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May 5, 2013 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:26:31

2375 Freedomain Radio Call In Show, 5 May 2013

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	Hi everybody, Stefan Molyneux from, oh, do I even need to tell you?
	Probably not.
	Really.
	It is the, I guess, what, 5th of 5th, 2013, and it's time for the Sunday Philosophy Call-In Show.
	The first of, I'm sure, many, many, many to come.
	So, as you probably have heard, I've had this after a true cosmic clusterfrag of socialized medicine.
	I finally ran to the vestiges of of the free market and would highly recommend the Oklahoma Surgery Center.
	They've actually been profiled on Reason Magazine and they do some very cool stuff and it was actually my first experience with paying for health care because of course I grew up in England and where even the dental care is subsidized or socialized and I just couldn't quite understand how wonderful an experience it was also.
	So I would highly recommend them My personal experience has been very positive.
	A doctor came to my hotel room to take a chant out after the operation.
	I mean, you can't imagine just how incomprehensible that is to somebody who's grown up in socialized healthcare.
	And I wanted to thank, of course, everyone for your wonderfully kind wishes, even people who have significant disagreements with me and have had just wonderful things to say.
	And that's an important thing.
	You know, we all may disagree.
	In certain areas in how to save the world, how to improve the world, but the reality is that none of us are initiating force against each other, and I think that we should enjoy the robust debate of differing opinions with the belief, not faith, but belief that reason and evidence wins out in the long run.
	So I really wanted to thank everyone for support, donations, and for just very kind and well wishes.
	And I also really wanted to thank everyone who suggested alternative therapies for what it is that I have and that's very kind and it's very appreciative and people did a lot of research and forwarded me a lot of information and I appreciate that.
	I am going with a fairly traditional treatment I suppose and the reason I'm doing that is because I have a number of listeners who are in fact oncologists who have said this is the way to go and to me You know, the science is fairly incontrovertible.
	Cancer rates have been improving significantly, survival rates and so on.
	And a lot of that has to do with this stuff.
	It's a pretty harsh treatment.
	I started just under a week ago.
	It was Monday of last week.
	And I mean, I think for me, it's been not so bad so far.
	A little nausea and just some tiredness from time to time.
	But not too bad.
	Not too bad.
	But my hematologist was telling me that I had to have a scan before I started the chemo because once I started the chemo, the tumors would be gone if they were there.
	And this is how crazy the system is.
	I mean, they hand me the results of my scan.
	I think it was a CAT scan.
	They hand me the results of a CAT scan, and there's no doctor there to interpret it for me.
	Here's a bunch of text that could be life and death for you.
	Good luck.
	Hopefully, you'll have an internet connection so you can look some of this stuff up and try and figure out what's going on.
	I don't know.
	What can I tell you?
	It's a tough system.
	It's a tough system.
	And I think I've always had this, I guess, particular intensity around healthcare when it comes to socialized stuff.
	One of the reasons that socialized healthcare is so tough to change is that people don't really care about the system until they get sick.
	And once they get sick, they're too busy being sick to fight the system.
	So it's one of these very impenetrable bastions of...
	Bismarckian socialism that manages to retain itself like a cyst in the heart of even the vestiges of the free market so what can I tell you it's it's quite exciting but according to the people I've talked to the outcome regimens between the US and Canada once you get into treatment are about the same and I really do want to reinforce that the prognosis is positive and I am entirely convinced that A young death from cancer is not in my
	mindset.
	I know that's magical thinking.
	It's not in my mindset.
	It doesn't determine reality.
	But it's not going to happen from where I stand.
	So I really appreciate everyone's kind wishes and words.
	And I shall remain a thorn in everyone's side, a catfly, in their brain for many, many years to come.
	And, Steph, a couple of questions.
	Will my hair grow back?
	Yeah, I would assume so.
	It hasn't come out yet.
	I think that takes a couple of weeks, but it will.
	Some of the radiation therapy, since it was a jaw thing, some of the radiation therapy may preclude me from growing a beard again in the future, but I would suggest a fairly small price to pay, all things considered.
	But, yeah, so it's a positive prognosis, and of course it's a little scary.
	I'm not going to pretend that I'm sort of Zen Buddha floating above all the concerns of the body, but...
	I've had some positive information from people who say that, you know, a positive and confident mindset does help the body.
	I sort of believe in the unity of the mind and the body.
	And so, from that standpoint, I think it's been a very interesting process.
	It's been a very interesting process.
	A few people have asked me whether, actually more than a few people have asked me whether a prognosis of a potentially fatal illness has It changed my perspectives on God.
	And, you know, I must say that the only possible way to forgive the universe is to recognize that it is uninhabited by divine consciousness.
	I mean, I've never quite understood how people can find comfort in a deity when they get sick.
	I mean, I guess the deity, unless God really, really, really likes me, And wants me to come to him sooner.
	I mean, the idea that a deity would cause me to become ill and somehow I would gain comfort from the idea that there's a deity that would cause me to become ill, it's never made any sense to me.
	And it could just be a limitation of my thinking, but I just never really understood.
	Or the deity that could snap his fingers and make me well.
	It's just silly.
	What is it?
	Is Charles Manson still alive?
	He lived to a ripe old age.
	And the Russian dictators, most of them, they all pretty much died in their sleep.
	Not too ripe an old age, I guess, given the time.
	Not too bad.
	And a lot of the Nazi war criminals are still floating around in their 80s and 90s, or were.
	So, the idea that...
	You know, people...
	I mean, some people praise me, some people curse me, which...
	It's sort of silly.
	I mean, I'm just a person.
	It's really the arguments and the ideas that need to be questioned and opposed, not some individual.
	But I think everyone would, if they were honest, would recognize that I am really striving to achieve the greatest good in the world that is humanly possible.
	I am really striving to achieve the greatest good in the world that is humanly possible.
	And the idea that a deity would strike me down in my prime...
	With a fatal illness is incomprehensible to me that that would bring me any kind of comfort.
	That would be a malevolent universe.
	I mean, if I was an evil guy, yeah, okay, well, sure, maybe that would be, you know, better ways to do it, but then lots of evil guys don't get struck down and so on.
	But the reality is that there is no conception of comfort in the idea that the universe has done something to me other than just accidents of genes and And health and so on.
	So no, it hasn't changed anything.
	It hasn't changed anything as far as a deity goes to me.
	It hasn't, I mean, until the question was asked of me, it hadn't even crossed my mind that it would have any effect.
	Because the reality is, the reality is that if this conversation, if this community, if this approach is right, is true, then I hope you realize and you understand, my friends, that we hold the key to the end of war in our hands.
	We hold the key to the end of tyranny in our hands.
	We hold the key to the end of imprisonment and rape and murder and abuse.
	We hold the key to the end of the human hell of history in our hands.
	If peaceful parenting produces a hierarchy-free society, if peaceful parenting ends the hyper-amygdalene stimulation known as war and criminality, politics, if peaceful parenting can actually completely revise what is called human nature, then we do hold the key to ending evil in the world.
	That is something that is fairly unprecedented and that is something that we should incredibly treasure.
	What an unbelievable opportunity it has been and is and will continue to be to be able to bring a conversation about reshaping human nature through the non-aggression principle, through a respect for the self-ownership of children and others.
	What an incredible opportunity it is to be able to have that conversation.
	What an incredible opportunity it is to have the technology which permits us to have this kind of conversation.
	And that is something that is a unique moment in human history.
	I really do feel like we are standing on the top of Mount Olympus With two silver thimbles and a peace sign held up to the skies calling down the lightning of a peaceful future.
	It really feels that big, that huge.
	And I think it's hard for people to understand what a turning point in history this can be, depending on you, depending on the degree to which you want to live, share, and promote philosophy, non-aggression principle, respect for property rights.
	What an incredible turning point in history this can be.
	This can be the most important conversation the world has ever seen because after the world has seen this conversation, the world will not be recognizable again.
	In the same way, I remember reading some years ago about how, when I was studying a lot of the ancient Greeks and philosophy and so on, somebody saying, but it was so immeasurably long ago and such an immeasurably different mindset And that's true.
	I mean, to go back to ancient Greece would be a very challenging thing because the mindsets were just so unutterably different.
	And I remember for Y2K, 1999, I went to Morocco with a friend of mine because I've always wanted to see the desert and all that.
	It was a very, very different mindset.
	My driver would have to pull over and pray five times a day, couldn't read anything, and then I went straight from there to China for business for about two weeks.
	Where again, I couldn't read anything.
	It was a very different mindset.
	And we aim to make the present a foreign place to the future.
	In the same way that if you read, there's a book called Montailloux, which is a reconstruction of a village in medieval France, based upon, I think there was an inquisition or something occurring there.
	And if you read what people were writing about, it is A very foreign thing.
	Or if you see cult initiation videos, I think there's one for Heaven's Gate somewhere on there.
	I mean, it's just an incredibly foreign mindset and we aim to make the present a foreign place to the future.
	At least I aim to.
	And there is nothing more important occurring in the world than bringing down the ancient red gods of war There is nothing more important going on in the world than bringing down the brutal barrel-of-a-gun hierarchy of statism.
	There is nothing more important going on in the world than bringing down the child mind-shredding superstitions of religiosity.
	There is nothing more important that we can do.
	And I get distracted by other things, but that's my balance.
	That's where I return that this conversation is is the most important thing that is going on in the world today because we can shape the fires of the future from the ashes of the present and all it takes is a reminder of our values and a commitment to their spread and enacting and that remains my goal and this illness is part
	of that goal or at least it can be incorporated into that goal it is a reminder Of the importance of what we are talking about.
	And if anybody else can find a more important conversation in the world, you let me know.
	And I will drop this one and join that one.
	But this is it for me.
	So thank you everybody so much.
	And I look forward to your questions.
	I am all yours now.
	I've had a good deal of chit-chats.
	Alright, first up today we have Miles from New Zealand.
	Good morning, Stefan.
	Well, it's 2.30 here now, so it's well past my bedtime.
	I hope I'm going to be up to the mental challenge.
	Dude, dude, wait, wait, wait.
	Wait before you start.
	What are bitcoins doing tomorrow morning?
	Just kidding.
	I have no idea.
	Too bad.
	I prefer silver.
	Ah, okay, okay.
	All right.
	I must commend you.
	I've spent the last few hours listening to your radio stream, and you certainly do bring up some really good topics that I can identify with.
	I'm always interested in trying to obtain some sort of outcome rather than just sit here with hypothetical, perhaps, discussions.
	And anyway, I'll move on to what I really wanted to talk about.
	And you have raised it in the past.
	I think you called it determination.
	Was it determination?
	Or the determinants?
	Anyway, yes.
	I don't think I quite fall into that category, but what I do say is that as regards choice, it's an illusion, and I would suggest that's probably contrary to the way you feel things, because you believe in free will.
	Would that be true?
	I would not characterize it that way, because you used two non-philosophical terms there.
	You said, this is not how you feel.
	And you said, you believe in.
	And both of those are statements of subjectivity rather than any sort of philosophical rigor.
	So what happens is then if you place the question of free will versus determinism into the realm of aesthetics or taste or personal preference or emotions, then it's not part of philosophy.
	It may be an interesting thing to talk about, like a I like talking about music, but I don't imagine that talking about music is philosophical.
	Okay, then perhaps in the terms of the society we live in, and we're given the illusion that we have choices through life, and I just do not think that's the case, because I try and look at how we actually make choices, and our choices are just based on a small bit of genetics.
	And our past experience.
	So any apparent choice just really is a predetermined outcome based on those genetics and our past experience and nothing else.
	So are you saying that a perception of choice, a belief in free will, is erroneous, right?
	It's a false belief?
	That's true, yes.
	That is my position.
	Okay, so what you're saying is that there is a preferential state That people should choose core truth and they should reject error and they have the choice to choose between truth and error.
	Is that correct?
	No, not quite.
	I mean, if they knew about truth and error, that's only because of a past experience and what they've been taught.
	No, no, sorry.
	You said that there was a...
	Sorry, let's go back and we have to go very slowly over this part because this is where people tend to hit the gas and miss the exit called truth, right?
	So what you're saying is that There are two possible states when it comes to a statement about reality.
	One is that the statement is true.
	The other is that the statement is false.
	Is that correct?
	So there are those two possible states in the universe, right?
	At least in people's minds and how they talk about the world.
	In people's minds, that would be the case.
	But what I'm questioning is...
	No, no, no.
	Sorry, sorry.
	We have to go slow.
	And I'm not trying to interrupt you.
	I'm just trying to establish where it is that you're coming from.
	Okay?
	So...
	So if you could be patient with me while I try and work through your thinking, that would be great.
	So there is a state called true, which is preferable to a state called false, in terms of a proposition, right?
	Yes, I'd go with you that far, but that's not quite the point I'm trying to make.
	I know, but this is the point I'm trying to understand, because I can't get to the point that you make until I understand how truth and falsehood fits into falsehood.
	A deterministic world view.
	Is it preferable for people to say things that are true or to say things that are false or believe things that are true or believe things that are false?
	That would depend on their opinion, which would have been a consequence of their past experiences and maybe a bit of genetics thrown in.
	Well, no.
	See, now you're changing your story, right?
	Because you said that free will was an illusion and that people should basically accept that they don't have a choice, and now I ask you whether people should accept things that are true and reject things that are false, and you're not saying that anymore.
	No, what I'm trying to say is that people think they have a choice, they think they have free will, but that doesn't exist.
	It's nothing to do with what's right or wrong.
	No, I understand that, but I'm talking more about the epistemology rather than jumping straight into the philosophy.
	But are you proposing that there is a preferred state called truth that people should accept?
	Yes, I do.
	That's correct.
	Okay, good.
	I appreciate that.
	Now, how is it possible that there's a choice or an alternative in a deterministic universe?
	So, for instance, if a boulder Is crashing down the side of a mountain, we would not say that there is a preferred place for it to land, right?
	Because it's just crashing down the side of a mountain.
	We wouldn't say, well, it's true if it lands by that tree, but it's false if it lands by that bush, because it's simply obeying the laws of physics, and it's crashing down the side of the hill, and wherever it lands is where it lands.
	There is no preferred state to where the rock ends up.
	Does that make sense?
	Yes, I agree with that.
	Okay.
	So if we are in a deterministic universe, then we are all rocks crashing down a hill.
	And so I'm not really sure how it's possible to say that there's a preferred state called truth for human beings, but there's no preferred state called truth for a rock crashing down a hill.
	Yeah, but I actually think that I'm actually not coming from the strictly determinist point of view.
	It could be confused that way.
	I'm coming from a different view that's certainly a variation on that.
	Well, when you say the choice is an illusion and it's all genetics and physics, then that is a deterministic view.
	Sorry, I'm not saying it's all...
	No, I'm talking about...
	It's not all genetics.
	I'm talking about its past experiences and with a combination of genetics.
	Well, but...
	I mean, if I give you an example, then...
	Past experiences don't mean anything, right?
	Sorry?
	I mean, past experiences don't give you a choice, right?
	I mean, an amoeba has a past experience, and that doesn't mean it has free will, right?
	No, but what I'm suggesting is, as a human being, we have this concept of free will, when, in fact, our free will is just a combination of our past experiences and genetics and nothing else.
	So there is no free will.
	There's no free will, no.
	Okay, so...
	Maybe I'm missing something here because this is getting kind of annoying.
	I feel like we're just dancing around.
	Because you're telling me you're not coming from a strictly deterministic point of view, but there's no such thing as free will at all.
	Well, what the hell are you talking about then?
	Which is it?
	All right.
	Let me give you an example then, all right?
	No, no, no, no.
	Forget the example.
	I'm working about the logic here.
	So there's no such thing as free will.
	Right?
	So this is what's annoying about determinists.
	I'm not telling you that you're wrong because I'm annoyed.
	I'm just telling you that I'm annoyed.
	Because determinists say there's no such thing as free will and then you point out that there can't be a preferential state called truth then.
	And then they say, well, but I'm not a strict determinist.
	And it's like, well, if you just say there's no such thing as free will, then you are a strict determinist.
	I mean, sorry, that's not my definition.
	That's just reality, right?
	So if you are a strict determinist, then there cannot be a preferential state called truth.
	And there cannot be a non-preferential state called falsehood or error or mistake, right?
	So you kind of want to have your cake and eat it too, right?
	You want to tell people that they're wrong and then you want to tell them that they have no choice.
	In other words, you want them to be rocks crashing down a hill but you want to say to them, go left, go right, that's not right, go left, this is not the right, bounce over here, don't bounce there, don't bounce there.
	It's like, but that doesn't make any sense.
	It's like yelling at the weather, right?
	I mean the weather is doing what the weather is doing based upon physics.
	Yeah.
	I don't want to tell them anything as such.
	Well, no, but you're telling me something.
	I'm trying to discuss a point with you, and you have...
	It's to do with society and the way people are perceived of making up their free will.
	It's to do with, not with rocks coming down the hill or anything like that, it's to do with the way people make their minds up.
	I'm just trying to make it as simple as possible for me to understand, but maybe you'll understand where I'm coming from.
	And all I'm saying is that there are only two things that affect Somebody, when they make an apparent choice, and that is a combination of genetics in a small way, and their past experiences.
	Now, if you think that's determinist, I beg to listen to your opinion.
	No, I'm saying that's determinist because you say there's no free will.
	I mean, that's the very definition of determinism.
	Sorry if that's confusing to you, but that is the very definition of determinism.
	So you disagree then, but you feel that there is free will?
	Well, again, as I say, it's not a feeling, right?
	I mean, it's just that determinism is an unsustainable position, logically.
	Why?
	Well, I just explained it.
	Because you're saying that there's an incorrect position called free will and people should prefer the truth over error.
	And then you say that people have no choice.
	And there also cannot be a preferred state in a closed system.
	Right?
	There is no preferred state.
	Like, so think of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
	Are the asteroids in the right or wrong place?
	Are they in the correct or incorrect place?
	Are they in a true or false place?
	Are they in a moral or immoral place?
	The question would make no sense, right?
	Correct.
	Right, because they're simply obeying the laws of physics and they are obeying, you know, the laws of physics.
	There's no way to be more inclusive than that, right?
	So there's no preferred state for an asteroid to be orbiting between Mars and Jupiter in the asteroid belts, right?
	And so if you say to me, well, the asteroids are where they are based upon the laws of physics and They have no choice about where they're going.
	They're simply bouncing off each other and floating through space and obeying gravity and all that kind of stuff and centrifugal forces and so on.
	And then if so, if you were to say to me, the asteroids are doing what they're doing based upon the laws of physics, but the asteroids should choose to change their position, that would be contradictory, right?
	Yes, I wouldn't say that they should choose to change their position.
	Would you say that they're in an incorrect position?
	No, I wouldn't.
	But that's what you said about free will, right?
	You said that people believe in free will, but they're wrong.
	Well, I guess I suppose it comes down to your determination of what free will is then.
	I mean...
	No, see, you're slipping away from the topic.
	This is what happens with determinists every single time I talk to determinists, is you point out a logical inconsistency And you all change the topic.
	And I understand that.
	I mean, I do.
	I mean, obviously, there's emotional reasons why you have this particular perspective.
	I mean, there are emotional reasons as well why I have mine, but I've tried to really be rigorous in the logic.
	And there would be great comfort in determinism in many ways, of course.
	Can we just leave the determinist definition out and just consider just the social environment of humans and actually how they make their minds up?
	So would you say that when people come to a Falkner Road, they have a choice as to whether to go left or right?
	I'm not sure that that's really important when it comes to free will.
	I mean, animals can do that.
	They can choose to go left or right.
	Yes, but what I'm saying is that whether they'll go left or right will depend on what they've learnt in the past.
	Well, no, I'll tell you very briefly the way that I would characterize choice, and I've got a three-part video series on this on YouTube and also on my podcast feed.
	But the way that I would characterize choice is that when it comes to human beings, we have unique, it would seem, among creatures, we have the capacity to compare potential actions to universal standards.
	You know, the one thing that's unique about human beings, which is why we have physics and dogs don't, I mean, dogs have instinctual physics, they can catch a frisbee, but they can't do the math, right?
	We have the capacity to compare our actions to a universal standard.
	Now, this doesn't mean that we always will, it doesn't mean that we always do, but we have that potential.
	And to me, somebody who does not have access to these universal standards doesn't fundamentally have what I would call choice.
	I don't think that choice is somehow innate to human beings.
	And so, for instance, if it turned out tomorrow that if we did have red ruby slippers and we could click our heels three times, we could fly, nobody would say we didn't choose to fly beforehand.
	It was simply that we had no idea we could, right?
	So it wasn't like human beings resisted going to the moon from Christ's birth until 1969 years afterwards.
	It was simply that it was not possible.
	So, to me, the purpose of philosophy is to bring universal standards to people, to bring rational arguments to people, And that way, when they're contemplating an action, they have the choice to focus on comparing their actions to a universal standard.
	And if they choose to do that – sorry, if they – and I think that is a choice, right?
	You can choose to think or you can choose to avoid thinking, right?
	So if people stop and take the time and say, well, it's really important for me to think through what it is that I'm doing.
	What am I going to compare my potential actions with?
	Well, I'm going to compare them with a universal standard and so on.
	Then they gain a choice.
	If they avoid thinking, then they don't have the choice because they have avoided thinking.
	Obviously, choice has to involve thinking.
	Let me just give you a very brief practical example because that's all very theoretical.
	A very brief practical example would be that I make the argument that spanking children is a violation of the non-aggression principle.
	And this is causing quite a stir and quite some debate in libertarian and anarchic circles.
	So libertarians accept that we should not initiate the use of force.
	But to my knowledge, this has never really been applied to spanking or to verbal aggression and so on with regards to children.
	And I've also argued that telling children about hell is a violation of the non-aggression principle because it is a direct threat and so on.
	And if you tried to do that to an adult who believed you, that would obviously be immoral.
	So now, libertarians or whoever, before they heard these arguments, didn't make the connection between spanking and the non-aggression principle.
	Now, once they hear these arguments, then if they are thinking of spanking their children, they have heard the argument and now they can choose, if they want, to compare...
	Spanking, the act of spanking to the principles of non-aggression that they hold as the highest value.
	Now, they may blank out and just hit their kids anyway, in which case they have chosen to avoid thinking about what they're doing.
	They've chosen to avoid comparing their actions to a universal standard.
	And they're responsible for that choice now because they've heard the argument and they understand the position and so on.
	Unfortunately, many, many thousands of parents who are listening to these arguments are saying, wow, I really do accept the non-aggression principle.
	I'd never thought about it in terms of spanking, but I cannot find an argument against what you're saying, so I'm going to refrain from spanking.
	And that's because the principles, they are choosing to compare their actions to a universal standard.
	And so that would be my argument for choice.
	And for free will.
	Now, I had the choice to put forward these arguments or to refrain from putting forward these arguments, and I knew how controversial and difficult it was going to be.
	But, you know, we do the right thing, particularly for the helpless in society, because it's really important that we raise the standards of human interactions, particularly ethical interactions around which spanking is a pretty key one.
	So, when it comes to choice, our capacity to compare our potential actions to A universal standard is, to me, where choice exists.
	It is not something that is innate.
	It is a muscle that you develop.
	It requires outside information.
	It requires outside arguments.
	I was a socialist when I was younger.
	It seems to me highly unlikely I would have become a libertarian, let alone an anarchist, without the influence of a great many external thinkers.
	But I had the choice whether or not to pursue those ideas, and I have the choice to compare my potential actions to these Universal standards.
	And that's as close as I can get to the potential for choice that we have in the world.
	My suggestion is, though, that a great many people don't have those universal standards in order to actually have that apparent choice.
	So where would they be without the universal standard?
	They would still be spanking.
	I agree.
	Very many people either don't have these universal standards or they avoid them, ignore them.
	That's closer to my point.
	My point really is that a lot of people in different degrees don't have access to these universal standards.
	And as a consequence, they follow paths that are probably less than otherwise ideal.
	Oh, I completely agree.
	I mean, it's the tragedy of culture, right?
	I mean, culture is basically bullshit momentum philosophy from past errors.
	So, you know, oh, I was raised a Sarastrian.
	I'm going to raise my kid a Sarastrian.
	No choice, no thought in the matter and so on.
	And people, it feels like humanity is half a broken record sometimes just repeating all the past mistakes.
	If you sort of look at Islam over the world, it seems like a lot of that stuff is just being reproduced over and over and over again.
	Or it's like, hey, you know, we don't like religion, so let's have a huge government instead.
	It's like, okay, so just another irrational entity that you're promoting to the apex and summit of human religion.
	So I agree with you.
	It is brutal.
	And there's two aspects to that, I think.
	The first is that there are people who've never had any exposure to other ideas.
	I mean, you think of some poor kid growing up in the hills of Afghanistan.
	He's not got any particular options or choices.
	You can't expect or even imagine that he would invent a human progressive philosophy on his own.
	I mean, this would be incomprehensible.
	And he genuinely doesn't really have any choice and I would not hold that child or even that adult in particular morally responsible for his belief set because he'd simply not been exposed to any others and can't invent them all himself, particularly when it would probably be very harmful to him to do so, right?
	To question the tribal beliefs.
	But then there are other people who've been exposed to better ideas or to more consistent ideas and who value better and consistent ideas.
	And then reject those.
	And that's a different moral category for me.
	You'd have to ask why they rejected what you would have felt was the better moral value.
	And all I'm saying is that there would have been a clear reason within themselves as to why they were rejected.
	And that must have been as a basis of either something to do with their genetics or their past experiences, which told them that they should reject this, so say, better path.
	Okay, in which case you're based on determinism and there's no such thing as a better path, right?
	Because everybody's choosing based upon genetics and past experience.
	So there's no better or worse, right?
	I think there is because I think that people do have the choice to compare their states to better options.
	But I think what happens is there's a moral courage that's necessary to make choices that fly in the face of cultural prejudice.
	For instance, if people don't have the capacity to compare existing states to better states, then there'd never be a cell phone upgrade.
	There'd never be a faster computer.
	People upgrade their cell phones and get faster computers because they're like, wow, this is better than the last one.
	I have a standard called speed or features or accessibility or whatever it is.
	And they say, well, this is better.
	Look, there are more check marks here than here, and so I'm going to upgrade.
	So people do have the capacity to compare their existing states to better states, which is why we get all this kind of cool new stuff.
	It's sort of why people go and see new movies rather than keep watching the same movie over and over again because it's a better state and all.
	So people do have the capacity to compare their existing standards to – or their existing stuff to better states or ideal states and move towards it.
	It's just that there's no – You don't usually get condemned or criticized for upgrading your cell phone or buying a faster computer or buying a bigger house or buying a car with some new features or whatever because that's not a moral standard and culture doesn't usually have much to do with that any more than Sharia law has to do with traffic signals.
	But the reality is that when it comes to things like I'm not going to spank my children or I am going to not indoctrinate my children into religion.
	Then you are going to face a lot of criticism and problems from everyone around you.
	And the reason you do that is because if you make the choice, the choice becomes possible for them.
	And rather than choose, they would rather reject the existence of choice by attacking people who make choices that open up free will and the possibility of good and bad behavior for them.
	And some people will focus on the principles that And do what is hard, and some people will not.
	Now, as to why people do that, to me, there's no answer.
	That's the whole point of free will.
	If there is an answer to you, then there's no free will.
	What differentiates those two different people?
	One who can, so say, make better choices, and the other one that doesn't?
	And all I'm saying is that that must come from somewhere.
	Well, no.
	How do you know that it comes from somewhere?
	Uh...
	Because it's part of who we are.
	And, you know, all we are is, in our brains, a collection of nerve connections.
	And that's it.
	So somewhere in there, there's a difference between the person who can make a preferred choice, a better choice, than the one who can't.
	And all I'm saying is...
	Sorry, you're obviously intelligent enough to know all about emergent properties, right?
	So that's like saying all we are is a collection of cells.
	Well, no.
	I mean, you're a collection of cells...
	You know, 10 minutes after you're dead, but it's still quite different from being alive, right?
	So the fact that life is an emergent property of a combination of cells and energy and electricity and all that kind of good goopy lifey stuff, the fact that we have an emergent property called life is not...
	It's not simply an assembly of cells, right?
	You could take someone's body, put it through a liquefier and put it in a bag and they would be quite different even though the matter would still be there.
	They would be quite different than before they went through the wood chipper or whatever.
	So the fact that we have an emergent property called life is important.
	The fact that we can have an emergent property called free will that is greater than the simple machinery of our parts is certainly possible.
	I don't know for sure.
	Determinism could be true.
	Absolutely it could be true.
	I've always said that.
	I do know that determinists don't believe in determinism the moment they try to argue me or other people into a better position because they're saying there's a preferred state.
	They're saying that people should prefer truth over falsehood and all that.
	I know that determinists must accept at least one alternative in the universe called truth and falsehood when they argue against free will.
	I I don't need to actually lift a finger to disprove your position just because you're doing that by attempting to educate other people into a better set of beliefs or a more accurate set of beliefs.
	That's sort of the first point when it comes to free will.
	The second is that you don't know.
	You don't know why people choose better or worse things.
	I don't know either.
	I don't, but I don't believe that it's not rational.
	I have got a point to make that why some people make better decisions than others.
	That's the point.
	That is my central point.
	I'm sorry, what is your point?
	Why do people make better decisions than others?
	Yes, and all I'm saying is that that is just a combination of genetics and past experiences, neither of which they had any control over.
	Okay, well, I'm afraid we haven't moved one bit from the beginning of our conversation, which means to me that it's a good time to move on to the next caller.
	So I really do appreciate your time, but thank you very much.
	I'm afraid that the mantra of experience and genetics doesn't really answer anything.
	It's just another way of saying, I don't know the answer, but I'm going to make up some answer.
	And you haven't addressed any of the logical problems that have occurred, and you haven't changed your position at all.
	all.
	So I'm afraid for you, I think determinism is true because you're not actually open to arguments and therefore it's going to have an emotional kind of resonance to you because you're not listening to other people.
	You're not able to accept other people's feedback or criticize it in any rational way.
	And therefore it's going to feel like determinism is true because that's how you're acting.
	But that's your personal choice in how you act.
	That has nothing to do with reality, truth or philosophy.
	So if you could move on to the next caller, James, I would really appreciate it.
	All right.
	And our next caller today is Eustace.
	or Justus.
	Hello.
	Hello, hello.
	First of all, I want to thank you for taking my call, and in general, thank you for all the work you've done.
	It's been more helpful than I can describe.
	My pleasure.
	Thank you so much.
	And what I wanted to call him about was a question about my name, actually.
	Over the course of the changes in self-work I've been doing...
	I've come up with the idea of maybe I should change my name from my legal name.
	It's a problem I haven't been worked out.
	I'm not really sure why I want to and why I haven't done it after the ideas occurred to me.
	I was wondering if you had any thoughts on what that would mean.
	You mean I'm changing your name?
	Yes.
	Well, I mean, I can only assume you will be changing your name to Free Domain Radio.
	Other than that, I can't imagine.
	Look, I think it's fine.
	I mean, would we know Freddie Mercury had he been still known as Farouk Bulsara?
	I don't know.
	I mean, you can choose your own name and that's a choice that you can make that's different from that which you were labeled in through history and whatever it is.
	So I think it's a fine idea.
	Okay.
	And, you know, at one level I think that too.
	But what I really don't understand is what's holding me back from doing that.
	Well, it's tribalism, right?
	I mean, you have a connection to your tribe based upon your name.
	Right?
	So, I would assume that there is, you know, we do to some degree naturally feel like trees with roots into the ground based on our history.
	So, there may be some sense of uprooting yourself or pulling yourself out of your history based upon the name.
	Yeah.
	And, you know, in general, consciously at least, I think of that as a good thing.
	You know, most of my history is not something I want to stay rooted to.
	But I guess would it be the case that maybe I don't fully believe that?
	Well, I don't know whether you do or don't fully believe it.
	But...
	Why...
	I mean, if you've escaped your past, then...
	It doesn't matter what your name is, so to speak, right?
	Yeah, I would agree with that statement.
	And, I mean, it is some amount of work to change your name and all that kind of stuff, right?
	Right.
	So you may be hoping that the name change would do something to you in terms of your history that maybe it won't?
	Yeah, I think I've been worried about that.
	Maybe I should fill in some more detail.
	So, there was a time when I closed off my social media accounts.
	All of them, I just kind of erased myself from the internet because, you know, there were people I didn't want contacting me.
	And when I came back online, I was using a generated name.
	The Justus was a randomly generated, you know, handle that I used.
	And what's happened is I've started to use that name in more and more places.
	But in person, I still go by my given name.
	And that's kind of creating a conflict for me.
	That on one hand, I think, well, why don't I just change my name to the one I use online that all of these new people I'm meeting know me by.
	But then there's the given name that just feels more familiar.
	And so it's like kind of a pull in two different directions.
	Right.
	Right.
	Well, I mean, you can of course always try and change your name and change it back, right?
	See how it feels.
	If you don't like it, right?
	This could be one of the things where, you know, taking the action will probably figure out whether it works for you or not.
	Yeah, that seems like such a simple answer.
	It's like, why didn't that occur to me?
	Yeah, I mean, I don't know what theoretical stuff could occur for you.
	I can certainly understand a desire to change your name, but I would certainly caution you against, as I've sort of talked about before, there is no external solution to the problems of insecurity.
	There is no external solution to the problems of insecurity.
	You know, oh, if I get a nose job, or if I get a hair transplant, or if I lose 20 pounds, or if I gain a six-pack, or if I get a faster car, if I get a better job, more money, there's no...
	Right?
	There's no external solution.
	So if you change your name, there may be good practical reasons for doing that.
	It will not change any of your inner emotional state.
	It will not change your history, of course.
	You know that.
	You know this.
	I don't need to tell you.
	I'm sort of embarrassed to point it out because it's so obvious.
	But there is a massive amount of economic activity that is complete exploitive bullshit, which is to do with change your outside, change your inside.
	Change your outside, change your inside.
	It is...
	It is ridiculous.
	You know, if your car engine doesn't work, repainting the car ain't going to fix it, right?
	And so this philosophy says work from the inside out, and then your outside doesn't matter.
	And, you know, the sort of shallow, broken-souled capitalism that preys upon insecurities says go from the outside in and everything will be great.
	You know, tweak the exterior and your transmission will fix itself.
	And that's nonsense.
	But people are desperate for that, right?
	Because if you change your exterior, you don't have to change your tribe, right?
	I think the stereotypical young Jewish girl getting an O's job, she's not like, well, people don't say, well, you're not Jewish anymore.
	I don't know.
	Maybe it's a rite of passage.
	I don't know.
	But the reality is that if you change your thinking, that threatens your tribe.
	That threatens your community.
	But if you change your outside...
	Then people can make money from that, and you can pretend that you're doing something to improve yourself without actually having to change or threaten any of the false beliefs of your community.
	So the young Jewish girl who goes for a nose job is not considered non-Jewish, but the young Jewish girl who's studying Spinoza may end up quite far away from Judaism, and that is a huge problem.
	So it's sort of shallow capitalism, but it's also deep tribalism that tries to distract people with Repainting that which is fundamentally broken rather than fixing it.
	So just be careful about that.
	I actually feel it's like I have changed my tribe.
	You know, a completely different tribe that I'm in now.
	And this given name, it kind of feels like a connection to the old tribe that I don't want anymore.
	Right, right, right.
	But it is just a name, right?
	So it is not...
	It is not your...
	I have the same name as when I was a Christian and a socialist.
	It is not...
	But the mind is different, right?
	Right.
	There's nothing wrong with it if you want to change it.
	I think that's fine.
	There may be good practical reasons for doing that.
	But it won't change your relationship to your tribe in any fundamental way.
	I just wanted to mention that.
	Yeah.
	I think I know that intellectually.
	I might still feel this tug of...
	You know, irrational hope, though, at some level.
	And I think that's worth examining and exploring, and I don't know the answer to that, and that would be a pretty long conversation, and we do have a massive queue today, but I just wanted to mention that if that is a deep sort of emotional hope, then you need to deal with that and focus on exploring that rather than change your name and hope that'll fix it, in my opinion.
	Yeah, that...
	That sounds like good advice from my point of view.
	And maybe that's why I've been holding off on it.
	Because I really want to make sure it's the right thing to do before I make a change.
	You know, I don't want to change something for the wrong reason.
	Right.
	Yeah, I mean, I certainly like a name that wasn't so hard to spell out to people.
	It's not half my life.
	Silent X. But it's not, you know, cost-benefit doesn't really work out for me.
	So that would be my suggestion.
	If you have a desire to break free of something in the past...
	I think the label is not going to do it for you, but it may be a way of avoiding something that you need to, or one that can be more productive to examine.
	That would be my suggestion.
	Okay.
	Well, I think that answers my question to the extent of what we're going to do today, and it gives me some more stuff to think about.
	Oh, you're very welcome.
	I'm glad it was helpful, and thanks for your interest in continued participation in the conversation as always.
	Thank you.
	All right.
	Let's move on.
	Alright, next up is Asker.
	Hello, can you hear me?
	Hello, I can.
	Good.
	The reason I'm calling...
	Oh yeah, let me first thank you for taking my call.
	And I want to say that I was very, very sad when I saw that video you made where you explained your recent medical condition.
	And I'm very sorry to hear that.
	It's been in my thoughts quite a lot lately.
	I just wanted to say that and I wish you all the best and I look forward to getting a new video where you say it's all cleaned up.
	Thank you, I appreciate it.
	Now, the other reason I called today is to talk a little bit about myself this time.
	The last times I've called you, which I guess the first time was like two years ago or something, I've mostly been talking about sort of things that were very far away from myself.
	Sort of abstract libertarian kind of stuff.
	But I want to first explain that one of the sort of defining things about me has been that I'm very obese.
	I'm very overweight and so I've been sort of looking towards changing this because I figure if If I can develop this kind of self-knowledge and change that kind of thing, it should be possible to stop being obese, even though many people fail in their attempts to do so.
	I recently got a very good friend who suggested to me I start juice fasting.
	Two weeks, ever since the 18th of April.
	I haven't eaten anything.
	I've only been drinking juice and I have lost some weight and I am consulting a physician.
	My specific question is that Sort of to continue on what you were talking with the last listener.
	If I happen to lose a lot of weight, I would guess that what's inside of me wouldn't change.
	But at the same time, I have heard these stories about people who have lost a lot of weight, for example, through the gastric bypass surgery.
	And they have changed character.
	Like, Where that weight loss or that surgery was the cause.
	There was a Dr.
	Phil show where this guy, he was very obese so he got this surgery and he lost a lot of weight and he went from this sort of happy fat guy to this kind of angry, angry guy, this a bit abusive guy.
	So, how do I sort of prepare myself for...
	Maybe I'll feel different about a lot of things if I lose a lot of weight.
	How do I sort of deal with that in a way that I don't sort of...
	I don't want to become a bad guy.
	You know what I mean?
	I don't want to feel just towards screaming at people and that sort of thing.
	Well, why are you overweight?
	Well, I have always been since I was a child and it's something I've been asking myself and what I've sort of reached as a conclusion is that my father he was a drunk and that he would be sober for a period of time then he would be drunk for a shorter period of time completely drunk like for weeks then he would be sober and then he would be drunk then he would be sober then he would be drunk and I guess I felt a I felt very insecure about
	it and eventually I felt very bad about it.
	Also, I felt very bad in public school about it and about many things.
	I guess I just used food as a way to comfort myself.
	But I have not explored this with a therapist yet.
	Right.
	Right.
	Now...
	How do you feel about sex?
	Well, I haven't had much of it, you know, with other people.
	Right.
	Got it.
	I guess that, yeah.
	And I haven't.
	So I imagine that that might change if I lose a lot of weight.
	I mean, I'm keeping it real.
	I do think that it has made it very difficult for me and that I have...
	And that women I have sort of looked at have kind of...
	I have kind of had...
	It is a sort of pre...
	It has sort of made sure I would get rejected no matter what, right?
	Sure.
	Well, they looked at the outside of me and never wanted to see...
	So I never got to show any insight, you know?
	And so...
	So I guess...
	But I have...
	On occasion, this was years ago, like when I was 19 and 20, I occasionally went to prostitutes, basically, but I only did that a few times.
	So that's basically the sex part, I would say.
	Right, so you didn't actually talk about your feelings, which is not shocking, right?
	But I asked what you think or feel about sex.
	And you gave me descriptors.
	Yeah, I tend to do that, I think.
	Well, what I feel about sex is...
	I feel frustrated, I guess, in some ways.
	I have, certainly, on some of those occasions I mentioned earlier where I sort of felt like I got no chance at all.
	Might as well not even show up.
	And that made me very frustrated and also a bit angry because, you know, you would see...
	Because I would observe others, right?
	And I would see that what it took was nothing good in terms of morality or in terms of virtue or in terms of anything like that.
	And I saw these people kind of getting this sort of getting it on, you know, then talking and then going to some private room at a party or whatever and They did nothing that was virtuous to achieve that, if you know what I mean.
	Oh, I know.
	It made me very frustrated, I guess.
	No, I know.
	No, I know.
	I mean, I've mentioned this before.
	I knew a guy when I was single.
	I played squash with him, and he was a real player, a good-looking guy.
	And he was a real player, and he would have sex with...
	More than one woman a day kind of thing, keeping them all juggling and so on.
	And the women were all just dying to get with him and be with him.
	I guess he was an arm candy.
	He was like a status symbol for the shallow women.
	He was like, well, he's really good looking and that makes me valuable as a woman or whatever.
	If my girlfriends will envy me or whatever it is.
	And one time he got the flu and this woman called him and just kept calling him and calling him and was hysterical that he might be upset with her or whatever.
	And he just couldn't get to the phone because he was sick and all that.
	And I just thought, man, you're like a – I didn't hang out with him much after hearing that story because it's just like, man, you're like a – you're just like a scumbag.
	And you're an enabled scumbag, all these women clustering all over you because you're good looking and it's like – it's vile.
	And there is a vileness to – in my opinion, there is a vileness to empty genetic sex.
	And that is...
	So from that standpoint, you know, the sex is a reward for virtue.
	Hell, I mean, mostly punishment is the reward for virtue.
	They say no good deed goes unpunished.
	But let me go back.
	So I just want to sort of...
	I mean, I think I can get where you're coming from from that standpoint.
	You know, like, see the enemy kind of thing.
	But I'm always interested in the early germinations of things like obesity because, boy, I mean, what I get from...
	Kids who grow up obese is an unbelievable sense of isolation.
	Like a truly yawning interstellar gap of isolation.
	Because monitoring your child's health is such a fundamental and key component of parenting that kids who grow up obese would seem to me and you know this is just my thought so of course you're The reality of your experience trumps any of my theories, as always.
	But help me understand how this was not dealt with.
	I mean, there had to be crap in the house for you to eat, so your parents had to keep buying stuff that was bad for you.
	Did they not take you to doctors?
	Did the doctors not tell you to lose weight?
	Did the doctors not deal with them with a nutrition plan?
	How on earth did this not only start, but continue?
	This is sort of incomprehensible to me.
	Yeah, that's a really good question.
	I just want to mention one more thing about my childhood.
	It wasn't that I wanted to leave this out.
	I guess I just forgot it.
	When I was growing up, my family were Jehovah's Witnesses.
	And I was really intelligent.
	And that's just a recipe for disaster.
	So, when I was a kid, I would be taken to this congregation and public school.
	And I was intelligent.
	So that made that...
	Oh, man, just thinking about it now.
	I guess that was a good reason why I forgot it.
	Now, yeah, I was taken to people to try to help me.
	I was taken to...
	And my mother kept...
	Trying all kinds of things, trying to say, well, maybe we won't have so much candy around, we won't have all that.
	But what I would do when I was a kid, I would feel that I need to eat right now.
	I felt a strong need for eating.
	Not like I was hungry, in the sense that I guess other people feel hungry, but just that I need to eat.
	I need to eat.
	So I would eat things that were in the cupboard.
	Even healthy things like oak meal.
	Oh, I would eat tons of that.
	But if you eat enough of that, it made me fat too.
	And once I started to understand that you could go into stores and give them currency and they would give you candy, I ate a lot of bad things.
	So that's kind of how.
	But I think you're right about that isolation thing, because I guess I did feel...
	When I went to those congregations, like, I always knew that something was wrong.
	Like, I always sort of, can this be real?
	I mean, and I just...
	I guess I just ate kind of to deal with that, but I'm not sure exactly.
	I'm not sure.
	Right.
	Well, the other thing, sorry, the other thing too is that I was thinking the other day about why I was open to the ideas of anarchism, and I think one of the things was that I went from a totalitarian boarding school where I would get Caned on the ass for climbing over a fence to get a ball if it wasn't in the rules.
	I mean, it was a real 1984 situation with the usual snitches and backstabbers and all that.
	I went from that to when I was home with my mom.
	I mean, she was...
	I mean, laissez-faire isn't even the word for it because that's sort of a benevolent neglect.
	But I would just get home from school and just go out and play until...
	Until nighttime.
	I'd go and do whatever I want.
	I didn't even when I was five, but certainly when I got back from boarding school at the age of eight or nine, I'd just go out and play and play and play.
	And now when you're out playing with other kids, you're usually not eating and you certainly are most likely to be exercising, right?
	And that's part of the solitariness.
	It's not just solitariness within your family, but it's also solitariness with other children.
	And it becomes sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy because as you gain weight, you're less likely to want to go out and Play with the kids.
	They might be mean or you might not have the stamina to stay up with the games they're playing and so on.
	Would you say that there was this distance from other children as well?
	In some ways.
	In some ways.
	But I also had...
	I did have a circle of people I would play with or children I would play with.
	Other boys.
	And we would do physical activities and...
	But I would just...
	And I did go to play football.
	I mean, you know, association football.
	And I was too fat for it, you know.
	But I still went and I went and went and went.
	All until I was like 12 or 13.
	The problem I faced was also that I wanted to do all these things, but I also wanted to eat a lot of things.
	So whenever I was home alone, I ate a lot of things.
	And I remember the first time I sort of became aware that I was fat was when I was sort of like, I guess, five or six.
	So even before then, I had already become a problem for me.
	When I was at that age.
	So when I came into school, it was already on.
	It wasn't something that began in school.
	You see, I did have physical activity and I was with other children.
	But I guess I just...
	I don't know.
	I don't know, really.
	All right.
	Well, I'm going to toss a few thoughts your way.
	And these are either going to be valuable because they're useful and true or they're going to be valuable at least in terms of eliminating some possibilities of why this might have occurred.
	I would definitely look at the isolation thing for sure and lack of connection.
	But I will tell you about a theory.
	You're a very smart guy obviously so I will try and keep it very brief.
	I will tell you about a theory.
	I think that if you grow up in a household that you would never want to reproduce in your adult life, I think this causes a very fundamental both dysfunction and potential in our lives.
	Right?
	So I never wanted to get married to anyone within a million miles of my mom.
	I was like, oh my god.
	I would like – I'd rather have my arm cut off than end up like my dad.
	That just seemed to me like the very worst thing in the world.
	And that wasn't just true for my life.
	It was true for almost all of my friends, looking at their parents, looking at their marriages, looking at their lives.
	I was like, god, I'd rather crawl out of my own skin through my own ass than end up where these people are.
	Now that's kind of fundamentally disorienting and liberating.
	And so if you didn't like and respect your parents' marriage, if you didn't love and respect your parents' choices, if you didn't see the great value of your parents' marriage, then in a way...
	There's a strong incentive to not groom yourself sexually, to not make yourself attractive, to not enter into what you may unconsciously perceive as the grim, thorny trap of reproduction.
	Marriage is about babies, and babies are about genetics, and genetics are about cultural control, sadly, so often.
	And so if you looked around your society and you said, you know what everyone has?
	I don't think I want that at all.
	Then you're kind of free in a way but at the same time you may wish to keep temptation at bay.
	The temptation of being snagged or trapped into a marriage or a parenthood that would be abhorrent to you or at least based upon your immediate family, maybe your extended family, maybe your friends' families that you just don't want to have anything to do with.
	And so You know, say the best way to keep food out a kid's mouth is not have it in the house.
	I mean, they can't go drive and get it, right?
	So you keep temptation away.
	And obesity may be a way of keeping this kind of temptation away.
	In other words, if you looked at your parents' marriage and you said, I really, really don't want that.
	That's horrible.
	That's dangerous.
	That would be destructive to me.
	And looking around, it doesn't look like there are a whole other better set of options.
	I mean...
	I myself never in particular wanted to get married.
	It was something you sort of wanted, you were supposed to do or whatever.
	But I had dreams and conversations with my therapist years ago about I'm plugging the blind photocopier.
	Just stop.
	Don't get married.
	Don't have children.
	Because it's a disaster.
	It's a trap.
	It's an enslavement.
	It is unworthy of any human being.
	Particularly men who have any grasp of statistics, right?
	As some people have written, why would you get involved in a business venture with more than a 50% chance of failure which would put you in debt for the next 20 years and might end you up in prison for non-payment of exorbitant demands or requirements?
	And so if family life was not something you wanted, at least the family life as it was portrayed to you or as it was inflicted on you, dare I say, If that's not what you wanted and if in fact that was abhorrent to you, then I think fat is a way of keeping the temptation of sexuality at bay.
	It's a way of making sure that you don't get snared in that trap.
	And there of course are the biological urges and so on but the gamblers don't go to Vegas and people who are afraid of replicating a disastrous marriage Don't have people get physically close to them.
	And obesity is one way of doing that.
	I don't know that this is true.
	Of course, right?
	I mean, I'm just putting it out there as a possibility.
	What do you think when I'm talking about it?
	Well, I understand the theory.
	I do.
	And I can't really tell if it's true or not.
	What I think is that I began to sort of think about girls, I guess, around the age as other boys do, which is sort of around, I guess, 10 to 12, I guess.
	And I was already obese when I got to that point.
	So even before...
	Even before puberty, I had already been obese all my life.
	As long as I understood what fat was, I had been it.
	So I guess it's sort of...
	I think that...
	The way I have been thinking about it myself is that it's this sort of urge I have to constantly eat.
	Right?
	I have been feeling, okay, there's a problem.
	Well, you need to eat.
	Okay, you just got some money.
	Well, then you need to go to Burger King or whatever.
	Food has been this very important part of my life.
	This act of eating has had a strong emotional benefit for me in the short term.
	What I would do, for example, Before I began on this journey trying to lose weight for real this time, I would have money and I would be like, okay, I'm bored.
	I want to do something.
	I want to feel good.
	Let's go have a kebab or whatever.
	So I would go and I eat some fast food.
	And I guess I have certainly never...
	It hasn't been in my mind what that theory proposes, but I need more time to think about it, I think.
	Yeah, look, I mean, I understand that sexuality in children does not start with puberty, right?
	I mean, that's just the reality.
	I mean, obviously, the physical capacity starts in puberty, but I mean, I remember in boarding school, there was this one girl, and she was really cute, and all the boys were just mad about her.
	I mean, there were no dates.
	I don't think anyone ever kissed her, but I can still, like, God, 40 years later, I can still pick her out in a photo of a thousand kids like that.
	So the fact that you may have made yourself less romantically desirable prior to puberty does not in any way, shape, or form, I think, diminish the theory.
	It doesn't prove it, of course, right?
	But I think that that's not the fact that you were overweight before that.
	But I think, I mean, it's almost axiomatic in that you obviously, if you have, if you do end up getting married and having kids, you don't want to re- Re-inflict what was inflicted on you, right?
	You don't want your kid to be there.
	Yeah, you don't want to be in that kind of situation So there's gonna have to be some significant changes some some things that you don't want and don't like Now where you are in terms of food well, you've got a furnace to feed right?
	I mean you have the habits of decades you have the the fat cells that demand their food you have the entire environment that that has been set up so now It's become sort of a self-feeding beast I would imagine, again, I'm certainly no nutritionist, but I would imagine that is the case, that changing those habits is going to be really important.
	But again, I'm only going to tell you what I would do and let you move on to the next caller, but if I were in your shoes, I would figure out if I wanted to get married.
	Do I want to get married?
	Do I want to have children?
	Is there a way that I could picture getting married and having children that that would really work for me?
	And if not, then That's something to then say, okay, well then, if I don't want to get married and have kids, then my mating display is going to be diminished.
	And if my mating display is going to be diminished, how am I going to stay healthy if I don't need to be attractive?
	It's just, again, things to ponder.
	And if I do, then how am I going to change so that I can be a different kind of parent than the way I was parented?
	Those would be important things to work on, but...
	To me, weight and sexuality are correlated.
	As my good friend Nash has pointed out, and I'm not saying this is your case, but a lot of people who are sexually abused as children end up putting on a lot of weight because they think that they were raped because they were attractive or they want to stave off any further sexuality because of the abhorrence they feel as the result of their abuse as children, the way of keeping people at a distance and managing physical contact and so on.
	And this kind of stuff can occur, and adverse childhood experiences are sadly correlated, A, with cancer, A, thanks mom, and B, with obesity.
	So I would continue to work on the childhood stuff, I think, for sure, and that would be, I think, the best approach that you could take to work on that.
	Thank you.
	Thank you very much.
	You're very welcome.
	If you get a chance, let me know how it goes.
	Best of luck to you.
	I really, really commend your courage in dealing with this stuff.
	Really, really important.
	Good for you.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Have a nice show for the rest of the show.
	Thank you.
	All right.
	Next up, we have Simon, who is not on.
	Next up we have Joseph.
	Hello, hello.
	Hello.
	Can you hear me fine?
	Hi, go ahead.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, thanks for taking my call.
	My pleasure, thanks for calling.
	This is the first time I've been able to listen to the show live.
	I watched it on YouTube.
	A few times.
	A few times.
	Very interesting show.
	So I've kind of like dreamed about being able to call and talk to the great Stefan Molyneux.
	Well, he is hoping I don't suck.
	Keep our fingers crossed, shall we?
	Go ahead.
	Okay, okay.
	I have very high expectations, so...
	Alright, so basically I just wanted to call because I have been studying the topic of ethics and morality.
	And I did read UBP. I've also been reading...
	Other material, such as Camels with Hammers.
	Are you familiar with that blog?
	No.
	I think that's what it's called.
	Yeah, Camels with Hammers.
	And this person takes a similar approach to UBP. The main difference is that...
	Sorry, can I just be able to say it's not UBP, it's UPB. That's universally preferable behavior, just for the people who don't know it's my theory of ethics.
	Go on.
	Right, right.
	Excellent.
	Alright.
	Basically what he argues is that he or she, I'm not sure if it's a female, right, but, is that essentially he's trying to defeat the humane problem of, you know, is-ought.
	I would also like, once I finish, I would like to get your ideas on that, but he says that oughts can be...
	Derived from an is as long as you are using some kind of a goal.
	Once you have the fact, like for instance, that New York is to the east and LA is to the west, if you live in the middle of America, then you can derive an ought from that statement by saying you ought to go to LA, right?
	Yeah, if you want to get to LA then you have to go west, right?
	Yeah, that makes sense.
	Right, right.
	Right.
	So that's – so now he goes on and he explains that the way that we establish the universal morality for humans is by describing the function.
	So once you establish the function – and then again, this is a very brief – Summary, I might get some of the things wrong, but I'll try and just remember as much as I can.
	He says that the function of a human is to survive.
	That's what a human is.
	When you look at the biology, it's an organism that attempts to survive day by day.
	We have opposable thumbs, we have sensory perception to navigate through the wilderness to find food to To sustain ourselves, etc.
	And then he says that based on that function, that's how you can derive the universal morality.
	I'm not sure if I necessarily agree with all that, but I kind of wanted to get your take on it first.
	Yeah, so this sounds similar to objectivism, and maybe even to Aristotelianism to some degree, which is that the human organism, the body, has specific requirements, and in order to achieve those requirements, we need to follow some universal principles.
	And human beings do better when they, for instance, use trade rather than force.
	And that's better for people as a whole.
	And so we should follow the requirements of the human mind and that which is most productive for human society and have a society based upon that.
	Does that sort of make...
	Again, I know that's a very brief summary to something like that.
	Well, I guess the last part is where I think I might have an objection to.
	I guess that's kind of...
	You know, I don't know if it's kind of more of a Marxist thought that, you know, we translate individual into a collective of sorts.
	I'm not saying you're saying it's Marxist.
	I'm just saying, like, maybe the concept, you know, it's...
	Well, no, look, society...
	If we just talk about that...
	Sorry.
	Society as a whole, like, in terms of...
	Just look at, right, so the correlation between GDP growth...
	I mean, real GDP, not bullshit government GDP, but, like, real wealth growth and economic freedom are intensely correlated.
	Right?
	So in terms of wealth of society as a whole, it goes up significantly when we have economic freedom.
	And so the argument would be since that which is good for human beings as a whole is economic freedom, we should have economic freedom because more wealth is better than less wealth, something like that.
	Right.
	I'm just – okay.
	Just kind of the objection was – or what threw me off was just this idea that it's kind of trying to figure out what's best for society.
	I think what we just see is that when we give people freedom and we give people those – just those basic rights, we see a good outcome.
	But it's still not the reason why we give it to them, if you understand what I'm saying.
	Because then you get, I guess, kind of like a utilitarianism.
	Yeah, it is a kind of utilitarianism for sure, the greatest good for the greatest number.
	And I think it ignores something very, very fundamental in the world, which is the existence of sociopaths and evil people as a whole, right?
	I mean, so, and again, I'll try and keep this brief, but our conception of human nature has been very much destroyed and distorted by the concept of the soul, right?
	Because the soul is the idea that we're all sort of born good or access to goodness within us and so on.
	But it's not true.
	I mean, the scientific studies are very clear.
	Sociopaths, psychopaths, other forms of...
	And I'm not saying all sociopaths are evildoers.
	I'm sure some of them are very nice and effective surgeons or whatever.
	But, you know, just to use the common parlance, the people who have no empathy are interspecies predators.
	Human beings are not a big happy family.
	We are gazelles and lions.
	Right, so if you were to say, how do we design a society where gazelles and lions do the best, what would you say?
	Right, right.
	What would you say?
	Could you repeat the last part?
	I'm sorry?
	Okay, how do we design a society where gazelles and lions do the best?
	We don't, is what I would...
	You can't.
	Yeah, exactly.
	We don't.
	There's no way to design that.
	It's...
	Yeah, because it's predator-prey relationship.
	So human beings, we're chock full.
	The statistics, I think they're much higher.
	But even if we just go by the official statistics, 4% of the population, 1 in 25 people, are sociopaths.
	So that's probably about the ratio of lions to gazelles, right?
	1 to 25, I don't know, probably something like that, right?
	And so the idea that we can have some sort of common good or some sort of human nature by which we can...
	Organized society?
	Oh, okay, yes.
	Yeah, it doesn't work.
	It doesn't work because it's saying that human beings are somehow similar and we're not.
	We're not.
	Right.
	Well, what I've been reading about lately has been ethical naturalism and I've been kind of leaning towards that direction.
	Just looking at morality, and not necessarily morality, but maybe just ethics.
	Looking at ethics in biological terms.
	And, you know, you're right.
	The bump on the road that I've hit is that the most you can come up with with ethical naturalism is near universals.
	You can't come up with universals.
	All you can say is that...
	That it's not universals, right?
	That it's not ethics anymore.
	No, you can't get to ethics from biology.
	You can't get to ethics from utilitarianism.
	Because, you know, I mean, it's like saying to Stalin, you know, you should have a free society.
	You should have, you know, an economically free society.
	You should dismantle your government and you should have an anarchic society or, you know.
	I mean, he likes...
	His society, he likes being able to order people to their death.
	He really likes that.
	The society that works for Stalin just doesn't happen to work for people like Solzhenitsyn, right?
	Or the other tens of millions of people who were sluiced up in the Gulag Apical Igo.
	So what works for Stalin doesn't work for other things.
	You know, it's like putting a rapist and his victim in a room and saying, well, let's have a society where you both get what you want.
	It's like, no, that can't happen because it's win-lose, right?
	With the non-empathetic among us, with the manipulative, with the sociopaths, with the evildoers among us, it's win-lose.
	You can't have a common good among predators and prey.
	And the most efficient predators are the human predators and the most profitable prey is the human prey.
	And so the reality is that you simply cannot get universals out of anything that is.
	You can only get universals out of Ideals.
	You can only get universals out of reason, right?
	There's only math.
	There's no counting, so to speak, right?
	And so, this is what UPB, I think, the fundamental strength.
	Now, as far as the is-ought goes, somebody says to me, you can't get an ought from an is, and I say, well, you just did.
	Which is, I ought not get an ought from an is, right?
	There is no ought from an is.
	Well, you just created a rule which is absolute and universal and which is a ban.
	The fact that it's a negative doesn't mean anything.
	It's still an ought.
	You ought not is exactly the same as an ought.
	I mean, logically.
	So, the...
	And this is, you know, with all due respect, something I really have been meaning to study for quite some time, which is Hansen and Hoppe's argumentation ethics.
	Somebody who immediately comes up and says you can't get an ought from an is is embedding so much empiricism and rationality into that statement that they really have no...
	They have no capacity to deny philosophy by affirming universals and reason and evidence and all that kind of stuff.
	So I think – I mean I think UBB stands really well.
	I think it could be explained a little better and if I end up bedridden, I will probably try and work on a version too.
	But that is – there is a great temptation to try and get it from evidence and somehow some sort of aggregate but I don't think it works.
	Sorry.
	Go ahead.
	I do have a comment about what we were just talking about, right?
	I have myself kind of developed my own theory of morality.
	It's more of a descriptive theory, I guess.
	I don't know if this exists, if I reinvent it.
	I have no idea, but I came up with my own terms, and essentially what I... Sorry, sorry.
	Let me just be...
	Just before you go into that, because again, we've got to get to some other callers, and maybe we should do that at another time.
	Yes, sir.
	But you have a lot of phrases, I'm leaning towards this, I prefer this, I like the idea of that, and so on.
	And I hope you understand that it's completely non-philosophical language, right?
	Sure, sure, sure.
	Well, I say it in the spirit of keeping an open mind to whatever evidence comes my way.
	No, because if I said I'm leaning towards the idea that two and two make four, I kind of like the idea that five and five make ten.
	then right You would understand that I don't understand math, right?
	It's not up to me.
	There's no leaning towards the truth, right?
	I'm leaning towards the theory of relativity.
	I find some value in it, but I, you know, blah, blah, blah, right?
	So my question is that...
	Sorry, let me just finish.
	If you're coming up with all these ethical theories and you say you've read UPB, then I think it's incumbent upon you to find a logical flaw in UPB or accept it and not just keep reinventing stuff.
	Right.
	Well, actually, I was going to get to that.
	I wanted to kind of introduce just kind of some general terms that I've come up with and then kind of get you to comment on that, see if we can do precisely that.
	But have you found any flaws in UPB? I guess the main flaw that, or I wouldn't say it's a flaw, just what I haven't been able to decipher, is how does any of that make it, how does any of that bind itself to other humans?
	I understand the concept of...
	Sorry, do you mean how does an ethical proposition in the UPB framework bind itself to other humans?
	Correct.
	But it doesn't.
	But if I say two and two make four, that doesn't bind anyone into accepting the two and two make four, right?
	Correct.
	Correct, it doesn't bind.
	Right.
	No, it just means that if somebody says two and two make five, you can say, you're wrong.
	So if somebody says murder is universally preferable behavior, you say, sorry, you're wrong.
	And they can reject that, and they can go around strangling whoever they want.
	But they're still wrong.
	Right?
	So it doesn't bind anyone to anything.
	Right?
	I mean, gasses expand when heated.
	It doesn't bind anyone to anything.
	They can then go and pretend to squeeze gasses smaller.
	But the fact is simply true and it's valid.
	I mean, the theory of gravity doesn't make anyone fall down.
	I guess it's a little different because you sort of bound to that.
	But no, nobody's bound by ethical theories at all.
	But that's the whole point is that you can't force people to be bound by ethical theories.
	Well, when I say bound… Sorry, that's trying to turn ethics into physics.
	And the whole point of ethics is choice.
	Anyway, sorry, go on.
	Okay.
	I understand your point.
	Yes, I've also been wrestling with that concept because I'll be honest.
	As many of us do, I live in a theistically-centered culture.
	So it's always a challenge trying to extract a naturalist kind of explanation of all these words.
	Let me just kind of...
	I think I have another way to describe the problem.
	And it'll really help if I could just go over this little theory I have really quickly.
	You have your morally encompassing agent.
	This is the agent in which you want to decipher a morality...
	A moral code for, right?
	Then you have your auxiliary agents, which are supplemental.
	They benefit the moral entity.
	And then once you have established those two things, then you need to establish the...
	What was the thing?
	What is the criteria for...
	You know, for well-being, I guess is what you would say.
	I think this is kind of like the Sam Harris kind of argument.
	Now, what I've noticed is that if I... This is just kind of, for me, like a general description of what I view when people are trying to come up with, you know, some kind of moral system.
	And what I see is you're doing precisely that.
	You're establishing what the moral entity is.
	The moral entity is humans.
	And then trying to establish what are the...
	I understand you're using logic.
	Two people can't murder each other at the same time.
	I remember that bit among other things.
	But the thing is, how do you go about establishing...
	What that moral entity is.
	So how do you establish that, you know, this is something for all humans or this is only for, you know, couldn't I just say this is just for some humans or this also has to include animals or, you know, it's to me that that part is still it still feels like it's being subjective.
	It's just it's just subject to the whims of whoever's designing the morality.
	Well, first of all, morality is not designed any more than mathematics is designed.
	I mean, you can design a house on a blank sheet of paper and no one can tell you what shape it should be.
	But morality is not designed.
	The issue as far as, you know, the key is in the you of the universally preferable behavior.
	So it's like saying, okay, so I have a theory of physics, but how do I make it include granite as well as quartz?
	It's like, well, no, it's a theory of physics.
	It has to include all matter.
	Right?
	Right.
	So if I'm going to say that there's a universality to preferable behavior, then it has to include all moral agents.
	Right?
	Now, does that include all human beings?
	Well, of course not.
	I mean, there are people in comas.
	There are people who are mentally handicapped to the point where they can't have moral choice.
	There are people who have Alzheimer's.
	There are people who have psychotic episodes.
	There are people who have brain tumors.
	Well, I mean, the moment the primates show the capacity...
	To compare proposed actions to ideal standards, then they're in the moral camp, right?
	But they don't show that capacity as yet.
	I mean, they haven't had any luck even teaching them basic language as far as I understand it.
	And they certainly have not shown any capacity to philosophize.
	I mean, the moment that...
	We'll know when primates are able to be part of the moral period of humanity because they'll be graduating with undergraduate degrees in physics because then they...
	Physics is easier than morality, right?
	Because physics is way further ahead than morality, right?
	So once we've got primates graduating from physics degrees or biology degrees or whatever, or math degrees, then we'll know that they're in the realm of possibly being moral agents.
	But they're not, of course, anywhere close to that.
	And again, that doesn't mean we should be cruel.
	I think we should work to preserve their habitats.
	I think we should work to treat them with kindness and so on.
	And the best way to do that, of course, is to treat children well, because children treated well are incredibly gentle and kind with animals.
	My daughter is amazingly kind.
	Well, she's just incredibly gentle as a whole.
	Just by the by, she had to wake me up the other day.
	And she stood there for like 10 minutes gently scratching on my pillow until I woke up.
	I mean, she's four.
	I mean, it's just incredible how gentle she is.
	Whenever we go to a pet store and she's holding animals, everybody is always commenting, oh, she's so incredibly gentle with the animals and so on.
	Well, of course she is because she's been raised gently herself.
	It was like expecting her to suddenly break into Esperanto when talking to a frog.
	It's like she doesn't know that language.
	Sorry.
	So, yeah, but the universality is – sorry, go ahead.
	No, go ahead.
	The thing with primates is I would argue that primates so far have shown similar moral – let's just say ethical.
	I'm not going to say moral.
	They have shown similar ethical behavior to what – And to someone like myself who's been researching ethical naturalism and accepting some of the arguments, it seems to me – again, I'm still wading through all of this.
	But it's – there really isn't kind of like an intrinsic separation between – like I'm not – I guess what they call like a homocentrist.
	Like I don't believe there's any – Obviously, there's differences in the cerebral cortex of humans and primates and other mental faculties.
	But I guess intrinsically, there's not much other difference.
	And they have been shown to demonstrate ethical behavior.
	There was this one show – I'll just – it's one show where – No, listen.
	Look, I get that.
	Look, I'm sorry to interrupt, but just sort of in the interest of time, I fully accept that.
	Birds can be wonderful parents.
	Think of – I mean – What a stupid thing for a bird to do.
	They could just fly around eating bugs and having fun and picking up worms and stuff, but instead they, you know, have sex and raise these kids and spend their entire waking existence dumping food into their kids' mouths.
	I mean, what a ridiculous thing to do.
	I mean, so, yeah, I mean, birds can be wonderful parents and there's going to be great reciprocity among whales and dolphins can help people get to the shore.
	I get all of that.
	I get all of that.
	But that's not ethics.
	Ethics is an abstract discipline.
	That's like saying, well, dogs can catch frisbees, therefore they're physicists.
	No.
	No.
	That is not ethics.
	That is compassion, that is benevolence, that is kindness, whatever you want to call it.
	But that's not the same as ethics.
	Ethics is an abstract discipline.
	So the moment that you see chimpanzees quarreling over property rights and signing contracts, then we can start to think of them in terms of ethics.
	Right?
	And again, this does not mean that they're inconsequential beings and so on, but ethics is—you've got to think of it like science.
	That's really the important thing to understand.
	So the fact that animals show compassion, the fact that they help each other and so on, I think it's great.
	Nothing wrong with it, but it's not ethics any more than the fact that they can swing from tree to tree makes them understand the calculus of physics.
	I guess what's happening here is that I might be— Kind of in my whole, you know, just confusion, just confusing terms and whatnot.
	So when you say ethics, what should I be looking for then?
	Like, what is the particular branch of research that I should be doing that, you know, hopefully, yourself as an atheist, you can point me in the right direction as I continue my research.
	I've already, you know...
	Well, look, I'm just going to have to move on to see if we can get one more caller in because we started a bit late, but...
	I mean, look, I'll be perfectly frank with a shred of modesty that if you want to study ethics, I think you should study what I've been doing.
	Look, if I thought there was better ethics stuff out there, I'd read other people's ethics stuff or refer people to other people's ethics stuff.
	So I think that UPB, I think that the UPB presentations, I think that there's tons of them on the web.
	I've tried to explain UPB six different ways from Sunday.
	It's, you know, had a bunch of debates in the Sunday show.
	There's PowerPoint presentations, there's books, there's videos, there's There's so much that's out there.
	I think UPB is the shit, frankly.
	I think it's the thing.
	I think it's the bomb.
	No, actually, I will say this.
	I would focus on UPB and—sorry, go ahead.
	Once you—I'm sorry to interrupt.
	Once you clarified, once you clarified—again, I'm still getting stuck up on just kind of theistic notions of what ethics and morality should be.
	So once you clarified— No, no, no, you're not.
	No, you're not.
	No, you're not.
	No, sorry.
	Sorry to be annoying, but I have to be frank with you here.
	No, what's happening is— The moment that you understand and fully process something like UPB, you're fucked socially.
	Because you live in a theistic environment, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	And so you're constantly – it's other people around you who don't want you to get UPB, right?
	Because what are the major claims to validity of religion?
	Well, it tells us where we came from.
	Well, sorry.
	We got that one down.
	And it also tells us how to be good or why to be good.
	Well, no.
	I think UPB does a much better job, infinitely better job than religion.
	Oh, of course.
	And so the problem is that when you gain certainty, you are going to hit a breaking point in your social relations.
	And so it's not that it's also terribly complicated and confusing.
	The problem is that other people really don't want you to get it and you don't want to get it because we want the truth and we want acceptance from the tribe, right?
	And in fact, it's our very desire for the truth that the tribe uses so often to manipulate us.
	But we want the truth and we want acceptance from our tribe.
	And if you live in an irrational tribe, Then going for the truth is going to cause you some significant problems.
	And I would argue that that's what's occurring for you rather than any particular intellectual confusion.
	Right, right.
	So yeah, so to conclude then, there is no such thing as like morally binding principles per se.
	There's just, like you said, it's just the logic of nobody can murder each other at the same time.
	I'm going to have to reflect on this.
	I don't want to take up more of your time.
	So I guess, yeah.
	I appreciate all of your help.
	I hope I can call in again sometime and be better prepared.
	Well, I know.
	First of all, I think you did a great job, and I really appreciate you bringing up these issues.
	I'm certainly glad to clarify the ethical issue as well.
	Thank you.
	Thank you, thank you.
	But let's see if we can get one last caller in, and thanks again everyone so much for your patience.
	Thank you very much.
	All right, Simon, you're up.
	Simon, make sure your mic is not muted.
	Steph, can you hear me now?
	Oh, there you are.
	Yes, I can.
	Go ahead.
	Steph, thank you very much for taking my call.
	And I just want to say I'm a big fan.
	I can't believe your output, your enthusiasm, your eloquence, your dynamism, your patience with us people.
	It's just phenomenal what you do.
	And thank you for everything.
	Well, thank you.
	If it's any consolation, I can't believe it myself sometimes.
	So I appreciate what you're saying.
	Go ahead.
	My first out of two points was I really appreciate the view of universal ethics and I think that's just such a valuable concept and people always try and make exceptions as you point out many times.
	But then you go into the field that I've been wanting to talk to you for months on and now you're confronting which is medical science and seeking of truth and universality in research and science and I know you're a big fan of research The trouble with medical science research, it seems to me, is that it doesn't appear to arrive at the truth.
	Would you entertain that notion?
	I'm almost willing to entertain just about any notion, but if so, please, go ahead and make the case.
	Well, the gold standard of research is obviously the clinical trial, and especially the randomized clinical trial and the placebo-controlled clinical trial, and in all of those cases, You never end up with a 100% result.
	In fact, if you were to end up with it, people would be suspicious of it and likely you shouldn't be even testing something that you knew to be true.
	It just depends on how you define truth.
	I define it as never failing.
	If something always works and it's 100% true, you never get that with a clinical trial.
	A clinical trial, in its definition, is coming up with a result that is false if it's not universal.
	Therefore, even if you had a trial that proved that a treatment was 90% successful or 7% successful, there's still going to be 10% or 30% that are not going to benefit from that treatment.
	And therefore, it's not universal.
	Well, sorry, but again, I'm sort of no ethicist as far as medical trials go, but I mean, my understanding would be that Unless you have an incredibly controlled environment, you know, where people are getting the medicines through IV in a hospital and it can be measured, you don't know whether people are forgetting to take pills.
	You don't know whether they're following instructions.
	You don't know whether they're...
	You're like, I'm not allowed to eat grapefruit during this treatment.
	You know, maybe somebody forgets and eats some grapefruit.
	Like, there's lots of things that can interfere with this kind of stuff.
	And, of course, the other thing, too, is that some illnesses do go into spontaneous remission and so on, right?
	And so that also is going to skew numbers.
	So...
	Even though, you know, double-blind clinical trials and so on are the gold standard, there seems to me a huge amount of variability involved there as well that is going to make it very hard to track.
	You know, you could never get to the degree of precision of physics, even if you could track all of that, but that is something that is, I think, quite challenging for people who are trying to get those kinds of correlations.
	Yeah, it is challenging, but then we make public policy out of statements like Yeah, I mean, I think the more precise thing is to say that smoking is correlated with lung cancer.
	And it certainly is not a wise thing to do, and it's not a smart thing to do, and it's not good for you.
	Because even if you don't get cancer, you still can't run up a flight of stairs, right?
	I mean, it limits so much of what you can do in terms of just being able to exercise and do fun stuff like rock climbing and stuff, something to do with it.
	But yeah, I mean, medical science is a huge challenge in terms of trying to find the right correlations.
	There are skewed profit incentives.
	There is a lot of statism involved in it.
	So there is quite a...
	Yeah, there is quite a lot of problems in that, trying to get things sorted out that way.
	So I certainly understand that, and I think some skepticism is important.
	Sure.
	By the way, just in your current trials and tribulations, you might like to look into numbers needed to treat, and there's a website called themnt.com.
	It's a very useful piece of knowledge to have, numbers needed to treat.
	Do you understand that term?
	I will look it up.
	up.
	Thank you.
	Okay.
	And the other point, the question I can start with is, have you ever heard of Bert Hellinger?
	I'm sorry, say again?
	Have you ever heard of Bert Hellinger?
	No.
	A lot of the dilemmas that you've talked about a lot tonight, the tribal entities and the The reasons why we behave the way we do.
	I'm not trying to contradict anything you say.
	I think all of it is wonderful.
	Another person who was a total revelation to me.
	He's sort of like, when you talk, sparks go off my head and imagination runs off wild.
	He is exactly the same.
	And he developed something called family constellations, which go into a lot of the systemic theory that you've worked on before.
	And it's amazing what his empirical observations have come up with.
	And it really does solve a lot of the dilemmas about why we are the way we are and the tribal polls that you've talked about so much.
	It's quite a fascinating subject, and I'm not an expert on it, but it certainly was a revelation when he came back.
	And just one of his points is that children generally are born into this world with The concept of blind love.
	They have to, and you talked about this, that evolutionary safety depends on loyalty to their group.
	So they will do anything and become anything to belong to their group.
	And out of blind love, they will mold themselves into their family circumstances.
	So that's why the religion carries on and all sorts of other things.
	And it's a really interesting way of looking at Why we do the things we do.
	Well, thank you very much.
	I appreciate that.
	I will certainly look into that.
	I appreciate that.
	Now, I would like to get to one more caller, if it's alright, unless you had something else that you really wanted to add, but I really appreciate that.
	No, that's fine.
	Best of luck, Seth, and thank you very much.
	Thank you so much, my friend.
	Alright, next up, we have my doppelganger.
	Well, possibly.
	We have another James on the call.
	Hello?
	Thanks so much for getting my call.
	I am a freshman at NYU and it's been sort of crazy for me this past year because I felt like I've kind of lived my life in a bubble, but I was sort of aware of it.
	I was in a private school around people who were great or supportive And I'm now suddenly just being thrown into this entirely different environment where I went to public schools,
	I went to other private schools, and I'm almost at a point where I feel that everything that I'm learning from you about liberty and All this crazy stuff is just becoming entirely fused with my social climate, and it's becoming so confusing to me that I'm always doing something.
	But one of the things that I have become to value incredibly since finding you and other people like you is how honesty and Just honestly, in general, being true to yourself is so important.
	I've never been in an environment where I feel so many people say things that they don't really believe themselves to be true.
	Everybody's insecure on an intellectual level, especially in college, because everybody is so frightened by people who are smarter than them.
	It's just an incredibly competitive atmosphere.
	They're trying to measure themselves up against each other.
	I really do not care for this paradigm.
	You mentioned this when you talk to other people who you're trying to convince of this way of thinking.
	is you have that intellectual triage, you know?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, go ahead.
	For me, I do that triage so much quicker than...
	It happens instantaneously.
	I don't even have to listen to them talk about their political views.
	I just know that if they're the kind of person who would believe in something That they know isn't true, but they believe it in any ways because everybody else believes it to be true.
	That I'm just not going to waste my time with these people.
	And I've gotten to the point where I feel like that is literally most people.
	And I'm totally alone.
	I can't relate to anybody.
	The only people I can relate to are people who are my professors who are intelligent people.
	The reasonably more intelligent ones, I can't relate to some of my younger professors who, even when they're teaching, don't even...
	My macroeconomics class and my philosophy class, both of them, it's such a shame that Finding you that the subjects I've become interested in are economics and philosophy, but they just get totally shit on.
	They're not recognizable as subjects in college.
	I can't...
	There's no path for creativity.
	It's just they're only concerned about aptitude and excellence.
	What do you mean by excellence?
	It's...
	All my life I've been trying to find an alternative education, something that I feel will cultivate the parts of me that I feel need to be cultivated.
	I got good grades in school because I cheated on all my tests, but that's not because I was actually cheating.
	I was cheating because I had a good fucking memory.
	That's the reason why I got grades.
	I have a photographic memory.
	Whenever I take a fucking test, I just read the thing off my head and I'll forget about it a day later.
	The only way I can internalize the skills I learn in school is if I'm doing something creative simultaneously.
	I've been taking semesters abroad in high school.
	I'm just so fortunate that I haven't been I don't live in the underclass of society.
	I don't depend on the state for my well-being.
	I have parents who are here to provide for me.
	I'm not graduating with student debt, but the system is so rotten to the core that even if you're entirely financially afloat, that you still can't even...
	Get what you want and what you need out of it.
	The only way I could is if there is a paradigm shift and that if everybody changes.
	I'm calling you this morning.
	It's 10 a.m.
	Sunday.
	That's not the time of the day that a college kid is awake.
	I'm just...
	Last night I almost felt like I had some sort of crisis.
	I'm trying to reach out to people who feel the same way.
	They don't have to be into liberty or freedom or anything.
	It's a certain personality trait that I'm looking for.
	I feel like the people who have this certain personality trait might be willing to accept this way of thinking.
	My personal issue is...
	I guess also being at NYU, it's weird because there's so many women.
	It's like 65% to 35% guys, I think.
	And I don't know, it's funny, you were talking about your friend who plays squash, because I also play squash, and I also, I don't know, my relationship towards women is strange, but Since it's so dense with women, the gender roles almost begin to switch a little.
	I almost feel like I'm the one being chased after.
	It's kind of a strange dynamic how being at a school where...
	The genders are mixed up like this.
	People begin to think differently and become more jealous.
	So this is where I'm at right now.
	I'm just trying to contact this girl.
	I don't have any particular...
	Motivation behind it.
	I don't really care if she rejects me completely.
	I'm just totally willing to take whatever she is willing to allow to me.
	I don't want to do anything she doesn't want.
	I find that she's a person who has this similar personality to me that will be willing to Accept my abrasiveness.
	Because ever since I have embraced this philosophy, I can't talk to people without coming off as being incredibly cold or brutish.
	I only speak in arguments.
	Do you feel that?
	I'm sure a lot of other people feel the same way.
	Well, I will speak in questions, usually, for the most part.
	I was in sales, and sales is about asking questions before providing solutions.
	So you hear me in listener calls, I'll spend at least half an hour, usually if I can, just asking a bunch of questions.
	So you were saying that you were a warmer person, but philosophy has made you colder?
	I mean, I've really felt that...
	It does not sound believable to me, but I could be wrong.
	Philosophy has...
	It was just a match made in heaven for my personality.
	I've always been this way.
	I don't know if you're familiar with MBTI. A lot of it's bullshit, but my personality type is INTJ, I think.
	And why do you think that is your personality type?
	I mean, I know that I have taken tests, but, you know, the tests that they have are, again, they ask a lot of questions that are based off of stereotypes, but I feel, you know, I've done research, I've looked all that up, and...
	Sorry, what I mean is, do you think that there were any childhood experiences that may have contributed to certain personality aspects?
	That's the strangest thing is because I had one of the most caring environments as a child.
	And, you know, whenever I hear you on YouTube, I do think a lot about my parents.
	And I'm so appreciative of the environment they brought me up in, especially since they each had their own.
	And I feel that my mother, you know, she taught me moral responsibility.
	Well, my father taught me physical responsibility.
	He really wanted to raise me in sort of like a Lord of Flies, state of nature type environment where it's easy for me to get in trouble and hurt myself.
	So I think I grew up as a more responsible person in that respect.
	But I feel like all the problems I have with my personality and Relating with other people is innate, and I feel like I was born that way.
	And one of the reasons why I came to Liberty was because, I don't know, I feel like I'm a psychopath.
	I know you talk about sociopaths and psychopaths all the time.
	And it's strange because...
	To describe my condition, I feel like I'm a person who doesn't experience emotions as sensations, as in I can only experience an emotion I can articulate.
	Does that make any sense to you?
	Yeah, no, I think I get where you're coming from.
	So you can recognize an environment where some emotional response would be there, and you can say, well, this would be my emotional response, and maybe you can feel it a bit there.
	But is it my understanding that it doesn't sort of spontaneously arise within you and then you manage it?
	Is that right?
	Yeah.
	And, you know, there are times when I feel that I'm supposed to feel a certain way or even growing up too as well, I feel like there are a lot of things that were Programmed emotional responses that I sort of unlearned.
	And I was like, wow, that's weird.
	I shouldn't be jealous here.
	That's not right.
	Or, you know, I shouldn't feel sad in this situation.
	But, you know, as I've grown up...
	But for you, it's more like, is it like learning a foreign language?
	Well, that's not the word for cat in Spanish.
	So I should learn a different word for cat in Spanish.
	Is it sort of like that?
	Learning what?
	Well, so when you say, like, I shouldn't feel jealous in this situation, or I shouldn't feel this in this situation, is it more like learning a language?
	Like, so if I'm trying to learn Spanish, right, and I'm trying to find the grammar and the syntax and so on, it's not like a moral thing.
	It's just, have I learned the right response in Spanish for this particular situation?
	Does that make sense?
	It's spot on, especially everything is...
	Everything I learn, everything that's social...
	It gets processed by my brain the same way as if I process anything I've been reading from you.
	It all gets filtered from the same super critical, skeptical lens.
	My brain is just this rational computer thing that just takes everything in from outside world and tries to organize it and You know, learning things.
	There's no difference with social norms and emotions with me.
	But there are, of course, some things.
	I'm not totally void and crazy, but, you know...
	No, I don't think so.
	And I got lots of corrections after I did my series on sociopathy from people who said, I'm a sociopath and I'm actually a nice guy.
	Or I'm a psychopath.
	I'm actually, like, I'm not an axe murderer.
	This is a stereotype and blah, blah, blah.
	So, I mean, I fully accept to be corrected on that instance as well, so I don't think you're crazy or anything like that.
	I fully accept what it is that you're saying, and I do apologize to the people who I mischaracterize in that way, because it's not fair, of course, right?
	But go ahead.
	Yeah, but...
	I'm just looking for a way for...
	I don't know...
	I just feel like I don't speak the same language as everybody.
	That's it, really.
	The only people who I can understand are adults.
	It's the thing.
	I feel like I carry the burden of everybody else's insecurity.
	That's what it feels like to me.
	Tell me what you mean by that.
	It's weird because some...
	How kids grow up, you know, they take other people's judgment seriously and then they incorporate that into their, you know, who they think they are personally.
	And they, over time, you know, I see kids who become insecure and Through peer pressure and even, you know, a lot of subtle things that they might not even notice.
	And it's almost a lot of it's subconscious as well.
	But, you know...
	But you have a shield to that kind of stuff, right?
	I have a shield.
	I'm totally...
	I'm confident.
	I'm not insecure.
	I am...
	Yeah, because, I mean, other people's opinions, you will evaluate them, right?
	I mean, it's not like you don't hear them.
	But your evaluation is the gatekeeper, right?
	And it doesn't just flow into you.
	Like, you know, if I spray a hose on you, you get wet.
	But that's not the same with my opinions, right?
	Like, you'll evaluate them first.
	And again, I'm not trying to tell you your experience.
	I just, is that the way it works for you?
	Say that again?
	So, it's not like, what spring?
	Well, so like, okay.
	So like, if I, you know, if I slap you in the face, then...
	Your face is going to get red.
	You don't have a choice about that, right?
	But if I say you're a huh, whatever it is, right?
	You're a great guy, you're a bad guy, you're a whatever, right?
	Then you'll sort of evaluate that, but it doesn't sink into you the way that it seems to sink into other people, right?
	Like the other people, they'll hear a bunch of opinions.
	They're like, oh man, that's the way I am.
	And it's almost involuntary.
	But I think for you, there's like a gatekeeper for other people's opinions, which is one of the reasons why it's easier to stay more secure because you don't just absorb them like a sponge in the rain.
	Yeah, everybody's opinion has to be matched up against reality.
	Anything somebody says to me, you know, I... Sorry to interrupt.
	So what's missing, and I don't know if this is good or bad, to be honest with you, but I would say to you that...
	Can you imagine having someone in your life whose opinion you would trust to the point where you wouldn't have to evaluate what they were saying?
	No.
	Right.
	So what's missing is vulnerability, right?
	Now, vulnerability is a double-edged sword, right?
	Because if you've got bad people around you, being vulnerable is like having people train you to punch yourself in the face every day, right?
	But if you could, you know, one of the things that's a benefit of vulnerability is if you have people in your life that you trust to the degree that you don't have to evaluate what they're saying, it saves you a lot of processing, right?
	Because they're just going to tell you the truth.
	They're going to be close to you.
	They're going to have your best interest at heart.
	You trust that, right?
	So I just wanted, you know, vulnerability...
	If you only focus on the strength of that kind of distance, which I admit I envy sometimes, right?
	But if you don't focus on some of the things that you're missing, then it's going to be hard to consider adjusting it.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yeah, I totally get what you're saying about vulnerability.
	And it's weird because I think the worst thing about it is that the one thing that usually does get me emotional is You know, emotional reactions in other people because, you know, I might not be able to reason how I feel,
	but at least I can assume that what this other person is feeling is real, and I can at least have that be a point for me, you know, something as a point of reference, so at least I have some cardinality for my emotional planning.
	I don't know, whatever you want to think of that.
	But what you're saying about vulnerability, it's weird because when I'm around people who feel uptight, everybody wants to impress me.
	Everybody wants to give me a compliment about something.
	I don't really care.
	I don't really want to be impressed or anything like that.
	I just want somebody to give me something of value, obviously.
	I'm the capitalist.
	I just have this urge to embarrass myself.
	Isn't that weird?
	I just have the urge to do something so outrageous and crazy that they won't feel bad about being around me.
	Or they won't feel uncomfortable having feelings inside themselves that they don't feel comfortable expressing around me.
	Because every person I'm around...
	I know that there's something that they want to say to me that they aren't saying it.
	And I know it's because I'm either grumpy or cold-looking or intimidating.
	And I know that's the reason why that they aren't.
	But I just have this urge to...
	Well, the other thing, too, is that, like, if you have a distant, emotionally distant nature, that's like a gravity well for some people.
	You know, if they had...
	So, for instance, if they had distant parents that they were trying to reach, so they hook into you...
	And they want something from you, but it's not to do with you in particular.
	It's just due to their own history, right?
	So if you're aloof, then some people will really be wanting to contact you.
	They really want something from you, right?
	And it's like, what are you bothering me with this stuff?
	I'm just being me.
	I'm not trying to reject you or anything.
	But that kind of stuff makes people kind of, some people, and some women in particular, kind of nutty, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I mean, I'm not...
	It's weird because if...
	If people met me, even though I'm introverted, I'm very outgoing and crazy and fun-loving and whatever.
	It's the classic.
	It happens a lot with psychopaths I've been reading.
	Apparently, a lot of people who deal with their emotions can We behave in a certain way that most people would find restrictive, but we aren't restricted by it, so we're very uninhibited.
	I feel very uninhibited.
	Yeah, and fearless, right?
	Like, you would appear fearless to some people, right?
	Because, you know, there's a lot about, you know, and I don't know, you know, you say you're a psychopath, I have no idea what, I mean, I'm just going with your terminology, right?
	So there's people who are like, Jesus, I'd love to be less concerned with what other people think.
	Like, I'm not too bad with that, to be honest with you.
	Like, I'm fairly good with, you know, I try to really focus on reason and evidence, and, you know, some people think that's great, some people don't.
	I really don't get bothered too much by what other people think.
	But that's something that I kind of grew into, and it took, you know, 20,000 bucks of therapy and shit like that to make that happen.
	So if you're kind of born with that, then there's a kind of independence and autonomy and freedom.
	From the snares and hooks of other people who try to, you know, a lot of people will constantly try to control other people through positive and negative feedback.
	And if you're kind of sailing above all of that, you know, if that's like waves against the side of a battleship, I think that for a lot of people that's kind of intoxicating.
	Like even that as a possibility is like, wow, I'd like me some of that.
	But that's only because they're looking at the upside, right?
	Not the downside, right?
	Which is that If you have a baby that wants to spend all day in your lap, you might get a little annoyed, right?
	There may be other downsides to it that people aren't seeing as much, right?
	Or maybe you're not seeing as much.
	If there was a down...
	I always think of this on a case-by-case basis.
	I have trouble articulating all of this in an abstract way, but I don't know.
	I... I do, and that's kind of why I'm calling you, but you're right that I'm not ensnared by a lot of the bullshit.
	But because I'm not trapped by all that bullshit, I feel like I've just trapped myself with my own bullshit.
	But you told me the downside already, right?
	And look, maybe another time we can talk more about your childhood.
	I have some skepticism, which might just be my own confirmation bias.
	But you already told me the downside.
	I don't know if you heard yourself.
	But you said, yeah, there's this girl.
	She wants something from me.
	I don't care whether she gets it or not.
	I don't care whether I get with her or not.
	But that's blah, blah, blah.
	You had this little brief aside about a girl who was around, a woman who was around, and you were indifferent to the outcome.
	Yeah, and you're touching on another thing that is another issue of mine.
	It's also related to my emotional issue.
	It's that I have trouble finding what makes me happy.
	If I'm unsure about something, I feel like I can't commit 100% to It's hard because,
	you know, if I'm an entrepreneur and I'm trying to start a company, I make sure that, you know, I calculate my return of investment, I look at what, you know, prices are, obviously, is what helps us guide our allocated resources, and...
	All these other things that guide you into making a good decision.
	I feel that all these things...
	I don't know where they are.
	I don't know what these things are for social interactions between people.
	Again, that's not totally true because that's the reason why I'm calling her in specific because I feel that...
	We might be able to relate on some levels.
	I mean, not entirely.
	I mean, I'm definitely in my own case, but, you know, my intuition tells me that there are some issues that she might be dealing with that I might share, and that, you know, that helps me.
	But, um, I just, it's strange.
	I don't know why she would ignore me.
	Hmm.
	Right.
	And I mean, so, again, I really don't want to tell you your experience.
	I'm just trying to make sure I sort of understand where it is that you're coming from.
	I think I understand.
	And I appreciate the strength that you have in this perspective.
	And that sort of goes without saying, right?
	I mean, you're aware of that too, right?
	But I think in vulnerability, I think there's two areas that you're going to be limited, which if you wanted to start working on, I would suggest.
	The first is that vulnerability is very important.
	And, you know, I say this as a guy who's ill, right?
	I mean, I've never actually been ill before.
	Like, I've never spent a night in a hospital.
	I've never broken a bone.
	I've never had an operation or anything like that.
	I've been like a robot, like meat-flesh-strength robot.
	But there is vulnerability around, you know, getting sick.
	There's vulnerability around having kids.
	and and so on and you just you need people you need resources you need you need love you need support and all that kind of stuff so you know for a young single guy this kind of mindset is not the end of the world so to speak I mean I think you're missing out on some stuff but you're also gaining some stuff too right so that's but but as you if as you get older if you want to get married if you want to have kids in and so on and eventually you're gonna get old and sick and die right I mean so so vulnerability is not a bad thing to start exploring as a possibility Vulnerability means deferring
	your judgment to someone else's, which I know is kind of incomprehensible.
	You're so smart, you've got a photographic memory, you're obviously philosophical, you're healthy, attractive, intelligent, fit, and all that kind of stuff.
	So the idea of deferring your judgment to someone else is hard, I think, to understand.
	But boy, to offload processing is really important.
	Having a graphics card that can produce the movie rather than using up your whole CPU Basically having a dual core – a relationship is like a dual core processor.
	In fact, multi-core, right?
	So having the multi-threading of a relationship where you can offload your processing.
	In other words, you can say to your wife, you let me know if I'm doing anything weird.
	And then you just go do what you're doing.
	You don't have to keep evaluating yourself because your wife is watching your back and you're watching her back.
	And because you can see other people a lot easier than you can see yourself, it's much more efficient and much more effective way to sort of go through life in it.
	It gives your mind a chance to rest from some of the overheated stuff it does in analyzing.
	So vulnerability I would sort of recommend is something worth exploring.
	But the second, which is kind of related and perhaps even more important, is the honesty, right?
	I mean if you're calling yourself a psychopath, one of the problems you have is don't you have to kind of – I don't know how do you put it.
	Don't you have to kind of pretty it up for the normal people?
	When you interact with people, you can't genuinely express your experience because your experience is a lot of boredom, contempt, indifference, frustration, confusion.
	You kind of have to speak the hallmark cards you don't really feel, and I think that may interfere with your ability to connect, if that makes sense.
	Yeah.
	I almost want to get And the tattoo seems almost just like a metaphor, but I just want some stamp on me so that when I meet someone, I don't have to do some sort of explaining.
	Right, right.
	Empathy, down for maintenance.
	Not sure when we'll be back up, but...
	To provide an example, this year when we were all introducing ourselves on the floor in our dorm, the story I used to introduce myself, I forget what question I was asked, but I was talking about how I lit a squirrel on fire when I was a kid.
	Classic psychopath story.
	It was funny, everybody laughed.
	It was me prettying up my My identity.
	That's the thing that troubles me.
	I put myself out there.
	I do try so hard to be an individual and show people who I am.
	Everybody appreciates it too.
	I'm grateful for that.
	Everybody just seems too afraid to do anything with me.
	It's weird.
	I can't Well, we'll see.
	Usually I find, you know, there are a few exceptional individuals who I really enjoy spending my time with, but other than that, I feel like I can do okay by myself.
	That's another problem, is that when I get depressed and I push people away, they get offended by it, and it's like, no, no, no, I have to do this.
	It's how I reprogram myself when I'm lonely and I don't know.
	No, I understand that.
	I mean, there is, of course, some of the isolation and some of the loneliness that does occur with that distance.
	And the reality is, I mean, I actually condemn you.
	I praise you for your honesty, which is that you are telling people that you let a squirrel on fire when you're a kid.
	I mean, that's almost like having a tattoo in terms of telling people the truth about About where you're coming from.
	And it is tragic, of course, that not enough people see that as clearly and as consciously as they should.
	But, yeah, so again, I'm sorry because I do actually, I'm so hungry.
	I'm actually just not eating my own toes at just about any moment.
	And I apologize.
	Yeah, it's a very interesting conversation.
	And I really do want to appreciate you calling in to talk about that.
	I mean, whether you know it or not, I think what you just did is a huge deal.
	It's a huge fucking deal.
	And I'm really honored that you chose to talk to me about this stuff because there's probably not a lot of places where you can get kind of feedback that is not going to be weird.
	I think this show is one of them.
	But sorry, I interrupted you.
	You were saying?
	You're praising for me, but it's the same thing happening over again.
	It's just me telling how I feel.
	There's no fear in it.
	I appreciate you.
	You're saying things that are important and that are special to me, and I need that.
	You are a valuable source that is different from other people, and I probably wouldn't get shit feedback.
	No, I get that this wasn't particularly terrifying for you to do, and I get that.
	But what I mean is that the praise of being open to the possibility that there may be a downside that looking in terms of vulnerability and honesty, you know, if you start to explore that stuff, that's going to be challenging.
	And it's good, you know, because don't you need some challenges?
	I mean, having this kind of fluid intelligence, having this lack of empathy, it really does make things pretty fucking easy, right?
	As you say, you sailed through school with a photographic memory, and you've got your parents paying for everything.
	You know, don't you want something that you can really sink your teeth into, like a real challenge that's going to work you and make you sweat?
	I mean, that's great stuff, right?
	I mean, you don't want to be the guy who keeps going to the weight, lifting the five-pound pink-tasseled weights all his career, right?
	You want to up those to the point where you're doing some sort of Klingon forehead vein pop and stuff, right?
	So if you're interested in exploring sort of the vulnerability and the honesty stuff and maybe exploring ways in which you can tap into some empathy, I mean, you can talk to a psychologist, a therapist at school.
	I'm sure you get free stuff there if you need to.
	That, I think, would be a very exciting challenge and I think would be worth looking into for you.
	Again, if I were in your shoes, I'd explore it just as a challenge that would be very interesting and different from what I tried before.
	Thanks so much.
	I'll probably do that.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	And that's the thing.
	Yeah, you can go.
	Just one last thing.
	Yeah, the...
	You know, I'll go to a counselor.
	I'll talk to them.
	It's nice to get what's on the inside, outside.
	But, you know, I still have a drive to be counseled by...
	Being at a point where I feel alpha or above everybody else and not in...
	I'm not trying to be egotistical.
	I prefer different, but I just want to find somebody who I can be somewhat submissive to in a way, but someone who I can look up to.
	You're definitely that figure.
	You're one of them for me.
	It's nice getting to talk to you in person, too.
	Yeah, even people who aren't intellectually on that level can still have that effect on me.
	But I'll try to do some of that counseling.
	I'm going to keep on bugging this girl.
	She can tell me to fuck off if I'm annoying her.
	And yeah, let me know how it goes.
	Drop me a line if you like.
	Everybody, of course, can always email operations at freedomain.com.
	Mike is doing a fantastic job, particularly now, adding massive value to the conversation.
	I'm so incredibly grateful for his support and his friendship and his massive work.
	When you email him, remind him to take a break from his work because he's peddling like a hamster on a triple espresso on a wheel that is rolling down a hill in a lightning storm at Mach 12.
	But yeah, so drop us a line.
	Let us know how it's going.
	And you might want to talk about your self-diagnosis of psychopathy and ask them if they've had any experience with that or if they can refer you to someone who does and even find out if it's true or valid.
	I mean, I don't know, of course, right?
	But yeah, so keep me posted if you can.
	I think it's a very interesting thing that you're going to embark on and I certainly wish you the best with it and I hope that it gives you a wider heart and a more spontaneous experience and the capacity for a little more love and trust and vulnerability which can be A weird thing, but very, very important, I think.
	And thanks, James, of course, as always, for running these shows.
	Oh, my God.
	I mean, it's just fantastic compared to me having to sort of switch back and forth all the time.
	It's great.
	Thanks again.
	If you'd like to help out the show, I'm, of course, going to have a somewhat diminished work capacity over the next couple of months.
	But then I believe I will be back stronger, leaner, with a titanium chest.
	And so if you'd like to help out, you can go to FreeDomainRadio.com, of course, there's a donate button.
	We do take bitcoins.
	I'm not going to read them out, because really, what is the point of that?
	But you can help us out there, or if you just want to go to FDRURL.com forward slash donate, that gives you straight to the donation page.
	It's hugely appreciated.
	Some stuff is covered, some stuff is not.
	Again, it's annoying patchwork socialism, but...
	I really appreciate everybody's support, and I will try and get the emails back to people who've emailed to me.
	It might take me a little while, but I've read them all, and I hugely, hugely appreciate it.
	And I would also like to thank the people who managed to downvote my cancer announcement video.
	That was just particularly delicious, just in terms of people who are just going to be resolutely negative no matter what.
	That is actually quite liberating for me.
	So thank you everyone for those 12 or 14 people who managed to find themselves able to do that.
	That really was quite impressive.
	But have yourselves a wonderful week, everyone.
	I will talk to you soon.

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