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April 10, 2011 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:44:21

1885 Freedomain Radio Sunday Call In Show, 10 April 2011

What to do if you're pushed down the stairs, when funny videos aren't funny, the ethics of FEMA, losing a spouse to cancer, and dealing with relativists.

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	Hi everybody, it's Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
	I hope you're doing very, very well.
	I wanted to first and foremost let you know about a TV show that I'm going to be on called Nude Greased Alligator Wrestling Philosophers.
	Oh, I'm sorry. No, that's next week.
	This week, this will be Monday night.
	I hope you can tune in. There's a RT America launches a new show hosted by Adam Kokesh.
	So he says, RT America is set to launch a new program, Adam vs.
	the Man. Actually, when I was first invited on, I was just going to show up in full biblical gear with a big-ass beard and a coat made out of sheeps, because I thought it was going to be a reenactment, Adam vs.
	the Man, of Genesis.
	But no, it's something quite different.
	So, April the 11th at 7 p.m.
	Eastern Standard Time, the Next Generation political program will be hosted by activist, former Republican congressional candidate, and United States Marine veteran, Adam.
	Kokesh International Emmy Award-nominated news channel RT America is an English-language news channel based in Moscow and Washington, D.C. With bold original programming, RT is making inroads into what used to be mainstream media-dominated television markets, said Margarita Simenayan, RT editor-in-chief, quote, as an alternative media source often interacting with independent journalists and controversial opinion makers, RT has become a major player in the battle for information.
	Adam Kokesh brings such a diverse background to any issue, said former campaign manager Tina Richards.
	She continued, I guess I'm bringing the middle-aged slice to that.
	So Adam vs. the Man will air daily.
	Daily! The Man is tireless at 7 p.m.
	Eastern Standard Time starting April 11th on Russia Today.
	So in the U.S., RT is available on cable in the metro areas of Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego.
	I really sound like I'm about to go into a Hugo Lewis song.
	As well as in North Carolina and South Carolina for more information.
	Please go to rt.com slash usa slash where-to-watch.
	To watch the RT live stream simulcast, go to rt.com forward slash on-air forward slash rt-america-air.
	So I'm going to be on tomorrow, maybe a weekly gig.
	And thank you so much to Adam for having me on his very...
	Premiere episode. I'm going to do my very best to not use completely foul language and Even though it's Monday, it's going to be enhanced Monday, which will be a definite departure from my regular schedule.
	But hey, it's for the cause, so we'll get it done.
	So thanks, Adam. Please, please tune in.
	There'll be a link on the homepage of freedommaderadio.com.
	You can also just do a quick search for Adam versus the man and get to the WordPress site.
	So I hope that you will avail yourselves of that.
	And Adam has some fairly hefty arms, so I will be putting pillows in my tank top just to compete.
	I hope that you will enjoy that, and I will see you on Monday.
	That's it for my intro, because we have a number of listeners in the queue, so let's move on with the brains of the outfit and start our Sunday show.
	Stefan, I've never called in before.
	I've never been on the show before, but I've listened for a while, and I wanted to call in and, I guess, get your advice on A couple things, if that's okay. Sure.
	Well, I recently defood my mother.
	And it was...
	I'm nervous that I did it wrong or I did it poorly.
	And she didn't get it or she doesn't understand.
	I guess I wanted to kind of go through that with you and get your opinion.
	Happy to help if I can.
	Let's just sort of be clear on terms first and foremost, just so we sort of understand.
	So you have decided to take a break from your mom, is that right?
	Yes. Okay, and so my sort of recommended approach is twofold, right?
	I mean, the first is to sit down and talk as long and as deeply as possible and as openly as possible with, it's not family in particular, it's anybody in your life that you have significant issues with, to sit and talk with people and also to enlist the aid of a competent therapist during the process to make sure that it goes As well as possible and also has the greatest chance of not happening as possible.
	Which is not to say that sometimes it's not reasonable and justified.
	I certainly think that it is.
	But I think with any long-term relationship, you know, whether it's a spouse or parent or anything like that, you want to have the best chance of success when it comes to negotiating what you want in a relationship.
	And that's why I strongly suggest that therapy approach.
	But anyway, so that's just sort of my brief bit about it.
	And what are your thoughts?
	Well, I wish that that had been possible.
	Unfortunately, though, things with my mother and I have just not really been...
	We were sort of in this place where we had the official status of a relationship, but We weren't really speaking in any meaningful way and it all ended because of...
	It took a turn for that way several months ago after we had this huge incident and she was rather violent towards me and so I just...
	I'm sorry, you're violent now?
	Well, she...
	She pushed me down a flight of stairs.
	Oh, my goodness.
	Oh, my God, really. I'm so sorry.
	I know. Well, she claims that it was an accident, but it seemed very intentional on her part at the time.
	And so the whole talking thing with her is just almost impossible.
	And so, yeah.
	Is there a history of violence in this relationship or was that the first time?
	When I was younger, when I was small and much less defenseless, much more defenseless.
	It was something that she used to do to me a lot.
	She would smack me around and she would tell me to do things.
	She's always been a very authoritarian person.
	And, you know, as I got older, she wasn't physical with me anymore, but still just is totalitarian.
	And the incident occurred.
	My brother, it was his birthday.
	I wanted to have my girlfriend come to the dinner we were going to.
	So I knew that my mom wouldn't like my girlfriend coming with the family for dinner.
	So I told my brother that he should talk to mom and make sure it was okay with her.
	So he did.
	And she got really upset and she started saying that, you know, this is our family dinner.
	This is our family thing.
	You know, she can't come and all this stuff.
	And so it was like, well, it's my birthday and I can invite whoever I want.
	And she was like, it's not your birthday.
	It's the family's birthday.
	And so my brother ran upstairs and she was like, well, it's canceled then.
	It's canceled. And so my girlfriend and I were like, well, We should take him out to dinner, just three of us then.
	So I went upstairs to go get my brother, and my mom was up there, and I started walking down the stairs with my brother, and she pushed me down the stairs.
	I mean, that's the story.
	And I haven't really spoken with her very much since then, except just recently when I had that conversation with her.
	Right. Well, look, I'm so sorry.
	That is a desperately sad story.
	And I sympathize and I'm shocked and obviously horrified at what happened.
	So I just really wanted to share that with you.
	You obviously should not be, you know, I don't think it's obviously you don't want to be around somebody who can push you down a flight of stairs.
	I mean, that can That can kill you.
	I mean, you just do one wrong turn and you can break your neck or you could break a limb.
	I mean, this is not safe.
	So I think, you know, based on what you're saying, I would say that this is not a safe person to be around.
	You know, that having been said, right, I mean, the process of exploring separation from family of origin is something that If you decide to take a break from a parent, I mean, that's just the beginning.
	I mean, that's not the end of the process.
	I mean, it's the end of a process, but it's the beginning of another process.
	Again, this is all just my amateur opinion, but it's the beginning of another process of self-exploration, of working with a therapist to more quickly understand the history and how to avoid any kind of this sort of repetition in the future, right? Because that is a...
	That is a challenge. So I just wanted to sort of mention that, you know, from what you've told me, I mean, it sounds to me like it's a sensible decision to not be around somebody who can, you know, who thinks that that's a reasonable way of dealing with a difficulty or dealing with a...
	Sorry, go ahead.
	That was something that happened back in August.
	And it was the very beginning of August.
	Actually, I think it was, it had to have been like that week.
	That I actually found your videos on YouTube and I started listening to your videos and then eventually the podcasts.
	And so I decided to...
	I mean, because of your work, I decided to move out of my house.
	I was living with my mother at the time and decided to move out of my house and move into an apartment with my girlfriend.
	So I... Thank you.
	Thank you. You know, I hate to be thanked for helping.
	I mean, I'm glad that what I have done has helped you with the situation, but it's a terrible thing to be thanked for.
	But I appreciate what you're saying.
	I really do. Yeah.
	Well, I guess what happened was a couple weeks ago.
	I was at work, and I hadn't seen my mom.
	I saw her briefly at Christmas, but I didn't speak with her.
	Um, I hadn't seen my mom, uh, since then, basically, or spoke to her, really.
	And, um, and I, uh, I was at work, and then I went on break, um, and I was walking down the street to go get some, uh, lunch, and, uh, she, there she is.
	She's walking down the street towards me.
	Um, and she, uh, She's like, oh, hey, you know, like, it's so good to see you.
	Like, really glib and nice.
	And she's like, do you want to go get some lunch?
	And I don't know why I said yes, but I said yes.
	And I went to lunch with her, and she started talking to me like, you know, like nothing bad had ever happened between us.
	Like, weird. Sure. And I cannot take that kind of...
	I just can't take that thickness.
	And so I just kind of sat there.
	And then she started talking to me about how I didn't call my sister for her birthday.
	On her birthday.
	And how it's very important that I always call my sister for her birthday.
	You know, that I talk to her about her interests and that I, you know, am interested in her life.
	And, you know, I've never really been that close with my sister.
	And so I started telling her that, you know, I feel awkward when I have to talk to someone about something I don't really want to talk to them about.
	And very quickly it became a conversation about family in general and that stuff.
	And so it became about us.
	And, and then she started, you know, talking about how I was such a bad disobedient person and how I never listened to authority and how I never listened to her.
	And I always, you know, have to bring up these philosophical reasons and this, and I don't want to have this argument and we're not having an argument.
	We're having a, you know, I'm going to tell you how to be and all this stuff.
	And so I just, I was like, you know, mom, I don't, I think this relationship is making either of us happy right now and I think it would be best if we didn't talk for at least a while and, you know, see how that works.
	And then she really flipped out and she said, she was like, well, why would you want to do this?
	And I was like, well, you know, I really want to be happy, you know, and I think that this relationship isn't making me happy right now.
	And she said, She said, well, what about my happiness?
	What about your sister's happiness?
	All you care about is yourself.
	All you care about is yourself.
	It's always about you. It's always that objectivism, selfishness, nonsense.
	And I didn't really know what to say, and so I just left the restaurant.
	I didn't order any food. I left the restaurant, and I walked back to work, and she followed me into my work, and I went into the back room and I just kind of hid in there for like 20 minutes and I was late getting back to on the clock.
	But she was gone when I got back.
	And I haven't talked to her since.
	And so I feel like she didn't get the message.
	She's going to keep calling me and keep trying to be around me and I can't be around her anymore.
	Yeah, I mean, it's a sad story.
	I mean, obviously, and my heart goes out to you.
	And in a weird kind of way, and I'm not sort of asking for sympathy for your mom from you, but in a weird kind of way, my heart also goes out to your mom.
	Because to have, you know, just sort of based on what you're telling me, my thoughts are that to have such a limited repertoire where the only The only response is to escalate and to become more aggressive and insulting, even though a relationship is hanging by a thread.
	To have no other tools, in a sense, other than escalation and aggression, it makes it inevitable what your decision is.
	And that's really tragic.
	And again, I'm not saying have sympathy for your mom.
	If you do, fine.
	I'm not saying don't, right?
	It's tragic all around.
	It really is.
	Now listen, are you able to get yourself to any kind of therapy?
	Maybe. I don't know.
	I don't have very much money.
	I had a really good job interview the other day.
	I think I'm going to get a new job, but I'm unemployed right now, and my girlfriend works full-time.
	Does it cost very much money?
	Well, I don't know. I mean, it depends where you are.
	You can, of course, negotiate with some people.
	I believe you can negotiate a sliding scale.
	So that's one possibility if your income is low.
	Look, I mean, if you get the job, I would just, I mean, I can't speak highly enough of working with a good therapist.
	And it can save years of mistakes and being stalled and all of that.
	So I think it's, I just think, I can't speak highly of it enough as An investment that pays off about as quickly as any investment you're ever going to have is going to pay off.
	So that's just my brief amateur hour pitch for therapy.
	So I would strongly, strongly urge you.
	I mean, look, if your mom has that kind of limited repertoire, then that's going to have an effect on your relationships and your relatedness to others, in my opinion.
	So I would absolutely look into it as soon as possible.
	So that's, you know, that's just my standard.
	It's definitely something that's been on my list.
	And it's something that I want to do.
	I don't really know how to find the right...
	Because I worry that, you know, I'll go to a therapist that's, you know, a terrible therapist.
	And I won't know the difference, you know, right off the bat.
	And, you know, I spend, you know, six months and I realize that, and however much money, and then I realize that they're, you know, a wacko or something.
	They don't know what you're talking about, about, you know, psychology.
	And so I guess I get nervous about that when I think about this.
	Yes, I understand that.
	And I wish there was some sort of magic phrase, you know, some sort of secret handshake I could give you that would help you find a good therapist.
	I don't know one.
	I think some compatibility in values is pretty important.
	I don't think you want to go to a therapist who's got a tattoo of Jesus on his forehead if you're not religious.
	And so I think some compatibility of values is important.
	I think that credentials can be important.
	But yeah, just in terms of trusting your instincts, of course the issue is that If we were all really good at trusting your instincts, we'd have less of a need for therapy.
	So it's a bit of a catch-22.
	But somebody who's been around for a while, somebody who's had experience, hopefully, in the areas that you're going to work in.
	And if you feel enthusiasm during the session, the initial session, if you look forward to going back, I think those are all good signs.
	They're not perfect, but there is no...
	Perfect template for that kind of thing, I don't think, anyway.
	I think just trust your own motivation side.
	If somebody wasn't good for you, I think you'd pretty much feel it in the first session.
	I think that you'd not feel like going back, not feel enthusiastic about tackling your issues.
	I think if you do feel enthusiasm and desire to continue, and you look forward to the next session, I think that's usually a really good sign.
	I'm very big on listening with your whole brain and your whole body.
	Working with your own instinctual responses to somebody else.
	I think that's really helpful. I wish I could give you something more useful.
	I mean, I think that you obviously have to keep yourself physically safe.
	If there's more that you want to say to your mom, I think that you should sit down and try and say to her.
	This is just around honesty with yourself.
	If there's more you want to say to her, or if you find yourself going through imaginary conversations with her for half the day in your head, then I would say sit down and have those conversations with her.
	But if you don't have anything to say at the moment, then I think you don't have anything to say.
	say that's just where you are and I think that's something to be respected in yourself I the other thing that okay I want to bring up sorry sorry sorry to be sorry to be annoying
	For the last couple of weeks we haven't gotten to all the callers and some people have sat there for like An hour and a half with their sort of phone press to their ear and then haven't gotten on.
	So if you have another question, please feel free to shoot me an email or something like that.
	But I really want to make sure that we get to the callers who are waiting.
	So if you don't mind, please feel free to shoot me an email and I'll do my best to respond.
	But I'd like to move on to another caller, if that's right with you.
	Not because I don't care, but just because I have to sort of balance it out.
	Sure thing. Thank you.
	All right. And if you are on the line, you can hit star six to unmute yourself and grab the reins of the conversation and let's ride, my friend.
	Hello? Hello.
	I'm unmuted, they say.
	You are unmuted, you are audible.
	Okay, so I'm in?
	Yes. Okay, so, same as the guy before me.
	I'm a first time caller, a long time listener, and a foreigner, obviously.
	And I feel very humbled by his story.
	I have nothing of that sort of experience.
	I don't know if there is a forum in which I have to say some sort of experience or I can just ask any sort of question.
	It's an open forum, whatever's on your mind.
	Okay, so I tried sending an email with a few questions, but I guess there's so many of us asking.
	So if I sound like I'm reading, it's because I'm reading.
	So my question is, what is your take on what they call funny videos?
	The ones in which they show extreme falls of people from bikes and buildings and stuff like that, where, you know, like at the end we are kind of supposed to laugh, even though you see people getting really, really seriously hurt.
	And I'm referring to the shows like Crazy Mexican Jackass.
	Because I heard you once saying something like you wouldn't watch a horror movie before going to your daughter's birthday party or something like that.
	So I'm always...
	Wondering what kind of effect to our brains do these kind of shows make by your opinion?
	That's a very good question and a very interesting question.
	I have a soft spot for some Funny videos.
	And by that, I mean sort of the videos, not so much where people are, you know, there's always the one where some kid's trying to hit a piñata and hits Uncle Louie in the nuts or something, and I don't find those particularly enjoyable at all.
	But there are some, you know, some videos that I think are quite...
	are quite funny and quite enjoyable.
	And I think some of these sort of America's Funniest Home Videos, I mean every couple of months that'll sort of be on if I'm having something to eat or I'll flip on the TV and I'll watch it for a few minutes.
	They can be, I think, quite warm and enjoyable and funny.
	The ones you're talking about, I haven't seen Jackass or any of those films.
	I do believe the guy got institutionalized who was in it for a while though.
	But I know where there's sort of extreme injuries and Significant risk and that sort of stuff.
	I can't watch those.
	I can't. You know what?
	They talk about these things in your brain called mirror neurons.
	And mirror neurons, if you see somebody getting hurt, they recreate that flinching within your own body.
	And so if I see someone, you know, skateboarding off a roof and then landing on some railing or whatever, I mean, it's It's not like I feel the physical pain, but I have the same flinching.
	My whole body recoils and sort of curls in on itself in a strange little fetal position and I just think of the pain and the shins and the throbbing and it's horrible.
	Yeah, so I can't watch those.
	Yeah, I feel.
	I mean, I don't feel what the guy's feeling.
	I mean, I'm not saying it's a direct body transfer, but I'm like, oh, that's just horrible.
	And that to me is the opposite of entertainment.
	I'd pay good money to not see that.
	That's the opposite of entertainment for me.
	Yeah, but I'm sure you know that there are young people, especially men, who are kind of joining together to watch that and to kind of toughen up.
	This is their idea.
	That's what's going to happen.
	But what's happening, they're becoming numb to somebody else getting hurt.
	Well, I'm not sure.
	I don't know if any studies have been done on this.
	My first impression, and it's only an impression, is that I don't think they become numb.
	I don't think they start off Not numb and then become numb.
	I think they must be numb to begin with, otherwise they wouldn't want to watch it, if that makes any sense.
	The reason that I say that is if you've ever eaten a food that somebody else likes that you find horrible, you know, like Vegemite or whatever it is that Australia is like.
	You find it horrible.
	I mean, I guess if you kept eating it every day for like six months, you might end up liking it.
	But who would, right?
	Whereas if you open up your sunburnt jaw and you take a bite of Vegemite and you really like it, then you'll just keep eating it.
	And I think the same thing is true of that kind of, quote, entertainment, which is that if it's horrifying to you to begin with, I don't think you're going to keep watching it to the point where it's no longer horrifying to you.
	I think it has to not be horrifying to you to begin with.
	I think that you have to take some pleasure, and I think it's purely sadistic pleasure, in watching other people being hurt.
	It's like a harsh brain donkey-like laughter when people see that kind of hurt.
	I've always found it a particularly grating and ugly sound.
	I would say that they're desensitized probably through childhood trauma or experiences.
	And it's not that they become desensitized through watching this anymore than we grow to love a food that we hate through repetitive eating.
	We generally just don't eat it anymore.
	But anyway, so let's move on to your other question, if that's a reasonable, if not true, at least opinionated response.
	Sorry? Sorry, let's move on to your next question.
	Next question. So I love the parenting series.
	I'm a complete Anything like that.
	And I hear a lot of people calling in and I don't know if they're aware that in this parenting series, what they can do.
	And this is what I do when I listen to it.
	I am reflecting everything on my own childhood, you know, listening, all of that, digging through my own childhood.
	And I have to say mine was quite okay.
	I'm so happy to hear that.
	I just wanted to mention, I'm very happy to hear that.
	I really am. I think it's just wonderful and somebody I think just joined the board.
	I think it was a woman who joined the board recently who was talking about how close she was to her father and I think that stuff's all great.
	No, because I feel almost like an outcast.
	I feel like, can I say that?
	Can I say mine was okay?
	I don't know. You should.
	Let me put it to you this way.
	People who've had bad childhoods, I think, should be very happy that there are people who've had good childhoods.
	Because it means that there's people to date who aren't traumatized.
	It means that there are people raising kids in their neighborhood or in the world who are going to be happy and healthy.
	So I think, you know, share it.
	For heaven's sake, don't be ashamed if you're good fortune.
	I think it's a beautiful thing.
	Well, I started talking to some people and I think my contribution can be by describing how does it feel to be loved, to be supported and this is some sort of a goal for these people for where to get to.
	Yes. Yes, I agree.
	So, my question about these is, my sister has kids, you know, some friends have kids, and I was wondering, do you know if there are books, stories, that would go along with this type of parenting, you know, rather than the usual helpless princes, ugly stepmother, and stuff like that?
	Yeah, I... Yeah, no, I understand your question.
	I wish I did. And if there are listeners out there, I haven't had much of a chance to look at various stories.
	There are some stories that my daughter likes, but I'm always a bit concerned that, you know, it's like Jack and the Beanstalk where the giant is going to grind up The little Englishman's bones for his bread and all this kind of big bad wolf where she's going to get eaten and all of that.
	So I'm a little concerned about some of that.
	And it's interesting actually, just by the by, looking at some of the older children's cartoons that are available on YouTube or other places.
	Sort of the Mickey Mouse or Donald Ducks from the 1940s or 50s.
	They're pretty violent in a way that you wouldn't see that anymore.
	I remember watching a lot of those when I was a kid.
	I'm not that old or anything, but all that kind of stuff.
	I used to watch the Tom and Jerry's and they were pretty violent and even the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote were pretty violent.
	You don't see that stuff nearly as much anymore.
	And so I think the newest stuff is better.
	And I mean, my daughter really likes a video of goofy baby on YouTube or whatever.
	And it's a very gentle and, you know, positive.
	So I think look for the newest stuff for sure.
	That seems to be better. As far as written stories go, I'm just not enough of an expert to really know.
	But if people do have books that they have found to be really positive and peaceful, please send them to me and I'll put them on the message board and hopefully you can find them there.
	Great. And a very, very short question at the end, if I may.
	I'm looking all over the place, the guy you talked to about Americans as a PTSD nation, and I cannot find, I don't remember the name, I cannot find the podcast or anything, the interview with him.
	Oh, John Omaha, what's his name?
	Sorry? Yeah, his name was John Omaha, like the state.
	I'm just going to double check that.
	At least that's what pops into my head.
	Let me just double check that.
	That was a great conversation.
	Yes, PTSD Nation.
	John Omaha. I'm coming from Serbia actually and I live in Paris.
	It's totally mixed up and growing up in the war and now you have There are so many people in the world going through the same stuff.
	But you can kind of grow up okay, you know, if the parents have this goal rather than sinking in and everything that is happening around them.
	And, I mean, non-PTSD nations are rare, I think.
	Right, right. You also may want to check out, somebody just put this in the chat window.
	I haven't listened to it, but there's a woman named Laurette Lynn.
	You can find her at unpluggedmom.com.
	And I think she does. A number of listeners seem to be quite positive about her, or very positive.
	So I just wanted to mention that.
	Yeah, I've seen that.
	Okay, cool. Thanks for me.
	Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
	Great questions, please, if you have more.
	And I'm sorry I didn't get back in your email.
	I do try to, but what happens is I'll sort of flag longer ones with lots of questions and then I don't sort of, if I get shorter ones, usually it's a little easier.
	So I'm sorry I didn't get back to you, but thank you so much for calling in.
	Okay. Thank you. All right.
	Take care. All right.
	Step on up. Stay on the scene like a chatting machine.
	I hear a breath. That's just me.
	Sorry. No, no, no.
	Sorry. Sorry to get you excited.
	If you want to take a chat room question real quick while waiting for someone to call in.
	Somebody just sort of asked for your opinion on FEMA. Just putting it in terms of FEMA, friend or foe?
	FEMA, like the U.S. Department?
	FEMA? Yeah, federal emergency, whatever, something.
	Those guys. Well, I mean, I'm no expert on FEMA, and I try not to have much expertise in stuff that is morally highly objectionable to me.
	So, Harry Brown used to talk about, and I think he died even before this stuff.
	I think FEMA's been around for a while, but he was basically saying, and he used to have this thing on his radio show where he would say, What's the point?
	So, Florida has a hurricane and then Tennessee has to send $100 million to Florida.
	And then Tennessee has a flood and Florida has to send $100 million to Tennessee.
	What's the point of moving all of this money around for people who have various emergencies?
	And the other thing that's true is that, economically speaking, there's an old economic argument, and I can't remember the technical name for it, but it's something like this.
	And it basically is Everything evens out.
	So if you have a town that has really good air quality, and you have a town that has really bad air quality, then the property prices for houses in those towns will simply reflect that.
	So you'll be, in a sense, paid to breathe bad air by having cheaper housing.
	And if you want to breathe good air, then you have to pay for that through more expensive housing.
	The reality is that house prices Go down for areas where there are natural disasters, right?
	So I don't think an earthquake is going to strike Toronto anytime particularly soon.
	I think that there was one which I napped through about 25 years ago that was a tiny little shake.
	And so the housing prices in Toronto reflect that.
	Whereas housing prices in other places in the world where there are fault lines or where there are significant hurricane problems or there's tornadoes or whatever, right?
	The housing prices simply reflect that.
	So if you have a natural disaster that strikes some area that's prone to natural disasters and then you take money from people who aren't in that neighborhood and give it to those who are in that neighborhood, Then that's economically unsound in a very fundamental way because you're subsidizing heavily and you are distorting the incentives to live in places where there are natural disasters.
	So if people who are in natural disaster areas know that they're going to get money if things go bad, then they're going to be more prone to live in disaster areas, which means that more people are going to be subject to those disasters and it's going to cost more.
	Whereas if people don't think They're either not going to get a bailout or they're going to pay proportionately higher insurance rates for wherever it is that they're living, then that will make a lot more sense economically and there will be a disincentive for people to go and live there, which is good if it's a place that's really prone to natural disasters.
	So I think that FEMA fundamentally is not a friend of anyone in that it's funded through the violence of taxation.
	It tends to stall people really badly.
	People don't talk about this as much as I think they should when it comes to government programs.
	So to take a sort of brief example of something like this, the program put in by Obama a couple of years ago, designed to help homeowners not get evicted.
	So it was designed to help them renegotiate their mortgage with their bank to get reduced payments.
	And what happened though was natural.
	Lots of people applied for it and it turned out to be too expensive and there wasn't enough people there to process the paperwork or whatever it was.
	And so people who would otherwise have moved out of their home because they just couldn't afford it ended up staying in their home and going into debt.
	Sometimes as long as a year or a year and a half before finding out that they had been rejected from this program or they weren't covered or something or just giving up and moving out because they didn't know how much longer it was going to take.
	And so, this is very often the unintended consequences of these kinds of programs.
	That they will ostensibly be there to help people with their finances.
	But what they actually do is they end up making people's finances worse.
	Because they keep people in a situation where they're spending more money with the expectation of getting some sort of government bailout.
	And that bailout either doesn't come, or it takes too long, or it's less than they thought.
	And so they end up worse.
	And something else, which is somewhat similar, is something like unemployment insurance.
	It keeps people in towns hoping that things will turn around when things don't turn around and they should have moved the moment that things started to die.
	People in Detroit or What do they call Cleveland?
	The mistake by the lake. And people will stay there because it's like, okay, well, I've got unemployment insurance, so I'll be able to eke out another year and hopefully things will turn around.
	And often, of course, they don't turn around.
	And so what happens is people end up a year in the hole.
	They're now a year unemployed.
	They haven't moved. They have less money to move.
	They have fewer skills.
	They're viewed with...
	Some skepticism, let's say, by employers for being unemployed so long, like, what's the matter?
	And so because of these sort of, quote, support programs, people end up in a worse situation than if they'd have said, well, crap, you know, I've really got to move to some place where there's some jobs because I have no money.
	It ends up putting people in a deeper hole a lot of the time.
	So I would put FEMA in that kind of category.
	So I hope that is not too, too, too, too long-winded an answer to that kind of question.
	Somebody has asked thoughts on sorrow and grief in respect to logic and the rationale.
	It strikes me as irrational, but inescapable.
	Sorrow and grief.
	It's a good question.
	Sorrow and grief.
	I may or may not have something useful to say about sorrow and grief.
	I don't think that any deep emotions are irrational.
	And in a recent podcast, I talked about some of the findings about how science has discovered that there's quite a bit of significant rationality in the unconscious.
	And I don't think that grief and sorrow are irrational.
	Look, we all have to live to some degree like bad things aren't going to happen.
	Everybody knows, if you sort of stop them and sit them down, look them eye to eye, they know whoever you love is going to die.
	And the health that you need is going to fail you.
	Age overtakes us all and pushes us down that creaky, bouncy, rheumatic, rubble-strewn cliff edge to the deep chasm of death.
	And, you know, bad things can happen to us at any time.
	Car accidents trip and fall downstairs or be pushed.
	Bad things can happen to us at any time.
	And if that dominates your thinking, then it's a self-fulfilling prophecy because then you are dominated by negative thoughts and you don't enjoy your life, right?
	This is true when you have kids, right?
	They could fall, but they will fall.
	They're playing near a swimming pool.
	No matter how careful you are, I mean, no matter how close you are, they may fall in.
	I mean, obviously, I don't think that's particularly bad if you're right there, but there's some anxiety around that.
	And anybody who is a parent, you just know this is the situation.
	The kids always want to do stuff that is risky to you, and you may be a little bit time-lagged in terms of what they're able to do because you're so used to the last phase.
	And so, bad things are going to happen to us in our life.
	And there's no escape from it.
	So let's say that you solved the problem of watching someone you love die from some illness by not falling in love.
	Well, that just means that you've missed the benefit of falling in love.
	Or let's say that...
	Well, let's just stay with that one, because I think that's something we can all relate to.
	And there are people, of course, who try to avoid the inevitable losses of love.
	And the movie Shadowlands, I think, is a good story about this.
	By keeping their heart closed and their soul cold.
	And that way you do get to avoid the loss that comes with love.
	And so we have to live, I think, with some knowledge of the disasters that can befall us.
	But without losing the pleasure of the moment in that knowledge.
	And that's a balancing act.
	And I think that the balancing act should be slightly tilted towards the optimism of the moment.
	Because the bad shit's going to happen no matter what, but you can enjoy the optimism and pleasure of the moment, of where you are in life.
	So, sorrow and grief Should always, I think, to some degree, come as a little bit of a surprise, ideally.
	I mean, if they're completely anticipated and perceived to be inevitable and blah, blah, blah, then I think we are losing too much of the luster, the glow, the sparkle, the shine of the everyday moment.
	Because then a bad thing happens, you're like, oh, I knew it.
	Well, that's coming from a place of anticipation of negativity.
	So, We live our lives in a state of blissful, giddy, avoidant idiocy to some degree.
	And I think that there's... I can't think of a way around that.
	And so when disaster comes, as it does repeatedly in life, I think we should feel some shock.
	I think we should feel some surprise.
	I think we should feel some...
	I don't need another synonym.
	I think I've made myself pretty clear.
	And so I don't think it's irrational.
	I think that sorrow and grief are always associated with surprise to some degree.
	Even when we know something's inevitable, that's not the same as going through it.
	So I think it is rational, and I think it is healthy to feel those emotions, to be surprised at the negative stuff that is inevitably going to happen in life.
	So I think it's their emotions to be treasured.
	You know, all they are is grief, for instance, It's simply the shadow of value.
	And you can't have a value without being sad about its loss.
	That would be irrational.
	Everything that we treasure, everything that we want, everything that we love, everything that we desire, even before having it, will inevitably cause us Some sorrow or disappointment or grief if we lose it or don't attain it.
	I mean, anybody who wants a job is going to feel sad when they don't get it.
	We can even feel sad about things we don't really want.
	I remember when I was in theatre school, my best friend in theatre school, a fine actor, he was slowly coming out of the closet during the time that we were in theatre school together.
	And He never expressed any physical attractiveness towards me.
	Never. Shocking.
	It's not that I wanted it. I'm not gay.
	But you can even feel a pang about not getting something that you don't want.
	Because of the hopeless vanity of the human condition, or at least me in my late teens and early twenties.
	No, early twenties.
	So anyway, I just sort of wanted to mention that I think that you can't live life You can't live a happy life without having values, without having and wanting things.
	And having and wanting things means that we're going to be sad when they're no longer there or we lose them or we don't achieve them.
	And so there is no cure for desire and pain except the one that goes down about six feet and is filled with worms.
	So I just wanted to put it that way and hopefully that makes sense.
	Oh boy. I just read your response.
	Do you mind if I read that out? He wrote, Thanks for the answer, Steph.
	I recently lost my wife to cancer, and I find myself trying to rationalize my emotions without repressing them.
	Certain things trigger deep sorrow, and I wonder about the feelings dominating my present life.
	Oh my god, I'm so sorry.
	Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
	I mean, I don't know if you'd want to watch the movie Shadowlands, but it is a good movie, and it is about a man who loses his wife to cancer.
	I mean, I'm sure you love your wife as much as I love and adore my wife, and I can't imagine.
	I just can't imagine that.
	I just really, really want to express My absolute sympathy, deep, deep and absolute sympathy for just a soul-shattering loss.
	There are two things that come to my mind about this kind of loss.
	One is, I don't know if somebody knows, I don't know which book it's in, but Nathaniel Brandon writes about one of his wives, her name began with a Dino or something like that, she drowned.
	In the swimming pool of his house and he was just beside himself with grief and what he said in the book when he was writing about this experience was that he would lie on the ground and he would howl and he would spin himself in circles and he would clutch at his belly and he would grind his eyes with the heels of his hands and that sorrow, the grief, it just worked its way through him like a Like epilepsy.
	And then there were times when he would be distracted.
	So his approach was simply to not try and work the emotions.
	And I mean, because emotions are so powerful, we do have a tendency to want to try and manage them, right?
	But they are the free market of the self and need their free play, in my opinion.
	So that's one example.
	Now, another example of grief that I didn't think was quite as integrated or successful was The physicist Richard Feynman, who wrote a book called What Do You Care What Other People Think, he lost his wife.
	I'm thinking it was tuberculosis, but I don't think he was that old.
	Anyway, he lost his wife, she died, and he didn't feel much of anything until a year or two later he saw a dress in a shop as he was walking past in a shop window.
	He just suddenly realized that his wife who had died would have loved that dress.
	And then it hit him.
	And it was very hard for him for quite some time.
	And I don't know. I don't know the alchemy by which all of that occurs.
	The emotions are not open to these kinds of controls.
	So these are just two things that popped into my mind.
	About grief and sorrow and loss.
	I'm so sorry. My heart goes out to you.
	If there's anything I can do, please let me know.
	You have all the sympathy in the world that I can summon and imagine.
	I just wanted to mention that because it's a truly tragic thing that you've gone through.
	An 18-month trip from the diagnosis.
	I remember collapsing then and even more so now.
	Oh, absolutely. Oh, big hug.
	Big hug, my friend.
	Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness.
	Yeah, I mean, if there was evil in biology, its name would be cancer.
	This show means a lot, he says, and I find strength in reasonable people.
	Yeah. You know, it is those kinds of situations that remind us not to worry too, too much in life.
	You know, there's an old cliché.
	It says, well, if you've got your health, you've got everything.
	And in some ways, that's true.
	Facing that kind of struggle and battle and loss in your life puts a lot of other things that we worry about in very, very clear perspective.
	And sometimes, I think we all forget that.
	I'm not saying you have.
	Obviously, but I think we sometimes all forget that and It's just so important To treasure what we have while we have it because as you've experienced I mean you just don't know something can happen something shows up on a scan and bam you're just on that downward slope to the grave and I just wanted to just give huge,
	huge, huge sympathies and respect for what it is that you've had to go through.
	And you know, okay, so let me just see, sorry, if we have any other questions or comments, otherwise I'll...
	I'll keep going with some thoughts.
	Sure, go ahead. Are you there?
	I am. I had a topic, but I don't know if you want to continue about your thoughts first.
	Let me, because I'm still feeling quite emotional about this guy's story, so let me just speak for a minute or two more if that's alright.
	You know, one of the characteristics that I have been ambivalent about in my own personality, but which I'm becoming more and more favorable about...
	Sorry, somebody else has just written about in the chat room about how they've lost their father to cancer.
	Thank you.
	So, sorry, let me just talk a little bit about this.
	You know, life Life is terrifically short.
	It's short enough that we really need to do right by each other.
	We really need to do well with each other.
	It's long enough that we have to plan and be careful, but it's short enough.
	You know, we don't have forever to undo our mistakes.
	And I remember when I was a kid, My brother and I had this, you know, this sort of rule and it sort of went like whoever took the toys out had to take the toys back, right?
	So if you took out the model airplane, then you had to put it back.
	And unless the other person ended up playing with it, in which case the other person would have to put it back.
	And I can't remember where this rule came from, if it came from our mom or whether it was just something we came up with.
	And I'm sure there were times when I didn't hold up my end of the bargain, but I had these Memories of my brother taking out a toy that I really liked and playing with it, and then if it started to rain, just going back in.
	And I would, I'd sort of stand there in the rain, looking down at this toy and saying, well wait, the rule is that, you know, he's supposed to bring it back in or whatever.
	And I'd feel this anxiety or this stress because I thought, okay, well if I go in because of principle, then the toy is going to get broken or someone's going to take it and then I won't have the toy anymore.
	But if I take the toy in, then I'm just sort of reinforcing not following the rules or whatever.
	And that was a real paradox for me.
	I remember reading a book. I can't remember for the life of me what it was called.
	I was in my mid-teens and it was about a woman who got anorexia and she kind of collapsed at one point.
	I mentioned this before in the show, but it's these kinds of paradoxes that I think are very tough in life.
	She forgot her book in her locker and she wasn't allowed to be late to the class she was going to.
	And if she went to the class without the book, she'd get in trouble.
	And if she went back to get the book, she'd be late and she'd get into trouble.
	And so she just basically sat down against the wall and stared off into space because she was in an impossible situation.
	And that kind of panic, that kind of anxiety, I think is really important.
	Just thinking about this...
	If something's wrong in a relationship that I have, then I really feel that sometimes an overwhelming desire is to sit down and fix it.
	You know, whatever it takes, whatever it takes.
	Just fix it. Whatever pride I have to swallow, whatever apologies I have to make, I mean, not for the sake of making apologies, but if they're reasonable, that I need to fix it.
	Old age. It comes and overtakes us all.
	And we need people in our lives.
	And this has bothered me off and on over the years because it's felt to me like I care more than other people.
	That other people can take it or leave it as far as their relationship with me goes, but it bothers me very much if there's a problem in the relationship and I really need to sit down and talk about it.
	And I've been ambivalent about it because I think it's It's given me amazing strength in the few relationships, the few close relationships that I have, but I feel that it puts me at a disadvantage in other relationships which are less close.
	So the reason that I'm sort of bringing this up as far as grief goes is I think that panic, panic is the right word, the anxiety that I have when something is wrong in a relationship is better than the regret that may come afterwards if the relationship ends or fades away or becomes casual or becomes an acquaintanceship.
	If there's something wrong, I really feel like I need to do something about it.
	And I've disliked that a lot, but as I get older I realize that it is a very good thing.
	And I just, you know, want to remind people If you have people that you care about, if you have people that you want to be closer to, do it.
	Don't do what the listener's dream was telling him a couple of weeks ago when he had a microwave.
	Don't do little waves. Open your heart like a floodgate.
	Talk to people. Be vulnerable.
	Be open. Be honest. Take the hits if they come.
	But find a way to get close to people.
	Find a way to admire people.
	Find a way to act in ways that good people can admire people.
	And don't... Try not to let anything stop you in your pursuit of open-hearted people and in opening your heart yourself.
	And if you've done wrong by people, then do your very best to make it right.
	Because we don't live forever and we need each other more and more as time goes by.
	And these kinds of losses that can happen Can come out of the blue, can come from anywhere.
	You know, people who are estranged but who want to be together sometimes can fall into this, it'll happen someday, and you know, then someone gets hit by a bus and it's over and it's done.
	I think those kinds of regrets are unsurvivable in some ways.
	So I just strongly urge people to stay close.
	To be open, to be honest, to be vulnerable.
	To shed the relationships where you can't be close no matter how you try.
	To embrace and deepen and strengthen the relationship where closeness and trust and love and intimacy and honesty flourish.
	I am incredibly fortunate in my marriage and with the friends that I have.
	I mean, I've worked hard, but it's as much luck as anything else, and I'm just telling you that there is no treasure greater than those relationships.
	No money, no success, no fame, no looks, no sex is better.
	or more necessary is the basic food of sustenance for our souls than those relationships.
	So, I just wanted to sort of get that off my chest.
	I'm sorry, my friend. Please go ahead.
	That's pretty intense.
	A bit abstract.
	Well, not abstract, actually.
	Probably not abstract at all.
	I wanted to know what your thoughts are Agreeing to disagree, because it's something that really bothers me.
	Right. Right.
	Give me an example of where it happens that it bothers you and if you could speak up a little here just a little quiet.
	It bothers me when people use it to just sort of
	I guess for me it bothers me because the thoughts that come up are they're not open to reason or changing their mind about anything.
	They're not...
	There's no criteria by which someone can change their mind.
	You might as well just agree to disagree.
	It's very conflict avoidant, I guess.
	And it also strikes me as sort of relativistic.
	And it's always followed by, well, they have their truth and I have my truth.
	and all those things that people say that really irritate me to the point where I feel like I'm being clawed by some kind of Skin rash.
	Right. Like walking skin rash.
	And it's just...
	It's so irritating.
	And so...
	And the thoughts that come up in my head that are critical of myself at the time are that I'm this Nazi guy that wants everybody to agree with me in order to have a relationship.
	And I don't know how to explain to people that I... That you have to agree with me.
	It's not that you have to agree with me in order to have any kind of relationship with me.
	You have to agree with everything I say because that's just insane.
	That's not what I'm saying and I don't know how to communicate what it is that I want.
	I want this objective standard by which we both agree to and seek truth together and all that stuff.
	I can't seem to get that across, and I wonder if it's true.
	Is it good to agree to disagree and maintain a relationship?
	Am I just being a Nazi, I guess?
	Well, Nazi, but yeah, so I think I sort of understand what you're saying.
	So people, you know, tolerance is a value that's highly praised in society, and if you've seen or read I've been sort of meaning to do a short series on media literacy.
	If you've seen or read any of the reports of the recent Democratic and Republican showdown over raising the debt ceiling and the government shutdown and all that, it's very much around, well, they won't compromise.
	They're bickering. They're being dogmatic.
	They're being ideological.
	They're refusing to bend.
	They are being stubborn.
	They are whatever, right? And these words are They're like sandpaper designed to wear down the rough edges.
	And so, yeah, there are two ways of standing your ground, right?
	One is you have good reason and good evidence, though you're always open to better reason and better evidence, but we all have to stick our flag in the ground somewhere and hopefully it's at least close to where reason and evidence is.
	And that's having integrity.
	And I think that you should stand your ground on those issues.
	And just about everyone would agree with me, right?
	So I mean, rape is wrong.
	You know, this is not something, you know, you don't get the rapist to just agree to disagree with his victim, right?
	I mean, everybody gets that that's just plain wrong and all that sort of stuff, right?
	But those aren't things that usually come up in conversations with people.
	So when you get the phrase, agree to disagree, To me, how I experience that, and I think there's some reason to experience it this way, but it's not, you know, proven empirically.
	It's just my experience is that somebody is portraying me as irrationally dogmatic.
	They despair that any of their arguments will be able to change my mind because I am just emotionally stuck on some particular position.
	And so it's like, okay, well, I'm not going to give up what I believe, even though I'm probably more right.
	You're certainly not going to give up what you believe, even though you're probably in the wrong.
	So let's just throw our hands up in the air.
	And agree to disagree means that the conversation is over.
	It's not an opening in a relationship or a conversation.
	It's a closing.
	We are not going to revisit this topic because we are not going to be able to Come to any sort of agreement.
	We're just going to have to agree, quote, agree to disagree, which means that now we have a spot around which we cannot speak, right?
	We have a blank spot in our relationship that we can't go to.
	So it very much is around no longer having a conversation or an interaction about it.
	There usually is, at least for me, a kind of superiority.
	I don't think I've ever used the phrase agree to disagree because, you know, philosophy is my game.
	So that's not really an option.
	I mean, scientists don't agree to disagree about certain things, right?
	They have to kind of get to the conclusion.
	And mathematicians don't agree to disagree.
	I don't remember any of my math teachers ever saying, well, I don't think that 2 plus 2 makes 5, but let's just agree to disagree on this.
	I'm like, no, no, there's an answer, right?
	So, for me, it is a, usually, it's a slightly superior and condescending way of saying, I give up on your ability to process reason and evidence, so I'm going to draw a line around this topic, like a chalk outline around a dead guy, and this is some place we're just not going to go anymore.
	And to me, there's like also, I mean, yeah, that's exactly what I experienced from them.
	But even just thinking about the concept itself, agreeing to disagree, it's like to say that is to dismiss all criteria by which someone can change your mind.
	Like, to give a hope on, like, to not even understand what disagree and agree even means.
	That's what it says to me.
	It's like to not even know.
	What does things even mean?
	Well, yeah, because look, I mean, if you and I are debating about which way is north and which way is south, and I have a compass, am I going to say, well, let's just agree to disagree?
	No. I mean, what's embedded in that very statement is that everything is subjective.
	And that you can, in fact, agree to disagree, because whatever you're talking about is purely subjective.
	I like blue, you like orange.
	Well, let's just agree to disagree.
	But in a sense, there is no disagreement.
	I mean, if I like blue and you like orange, we're not disagreeing with each other.
	I'm not saying blue is objectively the best.
	I'm just saying I like blue. Right.
	Right. So, yeah, so I think that there is a lot of philosophy.
	You know, I think it was, was it last weekend?
	Last time I showed, I'm sorry it's taking me a while to post it.
	It was kind of messed up. And I've cleaned it up pretty significantly, but it took a while.
	I was talking about how philosophy is so embedded in our everyday interactions.
	And when someone says, let's agree to disagree, there's a huge amount of philosophy that is embedded in that statement.
	That there's no objective third party called reason, reality, evidence, truth, logic, whatever.
	There's nothing that we can appeal to that is going to settle this dispute.
	It's just you and I. And there's a paradox, because it's not a personal preference.
	I like ice cream and you like chocolate.
	But it's something that we're both claiming to be true, but which is purely subjective.
	And those things can't be true.
	Those two statements are mutually exclusive.
	Something cannot be both potentially true and purely subjective.
	The world is round is a true statement.
	It is not a subjective preference or opinion.
	I like I like ice cream is a subjective thing and it's true maybe that I like ice cream but it's not a statement that is true about objective external reality that's easily verifiable by somebody else.
	And so it is creating a paradox which says we're going to disagree about something that is purely subjective.
	But you can't disagree about something that is purely subjective.
	I like romantic comedies, you like action films.
	How can we disagree about that?
	I mean, they're personal preferences.
	There is no disagreement. There's no conflict.
	It's like disagreeing that you dreamed about an elephant.
	Yeah, I dreamt about an elephant and you dreamt about L. McPherson riding an elephant in slow motion.
	Okay, I want your dream. That's objectively better.
	But there is no conflict there.
	I mean, if I say I dreamt about an elephant and you say I dreamt about L. McPherson riding an elephant, what would it make any sense for me to say, okay, well, we'll just agree to disagree?
	No, because there's nothing to disagree about.
	It's a purely subjective experience.
	So somebody is saying, when they use the word disagree, they're saying that it's objective.
	But when they say let's agree to disagree, they're saying let's both maintain our opposing positions as true, although they refer to an external and objective reality.
	But those two things are impossible.
	You cannot have those two things in the same place.
	Right. It's sort of a cluster bomb straight to the frontal lobes, right?
	It's very compressed, like you said.
	Yeah, nobody's going to say, let's agree to disagree that rocks fall down.
	Now, sorry, the one place where I think this does show up quite a bit is arguments from a fact in the political realm.
	So, is unemployment insurance good or bad for people?
	Well, for some people, it's pretty good.
	And for some people, it's pretty bad.
	And so you can kind of agree to disagree about certain things in politics just by looking at, and this is true of economics as well, but more so in politics.
	Economics is usually win-win if it's free market, whereas politics is always win-lose, right?
	Right. And so, is unemployment insurance good?
	Well, for the guy who's receiving it, yeah, it's good.
	I mean, just materially in the moment.
	For people who are paying for it, no, not so good, right?
	Tariffs, are they good or bad?
	Well, for the people who make more money because of tariffs, they're good, economically speaking.
	For the people who can't afford whatever the tariff good is or who can't afford something else because they pay more for that tariff good, it's not good.
	So, There are those kinds of things.
	When you're looking at win-lose things in politics, you can, quote, agree to disagree in the argument from effect, but that's only because you're avoiding the argument from morality, right?
	That's only because you're not saying, well, not is unemployment good or bad, or is Social Security sustainable or not, or what, is the national debt, does it ever need to be paid off?
	I mean, those are all arguments from effect, which people can agree to disagree, and that's what most of the media is doing, right?
	It's just doing all of that sort of nonsense.
	What is much more important is the argument for morality, which is, should we use the initiation of force to achieve social ends?
	Well, that's a little less easy to agree to disagree on because it's got the initiation of force in it, right?
	And the initiation of force automatically precludes disagreeing, right?
	You can't disagree with taxes because you're going to go to jail.
	Right. Right, so when you get down to the argument from morality, the agree to disagree thing It no longer makes any sense.
	So you can have a Democrat and a Republican talking about entitlement programs, and the Democrat will probably say they're good, and the Republican will probably say they're bad, and they can agree to disagree, because they're just looking at two sides of the coin, right?
	So I look at the side of the coin that has George Washington on it, and I say, hey, that has George Washington.
	And you look at whatever the hell's on the other side, and you say, this has Al McPherson riding an elephant slowly, because, you know, that's your fixation.
	And I can understand that. I mean, elephants are really sexy.
	But you look at the other side and you say, well, on this side there's a leaf.
	On this side there's George Washington.
	Well, on this side there's a leaf. So coins have George Washington.
	No, coins have leaves. Well, let's just agree to disagree.
	I mean, of course, it's nonsense, but it makes some kind of sense when you're looking at it that way.
	But when you're looking at UPB, when you're looking at the argument for morality, then you can no longer say agree to disagree anymore.
	Because you've got the initiation of force which precludes disagreement.
	So, you think it's pretty understandable?
	I mean, do you experience it the same way where you just kind of, like, I feel like I'm attacked by a giant squid of irritation?
	No, yeah, look, I experience the irritation, but I think I look at it more clearly by just assuming that it's projection on the part of the other person.
	Because somebody's saying to me, well, you're not really open to reason, so let's just agree to disagree.
	But I mean, in my experience, 100% of the time that that's being claimed, it's the person who's saying it who's not open to reason.
	So I just accept it as a kind of projection and move on.
	Because what it really indicates is a lack of self-knowledge that I think is really important.
	I mean, people who project elementally lack self-knowledge, and you really can't get into debates with people who lack self-knowledge because they're too prone to unconscious emotional manipulation, which is What that statement, I think, really expresses.
	Right. Oh, that answers a lot.
	Yeah, I'd been wanting to call it about the whole topic of relativism and how it just causes this horrible reaction in me.
	But especially after that incident with someone here in Philly.
	But I thought a lot about it.
	We talked about it a lot here and we kind of concluded that relativism in itself is an absolute ideology.
	It's kind of very absolutist in the sense that everything is subjective and that's just as absolute as an irrational absolute.
	Yeah, I mean it does and I was at this opinion before I became a father and I'm even more of this opinion now, but I view relativism as simply bomb in the brain stuff.
	It's just it's scar tissue from from childhood trauma.
	Relativism occurs, I mean my daughter is not at all a relativist.
	She's an all-or-nothing full-tilt boogie, sails to the wind, absolutist.
	And And I think that's exactly where she should be.
	I think that's very healthy.
	And so I think that it comes from people who are facing dogmatic people in power, whether it's parents or priests or teachers or whatever.
	They're facing dogmatic people in power.
	And in order to retain...
	Like, if you're coming up against a dogmatist who has authority over you, an irrational absolutist, Then if you surrender to them, you kind of lose yourself completely.
	Whereas if you kind of blur them down to relativism and you can at least then keep your own perspectives by having them be relativistic without incurring the inevitable attacks that will occur if you bring objective rational philosophical standards to the other person's irrational absolutism.
	So I think it's a defensive strategy from more sophisticated minds when faced with Irrational absolutes in an authoritarian setting.
	I think that's a defensive strategy that is designed to retain some sense of personhood.
	I mean at great cost, but it's the least cost possible in the situation.
	Right. So yeah, I mean if you're in that kind of conversation, you know, and you feel comfortable with it or at least relatively comfortable, you can just say to the person, hey, I'm curious, what was your experience of authority like when you were a kid?
	Right. I don't think I've ever felt that comfortable before in that conversation.
	I've never felt comfortable at all in those conversations because I feel as if I'm being accused of what they're actually doing.
	Right. It's the appeal to insecurity, right?
	So if I insinuate That you're immature or irrational or whatever, then if I can get you to self-attack, then I win, right?
	I mean, that's a great temptation and we face a lot of that in life and it's just important to try and keep that in perspective.
	Why do I have to agree with everything you say and like everything you like in order to have a relationship with you?
	Oh, yeah. No, so basically that's just, you know, you are a mind-bending narcissist, right?
	I mean, that's the other end.
	I mean, I've heard that criticism of what I put out too, which is to say, okay, so Steph says if you don't agree with all of his values, he's just not going to have a relationship with you.
	In other words, you have to completely 100% reflect what he believes or he's just going to dismiss you or whatever.
	And I... I mean, I think it's a complete parody of where I'm coming from.
	I think that there are some values that people need to share in order to have a civilized relationship.
	They have to refrain from abuse.
	I think that's pretty clear, physical or sexual or emotional.
	I think that that has to be kind of be off the table for people to have, or at least a commitment to having it off the table needs to be there in order for people to have a civilized relationship.
	And I think most people would agree with that.
	I think you have to give up.
	The use of force to have a civilized relationship, or the threat of the use of force to have a civilized relationship.
	People don't like how far that extends.
	If you count religious indoctrination, particularly hell, as verbal abuse, and if you count statism as the threat of physical abuse, well, yeah, it stretches out pretty far, but that's not exactly my fault.
	I mean, I didn't invent the state or religion.
	So, yeah, you will hear that too, right?
	So, oh, so I'm not allowed to disagree with you on anything.
	Or a trick that people use.
	So if somebody becomes a fan of free domain radio or anything.
	I mean, this was the trick that was used on me when I was a fan of objectivism.
	It's like, oh, so you just agree with everything Ayn Rand says.
	And the implications of that, of course, are very clear.
	That you don't think for yourself.
	That you're not processing anything objectively.
	You're not looking at the evidence.
	You're just swallowing, like gospel, whatever this smoky Russian goddess of reason puts out.
	And that is a huge insult, of course, to one's own personal integrity and intellectual curiosity.
	There was stuff that I disagreed with Ayn Rand from the beginning.
	I thought her position on homosexuals was pretty primitive.
	Not wildly primitive, given where she came from in life, but I thought that was kind of primitive.
	Even back in the day, I didn't really agree with her dismissal of anarchism.
	I mean, because You know, a one-line dismissal of complex philosophy is usually pretty amateurish, and also because it's pretty hard to avoid noticing that her portrayal of an ideal society is called Gulch near the end of Atlas Shrugged, and in it there is no government.
	And so it's a little hard to think of her as a statist when her ideal society has no government in it.
	Anyway, that's just something to point out.
	But yeah, so people would say, oh, so you disagree with everything.
	It's like, and to me, I mean, people can say whatever they want, but the correct answer is, well, I agree with things that are true, and if things are spoken that have good arguments and evidence, then I will accept them.
	And I don't know what your standard is, but that's my standard, right?
	Right, and I don't even know how to respond to somebody that says that, because then I just feel insulted.
	At that point, you know, I don't even know if it's even...
	There's even a complaint even talking to that person anymore.
	Yeah, I mean, there's, you know, because they're trying to get you into the situation where you have to say about all the stuff you disagree with.
	And, you know, that's just The standard of truth is not whether people agree with me or not.
	I mean, that's not a standard of truth.
	I don't have any standard of truth called I said so, or I have stated.
	I mean, what a ridiculous thing that would be.
	It would be to say that I can make things true by saying them.
	I mean, that's insane, right?
	I mean, hopefully I have good arguments and good evidence, and hopefully when I don't, I will correct myself.
	But, yeah, it's to say that if If some mathematician has put out a proof, right?
	So it's sort of like going to a mathematician and saying, oh, you just accept everything that is proven by Euclidean geometry.
	It's like, well, yeah, because it's proven, right?
	I mean, yeah, of course, it's proven.
	So you just accept, because some guy said that 2 plus 2 makes 4, you just accept it.
	It's like, no, I accept it because 2 and 2 make 4.
	The fact that somebody said it is irrelevant.
	It's the argument that counts, not who said it.
	So bringing in someone said it is a red herring and a trick designed to get you to distance yourself from whatever you treasure or value.
	And so you can just say, well, if things are true, I tend to accept them.
	You know, if I break my arm and then the doctor shows me an x-ray of a broken arm and he says, your arm is broken, I'm going to listen to what, I'm going to accept what the doctor says, because it hurts, I can see the break, and he's a doctor.
	So, oh, so you just accept everything that your doctor says about your arm.
	It's like, but there's evidence and reason and my, it throbs like a son of a bitch, so I'm in.
	Right? So, yeah, it's trying to, it's trying to, it's doing a trick which substitutes the fact that someone said something for whether it's true or not.
	So, and I just wanted to mention that.
	Right. Well, I wanted to hear all your thoughts about that.
	I'm feeling much more clear on why I have irritation, I think.
	Yeah, I mean, you can just ask someone, well, what's your standard of truth, though?
	Anything like that. Right.
	Those are things that can be useful, but definitely stay away from Because, you know, do you agree with Steph because he says, like, do you agree with everything Steph says?
	It's like, I don't agree with anything Steph says.
	I mean, hopefully nobody agrees with the damn thing that I say.
	Because the important thing is not that I'm saying it.
	Everybody, like, lots of people say lots of stuff, right?
	Right. I mean, I hopefully will say things that can be verified either logically or empirically or both, but that's about it.
	Right, and that's kind of what I, what I, Trying to say, to explain what my position is, and it's just like, I don't want you to agree with me, I want you to agree with reality, with the evidence, with truth.
	Yeah, and all the person, sorry, all the person is doing is they're confessing that there was someone in their past who made them agree because they said so, right?
	When I say jump, you say how high, right?
	So all they're saying is that someone in the past gave me a standard called truth is what I say.
	And that's the only way that I can judge it emotionally and so I'm just going to try and use that on you to see if I can get away from questions or arguments that are making me anxious.
	Well, thank you.
	You are welcome. That's a great question.
	A great, great question and I hope that it's been helpful.
	And nice to hear from you again. Oh yeah, nice to hear from you.
	Alright. Alright, we have time for, do you know more questions?
	Hello? Hello.
	Hello, Stefan?
	Hi. Hi, how's it going?
	Not too bad. I just wanted to ask a question.
	It's something I've been dealing with and thinking about for a long time.
	And you look at a lot of my influences from my father, a very learned person.
	I find it touching on many different subjects with the monetary system that's happened and the things that are happening in the world.
	I grew up in my younger years in the 70s.
	I was a child and teenagers in the early 80s.
	And now you see this world changing in such a way.
	But my father, prior to his death last year, he said this thing that He looked at people, he says human beings, people, the only thing that we do is we emote.
	We, sorry, we do what?
	We emote. We emote, okay.
	We emote, that it is the one thing that drives everything, that like an idea, a thought, has no power without an emotion to back it.
	It is empty. Once we back it with an emotion, We get the drive to discover through discovery of new things right from birth almost throughout our learnative years and how in formative years it's all driven by emotion.
	And even your decision-making process is how we decide what is right and wrong is based on an emotional response as kind of I wanted to pass that by you, your thoughts.
	Huh. Your father does sound like a very wise and learned man, and I'm sorry about your last year.
	I'm not. I'm not sorry, but thank you.
	And I understand that it is part of life.
	And it kind of goes with...
	The loss is mine, right?
	And it's not...
	He's not feeling any more pain any now.
	My loss is my own. It's my emotional response to not having him around.
	Right. No, but he sounds like a wife, an enjoyable man.
	He was, and he did have the side of his self that was, he would say, reprehensible, and at least he got beyond it throughout his life.
	Now, the reason why I kind of wanted to get your opinion on that is because it kind of goes with this other thought that I think through some of the things I've listened to on some of your podcasts, And I must admit that I haven't listened to a lot.
	There's so many of them. You're so prolific, which is great.
	And was that because of this value, this thing that we emote, and it drives everything that we do.
	And that is the source of true value.
	That is where all value exists.
	And through that value, we have Used through different machinations, which is representing that value, and that gets to where we have this monetary system in the world that exists today, where it is so unbalanced,
	and nobody realizes that the value that these Wall Street, City of London, Bay Street, wherever your street is, where the financial world is, is where true value is traded and openly stolen.
	But we don't have a connection.
	That's where the value comes back because it really comes back to you and I and everybody else in the world where the value comes from.
	I became an electrician because this is where life led me this way.
	I made decisions where opportunities came.
	I worked for 24 years doing nothing, earning less than $24,000 a year and to realize the necessity to improve my value to others That was what led me to take this opportunity.
	I'm kind of digressing now.
	What I was saying was that our emotions drives us.
	I can't seem to...
	I'm trying to see if I can find somebody who would understand whether I'm being subjective or objective, whether there is something more.
	I think I understand too that reason is like an operator.
	It's like an equal sign.
	It's like a comparative, I think.
	I'm not sure whether you get me on that.
	No, I think I do. There's some kind of equation there, right?
	I don't know. You've got attractiveness and you've got repulsion.
	They're kind of like a standard positive and negative.
	You can look at love and hate as being representative of either one of those two things.
	Do you know what I'm saying? I can get on what you're saying.
	I think I see where you're coming from.
	Let me see if I can unravel it a little bit.
	And tell me if it's what you're talking about.
	Yes, I absolutely agree that desire is at the root of just about everything.
	And, you know, again, not to be an annoying parent guy, but you notice that when you have kids, that desire is driving everything.
	Everything. I don't know, if somebody changed my diapers and gave me milk every three hours, I'm not sure I'd be heavily motivated to do much, but my daughter is quite the opposite.
	She wants to do everything by herself.
	She wants to learn new things.
	She's in the process of learning her alphabet.
	She's got about half the alphabet down.
	In the process of learning how to sing all of her songs and she'll keep singing them over and over until she gets them pitch perfect and she's in the process of learning.
	She wants to do a somersault all by herself.
	She wants to jump from the couch all by herself.
	She wants to learn. And this is strong desire.
	And this was from day two that she was born.
	She always wanted to be carried and always wanted to be walked around.
	She never wanted us to sit down.
	And then when she got older, the first thing that all children learn how to do is point.
	And my daughter, and I think this is pretty common, she would make a sound.
	She'd go, when she wanted something, she'd point when she wanted something.
	And so desire was driving her exploration of the world.
	It's driving her desire to master her body and her abilities and her environment.
	And she's really only interested in things that she can manipulate.
	She doesn't care about things that are far away.
	She cares about things that she thinks that she can do, things that she can manipulate.
	And I don't think that changes much in life.
	Now, that having been said, there are, to me, two fundamental categories of desire, and it's important to differentiate between the two of them.
	The first is desire for a subjective goal, right?
	So somebody wants to be an actor and somebody wants to be an accountant, right?
	Two brothers. Well, no one, I think, is going to say that either one of those goals is good or bad.
	Well, right or wrong, I have a desire to be an accountant.
	And I have a desire to be an actor.
	Those are desires, and they're not objective.
	They are subjective preferences.
	Now, of course, if somebody says, I want to be an actor, so I'm going to enroll in accounting school, or somebody says, I want to be an accountant, so I'm going to enroll in improv school, You know, that would not be a rational way of achieving those ends.
	So those are those desires, right?
	The desires for things which give you satisfaction and pleasure in your life that are subjective, which is not to say unimportant.
	So those are one set of desires.
	The other sets of desires are desires for things that are objective.
	And that's very different.
	That's a very, very different category.
	So if I say I have a desire for the truth, That is very different from saying I have a desire to be an actor.
	If I have a desire for the truth, I am no longer stating a purely subjective preference.
	I am stating a sort of subjective preference for something that is objective.
	So if I'm an engineer and I say I want this bridge to stay up, it's not quite the same as saying I want to be an engineer.
	Because now I have an objective standard.
	If I am a scientist and say, I want this theory, I want my hypothesis and testing and theorizing to turn out to be valid, well, I'm saying something quite different than, I like ice cream.
	And so when your desires are pointed at something that is objective and measurable and tangible and reality-based, that's a very, very different thing than a subjective desire, you know, I like this band or I like that style of music or I like this kind of food.
	And I think the differentiating between those two is very important.
	And people mix those two up all the time.
	And it's really, really important to keep these two piles very separate in our heads.
	Okay, so... Is that anywhere close to what you were saying?
	I just sort of wanted to see if I got anywhere close.
	In terms of, like, if I were to say to you, I think the only thing that people, human beings, do is emote.
	Is that a subjective thing?
	Well, no, no, because look, I mean, that's like saying that the only things that people have are emotion.
	Well, that's not true. That's not true.
	And we know that that's not true because there are other animals, other species that have emotion.
	I'm not saying not. I'm not saying not.
	Of course, I mean, like you can see the same thing in animals.
	We can't understand them. They don't talk to us.
	Tell me what you mean by the word emotion.
	Well, like that...
	That is like the crux, I think.
	Your everyday life is governed by your emotions to do something.
	As a teenager, your father tells you you better achieve in school, otherwise you won't achieve the goals.
	They're trying to direct you.
	My emotional desires were to music, so I concentrated on playing guitar and hanging out with friends to play guitar.
	I didn't spend so much time worrying about what school was all about.
	It was like an emotional decision.
	Your desires are governed by your emotions.
	It seems that all these problems in the world and the problems that you have, even when you're responding with people, Right.
	Sorry to interrupt, but emotions are not irreducible primaries, right?
	So sensations, I think, are pretty irreducible, right?
	So if I stick a fork in your arm, God help me, you're going to feel some pain and that's not really up to you.
	But emotions...
	Yeah, but emotions are not irreducible primaries because the relationship between emotion and thought, emotion and perspective is considerable, right?
	So if you change somebody's perspective, over time their emotions will usually change to go along with that.
	And so emotions are not just these irreducible things like the bones in our legs.
	You know, there's not a lot we can do with them other than, I guess, eat some calcium and take care of them by exercising.
	Those are sort of irreducible things.
	And like how tall we're going to be, it's kind of irreducible.
	It is what it is. But emotions and thoughts and feelings are much more complex than that.
	And, you know, if you change people's way of thinking, you can change the way that their emotions respond to those thoughts.
	Well, you know, music does that, right?
	I mean, you can play an opera or you can play Tchaikovsky.
	A military march is designed to peak your emotions, to drive you in a thought pattern that is prescribed by whether you're in the military or whether you're standing in the line in the 1940s to Nazi Germany and having to chant in order to raise your hand and say, the music is pushing your emotions, which is pushing your reactions.
	If you don't have control of your emotions, then you're abdicating it to somebody or somebody else.
	So your reason...
	Sorry to interrupt, but those are back to...
	Like music is a sensation.
	It's not a thought.
	And so I think you're right.
	Sensations can drive emotion.
	I mean, if you stub your toe, you're frustrated and upset.
	You're emotional. You're stubbing your toe is your physical sensation of pain, which results in an emotional state.
	But there are thoughts Which can substantially alter emotional responses.
	And for instance, right, you gave me an example of this right at the beginning of our conversation when I said I'm sorry about your dad's loss and you said I'm not.
	Well the typical response is yes, I am sorry for my loss with my dad dying last year and so on, but you've obviously gone through a thought process which has changed your emotional response from the typical or from the norm, right?
	So that would be an example. Well, yeah, I mean, I've lost somebody I care about, and I'm looking for people who he guided my life in many ways, and I ran from him.
	I pushed him away at one time, too, but not to say that.
	It's just that my emotional responses to his or anybody's inflections upon me, whether they're being direct or with physical, emotional, they're all my emotional responses, and therefore I cannot abdicate them to that person or to this thing.
	It is my decision to act in a negative way or a positive way for my benefits.
	An emotional response to say somebody's...
	I mean, as a child, children don't understand this.
	I didn't understand it when I was this way.
	My emotions... I keep control of my emotions.
	Depending on how I react, And guide my emotions.
	I can either make things worse or better.
	Right. So I think we're on the same wavelength or on the same page then as far as saying that there are certain people and all they do is emote, but that's just the unexamined life, right?
	That's just like saying, well, people who judge food by only how it tastes on their tongue, they don't eat very well.
	Because, you know, food that's not great for you often tastes better than food that is good for you.
	And so, yeah, if you don't know anything about nutrition and you just go on taste, Yeah, unfortunately, if you just go without any knowledge of nutrition or any knowledge of healthful eating, Then you're just going to eat.
	So yeah, there are some people who just eat badly because they just go by taste and there are other people who eat better because they go with greater knowledge.
	So I wouldn't say that all human beings do with emote, but there are certainly some people who react emotionally and without thinking.
	This is what Plato said.
	Unexamined life is not worth living because it's really hard to say if you're alive in that kind of situation.
	Listen, we're sort of running out of time here.
	I just wanted to...
	No problem. I know it's around 4 o'clock, right?
	Yeah, yeah. So listen, great, great comments and questions.
	I think these are all very, very important and interesting things to ask about.
	And I, you know, as always, I mean, I'm just so impressed about the questions and comments that people are coming into this show with.
	I mean, it's just fantastic, fantastic, fantastic.
	So yeah, we're just coming up at the end of the hour, and I really wanted to thank everyone for Your support, for your encouragement, for your positive responses, for all of these kinds of great things that are going on in this conversation.
	It is a truly thrilling honor to be part of this conversation.
	And thank you to everyone who's writing and supporting the show in a variety of ways.
	It makes absolutely the world a difference, I think, to the world to have this kind of conversation in it.
	I think it is a better place to have this conversation in it.
	And to everyone who's participating, please take a bow.

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