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June 28, 2013 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:26:13

2416 How Cancer Can Make You Well - Stefan Molyneux with Laurette Lynn

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	It's a question.
	I am well, thank you.
	Strong as a slightly medicated oxen.
	I've been looking forward to speaking with you.
	I'm glad that I finally have the opportunity.
	I'm sorry that we didn't get a chance to chat.
	Yeah, I'm sorry we didn't get a chance to chat.
	It's been quite mad over the last month or two, as you can imagine.
	I can imagine, yeah.
	You okay?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, actually.
	Yesterday, I was sitting in the bath, right?
	Okay, we haven't started the show yet, right?
	Okay, so I was sitting in the bath yesterday, and I'm still washing my scalp, right?
	Unfortunately, I ran a really hot bath.
	I was sitting in the bath, and I had washed my scalp, and I was like, oh...
	I'm too tired to rinse it.
	I'm just lying in the bath thinking, do not fall asleep in the bath.
	That would be a very bad way to go.
	Oh, God!
	I'm in some Jim Morrison scenario.
	So anyway, I just had to run some cold water over my head.
	Other than that, yesterday was a low energy day, but for the most part, it's been mostly fine.
	I'm having a good workout tonight, and it's been mostly fine.
	What's your prognosis?
	Very positive.
	If all goes well, only a 1-2% chance of recurrence once everything is...
	Squared away, right?
	So I've got one more round of chemo.
	I've done three.
	I've got one more round to go in early July.
	And then maybe two and a half weeks of, I guess about three weeks and a bit of radiation therapy.
	And that's it.
	And then they just, you know, a little bit of monitoring here and there.
	But the prognosis is positive.
	They found a lump here, which they removed.
	And that had some lymphoma cells.
	But they've done a full body scan and nothing else has been found in my body.
	So it doesn't look like it's spread anywhere.
	So this is mostly just a precaution and, you know, for the sheer fun of it.
	Good.
	Okay, good.
	Have you considered, just out of curiosity, have you considered alternative treatments or looked into integrative treatments?
	Yeah, I mean, I certainly was, you know, I was certainly curious about them for sure.
	The numbers seem to be fairly inescapable.
	You know, my surgeon, oh sorry, my doctor has a little app on her phone.
	You put in all the variables and it will actually tell you down to a fairly specific degree of detail the chance of recurrence based upon certain protocols.
	So we did work the numbers as hard as we could.
	Now, maybe those numbers are all made up.
	I don't know.
	I don't even know if I'm sick.
	There was one lump which was removed, but they couldn't find anything anywhere else.
	But the problem is, of course, if I do have cancer cells anywhere else in my body, you really can't wait for them to grow and then treat them.
	Because they have to be a couple of hundred million to be visible on any kind of scan.
	Of course, you don't want them going into the bone marrow or anything like that.
	Otherwise, you have some serious problems.
	So yeah, I mean, it did seem to be the way to go.
	The numbers and the science behind it seems fairly certain.
	And there's a slightly increased risk of chance sort of later on in life because of what I'm doing now of contracting something.
	But there's a lot I could do to mitigate that.
	Of course, exercise and being well and keeping low stress, all that kind of stuff.
	So I certainly did look into it.
	Yeah, being proactive.
	Yeah, go ahead.
	Well, I just want to be proactive with it.
	The reason I'm asking is, I actually don't know if I've ever had this conversation with you.
	For the last 10 years, my husband, what he does for a living is he runs an alternative health website.
	And it's been, it's actually, we're celebrating our 10-year anniversary this year of running the business.
	And it was started because of corrections that he made to his health.
	And you already know my story.
	Yeah.
	So we've just met so many people at various stages of different kinds of cancer and other diseases, MS and a lot of other diabetes, various stages of diabetes and so on that have found success in alternative treatments, sometimes during, sometimes after.
	You know, they'll have chemo and the radiation and then they'll take some steps afterwards.
	So the more people we met that have had success, the more the business grew.
	And I don't mean to say that we're capitalizing on that, but he got into this business because he wanted to do something more positive.
	He was in the film business and he tried these treatments himself.
	And it worked for him.
	So he actually left the film business and a lucrative career in the film business to do this because he thought that it was a better direction.
	So I don't like to just push information on people.
	I want to ask them if they're open to it first.
	So that's why I was asking.
	I mean, of course, you have to go the route that you're going.
	But as you move forward, there's so much information that can help you be proactive and prevent issues in the future.
	And I'd like to offer you that information if you're open to it.
	Oh, absolutely.
	I'm a reason and evidence-based guy, so if there's stuff that's validated.
	And I certainly do understand that for things like diabetes, I mean, as long as it's not too far advanced, there's a massive amount.
	Since it's diet and exercise-based ailment, then there's a huge amount that you can do that would not involve just daily shots of insulin, but a huge amount of proactive stuff you can do with a whole bunch of different ailments.
	Yeah, a lot of it is preventative stuff.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, and of course, I don't view, well, I just do chemo and then resume life's normal activities as if nothing had ever happened.
	I mean, you can't unring that bell in your head, right?
	So I do view having a different relationship.
	I mean, I've been pretty healthy.
	I mean, I've been ridiculously healthy my whole life.
	Like, I've never spent a night in a hospital.
	I've never broken a bone.
	I've never taken any medication other than a couple of antibiotics a couple of times a decade.
	So I've had really great health, and I took some pride in that.
	I eat really well.
	I exercise all the time and try to keep stress at manageable levels.
	This was a real surprise and so ridiculously unnecessary because it was untreated for a year before I finally went to the States and got it dealt with proactively.
	the system up here was just as bad as you could imagine when it came to dealing with this.
	My dentist found it like last March.
	And finally, in April, I ended up going to the States after I was told it would still be months to get it dealt with in Canada after almost a year, no, over a year.
	So it, you know, if it had been dealt with last March, I'm sure I wouldn't need to go through any of this.
	But the reality is it wasn't.
	And so it did metastasize into something more dangerous than just some lump.
	And so, you know, I think one of the most important things is for me, the most proactive health thing I can do is anytime there's any health issue in the future, just go straight to the United States to people I know and respect there and not get caught into this god awful quagmire of communism we call the socialist health care system up here.
	So that's one of the big lessons that I got out of it.
	But because I've never really dealt with the health care system here before because I've been so healthy, and because I was told, oh, it's benign, don't worry about it, you know, we'll take it out.
	All that, and it turned out that it wasn't.
	But the treatment outcomes in the US or Canada are about the same, according to the statistics that I've looked at.
	So this does seem to be the best protocol.
	It's relatively new, this way of dealing with these blood-borne cancers.
	But I do look at this as, when this is all said and done, that this is just the beginning of an even more revolutionary approach to being proactive about health.
	Because it only takes one near miss for you to suddenly start looking for the sniper flashes, right?
	Yeah, definitely.
	You know, you have such a great attitude about the whole thing, and I admire you for that.
	So I'm sure that you're going to do just fine, and we're going to have to listen to you rant about anarchy for a very, very long time.
	Like it or not.
	Well, that's the weird thing.
	That's good news, though.
	Yeah.
	You know, I resolutely did not want to preempt what it could be in my own mind because, of course, you know, you get some news like that and you just immediately, you know, I've got a young kid.
	I love my wife.
	I've got a great life.
	And, you know, I didn't want – I mean, according to the research I've done, this is not – this is genetic.
	This is not something that is stress-based or anything like that.
	There's something you can't control, right?
	Yeah, some things, you know, just, sorry, bad luck, right?
	But what I was concerned about is that stress obviously has a huge effect on health.
	So I really wanted to interrupt the death spiral, you know, which may even literally be a death spiral when you get bad news and you say, oh, shit, that's terrible.
	This is just the worst thing ever and then you hang your head in your hands and then what happens is that that actually provokes more bad news because your body is like, oh Christ, now we're really freaking out.
	Oh my God, this is even worse and you get cortisol and adrenaline and you burn out your various glands and all that and your thyroid goes hyperactive and then you get more bad news and you get even more and I really wanted to not have that.
	I really wanted to try to not preemptively view it as a bad thing.
	Through that process, some really great stuff has come out of it.
	I haven't been this relaxed in years, which is just fantastic.
	Good.
	Excellent.
	Excellent.
	It sounds like you're doing everything that needs to be done.
	Of course, we're on official.
	If you're recording and you want to use any of this, that's fine.
	I mean, but do you mind?
	I mean, we could officially start at some time if you want to do an intro for your purposes or, you know, we can just put it together.
	Usually we just have conversations and we're good.
	But can I ask you, in any official capacity for the sake of my audience, may I ask you about your health?
	Like I just did now, but we can piece this together.
	And just briefly, though, when I do an introduction, can I publish that information?
	You certainly can.
	I can't hide it.
	Look.
	Well, you know what?
	People do that as fashion statements, so...
	Yeah, but then I would have to admit being interested in fashion.
	Yeah, I guess that's true.
	I'd rather admit to health problems than fashion.
	But, you know, everyone knows and everyone's pulling for you.
	So I just want to be able to address that and not seem like I'm ignoring it.
	Right, right.
	Okay.
	I'm ready when you are.
	Okay, the only other thing is, you're recording video, I'm not recording video.
	So I would like to use the video.
	So once you have it all set, can you just send me a link and then I'll post the video on my site as well?
	Absolutely.
	Okay.
	All right.
	Let me go ahead and just start recording my audio.
	You okay?
	No, I was just checking if there was any...
	No, I feel...
	I'm looking at myself.
	Actually, I feel like a giant thumb with eyeballs.
	I was just looking if you could actually tell the difference at the moment.
	Okay.
	So, I should actually just draw little eyes and a mouth here and just do the show like, Hello, I'm Savannah Mullen, you're from Freedom Aid Radio.
	How are you doing?
	Look, I have a nail on the back of my head.
	That can't be good.
	Anyway, sorry, go on.
	That's okay.
	I wish I, you know, we got to keep that part in.
	That was really funny.
	All right.
	All right, I got to start recording on my end.
	That would be good, right?
	You think that would help?
	Alright, I'm recording sounds, I'm not recording videos, so I'm just gonna ask you to send me the video when you have it, and I'll go ahead and publish that.
	It's never well lit on my end, I just don't have the studio equipment that I need, but it's because it's not full-time yet.
	But we're getting there.
	Alright, I'm gonna go ahead and do an intro and just start, okay?
	This is Laurette Lynn on Plugs Mom and I'm actually recording video today with Stefan Molyneux and I've been looking forward to talking to Stefan again because every time I talk to Stefan it's always a great time and I know that you guys have been looking forward to hearing the conversation so this one is available as podcast and video.
	How do you like that?
	I always shy away from video but certain people I do it and Stefan I don't know you just break me out of my shell so welcome to the show I'm glad you're here with us.
	Thank you.
	We haven't done video in a while and I really wanted to compliment you on your hairstyle.
	I feel that if we sort of combined our heads divided by two, we'd end up with a normal head of hair.
	I cut about eight inches.
	Yeah, with my hair, my hair was basically saying to me, I quit, you know, because I'm taking meds, right, for cancer.
	So I'm like, you can't quit!
	You're fired!
	But anyway, wildly proactive.
	Well, you know what?
	Let's go ahead and hear about that.
	Most everyone knows that you've had this, like, really, really drastic news.
	It's, like, life-changing.
	It's life-altering.
	So how are you?
	How are you doing?
	You seem to be doing...
	Okay, actually, and that's really very inspiring.
	Well, thank you.
	I'm well, and I'm well.
	I've just done three rounds of chemo, and I have one more round to go in a couple of weeks, and then I do a little bit of radiation, and then I'm done.
	The prognosis is very positive.
	If you're going to get the big C, this is the one that you want to get.
	The recurrence rate after these two rounds of treatment is 1% to 2%, and that includes people who are idiots.
	So hopefully I won't be in the category of health idiot after that and get that down close to zero.
	Like, I mean, you know, so it comes back in one to two percent of people who, you know, smoke and snort crack and, you know, whatever, have unprotected sex with space aliens.
	I don't know.
	I must confess, I probably am not showing a lot of street cred by mixing ridiculously unknowledgeable things about drugs.
	The space alien thing, though, I can tell you is fantastic.
	Because they now think that I'm one of theirs, right?
	Because I have a white background now, a bald head, so people just assume that I'm from the future.
	So, buy gold.
	But no, health is good.
	The third round has knocked me a little flatter than the previous two, and I really have to be careful about infections because, of course, your white blood cells go through the floor.
	And as your red blood cell count diminishes just during the chemo treatment because it's attacking all fast-growing cells, including those which produce my three remaining chest hairs.
	But you just get a little more tired because, of course, your red blood cells are the ones that carry all your oxygen around for I was talking to someone the other day whose husband has gone through a year of chemo and it's just wretched for him.
	He goes to bed at 8 o'clock at night.
	He can't barely function.
	It's going to take him a year to recover.
	September, October, I should be back to normal and with hopefully some deep and richer wisdom about the fragility of life and the need to live vivaciously and courageously and make sure that you tell everyone that you love them and all of those good things.
	A significant interruption in the progressed flow of my life or the planned flow of my life, but I will not say – I can't say much that I want to that it is altogether unwelcome.
	It has been, you know, boy, you really find out who your friends are and you really find out people who were just, you know, full of talk and, you know, hey, sorry you're sick.
	Give me a shout when you can get better kind of thing.
	So it has been a really – you know, the relationships that are rich have gotten richer.
	The relationships that were obviously not that rich have gotten richer.
	I feel less consequential, so to speak.
	I feel more relaxed, more focused.
	I feel more mentally sharp than I have in some time.
	I don't exactly bring the dullest knife to the cutting board to begin with, but I feel more courageous.
	I feel more resolute in what it is that I want to do with my life and the effect that I want to have on the world.
	You know, I mean, it's a lot of mayo to put on a shit sandwich is what I'm saying.
	You can still taste the shit, but the mayo helps a lot.
	That's my approach to it.
	Well, you know, a lot of people say, and this happens with age too, not necessarily just with disease, but just with age, you start to get to a point where you acknowledge your mortality.
	And not that people don't know that.
	From the time we're born, we all know that we're going to die.
	As children, we start to learn about death, and we start to realize that it's inevitable.
	We're all going to die.
	How and when is up for question, and some people fear it, some people don't, and that's how religions are born, right?
	Out of the fear of death.
	But there does come a time in life where you're not a teenager anymore, and you're not in your early 20s, and you don't have this idea that, well, yeah, death is going to happen someday when I'm 250 years old, but it might actually happen sooner than I think, and Life just becomes different.
	Your perspective becomes different.
	And I know that as I'm getting older, I'm starting to see things a little bit differently.
	I have acknowledged my mortality.
	I still don't think it's going to happen before I'm 250.
	I'm not that old yet.
	But I have heard people talk about when these life altering things happen to them, it's almost like a punch in the face.
	Like this is your mortality.
	But then there's a sense of peace that comes with it as well, realizing that it just is what it is.
	And let's just deal with it and move forward.
	And it sounds like you've really embraced that sense of peace and you're you're happy.
	You're fine.
	You're moving on with your work.
	But at the same time, you're also realizing that every moment is precious.
	So I just I'm very inspired by how you're handling it and how you're moving forward.
	I know when things have happened to me in my life, I've kept them very private.
	I've been very, very almost very personal about it, very afraid to talk about it in public.
	And you just...
	Let the public know.
	You let your following know.
	And you said, hey, this is what's going on with me.
	This is how I'm going to deal with it.
	This is how I'm proceeding.
	And you appreciated the support that everybody was offering you.
	And you got this just great positive attitude.
	Really?
	What could be better medicine than your attitude right now?
	So I'm really happy to hear that.
	I tell you, you know, this is the great secret, Loretta.
	I mean, I'm going to whisper this because it's such a shocking secret to me.
	Cancer kills worry cells.
	It does.
	It really, really kills worry cells.
	Because all the stuff, like I look back and say, oh, you know, things, and I'm not a particularly high-stress person, but all the time.
	Is it like just a sense of like, well, F it now, you know?
	Well, yeah, you know, like, I mean, gosh, what was I worried about last year?
	What's I going to do?
	You can't even remember.
	Is my, you know, how's the show?
	Is the show going to grow?
	Am I going to do a good interview?
	And it's just like, you know, what would you not, like, now with this diagnosis, what would I not give to have the problems I had last year?
	You know, but last year, it felt like the problems sometimes were a problem.
	Yeah.
	And so there is this weird perspective, you know, like in those movies, sometimes where they don't know how to end the movie, they'll just pan out, and you're sort of half expected to keep panning.
	You know, like when I was a kid and I first learned about astronomy, you'd write down your address.
	You know, like I remember writing, oh, I'm at Dean Close boarding school in Cheltenham, in whatever county it was, in England, in the world, in the solar system, in the Milky Way.
	You know, you pan all the way out.
	But this is what happens when you get a diagnosis.
	So you say, you know, when you become aware of your mortality, it's like, yeah, you kind of become aware of your mortality when you face a diagnosis that is, you know, obviously potentially life-threatening.
	And it just zooms you right out.
	But not in a way that detaches you.
	I've never wanted to be that kind of, I am indifferent as to the success or failure of my cellular structures.
	I don't want to be that, you know, the Socrates said, you know, either death is...
	The best night's sleep that you ever had is the night where you didn't wake up and you didn't dream.
	If there's nothing, then death is like the best night's sleep that you ever had that never ends.
	Who wouldn't want that?
	Or death is where you get to go to be with all the great people throughout history and have great conversations, finally get to sing my duet with Freddie Mercury, as I've always dreamed and as he kept resisting.
	I didn't want to be that detached about it or that analytical about it because nobody who's sane wants to die.
	And of course, particularly a four-year-old daughter and a wife that I love to death and a life that is just incredible.
	And, you know, great friends and great community and so on.
	So I didn't want to be indifferent to that.
	So I wanted to have perspective without detachment, if that makes any kind of sense.
	And that is a real challenge.
	Yeah, that is the real challenge for me.
	That's been sort of the wire that I'm sort of walking.
	But, of course, our bodies know a lot that we don't know.
	I mean, I remember puberty coming as quite a surprise.
	It's like, hey, what's happening with my naughty bits?
	I don't understand.
	What's this stuff doing in the train?
	Oh, hey!
	So, our bodies know a whole bunch of things that we don't.
	I assume that my body knows how to get well, and I'm also not resistant to the idea that This kind of illness could be my body's attempt to heal me of inconsequential worries.
	I'm not averse to that.
	I know it sounds a little weird, but I'm not averse to the idea that this could be a very large healing event in my life.
	And so far, it really has felt that way.
	You know, let's go there for a minute.
	Let's use this as a little bit of a segue because this is really reminding me of a cathartic experience that I had last summer.
	And you know, I'm always very involved in politics.
	And I don't mean that I'm going to be a politician.
	And you know, you and I have had this conversation before on whether or not to be voting or running for office or whether to wash your hands of it.
	But we agreed that it's important to at least know what's going on and be aware of it.
	And there are times, you know, I do realize that it may be different.
	I do handle things differently as a female, and I'm okay with that.
	I think we're supposed to.
	There's that balance of male and female.
	And, of course, as a mother, my mother's perspective, and some other things that were going on in my life last summer, and there was just this big cathartic experience, and so many things went through my mind, and one of them was, what the hell is the difference?
	And I kept thinking over and over again, we're going to die anyway, anyway.
	Whether we are libertarian or republican or democrat or whether we're for universal healthcare or we're for immigration or whether we run for office or if this one gets elected or that one gets elected, at the end of the day we're all dying anyway.
	And we don't take anything with us, and we're not taking our cars or our house or anything.
	And then, you know, the other perspective is, well, we're leaving a legacy for our children.
	And then, of course, I go into this crazy land.
	I go off into silly land, and I think, well, they're going to die too, so what's the difference?
	You know, and the whole, what is the purpose of life thing.
	Right.
	There's that need to find perspective and be able to pan out, as you said, and realize we are just a blip.
	We are just a grain of sand or a rippling wave, and then it's gone.
	Reincarnation or not, or heaven or hell or not, it really doesn't matter because it is what it is no matter what it is, no matter what we make up about it or not.
	But to have that perspective without becoming completely detached is a little bit of a challenge because then you do end up going off into crazy land and you just think, well, what the hell is the difference?
	Why am I even here?
	But at the same time, you have to remind yourself, but I am here.
	And there is something to do while I'm here, so my life does matter.
	So there is a balance to be had there, and I would imagine that contrast really hits you in the face when you do have to face something as extraordinary as you're going through.
	But it does happen to all of us.
	So while we're on that, how do you...
	Doing what you do and the work that you do is very philosophical in nature, but it's also highly politically charged.
	And you have a huge audience that weighs the whole libertarian perspective, freedom perspective.
	It's all about changing the world for the better and reaching some kind of betterment for humanity.
	And a lot of it does have to do with either political action or inaction.
	So now you're in this position and it must be tempting for you to say, F it.
	What the hell does it matter?
	You know, because you're in that, you know, in that life place.
	So it really gets to that deep philosophical place that I think all of us as human beings experience at some point in our lives.
	Right.
	Does it make sense?
	You know, I don't know if you, yeah, it really does.
	And I don't know if you remember this when you were a kid, when you first learned that the sun was going to go out, like in, I don't know, what is it, 10 billion years or something like that?
	Yeah.
	I think I was six or seven when I first learned about it.
	I was really into astronomy.
	I mapped sunspots with a telescope when I was a kid.
	I loved astronomy.
	My daughter couldn't sleep last night, so we went out for a walk at around 1130 at night, and I showed her the moon as they're explaining all this stuff.
	I just love that stuff.
	But I remember when I was a little kid, learning that the sun was going to go out.
	And I remember very distinctly thinking, so this math test on Friday...
	What does it matter?
	So the sun's going to go out.
	We're all going to be a cold cinder of nothing floating through space.
	Nothing's going to continue and all that.
	What's the point?
	But then, a day or two, I was not studying for my math test because I was like, what's the point, right?
	And yet, a day or two later, I was eating a chocolate bar called Curly Whirly.
	If you've never tried it, boy, find some British-style tuck shop and pick one up.
	They're really good, or at least they were.
	I've had Toblerone.
	I like that.
	Toblerone is good.
	Flake is also good.
	But man, you just dig that out of your cocky pants for the next 10 years.
	But what happened was I was enjoying my candy bar.
	And I remember thinking very clearly to myself, when I was 6 or 7 years old, I remember thinking, well, I'm not not enjoying the candy bar because the sun is going to go out.
	Like, I don't want to study for my math test because I don't want to study for my math test.
	And so the stuff that I don't want to do based upon the mortality of the solar system, I didn't even really know about my own personal mortality, but I guess that counted, right?
	And so I remember thinking, well, I don't want to study for my math test, but I'm not saying, well, why bother even eating a chocolate bar because the sun's going to go out in 10 billion years?
	And that to me was a pretty important thing.
	And I thought about that when I got this diagnosis again because I thought, There's something really efficient about mortality, which is don't screw around with your time.
	It is a finite resources.
	There are not an infinite number of grains of sand in the hourglass, and sometimes we get reminded that there may be a big-ass crack in the hourglass that we weren't expecting, like some diagnosis that's scary.
	I mean, James Gandolfini, just on vacation today, the star of The Sopranos, just on vacation today out in Italy.
	Drops dead of a massive heart attack or something.
	I mean, you don't know.
	51 years old.
	Now, okay, he wasn't exactly, you know, competing for ab work with Brad Pitt, but, you know, a lot of people live less healthy.
	It's still rattling.
	It was jarring.
	I just found out an hour ago, as a matter of fact, and it was jarring to me.
	I met him several times, and, you know, it just...
	You met him several times?
	Well, yeah, I worked in New York, and I was...
	Well, I appreciate you taking a little time with a little old me.
	So for me, it's like, okay, so, and I hate to put it this way, because it sounds stupid.
	But for me, the mortality thing is less math tests, more chocolate.
	Right?
	So the stuff that you take pleasure in.
	is the stuff that's really, really important.
	And assuming it's not stupid pleasure, like somewhat reasonable pleasure, you know, like, I mean, good conversations, a nice glass of wine, a great meal, whatever, it's good sex, whatever it's going to be that's going to be, something that's enriching a great book, whatever it's going to be.
	For me, you know, having this conversation tonight is definitely part of that equation.
	So if you're going to have a great conversation or something that's going to enrich you, then it doesn't matter that the sun is going to go out in 10 billion years.
	But if you're going to spend your time studying to be an accountant when you don't really want to be an accountant, but you just feel it's like the right thing to do or the responsible thing to do or you're living somebody else's dreams or you're, you know, like, what was it?
	Andre Agassi wrote a whole book recently about how he hated playing tennis for most of his life and what did he spend most of his life doing was playing tennis and holding onto his toupee out there.
	I mean, so… That, I think, is something that's really important, which is that the rational hedonism of life is really important to remember when you're faced with mortality, that you don't spend less time, if you can, doing things that aren't enriching and meaningful and really focus.
	Like, you know, those relationships that are just kind of habitual but don't really go anywhere or, you know, that book you're kind of half interested in reading or that movie that's kind of okay or whatever it is.
	Well, for me, cut that shit out.
	I mean, really, really focus on the quality because the quantity is not for certain.
	Yeah.
	Well, not only is the quantity not for certain, but even if it was some semi-certain and you can guess, well, I'm going to live for X amount of years, it's still really not that long when you think about it, when you put it into perspective.
	And I think we realize that more when we become parents and we see just how fast our children grow.
	And we look at them and we say, wow, you got big.
	And then we look at their baby pictures and it's just jarring.
	And it's like just bittersweet moments to say, hey, I love the...
	The young lady or the young man that you're becoming.
	But my gosh, it feels like just yesterday that I was giving birth to you.
	And does that mean I'm 10 years older too?
	And how did that happen?
	And I've been experiencing that myself.
	My 40th birthday is coming up and I keep telling everybody, I don't understand this because I thought I was supposed to be like, I don't know, mature or something when I turned 40.
	And I just don't feel like an adult.
	But yet here I am in the middle of adulthood.
	The great thing about getting older...
	Yeah, the great thing about getting older, though, Lorette, is you realize just how little of your personality changes that much, you know?
	Yeah!
	Pretty much this, I mean, I sort of looked, I was looking at some, my daughter wanted to...
	My daughter likes playing with the younger version of me.
	She calls little Steph, which is me as a little boy.
	And I wanted to show her some pictures, so I did.
	And I'm like, I look the same right now.
	But I mean, pretty much the same.
	Personality is one of these things.
	I mean, you can move it a little bit if you really get behind it and push.
	Some of that stuff can be good, but there's a kind of intractability to personality that I think is kind of important.
	And around middle age, too, you know, I think Dustin Hoffman said when he got into his 50s, he realized, you know, I can't double my age and still be alive.
	And that's, you know, when you realize you're on that, you know, that tipping point, you're over the middle part, right?
	So I'm 46, you know, maybe I'll get to 92.
	You know, maybe some amazing technology will come.
	But, you know, I'm not counting on it.
	And the other thing that happens, of course, as you know, with kids is, I don't know if this happens to other parents, but, I mean, I thought of this pretty soon after my daughter was born, you know, looking at her saying, well, the only reason you're here is because I need to be replaced.
	Right?
	The only reason you get an entrance is because I get an exit.
	Yeah.
	And that's the whole point of having kids is the only reason you're so young and fresh is because I'm getting old and creaky.
	And that is something that's kind of impossible to recognize.
	It's impossible to miss that you're basically training your replacement.
	Yeah.
	It's a part of ourselves that goes on.
	And speaking of that, training or replacement, that is something that's, I think, inevitable for parenthood and unavoidable.
	And let's explore that a little bit.
	I'm glad that you brought that up because I did want, not that you brought it up, it was kind of inadvertent, but thank you because you always provide me with the perfect segue.
	And I did want to explore that a little bit.
	there there are a lot of people out there that are talking about parenting and this is not new it's been going on since the beginning of time probably but i i guess the invention of media and radio and television and everybody writing books and everybody jumps on the parenting bandwagon and it's not easy for a new parent to enter this pop culture and media fanatic Culture.
	And just say, okay, well, I'm new to this.
	What do I do?
	Now, it's perfectly natural for someone to become a parent and say, holy crap, I just brought a human being into the world and I don't know if I'm going to do this right.
	Because that's just how it is.
	We're eternal children and there's no point in our lives where we say, I've got this.
	I know what I'm doing.
	I'm ready to have a child and I'm going to do everything perfectly.
	Because we're not.
	We're going to mess it up and we're just going to make mistakes and we're not going to know what's a mistake and what's not a mistake.
	So it's natural for us to look for advice.
	And I noticed that what's happening is we are more detached from each other as human beings.
	And instead of going to our mother or our sister or our community for advice, we're going to people that are far away.
	They don't really know us very well.
	And we're trusting them to tell us what to do.
	And if we don't do what they said to do, we think we're doing it wrong.
	Or if we do exactly what they said to do and things don't turn out wonderfully, we think that we've failed somehow.
	And in some cases, they tell us that, well, you're just not doing it right or you're not good enough or whatever.
	And we're really messing ourselves up.
	So something has gone awry in society.
	There is definitely some kind of parenting gone wrong.
	I know that the whole spanking culture, that's not something that's new.
	We didn't just invent that in the 1980s or 1990s.
	This is something that's happened, again, since the beginning of humanity.
	And now we're trying to address that and say, hey, you know, this whole violent thing, not working.
	Let's deal with this somehow.
	But there is a lot of conflicting information.
	Now, I'm asking you because you, I know that you've only been a parent for four years, I believe.
	Izzy's four, right?
	Yeah.
	You learn as you go.
	And I've been a parent for almost 12 years now.
	I have three children and I'm still learning as I go.
	I think my mother is still learning as she goes and she has a 39-year-old daughter.
	So there's always something that we have to learn and something that we're going to mess up.
	What have you learned, though, in your work?
	Because you talk about politics, you talk about society, you talk about culture, philosophy, but a lot of the emphasis is on parenting.
	And of course, you do put a lot of emphasis on advocating for nonviolent parenting, which is great, and the world really does need more of that, so I applaud that.
	But what have you learned?
	And if you can apply what you've learned to your perspectives and how your perspectives has changed, one, as your daughter has gotten older, two, as you've experienced this experience that you're going through now with cancer, and you look at your relationship with her, how has that changed?
	How has her getting older changed your perspective on parenting?
	Of course, we all believe that nonviolent parenting is definitely healthier, but something deeper than that.
	As far as your dynamic with her and just the whole culture of, I don't know what to do, I don't know if I'm doing this right, has anything occurred to you with the whole experience or just through the work that you've done over the last couple of years?
	How has this changed you?
	Are you a perfect parent now?
	Do you know what you're doing now?
	Well, when it comes to humanity, I think that perfection is for math.
	Perfection is for logic.
	I don't know that perfection is something that can ever apply to human beings.
	So I would certainly not claim to be a perfect parent.
	But, and also, even if you were a perfect parent, according to all principles, your children still have to somehow make it in a society that is less than perfect.
	So, are you not training them to be, hey, look, I made the first round child in a world full of square pegs, square holes.
	So, but I think what I've learned, well, first of all, I'm glad that I wasn't completely wrong.
	You know, that's been a huge relief because, I mean, I was lecturing people about parenting long before I became a parent.
	And so, I'm glad that I didn't end up saying, well, you know what, turns out you have to hit them.
	I'm really glad that I would have had to, like, apologize to so many people for being such an insufferable doofus.
	You know, I mean, I may have to do that anyway, probably do, but I, you know, I'm just so glad that it didn't...
	Blow up in my face.
	You know, like, oh, sorry, I had to take you to emerge because it turns out if you don't spank them, they do reach for the hot plate on the stone.
	Anyway, so I'm glad that that sort of peaceful and respectful thing really has worked out.
	And so from that standpoint, I'm very grateful that the theory matches the practice.
	And I'm very, very happy about that.
	So that's the first.
	But the thing that I think is really tricky is that for me, at least the transition now, is that in the beginning, it was really all about I mean, she was immobile because you know, right?
	Babies are immobile.
	They can't do anything.
	So you're there to entertain them and you don't sort of sit there and say, well, I'm bored of going ooga, booga, booga.
	So you just do it until they want to do something else or whatever.
	But now, it's more about negotiation.
	And I find it hard sometimes to transition from being really, really accommodating as a parent to having my own needs.
	Because I know that if I don't have any of my own needs, I'm not teaching her the truth.
	Like I'm hiding something from her, which is I have needs sometimes not to play some kitty cat game for the 20th time in a row after having done it for two hours.
	Like the 21st time, I just – I don't want to.
	Now, if I hide that from her, I'm giving her a pretty narcissistic sense of other people.
	You know, here, come my peons, entertain me and I must come on you with all of my bottomless needs and you must only entertain me and have no needs of it.
	Like that's not – Does it really reconcile with liberty?
	you're ready.
	No, or the basic philosophical virtue called honesty, which is I'm bored.
	You don't say that, I'm sorry, I know you're only six months old and you're still pooping your elbow, but I'm bored of doing that.
	You can't do that when they're six months old because they're six months old, right?
	So I get that.
	But now there's a point where… To have my own needs is important, and to have my own needs can open things up for her that she wouldn't otherwise have done.
	And trying to explain to her that kids like doing the same thing over and over again, adults not so much, there's a bit of a difference and so on.
	So I find that making that transition from being a really accommodating parent to an infant to being a more negotiating and honest parent of a toddler can be a challenge.
	And it always feels like, well, if I was a really good parent, I should want to play that 21st kiddie game for two hours and ten minutes.
	And then realizing that that actually is not a very...
	A healthy thing to be doing.
	It suppresses myself, it suppresses negotiation, and it doesn't open up the other possibilities of what we could do if she's not running the show in that entitled way.
	So I think that to me is something where, you know, as a parent, at least for me, In life as a whole, there are the shoulds and then there's the honesty, right?
	And the shoulds and the honesty sometimes are not in sync.
	Sometimes they are, and that's great.
	Sometimes they're not.
	And so I feel, well, I should, you know, want to play with my daughter all day.
	Well, I'm really bored.
	So the shoulds and the honesty, I find that negotiation is really a very interesting phase at the moment.
	I do find it really surprising that she's, I mean, she's going to, if she was awake when we did this show, like if we finished the show, she would want to know what everyone said.
	You know, oh, well, what did Lorette say?
	Oh, and what did you say about that?
	And what did she say?
	Oh, Danny, tell me all about your show.
	When I do the Sunday show, she wants to know everybody's, you know, edit a little bit and all that.
	And I was really not expecting that from a four-year-old, you know, that the level of interest in the world and in other people and questions and problems.
	And, you know, she's completely fascinated by Bible stories at the moment.
	And so we're telling her all the Bible stories.
	I mean, I know them.
	I was a choir boy.
	And so from all that stuff, there's so much that's surprising.
	There's so much that's more rapid than what I remember.
	Because when I was a kid, nobody really negotiated with me.
	It was the old-fashioned, top-down kind of hierarchical stuff.
	And so seeing what's possible with children who are negotiated with is blowing my mind.
	And it's bittersweet because, of course, you want to give things to your kids that you didn't get, but you can't help remember that you didn't get them in the very act of giving them.
	I wish it was a little bit more uncluttered positive.
	I hope she'll have that with her kids.
	But every time I give her something I didn't get, it's a little bit bittersweet sometimes.
	And I wish it was a little bit less spicy, so to speak.
	So those are just a few of the thoughts that I've had recently about parenting.
	Well, it sounds like you've got it down.
	You're good to go.
	Until tomorrow.
	It's resonating with me and I'm glad that you're talking about it so honestly because I think that's necessary.
	I just did a peaceful parenting podcast with Stephen Colbert.
	I wish.
	James Corber.
	That was a Freudian slip, I think, but James Corbett, and he's just great.
	I really enjoy talking to him.
	I think he puts out really great information, and when I was invited to talk about peaceful parenting with him, I said, well, first of all, I don't really refer to myself as a peaceful parent, and it He didn't react this way, but I know other people react this way when they say, well, Lorette, tell me about peaceful parenting.
	And I say, well, what makes you think I'm the one to talk about this?
	When did I ever say I'm a peaceful parent or I'm a peaceful parenting expert?
	And the reaction to that is always like, oh, so you spank?
	And it's just like, no, I didn't say that either.
	Like, why are we existing in this false dichotomy?
	But I have an aversion to things.
	As soon as we call something a thing, it has the tendency to become this whole little universal, I'm sorry, exclusive club.
	And now it has a dogma.
	I know you're on a roll, but I just wanted to mention that, you know, philosophical parenting, peaceful parenting, whatever you want to call it, it's sort of like saying, well, I'm a non-wife-beating husband.
	And it's like, why do we even need to say that?
	I mean, can't I just be a good husband?
	Like, I'm just, I try to be a good parent.
	Now, of course, being a good parent means not hitting your children.
	Like, yeah, I'm a good husband except that I hit my wife when she doesn't do things that I want.
	You know, other than that, you know, so the very fact that we have to refer to peaceful parenting rather than parenting just shows you how early it is in the whole, anyway, anyway, just one.
	Go on.
	I get it, and I'm forgiving of it, and I understand it, and I accept that other people use the term, but I personally don't like to identify with that, just like I don't really like to call myself a homeschooler, because it always sets up the alternative as the norm.
	So, well, I'm a peaceful parent.
	Oh, so that means that being a violent parent is normal, so I'm setting myself...
	It sounds ridiculous, but there is that false dichotomy that really exists because we live in a culture that trains us for that false dichotomy.
	So I don't consider myself a peaceful parent.
	That automatically means I spank you.
	It's like Marshall Rosenberg's nonviolent communication.
	If you're not into nonviolent communication, what does that mean?
	I breathe fire on people when I'm talking to them.
	Daggers come out of my mouth.
	It's a bit of a setup.
	Anyway, so I want to mention it.
	Exactly.
	Well, that's exactly it.
	And it's exactly why I don't consider myself an unschooler either.
	But when I describe my day and how we go about our lives, a lot of people will say, well, that's kind of like unschoolish.
	And I say, yeah, but what do I have to call it that?
	Why can't I just call it, we don't go to school?
	I don't call myself an un-Walmutter because I don't go to Walmart.
	Like the whole thing just doesn't make any sense to me.
	And it's very tragic because I think the consequence- It's like introducing yourself, say, hi, I'm Stefan Molyneux.
	I'm un-Arabic.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Exactly.
	Or, hi, how are you?
	I'm not Desiree.
	Okay.
	You know, kind of thinking that you were.
	So the whole thing is really just born of this kind of...
	Really black and white society.
	And I do realize that things always have a balance and a counterbalance, but we don't exist in one extreme or the other.
	We always exist along that continuum and we move back and forth along that continuum depending upon who we are, depending upon our circumstances in life, depending upon our relationship with each other and our children.
	And that changes and we grow and we go along with it and we learn as we go.
	So I think what happens is, though, it is dangerous.
	And a lot of people say, well, why don't you just leave it alone?
	I can't leave it alone because I'm seeing what's happening.
	And as a parent, I am in the parenting world.
	And as a parent that doesn't go to school, I'm in the non-schooling parenting world.
	And a lot of it is now classified as alternative, which that term annoys me too because it sets up what I believe to be the violence society as the norm.
	So us peaceful people are the alternative, of course.
	But I see what goes on.
	And I'm in the throes of, I'm in the circles and I'm watching new parents come on board or coming to the alternative parenting or peaceful parenting realm or the home education realm.
	And they're asking questions and they're saying, well, I don't, I'm really new to this because I've been living mainstream all my life, but I don't want to raise my kids this way.
	So what do I do?
	I need help.
	And they're told, well, you have to do this, this, this, and this.
	And if you don't do that, then you're doing it wrong.
	And something's wrong with you.
	And you're, you're, you know, we just can't have you here.
	And moms are worse.
	Dads are really good about it, and I hate to have that double standard, but it's true.
	It's what I've witnessed.
	Men are a lot more patient about this and a lot more logical.
	women are just like, and kind of catty about it.
	And they see you doing something different as a personal insult, and it's really bizarre.
	And I'm thinking, what has happened to our culture?
	What has happened to society when people would just have a baby and turn to their own community and say, okay, can you help me learn how to nurse my child?
	Suddenly we have to have clubs and pay monthly dues to go to the Lesh League so other strange women that we don't know can teach us how to breastfeed our child.
	It used to be that we had a child and the people that were closest to us that had intimate relationships with us helped us.
	Something went crazy along the lines.
	But then at the same time...
	We could always look at those tribal societies and say, okay, but they were still abusive and some of them were maybe hitting their kids and doing things that our society is evolving past and growing out of.
	So when I talk about parenting being an imperfect thing and an ongoing thing and I ask people what they've learned and what their advice is, Or when somebody asks me and they say, well, how could you do this or how could you do that?
	There is no answer.
	There is no standard answer.
	Well, you have to do this and you have to do that.
	I think the only thing we can do is try to avoid being violent.
	Other than that, we have to just pay attention to Because every kid, every relationship, every dynamic, every family is different.
	And as long as we're not beating them to death, then we're probably doing okay, as long as it's not violent.
	Because then it's not really a parenting thing.
	Then it's a human thing.
	It's just a matter of hurting another human being.
	That's not really communicating, is it?
	That's just violence.
	So, you know, I have a feeling I'm going somewhere with this, and I apologize.
	No, you know what I think it is.
	It's like I'm getting on sort of a rant because I want to kind of draw out from you, and I did, I think, successfully draw out from you what your personal perspective was and how your perspective has changed.
	And it just seems like you, by saying, I haven't got it yet, you've got it.
	No, no, absolutely.
	And to me, whatever arises in the absence of aggression is almost by definition a beautiful thing, right?
	So, like in the Middle Ages, you had to do the job that your dad had.
	You know, like if he was a...
	I don't know, a smith.
	You had to be a smith or whatever.
	And you were bought and sold with the land.
	And if that was your land, then you had to farm that land.
	Because it was all coercive.
	It was all aggressive.
	And then when we had some choice about what we wanted to do with our lives, people made good choices.
	They made bad choices.
	Some people are like, I'm going to go to work and I'm going to save up some money and I'm going to buy a house.
	And maybe that was the right thing for them.
	Other people are like, oh, I think I'll go pick grapes in Queensland and backpack around for 10 years.
	And then they get to their middle age saying, oh man, what was I thinking?
	I've got nothing.
	I want to start a family and I've got to live in a gremlin.
	Not even the car, like an actual gremlin.
	But to me, whatever arises in the absence of aggression is almost by definition beautiful.
	And so for me, if people are parenting with more negotiation or less negotiation, to me, it's like as long as you're not using aggression with your kids, I really – it's like as long as you're not going out and stealing with your money, stealing your money, I really in a way don't care how you earn a living.
	I mean I may have a few thoughts here and there but as long as you're not stealing, then it's like if you're not raping, maybe you shouldn't have a lot of casual sex.
	Maybe you should, I don't know but as long as you're not raping, it really doesn't matter fundamentally.
	I mean there may be wiser or less wise things to do but as long as you're not actually using – so with parenting for me – I mean, we all compare our children to other children, and that's a healthy thing to do, of course, right?
	We want to see where they are in development and all that kind of stuff.
	And, you know, I've seen other children, like when I take my daughter to sort of local play groups or whatever, other children her age, she's just sitting quietly and playing, and my daughter is not one of those people.
	And the other night, she made a little nest in her bedroom because a friend of ours was visiting up from the States and staying with us.
	And my daughter made a little nest and I got up a couple of times in the night and she was like literally in a different corner of the room every time.
	That's how gymnastically she sleeps.
	I mean, she's that active and she always has been ever since she was in the womb.
	She was like basically trying to get to my wife's elbow half the time from the womb or something like that.
	And so...
	We all know this.
	I was listening to Girl Rights What the other day talking about her daughter who is just a real hellion, apparently, like a real tomboy.
	Hellion, not a bad thing.
	Just really rambunctious, really aggressive.
	Not aggressive like violent, but just aggressive like really wants to go and do stuff much more so than her sons are.
	To me, it's like, okay, as long as you're not aggressing against your children, however you deal with their personalities is a beautiful thing in a way because whatever happens is going to come out of a place of peace and negotiation.
	In the same way, as long as you're not forced at gunpoint to go work in some concentration camp, almost by definition, anything that you do with your life is an infinite improvement because at least you get to make your own mistakes, so to speak, if they're going to be mistakes.
	I hope that makes some kind of sense.
	It does.
	There is a very clearly defined definition of violence and inflicting violence on another person or inflicting harm on another person or using force or coercion or the threat of violence to manipulate somebody is definitely, we can all, I think most of us, we can agree that that is harmful.
	That is harmful not only to children, though.
	That's harmful to your wife or your neighbor or your friend or your lover.
	That's harmful to anybody.
	That's not communication.
	What we want to do is foster communication.
	And that is really what the parent's relationship comes down to because it's exactly the same as any other relationship.
	With the added responsibility that we have been on this earth longer and hopefully we have more wisdom than our children and we can kind of Help them make decisions.
	Not necessarily make decisions for them, but help them make decisions.
	There are, of course, times, though, that we do have to make decisions for them, and it depends upon who they are, it depends upon their age, it depends upon what's going on with them, the situation.
	Every situation is very, very different.
	So I think it's really just about recognizing that.
	And there is a distinction.
	I think what happens is people say terms like peaceful or parenting and they just get this image in their head or new parents feel like, well, I want to be a peaceful parent.
	I don't want to be an aggressive parent.
	I don't want to be a violent parent.
	I don't want to spank.
	And whether it's because they were spanked themselves or maybe they weren't and they want to continue in that vein.
	And they say, I don't want to be that kind of parent.
	I want to be a peaceful parent.
	So they think that, you know, you have to adapt this kind of Buddhist quality and be like, well, and meditate every day.
	Exactly.
	And just always have this kind of own personality.
	So if I say that, well, no, I don't I don't I don't punish my kids.
	I don't spank my kids.
	We don't do timeouts.
	We don't do chore charts.
	We don't do any of that stuff.
	And someone will say, oh, gosh, you know, I never pegged you as a peaceful parent.
	And I'm like...
	You see, the thing is, Stefan, I'm not om.
	That's not my personality.
	I grew up in the concrete jungle in Brooklyn, New York.
	I am a tough girl.
	That's who I am.
	But it doesn't mean I'm not a peaceful person.
	So I think that it's important that we start to broaden our intellectual horizons a little bit and really understand the perspective there.
	Just because I'm a loud, in-your-face kind of person does not mean that I'm a violent person.
	My relationship with my children and our dynamic, my family dynamic...
	It's all about communication.
	It's all about relationships.
	Do I say no sometimes?
	Of course.
	Do I say yes a lot?
	Yes.
	But you know what?
	I really don't have to say yes a lot because there aren't...
	My children don't ask me permission to live.
	That was different when they were two or three years old, of course.
	And as they grow older, everything's different.
	There's always a relationship dynamic there.
	And I think it's important that we start to forgive ourselves a little bit because going back to the whole grain of sand perspective and the whole reaching out perspective, we have such precious little time.
	So what are we going to do with that time?
	Now, to make that even more important, our relationship with our children is even more limited.
	Well, the time is more limited because our children are only children for a very limited amount of time.
	At some point, they're going to become their own person and they're going to leave the nest of the home and the safety of the home.
	And they're going to have their own lives.
	Without us.
	And of course we'll be involved in their lives to some degree, but you get what I'm saying.
	So are they going to spend that time, like I always say, inside of a school building where they're getting abused and they're, you know, subject to kind of force and coercion, in some cases even physical violence?
	Or are you going to have a relationship with your children during that time?
	And I think that it's very important that we start to realize this, and as we do, maybe...
	More and more people will make these decisions and we will evolve to a better culture.
	Now, I want to talk about that evolution a little bit.
	Humanity in a lot of ways is evolving and we are getting better and we are sort of embracing freedom and coming together and realizing that time is short and life is precious and our relationships are precious.
	In a lot of ways I feel like we're moving backwards, especially when I see what's going on and I focus on corruption and NSA and everything else.
	I think that we're moving backwards, but in some ways we're moving forward to a utopia.
	Now, there's the word.
	I want to ask you about utopia.
	I've heard this word used a lot.
	I've heard it used a lot in anarchist circles, of course, sometimes in libertarian circles, and everybody's after the same goal.
	Utopia.
	We want utopia.
	What is utopia, Stefan?
	Describe that to me.
	What does that mean?
	How do we define utopia?
	And more importantly, why is that the goal for you, Matt?
	Yeah, I mean, well, first of all, what people usually mean when they say utopia, what they usually mean is, I can't think of a good reason to dismiss your argument, so I'm going to pretend it's implausible.
	You know, that's the best.
	You know, a world without slavery, well, that's just utopian thinking.
	That's just utopia.
	And I mean, so people will say the word utopia is just a way of...
	I think it is, but can you define it?
	Can you define what utopia is?
	Yeah, utopia, I mean, to me, utopia is a society where we accept a few basic premises and live and let live beyond that.
	I mean, it's not...
	It's not a mad otherworldly – like Thomas More wrote a book I think in the 16th century called Utopia where people had given up using money and there was some communist – I mean it was really just a – I read this book when I was in my early teens and I was like, well, that's some crazy stuff, man.
	I mean that's really deranged.
	Although he had some good stuff to say about education.
	But to me, Utopia will be achieved when we just kind of say, let's respect property rights, stop using force against each other and live and let live after that.
	That doesn't seem to me to be utopia.
	That just seems to me to be like, okay, let's listen to the stuff they told us in kindergarten or told us when we were first learning how to play with other kids, and let's just make a world that respects that.
	Let's make a world where the adults are expected to respect what we ask five-year-olds to respect.
	Don't hit, don't push, don't grab.
	That's all.
	If that's utopia for adults, then it's insane to ask five-year-olds to do it, right?
	I mean, that's completely mad then.
	So it can't be what we expect from five-year-olds, but completely impossible utopia for adults.
	So that's all.
	I mean, I don't want to tell other people how to live their life.
	if I just want them to not drag me into their crazy coercive fantasies of statism and laws and controls and regulations and bullying and jail and prisons and courts and all that kind of stuff.
	If we just took seriously for six months or so...
	Just took seriously the rules that we inflicted on your average five-year-old and decided to live by them as adults.
	That, to me, would be utopia.
	And if that's impossible, let's stop inflicting it on five-year-olds because that's just cruel.
	That's just saying, well, you can't be a five-year-old unless you have a PhD in astrophysics.
	It's ridiculous.
	So if we're going to impose it on five-year-olds, let's at least respect it among rational adults in society and let's stop using the state and the power of coercion and law to force everyone to do everything that you think is right.
	I don't think that's utopia, because we expect it from five-year-olds.
	How can it be impossible for adults?
	But there is, of course, that weird mental breakdown that people have when they say, well, okay, I lecture five-year-olds about that.
	Don't push, don't grab, don't steal.
	But then we can't run society like that.
	It's like, well, if you're asking five-year-olds to run their society, can't 40-year-olds run their society like that?
	No!
	That's totally different.
	Anyway, so utopia to me is something very simple and very easy.
	The only block is not because it's complicated because, again, we say to five-year-olds like they should understand it and that we hold them morally responsible for pushing and grabbing and kicking.
	And then we say, well, yes, but I'm going to go lobby the government to get some special break or some I'm going to ban on some goods that I don't want to compete with in the importing of, or I think that so-and-so is doing a bad thing, so I don't like that piece of vegetation going into their lungs, so I'm going to throw them in jail for 10 years or whatever.
	We just have this complete disconnect between the rules that we inflict on five-year-olds and the standards we hold ourselves to as adults.
	It's not utopia at all.
	It's the most common-sense basic thing.
	If a five-year-old can get it, surely the rest of us can find our way to understanding it at the level at least that a five-year-old...
	Well, you shouldn't take his toy unless your daddy and mommy make less money than his daddy and mommy.
	And then you should take his toy because that's called the redistribution of income.
	Or you don't say, well, you shouldn't pull that girl's panties down unless you and a bunch of other kids all get together and vote and you're in the majority.
	And then you can go ahead and do it.
	No, we give these rules to children as simple, basic moral absolutes.
	But then when we become adults, we get all kinds of freaky and Mobius strip, other dimensional weird thinking where suddenly these rules don't apply.
	And all I'm basically saying, and it's an embarrassing thing to be saying, is let's listen to what we tell five-year-olds and try to live in that way as adults.
	I don't think that's utopia.
	I think that's like saying it's utopian for adults not to crap their own pants twice a day.
	Yeah, well, it's certainly basic common sense and what you're saying is very sensible because we do give children these absolutes.
	You don't hit other kids, period.
	You just don't.
	There is no reason to ever hit another, you know, you're two five-year-olds in a room and you're fighting and we tell them, no, you don't do that.
	We don't tell them, well, you can do it if you really want him to do things your way.
	Then you can hit him.
	Then that's okay.
	Or, you know, you can hurt other people.
	I get what you're saying and it makes a lot of sense, but I don't know if that should really be defined as utopia, like you said, or just basic common sense.
	And, you know, maybe we just haven't evolved because too many of us aren't really seeing it.
	But I guess the answer to that would be...
	But basic common sense is so...
	Where we are as a species, Loretta, is that basic common sense is the most utopian thing of all.
	It's the most utopian thing of all to just expect some basic common sense and for adults to hold themselves to the same moral standards they apply to children.
	This is how deranged we are as a species.
	That's utopian thinking.
	We expect common sense, and you and I are talking about it, and we're in agreement that this is just basic human courtesy and common sense, and there probably are, I don't know, thousands of people listening to this recording or watching this video thinking, well, yeah, of course it's just basic common sense, but that's on an individual basis.
	It's a society.
	We don't seem to be applying those Those principles.
	As much as we might agree with them, we're not applying them.
	I mean, whose fault is that?
	Is that the state's fault?
	I mean, I'm not a fan of the state.
	Believe me, I'm the person.
	Yeah.
	But the state has become the parents.
	This is why, you know, the reason that we can't question the state is that there's always been this honor thy mother and thy father thing throughout all religions, particularly in the Judeo-Christian slash Islamic religions.
	It's one of the Ten Commandments.
	And, you know, we've given up the necessity to not covet our neighbor's ass or whatever the other ones are.
	And we've certainly found lots of ways around thou shalt not kill, you know, unless a guy in a green hat tells you to and gives you some money.
	But the state has fundamentally displaced parenting in that our children spend more time with government employees than they do with their own parents, much more time.
	If you count homework and all the things that the parents have to do outside of being parents in order to satisfy the state's insatiable demand for taxation and all that kind of stuff, it's ridiculous.
	It's got to be at least five to ten to one times more time with government employees in the form of teachers than they do with their own parents.
	And we have this thing as a species where we have a great deal of difficulty applying morally consistent rules up the hierarchy.
	Like, we have a huge amount—one of the major things that I'm doing as a parent is to continually remind my daughter that I am as fallible as anybody else, and I will make mistakes, and I will make predictions, and they turn out to be incorrect.
	And I continually remind her, oh, so you said this and I said that.
	Who was right?
	I was daddy.
	And who was wrong?
	You were daddy.
	Exactly.
	Because the most important thing, if you really want to make the world a better place, in my opinion, the most important thing is to teach your children to apply consistent rules and skepticism all the way up the hierarchy.
	We have evolved, I guess you could say, as a species where moral rules come from the top down and the top is always excluded.
	So the moral rules come from the top down and the people at the top are always excluded, which is why you see genuinely insane things like a mother hitting her son saying, don't hit.
	Like, that is...
	I mean, your head, like, you know, it explodes when you see that kind of stuff.
	And that only appears not insane to people because that's how we've evolved and that's how we survived as, you know, bully, tribal, mystical...
	But it does appear insane.
	Yeah.
	That's the conundrum, is that most rational, intelligent people will say, yeah, that's insane.
	And anybody that doesn't agree with that isn't listening to our show anyway.
	No, no, listen, you know these statistics as well as I do.
	Two-thirds of mom are still hitting their 60-year-olds and under three or more times a week.
	I did say intelligent, rational people.
	We are not all intelligent, rational people.
	That's right.
	And somewhere, you know, a mile under the ground is a giant nugget of gold.
	That doesn't mean I'm ever going to find it that's rare.
	But anyway, so we are so constituted that whoever raises us, we cannot apply consistent moral rules up the ladder.
	I mean, it literally is like, for us, it is like trying to will water to go up a rope.
	It's not the way the physics of our tribalism works.
	And because the state is the one who raises our kids for the most part, I mean, the majority of Canadian kids are in daycare, and then they go from infant care to daycare to pre-K to kindergarten to government schools.
	I mean, they get far more time.
	With government than they do with parents.
	And as a result, because we are fundamentally, it's so hard for our brains to process applying consistent moral rules up the hierarchy and we imprint on whoever raises us, we do not grow up with the capacity to apply consistent moral rules to our government because our government is raising us.
	And that's the great weakness of our species is moral rules come down hypocritically and never go back up because, you know, I mean, people who questioned the witch doctors and the Attila the Huns and tried to apply the same moral rules, they just got killed.
	I mean, this is weeded out of the population.
	It's just weird freaks like maybe you and me who have some weird genetic throwback to some other kind of consistency.
	But it's impossible to understand why people say, well, I'm willing to hand over my secrets to the NSA.
	I'm willing to trust the government when the FBI says, oh, yeah, we use drones to spy on people domestically, but we don't have a program in to really protect anyone.
	But trust me, we use it with great discretion.
	You know, the government lies and denies and then when they're finally outed, they say, well, it's true, but, you know, we've had really great success in containing it.
	I mean, the only reason that this is even remotely seems sane to people is that we imprint on whoever raises us and we have an unbelievable difficulty applying the moral rules that were inflicted upon us up the ladder.
	And this is why the government gets away with so much?
	We're conditioned.
	We're conditioned.
	We're conditioned by a state to accept the state as the authority.
	I mean, that's basically what it comes down to.
	to.
	We're conditioned and we're institutionalized and we're trained by the state to accept the state as the authority.
	But even more so than that is we're encouraged throughout our lives to become part of the state and to allow ourselves to become absorbed into that structure.
	Because when you think about it, what is the state?
	The state is just a word that we say, but the government consists of individual human beings operating as a collective and then training other people as a collective.
	So those individual human beings at some point in their lives are making a decision to become absorbed into part of that system and become the authority because it's a hunger for power.
	And it's this quest for power because we're going back to the perspective again.
	It's a warped perspective of life.
	It's a warped sense of reality, a warped sense of time, thinking that all of life and some kind of reward is going to come on from high after they accept their mortality, but they think that after they die, they're going to get some kind of reward if they do these things in life.
	And a lot of that has to do with the power that they have on earth.
	And we saw this in Egypt even.
	They figured that the power they had on earth would Follow them into the afterlife, and they would be even more powerful in the afterlife if they were powerful on Earth.
	So it's like this just basic human psychosis that a lot of us suffer from and continue to suffer from that actually produces the entities like the state.
	And then it's the minority people like you and me that have some kind of genetic dysfunction, I guess, or whatever it is.
	That just continuously question it.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Rebel against it.
	We are the mutant memes that evolve the species.
	I mean, so, like, here's a tiny, tiny example of what I mean by let's apply the rules to children to adults.
	So, when I was, I'm trying to remember, five or six years old, you know, I was learning how to read and this and that.
	And we would learn words, and then I would be tested on them, right?
	And say, well, do you know how to spell this word?
	And it wasn't enough for me to just say, yeah.
	I actually had to show my teachers that I knew how to write that work.
	And this happens all the way through our education.
	Don't just tell me you can do it.
	Show me proof that you can do it.
	I don't care what you say.
	Don't tell me you understand this math.
	Show me your work.
	Isn't that what they always used to say?
	Show me your work.
	Show me that you actually did it.
	Now, we have this mad lunatic Obama in power who's, you know, more or less in charge of pretty major economic policies and decisions and so on.
	And he believes that he knows how to, like, create jobs and how jobs are created in the economy and so on, right?
	Now, that's a little more important than whether a five- or six-year-old knows how to spell the word cat, I would say.
	Kind of important.
	But the basic reality, of course, is that Obama has never created a single job in his entire life.
	I mean, he's not an entrepreneur.
	He's not a business owner.
	He's not gone out and raised capital.
	He doesn't understand anything to do with the economy.
	He went from being a student to being a grad student to being a pseudo-professor.
	I mean, who knows what the hell was really going on.
	And then he went basically straight into being a community organizer and then went straight into the – what was it?
	The Illinois Senate and then went basically after two terms there.
	He ran for – So all he's saying is, I know how to create jobs.
	I know how to get this economy going.
	I know how to blah, blah, blah, right?
	And I wasn't allowed to get away with saying, I know how to spell the word cat without proving it, without actually showing that I knew how to spell the word when I was five.
	But we'll put this narcissistic lunatic in charge of an entire economy without testing whether he actually knows how to create it because we can't take those standards we apply to five-year-olds and apply them anywhere else.
	Well, because the five-year-old is also trained.
	If the five-year-old turns around to the teacher and says, well, you spell it.
	How do I know that you know how to spell cat?
	That's not acceptable.
	The teacher would punish the child and send the child to the principal's office because that's simply not acceptable.
	At least the teacher would know how to spell the word cat.
	I mean, maybe not in some inner cities, but he would know how to spell cat.
	But no, the more thing would be like, okay, so the teacher says to the grade 7 kid, you shouldn't use violence to get what you want.
	That's called bullying, right?
	And then they say, well, don't you force my parents to pay for your salary, whether we like the school or not, or whether I attend or not, or whether they even have children or not?
	Isn't that using violence to get what you want?
	That, I think, would be like trying to move the moral standards up the rope, which again...
	I mean, that's incomprehensible.
	When I was 15, I was still a socialist and I was running a campaign to increase teachers' benefits and salaries.
	I mean, I was running a Save the Teachers campaign.
	I mean, it was lunatic because it would never have even crossed my mind.
	It wasn't like I thought about it and thought, well, that would be a bad thing to say.
	What is even unthought is the most intractable delusions of all because it's not like you and I say, well, listen, let's not do this through webcams.
	Let's just crawl through the computers and then just do it in each other's living room because it's not possible.
	We don't think about that.
	We don't discuss it as an option.
	Moving moral standards up the hierarchy To even roughly the same amount of absolutism as they come down the hierarchy, it's not something that people consider and reject.
	It's not even something that people consider.
	It's not even within the realm of possibility or something that you could even conceive of.
	Well, the few of us that do consider it, here's the thing, and everything that you're saying is interesting and I agree, but here's the thing, Stefan, those of us that do consider it and do challenge it are often punished.
	And I mean, some people might be listening to this and think, well, you're equivocating a five-year-old having to spell the word cat with the complications of politics and, you know, all the dynamics, the complexities that go into running a society, but...
	It really is.
	When you strip down the complexities and you really just look at it for what it is, we're talking about the same thing.
	We're talking about, like you said, just the moral hierarchy going up the rope instead of down the rope.
	And when you do have that child that the teacher demands, well, show me, prove to me that you can spell this word, and the child looks at the teacher and says, well, you prove to me that you can spell the word.
	Of course, we're assuming that the teacher can spell the word, but that's not the point.
	That's irrelevant.
	What we're talking about is the child demanding the same proof of the teacher.
	That child's going to get punished, whereas the teacher's not going to get punished for demanding that the child do it.
	So right from the early stages, we're trained as a society not to question.
	I can remember being a teenager, and I'm a rebellious person, and much like you're a rebellious person, and so many of us are, but unfortunately, I think we're the minority right now.
	I think a lot of people flap their lips about being rebellious, but they're really not, because when it comes down to it, they get in line like everybody else.
	It's all about walking the talk and talking the walk.
	But I can remember being a teenager...
	And questioning some of the ideas that my teachers were teaching me.
	One in particular, I was in a science class and there was this mandatory part of the science semester where we had to learn about reproduction.
	It was sexual education and it was part of biologies.
	So in, I think it was probably sophomore year, I think I was in 10th grade.
	And part of the biology class for a few weeks had to be dedicated to human reproduction.
	And I remember the teacher saying something.
	He was teaching how a woman gets pregnant and she can only get pregnant during this time.
	And, you know, you have your cycles and everything else.
	And I said, well...
	Isn't it possible, even if it's remote, isn't it possible for a woman to get pregnant right before or after her cycle?
	I mean, what you're teaching right now is you're telling a room full of teenagers that it's okay to fornicate if we just had our period because we won't get pregnant.
	Right.
	That's not necessarily true.
	I was 15.
	I knew things.
	And kind of important.
	Yeah.
	Exactly.
	It's kind of important because, I mean, we're in an inner city school.
	I mean, we're kind of all doing it anyway.
	And you're telling us all that it's A-OK and everything's going to be just fine if we do it either during or right after our menstruation cycle.
	And that's probably not a good idea because it is possible.
	It's not common, but it's possible.
	And he argued with me.
	And we went back and forth.
	And I was simply for asking him that question and calling it out and demanding that he reconcile what he was saying with facts, I was removed from the class.
	And I was punished.
	And I was given detention and so on and so forth.
	And of course I bucked that too and I skipped out, but that's not the point.
	The point is that when I did demand that he reconcile what he was saying with some kind of proof or show some kind of proof and validate what he was teaching a room full of students, because I felt that it was really not a good idea, I was punished for that.
	So that's the society that we're living in.
	We may, as human beings, try to do that.
	We may try to look at the police officer when they pull us over and say, what gives you the authority to tell me how fast I can drive my car?
	But many of us won't do that because as children, we were trained not to do that or we will get in trouble.
	And what we see happening is like in the case of Adam Kokesh.
	He's trying to question authority.
	And what are they doing?
	They're trying to make an example out of him.
	It's very sad.
	So it almost like circles back, Stefan, if you'll indulge me for a second, to the whole, well, you know what?
	Bye.
	We're all going to die anyway.
	What the hell's the difference?
	I just want to shut my computer, go have a glass of wine, have sex with my husband, play with my kids, and call it a day.
	You know?
	And I do feel like I get to that point sometimes.
	I see these things and I'm just like, man, you know, even if people do change their mind...
	anyway what the hell is the difference is there a reward for me in an afterlife that I would have to subscribe to a religion and I would run my whole life based on on waiting for that and has that worked out for society has that really worked out for humanity like running our lives based on religious beliefs no so we're back to square one where we're saying fuck it what's the difference Oh, God.
	It's the first time I ever first liked that in recording.
	I'm very glad to have fished one of those good Anglo-Saxon words right out of your throat.
	That's very nice, too.
	That's good.
	That's fine for my audience.
	Yeah, it's actually 500 weeks too, so it's fine.
	If the most offensive thing that we've been talking about, abuses of power and peaceful parents, if the most offensive thing people get is one expostulation from you, they really need to readjust their moral compass.
	So no, that's fine with me.
	No, it is.
	I don't know.
	Honestly, I don't know.
	And I can't make a good case for people as to why be good.
	I mean, I can't.
	I can't.
	Sometimes it feels like a blessing.
	Sometimes it feels like a curse.
	I mean, sometimes I wish that, yeah.
	Well, no, but I mean, just basic consistency with what we tell five-year-olds to do.
	That, to me, is, you know, that's basic consistency with what we tell five-year-olds to do is at least a good place to start.
	Or at least stop telling five-year-olds that, you know.
	Let's do one or the other.
	If we're not going to believe it ourselves, let's stop inflicting it on five-year-olds.
	That's like having a religion.
	That's like having a religion that's only...
	It's like basically saying to five-year-olds, ethics are Santa Claus.
	No adults believe in them, but we're going to inflict them on you as a real thing.
	It's just nonsense, but...
	It is.
	And here's something else complicated to offer to the table.
	And this takes us back to the whole bizarre parenting teaching thing that's going on.
	And the dogmatic parenting is what I'm calling it lately.
	It's dogmatic parenting.
	And this real example, this is a true story.
	This is all playing out on Facebook, right?
	And I'm not actually witnessing it, but...
	Somebody actually took screenshots and sent me the screenshots because that's how to make drama, right, is to send screenshots.
	Like any of us think we're private with the NSA. Anyway, so this is all playing out in real time.
	Mother doesn't know what to do because her son, 10 or 11 years old, I think, wants to do some activity that involves, I think, fire or some kind of dangerous concoction of chemicals, and she's not comfortable with it, and she's not comfortable with her own ability to make it a safe environment.
	She's not sure how to handle this.
	Now, in my mind, the first bell that goes off is like, really?
	You really need advice for this?
	Like, what?
	What happened?
	But anyway, so where does she come to for advice?
	Facebook.
	Because this is where we want our parenting advice, right?
	So we go to Facebook and she gets into this parenting group on Facebook and she says, well, my son wants to do this in this activity and I'm not sure how to do it.
	I'm thinking, wow, okay, this should be a no-brainer, right?
	No, there's hundreds of comments and all these people just going on and saying all this stuff and chipping their guns and most of it because it was a peaceful parenting forum.
	Well, you have to kind of just let him do what he wants and you have to make sure that his needs are met.
	And I'm thinking, well, where?
	That is a strange word.
	Let's make sure that the needs are met.
	There's a difference between needs and wants.
	So first of all, that distinction got blurred.
	Yeah, I think he may have a need to have all ten fingers at some point in the future as well.
	There is also a need to stay alive.
	That's a need maybe, but he wants to do this activity.
	He doesn't need to do that activity.
	So all the advice is about trying to find some way to compensate this child and give him exactly what he wants.
	And still do it in a safe environment.
	And it comes down to, well, okay, I'm going to call my husband and ask him to come home because he could do it with him.
	So she somehow convinces her husband to leave work, the job that he's getting paid to do, and come home and cater to this child.
	Now, if that doesn't teach narcissism, I don't know what does.
	But I haven't gotten to the finale yet.
	She's having this conversation in real time, and I think what is going on is she's probably using some device or something like that.
	Hopefully not sitting in front of her computer, but she's saying, I don't know how to handle him.
	I don't know how to communicate with him.
	He's flipping out.
	And then a couple of comments later, he's cursing at me now.
	A couple of comments later, I'm about to curse again, so cover your ears if you don't want to hear it.
	A couple of comments later, and this is, quote, he just called me a motherfucker and threw shoes at me.
	I don't know what to do.
	Wow.
	And nobody's saying, get off the fucking computer.
	Go talk to your kid.
	Go relate to your child and see how you can deal with this situation.
	And one of the best advice was, you have to just let him run the gamut of his emotions.
	You have to let him express himself.
	Oh, no.
	No, no, no, no, no.
	No, no, no.
	Abuse is not acceptable.
	Abuse is not acceptable.
	But this is peaceful parenting.
	This is peaceful parenting, Stefan.
	We have to make sure that the children's needs are met.
	My child has a need to punch me in the face and throw a shoe at me?
	Uh-uh.
	If the peaceful parenting had been pursued, there's no way a child would be calling his mom a motherfucker.
	Of course!
	It's not possible.
	It's not that there's something way back that went way awry in how that child is related.
	The first thing that went wrong was, I'm going to get on the computer and figure out how to do this and ask strangers that don't even know me, instead of just having a conversation with your child about it.
	And I can imagine that this has been going on for 10 years of this kid's life, and that's why he's in the condition that he's in.
	So how does this kid then grow up and learn not to hit his children?
	Well, and how about not treating your children like they're grenades about to go off and take out half the house with them?
	You know, that's a way to make children terrified of their own emotions, to feel incredibly dangerous and volatile, and to feel incredibly frustrated that that's how they're viewed and perceived.
	You know, oh, I have to be really careful with Johnny because he can go off at any time!
	And it's like, oh my God, well, that means we can't negotiate because you view me as some sort of kryptonite or some sort of gelignite or something like that.
	And so therefore they are a time bomb.
	Yeah, for sure.
	That's a self-fulfilling prophecy if ever there was one.
	Well, I mean, here's the problem.
	We have half a society in school being trained to accept authority, and another portion of society that's doing this other bizarre thing.
	So you think that, okay, well, maybe we just need this one rule that everybody has to abide by, but that's not freedom either.
	So let's just call it a day and have a glass of wine and go to bed, right?
	Well, listen, I think we should try and make the case because it's an interesting question.
	I think about this.
	I'm constantly making the case to be good and do the right thing and all that kind of stuff.
	But I think maybe when we do our next show, we'll pick up on that because I think that's an interesting...
	I'd have a good answer for that.
	I really should.
	You know, since I have been working on selling it for a lot of these many years.
	But I think maybe we can pick that up on our next show because I think that's a really interesting question because there are times it feels like a blessing.
	Sometimes it feels like a curse.
	But I think I need to mull that over a little bit more in my own head first before I can do anything useful.
	But hey, I really thought it was a great show.
	I really, really enjoyed it.
	It's great to connect again.
	I love going over all these questions with you.
	Yeah, I know.
	I guess the glass of wine and your husband sound like they're in it for a fantastic night.
	It's so good for you guys.
	Yeah, and listen, I'll be back traveling again in the fall, and maybe if I'm anywhere close, we'll do a face-to-face, which would be lovely, and introduce our kids, which I think would also be lovely.
	And thanks again for all the work that you do, of course, in bringing all this stuff out to people.
	It is a challenge, and sometimes it does feel like trying to haul a kicking bison up a glass wall, but I think it is the most necessary thing we can be doing, and I'll try and think of a good reason why for the next time we do a show together.
	Yeah, let's do that.
	Let's plan for something.
	And if you do travel in the fall, I'm going to be in Texas in October.
	So if you're anywhere near there, then we can meet up.
	And of course, I'm always in Oklahoma before you go.
	I really seriously doubt that there's anyone listening that doesn't already know who you are.
	But just in case in that off chance, let's hear how we can learn more about you and find out about your work, Stefan.
	Well, hopefully nobody gives much of a rat about me, but hopefully the philosophy that I talk about is of interest to people.
	But it's freedomainradio.com.
	People can go to YouTube and subscribe at youtube.com forward slash freedomainradio.
	And there's, yeah, podcasts.
	There's tons of books for free on the website.
	Real-time relationships is more about interpersonal stuff, and there's books on ethics and all that kind of stuff.
	It's all free.
	I really encourage people to just go and, you know, faceplant in the buffet of philosophy we call freedomainradio and don't come up for air.
	You know, develop gills while swimming through that buffet, to mix my metaphors, atrociously.
	And for my listeners to get your...
	Are you still UnpluggedMom.com?
	UnpluggedMom, yeah.
	I just embraced that I have been associated with UnpluggedMom, and I'm branded, and that's okay.
	I'm just going to embrace that and go with it.
	UnpluggedMom.com or LoretteLynn.com.
	I'm doing the podcast, and they're recorded now, and we're going to do some other stuff.
	I have...
	Don't Do Drugs, Stay Out of School is, of course, still available, and I have another book coming out in the fall.
	Fantastic.
	Well, great chatting with you again, and I'm sure we'll talk again soon.
	I will actually be in Texas in October with Steph Kinsella and Jeffrey Tucker for a symposium, so I'm sure we'll find some way to at least have a flyby.
	So, thanks again, Lorette.
	Great to chat with you again.
	All the best.
	And Stefan, we do care about you, and I care about you, and I'm very happy to see that you're doing well, and I do wish you all the best, too.
	Thank you very much.
	Take care.

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