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Aug. 17, 2013 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

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2455 Nudity, Privacy and Shame - Freedomain Radio Call In Show August 14th, 2013

Stefan Molyneux takes calls from listeners to discuss leaving the business world, coercion in the stock market, making money at the expense of employees, talking to children about circumcision, privacy, nudity, domination and amusing technical problems.

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	Hi, everybody.
	It's Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Aid Radio.
	Welcome, one and all, and the guide to the left of you.
	It is the 14th of August, 2013.
	This is the inauguration of the Midweek Call-In Show, Wednesdays, 8 p.m.
	Eastern Standard Time.
	I thought, you know, 8 p.m.
	Eastern Standard Time.
	What is this?
	5pm for our West Coast listeners.
	But I know that most of you, what is it?
	4.20 in the afternoon?
	You begin to get fairly mellow at your government jobs.
	So I think that we can still make it work.
	And the reason I was talking about this with Mike and the reason that I'd like to do this is I kind of missed you guys during the whole week.
	It's a whole week I don't get to chat with these great listeners, the greatest listeners in the known universe, and I would argue in the unknown universe.
	And I miss you guys.
	Seven days is too long between conversations, so I hope that we can keep this coming.
	I hope that there's enough interest from listeners to keep this conversation going.
	It is an incredibly deep pleasure and honor to speak with you.
	So with that having been said, let's see who is the very first caller.
	Don't suck!
	If you're the first caller, very important.
	This is the inaugurated Wednesday evening midweek call.
	So give me a good question.
	Something about my nipples.
	Please, go ahead.
	Hi, Stefan.
	Am I coming out okay?
	Yes, wonderful.
	How are you doing, my friend?
	Okay.
	You know, when I always call you up, I always think of so many questions to ask you, but I'll home in one moment.
	You've recently, you've spoken a lot about how, well you've mentioned this quite a few times, you've said that you've left the business world because you didn't like the people in the business world or something.
	And I was quite curious what you mean by that.
	So can you explain what you were referring to?
	Well, I mean, I think that there are incentives within the business world that ran more and more counter to what I viewed as, and I think more than just a view, what I viewed as moral, as virtuous.
	And so, for example, one of the things that's happened that I've talked about is we've got this supercharged stock market, which means that there's a huge amount of people's money that is, against their will, herded into the stock market.
	Business decisions of CEOs.
	In the past, a CEO of a business would focus on creating long-term value And that long-term value would be reflected in the general trend of the stock price, right?
	So people would say, well, this company has been growing at 5% or 10% a year for five years.
	There's no reason to believe that's going to change.
	The leadership is experienced.
	The market is still fairly immature, so there's lots of room to develop and so on.
	And so the stock price would go up because there would be an anticipation of dividends and growth and increasing the value of stock over the long term.
	Now that's kind of changed, I would argue, over the past 20, 30, maybe 35 years, in that now there's so much money in the stock market That is not managed by people knowledgeable of the stock market, right?
	So most people have a 401k plan or they've got some sort of retirement saving plans up here in Canada.
	It's called an RRSP. And you have to give that money to fund managers, to mutual fund managers and so on, or invest it or something like that, or the government takes it from you.
	So you don't want your money in the stock market.
	You just rather it be in the stock market than taken from you at gunpoint by the government.
	And so what happens is there's too much money chasing too little opportunity.
	And so what's happened is instead of growing businesses in terms of long-term value with the hope of affecting stock price as a result of that, what's happened is there's so much money to be made in the short run through getting all of this money to attach itself to your stock.
	That CEOs are fundamentally working the stock market rather than working the long-term growth of their businesses.
	And I have found that this tends to distort business decision-making.
	So there's lots of what's called stuffing the pipe, which is where you'd really drive to get a whole bunch of sales this quarter.
	And then say, look, we grew 20% this quarter.
	And what happens is, of course, you get almost no sales the next quarter because you've got so many sales this quarter that there's nothing to sell to next quarter.
	You've worked all your contacts.
	And so people who would be knowledgeable about the industry would say, oh, well, so there's a lot of sales this quarter, but what have they got next quarter?
	And they would figure this out.
	Fund managers, mutual fund managers, money market managers, whoever, they don't know all of these details.
	They're just like, oh, the stock price really bumped and they hear all of this stuff and they get all of these presentations from the CEOs and analysts get involved and so on and suddenly it's like, whoa, this is fantastic and then they go and invest in that stock and everybody makes a fortune.
	But then in the next quarter or two, business kind of collapses and then the stock price is sold, but people have already made their fortune out of it.
	And so I found that this is sort of where I saw things heading and I had some experience of it where people were just focused on the stock price, not on building long-term value.
	I think that...
	It has a distortionary effect on business ethics as a whole.
	I think that people end up making promises to clients that can't easily be or maybe not even possibly be kept simply because if they make the sale, they get to tell the analysts, they get to publish the numbers, the stock price is going to jump and they're all going to make a fortune.
	I think that's really changed The business's primary relationship should be, of course, with the long-term growth and the long-term financial benefit to the customer.
	But because there's so much money to be made out of pump and dump stock activity, or you could say manipulation, I think that a lot of business leaders have focused on their primary relationship being with the stock market.
	And if they have to basically shortchange the customers to jump the stock price, I think that more and more of them become tempted to do that.
	And that's not a particularly pleasurable place to be.
	Certainly, if you're involved in the technical side of the business, as I largely was, It becomes very difficult because then you've got a whole bunch of promises that seem almost impossible to fulfill because stuff has been promised to customers that you may not have the technical resources to provide.
	But the numbers look great until that reality comes out.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yeah, that makes sense.
	So you're basically saying that companies sort of...
	You know, perform to the madness of the state and what the state has created rather than focusing on what is important which is, you know, the customer, right?
	Well, I would argue that what is important is kind of relative, right?
	So what is important has become the stock price because people who invest in the company want the stock price to go up.
	Now, beforehand, they used to choose CEOs who were wise and ignored the sort of slings and arrows of outrageous business momentary transitional points and just really worked to get the long-term growth of the company.
	Right.
	But now, of course, you can shave off your R&D and marketing and pump it all into sales and make a fortune in the short run.
	But, of course, you're killing your competitiveness and your growth in the long run.
	But there's enough money to be made from the stock market growth, the growth and the value of the stocks, that you can...
	You'd be crazy not to, in a way.
	The Fed and the forcing of everyone's money into the stock market has changed business to the point where, from an economic self-interest standpoint, it is actually advantageous to focus on the stock price at the expense of long-term growth.
	You may not end up with a stable and long-term growing company, but you can make out like a bandit in the short run, enough that it's worth it.
	Yeah, interesting.
	To be honest, most people aren't in a position in a company where they're dealing with public trading.
	Would you say that it's different for a small startup?
	Well, it depends whether you're involved in going public or not.
	And so it depends.
	And I would argue that lots of people are involved in this.
	I mean, if people are chasing stock price, then the salespeople are going to be pushed to close deals.
	And they will be pushed to close deals to say, okay, we'll give them a 50% discount if they buy by the end of the quarter.
	Okay, so your numbers are up this quarter, but you've stolen from next quarter, and you've stolen more money from next quarter than you're making this quarter.
	So salespeople get a lot of pressure to close the sales in a timeframe that makes the company look appealing to the stock market.
	So they have that effect.
	The marketing people are told to create incentives that are more around short-term growth.
	The data analysts who are creating the business selling tools to help sell whatever it is you're selling, the ROI, the cost-benefit analysis and so on, the ROI. All of these guys are really pushed to make it look as attractive as possible and to give a short-term return as possible.
	The technical people are basically told to shut up when they're in front of the clients, right?
	Do not let them talk to the tech person.
	Because you will simply get a truth that is going to be kind of unpalatable to what...
	So I think it does affect a lot of people in the business, and a lot of people feel kind of uncomfortable about it.
	And of course, a lot of the employees who may not have stock options or anything like that, they're going to face long hours.
	They may face job uncertainty or instability in their job, and they may be put in situations where...
	They feel that to tell the truth is to harm their careers, and that is not something that you really want to be put in that position.
	But because there's so much money in the stock market, and a variety of other reasons, but I think that's the biggest one, the business has really changed from what it used to be.
	Right, right.
	So, in your opinion, you think that to maintain your ethics, you would have a small company and not go public, correct?
	Oh, yeah, I've got to tell you, and this is just my opinion as this all is, and this is not any claim to fact, I would avoid going public like the plague.
	I mean, if FDR grows to be the media empire, the interstellar Romulan slash Klingon media empire that I'm dreaming of, I will...
	Never go public in a bazillion, gazillion years.
	I don't care how much money is ever put on the table.
	I am in no way, shape, or form ever interested in tossing myself back onto the storm-tossed seas of...
	ADD stock market attention spans.
	So, yeah, I think get a small company, stay away from the stock market, grow slowly and patiently, bring as much value as you can.
	I mean, this is, you know, the philosophy of what I do here, right?
	I mean, the growth is slow, the growth is steady, the growth is manageable.
	You know, I have an employee, well, a co-worker, basically.
	He tells me what to do half the time.
	But actually, could we get it down to half with that...
	Could that be possible, Mike?
	And the idea that I would throw this enterprise into the stock market is inconceivable to me.
	It would distort everything and would take my focus away.
	How is it that this show grows?
	hopefully by providing value to people in ways that philosophy can change their lives.
	This is what is unique about, I think, this show, in that we talk here about philosophy that can change your life.
	So yes, if you're an entrepreneur, I think that the only way to ensure the long-term stability and growth of your company and to have growth, I mean, you can still have growth with going public, of course, but I think that it's a pretty dangerous waters to get into.
	It's kind of Yeah, it is interesting how you kind of connected the two, how going public kind of affects people on a personal level, more job instability and how that puts stress on them and it kind of just changes the mood of the office, so to speak.
	Is there any other specific reasons, like maybe you had to hold your tongue next to employees or That sort of thing.
	That was kind of the answer I was expecting.
	I mean, your technical answer is definitely appreciated, but I was kind of expecting you to talk about how you had to bite your tongue next to people that get divorced and all that.
	Well, what I found was that when stock price became really important and When I was an entrepreneur, we went on a pretty wild stock ride.
	What happened was the cohesiveness of the organization split.
	Everybody, of course, should be facing the same way and rowing the same way.
	And there's the asshole in the back who's going, hup, two, three, four, or whatever the hell he says to make sure everyone rows at the same time.
	And he's important.
	He's not exactly a rower, but he's important.
	It's not a management, right?
	But when managers...
	Have the potential to make a fortune from the stock price and the employees don't.
	There is a complete split in focus and unity in the company.
	And what happens is satisfying the stock market and gaining value in the stock market is for the benefit of the managers and against the benefits of the employees.
	And therefore, you have a system that is set up which pits management against the employees.
	If the management can pump up the numbers, in other words, if they can increase revenue without increasing headcount, then the managers do very well through the stock.
	But the work cascades down to the employees who may or may not see Any particular gains in salary?
	They may have some options.
	Who knows?
	But when everybody's focusing on building long-term values, then everybody's facing the customer and making sure that the customer is satisfied and the greatest amount of creativity and productivity is poured into the product or service that's being provided.
	That's wonderful.
	That is a real teamwork and everybody's on the same page.
	Everybody's facing the same way.
	Everyone has the same objective.
	When Stock price can almost immeasurably enrich management at the expense of employee stability and happiness.
	Well, I mean, you're just setting yourself up for a situation of not just a split, but an oppositional class-based warfare within an organization.
	And I think that's enormously tragic.
	Oh, yeah.
	It's kind of like watching The Office, how...
	Everybody stops working immediately as soon as the mid-level manager leaves the building.
	It's kind of...
	It's not a good place to work in that.
	I mean, as you said, you kind of want to have the feeling that all of your employers are in the same boat as you and you're the captain and we're all working together to get to the nearest island, that sort of thing.
	And, yeah, I can definitely see the appeal of how you wouldn't want to Kind of split the narrative between two very different types of worker.
	Yeah, and in my experience, I mean, I was paid more than my employees.
	They didn't mind me being paid more than they were being paid, as long as we were all facing the same direction.
	I mean, they knew that they had a job because I had co-founded the company.
	They knew that I was willing to take on the difficult clients, willing to take on difficult negotiations with angry clients, willing to be the human shield for them, willing to do the travel they may not have wanted to do to some crappy town in the middle of nowhere.
	So they didn't mind me being paid more as long as they saw the value that I was providing to them as employees.
	Making sure that the specifications for the software products were detailed and explicit enough that they didn't get confused.
	Dealing with negotiations, any delays, I would communicate those to the clients.
	So they were fine.
	You get paid more, but that's fine.
	You know, like the guy who's the character actor in the Brad Pitt movie doesn't mind Brad Pitt getting paid a hell of a lot more because the movie isn't getting made without Brad Pitt as the lead, right?
	So he's okay with it because he sees the value that Brad Pitt is bringing to the movie, i.e.
	abs.
	I don't know what else he brings, but anyway.
	But when employees look at managers and they see that the managers are getting wealthy...
	By creating commitments or situations which are going to cost the employees in the long run, then cynicism and job hunts inevitably result.
	And the moment that employees become cynical about management, if it's not in the public sector and it's not got the IP fortress around it, the company Must be radically changed or it will die.
	Because the moment that employees become cynical about management or the moment the employees believe, and probably rightly so, that managers have the opposite incentives to the employees, which is the creation of short-term illusory value at the expense of long-term productivity for the employees, well, then the company is doomed.
	And that is not a fun place to be.
	Yeah, yeah, interesting.
	So maybe...
	Apart from public trading, maybe the solution is to change bonuses for managers to be more long term, I suppose.
	Yeah, I mean, there's lots of ways and lots of people have wrestled with the problem.
	You need to create short-term value to meet your payroll, right?
	I mean, in the business world, cash flow is everything.
	I mean, you could have $10 million worth of sales next quarter, but if you can't make payroll, you're toast.
	I mean, you're almost automatically into bankruptcy.
	So you need to generate value in the here and now, but you also need to have sales in the future.
	You need to develop the product, invest in R&D and all this kind of stuff.
	I don't have any hugely great insights about how to balance that.
	But what I do find important is that respecting the knowledge base of the employees is really essential.
	Who knows more about the product than the R&D team?
	Well, having been a member and the leader of an R&D team, I can tell you, nobody.
	Who knows the customer more than the person who's running the project?
	Well, nobody.
	Everybody has an idea about how the company should grow, and everybody needs to be able to participate in that.
	I mean, in my company, we'd take people off-site for three days.
	We'd go whitewater rafting.
	We'd stay up half the night drinking Irish coffees and talking about what we wanted to do with the company because the most important thing is to have fun because...
	I mean, you've got to make some money, but there's no points for having a lot of money and being miserable.
	And so I think if everybody participates in the long-term growth of the company, if everybody gets to say, well, I think these customers, we should fire them because they're more work than they are worth, then everybody is participating.
	And I think having conversations about How should people be paid is important.
	And, you know, do people get bonuses for completing things on time?
	Jack Welsh, who took over...
	I think I should know this.
	I read three of his books.
	Anyway, he had this thing where he said there are underperforming sectors in the economy, and if we only talk about growth, then people will never want to go to those underperforming sectors, which means the highest talent is going to the greatest growth, because that's where they're going to get the most bonuses.
	So we should grow people's bonuses relative to the market, not relative to their numbers the previous year.
	And that way we can balance out the talents in the organization.
	Because if the greatest talent is always going to the highest growth areas, by definition, you're just going to get widening gaps between shrinkage and growth.
	So there's lots of creative ways that you can do it.
	And we had lots of interesting and creative ways to deal with how to be compensated.
	And I think as long as the employees feel, and not just a feeling, but they actually are participating in the decisions...
	I think that there's a hierarchy in terms of expertise and competence, but I don't think there's much of a hierarchy in terms of creativity and forward planning.
	So when I would write the sort of three-year tech roadmap, I would never dream of doing that without sitting down with the R&D team for a weekend or...
	A couple of nights or, you know, a couple of days and going through everything and getting everyone's feedback and then everyone's on board when we hash it out that way.
	So everyone should plan and part of what everyone should plan should be compensation mechanisms, which can be complicated.
	How much do you pay the R&D team versus the sales team?
	Well, the sales team is pretty easy to incentivize.
	Sorry if I'm getting too technical.
	But the sales team, did they sell?
	Did they not get bonuses on that?
	The R&D team, well, it's kind of tough.
	Should they get bonuses for completing a project in a timely manner?
	If the project doesn't add one penny to sales, kind of tough.
	Well, I would argue that the R&D team is not responsible for increasing sales.
	They are responsible for meeting the targets.
	It's the responsibility of the marketing team in conjunction with the sales team to set the product features that they believe are the ones that are going to contribute the most to sales.
	So I think the R&D team should be incentivized for completing the project on time or even ahead of time or under budget.
	But the marketing team should be incentivized by the growth in sales, in particular year over year.
	The salespeople, of course, should be incentivized for each particular sale.
	And the QAQC team, the quality assurance, quality control team, should be incentivized based on the diminishing number of irrelevant bugs or user-found bugs.
	There are always obscure bugs in every piece of software that no one's ever going to find.
	So there's lots of different ways of incentivizing these things, but they're all to do with long-term customer satisfaction.
	You know, the product support team should be incentivized on the number of support contracts that are retained year over year.
	There's lots of different ways that you can do it.
	But as long as everyone agrees how their contributions in a company are going to be measured in terms of growth and profitability, and they accept the metrics that are going to be used to give them their bonuses and salary increases and whatever, then I think it's known ahead of time.
	It's agreed ahead of time.
	It can always be adjusted down the road.
	But I think that that kind of participation and finding ways that people can understand how what they do every day impacts the dollar growth of the company, that to me is really key in growing things. - Absolutely.
	I actually saw an interesting documentary, this English documentary, and it was pretty much what you've been talking about.
	It kind of struck onto the same theme.
	Basically, this...
	I wish I could remember what it was called, I would say, but...
	Yeah, I forgot.
	And it was this plumbing company, and...
	You know how everyone says it's completely taboo to talk about salary in the workplace and that?
	Well, he kind of, the CEO reversed this, so he kind of asked everyone to put their salary on this whiteboard, right?
	So he put his salary, the managers put their salary, you know, the people working at the call center put their salary up, and he asked them to negotiate, to ask where can we Where can we make up this certain amount of money?
	What salary should be given to who?
	And it was a very, very interesting social experiment.
	In the end, it worked out quite well, but at the start, of course, everybody was freaked out, right?
	Because it's kind of like a big change.
	That kind of transparency is not common, to say the least.
	And it Yeah, I mean, I think everyone knew how much I made, and I didn't particularly hear any complaints about it.
	I mean, I always tell my employees, I'm a resource for you to use.
	You are my customers.
	I mean, there are customers external to the company.
	You are my customers.
	If I'm not doing a good job for you, if I'm not giving you good advice, if I'm not helping you avoid difficult situations or helping get you out of difficult situations, then I shouldn't be paid more than you.
	So use me, you know, in the same way that, you know, if you've got a You know, a coupon for free pizza, go eat the pizza.
	I mean, so, you know, use me as the Bill Withers song until it goes until you use me up.
	And I really wanted people to know that.
	I didn't hide what I was paid and I didn't feel that, at least I never got any complaints that said basically what you provide is not...
	Worth the salary that we're giving up to have you around.
	And I was always pretty aware of that.
	But that does get kind of lost.
	And again, once you start focusing on stock price, you're not focusing on employees and customers.
	But it really is quite a black hole if the numbers are jumping around so wildly.
	Yeah, I mean, it's a respectful thing to do.
	I mean, being honest about that.
	You know, we're all part of the same company.
	You know, why not be honest about what the payroll is, right?
	And basically, at the end of this documentary...
	Kind of the plumbers, you know, the tradesmen, who everyone thought, oh, they just want as much money as possible.
	You know how they are.
	And at the end, they came up with creative solutions.
	They did research onto how to reduce the cost of their materials and where to get them from in plumbing, right?
	And they presented this in a very formal manner to the CEO, and he was genuinely impressed about how How revealing all of this information and starting the negotiation for payroll within the business itself, it kind of flipped the switch and now the people you least expect to be contributing to the company's growth are doing just that.
	Yeah, everybody's a genius in their own occupation and everybody...
	I mean, this has been proven repeatedly, particularly in the public sector, that...
	For instance, I can't remember, some state in the US, they figured out that if they unscrewed a couple of light bulbs from vending machines, they saved like $150,000 a year in electricity costs over the state.
	You know, did it do any harm?
	No.
	Hey, there's a vending machine.
	I'm thirsty.
	I'll get something, right?
	Everybody's a genius.
	Now, no manager is ever going to think about that or ever going to find out about that.
	And so a top-down management doesn't work any better in an organization in the long run than a command and control socialist economy.
	The savings, the creativity, all of that should bubble up from the bottom.
	And this...
	The old style of manager and worker and the manager is the brain and the worker is the hands.
	This is all nonsense.
	This stuff should all be cast away with foot binding and circumcision.
	The savings, the creativity should really come up from below and I certainly know when I was an employee, I always had great ideas that I wanted to share, and there was almost never any interest in that.
	Like, nobody sat down and said, oh, well, that's interesting.
	You know, put together a spreadsheet, let me know, give me a time frame.
	But when I had employees who had great ideas, even if I didn't understand what the hell they were for fundamentally, if they made a good case for it, you know, go for it.
	Then you're responsible for it, of course.
	You know, if you put your projections out, you're responsible for what's going to happen.
	But I think it's...
	I think this sort of top-down idea is not good.
	So I agree.
	Get the savings coming up from below.
	Like in the US, there was all this sequestration disasters, you know, that the budgets were going to be cut and everyone was like, oh, these services are going to be cut and we're going to have to cut 15 labor days every year just to meet budget.
	And, you know, this was what was said sort of six months before.
	Three months into it, they're like, well, we're only going to cut half the services.
	And it turns out we found some savings, so we're actually going to have to cut only seven-person days of work.
	And I think it basically came down to, you know, we have to turn one garbage can upside down and lock two doors extra at night, and suddenly we can meet our budget.
	You always get these huge amounts of complaints any time.
	Oh, we're already at the bone.
	We can't cut.
	There's no more fat to cut.
	And then...
	You know, it turns out that they've taken a chainsaw to, you know, a pile of bloated dead elephants.
	So there is huge amounts of creativity and efficiency available to an organization.
	But as a manager, you have to stop talking and start listening and start giving the sort of full human respect for people way down on the food chain.
	People get paid according to the value that they provide.
	And if you can get them to, as I always say to my employees, they say, I want a raise.
	They say, well, you're paid according to the value that you provide, just as I am.
	And if you want to raise, you have to provide more value.
	You have to learn new skills.
	You have to come up with new ideas.
	You've got to play the lottery if you want to win, so to speak, although this is a bit more certain than a lottery.
	And so encouraging them to say that they were in charge of their own salary and compensation, but they needed to provide more value.
	I said, just as I do need to provide more value if I want to raise.
	And getting people to understand that unleashes a lot of creativity in the organization and You know, the people at the bottom, the people who are working there, I mean, I've walked around on factory floors and talked to people at various companies I was involved in.
	You know, if you sit them down over a coffee, I mean, they have some great ideas.
	They know everything there is to know about what to improve in the organization, a million times more than the, you know, the Olympian gods CEOs and CFOs and CEOs and all that, sorry, CTOs and all that, CMOs.
	They know a huge amount more about how to fix the operation.
	It's just that usually the management doesn't want to get involved and doesn't want to make those changes.
	So, yeah, I agree with you.
	I mean, the real growth of a company comes from the bottom up in many cases.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	I mean, if you've got employees, I mean, you've already got a natural resource.
	You've got other people's brains, so why not put it to use, right?
	Instead of just using their hands and whatnot.
	Yeah, but of course, a lot of what comes up from the bottom, though, is personnel conflicts that a lot of managers don't like.
	You know, you go talk to five guys on the line, and they all say, well, this foreman's great.
	This foreman's a jerk.
	And then as a manager, you kind of got to do something about that, right?
	But a lot of people don't want to get involved in those interpersonal conflicts.
	But, you know, rejecting interpersonal conflicts immediately strips your value as a manager down to that of a line employee.
	I mean, the whole point of being a manager is to deal with interpersonal conflicts, with conflicts with you and the customers, between employees, employees and managers and so on.
	If you take that out of the mix, you've got no right to call yourself a manager.
	So I think that's important to do.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	Well, thanks for this conversation.
	It's been quite enlightening.
	And I'll have to listen over it again when I get the chance.
	So thank you.
	Oh, you're very welcome.
	And I really appreciate those great questions and stuff I haven't thought about in quite a while.
	So I appreciate you bringing this stuff up.
	All right.
	Great.
	My topic is circumcision, particularly the situation where the father is circumcised, but the child is raised peacefully, so not circumcised.
	And the likely occurrence that the child will eventually notice the difference and ask why there is a difference.
	I'm just curious how to approach circumcision.
	I guess you want to be honest with your child, but of course you don't want to...
	I don't think it would be appropriate to share the heinousness of circumcision with him.
	So I'm curious how you would approach that kind of situation.
	So a son is noticing that his penis is different from his father's?
	Yeah, I guess so.
	He's going to ask the question about why and...
	But first of all, I'm not sure why a son who would have those questions would be seeing his father's penis.
	Yeah, that is a thought that came to me.
	I just know that when I was growing up, it wasn't like overt nakedness, but occasionally I'd see, like my father would be urinating with the door open in the bathroom or something, or we'd go swimming and we'd be changing, and so we'd see each other.
	So it wasn't like...
	Yeah, I mean, I'm a big, you know, I'm a big one for a little privacy in the family.
	So I don't think that it's, you know, I think mom and dad genitalia should not be seen by kids the moment that they can walk.
	I think that's sort of it for the flashing planet.
	But...
	But of course, it doesn't require that for the child to have questions, right?
	I mean, he's going to be in the locker room, and he's going to see intact, and he's going to see cut penises, and he's going to have questions about that.
	I would assume that's probably, what, seven or eight or nine years old?
	I suppose it's possible to be earlier.
	I mean, when I go to the gym, there's lots of very young children there.
	Right, right.
	Right, yeah.
	So, yeah.
	So, first of all, of course, don't be showing your parental genitalia to your children.
	That would sort of be number one.
	And I would just sort of go by if the kid sees other penises and he sees uncircumcised penises, he has an intact penis.
	I would simply talk about differences.
	He may not even have any questions because, you know, they're used to different hair color, different eye color, different heights, different ages, different races, and so on.
	So, he may not have any particular questions.
	At some point, it will come up.
	Of course, my daughter was asking me about the show that I was doing when I did the circumcision show, but I did not talk to her about it because there's nothing I really want to explain to her at the moment.
	Let's eliminate it with this video, and therefore, when she asks about it, I won't have to tell her the unholy stuff that goes on in hospitals every 47 seconds or so.
	But when the child gets older...
	Then I think that the minimum of relevant facts presented in as neutral a manner as possible is the way to go.
	So, you know, if the kid's sort of eight or nine years old, I would say, well, in some cultures there is a tradition wherein the parents...
	Encourage the doctor or ask the doctor to remove the ring of skin around the end of the penis.
	He says, well, why?
	Why do they do that?
	It's like, well, there's, you know, religious reasons.
	They believe that it's some religious commandment, although...
	Why God is particularly interested in baby penises is sort of beyond me.
	Or, you know, some people believe that there's some medical reasons which are largely disproven.
	And of course, the practice came into being thousands of years ago when there were no medical double-blind experiments to prove any of this.
	So it's just kind of like a tradition.
	And, you know, I would say it's a tradition that I think is very wrong.
	And, you know, I'm doing what I can to fight it.
	A lot of people do believe that this is something that is good or necessary or the right thing to do, and I don't agree with it.
	I think it's very wrong.
	But remember, everyone who's had it, certainly the children who've had it done, they did not make the choice.
	I mean, they're victims of...
	This procedure, this mutilation.
	It's one of the things that is sort of wrong in the world that I think people of good conscience and goodwill are really working to oppose with some significant success.
	As I sort of mentioned in a recent presentation, the prevalence in the US has gone down from like 55% to 33% in a single year.
	So, yay.
	But I think, does that make any sense?
	That's sort of how I would approach it.
	Right, right.
	I guess I'm wondering if when your daughter asks you a question that you're not willing to...
	I mean, it's an answer she's not ready for.
	Do you just simply tell her that?
	Or do you...
	I don't know.
	What do you say to her?
	I will sometimes tell her that this is a topic that's better when she gets older.
	But generally, I will say...
	you know, it was a very boring show on, you know, hospital stuff.
	Actually, I couldn't say she loves doctors and she wants to be a doctor.
	So I'd have to come up with something.
	But generally, I will do the classic, oh, look, something shiny redirect that usually works, works all right.
	But I will rarely tell her that this is a topic I'm not going to discuss with her because I don't like the idea that there's a big stratification between adults and children in general, other than, you know, the aforementioned genitalia stuff.
	But I really do try to speak with her as much as possible as an equal.
	And, you know, So I don't like to pull the you're too young card on her because that really reinforces a gap that I want to minimize.
	So generally, I would just do a redirect or say, oh, it was pretty boring.
	You know, what would you like to do this afternoon kind of thing?
	And that's generally the way that I'll do it.
	Okay.
	Just a quick question on the topic of nudity.
	I guess...
	I guess I'm wondering about children feeling a sort of fear about that topic.
	Sorry, which topic?
	Do you mean circumcision or nudity?
	Nudity, because I guess I see a lot of children that seem pretty afraid of nudity.
	I think it's very shunned in their household or whatever.
	It's shocking to them.
	Sorry, do you mean their nudity or the nudity of other children?
	Perhaps both.
	I mean...
	I guess...
	I just...
	I guess I'm worried about a child seeing it as a scary topic or seeing someone nude being traumatic because it's so unheard of or unexpected.
	I'm curious if that's a problem.
	Sorry to interrupt, but I think there's a bit of a false dichotomy in this kind of stuff.
	The false dichotomy is that You know, privacy is repression.
	And to be free with your body, to be free with, you know, then everybody has to run around optionally nude.
	And I think that's a complete false dichotomy.
	I don't mean this is your false dichotomy.
	I think it's a real false dichotomy.
	Privacy is not the same as repression.
	Shaming is repression.
	But privacy is not the same as shaming.
	So if I say I'm going to go to the washroom and I go in and I close the door and I do my business and then I come out and wash my hands, I haven't shamed anyone.
	I've just said that going to the washroom is private.
	Now, if...
	My daughter goes to the washroom and I say, you know, that's filthy, disgusting crap in your bowels.
	You know, I can't believe that you ate that much.
	That's horrible.
	I can't even imagine what I would say.
	But if I'm shaming her about her bathroom activities or, you know, I can't believe you, whatever, right?
	I mean, then that would be shaming and that, I think, is a cause of Of repression, of problems with body image and so on.
	But if I say, could you just stand outside?
	I'm going to change into my bathing suit.
	I mean, that's not shaming anyone.
	That's just saying I'm going to have a little privacy while I do my changing.
	And so...
	There was this kind of thing in the 70s.
	Oh, God.
	I mean, nudity, don't ever – and I think that's not right.
	I think that privacy – I mean, you don't have sex in front of your kids.
	That's not shaming anyone.
	To me, that's basic privacy.
	Yeah.
	But not having sex in front of your kids is not the same as shaming them about any sexual thoughts or feelings that they might have.
	So I don't think that privacy is the same as shaming or humiliation.
	In fact, I think they're kind of opposite.
	And so I don't think that kids who have – like, I don't think there are any kids who are disturbed or traumatized by the fact that their parents close the door when they go to the washroom.
	In fact, I think quite the opposite would be the case, that if you're seeing Dad lay a deep Indian dinner log first thing in the morning, that that probably is going to send you screaming to a Freudian therapist not too far in the distant future.
	So I think that privacy is respectful.
	It's saying that there are some things that are not for privacy.
	I think privacy is great.
	And I think that letting it all hang out all over the place all the time is not...
	I think is actually kind of a negative.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yeah, that's pretty good.
	Pretty good.
	How could it be perfect?
	Everything I say, it must be perfect!
	Sorry, go on.
	Sorry, I was raised by a German mother, therefore toilet trained at gunpoint.
	What can I tell you?
	I eat bratwurst and shit bullets.
	What can I say?
	Half German.
	I think that pretty much answers my question.
	It gives me something to think about when I listen back.
	I mean, I get that.
	I mean, there's nothing wrong with nudity.
	I mean, you know, it's called your birthday suit.
	We're all born in it and so on.
	You know, I've been to nude beaches, you know, with a big bottle of SPF 20 and a tiny bottle.
	Well, not a tiny bottle, a smaller bottle of SPF 9 million for the more sensitive parts.
	And actually, one time, here's my nudity story.
	Oh, my God, we'd never do this on a Sunday show.
	So, one time I was working up north, and I was deep, deep in the woods.
	And I had to dig up a whole bunch of piping for, it doesn't really matter, dig up a whole bunch of piping.
	And I was in a t-shirt and I was in shorts and I was digging and it was raining and I was sweaty and it was just hot and unpleasant.
	And I kept getting sand in my pants.
	And it was actually pretty uncomfortable.
	And so, you know, I just suddenly had this thought.
	It's like...
	I'm not a big nude guy, but I'm here.
	I'm in the middle of...
	Like, I'm literally in the deep Canadian woods, you know, where there's not supposed to be anyone around for a long...
	And then everyone was back in the camp.
	They were all making dinner.
	So, you know, what did it matter?
	So I thought, okay, I'll just take my pants off, finish my digging, and then go and have some dinner while getting...
	Anyway, so long and short of it is...
	executives from Toronto picked that day to come up and check the progress of the camp.
	And here they see, you know, Steph bot deep in the woods with everything hanging out.
	And they didn't see much of me.
	They basically saw two little ass cheeks heading off into the woods at high speed.
	But I think that was really one of the only times where I let my inner ape make what was actually quite a sensible decision at the time, but turned out to be quite unfortunately ill-timed at this particular moment.
	So it was something that I found out caused quite a good deal of hilarity sometime later.
	At that time, I simply stayed in the woods until they left.
	I realized that sometimes, even though there are rational decisions in the moment, you shouldn't follow them.
	It sort of reminds me of a friend of mine who I played Dungeons& Dragons with when I was younger.
	We were all broke back in the day.
	He said, you know, it makes sense to bring my school stuff back and forth, you know, like my homework and all the papers and all.
	I mean, I've got these grocery bags that my mom brings back from the grocery store, just double bag it, and I carry my school stuff back and forth to school in plastic grocery bags.
	It saves me 20 bucks from having to buy an Adidas bag or a backpack or whatever, which basically does the same thing but isn't free.
	And I guess I was kind of a little philosopher even back then, because I remember saying to him, I said, you are absolutely right and absolutely wrong at the same time.
	You know, from one standpoint, it makes complete and perfect sense that you get this free bags to take your stuff back and forth from school.
	On the other hand, if you'd I don't ever like to see a girl naked.
	I hate to say it, but it makes sense, but don't do it.
	Economically, pragmatically, you're saving 20 bucks, but I bet you that 20 bucks is going to cost you more than you'll ever know when it comes to just basically being accepted and not being the guy walking up and down the hallway with all of his stuff in plastic bags.
	So, you know, things which make sense in the moment and which you can provide a great deal of defense for, like working naked in gritty woods or taking your books back and forth to school in grocery bags.
	Just don't do it.
	And in the same way, nudity kind of makes sense, but don't do it.
	Don't, you know, don't shame anyone for nudity, but don't...
	Don't do it at home.
	Anyway, that's my sort of thought.
	Are we down from callers for today?
	Oh, yeah.
	One more.
	One more.
	Okay, go ahead.
	Hey, Rafi, go ahead.
	What are you wearing?
	Yes.
	Hi.
	Hey, you on?
	How are you doing?
	Rafi, I'm a new listener.
	I just signed up three days ago.
	I find your point of view fascinating, but there's a big button there, though.
	There is a big button there.
	It's in my chair.
	Go ahead.
	Yes, there is a big button, yes.
	I find that there's a lot of uselessness in talking about improvements, societal improvements and changing, trying to work without government, for example.
	That would be one issue that winds me up.
	I think that the reason why it's useless is because we're not focusing our energy in the right place.
	According to me, from what I found out from personal experience and My personal awareness is that everything that is outside of me is a direct reflection of what I carry inside of me.
	Sorry, that sounded like an important statement, but I didn't follow it.
	You said everything that is outside of me is what?
	It's a direct reflection of what I carry inside of me.
	Okay, so everything, wait, wait, I just want to make sure, I always want to make sure I don't gloss over important statements at the beginning that I don't understand, because then things don't go well.
	Okay.
	Everything that is outside of you is a reflection of what you carry inside of you.
	That's right.
	Can you give me an example?
	Sure.
	Wars, for example.
	That's a perfect example to talk about.
	The reason why I believe we have wars It's because of the duality that I have inside of me.
	And every day I fight myself.
	Inside of you?
	Like the reason we have wars is because of what you have inside of you in particular as an individual, just you?
	No, not just me, as a collective.
	So what we all have inside of us?
	Well, what we all have inside of us are dualities.
	We are in duality with ourselves.
	So you're saying everyone is ambivalent about war?
	Pretty much, yes.
	And I have a lot of examples to give according to what we carry, all the duality that we have inside of us.
	I'm sure you are knowledgeable enough to know what kind of...
	I mean, when the mind says something and when the heart says something else, that's an example of duality that we live with every day.
	The judgment that we have towards ourselves, that's also another reality.
	I can go on and on about the examples.
	Sorry, I don't know if you know or not, but I've been reading the audiobook called The Origins of War in Child Abuse, which I think talks about war as a manifestation of internal conflict and trauma.
	I don't think any other libertarian shows or really any other shows that I've ever heard of have put as much focus on the ills of the world resulting from the traumas and contradictions of childhood experiences.
	So if you find my show...
	It's unsatisfying with regards to that, then I guess you find everyone else's show even more unsatisfying?
	Because I think we do the most work here on trying to connect big world events to sort of what goes on inside people.
	Yes, I agree.
	I agree, Stefan.
	You do the most.
	That's why I'm excited to have found you.
	But I would like to bring the topic even more forward.
	As an important topic to talk about, because I find trying to find solutions, for example, I totally agree with you, we do not need government anymore.
	Maybe we used it a long time ago, just like we did religion probably, that could be arguable.
	But at the same time, I don't, since the recent past, I don't find really Sorry,
	let me just interrupt you for a sec, because I think you may be not...
	Understanding why I talk about a stateless society, while very clearly saying that it's generations away.
	One of the main reasons that I talk about what society would look like without a government is to provoke people's inner conflicts.
	Because if you conform to a crazy society, they feel saner.
	But if you point out repeatedly that their society is crazy, then their conformity becomes not a plus, but a negative to them, which creates conflict.
	So when I put forward an ideal society, it is to help people to understand that the society that we live in is profoundly sick, profoundly immoral, and yet we're all raised in the society It all seems natural to us.
	We're all propagandized about this society.
	But I talk about an ideal society so that people feel less at home in this crazy society that we live in, where the only thing we can ever think to do to solve problems is get the government to point guns at people or steal from the unborn or...
	Start wars or print money or throw people in jail or you name it, right?
	So I don't write about a stateless society or talk about a stateless society because I think we can get there from here.
	I talk about it to denormalize the society that we currently have.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yes, perfectly.
	I understand.
	It is a perfect topic opener and also there are a lot of people who have different consciousness levels that haven't even arrived yet to think To acknowledge the possibility of having no government.
	I mean, that question hasn't even crossed their mind.
	So I understand for those people it was very helpful to open this topic.
	But one thing you said, which is my point, is you said that society is sick.
	Actually, the society is not sick.
	We are sick.
	Therefore, you create a society that is sick.
	So my point in all this is that Oh, come on.
	You're splitting hairs, right?
	So I'm saying the flock is sick, and you're saying, well, not the flock is sick, the individual sheep are sick.
	It's like, well, yeah, I get it, but we call a whole group of people a society, and we call a whole group of sheep a flock.
	So I think we're basically saying, I think you're kind of quibbling there.
	If you're saying, well, it's not society that is sick, but individuals, right?
	That's like saying, oh, a group of people have cancer.
	Well, it's not the group that has cancer, it's the people that have cancer.
	Well, yeah, okay, I understand.
	That's the shorthand, right?
	I understand what you're saying, Stefan, but if we say the society is sick and we talk about it for two hours and we never mention that the sickness is coming from us, each individual, what we tend to do is to keep on I'm sorry to be annoying and contradict you,
	but I don't think I've ever put my efforts into something called society.
	Like, I've never had somebody call into a show and I say, listen, I'm sorry, I can't talk to you as an individual right now because I have to wait for society to call in.
	I believe that society has just gone to Best Buy to get its headset, and they're just about to call in, so I can't talk to any individuals because I'm waiting for a collective to call in.
	All I do is talk to individuals in my interviews, in my conversations with listeners, in these kinds of call-in shows.
	All I'm doing is talking to individuals, so I don't think it's particularly helpful to lecture me about the need to focus on individuals.
	That's all I do.
	What would you say, Stephanie, if I tell you that society is not safe, actually?
	It's perfect the way it is.
	It's actually made this way.
	We have created a society this way.
	It's to realize, to raise our...
	No, but I would say that you're incorrect.
	I would say that you're incorrect.
	And it's very easy to show that you're incorrect.
	Society is sick, and the individuals within society are sick because they proclaim certain virtues and certain values, particularly around non-aggression, negotiation, peace...
	And then when you point out that the society that we have inherited from the past is entirely centered on and founded on the initiation of violence through status and through taxation, the initiation of verbal abuse through religiosity, then somebody who has values and lives the opposite Is sick, for want of a better word.
	Because they are living the opposite of what they proclaim to be the values that everybody ought to live by.
	And so somebody who wants to sell a diet book who shows up 400 pounds of fat in the publishing office obviously is kind of deranged because they have an ideal called a healthy weight, but the way they're living is the complete opposite.
	And that is different from our society because he's only harming his own self.
	But in our society, what is it?
	4% of Americans are currently in jail?
	1% every year goes to jail.
	And I guess about 0.8% get released or something.
	And so we have these ideals called let's negotiate.
	What do we say to kids?
	Don't hit.
	Use your words.
	And then what do we do as adults?
	Don't use your words.
	Use the state.
	Or use your words to control the power and violence of the state to get your way.
	So...
	That is sick.
	That is sick to be so disconnected from your values or to use your values as a cloak for the evils that you're doing.
	That is a kind of sickness to me.
	And so even without any reference to philosophy, without any reference to what the ideals should be, like I don't have to be a nutritionist to know that a 400-pound nutritionist is kind of crazy.
	I don't have to know what the right diet is.
	I just know that somebody who's trying to sell a diet book who himself is 400 pounds is kind of crazy.
	And the same thing is true with society.
	We don't have to know a thing about philosophy.
	All we have to do is note the oppositional reality of society's actions versus its ideals, its addiction to violence versus its proclamations of peace and voluntarism.
	Anyway, I'm done with that whole speech.
	What's your vision of the future for humanity?
	Would you say that there's any hope of gaining zero fear or zero domination or all the massive stuff we see today?
	Do you think there's any possibility that we will bring all the massive stuff to zero one day?
	No, gosh.
	No possibility whatsoever.
	I mean, what does that matter?
	I mean, if you invent the polio virus, Cure, right?
	If you invent the vaccination for the polio virus, invent the polio virus.
	If you discover Alexander Salk, I think, was the one who did it, who found the antidote to the smallpox inoculation or the polio inoculation, the polio vaccine or the smallpox vaccine, what an incredible good you've done for humanity.
	You've saved tens of millions of lives the world over, hundreds of millions of lives probably in the case of smallpox.
	Now, do you say to that person who's...
	Well, do you believe that in the future we can get disease down to zero?
	Well, no.
	Can we get violence down to zero?
	No.
	Because we know for a fact that people who sustain certain kinds of brain injuries or people who have certain kind of brain diseases or brain cancers or brain disorders...
	We'll become violent, even if formerly they were perfectly peaceful.
	I mean, if I get the right kind of iron spike through my forehead, I could become a homicidal maniac tomorrow, tonight, today.
	And so there's zero possibility of zero violence, but there certainly is statistically certain, not even probability, there is statistical certainty That we can vastly reduce the prevalence of violence in the world.
	And that is...
	Like, wouldn't it be great?
	So, you know, say, okay, let's say we got rid of slavery.
	Yeah, we got rid of slavery.
	Are there still going to be a few crazy nutjobs who kidnap people and lock them in their basement?
	Or a few people who lock their kids in their basement?
	And I think there was some guy in Europe who locked...
	His daughter's in his basement and impregnated them repeatedly and just, you know, for 10 or 15 years.
	No, no, it was in the States because it was some black guy who actually went and helped them.
	I mean, a whole bunch of people had called the cops who'd done nothing, of course.
	So that's slavery.
	I mean, that's horrible slavery that is occurring, but it's still not the same as having a slave trade and having slavery be legal.
	It can be reduced to Almost zero.
	But I don't see any way to reduce it to zero.
	I think that would be an impossible standard.
	And even if we had perfectly raised children and a perfectly healthy society and nobody ever used aggression who was sane or healthy, there are still, of course, brain disorders and injuries and cancers and so on that can provoke aggressive behavior.
	So I think that's still a possibility, but I mean, it's so unbelievably rare that it would be inconceivable to us now.
	How about if I turn the question on you or on any individual to say that an individual is capable of bringing the nasty to level zero?
	Is that a possibility?
	You mean am I capable?
	Yes, I am absolutely capable of bringing violence to zero.
	I have never initiated the use of physical violence against anyone.
	I've never hit anyone.
	I've never been involved in any kind of fight.
	I have never How about the need for domination?
	What's wrong with the need for domination?
	I mean, there's nothing wrong with the need for domination.
	No, seriously.
	I mean, I want to dominate my environment.
	I don't want to live in a snowbank.
	I want to dominate cancer.
	I want people to want to win and dominate things that are harmful or egregious to our life and health.
	So, I mean, the human instinct for domination, I think, is fantastic.
	You know, we just want it to be domination over things that are harmful to us rather than domination over other human beings.
	So, I have no problem with the instinct for domination.
	I'm talking about domination over human beings, not for cancer.
	I don't want to dominate other human beings.
	You don't?
	No.
	Okay.
	No, I mean, why would I want to get involved with anyone You know, like there was this comment on the circumcision video where some guy said, oh yeah, my girlfriend said she'd never go down or give a blowjob to an intact penis.
	You know, okay, so this woman prefers genitally mutilated penises.
	And naturally, if you...
	Get married to have sex with and have a baby with this woman.
	She is going to want to mutilate, if it's a boy, she's going to want to mutilate that boy's penis.
	And so when he's saying my girlfriend wouldn't give blowjobs to intact penises, she's basically saying my girlfriend prefers genitally mutilated penises and would be desperate to genitally mutilate her own son's penis.
	Excuse me if I reject a blowjob from such a monstrous woman, from such an evil woman.
	And so, no, I don't.
	I mean, why would I want to get involved in dominating people?
	For what?
	I mean, I get much infinitely greater value.
	Out of negotiating with people, out of win-win situations with people.
	Why would I want to?
	I don't even want to develop the skills involved in dominating other people.
	I don't want to be intimidating.
	I don't want to be a bully.
	I don't want to be verbally abusive.
	I don't want to be destructive.
	I don't want to control people.
	I don't want to even develop those muscles.
	I don't even want to have those muscles.
	I want to develop the muscles of peace and negotiation and virtue and fun.
	Maybe we don't have the same view or definition of the word domination.
	For example, I see domination as you are a very good philosopher and good radio host, and you have great ideas.
	Wouldn't you want to be one of the best or the best in your field?
	I want to be the very best at what I do, but I don't see how that is...
	Dominating people, I think if I have the better arguments, then that should prevail.
	And if somebody develops a tablet that's 14 feet across and has a resolution of 9 by 12, and my tablet is better, then is that dominating the other person?
	No.
	No.
	I mean, if my wife chooses to marry me rather than some other guy she was dating, am I dominating him?
	No.
	I mean, she's just allowing the exercise of her free choice.
	I do want to be the best at what I do, of course.
	I mean, why would you not want to set your standards as high as possible?
	Because being the best at what I do means that I'm providing the greatest service for the world in terms of bringing truth.
	Now, it is true that people who tell lies are going to lose out if philosophy spreads, right?
	I mean, the priests, politicians, other hucksters and sophists and snake oil salesmen are going to lose out.
	But that doesn't mean that I'm dominating them.
	That just means that they're exposed as liars.
	You know, if you come up with a great counterfeit detection machine for currency, that's going to harm counterfeiters.
	You know, Federal Reserve accepted.
	It's going to harm counterfeiters.
	Are you dominating them?
	No, you're just revealing that they're criminals.
	It's their choices that have led them to that particular catastrophe.
	And if people have committed their lives to telling lies to people and exploiting them by verbally infecting them with an imaginary disease called invisible sin and then charging rent to remove this phantasm for the rest of their lives, well, if philosophy reveals that as an exploitive and destructive and false relationship, I'm not dominating them.
	You know, I'm just turning the light on.
	Turning the light on is not beating up the darkness, it's just turning the light on.
	It's kind of hard to talk about this issue if we don't even meet the same level on the first step.
	When I talk about domination, Seth, first of all, I'm not being judgmental because I am in domination all the time.
	I realize that I am.
	Oh, you're trying to dominate me in this conversation?
	Exactly.
	That's a good example, yes.
	So in this conversation, you're trying to dominate me.
	Sorry, just so I understand.
	And how would you know if you have dominated me?
	How would I know?
	I would feel it.
	I would feel the same feeling as a warrior just killed the enemy.
	I would feel the same feeling.
	Yes, but what would provoke that feeling?
	You know, like if you put the knife through the guy's neck, you win, he dies.
	His death would cause that feeling.
	In this conversation, what events would transpire that would allow you to feel that joy of dominating me?
	Uh, one ideal way of, uh, the obvious way would be, you would tell me, I never thought of it this way, you have just opened my mind, and I would, by saying that, I would dominate you.
	Wait, wait, but domination is win-lose.
	If you tell me something that I've never thought of before, that is valuable to me, how have I lost?
	Uh...
	Well, you haven't lost.
	I have one.
	Maybe you have lost also.
	It depends on how you live your experience.
	But the fact is that I personally, and I believe everybody does, we all have the need of domination in everything we do.
	The fact that you want to be the best in your field, to me that says that it's not just that you want to illuminate people.
	To illuminate people, you don't have to be the best in the field.
	But the fact that you are trying to best, you would like to be the best, that's an example of the domination part that humanity is.
	And the point I want to make with all this is that we have to become aware of our animal-dominative needs.
	This is where each individual has to work before talking about changing society.
	If we are not even aware of the basic animal needs that we carry each and every day in our life, we will never create Okay, so this is all very abstract, but what is your practical plan for bringing this about?
	You say, well, we all have to be aware of our animal natures and our divine.
	Okay, but how is that achievable?
	How do you actually know if that's occurring or not, and how do you get that to happen?
	Well, my plan by bringing the subject is the same as yours having a radio host.
	It's to illuminate people.
	It's to give my perspective...
	No, but you're not illuminating.
	No, sorry.
	You're not illuminating.
	All you're doing is asserting.
	You're just saying, people want to dominate.
	That's not illumination.
	That's not an argument.
	That's just an assertion.
	Well, if...
	If...
	Illumination is not done from me.
	It's what I say, and the illumination is done depending the way you take it.
	If you don't see what I'm saying, it's obviously not illumination.
	Maybe you're not there yet.
	So I'm illuminated if I already agree with you.
	If I don't agree with you, given that you don't have any arguments, when you make an assertion, people will either agree with you or they'll disagree with you.
	Now, if they agree with you, you're not illuminating.
	Anything to anyone, because they already agree with you.
	If they don't agree with you, but you don't have any arguments or evidence, then you're not able to change their mind.
	So I don't understand how you're going to illuminate people who disagree with you.
	Well, it's not exactly a question of agreement, it's a question of vision.
	If somebody is close to seeing what I'm telling you now, by me verbalizing what they have been feeling will illuminate this person.
	Okay, so tell me a little bit about your childhood.
	I'm sorry?
	Tell me a little bit about your childhood.
	What was it like?
	How were you raised?
	My childhood, it was a conservative family.
	We were Christians, but we didn't practice.
	I actually don't remember most of my childhood.
	I just have a few vague memories.
	Does that help in any way?
	So when you say you don't remember most of your childhood, do you mean sort of the first 18 years or 15 years or what do you mean?
	I would say the first eight years.
	Oh, the first eight years.
	Okay.
	Do you know how you were punished if you were punished?
	Or how you were disciplined?
	I was very rarely punished because I was a very nice boy.
	I listened to my parents and they didn't really...
	Because my bigger brother was...
	It was a black sheep, so he got most of the beating.
	He actually got all the beatings, and by seeing that as an example, I was a very nice boy.
	So when you said that your brother was beaten, what do you mean?
	What is that?
	Physically beaten, because he didn't listen.
	No, I get that it's physically beaten, but physically beaten how?
	Nothing too violent, but there was physical contact.
	Well, was he beaten with a hand or a fist or an implement?
	I never witnessed.
	I just heard.
	I believe it was by hand, yes.
	So was he spanked or...?
	I remember a couple of experiences.
	Sorry?
	Was he spanked or punched or what?
	No, not punched.
	I would say spanked, yes.
	And how often did this occur?
	I have a couple of memories of it.
	So it only happened a couple of times?
	Well, I don't know if it happened a couple of times, but I have two memories of it.
	Like I said, the first eight years, I'm blind.
	My memory is blind.
	And you know that's a sign of trauma, right?
	Yes, I do.
	It's not proof of trauma, but it's a sign of trauma.
	If you can't remember much about your childhood, trauma interferes with the hippocampus and the capacity to retain memory and so on, right?
	Yes, I know that, and I get to approach my bigger sister and my mom about this, and they never said anything.
	And the way they reacted, they know something that I don't know.
	What do you mean, they didn't react?
	And I'm not asking this to cross-examine you.
	I mean, I genuinely feel sympathetic for this, and I'm sorry that you had to witness this with your brother.
	I assume, is he elder, an older brother?
	Yes, he's six years older than me.
	I'm sorry.
	I mean, that's scary stuff to hear, for sure.
	But what happened when you talked to your mother and sister about it?
	My mom said nothing happened.
	I asked her if there was sexual abuse, because that's the feeling that I get.
	She said no, nothing happened.
	I emailed my sister, which I don't have much contact with, and she never answers back.
	So I suspect something is up.
	Why do you suspect that there may have been sexual abuse?
	I have no answer to that.
	It's just a feeling.
	Right.
	Because I mean that is obviously a very destructive aspect of domination.
	I mean that is the domination and obliteration of a child's sovereign body and mind, right?
	Yes.
	But having said all this, I have no...
	I do not feel...
	I don't feel any trauma in me at the moment.
	Well, no, because the reason you don't feel any trauma is that you're taking this domination thing and putting it on the whole human race.
	Like, I don't feel traumatic for not being 12 feet tall because the average height is...
	I'm actually above the average.
	I'm some 5'11 and a half or whatever.
	I'm above the average height.
	But if you take this domination paradigm and say, "This is human nature," then nothing untoward happened to you.
	Like if I say, "I'm traumatized because my mother didn't feed me with eight breasts like a sow did," then people would say, "Well, no, human beings don't have eight breasts, so you weren't deprived by not having access to eight breasts." Because human beings have two, right?
	Women have two, men and women.
	Women have two useful ones.
	We're all taps and no plumbing.
	But if I normalize that which is abnormal, then I feel less trauma, which means that I can't actually deal with things.
	So if you say, like if you grew up in an environment of domination, and you say, well, it's human nature, everybody does it, then what happened to you is going to feel less traumatic because you are taking your experience and universalizing them unfairly and unjustly and incorrectly, I would say.
	In order to avoid the trauma of having been dealt with in a dominating manner that is not innate to our species and certainly not part of what is generally called human nature, which has no content to it other than adaptability.
	I disagree, obviously.
	The example that I gave earlier for your need to be the best in the field And you responded that you want to illuminate people.
	And I told you back that you don't need to be the best to illuminate people.
	So that goes out as a...
	Sorry, why don't I have to be the best to illuminate people?
	You said you want to be the best to illuminate people.
	I told you you don't need to be the best.
	You could be an amazing person who does it, who does your work in your field, but you don't have to be the best.
	What is it that you want to be the best?
	Well, I think, I mean, my personal opinion is that if you have an ability that can enormously benefit the human race and you enjoy the exercise of that ability, then why wouldn't you do it?
	You know, I enjoy philosophy.
	I love philosophy.
	And I'm happy that what I love is philosophy and not kitten strangling, because kitten strangling would be bad for the world, particularly for the world of kittens.
	But I happen to really like philosophy, and I also believe, with good reason, I think, that philosophy is pretty essential to the happiness of the world.
	So, if I can do a great service to humanity by provoking people into philosophical thinking, by challenging them by being annoying, being wrong, being idiotic, or being funny, or occasionally shooting an arrow over a house and hitting a bullseye, if I can challenge people into developing philosophical thinking, I mean, the opportunities for the world to improve are staggering.
	They're as incomprehensible to us now as the 21st century would be to somebody from the 10th century.
	The possibility of the end of war, of the end of rape, of the end of torture, of the end of child abuse, of the end of spousal abuse, of the end of assault, of the end of theft, of the end of statism, of the end of prisons, all of this It's the direct result of critical thinking, philosophical thinking, UPB, voluntarism, the promotion of peace and negotiation among human beings, and the stalwart standing in the face of evil.
	I mean, there's no greater...
	Benefit that could accrue to the human species than being able to think, being able to think critically, being able to think well, being able to spot manipulative, sociopathic, blood-draining assholes who are constantly hanging like lampreys off the jugular of the species, owning us, controlling us, fencing us, subjugating us, using us, throwing us like toy soldiers into the fires of war and laughing while we burn.
	The capacity to illuminate evil to the struggling masses yearning for virtue and the power of true and universal ethics.
	My God, if I were to walk away from something that can be that beneficial to humanity, which I also love to do, would be completely incomprehensible to me.
	Now, how do I measure how well I'm doing?
	By how much behavior is changing.
	I can't measure thinking.
	Somebody writes to me and says, well, I really like your stuff about child abuse.
	I really agree with it, but I still abuse my children.
	Well, then they don't agree with it.
	I don't care what people think.
	I care what they do.
	And I only try to change what people think so I can change what they do, or rather so they can change what they do as the result of better thinking.
	So when you say you don't have to be the best to illuminate people, well, I guess not.
	But...
	I would rather be the sun than a flashlight, right?
	Because the flashlight ain't going to grow any crops and the sun is going to illuminate the world.
	And so if I can get more people to think and more people to understand and more people to grow and more people to pursue self-knowledge and more people to enact in the areas of their life, That they can change the principles of non-aggression, a respect for property rights, a respect for others, the avoidance of the initiation of force against family members, particularly children.
	The more the better!
	I mean, why wouldn't, if you can get 10 million people to stop hitting their children, That's better than 1 million people stopping hitting their children.
	If you can get a billion people, that's a whole lot better than 10 million.
	If you can get 6 billion and 5 or whatever the population of the world is these days, that's better than 1 billion.
	I mean, the spread of virtue is the more the merrier.
	There's no upward limit where I say, after this, it's a rounding error, because each new person who is illuminated is a person who is now capable of peace and virtue in the world.
	So, yeah, I measure myself relative to everybody out there who can comprehend English or whatever languages my work has been translated into and can actually start to live virtue.
	So, yeah, if I want to be the best at what I do, it has to be quality and Quantity.
	You can get quantity by diminishing quality, just be some...
	Can I challenge what you just said, Stefan?
	Yeah, let me just...
	Sorry, I just knocked my mic here with my passion here.
	You can always get more...
	Quantity by diminishing quality, right?
	So if I were to say, well, I now am a libertarian minarchist who is a Catholic, I would get more people to listen, of course, right?
	If I didn't put out a consistent message, then I would be able to appeal to people's individual prejudices and get much more hits and more people who want to listen and so on.
	But to continue with quality and quantity requires at least as many resources as I'm able to throw at the problem of spreading philosophy, and that's what I try to do with every show, with, you know, bad jokes and anecdotes and tensions and all the kind of fun stuff that I throw in to try and challenge people to stay with the conversation.
	So for me, and this is the last thing I'll say, but for me, yes, to be the best is to reach the most people.
	You know, if you have a vaccine against cancer, you want everyone to get it.
	You don't want to stop at 10 people.
	You want everyone who might get it, who might get cancer to get it.
	So go ahead.
	Thank you.
	Let me challenge you on that and I'll give you my perspective and I'll let you talk afterwards.
	I don't think we're talking about the same thing exactly.
	You're talking about the importance of giving information to people.
	You're talking about the importance of the numbers, the most possible, the more the better.
	I agree with you.
	But that still does not answer why the need to be the best.
	Because let's say, I'll give an example.
	Let's say you have 100 million followers or listeners and you become the best.
	And somebody else a year later has a billion.
	You're not the best anymore.
	So isn't it better?
	Wouldn't you be happy that a billion more people are following somebody else than you who has the same message or similar message to you?
	Isn't that better for society?
	I would then go and work for that person and I'd do everything within my power to help spread that conversation.
	Absolutely.
	And when I say the best, all I'm talking about is my best.
	I can't measure myself against the best, like some abstract thing.
	The Pope has many more...
	I hate the word followers, because the whole point of philosophy is not to create followers, but the Pope has many more people who listens to him than people who listen to me.
	But that doesn't mean I'm 0.001% as good as the Pope in terms of spreading philosophy.
	I have my best, and I think we have some...
	Of, you know, relative quality or relative reach because you can look at other philosophy shows and other podcasts and see the kind of reach that they have and see the kind of popularity that they have and see the degree to which they actually change people's behavior, right?
	I'm reading The Creature from Jekyll Island at the moment, which is a book about the growth of the central banks in the world and the bailouts.
	It's a great book, by the way.
	I hugely recommend it.
	Is it going to change anyone's behavior?
	No.
	People will talk about the Fed, but is it going to change the moral status of anyone's behavior?
	Well, not in particular.
	It's interesting stuff to know, and I'm glad to know it.
	It's a really well-written book and well-researched and very clear.
	But I think that to get people to change is really essential.
	And there are some ways in which you can measure that.
	I mean, measure the number of downloads, the number of hits.
	You know, like last week we did like a quarter of a million video views.
	That's not counting podcasts or rebroadcasts or other people's shows I've been on have downloaded that stuff.
	It's not counting torrents or pirate-based stuff or anything like that.
	So, you know, is it with podcasts, 500,000, 600,000, three quarters of a million in a week, three quarters of a million philosophy touches in the world in a week.
	I mean, gosh, I think that's fantastic.
	Let's be honest, Stefan.
	I mean, if you're trying to do your best, that's a total different story.
	Wait a second here.
	When you tell me, let's be honest, are you sort of trying to tell me that I'm not being honest, or are you trying to tell me that you're not being honest in the conversation up to now?
	Well, to be frank, I'm trying to say that you're not being honest.
	Let me explain myself.
	Do you think that I'm lying?
	Unconsciously, yes.
	Let me explain my point of view.
	You better make this good, because if you're going to accuse me on my own show of lying, you better have a good case.
	It's not an accusal, it's a point of view.
	Because at the beginning you said many times you want to be the best, but now you said you want to be your best.
	So it's very different.
	But when I say let's be honest, what I mean by that is that admit that a part of you wants to be the best.
	Is that right?
	Sorry, I'm not sure what I understand, what the difference is between my best and the best.
	I can only do my best.
	I can't do someone else's best, right?
	And I certainly can't control whether people download my show or like it, right?
	The difference is trying to be the best, that's trying to beat everybody else.
	That's the difference.
	Trying to do your best is totally different.
	I'm sorry, I'm trying to beat everybody else.
	Trying to beat everybody else?
	I mean, I got to tell you, I don't sort of sit in the morning and say for my show, I have to beat people.
	I say I want to be the very best at communicating philosophy today that I can beat.
	But I don't think of it in terms of beating people.
	Honestly, I don't.
	But that in definition, trying to be the best, that means trying to be number one, It would be you being much better than anybody else.
	That's the competition.
	That's the domination.
	No, no, no.
	Look, I mean, not if I'm creating the market.
	Well, it doesn't matter if you're creating or not.
	No, it does matter.
	It does matter.
	If nobody else is doing what I'm doing, then I'm not taking something away from someone else, right?
	Well, first of all, I don't see you trying to create the market.
	Philosophy was created a long time ago, and there's other people who say what you say.
	I don't know who said it first.
	It doesn't really matter.
	So it doesn't matter if you create the market or not.
	The fact that you want to be the best, and the best means to be number one, which means being better than others, which means domination.
	Don't you see the trend or the logic in that?
	And again, it's not a...
	So what you're saying is that I'm not doing anything new?
	Well, you are definitely improving the message, that's for sure.
	And the way you said it, for me, I call it the brain candy, which I love listening to you.
	But you are not the only one who brings...
	Oh, hang on.
	Sorry.
	Maybe I can understand it this way.
	So if somebody is listening to my podcast, they're not listening to someone else's podcast or they're not going dancing or they're not watching TV. And so in a sense, I'm taking things away from other people.
	Is that right?
	No, I don't know where you got that one from.
	That's not what I'm saying.
	All I'm saying is that the fact that a part of you wants to...
	Who am I beating?
	Who am I beating?
	Just help me understand that.
	Who am I beating?
	Who am I dominating?
	If I get a new listener, who am I dominating?
	Well, you tell me.
	When you first said that you want to be the best, who are you beating?
	You tell me.
	No, you're telling me I'm dominating people.
	You've got to have some idea who I'm dominating then, right?
	But you told me first you want to be the best.
	You said that many times.
	So who are you better than others?
	You tell me.
	I don't know the people.
	No, I want to be the best at...
	I want to do my best at communicating philosophy.
	Well, that's the difference, Stephanie.
	My best or the best?
	First, you say the best.
	That's the argument I'm bringing you.
	I'm bringing on the table.
	I mean, what the hell does it matter?
	There is no...
	Look, if I run my fastest and I end up winning, I can only control how fast I run.
	I can't control whether I win or not because someone else could run faster.
	Okay.
	Let's say, if I get a new listener, who am I dominating?
	I don't know.
	I'm asking you because you said it first.
	No, no, no.
	You're coming up with the standard which says I'm dominating people by being the best.
	So if I get a new listener to my show, who am I dominating?
	I don't know.
	That's the question I have to ask you.
	Who are you dominating?
	No, you can't ask me because it's your standard.
	If you're telling me I'm dominating people, you have to tell me who I'm dominating.
	If you don't know, then you have to at least withdraw that as a standard.
	Isn't wanting to be the best You're repeating yourself now, and I'm not going to give you too many more opportunities to repeat yourself.
	If you can't figure out who I'm dominating, then you have to withdraw that as a standard until you can figure it out, right?
	Because then you're telling me, Steph, you're dominating people, and I say, well, who am I dominating?
	You say, I have no idea.
	Well, then you can't put that forward as a standard, right?
	That's the reason why I'm repeating myself because you're not following up on my point of view.
	No, I'm asking you a question.
	You're telling me I'm not...
	Look, if I'm in a race with 10 people and I win, then you say, who did you beat?
	Well, I beat the other nine guys.
	Okay.
	And I guess in your way of saying things, I dominated them.
	And you were the best, yes.
	Okay.
	So who am I beating?
	Who am I dominating?
	Who am I winning against when I get a new listener?
	The competition, whoever was in the field.
	I don't know.
	I don't have names to give you.
	Can you give me a theoretical?
	First of all, if you want to be the best, that means you're implying that there are other people who are in the same field.
	I do not know all the other people.
	There's some YouTubers that I listen to, which I love listening to.
	No, no.
	Listen, listen.
	I could be the best.
	Look, I can pursue juggling porcupines.
	That can be my thing, because I, I don't know, got calluses and no social life.
	I can pursue juggling porcupines, and I can become the very best porcupine juggler that I can be.
	I'm going to keep juggling those porcupines until I can juggle 12 of them on fire while balancing on the back of a baby seal in a non-harmful way.
	No animals were harmed in the creation of this metaphor.
	Now, I am pursuing my very best at juggling porcupines.
	Who am I dominating?
	I want to talk about porcupines.
	I want to talk about you.
	Okay, look, you're either going to get the analogy or you're not, right?
	You're saying everything is domination and everyone is dominating, and if you pursue your best, you're automatically dominating others.
	So I'm giving you an example of somebody who wants to juggle porcupines, and then they have to either fit into your category of dominating others, or it's perfectly fine for me to pursue my best without necessarily dominating anyone.
	It's kind of hard to pursue the conversation because if we're at the first step of the awareness level that we are all in domination and the fact that we do not agree, I'm baffled by saying, if I want to be the best because I'm going to be better than all the rest, and that's not domination, there's no point of pursuing the conversation any further.
	I certainly agree with that.
	And I also, I should have listened to you at the beginning when you said you only had assertions and not proof, because you were very honest with me about that.
	And look, I really do appreciate the conversation.
	I actually found it very enjoyable, and I really do appreciate the thought that you brought into this.
	I obviously will invite you to look upon this as a method of dealing with childhood trauma as a possibility.
	And invite you to possibly explore that.
	Because things which seem certain obvious and axiomatic to you, which can't withstand a lot of logical scrutiny, might be defense mechanisms, just a possibility.
	But I certainly do appreciate the conversation, and I had a good time being challenged in this way.
	It was really, really quite exhilarating.
	So thank you so much for that.
	Thank you, Mike, for helping us helm the first.
	Sorry for the weird technical problems.
	No particular reason.
	Just, you know, Skype and hardware and crap like that.
	But thank you everyone so much.
	If you like the show, if you find it helpful, let us know.
	If you like these Wednesday night conversations, I certainly do.
	And just seven days between kissing the brains of the listeners, it's too much puckering and not enough contact.
	So check out the donation page at fdrurl.com forward slash donate.
	I hugely appreciate that.
	Have yourselves a wonderful couple of days.

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