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Sept. 9, 2012 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:03:24

2215 Freedomain Radio Sunday Show, 9 September 2012

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	Good morning, brothers and sisters and in-betweeners.
	I hope you're doing very well.
	It's Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
	Lo, I go into the dangerous land of predictions.
	And I'm going to put my call for what is going to happen in the fall.
	I call for the fall.
	And I'll give you some very quick predictions and some reasoning.
	So I think it's going to be Obama is going to be re-elected.
	Because the changing of the guard leaves all the hats in place.
	And I think the reason, fundamental reason for that is that the Democratic Party is the party of public sector compulsion, right?
	So they, 80-90% of union dues go to, forced union dues that are politically, that are accessible politically go to the Democratic Party.
	They are a zombie mutation, bloodshadow sport of coercion and they can pour huge amounts of money into The presidential campaigns in 2008, they put half a billion dollars behind the Democrats.
	And of course, it used to be a little more that the Republicans would get money from finance, but that has changed.
	Now, Republicans are getting lots of money from finance, and Barack Obama is getting lots of money from finance.
	They sort of split about equally the Wall Street donations to the political candidates.
	That is no longer a differentiator among the Republicans.
	Now the Republicans are of course by pretending that there was only a presidential shadow perhaps of Sauron the invisible during the eight years that George the younger Bush was in charge, but they're gonna reach back to Reagan and pretend that they are still all about small government, which of course is nothing but a rhetorical device that is used to distract you while they rummage through your pockets.
	And mostly in search of your young that they can sell off as collateral to bribe you in the here and now.
	Hey, if we sell your children, even before they're born, we can give you lots of goodies now and you can pat yourself on the back and call yourself an ace human being.
	But the public sector desperation is very intense at the moment.
	They have, of course, a large bulge of people who are heading into retirement.
	It's both baby boomers plus they have this Rule where you know you can sort of retire after 25 or 30 years of service and get you know full pensions and of course they have other rules which if you retire on disability then you get I think 75 percent of your retirement money is tax-free and so it's going to be also of course an enormous number of people get mysterious back ailments in the last year and pump up their salary so that they can really pillage the public treasury there's no money to pay for any of this stuff the the
	health benefits and Pension pay for retirees.
	And you might want to check out a book called Plunder, available at laissez-fairebooks, lfb.org.
	And feel free to sign up for a membership at lfb.org forward slash Stefan, S-T-E-F-A-N. I hope that you will do that.
	It's helpful for me.
	It's helpful for laissez-faire books.
	But they are not, the governments are largely going to be bankrupted, like local governments are largely going to be bankrupted by public sector pensions and benefits.
	And of course this eats into what can be achieved now.
	And like all looming imminent catastrophic problems in government, you will find no word of it whatsoever in any of the debates to do with the candidates.
	They will not talk about it, they will not bring it up, they will not discuss it, because it's all about distracting you from what is important.
	Politics is all about a shiny bunch of distractions from what is important, as opposed to what is absolutely essential, which will never be dealt with, because it can't be dealt with.
	You can't deal with this under the existing legal framework because these are all contracts.
	You can't break the contracts or the unions all take you to court which takes years and you know by then the shite will have hit the fan so significantly that will all be covered in spackles.
	Not just my enormous goose egg forehead but all of us.
	So the unions are quite desperate to keep the game going for another little while and so they are going to throw a lot of their weight behind Obama.
	You can see the same nonsense in the Republican Convention.
	All they did was praise teachers, and they did not talk about any kind of tests for teachers.
	Because remember, you see, tests are very important, and they really do differentiate those who know from those who don't.
	So we really want to make sure that we apply it to spelling bees for five-year-olds, not to those who actually teach our children.
	They have to be exempt from the tests they inflict upon their children, because those in authority are never subject to the same rules they inflict.
	That's the whole point of authority, is the exception or exemption from rules.
	Those who are still able to hold their nose and swallow the rhetoric of good old socialist Mitt claiming to be for a smaller government, well, go for it.
	I mean, if you can fool yourself again, then my mere words and the evidence of a couple of hundred years aren't going to sway you whatsoever.
	So, go do your thing if you believe that...
	Obama inherited a mess and he's really, really trying to turn this around despite the fact that he broke nearly every campaign promise that he put out in 2007-2008.
	Well, if you can hold your nose and swallow that, then no mere words or hundreds of years of evidence or even four years of direct evidence is going to change your mind.
	If you believe that changing the hood ornament on the car that's slowly running you over is going to set you free, no mere words or mere evidence will change your mind.
	But the public sector desperation is going to drive increasingly historical attacks against Republicans.
	And cutting government has now become virtually impossible.
	It really has become practically impossible, has been for probably about a generation.
	A cutting government when so many people are dependent on the government is not possible.
	So you're going to be getting a lot of rhetoric about sharing and caring and pulling together from Obama.
	You're going to be getting a lot of sharing about tough minded individualism and laissez faire from the Republican side.
	But it's all just a smokescreen by your actions.
	A wise deity once said, shall ye know them?
	So, it's going to be Obama.
	They're going to have to print money to pay for the public sector pensions and healthcare benefits, and that's going to drive inflation.
	So, I would suggest, really, get yourself some food in the basement.
	You can order it online.
	It can be delivered quite cheaply.
	I think it's a good idea.
	I really do.
	I'm not a panic monger.
	I'm just pointing out that we've had really terrible harvests this summer.
	There's been a lot of drought, a lot of bad weather, bad weather for growing, and that's going to drive food prices up.
	And there's also going to be inflation, which is going to drive food prices up.
	So seriously, get some gold, get some food.
	And depending on the laws where you are, you might want to look into firearms.
	So that's my introduction, my prediction.
	We will see where it goes.
	Let us move on with the Sunday Philosophy call-in show.
	This fine day, September the 9th, 2012.
	My goodness, is it really?
	Is it really 15 days until I'm 46?
	I can't fathom it.
	I just can't fathom it, but there it is.
	All right, James, we have callers up?
	Yes, we do.
	First, we have a fellow Canadian on the phone.
	Hey, Donut, Tim Hortons.
	Hello, how are you doing?
	I'm doing good.
	How are you?
	I'm very well, thank you.
	So I'm calling because I've defooed my sister recently and I still have a relationship with my father so it's quite complex because he wants to do a will and he's never done one yet.
	Primarily because he's quite afraid of her.
	She abuses pretty much everyone in the family and he's not willing to defoo her.
	So I'm caught in the middle here trying to deal with him and trying to have him do what it is that he ultimately wishes and also me pleading with him for particular clauses to be put in to protect me from litigation from her once he passes and it's quite difficult because of his fear from her and so I'm not really sure how to get out of this situation.
	Gosh, that's quite a mess.
	I'm so sorry to hear about this.
	What are the behaviors from your sister that are objectionable?
	A lot of people that I've spoken to who've gotten to know her since childhood believe she might be sociopathic or have NPD. Okay, but has she ever been in therapy or any kind of mental health intervention?
	Not directly.
	She's gone through lots of counselors for her marriage.
	Okay.
	And so your father is afraid of her and is afraid of confronting her about will issues, is that right?
	Yes.
	That's a tough call.
	I mean, I don't know that...
	I'm not sure that philosophy can help you a huge amount here.
	You know, do you think that it would be a wise or good thing for your father to have this confrontation with her?
	Regarding the will?
	Yeah.
	I think it is, because ultimately his only other option is to do things he doesn't really want and to really put me in a very bad position later.
	Because I do foresee her doing whatever it takes to, you know, take me to court, even if that means, you know, and using up all of the inheritance on lawyers.
	How's your father's health?
	Very good right now.
	Okay, okay.
	Because, I mean, it's a...
	Taking on, if the person is as you described, taking on this kind of challenge is going to be, I would imagine, quite stressful.
	Yes, definitely.
	Yeah, I mean, it's a tough call.
	For you, is it the things that are in the will, are they financial or sentimental or both?
	Mostly financial.
	Right.
	Yeah, look, I mean, sorry, just as I get older, which is my way of prefacing what I'm about to say by saying that it's not proven, it's not philosophical, it's just an experiential thing, and it may just be me, but as I get older, I am less interested in material things, if that makes sense.
	I mean, obviously, you've got to eat, got to food over your head, and we're in Canada, so being able to pay the heating bill is quite important, but is it Is it a battle of dominance, or is it a battle of material goods?
	Because my question is, when it comes to money and stuff like that, is it worth it?
	Is it worth even getting in the final?
	Right.
	I mean, I'm willing to just forego the whole inheritance.
	The issue is, though, that...
	So, for example, my father paid for some of my university, things like that, and apparently, if that's not written in the will, That that was a gift, then she could come after me and sue me for things that I've already received.
	And there's really no end to that because there's really no way to stop her from going to court if she chooses.
	So, I mean, things like those types of clauses are very important for me to have my dad put them in there.
	And if he gives her 100% of everything that's left, I could care less.
	I don't want to have to deal with her at all.
	Right.
	Now, again, of course, I'm no lawyer, but would it not be if your father had a notarized affidavit to the effect that this was all a gift and so on, would that not be...
	I'm sure you've consulted with a lawyer, but that would be something that you would have in your possession that may not be part of the will, but I'm sure that would have some impact.
	Right.
	I could try and get that from him.
	Yeah.
	I mean, in that way, it's not as provocative in this situation, and it should...
	Again, just to repeat, this is just a thought.
	I mean...
	Obviously, check it with a lawyer, but if you had something that was signed in a lawyer's office and notarized by the lawyer and all that kind of stuff, I would think that would be something that would be an option to pursue where it's just between you and your dad and doesn't come into this confrontation situation.
	Right.
	I think more my problem is that he also kind of is in denial with her.
	He doesn't think it's as bad as it is.
	And my problem is trying to, you know, rationally explain to him that this is really necessary.
	This is very important because otherwise I'm in a lot of trouble.
	And I would think that, you know, he doesn't want me to be in that position.
	So I'm really having a hard time thinking of how to really get through to him that this is something he could do that isn't going to affect his relationship with her, but that would really help me.
	Yeah, I mean, that's tough.
	I mean, look, the parents have blind spots with regards to their children, just as children have blind spots with regards to their parents.
	You know, family can be like a beautiful painting, but sometimes, you know, like those pointillism or those sort of Matisse paintings where it's...
	Up close is dots and if you step back you can see the whole picture.
	And so there is a sort of focus on details and families I think a lot of times do miss the big picture.
	And how to get people to see the big picture is really tough.
	It's really tough.
	And I would say that you could, you know, just say you want to sit down and talk with him and You know, tell them, you know, we need some time.
	We need some non-interrupted time.
	You know, probably not in a public place.
	And just sit down and say, look, I mean, I can't diagnose my sister.
	I'm not a mental health professional, blah, blah, blah.
	But, you know, here are some symptoms and go over, you know, sort of patiently and slowly some of the things that have been occurring with your sister and just say, maybe the odds are nothing bad will happen.
	Maybe.
	Maybe.
	But...
	For my peace of mind, you know, when you're trying to get someone to do something right by you, I think it's perfectly acceptable to frame it as, you know, indulge me.
	You know, there is, obviously she has some risk elements.
	There is some, even if it's just my peace of mind, you know, I'll get the lawyer to write it up, we go and notarize it and all that, it'll take you an hour.
	But it would save me years of anxiety.
	And even if the chance is 1%, even if it's half a percent, it just seems like a prudent thing to do.
	And, you know, she doesn't have to know, blah, blah, blah, right?
	I mean, again, assuming all of this stuff works legally and running through the lawyer and all that, and even if you don't pull out the sort of diagnostic criteria or whatever, you could just simply talk about behavior.
	You know, that we are estranged.
	I don't know what's going to happen in the future, but I am concerned about it.
	And this would be something that would be really, really helpful to me.
	You know, I'm not asking you to make a judgment about her and all that kind of stuff, but it would be really helpful to me.
	I think that might be an approach that works.
	What do you think?
	Yeah, I think that that would work.
	And I definitely would try that.
	And I just wanted to express that I'm really sorry.
	I'm really, really sorry.
	I mean, it's just heartbreaking.
	Just how off the rails this stuff can get.
	I mean, this is not even close to what we think of when we think of siblings.
	I mean, this is tragic.
	Siblings are our connection to our history when our parents are gone.
	I mean, your dad's in good health, so that's great, but siblings are our connection to our history when our parents are gone.
	And it really is sad when that connection is not there.
	It's really tragic and heartbreaking, frustrating, and frightening perhaps at times as well, as you say.
	But I just wanted to say I'm really, really sorry that this is the situation.
	It's about as far from ideal as it could be, and my sympathies to that.
	Well, thank you.
	If I could ask just one more question.
	I was wondering if you had a simple but obvious metaphor Um, that I could use to really kind of talk to the extended family to kind of end the conversation very quickly to say, like, there's no reason for me to maintain a relationship with my sister.
	Um, a metaphor.
	Yeah, just from your podcast, there's so many great ones that are completely obvious.
	I just, you know, I wish I had the capacity to summon them.
	No, I know.
	They sort of pass through me like, uh, extended, uh, Indian food bloated gases.
	Oh, look, there's another one.
	Um, but, uh, Let's see.
	I'm not sure if you want a metaphor.
	So, what sort of questions are you anticipating getting from extended family?
	So, what things would stump you?
	Well, I've already received phone calls where I was berated for about an hour about this topic and I would say, you know, I'm not even interested in discussing this with you and they just keep berating me.
	So, I really want to have like a strong kind of statement to say, Look, this is ridiculous for me, for what you're asking me to do, and that's the end of that.
	I'm not discussing my decision.
	Yeah, I mean, I don't know about a metaphor, but one thing that could be helpful to say is, you know, when...
	I mean, I've gone through the same sort of thing as well.
	And first of all, I mean, I would not let myself be berated for an hour.
	I'm not sure I'd even let myself be berated for 30 seconds.
	Because there's this cool little button on most phones that has a way of ending the beration.
	And that can be very helpful.
	I mean, I simply wouldn't put yourself in that position.
	I know that, I mean, I would guess, you know, based on history, that this is a boundary that's difficult to set up.
	But, I mean, that's damaging, right?
	That's harmful, that's stressful, that's really unpleasant.
	It's kind of like an attack.
	You know, again, the older I get, you know, sorry to pull that out again.
	But the more I realized that it's, you know, everything that I was told as a child was a lie.
	And one of the greatest lies that I was told was, sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.
	That's actually not true.
	Words are a kind of attack, a kind of assault, in my experience as an adult.
	And so I would say that it is the equivalent of letting yourself be punched.
	I think, in fact, it's worse in many ways.
	Because a punch is a sharp pain, it goes away, and the punch makes the Invalidity of the relationship very clear, if that makes sense.
	Whereas the verbal stuff, it's in your brain, it stews there and all that kind of stuff.
	So I would be really careful about exposing my inner child, my brain, my emotional system, my neurological system to those kinds of words.
	Words are the real power in the world.
	And we know that because propaganda is so powerful, right?
	Governments control us and churches control us through language, and language really is the matrix.
	And language is the ultimate government program, and it's also the greatest weapon of adult-to-adult abusers.
	So I told me it's a great weapon from adult-to-child abusers as well, but given that it's illegal to punch people, they tend to switch to verbal abuse.
	So I just want to point that out, to not let that happen.
	Right.
	So what you could say, I've said this before, I could say, like if somebody says, what are you doing with this person?
	I can't believe you're doing this.
	She's so upset and blah, blah, blah.
	You say, excuse me, let me just interrupt you for a second.
	Do you have a question for me or are you just venting?
	Do you want to know my perspective or are you just going to tell me what I should do?
	Right.
	Because the person or the other, I mean, they may...
	Not even have that as a question in their minds.
	They may not have that as a possibility in their mind.
	It may not occur to them.
	And if they say, I don't have a question for you, I'm just here to vent, then I would say, well, I'm like, no.
	No, thank you.
	That's not how I'm going to be spending my day.
	I'm happy to talk to you if you have a question, if you'd like to be curious about, you know.
	And, you know, when I say you have a question, I don't mean that you have to agree with me.
	But if you're not curious about my experience, but you're just going to dump your prejudice on me, or you're upset on me, that's not acceptable to me.
	If you have a question, if you would like to discuss it, if you would like to hear what my experience is, what my thoughts are, which doesn't mean you have to agree with them at all, then we can actually have a conversation, but I'm not going to be a punching bag.
	Like, sorry, that's just not going to happen.
	And that may bring them up short, and they may say, well, you know, I guess I... I guess a question would, yeah.
	Okay, I do have a question.
	And then you can actually get into a conversation.
	I mean, who knows how well that conversation will go.
	But I think it's important.
	You know, if somebody just gets upset with me, then I can say, hey, do you have a question for me or are you just upset and dumping on me?
	And I think most people would recognize that just getting upset and dumping on someone is not fair or valid and so on.
	And, you know, it's a lot to ask in terms of compassion, but I try not to engage in that kind of stuff.
	Partly out of concern for the other person.
	Allowing yourself to be the victim of a verbal tirade is, for somebody who is addicted to or has a habit of verbally tirading others, is enabling bad behavior.
	So, I mean, it's self-protecting for you, of course, right?
	But it's also out of care for the other person, you know?
	Like you gently take the drink out of the drunk's hand, right?
	You have to be the bartender at closing time who says, no more for you, you've already had 12.
	And I think it really is out of concern for the possibility of the relationship.
	It gives them a chance to cool off.
	Maybe they'll think twice.
	Maybe they'll come back and apologize.
	But to not engage in that behavior which is destructive to you and also Destructive to others.
	I've mentioned this quote from William Golding's Lord of the Flies.
	A spear is a stick sharpened at both ends.
	We feel the spear going into us.
	We don't so much see the spear going into the other person when they use it.
	But there is no weapon that I know of that doesn't have a hell of a back kick.
	And sometimes the back kick is even worse.
	This is why Jesus came up with the...
	Rather shocking idea that it is better to suffer evil than to do evil.
	And, you know, it's an extent metaphor for verbal abuse, but I do think that it's important to, you know, gently not put yourself in the situation where the other person is acting in a way that makes them less able to empathize with you in the future, that makes them less able to have a productive conversation with you in the future.
	And I do whatever I can to avoid having Really bad repercussions in future relationships.
	If somebody's really escalating, it's been a long, long time, but if somebody's really escalating with me, then I have to not be in that situation because otherwise they're going to say things which can't be undone.
	You know, my daughter has a fascination with the bumps and scrapes and stitches and all that that I got as a kid.
	And I can remember some of them.
	Of course, I can't remember all of them, but I can remember most of what people said to me that was painful.
	Because all of the cells in my body that I had as a kid, they've all been replaced.
	I mean, just the basic renewal of the human body.
	I don't have anything on my body that was ever hit by my mom.
	I don't have that skin anymore.
	That's all dead and gone and in the general dust of the atmosphere, I'm sorry to say.
	But the words that were spoken, they're still in my head.
	And so when words get spoken that can't be taken back, that are really destructive, and that frame the relationship in a certain way, then I think that the relationship becomes very difficult to recover.
	And I really try, if I have any hope for the relationship, I really try to not have people in the situation where they will say things that they can't recover from.
	So if they're really upset and dumping, I will simply pull the plug on the conversation Hoping that they will cool off, hoping that they will come round.
	Because otherwise, I don't know how the relationship can recover.
	Because the more harm people do to you, the less able they are to apologize to you, right?
	Because it just becomes too bitter and jagged and swollen a pill to swallow.
	And so to retain the capacity for them to apologize and for the relationship to improve, I really do my very best to not be in that kind of situation.
	I mean, well, you tell me.
	I mean, after an hour of being verbally tiraded and berated and so on, what kind of restitution would the person have to make for you to feel trustworthy, to trust that person again?
	That's a good question.
	It would be a lot.
	It would be a lot.
	I definitely don't want to speak to that person again, yeah.
	Right.
	Whereas if you, you know, if you put the boundaries up right, and I'm not saying this is easy, right?
	But if you put the boundaries right up and then the other person might, might.
	I mean, I'm not saying I'm going to guess what the odds are.
	It has a lot to do with the longevity of the abuse and the type of the abuse.
	There's no, I don't know any particularly hard science on this.
	I did read an eight-year study of a couple of hundred married couples where abuse was occurring, and they found that the abuser, like the batterer, Was almost completely unable to change his behavior, even with intervention.
	So 96% of the people who were abusing at the beginning of an eight-year study were still abusing at the end of the eight-year study.
	And I think there was some significant intervention, three- to six-month programs and so on.
	So it seems to be really hard to stop abusing.
	And I mean, for reasons that we don't really have to go into here, but...
	I think the only chance is to simply put the boundaries up, and maybe the other person sort of blinks and goes, whoa, okay, that's due, and maybe there's a chance for them to change their behavior.
	I'm not saying do it out of love for them, because I think that love your abuser thing is not a wise or even possible approach, but certainly out of concern for yourself.
	Right.
	Well, that's been very helpful.
	Thank you.
	Now, the next question is, what if somebody says, yes, I do want to hear your perspective?
	I mean, it's a great challenge, right?
	So if you decide to end a relationship with anyone, whether it's a friend or family member or a spouse or whatever it is, it's really hard to explain it.
	And it's particularly true with family of origin issues because it's such a taboo in society, right?
	People can get divorced from relationships they chose and had the chance to test drive for years before they got into them.
	But children who grew up in a particular environment who had no choice in their environment and no power for the first 20 years, it's taboo, right?
	It's really a taboo.
	And so the great temptation is to try to get people to agree with you.
	To say, well, that makes sense.
	I understand.
	I think you're in the right.
	That's the great temptation.
	And I think that's usually a mistake because it gives the other person power and...
	I don't think that's realistic to think they're going to agree with you.
	But I think it's important to set a boundary to say, look, this is my decision and I've made that decision and I'm not interested in you trying to change that decision.
	Yes, certainly.
	And the other thing, too, you can say, if I've made the wrong decision, I'm not saying you did, right?
	But if I made the wrong decision, then berating me is not going to change my mind.
	If I've made the wrong decision, then the best way to do it is to keep asking me questions until I realize, oh my goodness, I made the wrong decision.
	But berating me is not going to do it.
	Yeah, that makes sense.
	Or you could say, hey, you know what you're doing right now?
	That's it.
	That's why.
	But, you know, extend that for a couple of decades and there you go, right?
	It's, you know, just look in the mirror and see what you're doing to me right now.
	That's the deal.
	Right.
	I mean, that's both a comment and a bit of a warning shot, too, which I think can be helpful.
	Yeah, definitely.
	You haven't mentioned anything about your mom.
	Is she still around?
	No, she abandoned me when I was 13.
	So, it's just really my dad, my sister, and me.
	Oh gosh, that's just terrible.
	Again, I'm so sorry.
	I'm so sorry.
	I was reading a book by a psychologist recently who said, you know, we have a very difficult time processing that sometimes where we're born is just bad luck.
	It's really bad.
	That's really bad luck.
	You know, we try to make meaning out of it.
	I mean, there's some philosophies, I think particularly the Eastern communities, there's some philosophies which say, we choose our parents.
	We choose our parents and they have things to teach us and it's all part of the learning and this and that and the other.
	I mean, good heavens.
	What a load of unbelievably victim-blaming codswallop.
	It's unbelievably insulting.
	I mean, they would never say this about a rape victim.
	Well, the woman chose to be raped and the rapist has something to teach her about life.
	My god.
	I mean, it'd be shocking.
	But, you know, we can say this about kids and their parents because children aren't people, right?
	Children aren't people.
	So, yeah, I'm just, I'm real sorry.
	I'm sorry I haven't mentioned that and I hope it goes well.
	I think that money and peace of mind, right?
	Sometimes these two things are not even in the same building and we've got to take a fork in the road.
	I think peace of mind is the way to go.
	Peace of mind is the thing to aim for, but obviously that's everyone's decision to make for themselves.
	But, you know, as I get older, which means it's not true, I find that peace of mind is better than money.
	Right.
	Well, listen, we're going to move on to another caller, but thank you so much for your time.
	Thank you, Seth.
	I'd also like to thank you for proving that women do listen to Freedom in Radio.
	That is something that is nice to know.
	All right, thanks a lot.
	All right, take care.
	Ah, very good.
	Hey, Steph, how's it going?
	Ah, it's going very well, thank you.
	How are you doing?
	Good, good.
	Real good to talk to you.
	There's been one question I had on my mind.
	I heard one of your...
	Well, I think it was a YouTube thing.
	You had a...
	It was actually about the...
	Somebody had written something about Harry Potter, and it was really interesting.
	At some point in it, you...
	What was it?
	You had mentioned that people who have mental illnesses, to them, the illness seems real.
	That in their own minds, they're seeing the things that are there, and to them, it's real.
	I was wondering, to what extent you thought that the mind has that power over what we perceive to be real?
	For instance, psychosomatic disease, like an ulcer.
	Having stress psychologically can actually cause someone to have ulcers and also I was wondering how you viewed that as a tying into like the placebo effect of how people perceiving that something that isn't actually there in their own mind can actually you know influence their body and how things heal or how their body reacts and I guess the greater vein
	of what I'm trying to tie this into is if you've heard anything about or what's your opinion on medical hypnosis as a form of treatment for I mean I know there's it's useful for psychological issues but I've also heard that there's been success in medical issues such as well I mean I would think that it would be able to help if you know if an ulcer can be caused psychologically Why could certain
	things be cured through, you know, just through speech and, you know, mental processes?
	So I was wondering, you know, what is your opinion on hypnosis?
	I don't have much of an opinion on hypnosis.
	I haven't really studied it and I've certainly never experienced it.
	As far as the mind's effect on the body, yeah, I think it's huge.
	I think it's huge.
	You know, from the ACE studies, there are significant Risks of children who go through significantly adverse experiences as children.
	And I'm not talking about the sort of philosophical adverse conditions like went to public school or, you know, whatever.
	But what people would recognize as, everybody would recognize as difficult or abusive or highly traumatic or even medium traumatic situations, that children who go through have corresponding increases in health risks such as cancer, ischemic heart disease, And so on.
	And so, and this is not the result of injury.
	This is the result of a wide variety of traumas, right?
	So a lot of stress.
	Cortisol pumps in.
	Cortisol has, you know, can over the long term can destroy brain cells that they can regenerate or they can map around it.
	So there does seem to be an enormous effect of what one experiences.
	And now it's, but the interesting thing is not just the thought, right?
	Because the brain is more than just thought.
	The brain is The autonomous nervous system, I mean, it's a hugely complex, massively parallel processing kind of organ.
	And so there are, you know, if your fight or flight mechanism gets triggered for a long period of time, then it's really hard.
	I mean, it's not just a willpower thing to sort of make it go away.
	So it's not just like, well, just what you think.
	It's also your experiences accumulate in your brain and your brain fires up in response to them.
	And, of course, you know, the biggest one is that stress was kind of supposed to be short-lived, right?
	I mean, you either get eaten by the tiger or you don't, right?
	You either catch the deer or you don't.
	But, of course, in the modern world, we have this long-term, low-grade stress that I think has a lot of health implications for people and so on.
	So, I think it's a very important thing.
	The placebo effect is enormously well documented and very significant and so on.
	And so, but it's, you know, it's tricky because you have to believe it to work for it to work.
	If you know it's placebo, the placebo effect seems to be somewhat diminished.
	So, I do think it's an important thing and this is why, you know, this is why, you know, I keep pounding the same drum and some people are listening and some people aren't.
	For those who aren't, I, you know, I really do believe that talking to a therapist is, at least at some point in your life, talking to a therapist is a key part of your physical health regimen.
	You know, you pay for a gym membership.
	Maybe.
	You pay to play certain sports.
	You know, pay for some therapy.
	It doesn't have to be five years.
	It doesn't have to be three hours a week like I did.
	But pay for some therapy.
	I just really strongly urge people to do that.
	Particularly, of course, if you've grown up in an environment where you can't talk about anything meaningful.
	And if you listen to the average conversation around you.
	Sometimes I'll do this.
	Sometimes I'll work around here.
	At the mall or whatever.
	Listen to the average conversation that people are having around you in restaurants or whatever.
	I mean, it's an unapologetic wave of insignificant trivia.
	And if you've not been able to talk about anything of depth, of passion, of power, of importance, of philosophy, of virtue, of meaning, if you've not had an environment where you can talk about that stuff, in other words, if you've never been taught to take yourself seriously,
	Well, a good therapist will help you take yourself seriously, will help you trust your instincts, will help you engage the unconscious 9,000 times more powerful than the conscious mind at certain tasks.
	And the rulers want us disconnected from our instincts.
	They want us to be disconnected from our instincts.
	To me, the entire purpose of propaganda is to replace shallow language-based pseudo-ethics with the deep virtue And empathy and compassion that comes with a full brain integration.
	To look at Barack Obama or whoever it is as greater than you, as someone with all the answers, as someone who's going to save things, as someone who's going to make everything better, and this is true for people who think of this as politicians, it's a fundamental lack of empathy.
	If you empathize that he's just some dude...
	Like, I'm just some dude.
	Then you get what the horizontal human-to-human interaction is.
	But they have to hollow out your empathy with yourself.
	They have to hollow out your instincts to judge others.
	They have to hollow out all of the deep brain perceptiveness, which Malcolm Gladwell talks about in the book Blink.
	And they have to replace that with worship, with grandiosity, with...
	Trivia with a bullied kind of allegiance.
	You know, like if you say you don't support the troops or you support the troops by not having them be troops, you know, that will get you some pretty askance looks in certain areas.
	And so I really think it's important to have that as part of your health regimen.
	That's, you know, again, The proof seems to be quite clear.
	The studies are very clear that therapy brings significant amounts of happiness to people in a very permanent way.
	Again, that's just my constant urging.
	I don't know if that's even close to answering your question, but those are my thoughts on it.
	I was just curious.
	The reason is I was listening to a few audiobooks on hypnosis and It was interesting.
	I heard, like, Nathaniel Brandon and the whole self-improvement movement things sort of related to it, and I found that pretty interesting.
	And I'm not sure the one person, if you were to look into hypnosis, I suppose, would be Milton Erickson because he's, from what I understand, had some of the best results.
	And he, you know, worked at it his whole life, seeing patients for, like, You know, like 14 hours a day, patient after patient, you know.
	So he got lots of practice at it.
	And it was...
	To me, it seems as though, you know, there are people who I go, I believe in the power of prayer.
	And they're attributing it to some, you know, as you say, the space ghost or something outside themselves when it seems to me that, you know, the effect our mind has on our reality is...
	Pretty much only directly related to our bodies.
	Obviously, I can't, you know, look at something and make it levitate with my mind or anything ridiculous like that or, you know, like wish, you know, money to fall in my lap from the sky.
	But I do believe as far as our mental control, we have a pretty good realm of control over our bodies.
	And it's fascinating to me listening to the hypnosis material I have been Especially with Milton Erickson, what he would use is, it wouldn't be the type of hypnosis that, well, what most people think of as like stage hypnosis, where you were getting very sleepy, close your eyes, you know, and like making people, you know, cluck like a chicken.
	It was actually, it was much like what you would think of a normal therapy session, where he would just sit and talk with people and use stories and metaphors to Well, I guess, kind of help people rewire their own brain.
	And I just find it absolutely fascinating because, you know, I grew up in a Christian home and it was actually listening to your podcast.
	I remember the one, I forget which one episode, I finally hit me.
	I was like, fuck, it's a lie.
	Like, I'd been half accepted, half truth.
	Like, oh, maybe there's some truth, you know.
	And then I remember hitting that point like, Oh, shit.
	I don't know.
	But as far as the power of prayer, though, it's just very interesting to me how, I don't know, people, you know, we've attributed it to something else within ourselves where we really do have direct control.
	And I can sort of see it how, and people I know, how they perceive certain things, and I can see how that would work in the extremes of where somebody...
	Sorry to interrupt, but I think that...
	A good theory explains the prevalence of a particular idea.
	I go into this more in my book Against the Gods?
	But it's available for free at freedomainradio.com forward slash, you guessed it, free.
	But people do take comfort from prayer.
	I don't think they just sit there going through their grocery list thinking everyone else around them is praying.
	I don't think it's an emperor's new clothes situation for everyone that way.
	People do take comfort from prayer.
	And my formulation...
	To go over it very briefly, is that God is the unconscious.
	Our unconscious has almost all the characteristics of a God.
	It's far smarter than we are, and that's true.
	That's been proven quite regularly.
	And so if you ask a question of God, and God is actually your unconscious, you're engaging in a conversation with your unconscious, which is a very good thing to do.
	Of course, people believe that God preceded them and God created them, and if you look at our individual psyches, our conscious mind grows out of our unconscious.
	We're born in an unconscious state, a subconscious state.
	It's like we passed out or something.
	And then our ego, our will, our neofrontal cortex grows out of that.
	So in a sense, we are created by God.
	We are created by our unconscious mind.
	God is very interested in morality.
	The unconscious is a UPB machine.
	It is a universalization machine, as I've argued many times before.
	And the conscience is considered to be independent of conscious control.
	I mean, if you violate your moral standards, you will develop a bad conscience.
	That all sits in the unconscious.
	So the idea that God judges us for what we do, well, that's the unconscious!
	I mean, this is what the unconscious does.
	It notices our adherence or departure from our I mean, you could sort of go, unconscious likes music, and so we sing in church.
	Again, you can go on and on, right?
	But I think it's very clear that the reason that we believe in a God is because we have an unconscious.
	And unfortunately, if we take our unconscious and project it out into the world, it becomes open to manipulation.
	Nobody can tell me what my unconscious says, but if I believe that my unconscious is out there in the form of a deity and a priest has closer access to that deity or my unconscious than I do, then I will be told what my unconscious says, which is the problem, right?
	As soon as you project a part of yourself out into the world that is not out in the world, if I spit on the sidewalk, I'm out in the world, right?
	But if I... If I project my own unconscious out into the world, it becomes open to being captured and manipulated by others.
	And that is why people will always try to draw your unconscious out of you and put it out into the world so that they can control it.
	And so by controlling it, they can control you.
	Which is why we are told that society is this big giant living organism.
	There's this collective world, this collective thing, and we're just tiny relative to it.
	That's because it takes the size and power of our unconscious out into the world.
	It's a social contract.
	You have a patriotism.
	Nationalism, racism, tribalism, these are all vacuuming out your unconscious and putting it into the hands of manipulators.
	And as I've said for many years in this conversation, self-knowledge is about withdrawing our projections from the world, recognizing that everything that occurs in our mind is actually inner mind.
	It's not in the flag, it's not in the Bible, it's not on the cross, it's not out there in the world, it's not in a collective, it's not in a race, it's not in a nation.
	Everything that occurs In our heads is in our heads.
	And to withdraw our projections from the world, I think, is the fundamental task of self-knowledge.
	Because it's a weird thing to do.
	I was looking at my daughter just yesterday.
	And, I mean, she's got a pretty small skull.
	Obviously, she's three.
	But in that is the most amazing world.
	A universe, really.
	Of fun, of creativity, of frustration, of anger, of attachment, of love, of passion, of imagination.
	You know, this little ball of hair and meat has amazing dreams every night where she rides ponies over rainbows and all these other kinds.
	I really want entrance tickets to her dreams.
	You could sell them.
	In the other world, she would be the Disney that everyone would want to go to.
	And yet it's just this tiny little ball.
	So what goes on in our head?
	You know, we perceive the universe.
	We can see all the way to galaxies billions of light years away.
	But that is all occurring within our heads.
	And this is the weird paradox, that we look out into the universe, and we understand the universe, and that's just out in the physical universe, in the depths of our own mind, as such fantastic creatures and imaginations and creativity and power.
	That it's hard to think of it as just meat.
	It's hard to think that all of our power and depth and wonder and beauty and fear and excitement, thrill of our own experiences is just in these few cubic centimeters of brain matter.
	So that we have a strong desire to project into the universe because the universe is so much bigger than our head, but it's all kind of contained in our head.
	We can process and perceive it.
	And that's just the outer universe.
	There's a depth of our own minds that goes...
	Through the center of the earth and out to Alpha Centauri.
	And so all of this depth and perceptiveness and power and creativity and wonder, ambition, excitement, fear, the idea that it's all just in our heads is really hard to understand.
	We can look at a star, but the image of the star is just in our head.
	We don't go to the star.
	And so all of that occurring in our heads is something that's really hard to contain in our heads.
	And that's why, to me, secularism has to replace a deity with a society.
	You know, what does Barack Obama keep talking about?
	Well, it's just kind of, as I predicted recently, I'm only going to turn on the dependent classes and he's talking about a shared sacrifice and pulling together.
	This is all so predictable.
	But he tries to lure you into believing that you're part of some larger, more powerful story.
	Winston Churchill used to do this in the Second World War.
	I remember he was talking about the Lord of the Rings named Lord Gort, G-O-R-T, who was one of the lines of defense, a doomed kind of defense, I think in France in May of 1940.
	And Churchill said, the eyes of the empire are upon you.
	And he would say, you know, if the story of our fabled island, our fabled civilization were to come to an end, then because of this darkness creeping over from the ancient Teutonic forests and blah, blah, blah, blah, like he's creating this whole fairy tale.
	To make you feel like you're part of a larger story.
	But the moment you feel like you're part of a larger story, the people who write that story write your life.
	And write you out of your life.
	And your own internal mind gets replaced by metaphors that other people have the levers to.
	Very, very dangerous.
	Very dangerous.
	It lends you susceptible to what Ankulta calls the demonic pull of the irrational horde.
	The moment people try to tell you that you're part of a larger group, a larger community, Look out!
	They're coming for you with spider fingers and soul tweezers.
	So I would say that it's one of the great challenges is to recognize that the depth and power of our minds is still fundamentally only contained within our own minds and to pull back our projections and our desire to merge with a collective which is stimulated in us from From youth, I don't think it's natural, although it's innate, but it's highly profitable.
	The moment you can pull people's unconscious out of them and serve it up to the rulers in the form of a collective narrative that the rulers can control and thereby control the people.
	Well, that's the function of the artist, is to metaphorize your unconscious and serve it up like a ripe, plucked, baked turkey to the rulers.
	So, I hope that makes some kind of sense.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I understand what you're saying, and It makes perfect sense to me how, since humans we tend to personify things, that it makes sense that we personified the unconscious, the subconscious, and gave it a name and referred to it as God, and then it doesn't help with multiple branches of religion.
	It's, I don't know, just so ironic to me, the whole, have no other gods before me, but we're all worshipping Jesus.
	You know, when I was in Sunday school as a kid, I found that ironic.
	But to me, it just seems like, I mean, it's a mistaken, but it's just a natural human behavior to personify.
	Well, no, no, no.
	See, but, sorry, you said that you were in Sunday school when this happened, right?
	Oh, when what happened?
	Like, that I was...
	When you, you know, personified a deity and so on.
	So if it was natural human behavior, then you wouldn't...
	No, but I mean, yeah, if it was natural human behavior, then we wouldn't need it to be...
	We wouldn't need to instruct children so much in it, right?
	I mean, I don't have to send my daughter to night school called, I like chocolate.
	Okay, I understand.
	To say, cake tastes better than broccoli.
	I don't need to send her to, you know, broccoli tastes good.
	Sorry, broccoli tastes bad school.
	She just gets that, right?
	Yeah, I understand.
	I guess what I'm saying is that it's easier to latch onto, especially when you're a child and you don't know any better, because the fact that in our nature humans do personify things like, jokingly you might say, the sea was angry when it swallowed the ship.
	We understand that the sea doesn't have emotions and everything.
	But it is part of our nature to personify, so it sort of seems that the whole personalized deity type thing kind of just lends to the personification.
	It's just easier.
	Ah, sorry.
	When you're young and vulnerable, it's drawn into that.
	Sorry, let me interrupt.
	I agree with you that we do have this habit, but again, we're dealing with a population that has had this habit inculcated and inflicted.
	Throughout their entire childhoods in various forms.
	So we don't know whether it's natural.
	I will say something that's very interesting, finally, I hope, which is I'm quite fascinated by my daughter's reality and fantasy processing.
	I mean, this is just amazing to me, right?
	So sometimes she will say something that is factually incorrect, and I will correct her, and she will say, no, Dad, we're just pretending at the moment.
	Which is really, really cool, right?
	So she'll say, I don't know, something like, a tadpole is in a tree.
	And I'll say, well, you know, tadpoles can't live in trees, right?
	And she's like, yeah, I know, we're just pretending.
	And that's not a great example, but this will happen once or twice a day.
	And I'm sort of trying to, but, you know, I don't want her to believe things that are false, but I also don't want to interfere with her imaginative play.
	So that's kind of the balance that we kind of strike.
	And so, when we say the sea is angry, we know that we're personifying something that doesn't have emotions, right?
	And so, that to me is completely fine.
	When you say the sea is angry, that doesn't lend you to be controlled by others.
	Because you know that you're personifying, right?
	That you're anthropomorphizing.
	But if you say, sorry, if you say the sea is angry, if I say to you the sea is angry, now give me $100 and I'll make the sea happy.
	Yeah.
	That's a different thing, right?
	Because, you know, you would say, well, no, I'm just, it's just a, it's a turn of phrase.
	It's a metaphor.
	The sea is not really angry and giving you $100 isn't going to make the sea any happier.
	Make you happier, make me less happy, but it won't do anything to the sea.
	So the difference is, When we don't know that we're personifying, when we don't know that we're projecting, that's when we are under other people's control.
	Like, if you genuinely believe that Poseidon is angry and you need to give the priest $100 to make Poseidon happier, that's when you get controlled, when you don't know that it's a metaphor, when you don't know that it's a projection.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah, yeah.
	I suppose I shouldn't have came across as sounding like I meant that it's natural for us to personify the subconscious as God.
	It's just...
	It's when you don't know any better and you're a kid, and it's personified that and, you know, constantly fed to you.
	It's just, it makes sense, and it goes along with our nature to personify.
	And it's interesting, the whole, the C comment, too, because I was reading something else.
	I don't remember what it was.
	They were talking about ancient cultures and how, for instance, in Greece, you know, you mentioned Poseidon and Zeus and all the gods that they supposedly had.
	How, you know, things can be lost in translation and, you know, as time passes, people's understanding of things change.
	And I heard that, I thought it made sense to me, and it was really interesting that, you know, the gods, like, say, the Greek gods, because those are people who have an understanding of that, that people in the day didn't actually, and I don't know how true this is, they didn't actually believe that Zeus was a real person or that Poseidon was a real person.
	That back then, those people understood, and once again, this could be wrong, it was just something interesting I read, that those weren't real entities living, or deities living in, you know, the sky or the ocean.
	It's just, they were personifications that people used.
	Like how when we name hurricanes, like, you know, Hurricane Andrew or whatnot.
	It just, it makes sense how, over time, when things are lost, and You know, language gets manipulated.
	For instance, who knows what Christianity originally started out with or what Jesus actually preached?
	Because over time, you know, things were manipulated and, you know, word usage changed.
	And Alan, I found it pretty interesting that, you know, maybe back then they didn't actually worship these things, that they understood that, no, that's just a personification for...
	The sea or the sky or thunder.
	Well, sorry, let me just interrupt you for a sec, though, because I think it's important to remember that there's no one...
	I mean, there's an old statement from ancient philosophy which says, belief in the gods is considered true by the credulous, it's considered false by the wise, and it's considered useful by the rulers.
	But the important thing is that for people of more limited intelligence, you can tell them that it's all real, it's all true, and because they're very literal-minded and they They're not keyed on, you know, irony and complexity and metaphor and ambiguity and ambivalence and all that kind of stuff.
	You just tell them, okay, this is a literal word of God.
	It's true.
	And Jesus did walk on water and brought lepers back from the dead and he drove the pigs off a cliff and whatever, right?
	So that's all true.
	And that works for the literal-minded people of somewhat limited intelligence, the people whose childhood traumas, I would argue, have lent them to be really uncomfortable with ambivalence.
	And...
	That's what you sell to them.
	And then for the more intelligent people, you can work the metaphor angle in, well, you know, we're not saying that Jesus did walk on water.
	It's a metaphor for how he was able to transcend his material self, right?
	And so you then describe it as a metaphor for people who are too intelligent or too sophisticated to process the literal truth argument.
	And this is just two, but there's many different ways that you can scale the belief system to adapt to people's capacities.
	Yeah.
	So listen, it's a great chat.
	I want to make sure we move on to two other callers.
	I'm desperately going to try and actually clear the queue for once in my God-forsaken Sunday life.
	But thanks.
	Great calls, great questions, and I appreciate your thoughts.
	All right.
	And as far as therapy goes, I hope maybe I've piqued your interest in Milton Erickson but really didn't talk too much about it.
	But I thought you might be interested just for the therapeutical aspect of what the man did.
	But it's good talking.
	Well, when the documentary is done, I will...
	Check him out, but that's my big focus at the moment, but thank you.
	Yeah, hey, I'm looking forward to the documentary.
	Keep up the good work.
	Oh, yeah, thanks.
	All right, bye-bye.
	Bye-bye.
	Hey Steph, I have a question for you then.
	We have a couple of people on the line who want to talk about the martial arts stuff.
	One person hasn't called in before, so I just want to be mindful of your time.
	How do you want to go?
	Let's throw the newbie in and then I'm happy to talk about the martial arts.
	Okay, so we have a newbie and then a non-martial arts and then if we have time for martial arts, we'll do it that way.
	We'll definitely get to martial arts.
	Okay, cool.
	So, Joseph, first time caller, go on.
	Hi, Steph.
	I wonder if you could hear me fine?
	Yeah, it's good.
	You might want to back off from the mic a bit.
	It's a bit buzzy, but other than that, it's great.
	Okay, great.
	Well, Steph, I guess I would be the newbie.
	I have been listening to your show for a long time, but first time I'm calling in.
	I wanted to talk to you about, like, With this understanding of philosophy that I've gained over the years listening to your show and listening to a lot of other things on the internet.
	I'm just trying to figure out how to incorporate that into my life better.
	I'm 24 at the moment.
	I've taken a lot of time to think about what I'm going to be doing in my life in terms of my direction and my larger purpose.
	I don't want to fall into any traps where I get some sort of magical narration which doesn't have any connection with reality where I think that I'm going to solve a whole bunch of problems or anything.
	I just want to see if I can realistically lay out my goals and try to attack them without becoming a workaholic.
	During the summer, I was working 70 hours per week and I'm going to be going back into school from my final year.
	And I also just happen to be working on the side while also be studying something else, which also gets me back into 80 hours a week of I'm not sure if this is some sort of pattern.
	Yeah, that's like another part-time job that you have to take on.
	Well, first of all, let me say, dude, you've got some serious language skills there.
	I mean, holy, that was like a martial arts flourish of syllogisms and syntax and syllables, dare I add.
	So, I just really wanted to point out that you've got some very serious and powerful verbal skills.
	Oh, thanks.
	I appreciate that.
	I would say that the best way to start studying philosophy is not with a view to action, is not with a view to action, but rather with a view to gaining knowledge.
	We want to put knowledge into action as quickly as possible because we believe that knowledge has value through action.
	Yeah, I definitely agree with that.
	Yeah, and I don't think that's very true of philosophy, at least not for the beginning, right?
	So, we wouldn't want someone who's in his first month of pre-med to grab a knife and take out someone's appendix, right?
	Yeah, definitely not.
	It's like, dude, a little too soon for that, right?
	A little too soon for that.
	You need to study a lot more, you need to practice on your peaches, you need to practice on your oranges, you need to know where the appendix is, you need to...
	whatever, right?
	I mean, so...
	We understand that with medicine, we don't want to start cutting into people too early, right?
	And it's the same thing with a variety of other disciplines, right?
	Engineering, it's a big-ass complex discipline.
	The first month in your engineering school, you don't go build the Brooklyn Bridge, right?
	I mean, it takes a lot of study, and you study it for its own sake before you're allowed near any materials that you can work with, right?
	The architect doesn't just go out and start throwing bricks together.
	He, you know, goes through years of schooling and apprenticeship and then he draws up his blueprints and you understand, right?
	But there's this belief that philosophy is somehow different from that, right?
	That, you know, I can read UPB and then be moral.
	I can't.
	I mean, I can't.
	I'm still working on all this stuff.
	And we have respect for disciplines and professions which are far less important than philosophy.
	But we want to put philosophy into action very quickly, and I would argue that that is problematic.
	And so I think that in your position, and I say this, you know, I guess at the age of 24, I was seven or eight years into philosophy and so on, and I still was only putting a little bit of it into practice here and there.
	And again, I was too slow, so I don't...
	I think it's really important to just study it for the pleasure of it, to study it for the exercise of it, to study it for the self-knowledge that it can provide.
	But I think that it's not great to ask philosophy to dictate actions.
	And I'm trying to think of all the things I've said in my life that will contradict that, and there's probably a few.
	But...
	Now, so that having been said, I think that's important.
	I wouldn't sit there and say, oh my goodness, I've read this work on philosophy, now how do I implement this in my life?
	Well, I think implementation is way down the road, because you have to get yourself knowledge in order first.
	First, know thyself.
	Well, know thyself is quite a long time.
	And then move into action.
	Now, that having been said...
	I think that there are standards, right?
	Because I'm thinking, okay, well, the against me argument is something that I ask people to put into practice if they want to, if they really value these philosophies and so on.
	So I think that it's okay, in fact, I think it can be very important to put certain philosophical principles into action in your conversation.
	So I think that's important, but again, that's not something that I would urge people to To rush into.
	So I think, you know, it's just study for the sake of studying until you are ready to put it into action.
	Okay.
	Well, actually, it's funny that you say that because I've been having a lot more conversations lately with people that have like a philosophical bent.
	And I noticed that a lot of times, you know, discussing concepts like I was talking to a bunch of people who believe in the thing called the secret.
	I'm not sure if you heard of that.
	How could I have heard of it?
	It's a secret!
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, and I'm just saying, I was just plainly stating some scientific facts that, no, your thoughts don't control the universe.
	That's absurd.
	Basically just laying it out and they were getting really angry at me.
	So I'm like, I don't know.
	Well, look, but you understand that the secret is...
	I mean, the secret is no secret.
	The secret is...
	I mean, when you're a baby, your thoughts and wants are supposed to control the universe, right?
	So when you're upset, your mother's supposed to come or your daddy's supposed to come and make you feel all better.
	And when you're hungry, you're supposed to get your food.
	And when you want to play, there's supposed to be someone to play with you.
	So your desires should control your universe when you're a baby, right?
	Now, if that didn't happen for you, then...
	When someone comes along and says, if you want stuff, the universe will provide, right?
	Because for a baby, the universe is a person or two people or however many people are around who are taking care of the baby.
	The baby doesn't care about the ceiling fan too much.
	You might watch it idly and whatever, right?
	But for the baby, the universe is people.
	And so people end up personifying the universe and really wanting the universe to give them stuff because they want it.
	Well, all they're telling to me is that they have this incredible unmet needs, these incredible and legitimate unmet needs from childhood that they don't want to deal with, and so they're going to create this fantasy of perpetual infancy where their will can move the universe to provide things because they don't want to deal with their loss.
	So the fact that people get angry when you point out that the universe isn't going to provide them, it's the same thing as, you know, saying your mommy doesn't love you.
	People get upset.
	Oh, really?
	I didn't think about it like that.
	That's very interesting.
	Always look for the unmet needs in childhood.
	Whenever you see irrationality in an adult, always look for the unmet needs in childhood.
	You know, I'm not saying it's the only or the last, but it's certainly the first place to go, right?
	Definitely.
	Well, you know, yeah, you're right.
	I have a lot of priorities right now, and maybe just being a casual consumer philosophy to a point where I can implement it more fully in my life later down the line because, as you mentioned, it takes a lot of time to even get into a discipline that is less comprehensive and complex.
	I'm studying finance, for example, and there's a whole stack of books that I'm reading from.
	There's a lot of stuff that I've got to learn in order to simply begin to know the basics of what I'm trying to implement as a profession.
	And then, like, I imagine philosophy, you know, it's much more all-encompassing, so maybe I shouldn't be rushing into trying to, you know, get everything in my life to be philosophized, if that's even a word.
	Yeah, yeah, no, I wouldn't focus on acting.
	In the realm of philosophy, I mean, if you're in...
	I mean, I'm not saying you are, but if some friend was pouring torrents of verbal abuse on you every day, then I think that would be something to act on.
	But if there are no particular pressing issues in your life, then I would simply accumulate the knowledge rather than try and will change.
	I think that's really important.
	Yeah, and I think that's actually quite wise.
	And you know what?
	I had to...
	End a relationship with a friend recently just because, you know, I've noticed that he just wasn't very respectful at all and seemed like very narcissistic and wasn't, you know, respecting me as a person and, you know, went through some times where, you know, we went through a lot of tough times and so on.
	But because I think because some of the greater knowledge that I've acquired just from listening to this show and just having an idea of philosophy in general, I realized it was destructive to just maintain that relationship just for the sake of having a friend.
	And, you know, that's one of the actual actions, you know, philosophy in action, which I felt like has helped me so far, which is probably why I'm more, you know, excited to implement it into other parts of my life as well.
	Yeah, I mean, you don't have to be a fireman to know that you have to run out of a burning building.
	Mm-hmm.
	But if it's going to be your job, then yeah, some training is a good thing.
	So I'm glad that it's been helpful and I hope that it's going to be an icing on your life and, you know, it's on the cake of your life rather than another job that you have to cram into the eight minutes you have between sleeping and 80-hour weeks.
	So I would just relax and enjoy absorbing the knowledge and have it be recreation for you.
	I think that would be the best approach.
	Great.
	Thank you very much, Stefan.
	I've enjoyed the call.
	You're welcome.
	And next up?
	Next up we have Jack.
	Hey, I don't know Jack.
	I think that's what Socrates says, I don't know Jack.
	Anyway, Jack, how are you?
	I'm doing pretty good.
	I wanted to talk to you about choosing a therapist.
	I know it's something you talked about before, but I'm still a little shaky on it.
	Well, if you ask the universe, a therapist will...
	Well, the work that you've...
	I think you've called him before, right?
	So the work that you've done on yourself, I think will give you some idea of what it is that you want to work with.
	And what I needed to work with was...
	I didn't need to be convinced that I had a bad childhood.
	Not convinced, but I didn't need to...
	I wasn't in denial about having had a bad childhood.
	That wasn't my issue.
	There were a bunch of things that I wasn't...
	I had a successful career, so I wasn't stuck in a basement somewhere.
	I had a romantic relationship, so I wasn't a monk solitary that way.
	And so there were a bunch of things that weren't issues for me.
	I mean, fundamentally, What I needed was to take myself seriously, was to take my mind, my thoughts, my unconscious, to take it seriously.
	That's what I had to work on.
	And so I tried a therapist who was, you know, very intellectual.
	And it's not like I need help with intellectualism, right?
	I needed help with slowing down and listening to my nightly dreams and listening to my instincts and not, you know, my...
	My conscious mind rode my unconscious like the jolly green giant on a Shetland pony, and that was not right.
	I got thrown because I thought I was bigger than my unconscious, and I was not.
	So in terms, like I needed somebody who was, you know, deep thought, Jungian kind of dream analysis and instincts, listen to instincts, and not somebody who would work with other things.
	So once I found that therapist, then it worked really well.
	So I think have...
	Have an idea of what it is that you need to work on.
	And when you call up a therapist, then say, this is what I think I need to work on.
	What's your experience in it?
	I think that could be helpful.
	Okay.
	The issue I'm having is, based on my budget, the only therapy I can afford are the psychologists who work at the college I'm attending.
	Mm-hmm.
	And there's two on staff, and I've had sessions with both of them, kind of just like an introductory.
	And I don't really feel any compelling insight coming from either of them.
	So I'm kind of thinking that I'm not going to be able to find an optimal therapist within the constraints I have to work with at the moment.
	So how do I make the best of it with somebody who's maybe average or instead of great?
	What can I do to make sure I'm getting the most out of it?
	Right.
	Well, I think then, I mean, the majority of the work in the therapist's office, to my experience and understanding, it goes outside the therapist's office, right?
	And so I would just, you know, continue to do the work that I've talked about on this show before, which, you know, is very common stuff, you know, journaling and the exercise books that Nathaniel Brandon and John Bradshaw and others have and do all that kind of work and so on and have conversations with important things about people, with people in your life.
	I think those are all very good things to work on and then just bring as much as you can into the therapist's office.
	That would be my suggestion.
	I don't really know where to take it from there because I don't know.
	But sometimes I think, I think sometimes, I can imagine, right?
	I'm no therapist.
	But I can imagine that therapists, I mean, college is hell these days.
	I mean, jeez, I was just reading this article about suicide rates at colleges, mental health issues at colleges and so on.
	I mean, colleges are just monstrous at the moment in terms of people's misery and so on.
	And So the therapist may be getting a little bit broken record syndrome.
	They may have, you know, but if you really, it's not your job to engage the therapist, but if you bring a lot of really rich material to the therapist, then it may be easier for the therapist to get more involved.
	Again, it sounds a little bit like go win the affection of your mom kind of thing, but I think that if you bring as much as you can, Into the therapist's office, I think that gives the therapist the most opportunity to become engaged, if that makes sense.
	I have Brad Shaw's Homecoming book, and I read through that book before I went to talk to any therapist.
	And of course, the very first thing in his book is, if you feel any strong emotions while reading this book, go get, you know, professional counseling.
	And I did, so that's why I'm looking for one.
	The therapist I've spent the most time with She's heard of Bradshaw, but she's not familiar with it.
	And she seems kind of...
	I don't know.
	She was kind of like, I guess, trying to lower my expectations that she's not a John Bradshaw, so she's not going to be able to do exactly his technique.
	So...
	I'm not sure exactly if I should...
	Do more work independently?
	Just try to do the exercises without, you know, professional help?
	Well, you know, I can't answer that for you, of course, right?
	I mean, I assume that it's relatively cheap, if not free, at your college.
	So I would do the exercises and I would talk to the therapist.
	And, you know, if there's two, you can try the other one and see if you have a better rapport.
	But I would definitely do the work and talk to the therapist.
	I think that is...
	We have to assume some level of competence in the therapist, and of course you trust your instincts in the final analysis of that.
	But of course, she's not John Bradshaw, therefore she's not going to be doing exactly what John Bradshaw does.
	I mean, that's true.
	But I think that the more rich material and passion that you bring into the therapeutic relationship, I think that hopefully the faster and the better it goes.
	That's sort of my thoughts about it.
	And it's occurred to me, I had one private phone call with you, which was great.
	And one thing I noticed in that you were able to laser in on relevant questions, which that may have been an unrealistic expectation for me to expect from a first session with a therapist because I'd been listening which that may have been an unrealistic expectation for me to expect from a first session with a therapist because I'd been listening to your
	So maybe I'm expecting too much from meeting basically a stranger, even if they are a professional, and expecting to get a great rapport right away.
	Yeah, I mean, there's obviously a lot different...
	What I'm doing in Listener Convos is not therapy.
	What I'm doing in Listener Convos is I'm looking for inconsistencies.
	I mean, that's the job of philosophy is to look for contradictions or inconsistencies and attempts.
	It's a Socratic method, right?
	To attempt to resolve these inconsistencies, right?
	And so what I'm doing is simply trying to point out logical problems or inconsistencies.
	And that comes not from any therapeutic understanding.
	That comes from a lot of training in logic, right?
	So what I'm trying to point out in listener conversations is areas where thinking is contradictory or communication is contradictory.
	And that, I think, hopefully opens people up to the idea that they have work to do and that therapy would be helpful.
	But a therapeutic relationship is long-term, right?
	So a therapist may not be jumping straight in to point out problems.
	And some of the therapeutic relationships that I have read, there's a, I mean, lots of, Love's Executioner is one.
	I mean, these people will work sometimes for a year or two or more with patients.
	Some therapists are always concerned, I imagine, that if they push too quickly, the person is going to leave therapy, get upset and leave therapy.
	And I don't know that that would be true of you.
	I doubt it would be.
	But, you know, so, you know, some people, I was reading about one guy who went into therapy and, you know, started reading off a whole list of his last girlfriend's problems and then the previous girlfriend and the previous girlfriend before that and barely let the therapist say a word.
	And then after a session or two of listening to this person complain about everyone else in his life, the therapist asked one question and then the guy never came back.
	And so it could be, again, what do I know, right?
	But it could be that in a longer term relationship, the therapist may be Waiting.
	Maybe waiting to sort of get a map of where you are and waiting to understand where she can be of the most help.
	I'm just theorizing, right?
	I don't know.
	But that's very different than what I'm doing.
	What I'm doing is simply pointing out logical inconsistencies in what people are saying and not providing any particular therapeutic or long-term relationship.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah, that makes sense.
	I guess the philosophical conversation...
	Was very effective at quickly identifying inconsistencies.
	So I understand now why a therapist wouldn't necessarily do that the first time you talked to him.
	Yeah, I don't know.
	I mean, obviously I can't speak for your therapist.
	If I had to guess, though, I would say that that would be the case.
	Okay.
	Well, I think I'm just...
	I think I have a better idea of how I can...
	Try to make this as successful as possible.
	Yeah, I hope so.
	I hope so.
	Certainly, if the resource is available and it's within your means, you know, if there's two and you don't have a great rapport with one, you can certainly try the other.
	But I think really the work is occurring between sessions and bring as much as you can to the sessions and hopefully that will help move things along.
	And you can also talk about the things that you don't have to work on, right?
	That could be helpful for the therapist to know as well, right?
	Right.
	Alright, I'll do that.
	Thanks a lot.
	I hope it goes well, and thanks so much for the call.
	Alright, should we bring our jujitsu brethren into the call?
	Or sistren?
	Yes, indeed.
	We have two people on.
	One, Riley, and the other, Loki.
	Loki-lokes.
	Alright.
	Do you want to bring them both on?
	Oh, they're both on right now.
	Alright, my friends.
	Let's have a three-way.
	Both of us at the same time?
	Yes, absolutely.
	I will take on two at a time and show you martial arts in the brain.
	Can you hear me, Steph?
	Sure can.
	Yeah, we can both hear you.
	Riley, just...
	I don't know where you're going to be coming from.
	Mine are going to be logical fallacies and...
	Errors in definitions and terms.
	I don't necessarily disagree with some of the things that Stefan's conclusions may be, but his positioning in the conversation, I believe, needs to be addressed.
	But I think that you may have other concerns that are more about...
	Let's start with the logical fallacies, if that's alright, because I certainly want to correct those.
	Okay.
	Well, first of all, you said that's what it is.
	It's hitting when referring to martial arts.
	And according to dictionary.com and other sources, it's any form of any of the traditional forms of oriental self-defense or combat that utilize physical skill and coordination without weapons or Such as karate, aikido, judo, or kung fu, often practiced as a sport.
	Now, this includes forms that seek to disarm, avoid, and neutralize without hitting per se.
	For example, Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
	So, hitting is not necessarily a component.
	Now, being involved in a physical encounter where people's bodies are being manipulated in such a way that might be somewhat coercive, You could say that.
	Well, sorry, and let me just be clear, because you omitted one word from my definition, which was actually on the title of the video, so it's actually quite important, which is that it's basically about hitting.
	And that means that the hitting, or physical force, or whatever it is, is the one thing that differentiates martial arts from badminton.
	In badminton, I don't get to roundhouse people.
	And in hockey, I don't just get to go up and punch people.
	But in martial arts, it is about hitting.
	Now, I did also deal with the self-defense issue in saying that there's no tournament called Let's Just Do Self-Defense.
	So it involves hitting.
	Even if you're avoiding hitting, the art involves hitting.
	It is basically about hitting.
	It's either inflicting or avoiding hitting.
	So I do have to kind of stand by that because...
	You're not teaching chess moves to people who are doing defensive stuff, but you are teaching how to disarm and so on, so the person has to be coming at you.
	And then some people said, well, you know, if I put someone in a headlock, that's not hitting.
	And it's like, yeah, I'm perfectly willing to concede that.
	That if you put someone in a headlock, you're restraining them, you're not hitting them.
	But, you know, that's completely irrelevant, right?
	It's just a terminology thing, and I think you'd be better served to use more accurate terminology.
	The next thing that was very important was that you cited that you had thousands of responses and none of them said, well, I was a person who went through my life as a young child who didn't have abusive interactions and I'm really into martial arts.
	Let me just clarify that.
	I said I had thousands of responses and I didn't read one.
	Now, I didn't have the time to read all of them, but of the ones that I read, I didn't read any of those.
	Yeah, sorry about that.
	Alright, so, first of all, what would you say is the propensity for abuse within the United States and Canada for children?
	You know, what percentage of children are abused in some fashion or another?
	Very high, wouldn't you say?
	It really depends on how you define it, which is obviously the key.
	If I were to say that everybody who was spanked got into martial arts, then 80-90% of the population would be into martial arts, right?
	The bottom line is that according to the way that you perceive physical or abusive parenting, a very, very large percentage of the population would have had somewhat abusive parents.
	Then, on top of that, you have an audience who tends to be people who are seeking to resolve issues that tend to be derived from abusive parents.
	Now...
	Sorry to interrupt.
	I would question that latter premise, because if that were the case, then...
	If my thesis is correct, which is that, well, you know the thesis, then the people who are watching my show I'm not saying all of them,
	but I'm saying that there is a significant portion of them that would be.
	So, bottom line is that you're dealing with a tainted sample.
	When you Make that statement and then the people who get the responses from tend to be from countries which have abusive parenting and tend to be from a group set whose, let's say, 40% of that group set are reactionary minds because of abusive parents who are seeking out enlightenment and trying to address their own pain.
	So dealing with the tainted sample, you can't really expect much.
	Then on top of that, The fallacy of absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence.
	Just because you have not received these samples, you know, these responses does not mean that the responses wouldn't be there.
	It's just that your sample did not, you know, include them.
	So you can't make the jump that it's proof.
	In your, I think it was a second or no, it was a third video, You basically said, you know, I stand with my position proven.
	That's a really bad logical jump.
	Sorry, I actually said that it was proven 100% beyond a shadow of a doubt.
	I remember saying that it was...
	I'm more certain of it now than when I started and the evidence certainly supports what it is that I'm saying.
	I think it would be unlikely for me to say it's 100% proven because I don't even...
	I mean, I'm very tentative about proof in these kinds of areas.
	Well, I encourage you to listen to your audio again, because it was quite clear that that's what you were saying, at least from where I'm coming from.
	But I'll listen to it again and double-check.
	So I did a very extensive look into all of this, and there were a couple of things that I found that was...
	One in specific that you stated, you said, why not do dance or gymnastics as an alternative to it?
	And I found an analysis of a variety of literature, basically studies that were done with cross-sectional studies and longitudinal studies.
	of people who were in the martial arts and what they were doing.
	And one specific quote that I would like you to hear is...
	Let's see here.
	Nonetheless, research directly comparing the practice of martial arts with other physical activity suggests that martial arts training produces positive psychosocial changes that are greater in magnitude and diversity than those produced by many other physical activities.
	Sorry, there are many other physical activities, but not all physical activities.
	So there are other activities which provide the same benefits and may even provide greater benefits.
	Well, certainly not necessarily greater.
	The other ones that they did, however...
	No, no.
	I didn't say necessarily greater.
	I said could provide greater.
	And I can't disagree.
	So how does that contradict my thesis, that there are other ways of achieving the same health benefits without the combat aspect?
	Well, the thing that's kind of funny is that some of the other ones that did show numbers like this were boxing.
	That was a great concept.
	Sorry, what were the other ones that showed the same?
	Well, let's say for example like Tajikwan and moderately intensive walking lead to increases in self-esteem and Tajikwan as well as a number of other activities decrease levels of stress after a stressful period.
	I'm not sure what the phrase is that you're using.
	Walking, I get.
	It's just a form of martial arts.
	Bottom line is there is evidence that supports that aggression is increased under certain training methods in martial arts.
	Aggression is reduced and also other benefits are reduced in other martial arts.
	It's based upon whether you're using a traditional or a modern training technique.
	The traditional training techniques focus on katas or forms, not necessarily having tournaments where you fight each other for trophies and things like that.
	And they have a lot more meditation and introspection and discussion and things like that.
	And then there's the other one, which is more of a competitive sports type thing.
	And obviously, the funny thing is that if you're looking to be able to be physically defensive, being able to defend yourself in a physical confrontation, the ones that are more aggressive, the modern ones, are far more Yeah, so what you're saying is that in terms of health benefits, you can do martial arts or you can do moderate walking.
	Of course, in martial arts, you're almost certain to get injured in any given year, but unless you're really walking on your kneecaps, you're not going to get injured walking.
	So as far as health benefits go, I think that it would slide over to the walking side according to the information that you're providing to me.
	But let's move on to the next one.
	Well, the walking thing, it doesn't have anywhere near the other things on it.
	Anyway, I'd like to send you the link to it so you can take a look at it.
	But specifically, though, from my own experience, and just to clearly understand it, martial arts has several different things going for it.
	In a timely fashion, it accomplishes several different things.
	And this is also like to help to address whether you're dealing with the symptoms or the cure of the cause.
	When you're dealing with psychological evaluation and attempting to resolve your issues and your circumstances, there are several techniques that are used.
	One of which is introspection.
	Another one is visualization.
	And another one is group therapy and talking.
	I'm sorry, you're saying that martial arts includes group therapy?
	Yes, it does.
	During the course of some of my martial arts classes that we had there, we discussed situations that were stressful, that caused us anger, fear, pain, and how is it that the mindset that we were learning Would better, you know, handle that situation in the future.
	And then we also had visualizations.
	Sorry, like there was a trained mental health professional who was running this?
	I would say that, you know, they probably have about as much training as you or I do.
	I agree with that, which is to say that they're not a trained mental health professional.
	That doesn't mean that they're not effective.
	Well, I must defer to – I think the training is important.
	I think the training is important.
	I have a huge amount of respect for training.
	You know, certainly some of them are.
	You know, you could say that – it's like saying that, you know, my counselor showed up and led a martial arts class.
	Although I guess she could have actually, you know, but then she would have been in martial arts.
	But if she'd had no particular training in martial arts, then it wouldn't be particularly credible for a martial...
	Like for somebody in martial arts to say, well, let's have a psychologist come by and give us training.
	Does the psychologist have any training in martial arts?
	Do they have any experience?
	Well, I don't know, but let's have him come by.
	That wouldn't be particularly credible for you, right?
	I mean, and the same thing I would view from this side.
	But anyway, let's move on.
	Well, I don't know.
	I think that you're...
	That, again, is an assumption that's kind of like a straw man.
	But in any case, there is the technique being used.
	Whether it's being used as effectively as it could be done is questionable.
	But the techniques are still being used.
	Another thing that happens with martial arts is that you're dealing with a group of students.
	When you're working together with a group of students, there is a social network that is built that Adds to the experience and increases the likelihood that you will continue with the exercise.
	A very large number of people will drop out of exercise which is of a solitary or two-person type of thing like tennis or walking.
	Whereas if you're in a group setting, And you have these types of relationships, you're more likely to increase, you know, to...
	Yes, yes, I understand all of that, but how is that specific to martial arts?
	I met my wife playing volleyball, and everyone showed up to the volleyball match every week.
	So you have to come up with stuff that is specific to martial arts.
	I mean, because I don't doubt any of that.
	I don't doubt that martial arts gives you strength training.
	I don't doubt that it gives you some socializing.
	I don't doubt that it increases.
	I've never argued any of that.
	What you're not seeing is that it's a combination of It's several tasks in a time-compact way.
	People are exploring their own hostility towards things and learning to deal with situations that would normally cause anxiety.
	So they're becoming less anxious about situations that are of confrontational nature because they're becoming more self-confident and things like that.
	So that's the reason why it says The thing that you'll find if you go into some of the studies that are cited in this overview is that a lot of these other sports that you're talking about, like walking, for example, has a really good point on one area or two or three.
	But martial arts has a very broad and deep level of effect upon all these different things at the same time.
	Yes, you could go to an hour of therapy and sessions.
	If you have another hour to go ahead and do some walking and another hour to do some time spent with group therapy, all these things together are combined into one form.
	Obviously, the hitting thing is a drawback in your mind, but it's a voluntary relationship.
	For you to say that the people, the only people, or the people that are going into it are doing so specifically because they've had negative experiences of violence in their past, is certainly not taking into consideration children whose parents put them into martial arts because they thought it was a good idea, or all the people who have gone into it who were not in those violent situations.
	There's plenty of them.
	Specifically, though, if you want to look at the negative things about martial arts, modern martial arts training is where the real harm is done.
	And I guess that's my big point, is that you might want to focus on modern martial arts, not necessarily traditional martial arts.
	All right.
	Well, I mean, I've had a friend for 30 years who was into judo.
	He never talked about group therapy.
	I don't know.
	I've never heard of that before him.
	Maybe everyone's just been holding it back from me, but I don't see why they would.
	If I'm talking about self-knowledge and therapeutic environments as being very helpful and nobody's mentioned it to me before except you, then it would seem to me that that would be very helpful to the counter-argument.
	I've never heard it from anyone but you.
	I have to take that with a grain of salt.
	Disgusting things...
	Sorry, you had a chance to chat.
	Let me talk.
	So, as far as children, well, look, I mean, if parents had traumatic experiences with violence, then, of course, particularly when they were children, I would imagine that they would be more likely to put their kids into some sort of martial art.
	It's possible.
	You know, it certainly would seem to be a possible trend.
	It wouldn't be 100% perfect.
	So that doesn't escape the thesis saying that there are kids involved and so on.
	But, yeah, I mean, I also would sort of, as I've mentioned in an interview I did yesterday, 10 to 20% of people have consulted mental health professionals, and of all of the responses that I received over the course of this series, not one person had ever mentioned going into therapy, except for one person who said that when he was in therapy, it seemed to confirm my thesis.
	So, what that means is that at least the people who are responding are...
	They're either withholding the fact that they went to therapy, although it would really win the case, right?
	I mean, if these people said, no, no, no, I did a year of therapy for unrelated issues and, you know, I still enjoy martial arts and so on, I'd be like, okay, well, thesis falls, right?
	But the martial arts community is extremely underrepresented in terms of access to mental health professionals and that would not tend to disprove the thesis.
	You know, it doesn't prove.
	It doesn't prove.
	It's evidence for.
	You can't prove this stuff.
	You can't say, I don't think you can reasonably say 100% of people who are in martial arts are doing it to avoid traumatic experiences in their childhood.
	I don't think that...
	I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable making that kind of blanket statement.
	I think that...
	And I put it forward, of course, as a very tentative thesis.
	I said, these are just my thoughts.
	These are just my opinions.
	I don't have any answers.
	These are just my questions.
	I'm open to being corrected.
	But the events that transpired afterwards did not particularly...
	It changed my mind about that.
	I would not say, and if I did say, I'll certainly go back and let me know where it is where I did say that, and I'll go back and put a note on the video saying I'm overstating the case, and this was wrong of me to do that.
	But, you know, just to be clear, I do not say with absolute certainty that 100% of anyone who likes martial arts movies, who is into martial arts, is doing so because they're avoiding dealing with traumatic childhood experiences.
	I certainly would not make that case.
	I do not make that case.
	But I do think that it is something for people to think about because I think that there's quite a bit of evidence that supports that thesis and it's something to mull over.
	That's really all I'm saying.
	And if people, you know, they go to therapy and they find that nothing to do with it or whatever, then fantastic.
	You know, go knock yourself out, literally.
	But that's my, you know, I still, I have to go with the evidence that Go for it.
	Can you hear me?
	Yeah, how are you doing, man?
	I'm doing great, Steph.
	I thank you so much.
	I mean, there's no way I can thank you enough.
	So a little story here, a short story.
	About four or five years ago, you snatched the fucking rug out from underneath me, just like there was a trap door below it.
	And I never really talked with you much about that.
	You know, I talked with my son because he's the one who sent me a link to listen to you.
	And I spent about two weeks with the biggest stream of yeah buts that I had ever said.
	And, you know, Nash and I talked about these things.
	Like, I didn't call you because you were talking about things that were going on in my life.
	So, of course, I talked with Nash.
	And we had some great conversations.
	It took me about two weeks to get over that hump where I was ready to listen to some things.
	All of that was win-win.
	There was no win-lose involved in that.
	It wasn't like we were sparring or like you and I who did not even know each other.
	It wasn't like we were having a fight and you had said something bad about me or whatever.
	It was like you said something that possibly impacted my life.
	So I took that to Nash.
	I could have taken it to you.
	You know, I've learned since then.
	I could have called you on the phone and I could have said, Steph, you've really made me feel uncomfortable.
	And we would have had a great conversation about that.
	Because, I mean, in a sense, what you said did spur some discomfort in my life.
	But I haven't heard anybody in this ninja crap call you or talk to you and say, look, Steph, I feel uncomfortable about what happened.
	I mean, they indicated they certainly feel uncomfortable.
	But none of them have said, hey, I feel uncomfortable.
	So they're all talking about how they've not had any kind of trauma, and they're perfectly emotionally healthy, and yet nobody has done that.
	And it seems odd to me.
	And, you know, we go out just constantly on a daily basis.
	We talk to people about things like politics, about religion, about their relationships with their own vulnerable children.
	And we snatch the rug out from them and like, this shit applies to you.
	And, you know, no politician or religious guy that I've ever, every religious guy I've talked to is like, oh yeah, if I fuck up, I'm going to hell.
	It applies to me even though I'm trying to apply it to you.
	But now I see this bunch of philosophers who are talking like this does not actually apply to them.
	No, this shit is real.
	It's getting real here.
	It finally has come to something that's important to them.
	And they're just dodging it.
	And so I guess the reason I'm calling in is I am actually feeling some anger about this.
	And, you know, this is a me issue here.
	When I see a lot of these posts, I'm feeling anger about it because it's...
	I never get angry with the statist when I'm talking to a statist.
	You know, it's just facts and figures and, hey, you might have missed this, and these are the things that I feel when you talk about you want to use this monopoly of violence against me.
	You know, these guys are guys who are going out and trying to snatch the rug out from under to other people.
	And that if somebody just questions the ground that they're...
	I mean, you didn't declaratively state that there was something evil about it.
	You just said, look, you might not want to be involved in something where there's hitting.
	And it's...
	I mean, it seems like the biggest non-issue to me, but it's...
	Oh, really concerned about wanting to hear some fallacies we need to discuss.
	So anyway, I guess one thing is that's confusing to me.
	And the other thing is I'm trying to figure out why it is that I'm kind of angry about that.
	You got any suggestions?
	Well, I mean, just to be clear, and I won't give away any secrets, but I mean, you're a dad.
	Nash is your son.
	And you had great conversations with him as far as I'm not...
	I think you're both a fantastic people.
	I love you both to death, so I'm very happy about what's happened in your relationship and completely thrilled.
	But if martial arts is, for a lot of people, a repetitive compulsion, right?
	If they experienced or witnessed physical violence and they have a Simon the Boxer, which is a reference to a metaphor in Real-time relationships, again, free on the website.
	If they have a Simon the Boxer desire to recreate violence in a system or in an environment where they can manage it because they're managing their own anxiety, then we would expect that if the coping mechanism is correctly identified as a coping mechanism, then what happens is it would trigger the underlying emotions, right?
	Right.
	Yeah, and...
	Joey pointed out to me, I was talking to Joey last night, and for me, this is actually a Simon and the Boxer issue for me, because I am chomping at the bit to respond to some of these posts.
	So I don't know if that's what you were getting at, or you're talking about their Simon and the Boxer issue for...
	No, I was talking about theirs.
	And so if there is an avoidance of self-knowledge by pursuing a Band-Aid solution called martial arts, then if the Band-Aid solution is removed, then the original feelings are going to come up.
	And that person is going to feel that the conversation is attacking them, right?
	That they're going to attack back, which doesn't show the kind of wisdom and self-control and curiosity that everyone says martial arts provides you, right?
	I mean, all forms of human communication are unambiguous.
	To me, anyway.
	You know, I mean, if people had said, you know, well, that's a very interesting perspective.
	I've thought about that, too.
	I've examined it in myself.
	You know, I've really talked about it with people.
	And, you know, then I would have been like, well, guess I was wrong.
	Right?
	And, you know, as I put it forward as I attended the thesis.
	But we would expect that if it were true, that there would be a lot of Of reaction to it, right?
	And the reason for that, of course, is that the internet is really interesting in that you will get exposed to information that you otherwise wouldn't, right?
	So, you know, if my daughter really wants to get into mixed martial arts, let's say she gets bigger, stronger, meaner, faster, and she really wants to get into mixed martial arts, then I would, as a parent, obviously be concerned about injury, be concerned about the effects that this kind of proximate violence would have on her, and so on.
	Because clearly, when you go into a fight, you can't have empathy for the other person.
	Right?
	I mean, you have to be wanting to...
	You're going against their wishes.
	You're going against what they want.
	There's for sure a win-lose...
	It's a win-lose.
	And, I mean, win-lose is fine.
	I think, you know, we don't always have to have empathy for everyone all the time.
	I mean, when I'm in a debate, I'm in it to hopefully broadcast as much truth as I can.
	I hate to say win because then it sounds like it's a win-lose based upon some trickery, but I obviously research my positions and, you know, I'm certainly willing to give way in arguments as I have before where I'm bested, but I'm going to put my best foot forward and fight hard for that which I have found to be true.
	Yeah, that's just a win-win there.
	I mean, whoever wins that debate, the other person has won too.
	Yeah, you can't lose in a debate.
	That's a great thing.
	So, what I learned is that, so people, I look at the whole context.
	See, I don't look at an individual and martial arts.
	I look at an individual and a community and a family and an extended family and all these kinds of good and interesting things when it comes to martial arts.
	If my daughter wanted to get into something aggressive and violent like mixed martial arts, I would really sit down and talk about it with her.
	And I would really try to understand why she wanted to do that.
	It wouldn't be from a, you're bad if you do it, but, you know, this is an unusual choice.
	This is going to have effects on who you are as a person, and I would really want to make sure that it wasn't coming out of a place of trauma, right?
	If people have gone into the martial arts and people haven't asked them those questions, which are caring questions to ask, I think.
	You know, if you want to get involved in a sport where you're hitting and kicking and punching and all that kind of stuff, is it coming from a healthy place?
	I think those questions should be asked by people in their environment.
	So if people had written back to me and said, yeah, you know, I had the same concerns.
	I know I sat down.
	I remember my mom and my dad.
	You know, when I really got into martial arts and, like, this is what I really, really want to do, they kind of sat me down and said, okay, help us understand this, you know, particularly the more, you know, violent kinds, right?
	You know, help me understand this.
	There obviously is a lot of aggression.
	This may have some effects.
	You know, let's talk about it.
	And that, to me, is somebody who's surrounded by a caring community that is going to...
	I mean, I double-check my decisions with my wife all the time.
	I will double-check my decisions with my daughter.
	I double-check my decisions with the community all the time.
	I ask people, do you think this is right?
	Do you think this is wrong?
	Do you think this is a good podcast to put out or not?
	And so I get sort of feedback about what it is that I'm doing and these are not questions of should I dedicate years of my life to learning how to beat people up or hit people or whatever, defend against them.
	And so if people haven't gone through that process of examination, which I think is, you know, if my daughter wanted to become a grandmaster chess player, I would ask her questions about that too.
	I mean, did she want to do that because she felt there was something deficient in her that becoming a grandmaster chess player would fix?
	Was it a status thing?
	Or did she just so love chess that that's what she wanted to do?
	I mean, I would ask those questions, and I would hope that people would ask those questions of me if I became very dedicated to something.
	And so, if people have not gone through that process of people asking them about their motives, not from a suspicious standpoint, that tells me a lot about the community.
	That they're in.
	And again, that to me speaks to intimacy and the love that people have around them and so on.
	I think that getting feedback from people you care about is completely and totally and absolutely essential.
	And if people haven't received...
	I mean, if they have, I'm sure they would have told me.
	And if they haven't, then that tells me, again, a little bit.
	It's not proof of everything, but all of this stuff is...
	It's evidence for.
	So I just sort of wanted to point that out.
	I mean, but I think it's good.
	You know, people, you know, oh, Steph's jumped the shark.
	Oh, this is just terrible.
	This is awful.
	I used to have respect for you and so on.
	It's like, dude, I'm just, I'm asking questions.
	I'm making observations and I'm putting forward an argument.
	I have no monopoly on truth.
	I simply put forward an argument based upon the best evidence and the best reasoning that I can come up with.
	And Right.
	I'm wrong.
	No need to get pissed off.
	I'm just wrong.
	Right.
	And if I'm right, it's important.
	But the level of volatility and so on, I think, I mean, that to me is a signal that I'm on That actually, you know, that's good.
	This is exactly a robust and challenging debate is exactly what philosophy is supposed to be about.
	If it's, you know, let's go audit the Fed, well, who gives a shit, really?
	I mean, can't make that happen.
	And what will it really change, even if it does?
	But, you know, if there is, if martial arts is some sort of defense mechanism for some people for traumatic history, Well, that's important.
	That's important because they're not making themselves better by pursuing it.
	They're quite probably making themselves worse.
	It's going to have huge effects on their other relationships and blah, blah, blah.
	So, yeah, I mean, the fact that people get annoyed is like, well, it's not like I want to annoy people, but it's good if I come up with a topic that is challenging for people.
	That's good.
	And if some people run away from the conversation, then that means they're braver in the ring than they are on YouTube, which seems kind of surprising to me.
	But I think that's fine.
	But it's good that it's challenging.
	Wouldn't you agree?
	Yeah, it's a tough conversation, and it is good.
	I mean, in my life, it has been freaking awesome.
	I mean, you know, I never hit my son, but I have discovered all kinds of other things as a parent that I did that were not good for him.
	And so if somebody really...
	I mean, so somebody might be concerned that you question their appreciation for martial arts.
	And to me, that seems pretty tiny.
	When we question people about their relationship They're children every day and their relationship to a fucking deity and we question them about that every day like it's this is just something easy to do I'll just throw this comment or this question out and yet I mean this seems to be such a non-event to me so I'm not yes compared to right compared to the challenges that you had to face but of course if you understand if if the thesis is correct then it is a huge deal right because it's it's pulling back the band-aid on on
	a very deep wound that is That is entirely unprocessed.
	And so the raw reaction emotions is exactly what you would expect if that were occurring.
	I've got to figure out how to get back to feeling empathetic for that person because I feel huge empathy when I speak with somebody who's been traumatized with religion.
	I feel a huge amount of empathy for them.
	But I feel, I mean, and I started, I started a couple conversations on this issue, and briefly I felt a small amount of empathy, but it disappeared pretty quickly because it got aggressive, and not in every case, but in nearly every case.
	It was all kind of things going on, you know, people quoting you, for instance, and what they were saying had nothing to do with what you'd said.
	It was like very carefully Almost as good as some of the religious crap.
	It was very carefully staged, you know, a straw man or whatever.
	Sorry, but if the response to pain is attack, right, which would be the martial arts paradigm if the thesis is correct, then that's exactly what you would expect if pain were created, right?
	It's the same thing, right?
	Right, right, right.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	And I just wanted to add...
	So to add one other thing as well, because people have asked me, and look, it's a perfectly legitimate, and it's a great question.
	People have asked me, and they said, It's exactly, completely and totally true.
	And you know it, and you talk about it all the time, and yeah, you're not avoiding that issue.
	Yeah, for those who are new to this part of the conversation, I will give you the two-minute version of why philosophy is so important to me, why I'm skeptical of religion and statism as ethical solutions, because I was beaten up, knocked about, screamed at, and abandoned, and neglected, and abused as a child.
	And this happened on three continents.
	This happened when I was living in apartment buildings.
	This happened when I was surrounded by people who could hear everything that was happening.
	And not one single solitary human being of the probably 1,000 or 2,000 people who knew ever did anything about it, even to the point of anonymously calling child protective services or knocking on the door or calling the cops or anything like that.
	No one ever did anything about it.
	Or not even looking at you sympathetically.
	Yeah, not even like a kind word in the hallway or anything like that.
	It was like it just didn't happen.
	And this still occurs.
	I see this happening still in society.
	So, when it comes to...
	And actually, it's actually illegal.
	It certainly is illegal now.
	Like, if you witness child abuse, you actually have to report it.
	It's criminal to not do so.
	Even if you're not a mental health professional, you actually have to report.
	You have a duty to report.
	And if you don't, it's a hit and run.
	And so, when I was a kid, I got, what were the two dominant philosophical morals of the society?
	Well, it was religion, and it was the state.
	These were the two ways in which people were supposed to be good.
	And the stated goal of society was, children are wonderful, we love children, let's protect children, children are treasure, children are the future, and so on.
	And statism and religion, when I was a kid, were clearly not able To get people to the point where they could make an anonymous phone call to help a child who was being beaten within an inch of his life in the apartment next door.
	Didn't happen.
	The teachers weren't able to do it when they saw me coming to school with holes in my clothes, exhausted, unwashed.
	They weren't able to...
	To make that connection to when my mom never showed up for any parent to.
	Teacher meetings when she put the wrong grade on notes coming back for permission slips when I didn't have any money to go on trips.
	Nobody ever did anything.
	Ever.
	And so when it came to the protection of children, which is what society claims it's dedicated to, statism and religion had A 100% failure rate.
	A 100% failure rate in helping me, or my brother, or the other children that we knew who were being abused, none of whom got any help.
	So, I got that this really, really wasn't working.
	That people weren't even able to come close to achieving their goals, stated goals of protecting children, and obeying the law in reporting child abuse.
	They weren't even able to come close.
	It wasn't within a million miles.
	They did not appear to have any difficulty not coming close, right?
	So, I mean, if somebody says, I want to quit smoking, and then you see them lighting up later, and they say, oh, you know, I blew it, you know, I just, I couldn't handle it, and blah, blah, blah, right?
	Well, nobody has even a problem with not reporting child abuse, to my knowledge.
	Like, nobody ever said later, oh my god, I'm so sorry, you know, blah, blah, blah, I thought about it a lot.
	Like, people have no...
	Level of discomfort.
	It's like somebody says, I really want to quit smoking.
	They light up.
	I think Joe Pesci did this in a movie way back with Billy Joel soundtrack.
	Anyway, but they don't have any problem smoking again, and they never say that they ever wanted to quit.
	It's that dissociated.
	So for me, why did I get really interested in philosophy?
	Because there's a fundamental failure in society to do that, which it says it wants to do, which is to protect and care for children.
	There's a fundamental failure for people to obey the law when it comes to reporting child abuse.
	And this happened continuously all over different countries.
	And everyone that I knew went through the same thing.
	All the listeners who call in had the same thing.
	And so it didn't work.
	And so why am I really critical of statism and religion?
	Because they have moral commandments.
	I mean, I was surrounded by Christians.
	Christians say, take care of the weakest, and Christ says, take care of the weakest and the most dependent and helpless among you.
	Praises the children, protection and care of the children.
	Did it translate into any action, even an anonymous phone call when I was a child?
	Absolutely not.
	Not in any way, shape, or form.
	And nobody even had a problem not fulfilling that moral obligation that was handed down to them by the divine Jesus Almighty himself.
	So that really wasn't working.
	I mean, the wheels weren't even spinning, let alone on the road, let alone getting anyone anywhere.
	So statism didn't work.
	Even laws compelling people to report this abuse, the statism didn't work.
	Religion didn't work in terms of helping people to protect children.
	And so, yeah, I'm afraid I grew up a little bit skeptical of these philosophies such as they are and looked for something else that would actually help children and that is the voluntary family.
	But anyway, so if people have that question, I think it's a great question.
	That to me is perfectly valid if I'm going to be digging around in other people's childhoods.
	It certainly is fair for people to dig around in mine.
	That's my knowledge.
	That's my belief.

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