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Aug. 18, 2013 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:21:48

2457 The Lie of False Modesty - Freedomain Radio Call In Show August 18th, 2013

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	Good morning, like-minded brain fanatics.
	Hope you're doing well.
	It's Devan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
	It is the 18th of August, 2013.
	And I hope you're doing wonderfully.
	Don't forget we have a new Wednesday show, 8 p.m.
	Eastern Standard Time, which goes from 8 until we are done, which on my honeymoon was about 8.01.
	But I believe the show lasts a little longer than that.
	So, hope you're doing well.
	A couple of plugs.
	We'll get straight into the show.
	If you want to participate in the show, operations at freedomainradio.com.
	That's the email.
	Plug in to Mike.
	Mike will plug your mic into the show, which is also hosted by Mike.
	I believe I'm going to change my name to Mike.
	If you want to support the show and you're just off buying stuff, why not use our affiliate links?
	Amazon US is FDRURL.com forward slash Amazon US Canada FDRURL.com forward slash Amazon Canada UK forward slash Amazon UK sign up for a laissez-faire book club set of exclusives really really quite amazing and you can do that at LFB.org forward slash forward slash worst verbal ninja ever That's lfb.org forward slash Stefan,
	S-T-E-F-A-N. I believe The Temptations are looking for a new bass singer, so I'm trying to extend my downward range.
	The downward dog of my vocal timbre is in sight, I feel.
	So, let's...
	Oh, I was going to start off with a big rant.
	Oh!
	I've been doing push-ups all morning, just getting myself ready for it.
	Is there a best time to have kids?
	You can check it out on HuffingtonPost.com.
	And just read about the lady who is the marketing specialist who has three children and only stays at home for a few days before heading back to work.
	Oh my goodness.
	A big rant was oncoming, but if we have people waiting on the line, I can do my rant anytime.
	So Mike, who do we have first?
	Let's go straight to Jenny.
	Hello.
	Hi Jenny, how are you doing?
	I am well, how are you?
	I'm well, thank you.
	I am calling with a question about...
	I'm working on a thesis and I've been chewing on my calling question and I wanted to get your thoughts on the subject.
	So shall I just read the question?
	Please do.
	How does our current economic financial system create and perpetuate stress and trauma states?
	And what can we do about it?
	You really just want me to go back to that rant I was bypassing earlier, I think.
	So our current economic system, how does it increase stress and trauma rates?
	Yes, and I'm most interested in the what can we do about it, but of course there's a bit of a how did we get here.
	But I've been chewing on that a lot, and I'm interested in your full thinking.
	But it's all important.
	No, I think that's a fantastic question.
	So often we focus on the economic injustices, the coercion that's necessary for our existing economic system, and we forget about the human cost, the human toll.
	You know, we look at unemployment numbers and we just don't realize the degree of despair and horror and stress and trauma and abuse that is provoked through financial insecurity.
	And this is well documented.
	Spousal abuse rates increase, child abuse rates increase when there's long-term grinding unemployment.
	And even the people, of course, who get jobs out of this situation, they end up with these part-time jobs and underemployed and, you know, guys with two degrees working at Starbucks.
	And, hey, look, they're employed!
	And, of course, a great deal of harm has been done to those who have an arts degree.
	An arts degree Hopefully it teaches you how to think, how to write, how to negotiate, how to communicate, how to debate, how to spell.
	Not unimportant in the modern world.
	And yet it doesn't give you an immediate traction in the economy.
	So it tends to give you a slower to start but faster to accelerate, if that makes any sense down the road.
	Productivity for those who have technical degrees is like a Well, up the productivity, but then it tends to sort of peak and stay there.
	The productivity of those with an arts degree tends to be slower to start, but can increase from there since management is really about social skills and communication skills and reasoning skills rather than technical skills.
	So when the economy is tight, people want productivity very quickly, which harms the value of an arts degree and also harms the economy in the long run because fewer I would argue at least fewer engineers end up as managers than those with arts or business degrees, but those with arts or business degrees do tend to be slower to start.
	So I'll try and keep this brief because Lord knows this could be a two-hour conversation in and of itself.
	But there are two ways, I think, in which our existing system ferments stress and causes abuse and problems in personal relationships.
	The first is through giving people bad ideas.
	Bad ideas about what we should do.
	And the second is just bad economic incentives, bad economics interference with the natural economic growth, which we have when we're in a state of freedom.
	As I've mentioned before, a study came out recently that if federal regulations had stayed at 1948 levels, America would have a GDP of over $53 trillion a year.
	Even if taxes and all that kind of crap had remained the same, America would have a GDP of 53 trillion as opposed to 15 trillion and change which it has right now.
	So more than three times.
	Everybody would have more than three times their take-home income.
	Do we really think there'd be any problem with poverty if we all had three times the amount of money?
	And of course, if taxes had stayed at 1948 levels, we'd have probably eight to ten times the amount of money.
	So instead of everyone's income being sort of an average of $30,000 or $40,000 for a family, What if your income was $300,000 or $400,000?
	Even if people's ratio of generosity remained the same, there would be trillions and trillions of dollars available in charity for anybody who wanted or needed it.
	There would be so many economic opportunities, it would be ridiculous.
	And the amount you could earn versus the amount you would receive on welfare would be so different that people would simply use welfare as a small stopping point, sort of private charity, or even government welfare if it existed.
	As a small stopping point during times of great difficulty and then would continue on their way.
	Now, of course, there's every reason to believe that when income goes up, charitable donations go up too, not just as a proportion of income, like a percentage, but they also go up in absolute terms, from like 5% or 10% to 15% or 20% of income.
	There would be so much money available for charity.
	There would be no problem with health care costs.
	Of course, if regulations had stayed low, health care costs would have remained low or even declined, which is what technology is supposed to do.
	So this is the great heartbreak that libertarians see, which is they don't see the problems that are.
	They see the problems that could have been eliminated that aren't.
	And income is one of those that would have been just fantastic if we had not Allowed the state to take over the economy to the degree that it has.
	Now, bad ideas...
	I mean, I was just reading this article about this woman who really loves to work.
	She loves to work.
	And so she's like, well, I wanted to start my career.
	I got my career started.
	It was really tough.
	All these people nipping at my heels.
	I was a marketing executive.
	And, you know, when you're single, boy, you know, you can just work late.
	You can work weekends.
	You can jump on a plane and go travel for a week if you need to.
	You can be out late socializing with clients.
	All that kind of stuff.
	So I didn't want to have any children in my 20s, my early 30s.
	Then in my late 30s, I'm like, whoa, I need some children.
	You know, I guess that's something to check off on the Christmas list.
	So she has three children in quick succession.
	She heads back to work within a few days.
	Within a few days of having children.
	How monstrously selfish.
	I won't get into that in great detail, but how wretched.
	Now, great for the government.
	You know, she's back up there.
	Paying taxes.
	Fantastic.
	And whoever she hires to take care of her children, well, they're paying taxes too.
	Now, the fact is that the children are going to be probably irretrievably damaged in the long run.
	But what does that matter?
	Politicians care about the next election.
	They don't care about the productivity of the economy.
	20 years from now, what the hell would that have to do with anything?
	So bad ideas that people have, and the bad ideas are fundamentally we have changed the orientation of our culture from somewhat child-centric to narcissistically self-involved.
	I like to work, so I'm going to go back to work, and my children will be fine if I pay some Minimum wage person to take care of them during the day, which is a complete downgrade of parenting.
	Parenting is the most challenging intellectual task I have ever taken on, and I've taken on quite a few, but it's incredibly challenging.
	It'd be like, let me say, well, listen, I want to go to the gym this morning, so I'm going to get some semi-educated Filipino woman to come in and do the Freedom Aid Radio Sunday show for me.
	I think that would not be quite A viable substitute.
	And yet we think that we can just do this with our kids.
	That parenting is a sort of mechanical series of feeding and changing and maybe a little bit of playing and so on.
	All those things have nothing to do.
	That's like saying that the essence of being A great human being is wiping your ass effectively.
	I mean, it's involved.
	Don't get me wrong.
	Nobody likes walking around with those squidgy cheeks, but it's really not the core of it, and certainly the mechanical care of children is far from what parenting is really about.
	It's necessary, but not really sufficient part of parenting.
	So we've gotten this idea that I just want to go and do what I want to do, and I want my career, and I want that money, and I want that prestige, and I want to go to work, and so Basically, screw the kids.
	Dump them in someone else's lap and, you know, when that person leaves, get someone else.
	Come do it.
	And, you know, no disrespect to the nannies.
	I mean, some of them are quite nice people.
	I've actually had quite a lot of experience chatting with them when I take Izzy to the park.
	I have lots of nannies there and I've chatted with them quite a bit.
	Nice enough people.
	Not very smart.
	I mean, that shouldn't be hard to figure out because they're nannies.
	That's not The job of somebody with a high IQ. And so it's just these bad ideas that life is about your personal gratifications.
	And I have no problem with people who say that their life is, you know, personal gratification is the star they guide their selfish ship by.
	That's fine.
	No problem.
	Don't have children then.
	Because it's just not reasonable.
	It's just not reasonable.
	I mean, I don't even have any problem with people who want to sleep around.
	I think it's bad for you psychologically.
	I think it's risky for you physically.
	But if you want to do it, that's fine.
	But then just don't enter into a monogamous marital relationship and keep doing that.
	That's all.
	So just bad ideas that people have.
	And those bad ideas...
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Do you link the narcissistic orientation back to money and our debt-based system that creates competition and makes it all about me against you?
	That's a very good point.
	There's no doubt that the debt-based system requires spending.
	It requires people to continually buy things and upgrade their houses and upgrade their cars and upgrade their wardrobe.
	And just go buy, buy, buy.
	I mean, what is it George Bush said after 9-11?
	What you need to do, you see, is go shopping.
	Oh my God.
	And here we go to the center of anti-terrorist activity, the mall.
	So yeah, it's terrible.
	It's terrible.
	The government does not profit from you saving.
	The government profits from you spending, which is another side benefit of interest rates being so low, is that people will borrow to purchase.
	And governments are obsessed with provoking stimulation of the economy simply through spending.
	As if spending has anything to do with economic growth, particularly spending on consumable items, items which are not investments but consumables, right?
	They're not factories, they are cars or houses which are not investments.
	I mean fundamentally that was sort of revealed in the housing crash.
	So yeah, I mean once you get fiat currency, I was chatting with my wife yesterday about they've decided to put Jane Austen on the British £10 note.
	I guess there was a woman pushing for having a woman on the money, rather than someone like Margaret Thatcher, who would be more appropriate.
	They put a fiction writer On the 10-pound note, which I was mentioning seems entirely appropriate, that you should have a fiction writer on fictional money.
	It seems quite right.
	But yeah, so it's a debt-based system for sure.
	It drives the government to promote endless consumerism, shallows people out, shallows people out.
	And it also gives people a sense of doom.
	I mean, everybody knows that the economic system we have is completely and totally unsustainable.
	I mean, you don't have to read The Economist cover to cover to know that.
	Everybody gets it.
	I mean, just see the national debt clock, you just hear about the national debt.
	I mean, it gives you this uneasy feeling that things are completely unsustainable.
	So, yeah, bad ideas, bad economic incentives, control, the destruction of wealth, and this could all be turned around.
	Of course, we've become very instant gratification monkeys.
	We're not very good at deferring gratification anymore, and that's sort of the part of the selfishness.
	And to some degree, I think, objectivism has a little bit to do with this.
	You know, every time I talk about making sacrifice, I just get, you know, massive sticky brain webs shot at me from the wrists of objectivists who are like, oh, no, selfishness is a virtue!
	Well, I mean, I sort of wish Ayn Rand had had kids.
	I'm not saying it would necessarily be the greatest experience for her children, but I think it would have been interesting for her.
	I think it would have...
	I mean, she wasn't that great at deferring gratification.
	You know, rather than diet, she took diet pills, you know, these uppers for like 20 or 30 years.
	She didn't quit smoking, but rather praised it.
	She wasn't very good at deferring gratification, and she also didn't live the kind of life which required a lot of deferring of gratification.
	She didn't plan for her old age by Staying close with her husband, but instead, you know, was, you know, banging Nathaniel Brandon like a street kettle drum.
	And this, I think, made her old age pretty miserable.
	And, I mean, boy, if you have a movement where you want to change the world, then you should really defer the gratification of satisfying your immediate sexual lusts, you know, for the sake maybe of having that movement have much more of an impact on the future.
	So anyway, just a sort of few things.
	There's been this Increase in selfishness and narcissism and self-absorption and the I, me, me, I and an inability to sacrifice.
	And so people, like when I say to them, if you're going to have kids, if you need to go live at your parents' basement, if you need to downgrade, if you sell your cars, I mean, just do it.
	Just for the first couple of years, just be there for them.
	Like nature and God intended.
	Just be there.
	But the idea that you would do that No, no, no.
	Children are like an accessory.
	You fit them into your life based upon what you want.
	And because babies can only cry, that seems perfectly acceptable to people.
	There's just no idea.
	There's no concept that we would make sacrifices for the sake of the next generation.
	And this is not how it used to be.
	I mean, it used to be, of course, that...
	I mean, this is partly the immigrant story, but it's also partly the story of the rise of the middle class.
	Well, the parents would make great sacrifices, right?
	I mean, the immigrants come and they work hard, they work two jobs, they work hard, they save, and then their kids go to school, and then their kids' kids go to graduate school, and that's how you make sacrifices for your children.
	And that is kind of understood as, you know, we want our kids to do better than we are, we should make sacrifices for our children.
	And if we don't want to make sacrifices, that's fine, then we shouldn't have children.
	But, I mean, I'm not saying my life as a father is sort of a massive sacrifice, but there are huge elements of it involved.
	I mean, at least half the day is me not doing stuff that I would otherwise be doing.
	Probably 75% of the day.
	And I take pleasure in that because I have a daughter and I love her.
	But, you know, I'm not writing books.
	I haven't really written any books since my daughter was born and I was writing Four or five or six before she was born.
	Like two a year.
	I love the writing.
	I miss the writing.
	And so, but these kinds of sacrifices is what you do.
	I mean, I knew that going in.
	That's the deal.
	It's not a sacrifice fundamentally because it's what is in accordance with my values, but certainly in the moment.
	I don't want to be playing hungry hippos for the twelfth time.
	Of course not.
	You can imagine if I said, how was your day doing philosophy?
	Well, good.
	I played hungry hippos against myself for an hour and a half.
	Well, I mean, that would be not an ideal use of a big brain time.
	So, yeah, so I think that there has been a lot of propaganda designed to get us to consume food.
	Our entire system requires the sacrifice of children.
	We've advanced to the point where we don't throw them into the bay to be eaten by sharks or toss them in volcanoes or cut their heads off with an Aztec stone knife.
	But irrational societies always sacrifice children because children are born rational.
	And in order to conform, they must be broken.
	So I think those are the ways in which I think we have fundamentally failed to remember what responsible parenting is You know, people used to go to war for abstractions.
	I mean, they would risk their life for mere abstractions.
	I mean, Japan was never going to invade America in the 1940s.
	And, I mean, the whole story of the Second World War is not something I want to get into right now, but if we just take the mainstream narrative, millions of troops Risked their very lives to save civilization from fascism and tyranny.
	That was a generation who I would argue a bit too much but understood something about sacrifice for the greater good.
	And you can't even get a marketing executive to stay home with the children she's voluntarily chosen to have.
	To breastfeed the children for the sake of their health.
	To bond with her children during the fourth trimester.
	Of the months after the babies are born.
	You can get guys to go to rat and bug infested South Pacific Islands and battle fanatical Japanese troops with no sunscreen and solar radiation being the least of the things you're going to worry about penetrating your skin for years.
	But you can't get moms who are, quote, ambitious to stay home with the children they wanted and actually be there with the children.
	I mean, this is an intelligent woman.
	Has she not read anything about what children need?
	Of course not, because if what children need is against what she needs, well, screw them.
	So anyway, that's my basic rant.
	It probably doesn't give you anything particularly useful for a paper, but that's what I would say.
	Well, it feeds into trauma because the first trauma that we're experienced to is actually attachment.
	It grows out of attachment with our caregivers, so it's right on line.
	I wanted to talk to you because I... Sorry, neglect is the more hidden the abuse, the more dangerous it is generally, as far as I understand what the science is reporting.
	So neglect is the most dangerous kind of abuse.
	And having had lots of conversations with people over the years on this show about difficult childhoods, I find that the people who were neglected are those generally the worse off.
	Because they don't actually have anything tangible to complain about.
	I had a friend years ago whose family grew up very rich and he said it was horrible.
	He'd actually processed some of this stuff.
	He said it was...
	Dad was rich and he said, you know, if I wanted a bike for Christmas, just point at the catalog and And I'd have the bike.
	And if I wanted a computer, I'd just point at the catalog or go to the store and we'd get the computer.
	We had everything material and nothing emotional.
	And that was really, really hard.
	And so if you look at how children are traumatized these days, it is in general much less overt and much more covert, right?
	There's the economic exploitation of national debts and all of that.
	And so they don't know the difference.
	You don't even know about national debts when you're born, but it has a huge effect on how your life goes when you get older.
	And if you look at how terrible schools are and the fact that kids are forced there, well, there's no overt force there.
	Parents just, hey, it's time to go to school!
	Da-da-da-da-da, right?
	And that is...
	Yeah, there's a commercial here.
	I can't remember who it was for.
	There was a commercial here where it's...
	I think it's an old Johnny Mathis song.
	It's the most wonderful time of the year!
	And it was the parents all cheering that it was back to school time while the kids are sitting there all glum.
	The parents are doing this big dance and all that.
	And...
	So the fact that it's terrible for kids, the schools are terrible for kids, that's not overt abuse.
	I mean, it's a terrible environment.
	They don't know any better and there's no obvious abuse.
	It's just, well, you have to go to school.
	You may cry, but I mean, nobody's putting a gun to your head.
	Nobody's beating you if you don't go to school.
	It's just you have to go to school and that's what you have to do.
	And daycare, it's, well, you just go with these other germ-ridden kids who are all chaotic with a 5 to 1 ratio of caregivers from people who paid minimum wage.
	So it's not like they're beating or raping.
	It's just this neglect.
	It's this avoidance.
	It's this continual downgrading of children's self-esteem.
	You know this woman in the marketing department who's running the marketing department?
	What do her kids see?
	Well, mom is this Nordic ghost goddess who flits through our life when she's on to much more important things.
	And what does that tell the kids?
	It tells the kids that there's about six million things higher on mommy's list of what's important to her than her children, because she's off doing those things rather than spending time with them.
	That crushes a child's self-esteem.
	I mean, the first people we need to worship is her mom.
	But this also links to the human farming idea that I picked up from you, and I wonder where you're at with that these days.
	I mean, I don't see any evidence to the contrary.
	In fact, they, of course, have installed all these cameras and recording equipment in the barns, which has been around for years, of course.
	And it was reported for years before Edward Snowden released his documents.
	But yeah, I do see that there's going to be a change.
	There's going to be a bit of a liberation in the human farm.
	They're going to widen the pens a little.
	They're going to give us some air.
	They're going to give us some sunlight.
	Because, I mean, the cows are...
	I mean, human beings are so traumatized, we fundamentally stopped breeding.
	Particularly in Europe, but even in America, it's collapsing.
	If it wasn't for immigration, our societies would be shrinking enormously.
	And immigration is not, depending on the source, immigration is not an ideal way to maintain a culture.
	Of course, in the 1960s, up until the 1960s, most of the immigrants to America came from Europe, which, of course, has a complementary philosophical history.
	After 1965, like 80-90% of immigrants come from the Third World.
	And it's great that they come and have the opportunities, but there's cultural incompatibilities that you can't just snap away.
	And so in Europe, I mean, I think in the Mediterranean, I mean, the birth rate is like 1.1 per couple.
	I mean, it's catastrophic.
	I mean, it is a complete collapse of our breeding.
	And this comes out of this selfishness and this trauma and this lack of opportunities and And all of that.
	So, you know, when the herd begins to collapse, when the cows are so traumatized they won't even breed, then sure, they're going to let a little bit more air in.
	Unfortunately, this means that some cows must be disposed of to make room.
	I don't know how that's exactly going to happen, but it probably won't be very pretty.
	And so, yeah, I think that there is going to be a liberation, a liberalization that's coming upwards, but not with any intent of shutting down the farm, but just with the intent to sort of get us breeding and all that again.
	And so what can we do about it?
	Well, I mean, I think that a lot of what we should do about it, I've already sort of mentioned in the analysis, which is if you're going to have kids, be there for your kids, be home for your kids, you know, for moms.
	I mean, it's so weird to say this, you know, moms breastfeed your children.
	How on earth could this possibly be something that needs to be said?
	Do what nature intended.
	I think my wife is breastfeeding Izzy for about 18 months.
	But, you know, breastfeed your children.
	Cuddle your babies.
	Be there for them.
	Put your needs aside and be there for the children that you want.
	And then participate in the miracle of seeing a personality emerge like Atlantis from the ocean and be part of that incredible, unbelievable, mind-blowing experience.
	Michelle Pfeiffer says something in a movie with Bruce Willis, I can't remember his name, but she's talking about their kids, you know.
	It's like, it's incredible.
	There were no people and now there are people.
	I mean, that is incredible.
	I mean, it's unbelievable to see that process occur.
	But be there for your children.
	Hold your children, cuddle your children, kiss your children, play with your children, breastfeed your children, instruct your children.
	I mean, that this even needs to be said just shows you how distorted we've become as a basic mammalian species, but be there for your kids and be there for other people.
	If you see people, it's always been part of what I do here, if you see people genuinely suffering because they have psychos in their life, remind them that they don't have to have psychos in their life.
	Again, this is something which we don't generally discuss, although it's actually coming out.
	Dear Abby, Dr.
	Phil, lots of people are very clearly pointing out that you don't need to have Blood-related nut jobs in your life.
	I guess we were slightly ahead of the curve here.
	But, yeah, I mean, help people.
	You know, if you saw somebody being attacked by zombies and you had the power to will them away or whisk them away with your mind, surely you would.
	And if you see people embedded in destructive and abusive relationships from whatever source, remind them that they don't have to.
	And tell them to either fix the relationships or find a safer place.
	So, you know, we help each other.
	If you hear or see kids being harmed, call the authorities.
	It's not perfect, but it is something.
	And, you know, just let's take care of our young and let's take care of each other and recognize that we are not all equal.
	There is no soul in us that is all fundamentally immortal and capable of goodness that we are equal.
	Predators and prey in the human species.
	And we, we prey, need to help each other a lot.
	And we can win because we sure as hell outnumber the predators.
	Yeah.
	Thank you.
	Does that, does that help again?
	I know that's not exactly a formal academic critique, but those are sort of my immediate thoughts.
	That's great.
	That's, that's exactly what I wanted is your, your, your thoughts on the subject.
	Thank you.
	You're very welcome.
	And a great question.
	You know, I always get, people always complain that I don't provide solutions.
	And that's not true.
	It's not true at all.
	It's just people don't like the solutions that I provide.
	People want solutions like, go do political X, go vote Y, go get a petition for ABC, go, you know, they want stuff that is not going to be personally, that is outside their relationships and outside, you know, their fundamental choices about what happens.
	Everybody wants to outsource the fixing of the world, and unfortunately, there is nobody who can do it for you.
	I mean, your world...
	The world is nothing but our world, and we can't fix that external thing.
	It's like saying, well, I've got a group of people who've got cholera, so I'm going to heal the concept cholera, but not touch any individual patient.
	Well...
	That's not going to heal anyone.
	And there's no one who's going to save society.
	Society is nothing more than the individual choices we all make.
	And the idea that we can outsource it to someone else is tempting.
	Of course.
	Wouldn't it be great if someone could ride over the hill on a white horse and fix the world?
	It would be wonderful.
	And so much less challenging for us in our personal relationships.
	It just has the slight misfortune of being completely false.
	Yeah, I think it's definitely a ground-up solution, and it takes all of us making changes, so I'm with you.
	Well, thank you very much, and if it's all right with you, I'd like to actually do less than an hour on the first caller and completely screw the people coming after you, if that's all right.
	All right.
	Thank you very much.
	Best of luck with the paper.
	Okay, Ben, you're up next today.
	Good morning, Steph.
	Good morning.
	How are you doing, my friend?
	I'm doing quite well, thank you.
	My question this morning is on self-deprecation.
	So, in an early podcast, you had mentioned that self-deprecation is a negative thing, and that was a bit surprising to me.
	And so, in 748, you kind of went into detail, elaborating on how it can be used to manipulate others.
	And that's something I've I've experienced.
	I've seen politicians, for example, that would use self-deprecating humor to bypass the defenses of their audience.
	And so I get that.
	But then you went on to say that it's always manipulative, and that even if you think it's for you, it's not.
	So my particular case, I spent about six years in therapy, and a lot of that was focused on Narcissistic personality disorder.
	So it took me a long time to be able to admit...
	Sorry, do you mean that you'd be dealing with your own narcissistic personality disorder or the disorders of those around you?
	Mine.
	Okay, sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah.
	So it took a long time for me to even be able to admit any fault because previously any slightest fault or Or error would have to be denied or I'd have to make an excuse, probably blaming somebody else because I was putting up this false face that had to be perfect.
	And I would defend that violently.
	And so getting to the point to where I could own every aspect of every error or flaw that could legitimately be mine was difficult.
	And so eventually, though, I... I forced myself to express every failing that could be any part of it that was mine, verbally, whenever it applied.
	And of course the result was not like the rejection that was part of the original fear that was holding up that false face.
	But acceptance and it was a big improvement in my life just being able to not have to put up that false face and just to kind of be able to relax and let things happen and just kind of accept that I am who I am and that's good enough.
	So that was a really big deal for me.
	So when I heard you say that it's always manipulative, my initial reaction was just to like dismiss it as though that's wrong.
	But I caught that as probably not the best reaction to just reject it without considering it.
	So, and that was one of the things that I did get from therapy was the ability to consider other perspectives where before, you know, I had this like ideal of who I wanted to present to society and anything that kind of conflicted with my...
	My ideas were just instantly rejected, the cognitive dissonance.
	So here it is.
	I hear this, and so considering it, I mean, maybe it is manipulative.
	Maybe I am sort of, I don't know, overdoing it to a degree, or maybe there are other things that I am getting out of other people's responses to My self-deprecation.
	So I figured I would present this and see if, since you had said that it is always manipulative, if you think this applies.
	But I don't want to be manipulating others.
	I don't recall the podcasting question, and I don't recall saying that it seems a bit unusual for me to say that something is always this or always that.
	That's kind of an absolute statement.
	Yeah.
	But, you know, I have no reason to doubt what it is that you're saying.
	I didn't say it, but it's a good statement.
	It says false modesty is just another form of hypocrisy.
	And, I mean, I'll make fun of certain things about myself, but they're not lies, you know, so I can take a long tangent to answer a simple question.
	That's not false.
	I mean, that's very true.
	But if I were to say, well...
	I'm just modestly trying to do my little bit to help people improve their thinking in the slightest.
	That would be a lie.
	And the reason that I would do that would be because I was afraid of being accused of the fundamental sin of arrogance.
	Oh, Heath!
	He thinks he's great.
	He's just going to go change the world from his car, from his study.
	Oh yes, he's just so grandiose and he's such a megalomaniacal crazy person that he genuinely thinks that he's going to alter the course of history by talking into his little microphones in his house or whatever, right?
	Right.
	So the reason it would be out of a fear of being accused of Grandiosity.
	Of being crazy.
	And, you know, the usual quote mining that people do where...
	So, I mean, why would I do that?
	Because I was afraid of being labeled as crazy for being grandiose.
	Now, of course, it's entirely possible that...
	I mean, people may argue whether it's probable, but it's entirely possible that this is the greatest conversation in history that would truly change the world.
	It's possible.
	Certainly the topics we're dealing with are deep enough to change the world.
	Whether I'm right or wrong, if you and I were discussing snail racing, or weather patterns, or reality TV stars, and then I said this conversation has the chance of changing the world, that would be crazy, right?
	Of course.
	Yeah, but we are talking about, you know, peace and virtue, non-aggression, war, childhood, virtue, and those are the topics which will change the world if the world can be changed.
	Right.
	At all.
	And so it certainly is the biggest philosophical conversation that I know of.
	You know, at least, at least, you know, at the most conservative estimates, half a million views or downloads of the shows and videos a week.
	Right.
	I mean, that's 2 million philosophy chunks a month, right?
	24 million a year.
	And that's because it's trending upwards.
	That's right.
	So it's the biggest one that history.
	And again, I do give credit where credit is due.
	That's not because I'm smart.
	That's because the technology is available.
	And I've really had a fortuitous combination of life.
	Circumstances and histories, voice training, theater training, improv training, business training, intense interest in philosophy.
	So a lot of stuff has come together and the technology has enabled this conversation to work.
	But if you're talking about very deep issues and it's the biggest conversation in the world about those very deep issues, then it is not insane to say, I hope this will change the world.
	I mean, it's necessary but not sufficient.
	If we were talking about lots of important issues and there were three listeners, then it would be unlikely to change the world.
	It might change the world for those listeners, but it wouldn't change the world as a whole.
	Or if we had a big conversation and we're talking about ultimate fighting strategies, ultimate UFC strategies, or whether wrestling was real, then we would have a big conversation.
	But anyway, I won't be intimidated by people who May call me grandiose, because that is my ambition.
	Why on earth would you want to do something small with your life?
	Why on earth would you want to do something cowed and broken with your life if you have the capacity and the ambition?
	Then yes.
	James Cameron, when he was putting together Avatar, he said to everyone, he said, we want to make the biggest movie of the year, maybe of the decade.
	Like, we're not going small here.
	We are not going small.
	This is going to be hard work.
	It's going to be grueling, intense, Maybe even abusive at times, but we are aiming for the biggest movies.
	And, I mean, okay.
	So that was his ambition.
	And is that grandiose?
	No, that's ambitious.
	I mean, it's grandiose if you say, I want to be the greatest novelist the world has ever seen, and you don't ever write any books.
	That's grandiose, right?
	But if you're actually writing the books, yeah, why not?
	Aim to be the best.
	So, I think that...
	For me, if I were to downgrade what it is that I'm up to, it would be dishonest.
	It would be disrespectful to the listeners.
	I'm pulling all these powerful topics out and talking about them with people and working to be the best at what I do, and then saying, well, I don't have any real big ambitions.
	I mean, everybody would get this kind of a lie.
	And they would get that I would be doing that out of fear of being characterized as grand ideas.
	I'm not going to do that, because that would be to manipulate people into not attacking me.
	I mean, sometimes manipulation can be defensive, not exploitive, right?
	In my case, the things that I was acknowledging or have been acknowledging were not things that I was lying about or exaggerating.
	I'm just really owning every failure that is legitimately mine because of my history of not being able to do that at all.
	Why are you not talking about your childhood at all just out of curiosity?
	Because you're sort of owning this narcissism like You just, you know, either had it genetically encoded or woke up one day and say, I'm going to be narcissistic.
	I am willing to talk about that.
	And I got a pretty good idea of where it came from.
	And, you know, I did spend a lot of time in therapy, so I've covered a lot of that.
	But, I mean, this was sort of the narcissism or the self-deprecation is sort of more of a...
	My reaction after having dealt with, you know, a good chunk of the narcissism.
	So, and the immediate concern was like, if the self-deprecation is negatively manipulative towards others, and Because that's a big part of what has been a problem for me in the past was, you know, being narcissistic means completely not caring about others' emotional concerns and needs and just using them like tools to get what you want.
	And so that is like a sore point for me having come to recognize that.
	So...
	When you said that it's even, I think the exact quote was, even if you think it's for you, it's not.
	And maybe that just has to do with if you are, if the definition of self-deprecation is Is a case where what you're talking about is not truthful.
	And so for a lot of the things for me, they might just be minor things, but things that I would have absolutely hidden before.
	Oh, I made an error.
	Okay, nobody else is going to see this error.
	It's in computer stuff or whatever, right?
	Nobody even understands what I'm doing.
	But in a relationship with someone that...
	That, you know, they're having a hard time with it or whatever, and I say, oh, you know what?
	I hit that exact same problem, and I totally blew it.
	I screwed it up.
	So the result in that relationship is sort of an ease.
	Like, I'm not trying to be this, you know, big person that always is perfect, never does anything wrong, is going to belittle them.
	They can see that I'm being real and I'm owning my mistakes.
	And so, but I can also...
	I could understand a suggestion that I'm somehow manipulating that other person to get this response.
	Yeah, I didn't detect a question in there, so I'm not really sure how to respond.
	Well, again, the question was if you see that in this scenario where I am owning everything that is a failure on my part, if you consider that to be manipulative.
	Well, I think a little bit, because what does it mean to say that you're owning everything that is a failure on your part?
	So how is it possible to clearly distinguish personal failings from what you experienced as a child?
	Oh, and of course, we can go back further and look for the original causes, but in...
	In my relationships, and so a lot of them are work-related, if I've made an error of any type, like I said, that would be something that would be easy to hide most of the time and something that I would never at all before have owned up to if I could hide it or if it was ever found out to make an excuse or blame someone else or minimize my ownership.
	By outing myself for the mistakes, all of the mistakes and errors that I make, I'm effectively knocking myself off of this pedestal I had set myself up on and doing it intentionally.
	And so if that is...
	Yeah, I'm sorry to interrupt, but as a rambler, I must tell you that you're rambling, right?
	So what I'm trying to say is that if the narcissism that you talk about, having spent years in therapy to work on, I'm going to assume, and you can tell me otherwise, that this may have been provoked or exacerbated or even perhaps created by certain events or interactions in your childhood.
	Would that be a fair statement?
	Yep, 100%.
	Okay, so clearly the narcissism is not your fault.
	No.
	Okay, and if the narcissism gives you the desire to hide faults, And that's technically not even accurate.
	That's a symptom, right?
	When we face tragic childhoods, and again, I don't want to put words into your mouth, and I don't want to say your childhood was abusive, but with your permission, perhaps I can use that phraseology.
	Sure.
	Okay.
	So if we have an abusive childhood, we don't develop narcissism fundamentally.
	I mean, that's not the effect.
	Maybe narcissism, but that's not what it's for.
	An inability to admit mistakes is not developed out of nowhere and out of nothing.
	What is the purpose when you're a child growing up in the environment that you grew up in?
	What is the purpose of not admitting mistakes?
	Why would you develop that habit to not admit mistakes?
	So the source of my narcissism was a lot of emotional pain.
	And so that...
	No, no, no, no.
	No, that's not...
	Like if I get stabbed in the leg by someone and I limp, the source of my limp is not my physical pain, the physical pain in my leg, right?
	What's the source of my limp?
	Well, the being stabbed.
	Yeah, the person who stabbed me.
	Right.
	Right.
	So the source of your narcissism was not emotional pain.
	I mean, obviously you develop narcissism to avoid emotional pain in the same way I develop a limp to avoid the pain of walking normally if I have been lamed.
	So what was the cause of the narcissism?
	All of my meaningful relationships when I was a child were taken from me.
	And tell me a little about that.
	My parents moved a lot and then my mom divorced my dad when I was young.
	So from about five on, maybe six, the only relationship I had any real contact with was my mom and she was not a very doting mother.
	Not a very doting mother.
	Ah, how we shield people.
	At all times.
	Hey, I'm incredibly sorry to hear that.
	I mean, so you grew up single child, single son, but single mom, right?
	I had a younger brother.
	Had?
	Have.
	Oh, have.
	Okay, I was going to say.
	And what other?
	Okay, so when you say that your mother was not a doting mother, or not exactly a doting mother, what do you mean?
	I think that she loved me, but I think probably it was more of just like a selfishness on her part that I was typically fed and there was usually enough clothes, although they were typically hand-me-down stuff.
	And we were never homeless, but it was kind of obvious that her things were More important and we didn't spend a lot of time together.
	We didn't have, you know, hobbies that we shared are really much in the way of interest.
	Yeah.
	You know that people get fed and clothed in a gulag, right?
	No, seriously, if it comes down to parenting where you're making excuses because you had...
	I mean, people who kidnap for ransom feed and clothe their captives.
	Yeah, and they may spend more time with them, too.
	They may.
	At least they have some interest in their well-being, right?
	Because they hope to profit from them.
	Right.
	So I just wanted to point that out first and foremost.
	And you said you didn't spend much time with your mother because she was doing other things.
	And what were those other things?
	I spent a lot of time working.
	And I don't know.
	It's just that even when we did have time that could have been spent together, we didn't.
	You know, I spent a lot of time, most of my childhood, probably just in my room.
	Right.
	I'm so sorry about that.
	But that's just so horrible.
	I just had a chat last night with the fellows in a similar situation.
	I'm incredibly sorry.
	I mean, that's not how...
	And see, part of the thing is, is that being...
	I'm emotionally disconnected.
	Before I went into therapy, you could have asked me about my childhood, and I said, I would have told you it probably wasn't ideal, but there was nothing traumatic.
	But it still left me seriously messed up, and it messed up in a way that I couldn't recognize.
	Yeah, that's what I was talking about with the lady who called earlier, right?
	That, in a sense, neglect is the worst of all.
	Sure.
	And when your mother was home, how would Disagreements resolved?
	I probably didn't have a whole lot of arguments with her.
	She was pretty hands-off.
	I mean, I pretty much had free run.
	There was some probably arguments with her that got heated before I moved out.
	But when she would fight, I think she's on her Fourth husband now.
	And she would fight.
	I mean, there would be dishes flying and, you know, exploding on the walls.
	And I mean, it would...
	I don't know that there was ever a lot of...
	I don't remember ever seeing blood or, like, maybe with my biological father, an actual...
	Physical fight.
	But, I mean, she would scream, and as far as dealing with others, that was her way.
	Right.
	So, I mean, you're not a dad, I assume, at the moment, right?
	I am.
	You are a father!
	Okay, well, this was...
	I have four kids.
	You sound young.
	And the reason I'm saying this is the degree to which...
	Children are attached to parents.
	I mean, this is one of the great...
	I just did a podcast on a bunch of stuff I've learned as a parent that I didn't expect to learn.
	One of the things is the degree to which children are...
	They're just attached to parents.
	I mean, my daughter's quite independent.
	She wants to do things herself.
	She wants to figure out things herself.
	She wants to hold the doors open herself, even if they're like these fire doors that requires half a bunker buster to open.
	But she is...
	Incredibly attached.
	I go to the basement, she comes to the basement.
	I go upstairs, she comes upstairs, and we keep chatting.
	She is where her parents are almost always.
	Almost always.
	She was so attached.
	When she was a baby, if I had to go to the washroom, I had to bring her.
	No, I couldn't leave her in a crib.
	I couldn't leave her in the other room.
	I just couldn't.
	Because she'd just start screaming, crying.
	And the degree to which...
	I mean, maybe it's just my daughter, but I think it's pretty universal from what I've read.
	The degree to which children need proximity...
	To their parents.
	I mean, biologically we can understand it.
	It was a hazardous world for kids.
	And so it's, you know, they really wanted to stay close to their parents.
	Easy pickings for any predator that comes along if they're not with their parents.
	So they want to stay close to their parents at all times.
	And the other thing that I've noticed, and I'll just ask you in a sec what your experience was, but, you know, when I'm done my show, I'm going to go upstairs and My daughter's going to jump off the couch and, you know, yay, you've done your show, let's play, kind of stuff.
	Like a real joy at my re-emergence from my study.
	Or like yesterday, last night I had a conversation with someone, a listener call, and before I went to do it, my daughter was like, she needed to give me like five hugs in a row and all of that before I went to my study.
	I mean, that's where it's at.
	And What I think about sometimes is how different that was from my own experience.
	So when I was a kid, and this is what I want to ask you, so when you were a kid, let's say you're home, in your room, and your mom's supposed to be out for the evening, and you hear her key in the lock a couple of hours early, what was your emotional experience of that?
	Would I be concerned that she's leaving?
	No, that she's coming in.
	Oh.
	She's supposed to be home at 10, like 6 o'clock.
	You hear her key in the lock that she's coming home.
	Probably indifference.
	Probably indifference.
	I'm thinking about that and I'm not feeling anything that she's home.
	Okay.
	So the fact that she was home, she wouldn't come into your room, she wouldn't want to talk with you, or she wouldn't, I mean, the fact, would she just go somewhere else in the place you lived?
	She, you know, might say hello or whatever, but we rarely would just sit down and talk about stuff.
	Like, yeah, so it might be just, I'm home and I cook dinner or whatever.
	Oh, so she was intrusive, right?
	No, not at all.
	Okay.
	Alright.
	So, when you talk about your narcissism, this is sort of what I wanted to get to, is that it is inflicted on you.
	Yeah.
	It's not.
	So, you know, when you're talking about, well, I need to admit my failures, I need to admit my errors, and so on.
	In general, The adaption strategies we have at children are all pain avoidant.
	So if somebody grows up in a highly critical household, then they'll become self-critical in order to avoid the pain of being criticized.
	If somebody's got to hit me, I'd rather me hit me than somebody else that I can control how hard I hit and where I hit and so on.
	Somebody says, you've got to take a punch, Steph.
	It's me who hits you or you who hits you.
	Well, I'll pull a fight club and punch myself.
	Thank you very much, right?
	And so this is sort of fundamentally what I'm making the case for when I was saying, how can you differentiate your personal faults from the tragic adaptive anti-pain strategies that you had to adopt as a child in a highly dysfunctional household?
	Well, okay.
	So then I can completely accept that my narcissism was a result of my childhood, but I never saw narcissism as a positive thing, and it's something that I want to, as much as I can, eliminate.
	Sorry to interrupt.
	You never saw narcissism as a positive thing.
	So do you think it was a bad coping strategy?
	No, I mean, it was a phenomenal coping strategy as far as dealing with the emotional pain, but then it messed up everything else in my life.
	The narcissism was so bad that I was basically unable to connect with people on an emotional level.
	Yes, the narcissism did not mess up everything else in your life.
	Your mother messed up things in your life.
	Well, through the narcissism, of course.
	Right, but you're looking at the nemesisism like it's just some thing.
	Like it's either part of you or...
	But it was an adaptive mechanism, which served you, I would imagine, incredibly well relative to the alternatives.
	Oh, yeah.
	I mean, because it completely, like I said, if you'd have asked me before therapy, I would have totally acknowledged my childhood was free of trauma because all of the emotional trauma just got to be skipped because of the narcissist.
	I had no emotional connections.
	It just didn't bother me.
	Right.
	But that became a problem later in life, something I needed to be done with the narcissism.
	Right.
	So your mother messed you up?
	And your father messed you up.
	And that caused problems.
	But once you say that there's something called narcissism that you carry like a baby or a boulder or something, right?
	So my suggestion would be like instead of saying, well, my narcissism has caused me problems, say, well, my mother has caused me problems or my mother or my father or my childhood or whatever, right?
	Because if you talk about the narcissism, what that is is a big boulder in front of the real portrait of problems, which is your parents.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	So, I mean, this would be my suggestion.
	I think it's more accurate to talk about your mom and your dad rather than to talk about your narcissism.
	And what do you think would be of value in...
	What specifically would there be to talk about now in my life?
	Sure.
	Sure.
	Well, I mean...
	First and foremost...
	Yeah, go ahead.
	Okay, so...
	I had a pretty serious argument with my dad a couple of months ago, and it was probably bad enough that I don't know that we will talk again.
	And my mom is kind of failing mentally, and she still lives on her own, but that might not even last very long.
	And I've probably only seen her once a year, like Christmas time or whatever, for a few years, many years probably.
	So it's not like either of them are a big part of my life.
	And I recognize that part of the reason for the emotional issues in my early childhood was related to my dad's infidelity.
	And of course, I don't want to like Blame him for things I did in my life, but I mean there is that direct causal link and it's not like just like a random thing like on some Tuesday He decided to drive to the mall and that led to some chain of events.
	Sorry, you talked about your dad's infidelity and then you said about events in your life.
	Does that mean that you have been unfaithful as well?
	Well, okay, so the I guess the results of the narcissism were that they messed up my relationships.
	But I don't think it would be fair for me to blame my dad for my actions.
	I need to own my own actions, right?
	But there is that direct causal link between...
	He was repeatedly unfaithful to my mom to where eventually she left him.
	So that was one more thing that...
	You know, that led to the protection from the narcissism.
	So, and then, you know, my mom was just...
	She moved every year, so I never could have friends.
	And she was, again, not very attentive and not very interested.
	And so...
	And was she a serial dater?
	You said she'd be married, what, four times?
	Yeah, she married four times.
	And then, yeah, I remember she...
	I can remember several guys that she dated.
	I think that she was probably dating looking to get married again, so I don't know that it was just dating to date, but yeah.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I mean, my mom did that too.
	Brought men over, and even men lived with us sometimes.
	It was kind of gross.
	In fact, it was considerably gross.
	Strange, yeah.
	Yeah.
	Here's some guy who's now in the house.
	Yeah.
	So that's my scenario with my parents.
	They're pretty much not a big part of my life, and I have understood that they...
	Except the effects, right?
	Yeah, of course the effects.
	And I was just going to say that the effects...
	It's not like I don't understand that there is some responsibility there.
	So then what else is there to consider?
	Well, I'll give you sort of the principle that I work with.
	I'm not saying this is empirically true or whatever, right?
	It's not scientifically validated.
	But the principle that I work with is, of course, I will never take more responsibility than those around me.
	That's the UPB thing, right?
	Sure.
	Like, I will not take more responsibility...
	Then I'm willing to assign to the people around me.
	So, of course, I'm going to take responsibility for my own choices and my own actions.
	Absolutely.
	But as they raise the bar for myself, I raise the bar for everyone else.
	I don't know if you've ever been in a recording studio, but there's these dials, you know, these walls of, like, the entire consoles with, like, crazy ass gotta get a PhD sets of dials, right?
	Right.
	And we all...
	For a variety of psychological reasons, we all think these dials move independently.
	You know, I'm dialing up responsibility for myself, and we think that that doesn't affect any of the other dials.
	But I'm telling you, the dials all move together.
	And some dials move faster than others.
	So, when I up my personal responsibility, 10% I up my parents' responsibility 50%.
	Right?
	So, because...
	I mean, they chose to have me.
	They were adults.
	They had their choices and so on.
	And I know that they had their choices and I know that they respected choices because I was punished for bad choices.
	Right?
	So, I know for a fact that my parents knew good choices from bad, or at least believed it, and punished me at the age of 4 or 5 or 6 or 10 or 15...
	for what they called bad choices.
	So they were not, I mean they were dysfunctional, but they weren't crazy when it came to assigning responsibility.
	Now, the parents will often assign responsibility to a 5 or a 10 year old and then deny that same responsibility when confronted as an adult, right?
	Of course, yes.
	I mean the excuse that we have as kids, I did the best, sorry, the excuse that parents often, dysfunctional parents often claim When confronted is, well, I was doing the best I could, but the knowledge that I had, it was tough for me.
	I think my mom has used almost those words exactly.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	You don't know how hard it was for me.
	I had to work two jobs.
	Your dad left me, or, you know, your dad was unfaithful, and I had to make do, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
	And okay, so fine.
	So what she's doing is she's dialing down personal responsibility.
	Fine.
	Fine.
	Then, a significant problem arises.
	At least, Within my family, which is, okay, so dial down personal responsibility.
	What you mean is that it's perfectly valid to say, I did the best I could with the knowledge that I had at the time.
	But then, why was I ever punished as a child?
	Was I not, as a child, doing the best I could with the knowledge I had at the time?
	Right.
	Right, so, how on earth do you dial up moral responsibility for a seven-year-old And dial it down for a 30-year-old simultaneously.
	Why do you punish a child for making bad decisions when the child is confined in a dysfunctional environment and struggling to do the best he can in truly catastrophic and unchosen circumstances?
	But then the mom and the dad, they get to say, oh no, I was doing the best I could with the knowledge that I had.
	So don't blame me for making catastrophic decisions that has harmed you Deeply and irrevocably.
	You can't blame me for any of my bad decisions because I was doing the best I could with the knowledge that I had.
	But you as a child would be regularly punished or receive negative consequences for doing the best you could with the knowledge that you had.
	Well, how do children get blamed for the choices they make in an unchosen and dysfunctional environment, whereas parents who had the choice to choose and had all options in the world available to them get out of jail free card.
	And those same parents should logically be strenuously advocating for the elimination of testing in schools.
	And certainly, it may be testing fine, but no fails.
	Everybody gets an A. Everybody gets mad.
	Because they tried.
	Yeah, they're doing the best they could with the knowledge they had at the test time.
	Right.
	I mean, nobody has great knowledge at a test time and then writes gibberish, right?
	Right.
	I mean, if you say, well, you didn't study.
	And it was your responsibility if you didn't have the knowledge, you didn't study.
	Okay, fine.
	That's a standard.
	So we say six-year-olds should fail spelling tests if they don't study the words.
	Okay.
	Fine.
	So...
	What about parents who failed to learn about what it is to be a good parent, who failed to do the research, who failed to consult the experts, who failed to study for a slightly more important test called having children, slightly higher in significance and potential for harm to not know how to raise children than it is to not know how to spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, right?
	But this is just that we all think that we can move these dials up and down, separate.
	But I'm telling you, they move up and down together and whatever dials you move for children, you move them 10 or 100 times faster for adults up and rarely down.
	So I just want to sort of point that out.
	So my principle is, yes, I have ownership for how I deal with the trauma, but I do not have ownership of the trauma.
	Some guy clocks me in the face.
	Yeah, it's my job to go to the hospital, to go to the dentist, to get fixed whatever needs to get fixed.
	But I take no ownership.
	I mean, assuming I wasn't starting the fight.
	I take no ownership for the damage, for the injuries.
	That's owned by the other person.
	And the scar tissue that I have from my childhood is completely owned by the entire world of my childhood.
	Not just my mom.
	My mom certainly didn't operate in isolation.
	So yeah, I will manage the effects and I wish to raise the bar from how I was raised.
	Absolutely.
	And that's my responsibility to improve all of that.
	Just like it's my responsibility if somebody breaks my leg to go to rehab and learn how to walk again.
	Maybe learn how to be even stronger than if I'd never have my leg broken.
	So it's my responsibility to deal with the trauma.
	But the trauma was not my responsibility at all.
	That's why I'm concerned when you say my narcissism.
	It sounds like you're taking ownership for the trauma and the trauma was inflicted.
	So I think I recognize the source of the trauma.
	I think that the ownership that I take of the narcissism is in having to deal with it now and So the ownership over my actions, I don't want my actions to be a direct result of decisions I make based on the narcissism because it's, you know, I've caused emotional pain because it's really easy to hurt people emotionally when you don't feel any emotional pain.
	And so is it not right to own it at this point to deal with it?
	Absolutely.
	For sure.
	Absolutely.
	But my concern is that you are identifying as non-relational the origins of your trauma by saying my narcissism.
	I worked on my narcissistic issues and so on.
	It's like, no, I worked on the trauma inflicted upon me as a helpless child.
	I'm working on minimizing or mitigating the effects of the trauma that was inflicted upon me as a helpless child.
	I mean, Jesus, you wouldn't have chosen your mom as your mom.
	I bet you a million dollars, right?
	There's a whole line of people.
	That would have been the one I picked.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Somewhere below Morlock, Sauron, and...
	Okay, well I guess if we're out of Japanese radioactive monsters, I guess I'll choose mom.
	Or maybe I could just choose not to be born at all, but that'd be possible.
	It certainly was tempting for me when I was a kid.
	This is so little fun that if there was no future to work towards, there would have been little reason to get up in the morning.
	So, yeah, you are responsible, I think, now as an adult, of course, for managing the effects of the trauma that was inflicted upon you as a helpless child.
	I just don't want you to name the trauma and absolve the abusers or the inflictors.
	You know, okay, so with my mom, she's, like I said, her mental capacities are diminished maybe down to like 65% of normal.
	I have not had a sort of confrontation with her about this other than, you know, a minor conversation where the response was, you know, well, I was just in survival mode doing the best I could.
	But this conversation with my dad, I actually, you know, I went there with him and that's why we're not talking now and I don't know that we will again.
	And And it was.
	I brought up.
	I told him, I'm not blaming you for my actions, but almost all of the negative stuff in my life, there's a direct causal link to your immorality.
	And his reaction was, I had sent this in an email.
	Sometimes it's easier to put all my thoughts in order and to look it over a couple of times.
	But instead of responding to me to that email, His response was to my ex-wife, you know, that he was attempting to protect his reputation, saying that I was making claims that I could have no personal first-hand knowledge of, as if I would be in the room, you know, watching him have sex with another woman or something, which was just ridiculous, and that just infuriated me.
	So after that, it's like, yeah, I don't know that I want to talk to him again.
	Yeah, so preemptively protecting his reputation, more important than talking to his son about something really important to you, right?
	Yeah, there was not even a, well, I'm sorry you feel this way, but I disagree, or, you know...
	Or tell me why you feel this way, or tell me more, or whatever.
	Exactly.
	Nothing, nothing.
	Not even like, even if he thought I was completely wrong, well, why are you upset?
	Is there any concern, like, not even the slightest concern for me, just protecting his reputation.
	Right, right.
	Right.
	I'm sorry for that.
	I mean, what a tragic mistake to make as a parent.
	I mean, what a tragic mistake to make.
	I mean, a lot of people, it's not just parents, a lot of people make these, I mean, just make bad decisions in the moment.
	And later, everybody wants to escape the consequences of those bad decisions, right?
	Of course.
	But the degree to which we let people escape the consequences of bad decisions is the degree to which we subsidize and encourage bad decisions, right?
	Yep.
	You know, my mom dated around, to put it as nicely as possible, invited these men to come live with us, and was constantly going out on dates and all this kind of stuff.
	You know, maybe she's lonely now that she's old.
	It's like, well, why don't you call these guys up?
	Ha ha ha!
	Remember me from 30 years ago?
	We had a couple of dates.
	You want to come over for tea?
	I'm lonely.
	Right.
	Well, I mean, the guys were more important than I was to her, so clearly she should turn to them for comfort in her old age.
	Right.
	I wonder how that's going to go.
	But so, yeah, people make these bad decisions, these selfish decisions.
	They didn't ask me if I wanted these guys to come live with us.
	I didn't.
	Right.
	I mean, then she'd be out, and the guys would be home, and we'd just be sitting there in this tiny apartment, like, what the hell do we say to each other, right?
	Awkward.
	Yeah, you think?
	So, mom banger, how's it hanging, right?
	I mean, it's not...
	Exactly.
	Like, what else is there in your relationship other than he is having sex with your mom?
	Right, and obviously an easy place to stay.
	Yay!
	There's a winner.
	Exactly.
	Hey, you've got a tiny apartment and a kid.
	Can I crash with you for a while?
	Right?
	And so it was gross for me.
	It was vile.
	And, you know, but this is the choices that she made.
	That she wanted to date these men rather than spend time with me or give me a sort of comfortable, safe environment.
	I mean, I didn't even know these guys.
	I just knew that they were unstable enough to be with my mom.
	I mean, this was not a secure environment for me at all.
	Right.
	I mean, these are not well guys just left alone with your kid.
	You shouldn't know them, really.
	And so for me, it's like, okay, well then call these guys up.
	I mean, they were very important to you, much more important than me to the point where you were willing to leave me at risk.
	Okay, so you make your choices and If these guys were so important to you, give them a call if you're lonely now that you're old.
	Look them up.
	But yeah, so I think that it is important that we respect people's choices.
	I mean, I know that sounds like a funny thing.
	Nietzsche said something.
	He says, I refuse to leave my actions in the lurch.
	And this is true of comedy too, right?
	You just have to commit to it.
	Even if it's going badly, you have to double down and commit to it, right?
	Like I did a podcast the other day where I put on these ridiculous southern accents for part of the podcast.
	You just got to go with it.
	Don't leave your actions in the lurch.
	There's nobody who's even remotely mentally competent or was mentally competent.
	I give people the respect of their decisions.
	And by that...
	Yeah.
	By that responsibility.
	Right.
	I'm not going to pretend that people were not competent to make decisions when they clearly were.
	This is just another form of lying.
	And it's manipulative, fundamentally.
	My mom was competent to make decisions when she was younger.
	And she made those decisions.
	My dad was competent to make decisions when he was younger.
	And he made those decisions.
	I will not pretend otherwise.
	I will not pretend otherwise.
	To do so would be to let them make the bad decisions and have no consequences for it.
	Right.
	And then what does that do to me and my decisions?
	Everything is UPB. Everything is universal.
	Every principle I make affects me fundamentally.
	So if I'm going to say to others, you did shitty things, you made terrible decisions, you did wrong, you did evil...
	But now I'm going to pretend that that never happened, and it was all just difficult for everyone, and you were just trying to do the best.
	If I make excuses for immorality, it does not change the past.
	It does not change reality, but it sure as hell will change my decisions.
	Does that make sense?
	What does that do for me and my relationship to evil if evil could just be waved away in the future and you can gain all the benefits of having been virtuous while having done evil?
	What is that going to do to my commitment to virtue?
	It's going to skew it in that you can make any bad decision you want now knowing that there will be no consequences.
	Yeah!
	I can be an idiot and a jerk and nasty and evil and mean now because I could just wave it away with magic later.
	Right.
	I mean, how many smokers would quit smoking if they knew for certain there would never be any negative health consequences?
	Right.
	Well, no.
	The negative health consequence is why people quit smoking.
	I mean, I don't sit sweating on a bike machine because I like pedaling to nowhere.
	Right?
	It's not fun.
	It's like praying for forgiveness on your deathbed.
	Well, yeah.
	I mean...
	Yeah.
	I mean, except at least on the deathbed, you can grant the forgiveness knowing that there won't be any further infliction of trauma because they're dying, right?
	Right.
	But you do it 20 years before they're dead, there's 20 years of more trauma.
	If you know that you can do that right before you die, you can just be a terrible person your whole life.
	Well, of course.
	And then just get forgiveness.
	Exactly.
	So this is my basic empathy for the world as a whole.
	And my basic self-respect, I simply cannot dial my own level of responsibility up without dialing it up for everyone and parents most of all.
	I mean, just because, I mean, I'm sorry I'm committed to rationality, I'm committed to universality, particularly in the realm of ethics.
	And I refuse, I refuse to harm my own capacity for virtue in order to provide false absolution for evil people.
	I won't do it because I don't know what effect it's going to have on me, but sure as shit, it's going to have a negative effect.
	Right.
	If you pay people who hate their job for not showing up to work, what are they going to do?
	Exactly.
	If you provide the fruits of virtue to people who've done evil, all you're doing is encouraging evil.
	And I just, I can't do that.
	I mean, that's like a lung doctor going on a pro-smoking binge, like a pro-smoker, putting out pamphlets saying you really should smoke.
	Smoking is really great.
	It's dangerous.
	The complete reversal of the truth is actually good for you.
	Right.
	That would be insane.
	Now, he at least would profit from that.
	Or drumming up business.
	Yeah, I mean, the selfishness of that would be clear.
	Get people to smoke and there'll be more people filling up your waiting room, right?
	Right.
	But in this situation, there's not even a positive benefit to it.
	If I were to pretend that those who've harmed me have not harmed me, all it does is allow them to continue to harm me.
	I remove myself from unrepentant evil people from their orbit.
	It's also partly out of the last respect that I have for anything positive they ever did, which is that if people can't stop harming me, I won't put myself in their life.
	Because I'm clearly a drug whose temptation they cannot resist.
	Right.
	Clearly they can't stop doing harm to me, which is bad for everyone.
	And so, you know, if every time you hang out with someone, he goes out and clubs a homeless guy, clearly you should stop hanging out with him.
	It doesn't mean you're morally responsible for him clubbing a homeless guy, but if you know that's the dominoes that fall, then stop doing it.
	And if you're the homeless guy who gets verbally clubbed, you should not want to do it even more.
	You remove temptation from evil people.
	and if that temptation means you, so be it.
	But that's the only way that I know if to genuinely break the cycle.
	To genuinely break the cycle.
	I simply cannot pretend...
	That evil was not done.
	That harm was not done.
	And I cannot...
	You know, there are people in my life who treat me incredibly well, wonderfully, beautifully, lovingly, respectfully.
	How can I give people who've harmed me irrevocably the same access to me and the same proximity as people who treat me wonderfully?
	That's like getting my favorite meal And then a nice juicy turd sandwich, two different plates, and saying, I'm going to eat them both with the same amount of pleasure.
	I'm sorry, it's not possible, and I can't fake it.
	Right.
	Anyway.
	So those would be my thoughts.
	Well, thank you.
	You're very welcome.
	I'm very sorry for what happened to you.
	I'm incredibly, I don't want to say proud, because it sounds so, you know, Condescending, but I hugely respect what it is that you're doing to deal with that.
	I respect the therapy.
	I'm sure your kids are very lucky that you've gone through that kind of work, and congratulations.
	Thank you.
	All right, Robinson, you're up next.
	Morning, Steph.
	Hello, hello.
	I just want to, you know, first of all, thank you for all that you're doing and being such a great person and a great role model for myself.
	Well, thank you.
	And also that I hope you're well on your way to recovering health-wise.
	So far, so good.
	Thank you.
	Okay, so what I want to ask you is for your feedback on the process that I'm working on applying to achieve a long-term goal of mine.
	So I'd like to start off by kind of sketching you a background of where I'm coming from.
	Go for it.
	Okay, so I'm 23 and a half years old and my goal is to be a full-time parent by the time I'm in my early 30s or sooner, if possible.
	And currently I'm working in a commission-only sales position in the financial industry.
	And to achieve my goal of being a full-time parent, my plan is to build up assets that produce passive income so I can fund living expenses for myself and my future family.
	Now, within my sales position, there is a range of prospects that I can pursue.
	And I guess fundamentally you could break them down into two categories.
	One where there's a relatively immediate gratification and then there's another category of deferred gratification prospects.
	So the immediate gratification prospects tend to be more one-off sales and the deferred gratification prospects provide me with more leverage and potentially a passive flow of business and income.
	But in any case, I have quite a lot of administrative and organizational tasks that can tend to consume my day if I'm not careful.
	So for me to succeed in this role, I need to strike a balance between the prospects that are more immediate gratification and deferred gratification because at this point I'm still I'm working towards building a better future, but I'm still living month to month and not really able to.
	Why is it one or the other?
	If you get money now, then you can invest that and get income down the road, right?
	Whereas if you get money later in a passive income, I'm not sure it's one or the other.
	No, I definitely agree, but I have to continually work for the sales that are more You know, immediate gratification and with the other, which are more like retail sales and then I also have kind of business to business sales where different companies will be sending me business and they'll be helping me in the process of getting their clients to invest with my company as well.
	And also the more business I can kind of create for the company That I'm working with, I can hire a team of salespeople that I would also be managing.
	I feel like I'm getting a bit of a resume here and I just want to make sure I understand if you can just boil the question down to something very specific.
	Congratulations on your success.
	I think that's great, but I just want to make sure I use the time wisely.
	Absolutely.
	I'll get down to the bottom line.
	So currently I'm working on Building a feedback mechanism for myself that I can use to help me evaluate my behavior on a day-to-day basis and understand the degree to which I'm making progress towards achieving my goals.
	So every day I pretty much log my daily activities both inside and outside of my job and I measure the time that I spend on the various activities.
	Sorry to interrupt you again.
	You're giving me more background and still not getting to the question.
	Right.
	Okay.
	So basically, I'm evaluating myself on a daily basis because I want to make sure my actions in the present are in alignment with my future goals.
	And the reason why I'm calling is because I've just started this within the last couple of weeks, and I heard on your...
	Sunday show from last week, the first caller.
	Towards the end of the call, you were talking about experiencing one's feelings and how you can only experience your feelings by relaxing.
	You said the minute you stand outside yourself and give yourself marks for correct or incorrect behavior is the moment you jump out of your Emotional experience and evaluate yourself as a stranger.
	You described this process as being a primitive way when it comes to being authentic.
	The metaphor you use is you can't fly a plane from outside and you can't be who you are by giving yourself points for good or bad behavior.
	So, you know, I kind of see this process as an aspect of my self-knowledge and, you know, kind of giving me data to kind of understand my behavior patterns and be able to create a more productive behavior pattern for myself.
	Sorry, why can't you rely...
	on people in your life to give you that feedback?
	Do you not have a mentor at work, or do you not have people who can give you that kind of feedback in your life?
	I do to a certain extent, but I really want to kind of take ownership for it and be personally accountable to myself.
	Well, no, but I mean, deferring to the opinions of others is not the same as not taking ownership, right?
	If I go to the doctor and the doctor says you need to do 10 jumping jacks and gives me good reasons and good science behind it, I could do the 10 jumping jacks every day or whatever is prescribed, right?
	If I get diabetes or something, I don't know the medical science behind it all, but I guess I need some insulin, right?
	And so deferring to the judgment of others is not the same as not taking ownership in fact for a lot of life taking ownership is the same as deferring to the judgment of others um you know go to my dentist and she says brush more in the back okay i'll brush more in the back or whatever i've still got my wisdom teeth so it's an exciting challenge keeping that stuff plague free but um deferring to the judgment of others is is called outsourcing i don't build
	my own ipod i don't do my own dentistry i don't I don't repair my own roof.
	I don't build my own computers.
	I rely on outsourcing for that.
	The challenge, of course, is making sure you outsource to the right people, that you hand over your trust to people who are trustworthy.
	That's what you have ownership for.
	You have ownership to make sure that the people who are giving you advice and feedback are trustworthy and have your best interest in heart and have a good methodology and aren't being selfish or self-aggrandizing or attempting to profit from from you in some nefarious way.
	So you have the responsibility to choose a good dentist or a good doctor or a good lawyer or whatever and then you have the responsibility to evaluate the advice relative to best practices and then you have a responsibility to do what they say.
	So there's huge amounts of outsourcing in the world.
	I mean, we do almost nothing for ourselves and The reality is that deferring to other people's judgment is not the same as critically evaluating yourself from the outside.
	Like, you can't fly a plane from the outside, but you can't fly a plane for very long if people aren't fixing it.
	And fixing it means not flying it, right?
	So, the pilot, if you own a plane, and we assume you're not a mechanic, then you will defer to a good mechanic to keep your plane operating so it doesn't fall out of the sky, right?
	You can't fly the plane from the outside, that's very true, but the plane can't fly if there's no division of labor, if that makes any sense.
	Sure, sure.
	One of the mentoring programs that I have pursued is through Robert Kiyosaki's company.
	He wrote Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
	One of the exercises is keeping a daily log of your actions and how you spend your time.
	I developed that as a consequence from this mentoring program.
	Okay, and what's the question?
	Again, for somebody who's into sales, you've got to get to the question, right?
	Yeah, so I'm wondering if, in your judgment, if I'm kind of...
	Setting myself up or cutting myself off from myself by trying to evaluate my behavior in this way?
	Or is there an alternative process that you employ?
	Do you mean like if keeping a log of your activities is going to be self alienating?
	Right.
	I mean, keeping a log is simply recording information.
	I don't see how that's self-alienating.
	A pilot may jot down his altitude, his airspeed, his fuel.
	That's not the same as not flying a plane.
	Certainly when you're jotting things down, you're not flying in the same way that you note down what you're doing.
	You're not actually doing anything other than noting down what you're doing.
	But I don't see that that is...
	What I'm talking about is people who jump out of themselves in a kind of panic.
	And immediately start assigning themselves or others good points for good or bad behavior and self-attacking or self-praising, self-aggrandizing based upon the results.
	I don't think the keeping a log of your activities falls into that category because there's not any kind of strenuous judgment involved in that.
	You're simply recording what you do.
	Right, right.
	And I use it more as a barometer to kind of, you know, encourage myself to say, okay, you know, I didn't do X, so what can I do to, you know, achieve that moving forward?
	Or how can I, you know, close that gap?
	Yeah, and I think that's a great idea.
	I mean, because, of course, we are drawn to do that which is pleasant, but a goodly portion of success is doing that which is unpleasant.
	And that's just the nature of the beast.
	You can't really avoid it, and I'm not sure you should.
	But a lot of success is just doing stuff that's not pleasant, right?
	So, I mean, I go and give a speech.
	I gave a speech last fall in New York.
	It was like three days of travel and being tired and all that for like 45 minutes of yada, yada, yada, right?
	I mean, the vast majority is less than...
	I mean, not the vast majority.
	A lot of success is just doing stuff that's not particularly pleasant.
	And then you have fun, right?
	I mean, for sure.
	And so I think that reminding yourself, this is sort of part of what we talked about at the beginning of the show, and I'm not putting you in this category, but, you know, that's when we're not having fun, somehow that's not good.
	No, it's actually quite good sometimes when you're not having fun.
	You know, I'm...
	I'm sorry to break it to the video game generation, but when you're not having fun is a lot of times when you're doing things that are really productive.
	Like learning how to play guitar.
	It's a significant investment.
	It hurts your fingers and it's frustrating and might hurt your back as you learn how to sit properly.
	You can hear the stuff in your head, but you can't play it.
	It's frustrating.
	So probably for the first four to six months of playing guitar, If you're working at it, you know, a couple hours a day, it's not a lot of fun and you ain't getting a whole tsunami of groupies coming into your basement, right?
	Sure.
	And then after a while, it becomes more fun.
	And so I think that, yeah, taking logs and saying, well, how much portion of the day am I investing in things that are not paying off now, that aren't fun, that will pay off in the future, I think that's, I mean, that would be one useful thing that I think would come out of it.
	Right, okay.
	I just wanted to get your feedback because that comment definitely resonated with me and it's something I'm really trying to focus on and I just wanted to run that by you.
	Yeah, I mean, I think the difference is if you say, well, I spent two hours yesterday playing video games and therefore I'm a lazy, bad person.
	That's the kind of stuff that I'm talking about.
	You just jump out of yourself and attack yourself for some choice that you've made.
	As opposed to, I spent two hours playing video games yesterday.
	It was fun, but it really wasn't adding, you know, video games don't add a whole lot to your, your capital, your human capital, right?
	You know, knowing how to frag people in slow motion, no gravity chambers is fun, don't get me wrong.
	But it does not add a lot to your human capital.
	And it's not like we've got to spend every waking moment adding to our human capital or whatever, but it is important if you want success in middle age to prepare for it when you're young.
	So I think that what you're doing sounds eminently sensible.
	I would just try and focus, if you find that you're missing your targets or your goals, to be curious about that rather than to rather than to be Angry.
	So yesterday, I took an hour and a half.
	I need to edit the documentary a little bit.
	I just noticed on re-watching it that I lost some concentration and attention for the last 10 or 15 minutes.
	So I'd like to slice some stuff out.
	So yesterday afternoon, I took a bit of time.
	And I was going to go through it and edit it.
	And I ended up sitting on the couch.
	I played a little...
	It's a fun tarot defense game on...
	I think it's on Android and Windows 8 called Radiant Defense.
	Worth checking out.
	It's a lot of fun.
	I played that for a little while and I was just like, oh, you know, it's 10 minutes or whatever.
	And then I just felt really tired.
	And so I kind of took a nap.
	And, you know, I'm still going through radiation treatment.
	So it's not, I'm not sort of, oh my God, I should have done that, you know.
	That's what I did.
	And, you know, I'll do it tonight instead.
	It's no biggie.
	It's still the weekend.
	But I think just noticing things about yourself without judgment is the first and most important thing.
	Because once you have a judgment about yourself, you're saying you have the answers.
	And when you're still in the information gathering phase, it's important to reject conclusions.
	And only once you have sufficient information can you come to conclusions.
	And self-attack is usually a way of preempting the gathering of necessary information and jumping to a conclusion, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, yeah, definitely.
	My thought process is that I use it as a means for further curiosity, directed inward towards myself, and I definitely am not using it to discipline or self-attack.
	Okay, good.
	That sounds like a wise thing to do then.
	Okay, great.
	Well, that's the only question I had, but if you could go on with more update about the documentary, I'll just listen.
	Oh, sure.
	I mean, there's not a huge amount to do.
	Unfortunately, our animator's been AWOL for a little while, doing a variety of other things and some travel.
	So we still have, I think, about 80% of the documentary.
	The visuals are complete, and by the kind generosity of Mr.
	S. Lennon and Mr.
	P. Drungle, I am now working with a fine lady who is a sound expert who is going to mesh together the Audio track, like the narrative track and the music and provide the sound effects so that we get a full audio track and we still have a little bit of animation to do depending on what I cut.
	That will cut, I think, the proportion down from 80% complete to 90% to 95% complete on the visuals and then it's just a matter of waiting for a week or two for the audio, putting the two together and, you know, shooting it over the house and hoping we hit a target.
	So I can't give you a definitive time frame because I've not worked with an I've been a sound expert before, and I'm not sure how long that's going to take.
	There may be some necessity for re-recording parts of the audio if, for whatever reason, there's any problems.
	So it's coming along, I guess, is the answer.
	All right, Mike.
	Caller von Nextyvu.
	Hi.
	Hi, Steph.
	I appreciate what you do, and I'd just like to say that I admire your work, and I love what you do to help all these people, including me.
	Well, thank you.
	That's very, very kind.
	And how can I perhaps possibly, potentially, maybe help you?
	I'm going to give you some background so you can fully understand my question.
	I'm in high school right now, and I do policy debate.
	And I'm trying to write a critique on coercion.
	And my question is, could you ever use government to destroy government?
	Go on.
	Like, in policy debate, you have to use the US government to enact a plan.
	And from that stance, I kind of need to use the USFG to, like, make itself fail in order to achieve anarchy.
	And I was wondering if that is even possible.
	Can you just, sorry, just give me a little bit more detail.
	I want to make sure I fully understand.
	So in policy debate, there's two sides, the affirmative side and the negative side.
	The affirmative side is advocating a plan based on a resolution.
	And the resolution almost always uses the USFG to enact a plan.
	USFG? Oh, federal government.
	Okay.
	And this year's topic is that the USFG should increase economic engagement with Mexico, Venezuela, and Cuba.
	Right.
	And you kind of need that paired with something else to advocate a plan.
	Right.
	So, increase economic engagement, is that the newest phrase for free trade?
	Yeah, yes.
	Right, right.
	Increase economic engagement, I like that.
	Oh, the euphemisms of the rulers.
	So, when you say use government to destroy government, I'm not sure what you mean by that.
	You mean just continue to pass laws or...
	Because, I mean, it's really around repealing laws, right?
	The problem with free trade, I mean, there was a free trade agreement some years ago, many years ago now, I guess, North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA! And it was 2,500 pages of regulations.
	Well, that's not free trade.
	Free trade is when you don't shoot people for peaceful transactions.
	That's free trade.
	And so, you know, I absolutely guarantee you, That if the government wished to allow for free trade, there would not be a law that was passed.
	There would be thousands of laws that would be repealed.
	The moment you start proposing some sort of legislation, all the jackals, hyenas, vampires, mosquitoes, and other assorted bloodsuckers attach themselves to that legislation in an attempt to gain some predatory advantage through the state over competitors.
	At the expense of customers.
	I mean, that's natural.
	That's the way it is.
	So the idea that you can pass a law to minimize government is not the way it works.
	Now, the moment you talk about repealing legislation, the process happens with the same people but exactly in reverse.
	So all the people who piled on to support the previous legislation and have adapted their business and hiring practices and where their plants are located and what skill sets they've hired and And what kind of money they've spent on lobbying and so on.
	The moment you start talking about repealing their perfectly crafted, evil, predatory piece of legislation, the exact process happens in reverse.
	And of course the internet has only made that worse, right?
	So if you attempt to repeal some protectionist, cartel-based legislation, then The companies and their PR machines go into overdrive and you are portrayed as something stinkier than Satan's sweaty armpit or something like that.
	Or if Hitler had an evil twin, that would be you.
	And because of the internet, of course, this can go far and wide and be searchable forever.
	So people...
	I mean, the internet, of course, is to some degree a big, giant bullying mechanism.
	Like I mentioned earlier in the show about how women...
	We're proposing and got a woman put on the British £10 note, Jane Austen to be precise.
	And the woman who was behind this was getting, according to her reports, about 50 death threats and rape threats per hour over Twitter to the point where they're talking about putting a report abuse button in Twitter.
	And, you know, anybody who's any kind of public figure, I mean, it's just You face this.
	Internet is a giant sociopathic bully machine for people.
	And Google, of course, has made that even more terrifying for people.
	You know, if some nutjob writes something nasty about you on the internet, then you go for your next job.
	People will Google that.
	And so in many ways, I mean, when stuff is printed in the newspaper, at least, you know, yesterday's newspaper is today's fish wrapping, right?
	It just gets thrown out and, you know, a few people might keep it as a Memento, but it's kind of done.
	Years ago, I was interviewed by the Toronto Star.
	My brother and I were interviewed about our business venture, and it was in the business section and all that kind of stuff.
	I think I still got a copy of it somewhere, but it's gone, baby gone.
	And so for politicians, it's really tough.
	If you piss off people enough and they start waging some sort of campaign against you, for philosophers, it's fine.
	In fact, it's natural if you're not Pissing off bad people, you're not doing your job as a philosopher.
	But for politicians who, of course, are much more sensitive to public opinion, it's really tough.
	So trying to undo legislation is to stir up a hornet's nest of very angry special interest groups who've already invested and adapted their business to the preferential legislation they bought and paid for at some time in the past.
	And this is why laws are almost never repealed.
	And so I don't think that you can very easily, if at all, Use the government to stop the government.
	Okay, but debate is like all theoretical, right?
	And so if the app advocates a plan, that the plan is enacted no matter what, right?
	Sorry, I don't understand that last sentence.
	If the act advocates a plan, then the plan is enacted no matter what.
	Oh, the affirmative, the aft side?
	Oh, if the aft, okay.
	So the be it resolved thing, right?
	So if the affirmative recommends a plan, then what?
	It's always passed.
	Like, it's through the power of fiat, it's passed.
	So what I was thinking that if I advocate a plan...
	The negative will always try to, well, say that the plan is bad, right?
	The disadvantage is the plan, because they want to win.
	And if they need to win, they need to show to the judge that the plan is bad.
	So what I... Well, sorry, hang on, hang on.
	Because bad has got two connotations.
	Bad like impractical?
	Oh, no, like...
	Or bad like immoral?
	The app advocates a plan in order to stop an impact.
	Usually the impact is either loss of value of life or extinction.
	What?
	What the hell are we talking about nuclear war for?
	I thought we were talking about trade.
	Well, like this.
	The app says that the plan must pass in order to avoid economic decline, right?
	And economic decline always leads to war.
	And then they use evidence from multiple authors showing that economic decline leads to nuclear war, which leads to extinction.
	Right, right.
	Okay.
	Okay, so if our plan doesn't go forward to reform trade, Then all life on the world ends.
	Yeah, it's like all theoretically.
	I mean, that's pretty hysterical, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, what are these people working for the IPCC? Anyway.
	Well, I mean, just again, the beginning of wisdom, as Confucius says, is to call things by their proper names.
	And I mean, the way that you oppose it, I would say, is I'm not particularly comfortable shooting people for peaceful exchange of value.
	I'm just not for it.
	So whatever they're talking about in terms of enhancing trade between Canada and Mexico, basically they're talking about just pulling out guns and forcing people to obey their will, and those people are peaceful.
	All they're doing is trading.
	And, you know, back in the day, this is when I guess people had a bit more...
	took the Constitution slightly more seriously.
	There was...
	A proposal to send charity or aid to France, because the French were trying to piss off the British by supporting the American revolutionaries, which is why the French people all privately got together to pay for the Statue of Liberty.
	And so France and America had this sort of special relationship long before the Freedom Fries incident.
	And there was some charity, some charitable money that was supposed to be sent to France during a time of distress, perhaps the Probably during the French Revolution.
	And I can't remember one of the founding fathers, I think it was Ben Franklin, could have been somebody else, said, unfortunately, I cannot lay my finger on the line of the Constitution that permits Congress to send charitable monies to other countries.
	And in this way, it was defeated because they're like, well, we have these principles and we have these rules and, you know, there's nothing that justifies what it is that we plan.
	And that's, you know, whether this is apocryphal or not, I don't know.
	But there is, you know, I mean, economics has become so distorted in the U.S. that a man can be prosecuted for growing his own vegetables under the interstate commerce clause because if he grows his own vegetables, he will affect, like he has less demand for whatever he's growing, which might come from another state and therefore it has an impact on interstate commerce.
	And, I mean, that's just how mad it is and how ridiculous it is.
	But fundamentally, and this is The principle that I would argue for is that let's talk about what we're talking about when we're talking about managed trade or government rules or whatever it is.
	We're talking about pointing guns at people who are acting peacefully.
	Now, we don't need any new laws to punish people for acting violently because those laws already exist and have for hundreds of years.
	So we clearly are not talking about Creating laws to punish violent people, those laws already exist in significance and perhaps overabundance.
	So we are talking about initiating violence against peaceful people.
	People who simply want to trade sweaters for pesos or electronics for dollars or whatever it is.
	People who, with their own consequences and of their own volition and of their own If economic interests wish to trade peacefully with others, whatever rules we come up with are going to be interfering with that peaceful process using violence.
	The rape of trade is the foundation of the state and I can't in good conscience recommend the initiation of force against peacefully trading people and therefore this resolution, if it passes, will simply add to The evils that the government is already doing, it further violates the principle that peaceful people should not be aggressed against, and it will further destroy wealth.
	And that is...
	I mean, that's practically illogical.
	The moment that you use force to alter free trade, you are automatically destroying choice and wealth.
	Because in the absence of force, whoever's trading must be trading because they believe, That the trade is mutually beneficial.
	It is the best they can do to achieve their goals, happiness, wealth, whatever, you name it.
	But the moment the force is entered into it, it becomes a win-lose, and it is no longer to the benefit of both parties.
	We understand this when it comes to sex.
	If two people voluntarily have sex, that's what they want to do.
	And they imagine it will add to their life's happiness and the wet spots on the bed in the moment.
	But the moment you introduce force into sexuality, you have rape, and therefore it is win-lose.
	And the rape of free trade Cannot be allowed to continue and we should be repealing laws, not passing them.
	Right, but couldn't you pass the plan but just concede that the plan causes econ decline and then pair that with de-development?
	But it doesn't cause economic decline for everyone.
	That's the whole point of law.
	Yeah, but passing a law means the government has to spend money, which means stimulus spending causes a huge deficit, which causes economic decline, right?
	Wait, sorry, I'm sort of missing the point here.
	So to pass a law, the government has to spend money, is that right?
	Yeah, because we're increasing economic engagement.
	But that's not true.
	No, but that's not true.
	Because the government has no money to spend.
	Well, like taxpayer money.
	I think a significant portion of government spending is debt and money printing, right?
	And selling of bonds and all that kind of stuff, right?
	Right.
	The government doesn't have to have money in order to spend money.
	It just borrows or prints or sells bonds or whatever, right?
	And also, the people who are making the decisions are not spending their own money.
	See, the moment you start saying stuff, and it's annoying to nitpick in this way, but it is important.
	The moment you start saying stuff like, the government spends money, you make it sound like a person spending his own money.
	Right?
	Like, the government has some sort of financial incentive to not spend money.
	Well, the government would rather save money than spend it, right?
	Right.
	Because, like, you know, the government...
	It's to equate the government with a person.
	And the government doesn't spend money, right?
	And politicians find it enormously advantageous to pass laws because passing laws means that business people who otherwise wouldn't give these shysters the time of day or maybe a dime in the goddamn iron cup that they should be selling pencils out on a goddamn street corner, businesses then flock to Washington to take interest in these narcissistic sociopaths Who otherwise would have no business in business.
	And so the fact that government wields this power is why politicians get donations and why politicians get any kind of attention at all.
	And so it is a wonderful gig for these nasty buggers, right?
	Right.
	It doesn't cost them anything.
	In fact, it adds to their wealth.
	The Clintons make millions and millions and millions of dollars a year.
	How is the government not...
	Massively advantageous to them.
	But do you think that the government will continue to exist?
	Like, forever?
	Well, the government doesn't exist now, right?
	The government doesn't exist now.
	Yeah, the group of people who, like, ruined the country, I mean.
	No, no.
	I mean, of course not in the long run.
	In the long run, it's a ridiculous concept that's only maintained through propaganda and fear.
	No, I mean, the government as a whole...
	Can't last in the long run.
	I mean, all governments are fundamentally communistic, and communism doesn't last, and governments regularly collapse all throughout the world.
	And after a while, like eventually, eventually, eventually, people, either through being raised better or more rationally or more peacefully or whatever, or they just finally get it.
	You know, it took human beings like 100,000 years to get that slavery was wrong.
	And they finally got it.
	It shifted to another kind of form, but it's still better.
	I'd rather be a fiat slave than a cotton slave.
	But eventually, people will get that this is evil and unnecessary.
	Eventually.
	Eventually, they will get it.
	You know, it took a few thousand years, maybe a hundred thousand years for people to get the child sacrifices wrong.
	Circumcision is finally being recognized as the evil that it is.
	The rates dropped from over 50% To 30% change in a year.
	So people do eventually get it and at some point people will get that the state is simply going to be a repetition of entirely predictable catastrophe.
	And people will get it and will be bored of it.
	The way you escape dysfunction fundamentally is you process it and experience it to the point where it becomes boring.
	I had snappy people in my life and negative people in my life.
	Once I began to really process their experiences and responses, what finally freed me was just, it's boring.
	It's boring to see people do stimulus response in the same way over and over and over again.
	It's like expecting the state to turn out differently is like watching a movie hoping for a different ending.
	And once people get that it's going to be the same That it's boring, that it's predictable, that statism is so boring.
	Oh yes, the taller politician wins and the smoother politician wins and they smile and they're charming and they lie and everything they promise is the exact opposite of what they provide and every promise made for a government program is the exact opposite of what is provided and they don't have any money and they steal and they borrow and they lie.
	I mean, this dysfunction, can we not just get bored of it already?
	Is it not so ridiculously predictable?
	Let's go look back at my old videos about when Obama was elected.
	It's all so predictable.
	There's nothing genius about it.
	It's all so boring and also predictable.
	You know, so like with my relationships, I'll be like, oh, well, if I bring up this topic, people will get upset.
	It's so boring.
	It's so boring.
	People who are just machines of reaction, it's really, really unbelievably dull.
	Right, so you're saying that all government or all countries will eventually collapse and then everybody will just somehow evolve into this greater state?
	No, I mean, it's not that they'll collapse.
	It would just be outgrown.
	It would just be outgrown.
	I mean, between a quarter and a third of the world's economy has nothing to do with government.
	It's all black market or grey market stuff.
	And people operate like there's no government all over the place.
	All over the place.
	Now, they're hiding from the government and they don't lack the openness and transparency which a free society would provide and still it works quite well.
	I mean, there's huge amounts of the society that don't have anything to do with the government.
	I mean, other than paying the bastards off, what do I have to do with the government?
	Nothing.
	And so, you know, you raise your children well and they won't want to become politicians and they won't be scared of other people and there'll be far fewer criminals, if any.
	And so, you know, People would come and try and scare them into surrendering themselves to the powers that be.
	You need a government, otherwise everything would be anarchy!
	Yes, it would be!
	Which is the exact opposite of what people think it means, peace and order.
	Or people would come along and say, well, you need the government because who will care for the poor?
	Well, you know, there really aren't there many poor people around anymore because kids aren't raised, brutalized, and stripped of potential reasoning, negotiation, and fundamental human capital.
	Well, you need the invasion from other countries.
	Well, you know, it's Canada.
	How dangerous is it around here and, you know, how well have governments protected people from wars, say, throughout the 20th century or even into the 21st?
	Well, you see, there are all these criminals and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	You know, I mean, there really aren't that many criminals around.
	And if you say you've got to take 50% of my income by force to protect them from people who might one day take some portion of my income by force, I think I would take my chances with the unknown potential minor evil than an immediate catastrophic, for certain evil.
	And so they'll just try and scare you with stuff.
	And our superstitions wear out, particularly with science, reason, philosophy, the internet, this show to some degree.
	Our superstitions wear out.
	There are probably some people in the world, probably quite a few people in the world, who would be interested in demonic possession insurance.
	If you are accosted by a demon, by a Jezebel, a Beelzebub, we will pay for every exorcism that you require to free yourself of this unholy spirit.
	Yes, we will, brother.
	Sign on the dotted line.
	People are like, yeah.
	Shit, I guess I could get a demonic possession, so I'd really better sign this, right?
	But one name you probably won't see on the signature line is, say, Richard Dawkins or Michael Shermer or Peter Boghossian or any of the other people who Sam Harris probably is not going to sign up for a lot of demonic possession insurance.
	And the promises for protection from evil made by the state are even worse and more ridiculous and more irrational than the promises to keep you safe from demonic possession made by religion or the demonic possession insurance company.
	Deep it.
	Deep it.
	And so at some point, people would just see through this superstition and they will say, well, no.
	I mean, this protection money, everybody knows when the mafia comes around and offers to protect you, they're protecting you from themselves.
	You're paying them to not.
	I mean, this is...
	And everybody knows that.
	They may still pay, but they don't They don't say it's good.
	And it's the same thing with the state.
	People will just get it.
	They'll just understand it.
	And there will be enough.
	Like, the state has to hide all the massive functionality of the gray and black markets from you because they are a repudiation of the necessity for a state.
	I mean, if a quarter or a third of the world's economy runs anti-state, runs under the radar of the state, and is, in fact, one of the least violent aspects of the economy, if you count the military-industrial complex, which is entirely state-state, Funded and state-regulated and state-approved, well, they have to hide that from you, but people will see it more and more.
	And, I mean, it will just outgrow it.
	And it happens very quickly.
	And you can't believe how quickly this stuff can happen.
	Circumcision is ending, like in a generation.
	And it's the same thing with foot binding.
	I mean, this horrible process that the Chinese women went through in the 19th century to Grind their feet back into their heels and so on.
	Literally in one generation it just stopped.
	And the same thing will be true of the state.
	It will end in a generation, not for a couple of generations, but it will.
	Because it would just be unbelievable and the moral reality of what it is will be so clear.
	And people will no longer be interested in liars.
	I mean, they just won't be interested in liars any more than you'll find Sam Harris at front cheering some religious ritual in the South where they're pretending to heal somebody in a wheelchair.
	Like, he just doesn't believe and it doesn't go.
	And when politicians start talking and everybody just starts yawning and making like bleh, bleh, bleh, bleh with their fingers noises, yeah, this is just some guy who's lying to us to take our stuff.
	You know, take it elsewhere, you fear-mongering sociopath.
	Well, Then it will all be done.
	And one last question.
	Steph, do you think that life is a prerequisite for morality?
	Do I think that life is a prerequisite?
	You have to be a bit more precise.
	Do you mean human life?
	Yes, human life.
	You mean can dead people be moral?
	Kind of.
	If you were to weigh it, would you weigh extinction over a society of fully bad people?
	Which one is worse?
	Why?
	I mean, fully bad people, I don't even know what that means.
	Like sadistic?
	No, no, I understand what bad people, but I'm not sure what...
	I mean, such a world couldn't exist.
	Because bad people prey on good people, right?
	The unproductive prey upon the productive.
	So a society full of evil people would starve.
	Somebody has to produce something in order for people to steal it, right?
	The economy has to produce wealth in order for the government to tax it.
	So you're basically saying, if there were no gazelles, only lions, would that be a preferable situation?
	Well, the lions would eat each other and then die.
	So I don't think there can be any such thing.
	Sorry?
	Well, aren't all humans innately sadistic?
	Aren't all humans innately sadistic?
	I don't know what that means.
	What does innately sadistic mean?
	Basically that all humans want or have a desire to see people in pain.
	Do you feel that way?
	Well, I think we all feel that way because...
	No, no.
	Do you feel that way?
	Don't hide behind this general people thing.
	Do you feel that way?
	Do I feel that I'm sadistic?
	Yeah.
	Do you enjoy seeing people in pain?
	Does it make you happy?
	I enjoy seeing people...
	I enjoy there being a problem.
	That's not...
	That's not the definition of sadism.
	It's of enjoying problems.
	Life's the problem to be solved.
	There are always problems.
	Do you enjoy...
	I mean, you've got these statements of universality, but you're part of those statements, right?
	So do you enjoy watching people in pain?
	Well, to have a problem, you need someone in pain, right?
	This is a yes-no question.
	This is philosophy 101, right?
	You make a statement about the human race.
	You include yourself.
	So if you...
	Enjoy seeing people in pain, then it's possible that that statement is true.
	If you do not enjoy seeing people in pain, if you're not sadistic, then the statement is clearly false and arises for psychological reasons, right?
	So do you enjoy seeing people in pain?
	Are you a sadist?
	Yes.
	Okay, so what pain do you enjoy seeing people?
	What do you enjoy seeing inflicted on people?
	Well...
	In movies, right?
	There is no movie ever made that doesn't have a problem, right?
	No, so you're backing away from this.
	I'm asking you, in your personal life, what pain do you see in people or being inflicted on people that you like, that makes you happy, that makes you giggle, that makes you...
	Well, it's not really the pain.
	It's really the resolution of the pain.
	Do you know what sadism means?
	Yes.
	Well, then what are you talking about all this stuff for?
	Well...
	Thadists don't enjoy the resolution of pain.
	They enjoy pain!
	Well, there must always be...
	Well, there always has to be pain in order to be redeemed from it, right?
	I don't know what you're talking about.
	So problems are inevitable, right?
	Problems are inevitable?
	Okay.
	I don't know what that exactly means, but yes, there's lots of problems in life.
	Okay.
	And so...
	Problems are inevitable.
	So if somebody wanted a utopia in which no problems existed, nobody would ever want to be in that utopia, right?
	Where no problems existed, right?
	Okay, so if we had a life like heaven, where there's no problems whatsoever.
	Yes, would you want to live in an anarchist world?
	Huge numbers of people want to live in paradise.
	Massive numbers of people want to live in paradise.
	That's the foundation of the promise made by most of the major world's religions.
	Well, most people think that they want to live in paradise, but they wouldn't actually really.
	What does that mean?
	You're just telling people that they're wrong in their desires.
	Well, there's no statistic on that, right?
	I don't know.
	The whole point is that paradise, by definition, is what you want.
	Right?
	So, if I was religious, I would argue to say, You only think that problems are necessary because you live in a body.
	Once you live in a soul in heaven, you don't have the need for problems or for problem solving, and therefore you're incorrect.
	Well, that's because they think that paradise or if they do the good things in life, it's inevitable, right?
	If they can't really choose, they are told what heaven is what it is.
	They don't have to choose, right?
	Again, I'm not sure what you're talking about.
	They don't have to choose.
	If they could choose from paradise without any problems or paradise with everyday problems, they would probably choose paradise without everyday problems, right?
	It's just that they can't choose the paradise they want.
	No, they would assume paradise is the promise that everything is going to be blissful and as happy as it can possibly be.
	Paradise may be different for different people.
	I don't know.
	It doesn't matter.
	But the point is that whatever is going to make you the happiest as an immaterial soul, that is what paradise is.
	It is a promise of perfect bliss which cannot be evaluated according to mortal earthbound considerations.
	Whatever it is that is going to make you the happiest you've ever been in your life, that's going to go on forever.
	That's what paradise is.
	Attempting to apply restrictions or earthly concerns or mortal concerns has nothing to do with it.
	It is a perfect orgasmic moment of bliss that goes on forever, whatever that is, and we don't know what that is because we're mortal and this is an immaterial plane where the soul lives with other souls in the presence of the divine grace of God.
	And so you cannot bring earthly considerations to what paradise looks like, but it is something that motivates people enormously, because a life of perfect bliss is considered to be the ideal, and that is what is promised, and that is what people want.
	So yes, it is a utopia that people desperately want.
	You can say, well, that utopia is unreal, but we're talking about non-earthly, non-temporal, non-mortal considerations.
	And so whatever you think, It's necessary for happiness in this world has nothing to do with what happiness is in the next.
	Well, what I'm saying is that that utopia, well obviously it's not real, but that utopia is the utopia defined by priests.
	It's not the utopia that they necessarily want if they question it further.
	Yeah, again, you're really dodging the question.
	So in your own personal life, what suffering do you like to see in other people?
	It's not the suffering, it's the redemption.
	Okay, so it's the cessation of suffering, which is not sadism.
	If you enjoy seeing the cessation of suffering, that's not sadism.
	Sadism is enjoying the suffering and inflicting the suffering often.
	Because if you enjoy people being redeemed from suffering, then you agree that suffering must be inevitable, as Nietzsche put it out.
	Well, I don't know about that.
	I mean, if I'm a doctor and I enjoy curing people, I guess that happiness is dependent upon people being sick, but people will always be sick.
	Right.
	Or they'll need care as they age or whatever, right?
	And if we end up being immortal...
	And if you had to pick between a world that problems never happened or a world where problems very little happened or very rarely happened, which one would you pick?
	I mean, what do I care?
	I mean, I live in the world that I live in.
	Which alternate universe would I like to live in?
	I've got more important fish to fry in my life than trying to imagine What kind of alternative universe I might like to live in that will never come to pass?
	You know, would you like to ride a unicorn?
	I'm sorry, I'm busy.
	I've got really important stuff to do with my life, and really indulging in these theoreticals is sort of pointless, right?
	So, I hope that you've amended your statement that human beings actually enjoy seeing the cessation of suffering, which means they're benevolent rather than sadistic.
	Right, right, right.
	Thank you for that.
	You're welcome.
	I think that's an important thing.
	Because if you think that human beings are sadistic, then you are surrounded by evil.
	And evil, which is not even evil because it is inevitable and unavoidable.
	And if the exact opposite is true, that human beings by their nature enjoy seeing the cessation of suffering, that's a more benevolent, though still false, universe to live in.
	The reality is that you cannot say anything about human nature of any consequence.
	You cannot say anything about human nature of any consequence other than perhaps to say that human nature is adaptable.
	It's like saying, what shape is water?
	What shape is water?
	Well, outside the H2O world, the shape of water is, well, whatever container it's poured into, whatever container it currently inhabits, whatever space it is currently moving through.
	Water vapor has a different shape from the ocean, and rain has a different shape from a puddle.
	Trying to define human nature is like trying to define the shape of water.
	Human nature adapts to one thing in an Islamic country, it adapts to another thing in an atheist socialist country, it adapts to another thing at different points throughout history.
	Human nature is nothing but adaptable, which is why the environment is so important to making a better world.
	And so I would try to avoid Making statements about human nature as a whole other than to say that it's adaptable because that is simply to remove whatever you say about human nature in its fundamental sense is directly oppositional to that which is most helpful to improving the world which is to change the environment and therefore change what is It's called human nature, right?
	If you don't like the shape of the water, pour it into a different container and your problem is solved.
	But if you think that water has some innate shape, there's no point changing containers, i.e.
	improving the environment or changing the environment.
	And, you know, human beings for the most part are sailing boats.
	They follow the wind.
	Right.
	So humans respond to incentives, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	All right.
	Thank you.
	Alright, you're welcome.
	And thank you, everybody, for a wonderful show.
	I really appreciate it.
	And thanks again, Mike, for his morning ablutions before the altar of philosophy that we all share.
	I really appreciate that, too.
	If you would like to help out...
	Oh, it's been a grim morning.
	Actually, it's been a grim two days for donations, so if you could help out, I hugely appreciate it.
	FDRURL.com forward slash donate.
	We massively...
	Appreciate it.
	And thanks to everyone who's written to say that they're no longer going to circumcise their kids if and when they have them or even for those who said a kid on the way is on the way.
	I'm not going to circumcise.
	That is a pretty damn fine day's work.
	And I really appreciate your trust, your time, your attention, your support.
	Have yourselves a wonderful week.
	Don't forget, Wednesday night, 8 p.m.
	Eastern Standard Time, we...
	We'll be talking further.
	And if you want to bring more specific philosophy questions to that interaction, I'd appreciate that.
	Have a great week, everyone.
	Thanks again so much.

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