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July 10, 2011 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:50:38

1948 Freedomain Radio Sunday Show 10 July 2011

Is spanking so bad? A con never has a post-mortem - and dealing with economic collapse when you're poor.

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	Hi, everybody. It's Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
	I hope that you're doing very well.
	This is the intro to the Sunday call-in show, 2 p.m.
	Eastern Standard Time. That would be Sundays.
	It's July the 10th, 2011.
	Just a few points of business.
	If you would like to sign up to see Peter Schiff is coming and Tom Woods is coming and Adam Kokesh is coming and I will be helping clean up their crumbs at lunchtime.
	And I also may be doing a little speech.
	Actually, I will be doing a speech at the Liberty Fest 2 in New York City, lfnyc.com.
	You can get discounts.
	I'll post them on the Free Domain Radio Message Board.
	And I hope that you will come by.
	Very, very important to support these conferences.
	And I think it's well worth coming to see people.
	Because most of the speakers, and I certainly will be there all weekend.
	So if you want to have a chance to chat, sit down, have a coffee.
	I would love to, always love to meet the readers.
	So I hope you'll come by for that. So, News of the World, one of the worst newspapers on record, although a really great Queen album from the 1970s, News of the World has bitten the dust.
	And what I think is interesting about this is the reason that they've gone out of business is because they hacked into some cell phones of some people.
	And I guess grab their voicemail messages or text messages or something like that.
	And this was considered egregious enough that the population roused themselves from their torpid slumber, rebelled against this malfeasance of journalistic integrity and have forced Rupert Murdoch to, well not forced, encouraged Rupert Murdoch to close down the paper.
	It's very interesting when you think about it.
	The advertisers have pulled because of general horror and this is why this tabloid Ears with the toast, it sleeps with the fishes.
	What's fascinating about this is that this newspaper put itself forward as a friend of the troops, but blindly swallowed and reproduced and amplified the government propaganda about not one, but two completely unnecessary wars, of course, that England got themselves involved in after 9-11.
	And this doesn't speak so much to the integrity of the journalists, because that's like speaking about the flight capacities of snails.
	But what it does do is it speaks to the general ethics of the general public.
	That the general public cheers and supports the newspaper when it blatantly reproduces very obvious lies about WMDs and the motivations for England to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
	People are a-okay with that.
	They support it, they cheer it, and they continue to buy it.
	But hack into a few cell phones and suddenly the mob turns ugly and the advertisers flee in panic and the newspaper sighs and falls over.
	Really quite fascinating. If you look at the general category of human crimes, the million-plus Murders and the many millions of dislocations, the shattering of an entire society, the deaths of millions of children through malnutrition and lack of access to medical care that have characterized the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
	It's sort of in one category of moral crime that this newspaper supported and encouraged and amplified.
	Hacking into a cell phone would not seem to me to be in the same or in a higher category of moral egregiousness, but the British public in their moral wisdom and understanding have felt otherwise.
	It's just a snapshot.
	You know, society and morality move very fast, but every now and then you get a flashbulb stop-motion photography moment where you look at the true ethics of the species and It's pretty stomach-turning.
	Here's another one that I think is interesting.
	So a researcher, a professor of psychology at Southern Methodist University, who's published five books on parenting and child development, he went to daycares in Dallas to recruit parents, and he said, listen, I'm just going to record general parent-child interactions.
	I'm not looking for anything in particular.
	But he did exclude parents who...
	He said that they never yelled at their kids, and he said there really weren't very many of those at all.
	But he said he wanted to study yelling via voluntary audio recordings of parents conducting life at home.
	The pedestrian stuff of parenting like meal prep, bath time and lights out, and so on.
	So, in the course of analyzing the data collected from 37 families, 36 mothers and one father, all of whom recorded up to 36 hours of audio and six days of study, Researchers heard the sharp cracks and dull thuds of spanking, followed in some cases by minutes of crying, then inadvertently captured evidence of corporal punishment as well as the tense moments before and the resolution after, leading researchers to believe they'd amassed the first ever cache of real-time spanking data.
	The recordings feature a mother spanking her three-year-old son 11 times for fighting with his sister, prompting a fit of crying and coughing.
	Another mom hits her five-year-old when he won't clean up his room.
	One mom slaps her child when he doesn't cooperate with the bedtime routine.
	Yet it's likely that the mothers in the study didn't consider spanking to be problematic parenting.
	In the 90s, Holden conducted research that showed 70% of college-educated women spank their children.
	Other studies have found that up to 90% of all parents use corporal punishment.
	Which is, of course, spanking and corporal punishment, just metaphors for hitting.
	You can't be ten times somebody's size and hit them, and then use a euphemism with any sense of realism.
	So, in one truly tragic example, and remember, this is parents who know that they're being recorded.
	So this is not behavior that they're ashamed of or feel as negative, and probably they limited their aggression because of the recordings.
	But in one instance, that was truly heartbreaking.
	A mom was reading to her son, who was I think three or four, and her son was moving, turning the pages too fast for his mother to keep up.
	And she slapped him.
	Slapped him. Almost all parenting experts Reject the value of spanking and scientifically it's associated with significant behavioral problems and rebellion, low at IQ points, higher incidence of aggression.
	It's incredibly destructive towards children.
	But very few parenting experts will come out against spanking clearly.
	When you have parenting books, they will dodge the question of spanking because it's just so volatile.
	But to me, it's very simple.
	It's very simple. And anyone with A tenth of an ounce of moral empathy and compassion and integrity will understand this, that the non-aggression principle applies first and foremost to children.
	The non-aggression principle, wrote, applies first and foremost to children.
	And if your children are hitting other children, you have to ask them, you have to ask yourselves, why?
	There was a Dr.
	Phil recently, blew my mind, Where a dad whose 14-year-old daughter was acting out, was being aggressive and problematic.
	And when, I guess, Dr.
	Phil's team interviewed the teachers, sorry, interviewed the family, they found the following behaviors on the part of the father.
	That he had hit her hard enough to cause deep bruising, of which there were photographs.
	That he had hit her hard enough to cause facial bleeding through the nose, and that he had choked her hard enough while holding her up against a wall that she had lost consciousness.
	Dr. Phil actually said to the parents, I know that you are loving, concerned parents.
	Just picture saying that to a victim of spousal abuse.
	He's got some husband who's twice the size of his wife, who's beaten her up regularly, screamed at her, and the father admitted to calling his daughter a bitch, a cunt, I think it was.
	It's hard to say because they bleeped out the word, but I'm pretty sure that's what it was.
	And other words that were just staggeringly abusive.
	Imagine that there's a husband twice the size of a wife Had beaten her nose bloody, had put bruises on her, choked her into unconsciousness, and then someone saying to the husband, I know that you're an attentive and loving husband who deeply cares about his wife.
	It's unimaginable, but we're still, the distance is almost interstellar.
	We are still so far from being able to see children as moral equivalents to human beings and to adults, and I would absolutely and actively argue that children should have a far higher Status of moral protection than any adult because of their tender youth and the effects that their parents and teachers and preachers have had upon them.
	And it really is truly staggering to see what is going on in society about all of this.
	And I hope, I hope that if you're a parent, you will visit nospank.net or look at my philosophical parenting podcasts or whatever resource you need so that you do not raise your voice and you do not hit your children.
	I know that parents say that children can be frustrating.
	I don't find it myself.
	I mean, I don't find it.
	I think my daughter is a complete delight to spend time with, and the idea of yelling at her or hitting her is just astonishing to me.
	But I know that parents, but really, I mean, if you want your children to be mature, right, then you need to be mature yourself.
	If you want your children to avoid violence and to shun aggression, then you need to avoid violence and shun aggression yourself, as verbal or physical.
	You know, if you want your kids to eat vegetables, you need to eat vegetables, right?
	If you want your children to be peaceful, you need to be peaceful.
	They learn what they see, not what they hear.
	They learn what they feel, not what they listen to.
	And then you will be rewarded with, I think, some just truly delightful behavior.
	My daughter, she's so funny.
	And I don't mean funny like, you know, it's so cute, she mistakes words or whatever.
	I mean, that's funny and cute too, but because she's I think 35 pounds now, you know, you get some clothes on her and if you're carrying her on your hip, it can take quite a while.
	Sorry, when you're walking for quite a while, you can get sort of tiring.
	And so I'm sort of saying to her, oh, Booncakes, you're so heavy.
	Oh, you don't have to walk for a while because she's a real laugh baby.
	She loves to be in my arms or my wife's arms.
	And so I'm sort of saying this to her, oh, it's so heavy.
	Anyway, so the other day, She wanted to be picked up on Walking Back from the Park.
	And then I picked her up and she looked at me for a moment and then she threw her head back and she said, oh, Dana, Isabella's so heavy.
	Oh, I'm so heavy.
	Oh, my goodness, I'm so heavy.
	In a perfect imitation, like tone-perfect imitation of what I say.
	And this truly made me just fall down laughing.
	It was just so funny.
	And she's doing that stuff quite a bit. I think she's got a delicious sense of humor and is a fantastic mimic.
	And they really are a small mirror held up to your own nature.
	So... I hope that that is held out a little bit as a reward for parents who give up on aggression, just that wonderfully playful kind of interaction with your children.
	I'm sure you have that as well, but I think you'll have it even more and more consistently, so I hope that is encouraging to parents.
	And thank you to all the parents who write to me to say that they've given up on aggression as a result of what I've talked about.
	I mean, that's just an incredible honor, and I massively admire, respect, and praise.
	I would kiss the feet Of those parents, yea, verily, though they had walked through the valley of poopoo, I would kiss their feet for the service that they're doing to the world, to their children, to the future, and to the peace of this planet.
	So thank you everybody so much.
	We will now go to the listeners. I hope you're having a wonderful week, Albert.
	Don't you think? Hello, you're on the air.
	Hello. Hi.
	Hey, Steph, how you doing?
	I'm great, man. How you doing?
	I'm doing good. No, I just had a really quick question.
	You know how, well, it's no surprise that the economy is so bad and everything, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, and I live in a very, very rural town, you know, so there's probably like three or four jobs out here, so, you know, I haven't been able to really define one, but after a while, because, I don't know, I shot you an email, and I don't know if you got it, but you can hear me all right, right?
	Yes, sir. Okay.
	Yeah, I shot you an email, and...
	Yeah, I've been really wanting to get out of here, out of my house, and so the only way to do it was to get a lot of money saved up and go, you know?
	So what I did was, I just went door to door and I put signs up, and I actually got pretty good.
	I've got like five jobs, six jobs going, so I've been actually making some pretty good coins, but my question is, because I can't really leave until a year from now, because I'm still only 17, so my question is, Since the economy is so bad, do you think that, is there any way that, because like my biggest fear right now is since I've saved up all this money doing all this hard work, I would hate for the economy just to crash, you know, before I was able to get out of here.
	Right. Sorry, can you just remind me what your question is in case I missed it?
	Oh, is there any way that the economy is going to like, I mean, of course you can't tell the future, but I mean, does it seem, because I've listened to Doug Casey and everything, but Does it seem that the economy is going to crash within the next year or get worse?
	Because, as I said, I would hate to save up for this whole year working and then it would just be wasted.
	Yeah, look, I mean, this is a big question and I really want to commend you on your intelligence and involvement in these serious topics, especially at the age of 17.
	I think that's wonderful and I think that's going to serve you very well in life.
	And this is a tough question because, of course, a lot of the advice that is given to people about the economic situation is sort of based on having a lot of money, right?
	It's like, well, you should take your investment income and split it between gold and bonds and stocks and cash and buy some silver as a hedge.
	And it's like, yeah, okay, but, you know, if I've got a paper route and three pop bottles, that doesn't do me much good, right?
	So... So I agree with you that it is scary.
	I think that there is a significant risk of economic problems over the next year, for sure.
	I mean, August the 2nd, they're talking about a default on the debt, right?
	And already 30% of the taxes that are being paid by Americans are going to the debt just from Bush and Obama, right?
	It's an accelerating thing.
	There's The deficit is in the trillions, and they're talking about the most radical proposition that I've seen that's been put forward is to cut $2 trillion from the deficit in a 10-year plan.
	And that is with the most virulent anti-government party, like the Tea Party, that's been around...
	Since the beginning. Now, of course, the Tea Party guys are all getting sucked into the same government trough as everyone else, right?
	So they haven't diminished their demands for federal money to be poured into their district, of course, using the argument that money comes from the people and there's nothing wrong with getting it back and so on.
	The problem with that argument...
	Of course, is that somebody's going to have to lose out.
	Somebody's going to have to make sacrifices.
	And if it's not the constituents of the people who voted in, like if it's not constituents of the politicians who were voted in on an anti-big government platform, who are willing to take the hit and lead the way, Then they have no right really to say to public sector workers, you need to take cuts if they're lining up at the same trough, right? I mean, if they're elbowing the public sector workers aside from the government trough saying, you guys get away, it's my turn, then it's really tough to say that trough should be taken away.
	Some people need to heroically stand back from the government trough.
	And stop taking government money, and then they gain the moral right to criticize those who do.
	But that's none of the Tea Party congressmen or women that I've read about, though there may be some.
	They're all getting their earmarks in.
	And they have all the justifications in the world, and I understand that.
	But it's still just an enormous stinking pile of political bullshit and just another reason why political action isn't going to save or solve anything.
	So... I mean, the young person's guide to a tough economy, the only thing that I can suggest, my friend, is that the one thing that will retain its value through any currency collapse is your knowledge base, your skills, your human capital, right? In being young, right?
	So you don't have a family yet, or at least I assume you don't.
	You don't have car payments.
	You don't have student debt as yet.
	You have a lot of flexibility.
	You might be able to travel and go to where the jobs are.
	But what I would suggest to young people who are facing this kind of danger, and I say this as a guy who's, I've gone through a number of recessions myself.
	When I graduated from college in the 90s, it was a terrible recession.
	I couldn't get jobs even as a waiter, which I had significant experience in.
	I ended up like weeding people's gardens and just crap like that for cash.
	It was just wretched and this is with a pretty good education.
	The only thing that I can suggest is, you know, gain portable skills.
	Gain portable skills. Gain portable skills.
	Learn how to negotiate.
	Read books on negotiation.
	If you can pick up some computer skills, I would strongly suggest picking up Computer skills of any kind.
	I mean, if it's coding or web work or graphics or anything that's portable.
	I think that's really, really helpful.
	Understand the economy.
	Public speaking. See, public speaking is something that I think every philosopher should study.
	Every libertarian should study.
	Because public speaking is a huge barrier to a lot of people.
	People are terrified of public speaking.
	And I can understand that.
	I'm not a huge fan of it myself, but it's something that you kind of got to do for the cause, I think.
	So if you feel comfortable with public speaking, you can read books about it, you can practice, you can join Toastmasters, then automatically your human capital has gone up considerably because very few people want to do that and therefore you can get jobs in sales or jobs doing presentations or something like that.
	So to me it's just all about you need to maximize the value of the grey matter between your ears.
	Try and get as much value In the world, you know, study economics, study business, really understand the environment, study sales.
	You just pick up books on sales.
	I've been reading books on sales since I was a teenager and that hugely helped me when I went into doing sales to big corporations around the world as a software executive.
	I didn't know at the time that I was finding valuable stuff, but I did.
	You know, pick up books on mediation and conflict resolution and all these kinds of things.
	And put all these things on your resume.
	I've studied this. I've studied that.
	I've studied the other. So that people see that you're an active knowledge seeker who's willing to study ahead of the necessity or requirement.
	Right, right. Sorry, go ahead.
	No, no. All I was going to say was you said public speaking.
	As a matter of fact, I was planning on moving to L.A. to become a motivational speaker because I just love speaking.
	Like right now, I'm reading a book by Jack Volante called Speak Up With Confidence.
	So I'm definitely in that range.
	But go ahead. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you.
	No, it's not an interruption.
	It's your show. So I think those are all great things.
	And practice this stuff.
	Seriously. And put it on YouTube and invite critiques back so that you can improve what it is that you're doing.
	Don't just read a book and assume you get it, right?
	So you've really got to practice this stuff and push the envelope.
	And, you know, I think as a public speaker, it's always important that you keep trying new stuff and you keep trying different stuff, right?
	So I've dipped my toe into doing a little bit of libertarian stand-up comedy before my shows.
	In my last speech at Porkfest, I did a Raise the Roof, Come to Jesus speech, where I really tried letting go in terms of passion.
	And I think it's really important to just keep trying new things, get feedback on it, see how it works.
	But whatever you can do...
	To increase your human capital, that I think is the best way to hedge against economic difficulties when you're young and don't have a lot of money.
	So that's my suggestion.
	I hope that's any kind of help.
	Oh yeah, it definitely did.
	It definitely did. You understand, right?
	I just had a big fear because I've been saving up for a while and I just hate for it to all go to waste.
	Oh, I hear you. Yeah, the work I'm doing isn't just like, you know, standing on a cash register or anything.
	I'm like, you know, using chainsaws, axes, you know, just all this hard, hard work.
	So, I mean, it would just be like a total, total, feel like a failure.
	But it wouldn't be a failure, I know.
	But, you know, it still would feel like it if that were to happen.
	No, I understand.
	And it may happen, right?
	So, inflation or a collapse in the stock market is going to eradicate good portions of people's savings.
	And that is very dangerous for a society as a whole.
	So yeah, I completely understand.
	I would also suggest that you apply for a passport if you can.
	Not because I think you should leave the country, but it's better to have one and not need it than need it and not have one.
	So I would definitely suggest that as a strategy, and that leaves you some options open if you need to.
	So, I don't know, let's say there's nothing going on around where you are, but you can get a job teaching English in China for a while.
	Well, you'll need a passport for that.
	So... So I would suggest that as well.
	It's not too expensive. And I think they're 10 years or something.
	So it's definitely a worthwhile investment to have that available for you just in case there is no opportunities where you are, but there may be some overseas that, you know, for a young man, I think is a lot of fun.
	There's, you know, strange things that you need to do to make money when you're young.
	One of the things, as I've mentioned before in the show that I did, I went to work as a gold panner and a prospector up north.
	And that was great for me because they paid all of my expenses when I was living in a tent in the bush and just deposited money into my bank account at home.
	And that way I had a good deal of cash when it came time to go to college.
	But I spent like 18 months or more in the bush.
	And that was pretty hard living, I'll tell you that, you know, when it's minus 50 outside and you're in a tent.
	You do sometimes wonder if there aren't easier ways to earn a buck.
	But I think just do things that are unusual.
	That was very weird for me.
	I mean, I've always been a city boy.
	What do I know about this stuff?
	But, you know, I was able to go and do this damn hard work, but exhilarating work.
	And I got to see some beautiful sights and got to ride in helicopters and do all kinds of cool things to go and look for gold.
	So, yeah, just keep your eyes peeled.
	Work your connections. You know, stay friends with people.
	Stay friends with your parents and your parents' friends and anybody who may have any kind of job opportunities.
	Maybe not if you're in a small town, but, you know, hook into people on the internet.
	Use LinkedIn. Use whatever it is that you can find to make sure that you get your feelers out so that when you say to people, listen, I'm looking for a job, they've, A, had positive interactions with you.
	B, they respect your skill set.
	And C, they like you enough to want to help.
	I think those things are always useful.
	Yeah. All right. Well, I appreciate it, Stephanie.
	You're welcome and best of luck.
	It is an exciting time and I certainly wish you the best of luck in achieving what it is that you want in your life.
	Thank you, sir. Alright, now we've had, and this is interesting, there is, somebody says, I spanked my boys at times when they were young and now at 31 and 33 they are very gentle.
	And kind people. How could that happen?
	This is a great, great question.
	And I completely understand where Solmath, his name is, which is actually a pretty great name, Solmath is coming from.
	That is a great question.
	Because it is kind of mysterious.
	And you can have, within the same family, two brothers, even close in age, who take very different paths.
	I myself may be considered an example of that, too.
	It's a great question. The answer, I believe, lies in a pretty new field, which, of course, my usual caveat, I'm scarcely an expert on, called epigenetics.
	Now, epigenetics is interesting, because in the past, or at least the way I understood genetics when I was growing up, was something like this.
	You know, you get your DNA from your mom and from your dad, and that is your genetics.
	And then you go into life and your genetics are fixed.
	They are like the bedrock, the foundation of your house.
	You may be able to paint a room, but you can't change the foundation.
	And that has turned out to be quite not true.
	The fascinating thing about genetics is that they are constantly turning on and turning off based upon environments, based upon circumstance, based upon experience, based upon the resources available in the world.
	So, for example, there's a particular gene.
	What do I know the name of it?
	And they found that, researchers found that 100% of boys who had this gene and who experienced significant physical abuse went on to become criminals of one kind or another.
	And, of course, if you don't have that particular gene, And you experience physical abuse, then you may not go that way.
	And this is not to say that genes, you know, rule our lives so that we're determined by our genes because there are choices that we can make that influence how our genes behave.
	But I think it's really important to understand that if you say, well, nobody's arguing that all spanking produces criminals.
	These are all tendencies. These are all trends.
	And so what?
	That's, you know, it's because we don't know the risk ahead of time that we have to refrain from these behaviors, right?
	So if you're a smoker, if you knew you were going to get hit by a bus in six months, you probably wouldn't quit smoking.
	Why would you want to quit smoking if you're going to get hit by a bus in six months?
	But the reason you quit smoking is you don't know how long you're going to live.
	You don't know whether you're going to get hit by a bus or whether you're going to Have some other issue happen or whether you're going to get lung cancer and die.
	So it's this very uncertainty that makes these behaviors so important.
	So yeah, it's true. You may spank your children and they may not exhibit increases in aggression.
	Now you say that your kids are very gentle and nice, your adult kids, and that of course can be the other factor.
	So if you hit your children, they may become very compliant.
	They may not have the So to speak, to question or criticize or oppose the status quo and to contribute in the kickstart bicycle forward lunge movement of improvement of the species.
	So they may be overly conformist if they've been hit.
	And so for sure, hitting has some effect.
	And of course, all parents who hit know that hitting has some effect, otherwise they wouldn't do it.
	But it's impossible to know what the long-term effects are with any certainty for any individual when it comes to being spanked, just as it's impossible to say with certainty that anybody who smokes daily is going to die of cancer.
	George Burns lived to be over 100 and smoked a cigar a day, and there are lots of other examples of people who lived a long time who were smokers and who were drinkers and who had bad health habits and so on.
	So it's the unknown, right?
	So if you look back in hindsight, Right?
	So, if you look back in hindsight and you say, well, spanking didn't have any negative effect on your children.
	Well, you can't say that for certain.
	You can't say that for certain because you don't know how your children would have been without spanking.
	Now, if them being nice and gentle and kind and so on is an ideal for you, then I guess you help them to get there as a parent, but that may not be their ideal.
	It may not be their ideal Expression of their own personality.
	Maybe they had a bit more oomph and kick in them before it was spanked out of them that would have been very important to them as a human being to have that kind of energy, to have that kind of Randall Patrick McMurphy in your face resistance that may be more natural to them.
	But for parents to say, I spanked my kids and they turned out fine, or I was spanked and I turned out fine, is the exact same As a smoker saying to me, well, I'm 80 and I'm fine.
	So there's nothing wrong with smoking.
	Well, you're not fine.
	You're not fine. You're lucky.
	You're lucky. And you only know that by the time you reach 80.
	And if you don't know that because you died of lung cancer at 55, then you weren't so lucky.
	All of the old smokers who say to me smoking is fine, not that any of them do, but this is the equivalent, right, of parents saying to me, well, I spanked or I was spanked and I turned out fine.
	Well, yeah, you were lucky. Maybe you didn't have that gene combination.
	Maybe there was something else in your life that counteracted that.
	Or maybe you're fine because you're compliant within the society that you live in and it is no sign of sanity to be well adjusted to a sick society.
	So that's sort of my response to that and I hope that makes some sense.
	Yeah, so the Solmath has written, thanks, the original comment was on the seeming idea that all spanking created monsters.
	I would never affirm that all spanking creates monsters, for sure.
	But to me, it's, you know, if you look at spanking children, just all you have to do is substitute wife for children.
	So somebody's saying, well, I spanked my wife early on in our marriage, and we have a great...
	We have a great relationship now, and I guess she's grateful that I spanked her.
	That would be a little hard to swallow, right?
	I mean, if you're looking at it from the outside, that would be a pretty hard thing to swallow, right?
	And I think that's what happens when people hear about, you know, spanking is great.
	You know, I hit my wife for a couple of years, you know, for five or ten years early on in our marriage.
	Now we've been married for 30 years.
	We have a great relationship. She's a wonderful wife and this and that.
	Ooh, you know, that's just a little hard to, you know, it's like, well, what if you hadn't hit your wife?
	Would your relationship not be even better?
	A question, where do babies come from?
	I believe that they are defecated by Jesus, and that's a beautiful thing.
	I had violent tendencies and was not strung once in my childhood.
	There are many factors, it would seem.
	Well, but I don't think anyone has said that it is only hitting, right?
	So you have to be very careful about the cause and effect of these things.
	So nobody is saying that hitting always produces monsters, and nobody is saying that only hitting produces violent tendencies.
	You may witness your parents hitting another sibling.
	That may produce violent tendencies.
	You may have experienced verbal abuse or sexual abuse or emotional put-downs and so on, which may leave you with a lot of latent aggression.
	There's lots of factors that go into it.
	I personally don't believe in the causeless monster, you know, like somebody who's just born bad.
	I just, I don't believe in that.
	I mean, unless there's some sort of specific brain damage.
	Somebody's writing, the other day, a woman spanked her child right next to me at an outdoor cafe.
	I got angry at her and said, don't spank your child.
	She turned to me with a smile on her face and said, she is always so gentle.
	Does that mean about the...
	The child is always so gentle or the mom is saying the mom is always so gentle?
	Yeah, the guy who wrote about violent tendencies, emotional abuse for sure, for which I just give you a massive amount of sympathies.
	Yeah, for sure. Emotional abuse, it would seem, has even more significant long-term effects than physical abuse because it sort of stays in your head.
	Oh, that the mom is always so gentle.
	Yeah, for sure.
	Somebody said, can I ask you a question on the MECO system?
	If I remember correctly, I heard you saying in a podcast that the MECO system is not about me and my relationship with my parts.
	It's more about the relationship with others.
	Is this why when I try talking to my parts directly, they fade away and disappear and I feel foggy?
	But when I imagine I'm talking to someone else, like my therapist or you, Steph, I can explain what I'm feeling and thinking coherently.
	You may need to explain that a little bit more.
	I'm not sure I'm clear on that.
	Oh, there has, okay, since we're waiting for a caller, there is an interesting article that came out recently about Freud.
	Because a lot of people write to me, well, they write to me about a number of things, but two of the common ones.
	Freud has been disproven, and Nietzsche went mad, and therefore there was some problem with his philosophy.
	And I understand both of those. I've been exposed to both of those arguments.
	But it's not true.
	Freud, apparently, I'm not sure if this is entirely proven, but it seems very likely that Nietzsche went mad because of syphilis.
	Syphilis is, of course, an illness which lies dormant in the cells and then only later attacks the brain after lying dormant for many years, so sometimes even decades.
	And so apparently Nietzsche went mad as a result of syphilis, not as about his philosophy.
	So that's sort of one aspect of things.
	And there seems to be some resurgence in Scientific support for Freudian theories.
	Freudian therapy has been proven to be quite effective.
	And let me just get this.
	So Swedish research proves that Sigmund Freud was right.
	So according to a new university from Lund, It is possible to control and even deliberately forget memories.
	This new knowledge could be life-changing for patients suffering from depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.
	Freud was right in that there is a particular way we can control our memory, psychology researcher Gerd Thomas Waldhauser told the local.
	The idea that humans can control their memories erupted in controversy within the field ever since the great Freud argued it in the early 1900s.
	Freud's theory was based on major assumptions while new theories, better theories, emerged related to childhood memory suppression and memory development.
	So, Waldhauser said he had no experimental evidence and at that time there was a big debate going on about the reconstruction of repressed memories not always being correct.
	In our laboratory we can now show that intentional attempts to forget or suppress particular information or experiences can indeed lead to later forgetting.
	The major breakthrough is finding.
	The major breakthrough is finding that the brain uses the same area for inhibition of memory as it does for inhibition in motor skill response.
	It's quite important to have established this link.
	It hasn't been done before. It hasn't been known, said Waldhauser, who added that his findings resulted from very controlled experiments with results tough to explain otherwise.
	Using word association and the EEG, a sophisticated brain imaging technique, Waldhauser proved that the same area of the brain which controls motor impulses and selective attention is activated when a person attempts to forget something.
	So I think it's very interesting that Freud seems to have some rehabilitation that is floating along and I think that's important.
	He was, of course, a completely fascinating innovator.
	Not the discoverer of the unconscious, but certainly its popularizer in many ways.
	Oh yeah, I'll post a link to the article.
	I won't read it out because it's a pretty impressive URL. The title of the article, which you can search for, Swedish Research Proves Sigmund Freud Right.
	Also wanted to mention I'm out of friend slots on Facebook.
	And so if you want to, just do a search for freedomainradio.com on Facebook.
	You might want to join the actual fan site or website for Freedomain Radio because I can't take any more fans.
	I'm all full. 5,000.
	I mean, good heavens. That's barely a tribe these days.
	Dave writes, the comment about Tea Party people wanting drastic change, but at the same time taking government money, seems to conflict with last week's advice to a young fellow about taking government money for training.
	I'm just asking.
	Well, yeah, I mean, I completely understand that.
	Let me explain that, and that's a great point to bring up, and of course, if my explanation is unsatisfying, please let me know.
	I think it's fine for people who don't believe that the political process is going to work to take government money.
	I really do. I really do.
	Because they're not saying to people that the problem is going to be solved by shrinking government or by some sort of political action or whatever.
	So I think that's fine. But the Tea Partiers are voted in by their supporters who believe that political action, it is political action that is going to change politics.
	The system. Now, if political action is going to change the system, then clearly what is going to happen is that politicians, anti-partiers, are all going to have to convince other people to give up government benefits.
	Right? They're just going to have to...
	They're going to have to convince people that they're going to have to give up some government benefits.
	And they're going to have to give up significant amounts of government benefits because, right, there's not just a...
	We're not just going to whittle down a mountain, but we have to fill in a crater.
	So not only are people going to have to give up government benefits if political action is going to work, but they're going to have to accept fewer benefits than they're paying in taxes, right?
	So because the baby boomers had three or four dollars in benefits for every dollar they paid in taxes, people are going to have to accept if government shrinkage is going to work through the political process.
	Then people are going to logically and Financially and mathematically, they're going to have to accept like 20 cents in benefits or 10 cents in benefits for every dollar that are paying in taxes.
	If it's going to work. Mathematically, it can't work any other way.
	Unless there's just going to be some massive default.
	And so if for political action to work, people are going to need to accept much less in benefits than they pay in taxes, then the people who believe in political action need to lead the way.
	Need to lead the way. They need to show people, based on their ideology, how they're willing to give up government benefits and they're willing to pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits because they want the solution called smaller government to work through the political process.
	If you are somebody who rejects the political process, then it doesn't matter because you're not saying to people that there's some solution that can be achieved through politics.
	So yeah, just take the money and get the benefits and so on.
	To me, that's fine. But if you're going to say to people that we need to get far fewer benefits than we pay in taxes, then you've got to stop taking benefits.
	The first thing you've got to do is say, look, we are standing by our ideals.
	We are paying the federal government a dollar in taxes, and we're only getting back 10 cents in services, and we're rejecting all the rest.
	And that gains them the moral credibility to say that to government workers and to say that to others.
	So it's a great question.
	I'm glad that that helps a little bit.
	Oh yeah, great question.
	Alright. Have you studied the no progress view of philosophy where it's believed that philosophy never progresses like science does but only modernizes?
	I read a recent paper on it called There Is No Progress in Philosophy by Dr.
	Eric Dietrich in which he...
	Sorry.
	German is...
	You just picture yourself with a hairball and you're good.
	In which he argues...
	For this view. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this view and moreover your thoughts on this paper.
	Well, I would argue that philosophy doesn't progress.
	I would argue that we...
	I am certainly trying to push philosophy forward.
	And yeah, it certainly is very true that philosophy doesn't progress.
	And I think that is because the progression of philosophy is highly contentious within society.
	And philosophers would rather pontificate than...
	Go toe-to-toe, mano-a-mano, head-to-head with the raging bulls of cultural prejudices and angry people.
	So, yeah, look, where philosophy advances, the state and religion and other exploitive ideologies and superstitions diminish.
	And whenever you interfere with people's income, they tend to get very angry, right?
	What is it they say in Risky Business?
	During a recession, don't ever, ever fuck with the mother man's livelihood.
	And there's a lot of money to be made off illusions and delusions.
	And the money, of course, is taxation, the military industrial complex, religion as a whole, nationalism, sports teams, 90% of what's in the damn malls.
	You name it, it's all exploited and stolen in a way through fraudulent, false beliefs.
	And it's one of the things I've thought of many times, that you know that Ron Paul is nowhere close to any kind of success when he remains unsavaged.
	You know, I mean, as soon as he actually is going to threaten the interests of any evil people, then they're just going to go full tilt boogie for him and make up stuff and lie about stuff and whatever, right?
	Just to, you know, as long as he's considered the, you know, an acute and eccentric old school libertarian, then you know he's nowhere close to success.
	So, yeah, I think that philosophy has made ridiculously little progress.
	And I've argued this before, in its 2500 year history, when you compare it to medicine or engineering or economics or biology or physics or chemistry, it has made ridiculously little progress.
	And that's because I believe philosophers People who have an inclination towards philosophy are bought and paid for by the state, or they're drawn into theology and bought and paid for by religion.
	So they're effectively neutered and rendered ineffective as agents of social change.
	Because they're in academics, they don't have to speak to the needs of the people.
	They only have to speak to the needs of the faculty, the needs of the Those who subsidize, and to some small degree, the needs of the students, but the needs of the students who study philosophy, if they have any practicality at all, is to get tenure as a philosophy professor at some point in the future.
	They don't actually have to go to the public square.
	Philosophers have abandoned the public square for many, many years, and they don't engage in the public sphere.
	Like, when was the last academic philosopher who went out into the world and said, What's important to you people?
	How could philosophy help your life?
	Where are your areas of greatest challenge and greatest difficulty?
	That's certainly been my approach and my goal since the very beginning of this show.
	I shouldn't really call that a show.
	It sounds a little like this gig, this skit.
	But that's been my goal from the beginning, is to talk to people in the marketplace, in the real world, on the street, and say, where's your areas of greatest difficulty?
	Where can philosophy help you the most?
	And the answer keeps coming back, it's my relationships.
	It's my relationships. It's my relationships.
	And that, of course, is where I've tried to focus, you know, a reasonable chunk of my efforts in helping people to bring ethics to their relationships.
	The first virtue being honesty.
	And it's hard. You know, it's hard.
	I gave sort of, I sort of extend, if this matters at all, I sort of extend Two answers I gave in a show that I just posted, which was the...
	Let me just get the correct name of it.
	It was the Sunday show.
	Sorry, that's not even remotely the correct name.
	Circumcision, global warming, reason and the moon, emails of the week, 9th July 2011.
	And I critiqued some global warming, fear-mongering that had gone on ever since I was a kid.
	And I just sort of wanted to follow that up, before I just get to this next point, I just wanted to follow that up by saying It's not the fear-mongering in particular that has bothered me about global warming.
	The reason that I consider global warming to be an unholy predatory scam and a massive theft is because there's no circle back and critique phenomenon in global warming science, right? So I don't believe that there's ever been a symposium called, we scared the shit out of people, we were totally wrong, what happened?
	That's really important.
	Whenever there's no post-mortem, I know it's a scam.
	Whenever there's no post-mortem, and this is a lesson to take with you carved in the golden crevices of your heart until you fall face forward into your grave.
	Whenever there's no post-mortem, there is a scam going on.
	Climate scientists have never had a conference that said, okay, let's just go over all of these outrageous, alarmist claims that we've made about the future of climate change.
	And none of these have come true, so let's all sit down and figure out what went wrong.
	How did this happen?
	What was the science that was behind it, and how do we need to clean it up?
	How do we need to stop making these ridiculous claims that discredit us all and fear-monger, and how do we start having a rational discussion with society not based on the sky is falling, the sky is falling, and the sky is full of anvils.
	Right? So this has never, to my knowledge, Occurred in climate science of any kind.
	It has not occurred in environmentalism of any kind.
	This lack of a post-mortem means that the goal is not the truth.
	If you say stuff that is false, if you say stuff that is wrong, if you make outrageously alarmist claims that do not come true and are richly paid to boot, and you don't have a post-mortem, the sole goal was the cash, babies. The sole goal was the cash.
	The sole goal was the cash.
	Right? So, I mean, you can look at this from a wide variety of angles.
	Religion. Prayer will make people, well, I'll pray for you.
	Well, there have been about a billion double-blind studies now on prayer, all of which has revealed it as complete bullshit.
	Okay. So, has the religious leaders circled back and said, okay, so for thousands of years or hundreds of years we've been saying that prayer works, and unfortunately that turns out that isn't the case, so let's figure out what we said that was wrong, how we came to that conclusion, let's, you know, stop saying it, and blah blah blah.
	No, of course not! Because their goal is not to make people well.
	Their goal is to take money from people.
	And so whatever doesn't interfere with taking money from people doesn't need to be questioned.
	Right? They don't circle back.
	Libertarians do not have a strong habit of circling back and saying, okay, well, so we poured billions of dollars and billions of hours into political action.
	Has it worked? No. Let's figure out, you know, what did we miss?
	What do we need to refine?
	What other approaches do we need to examine, right?
	Doesn't happen. Government programs, of course, of course.
	Has the war on poverty solved the problem of poverty?
	Of course not. But they don't circle back.
	They don't circle back to try and sort it out or to fix it because it's not broken.
	Because the purpose of the war on poverty is to take money from the general population and to create a dependent class of poor people.
	So it's working perfectly.
	You don't need a post-mortem on something that worked perfectly.
	Right? And so when there's no post-mortem you know for a God's honest footprint in your face fact That the purpose is being served perfectly.
	Nothing is broken.
	Nothing is broken if there's no postmortem.
	Nothing is broken in religion if there's no postmortem about the inefficacy of prayer.
	Nothing is broken in climate science if there's no postmortem about the outlandish, terrifying claims that were made.
	Nothing is broken when there's no postmortem.
	The system That is not being critically re-examined by its leaders and proponents is serving the needs perfectly.
	And the needs are not truth. The needs are theft.
	The needs are power.
	And that's all. So I wanted to mention that, I guess, first and foremost.
	That's a very, very important thing.
	It's a shortcut. And, yeah, people say, well, but what if, and maybe this, and maybe that.
	Well, no, this is something that you know.
	It's just something that you know.
	Right? If a man says he wants to go south, and he's walking north, and you take him, and you show that the compass says that he's going north, and he continues to go north, you know that him saying, I want to go south is just nonsense, right?
	Oh, it's just, you know...
	This is true of parental discipline as well.
	Is it achieving the goals? Is it getting what the parents want?
	If there's no post-mortem, then the discipline is for something else completely.
	In public school, there's no post-mortem on public school where the teachers all sit down and say, you know what?
	The evidence shows that this time off in the summer is really bad for the kids and educational standards are declining and costs are going up and blah, blah, blah, blah.
	So let's read. No, they don't.
	Because the purpose of the public education system is not to educate the children, which is why there's no post-mortem when the children remain uneducated.
	Somebody has written...
	Oh, you know what?
	There was something else I was going to talk about with that show I just wrote.
	I even started off with something else.
	Somebody has written, ever since I was a child, when watching TV or movies, I have found that without thinking or trying, I become extremely empathetic to the character's emotions of whatever scenario is playing out.
	So much so, that with many sitcoms or shows I used to watch, I don't watch TV anymore, as well as emotional movies, I find that I have to turn it off because I can't handle the negatively emotional situations Have you heard of this type of thing before, and what are your thoughts on it?
	I not only have heard of it, I experience it, and even now I still experience it pretty regularly, this over-empathizing to some degree with other characters' feelings.
	If I remember rightly, just the one that pops into my mind is Michael Crichton's, the late Michael Crichton's now, I suppose, State of Fear.
	Some characters get trapped in a crevasse And it's really well written.
	And I couldn't listen to it because it was just...
	I got stressed.
	I mean, it was really, really hard to see.
	Of course, we've talked about this before, that you see those, you know, pinata crotch shots on America's Funniest Home Videos.
	And that stuff is hard to watch.
	I literally flinch when it occurs.
	And for what it's worth, I think it's actually better than the alternative, which is too little empathy.
	So in a sense, having too much empathy is better than having...
	Too little empathy, so I do totally sympathize.
	And, I mean, it's to the point where, I guess, many years ago, I was playing a video game called Oblivion, and I got a henchman.
	And I was walking around with this henchman, and then we went into a dungeon, and we came out, and I realized I couldn't find the henchman.
	So I went around looking for him.
	And, I mean, this is how ridiculous the empathy was for me.
	It's like, I know it's just a digital character.
	It's got no feelings. It's got no reality.
	It doesn't exist. But I'm like, well, what if he's trapped somewhere?
	I need to make sure he's not trapped anywhere, even though I didn't really care to have the henchman around me anymore.
	I'm like, oh, I gotta free him.
	So I went back into the dungeon, I found the henchman, and I let him back out.
	He got trapped in some blind alley, right?
	And I felt better. I'm like, whew, okay, the henchman is out of the dungeon, so he's not gonna be trapped down there and lonely.
	And it's like, oh my god, how sad is that?
	I mean, my god, that's ridiculous.
	It's completely ridiculous.
	That's just bizarre. But that's the way it is.
	I mean, I can tell you where I think it comes from.
	Of course, I can't tell you where it comes from.
	And I certainly can't tell you where it comes from in you.
	But, yeah, it comes from having, I believe, a parent whose emotions were overwhelming to you.
	And so your sensitivity towards feelings has been focused on somebody else whose feelings were extreme or outrageous or dangerous or intrusive or random.
	And unsettling. And so you're used to empathizing with other people, sometimes to the exclusion of empathizing with yourself, because you had to focus on other people's random and extreme emotions in order to navigate the dangers of those acted out passions.
	And again, that's just a theory, I don't know, but you can write to me and tell me if I'm completely wrong, and I will certainly pass that along to the listeners.
	Somebody else has written, I've been getting to know a girl at work.
	First thing I would say is not to call her a girl, unless she is in fact 12, in which case we have an entirely different conversation.
	I've been getting to know a girl at work, and I've been thinking about taking things further romantically, but I keep feeling like this is a mistake, as I have not really resolved things with my family, and I have very little experience in the romantic realm.
	I've not had an RTR conversation with your mom.
	I like the girl, and she's very fun to be around, which I find hugely refreshing, but I can't quite put my finger on what is attracting me to her.
	I don't want to feel like I'm missing an opportunity because of unresolved family issues, but I also know that a relationship will bring in dozens of new emotional issues for me to work with while I'm still struggling with the family-related ones.
	I often feel very positive about taking things further, but whenever I try to act in it, I always have these kinds of anxieties coming up.
	That's a great question. If you're in the middle of working things out with your family, I think it's probably not the best time to get involved romantically.
	Now, I understand that there's also the feeling of like, well, what if she's the perfect one for me and I never meet someone as great again?
	Well, I sometimes think that's a risk that's worth taking.
	I think when you're in this kind of turmoil, and I hope that you're seeing a therapist, but when you're in this kind of turmoil with your family, you're just not going to be that emotionally available to somebody who's new.
	Or you're going to, because of what's going on in your mind, you're either going to have to pretend that it's not going on, this sort of churning and this unsettling, or you're going to share it with her, which is quite a lot for a new relationship to be burdened with, if that makes any sense.
	So, I would suggest against it.
	Now, that doesn't mean that you can't be friends.
	With the girl, right? You can say to her, look, you know, I'm attracted to you.
	I think you're great. I don't think I'm in a great place to start a relationship right now, but I, you know, if you're interested, you know, it'd be great to go for coffee.
	It'd be great to get to know you as a friend.
	I would really like that.
	And just, you know, see how she feels about it.
	I think that could be helpful and useful.
	The fellow who wrote about his over-empathy says that my explanation makes sense.
	I appreciate that. I'm glad it helped.
	Oh yeah, I guess we're getting, what's it, three weeks to the barbecue.
	Three weeks to the barbecue.
	Three weeks to the barbecue.
	All right, so amyando.
	So amyando.com forward slash fdr2011.html.
	If you would like to come and sign up, then we will know how much food we will need for you lovely, kind, generous, wonderful, and perfect listeners.
	So, and remember that the venue has changed.
	It is now at the hotel and not at the FDR Mothership.
	The compound is closed.
	Yes, absolutely.
	We have time.
	Go ahead, my friend. All right.
	Hey, Steph. Are you there?
	I sure am. Okay.
	Yeah, I just had one more question.
	This question's a little more volatile, so I thought I'd save it until we had time.
	But like I said, I've been wanting to get out, and I just wanted to ask you if you had any tips on...
	Because I'm sure whenever you were younger, I'd say...
	Because you said your mom left when you were about 15, right?
	And you said that it was like I remember you saying it was like a godsend, right?
	It was amazing. Yeah.
	Yeah, because I mean...
	Well, sorry, let me just clarify that.
	I mean, it was amazing relative to what was happening, but it certainly wasn't amazing relative to how things should have been, if that makes any sense.
	You know, like if you have an alligator clamping on your leg, it's like it's amazing when it gets pulled off, but it's not amazing that you had an alligator clamping on your leg, if that makes sense.
	Right, right, right. Yeah, well, I mean, just to put it into clarification, my mom is...
	Close to the same as yours.
	She's the biggest hypochondriac I've ever met.
	She's the biggest pessimist I've ever met.
	My dad's extremely abusive.
	Actually, last time we got in a huge fight and I tried to call the cops and my mom wouldn't let me.
	So I decided just to stop talking to him.
	I tried to do food as best as I could, but we still live in the same house and everything.
	I'm so sorry to hear that.
	That's just wretched. I'm so sorry.
	I see that as a whole history that goes back to when you were a baby.
	I think I really get it.
	I just really, really want to express my sympathies for that.
	That's a very, very difficult situation to be in.
	I appreciate it.
	I find it hard a lot of times because I do have the money.
	Right now I've been saving up.
	I find it hard a lot of times not just to leave.
	I feel like there's nothing keeping me here.
	You know what I mean? There's so much bad stuff going on here and I feel like, almost to put it through a metaphor, I'm in prison and the gate's wide open.
	Why not just run out? I've been feeling that a lot.
	Right, right, right.
	Right. And what do you think is keeping you there?
	I mean, whether you should go or not, of course, no one can tell you.
	But what do you think is keeping you there?
	See, I don't know. Because I had stopped talking to my dad like four weeks ago.
	And maybe two weeks ago, he had gotten cancer.
	Oh, my. Oh, my God.
	Yeah. So that was...
	You know, I just...
	Sorry, I'm kind of tongue-tied.
	But that just... I can't put into words.
	I just felt like, you know, because, you know, I still see him every day, so I still know, like, and I still know that I still see him, like, drunk every night even though he has cancer, you know?
	And my mom has, she's developing cancer as well.
	And so, yeah, they found, like, three tumors of my mom already.
	So I don't know if it's just that, if it's an emotional thing about that.
	Because I've been really trying to figure it out.
	I mean, I can leave.
	I do have the power to leave.
	But I mean, I still have a year of school left here, and I just don't know.
	Yeah, I mean, if you have...
	If you don't have a strong impulse to leave, then I would stay and examine the reasons for staying.
	That's sort of my... I think to act premature to a kind of unity of action within the self doesn't usually work very well, right?
	It's just my opinion.
	Who knows, right? But I found that the most effective action for me happens when I really work to explore where I am.
	Right? Because you're ambivalent, as you say.
	Part of you wants to leave and part of you obviously wants to stay.
	And until you can figure that out, I think that taking action prior to resolving in a conflict doesn't solve the conflict and can often mask it.
	Right? So it could be, like it could be that if your parents are, obviously if your parents are both now ill, With some, you know, obviously pretty serious stuff, then maybe there'll be some change of heart in them, right?
	There's some sort of mortality chill or something, whatever, right?
	Or maybe there's still information that you need to gain from your parents about your history or about...
	And you can get information from people even if they don't admit anything or even if they don't talk to you about anything.
	You can still get information from them just by the way in which they interact with you when you talk to them.
	So, it may be that there's still value in the relationship for you, even if it's just observing how you feel around them, observing how they interact with others, with each other, with friends, observing how your mom still interacts with you.
	And maybe there's an opening, you know, maybe there's an opening for some sort of more honest communication, right?
	So, maybe it's something like, you know, mom, dad, you're not well.
	This is dangerous stuff.
	Cancer is no small thing.
	This is not a sliver. This is not a head cold.
	This is a serious thing.
	Can't we work to improve our relationship because nobody knows how long they've got.
	Nobody knows how long they've got.
	I think that people treat each other badly in a relationship because there's a kind of sense of infinity almost.
	Like infinity. Any job you can't get fired from that you're never going to leave, they just don't work that hard.
	I think there's a sense of infinity in particularly parent-child relationships, but just any kind of relationship.
	If your parents are ill, Then maybe there's a capacity to fight that sense of infinity.
	I don't know if this is making any sense, but to fight that sense of infinity by saying, look, we're not going to be around forever.
	We don't have an infinity of time with which to fix the problems that we have.
	We do not have an infinity of time to fix the problems that we have.
	This is something that I've thought about many times, and I still think about this sometimes.
	I mean, silly example, right?
	So the other day, and I don't mean to trivialize your experience, but I'll just give you a minor example, right?
	So the other day, I was working and my wife was going out.
	And I'm like, I was just in the middle of something, but then I thought, oh, I'll go down and give her a kiss and a hug goodbye.
	And I was sort of thinking and thought, gosh, you know, wouldn't it have been sad if she went off, I died in a car crash, and I didn't go and kiss her goodbye for the last time.
	And that, I mean, that sounds morbid, and this is not sort of haunting my thoughts every day.
	Oh my God, what if she trips and falls with those scissors and I didn't get a chance to tell her I love her?
	I don't sort of think about this a lot, but it does come into my mind from time to time.
	That what if the person leaves and doesn't come back?
	And I find that is a very positive way for me to inject as much value and good humor and happiness into my relationships.
	As possible. I'm certainly aware of this with my daughter, that, you know, I woke up this morning and I was a little tired, and she wanted to go to the park, and I just basically wanted to just not.
	But then, you know, I thought, well, this is a day that's not coming back again, and if it makes her happy to go to the park, and we ended up, we went to the park, we played with other kids, it was a lot of fun, and so I'm glad that we did.
	But that sense of time passing, that sense of mortality, that sense of the shortness of things and the randomness of life's accidents, I think is a great way of helping us to bring more love and more energy into our relationships.
	Everything that's great in our life could end at any time.
	I might never finish this rant because I could have a blood clot moving through my system that's just about to hit some essential...
	Artery and kill me.
	I might trip going down the stairs and break my neck.
	My brakes may fail on my car.
	I could get hit by an asteroid.
	Okay, we're going in sort of descending orders of probability, perhaps.
	Except my car is 14 years old, although I did just get the brakes fixed.
	But everything that is in our life could end at a moment's notice.
	And that's one way that we don't take things for granted and we don't just assume that things and people and circumstances will be there forever, no matter what.
	I think that's a very dangerous way to live.
	So maybe, especially if your father's just newly diagnosed with cancer, terrible, maybe there's a mortality shadow that is actually like a beam of light through the dark clouds of history.
	That can open up a kind of honesty.
	I mean, obviously there's vulnerability in illness.
	You need other people.
	You're dependent on other people. You're scared.
	And maybe there's a chance to have a conversation about things.
	And you can maybe start off by asking them about their childhoods or their histories or their relationship with family when they were growing up.
	You know, just anything to sort of open up the conversation to start.
	And maybe there's some avenue or some opening there because of These illnesses.
	And maybe that's partly why you're thinking you're staying, and I think there's value in that, if that makes any sense.
	Oh yeah, it totally does.
	And I think that that's true.
	I mean, I think unconsciously I do have a, I guess it's almost like a hope, like just hoping that, you know, one day he'll realize that, you know, he is sick, he doesn't have very long, and, you know, just out of nowhere just come with honesty and love and just, you know, Not forgive for everything he's done, because then that would be like, I wouldn't even believe that, you know, because he's sick and he's forgiving.
	You know, it's kind of like the deathbed thing.
	But, I mean, just for him to understand what he's done, you know, and understand how wrong it was and just have an apology where he doesn't expect me to accept it or anything.
	He's just apologizing because he truly is sorry, if that makes any sense.
	I'm not sure. Yeah, and look, that may happen and that may not happen.
	Obviously, that's outside of your control.
	But what I... And I have problems with the way that people use the word forgiveness.
	I don't mean you, but sort of the general population, I have problems with the way that they use the word forgiveness.
	And I was thinking about this just yesterday, actually, and I think I would actually generally prefer to replace the word forgiveness with the word acceptance.
	That... If we've been wronged, then we just accept that we've been wronged.
	If the person apologizes and makes restitution, then I believe it's reasonable, if it's good restitution, to accept the apology and to work to heal the relationship.
	If the person won't apologize or won't make any restitution or continues to insult and deny our reality...
	Then it's more just the calm of accepting that that's the way it is.
	That's the way it is. And I have no capacity to change that in the other person.
	Is that the same as forgiving the person?
	Well, I don't think it's the same as forgiving the person, because if you forgive people who don't apologize, you're acting unjustly towards people who do apologize and take responsibility for their actions.
	So I don't think it's the same as forgiving in that way.
	Like... But I also do understand what people mean when they talk about the importance of forgiveness because there are people who, you know, they're 60 and they're still really angry about what their mom did when they were 10.
	Wow, 50 years is a long time to hold that.
	And so I think what people, when they say, look, you need to forgive your mom, what they're basically saying is it's not healthy to keep being angry when you get old or maybe even middle-aged or maybe even young about the things that happened before.
	When you were a child.
	For myself, I wouldn't say that I feel any particular anger about what happened to me as a child.
	I'm very sad that it happened, and it's tragic.
	But I don't think that, I mean, it doesn't sort of, I don't sort of wake up like, and then when I was seven, I'm angry.
	That doesn't occur for me.
	And, I mean, I have the advantage that it was, you know, 30 years ago or 40 years ago, so it does, you know, it obviously does diminish, but I've done a lot of work as well.
	Because anger and frustration occur within us, I believe, because it's the fight-or-flight mechanism, which means we're supposed to do something.
	Because we're supposed to do something.
	And there's nothing that I can do about my childhood, and there's nothing you can do.
	I mean, you're 17.
	It's almost done, at least from a legal standpoint.
	There's nothing that you can do about it.
	And that doesn't mean that we say, and therefore everything was okay.
	But we just accept that there's nothing that you or I can do about that stuff.
	And that to me is just accepting that that's the way it is.
	And if something changes in your parents, in moving forward, fantastic.
	Great! Wonderful!
	That still doesn't mean that you had a good childhood, but it does mean that something positive can occur going forward.
	If they don't, well, staying angry at them for the rest of your life isn't going to, I think, make you very happy and isn't going to be a way to free yourself of that history.
	So for me, and I'm not doing the subject justice and I apologize for that, but to me it's just, it's accepting.
	And the way that I accept it, and I have no proof of this, so this is just my opinions, right?
	But this is how I accept it.
	So my mom made choices as a mom.
	She had impulses and she made choices.
	I believe that she had, I know she had the capacity to make choices.
	And so she made choices to lose her temper, to scream and to beat us up and to terrify us and to do all those just awful, awful things.
	And by the time I got reasonably old as a child it was impossible, I believe it was pretty much impossible for her to do anything different.
	Now that's not quite the same as saying she never had a choice.
	But I believe that there's these tiny little forks in the road.
	These tiny little forks in the road.
	And sometimes they're almost imperceptible in the moment.
	And sometimes they're very perceptible in the moment.
	These little forks in the road where you're going to do the right thing or you're going to do the wrong thing.
	So you get angry at someone.
	And you're either going to act out and call them names or maybe hit them or whatever.
	And that's obviously doing the wrong thing.
	Unless it's an immediate extremity of self-defense.
	Which is not the case.
	Parent to child to you. And if you do the wrong thing, it's, you know, think of a wood, like a very thick wood, a forest, lots of undergrowth, toucans probably.
	And there are these paths that diverge.
	And there's the right path and then there's the wrong path.
	Now, it's not like if you just make a bad decision, then you're doomed.
	That's not the case. Because what happens is, the paths will diverge.
	And if you take the wrong path, you can still see the right path.
	It's just through the trees a little bit.
	You can still see it. It's still there, but it's diverging.
	And then you come across another fork in the road in the bad path.
	And you either take the wrong choice there, which moves you further away from the good path, or you take a path that starts leading you back towards the good path.
	And you keep making these choices, and you're either going to go deeper into the dark woods and further away from the sunlit path of virtue, Or you're going to start moving towards the sunlit path of virtue.
	And the problem, of course, is that if you take the bad choices consistently and often enough, you can't see the good path anymore.
	It's lost in the woods.
	It's lost in the depths of the forest.
	And doubling back is really tough.
	So people just kind of keep pushing on and they can't find their way back to virtue anymore because they've just made too many bad choices.
	And I accept that by the time I was a child, my mom was almost completely lost and she just made a series of choices.
	That had had her lost in the dark woods and she couldn't find her way back.
	I think there were still a few forks in the path, and I won't sort of talk about that because I don't want to completely blow away what you're saying, but I have evidence as a child that there were still choices that she could have made that may have started leading her more back towards virtue, but it was functionally the same as impossible.
	And of course, in hindsight, it was the same as impossible because she kept making bad choices, in my opinion.
	And so I accept, of course, that my mom had a long history before I came along, and that she'd made a whole bunch of choices before I was born, and she made a whole bunch of choices that I was too young to remember, that was too early for me to remember.
	And then almost all the choices that she made when I was conscious that there was such a thing as choices were all bad choices.
	And she was just lost in the woods.
	She couldn't find her way back.
	That gives me an acceptance that what happened had a kind of inevitability to it.
	It had a kind of ball or boulder rolling down a hill, smashing a car kind of thing.
	Well, there wasn't much choice left by the time I came along.
	And what choice there was...
	Had so much weight and momentum leading it towards the dark side of the force, so to speak, that there was little chance for anything different.
	Because every fork in the road that you take towards the bad side, towards the bad choices, adds greater momentum to you going down that path.
	To the point where you're kind of, you know, when you're running down a hill when you're a kid and you're half running and you're half falling.
	Well, that's what it becomes like.
	Later in life, if you make a lot of bad choices, you no longer, in a sense, have the capacity to slow down and all of your bad choices are accumulating and rolling down with you or snapping at your heels like a bunch of satanic jackals, driving you faster and faster and there's less choice, less capacity to raise your head and survey the landscape, less capacity to pull out the torn, broken and half-burnt map that you imagine or pray might lead you back to a better place.
	And it just becomes a hunted, nighttime, terrifying sprint with cold black eyes of the hounds of the Baskervilles, of immorality at your heels, not knowing whether your next step is going to send you off a cliff or into sand or water.
	Where you are, where you're going, it's a chaotic, terrifying mess where the skies above are so thick with leaves that you can't even navigate by the stars.
	And to me... The acceptance of that, that that's what I was born into, and that there was a long history that preceded that, is a way of just saying, really looking back on it, how could it have been different?
	How could it have been different?
	And that to me is not the same as forgiveness, but it is a kind of acceptance that I have found to be very beneficial, because I don't churn and burn about My history.
	I really try to have learned as much lessons.
	I try to have learned as many lessons.
	And so that every time I see that fork in the road, no matter how tired I am, no matter how uphill and thorny the righteous path looks, I just grit my teeth and I just fucking take it.
	I mean, if you don't mind, I would like to tell you and everybody in the chat that One of my biggest fears, if you wouldn't mind.
	I'm sorry that I've taken up most of the Sunday show, of course, but if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to say it.
	Please? Because I was talking to a Freedom Man radio listener, and he's been helping me through it a lot.
	You pretty much remember my family history, I'm pretty sure, right?
	The violence in it? I think so, yeah.
	But, like, I talked to my sister the other day, and all the threats of, like, my dad used to make a lot of threats of killing me and stuff, and I never really, you know, I took him half-heartedly, you know, I kind of believed it, but I didn't just because he never really did.
	But my sister the other day told me of things that she did, because he had a family before ours, right?
	And she told me of things he did to her mom, you know, and they were just gruesome, you know?
	After hearing that, it kind of, like, made me get on my heels a little bit more, you know?
	Just, you know, like, I feel like, because ever since, like, all the threats have been made, it's been for, like, two years and stuff, but, I mean, ever since, like, the first one, I've always been almost in a constant fight-or-flight mode, and one of my biggest fears would be, you know, just, like, staying, and then all of a sudden, someone hacks on those threats, you know?
	Right. I mean, of course, it wouldn't bother me if it happened, because I'd be dead.
	But, I mean, it would just be horrible.
	Because, I mean, I feel like I have a lot of great things to offer the world.
	I know it's like maybe cocky or something, but I do.
	No, no, it's not cocky.
	I mean, it's not cocky.
	I mean, if you believe it, I believe it's true.
	You know, this is what Henry Ford said, if you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.
	And so, yeah, I believe that you should respect and honor that.
	Right, right. And I do, I do.
	I feel like I, especially because it all started whenever I found Free Demand Radio, you know?
	Like, my search for knowledge, it all started there, and then all of a sudden, since then, it's been like a whirlpool of just learning and learning and learning, you know?
	So, but, does that make any sense?
	Because, I mean, it might be a crazy fear, but, I mean, it is.
	It is one of my fears. No, look, I mean, definitely, look, if you're in fear of violence, then that's a very compelling reason to get some safe distance, right?
	Because, look, there's no reason why you can't move out and continue a conversation with your parents if you feel that there's a value.
	Now, of course, you're in school, and so I understand there's lots of complications around that.
	But, yeah, I mean, my advice would be that if you feel in any risk of violence that just simply can't be part of your life, that just simply can't be acceptable.
	Right, right. Well, I mean, he has tried to kill me before, you know?
	Like, he's put me in, like, different chokeholds and, like, just whispering, go to sleep, you know what I mean?
	Like, I passed out from him before until my mom came in and had to stop him.
	There's different things like that.
	If I could leave with ease and know that there wasn't any risk to it, I would do it in a heartbeat.
	I guess one of my big reasons for wanting to stay is it would be almost a lot harder just to go because there'd be so much more to add on to.
	I'd have to find another school.
	Just all those things that come with it.
	Well, I mean, but is it not possible for you to, if you wanted to, and who knows what you should do, but is it not possible for you to move out to some place where you have a bit more distance, can still stay in contact with your parents if you want, but you're not in the same house, and you can continue going to the same school, maybe a room on campus or something like that?
	See, I live in a very, very country town, like I said, and there's not many...
	There's not many places for me to go.
	Every house that's near me is like 30 minutes away.
	So there's not many, especially because no friends will let me in or anything, so there's not many places I can go.
	And the only other place that I had was, that's the reason why I wanted to go to Los Angeles, is just because I have a friend over there from Freedom and Radio that I've been talking to for a while, and he said, if it ever got too bad, then let me know.
	If you ever wanted to come down here, you could stay.
	I mean, but see, that's the only problem.
	I'd love to do it when I'm 18, you know, but it's just a year wait.
	A year doesn't sound too long, but whenever you're in a situation like this, it's almost like an eternity.
	No, I get that. I get that for sure.
	Well, look, I mean, no one can tell you what to do, but obviously this is just a gruesome situation with your dad and terrifying and just monstrously wrong at every level.
	If you feel that there's some capacity that his heart might soften a little bit that, you know, based upon his diagnosis and based upon his, you know, potential fears of mortality and all that kind of stuff, then, you know, it may be worth trying to get to the bottom of some of this stuff emotionally with his history and so on.
	That's a possibility, you know, but of course, I mean, yeah, you're right.
	You don't. You shouldn't be doing stuff that is going to put you at risk of danger or attack or assault.
	I'm so sorry.
	That's all I could really say.
	There's nobody who can tell you what to do in this situation because there's so many factors and variables, but I'm just so sorry.
	This is just nothing that anybody of your age or damn well any age should ever have to worry about or to fear.
	Right. I appreciate the words.
	I know you really mean it, so it really means a lot to me.
	I appreciate it. Yeah, I didn't want to take any more time up, but I really appreciate it.
	You're welcome, man. Keep me posted if you can, and best of luck.
	I definitely will. Thank you.
	Thank you so much. Bye.
	It's tough.
	There's a lot of dysfunction in the world.
	There's a lot of dysfunction in the world.
	There is hope, of course, that people who have acted really badly will have some Change of heart some, you know, as they age or as they get sick or something happens.
	So you have a divorce or something happens that might blunt their irrational self-confidence.
	It's not common, I think, but, you know, it can happen.
	And there is always that possibility.
	So I think it's worth exploring, of course, if you're not in a dangerous situation.
	Question. In your expert opinion.
	Okay, I don't have an expert opinion, but thank you for the kind words.
	In your expert opinion, is there a matter of time which a guy should wait after meeting a woman before asking her out?
	I'm an 18-year-old guy.
	I ask because it speaks to a situation I'm in.
	Specifically, I really like a girl and I have no real romantic experience and no template for a healthy relationship given to me by my family to guide me.
	I went to high school with a woman and never got to know her Until very recently.
	I've always found her very beautiful, but never really knew anything about her.
	But in getting to know her over the past two weeks, I've found I really like her on a personal and emotional level.
	She's an atheist and an anarchist, both of which immediately caught my interest.
	But she's also very caring and funny, both of which I like as well.
	With that going on forever, I hope it suffices to say that I think we really click.
	So is it weird to ask a girl out based on relatively brief but enjoyable conversations I've had with her, with the desire to get to know her even better in a romantic setting?
	Or would it generally be better to get to know her as friends first?
	I really don't want this opportunity to go to waste, especially now that I've done a lot of self-knowledge work through therapy and through resources like your podcast.
	Non-cliché first date advice would be appreciated as well.
	Yeah, ask her out.
	I mean, that would be my advice.
	Um, you know, there is a, um, I mean, I know that based on your username, and I remember your post, you have a good, strong knowledge of economics.
	Well, economics applies to dating as well.
	You know, if you see a Lamborghini on sale for 10 bucks, you buy it.
	You don't sort of say, well, I'll, you know, maybe buy it in a week or two.
	It's like, you know, get while the getting's good.
	You know what I'm saying? I think you do.
	So I would say yes to asking the girl out.
	I don't think that there's any...
	Approved length of time.
	In fact, there can be a negative to that length of time.
	Because she may end up dating someone else, right?
	She may meet another guy who asks her out and then she goes out with him.
	And maybe he's the wrong guy, but maybe it takes her a year to find that out.
	And then maybe you're dating someone else and this and that.
	So I don't think I've ever regretted asking someone out.
	And I don't think I've ever wanted to ask someone out and not ask them out.
	I just, you know, I just grit my teeth and do it.
	And I know it's horrible and I know it's scary and I know that there's the temptation to take the plan B called friend.
	But then, of course, the problem is you get stuck in the friend zone sometimes and then you'll end up with her crying on your shoulder about the bad boy she's dating, which is just living agony for a decent man.
	So I would say to, yeah, I would say to ask her out.
	The other thing that I would suggest as well is that if you don't have romantic experience by the time you're 18, and this is not in any way to indicate that there's a deficiency, but if you don't, I'd probably recommend getting it sooner rather than later because romantic stuff does get harder as you get older if you don't have experience because you can sort of think like the romantic life is like an orchestra and With an orchestra that you want to join,
	you kind of want to be at a similar level of experience.
	Now, a lot of people do start dating in their sort of mid to late teens.
	And so by the time they get into their early 20s, they've usually had a couple of relationships and navigated some of the challenges around this and learned some preferences and some lack of preferences.
	And, you know, I would say hopefully have had some sexual experiences and learned some of the finer arts of the pleasures of the flesh and so on.
	And that I think is all pretty important.
	Because the orchestra keeps getting better.
	And you don't want to be the guy who's 25 when everyone else has been practicing their, quote, instrument in an orchestra for 10 years where you may have just been practicing it solo, so to speak.
	You don't want to then try and join the orchestra when you don't have much experience playing.
	Because you're going to feel left behind.
	You're going to feel that everyone's much better than you and it's going to only add to that insecurity.
	And so I think that it's important to get some dating experience when you're young.
	I'm not saying that, you know, date every tattooed monster troll that lurks around your undergrowth.
	I'm just saying that, you know, don't hold off for perfection.
	When you're dating. It's sort of like saying, I won't take a job until I'm CEO, so to speak.
	I think it's important to get some dating experience.
	Not to the point of compromising every single value you hold dear, of course, but I think it's just important.
	That would be my suggestion.
	Ask around. Now, first date advice.
	The temptation is to say, let's go hang out and sort of hopefully Try and turn it into a date or pretend it's a date.
	But no, I think it's very clear.
	You want to be very clear.
	I think you're great.
	I would really like to ask you out on a date.
	I tried this thing, you know, like a bunch of friends and I are going to see a movie.
	Would you like to come along? And yeah, but she didn't know it was a date and I'd end up all tormented.
	And so I think that's usually not the best thing to do.
	First date stuff. I recommend dinner at a decent restaurant.
	I recommend that you make sure that the music isn't too loud, because to me, a first date is about conversation.
	So if you go and see a concert, you may have fun, but you're not really connecting with the person.
	Or even a movie. If you go and see a movie, then it may be...
	Well, you're not going to really talk.
	Now, you'll have something to talk about afterwards, but if you share values like atheism and anarchism, you're going to have lots to talk about.
	How did you get there? What were your major influences?
	Blah, blah, blah. And of course, if she doesn't cite me, you hold your drink in your face and you leave!
	Just kidding. But yeah, so I would definitely go on a date.
	I think try and pick a restaurant where there's nice walking around.
	Right? So don't pick like a McDonald's at an industrial park.
	Not that you would. I'm just, you know, mentioning it for the less sophisticated listeners.
	But pick a restaurant where...
	There is a nice walking, whether it's sort of nice, quiet neighborhood leafy green walking or something like that.
	And so what you can do is, you know, you can pick her up.
	Hopefully you have a car or something like that.
	Pick her up, take her to the restaurant.
	And then you, you know, you order and you're chatting and you're chatting and be real nice to the waiter.
	That's very important because I think a lot of people will judge you by how you treat the help, so to speak.
	And You know, you're chatting, you're chatting, and then, you know, if the day is going well and you're enjoying it, then say, I'd love to go for a walk with you.
	There's something very special and beautiful and intimate about walking...
	When you've had a good meal and you're walking and it's evening or early evening or dusk or even when the stars are out, it's quite beautiful.
	Try to go to a place where it's not too crowded so that you can actually walk side by side.
	I personally am not a huge fan of holding hands on the first date because I think that's a big step.
	I mean, if it happens, it happens, right?
	If it's sort of mutual, the hands find each other.
	But I'm not a huge fan of it.
	I think it's quite a big step. I am a fan of a kiss.
	Not on the cheek. At the end of the date.
	But first, before you kiss her, ask her how she enjoyed the date.
	And I would say ask her during the date, how are you enjoying the date?
	It's really important to me that I'm having a great time, assuming you are.
	It's important to me. Is there anything else you'd like to do?
	Is there anything else, any other topic you'd like to talk about?
	Make sure you ask her lots of questions, but don't, you know, just be a cipher yourself.
	And if she smiles and she said, I had a great time on the date, then give her a kiss and say, you know, I would love to do this again.
	And, you know, I will call you tomorrow and so on.
	And then, of course, call her tomorrow.
	And I wouldn't say press the next time you're going to see her at the date.
	Give her sort of an evening to process the date.
	She might want to talk about it with her friends.
	Yes, they do that. So be aware of that.
	And, you know, send her a little email saying, I had a wonderful time.
	I look forward... I hope we can do it again and, you know, see how she responds.
	And if she responds with, you know, here's a...
	A court order keeping you 100 feet away, or more from me, then it may not have gone as well as you'd hoped, but hopefully she'll respond with, that would be great, and so on, right?
	So I just, yeah, focus on the conversation, focus on a place where you can walk and talk, and just inquire as to how it's going for her, how she is enjoying it.
	I think that shows a sensitivity to her preferences, and I hope that helps.
	How much tongue on the first day?
	Well, the tongue is heavily involved on the first date, but only in the talking.
	No tongue on the first date.
	They don't rules. These are just sort of my ways of thinking about it.
	But no, I mean, I met Christina playing on a volleyball team, and the first time we went out, it was supposed to be the whole team, but a bunch of people couldn't come, and it ended up just being Christina and I. And we saw each other then, we saw each other the next night, and we have seen each other every single night since.
	And we decided after just a few months of dating to get married.
	We've now been married nine years.
	I love her more every day, if that's even conceivable.
	I just admire and respect her so much, particularly since I see her as the best mom in the known universe of this or any other time.
	And so, yeah, there are no rules other than follow your heart and be honest.
	So anyway, the guy is saying, that's fantastic.
	Thank you so much. And yeah, look, I appreciate you asking because this is stuff that I sort of painfully learned over time.
	I remember one of my early dates.
	Oh my God, the embarrassment.
	So I asked this girl out.
	Because I was on the swim team.
	I was a good swimmer. I was a good diver.
	And I met this girl at the pool.
	And I asked her out.
	And the only pants I had...
	Oh, it's crazy. My hamster had gotten loose.
	The only pants I had had been sort of half chewed through in one side by the hamster who made a nest in the Closet.
	So I went out and I had holes in my pants.
	I literally had holes in my pants.
	And not cool holes like, you know, above the knee or like just like holes, holes in my pants.
	And I just sort of try and sit with my hand clamped on my leg the whole time because I had holes in my pants.
	And I remember taking to go and see a movie.
	I think it was the first airplane.
	And I was, I mean, I was so shy and embarrassed that there were boobs flying all over the screen and I was just dying inside.
	I just... No, what to say or what to do.
	And I drank like a...
	There's other things not to do, right?
	If you're going to go to a movie, for God's sake, don't drink a big pop.
	Because it'll be really hard to concentrate on your romantic feelings when your bladder feels like about to break Mississippi levee.
	So I remember doing that with a girl at...
	On the movie Titanic as well, I brought a big pop because I just hadn't learned my lesson.
	And of course, the whole last... Half of that god awfully long film is water sloshing back and forth and oh my god it was just wretched.
	So yeah that date didn't go anywhere from there.
	So let's see.
	Will there be any new self-knowledge or listen to Convo podcasts in the near future?
	There seems to be a very high proportion of anarchy related material coming out at the moment.
	I find those podcasts interesting but self-knowledge is a lot more challenging.
	Yes, yes, I have that in the bucket.
	I just did a listen to Convo, and so we will be putting those out.
	I really want to do a series on sex, but I'm trying to find the right sound effects.
	Let's see here. Yeah, I know, I agree.
	I think that stuff is very important.
	The self-knowledge stuff is very challenging.
	Have you guys found the interviews with the psychologists helpful as far as that goes?
	I haven't as much as I'd liked, but that could just be my perception, so...
	So, Steph, I often struggle with the idea of having a successful career and potentially having a wonderful family life in the future.
	It often seems that in this world you can't have both.
	On the other hand, you seem to be an exception and are successful at both.
	Do you have any thoughts on living life with a rewarding career and fulfilling family life?
	Well, that's a great question.
	That's a great question. I mean, I think the important thing is you have to prioritize.
	You are absolutely right.
	I don't think that you can have a very successful career and a wonderful family life at the same time.
	I don't think that's possible.
	And the reason for that is it's simply math.
	It's just time. A successful career takes a lot of time.
	And a successful family life takes a lot of time, and there are only so many hours in the day.
	So I think that's a big challenge.
	So, you know, I mean, I did the career thing, and I worked very hard, and I was very happy with it.
	And I think it was a good thing to do.
	And, of course, I'm fortunate to be able to work from home and to choose my own hours through Free Domain Radio.
	And I'm also fortunate in that what I'm doing as a father is informing what I'm doing As a philosopher and as a podcaster and so on.
	So I'm very sort of fortunate that those things all mesh well together.
	But the family life takes precedence over the professional life.
	And that's just natural.
	I mean, I don't think there's any magic sauce that's going to change that.
	There are only so many hours in the day.
	I work a couple of hours when Izzy's down for her nap.
	And I can maybe work another hour or so in the evening...
	I tend to go to bed a little bit later than Christina, so I can do that.
	You know, if I was working as much as I did before Izzy was born, then the productivity would be as high.
	But I think that the quality has been good lately, and so I'm certainly pleased with that.
	Please let me know if you find that not to be the case, but I think focus on the career stuff and hopefully get some savings and get some skills that can be portable and you can work from home and then you can focus on the family stuff and it will displace the career stuff to some degree.
	I just don't think there's any way around it.
	Well, you know, for all the people who wrote to me about my last appearance on Adam vs.
	The Man that we were able to talk about some self-knowledge topics and Use the word orgasm on TV. I think that's good.
	So, yeah, kudos to Adam.
	He's taking some great risks with the show.
	Of course, he's taking great risks just by having me on.
	But he's just doing some great stuff with the show.
	And I really appreciate the opportunity.
	And, of course, it was great to meet him down at Porkfest.
	There is, I mean, there's a basic reality that I'm not entirely positive that if I had a lot more time, I would get a lot more done.
	Work does tend to expand to fill the amount of time That you have.
	And so what happens, you know, what I really would focus on is efficiency, efficiency, efficiency.
	Whatever you can do to make things more efficient is for the best, right?
	So I've recently found a setting that allows me to upload videos without transcoding.
	That's one of the reasons why the outdoor videos, the recent emails of the week have been so sort of visually stunning to the point where you can see every constellation freckle and pour on my face.
	So things like that.
	So learning to find efficient ways of doing things is really, really important, right?
	So if I have an interview, I hopefully can find it in the book, in audiobook, and can research it that way so I can get other things done that I need to get done While listening to the book.
	That kind of efficiency is really important.
	So, you can get a lot done in a short amount of time if you're very efficient, but you have to really focus on that efficiency and work to make it as functional as possible.
	So, let's see, somebody's asked, do I have any thoughts on the efficacy of Jungian therapy and the idea of lifelong therapy?
	I got a lot of stuff out of Jung.
	I really did. I thought Jung was just fantastic for his respect for dreams and the unconscious.
	This Mandela thing, I think, just went overboard.
	And I don't know about lifelong therapy.
	I couldn't really talk about that so much.
	But the way that I sort of view therapy is therapy is like going to music school.
	I mean, there's very few people who can pick up and become an expert in an instrument without any training.
	But I think that the purpose of A music school, right?
	So somebody's teaching you violin.
	The purpose is not to stay in violin school for the rest of your life, but to gain enough skills so that you know how to practice on your own to be good at the violin, right?
	To stay good at the violin. And now there are some exceptions.
	Of course, there are coaches who will continue to coach people who are...
	But they're usually people in teams and so on as therapy, more individual.
	So, I mean, to me, at least the goal of therapy and self-knowledge is to have somebody who can teach you something useful or have a group of people or books or whatever that can teach you something useful, which will then create habits within you that you can continue with for the rest of your life without necessarily needing that external input maybe once in a while.
	But I think that's...
	Oh, yeah, that's interesting.
	Maybe do a review of Super Nanny.
	Super Nanny. Very interesting.
	I have somebody saying, I always love the emails of the week videos.
	Please continue. Yes, I'm sorry I didn't do those for a while, but I think that they are...
	I like those because they are very efficient because I don't do a lot of prep.
	I just, you know, grab a bunch of emails and print them out and then read them on the fly and see if I can come up with anything useful.
	Occasionally, I'll prepare for things like I did with the global warming one I just did.
	But yeah, no, I think those are fun.
	So yeah, I think that some reviews would be good.
	More listener calls, please.
	You know, feel free to, I know that I, it's been a sort of back and forth with the marketplace of listeners, but please do, if you want listener calls, just let me know.
	But the challenge, of course, is that I'm sort of available at 10pm and 2pm.
	So if you can fit those times in, those would be great, but it's much harder to do it when, you know, as easily as I used to do it.
	So I hope that you will be able to do that.
	But yeah, just send me Send me topics and we'll do it.
	I love the listener calls too, but they are challenging to fit with people's schedules.
	Oh yeah, I wanted to mention, that's what I was going to mention about the last listener of the week one, which is somebody asked, have I lost good friends over my beliefs?
	And I thought about that and I gave an answer which was accurate, of course, but about if my friends reject me from my beliefs and they weren't good friends to begin with.
	But... What I also wanted to say was, I don't think, and maybe I've missed it, but I don't think that I've lost friends over anything as abstract as anarchism.
	Maybe one or two over atheism and agnosticism.
	But where my friendships faltered was over RTR.
	Where my friendships faltered was over that basic honesty.
	Where I would just talk about my feelings or, you know, and ask the other person what his or her experience was.
	It was at that level where my friendships took some real blows.
	Because, and even when I sort of introduced the topic slowly and so on.
	And so it really wasn't, we didn't even get to the level of abstract philosophy.
	But it really was at the level of just being honest about thoughts and feelings.
	about frustrations, about whatever was going on It was at that level where the relationships tended to freeze up.
	So that was sort of something I wanted to sort of add as well.
	A book recommendation, Getting Things Done, which apparently is quite cheap on Amazon.
	So if you want to get something done, you might want to check out that book.
	I haven't read it, but the listeners seem to be quite keen on it.
	And just before we go, since we have quite a few people in the chat room, is there anything that you would like to see?
	I've had requests for more listener conversations, some reviews of psychology books or shows.
	Is there anything else that you would like to see coming up at the show that I could do for you?
	And I'll read these out if you don't mind, just so other people who are listening to this.
	More spots on Russian television.
	Well, you know, it's weekly.
	I think that's pretty good. And I was the opening guest, which I, you know, will forever remain in his debt for.
	I was very honored that that was the case, and so I appreciate that.
	Adam. Russia, of course, has a long and detailed history of both philosophy and anarchy, so it's not too shocking that it's on Russian television that I've got some slightly more regular appearances.
	Interview. Okay, I will take that name.
	Can I review the video game Psychonauts?
	Oh yeah, that's going to be believable.
	No, honey, I'm not playing a game.
	I'm researching for free domain radio.
	Ooh, I like that. I like that.
	Yeah, the sex series is going to be, I think, a lot of fun.
	I've been really thinking about it a lot, but it's tough coming up with the right 70s throbbing disco soundtrack for it.
	Hi, I'm the plumber.
	I'm here to lay some pipe.
	Of course, I have no idea what that means.
	I've never seen any of those movies, but this is what I hear goes on.
	I'd like to see some sort of practical tutorial into self-knowledge with homework.
	Let me make a note of that. Yeah, I think that's a great idea.
	I think it's a great idea because I do get a lot of, you know, what do I do kind of stuff.
	I think that's a great idea. Yeah, I'm just noting that as interview names.
	Chickabow! Yes, the Jeff Tucker interviews were great, I agree.
	He's been traveling quite a bit, but we're going to try and hook up again.
	Catch up again, I think it's probably...
	RTR Workbook.
	Yes, I think that was on the list a while back, and I think I conveniently forgot about it.
	But yeah, I think that's a good idea.
	Jeffrey has a new book out.
	Let me just get you the name, so I just wanted to...
	I have not had a chance to read it yet, but...
	Let me just get the name of it because he is an elegant writer.
	So let's...
	Yeah, it's a Jetson's world.
	Yes. More history of my delving into self-knowledge and my therapy story.
	All right, I will make a note about it.
	One day I may see fit to release my entire therapy journal.
	600 pages of everything that went on.
	Every dream analysis, everything that went on.
	It was really a wild, wild thing.
	Yeah, at least one person noticed that two of the shows ago in my garden, a rabbit ran along the back.
	Let me...
	I thought it was a fairly funny email.
	TSA screening statistics.
	So year-to-date statistics on TSA airport screening from the Department of Homeland Security.
	Terrorist plots discovered?
	Zero. Transvestites?
	133. Hernias?
	1,485.
	Hemorrhoid cases, 3172.
	Enlarged prostates, 8249.
	Breast implants, close to 60,000.
	Natural blondes, 3.
	There are a few joke emails that I passed along, but I thought that was fairly funny.
	Yeah, turn and cough. Absolutely.
	All right. Well, I think we've reached that time, everybody.
	Thank you so, so much.
	I am working on a new book, and I have the first draft done.
	And I'm quite pleased with it, but I'm not going to talk about it too much just yet.
	Just please know that I am taking your filthy lucre and trying to apply it to some useful stuff.
	And if you have said filthy lucre, you can go to freedomainradio.com forward slash donate, perhaps.aspx, to send said filthy lucre my way.
	I would really appreciate that. Oh, yeah, I got that.
	How to act when you see child abuse in public.
	That's a great idea. I've got some stuff about that.
	So, yeah, have yourselves a wonderful week.
	Thank you, everybody, so much for dropping.
	I thank you for all of the great emails.
	I thank you for the critical emails.
	I really appreciate those as well.
	Also, I just did want to apologize for a podcast that I put out in which the information was incomplete or wrong.
	And I'm sorry about that. It was the one about the Gulf War Death Succeeding.
	The deaths from Vietnam.
	There were some people who posted criticisms of the statistical analysis in that I did not check it.
	It seemed like a fairly reputable source, so I have pulled the podcast, and I'm so sorry for putting that out.
	And so thank you for the people who gave me feedback on that, and I will certainly work to make sure.
	That doesn't happen again, but I really appreciate giving me the people who took the time to write to me to say, to call bullshit.
	And it seemed to be the case, so I've pulled it, and I'm sorry for that.
	In its place, I think it's FDR 940, if you wanted to check, is my rehearsal for the Come to Jesus speech at Porkfest, which I think is interesting.
	So, have a great week, everybody.
	Thank you so much. It is just an absolutely wonderful time of the week for me to be able to chat with you brave, kind, brilliant listeners, and have yourselves a great week.

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