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May 8, 2013 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:12:37

2378 Vanity, Thy Name is... Who?

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	Hey, everyone.
	Welcome to the Renegade Variety Hour.
	We are talking to, as everyone can see, Stefan Molyneux, who I'm sure everyone who's listening to the show has probably listened to Stefan before in the past.
	He introduced us to, you know, narco-capitalism and many of the liberally-minded ideas, such as peaceful parenting.
	And really, he's the reason why libertarianism is being talked about so much today.
	So, Stefan, how are you doing it?
	I'm doing very well.
	It's nice to see you guys again.
	Yeah.
	We met at Liberty in the Pines, which was just a fantastic, you know, a fantastic conference meeting Jeffrey Tucker, Stephen Kinsella and herself, and free.
	And to be honest, I was a little disappointed because for me, Liberty in the Pines had a, maybe it's just the name, it had a kind of druidic feel to it.
	So I remember showing up in my, you know, Grand Vizier top hat and very little else.
	I think that there was a few oak leaves And I realized, of course, that it was a little bit off the beaten path as far as my way of approaching it went.
	So obviously I had a quick change and there's no phone booth to change anywhere around there because it's so technologically savvy.
	So other than that, I thought it was a great, great event.
	Well, outside of the fact that I was in Nacogdoches, Texas, which my spellcheck doesn't even know that word.
	Outside of that, it was okay.
	Today, though, what I kind of want to talk about was a nice, light conversation that's not controversial at all, which was the drugging of children in America.
	And public schooling.
	And public schooling.
	Because a lot of the information that you brought up in dealing with peaceful parenting also has to do with basically the way that children are being raised today.
	And presently, the psychiatric field right now is making $2 trillion annually.
	With diagnoses that are harder to define than the word feminism.
	They're drugging the hell out of these kids.
	One out of every four public school children are on drugs, and seven million are on ADHD medications with drug side effects that are just tremendously terrible.
	We both have a history when it comes to psychiatric drugs being used on us when we were kids.
	So I just kind of wanted to get your view on the psychiatric community as a whole right now and how it's dealing with quote-unquote mental health.
	Well, the psychiatric community as a whole has always had a strong, strong history.
	Of aiding tyranny.
	Of course, we all know about the way—if you didn't like the Soviet system, clearly you were mentally ill and needed to have, you know, horse tranquilizers shoved up your ass in some Soviet facility.
	And it has had a long—now, one of the things that happened in the—I think it was the 1960s, early 1970s—is a number of researchers began to poke around this nonsense called psychiatry.
	And there was one researcher who Decided to send in a bunch of people and they were allowed to sit down and they were allowed to say the word something and thud and say, oh, I hear these voices in my head that say sinister and thud or something like that.
	And so they were then admitted to psychiatric hospitals.
	And after that, except for those two words, which they said they heard in their heads, they were to be completely and totally sane, right?
	They were to be just, and these were functional, high functioning reporters and researchers and so on.
	And so all of these people went into the facilities.
	They were all diagnosed.
	They were all medicated.
	And they found it impossible to get out.
	In other words, this was not any kind of science.
	There was no blood test.
	There was no scan.
	There was nothing like that.
	It's all a language-based, which is therefore highly susceptible to manipulation science.
	And this was then published and psychiatry took a huge blow.
	And what happened was, of course, insurance companies began to be a little skeptical about whether they should pay for any of this stuff.
	And if you don't have insurance companies, not a lot of people are going to pay 250 bucks to, you know, talk about their mom for an hour or 50 minutes.
	So the whole financial security of the psychiatry industry was threatened.
	And then they said, OK, come on, do it again.
	Do it again.
	We'll get them this time.
	Do it again.
	Send more people in.
	So he said, OK, well, I'm going to send another cohort in.
	And then when he said he did that, they found – they unearthed dozens and dozens and dozens of people that he'd sent in and said, you see, we found that these people are only faking it, that they're not crazy.
	And then he said, actually, I didn't send anyone in.
	You guys would just make it up more stuff.
	Shit.
	Wow, that's amazing.
	Yeah, so this history of psychiatry has been a huge problem in that it is language-based.
	Now, I'm a big fan of talk therapy.
	I think a really good CBT or a really good Jungian or Freudian therapist can do wonders, and that stuff has been fairly well-vowed.
	But that's a conversation about, I think, fundamentally philosophy and values and all that kind of stuff.
	So I think that talk therapy is very healthy, but there's nothing to do with that with psychiatry.
	Psychiatry is almost all medication.
	So after this, they had a big problem.
	And so they started really piling on the diagnosis and they started, instead of trying to ally themselves with insurance companies, they started to try and ally themselves with pharmaceutical companies and to try and manufacture as many complaints.
	It's all political, right?
	As you probably know, until the early 1970s, homosexuality and lesbianism was defined as a mental illness.
	And then after considerable pressure from those communities, and rightly so, it was reclassified.
	Like the ADHD diagnosis, it was originally supposed to be you only had to meet five criteria, but then they said, well, that might result in a little bit of overdiagnosis, so let's make it six.
	And they call this science.
	I mean, it's mad.
	You're describing behaviors and behaviors which are then medicated.
	And so basically you're trying to medicate people out of things which don't exist.
	I mean, they say that These medications, these SSRIs and so on are like insulin for diabetes.
	You know, be on it for the rest of your life.
	There's a chemical deficiency.
	None of this has ever been validated by any third party reviews.
	Every claim that's made, they can't ever reproduce the results.
	It's the usual FDA bullshit where you're allowed to pick and choose two samples out of whatever, you know, however many times you run the results.
	And then by the bell curve, you're going to get a few with results just because they're going to scatter.
	And it has become completely unholy.
	And so from that standpoint, it is completely monstrous.
	The negative side effects are, you know, homicidality, suicidality.
	These stuff have black box warnings from the FDA. It's some of the most dangerous drugs around.
	Shrinks brain mass, interferes with cognitive development, causes spaced out feelings.
	Of course, we know the school shootings are often tied to these kinds of things.
	So it's completely monstrous.
	And from that standpoint, it's completely hellacious.
	On the other hand, and I hesitate to say this because I don't want to be Mr.
	Grimface You know, silver lining in every cloud guy.
	But to me, it's massive progress that so many children are being medicated.
	Because what it means is that the system is not working at all.
	And so many children are rebelling against the system.
	My God, I wish they weren't getting medicated.
	But so many children are rebelling against this 18th century Prussian crap of, you know, jamming kids in into these little box ropes, like putting chicks into egg cup holders in a In a dozen eggs carton and thinking that somehow they're going to be educated,
	this focus on just pushing numbers up, this focus on homework, which is ridiculous, and it's just another way that the dead hand of the state claws at the family by interfering with family time and making home time stressful for families who have to get this homework done.
	There's never been any correlation between homework and school achievement.
	It's just another fascistic intrusion into your private life.
	But the fact that In the free market, children are being wooed with Tamagotchis and iPads and iPods and Xboxes and PS3s and the outdoors.
	So in the free market, children are having all of this amazing technology launched at them, but it's really colliding with just how unbelievably spiritually and intellectually dead the public school system is.
	And naturally, of course, and I'll finish my rant in a sec, Naturally, of course, what happens is that in any conflict in a status situation or a tyranny situation or a bully situation, what happens is that the most vulnerable, those with the least power, are completely screwed.
	And then everybody justifies this after the fact as some sort of moral intervention.
	And the children have no power.
	I saw a TED speech by Michelle Ray, who's, I think, quite heroic in her attempts.
	She's heroic in that she was the former chancellor, the director of the schools, the superintendent of the schools in I think we're good to go.
	It's pretty sad level thinking, but it's natural for people who aren't well versed in values.
	Let's just try and find a way to turn rape into lovemaking.
	This is how human beings waste their spiritual energies, you know, generation after generation.
	And I'd love to have her actually on my show and confront her with this.
	You know, it's forced, right?
	You know it's forced.
	It's coercive.
	How on earth are you going to make coercion work?
	So the fact that this drugging is occurring is unbelievable.
	It's horrible.
	It's natural because, I mean, so many people benefit from it, right?
	The schools benefit from it because they don't have to change.
	The teachers benefit from it because their shitty teaching doesn't ever get confronted by voluntarism or change.
	The unions, of course, don't have to—they can keep charging their union dues.
	The politicians don't have to confront the public sector unions.
	The parents don't have to confront potentially crappy parenting or even things that aren't crappy but just unfortunate, like illness or whatever, or even divorce.
	And the pharmaceutical companies get to make a fortune and the drug companies or the psychiatrists get to, you know, make these diagnoses.
	You know, the majority of diagnoses in one study were made over the telephone, never talking to the child, only talking to the parent for a few minutes.
	That is what they put these people on, this biochemical roller coaster that shreds their brains.
	This is how unbelievably heinous the system is.
	So everyone profits and everyone gets ahead with the unfortunate, of course, results that the children have put through these brain minstrels.
	But that's I mean, that's natural and inevitable.
	I mean, the system is not run for the convenience of the slaves.
	Well, it's about it's also about distancing yourself From the reality of what's going on.
	So, you know, psychiatric institutes in the past were where you would—there were places where you'd put all the people in society who were to be ostracized, whether it be freedom fighters, feminists, political radicals, and those who were considered ill repute, i.e.
	prostitutes, although many women today would be considered prostitutes back then.
	They were kind of zoos for people because you could actually spend money to go into these places and see these people who are being tortured to death as being just animals.
	They would perform lobotomies.
	I remember reading about this thing where they would drown people and then try to revive them to supposedly fix their brain after the fact.
	They would stick leeches on people because they believed that their illnesses were due to having too much blood in their body, so they figured out leeches didn't quite work, so they started cutting off organs, whether that be their fingers ripping out tonsils, just tons of sick stuff until they finally just went in for the brain.
	They did poisoning, isolation, shock therapy, and now, of course, to make it all cleaner, they just drug the shit out of people.
	Well, they isolate them, too.
	I mean, isolation rooms are really prominent in public schools.
	Yeah, that's a newer thing that's becoming even more prominent in public schools, and the way they're justifying is by saying, oh, I mean, it was originally for people who were autistic, where they stated, well, everything is too much for them, so we've got to stick them in a room.
	This hypersensitivity.
	Yeah, and then they just started doing it for anyone who was speaking out too much.
	They were sticking children in these isolation rooms for two or three weeks at a time and not even telling the parents.
	about these situations, which was absolutely absurd, but if you think about the fact that public schools destroys one sense of community by institutionalizing childhood, by establishing a kind of hierarchy which prevents children from being able to escape the confines which they are being placed for eight to ten hours a day, and then when they finally get home, it's just another institution, it's another hierarchy, which the parent even perpetuates even more by stating, You have to do this homework.
	You have to do this thing right now.
	You have to go to bed this time.
	I have to drag your ass out of bed at this time in the morning so that I can send you in this place where I don't want to be, so that I can go to work where I don't want to be, where I'm going to be taxed for 50% of my money so that we can both come back home, both watch TV or play the Xbox or anything else so we don't actually have to communicate with one another.
	And so then neither of us can actually be able to figure ourselves out.
	And just in case you decide to act ragefully against that, we're going to go ahead and stick you on drugs.
	I worked in the social work community.
	There were kids on antidepressant medication, on insomnia medication, on Ritalin and things like that.
	Of course, everyone starts out for Ritalin now at the age of seven.
	These kids are on antidepressant medication by the time they're eight years old.
	And in many of the cases, I was dealing with children who were in orphanages, who were being fostered out, who just left homes which were incredibly abusive.
	The psychiatrist takes a look at them for five seconds and goes, oh, you're not sleeping, you're not able to pay attention, and you're not able to control your temper.
	Well, no shit.
	You just took me out of my home.
	I probably wasn't being fed very well.
	I probably wasn't sleeping very well in the first place.
	And God knows, not being able to sleep has a lot to do with attention deficit disorder and a number of other emotional issues.
	So we're gonna go stick you on Adderall so that you can wake up.
	We're gonna stick you on Zyprexis so that you can fall back to sleep.
	We're gonna keep you on antidepressants so that you don't freak the fuck out while all this is occurring.
	And we wonder why You're having these kids who are completely socked out.
	And whenever they're stuck off these medications, which has a lot to do with the school shootings you're mentioning, the majority of those shootings, too, it's not while they're on their medications.
	It's while they're dealing with getting off of it.
	Because the person that you are on after these medications is not the person, is not you, yourself.
	You are a person without those meds.
	All of your chemicals that are going in your brain are just terrible.
	The withdrawals are brutal.
	I mean, we've had this, I'm sorry, you were going to say something?
	Don't want to interrupt.
	I just ranted for God knows how long.
	No, no, listen.
	It's the big picture stuff that we need to look at.
	When biochemical warfare has been enacted against significant portions of an entire generation, we really need to back the fuck up and look at what we're doing as a society as a whole.
	But people don't do that.
	They're just turning the steering wheel in the final three frames of Thelma and Louise and think they're going to get back on the road.
	And what we need to do is recognize that we have Completely detonated what used to be called the family over the past couple of generations in the West.
	And really, you could argue that most of the 20th century was about detonating the family, particularly in Europe, of course, because endless wars destroyed families, and 10% of the Canadian population were called home Home kids, they were basically, you know, if the family, if they lost the provider or whatever and the mom had too many kids, you just ship them over to Canada and they'd basically be serfs or slaves over in Canada.
	About 10% of the population comes from these kids who were just shipped overseas.
	Kids shipped overseas to avoid the bombings in Europe during the Battle of Britain and England in particular.
	We've completely detonated the families.
	I mean, we've destroyed—the 20th century was all about the destruction of fatherhood, either through war or through social programs or through divorce or through parental alienation or whatever it is.
	So we have ripped the heart of the family out in terms of the masculinity that's necessary for children to thrive, particularly boys.
	And we've taken not only fathers out of the family to a large degree, but also we've taken moms out of the family by saying, you go, sister.
	The real girl power is to go and work for, you know, 12 bucks an hour rather than raise the flesh and blood of your loins.
	And so there's been this weird thing where we have Sovietized, we have socialized childhood.
	And now people drop their kids off at daycare, eight, seven, eight in the morning, and they pick them up Children are being raised in institutions.
	And the fact is that human beings are not designed to be raised in a big herd by strangers.
	This is not how human beings are designed.
	We're designed to be raised by Intimates by our parents.
	I mean, it seems so weird to actually have to say this shit in the 21st century.
	Human beings are designed to be raised by their parents and a community.
	As Philip Zimbardo has noted, I mean, in the past, you had four adults around for every child.
	And now you have 25 or 30 children around for every adult in most institutional or school settings.
	So, of course, it's completely ridiculous.
	And what's so sad is that everyone told me when I was growing up, you know, blood is thicker than water.
	Family is everything you do for family.
	And it's like, Dismantling the family was about the easiest thing that has ever been accomplished.
	Welfare check.
	Here you go.
	Don't worry, you don't need a father anymore.
	Some feminist says I should go and get a job.
	Okay, boom, let's get rid of our kids and just go swarm into the workplace.
	So dismantling the family.
	Why would people go to war?
	The family has always seemed to me about the weakest institution.
	I mean, I've certainly done what I can to try and strengthen it, certainly in my own family and in the talks.
	But the family has just been made of gossamer-threatened bullshit.
	It's like spiderwebs and gum and imagination because it has been about the easiest thing to dismantle.
	You know, when they tried to socialize medicine, I succeeded in socializing medicine in the 60s in Canada.
	There were riots.
	There were strikes.
	There were sit-downs.
	People blocked the roads.
	Every time they try and cut, you know, one-tenth of one percent of the massive corporate welfare known as farm subsidies, farmers go completely insane.
	And, you know, you try and say, oh, maybe the teachers should contribute 1.2 instead of 1.1 percent of their ridiculously huge pensions.
	And everybody goes completely insane.
	And so for like three bucks and a hand job, people will take to the fucking streets.
	But when it comes to their actual family, this thing got dismantled with barely a whisper.
	In fact, with cavalcades, cheers and ticket tape parades.
	And that to me is the saddest legacy of the West that we had such a fragile family structure that the powers that be could take it apart at the expense of the children.
	And not only would people not resist, but they would cheer it along.
	And that is something that I have a great deal of vehemence towards.
	Yeah, it's a false sense of morale.
	I did want to mention, though, despite everything that's happened in regards to children, you know, 70% of them are raised in broken homes.
	Many of them, I think it's one out of seven, are medicated.
	And they're also, you know, all attending public school.
	I mean, it's institutionalized.
	Children are still very resilient.
	Very resilient, as you mentioned.
	They still defy these authoritarian things that are given to them on many occasions.
	The fact that so many of them are being medicated is a sign that they're still not complying.
	Well, I mean, I agree with you that children can make a good show of it.
	But, I mean, the adverse childhood experiences index, I mean, all the work that's been done by Dr.
	Felitti at Kaiser Permanente Studies show that the long-term effects of these kinds of disrupted childhoods are just incredible.
	Children will put on a brave face and they'll struggle through.
	As an adult, undeniably.
	But, you know, while they're enduring it, children handle a lot, I think.
	It's also amazing, though, how much they're able to...
	A lot of it is a show, though, as you mentioned.
	When I was doing social work, there were kids who were just pulled out of a home.
	The parents were, say, drug addicts or whatever else.
	And you're talking to these kids, and they'd go like, well, I can take care of myself because I can kick the shit out of any person, whatever.
	It's an eight-year-old kid.
	It's like, no, that's really sad that you've been put in this position so many times that that defense is automatically up.
	The feeling of—I mean, I think a natural feeling of, oh my god, what is going to happen to me now?
	That's gone.
	It's this tortured soul which has had to grow up in a very bad way so, so very quickly.
	And you're having this more and more often, especially in the impoverished communities.
	I know that— I was seeing in African-American communities, the amount of them that are actually being raised with a father is so, so incredibly low.
	And we know that one of the most important possible things, if not the most important thing when you're being raised, is to have a father there as well.
	And feminism has managed to kick that out by making those damn jokes that you see on TV all the time where they state, oh, well, now that I have a vibrator, I don't even know why I need a man.
	It's like this very disgusting...
	This type of embrace of anti-man mentality, it's not only carried there, it's also carried whenever you watch television and you see a woman abusing a man, you know, slapping him in the face, hitting him with a rolling pin, all those other things.
	We consider those, oh, those are funny, or, oh, the man was asking for it.
	But if a man were to ever defend himself, you'd call him a little bitch because he's like, oh, what, he can't take a hit by a woman?
	And that he's a domestic abuser because he's actually defending himself.
	So that kind of mentality, that The feminist perception of man as being this domineering rapist rather than a human being has also carried over onto how we look at little boys and how we look at little girls.
	Yeah, I saw a preview for a movie about a wedding with Robert De Niro.
	I mean, it looked like a pretty sad and pitiful movie.
	And towards the end, he gets hit in the face two or three times, and this is considered to be comedy.
	I'm still looking forward to the time when women getting kicked in the vagina is something that makes people really laugh because it's really hilarious.
	And of course, getting kicked in the vagina is much less painful than getting kicked in the balls.
	You can actually rotate a testicle.
	You can end up in hospital.
	You can end up with infertility.
	You can end up with blood clots.
	I mean, you can die from that.
	But it's just so fucking funny when guys get hit in the nets.
	This is tragic.
	I know that commercial you're referring to because I also saw it and was really shocked.
	It's three times that he's getting hit, you know, and it's supposed to be hilarity.
	So it's crazy that we're so desensitized that this is just a norm and it's okay.
	You know, and it's in front of people too.
	So it's really socially acceptable.
	The media perpetuation of violence in a funny kind of manner, though, also gives people the wrong view of violence as how serious it is, especially physical violence.
	Recently, there was a case where there was a soccer game among some teenagers, and this 15-year-old kid punches the referee in the face.
	And according to the movies, either you get knocked out immediately or like, oh, well, that happened.
	Well, this 15-year-old actually ended up killing this old man, this old referee.
	And so in people's minds, it's like, oh, well, if you just punch someone in the face, nothing really big happens.
	It's not a big deal.
	You might pass out.
	Of course, that's a concussion, which is permanent brain damage.
	But it's this whole mentality of violence is okay as long as it's against other men.
	When men fight other men, it's not considered that bad.
	Now, I am coming from someone, by the way, who I don't have the biggest issue when it comes to, say, MMA or something like that, but it's just this view of like, Non-volitional coercion against men as being proper or normal.
	Yeah, I mean, this is something I've been introduced to more recently, this idea of the disposable male, that The idea is, of course, that men are interchangeable like toy soldiers and they're just there to be thrown against whatever furnace needs putting out in society.
	And this is just the way it works, right?
	So, you know, Margaret Thatcher died recently.
	And I remember even at the time, though, being a little bit, okay, so if this is a patriarchy, why is a woman sending all men to go to fight all men?
	You know, that doesn't seem quite in line with the horrible patriarchy that I've heard so much about.
	Tony Blair or David Cameron or whoever, I guess, sent an all-woman army to go fight an all-woman army.
	I mean, people would go insane.
	People would go completely mental.
	I mean, this is part of the myth of female subjugation.
	You know, I don't remember a whole lot of slave societies where whenever a ship went down, it was, you know, all the men went down with the ship and it was women and children to the lifeboats first.
	I don't remember a lot of, let's get the slaves to the lifeboats and all the plantation owners will go down with the ship.
	You know that?
	That didn't seem to really happen.
	I think women have occupied a good deal of privilege throughout history, but of course you can only, only when men have made the world secure enough and safe enough can women begin to indulge in despising men, right?
	So one of the things that happened in the 1940s and the 1950s was that men Invented and sold labor-saving devices for women before they invented and sold life-saving devices for men, you know, like things to scrub out coal dust from the air or things to scrub out asbestos or things that were really dangerous for men because, you know, men like to do what women want.
	I mean, it's sort of how we're programmed.
	And I think that power is not used very wisely in the modern world.
	But this idea, of course, that men are just basically toy soldiers that you can just throw into a fire And they just got to do what they got to do.
	You know, like in England, of the 4,000, I think, policemen who've died or police people who've died in the line of work, I think like 30 of them were women.
	The Iraq casualties coming back and the Afghanistan casualties are overwhelmingly like 98 plus percent men.
	And of course, if it was 98 percent of women who were getting killed by being ordered into battle by men, people would go completely insane.
	But the fact is that they're men and so they are disposable.
	You know, they're as common as sperm.
	And, you know, we need to protect the eggs in the uterus much more so.
	And I think that that lack of humanity has, I think, really crippled us.
	And as you say, it worms its way into the family.
	Now men are considered disposable within the family, and no amount of data appears to be able to change this ideological position.
	Yeah, and of course, Warren Farrell talked a lot about the disposability of men, because he also brought up the fact that women are disposable because of pregnancy, in the sense that they could die during childbirth, and that disposability was genetic.
	Men's disposability comes a lot in the form of culture, where we have to set up an entire culture where it feels okay for men to die.
	Or for men to go to war.
	And you have to do that in the sense of bringing up words like pride and giving them tokens like medals, like the Medal of Honor, the Silver Star, and everything else.
	So you have to create an entire culture where it's okay For men to die for women, but then at the same time state that women are being subjugated.
	Now, of course, women haven't always had it great, but neither have men.
	That's the idea.
	It's like when you watch something like the show Mad Men, right, which I enjoy, but there's a lot of silliness that's involved, which is kind of like, okay, well, this woman doesn't have any freedom or anything else.
	Well, actually, in this sense, also, the man doesn't have any freedom.
	He can't state, you know what?
	I don't want to work to support my family for the rest of my life.
	I want to be able to stay home and actually spend time with my children.
	Maybe it'd be okay if my wife were to work And I can stay at home with my kids and try to enjoy them and everything else.
	But no, that's not what you're supposed to do.
	So in both those cases, they're both being stuck in roles that they not necessarily want, but society can don't.
	And now, of course, there's more of a show.
	Sorry, that show takes place in the 1950s or 60s?
	Late 50s, early 60s.
	Yeah, it's been kind of moving around.
	It goes on into the 70s.
	Yeah.
	Okay, so if it starts in the late 50s, I've not seen the show, but do they make any reference to any of the older men having been, say, fighting Nazis and risking their lives, and many of them getting injured and blown up?
	Yeah, they do.
	Like Don Draper, the main character in the show, takes someone else's identity after his friend is blown up in a...
	Vietnam over some stupid little incident.
	So they do kind of get into that thing.
	The beginning of the show started off with, like, the men being total dicks to all the women, and then they realized that that came off bad.
	They're like, well, this is going to suck for ratings.
	We need women to watch it, too.
	So you need to engineer every single show to get women to watch it as well as men.
	Do you know anything about that?
	And also what...
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Sorry, forgive me.
	We're in trouble.
	What subjugated class in society spends 85% of consumer income?
	I mean, that's something that's quite important as well.
	I remember as well, I mean, I just talked about this in a show, so I'll keep it brief, but my mom used to take me on these, you know, endless shopping safaris when I was a kid, you know, just go to the mall and shop and shop and shop.
	And I mean, I was exposed to some ideas of patriarchy even as a kid.
	It was very, very big in the 70s when I was sort of growing up.
	And I remember going to the mall and saying, okay, we're going to the mall and there's acres and acres of perfume.
	Well, that's for women, okay?
	Then, if we go to the left, there's acres and acres of jewelry.
	Okay, that's for women.
	Oh, look at this.
	If you go to the right, there's acres and acres of makeup.
	Well, that's all for women.
	And then the whole floor, okay, there's shoes over here, handbags over here, the shoes look uncomfortable, the handbags are ridiculous, because, you know, in a plastic bag or a tote bag, you're fine.
	And as we'd go through the mall, I'd say, okay, well, what is there here for kids?
	You know, there'd be a little corner, like a toy store, a little thing or whatever you could go to.
	And I'd say, well, what's here for men?
	Well, there's like one suit store and one And then I'd say, well, okay, these are for men, but it seems to me that women are doing most of the purchasing in those.
	So this whole area, this consumer culture, is a cathedral to please women.
	And I remember thinking, like, how is this subjugation?
	I can't understand it.
	Even as a kid, it didn't make any sense to me.
	And it still doesn't as an adult.
	Well, a lot of it, though, is also, so the, I guess the message that has come across is, well, we're doing this all for men.
	A lot of it, though, is women doing it for other women, isn't it?
	I mean, I think that's the big argument.
	I think a lot of it derives from, you know, a feudal system and hierarchy.
	Bracelets, for instance, right?
	If you look at a bracelet, no one, I mean, some of them are designed to wear.
	It's really difficult to snap at yourself.
	It was designed because someone was taking care of you and putting things on you.
	Decorating yourself in feudal times was sort of expected.
	So I think it's kind of something that's It's gone into the modern day market.
	It's something that we just continue to do.
	Not that it's great.
	Not that it's, you know...
	But when it comes to people judging the red carpet, then it's always women that are judging other women on the red carpet.
	It's women...
	Like, I don't care if a woman wears heels.
	And honestly, whenever I see it, my main thought is, fuck, that has to be really uncomfortable.
	Like, I wear dress shoes.
	I'm like, this is stupid.
	Why do I have hooves on?
	Why is this a normal thing?
	Well, okay, but...
	If you did a role reversal, I think that, yeah, you have a valid point.
	If you were to do a role reversal where men were expected to decorate themselves, sort of.
	Look at it this way.
	So women say, well, we have to dress up because of men.
	Well, first of all, I don't ever remember being asked by a woman whether I wanted to wait for an extra hour for her to get herself ready or whether I'd rather just have an hour extra of dinner conversation with her.
	Because if she'd asked me and said, "Okay, listen, I can spend an hour doing my hair and my makeup and getting the Jess on just right and doing whatever freaky voodoo goes on under that Spanx-infested universe," or we can go right now and we can have an extra hour of great conversation, I'd say, "Ship it out, sister.
	Let's go have a great conversation.
	I don't want you to spend all that time getting ready.
	So the idea that it's for men when men aren't even asked and when men, if they were asked, would almost universally say, I'm tired of waiting.
	Let's just go.
	The idea is for men.
	It's ridiculous.
	But even if it were for men, can you imagine a man saying, well, you see, women Like a guy with stuff.
	So the only reason that I became a lawyer or a doctor is because of women.
	Women are 100% responsible for everything that I do in my career.
	I have no say, no choice.
	I can't find any women who are different than that, and I'm gonna completely do everything that I do, get all my money, all my stuff, my car, my house, my suit, my axe, deodorant, whatever it is that I'm using, 100% because of what women want.
	What would people say to such a guy?
	Yeah, I'm not justifying the cultural norms at all, by the way.
	What would they say?
	I'm not justifying.
	What would they say?
	What would they say?
	Oh, he's weak.
	Wait, excuse me.
	The term is pussy whipped.
	It's generally what you would state about the guys.
	That is an insult to cats.
	What's up kitty cat?
	Sorry, I'm talking to my cat.
	No, but you can say to that guy, like, don't be ridiculous.
	You're making choices.
	Don't blame women.
	I mean, and it's painting with a broad brush, sorry.
	I hear that double on time.
	But it's to say, well, all women just want this, you know, guy with a sports car.
	I mean, that's the ridiculously sexist view of women.
	And so for women to say, well, we have to dress like this because of men is to say all men are only ever interested in is shallow, falsifiable, ridiculous, consumerist, outward appearance, which is ridiculous.
	I mean, men are not that way at all.
	And in fact, if you look at—I was reading this statistic the other day.
	Okay, you've got to guess.
	Average American woman, an average American woman, how much a year do you think that she spends?
	Now, this is in the context of the average American woman, less than half of them have any money set aside for their retirement.
	How much money do you think they spend on beauty products every year?
	A disgusting amount.
	I'm just trying to put numbers in my head.
	Let's go with 2000.
	Oh man, that is so optimistic.
	Yeah, that is.
	A year though?
	Yeah.
	A year or a lifetime?
	Because I know a lifetime.
	No, no, a year.
	This is a year.
	A year.
	Okay, I have no idea then.
	If it's more than 2,000.
	10 to 12,000.
	Yeah.
	How the hell is that possible?
	That's realistic.
	How much is your makeup?
	It's obnoxious.
	Jesus.
	And I'm not saying that that's the best way to go about things, but what do you think about girls who- Wait a moment, hold up real quick.
	If I could tell a girl, hey, instead of putting on makeup, why don't we buy a new car?
	I can buy a new car every year for $12,000, actually.
	Or save and invest.
	Or save and invest.
	No, I'm saying something absolutely ridiculous, though.
	Like, well, why don't we just go ahead and buy a new car for 10 years straight?
	We'll have 10 new cars.
	I can sell all those and everything else.
	It's just, that's, wow.
	Wow.
	I'm not just shh.
	I'm not trying to hop on the feminist train here by any means, but what do you think about the fact that little girls are really marketed to in regards to their beauty and how important it is?
	I guess maybe it's because of my memories.
	I distinctly remember being an eight-year-old girl And that being such a big thing that was really pushed towards you, you know?
	And I remember sort of, I guess, the mockery whenever you were going through an ugly duckling stage and how severe it was and how much people sort of obsessed over it, particularly, you know, when it comes to teens.
	So do you think this sort of has an impact as to why women in their adult life end up spending obnoxious amounts of money in order to look...
	It certainly has something to do with it, but I mean women were able to inject a lot of girl power into little girls' experiences and lots of sugar gets marketed to little girls, but I don't see little girls all being 300 pounds, right?
	So moms have the capacity to say no to marketing that is not considered in their interests.
	And so if the moms aren't saying no, then...
	I can't blame it all on marketing.
	There's lots of marketing that doesn't get through to kids.
	Turn the damn TV off.
	We can go out, have a walk, and talk about this stuff.
	But the reason the parents can't is because the kid's gonna say, okay, here's another statistic.
	What percentage of women do you think would rather break up with their current boyfriend than stop using makeup?
	80%.
	Actually, this one's a little better.
	It's only 57% would rather break up.
	Now, what percentage of women would rather go shopping for cosmetics than go on a dinner date?
	No, I don't know.
	It's two thirds of women would rather go shopping for cosmetics than go on a dinner date.
	That's sad, but I've listened to other statistics that you've mentioned that are even more tragic whenever it comes to women who would prefer to go shopping over spending time with their children.
	So the cycle isn't really going to end if the moms themselves are indulging In this beauty obsession.
	It's way down on the list of what moms want to do.
	I think it's like 12th or 13th.
	I think it's like right above doing taxes or getting a pedicure from a lizard.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	With the kids thing, I feel really tragic for that, for the cosmetic thing.
	For some reason, maybe I'm just kind of asshole in my head.
	I'm like, man, they've been on a lot of boring dates then.
	That might have something to do with it.
	But there's a lot of men who also do not know how to socialize with other human beings because they've The form of socializing that they got was one from public schooling where we supposedly were taught to socialize even though when you went to school you were told not to socialize.
	You only spent time with people your own age.
	And then whenever you're out of school you were told you had to stay home because if you went outside people were going to rape you and you had to stay inside so you played a video game instead.
	And if you think I'm kidding, no.
	Every single time I talked to a parent when I used to work at social work it was, well, you can't let your kids go out these days.
	It's like you could have Child Protective Services called on you for letting your eight-year-old kid ride his bike three blocks out, but I think that's pretty rare.
	But this is another example of how the detonation of the family has changed childhood.
	Because the reason that you can't let your kids go play in the neighborhood is because parents are gone all day.
	They don't know each other.
	They don't know the neighborhood.
	They don't know who's good and who's not, who's safe and who's not.
	So it's all just a whole big bunch of blank-walled stranger houses out there.
	Whereas, you know, the moms who were home in the past would get together and they'd all, you know, get to know each other and, oh yeah, go play over in such and such a house or whatever, right?
	My daughter can walk over to a neighbor's house and play if she wants.
	She was there half the afternoon today.
	I think it's wonderful, but that's because I'm home!
	Anyway, so that's a whole different kind of thing.
	And of course, kids are generally a lot safer now than they were in the past.
	Child abductions are down, child violence is down, and it's such a rare thing.
	And I, you know, fortunately had...
	A combination of pure fascism and random anarchy, because I went from boarding school to a mom who was like, get out of the house, come back, I don't know, whenever, and get some food.
	So I had a lot of that sort of glorious anarchy that I think was probably somewhat important in helping me develop my mindset.
	But yeah, this fear, it just comes from not knowing the people who are around you, and that is a big problem.
	But I mean, the idea that This can be combated by keeping kids inside.
	It's just another retreat from a natural way that human beings are supposed to grow up.
	Yeah, a fun statistic is the fact that the chances of a child being randomly kidnapped by someone he does not know, has no knowledge of whatsoever, and then, you know, raped and killed is less than being hit by lightning twice.
	And I'm not, that's not even a, that's not, that's not crap.
	That's, that's absolutely, you know.
	Well, no, sorry, that's, unless, sorry, sorry, unless the person kidnapping is, is Thor.
	Because if the person's kidnapping...
	Anyway, we'll go into that perhaps in another show.
	But just sort of, there's an old statement from Voltaire that says, if you want to know who's really in charge, just figure out who you're not allowed to criticize, right?
	So have you ever heard that men are a little hard to communicate with emotionally sometimes and can be fearful of commitment and can be kind of distant and abstract and don't know how to manage relationships very well?
	Have you ever heard those things about men?
	Well, sure, we all have.
	I think we all have.
	Right, right.
	So we have a conversation about the frailties of men and the weaknesses of men.
	Can you think of a single character on television, I don't know if you guys watch or not, but can you think of a single female character on television who is mocked for her vanity?
	Paris Hilton.
	I guess you didn't have a show.
	Actually, Christina Hendricks is sort of mocked.
	She's just this big-breasted beautiful woman.
	In a way, they're sort of praised over it to a certain degree.
	I mean, it's sort of fictional, not a reality scene.
	I mean, in Snow White, you know, the evil witch, or the queen, that's the only character I can possibly think of.
	But that's back when you could talk about female vanity.
	I'm talking about now.
	That's when you could say, vanity, thy name is woman.
	You can't talk about this vanity now, right?
	Yeah, you're right.
	There's women there, but you can also say, are you allowed to say anything bad about Israel?
	No, because you'd be considered an anti-Semite.
	There are lots of people, Finkelstein, Chomsky, there are lots of people saying lots of critical things, but the topic of female vanity Which is, I think, a very interesting topic, and I think women would benefit hugely from having a frank conversation about female vanity, just as men benefit, I think, enormously from having frank conversations about emotional unavailability.
	But it's like, to me, this is the most fundamental sexism, and I rail against it because I have a daughter, and I don't want my daughter to grow up in an environment where she can't be criticized for her faults or her failings, because somehow the women are so fragile and such hothouse flowers that the mirror's There's a breath of criticism.
	Ah, they're going to get hysterical or something.
	It's like, no.
	Women have a problem with vanity.
	Men have their problems.
	Women have problems with vanity.
	And we really should have a frank discussion.
	It's destructive for the environment.
	Of course, it may mention the amount of stuff that happens in the environment that is based upon fueling women's vanity.
	Like 70 to 80 percent of the ads in primetime TV are about vanity products, which is why you don't have sitcom characters who are mocked for their vanity because it's like, it's so ridiculous to be vain about your hair.
	Here's the stuff that makes your hair look great.
	You know, it would just be ridiculous, right?
	So we can't have a frank and rational discussion, which used to be more in the past, about female vanity because we're just focused on nitpicking about the men who are saving people from burning buildings and digging the oil out of the ground and cutting down trees and all that kind of stuff.
	But I think it's really tragic that we've lost that.
	And of course, so much of our economy revolves around female consumption.
	I mean, 91% of new houses, even 60% of electronics, 80% of consumer purchases, all driven by women.
	And so I think we've got this really kind of Helium-based precipitation economy that could come collapsing down or significantly reshape itself if we have frank conversations about female vanity.
	But we can't because, because, because, right?
	I don't know exactly why, but it just seems like they're just immune from criticism.
	That seems so sexist to me.
	I mean, I think women can handle criticism and the women in my life can.
	Yeah, definitely.
	I mean, I think, I guess I want to explore the origins of where vanity derives from, though, you know?
	I believe you buy it at a fair, if I remember.
	Well, you know, the same with men being, you know, certain men being incapable of The thing though is also guys a lot of times aren't exactly allowed to talk about the fact that they are projected having to be vain as well.
	I mean if you look at all the ads, they always go, oh look at all the beautiful women on the ads.
	They're always so sexy and there are all these things that you can't beat.
	Well they're happy and people love them, right?
	They associate it with emotions.
	So do you think that it derives from insecurity?
	To a certain degree.
	Well, okay.
	So, look, the male emotional distance is male disposability, right?
	I mean, I can guarantee you that.
	I mean, I went to boarding school.
	Boarding school is the training ground for the military of the British Empire.
	That's what it was for.
	And so, naturally, you get separated from maternal influences, and you get put in with a bunch of, frankly, little sociopaths with blonde hair.
	And you put into ferocious sports and lots of physical training and you're caned or whipped for things that you do that are minor transgressions.
	And so you are, it's designed to sever you from your emotional experience and reclaiming that was a good deal of work in my twenties and thirties, right?
	And so the idea that men should be cut off from their emotions is natural because they're disposable.
	And for them to have emotions and preferences like, I'd really like to not get my leg blown off in a war, that would be great.
	Well, no, they have to be automatons.
	They have to be robots to serve the powers that be.
	Now, we've had conversations around that as a society, which I think has been great.
	Let's talk about the fact that men should not be so disconnected from their emotions and should be warm, nurturing, and tender.
	You know, as the primary stay-at-home caregiver for my daughter, I'm incredibly grateful to have had that conversation as a society.
	It's opened up immense possibilities for me to be a warmer and more caring human being.
	And it's the whole flower of my heart has been based upon that great conversation that society has had.
	So I can understand why there's sort of male disposability, male unemotionality.
	It's the Robocop thing.
	You know, like if you're going to go around enforcing the whims of the rulers and blowing up foreign people, you can't have a whole lot of empathy.
	And self-empathy is the first thing to go if you want to kill empathy.
	And I'm certainly open.
	I mean, I don't know the answer to female vanity, why it still remains such a blight on society.
	But I'm certainly open to why you think it would be.
	I think the eeny, meeny, my name is one person who might have a bit more insight there.
	Let's go with you.
	Well, I mean, I've watched a few documentaries, but they definitely, they analyze, you know, commercialism and what have you.
	And I think that, I think you're definitely right in terms of parenting.
	If the parents would stop exhibiting that type of behavior, if they would turn off the TV and turn off all this crap.
	But commies do love attacking advertisement instead of public schooling.
	They do.
	They do.
	And they prefer like, you can't control it.
	So let's control it for you.
	You know, and I'm not for that argument either.
	But I think there's definitely something to it.
	It definitely has a psychological effect on children.
	But it also could be exploiting something that's already there, right?
	Yeah.
	So an advertisement doesn't necessarily create the person that it is.
	They're just using whatever is already there.
	So if you have a group of people who are already kind of broken by public schooling, by bad parenting and everything else, who have...
	Just didn't grow up well or anything else.
	It's easier to sell them materialistic goods to not have to deal with the fact that their life is crap.
	And the way that they sell it is with emotions.
	So women who look beautiful, they also show them in commercials where they're being loved or they're getting attention.
	So when you've been neglected, you haven't had that, that looks really, really appealing.
	So instead of having to actually deal with your actual psychological trauma or anything else, or to try to be able to become a more knowledgeable, smart person, to have other features besides aesthetics, which, again, it's a bit more difficult because you actually need self-knowledge in order to be able to get there.
	Instead, well, you know, if I just do another 100 crunches and I put on this bronzer, then I'm fine.
	You know what I mean?
	Then I'm able to control my life by doing it aesthetically rather than mentally.
	Or someone will love me.
	Well, but I mean, I think that's certainly tempting for people, the idea that some shiny exterior polish is going to make your insides actually warm and loving, or the idea that somebody else's attention is going to define whether you are lovable or not.
	I can understand that, but to me it seems like there's been so many stories about the dangers of beauty I mean, from Narcissus, the guy who drowned himself because he loved looking at himself in the lake so much that he pitched forward and drowned himself.
	I mean, Marilyn Monroe.
	I mean, if money, looks, fame and talent were enough to make someone happy, she'd probably still be alive today, right?
	And Cruella de Vil.
	I mean, I'm just off the top of my head thinking of a bunch of stories in which The problems of vanity, mean girls.
	I mean, the problems of female beauty and the dangers of female beauty, Medusa, all these kinds of things.
	It seems like we have quite a lot of counterexamples.
	I mean, in a way, and the reason I'm bringing this up is that there weren't a lot of counterexamples to male emotional unavailability in the past.
	I didn't notice a lot of gooey dads in Shakespeare or, you know, Dickens or whatever.
	A few.
	I guess Joe Gargery in Great Expectations.
	But for the most part, There has not been a countervailing set of, to me, cultural points against the male emotional unavailability, but it seems there's been lots of stuff that's negative or at least critical of the dangers of female beauty.
	I mean, the sirens, the sirens, right?
	Odysseus has got to strap himself to the mast because he wants this so beautiful.
	He's going to go drown.
	And the danger of female beauty, I think, has been explored.
	So I think there could be some counterexamples.
	But men's shallow posturing is, I mean, I remember years ago, there's a Murphy Brown episode, but two guys were sort of bantering at each other and Murphy Brown said, okay, guys, just pull out your dicks, we'll measure them and see who's got the bigger one, right?
	You made fun of this kind of posturing.
	But at the same time, I just don't see fun being made.
	Like even in, there's a Zooey Deschanel show called That Girl?
	New Girl.
	New Girl, yeah.
	Yeah, I saw it on a plane, and there's a guy in it who used to be overweight, and now he's cut and lean, and he's ridiculously vain, and they're constantly making fun of him.
	You know, it's like, I can't believe you took that photo.
	My hair is totally different now three weeks later.
	You know, that's kind of like he's just constantly making fun of his physical vanity, but no fun can ever be made of the women's physical vanity in that.
	So I just— I don't know.
	It's a tough question.
	I don't know the answer.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	You bring up the weight loss thing.
	It's funny because I used to be 320 pounds.
	I was a really big guy.
	And now I weigh a lot less.
	But the thing is, is people do make fun of that vanity that men have.
	But you need to be slightly vain in order to be able to get to the position where I am, where you have to constantly be looking at what you eat and work out and everything else.
	And it's easy to get obsessed over because when you get to the point that I'm at where it's like, okay, I'm almost here, you know what I mean?
	Like, I'll be more, I'll be finally like these other guys.
	But then I look at my stomach and I have stretch marks, you know, I have, you know, and these other issues.
	So if I bring this up, With a lot of people, I have these issues with my image.
	It's like, what are you, some girl?
	You're looked down upon because it's...
	Men will actually say that rather than say, I mean, that is a tough situation to be dealing with, right?
	I mean, you've got to look at surgery because it's not going to de-elasticize itself, right?
	So I'm sorry about that.
	That is really tough.
	And so, you know, mentally, it's draining, you know, and it's something that I've had to battle with.
	I mean, I don't know if I've brought it up on a show before because, you know, a lot of times you don't want to bring up your weaknesses when you're trying to present yourself as being some knowledgeable person.
	But it's definitely a weakness that I've had in my life of, you know, just looking at the mirror, thinking, okay, now I need to work out this day.
	I work out four times a week, you know what I mean?
	So it's always trying to balance, okay, am I actually trying to be fit in To be healthy, or am I trying to be fit to look a certain way?
	And those kind of topics aren't really talked about that much.
	I think, I mean, there's a mean, I think, you know, slovenliness, a complete lack of concern for your appearance is not healthy.
	I think vanity and slovenliness sort of falls in the Aristotelian mean, you know, like you don't have an Aristotelian mean for like axe murdering, you know, just the right amount is good, right?
	But you have an Aristotelian mean for things like courage, right?
	Too little courage is cowardice, too much courage is foolhardiness and so on.
	Too much love is stalking, too little love is coldness.
	But, and I think vanity is an extreme end of a continuum, and at the other end is complete indifference to your appearance, which, if you've ever stood next to people like that on the subway, you kind of wish a little vanity might drive them to some deodorant store or something like that.
	So I think there is an Aristotelian mean argument to be said for vanity, and I remember when I was, I think I started to loop my hair when I was about 16, right?
	And it's like, Are you fucking kidding me?
	Are you kidding me?
	I mean, come on!
	Now, I mean, I'm very happy with it because it's so ridiculously convenient and I think I look great.
	But at the time, it was like, are you kidding me?
	And I was like, I get comb and just give all this nonsense up, right?
	But so I do think that there is...
	A regard for your appearance is not completely immaterial.
	In fact, when you go to some libertarian conventions, occasionally you want to go in with a bit of a mani-pedi and a hair clip and say to people, you are representing a movement that's supposed to be about freedom not from Good smells.
	Freedom not from bits of soup in your beard.
	Freedom not from things like that.
	It's not the end of the world.
	So I don't have this hugely negative thing towards vanity.
	I love what Ichi said about it.
	He said, vanity is the fear of appearing original.
	And I think that's very true, because vanity is always defined by other people's standards.
	It's not your own standard, right?
	So vanity has a very collectivist aspect to it and it's highly manipulable.
	But I think, you know, the people I've known who don't care at all about their appearance, that is not freedom because they're, to me, then not free to do other things like get good jobs or dates or whatever that I think are actually kind of important in life if you want those kinds of things.
	And I think they're decent things to want.
	But vanity doesn't matter, you know, like if your daughter is sick for the third time that night, it doesn't matter You know, how long your eyelashes are, just got to go in and help.
	And so when it comes like parenting, it's like, to me, the vanity is the courtship.
	And then the parenting is a little bit more like, you know, track pants and, you know, rubbing clove under your armpits every third week or something like that.
	But there is, I think, a mean point.
	So I agree with you.
	I mean, I think being indifferent to your appearance is not not freedom.
	And the people who are that way inclined, I don't think have particularly great lives.
	In a lot of ways.
	And I think it's kind of selfish in a way because you do inflict your appearance on other people whether you like it or not.
	And so I do agree with you that there is a place for it.
	But I do think that the average UK woman spends, it's crazy, spends two years doing makeup of her life.
	So basically what you're saying, I just want to get this right.
	We should all do the Jeffrey Tucker.
	Yeah, just really well, but don't, you know...
	Over excessive.
	Yeah, well, it's about balancing the thing.
	And I do thank Jeffrey Tucker, though, for bringing a bit of...
	I had to.
	...more class to the libertarian community.
	But, you know, you bring up, though, two...
	You said, okay, two years on their makeup or anything.
	But then you think about, you know, guys who work out to the point of eight hours a week.
	You know, so there is...
	There is that other side that I think men sometimes— No, no, no, no, no.
	Sorry, sorry.
	But with the guys, that's an extreme end of the spectrum.
	This is the average for women.
	You know you're right.
	So I agree with you.
	There's body dysmorphia in the male community as well.
	I remember reading something because it's in the gay community as well, not so much in the black gay community.
	Basically, anyone who dates white men has body dysmorphia issues because that's the way it goes, whether it's boys or girls.
	But for men, yes, there is.
	There's that wide-smiling Japanese-looking guy who has to turn sideways to get through an airplane hangar.
	But that's very much at the extreme end of the spectrum, and you don't meet a lot of guys like that.
	I mean, I've met maybe four or five, and I've gone to gyms my whole life, but I've met maybe four or five guys my whole life who are like that.
	But this is women as a whole.
	This is the average for women.
	This is not something that's way off here in an extreme end.
	This is the massive center of the bulge.
	Yeah, but clearly no one is born this way to do makeup.
	No one is born to do makeup for hours on end, so I think we have to explore and ask what's happening within society.
	What do mothers do?
	What happens to you if you go out without makeup?
	If I grew up without it?
	If you just say, I'm going to go out to a nice restaurant, I'm not going to put any makeup on.
	I should give it a shot and see what happens.
	But do I go out without makeup all the time?
	I mean, I go run errands and I do what I want.
	In fact, I was raised in a very southern sort of family that would tell me, really, you're going out without your face on.
	I'd be like, yeah, I don't really care.
	I think it was sort of my sense of rebellion at the time.
	Isn't that a terrifying phrase?
	It is.
	It is.
	I can see your teeth through your cheeks, woman.
	You've got worms in your eye sockets.
	I mean, it's just horrifying.
	It was so extreme and I was 16 years old then.
	So I think we really have to analyze what's occurring, what's happening within society and what are you being told that gives you this, I guess, idea that you are not presentable until you have something It's the basic exchange, right?
	You know that song, Summertime, right?
	Your daddy's rich and your mom is good-looking.
	That's the basic exchange, right?
	That the men gather resources in order to buy the fertility of the women and provide her resources to raise the children.
	So I can kind of get that, and I really can get that.
	But the whole point has been that men are supposed to and have been I think quite successfully argued for many of us into outgrowing those roles and not just being the, you know, he-man silent provider of resources who, you know, puts his feet up and expects his kids to get his newspaper at the end of the day and grunts three times to his wife before, you know, banging her in a missionary position and falling asleep on top.
	That's not—we've outgrown that kind of stuff, right?
	And now we're all smoking clove cigarettes and thumbing through the Kama Sutra and trying to figure out how to install hooks on our ceilings, right?
	So it's all changed in—maybe not all of us, but some of us.
	I've heard of it.
	Anyway, so that's changed.
	But I guess the degree to which men have been asked to outgrow the sort of traditional simian role of grunt-faced provider I'd like to have women have the opportunity to challenge this kind of thing, but it actually seems like retail therapy.
	It's cool.
	You know, it's not something that's even in the radar of something to criticize or question, I guess.
	Yeah, I think you're right.
	You're right.
	The playing field is not even in any sense of the word.
	It's not.
	On either side of those.
	That's true.
	How men are kind of moving outside in regards to they have to be more personable, they have to understand these, have insights, be able to spend time with their children in a meaningful way, be sensitive.
	And then for women, another message is going across, which is you have to go out and work.
	It's not really a normal thing to be a mother.
	You have to do the eight-hour work shift day.
	No, but see, that message is driven by profit, right?
	So that, I mean...
	Getting women into the workforce was just about making the government bigger and giving the government more control over kids.
	I mean, the problem with child raising is non-taxable, right?
	You get a woman into the workforce, you get to tax her income, and then you get to tax the income of whoever's taking care of her kids, and they get to be unionized, and probably the woman will be unionized, so you get even more political campaigns and contributions.
	So the drive to get women into the workforce, I mean, the idea that you trade Raising your wonderful children for, you know, a job in a complaints department at Sears.
	I mean, it's just ridiculous, right?
	But that was all driven by profit.
	This one would be, in a sense, counter to profit, right?
	And this is something that has to be open as a topic of discussion.
	But it's not.
	It's not.
	I mean, I've talked to a whole bunch of people.
	I've had, like, many girlfriends, and I would generally say, don't put on makeup.
	Let's just go.
	And some of them would be okay with it, and some of them would be like, it'd be a big problem.
	But it was never something that we could sit down and discuss.
	It was just like a fact of gravity.
	It'd be like saying to them, don't age.
	For heaven's sakes, do not have a menstrual cycle.
	That is deeply offensive to me.
	Like, I'm sorry, that's a fact of nature.
	I can't really do that.
	I have to bleed for a few days a month.
	I know it's weird, but that's the way it is, right?
	And to say not, but the vanity and the self-care and $10,000 to $12,000 a year when half of American women don't have a retirement savings account of any kind, it's not something even that can be – it's like, well, that's just gravity.
	You have to wear makeup.
	You have to have product.
	You have to go to a spa.
	You have to get your nails done.
	You have to have, like, no hair here and some hair here.
	It's just not even really, I think, much of a topic of discussion because it's so profit-driven for the existing – the way that the economy is currently structured.
	That to question it I think would be I mean, can you imagine if a movement ever really took off in this kind of way?
	What would happen and what the kind of response would be?
	I mean, TV would fundamentally change.
	You know, you can't have characters criticizing female vanity because TV is a mechanism to sell stuff to women's vanity.
	So it's sorry.
	So you can't have that.
	I mean, but this is all conditioned by this economic reality.
	But fundamentally, that's not going to change.
	Then, you know, you don't become a perfume company to say smell natural and stop sexually harassing men at work with your mask.
	You know, I mean...
	You know what's really...
	What's fascinating, though, is like...
	Yeah, go ahead.
	Okay, so I'm really into the paleo diet and stuff like that.
	I talked about Kinsella with it and everything else.
	And so a lot of it's like, okay, well, don't use...
	Don't use artificial products on your hair, on your face, or anything else.
	Don't use parabens.
	Don't use these disgusting chemicals and everything else, right?
	So they're trying to sell it to women, also, because, you know, the market's, okay, well, we got all the guys on that.
	It's not very hard to tell them not to use shampoo.
	It's not that difficult.
	I use baking soda and apple cider vinegar instead.
	So it's like, okay, and for you, very, very easy to sell, no shampoo.
	But for women, though, it's like, okay, well, it's good.
	Well, polish would be another matter entirely.
	Yes, but for women, though, it was like, okay, well, how are we going to sell them on this?
	Well, we're not going to sell them on don't use products at all.
	Instead, use natural products.
	So how to make all these different cosmetics using coconut oil and all these other things.
	But the message is not getting across is maybe you don't need to put this shit on your face.
	It's just putting natural shit on your face instead.
	So that was a different way of being able to sell essentially the same thing.
	Instead of using benzoyl peroxide on your face, instead use tea tree oil.
	Instead of using these other products, go ahead and make it yourself.
	Use these other minerals rather than other things.
	So even in the nature movement, you know, homemade type thing, the message is still...
	Women, you still need shit on your face because, or else, you know, what are you gonna, you're gonna go out there without anything on it?
	Without a face?
	Without a face?
	Somebody's gonna sample that for sure.
	I mean, environmentalists, I assume, you know, genuinely care about the environment.
	Well, how much environmental damage is done catering to female vanity?
	I mean, it's staggering.
	It's monstrous, huge.
	I mean, just digging this stuff out of the ground, refining it, chemicals, driving it everywhere, shopping it up, throwing out the stuff that doesn't work, the stuff that gets tossed in the recycling, the packaging, and all this kind of stuff.
	And so environmentalists would have a great approach.
	They could have something very useful to do in this area, right?
	And they don't—I've never—I mean, I've never heard it be a part of any particular environmental movement.
	You know, it's that, it's that.
	I'm sorry, go ahead.
	No, no, no.
	What was really interesting, though, is that the environmental movement is this.
	It's more than just the- I'm still listening.
	My camera ran out of juice, so keep talking.
	I've just got to fix that.
	Go ahead.
	Okay, so what was really fascinating was with the- It wasn't just cosmetic, so it's causing a lot of environmental issues.
	And it's actually birth control.
	So the estrogen and birth control, this is just a random fact for the day, is getting into lakes and streams and is- Destroying essentially the testicles of these fish and is preventing fish from being able to mate now because they have so much estrogen in their water systems, which is flooding whole lakes just with birth control.
	So even if you're not using condoms, which will also supposedly destroy the environment, even birth control will do it.
	So God knows a lot of these things that we're introducing into women to stick into women, the fact that they're able to denature fish Probably not going to be very good for the women either.
	And the environmental movement has never...
	The environmental movement for the majority hasn't really been about Implementing real change.
	It's all these artificial things for you to buy.
	They want you to buy a Prius.
	Or go green.
	Yeah, go green, right?
	So they tell you to buy a Prius, but the battery that's in a Prius has to be refined in Africa, taken out of these disgusting mines, then shipped over to China.
	And by the time it gets to the United States, it already used more CO2 than building four Range Rovers and driving them for years.
	So it's never been about Really changing anything.
	Even those little bags, you know how you're supposed to bring green bags to grocery stores or anything else?
	Those take up more waste or energy than 200 of those normal plastic bags.
	And you know that you're not using those same reusable bags all the time because they're selling a new one for Christmas, for Easter, for Thanksgiving or anything else.
	So you're just creating more and more waste for no reason whatsoever.
	Well, the environmental movement would definitely get rid of taxicab licenses.
	They're trying to do this in Alaska at the moment, trying to get rid of taxicab licenses because, I mean, it's ridiculous how much cabs cost, and it's one of the reasons people feel they need cars.
	Cabs are ridiculously expensive because you've got to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a stupid-ass license.
	We're trying to get rid of this.
	And of course, in Alaska, they're just getting sued because the guys are saying, wait a minute, I just dropped 200 grand on license.
	Now you're going to make the license 700 bucks.
	You just took away all my money.
	And so anyway, this is the intelligent way to deal with the environment, of course, is just to keep stop having guns pointed in people's faces for everything under the sun.
	But again, that's not really what the environmental movement is for.
	Anything any more than feminism is about the equality and liberty of women.
	But anyway, that's it.
	No, it's about soy patties and Xenoestrogenic chemicals being pumped into corn that's then turned into a supposed hamburger, which you then throw into your face, which raises up your estrogen levels, giving you bitch tits and a really disgusting population.
	I don't have anything against environmentalists or anything, no.
	But I— Listen, are there any topics—just to make sure—are there any topics that we haven't covered yet that we need to?
	Honestly, that's...
	I didn't even know how we got here, me railing against vegans, but...
	No, I've been doing some research on this topic, and so I just, you know, give you a preview of shows to come, but that's the stuff that I've sort of been mulling over.
	And having great conversations with women about it, too, which I think is a great fun.
	There should be an open dialogue about that.
	I'm glad that you bring it up.
	I'm really...
	I am.
	It needs to be discussed.
	Yeah.
	But the last thing I wanted to mention was I watched the video that you did regarding the 10 year anniversary of Iraq and I really, really appreciated the point at which you examined how many children have been murdered and just harmed in the process.
	And the way you went about it was, I thought, fantastic because there was a definite pause there where you were considering what's actually occurred.
	And it made me stop because I think we all tend to give out these statistics, right?
	We just give how many deaths and we sort of almost just become so detached from it that it's insane.
	But, you know, the moment that you paused, I imagine, well, if my little brothers had their arms and legs blown off, it would be horrific.
	And the fact that I think you and Jeffrey Tucker discussed it, the fact that you don't bring this up at a dinner party because it's just simply inappropriate.
	And the fact that we don't talk about it is a serious issue.
	Yeah, I'm actually going on TV tomorrow to talk about that.
	One of the hosts of RT has been retweeting that quite a bit.
	It is, you know, and again, in one of these silver lining things, in the past, people gloried in war tales of empire, right?
	I mean, think of Roald Dahl's books and the British Empire and so on.
	People gloried in tales of subjugation of the natives by the noble, heroic Westerners and so on.
	The fact that we can't look at this stuff, weirdly, is a kind of progress.
	You know, because people used to love it.
	You know, the fact that they've put, you know, it's like having a torture chamber and now they have to put walls up around it.
	That actually, in a weird way, is actually progress.
	And it's sad.
	It fucking is so sad.
	What scraps Of gold, you have to come out of this mindsoft of human shit we call the modern culture.
	But it is actually a kind of progress that people can't look at this.
	Because in the past, they used to look at it and actually quite enjoy it.
	And now they have to turn away, which is frustrating, of course, for anybody who wants to make any kind of real change.
	But it is a weird kind of progress that it is not pleasurable for people anymore to see this stuff.
	Yeah.
	That it's finding a needle in a haystack of a silver lining.
	But that's fair.
	Do it again, man.
	Do it again.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	I think...
	I know that...
	I wasn't gonna bring up the recent video that you brought up in regards to your condition right now.
	Is there any update?
	Oh, the cancer.
	Yeah.
	Is there any update that you can give us or anything?
	I mean, I cried like shit when I watched your video, honestly, and I was just like, I just...
	But I'm sure that you do not want to hear that right now.
	Anyway...
	No, I want to hear your honest reaction.
	I don't want to...
	This is about communication.
	The update is I have now been doing chemo for, I think, eight or nine days, and I worked out for an hour and a quarter tonight.
	And so...
	I don't know if they're just putting saline and steroids into my system.
	I have no idea.
	But the reality is that so far I've had a little bit of nausea, but that's been easily controllable.
	Some of the other side effects, things like constipation, not been an issue at all.
	So other than maybe 5 or 10% less energy at certain points during the day, I've napped twice over the last week, which is sort of unusual for me.
	Other than that, I really couldn't tell you that I'm sick.
	And I really couldn't tell you that.
	And I personally believe that I'm not.
	I mean, I had a scan.
	They couldn't find evidence of anything else.
	So I think this is mostly preventive because they don't want to wait until things grow to find them.
	So they're just going to nuke the system.
	So, I mean, I think I mentioned this to you guys when I was down there.
	And I was told at the time it was benign, so I was going to have it removed.
	Turned out it wasn't.
	I think everything that was problematic was in there, and it was taken all the way out.
	And the doctors give a pitch for the Oklahoma Surgical Center again.
	They did a fantastic job.
	And nothing else has been found in my system from head to toe.
	So I think that I don't feel sick at all.
	And I'm still willing to go through the regimen.
	And I'm sorry for all the people who think that I should be sucking back Satan's seeds of Some sort of caterpillar sweat or something like that.
	But I've got a bunch of oncologists who are listeners who are like, dude, do what you're doing.
	So I think it's very treatable.
	I think that I'm not in any kind of dire situation.
	And so far, the chemo has been a shocking non-event.
	So, I mean, I've got a couple more rounds to go over the summer.
	So, I mean, obviously over time, I've got a little bit of a sore throat that's kind of perpetual just because my blood cell count is down for fighting infections and so on.
	And I have to make sure that I'm not around a bunch of kids and stuff like that.
	But frankly, I have to remind myself, and I actually don't really want to, but I have to remind myself that, you know, I got this diagnosis and I'm going through this treatment, but, you know, I wouldn't, you know, follow me around with the camera, you wouldn't know that anything was going on.
	So from that standpoint, I don't know if I'm lucky, I don't know if whatever's happening, but so far, it's been a not negative experience at all.
	And in fact, it's been in many ways a very positive experience.
	So I appreciate you asking, and that's the update.
	I'm glad to hear it.
	We want you to keep us contemplating about the human experience on Free Domain Radio.
	Yeah, and outside of that, I'm glad to hear that it's not as bad as it's going on in my mind, because usually when you hear the term cancer, it's like, oh no, they're dead.
	I know it sounds terrible what I just said, but honestly, these are the things...
	No, no, it's not a happy word.
	I mean, it's the opposite of a happy word.
	And I saw the message that you left in regards to, you won't be able to make the pork best, which I completely understand.
	I'm going through chemo.
	I don't want to be around, I don't know, 2,000 hippies outside in the field.
	No, it's just that I have to have the chemo every few weeks and it just falls on, right?
	So it just falls on around that time.
	And I can do that sort of sanitize and all that.
	And I asked about flying on planes and they said, you know, just don't sit next to somebody who actually has no face.
	No, I'm just kidding.
	They said, don't sit next to somebody who...
	Who, you know, hacking up some piece of lung or something like that.
	You might want to take a wing seat or something.
	So I think that could probably be manageable, but I just obviously have to be kind of clockwork on this regimen until it's done.
	So I think that's more to do with it.
	Maybe I can make some of the other speeches if it doesn't conflict with the treatment too much.
	Okay, so I'll go ahead and plug you again, even though everyone already knows.
	You can find Steph at freedomainradio.com.
	He's StephBot on YouTube.
	I'll plug myself.
	TheRenegadeVarietyHour.com is now up, and we're going to be at Porkfest this year.
	I'll be there on June 20th, and Taryn will be there June 21st and 22nd.
	So we'd love to see everyone out there.
	Thank you, Steph, very much for having this conversation with us.
	It was really an honor.
	Well, I appreciate that.
	That was a very interesting chat.
	And if you guys end up doing a show there, give me a shout.
	Maybe I'll, if you can use some of the AV equipment that I know the Free Talk Live guys are down there and Brevenaut's going to be down there.
	I'm sure Adam will be by.
	So if you end up doing a show there, let me know where we can do one and we can take some questions from the audience.
	Okay, we just might do that.
	Thank you so much.
	Thank you.
	All right.
	Thanks, guys.
	Really great chat.

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