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Oct. 30, 2011 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:08:52

2018 Freedomain Radio Sunday Show, 30 October 2011

Property rights from A to Z, standing up for the ones you love - and self-respect as self-defense!

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	Hi, everybody. It's Stefan Molyneux.
	Hope you're doing very well. It's Sunday, October the 31st.
	Almost time for BooCake's Scary Time Halloween.
	It's 2 p.m.
	in the afternoon, Eastern Standard Time.
	Time for the regular Sunday show.
	So, we've been requests.
	People like the parenting updates.
	So, I thought I would give you one.
	My daughter is... A couple of months shy of being three years old.
	And I must say that we have entered into, I've entered into, I mean, it's been really over the last six or eight months, an incredibly magical time in parenting.
	The flights of fancy, the imagination, the language skills are incredible.
	I was like two days ago, I woke her up from a nap and we just sort of fell to chatting and we were discussing...
	Everywhere that we could fly if we had giant butterfly wings and what we would do where we flew.
	So we were going to fly to SeaWorlds.
	We were going to fly to the pet store and to the donut store.
	We were going to fly right through the chocolate fountain at a restaurant near here.
	And for like half an hour, we were talking about all the places we would...
	Fly and all of the things we would do, and it's just fantastic.
	I think her level of compassion is just developing beautifully, or rather, is developing naturally without interference.
	She likes the movie Shrek, where the dragon, the big dragon, breathes fire, and she says that her approach to problem-solving the fire-breathing dragon is as follows, that the thing you do, and this may be useful for you in general, the thing you do with a fire-breathing dragon Is you walk up to it, you give it a pat, and a big hug, and you play with it, so that it switches from breathing fire to breathing rainbows.
	And really, she's just described the entire business plan of Free Domain Radio, so I really commend her not only for her empathy, but for her psychic abilities to divine philosophy plans in a whole.
	So Rainbow Breathing Dragons is the way forward, and hopefully somebody can put that on a logo, and we can get that tattoos, bumper stickers, what have you.
	She was great fun.
	I told this story at Libertopia. I'll tell it again.
	She was great fun at Libertopia.
	I was trying to explain to her what I do because she's sort of having some idea that I do something other than be a dad.
	It's hard to explain. What do I do?
	I yell at people on the internet for money.
	How do you explain that? Whenever I try to explain it, she gives this funny face like, that's not a real job.
	Well, I mean, so does my wife, so I can't really complain about that.
	But I sort of took her up on the stage, and what a stage it was at Libertopia.
	I mean, this place is incredible.
	You had Aretha Franklin there, you've had Sheryl Crow has played there, Aerosmith has played there, Ringo Starr.
	But, I mean, it's quite a stage.
	Tony Bennett, so the sound system is incredible.
	And so I took her up.
	I was on the stage and I said, I talk to people and I try to give them ideas that will make them even happier.
	And that's pretty abstract.
	So she was sort of in my arms while I was explaining to her while we were looking out from the stage.
	I said, this is what I do.
	I try to make people happier by telling them, giving them ideas.
	And she said, show me. It's a challenge, right?
	So I took her down and I put her in the front row in a seat and then I ran back up on the stage and I took my microphone and I talked into it and I said, you can hear me?
	She nodded. I said, are you happy?
	She said, no, I'm sad. Because, right?
	So I've got to make her happier. She said, I'm sad.
	And so I said, so here's how Daddy's going to help make you happier.
	And so how do you be happy?
	You get a nice big hug from Daddy.
	I jumped off the stage and I gave her a big hug.
	And she's like, okay, okay, my turn.
	So there was a little microphone there, you know, the ones that go into the base of the drum kit.
	There was a little microphone there. So I set her up with a tiny little microphone.
	So cute. Tiny little microphone stand.
	She's there. And she's booming away.
	And so I run down to the front of the stage and I sit there.
	And she says, Dad, are you happy?
	I said, no, Isabella, I'm sad.
	I'm sad. She said, can I make you happy?
	I said, you can make me happy, please.
	And she said, dada, dada, here's how to be happy.
	And she just scrunched up her face and stuck out her tongue like this.
	You know, it may sound crazy, but if you try it, it's really hard to be unhappy if you're scrunching up your face and sticking out your tongue like that.
	So anyway, I wanted to mention that. I also wanted to mention, people have asked me because this is sort of the quote terrible twos, and what do I do when Isabella says no a lot?
	And she does, but For me, the important question with regards to that is to not focus on her, but to first focus on her experience of me.
	I mean, this is kind of tricky, right?
	So if you're going to look at something that your kid is doing, the first place to look, it's not the only place to look, but the first place to look is to say, what is her experience of me?
	In other words, I have a relationship with her, and I experience her as saying no a lot.
	But my question, I think a much more important question, is to say, does she experience me saying no a lot, right?
	Because that's sort of the basis of empathy.
	And she does.
	I mean, she's at that age where I have to say no, you know, 30 or 40 times a day.
	You know, she wants candy, or she wants to run away, or she wants to go on the road.
	Actually, the road thing is pretty much done.
	She doesn't go on there anymore. But she just wants to do stuff that is not good, right?
	So I have to sort of say no and explain it and so on.
	So, but there's other times where I say no in my head, sort of before I say no out loud, that's not reasonable, right?
	I mean, I don't know if it's, maybe it's just me, maybe it's just my own history, because I had a pretty uninvolved mom, but when she wants to do stuff, A good deal of the time, I just want to say no.
	I just want to say no. You know, it's maybe half an hour to bedtime and she wants to pull out a bunch of trains and make a track and make a choo-choo train.
	And I know it's going to be long and involved.
	It's going to be lots of cleanups. I'm like, no!
	You know, it's wet outside and it's windy and she wants to go out and jump in the puddles.
	No! I get all these things where I just want to say no a lot.
	No, it's not quite convenient for daddy.
	No, I don't want to do this.
	No, I don't want to go and get all your balloons from the basement and put them up in your crib.
	I don't want to...
	I turn into this grouchy old guy with short suspenders and a big sign saying, Hey kids, get off my lawn.
	And so I sort of have to really...
	Focus on shifting my own parent from the cranky no to the eternal yes.
	Let's do it. You know, let's do it.
	Let's go and do this. Let's go and do that.
	She wants to swish her hands in the fountain at the mall.
	Yeah, we can go wash your hands afterwards.
	And so, you know, she wants to put her hands.
	There's a restaurant with a waterfall coming down glass.
	She wants to put her hands in there. Sometimes that makes her sleeves all wet.
	And so you say, no! Right?
	But what's wrong with her sleeves getting wet?
	They'll dry. So it's for me, it's a lot of it is shifting away, not from focusing on whether my daughter is saying no, but focusing on the degree to which I'm saying no.
	And, you know, sure as night follows day, the more I say yes, the more she's likely to say yes.
	Now, that's something that we're working on that's solving.
	Her toilet training is going great, and so all of that's fantastic.
	Her socializing is great.
	When she plays with friends, she has a blast and wants to go back.
	I think all of that's progressing just fantastically.
	I guess the sort of challenge that we're working through at the moment is she goes through phases where she's really friendly to people who are strangers, like waiters or whatever.
	She goes through a phase where she's really friendly and now she's going through a phase where she's really not very friendly, bordering on rude, where she'll hide from them.
	It got to the point, we were at a restaurant the other day, And I was chatting with two waitresses about a variety of things.
	And after the waitresses, my daughter hid under the table, and after the waitresses left, she wanted me to come down to her level, so I did.
	And she reached up and she cleaned my mouth.
	And I said, what are you doing?
	She says, I'm wiping away you talking to the waitresses.
	She needs to clean it away.
	Clean it away because she's very possessive.
	So, you know, that's my daddy kind of stuff.
	So we're just trying to get her used.
	And of course, occasionally people will sort of pat her on the back or whatever, and she doesn't really like that.
	She's got a very strict sense of personal boundaries, except with, you know, some close friends and with...
	With her mom and I, of course.
	So we're trying to sort of reorient her to, you know, people are generally nice, they're being friendly, there's no need to be rude, you don't have to play with them, but, you know, it's nicer to be nice to them.
	Sort of explaining why and so on.
	And those explanations really do work.
	I strongly, strongly recommend that.
	And know it takes time.
	You need to sit down and explain why it's important.
	So if you wanted to go and play with someone and they just ran away or they hid, how would you feel?
	I wouldn't feel very good. I would feel sad.
	And as she loves saying this, I would get sadder and sadder and sadder and sadder.
	And I said, yeah, so if you're not nice to people, it makes them feel a little sad.
	It's not like the end of their day or anything, but it makes them feel a little sad.
	And for a little bit of effort, you can make them feel quite happy just by saying hi.
	And if they say, how are you?
	Say, I'm fine. Or how old are you?
	I'm two and a half or whatever.
	So those are the kind of things that we're just sort of navigating along a little bit, just sort of trying to adjust that course a little bit.
	And it takes a while for all of these things.
	Patience and repetition is key.
	And so anyway, those are things that are going on as far as parenting goes.
	But it's just a completely fantastic time of the growth at this point.
	It's like it's incredible. It's like she's an accordion being pulled apart by two giants.
	She's stretching out so quick.
	It's just amazing. And I think those are the major things that are going on as far as parenting goes.
	She's had a bunch of colds lately because we've been traveling and she's been meeting a lot of people and so on.
	So she's had a bunch of colds, but she's great when she's sick.
	I mean, she gets a little cranky.
	We do occasionally when she gets stuck in the sort of broken record crying thing, we have to kind of ease her out of that.
	And because she can really get stuck there.
	I mean, you know she could stop because if you go somewhere, she's fine.
	So helping her to ease out of some of that broken record crying thing is going.
	Watching her develop empathy, she's going through this really, it's been now for a couple of months now where when she sees something that she likes, she will ask me if I like it.
	So she'll see a poster with some pretty colors on it and she'll say, Dada, do you like those colors?
	And if it's not a color I don't like, of course, I'll say yes.
	But it's really fascinating to me because to me that's very advanced.
	So she knows that she has an experience of the poster, say.
	She knows that I have an experience and she also knows that the two experiences are maybe different and that it's interesting and worthwhile to get my experience of it.
	That to me is a real triangulation.
	Of empathy, which is just fascinating to watch.
	Her negotiation skills, I mean, it's just astounding to see how rapidly and how powerful her negotiation skills, how instinctual negotiating is.
	This is why the free market is just so humane at a very fundamental level in that it reflects humanity.
	So the other day, she likes to be carried a lot.
	And of course, who wouldn't? It's more fun to be up top where you can see and hear rather than down below and so on.
	You can have a nice conversation with people's She likes to be carried a lot, but after a while, 40 pounds, you get tired.
	My wife and I were carrying through the mall the other day.
	My wife said, okay, you have to walk until we get to the bay.
	It's the name of a store at the end of the mall corridor.
	After a bit of negotiating, she agreed.
	We're walking through. The moment we cross The moment we crossed the line to get into the store, you know, she starts to kind of climb up her mom.
	And Christina said, oh, we just get to the elevator.
	And she said, no, no, we're in the store.
	We're in the bay. Right?
	And that's, you know, bang!
	You know, five minutes later, she's perfectly aware of the commitment that was made, of where it was supposed to happen.
	She's waiting for it to happen, and now she's fulfilling, that she's expecting or asking for that commitment to be fulfilled.
	Bang on! Like, right on! And she was doing, she wasn't sitting there staring at the store waiting for it to come.
	She was doing all this other stuff running around and that, but she remembered.
	And she's like, my leverage is, you said the bay, we're in the bay, now you must carry me.
	And it's like, wow! I mean, that's amazing!
	That is, that is just astounding.
	And, um... Yeah, so the question, how am I going to explain the police to her?
	I'm going to say, well, the police were a band, I guess, in the 80s and 90s that I quite liked, but it's not always necessarily great to dye your hair.
	I think I'm evidence of that. It's fairly clear.
	Oh, I don't know. We'll figure that out.
	We'll figure that out. I mean, I'll explain the facts and not the morality or anything like that, because that's something that she has to figure out through conversation as we go forward.
	It's just a fantastic time.
	I highly recommend Parenthood if you have the time and the interest in it.
	It's just an amazing thing.
	It's giving me a lot of compassion too because as I see the personality phases or the developmental stages Isabella is going through it's giving me a lot of patience in a sense love and compassion because it really helps me realize in the people that I deal with where people have gotten stuck where they have maybe missed a a move forward in developmental stage and for a lot of people it's it's pretty damn early sadly enough and so it's giving me a lot more sort of patience because because the reality is that we kind of look at and I sort of have to resist this meme in my head we kind of look at children like They're sort of broken adults,
	that they need to mature, they need to become like adults, they need to be fixed.
	And the reality is that I actually look at adults as broken children.
	And, you know, a little bit of guidance here and there, which may not even be necessary.
	Maybe she would outgrow this stranger thing without any prompts.
	But I still think it's worth putting a bit of nudging, just so I sort of feel like I'm doing something as a parent.
	But, yeah, I don't view children as broken adults that need to be sort of Moulded into a mature shape.
	I view adults pretty much as broken children and as I'm a father for these last couple of years I really get a strong sense of where people have gotten stuck in their development or where the development was interrupted or even stopped completely or maybe even reversed.
	That helps me really understand the challenges that people are working with in trying to navigate their way through a negotiation-based, semi-mature world.
	So that's been a very interesting eye-opener for me as well, just seeing how deeply embedded personal problems can be, how early on this stuff can happen, and in a sense, without a huge amount of work, how there's almost no chance to change it when you get older.
	Anyway, that's the update.
	I guess we'll turn to the gorgeous listeners, and thank you for your patience.
	And remember, you can go to fdrurl.com forward slash donate if you would like to help support this philosophical conversation.
	We're catching up with you, Khan Academy, in Lessons Delivered.
	Thank you so much. Up first is Locky Lock.
	Wow, that is quite a name.
	Well, thank you. Recently, you were giving an introduction to an event, and I think it was Libertopia, but I'm not positive.
	It was the stage that you were talking about where all these great names have performed.
	And one of the questions that you received when you were doing the back and forth about how you can defeat the arguments against anarchy was, I don't believe in property rights.
	Specifically land, that I believe that land is communally owned and then somehow it went into the idea of it being socialized through a form of government, which is not my particular take on it.
	It is that when I was placed onto this continent, let's say from an alien, dropped me down here, I was able to walk anywhere I wanted to and then Poof, you appear.
	You're on the continent as well.
	Now I can walk everywhere that I want to except for where you are.
	Which is, in a sense, a denial of my liberty.
	But I can't really say anything against that since I'm also doing the same with you.
	However, if I were to take some adobe bricks and wall off an area of that land, I'm actually, in essence, making a prison for you.
	If you were to take a tennis ball and you were to cut out a circle on this tennis ball, you have two circles.
	The circle, which is the small little piece that you're holding, and then the rest of the tennis ball, which is also bounded by an edge, which is round.
	It's just very concave.
	So how is it that establishing property, land rights, is not an act of aggression?
	That's a great question, and it's a great objection.
	I'll tell you how I would approach it, and you can tell me if it makes any sense.
	I don't like to deal with property in terms of stuff before I deal with property in terms of personhood, right?
	Actually, I've heard your discussions about it very much so, like, are you the owner of your actions and so on, yeah?
	No, no, let me, let me, I know, it may sound like I'm doing the same thing over, but I promise you it's a slightly different approach.
	Okay, great, great, great. Alright, so let's, as is usually valuable in this sort of situation, let's talk about my penis.
	Alright. So, I can put my penis anywhere in the world, let's say, in a free society, except I cannot put it in an unwilling woman's vagina, right?
	Or mouth or ear or...
	Or mouth or ear or armpit or whatever kinky crap is going on in my head.
	I can't do that, right?
	Right. Now, is it that I have become a slave because I'm not allowed to put my penis in an unwilling woman's vagina?
	Obviously not, but it is a limitation of what your freedom was prior to it, but the person did not exist in that environment.
	Well, but I'm just saying, right?
	If I'm practicing karate in my own house, I'm perfectly free to practice karate.
	I'm just not perfectly free to practice karate in a crowd, right?
	Right, okay. That's a much easier concept to get.
	And there's less penis talk, so it's less interesting to me, but obviously at a dinner table this might be more helpful, right?
	So I understand.
	So there is a limitation on our actions.
	Of course there are limitations on our actions based upon the, quote, rights, and I use this term just as a shorthand, right?
	The rights of others, right? Or the existence of another.
	Yeah, the existence of others, right?
	So it's the old thing that my right to swing my fist ends at the tip of your nose, right?
	I would actually go so far as to say your personal body space area, but...
	Yes, no, I agree with that.
	Yeah, I would agree with that. I would agree with that.
	So, yeah, I mean, so the first thing to establish is not the rights in land, but rather the rights in one's body, right?
	You're going to have to rephrase that for me.
	Well, there's no point talking about property rights with stuff unless you've talked about property rights with your own body first, right?
	In other words, a woman owns her vagina and can deny entrance, right?
	Yes, absolutely. Because I found out very, very continually when I was younger.
	So, yeah, in the immediate space around you, I suppose, so as to not fear the idea of your head getting bunked by a board just because the guy's swinging it around in the general vicinity...
	You know, maybe a space of a foot and a half.
	Right, and I can't do a lap dance two inches above someone in a bus.
	Like, I mean, it's just common sense things, right?
	So we sort of understand that there's, yeah, there's a space.
	I can't go up to somebody standing by a cliff and go, and stop my hand right in front of them.
	If they stumble back, they might fall, and I'm still responsible as if I pushed them, right?
	So, yeah, there's personal space and all of that.
	So with property rights, you first need to establish Property rights in the person before you start talking about the stuff.
	Because if there's no property rights in the person, there can't be property rights in the stuff, right?
	Yes. Now, the fact that there are property rights in the person means that we can own stuff, right?
	I own my arm, it's fair to say, right?
	Yes, but I don't necessarily call that stuff.
	Well, it's just matter.
	So's land. It's just matter.
	But it's me. I mean, there's no magical distinction between my arm and a couch.
	Yes, there is. I mean, it's just atoms, right? Well, no, the logical distinction is there's a difference between me and mine.
	So... No, no, I agree.
	I agree. Sorry, I agree.
	So I really want to make that distinction to say that I am responsible, or I own myself, right?
	So that's the me. Now the mine, I agree.
	We haven't gotten there yet, but I'm just telling you how I would approach the question.
	Sure, sure. I have the right to not have my body violated, and I am responsible for the effects of my actions, right?
	So if I go punch someone, I'm responsible for that broken jaw.
	Absolutely. Well you have a debt to that broken jaw.
	You have to reconcile the broken jaw.
	You don't necessarily own the broken jaw though.
	Well, I owe restitution on it.
	Yes. Right? Yes. Okay.
	So, and the only reason really that we're interested in personal property, like the me, the I property, the body property, is because other people will infiltrate it, will do stuff.
	And so, if I own myself and I am responsible for the effects of my actions, or I own the effects of my actions, See, I don't...
	Sorry, go ahead. I don't get the...
	I own the effects of my actions, per se.
	I know that there is... No, you just agreed with me, though.
	Sorry, and I'm not trying to catch you.
	You just agreed with me about the broken jaw.
	I own the broken jaw, right? I'm responsible for the broken jaw, you could say.
	I wouldn't say you own it, and I didn't agree with you.
	I said that you have an obligation to the broken jaw.
	It's a difference. Well, let's put it this way.
	Am I responsible for breaking the person's jaw if I just walk up and clip them?
	Oh, certainly. Now, you have to remember I have a gay punch where I'm more likely to injure my thumb than anyone else.
	But let's pretend that I knew how to throw a punch and broke somebody's jaw.
	Then I am responsible for that broken jaw, right?
	But it's still their jaw. Absolutely.
	But it's not their break.
	If somebody just trips and falls down, then it's their break.
	They have to fix it, right? But if I go and break their jaw, then I have to fix it, right?
	Just like your words or you are responsible for your words.
	Exactly. Exactly. Again, Tourette's notwithstanding.
	But so if I am responsible for the effects of my actions, right, then we have established that I have some ownership or some responsibility for that which I create in the world, whether it's a broken jaw or a painting.
	You have an obligation to it, but not it to you.
	Go on. Okay, let's say, for example, if I were to make a clay pot out of some dirt and mud and water, whatever, and I've made this clay pot, now I'm assuming that I want to see this clay pot see it You know,
	appropriate use, then it is up to me to use it, and thus I am able to use it, but that clay was available to everyone prior to me taking it and moving it and doing things with it, so for me to restrain someone else from using the clay pot is denial of them their freedom to use the things that are out there that we all had shared prior.
	Yes, but again, sorry to go back, but again, I don't see any fundamental difference between a jaw and a clay pot, right?
	A jaw doesn't just sit there on its own.
	You have to feed it, right?
	You have to give it blood. You have to give it nutrition.
	You have to give it oxygen.
	And all of that requires labor.
	So the fact – I don't see any fundamental difference between making a clay pot and growing a jaw or a penis or whatever.
	It's still something that you have put labor into growing.
	They're a clay pot. In fact, they've spent decades growing and maintaining that jaw and keeping it safe and brushing the teeth that are attached to it and shaving it and moisturizing it.
	They've put a lot of care into that.
	And so, again, I'm not fundamentally sure what the difference is between the labor in a sense that you invest in your jaw and the labor that you would invest in a clay pot.
	Well, I guess what it would be is more along the lines of you are...
	Expanding your sphere of control from your body, which one can readily assume.
	In fact, I guess if we were to start at the very, very most basic thing is if we have An entity put in a virtual reality world of sentience and logic.
	And they're capable of doing anything within the constraints of that virtual reality world.
	They can do anything that they may want.
	Then you have a second entity placed in the same environment.
	Now, assuming that there is no disagreement with an act, that no one says, no, don't do that, stop, I don't want you to invade my space, so to speak, then there is freedom for all.
	Now, it may sound like ludicrous, the idea of having free love, so to speak, with the penis example that you were giving.
	But if you recall the movie, Time Machine, the Eloi were very much that way, where they just go with the flow and everything is fine.
	It's the moment that one chooses to say, I'm going to put a boundary upon your actions to not affect my body.
	And at that point, there is a moment of aggression, albeit a necessary one.
	I believe that it is an act of aggression to say, no, you can't do what you want with my body.
	And then Wait, wait, wait.
	Sorry, but you've got to distinguish between aggression and self-defense, right?
	Initiation and response. Well, certainly.
	Obviously, the point is, though, that if I am in this virtual reality world, and you are in this virtual reality world, and we both have freedom to do everything that we want to with anything that we want to within the constraints of the boundaries of the system, the other person's entity does not, per se, deny that.
	It just is. And you can interact with each other in however way you want.
	The moment that you choose to say, I'm placing a restraint upon you to not do stuff with me, is a self-defense action, but it is also an action of initiation of aggression because the prior constraints were that we all had freedom everywhere.
	It's a logical extrapolation that you have limited your counterpart to not I'm sorry, I'm going to have to interrupt you because I feel like we were making progress,
	but I feel like we've just gone off on a tangent with virtual realities that I think is interesting, but I'd like to, if we can put a philosophical discussion on hold, and I'd like to ask you a couple of other questions, not to move the conversation forward philosophically, but can you tell me why this is an important issue for you?
	And I'm not saying it's not an important issue, I'm just curious why it's important to you.
	Well, I am familiar with your book, The Non-Aggression Principle.
	Well, not necessarily the book, but the idea.
	It's not my idea, but yeah, I've certainly talked about it.
	And I'm trying to put together a thesis, a book of some sorts called The Aggression Principle, where it evaluates aggression on the basis that It's self-defense is an initiation of aggression in certain respects, but it is also a necessary one.
	And why is this a topic that you're interested in?
	Because I like philosophy and you've made my mind explore thoughts and creativity.
	And yeah, I'm just trying to sort of understand it, and again, sort of understand it philosophically.
	But of all the topics in philosophy, this is one that is of particular interest to you.
	And again, self-knowledge, again, is key, right?
	So the question is, why is this of particular interest to you, this aspect of philosophy?
	Because I find it...
	When somebody makes absolute statements like what you have with, you know, consistency is always preferable to inconsistency and so on, I really get into the thought processes behind some of the things that are brought up.
	And the idea of property rights to me seemed to be a A break with the same consistency that you had had and so I was trying to come up with a more consistent statement of how to address the concept of personal Well, yeah, sorry, I'm probably not being very clear, and again, I apologize for interrupting.
	Oh, as far as my own personal life as far as...
	Yeah, not your sort of philosophical, but of all the topics in philosophy, I mean, you know, I could tell you sort of my reasons, which I think are pretty clear, but I think, why is it that this is the approach?
	Since you wanted to write a book called The Aggression Principle, as opposed to The Non-Aggression Principle, it's a very interesting idea, and I think it's a very interesting topic to talk about, but my question is, what is your personal history with aggression?
	My personal history with aggression...
	Well, I find that when I discuss philosophical things with friends that I receive hostility and I am trying to come up with a way that I can communicate with those people without having this type of harsh reaction,
	I guess. Let me go back a little further and say, what was your childhood experience with aggression?
	Well, I'm sure that every single person who was born and raised in America in this modern day and age would be hard-pressed to say that they didn't have an abusive father or mother in certain respects.
	But in my particular case, I found that my father, albeit domineering and You know, a jerk, tended to have consistency with his perspective that he would defend me with his life to the end.
	And my mom, which was a rather passive, aggressive type, would Avoid conflict to all ends, whether it meant leaving me on the altar or not.
	Sorry, what does it mean to say leaving you on the altar?
	Well, let's say I went on a trip.
	There were kids that were on that trip who were abusive towards me.
	I extracted myself from that situation and distanced myself from those people in a way that was following the rules.
	They came to me and said, well, you can't do that.
	And I said I was following the rules.
	And after a series of these events, they sent me home from this trip without Trying to work things out or whatever.
	And my dad said, well, that group is not going to receive another moment of my thoughts, my efforts, my money, or anything.
	They're dead to me. And I'm so sorry you had to go through that type of suffering.
	And my mom said, well, don't be so hasty.
	Okay. Sorry.
	And I just really want to make sure I understand.
	So you were on a trip and you were given certain rules or certain parameters of behavior.
	Is that right? Well, basically we were all at a convention type thing and there was a series of dorms that we were at.
	The group was, you know, the kids were being relatively mean to me, so I went to a different floor where there were other people, and I was hanging out with them and having a good time playing cards.
	Well, they didn't know where I was, so they were, you know, absolutely upset.
	Well, the rules were that you can't leave the dorm, and so I just went to a different floor of the dorm, so that's perfectly within the rules, but they found it still unacceptable.
	Right. So you were obeying the letter of the law.
	Was there a claim that you were violating the letter or the spirit of the law?
	I guess the issue was that they were trying to force me to interact with them on their terms.
	And when I did, according to the letter of the law, the intent was...
	I guess the intent was to somehow force us to be interacting with each other in certain respects.
	I don't know. But I do know that I followed the actual lawyeristic Yeah, of course.
	There's no such thing as the spirit of the law for children.
	The spirit of the law is just something that people make up so that they can break their own rules, right?
	Right. I mean, I have to give my daughter consistent and clear rules, and I can't say, well, you obeyed the consistent and clear rules, but you disobeyed the magical, invisible spirit of the rules.
	I mean, that just means that she then has to just count out whatever I say in the moment, and there's nothing that's predictable, right?
	Yeah. I don't get the escape clause called the spirit of the laws, or I know you obeyed me to the letter, but you disobeyed something that I didn't explain.
	I mean, that's just not fair, right?
	Certainly. Right.
	Okay, so, sorry, go ahead.
	Then the fact that, you know, he, despite being a fairly tyrannical father, had showed an immense amount of respect for my own being and He made sure that I felt a consistency within him that was,
	you know, it may be that he is harsh with his perspectives and that he insists that I work hard in school and so on or that I be respectful of my elders, so to speak, things of that nature and came down hard when I didn't.
	I'm sorry, what just came down hard?
	What would that look like?
	Oh, um...
	Nothing like really horrible punishment.
	More along the lines of imprisonment in my room, so to speak, grounding.
	Harsh language, abusive language.
	The only time that he struck me was after I was already flipping out and being violent outwardly as well.
	So... Now, again, sorry, I just want to share something that pops into my head when you said confinement, right?
	Yeah. Because one of the things that you were very keen on talking about, and you understand, I'm not talking about the philosophical truth or falsehood, this is just a self-knowledge thing, which is usually helpful to me when conversations get stalled, is you were talking about restrictions on movement, philosophically, right? Well, there's obviously a correlation there.
	Go on. Well, it's definitely, you know, a...
	Very likely source of how I come to this as being an issue that I want to discuss.
	I think that I've grown to have a better understanding of how I interact with my parents and I'm able to move forward from that, but I think that it did give me an underpinning that would lead me to be interested in this topic.
	Right. Now, if it's true that there's some unconscious motivation which is causing you to become interested in this topic, then it seems to me unlikely that you will be able to solve the topic, to solve the problem.
	Because that kind of unconscious stuff is more interested in repetition or perpetuation of the issue rather than solution.
	And so the reason that I wanted to stop and talk about this is I felt we were making some steps forward.
	And I was certainly enjoying that philosophical approach.
	But I felt that every time we made a step forward, you sidestepped or you would go off on a tangent.
	And so we weren't able to make any progress.
	And so I was concerned that there may be some unconscious undertow for you that would, you know, generally the first place is to ask is sort of about childhood and so on.
	And the thought – sorry, this doesn't prove anything – but the thought that I had in my head was that if you had someone who had rules and you called my arguments absolutism or absolute rules, which reminded me of your dad, then in a sense, you're kind of having an argument with your dad.
	And if that's the case – again, this is all just my thoughts.
	There's no truth in it, right? It's just a possibility – But if that's the case, then you're not going to be able to solve the problem philosophically because you're not drawn to it philosophically.
	You're not aiming at solving it philosophically.
	It's a way of recreating something which needs to be understood about your past.
	I could see how one could make that type of suggestion.
	However, I think that I am of the mindset that that is not where my...
	I don't know where philosophy is coming from.
	I certainly think that it's a worthy endeavor to discuss it in personal realms as well, but I think that I can separate myself from that issue in the terms of logic.
	It's like, is it impossible for a person to use their brain on a subject when the subject is of somewhat personal nature?
	Some people can, some people can't.
	I believe I can. It depends on the degree to which you understand the personal nature of it and sort of processed it or understood it, if that makes sense.
	Absolutely. So if you're very interested, and look, again, I think it's a fascinating topic, and I hope you appreciate that I'm not trying to dismiss your arguments.
	You could be completely right. But if you're very concerned about mobility and restrictions on movement and so on, and a core punishment for you by, as you describe, a harsh and abusive father was confinement, Oh, yeah.
	I got you. That's going to have an effect on how you approach the topic, if that makes any sense.
	Absolutely. Again, now, it doesn't mean that you can't say anything intelligent and sensible and perfectly rational about the topic.
	And I wouldn't have interrupted and gone in this direction, except I got a very strong feeling.
	Just feeling doesn't mean it's true.
	I just got a very strong feeling that we were approaching the whirly gig of the unconscious as we were moving down the sort of Socratic path of trying to deal with the topic, if that makes any sense.
	It does, and I appreciate the introspective line of thinking, and it's certainly worthwhile, but I think that we can certainly go further along the lines of the philosophy of ownership and whether...
	Okay, then I'm happy to do that.
	Let's just try and keep the virtual reality stuff out of it, because that really is hard to process when we're just talking about...
	Let's keep going. I certainly appreciate you sharing with that.
	I'm sorry if it feels like a bit of a tangent, but that to me is usually more important than the philosophy.
	That's the foundation of having the philosophical conversation.
	To move forward, I would say we were talking about how a clay pot, you put a lot of labor into growing your jaw or your kidney or whatever.
	We understand you can't just open someone up against their will and take out their kidney, but you put a lot of effort into growing your kidney.
	I massage mine with baby oil daily and that really helps lubricate my salsa moves.
	So you grow all of the things in your body and you maintain them and you exercise them and you feed them and all that and keep them warm and give them rest and so on.
	And so I can't see the fundamental distinction between your kidney, say, and a clay pot.
	both the things that you have put effort into growing and maintaining and both of which through that effort through you know the fact that the clay pot wouldn't exist without you creating it and the fact is that your kidney would not be available to the kidney thief if you didn't grow and maintain it so i'm not sure again i'm if it's the if the person owns if we own our own bodies and the effects of the labor that we've put into growing and maintaining them i'm just hard pressed to see the distinction between that and a clay pot
	Well, that's where I suppose the...
	The initial assessment that you own yourself is somewhat at odds with some of the things that I think...
	Let's say, for example, if I were to shout something, you don't own your eardrums to the point that I can't manipulate them.
	And so, in essence, you do...
	Well, sorry, sometimes yes, right?
	I mean, it's the old argument of the fire in the crowded theater, right?
	Right. But you can choose to run or you can choose to stay or whatever, but the point is...
	No, but if somebody says there's a fire in a crowded theater and people get stamped or...
	Stamped?
	That's stampeded and trampled, put together.
	Hey, look, we've made a new word.
	If somebody gets trampled on the way out, then the person is responsible for that.
	Oh, sure, sure. But...
	The idea that you control all of your body is not 100% accurate.
	If I move in front of you, I've caused your optic nerve to change.
	And so there is a certain limitation.
	But I guess the point...
	I'm sorry, I just forget that.
	The point that you're talking about is a difference between me and mine.
	And I believe that there's a significant distinction between the two.
	And yeah, help me understand it, right?
	So I grow my kidney, you can't take my kidney.
	I make a pot, you can't take my pot.
	That's sort of the way it works for me, but I'm happy to hear the difference.
	Well, in the case of the pot, you have to have taken from the environment something and done something with it.
	Now, the sweat and toil...
	Sorry to interrupt, but that's the same thing is true for my kidney, right?
	I have to have eaten, I have to have rest and shelter, I have to have taken something from the environment to have a kidney, right?
	Oh, that's great. That's exactly the type of thought that I needed to help me get past this concept.
	Okay, so... By eating and taking away the apple from the orchard, I have denied everyone else the apple.
	No, sorry.
	That's not correct. And again, I'm sorry.
	I really, really apologize for the interruptions.
	But it's not correct because you only get the apple.
	I mean, you fundamentally, in terms of the way that I look at property, right?
	And we're not talking about one guy wandering in an empty forest eating apples, because who gives a shit, right?
	Or if there's two guys, who gives a shit, right?
	There's going to be enough apples for everyone, right?
	Property only arises in a situation of scarcity, which is why we don't own air unless we're underwater, right?
	Scuba gear, you own it or whatever, right?
	But where something is plentiful, you don't own it.
	Well, let's say... There's no shortage.
	Let's say that you've got a... Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
	Again, I know you want to find the break for every rule that I'm proposing, and I'm willing to accept that there are times when it's blurry and confusing, but by and large, property only arises in a situation of scarcity.
	And so either... Nobody else cares that you're eating the apple, in which case there's no point talking about it philosophically because you're one guy in an orchard of 10,000 apples and you're eating an apple a day and nobody cares, right?
	Because there's nobody else to contest the property with you.
	But fundamentally, the way that I view it, and this is the way I think that almost all property works in the world, because there's very little that's left in a state of nature anymore, right?
	The way that it works is you only get to eat the apple if the apple only exists because of your prior labor.
	Right? So let's talk about fishing as a little easier.
	So let's say we've got a bunch of people living around a lake.
	And I go out in the early morning and I make myself a fishing net.
	And it takes a lot of work to make that fishing net.
	Oh, boy. Right? And then I go out and I bake a boat.
	And I take my boat out and I spend the whole day and I pull up five fish out of the lake.
	Right? Now, in a sense, those fish as property have not been found.
	They have been created because there was no chance for anybody else to eat those fish while they were at the bottom of the lake.
	So the fact that I have brought those fish up to the top of the lake has created something.
	It has not just stolen something from other people because there was no way.
	I've moved those fish into a place or a framework called property from not a state of being not owned but unownable.
	They're out of a state of property because whether the fish are there or not makes no difference to people at the bottom of the lake.
	Like if they're at the bottom of the lake because you can't eat them either way.
	Same thing if I go and I dig and dig and dig and I find some gold and I bring the gold up and I use whatever process they use in.
	I get it out of the ore and I put it in a ring and so on, right?
	Well, I'm moving it into a state of property from a state of nature.
	It's unownable when it's in the ground.
	So the only reason that rings there is because I've created the property.
	I haven't taken it from someone else.
	The same thing is true with land.
	The fundamental issue with property and land is that nobody cares At all about property and land.
	At all. Not even a tiny little bit.
	People only care about property that can be made from the land.
	Because if I said, listen, I'd like to sell you an acre of land, but you can't ever look at it, you can't visit it, you can't grow anything on it, you can't ever resell it, you can't ever write, but how much are you going to give for me?
	Nothing. Because you can't do anything with it.
	Whereas if I say I'm going to sell you an acre of orchards and it produces 5,000 apples a year which you can eat or sell or whatever, what you're buying is not the land but the apples.
	Who cares? If I say you have this land and you can build a house on it, then what you're buying is a place to build a house.
	You don't care about the land fundamentally.
	So the issue is what gets produced or created out of the...
	So you're not taking something from someone else.
	You're bringing something into existence that didn't exist before and therefore how can it be somebody else's?
	It's a very good point. And I guess the only thing I would say is that if you have an area of land, you know, let's say we're on this island and whatever, and you've got a guy who loves to paint, and he paints sceneries and so on, as soon as you've established this house upon the land, then you have...
	Denied him the scenery that he would have had before.
	And if he had somehow made a safe claim to that scenery so that he could paint it in a prior claim, then he would have been aggressed against.
	But since he hasn't staked a claim...
	No, no, no. Sorry. That's to say that you own everything that you see, but that's not true, right?
	If I look at someone's car, I don't get to own it.
	So the fact that I can see mountains in the distance doesn't mean that I own the view, because that would mean I own everything between here and the mountains just by looking at the mountains, and that's not valid, right?
	Well, it's valid until you establish property rights.
	Well, no, because if you're saying that I own everything that I look towards and everything in between it, then you've already established property rights.
	You can't own everything between – like if I live on a high mountain and I look 360 and I can see 50 miles in every direction, does simply looking at everything mean that I own it?
	No. Now, if I want to maintain my view to the – If I want to maintain my view to the mountain, then I simply have to buy or cultivate or infuse my labor, as Locke would say, or own everything between me and the mountain.
	That's the way to do it.
	Or I can ask someone, or I can go to somebody who starts building a house a couple of hundred yards away from my property or whatever.
	I can go over to that person and say, listen, I really love this view.
	I'd like to keep it. And so you could negotiate with that person and say, you either pay for them to not build five stories but only four or whatever it is.
	You can sort of negotiate with them to maintain that idea.
	But yeah, you can't own everything that you see and you can't own a view.
	I think that's fairly clear.
	So if we establish then it's the negotiation process at the beginning that basically if we were all on the desert island and I say, hey guys, I'm going to build a hut over here.
	Will that bother anybody?
	And they'll say, well, no, you can't build it there because that's where we're going to be.
	That's where we keep all of our apples.
	Well, then I'll build it over here.
	Or can we store the apples over here is a negotiation that's done and it's all It's all done with respect of non-aggression.
	Yeah, certainly. Property is negotiation because if you want to just go take stuff, then you're just Genghis Khan and you can go take stuff, right?
	Oh, sure. So property is sort of mutually assured destruction.
	We respect property because if we don't, then no one's going to respect property and no one can have anything.
	We're all going to starve to death. So there is a kind of, I think, mutually assured destruction around property.
	But, no, I think that, again, I just focus on the self-ownership.
	You've made great points. That to me is the real key.
	And I've got a clear understanding that it's not necessarily an aggression to create the property.
	It's more along the lines of a negotiation that is, you know...
	Implied consent or consent, you know, like if I were to go out to the mud ponds and start digging away to make my clay pot, and you come over and are like, hey, dude, that's where we take our mud baths.
	Don't use that mud.
	And we negotiate. Well, then no aggression has been done.
	So, yeah, I can see that property rights don't necessarily invoke an act of aggression.
	No, no, for sure. Although it is perfectly valid to use violence in the protection of property.
	It's very unusual in terms of like nobody shoots someone for putting a toe on their property.
	That doesn't really happen unless the person is psychotic, in which case that's, you know, they're outside of morality and they're just sort of a rabid beast.
	But the reality is that if, you know, if somebody wants to come and take my kidney, I'm perfectly, it's perfectly acceptable and I would actually see aesthetically preferable action to use violence if necessary to keep somebody from taking my kidney.
	Well, sure. And another way of looking at it in terms of creation versus...
	So if you have a child with a woman, the child would not have existed, right?
	If you hadn't made the beast with two backs and grown the kid and done all that, gone through labor and so on.
	That child is in existence now, which wasn't before, right?
	So it's not like you've stolen a child, you've created a child, and that's why no one else gets to take that child seriously.
	Away from you unless you're doing something completely heinous.
	So yeah, I think that property is that which is created.
	To focus on land is to sort of say, well, there's a fixed amount of stuff and if I take it, I'm restricting everyone else's liberty and now I can't go anywhere and so on.
	But people don't just take land, right?
	What people do is they use land to create stuff.
	So people say, well, I want a house and I don't want to make a house all by myself because, I mean, especially a modern house.
	I mean, it's crazy how complicated it is to make a modern house, right?
	But the only way you're going to get a house is if people have property that they can build on and then sell it to you, right?
	So to say, well, I want to go anywhere and not have any restrictions, well, if you have a system like that, then there's going to be nothing but desert around.
	There's not going to be any houses.
	There's not going to be any roads, no airports, no grocery stores, nothing, right?
	So you can have that consistency, but that just means you live in a desert and die from your first toothache, so to speak.
	That's just a practical consequence of that situation.
	So just to recap the two things that really were the sticking points that I had that you've addressed.
	The first one being that changing nature to produce a product is not actually, it's basically, it's a creative process and not a theft-based process.
	And that The ownership of land is not for land's sake.
	It's the ownership of land for the product that it can produce.
	For what you can create. And also that there's no distinction between your kidney and your clay pot in any fundamental way.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	Or you could say your spleen.
	I don't know. Yeah, that's a great analysis.
	I thank you for clearing that up for me.
	I appreciate that. Thank you so much.
	I like the property stuff.
	It is a real challenge. It is a real challenge.
	I think it's sort of in a way, it's sort of like UPB in that it's a challenge not because it's so inherently hard but simply because we've received so much nonsense about property.
	Like there's this thing going around at the moment that's really kind of annoying.
	I think it was Elizabeth Warren who had originally...
	She's actually named because her head is full of little burrows where bunnies live, I think.
	But Elizabeth Warren was talking about how no one achieves success all by himself or herself.
	Success is a collective endeavor.
	Everybody who builds something is using stuff that has been built by other people or using roads that have been built by other people and therefore we're all involved in everyone's success and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	And Peter Schiff when he was talking to the people at the Occupy Wall Street I think it was.
	That he was saying, people say, well, everybody's participation in people's success, this and that and the other.
	And, I mean, it's a load of nonsense because it leaves out the essential element of trade.
	Which is, yeah, I mean, I buy a computer in order to do a podcast.
	No question. I buy headphones.
	And so, yeah, Sennhauser and, who's my gateway, made the refurbished computer that I'm currently using, which is a great computer, by the way, and the Sennhauser headphones are good.
	The microphone could be slightly better, but not the end of the world.
	But the fact is I didn't take from them and steal this stuff.
	You compensated them. I liberated it from the capitalist overlords.
	Now, yeah, I mean, you know, we traded.
	We traded. So it's like, yeah, of course, everybody's involved in everyone else's success.
	But in terms of voluntary trade, it doesn't mean that you get to take from people who are successful because you're metaphysically involved.
	That's what Peter Schiff was saying.
	Were you there in my one-bedroom apartment today?
	20 years ago when I was working 20 hours a day to start my business?
	No, of course not. So, you know, I own part of your profits because I'm alive and I use roads too.
	I mean, it's just crazy.
	Yeah. It's crazy. Absolutely ridiculous there.
	And this is what I would like from socialists too.
	I wrote this essay a long time ago.
	I'm still very proud of it.
	I called it Marxism, but it was spelled M-A-R Marxism.
	M-A-R-K-S-I-S-M. Marxism.
	in that people who want the redistribution of wealth because of unjust economic situations should obviously lobby their universities for a redistribution of marks because some people are born smarter than others and some people are born with parents who give them an easier time in school or who help them out in school and other people don't.
	And some people inherit a better work ethic through the example of their parents than others.
	But I've never seen a single socialist in university say, listen, I'd like to take 15% or 20% or 50% of my grade and donate it to the less able students in my class.
	Why wouldn't you do that?
	Because they all want high marks so they can stay away from socialism and stay in the Marxism with a K called graduate school and professorships and so on.
	But I've never seen these people lobby in an area that they can actually have a lot more control in and say, listen, I need to donate a couple of grades to the less able kids in my class because it wasn't my fault.
	I just happen to be smarter or a better student.
	It's not my responsibility to The redistribution of income is something that everybody plumps for, but the redistribution of marks seems to be a little less interesting to graduate students who are socialists and undergraduate students who are socialists, and I think that tells you a lot about their motivation.
	Anyway, I think we're going to move on to another caller, but thank you so much.
	I really appreciate your honesty and your openness, and I like the topic.
	I know people have mixed feelings about it.
	One last thing before I go.
	It's not a new topic or anything.
	I just wanted to ask if you had seen a movie called Harrison Bergeron.
	I have not. I would highly recommend it.
	Harrison Bergeron is a, it was a book, I don't know, a short story book, and basically it's a society after the Second Civil War where the people without talent revolted against the people with talent, and government's job is not that all men are created equal, it's that all men are not created equal, it is government's job to make them so.
	And they use brain intrusions to prevent people from being too smart.
	It's by Vonnegut.
	It's just quite an amazing...
	It's a depression. Thanks for the tip.
	I appreciate that. It just popped into my mind that they use these brain invasions to keep people from being too smart.
	It sounds a lot like SSRIs being prescribed to restless children in dumbass public schools, but...
	Oh, yeah. It's going on right now.
	We're experiencing it now.
	Absolutely. Well, thank you.
	Thank you so much for your insights.
	You've been a great help, and I look forward to other discussions.
	Thank you so much. I appreciate that.
	All right. Do we have...
	How much filler do I need? Oh, man.
	You should have seen me sit down at Libertopia.
	I had to do about 25 minutes of filler because we couldn't find a speaker.
	So... And all I did was ended up chatting and making dumb jokes with the crowd.
	It was actually quite a lot of fun.
	But, you know, that's the kind of stuff that happens when you are hosting an anarchist event.
	James, do we have anybody else?
	Or do I need to do filler now?
	Hey. Can you hear me?
	Aisha again. How you doing, man? I'm doing real good.
	Are you getting any feedback from my speakers?
	No, no. Maybe you should turn your guitar up a bit.
	Sorry, come on. Okay.
	All right. Well, I'll just jump right into it.
	I've called twice before, and essentially, mine's more of relationship issues that I seem to have a hard time overcoming emotionally, even though I understand them intellectually, and I'm currently in therapy, so I'll just preface with that.
	In your 720th podcast, titled The Hell of Attempting to Connect...
	You talked about how one's rejected in one's childhood by his or her parents, and then one starts to believe that people who reject him or her are good, and then he or she is somehow defective or an irritating person.
	It's just an innate deficit.
	I'm not sure what I actually said, but it would probably be something closer to justified in that rejection.
	If my mom rejected me, then I must be that person who people reject and therefore somebody else rejects me.
	It kind of justifies what my mom did kind of thing, if that makes sense.
	Yes, yes, yes. That's better.
	And again, I get that intellectually, but I still find myself being attracted to women who, once I accept them, reject me.
	They seem very, very, very, very, very interested right up until the point where I just say, I'm just going to fully accept you.
	And then I guess I kind of see where the stereotype for the girls liking douchebags come from.
	Because like, if I would treat these women like, like, if I would reject these women, like hang out with them, but like when I was with them, kind of make them like reject them a little bit, they seem to be more attracted to me.
	But I don't want to have to do that stupid shit, because that's stupid.
	That doesn't, this doesn't feel right.
	So despite all knowing this, I still find myself and it's not It's not like I look at this girl and go, ooh, I like her because she's going to reject me.
	But somehow, someway, my subconscious picks up qualities in their actions that goes, you know, and then there's just a trend.
	You know what I mean? Like, I'm not purposely going, I want somebody who's going to reject me.
	She looks like she'll do that.
	Because they start off all nice, and then eventually, long story short, they end up rejecting you once you fully become emotionally vulnerable.
	Right, right, right. So do you have any...
	And I find it hard to put at the end of this cycle.
	I don't want to be attracted to these type of people because I know intellectually and logistically on paper that it's like equals bad time later on.
	So do you have any perspective or advice on how to overcome this freedom hurdle?
	Who do you think gets hurt more from that interaction?
	You or the woman? Me?
	That was a question. That was a question.
	Me? Me? No, I'm just curious what you think.
	Well, here's the way I think.
	I think I end up getting... Shit on too, but at the same time, I think the reason, I think it makes them feel uncomfortable.
	The fact that people can be accepting of them.
	I'm not so sure it's something they're 100% used to.
	So it might make them feel anxious.
	But I'd say, ultimately, I end up getting shit on more.
	Right, right, right.
	I mean, because to me, there's always been a subtle kind of vengeance in enabling people to continue destructive behaviors.
	And so, in a sense, there are two sides of this equation, right?
	Two sides of dysfunction that are acting out, right?
	So there's you, who's pursuing girls who are only interested as long as you're pursuing them, right?
	Once you accept them and so on, then they reject you, right?
	Now, how do they reject you?
	Do they just sort of vanish?
	Do they not return phone calls? How do you know that they've rejected you?
	Well, for instance, I was just in a relationship with a woman who said, She was having troubles with vulnerability, and she was saying that I was draining, and we've had some conversations before.
	And what happened is...
	Wait, I think...
	She said... Can I guess?
	Can I guess? You had lots of conversations about self-knowledge and history and all of that kind of good stuff, and she got exhausted of all of that stuff and said that it was really draining to talk about that stuff all the time, and she wanted to just have more fun.
	Essentially, yeah. More in that ballpark.
	Yeah, it's not like I spent the whole time speaking.
	I wasn't like, oh, go ahead.
	No, I know. I got it. I got it.
	You weren't like, you can't go to sleep.
	I haven't talked to you about what happened when I was two and a half yet, right?
	No, I get it. But you had these conversations which were of interest to you, and she found them draining, right?
	Yes. She also claimed that I wasn't, she said from the beginning she felt that there wasn't a romantic connection.
	But yet, continued to hang out with me because I had gotten along with her brother really well, and I was the first boyfriend her family had actually liked, and all of her friends- Wait, so she didn't reject- sorry, she didn't reject you at the end, right?
	That's sort of an important detail, right?
	What she did is she said some- well, she said some statements that made me go, okay, well, there's only logical consequences.
	She said I could never see- I could never see myself in a long-term romantic relationship with you, and I said, okay, then we need to break up.
	Like, it didn't feel good, but it was like- Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
	I don't understand. So she initially said, I don't see you in a romantic vein or a romantic light, right?
	And then you started dating?
	No, no, no, that was at the end of it.
	Yeah, that was, like, right at the end where she said that, and I just, like, was like, okay, the logical consequence of that is, you know, I'm not going to spend our whole time trying to prove that 2 plus 2 equals 5.
	That's just silly. I'm not going to waste my time and energy or yours.
	Well, but you did waste your time and energy.
	How long did you go out for? Six months.
	And I had signs. Looking back at you, like you say, you can always look back at the signs.
	Tell me about the signs.
	I bet you there's nothing you need me to tell you.
	You can tell me all about it. Tell me about the signs.
	Well, for instance, we started dating.
	She said she'd never been with a guy who could be so open and she could actually say what she liked and all that jazz.
	Said it felt right, et cetera, et cetera.
	She took this trip to San Francisco to go visit her friend.
	And while in San Francisco, she was there for seven days and called me maybe twice.
	And I could tell it was kind of more like if I call him, he's going to get upset.
	Instead of like for me or if I was in that position.
	Because I'll be honest with you, it hurt my feelings.
	You know what I mean? If I was going to say for seven days, I would at least give them a five minute phone call at the end of the night.
	Just letting them know I was thinking about them and letting them know what my day was like.
	What was your day like? Still trying to maintain some sort of connection.
	How long did you be going out when she went to San Francisco?
	Oh, three months.
	All right. So no, no, no, no.
	That's way too late. So go back.
	Go back further. What were the signs earlier?
	Three months. Nice try.
	Oh, I have to try for three months before I find out there are any signs.
	I guarantee it was the first five minutes.
	It was the first five minutes?
	Oh, yeah, this three month thing?
	I mean, no, it's way back, way back.
	At least, look, this is my belief.
	I mean, I'm talking out of my armpit, but this is my belief, right?
	So tell me about when you first met.
	How did you meet? Well, she...
	I like this. It sounds like I'm giving you orders, and I apologize.
	Tell me! Tell me! You have credibility.
	No. All right.
	Well, I'll try not to blow it. So tell me when you first met.
	Okay, we met online. My car was broken down and it was in the shop, so she lived 45 minutes away, so she came and came over and went on a hike in our area.
	She came over to my house. Wait, wait, wait.
	No, no, no. You met her online and she came to your house?
	We chatted for three weeks before meeting in person.
	Just like Facebook chatting.
	So let's go back to...
	Was it a dating site?
	Yes. Okay.
	And what was it that attracted you about her profile?
	Or did she contact you? I contacted her.
	The fact that she was into board games, which I like a lot.
	I don't know. I haven't found many people that actually think board games are cool in their 20s.
	Board games like... What kind of board games?
	Just out of curiosity. Like, word games like Scrabble, Boggle, Scattergories.
	Or Hammer, Scramble? Anyway, sorry, go on.
	Yeah. I found that, because, you know, growing up, that's...
	Me and my sister played a lot of board games, and I always just find...
	I like that the way you use my mind like that.
	It's fun. She seemed open to these type of ideas.
	She was an atheist.
	Or, I guess, she was agnostic, but I... But reasonable.
	So I thought, you know, kind of the same way when you started David Christina, she was agnostic, but you were like, you know, she's reasonable enough that if I lay the bricks in a line, she'll make the trip over to atheism.
	All right. So, I like that she was older.
	She did, however, she hasn't completed college.
	She hasn't even gotten her associates, but that to me is not like a make or break thing, you know?
	However, my family's type of family where I have two bachelors, my mom has a masters, my sister, we kind of just go to school.
	It was like a no-brainer for me.
	I guess my biggest signs is that she would say she wanted things and then wouldn't do the actions to actually get them.
	Like what? She would say she wanted to go to school, then her parents would offer to pay and she wouldn't go to classes.
	Alright, and why? Well, she didn't even sign up for classes because she said she didn't want to be a financial burden on her parents, even though her parents had offered, like, gladly.
	And what do you know about her family, her history, her childhood, her relationship with her parents?
	I know she's been very, very close with her mom, like, kind of friend, like, go hang out together, watch movies together if they're, you know, bored type thing.
	And then with her dad, it had been a little bit more stoic and stern growing up.
	The type where he would, you know, if they got mad at each other, he would buy her things to say sorry.
	Not very good at emotionally communicating his love for her.
	Right. Yeah, I mean, so as a guy, I mean, the place to look is, it's not the only place to look, right?
	But generally, I think it's fairly common knowledge that the place to look is the woman's relationship to her father.
	It's not 100% and it's not a perfect template, but if it's unconscious, like if there's a lack of knowledge or lack of self-knowledge about a woman's relationship with her father, it's going to have a huge impact on your relationship with her, right?
	Yeah. And so what was her level of self-knowledge about her relationship with her father?
	So far is that she knew it wasn't the best growing up, but it's now better type thing.
	Like, I guess he used to not say, I love you, and now he does.
	And before, he would never really hang out.
	Like, for instance, growing up, she joined a basketball team that he was coaching just so she could spend time with him.
	She didn't even like basketball.
	And, you know, just now recently...
	The word that comes to my mind is that seems quite desperate, right?
	I don't mean that there's anything wrong with what she did, but in order to spend time with your dad, you can submit yourself to a sport you didn't like.
	That's very sad. Anyway, go on.
	Um... So yeah, I guess I've been...
	She had a brother who she's really close with.
	I think she always was kind of left out because they always could do athletic stuff like tennis and she wasn't good so she would just sit out and play tennis.
	I don't think it was...
	She's the type of person where she very much likes the validation of others.
	Right? Now you said with her mom that she's close because they go to movies and stuff together, right?
	Like, they're kind of like friends, you know what I mean?
	Like, she would still braid her hair when she's 25.
	Okay. Like, she would be like, do you want me to braid her hair?
	She would be like, do you want to stay over tonight?
	Like, she's 25. I guess she's 25 and she would still hang out with her family about four or five times a week despite having an apartment in town and a boyfriend.
	She would still spend about four or five nights a week at her parents' place.
	Right. Now, but you see, proximate and close are not the same thing, right?
	So, and again, I'm certainly not criticizing this woman's relationship with their family.
	I'm just telling you what I think. But going to see movies and braiding hair and spending time with each other is not, to me, evidence of closeness.
	Yeah. It's not.
	I mean, to be proximate to someone is necessary but not sufficient for closeness, right?
	Yes. So let me tell you, the two things that popped into my head that would be an indication of closeness, right?
	Number one, so her parents offered to pay for her to go to school and she said no, she doesn't want to be a burden on them, right?
	Yes, yes. Okay, so did she talk about this with her?
	Did she sit down and say, well, I don't want to be a burden and here's why?
	And did they have a conversation about that?
	They asked her why.
	One time I remember we were out eating.
	With her brother and her mom, and she mentioned that, and her brother goes, oh, that's just an excuse.
	And the mom didn't say anything.
	Right, because if, look, if a family member...
	Look, this is my ideal family stuff, right?
	So, you know, it's a high standard, no question, right?
	But if a family member is stuck, I think that it's the responsibility of everyone in the family who claims to love that person to sit down and do whatever it takes to help that person get unstuck.
	Clearly the problem is not money alone because people can get to school if they want.
	I mean, I was on my own since I was 15 off and on and I managed to hack my way through school by working a bunch of jobs and going gold panning and stuff.
	So, you know, I really believe that even though things are tough, where there's a will, there's a way, right?
	Yeah. So, the brother is probably right that it's an excuse, but it's kind of humiliating to have somebody talk about the unconscious motivation without helping you out with it, right?
	Yeah. Does that make sense?
	It's like being like... Oh, you're just making excuses.
	Sorry? It's like being like, your paper's bad, and you'd be like, well, why is it bad?
	Is that kind of like that? Yeah, or like some coach saying, you suck at running without helping you get better.
	But the job of the coach is to help you get better, right?
	The job of family and friends is to help you with difficulties that you may be having, right?
	And I had a conversation with her, too, and I was like, so do you trust your family with your finances?
	And they've done fairly well. They have a profession where they can have a nice house and add on to it, etc.
	It's like, do you trust your family with your finances?
	And she said yes, and I was like, okay, then I was seeing an issue here because you're saying the reason you didn't go is because you didn't want to put a financial burden, but yet you say you trust.
	Long story short, I think you probably see, but why would somebody be attracted to a woman like this?
	Well, let's ask.
	I've got a couple more questions, if you don't mind.
	So, if you were to take charge in this family, right?
	Why not, right? You were to take charge.
	You would have everyone sit down and say, listen, my girlfriend is stuck.
	She wants to go to school, but there's this issue of money, and she doesn't want to be a burden.
	So I'd like to sort of facilitate.
	I know I'm not part of this family yet, but obviously I care about your daughter.
	Let's sit down and let's talk about how we can help her to move forward, right?
	And if you were to have that conversation, for those out there who may end up dating Isabella, these are the standards that I want.
	If there's something that we can't see in the family, I think it's fair game for anybody who's particularly romantically involved with a family member to sit down and say, let's sort this out.
	Let's deal with this. Let's have an honest conversation.
	So if you were to think about doing that, what would your emotions be?
	What would your feelings be? Anxious?
	About calling this family up, before you broke up with the girl, but calling the family up and saying, let's talk about this.
	I would be anxious.
	I would feel overstepping my boundaries.
	Right. Right.
	Right. Which is, I would guess, the girl's feeling, or the woman's feeling about her family, right?
	Because if she is stuck, right?
	And, you know, the image of her mom braiding her hair at the age of 25 means that...
	I mean, I swerve towards infantilization of the daughter for the mom's needs, but that, you know...
	I think so, too. I think so, too.
	Yeah. Right, in which case there is going to be pressure against the person moving on.
	You know, again, this is just ridiculous amateur non-diagnosis from remotely, which means probably very little.
	But the other thing I would say is that if there's emotional distance from the father, then there may be an over-emotional, quote, attachment with the mom.
	And the daughter, which is probably not that great, resulting in a feeling of alienation and hostility from the brother, which is why he makes cutting remarks.
	You know, this is just standard family dynamic stuff, right?
	But that's what I mean when I say, are they close?
	To me, close means that you help each other out with difficulties, with getting stalled, with having problems, which we all have.
	You know, not do you go see movies together and braid your hair together and spend a lot of time together.
	That, to me, is not the same.
	In fact, it can be quite the avoidance.
	Of intimacy and closeness and openness.
	Yeah, I think you hit, I mean, me and my mother discussed some other things and kind of came to that, you know, like was the mom overly dependent on her because she wasn't getting something from dad or who knows, but And the other thing, too, is that if she's doing this with you, if there is a pattern of dysfunction in her dating relationships, then it's something that the parents, if the brother is not helping her out, the parents need to sit down and say, okay, so here's another relationship that didn't work out.
	What do you think happened and why?
	And where were the first steps and what did you notice to begin with?
	Like, I'm doing this with you and I barely even know you.
	I mean, surely parents can help this out with their kids, right?
	You'd hope, yes. Right.
	So if somebody is repeating a dysfunctional pattern in her life, what I know for a virtual certainty is that she has people in her life who are not helping her with that.
	Yeah. Who are not confronting her on that.
	Who are not helping that cycle to cease.
	And if it's family, then I would assume that they're involved in building the cycle, which is why they don't want to break it down.
	Yeah.
	I guess where this all leads is I don't – because she's not a part of my life anymore.
	So why would I be attracted to somebody like – why would I subconsciously be attracted to somebody like this?
	This is the question I have for myself that I'm having a hard time understanding emotionally so that I can end the cycle of subconsciously being attracted to a woman that does this type of behavior.
	I don't know, is my first answer.
	My second answer is I can give my usual wild-ass guess.
	Yeah, look, the issue is that you find it very scary to not be inhibited in a relationship.
	Yes. Correct.
	I'm going to tell you a great and terrible and wonderful secret about the world.
	Which I think just about everybody knows, but almost nobody talks about.
	And I have waited, lo, these many podcasts to talk about this very deep, powerful, and exciting secret about the world.
	Are you ready? Bring it.
	Are you sitting comfortably? Bring it.
	Everyone is always and forever about five minutes away from the truth about their lives.
	Everybody is always and forever approximately five minutes away from the truth about their lives.
	And almost all the glitter dust, bullshit, magical, northern lights, shiny, celebrity, distraction, food, entertainment, media, games, nonsense It's all a massive disco ball of distraction to keep people away from the terrifying chasm of those five minutes about their actual lives.
	Once you understand that, you will understand how much weight in society is leaned against the terrifying fiery cyclone wind of those five minutes.
	If you were perfectly honest and unafraid, you can get to the truth about somebody's life in about five minutes.
	And that five minutes is everything.
	And woe betide those who cross over the five-minute barrier.
	Everybody is keeping these five minutes at bay all the time.
	With drinking, with drugs, with sex, with boredom, with noise, with sports, with travel.
	They're keeping the five minutes that's constantly circling.
	It's like a collapsing orbit.
	It's like a true communication satellite that you constantly have to keep bouncing away, pushing back from the upper atmosphere before it burns up and traces out the letters of the truth about your life.
	Everybody is five minutes away from the truth.
	Always and forever and everybody knows that.
	And so everybody is constantly hitting that reset, reset, reset, reset, reset on that five minute clock all the time.
	But unfortunately, we have no bridge to each other except through these five minutes.
	That is the only bridge that we have to each other.
	Everything else is isolation.
	Everything else is manipulation.
	Everything else is noise and distraction and distance and confusion and the self-consummation of avoidance.
	Five tiny minutes.
	So what can I do to take on that five minutes?
	You take on the five minutes, brother.
	You take on the five minutes.
	That's my suggestion. You take on the five minutes.
	I guess what I'm trying... I guess I don't know how.
	I don't know what you...
	What am I supposed to be doing? Sure you do.
	Hey, if you know...
	Sorry. Hey, if you know what to avoid, you know how to do it, right?
	If I know what to avoid...
	Okay, so you be this girl, and you tell me about your relationship with your dad.
	So tell me what your relationship with your dad is about.
	I'll do it in three minutes. I'll do it in a minute.
	Go. One moment.
	There's somebody at the door.
	You don't have to slip into something more comfortable.
	We can just roleplay without the actual roleplay.
	Alright. So, can you ask that question again?
	I'm sorry, there's somebody at my door.
	Sure.
	Okay, so pretend that you're the girl and tell me about your relationship with your dad.
	Always very stoic.
	Wouldn't do anything for my mom or me as far as actions are concerned.
	Didn't really have...
	The easiest time conveying his emotions to me, being emotionally open, telling me that he loved me, or things like that, or no kisses, really.
	Sorry, when you say didn't have the easiest time, I'm not sure what that means.
	Did not express his emotions towards the daughter, towards me if I'm the daughter.
	But show me... Sorry, I just want to point out that's a distance, right?
	So the first thing you said was he didn't have the easiest time.
	And then you said, didn't at all, right?
	I'm not criticizing, I'm just pointing out that's a big distance, right?
	So if I say I didn't have the easiest time finishing the Boston Marathon, that's very different from saying I never entered it, right?
	I would say there are probably times, but they are few and far between, in which he emotionally expressed how he felt towards his daughter.
	Right. And how was the discipline handled when you were a child?
	Intimidation. Get it right up in your face.
	Short bursts of anger.
	So intimidation, like raised voice?
	Tell me how that looked.
	Just get about two inches from your face with your back against the wall.
	That type of stare-down intimidation where you just get angry.
	Maybe even put your hand next to their head.
	Wow, that's terrifying, isn't it?
	I would imagine so.
	I've never experienced anything like it.
	No, but you're talking as the girl, right?
	Yes. Yeah, but I was the type where I wouldn't back down and I would try to...
	I tried to puff up my chest and show him that that didn't work, in which he would only buckle down more.
	So how did that resolve?
	What happened then? Well, obviously, he was bigger, so he won.
	And I had to find ways of passively, aggressively getting back at him.
	But how would he win?
	No, sorry, but how would he win?
	Like, what would that look like? So he would be in your face and snarling and yelling, and two inches from your face, you're backed up against the wall, and what would it mean then to say that he won?
	Well, his will was going to be done for the most part.
	I mean, I could huff and puff and go stomp off to my room, but in the end, what he said was going to happen, whether I liked it or not.
	Right. And what did your mom do with all of this?
	Um... Got pissed at him, but...
	Didn't intervene. Maybe would yell at him.
	Why not? I don't know.
	Well, yelling doesn't really solve the problem of yelling, but why do you think she wouldn't intervene?
	I mean, that was terrifying for you.
	Uh... I don't know.
	I personally don't. I mean... Of course, look, you lived in this family for 25 years.
	If you don't know them, you don't know anything, right?
	She was fairly...
	I don't know. He was clearly the dominant one over here.
	Right. Have you ever talked to them about your experience as a kid and how scary that was?
	We've talked about how there was a switch in my adolescent years when he stopped using those type of tactics and realized the era of his ways.
	Well, he got bigger, right? Period of aggression followed by A more mellow period thereafter.
	But I don't think we ever talked about exactly how that affected me.
	Right. So it's kind of something that you don't talk about in your family, right?
	It's like talked about but never delved into.
	It's like brisked over. Like, yeah, that happened.
	But that's it. Right.
	Right. Why do you think you can't talk about it?
	Don't know. I'm sure you do.
	For fear of rejection.
	Like what? Like not being excited.
	Not certain.
	I'm sorry, I didn't hear that. I'm not certain.
	So if I'm understanding you, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but are you trying to say that your parents might reject you if you talked honestly about your experience?
	Some of your experiences are pretty significant experiences of being their child.
	Yeah. So the price of staying in proximity to the family is silence about these negative experiences.
	Yeah. Do you think that's good?
	No. No.
	And that's the truth. Yeah, so then it goes back to, yeah, so why would...
	That was less than five minutes, I think.
	Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough.
	Yeah, I get it. It's tough to role play with a girl you dated for six months, but you did a great job.
	But sorry, go on. So again, the biggest issue is to avoid finding girls like this attractive myself, I have to spend that five minutes.
	Yeah. You gotta grit your teeth.
	I know it's scary because so much of society is against those five minutes, right?
	Yeah. Right?
	So, just an example that pops into my head, and it's more global than personal, but it's still important, right?
	So, a priest was recently arrested for selling fake cancer cures, I think it was, right?
	Yeah. And so, it's like, well, that priest is bad because he's selling fake cures for a real illness, right?
	But it would seem to me that responsible reporting would be to say that all priests sell fake cures to fake illnesses, and the fake illnesses are called sin and hell, right?
	But you can't talk about that.
	A company can be fined or people can be sent to jail for selling a bogus cure to a real illness, but if you sell a bogus cure to a bogus illness like sin, nobody can talk about it, right?
	Because you're five minutes. That's not even five minutes.
	Or taxation is forced, right?
	Yeah. People are five minutes from understanding not even.
	That's 30 seconds from understanding the truth about their society.
	And people are 30 seconds from understanding the truth about religion and the truth about war and the truth about the police and the truth about taxation and the truth...
	It's right in her face all the time.
	And so she didn't like that I stirred this up in her?
	Or something? Well...
	I think that you were not being emotionally open with her.
	Because if you got up to Podcast 700 and you're in therapy, then you know what self-knowledge is all about, right?
	And you repeated to me the weasel words that she used about her dad, right?
	Yeah. Before you even did the roleplay.
	Which means that you accepted those, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
	I mean, the man's in his daughter's face yelling at her.
	I mean, that is terrifying.
	That is overwhelming.
	That is wretched.
	Yeah, I thought so.
	I mean...
	And did you call a spade a spade?
	I said that that's bullying, and she admitted it.
	We talked about how that is bullying and intimidation, and that's like...
	That must have been a very, you know, scary experience.
	Right. Right.
	But then to connect her to, did you talk about it with your parents, right?
	Yeah. No, I never did that.
	And I mean, certainly, you know, that's my approach.
	You've got an issue with somebody and sit down and talk about it with them, particularly parents.
	I mean, that's such a huge influence on your life.
	Sit down and talk about it with them.
	Have an honest and open conversation because that's what love is.
	Love is about not having secrets.
	Love is about not keeping secrets.
	Love is about openness.
	And not having significant topics that you avoid because you're afraid of other people getting angry.
	That is not freedom.
	That is not openness.
	Okay, fair enough.
	So I guess I have to... If I would have had that conversation earlier, I could have ended it a lot sooner.
	Or, you know, it could have gotten better one or the other.
	But it would have been a lot sooner and would have saved everybody a lot more time if I would have just nutted up and done that.
	Can I use nut? Yes. I mean, yeah, I mean, you know, I sort of, I hesitate because I'm trying to think of a way that you don't have to do that, but I'm not sure I can.
	The way that I can do it is somehow not find these type of women attractive in the first place that would avoid that type of interaction.
	No, but you see, you're focusing on her avoidance.
	Yeah, it was my avoidance to not euphemize the situation and to actually approach it directly.
	Right. Right.
	Right, and so it's the knowledge of saying that if she has not experienced the truth about her relationship, look, I'm not saying there's one simple truth about her relationship with her dad, but people don't avoid the stuff that works or is pleasant, right?
	I mean, don't go to the doctor with a sore arm and say everything else is great, right?
	Yeah. And so it is that which we avoid, we reproduce.
	That is a pretty foundational aspect of self-knowledge.
	That which we avoid, we reproduce.
	Yeah. And so if there's...
	Let me just put it...
	I'm trying to figure it out this way. Okay, let me sort of see if I can break it down for you this way.
	So if she has a father who was not honest and open with her and emotionally available to her, then she's probably going to try and train men to do the same thing in order to save and justify her relationship with her dad, right?
	Yeah. I think that's exactly what happened.
	In which case, she's going to try and silence you in the same way that she was silenced, which is why you didn't bring these things up.
	Yeah, that pretty much nails it right on the head, it feels like.
	And so rather, you know, one thing you could, I mean, you don't have to say to people, go talk to your parents.
	I mean, you can. I think it's a useful thing to do.
	But you can say, you can show them what it looks like to be, to really care about somebody.
	This is so important, everyone.
	This is so important. This is what I believe is love.
	And I believe that things which aren't like this are not love.
	This is to really care about someone.
	To really care about someone.
	It's to help them to see the things they cannot see.
	Right? I cannot see my own eyeballs.
	It takes somebody else or a mirror.
	And there's no mirror in the world of self-knowledge.
	Right? There is only the honesty of others that bounces us back to ourselves.
	Right? And this is to really care about someone.
	Right? You know those interventions shows they have.
	I think I've watched one or two of them.
	Those intervention shows where somebody's just going off the rails with drugs or alcohol or sex or something like that.
	Yeah. Yeah. This intervention, right?
	It's the people who intervene who care.
	That is what I mean by love.
	And if love is possible, it has to be founded on honesty, and it has to be founded on courage, and it has to be founded on a genuine care and concern for the other person.
	Because you were concerned that she was not that attached to you, right?
	Yeah. But my question would be, how attached were you to her true self?
	How much did you stand behind her true self?
	How much did you encourage and woo out her true self?
	How much did you get behind her true experiences in the face of that which everybody wanted her to avoid?
	How attached were you?
	Kind of chickened out. Well, I wouldn't label it quite like that.
	Yeah, but I didn't do it. These things that you're saying, I wasn't unaware of.
	But I knew that if I brought them up, it would bring the wrath of Thor.
	Right. And look, you don't have to bring them up, right?
	You don't have to bring them up. I'm not saying get around and confront everyone on the bus.
	Five minutes, I got a 45-minute bus ride.
	That's nine people, right? Somebody I'm in a relationship with.
	But what I'm saying is that if you look into your own heart and you say, I am not in a place where I can do this five minutes with this person, all you have to do is know that, right?
	So if you can't do the five minutes, bounce.
	Well, I really, really resist telling people what to do because there's no point in that.
	Yeah. But I think that the right decision comes to you when you say, there is so much that I cannot say in this relationship.
	And I am interested in having a relationship where I can tell the truth, where I can be curious, where I cannot have to worry about doing my Macarena of self-knowledge and stepping on four landmines and losing three limbs before I'm done.
	Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
	Yeah. Yeah, that'll definitely be helpful next go around for sure.
	What I'm trying to do is just pick up tools so that I can, again, try not to recreate the past as much as possible, at least the failed past or the past I didn't like.
	So I don't want to have another relationship.
	And if there's one word that I can leave you with, the one word that I would invite you to meditate upon, my friend, it is the one word called draining.
	Yeah, that's something that always got to me.
	I felt like I was defective.
	I drained her. I was just too much or something.
	Right. Right.
	That is important.
	People have to want self-knowledge because it's hard, right?
	Yeah. It's hard work.
	So if she were 300 pounds and you're like, you know, you should probably try and lose some weight.
	That's not very healthy, right? And she says, oh, you nag me about my weight.
	It's so draining. Would you think that...
	She would be imminently about to start losing weight?
	No. It means the defenses are so strong that they're overwhelming any residual goo of the true self, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, so I guess if people find that draining, Well, you ask people.
	Look, I mean, anybody who's got self-knowledge is going to not be offended by questions about their history, right?
	People ask me about my history all the time.
	I think I'm pretty open about it.
	I'm not offended. Right?
	So, you know, if you ask, you know, particularly people who meet on the internet, what the hell do you know about them, right?
	They might not even be a 50-year-old trucker in lingerie, as I found out on more than one occasion.
	Or been on more than one occasion.
	But the reality is, you ask someone, hey, tell me a little bit about your family, tell me a little bit about your history and all that.
	And, you know, I'm always curious, you know, how is discipline handled?
	How did your parents resolve conflicts?
	Look, if you're going to get into a relationship with someone, you're going to have conflicts.
	And by far the best predictor of somebody's conflict resolution strategies or habits is looking at how their parents resolve things.
	It's a reasonable question to ask.
	Anybody who's confused as to why you would be asking to someone you want to get into a romantic relationship with, what is your template for problem solving?
	Anybody who's offended by that is not worth dating.
	It's a guaranteed disaster.
	Yeah. Yeah.
	It's just a bummer, man, because I keep trying to reject what I want on the women because it feels like there's so few of these ones out there that you're discussing that would be willing to be the five minutes.
	Right. Right.
	But this is like that old joke about the drunk, right?
	The drunk on his knees. He's under a lamp, right?
	He's on his knees scrounging around.
	Someone comes by and says, what are you doing?
	He says, oh, I'm looking for my car keys.
	The guy says, okay, you're drunk.
	You dropped the car keys. I'll give you a hand, right?
	So he kneels down. He starts looking.
	I can't find the car keys. He's like, well, where the hell did you drop them?
	And he said, oh, it was down the alley.
	I dropped them down the alley, down that way.
	And he's like, well, what the hell are you looking here for?
	Well, this is where the light is.
	So the rare as something is, right?
	Saying, well, diamonds are really rare.
	Therefore, I'm just going to go pan on a beach.
	No, if diamonds are really rare, you've got to look before you look, right?
	Yeah. If something is really rare, you have to be even more.
	Let's take a diamond metaphor.
	If I'm looking for a diamond being a girl that's interested in self-knowledge, a good place to pan might be a philosophy meetup group or something.
	You're not guaranteed to get diamonds.
	Yeah, or a psychology meetup group or whatever, right?
	Yeah. Or, you know, again, you can, I don't know, do what you want on the internet, but just remember, I mean, just be really, really selective.
	When they look to replace the CEO of Apple, it's not going to be an open call for resumes, right?
	Yeah. I was going to say, well, we'll probably get about a million resumes.
	We're going to interview everyone and try and find the right person, right?
	That's not how it's going to go down.
	Well, yeah, thank you very much for your insight.
	It's definitely been helpful. I'm very glad.
	And listen, good work, good stuff.
	I mean, I think it's really important to recognize that sometimes it's okay.
	It's like putting a ladder, going up a ladder, one foot goes up at a time.
	I think it's good to give you praise for praises due.
	I mean, you're in non-abusive relationships.
	You're learning stuff. It's not bad.
	The next person you meet doesn't have to be the person you marry.
	I mean, I think great if you can, right?
	But I would be...
	I think be proud and be happy.
	You know, you're learning a lot. The more job interviews you go to, the better you're going to be at them.
	So I think be happy about all of that.
	Yeah. All right.
	Yeah, just know and efficiently get out of them at the point when you know that the investment is going to turn bad.
	But anyways, thank you very much.
	Right, right. You're very welcome, my friend.
	Best of luck to you. All right.
	And he is a fine-looking guy.
	Actually, it's not a six-pack of abs.
	It's like a 24-pack of abs.
	He's ribbed like an armadillo.
	And so if you can find him online, well worth the look.
	All right. I think we may have time for another question.
	Or we've got a couple of questions in the chat.
	Will my daughter be capable of self-defense?
	How do you answer the language of the state if you don't know it?
	Is she going to get into judo?
	I'm not going to pretend her judo doesn't exist if she's really interested in doing it.
	I think that's fine. My guess is that she's not going to be interested in doing it because I believe, I believe, without having any empirical proof, I believe that people get interested in martial arts because they got kicked around a lot as kids and they're left in a state of permanent amygdala excitement in the fight or flight and that's where they feel most comfortable and most at home.
	We do the caller on the line, Andre.
	Andre, my friend, how can I help you?
	Hi, Stefan. It's Andre from Toronto.
	Hey, how's it going? Good, good.
	I'm just plowing through your podcast.
	I really just found out about you a few months ago, and I've been a big influence in several areas of my life.
	One question I had, just basically to find out your opinion.
	My background, my educational background, my major was psychology in York University.
	And as I was going through my courses, I really found the conventional therapies and approaches to change, I found them really lacking.
	And I was really disappointed in just the amount of effort and time that it was supposed to take, that kind of was a convention.
	I mean, it takes years and months and many hours at a time.
	And some of your podcasts, Earlier ones.
	I'm not sure if your position has changed.
	But you kind of advocate for the same thing, that a real personal change takes a long time.
	I kind of found myself disagreeing with that.
	And back when I was still studying it, I started looking around for alternatives.
	And apparently I found that there's quite a big world out there With people like Milton Erickson.
	People who offer quicker solutions to problems, anxiety, depression, that kind of stuff?
	Yes, people like Milton Erickson and Richard Bandler.
	Is it EMDR? There's some sort of eye-flashy thing.
	I'm sorry, I don't know much about it.
	It's neuro-linguistic programming.
	And the work that's done directly with subconscious under either state of hypnosis or in a conscious state but through metaphors and through stories and indirectly basically you're speaking with a person but you're actually you know you're inserting kind of these messages to the subconscious so you're not really trying to convince them or talk to their reasonable mind you're just directly going to the lower level kind of Consciousness.
	I really did a lot of research into that and it's fascinating stuff.
	I'm wondering what your thoughts about that is.
	If you know of an expert that I can interview, I would certainly be happy.
	I'm always keen on bringing the latest research in this field to the audience.
	You can send me an email.
	You know, again, please understand, I'm an amateur on the internet, so these are just my opinions.
	My concern would be that if you're just trying to work with one part of the mind rather than the whole mind, I think that you may achieve temporary relief, but I'm not sure that it would be long-lasting.
	And again, maybe there's studies out there that makes this entire, this is just my initial concern.
	So to say that the problem is in the unconscious, and that's what we're going to go and fix by providing counter-messages.
	That can be—I think that may be a little risky because it doesn't look at the brain holistically, so to speak.
	And so what I like about traditional talk therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy in particular, what I like about it— It treats the brain as a whole thing.
	So there are these ideas in your head or these arguments in your head that we need to challenge them rationally, figure out where they came from, how they were sort of, quote, implanted by your experiences and so on and work to undo them and provide you counter stories.
	But it's a fully engaged process where...
	The whole mind is enlisted in that.
	I don't like, in a sense, going past the conscious mind into the unconscious and doing this, that, and the other because I think that is...
	I'm concerned it displaces dysfunction from one place to another.
	I think it's more of a whole brain thing.
	I think that learning better mental health practices is like learning a new language when somebody is continually speaking the old language into your ear.
	That's why it's so hard.
	You know, it's sort of the idea that, you know, I'm trivializing and I apologize, but it's sort of like if I go to sleep with Spanish tape on, I'll wake up knowing Spanish better.
	Yeah, your unconscious is going to be listening the whole time, but it's not your whole brain thing.
	And so I think it's tougher than people think.
	And I think that...
	The shortcuts can end up being very, very long cuts, right?
	There's nothing more expensive than something you buy too cheap, right, sometimes.
	So again, I mean, this is just my initial thoughts and impressions.
	I don't have the data.
	Maybe there's great data out there, but I think that if there was...
	I think that there's enough free market left in the arena of psychology that it would be something that would have taken over by now.
	And so short term gains in terms of happiness are fairly easy to achieve.
	I don't know. If you have a difficult phone call to make or whatever and then you just decide to put it off or you phone and the person's not there for a day, you're like, yay, I feel happy.
	But that doesn't solve your problem.
	It's just a relief from not having to do something that is difficult in the moment.
	And I guess I'm sort of concerned that if people do have challenging conversations to have with family or members or siblings or other caregivers or whatever, and there's a way that they can be hypnotized and reprogrammed, so to speak, into not having to deal with all of that, that may make them happy.
	Woohoo!
	Yay!
	You know, I can take a pill and lose weight rather than deal with whatever traumas have led to my weight gain from a psychological level.
	So, yeah, I guess that would be my concern.
	Again, this is just my thoughts off the cuff since you asked, but if you have data, if you have experts, whatever, I would certainly be happy to look over that.
	I obviously can't dismiss anything because science is constantly evolving, but I would approach that with quite a bit of skepticism, but we'll see.
	This was my approach, too.
	I'm very skeptical by nature, and that's why I found a lot of your stuff so powerful, because I really agree with You know, many problems that I had throughout my life with, you know, religion and state and traditions and all that, just I found it repulsive.
	And I always wanted to come in and discover things for myself, on my own.
	And basically the premise of change, working directly with the subconscious, I guess, is that the conscious mind, it kind of acts as a filter, it's like a gatekeeper in a way.
	In order to solve these deep-rooted, deep-seated issues, family and abuse and stuff like that, you basically need to meddle with the lower-level controls, like lower-level code, if you will, in programming, like kernel-level stuff.
	That's the view from the more progressive therapies.
	Yeah, and again, I'm certainly, I mean, there was a woman at Libertopia who was talking to me about how there seems to be a genetic basis for psychopathy or sociopathy.
	I tried looking into it.
	I can't find any conclusive evidence.
	But again, this stuff is changing all the time and we always have to be open to new information.
	There was a study that was commissioned by the Koch brothers who were really Tea Party, Libertarian-y kind of Republican people.
	A study into global warming that the guy who did the study seems to have established at least to his satisfaction that global warming is real.
	Somebody posted about that.
	I did an interview with a guy who was saying There were sort of localized heat sources and this that they want to take into account, so apparently this data was all massaged to take that into account, and there was still evidence of global warming, which, you know, it's not proof that it's, you know, anthropomorphic, it's not proof that it's permanent, it's not proof that it's escalating, but, you know, that's information that I didn't have before.
	That is, you know, worth people having.
	More information, more data is coming out all the time.
	And, you know, we have to make the best decisions that we can based on the data that's available.
	And if new data comes along, then, you know, we adjust our positions.
	So I'm skeptical, but, you know, what does that mean?
	That just means that I have some reasons to be skeptical, but, you know, the data always trumps, you know, data always trumps opinion.
	So, yeah, if you can send me any stuff on it, I think that would be great.
	For sure. I'm going to do some research and send you some key information that I think will outline it better.
	I mean, one reason that I want to bring this up is because institutions that we're kind of against, such as the state and religion, I think they're They're making a good use of these techniques by basically putting people in a state of trance or altered consciousness all the time.
	Schools and churches and prayers.
	And they're basically putting people in a highly receptive, highly suggestive, suggestible state where whatever propaganda is just going to sink in that much faster.
	And I think Sorry to interrupt, but I've certainly thought over the years off and on that the boredom that I experienced in church and in school was probably not entirely accidental, but was rather a way of having me become a daydreamer so that whatever was being communicated would sort of flow into the unconscious, so to speak, without necessarily as much of a gatekeeper.
	Boredom, I guess, is a way of bypassing some of the more rational thoughts.
	Skepticism that people have.
	I'm not surprised by that at all.
	It's a very interesting observation.
	Basically, my hope is that somehow people that are more on the libertarian side and more in terms of reason and progress, they can take advantage of these techniques in time.
	I just don't want to be in a situation where we're kind of I have to discover the wheel, whereas the state and the church and all that, these people have been using it for For centuries.
	It might not be explicit knowledge, but they kind of stumble upon techniques that work, and they're just using them to their advantage.
	Yeah, what's that old line?
	I can't believe we would be the people who would bring a knife to a gunfight.
	Yeah. If we have better tools, I mean, I think the danger of the tools is that we can then rely on the tools rather than the reason and the evidence, and I just want to keep pounding on the reason and evidence, but...
	Yeah, I think that's great.
	So yeah, if you can send me more information, I think you've made your case and I'm certainly interested in hearing more about it.
	And if there's a faster way to do it, you know, absolutely.
	I mean, I like to drive, not walk.
	So I think that's a great approach.
	Thank you. For sure. And just a more personal note, I just wanted to thank you for some of your parenting advice and insight.
	My daughter is the same age as yours.
	Oh, how cool! Yeah, and I'm ashamed to say that up until a few months ago where I kind of stumbled upon your work, I still had this belief that occasional spanking in really rare circumstances is valid.
	And I was really kind of relieved and happy through the stuff that you've put out.
	To really completely put that theory to rest.
	I mean, that's something that's no longer not even considered.
	That is a beautiful thing to hear.
	Yeah, that is a beautiful thing to hear.
	And I can't tell you, look, I hope that you won't beat yourself up for doing that which was culturally and in many ways praised, right?
	We can't know before we know, right?
	And I think that's really important, right?
	So... You know, people who teach their children about Jesus and God and so on, before they've encountered arguments that they can't counter or whatever, to me, the responsibility comes with the knowledge.
	I mean, one of the reasons that people avoid philosophy is it gives them choices that I really don't want to have, right?
	One of the reasons people avoid self-knowledge or therapy.
	It gives them choices that they don't want to have, right?
	So, I mean, you hear this all the time.
	You talk about, ah, let's have a free society.
	Ah, that's utopianism because there are bad people in the world.
	There always will be. Human nature is predatory.
	It's violent. It's, ah, right?
	It's the matrix argument.
	Humanity is a cancer, right?
	And people have to define their own dysfunction or the dysfunction that they've suffered under as human nature, as a way of avoiding the fact that it was a choice on the part of people.
	And this is one of the reasons why irrational communities tend to stick So close together.
	I can have religious people on the show.
	I can have psychologists who disagree with my amateur theories on the show.
	I can have economists who disagree.
	I can have lots of people who disagree with me on the show.
	I think that's great. I have lots of people who disagree with me on the message board.
	I have lots of people who disagree with me around the world.
	I think that's wonderful. I think humanity only benefits from a robust debate.
	Whereas people who have more irrational beliefs, they kind of have to remain a little bit more isolated.
	Because they know that with encountering strong arguments to the contrary creates a choice that is the beginning of a domino of cascading cause and effect that can Kind of rip them out of the matrix.
	And so that is a real challenge.
	That is a real challenge. So first of all, I want to just incredibly applaud you for your choice to refrain from spanking.
	I think that is a fantastic choice.
	And I think that is – I don't have to thank you because I'm sure that over time your kids will thank you in terms of whether they know it or not.
	Their behavior is going to change.
	Their IQ is going to increase.
	Their Aggression and their resistance is going to decrease and so on.
	But I thank you because your daughter is going to grow up in a world that my daughter and I are going to have to live in.
	And that is one giant leap.
	It's one small step for mankind, but it's one small step for you in a sense, but it's one giant leap for mankind.
	And so I really want to thank you for the choice that you've made to drop the aggression with your daughter.
	Not that I have any power to forgive, but I hope that you will forgive yourself for what you did prior to having the knowledge, because we cannot know before we know.
	And I hope that you will accept that as a perspective and be gentle with yourself for making mistakes before you knew there were mistakes.
	Well, I mean, the real thanks goes to you, of course.
	But in my way, I'm paying it forward in a sense that my friend and his wife are expecting right now.
	And I'm kind of doing some work with them.
	I'm laying the groundwork for their kid.
	And I've already shown them your video on spanking.
	I don't really want to directly send them to your stuff because it's not going to go over too well.
	They're going to find it too radical.
	Listen, they're busy enough getting ready for it.
	They don't need to reinvent their whole life through philosophy when they're about to have a kid.
	So yeah, pick and choose, absolutely.
	I'm just throwing the seeds out there and I'm kind of showing them that there's different ways so they don't make the same mistake that I did initially at least.
	And how's your wife with all of this?
	She's been pretty receptive.
	I mean she understood it on a deeper level the same way I did.
	I mean it's not something It's something that I was uncomfortable with.
	It didn't sit well with me and usually it's been an indication for me that I need to change course and it really helped.
	I've done this 180 degree turnaround so many times in my life.
	Pretty much any issue you can think of.
	I lived in Israel and I was about to go into the army and I was all pro-army and I had to make 180 degree and become against the army, against war.
	And then there was the whole big religious pressure.
	Obviously in Israel, the state and the religion are the same over there.
	So there was other examples in my life where I had to do this.
	And I found that whenever I went with this gut feeling that something is wrong, that this is not a good way to do things, usually I was right.
	And I mean, my wife, it was a very easy transition because As soon as I just started talking about these things and pointed out that it really changes the brain and it's a horrible thing and so on and so on.
	She really understood that and we have no problem, no disagreement on this issue.
	Wow, wow, fantastic.
	Yeah, it's weird.
	It's counterintuitive. It is counterintuitive.
	And I'll just give you sort of a brief example that I went grocery shopping with Isabella today because, you know, we're just out of everything.
	And she wanted a chocolate egg, you know, the little kinder eggs that have the surprise.
	Surprise! Your toy sucks!
	But she wanted to open the egg and I said fine.
	And she wanted to take one bite of the egg and I said fine.
	And then she wanted to take another bite of the egg and I said no because, you know, you can maybe have a little bit after lunch after you go pee or whatever.
	But no.
	And she didn't. You know, she kept asking and I just said no.
	I said I'm sorry. It's, you know, you're going to fill up on chocolate.
	You won't eat your lunch. You need to eat some vegetables so you get big and strong.
	This is a treat. And I explained it to her and so on.
	And she didn't. She just held the egg in her hand.
	She played with it. She crumbled it into a cup.
	But she did not have another bite.
	It's completely counterintuitive that the less pressure and the more respect that you apply to children, The more they will listen.
	They stop listening when you escalate and it's the lightest touch that you need.
	She listens. We had some friends and we were all running.
	She began running towards the break in the sidewalk where the cars come out of her parking lot.
	And I said, Isabella, please stop.
	And she stopped right away.
	She listens really well because I try to say yes as much as possible.
	And she is – I mean I hate to say obedient because I wouldn't call my wife obedient.
	But she is – she's certainly respectful of the limits that I place.
	And that is something that I'm glad happened because that was my prediction and that was the goal, of course.
	And I can empirically confirm a 100% case of one that if you are peaceful and gentle and respectful of your children and recognize that they have as much to teach you, as unbroken whole souls as you have to teach them.
	if not more, then they will listen, and they will respect what you do, and you will have a much easier and more fun Time of being a parent because you won't be will versus will.
	And I think that that will only, you know, so people say, well, will you teach your child self-defense?
	Well, yeah. Absolutely.
	Self-respect is self-defense because self-respect keeps you out of those situations where self-defense ever gets necessary.
	So thank you. And, you know, if I could carry you on my shoulders through a ticker tape parade for what you're doing, I would.
	And I really appreciate that stand that you've taken.
	And, you know, thank your wife again for me because that means that's one other potential friend my daughter might have when she gets older, and I appreciate that.
	All right, Stefan. Thanks for your great work.
	You're welcome. Take care. Take care.
	Well, we have come to an end of another fine Sunday show.
	Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you everybody so much for all of the great questions and the great comments.
	Oh, sorry, one second.
	Okay, Jocelyn, just for posting this, if you have a moment.
	I've been looking for a response to an issue a friend of mine has.
	His issue is that he thinks that the idea that cuts to entitlements won't necessarily lead to civil unrest, at least in the kind that you have described.
	He cited some examples where farming subsidies were cut, and yet farmers didn't park their tractors in the street.
	He therefore thinks that you are somewhat of a doomer.
	Okay, I mean, I would be happy to look at those examples.
	I would guess, this would be my guess, my guess would be that farming subsidies were cut but I would imagine also that at the same time there was something else that was done like protectionism.
	Tariffs were raised against farm goods.
	There would be some bribe, some reason why or maybe subsidies were increased for fertilizer or maybe land tax was lowered or something.
	There would probably have been a quid pro quo that kept people off the streets.
	I could be wrong, but please, if your friend wants to send in some examples, host at freedomainradio.com.
	I would be happy to look at them. It certainly is not the case that every cut breeds riots.
	I mean, remember, Reagan fired all the air traffic controllers and they didn't put grenades in their air traffic control equipment.
	It's... It's not the case.
	It will be, I think, if there's sympathy for the people who are being cut, then there will be strikes and riots.
	If there's not sympathy for them, then there won't be.
	And so that would be my guess.
	I know here in Ontario the farmers and people have quite a lack of patience with the farmers because everything here is crazy expensive because we've got this socialized farm system where everyone's part of a marketing board and government controlled and they have to sell a certain amount and they get paid a fixed amount and that's just horrible and the licenses for being a farmer it's like taxicab licenses are crazy expensive so we pay way more for food than we should given we're such an agricultural province in Ontario.
	But it's wretched. So people have a little less sympathy for farmers than they used to.
	And also, of course, when the farmers do gum up the traffic for the sake of their state subsidies, people are losing patience with the state.
	I mean, it's a beautiful thing that's happening.
	I think it was 70 or 80 percent of Americans do not believe that the federal government is going to do the right thing.
	I mean, this is incredible. I mean, of course, the knee-jerk reaction is they're still going to go back to the government to ask for this, that, and the other, control this, that, and the other, and regulate this, that, and the other, but still, you know, we're starting to get to that place where, you know, it's a tipping point, right?
	90% of parents spank their kids, but 80% to 90% of them don't want to.
	That's a tipping point, right?
	100 years ago, they probably all thought it was the best thing ever, so...
	Okay, one more. Will there be a post-status crisis like there was a post-communist crisis in Eastern Europe?
	Is there a way to avoid this? Are there going to be massive DRO frauds in the first years of anarchy, just like there were massive Ponzi schemes in the first years of communism?
	Well, no, listen, there's not going to be a post-status crisis.
	How can I put this? Was there a post-slavery crisis?
	Not really. What?
	I mean, obviously it wasn't great, but when people let go of violence, it's because they've been raised peacefully, right?
	I mean, communism didn't end because people were raised rationally and peacefully and grew up without bombing the brain damage from child abuse, right?
	Communism ended because it economically collapsed.
	They did not grant a shred of self-knowledge to anybody in Eastern Europe or Russia or anything like that.
	And, yeah, as somebody's pointed out, post-socialist crises all happened because the government was still all there just doing its thing, right?
	I mean, Russia... Did not become...
	There's a writer who recently wrote a short novel about Russia.
	One quote was, there are no love stories in Russia.
	There are no politics stories in Russia.
	There aren't even any corruption stories in Russia.
	There are only crime stories in Russia.
	And so with peaceful parenting, the state is going to fade away because there's going to be much less violence, much less or no addictions or dysfunctional behaviors or children born out of wedlock.
	There'll be almost no abortion demands.
	There'll be And so people, they'll be like, no need for the police.
	They'll become obsolete. And so the people won't want to go out defrauding others and people won't be susceptible to fraud because they'll be raised with the self-defense and self-respect.
	So no, there is not going to be a wrenching change to freedom.
	Freedom is something that we grow patiently and slowly.
	You know, you pull on a rose, you don't make it taller, you just break it.
	You have to water it and you have to give it its nutrition and it grows on its own and that's the way that the future will grow peacefully, patiently and it's not going to be universal.
	It's going to be a tipping point.
	And that is the way that things are going to happen.
	And it's going to happen because people intervene in situations of child abuse.
	It's going to happen because people stop spanking like this noble caller.
	It's going to happen because children grow up whole and undamaged.
	And the state is an effect of child abuse.
	And when you get rid of child abuse, you will get rid of the reason, the justification for the state.
	Because the violence will be visible.
	And whenever violence is visible, it is condemned.
	It is the keeping of violence invisible.
	That is the only way it can survive.
	So people will see it when they're not trained.
	When people are trained to avoid the aggression in their family, do you think they're going to be able to see the aggression in the state?
	If people aren't allowed to sit down and say, I felt terrified and intimidated by my father when I was a child, do you think they'll ever be able to emotionally process that taxation is forced?
	No. You start with that which is closer and more personal before you deal with that which is abstract and impersonal.
	You deal with the personal before the political.
	You deal with the intimate before the institutional.
	That is the only way to do it.
	And somebody has written Harrison Bergeron.
	The movie is available on YouTube.
	You can do a search for it there. So thank you everybody again so much.
	Support, support, support this philosophy conversation.
	I was really quite stunned to feel that we're close up to half of what It's going on over there at the Khan Academy and we're just doing raw ass mess your matrix up philosophy here.
	So thank you everybody so much for your support.
	FDRURL.com forward slash donate and I will talk to you soon.
	Have a wonderful, wonderful week.

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