make some comments or ask some questions?
	How can it be best for you?
	Well, I have two ideas about why I started attacking myself.
	They didn't really resonate with me, so I think there's something else that caused the self-attack.
	The first is that my parents demanded perfection from me, so whatever I did wasn't enough.
	So I was never able to really be proud of what I did.
	And then another idea I had was that I made myself really vulnerable to abuse from the parent that I didn't receive any.
	And I think Right.
	Right.
	Those are my ideas.
	Right. Well...
	I think those are all great thoughts and, of course, you are absolutely the final decider about where the accuracy is.
	But I'll tell you what I thought of based upon what you wrote.
	I thought – first of all, I just – what you did was – Magnificent.
	It was magnificent.
	It was magnificent.
	I really, really just want to, without any hesitation or any qualification, that it is a very scary and difficult thing to do.
	I've been doing it for years and I still find it nerve-wracking to do.
	It is a very difficult and dangerous and scary thing to do to intervene when you see a child being mistreated.
	I just had to do it yesterday.
	It is alarming, it is difficult, and it is unpleasant, and it is nothing that anybody wants to deal with.
	We just, of course, have standards and knowledge that the general population probably doesn't have, and therefore we have a little bit more of a responsibility.
	So I just wanted to say that what you did was...
	I hesitate to say it because of your gender.
	Balls to the wall. Magnificent.
	I think you should be incredibly proud of that and not...
	Now, sort of looking at it in hindsight are the times where you say, well, maybe I could have tried this...
	But you're in the heat of the moment, right?
	Right. You're in the heat of the moment and the woman very clearly said to you, I'm capable of assaulting you.
	Yeah. You said, would you hit an adult?
	She said, hell yeah, and you're an adult, right?
	Right, yeah. So she fired a pretty significant shot across your bows, right?
	Yeah. Sorry, I use all these manly metaphors.
	She pulled on your beard and...
	Anyway, so yeah, she was very clear, and it is terrifying.
	And it is, of course, shocking that this doesn't happen more, like that people don't interview more.
	She didn't raise her book.
	I'm sorry? Yeah.
	I was saying that she didn't actually raise her voice at me.
	When she said that she would hit an adult if she felt like it, her voice was very tense, which I found scary, but she didn't raise her voice at me.
	No, and that is more scary because somebody who starts screaming is obviously at the end of their rope and out of control.
	But somebody who's got that calm, steely voice is in control of their rage, which makes them much more dangerous.
	Yeah. So...
	I think that you went completely above and beyond the call of duty.
	Oh my god, what is it today with these testicle hanging metaphors?
	You rode the princess pony into the sunset of perfect action.
	Let's go to the opposite stereotype now.
	But I think you did every – I'm reading this.
	I can't think of anything that I would have done differently.
	I can't think of anything that I would have done better.
	And not that I'm any standard of perfection, I'm just telling you that I can't, you know, I couldn't think, I've been doing it for years and I couldn't think of a better way to do it.
	The important thing, right, this is the important thing to remember when you're intervening in a situation of child abuse, it's not about you and the parent, right?
	Right. It's not about you and the parent.
	How old was the girl? I think she was around seven.
	Right, right.
	So, there is, I believe, almost zero possibility that a conversation with a stranger will take a woman who's been hitting her child for half a decade or more, that will turn that around.
	So it's really important to not get into magical thinking about what you can do because there's all these stories.
	I was reading one story the other day about you hear this stuff all the time.
	So yeah, some guy came up to me and he stuck a knife in my ribs and he said, give me your wallet.
	And I gave him my wallet and he walked away and then I said to him, here, I have $20 in my back pocket.
	And the guy said, well, what are you doing?
	And I said, well, you must be really desperate and unhappy in order to steal from people and blah.
	So then we went for dinner and he promised to change his weights.
	You hear all of this kind of stuff, right?
	Or I remember reading one, this kung fu master was in the subway and some guy was bullying everyone and the kung fu master did not aggress against him but he went up and he gave him a big hug and he asked him what was wrong and the guy burst into tears and he said, my wife left me and I just got fired and I'm so helpless and I don't know what to do and they had a big hug.
	And everybody turned into gummy bears and snacked on each other.
	I mean that's – you hear these kinds of stories all the time.
	And so there is this standard of behavior which is I am going to solve this problem through gentle, loving positivity, right?
	Does that – I mean does that ring a bell for you at all if you heard these kinds of things before?
	Yeah, I have.
	Yeah. Well, I don't believe that stuff.
	I don't believe that stuff.
	And there's really good reasons.
	I mean, not just because, but because I like to deal with facts and evidence, right?
	So people who are abusers have a different brain.
	They lack empathy.
	They have a hole in their brain where the empathy should be, right?
	You can't just go up to somebody, start speaking to them in Mandarin and expect that they're going to learn Mandarin in five minutes, right?
	Right. Learning Mandarin takes years of study and discipline and hard work and it's difficult and unpleasant and so on, right?
	So there's another study also which followed people for over half a century.
	And what it did was it interviewed them when they were like 50 or 60 and it went back to their kindergarten evaluations when they were five or four.
	And almost without exception, The way that people were when they were 50 or 60, it almost exactly corresponded to how they were when they were 5.
	And somebody talked about this with Murray Rothbard as well, that somebody was doing a speech on Murray Rothbard and quoted his evaluation from when he was a little kid from one of his teachers.
	And he was exactly the same when he was 60 or 70.
	Personality, I mean, there's obviously some innateness, but it is so completely formed from the ages of minus nine months to plus five years that afterwards, change, any kind of fundamental or significant change, is in the absence of significantly hard work and investment, practically, completely, and totally impossible.
	Do you see what I mean?
	Yeah.
	You can't, through any magical set of words, you cannot effect any kind of lasting change in another human being through any set of words that you possess.
	There is no trick, there is no magic, there is no shortcuts.
	So I would throw that standard out completely and totally.
	Like intellectually, I understand that and that I had so little time to prepare for the situation.
	SO, I THINK THAT'S A QUESTION.
	But there's still this voice in my head that's really judgmental and expects more from me.
	Okay, so tell me the standard of perfection that if it had played out some way, it would have satisfied you.
	How would this have played out in your mind that you wouldn't have fallen short of any standard?
	Okay, so I would have given that speech and then the mom would have had an aha moment and cried and And she didn't start to feel sympathy for herself.
	I would have prompted her on the path of self-awareness and...
	Yeah.
	And that seems really unlikely when I say it aloud, but that's what I really wanted.
	It is a standard that people hold up.
	It is a standard that people hold up.
	Now, is it that you would have said something different to elicit this outcome?
	Yeah. And what would you have said?
	Sorry, can you ask me the question again?
	Well, so I'm the woman, I've just hit my kid.
	What would you say to me that would have satisfied, would have given me the best chance to regrow my brain in a different direction from the age of birth onwards?
	Sorry, go ahead. Well, I would have given her that speech.
	Something very Alice Miller-like that would have awoken her inner child.
	And then she could start to sympathize with her daughter.
	Right. So you're saying that, I mean, again, according to this reasoning, and, you know, I'm no brain surgeon, so maybe this is true, but there's two wires in her head that turn her into a good parent.
	Right? Into an empathetic and caring person.
	There are two wires in her head and you just need to plug them together, right?
	And some magic combination of words is going to plug these two wires together, right?
	Yeah. No, no, I'm not being, like, I don't mean to sound cynical and I'm not trying to set up a straw man argument, but this is what's going on in your head.
	That if you find the right words or the right approach or the right attitude, then you will take these two things and plug them together and she will get She will become a better person.
	Right, and that sounds like I deep food in July and like for 21 years I took that approach with my parents like if I say the right things then maybe they'll start to love me.
	Right, right, right.
	Right. Right.
	And I think your connection there is stone genius.
	I mean, it's brilliant. It's completely brilliant.
	And it reminds me of just how incredibly privileged I am to have conversations with you and with people like you.
	So, do you want me to follow up a little bit with sort of what that helped me to sort of remember?
	Yeah. I'm sorry, I don't really know what you're asking.
	Sorry, I wasn't being very clear.
	Well, if there are these two wires in someone's head that you just need to plug together, right?
	Like, you know, those extension wires if you've got headphones, right?
	So little three and a half millimeter jacks.
	There are two. There's a male and a female.
	You just need to plug them together and you connect and the whole thing starts lighting up and the person gets better and stronger and this and that.
	Yeah. Well, if there's anyone we can do that with, it should be with those we're closest to, right?
	Right. Not just a stranger to her.
	Not just a stranger.
	And this is why I have always told people, if you have the urge to save people, then the best way to do that, if you believe that's a possible thing to do, the best way to do that Is to be as honest and open with the people in your life, the people in your family, long-term friends and so on.
	Because where we have the most currency or credibility or investment should be where we have the greatest capacity to help and change people, right?
	And as you say, you couldn't do that with your parents for two decades or your family.
	I tried. I mean, I tried when my mom was going through her stuff, which was since I was born.
	I mean, I tried all kinds of peaceful and supportive things.
	She claimed to be sick all the time and doctors couldn't find anything.
	And I said, well, I'm going to accept that you are sick.
	I said, we were sitting in a pizza hut in Dom Mills many years ago.
	And I said, okay, I'm going to accept that you're sick because I'm not a doctor.
	I'm not going to tell you you're not. Now, chronic illness comes with it.
	A whole series of stressors that are really difficult to handle.
	So all I'm suggesting is let's go to the library.
	Let's just pick up a book on stress to help you manage the stress of these ailments because I understand that they're really difficult and unpleasant.
	And so, you know, let's eat and talk about it and let's go and pick up a book on stress so that you can read it and find some ways to manage the stress of these ailments that you have, which are obviously very, very hard.
	And even that very gentle and tangential approach to asking my own mother, after knowing her for decades, to take even the slightest bit of ownership for her own psychological well-being.
	She got so angry, she threw a pitcher of water at me.
	And that's, I mean, that's...
	My mom. You know, so the idea that there's some stranger that you can reach into their ears with your gentle caressing fingers of eloquence and connect these wires is not realistic.
	It's magical thinking.
	Yeah. Right?
	These two wires do not exist.
	They're not just lying there waiting for some gentle person to plug them in and then everything lights up.
	Non-violence. We're all born with the language of non-violence.
	And then we all...
	You know, like when I was a little kid, I used to speak German.
	My mother's German and we went to Germany and he used to speak German.
	I can't speak German now.
	And there's no...
	You know, if somebody just finds the right German phrase...
	That they're going to plug German back into my brain.
	And I'll just, you know, like the Matrix, you know.
	I just learned how to fly an Apache and attack Poland, right?
	I mean, there is no little magic cables that people can connect in my head to fire up German again.
	Now, if I want to go and learn German, then I can do my Dirty Dasis and Ich ubergeiger and Peter geht an den See and all that kind of stuff.
	And I can do all of that kind of stuff.
	But there's no quick and easy way to do it.
	I'm just going to have to study for years to do it, right?
	Yeah. That makes me feel like...
	or reality makes me feel really powerless.
	Good! Good!
	Good! Yeah, and look, I mean, I say good not because...
	Anybody's happy about what's happening to this child.
	But magical thinking, we should feel powerless in the face of magical thinking.
	If I think that I can move the tides by concentrating really hard, then I should feel powerless in the face of that because I am.
	I am. Powerlessness is a good thing to have.
	Powerlessness is a good feeling to have.
	It's painful and it's uncomfortable, particularly when it's as important as this.
	But powerless is a very, very good thing to have.
	If I said, hey, I want to be a hair model, and I, strangely enough, didn't get jobs because I'm bald as an egg, it's good for me to feel powerless to be a hair model because that's realistic.
	Yeah. If I said I want to go and become a ballerina and I'm a 44-year-old man, it would be good for me to feel helpless to achieve that, right?
	Now, with all due sensitivity to the seriousness of what you were going through and what you did, which again, if you don't give yourself – if you don't weigh down your chest with medals on this, then I need to talk to your inner critic at some point.
	But the important thing is that the child heard the message that the behavior was wrong.
	The child heard the message that That the behavior was wrong.
	Because she is a child.
	And she still has some cables lying around that can still be attached.
	Because she is still a victim rather than a victimizer.
	Right? Yeah.
	You sound completely unconvinced.
	which is fine.
	I'm just pointing it out that I'm noticing.
	Well, your sound was like cutting in and out, so I wasn't, I think I can't let you say that.
	The child is still open to change.
	The child still has cables that can be connected.
	Because she's still a victim, not a victimizer.
	So the fact that you got the message through to the child that being struck is wrong is opening up a fork in the road That may not have existed ever, right? Yeah.
	You are showing her, perhaps for the first time, given the cowardice and fear of most people in this situation, probably for the first time, someone on the planet has stood up And acknowledged her pain and her fear and her anger and the aggression and abuse she receives and said, this is damn well wrong.
	Did that ever happen to you when you were a kid?
	No. Certainly never happened to me when I was a kid.
	And it wasn't because I was a kid.
	Because it never happened to me when I was an adult.
	And people who were around when I was a kid, they knew everything that was going on.
	They still never acknowledged it.
	Even when I would bring it up, they would shy away.
	And so all that communicates, do you know all that communicates to children?
	Is that evil runs the world.
	Yeah. Because nobody's going to intervene when they're being attacked.
	Nobody's going to intervene when they're being struck.
	Nobody's going to intervene when they're being beaten.
	Nobody's going to intervene when they're being shaken.
	Nobody's going to intervene when they're being screamed at.
	So that tells children that bad people run the world and good people are just talking out of their ass about all the virtues they claim to possess.
	So they learn that evil aggression runs the world.
	Good is just a pompous form of self-congratulation that confers no obligation to act in the face of immorality whatsoever.
	Good is just a windy, self-patting-on-the-back story of vanity and inconsequentiality, and the aggression of bad people runs the world.
	And everybody runs away from the aggression of bad people and then says, hey, we need a welfare state because I really care about the poor, because I really care about the sick, because I really care about the old, because I really care about the victims of this world.
	Well, they've just stepped over a kid who's being hit, right?
	Yeah.
	And it teaches children that ethics...
	is a form of pompous self-excusing for inactivity in the face of immorality.
	And that lesson is no longer universal to the poor girl that you spoke to.
	Do you see?
	You know, last thing I'll say here.
	And thank you.
	This is a really, really good topic.
	it Were you ever bullied as a kid?
	Yes. By peers?
	By peers, by teachers, by parents.
	Right.
	What did your parents say that you should do when you were bullied?
	My dad kind of said what my grandfather used to do for him.
	Like, my dad would handle it either by calling the school and talking to a teacher, which just made things I'm the worst kid who beat up my dad, which is just awful. Sorry, you just cut out for there for a second.
	Did your parents give you any advice if you come home and say, I was bullied by so-and-so?
	No, my dad just said that he would handle it.
	Well, a lot of people I've talked to, and this was some advice I got myself, was, hey, if you're bullied, you know what you need to do?
	You need to stand up to that bully.
	Yeah. Maybe you never heard that.
	That's fine, but that certainly is a pretty common one.
	Push back! Stand up for yourself.
	If this is the advice that parents give to their children who are being bullied, it seems pretty strange, logically, that parents would have any problem with somebody standing up to them when they're being bullied.
	Because that's the advice they give their children, you see.
	And if the advice is good for a seven-year-old, surely it's good for a 27-year-old or a 47-year-old.
	If the advice called stand up to bullies is good, and so many parents do give out this advice, like candy, then surely if you see a parent being a bully, you should stand up to the parent, and the parent should say, you know, you're right, because I've told my kid to stand up to bullies, and yeah, this is a good thing.
	Thank you for reminding me of the values that I'm inflicting on my children.
	I appreciate that. Yeah, that can't happen.
	But what it means is that parents who say stand up to bullies can't rationally complain when someone intervenes if they're aggressing against a child.
	Yeah. Look, you should be incredibly proud.
	You should be incredibly proud of what you did.
	I think you did just the right thing.
	I don't believe in the magic fingers of brain massaging that produce a different kind of brain.
	I just don't believe it. I think if somebody has a broken leg, they need to go get treatment, they need to get rehab, and it's going to take them a hell of a long time to get their functionality back.
	Even if they commit to it 100%, it's going to take months.
	And I believe that a broken brain is exactly the same as a broken leg.
	And there's no words.
	I wouldn't stand. I mean, imagine. Imagine.
	If I stood over somebody's broken leg and said, Stand back!
	I'm going to speak to it gently.
	Nobody touch the leg.
	I'm going to kiss it. I'm going to hum.
	Bridge over troubled water.
	The bones are going to knit together.
	Come on, everybody.
	Don't pick up the person with a broken leg.
	Don't give them a splint. Don't take them to ER. All we need to do is we need to join hands together, and in beautiful elvish harmony, we need to sing Kumbaya.
	Well, we all understand that this would not heal the leg, right?
	Yeah. That it takes professional intervention and significant effort and rehab to fix a broken leg.
	And why is a broken brain any different?
	It is just another organ.
	Thank you very much.
	So take pride.
	My sister, you take yourself some pride at what you did.
	I think it was fantastic.
	Thank you. Your praise means a lot.
	Oh man, oh man.
	I'd sing Kumbaya to your inner critic if I could, but he probably would have standards of singing that I could never achieve.
	Anyway, let's move on to the next caller, if you don't mind.
	But thank you so much. It was a great call.
	Thank you. Thank you for your patience, everybody.
	Sorry for the people who wanted to get added.
	It's taking a little... doing this show and trying to add people.
	It's a bit complicated, but we should be back up next week.
	So, I am all ears.
	If you need to talk, just make sure you unmute, please.
	Okay. I have a question about you, PB. Oh, God love you.
	God love you for a sinner.
	Please. My question was about the argument against moral nihilism.
	All right. I just wanted to know what exactly is the argument and Why is it a satisfying argument?
	Against moral nihilism.
	Can you tell me what your definition of moral nihilism is?
	I think we have the same one, but I want to make sure we do.
	If you can just tell me what your argument is, or your definition of moral nihilism is.
	Just that any action has neither moral or amoral content, neutral.
	Okay, so there is no such thing as right or wrong.
	Is that right? Yes.
	Morally speaking, yeah.
	That's a fantastic question.
	Morally speaking, right. Yeah.
	So the moral nihilist would say that if somebody says two and two make five, that is incorrect and that person should be corrected.
	But if somebody says we should respect property rights, that is a mere cultural opinion and cannot be universalized.
	Is that right? Yes, exactly.
	Yep. Okay, okay.
	Well, that's a great question.
	Does anybody else want to have another question that's easier for me to answer?
	Okay, I will do my best off the top of my head, though it's a big complicated question.
	Alright, so a moral nihilist is the one who says that any universally preferable behavior is invalid.
	Is that a fair way to summarize the position?
	Yeah, I think so.
	Okay. So, what the moral nihilist is, and let's just say nihilist so I don't have to use two words where one will do, though normally my approach is to use 1,200 words where none will do, but the moral nihilist We'll say that self-contradictory statements are invalid, right? So if I say two and two make five, that is a self-contradictory statement.
	If I say, look, I see a square circle, that is a contradictory statement, right?
	Yeah. Are you saying nihilist, David?
	An nihilist who accepts that reason and evidence are valid, right?
	An nihilist who will say two and two equals four is not just an opinion, like that that is at least to some degree a fact.
	Yeah. Well, what that means is that all self-contradictory statements are invalid, right?
	Yeah. Not just math, not just physics, but all self-contradictory statements.
	Yeah, all self-contradictory statements.
	Right, so self-contradictory statements are invalid.
	Now, my approach to ethics, which I hope is not just my approach to ethics, but good philosophy with regards to ethics, is to say that Ethics are propositions that are subject to a rational analysis, first and foremost, and second, an empirical analysis, which is exactly the same as every other mental discipline that has any objectivity.
	So engineering, you check the math, right?
	So in Zeitgeist, moving forward, I feel like I'm almost speaking German.
	Zeitgeist!
	I'm almost speaking German again.
	Squirrel!
	Anyway, in Zeitgeist, they say that if you're building a plane, you're an engineer, you do all of this math to make sure that the plane can withstand, the wings can withstand a certain amount of weight.
	But then you pile all these sandbags on the wing anyway.
	So you check your math first, and if your math passes, then you check with the actual sandbags on the wings.
	And if your math doesn't pass, you redo the math.
	You don't move on, build the wings, and find out that it doesn't work, right?
	So there's a rational analysis, and then there's an empirical analysis.
	And that is true of all propositions.
	And you can't then say that this is a universal test of propositions, logical consistency and empirical verification.
	You can't say this is true of all propositions except moral propositions.
	So if somebody proposes something to do with morality, it's just another proposition, like a scientific proposition, like a mathematical proposition, like any sort of hypothesis or statement or a logical proposition.
	You can't sort of carve this, say, this is the cake, and the rules apply to all of this cake, but I'm going to carve out this little thing called morality and toss it aside, because then it's no longer universal, and then you have to say why it's not universal.
	So if somebody puts forward a moral proposition, we should not We must not discriminate against that moral proposition and say, well, I'm not going to analyze that because that's ethics.
	No, no, no. Ethics is just another proposition, like a math proposition, like a science proposition, like a proposition in economics or sociology or statistics or anything.
	And so if somebody says, for instance, self-ownership is invalid, and I'm sorry to be using the same example, but I haven't had my third cup of coffee, so I have to rely on prior texts.
	But if somebody says self-ownership is invalid, that is logically impossible, because they're exercising self-ownership to deny self-ownership.
	So you subject that to the rational analysis, which you would subject every other proposition in the world to.
	And you find that the proposition self-ownership is invalid is illogical, is self-contradictory.
	And if somebody says, no man or woman is responsible for the effects of his or her actions, that we also find to be contradictory because the man who makes this statement is claiming an argument that he himself has produced and that he himself is responsible for.
	And therefore we find that is also a self-contradictory statement.
	If somebody says murder is universally preferable behavior, this very quickly is broken down into a completely illogical and impossible to fulfill standard.
	Yeah, I'm with you there.
	Sorry, go ahead. I'm with you there until that point.
	I agree with everything you say, but the problem I have is just I agree that you couldn't say that murder is moral because that's a logical contradiction because two people can't murder at the same time.
	The whole example made sense to me, but the problem that I'm having is just where murder is neither moral or immoral.
	I don't see how you could prove that false.
	I mean, I don't see why that's not a possibility.
	Why the fact that murder is moral is neither preferred nor non-preferred?
	Yes. Well, I mean, like, there's preferences.
	You can have a personal preference, but I don't see how you can use UPB, actually, to come to the conclusion that the possibility of moral...
	It being morally neutral is actually crossed off the list, like it's actually Oh, right, right, right, right.
	No, no, that's a great, great objection.
	I will do my best to use a lot of wit and humor to distract you from my complete non-answer.
	No, I'll do my best to try and actually answer it.
	This is the one. I always short-circuit a little bit on this one as well.
	But fortunately, the ecosystem is yelling at me with the answer that I think makes sense.
	So if we say that murder is morally neutral...
	Then we have a logical problem because we understand that things which are morally neutral should not be enforced upon others.
	They can't be universally, just logically.
	Because every human being, and I use this term advisedly, but every human being has the same rights in any rational ethical system.
	And so if we say murder is morally neutral, We're saying a man may murder a woman against her will.
	But that is not specific to murder.
	You can't just make that specific to murder.
	What it means is that everyone may inflict their will upon everyone else.
	Regardless of whether it's murder or my favorite flavor of ice cream or an unwanted enema or whatever it is, right?
	Everyone may inflict upon everyone else whatever they prefer, right?
	Yeah. But that can't work, logically.
	Why? No, because you put two people in a room, right?
	Yeah. And you say, I don't know, I'm drawn to the enema example, and I apologize for that.
	I just am. I don't know why.
	But, so let's say Bob believes that it's morally, or it's okay, it's neutral, it's morally neutral for him to inflict his will upon Doug, right?
	Yes. But it's a universal rule, right?
	Yes. Which means that Doug is perfectly allowed to inflict his will upon Bob, right?
	Yes. So Doug wants to give Bob an enema, and Bob does not want Doug to give an enema to him.
	Yeah. That can't work, right?
	Why? Why can't it work?
	Because they both have contradictory desires which can't be both achieved at the same time.
	It fails the test of universality.
	No, but since you're not held, like, it's not...
	It's not a compulsory thing.
	It's just a preference.
	No, no, no. Murder is a compulsory thing.
	If it's not, it's not murder.
	If you're killing someone and they want you to kill them, then it's euthanasia.
	It's only murder if the person doesn't want to be killed.
	I don't understand why you're saying it's a contradiction.
	If Doug wants something and Bob wants different, maybe Doug forces Bob physically, but if you're saying there's no moral issue with physical force in the first place...
	No, no, no. Sorry.
	It's not a moral issue.
	It's not a moral issue.
	It's an issue of, can it be achieved consistently?
	If I want to give Bob an enema and Bob doesn't want me to give an enema and I force him to, claiming that it's morally neutral, then what I'm saying is that everybody should inflict their preferences on everyone else.
	But I have to inflict my preference on giving Bob an enema and deny him his preference to not have an enema because I'm using force, right?
	Yes, but that's...
	Like, even if he is denying it, I mean, there's...
	I still don't understand, because...
	I don't understand, because...
	Let me try it again.
	Let me try it again. I'm sorry for being unclear.
	If... The moral nihilist is simply saying people do stuff to each other all the time against their will.
	That is not a moral proposition.
	That is a mere observation of fact.
	It's like saying sometimes snow rolls down the hill in a big avalanche.
	That's not a statement of preference.
	That is a statement of observation.
	But if we're starting to say what should happen...
	Then universally preferable behavior, then you cannot move stuff which is violently inflicted on others to the category of moral neutrality.
	Because then you're saying everybody has the right to use force against everyone else to impose their desires.
	But that can't be achieved.
	With two guys and an enema tube in one room, because the one guy wants to give the other guy the enema.
	The other guy doesn't want the enema.
	So immediately you have a contradiction of will and you have a contradiction of theory.
	But does this contradiction really dismiss the possibility?
	Because to me, there is no should in moral neutrality, because Because it's actually a lack of should.
	There is no should.
	Everybody either should or should not, whatever their ideas are about what they want to do.
	And to me, it doesn't make sense.
	I still don't understand how.
	Well, but you're looking at the action, not the theory.
	Remember, UPB can't evaluate actions.
	It can only evaluate theories.
	So if Bob is saying to Doug, you're getting an enema whether you like it or not, and he forces him to get an enema, right?
	Again, this is what we're stuck on.
	My fault, sorry. But there we are, right?
	Probably because I'm thinking of the word enemy or something like that or because I'm drinking something with a straw.
	I don't know, but this is what we're stuck on metaphorically.
	So if Bob says to Doug, I'm going to force you to have an enema whether you like it or not, UPB cannot evaluate that.
	Because that's an action, right?
	Now, if Bob says it is morally right for me to inflict my will upon you against your preferences or it is universally preferable, if he comes up with a theory about it that justifies his actions in any kind of universal way, then his theory if he comes up with a theory about it that justifies
	Because any power, let's say, the power to inflict my will upon someone else, any power which he gives to himself by any theory of universalization, he must also give to the other person in the room.
	So if he has the right to inflict his will against the other person's will, the other person, by the principle of universality, has the right to inflict his will against that person.
	So if I say to the guy, you're going to have an enema because I want to inflict my will upon you against your preference, then to universalize that, the other person says, well, my preference is to not have an enema, and so I am going to now inflict my will upon you Yeah.
	I get what you're saying, but to me, I really don't think...
	I think that's sidestepping the actual issue, because Doug, or whatever his name was, is not actually saying it is morally right that I am...
	I'm not allowed to do whatever I want.
	He's not saying it's morally right.
	He's saying there is no moral content in the entire world.
	We just do what we do.
	And it's not a logical contradiction because that's how it works in nature.
	That is the state of nature. No, no, no.
	See, it is a logical contradiction, but it's hard to see.
	And listen, you're... Arguments are great.
	I just really, really wanted to point this out.
	You are... I am sweating.
	Because your arguments are really, really good and I really wanted to compliment you on that.
	But let's say that I am the moral nihilist and I say there is no such thing as morality in the world, right?
	There's no such thing as universally preferable behavior, right?
	Well, let's say that somebody says...
	That there is. Am I allowed to contradict that person?
	Well, of course you are if you think you're allowed to do anything.
	No, no, no, no. If he says there's no such thing as universal standards of behavior, as universally preferable behavior, then if I come up and say, no, there are, will he tell me that I'm wrong?
	I... I... Yes.
	I guess he'd say yes.
	Well, he'd have to, right?
	Yes. And so he has a universal standard called truth.
	The truth is better than falsehood, right?
	Because I've made a false statement by saying there's no such thing as universally preferable behavior, right?
	I don't actually agree with that.
	I think that if you think that...
	You don't necessarily have to think it's universally preferable that people prefer truth over falsehood in every circumstance.
	I mean, I really think it's based on the context.
	And in this context, maybe it serves you for the moment to let it go.
	Or maybe you'd rather find comfort in God rather than know that they're different people.
	And I don't understand that.
	I don't necessarily think it's Always best for everybody.
	You know, you can't choose what's best for them.
	Well, but see, you just threw up a whole bunch of cloud to avoid answering a very simple question.
	And I think that was a great tactic.
	It's like the squid with the ink.
	You know, oh, you guys made me ink.
	Right? Because I never said that it's universally best for everyone.
	What I said was that if the moral nihilist says there are no universal standards and I say there are, he's going to tell me that I'm wrong.
	He has to, by the logic of his proposition, right?
	If I say there's no such thing as a burning unicorn trapped underwater in space, and somebody says there is, I'm going to say, no, you're wrong.
	I mean, if I say something is not possible or not valid, when somebody affirms it, I have to tell them that they're wrong, right?
	Okay. Right, so if I say there's no such thing as ethics, and somebody says, yes, there is, I have to tell them that they're wrong, right?
	I have to. Otherwise, my statement means nothing.
	Right. Right, so the moment I tell someone, you're wrong, there's no such thing as UPB, I am applying a standard of universal preference, which is that we should always deny universal preference.
	It is universally preferable that we always deny universally preferable propositions.
	Okay. That's a contradiction.
	It is universally preferable that we never make universally preferable statements.
	It is a universally preferable statement to say that we should never make universally preferable statements.
	Okay, no, I see where I went wrong.
	No, I mean, I think that the...
	You didn't go wrong. You're doing beautifully.
	The proposition is not correct.
	But you're great. No, it's not...
	I don't personalize it. Anyway, sorry, go ahead.
	I guess I'm confused.
	I think they wouldn't deny that.
	Like, the person would just say, yes, universally preferable...
	Statements like truth, yes, we should adhere to that.
	Like, yes, it does exist, and yes, it can be proven with UPB and things like that.
	So I'm not really sure what your point was with that.
	I'm a bit confused. Well, the argument is around the moral nihilism.
	A moral nihilist cannot deny universally preferable behavior.
	To deny universally preferable behavior is to use universally preferable behavior as a standard by which you're denying universally preferable behavior.
	It's like yelling into someone's ear that sound doesn't exist.
	It is a self-contradictory statement or behavior or action.
	Okay, but can you explain how you see nihilism as As requiring a specific universally preferable behavior?
	Well, we just went over this, right?
	So I'll repeat it again, and if not, you'll just have to listen to it again, because I can't go...
	I mean, this is tough, right? So I completely understand where it's difficult.
	But I'll try it one more time, and then we have time for one more caller.
	And I just want to tell you, this is great.
	I mean, I don't think you're the oldest person that I've ever talked to, but you are seriously, seriously, seriously intelligent.
	And I must tell you, it's a complete honor to...
	To have this conversation with you.
	You are doing...
	Please, oh God, don't...
	This sounds kind of... You're doing very well.
	That sounds so condescending. I don't mean it that way at all.
	I just mean that it's really, really impressive.
	Your intelligence is powerful.
	Your reasoning skills are great.
	And I really want to compliment you on your interest in ethics.
	Even if you're coming at it from a skeptical standpoint, which of course is great.
	Skepticism is good. I just really wanted to compliment you on your intelligence, your verbal skills...
	And your interest in these matters, which I believe are very, very important.
	All right, now that I've complimented you into agreeing with me, let me continue with it.
	I'll try it once more, and if it doesn't work, you know, listen to this again.
	I don't know if you've read UPB, but take it for a spin.
	I've also, I'm just waiting for, I did a presentation at a college on UPB. I'm waiting for the video to be done.
	I'm not saying that this makes me right.
	Maybe I'm still completely wrong, but if I've not explained it well, it's clear for me.
	If it's not clear for you, listen again, you know, call in again if it doesn't make any sense, and we'll take another stab at it.
	If I say there's no such thing as truth...
	Then I am making a truth statement.
	Everything that you say that is universal includes what you're saying.
	Let me say this again because it's a trippy, trippy thing and we've got so many examples in history and in our own personal lives of people making moral statements that immediately exclude themselves.
	It's really important to remember.
	You cannot make a claim that is universal that does not include your claim.
	Does that make sense? If it's universal, it includes your claim, right?
	Yeah, I get that.
	Okay, so if I say there's no such thing as truth, that includes my claim.
	And the rational thing to do is to apply it.
	Whatever rule is being proposed, apply it to the rulemaker and the rule that is being proposed first.
	So if somebody says there's no such thing as truth...
	The first thing I do is say, does that rule apply to your statement?
	And you can see that it doesn't work, right?
	Of course, yeah.
	And so, if somebody says, there's no such thing as universally preferable behavior, the first thing that I do is say, does that apply to your statement, to your proposition?
	Right. As soon as somebody says, there is no such thing as, this is universally invalid, this is false, this is true, they are making universal claims which inherently contain preferable behavior.
	The moment that I say, X is true, I am immediately embedded within that saying, truth is better than falsehood.
	It is true is different from I like it, right?
	I like popcorn is not a statement of universal preference but a personal preference.
	So the moment somebody says X is true, there is a huge amount of philosophical material and background and assumptions and axioms buried within X is true.
	Truth is better than falsehood.
	There are universal standards.
	Which can separate truth from falsehood that are not mere opinions.
	You should be bound by these universal standards.
	It's not personal from me to you, but both of us regarding a third party called reality or reason or objectivity or philosophy or whatever you want to call it.
	And you could go on and on, but there's a huge amount embedded in the mere statement, X is true.
	There's claims of universality.
	There's claims of objectivity.
	There's an acceptance of the validity of the senses.
	There is an acceptance of self-ownership.
	There is an acceptance of property rights or owning the effects of your actions.
	There is an acceptance of the existence of the other person and of the existence of the self.
	There is the acceptance of an objective medium for communicating ideas and thoughts, whether it's sound waves or light waves or You know, if you're doing it through email or on a screen or something like that, there is a huge amount just in the three-word phrase, X is true.
	You can unpack that.
	It's like those Russian dolls.
	You know, you unpack it, there's another damn doll inside it, right?
	The moment that somebody makes any kind of universal statement, there is a huge amount that they must accept in order to – or implicitly accept in order to even make such a claim.
	And that is what needs to be unpacked.
	Everybody then wants to run off and do something else, but unpack the statement that is being proposed and open it like those Russian dolls, dolls within dolls within dolls, and understand what is buried inside the statement, X is true, or conversely, of course, what is buried inside the statement, X is false.
	Because all of those statements contain entire volumes of philosophical assumptions and acceptances.
	And UPB is just one of them.
	So I'm not saying this clenches the case or whatever, but nobody can make a statement called X is true, X is false, Y is valid, Z is invalid, without using UPB. And I think that's as clear as I can make it at the moment, if that helps at all.
	Okay, yeah, I'm still hopelessly confused.
	I've actually read UBB several times and my sister has as well.
	I've been on the forums and the chat and I To me, in the book, UPB, it's like you have one line there where you list all the possibilities and then you have neutrality as a possibility.
	But to me, I just never felt like...
	So maybe if you in the future can come up with a clearer way to explain that, I think there are probably a lot of people who are more confused about this.
	Yeah, look, I mean, I don't know how to make it clearer than saying you can't say it is universally preferable behavior to not make statements about universally preferable behavior.
	That is the essence of UPB. I can't make it any clearer than that.
	Like, people are going to get that or they're not.
	And look, I hope you understand, it's a bitch and a half to get.
	And not because it's so complicated, but just because we've got so much bullshit floating around in our heads about ethics.
	That ethics are cultural.
	That ethics are religious.
	That ethics are government edicts.
	That ethics are parental absolutes.
	that ethics are punishment from a teacher, that ethics are bullshit, that ethics are superstition, that ethics are mere exercises in power, according to Nietzsche's master and slave morality, that ethics are tools of socioeconomic control, that ethics are the patriarchy inflicting that ethics are tools of socioeconomic control, that ethics are the patriarchy inflicting its will upon the women, that ethics are, ethics
	We have so much junk in our head about ethics because ethics are so powerful in terms of their ability to control people, to bully people, to make people do stuff, that we have so much junk floating around in our head that trying to learn UPB is like trying to learn Mandarin while somebody is yelling English into your ear.
	It is really, really hard.
	I don't think it's hard to learn it if we come at it clean and I think in the future it's going to be completely obvious.
	And I'm not saying that this means that UPB is true.
	I understand.
	But what I am saying is that your difficulty in understanding UPB is entirely comprehensible.
	This in no way means that the book can't be improved.
	I mean it really does – it doesn't mean that at all.
	I'm sure the book can be improved and I've got some ideas about a rewrite.
	But I have done books and podcasts and videos and so on on UPB and people do get it slowly and they do understand it and they are able to apply it.
	So it's not impossible to get it but it is challenging.
	The other thing that I will say about UPB is that it is emotionally costly to accept.
	Again, this is not an argument to its truth or falsehood, but it is a way of illuminating its difficulty.
	If the problem of ethics is solved, then We got to get into motion, right?
	And if the problem of ethics is solved, then the conversations that we have with people who disagree with us ethically are going to get very challenging very quickly.
	Relativism is a way of getting along with people who want to do you harm, fundamentally, particularly statists and to some degree people who are religious.
	Or want to do others harm, like lie to children about right and wrong and good and evil and heaven and hell.
	And so there is...
	A lot of emotional resistance to UPB, because UPB clarifies and cuts through a lot of the emotional garbage and historical indoctrination that we've received about ethics, lays it bald, bare, clear and shining, and clearly outlined and delineated for the world to see.
	And if we grasp it, really get through the emotional resistance to grasping it, then What happens is our relationships become very volatile and very difficult indeed and people in our lives who are relativists and who are moral nihilists and who are superstitious and who are statists are going to get really angry at us and really there's going to be a lot of conflict and problems in our lives when we get UPB. I hope you understand.
	I'm not saying this to tell you that you should just accept UPB despite your reservations.
	I'm not saying that at all. But what I am saying is that it's possible that given how simple it is to understand that you can't make Universal statements of preference against the existence of universal statements of preference.
	You can't do that, logically.
	That's so easy to understand that the only reason people have difficulty understanding it is because of prior propaganda, which is, again, we all understand that learning Mandarin while someone's yelling English into your ear is almost impossible.
	It's like trying to do a math problem in your head while somebody's counting off random numbers around you.
	It's almost impossible to do, and that's the challenge that we face because of the historical garbage we've been fed.
	About what ethics are and how they are validated.
	Again, I'm not saying do you agree with it, but that's at least my perspective on why it's so challenging.
	I suppose I see where you're coming from, but I think a lot of people on Free Domain Radio already have been members for a long time and have really realized the dangers of all the media and all the lies that really aren't useful,
	the government and such, and they see the benefits of your philosophy and that's why they're trying to genuinely understand it And that's why I'm, you know, I don't really feel like I have some sort of mental resistance because I'm scared.
	Because people will see me as very unconventional.
	I'm already unconventional though.
	I really don't think that's probably much of a resistance for most of the people who are really trying to understand it because they're already there.
	Well, I tell you, somebody who's already completely there with UPB, I'd like to meet because I'm not.
	I find UPB a challenging and slippery theory.
	I do. Like, I mean, you're coming up with this thing about, well, why can't murder be morally neutral?
	I'm like, damn, I know there's an answer to this.
	What the hell is it? Right?
	So, listen, if somebody gets UPB to that degree, I want to talk to them because I find it a challenging and slippery theory.
	So, I mean, that doesn't mean that it's right or wrong.
	That just means that I find it challenging.
	So if I find it challenging and I came up with it, then I assume that it's challenging.
	I just assume that it's challenging.
	When I clear away the rubble and just look at the sort of base logical statements, it's not challenging.
	But anyway, listen, I understand I'm not going to explain it to you in a way that's going to make sense to you today.
	I would just say maybe it's possible.
	I certainly can't make it any clearer than I have.
	And that's, you know, you can re-listen to it.
	And please, you know, call in again if nothing continues to make sense because I think that's worth talking about.
	And again, it's a great pleasure to talk with somebody who's got such a great brain.
	Well, thank you. You're very welcome.
	Easy update! What do you think?
	Do we have time? Oh yeah, we can do that.
	Alright, that's she. She did her very first 18 word comprehensible sentence a couple of days ago.
	18 words! Oh my god, I'm telling you, it's amazing.
	According to the development books, she should have about 50 words by now and be able to do two words in a row.
	18 words! And it all made sense.
	I can't remember it exactly, but it sort of all made sense.
	And she is really getting fascinated with playing with other kids.
	We had our first play day yesterday, which was interesting.
	We'll talk about it another time. But we were at the mall a week ago.
	And there's a machine at the mall which dispenses gumballs.
	You put a little quarter in, you turn it, and this machine, it's like...
	They go up in a spiral and then they go through all of these little loops and rolls around and then they finally come out the bottom.
	And she loves this thing.
	It's called the dum-dum machine because it goes dum-dum-dum-da-dum-dum-da-dum-dum while it's getting the gumballs out.
	And so she gets these and she's learned that if she goes to the stairs and throws them down, she doesn't know that they're gumballs yet.
	She thinks they're just balls, but they'll break.
	And she's, of course, fascinated by anything that breaks.
	She likes having an effect on her environment.
	And because she's just 25 months now, and we were at the mall on Friday, and there was a girl walking by with her dad.
	And I try to point out when there are other kids around because she's usually interested.
	So she's got her two little gumballs in her hand, and we point out this girl, cute little oriental girl.
	And she was about six, I think.
	And I said, hey, look, it's a girl.
	And she runs up to the girl and grabs her hand, and she says, come to the stairs and throw down the balls to break them.
	Come to the stairs.
	I mean, okay, it wasn't quite that promptery, but it wasn't far off.
	and And she grabbed this girl's hand and started just walking towards the stairs to share her gumballs and to share the experience of throwing the gumballs down the stairs.
	To break them! To break them!
	And, oh my god, it was so cute.
	I have a little video of them walking in the...
	In the mall and I was chatting with the dad as we were sort of going along and the girl was gracious about it and nice and she played with her for a while and so we went up and broke the balls on the stairs and then we went to Old Navy where they have a little plastic dog and fed the dog the plastic bones and so on and played with the balls there and she was really, really into it and she was really charming and just a lot of fun and that social stuff, right?
	Because I mean there is this concern that I guess everyone has if you're like a I'm a single kid and you don't have much of a social life, which is certainly true of us, that social skills might take a hit.
	But she was great.
	She played with the other girls.
	She passed the ball back and forth.
	She was enthusiastic. She pulled the girl to what she was interested in but didn't do anything too aggressive.
	And she was just great and it's a lot of fun to see her interact with other kids.
	Now, and that is just so delightful.
	And the work, I mean, we put a lot of work into helping her with her language skills.
	And I mean, I'm sure every reasonable parent does.
	But, you know, if you're going to become a parent, that's my big, big, big strong recommendation is to work with them on language.
	Because... The more that she can communicate to us, the more we can satisfy her needs and wants and the less time we spend playing 20 questions, right?
	So it's really, really important.
	You can do that in a number of ways.
	Like we have little books and we name everything that we give her and make sure she understands what it's called.
	If we're watching a movie, we're always commenting saying, oh, this is a – look, oh, the truck is going under the bridge and so on and all that stuff.
	So, you know, really, really helped them with the language that reduces the stress in the family a lot.
	And I finally figured out something about Isabella that to me was kind of interesting.
	She used to love going under bridges in the car.
	We'd do this sort of one, two, three, whee!
	We'd go through the bridge and then stop.
	We came to the end and she found that quite funny.
	But about a month or a month or a half ago...
	She started not wanting to go under the bridge and getting quite alarmed about going under bridges.
	No, go under the bridge! No!
	And so, you know, we'd normally try and go around where we wouldn't have to go under bridges, but sometimes we'd be on the highway and we'd have to go.
	Like on New Year's Eve, we went to – we took her to the zoo.
	There was a children's activity area at the zoo, and we took her there for sort of five to six.
	I think 8.30 or whatever, and she had quite a blast.
	But we had to go under bridges and she didn't like it.
	I couldn't figure out, like, what has changed?
	What has changed? And it's so easy to chalk it up to, oh, you know, it's just some random thing or whatever.
	But if you think about it, you know, as a parent, you can always find, at least I've found, you can always find something that makes sense about why it's happening.
	And... What I realized was that her favorite song for the past couple of months has been London Bridge is falling down.
	So she's basically seen a video of a bridge falling down, I don't know, a hundred times.
	And she's constantly hearing this song that the bridge is falling down.
	And that, of course, makes sense why she doesn't want to go under bridges anymore.
	Then it all sort of makes sense and we can explain it to her and now she's fine with bridges.
	So my other piece of annoying...
	Know-it-all advice, as far as parenting goes, is to continue to look for, even if it's not evident or easy to see, continue to look for the reasons behind changes in behavior.
	And so far, there's always some reason that makes sense.
	So again, thank you everybody so much for your support.
	Sorry, sorry, sorry about some of the server issues we've been having lately.
	We are working on it like Vikings on an I'd like to apologize for the enema metaphor again.
	There is nothing in that. I've never even had one, but it's what popped into my head, and I can't wrangle it too much that way.
	And if you'd like to help out with some of the tech upgrades that we've had to do lately in terms of the cost, freedomainradio.com forward slash donate is the way to fire your shekels.
	Over the tax farm between wherever you are and the tax farm called Canada.
	And have yourselves an absolutely wonderful, wonderful week.
	I really, really want to thank the callers as always and the supporters as always.
	It is a true privilege and an honor.

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