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April 15, 2012 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:11:10

2125 Ethics, Logic and Social Control - The Freedomain Radio Sunday Show, April 15, 2012

The Freedomain Radio Sunday Show, 15 April 2012. An intense argument about universally preferable behavior, the rational proof of secular ethics - the long-term effects of managing dysfunctional parents, and Stefan Molyneux takes on a Jehovah's Witness!

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	Hello, everybody. It's Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Aid Radio.
	15th of April.
	Beware the ides of 30 days past March.
	I hope you're doing well. It's the Freedom Aid Radio Sunday Show.
	I had a great interview. Actually, two interviews yesterday.
	One with Australia.
	Not even just a person in Australia.
	It was the entire continent. And I could not hear it over the sizzling.
	I wasn't sure if the sizzling was actually shrimp on the babby or just...
	The burnt, sun-baked farmer's tan arms of your average Australian.
	But it was a lot of fun. Oh, you know what?
	Somebody just said 31 in the chat window.
	I'm actually fishing for nitpickers.
	That is my new mission in life.
	I'm going to make tiny little factual errors and wait till people have their correctogasm by telling me.
	Right? Inconsequential errors need to be corrected.
	So, good! I bagged quite a number in that very first round.
	Oh, it's almost too easy.
	It really is like throwing...
	It's like shooting fish in a barrel with a bunker buster.
	So, I had a thought.
	You know, I read this very interesting article the other day in a Maclean's magazine.
	Did you know that when you give sweet treats to monkeys...
	This is very interesting. When you give sweet treats to monkeys...
	The monkeys who are at the top of the hierarchy, the dominant monkeys, do not overeat.
	They do not overeat.
	But the monkeys who are further down, the fat ass of the social pyramid, so to speak, the base, the bottom, the white part, they gorge and get fat.
	Isn't that interesting? The theory is that being at the top of the social hierarchy gives you enough dopamine and other happy go-go joy juices in your system that you don't have the same addiction to food.
	So, I've been puzzling for many years over the issue of rising obesity rates throughout the world, of course, particularly in the US and Canada.
	Wouldn't it be interesting If we were to look at the health of human beings relative to their encagement, relative to their enslavement.
	In other words, as state grows, as our personal liberties decrease, as the growing storm clouds of fiscal disasters and social disasters and ecological disasters driven by bad policies rise around us like a slowly twisting up to the ass of God cyclone from hell, That we are overeating because we are relatively powerless, and we get more and more powerless every day.
	In other words, as the top of the social hierarchy gets bigger and more obvious, we gorge, we dissociate, we watch TV, we don't exercise, we become depressed.
	What happens with animals in cages?
	Well, Desmond Morris' book, The Human Zoo, which I read, oh my god, 30 years ago?
	I don't know, a long time ago. It was very interesting about this.
	That animals in zoos exhibit very deviant behavior.
	Now he, his argument was that a city was like a human zoo producing deviant behavior.
	But my argument would be that statism is the human zoo, which produces deviant behavior.
	Wouldn't it be fascinating? Wouldn't it be interesting?
	Wouldn't it be gripping? Because when you have animals, they need additional drugs.
	When they're in an artificially constrained environment, which really is statism, they need drugs.
	Well, so do we! We need massive amounts of drugs just to keep us relatively functional and productive.
	Everything from, you know, caffeine to make you productive, to alcohol to help you forget how enslaved you are, to psychotropic drugs to massive amounts of medication.
	I watched an interesting documentary called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead by an Australian filmmaker who lost like 100 pounds on some all-juiced diet.
	And, you know, he pointed out the massive expense, you know, this guy's heart attack was like $55,000, but to keep him on a juice diet for a month was like 400 bucks.
	And of course, you know, that's all he's, you know, that's his whole grocery bill for the month.
	Juice and fruit all juiced up.
	Sorry, vegetables and fruit all juiced up.
	So isn't it interesting? So I've really begun to look at things from this angle of what does the human animal look like, not only in increasing captivity, but in an increasing awareness of captivity.
	So, you know, one of the things that I get a lot of questions about is, you know, my Bohemian Rhapsody video, the story of your enslavement, which I think is around a million views now.
	At the end of it, I say, wake up.
	To see the farm is to leave it.
	And people say, dude, what does that mean?
	You're not giving me an answer.
	And, I mean, I don't know if it's any big secret, but the answer is quite simple, which is that to see the farm is to leave it means that once you see that you live in a human farm, that you're livestock for the ruling classes, then you leave the farm.
	In other words, you wake up to the fact that it's actually a prison.
	Once you wake up to a farm, then you recognize that a farm for animals is a prison.
	It's only a farm to the masters, to the animals that is a prison.
	You leave the farm.
	You're still there, but mentally you leave it because you recognize it for what it is.
	So, I wanted to just have a quick shout out to the Peter Schiff crew for daring, risking, taking the extraordinarily reckless step of allowing me to helm a microphone for two hours.
	I really appreciate it.
	Thank you for the help in getting ready and the support during the show.
	I really enjoyed it. And it was a lot of fun.
	And thank you to the listeners who called into that show.
	It was really enjoyable. And thank you to all the people who said, good job.
	I had a good time. I thought I did a good job.
	So that was a new one for me.
	But I really, really enjoyed it.
	So I hope that you will check him out at Schiff Radio.
	And that's it for my introduction.
	Let's move on to the brains of the outfits, aka the massive, diametric, multidimensional, pandimensional genius brilliance, Aurora Northern Lights scintillating brain mass called the listenership.
	I'm all ears.
	All right. Well, just one note of business.
	In a couple of weeks, I may or may not be able to host the call.
	I will let you know when I know for sure, but just to sort of give you a heads up.
	Thank you. So, first on line, we have phone caller, Mr.
	C. Hello.
	Hey, how's it going, Fred? All right.
	I was looking at UPB lately, and I... We're trying to figure out what the structure, like the proof was or whatever.
	Sorry, the structure of what?
	Of how UPB works, like basically like the proof of rape or murder or whatever, that it's immoral.
	Right. Or whatever like that. And basically like what I noticed was it was like, I don't know if it was explicitly stated or whatever, I don't remember right now, but basically it's based on ownership of the body, right?
	I own my body, right?
	So you can't murder me or rape me or whatever, right?
	No, that's not actually the proof.
	I don't think it follows from self-ownership that someone can't murder you.
	Because that's going from an is to an ought, which is a real challenge in any ethical philosophy.
	So the proof is not, well, you own yourself and therefore, right?
	So if I say you own your motorcycle, that's a statement of fact.
	But then if I say, well, I could set up an ethical theory which says, well, I hotwired your motorcycle and drove it away.
	That's an investment of labor.
	Now I own your motorcycle and that's a fine ethical theory.
	And there could be a kind of consistency in that.
	So, you know, I wouldn't put it in that way.
	Okay, could you go over briefly, like, why then it would be invalid to do that?
	Oh, why theft is wrong?
	Oh no, like more crimes against the body than external objects.
	Okay, let's go with rape, right?
	So, the traditional formulation in a system of ethics is to say, rape is wrong, rape is evil, rape is immoral.
	And that's kind of confusing in the UPB world because it means so many things to so many people.
	Some people mean to say that it's unproductive to society as a whole.
	Some people mean to say that it goes against what Jesus says.
	You know, that kind of stuff.
	So the way that we reformulate the statement, rape is wrong, to be UPB compliant is to say any theory which advocates rape as universally preferable behavior Is an incorrect theory.
	It is an invalid theory.
	The theory is wrong from a logic standpoint.
	You know, logically that is wrong, that is incorrect.
	And so rape cannot be universally preferable behavior.
	The very brief proof is this.
	So two guys in a room, can they rape each other at the same time?
	Can they both fulfill rape is universally preferable behavior at the same time?
	I guess they could both try, but they wouldn't necessarily fulfill it.
	Well, even if they, and let's not try to penetrate that mental image too much, but even if they could somehow manage to do it in some god-awful gun-to-the-head 69 monstrosity, if they could find some way to do it, they would still not be fulfilling that if they could find some way to do it, they would still not be fulfilling That rape is universally preferable behavior.
	Rape, logically, cannot be universally preferable behavior.
	Because rape is only rape if it is not wanted.
	If the sexual penetration is not wanted, that is when it becomes rape.
	So to say rape is universally preferable is to say this action must be both universally preferred and universally opposed at the same time, which is a logical impossibility, right?
	Okay. Does that make sense?
	Somewhat, yes. Okay, tell me what Pat doesn't.
	Well, there's the idea that...
	I guess there were people on the board that were, like, amoralists and things like that.
	So I guess the concept of universal preferability would be in question.
	And then also, like, why are those the only categories?
	Like, you list five categories in your book.
	But the question, I guess, would be why there would be only five.
	Well, I mean, I don't want to just really go over the book.
	I mean, if you have specific questions about the book, right?
	So, I mean, things are, when you have behavior, the reason I put it into five categories is because there are things which are universally preferable, there are things which are aesthetically preferable, and there are things which are neutral.
	And then there's the two negative categories, which are mirror images of behavior.
	The two positive categories.
	So universally preferred is a category, and the opposite of that is Universally banned, or universally not preferred, or universally opposed, or something like that.
	And the same thing with aesthetically preferred means it's also aesthetically opposed.
	So, an example of universally preferred would be respect for property rights.
	And an example of aesthetically preferred would be be on time.
	Keep your word, even if it's like non-contractual, keep your promises preferred, but not enforceable.
	And neutral is, I am walking down the stairs.
	Is that morally good or bad?
	Well, no. It's got no moral content whatsoever.
	It doesn't fall into any kind of preferred statement.
	It's a mere description of a neutral action.
	And so wherever you have a positive, you have the mirror image negative category.
	So if it is preferable to keep your promise to someone, Then it is not preferable to break your promise.
	And if it is preferable to respect property rights, it is universally not preferable to violate property rights.
	So those are the five categories.
	I can't think of any other categories.
	You know, why are there five?
	Because I couldn't think of more.
	And I don't think there are more. But I mean, I'm certainly open to arguments of the contrary.
	Okay, then I guess the thing would be like that's based on the idea that universal preferability is...
	I guess a very important concept, if that makes sense.
	We should pay attention to that rather than, I don't know, pragmatism or something like that.
	I'm not sure what you mean by that.
	Look, universal preferability is not a very important concept.
	It is the whole thing.
	If there's no universal preferability...
	Then there's no such thing as language.
	There's no such thing as empirical evidence.
	There's no such thing as science.
	There's no such thing as logic.
	There's no such thing as truth.
	There's no such thing as virtue.
	There's no such thing as arguments.
	There's nothing. There's a void of human interaction.
	All human interactions rely upon Universally preferable behavior.
	Even if you just look at, you know, correct grammar and syntax and using the same language that your debating partner is using and so on.
	Without, you know, you think of the intellectual world without UPB and you can take a snapshot of the universe before God made light.
	It is a pure void of nothingness.
	And this is why anybody who makes any kind of debate or argument or appeals to truth or consistency or anything or empiricism They're implicitly relying upon UPB. UPB is the physics of human interaction.
	If there's no UPB, then there's nothing.
	I understand that, but I mean, I could also say, well, if we look at pragmatic behavior, like language is pragmatic, and it's pragmatic in general to avoid psychologically traumatizing people and things like that.
	Sorry, why is it pragmatic to avoid psychologically damaging people?
	It's pragmatic for me, for instance.
	Like, when I was psychologically traumatized and things like that, it didn't work out too well for me.
	I agree with that, but that is a statement of you, right?
	So, I mean, is it beneficial for the Pope, for instance, to support telling children about hell and demons and that Christ died for their sins and so on?
	Well, hold on. I understand the question, but hold on a minute.
	You were saying that you need universal preferable behavior and stuff like that, right?
	Without that, you don't have this and this and this.
	But if I've never heard of universally preferable behavior, and I say, oh, pragmatic behavior, like maybe I can't say, oh, it's immoral for somebody to do something, but I can say, let's use language, let's do all this.
	So you're saying, without universally preferable behavior, you don't have this and this.
	But I say, no, we don't need universally...
	I mean, I'm not saying that, I don't know yet, but I mean...
	I could say, like, no, we just need pragmatic behavior.
	And, you know, maybe we don't have morality, but we have all this language and logic and all that, right?
	Oh, logic. Okay, wait, wait.
	Sorry. Fantastic. So somebody is saying that we should use logic.
	No, no, not that we should, but it is pragmatic.
	Wait, so is there a...
	If you go off a religion, like, that's not logical, but you can get things like don't murder people and, you know, things like that.
	But logic is much more effective, right?
	So you can say from the standpoint of pragmatic effectiveness or whatever, like you want to get this, go for logic or whatever, right?
	And I mean, again, this isn't my position.
	I'm just devil's advocate here.
	Sure. But as soon as somebody says logic, then they're UPP, right?
	Logic is UPP. Yeah, but it's also pragmatic.
	Look, I'm not saying that logic is not pragmatic.
	Of course it is. Of course it is.
	But it is UPB, first and foremost.
	I mean, it's pragmatic because it is UPB. You seem to be going from there are instances of UPB to UPB gives us morality, which is a bit of a leap.
	Like, okay, you have instances of that, but why should that bind anybody if that makes sense?
	Yeah, see, we're jumping all over the place here.
	I don't know which way is up.
	I came up with a proof for why rape is – theories which support rape are logically inconsistent and therefore incorrect.
	And you didn't find a flaw with that, so we have to at least provisionally until you do find a flaw with that.
	And it's impossible to find a flaw with that.
	Let me help you. Let me finish. Let me finish.
	If we keep interrupting each other, we're never going to get anywhere.
	So, if people can find a flaw in the argument that rape cannot be UPB, if they can't find that, then they have to accept that any theory which supports rape is logically incorrect, and that therefore it is the wrong position.
	I have a hypothetical flaw then.
	Let's go away from rape for a minute and say theft.
	Like you have this argument against theft that says basically the person who is stealing He wants to make it his property, so he wants property rights, but he wants to deny it to, say, somebody else, right?
	There's two. I mean, that's an example of hypocrisy, but that's not the fundamental UPB argument against theft.
	The fundamental UPB argument against theft is that if two guys in a room both want to steal a cell phone from each other, they can't.
	Because if stealing is universally preferable behavior, then we should want to have things stolen from us.
	But if we want to have something stolen from us, then it is not stealing.
	It is only stealing if we don't want it to be stolen from us.
	So any theory which says stealing is UPB immediately contradicts itself and can't be sustained.
	Yeah, but you were saying earlier that I wasn't proposing any kind of contradictions or holes in the theory against rape or whatever, right?
	But I was asking about why I should care about universal preparability.
	That was the basic question. Your arguments are all based on that.
	That's a fundamental foundation of the argument, right?
	I'm questioning that foundation, so therefore I was actually questioning the...
	No, look, if I say 2 and 2 is 4, and you say, why should I care about math?
	That is not making an opposition to the argument.
	That is not opposing the argument.
	That's just saying, why should I care?
	Why should I care is not a moral argument.
	It's not a philosophical argument.
	It's not a rational argument. It's not an opposition.
	To be clearer, it would be more like, why is this...
	How does this assist your proof, if that makes sense?
	How does this give you any validity in the results?
	I'm sorry. If I say...
	Let's say...
	Let's say the argument is 2 and 2 equal 4.
	So what would you say to that?
	Yeah, that's correct. So how would you find a flaw in 2 and 2 make 4?
	Oh, I wouldn't. That's correct.
	Well, but rape is not UPB. It's as solid as 2 and 2 make 4.
	No, I don't think.
	That's what I'm questioning.
	You base it on the concept of universal preferability, but I'm wondering why that gives anything solidity.
	I'm really confused by this, so tell me what you mean by validity.
	Well, like, if I say, hey, you should use logic, and I can go through and I can show you why, you know, this syllogism is always valid if you fill it in consistently, or that syllogism is always valid.
	So, you know, this is great because, you know, you don't have to do so much work to figure out whether an argument is correct.
	You just see, are the premises correct?
	Did they use these syllogisms properly?
	Okay, great. So it saves you a lot of work or something like that.
	But why should I care about UPB? How does that help me to better get valid results?
	I still don't understand what the question is.
	Like if I say two and two make four and you say, well, why should I care about math?
	You don't have to care about math.
	You don't have to care about philosophy.
	You don't have to care about logical consistency.
	You don't have to care about ethics or UPB or...
	Sure, sure.
	But my thing is, if I say, I want to get correct conclusions about morality, I really want to, that's my goal.
	And I ask, how does this help me to reach that goal?
	Like, that's a bit different than saying, oh, I just don't care in general.
	Like, of course, you can't respond to that, but if my goal is to, like, figure out morality properly, right?
	And I say, why should I use universally preferable behavior?
	Why does it help me out at all?
	Like, I don't understand.
	I just proved... Look, listen.
	I just proved that rape and theft, and we could do murder in about 20 seconds, that they can't be UPB, that they have to be banned in a rational system of morality.
	You say, well, so I've just...
	Please stop interrupting me.
	Let me finish. Okay, you go ahead.
	I'll stop talking, and then I'll move on to another caller, because every time I start talking, you just start talking over me, which is really annoying.
	Well, I mean, the thing is...
	Maybe you don't understand what I'm trying to get out of the call, but that's fine.
	I might not be communicating it effectively, but when you go on and you don't understand what I'm saying, it's like I'm feeling frustrated, if that makes sense, because I'm not getting what I would like to get out of the call, if that makes sense.
	I understand. You say don't interrupt, but it's like...
	Okay, but if you keep going on like that, that's fine.
	I mean, you get a point out. Okay, well, explain it to me like I'm three years old.
	What is it that you want out of the call?
	Well, I'd like to understand, like, why is universally preferable behavior useful in figuring out morality?
	I just gave you an example of how we prove that rape and theft and murder and assault are immoral.
	And then you say, but how does that help me figure out morality?
	No, no, no, no. You gave me a proof, but I'm wondering if it's valid.
	Like, you're saying universally preferable behavior makes this valid, right?
	Is that what you're saying? No, logic makes it valid!
	Well, here's the thing.
	Like, I don't see that. Okay, then tell me where the logical flaw is in the argument.
	I'm sorry? Tell me where the logical flaw is in the argument, then.
	The flaw is that your argument is fundamentally based on universally preferable behavior, right?
	No, no, no. Forget UPB. Forget UPB. I made a rational argument that you cannot make theft the highest ideal of a moral system.
	Well, sure, but that's a lot different than saying don't do it, right?
	I mean, maybe it's not the highest ideal.
	I never said, look, but you've got to listen.
	I never said don't do it.
	I said that UPB tells us that theft, murder, rape, and assault cannot be universally preferable behavior.
	Okay, so they can't be the highest ideal.
	I got that. But I'm hoping for something that says that rape is wrong and it's proven, if that makes sense.
	Well, but if any moral theory which says that rape could ever be good or universally preferred behavior, if any theory, as I've said a million times, UPB only looks at theories.
	It can't judge actions.
	No problem. But then my question is, you were just representing universally preferable behavior as The ideal behavior to shoot for or whatever, right?
	And you're saying, well, this proof is that it can't be the ideal to shoot for.
	That's fine. I mean, computer programming isn't the ideal to shoot for, but it's all right to do it, right?
	So, I mean, if universally preferable behavior just tells us, hey, this isn't the ideal to shoot for, okay, I can go with that.
	Absolutely. But you see, by proving the contradictions in a theft-based theory of ethics, of course you have a proof of the positive, right?
	So if I say that stealing, that the violations of property rights are immoral, according to UPB, then of course, that's the shadow cast by that proposition or that proof, is that we must respect property rights.
	If I say rape is wrong, then we have to not rape.
	You can't go from, hey, this isn't the ideal to shoot for, everybody should go for this, to nobody should ever go for this.
	I mean, that's the logical negation, but there are a lot of other cases.
	It doesn't really matter.
	I mean, you know this.
	That goes along with, I mean, you stop through this, like the five categories and stuff like that.
	It doesn't have to be the exact opposite, right?
	So, if it's impossible to ever justify rape, you're saying then that we can't derive from that, that...
	I'm sorry, I'm... Sorry, go ahead.
	That's what I'm confused about.
	You were saying before it was like an ideal, right?
	Like, this is not the ideal we should choose for.
	Universally preferable behavior is the ideal, right?
	But now you're saying something else, right?
	I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean by ideal.
	Is it ideal to say that two and two make four?
	No, it's just true. It's just valid.
	No, no, no, no, no. I'm not bringing ideal into it.
	You said it earlier, like, it wouldn't be ideal to rape or something like that.
	Oh, look, I mean, that's just a colloquialism.
	I mean, I don't want to get stuck on the word.
	Sure, I understand that, but it was an attempt to help me to understand what you're saying, right?
	When you used the colloquialism, right?
	Okay, let's go more technical then, since that's going to seem to work for you.
	Okay, so... Theories which claim that rape is UPB are wrong.
	Okay. We accept that, right?
	I mean, it's logically impossible for rape to be UPB, because it has to be universally preferred and universally denied at the same time, which is a logical contradiction.
	So we're fine with that, right?
	Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say that it's universally, like, everybody has to prefer this, sure.
	I'm sorry? I'm not sure where you just went with that.
	See, every time I try and establish something, you keep moving the goalpost.
	Let's just do one thing at a time or we're never going to get anywhere, okay?
	Can we accept that rape can never be UPB? Well, the thing is, I just read what I understood the argument to be, and you said that I'm moving the goalpost.
	No, no, no, forget it. We can't keep moving.
	It's like trying to grab an oiled fish in a bucket full of oil.
	Can we accept? Look, we either do it this way or we don't do it, because we're not making any progress.
	And I know how to make progress in this, but you have to trust me, okay?
	No, you don't have to trust me, but I'm only going to have a conversation about this if you trust me.
	No, we don't have to trust you, right?
	That's supposed to be the thing.
	You make the proof.
	No, no. I didn't ask you to trust my conclusions.
	I asked you to trust the process, the series of questions that I'm asking.
	You don't have to trust any of my conclusions.
	Just trust the series of questions that I'm asking.
	We have to establish something before we move on.
	There's another process that I trust, and I think it's a pretty good process, is when somebody says something, you restate it in your own words, and they say, you're moving the goalpost.
	That means that I don't understand it, so I want to make sure that I understand it.
	But you're about to go and restate the thing that I don't understand and go on from there, and I don't understand how that can work.
	But look, if you don't understand that something cannot be both universally preferred and denied at the same time, then I can't help you because you don't know enough about logic.
	No, I understand that, but the thing is...
	Oh good, okay, fantastic, fantastic.
	Preferability to mean that everybody should prefer this.
	Is that correct? Is that a good definition?
	Is this a good restatement of UPB or am I really getting this off?
	No, it's not a good statement of UPB. UPB, I've never said, everyone should or everyone must.
	We're talking about theories, right?
	So we at least understand that rape, theft, murder and assault cannot be UPB. Any theory which proposes those as UPB is invalid, is incorrect, is self-contradictory.
	Well, here's the thing, like, if I don't understand what UPB means...
	No, no, this is a yes-no question.
	This part is a yes-no question.
	They're either valid or they're not, this proposition.
	Go over the proposition?
	Well, let's just do the rape point.
	Okay. Do we accept that rape can never be UPB? Well, if I don't know what UPB is, I don't know.
	Okay, I'm going to move on to the next caller because we're exactly where we started about half an hour ago.
	So, James, can we just move on to the next caller, please?
	Sure. Next up, we have Marcus P., Hello, Markus.
	How are you doing, my friend? I'm doing fine.
	It's my first call, actually.
	I'm a little nervous.
	First of all, I want to say that I want to thank you, actually, because listening to your podcast, I actually...
	I have decided to...
	I want to thank you, actually.
	I've decided to kind of...
	So I have a really...
	I have a kind of abusive family, so I've decided to kind of break off of them.
	So it has really helped me.
	I'm sorry to hear about the family.
	I'm so sorry, that's just terrible.
	Yeah, but I want to talk about actually...
	I've had a recurring dream that recently kind of changed really drastically so I want to talk about that maybe.
	So I have a grandmother actually who's actually kind of abusive really so I have had this dream that I thought about a lot that My grandmother actually tried to kill me with different weapons and I've had this like three times actually.
	And recently it started to change as in she didn't really want to kill me anymore but just wanted to attack me like beat me or something so that was a change and today actually the dream changed the way that She didn't want to attack me physically and I actually talked to her and gave her some arguments and blah blah blah and talked about my emotions and I felt really great about it.
	And I thought that some kind of a...
	like a progression or...
	Yeah, that is good.
	Or something better, yeah.
	Right. I can tell you why I think that might have happened, if that would be of use to you, if that's your question.
	Sure, sure. Well, and, you know, for the real expert on this, which I'm not, of course, you might want to check out Richard Schwartz and his Family Systems Therapy books, and he's been on this show as well.
	So, you know, the following is just amateur exposition time, so I hope it will be of some use.
	So, the grandmother who's in your dreams...
	Is obviously not the grandmother in real life.
	Like, she doesn't crawl into your ear and mime things out in the middle of the night, right?
	This is something that is in your mind, right?
	And when we are...
	So you say that your grandmother was abusive.
	So when we're in contact with abusive people, then we set up their images in our head.
	As a defense mechanism.
	In other words, if your grandmother, I don't know, if she screams at you for putting your cup on the table without a coaster, whatever, right?
	Then what happens is we internalize that so that the grandmother in her head screams at us first, and then we stop putting the coaster on the table, which keeps us safer from the real grandmother in the real world.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yeah. Now, if we can't reform these abusive relationships, if we can't, you know, hopefully we've been to therapy and all that, but if we can't fix them and we decide to dissociate from abusive people, then the part of our mind that is dedicated, that has become the grandmother, is released from the need to defend us.
	Okay. Does that make sense?
	Yeah. And therefore, she's happy and thankful.
	Because she was there to help you.
	And if you stop the war, she gets to leave the trench.
	She gets to come back to civilization.
	She gets to rejoin your inner pantheon, your inner group of characters.
	And she is released from defensive duty, and she's happy about that.
	She's relieved about that.
	She experiences that positively.
	And my guess would be that if you're not seeing your abusive grandmother, then your inner grandmother is very grateful for that.
	Does that make any sense at all? Yeah, sure, of course, yeah.
	Certainly. Yeah.
	Actually, my grandmother is a smaller part of the abuse in my family, but since I saw the dream just yesterday, I wanted to talk about that.
	Yeah, I mean, it's certainly my belief that...
	I think it's pretty indisputable, but I mean, obviously, everything can be disputed, as we recently heard.
	But... It is stressful and very difficult to be in the presence of abusive people, harmful people.
	It is hard to relax in a park when there's a lion in the bushes.
	You just, you can't relax and have a good time.
	And if you can't reform or repair your relationship with people, and fundamentally it's more up to them than it is up to you and your family because they're the ones who shaped the relationship.
	They were the authority, they were the adults and so on.
	Then I think that it's really important to give yourself that pause and to put down your shield and see what life is like without that stress.
	Because if we've grown up with abusive people, we don't have any real control over our reaction to those people.
	So I think it's a, you know, if you can't reform it, I think it's a good thing to do if you've got good support from a mental health professional and so on.
	I've also noticed that my shyness has gone down since I haven't talked with abusive people.
	My shyness has gone down and I feel better at times when I'm around people.
	I'm glad to hear that.
	And I also think that shyness is mainly the effect of abuse, don't you think?
	Sorry, say that again? You were asking me a question?
	I think I missed it. I mean, the shyness is usually mainly the effect of family abuse, at least, I feel so.
	Is that right? I think that's a good first place to start.
	I certainly don't know for sure if it's all 100%.
	There may be, you know, people who are more, you know, retiring than others.
	I don't know. But I would certainly say that...
	I think shyness is a nice word for fear.
	And I think if we talk about fear...
	Because, I mean, shyness is a kind of fear.
	I know this because I was shy as a kid as well.
	So shyness is a kind of fear.
	And it can approach, you know, existential terror.
	And, I mean, the first place I would look is, you know, some sort of post-traumatic stress from early dysfunctional relationships.
	But, yeah, shyness is...
	I think shyness is a word that...
	Parents invented so that they don't have to say, my child is pathologically afraid of people.
	Because if the parent says, my child is pathologically afraid of people, then the parent has to look in the mirror and say, what have I done to make my child so afraid of people?
	But if the parents can invent a category called, my child is just shy, then, I don't know, I guess they feel that it's different or better or something like that.
	Right. So...
	Actually, I maybe wanted to talk about my first ever dream that I remember.
	I'm sorry. I just want to make sure because we're plowing along.
	I think we've got a lot of other callers.
	James, do we have any other callers on the line?
	Otherwise, we'll continue talking about this dream.
	Yes, we do. But if we circle around, we can always circle around and come back to you.
	Yeah, if we have time, and I do want to hear about this, but I want to make sure that I'm trying to do this thing where we actually get to the callers who've called in.
	It's shocking, but I would give it a shot.
	So we'll come back if we can.
	Thank you. Yeah, thank you.
	So next we have Mark O. What's up, Steph?
	Hello, hello. Hey, I'll cut to the chase.
	I have two things, but I had one thing initially, and then when I heard your first call with that first caller, something else arose in me.
	It just was helping if you could prod at it for me and help me out and give me another angle.
	Let me get my prodding stick.
	All right. Lean over a little.
	Okay, go ahead. No, man.
	If you and I are in a room, you get that stick away.
	It's all right. It's got a fur glove on the end.
	It's not too proddy. I felt a little bit anxious when you were getting frustrated with him.
	I started to feel anxiety. When you were getting frustrated with him, I kind of felt this mental cowardice come upon me, and I felt anxious.
	Even though it was a reasonable—I mean, I totally get it was reasonable.
	But it didn't really matter what you were saying.
	It was the tone in which you were saying.
	The expression of frustration, whether it's valid or not at all, triggered a lot of anxiety.
	Not a lot, but enough to the point where it's a problem on a regular basis.
	And I was wondering if you could help me proddle right out of that.
	I know it's in my childhood. Sure.
	It sticks in your hands, if you don't mind.
	Yeah. Okay, so where do you think it comes from?
	I think a good place to start would be father connection.
	And seeing as you're a male especially, maybe if you were a female it might be a different reaction, but seeing as you're a male I might as well tie it as closely as I can too.
	What was my experience with a man in authority growing up?
	And what happened when he got frustrated?
	What happened when he got frustrated?
	There was never any physical abuse at all.
	Never physical abuse, but I think there was a lot of construction of internal self-attack.
	You know, like you said with his grandma, I would learn to, maybe anytime he got frustrated, blame myself or something like that.
	Right. I don't know.
	Is that something you've experienced? Where you get tricked into blaming yourself?
	I know we've talked about this a little bit concerning Ask.
	Yeah, look, I mean, it's something that doesn't affect me nearly as much anymore.
	But yes, certainly, of course.
	I mean, it is definitely an issue that is important to be aware of.
	That, yeah, I mean, people will sort of try and...
	I'm not saying this... Actually, the first caller, I actually know him.
	I really like the guy. I really like the guy.
	In particular, I love his posts on the message board.
	But that just wasn't a productive conversation for me.
	And I do sort of have to also think about the quality of the show as a whole.
	But yeah, no, definitely.
	Sorry, go ahead. It was totally reasonable.
	That's what I'm trying to say. Your frustration was reasonable.
	My anxiety was real.
	But to me, it was reasonable.
	Okay, so let's say that this guy had been your dad and I had been you as a child.
	Yeah. Right?
	What would have happened? See, I mean, I tell you, my daughter gets frustrated with me.
	And sometimes she's entirely right to be frustrated with me.
	She should be. I'm doing something which is frustrating.
	Yeah. It may be necessary or it may not be necessary.
	Getting her in her car seat, changing her diaper, brushing her teeth, things like that.
	Yeah, or, you know, she wants to stay someplace, and I have to go, and she's frustrated.
	And it is frustrating, for sure.
	I mean, I can completely understand that, and I really do sympathize with it.
	And I want to make sure that she is comfortable to tell me that she's frustrated, and we'll try and do as much as we can to accommodate it and so on.
	But frustration is a natural part of all of our relationships.
	Yeah. And so what happens, if I were to get frustrated, then...
	Kind of like the asshole in the room, he would go about trying to throw me in front of the bull, you know, of his own self-hatred, as you said, to quote you.
	And how would he do that?
	Guilt, I think, but I can't dice it up exactly, but it was definitely guilt-based.
	I grew up and still do have a lot of sense of guilt.
	Unreasonably so, relative to the one particular event.
	Obviously, when you look at the whole experience of early childhood, it would make sense more.
	But I want to try to whittle away at this, because you had mentioned that you no longer struggle to issue nearly as much as you once had.
	And so I'm wondering, what did you do to go from point A to point B, where you are now?
	That's a good question and a challenging question.
	But I think that what I have always found is to try and be as positive and helpful as possible in a conversation.
	And I guess it's up to other people to figure out what they're achieved at with the first caller.
	I certainly did want to help the caller to understand UPB. And so I would try to establish an argument and then we'd move on to something else and then it would turn out that the first argument was not established.
	So we'd go back and try and establish it again and we'd get agreement and then we'd move on and then it would turn out to be not established and so on, which of course gets frustrating because I realize that this is not about UPB, it's about recreating some foo situation, obviously, right?
	So for me, it's okay to get frustrated if I have...
	Try to be positive and patient and put time and effort into explaining my position and so on.
	And then if I get frustrated, I'm then not going to self-attack for that.
	Because I have done the right thing in the conversation.
	Yeah. I mean, it really comes down to virtue is the shield self-attack.
	So, in order to be virtuous, you have to...
	...flecting, parrying his attack and saying, no, I'm not going to let you get it.
	And it's not like he was intentionally doing it or being mean.
	I really don't think he was ill-intended at all.
	He seemed like a very kind gentleman.
	And he reacted to your frustration in a relatively good way, given the circumstance.
	But what you essentially did is you had your shield up, shield called frustration.
	She said, go on now, get self-attack.
	Is that kind of a cheesy way of saying it?
	Well... If somebody tells me that, you know, this caller, and I'm sorry, you know, caller, for discussing you with the third person.
	I apologize for that. I really do.
	I actually really do like you as a human being.
	You seem really nice.
	Yeah, look, I mean, but if somebody is telling me, if somebody asks me for a question and then I give them an answer to that question and they say that wasn't what I was asking, then I say, okay, rephrase it.
	Okay, then I'll answer this.
	And they say, well, that's also not what I'm asking.
	And every time we get to a conclusion, It seems that the goalpost moves and it's no longer what the person was asking.
	I mean, I'm not a dumb human being and I'm, you know, I think I'm a great communicator.
	It doesn't mean flawless, but I think I'm a great communicator.
	I think the numbers of the show for such a difficult and obtuse subject reflect that.
	And so I just, I can't sort of get round to self-attacking.
	If I ask the person, well, what is it that I'm not giving you?
	And they say, well, it's X. And I say, okay, well, let's do X. No, that's not it either.
	Then it's just a moving goalpost.
	And I'm just not going to pretend that we're talking about what we're talking about if that's not what's really going on.
	So it's sort of like if you're a really good tennis player and you're having a really frustrating game because the balls keep going out, I think you can safely say it's not you.
	Does that make sense? Yeah.
	Yeah. And so if you've practiced, you know, positive, healthy, assertive communication, and you've had lots of success with that, and I think, you know, with the listener combos that I've done, I don't know, Maybe close to 500, 700, 800, maybe even 1,000 if you count the ones that were never published.
	I've had really positive and helpful and illuminating conversations with people that other people have said, wow, that was amazing.
	So I know that I'm capable of doing that.
	In fact, I've done it many, many, many, many times.
	You're like, trust me.
	Just trust me.
	I remember you saying that.
	Yeah, and again, he then interpreted that as, trust me that I'm right in every one of my statements.
	What I meant was, trust me, let's establish this, and then we'll establish this, and then we'll get to where you want to go.
	You're good with the glove and the prod.
	Yeah, I warm it up a little.
	This is why it's so important to be virtuous.
	You understand, what I'm talking about with this fellow is not sort of a virtue vice situation, but if you've had lots of successful conversations with people that have been positive and illuminating and great, then if you have a bad conversation with someone, it's really hard to self-attack.
	Does that make sense? Yeah, because you have the evidence to say, hey, I can do this.
	Maybe if you were having a conversation with Christopher Hitchens back in his prime, and you were in that same disagreement, it might add a little bit more weight in you going, well, maybe what's going on here?
	Or would that be incorrect?
	Well, it would depend.
	I mean, that would really depend.
	I mean, I got lots of mixed reviews about my debate with Peter Schiff, which was a real surprise to me.
	I did not know we were going to debate.
	I prepared a bunch of other topics that the producer said we were going to talk about, and then I wouldn't say I got sideswiped.
	I mean, all's fair in the media, but suddenly we were doing a pretty intense debate, and...
	Normally, when I debate someone, I'm going to go research their positions.
	I'm going to formulate the counter-arguments.
	You know, you don't just drop into...
	I mean, particularly somebody as intelligent and such a masterful communicator and debater as Peter Schiff.
	I mean, that guy's got some serious mojo.
	And, you know, I really respect his reasoning, his communication skills.
	I mean, I don't know if you've listened to it, but he was damn good.
	And so if I'm going to...
	Go into the ring with someone.
	I need to study their moves. I need to, you know, oh, he's into tariffs.
	Okay, let me come up with this argument against it or whatever, right?
	And, um, sorry, go ahead.
	Let's say you're in a debate with him and he was, so you're both admitting that there's one right, because it's not, you know, relatively one...
	No, scratch that.
	You guys are battling. So sorry, let me say.
	So if I'm prepared and it goes badly, then I would be more likely to self-attack.
	But if I'm not prepared and it goes badly, then I would be less likely to self-attack.
	But even if I was self-attacking, Self-attacking is jumping to a conclusion.
	And philosophy, she hates the conclusions.
	Philosophy and conclusions are like, I don't know, Michael Moore and broccoli.
	They don't seem to meet very often.
	In fact, they may be fundamentally opposed to each other.
	And so self-attack is anti-philosophical.
	It's anti-empirical.
	Because you are assuming a conclusion...
	I did something bad, and if I did something bad and wrong, that the best way for me to deal with it is to call myself names and to put myself down and to be mean to myself.
	And that's the most virtuous and best way to make sure that I don't do that bad thing again.
	Yeah. Well, all of those steps are staggering amounts of conclusions.
	Did you see what I mean? How do you know?
	How do you know you did something wrong?
	How do you know it wasn't the other person?
	How do you know, even if you did something wrong, that the very best conceivable way to deal with you doing something wrong is to call yourself names, get angry, put yourself down, lash yourself with the invisible whips of self-recrimination?
	How did we know this?
	I tend to do this in a very sophisticated manner.
	I don't go idiot or something like that.
	I always try to weasel my way into taking responsibility for an action, even though when you really look at it and somebody else would look at it, it's like, dude, no.
	So it can be much more weasely than that and almost harder to catch.
	Yeah, well, taking an excess of responsibility is, I think, even more dangerous than taking a deficiency of responsibility.
	And that's what I do, and that's exactly, that's an issue.
	Because it's so disrespectful to the autonomy, free will, Of the other person, right?
	Would you go on a little bit about that?
	Just a little preface here. My parents divorced, and I was the emotional crutch for my father.
	I mean, he literally told people that he would have offed himself if it weren't for me.
	So, what kind of negative psychological things would you be able to see from your position about someone who would go for that and someone who consistently takes excessive responsibility for things that they ought not to?
	So, let me just... How old were you when your parents divorced?
	Eight. Eight. And was it pretty rough beforehand?
	The divorce was relative to most divorces.
	It was clean. They only had one lawyer.
	I mean, I would say you can't really do a divorce well, but as far as how messy they can get, it was relatively clean.
	All right. But beforehand, I didn't say the divorce.
	I mean, before they divorced, what was the marriage like?
	I think there's some stuff I can't even remember, to be honest with you.
	I just remember a lot of tension.
	I remember being relieved.
	Wait, you were eight? You're saying you can't remember much from before you were eight?
	Six. Six. I can't remember general.
	I never remembered them together, really.
	I never remembered the shared enjoyment of activities between the two.
	I'm sorry. So I completely misunderstood.
	I thought you said the divorce when you were eight.
	I was in third grade. My mistake.
	No, you're correct. I was wrong.
	It's eight. I apologize because it was third grade.
	It's eight. Yes, yes, yes.
	And before eight, I really can't.
	That's been something that's been frustrating to me.
	And I read books where they talk about people that sincerely can't remember it and maybe how that may have been a survivalistic tool at the time to deal with the excess tension.
	Well, of course, as you've seen, if you've looked at the Bomb of the Brain series, FBRURL.com forward slash B-I-B. Stress undermines our capacity for memory.
	So we can assume that it wasn't particularly great.
	And so then after your divorce, are you saying that your dad became suicidal?
	His emotional health depended upon me nurturing his ego.
	I kind of coddled him as a third grader.
	So give me an example of that, if you can help me to understand that.
	I guess one example would be when he would always talk crap about my mother and my sister to me during our car rides or whatever.
	And at some point at third grader I had to say, hey, I'd appreciate it if you didn't talk shit about my mom and sister.
	And my mom has never said anything negative about him despite the fact that she could totally go for it if she wanted to.
	But she made the choice for me to make that evaluation myself because she was smart enough to foresee what would happen when I got older.
	He would talk about how his marriage went poorly with me, issues that your son or any eight-year-old should not have to really go through.
	And just generally, I just had this general tension of, I have to make this guy happy.
	Like, I couldn't just be with my mom.
	I had to go to my dad because I knew he needed me.
	I had that feeling about me.
	Like, yes, on paper, yes, I could have just said, hey, I want to stay with my mom.
	But emotionally, I felt binded to him because I knew he'd be in a terrible place if it weren't for me.
	Alright, and what was your...
	And first of all, I don't think that there's any such thing as on paper, yes.
	I mean, when we're children, we are incredibly invested in the happiness of our parents.
	You understand that, right? I mean...
	It is a basic survival necessity.
	If they're not happy, it's bad for us.
	Yeah, we get that. Yeah, very bad for us.
	In fact, abandonment and infanticide, not that I'm saying that was imminent in your family, but historically, any kid who didn't care about his parents' happiness probably didn't last very long.
	It's like, hey, you need a human sacrifice?
	Well, I got this little brat who doesn't listen to a damn thing, so go for it.
	Right? So, you know, the genetics, I believe, are very, very...
	Strong towards make your parents happy at all costs and that is not something we have much choice over and it's not a moral choice.
	It is a survival choice.
	So I don't think there is well any on paper while I didn't have to do this because to have to manage a fragile parental psyche is a massive onerous responsibility.
	Yeah, I just wanted to point that out.
	So go ahead. Yeah, no, that's good.
	That's nice because maybe that's another example of me taking more responsibility in some respects.
	But how would you go about cutting away at this?
	Because it's not going to happen overnight.
	The wiring in the brain is here.
	My best guess from what I can tell is that just every time I feel it arise, honestly acknowledge it, trace it back to the roots and don't take it.
	Okay, let me be a bit more proactive here and ask you a couple of questions if you don't mind.
	Please. Why did your mother leave your father?
	Dad left my mom, but they had both dissociated to the point where they both weren't happy.
	So, father made the initial split.
	Okay. Were there any affairs involved that you know of?
	No, none. I'm almost certain of that.
	Did your mother know about the degree to which your father was using you psychologically?
	I think so. Go on.
	That was a pregnant pause.
	Yeah, I think so. It's not fun to say.
	I don't think she maybe knew the extent to which it occurred, but I think she knew it occurred.
	All she had to do was ask, right?
	She kept on... Well, she would always say, you know, you could stay here if you wanted.
	That's not asking. Yeah.
	Asking is, how are things going with your dad?
	You don't seem to want to go over there very much.
	I know a lot about your dad because I have an adult sensibility and freedom, and I decided to not fight for the marriage, to not stay with him or whatever, right?
	I mean, it really does take two to divorce.
	I'm concerned that given what I know about your father and given your vulnerability as his little boy, I just, you know, no repercussions, no negative.
	I won't go and talk to him.
	I won't tell this to anyone.
	It won't change anything. But I need to know what's going on.
	No, that didn't happen.
	Why do you think? Maybe she was scared of the answer.
	Well, I don't buy maybes from family members.
	She was scared of the answer.
	She probably would be yes.
	Why was she scared of the answer?
	Because it would make her feel terrible anxiety.
	Why? Because she would have felt like she was not doing her job as a parent.
	Do you think she was doing her job as a parent?
	In many ways, yes.
	In this respect, no.
	Right. And have you ever talked to her about this?
	Yeah, I asked her why she didn't take custody, and she was really open to the conversation.
	She had mentioned she didn't know why.
	However, I kind of deep down knew it was because you didn't want to feel bad about being a bad parent, even though maybe it was that type of choice, like by not asking and not doing those things.
	It can be labeled as a bad parenting move, or is labeled as a bad parenting move.
	Well, no, but you sort of shifted the debate a little there, or the conversation, because I asked if you talked to her about your emotional experience of your father, and you said, well, I asked her why she didn't take custody.
	That's a very different question, right?
	Yeah, yeah. One is sort of a factual, procedural one, and the other is an experiential, vulnerable one.
	Yeah, I think I never asked her about it.
	Never told her. Well, I'll tell you some of the thoughts that I have about this.
	You know, as always, they're just my thoughts.
	I don't have any answers. But I will tell you, of course, that my mother's grip on reality was a complete house of cards and required constant propping up and management and placating and so on.
	So she was definitely...
	It may have been a bit more extreme than your dad, but I have some experience with this, which may mean that I have something useful to say, or it may mean that I'm projecting all over the place and have nothing useful to say, so you can, of course, decide that.
	But I think what comes out of this, first and foremost, is that you have responsibility without authority.
	In fact, it's kind of an inversal, because your parents are supposed to have authority.
	And then they have responsibility for you because they have authority.
	And now, authority doesn't mean tyranny, right?
	It just means authority.
	I mean, I have the responsibility to feed my daughter, to get her healthcare, to, you know, keep her happy and safe and warm, and I mean, I have authority over her.
	I mean, I think that's pretty clear, and that's not a status thing, that's just a biological thing.
	And when a parent needs to be parented by a child, The parent loses authority.
	And the loss of authority for a child is about the most tragic and heartbreaking thing outside of parental death that can occur.
	Yeah. Because children so much want to look up to and respect their parents.
	And to take that away from a child, to make the child into your parent, into your confidant, into your poison container for your dysfunction...
	Robs the child of the gift of respect.
	And that is an unspoken tragedy, I think, in the soul of the world.
	It's totally true.
	And it happens for both parents.
	Because if you don't respect your father, it's hard to respect your mother who chose to have a child with your father.
	Yep, exactly. And so what happens is then the parents...
	It's kind of the reverse, right?
	So, the child has responsibility without authority, but the parent has authority, but they also have responsibility without authority, because a parent needs to guide the actions of the child,
	obviously. And if the parent has acted in such a way that the child cannot innately respect the parent, Then the parent has a very, very tough job because they need to guide the child.
	And they don't have respect. The child does not respect them.
	Yeah. And this is why you get, you know, the sort of stereotype of the screechy single mom who just can't understand why her children don't listen to her.
	It's because they've lost respect.
	It's because they've lost respect.
	You know, maintaining the respect of your child is the essence of parenting.
	That's all it is.
	Because if you have the respect of your child, parenting is a complete joy.
	You know, we had some friends come up and stay for a couple of days, and they were pointing out, they said, man, you know, we wish we could film all of this and just show everyone how easy and how fun parenting could be.
	Because, you know, we went all over the place with Izzy and We did all these kinds of great things, and Izzy was just great company.
	There were no disagreements, there was some negotiation, there was some differences of opinion, but it was all resolved, and it was all peaceful and happy, and Izzy is great.
	She's good at listening and certainly negotiates for what she feels is fair, which is exactly what she should be doing.
	But the way that I view it is if you're on a mountain, And it's winter, and it's cold, and it's nighttime, and it's getting darker, and help isn't going to come until morning, and you're lost. And you've got a fire, then you do everything you can to keep that fire going, because the fire is life.
	And if you're a parent, you do everything you can to maintain the respect of your child, because that is being a parent.
	If you can't maintain the respect of your child, I don't know what you do.
	Because then you're going to ask for obedience without respect.
	And if you need obedience without respect, all you have to rely on is bullying, threats, and manipulation.
	That's... You know, they say there's this power vacuum that, you know, if you get rid of the state, there'll be a power vacuum.
	Bad stuff will rush in to fill it.
	Well, in the absence of legitimate respect, why should a child do what you say?
	Yeah, I mean, maybe you write one out of ten times, and why should they believe you that one time?
	Because they have all this evidence.
	Like, why should I listen to this person?
	Because... Hmm.
	I have to think about it.
	Well, no, the one out of ten times doesn't work, right?
	Respect is not one out of ten times.
	Yeah, exactly. You need it to be 99 out of 100 times so that you can make an error, but you still have it.
	No, no, see, respect is 100 times out of 100 times.
	Yeah. See? So, I'm just trying to think of an example.
	I guess what I meant to say...
	Let me explain.
	Let me explain, because I really want to make this.
	Because the ideal of perfection is unrealistic, obviously.
	But perfection is possible in the absence of perfection.
	So, I've been trying to get Izzy to eat this really healthy 12-grain bread, right?
	And she's refused to try it.
	And I've kept suggesting it and so on, but she's refused to try it, right?
	So finally this morning, of her own accord, she said, I will try it.
	And so she tried it, and she said, hmm, it's good.
	And I said, you do realize, for like a month, I've been trying to get you to try this bread.
	I said, I think you'll really like it, and now you've tried it, and it's really good.
	And I said, okay, who was right?
	And she said, dada. And I said, and who was wrong?
	And she said, Isabella.
	And I said, yeah. And now, I'd also, a couple of days ago, tried to get her to wear her coat, When she wanted to go outside.
	And I said, I think you're going to be cold.
	And she said, I don't want my coat.
	Thank you, Dana. I said, okay.
	So we went outside and it was really warm.
	And I said, are you comfortable without your coat?
	She said, I sure am. I said, oh, so who was wrong?
	And she just smiled and she said, Dana.
	And I said, and who was right?
	She said, I was.
	That's called perfection. Yeah.
	Yeah. You can be right 99 times, but if you admit that you're wrong the 100th time, it's still a perfect score.
	Yeah, that's a really good way of putting it.
	For me. Yeah, that covered a lot of valuable stuff.
	I'm not going to move on to my next question unless you have anything else to add because I know there are a lot of callers today.
	Yeah, let me just touch on this briefly.
	Please, take as long as you want.
	I'm interested. Right, so...
	The problem with propping up a dysfunctional parent, and there are many, many, many problems, but the other thing that's important is that, and I think this is tied into the memory issue, but I would bet that you have trouble knowing what you genuinely feel in the moment.
	Yeah. I'm good at the procedural stuff, like you mentioned earlier, the procedural stuff, not the emotional vulnerability stuff.
	Right. And so moments of conflict would doubtless be very stressful for you, and you would Tend more towards appeasement and then kick yourself later, right?
	Yeah, or as I've gotten, I guess, better at maybe debating, move towards the procedural intellectual argument to avoid the feelings altogether.
	Right, right. And so I think the challenge with that, my friend, is that when you have a danger in the vicinity, then it is really hard to focus on your inner life.
	Mm-hmm. Can't do your taxes in an earthquake.
	Can't do your taxes in an earthquake.
	And I remember many years ago in some vacation paradise that I took a holiday in, I was swimming in this beautiful bay with this volcano soaring above me and these palm trees lined and I could hear this calypso music gently blowing across the waves.
	There were gulls dipping their wings in the water.
	You know, there were people dozing oiled like bronzed seals on the beach.
	I mean, it was just... A beautiful, beautiful moment.
	I was treading water. The water was perfect.
	In fact, right down on my tippy toes, I could dip down through the thermocline and feel just a chilly little ice cream of tropical coolness on my toes.
	I mean, it was just absolutely perfect.
	And I was just, I was serene and filled with love of the universe and magnificent, you know, like just bursting rainbows supernovaing all over my heartstrings.
	And then I thought I saw a shark.
	And, you know, if you've ever seen the film Finding Nemo, you know, I've seen it about 12 million times now.
	Anyway, so when they go down into the dark, right, the Marlin and Dory the fish, they go down into the dark and they see this little light and he's like, oh, that's so beautiful.
	Oh, that's so lovely.
	It's so beautiful. Come on, I'm going to get you.
	I'm going to get you. And then the light shows this massive rose of Of teeth from this like night crawling venomous death fish or something like that.
	And when you see the teeth, Marlin says, good feelings gone!
	That was sort of my experience.
	And so that sort of inner light and beauty and all of that just sort of vanished in like, let's not lose a leg now.
	And so when you have a danger around you, your inner life becomes opaque to you.
	In fact, your inner life becomes opaque.
	A problem. It's not even like it's not helpful, it actually becomes a problem.
	Like swatting, constantly having to swat bugs off you or thinking you have a spider on you.
	And so the problem becomes, and so an unstable parent is a great danger for a child.
	So you focus on how your dad's doing rather than experience how you're doing.
	And that's just the beginning.
	The second round is when your dad is telling you all of these things that are creeping you out and making you uncomfortable and that you want to respond to.
	Or at least authentically in saying, I really don't like this conversation, Dad.
	This is not making me feel comfortable at all.
	Plus, Mom never trashes you like this.
	Can you please not do this?
	Like, please let me retain some shreds of respect for you.
	This is really not mature behavior.
	This would be childish if I did it and I'm eight.
	Yeah. And if you were to say something like that, what happens?
	Either anger or guilt.
	Right. Which will further erode...
	Respect and further cause problems, right?
	And further, I think, reproduce some of the horror of the situation, which is that your genuine experience is perceived as really negative by your father.
	So this is what I mean when I say not only do you focus on the danger around you which takes your attention away from your own inner life, but your own genuine inner life is a threat to you in the relationship.
	Because if you honestly express, if you are honest, right?
	Parents always say to their kids, be honest.
	And usually they mean, about that which is convenient to me.
	Lie about that which is inconvenient to me.
	Yep. And so the honesty, a virtue called honesty, becomes a grave danger in the relationship.
	Virtue becomes dangerous.
	So how do you recover from something like that?
	Well, I mean, the first thing to do, I think, is to just map where the issues are.
	And to recognize that, you know, when you're not in the presence of somebody like that, well, first of all, to recognize that this also gives you great strength in figuring out who's like that in your life or wherever you meet, school or work or whatever.
	And to trust your instincts around that kind of stuff is really important.
	You know, the man who's been hunted by tigers knows what tigers sound like and look like, you know?
	And so that's a very good strength.
	But, um, I think, I mean, the issue seems to be around sort of just going back and re-parenting and saying, okay, I didn't get this.
	In fact, this developmental stage was not only missed, but suppressed and even attacked.
	But I need this.
	I need this. I need to know what my own inner life is.
	I'm very much one for the antidote, right?
	The antidote. If something's too bright, you go inside, right?
	And if you've had a history of stress, then you need to find places where you consciously de-stress.
	You need to have relationships which are not stressful.
	And through that, you can begin to map again your own inner experiences and recognize that unlike in the past, in the future, you want relationships where your genuine, authentic experience should be honestly talked about.
	Because that is called having a relationship.
	Yeah. I mean, I could go on, man.
	I'm glad for your time, but I've taken up a large chunk of your time this afternoon.
	Alright. Anytime, my friend. Thank you so much.
	It's always good, man.
	I appreciate it. You too, James.
	Bye. Well, we have...
	I'll add the caller.
	The person from the UK? Yes.
	I'm adding them now. Hello, hello.
	Oh, we'll see when they actually...
	Oh, no. If we have someone come in from the UK, people will realize how fake my accent is.
	Hello. Hello, hello.
	Oh, hello. Oh, we'll see when they actually...
	Oh, no. If we have someone come in from the UK... Sorry, you've got to catch your speakers.
	He's got the streamer playing.
	Make sure you go... Yeah, I'm sorry.
	I'm trying to stop the thing.
	I'll do that now. I'm just going to sing a little round here.
	Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream.
	Okay, all right.
	Go ahead. Yeah, my name's Mark.
	Hello. It's a pleasure and privilege to meet you and to talk to you.
	My pleasure too. How can I help you?
	What's on your mind? Well, what it is, I've been listening to a lot of your stuff on the YouTube, and I like a lot of what you say.
	I'm actually a Jehovah's Witness after many years of debating with Jehovah's Witnesses, and just wanted to have a little chat.
	I know you're busy, so...
	No, this is not an interruption to my business.
	This is the show, so I'm happy to chat.
	Oh, thank you, yeah.
	So, yeah, I presume from what I've heard and my research on you that you don't believe in God.
	Is that right? Yeah, I mean, that's certainly a colloquial way of putting it, for sure.
	I mean, basically, I accept that things that don't exist, don't exist.
	All right, yeah, okay.
	I used to feel the same as you, but...
	I was an atheist.
	And the reason why I was an atheist is because, dare I say it, I was brainwashed from day one of going to a school, a government school, that taught me evolution.
	And they showed me pictures of a little ape gradually and gradually getting bigger and transitioning into a human being without any facts.
	And the fossil record shows the ape bones and it shows the human bones and the drawings that some human being presented as fact is actually just some human being's opinion that's been forced upon me.
	And after doing research I was quite upset that this theory was presented as a fact.
	So that's where I'm coming from.
	Okay, so you have become a Jehovah's Witnesses because you have found gaps in the process of evolution?
	No. I believe in a creator because of, well, it's not just that.
	Evolution, it seems to be the two ideas of creation or evolution.
	And so on that basis, I realized from the evidence that there was a creator.
	But then my next question was, well, what is this religious thing?
	Well, sorry, hang on. Can you, sorry, can you, I mean, I've actually, believe it or not, I've listened to, Ann Coulter has an entire section in one of her books.
	Critiquing the theory of evolution, so I have a vague understanding of some of this.
	So what is it in evolution that you find to be problematic or that disproves the theory?
	That complicated living cells cannot evolve because of irreducible complexity.
	Well, but we have, I mean, Richard Dawkins, again, I'm no biologist, but in his recent book on evolution, The Greatest Show on Earth, he's shown that they have actually been able to get cells to evolve, and they have seen selective adaptation in a wide variety of species.
	They've even recreated it in laboratory settings.
	And so, I mean, but if I understand the criticism, it's, you know, he basically says, you know, where did the eye come from?
	Well, I think.
	I think.
	You can't see that kind of stuff.
	But there are many ways in which evolution could be specifically disproven.
	So if you were to find a mammal in the sort of pre-mammalian times, in the sort of fossil record, in the time frame that was gathered, that would be a disproof of evolution.
	If you could find a significantly more complex organism without any sort of prior evidence, Growth towards it, that would also be a disproof.
	And to my knowledge, there's not been anything conclusively.
	Now, there is, of course, there are gaps in evolution.
	I think it's important to remember, as a whole, and this comes from a Bill Bryson book, that fossil records are incredibly scattered, right?
	So if every human being alive in America today, you know, died and Then the fossil record that would be left, that would be found to people in the future, would be one thigh bone from one person.
	And so you'd have a couple of hundred million people died, and you would only find one thigh bone of one person.
	That's how little they have to work with in the geological record.
	Yeah, but Bryson, to quote Bryson, he's a travel writer.
	He really doesn't know what he's talking about.
	I'm sorry, are you saying that is an incorrect fact?
	Sorry, are you saying that you're a biologist?
	Sorry, are you an evolutionary biologist?
	Are you a theologist?
	Are you a priest? Because you're talking about God, which would mean that if somebody doesn't have educational expertise or accreditation in the field, then we shouldn't listen to them.
	Wouldn't that disqualify you from the conversation?
	No, I didn't say we don't listen to him.
	I've read Bryson's books.
	But I would give more credence if you're going to use, you know, someone who has more knowledge.
	I'm not putting this other chap down.
	But if I could just make the point that Michael Behe, a biochemist, and of course I'm not a biologist, I'm not a geneticist, I'm just a truth seeker.
	And Michael Behe has said about evolution, through irreducible complexity, he gives an illustration that Dawkins hasn't been able to come up with a counterargument, which is, for example, a mousetrap has got irreducible complexity.
	So therefore, if you take away, say, for example, The Sprink, It ceases to function as a mousetrap and therefore it needs all, it's got irreducible complexity.
	It needs all of the components all together for it to function.
	And that's the same, and I'm not a geneticist, but with a simple cell you need all two to four hundred components depending on what it is, i.e.
	You need the DNA, you need the RNA, you need the robosomes and all of the other bits and pieces which in themselves are very complicated components but you need all two to four hundred complicated components for it to function.
	You don't need a flagellum tau for it to propel itself but you do need the irreducible complexity and therefore a living cell cannot Let's say that that's true.
	I have no problem with that argument.
	I'm no expert, and so I'm not going to try and battle you on a field I'm not too familiar with.
	But let's say that that's completely true.
	That life cannot have evolved on Earth in the way that it has.
	I'm not sure how that leads us to God.
	Maybe we were created by space aliens.
	No, the space aliens just moves the question of where we came from to somewhere else.
	But the other argument is, were we created by intelligent design?
	You mean, were we created by a god, who apparently doesn't suffer from the problem of irreducible complexity, right?
	Yeah, that's right, because he's in the spirit realm.
	He's not limited to physical.
	Right, okay, so what's your proof of God then?
	The design of the creation.
	Creation proves that there is a God.
	Well, no, I think that if you disprove one thesis, let's say that you can disprove or find gaps or issues in evolution, Then I don't think that you get to God from there.
	It simply means that we don't know how we got here.
	But that doesn't get you to God.
	Does that make sense? If I say that the town is not south, that doesn't mean that the town is north, right?
	It just means it's not south. Yeah, that's right.
	You need other evidence.
	So we don't see the wind, but we know the wind's there from other evidence.
	So along that reasoning, looking at, for example, if you saw a flat bit of rock On an island, and it said Stephen Molyneux 2012, written in a font of Roman times, then we both could look at that and we could make conclusions from that, and we wouldn't know.
	So one of us might say, OK, well, I think some water dripped on that for billions and billions of years and just so happened to make it.
	And another one of us might conclude that somebody intelligent actually chiseled that name into there.
	And you could have that argument for a very long time.
	But the common sense kind of conclusion would be that somebody intelligent has done that because of the complexity of and the order of the name written in stone.
	You don't have to beat the metaphor to death.
	Sorry, I understand that.
	Just before we move on, I just wikied up irreducible complexity.
	So let me just, for those who don't know what it means...
	Irreducible complexity is an argument by proponents of intelligent design that certain biological systems are too complex to have evolved from simpler or less complete predecessors through natural selection acting upon a series of advantageous naturally occurring chance mutations.
	The argument is central to intelligent design and is rejected by the scientific community at large, which overwhelmingly regards intelligent design as pseudoscience.
	Irreducible complexity is one of the two main arguments used by intelligent design proponents, the other being Specified complexity.
	Biochemistry professor Michael Behe, I think that's the guy you referred to, the originator of the term irreducible complexity, defines an irreducibly complex system as one composed of several well-matched interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.
	Evolutionary biologists have shown that such systems can evolve and that Behe's examples constitute an argument from ignorance.
	In 2005, Kitzmiller v.
	Dover Area School District trial, Behe gave testimony on the subject of irreducible complexity.
	The court found that, quote, Professor Behe's claim for irreducible complexity has been refuted in peer-reviewed research papers and has been rejected by the scientific community at large.
	And again, I'm not going to pick sides.
	I'm just pointing out that I just wanted to give the facts out for people who may not, at least some facts out for people who may not be aware of that.
	Well, they're conclusions.
	So that came to the conclusion that, using our illustration, Stephen Molyneux chiseled in stone.
	They're saying, well, no, that can come about by sheer coincidence.
	Sorry, but evolution has nothing to do with coincidence.
	You understand that. Evolution is not even remotely analogous to letters being formed by the running of water.
	Because there's several key components to evolution.
	Evolution is not random.
	Evolution is not any kind of action similar to natural forces.
	Because evolution is goal-directed, right?
	So you've got mutations and you have selective advantages within those mutations that cause organisms to Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Like this, the old argument, you haven't made it, that you would not expect a junkyard and a wind to blow together a 747.
	But that's not, of course, and I'm sure you're aware of that, that's not even close to how evolution works.
	No, well, the theory of evolution, yes.
	So, I...
	I'm talking about the origins of life.
	I do agree that living beings can change to their environment.
	But I'm talking about the origins of life, part of evolution.
	That's something not, we as intelligent beings, we cannot create life from non-living matter.
	We can't do it. We can chisel our name in stone, but life is so complicated that we cannot make it.
	So if someone said to me, okay, well, a car evolved or it came about by chance, There's more chance of a car coming, or a Boeing, as you say, coming back by chance, than there is of complicated living cells coming by chance.
	Sorry to interrupt, but the fact that we can't do it doesn't mean anything.
	I mean, before we could create electricity, that would be like saying, before we could create electricity, there was no such thing as lightning.
	Just because we can't do it yet doesn't mean that it can't be done, right?
	Okay, well, let's take that argument and say we can.
	All that proves is that some intelligent person can make a very complicated thing, more complicated than all of the computers and things that we've already made, pal into insignificance.
	All this actually proves is that this life From non-living matter is extremely difficult to do.
	And that's where the conclusion, you know, we're not arguing something very simple like a structure of a car.
	We're talking about something that we as intelligent beings cannot do.
	Right. Yeah, but I mean, that doesn't mean that it can't ever be done, and it certainly doesn't mean that through the actions of gravity, chemistry over billions of years, this couldn't have happened.
	And again, I'm not aware currently of where the science is on running electricity through the primordial soup and seeing if you get life, but...
	I'm curious how you get from this, because evolution has yet to, as far as I understand it, yet to be disproven according to peer-reviewed science.
	And it does seem to be the theory that has, certainly in the biological sciences, it seems to be the theory that has both received the greatest criticism, the greatest number of attacks, and has still remained, at least accepted as a whole within the scientific community.
	So I'm not prepared to throw out evolution until scientists as a whole find significant and irrefutable arguments against it or evidence against it.
	But I'm curious about how you go from a – because the Jehovah's Witness deity is very specific, right?
	And it's rooted in the Old Testament.
	Is that correct?
	No.
	The Greek scriptures and the Hebrew scriptures are the new and old.
	Okay. So, as far as I understand it then, the text that was written down, was it divinely inspired or dictated by the deity?
	Yeah, it's a bit like a businessman will dictate to a secretary.
	She might not understand what she's writing.
	No, I understand. I understand what dictation is.
	You may be used to dealing with people who've got a little less knowledge in these areas.
	But help me understand then, why were the texts that were dictated, why did they not contain any information that was not available to the people at the time?
	So, for instance, in the old test, I'll just give some examples, right?
	So, there was nothing about the germ theory of illness.
	The idea of illness was, you know, possession and sin, which was the theory at the time.
	There was nothing about the germ theory of illness.
	And, of course, if one of the commanders had been, wash thy hands, then billions of lives would have been saved.
	That would have been quite helpful. And so, for instance, they talk about the animals going onto the ark.
	They don't mention anything about animals that weren't in the immediate neighborhood, right?
	So there's nothing about marsupials, which were only in Australia.
	There's nothing about other forms of animals that weren't around at the time.
	And so I'm just, you know, if there's divine inspiration, it seems hard to square with the idea that there's nothing in there that wasn't commonly available or a generally accepted theory at the time.
	Well, going to your first point about the washing the hands, the...
	They were actually told, God's people were told, that they must be clean, and that when they go to the toilet, they must go outside the camp.
	No, no, sorry. I'm sorry to keep interrupting, but let's just say that you and I were sent back in time 5,000 years.
	I mean, you and I certainly aren't gods, and we've got very limited knowledge based upon our experience and our reasoning.
	But you think if you and I were to go back 5,000 years and to dictate everything that we knew about the world, I mean, it would be unbelievably astounding how much knowledge we would bring back in time about the size of the Milky Way, about DNA, about, you know, the theory of evolution, which, you know, even if it was an incorrect theory, would certainly not be known at the time, about the true nature of electricity, about the heliocentric model of the solar system.
	I mean, you could just say about computers.
	Right, but there's nothing like that that's in these ancient texts.
	So even if just you and I with our limited intelligence went back, we would just put so much information there that would blow people's minds.
	So it doesn't seem to me that the thesis that this is dictated by a divine perfect omniscient intelligence has any support whatsoever in the literature itself.
	All that you just said are observations of the physical law that the Creator put for us to learn about.
	Sorry, you know why He did what He did?
	Yeah. How do you know why God did what He did?
	Because He tells me in the Bible...
	Well, no, I don't think that God said, I'm not going to tell you all of these amazing physical laws, I'm going to leave you to figure them out for yourself.
	I've never heard of that in the Bible.
	I think I would have heard of it, but I've read the whole Bible cover to cover, so I don't remember that anywhere in it.
	So how do you know what God intends?
	Does he tell you?
	It's not in the text, right?
	Yeah. Well, not directly like that, but God does tell us through the Bible the specific things that He wants to communicate with us.
	So, we can learn about...
	No, but that's not a response to my criticism.
	My criticism is that if this knowledge was dictated by perfect omniscient knowledge...
	Sorry, if these ancient books were dictated by perfect knowledge, then the proof of that would be for it to contain knowledge that was completely impossible and unknown to everyone at the time.
	That would be some evidence for that, and there's no evidence for that, and therefore the assertion that it was dictated by omniscience fails.
	Oh, okay. Right.
	Yeah, I understand. Okay, sorry, I misunderstood.
	Well, for example, there is information that, for example, geologically, from the Genesis account, geologists agree that there was water, then there was geologists agree that there was water, then there was landmass, then there was vegetation, then the order of life coming into existence.
	But also that the Earth is spherical.
	The theory was that it was flat back then, and it tells us in the book of Job that the Earth is hanging upon nothing.
	These are things that they couldn't have known back then.
	In fact, they came up with their own weird opinions.
	But the Earth doesn't hang. Yeah, the Earth doesn't hang, and the fact that the Earth was spherical was known to the ancient Egyptians, so there's no particular, and the Earth doesn't hang, the Earth, I mean, because it doesn't hang above something, there's no gravity well below the Earth that it's hanging on top, like a Christmas light or whatever.
	But I just, I think it's quite remarkable that you would claim to know the intentions of an all-perfect being and an omniscient being.
	That, to me, is quite an astounding claim, because that means that you have access to perfect knowledge.
	And wow, what an incredible thing.
	I mean, that blows my mind.
	So give me an example of perfect knowledge.
	Give me an example of your access to, like if I've got someone on the other line here who can tell me the future and can tell me what kind of underwear you're wearing, then I would ask that person to convince you of your skepticism.
	So give me an example of perfect knowledge that you have access to that would not be available to you in a terrestrial sense.
	Okay, the religion is going to be destroyed.
	Sorry, no, no, no.
	Something specific and testable.
	Something specific and testable.
	Yeah, okay.
	God's name is Jehovah.
	We would not learn that about the Creator unless it was through communication.
	That is not testable.
	Who knows what the name of the deity is?
	Give me something that is specific and testable.
	Well, the creation is from Jehovah God.
	That all of this, this stuff now, your consciousness, your conscience as well, that these are all, this is the proof.
	This is the origin.
	That is a hypothesis. That is not testable.
	So, if you and I were to go back in time and we were to claim that we came from the future, then they would obviously expect us to show some knowledge that was not available to them at the time, and that's how they would test our claim.
	That's how they would know that we were from the future and not just crazy.
	And so, if you're not able to provide that, and of course, you and I both know that you're not able to provide that, then your thesis fails.
	See, look, here's the problem, and I've got to move on to another caller.
	I do appreciate the call. I mean, I find it always interesting to chat about these things.
	But the problem is, I mean, there is many problems, of course, with what you're saying, but if you want to present, say, irreducible complexity, the first thing I think you need to do is to give the full picture and to say, well, the scientific community does not accept this, but, you know, here's the...
	And really immerse yourself in the topic, because you presented it to me as if it were true, and let me finish, let me finish.
	You presented it to me as if it were true, and you didn't mention anything about...
	The complete lack of scientific consensus, the fact that the peer-reviewed literature all rejects it, and that doesn't give you a lot of credibility when you're arguing.
	Look, I argue a lot of very unusual positions, so I really have sympathy for where you're coming from.
	But if you want to argue unusual positions, then you need to take into account all of the counter-arguments and show that you accept them, that you understand them, that you process them.
	If you want to say that you have access to divine intelligence, then you have to have some way of establishing that.
	Otherwise, you're only going to be accepted by the credible.
	So my suggestion is, and again, I'm sorry to sort of move on, but my suggestion is that you need to study a lot more formal logic, testability, and how to establish claims, working with the scientific method.
	You need to read A whole bunch of stuff about how to convince people because right now you don't have an approach that is going to be convincing to anyone except somebody who already agrees with you.
	And I think that's kind of a waste of time.
	If you want to go around helping people get closer to God, then I think you owe it to your belief to prepare as much as possible and to try and work as hard as possible to be convincing to people who have skepticism.
	Certainly that's my approach.
	Again, maybe it's different for you, but...
	Thanks for the call. I appreciate that.
	And we do have time for one more caller.
	Sorry, I do have to move on because I think we've got somebody else in the queue before we get to the end of the show.
	Thank you. Hi, it's Steph.
	This is the magical post-production editing thing.
	Two arguments I just wanted to mention during this debate, but I decided not to for reasons of time.
	The first is that if you believe that irreducible complexity is a barrier to evolution, you don't solve it by introducing God, who is by far the most complex being that can be conceived of.
	And so if you say, well, things which need to depend on each other can't be developed independently, Because there's too much complexity in it, then creating a being with characteristics of life which has unbelievable complexity called God is not solving the problem.
	The second, of course, is that if God did design the human body Why did he do such a bad job?
	Why do we have an appendix? Why do 25 or 30% of births abort themselves?
	Why does the prostate grow to the point where older men have to pee like nine times a night?
	Just go on and on, right? You would expect it to be the best designed system, but it's not.
	So, anyway, to continue with the show.
	All right. Will, you've been waiting the entire time, so please, go on.
	And he's like, 14 minutes and we're still going Christian.
	What's going to happen? Yeah, I'm sorry to disappoint you, Steph, but I'm not going to argue with you.
	Oh, come on. Bring up Zeus. Bring up Zeus.
	Come on. But I can maintain an interesting conversation because, my friend, this is about to get very strange.
	All right. The other day, oh God, the other day, my parents called me asking me if I was okay.
	Not strange so far.
	Well, it is for me.
	Are they space aliens?
	Are they Peter Joseph?
	Who are they? Well, apparently what happened was an ex-friend of mine called my sister and told her that I was in a car accident.
	Now, obviously this bothers me because that's not true.
	I wasn't in a car accident.
	It never happened.
	So, a friend of...
	Sorry, who called who?
	I just missed that part. Sorry. An ex-friend called my sister.
	Called my family, essentially.
	To tell them I was in a car accident.
	That didn't happen.
	Now, I'm a little bothered by this because they're not the type of...
	Only a little? What?
	Only a little? You're very patient.
	Oh, no, no. I'm freaking...
	Yeah, I got scared.
	Like, not for my life, but...
	No, that's some pretty freaky behavior.
	It is. It's very freaky behavior.
	Yeah, it scared me because I've read Anatomy of an Epidemic and this behavior is a little unusual, especially for the friend.
	They're not the type of person to make up stories like this at all.
	And I don't know what to do.
	I don't know if I should...
	Because I'm definitely curious as to where they got this information.
	And I don't know if I should ignore it or kind of just be like, oh, just, you know, contact them and say, okay, what's going on?
	Why did you...
	Is there a possibility of mistake?
	I've thought about that.
	I hope it's a mistake.
	I hope... But honestly, I've thought about it like, well, maybe someone at work.
	Alright, it's a she. It was the woman who had the schizophrenic.
	Okay, just no details, right?
	But just, so go on. So could it have been a mistake?
	Like, could it have been, well, I thought it was you, but it was some other guy who looks like you.
	You know, maybe Brad Pitt got in an accident and she's like, that looks exactly like my friend.
	I have that all the time.
	Anyway, go on. I really don't think so.
	I mean, obviously, if I did think it was, I would have already had this conversation with them.
	Right. And so, you know something about the mental stability of this individual?
	Is it not exactly AA-plus certified?
	AA-plus good?
	Yeah. Yeah, I mean, obviously, there are factors.
	I wouldn't be surprised if their brain decided to create the story without them knowing it, if you catch my drift.
	Right. Alright, and so what's your question for me?
	Well, it's... Or do you have one?
	I mean, you wanted to share this crazy story, and I sympathize with it.
	That's pretty alarming. Well, I, um...
	And also, how did your parents react to it?
	I guess there'd be another question. Oh, they said stay away.
	From this person? Yeah.
	Oh, did they... No, what they said was stay away from cars.
	You stay away. It's a vision.
	It's a premonition. It is written.
	Yeah. Because I've already kept my...
	I mean, again, ex-friend.
	I haven't been in contact with them for some time.
	And I was like, no, I've been doing that.
	It's just a little, you know, why now?
	Why me and why now?
	Obviously. Well, look, if the person is crazy, then the why won't, it's not answerable.
	Alright. Does that make any sense?
	It's like looking at the raindrops on your window and saying, why are they going this way?
	Well, they just are, right?
	The looking for and like I hope that you'll trust me on this when I say I have some experience with this.
	Looking for predictable patterns that explain things with crazy people is like looking for science in the Bible, dare I say, to tie it all together.
	It doesn't work.
	The whole point of crazy is inconsistent, unpredictable, random, and irreproducible.
	So there's probably no why.
	And I can guarantee you that even if there was a why, you'll never know what it is.
	Because crazy people don't have the self-knowledge to be able to understand and analyze their own behavior in that way.
	That's partly what makes them crazy.
	And, you know, like, being crazy is, I don't know, it's kind of like having no mirrors and scales in your house.
	You just eat and you don't notice you're getting overweight or something.
	I don't know. I don't think you'll be able to find any kind of pattern.
	That's just tea leaves. Yeah, I'm just afraid that it is they're crazy.
	And why are you afraid of that?
	Well, obviously because I was friends with them.
	So that says a lot about myself.
	That has a little bit to do with it.
	But obviously, you know...
	I care about people and I don't like to watch someone that I know go through this phase at all.
	And there's nothing I can do about it.
	As far as I know, there isn't.
	I mean, is this a person you can visit?
	I mean, if you care, you know, it may not be the end of the world to act on your feelings of caring.
	Oh yeah, I can act on them.
	It's just, I've role-played the conversations multiple times, and I've given them philosophy books, and there's only so much I can say that will actually make an effect.
	Yeah, I mean, I've spent my share of tears and sweat and toil and blood In the attempt at salvation of crazy people, and I've not found that it works.
	I mean, that doesn't mean that it doesn't.
	It just means I've not been able to make it work.
	But, you know, what do I know, maybe?
	But, you know, my experience has been that trying to help a crazy person is like trying to grapple someone out of a sand pit, like out of quicksand.
	They don't get out. You just go in.
	Yeah. Yeah, they're crazy rubs off on you.
	Well, I mean, again, this is all just my experience, so take it for what it's worth, but in my experience, crazy people are crazy because they're in love with being crazy, because they have a passion for being crazy, and it's a point of pride for them.
	And, you know, like, the typical sort of crazy thing is, you know, oh, you know, he's so bourgeois, he's so square, he's so predictable.
	You know, they make a virtue out of crazy.
	I'm free-spirited.
	I'm independent. I think outside the box called sanity.
	And you cannot save people from that which they've made a virtue out of.
	You can't. It's like getting someone to knowingly eat poison.
	You can't get them to do it.
	And so if the person has defined...
	Like if they have mental habits around which anybody who's predictable is boring, bourgeois, square, whatever, right?
	Then... They've made a virtue out of randomness, and you can never prize someone out of that which they define as virtuous.
	You can't. I mean, if you can get them to understand, like, you know, if people think the welfare state is about helping the poor and compassion and compare and care, and without the welfare state, the poor will starve, and that's what those evil libertarians want, you can't change their mind, because then you're asking them to knowingly give up the good for the sake of the evil.
	You can't do it. You can't do it.
	Now, if you get them to understand that what they think of as good is actually bad for the poor and results from the initiation of force, which is itself evil, if you can get, right?
	The whole thing, everything that we do is about wrestling with the definition of virtue and vice, of good and evil.
	That's all it's about. Those are the single biggest levers that there are to move in the world, and they're the only ones that only damn well move anything anyway.
	And so, if the person is like, I don't know, let's say they call you tomorrow and say, oh my god, I can't believe I did this.
	It's terrifying to me.
	I don't know what happened. It is unbelievably horrible.
	I don't know what to do. Of course you'll help them, right?
	Oh, yeah. That's not going to happen, though.
	Well, it probably would have happened by now.
	Yeah. And if they're like, oh, you know, it's just a practical joke.
	Loosen up, man! Learn to laugh a little.
	Don't be so square. Don't be so uptight.
	I mean, come on. It's just a little bit of fun.
	Well, no, but the problem is you can't win then because they have made a virtue out of this sort of behavior and any opposition to it has become a vice.
	You know, so crazy people, if you try and put any limits on them, they perceive you as oppressing them, right?
	So if people are, yeah, if people like, you know, if people act out on the board and I ban them, I'm like, you're censoring me, man!
	You're putting limits on my behavior.
	That's fascist. It's like...
	No, it's really not.
	You know, locking my door is not the same as stealing from somebody else's house.
	It's not the same ethical situation at all.
	But, you know, what's happened, of course, I would assume historically, is that abusive rules have been heaped upon them, and they view all rules and all limits as abuse, which is actually a very abusive situation to be in for yourself, right?
	But it's one of the ways in which dysfunction reproduces.
	Yeah, but...
	You know, obviously I don't want this happening again.
	You can't control that. You can't control that.
	Oh, God. You cannot control that.
	No, because another way that crazy people draw you in is they assume that you will assume responsibility for managing their behavior.
	Oh, yeah, that's why I don't want to contact them at all.
	That's why I'm afraid of contact, because it's just going to be a refu situation of managing.
	Yeah, ooh, attention! Yeah, exactly.
	I don't... Not gonna get involved in that again.
	Yeah, funny game, the only way to win is not to play.
	It's like the lottery! Yeah, well, no, you can win the lottery.
	Odds are tiny, but you can win the lottery.
	You can't win with Crazy ever.
	That's sort of the point.
	It's so bizarre.
	But I'm very sorry that this happened.
	I mean, obviously it's alarming. Obviously it's upsetting.
	I mean, Crazy is really disturbing, right?
	I mean, in all seriousness, right, it is very unsettling.
	And it's very tragic.
	Crazy all around me.
	Thank you.
	Oh, God.
	Yeah. I just, when I got the phone call...
	I had no idea. I'm like, what?
	Why would they say something like that?
	I don't understand. You know, unless it was Syria, unless they actually meant it.
	Right. But, I mean, it could be, I mean, it's obviously outlandish theorizing, but it could be that they're describing the wreckage of their own mind.
	You know, I mean, dreams have, I think, particular truths in them.
	Dreams are the samizdat of a repressed culture, things which you're not allowed to talk about show up in your dreams, in the same way that Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard got passed around in photocopy in the old Soviet Union.
	And so, you know, crazy people, sometimes what they're describing is themselves.
	You know, I've had a mental crash, so I'm going to describe having someone having a car crash because my dreams have become that vivid or real to me.
	So that could happen.
	But, you know, again, this is just theorizing in a vacuum, so I would discard it.
	But I think that can happen at times.
	That's all I really wanted to bring up.
	I want to get your opinion on something else.
	I've been unemployed for a while.
	I've been filling out job applications and resumes and I got frustrated.
	One day I just decided to call one of the places that I was applying for for some time that I really want to work at.
	I told the person, I told them, I said, I want a job interview.
	I've been unemployed for a while now, and I haven't been given one interview.
	I want an interview. And they said, well, I can't really do anything.
	I said, no, I don't think you get it.
	I really want this job.
	So I'm going to call every five minutes until I get someone to talk to or someone who can help me get an interview.
	So from people who should be committed to people who are committed.
	And what happened? Did it work?
	It kind of did.
	Essentially, I still couldn't talk to anyone, but they got my name down and my information.
	I just got an email a couple minutes ago from the store saying they're going to review my application, which I've never gotten before.
	That's great. Look, I mean, I'm telling you, persistence and standing out from the crowd is key.
	A lot of people are very passive. I remember when I got my first job in IT, I called up a woman.
	I've been doing some temp work, you know, some word process-y stuff, a little bit of...
	I just called up this woman.
	I really wanted a job.
	I was just sick and tired of this hand-to-mouth stuff, and I just said, look, get me a job.
	I don't care what it is. It's got to be with computers.
	I want it to be something intelligent, but I don't care.
	I'll start moving computers.
	I'll start dusting computers.
	I'll start rearranging computers.
	I'll start whatever you need, but I need to get something to get my foot in the door.
	And she did. She sent me out on an interview.
	I ended up getting a job as a COBOL programmer, though having no knowledge of COBOL. And I stayed there for quite some time.
	And, you know, be vulnerable.
	You know, people respond to – a lot of people will respond positively to a genuine expression of desire and commitment.
	I know as a hirer, you know, people who were persistent, I would almost always give them an interview.
	People are just – Oh, wow. A resume just passes by.
	You know, it goes into a file.
	Nobody checks that file again.
	You vanish. You vanish.
	You don't get an impression or a contact in the first minute or two.
	Be persistent. Did you get my resume?
	Did you call? You know, some people have bugged me for like a month to have a listener conversation.
	And, you know, it's not because I don't want to talk to them.
	I just, I'm busy or I forget or I get swallowed up with other stuff that, you know.
	And so just be persistent.
	Just ask again.
	There's no harm in it, you know.
	I mean, if you had volatile people in your life in the past who get mad at you asking again, don't let them inhibit you for the rest of your life.
	Go out and ask for what you want.
	Go out and sometimes demand for what you want.
	The worst that can happen is people say no, and then they won't call you back for a job, but they weren't going to do that anyway.
	So what have you got to lose? Yeah, I've never done anything like that before.
	I've been very assertive about what I want.
	And I just got, I was like, no, I'm done.
	I'm done waiting for these, forgetting the same thing for the, oh, well, we'll check your, I'm like, no, I'm done.
	I'm going to keep calling until I get an actual response.
	I'm just... Yeah, and that's going to tell them something about you already, and it's going to help you to stand out.
	And sorry, James has just said that COBOL is still used, and that is true.
	It's used in the part of the website that James designed, so...
	All right, listen, I'm going to just dip into one more caller who's been very patient, but thank you for calling in and letting me know how it goes if you can, or just post on the board if it works out.
	I think that persistence is very important in these situations.
	Yeah, thanks. All right.
	I think there was a technical glitch there.
	It must have been something with Skype, because when you said the parts that James still...
	I'm pretty sure you meant Steph, but no, just saying.
	James pronounced... James.
	No, I'm kidding. No, it was, you know, unfortunately, I couldn't find a compiler of COBOL 74, which was the language that I started in.
	COBOL 85, which we upgraded to, yes, but not COBOL 74.
	And until we can install the tandem operating system on our server, I feel that we're somewhat limited.
	All right, do we have one more caller?
	I can do a couple minutes. Yes, we do.
	Yes, we do. Andrei, you're up.
	Hey, Steph. Andrei, how are you, my friend?
	I'm fantastic. How are you? I'm great.
	I just wanted to comment on the first caller that you had today.
	It seems to me this problem keeps coming up a couple of times a month for people with UPB. And I just wanted to share the way I look at it.
	So maybe other people will find it useful because they keep asking the same questions.
	So I think that people confuse UPB with an actual prescription for behavior.
	Like a binding prescription, and they think UPB is an actual moral theory.
	And the way I look at it, and you can also correct me if I'm wrong, is it's kind of like a lens that you use to evaluate anything that you have a question with, whether it's moral or not, or it can be moral.
	It's like a jeweler's instrument which they use to test diamonds, whether a diamond is real.
	Or it's cubic zirconia, which they just kind of touch it and gives them a green light or a red light.
	So this is the way I look at it.
	It's just a framework that you use.
	It's like a set of principles.
	And you just see if whatever moral theory you have, if it applies.
	So you look through the UPB and see if it's valid or not.
	Well, I think there's truth in that.
	But I think that does... I mean, it's not true that UPB doesn't have any prescriptions in that, you know, using UPB, because UPB, again, it's a theory and it's a framework and it's also a theory.
	This is like science, it's both a framework and a theory.
	Like the scientific method and a scientific theory, right?
	The science is the method and the science is also the theory.
	So UPB evaluates moral propositions.
	It evaluates, I mean, you could really say it evaluates all objective propositions from science to engineering to Math or whatever.
	But just focusing on the moral ones, yes, it evaluates moral propositions.
	Yes. But through the evaluation of moral propositions, behavior comes out, right?
	So if we say that theory cannot be morally justified as universally preferable behavior, then theory is a violation of a rational moral theory.
	And so naturally, rape is immoral out of that.
	Because if rape doesn't conform or is in direct opposition to a universal moral theory, then rape is immoral.
	To use a metaphor, a witch doctor who does a dance to make the rain is anti-scientific.
	He's not science neutral, but he's anti-scientific.
	Because he's making positive claims in direct opposition to the factual evidence, right?
	I mean, once he's presented with the evidence and so on, right?
	And so something which violates, an action which violates a theory and is in direct opposition to that theory is, you know, is a negative thing, right?
	So the scientist comes along and says, rain dancing has no effect on rain.
	Dancing has no effect on rain.
	The witch doctor is a fraud.
	What he's telling you is a lie.
	That you should give him a sheep and he will make it rain for you.
	He's defrauding you. He's telling you something that is not true.
	It is false. It doesn't work.
	So science is in direct opposition to the witch doctor.
	In the same way that science is in direct opposition to the efficacy of prayer.
	Okay, well, it makes perfect sense to me.
	I was just wondering, maybe, I was thinking of some sort of a Photoshop collage to put it in like a visual form for people to...
	Oh, listen, I'm working on that in the documentary.
	Don't worry about that. I mean, or maybe if you see the documentary and find that I've done a bad job, you can worry about it again, but...
	I recognize the challenge of UPB, and I'll just sort of end here.
	Sorry, did you have another question? No, no.
	I want to make sure if there's anything else. Okay.
	Let me just end here with a statement about ethics as a whole.
	One of the problems that people have, and it did come up in the first caller, and again, I want to thank the first caller for calling in.
	It was really a great, it was a great conversation.
	It was frustrating, but it was great.
	I hope that that makes sense.
	That's what I, anyway. So, people have a problem, which is where they say, Okay, well, let's say that I accept UPB. What does it change?
	Why should I care? What does it matter?
	If you're not telling people what to do, if you're not creating you must or you must not, then what does it matter?
	What does it mean? Who cares?
	And that, I think, is to miss the power of ethics.
	If you change the ethical...
	norms in society, it is as certain as spinning the wheel on a supertanker.
	It may take a while, but it is the only thing fundamentally that is going to turn it around.
	So, if ethics didn't matter, then people wouldn't get angry about UPB, they wouldn't get tense, they wouldn't get frustrated, they wouldn't, right?
	But if all we get people to do is to accept That the initiation of force is wrong, you know, the four, right?
	The theft, rape, assault, and murder.
	If we get them to accept that these have now finally been proven with a rational theory, with no appeal to gods or governments, and it's a very easy theory to understand.
	It is. I mean, I know there's lots of complications around it that people mess themselves up with, but I have now been debating this literally for years, and it's probably close to half a decade now, No, it's more.
	Six years or so since I first put forward the arguments about rape, assault, murder, and theft.
	Two guys in a room, they can't both do it.
	It's a self-contradictory theory to say that theft is universally preferable because it must be both preferred and opposed at the same time.
	Can't work. Nobody has overthrown.
	You can't. You can't overthrow those theories.
	They're almost axiomatic.
	You simply can't overthrow those theories.
	And that's as simple as UPB needs to be.
	I mean, you just have to work with two guys in a room and those four arguments, and they really are the same argument over and over, right?
	Murder is only murder if it's opposed, if it's not wanted, if it's resisted, and two guys cannot fulfill that murder is good because it can't be murder if it's not resisted.
	I mean, it doesn't take much brain power to figure that one out.
	It's really, really obvious, and that really is the essence.
	Everything else Who cares, right?
	That is the essence.
	And people, that is, you understand, that is the live wire that people don't want to touch.
	Those four simple proofs, which can be explained to people using a salt and pepper shaker in literally about 30 seconds.
	That is how far we are away.
	It's about 30 seconds for each proof.
	Bang! Done. Anarchism established.
	The need for religious And state ethics destroyed.
	But that is such a fundamental rewrite of the human landscape that it is literally like pushing people out of the matrix.
	They don't even sense what's out there, but they're scared shitless of what it is.
	Because you see, if we get UPB plugged into the brain of humanity, these four simple, obvious, easy to explain proofs that My three-year-old daughter can understand.
	Obviously, I haven't gone over her theories of rape and murder, but she understands it.
	I mean, if I were cruel, she could intellectually, I guarantee you, she could understand it at three years old.
	This is not the theory of relativity.
	But if we take the bedrock of ethics away from the state, the secular state, and from mystical religiosity, Then the two fundamental reasons for those institutions vanish.
	That is how fundamental UPB is.
	It's more fundamental than science itself.
	Because science can coexist with the state.
	In fact, the state can profit from science through the militarization of science.
	And the state can fund science.
	And science does not challenge the state fundamentally.
	Science fundamentally does not even challenge religion.
	Because religion takes under its bosom and has as its justification ethics and science doesn't touch ethics.
	I know Sam Harris has done some work on it which is all around pragmatism and so on but it doesn't touch ethics as scientists constantly tell us you cannot get an ought from an is that's violating that whole proposition but if you can or if we as a whole can plug UPB and these four brain-dead simple syllogistical proofs into people's head Capitals and cathedrals fall.
	Because we now have a foundation for virtue and a philosophical, rational, irrefutable justification for social organization that it is the most powerful change that human beings can achieve.
	Once somebody accepts And understands UPB. Rational ethics, philosophical ethics, irrefutable ethics.
	Their behavior will change in accordance with it.
	Ethics are the steering wheel of the human soul.
	They are the ballast, they are the wind, they are the sails, they are the entire motive essence of the human spirit.
	And we know that I guarantee there's a simple test for this if you don't believe me.
	And by all means don't believe me.
	Don't trust anything that I'm saying.
	Please review, be skeptical and verify.
	Why is it that people have such problems with the basic reality that taxation is force?
	Why? Taxation is violence.
	Taxation is theft. Taxation is the initiation of force.
	Why do people resist that so much?
	Because they know They know that if they accept that basic rational reality, that it's as obvious as can be, which a two or three-year-old can easily understand.
	I mean, you can't snatch a candy bar from a two-year-old and say, it's not theft, it's taxation.
	They'll just cry, because it's theft.
	Why do people resist that so much?
	If ethics didn't matter, why wouldn't people say, yeah, it's theft, who cares?
	So what? You know, like, people don't get into violent arguments usually about whether Jupiter has eight or nine moons.
	Who cares? I mean, I guess it's important, I guess, you know, if you're sending a spaceship out that way.
	But that's not particularly important to people's lives.
	But whenever you touch on the subject of ethics, people get incredibly focused, incredibly defensive, incredibly emotional.
	Because everybody knows that we run on ethics, and if you shift ethics, you change the world.
	If you bring reason to ethics, you bring reason to the world.
	If you bring philosophy to ethics, you bring philosophy to the world, which means you displace all of the bullshit, mystical or violent substitutes for philosophical ethics that infest, pollute, and castrate the human soul.
	You displace statism.
	You displace theology. You displace punishment from parents.
	You displace propaganda from public schools.
	Public schools, what are they for?
	To make somebody into good citizens!
	But if you have rational arguments for ethics that three-year-olds can understand, why on earth would you need more than a decade of propaganda to make somebody into a good person?
	Because that person will understand completely and totally what goodness means by the time they're about two or three years old.
	But no, it's because the ethics are false.
	That we need so much propaganda from statism, from theology.
	Trust me when I say, if you change the ethics, you change the world.
	Everybody runs on virtue.
	Nobody justifies their actions with reference to the height of a badger.
	It is always justified with reference.
	To ethics, to virtue, to good behavior.
	Even those who reject virtue do so on the grounds that it is cool and virtuous and smart and sexy to reject ethics.
	Even nihilists reject ethics according to UPB, which confirms ethics.
	Everybody runs on ethics.
	Now, I just said, trust me.
	I hope you will. I hope I've established that over the years.
	If you don't, no problem.
	Go tell people that taxation is forced.
	See if they care about it. See if they resist it.
	And ask yourself why they resist it if they do.
	And I I damn well guarantee you that they will.
	All we have to do is make the patient, repeated, persistent case for rational, secular ethics and peaceful parenting and the world will change of its own accord.
	The world will change of its own accord because everything runs on virtue.
	And have yourselves a wonderfully great week.
	freedommaderadio.com forward slash donate if you find the conversation to be of value.
	I hugely, hugely appreciate your support.
	Thank you so much to James, as always, for making the show run so smoothly.

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