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Feb. 19, 2012 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:06:00

2096 Freedomain Radio Sunday Show 19 Feb 2012

Freedomain Radio Sunday Show Feb 19 2012 - The Philosophy of Weight Loss, Ending the TSA, Dating a Schizophrenic, Biology vs Anarchism, and Taking State Unemployment Benefits.

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	I got no intro, so let's roll.
	We have no intro, but five people on the call, so that's cool.
	I'm going to mute myself, give yourself a little silence, but we have Jay up first.
	All right, Jay, you are first in line.
	Sorry to make you wait. 19th of February, 2012.
	Freedomate Radio Sunday Show. Go! Hello.
	Oh, sorry. Can you hear me?
	Yes, I can. Okay.
	I got a question. I'm sure you've already been asked plenty of times, but whatever happened to achieving anarchy?
	Well, I... I'm waiting for donations to rise to more than a percentage point of listeners.
	So the calculation is that about 1% of listeners donate to the show.
	And I'm not...
	The book is sort of sitting there waiting until such time as people are willing to support the show a little bit more and then it'll come out.
	So that's the status of it.
	Okay, I was just wondering. I don't have any question right now.
	I'm just going to listen and Oh, sure.
	No problem. No problem. Yeah, you know, I try not to crab about donations because, of course, some people can be very, very generous, but...
	When we're approaching 40 million downloads and the donation levels are at about 1% of listeners, then it's just kind of funny.
	It's something that religious people understand that they have to support their institutions.
	It's something that people who follow political parties understand that they have to support their candidates and their institutions.
	Ron Paul has raised tens and tens of millions of dollars for his candidacy.
	People who are into religion give 10% of the wealth or 5% of the wealth.
	Jews pay dues, in a sense, to be part of the synagogue and so on.
	So it's people who want to support a particular approach to truth.
	They understand that things don't come free.
	And it's strange to me that people who are into the free market so overwhelmingly don't donate to a show that furthers truth.
	I mean, of course, I believe, and maybe this is arguable, perhaps it is, but I believe that Free Domain Radio is the best hope for the future of the species.
	It is. I mean, otherwise, I would be supporting whoever I thought was the best hope, because the free future of the species is the most essential and elemental thing.
	And those of us who are fighting the good fight to make the world a freer place need resources to do that.
	Everybody sort of understands that.
	And, you know, just... I love the show, love the listeners, but it does occasionally get a little bit frustrating when you realize just how much people support politics and religion, which are not going to set us free, and rational philosophy that actually does set people free,
	that gets them into therapy, that helps them pursue self-knowledge, that helps them question dysfunctional and abusive relationships, that actually is reducing the prevalence of violations of the NAP around the world, that It helps to get parents to avoid spanking and reduces the NAP in that standpoint, helps people to parent better and encourages parents to stay home with their children, which creates strong bonds, which strengthens the family, which weakens the state.
	All of the things that this show is actually achieving, that is measurable and tangible progress, And all of the information that comes out of this show that's really hard to get in other places and all of the interviews that I do and all the traveling that I do for the public speaking and all of that.
	I mean, I'm working my butt to the bone to try and put as much reason, evidence and arguments and facts out there to make the world a freer and better place.
	And, you know, if I could get one tenth of one percent of the donations going to Ron Paul, I think that would be a pretty good thing.
	But unfortunately, the people who are committed to paths which I do not think will lead to freedom are much more committed to supporting those venues or those approaches than rational free market philosophers, philosophy adherents are to supporting something like free domain radio.
	So, you know, I don't want to be overly crabby, but that is something that is a challenge.
	And it is...
	It is a, yeah, it can be a little bit frustrating because, of course, if people consume these resources, you know, I regularly get emails from people who say, oh yeah, you know, I've listened to a thousand of your shows, you know, and I'd really like you to answer these five questions.
	And no, you know, hey, you know, I'm sorry that I haven't donated, but hamana, hamana, hamana, right?
	And, you know, I understand not everyone has money, though, you know, five or ten bucks a month doesn't seem like a whole lot to ask.
	But people will regularly say, you know, you know, I've had, Steph, I've had you pay for this server and I've had you pay for the bandwidth to download all of the stuff and all of the equipment that it takes to produce the shows and all that.
	But now, if I could just get you to answer me five more questions, that would be great.
	With no sense of reciprocity, no sense of, you know, gee, it would be really great if I could help support all of these resources that I'm consuming, just expecting other people to pay.
	And this is not what, you know, other people don't, like Mormons don't expect everyone else to pay.
	Ron Paul supporters don't expect everyone else to pay.
	But a lot of people who listen to the show expect other people to pay.
	And that is strange to me.
	Sorry, can I drop in my two cents there?
	Yeah, please do. I think a part of the...
	Oh, somebody's ringing. No, no, go ahead.
	I think part of the reason...
	Hello? Yeah, hang tight.
	We're just talking to somebody else, but hang on.
	We'll get to you. Okay.
	I think part of the reason politicians and churches and religion and stuff don't have trouble gathering that money is they have no shame.
	They're going to have no problem handing the thing around and asking outright.
	I know. I ask a lot.
	I do. I mean, I haven't heard a little while.
	No, I'm not saying pander. Yeah.
	But I think you could actually be saying more about it because it's a really common problem like that in people.
	The reciprocity, basically.
	People don't think they have to... And that goes in a lot of ways.
	It makes me think of an article I read about Anonymous, how the reason they're so popular is because people love this idea of just push-button activism.
	They can type something in their browser or push a button and forward email, and there, you know, I've done my part.
	Because it doesn't actually require anything of them, like getting out of the house or...
	So, what are you saying? I just want to make sure I understand your point.
	Your point is that people don't like to donate?
	I think that's what I'm talking about.
	Well, yeah, sorry. People don't want to contribute in general.
	They don't want to. Until this is an end, they want to message your stuff to people.
	They want to forward the links, but they don't want to have to actually do anything like make the case themselves or contribute funds or do anything.
	Yes. No, and I agree with that.
	And I agree with that. But I think that in this community, we have enough reason and evidence that that connection should be pretty obvious.
	You know, we all understand the problem of the commons.
	We all understand the free rider problem.
	All this kind of stuff, right?
	And so this community, I think of all the communities, has the least sort of excuse to say, oh, I guess I didn't realize that this costs money.
	And that, you know, the more money you contribute, the better the show can be.
	You know, if people contribute enough, I can build a professional set.
	If people contribute enough, I can work with others to create an atheist NCAP television station.
	If people contribute enough, I mean, there's no limit to what I'm Willing, able, and capable of doing.
	But I'm limited by the resources.
	Listen, when I was down in...
	I went on live TV for the very first time to promote Liberty Fest West and to talk about libertarianism.
	I mean, I've done TV sort of remotely and so on, but they said to the organizers, who do you want on?
	And they said, staff, for sure.
	and so I basically got off the plane and drove over to the TV station and had a great interview with the reporter and was standing there in the studio facing the camera, never done that before.
	I'm willing to do all of that.
	I mean, I know that doesn't sound like a big sacrifice but it's a little bit off the beaten path for me to do that kind of stuff.
	But I'll do it and I'll make jokes and I'll sing and I'll do all of this nonsense just to try and keep people interested and spirited by philosophy because it's reason and evidence or fascism and disintegration.
	I mean, this is the only two choices that are facing us.
	And the escalation of catastrophe that is occurring is happening far faster than the expansion of reason and philosophy and It's up to every individual.
	I mean, what use are these dollars going to be for you if the system goes to hell in a handbasket, as so many experts are predicting?
	And then you'd be like, hey, at least I didn't sign up for that $10 a month thing because, boy, I've got much better ways to spend the price of a third of a cup of coffee a day than helping the spread of reason and evidence.
	So, yeah, I mean, it's resources in and productivity out.
	Energy in and energy out.
	So, the spread, the reach of the show is entirely dependent upon the generosity of the listeners.
	And, you know, I'm happy that it's all free.
	I mean, I don't regret that decision for a moment.
	I'm happy that the books are all free.
	But... When you're getting about a million downloads or reviews a month and you ask for 50 cents a show, 50 cents a show is not a lot.
	The show is for about an hour. For a movie, for two hours, people are happy to go and spend 10 or 12 or 14 bucks for a two-hour movie, which is 7 bucks an hour.
	Philosophy is 50 cents an hour that is asked for and people just cannot see their way.
	Most people, the vast majority of people, cannot see their way clear to supporting that.
	And, you know, if philosophy can make a difference in the world, I know that it can, because I know that it makes a huge difference in the lives of individuals, and the world is only the sum of individuals.
	If philosophy can make a difference, then, yeah, you need to support it.
	If you're consuming, you need to contribute.
	I mean, that's just a basic reality, and people don't.
	And that's, yeah, so I'm sitting on the book because I, until people get that connection in a more solid way, then I don't feel like releasing the generosity of a sort of blueprint to peace.
	I just, I don't feel that generosity until I feel the reciprocity from, from as a whole.
	so anyway that's my sort of spiel on it you there?
	Yeah. Yeah, I am.
	I buy, like, game apps on my phone or stuff like that, or, you know, you go out to eat sometimes.
	My general measure is if that meal, you know, which is worth, like, 30 minutes of pleasure is worth 20 bucks, then, yeah.
	Yeah, look, this is a unique show.
	There's nothing else that's like it.
	And I certainly have tried to dig as deep as possible to continue to be relevant and interesting and come up with new and enjoyable approaches to problems.
	And, you know, I'm continuing to write books.
	And, of course, I'm talking much more about parenting, which is having a huge effect on a fairly significant number of families.
	And so it's...
	Yeah, I mean, you know, if we could get 5% of the donation rate that your average church gets, then there would be no limit to what is possible.
	But the hoarding or the stinginess or the lack of conception of reciprocity from the vast majority of listeners...
	It's something that is just data.
	It's just evidence. And it means that people are having trouble making the connection between philosophy spreading and the world getting better.
	And I've made that case so many times, I don't really think that I need to make it again.
	But if people don't learn how to think, we're never going to be free.
	If people don't learn how to subject historical cultural prejudice to the rigors of reason and evidence, then bigotry and disintegration are all that is written on the dark skies of our future.
	And maybe there's a better venue.
	Maybe there's a better way. Like, you know, people say, oh, Steph, you should go on The Daily Show.
	Oh, Steph, you should go on Bill Maher.
	Oh, Steph, you should go and do a TED Talk and stuff like that.
	It's like, but if people aren't supporting and helping me raise the profile of the show, then this isn't going to happen.
	I mean, you know, like, oh, that's a great idea.
	Maybe I should go on TV. Yeah, okay.
	But these are the kinds of things that people need to donate to achieve.
	And I can't achieve it on my own.
	I can't. And so, yeah, it's, yeah, so, you know, once that starts to up a little bit, and it did, you know, a year ago I put out the 700 Club show where I was talking about how people saved the 700 Club and the 700 people donated in a day to save a TV station.
	And, I mean, it's funny that Christians are more rational.
	Than philosophers around the support of a show.
	They are. Because they understand that you have to donate in order for the ideology to spread.
	They get that. Political people understand that.
	That you need to give money bombs to Ron Paul in order for him to go out and do what he needs to do.
	That everything he does costs money.
	And he's got a salary.
	I don't have a salary.
	I don't have advertising.
	I get no income except through donations.
	And so the people who are very rational or who say that they're very rational are much less rational than people in religion and in politics and in other areas where donations are considerable.
	And until...
	We become as rational as your average small-time religious churchgoer as far as the cause and effect of donations and growth.
	Until we become that rational, then, you know, religion and statism and these are just going to keep winning.
	Anyway, so, yeah.
	Kind of like a free market thing in that way, huh?
	Like, where are you willing to put the money?
	Yes, where are you willing to put the money?
	Yeah, that's right. Look, I mean, and we all, you know, we all believe in money.
	We all believe in the free market.
	You know, we're not a bunch of communists who are like, oh, you're exploiting the masses by asking for donations.
	We all understand the fair exchange of free value and that consumption without reciprocity is a form of exploitation, right?
	So, I mean, people who are downloading the shows and visiting the website and doing all of this without donating or supporting, I mean, it's exploitive.
	And, you know, I hate to put it that way, but, I mean, that is the reality that you're You're taking out, of course, some people, maybe they have no money whatsoever.
	It's like, okay, but then, you know, if you write to me and say, I've listened to a thousand of your shows and, well, obviously you have enough money to download and computer and so on, so you're not living in a shack.
	But people say, oh, I've downloaded thousands of your shows, you know, and I'm sorry I haven't donated.
	I'm sorry to ask you for more, you know, more information on these five questions.
	But at least I've done, you know, I've forwarded a bunch of links.
	I've posted you on message boards.
	I've done this, that, and the other. Things that you can do that are time and not money-based to help.
	I mean, this is the best philosophy that's out there at the moment.
	It's my strong, strong opinion.
	You know, we've done a huge amount of work.
	I mean, I still think that I've solved the problem of secular ethics.
	You know, people who disagree with me and I post on the message board, let's do it in conversation.
	I've never seen a successful resolution to the question of ethics on a message board.
	It needs to be. In a conversation.
	It needs to mean philosophy is a dialogue.
	It is not typing. Philosophy was at, you know, 2480 years before the internet came along, and that's the medium we should be using, which is Which is not a message board, I think, but conversation.
	And we've solved the problem of ethics.
	We've, I think, made great inroads into the source of evil through the Bomb and the Brain series.
	I must have had, I don't know, 100 or 200 subject matter experts on the show sharing their wisdom and expertise for free with the audience.
	You know, I've upgraded video equipment.
	We upgraded the server last year.
	I've got better lighting setup, better hardware and software.
	I've got external equipment for processing things.
	The audio signal and board additional bandwidth so that I'd increase the bit rate encoding of the shows.
	I mean, it really just does go on and on.
	And all of this stuff, it costs money.
	And yeah, I mean, don't exploit the show.
	I mean, I hate to put it that way, but that is the economic reality that, you know, to consume without reciprocity is exploitive.
	And that's not good for your conscience, fundamentally.
	Okay, I've got an unrelated question, if I could.
	Yes, please, go ahead. I'm sorry, we do have several other people on the call today, like six, five other people, so if we can come back around to you if we have time.
	Oh, that's fine. Mike, please, you're up next.
	Okay. Go ahead.
	Hello, Stefan. Hi.
	I have...
	A proposition for you.
	I had a brilliant idea the other day.
	So I'm just going to kind of go over it quickly with you and see what you think about it.
	I call it May Day, May Day, May Day.
	I'm one of those people who likes to be an activist, so I was trying to think of something that everybody could do.
	So here's my idea.
	For the first three days in May, nobody flies.
	Make it well known in advance that we are doing this to get rid of the TSA. If they don't do it, we will keep doing it until they get rid of our civil masters.
	There's several primary reasons for doing it this way.
	Nearly everyone loses the TSA and feels to help us to do anything.
	So, don't do anything.
	Don't fly. That makes everybody anonymous.
	You can all participate.
	everybody can participate, just postpone your client for three days in May and see what the message is.
	I'm hoping, because you have more connections than I do, that you can spread the word of Doug Casey and some of the people I'll never get through to.
	What do you think?
	I mean, if that's what you want to do, I don't think it's going to do much to change anything, because the TSA is there for basically two reasons, and two reasons only.
	The TSA is there So that the government can hand out contracts and therefore get support from people who can benefit from those contracts.
	That's number one. And number two, the reason that the TSA is there is so that the governments have plausible deniability if there's a problem.
	So if no TSA was put in place and then there was some other hijacking, everyone would say to the government or the politicians, they would say, you did nothing and look, we got another hijacking.
	Whereas if there's another hijacking and there's a TSA in place, then the government can say, hey, we've spent billions of dollars, we've got thousands of trained personnel.
	TSA is all nonsense. I mean, none of their technology works.
	It's all just completely ridiculous.
	But it's there to satisfy the delusions of potential critics.
	And, you know, hey, I did everything I could.
	We moved heaven and earth. Here's how much money we spent on the problem.
	And, you know, still they got through.
	Well, guess what? We need to spend more.
	It's not there – I mean, it's not there for any other reason.
	Of course, if anybody – I mean, the CIA themselves said that 9-11 was blowback from a Middle East tampering – And, of course, it's funny when Ron Paul says that everyone thinks they're shocked and appalled and who would have that opinion?
	It's like, well, only the experts who, I guess, failed to see it coming to begin with.
	So, you know, if 9-11 was blowback from Middle East tampering, then...
	Any sensible person would say, oh, we don't need the TSA. What we need is to stop tampering in the Middle East.
	We need to stop having military bases.
	We need to stop supporting corrupt and dictatorial regimes over there.
	We need to get out of the business of propping up dictatorships for the sake of the military-industrial complex and an addiction to oil.
	And then we can return that tax money rather than taxing people more for a ridiculous, not ineffectual.
	I mean, you know, I mean, the people that regularly, reporters smuggle this stuff, smuggle crazy stuff on board all the time.
	Every time that they try to get something through, like 30-40% of the time, it just sails right through.
	It's all kabuki theater, as my friend Greg says.
	It's all... It's all nonsense.
	It's just designed to distract people.
	I mean, it's not the root cause.
	The root cause of terrorism is not people getting on planes with bombs.
	That's a symptom. It's like saying that the root cause of inflation is higher prices.
	No, that's a symptom of inflation, which is inflation in the money supply.
	But, of course, governments are only interested in dealing with...
	With pretend solutions rather than genuine causes.
	Because pretend solutions get them to – they can tax more, they can exert more control.
	Whereas the genuine causes of problems are state policies.
	And so to dismantle and reduce state policies is to reduce the power of government.
	Whereas to pretend to fix the problems that government has caused allows them to expand their power.
	And that's what they're into.
	And let me – sorry, just before we move on, I just sort of – I had my email open.
	So let me tell you what – Yesterday and today, right?
	So donations, in case people are curious.
	So yesterday, somebody sent me $25, and today, this morning, somebody sent me $5.
	And today, two subscription payments failed because people have, I don't know, The visa is expired.
	The bank account's empty or whatever.
	And so that has been...
	Now, there's some subscriptions and all of that, but that has been donations, right?
	Yesterday, $25.
	Today, $5. That's $30.
	And two failed subscription payments and then some other subscriptions that came through.
	And I just wanted to point out that that can make me a tad anxious, to be honest.
	Anyway, so, yeah, I mean, if you want to tell people to stop flying, I think that's fine.
	But there's just no conceivable way that the government is going to get rid of the TSA because...
	They have something that they can answer to if there's another hijacking, which is that, well, we spent all this money, but clearly it wasn't enough.
	We did everything we could, but let's go spend more.
	Whereas if they dismantle the TSA, it can be five years until there's a hijacking.
	But then if there is, then people will say, well, there was a hijacking because people dismantled the TSA. And all of those negative attack ads are going to run, and then the politicians won't have a plausible answer, right?
	Yes, but you and I know that there's not going to be another hijacking, because any hijacker in his right mind is not going to go up there with a box cutter anymore, and all of the armored doors in the cockpit will eliminate that.
	And my concept is that if you've got to do something about it that's positive, and all I can do is think of negative things, So I finally came up with a positive thing, and I thought if it went viral, if even 1% to 2% of people didn't fly for three days, then the airlines would come to the government and say, hey, we can't afford this.
	We're going to go bankrupt. That would put pressure on powers that be to either do something about it or talk about it, but it would certainly be interesting how many people, you know, you could just post on a business trip for three days.
	I mean, we're talking about something passive, not something that people are going to have to stand in the rain for 14 days and get pepper sprayed for.
	A lot of people could participate in this, and you're the first one I thought of because you're not the only person I listen to on the internet anymore.
	Well, I appreciate that.
	Let me just give you a counterexample, though.
	I think that the airlines love the TSA, though.
	I don't know if they do or not.
	I think that they do. Now, this is unconfirmed.
	I've only heard this. So if anybody can verify it in the chat room, I'd be happy to correct it if that's an issue.
	But the airlines had thought at some point or it had been suggested or recommended to them that they lock the cockpit doors and reinforce them for the very few years.
	And they didn't do it. They didn't do it yet.
	No, as far as I understand it, they didn't do it domestically, and this, of course, is one of the reasons why they could have been held liable.
	But the reasons why the airlines love the TSA is it takes away the liability for hijacking, right?
	So I don't think that they want to get rid of it, because if they get rid of it, then the airlines are responsible for security, and then they can get sued if something goes wrong, whereas if the government's taking it over, this is why, they're like, yay, great, you know, government's got it, all liability heads to the government, which means there's no liability or accountability for anything, so I don't think the airlines want to get rid of the TSA at all.
	I mean, I think the airlines would be happy to get rid of the TSA if the government stopped poking hornets' nests in the Middle East, but that's not about it.
	But Obi-Wan, you're the only one that can help free us from the Matrix, absolutely.
	I mean, I understand what you're saying, and I'm only positing this.
	I don't know whether it would work or not, but I'm too old to stand out there and get maced, and you know, I want to do something that has an impact, and like I say, they may not like, or they may love the TSA, but they like making money more, and they do not want to go bankrupt, and they're teetering on the edge, And I figured a little push might put a little pressure on them.
	It's just one thing.
	You know, I don't know if it'd work.
	But I don't know anything.
	I know that the O's program isn't working.
	They're going to pay any attention to people out in the streets, just like they're not paying any attention anywhere else in the world.
	But if you hit them in the pocketbook, they might actually pay attention.
	Yeah, maybe. But of course, if they're running close to bankruptcy, then they'll really want the government to bail them out, right?
	So they don't think they're going to... Well, they may.
	They may. I already thought of that.
	But, you know, what the heck?
	We're not getting anything from them anyway.
	And I already took the pledge.
	I will never fly again as long as the TSA is there.
	Never. I haven't done it for four years.
	The last time I was up was the last time I was going to go.
	To me, it's the ultimate arm of the police state.
	It's the front line. And I don't know where else to attack them without going out and standing on the streets with a weapon, and I'm not willing to do that.
	Well, if you listen to my show, you know what my answer's going to be, right?
	Well, that's enough for me.
	I'll let you get on with the show, Stefan.
	All right. Thanks. No, you don't attack them because you can't win.
	What you do is you promote volunteerism in all human relationships, and that is going to...
	Increase the quality of parenting.
	Voluntarism is quality. We all understand that in the free market.
	Voluntarism is quality.
	If it's something where you don't have a choice, then you simply are not going to have any particular quality.
	And so my argument has been, you know, how do you improve parenting?
	You promote volunteerism within the family.
	way that you can get parents to, some parents, not all, some will respond to reason and evidence, but voluntarism, right?
	If you want to make marriage better, then you remind people that they don't have to stay married to abusive people.
	That's the only way to systematically improve marriage is to promote voluntarism.
	And that's, you know, my argument, it's been for many years, voluntarism within the family is the only way to promote voluntarism within the society.
	Because if people don't experience voluntarism within the family, they will never accept it in society as a whole because it will run counter to their direct and earliest and imprinted experiences.
	So anyway, sorry, let's move on to the next caller.
	All right, Will, you're up next.
	Thank you, James. Hi, Steph.
	I will. Please let this be a conversation about determinism.
	It would just be, give it your name, it would just be, and I would actually do my big orca jump called Free Willy to make my point, which you wouldn't really be able to appreciate on a podcast, but if you play it back in slow motion, it's like watching a guy get shot with a cannon in very slow motion film.
	Anyway, enough of my rambly intro.
	What can I do for you, my friend? I actually, I sent an email to you a couple months back to set up a call, and I apologize for that.
	It never happened. It's probably more my fault than yours, but anyway, go on.
	It's a relationship question.
	It's a friendship I had at my job.
	I don't make friends very often.
	With the philosophy thing, I have a set of standards.
	This woman at work We kind of connected just on, like, shallow stuff, right?
	Just on, oh, you're into this, and you're into that, and so on and so forth.
	And my concern about the relationship—we've ended it about three times.
	You've ended—now, are you dating?
	Sorry, just— No, no, no, no.
	You ended the friendship. We ended the friendship.
	Well, I did. Because I've introspected many times I'm unhappy.
	With the friendship?
	Yes. Okay. And what I'm unhappy with is I believe I'm kind of your side of pouring your heart out to people.
	Right. Okay.
	I think you may be begging the question by using the word whoring, but okay, fair enough.
	Oh, pouring. Oh, pouring.
	Okay, sorry. I'm glad I corrected that.
	Okay, pouring your heart out. Right. Okay, got it.
	Yeah. Whoring your heart out is more of the business plan of my show, but anyway, go on.
	Yeah. And I do that constantly.
	I pour myself out, and I just say what I'm thinking, and she's the opposite.
	In fact, I've compared her to a Clint Eastwood character.
	Right. Right? Some guy shows up in town, you know, I don't like talking about myself.
	Don't touch me!
	Who's that gook on my lawn?
	Yeah, and it's frustrating when she does have a very difficult life right now at the moment.
	She has problems with her boyfriend.
	I'm concerned about it as well.
	And I ask her, I'm always asking like, you know, what's the matter?
	Do you want to talk about it? And she doesn't want to talk about it at all.
	And then I get frustrated because that's kind of my expectations and that's my childhood of people not wanting to talk about it and just screaming, yelling and making demands.
	And then I end up manipulating her because of my anxiety and then she feels manipulated and then we argue and then we end the relationship.
	That's happened three times over.
	Right. And there are good things, obviously.
	Because we keep going back to each other.
	I know. That doesn't mean there are good things.
	Especially if it's historically driven, right?
	If it's driven by Simon the Boxer's current issue from history, then it's almost guaranteed that it's not the good things that are bringing you back, but the bad things.
	Oh, yeah. But anyway, that's my thought, but feel free to make the case.
	That's just sort of what I'm thinking.
	No, no. I agree with that, because one of the big reasons I kind of do want to help her, because she spent her Life, she does open up sometimes, which I don't know if it's just like a fluke, or just, you know, oh, she just happened, or it's because I, it's...
	Okay, this is, look, this is, just so I stay awake, this is way too abstract for me, okay?
	So, you know, she does open up sometimes, but it's all the description of.
	So, let's cut to the chase, right?
	So... The meat of the matter is what?
	Are you trying to figure out whether it's worth continuing a friendship with this woman?
	Exactly. Okay.
	So, what values do you share?
	Sorry to interrupt right after I asked you the question, but I just want to make sure that you're clear about what I mean when I say what values do you share.
	So the values that you share are things that you can call each other on and you will submit.
	Shared values doesn't mean we both like Jesus and the color blue and fried fish, right?
	Shared values means that I say I have a commitment to honesty.
	And then if you think that I'm being dishonest about something, that you say to me...
	Steph, I don't think you're being honest, and you have this commitment to honesty, and I say, shit, you know, you're right.
	I do have this commitment to honesty, so let me really think about what I'm doing, blah, blah, blah.
	It is something that you can call someone else on, and they will submit to that.
	That's what shared values. It's something that's actionable.
	It's like a big crowbar you can use to dislodge people from their defensiveness, right?
	So if you have an understanding, right, so, you know, if you have an understanding that If contemporary problems in relationships are often traceable to things in the childhood, to patterns in childhood, then if somebody's having a problem with you and you say, well, hang on a sec, let's first check that this doesn't come from your history or my history.
	Let's not deal at the surface level because we know the difference between cause and effect.
	Let's first spend at least some time examining our histories to see if this may not have come from something in the past.
	And then if the person says, what are you talking about?
	No, it's the fact that you keep leaving the toothpaste cap off the toothpaste tube.
	That's what I'm bothered about.
	That's what's really getting my goat.
	That's what's making me crazy.
	And if they simply will only talk about the toothpaste gap, and this is literally the level of 99% of the people in the world is all about the toothpaste gap.
	If they simply won't say, then you don't share those.
	They may say it, but if during a time of conflict or during a time of discussion, Then, you know, so last thing I'll say, so if people say, yeah, I'm into reason and evidence, right?
	And then they have some belief that is disproven by reason and evidence.
	And if they then evade that or avoid the topic or won't reject that belief, then you know that they don't really share those values.
	They may say they do, but the proof is in the pudding.
	So anyway, I just really want to, so what can you call her on when you have a disagreement that she will then change her opinion on and change her behavior to submit to?
	Um... Well, she is truthful, though.
	She hasn't been—she doesn't open her heart out, but she is honest.
	When I ask her a question, she will— That's not a commitment.
	Sorry, no, and I've got to be rigorous here, right?
	So being honest about something is not the same as having a commitment to honesty, because the commitment to honesty kicks in—it kicks in when you don't want to be honest.
	I mean, the guy I say, hey, is a certain town north or south from here?
	And he says, north. And he's like, hey, we share a commitment to honesty.
	You must be very philosophical.
	Let's talk about our childhood.
	Right? No. That's not the same.
	Being honest is not the same as having a commitment to honesty, if that makes sense.
	Yeah. You know, like eating a salad is not the same as being on a diet, right?
	You might be eating a salad right before you faceplant into a cheesecake, right?
	Yeah. So, what are the values?
	That she's willing to commit to and that you can call her on when she does not want to fulfill them.
	Nothing. I mean, nothing that comes to mind right off the top of my head because there is no commitment at all.
	What bothers you about her boyfriend?
	Sorry, no names. Well, I mean, a relationship makes you more of what you already are.
	Boy, you're really throwing some fortune cookies around here.
	It's like, oh, we can't get out with the coffee.
	What do you mean a relationship makes you more of what you already are?
	I'm just regurgitating.
	It's just a cheesecake to your belly.
	It just makes it more.
	It just turns the volume up to 11 on what's already going on.
	I knew we were going to get into determinism.
	Ha ha! Well, no, I mean, her boyfriend doesn't really bother me.
	It's just she's bothered with it really.
	I learned right when you started researching mental illnesses, at that same time, she just told me that her boyfriend is schizophrenic.
	And I was like, oh my god.
	I don't have any expertise in that area at all.
	And she's frustrated with the relationship because she doesn't want to take care of him.
	Boy, oh boy.
	Oh my gosh, my friend.
	My friend, what are you doing?
	Okay, why is she dating a schizophrenic guy?
	Let's pretend it's a real ailment.
	Who knows, right? But let's just go with the general social thing, right?
	Well, they had already been dating, and then signs for schizophrenia came up later.
	Okay, okay. Alright.
	Yeah, he's only had it for about a year, the symptoms of schizophrenia.
	So it's only been about a year, and she's fed up.
	And he was perfectly fine beforehand?
	No. I don't know anything about their history, but from the people that I've talked to at work, they said he's kind of a little, you know, comes off, he's come off strange to a lot of people.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And I can understand.
	But I don't know anything about before.
	She turns men into...
	Just kidding.
	Again, let's break out of the standard narrative and go with some of the stuff that Robert Whittaker has talked about and so on that schizophrenia comes from.
	It's in the relationships rather than in the brain of the person.
	So what in her life, in her childhood, in her history has lent her to be susceptible to people who are off the beaten path of normality?
	Um, I've talked to her...
	I've tried talking to her about her childhood a bit.
	Because that's actually the first thing I try to go towards.
	Because I thought we would have...
	I try not to project my childhood onto her because mine's pretty bad.
	And she says, oh, well, my parents were good.
	They never yelled at me.
	But then she mentioned that she was sick a lot when she was a kid.
	And... That's the only big thing I've gotten from her, that she was sick a lot, but she brought it up and I think it's very important to her.
	Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
	I think so. I mean...
	Also, she has a family that is...
	I don't know how to put this delicately, so I'm not even going to try.
	She has a family that's okay with her dating a schizophrenic.
	Yeah. And not great.
	No, I mean, I'm going to get emails from schizophrenics saying, well, why can't we date and stuff like that?
	It's like, well, okay, but...
	It's really, really important to know if you have any factors in your history that are having you date a schizophrenic for the wrong reasons, right?
	Like if you just are used to taking care of people or you're used to people being really unusual, that's not a great scenario because you don't want people dating you because of their own prior trauma.
	That's not a good thing, right?
	So maybe there's 10 million great ways to date a schizophrenic, but because you've been used to weird people in your history, that's not a good way.
	Yeah. Right? That's not a good way.
	So that would be the question, you know?
	I mean, if my daughter ends up dating somebody who has these schizophrenic signs, we're going to have a conversation about it.
	I mean, obviously I can't control her when she's an adult, but I hope that over the years I would have built up enough credibility to at least have some sense of impact.
	So if she doesn't have any knowledge about how or what Some circumstances may have contributed to this relationship, then that's not good.
	That's really not good.
	I know. She just doesn't want to talk about it either.
	And that's why I'm like, I can't be friends with someone.
	No, no, no. Okay, forget her.
	Why are you needing to fix this?
	Why do you need to talk about it with her?
	Um... Let me ask this another way.
	Let me ask this another way.
	Do you have any experience as a child of trying to manage other people's irrationality?
	Yeah, yes.
	Of course you do. So, go on.
	My parents are...
	Oh, God. Like, my mom, she has...
	She has a condition where she'd pull her own hair out.
	And... Yeah, there's a name for that.
	I can't remember.
	But anyway, yeah, there's a name for that. That was kind of our little secret in the family.
	And I've thought about that.
	I've kind of like, well, I kind of see my mother.
	My mom has spent her entire life taking care of other people as well.
	She took care of her siblings because she had abusive parents.
	She got married, had kids at a very young age, took care of us.
	After she got divorced, She worked at a nursery, taking care of other babies, and now she's 50 years old, working at an old people's home, taking care of other people.
	And I'm afraid that this woman, who I call my friend, might end up like that.
	Wait, what about you?
	Aren't you trying to take care of this woman?
	I know, I know.
	I thought about it. No, you don't, because you're talking about your woman.
	You're talking about this woman. You're talking about your mom.
	You're talking about yourself. I know.
	Oh, God.
	I know. I know.
	And that's what I've been afraid of this entire time.
	I need to take care of myself as well.
	I need to... I can't...
	And that's the last thing we talked about.
	I told her. I'm not...
	I'm not going to be worried about these.
	I don't want to be taking care of other people as well.
	Of course you do. Look, you can't just say that, right?
	If you didn't want to be taking care of other people, you wouldn't be getting sucked into this stuff, right?
	Yeah. Because the reality is that you're not taking care of her.
	Because if she's not able to talk about it, doesn't want to explore her history, then you can't take care of her.
	I mean, nothing wrong with taking care of people.
	We just have to really be taking care of people, right?
	Yeah. You know, I mean, there's no point going to a doctor with a broken leg.
	He puts a cast on someone's cat.
	You know, it's like, well, I'm glad you put a cast on, but that's not actually on my leg, right?
	And so, I mean...
	If you're a lung doctor, you can't chase down every smoker and just insert yourself into their lives and just make sure they quit.
	She smokes, too.
	I try to get her to quit smoking.
	Oh, you did? Okay, okay.
	Yeah, I did.
	That's a great analogy.
	And yeah, you can help someone quit smoking if they want to come quit smoking.
	But a nutritionist doesn't tackle every fat person and try and do a stomach-stapling operation on them with a spoon and a six-pack, right?
	I mean, you simply have to wait for people to come to you.
	If you're somebody who knows a little bit of something about self-knowledge and philosophy and so on, then put the knowledge out there.
	But if people aren't that interested, then it's available.
	You're available. If she wants to come and talk about it, you're not going to say no.
	But the problem is that you are experiencing, I would imagine, anxiety because she's doing things that are not positive for her, right?
	Yes, yes. Right, so what you're trying to do is you're trying to manage your own anxiety.
	Yeah. Rather than help her.
	It's about you, it's not about her.
	It's about me. Make me feel better by being less crazy.
	Yeah, yeah. Right, now, listen, I mean...
	This makes, in all seriousness, this makes perfect sense when you're a kid.
	Yeah. Because when you're a kid, you're in an involuntary relationship.
	And so, if your parents are crazy and you're a kid, then it really matters that they're crazy, right?
	Yeah. Because it has a direct impact on you.
	Hugely direct, massive, formative, irreversible impact on you, right?
	Yeah. You know, like you hear some drunk driver went off into the ditch and broke his nose by wrapping his car around a telephone pole or something.
	You're like, oh, that's really bad.
	You read that and you go, oh, that's no good, right?
	He shouldn't drink and drive. And then you move on to the next story, right?
	Yeah. But if you're in the backseat of that guy's car, you have a kind of different experience.
	It's a little bit more vivid, right?
	You're not going to get PTSD flashbacks from reading the newspaper article and flipping over to the calendar girl.
	But if you're in the backseat of that lunatic's car when he's weaving all over the road, burping out bourbon and about to fishtail into a ditch, you're going to have a pretty significantly different experience of that, right?
	Yeah. But the thing is that as an adult, you're not in the back of anybody's car anymore.
	You have those feelings like, oh my god, a drunk driver did this to me once, and of course that's just one incident.
	Childhood goes on and on, years, years, decades, right?
	But the reality is that her craziness, and I don't know if she's crazy or not, I'm just using this as a shorthand, but her craziness only has the impact on you now that you let it.
	That's not the case when you were a kid.
	If your parents are crazy and you were a kid, it has impact on you.
	Like, no fooling can't get away.
	You've got to find some way to deal with it.
	And most kids, I think, deal with parental craziness by imagining that they have some control over it.
	Yeah. Right? Like, you know, ancient civilizations, if you had to go live under a volcano that erupted intermittently, then you would set up some ritual where you'd sacrifice some virgin and then...
	The volcano gods wouldn't be angry.
	And it wouldn't have anything to do with controlling the volcano because you can't.
	It's just a weird ritual that allows you to live in relative peace under a volcano's shadow.
	And then if after you sacrifice the virgin, then the volcano erupts you.
	Ah, she wasn't a virgin, they lied.
	Or maybe it's two virgins we need.
	You just create some other ritual to pretend that you have control over the situation.
	And I think, I certainly know this is true in my case because I did a whole load of crazy wrangling when I was a kid.
	A lot of what we call our personality is a whole mess of magical thinking rituals that are created to give us the illusion that we can control that which we cannot control, which is if we experience parental nuttiness or evil or craziness or whatever.
	And so when you look at yourself, how much of who you are and how you interact and how you react to people is a stack of virgins sacrificed for the illusion of control over a volcano.
	Are you full of dead virgins?
	That's really the question that I'm trying to ask you.
	How many dead virgins are within you?
	But no, in seriousness, this is a big issue.
	That we mistake our personality for the mad, frantic scramble to control the irrational, which we can't do.
	So you ask yourself, And look, I think that you care.
	I'm not saying this is all just crazy defense mechanism.
	I think that you really care and I do too.
	I do too. People come on the message board sometimes.
	I try to read it at least once a day.
	People come on the message board.
	are crazy and you're like, oh man, don't you know the harm that you're doing to yourself?
	Or they storm off in a huff because, you know, something about philosophy or maybe the way someone interacted with them bothered them.
	It's like, oh, don't you know the treasure that you're turning away from?
	Don't you know?
	You know, we don't want the alcoholic to take the next drink.
	We don't want the gambling addict to go back to the casino.
	We don't want the sex addict to get a restraining order from Kim Kardashian.
	I mean, I don't know.
	We don't want these things to happen, right?
	We don't want, and it is out of compassion.
	It is out of caring, I think.
	And being a compassionate and caring soul in a world full of people who are regularly self-mutilating their souls with unbelievably bad habits is a very, very hard thing.
	It's like trying to watch a fashion show.
	Where people are cutting themselves on the runway.
	I like the dresses. A little bit less sebuku would be really great.
	So it's hard. It's hard to look at the spectacle of self-mutilation that goes on in society where people just pursue really, really bad goals with really bad methodology with really bad outcomes.
	It's hard. You care about the world.
	You care about people. You're sensitive to it.
	And people are just messing themselves up All the time.
	And creating...
	I saw a film...
	Oh, shit. What's the name of it?
	Another Year. Another Year by Mike Lee.
	I'd recommend it. I really would.
	There's a character named Mary who you could just see has made a series of disastrous choices where she's kind of been backed into a corner.
	There's a glimmer of hope at the end or whatever.
	But it's really, really...
	It's a very interesting...
	It's an interesting film.
	It's about a stable couple and their friends are all kind of messed up.
	And so you care. You don't want this woman to be doing things that are going to end up with her being unhappy.
	And if you're sensitive and you have self-knowledge and you have principles, philosophy, you name it, you can see where this train track is going, right?
	You can see all the partiers.
	They're on a big train.
	You see it's heading straight over the cliff into the volcano.
	Let's bring the volcano back because I don't have a lot of metaphors in my head today.
	You can see where it's going and you want everyone, you know, get off the train.
	Jump if you have to.
	Road rash is better than fiery death.
	Right? So you want people to stop doing the crazy things that they're doing.
	You do because you care.
	But you can't.
	Think of being a nutritionist in the South.
	You know, where the obesity rate is, I think, I don't know, 40, 50, 60 percent or something like that.
	And you see people, you know, face planting in their bucket of chicken and almost chewing their way through the bottom and the table and perhaps their knee.
	They probably couldn't get their mouth around their knee.
	What is it? I think it's Dennis Leary who says, people say, I'm big boned!
	No, dinosaurs are big boned.
	You're fat. But you just have to grit your teeth, you know?
	You're someone who lost his wife to lung cancer and you see women smoking and you're like, oh my god, it is agony to watch this, but I can't stop them.
	So, you know, don't lose the compassion, but you've got to lose the illusion of control.
	Because it's an illusion and philosophy is designed to help Rid you of illusions because only through dispelling illusions can we be free.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	And, um, yeah, I mean, it's, I quit my job because, well, I hated it, but, but another reason with all the people that I worked, I worked at a restaurant.
	And, uh, there's just a certain personality type That goes with everyone that worked there.
	People in restaurants are insane.
	Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know.
	Look, I worked in restaurants for years as well.
	I mean, they're insane. Yeah, no, I get it.
	There's no one for me to connect with.
	It was so difficult.
	Because every night, they have their little clicks, and they go out drinking at midnight.
	Right? After they get off work.
	And I just...
	How do you...
	You don't know what you're doing!
	You don't know what you're doing to yourselves!
	Right. Oh yeah, somebody's saying in the chat room that you see teenagers smoking in the South to teenage women smoking.
	And yeah, I mean, by God, don't you?
	Do you want to tackle it? Take it away?
	You don't have the responsibility to inflict this on your child!
	And then... And then...
	A while ago, she...
	She tried to make a connection.
	She said, you're addicted to podcasts, right?
	You need to get off podcasts.
	She doesn't want me studying philosophy because it leads me to examine our relationship, and I end it.
	Right. Yeah, no, I get that.
	I'm going to do a show one of these days where I read every single comment That I've received during the day.
	It's going to be a long show because I probably get 500 to 1,000 comments or emails a day.
	And maybe one of them has an argument.
	Maybe one. One out of 500 to 1,000 has an argument.
	And it's tragic.
	It's tragic because people think that they're having some effect on me.
	I don't know if they, you know, use an ad homin or something.
	But my only question is, okay, where's your argument?
	You know, where's your argument?
	And so, yeah, you're addicted to podcasts.
	Okay. Where's your argument?
	Oh, you just agree with everything Steph says.
	Okay. Where's your argument?
	You know, tell me where he's wrong.
	I mean, just don't appeal to insecurity.
	Fear, uncertainty, and doubt is a pretty pathetic thing for a philosophically interested or inclined person to submit to.
	You know, I mean, it's, okay, where's your argument?
	Where's your evidence? I mean, you know, you're addicted to podcasts.
	Okay. What's your definition of addiction?
	How would you know? Compared to what?
	Right? And then they can't answer because it's like, oh shit, well that scam didn't work, so I guess I'll try another one.
	Anyway, listen, I want to get on to the other callers because we've got a few Q to get through, but I hope that...
	Yeah, sorry. A lot of people, you know, I think that even accidentally there should be more than one out of a thousand.
	So I think that people do know what an argument is.
	It's why they so studiously avoid it.
	But anyway, okay. Well, thanks for your call.
	I hope that this helps. Yeah, thanks for the advice.
	All right. Next.
	Next caller is called Tim.
	Tim. You are the one they call Tim.
	I am the one, Tim.
	How are you doing today? I'm good.
	How are you doing? Oh, not too bad.
	I just found your website here, and so you can definitely count on me supporting you.
	You're kind of at the bottom level of the rabbit hole I'm personally on right now.
	Oh, thanks. Yeah, somebody else just canceled their subscription, so I was like, oh, maybe I should have done a better job introducing the topics of donations.
	Anyway, go on. No, I started, I don't know, a year ago with Michael Badnarek's class and got down to the bottom of that and thought everything was great.
	And then my son, who's 20, says, no, Dad, that ain't right.
	I'm all, what? You've got to check out Anarchy and listen to this stuff.
	And I'm all, oh, there's no way.
	I mean, yeah, you think of people throwing TVs through glass windows and stuff, and that's just not the case.
	No, sorry to interrupt, but I just – I remember when I first began to realize that I was an anarchist, I'm like, I can't be an anarchist.
	I'm bald.
	I can't even get a mohawk going and I don't like the smell of glue and bags.
	I don't want to – anyway, go on.
	Well, it's – you could definitely see – I've heard a bit of your stuff, how the state wouldn't want you to understand what it's like to live without them.
	But I've listened to some of your podcasts and stuff lately and I like not only words but I like to look for examples and I like to see what your view is.
	I believe personally right in front of us every day we can see anarchy living in perfect working balance in front of us and that is with the animals.
	Go on. They have a balance, and they keep in control.
	Nobody runs around and tells them what to do, but they have a natural instinct of natural law, if that's a way of describing a set of ideas that aren't necessarily written down, but they're kind of a sense of morality inside yourself, of understanding, like, you know, in kindergarten class or whatever.
	Yeah. Look, I agree with you to...
	And let me tell you about what I agree with.
	This doesn't mean that I'm right or you're right.
	It's just what I happen to agree with.
	You know, people have made the argument, like, there's no central planner.
	I mean, assuming you're not, you know, religious or whatever, believing creationism, there's no central planner for evolution.
	It just kind of happens. There's no government.
	There's no program. There's no laws.
	There's, you know, it's just survival of the fittest and adaptation to changing circumstances and looking for any optimum So there's no central planning and so our society does not mirror the way that nature works because in nature there's no...
	But people do make this mistake, right?
	They mistake the biological world for the human world.
	And the reason that I don't think that you could look at anarchism in nature is that anarchism is founded on the non-aggression principle and property rights, at least in my opinion.
	Anarchism, which I hope is the right one.
	But that's not the case in nature.
	Nature is all about the violation of property rights and the initiation of force.
	And so, you know, if the lion's hungry, he does not negotiate for the hind leg of the zebra.
	He just takes it by force and, you know, kills the animal.
	So, the initiation of force and the lack of respect for property rights, cuckoos lay eggs in other birds' nests and have them raised, you know, with other birds and so on.
	So, you know, property rights doesn't work and the non-aggression principle isn't followed.
	But I agree with you that there is a kind of balance, harmony, and progress in a lack of centralized planning that is instructive.
	I don't think it's conclusive, but I think it's instructive.
	Does that help at all? Well, I think we're the same way.
	I mean, if we want a beefsteak, we're going to run out and kill the cow.
	If we... You know, want something from nature, we just take it.
	And it seems, you know, they only take when they're hungry.
	Or, you know, they're trying to protect themselves from a situation the same as we do.
	So I don't know, I haven't quite learned how to define what I'm trying to get out of that, but it seems there's something there that's right there in front of our face, but maybe not a whole truth but a part.
	I mean, I agree with you.
	I'm a vegetarian myself.
	So, I mean, I agree with you that it's, you know, there are other options than going out and eating animals.
	So, I agree with you there.
	But philosophy is about man-on-man action, right?
	It's gay porn.
	That's really what I'm saying. Philosophy, at least the way that I approach it, is human-on-human interactions.
	In the same way that we don't have elocution lessons with snakes outside of the Garden of Eden.
	We have to start with human-on-human action.
	I read a great article on Strike the Root recently about the defense of animal rights and so on.
	We can talk about that perhaps another time.
	But we have to start with person-on-person action because we – and so that's because we have reason, we have language, we have concepts, formation, and so on, and we have moral choices and all of that, which is sketchy at best in the animal world.
	So I agree. I don't think we should all be going out to eat animals every time we get hungry, but I do think – That philosophy has to start.
	I mean, we're so far from even solving human-on-human aggression that to start thinking about human-on-animal aggression I think is entirely premature.
	I think we need to stop attacking and enslaving each other first.
	And then I think, you know, particularly when children are raised well, they'll have much less desire to harm animals.
	And so I think we have to go through human-on-human peace in order to get to any kind of tranquility with the rest of the animal kingdom.
	Yeah, it seems there's a certain...
	I liked one saying that Michael said in his class, and it was, maximum rights require maximum responsibility.
	And it seems that that's pretty much the way life is.
	I work for myself.
	I know you work for yourself.
	And there's a certain mental mentality that you have to have.
	You have to double-check everything, re-double-check everything, and then re-check everything all the time, every day, all the time.
	You're always reassessing every moment, and you're never...
	Sitting back and just punching a clock and then punching out and then I'm off for the rest of the day.
	I get home from work and I'm back into my life and my concept.
	What am I here? What do I represent?
	What do I stand for?
	My brain doesn't stop working in this way and I can only contribute it to having an understanding of you're in control.
	It's all your responsibility.
	There's no way out of this that isn't yours.
	So better off grabbing the wheel And doing some thinking and learning and trying to figure it out for yourself.
	No, I agree. And this touches on something, I'm a hijack, but this touches on something that I've been thinking about recently.
	I don't know how to care for people without giving them responsibility.
	I don't know how to love someone without giving him or her responsibility.
	And people in general, they want the fruits of responsibility, but they don't want the responsibility itself, right?
	They want the pay without the work, so to speak.
	I was just reading the other day, my friend Charlotte sent me a link that the majority of kids for women under 30 are born outside of wedlock.
	Now, I mean, forget that the government owns marriages in terms of license and so on, but that's disastrous.
	I mean, that's really, really bad because kids need both parents.
	Kids need both parents. And this is not my opinion.
	This is what Hundreds of years of research and thousands of years of human instincts have shown completely conclusively that kids do best with both parents.
	And so if you have a kid out of wedlock, it's kind of selfish.
	You're not doing the best thing for that kid.
	In fact, you're setting him up with about the biggest strike against him that statistically can be conceived.
	It's worse than being poor, worse than being from some reviled minority, being from a single mom It's usually single mom.
	Single mom family is bad.
	So I want women to be happy and I want women to take responsibility for those choices.
	And I want women to perhaps even criticize each other for those choices because I don't know how to make people happy without giving them responsibility.
	I don't know how to care for people without making them responsible for their actions.
	Because look, I mean, if people aren't responsible for their actions, then I'm not responsible for blaming people, obviously.
	And people get all caught up in that.
	But if people aren't responsible for my actions, then I can't love my wife because her virtues are none of her doing and none of her choices.
	And just to me, love and responsibility are exactly the same thing.
	And people experience the placing of responsibility as some sort of hostile criticism But for me, at least, it comes really out of a place of love.
	I love people. I want them to be happy.
	I love the world. I want it to be happy.
	You know, I want to, you know, like Marlon Brando and on the waterfront, gently take the gun out of my brother's hand and say, oh, Charlie, no, no, no, no, no.
	How did it come to this?
	How did it come to this? And so, yeah, I mean, people experience it as a kind of dizzying, terrifying attack, but responsibility is the only key that opens the door to happiness.
	And so I don't know how to care for people without giving them responsibility.
	I mean, you can give, taking away responsibility from them in the short run is just, you know, it makes them feel better.
	Wasn't my fault. Wasn't my, you know, not my responsibility.
	Someone else to blame or no one's to blame this, right?
	But when you have no responsibility, you have no power.
	And when you have no responsibility, you have no virtue.
	And if you have no virtue, you have no love.
	And I am not willing to take away all of that from people by imagining that they can be stripped of their responsibilities.
	And responsibility is what truly makes you feel good about yourself.
	I work for myself and I... I serve my customers and I do what I need to do, but the most satisfying thing about my job is not getting paid.
	It's at the end seeing the customers happy, understanding that I took the responsibility and I made them happy.
	That's what gives me self-worth is knowing that I'm independent and I have the tools and the means to run my life and understand what I need to take care of.
	Right. All right.
	So if you don't mind, if we move on to the next caller, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts.
	It's really, really good. And I hope that you continue to look into this unfortunately titled ideology called anarchism because I think it's really, really valuable.
	You can check out – I mean, I've got some free books, Practical Anarchy.
	You can start with the shorter one, Everyday Anarchy.
	Which I think is closer to what you're talking about, that we do see it around us all the time.
	Can I mention one more thing real quick?
	Yeah, please. I think it'll explain itself, the concept of mental obesity.
	Fathead. I got it.
	Your brain, instead of feeding it carrots and meat, people are too much busy putting in Doritos and ice cream or football and baseball or The Friends or whatever garbage shows they put in doesn't allow them to Streamline their thoughts and really put their ideas together.
	But thanks for your show. I really appreciate it.
	I'll be hitting you up for the donation for sure.
	Thank you. I'll give you a holler again sometime.
	Will do. I appreciate that.
	And yeah, the mind is a muscle.
	Use it or lose it. And do I want to talk about the movie Iron Lady?
	No. Let's go on with the next caller.
	So you have Robert on the phone?
	I do. Are you referring to yourself in the third person throughout most of the conversation?
	Good. Then my mouth would like to talk to you and my ears will hear.
	Not the third person the entire time, no.
	Okay. All right.
	Well, yes, I did recently cancel my subscription.
	I was recently fired.
	I'm so sorry. And listen, I'm not meaning – the people who are in economic hardships, I'm not including.
	And I really appreciate your support.
	And if you did cancel, I hope that I sent you a nice note.
	You did, and offered a chance to discuss the situation, and that's basically what I'm calling about.
	Yeah, and this is not to get you to resubscribe.
	It's not like, hey, talk to me, and then you resubscribe.
	I get it. If you're in a financial crisis, obviously, you've got to eat.
	Forget the show. But if there's anything I can do about that, like the firing the job situation, I'd be happy.
	Well, basically—well, also, just a side note— You might have to take a look at some of the demographics of what your audience is, because a very large part of them are going to be teenagers who don't necessarily have enough income to really support the...
	Well, statistically, sorry, the only statistics I have are off YouTube, where the majority of people are in their late 20s to early 40s.
	So, I mean, again, I don't know in general, but...
	Again, but five bucks a month.
	I mean, there are very few people who can't afford that.
	And if they can, I'm surprised they have a computer or any internet access at all.
	But anyway, let's keep going on with your issue.
	I'm going to sidetrack by that again. Okay.
	Well, basically, after leaving the job that I very much enjoyed, I have decided that I'm going to pursue my other talents, that being of a poker player.
	And I do okay at it, but at the same time, I'm also, because poker is not exactly a 1040 easy type thing, I don't necessarily have to report the income and I can claim unemployment.
	And being that I have contributed into the system for...
	Good number of years and I feel that I've been stolen from enough.
	I feel that it's not necessarily inappropriate for me to go ahead and reclaim what was mine through accepting the offers from the government.
	You can also consider it a partial payback for having kidnapped your brain.
	For, you know, 12 years.
	During your formative years from, you know, 5 to 18 or whatever.
	You can consider it a partial payback on the rent for the destruction of brain cells.
	So, yeah, go ahead.
	Well, a friend of mine is suggesting that it's morally inconsistent to do so.
	And I just don't feel that.
	I feel that, you know, it's...
	I'm playing by the rules that were given me.
	And if somebody's going to put a gun in my head and force me to play Monopoly, I'm not damn sure going to take the $200 when I pass Go.
	And that's just the way I look at it.
	And what does your friend do for a living?
	A what's it called?
	Travel agent.
	He's a travel agent. Okay.
	And... So his argument is that if you are against people taking your money, that you shouldn't take it back.
	More so that if you're against the system of welfare and employment insurance and handouts, that you should join in by being another one of the takers from the system.
	That's an argument from hypocrisy which doesn't disprove the arguments from the libertarian standpoint.
	This is important, right?
	I mean, this is really important to understand intellectually.
	The argument from hypocrisy is saying that I'm not going to judge the reason and evidence behind your arguments.
	I'm going to judge your behavior relative to your arguments, right?
	Well, I mean, he shares the same position.
	No, no, no, wait, wait, stay with me.
	We're drifting. Stay with us a sec, right?
	Okay. Has he found a flaw in the argument that taxation is force?
	No, and he completely concurs with that.
	Okay, so he understands that the system is bad, right?
	Yes. Now, if somebody steals your bike and you see it lying unattended by the road, is it theft to take it back?
	No, probably it's not. Of course not.
	So how is that different from a system that has taken...
	Look, the system of the state has taken far more from you than it can ever restitute you for.
	I mean, there is no amount of money in the world that would make up for me having to suffer through Over a decade of absolutely shit and brain-deadening, anti-intellectual, lord-of-the-flies, peer-pressure, bullied shit of a school system.
	There's no amount of money in the world that I would take to have suffered through that.
	And that's just one aspect of what the state has done.
	I concur. All right, well then...
	Wait, wait, so... If, this is like, say, somebody has stolen an infinite amount of money from me, because if there's no restitution, then it's being stolen an infinite amount.
	If somebody's stolen 10 bucks from me, they give me 20 bucks back, we're square, right?
	Right. But they've stolen an infinite amount of money from me, because there's no amount of money that I would take to have gone back and do that over.
	Yeah. So, somebody has stolen an infinite amount of money from you.
	Let's just say 10 trillion dollars.
	Now, over unemployment, you're going to get back a few thousand, right?
	Probably over the course of a six-month period, I might be able to get back...
	Ten grand or whatever it is.
	Five, ten grand, twelve grand, whatever, right?
	Yeah, ten, twelve grand.
	Okay, so let's just say, just reduce the numbers to something a little bit more manageable.
	Let's say that someone stole a million dollars from you, and you can get twelve to fifteen dollars back from them.
	Are you then condoning that theft?
	Are you then saying, well, theft is okay.
	It's completely equal.
	What the state did to you, it did to you when you were a child.
	So somebody is really going to lord it over you.
	Sorry, this pisses me off.
	So take it for what it's worth.
	Somebody is really going to lord it over you and say that there's some moral equivalency when you grab back Twelve bucks from a guy who stole a million dollars from you.
	This is hypocritical.
	This is the moral issue that he has.
	I say bullshit.
	I don't think it's got anything to do with unemployment.
	I think it's got everything to do with a whole bunch of other stuff, which we can talk about if you like.
	But I tell you, there's no sane human being who would make that moral argument with a straight face.
	Well, I guess that's, you know, you're concurring with my perspective on it.
	I suppose I could voice my disagreement with him a little bit more adamantly.
	No, you've got to ask him, sorry, I didn't seem to tell you what to do, but no, you ask him, what's this really about?
	I guarantee you, it's not about you going on unemployment.
	It's not about that. I mean, look, 99.99% of human conflicts are about history, not about ideology.
	They are about the past, not the present, and certainly not the future.
	What do his parents do for a living?
	She owns the...
	She owns the place that he works.
	Oh, so he works for mommy.
	Yeah. Right.
	And what does his dad do?
	His dad passed on, but at one point in time he had some criminal things going on.
	Shortly after the savings and loan screw-over...
	Oh, the 80s one? Yeah, where Reagan basically retroactively screwed over everybody that was part of a savings loan investment.
	So he kind of like, I mean, it's very similar kind of thing, but basically his dad kind of like fought back the system by doing illegal activities.
	Right, right.
	Yeah, so look, I mean, if I were you, I would explore.
	It's probably got a lot more to do with his dad than it has to do with you.
	Yeah, in all likelihood. Right, so...
	Look, I want to be careful here because I don't want people to say...
	I mean, people can say whatever the hell they want, but I don't want people to legitimately say, oh, Steph says that you just talk about your childhood every time you have a conflict with someone.
	But the reality is that it's really important.
	It's really important. You don't want to be distracted by surface stuff.
	I mean, this guy's got a, I mean, what an incredibly complex moral landscape that his father was in, right?
	Yeah. I mean, that's messed up.
	I mean, he's defined as a criminal and he's working under a system that's entirely corrupt.
	And I mean, that to me, that would be a much better conversation than should I take unemployment insurance.
	It'd be like, wow, tell me all of this stuff about your dad.
	Holy crap. I mean, how did that shape your beliefs?
	How did that shape your philosophy?
	What's going on with that? I mean, you could talk for days about that.
	And I think that would be an incredibly rich and deep and powerful discussion rather than, I think, a proxy that's coming up.
	Well, I think that he's got a certain amount of fear associated with it, I guess.
	Sure. But if you're friends, and if he's bringing up the issue of moral hypocrisy, as I said earlier in the show, you ask about historical precedence for this being an important topic.
	That's important to do. And only after you've dealt with the historical precedence can you actually deal with what may or may not be going on in the present.
	Yeah. Well, on a side note, while I am going through and I'm also looking at making a website.
	That's my job.
	I'm a webmaster slash database administrator and I own the domain name weweredeceived.com.
	And I was looking at it as being kind of an echo to the other anarcho-capitalist positions that I've seen, yourself and others included.
	But I was thinking one of the things that would be really an extraordinary tool to I know that you don't necessarily like the argument from the results instead of from principles, but I find that it's a very visceral way of having people come to an understanding.
	And so what I was looking at doing is taking all of the tax codes throughout all the states Putting together a series of algorithms that would basically let people calculate what would happen if they were to voluntarily choose to pay for their own Fire Department versus having it being state-run and education and all those types of things and how much they would donate to charity after seeing what their new income would be because approximately everybody's income would approximately rise by about forty percent if there were zero government and so having that additional discretionary income lets them apply it towards a variety of different things and so then it extrapolates based upon what they do As to how much money would be going towards the various different activities that they find of value.
	And then it extrapolates basically upon what they're choosing to charitably give to, let's say, education.
	What other people, if they follow the same ratios, what the total dollar amount would be going towards those various different activities.
	And then also compares what the cost would be without having the additional taxation the government would provide.
	So that people can really get an idea as to how fiscally a volunteeristic system would work following their own proclivities.
	And I think that it could be a very powerful message to let people know that, yeah, it's not something that isn't viable.
	It is a viable solution.
	And the The math of it would work.
	And so what do you think of that?
	And if there's something where people say, well, how would it work from this standpoint?
	Well, send them to a website, they can see how the math would work.
	I think that's fine.
	Again, I think it's tough to guess how things are going to work in a free society.
	It's not going to be like a photocopy of the state.
	But, yeah, I think it's a great idea.
	It certainly keeps your skill set up to date and it gives you something interesting to send to potential employers.
	Do you believe that there is some sort of economically viable approach for me to make money off of it?
	Let's say, offer advertising for Quicken or something?
	Yeah, it could be. Or you could offer advertising to libertarian sites or that kind of stuff.
	Yeah, I think so. Good.
	And the domain name, do you feel that it's appropriate to this concept?
	Donations? No, the domain name, the web address.
	Yeah, I mean, I just look and see if the present tense one is also taken.
	Not we were, but we are, or we shall be.
	Oh, I own that too. Oh, good.
	Okay, yeah, I think it's a great idea.
	Yeah, I think go for it. And yeah, when you've got it set up, if you want to set up in a beta or whatever, you might want to post it on the FDR message board and have people give you some feedback.
	I think that's a useful thing to do.
	Cool. Great. Well, thank you for your insights, and I will definitely have a discussion with my friend about his father.
	Good. I'm really pleased that you will, and I'm sure it'll be great, but I think that's the really important thing to do.
	And certainly when I find that I'm getting my economic situation in place, A position of strength that I'll be able to re-subscribe.
	Well, thank you. I appreciate that.
	It's important, I think.
	I hope it's important to people.
	You know, five bucks a day. What's important to me?
	Sorry, five bucks a month is like 15 cents and change a day.
	So I hope people can manage that.
	You know, the future of philosophy could be the stuff that is behind one seat cushion in your house.
	It's kind of hard to do right now, though, when my...
	Balance is basically $10.
	I hear you. I know. Listen, I mean, and I've always said that to people who've said I have to cancel and here's why.
	And it's like, yeah, if you've lost your job, heaven's sakes, yes, you've got to eat.
	Let's look at the hierarchy of needs.
	Eat, shelter, and then philosophy.
	But anyway, all right.
	Thanks, man. Can we then move on to the next caller, please?
	Yeah, and just as a note, I mean, I've been around the show for like going to be five years this year, so...
	And when I first started, I really wanted to donate, but I couldn't because I didn't have a job.
	I had mountains of debt and everything.
	I don't think there were even donations back in the day when you started.
	Oh, no, there were. You had just started donating.
	Oh, you just started them? Okay. Because you had just gotten, just after I started, you went full-time.
	So you had been accepting donations for a little while.
	Oh, right, right. Yeah.
	But yeah, just to sort of give a vote of confidence to those people who are struggling with that, you know, hey, I've been around and I was there, so, you know, do what you can.
	Yeah, I mean, I've made the argument before, you know, I mean, obviously, I think there's a reciprocity argument, which I think is sort of just and fair thing to do.
	But the argument also for donating is, you know, it's selfish to you.
	Which is we all need our unconscious on our side.
	We all need to have our unconscious on our side.
	If our unconscious is not on our side, there's really nothing, I think, in particular that we can do that's going to have any kind of real or lasting or permanent quality.
	And your unconscious is scanning your choices as well.
	You know, so this other guy, the guy we were just talking to, his friend comes and says, well, isn't it hypocritical for you to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	Well, if you are convinced of the virtue of your cause, reasonably and justly so, then other people's doubts you can be curious about and you don't take personally and you certainly don't internalize.
	And your unconscious is scanning your commitment to philosophy as well.
	And I'm telling you...
	I'm not trying to plant any demon in the base of your brain, but this is what happens, is your unconscious knows about $5 a month, $10 a month, $20 a month, $50 a month, $100 a month, whatever, right?
	Depending on your level of income and whatever.
	And if you sit there and say, well, you know, $10 a month, I don't really want to do.
	I listen to all these podcasts, but $10 a month, I don't really want to do.
	Well, your unconscious is empirical.
	You can talk your conscious mind into and out of just about anything, but you cannot talk your unconscious into anything.
	Your unconscious judges by your actions.
	If you doubt me, try to will a suntan without exposing yourself to any UV rays.
	You can't do it, because the body, the unconscious, our soul, fundamentally, is empirical.
	It's not manipulable.
	And so if you're making fairly decent coin and you say, well, you know, 10 bucks a month, 20 bucks a month, it's too much for me.
	Your unconscious goes, okay, so I don't have to change because it's not serious.
	It's not serious. 30 cents a day, 15 cents a day, 60 cents a day.
	It's not serious. This is a hobby.
	This is a nothing, right? So I don't have to realign.
	I don't have to change. If you start to take philosophy really seriously, and this can manifest itself in many number of ways, but one of which, of course, is to donate to the show, and if you say, okay, I'm going to kick in for 20 bucks a month, your unconscious is going to say, okay, 20 bucks a month. So a cup of coffee is a buck fifty, so that's what?
	A coffee every two days.
	So, philosophy is now as important to us as getting a coffee every two days.
	That's important. And then if you say you don't have any more money, that's fine.
	Then you say, okay, well, I'm going to start sharing the show with other people because I care about it.
	I want philosophy to spread. I want to spread the cure for sadness and immorality called philosophy, which has nothing to do with the conclusions of this show.
	There's a methodology to this show that is important.
	I don't care if people reach the same conclusions.
	What only matters is the methodology.
	Teaching people how to think, how to reason, how to question themselves, how to escape the matrix.
	Say, okay, well, now we're going to spend an hour a week.
	Okay, well, we used to spend an hour a week shaving, so now philosophy is important.
	It's as important as a coffee every other day and shaving.
	Huh, it's creeping up there, right?
	My unconscious is fully engaged in philosophy because, you know, we're regularly hanging over a thread trying to make it to the next month.
	And so, yeah, I'm fully engaged.
	I'm fully engaged. Philosophy is, do we eat?
	Do we have shelter?
	Do we have any excess?
	Can we buy more? That's where philosophy is for me, which is why I'm so engaged and why it's working so well for me.
	Commitment is everything. Commitment is everything.
	There's no point reading all the diet books in the world.
	If you read all the diet books in the world, your body doesn't shed one pound.
	I guess unless they're really heavy.
	It's when you put down the cupcake and pick up a carrot that your body says, oh shit Are we actually doing something about this?
	Oh, shit! Okay, well, I guess I'll start dropping the weight.
	Anyway, okay, so that's just my sort of mention that you'll feel happier, you'll have more confidence, more security, because it's integrity.
	I mean, it's just a matter of integrity.
	If you find this unique resource valuable, and yet you won't pay for any of it, then it's a lack of integrity, and that costs you.
	Fundamentally, it doesn't cost me. I'll find a way to survive no matter what.
	But it really does cost you in ways that are hard to measure.
	So I would say... Try it out.
	Try it out. 20, 50 bucks a month.
	Try it out. See how you feel.
	If you don't like it, just cancel it.
	But I think you'll really like it, and I think you'll feel really good about it.
	So, sorry. Next caller? Yep.
	We have two more people who joined in earlier.
	So, first up is Jack.
	Hello? Jack, how are you?
	Doing good. Can you hear me?
	I can. Okay.
	I wanted to ask...
	I had a job, making a lot of progress, doing great things, and then all of a sudden have a time where I have absolutely no desire to do anything.
	So it's like a... Is it like a plateau again?
	Sorry, the recorder just kicked in.
	We're just talking about growth anxiety or when you do well that you suddenly lose motivation.
	Is it like a plateau or is it like a descent, right?
	right so if you're losing weight and then you sort of you lose some weight you buy new clothes and so on is it then that you it diminishes and you then stay at the weight or do you then like oh you know and then you eat again and you gain the weight back it's it's
	Right. Right. Or, like, at work, I'd be working, I'd be doing the job, lots of great things, and then all of a sudden I'd come in and only browse the internet all day without doing any work at all.
	Right. So for you, you'd just shut off.
	Yeah, so it's sort of, in a way, it's like, I just worked out, so now I'm not going to work out again.
	I'm going to rest for a little bit. Is it sort of like that?
	I know it has more negative consequences, but it's sort of have that.
	I guess you could look at it that way.
	Well, no, I want to look at it your way, not my way.
	It feels like the engine, like you're driving down the highway and all of a sudden the engine shuts off.
	Right, right, right.
	As far as the engine that provides the motivation to continue.
	Okay, let me ask you, if you don't mind, if I could ask a couple of questions.
	Sure. Let's talk about the weight thing.
	How did those around you feel about your weight loss?
	I got lots of positive feedback.
	It's from people who themselves don't have weight issues, is that right?
	Yeah. Okay.
	And why do you think that you have the excess weight to begin with?
	Oh, the physical cause was just eating horribly.
	Oh, no, no, I got that, but why do you think you have it psychologically?
	Yeah. I started gaining weight in my early 20s.
	And it was a case where my eating habits didn't change, but my metabolism did.
	Why did your metabolism change?
	Well, I mean, you get older...
	Not in your early 20s, I think.
	40, yes. Early 20s, I'm not sure.
	I mean, sorry, because some people, it's like, well, I was an athlete in high school, and I didn't do that anymore.
	Was it something like, did your habits change at all other than eating, like exercise or activity levels or anything?
	Not especially. It's just that at one point, I could eat a certain amount and not gain weight, and all of a sudden, then I would gain weight eating the same amount.
	So your eating habits didn't change, and how rapid was the weight gain?
	I'm trying to put numbers to it.
	Uh...
	Well, just roughly. I mean, 10 pounds a year?
	I guess 50 pounds over 8 to 10 years.
	Okay, 50 pounds over 8 to 10 years.
	All right. And were there people in your life during this time who were saying, dude, you might be putting on a little here.
	What's going on? Yeah, well, I was in the Navy at the time that this was happening.
	Really? I don't generally associate an army diet with gaining weight, but I could be...
	Obviously, I'm wrong about that.
	Well, the Navy, and especially submarines, is a little different.
	Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, you're really stuck in a sardine can, right?
	Yeah. We're not the most physical of jobs in the military.
	Right. Right, okay.
	And were you happy in the military? Not especially.
	I'm not sure what that means.
	There were parts of it I really enjoyed.
	I enjoyed the technical aspect of what I did, the working in the engine room of a submarine, bringing all the equipment up, maintaining it, making sure it was all doing what it was supposed to.
	I really liked that. The culture and just the way people interacted with each other, I did not like at all.
	So the things you liked, the people you didn't.
	That's even a little bit too simplistic, because I did like the people, but I didn't necessarily like the way we would treat each other and interact.
	There's kind of like a ritualized hostility.
	Oh, yeah, yeah. Like, I mean, the hyper-masculine frat boy hazing kind of stuff, right?
	Kind of. Everyone who's lazy is gay or a woman.
	Yeah, no, I worked up north with some roughnecks.
	I know a little bit about that.
	We would say kill yourself instead of hello.
	That was just part of the culture.
	Right. Fuck you very much instead of thank you very much and just stuff like that, right?
	Just kind of harsh and aggressive and cold, right?
	But it's supposed to be funny, and if you can't take it, you don't have a sense of humor, right?
	Well, it was only half joking, I think.
	Oh, good. Okay. Well, that's half good.
	All right. All right.
	Okay.
	So you then...
	You start to lose some weight and then it falters for you, right?
	Right. But before I got into weight loss, when I got out of the Navy and worked in a private company, I would have problems at work.
	Where, you know, I was in a management position.
	I was in charge of the department. And you'd say, hey, go fucking kill yourself.
	Wait, we're not supposed to do that here anymore?
	What do you mean I'm in trouble?
	Sorry, go on. Yeah, it was, I was a manager of a maintenance department.
	Right. And we'd engage in new projects, and I'd be helping to improve the processes and the equipment, doing lots of great things, and then all of a sudden I'd come in one day and just not do anything.
	Like, I'd browse the internet for eight hours.
	Mm-hmm. And I could never predict when the motivation would come in and out.
	It was like a random thing.
	Huh, okay. It's interesting the way you phrased that.
	You said that the motivation would come in and out.
	Like it's some external thing, right?
	That's kind of how it felt like.
	But it's not, right? Right.
	It's internal. Sometimes I have this source of great motivation where I can get anything done and then all of a sudden it won't be there.
	Sure. But of course you know that's what you need discipline for, right?
	Right. You need discipline for when you don't want to do stuff, right?
	You need nutrition because the stuff that you really like to eat ain't good for you if you're anything like me, right?
	Sure. I mean, I went out for lunch with my daughter today and I had a veggie burger and a salad.
	You know, what did I really want?
	A big, thick, juicy burger and some french fries and a big piece of pie.
	No, I had a veggie burger and a salad.
	And so, yeah, I mean, so the motivation, there's no, I mean...
	To doing the stuff surfing with is not that hard, right?
	Surfing against, tacking against.
	To use a Navy metaphor from several hundred years ago, to be current.
	That's the challenge, right?
	Yeah. I don't know.
	It feels harder than that.
	Like, I'm almost reverse-motivated.
	Like... You feel like it's not like you're in neutral, but you've got the brakes on, right?
	And so even if you hit the gas, all you're going to do is smoke and sound and some fire, right?
	Yeah, like with food, you know, in order for me to cook for myself, to eat healthy, I need to keep food in the refrigerator.
	Right. So, what will happen is, one day, you know, I'll need to go shopping for groceries, and I'll know I need to, but I'll just feel this aversion to, you know, I just don't feel like it, I'm going to procrastinate, I don't want to go to the grocery store.
	Well, that sets in a chain of events, which means I run out of food, which means I can't cook for myself, which means I go pick up something.
	Yeah, and of course you can go pick up something that's healthy, right?
	Yeah, but then I'll say, well, if I'm going out anyway, I might as well go get the burger and fries.
	Right. Now, without wanting to lead the witness, Your Honor, did you have any experience as a child of being ordered around a lot?
	In other words, of having somebody external ask you to do stuff as a result of their authority rather than teach you how it was good for you?
	Childhood was very authoritarian.
	Yeah. Right.
	Right. Right.
	And you know why I asked that question, right?
	I'm guessing you're going to make a connection between the two.
	I'm guessing you're going to make a connection.
	Can you make a connection between the two?
	Yeah, I've thought about that.
	I've been trying to think a lot about how can I... Do things differently than what I did as a child to get away from those kind of bad habits.
	Well, no, see, it's not what you did as a child that formed you.
	Right. Right?
	Right. I don't see or talk to my parents anymore, and I try to think about what you're talking about, how How what they did affected me and how I can alter my future behavior.
	Let me lay it out for you. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I want to make sure we get to the last caller.
	So I'm going to lay it out for you as I see it, which is nothing to do with the truth.
	It's just idiot amateur hour on the internet as usual.
	So I will just tell you what I think.
	When you grow up in an authoritarian household, you do what is necessary to get the authority off your back, right?
	Right. You do what is necessary to get the authority off your back.
	When the authority is off your back, the motivation goes out, right?
	Because your only motivation is, I don't want the person on authority to do something negative.
	Okay. Which is why change for people who come from authoritative backgrounds is like pushing a brick along concrete.
	While you're pushing it, it moves.
	When it stops moving, or when you stop pushing it, it stops.
	Because the internal drive for excellence, for success, for completion, is not generated.
	What is generated is, this person is going to get mad if I don't do X. So I'm going to do X. And then I'm going to stop.
	I'm going to do the bare minimum to get away with...
	This, of course, prepares you for the army in an almost perfect way.
	Or the Navy. I'm going to do X. Because someone in authority is telling me to do X, and if I don't do X, they're going to get pissed off and suffer some negative consequence, right?
	Right. So, like, with my weight, it was...
	Sorry, but you're not treated as somebody who can be reasoned with, who can understand things, right?
	Right. A tiny example, right?
	My daughter was having her barbecue and chicken fingers and fries.
	And so I gave her some of my salad and I said she needed to eat some vegetables.
	Like all children, she prefers to eat things that are deep fried than things that are grown from plants.
	I mean, it's perfectly understandable.
	So do I. So, you know, I empathize with that.
	And so the way that I've explained it to her is, you know, you say, oh, it's going to make you grow.
	Well, what if she says, I don't want to grow, and she does.
	She really likes being her size.
	I loved it the other day. So, the way I explained it to her, so, you know, I can say, it'll let you grow bigger, but she says, I don't want to grow bigger, I want to be just myself.
	It's like, okay, how can you argue with that?
	You're going to grow bigger either way, but then the vegetables don't matter.
	But if I do say, look, the vegetables make your poop softer, so it's easier to poop.
	She can understand that. She can connect with that.
	And then she will eat her vegetables because this is not an exercise of authority.
	You can't leave the table until you eat your vegetables.
	That doesn't teach the child anything.
	And it doesn't internalize anything.
	And then once somebody's not saying that, then they can get away with just eating the junk, right?
	But if she gets that it's her digestive system that matters...
	And I remember this when I was a little kid, of course, you know, my mom hounded me to brush my teeth.
	And all that that made me do was to do the bare minimum.
	Okay, I'll brush my teeth. Sometimes I just put the toothpaste on my teeth so she could smile my breath and it would seem like I'd brushed my teeth.
	Because all I was... It didn't have anything to do with my teeth or anything to do with me.
	It had to do with authority.
	Nothing now. I think I was about five or six and I went, wait a sec.
	These are my teeth. If I don't brush them, I'm the one who's going to...
	And then I started brushing my teeth.
	It was for me. And so if you have an externalized responsibility, in other words, your responsibility is not to the thing itself, is not to excellence, is not to your own self-interest, it is to authority, to some external thing, then your motivation, of course, is going to come and go.
	Because part of you is like, okay, I'll lose weight, but the moment I can get away with not losing weight, I'll stop.
	Because that's the pattern. That was set up, right?
	Do you have any, I guess, pointers for maybe books or something for learning how to change that type of motivation?
	Well... I guess form better mental habits?
	That's a big... I mean, general self-knowledge and therapy, of course, is the way to go.
	And, you know, John Bradshaw's books, Nathaniel Brandon books, Alice Miller's books, these are all, I think, very good resources, particularly sort of workbooks.
	But what you have to want to do is you have to want an identity, a self, right?
	So you have to say to yourself, I suggest, you have to say to yourself, I want to lose weight.
	Okay, why do you want to lose weight?
	Let me ask you that. Why do you want to lose weight?
	Well, I have type 2 diabetes in both sides of my family from both of my parents, and if I don't get my – and stay down at a healthy weight, then I'm going to have it too.
	Right. Okay. So you don't want to get a permanent dangerous illness that's going to require management for the rest of your life, right?
	Right. Right.
	That's a pretty good motivation.
	Okay. So you don't want that.
	So that's your goal, right?
	Right. So, you know, think of what your poor arm wants.
	Your poor arm does not want to have, oh, I don't know where the hell you inject this stuff, your butt or whatever, right?
	But wherever you're going to inject it, that part of you really does not want to have a needle a day for the rest of your life, right?
	Right. And the part of you that wants to buy fun toys and vacations doesn't want to have to pay the medical bills associated with diabetes for the rest of your life, right?
	And, you know, maybe you have years taken off, I don't know what, right?
	But all that kind of stuff. And then all the dietary, like you're going to end up with those dietary restrictions anyway, right?
	Right. And so if you have that goal, then it has to be for you.
	It's because you don't want the consequences of the excess weight.
	And I mean, even if you escape the diabetes, I mean, you know, it's hard on the joints, it's hard on the bones, it cuts a bunch of activities out, it's less attractive, you get locked into a particular wardrobe style that may not be the most fashionable, you know, although as an ex-Navy guy, that may be something you're more used to.
	But it has to just be something for you.
	And you have to write down that goal and you simply have to recommit to that goal.
	I mean, it literally is a mantra.
	I'm going to lose weight. What's my target weight?
	Well, sit down with my doctor, design a plan, talk to a nutritionist, whatever you need to do.
	This is the goal. This is the plan.
	This is what I'm going to do. And so you need to get the science down.
	You need to get the medicine down.
	You need to get the nutrition down and understand it's more than just switching from cake to salads or whatever.
	I mean, there's a lot more to it than that.
	So you get all of that stuff down.
	And then you have to make yourself do it.
	I mean, I hate to say it, you know.
	I'm not a big fan of willpower in some situations.
	But willpower in conjunction with self-knowledge.
	Self-knowledge is essential.
	It's necessary but not sufficient prerequisite for change.
	But once you have the self-knowledge, then there is going to be a time.
	Now, the willpower is designed to lead you to more and greater and deeper self-knowledge, right?
	So when you have that urge, To, you know, oh, I don't have any food in the house, so I'm just going to go out.
	Well, since I'm out, I'm just going to get crap.
	Well, what you do is you stop.
	And you say, well, no, that's not my goal.
	That's not my commitment to my goal.
	So, what you do is you simply say, I'm not going to buy the junk.
	And that's only the beginning of that stage, though.
	Because the buying the junk is getting yourself into a pattern that reduces anxiety.
	In my opinion. So you buy the junk food and you eat the junk food because the alternative provokes anxiety.
	That's the growth anxiety that we started talking about.
	Now, people think, okay, well, I'm just going to grit my teeth and not buy the junk food and that's the end of the story.
	No, that's the beginning of the story, which is to explore the anxiety that not buying the junk food gets you, right?
	So you go out and you buy, I don't know, a, I mean, my Drug of choice is a veggie sub.
	I'm still sometimes on white or sometimes on brown.
	But a veggie sub with a tiny little bit of mayo and mustard, that's a good meal for me.
	And so you go out and instead of getting the burger and fries, you get a veggie sub or you get a veggie wrap or you get whatever, right?
	A tuna salad sandwich or something.
	And then, that's the beginning of the next part of the story, which is, okay, so now I've done this thing which is out of the habit.
	I've broken the cycle of breaking the cycle, so to speak.
	And so what feelings does it bring up in me when I take a different form of behavior?
	When I break that cycle or break in the cycle, what feelings does that bring up in me?
	And then you deal with those.
	And that's how you uncover More and more self-knowledge about why it is that you, like what feelings come up when you don't go out and buy junk food but you instead buy something healthier that's closer in goal, in alignment with your very sensible and rational goals of avoiding a serious and permanent, at least for now, permanent illness.
	So, people are confused.
	I did a podcast about this recently.
	I haven't released it yet about my relationship to willpower because it's very interesting.
	But if you have a goal, you need willpower because otherwise you're going to just fold.
	But willpower alone won't do it.
	Willpower is how you push back the curtains to uncover more things that you can learn about yourself with the long-term goal that you know enough about yourself that willpower doesn't become...
	Yeah, I think it does.
	It gives me a different way to...
	There are at least some different things to think about next time this happens.
	Yeah, it's just, you say, "This one meal.
	I'm just going to do this one meal where I'm not going to go get junk.
	I'm going to go get something that's filling and healthy and so on.
	What do I feel when I didn't get the junk but this?" And then you start, right?
	Then that's, because that'll bring up anxiety that you may not even know you have that is being covered up entirely unconsciously by eating the junk food.
	Then you deal with that anxiety, right?
	And that's because you don't get to that anxiety if you keep doing the And because you don't get to that anxiety, you can't process it.
	So the willpower is just, you know, for the next five minutes, I'm just not going to order the junk.
	I'm going to order this thing. And then you can spend the next day or two or a week or two or a month or two dealing with the feelings that come up from breaking those habits.
	So it really is a combo of self-knowledge and willpower, if that makes sense.
	But it's not willpower like, I'm now going to deny myself junk food for the rest of my life, and that's just going to be willpower.
	No, that's never going to work, in my opinion.
	What does work though, change the habits, uncover the anxiety, deal with the feelings that come up, and with the goal of reducing the need for willpower through self-knowledge.
	Okay. Yeah.
	I'll try that next time.
	Right now, I'm eating right.
	I'm improving, so whenever I feel the urge to stop this self-improvement cycle, that's the process I'll go through.
	Yeah, and look, I mean, if it doesn't work, give me a shout.
	Maybe talk about it. It'll be interesting to see what's going on for you.
	Alright, thanks. And I had one quick question.
	Sure. Last weekend, when you were down at Liberty Fest, you used a metaphor to describe the difference between Texas cold and Canadian cold.
	Could you use that again?
	Because I don't quite remember how it went.
	Texas cold and Canadian cold.
	Yeah, you talked about what it felt like.
	Yeah, no, because I do remember it because it was...
	I felt more cold in Texas than I did in Canada.
	Yeah, it was something like, you know, icicles shaving off your nipples and dropping down your spine or something like that because it was a real kind of internal cold that got right inside your clothes.
	Was it anything like that?
	Right. When we're having dinner in the barn.
	Having dinner in the barn.
	Can you believe it? What a Texas.
	I wouldn't say cliche because I don't know what it seems like very appropriate to being in rural Texas.
	Under the shadow of oil rigs eating in a barn.
	It really felt to be quite right.
	But if I remember it, I'll let you know.
	But that's the one that popped into my head just now.
	Well, thank you. You're very welcome.
	It's nice to meet you then and nice to chat with you now.
	All right. We have a last caller?
	Yeah. Go for it, Josh.
	Hi, Steph. Hi.
	I don't know how much time you want to take with this, but I recently watched your interview with Dr.
	Brian Kaplan. And you guys talked about the part about selling yourself into slavery.
	And I've thought about that I was wondering what you thought about it, and I was thinking that selling yourself into slavery is kind of one of those concepts that are kind of impossible,
	sort of like intellectual property or Like a scenario where somebody claims ownership over something.
	Let's say he says he owns the Sun, and I'm going to sell it to you, you know, for $50.
	And, you know, it sounds like an impossible claim.
	And so, you know, the idea to sell yourself, if I can put it in terms of like, let's say, I try to sell my consciousness, you know?
	I have control over my consciousness.
	It's me. But in order for me to objectively sell something, I have to relinquish control over that, where that person has exclusive control and right over it.
	And if I can't do that, how can I legitimately sell it?
	Yeah, I've heard this issue before, and I was thinking of doing a show on it, so I'll just touch on it briefly.
	It seems to me one of these theoretical Gordian knots that is completely irrelevant to how the world really works.
	So, the issue is can you sell yourself into slavery?
	In other words, can you enter into a permanent non-revocable contract with someone where they essentially treat you as a slave?
	They don't pay you anymore. They give you room and board and they're responsible for your healthcare or whatever funeral arrangements when you die and you have no more economic liberty.
	You have given up your right to enter into other contracts or to revoke this contract or whatever.
	And I just, it seems to me it's irrelevant to how the world actually works.
	And the reason why is that who would want such a contract?
	Who would want such a contract?
	The moment someone sells themselves into slavery with you, what have you got?
	Well, you've got somebody who's got all the motivation of a slave.
	And if somebody has all the motivation of a slave, then you have additional costs of making them work, right?
	Once you're responsible for paying my room and board and healthcare for the rest of my life, what is my incentive to work for you?
	Well, I don't really know what it is.
	So, of course, you had the overhead of, you know, you had to whip people and all of that, beat them if they didn't work hard enough and so on.
	Of course, that would be the initiation of force.
	You couldn't do that. So, slavery only works when you can use violence against people who don't produce what you want.
	And so, if someone sells themselves into slavery but you're not allowed to use any force, Against them, then I don't see why anybody wouldn't just, you know, put their feet up and sit in a hammock and say, well, you know, you can't beat me, you can't, whatever, right?
	So, I don't know, maybe you could get thrown in jail for contract violations and so on.
	But that's a pretty... Why would anyone want someone who was that demotivated and who had that little stake in his own financial future?
	I mean, if you're a...
	A farmer, you want to hire some people, just go hire some people.
	I mean, the idea of buying them into slavery in perpetuity means that you are responsible for their It doesn't matter who wants to sell something if there's no buyer for it.
	I don't know who would want to buy a slave or buy somebody's labor in perpetuity and be responsible for housing and taking care of them no matter what.
	there's a big risk, right?
	I mean, if you pay someone an hourly wage and they get sick tomorrow, well, then you just don't pay them.
	But if you've bought someone and then they suddenly have a heart attack tomorrow, then that's not so good.
	You've paid for a lifetime of slavery and the person's had a heart attack, so they're not available as a worker or whatever.
	So I don't think that there would be a...
	A market for selling yourself into slavery because nobody would want to buy that particular aspect.
	The other thing that's of course the case is, and I think Dr.
	Kaplan mentioned this, we touched on this briefly, who would enforce such a contract?
	I mean, I wouldn't want to be part of a DRO. A dispute resolution organization, a sort of voluntary way of resolving disputes or a non-state way of resolving disputes.
	I wouldn't want to be part of a DRO that would enforce slave contracts.
	We have an abhorrence for slavery for very, very many reasons.
	So I wouldn't want to be part of a system.
	I would not. And if my DRO suddenly said, hey, we're going to go enforce 500 slave contracts now, I'd be like, hey, I'm going to go to another DRO that won't ever do that.
	I think there would be a kind of a general revulsion against the idea of slavery and there would be almost nobody who would support it.
	So it's economically unviable.
	Slavery cannot compete with free market interactions.
	Slavery of course also, as we saw in the difference between the North and the South, And the difference between the ancient world and the industrial revolution.
	I mean, in the ancient world, they knew about steam, they knew about the combustion engine, they knew about the power of steam, they knew about all of these funky things, but they were never developed into commercial labor-saving devices.
	Well, why? Because they had slaves.
	And so if you've bought a whole bunch of slaves, you don't want to invest in something that saves your labor because you've already invested into labor, into having slaves.
	And so you don't want to invest in something that reduces the value of your slaves and reduces...
	Yeah, so I don't think that slavery is economically viable relative to free market trade.
	Of course, the ancient world had slavery and did not develop labor-saving devices, which are the foundation of the growth of wealth.
	And so I don't see how – if it's not economically valuable relative to free market labor, Then why would anyone want to enter into those kinds of contracts?
	And what would be the motivation for people to work hard after they did?
	Now, people can obviously sell themselves to some degree into quote slavery, right?
	I mean, if you get a mortgage for 20 years, then you are selling off a portion of your time in the future to people who, you know, in a free market system who hopefully would have honest money and real money and so on.
	If you Buy a car.
	You're selling yourself off for a couple of years into the future.
	So loans, I don't really categorize those as slavery.
	But to sell off your own rights, I don't see who would want to even buy that because it leaves you with all the productivity of a slave.
	And who wants the productivity of a slave?
	And who wants the liability of having to take care of a slave?
	And who wants the uncertainty of whether a slave is going to stay healthy or not?
	And so, you know, I just, you know, people even outside of ethics, people generally enter into arrangements To the advantage of at least themselves, and if they're wise, of both parties.
	And slavery has too many risks.
	It's too low of productivity.
	There's too much general social revulsion against slavery.
	And of course, if society as a whole didn't want there to be slavery, then people would not do business with any enforcement agencies that would enforce contracts that were slave contracts.
	people would organize boycotts against goods produced by slave labor and they would highlight the practices and splash people's names who were buying up all these slave contracts and so on.
	And it just – so you would have even social castigation and ostracism combined with low productivity and high risk and high liability and so on.
	I mean, I just don't see, even if you took the ethics out of it and simply substituted mere economic productivity, why anybody would bother with such a contract.
	So I think it's... As Joey from Friends says, it's a cow's opinion.
	It's a moo point.
	It's moo. It's moot.
	It doesn't matter. It's an interesting theoretical thing to think about, but it's not something that I think would ever occur in a free market.
	Yeah, I agree with that.
	The practical point, I think even at a fundamental level, I think it's one of those issues where it's It's not really possible.
	I mean, you can do it, you know, by word and action, but I think, you know, theoretically, it just doesn't equate in terms of the mere fact that you constantly have to push somebody to do what you want after they've sold themselves as a trade, you know, indicates that You don't have control over that person, as if it was an object.
	If I sell you a bike, you have control and possession over that bike.
	The bike doesn't have a will that you have to continually motivate to do your will.
	Yeah, yeah. I mean, you've bought someone in perpetuity.
	I guess you could sell that person to someone else or whatever, but the only reason you would sell that person is because their value has gone down.
	And so why would you want to take the liability of buying someone in perpetuity when you could just rent them with no future obligation and gain all of that additional motivation and productivity and enthusiasm and so on?
	The other thing, of course, that we know is that the more free people are...
	The better that they will – the more value they will attempt to create economically.
	So if you listen to Econ Talk or whatever, I think it was about two years ago, they had a very interesting study.
	It was an article written by a guy – not really a study, sorry.
	I think it was a Rolling Stone writer or something.
	He basically joined Walmart with the purpose of trying to figure out how it works.
	And he's got a really fascinating article.
	In Walmart, anybody can set up, can make a sale, can set up a sale, anybody can order whatever they want and try and sell it to the local community.
	You can be quite entrepreneurial even as a stock boy in Walmart.
	They have a lot of scope for free market activity or quasi-free market activity within their own environment.
	You're not going to get that from slaves.
	You know, you're not going to get that from a slave because a slave doesn't care if you make money or not.
	A slave is not ambitious. A slave doesn't want to come up with great ideas about how to save you money or make you money or whatever.
	And so why would you want to get rid of all of that potential, take on all of that liability, you know, when you could just rent someone with the same skill set for ten bucks an hour or five bucks an hour or whatever?
	It just, it makes no sense.
	In a free market environment, I think?
	Can you theoretically sell away your rights in the future?
	I don't know. I don't know, but let's deal with the problems that we have right now.
	Let's deal with the fact that the Titanic is sinking and we've got to get some women and children and men onto the lifeboats.
	And then, down the road, after we're not frozen to death in the chilly embrace of Leonardo DiCaprio's corpse, then we can figure out whether we can sell off our rights in perpetuity.
	But right now, I think we've got some more important fires to put out.
	Alright, well thanks for your thoughts.
	You're very welcome. And thank you.
	Sorry, we had a couple of drop connections.
	But thank you, everybody, for your patience.
	And thank you for listening to my rant about donations.
	If it struck a chord with you at all, freedomainradio.com forward slash donate is the place to go.
	And have yourselves a wonderful, wonderful week.
	I will be speaking remotely.
	Speaking remotely. I've got a good speech.
	I think it's a good speech that is on...
	The problem of the commons and on market failure.
	Market failure. And so I hope that you will check that out.
	You can go and have a look at the Georgia Libertarian Party Convention.
	You can Google that and you can find out all about it.
	I will be speaking there. And if you are anywhere nearby, you can go and see the great Jeffrey Tucker, who is a funny mucker.
	Wait, I mispronounced that.
	Anyway, you might want to go and check him out.
	He will be speaking there as well. And have yourselves a great, great week.
	I'm sorry about not last week, but I had a great time out in Texas and I think I had a good speech and was emceeing the event.
	Thank you so much for the organizers for having me there as well.
	Ah, good. Charles Platt on EconTalk, 6-15-09, working at Walmart.
	Yeah, check it out. That's really interesting.
	It's, you know, if you've got this idea that the Walmart employees are...
	You know, dumb, exploited, cheap.
	You should really listen to that.
	It's worth checking out and very eye-opening, and you're not going to get any of that from mere slaves.

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