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Jan. 15, 2012 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:14:55

2074 Freedomain Radio Sunday Show, 15 January 2012

Self-knowledge without therapy, preparing your children for aggressive world, property rights in land, the challenges of shyness - and the ethics of universally preferable behavior!

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	Hi, everybody. It is 2 p.m.
	Oh, my God, we're starting on time.
	We're starting on time.
	Can you believe it? No, no, I can't believe it either.
	We're just starting late in Auckland.
	So I hope you're doing very well.
	And it's the show.
	We've got two hours to talk philosophy, whatever is on your mind, comments, issues, questions, criticisms.
	I would like to thank those who've stepped up to help with the documentary.
	It is a blazing along at a full tilt disco ball boogie.
	And I'm very excited, very excited!
	So it's going to be very, very cool.
	I can't wait to dig in. And I hope that you're having a wonderful week.
	I hope you're having a great...
	And I certainly am, and I wish to share with you all of the blessings and happinesses of philosophy, if I can use the word blessings in its loosest possible context, since I often use myself in my loosest possible context.
	So I don't have much of an intro.
	So it's 2.01.
	I believe that I'm done.
	Don't forget to donate if you like the show, to help spread the word of philosophy.
	8 million media views last year.
	It is truly the philosophy that bestrides the world like a colossus, and that is very cool.
	Release date? I don't really know what the release date is since I've never done anything quite this ambitious before, at least in a media sense, so I'm not sure when the release date is going to be.
	I hope we can get it done by the summer, because I think it's a pretty key year.
	So, James, do we got some people with the brain food?
	Hello? We have one person on now.
	Hi, how you doing? Hi.
	Can you just give me one moment?
	I'm just leaving my house at the moment.
	Sure. I mean, there's no reason to think we've started on time.
	I mean, why would you? That makes sense.
	Hello, Seth? Hi.
	Hi. So I've been meaning to call you for a while now.
	I've just been meaning to talk to you about...
	Something that's been bothering me?
	Sure. Well, since I was about 12, I have been experiencing kind of like a depression and anxiety, and I've just been needing to talk to someone about it.
	Right, right.
	Well, I'm certainly no psychologist and have no training, but I can perhaps throw a few useful philosophical principles your way.
	Do you have any idea why this may have started at around the age of 12?
	Well, it was the time I hit puberty, I guess, and I don't know, I've just been feeling like, it's kind of like heavy, like, feeling in my chest.
	Like, since then, and it's been like, I don't know, it's like five years now, I'm like, I'm about 10 or something.
	And did it start suddenly or did it start slowly?
	I think it just all of a sudden, like one day, I don't know, around like grade 7, I just had this like heavy down feeling and it's been kind of like progressing for a while now.
	Have you talked to anyone about this, like a professional?
	No, I haven't. Okay.
	I mean, I obviously – you should, I think.
	I think you should.
	I'm not a big fan of meds, but I'm a huge fan of talk therapy.
	So I will share a few idiot amateur thoughts with you.
	But what you should get out of this, in my opinion, is – and you can probably get these resources for free – Through your school, if I've done my math correctly in my head.
	But I can throw a few ideas your way.
	But talk therapy, I think, with a good therapist is really worthwhile.
	So yeah, I'll throw a few thoughts your way and hopefully that will be of some use.
	And hopefully we'll follow up with somebody who knows what they're doing.
	Okay? Okay.
	All right. So...
	Is it around dating?
	Is it around... Sex?
	Is it around romance? Can anybody hear me?
	Yeah, sorry, if you can hang tight.
	We're just talking to somebody else. I'm sorry?
	Yeah, did you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you.
	Okay, so if it's around puberty, then it may have something to do with sex or dating or girls or romance or something like that.
	Do you think that may have anything to do with it?
	I don't know. It's kind of difficult to explain because I think it has to do with my parents.
	But I don't know.
	They aren't really close, you could say.
	You mean to each other or to you or both?
	Like more of both, yeah.
	And what does that mean?
	How does that look like? What does that look like when you say they're not close?
	Well, I don't know.
	My mom is more close to me than my dad, you could say.
	We still live together, but my dad's not very close to me and my mom, for that matter.
	Right. How does that look?
	What does that look like when you say he's not close?
	Well... He's not very...
	I don't know how to explain it, but he's not very emotionally attached.
	He's a very angry person, you could say.
	What does that look like?
	He's not physically abusive, but he's very verbally abusive.
	And what does that look like?
	What does that sound like?
	Well, it's kind of like, there's a lot of screaming, a lot of arguing, you could say, between him and my mom and him and myself.
	Right. I'm so sorry.
	I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
	That is not how it's supposed to go.
	And you deserve I wouldn't even say you deserve better, because that's not even good, but you deserve to not have that in your life, and I'm so sorry that it is.
	And what are the conflicts about?
	Really, I don't know, it's usually just minor stuff.
	I don't know, I feel like he purposely tries to get into arguments over minor stuff.
	I don't know, I'd forget to close the door or something like that, and you would...
	Call me an idiot. I'll tell you, I don't want to make this about me, but I just want to make sure that if my experiences are all similar to yours, that can be helpful.
	I would be aware when my mom would come home sometimes and she'd had a bad day.
	That she would be, like it would be like a bubbling cauldron.
	And she'd be moving around the house and I could sort of, I get the sense of her, even if I couldn't see her, she'd be moving around the house like a shark.
	And I'd know that she'd be looking for something, something to unload on.
	Right. And, you know, because I was a kid, there was always something.
	You know, there was a sock here, there was a cup left out there, there was, you know, something, right?
	Yeah. And it would turn into this, sorry, it would sort of turn into this fencing match, it felt like, where she would try to find something to pin on me, and I would try and dodge it.
	Because she needed a, quote, justification for blowing up.
	And so that's the way that it would go.
	And so she'd try this thing and I'd like dodge it and say, well, no, it's not this.
	And she said, well, did you have this ready?
	Yes, this. Or did you have that ready or whatever?
	And, you know, if all else failed, she could just bring something up from the past and claim she was still mad about it, even though we talked about it or had supposedly resolved it before.
	But it was kind of like there was, you know, she just needed a justification to hang...
	Her temper on and then she could offload and feel like it was somehow justified.
	Again, I don't want to make my experience your experience.
	Does that make any sense? It does, yes.
	And that is a very stressful situation to be in.
	Yeah, I would say I can relate to that.
	When I'd be around my dad, it was usually...
	I would be in this hyper...
	kind of sensitive...
	We have to watch every action I do.
	I'd have to watch what I say.
	I'd have to watch what I'm doing.
	I don't know. I do something in the wrong way or I say something.
	I don't know. Anything.
	He'd call me an idiot or scream at me.
	Something like that. Now, I, of course, tried the option of just going out.
	I mean, I spent a good chunk of my childhood just wandering the streets because I didn't want to be home.
	But that was also a problem because then I would be accused of treating this place like a hotel and not having any concern for her.
	And then it would be like if I tried to leave, that turned out to be the excuse that she could use to dump on me.
	Yeah, like right now, I have to...
	I really wanted to talk to you, but I couldn't talk to you at home because my dad's unemployed.
	So he's at home.
	I really wanted to talk to you.
	I'm sorry if you're listening in, if you could mute.
	Yeah, look, that is a very tough situation.
	That is very stressful. And it doesn't sound to me like it's likely to change anytime soon.
	And certainly, it seems to be a pretty impossible task to attempt to parent our own parents, particularly if they're taking a very authoritarian approach to their parenting.
	But of course, these things do have huge effects on the personality.
	Your assertiveness, I mean, I imagine that it does not make you feel overly confident in the world, and authority figures can be a challenge, and in conflict you may tend to have a very strong reaction to conflict, sort of out of proportion to what is actually important.
	I don't know.
	Yeah, I guess so. I'm not really the guy to try to get into confrontations.
	I try to usually I don't know, back out.
	Not really speedy up for a man type of thing.
	Right. Right. Right.
	Right. Now did anything, I mean other than puberty of course, which is a big change, but did anything change with you when you were about At the age of 12, did anything change in your environment?
	Or do you think it was mostly just the fact that puberty hit and you sort of becoming an adult, but in some ways, of course, if you're being yelled at and called an idiot and so on, then you're not exactly being groomed for adulthood, right?
	Yeah. Anything change?
	Well, I just started grade 7, I guess.
	I don't know. I felt like...
	I guess I... It's kind of an embarrassing thing to say, but I... I started masturbating.
	Are you telling me that you waited a little grade seven to start?
	That's amazing. That's a superhuman willpower.
	I mean, I guess you didn't want the hairy palms until you had the hairy chin.
	I understand. I don't know.
	I just started getting this really heavy feeling.
	I became really nihilistic, you could say.
	Sure. I don't know.
	I don't really remember because it was almost five years ago.
	But yeah, it was not a good time in my life.
	Oh yeah. Look, obviously I can't tell you anything in particular because, you know, I'm just a guy on the internet.
	But I can tell you some thoughts that I've had in my life about this kind of stuff.
	And that's hopefully the best that I can offer you.
	Hopefully it's not too useless.
	So feel free to get comfortable.
	I'll give you a few minutes' thoughts and hopefully they'll be of some help to you.
	Okay. So...
	So here's a challenge, right?
	And I'm sort of aware of this in my own parenting or in my co-parenting with my wife, of course.
	I mean, obviously I want my daughter to grow up and to get married and, you know, if she wants and have kids of her own and all that because I'd love to be a grandparent because I think it's conceivable to spoil a child more than I'm spoiling Isabella.
	And I'd like to test that theory. I'm not sure how I'd be able to do it, but that is the theory.
	And I'm sort of aware that...
	My marriage to my wife is sort of like an advertisement to my kids about marriage or to my daughter about marriage.
	So if I want her to get married, I mean, it's not like I'm faking anything, but it's sort of real.
	So if I'm saying, well, I want her to get married or I want her to have kids, but my experience of being married and having kids is kind of negative, then it's really tough to make that pitch, right?
	Right. It's like, here, this sandwich tastes like crap.
	You want some? Right?
	It doesn't really work.
	It really hurts when I work out like this.
	Now, you follow me. You'll get shin splints for sure.
	And so, one of the challenges, I think, that happens...
	Because puberty is sex, right?
	I mean, puberty is your body at least getting geared up to spread your seed and all that kind of stuff, right?
	And I think one of the challenges is if the people in your life, if your parents...
	Don't seem to be having much fun as parents, don't seem to really enjoy being married, don't seem to be really happy themselves.
	Then your body is saying, let's go spread us some seeds, let's go make us some babies.
	But your mind is saying like, well that looks like crap, right?
	Yeah. Does that make any sense?
	Yeah, it does. You know, in Shrek 3, which is a philosophy book by some children's writer, Shrek the Third, his wife says, you know, you're pregnant or whatever, and basically the cat says, you are royally screwed.
	Because there's this theory, you know, this idea, you know, but you get married and you sort of, it was great being a single guy.
	I mean, that's why you have this bacchanalian orgy, you know, of the bachelor party right before you get married.
	Right, right.
	And so I think that there's a real challenge in our minds when our bodies are saying, let's go settle down and have some kids.
	Now, of course, I'm not saying anyone does that in grade 7, but that's sort of what your biology is studying, right?
	That's why you get the, you know, masturbation and, if I remember rightly, constant sexual fantasizing and, if I remember rightly, not wanting to go out on a diving board in my Speedos because there were girls around in bathing suits and you couldn't whack down that boner with a ball-peen hammer.
	So, yes, I am not so old as to not remember all of that exciting stuff where I really felt...
	You know, like a dowser holds those twigs out and points their way to water.
	I really felt that my penis was doing that pretty much to almost any fertile female in the vicinity.
	I was leading with the wee head.
	Anyway, so your body's saying, let's go settle down, have kids and whatever, right?
	But at the same time, you're like, well, that looks like a whole lot of not fun, right?
	Right. So I think that's really challenging, right?
	And I think that's a real contradiction.
	Now, of course, you don't have to have a marriage like your parents have.
	You don't have to be a dad like your dad is.
	And that's a tough transition to make.
	But your desire, you're sort of the biological desire to procreate and all of that.
	And, you know, obviously you're not going to do it now and you're not going to do it for a while.
	But it doesn't have to lead to where your parents are.
	Okay.
	No, I understand that.
	But I feel like if I'm ever going to get married or, you know, have kids, that I just like, I would like turn like my father.
	Like become like my father.
	Yeah, you don't have to. No, you don't have to.
	You don't have to. Let me give you a tiny analogy.
	I mean, obviously, there's a tendency that way, but it doesn't have to be that way.
	Like, if your dad, I don't know, let's say he grew up in Romania and he came out of the country speaking Romanian, you wouldn't have to grow up only speaking Romanian, right?
	You could learn English. Yes.
	Right? Right, right.
	So you can learn a new language that's different.
	And that doesn't mean that you, you know, it'll never be like you learned Romanian.
	But you can learn a different language.
	You can be a different father.
	I'm telling you. I'm telling you.
	You can be a different father.
	Look, I could have every conceivable excuse in the world to be a bad father or to be no father.
	I mean, I grew up without a dad.
	There's huge amounts of violence and instability and brutality and teasing and verbal abuse and just monstrous stuff within my own family.
	I would have every excuse in the world to be a bad father.
	If I wanted those excuses, right?
	Or if I wanted to justify actions.
	But that's not the case.
	Yeah. My goal is to be the best dad in the world.
	I don't know. I have no way to measure it.
	It doesn't really matter if I achieve it.
	But that's the goal.
	You can make changes.
	Now, it takes work, right, to learn a new language.
	It takes work, and it takes time, and it takes practice.
	It takes discipline. But you can do it.
	A lot of years in therapy.
	Yeah, you can do it that way.
	That's worth it, but that's well worth it.
	If you think therapy is expensive, try divorce.
	Right now, I'm still living with my parents.
	I can't live on my own.
	I don't have thousands of dollars to go to therapy.
	Well, okay. You can talk to a counselor through your school.
	You may be able to get some therapy through that way.
	So, I mean, there's options and alternatives.
	I mean, there's lots of things you can do.
	There are workbooks by John Bradshaw, by Nathaniel Brandon, but you can get these from the library.
	You can photocopy them. That only costs a little bit of money.
	You can work through the workbooks.
	You can keep a journal. You can write down your dreams.
	You can hopefully find some friends that you can talk about self-knowledge with.
	There's lots of great things that you can do that will help you in that direction.
	And you can talk to people on the message board who've got experience with that.
	They may be able to give you more tips.
	I certainly don't hold any monopoly on knowledge in this area, but there's lots of things you can read parenting books.
	I mean, I know it's ridiculous.
	I read books about parenting when I was in my mid-teens.
	I read books about divorce when I was in my mid-teens.
	I remember reading a book called...
	Made in Heaven, Settled in Court, which was all about these fairly twisted strategies to, quote, win your divorce.
	I was just really curious about it.
	And of course, that was my way.
	I mean, I had to prepare for adulthood in very oblique ways, very roundabout ways.
	I mean, I learned how to shave by reading a really old magazine article.
	Right. And I tried to learn about good parenting and you can read up on this kind of stuff and that's really useful.
	And that's useful even if you don't end up being a parent, it's still really useful to read up on good parenting so you can see what you got and what you didn't get as a kid yourself, which will help you in all your relationships, right?
	Right. Somebody has given a link here called myshrink.com.
	forward slash online-crisis-counseling.php offers free counseling links and info.
	So again, this is an important step and decision to make.
	But you can change it.
	You are not doomed to be a photocopy.
	Nice. Okay.
	Thanks a lot. You're very welcome.
	Again, big sympathies and I wish you the very best.
	All right. Thanks.
	I'll keep you posted. Thanks, man.
	Okay. Bye. Bye-bye.
	Michael, you're up next.
	Hello? Can you hear me?
	Sure can. All right.
	Okay, so I'm a little nervous now.
	This is the first time me coming on here, but anyways...
	It's okay, if it's any consolation, I just wet myself, so...
	Yeah. That'll be me in a few minutes, I guess.
	Anyway, so I guess my question is pretty simple.
	Well, I don't know. It's pretty short.
	I don't know about simple, but anyways.
	So I should probably just really, really briefly mention why I'm bringing this question in because it's sort of relevant to myself.
	Basically, when I... I'm sorry to interrupt you.
	Can you just back off me a little bit?
	It's just kind of buzzy. Okay.
	Is this better? Thank you. That's perfect.
	Thank you. Okay.
	Alright, when I was very young I was rather like babied and like I wasn't really exposed to the real world or anything like I spent most my time just with my mother and my father was mostly at work and all that and suddenly like when I started having to get out in the real world and deal with other children like some of them were actually really bad really poorly parented and they were sort of rubbing off on me I guess And basically,
	I've been struggling with being fairly antisocial for the last 20 years, trying to get it sort of fixed.
	I've made serious progress, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to call in today, obviously.
	It was pretty bad. And sorry, I just want to make sure I get the pattern.
	So you were sort of, as you say, babied and you spent a lot of time with your parents.
	And then you spent time with peers who had themselves been badly parented.
	Is that right? Yeah.
	Yeah, and so I never really fit in very well in school and all that, but basically where this leaves with my question is I know that you're going to be raising your child in such a way that obviously force and retaliation and all those sort of evil sort of things are not even in her dialect.
	But I'm sort of wondering if that might be possibly setting up a bit of a failure where she suddenly is exposed to other people who have these negative traits.
	And so if she doesn't speak the language, it might be great that she's not going to be inflicting it on others.
	But I'm just wondering how you're going to deal with the fact that people are going to be lying to her, people are going to be manipulating her, and all that sort of thing in the future.
	I mean, I'm not saying that you really want to go about...
	I'm not lying to her to teach her about lying or anything, but I just think that, you know, rather than, to make a metaphor, rather than not knowing about fighting at all, if you could teach them Aikido, so it's sort of a, you've got really good self-defense, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to go around karate chopping people all the time, right?
	So I was just wondering if you had any sort of plans in that regard for your daughter.
	Right. No, that's a great question.
	I've certainly been asked that before, and it's well worth discussing, so I appreciate you bringing it up.
	Okay, I mean, you're not obviously suggesting that I harm my daughter because the world can be harmful, obviously, right?
	You're not saying that because people abuse their children, I must abuse my child to prepare her for that, right?
	Because that would be placing my moral standards in the hands of pretty nefarious people.
	So I get that you're not suggesting that.
	So the question is sort of how do you prepare a child to navigate through a world where up to 90% of people were hit as children when you're not?
	Yeah, I understand that.
	Now, there's a couple of things that I think are the case.
	First of all, people will lie to her.
	And, of course, she's fully aware of lying because she experiments with it herself.
	I So she knows what lying is, and we are working on her to get her to understand the value of telling the truth.
	And so, did Mama brush her teeth this morning?
	She doesn't like getting her teeth brushed, so she wants to say, yes, she did.
	And then if I go ask Mama, and Mama says no.
	So she fully understands what lying is, and she's working on that approach to things.
	And I think that's great. I think that's a very important phase for her to go through.
	Yeah. So when someone lies to her, she's going to know what it is because she's tried it herself.
	So I don't think that's going to be outside of her experience.
	But what she will have seen, I think, is a way of working with lies that is patient and productive and so on, where I say, well, here's what bothers me about lying.
	It means that I can't necessarily believe what it is that you're going to say.
	It means there's lots of extra work.
	work, I got to go ask mama.
	And I don't like it makes me feel bad when you lie.
	And, you know, would you like it if I said, let's go see some horsies and then said, No, I wasn't telling you the truth.
	We're going to the hair cutters or the dentist, would you feel bad?
	And, you know, just that kind of stuff, right?
	So getting her so she will know how to deal with somebody who's lying.
	Because, you know, hopefully, she will have seen me deal with it in a semi productive So she'll know what lying is.
	As far as manipulation goes, yeah, of course, she's very manipulative.
	And that's, again, entirely appropriate to her stage.
	I won't bore you with stories about it.
	But again, this is just behavior that you need to notice and you need to, you know, she's setting up moral rules as everyone does.
	And then she attempts to create exceptions for herself because that's what everyone does when it comes to moral rules.
	So that's, you know, so she knows what manipulation is.
	Now, she doesn't really know what it's like to be on the receiving end of manipulation.
	But no, but if she knows how to speak the language, she will know how to hear the language, right?
	Does that make sense? Well, no, she will.
	I mean, this is logical, right? If I can speak French, then I can understand French, right?
	Yeah. But just in my case, I don't know if maybe I'm just socially stupid or something.
	It might very well be because my brain kind of works differently than most people.
	It wasn't that easy for me to just pick up on it sort of thing.
	Well, but... Sorry to interrupt you, but this is the second part of what I was going to get to.
	Sorry, that's the third part.
	The second part is if people are nasty to her...
	Then... I mean, I've already seen that, of course.
	You know, she plays with other children and sometimes those other children can be grabby or pushy or whatever, right?
	And so she has already experienced that.
	You can't hide that in the world.
	I mean, I guess you can if you live in a cave, but you can't hide that in the world.
	So she knows that she doesn't like it.
	She knows to say, I don't like that.
	Please don't do that. And if the person keeps doing it, then...
	We remove her from the situation.
	And I mean, isn't that about as good as you can expect in those kinds of situations, right?
	So if somebody is being nasty to you, you say, I don't like that.
	Please don't do that. And if the person continues to do it, you simply believe the situation, right?
	Yeah. Because you can't control other people.
	You can express your preferences, but you can't control them.
	So if somebody is committed to being a...
	Jerk. Again, it's hard to say about kids.
	But as an adult, then, yeah, you simply don't stay in that situation.
	Because, you know, you can only control your own actions, not other people's actions.
	And you can control whether you're there or you can't control how the other person behaves.
	And so, given that she's not going to be in, like, to make her susceptible to bullying, the best thing that I could do would be to bully her, right?
	I don't know if I agree with that.
	Oh, I guarantee you that is the case.
	If you want to make somebody susceptible to being bullied, then you bully them as a parent.
	And you'll either turn them into a bully or you will make them a victim, but they'll still be locked in the paradigm of bullying one way or the other.
	Yeah, that's sort of what I meant with that.
	I mean, yeah, obviously it would teach them, but it's not really the way you want to go about it.
	That's sort of where my question lied in that regard, I guess.
	Right. So, obviously, she's not going to be a bully, and there's no question of that.
	She's not frightened of bullies, right?
	Because she hasn't had those train tracks laid in her head, right?
	Right, so... If you get those train tracks laid in your head, then any little cart can come whizzing down them and know exactly where to go.
	So if somebody's mean to her, it's pretty rare, but if somebody is mean to her, she knows she doesn't like it, and she says so, and then she just removes herself from the situation.
	But she's not scared. She just doesn't like it, right?
	Like if I give her a piece of spinach and she doesn't like it, she just spits it out.
	She's not scared. Now, if I yelled at her to eat her spinach, then she'd be scared, right?
	But we don't do that, right? Yeah.
	Well, I know it might be a little difficult in the school situation where you can't really remove yourself from the situation.
	I mean, well, you can, but it was only short term and you're going to have to deal with them again later.
	But I'm hoping that maybe kids aren't as bad as they were when I was that age, because when I was that age, it was kind of an everyday sort of thing, right?
	But, I mean, you can't do anything about that either way.
	I mean, I think that kids are better.
	I think that they are. I think parenting is improving slowly and painfully.
	I was actually just talking to this with a friend of mine, and she was saying that where she works, she has conversations, you know, because she works in retail and she sees, you know, bad treatment of kids on a daily basis.
	And, you know, she's heroic in her way of talking to people about this and just a real inspiration to me at least.
	And she was saying that among her co-workers, when the subject comes up, you know, everybody who's like...
	You know, 35 and older is like, yeah, I was spanked as a kid and I turned out great.
	Other than the fact that they're working retail in their 40s.
	But anyway, I don't know, I get all these emails from people now.
	But all the people who are like 25 or 23 and under, they're like, oh yeah, that's not cool.
	Yeah, it's interesting you say that because I'm 26 and actually until a couple of months ago, I was sort of under the belief that...
	I ended up fine, even though I was spanked and all that.
	But I recently came to the realization that the reason that I have lost a great deal of respect for my father is not only just because of his inconsistent behavior time and time again, but because he was almost always the one spanking me.
	And many of the times it was just because I was doing something he didn't want.
	It wasn't because I was doing something unacceptable.
	It wasn't a last resort.
	It was just kind of, I'm laying down the law here, you know?
	Right, but I mean, the problem with that formulation, of course, is that you're saying that there are shades of justification to hitting children?
	No, I wouldn't agree.
	I mean, I was a very, very stubborn child.
	Like, for example, when my parents said...
	Oh, no, you made a mistake again.
	I'm so sorry. I'm so annoyed.
	I really apologize. You were not a stubborn child.
	Well, compared to my brother, I was.
	Well, no, no, but I think I get what you're saying.
	If you were being spanked, then the first place to look for your, quote, personality is the fact that you were spanked.
	Right.
	I mean, spanking has been shown scientifically to increase defiance of authority, to increase stubbornness – And again, maybe you are naturally stubborn, but you can't separate that.
	And the science would indicate that the first place to look for that supposed personality trait is in the being spanked.
	Right. But no, I totally agree with that.
	It's just the one thing I did want to say is when I was really young, I wasn't really spanked because I I don't know.
	I didn't do a whole lot of bad things, but my mom, the way she saw it is absolutely last resort.
	She might consider it or consider the threat of spanking.
	Now, of course, I know that's obviously not ideal either, but just to give you an example of my stubbornness, and I did totally respect my mom, so this was very rare that I would get in trouble with her, but it wasn't rare that I'd be stubborn.
	When I was really young, they actually said, don't set one foot on the road because they want me to be safe.
	And the first thing I do is run over to the road and stomp on it with one foot.
	Whereas my brother, they just say, don't set foot in the road.
	And you just say, oh, okay. And you wouldn't go near it at all.
	Younger brother, right? He's my older brother, actually.
	Oh, he's your older brother? Oh, interesting.
	Yeah. Yeah, I don't know.
	Maybe they set him out on the right foot at an earlier age where he really respected them and so he never questioned them or whatever.
	But it was interesting too because I was never – my father was never really around for the first three or so years of my life because he was out in the oil sands working.
	And so I was mostly raised by my mom.
	So it's kind of weird that I'd still be that stubborn to my mom in that sort of situation.
	But I mean – Well, I mean, there's a real opportunity for knowledge, right?
	So if I said to Isabella, don't do something, and she immediately went and did it, that would be a chance...
	No, that would be a chance for a great conversation.
	Oh, yeah. For sure.
	I'm sure there probably were many great conversations, but I probably don't remember much about them.
	Yeah. Well...
	Yeah, I totally get where you're going with that.
	I now believe that, thanks to you also, by the way, like this is your videos and that that I've been looking at and sort of realizations I've had since then, that I basically totally agree that you shouldn't spank your kids.
	I mean, unless you have to, like, save their life from some horrible danger and you just got to go out, that's using force to pull them away from a dangerous situation, right?
	But I mean... Well, that's not spanking.
	Other than... Yeah, it's not spanking.
	If you grab a blind guy about to walk in front of a bus, he's going to thank you, right?
	He's not going to say, hey, you grabbed me, you jerk, right?
	And even if he doesn't, it's still probably in the best.
	Yeah, it's still the right thing to do. Yeah.
	But yeah... He sues you because he wanted to kill himself.
	Anyway, go ahead. Yeah, like up to as far as about a month or two ago, I was totally unaware.
	I thought, well, I really regretted being spanked a lot, but I didn't really have a problem with spanking it.
	But now, just seeing how differently I respect and respond to my mother and father, my mother hardly ever spanked me, just almost entirely just based on him ordering her to.
	And the reason for that was probably that he was upset that I didn't respect him very much.
	Maybe it would have more effect if someone who respected them spanked me.
	So that's pretty bad logic right there on his part.
	Yeah, the idea that you can hit someone into respecting you is...
	I mean, it's so deranged that it takes a very powerful culture-warping set of beliefs to justify that.
	Yeah. Yeah, I find it so interesting to me now.
	I think if someone wanted to defend spanking, I think the thing that I would say to them now is basically...
	My mother hardly ever spanked me, and my father spanked me just about every possible opportunity, and I've totally lost respect for him, and it almost completely destroyed my relationship with him, so do it at your own peril, basically.
	You're going to destroy your relationship with your child if you do it.
	But how did your mama let your dad spank you?
	I don't quite understand that. Didn't she say something about it?
	Oh, all the time, but, I mean, my father, there's no reasoning with him, basically.
	There is now, now that I've moved out and I live on my own and that, and I don't have to deal with that situation all the time.
	I mean, I can, 90% of the time, I get along with him just fine, and it's not worth cutting off that relationship, but...
	Well, I mean, you know, again, I think it's an important question.
	I'm not trying to cause any trouble, but, I mean, if somebody was hitting my daughter...
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	For sure. Like, here, let me put you on an armchair on this catapult and let me help you off my property.
	Yeah. Well, she didn't really have...
	No, but it's just something to talk about, I would say.
	It's something to talk about. I mean, there aren't necessarily entirely separate ethical systems for parents because they are married to each other and it's just something to...
	Anyway, it's something to mull over. Yeah.
	Well, anyway...
	I guess you've answered my question very well.
	I was hoping for some other special little trick or something, but I suppose one doesn't exist.
	No, I think she'll be aware of the vices in others that she has experimented with herself.
	She will model her response on other people's vices, on my response to her vices.
	I use the word vice here quite loosely, right?
	And the other thing is that she will be, I believe, inoculated against bullying by self-confidence.
	I mean, her personality is largely done now.
	I mean, she's had her three years.
	Everything else now is just little tweaks.
	Like, I don't have much capacity to rewrite any of the basics anymore.
	Yeah. And seeing her with aggressive children is beautiful.
	I mean, I wish I had a tenth of her, a tenth of a tenth of her security and confidence in those situations.
	Yeah, that's something I wish I would have had until, something that I've been missing until I was about 20 or 22 or something.
	That would have been great if I would have had that at that age.
	Self-confidence and all that.
	Right, right. Yeah, because I mean then, you know, the bullies pick on the weak, right?
	Yeah. And where do you think I got that lack of self-confidence from?
	Probably spanking, right? Well, spanking and a parent who permitted it, right?
	Well, not so much permitted as kind of forced along for the ride, really.
	But I won't get into that parent anymore.
	Well, she still had more choices than you did, that's sort of what I'm saying.
	Basically, her only choice would have been to have moved out and just escaped.
	Yeah. Because my father was like, I don't know what it was.
	She really didn't want to get a divorce.
	And she really hated much of the relationship, but she just sort of stuck through it, I guess, for the children, kind of.
	But, I mean... Well, you should ask her about that.
	I mean, you're an adult now. I mean, because your parents' choices...
	And, you know, it's not to cause trouble.
	It's because your parents' choices have a big effect on your choices.
	You know that, right? Yeah.
	And so you need to, as far as I think self-knowledge is not just about yourself, it's about your environment.
	Yeah. And it's important to know why your mom made the decisions that she made.
	Not from a critical standpoint, but just to understand.
	Because you're going to be drawn towards making the same decisions.
	And they may not be the right decisions.
	Or if they are, you at least want to be conscious of them.
	Does that make any sense? Yeah, that's a good point.
	I mean, I've turned out in such a way that I've got a lot more answers than my mom ever did.
	So if and when I have children, it's going to be a lot better.
	I mean, it's not going to be perfect, obviously.
	I definitely should ask her about that because there's no way I would just stick with the relationship just for the children if the relationship is hurting the children sort of thing, like that she sort of went through.
	Yeah, she may have reasons that would surprise you.
	She may have reasons that you can really empathize with, but I think it's really important to know what those reasons are.
	Okay. Did you say there was a third part to your answer?
	I don't recall. Yeah, and I'll just touch on this very briefly to get to the other callers, but you were saying that the problem was that you were babied, and then you ended up hanging around with other kids who'd been badly parented or abusively parented?
	Yeah. Yeah, I think that your parenting may have been more similar to the peers that you hung out with than you think, because otherwise I'm not sure why you would be hanging out.
	Well, that's possible.
	Again, I'd summed them all over.
	That was sort of my first thought.
	And you said, well, the problem was I was coddled, but they were abused.
	But we had a lot in common.
	Well, then, you may be mischaracterizing.
	I don't think we had a lot in common, though.
	I mean, like, I didn't even know what the word hate was when I was three, pretty much.
	And then I came home from school one day telling my brother, who basically was my best friend at the time, that I hated him, and he was just mortified.
	So, I mean, you know.
	Well, sorry, you had been spanked before three, right?
	Probably. I obviously have no memory of that, but my father wouldn't have been involved in it.
	It would have only been maybe once or twice, and it would have only been in response to the most serious of issues.
	It wouldn't have been the whole abusive, repeated thing that it was when my dad was around.
	Well, all I would say is that if you have a bunch of peers who have all been abusively parented, then you may want to ask why they were of that similar ilk.
	I mean, that's all. That's all I'm just saying.
	It's a question to ask. Maybe that's a completely innocuous answer, but I think that's an important question.
	Okay. All right.
	Well, thanks a lot for your answer. All right. Thanks, man.
	It's a great question. I really appreciate you bringing that up, and I hope that in 10 years I'm not saying, damn, I really should have taught her how to be a jerk.
	Me too. All right.
	Thanks, man. Take care. Thanks.
	You too. And good luck with those chats with your mom.
	I really appreciate you thinking about that.
	All right. Caller Von Trois.
	Hello? Hello.
	Hey, this is Albert. Hi, how are you doing?
	I'm good, thank you.
	Sorry, Albert, you'll want to turn off your streamer, because we're getting an echo.
	Is it better now?
	Yep. Seems good to me.
	I just wanted to mention, yesterday, like, this was in relation to the word anarchy and how some people react.
	Yesterday I went to a screening sponsored by some people affiliated with the Venus Project.
	This was in New York City, downtown Chinatown.
	And they were showing the film Thrive.
	I don't know if you've heard about this.
	It goes along the lines of Zeitgeist.
	But here they present a mathematical model that they believe energy or, you know, power systems, just the technology that we create to follow this model has to do with...
	Oh, boy, I forgot the name of it, but they make a connection.
	They say it's found, you know, many places in nature, across circles and whatnot.
	And they actually...
	I was surprised Because Zeitgeist doesn't mention this, but they actually mention, you know, we need to focus more on the individual.
	You know, they call it the non-violation principle, which I thought they meant non-aggression principle.
	They didn't directly say that statism is the problem, but...
	Anyway, so they mention this mathematical model and they say, you know, this...
	This would give us free energy, and then the second half of the movie goes about exposing the banking system, politics, basically how everything is manipulated by the money powers.
	And then at the end of the film, there were about eight people there.
	At the end of the film, my cousin was there.
	He asked, what do you think about democracy?
	The guy says, we don't really have democracy, which I agreed with.
	But then, you know, he says, if you have something on your mind, you should contact your senator, like Schumer or whatever, and add to object.
	I said, you know, Schumer is a world-class criminal, and really, we don't...
	I told him, I don't think we need to wait for any political authority to implement change.
	We should just do it, inform people about, you know, our motives, what we think is best.
	And then I said, you know, I think the best way to go about things is through volunteerism or anti-statism or anarchism.
	As soon as I said anarchism, this guy, like, I hit a switch.
	And he's like, no, no, no, no, no, anarchism is chaos.
	And I was like, no, anarchism just basically means no political authority.
	If we want to say that certain farming techniques are better, I won't wait for somebody to give me approval.
	I'll just plant an organic garden in my yard and in my neighborhood.
	I'm sorry to interrupt. I just want to pause there for a second.
	It's a great story. I appreciate you bringing it up.
	Anarchism does not mean without political rulers.
	Yeah, yeah. Sorry, let me just be clear on that, because people sort of get a...
	I'm not saying you, but people get confused about why I talk about the family.
	Anarchism means without rulers, right?
	And this is why parents should not be rulers.
	Parents should not be aggressive.
	I mean, anarchy starts in the family, and anarchy cannot exist in society until it starts in the family.
	Anarchy means without rulers.
	I am not the ruler of my daughter.
	I am a coach. I am a helper.
	I am a provider. I am not her ruler.
	She is not my property. She's not my serf.
	She's not my thing. And so I just really want to be clear that anarchy is available and possible to everyone, right?
	In relationships, it means do not accept other people ruling your self-esteem.
	Do not accept other people ruling your physical space through aggression.
	Do not accept other people ruling your emotions through verbal aggression or verbal abuse.
	So it simply means I do not have rulers.
	I oppose rulers in general.
	And so the politics thing is important and I don't want to say that you're wrong, but to me it's a very tiny subset.
	And of course what it means is if you define anarchy as without political masters, then it means that you are unable to achieve it.
	If you define anarchy as without masters, without rulers, without aggressors, then you can achieve that to a very significant degree in your life.
	So it's the difference between what is possible and what is not.
	And I'm sorry to be annoying, just pause on that point.
	I just wanted to mention that and please go on with your story.
	Oh, no, no, that's actually a good point.
	I guess I mentioned political because the conversation at the time was about politics and democracy.
	Yeah. Okay, but that's a good point, without masters.
	And I actually learned a couple things from Everyday Anarchy, Impactful Anarchy, so I brought up the point, because people look at me strange, like, with this young kid, I'm 23, it's like, oh, here's another young, naive kid.
	Don't worry, I still get called a young, naive kid, and I'm a long way from 23.
	Naive just means principled.
	In the translation from statism to truth, naive just means principled.
	So take it as a compliment.
	All right. Yeah, okay.
	That's good. All right, so I mentioned ambivalence for Anarchy, and I told people, you know, from what I learned from your book, the I don't want to call them talking points, but they're points that drive the point home.
	You know, we don't need the government to tell us who to marry.
	We don't need the government to tell us where to go to school or what to learn.
	Sometimes they overreach, but in general, and I think people agree with that, but this guy, you know, and he was like, yeah, yeah, but anarchy means lawlessness, and I was like, I was like, no, negative.
	Anarchy, well, this is probably from my belief system, but what I said was, there's always one law, and that's natural law.
	I mentioned land, air, and water.
	You don't destroy what supports you, but also I said, non-aggressive, you don't violate people.
	And anyway, this guy was like, you know what, I think we're arguing about, and then I told him, That's why I said volunteerism in front of it, anti-statism before I said anarchy, because I had a feeling, you know, I was going to get this reaction.
	He's like, you know what, that's fine, but let's use another word.
	Let's use a different word instead of anarchy.
	I was like, you know what, let's just move on with the conversation, because he couldn't get past the indoctrination that we've gotten about the word anarchy, which I just found it strange, because his point was, We need to get this Thrive movie out.
	We need to educate people.
	We need to shift the mindset and the consciousness.
	And I was thinking the same idea with the word anarchy.
	If we understand what anarchy or the principles behind it mean, then we can shift consciousness also maybe even quicker.
	But that's just the point I wanted to make.
	The clicking of once that word hits, We're in an upside-down world, right?
	We're in an upside-down world.
	I mean, that which is hated is that which is good, and that which is good is that which is evil.
	I mean, we live, it's like you could almost just take an inverse photocopy of the culture and arrive at philosophy, right?
	So yeah, when this guy talks about lawlessness, lawlessness, it certainly is true.
	Sorry, if you could just hold on, we're just on another call.
	Certainly it's true that anarchy is lawless under the current system, but that's a very great distortion of the word law.
	Law is an objective rule for resolving disputes between people and that does not apply to any status law in existence.
	So you really have to mutate the word law.
	Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of laws that people are supposed to conform to in a modern state of society, and nobody can conceivably conform to them.
	It's impossible. And so what you have is a system of random abuses, not a system of laws.
	And these laws are constantly changing.
	Hundred thousand new laws get added to the federal registry or regulations or rules every single year.
	We are in a state of no law.
	And of course, the reality is that The vast majority of people live in a state of worse than anarchy because they have no access to the law.
	Try going to court.
	See how long is that going to take you and how much money are you going to have to spend.
	They have no access. The law, any kind of dispute resolution has been denied to them, has been stolen from them.
	They do not have access to the law.
	The law is a tool of the rich and of the powerful and it's deliberately kept away.
	From the poor and the helpless, with the exception of things like class lawsuits and so on.
	But an individual who has – somebody's violated a contract for a couple of thousand dollars, it's too big for small claims.
	And if you go the other route, it's years and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
	So most people – see, it's worse than anarchy in statism for the majority of people because in a free society, there would be people bending over backwards to find ways to resolve disputes between people of limited income.
	But in the status system, the lawyers run the law.
	I mean how insane is that?
	Talk about putting the inmates in charge of the asylum.
	The lawyers run the law and so the lawyers have massive incentives to restrict entry.
	into law, the same way the doctors do.
	All licensed people have a massive incentive to restrict entry to raise up their own prices.
	And they have a massive incentive to make a long, lengthy and expensive legal process, or as lengthy and expensive as it could be.
	And so it's worse, in anarchy, you could have access to dispute resolution organizations for very cheap.
	But you have to beg for pro bono, which is the very poor and the very rich do very well in statism.
	It's just everybody else who gets hosed.
	And so where people are now, it's worse than anarchy.
	I mean, they truly live, the middle class in particular, truly live in a state of lawlessness because they simply do not have access to a legal system.
	And that, of course, is one of the reasons why, as the weakest of all of the groups, they are getting the most picked off.
	Yeah, so before I go off, I don't want to ask another question.
	It's an unrelated topic. I don't want to take up too much time from others.
	I actually recommend that people watch it.
	I'm actually going to go back next Saturday, and I'm going to go with a pad.
	I'm going to watch the movie.
	It's two hours long.
	I'll try to bring a couple friends.
	But I'm going to melt down the points in the movie because I was surprised How much of the philosophy that's spoken of in Freedom Main Radio was in the movie, which was the non-aggression principle.
	They called it nonviolence. I'm sorry, which movie was this?
	Thrive. Oh, Thrive, right, right.
	I think the guy's a fan. I think the guy who made it is a fan.
	Yeah, I think the website would be like Thrive Movement.
	But anyway, so the movie had certain points that are central to our philosophy.
	I say our because of the community that we have freedom invader.
	So non-aggression principle, they actually mentioned dispute resolution organizations, which is only the second place where I've come across that term other than your book.
	And anyway, I plan to go next week, go back, re-watch the film, Take some points down.
	I'm not going to mention the word anarchy again, but I'll try to put it...
	No, just say a society founded or a society based on non-aggression.
	I mean, I know what you mean. We have less choice about the word anarchy than, say, Ayn Rand had about the word selfishness, right?
	So she wrote the virtue of selfishness, and people say, well, why would you choose that?
	She had lots of choices.
	Around selfishness. She could rational self-interest or whatever, right?
	Enlighten self-interest. She could have...
	But we really don't have a choice, I don't think.
	I mean, without looking like we're dodging something.
	I mean, people always say, well, why don't you use some other word?
	And I say, well, I'm a voluntarist.
	Well, how is that different from anarchism?
	Well, it's the word anarchism with icing and a cherry on top.
	It's like, okay, so let's just, you know, I'm just going to use the word and deal with that.
	So, yeah, I will mention, I'll try to put it more in the context of we don't need...
	If you want to implement change, I don't think you should wait for a political authority.
	I don't think you should wait for, you know, a protest.
	I don't think, you know, if you have the tools, and I was going over your criticisms of Zyka today, because I watched it like over a year ago and I wanted to refresh, but like you said, don't make the documentary.
	Go ahead and implement the, you know, the technology or, you know, the society which needs...
	So yeah, that's probably the point that I'll drive home next time is, you know, let's educate as much people as possible, but let's just go out and do it.
	You know, the goons will come, the enforcement class will come, but at this point, I think it's either, I think it's desperate times.
	Well, look, I mean, the other thing I would say too is, and I mean, the criticisms of the banking system, I think, are good.
	Right, right, right. But of course, it's not a banking system that they're criticizing.
	It's not a banking system and this is really important for people to understand that you cannot use a free market word to describe a status situation.
	It's a monopoly. It's statism that they're criticizing.
	It's statism. I mean, technically it's fascism, which is public ownership and private profits, right?
	So public ownership and public, quote, profits is communism, and public ownership and private profits is...
	Fascism, private ownership, and private profits is the free market.
	There's your political lesson in three easy soundbites.
	But they're talking about...
	They're criticizing fascism.
	You know, it's important to...
	You know, if I'm describing... A soldier's raping of women in a village, I'm criticizing the marriage market.
	I don't use a term of voluntarism to describe that, which is coercive.
	And I will not say it's a criticism of the banking system.
	It's a criticism of fascism, but it's not a bank.
	Because the banking system is voluntary.
	That's a free market term.
	And what they're criticizing is force.
	And really, that's all we're criticizing is force.
	And to me, I always say people who say, well, let's go to politics.
	It's like a bunch of 300-pound people saying, we need to pass a law banning cheesecake.
	No, you just need to put down your cheesecake, right?
	I mean, you just need to stop eating cheesecake.
	And same thing, we need to pass a law to make us free or we need to repeal laws to make us free.
	No, just reject masters, reject rulers within your own life and then you're free.
	Because if you enslave yourself trying to control more rulers who are never going to listen to you, you're less free than if you'd never even heard of freedom.
	Anyway, sorry, I didn't want to go ahead and rant.
	One last thing, and I'll hang up to listen to your response.
	I've heard it on a radio show when people will say, you know, anarchy is chaos, just look at Somalia.
	If you can, please note some resources.
	I don't know if you've I've done a couple of videos.
	I know there hasn't been a real example of anarchy implemented, but rebuttals to, you know, just look at Somalia or just look at this other place that is quote-unquote anarchy and how good is that working for them.
	Just some pointers, because I'd like to study up on that.
	Yeah, no, I've got a couple of videos.
	Somalia is actually doing better than most of Africa, certainly doing better than statist societies in Africa, and it certainly is doing better than it was under statism by almost every measure that you could think of.
	It's doing better. The piracy issue, to my understanding, is largely because people are dumping waste off the coast.
	So, again, that's being completely ignored in the mainstream media, as you'd expect.
	But this is what I would say to someone, because, of course, I get this.
	You people just need to move to Somalia if that's what you like so much and see how you like it.
	First of all, Somalia is not without rulers because the parenting is still quite brutal and there are warlords and there are clans and so on.
	It's very hierarchical and a violence-driven society.
	I mean that's how – I mean do you think spanking is not prevalent in Africa?
	Of course, spanking and child abuse is incredibly prevalent in Africa, and that's the main reason why Africa is the way that it is.
	So it is not without rulers.
	It is without a formal government, but it is not without rulers.
	So anarchy is without rulers, and that means a society that respects the non-aggression principle primarily against children.
	That is not Somalia. Second, I would say, let's say the slave ship runs aground, hits a bunch of rocks, and the slaves stumble out onto some island.
	Does that mean that society has ended slavery?
	No, it just means that a ship crashed.
	You know, if there's a town with one church and that church accidentally burns to the ground, does that mean that the society has now become philosophically atheist?
	No, it just means that the church burned down.
	And Somalia did not reason its way or learn its way or enlighten its way into giving up violence in all of its forms.
	All that happened was the government collapsed.
	That is not anarchy.
	Anarchy is without rulers and it is with a philosophical understanding of the non-aggression principle and property rights, which is not at all prevalent in society.
	If people want to look at, somebody was asking in the chat room, is there a DRO, dispute resolution organization, running in the world today?
	Well, yeah. I've talked about this for years.
	I mean, just look at eBay. If people want to say, what does anarchy look like?
	Well, one way that you can look at it, it's not perfect, but it's pretty good, is the dispute resolution system in eBay or PayPal or any number of other things where it costs you almost nothing other than a little bit of time to resolve your disputes, where reputation is everything and where… All of these standards are enforced without enforcement, through ostracism and through reputation.
	That is a system without rulers because, I mean, eBay is pretty much the world's largest employer.
	At least five years ago, there were 300,000 people making their full-time occupation off eBay.
	It's probably higher now. Or if it isn't, it's because it's spread out to other things.
	But eBay has a dispute resolution system that does not involve lawyers, fees, and hundreds of thousands of dollars and tens of thousands of hours in court and all that kind of stuff.
	It is a functioning system worldwide, cross-language, which resolves disputes with almost no overhead, with very little human involvement, with almost no cost, and is functioning and has functioned really quite beautifully.
	And it's not perfectly, of course, people have got horror stories about eBay and PayPal, but they're, of course, still operating within a statist environment.
	That would be an example, I think, of something much closer than Somalia.
	Thank you. You're very welcome.
	Great, great questions. Great questions, as always.
	I've got to tell you people, 2012 is a banner year so far for listener questions.
	Don't break this trend, next person.
	Hello? Hi, how are you doing?
	Hello, Stefan. It's great to speak to you.
	I've been listening to your podcast for quite a while and I've really enjoyed it.
	I think I heard when you were talking to Ben Lowery was the first one and I think it just blew my mind.
	It was the red pill and gone from being far-right conservative to being libertarian and then I've been trying to answer the typical what about the roads questions and started listening to your podcast.
	I know what you mean by the far right thing.
	I've just went from one audio book written by Noam Chomsky to another one written by Ann Coulter.
	So my head is still in slow orbit around the polarized bichromatic rainbow called American politics.
	But anyway, sorry, go ahead. I've yet to hear anything that you've said in your podcasts or your books, and I have read them, that I can argue with, and that's a good thing.
	That being said, I've had some discussions, I live out on the, as we call it in Canada, the left coast, with some people that I know that are very, very socialist, raised by socialist hippie parents, and we had this long conversation on Facebook with this one lady, and she just...
	We had the, what about the roads?
	What about the hospitals?
	And we talked about the whole Lancashire schools and the friendly societies and stuff.
	And at the end of it, she just couldn't accept it.
	It was just too big a leap.
	And are we that few and far between those of us that can make that leap from, okay, the NAP, the whole kindergarten principle that you've talked about applying universally.
	Are... Are people that can make that leap that few and far between?
	Well, what do you think? What's your experience been?
	Actually, I'm not 100% sure.
	I'm still forming my opinion on that.
	It's really hard to talk because I know that this is going to become a podcast and it's kind of like...
	No, no. Just don't put out any details you're not comfortable with.
	You can just give me some statistics, right?
	I've had a few really good conversations...
	Yeah, and I've actually swung one of my buddies.
	He's basically just kind of like, okay, that makes good sense.
	I accept it. He says, I'm not going to publicly announce that I believe the same thing as you because I don't want to wind up in a FEMA camp or something.
	And I said, okay, you know, I can respect that.
	And most of the people that I talk to when I put forth an intelligent conversation with reasonable arguments, and I'm careful not to attack the position that they have, They're accepting of it and just don't give them too much and kind of overload them all at once.
	That aside, I think, you know, what you're putting out there is podcasts and the material on UPB and anarchism and stuff, and I particularly liked Ninja Moves for Freedom and stuff, and I'm getting used to talking to it about the topic to other people.
	It is something that definitely has a very steep learning curve and it was epic fail on the young lady that had the socialist parents and the socialist upbringing.
	I don't know whether it was my failure or her failure or a combination of the two.
	That going on, I just wanted to compliment you on your work.
	I did have a kind of thing where you were talking about the responsibility is always with the parents and looking back at some of the failures I made with my children.
	When they were growing up the children from my first marriage and kind of taking ownership of that and Ironically enough the first time I heard from them and I don't know where it's going to go is kind of after I faced my failures with it myself on that kind of thing and I think it's all good though and I guess the only question I don't really have a question relative to that but I wanted you to know that the change in perspective was helpful and Going on,
	the only question I really have to ask you, and it isn't a very big one, is I've been having a lot of discussions online with other people that are anarchists about the whole thing of property rights, and I'm totally good on that until I hit the issue of land.
	And I'm kind of looking at it as ownership through use.
	So if you get a parcel of land and you improve it or you farm it, Or it's laying fallow in between being farmed, rather than just someone walking in and saying, okay, everything that I can see, because I'm the first person here, I own. And I kind of like your opinion on the whole land thing.
	Hopefully it's more than an opinion, but I appreciate that.
	Oh, okay. I was kind of expecting you to say something.
	Sorry, but go ahead.
	Yeah, I mean, my position is, you know, I agree with you on the whole self-ownership and ownership of the works of our hands and stuff, but, you know, kind of the whole planet was here before we got here thing, and we kind of walked in and said, well, you know, the Indians aren't really using this particular piece, or they're using it, but they're in my way, so it's mine.
	So there's a whole lot of things that are kind of grandfathered back.
	So how do you resolve it?
	If we were to say that government suddenly ceased to exist and we started a voluntary society where everything ran according to the NAP, how would you handle property at that point, especially during the transitional period?
	Well, I mean, it's never going to just vanish, right?
	Well... I mean, it's not going to wake up one day, there'll be no government, right?
	Well, not in that sense.
	No, I think it's going to slowly crumble, but...
	Maybe not so slowly.
	I mean, we look at our economy as so tied into the states and theirs has pretty much had it.
	I work for an American company that gives me a broader view, I think, on that because of what we hear from our corporate offices.
	But I don't know.
	I think I'm still tripping over the whole land thing and kind of tripping over the fact that I actually got to talk to you after about two months of trying.
	Well, look, I will give you some thoughts about land, if you like, because land is tricky, right?
	Because it's the one thing we don't make, right?
	Exactly. Right.
	So natural resources, they're just all kinds of there, right?
	And so how can you claim ownership over something that you didn't create?
	You didn't create land, right?
	Oh, exactly. Right.
	Yeah, so people, they will support property rights in a house that I've built because I've clearly invested my labor into that.
	So I've made the house or whatever, right?
	And maybe the land right under the house.
	But they have a tough time with land as a whole.
	I mean, is that sort of where you're coming from?
	Yeah, pretty much.
	I mean, a good example is up in the interior of BC, there's a lot of really huge ranches.
	Where the land isn't really being used.
	I mean, the odd time they graze cattle on it, but you've got, you know, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of acres.
	And I mean, to say that you realistically are using that land is kind of subjective at the very best and outright BS. It's a view, right?
	I like me the view.
	Right, right. Okay, well, I've touched on this – actually, more than touched.
	I've droned on about it before, so I'll just keep this brief.
	But there is no property rights, I think, fundamentally, except in what we create.
	And I think that's important.
	So nobody really cares about land.
	It's what you can do with it.
	And let's just take the simple sort of obvious example of – A farmer, right?
	A farmer is going to plant crops and then, you know, come harvest time, a year or so later or whatever, is going to harvest those crops, right?
	So he doesn't care about the land.
	He cares about the crops.
	His ownership is not in the land.
	His ownership fundamentally is in the crops.
	Does that make any sense? Well, absolutely.
	My thinking kind of was that, okay, let's say that you have a 100-acre farm.
	And you're only really using half of it.
	Maybe 10 acres is laying fallow.
	But the other 50 acres has never been touched, never been improved.
	We live in a society where you can go to a DRO and say, look, this fellow's not using this property.
	How do you resolve that issue?
	Does he get to keep holding on to property he's never used?
	Or does the DRO say, well, look, pal, either use it or sell it?
	Yeah, use it or lose it.
	Well, I'll tell you, I mean, how it works.
	I mean, a more... A more free market environment, and I say this with grueling personal experience, is claim staking in Northern Ontario.
	Let me bore you with the details about claim staking in Northern Ontario, because there's a problem in that, you know, I worked as a gold panner and claim staker and prospector for about a year and a half, all told, in Northern Ontario in some pretty exciting conditions.
	And that's a challenging ownership situation because nobody wants the land.
	In itself, they want the mineral rights under the land, right?
	But it's not worth digging to try and find gold if you don't get to keep.
	But you also want to cast your net pretty widely because so few of these things – like every square acre you buy as a farmer, you want to try and produce, for the most part, stuff, right?
	But if you're a gold digger, then you need to find ways of casting your net pretty widely and a lot of the stuff you're never going to end up using.
	So, the way it works, and again, from a bit of a personal experience, although I shouldn't say it was actually a real blast doing that kind of work, but the way that it works is you go and you go in a kilometer square and you drive a bunch of posts into the ground, and then you hammer a bunch of tin plates with your information on it, and that's how you get the mineral rights.
	They expire after a certain amount of time.
	They revert back to common ownership.
	So when you put your stakes in, right, staking your claim, you put your stake in, and you put your name on it, or your company name or whatever, then you get the mineral rights to that land for two years, right?
	And your data is on there, right?
	And then you register that.
	I think I see where you're going, that you would apply the same principle.
	Yeah, I think that would make sense.
	I mean, I think that would be rational.
	So, you know, you're going to say, hey, I'm going to use this land.
	Now, I mean, as a farmer, you want to leave some stuff lying fallow from time to time, right?
	Because you want the soil to replenish and all that kind of good stuff.
	So you don't have to plant everything every year, but to still have it in use, right?
	Yeah. And so I imagine that there would be a timeout for unowned land.
	Let's just say – I mean I don't know.
	To take a silly example, maybe not that silly.
	So some guy goes and stakes out a farm and then has a heart attack while putting his last – I mean is that now never ownable by anybody else ever until the end of time?
	Of course not, right? So there would have to be – I mean if he's got no heirs, he's just some guy who went out and staked a claim and then dropped dead of a heart attack on the last claim, that's not going to remain his – because he's dead until the end of time.
	So there has to be some time out for unowned property.
	I think that would be how it would work itself out rationally.
	Of course, everyone who owns land wants it to be infinite and everyone who doesn't own lands wants it to be 10 seconds.
	But that's the kind of negotiation that a free society works out over time.
	Okay, yeah, I absolutely understand.
	And I wanted to thank you.
	I mean, I think the whole thing with your philosophical parenting has really helped me.
	Sorry, I just want to mention, I'm thrilled to hear about you getting back in touch with your kids.
	I think that's great stuff.
	I'm not sure how that's going to work out.
	It's kind of complicated. Their mother and I split up in 1995.
	I fought for them until I was literally homeless and broke.
	Then never heard from them, except when they asked for a car, and now they're kind of emailing me tentatively.
	So we'll see how it works.
	But I think if I wasn't armed with the things that I heard about in the philosophical parenting and having embraced the non-aggression principle, I don't...
	Even though I don't know how it's going to work out, I don't think I would have had a chance without those schools.
	And I want to thank you for that.
	It's never too late.
	Parents have so much power in a relationship.
	It's never, never too late.
	Assuming everyone's still alive, right?
	It's never too late to reach out to your kids if there's been problems.
	And I mean, I can't urge people strongly enough to take those steps.
	So I'm incredibly thrilled.
	I mean, I'd say proud, but that sounds ridiculous, but incredibly thrilled that you've done that.
	And I certainly hope that you get what you need and what they need out of that.
	So the more contact.
	Well, thank you.
	I wanted to say that the NAP and understanding these principles does make a positive impact in people's lives, and it definitely does polarize the people around you.
	Yeah, listen, I also want to just mention one thing before we move on to the next caller.
	I'm going to guess, right, about your socialist friend, or your NDP, but I repeat myself, right?
	So your socialist friend. One of the things that may be occurring is that, you know, we're told by our parents or our teachers that our beliefs are morally right and good, and they're simply blindly derived from that, which is good and right and true, and and all that and it's very hard and scary in relationships to say I think that we missed something because if people say don't they don't say believe what I believe because that's my prejudice they say believe what I believe because it's true and it's right and then when you redefine morality you're putting that relationship to the test and you're saying to the person look if you taught me what I believe because it was right and I've proven to you that it was wrong you have to change your beliefs or you stand revealed as just a bossy hypocrite and that's that's pretty hard That's a hard thing in relationships to do,
	so that may be one reason that they're shying away from it.
	Yeah, I'm absolutely thinking you're correct.
	Her father passed away years ago, and it's basically she would have to redefine her relationship with him to change her beliefs, and I'm 100% convinced that that's probably the issue.
	That you've grown up and from cradle to his grave, you've been taught that this is acceptable, this is the right way to do it, and then when someone comes along and says something quite simple that completely contradicts it and throws your entire belief system on its head, it's, I think, too much of a jump for some people to make.
	Yeah, it is. And it is, just for those who don't know, the NDP is sort of our equivalent of the Democratic Party in the US, which is basically a party that represents public sector workers.
	That's the sole reason for their existence.
	There was some, I don't even remember what happened to it, but there were some legal questions a while back about Whether or not forced union dues could go towards political contributions, because forced association is a violation of freedom of association.
	But yeah, the NDP is the public sector appointing.
	And of course, if you point out that the public sector is driven through violence, it takes away a lot of their moral high ground, to say the least.
	When I lived in Ontario, they did have a question about that for union dues.
	And I do remember vaguely that if you disagreed with where the union dues went, you could specify a different charity.
	Ah, okay.
	So you couldn't have to be not taken from you.
	Just one quick last question and then I'll be on my way and let everybody else have their little word.
	Do you think realistically that as the state's grip on power becomes more tenuous that being open about being an anarchist presents a threat to your personal safety?
	And I'm thinking of you and to a degree myself and those that I embrace as fellow anarchists.
	I mean, that's an interesting question.
	Obviously something that has crossed my mind once or twice over the years.
	You know, I have a lot of criticisms about Western culture, obviously, but I also have a lot of praise.
	I mean, Western culture, we do have a culture which allows for substantive criticism of the culture, right?
	I mean, we don't have like, you know, in certain religious texts.
	I mean, if you attempt to convert someone out of the religion, the penalty is death, right?
	I mean, it's not a very, obviously, Stalin, Stalin-esque Russia and so on was not one that was open to criticism.
	But we do have a culture in the West, largely, I think, as a result of the Greco-Roman tradition, Socratic tradition and all of that and the models of science and medicine, wherein open criticism produces wonderful things, the free market.
	at least the residual aspects of the free market.
	So we do have a culture that does allow for criticism of the existing culture.
	And, I mean, it's a hard haul, and there's a lot of defenses in people about that, but we do have that.
	If that were no longer possible, then we would have to give up, right?
	I mean, it would be done.
	It would be over. And that is...
	The Greeks, why did the Greek and the Roman empires fall?
	Because they killed Socrates, right?
	I mean, because they warned everyone away from philosophy and that sealed their doom, right?
	It's like the chronic drunk chasing away the last person who's ever counseling him not to drink, right?
	That just means he's now going to die of cirrhosis or something, right?
	It's done. We're not at that stage in the culture.
	Wherein, you know, philosophers are being thrown in jail or put to death or whatever.
	I mean, obviously there are Pretty heinous criticisms of philosophers and so on, but that's criticisms we can all deal with, right?
	I mean, it's imprisonment we would have a tougher time with.
	So if the culture has gotten to the point where people are being thrown in jail for opinions, then yeah, I mean, that's it.
	I mean, we're done. I'm certainly not ready to give up because that is essentially to usher the world into a potentially permanent dark age, right?
	The dark ages of the past were limited by a lack of technology, but capitalism has now given the state and controllers and sociopaths of political hierarchies all of the tools to maintain a near perpetual grip on the throat of civilization.
	I mean computers are never going to go away and monitoring and all of this sort of stuff is never going to go away.
	So if we lose now, I think that there will be nothing left to win.
	I mean, conceivably forever.
	And so I'm not, you know, I think it is the last and most important fight.
	If we win now, then we win forever.
	If we lose now, we lose forever.
	And so I think it's enormously important.
	I think if you have the ability to do it, then do it, because it is essential.
	And I'm not ready or willing to give up.
	Yes, because that would be it.
	That would be it for forever, I think.
	I think you're absolutely right.
	I mean, I've seen some of the events in New Hampshire that have been going down and it kind of, I hope it's not a bit of foreshadowing.
	And that aside, I wanted to thank you for taking the time to take my call and to thank you for your work and wish you all the best.
	Well, thank you. I appreciate that.
	And great call.
	Great call as always. Alright.
	Next. We got ourselves 36 fabulous more minutes.
	Because we started on time, time, time, time.
	Name in the chat is Anjin-san.
	So, you're up next.
	Hey, am I on?
	You sure are. How are you doing, my friend?
	I'm doing fabulous. Thanks, Steph, and for James also.
	I'm sorry my voice is a little bit shot today and I'm a little nervous.
	It sounds sultry.
	I like it. Come on, belt out some Coco James.
	Anyway, go on. Anyway, enormous thanks for the show, by the way.
	I've been listening for a few months and kind of intensely for four or five.
	I've been going through the podcast from zero through, oh, about 450 now.
	Holy time travel. Good for you.
	I've been really devouring it, so thanks very much.
	I was a little disappointed at first when I started listening to the Sunday show.
	That there was so much psychology involved, but finally I got it.
	I mean, the whole thing is psychology.
	That's the key to the whole, I mean, the mind trap that we're in.
	Yeah, I meant to sort of differentiate it from the modern practice of formal psychology just by calling it self-knowledge.
	But yeah, I think it is.
	But go on. No, I absolutely agree.
	The reason I'm calling is that there were a couple of callers in the last few weeks.
	I've been kind of trying to piece together something for a while.
	But there were two callers.
	One, they called in talking about, in his childhood, being pretty brutal to his brother, beating up his younger brother, and some of the things going on in his family.
	And then there was another that I think called last week.
	I just listened to last week's Sunday show on YouTube, and the guy was talking about introversion.
	And I thought, wow, are you guys reading my diary or something?
	Because piecing the two together, I mean, it was...
	It's just a little bit startling.
	Dysfunction is similar.
	I sort of wanted to mention that just before we go on.
	Dysfunction is incredibly similar.
	There's an old quote from Tolstoy, I think, from Anna Karenina, where he says, all happy families are alike, but all unhappy families are unhappy in their own way.
	And that is completely the opposite of the truth, in my opinion.
	Actually, I get this, sort of borrow this from historian Paul Johnson.
	Unhappy families are all the same, you know, fundamentally.
	Yeah. Whereas happiness is a thousand flowers blooming.
	Dysfunction is just one dead rose.
	But anyway, sorry, go on. No, I mean, it was just, like I said, kind of shocking.
	Listening to that gentleman last week, especially, talking about introversion.
	And, of course, some of the physical things that he had going on, too.
	Bad acne, which I had just horrible acne.
	Oh, I'm so sorry. Yeah, you name it.
	I mean, divorced parents.
	What other crap can be thrown at me, right?
	Oh, man, I heard about that test that you put out for, what was it?
	Oh, the ACE. Yeah, yeah.
	I think, I can't remember if I had like seven or maybe more points on that.
	I can't remember offhand, but it was pretty bad.
	I mean, if you'd had less, you probably would be able to remember, but sorry, go on.
	Probably, yeah. Trauma damages memory, but anyway, go on.
	They say that memory is the second thing to go, by the way.
	I can't remember the first, but...
	But no, it was, and I listened to, I was doing some searches on, I think in the list of podcasts, you were talking about shyness, and I think you had one a while back about why you were shy, and I think you got it at least partly right.
	I mean, obviously a lot of the childhood trauma and people just not really giving a damn about the real you, and not knowing, you know, really much of what's going on inside, and really not concerned, just more concerned about your behavior and compliance and so forth.
	But there are things that, and I wanted to make aware for parents, because you talk a bit about, you know, quite a bit about parenting, which of course is the key to everything.
	And I want to make any parents out there aware that there are things you really should watch out for.
	Because not only non-violent parenting, but also aware parenting.
	You really have to understand, pay attention to your children and understand what may be going on inside based on what you're seeing outside.
	But shyness is one of those things that people just don't get.
	Because, of course, the shy child really doesn't express what's going on inside very much.
	And, of course, when you have a shy child, it's always like, well, they'll grow out of it.
	Sean, it sounds a whole lot cuter than scared, which is the truth, right?
	Yeah. Well, it's more than just scared in general of interactions and of people.
	More specifically, there was a book.
	I've been trying to find out more about this.
	There was a book that I came across in college.
	And which is, you know, of course, as any, you know, psychological treatise or study is, you know, damn near impossible to find anywhere else.
	And it's long out of print.
	But the book was called Shyness and Love by Dr.
	Gil Martin. And you might want to look into that.
	Actually, it was reproduced a while back on PDF, I believe with the author's permission, because there was no way it was ever going to be reprinted again.
	It was such a limited audience.
	But your wife might want to look into this one, too.
	But it was a study of, I think it was over 200 or so men who self-reported as being very shy with women.
	And it was really, it was about men more than women because for women, of course, being shy can be overcome because in our society, men generally are expected to make the first move and do.
	So a shy woman can find a nice relationship.
	But for the man, I'm telling you, it's the toughest thing that there really is for a shy man.
	But he was also talking about in the book that there are ways that if you realize that your boy is this way, that you can help them be more comfortable with being around girls.
	I mean, it's just...
	Just introduce them in non-threatening and casual ways to playing with girls or whatever.
	I grew up in a semi-rural area.
	There weren't a lot of people around in the first place, and of course not too many girls my age.
	So you never learn to be comfortable just being yourself around girls and approaching them and just chatting.
	And Again, listening to that caller from last week where he's talking about being funny, being humorous, I mean, that was kind of my crutch.
	You look for any way that you can get approval from people, and when you realize you're funny, it's like, okay, well, I got this now.
	Yeah, no, I mean, it's the big question, right?
	In the absence of virtue, why should anyone choose you as opposed to someone else?
	Well, maybe you've got really great accidental physical attributes, handsome and great hair and Whatever it is, you get a great physique or great natural athletic ability or whatever.
	But maybe that's why someone should choose you.
	But of course, that's relatively few people.
	So the question is, you know, when it comes to love or romance or breeding or marriage, the question is, well, why me?
	Why should someone choose me?
	And if you don't have an answer to that, it's really hard to make a good choice about it.
	Right. I mean, when you look in the mirror and, you know, I'm a fairly good looking guy, I'm told.
	I mean, But, you know, when you look in the mirror and you see a pizza face looking back at you, you know?
	Yeah, why me? Yeah. I'm telling you.
	And, you know, it lasted through my 30s.
	I'm 50 now.
	And it's, you know, even now, occasionally I still get a zit.
	I'd like to say that helps keep you young, but that's probably not the right approach to take with you.
	And I'm so sorry. That is a very hard thing.
	People who've not sort of gone through it, I mean, it really just gives you a view of yourself that is very different than it would have been otherwise.
	And I'm really sorry about that.
	Well, no, and I tell you, you know, and you realize, you know, you look back over the years and you realize that you were always different and never really accepted.
	And, you know, I was pretty picked on back in grade school, you know, because kids just realize there's something else about you.
	There's something different about you.
	And it's one of those things where, you know, you're really not sure yourself.
	You don't understand when you see someone who's comfortable around girls, for instance.
	You don't understand how is it done. It's like a magic trick.
	You know? Right.
	You really get it.
	I swear to God, it's that bad.
	But it's one of those things that...
	It's almost like a demon that you want exorcised, right?
	Oh, God. I mean, if you could...
	It's like... I'll tell you that I've always understood gay people.
	It's one of those things where...
	Because very shy men are sometimes mistaken for being gay.
	But it's one of those things where if you ask any gay person...
	Would you trade this?
	Would you be heterosexual?
	They'd say, well, hell yes, I think a lot of them.
	But it's one of those things where there seems to be a lot of this that's, and I'm no determinist by any stretch, but there's inborn, or maybe, I don't know if it's genetic, or I don't know if it's hormonal, you know, prenatal changes that take place, and there seems to be a different brain chemistry they're finding in very shy people.
	And it's one of those things where, like I said, I've never had a homophobic bone in my body because I always kind of got it.
	Yeah, no, I felt the same way.
	I mean, although I will say to gay people, I think you got it hard being an anarchist atheist.
	I mean, at least you all have a recognizable place where you can gather there on.
	There are gay bars you can go to.
	There's entire industries you can go to.
	There's, you know, a recognizable culture.
	But, you know, we double A's, you know, we're in a whole heap of isolation sometimes.
	Yeah, I mean, maybe, yeah, shy bars.
	That's what we mean, not gay bars.
	Shy bars, each with its own stall.
	Right. Oh, yeah. But, again, the reason I'm calling is I just want, you know, I want parents to be aware of what to look out for in their kids.
	If they're shy, if you have a boy especially who's really, really shy around girls, look for that.
	Yeah, you've got to deal with that. It's a big deal.
	It's a big deal to deal with it.
	I mean, it's almost like a learning disability, which I would – you need to intervene.
	You need to intervene strongly because it's going to have a huge impact, as you know, right?
	It's going to have a huge impact on that kid's life.
	It's worse than a learning disability because people who are of low intelligence can still succeed marvelously in life.
	Sometimes we might say it's better.
	With a very shy man, the one thing you really want is to be in love and to find that wonderful relationship.
	But you're terrified of it.
	You're terrified of making the first move.
	I mean, I've had a few girlfriends, but the longest lasted for less than a year.
	And it tends to be self-reinforcing, too.
	I'm sorry to interrupt, but it tends to be self-reinforcing, right?
	Yeah. I mean, you talk about not just shyness around women, but general self-consciousness.
	Where you're in a situation with anyone new, with anyone you don't know, where you're a little bit nervous and you realize that everyone's just staring right at you and you start sweating and then you realize you're sweating and that makes you sweat more.
	It's a whole snowball.
	And it's so tough to break.
	Yeah, and it's like trying to roll an avalanche back uphill sometimes, right?
	Man, and I'm telling you, I mean, like I said, if I could flip a switch...
	There are a lot of things I'd trade to be not that way, but I'm telling you what, it's a disability.
	Yeah, yeah. Well, and of course, as far as I understand it, in the DSM-5, the handbook of psychiatry, it's about to become pathologized too, right?
	Something to be medicated. Social anxiety disorder.
	Wow. Yeah, that's just sick.
	Yeah, I mean, it's definitely not, I don't, obviously don't know, but I don't think it's much to do with the drugging people to make them better or whatever.
	Yeah, I mean, I remember I applied for a job at one point where there was the, was it the MMPI? Yeah.
	Yeah. Yeah, you got the psychological profile.
	And, you know, a lot of these questions, you realize when you're reading them, it's like, if I answer this way, they're going to know.
	I'm just absolutely introverted.
	And that's not what they're looking for, you know?
	So you try to think, well, how would a normal person answer this?
	If I were a humanoid, right, right?
	Right. Yeah.
	But, yeah, again, I just wanted to bring that up and...
	Like I said, I've been searching the boards and so forth for any real in-depth talk about this, but like I said, you kind of got it.
	You got part of it at least, but the deeper part, I think, is not just societal.
	There's a predisposition for this that's built in, that if you work at it and if you have people help you out of it, there's a way out.
	Yeah. Yeah, and this definitely is, you know, the one thing I would say to parents is, I mean, about this issue, and, you know, let me know if I'm off base here, but, you know, just they'll grow out of it as kind of a cop-out.
	Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
	Absolutely. Yeah. And especially, you know, in my upbringing, you know, our parents divorced.
	Mother worked all day.
	You know, we basically lived at our grandparents' business, which is where my mom worked.
	I mean, they were around, but largely unsupervised.
	And of course, no one really... So how the hell are you supposed to learn how to socialize?
	It's like expecting you to know Mandarin if you never know Mandarin.
	I mean, you're supposed to any Mandarin, right?
	And your only neighbors are boys, and you have plenty of fun, but there's no girls that you can ever really learn to interact with, and it's just horrible.
	Oh, did we lose you? I just wanted to maybe broach the subject, maybe for people to talk about some more.
	But yeah, just parents.
	Just be on the lookout.
	Look for that book. Again, it's called Shyness and Love, and I believe you can just download it now.
	And it really is an eye-opener.
	Me to read this book. I mean, it wasn't 100% me, but boy, listen to the story.
	All right.
	Well, listen, thanks. Do you mind if we move on to the next caller?
	Yeah, please. No, go ahead. Thanks again, and I'll let you guys go.
	Yeah, thanks for sharing.
	I really do appreciate that. It does get some real good if other people hear this and act, so thank you.
	All right, we have a next caller. Go ahead, my friend.
	Yes, sorry. We have two, actually.
	Thomas and Gerard. Thomas, you're first, and then you're Gerard, you're next.
	All right, but you must both talk at the same time, because I love me a challenge.
	One in each year. Sorry, go ahead.
	Hey, can you hear me? You're on, brother.
	Okay, okay. Awesome.
	My internet went down.
	It was down for, like, one and a half hours, but...
	Well, we just finished talking about you, so now is a good time.
	Okay, good. Well, let's talk about you, PB. Let's talk about you and me.
	Let's talk about all the good things and the bad things that can be.
	Exactly, exactly.
	Okay, I worked on this for a bit, and I think it's an amazing book.
	It's an amazing theory.
	And I want to come with my contribution.
	Thanks, and you know what's great about it, what I love the most about it?
	That font is beautiful.
	I actually spent more time picking the font than writing the book, and nobody's commented on it.
	I just really wanted to mention that.
	That font, I could make slow sweet love to it for a Sunday afternoon, but I have this show to do so I can't, but please, go on.
	Okay, okay. So, I wrote something down that I want to share with you.
	The reason that I think your proof is insufficient is that it...
	Does not prove that there is a universal relationship between preferred behaviors.
	Let me put it up mathematically.
	Let's say we have x, the argument or the priory, and y, the instance of preferred behavior in question, and set all instances of preferred behavior.
	If x, then y.
	But how do we know that y is the whole set of x?
	So if the argument, that you engage in the argument, right?
	Then why? Which is an instance of preferred behavior in question, which is if you engage in an argument, then you show that you prefer truth or falsehood.
	But how do you know...
	Yeah, go ahead. That's a bit closer to argumentation ethics.
	It's a little... But go on.
	Let's keep going with that. Okay, let's try.
	How do we know that the preference for truth is the whole set of all instances of that preferred behavior?
	Well, can you give me an example of the difference between the two?
	So give me one that would be that and one which would not be that, just to make sure I understand your approach, if you don't mind.
	I don't have a proof for universally preferred behavior.
	No, no, sorry. I'm not saying a proof, but can you give me an example of behavior claims that would be universal versus those that wouldn't be?
	Well, I think the question that I see is that you can't really make a statement that is universal.
	But you can make one that is logically consistent in this instance.
	I'm sorry, whoever's typing, if you could just mute yourself.
	Okay, but let me again, this is hard stuff to talk about, so forgive me if I thrash around a little trying to really understand your position.
	It doesn't mean that I think it's not correct.
	Obviously, I just want to make sure I really get it.
	So if I was teaching a math class, and I said to you, two and two make four, and then I said to the person sitting next to you, but not for you.
	Only for this guy, not for the person sitting next to him.
	That would be a strange thing, right?
	Why would that be? Why would that be strange?
	Because we assume that mathematical propositions are true for the whole set of set.
	Yeah, it's universal, right?
	Yes, but you... Okay, so we have at least an example of something, two and two make four, that is universal, which is why I can't say to one person it's true and to another person it's not true for you.
	Exactly. Now, I can say your name is Bob and then to the woman next to you, assuming she's not named Bob, but not yours.
	That's right, because Bob is not a universal claim of knowledge, right?
	Okay, okay. Alright, so that's certainly important.
	The reason, of course, that if I say to you 2 and 2 make 4, I'm saying it's a fact, it's true, it's universal, and you are bound to it or bound by it, right?
	If you wish to say anything true, you can say 2 and 2 make 5, but you're no longer speaking mathematical truth, right?
	Exactly. You got it.
	So if I'm a math teacher and I'm claiming to instruct people on math, I cannot create arbitrary distinctions, right?
	No, that's true.
	Okay. And so if I say to somebody, X is universally preferable behavior, then I cannot create arbitrary exceptions because then I have broken the universality, right?
	Yes. So if I say, truth is better than falsehood, And it's not 5% better than falsehood, right?
	It's not like if you flip a coin, you know, 6 times out of 10, it would be better than falsehood.
	It is always 150% better than falsehood.
	Like, 2 and 2 make 3 is not half right, right?
	It's just wrong. Completely right.
	Yes, it's completely wrong.
	And 2 and 2 make 4 is not 10% better than 2 and 2 make 5, right?
	Yes, but aren't you supposed to prove it?
	Aren't you supposed to prove that this instance is applicable for all instances?
	Well, no, not if I'm making the claim that it is, right?
	So if I say 2 and 2 make 4, that is a universal claim that everyone who wishes to achieve mathematical accuracy must submit to.
	I'm making that claim by saying 2 and 2 is 4, equals 4.
	Not pistachio and butternut ice cream is really good together, I think.
	That's not a universal claim. That's a statement of personal preference, right?
	Yes. And so if I'm saying two and two are four, two and two equal four, then I'm making a universal claim.
	And I'm saying, I mean, there's a whole lot that's embedded in that universal claim.
	Empiricism, logic, truth is better than falsehood, universality, all of that sort of buried in the statement two and two make four.
	And so, sorry, go ahead.
	I have a question, though.
	I think I understand where you're coming from.
	The thing is that in mathematics, right, you don't really deal with Because universality means that it's true for all places, at all times, in all instances, right?
	Okay. Well, certainly, all the mathematics that I learned up until grade 12 were universals.
	Yeah, but for instance, if we have arithmetics, right?
	There are stuff in mathematics that are outside the realm of arithmetics, like complex numbers, for instance.
	So I think it's very hard to say that it's like math because in math you have a lot of theory that doesn't have those dimensions that you talk about, which is universality.
	Well, can they be marked correct or incorrect on an exam?
	Sure. Well, then they're universal.
	I mean, they have to be. Otherwise, you can't mark things correct or incorrect, right?
	Okay, so I mean, just sort of give you an example, right?
	Let's say that you and I, we'll take it out of the realm of math, right?
	And just say you and I... Yeah, that would be good.
	Yeah, we hand in an essay on Jane Austen, right?
	And we are cheating scumbags, and we hand in the same essay, right?
	Okay. And the same teacher gives one of us an A+. And one of us, for exactly the same essay, a fail.
	Okay. Right?
	This would be an example of bad teaching, right?
	Yeah. Because, right, the mark is somewhat objective.
	It has to be somewhat objective.
	Otherwise, you would just have a random mark generator mark everything, right?
	It feels like that sometimes, but go on.
	Yeah, I know.
	Or if you and I spell the word totalitarianism, and we both spell it the same way, but one teacher says you spelled it correctly and one teacher says you spelled it incorrectly, we would know that there would need to be a way to resolve that that wouldn't just be, it's half – split the middle, it's half correct, we would know that there would need to be a way Sure, sure.
	Because spelling makes claims to universality.
	This is how the word is spelled.
	Now, if you said to someone, spell how this word sounds to you, then there would be some gray area, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, put four Ms and a silent Q together with an exclamation mark and a wet fart noise, you're not going to get anything other than data-esque poetry.
	But there has to be some level of objectivity.
	And of course, biologists argue about particular classifications of particular species from time to time.
	But where claims to objectivity, to universality are made, then...
	There are a number of assumptions buried within those claims, and the person cannot then create arbitrary distinctions within their claims.
	Then they're switching from truth to perspective or opinion or whatever, right?
	Yeah, yeah. So if I say something is true, it has to be universal.
	And if you also say that you accept the methodology by which things become universal, reason and evidence, I would say, then if the reason and evidence confirm the truth of that, then you have to change your opinion to that which is true according to reason and evidence, or you have to abandon reason and evidence as the standard of truth, right? Yes, absolutely.
	I mean, this is an important distinction, right?
	Because some people will say, if you take them through the logical disproofs of God, they'll say, well, it's faith.
	So then they say, well, it's true that according to reason and evidence, there's no such thing as gods, but I'm going to choose to believe in those gods because I reject reason and evidence.
	I've read a bit about the scientific method before planning to do this talk.
	And I couldn't find anywhere that it claimed to be universal.
	It only said that it probably were.
	Like, I don't know.
	Would... I don't know.
	You take over the mic for a bit.
	Well, I mean, I'm, you know, no expert on...
	But I certainly have read statements from scientists who say anybody who doubts the objectivity of science should attempt to jump off my balcony window and fly, right?
	I mean, these are scientists who get, not with you, but impatient with, you know, the Deepak Chopras who misused the word quantum to mean...
	Mystical, right? Which is not what quantum means.
	But the scientific method will absolutely and totally reject theories which are contradicted by physical evidence, right?
	Yes. So how do we know that fusion in a jar didn't work?
	Because fusion was an incorrect theory, it's because it didn't work, right?
	And why did we replace the Ptolemaic system of astronomy with the Copernican system of astronomy, which then was Newtonian, which then was Einsteinian?
	Because each of those previous theories was contradicted by particular points of refined evidence, right?
	Sure, sure. So, yes, there is a science attempts to describe that which is measurable, that which is perceivable outside the mind.
	I guess some aspects of science is within the mind, but it still has to be empirical.
	And so, because it is attempting to describe that which is objective, it is measured By its objectivity, by the degree to which it accurately measures that which is objective.
	Is that a fair thing to say? Sure.
	I'm sorry for pulling the relativist card.
	I really hate it. No, it's fine.
	No, look, I mean, if I've misunderstood something fundamental about the scientific method, that's important because I use science as a metaphor.
	But even if we abandon the scientific method, because morality is only secondarily concerned with empiricism.
	Morality, and I would say this is true of science, science is only secondarily concerned with empiricism.
	Science fundamentally is concerned with logical consistency.
	Yeah. Reality.
	And again, I'm just talking about sense data, not necessarily subatomic, whatever, whatever, right?
	Because that doesn't have anything to do with morality or philosophy.
	There's no, like if some guy gets asphyxiated in a room that I'm in, I'm assumed to have killed him.
	Now, I could say, well, no, all the oxygen went to the top of the room because the random Brownian motion produced a perfect vacuum in the bottom half of the room.
	It's possible, but nobody would ever accept that as a defense, right?
	Okay. Then I have a question.
	Can you then prove that UPB is in fact universal?
	But you see, that's the beauty of UPB is your desire for proof is itself UPB. Sure.
	It's UPB in this instance.
	Can you prove that it is in all instances?
	Well, your desire for it to be proven in all instances is UPB because you're saying it has to be universal.
	So you've already accepted it.
	The moment you say proof, the moment you say all, the moment you say true, then you've already – these are UPB terms because you're saying that there's an external universal standard that UPB must conform to in order to be true.
	But that itself is UPB. That is smart.
	That is really, really smart.
	I like to think it's cunning and profitable.
	No, it's profitable.
	It's a free book. But do you see what I'm saying?
	You're using these terms.
	I'm not saying this for you. You got it.
	But just for other people, it's trippy, right?
	And it's tricky. Because you have to look.
	It's like self-knowledge. You have to look at what you're doing, not...
	Afterwards, right? You have to look at what you're doing in the moment.
	And if you are asserting truth or proof or universality or always or in all circumstances, that is UPB. I feel like a mouse in the middle of a whole floor of mouse traps and no matter how I put it...
	I'm not trying to win, honestly.
	If you have a greater point or a better point, I'm happy to...
	If you win, we all win, right?
	But, I mean, I've been doing this for 20 years, so I've got some moves.
	That doesn't mean that I'm right or anything like that.
	I really appreciate it.
	These are great, great questions.
	But, I mean, these would be my answers.
	Okay. Well, I can't think of anything smart to say right now, so thank you.
	Thank you so much. Boy, if that were my standard, can you imagine how much fewer podcasts there would be?
	Anyway, let's not necessarily go there right now.
	But no, those are great, great questions.
	Thank you. And, you know, when you come up with more objections, please throw them, throw them, throw them, throw them.
	I mean, this is a theory that really needs to be correct.
	I will. I will. Thank you.
	See you. Thanks, man. And we had, I think we have time for Uno von Moor.
	Yeah, Gerard. Yes, hello.
	Hello. Yes, hello, Stéphane.
	First time I'm calling you.
	I'm a bit nervous. I'm sorry.
	I'm calling you from Paris, France.
	Ah, Paris, France.
	I actually know most about Paris from the movie Ratatouille, but actually, no, I've been to Paris.
	Thank you. Okay, well, you're welcome, anyway.
	I just had a quick question about, you know, sometimes, well, quite often you speak about the way there is some form of freedom and respect to the personhood within the private sphere.
	And at some point, when the group becomes bigger, the majority rule kicks in.
	So my question is very short.
	Where do you put the limit?
	I mean, where does the shift take place between the private sphere that gives liberty to the person and where does it shift towards the majority rule and the coercion?
	That's my question.
	That's a great question. Do you have an easier one?
	You French people with your postmodern and your Derrida and all, it's got to be so hard, eh?
	I have another one about money creation.
	No, no, no, if it's harder, please don't, because that's hard enough.
	Okay, okay, because that's a hard question.
	All right, life is shit.
	It's a matter of scale, most certainly, but I don't have the answer myself.
	I don't know. I don't have a clue.
	Who put the ramaling in the ramalamalingning?
	Well, no, it's a great question. So the question is, I'm going to try and reframe it in a way that's easier for me.
	In better English anyway.
	No, no, listen, please let's not switch to French because I had to learn some French for my master's and it was really not a pretty thing.
	But your last name is Molyneux.
	How hard could this be?
	Well, let me show you how hard it can be.
	I know 13 computer languages, English, and the language of love.
	But that's it. I can only do 14.
	Good man. Okay, so the question is, so this is sort of the difference between… Everyday anarchy and practical anarchy, right?
	So in everyday anarchy, we desperately want our choices to be non-interfered with, to be free, to be voluntary, like who we marry and where we go to school and which job we take, and we want this.
	And then, boik, it flips around when we get to society, right?
	And so your question is, how many people?
	Yeah, or when did that happen, or how come that happens at all?
	Right, right. Well, I mean, the answer that – I don't have, you know, obviously a provable answer because it's a gray area.
	But I will say this.
	So the sphere that we like to have freedom in is the sphere which has a number of characteristics.
	One of those characteristics is – There are consequences.
	There are actual practical immediate consequences to a lack of freedom.
	Yeah, right. So if we're not allowed to choose who we want to marry, that has immediate consequences to our lives, right?
	Yeah. And if we're no longer allowed to choose where we work, I mean, these are immediate negative consequences to us, right?
	Mm-hmm. Whereas if we get the government to give us a subsidy or to ban competition or whatever, right?
	To give us a monopoly, then I mean this has also immediate consequences that are positive, but the negative consequences are very diffused.
	And if you're early enough in the cycle of statism… Because utilitarianism always leads to statism because utilitarianism cares only about effects.
	And not principles.
	And so the effects of statism are always positive in the short run to almost everyone involved.
	So, you know, for instance, as I mentioned before, if you socialize a free market healthcare system, everybody makes out like bandits.
	Because nobody's taxes really go up because you borrow the money.
	And so you basically get free healthcare and you get all of the discipline of the doctors who've grown up and are working in a free market system.
	So it's like fantastic, right?
	I mean, how cool was it for the engineers to work on the Apollo missions?
	I mean, dude, I'm not just building some sucky bridge in Madison County.
	I'm going to the moon!
	I mean, how cool is that, right?
	It's amazing! So, in the short run, statism is great for almost everyone.
	And the people who it's not great for, they don't even know what happened, right?
	So let's say doctors get to ban other healthcare providers.
	Well, they make out like bandits and everyone who follows makes out like bandits.
	Some people obviously have to adjust and lose some money because they no longer have a particular license.
	But what happens is a whole bunch of people choose not to go into medicine if they're not going to be doctors because they're not allowed to.
	And so those people, in a sense, they don't even get that there's a profession that's missing that they could have had.
	And all of the people who end up paying a lot more for healthcare, they don't really get to compare it to another situation where there was no monopoly provided and the free market kept prices down.
	So the moment you have a state...
	The moment that you – like you basically have a situation where you do not have to pay for evil, right?
	That's what I've always called the state. It's a big coupon in the middle of your Sunday supplement and you can get half-off potato chips and here's an extra hunk of meat for buying two more hunks of meat and, by the way, free evil as well.
	And so you don't have to pay for the immorality.
	You don't have to pay for the coercion.
	I mean, to enforce these things, everyone's taxes go up, so in that sense.
	But if you benefit from a monopoly, your wages go up, your profits go up far more than your taxes that are required to sustain and enforce the monopoly.
	Otherwise, people wouldn't pursue it, right?
	I mean, if I said to a farmer, you'll get $100,000 in farm subsidies, but you'll have to spend $200,000 lobbying, he'd say, well, thanks.
	No, thanks. I think I'll just go and start a pharmaceutical company instead.
	So I think that it's when you have – I mean the socialization of risk and the privatization of profit is really what the state is all about.
	So I think that it generally shifts when you can socialize anonymously.
	So in a small tribe, you can't really do this stuff too well because the people who are harmed, you actually have a personal relationship with.
	So if – I don't know.
	If I'm some competing witch doctor and I try and get the chief to pass a law banning the other witch doctor, well, he's a guy I grew up with, right?
	He knows where I live.
	And there's sort of personal repercussions to that, right?
	Whereas the victims of statehood are almost always anonymous and diffused and they can't trace it back to the actual cause and, you know, all that kind of crap.
	Then there's that sort of inversal of morality occurs.
	But I don't think it happens.
	It can really happen without a state.
	I mean, as we talked about earlier about eBay, eBay's got 300,000 people, but your reputation still matters, right?
	So if you go around and you start mocking down your competitors and complaining that they didn't ship you stuff and all of that, I mean, people don't do that because it's very risky, right?
	Whereas if you could do that with impunity, And get paid for doing it, right, then more people would do it.
	But it's a lot more risky to do that stuff in a situation.
	Even though there's 300,000 people or more on eBay who are selling and millions more buying, if you do that, if you pull that kind of crap, it's really risky.
	I mean, if anyone finds out, I mean, you're toast.
	I mean, you're just never going to be allowed anywhere near the place again.
	And so people don't generally do that.
	It's the same reason why companies don't go, you know, if they see an SEO ad I think we're good to go.
	Yeah, so I think that… When it becomes anonymous, the risks for the inversal of morality go up.
	But in particular, when it becomes government-based, then, I mean, it becomes inescapable, I think.
	Does that help at all?
	Yeah, it does. It does.
	Yeah, it's exactly the same.
	I like your surprise. You know, it actually does.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't believe it.
	No, it makes very good sense.
	I've been thinking a lot while listening to you talking, of course, and it reminded me of...
	I spent two years in Ireland and in Galway, in the west of Ireland.
	And it's a small country relatively to the United States or even to France or a European country.
	And in Ireland, it's very funny because you always have this impression, this feeling that you could meet someone that you know anywhere.
	Within Ireland, you have the feeling that you can meet anyone you know or you can meet anyone who knows someone you know, you see?
	And I always wondered why there is less crime and I don't know about the government in Ireland, but I don't think it's a huge government.
	And so maybe when people have the impression or when people really do know each other better than when there is less anonymity, Probably things get freer and clearer.
	Right. And of course, you have lots of people who don't know each other on eBay, but there's no anonymity because you've got a login, you've got a public storefront or something, right?
	So that would tend to prove that in some part anonymity is part of the problem.
	Right, but by anonymity, we mean statism.
	I mean that's my argument.
	Yeah, sure.
	Sorry, the reason I say that is because anonymity is so destructive to virtue, you wouldn't have it in a free market, or at least you'd have very little of it.
	Of course. Governing without taking any risk of retaliation is the best for a crook or for a criminal.
	Well, and of course corporations, right?
	Where you can screw a corporation and you can blow it up and you can still keep all the money you made from it, right?
	Sure. But I think it's in general, generally speaking, or maybe even UPB speaking, I think it's a good start.
	I've always been thinking about when you drive, you know, when you drive, how come people become like wild and much, much meaner when they are behind a wheel in a car?
	If people could see each other in the eye and talk to each other, I don't know, with a public address system from car to car, I don't think there would be so much meanness when you drive.
	Just think of the internet, right?
	We all know the internet courage, right?
	You're a stupid jerk.
	You should eat your mother's shoes for breakfast and blah, blah, blah.
	I mean, people would never say that across the table from someone else, particularly if that someone else happened to be sort of larger.
	So yeah, I mean, anonymity and no repercussions definitely is a breeding ground.
	It's like putting shit in the sunlight in a flystorm.
	I mean, it's just going to attract and feed people.
	Yeah, that's the whole difference between, well, all things considered between Facebook and YouTube, for instance.
	You've got much less trolling on Facebook than on YouTube.
	Right, right. Yeah, because, I mean, even though you could sort of come up with anonymity, it's a lot harder to – there's a lot more effort to doing it on Facebook.
	You've got to create a fake account and blah, blah, blah.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, well, good.
	Let's get to know each other better to make a better place in the world.
	Absolutely. And let's try and dismantle the institutions that provide free anonymous evil because that's only going to breed that kind of corruption.
	Yeah, agreed totally.
	Yeah. Sorry, that's a great question and I really appreciate that shout out from across the pond.
	Next time we will do it in Esperanto.
	James, do we have anyone else who was maybe hanging on the line or had a question in the chat room that we can do?
	Okay, no problem. Thank you very much, Stefan.
	Thank you very much. Oh, we did have somebody asking a question.
	I think it might be one that you might want to get him on the call.
	I'm not sure if he was looking to get on the call.
	It was about the statism and his personal experience with statism.
	Friends were statists. Hi, Steph.
	Question. The statists in my life.
	Do not openly say they want me thrown in jail.
	What they do is avoid talking about the gun in the room.
	or they're evasive, they laugh at me, or think I'm foolish because the state isn't really so violent, therefore I don't know how they really feel about me disagreeing with them.
	And it is obviously uncomfortable if I keep bringing up the question, I am stuck, what do you think?
	Well, I think that's the entire purpose of avoidance is to put you in a situation where somehow the problem becomes yours.
	There is, you know, if I'm avoiding something that is obvious, that is something I'm morally responsible for.
	And so you can, of course, not bring these topics up with them anymore.
	And, you know, you can have a relationship that doesn't involve these issues.
	That's perfectly possible.
	But the fact that you're pointing out the consequences of their beliefs...
	And they are avoiding talking about the consequences of those beliefs means that they're fully aware of what they believe and what it results in.
	I mean, they're fully aware. You can make your choices, whatever you want, based upon that.
	But they're no longer innocent, right?
	This is why people really avoid moral arguments, because with morality comes responsibility.
	And people can exist in a state of nature, and I think justly so.
	They can exist in a state of nature before they get the moral understanding.
	But the moment they have the moral understanding, the heavy weight and wings of moral responsibility land on their shoulders, and they can be crushed or they can fly.
	And unfortunately, all too many people choose the crushing bit.
	But they are morally responsible once they know.
	And the fact that they're avoiding is because it's sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
	They say, well, basically I think what they're saying is, I don't want to accept this truth because it's going to put me in direct conflict with those around me.
	I don't want this. It's dangerous.
	It's bad. It's a problem. So I don't want it.
	And, of course, by rejecting you, they are only reinforcing their opinion that morality and virtue leads to being rejected.
	And so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, which is not to say it isn't entirely self-fulfilling because, I mean, certainly they will face rejection.
	If they pursue truth. But I think it is important to recognize that.
	It's got nothing to do with you, you understand?
	It's got nothing to do with you and it doesn't even really have much to do with the argument, right?
	This is something that I can't say often enough, although I try, right?
	When you're talking philosophy with people, their responses have nothing to do with you and almost nothing to do with the argument.
	People's responses to philosophy are almost entirely based upon what they know or believe philosophy is going to do to their relationships.
	Right? This is why it's so important to talk about self-knowledge rather than merely making rational arguments.
	People are evaluating your philosophical arguments based upon the effect that those philosophical arguments are gonna have on their relationships.
	We are social animals, first and foremost.
	We only have rationality thrown in.
	Sometimes it feels almost like an appendix, which most people want to get out as soon as they can.
	But this is how you must look at these things.
	And I say this with emphasis.
	You must look at these things this way.
	Because it is the only explanation that fits all of the available evidence.
	Why? Something as simple as taxation is theft.
	The state is a monopoly of violence.
	This is something which is so easy to understand.
	It is so obvious. It is so logical.
	And it is so much a part of everyone's direct experience of living in the world and being a subject of politics or being a political serf.
	That to not see it Would be as confusing as an elephant stampeding towards you in a desert and you point into your companion and saying, oh my goodness, we better step out of the way of that elephant.
	And the guy says, what elephant?
	I mean, that would be incomprehensible, assuming he's not blind and deaf or whatever, right?
	But the only explanation that fits all of the available evidence is that people are evaluating philosophy based upon its effect upon their relationships.
	So don't own other people's responses.
	You introduce philosophy to them.
	If they run screaming or scorn or attack, it is simply because they get that it is going to go like a cannonball through the fragile, drenched spiderwebs of their existing relationships and leave a big gaping hole called the truth.
	And they quail and fear that result.
	And that's perfectly fine.
	I mean, that's everybody's choice to make.
	But that is what is happening.
	So do not allow yourself to be drawn into a feeling of helplessness.
	It is not... Your helplessness that is actually occurring in the relationship.
	It's the helplessness of other people who get that if they bring virtue and truth to their relationships, their relationships will evaporate.
	And in order to avoid that, they scorn you.
	And in order to reject that knowledge in themselves, they reject the knowledge they're receiving from you.
	It has nothing to do with you.
	It is their relationship and the tenuousness and fragility of those relationships.
	So, I hope that that helps.
	I really appreciate everybody's time.
	It's been a wonderful Sunday show, as always.
	It is an absolute highlight of my week to be able to speak with you wonderful people.
	freedomaderadio.com forward slash donate.
	I'm going to be, of course, in Odessa, Texas coming up soon.
	And I'm also going to be in Vancouver in July.
	So if you would like to come and see me, I would be absolutely happy to press the flesh, kiss the babies.
	No, kiss the fresh, press the babies.
	Ah, there's a reason I didn't go into politics.
	But thank you everybody so much. Have yourselves a wonderful, wonderful week.
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