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Oct. 17, 2013 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:46:31

2509 The Subjectivity of Price - Wednesday Call In Show October 16th, 2013

Female morality, knowledge creates responsibility, failure to launch, who benefits from your failure, helping abused children, facts as authority, the subjectivity of price and the reality of win-win situations.

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	Hi everybody, Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Aid Radio, coming fresh off the heels of an appearance on the My Picture Show.
	Soon up, Dancing with the Stars.
	Anyway, Mike, who've we got?
	Alright, Karma, you're up first today.
	Hi, Steph.
	It's great to be here with you.
	Well, nice to chat with you too, Karma.
	How are you doing?
	I'm doing great.
	I... I guess first wanted to tell you kudos for this show tonight.
	This interview was really great.
	You hit the nail on the head with the shutdown, of course, and definitely got a good chance to You know, spread philosophy and reason and logic on that show.
	I definitely think it was productive.
	And as well as with the debate with Peter Joseph.
	I just am amazed at how well you handle...
	I don't know how to describe people like that.
	I'm the worst with debates when it comes to...
	You know, just people...
	To just pump out the ad hominems like that.
	I was just definitely impressed with your skills.
	Well, thank you.
	I appreciate that.
	Yeah, I appreciate that.
	I mean, I always try to start off well, but I've never been a turn-the-other-cheek kind of guy.
	I mean, I think if people are not...
	Acting in an honorable manner, I think it's okay.
	And also my standards progressively deteriorate as other people's standards deteriorate too, which I think is quite right.
	You know, I mean, if you're in a fight and people are obeying the Queensbury rules, then fantastic.
	And if they don't, well, then I guess we go where they go, right?
	So I think that's a reasonable approach to have.
	So it is interesting, of course, that Peter Joseph and his ilk You know, on the Venus, somebody pointed this out on the message board forum, that on the Venus Project website, there is their dedication to non-violent forms of communication.
	I don't think piece of shit and douchebag and con man, all the stuff that he called me.
	I think he might want to reread his own mission statement because I think he may have just deviated from the non-violent communication approach.
	Just a smidgen.
	But I'm not expecting that to ship to right itself anytime soon.
	So I guess we'll just leave that one 360 in the rear view.
	But anyway, what's on your mind tonight?
	Well, all we can do is plant seeds, right?
	And you definitely hit a nerve, so obviously.
	But I think, you know, you stuck with the facts.
	You didn't take anything personally, and that's, I guess, what I find myself having a hard time doing when it comes to debate and all of that stuff.
	Oh, so you think the ad hominems are sort of about you kind of thing?
	About me?
	I don't know.
	I think that I just get...
	I don't know.
	Before I took my logic, my intro to logic class a few years ago, for me, debate was always...
	I didn't understand the fallacies for a long time and how people use them in debate to skip or...
	Trip people up kind of thing.
	And I think that's what I have had a hard time with for a long time.
	And I just try to...
	I don't know.
	I just try to not debate with people and listen to other people's ideas.
	But I don't know.
	I think that...
	I think that you're really good at what you do, and that's definitely why I enjoy listening to your podcast so much, for sure.
	And you did great with Peter Joseph.
	You hit the nail on the head with him on every point.
	I thought what was interesting about that...
	His whole issue is he kept saying, you're not addressing my root issue.
	You're not addressing my root issue.
	But he wasn't even listening to anything you were saying.
	You did address his root issue.
	It's just his root issue was invalid.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I mean, like you pretty much explained to him in detail why the basis of his whole argument was just like jello.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I mean, I think that things certainly went a bit, started going a bit south when he said, I said he used the term anarcho-capitalism and I said, you know, for those who don't know, this is what it means, right?
	Because I'm not trying to preach to the choir.
	I'm hoping that that debate will go wider and if people don't understand terms at the beginning.
	So the first thing I did when he used a term that most people would not be familiar with is I defined it.
	And do you remember what he said?
	Was that at the very beginning of the conversation?
	Yeah, right at the beginning.
	He was always like, I don't know what you mean by that.
	No, no.
	He said, well, I'm just, I'm going to continue and assume that everyone is already familiar with everything I'm talking about kind of thing, right?
	And it's like, why would you bother doing that?
	I mean, you want to make things clear to people who don't already know what you're talking about.
	That's the whole point of being a teacher.
	Yeah, you know, thinking about a student.
	About a what?
	Sure.
	You know what everybody says about assume, so it's not...
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	And ask that if you and me, so...
	Yeah, it's not usually the wisest idea.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I mean, I think it is really important to try and talk to people in a way that really helps them to understand things.
	I mean, it is not very helpful to use a lot of jargon that people don't understand when you want to convince people how to be good.
	You know, that's like a nutritionist using the Latin phrase for everything.
	Like, why would you?
	Unless you just want to be above those people, like, intellectually.
	That's what it seems like to me he's trying to do.
	Yeah, I mean, again, this isn't particularly about Peter Joseph, but I think it's really important to boil things down to stuff that is digestible by people as a whole.
	And, I don't know, maybe he's not had Kids, but I think it would be an amusing sketch to have Peter Joseph attempt to explain the Zeitgeist movement to a four-year-old.
	I mean, I can explain my philosophy to a four-year-old because I have a four-year-old.
	I can explain the non-aggression principle.
	I can explain property rights.
	I mean, she gets all of those, right?
	My daughter has these little toy kitties that she just loves, and she earns them basically by giving up prior toys to other children, like toys that she doesn't really use anymore.
	We donate them to other kids.
	And so she gets these kiddies, which she just loves.
	Anyway, so a friend of hers was over and she left her.
	She normally would put the kiddies away because she doesn't want other kids to play with them.
	And the kiddies were all out on a chair.
	And the other kid was like, ooh, kitties, you know, starts moving towards them.
	And my daughter literally ran across the room and threw herself spread-eagled on top of her kitties to make sure that the other – she's okay sharing other toys, but they're her precious kitties, right?
	And so the story was she told the kid, she said, look, my kitties are not well.
	And they're highly contagious.
	And so it's really important not to play with them so that...
	And of course, she wasn't lying.
	She knew she was making a story and all that kind of stuff.
	But boy, you don't have to explain property rights to her.
	And the non-aggression principle, she's really down with UPB. She gets the whole thing.
	So, you know, it is a real challenge to explain sophisticated concepts to a general population.
	But I think that's the real challenge.
	Like, I'd love to see how...
	Someone like Peter Joseph would explain the reverse neo-continuum fallacy of undergarments or whatever the hell it was to a four-year-old or the structure of violence to a four-year-old.
	But if you can't, and I'm not saying everyone has the intellect of a four-year-old, but if you can explain it to a four-year-old, then that is some pretty amazing stuff.
	I know after this call, my daughter is going to We want to know everything about what we talked about.
	And so I have the challenge of translating what we talk about to someone who's four.
	And that is a really great challenge, a really important challenge.
	But I think if you really want to...
	I mean, I was explaining to her the theory of relativity the other day.
	And I mean, I'm still kind of fuzzy about it, right?
	But she kind of gets...
	She doesn't obviously understand the concepts, neither do I really, like the math or anything like that.
	Just the idea of what happens at high speeds and all that gravity well bending light.
	All of that stuff, if you can do that, that's a very interesting challenge.
	I think stuff I had to explain to her when she was two and three was also really interesting and really challenging.
	I just think that's an important exercise for people to go through.
	Anyway, let's move on if you have a specific question.
	I totally agree.
	Well, I mean...
	I guess I do have a question about your show, about the lady that drove her car into the cops or whatever in D.C. And you did the little clip about...
	Just, I guess, about your frustration with, you know, the media spin on that whole thing about the hormones and how they always try to demonize women, basically, or not demonize them, but...
	Excuse.
	I mean, to me, that's kind of a demonization, but it's also, on the other hand, an excuse.
	They're all just crazy anyway, so...
	You know, why take them seriously as human beings?
	Yeah, and I mean, it's so ridiculously imprecise, right?
	So postpartum depression does not create violence, right?
	It does not create aggression.
	It does not create panic.
	I mean, it's depression.
	Depressed people are not violent.
	You know, they have trouble getting off the couch.
	And what they could say is postpartum psychosis, but postpartum psychosis does not last for a year or two.
	I think the kid was 18 months or something like that.
	Postpartum psychosis is very brief.
	Now, that can provoke violence.
	So people were just grabbing whatever they could out of the ether to apply it to this woman.
	And I think it's premature.
	Yeah, definitely.
	And that's the issue with today.
	I think we have very serious issues with our mental health services in America today.
	And I personally...
	My biological father was, well, he died a homeless man on the streets of LA, you know, alcoholic, Vietnam vet.
	And he was also, prior to that, You know, severely abused as a child by his stepfather, you know, pretty much beat daily.
	And then, you know, around 13 or whatever, he asks why does he get beat and not the other kids, his brothers and sisters.
	And that's when he finds out that this guy is not his real dad and that it's his stepdad because he tells them it's, you know, because you're not my kid.
	You know, it was just a horrible...
	Way for him to find that out.
	And then he goes into the military and goes to Vietnam.
	So I just, for me, how can we as a society expect people like that to be productive members of society?
	I mean, that just blows my mind.
	I don't think we can.
	I mean, I don't think we can.
	I don't think we can.
	I mean, I'm so sorry about what happened to your father at every level.
	It's awful.
	It's terrible.
	I mean, boy, I mean, you really couldn't design a system that would be more likely or an experience or a set of experiences that would be more likely to end up with your father the way he was.
	And, you know, this gem-like, beautiful, white, ethereal flame of a human soul snuffed out so early in life, put through such wretched amounts of violence and then participation in violence in the war.
	I mean, it's hard to even imagine how he could have had a chance.
	Really, and that's to me when I see these These situations with these people, you know, going through this psychosis, all these lone gunman scenarios, you know, the lady in D.C., the shooter on the military base, Sandy Hook, Aurora, Colorado, Columbine.
	I mean, it just goes on and on.
	When are we going to realize that I feel we as a society do have a moral responsibility to give some sort of better mental health services than what we're providing?
	I mean, obviously, it's lacking because more money goes into the military industrial complex than it does for our mental health services.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Yeah.
	And I mean, this issue of excuses, I mean, and just to deal with the mental health stuff in a sec, but just to sort of point out the disparity because this video did confuse some people.
	But this woman immediately gets excused up the yin yang, right?
	I mean, for what she did, right?
	Postpartum, she was confused, she panicked, she, you know, maybe her GPS got broken.
	Like, just immediately people are rushing to excuse her and so on.
	Now, if you look at her actions where she basically put a child into a hail of gunfire, a baby into a hail of gunfire, this is certainly something which could be suspect.
	She obviously had mental health problems, obviously.
	Well, I don't know.
	I don't know.
	I don't know.
	I don't know whether she had mental health problems.
	I don't know what she did.
	I mean, some people have mental health problems because they continually do bad things.
	I mean like some people have heart problems because they have bad genetics and some people have heart problems because they sit around for 20 years eating potato chips, right?
	So I don't know.
	I have no idea.
	Maybe she'd been mean to people.
	I mean obviously she had a bad childhood I would guess but you know that doesn't determine anything in particular.
	I mean certainly there's still free will for the most part.
	Maybe she'd just been really mean.
	People look at my own mom and say, well, you know, this poor woman, she's obviously not all there and this and that and the other.
	Well, maybe it is entirely genetic.
	I doubt it.
	But she was also a really mean and vicious person for most of her life.
	And that drove good people away from her.
	So she didn't have social support.
	She didn't have social networks.
	It drove me away from her.
	And so does she have no choice in the matter?
	Did she never have a choice?
	I know she had a choice.
	I know that there were times where she felt bad about what she did and I know there were times when she made vows to do better.
	And I'm just not willing to strip free will from people who don't have obvious brain injuries or obvious brain trauma or a brain disease or something like that.
	I'm not willing.
	I don't know what the answer is.
	So compare the excuses that were generated for this woman compared to what the media thinks of, say, John Boner, the guy who, I guess up until today, was standing up against Obamacare and was leading the charge to refuse to raise the debt ceiling and so on.
	Well, he was called evil, nasty, monstrous, and so on, right?
	Yeah.
	So, I mean, why can't he be suffering from depression or mental health issues or anxiety and be excused from his behavior, right?
	Why does he get this complete get out of jail?
	Why does he get condemned by everyone in the media, or at least lots of people in the media, whereas this other woman who puts a baby in a hail of bullets way is immediately excused?
	Anyway, I just want people to have a consistent standard.
	If someone does something you don't like, Then just immediately stop making up excuses for it.
	And why isn't that a consistent standard?
	I get...
	I think I get what you're saying on that anyway.
	In other shows, you've talked about how everybody has forces that have shaped them, right?
	And you were talking about how it's not really status fault, but they're status because it's all they've ever been taught.
	Yeah, and that's why when we spread philosophy, we are spreading responsibility.
	We are spreading moral accountability.
	I mean, if all you've ever known is hitting your kids, I mean, you do have the experience of having been hit as a kid.
	I can't imagine people who were never spanked end up as spankers.
	So you have that self-empathy to recognize how terrible it was.
	But I have more sympathy to people who've never been exposed to any arguments to the contrary.
	It's becoming a little less believable these days because it's been 50, 60 years since it's been pretty roundly opposed in lots of parenting literature.
	Yeah, and certainly with the internet now, it's been 20 years, the internet's had some real force in society and so on.
	But yeah, so people resist.
	They don't want you to tell them stuff because then they have a responsibility that they didn't have before.
	This is one of the reasons why people avoid knowledge and why people avoid philosophers in philosophy.
	It creates a moral muscle that wasn't there before that people have responsibilities that they didn't have before.
	But, you know, I mean, anyone who claims that they know something good about how to raise human beings or what's good for society and so on, you know, sorry, you've now just put yourself in position of being a doctor.
	I mean, you're a self-proclaimed expert, not you, but someone who does that is a self-proclaimed expert on how children should be raised and how society should be run and how we should help the poor, the sick, and so on.
	Okay, well, fine.
	So now you're putting yourself in position, you're hanging out your shingle as a doctor.
	Well, do you know what doctors do?
	They go to medical school.
	They go to weekend trainings.
	They have to read the latest journals.
	They are regularly tested by their boards and by their certifying agencies and so on.
	And so they really have to study and know stuff.
	And so I just think that how society is run is even more important than how people are doctored because how society is run It includes how people are doctored and so many other things.
	So my sort of issue is if people want to put themselves out as how society should be run and how children should be raised and so on, then do the research.
	Otherwise, you are a fraud because you're putting opinions out about how things should be with no knowledge or research about how things should be.
	That is very toxic.
	That's willful ignorance, really, which is the worst kind of ignorance.
	Sorry, it's not quite willful ignorance.
	I'm willfully ignorant on how to do a tracheotomy.
	I'm sure I could figure it out.
	I'm willfully ignorant.
	I'm not studying it.
	But you know what?
	I don't try to do tracheotomies.
	I'm willfully ignorant on how to pull a tooth in a pain-free way so I don't go around pulling people's teeth.
	But the moment people start talking about how society should be run, And how children should be raised, then they are claiming expertise in some essential, essential areas of life.
	More important than doctoring, more important than physics, more, right?
	I mean, if I claimed I knew everything about physics and then it turned out I'd never cracked open a physics book, then people would call me a retarded bullshit artist.
	You know, however nicely they might put it, they would, you know, just say, well, you know, it's completely full of shit, right?
	Sorry.
	And you're a fraud and so on, right?
	So the people, people who put themselves forward As knowledgeable, need to be cross-examined on their level of expertise.
	This is exactly what Socrates did, right?
	As you probably know the story, he went to the oracle at Delphi and he asked the oracle at Delphi, who's the wisest man?
	And the oracle said to Socrates, well, you are the wisest man, my dear Socrates.
	And Socrates said, well, that can't be the case.
	I don't know anything.
	I mean, I don't really know much of anything at all.
	And so he said, well, the oracle's got to be wrong.
	So he went and he cross-examined all the wise people, all the greatest teachers, all the philosophers of his time.
	And he found that they, in fact, didn't really know anything either.
	They just pretended to know stuff.
	And then he said, oh, I get it.
	I get it.
	The oracle was right.
	Because I know that I don't know anything, but these people think that they know something, but they actually don't.
	And so I'm the wisest man because I know.
	The limits of my knowledge and these other people are pontificating about all these things, but when you ask them three questions in a row, they can't answer you.
	And so this is the oldest, you know, people who claim knowledge, okay, well let's find out if you really know what you're saying.
	And this is why doctors have Licensing requirements.
	This is why lawyers have to pass the bar.
	Oh, you say you know the law?
	Well, let's find out.
	Oh, you say you know how to spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?
	Let's find out with a spelling bee.
	Oh, you say you know math?
	Okay, let's have a test.
	This is all I was taught when I was a kid.
	It's not enough to claim knowledge.
	You have to prove that you know something.
	And so this is what I do.
	And you, of course, find that the vast majority of people claim they know how to raise children, claim they know how society should be run, But can't put two coherent thoughts together.
	But they send their kids to indoctrination centers eight hours a day and don't really have anything to do with raising their own children.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Or they will spank their children and say, well, this is what has to be done.
	This is the best parenting that you can conceive of.
	And so it's okay.
	Well, I will...
	Sorry.
	What I always hear from people is, I was spanked and I turned out okay, and I really hate that.
	Sure.
	Yeah, but of course, you know, since spanking reduces IQ, it's the very faculty that would have pointed out that they're not okay that got spanked away, right?
	Yeah, exactly.
	Anyway, so do you mind, if you don't have any other specific questions, and again, I mean...
	Very sorry to hear about your father.
	I know we've got a lot of people on the line.
	Thank you so much for your time and your answers.
	I really appreciate it.
	Can I make a joke about your name?
	I know, I know you get so many jokes about your name.
	Do you mind if I just add one?
	One you've probably already heard before.
	Karma, I heard you were a bitch, but you're actually quite nice.
	Just kidding.
	Yeah, Karma's a bitch only if you are, so.
	Yeah, exactly.
	I'm fairly bitch, occasionally, but rarely.
	So thank you very much for calling in, and Mike, if we can move on to the next caller.
	All right, Ivan, you're up next, Ivan.
	Yeah, hello.
	Hi, Ivan, how are you doing?
	Hey, hello, Stefan.
	Hey, I'm calling from Australia, so I'm a little bit nervous.
	I could poop my pants at any time, so you're aware of that?
	I hope you're sitting down, and I hope you're sitting on the boss's throne, just in case.
	Yeah.
	I just wanted to express a bit of gratitude.
	I've been listening to your podcast for about six years or so now.
	It's helped me a lot with dealing with situations with my family.
	I used to occasionally spank my nieces and nephews for doing something that I thought wasn't right, but then I realized that wasn't the right way to approach things.
	And so, as they grew older, I dealt with them in a different way, like, with communication, not with any, like, force tactics to kind of control situations or help them deal with things.
	And that led to being called...
	Well, first of all, congratulations, but second of all, did you apologize by chance?
	You know, I haven't had the guts to do that just yet.
	Do it!
	Come on!
	You know, apologies.
	People respect apologies.
	I don't know if you've ever had anybody really apologize to you, but I never think of that person as weak.
	I think it's a very courageous and strong thing to do.
	Yeah, I think I should do that.
	I mean, one of them in particular said, like, I was a great uncle, so that was good to get that feedback from them.
	Like, I actually do ask them for feedback, which is kind of funny because, like, their parents, like, It's kind of like night and day with the way I treat them and the way with their parents treat them.
	Right.
	So, yeah, I've always thought I can give them a good comparison with the different types of, I guess, people in general, you know, like that there is other options.
	Yeah.
	What I wanted to talk about was the central question is why aren't I doing the things that I want to do?
	So...
	I think I've had a large problem with not so much motivation to do things, but actually starting to do things and following through.
	You mean like, for instance, did you listen to a show for six years before calling in?
	Is that sort of what you...
	I mean, you're back when I was doing stuff in the car or something like that, right?
	I mean...
	If you've had this issue for a while, you've obviously known about call-in shows, and it's been six years, right?
	Yeah, no, that's very true.
	And it kind of hit me a lot more these last couple of days because I tried to call in on Sunday, right?
	And I couldn't get through because there was too many people.
	So I was just randomly searching the forums for Tony Robbins, funnily enough.
	And I came across this thread which had a podcast in it.
	And I listened to that podcast and it was basically talking about my situation, but in like 2009.
	And I had deja vu because I remember listening to this podcast and here I am still with the same types of problems.
	What do you want to do that you're not doing?
	Or do you not know what you want to do?
	Well, I'll give you one real example now.
	I'm interested in modifying cars.
	So I'm trying to start my own business just at home.
	And I've got one customer and I can't seem to actually like...
	Like it's starting to get hard, you know what I mean?
	Like I have to really sit down and try to figure things out and I've got like this feeling inside of me which is like I just want to give everything up like I have...
	Sorry, what's getting hard?
	I don't know much about what you do.
	Okay, so...
	I'm putting in a different type of computer than what comes standard in the car.
	So to do that, you need to redo the wiring in the car and start from the ground up in terms of tuning the car.
	I don't know if that means anything to you or not.
	Not a huge amount, but I understand that it's difficult, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	So...
	Now I've come across a few problems where it's hard for me to figure out and I'm just having difficulty with maybe accepting the fact that I have to put in the effort to get this done.
	It's going to take me many hours.
	Is it more than you can do in any reasonable or profitable time frame or is it something you can do if you have to?
	I think I could do it.
	The time frame is not...
	I mean, this guy wants me to do it as soon as possible and it's kind of creating a bit of stress because he wants it done as soon as possible but I can't...
	I don't know, mentally go through the steps to get it done in the timeframe he wants.
	You're not answering my question.
	Sorry.
	Is it something that, like, so if somebody said to me, you know, rewrite Windows 8 and Java, I'd be like, well, I can't do that.
	Right?
	It's like 60 million lines of code.
	Like, I just can't do it.
	Whereas, you know, if somebody said, you know, I need you to create me a website or whatever, like, yeah, I can do that, right?
	So, is it something you can't do if you apply yourself and, you know, if you have to work 16 hours a day, it might take a week or two?
	I mean, is it something you can do or is it something that you can't reasonably do?
	It's something that I can do with that example.
	Okay.
	So, usually, when we have voluntarily accepted a commitment, We procrastinate because we now resent the commitment that we have voluntarily taken on.
	In other words, what we chose, we now feel is imposed upon us, and we resist it.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yeah, it does, yeah.
	Did you laugh?
	I wasn't sure if that was an accurate enough statement.
	Yeah, it's very accurate.
	That's kind of why I'm laughing.
	Okay, so what happens is we no longer own the commitments that we've made.
	And what we do is we then pretend to ourselves that it has been imposed upon us against our will, without our participation, and that stokes fires of procrastination, avoidance, and resentment, right?
	And so what that generally means is that as a younger man, you had obligations imposed upon you that you couldn't negotiate and that you couldn't shuck off And so you passive-aggressively would grudgingly do them badly or late or whatever, right?
	So you've got, you know, probably from your family, it could have been, of course, from your school or other things, right?
	But this idea that you own your commitments, that they are yours, is something that you can slip out of.
	And I would assume that's because you had a lot of history of things being imposed upon you.
	That you couldn't get out of and didn't want and couldn't negotiate about.
	Does that resonate at all?
	Does it make any sense or am I on the wrong path?
	No, that pretty much sums up my childhood.
	Like I was saying, through your podcast, I was able to reach a few milestones in personal development, which is when I was younger, like you said, my parents would impose things on me like They basically made me play soccer when I was younger for 5 to 10 years, whatever.
	I can see it now in my parents and how they treat my nieces and nephews.
	They never take into consideration what they want.
	It always has to be how my parents want to do things.
	You know what I mean?
	So basically you're saying that Brusque, semi-totalitarian Australian parents.
	I think that's kind of a template, isn't it?
	I'm sure your parents are not...
	I don't mean to laugh, because this is your personal experience, but there is something in the air or the water or the criminal-based history.
	I don't know what it is, but it's not the first time I've heard this.
	I think South African parents are sort of similar, but anyway, that's...
	But yeah, so stuff was imposed, and you weren't allowed to really negotiate, and You just do it, damn it, kind of thing.
	Yeah.
	And so recently, because I've been thinking for myself more so, my dad's basically saying, like, I don't know who you are anymore, kind of thing.
	I keep fighting back.
	Because he knew who you were when you were obeying orders, right?
	Which were you an extension of his preferences, right?
	A grudgingly semi-broken robot of Scand Rebellion who...
	Would sort of float around misdoing things out of resentment, right?
	Yeah, pretty much.
	Well, I guess what I wanted to know more was solutions to the problem.
	I'm willing to...
	Because I work from home, or I'm trying to do this at home, I realize...
	And home is your home or your parents' home?
	I live with my parents at the moment.
	Yeah.
	And how old are you?
	And 25.
	And why do you live with your parents?
	I'm not saying you shouldn't.
	I'm just, you know, if you said 15, I'd be like, yeah.
	And if you said 25, I'd be like, huh?
	Yeah, I mean, could I be self-sabotaging myself in a way?
	No, no, no.
	The question is, why are you living with your parents?
	We get on to the complexities about what's your...
	Are you still in school?
	I mean, I guess not if you're...
	Fixing cars and all right, but so why are you dealing with the parents?
	Are there no jobs?
	No, there is jobs and I've had lots of opportunities really to like eventually make money.
	Like I worked as a IT consultant a few years ago with IBM products, so like Oh, so that's a pretty good job, right?
	I mean, not shabby coin, right?
	Yeah, no.
	There was a lot of potential there to make a lot of money.
	What happened?
	Yeah, I decided to quit that job because I felt that I was kind of selling out in a way, like what your show really helped me realize.
	It's the market, right?
	You're supposed to sell out.
	No, sorry.
	Because I don't know what you...
	Maybe you were building, I don't know, bunker bust or torture bombs.
	I don't know.
	But what were you doing that you felt was a sellout?
	So, if I have like one life kind of thing or I have this time on earth, I could choose to maybe not work with IBM products and do something that's maybe related to what you're doing, like parenting or...
	Stuff like that, that is more valuable.
	Yeah, parenting is not a job, right?
	Yeah, I guess maybe teaching others how to parent properly, like say my sisters and brothers, like the concepts that you talk about, they don't know anything about.
	So how can I figure out a way to find this information?
	Okay, well let's say that you, sorry to interrupt.
	Let's say that you quit IBM because you wanted to do these glorious other things, which I think is fine.
	Why aren't you doing them?
	Because you're fixing cars, right?
	Yes.
	So that was another passion of mine when I was growing up.
	And I'm kind of like thinking, what do I really want?
	Do I want to modify these cars and that's one direction I can take?
	Or do I want to Do something like what Stefan's doing or try to do and that's another direction.
	I feel like I can't do both or I've tried to do multiple things but… Yeah, look, you are… I'm sorry to interrupt but from the other side of about 35,000 hours invested into what I do… When people say, well, maybe I'll just dip into doing what Steph does.
	It's like, you know, maybe I'll just dip into concert pianning for a while, you know, and then maybe I'll become an architect of museums and then, right, you can't just sort of dip into this, right?
	I mean, I'm not saying you can't do it, but if you want to do it, then you just start reading and you start writing and you just, you know, in the same way if you want to sort of, oh, Steph's a great concert pianist, I'd like to be a concert pianist, well, you know what to do.
	You get a piano, you get a teacher, you practice like crazy, and you never stop, right?
	Yep, that's right.
	So, I think that you may, like in this haze of all is possible, you are inevitably going to feel resentment, right?
	Yep, makes sense.
	Right, like maybe I'll just teach people how to parent.
	Well, maybe you should, or maybe you could.
	But there are very specific steps that you would need to take to do that, right?
	You'd need to read a whole crap load of books on parenting.
	You may need to take some courses.
	You certainly would want to set up conversations with experts in the field, however you could manage that.
	You would really work to become an expert in that area and it would take a long time, right?
	Yeah.
	And, you know, I'm sure credentials wouldn't hurt and so on, right?
	And so, you probably are setting yourself up for resentment if you don't understand how long it takes.
	I mean, you get it, right?
	But to become good at stuff takes a long, long, long time.
	Right?
	Like, I mean, people write like a thousand songs before they write a great song, right?
	The Beatles played for like, what, a year or two in Hamburg Eight hours a day.
	They played more in those two years than most bands played in their entire career, and that's one of the reasons why they were able to produce this amazing pop phonic original stuff that they did in the 60s and so on, right?
	But if you think, well, I'm just going to dip into this.
	Maybe I'll just do what Steph does or whatever.
	And you don't start saying, okay, well, okay, so maybe I'll climb Mount Everest, right?
	Like I'm not just going to show up in my track pants at base camp and start walking, right?
	I'm going to climb Mount Everest.
	I got to drag tires across the tundra for six months.
	I've got to do gruesomely heavy weights and whatever it is.
	I don't know what the hell people do to prepare for that, but I know it's a big preparation deal, right?
	So if you're in a blur of, I could do this, I could do that, and so on, without recognizing that whatever you do is going to be a lot of hard work, a lot of commitment, a lot of challenge, and what it's going to do is it's going to provoke all of your resentment because you're going to feel that that challenge is imposed upon you, not something that you have voluntarily chosen and are going to see through.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah, that makes sense, yeah.
	So, how to break the cycle, right?
	Yeah.
	Is that a rhetorical question?
	I don't know, but I feel like I'm bleeding your entire life energy out of this.
	Thank you for my tasty soul.
	I must move on to the next caller and bleed them dry too, right?
	Yeah, I think how I'm interpreting what you're saying is there's choices that, like, I'm making for myself.
	So this car, like, I've made a choice to want to do this thing and now I should look at it as more as a, like, it's mine.
	Like, I own that choice and I'm responsible to all of the surrounding things that happen with it, you know, like dealing with the customer or Having to sit down for 16 hours a day and trying to work it out.
	Like, I'm responsible for that.
	Like, my parents are not...
	Well, you can say no.
	You can just hand the guy's car back and say, no, I'm not going to do it.
	Like, every day I can get up, I can say, you know what, I don't want to do this philosophy show anymore.
	I'm going to become a mime.
	Or a Chippendales dancer again.
	Or whatever, right?
	Yeah.
	Right?
	But, you know, it's up to me.
	I don't have to stay married.
	I can do what my dad did and move to the other side of the world and never see my daughter.
	I mean, I can do any of these things.
	I can hang up this show right now and go and climb a tree if I want.
	Right?
	Everything remains a choice.
	Yeah.
	I have watched that procrastination video you did a while back.
	Yeah.
	Like, you do what you want to do kind of thing.
	But you have to suffer the consequences.
	Well, not suffer.
	I mean, all consequences are not suffering, right?
	I mean, I'm actually quite enjoying this conversation.
	I don't feel like climbing a tree right now.
	I would rather talk to you.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Right?
	Of all the things I could be doing in the world right now, this is what I want to be doing.
	Because if I didn't, I'd be doing something else, right?
	I guess that works with me too, right?
	So, whatever feelings or emotions I had before this conversation, like excitement, was it unknown kind of thing?
	Watery bowels, if I remember the opening of the conversation correctly.
	Not just yet.
	You know, like, maybe compare how I felt before this conversation and what I'm doing now to Like, apply those same feelings to doing other things, if that makes any sense.
	That sounds entirely unactionable, right?
	If I just apply...
	So I just need to exercise and eat better to lose weight?
	Well, yeah, but that's easier said than done, right?
	Yeah.
	Sorry, just on that, like last year, middle of last year, I actually did lose about 15 kilos of fat that I've been holding on to me for like five, six years.
	Good for you.
	And just to throw a curveball at you, I'm actually like, I've never had a girlfriend before and I've only kissed one girl ever and yeah, obviously I'm still a virgin.
	You're totally blowing my stereotype of guys who work with Karras.
	I thought guys who worked with Karras were rolling in it.
	We're not as cool as you think.
	No, I guess not.
	It's true I am the lead singer of a rock band, but I'm a virgin.
	I brought that up just because I think What you're saying with choice and owning things for what they are, I have not been doing that in relationships in the past.
	I'm not hearing that at all.
	No, I get it.
	It's in everything.
	Right.
	So let me take the helm, if you don't mind, for just a second.
	I'll ask you a couple of pointed questions.
	Who benefits from you staying a child in your life?
	Like...
	Parents and people around me, my family, that kind of thing?
	Don't tell me like you're asking me.
	This is your life, right?
	I'm asking you that direct question.
	Let me tell you why I'm asking.
	I don't want to trick you or anything like that.
	It's that if my daughter were 25 years old and had never kissed a boy, I couldn't be happier.
	No, if my daughter was 25 years old and had never had any kind of romantic relationship, it would never get to that point.
	It would never get to that point because I would want her to have the joys of romantic and sexual love as an adult, right?
	And I want grandchildren, lots of them.
	So if she was living at home 25, had quit a job and was kind of half doing this car thing or whatever, it would never get to that point.
	Because I would strongly intervene and figure out what was going wrong long before that ever came to be.
	It's important to understand, Alex, that you are in your life where everyone in your life wants you to be.
	Because if they didn't want you to be there, they would have intervened.
	This is true in general.
	You are in your life where everybody who's in your life wants you to be, because if they didn't want you to be there, they would have done something to change it.
	So my question is, why is everyone around you satisfied?
	If my daughter put on 15 kilos, it would never get to that point.
	Right?
	Yep.
	Because I would intervene as soon as I saw her gaining weight, and we would figure out what was actually going on.
	Right?
	So, that's why I ask, who in your life benefits from you staying in a childlike state?
	Having a hobby, like fixing cars, not having dates, not kissing women, And so on, right?
	And still living at home at the age of 25 with no particular prospects or future.
	That's the life of somebody who's like 8 or 9 or 10 years old.
	And I don't mean by that that you're immature or anything like that.
	It's just a stuckness to this, right?
	Yeah.
	So, when people don't intervene...
	When things are going wrong in your life, it's because they prefer that things go wrong with your life.
	Whether it's conscious or not, I'm just telling you.
	Everyone who calls into this show is telling me something very important by the simple act of calling into this show.
	And I don't mean that this makes people problematic.
	It tells me that That talking to me is the greatest possibility of a meaningful conversation that they can have.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	And I don't mean that in any critical way whatsoever, at all.
	Because these kinds of important conversations are tragically rare in life, right?
	Yep.
	You should have...
	People around you who are intervening, who are listening, who are trying to figure things out, who are curious, who are trying to understand your experience, who are listening to your history, who are examining your possibilities and your ways of thinking, and you should have people around you who have taught you how to achieve what it is that you want to achieve and so on.
	I'm sorry that you don't.
	I'm really, really sorry that you don't, but the fact seems to be that you don't.
	No, that's true.
	Thanks for that as well.
	So who benefits and why from you remaining in this state?
	Well, not me for one thing.
	I would say the people around me because it must do something for them in some way.
	Like Control over someone else or because I'm not...
	Because I'm being prevented from living my life to the fullest or whatever, like they get satisfaction from that?
	To the fullest, yeah.
	I would say it's a little further back than that, but yes.
	Right.
	Right.
	That's all I can think of at the moment.
	Does your father...
	View himself as superior to you.
	Yes.
	Of course.
	Why did I know that was going to be the case?
	He owns the house.
	He's smarter than me, whatever.
	I shouldn't be giving him advice.
	And, yeah.
	Right.
	I think because...
	Yeah, go on, sorry.
	No, no, no.
	You go ahead.
	I think, because something major happened to him in his 40s, like, my parents are both nearly 70, and both of them have major back...
	Both of them are nearly 70.
	Nearly 70, okay, right.
	Yeah, and both of them had major back problems where my dad was nearly paralyzed at around, yeah, late 30s, that kind of thing, late 40s.
	Uh-huh.
	Oh, sorry, early 40s, and...
	Maybe in a sense, like, because he wasn't given the opportunity to live out that part of his life, like, because he was in a good job, he was going somewhere, he was going to buy multiple properties, whatever, and that was cut short for him, that...
	Yeah, no, I'm sorry, I can't give your dad the excuse of a back injury.
	I'm sorry, I just, I can't do it.
	Because that would be causal, right?
	So a back injury means that he can't be like a bricklayer.
	And all people who have those kinds of back injuries can't be bricklayers.
	But there's nothing in an injury that dictates a person's emotional or personal reaction or how they treat other people in their life.
	There's nothing in an injury that does that.
	Yeah, I can see what you're saying.
	A hurt back does not alter the brain physically.
	Does not remove free will.
	Does not remove moral responsibility.
	Otherwise, it'd be like, oh, you're drunk driving?
	Oh, you've had a hurt back?
	Okay, well then, keep driving.
	Oh, you have a hurt back?
	Did you rob a bank?
	Oh, no, you got a hurt back.
	You got no moral responsibility.
	So, no, I can't...
	Now, if you said you had a brain tumor, that'd be a different matter, right?
	But this is not...
	That's not enough, right?
	And are you saying so?
	I guess you would have been very young at that point, right?
	Yep, yep.
	So he's had time to get over it, is what I'm saying.
	He's had time to adjust, right?
	Yeah, that makes sense.
	So I'm sorry, I just can't get there.
	If I say that, then all the people who are nice guys with back injuries are going to email me and say, well, what are you talking about?
	That back injuries turn you into this kind of person.
	I'm not that, right?
	You understand?
	Yeah.
	And sorry, just because your father didn't get what he wanted does not mean that he is then automatically invested in you not getting what you want.
	Quite the opposite is the case.
	Do you think I had the peaceful and happy and loving childhood that I wanted?
	Of course not.
	Quite the opposite.
	Does that mean that I am now dedicated to denying my daughter that same thing?
	Of course not.
	He may be, listen, when I wasn't, you know, more than six or seven years older than you, my life took a really severe turn for the worst in terms of my physical abilities.
	So you better, I better help you get out there and get what you want in life because you don't know how long you're going to stay healthy.
	so do it now and let me help you.
	Yeah, he didn't think like that.
	works.
	No, I guess he didn't.
	So, if you have people around you who are invested in you being smaller than they are, particularly if it's unconscious, then they will take whatever steps are necessary to keep you then they will take whatever steps are necessary to keep you whatever size makes them feel Can I just mention one thing?
	Is it possible that the people that have tried to make me bigger than I can be, and if those relationships had ended badly, then that's not really bad, but you know...
	If you've rejected people who want to help build you up, that would be because it threatens your hierarchy with your father.
	It would be your father...
	Who would want that to be the case?
	Not you.
	Oh, wow.
	That makes a lot of sense now.
	Because, you know, all those people were bad from my father's opinion, you know?
	Yeah, anyone who can build you up, somebody who's invested in being bigger than you, anyone who builds them up, they'll just be torn down by whoever, right?
	You understand, right?
	Yeah, no, that makes sense now.
	Yeah, like the mom who wants to keep the son home because she doesn't have a husband, right?
	Single mom wants to keep the son home.
	I mean, is she going to be enthusiastic about him going out and dating?
	Is she going to be enthusiastic about any girl he's interested in?
	Of course not.
	You're going to sabotage that.
	And he'll internalize that because, you know, we can't fight our parents.
	I mean, they're just all powerful all the time.
	This is why they're so dangerous if they go bad, right?
	If they don't have our genuine best interests at heart.
	You simply can't fight parents.
	You can't.
	They're too big.
	They're too powerful.
	They loom too large in your consciousness and your unconscious.
	Mm-hmm.
	So I focus not on myself.
	I would focus on whose needs am I conforming to by staying where I am.
	Okay.
	Who needs me to stay here?
	Who's satisfied if I'm here?
	Well, it's everyone who didn't intervene with you being here.
	It's everyone who hasn't talked about, hey, Alex, you're not dating?
	I mean, you don't find any girls attractive?
	What's going on?
	Or boys, or goats, I don't care, whatever, right?
	Ripe watermelons in a field, whatever gets you goat going, right?
	I mean, everyone who hasn't said, listen, there are two things that Freud says you need to be happy, productive work, meaningful work, and romantic or sexual love, and you're not finding either of those, so let's figure out how to get you.
	Everyone who hasn't done that is invested In you being exactly where you are, and you, like an ancient Aztec kid, are throwing yourself on the altar of parental preferences, of parental expectations, of parental irrational needs, and sacrificing yourself for that.
	And your life and your days are ticking away into sand and ashes and nothingness, and you're serving the needs of other people who need you to stay small, I would imagine.
	And they don't get any bigger.
	You just keep getting smaller.
	And you can do that if you want.
	You can do that.
	And we're programmed to do that.
	I hope you understand.
	I dated a woman when I was becoming an entrepreneur.
	I was in a relationship where I was living with a woman.
	I was in a relationship with a woman.
	And we met in college and I was broke and working all these jobs and all this kind of stuff and just struggling to keep it together and all that.
	And then we graduated and we were on again, off again for a while.
	Anyway, so she got a job as a secretary.
	She wanted to be doing something else, doesn't really matter what, something much better, but she got a job as a secretary.
	I remember when she saw my first office, right?
	So I co-founded this company, we grew it, we bought offices and all that.
	And she came to my office and she said, oh, that's a great view of the parking lot.
	I remember thinking, oh my God, it's really cold.
	Right?
	And she would continually tell me, you know, like how to live my life and what I should do and this and that and the other.
	And I remember saying to her at one point, I said, you know, I'm a chief technical officer and you're still a secretary.
	So why is it that you're telling me all about how I should live again?
	Because if you knew so much about how to live, why are you a secretary?
	If you know so much about what everyone should do and what I should do and how everyone should live their lives, why is your life so claustrophobic and constricted?
	Why am I pursuing something that I love, that I'm incredibly excited to be doing?
	When I started working with computers when I was 11, I inherited $1,000 from my grandmother.
	But what would What would an 11 or 12-year-old kid do?
	Well, I turned around and bought a computer, learned how to program it.
	I was programming for a living.
	It was joyful, exciting, fantastic.
	I was traveling.
	I mean, gosh, it was amazing.
	Traveling to all these...
	I went to Hawaii, to France, to China for business.
	It was a complete dream come true.
	It was astounding, wonderful, terrifying at times, but incredible.
	And, you know, she's like...
	A secretary telling me all about how I should live and what I should do and trying to micromanage my every working moment.
	And my success and me pointing out that I was actually doing something that was amazing to me and that was challenging and was genuinely incredibly difficult.
	And she was typing, right?
	At some point, it is revealed when you achieve things.
	It is revealed that those around you who've been telling you all about how to live and how great they are and how little you know and how much you should listen to them, if you actually achieve things, the true smallness in the relationship is revealed.
	And Our relationship did not last much at all beyond that conversation because it's like I just woke up from a dream.
	It was like I just shook my head.
	I just woke up from this slow, drip, drip, stalagmite, deep cave, soft, dusty little nightmare of tiny lives and tiny people who have no capacity to look at their own lives with any kind of objectivity.
	But all they do is tell everyone else how the other people should live.
	And if you listen to small people about what you should do with your life, if you serve the narcissistic needs of people to shore up their shaky second-hand pseudo-confidence at the expense of your future, your life, your love, your passions, Your intelligence, your capacities, your dreams, your desires, your joy.
	Then you are taking a great and golden beast and sacrificing it to a god of gnats, to a deity of mosquitoes, to an altar that is just a dusty old shelf in an abandoned building.
	and you get nothing in return and so I would definitely look at the degree to which those around you are actually interested and committed to your success and your happiness and as an empiricist you have unfortunately 25 years of evidence under your belt so it shouldn't be that hard to find and If people around you,
	if you're living with people who are dedicated to keeping you small to make themselves feel bigger, to feeling superior to you and smarter than you and better than you and wiser than you and whatever, you will never be able to grow bigger than the people around you want you to be.
	You will never be able to grow bigger than the people around you want you to be.
	So you have to look with a very cold and critical eye at the people around you and say, okay, well, if they know so much, do I want the lives they have?
	Well, if not, I sure as hell hope that if you become a father, you will be dedicated to your son's success and happiness.
	You've got to take a cold, critical look at the people around you and figure out if they're in your corner or not.
	Because whether you're serving the little needs of little people Or developing a grand life of your own design, your days drip away regardless.
	So I would know which choice I would make.
	Tell me what you think.
	That makes a lot of sense, Stefan.
	Yeah, I think it gives me something to work with as well.
	That's a good solution that you gave me kind of thing.
	I'll definitely do that.
	And I'm already thinking of certain things I can do already to kind of figure stuff out, you know?
	And I mean, just quickly, I mean, should I move out kind of thing?
	Like, I think...
	Well, you see, that's the problem, right?
	Is that I'm not somebody who could tell you that.
	I don't think anyone should tell you that.
	I think therapy would be great.
	I think self-knowledge would be great.
	I think talking to your parents...
	About how the hell did I end up in this situation if you all are supposed to be so dedicated to my happiness?
	And if they say, well, you don't listen and so on, well, right?
	When people...
	Sorry, I know this is supposed to be a shorter call, but I just really want to get this across to you.
	People will always try and make their effect on you your business.
	Right?
	So people, oh, you don't listen.
	It's like, well, who are you that I don't listen to you?
	How are you communicating so that I don't listen to you?
	It's really important to put things back on people.
	That doesn't mean to absolve yourself of responsibility, but the beautiful thing about being the child of a parent is you have almost no responsibility as to how that relationship goes.
	Because your parent is the parent.
	They define everything.
	You didn't invent your own language.
	They told you exactly what to say.
	You didn't invent your own emotional interactions.
	That is what they did.
	You didn't invent your own religion or your own culture.
	That is what they communicated across to you, right?
	Yep.
	Well, you know, I just don't think you're that smart.
	It's like, well, who were you as a parent that I ended up not so smart?
	Well, maybe it's just genetic.
	Well, if it's genetic, then how come you put me down for it?
	You wouldn't put me down for being short, would you?
	Because that's genetic, I would assume.
	Right?
	So just, you keep pushing things back on people.
	Because people will always try and give you 100% responsibility for 99% of what they created.
	Especially parents.
	Dysfunctional parents.
	Not all parents, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	Cool.
	My daughter is like a tuning fork.
	You know, like, whatever I do, she hums along with.
	It doesn't mean she disagrees with me a lot, she has her own will, but that's only because that's something I encourage and allow.
	And I know if I was a hard-handed, yelling, you know, smoky-nosed kind of dad, then she would bow down to that because that's what kids do, is they adapt to their environment.
	Kids adapt to their environment.
	You adapt it to your parents.
	And they will try and tell you that it's all you.
	Which is exactly like a sculptor standing back from the sculpture he's finished and saying, God, that sculpture is ugly.
	I can't believe whoever made that sculpture...
	I mean, that's terrible.
	It's like, you just made that.
	How could you insult something that you just made without insulting yourself and taking no ownership?
	Anyway, so I just wanted to point that out.
	I think therapy, self-knowledge, all that kind of stuff would be great.
	But...
	Definitely, certainly if your parents are older, I think it's important to sit down and talk to them and say, okay, mom, dad, how did I end up in this situation?
	And they'll try and tell you that you're responsible for your life, 100% responsible for your life.
	In which case you can say, well, okay, so are you saying that you had no impact on me, no influence on me whatsoever?
	No.
	Okay, well then, we are strangers.
	Because you had me for 25 years and you had no impact on me whatsoever, no influence over me whatsoever.
	And if you did have influence over me, then you have some ownership in where I am.
	And so what did you do that helped contribute to where I am?
	Well, nothing.
	I told you everything to do, but you didn't listen.
	Well, who were you that I didn't listen to you?
	And why didn't you try saying it in different ways that I would listen?
	Anyway, I think those are the conversations that would be helpful to have.
	Yep.
	Makes a lot of sense, Stefan.
	Thanks for the call.
	Let me know how it goes if you can.
	Please do.
	Thanks so much.
	Thanks, Stefan.
	You're welcome.
	Alright, Joseph, you're up next.
	Alright, thank you very much.
	How are you doing, Stefan?
	I am well, thank you.
	How are you doing?
	I'm doing very well.
	I'm enjoying the show thus far.
	Good.
	Alright, well, before I ask you, My question is I want to commend you first for your debate with Peter Joseph.
	That was pretty impressive how you dealt with him.
	Tell me what you mean.
	I'm not trying to necessarily dig for compliments, but what part are you referring to?
	What did you mean?
	Well, I'll be honest.
	There was that particular moment where he was committing ad hominems and ad lapidums towards your arguments, just calling them like Oh, this is...
	Oh, truncated and simplistic and bloody blah, yeah, yeah.
	Right, right, the simplistic thing.
	I like the way that you handled him.
	I thought it was very, you were, you know, you stood up.
	You stood up for that sort of rhetoric, and I particularly liked that.
	But...
	And you can be, sorry, disappointed.
	I mean, the reason I think that was useful, I think the intellectual content of the debate was not particularly useful, but...
	I hoped that it was some example of how you can be assertive without being aggressive, right?
	You can stand up for yourself without getting enraged or calling people names, but just simply identifying something for what it is.
	Like, stop telling me I'm wrong and start showing me that I'm wrong.
	Yeah, totally.
	You know what I did, actually?
	I started writing down some of the Some of the logical fallacies that he would commit, and I don't know if you didn't realize it, but he was just committing so many logical fallacies one after another.
	I had a list written down with examples of where he would commit them, but anyway...
	You should post them.
	I mean, post them or send them up to us.
	Again, I don't want to dig on the guy.
	I mean, obviously he's a guy who...
	Has a lot of words.
	I don't want to dig on the guy, but it is important that people understand what a debate is and what's going on.
	I've said to Mike, I need to do a show on the Socratic method because people accuse me of interrupting and nitpicking.
	It's like, no, if somebody says the free market promotes mass murder, then asking him to show how, that's not a nitpick.
	I mean, the guy's fucking talking about mass murder.
	Murder, for Christ's sake.
	To ask him how that occurs is kind of important.
	It's not nitpicking.
	I mean, if mass murder is nitpicking, what is not nitpicking?
	Planetary genocide?
	The death of the solar system?
	The end of time and space?
	Is that not nitpicking?
	Anyway, so I just wanted to point that out.
	And of course, he never answered the question because...
	And it's cowardly, right?
	If you're going to...
	And of course, since I participated in the free market, or at least And since I advocate the free market, he's saying that I both participate and advocate in a system of mass murder.
	Well, that's as profound an insult as you can possibly make.
	He's not just saying like I'm a bad guy.
	He's saying that I advocate and participate in a system of mass murder.
	I mean, he's calling me like somebody who runs concentration camps and slaughters mass murder.
	This is what I'm involved in and advocate.
	So, yes, I'm going to ask him what the hell he means by that, but he never told me, of course, because – well, for obvious reasons, but anyway.
	Right.
	Well, I still respected him after the debate, but I lost all respect for him after I saw his – Yeah, I still had respect for him, but then I saw his follow-up video on the debate, and then I lost all respect for him.
	Like, he – It was beyond words.
	I don't know if you've seen it, but I don't really want to get into it.
	I haven't.
	Yeah, I haven't.
	I've heard a little bit about it.
	I haven't watched it.
	For someone, I've also been studying economics and philosophy and all that for a few years now, and just listening to him talk, the arrogance, which With which he says things sometimes.
	It's just...
	But anyway, I don't want to talk about that anymore.
	I do want to commend you, though, on another video you did where you were talking about an article on the Washington Post, I think it was.
	And the whole...
	It was like a 10-minute video.
	I loved it.
	And I watched it with my girlfriend.
	We were watching it together.
	And no, she loved it as...
	As soon as she saw the real article, we were both like, oh wow, that was good, that was good.
	We thought it was very witty.
	I can't even tell you how many takes that took.
	Really?
	I have no idea how you said all that with a straight face.
	Yeah, and it wasn't because I laughed.
	It's because I was reading it, and I wanted to have the spontaneity of reading it, like to look like I was reading it.
	But I could not get through the whole article without mentioning, like, children once.
	Because I had to switch around all the genders.
	I had to switch around.
	And so it was literally like 30 takes that that stupid thing took, like half a day, to get it right.
	So I appreciate it.
	I wish it had done more reviews because I thought it was quite a good and effective way of talking about it.
	But, of course, it is one of the more sensitive topics, so people might be hesitant to share it if other people didn't have background.
	Yeah, that's actually what I'm calling in for.
	But I want to say it was expertly done.
	And the whole time I kept questioning myself, is he serious?
	And I know you because I've been watching your show for over a year now, almost two.
	And I know, so I know, like, what your message is.
	But the whole time I was still like, wait, what?
	Well, I was originally going to do it like, can you believe it?
	I was originally going to do it like, well, could you believe if they were talking about wives like this?
	And I thought, well, that's not really that powerful a way to do it, so let's just pretend that they are.
	Alright, alright.
	Well, yeah, so that's pretty much like the topic that I wanted to discuss with you.
	Well, my girlfriend and I, we live together and we were watching and we got to talking about parenting strategies and whatnot.
	She's clear that I agree with the NAP and that I think...
	Sorry, sorry, sorry.
	I am sorry to interrupt you.
	You're just starting.
	Strategies?
	Do you often talk with other boyfriends about your boyfriend's strategies?
	I guess a word to use for it, principles.
	No, but the reason is a strategy is a maneuver.
	It's a manipulation, right?
	Right.
	Like a chess strategy is how to win and a strategy of how to bet the girl is how to manipulate her.
	So there's no boyfriend strategies.
	At least I hope you don't have boyfriend strategies.
	And so I don't think strategies is a great – and I'm just pointing that out just because it's a common coinage.
	But it's not.
	Strategies is like how can I manipulate into winning kind of thing.
	Right.
	Well, I will say that I do look at a successful relationship as kind of a – there's sort of a strategy involved in that there's tactics, just little things that you should do here and there.
	It's your girlfriend in the room at the moment.
	She's going to hear this tomorrow.
	Do you think she will – When she hears that you have strategies and tactics.
	She knows I'm like super rational.
	No, she knows I'm like super rational about these things.
	And she's accused me of killing the romance from time to time.
	Well, clearly you just need to change your strategies to be more romantic.
	And just saying strategies, I don't want to nitpick the word too much.
	I just want to point out that it may not be, right?
	Like honesty is not a strategy, right?
	And anyway, but go on.
	Sorry for the question.
	Yeah, no, I definitely see your point.
	I can tell you right now, my intent with raising a child is to just raise a child as morally as possible, right?
	I think as long as I morally raise them, all else will follow suit.
	What does that mean?
	Morally raise them?
	Well, as opposed to immorally raise them.
	No, I understand what the acronym is, but that's like saying, I want to be a good parent.
	But everybody claims that they want to be a good parent and everybody claims that they want to raise their children morally.
	So you're not adding anything in terms of content, right?
	Right, so...
	You're like a painter saying, I want to paint a good picture.
	Well, of course you want to paint a good picture.
	You're a painter, right?
	I want to play well as a musician.
	Of course you do, right?
	I mean, but it doesn't add anything, right?
	So what does it mean to raise a child morally?
	Okay.
	I define it as...
	Number one, not being violent, either physically or verbally.
	That also includes withdrawal, threats of withdrawal.
	Threats of withdrawal, okay.
	Yes, that's true.
	That's actually interesting to bring that up.
	No, it is, because a lot of people will say that, and I think that's very good that you're pointing that out, but a child doesn't have any...
	Alternatives, right?
	Like if you walk out on a date, then your date is just going to go home, right?
	Drive home or take a cab or the bus or whatever, right?
	Or walk home.
	But if you leave the room with your child upset, the child has no options, nowhere to go, no other recourse, and so on.
	So threats of withdrawal are violations of non-aggression principle with children because they can't survive without you, right?
	Like if I say, listen, man, I'm not going to send you any food, you don't care because you've got your own food, right?
	But if you're locked in my basement and I say, I'm not going to send you any food, bingo, bingo, bongo, I've just violated the non-aggression principle, right?
	Because I'm starving you.
	And so I just wanted to point out that this is something that's a little bit overlooked sometimes, but just wanted to mention it.
	Yeah, that's a very excellent point.
	That's actually something I would like to address later on after I kind of give the introduction of the eventual question that I'm going to ask.
	But I guess to finish the question, so no threat of violence, no threat of verbal abuse.
	Provide at least the basic needs needed for the child and just try and be a, you know, I'm a firm believer in leadership, you know, follow me, do as I do.
	So I think an excellent parent is one that imparts the knowledge that they themselves exemplify.
	So I think that's Now, sorry, were you raised in this manner?
	No, I was not.
	I'm very sorry about that, and the reason I want to point this out is that if you raise a child differently than you were raised, you will be as much of a student as you will be a teacher.
	Yes.
	Because your child will be experiencing something that is quite opposite from what you've experienced, and therefore your child will be ahead of you in many ways.
	Mm-hmm.
	I learned a lot about assertiveness from my daughter.
	I learned a lot about assertiveness from my daughter because I was never allowed to be assertive as a child, whereas I allow her and encourage her to be assertive, and so she teaches me a lot more about assertiveness because it's natural to her, whereas it's not natural to me, if that makes any sense.
	I want to clarify, though.
	My answer was only half true.
	My father was...
	You know, the authoritarian abusive relationship, while my mother actually did a fairly good job of raising a child in the manner that I speak of.
	So with her, I have...
	Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
	Have you...
	You've listened to a lot of these shows right now.
	Yes.
	Okay, so what am I going to say next?
	You were going to ask maybe something about the pendant, or wait, There's a term for it.
	No, I'm sorry.
	I'm getting confused with something my girlfriend said.
	No, just go ahead and say it.
	Okay.
	If your father was abusive, for which I'm incredibly sorry, then how is your mother off the hook for choosing a man who's abusive, having a child with a man who's abusive, and allowing him to abuse you?
	Right.
	At times, she did her part.
	She forced him to leave the house.
	When I was around eight or nine, he was an alcoholic.
	He would physically abuse me up until around that time.
	Not often, but hey, once is enough, right?
	Wait, what does not often mean?
	Not often means maybe every half a year to a year, I would maybe get a severe spanking.
	So it wasn't too often.
	It wasn't like a daily thing.
	Okay, okay.
	Yeah, so she asked him to leave, and he did.
	And why did she ask him to leave when you were older?
	Why not before?
	I'm not saying she should or shouldn't have.
	I'm just curious.
	No, she asked him to leave because he was an alcoholic by then, right?
	So he was an alcoholic.
	So he wasn't an alcoholic when you were younger?
	Yes, yes, he was.
	Okay, so what changed?
	It was because...
	It was because of her asking him to leave.
	Alcoholic.
	Right.
	Sorry, I didn't quite understand that.
	So he was an alcoholic from when you were born or before you were born, but then when you were, I think, nine, she asked him to leave.
	And I'm just, like, I'm not curious, like, I'm sorry, I'm curious just because I don't know the answer, and I don't know if it's a good or bad or right or wrong, but why?
	What changed?
	Did he become more drunken?
	Did he become more violent?
	What changed that she was living with him for nine years as a co-parent and then she wasn't?
	What changed?
	She was living with him for much longer than that.
	I'm a really late child.
	My youngest brother...
	Oh, so she knew about...
	Oh, sorry to interrupt, but she knew about his alcoholism and his violence before she had him.
	Oh, yeah, definitely.
	Yeah, definitely.
	Um...
	Well, from what I understand, I haven't really talked too much about this particular period or episode, but from what I understand, he wasn't really that violent or aggressive, but through the use of the years, he would drink gin on the rocks, massive tall glasses of gin on the rocks every day.
	You know you giggled at that, right?
	I'm sorry?
	You laughed when you said that, right?
	It was just a memory I had.
	I accidentally drank one of those.
	It's not funny, right?
	Yeah.
	Well, humor is how I diffuse uncomfortable situations for myself.
	Well, to some degree, I would say that humor is how you try to invite other people not to look at it seriously.
	I see.
	So that you don't have to look at it seriously.
	I'm going to write that down.
	I'm going to think about that later on.
	That's actually a very deep kind of statement.
	But yeah, so I guess he became more and more aggressive throughout the years, and then when my mom asked him to leave, that's when he went to AA and he quit.
	How much has been done?
	But he was still pretty...
	We never really had a good relationship.
	He had a terrible relationship with his parents, so I can kind of see where that came from.
	But more specifically...
	No, no, no, no, no, no.
	No, no, no.
	Everyone's doing this thing tonight where it's like, well, my parents are excused because, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	Right.
	I'm not going to...
	Okay, so what terrible things...
	No, you just did, though, because you said he had a terrible relationship with his parents, and that's probably where it came from, or that's where it came from, right?
	So what terrible things have you done because you didn't have a great relationship with your dad?
	Right.
	Well, I'm not really excusing him.
	I'm just saying, like, that could be a source of where he gets his issues from.
	It's kind of the statement I'm trying to make.
	No, no, no, no, no.
	I'm sorry.
	I'm sorry to be annoying.
	But you want to be rational, let's be rational, right?
	You say you're hyper-rational, so let's be rational.
	Okay.
	So are you saying that everyone who has a bad relationship with their parents turns into a raging and abusive drunk?
	No, that's not what I'm saying at all.
	Okay, so then stop saying that it's causal, because it's not.
	Okay.
	All right.
	I mean, it's influential, of course, right?
	It's influential.
	But, you know, just to very briefly make the argument that I made at the last Sunday show, very briefly, did your father know he had a bad relationship with his parents?
	Okay, then he's responsible for fixing it.
	Like, if you know you have a genetic disposition to heart disease, what do you do with that knowledge?
	Do you sit on the couch and eat pork rinds all day?
	No.
	No, I see your point.
	You're right.
	There is no causation.
	There's correlation at the most.
	No, the causation should be the other way.
	If somebody says to me, Steph, you've got a family history of heart disease, I'm zooming off to the doctor, to the nutritionist, to the heart specialist saying, okay, what do I do?
	What do I do to fix this?
	What do I do to raise my odds of not dying of heart disease, right?
	Right.
	But then if I sort of sit around eating pork rinds and never exercising, and then I do die of heart disease, are people going to say, well, it's all genetics?
	I mean, we told him, no.
	It's the choice of what was done with the knowledge that is causal, not the facts.
	The facts are maybe I have a genetic predisposition to heart disease.
	And then you do everything you can to avoid that fate if you want to.
	But if you embrace that fate and just say, well, fuck it.
	I'm going to drink 19 cups of coffee a day and eat pork rinds and never exercise.
	And then I say, well, you see, I got heart disease, but it was entirely because of genetics.
	People would say no.
	In fact, your knowledge of these genetics should have led you to healthier life choices.
	People who had bad relationships with their parents have a greater responsibility to seek professional help, to read books on counseling, to read books on parenting, to make sure they don't repeat those mistakes, blah-de-blah-de-blah, right?
	They have a heightened responsibility to do that in the same way that a guy with a genetic history of heart disease in the family has a heightened responsibility to live heart-healthy, especially if that guy has a family.
	Because now he's got responsibilities.
	It is not causal that your father had a bad relationship, and therefore, and therefore.
	No.
	Right.
	No, I agree.
	I agree.
	Okay, good.
	So, please go on.
	All right.
	Just, I guess, to sum up why I think my mom, even after the breakup, he was still verbally abusive.
	I think she stayed with him mostly because of her religious beliefs.
	She's a staunch Catholic and she does not believe in divorce.
	They've been separated for most of the time, but she's also had a codependent relationship.
	Sorry, did she divorce your father?
	No, she's not divorced.
	They live in the same house, but in separate dwelling units of the same house.
	So they still work together, you know, just running finances and stuff like that, as you would in a marriage.
	But they don't really have a loving relationship anymore.
	And, you know, my mom, she just stuck it through because of her religious conviction and her dedication to the marriage.
	Right.
	So, I mean, she may skip over that part of the Bible where Jesus says, whatever you allow, To occur to the children, so do you also do unto me.
	She may have missed over that.
	Let's get to your question.
	My girlfriend and I, we've been through the same situation.
	We both came from authoritarian and abusive parenting styles.
	She has a nephew that we've been taking care of once in a while.
	Because I watch your show and I've been learning all Great parenting advice.
	I've been talking to her about it and she agrees.
	She agrees with some of, a lot of the things.
	Sometimes we get into, you know, sometimes we have discussions, you know, and she has maybe a little bit of a different opinion.
	Her, the child's parents, so the child is two years old and his parents are also in the abusive authoritarian paradigm.
	They're also, again, they're socially religious, so they think they're doing things properly.
	I'm an atheist, so you don't have to tell me about all the contradictions in the Bible.
	Well, where are those?
	But they believe they're doing good.
	They believe that this is how you're supposed to raise a child.
	So I guess the question is, I have specific situations that we deal with when we take care of him that we obviously see That it's coming from that authoritarian paradigm.
	I guess where my girlfriend and I, where we differ is that sometimes we see an action and we're not sure if by reacting to it in a certain way we are in that authoritarian model, if we're trying to impose our views and our beliefs onto the child or if we're simply reacting to In such a way...
	Can you give me something...
	Sorry to interrupt, but it's all very abstract.
	Could you give me something specific so I can understand more concretely what's been discussed?
	Of course.
	So, he's gotten in the habit since his birthday party.
	It was when I first saw him doing it.
	He would look at people and if he would do something he didn't like, he would look at you and he would say, you're so stupid!
	Yeah.
	So...
	So sorry.
	Yeah, it's really sad to see, and I know where it comes from.
	Yeah, I mean, kids don't make that stuff up.
	My daughter's never said anything like that to anyone or in any way, shape, or form, because she doesn't know the words.
	Okay, go on.
	Yeah.
	So, I know it's...
	Sorry to interrupt.
	I just asked you to go on.
	Is he being spanked?
	Oh, of course he is.
	And is there verbal abuse?
	You're so stupid stuff.
	I've never actually heard— Well, no, no.
	Don't say of course because it's not like all Christians do that, right?
	Well, I describe them as being part of the authoritarian abusive paradigm, right?
	So they believe that spanking is not just morally correct, but it's a necessity.
	You have to— It's necessary, yeah.
	So, well, for instance, you can tell that there's verbal abuse because the way that he says no whenever someone wants to give him something that he doesn't want or something, he'll say, no!
	And he'll just yell it, like, really loud, just say, no!
	And I've seen his parents talk to him like that.
	So, and the looks they give him sometimes, it's like, you know, yeah, there's definitely verbal abuse going on as well.
	So, I hope...
	I hope the stupid part, right, doesn't come from them calling him stupid.
	I just hope he gets it from somewhere else.
	But anyway, so...
	Oh, no, no.
	I mean, look, I mean, if he's two, I mean, it's almost for certain he's getting it from parents, right?
	I mean, I don't know if he's in daycare or whatever.
	Yeah, it's quite possible.
	Well, it's almost for certain.
	Where else would he learn that sequence?
	I'm thinking maybe TV. Maybe he's watching someone.
	I don't think so.
	I mean, unless the parents are exposing him to entirely...
	Age-inappropriate programming.
	Right.
	Which is just a stand-in verbal abuse, right?
	Right.
	Well, for his age, I think he watches a lot of TV. He watches Spider-Man and a lot of these shows where they present a hero that beats up the bad guys.
	And I personally think that's terrible.
	Yeah, some pretty scary villains in...
	In Spider-Man.
	Okay, so what's your question?
	So I guess the question is, how do you deal with that?
	You bring them the facts.
	You bring the parents the facts.
	You bring the parents the facts.
	Oh, I meant how do we deal with him.
	No, you can't deal with him.
	You have to deal with the parents.
	Okay.
	You cause an effect, right?
	You have to sit down with the parents.
	You have to say, look, I mean, I've done some research.
	Here's the latest stuff on spanking and so on.
	And, you know, here's the latest stuff on TV and here's the latest stuff on violence in the media and kids and this and that and the other, you know?
	So just in case you haven't been aware of this, you know, there is this.
	It cuts IQ points down to spank.
	It raises aggression.
	I really don't want you guys to have a really tough time when the kid gets bigger because if you're teaching him that bigger...
	Mike makes rights and blah, blah, blah.
	You know, he's going to get to be a teenager and he's going to rebel.
	And, you know, I really would want you guys to have an easier time.
	And so you deal with the parents.
	You can't change the child if he then goes straight back into an environment, which is the opposite, right?
	Well, I kind of expected that answer from, like, previous podcasts in the sense that, like, because, no, I know what you said before.
	Like, Ninety-something percent of conflicts with child, it's about avoidance.
	It's about avoiding that conflict.
	Don't allow that conflict to ever surface, right?
	So I guess what I'm trying to find out is what can my girlfriend...
	I'm sorry, I don't quite understand what that means.
	Oh, it was on one of your podcasts that I heard a long time ago, and you talked about how when you have a child...
	For instance, if you know the child wants sweets, but you don't want to give them sweets, then you avoid that conflict by not having sweets in the house.
	Yeah, or certainly not having them right in front of the kid or whatever, right?
	So yeah, that's certainly something that's...
	When they get older, you can explain it to them and all that kind of stuff.
	But yeah, that certainly is an important...
	Part of it.
	But yeah, I mean, because basically what you're saying is how do we deal with the kid?
	Like the kid is somehow free to make his or her own decisions.
	The kid's just being imprinted on.
	And you've got to act soon because he's two, right?
	By the time he's three, he's mostly done.
	Like his personality is mostly done.
	And then when he's an adult, maybe with a lot of effort and therapy and expense and he can work to reverse some stuff, but you've got to act fast.
	You've got to act now.
	You've got to get this information into the hands of the parents.
	Right.
	Well, that was actually – so I was going to ask you that question eventually is what is the best way to approach them?
	But I guess I have other – I have another example that I wanted to maybe talk about.
	Okay.
	Got to make it quick though because we've got other callers.
	So just if you can make it quick, I'd appreciate it.
	Yeah, of course.
	So sometimes he'll hit me as he's play fighting.
	He'll just go up to me and he'll just punch me in the arm or something like that.
	Sure.
	And I'm not exactly sure how to deal with it in the best way.
	I just tell him very specifically like, hey, listen, I'm not going to play with you if you're going to hit me.
	If you hit me, I'm just going to stop playing with you.
	Because I don't like to get hit.
	And he seems to have...
	Well, that's consequences.
	No, that's consequences, and that's modifying behavior, and I think that's fine, you know, that you can't have him hitting you.
	But you've got to ask him about hitting.
	I'm sorry?
	But ask him about hitting.
	Like, you say, why are you hitting me?
	He won't know that.
	He's two, right?
	He won't be able to explain his internal state or whatever, right?
	But...
	Do you hit others?
	Do other people hit you?
	What hitting have you seen?
	What do you like about hitting?
	Just try and engage and figure out where this is.
	If he's watching Spider-Man, they're hitting and punching and compowing each other all the time.
	His grandfather, same thing, comes from this authoritarian, abusive parenting style.
	You know, he play fights with him, and, like, he's very aggressive with him.
	His aunt, his aunt, I have never seen a woman rough up a two-year-old more than, and for her, it's playing.
	Like, she's playing.
	But obviously, it's very, like, and you could, after she played with, like, quote-unquote, played with him, you could see it in the kid's face.
	He's like, wow, like, that was really rough.
	You know, you could see his face.
	Well, and, you know, you also might want to explain to the parents that, I mean, if they're thinking of sending him to school, which I assume they are, Then they've got to be less rough with him because he's not going to be able to function in a school environment if they're that rough with him.
	And then he's going to end up probably on drugs.
	Yeah, it's possible.
	It's definitely possible.
	I mean, if he's that aggressive and is violence and all that and loud and so on, I mean, how is he going to function sitting in a row of...
	Of chairs waiting for his turn.
	Well, then the teacher's going to be like, well, I can't run a classroom full of these kids, so let's get that kid on some Ritalin.
	And then the Ritalin might screw up his sleep habits, so let's get the kid on some sleeping pills or some, you know, oh my goodness, he's developing psychotic symptoms.
	Let's get him on some antipsychotics and then, you know, his brain just might get completely fried.
	You know, preparing him for school.
	Sorry.
	Yeah, no, I completely understand what you're saying.
	Well, I plan on, like, if it were up to me, I wouldn't send them to school, personally.
	No, no, it's not up to you, though.
	You've got to appeal to the parents, right?
	And either they're going to listen or they're not.
	That's on them.
	But your responsibility, I think, is to get the information to the parents, right?
	That way you can figure out if they're ignorant or just bad.
	Yeah, it's why Michelle wanted me to, my girlfriend wanted me to say this one.
	She noticed this one time where The mother would go to the kid and she has to say, you have to say things nicely to people.
	Oh, God.
	So obvious.
	So I guess to address kind of my girlfriend's concern, so I like what you said.
	So it's behavior modification and as well you are, what was the other thing you said?
	I'm curious about what hitting means and why they hit and He might be resistant, and you have to approach it in a value-neutral way, like, why are you hitting me?
	The kid's just going to clam up, right?
	You have to be genuinely curious about his anthropological experience and thoughts about hitting and feelings.
	Do you hit, like, are you angry when you hit?
	And then you make the angry face, like, do you feel like when you hit, or do you feel scared, or do you feel happy?
	Just figure out what's the emotion behind it and all that, right?
	Yeah.
	I have never seen such an angry kid in my life.
	I didn't know two-year-olds could be that angry.
	You said, okay, so what if he hits and I take something away from him?
	Do you think that's crossing the line and now we're doing a threat of...
	No, because then you're just into strategies and management then, right?
	Okay.
	I mean, don't get me wrong.
	I'm not, you know, consequences, blah-de-blah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
	I'm not against any of that sort of stuff, but that's immediate damage control.
	That's not solving the problem.
	Like, you may get him to change his behavior.
	But that doesn't deal with the problem.
	Well, I'm trying to figure out ways that I could present value towards his parents.
	And what I mean by that is I want them to look at a parentless couple as a potential source of advice for parenting.
	And that's not easy to do.
	No, no, no, no.
	You're not the source of advice.
	Sorry to interrupt.
	You're not the source of advice because you're not parents.
	The source of advice are the facts, right?
	The studies, the facts, this sort of stuff, right?
	That so many people have come out against spanking, that the scientific evidence is overwhelming, that it's just negative or bad and destructive for the kids' mental and emotional health.
	I know.
	I know.
	I get that.
	I get that.
	But nonetheless, these are facts.
	You know, what they choose to do with the facts?
	I mean, I think if you care, you're responsible for presenting the facts.
	But if you can't change the behavior of the parents, then for heaven's sake, don't imagine you can change the behavior of the child in any meaningful way.
	The only way you'll be able to change the behavior of the child without changing the behavior of the parents is through exercising power over the child.
	Right?
	And that's just another person who's now going to exercise power over him.
	Right?
	Sorry, go ahead.
	I just had an epiphany.
	What if...
	Because, you know, there are certain ways to approach people about this sort of thing, especially when I can anticipate that these people are going to be a little bit resistant to hearing out these sorts of things.
	But what if I were to research someone that's from their denomination who actually agrees with these principles, some religious figure that can, in fact, tell them, like, no, like what the Bible says, like, no, no, no, you know, it's...
	Research shows this and God will appreciate, God will approve of this kind of parenting.
	Do they know that you're an atheist?
	I don't think my girlfriends use that word, but I think they get the inkling that I'm a non-believer.
	So what are you going to say when the kid starts talking about God?
	What am I going to say to him?
	I would...
	He's going to say, we need to pray before this meal.
	It's time to say grace.
	I need to...
	When he tells you the story of God.
	Well, as long as we're in my house, you know, I'm...
	You know, we don't pray in my house.
	My girlfriend likes to pray once...
	She's Christian, so she likes to pray once in a while.
	And, you know, I don't have a problem with...
	I'm not in the business of raising him in that regard so out of respect for them I would keep it very brief to go ask your parents or something like that I wouldn't answer it Alright Okay, well I hope I've given you some useful stuff but I do have to get on to the next caller we did start a little bit late tonight so thank you for your call I do appreciate that and listen, I really do appreciate and respect your concern For your nephew.
	That is, you know, he's very lucky to have someone thinking this deeply about his well-being in his life.
	So I really do commend you for that.
	Yeah.
	Oh, she's the one who's most deeply invested in her nephew.
	Great.
	That speaks well to both of you.
	So thank you so much.
	And Mike, if we can move on to the next.
	Yeah, thank you very much.
	All right, Nathan, you're up.
	Steph, can you hear me okay?
	I can.
	Hit me, brother.
	So I wanted to start by thanking you for the new economy, the crash of the fall of the United Kingdom video that you did.
	Meticulously well researched, which was probably mostly Michael, right?
	Well, that was the one I did in the car.
	Yeah, I think we both did a good job on that.
	Thank you.
	Wait a minute.
	Am I missing something?
	The one you did in the car?
	No, I mean the one you just released today.
	Oh, I'm sorry.
	You're absolutely right.
	I was thinking about the decline and fall of the U.S. dollar.
	You mean the U.K. presentation?
	Yes.
	Yes.
	Michael was definitely in charge of the research to deal with that.
	I did supply the accent, though, which I hope was an equal contribution.
	When I was listening, I was also working, and you got to the one stat that I have to go back and look at it again because it was just unbelievable.
	You had so many little assays and wisecracks, and at one point you said, well, 37% of...
	Of younger people in the UK rarely go outside the house.
	And I thought that was a joke.
	I thought you were kidding.
	It was like 37% of them rarely masturbate.
	I mean, it was just such an unbelievable stat that I actually had to go back and rewind it and see that it was actually in one of the listings.
	Yeah, strange.
	The number of people who masturbate outside the house, though, I think is lower.
	But anyway...
	There's a reason the raincoat was invented in England, and it's not because of the rain.
	Go ahead.
	So before I got to my question, I wanted to share with you – or it's not really a question, but we'll come to that.
	I wanted to share with you something that happened to me this afternoon.
	My kids were watching a cartoon called Peppa Pig, and this is produced in England.
	So all of the characters are speaking with English accents, and these three little girls are playing – well, three little pigs, but three little girls – are playing shopkeeper.
	And so one of them is pretending to be the shopkeeper and one of them is pretending to be the stock girl and one of them is pretending to be the customer.
	And so the customer walks in and says, I'd like to know what I can buy for a thousand million pounds.
	And so the shopkeeper turns back to the stock girl and says, Susie, what can she buy for a thousand million pounds?
	And she sort of looks around on the shelf and she goes, ah, a carrot.
	And I was like, wow, I didn't know the show was like more...
	We need to be friends.
	Let's get some space aliens in here with ray guns.
	A thousand million pounds for a carrot.
	That's the inflation that's coming.
	So anyway, to the point of my call, I heard that I got scooped because somebody else already brought up this topic, but I did not get to listen to the beginning of the show.
	Oh, go ahead.
	You did a video a few days ago, No Excuses for Female Evil.
	And when I first watched it, I had done some background research on the story.
	And so when I first watched it, I was kind of taken aback because I was like, what the hell is he talking about?
	And so I'd asked Michael to get on the call because I wanted to come here for an argument.
	And then since then, since yesterday, I saw something you posted on Facebook that kind of triggered a revelation for me.
	And you posted a graphic and it said number of people killed by God.
	And it was like 2,300,000 or whatever.
	Number of people killed by Satan.
	And it was like 10.
	And when I saw that, I was like, well, that's weird because both of those numbers should be zero because neither of these things really exist.
	So I thought it was kind of a strange graphic.
	And then it occurred to me that it's it's a that's a graphic about the character and about the moral quality of the character written about in this story of the Bible.
	And then I realized that when you were making that video, you were talking about the character being presented in the story.
	And so all of these people are it's it's as if they were talking about, well, I'm doing a review of Lord of the Rings and I want to write about how Saruman built the half orcs or whatever, because he was off his his anti psychotic men.
	I'm doing a review of The Godfather and I want to talk about how Michael Corleone became a raging, murdering asshole because he had PTSD from the war.
	Instead of actually saying, well, no, these people are just villains.
	So I had originally come to sort of debate this topic, but then once I had that revelation, I realized I just wanted to share with you that I kind of get it where you're coming from, or at least I think I do, that it's about the moral narrative of the story being presented, not necessarily any specific individuals.
	Yeah, no, that's right.
	I mean, I think you're exactly right.
	And I think the reality is 90% of parents in America spank their children.
	60% of mothers spank their children, you know, two to three times a week.
	So we have a lot of female immorality to excuse, right?
	And this knee-jerk reaction to excuse female immorality, I mean, this showed up in The Last Caller.
	I mean, a woman had a child.
	I'm glad The Last Caller is alive, but a woman had a child with a violent drunk.
	I'm sorry, does that mean she's a pure victim?
	Of course not.
	That's a choice she had.
	I mean, this is what women wanted.
	They wanted...
	Choice.
	They wanted to be respected for their choices.
	They wanted to be respected for their freedoms.
	They wanted to be equal to men.
	Okay.
	I think that's great.
	I really do.
	I mean, that's what I want.
	I want that for my daughter.
	I want that for the future.
	I think that's great.
	But the basic reality is that women do a lot of evil in the world.
	And they do a lot of evil in the world, particularly against children.
	And out of that evil that they do to children comes a lot of other evils, right?
	Right.
	And this excuse for female evil simply arises out of the fact that a lot of people are beaten up by their moms, spanked by their moms, and they have to invent all of this nonsense to excuse any time female evil comes up What it does is it provokes their anxiety about what they have suffered at the hands of their mothers.
	And so they have to immediately make it go away by creating excuses.
	And they create those excuses primarily to serve the narcissistic needs of abusive mothers, not because there's any sort of objective moral judgment involved.
	Because the basic reality is if we as a society are willing to immediately excuse a woman Who brings a baby into a life-threatening situation.
	If we immediately excuse that, then what we're saying is that we must seek to understand cognitive limitations and never punish them, right?
	Because if this woman was depressed or suffering from postpartum depression or...
	Psychosis.
	We must not condemn people with limited cognitive means.
	We must seek to understand them.
	That would be the principle behind it, right?
	We must seek to really figure it out and not punish, right?
	I think so.
	But any nation that truly believes that would never have a spanking rate of 90%.
	Do you understand?
	Because children are cognitively limited, right?
	And if we are supposed to see, quote, bad behavior from the standpoint of, well, the person is cognitively limited, and therefore we must not judge them negatively, and we certainly must not punish them, we must have sympathy for them and get them resources, then we would never have a spanking rate of 90%, because we would apply that principle to children and never hit them, right?
	So you understand, it is a completely hypocritical standard That is only applied to women and in particular is applied to mothers.
	And the fact that it is applied to mothers and the exact opposite rule is applied to children, in other words, you're bad, I'm going to hit you, just shows you that it's not a principle, it's an emotional defense.
	Now, maybe we should say, well, let's be really gentle with the emotional defenses and not provoke them and blah-de-blah-de-blah.
	And maybe that is a better path.
	I don't know.
	I don't know for sure.
	I know that that's been tried quite a lot this Love thy enemy, turn the other cheek kind of stuff, and there's still a spanking rate of 90%.
	And that's not how men were dealt with, right?
	Because when it was sort of realized that men were abusive in marriage, I don't believe that women were told to understand them, that they're cognitively limited by patriarchy, that we should forgive them, that we should understand them, that we should get them help.
	No!
	Men are pigs, there's an evil patriarchy, and you should leave your abusive husband.
	So I simply take my cue from what has gone and what is accepted as morally good in the past.
	Now, if people say, well, you know, if people who do bad things are cognitively limited and we should have sympathy for them, well, that's fine.
	Then the whole world owes a massive apology to men who have been roundly criticized for being patriarchal and abusive, and nobody has sought to understand them and their origins.
	But have simply condemned them as male chauvinist pigs and abusers and this and that and the other.
	So there's just no way out of this thorn, right?
	If we're going to have sympathy for people who do terrible things, then let's have sympathy for men who are abusive.
	And let's have a definite sympathy for children who are very cognitively limited.
	And let's never hit them.
	Let's rather seek to understand them.
	But people pour massive derision and hostility and contempt and rage and anger and prison cells on men who are abusive and do not excuse them or seek to understand them and we hit children repetitively and continuously and yet it's women when they do something bad suddenly this big glowing magic helmet of let's excuse them for everything that they do suddenly that comes out and it's like well that's bullshit Give
	me a fucking break.
	That's so ridiculous.
	It's so transparent that I think it's contemptuous, and it is so fundamentally disrespectful towards women.
	Anyway, sorry, go ahead.
	Well, I'm not sure I have much to follow that up on, except I'm just curious, in the instance of this one video, do you think it's important to separate the The fact that you're talking about a narrative versus actual events...
	Well, I did bring lots of other examples in, and I did say that maybe this woman does have a mental illness, but that's not the point.
	The point is we don't know yet, and people are already excusing her.
	And I brought in women with...
	I brought in, like, nobody says that men beat women because women are just so annoying that if you spend more time around a woman, you'll end up beating her up.
	But we say...
	You said that, but it was a joke.
	Well, yes.
	But that's because people say, well, women abuse children because they spend more time around them.
	It's like, oh, come on.
	So exposure to children just...
	Anyway.
	So, yeah.
	I mean, I knew that was going to be controversial.
	And my hope, of course, was to simply shock people into thinking about something differently.
	Because I've put out calmer and more recent arguments around this before that have gone precisely nowhere.
	And so you just keep...
	You know, I'm a big one for trying different things until you get what you want.
	And...
	What I want is for people to give women the respect of potential immorality in the same way that they jump to the conclusions that abusive men are bad and children should be spanked.
	Let's at least give women the respect that we give to children in our current society, which is that we judge them as bad and punish them.
	I mean, I don't agree that that's the case with children, but at least start treating women like children.
	That would be a step up.
	Well, I can't think of anything I need to follow that up with.
	So thanks so much for your time, and this is Philosophy After Midnight, so I'll let you go on to the other callers.
	All right.
	Thanks, man.
	Appreciate your call.
	All right.
	Good night.
	All right, Bruce, you're up next.
	Now, Bruce, if you're not from Australia, I'll be sadly...
	Hey, Stefan, how are you doing?
	I'm well, Bruce.
	How are you doing?
	Good.
	Well, I just want to say I really enjoy the show and I'm actually pretty new to your show.
	I basically heard of you via Peter Joseph and that whole deal you had with him.
	Great.
	Well, welcome aboard.
	Yeah.
	And I've heard everybody talk about how...
	It seems like a lot of people are siding with you, and I guess that's because...
	No, no, no, no.
	Come on.
	You can't say that.
	Siding with me?
	They don't even know me.
	What do you mean, siding with me?
	I hope that if Einstein...
	I'm not trying to compare myself to Einstein.
	I'm just using an analogy, right?
	But if Einstein makes a better case than Newton, would you say to physicists, well, they're just siding with Einstein?
	Yeah, well, so basically I just wanted to be a dissenting voice here, and I've got to say that I agreed with Peter more than I agreed with you, and I wanted to give some reasoning why.
	No, listen, I'm thrilled.
	I'm perfectly thrilled because I was really hoping to get more people to come in and explain what I obviously didn't understand and with great suspicion didn't understand, so I'm very glad that you are calling in.
	Yeah, I've seen a lot of his videos and I feel like I've really digested what his beliefs are.
	One of the things that I thought was interesting about the debate or that was a fundamental misunderstanding for both of you is that, like you say in the video, you say that a true free market society has never occurred before and the current market is not a free society.
	But likewise, what What the Zeitgeist movement wants to do has never occurred before either.
	So essentially, you guys are both putting forth a new, never occurring before theory.
	Not quite.
	Not quite.
	Sorry.
	So societies without prices and without free trade have definitely occurred in the past.
	Well, you personally said in the video that a true free market has never occurred before.
	Sure.
	But just because we've never seen pure white doesn't mean that there's no difference between black and very light gray.
	Do you understand?
	No.
	So what I'm saying is that, well, you kept getting mad at Peter because he's not offering proof and whatnot.
	No, no, no.
	I got mad.
	No, no, sorry.
	Just to be precise.
	I got mad at Peter because Peter was repeatedly insulting me.
	Well, I was going to get to that, but...
	It seems like one of the things that is...
	That I would point out is that both of you are putting forth a theory of an economic organization or a lack of organization that's never occurred before.
	So proof is not the standard by which you should judge because both of you essentially can't prove anything because both of what you want has never occurred before in history.
	So the only proof that you could really...
	Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry to interrupt.
	Sorry to interrupt.
	It certainly is true that a pure free market, i.e.
	a stateless society, has not occurred in history.
	Absolutely, without a doubt.
	But that doesn't mean that governments have always been the same size under all circumstances.
	So, for instance, if you look at something like East Germany versus West Germany or East Berlin versus West Berlin in the post-war period, you had two societies, one of which was more along the lines of the free market, West Germany, of course, And one of which was part of a communist central planning society without price, without supply and demand, without private property rights.
	Basically violations of the non-aggression principle all over the place.
	So here you have an example of a generally free market in West Berlin and in Western Germany.
	And then you have a centrally planned, top-down, communist-style, socialist-style economy in Eastern Europe.
	And the two were massive divergences in just about every way that you could think of.
	You can look at something like public school education is run in a socialist manner, whereas the software and electronics hardware market is run—let me just finish.
	I'm almost done—is run closer to the ideals of the free market in that there's very little government regulation, there's very low barriers to entry, and you don't have to have a license to be a programmer.
	You can just go and be a programmer.
	And so it's closer to the free market and if you look at the innovation in the electronics and software sector as opposed to the complete lack of innovation and progress where the government has the most control of the educational system.
	So there are indications, if that makes any sense.
	There's indications.
	So it's sort of like nobody has ever not had poison.
	But people get different degrees of poison.
	And so somebody who takes, you know, 10 milliliters of this poison dies.
	You know, somebody who takes 5 milliliters of this poison doesn't die but is crippled.
	Somebody who takes 2 milliliters of this poison is neither crippled nor dies but, you know, gets sick to their stomach for 6 months.
	Somebody who takes 1 milliliter gets a bad migraine.
	And somebody who takes half a milliliter has, you know, a mild headache.
	And so you can see the progress.
	And then you can say, well, we should stop taking this poison at all.
	So even though I could say, well, no one has ever not taken this poison, we can definitely see that when people take less of this poison, they're not nearly as sick, and there's no reason to believe that wouldn't continue.
	So it's not like there's no proof whatsoever, but there are definitely gradations and so on.
	So does that make any sense?
	Yeah, I understand what you said, but with the example that you just gave, what you said to him was that he can't use the current system to critique what you want because what you want has never existed,
	so that you can't use any examples from history to critique what you're saying, but now you're just giving an example of something, so I'm trying to understand why you exempted Him using history and the current economy to critique your theory because you clearly are now just saying that that's okay.
	Well, because he kept using examples that were supposed to represent the free market, which actually represented the government.
	Right, but if...
	Three examples that he used, just for those who didn't hear the debate, so three examples that he used as negative...
	One was bankruptcy proceedings, which is all run by the government legal system.
	One was that somebody he worked with had a visa, a work visa, and was in danger of losing that work visa.
	Well, that's all government stuff.
	And the third was that the video production company that he worked for was a corporation, and that is all defined by the government legal system.
	So when I was sort of pointing out that he can't use stuff which is purely statist and very much against free markets and private property To criticize free markets and private property.
	That was sort of my point.
	Not that you could never use any examples of any kind, but that all the examples he was using were actually examples of state power, not of free markets.
	Okay.
	One of the other things that I thought that happened a lot when you guys talked is that when you When you read his statements and then you give your comments on a post-debate critique,
	I feel like I watched this one, the one where you're mentioning and he goes, he's talking about the board game and then he says at the very end, it's an incredibly important point and you just say something about making statements is not Something to be done in an argument.
	And you do the same thing when you say, like, he's just using adjectives or whatever.
	And I just don't understand how anyone is to make any arguments then if they can't use adjectives or statements because then they'd have to ask questions without...
	in sentences that don't have adjectives.
	So...
	Well, sorry, but you're not understanding the rational point.
	Maybe I wasn't clear in the video, but...
	If I say we should adopt my system because my system is more efficient, have I proven anything?
	Well, that's not what, like...
	No, no, no.
	This is a yes or no question.
	Not by that alone, no.
	No, no.
	Agreed.
	No, not by that alone.
	Now, if I say...
	If you say, I'm in a real hurry to get to Rio de Janeiro.
	And you say, I think I should walk.
	And I say, if you're in a real hurry and you can afford it, it'll be faster to go by the plane.
	Because walking will take you two weeks or six months.
	I don't know where you are.
	Whereas if you take the plane, it will only take you an hour or two.
	Have I at least proven with that argument that...
	Flying a plane is faster than walking and it better serves, if you can afford it, your desire to get there quickly.
	Yeah, I understand that.
	Okay, so then if I say, so flying a plane is more efficient, then you would agree with that because I've proven it.
	And then I can use the adjective efficient because I've already established the argument, right?
	I've already proven the argument, therefore I can use the adjective, right?
	Right.
	Like if I'm putting a business plan forward and I say, look, we invest $1,000 here and we make $100...
	Whereas if we invest $1,000 over here, we're only going to make $50.
	Therefore, the one where we invest $1,000 and make $100 is more profitable.
	Then I can say it's more profitable because I've already proven it.
	Whereas if I just say we should do this because it's more profitable with no proof, I haven't established anything.
	Right, but in an hour-long debate where you guys are going constantly back and forth, everything that he says is an argument and is a point in a broader context of proving his theory of economics.
	So there's nothing he says that's just a statement.
	It's all arguments in a broader context.
	I don't know what broader context means.
	I'm sorry, I don't know what broader context means.
	As in, like, his conclusion is we should organize society the way Zeitgeist wants it to be, and everything he says is an argument for that conclusion.
	Right, and so at some point you have to prove something, right?
	Every sentence he said to you is his argument for that, and proof isn't necessarily the standard.
	You can just use reason.
	Wait, sorry.
	Proof is not the standard?
	I'm not sure what you mean.
	Again, because the zeitgeist society has never occurred before, so he can't prove to you that that's the right way to organize society because he'd have to actually organize society that way.
	He has to use what's in the current society and reason to show you that that's the way things should be done.
	Same with you.
	It has to be reason using what's wrong with the current society.
	No, no, no.
	Sorry to interrupt.
	I get that this is because Peter said in the debate, he said that he doesn't do philosophy.
	He only does things from empirical science or empirical evidence, which is kind of like the Sam Harris approach, which is not to say that they're the same or anything like that.
	So in that situation, you cannot use Reason to show something.
	So if you say to somebody who knows nothing, this is not for you, you understand this, but it's for others.
	So if you say to somebody, what is the capital of Turkey?
	And they don't know.
	They can't use reason to figure it out.
	They have to go look it up.
	Because it's not something that you can reason out.
	It's just something you either know or you don't.
	And if you say to somebody who doesn't know, what is the speed of light?
	They don't know it's 186,000 miles a second or whatever it is.
	They won't be able to reason that out.
	They have to, right?
	And so if I hold a balloon to you and I hold a balloon in my two hands and I say, if I let go of this balloon, will it go up or down?
	You can't reason out whether it's going to go up or down because you don't know if it's full of helium or not.
	Not if you do, don't worry.
	So you'd have to see if it goes up or down, whether it's full of helium or air or whatever, right?
	So I get all of that for sure.
	For sure.
	But...
	I did make arguments that did not require evidence.
	Because you cannot possibly propose a society that you can't prove ahead of time.
	That you can't make any arguments that are rational ahead of time.
	So I made the argument that the people who voluntarily exchange things must in that moment believe that they're better off after that exchange than beforehand because they're both doing it voluntarily.
	And I pointed that out.
	I said that is axiomatically true, that is praxeologically true, which is a technical term, which is not that important.
	But that is a true statement.
	It can't really be denied.
	You could say, well, they shouldn't trade or whatever, but those people believe that they're better off after that voluntary trade.
	So that's an argument that is clear, I think, and does not require That we go and ask everyone who's engaged in trade whether they think they'll be better off or not, right?
	That's not something we have to go and survey, that's just something that is true.
	It's just true because people are voluntarily engaged in something, therefore they prefer to do that than something else.
	That's just based on logic and reality.
	And this is one of a number of cases that I made in that situation where I don't require that everyone trust me And say, oh, just let Steph get rid of all the governments and cross her fingers and hope everything's better.
	I also, of course, have made a number of arguments saying that when the price system is more respected, when property rights are more respected, societies tend to do better.
	So we're really just continuing that trend.
	Whereas when there is central planning, where prices are not allowed, and I had this in my original debate with some zeitgeist years ago, Which is the Misesian calculation problem, which is that price contains an enormous amount of information that when you don't have price, you don't have.
	And when you don't have price, you don't know how to efficiently allocate resources.
	It can't be done centrally.
	Like, there's no algorithm that can reproduce the wants, needs, and changing desires of billions of people around the world.
	So you just – it's not a push thing.
	You're going to push it out.
	And so I've made sort of lots of arguments as to why these things are impossible.
	And I think I've shown in a repeated number of both moral and economic arguments as well as historical examples that when we get closer to private property and the free market, society tends to do better.
	And when we eliminate price, which is the fundamental failure of centrally planned or socialistic or RBE-based economies, things tend to go really, really badly.
	So those are – I think those are moral, rational, empirical and historical arguments.
	And so I think it's – I mean obviously I think it's fairly convincing.
	Other people, of course, can reject whatever they want.
	But I'm certainly not saying that we can't judge anything before we do it and therefore we have to implement it to see if it will work.
	I just don't think that's a reasonable approach to wanting to change the world.
	Yeah, I'm glad you brought up some of the stuff you just brought up because I think when he was saying – like you got really upset when he – You didn't like when he's calling your stuff truncated and simplistic, and I wanted to, I guess, explain what he meant by that.
	Okay.
	Do you know what he meant by that?
	Because you can explain to me what you think he meant by that, but I don't think you know what he meant by that, necessarily.
	The argument that you gave for...
	A voluntary society where you boil it down where it's these two people voluntarily exchanging something and you say, by definition, two people are better off because of that trade.
	No, no, sorry.
	No, no, no.
	No.
	The guy who buys cocaine and ejects it in his eyeball may not be better off after the trade.
	I don't know.
	I said that in the debate.
	I don't know.
	You've got to be precise, right?
	I don't know whether someone's better off or not, but those two people must believe that they're better off.
	I don't know whether they're objectively better off or not, right?
	Okay.
	Well, I think in the video you said by definition those people are better off.
	No.
	No, I said that they believe that they're better off.
	But anyway, it doesn't usually matter.
	I just want to be precise on that.
	What that means is that little argument that you're making takes out all the variables...
	Sorry, why is it a little argument?
	That argument that you make takes out all the variables in society which make...
	A voluntary trade makes people not better off, as in the variable of how different in education those two people are, the variable of the disclosure of what's being sold, the variable of where these people are from, the variable of How many friends each one has and the ability for them to enforce their property rights over each other.
	It's simplistic because that argument removes all the variables which make that argument false.
	Okay, so then you can falsify it.
	So under what conditions would people be voluntarily engaged in a trade where they did not expect in some way or another to be better off as a result of that trade?
	Well, I think we should look at it objectively, whether these people are actually better off and not whether they just think they're better off.
	And I think one of the variables that has to be put into your argument is the difference of sophistication between these two people.
	As in, if you have someone who's extremely educated in economics trading with an 18-year-old Odds are that an 18-year-old is going to get the crap end of the stick, and he's not going to be better off by definition.
	So can you give me an example?
	I just did.
	That's just a variable that has to be added to your argument.
	Wait, sorry.
	Are you saying that people who are more educated cheat people who are less educated?
	No, I'm saying that the variable of the difference of sophistication has to be one of the things that's added to that argument that you make because to make this argument...
	Okay, but sorry, but give me a concrete example.
	I gave the lemonade stand and stuff like that in the debate.
	So what is the person with a degree in economics, what are they trading for the 18-year-old?
	Give me an example of what they might be trading.
	Does he want him to mow his lawn?
	Is that right?
	Like the guy who's got a degree.
	He's selling a car, but the person that's buying it doesn't know, for example, that this car, they just made a billion more of him.
	The value of the car is actually like 10 times less what he's selling it for.
	Are they both better off because of the trade?
	So...
	That, of course, could never happen, but they just made a billion more of the car.
	I mean, I don't mind theoretical examples, but they do have to sort of be in the realm of reality.
	Why not?
	Let's say the kid doesn't know that the more cars are produced, new cars come out all the time.
	If you're going to make up some crazy example, then I'll say, oh no, see, it's okay because what the professor of economics doesn't realize is that there's a winning lottery ticket inside the dash of the car for a million dollars.
	So now the kid is a million dollars richer and therefore you can just make up anything you want, right?
	No, you've got to answer based on the hypothetical that I've created.
	No, no, but if you're going to put up unrealistic hypotheticals, then I'll just put up my own unrealistic hypotheticals and where to stand still, right?
	But you haven't proven that it's unrealistic.
	But you haven't proven that there's not a winning lottery ticket in the dashboard of the car, so he's better off.
	He's cheated the rich guy or whatever, right?
	Okay, I mean, I'll give you a different example.
	Like, what if it's a boat, and the kid doesn't know that the boat is only going to run for, like, six months?
	No, nobody knows that.
	How is somebody going to know that a boat is only going to run for six months?
	I'm giving you a hypothetical.
	Just answer the hypothetical.
	No, no, because it has to be something within the realm of reality, because then I'll just say, oh, no, it's a self-healing boat that runs for infinity or something, right?
	The motor is defective, and it's estimated to only last for six months.
	I mean, it's depreciating, it's going down, it's failing, and he's selling the boat to him, and he's telling him the boat works, and the kid wants the boat, and he sells it to him, and...
	They're not both better off because there's improper disclosures because the parties are different levels of sophistication.
	And I think if you add that into your argument, your argument is weakened.
	And that's why I think that argument that you make for this whole voluntary society, you're removing all the variables.
	No, no.
	Sorry.
	I'm sorry to interrupt, but I don't know if you've ever tried.
	Anyway, look.
	The kid who wants to buy a boat can either choose to pay for somebody to independently inspect the boat or not, right?
	Sure, but let's say that...
	Okay, so if...
	Hang on, hang on.
	So if the kid decides to not pay somebody $100 or $200 to go check the boat out, then he's saving that money.
	Now, by saving that money, he takes the risk...
	That the boat might not be in quite the shape that the owner thinks it is or says it is, right?
	But he's saving that money.
	So by not doing that, he must believe either that the boat owner is trustworthy or that he knows enough about boats or whatever it is.
	So he's not going to spend that money.
	So he saves that money.
	Now, if he has doubts about the quality of the boat, then he will hire someone to go and check out whether the boat is good or not, right?
	Right?
	And so if he decides to save the money, he believes that he's better off not paying for that money.
	And then he takes the chance that he might be wrong about the boat, but he's willing to take that chance.
	So he is better off.
	And if he doesn't believe that the boat is safe, then he's going to pay that couple hundred bucks to have the mechanic check it out.
	And then he's going to be certain about it.
	So he is better off.
	Again, I don't understand why he's not cheated.
	If he doesn't have someone go and check the boat out, then he's taking his own risks, right?
	I completely agree, but I think that when you make the argument, you have to add in certain qualifications, like the one that you just made, which is...
	No, this is not a qualification.
	Yeah, it is.
	This is not a qualification.
	No, if he decides to buy something without getting it checked out, then he believes that he's better off being traded fair and equal.
	I'm sorry?
	You have to look at it objectively.
	It's not about what he thinks he's getting.
	It's about what he's actually getting objectively.
	Okay, so do you believe...
	Let's say that that's fine.
	Okay, let's give that one over.
	So do you believe that something like trade can be objectively evaluated by other people?
	Yes.
	Okay, and now who pays for that?
	Who pays for what?
	Because what I'm saying is that this kid who wants to buy the boat doesn't want someone.
	He doesn't want to pay for somebody to objectively evaluate the boat.
	I understand, but...
	So do you force him to pay for it?
	The argument that you're making in that two people, by definition, when they're voluntarily trading, are by definition better off...
	No, no, no.
	Look, I'm not going to continue to talk with you if you continue to not listen.
	I am listening.
	Okay, because that's not what I said.
	I did not say that they're objectively better off.
	Okay.
	Because I don't know what objectively...
	Look, listen.
	I don't know what objectively better off means.
	Because I can't decide for other people how they should spend their time and resources.
	I know that they shouldn't be using violence, of course, and I'm sure we would agree on that.
	I know they shouldn't be violating persons and property, but I don't know if this kid who buys the boat should have someone Go and evaluate that boat.
	I don't know if it's worth it for him or not.
	I don't know if I should force him to pay $200 or $300 to have somebody evaluate the boat.
	Maybe he's an expert mechanic and he knows.
	Maybe he's got an ironclad contract that if the boat fails within six months, this guy gives him a million dollars.
	Maybe this guy is an old family friend who would never dream of cheating him.
	I don't know whether he should pay for that or not.
	And nobody can know that for sure who's not those people.
	Because there's no such thing as objective evaluations of people's deals without forcing them to pay for those objective evaluations.
	And I don't know whether or not he should pay for that or whether he should not pay for that or whether he is objectively better off or objectively not better off.
	I don't like cocaine.
	I've never used it and I never will.
	On the other hand, I really like the music of Freddie Mercury.
	I believe he did some considerable amounts of cocaine.
	I think Sgt.
	Pepper's is a great album.
	And I believe those guys used Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
	It was not a picture on a fridge.
	I think it's LSD. Now, am I going to say, well, people shouldn't take drugs.
	I've got to throw out half my music collection and half my books.
	I don't know.
	I don't want to.
	But that's because I'm not a musician.
	I don't know.
	Whatever, right?
	So, this objectively better off or worse off, I don't know.
	But I certainly am not comfortable forcing people to pay for these kinds of evaluations that may or may not determine that.
	That's up to them.
	Because I don't know the details of their situation.
	They know the details of their situation and they can make their choices and accept the consequences.
	But I can't figure out what is meant by objectively better off or worse off.
	I mean, for instance, I think prostitution is terrible.
	And I would fight tooth and nail against all the situations and environment that produce prostitution.
	I think prostitution comes out of child abuse, which is a violation of the non-aggression principle.
	I think the prostitution comes out of the fact that prostitution is illegal.
	Which is a violation of the non-aggression principle.
	I think the prostitution comes out of the war on drugs, which is a violation of peaceful trade.
	I think that there's a whole load of things and prostitution also comes out of violations of trade wherein women can't get better jobs because it's illegal to or they're banned from it or something like that.
	So I think that's horrible, prostitution.
	Never been to one, never will.
	And I would work like a devil as I do to create an environment wherein there'd be Less to no prostitution, but I would not use force to prevent somebody from going to a prostitute.
	Well, I guess going back to the objective value thing, if I trade you a bunch of stock for a boat, is that not capable of being objectively valued?
	A bunch of stock for a boat?
	No, how could that possibly be objectively valued?
	I don't know if the stock is going to go up or down.
	Doesn't the market determine what something's value at a certain time?
	Well, sure, but by the time you finish signing the papers, it's changed, right?
	Usually.
	So we could objectively back...
	The economists just, I think, got the Nobel Prize or something for the work they did in the 70s and pointing out the random walks of stocks.
	It's completely impossible to predict.
	But okay, so let's say you trade stock for a boat.
	All right, so what then?
	I'm just saying that that's a perfectly good example of something that can be objectively valued in the market, so you can retroactively determine if both parties got, by definition, were better off in their voluntary trade.
	I'm sorry, I don't know how you would do that.
	I'm open to it, I just, I'm not sure how you would do that.
	How do you know how much stock a boat is worth?
	I can...
	I could buy a certain amount of GE stocks that are projected to value based on a certain value at a point in time and take the value of the boat and when they're equal we trade and they're exactly equal.
	It's completely objective.
	But I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean by the value of the boat.
	There's no such thing as the value of a boat.
	The value of the boat is whatever someone's willing to pay for it.
	It's not like part of the boat.
	Exactly.
	Market value of the boat.
	But the market value is whatever somebody is willing to pay for it.
	Right.
	But that's objective.
	No, that's subjective.
	What somebody is willing, what somebody chooses to pay for it.
	Yeah, but it's over the whole, it's the market itself, not just one person.
	Well, but the market is nothing more or less than the aggregation, right?
	So there was a woman who sold her, hang on a sec, there was a woman who sold her husband's A sports car.
	I can't remember.
	Porsche.
	I think it was a Porsche.
	And she sold it for $10 because she was really angry at it.
	Does that mean that a Porsche is worth $10?
	No.
	Most Porsches sell for a lot more than that, but that Porsche was worth $10 because somebody bought it and somebody sold it for that amount, right?
	Yeah, but you didn't get to determine the value of your house.
	The value of your house is objectively valued by the market.
	So what you think your house is worth doesn't...
	No, no.
	I participate.
	Hang on, hang on.
	Hang on.
	I participate in determining the value of my house for sure.
	Because if somebody comes and offers me $10 for it, I'll say no.
	Right, but the value of your house is objective.
	It's not just based on what you think it's worth, correct?
	No.
	How is it objective?
	Because I can look at the market at any day and see what any house is worth on the market.
	It doesn't have anything to do with what I think they're worth.
	Hang on, hang on.
	Do you mean like the MLS listings?
	Do you mean like real estate?
	Sure.
	This house sells...
	But that may not be the final price at all.
	At that point in time, it is.
	No!
	No, that's the suggested price.
	That's what they would like to get for it.
	They may get more, they may get less.
	That's what they'd be willing to sell it for.
	But if you get two people coming in and bidding it, you get a bidding war, you might end up with 50% more.
	Or if nobody wants to buy it, it might be 50% less.
	I don't know.
	In which case, you may not want to sell it.
	But price only occurs in the moment of transaction only for those two people and only in that moment of transaction.
	Right.
	So if you're a store and nobody's buying those sweaters, you'll cut the price in half.
	And you'll keep cutting the price until you throw it out.
	So what's the price?
	Well, whatever people are willing to pay for it.
	But there's no objective price, right?
	You can't snap the transaction exactly when it crosses hands and determine the value of both those things?
	Well, you can determine the price of that, for sure.
	But what does that mean?
	That just means that in that moment, those two people were willing to exchange those things for that amount.
	Exactly.
	But the value of those two things are objectively valuable.
	Okay, you just keep saying this word.
	I keep disproving it, and you just keep saying it.
	I don't understand what we're talking about here.
	No, you just said that...
	What is the objective value of a bottle of water?
	Whatever the market says it is.
	Okay, great.
	And that's going to change continually.
	Right, so it's continually objective.
	Again, objective...
	I don't understand what you mean by objective.
	As in, I don't get to wake up and determine how much water costs.
	I have to go to the market and buy it based on what the market says it's worth.
	It's not subjective.
	No, you don't.
	No, come on.
	If the market says a bottle of water is a million dollars, do you just buy it?
	No, I go to the lowest one and I decide what's the lowest water I can buy and I buy it.
	No, not necessarily.
	No, you may not.
	Come on.
	You've got to study some economics, man.
	Seriously.
	You don't necessarily go with the cheapest water.
	The cheapest water is tap water, for God's sakes, right?
	I mean, people pay like five bucks for Italian imported spring water, right?
	Yeah.
	Anyway...
	So I don't know what...
	That's not worth it to me, but what I'm pointing out is that there is no objective price.
	And that's why one of the reasons this is important is that it's one of the reasons why central planning doesn't work.
	Because nobody knows in advance for every individual What things are worth for them under what circumstances?
	Only the moment of transaction will tell you that.
	And that doesn't tell you much about tomorrow.
	So, your argument for a voluntary society is based on, in part, the fact that all things are only subjectively valued.
	That's true.
	That's exactly right.
	Well, it's not my argument for it.
	It's that all things are subjectively valued in that there is no such thing as an objective price.
	I mean, you pay $1,000 for a horse and carriage.
	Some idiot comes along and invents the car and suddenly you can't give those things away, right?
	What is the objective value of that?
	So what is the market then?
	Isn't the market the collective value?
	When everybody gets together in a market with their subjective value and they're aggregated, aren't they creating an objective value of what everything is cost in a society?
	I don't know.
	Again, you keep going back to objective value, and I still – you're either not processing or not understanding or not listening to you.
	Well, if you and I both walk into a room and we see a bottle of water and you say you think it's worth $5 and I say I think it's worth $10 and I average that, could I not have an objective estimate of what the value of water is worth?
	No.
	Why not?
	No, you can't.
	Why not?
	Because if I have $10 and I'm willing to buy the bottle of water, then that bottle of water is worth $10 to me.
	If you're dying of thirst, you'll give them $500.
	I don't know what, right?
	All it just tells you is that's what the bottle of water is worth for you in the moment.
	I don't know about objective price.
	I mean, what does that even mean?
	I just drank three glasses of water or I just want to use the washroom.
	It's worth nothing to me.
	In fact, I'd pay to not drink it.
	I guess I wanted to say something, a different topic.
	About your guys' debate.
	Everybody, I guess, that's been on the show so far keeps saying that he did a lot of ad hominem.
	Like basically that he characterized your arguments in certain ways.
	And that's not what an ad hominem is.
	An ad hominem is attacking the person.
	So like an ad hominem is like, you don't understand this argument because you're stupid.
	Like I'm giving you a quality.
	But if I qualify your argument.
	If he says my argument is simplistic, then he's saying that I'm being simplistic and is calling me simplistic for making these arguments.
	Absolutely not.
	He's qualifying your argument, not you.
	You're making the inference that that's being carried on to you.
	Oh, so if I say your argument is stupid, you wouldn't take that personally?
	Well, I may or may not, but that's not an ad hominem, because an ad hominem is directly attacking the person, not the argument.
	So if someone says your argument is dumb, that's not an ad hominem.
	But dumb is not an argument.
	If you call an argument dumb, that's an ad hominem against the argument.
	Because it's just calling the argument dumb.
	You're not disproving anything, right?
	No, I know, but an ad hominem by definition is attacking the person.
	So if someone qualifies your argument in a certain way, that's not an ad hominem because an ad hominem is attacking you in your personal capacity and nothing to do with the argument.
	So anytime, if I say your argument is dumb or whatever, I could say that all day I haven't committed a single ad hominem.
	That being said, the one thing that I was really...
	Concerned about is that you went on at the very end of your critique of him and you gave a 20 minute thing about how the Zeitgeist movement is the way they are because of a psychological evaluation of him and his childhood.
	No, that's not what I said.
	I didn't know.
	I absolutely did not say that.
	First of all, I did not attack him, right?
	Because you just said you knew all about ad hominems.
	What I said was that it's a possibility which explains some things but is not proven.
	That's what I said.
	I didn't say Zeitgeist are this way because, right?
	I said that this is something that would fit what is happening, but it's not proof.
	Right, so that is ad hominem.
	When you attack the motive of someone, that is an ad hominem attack.
	So if I said, for example, people who want voluntary societies are only that way because they got beat up a lot as a child, so they don't want a society with no aggression, that's ad hominem because I'm attacking your motive.
	So that would be a completely irrelevant point.
	So everything you said about, like, well, he's only this way, Zeitgeist, because of their childhood or whatever, that's ad hominem.
	So I'm trying to figure out why...
	Actually, no, that's not at all an ad hominem.
	Actually, I was very sympathetic in that.
	I'm not calling the person stupid or dumb.
	And it's one thing to say that an argument is simplistic without ever proving it.
	And it's quite another thing to say when you've pretty effectively rebutted someone's arguments to say that there may be some reason why this view is so appealing to people, even though it's, you know, false, right?
	So it's not an ad hominem to say that there may be some motivations for some people to have certain beliefs at all.
	I mean, to explore that as a possibility.
	I'm not saying that zeitgeisters are stupid.
	I'm not saying that they're I'm not saying that they're intellectually embarrassing.
	I'm saying that there may be some psychological motives that may lend people to be more susceptible to these kinds of irrational ideas.
	That's not an ad hominem at all.
	Yeah.
	If you look on Wikipedia, you can see that attacking the motive is a derivative of an ad hominem attack.
	I wasn't attacking.
	I wasn't attacking the motive.
	I wasn't saying that they have ill intent and that's why they believe silly things.
	And His point about it being truncated was proven in that he's saying that you're taking out the variables in your argument that make the argument stand on its shoulders.
	So the argument is truncated and simplistic because you're removing all the variables that are in reality.
	But that doesn't prove anything.
	You're just restating what truncated means.
	I mean, it's still not proving anything.
	I'm giving an argument.
	That's an argument, what I just did.
	Removing variables?
	What does that even mean?
	See, you gave me an example of how I was removing variables, and I think I defended it quite adroitly, right?
	And you said that there's objective price, and I think I defended that that wasn't quite adroitly, right?
	But just saying you're removing variables is not an argument.
	If I say, well, Einstein is wrong because he didn't take into account all the variables, hang on, if I say Einstein was wrong because he doesn't take into account all the variables, what have I proven?
	I have to say specifically what those variables are, how Einstein did not include them, and of course, in my debate with Peter, he had to make sure that they weren't originating from state power.
	There are many variables that you take out of your example, and I gave you one, this level of sophistication.
	Which everybody...
	The ability for both parties to enforce their own property rights.
	The educational background of these two people, where they're from, whether they speak the same language, whether they both have the same currency, whether they're from the same...
	I understand.
	Look, I understand.
	This is...
	You don't have to explain to me that there are differences between people.
	I understand that.
	I'm 47 years old.
	I got a master's degree.
	I ran a business.
	I have a successful marriage.
	I have a successful podcast.
	I've spoken with many very intelligent people throughout the years.
	I do understand that there are differences between people.
	You don't have to go through a laundry list of that.
	It's kind of obvious that that's not adding anything to the equation.
	But when you make a broad-sweeping intellectual assertion...
	Broad-sweeping is just another set of adjectives.
	It doesn't explain anything.
	It doesn't add anything.
	But you shouldn't dismiss my adjectives before you allow me to explain them.
	No, no.
	You don't understand how debates work or how arguments work.
	You must prove your point, and then you can apply the adjectives.
	Right, but proof can follow later, so I'm about to show...
	No, no, no, no, because adjectives beforehand is a sophisticated trick.
	In other words, you like to describe something in a negative vein, and in the hopes that people will notice that you haven't brought much proof to the situation.
	Yeah, but you can't arbitrate when I... how I speak.
	No, but I can certainly choose not to participate in a conversation...
	Where you use adjectives instead of making a case.
	Because it's not good debating, it's just not intelligent.
	Right, but I can give a conclusory statement and then I can give a set of proof or analysis that follows.
	I mean, you shouldn't dismiss my conclusory statement every time I make one just because it contains an adjective because I'm about to tell you a whole bunch of stuff that explains the statement.
	Okay, well, I'm afraid you haven't been hearing anything that I say, and it's past one o'clock in the morning here for me, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to end this, but I do thank you for calling in, and it certainly is very enjoyable to chat with the people who have different perspectives and approaches.
	I really do appreciate that.
	It was an interesting and enjoyable conversation.
	I hope people got some value out of it, and have yourselves a wonderful, wonderful week, everyone.
	FDRURL.com forward slash donate.
	If you would like to help me determine the objective value of Free Domain Radio, that would be fantastic.
	I would love it.
	Nothing more.
	Have yourselves a wonderful week, everyone.
	Of course, I will speak to you, if you are so inclined, on Sunday morning at 10 o'clock in the morning, Eastern Standard Time.
	And just for the notes of those who are following these sorts of excitements, the documentary is coming along.
	We had a nice conference call together with the head animator, who is...
	Raring to go.
	Back on track and raring to go.
	He was a bit travelly and unavailable during the summer, but we're back on track.
	Music's coming along.
	Funny sound effects are virtually complete.
	And Mike and I will be knuckling down this weekend to come up with hopefully fitting video images for the few bits of black spots that remain.
	So, cross my fingers.
	Oh, I hope to best that it will be done within a month.
	I really believe it can be.
	But I will, of course, keep you posted should you be so inclined as to follow.
	But since I get a lot of questions about that, that's where things are.
	So have yourselves a completely wonderful week, everyone.
	Thanks again for all of the callers.
	Last guy in particular was really enjoyable.

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