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May 27, 2012 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:46:27

2152 Freedomain Radio Sunday Call In Show May 27 2012

Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain Radio, talks about introversion, extroversion and shyness. Also, why peers is so influential to the young, rather than parents.

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	Well, good afternoon, everybody.
	It is the 27th of May, 2012.
	Hope you're doing excellently.
	And just wanted to mention that since I did, it's very interesting, you know, I'm always fascinated by the topics that cause consternation among listeners.
	I did a little bit the other day on UFOs.
	And it had a fair amount of, well, some levels of outrage within the community, some People who were subscribing had some issues and pulled their subscriptions and so on.
	And I mean, I can sort of understand that.
	I mean, if you feel that the UFO thing is very important and I do not appear to be taking it very seriously, I can understand how that would be upsetting.
	I don't think, you know, pulling subscriptions is really the way to do that.
	But I can understand why people do that.
	And frankly, I don't think that's a bad thing.
	I think that if people are really into UFOs and also really into free-domain radio, that may not be the best association for either camp.
	So I think that's fine.
	I think, you know, to me, the UFO thing is interesting.
	And I was very interested when I was in my teens.
	I remember staying up late at night when I had a very lonely and sad summer when I was about 12, I think, 12 or 13.
	My mom went to Germany, my brother went to England, and I stayed with a friend of mine's grandparents.
	I didn't even know them.
	I stayed with them for a couple of months in a little apartment, and the grandmother was sick.
	And I spent a lot of time reading on UFOs, went to the library and read up on UFOs.
	I had a little set of binoculars.
	I used to scan the night sky from my bed.
	To look for UFOs.
	And I thought it was a very fascinating phenomenon.
	And I was certainly drawn to it.
	And so I really do understand the emotional investment that is in these kinds of topics.
	But the question I always sort of have, and I have no doubt whatsoever that there's alien life out there.
	I mean, of course.
	Statistically, it would be ridiculous to think that there isn't hundreds of billions of galaxies and stars and planets and so on, of course.
	The odds of being even remotely close in technology are virtually insignificant.
	You know you have these sort of Star Wars scenarios or these Star Trek scenarios where you end up in space combat with the Klingons and the Romulans and the Darth Vaders and so on and everyone has kind of the same level of technology?
	Well, that's not going to happen.
	I mean, that doesn't even happen on this world when different cultures come into contact.
	If you think of the universe, it's billions of years old.
	It only takes, you know, 100 years or so for technology to be widely divergent.
	And so to expect two civilizations to come into contact where the technology is even remotely close to parity is like expecting to roll 20 on a D20 450,000 times in a row.
	I mean, it's just like, it could happen, but it's just not going to happen.
	And to me, if any beings are...
	Technologically advanced enough to have faster than light travel, if that's even possible, to come and visit and so on, then clearly they would have cloaking devices.
	They would have ways of bypassing or downing everything that we could throw at them.
	I mean, there are cloaking devices even in our level of technology, and they would have ways of not being visible to us.
	Or if they couldn't, then...
	Like, if they wanted to come and study us, then they would not interfere with the experiment.
	In other words, they would not be able to be present in the...
	In the studying.
	You can't study something without interfering with it.
	You really can't objectively study something if you interfere with it.
	So they either don't want to be seen, in which case there's a whole lot of them being seen, which means they're not intelligent enough to travel all this way.
	Or they want to be seen, in which case why not just land in front of all of the cameras at a White House conference.
	On who?
	We don't want to say.
	But so, you know, they neither want to be seen or don't want to be seen.
	They may be here to study.
	And so if they're here to study, then they shouldn't be interfering.
	They're intelligent enough to avoid that interference.
	I mean, why not just stay in orbit and study?
	I mean, we can study the Earth in great detail from spy satellites in orbit.
	So again, it just doesn't fit together logically that this would be going on.
	That having been said, yeah, I have no doubt that there are alien life forms, and I've imagined that they are either way ahead or way behind us.
	But what I know about economics is that the free market and trade is what drives technological progress.
	And so when aliens come, they're going to come in a giant floating mall.
	That is how we know they're going to come, because they want to trade with us.
	Because the only way they're going to develop faster than light travel is if they have a juicy resource-optimizing free market on the go.
	And so there's just no way that they would come here and just sort of hide around fields and, you know, beam people up.
	I mean, that's not how that would work.
	The only way they're going to get advanced technology is through the free market.
	And so they're going to be here to trade or they're not going to be here at all.
	And so until...
	The glowing lights of the intergalactic mall unroll like a carpet in some public place.
	I just don't really see how it's going to happen.
	And if anybody has some sympathy for the skepticism around UFOs, if you felt like making up some of these subscriptions who were pulled because of this topic, I would appreciate that.
	You can go to freedomainradio.com forward slash donate.
	And...
	So, anyway.
	I think that we...
	Would like to get to the callers.
	And, sorry, somebody who says, I challenge Steph to talk about UPB on Coast to Coast AM. Fantastic!
	You know, get me an invite.
	I will talk about ethics with anyone, anytime.
	And if you want to done that, if you want to chat with me about it, I would be fascinated too, so.
	All right, we have a caller who has a comment or a question or an issue, so let's get to the true frontal lobes of the conversation.
	Up first is Tony.
	Tony.
	Hello, how are you doing?
	I'm very well.
	How are you doing?
	Can you hear?
	I'm good.
	There's a bit of a delay because I'm on satellite.
	If it sounds like I'm interrupting you, I'm not trying to.
	Right.
	So, what I was calling about, Steph, this is the second time I've talked to you, by the way, I know you don't remember when you talk to a lot of people.
	This is the first time I spoke to you on this show, but you were interviewed on a show called Infrequently Asked Questions, which a friend of mine was doing on Blog Talk Radio.
	I don't know if you remember you doing that interview.
	Of course, yeah.
	That's my question.
	Listen, given the delay, I think the delay, I think you need to just ask your question and then I'll try to answer it.
	But if we do a lot of back and forth, it's going to drive everyone mental.
	So if you can just ask your question, I will take a stab at it.
	Sure.
	What I wanted to talk about, if that's right, if it's okay with you, I wanted to bring up ethics.
	You were just speaking about ethics.
	And I have a bit of a strange ethical theory, and I thought maybe you could give me your take on it.
	I believe the non-aggression principle works perfectly.
	Pretty well, if not perfectly, in moderate circumstances.
	And I would define moderate circumstances as a circumstance in which there's a non-coercive path, a non-coercive choice.
	And then I would say that I don't think it works so well in extreme circumstances, and that would be defined as a circumstance where there is no non-coercive choice.
	So I wouldn't say that in the ethical department that the NAP I think it still defines ethics.
	But in an extreme circumstance, I think you would try to choose the path of least coercion as opposed to the non-aggressive or the non-initiation of aggression path.
	And just to give a quick hypothetical, and then you can give me your take… If, say, you're starving to death, I mean, would you steal for food?
	And my assertion is that 95% of the population, non-sociopaths, even if we were all anarchists, we would still probably steal for food.
	I'm sorry, why would you need to steal for food?
	I mean, why wouldn't you just ask for charity?
	Why wouldn't it?
	The charity is hundreds of billions of dollars a year just in the United States.
	So why wouldn't you just go to a soup kitchen or go to a church or a community center or the Salvation Army?
	Or why don't you just go and offer to sweep the sidewalk in front of the grocery store in return for bread?
	I'm just not sure why, even if you do end up in a situation where you're somehow starving to death.
	And that, of course, you can't just invent these things at the end, right?
	You have to figure out how somebody ended up starving to death.
	But I still don't see why theft is the only option that's left.
	Why not just ask someone for some bread?
	I mean, it's something that's very common.
	Charity is very common, and I don't see why you would end up having to steal.
	I would agree with you, but then that would imply that we were not in extreme circumstance by how I defined it.
	Because I'm saying that, you know, an extreme circumstance would be one where all those options are not available.
	Well, but that's not a real situation.
	Like, you can't just eliminate things and then say, well, there's a problem with the theory, right?
	So if I have a theory of gravity, and then you say, well, but if matter, sorry, if mass repelled other matter rather than I don't think you can make up an artificial universe where there's no charity,
	nobody has any kindness, nobody wants to help anybody else.
	In other words, nobody has any children because children, of course, requires charity.
	You have to sort of give without receiving, at least for the first, you know, 25 years or so.
	And so there are no children in this universe.
	There are no pets.
	There's no charity, right?
	And this is a universe that has never existed in the human sphere.
	There's never been a time...
	Where there's no charity whatsoever in the world.
	And so I think that I have no problem with challenges to theories, but you can't make up a world that has never existed.
	That's like saying physics doesn't work because there's magic in Dungeons& Dragons worlds or in Lord of the Rings.
	And that's just not true.
	There's no magic in the world.
	There is stories where there is magic, which are entertaining.
	But I don't think you can make up...
	I know you can't make up a...
	society which has never existed, a society without any charity whatsoever, and then say, well, there's a problem with ethics, because empirically this has never been the case and never will be the case.
	I understand what you're saying.
	I would just argue that there are people in the real world today that are starving to death in certain countries, and they might face this very ethical dilemma.
	Would you agree?
	Are there people who are starving to death In countries at the moment?
	Yes, there are people who are starving to death.
	I'm sorry, I didn't catch that.
	Can you say that again?
	Sorry, there are people who are starving to death at the moment, yes.
	But that's not the ethical issue.
	That is the problem there.
	The ethical issue with the people who are starving to death is not whether the people who are starving should steal a loaf of bread or not.
	The ethical issue is that if people are starving to death because of the initiation of force, Then we have to focus on who's initiating force against those people, right?
	So if I lock someone in my basement and that person then gets hungry and considers stealing food, I mean, just imagine this is possible.
	Okay, so let's say I've got a loaf of bread in my basement and I lock a guy in my basement and then he's like, well, the only way I can eat is to steal Steph's loaf of bread in his basement.
	Well...
	The real ethical issue there is not whether the guy should steal a loaf of bread, but the fact that I've locked him in the basement against his will, right?
	And that I have entrapped him.
	And so we focus on that, not on the loaf of bread.
	And so the people who are starving to death in the world are starving to death because their governments are initiating force against them and preventing them from being able to sustain themselves, being able to trade, being able to own property with any kind of consistency.
	And so we focus on that and not on the loaf of bread.
	I completely agree with what you're saying, but I would just, I see what you're saying.
	I don't want to take away from the fact that perhaps you think I'm focusing on the wrong thing.
	I don't know if I've already said it, but I am an anarchist, so you don't really have to...
	I mean, not to say that you're doing it for my benefit, I don't know, but I don't want you to think you have to convince me of that part of it.
	I do understand what you're saying.
	I agree with you.
	I just would say that while I'm bringing up this ethical dilemma, and I so enjoy ethical dilemmas, even if they're hypothetical, because I think they serve to strengthen your own ethical theory.
	Mine, anyway.
	I don't know how you feel about it.
	But for me, what I was getting at more than anything is that there's situations in the extreme where people will probably violate the NAP and have to choose between Paths of least coercion.
	And I was wondering, do you think that's a fair ethical assumption?
	I mean, obviously what they're doing by coercing is not ethical, but if it's Let's speak in terms of utility for a moment, because I don't like to go deontological consequentialist in a strict paradigm.
	If they're decreasing human suffering and increasing human happiness in that situation, and that's the best they can do, it might not be ethical, it still might be criminal, and it still might need remuneration.
	In the end, you know, for what they've done.
	But, you know, that's something you worry about after the extreme circumstance has passed.
	But in that circumstance, is that acceptable to you?
	But why does this stuff matter?
	I don't understand.
	We have so many big ethical problems to deal with in the world.
	Just getting the general population to understand that taxation is theft is a big enough mountain to chew off for the next couple of generations.
	Why do you think you're drawn to creating these extreme and extremely improbable ethical scenarios?
	What does that do for you, given how much work there is already to do?
	Because it helps me understand, I guess, things about myself when I was younger, before I became an anarchist.
	why I did the things I did when I lived in decently poverty areas, high crime areas, and why I chose to do things that now I realize were unethical, but at the time seemed and why I chose to do things that now I realize were unethical, but at the time seemed to be things I There were nowhere near extreme as I was starving to death and had to steal food, but I just enjoy the ethical dilemmas because they help me to understand, I don't know, in my world, ethics better.
	Like, I feel like...
	If my theory is not bulletproof, then I don't want to explain it to other people because they're going to come up with questions that I can't answer.
	And they always come up with these types of hypotheticals, you know what I mean?
	So this is my way of kind of preempting it, coming up with ethical dilemmas.
	I don't want anybody to buy this or anything.
	But there's the comic book, The Walking Dead.
	This thing is full of ethical dilemmas.
	To me, it's a gross horror comic, blah, blah, blah.
	But I just love the ethical dilemmas.
	There's something about it that fascinates me.
	Let's go back to your childhood.
	What are the things that you did as a kid that you feel were not ethical?
	Oh, I did all kinds of things.
	I mean, I was a pretty bad kid.
	I mean, what stage do you want me to start with?
	Like, how young?
	Well, you tell me.
	I don't even know what topics we're dealing with, so just tell me what you think is the worst thing.
	The worst thing I did?
	I used to rob houses.
	I guess that was probably one of the worst things I did.
	I sold drugs, did stuff like that.
	I was involved with a lot of bad stuff.
	And why do you think you did that?
	At the time, I didn't understand ethics.
	I would probably have considered myself a terrible status.
	I was very left-wing.
	I thought the world owed me something.
	I felt because I was poor and other people were rich that there was some zero-sum game and therefore I had to take what was rightfully mine which was not rightfully mine.
	I felt like everybody else around me was involved in it so this was a way to make money especially the selling drugs that was you know a big thing was that everybody around me did.
	I resisted most of this stuff So I was what I would consider a late age, and everybody else was involved in it at an early age, but a late age is 14, 15.
	I mean, my friends were selling drugs and living in an abandoned house when they were 12 years old, so it was just the norm.
	Their parents were, they had a mother that was, my best friends were brothers, and they had two cousins that lived with them, and One set of parents didn't care what they did and the other set of parents, one was their mother was a coke addict and their father was a crack addict.
	We saw the mother almost never and we saw the father like once or twice a month when he came back from his quote-unquote missions when he would be out of money and out of crack and he'd come home and rob his kids for the crack they were selling.
	It was a pretty weird scenario.
	It was not a good childhood in that regard.
	Although I had a very lovely single mother, but she had to work so much that she wasn't around and she wasn't aware of most anything I was doing.
	Right.
	Okay, well look, I mean, I think I gave a fairly reasonable answer that, you know, we focus on the initiation of force, not the people who are trying to survive the initiation of force by possibly stealing bread.
	But I think that I would focus very much on As I've always talked about, the quality of parenting is key here.
	The quality of parenting is key.
	If we can improve the quality of parenting, then we simply won't have people who end up in these desperate situations where they're robbing houses and doing all these terrible things.
	And I really sympathize with that.
	I really sympathize with that.
	And I think I have a fairly good understanding where that comes from biologically and psychologically.
	And there's lots of arguments as to how that ends up being the case.
	So, I think that we're not going to solve the problem of ethics by coming up with some magical theory that's going to answer everybody's concerns about every conceivable ethical theory.
	Like, I saw this guy on the Calberopore last year who was from, I think he was teaching justice at Harvard, and he had questions about, you know, if you're stuck in a boat, who are you going to eat?
	Just shit like that.
	And that's just terrible.
	I mean, that's just so terrible.
	There are so many issues that we need to get to before then.
	It's like being a doctor in a time of plague where everybody's falling over and you actually have a cure and then saying, well, you know, there could be some really obscure illness that we can't cure that could happen to one person in a million.
	No, let's deal with the plague right now and let's get to the other things.
	So, sorry, we think we're going to have to move on because the lag is pretty bad.
	Let me just ask people in the chat room how my How am I sounding?
	I may need to disconnect and reconnect.
	I've certainly got plenty of bandwidth here, so I'm not sure what the issue is.
	Sounding okay.
	Let's just see here.
	Okay.
	You've been sounding fine for the past little bit.
	Okay.
	Yeah, I've got tons of bandwidth here.
	All right, let's move on to the next caller.
	It might be a problem with Skype.
	Some people have made some suggestions.
	I'll take a look into those alternatives for next time.
	It could have been trying to sync me and the satellite guys.
	Anyway.
	Yeah, it could have been, although I'm hosting the call, so I'm not sure why.
	But whatever, it doesn't matter.
	Next up, we have two Marks.
	The first Mark we'll go with is Mark, the Jehovah's Witness.
	Hello, hello.
	Oh, hello again.
	Can you hear me?
	Yes, go ahead.
	Oh, super.
	Yeah, so, remember me, Mark, the Jehovah's Witness, "Ireducible Complexity." Yeah, sorry, you're dropping out there as well.
	What the heck's going on with Skype today?
	Can you just try talking again?
	Shall I call back later?
	Yeah, try calling back a little later.
	It's dropping for me.
	So let's move on to the other Mark.
	Sorry.
	Hello?
	Hello, go ahead.
	I'll get right to it.
	So I was thinking of introversion and extroversion and how much of that is just innate temperament and how much of that is...
	One moment, I gotta...
	Hello?
	Really sorry about that.
	Really sorry.
	There are some kids that are about to walk in here and be kids.
	So introversion versus extroversion.
	How much of that is innate personality type, do you believe?
	And how much of that is just BS people like to make up just to classify?
	I'm not sure.
	I mean, there's so many ways to look at that question.
	I'm not sure how we would answer that.
	Because it depends what you mean.
	So there are some people who'd rather go to a disco and there are some people who would rather sit home and read a book.
	And I don't think that that is good or bad.
	These things can, of course, change over the course of your life.
	I used to go to discos twice a week when I was in my teens and early 20s.
	And I think the last time I went to a disco was probably about...
	Eight or nine years ago and with any luck I will never have to go to a disco again for the rest of my life.
	I love to dance.
	So things change of course over life and there's nothing wrong with reading a book and there's nothing wrong with going to a disco.
	So I don't think that sort of being a stay at home versus being a go outer is necessarily problematic.
	I think that it would be nice to see What human personalities looked like when they weren't traumatized.
	You know, some people sort of ask me about the degree of trauma in the world.
	And of course, there's no way to know for sure.
	But, nobody calls them discos anymore?
	Are you kidding me?
	Have you never ever talked to someone from the gay community?
	Come on!
	Anyway, so, sorry, so as far as the level of trauma, degree of trauma goes, and I was thinking about this in terms of the twin studies, Twins end up kind of the same and so on.
	Yeah, but they're all going through public school.
	They may all be going through the same religion.
	And of course, this is going to end up with similarities.
	But there's a very quick and easy way to figure out how many people are traumatized in the world.
	It's a very, very simple rule of thumb.
	And the way that you find out if somebody is traumatized in the world is you present them evidence that is contrary to their opinions and see how they handle it and if they can absorb it and if they can roll with it and if they can change their mind based upon better reason and evidence, then the likelihood is that they are less traumatized.
	Does that mean they're not traumatized?
	Well, no.
	The world is so full of falsehoods and exploitation and aggression and violence that to be not traumatized is to be traumatized by having to live in the world.
	And so You know, you can just look at this in your own life and look at the people you've brought, say, an argument like taxation is forced to or you've brought arguments to that are contrary.
	Think of, you know, people who've emailed me saying, oh, I sent your bomb and the brain stuff or I sent the truth about spanking to people and, you know, they just don't listen.
	Well, those people are traumatized.
	One of the things that we know, at least that I'm told or I understand scientifically, is that the people who are traumatized React emotionally and defensively to information which contradicts their biases.
	And so you can do the math yourself and find out how many people are open to reason and evidence that goes against their particular perspectives.
	And if the answer is 80%, 90%, for me, maybe one person in 20 can handle information that is against their preconceived notions.
	And that's pretty generous.
	That is pretty generous.
	And I'm not talking about, you know, they have to be atheist, anarchist, the whole, you know, philosophical hog.
	I'm just talking about the basics.
	I'm just talking about the basics.
	You know, they have some political perspective.
	Can they handle something against that political perspective?
	Maybe one person in 20, which means that really only 5% of people are coming out with reduced levels of trauma in the world.
	And...
	That is not a good percentage, but it tells you, of course, if 90% of parents are hitting, those kids are traumatized, really, by definition.
	And again, I know there's different degrees and so on, so...
	Yeah.
	So again, I was kind of getting at, like, when people say, oh, they're just shy, they're just kind of introverted.
	Like, I don't think an introvert, naturally, temperamental-wise, like, you know, the natural temperaments, there's four or whatever they classify them as.
	But I don't believe part of that temperament is shyness with, like, fear of social judgment.
	You know what I mean?
	So, like...
	Or extroverts could be people who go out and try to seek excess stimulants to mask whatever as a distraction or who anxiously go around from fleeting pleasure to fleeting pleasure.
	You know what I mean?
	Because one set of traumatic manifestations of trauma could be on the extroverted end and won't be on the introverted end.
	Oh, absolutely.
	The way to gauge something like shyness is also very simple.
	And the fact that it's so simple and not talked about very much is more indicative of general social trauma.
	The question of shyness is very simple.
	Which is...
	Is the social environment dangerous for that person's honest self?
	Right?
	That's the basic standard that you need to apply when you're evaluating somebody who's shy.
	Is their social environment dangerous?
	Does it attack?
	Does it reject?
	Does it ostracize?
	Is it punitive for their basic honesty?
	And if the social environment is dangerous to their honesty or to the truth, then they're not shy.
	They're surrounded by predators, and they're fearful.
	You know, like, there's a scene in Jaws where some kid gets attacked on a yellow raft out in the ocean, and then everyone screams and comes pounding in to the ocean.
	Do we say that they're now suddenly shy of the ocean?
	No!
	There's a predator in the ocean, and they're running away from it.
	And I certainly have had enough calls with people Who say that they're shy and you dig into their history and you find that there was a lot of ostracism and rejection and attack and assault for them speaking basic truths.
	Not even philosophical truths, just truths about their own experience.
	And that's all you have to do.
	No, no.
	Ask, is the person shy?
	That's pathologizing the reaction.
	What you ask is, is the social environment safe for honesty?
	And if it is, if you feel like you're an accurate judge and it is, then you can just attribute it to their natural temperament.
	Well, in your theoretical example where somebody is shy despite the fact that they have had a very friendly social environment, Well, I mean, then what you have to know, there's a second layer.
	So let's say that their immediate family environment is very encouraging of honesty and is unoffended by original thinking and, you know, genuinely wants to know...
	And so on.
	Well, then they go to public school.
	And how honest can you be in public school?
	Or maybe they go to daycare.
	How honest can you be in daycare?
	Or even if they survive all of that, they're homeschooled, they're this and that.
	Well, they still then have to be dumped into the society as a whole.
	So you can talk about their immediate society, but then you also have to talk about the society as a whole that they've got to live in.
	Yeah, you're right.
	When I teach, I teach kids for like six and a half hours a day.
	That's longer than most of their parents see in a day.
	Oh, far longer.
	Far longer.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	But I was just wondering to get your thoughts on the introverted, extroverted thing.
	How much of it do you think is natural?
	How much of it is manifestations of scar tissue?
	I don't think any of it is natural.
	I don't think anything is natural.
	I don't think that human beings are naturally in any state of social anxiety and fear.
	I think that fear is not a natural human state.
	Shyness is a way, like almost all of these kinds of terms, shyness is a way of dumping the poison in society into the body of the individual.
	Because everything which is a negative or pathological or problematic description of an individual is a way of offloading the dysfunction from society to that individual.
	It's not that society is scary, it's that this kid is shy.
	It's not that school is bad or parenting is bad.
	It's that this kid has bipolar.
	This kid has ADHD. This kid has oppositional defiant disorder.
	It's simply a way for adults to avoid examining the environment the child is in and simply...
	Yeah.
	I mean, there's obviously financial incentives, but those financial incentives simply come out of the fact society lives this unbelievably abominable lie, right?
	Which is that society says, we love our kids.
	We would do anything for our kids.
	We're all about our kids.
	Everything is about the kids.
	The kids are the future.
	The kids are the glowing angels of God, and they are everything in the future, and the dreams of the future.
	I mean, everything for the kids.
	And then, of course, when you actually ask Society to do things for the kids that are objectively and benevolently helpful to the kids, everybody says, no fucking way.
	Right?
	So, I mean, so, you know, oh, well, you know, everything is for the kids.
	We really, really care about the kids.
	Oh, okay.
	Well, then we should, you know, Privatize education and return the money to the parents.
	We should never hit children.
	We should never yell at children.
	We should not have children raised by strangers, which is bad for them.
	You should not, both of you shouldn't work as parents.
	One of you should stay home with the kids because you chose to have them and it's much better for them.
	No, no, no, no, no!
	We don't want to do that.
	We don't want to take on the public sector unions.
	We don't want to provoke conflict in that way.
	So, okay, fine, but then it's not for the kids.
	We should really examine Social Security because there's no money and everybody's just pillaging from the young who have much less money than the old who managed to accumulate a huge amount of money because the government gave them a bunch of free services and didn't pay for them.
	And so it's unjust.
	The money that has been accumulated by the elderly has largely been accumulated by the government pillaging the unborn.
	And so we should...
	Change that.
	No, no, no, no, no.
	We don't want to do that, right?
	So society as a whole talks a lot about how it really, really cares for children.
	But then when you actually ask it to put into practice the caring for the children, who does?
	Well, nobody.
	And almost nobody.
	So there are some exceptions, of course, right?
	I'm going to point that out.
	I'm going to paint too grim.
	But yeah, I mean, I'm just...
	I mean, it's just ridiculous to pathologize children because what you're doing is giving a get-out-of-jail-free card for...
	Let me finish this rant.
	I'm sorry, but this has been on my mind since I did this.
	Glad we could have a platform.
	Yeah, look, so I got a lot of messages, but I just put out two very important videos on the family and on...
	Sort of addiction and the twin studies and so on.
	And people saying, as they always do, ah, well, okay, you see, so what's happened is, Steph, how can you blame parents?
	Because the parents themselves had bad childhoods and because they had bad childhoods, they have these particular brain structures, they need this dopamine, they're short on endorphins and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and therefore you can't blame the parents.
	Okay, you know, even if we are willing to accept that, and I'm willing to not blame people who don't blame others.
	But when people blame others and then ask them to not be blamed themselves, that is hypocrisy.
	And so if a parent has blamed the child and then when the child becomes an adult and criticizes or questions the ethics of the parent, the parent says, oh, no, no, no, now it's all relative.
	Well, that's switching stories.
	So I think there's some responsibility for that.
	But even if we get rid of that, eliminate that as an argument, and let's say that adults are not responsible for their choices because they had bad childhoods, Fine, okay.
	Okay, that's fine.
	What that means, of course, is that we have to really restructure childhood.
	Because if a 25-year-old or a 30-year-old is not responsible for his or her decisions because of X, Y, and Z in their childhood, even though they now have economic independence and self-knowledge and access to therapy and access to free books in the library around self-knowledge and they can journal and they can...
	We do all of this kind of funky stuff.
	So if a 25-year-old is not responsible for his or her choices, for having kids, for going on welfare, for hitting the kids or whatever, fine.
	Okay, let's accept that.
	But then, of course, we have to immediately shift our focus from that adult to the children.
	Because if adults are not responsible for what they do because of their terrible childhoods and we accept that, then we immediately have to start focusing on children.
	Because if adults are not responsible Ten years after they were children for their childhoods, then without a doubt children are not responsible at all for what is going on in the middle of their childhoods at the time.
	To me it's just people trying, it's their subconscious avoiding responsibility, wanting to avoid or justify their lack of taking responsibility for their actions.
	Right, but then we need to change everything about childhood.
	Which means what?
	Which means children should never fail a test.
	Children should never ever fail a test in school.
	Children should never ever be reprimanded for bad behavior.
	Children should never ever face any negative consequences for their actions.
	Children should never get into trouble or experience any negative repercussions for not going to school or for being late to school or any of these sorts of things.
	Because if the adults are not responsible for their choices, then children are much less responsible for their choices.
	I sort of think of it like, sorry, just a sec.
	So you sort of put it like two hands in front of your face, right?
	So you move one hand an inch, the other hand have to move 10 feet.
	Ow.
	Got orangutan arms, right?
	But if you move the dial of responsibility for adults, you move the dial of responsibility for kids much more.
	If you reduce responsibility for adults 50%, then you reduce responsibility for children 150%.
	But everybody wants to move the dial for the adults without moving the responsibility dial for the children.
	And that is, you know, frankly scumbaggery of the highest order.
	Anyway, I just wanted to mention it.
	Well, I'm right there with you.
	To me, it's just basically it's all big one facade for I'm bigger than you and it would serve me to take advantage of that.
	Vulnerability.
	I mean, it's a short-term thing.
	You get what you want in the short term at society's long-term expense, you know?
	Right.
	We both agree there.
	We'll agree to agree.
	So I'll just get out of the way.
	All right, listen, I've got to move on if you don't mind.
	I want to make sure that we get to get a bunch of calls, but thank you so much.
	All right.
	Other Mark.
	Let's try again.
	Be back.
	Hello.
	Hello, is that better?
	Not too bad.
	How can I help you?
	Yeah, sorry about that.
	I think my computer's playing up.
	Yes, so first of all, I wanted to apologize about the irreducible complexity.
	I've done more research and you are right, it only proves intelligent design.
	It can only ever prove intelligent design, or an intelligent design not restricted by physical.
	And it's the same with creation.
	It only proves a creator, not necessarily a God.
	So it could be Thor, the...
	I'm so sorry.
	We're just not getting any bandwidth for you.
	I'm afraid we'll have to try this another week.
	But I will say that if your research has led you to the belief that irreducible complexity proves a creator, Then I'm afraid you have not gone deep enough into the irreducible complexity issue.
	As far as I understand, and I'm certainly no expert, it appears to have been fairly thoroughly debunked by environmentalists, sorry, by biologists as a whole.
	So we will have to try that again, or maybe we can just try a one-on-one call, just in case there are any issues.
	And do we have somebody else?
	Sorry, we had to cut you off.
	There's somebody else here?
	Yes, Craig, you're up.
	Hello, Steph.
	Hello, how are you?
	I'm wonderful.
	It's a pleasure to speak with you.
	First off, and to preface my question, I should say that listening to and studying philosophy and listening to a lot of your stuff and other things as well has really changed how I think about things in a much better way.
	I see things more realistically now.
	And that kind of leads me to my question.
	It's about relationships, specifically romantic relationships.
	I've been in some dysfunctional ones in the past, and recently I feel like I've gotten into one with someone that is very similar to me and worked on a lot of the same stuff.
	I've read real-time relationships, and it's very much a real-time relationship, which I have that with friends, but I've never had it in a boyfriend-girlfriend kind of situation.
	And the thing is that, you know, you and I are not religious, and we see that a lot of it doesn't make sense, but philosophically, I should say that she is Christian, she was raised that way, and you can see that that affects her, and she still practices it today, but philosophically, we are extremely similar in every other way except she believes these things.
	And I'm wondering if you think that, like, I should see this as a red flag, or if you think that can work?
	I mean, we've talked about, like, oh, well, does it bother you that we're different, and she doesn't think that, and she doesn't judge me for it, and that's fine, but do you think I'm missing something here, or do you think that can work?
	So she's Christian, and you're atheist, is that right?
	I would say essentially yes.
	I'm kind of more of a Buddhist kind of, but mostly yes.
	Atheist in the sense that I don't believe there's any kind of supreme power watching us.
	Right.
	And if you have kids, how will they be raised?
	You know, we've talked about it briefly, and she's open to letting them make their own decisions.
	I mean, she would obviously tell them what she thinks, and I would tell them what I think, and she's open to them making their own decisions.
	Sorry, would she tell them what she thinks or what it is?
	I suppose she would probably tell them what it is in her mind.
	No, no.
	Sorry.
	Nice try.
	Nice try.
	But you understand that if she's a Christian, then she doesn't believe it in her mind, right?
	It's true.
	Right.
	Right?
	Yes.
	So she would tell them that...
	You know, that Christ was killed, was murdered, that the best being in the whole universe was murdered because they were bad.
	Well, I don't think she would put it like that, but essentially she would say, yes, that's true, but at the same time she would, I mean, she's a very extremely open-minded person otherwise, and I don't think, well,
	you know, maybe I'm Maybe I'm blind to the situation, but in the ways that I really value someone in that they don't judge anyone and they don't try and force their opinions on others, I just don't see her doing that so much.
	Sorry, so not judging is a value for you?
	Yes, absolutely.
	So if your girlfriend worships a deity who damns people to hell for disobedience to Irrational edicts.
	What's your relationship to the Yahweh deity?
	My relationship?
	Well, I mean, since he's, you know, he, she, it is pretty damn judgmental, right?
	Right.
	And, you know, I've asked her, do you think I'm going to hell?
	And it's kind of a point of cognitive dissonance.
	And she thinks that, I mean, she kind of isn't a stereotypical Christian.
	I think she thinks that no one's really going to hell.
	I mean, she purports to be a Christian, but it's kind of like she doesn't agree with all the things that they say because she has these values that disagree with it.
	And I try to point out to her that she picks and chooses, but, you know, it's kind of like when you confront someone that's been, I guess, traumatized, you would say, like that, they kind of disengage at that point.
	Right.
	And what do you think is the source of her religiosity?
	She was raised that way.
	Well, no, I know, but a lot of people are raised that way.
	I mean, I was raised that way, so that's not quite the answer that explains much.
	In other words, what were the negative consequences?
	I mean, the first question, it's not the only question in my opinion, but the first question to ask When confronted with these belief systems is to say, what would be the consequences of no longer believing these things?
	Gotcha.
	Yeah, I think it would be a lot of scorn from her family.
	Right.
	And look, I mean, I have a huge amount of sympathy for that.
	Right?
	It means, you know, I don't want to put too strong a label on it and, you know, it's your relationship, tell me where I'm going wrong.
	But isn't it fair to say that she would experience a lot of rejection, abuse, ostracism and so on if she were to no longer accept these beliefs?
	Yes, definitely.
	Right, right.
	And is she aware of that?
	That she's appeasing bullies or aggressive people and hanging on to these beliefs because of that?
	Is she aware of that?
	You know, on a grand scheme, I don't think she is, but on specific things, like, for instance, she can't stay over at my house because her family, she lives with her parents, and her family would be upset.
	I've asked her, well, do you think that's wrong?
	And she thinks, no, I don't think it's wrong, I think it's fine.
	And I said, well, I feel like you should live by your own moral code, regardless of what other people think.
	And she, exactly what you said, that her parents would, you know, it would be a big deal, and she doesn't want to deal with that big deal.
	Right.
	Right, right.
	Well, then of course, if she's not particularly conscious of this, then it seems to me somewhat likely that it would be reproduced with her own children then, right?
	That would make sense.
	And that would be very tough for you?
	That would be.
	Right, because if she obeys her parents because of a fear of her parents, or partly or whatever, right, then...
	She will expect the same thing from her kids, likely.
	Unless you process that and deal with it and reject it and work through all of the emotional difficulties associated with that and all the history of having obeyed out of fear in the past and so on, then if she hasn't processed that, then it seems to me, sure, sunrise, that's what she's going to expect from her own kids.
	Yeah, that would make sense.
	And that would not be good, right?
	That would be bad.
	So I should probably discuss this with her and see if she would expect that from her kids.
	And do you think she would be able to discuss that?
	And do you think the discussion could lead somewhere productive?
	Or do you think she would just say, no, I won't, and then she wouldn't be able to see it?
	Well, I mean, I think it's pretty hard to say, I want my kids...
	Like, it would be good for my kids to act in a way that I'm not acting.
	I think that's really tough to sustain.
	You know, like, it's really good for me to not bully my kids into accepting my irrational beliefs, but I'm going to continue to enable my parents to bully me into accepting their irrational beliefs, right?
	Because it creates a cognitive problem, right?
	A dissonance, a contradiction.
	And the brain doesn't like contradictions, right?
	The brain, you know, F. Scott Fitzgerald said it is the mark of a first-class intelligence to be able to hold two opposing ideas in the mind at the same time.
	I don't think that's true.
	And of course, if he has such a degree, significant degree of self-knowledge, why did he marry that crazy witch of a wife and Zelda Fitzgerald who was institutionalized and ended up dying just tragically later after 13 years of being institutionalized in a fire?
	Imagine how horrible to be trapped in your own incarcerated mental cage while the fire creeps up.
	And why did he end up basically committing suicide through Alcohol and why did he live such a miserable life after such a promising start?
	But the brain, no likey contradictions.
	And so the brain will struggle to either resolve contradictions or it will split.
	And the split is very dangerous for the mind.
	And so then it creates two separate identities with their own belief systems.
	And if they ever start to collide, there's massive amounts of stress.
	And so people flip in and out of one or the other, which makes for very inconsistent parenting, for very inconsistent relationships.
	Relationships.
	Because you never know which of the many alter egos they're going to be inhabiting in any particular moment.
	And so you can't have integrity if you're psychologically split, in my opinion.
	And so if she's going to create opposing values for her parents versus her own parenting, I think that it's going to be very inconsistent and alarming for the kids because this simply isn't going to be resolved.
	Again, this is just my thoughts.
	I don't know, but what do you think?
	Well, I can, with the split, I can definitely see her doing that when it comes to certain things.
	Like, she tries to be very rational, and she'll get to the point where she sees the contradiction, and then it's just like, it's like, it's hard to explain, but it's like you can see something changing.
	Oh yeah, no, people flip in and out, absolutely.
	I mean, I think this is fairly well known, people flip in and out of these alter egos all the time.
	So, if there's any chance of, you know, I don't know if you want to give advice, but, you know, if we were going to try and work through this, and if I was going to try and get an idea of if this could be resolved, I mean, just use the real-time relationship strategy, I would assume.
	Yeah, I mean, you know, to me, fundamentally, it's not about God.
	Right, me neither.
	Look, nobody talks to God.
	Nobody says, I see Jesus in the corner in a thong, right?
	Nobody says, I've got a deep, vaguely British-accented voice in my head.
	Hey, remember when I used to have a deep voice?
	Ah, that was before my testosterone went down about 30% to 40%, rendering me much more passive after becoming a stay-at-home dad.
	Anyway, so nobody's actually talking to God.
	Nobody prays and hears a voice in their ear.
	Nobody is getting these...
	Visions that tell, I mean, people who are, you know, scary and mentally damaged and like, blah, right?
	So it's not about God.
	She doesn't talk to God.
	She doesn't really, she doesn't see God.
	She's just, you know, got this thing called faith.
	And faith, when you translate it into real relationship terms, faith is fear of being attacked if I don't say I'm faithful.
	I mean, that's what faith is.
	And or it's either fear of being attacked or hoping to get the You know, the candy bribe of heaven in the afterlife.
	But this is how faith gets transmitted.
	This is how belief in the irrational gets transmitted, because parents who can't prove, but something that the child has to accept, end up having to be aggressive, whether you like it or not.
	And I'm telling you, I mean, I know what a huge and powerful lever parental disapproval is, and it should be...
	Really, really lightly and very, very sparingly used.
	I think I've used it maybe once in the entire time that I've been a parent for reasons we don't have to get into here.
	But it is a very, very big and powerful button that parents should, if, never, almost never, never push.
	And so, to think that it's about God, to me, is to miss the purpose of You know, is she allowed in her parents to be herself, to express her doubts, to express her concerns, to express her ambivalence, to question, to be fully present in the relationship?
	And I think, you know, one of the very many problems I have with irrational beliefs of any kind is that I view a good relationship like Like a pond in heavy rain.
	You know, like it fills up and then it spills over in every direction.
	You can talk about everything.
	And it's just wonderful how easy and wonderful the conversations can be with people when you're not constantly binging around these landmines like some half-on-fire pinball from hell.
	And so when you have a particular belief system, an ideology, a rigid belief, Like religiosity, like statism, like nationalism, like pro-war, like martialism, militarism, or whatever.
	Then what happens is, you know, the topics fall like rain into the pond, but there's this one giant-ass carved channel that's the only place the water can escape.
	It's got to go that way, because everything else is dangerous, is problematic.
	And so irrational beliefs really restrict...
	They really restrict the free flow of intimacy between people.
	And that really would be my major concern.
	Now, if she's able to sort of say or accept, if this is true, I think it's true, if she's able to say and accept, look, this is a problem.
	My parents will punish me if I express any doubts about religion or if I question their morals or whatever it is, right?
	Then my parents will punish me.
	Well, okay, that's not great.
	Right?
	That's not what parents should be doing.
	Parents should not be threatening with punishment the natural curiosity of the child.
	And if she can accept that what her parents are doing is not right, is not good, then there's a lot to process right there.
	And it's not to do with God and Jesus in heaven and hell and all these sorts of things.
	Because that's not the cause, right?
	I mean, God is not the cause of religion.
	Parental ostracism and criticism is the source of religion.
	And so if you think it's about God, I think you're missing.
	So those would be the conversations that I would have.
	If she genuinely does believe God, In, you know, this particular god of the 10,000 gods or whatever, and this is, you know, this is true and so on, then you have a problem.
	You will have a problem raising your children.
	And I say this from having dated a Christian woman in the past and having conversations like this.
	So, you know, my path may not be your path.
	I'll just tell you what my experience was and then you can see if it's of any use.
	So if she believes that something is true that is irrational, counter-empirical, Then you have a problem, because your kids are going to say, well, do you believe it?
	And say, no.
	Well, why don't you believe it?
	Because it's not true.
	But mom says it is true.
	Well, that's mom's perspective.
	No, that's not mom's perspective.
	Mom says it is true.
	And you're telling me it's not true.
	So who's right?
	And how?
	How are you going to resolve that with your kids?
	Yeah, that all makes sense.
	I guess I probably need to think about down the line more because right now what I'm looking at from the short time I've been in this relationship is how she and I interact and we do have we can talk about anything it doesn't offend her and that's fine but I hadn't considered the long term consequences of that so I think I just need to explore that more with her and think about that so best of luck I hope that works Thanks a lot, Steph.
	Alright, take care, man.
	Yep, bye-bye.
	Alright.
	We have time.
	Alright.
	Next we have Neil from V Radio.
	Hello.
	Can you guys hear me okay?
	From the Neilers to the Neil.
	I can hear you just fine.
	How are you doing, man?
	Not too bad.
	I just wanted to comment a little bit on the thing we were talking about before you got on today, but I've been kind of working on this theory that I call the social pyramid scheme, meaning that essentially along the lines of a financial pyramid scheme, you get people who establish a hierarchy And basically, going off of your recent thing that you did with Nature vs.
	Nurture gives it kind of a scientific explanation, is the dopamine rush that people get when they get approval from people, especially from large groups.
	So basically, when you have this pyramid scheme, it basically functions like you have all these people on the bottom that feel if they kiss enough derriere of the people directly above them, who will eventually do the same for the people above them, and then it'll trickle down from the top down to them In like a cool points or I'm trying to figure out a good way of putting it like social currency method that we all kind of get drawn into this game and the funny thing about it is that society actually doesn't really
	encourage people to talk about the fact that this exists.
	Everybody sees it but they don't tend to Want to discuss it and they more importantly certainly don't want anyone else discussing it because it kind of exposes their game.
	It almost reminds me of the way religious people react very negatively if you start challenging their religious beliefs.
	So I guess I wanted to ask, given based on that, what do you think of that theory so far?
	Well, I think there's a lot to it, but I think that integrity In the face of the group is tough, of course.
	I mean, we're all social animals, and so integrity in the face of group disapproval is tough.
	But it's the question of, can you manage the anxiety of opposing the prejudices of the group?
	And I think I would argue that people who've been raised well, whose endorphin systems are working well, in other words, they can self-soothe, they can soothe their own anxiety, have a much...
	Better time of things when it comes to standing up to the group.
	So people who've sort of been bullied and punished and attacked and ostracized without a sort of sympathetic, helpful, nurturing relationship of any kind, I think it's very hard to ask them to stand up to the group.
	I think the people who have the capacity to stand up to the group, they do have Have had at least one of those sympathetic relationships where they've learned the self-soothing and how to deal with negative feedback from the group.
	So, I mean, I think that certainly was the case with me as an infant.
	We can go into that perhaps in more detail if it's of interest, but I think it's really tough.
	So it's not just...
	Do they have the self-soothing capacity?
	Do they have the self-management capacity to deal with the anxiety of criticizing the group?
	And I think that's, again, it sounds a bit like the biochemicals run the person.
	I think there certainly are choices in there, but I think that's why just one nurturing relationship can just do a huge amount to help people stand up for the right thing.
	Oh, I absolutely agree, and I think that the way it ends up manifesting is that you're going to get people every now and then who are kind of outside the norm and the system, not just the system within the state, even just in general relationships between people.
	I saw this even in groups of libertarians, groups of anarchists even, who will kind of unknowingly find themselves in this hierarchical It's a hierarchical situation that is not created necessarily by any rules, but if you're not aware of it, if you're not paying attention to it, why did I make fun of that guy?
	Was it because I wanted to get the benefits of everyone else around me who's also making fun of that guy?
	Did I want to get the benefits of them approving of me more?
	Thinking more highly of me.
	I think it goes on kind of on a level that is subconscious sometimes, but I think because we're aware of it, it is something you can change.
	It is something that you can overcome, and I've seen it in certain environments.
	When you get the right kind of people together, And you put it in a situation where aggressive or bullying behavior is actually something that's looked down on.
	The people that are accustomed to doing that to get their dopamine high or to get that acceptance that they're looking for, once they actually start to find themselves humiliated for behaving that way, at first they get kind of confused.
	And then they change their attitude.
	Like, they basically stop doing it because they're like, wait a minute, this isn't getting me higher up the pyramid scheme.
	Maybe I should cut this out.
	I think that essentially, you know, what I was getting, and you're right, it is difficult to get certain people to talk outside of it.
	And there are examples historically of a couple of figures that come to mind, like Crazy Horse.
	And William Wallace of Scotland both had in common that they were both freedom fighters for their people, that they both came from supposedly, at least within their societal structures, lower caste, who still were able to eventually prove, no, I'm actually pretty smart and I'm a good strategist, and now I'm going to point out why we're losing.
	And then both of these people, Crazy Horse and William Wallace, both said to the nobility equivalents of their cultures, you know, we're having so much trouble right now because of the things you're doing.
	And rather than their people actually rising up next to them, although some people were inspired by them, they were in fact targeted by their own people and eventually killed by their own people just for threatening that system, that structure that they're all so accustomed to and addicted to.
	And I think that it happens just even in small scale.
	People think of it in a large scale, but it happens in really small scale.
	You'd be sitting in a dinner table with a few people that you think are your friends, and this same sort of thing will take over if you're not conscious of it.
	Yeah, I mean, the world is run by mobs.
	I mean, the world is run by, you know, howling, pitchfork-wielding mobs for the most part.
	I mean, this is not my thesis.
	I mean, it's a thesis that's put forward by Ann Coulter in, I think, a very good book called Demonic.
	I highly recommend her as a writer.
	I mean, I don't agree with everything she says, but she's a very good writer and an excellent researcher.
	And, yeah, her argument is basically that we have this howling mob that shouts down opposition, that...
	Inflames opinion that, you know, it causes people to rise up in hollow self-righteousness against anyone who speaks the truth.
	And people who don't understand this mob and, you know, until you've actually faced the mob, it's really hard to understand the depth of vitriol and hysteria in the sort of mob that runs the world.
	Until you face it, you don't really see it.
	But once you've seen it, then it's really hard to Imagine solutions that can come out, you know, out of the present.
	Like, that's sort of why I work for a sort of multi-generational approach.
	I mean, it's like, you know, for the people who think that the political solutions, you know, vote the right person in and so on, they don't understand the power of the mob.
	In the world at the moment, for people as a whole, facts and arguments don't matter.
	What matters is social conformity.
	What matters is cozying up to whoever is the most powerful person in the room.
	What matters is avoiding social discomfort and pursuing social acceptance, no matter what the cost.
	And facts and arguments, for the very large part of the world, simply do not matter.
	They mean nothing.
	And I think we can all understand this when we bring some basic facts and arguments together and bring them to people.
	I mean, facts don't matter.
	And so people say, well, if we get the right person elected, then we'll be better.
	They don't understand the power of the mob to inflame opposition to, you know, the people that don't care what the facts are.
	You know, they care who's screaming the loudest and they want to bond with the most powerful.
	I mean, we have a 21st century society being run by Stone Age tribalism.
	And The Stone Age tribalism has only been exacerbated by the breakdown of the nuclear family because when the nuclear family breaks down, what happens is peers become that much more important because children imprint on whoever they're with.
	And, I mean, I say this, having gone to school, having worked in a daycare, and having worked as a teacher's aide in a program for gifted kids, the peers are much more important than the parents.
	I mean, traditionally, of course, parents should be the most important influence, but, you know, most people are tossing their kids off to other people to raise, and those other people have a parent-to-child ratio that is far lower.
	Sorry, have an adult-to-child ratio that's far lower than a parent-to-child ratio.
	And so, those people...
	End up not being able to spend time, quality time with each kid in the way that a parent would.
	And so the kids turn to peers and then you end up with a mob mentality.
	And there's just no way to undo that very easily or very quickly.
	So it just takes time.
	Well, something that, I don't know if you're familiar with Ben Stewart, but he made Kymatica an esoteric agenda.
	He recently did a documentary about the free man movement, but he was discussing in his presentation when he started his hangman project, which was kind of an activist group that he was working on, was that even when the American colonists were quote-unquote freed during the American Revolution, they did not really understand or fully appreciate what that actually meant.
	I mean, a lot of them immediately went, oh, okay, so does this mean that George Washington is our king now?
	Is that what's going on?
	And he pointed out that a lot of people are not necessarily even conscious of freedom, you know, whether or not they're really free.
	That was one of the things actually that I noticed when I was in the Libertarian Party for a while was I spent a few days with those people and they were really ruthless with anyone who spoke even slightly different than the rest of their dogma They were all free, supposedly, to say what they wanted to say, but there was definitely a vicious system in placement, basically, that if you were deviating from what they believed freedom was in any way, that they would go after you for it.
	It was very aggressive.
	And by no means is the Libertarian Party alone in this.
	This seems to be true of a lot of social groups.
	And I think that there are people who, even anarchists, who might believe that they're free or choosing to live a free lifestyle, who are not aware of these sociological social pressures that are affecting their everyday lives and the way that they think and the way that they talk and the way that they treat other people in particular.
	They're not aware of these things or rather in some cases they are aware but they're too afraid to do anything about it.
	That's how you end up in the situation like I remember I was sitting at this lunchroom table with a bunch of my friends back in the sixth grade and they were all good friends of mine but this bully kept coming to sit with us and I was for whatever reason his favorite guy to pick on and my friends later apologized to me as we're walking home from school.
	Man I'm really sorry I just I was afraid he was gonna start in on me.
	You know it had so much power over their abilities to you know to you know continue to help me obviously and I think the biggest manifestation of this is when you're in school or just in any social group and you don't realize how much power the in crowd quote-unquote has over you they determine what music they wear they determine what I'm sorry, music you listen to, what clothes you wear, they determine what fashions you adhere to, or at least that you're willing to publicly admit to.
	They control so many aspects of your life, and they do it largely, although in many cases with violence, but largely just through social violence, just the ability to humiliate you into thinking, man, I better get myself a pair of Nikes.
	You know, man, I better get myself a pair of guest jeans, even though the difference between guest jeans and Wrangler is a stupid label.
	You know, they have so much power over you.
	Right.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	And of course, what's happened is the economy, you know, again, I think it all starts with the family.
	If you want to understand society, you look at the family first.
	It's not the only place you look, but you can spend most of your life looking at the family and still not run out of ways in which it's influencing society.
	But of course, a peer-oriented culture rather than a parent-oriented culture.
	A peer-oriented culture is in many ways much more emptily profitable than a parent-oriented culture.
	Because a peer-oriented culture is not about intimacy, it's not about warmth, it's not about tenderness, it's not about sympathy and charity and all of the virtues which I believe should be taught by parents through example and through instruction.
	It is interested in shallow, mechanistic adornment and tricks.
	You know, it's Rubik's Cubes and breakdancing and skateboarding and, you know, all of that useless, idiot, human garbage nonsense that passes for, like, when you hollow out intimacy and you hollow out virtue and the pursuit of excellence from a soulful standpoint...
	What gets replaced is this really primitive adornment stuff, and that's highly profitable.
	Again, I mean, the high-end stuff that gets sold to people gets sold largely as a result of a lack of intimacy in their early years and the need to have a hierarchy rather than intimacy, because those are really the two choices in life.
	You get a hierarchy Or you get intimacy.
	And where intimacy gets hollowed out as a result of the breakdown of the family and the absence of the parents, then you end up with a hierarchy.
	And the hierarchy shows up politically, but it also shows up economically in very destructive ways.
	I mean, how much money do people need to be rich?
	Well, if you look at Wall Street and the CEOs and the corruption that goes on there, there's no end to the amount of money and power that people want.
	In order to feel that it's enough.
	And so you simply know that what they're dealing with is not rational, but it's addictive.
	And the addiction is driven, I think, by an over-reliance on peers that comes from a hollowing out of the parent-child relationship.
	So much of this really is about the anxiety that comes about.
	One study that I studied was about perhaps some of the few inherent things that are programmed into us is that if we evolved out of a hunter-gatherer society, the fear of ostracism is very powerful because when you're part of a group, like an animal, like in theory humans are supposedly a communal animal, that When it relies on the pack to be able to take care of itself, the concept of ostracism is really, really dangerous to them.
	And that's how you end up in situations where, man, you get really all worked up, like, well, do I have a lot of friends?
	Do I have a quote-unquote a lot of friends, as much of an oxymoron as that could be?
	And if I don't have a lot of friends, there must be something wrong with me.
	me.
	And then you start to get a lot of anxiety and fear over the idea that you don't have a lot of peers.
	And it's obviously something that really doesn't make as much sense anymore, because people are much more capable of taking care of themselves than they were in, say, a hunter-gatherer society, as far as, like, you're not as dependent on the pack.
	But it's kind of like...
	Right.
	And that's where you end up in a situation where people who know this, the sociologists who have this knowledge, the social engineers, so to speak, like Scott Noble would have talked about in Cywar, can tap into that if you're not aware of it, and you can find yourself manipulated by it.
	in a way that is essentially control without any force.
	It's in my opinion far more insidious than the state running up your street with you know tanks and guns because you don't even know what's happening and even worse they can convince you that you're actually free and you're making the free choice to be their slave.
	Yeah, that's all very good points.
	Well said.
	Yeah, certainly the direct force is not really the issue and that's why people get bewildered when you talk about statism as force because they don't see it.
	But the reason they don't see it is because the propaganda Which hides it, and the propaganda which causes people to obey and think that it's virtue.
	Alright, so listen, I've got to make sure that we get time for the remainder of the callers.
	Thank you so much for calling in.
	And was it you I talked to in the debate a ways back?
	Yeah, it was me.
	Yeah, I thought so.
	Yeah, good.
	I got lots of good feedback on the debate, so thanks again for that.
	No problem.
	Thanks again.
	I kind of felt it was time for me to go anyway.
	That was it.
	Alright, thanks, man.
	Take care.
	Take care.
	All right, next up we have Chris, or Christopher, I didn't ask you.
	Sorry about that.
	Either or works.
	Hey, thanks.
	Hey, Stefan, it's my first time calling in.
	Hello!
	Cool sound here, and go.
	Can you hear me?
	Yeah.
	Okay, cool.
	I wanted to call in.
	I'm a veteran.
	I was in Operation Iraqi for you and all that good stuff back in 05-06.
	And because it's Memorial Day weekend coming up here in the U.S., I know, like always, I've been confronted by a whole bunch of people who thank me for my service and all that kind of stuff.
	I was wondering if you had...
	Because I always don't know how to respond to that.
	Right.
	Just because I don't feel there was much, really, to thank me for out of that.
	And I know, really, I think just because of the way that our system is set up, they have a compulsory...
	Belief to, you know, they feel compulsed to have to go ahead and thank somebody for their service to do that.
	And I think maybe that's just them kind of the way they're guilted into doing it.
	And they feel that that's what they're supposed to do, even though they're not really understanding what it is that they're thanking me for or acknowledging.
	And I always just kind of go, oh, yeah, sure, thanks.
	Thanks for your support and supporting me kind of thing.
	But I feel almost hypocritical in saying that.
	I don't know if that's the best way to really handle it just by kind of doing that just to kind of brush them off and ignore it.
	Or, you know, I don't feel they really want to engage me on the question because I really don't think they care that much.
	Yeah, it's just something that you're supposed to say, right?
	Well, let me ask you, let's pretend that you could say the absolute truth in your heart and soul and mind and souls of your feet.
	If you could say the real truth to people when they were to say that, what do you think that would look like?
	What would you say?
	Without any negative repercussions and with somebody who was a sympathetic listener?
	Tell them what they're really thanking me for was Basically, buying into the propaganda when I was 17 years old, believing that for 9-11 this was something I was supposed to do, but then winding up going to someplace like Iraq that had nothing to do with 9-11.
	It really was part of an ongoing drama in the Middle East since before the Shah and Iran was installed.
	And what they're really thanking me for is for me being Um, used by the system and what they're really doing is they're just, by their thanking me, they're just associating themselves.
	They're buying into the identify, they're buying into the propaganda the state uses to get them to identify with whatever their agenda is to justify all the horrors that had happened when I was over there.
	So really by their thanking me, they're really just encouraging the very thing that I'm pretty much against right now.
	I mean, this What I did over there, I feel victimized.
	I went to public school growing up and signed up in the military when I was 17 just a couple years after 9-11.
	And having to go through all of that, at the time I was gung-ho and I still believed the lies that they were telling me when I was in the service.
	It wasn't really until I was discharged that I became disillusioned.
	I guess that's what I do.
	I just tell them, they're thanking me.
	It's really just reaffirming what it is that they did to me.
	And it's not something I really appreciate or agree with.
	I kind of feel offended almost by the thing because if they really want to thank me, then they should try to do what I, they should honor what I really believe and what I really want happening.
	You know, supporting the political wars that are going on and supporting the further invasion of my inalienable rights as a human being.
	That's how they should really be showing their support for me, not by some cursory yellow ticker tape parade and saying that they support us and thank you for your service when there really wasn't any service that was actually done.
	Right, right.
	Right, do you want to try this?
	So, do you want to try like You be somebody, I'll try being you, and this is how I would try and handle it.
	Again, do whatever you want, but this might be helpful.
	So why don't you come up and thank me for my service, and I'll pretend to be even remotely macho enough to have ever picked up a gun in a war.
	So why don't you try that?
	Okay.
	Hey Stefan, thanks for your service, all you did for us.
	I appreciate the thought, but tell me what do you mean by service?
	Defending our country and keeping our liberties safeguarded.
	And how was I defending the country?
	You know, you're basically making sure that the terrorists wouldn't get their way.
	We don't want to have them interrupting our ability to be free and our ability to move around is what we want to do.
	Well, yeah, I mean, I appreciate that.
	I think that our ability to move around has been kind of restricted since I went into the military, so I'm not sure I've done a great job of protecting you from restrictions on being moved around, but I am really curious, you know, because I have maybe a different perspective, maybe not, but do you feel that, or do you believe that there were terrorists who were coming from Iraq?
	Well, that's what we were told.
	We were told they found al-Qaeda there.
	Wasn't al-Qaeda responsible for a lot of this?
	Well, I think there are about 100 al-Qaeda members left, and there really weren't that many to begin with.
	And, of course, in Afghanistan, the Taliban had offered to hand over bin Laden and all of the other suspects if proof could be provided as to their complicity in 9-11, which was then sort of ignored.
	I mean, Al-Qaeda is in a bunch of different countries.
	Obviously, we can't go and invade every country, of which there's reports that there's al-Qaeda, but certainly there was no threat from the Iraqi government towards or against the United States.
	They had no missiles capable of reaching the United States, and of course, it would be ridiculous to think that Saddam Hussein's army would cross over on boats to invade the United States.
	And I mean, look, I mean, this is just stuff that I've sort of learned about since I had a lot more at stake than most people since I did sign up and went over and was part of a war machine.
	So I have, you know, no disrespect and no offense.
	I had much more incentive to try and figure out What the heck I was doing there?
	But, I mean, I can tell you, you know, straight up, first off, first hand, that there are a lot of people out there who were like, what are we doing here?
	Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9-11.
	He never threatened the United States.
	In fact, the United States had sold arms and weapons to him, and it helped, of course, destabilize the, quote, democratic governments in the Middle East, starting from the 1950s onwards.
	And It's hard for me to say, well, they just attacked us out of nowhere and so on because hundreds of thousands of Muslims have been killed by the American government over the past 20 or 30 years.
	I'm not trying to be offensive or blow your mind or get into a complex discussion.
	It's just that.
	Look, I appreciate the sentiment.
	If you believe that I'm out there on the wall keeping the The bad guys at bay, I can really understand how you would feel that way, but it probably would be worthwhile, if you felt so inclined, it probably would be worthwhile to look a little bit more skeptically at all of this stuff, because it may not be quite as an open and shut case as you think it is.
	Okay, that really helps.
	I mean, yeah, it's definitely, that's pretty much my sediment, exactly.
	This isn't me playing devil's advocate anymore.
	This is just me, Chris, again.
	But, yeah, it's definitely kind of my sediment.
	And I try to explain it to people.
	And I know there's no real quick, short answer I can give them.
	And I just kind of feel...
	I feel dishonest with myself giving them the quick brush-off answer.
	Just, oh yeah, well thanks for your support.
	But I guess with how much propaganda demagoguery has been going on, there's probably no real way to give a short answer that can kind of lead to that result, unfortunately.
	And look, you don't have...
	I don't believe that philosophy is about following rules.
	Because I just...
	You know, it's not a chess game.
	It's not about following rules.
	So I wouldn't personally, if I were in your shoes...
	First of all, I mean, I think you should take the incredibly massive philosophy heroic purple star for reasoning through.
	And I get a fair number of emails from people in the service.
	And boy, there's no wiser person about war than a soldier who's unplugged from the Matrix.
	And so I really, you know, want to speak with great honor to you and great respect and great admiration for you for...
	Thinking the way that you're thinking and for questioning and for being skeptical and for taking on what you've taken on.
	It is a huge challenge, of course, particularly when there's so much propaganda and you have invested, of course, so much in this approach.
	So, you know, I really want to extend my sympathies.
	What was told to you when you were 17 was absolutely wrong.
	You were not given the facts and you hadn't been given the facts, certainly through your school, for You know, the previous 13 of those 17 years.
	So, you know, on behalf of people who are slightly older, I'd like to issue as much as I can a collective apology for the number of falsehoods that were injected into your brain against, really against choice and against will.
	And to just, you know, this to me is the real battle and this is the real heroics and there are no medals.
	There are those awkward little situations where you have to choose whether to speak the truth to heavily indoctrinated tax cattle.
	I mean, this is hard stuff.
	And so I just, I really wanted to just sort of pause and...
	You know, send over as best I can, you know, as many, shower you with as many medals and praise as possible and to apologize for all of the nonsense that was told to you that ended up with you in a very difficult and dangerous situation.
	So, but you don't have to answer any.
	You can just say, hey, you know, I appreciate the sentiment.
	You don't have to agree.
	I mean, I appreciate the sentiment is, you know, because in a way they're kind of saying thank you for protecting me.
	I mean, this is all that they're told to say.
	They're not told to think anything else.
	I'm sorry?
	Yeah, it's something that they actually believe.
	They've watched a few good men, right?
	And they've seen that snarling bulldog face of Jack Nicholson say that he stands on a wall and keeps the bad guys at bay and you can't handle the truth.
	And what's so amazing about that is this is fucking Cuba.
	I mean, this is Cuba.
	What are they going to do?
	Throw cigars at Americans and get them in trouble with the feds?
	Right?
	I mean, what the hell is Cuba going to do to America?
	I stand on a wall and I keep these Cubans from taking over Manhattan.
	I mean, it's, you know, D-Day, maybe.
	Cuba, not so much.
	Anyway, so I just want to sort of point out.
	Well, I appreciate that.
	Like I said, getting...
	Someone appreciating me for being able to think my way out of that box is something I'll actually take as a compliment.
	Yeah, listen, don't take any stress to educate the public.
	I mean, look, you've done a huge job.
	You've done an amazing and immense job of bringing yourself out of the world of the shadow land of falsehoods.
	I wouldn't...
	Deal with any stress to do with, what should I say?
	How should I wake people up?
	And so on.
	I mean, you've just come out of a war zone.
	You know, I said a couple of years.
	But, you know, just relax.
	Enjoy.
	Enjoy the wisdom that you've got.
	Enjoy the fact that you got out in one piece.
	Enjoy the fact that the birds are singing and you're still here to hear them with two ears and all your limbs and all this kind of good stuff.
	Don't worry about this, you know, oh, there's a little awkward thing.
	What should I do about it?
	Yeah, thanks for the sentiment.
	And look, if...
	Anybody who's got any kind of self-knowledge will immediately get that there's more to what you're saying than what you're saying.
	Anyone will get that right away.
	And leave it to other people to ask you questions.
	Okay.
	It's not up to you to go forward and push back the gooey, syrupy, glucose-fructose tide of...
	Brain-rotting propaganda that goes sweeping across the land.
	Don't worry about that.
	Just say, yeah, well, I appreciate the sentiment.
	And if the person then says, well, wait a minute, that sounds a little, like, what do you mean?
	I mean, that's not the response I get from most people.
	What do you think?
	Then you can, if you want.
	But leave it to other people to take the lead.
	I think that's fine.
	It's going to be much more efficient.
	Yeah, definitely won't spend the entire day trying to explain it to just a couple people because it takes a while.
	I think it's worth, sorry, the image that came to my head for which I apologize in advance.
	I think that people need to ask for the enema of truth.
	I don't think we want to run down the road with a big rubber hose and, I don't know, some sort of washing machine and saying, no, no, bend over, this will do you good.
	I think that people have got to say, yes, and I really feel the need.
	I think I've got half a cactus in my colon.
	Could you go in there and spritz it out?
	I think that you gotta, you know, because otherwise you just look like you're gonna do nasty things to someone with a rubber hose.
	I will.
	Yeah, I get that.
	Well, I definitely appreciate it, Stephan.
	Everything that you do and everyone else in the Liberty Movement, I mean, you guys were the people that really, when I had those questions, you guys were the ones that kind of were able to, once I had those questions, offer me some input and really help me think my way through a lot of this stuff.
	So, you guys and everyone in the Liberty Movement, I'm really thankful for all you guys.
	So, I'm going to get out of your hair here, the lack thereof, no offense.
	Ha!
	Get out of my hair.
	Hey, are you my hair?
	No, listen, I want to say this in all seriousness too.
	Not for then, but for now.
	Thank you.
	Thank you now for your service, my friend.
	Thanks, Stefan.
	You have a good one.
	Alright, take care.
	Are atheists necessarily nihilists?
	No, I think that the term is actually the quite opposite.
	An atheist is somebody who accepts that things that do not exist do not exist and that is a basic reality that there's reason and empiricism and the truth is more valuable than falsehood that accuracy is more valuable than propaganda and there's an objective methodology for determining truth from falsehood and so atheists are quite the opposite of nihilists because they have an objective repeatable And
	and philosophical standard of truth.
	Why do so many atheists spend time hating on theists instead of healing themselves of their childhood trauma?
	Well, I don't know.
	I mean, I don't know what the statistics are of that, but statistically, atheists are about the most hated group, at least in America.
	So I think that when people say that atheists are the haters, I think they just need to look at the facts.
	And you can look at a YouTube video I've got called Hatred of Atheists for the statistics and facts on that.
	And atheists, of course, are a bard from high political office.
	You can be gay and be a politician.
	You cannot be an atheist in America and be a politician.
	So it's...
	If you're not an atheist, it's really hard to see the kind of prejudice that you get exposed to.
	You know, not to speak of being an anarchist, so...
	Well, I don't know.
	Are they still the most hated group?
	I don't know.
	Yeah, I mean, you see these comments floating around.
	Somebody just said, I've got a friend who's a rabid atheist, or I've got somebody who is a militant atheist, and so on.
	And I certainly can't speak to any particular atheist, I don't know.
	But if you were raised by a bunch of people who You know, sat on your brain with a bunch of really scary, soul-decaying lies and threats and ostracisms and bullying and conformity.
	Yeah, you might be kind of pissed.
	You might be kind of pissed.
	And if you don't understand the context, you know, just ask.
	you know if you are some of coming across somebody who seems to be very angry and it's an atheist just saying well what was your childhood like so we want to try a mark again All right.
	I don't know what will have changed, but let's give it a shot.
	Marky Mark, hit me with your disco sticks.
	Hello.
	Sorry about that earlier.
	Can you hear me now?
	Not too bad.
	Maybe you can just ask a quick question, and I'll see what I can do, but it's still kind of spotty.
	Oh, okay.
	I wanted to answer your question, actually, about your post-edit, so I'm...
	If you can hear me, I'll carry on.
	Yeah, okay.
	You said about if there was a God, why has he done such a bad job in making humans and the prostate and the early aborting?
	I don't know if you remember that?
	Yeah, so, I mean, of course, in the Catholic religion, you're supposed to be against abortion, but God is the most prolific abortionist of all because I think a third or more of pregnancies end in abortion.
	That doesn't seem to be very good design.
	I mean, if you only had a 33% failure rate in the production of something relatively simple like an SSD card or a microprocessor, that would be catastrophic.
	And so, if you had infinitely more ability, it seems that you would try and create a reproductive system that didn't kill a third of the species before it even made its way out of the womb.
	That would be one thing I think that would be not a great argument for omniscience and omnipotence on the part of the creator.
	Yeah, the reason behind all of that, that it looks like God has done a bad job of making humans, but actually done a perfect job of creating humans.
	He made them absolutely 100% perfect.
	And as a result of that, they were meant to live forever.
	and never die and never experience prostate or early aborting or any health issues at all even though they might be trillions of years old.
	I don't know if that answers it.
	Oh, so the idea of course is because of what Adam and Eve did we then got cursed with all of this stuff, is that right?
	Yeah, that's right.
	But how is it the fetus's fault What Adam and Eve did.
	Why would the fetus need to be killed because of that?
	Yeah.
	No, it isn't the fetus' fault, but they are receiving the consequences of what Adam and Eve did.
	Well, but how is that morally justified?
	How do you morally justify killing a fetus because of the decisions made by two naked hippies in a garden?
	Oh, I think we lost him.
	Yeah, so I mean, these of course are significant challenges, but what I try to do with a system of ethics A system of ethics that is proposed, it needs to be universalized and it certainly needs to apply to human beings.
	So if a deity is going to say, I'm good, I'm moral, I'm perfect, then the actions of that deity need to be compared to two things.
	The proclamations of that deity and what everybody would accept as reasonable...
	Decent moral human behavior.
	I mean, no matter what your system of ethics, there is no way that I get to go and strangle your child because somebody in Asia didn't listen to their local authority and did something as harmless as eating an apple, right?
	It's not like Adam and Eve did anything particularly bad.
	They just ate an apple.
	It was an arbitrary commandment put forward by the deity and they didn't obey.
	And so the idea that then now, you know, hundreds of millions of fetuses must be killed every year because Adam and Eve didn't listen to the arbitrary commandment, which was not given with any sense of understanding.
	I mean, it was really the commandment to not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was not given with any reason.
	There was no why, right?
	Because it's poisonous and it will make your left nipple fall off or whatever.
	It was simply an arbitrary commandment.
	And failure to obey an arbitrary commandment is not immoral, because it's simply refusing to obey and exercise a force, a threat.
	And I don't believe that they were ever informed of the punishment, right?
	So if you eat this apple, then I'm going to kill hundreds of billions of innocent fetuses every year in the future.
	That, of course, was not provided to them.
	And last but not least, you simply can't trace from any morally justified way that argument forward, that that becomes something that is moral and reasonable.
	And we would never, of course, if I say, well, I get to strangle your baby because someone in India disobeyed some arbitrary commandment, From their local deity, we would all recognize that that would not be a morally legitimate defense and would in fact be completely immoral on my part.
	And so I can't imagine why anything to do with the deity would be under different moral rules.
	All right.
	I'm not sure we've got any audio left.
	We have 14 minutes!
	Going back to before the end of the show.
	And just a reminder, again, if anybody wants to subscribe to fill in the hole left by those fleeing my UFO skepticism, freedomainradio.com forward slash donate would be delicious beyond words and would be more than appreciated.
	we've actually got a first little bit of the documentary is done, at least the first draft.
	So things are kind of moving along there.
	But it would be really helpful to get some more funding for that too.
	I don't mean to be Mr. Beg for Shekels guy, but...
	That is your business model.
	That is the business model.
	Look, I mean, I got to speak the truth.
	You know, I'm not going to start adjusting the truth message for the sake of, you know, popularity or income now.
	That would not be, that's not, now is not the right time and never will be the right time for that, so.
	We did have a question from the chat.
	I'm sure you're familiar with the statement, nobody's perfect.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	This person was just asking you to talk about some of your thoughts on that particular...
	if you have any thoughts or feelings about it, that particular aspect.
	I asked if they wanted to...
	Yeah, I mean, I've certainly heard that before.
	Nobody's perfect is very interesting because the way that it's generally described or put forward is as a defense against wrongdoing on somebody's part, right?
	So somebody does something wrong, And then they say, well, nobody's perfect.
	And I think that's, you know, that's reasonable.
	Of course nobody's perfect.
	Of course nobody's perfect.
	Everybody makes mistakes and everybody does things that they later regret and all this, that and the other.
	But it doesn't really help very much.
	I really find it very annoying when people make obvious statements.
	Well, nobody's perfect.
	I mean, cliches that have no intellectual content are just mentally, you know, it's just like throwing a wet blanket over a fire.
	A hiss and some steam and the light goes out.
	I mean, so what?
	What does that mean?
	It's just, it's a magic spell that people use to excuse their own actions.
	So if somebody says nobody's perfect, then what they're saying is that a small amount of error is tolerable in any relationship.
	Okay, fine.
	Fine, but what does that mean?
	How much error is tolerable in a relationship?
	Well, people who do me wrong, I'll certainly tell them that they've done me wrong and They're welcome to come back to me with their feedback, and if they understand and agree and apologize and make the commitment not to do it again, then fine.
	Yeah, okay, yeah.
	I do it.
	Other people do it.
	I've certainly said I've put out arguments in the past that I have later retracted as not correct, not right, not up to the standards of virtue and truth and reason and goodness that I try to aspire to.
	Of course, yeah.
	So I'm not perfect.
	But, you know, that's still very different from lying for money.
	You know, saying that, you know, I stubbed my toe two days ago and my toe aches a little bit.
	Well, you know, nobody's perfect.
	You know, no body is perfect.
	You know, there's all some little thing probably that's wrong somewhere, certainly over 40.
	Well, you know, a couple of years, I think two years ago, I started getting some reading glasses for the up-close work because, you know, the usual 40 things happening.
	And so, yeah, in your 40s, your eyesight is not perfect, but that's still not the same as being blind, right?
	So there's no particularly useful thing.
	And it is kind of an insult.
	So when somebody tells me nobody's perfect, there is a lot of insults embedded in there.
	And when you look for clichés, the really important thing to understand is not the cliché, but the insults that are buried in it.
	So if I criticize someone and somebody says no one's perfect, They're saying basically, let he who was without sin cast the first stone, that I'm only judging them because I imagine that I'm somehow perfect.
	Well, I don't have to be perfect to criticize people.
	Other people do not have to be perfect to criticize me.
	Now, that having been said, in the interest of mortality, the short amount of time we have in the world, there are certain basic elements of credibility that I need from someone just in order to bother listening.
	So, you know, this is the example I've used millions of times.
	I will not buy a hair restorer from a bald guy.
	I will not buy a diet book from a fat guy.
	I will not buy a book on how to quit smoking from a chain smoker.
	Maybe they're right, but who cares?
	If they're right, then they should know That to overcome skepticism, they need to live their own values, right?
	So if somebody says, well, you've really got to quit smoking because it's really bad for you, and there's a picture of them on the cover smoking three cigarettes at once, then I know that they're not smart enough to know that they shouldn't be a smoker saying, here's how to quit smoking.
	Like, they're just not intelligent enough to know that basic marketing reality that you can't put a fat guy on a diet book.
	So that just means to me that they simply lack intelligence.
	They lack social awareness.
	They lack wisdom.
	They lack even the basic understanding of what is needed for credibility in the world.
	And since they lack that, why should I bother reading their book?
	I mean, I don't buy a book on grammar where on the cover it says, My book will good grammar make you, no, it won't make you with bad grammar.
	This is the way grammar should be.
	This is the right exclamation mark, glamour, grammar way to go.
	Right?
	I mean, maybe, maybe on the inside, it's absolutely perfect.
	And all of the grammar rules that I'm going to learn will be fantastic.
	But what are the odds of that?
	Well, they're not very good.
	And so, all I'm looking for is basic intelligence and basic social understanding and the basic comprehension of what it means to have credibility in the world.
	And so, if somebody says to me, well, nobody's perfect, they're obviously implying that I'm attacking them because I have the standard of perfection which I'm excusing myself from and there's hypocrisy and this, that and the other.
	And they're stating something that is so obvious.
	That nobody's perfect.
	They're stating something that's so obvious that either A, I don't know that nobody's perfect, in which case I don't even know how I tie my shoes in the morning, let alone get out the door without my pants on my head.
	You know, unless that's by choice.
	Or they know that I'm aware that nobody's perfect, but they're just saying it because it's just kind of an annoying and defensive thing to say.
	So anyway, I hope that helps, but that's my particular approach.
	Somebody says, so I need to become wealthy and have a house before I can have credibility in regards to philosophy.
	No, of course not.
	Because philosophy does not say, here's how, you know, the success of philosophy depends on somebody being wealthy and having a house.
	No.
	No, you do not need to become wealthy.
	Now, if you say, here's how you become wealthy and have a house, then yeah, you should be wealthy and have a house.
	But that's not with regards to philosophy.
	I have a lot of people claiming my poverty equals lack of credibility in regards to everything.
	Well, you can type this question in or you can call in.
	Do you like to be poor?
	Do you prefer that?
	Is that your happiest preferred state?
	Well, I mean, if you're saying that material success has something to do with values, then not having any values would make any sense.
	Then not having any money wouldn't really make much sense, wouldn't give you a lot of credibility in that area.
	But I have no problem with people who choose to be poor.
	Heck, I've chosen to go for many years without income in order to pursue my goals.
	I think that's perfectly fine.
	But if people dismiss you because you don't have a lot of money, they dismiss your philosophical arguments because they don't have a lot of money, well, then you may want to reconsider your choice of companions. then you may want to reconsider your choice of companions.
	Income is loosely correlated with intelligence.
	It's not perfectly, but higher IQs do tend to lead to higher incomes if the person has a material bent.
	So if you're saying, I'm some stone genius who solved all the problems of the universe, and you're living homeless, then that's a challenge, right?
	And so if you have the intelligence to overcome people's perceptions, then you might as well get a little cash in the bank.
	Let's see, one question about the gold standard.
	Don't you think it would bring collapse, just as a fiat system, because it is finite?
	It's a finite resource taken from the ground.
	No, no, no, no.
	No, I mean, look, it doesn't matter.
	It doesn't matter.
	I mean, there could be 10 tons of gold in the world from here to eternity.
	You could still have a gold standard, right?
	It would just mean that there would be deflation, right?
	I mean, that's all.
	I mean, you just keep dividing the gold.
	The gold would be worth more relative to goods, and if you have double the income, you don't need double the gold in the world.
	That's only if you want the gold price to be relatively stable, but that's not necessary.
	And of course, as the price of gold goes up, the incentive to get out of the ground will go up, and it sort of meshes and all that kind of thing.
	All right.
	Well, I am...
	A little thirsty.
	So I am going to end just a few minutes early with your very kind indulgence and permission.
	So thanks everybody so much for the great questions and comments.
	I'm sorry that we didn't get more into the religious questions.
	It's always enjoyable.
	I'm sorry that maybe we can try that again.
	Remember, freedomainradio.com forward slash donate.
	If you donate in Aldebaran Dinaris, then I will reverse my positions on UFOs.
	I just wanted to let you know.
	If I show that showing up in my PayPal account, That this is where the money is coming from.
	Then I think that would be a fairly interesting donation and would make for a very good show.
	And it would really raise the profile of philosophy quite a bit.
	So Aldebar and Dinarz, take it at Freedom Man Radio.
	Thanks so much everyone.
	Have a great, great week.

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