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March 25, 2012 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:52:10

2116 Why Do Women Just Stop Talking to Me? Libertarianism and Divorce

Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain Radio, discusses a variety of personal and philosophical topics with listeners on the Sunday call in show, March 26, 2012.

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	All right. Okay, yeah, let me start.
	What's the day today? 25th of March.
	You know you're working from home when that's going down.
	25th of March, 2012, through the magic of cell phone tethering, I am liberated from the Red Room itself and can be out in the great outdoors exposing everybody on the video to my blindingly beluga-like winter tan.
	Isn't that beautiful? Some mistake me as the lead character from the movie Powder.
	And only because of my ripped abs.
	So, hi everybody, how are you doing?
	I had a call the other night with a listener, which will be released.
	I'll release it before this, so this will all make sense.
	But he was playing the devil's advocate's sadist position.
	And the devil's advocate status position, of course, was that virtue is the will of the majority.
	The will of the majority.
	And I skimmed over it because I wanted to get on to another topic, but I circled back in my own mind's eye to that very topic, and hopefully this will make some sense.
	When people say virtue is the will of the majority, Occam's Razor would say, if you're using a synonym that's exactly the same, drop the second one.
	Because it's kind of like a tautology.
	Tautology, of course, is when it seems like you're defining something new, but you're simply making a synonym for the old.
	So, the old debating example that I remember was, tautology was, if you say, coke is it, and then after a long, laborious position, you define it as coke, then really all you're saying is coke is coke, which, oh, I guess we're back to the powder reference.
	Anyway, we don't want to do that as thinkers.
	And so, if somebody says that the virtue is the will of the majority...
	Then one questions why they're not simply saying the will of the majority.
	If they're defining the two as the same thing, then don't worry about the word ethics, or virtue, or the right thing, or goodness, or anything like that, because all of those would have definitions independent of the will of the majority.
	So, you know, I mean, you have a country of a million people, 500,001 believe something that is virtuous, and then only 4,999 believe it, for 400,999 believe it.
	And then you suddenly have, it's no longer virtuous, even though the only thing that's changed is two people's minds.
	Suddenly, for everyone, a definition has changed.
	But of course, nothing has changed in reality other than two people's minds, and so we don't want to make it confusing for people.
	So when you're talking about the will of the majority and people say, well, what is virtuous is the will of the majority, then say, okay, well, why don't you just use the word the will of the majority?
	Because there's no point layering something else in that probably has a different meaning even to the uninitiated.
	So I just wanted to mention that.
	I mean, there are the other arguments, right?
	So if the will of the majority is good, then, of course, the voting in of Hitler was a good thing because he was democratically voted in.
	And, you know, when people approved of slavery, it was a good thing.
	And then when they disapproved of slavery, it became a bad thing.
	And so if goodness and badness is simply defined as the will of the majority, then let's get rid of the term goodness and badness because they don't mean anything.
	They don't add anything to what is meant by the definition.
	But of course, people want to equate virtue with whatever position they have, and they feel a little less comfortable talking about the will of the majority.
	But I think that discomfort is good.
	All right, that's it for my intro.
	I just wanted to touch on that.
	So, Jimmy Jamesy, Bobby Vaughn, do we have a caller?
	Yeah. Jack, you want to go on?
	Hello. Hello.
	Well, um...
	I guess it's more of a comment that I have rather than a question.
	But I was listening to one of your podcasts that talked about how you were isolated from talking to people outside your family by a time when you were sent to stay with the grandmother of a friend.
	And you talked about how that made it impossible for you to discuss your situation with people outside the family.
	I noticed that religion does the same thing based on my experience.
	Go on.
	Okay. My family was extremely dogmatic.
	About being evangelical Christians, and it created a situation where you could not trust the advice of anyone outside of the very few people that agreed with our parents on these religious interpretations.
	And your story in that podcast reminded me very much of that situation where even the people who were in the church but who weren't quite as devout were people we couldn't really trust to talk to.
	It was a very isolating experience.
	I didn't perceive it that way at the time, though.
	Right. Yeah, I mean, philosophically, the way that I would phrase it, and tell me if this accords with your experience, of course, the way that I would talk about that philosophically is to say something like this, that the more irrational, subjective, and fragile a belief system, the less it can open itself up to skepticism from the outside.
	Right. John Irving has a great description of a priest who lost his faith.
	And I was just talking to somebody the other day, actually, about how there's a lot of people—I've actually met people who help priests who continue to be priests even though they've lost their faith because they don't know what else to do, they're worried about the faith of the congregation, they don't want to start over again in life, and so on.
	But John Irving has a great description.
	Well, there's two.
	I mentioned them before. One is the watery bullseye of a low-light flashlight.
	It's beautiful. The second is, you know, his faith was like a stick insect climbing up linoleum, and just a little blast of water knocked it right down.
	And so, when you have an irrational belief system...
	It's very hard, if not impossible, to expose that to the skepticism of others because the skepticism of others then joins up with your own unconscious skepticism and threatens the fragility of the belief system.
	So there is an isolationist aspect to that.
	Now, I mean, the trawl in my head is sort of saying, well, isn't that true of philosophy?
	Wouldn't people who are really into philosophy or FDR find it harder to...
	To have contact with people who aren't into philosophy.
	And I think there's some truth in that, but I think that the two things are quite different.
	Because in one, you have an irrational belief system that can't stand skepticism.
	In the other one, you are bringing a rational philosophy to other people whose irrational beliefs themselves can't stand skepticism, and so in a sense, they're shunning, if that makes any sense.
	But does that accord with your experience in this area?
	Yes, it does. But I guess what I noticed – what I just realized recently was there was multiple layers of it that I never noticed before.
	I mean the church would teach about the world and how we – Christians are different than the world, and that was pretty standard for those type of churches.
	And then there was even another layer of irrational beliefs in my family that couldn't stand up to the – what little skepticism there was in the rest of the church.
	Right, right, right.
	Right.
	Yeah, I think it's very tragic.
	I think it's very isolating.
	To have irrational belief systems is very isolating.
	And it creates an artificial closeness or an artificial bonding.
	If this kind of way of talking makes any sense to you, let me know if it doesn't.
	But it creates a very artificial sense of bonding.
	In other words, we are bonded together like people clinging to logs in a raging sea.
	You know, your ship has gone down, you're clean.
	Well, you're all clinging together because you're afraid to drown, you're afraid of sharks.
	It's not really the same as warm, compassionate, rational, value-driven intimacy.
	It's just clinging together in stormy seas.
	And when you can get people, well, basically, when you can force children to imbibe or accept irrational beliefs, then you are going to create an artificial need, a bond, a hunger in them Because irrationality, like all drugs, like all artificiality, never satisfies.
	It never satisfies.
	So people who look for the effect rather than the cause of community will remain addicted to that community.
	People who look for the effects of love rather than the cause of love We'll remain addicted to those effects.
	People who look for the effects of happiness rather than the cause of happiness will remain addicted to the effects.
	So, you know, people who want sex instead of love will remain sexual addicts and it will never be satisfying for them.
	People who want the diffusion of an irrational community rather than a genuine community will remain addicted to and that community will eat them alive, I think, in the long run.
	People who choose drugs or alcoholism or Whatever it is, rather than being virtuous and dealing with their issues, which is the true source of happiness, will forever be addicted to that.
	Well, I shouldn't say forever, but there's a tendency.
	Because the irrational is unsatisfying.
	Going for the effect rather than the cause means that you never actually generate the cause.
	It doesn't become self-sustaining.
	You always have to go back for more and more.
	And it chews away the true source of whatever good it is that you want.
	So it's always struck me as like a tree.
	If you water a tree from the top, I'm just guessing, I don't know, but maybe it starts bringing less and less water in from the roots and then you have to keep watering it more and more on the top or it's going to die.
	And so people who go for the effects of happiness rather than the cause of happiness actually lose the ability to generate their own happiness and thus become more addicted to the effects that they're seeking.
	I hope that makes some kind of sense.
	Yes, it does.
	So So, I guess I didn't have any other questions.
	Thanks for answering.
	Yeah, I think the caution that I would always have with people is, beware belief systems that do not allow you or do not encourage you to speak your honest mind to other people.
	I think philosophy and self-knowledge and all of that does counsel us to speak honestly.
	Honestly is the first and necessary virtue before all others can be attained and maintained.
	That doesn't mean it's going to go well when you speak honestly to someone, but it's the best chance the relationship has of going well.
	So, when you have to speak dishonestly or dissemble to people, that's not a very good starting point for intimacy.
	Because through dissembling to people, you're either going to find other people who recognize and are fine with that dissembling or that falsehood, which is not good, or you're going to see people who correctly identify that falsehood and then back away or try and stay away from that.
	So it really does keep the Unreal close and the Unreal distant, and that is not a good triangulation to be in.
	All right, I think...
	Oh, look at that! I've actually answered someone's question to somewhat of their satisfaction relatively quickly.
	I'm sorry, I must check the show notes as to how the show should really be going, because I don't think that's how it's supposed to go.
	James, do we have another caller or a question from the chat room?
	Yeah, we do have a request that if you could elaborate on something.
	I know. I know.
	But he's actually asking you to elaborate further on your reversal of the old idea that you had about owning nukes as a deterrent.
	I'm not sure what there is to elaborate on that.
	I mean, I put forward the argument that it could be very cheap to defend a country because no country that has nuclear weapons has ever been directly invaded but instead fights these proxy wars.
	And the point has been made that if you support a DRO that has nuclear weapons, then you have a mass strike capability that needs to be believed in in order to be valuable, and that, of course, would kill the innocent if it were used.
	And so it's like, yeah, that's true.
	If that were the only way to defend, then, you know, sadly, that would have to be the way it would go.
	But if... If there were another way, and I would count upon the intelligence of brilliant entrepreneurs to come up with another way of defending a country without nuclear weapons, then I would definitely go for that.
	It is an effective one, but the justice of it can certainly be questioned.
	Okay. It's actually the same person asking another question.
	He gets a lot of, I have to spank my child, because you just can't reason with a three or five or whatever year old.
	And he says he gets a lot after he presents the statistics on spanking.
	And I guess anything you could say to that would be helpful.
	So people say, I have to hit my child because I can't reason with my child.
	Well, you know, it's interesting.
	For that thesis to be valid...
	What somebody would have to do to make that even a personally, vaguely justifiable thesis, what somebody would have to do is they would have to have tried for many years to reason with their child while demonstrating in their relationships with their other children, with the spouse, with friends, with everyone, extended family, everyone in their orbit, they would have to show...
	Rational, peaceful negotiations and interactions.
	They would have to have consistently shown that with no threat, no threat whatsoever of aggression or violence or abandonment or intimidation with their child for many years.
	And then they would be able to say if the child had seen a consistent horizontal and vertical.
	Embodiment of peace and reason in interactions, if that child were simply still unable, then it would be something that would have some credibility.
	But what happens is, I can guarantee you this is the case, what happens is people believe ahead of time that they cannot reason with children.
	And because they believe ahead of time that they cannot reason with children, well, lo and behold, what happens?
	Well, they then approach children aggressively, and what's right behind the first interaction is the threatened second interaction, which is aggression.
	And so what happens?
	Well, the child senses that there's aggression back in there.
	And therefore, he's not going to listen to the pretend reason ahead of time.
	Because people who say you can't reason with children come into their interactions with their children with that belief.
	And then, of course, it becomes, what do you call them?
	A self-fulfilling prophecy.
	Yes, it does. How tragic and awful is that?
	A self-fulfilling prophecy. And that self-fulfilling prophecy, of course, is, well, you know...
	I couldn't reason with my kids, so I had to hit them.
	And now I've hit them, guess what?
	Can't reason with them. I was right!
	Sorry, I don't know, that's just...
	Every bad parent has a bad southern accent.
	That is absolutely unfair and unjust.
	But anyway, yeah, that would be my challenge, would be to say to these parents, well, how long did you try the reason thing?
	And did the child see the reason thing with other parents, and with other siblings, and with friends, and with family, and did they see the parent negotiating with his or her parent in a peaceful and productive way?
	And, you know, peace and reason is a language that you need to teach children.
	And, I mean, I think it's pretty innate, but it certainly needs to be reinforced.
	And if the child has been exposed to peace and reason in all of those interactions, and that generally precludes things like daycare and school because those are full of people who aren't reasonable or rational and kids.
	So, yeah, that would be my challenge.
	I've never heard of a parent who's tried for many years And it's been successful with the other kids or it's been successful horizontally.
	The kids have seen that piece and negotiation modeled and then lo and behold, the kids simply don't end up speaking that language.
	That to me would be as incomprehensible as only speaking English to a child and then the child breaking out into fluent Mandarin.
	No. The children will repeat whatever language they're taught.
	And if in the back pocket, right behind every interaction is aggression, that's what the children will get and they will respond accordingly.
	So I had a question.
	I guess my question would be around...
	I know the idea of...
	I know you've expressed in past shows the idea of you change who you are fundamentally and The type of people that are attracted to you or pulled in by you change as well.
	My question is, what happens when someone kind of slips under your radar, if you get what I'm saying?
	If a person who seems at first very engaging and then Suddenly, you know, your emotional defenses click after the fact, after that person has kind of intercepted your circle, so to speak. I was just wondering, what would be your take on something like this?
	Can you give me an example?
	Yeah. For instance, I was recently approached by this guy who was a mutual friend of mine.
	We would talk and have pretty decent conversations, but it turned out that the last interaction that we had, that he was pretty much In a way,
	he was working for a pyramid marketing organization.
	His friendliness or demeanor that I thought was just genuine niceness It was really a ploy to recruit.
	My alarm system didn't go off right away until pretty much it was too late and the sales pitch was already there.
	I was just wondering, what's your take?
	Is this a foolproof system?
	Occasionally, do irrational people slip through the cracks?
	Well, yes, of course.
	Irrational people can slip through the cracks.
	What's that old saying? There's no such thing as foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
	This is cheesy as all hell, but all errors are opportunities for learning.
	But that would sort of be, I think, a pretty strong argument to make.
	So if somebody slips through your cracks, then you can sit to yourself and say, well, what did I miss?
	What were the signs ahead of time?
	And what does it tell me about me and my history and what's unprocessed that this person was able to slip through, right?
	And if you think about it from that context, can you think of any signs ahead of time that there may have been problems?
	Um... Yeah.
	Yeah, I can. I can think of...
	A few sides are now that I'm thinking about it.
	When I met the person...
	Are they here now?
	So, like I was saying, when I met the person, I think they were introduced to me and right away he had said something about a god, so that should have been a red flag right away, you know?
	Something about God that's...
	The fact that you don't remember what was said about God may be a sign.
	Was it like God? I can't believe that rat bastard God took my parking space this morning.
	I mean, how inconsiderate. He can just make a new one and he goes and takes mine?
	My goodness, what is that?
	The fact that you can't remember it is...
	So what happens is something got blurred in there in terms of God.
	And you didn't sort of circle back.
	So you already were not sort of circling back to see what was being said.
	Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes sense.
	So that's your first clue, right?
	So when somebody immediately doesn't start talking about these things and you sort of can have a very frank and honest discussion about it, then that's usually a good sign that something's awry already.
	Okay. Alright.
	And also, your other take on honesty and how something like that would, like those kinds of interactions, you have to You almost feel your way through.
	Can I be honest with this person?
	In hindsight, now that I'm thinking about it, I didn't feel comfortable even talking about philosophy with this person.
	Or even discussing any of those ideas.
	So when you say slip through the cracks, it's not quite as stealthy as that, is it?
	And look, I don't mean to laugh, because look, it still happens to me.
	Don't feel bad.
	It's pretty common, right? Because also with the truth comes intimacy, but also comes loneliness.
	And we're always looking for new people we can be honest with, so there's a kind of hunger, and that can lead us up into exploitation, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
	Like, please don't be crazy. Please don't be crazy.
	Hey, you're a nice person. Please don't be crazy.
	Right. And so that mantra, please don't be crazy, is there.
	And what it does, of course, is it exposes a need.
	And to have a need in the world is, in many ways, to be in danger, right?
	Because there are so many people.
	It's, you know, like, what was I doing?
	I was watching a show the other day.
	Someone apologized for something, and the other person immediately started lording it over them.
	You know, like, because apologizing to the person gave the apology, right, the person being apologized gave him power.
	And how do people use power in relationships?
	Most people use power in relationships the way that they've had power demonstrated to them in society.
	Which is that you use whatever one-upmanship you can.
	If somebody apologizes, if somebody has a need, then you attempt to exploit it for personal or status or financial profit.
	Okay. So is it true that you have a hunger for companionship or are on the lookout for people who you can have an intelligent conversation with?
	Yeah. I feel like I do a pretty good job at funneling people who, like, I don't know, I feel like there are certain brackets, you know, there are certain people I keep as, you know, pretty much associates.
	So, you know, I'm not completely alone.
	And, you know, they don't get to a certain layer of the onion, so to speak.
	Until they've kind of proven to me in some way or another that they can be trusted if that makes any sense.
	So far I've been noticing I have a good amount of associates and Very few close friends.
	And I kind of like that.
	But I'm always on the lookout for opportunities to really just be able to just relax and have an honest interaction with someone.
	Right, right. And of course, there are people out there who are sort of trained, in a sense, to sniff out needs and to...
	To exploit those, right? Particularly people who are interested in, you know, selling you something or getting you involved in something like that.
	Okay. Yeah.
	Now, another question.
	What's your take on a lot of these, like, these, what I think they're called, direct marketing or Or Pyramid Scheme, word-of-mouth marketing corporations.
	I think they're called MLMs, I believe.
	And I wondered, you know, what's your take, especially with, like, you know, the job market really drying up and, you know, the state pretty much, well, the economy pretty much going to hell in the handbasket and a lot of these organizations really taking, I feel like they're taking advantage of people.
	And I just wanted to know what your What your take would be on something like that.
	Yeah, those, I mean, I don't have, I haven't, I remember my mom was, we went to an Amway meeting when I was a kid because she liked to talk with people.
	And what I, you know, fine products, you know, why not?
	And as long as there's honesty and openness and frankness, then it's voluntary, right?
	But the problem that I have is that they put a lot of pressure to turn personal relationships into financial relationships.
	In other words, go get your friends to buy this incredibly concentrated soap.
	And, you know, if you get friends involved, then you can get their profits and then they get friends involved and so on.
	And that is...
	I'm not sure about that.
	I don't like mixing economics with...
	Friendships, particularly. And so I have some reservations about that.
	But I think most importantly, I'm always concerned when, and this is not true for MLMs or anything like that, but I'm always sort of concerned when people say, listen, I know you don't have a lot of skills, but you can make $100,000 a year.
	That's I mean, that's just something to be skeptical of to begin with.
	To become really good at something, to become really effective at something, it takes a huge amount of work.
	A huge amount of work and a huge amount of time.
	And to begin to really make decent money at stuff I was programming for 15 years before I became a Chief Technical Officer.
	It takes a long time to get good at stuff.
	It was years before I became good at sales, and so people who are saying, listen, you can mine your existing relationships and make a fortune, I'm just a bit concerned that people are going to burn up their personal relationships and maybe end up with a little bit of money, but end up neither with money nor relationships in the long run, and I think that's a shame.
	Okay. Alright, well, that pretty much answers the questions that I have.
	Sorry, it's kind of unfair to say to a friend, buy something that I will profit from, because you don't really know if they're buying it because of the friendship or because of the thing itself.
	Yeah. And so, I think it puts friends in a bit of an unfair position.
	That's all. Because...
	If it was just some salesperson knocking at their door, they'd probably say no.
	In fact, they'd be almost certain to say no.
	But if the friend and you say no, you want to help your friend, you want to encourage them, you want them to do well at their job, and maybe this is their last shot, financial, whatever, whatever.
	But, you know, I think it's a bit of a conflict of interest to say to your friends, buy my products.
	I just... I don't know.
	I don't know. Particularly if it's around, you know, get them involved in something, then they get other friends involved in something.
	It just seems like there's a bit of a conflict of interest.
	I mean, it's not immoral or anything, but it is, I think it brings an element of economic calculation into a friendship that I'm not sure is very compatible with good friendships.
	Okay. I mean, if you're going to do MLM stuff and go door-to-door or whatever it is, I don't know, door-to-door, too, I have some problems with.
	It's even more invasive than those phone calls that you get at dinner time, and those are pretty rank.
	I mean, this is my property.
	Don't come onto my property and try and sell me stuff unless I've asked you to.
	That's sort of my perspective.
	Yeah. And don't phone me, you know, this is your captain calling.
	You can get a free cruise.
	It's like, no, no, no, no.
	You just took, you know, you just interrupted what I was doing and you took 20 seconds, 30 seconds of my time and I didn't ask you to.
	I just think that stuff's pretty rank.
	But, so, you know, among strangers, maybe it's okay.
	I just, I don't know about mixing business with friendship too well.
	Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
	Okay. Well, those were pretty much the only things that were on my mind as of late, but thank you for your answers.
	Oh, you're welcome. And there's great questions.
	Just in terms of the thing that you talked about at the beginning about the guy, he said something about God.
	That's interesting, because that's almost like somebody putting a fishing line into the water.
	Because then he finds out if you're religious, like if you're then, oh, God, Jesus, oh, yeah, you know, Zeus, whatever, right?
	But if he just says something and then moves on quickly, if you're not religious, then you don't take the bait, but you're not going to...
	If he goes into a 10-minute thing about God, then if you're not religious, he's going to be...
	But if he just touches it, he's like seeing if that's of interest to you and then moving on.
	That's a sales thing.
	I don't think it's a particularly good sales thing, but it is kind of like a sales thing.
	Does that make any sense? That does make a lot of sense.
	And so if somebody's skipping, like you skip rocks on the flat water, if somebody's skipping over topics looking for something that you're interested in, that's like fishing.
	That's not quite the same as being honest and open.
	That would be a warning flag for me.
	Okay. All right.
	It's funny, man.
	I feel like I've gotten a lot better at detecting falsehood among people.
	Especially, you know, since I've been involved in FDR and things like that.
	But, you know, I was just really curious about like, you know, the occasional, you know, slip through, like intruder alert kind of deal.
	Look, every now and then, even the black belt has some student who's going to crack him in the nuts, right?
	Yeah. And he just has to, okay, there's something I need to work on, right?
	Yeah. When they come from the sewage grates below with the flying fists of monkey death, you know, when it's monkey-picked fruit from my gonads, that's the one I need to watch out for.
	And so that's just a way of refining your defenses, so to speak.
	Okay. All right.
	It also, and generally, again, this is not to beat this to death too much, but generally we're most susceptible to manipulative tactics that we ourselves use.
	So if you are the kind of person who mentions a little bit about philosophy or a little bit about rationality or a little bit about, you know, religious skepticism and sees if people are interested and then moves on quickly if they're not, then that's something that you will also most likely be susceptible to.
	That makes a lot of sense.
	Yeah, I'm definitely guilty of doing that.
	No, I didn't say guilty.
	I didn't say guilty. You just have to be conscious of it as a strategy, that's all.
	It's not a bad thing to do, but if you're conscious of it as a strategy, then when someone else does it, you go, oh, this guy's doing what I do, and you'll be conscious of it.
	That's all. Okay.
	All right. Yeah, that definitely makes a lot of sense.
	I think you just connected like A to B just now.
	Right. Yeah, and that's what I mean when I say mistakes are opportunities for self-knowledge because then you get to look at, you know, what we're susceptible for is the unconscious stuff that we are doing.
	And so when someone gets through our defenses, it's because we are using that same, you know, we are doing that same Death Star run that they're doing, and so we can't see it too well, and that's the opportunity for self-knowledge, which is great.
	And it doesn't mean you can or can't do it.
	It just means you've got to be aware of it. That's all.
	Okay. All right.
	Well, thanks. Great, great questions.
	If we can move on to the next caller.
	Assuming we have one, that would be great.
	All right. Thank you. Yeah.
	Oh, sorry. Yeah, we have another caller.
	Tim, you're up next. Hello?
	Hello. Hello.
	How are you doing? Can you hear me?
	Yeah, good. Thanks. I guess from the accent, Tim is not a clever way of introducing yourself as Mitt Romney, but spelling it backwards.
	So we're sad about that, but we shall continue as best we can.
	Okay. So listen, I came across you just actually about a week or so ago, and I saw originally through the interview you did with Peter Gray, who I'm really impressed by.
	You sounded like you were quite impressed by him too.
	Okay. And when I was wondering, then I saw Peter Gray, the psychologist from Sudbury School, yeah?
	A wider shade of gray.
	Fantastic. Yeah, just fantastic.
	And I think what he's doing is fantastically important, I think, this whole thing of finding out the evolutionary biology of our kind of educational instincts.
	And I was also wondering about how you dealt, I mean, bearing in mind, obviously, your kind of general thesis that things have been handed down over 10,000 odd years from the authoritarian society's How do you deal with that?
	Bearing in mind that the previous generation are victims of circumstance too.
	I just wondered how you look at that.
	As far as the cycle of abuse, I mean, I have sympathy.
	I really do. I have sympathy for parents who end up Doing wrong, doing badly.
	But, you know, I face a challenge.
	I genuinely face a challenge, which is that when I was raised, when I was growing up, I got endless amounts of, like truly, literally, endless amounts of immoral arguments about abusive husbands, bad husbands, right?
	Yeah. And...
	I was taught that violence and abuse and all were simply unacceptable in relationships, that you just leave those relationships.
	And this was taught to me in school.
	It was taught to me in movies, in television shows, in cartoons.
	I mean, it was everywhere. It was everywhere.
	It inundated the culture.
	And I have real sympathy for that perspective.
	I didn't hear a lot of, well, remember that your abusive husband himself had a bad childhood and maybe you should work with him.
	It was just like, you know, if you lay your hand on a woman in anger, then that is a deal breaker.
	And, you know, if it happens once, it's going to happen again and it's going to get worse.
	And sister, you need to get out of there and you need to stand firm and stand strong and so on.
	And this happened.
	I mean, this happened, you know, the statistics are tripling of divorce rate in the 1970s when I was growing up.
	So this is what I was taught.
	And it was even worse than that in terms of the standards.
	It wasn't like, well, if your husband is a drunk and he beats you and, you know, he pisses on your cat and spends all your money and, right, then, you know, obviously that was you've got to leave him and don't look back.
	And, you know, but it was, you know, if your husband is just a little dull, If he's kind of pedantic, if he's kind of like a tweed-elbowed academic who can't quite emotionally connect with you in that Joyce Carol Oates kind of way.
	I mean, if your husband is just...
	If you're just kind of dissatisfied, if he's just kind of emotionally unavailable, even if he's a good provider and a good dad, if you're just not really that satisfied in your relationship, then the best thing to do is to divorce him.
	I went to the movies and I saw Kramer vs.
	Kramer three or four times when I was...
	I don't know when it came out. I was like 12 or 13, I think.
	And I paid over and over to see that.
	One time I just sat through twice because I was really trying to absorb and trying to process this.
	Because Dustin Hoffman's character in that movie was not an abuser.
	He was not beating.
	He was not drunken. He was just kind of immature and not really very emotionally available and so on.
	And Meryl Streep walked out and was kind of the heroine and she was not criticized in the movie.
	It was just... He wasn't there for her.
	He kind of worked a little bit late and then she just left because she couldn't stand it.
	And so, what I absorbed from that, and I watched so many movies about divorce, and I'm still quite fascinated by divorce.
	I'm really fascinated by divorce because it was such a huge topic and it had such an enormous influence on myself and all of my friends.
	I mean, with one or two exceptions, all of my friends came from single mom-headed homes of divorce.
	There was not a widowed dad among them.
	them.
	There was not a dad who had gone into the military.
	They were all divorced because they were either in bad relationships or unsatisfying relationships or whatever.
	And I absorbed that lesson I absorbed that lesson. And, I mean, as a philosopher, my goal is universalize, universalize, universalize, universalize.
	That's all I'm into.
	If it can't be universalized, I don't care about it.
	Right? I mean, clearly Freddie Mercury, the best singer ever.
	Well, I mean, obviously that's a universal standard.
	There's no debate on that.
	But if it can't be universalized, then I don't care.
	And so the way that I processed it was I said to myself, okay, well...
	But relationships that people choose should, not even can, but should be ended if they're even just a little bit unsatisfying for long enough.
	Now, I was reading this article the other day about how some women, a significant number of women, wish their husbands would just have an affair so they could end the relationship.
	Because their husbands are nice guys and good providers and good dads, but they're just not that satisfied in the relationship.
	So they wish they'd have an affair so they could legitimately get a divorce without hurting him too much.
	I mean, oh my God in heaven!
	What a nightmare is that!
	And so I universalized that.
	And the way that I thought about it was, okay, look, you choose your husband, you choose your wife.
	You get to test drive them, you get to date them, you get to get engaged with them.
	The relationship takes many years usually to go to the fruition of marriage.
	And that's a really chosen relationship.
	But you don't choose your parents. And clearly our standards should be higher for involuntary relationships than they are for voluntary relationships.
	Of course they should be.
	I mean, anybody who argues otherwise is...
	A slave to the matrix, frankly.
	I know that's not an argument, but if it needs to be argued, there's no point, because the person can't reason, even remotely.
	So, we have to have higher standards for involuntary relationships rather than voluntary relationships.
	And so if little bits of dissatisfaction and abuse and so on are enough to end a marriage and all of the impact that that has on the children, the incredibly negative and destructive impacts it has on the children, then that should be true of all relationships and it should be even more true.
	For involuntary relationships.
	And that argument's...
	I mean, I've thought about this for decades.
	I cannot find a flaw in it.
	I mean, I'm open.
	I'm open to hearing flaws, but I simply cannot find a flaw in it.
	Of course, the other argument that I received...
	This is to a large degree from contemporary feminism, though it's not the only place it came from.
	But the other argument I got was, where there is a power disparity...
	Virtue is more required.
	And the greater the power disparity, the more the virtue is required, right?
	If you're co-workers at a company, then you can date each other, assuming it's not against company policy, without any particular problems.
	But if you're the boss and the secretary, then you have more authority and therefore you can't, right?
	Because it's sort of an abuse of authority.
	So the standards go up in a relationship where the power disparity goes up.
	And so the standards of behavior for parents must be far higher than for any other relationship because it's the greatest power disparity.
	Yeah, sure. And so all of these lessons, right, the voluntarism, and if you're not satisfied in relationships, you should end them no matter what the consequences to others, right?
	So you should end a marriage if you're not satisfied, despite the fact that there are hugely negative consequences to the children, right?
	Yeah. Yeah. So those are the issues that I brought to the table when it came to, you know, so my sort of analogy which I've used before is that a parental relationship is sort of like an arranged marriage, right?
	Yeah. And if you want your wife who's been assigned to you and has to marry you, if you want your wife to love you, you have to treat her even better than if she'd voluntarily chosen you, right?
	Because you have to overcome the involuntary nature of the relationship.
	Yeah. Yeah. And so, putting all of these things together, the arguments about voluntarism within the parent-child relationship once you become an adult, I mean, we have to ban divorce before we ban parent-child separations, right? Yeah.
	And everybody says that divorce is an essential right.
	And I agree with them.
	I think divorce is an essential right because without voluntarism, there really can't be quality.
	There can't be quality without voluntarism.
	We all understand that when we deal with the Department of Motor Vehicles, right?
	And so, yeah.
	But now, of course, it is a tough idea.
	It is a tough idea because it is so inescapable and it is so unarguable.
	That, you know, the only way that people can generally react if they really don't like the idea is through anger, is through, you know, hurling monkey poo, so to speak, because they can't find a logical flaw, and so they simply have to go around crying that this is the most terrible idea in the history of the world, while if you press them on specifics as to what's so bad about it, they can't really tell you. They'll just, you know, throw all these words around.
	And so that's natural.
	That's natural.
	It's very tragic.
	A lot of parents have acted badly based on the reality that the concept of parent-child separation when the child is an adult is simply taboo.
	And because it's taboo, if divorce was completely illegal and taboo, so to speak, then husbands, I would assume, would behave worse.
	Sure. In the same way that if you can't choose your provider, then the provider has very much less incentive for quality service, so to speak.
	Is it kind of an issue that you have personally or not?
	Is this just something that you've just observed?
	Oh, yeah. No, it's definitely a personal issue for me, for sure.
	Yeah, definitely a personal issue. Okay.
	Yeah, and I've talked about this many times before, so you can dig back through the old cast if you want, but...
	So my goal is to promote truth and blah, blah, blah.
	But the pragmatic result of truth is quality.
	And why do we want voluntarism in society?
	In other words, why is statism so bad?
	Because it's involuntary.
	Because you cannot have productive and efficient and sustainable solutions to things like poverty and addiction and ignorance and so on.
	Without volunteerism, you can't have quality.
	And the place we most need quality is in the family, and therefore the place where we most need volunteerism is within the family.
	And I think that if parents understand that they cannot take their children's perpetual relationship for granted, then they're going to treat them better.
	I mean, because volunteerism is quality.
	There's simply no better way to promote quality than to promote volunteerism.
	And my goal is to have as peaceful and rational a family system as humanly possible.
	And so that's always been my goal.
	And some people like it, love it.
	And some people have taken those arguments as opportunities to really improve the relationships with their children.
	And I've read letters on the show to that effect.
	And other people have reacted, I guess, somewhat less nobly.
	That's, of course, the choice of the individual.
	Can I ask you another question?
	Are there many people, because one of the things I've been impressed at by just finding out about you over the last week or so, is the fact that you've integrated so many different things.
	I mean, you've integrated psychology with philosophy, with economics, with everything.
	I mean, it's like a whole vision.
	Are there many people, is there anybody else that you're aware of at the moment who's doing something similar?
	No, I don't know of anyone who's doing something similar.
	That, of course, is no argument as to there could be 10 million people out there doing something similar.
	I just don't know the degree.
	Philosophy is the all-discipline because it encompasses science and self-knowledge and relationships and economics and so on.
	All of these grew out of philosophy to begin with, particularly psychology.
	Yeah. And so, yeah, I'm certainly doing my best to start from first principles and expand them wherever possible.
	And so, yeah, I think it's fairly unique, but of course there may be other people out there.
	I think there are certainly people who've done individually way better jobs on things, but I don't know about the unified field theory that I'm working on if anyone's done as well, but we'll see.
	I was kind of a big fan of Aldous Huxley.
	I don't know if you've read very much Aldous Huxley, but one of his big themes was the integration of, you know, that we need to move from being special.
	We need to include generalization with specialization, that we've specialized ourselves to such an extent that it's become really unhealthy.
	And then one of these kind of bridge builders bringing these different disciplines back together again, one of these kind of an overview.
	And that's kind of the impression I have of what you're doing.
	Yes, and I think that not many people have integrated what divorce means.
	You know, divorce is, one of the reasons I'm so fascinated about it, is marriage was originally for life, no matter what.
	And you had to stay, and you had to go back, and it was illegal to divorce.
	And it was only, I think, in the 70s that Canada made it legal to divorce without an act of parliament.
	It was illegal in the Catholic religion and so on, all of these things.
	And divorce is anarchic in a very fundamental way because it is saying that relationships, even relationships that you have a vow for lifelong companionship can be broken at will.
	And, you know, if you can divorce a husband, why not a state?
	If you can divorce a husband, why not a parent?
	If you can divorce a husband, why not a brother?
	Yeah. People just say, ah, you know what? No. Right?
	It's one of the things I can lighten that I can't remember if Peter Gray was talking about that.
	I think he was in this talk with you.
	He was talking about the fact that, you know, you might be in a hunting gathering band and, you know, you just kind of got pissed off with your parents.
	You weren't getting on. You just went and joined another hunting gathering band that you weren't kind of stuck anywhere, you know, that you could always move on, which I think is kind of an interesting, you know, it's a very interesting way of looking at it.
	Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
	Yeah, I mean, there's been so many factors that have influenced the demise in the quality of families that it's just ridiculous.
	Divorce has negatively impacted families enormously.
	Single-momhood, which is, you know, the vast majority of single-parent households are headed by moms.
	Single-momhood has catastrophically declined the quality of the family.
	The fact that taxes are so high that generally two people to maintain any reasonable standard of living, both people need to work, stick their kids in daycare, has massively It eroded the quality of family life and the bond between parents and children.
	You know, it's kind of funny, you know, because, you know, I try not to get too annoyed at hypocrisy.
	Although, because if you want, it's a buffet that never empties and only seems to get bigger and bigger.
	But... You know, parents, when you get older, parents will say, well, you know, there's this bond and, you know, we do everything for you and so on.
	But, you know, significant chunks of kids, their parents hit, you know, three months or six months or nine months, they just get thrown in daycare from, you know, the morning until the evening.
	And that's not good.
	You know, I'm very traditional.
	You know, it's funny. One day I'll do a checklist of how much I have in common with conservative Christians and But conservative Christians are deeply concerned and they lead in many cases in social criticisms, they lead with a criticism of the erosion of family.
	And they say the family unit, now of course they go straight on homosexual stuff and gay marriage, I don't care about that stuff, but they will say that the erosion of character, the erosion of quality, the erosion of utility, the erosion of progress, the erosion of civility, the increases in criminality and addiction and so on, All have their roots in the erosion of the family unit.
	And I'm incredibly conservative when it comes to the family.
	The family unit, you know, traditional family unit works really, really well.
	And the degree to which it doesn't work is the degree to which society as a whole is not going to work.
	And I am very much...
	I don't know.
	Some people think that I'm sort of radical when it comes to the family.
	No, no, no. I'm incredibly conservative when it comes to the family.
	Just look at my life. I guarantee you it's going to be a lifelong relationship with my wife.
	We invest heavily in our daughter and...
	I'm a stay-at-home dad.
	I mean, that's how strongly I take these family bonds.
	I will never have an affair.
	My wife will never have an affair.
	We'll never even be tempted. We are going to be together until one of us drops off into the infinite zero of black space.
	And that is incredibly traditional.
	I am not a radical at all when it comes to the family.
	What is happening to the family now is radical.
	You got two parents out there and kids in daycare and divorces all over the place and women, the majority of women under 30, having kids out of wedlock.
	That is radical. That is radical.
	And I'm just trying to get us back to stuff that worked for thousands of years.
	That, to me, is important.
	And I don't know any way to do it except through the promotion of volunteerism.
	I mean, that's how marriage was supposed to be improved through divorce and so on.
	I think fantastic. That's the way it should be.
	So what you're saying is a threat to the fact that you can leave is a thing that's going to make the marriage better.
	Is that what you're saying? Yeah, of course.
	Of course. I wouldn't put it down like a threat, right?
	But if you only had one cell phone provider that was mandated by the government and it was illegal to ever not get a cell phone or switch providers, then we understand that the quality would go to hell, right?
	It's not the threat. It's the opportunity.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. Yeah, yeah.
	So it just keeps you on your toes, basically.
	Yeah. Of course.
	I mean, look, I mean, one of the ways that you can guarantee that I'm going to be a great dad is I promote volunteerism within the family.
	Right? I mean, you know that.
	You know that for sure, that I'm going to be the best possible dad that I can be because I strongly accept volunteerism within the family.
	It also means that I'm going to be the best possible husband that I can be, that I'm going to continually ask my wife and my daughter for how I can do things better, for what they would prefer, for what would make them happier, because...
	I am really into volunteerism, which means that there's going to be quality.
	If I believed that my daughter could never, ever leave me, no matter what I did, if I believed that my wife could never, ever leave me, no matter what I did, would I be so concerned with pursuing quality?
	Well, did you ever get the IRS to call you up and say, listen...
	How's your tax life going?
	Is there anything we could do different or better?
	Would you like to opt out? Would you like to donate to charity instead of donating to us?
	What would work for you as a citizen?
	Because they're never going to call you like that, right?
	So, I mean, basically, you have a kind of movie.
	I remember seeing that movie, The English Patient.
	Did you ever see that film? I did.
	Yeah, which, I mean, if it had volunteerism in that relationship, things might have turned out slightly differently.
	I'm afraid that I don't remember much of that film.
	I think I was necking, but I don't remember.
	Kristen, what's her name?
	Anyway, she falls in love with Ralph Fiennes.
	Kristen Scott. She's married to Colin Firth, who is a traditional husband.
	She's deeply in love with him, but she's terrified of losing her husband, even though the marriage is really kind of boring.
	And she's a slave to convention, and the whole thing ends up unhappy ever after for everybody involved.
	Yes, yes. Well, of course, you would question why she had gotten married to that man in the first place.
	Now, of course, there is this desperate myth, right?
	This terrible, awful, desperate myth.
	The grass is greener myth, right?
	Most divorces are initiated by women, and generally it's because they feel they can do better elsewhere, right?
	And it's not true, and we know that it's not true statistically, because I can't remember what the percentage of first marriages that fail, but the percentage of second marriages that fail is much higher.
	So if they were correctly identifying where the grass is greener, then they would end up where the grass is greener.
	But what happens is people get lazy in relationships.
	They cease to contribute.
	They cease to be honest.
	They drop in front of the TV and they end up getting bored.
	They stop taking up new things.
	They stop taking up new vacations.
	They stop finding new friends.
	They stop having new topics of conversation.
	They stop being interesting and then they complain that their marriage is boring.
	And then they have this fantasy that if they get out of this boring marriage, there's this weird thing called the marriage that's boring.
	Not them, but the marriage.
	And if they just get out of that marriage and they go to some new person, then everything will be better.
	And if that were the case, then the success rate of second marriages should be far higher, but in fact it's far lower than the success rate.
	And the success rate of third marriages is lower still, right?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's not true.
	You know, the challenge of divorce is...
	I just did a premium podcast on this, so if anyone's a bronze plus, they can go and check it out at board.freedomainradio.com.
	But, you know, there's multiple, multiple challenges to divorce.
	And if people, you know, they get divorced, they don't have kids, that's their lookout.
	But once they have kids, it's a very, very serious decision, and I think it's taken far too lightly and without opportunity, and it goes on to fail.
	You know, one out of ten American kids live through three or more marriages from their parents.
	What would you do? If it's a woman in a marriage with a guy, she's not really in love with him.
	She's not really that happy.
	He's kind of a bit of an autocrat.
	She's got two kids. What would you suggest you did?
	Well, I mean, that's a very theoretical point.
	This is a specific situation.
	Well, look, first and foremost, I would say that there's a huge amount that can be done to improve the quality of the marriage without leaving it.
	Right. Because she did love him at one point, and she chose him.
	Yeah. It's like if I test drive a car for two years, and then a year later I hate the car when I could have bought any car on the lot, that's clearly kind of a ridiculous position to have, right?
	Yeah. I hate this car.
	I'm just going to drive this car into a cliff.
	It's like, well, you got to test drive all these different cars.
	You test drive this car for two or three years and now you hate it?
	Are you kidding me? Just to recognize that it's a fundamentally ridiculous position.
	And look, I mean, I don't know.
	Maybe the guy's got a brain tumor. He's turned into an asshole.
	I don't know. Of course, if it's a brain tumor, he's not an asshole.
	But you know what I mean, right?
	But yeah, the first thing that I would say is that you've got to prevent yourself from getting into these positions.
	I mean, it's like saying, so a guy, you know, he's got stage 4 lung cancer.
	What should he do? Well, he shouldn't have smoked 30 years ago.
	I don't know, right? And so the reality is, the way that divorce used to be controlled and the way it should be rationally controlled is that society should recognize that divorce is a massive and catastrophic failure if there are children involved.
	I mean, it's a failure if there are adults involved, but it's a catastrophic failure where kids are involved.
	Yeah. And, you know, so if somebody comes and says, I'm getting divorced, then, you know, I don't know what the social equivalent would be.
	I don't know. Somebody comes and says, I've decided to become a prostitute.
	I've joined a motorcycle gang and I'm going to sell crack to children.
	You know, whatever it is, right?
	Then people would say, well, that's really bad.
	Like, what are you doing? That's really bad.
	You've got to not do that unless there's absolutely no other options, right?
	But divorce is kind of like empowerment.
	It's like, you know, it's not cool exactly, but it's, you know, all you ever see, if you ever want to read these, you read the divorce section of the Huffington Post, which I will occasionally check out.
	You know, it's all about, well, I felt really bad about my divorce, but then I realized what an empowering and growth opportunity it was and how great it was and how my kids are doing fine and my husband's happier and I'm happier and, you know, what a great thing it was in hindsight.
	Bullshit. Yeah. Bullshit.
	Anyone who breaks a vow of a lifetime at the expense of their children has failed really badly and done great harm.
	And that doesn't mean that people got to stay and should never be illegal.
	I get that. But if people recognize the harm that it did to get divorced, I can damn well tell you that they'd be a lot more careful about who they got married to.
	And that's what I mean when you say, well, somebody's really unhappy in a marriage.
	Well, you should have chosen better who you married.
	You should have had the discussion about values, about religion, about child-rearing methods, about discipline, about education, about the extent to which in-laws are going to be a part of life.
	All of these things need to be discussed beforehand.
	But people sail off on a sea of hormones, sex-addled minds and bizarrely optimistic expectations just to assume that all these knots are going to tie themselves or untie themselves over time and it's nonsense.
	Have these conversations ahead of time and you can eliminate 90% of your problems.
	So, you know, the point of making things voluntary is not to make everybody's relationship perfect, but to remind people that it really matters who you choose to get married to.
	It really, really is probably the most important decision that you will make that doesn't just involve yourself in your life.
	And if you need to get out of a marriage, I mean, just have to accept that it's a catastrophic failure, but incredibly harmful and destructive to your children, and that there's no restitution that's possible for it.
	But unfortunately, we cover all of that stuff up, right?
	We pretend that it's, well, you know, they tried it, it didn't work, and now they're great co-parents and they're happier.
	It's like, no, no, no.
	Come on. That's not the way it goes.
	Sorry. I had a long answer, but I hope that makes some kind of sense.
	No, no, no. That's cool. That's great.
	All right. I think we have someone else.
	Okay, that's great. For those who were bored by the topic of divorce, we should probably move on.
	But thanks. Let's divorce ourselves.
	Okay, thanks a lot. Just for my own feedback on it, I wouldn't mind a little more examination.
	I know that it's definitely a huge topic for me as well.
	And for a lot of people.
	You can ask a question.
	No, no. I'm just saying in general.
	I'm not bored of the topic.
	I don't have a question at the moment, a specific question at the moment.
	I'll tell you what my one last question on this will be.
	Okay. So you've got somebody – let's just say you've got these kind of patterns of abuse being handed down over generations.
	That seems to be a fairly kind of general thing.
	In our society.
	So you've got, say, a woman who's attracted to a guy, and it's kind of a dysfunctional thing.
	She's kind of, you know, the whole thing about battered wives and everything, women getting drawn to particular kinds of men because it kind of is a continuation of some family pattern, you know, something to do with their dads or whatever.
	And, you know, it's not a really fantastically rational decision.
	It's something that's sympathetic in a sense that, you know, they're driven towards it, and then it becomes painful.
	And of course, and then there are kids involved.
	Sorry, what becomes painful?
	It got just a little bit too abstract for me, I'm afraid.
	Okay, okay, okay. What I'm saying is this, okay.
	So you have a woman, okay.
	So say she comes from a family where, which is emotionally challenging, to put it that way.
	So she has a relationship with her dad, which is, sorry?
	Abusive? Abusive, yeah.
	I'm not trying to put words in your mouth.
	I'm just not sure what emotionally challenging means.
	I'm English. Emotionally challenging.
	In other words, it involves emotions.
	Exactly. Got it.
	Abusive is a better word.
	So she's had that kind of relationship.
	She's damaged by it all.
	And then she kind of goes and walks straight into another relationship with a man who reminds her of her dad.
	And she's drawn to it.
	And it does seem to happen a great deal.
	She thinks it looks good to begin with, but it happens.
	And then she's stuck in it, and then a little while down the road, she's got two kids, and she's kind of being dictated a lot by guilt, as she was in her own family at birth.
	And then she's stuck in it.
	Now you could say that right from the outset she should have been much more rational about it, she should have checked the marriage out, and maybe she thought she was doing it, but she struggled because of her own kind of background.
	Do you see what I'm saying? So she's gone from one kind of abusive situation into another one, not meaning to, but simply because she was conditioned in that way.
	Look, let me answer that as best I can.
	I have no problem with any of that.
	I have no problem with any of that.
	All that I ask of anybody is don't be hypocritical.
	Don't have higher standards for children than you have for adults.
	That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying.
	So if the mom says, look, because of my childhood history, I've made a whole series of bad decisions, right?
	Yeah. Okay.
	Well, then she can't have higher standards for her children than she has for herself as an adult, right?
	So let's say she was married when she was 25.
	Yeah. Okay. So when her kid is 10 and makes a bad decision, what's she going to say?
	You've got 15 years to go.
	It's okay. You can still keep making bad decisions for 15 years because that's what happened to me.
	Yeah. But that's not what she's likely to say, is it?
	Yeah, but that's not the question that she's judging her children.
	It's just simply that she's in that situation herself.
	Sorry, I think we may have crisscrossed there.
	No, what I'm saying is you're saying basically, so she finds herself in that situation, and you're saying, well, if she is in that situation, she shouldn't stop passing judgment on her kids if they start making bad decisions.
	Is that what you're saying? Yeah, of course.
	Because if she is an adult, there's no decision a child can really make at the age of 10 or 15 that is as important as who you get married to and who you bring precious, dependent, helpless life into being with at the age of 20.
	All the child's decisions are far less important than the parent's decision of who to marry and who to have children with.
	Is that fair to say?
	Yeah, no, that's fair, yeah. Okay, so you can't give yourself a get-out-of-jail-free card for bad decisions as an adult and then impose strict standards on your children.
	Does that make sense? Yeah, sure, of course, I agree, yeah.
	You can't have higher standards for less important things from younger people, right?
	That's my sort of... Sure. Right, so that's the challenge, right?
	Because if you're a parent and you get divorced, then you've just given up credibility with your kids, right?
	And then you have authority, but you don't have credibility.
	And that is why divorce, I think, fundamentally is so damaging to children.
	It's that their parents have authority over them, but the children don't respect the parents.
	And how could they? It's not just willful.
	How could they? No, I understand that, but bearing in mind that she gets herself into this marriage.
	She doesn't think it's going to go wrong.
	She's kind of drawn to it in some kind of neurotic way.
	And then she's in it, and it's abusive in some way.
	Sorry, abusive in some way.
	What does that mean? So let's just say she has an abusive dad, and then she's drawn to an abusive husband.
	Okay. And then she's in it and it's a sort of compulsion in some way or another and she's stuck in this thing and then she has her kids and all the rest of it.
	I'm not trying to say it was a good thing for her to do.
	I'm just simply saying that people do get stuck in these things.
	They do get caught up in these things.
	And of course, she's not in any position to judge her children.
	But if she then decides, I want to get divorced, because look, I've really seen why I'm drawn in this particular direction.
	I can see why I've got myself into another abusive relationship.
	And I think it's better I get out of it from everybody's point of view, including my kids.
	Would that make sense? Totally.
	Yeah, I mean, look, if she's getting beaten up, yeah, I agree.
	I mean, I don't think people should stay in violent relationships at all.
	I mean, not necessarily even physically violent.
	I mean, you know, mentally abusive.
	It doesn't have to be physical violence.
	Oh, like he calls her names and stuff?
	Yeah, that kind of thing. You're putting somebody down, yeah.
	Well, I mean, obviously she should do everything she conceivably could.
	To alleviate the situation, right?
	Sure. But the other thing, of course, is that I have a tough time with people who say, well, I'm a drunk because my dad was a drunk.
	Yeah. These correlations have been so well known for so many decades that anybody who says, well, I came from a violent family, but I had no idea I was at risk for violence myself, is damn well lying or has been living in a cave.
	Yeah. It's like somebody who's smoking now, who's saying, and not smoking in the good way, but smoking hot, but somebody who smokes, who then says, I had no idea that smoking was bad for me.
	It's just precious.
	It's just nonsense. Somebody whose both of their parents are 350 pounds and you say, I had no idea that I was in any danger of becoming overweight.
	I mean, that's just not true.
	Now, either somebody has gotten the information that they need and has ignored it, Or they have simply refused to get any information despite the fact that there's huge risk factors.
	In which case, they're responsible for both, right?
	If the information is absolutely needed but I refuse to get it, I'm still responsible for that, right?
	Sure, yeah. You know, if my foot starts turning black and I don't go to the doctor, then I'm kind of responsible, right?
	Yeah. And so the correlations between histories and historical relationships and future relationships, it's so well known.
	I mean, there's nobody who can credibly claim, who's got an IQ over 12, there's nobody who can credibly claim that they had no idea that there was a risk factor for abuse in relationships called, I was abused as a child, or I witnessed abusive relationships.
	That would be like somebody growing up in a Greek household saying, I had no idea I was at risk of speaking Greek.
	Yeah, I understand. You mean you've got to do something about it?
	Yeah, of course. Somebody who says, well, I'm a drunk because my dad was a drunk is like, well, why aren't you a drunk because your dad was a drunk?
	You know how destructive it is.
	You experienced it. You lived through it.
	And, you know, I don't know, as I said in a previous show, I do not know how to care for people, my friend, without giving them responsibility.
	That, to me, is love.
	Loving humanity is giving that hot potato, that hot healing potato called responsibility to people.
	I don't know how to help people.
	I don't know how to love people.
	I don't know how to have any respect for humanity other than to give people responsibility for their choices, just as I accept responsibility for mine.
	I mean, that's called being a grown-up, and that's...
	That's fair enough.
	I agree.
	Cool. Thanks.
	You're welcome. Let's move on to the next caller.
	Okay. We have two more people on the line.
	We have Ryan first.
	Cool. How are you doing, Steph?
	Great. How are you doing, man? Good.
	Is my sound doable? I'd hit it.
	Awesome. Cool.
	I came on, I'm feeling kind of nervous here.
	Surprisingly nervous. Which I think is a really cool thing.
	So that means something important to talk about.
	And that means newness. Good.
	Newness and depth. What's that?
	That means newness and depth.
	So good. I think so.
	I was wanting to talk about this kind of problematic thing that comes up for me when I try to pursue romantic relationships.
	And I just wanted to see if you had any advice from me or anything like that.
	I might.
	Hit me with your problems.
	Hmm, where to start?
	I'll just start here with some recent, somewhat recent relationships.
	What happens for me, I've noticed, is I have certain things I'm interested in in a relationship.
	For me, I feel like I'm really selective and I have really high standards.
	And every once in a while, I come across a woman who I do feel that I am interested in.
	And when this does happen, it seems that we get to a point where...
	Well, some of the stuff I really value, for example, would be just being open, being really honest, and just sharing in the moment, that kind of stuff.
	And I'm a really curious person, too.
	And what seems to happen is...
	I feel like I give a lot from my side, all that stuff I just mentioned.
	For one reason or another, when I put that out there, we might have strong connections for a while, but at some point, it's like they eject.
	They just push away.
	Like in the past couple, I guess you could say relationships, maybe just the women that I've kind of been interested in and we've talked and maybe have made stronger connections.
	The past couple of times this has happened, it's happened to where it's like a really sudden ejection from the relationship.
	It's like I'll say, for example, I'll send texts or I'll send them messages like, hey, what's going on today?
	You know, whatever. And I just won't respond.
	And this is after there's been some romantic involvement?
	Kissy-facey, huggy-huggy, that kind of stuff?
	Strong feelings, I would say. Strong feelings.
	On both of your part?
	I think so, yeah.
	Yeah, yeah. All right.
	Is this after you've been on a date?
	Yeah. Yeah. There was a big post there.
	Was it a date? Or was it, hey, let's go out with some friends and I'll call it a date?
	The past couple of people have been online.
	So it's like a date.
	What do you mean by date? I mean, we talk, say, for example, on Skype or...
	Oh, sorry. Yeah, I'm talking old-fashioned, right?
	Right. Way too old-fashioned.
	Right. So what happens, though, is it's like there's this sudden dropout.
	Yeah. I feel like I'm really hanging, like I'm left hanging, like I've given all this stuff, like all this curiosity, empathy.
	Sorry, just for me, a date where you're left hanging may have entirely different connotations.
	Well, you're not actually physically hanging at all, but rather pointing northward.
	Anyway, go on. Right, so I feel like I'm kind of left out there with this big matzo ball hanging out.
	Interesting metaphor for you.
	Yeah. Only one.
	It's like I'm left hanging there.
	I mean, I'm talking about it kind of in a funny tone here, but it's something that when that happens for me, it really triggers me and makes me feel a lot of strong emotions.
	Sometimes I feel irritation.
	Like a part of me comes up that says...
	You know, these women should see what they have to choose from here.
	It's like this awesome guy who really wants all these great things.
	And they're just like, they just push away.
	It's like, what are they thinking? And then another part of me comes up, which I think that part, to take an IFS approach, I think that part is protecting this part.
	And it's a part that feels a lot of despair, like a really old part.
	Kind of a rejection, like I put myself out there and I rejected it.
	Not that that's a rational thing.
	No, it's not irrational.
	It's not irrational. I mean, they have rejected it, right?
	Right. You're not making that up, right?
	Sure, sure. I mean, if the woman keeps calling you and asking you out and then you say she's rejecting me, that's irrational.
	But if they stop returning calls, if they stop responding, then there is a rejection there, of course, right?
	So it's not irrational.
	Sure. Does that make sense?
	I think what I mean by irrational might be...
	The way I'm thinking about it is...
	No, it's not irrational.
	But I feel like...
	No, that's a good point.
	Alright, and do you want to keep talking or do you want me to ask my usual series of blundering questions?
	Let's see. Do you think that's a pretty good chunk there?
	Alright, let's go.
	Well, first of all, I've been there.
	So I understand I have had a number of sort of pseudo-relationships where there's been some significant interest on the part of women, you know, where they've even asked me out, and we seem to have had a great deal of fun, and they sort of, at the end of the evening, they say, let's get together again, and then they just vanish.
	Can't get a hold of them, can't find them, you know, whatever, right?
	Right. So, that is strange.
	So, yeah, I mean, I've been there and I think everybody who's been in the dating arena has been in that situation at least once.
	So, I sympathize.
	You're not alone in that.
	So, tell me about reciprocity when you were a boy in your family.
	Cool. Let's see.
	A boy... Well, I guess I could start with saying my parents were divorced when I was really young.
	So, that was around when I was about two or three.
	So, I never really knew my mom.
	So, I've never known my mom.
	You never knew your mom?
	Sorry for my surprise, but statistically, that's not common.
	Why is that? Well, because normally it's the dad who balls.
	Hmm. Okay.
	You didn't know that. Not the case in my situation, though.
	Yeah, like I think it's 40 or 50 percent of kids who are divorced barely see their biological dads.
	I mean, it's crazy. Yeah.
	So what happened to your mom?
	What did you do to her?
	My God, you're terrible as a two-year-old.
	See, it's hard to tell because I know the stories from what my dad has said.
	Well, what does your dad say? Right, but from what I gather...
	You know, it's really hard to say because from what I gather from my dad, they didn't get along, essentially.
	And... There was a court case for custody, and he didn't seem to think that she was really interested at all in me.
	And she just left, wherever she went.
	I don't know. Sorry, there was a court case for custody, so she did...
	Because if she just left, I don't think that'd even be a court case, right?
	So she did fight to some degree for access, and then did she leave after the court case was resolved, or during, or...
	It's been a while since I've thought about this, so I'm trying to recall the details here.
	Look, if you don't remember, that's fine.
	I was just curious if you did. And I would try and get those details, right?
	I mean, I'd sit down with my dad and say, okay, let's go through this timeline.
	Like when you say two or three, I think it's important to get the facts.
	I think. Yeah.
	Because, of course, the problems in a marriage that when you – like a marriage, you get divorced when you're two or three.
	It's not like it's perfect until then and then it just falls off the cliff, which means you were born into a very dysfunctional marriage that was collapsing, right?
	Right. That's pretty tragic.
	Thank you. And you understand that there's a parallel here, right?
	Women, they vanish.
	Yeah, I've thought about that.
	Oh, good. Okay, good.
	So you're way ahead of me to have self-knowledge.
	They're good. I wasn't as young as you are, I think, when I figured that one out.
	So, go ahead. Well, I would say, yeah, I put some thought into that.
	The whole, you know, trace it back.
	I've journaled about this at times, and I've tried to just trace it back as far as I can go, and just, you know, try to pull up different events that occurred when I was younger.
	And, uh... It's hard for me, though, to really understand.
	I don't really have any good memories of when I was really young like that.
	I don't remember my mom, and I don't remember how I felt not having my mom there.
	So I'm sure there's some correlation, but I'm just not really...
	Well, let me ask you this, because I know what you mean, right?
	I mean, miss her.
	I didn't even know she was here, and I've had that, but that's not...
	True, right? So when you were a kid, and you would go over to someone else's house, and the mom would be there, let's go all stereotypical, and the mom would be there, and bacon cookies, and what would you like for lunch, and here's some lemonade, and how are you doing, and let me plump those cushions for you, and all that, right? How did you feel?
	Pretty good. Go on.
	What's that? Go on.
	I recall because I have a friend that I've had for like centuries now, and I've lived a long time.
	And when I was really young...
	I was speaking to an undead.
	Cool. Let's get on to other topics later.
	Anyway, go on. So I would go over to his house when I was a kid, and he had his mom and dad there.
	And I remember it was nice.
	It was like, oh, you know...
	This is paraphrasing my thoughts at the time, of course, but it was like, oh, here's this mother figure, and she's making lunch, and she's making us pancakes, or whatever it was.
	And it felt pretty good to have that attention from a mother figure, as I recall.
	Alright. So, I'm trying to process how this could be just a net positive.
	Hey, someone else has something really great that I don't have because my mom abandoned me.
	I feel only good about that.
	Like, it has to be bittersweet, right?
	Sure, that makes sense.
	Oh my god, that's an abstract answer.
	Sure, I calculate that as being correct, right?
	Well, yeah, it is abstract.
	I mean, it makes sense. I haven't put the thought into that necessarily yet.
	I mean, how much would you have liked for that kind of mom to be in your house?
	Making your pancakes, right?
	Sure. How did you like explaining to your friends if they'd say, well, where's your mom?
	What would you say? I do remember that when I was younger and I would say that and they'd be like, oh, I'm so sad.
	What would you say?
	Right, right. Sorry, what would you say?
	What I would say, I think I would play it down when I was younger.
	I would be like, oh, it's no big deal.
	And I'm sure that wasn't the case.
	Why would you play it down, do you think?
	That's what I'm trying to think of.
	Can I ask you a question that might help?
	Sure. Try not to lead the witness, Your Honor.
	How did your dad feel about having a kid with a woman who then left?
	How did he feel about that impact on you?
	Because that was your dad's doing, not yours, right?
	Right. When you said that, my mind went to how did my dad feel about the divorce?
	No, no, no. That's him.
	How did your dad feel about your mom's leaving and its impact on you and how that would make you feel?
	Right, the reason I was going there is because I don't know if I've ever had an answer from him around that, which could mean something significant.
	Well, what do you think it means? I imagine he felt pretty bad.
	Well, look, the topic was minimized with your dad, right?
	Like, how did you learn that this needs to be minimized?
	Children don't naturally minimize.
	I guarantee you that. My daughter maximizes.
	I mean, she falls down.
	She doesn't minimize. She doesn't limp around saying, no, no, no, I'm fine.
	I'm good. I'm good. She's like, well, I fell.
	I got an owie. Right?
	Yeah, sure. She might even three days later say, it's still hurting, but I know it's not, right?
	So she's not a minimizer by any stretch of the imagination.
	She's a fully expressed person, right?
	Right. Sure. So...
	If we assume, let's just for the sake of argument, let's assume that minimization is not natural.
	It's not your natural response to a massive disaster like no mom.
	So how did you learn that it needed to be minimized?
	In other words, this is another way of asking, whose needs were you serving when you minimized it?
	I'm not sure exactly how I learned it.
	If I'm going to think into it, there might be an extended silence because it's going to take me a moment.
	Well, it's usually easier to figure out than that.
	Let's imagine that we passed your dad in on this call and you were going to talk to him about how hard it was for you to grow up without a mom.
	What would he say? He would probably say...
	He would talk about how he did the best he could and how...
	He always worked to try to be there for me, kind of thing.
	Right, so he would make it about him, not you.
	Right. That's not good, right?
	That's not good listening. Sure.
	I'm not trying to say a dad's a bad guy or anything, but in a specific instance, if my daughter came to me and said something's really upsetting me, and I justified it and explained it away and told her about how I felt about it, That would not be good listening on my part,
	right? Sure. So, if your dad didn't want to process it, didn't want to talk about it, that would be my guess as to where you learned that you had to minimize it and pretend you were fine.
	And this is a depressingly common occurrence in divorce.
	Even divorces which are less catastrophic Than this one.
	People say, oh, my kids are resilient.
	My kids are fine. They're doing great.
	And I just think that's not true.
	I think the kids are like, hey, I think I see what's happening here.
	There's a big smoking crater in the family photo where mom was.
	And now my dad's asking if I'm doing okay.
	I am. I'm fine.
	I'm good. I'm great.
	I got no problems. Right.
	Of course they're going to say that.
	because somebody who's much less work than a child, who the parent chose when they didn't choose the nature of the child, somebody has just been kicked out of the house that the parent was way more attached to and was far easier to negotiate with.
	So of course the kids are going to minimize themselves into a tiny little inconspicuous black hole of accommodation because they get what just happened and they don't want it to happen again with them.
	Sure, that makes sense.
	It's a pretty bad decision.
	Look, I'm happy you're alive, and I assume you're happy you're alive, so it's good that you're alive.
	But what I'm saying is that it is not a very good decision to have children two years or so before somebody decides that they don't want to be a mom or even a wife or even anywhere near the kid, right?
	For sure. That is not a good decision.
	And that's the kind of thing that kids will need years of conversation to process.
	And if you weren't encouraged or allowed to talk about it at all, then I think that's not good.
	Agree. And it means that you then have a habit of not opening your heart to people.
	Would that be a fair thing to say?
	I don't think so.
	I don't think that's accurate. Well, you're not opening your heart to me, and I'm not complaining or criticizing about it.
	I'm simply pointing it out that your answers are very unemotional and abstract, right?
	Hmm. I don't feel that way.
	Well, you did earlier because you said that it was a very abstract answer that you gave.
	And it's not a criticism. I hope you understand that.
	I'm not criticizing you at all.
	I mean, I think I completely understand it.
	I also could be completely wrong.
	I'm just telling you my experience, right?
	I'm certainly not telling you how you feel or don't feel.
	I'm just telling you what my experience is.
	We're talking about some very powerful stuff here.
	And, you know, you're reading off the grocery list.
	I don't feel like it's accurate.
	Myself. I forget what we were talking about, about the abstract thing.
	But... Well, what do you feel at the moment?
	We could assume it's one way or the other.
	I'm fine with exploring.
	And I appreciate you bringing this up, of course.
	Like, I'm just trying to figure out, and this is all just amateur theory nonsense, right?
	So, as usual, hit the eject button if it doesn't work.
	But I'm trying to figure out why people would have a hard time connecting with you to the point where they would just vanish.
	And... I think that when you come in contact with somebody's real, genuine, true, unadorned, unabashed self, then people either attach or they recoil.
	You know, people recoil from honesty or they attach, but they're never indifferent to it, right?
	I mean, I've had people who love my show, I've had people who hate my show, but I've never had anyone who's indifferent to it.
	Go on. So, if you can't forge the kind of attachments with women that you'd like romantically, there are a couple of, the way I see it, there are a couple of logical possibilities.
	Either you're choosing the right women and you are, quote, driving them away, which I don't believe.
	Or you're choosing the wrong women and fulfilling a historical pattern.
	And you're choosing those women in order to fulfill a historical pattern.
	Now, let me tell you the ways that you can differentiate these things, in my opinion.
	The reason that I don't think you're choosing the right women and driving them away is that the right woman wouldn't just vanish.
	Like, a good, virtuous woman, if she was attracted to you and then felt some distance, would say, hey, I feel attracted to you, but I also feel some distance.
	And it happened at this point, and this is what I'm thinking and feeling, and, you know, let's talk about it.
	Right, yeah. Would that be a fantasy?
	Yeah, it's not just a fantasy.
	I mean, these women do exist. I'm not saying they're everywhere, but they do exist, right?
	Sure, that's just a part of me that comes up.
	But sure, yeah. There's a little cynical about that.
	Right, yeah. Maybe a Sasquatch too, but I'm never going to marry him.
	Right, okay. Well, okay, but that would be the right kind of woman, right?
	Sure. And you're not having those conversations, so it's likely that you're not choosing the right kind of woman and driving her away.
	Does that make sense? That does.
	So let's go with the other assumption that you're choosing women who are inevitably going to vanish because you're used to managing feelings of women vanishing and that's your sense of control and efficacy and power.
	This has come straight out of real-time relationships, the story of Simon the Boxer.
	You can find it on the PDF at freedomainradio.com forward slash free if you've listened to it or read it.
	If not, you can go and find it there.
	So that means that you have spent a lifetime managing The vulnerability, the fear, the anxiety, the anger, I would imagine the rage, since it happened so early, of female vanishing.
	And so you are drawn to recreate female vanishing because that's the only thing.
	Managing the feelings that comes out of that event is what you know of as control, as management, as efficacy, as competence.
	A guy who's walking 45 degrees to the wind, because the wind is so strong, he's walking 45 degrees, what happens when the wind stops?
	He falls over, right?
	And so for most of us, if we're so used to walking at 45 degrees, we can't walk except at 45 degrees, which means we've got to constantly find an opposing wind just so we stay up.
	So if you've got a history of managing female vanishing, then it seems to me likely, if it's unconscious, that you're going to keep seeking out female vanishing.
	I feel resistance to that notion.
	Go, go, tell me. I mean, hey, it's just a nonsense theory, so tell me where I'm wrong.
	I feel like over, we'll say, the past eight years or so, I've had various times where I meet women and maybe we date or whatever it is.
	And I feel like there's been a progression where, say eight years ago, I would have been, we'll call it naive.
	And maybe not naive, but maybe more along the lines of what you're talking about right now.
	And then over time, I feel like I've become a lot more Conscious of these things going on.
	So it's like when I meet a woman and when this does happen, I don't...
	It's like I still feel those feelings, those old feelings, those childhood feelings.
	But I can still...
	I know in my head and I can say, oh, okay, well, this obviously isn't the person.
	Because if it was, they would...
	They would be really curious in this situation, or they would say, you know what?
	You said this the other day, and I was feeling this, and let's talk about it, or whatever it is.
	And I feel like over time, I've really become a lot more, I'll say, picky in that regard.
	Like, when I notice that, I'm like, oh, well, this isn't working out, and this is not going to be what I want in the long run.
	Yes, I understand that. So, um...
	What are you saying? Yeah, I understand that, but do you remember what you said when I said what the right woman would be doing?
	Uh-huh. What did you say?
	She'd want to talk about it.
	You said, yeah, that's the fantasy.
	Right, the cynical part of me that came up.
	Yeah, but that's important, right?
	What about it? It's important.
	Sure, sure.
	Go on. Sure, that part of me has existed for a long time.
	I feel like it's a little bit lower down than it used to be.
	It's not as significant.
	It doesn't come up as much.
	I have a more optimistic part of me that says, well, these people do exist, and You're interested in a certain type, and there's a certain amount of work you've got to do to do that, and that's okay. And you're not going to meet everyone.
	Sorry, I don't know what that means, but let me ask you this.
	Are you angry at what your mom did?
	That's interesting.
	There's two sides of that.
	One side is, yes, I'm angry because I think that's I think that's something really crappy to do in general, and I'm really against the idea of having kids when you're not even ready yourself to even have a relationship, much less kids. But the other side doesn't really feel much like I don't care.
	It just doesn't affect me.
	Right. I'm going to give you a little speech, because I don't think we're going to emotionally connect, but I'll give you a little speech here.
	And then I move on to the next caller and I first of all just want to really express it was a completely shitty thing that your mom did and it was not a good thing that your dad did in not helping you process it.
	To be abandoned by your mom Is really terrible.
	Is really, really terrible.
	I think it's worse than being abandoned by your dad.
	I'm going to be really old school about this.
	Look, I was abandoned by my dad.
	So I get that.
	That was really bad.
	But I think it's even worse with the mom.
	I mean, she bore you. She breastfed you.
	I mean, there's got to be some kind of bond there that's pretty hellacious to break.
	And if it didn't exist to begin with, that's pretty monstrous.
	So I think that's just...
	Horrible. And I think it's horrible that you weren't encouraged and facilitated into talking about it.
	And if your dad couldn't do it, at least get you to a good therapist who could help you with it or whatever.
	So I think that's really bad all around, and I just wanted to express just massive, incredible, and deep sympathy.
	The reason I asked if you were angry at your mom is that if you're not angry with your mom, Then it's because you have taken away her responsibility in the matter.
	And I get a sense of that when you say, well, she wasn't ready.
	I definitely don't feel that way, though.
	But I don't want to sit here and antagonize you.
	No, don't worry about antagonizing me.
	I'm fine. I'm just telling you what I'm experiencing.
	And so I'll tell you what I think, and maybe it's useful, maybe it's not.
	Okay. If you don't get angry at your mom very clearly within your own mind for this terrible abandonment, to have a child and to abandon a child is about the most heinous thing that somebody can do outside of murder and other forms of incredibly violent assault.
	Abandonment is unbelievably wretched.
	It's an unbelievably wretched thing to do as a parent.
	If you're not angry, it's because you have taken away her responsibility at some level in your mind.
	And what happens then is responsibility is a big switch.
	It's a big dial. If you dial it down for your mom, you dial it down for everybody.
	And what that means is, I think, is that you end up saying, well, women just can't be trusted.
	You know, not my mom in particular.
	The way that you protect your mom in particular is you extrapolate her traits to all women.
	I'd have to stop you there.
	I don't think that applies to me at all.
	All right. Well, then I won't give you the rest of the speech, and since nothing that I'm saying is applying to you, I'm afraid I'll have to move on to the caller, and I do apologize for so many swings and a miss.
	I really apologize for that.
	I wish you the very best. I appreciate it.
	Thanks, man. Thank you very much. Take care.
	All right. Take care. All right.
	And, James, if we could do the final caller, that would be excellent.
	All right. Well, we have two left on the line.
	Do you want to try to grab them both?
	Yeah, let's dial them up. What time is it?
	Morgan, you're up.
	Yep, I'm here. Can you hear me?
	I can. All right.
	Hi, Steph. How are you doing? I'm very well.
	How are you doing, my friend? I'm good.
	All right. So I've got another example, not that we need one because we've got so many, but of a reason that the state is unethical, which I don't think has been touched on specifically by you, but maybe it has, maybe it hasn't.
	It's similar but distinct to the calculation problem.
	And, as a caveat, you know, I'm getting less and less interested in talking about the state.
	It's an important thing, but, you know, the personal issues and the childhood issues are far more important.
	But this is kind of what I'm good at, and I don't plan on having children, so here goes my thing, and take it for what it's worth.
	So, the citizens of the government are expected to yield to the alleged expertise of individuals in government.
	For example, the Fed is given the authority to determine our economic policies.
	I see that this goes against the basic principles of our self-ownership.
	Our ability to avoid harm requires that we maintain our ability to follow our own discernment.
	Which would be completely contrary to being forced to accept others' discernments at their word, basically.
	If we are not experts in a subject such as economics, then we cannot truly know that anyone else is an expert, since we don't understand their arguments.
	If we are experts ourselves, then there is no justification for others to have an authority over our decisions in that sphere.
	For all intents and purposes, there's no difference from expecting us to trust a randomly selected person.
	I see this as distinct from the calculation problem, which remains even with the assumption that those in charge are actually experts.
	That's all I got. Yeah, no, I think that's a great argument.
	I have a few challenges with that argument.
	And so if I understand this correctly, and I'm just reframing this, not because you didn't do a great job, just to make sure we're on the same page.
	So we say, look, I'm not an expert on economics, but I can choose Barack Obama, who can choose experts on economics, and therefore good decisions will be made.
	And Barack Obama's going to say, well, I want to subsidize this, and I want to print money for that, and I want to cut taxes or raise taxes here, there, or everywhere.
	And I may not understand what all of that means economically, but he's getting good advice from economists who've got Pulitzers and Nobels, whatever the hell they get, Nobels, I think.
	And therefore, that's good enough for me, is that...
	That's sort of the argument? Right, yeah, that's sort of what we're...
	Yeah, but if you don't know anything about economics, how do you know who's a good economist and a bad economist, right?
	Exactly, yeah, that's my point.
	Now, the counter-argument to that is something like this.
	Look, I'm not a doctor, but that doesn't mean I can't choose a good doctor.
	Right. Like, I don't have to get a degree in being a doctor.
	I don't have to get an MD in order to choose a doctor.
	I can just choose a doctor... And he's a good doctor, and if he's bad, I'll choose another doctor after a while, which is sort of like politics.
	So tell me how you'd respond to that.
	I think there are good responses to that, but I'm happy to let you respond to that.
	Yeah, no. I mean, that's completely appropriate, and I thought of that.
	But when you go to a doctor, you can get referrals, you can get testimonials from other patients and whatnot.
	We don't have that choice with the government.
	So, of course, we have to defer.
	If we want the benefits of certain experts, then we have to defer to their expertise.
	But having a choice is essential for the self-ownership, I think.
	Thing that would follow from my argument, which I don't really like.
	I'm a student of physics, so there are a lot of people who, whenever the LHC comes online, they panic and they're like, oh my god, it's going to create black holes and strange matter.
	And I want to say, it's not going to do anything, just trust me.
	Well, not that I'm working at the LHC, but trust them, they're physicists.
	So my argument would kind of I imply that the physicists don't have the right to do these experiments because not everyone knows.
	Well, yeah, look, the way that I would counter the physics argument, tell me if this makes sense to you, the way that I would counter the argument from physics is that they don't want to die.
	You know, let's assume that the physicists are not engaged in a mass genocide-suicide pact to destroy the entire planet by turning it into a black hole.
	You know, that's, you know, so we assume that they want to live and that they're the closest and they're going to be harmed first and so that is, I think, a reasonable, you know, that's a reasonable assumption.
	The other thing too is that I would say that I would not trust a doctor Who was being paid by only one drug company to be objective about the drugs being used.
	This is one of the many problems with psychiatry and these pseudo-meds called SSRIs and other kinds of meds.
	Expertise gets washed out by conflict of interest, right?
	Right. I cannot trust, you know, if my dentist is getting paid an extra thousand dollars every time she drills my tooth, I am not going to be believing that she's going to look into every cheaper alternative for me than drilling my tooth.
	Right? So where there's a conflict of interest, where there are unjust incentives, expertise actually becomes dangerous, not positive.
	Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely.
	So if space aliens were saying to all the physics guys, if you destroy the planet, we will take you to the planet of infinite cheerleaders and, you know, whatever.
	But if there's a conflict of interest, then expertise actually becomes dangerous.
	And the less visible that conflict of interest is, the more dangerous that expertise becomes.
	Does that make sense? Because they then get trust with that objectivity.
	And so the problem with politicians, of course, is that There are so many incentives that skew their decision-making that we can't trust any of their expertise or any of the experts who advise them.
	So the expert who says you should increase government spending is the expert who is giving the most benefit to the politician.
	And the expert who says you must cut government spending and curtail public sector contracts is basically causing the politician to have horrible fights, probably be sued, and definitely not get re-elected, right?
	And so the self-interest of the politician is going to cause him to listen to the person who says, expand government power, and to reject the person who doesn't.
	And that's the incentives built into the system, and so the expertise becomes more dangerous because of the conflict of interest.
	And that's not specific to politicians, but it's most dangerously manifested in the realm of politics.
	Right. So that would be my response.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah, it does. This argument that I came up with came out of me talking about economics and the depression, which is something that I'm pretty interested in, because economics is so central.
	I consider our economy as our eyes.
	signals that we're getting, you know, intervene in the economy with tariffs and subsidies and bailouts and whatnot, then it's like, it's like you're driving, but you hold in front of you a painted picture or a video of some other road completely, and you drive based on that information.
	You know, it just doesn't work.
	So I see economics as really central.
	So, you know, I think this argument applies because people say, you know, you got to trust the Fed or whatever to, you know, regulate our monetary and fiscal policies when, you know, how do I know I should trust the Fed when I don't understand the arguments?
	You know, what you said about the vested interest is...
	It kind of supersedes what I'm saying.
	Certainly, why should I trust the Fed when I don't understand it?
	You could argue against that, but I think why should I trust the Fed when right before every election they start printing more money?
	When there are demonstrated statistical relationships between the Federal Reserve policies and that which is immediately beneficial to those in power.
	Which is a clear conflict of interest and a clear manifestation that that conflict of interest is regularly warping and distorting the decisions of the Fed.
	Why should I trust them when they demonstratedly pursue the interests of those and support the interests of those in power rather than the good of the majority?
	I mean, that's not even why should I trust them.
	That's why I can't trust them.
	Yeah, you're right. And that's much more important than what I've been talking about.
	And those kind of things are things that everyone should be able to understand.
	I don't know if they do, but they should be able to.
	Yeah, the other argument with the doctor as well is I know if I'm getting better or worse.
	I don't know if the economy as a whole is getting better or worse years down the road, right?
	I mean, I know if I'm getting better or worse.
	I can track that.
	And I can also track that they're, you know, not here in Canada because it's illegal to get information about your doctor.
	So that's, you know, objective.
	But in the States, of course, you can test whether or not your doctor...
	You know, it's illegal to not put the number of calories on a Big Mac, but I can't find out how good my doctor is at curing X, Y, or Z that I've got, what his success rate is.
	I mean, I can't be given that information.
	I mean, God, I mean, I'm only a 46-, 45-year-old adult.
	I can't be trusted with facts about whether I'm going to be well cured or not by my doctor.
	Good heavens, no. That's why I need to follow an exercise.
	Speaking of Big Macs, did you see that kids under 18 can't buy Big Macs anymore?
	What? Yeah, in the UK. But anyway.
	You're kidding me. No, I'm not kidding you.
	I want to let you get on to your next caller.
	Yeah, yeah. That's so funny.
	So we can send those kids to war.
	We can run up national debts in their name.
	We can educate them really badly.
	But God forbid they get four or four grams of fat in a row.
	Anyway, it's just too much for words.
	I know, right? All right. Thanks, Steph. Thanks.
	Great, great, great comments.
	And I do find that topic fascinating.
	Please feel free to call in anytime.
	And it would be great maybe to have a conversation about...
	How quantum mechanics has nothing to do with philosophy.
	Anyway, we'll talk about that another time.
	Yeah, anytime. I can teach you quantum mechanics if you're like, bye.
	Please do. Well, listen, thanks again, James.
	Thanks for some callers. Really, really great questions and comments, as always.
	And I must say, I'm quite addicted to the Blue Sky Sunday show, so I will try and figure out how to get a little bit more juice for the old notebook.
	And have yourselves a wonderful, wonderful week, everyone.
	Freedomainradio.com forward slash donate.
	Always, I am...
	With the bowl and the shackles and the begging voice.
	So if you can drop by and donate, I would hugely appreciate it.
	And I've got some good listener calls coming up this week.
	A couple of interviews coming up. And it looks like I will be going to Porkfest this year.
	And I have such a great idea for a speech, I don't think I can even share it with you.
	It's completely unlike anything I've done before.
	I think it will go viral.
	It will be incredibly memorable.
	And it's entirely audience-driven.
	So I hope that you will be able to come out to the Porcupine Freedom Festival.
	Do we have a website?
	I'm sure we have a website for it.
	Let me just find it. Do not mistype Porkfest into your Internet Explorer window or mistype Porkfest into your Internet Explorer window.
	It can be quite exciting either way.
	Yeah, so you can go to porkfest.com to check it out.
	P-O-R-C-Fest.
	P-O-R-C-Fest.com.
	And I'll be going down there with La Famille.
	So if you would like to meet them all, I think it would be great.
	They'd certainly like to meet all the listeners.
	And I'll be doing a whole bunch of speaking and roasting and toasting.
	And I hope that people will be able to join us at porkfest.com.
	When is it this year?
	I know it's June.
	Let me just check. June 18th through the 24th.
	June 18th through the 24th.
	It's a real blast.
	You know, you might have to rough it just a little bit or drive in, but it's...
	I've got great music, great dance parties, and lots of fantastic personalities.
	I mean, the guys from Free Talk Live were always there.
	Mark Stevens is there, and lots of other great people.
	James Cox will be there.
	Adam Kokesh will be there, and...
	Once again, I have no doubt that I will be able to beat him down in an arm wrestle using only two arms, one legs, and three other guys.
	No, four. Four other guys.
	So I feel that's about an even contest.
	And I hope that you will be able to join us.
	It's a real blast. Incredibly memorable.
	And you owe it to yourself to see what a free community looks like when totally drunk.
	So, have a great week, everyone, and I will talk to you soon.

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