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March 31, 2013 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:05:24

2354 Showing Your Light to the World - Freedomain Radio Sunday Call in Show, 31 March 2013

Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain Radio, discusses common law clarification, resistance to therapy, training for adulthood, teaching UPB to children, showing your light to the world and personal competing currencies.

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	Well, good morning.
	Thank you, everybody, for joining me on this punch pinch last day of the month.
	It's the end of the march as we know it, and I feel fine.
	Hope you're doing well.
	A few items of business.
	First of all, thank you to Dana.
	Thank you to Brett for stepping in and doing the Sunday show.
	We really, really appreciate that.
	It was just great.
	So thanks, everyone, who called in.
	And a couple of corrections.
	So I did a debate with Tom Wilkutz and he and I talked about common law and a law student posted on the Freedom Aid Radio board.
	He said that, now I checked out my definition of this with the great libertarian lawyer Stephan Kinsella when I was down in Nagadoches.
	I went for a speech there mostly because it's great fun when you say where you're going somewhere and people say, bless you.
	And he said that I was actually, you know, pretty correct in my definition of it.
	But there's obviously a law student who's currently going through this stuff.
	He said both descriptions of the common law were on shaky ground.
	In a nutshell, the conversation spoke of the common law when the conversation should have been about a common law.
	So common law in general terms describes, as Steph rightly argues, a tradition of law that has its roots in legitimated and decentralized adjudicators.
	Just think of a network of courts as the mechanism of common law subsequently developing through time just like any other cultural tradition.
	These courts must reflect, more or less, any given community's evolving desires for legal practice, if they stray too far from precedent.
	If they become judicially active or tyrannical, they risk losing legitimacy or profitability.
	Thus, evolving morals and legal norms retain stability in a common law.
	Unlike a modern Western bureaucratic administrative-slash-legislative state, common law is at the beckoning of the people rather than at the whim of faceless DMV personnel.
	The common law, on the other hand, is a real historical institution, not a theory.
	Well, I think, just to butt in, they're both real historical institutions.
	It's just one is, one is like talking about the free market, and the other one is like talking about the US market.
	I mean, anyway, as Mr.
	Wilcots correctly notes, in Britain, Britain and her former colonies tended to follow the precedence of old English common law until their legislatures changed course.
	So, although Steph spoke of the robust theory of a decentralized common law, he called it the common law, thereby allowing Mr.
	Wilcutts to feign ignorance and conflate the two.
	Mr.
	Wilcutts either knew better, my own speculation, or he has a poor grasp of very basic legal theory and history.
	So, he says, for this reason, the libertarian community should quit calling common law the common law and cease insinuating the existence of a golden age of law.
	We must be aware that the common law is a government program, just like central bank currency or state schools, To be sure, it is difficult to imagine a free society without some variant of common law it simply will not do to imply its past existence.
	So, you can go to freedomainradioboard.freedomainradio.com, do a search for more of this, including the references, but I appreciate that correction, and I will stop saying a and start saying the, as in...
	It was not a debate I won.
	It was the debate I won.
	But anyway, I just wanted to mention that.
	And in the incompetence at evil, you know, the only thing that limits the destruction of the state is their incompetence at everything, including evil.
	So I did this show recently on the Cyprus bank thefts.
	The direct ones, not the indirect ones through inflation.
	So Russian oligarchs had about $31 billion or maybe more invested in these Cyprus banks, which was going to be force-fisted donated to the EU. And so they, as you know, probably went through a bunch of different plans, and I think they settled on taking 40% of people who had more than 100,000 euros.
	Now, why didn't Russia go nuts?
	I mean, they've got billions, billions of dollars in Cyprus banks, and Cyprus was just going to steal it.
	Russia, if I remember rightly, a little bit larger, a little bit better armed, and a little bit more trigger happy.
	Well, so it turned out that, although it's true that as an individual, you had to line up for hours after your credit card transactions were cancelled to try and get a few hundred euros out of a wheezing and coughing ATM, what happened is you could transfer money out of Cyprus from these two banks electronically.
	It is just insane.
	So, I mean, so the...
	The British branches of the Cyprus banks remained open.
	Electronic transfers were perfectly possible.
	So if you had an overseas bank account, in other words, if you were exactly the kind of people that this was supposed to target, you could get your money out no problem, which is one of the reasons why Russia has not gone completely insane.
	From Reuters, it says, Bank of Cyprus also owns 80% of Russia's Uniastrum Bank, which put no restrictions on withdrawals in Russia.
	Russians were among Cypriot Bank's largest depositors.
	It is really, really quite mad.
	And so they're not even good at...
	I mean, this is like Keystone Cops.
	It is like the Three Stooges.
	This supposed bank theft where they basically were trying to go through the petty cash draw while leaving the safe deposit boxes wide open to a growing crowd of vultures.
	It really is quite mad.
	And so I just wanted to point out that, of course, the people in Cyprus should be completely enraged.
	Everybody imagines that someone else is going to pay, but it's always those people who are the most productive in society who generally end up paying.
	I mean, if you're big enough to target, but so small that you can't find alternatives to having your money stolen, you're the one who's going to end up paying the bulk.
	So it really is just mad.
	I mean, you might as well set this kind of stuff to 1920s, as Ayn Rand called it, tiddlywink music, because it really is that productive.
	Mad.
	So, let's see.
	Oh, yes.
	Oh, yeah.
	So, I did a really good podcast, but I'm going to be greedy, and I'm going to hold it off for donators today.
	It's the end of the month.
	So, if you throw a donation towards freedominradio.com, fdurl.com forward slash donate, it's called The Fascists That Surround You.
	Part 7, The Cure.
	And it is my concentrated straight steroid shot to the brain cure for evil.
	And so if you'd like to get an advance copy of that, hit me with a few piñatas of money and some money sticks, Cyprus dollars, to be accepted in the future.
	And I'll be happy to send that to you.
	And thanks again so much, of course, to everyone.
	Who helps keep this show broadcasting beaming on the road and documentaries still coming along?
	I know I at some point had said today, but we got a whole bunch of live musicians and getting the music together is a little slower than first expected.
	Anyway, so I wanted to just point out all that, mention all of that, and yes, you can access premium podcasts with a one-time donation.
	The way it works is that if you donate, you get access to the premium podcast for about a year, and then you lose it, and if you subscribe, then you have access to the premium podcast for as long as you subscribe.
	So, does having a link to your website on my blog count for anything, Steph?
	It certainly does!
	An air kiss, sadly, because it is an air kiss, there's not as much tongue as there should be, but you absolutely get my thanks.
	And other than that, I had a good time in Texas.
	I think I gave a good talk.
	And it was really great to meet everyone.
	It's a lot of socializing with these things.
	We're actually quite like, you know, I flew in, went out for dinner Friday, socialized with everyone on Saturday.
	But you know what I realized?
	Because I work from home, I'm a bit of a snack puppy.
	You know, I'm sort of of the philosophy that you should put lots of little sticks on the fire, not one big log.
	So I'm generally a bit snack-happy.
	And then for a variety of reasons, I didn't eat for eight hours straight when I was at the conference.
	I mean, I did a talk.
	I wanted to watch other people's talks.
	I was on a panel at the end.
	And then we went to a restaurant, but there was going to be a ban, so we ended up switching to another restaurant.
	It was eight or nine hours I hadn't eaten.
	And I was like, whoa!
	I'm not quite used to this.
	So that was actually quite exciting.
	I began to sort of look around at people like those Looney Tunes cartoons, seeing them turning into, well, I guess not chicken wings, tofurky piles with nice steaming aromas coming off them, but managed to keep my biting down to, I guess, a relative minimum and mostly self-inflicted.
	So, you know, very much like my sex life in my early teens.
	So, I hope that you're having a great week.
	We have some callers lined up, so I am entirely keen to hear them.
	Let's do that.
	First up today, we have Philip.
	Hello, Phil.
	Hello, hear me?
	Okay.
	Yes, I can.
	How's it going?
	It's going well.
	How are you doing?
	Okay.
	Where do you want to start?
	Where do I want to start?
	I do believe I'm going to bounce that question back at you.
	Well, I guess the topic is resistance to therapy.
	I guess that's why I'm on here.
	Did you just show me that resistance as well?
	Not that what I do is therapy, but I think that is one of the most concentrated and explanatory openings that I think I've ever heard.
	But please, go on.
	Well, it's kind of a complicated matter to talk about.
	It's...
	Because I think it's more involved, it seems to involve, I guess you could say.
	Some days I feel like maybe I should go in and talk with somebody, and then some days I feel like I'm okay.
	I can, you know, just, I just, I'll be okay.
	It's like it kind of, I kind of switch back and forth, I guess.
	That may be.
	Sure.
	And there's, I mean, there's a lot of, like, I don't know, things that play into it.
	I think it's, Maybe it also has to do with...
	I just don't have much...
	I don't know if it's interest or...
	I'm just kind of unassuming or hesitant to approach people and talk to people about problems and that sort of thing.
	It's just kind of odd to do for me, I guess.
	Right.
	So you're ambivalent.
	It's my daughter's favorite word at the moment.
	So you're ambivalent.
	You have a desire to and a desire not to.
	Now, the desire not to, is it to do with time or money or consequences or what?
	Yeah, probably all of them to some degree.
	Well, I just think that maybe I'm Maybe I even don't want to improve.
	Is that possible?
	But for some reason, some people maybe have that, where you really do want to improve, but then you don't.
	It's the strangest thing.
	Oh, yeah.
	Well, look, I don't mean to lecture you on something so essential, but I think you may be using the word I incorrectly.
	Okay.
	So let me...
	There's a documentary on Netflix called Veggicated.
	Okay.
	And in it, it's worth watching.
	It really is worth watching.
	And just so you can say to anybody who's into global warming, oh, you eat meat?
	Oh, then you're not really serious about global warming, right?
	And what it is, is this woman who gets three New Yorkers to become vegans for six weeks.
	And, you know, they lose weight and their cholesterol improves and their health improves and all that kind of stuff.
	And it's an interesting...
	But to me, the most interesting part was there's one woman.
	I think she's from the Philippines or some central...
	But she's from one of those cultures.
	And they're very meat-based.
	And she is horrified by what goes on in meat farming, which...
	You should be.
	I mean, if you eat meat, you just owe it to the animals to go and watch those videos.
	You can find them on YouTube.
	You really should be aware.
	You know, talk about a gun in the room.
	I mean, that's a cattle prod in the head.
	I mean, that's a stun gun to the throat.
	So, if you eat meat, you need to go and look at this stuff.
	It's just a reality.
	It's worse in the state for animals.
	So she's pretty horrified by this stuff, and she gets the ethics of the situation, and she gives up her meat and other products, animal products, of course.
	And at one point, she has a genuine emotional breakdown, and nobody gets it.
	They think it's all about the food, but it's not about the food.
	It's about the fact that nobody in her culture, nobody in her family, nobody in her surrounding is taking her newfound ethical sensitivity with any seriousness at all, and that's pretty chilling.
	If you have a moral awakening, and this is less controversial than something like atheism or anarchism or any of the other things that we've talked about in this show, this is just, wow, I really don't want the planet and animals and human beings to be subjected to that process of extracting live flesh from animals.
	And everybody's just mocking her, and everybody's just, oh, it's so silly, oh, just have some meat, oh, blah, blah, blah, what does it matter?
	So her...
	Moral center is not visible.
	In fact, it's visible only through mockery by those around her.
	It's a relationship issue.
	It is not a meat issue.
	And so she wanted to quit it.
	And what that means is that she wanted to submerge her invisibility to her surroundings, to her tribe, to her group.
	She wanted to submerge her invisibility through conformity.
	Does that make any sense?
	That's an interesting story.
	Still trying to make sense of it.
	So what I'll tell you is that there is a part of you that wants to pursue therapy, and there's another part of you that does not want you to pursue therapy.
	Now my guess would be, and it's only a guess of course, but my guess would be that there are people in your life who would not benefit from you going to therapy.
	Well, I mean, that's tough to say.
	I'm really not sure.
	I mean, I live with my parents.
	They're really sheltering.
	I've tried to talk with a therapist while I scheduled an appointment with them.
	It was like last year, and then I told my parents about it, and they were just really unsupportive.
	They said, you shouldn't do that.
	You're just wasting your time.
	Read a book or something.
	You will be quite amazed at the contradiction you just gave to me.
	But I don't know.
	But that's one...
	I mean, well, I don't know.
	Do you know what that contradiction was?
	I'm not really sure.
	I mean, well, I consider my parents to be sheltering.
	I'm not sure if that...
	No, no.
	What I said was there are people in your life who would not benefit from you going to therapy.
	And you said, I don't think that's the case.
	But my parents are very much opposed to it.
	Well, yeah, I mean...
	I know, but I just can't...
	I still feel as though they may be supportive if I turn around, you know.
	But maybe I just can't, like, get started.
	I kind of need their support to get started.
	So, I don't know.
	I'm not sure I follow that, but what do you mean by sheltering?
	Well, I'm just, you know, they want me to, you know, it's their routine.
	They kind of want me to do things their way.
	We always eat dinner together.
	They turn the internet off at night because they don't want me on the internet all night.
	Not like I am, but stuff like that.
	And how old are you?
	I'm 24.
	Sorry, you're 24, and because they don't want you on the internet, they turn it off at night?
	Yeah, basically.
	I mean, I would go to bed by midnight or so, but they think I stay up all night.
	Yeah.
	And in what other way, at your almost quarter-century market, what other way do they work to limit your behavior?
	I mean, they just like to know everything about what I'm doing, where I'm going.
	If I go out anywhere, I've got to tell them and they've got to know exactly what I'm doing.
	There's no point really going anywhere sometimes.
	I used to like to go, well, I still do once in a while to go out to a nightclub and have fun.
	But first they were supportive and then they said, well, you're not finding anybody.
	You're not finding anybody making any friends.
	I kind of struggle to socialize.
	I like the music that they play.
	So I would go out to enjoy it.
	Sorry, you like the music?
	Yeah, I like the music that they play at nightclubs.
	And so I would go out to enjoy the music and basically they'd say, well, you're not finding anybody decent there or somebody for a relationship.
	And so you really should stop going.
	So I kind of put up with that for a while and then Eventually, I just sort of, well, I don't go out as often anymore.
	You know, just kind of like, well, you know, they're not exactly, it's not what, I don't know, they're not exactly happy with me going there.
	Well, there's always stuff on the news about, you know, things that happen.
	You know, it's kind of obviously not very often, but, or probable, but still.
	They're kind of worried.
	They're kind of worried about, you know, Something happening to me, I guess.
	So they don't want...
	What's that?
	Do I dare ask about your dating life?
	Non-existent, really.
	And what about friends coming over or going to see friends?
	Not...
	Well, I mean...
	Yeah, I mean, I had friends and...
	I had a friend in college and then we kind of...
	He moved to...
	He went to Japan to...
	Because he likes Japanese, I guess, and really haven't kept up with him.
	It's just, yeah, I really don't talk to, you know, very many people.
	I just go, I just like to surf the internet, basically, you know, and I do my own things kind of on my own.
	I'm just kind of a loner, basically, right now at least, but I don't know.
	And what do your parents want for you in your life?
	Like, so let's say that you're 30, where do they want you to be?
	What do they want you to be doing?
	What do you think they want your life to be like?
	I guess they want me to go on my own and make my own way.
	I think I might have to just go back to school and learn something more or to get another degree to add to my chances of getting a job.
	Have you had a job before?
	Well, yeah.
	I work for my It's a family business.
	I just do that.
	No, I mean a job outside the family.
	Yeah, right.
	In college, I worked at a hospital, and I did work.
	That was pretty much my only...
	I kind of wanted an internship that was related.
	I majored in...
	I wanted a job that was related to that sort of work.
	I thought that would add to my resume.
	Or something like that.
	That's a really long answer to a fairly short question.
	Sorry.
	So, how do you feel about what you're saying to me?
	What are your thoughts about it?
	I'm kind of disillusioned, so I don't really feel...
	I don't know.
	I generally don't get strong feelings very often.
	I'm just kind of used to the...
	You could call it...
	Emptiness.
	I don't have any feelings about it.
	It's just what it is, and that's it.
	Was there any kind of disaster in your childhood that may have made your parents, let's say, overcautious?
	Not that I recall.
	I don't remember anything from the first five years of my life, but from what I heard, I was with my grandparents.
	They live in France, but they came to see me and babysit me while my parents were working.
	I think they were doing pretty heavily nine-to-five or nine-to-six jobs during my early years.
	They were there for about six months or so when I was one or two.
	Supposedly, I really liked them or I bonded with them.
	Actually, I was speaking French.
	They taught me French, and then I completely forgot it all after they left.
	And then I had another babysitter after that who I really didn't like.
	My mom said I would run away from her all the time.
	I'd be running to my mom when she came home, running away from this other babysitter, which I didn't like so much.
	So that's kind of what I'd know, but that's it.
	And what's your prediction about where things are going to be for you in five years?
	Well...
	I mean, let's say that you don't go to therapy.
	Where do you think...
	So you're 30, right?
	And you're calling back and...
	Okay.
	You want me to call back?
	No, no.
	So you're 30.
	You call back into this show in the intergalactic central hub of Free Domain Radio.
	This will, of course, be up and running by then.
	Thanks to your donations.
	Happy to help.
	You call back into this show, and you're 30, and you haven't gone to therapy, and what's our conversation going to be like, do you think?
	What are you going to open with?
	I really, you know...
	I'm really not sure, to be honest, what's next.
	I mean, I'm thinking about going back to school.
	If I could go through with it, then we'll go from there.
	But you have a degree already that has economic value.
	It's not like you did art history or something, right?
	So you have a degree already that has economic value.
	So what would going back to school achieve for you?
	I mean, it's another structured environment, right?
	Yeah.
	So I'm not sure how that's going to break any particular barriers or what that's going to change.
	It would seem to me that that would be another form of procrastination or postponement.
	Well, I mean, I've applied for dozens of jobs and I took up biomedical engineering.
	I mean, so it's an engineering degree, but it seems like the demand for the job is sort of weak.
	I didn't, which I didn't really realize, or maybe I just didn't want to realize while I was in college.
	And so it's easily replaceable by stuff like mechanical or electrical engineering, which I, and I think that's maybe why it's tougher to find.
	So I'm trying to get some sort of degree in maybe a field that's more dependent.
	Have you had any interviews yet?
	Just a couple phone interviews.
	No in-person interviews.
	Well, I did go to job fairs in college.
	One time I was going to get an interview, but for some reason, I don't know, cell phone reception or I just missed the call.
	I couldn't hear the number.
	They left a message on my phone.
	I almost had an interview from a recruiter in college, but I couldn't call him back for some reason.
	I've just had a couple of phone interviews.
	That's pretty much the extent of it.
	What's your typical day?
	What do you do?
	I work six days a week.
	I go on the internet usually if there's no work to do, because the work kind of comes in Monday through Saturday.
	And then on Sundays I just kind of sit around.
	I just like to go on the internet for just reading articles, watching videos, playing games.
	I like Scrabble and Words with friends, those sort of word games, that sort of stuff.
	And you're working at your family business, is that right?
	Yeah.
	And I assume, of course, you're getting paid for that, right?
	Yeah, well, I work with other people.
	It's not like I just kind of sit in a shop, but I go out to homes and do repair work in-home.
	So, I mean, I deal with a lot of people, but it's not like...
	I don't really develop a...
	I usually don't develop a...
	It's just when they need us.
	It's not like I see people, you know, the same people all the time, so I don't really develop much of a...
	Sorry, you're giving me sort of lengthy answers, and I don't fault you for that.
	I'm just sort of interested in your response to this.
	So it doesn't sound to me like you have any particular problems with your life, so I'm not sure what you're calling about.
	You sound quite satisfied with your life.
	You don't seem to be upset that you don't have any friends.
	You don't seem to be upset that you don't have any particular job opportunities.
	You don't seem to be upset that you're 24 and your parents turn the internet off and tell you more or less where you can go at night.
	You don't seem to be bothered by any of this.
	I'm bothered by it, but that's not in my life, so it doesn't matter, right?
	If you're not bothered by any of this, then I'm not sure why we would have a conversation about anything, because all you're doing is basically telling me that everything's kind of fine.
	And this is not a show where people call it and say everything's kind of fine, at least not this part of the show, other parts of the show maybe, but this is for people who are looking for philosophical answers to challenging questions.
	Questions, whether they're theoretical or practical.
	And you've spent, you know, almost, well, 20 minutes or so, basically telling me that everything is mostly fine.
	You're not particularly bothered by anything.
	So I'm not sure why we would spend more time on this.
	Well, yeah, I mean, I also get depressed on occasion.
	So it's not like it's consistent.
	Some days I'm okay.
	And other days it's just kind of a drag to get through.
	So, I mean, I don't...
	It's not like I am.
	Maybe it's just because I'm talking with you, maybe that's therapeutic in a sense, but it's not like I'm always just...
	I don't know, I guess.
	I mean, if you heard this story from someone else, so someone else came up to you and said, I'm 24.
	I don't go out because my parents don't really like it.
	I don't have any friends.
	I'm not dating.
	I have no prospect of dating.
	I have no prospect of getting friends.
	I have no prospect of changing my future in any particular kind of way.
	And my parents seem pretty much fine with this.
	In fact, then they're not a fan of me going to therapy.
	What would you say?
	I wouldn't know where to start, really.
	I mean, I guess it's my life.
	It's your life.
	Not mine, I guess, but that would be pretty much it.
	You have no opinions about whether that was good or bad or a valuable way to spend our short and precious existence?
	Probably not great.
	Yeah.
	In that sense, yeah.
	Not too good.
	Well, you don't seem to have...
	I mean, look, if you want to just sort of stay around your mom's skirts for the rest of your life, I've seen where it goes.
	It's really not pretty.
	I've seen where this goes.
	It's really not pretty.
	Because there's a whole bunch of things you're not learning how to do.
	We're all going to join a band and we're either going to play well or we're going to play badly.
	And it all has to do with how much we practice.
	We're all going to be in a band called adulthood.
	You're not there yet.
	You're living at home, your parents are dictating your rules and all this kind of stuff, right?
	And that's ridiculous for a 24-year-old man.
	I mean, sorry, it's ridiculous.
	And I understand that this is your environment and I really have sympathy.
	But your parents are not going to be around forever.
	And being at home with your parents, you're not learning how to play the instrument called adulthood, but you're going to join the band at some point.
	And if you join the band and you don't know how to play, it's really horrible.
	It's really horrible.
	And it's just, oh my goodness, it's wretched.
	It's wretched.
	And so, if you don't get that you're 24, you know, your life is like a third over.
	Do you get that?
	Your life is a third over.
	And you're living like a 15 year old.
	And what that means is that you're not developing the social skills necessary to survive in adulthood.
	The romantic skills, the dating skills, the grooming skills, the wooing skills, the charm skills, the sexual skills.
	This stuff doesn't just get handed.
	It's not like puberty.
	This stuff just doesn't get handed to you.
	It doesn't accumulate to you through time any more than you wake up one day being able to play guitar really well.
	You have to practice it.
	And you've spent a whole lot of time not practicing it, and I don't think you know what that means for your adult life.
	Yeah, I know.
	Well, I think I just avoid practicing it.
	I mean, I just felt really guilty when I, I guess, reached puberty.
	It just was amazing.
	It was just a guilt complex, or I'm not sure what it was, but I just kind of just stopped the feeling and just kind of I stuck to schoolwork.
	I would just concentrate on my schoolwork.
	Pretty much, you know.
	And your solution is, maybe I should go back to school.
	In other words, go back to another structured environment where my roadmap is laid out for me, and then you'll be 30.
	And you won't have developed self-sufficiency skills, self-esteem skills, and you'll have another half decade with more debt of avoiding the things that you need to grab onto in this life and that you need to do.
	Yeah, that's what I feel like.
	There's an hourglass in your youth.
	There's an hourglass in your youth.
	You don't have forever to go out and start your life.
	Because if you're 30, Other people have been doing it for 10 or 15 years.
	Then you're like 30.
	You just pick up your first guitar and you're trying to audition for a band next to Eric Clapton.
	Every day that you spend not developing the skills you need to succeed as an adult and other people are, you are getting further and further and further behind to the point at some point you will simply be unable to catch up.
	Yeah, I feel like you're right.
	I mean, I agree.
	When you said the structured environment, I mean, that was like, that's, I feel like, yeah, I need like somebody on top of me or like a structured environment to keep, um, to, yeah, to, I guess I can't, I don't know, go on my own or something, but it's, yeah, I totally, I see where you're coming from.
	I mean, and I mean, I get depressed on occasion and, you know, many times a week on usually, I mean, it's kind of comes up, it comes and goes and I just kind of, You know, just stick with it and, you know, my feelings go away.
	But, yeah, I'm not...
	But look, you have...
	Look, obviously, your parents and you are scared of the world, right?
	I mean, is that an unfair summary?
	Oh, well, yeah, I mean...
	Well, I mean, without going too much details, my dad's pretty paranoid.
	He's into a lot of conspiracy theories and that's kind of...
	That's something I look up a lot, too, and I hear about a lot of it, so I kind of get I absorbed that sort of world.
	Okay, so I think the short answer there, and this is part of the social skills you're not developing, right, is to be succinct and to the point.
	Now, I know I've got 2,500 or 3,000 shows, but that's okay.
	That's my job, right?
	But the reality is that you're scared of the world.
	The problem with that is that your parents weren't scared enough of the world that they didn't go out, find each other, and have kids, right?
	But that's not where you're heading.
	It's unfair.
	It's unfair.
	Because they went out and did what they did in order to...
	Are they religious by chance?
	Yeah.
	My mom is really religious.
	My dad's sort of...
	He's kind of, I guess, more or less...
	He's open to new ideas.
	Okay, so here's the problem, and one of the many problems, is that your parents are scared of conspiracy theories, but what they should be scared of is your future.
	Which is, not only are they not helping you prepare for and have not helped you prepare for, but in many ways they're actively inhibiting, right?
	Everybody thinks that there's some monster over the mountain.
	The monster's in the house, in the mirror, right?
	I mean, what do they have to be scared of?
	The fact that you're not getting your life started.
	That's a very real, tangible thing to be scared of that needs action.
	Sure.
	You know, but it's all about, you know, fluoride and vaccines and 9-11 and whatever, right?
	No, no, no, no.
	That's not where the problem is.
	And if there's this outlet for anxiety called conspiracy theories, it's a way of dulling or drugging your senses to the true danger that's much more proximate and much more actable, right?
	And everything we do, we train ourselves for, right?
	Everything we do is training.
	So if you have a fear of the world and you avoid the world, you are training yourself to avoid the world.
	Do you understand?
	Every time the fear wins, the fear gets stronger.
	Every time courage wins, courage gets stronger.
	And so every time, it's like every time you don't go to lift weights, you get weaker, right?
	Every time you don't eat, you get hungrier, right?
	And every time that you say, well, I'm going to avoid thinking about my life, I'm going to avoid thinking about my future, I'm going to avoid trying to deal with the issues at hand, then your avoidance is a muscle that grows stronger.
	And your willpower to achieve, your willpower to break free, your willpower to become your own person gets weaker.
	And this doesn't go on forever.
	At some point, the avoidance gets so strong that that's all there is left.
	Yeah, I mean, I guess it's just something I've really, even in high school when I did pretty well in school, I really wouldn't think even in high school when I did pretty well in school, I really wouldn't think about where I just kind of did my work and that was kind of an outlet maybe to just avoid everything else.
	I just worked really hard and pretty much I didn't really, I don't think I had any of my classmates even like, you know, Because that's a structured environment where you don't have to be your own person, right?
	You're like a pinball bouncing off these requests and requirements.
	Yeah, I mean, I'd be great at that, I guess, because I could do that perfectly.
	Maybe it just wasn't my own person.
	I could just adapt, really.
	I recall how well I could adapt to, you know, my teachers and, you know, their styles and what they wanted me to say.
	Well, let me tell you where this goes, right?
	And then, if this doesn't help you get into therapy, move on to the next corner because there's nothing right outside I can say.
	Okay.
	So, this is a third-hand story, but I think it's true.
	So, there was a guy I knew in high school, single mom, and, you know, really into Dungeons& Dragons and martial arts and all that.
	And, you know, he kept complaining about not meeting...
	A woman.
	And he lived in the same apartment building as his mom, like two floors up.
	And he kept going to his mom's place for dinner.
	Why?
	Because she was lonely.
	She'd make him dinner.
	She'd bring him over.
	It's selfish on the part of the parent.
	Your children are not there to stuff up your gaps, to fix your insecurities.
	Obviously, your parents are anxious about you going out into the world.
	And also, I would assume they don't have great social skills.
	Otherwise, they would have transferred those to you, which means that if you go out into the world, they lose an employee.
	They've got to find someone else, and that's obviously anxiety.
	So it's easier for them in the short run if you stay home, right?
	Because they're not anxious about where you are or what you're doing, and they don't have to Find someone to, right?
	Which is why they're like, yeah, therapy, right?
	So, I mean, that's selfish.
	So, this guy's mom, she was lonely, right?
	She wasn't married, and so she'd just have her son come over for dinner every night, eating his future, right?
	Feeding him food and eating his future.
	Because he wasn't developing the skills that he needed to go out into the world.
	And then, his mom died.
	His mom died, and he...
	Have no capacity for change anymore.
	This will happen to you.
	Almost for certain.
	And then he moved into his mom's apartment and now sleeps in the same room that she slept in when she was alive.
	And he still plays his Dungeons and Dragons and he still goes to his martial arts.
	And that's going to be the rest of his life.
	And that's it.
	He's going to die a virgin.
	Yeah.
	Well, yeah, I know it's sad, but I just can't, I don't know, I just, I can't summon an emotion to feel, you know, guilty anymore.
	It's just kind of like, well, forget it.
	I mean, but I think it might be worth just to try, I guess, a session or two of therapy, or at least talk to somebody about it, see what's out.
	I'm not sure really how to solve, I'm not really sure.
	I guess it's still a problem I could fix with enough therapy, you think?
	Well, you should go talk to a therapist, of course.
	I mean, that's my opinion.
	It's an amateur idiot opinion on the internet as usual, but by God, you need to go to therapy.
	Okay.
	Life is passing you by.
	You're like Han Solo stuck in copper without even having the adventures beforehand and with no woman waiting for him on the other side.
	You're stuck in the box.
	You're like a mosquito in amber.
	Okay.
	Well, thank you for the tough love, I guess.
	That's all I can say.
	And I sympathize.
	The love part is I really sympathize.
	I mean, in a way, you almost don't know what you're missing because you've been that sheltered, right?
	So I really sympathize and I wish it had been different and I really want to instill in you a sense of panic.
	I think it's important.
	I would definitely go to therapy.
	You need to find some way to get in touch with your emotions.
	What it means is that your natural emotions are antithetical to your existing family structure.
	And this is why you probably are unable to feel them.
	That's sort of my Amateur opinion, but I would definitely go to therapy and invest in the relationship.
	When your parents turn the internet off, start journaling.
	Record your dreams, all the stuff that is really essential for self-knowledge.
	Get workbooks by Nathaniel Brandon, particularly his Psychology of Self-Esteem and How to Build Your Self-Esteem books are great.
	John Bradshaw has some great stuff.
	Read your Alice Miller, read.
	All of the stuff that's out there that's really, really important in terms of helping to build your self-knowledge, that is essential.
	That's a school that I would suggest.
	You go to the School of the South, because that is what makes all progress in learning, I think, in the long run really possible.
	Okay.
	Well, that's good to know.
	I don't want to hold you off too much, but I appreciate all the advice.
	Definitely will.
	All right.
	Well, thank you very much.
	I appreciate you calling in.
	It's definitely a tough topic.
	I really want to commend your courage in talking about it.
	It's a tough stuff to open up about, so I really, really commend your courage.
	That is the noblest and most heroic part of you, and it is genuinely heroic.
	So I really wanted to thank you for that.
	Okay.
	Well, thanks for having me.
	Take care.
	All right.
	Take care.
	Alright, next up we have, I'm going to say this wrong, I apologize in advance, Premik.
	Yes, it's me.
	Hello.
	Hello.
	The thing, the issue I would like to speak about is that when I got acquainted with your books and podcasts, I found it very enlightening.
	So soon it became my primary issue how to pass these ideas on my children.
	I found some nice examples that you spoke about with your daughter, but I would like to, if you can advise me what to start with, if you have any structure how to pass those ideas.
	To children.
	My oldest children is five now and I would like to pass those ideas and I don't know exactly what to start with and how to do it.
	Well, and which ideas in particular are you interested in?
	I mean in philosophy, I mean I read University Preferred Behavior and I mean those ideas about Right.
	Okay, so I'll give you...
	So you haven't had to teach your child much about the stability of matter, right?
	Like your physical things.
	Like you don't have to teach her object constancy.
	She learns that because objects are constant, right?
	So the best way to teach your child logic is to be consistent as a parent, right?
	Because...
	Because matter is consistent, right?
	Everywhere she goes, water is a liquid, you know, and a table is a solid, and a wall is vertical, and a roof is horizontal, and blah-de-blah-de-blah, right?
	So, the consistency of matter is how she learns physics, right?
	Now, why is there so much irrationality in the world?
	Well, matter can't choose to be irrational, but human beings can be.
	And so, if you are consistent with In your principles, if you are consistent in your values, if you strive for consistency and integrity with virtue to match physical matters adherence to physical laws, then there will be no place for irrationality to land or to be developed or to be absorbed or reflected in your child's mind.
	So, when I was in Belize, I was having dinner with my wife and my daughter, and we fell into conversation about logic with my daughter.
	And I gave her like 12 logical fallacies, and she got them.
	Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
	She even knew the Latin.
	No, she didn't know the Latin.
	But she got them, and she knew how to solve them.
	And this is not because I sat down and taught her logic.
	I have tried to embody consistency As a parent, as a human being, right?
	So if I make a promise, I will move heaven and earth to keep that promise or at least tell her why I can't and explain everything to her.
	If we have guidelines or suggestions about what to eat and so on, we go through the biology of why and all this, that, and the other.
	And so I have tried to be as consistent with my principles as matter is with physics.
	And I've done a fairly good job.
	I've done a pretty good job.
	Yes.
	And so, because of that, because of that, she knows logic.
	Because she knows consistency.
	And what is logic other than consistency?
	And she is an amazingly consistent child.
	And she has a deep understanding of logic and its exceptions, because in the same way that she understands the physical properties of matter...
	Consistency is the best way to teach logic.
	Then you don't have to teach it.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yes, it makes.
	But sometimes I feel that I'm not doing enough.
	That I want to pass it like math.
	It should have some structure.
	You should begin this and then this and this.
	Sorry, do you feel that you want to do that because there's something that is not developing as fast as you'd like or in the right way?
	No, no, it's just like because I like it because I feel that it's so important for me so that I would like to not to leave any Any room for misunderstanding or...
	Right.
	And look, I really admire that.
	Would it be fair to say...
	Oh, sorry, leaving question, Gerardo.
	The environment that you grew up in, was it generally rational or not so much?
	Yes, I can say.
	Generally rational.
	Generally rational.
	Okay, so that's good.
	Okay, so you grew up in an environment that was quite rational and therefore you absorbed a good deal of reason just through the consistency of your interactions, right?
	So, I think that my daughter is about the best logician in the world, in my opinion.
	I think she's really, really good at debating.
	She's really, really good at making a case.
	She's very slippery.
	She knows exactly when to be a sophist and when to be a rhetorician and when to be a logician.
	I mean, all of these are, I think, very important skills.
	You know, if you...
	All knowledge has its dark side, right?
	If you know how to heal, you know how to hurt, and so on.
	So, I think all of these things are very important skills for her to have.
	And I think, like all parents, I want to hit the gas with my daughter's development, right?
	I want to like, oh, it'd be great if she went faster in this area, or this, that, or the other, right?
	But I personally try to resist that impulse, right?
	I know that you know this.
	I'm not saying that you don't.
	But she's not a thing.
	She's not a car to be driven.
	She's not something to be massaged or painted.
	She's not an object.
	She's developing.
	And if I get behind and try and push her in any particular direction, then what I'm saying is that there's something wrong with where she is.
	And I've known enough children to know what an incredible treasure I have on my hands.
	And so I'm really...
	I don't like to make her feel like she has any kind of deficiency.
	And so if I say, well, you know, you need to learn how to read better, or I really want you to start doing math, right?
	Then I'm saying that where she is is deficient and needs to be fixed.
	And I'm kind of hesitant to do that.
	And...
	She will, I mean, she's learning these things in and of herself, right?
	I mean, it's important to recognize the degree to which children are constantly observing and absorbing, right?
	So, I could be sitting there chatting with some adult friends, and if my daughter's around, she'll, you know, pipe up suddenly in the middle, and she's like, wants something explained to her that's in the middle of the adult conversation, because she's listening to and absorbing everything.
	And that's a very powerful thing.
	It's sort of like saying, well, if you go to Japan and you don't speak Japanese, but you're never allowed to speak your own language, how can you accelerate that learning?
	Well, you can't.
	I mean, going to Japan, not being allowed to speak your own language is about the fastest way that you could learn Japanese, I would assume.
	I mean, if you have to go in and you have to interact with Japanese people, you're going to be learning as fast as you possibly can.
	And then for someone to come along and say, well, you need to learn Japanese faster.
	It's like, well, it's like you're running full tilt and somebody says, faster, unless you have a jetpack.
	That's not going to happen.
	So I would not, I mean, I'm just sort of pointing out the parameters.
	I certainly respect, recognize, and value your desire to have your kids grow faster or think faster or whatever it is.
	But there is a downside to that, which is that you will be communicating that where they are is deficient in some way.
	And my goodness, I wish I learned as much in six months as my daughter does in your average day or two.
	So it's really hard for me to say that there's something else that she needs to be doing.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yes, it makes.
	Another thing maybe is that I know that I'm not the only one who educate her.
	She meets her friends and other people who don't share my views.
	So maybe I want to be clear that my views are dominant.
	Yes, to explain her.
	No, sorry, let me just interrupt for a second.
	So, when she has a friend who does not share her views, how do you deal with that as a parent?
	I try to explain it.
	What is my view on a particular issue and why I feel that it's not the correct way or this way.
	I try to explain.
	Sorry, is that...
	Is that honest?
	I mean, are you being honest in that?
	In other words, is it like a matter of taste?
	Like some kid really likes bluegrass and you say, well...
	I feel that my view is...
	I want to show her my view.
	Well, no, see, you're talking about my view and I feel, which doesn't have anything to do with philosophy, right?
	Uh-huh.
	Yes.
	You don't feel that it's your view that the world is round.
	If some kid comes along and says the world is square, you say, I'm sorry, that kid is wrong, and here's why.
	Yeah, but that's what I'm talking about.
	He said that it's square, and I want to show that it's round, yeah?
	Okay, but just because you were using weasel words, right?
	Which is, I feel, and it's my view that, and I want to explain to her how I approach...
	But if you want your kids...
	And this is tough.
	This is one of the toughest things to do as a parent.
	It's that if one of your kid's friends has a position that is false, then it's a challenge.
	I mean, obviously, there's no point going to tell your kid, well, that kid's view is false and might view it's right, because that's just teaching conclusions, right?
	But it is a challenge, right?
	Because as parents, we obviously want our kids to have friends, but at the same time, it's a challenge because we don't want to pretend that all opinions are equal.
	And there is, of course, the concern that you say, well, the world is not square, the world is round, and then what's going to happen when your kid goes to and then what's going to happen when your kid goes to that kid and says, well, the world does not Amen.
	Thank you.
	My dad told me, and here's why.
	Maybe it's really important to that kid that the world is square, you know what I mean?
	So you mean that the only source of her information is that I said it?
	Well, no.
	So if she's got a kid who says the world is square and you explain to her that the world is round and here's why, then obviously you're not saying it's your opinion or you feel, but it is, right?
	And then she's going to go back to that kid and she may say to that kid, the world is not square, you're wrong, and here's why.
	So she should be capable of explaining.
	Well, yeah, but what's going to happen, right, if that kid then, it's really important to that kid emotionally that the world is square, right?
	It could be whatever cultural myth is going on.
	And then, you know, it can be a bit of a challenge, right?
	Because some relationships can only be maintained by wallpapering over legitimate and important differences, right?
	And another thing is that not only what concerns my children, but we are also going to establish school here in our village.
	And I think that it would be fine to be able to implement universally preferred behavior, for example, to curriculum somehow, some basics for children.
	Do you think that it's possible to teach it like subject in school?
	yeah.
	In fact, I think that it's impossible to not teach UPB to children because that's all their brains are doing anyway, is universalizing principles.
	I mean, 90% of my daughter's activity is universalizing principles.
	That's most of what her mental faculties are doing, and that's what differentiates us from all other species.
	It's the universalization of principle.
	And this started around the age of two and a half for her.
	It probably started earlier, I just didn't have the experimental setup to prove it.
	But, you know, wherever language is occurring, wherever predictive behavior in the physical realm is like, I can jump from here, but I can't jump from here.
	This is all the universalization, right?
	I mean, my daughter likes to, I think like all kids, figure out how many steps she can jump from.
	And, you know, should we get some new place?
	Oh, here's steps I've never been.
	I'm going to do 20.
	No, she knows, right?
	Because she's universalized.
	That gravity is a universal constant.
	That steps are pretty much the same height.
	So she can do three but not four.
	Or four but not five.
	She doesn't try.
	So she knows.
	She's universalized.
	All of that stuff.
	Arc, trajectory, gravity, what her body can handle, what's painful, what's not.
	It's all...
	And UPB is just the universalization of preferable behavior.
	Just like, you know, it's preferable that I don't owie my feet while jumping from a step that's too high.
	The avoidance of pain is, in general, universally preferable behavior.
	It's not necessarily ethical, and it's certainly not completely universal.
	So, when talking about behavior...
	She is very much into UPB because she's always looking for exceptions to any rule, which is a natural behavior.
	And it's been so, so instructive for me as a parent when dealing with people on the internet or even in person.
	You can see almost down to the month where they had challenges in their developmental stages, right?
	Because now she's all about, well, what if there is an exception to this?
	And we have to go through it.
	Well, how could that happen?
	Tell me what could happen, and all that kind of stuff.
	So she gets that there are rules, and she accepted the rules before, and now she's looking for exceptions to the rules, because she's four.
	Now she's looking for exceptions to the rules.
	She's testing the consistency of the theories.
	And so, you know, we talk about there are two kinds of things, right?
	I mean, you can eat some sugar, And still be healthy.
	But you can't eat some poison and still be healthy.
	So there are some things which are a scale and there are some things which are absolute.
	And the difference between the two is really important.
	You can draw outside the lines if you want.
	It won't make the pictures pretty, I think.
	But you can certainly draw outside the lines.
	It's your picture.
	But you can't ever go up and whack another kid in the head.
	Not that she's ever wanted to or even indicated that.
	So there are some things which are scales, some things which are aesthetics, some things which are aesthetically preferable actions or politeness or whatever, and then there are some things which you just can't do.
	And we sort of go through all the theories for that.
	It's something that formal instruction, I think, is not particularly helpful to children because they're so empirical.
	So I think that what you want to do is live and do and ask questions, come up, answer them as a part of living and doing.
	Rather than sit them down and try and drill answers into their head or methodologies into their head that are disconnected from living and doing.
	So if you're out living and doing, the questions will naturally arise.
	But if you are...
	I mean, you can tell your kids all about the equator and the circumference of the world and the seasons and this and that and the other.
	Or you can say...
	Hey, do you remember how there was snow at home and there's not snow in Belize?
	Isn't that interesting?
	Why do you think that is?
	Well, it's hotter here.
	Well, yeah, it's hotter here.
	Why do you think it's hotter here?
	I mean, we didn't travel for so long that winter became summer.
	So you just, you can get into teaching things because of living and doing.
	And I think that's the best way.
	And I think that produces a connection between theory and practice that's really important.
	Thank you.
	And if you see bad behavior from other children, you know, some kid spits or hits their parent or something like that, then I think that's really important to talk about with your children.
	Because they'll see it, they'll absorb it, and it becomes a countervailing principle to that which is supposed to be universal.
	And so that's something that I think is really, really important to talk about with your children.
	I mean, if they saw it, right?
	So, oh my goodness, did you see that?
	What do you think?
	What do you think happened?
	Why do you think it's happened?
	So, not like math teaching, but better living and doing.
	Yeah, I mean, my daughter is certainly very interested in numbers now, and she doesn't have that fear of numbers that I had, because, you know, I mean, I think math phobia generally comes from The fact that a lot of authority figures invent right and wrong answers, not to teach, but to punish.
	And so, where there are right and wrong answers, rather than, is this a pretty picture or do you like my story, where there are right and wrong answers, people tend to avoid that because they avoid the punishment that comes from having a wrong answer.
	And math is one of those things that has right and wrong answers.
	And so, people generally try to avoid that stuff if they come from that sort of environment.
	If they have no fear of a wrong answer, then Shoshi has no particular fear of mathematics, and she's really experimenting with it to see what she can find with the get various numbers and all that, you know, with things, not with numbers.
	She can write a few numbers, she can write her name and all that, but not with marbles, with, you know, the hungry hippo balls or whatever it is.
	That's And she loves to count things and to sort of, you know, we'll sometimes play a game with fingers, you know, like if I take this from this, what do I get kind of stuff?
	That's kind of fun, but it's always to do with things, not with abstracts alone.
	Because I want to tell her that the things are primary.
	The basic thing about philosophy to be is that things are primary, ideas are secondary, right?
	Concepts are imperfectly derived from entities or instances.
	And so I always wanted to know that the thing wins and the ideas don't.
	Because for her to be a Platonist would be horrendous, I think, for her reality development and reality centering.
	And so, yeah, I think all of these things are opportunities for learning, but I try to avoid, you know, okay, we're going to sit down here and learn how to read.
	Because...
	That is not a living and doing thing.
	And I want her learning to come out of that.
	Anyway, I hope that makes some sense.
	It's even remotely useful.
	I sometimes feel that I can't find the...
	The right, comprehensible for them example to explain, for example, why it's wrong to cheat when we play cards, yeah?
	And I sometimes find it difficult to explain and when I hear your podcast, I found that you somehow more easily find those examples and I try to use them when it fits.
	Well, yes, but of course, cheating can be a lot of fun, right?
	I mean, this is the problem, right?
	I mean, cheating can be really enjoyable, right?
	So if we're playing, what's the game she likes?
	Candyland, right?
	So if we're playing Candyland, sometimes you get something which, you know, sends you back a ways or whatever, and she'll pretend it wasn't there, she'll try to hide it, she'll slip it under another card.
	That's hilarious to me.
	I mean, it's really fun.
	So, you know, cheating can be a lot of fun.
	But, you know, and Together, to understand that difference is really important.
	You can break rules for fun if everybody's in on the joke.
	That it's fun, right?
	And when it's not that important.
	But cheating is obviously just a kind of lying.
	Just examples, if I said that you could have half my piece of chocolate, then I ate the whole chocolate.
	Like if I said, if you do X, you're going to have half my piece of chocolate.
	And then you did X and I I ate the whole chocolate.
	How would you feel?
	They can usually get that.
	Once they get how they feel and you've been consistent, the universalization comes automatically from there.
	I think that kind of stuff is just really important.
	Of course, a lot of parents don't want to give these standards of consistency to their children because they don't want to be held to those standards of consistency themselves because it's painful.
	It's painful to be consistent if you were raised inconsistently because you touch on the nerve of everything that was lost and hurt by other people's inconsistency in your life.
	Consistency is painful for people.
	It's like if you grow up obese and then you lose weight.
	Part of the pain of losing weight is realizing all the things you lost out on because you were obese.
	Maybe the sports you couldn't do.
	Maybe the social engagements you had trouble with, the self-consciousness that plagued you, whatever it is.
	The losing weight to me is, or whatever it is, if you change or reverse a factor of your upbringing, it's emotionally painful because like a tide withdrawing from a beach, it exposes everything that was lost and died in the shallows, literally.
	I think that's a challenge but you can avoid that by starting off with consistency as best you can.
	So I thank you for debating.
	I think that we covered what I want.
	You're very welcome.
	And I really wanted to send out my extreme admiration to you as a parent.
	My goodness, what lucky children you have to have your consistency and your focus on these issues.
	I mean, yay, massive, revolutionary shout-out.
	Congratulations.
	So, good for you.
	Good for you, Meng.
	Well done.
	Thank you.
	Bye-bye.
	All right.
	Next.
	Next up, we have Kyle.
	Hi.
	Is my sound okay?
	It sure is.
	Awesome.
	Hi, Steph.
	Hi.
	I'm sorry.
	There's one thing that's wrong with your sound.
	You do realize that this is a sausage fest, right?
	I'm not sure that the show can accommodate an estrogen-laced perspective.
	So, no, I'm just kidding.
	Thank you so much for calling in.
	Fine, fine.
	Come on, strap on something.
	Let's talk.
	Strap on, huh?
	Okay.
	Actually, my subject is kind of related to the first caller.
	I've had kind of an issue with dissociation.
	I feel kind of detached.
	First off, I'm really nervous, so if I suddenly faint, yeah.
	Call 911, maybe.
	Anyways, yeah, I've been listening to your show for, gosh, more than four years now, and this is the first time I've called in.
	I've only made one post that I never even followed up on the board.
	And my therapist and I have some ideas, but I just...
	Have you had a lot of callers and FDR members that have had this issue?
	I know the first one did.
	Now, do you mean detachment from your own emotions?
	I think I'm a little more attached to my emotions nowadays, but I want more things to happen in my life, like career and relationship and stuff.
	Okay.
	Yeah, that's a huge issue.
	It's an issue in general, but I think it's a particular issue for people who are interested in the consistency and predictability of philosophical principles, right?
	Because the world looks a whole lot less crazy when you're crazy, right?
	And philosophy, of course, is designed to make you sane.
	And what that does is it makes you get taller and everyone else suddenly looks a whole lot and is a whole lot shorter.
	It's like everyone's at a rave and everyone's on ecstasy and everyone's like, wow, this is cool!
	This music is great!
	Everybody's dancing fantastically!
	Everyone's beautiful!
	I'm thirsty!
	Right?
	And then philosophy comes along and says, no ecstasy for you!
	And everybody turns into zombies.
	Yeah, but you've got to stay at the rave.
	And you're like...
	These people are not good dancers.
	They're not all very pretty.
	I'm still thirsty, and this music sucks!
	It only didn't suck because I was on ecstasy, right?
	I mean, this is just like a heartbeat with a metronome and an accordion.
	So the problem is with sobering up and sanitizing and becoming sane.
	I don't know, that's the wrong word.
	But the problem with that is that then, you know, it's like sobering up at a party.
	It's like, these people are just idiots.
	You know, beer pong is not that much fun.
	These people are just yelling, you know, like the woohoo people and all this kind of stuff.
	Like, this is not any kind of interaction.
	This is just the avoidance of contact.
	Yeah, that's kind of what my therapist brought up is that I'm dissociating because I'm not surrounded by people who are connected or by people who are really even safe to be around sometimes, you know?
	Yes, so you can't, like, you're going to end up dissociating if you're with people who are dissociating.
	Right.
	Because you can't associate them because it's a long and complicated process.
	To use my band metaphor, if you're really good at guitar, you ain't going to sound good if you're in a band where no one can play.
	You can't just sit down and say, listen, just play better.
	Because it takes years and years to learn how to play really well.
	You know, the 10,000 hours or whatever, right?
	So you can't up float other people's sanity, but yours is floating up nonetheless.
	And yes, they all do look like little hands from up here.
	My therapist had me record a conversation with my parents, and it was glaringly obvious.
	My mother especially completely dissociated.
	They don't talk about anything real.
	If I bring it up, they kind of talk about it a little bit and then change the subject.
	I thought it was more interesting to note that they were dissociated than to actually do RTR, but maybe I should approach that too.
	I don't know.
	Okay, so the reason that I was saying that the sort of failure to launch, you know, as I sort of said, it's not so much failure to launch as it is nowhere to land.
	You know, like if they said, we've got a spaceship, see?
	It's got 12 billion pounds.
	What is it they say?
	12 million horsepower.
	Like, I think Scheinfeld says, like, at what point did we just out there to humiliate the horse?
	You know, it's just, why would we even use that measure anymore?
	Come on!
	We've got 12 million of you sitting in this little package.
	But, yeah.
	So then they said, hey, we've got this great spaceship.
	It's wonderful.
	We're going to send you out into space.
	And you say, great.
	When do I come back?
	We say, well, I don't know.
	Where am I going?
	Well, you know, maybe you'll find something out there.
	You know, kind of go to Mars now.
	No, we can't catch you to Mars.
	How about the moon?
	No, we've been there already.
	We're just going to send you out into space on this amazing technological spaceship, and we just hope that you'll find some place to land.
	But you can't come back here.
	I think no.
	Thank you.
	Ever since I've graduated from college, there's been no set structure to my life.
	I also got one of the...
	I didn't get a degree in art history, but I got it in sequential art, which is comic books and storyboards.
	So, not exactly engineering.
	Wait, you got a degree in comics?
	Yeah.
	That's cool.
	I've never even heard of such a thing.
	Sequential art, sorry.
	It was pretty new when I started up, so it's starting to spread a little more, but yeah.
	For your final exam, we're going to give you a long book.
	You have to have Death Star blow-up in the bottom corner and only felt it pens.
	Right.
	Okay.
	All right.
	I didn't mean to mock it.
	I'm sure it's quite complicated, and I actually got an advance copy of the movie The Silver Circle, which is not exactly a comic book comic, but it's actually a movie.
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	It's a very fun movie.
	I did check that out, yeah.
	And so your situation at the moment, what's the area of view of where you are, where you could go?
	Yeah, I'm kind of in...
	It's a little limbo as far as the career goes, but I live in Carson City, Nevada.
	I'm trying to get out of there to Denver, Colorado, where there's more active people, more energetic.
	There's a lot of Free Domain members there.
	But yeah, as far as the career, the other issue is...
	After college, I stopped doing art.
	And I don't think it's because I don't like art, but I was listening to the podcast you had with Elliot Hulse, and it came up that people who put their work out there are unable to accept art.
	The love of people sending money back to them.
	The last time I was really active with art, I had somebody commissioning me pieces and he was really impressed with the art and even tipped me.
	After that, I just stopped drawing.
	I withdrew from all my online accounts and everything.
	Wait, you got paid and you stopped doing it?
	Yeah.
	Perhaps I should give you some Economics 101.
	Pay is supposed to be an incentive to make you do more of it!
	I know, I know, I know.
	All right.
	Now, what do your parents view about your art?
	They're accepting of it, but my dad also is an artist, but he stopped doing art too.
	That is such a non-answer.
	I appreciate that wonderfully cloudy helium-laced non-answer.
	Do they believe or accept or encourage you to do this as your primary career goal?
	Are they behind you 100% in helping you make this happen?
	Not 100%, no.
	My dad keeps on trying to tell me, you know, the art world is really hard.
	It's hard to get out there and actually get work.
	I mean, the last time he was in the art field was before the internet, so...
	Oh, so we're talking like cave painting, right?
	I got it.
	Yeah, well, I mean, before the internet was really popular, so it's probably been 10 years for him.
	So he's still got this – the starving artist view going on.
	Yeah, yeah, no, I got it.
	I mean, it was a lot harder, of course.
	I mean, Justin Bieber is Justin Bieber because of the internet, right?
	Yeah.
	So, okay, so if your parents – I'm going to polarize this, and if this is bullshit, then just tell me, right?
	So I'm going to polarize this.
	This is not the case, right?
	But if I set myself against one of my daughter's goals, then if she achieves that goal, it's a win-lose, right?
	Then I have been wrong as a parent in something so fundamentally essential as my daughter's achievement of her Most yearned for gold.
	And she has achieved it despite me.
	You know, when I say, ooh, can I be, ooh, caution, ooh, this, ooh, that, right?
	I mean, my particular philosophy with myself and with other people has always been, you know, aim and ready, aim, aim, aim, fire, right?
	In other words, prepare yourself for whatever it is you want to do.
	But then, by God, give it 150%.
	Because if, you know, if you're going to fail, at least don't look back with regret that there's more you could have done.
	So for me, when I was sort of mapping out FDR before I went full-time, I said, well, are there topics I'm not going to go to?
	And I said, well, I can't be honest.
	I either have to be honest about that and say, I'm too scared of these topics.
	These topics are too controversial.
	We're going to stay in these nice safe areas.
	Yeah, like one of the most powerful podcasts that I listened to of yours was when you said you were scared of doing this.
	You broke down crying and everything.
	It was amazing.
	Yeah, terrifying.
	But I, you know, I had to give it everything I had, which meant that I wasn't going to force topics on people.
	Of course, I can't.
	It's a podcast, right?
	I'm going to come and yell at you in your house.
	But I was not going to say no to topics that people wanted to talk about.
	You know, people want to talk about family.
	I'm going to talk about family.
	Certainly, there are philosophical aspects to family life.
	Absolutely.
	And...
	You know, sometimes people blame me for the topics.
	Oh, you focus too much on this.
	Well, you know, I'm sorry.
	It's like saying to the pizza guy.
	But this is what people want, yeah.
	Yeah, you focus too much on the pizza that people are ordering.
	It's like, but that's what I'm supposed to do.
	Because it's a customer-driven conversation.
	And there's some stuff that I get to talk about, which I love.
	And there's some stuff which you guys get to talk about, which I love too.
	I mean, the Sunday show is my favorite part of this entire conversation.
	I mean, I'd do it every Sunday if every day was Sunday, if I could.
	But so it is, you know, so go, you know, if you're going to do it, don't do it halfway.
	I mean, that's just a recipe for disaster.
	And that doesn't give respect enough to your dreams.
	Now, if my daughter says I want to be a mime artist, I'm trying to think of the hardest thing that she would do that I would really have trouble with.
	A statue.
	Yeah, okay, so you want to be a bad robot.
	Okay.
	So, I mean, it would be tough for me.
	Now, if I had basically said, well, you know, it's not that great an idea.
	It's really, you know, mime isn't money, so to speak.
	It's a tough deal.
	It's awfully hard to get into it, you know?
	Awfully hard.
	You know, there's every job application.
	There's a thousand mimes out there pretending to write an application.
	Yeah, like whenever I start to do something, I think of all the little things I have to do, and then it adds up into one big thing, and just I get paralyzed, you know?
	Right.
	So, if it turns out that you're a big success, If it turns out that you're a big success, then it's really challenging for the naysayers around you.
	Oh my god, I gotta tell you, it's heartbreaking for them, and for you, on so many levels.
	How many people, when I was younger, were telling me that my interest in philosophy was gonna lead nowhere?
	Yeah.
	It's a waste of time.
	Can't change anything.
	What does it matter?
	It's all abstractions.
	Who cares?
	You're not Howard Roth, man.
	Who are you kidding?
	No, they're just fiction books.
	Come on, don't be ridiculous.
	Oh, yeah, you can read up on it if you want, but it's not going to move a grain of sand in a sandstorm.
	I mean, it's all life.
	You're just sitting there reading.
	Go live, go do.
	I mean, so many people were just...
	Yeah, I think school was pretty supportive.
	Everybody liked the art and stuff, but I think society and my parents are more starving artists.
	They want to support me, but no, not really.
	I don't know.
	It's like all the people who say, you know, you really shouldn't be an actor because acting is really tough.
	So let's go watch a movie.
	It's like, you do realize you're going to watch actors, right?
	And so, I mean, if your parents have, in a sense, been naysayers, and I know I'm not saying that they're saying, oh my god, I'm going to hit you with a stick every time you try to go.
	But the more subtle stuff can even be more toxic.
	Yes, I agree.
	Right?
	Because then it's not so much like I can't do it, which would Give your screw you rebellious aspect.
	Whichever you're in comics, you have to have.
	Just by definition, right?
	So if somebody just said, you can't, right?
	Your first response is, I can, right?
	Of course I can, right?
	But if they say, well, I... Maybe you should try a graphic design.
	Yeah, or something, you know, have a bit of a backup.
	I mean, focus on it for sure if you're really passionate about it, but there's no reason why it can't be a hobby on the side.
	And, you know, here's all the people I know who've tried it and failed and I gave it a shot, and I was pretty good, and I had a tough time doing it, so I just want you to be careful.
	That's all I'm saying.
	Then, it's not so much like somebody's blowing your boat out of the water.
	It's just like they're slowly turning the ocean into jello.
	Yeah, just like a little wave against it, a little wave against it, a little wave against it.
	And then it's not death by tiger, it's death by mosquitoes.
	So, it's interesting to me that when you got paid...
	You stopped.
	When I heard that in the podcast you had with Elliot, my jaw just dropped.
	That concept of not being able to accept the love of other people, money.
	I wish I could do the show without ever asking for money.
	Out of respect for the conversation, out of respect for the I mean, what I think of is, okay, well, it's a little uncomfortable for me, as it is for everyone, to assume the dog at the foot of a bacon table position and to ask for a bag for money.
	But what I think of is, okay, so it's a little uncomfortable for me.
	But, you know, every week that this show continues, another thousand parents stop hitting their children.
	Yeah, it's amazing.
	You know, like, so what if it's a little uncomfortable for me?
	How much more beneficial is it for...
	People to give up on religious delusions or status delusions or more practically and more powerfully to just start reasoning with and stop hitting their children.
	I mean, that's a guess.
	I think it's a pretty good guess.
	It's probably much higher than that, but just based on the letters I get and the feedback I get.
	So it's like, okay, well, I can do this.
	I can do this little uncomfortable thing, but man, look at the enormous benefit.
	I mean, because if I was a kid and, you know, somebody was out there and needed money to do a show and And to live and to get equipment and to do a documentary and all that.
	And, you know, if that person kept doing it, my parents might stop hitting me and start reasoning with me.
	And they said, well...
	The guy said, I can't do that.
	Because it's a little emotionally uncomfortable for me to do so.
	I'm like, dude, I'm getting hit.
	Who's more emotionally uncomfortable?
	You or me?
	And there's a thousand right next door to me who are also getting hit.
	And I want to thank you.
	You've completely changed my view on having children.
	Like, I totally did not want to have kids at all.
	And...
	The experience of watching Isabella grow up from birth to where she is now, I realize that it can be rewarding and engaging.
	I work at Walmart.
	I see parents fighting with their kids all the time.
	Oh, yeah.
	And it becomes a vicious circle, right?
	Because if you treat your kids badly, then you end up wanting to put them in daycare or school.
	Like, oh, just get him out of the house.
	I just knew mommy needs to...
	Yeah, I don't see physical punishment or anything like that.
	Just arguing, just constant antagonistic...
	No, I know, but that's...
	Right, and so what happens is you end up wanting to spend less time with your kids because you're fighting all the time, which means that you end up fighting more because you're spending less time learning how to negotiate, and the kids feel rejected.
	Right?
	Oh, so you want me to go to daycare.
	Oh, so you want me to go to school.
	You'd rather me go to school than spend time with me.
	So how, you know, how happy?
	Anyway, it's just a recipe for a mess.
	I mean, I tell you, you know, I get at least 10 to 20 I love you daddies and hugs a day.
	I mean, it's just magnificent.
	And she's great company.
	I mean, there's so much to me about parenting that is completely surprising.
	So much I'm very happy for, all the theories I was waffling about before I became a parent actually working beautifully.
	But the fact that a four-year-old can actually be a great company.
	I mean, I always thought it was going to be more sort of, you know, Top down and all that kind of stuff, but she's challenging, engaging, a fun conversationalist and really, really smart.
	We were reading a book the other day, Peter Pan.
	In it, the kids get captured by the pirate and they get handkerchiefs tied around their faces so that they won't talk, white handkerchiefs tied around their faces.
	She said, Daddy, why is the pirate turning the children into doctors?
	I'm like, damn, that's good!
	The other day, we went to the library, and the library's attached to a high school.
	I don't know.
	This is tough for me, right?
	I don't think I've mentioned this before.
	Anyway, I think it's kind of related to two ways.
	This is not complete tangent time.
	Most of her friends are a little bit older, so she likes to chat with the high school girls.
	Of course, it's much better for me in my 40s to have a child when Anyway, so she wanted to teach the high school girls her spring dance.
	She's got a little dance she's worked out because she's really looking forward to spring.
	And so she's got a whole spring dance worked out.
	And so they basically said, show us your spring dance.
	We were all in the big foyer of the library slash high school.
	And she did her spring dance, which is a magnificent, confusing ball of joy.
	And then she said...
	To the high school girls, would you like to do it?
	And of course, they were a little shy, right?
	It's the age of cell phones.
	Lord knows who's filmed what, right?
	And then she said, Daddy, why don't you show them the spring dance?
	Now, I'm not the shyest person in the world, but that's fairly close to embarrassment territory for me.
	But I couldn't say no.
	I couldn't.
	Because that's to say, well, it's cute for you, but it's embarrassing for me.
	That's not good.
	I can't.
	I can't give her that.
	I don't want to give her that idea that...
	That this sort of private thing we do for fun is somehow embarrassing to me in public.
	That is to shame or to denigrate the pleasure that we take in doing these kinds of dances and stuff like that.
	So, grit in my teeth, and up I did my big ass, twirly, big finish spring dance for the high school girls of which there were about eight.
	And not the most comfortable moment I've ever had in my life, but I think a very necessary passage of fire to not view our private enjoyments as somehow publicly Embarrassing.
	And that overcoming of self-shaming for the sake of principle, for the sake of supporting who she is as a human being and our experience as parents, as parent-child, is really, really important.
	Now, if you were successful as an artist, what would that mean to your father?
	I would definitely be mixed, but since he If I gave up art, I mean, that would be really painful.
	I mean, I was, you know, I studied to be an actor with acting and playwriting and so on.
	If my daughter became, I thought about this, I mean, she's kind of showy.
	She's kind of out there.
	She's pretty extroverted in many ways.
	And if she became a big famous actor or something like that, part of me would be like, yeah, I tried that.
	And it would be really important for me to deal with that.
	Now, I mean, obviously, in hindsight, I'm very glad that I was not an actor.
	And I feel like...
	Yeah, he channeled it.
	Yeah, I mean, it's more important for me to do what I'm doing.
	There's nothing more important that I could be doing with my life than this.
	This conversation with you right now is there's nothing more important.
	And so...
	I feel, I mean, if I believed in God, it feels like I would constantly be nudged this way and that, and to develop the skills to just be able to do this, to break, I hope, a 2,500-year deadlock in philosophy and actually get this thing to work in people's lives in a really powerful way.
	You know, not that it's never been done before, but I think that we're trying, I'm obviously trying to make enough connections here to move the conversation significantly.
	I think we've sped it up quite a bit.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I hope that logjam has been detonated and we can actually get this stuff going.
	But, If she succeeds at something that I didn't succeed at, again, I mean, it wasn't like I sort of went to L.A. and tried to be an actor for years.
	I decided not to do it, looking at the odds.
	And I think that was the right decision.
	And the reason I could look at the odds, you know, they used to say in theater school, if you can't do anything else, do it.
	Like, if you can do anything else and be happy, do it, because this is really hard.
	And there were other things that I could do and be really happy.
	And so, the acting world can be a bit nutty in the art world.
	Oh, you know that.
	Yeah.
	A lot of people who didn't socialize a lot as kids ended up being actors and artists and all that.
	Robert Louis Stevenson writes books because he had a bedridden disease for many years as a child and all that kind of stuff.
	Creativity is a bit of white light star tissue kind of thing.
	If you were to succeed, what would that do to your father in two areas?
	The first area would be his own lack of success and the second area would be his I don't want to say undermining because that's too strong, but his qualified support, let's say, his qualified support for what it is that you're doing.
	How would he feel about those two things?
	Probably pretty rotten.
	Now, does he have the skills to talk about that with you and to be honest about that with you and...
	And to discuss his ambivalence?
	Because, I mean, you're an adult now, right?
	So you can talk about these things.
	Would he have that level of self-knowledge?
	I think you said earlier that your parents were not that much into deep conversations.
	Yeah.
	I mean, I can give it a try.
	I don't have high hopes, but...
	We'll do almost anything we can to protect the happiness of our parents.
	Yeah.
	I mean, this is just a basic fact.
	It's biological.
	It's, you know, we will do almost anything to...
	Protect the happiness of our parents.
	Whether it's just or not, whether it's right or wrong, whether it's mature or immature, we will do almost anything.
	Yeah, and since both he and I deal with depression, it's one of those, is it a bomb to set off, you know?
	Right, right.
	Okay, so if he's depressed because he was unable to follow his own dreams, then if you achieve yours, you feel that that might make him worse.
	Did you tell your father about selling or getting money for your heart?
	I'm pretty positive.
	I mean, that was, gosh, that was almost four years ago, so...
	Wait a minute.
	Oh, here comes the fog!
	Here comes the fog!
	Good!
	Good, we have come to the core of fog.
	Okay, so how could you not remember this conversation?
	Come on.
	This is your dream, and you finally have achieved payment for your dream, which is an incredible Rubicon.
	I mean, I remember the first donation I got for my show, I'm like, really?
	Really?
	No way!
	It wasn't the first commission I had gotten, but it was...
	But it was a significant one, right?
	Yeah, because he was, you know, giving me extra money and everything, too.
	Okay, so this is a huge deal, right?
	For you.
	Right.
	For your career.
	And so, because that conversation, if it happened, right, then...
	What resulted from that was that you shut down your accounts and stopped selling your art, right?
	Yeah.
	Well, that's not good.
	No, no it isn't.
	So you'd remember that, right?
	Yeah.
	Gosh.
	So did you tell your father, A, that you got extra paid for your work, and B, that that's when you start selling?
	I feel like I would have told him about the extra pay, but I don't think I – I mean, I just – yeah, I don't think I told him until later that I was just – I called it an artist block at the time, but that's just a...
	It's not exactly...
	Do you remember what his response was to you getting bonus pay for your art?
	I really don't.
	That's important.
	Yeah.
	Do you think that deep down, if you're withholding the beauty you can make from the face of the world, if you're withholding that, to protect his depression, how do you think he would feel about that?
	Probably pretty awful.
	Tell me what you're feeling.
	Really sad.
	Really?
	I mean, if you have to hide your light from your parents, you can't have a show up to the world, right?
	I think.
	Right.
	It's just too much of a struggle, and it's too much against our nature, which is to please our parents no matter what.
	I mean, I still want to please my mom.
	Yeah.
	It's just that pleasing my mom is toxic for me.
	Yeah.
	And I actually took a break from talking to them for about a year and a half, and I just started up a couple months ago.
	And it's...
	I don't know that it's actually beneficial.
	Well, I think, I mean, what do I know, right?
	But, you know, I think that it's important to talk about these issues with them, right?
	I mean, the fact that your father doesn't know that you may have, may have, it's something to explore.
	It's a possibility that you may have shut up sharp to protect his feelings is important.
	You know, look, I, I, I don't believe that your dad would say, good!
	Oh no, no.
	That makes me happy.
	I am a vampire feasting on the joyous juice of your future ambitions.
	No.
	I mean, I think he would feel sad about that, but if it's unconscious, it's much more likely to happen.
	If it's something you talk about, then it can be dealt with in the open, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Yeah, I'll definitely do that the next time I talk to him.
	Good.
	Yeah, because, I mean, our parents' relationship to our dreams is really, really important, and often unexamined.
	And, I mean, you can just read about the people who have succeeded, and, you know, they're the actors who've succeeded, and usually they're the ones whose parents were driving around to auditions, and, you know, they're I met a fine young lady at Libertopia who was a model and her parents were driving around to all these places and getting her photos and all that.
	Because you can't do the difficult without the approval of the people who shaped you.
	I mean, I don't think.
	I don't think you can.
	If they're in your lives and they're undermining what it is that you're doing, usually unconsciously, maybe even usually against their better conscious judgment, Then it's really, really hard to get it done.
	I'm going to back off from that absolute because I'm sure that people can have.
	Or the people who do it despite that and don't deal with it can end up self-destroying on success, right?
	Yeah, I've definitely felt like I've been self-sabotaging like crazy.
	Right, and then if you have a self-sabotaging streak, then the only thing worse than failure is success, right?
	Yeah, it's terrifying.
	It is.
	And then you end up with all of this mess and muck.
	And please, I mean, I understand that it doesn't really have, fundamentally and finally, it doesn't have anything to do with parental approval.
	I was just thinking of Michael Jackson, right, who had an incredibly, quote, enthusiastic dad for his success and then ended up, I think, in a pretty wretched place in life and all that.
	So, yeah, it's really, really hard to Achieve things.
	Like, I can't have people in my life who think that what I'm doing is unimportant.
	I don't think...
	I mean, they don't have to think it's the most important thing like I do, but they can't think of it as my funny little hobby.
	Yeah, your side.
	No, I can't do it.
	I can't do it because everyone's perspective we incorporate.
	Everyone's opinions we imbibe.
	We cannot help it.
	This is why I said to the first caller, he's using the word I incorrectly.
	Right?
	Right?
	You want to succeed, your father may view...
	Your success is coming at personal cost.
	You may be.
	And so that comes inside you and creates ambivalence.
	Ambivalence is what's good for us versus what's good for others.
	And I think to truly be successful in life, you need to have everyone around you in alignment with your goals.
	And to be in alignment with other people's goals.
	But that skeptical, cynical, quote, practical, cold-eyed third ogre bubble that pops out It comes because we have people in our lives who are skeptical about our potential.
	And it's really, really hard.
	You know, it's like trying to win a race while somebody's screaming slow down in your ear.
	You're going to fall!
	Or it's like trying to do a math problem when people are yelling random numbers into your ear.
	Right?
	I mean, to really achieve something in life, you need to have a support system and you need to be willing to be part of a support system for other people's goals.
	But I don't think it's possible to succeed if there are people around you who consciously or not, and it's even worse if it's unconscious, are emotionally invested in your lack of success.
	And the moment you make a prediction, you're emotionally invested in that coming trip.
	It's confirmation bias, and nobody can avoid it.
	I mean, we can reason with it, we can talk our way out of it if we know about it.
	But the moment you make a prediction, you have confirmation bias.
	And so if people predict anything other than Success for you, then they are going to be invested in whatever shortfall they're predicting.
	And unfortunately, if it's unconscious, they will find ways to make it come true, whether they know it or not.
	And I know this sounds kind of weird, like we have nothing but the sum of other people's opinions of it.
	No, no.
	But there's real truth in that.
	I don't believe in this Randian, you know, like the Randian heroes have no Miko system.
	Like they just have one voice.
	And they all come from no family.
	Howard Rock was abandoned at the age of 10.
	You never hear anything about his family.
	Same thing with John Gold.
	Yeah, and I've heard you.
	You've known comic books before, and all the, you know, Bruce Wayne with his dead parents, just about every major comic book hero.
	Yeah, to achieve greatness, he has to, like Superman, right?
	To achieve superhero status, his parents have to be out of the picture.
	And...
	I mean, I don't think that's universally true, because there are lots of people who achieve great things with very supportive parents.
	But where there is that challenge, it's really hard.
	Like, there are only two families that are explored in depth in Ayn Rand novels, not counting We the Living, which is much more autobiographical.
	But, I mean, there's the Riordan's, and there is the Keating's, right?
	And, I don't know if you've read the books, but...
	I have.
	I mean, those are both incredibly toxic families that destroy their...
	I mean, with Peter Keating, it destroys...
	The mother destroys the son, and with Hank Reardon, they almost do.
	And so it's interesting that the only heroes in Rand's novels are those who don't have any place to go at Christmas.
	I mean, it's just something that is interesting, and not something that I think she particularly examined.
	But that is something I think that's important to recognize, that we are intensely inhabited by those around us.
	We cannot avoid that.
	I mean, the idea of creating this random superstructure of ivory tower where we're impervious to the opinions of those around us, I mean, that's pathological.
	That's narcissistic.
	That's not healthy.
	Yeah, and I almost became a hermit there for a while, and that's not—it just amplifies the voices in your head, you know?
	Right, right, right.
	So, yeah, I mean, so, I mean, our susceptibility, I mean, look, we're tribal animals.
	Of course we're going to be susceptible.
	It's like asking dogs to be indifferent to each other.
	Cats, yes.
	Dogs, not so much, right?
	I mean, we are social animals, and we are imprinted by those around us.
	And our social life is a buffet, and it's either going to be nutritious or poisonous.
	And we inherit the buffet.
	We can choose, as adults, the buffet, and I choose to have people in my life who are They certainly don't have to agree with me on everything.
	Good heavens.
	I mean, I certainly don't agree with me on everything over time.
	But they have to recognize that philosophy is important.
	They don't have to be philosophers.
	But, you know, I couldn't do what I do if I were to be surrounded by any significant number of people who were indifferent or skeptical to what it is that I'm doing.
	Just as I want to encourage other people to pursue what it is that their dreams are.
	Yeah, I think the indifference part is...
	Yeah, indifference is worse.
	Opposition is, you know, I mean, philosophy...
	It's clear.
	Yeah, I mean, apparently I have some haters, I don't know, but philosophy is a muscle.
	It works in resistance, right?
	And measuring the diminishment of immorality is one way you measure the success of philosophy.
	And so, you know, a thousand families giving up spanking is a measurable decrease in the immorality of the world.
	And so I think that's really important.
	And so if somebody is really hostile to what you're doing, that could be a wonderful guide, right?
	You can sail against the wind by tacking, but you can't sail when there's no wind at all, right?
	So the indifference, I think, is even worse.
	Well, thank you, Steph.
	That's...
	Very helpful.
	I'm so glad, and I really do hope that you can achieve, I mean, good heavens, if you listen to this show and can be a comic book artist, I mean, yay!
	I want to take so many ideas from this show and incorporate it into stories.
	I'd love to do that.
	Right.
	Okay, well, I hope you do.
	And again, I would suggest, as I usually do, talk to therapists and prepare yourself for this very important conversation.
	Yeah, I'm in therapy.
	Yeah, I mean, so this could be, I think this could be a wonderful opportunity with your father.
	I mean, if through the mistakes your father has made, he could use that to further enhance your capacity to achieve your goals.
	I mean, wow, talk about turning failure into success.
	I mean, that would be transformational, and I think that would be a good cure for depression, which is that the hard lessons that I have endured that caused or triggered or exacerbated my failures, I have now transformed into something which jetpacks my daughter over the hills to the green and pleasant valley of genuine success.
	I mean, that's the best you can do with those kinds of failures, and I think that's really important, and that could be transformational.
	Because, you know, if it's eating at him, if it's rooting at him, and if it's just about him, and if it's also undermining, like he knows deep down.
	Again, it's all a theory, but he knows if it's true that he's undermining your success with indifference and hypercaution and whatever it is, right?
	He knows that deep down, and that sure ain't going to make him happy.
	But if it can be dredged up, exposed, talked about, and dealt with, and you can have an ally, I think that's going to be by far the best thing for any depression that he might be experiencing, in my amateur opinion.
	Cool.
	Thank you so much.
	You're very welcome.
	And if there's anything that this show can do, I mean, you know, loyal listener and all that, I mean, if there's anything that I can do or this show can do with your art, you know, if you want to use it, I'll have a look at it, put it on Facebook.
	And if there's any way in which this...
	Significant reach of this show can help you with your artistic endeavors.
	I mean, I'm mad keen to help or to try.
	Well, I have to have a comic script.
	Yeah, okay, so if you want to start sharing that with people, then if there's anything I can do to help get that out, I mean, just email, as usual, operations at freedomainradio.com and we'll try and coordinate something to I encourage this to lots of listeners.
	This is a pretty unique hub and has a very sophisticated, intelligent, and insightful audience.
	Use me.
	Use me, as Bill was saying.
	Use me up.
	Use this as a way to broadcast your plans and your endeavors and your goals and your dreams.
	I would really, really suggest that.
	Again, if there's anything There's nothing that makes you want to help others more than achieving what you want to achieve.
	So if there's anything I can do to help you or anyone else out there who wants to get their ideas and goals out there, please let me know.
	All right.
	Thank you.
	Thanks.
	Have a good one.
	And I think we may, in fact, have time for another caller.
	We shall see.
	James, do we have another one?
	Yes, we have a couple of people.
	We'll go with Mike.
	Yo, Mike.
	Hey, how's it going?
	Well, thanks.
	And you?
	I'm doing pretty good.
	I just wanted to call in and talk about, I guess, a possible solution to all of our woes.
	Well, I'm...
	If I could be so presumptuous.
	Go for it.
	Yeah, I try to look at...
	We're facing so many different problems.
	I can't focus on any one because we're being slammed from so many sides.
	So I was trying to come up with an all-encompassing concept that could maybe get everybody on board, but thus making the state just basically go away.
	Kind of like the NAP, UPB, and whatnot rolled into a device.
	Your competing currency idea that without the state there would be competing currencies got me along to a thought process that, well then, couldn't everybody compete with their own currency?
	And that got me thinking and brought me to the point where, you know...
	There'd be a problem if somebody printed more than another person or whatnot and it would devalue the currencies on a whole, but if we could have it regulated Agreed on by everybody that uses this type of device to generate the same amount over a period of time, then we could just use that as currency for transactions.
	The value comes from work or from creating items or getting resources or whatnot.
	And this money or this currency would flow to people that actually did those types of things for society, so in that way it would still keep a capitalist bend to it.
	Okay, so are you saying that everybody would have some sort of electronic currency of their own?
	Yeah, actually a physical device that they would be able to use kind of like a credit stick or something that just basically generates the currency unit that could be broken apart however many ways you want to divide it.
	Depending on what you're purchasing, how rare that item is, which would increase its value, how much time it took to produce, how many man hours went into it would Give us the value for it.
	Ah, yes, no, but it wouldn't, right?
	Because value is not something that can be calculated.
	I mean, if value could be calculated, central planning would be much more possible, right?
	But you can't possibly calculate the value of something objectively, right?
	Because value is something, like, if you've just had a big drink of water and I say, I'll sell you a bottle of water, you'd be like, no thanks, I'm not thirsty.
	You'd give me no money for it.
	But if you're in the desert and you're dying of thirst, you'll probably give me everything you own for that bottle of water.
	So there is no way, whereas, you know, the bottle of water we assume took the same amount of time to produce no matter what, right?
	So some people love modern art, some people hate it.
	So what's the objective value of modern art, right?
	So I don't think that we can find a way to calculate value based upon labor or time or resources or any of that.
	You don't think that we can calculate value based off of labor or time or resources?
	No, no.
	I mean, look, you could spend an entire weekend moving everything in your basement half an inch to the left, right?
	Oh, no, no, no.
	I'm not saying anybody would be calculating.
	This is to be the whole free hand of the market concept where the person that's selling the item would tell how much he was requesting and then the person would come back with a counter offer, you know?
	Oh yeah, okay.
	So like just a sort of personal marketplace of localized supply and demand.
	I think that would be fine.
	I'm sure that would be, if that was a value to people, I'm sure that that would be created, yeah.
	Okay.
	The other thing that I wanted to attach to this, since this would essentially be, in my mind, kind of replacing all other forms of currency, thus disabling the state from collecting taxes, since everybody would be generating in this community, no matter how large it would be, Would be generating the currency.
	They wouldn't be giving it to people.
	They would be giving it to things like DROs, which would help start up the DRO concept quicker.
	As well as, in order to get it from what would have to be like a non-profit startup, we would only, I guess, issue it to people that agreed to the non-aggression principle.
	And if they broke it, they would just have their device taken away.
	Yeah, I mean, I think that's interesting.
	But, you know, that's not going to stop the government from collecting taxes, right?
	Because remember, the government is a mere flow-through.
	Of the real benefit of taxes, right?
	The real benefit of taxes are the people on the receiving end of the government, right?
	Like, it always surprises me just how little money companies have to donate to get access to politicians, right?
	You know, tens of thousands of dollars, or whatever it is, individuals have to donate or supply value to get millions or hundreds of millions of dollars in benefits.
	You can get 200 times return on investment for paying in for stuff like that.
	And the government is a giant flow-through mechanism, right?
	So the government hoovers up all these taxes and then takes some of it for itself, for its own pay and all that.
	But then most of it goes through to other people, right?
	Goes through to people through the warfare welfare state, through the prison industrial complex, through welfare, through public school teachers, through all of that stuff.
	It's a giant flow-through mechanism.
	And so taxes are not something that the state primarily profits from.
	The state gains its power by supplying tax money to other people, by buying their allegiance.
	And so if taxes were to diminish, it would be slave-on-slave aggression that would be, I mean, that would be the case, right?
	So if there were to be any significant reduction in taxes, all the people on the receiving end of those taxes would revolt.
	Correct.
	And they would be the ones who would put intense social pressure on everyone to stop paying their taxes.
	And most people would, right?
	One of the problems is that the people who are on the receiving end of taxes have a massive incentive.
	To lobby for and to use a lot of social aggression to pay those taxes.
	And, you know, to threaten people with, like, I'm never going to talk to you again unless you stop paying your taxes, because that means you don't care about the poor, you don't care about me, you don't care about education, you're a bad guy.
	And, see, people are willing to sever relationships based on taxes all the time.
	In fact, taxes is the severing of relationships, because they want your ass thrown in jail.
	Right?
	So...
	So people are willing to sever relationships who are statists all the time.
	Every time you advocate a law, you are advocating the severing of one person's relationship with everyone.
	Because you have that person thrown in jail, they can't see anyone.
	And so that's the degree to which people who support the state are willing to go.
	go.
	They want your ass thrown in jail if you interrupt their income or you interrupt their whatever it is that they want to achieve through the state.
	They want your ass thrown in jail.
	They That's, I mean, when you think about it, that's fundamentally radical.
	That'd be like me putting out a podcast saying, you need to kidnap and imprison anyone who doesn't support anarchism or atheism.
	Like, you need to kidnap them, you need to lock them up, and you need to put, you need to lock them up in a room with violent criminals.
	And then not protect them.
	I mean, that would be unbelievably sadistic, culty, extreme, like, you name it.
	That would be an astonishing thing to say for any private intro.
	If somebody doesn't agree with you about anarchism or atheism, then you lock them up in a cage with rapists and murderers for years.
	I mean, people would be like, are you insane?
	What an unbelievably horrible thing to say.
	But that's everyone who's a statist.
	That's what they're saying.
	And that's how far they're willing to go for their beliefs.
	And this is why I nag people about donations and commitment to philosophy.
	That's how far they're willing to go for their beliefs.
	I mean, if you're in the Mormon community, you start questioning stuff, I mean, they will ostracize your ass to Alpha Centauri.
	Right?
	If you're in a Muslim country, some of the Muslim countries, you start even questioning things around faith.
	I mean, you can get killed.
	I mean, they'll put you to death.
	So crazy people, people with bad beliefs, irrational beliefs, aggressive beliefs, they will go to the wall to protect their beliefs.
	To the point where they will have nobody in the community talk to you, they will have you thrown in jail, they will have you hunted down, they will have you killed.
	That's how far they're willing to go.
	Now, I'm, of course, never suggesting anything that extreme.
	I'm just talking about a little bit more of some personal integrity.
	But until we can muster about one-tenth of one percent of the commitment for our rational beliefs that crazy people have for their irrational beliefs, we're never going to make any headway.
	So I hope that helps a little bit.
	Well, that does help a little bit, which is why I called into your show instead of any other on the face of the earth right now.
	And I like your ideas.
	I mean, I certainly like the idea that currency is innately a rejection of the non-aggression principle, using currency, right?
	Because somebody who's using currency is trading value for value, not value for violence, right?
	Correct.
	So currency can only be used by people.
	I mean, I think in a free society, if you violate the non-aggression principle, I think your currency could be deactivated.
	And I would be perfectly fine with that until such time as you made restitution or made up for whatever it is you did, assuming that, you know, you've been objectively found guilty and beyond reasonable doubt or whatever.
	So yeah, I think currency is a very fundamentally civilized thing.
	And, you know, why do people steal money from banks so that they can go and trade the money peacefully for other things?
	Because it's a lot easier to steal a bunch of money than it is to steal all the stuff that the money can buy.
	So there's another contradiction.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	No, no, no.
	I was just saying that you're absolutely right there.
	It's a lot easier to steal a small amount of currency and go and buy a whole bunch of stuff instead of the stuff from various locations.
	That's why we have taxes, right?
	You don't have to go to everybody's individual house.
	At this point, the government is not the driver of taxes.
	It's the people who are dependent on the government who are the drivers of taxes.
	I mean, the government certainly profits from it and encourages it and this, that and the other, but that's why I say, you know, to focus on the government rather than the people around you as the drivers of government power is, I think, fallacious.
	Which is why I came up with the concept.
	was in order to make it so that the people wouldn't have to drive the taxes anymore.
	If you replace the currency for which we do pay taxes with and we were able to work with each other in that currency, then we would have really paid.
	You're looking for a magic bullet and there's no magic bullet.
	I'm sorry to say this so blankly, but it's really important.
	So, let's say that you start using some alternate currency.
	I mean, they'll just come take your house.
	I mean, they have all the guns.
	They'll just come take your stuff.
	And if they can't take your stuff, they'll put you in a cage.
	Or both, right?
	So the idea that there's some way in which we can stop paying taxes is, I mean, to me, it's illusory.
	I mean, the vast majority of people accept and, you know, maybe even approve of taxes, so that's not going to work.
	They're indoctrinated.
	And the media will spin anybody who doesn't pay taxes into some, you know, antisocial, crazy, whatever it is, right?
	And, you know, and of course if you have to pay taxes, the government isn't going to accept bitcoins, right?
	They're going to accept the Federal Reserve notes or whatever the local fiat currency is, so that's why you have to get your hold of stuff.
	And if you don't, they'll just, you know, take your life or take your stuff and all that kind of stuff.
	And most people will view that as perfectly legitimate.
	You're not paying a legitimate debt, just like if you don't pay for your car, they can come take your car.
	So people feel if you don't pay for the government services, then the government can come take your house, and they're fine with that.
	So I think that what you're talking about could be a fine solution in the future, but I don't think it's a way that we're going to get rid of the state now.
	To me, I think it's just a way of avoiding, I think, the stuff that really does need to be done to get rid of the state, which is to really focus on peaceful parenting and educate parents about how to negotiate with kids and hopefully convince them to spend more time with their kids and all that kind of stuff.
	Well, thankfully, I have taken to heart those teachings already, and I am bringing them in practice.
	So I figured I'd go the next step and try and find a solution to alleviate the problems for other individuals.
	I don't know.
	I see that, I mean, even if we were to be able to get DROs up and running and somehow get it socially accepted to start them up, I feel that there's a lot of people that just wouldn't be able to afford them.
	I mean, after a very long time, yeah, the costs would come down, but there would be a lot of people that would be, I mean, especially in a DRS system, kind of like out on the edges of society.
	And if there is any upheaval, I would rather it be planned and strategized instead of chaos.
	And I realize that it would be kind of It's always, we're always, I guess, hubristic.
	I mean, we have a lot of hubris, and being able to come up with things like nuclear technology and believing that we're not going to be harming the planet and whatnot is just pretty ridiculous, and I guess that can fall in line with what I'm thinking as well.
	Yeah, I mean, as far as people not being in the DRO system, I certainly wouldn't want, like, if I lived in some town, I wouldn't want half the population not being part of the economy.
	That's a recipe for disaster.
	So, I mean, I would be, I mean, imagine the wealth that would be created in a free market.
	I mean, you'd get 6%, 7%, 8%, 10%.
	Like Panama has had double-digit growth for years.
	Post-war Italy had, like, double-digit growth for decades until the socialists grabbed power, as they did almost all over Europe.
	And...
	So, I mean, imagine the amount of wealth that would be around.
	People would be able to afford that stuff.
	No problem.
	I mean, they'd be making five or ten times what they're making now within a decade or two, so of course they could afford it.
	And for those rare few people who couldn't afford it or whatever, I mean, you know, would you say, okay, I'm going to take one tenth of one percent of my DRO payment and check off a little box that says this is going to be made available to people who can't afford it?
	Yeah, of course.
	I mean, A, because it's a nice thing to do and we care about people, and B, because you don't want a contingent of people in society who aren't part of the sensible, rational, moral, economic system, because that's just a recipe for outlordom.
	So, no, those people are all going to be taken care of, no problem, I'm sure of that.
	Which is why I felt like so many people would be easily able to buy into this concept because it would basically take care of that without having them needing to contribute of themselves to something like that.
	You know, like their hard-earned labor going away, no, they would be able to keep everything on their own basically bank.
	Right, right.
	Well, listen, I think it's an interesting idea.
	I certainly do appreciate you bringing it up.
	I am afraid that I am actually going to have to stop the show.
	I could literally talk all day, but I have a couple of things on my plate.
	So, thanks again to James, of course.
	Thanks again to the previous co-hosts.
	And I look forward, of course, to seeing people in my various travels around this summer.
	Anarchy in New York City in April, I think 21st.
	I will be at Libertopia, libertopia.org, on Labor Day for the weekend, and I may in fact be running a workshop or two.
	And I'm going to be at Dana Martin's Unschooling Conference, RethinkingEverything.net, Capitalism Morality 2, doing a debate with Walter Block in Vancouver this summer, a Freedom Fest with Liberty...
	Sorry, with laissez-faire books, a bunch of other places.
	So thank you, thank you, thank you, everybody so much.
	Thank you, of course, as always, to the callers.
	I mean, to open up your hearts in this way, to talk about your challenges in this way.
	I mean, I'm deeply honored.
	I hope that I do justice as best as I can to the questions and issues that you have.
	I certainly do try to listen as deeply as I can and give you as much knowledge as I can in response.
	I hope that it's helpful.
	And I really, really appreciate this is what makes the show to me so special in that we're really trying to find a way to massage these principles into our increasingly oily skin.
	I don't know.
	That one got away from me.
	But thank you anyway, nonetheless, to everyone.
	Have yourselves a wonderful, wonderful week.
	I will talk to you soon.
	Oh!
	FDRURL.com forward slash donate.
	Take care, everyone.

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