Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

Nov. 14, 2013 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:55:48

2531 The Looming Intergenerational War - Wednesday Call In Show November 13th, 2013

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Hi everybody, Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Aid Radio, Wednesday the 13th of November.
	Deep, clenched in the bitter icy fist of the Canadian winter.
	I cry out for freedom and questions on philosophy.
	Mike, who do we have on the line?
	All right, Manny.
	You're up first today, Manny.
	Go ahead.
	Hello, Stefan.
	Hello.
	How are you doing?
	Good.
	First time caller.
	I hope I don't take an hour of your time, but I would like to try and get in two questions if it fits the time.
	You should hope that you take an hour of my time because that means it's a great conversation.
	Well, that's true.
	Actually, but my brother is kind of waiting for me in an hour, so I don't think that would be possible.
	But anyways, my first question is regarding raising multilingual children.
	Basically, I'm planning on having my first child with my girlfriend.
	But unlike a lot of people that I know, I'd like to actually think it through before having children.
	And my first language is English, you probably can tell.
	My girlfriend's first language is Chinese.
	But I'd like to give my first child and any future children a leg up in terms of linguistic skills.
	So I was thinking, and my girlfriend agrees, to have her child in a third country.
	When I say third country, a country that speaks as a first language, a third language that neither of us speak.
	And the idea would be that I would speak to my child for the first X number of years exclusively in English.
	My wife would speak exclusively in Chinese.
	And our child would either go to a school or have an at-home teacher that would speak the local language, the third language.
	I was wondering what you thought about that.
	Well, I don't know really what to think.
	I mean, it certainly sounds like you are interested in giving your child a wide range of skills.
	As far as I understand it, there is some research that says that there are sort of brain benefits to multi-language skills and so on.
	I have some reservations.
	And, you know, you obviously need to consult the literature on this to find it out.
	I have some reservations about multi-language situations.
	So, I guess my first reservation is, I mean, I spoke German fluently when I was younger, and I don't speak German when I was saying, I mean, I can't really speak much German now, if any, and the reason for that, of course, is that I did not keep it going.
	Now, of course, if you have a...
	Conversation exclusively in one language your wife has in another or is going to school in another, that's certainly going to help.
	But any language which is not actively used tends to decay.
	So that's sort of one thing.
	Now, of course, if you can learn second or third languages as a kid, then it's a lot easier.
	But of course, there are lots of opportunity costs that occur, right?
	So if you're around the dinner table, what are you going to speak when you're all together?
	Yes, that's a good point.
	So, given that, I didn't think about that, but it's such an obvious point, I should have thought about it.
	How would you recommend modifying the strategy that I outlined?
	Assuming, of course.
	I see.
	I don't know.
	Again, I don't know.
	Certainly when you're all together, like if you're going to Disneyland or wherever it is you're going to be, then you're all going to have to speak a common language.
	Otherwise, it's going to be pretty schizoid.
	Maybe Esperanto or I don't know.
	It's going to be a little cobalt, but it's going to be a little schizoid that way.
	So I don't think that you can really exclusively speak one language or the other to the child's.
	I mean, here in Canada, you know, there's some value to speaking French, for sure.
	But, you know, that wasn't particularly for me, because I could simply hire people who spoke French.
	So it wasn't a huge deal.
	Now, if I had spent all that time learning French, and I took French from, like, grade 8 to, I think, grade 11 or 12, And it was a complete waste of time.
	I'm not particularly skilled in learning other languages.
	I'm good with computer languages, just not other languages.
	So for me, it was not a good use of my time.
	I would much rather have spent that time developing my writing skills in English or working on computers or something which actually I ended up using in my life.
	So if you are teaching a child another language, As you know from economic thinking, you get a positive benefit, but there's a hidden cost, which is all the time you're not spending teaching the child something else.
	So it really depends on what it is that you think is going to be the most valuable thing for your child.
	And I think other languages can certainly be very helpful, but only if they go into a profession which Values other languages.
	If they're an international salesperson, I'm sure that's helpful.
	If they're a doctor in a multilingual society, then that can be helpful.
	I mean, my wife knows three languages and she's found it to be very helpful.
	And I know one language that I have really specialized in.
	You know, I mean, people sort of like the verbal duh skills that I bring to the table on the, like in the show.
	And if I had spent time learning other languages, I would be less...
	Proficient and fluid in English, because it's taken a lot of work to extend and expand my knowledge of English.
	I mean, you're born with a native tongue, but you can always get better at it.
	And so I'm very glad that I did not spend time learning other languages, but rather specialized in one language.
	But that is a combination of So, I don't know.
	It's tough to say.
	I certainly think there's value.
	Of course, there's value in just about any piece of knowledge you acquire.
	Is it the most valuable thing that your child can acquire relative to every other skill or piece of knowledge that child could acquire?
	Are they going to be able to maintain it to the point where, you know, if you spend all this time learning a language and then you don't really use it and it decays, then there really wasn't a whole lot of point.
	It's just a lot of wasted time.
	So I think these are sort of considerations that are worth Figuring out.
	And, you know, if you end up going to, I don't know, Chile, and, you know, you speak Spanish or Portuguese, I can't remember, and then, you know, you don't really speak much, and then you find it's just easier to converse in English at home, then to what degree is Chinese valuable in Chile?
	I don't know.
	If child moves or whatever, then it's more valuable.
	So, again, I don't obviously have an answer.
	There is certainly advantages In learning a second language as there are in learning music.
	You know, would you rather your child learn a second or third language or be really good at a musical instrument?
	And of course the child's preferences have a strong sway in that as well.
	So I hope I've sufficiently evaded an answer, but these are just some considerations to the questions.
	Well, if I may make some follow-on points.
	I agree with what you're saying.
	If you know that your child in the future, which you can't know, would want to become a linguistic expert or need to be a linguistic expert in one language, then yes, it could detract from their ability to do so.
	I agree.
	But in terms of detracting from other skills, I guess maybe I should clarify.
	The idea behind the strategy that I was describing was that, you know, Our child would basically absorb, as young children are much more capable of doing than people of our age, would absorb the languages spoken at home without formally learning them, and would formally learn one language, which we all have to do anyway.
	So I don't think that the absorption of English and Chinese, which they would be doing just by speaking to both of us, would take away their ability to learn other non-language skills.
	Well, but hold on a sec, because, and I, again, I'm no expert on this, it's just about anything, but my first thought would be, so written, what about written, right?
	I mean, if you're spending time teaching kanji as well as, what is it, Cyrillic or Alfa-Romaic or whatever, Times New Roman, I think, right?
	So if you're spending time teaching that child to write Chinese symbols, as well as, you know, the 26 bare-ass letters of the English alphabet, Yes, I agree.
	For the written part of Chinese, I definitely agree.
	The third language would be something that uses the same alphabet as English, so that would reduce that significantly.
	Sure, but I mean, so learning how to speak a language without learning how to write it has limited utility.
	Certainly in the business world, it won't do you much good.
	Learning how to write a different language is, I don't know that it's a whole lot easier for kids than it is for adults.
	So there's kind of a myth, right, that kids' brains just absorb and they're just amazing little machines and so on.
	And they are, but the studies that I've read seem to be pretty clear that it's not...
	It's not harder to learn things when you get older, like if you start learning piano or whatever.
	It's not harder.
	What happens is we just have more competing interests and impulses and thoughts and demands and requirements and so on, and that sort of makes it feel harder.
	And also, of course, when you learn things as an adult, You know how far you are from being competent, right?
	I mean, you start doing chopsticks and playing scales, you know you're 10,000 hours away from being a truly amazing pianist, and so you tend to go like, ugh, forget it, Dad.
	You know, I learned three chords, that's a long way from Eric Clapton.
	And so you tend to get a little bit more demotivated, whereas kids don't know how bad they are at stuff, and each step forward is this big improvement.
	So I don't know.
	Again, I'm not trying to say, I mean, obviously my yes or no doesn't have any meaning, and I don't even have a yes or no, but I would definitely look into all of the literature and try and figure out what is the best use of time, recognizing that everything you teach is something you're not teaching.
	Right.
	Just to give you the rationale, I mean, I didn't really say, well, I gave you a little bit of a clue of the rationale, but I myself, you know, for the past 10 years, have been living outside of the U.S. and Canada, where I lived formerly, and mostly in Asia, and having been to most of these countries and tried to get jobs, I'm a teacher, I've tried to get jobs in other fields, and the biggest stumbling block to getting those jobs was learning skills.
	So the idea is to give our future children a leg up in terms of being able to work in a multitude of countries and not just be limited to the one skill set they learn.
	Whatever skill, whatever job profession they have, but having the language give them a big leg up in that respect.
	Because English is the language of the world, but not enough so that they can get by in all countries using English, and I know that from first-hand experience.
	Well, certainly for you, I mean, as an international man of mystery, I mean, having more languages is great.
	For me, I mean, what does it really matter?
	It doesn't matter to me that I can't speak other languages.
	I've got Google Translate if I need it and, you know, things like that if necessary.
	I mean, I think you can even take pictures of signs now and have them translated to your local language.
	So, I mean, of course, yeah, I mean, under certain conditions, having other languages is fantastic.
	But I also think, so let's say your kid knows three languages, they grow up and then they marry someone who only knows one language, and what are they going to do?
	I mean, it seems like at least one of them is going to fall away.
	There's not many situations where you would need three.
	So, again, of course, if your kid becomes an internationally known master translator, then Obviously, I mean, that would be a requirement.
	So I would just caution you to really think about everything else that could be done with that time, and if you all feel that it's the best use, then so on.
	But there are certain, I mean, there are many, many living conditions that don't require any access to more than one language.
	So it's just a thought.
	I mean, ideally it's great, but just remember all of the hidden costs rather than the visible benefits.
	Well, everything has hidden costs, right?
	So it's a good try to think about it.
	Okay.
	Well, if you don't mind, we can talk about the next question I have.
	Sure.
	Okay.
	I was thinking, given your vast research and knowledge and expertise on non-aggression, I was wondering if you've ever thought about or are in the process of writing up a kind of informal contract.
	What do I mean by that?
	I would like to have a non-enforceable, except through guilt maybe, contract with my future wife, my current girlfriend.
	And it's a contract of non-aggression with our future kids.
	And so the contract would cover many of the key points that you cover in your podcasts, such as non-aggression in general, free play, breastfeeding, no daycare, etc., etc.
	And then you would have this with your girlfriend?
	Yes, and it would be non-enforceable, non-binding.
	It would just be something that you could pull out and say, remember we talked about this?
	Let's try our best to get back on path.
	So we both are in the same frame of mind.
	So we start the raising of our kids immediately from the perspective of...
	Following a certain set of rules that all are around the key principles of raising kids in a non-aggressive way, critical thinking, etc.
	All the points you mentioned during your talks about the topic.
	Yeah, that's a very interesting idea.
	I mean, I certainly have occasionally referred to our marriage vows, you know, on the very few times where we get stuck in a conflict, we sort of go back to the vows and say, well, this is what we committed to and so on.
	That should be a deciding factor.
	A contract, of course, sounds a bit cold and impersonal and so on.
	I don't like to do contracts in my personal relationships or in my business relationships because if I feel the need for a contract, then it's the wrong person.
	So, in terms of like something you signed or something that is like, you know, if you feel the need to confine the other person's behavior, of course, if you have verbal commitments to these things, Then you don't really need to write them down and refer to them.
	You can just refer to the principles, right?
	So if you have the non-aggression principle and so on.
	Like, I don't have something taped above my bed, like on the ceiling.
	Of course, I have the funhouse mirror, so why would I need that?
	I have no place to put it.
	But I don't sort of have something taped that said, you know, be rational, be decisive, be assertive, be kind, be just, you know?
	Because, I mean, that's what I'm aiming for every day.
	So I sort of don't need to be reminded of that.
	I knew a woman once who was trying to lose weight and she Taped a picture of a skinny woman on her fridge and basically she just chewed through it to get to the ice cream one day.
	It didn't really do too much because she hadn't dealt with the self-knowledge issues that are usually the basis of gaining weight or the lack of self-knowledge issues.
	So I think it's great.
	I mean, to have those principles, to talk over those principles with your partner I think is fantastic.
	You can write them down and so on.
	I really don't think that that's A contract.
	Like, I've never had a contract with anyone I've done business with through FDR and so on, so, you know, I just, if I sort of feel the need for one, then I don't Really want to do business with that person.
	Contracts are tricky, right?
	Because if the person has integrity, you don't need a contract.
	And if the person doesn't have integrity, the contract isn't going to do you much good.
	They'll just find some way around it or you can't enforce it without spending a huge amount of money on courts and so on.
	In the future, I don't think contracts are going to be a very big deal because in the future when people are raised well, they'll just have the natural integrity that comes from Being raised by virtuous people who themselves have integrity.
	So I don't think contract is going to be a big deal in the future.
	I think it's great to have reference to values in relationships.
	It may be even worthwhile writing them down.
	But contract sounds a little bit like You have to shake it in someone's face when they're going contrary to it.
	And that means that they don't agree with it fundamentally.
	Like if you agree with something fundamentally, all that needs to happen is you need to be reminded of that, right?
	You know, you need to be reminded of that.
	And a contract sounds just a bit more like it's something to be shaken in someone's face or enforced rather than, hey, remember, we were going to raise our children peacefully and therefore no raised voices, no punishment, no hitting, and so on.
	And so if your wife starts, well, your girlfriend starts raising her voice, then all you have to say is, remember that.
	And she's like, oh, I'm so sorry.
	I mean, of course, you know, I completely forgot.
	So I think that's, the important thing is to just get fundamental agreement.
	On the values, like first and foremost, a fundamental agreement on the values.
	If you have that, then you just have to, and the values are pretty simple, then you just have to remind the person of that.
	And if you fear that they may slip out of that, and certainly the Chinese culture has...
	No history of peaceful parenting that I'm aware of.
	And so if you feel that there's going to be significant barriers to maintaining this in your relationship, then I would continue to have the conversations around the values.
	And then you'll know when your partner is really embodying those values and accepts those values.
	And then she'll slip like we all do and need to be reminded.
	But I would really focus on the conversations more than the paperwork, if that makes any sense.
	Yeah, I wasn't trying to make it formal.
	I tried to express that it was going to be informal.
	But like you said, maybe having it written down on paper would be a bit too much.
	But regardless, aside from just the general values, which I agree with, you know, I could use kind of verbal reminders.
	When I first brought up the more specific concepts of the research, there's a lot of evidence in the research that you've mentioned and linked to that children should be breastfed at least for the first two years of life and they shouldn't go to daycare at least for the first four or five years of life.
	These kind of concepts.
	Are just so kind of, they shouldn't be, but they're so revolutionary to people who are trained from their parents and their parents to go on the artificial breast stuff and send them to daycare and all this kind of stuff.
	So she can say, yes, it's good in principle.
	And then when it comes down to it, come up with all kinds of excuses why she can't do it and it's not practical and blah, blah, blah.
	So I'm just kind of trying to prevent those Difficult situations from arising, even when they do.
	Well, but I mean, if you said to your wife, we should feed the child Coca-Cola instead of milk, because Coca-Cola is cheaper than milk, what would she say?
	Well, she probably would realize that that's ridiculous.
	Well, she'd say, well, no, you can't do that.
	You simply cannot do that.
	I mean, you can't quote price and then give the child something that is nutritionally completely deficient and full of all kinds of chemicals and sugar and fructose, glucose and all that kind of stuff.
	So it simply wouldn't be an option, right?
	And so when it comes to, well, it's more convenient to put your kids in daycare, Well, I mean, it depends what you mean by convenient, right?
	I mean, if you're really busy one day, then sure, dropping your kids off at a daycare will allow you to get some stuff done.
	For sure.
	At what cost?
	Down the road, right?
	So, your kid probably prefers, you know, sugar...
	To vegetables, obviously, right?
	And we're programmed that way because we all needed fruit as evolving bipeds and fruit is sweet and those who were drawn towards fruit and concentrated energy like honey and sugarcane and so on did very well.
	So, sure, it's efficient, but...
	Less conflict to give your kid sugar all the time, but we all know we can't do that because it can cause all these problems down the road.
	And it's the same thing with the brain as it is with the body, right?
	So yeah, it's convenient and it's easier in certain situations, in certain moments, to fire a kid in a cannon over the wall into the daycare and come pick them up eight hours later, for sure.
	It's just that daycare is to the brain as Coca-Cola is to the body.
	It's not an option.
	Because it's just so terrible.
	Like in Canada, they just...
	I know you know all of this stuff.
	So I'm more reading this for others who don't know as much about these topics.
	Because you say, well, daycare is bad and so on.
	Well, I've got a presentation coming up.
	On the truth about daycare.
	Just before we get there, let me see if I can dig up what I wanted to read about daycare, because this just came out in Canada.
	I mean, I'm still idiotic enough to be shocked by this stuff, but nonetheless, there it is.
	Let's see if I can find it.
	Hold up.
	That's not it.
	I don't know if I've got it handy.
	Oh, maybe it's over here.
	There's me flipping pages all over the place.
	Oh, yeah.
	This is from Maclean's Magazine.
	What's the date on this?
	You're standing there in Canada, supposedly.
	Yeah, and this is the Canadian version of time.
	I just have a date on it.
	It's Canada's best school, 2014.
	And the article is entitled, Why Full-Day Kindergarten is Failing Our Children.
	I won't get into the details.
	Five-year-olds in British Columbia, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island all attend full-day kindergarten.
	Ontario is currently, which is where I live, in the fourth year of a five-year rollout for full-day junior and senior kindergarten, meaning kids as young as three attend school all day, five days a week.
	In those provinces without full-time daycare programs, demands are heard regularly, I guess, for this.
	This September, on the first day of the school year, the Ontario government claimed conclusive evidence of full-day kindergarten's advantages was finally at hand thanks to a pair of academic studies it commissioned.
	Quote, in every area, in every area, students improved their readiness for grade one and accelerated their development, a provincial news release declared.
	Education Minister Liz Sandals called the results, which tracked students in both half- and full-day kindergartens over two years, nothing short of incredible.
	This news was immediately hailed by supporters of the concept.
	Charles Pascal, the driving force behind Ontario's full-day program, said, It shows the program is truly a life changer.
	In a front page study, the Globe and Mail, Scumbags and United, dubbed it a landmark study.
	And yet there was no study to read, landmark or otherwise.
	The hype and excitement came from a few bullet points selectively released by the province.
	The actual reports were nowhere to be seen.
	The reason for this reticence is now apparent.
	With the complete reports finally available online, it appears that Ontario's $1.5 billion a year full-day kindergarten experiment is a grave disappointment from both pedagogical and financial perspectives.
	And you can look this article up.
	But basically, a lot of kids have done worse with full day early in kindergarten.
	The biggest failings were in the categories of emotional maturity, communication skills, and general knowledge.
	And kids with special education needs do particularly badly in this situation.
	And you can sort of go on to read it.
	I mean...
	I'm still shocked that the government would lie to this degree and claim that something is successful when it's obviously a disaster.
	At least they don't do that with Obamacare, this website from hell, right?
	Which is a pretty easy thing to build, right?
	It doesn't actually do any e-commerce.
	It just allows you to compare plans and apply.
	It's actually a pretty simple system.
	But anyway, so if you get that, right, that this is just bad for your children's brains, bad for their emotional development, Then you would no more put your kids in daycare than you would, you know, allow them to watch Bruce Willis films for eight hours a day.
	It's just not on the table, right?
	And so you don't need all that to get that.
	So go ahead.
	Well, for me, you know, you don't have to, like you said before, you don't have to convince me.
	I mean, to me, it's logical and obvious.
	I don't even need the research to tell me that.
	But the problem is, is that, you know, I am, you know, the 1% in that respect.
	You know, and my girlfriend, you know, she's growing up in an environment where There's a lot of pressure to conform.
	And for her to read such—that's one problem.
	The second problem is for her to read such high-level writing—I mean, her English is not fluent like mine.
	It's her second language.
	So trying to get it across to her in a simple way as possible but still backed up by evidence, that's a real challenge.
	I don't know what you can suggest for that.
	Jake, you're bad.
	I mean, I get that there's not a lot of this kind of literature in communist China, of course, right?
	And the reason, of course, why the government loves daycare is it gets to tax the women who put their kids in daycare and go to work, and it gets to tax the daycare workers, and it gets unions for the daycare workers that give campaign contributions to the politicians.
	I mean the fact that it crushes the brains and souls of children is sort of irrelevant because it ups politicians' power.
	So, I mean she's just got to – I mean you can explain it to her as you like but the fundamental thing is she just needs to trust you, right?
	Yeah, I hope so.
	Well, no.
	See, hope is not a strategy, right?
	Cross your fingers is not a plan, right?
	So you need to have this stuff squared away before you get mad, before you settle – before you have kids.
	Absolutely.
	You have to have this stuff squared away, right?
	I agree with you 100%, and that's the reason I brought up the conversation, for sure.
	Well, no, but you're saying hope so, right?
	Well, no, no, no.
	That was just kind of like a...
	It's an expression I'm going to take.
	I'd rather err on the side of caution than assume you were just making a joke.
	Don't hope so.
	You need to have her commitment to this before you have kids with her.
	You just need to.
	In the future, they will simply look upon this stuff as child abuse.
	Child abuse is something that changes and so on.
	They'll look on spanking as child abuse.
	They'll look on government-run daycares as abusive towards children in terms of the inevitable neglect that comes.
	And I've worked in these institutions, I know, more than most.
	So...
	You know, you just have to have a commitment to do that which is best for your child and you have to look at the science and you have to look at the history of how human beings developed and what children need and the science is very clear.
	There's no substitute for at-home consistent parenting from one or hopefully both parents.
	There's just nothing that's better for children.
	I mean, breastfeeding is far better for children.
	Being at home with the parent is far better for children and you don't have to have kids.
	But if you do have kids, you've automatically entered yourself into the category or the contract, I guess you could say, of you have to do what is best for them.
	And science is very clear about what is best for them.
	You know, politics and propaganda obviously is completely the opposite.
	But, you know, the politics and propaganda is like, hey, do you value your freedom?
	Thank a veteran, right?
	And so I think you just need to get this.
	Keep going over the facts.
	Keep going over the statistics.
	You know, pause and explain.
	Pause and explain.
	And once she's fully on board, then all you'll need is a reminder, right?
	Okay.
	That makes a lot of sense.
	Well, thanks.
	Well, thank you very much.
	Great questions.
	I appreciate you bringing them up.
	Okay.
	Take care.
	Bye-bye.
	All right.
	Coming up next via phone is Chris.
	Hello.
	Hi, Chris.
	Hi.
	Hi.
	You got a question?
	Actually, I have a bunch of questions.
	Pick your most important one first, just in case it takes a while.
	I will.
	I just want to give you a little bit of background on myself.
	Like I said, I'm running a startup.
	I'm an accountant.
	I'm a blind, competitive athlete.
	And my philosophy tends to lean toward anarcho-primitivism, which is the main reason I called you.
	I have been unable to find stuff on YouTube or otherwise from you about anarcho-primitivism.
	And actually, to begin, if you could just give me your thoughts on that philosophy?
	Well, I don't think there's any thoughts to give on a philosophy that respects the non-aggression principle and property rights.
	I mean, if people want to homestead some land and live in caves and consume as few resources as humanly possible, I think that's fine.
	I mean, I may have some questions about the suitability of that for children, but obviously it's not horrendous as long as the kids get medical attention and so on when necessary, which of course requires some pretty modern technology.
	So, if people want...
	Like, this is a form of aesthetics.
	It's not really a form of ethics.
	As long as you're not violating the non-aggression principle and property rights, you know, do what you will.
	And if you feel that the philosophy is of value to people, then you can go and make the case for that philosophy.
	Like, I don't advocate throwing spanking parents into jail.
	I just try to make the case as clearly as possible for what needs to be done for the world to be better with the positive consequences of having a better relationship with your children and the negative consequences, which is that if in 10 years from now everybody believes or accepts that it's abusive, then you're going to have problems with your adult relationship with your kids.
	So yeah, I mean, you know, if you want to live that way, it's not my choice.
	If you want to live that way, fantastic.
	If you want to make the case for it, I think that's fantastic too, but obviously it can't be something that's enforced on everyone because then that's a violation of the non-aggression principle.
	Does that help at least give some somewhat of my perspective?
	Yeah, now I have some follow-ups.
	Is the non-initiation of force applicable to just humans?
	I had a discussion with Larkin Rose, I'm sure you know who that is, and that's what he told me.
	Non-aggression is only applicable to people.
	Well, you know, it's tough.
	It's a tough call.
	And I don't think it's as black and white.
	So there's the non-aggression principle and then there's the NSP. The NAP and NSP. NSP is non-sadistic principle.
	Which is, you know, torturing animals is bad.
	And because it's completely unnecessary suffering that you're inflicting on a sentient creature.
	You know, not a creature that's able to abstractly reason...
	Use complex language, understand contract, reciprocity, philosophy, and so on.
	But in a free society, it would not be acceptable, as it is not acceptable now, to torture animals.
	And I mean, very briefly, I've touched on this a number of times before.
	Very briefly, I myself, and mostly vegetarian, I'll have meat maybe once every month or two.
	And I think that we should eat a lot less meat.
	I think in general it's bad for the planet.
	It's often bad for our bodies.
	And so I think we should eat a lot less meat.
	And the best way to do that is to stop giving all these crazy subsidies to meat farmers, right?
	Because I mean, as you know, it takes...
	Seven times the amount of energy and crops and water to produce a pound of meat than it does to produce a pound of vegetables.
	And so why isn't meat roughly seven times more expensive?
	Well, because voters like meat and therefore the government will give all these crazy subsidies and so on.
	So let meat reflect its real costs and its consumption will go down enormously.
	And I don't believe in, you know, obviously cruelty towards animals and so on.
	I'm not willing to shoot someone who wants to eat a burger.
	I don't think that's reasonable.
	But I also would have significant issues with somebody who was torturing animals.
	I would consider that to be reprehensible.
	And of course, on the part of a child.
	Like, you know, torturing animals, bedwetting and arson, the unholy trifecta of sociopathy.
	So it would be a significant cause of concern if a child was expressing that preference.
	So I think that the non-aggression principle applies to people, but I think the non-sadistic principle would apply to, obviously, to people and to animals as well.
	Okay, so now to follow up with that, I believe last week the black rhino went extinct and that's largely due to its people poaching it.
	Now this is just theoretical obviously.
	I'm assuming under the capitalist model people can own animals.
	I don't think that's aggressive so to speak.
	Sorry to interrupt, but the black rhino as far as I understand it went extinct because of a deficiency of philosophy, right?
	Because people believe that the powdered horn is an anti-erectile dysfunction, right?
	It's a Viagra kind of thing, right?
	That if you powder the horn, there's something to do with tiger blood as well.
	People believe it has these restorative properties and it's basically like you might as well be mixing potions in oblivion as far as the effect on reality goes.
	But it's people's irrational thinking process that produced the demand for a lot of these creatures that go extinct.
	It's because in the double-blind experiment, you'd find out that this stuff is worse than useless because it's actually preventing you from finding a more productive solution to erectile dysfunction.
	But as far as I understand it, it's irrational, unscientific, mystical thinking that produced the demand that killed off these beasts.
	I agree, but all right.
	Just theoretically speaking, if someone owned the last black rhino and under capitalism, someone came up and said, I'll give you $10 million to shoot this because I want its head on my wall or whatever, and the person agreed, wouldn't that be okay?
	I mean, it's not torturing the animal.
	It's a quick death.
	Wouldn't that be okay under a capitalist model?
	I mean, I don't know what you mean by okay.
	I'm not sure what you mean.
	Would you shoot someone for doing that?
	No.
	No, no, no.
	But there's so many ways to solve that, right?
	Nobody's going to pay $10 million for the last bill.
	I mean, and even if they did, I mean, there's lots of people who care a lot more.
	Like if you can get 50 million people to each contribute a dollar, then you've outbid the capitalists and you've kept it alive.
	And so on, right?
	So, you know, you can't sort of...
	There's these artificial scenarios.
	I'm sorry, it's not your fault.
	They kind of get on my nerves because it is not a capitalist situation that has produced The Last Black Rhino, right?
	The Last Black Rhino lives in Africa.
	Africa is a godforsaken swamp of tyranny, dictatorship, and statism.
	And even in the case of Somalia, you know, rank mysticism and superstition.
	So it is not a capitalist environment at all in Africa in any way, shape, or form, just as it's not throughout the world.
	But in Africa in particular, it's just a complete mess of a continent from an economic standpoint.
	The parks are owned by governments.
	There's massive bribery going on, corruption, foreign aid, food dumping from first world agricultural markets, destroying local economies, child soldiers, wars, genocides, disease.
	I mean, HIV, as you know, and AIDS rampant throughout Africa.
	So this is not...
	You can't suddenly say, okay, well, now we're going to take a free market example that is coming out of this complete hellfest of statism.
	You cannot slap free market on at the end and say, well, now we have a free market situation.
	Okay.
	That's totally fair.
	All right.
	So next, I'd like to discuss about the free market Maybe you've addressed it before, but I haven't been able to find it.
	It's advertising.
	It's non-aggression.
	and people can spend whatever they want on trying to convince people to buy things.
	And wouldn't this – I mean, it kind of reminds me of religion.
	It can convince droves of people that nonsense is real.
	Since you're not necessarily harming someone by advertising them, basically, where do you draw the line?
	If tobacco people can advertise to their products, which are obviously known to be bad and people are still doing them, is that okay?
	It would seem like if a person advertised enough and cornered the market, you would have somewhat of a consolidation of power.
	Am I incorrect?
	So your issue is with false statements being made to people that are dangerous to their health, is that right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, advertising is just propaganda.
	Sorry, why are you focusing on advertising rather than politics?
	I mean it seems like you're missing the target, right?
	It's like there's a tiger running at you and then there's a bumblebee on a tree a mile away and you're taking your gun and aiming at the bumblebee a mile away, right?
	I mean if you want to look at stuff that's bad for your health, I mean the propaganda for war got hundreds of millions of people killed in the last century, propaganda for patriotism.
	You know, what kind of jeans you should wear doesn't, it's not even the same moral category as what the government does in terms of propaganda and also what religion does in terms of propaganda, you know, telling kids that they're literally going to burn in hell for having sexual thoughts or being selfish or disobeying their parents and stuff like that.
	So with statism and with religion that have a coercive monopoly, Over children.
	Certainly the state does in terms of public schools.
	And to some degree, parents, particularly superstitious and aggressive parents have a violent monopoly over their children's mindsets because the children can't go anywhere.
	Whereas advertising, you just turn it off.
	You just ignore it.
	So that's sort of the one thing.
	I think that by focusing on advertising, you're, you know, aiming at the bumblebee rather than the tiger.
	And the second thing is, of course, the best cure for advertising is critical thinking.
	And neither religion nor the state have any vested interest.
	Quite the opposite, right?
	They have no vested interest in teaching true philosophical critical thinking because that would destroy the entire source of their power, which is collectivism, herd mentality, irrationality, and terror.
	And so in a free society, you know, kids are raised with critical thinking, they're raised skeptically, and so they're going to be much less susceptible to emotionally manipulative advertising.
	I mean, so an advertising which is saying, you know, this is going to give you some benefits, right?
	I mean, whatever, right?
	then I think that's obviously advertising is just information and most people prefer advertising to paying for things because you can get a bunch of stuff ad-free.
	You just have to sort of pay extra for it except for this show, which is donation-based, fdrurl.com forward slash donate.
	But yeah, so now as far as tobacco goes and all that, well – There was, of course, some lack of knowledge about it early on.
	Tobacco companies, of course, were not keen on pointing all of this stuff out for reasons that are completely obvious.
	But tobacco is a manifestation of child abuse.
	Nothing more, nothing less, right?
	So kids grow up with a deficiency of happy joy juice, the dopamine receptors in their brain, and things like cocaine and tobacco.
	I provide these receptors and so people, like addiction starts because people don't realize how unhappy they were until they had this drug, right?
	So most people start at a happiness level of 100 and they smoke and they go to a happiness level of 110 or 120 and then they go back down to 100 and it's like, okay, well, that's fine.
	They don't get addicted.
	But if you have a happiness of like 50 and then you smoke and you go to 89 to 100, you're like, oh my god, this is what normal feels like.
	I've never felt this before.
	And then when you crash back down to 50, you feel miserable and then you are, you know, really conscious of how miserable you were and then you want to get back to normal again.
	And that's because you had a traumatic childhood which screwed up your brain chemistry.
	So, you know, again, these things, so many of these things are solved by, you know, peaceful, happy parenting, producing critical thinkers who aren't going to be susceptible to these crazy brain addictions and so on.
	That would be my suggestion.
	That's going to fundamentally change the face of advertising.
	But again, I mean, it's, you know, focus on the tiger.
	Okay.
	Some of these points I actually, I took out of the Zeitgeist movies.
	Do you mind if I make a couple comments on that?
	On what?
	I just have a few points, not points, but statements, basically, that I haven't heard elsewhere, and I was looking for your input.
	Okay.
	I watched the debate, and I actually have watched all the content between you and Peter Joseph, and as far as the debate goes, the one that he and you had, I thought he did actually okay, and the reason for that is because I speak Peter Joseph,
	and You mentioned the word salad, and a lot of that language, when you watch the movies, I've watched all three of them a bunch of times, and I used to believe in that resource-based economy until I thought about it and read the FAQ through the Venus Project, and I realized how, first of all, it's a consolidation of power.
	That's all it is.
	They can deny that all they want, but it's a consolidation of power.
	But my biggest issue with it that I haven't heard anywhere else, and I'd like your input, is it's coming from an anarcho-primitivist perspective.
	It's not natural.
	Their whole thing is, well, we want to be in line with nature and do this and that and blah, blah, blah.
	But nowhere in nature are there supercomputer cities.
	And also, some of the issues that they put forward They want to put giant turbines to control Gulf Streams.
	They want to put up windmills that will, you know, kill lots of birds.
	A lot of birds die in cities from smashing into the windows and things like that.
	This is not natural.
	I mean, that's not...
	It just, it boggles my mind that nobody has thought about that.
	Has thought about what?
	Has thought about the enormous destruction that's going to go on in nature if that plan ever came to fruition, the resource-based economy.
	Because they say, well, we restructure the surface of the Earth.
	And it would, like I said, just one example is one of their – one thing they put forward is they would want to put a giant turbine to control the Gulf Stream, which would – Yeah.
	Sorry.
	I think it's great.
	To me, when I hear this stuff, it's like, if we can just get one more unicorn, everything will be perfect.
	It's the one more unicorn philosophy, which I just find kind of laughable.
	Of course, like what they call the green economy.
	I mean, it's just nonsense.
	I mean, the Prius is terribly environmentally destructive, particularly because they've got to ship all their batteries over from Japan.
	I mean, it's ridiculous.
	Wind turbines are ridiculously inefficient, take up a lot of space.
	And of course, how do you build a wind turbine?
	Well, you get all of the stuff that's mixed together, powered by factories, powered by fossil fuels and all that kind of stuff.
	And then you just slaughter birds by the billions.
	And remember, the environmental movement started out of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.
	Concern for the birds was number one.
	And now it's just like, well, yeah, we'll sacrifice the birds to the imaginary wind gods of effective turbine power.
	So, I mean, it's all nonsense.
	And I mean, this supercomputer stuff...
	The people who want to run this stuff, I've not met a computer programmer who's in the movement.
	And it's like if you've got a magic solution called giant computers, shouldn't you actually have someone in there who knows something about computers?
	I mean, computers are not objective.
	They're not impartial.
	They're not like uncorruptible Greek gods of rational resource allocation.
	They just do what you tell them to.
	They're as subjective as the people who program them.
	And then saying, well, it's going to be open source, that doesn't solve the question.
	A computer has to decide to do something with a resource.
	And having it be open source doesn't mean anything, because it's still only going to do what people tell it to do, and either everyone is going to tell it to do exactly the same thing, which is completely impossible, or people are going to tell it to do contradictory things, in which case it's not going to be able to do anything until those contradictions are resolved.
	So it's just, you know, take a couple of computer science classes.
	If you believe that giant mommy Marxist robots are going to run your city, you know, into the gates of paradise, you know, take a couple of computer science courses.
	It's really kind of important.
	If this is the keystone of the solution to all the world's problems, then surely a couple of night courses wouldn't do you any harm.
	But it seems...
	There's just no computer science people.
	And there's a reason for that, right?
	Because computer science people can see through all that nonsense.
	And of course, if you were a computer science expert in the Venus project, then you would be required to build a simulation of what it is that was occurring.
	And it would very quickly be shown that the simulation would be impossible.
	So anyway, I just sort of wanted to point that out.
	I think it's tragic the degree to which people's, frankly, infantile fantasies Get drawn into the stuff that just has zero chance of working but serves, I guess, deep-seated emotional needs in the moment.
	Yeah, and actually as an aside, I don't want to get into this now, but I scored a 7 on the ACE test and your theory about the type of childhood that would attract a person to the zeitgeist movement was dead on.
	So should we talk about your anarcho-primitivism then?
	Not at this moment.
	I actually would really like to talk about that, but I'm not ready for that conversation yet.
	Sure.
	But my next thing about the Zeitgeist Movement is, and I swear, I have a lot of respect for Peter Joseph.
	I mean, he's got the anarcho part, right?
	But I think, because I've listened to this man debate and talk to people, and especially the vicious follow-up that he had toward you, Oh, is that the one where he called me a con artist and a piece of shit and stuff like that?
	Douchebags.
	Yeah.
	No, no.
	You may have misunderstood that because, you see, Peter Joseph is, as he says right there on his website, is entirely dedicated to the principles of nonviolent communication.
	Yeah.
	So whatever tricks your ears were playing on you, it's just really important to focus on the fact that this – unfortunately, it was simply going through your capitalist bourgeois filter.
	You heard douchebag, piece of shit, con man, but clearly he is dedicated to nonviolent communication and therefore you must be mistaken because, of course, if someone is dedicated to nonviolent communication and then pours out torrents of verbal abuse when contradicted – Then that would not even be remotely a tiny shred of the level of integrity that would be needed to run, say, a grocery store, let alone the whole world.
	Well, as I said in the beginning, I'm actually blind.
	My ears work very well.
	I did hear all that.
	Okay.
	Well, then you and I must be sharing the same delusional bourgeoisie fantasy of non-recurring continuums.
	Anyway, so go ahead.
	So my whole – the purpose of me bringing that up is I think the movement needs to get somebody – and if anyone's listening, please take this seriously.
	Get someone besides Peter Joseph to be the spokesperson.
	He's just not a likable guy, and I – he gets very frustrated when he has to repeat his points to people, and I'm sorry to say, but that is part of taking change.
	No, no, no.
	I'm not going to give you that.
	Look, I repeat my points to people.
	Repeating your points to people is not what gets you frustrated.
	It's not.
	It's not.
	Because you're saying it's causal.
	And I get this story, right?
	Well, you see, he's so brilliant.
	And he just...
	He really wants other people to get it.
	And they don't get it because they don't share his giant brain.
	And therefore, he gets frustrated.
	No.
	I mean...
	That's not what he said.
	If you're an educator...
	No, no.
	But if you're an educator...
	No, you said he gets frustrated because he has to repeat himself.
	That's not why he gets frustrated.
	Okay.
	Because, look, it's like saying if you're a grade 3 teacher...
	And it's like you get a new class and you get frustrated because it's like, well, I already taught this stuff before, right?
	And it's like, but not to these kids, right?
	They're new!
	I'm frustrated, right?
	No, that's another reason.
	Of course you have to repeat yourself when you're talking to new people.
	Of course you do.
	Every time I talk to somebody who's not been exposed to philosophy, who's not been exposed to strong atheism, who's not been exposed to anarchism, I have to start from the very beginning.
	Of course I do.
	Because I actually have a pretty good habit of processing reality.
	And the reality is that when you're talking to someone new, they don't know what you're talking about.
	And if you don't explain something in a way that other people understand, it doesn't mean that they agree.
	But if you don't find a way to explain something in a way that other people understand, that's your fault.
	That's your fault.
	You cannot blame the recipients of complex information for their failure to understand it.
	That's your job to fix.
	That's your job to get better at.
	Does that sort of make sense?
	Yeah, I agree.
	Also, the claim that there's enough for everyone.
	And also that the person, for the resource-based economy, there's enough on Earth for everyone living right now.
	And I wonder, because one of the things that the Venus Project puts forward is that even the wealthy can have a higher standard of living than they do now, but in the next breath, or the breath before, they peddle out studies about how wealthy people are sociopaths and Whatever.
	So I don't see that as...
	That doesn't work for me.
	You want to give people, everyone, a high standard of living, and then you claim that a high standard of living gives people sociopathy.
	Am I missing something?
	No.
	I mean, there is...
	I mean, at a very sort of basic biological evolutionary level, men in particular are trained or they have an innate desire to resent...
	High-status males.
	We have an innate desire to dislike high-status males.
	Well, it's ambivalence, really.
	We want to be their friends, but at the same time, we don't like that they have all the money and, therefore, these successful mating opportunities with models.
	Every movie actor who walks down the red carpet For the Oscars has a thin, beautiful woman on his arm, right?
	You're not going to see a fat, ugly woman on George Clooney's arm.
	It's just not going to happen.
	You're going to see like that impossible spider princess, Stacey Keebler elf or something like that.
	And so we are, as males, we have a natural reaction of resentment towards...
	The alpha males.
	Of course we do.
	And it's the same way that women have both a desire for and a resentment of beautiful women.
	Like I remember sitting in a car years and years ago with a woman who's a friend of mine and a friend of hers.
	And there was some woman walking down the street outside the car.
	And she had, like, short skirt on, and she had, like, a pretty revealing top on and all that.
	She was just jiggling all over the place, right?
	It was like watching Jell-O come out of a paint shaker.
	But good, you know, sexy.
	And they both just immediately said, Bitch!
	You know, just under their breath, involuntarily.
	Because, you know, they knew they couldn't compete with that in terms of just sexual allure.
	I mean, they were attractive women, but not that, you know...
	I mean, this was like someone that just, you know, brought a...
	A playboy tire cover to life, right?
	And so there's this natural resentment that men have towards the alpha males.
	And it's good.
	It means that you get that the alpha males have something that you want.
	And that is what drives you to surmount the beta, the zeta, and try to strive for Alphaville, as the 80s band was called, right?
	You want to get to Alphaville, and therefore you resent the people who are already there.
	And that resentment tells you that they have something that you want, and that's supposed to drive your ambition.
	Like I started as a total non-entity, you know, in sort of social terms.
	You know, I came from, I was the youngest sibling of a broke-ass single mom household in a trashy district, you know, with completely no money and all that.
	And, you know, obviously I'm aiming for ultimate alpha male philosopher status.
	And so the resentment that we all have towards the successful is entirely natural.
	And it also comes, of course, from the time when everything was a zero-sum game, right?
	So if some guy has 50 coconuts, then there's a fixed amount of coconuts around the village, right?
	So if some guy has like 50 coconuts, then there's damn well less coconuts for you.
	And if there are like 30 women in the village, if one guy has 10 women, then there's just that few women left for you, so to speak, right?
	And so we kind of evolved to look at people who have a lot and to feel like they were stealing from us.
	Because, you know, a lot of times in history, they kind of were.
	You know, the king's castle is built on the bones of the serfs, right?
	Like the more he has, the less they have.
	And of course, you know, capitalism is like 200 years old.
	There's just no way it's had any effect On our biological drivers, on our emotional drivers at a very deep level.
	It just hasn't occurred.
	So we see rich people and, you know, without education, without knowledge, of course we're going to look at them and say, well, they're rich because I'm broke and I resent them.
	And so this politics of resentment is one of the, you know, it's reason, you know, I think our good friend Con Berner on YouTube said it's reason 12,622 as to why democracy can't work.
	Because demagogues, when they say to men, in particular, some women, but when they say to men, that alpha male is rich because you're poor, he's taken from you.
	I mean, that really hooks into a very primitive and resentful and aggressive part of us.
	But it's also kind of like a cowardly part, because a lot of the Zeta males just sit around grumbling about the Alpha male, but they don't have usually the strength or the resolution to actually attack him.
	But through the government, they can do that, right?
	They can take stuff away from the alpha male and give it to themselves, thus redistributing the resources that they need to attract a mate.
	And again, we're just sort of talking about a base of the brain, ape-like biological sense.
	So the fact that there's an ambivalent relationship in the zeitgeist movement towards the wealthy is natural.
	We are supposed to be annoyed by wealth.
	Most times it was stealing from us.
	And we are supposed to be annoyed by someone who's gathered a lot of resources because that's what nature is telling us to do too.
	And without the resentment of somebody else getting it, what would drive us to pursue it?
	Anyway, does that make any sense?
	Yeah.
	Do me a favor, too, when it gets to time, whenever that is, because I've got a lot more stuff.
	Just give me a two-minute warning, and I'll wrap it up.
	Yeah, we got some more callers, so if you can give me one more question, that'd be great.
	Okay.
	I'm just going to say one thing, and I'll give you my last question.
	One of your speech patterns, I watched your World Wars videos, and you used the word we a lot.
	We started World Wars.
	We invaded this.
	And I just wanted to point that out, because it's generally a...
	It's like you're identifying with your oppressors.
	You know what I mean?
	I mean, it's subtle.
	I've actually tried to cut that out as much as possible because we aren't doing any of that crap.
	I would never want to be identified with that.
	I think that's a good point.
	Did you ping me on Facebook or Skype about that?
	Because somebody said you're using that word too much.
	They never actually said which word it was.
	Was that you?
	No.
	Okay.
	Well, maybe it's the same word.
	Okay.
	And I appreciate that.
	It's great feedback.
	I will definitely work on that.
	It's a shorthand that is probably more misdirection than anything else.
	So I appreciate that feedback.
	That's very good.
	Okay.
	And the last question I'll give you is basically what gives people the right to Science seems to give people the power to control everything, so to speak.
	And what gives us the right?
	I mean, why...
	I don't know.
	I should have thought this through more, but what...
	It's like we're all powerful.
	It almost becomes a religion.
	You know, you have your Dawkins, and you have your Hawking, and you have your whatever, and it becomes, okay, we can manipulate atoms.
	We can rip open wormholes.
	We can do this and that.
	And...
	Really, if you think about it, is the Earth better now because of science, or is it not?
	Well, I don't know about how we would even measure that.
	What would better mean?
	I'm glad that the world is more friendly to keeping me alive than it was, say, in the Middle Ages.
	I'm glad that, you know, when I got cancer that there was treatments that kept me alive.
	That's science.
	Now, but the stuff that you're talking all about is very interesting because there's science and then there's statism, right?
	You don't want to mistake statism For science.
	In the same way that you don't want to mistake Some rent-seeking, lobbying, state-privileged-seeking, semi-fascistic corporate wannabe for the free market.
	The free market is the free market and it's still vestiges of it.
	You and I are engaged in that at the moment, this sort of free exchange of ideas.
	It's a free market.
	It's only incidentally about money, mostly about love and body fluids and ideas and music and so on.
	You don't want to confuse The free market with, say, pharmaceutical company profits.
	I was just talking about this with Steph Kinsella earlier tonight.
	The pharmaceutical companies lobby the government to make sure that the government can't barter for lower prices through Medicaid.
	They get extensions of patents and they restrict competition and they also sell a huge amount of incredibly damaging drugs through The government in terms of ADHD drugs and other SSRIs and psychotropic drugs and so on.
	As far as that goes, we were talking earlier about tobacco and stuff.
	Tobacco is bad and all that stuff, but at least tobacco is generally affecting mature lungs from people who have a choice.
	The amount of drugs that are basically forcibly inflicted on children or whose parents are bribed to drug them.
	Parents get extra money from a kid who has a disability and the easiest one to fake and invent is some mental health disorder.
	And of course schools get 400 bucks a year for every kid who's on this stuff and it's all paid for by the state.
	So there's profit in that stuff but it's like evil.
	It's evil.
	You know, you never want to conflate sex and rape.
	Like lovemaking and rape.
	I mean, it's the same mechanics, but it's the opposite, right?
	And it's too bad that we don't have a different word for profit that is achieved through state power, right?
	I mean, we have theft and we have charity, right?
	We have surgery and we have stabbing, right?
	We have lovemaking and we have rape.
	We don't have two separate words For legitimate, moral, voluntary profits in the free market, exchange for mutual benefit in a non-coercive and non-corrupted environment, and selling metal to the Nazis so they can make Messerschmitt 109Es or something.
	Economists call it rent-seeking, but that's a shitty term because most people don't know what the hell it means.
	It just sounds like you've given up on ownership and you want to go rent something.
	So, I wish we had a word.
	I don't know, maybe we can, you know, some be a crapitalism and stuff like that, but that's kind of more of a joke than a word.
	We don't have a good word for that.
	And we don't have a good word for the difference between the iPad and the, like, burn super collider Mobius strip from hell that's going to eat the planet, right?
	And we don't have a different word for cell phone technology than we do for the Manhattan Project, right?
	So one is science that is paid for through violence to serve the needs and preferences of the sociopaths in power.
	And the other is to voluntarily serve voluntary consumers in an open exchange with competition.
	We just need different words.
	So when you talk about science, I really think it's important to differentiate these two spheres.
	Because if you don't, you end up mixing the food in with the poison, then everything tastes like shit, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, that makes sense.
	And you and I are both against all that shitty state-serving science.
	I mean, I loathe it with a passion.
	It literally steals milk from the mouths of babes.
	I don't mean with this figurative.
	Literally, that shit steals mother's milk from the mouths of babes.
	Why?
	Because taxes are ridiculously high to pay, partly to pay for these scientific experiments.
	Because taxes are so high, a lot of people feel that both parents have to work, and so the mom can't breastfeed her kid.
	These fucking scientists, these fucking fascist corporations, these fucking warmongers, these military-industrial clusterfucks, these asshole academics are literally profiting from the ripping of mother's milk out of the mouths of babes.
	And I mean, you know, Peter Joseph and I may have our differences, but he's working in a voluntary sphere, right?
	He's not forcing anyone to do anything.
	And I respect that, if not much else.
	And so I sort of reserve – I try to aim at the tiger, not the bumblebee.
	And my contempt and my hatred is towards the people who justify and stuck off the bloody teats of state power and feed the children to the monstrous engine of fascism that is growing all around us.
	So you and I share the same hatred and contempt, I think, for the coercive aspects of society and praise the voluntary ones.
	Yeah, it's a statistical fact that all breast milk in North America has dioxin in it, and it's just disgusting.
	Yeah.
	Could be.
	Well, thank you very much for your comments and questions.
	I really appreciate it.
	And yeah, we'll talk about anarcho-primitivism and your history sometime if that's of interest to you, but I really appreciate your call.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	All right, Jordan.
	You're up next today.
	Jordan, go ahead.
	Hi, Stefan.
	Hello.
	It's great to be on the show.
	I'm an 18-year-old converted anarchist this past summer.
	I started with Tom Wood's videos on Austrian economics.
	Which eventually led me to your YouTube channel and philosophy show.
	And I just want to thank you for opening my eyes to the beauty of philosophy.
	Well, thank you.
	Also, you know, great respect to Tom Woods.
	That man's brain really gets around.
	Oh, yeah.
	He's incredible.
	Yeah.
	So I have two topics I'd like to discuss today.
	My first one is about the baby boomers.
	I know you did a video calling them greedy, lazy, and entitled.
	And I agree with everything you said.
	But I'd like to add a few adjectives and get your thoughts on them.
	Okay.
	I'm sitting down.
	I'm braced.
	I'm in the Abe Lincoln position.
	I'm in the Blaupunkt stereo blast my cheeks off position.
	Go for it.
	So I find from my personal conversations and observations with them and also my observation of society today, I find that they're very stubborn.
	Closed-minded and conventional and you know their societal preferences such as religion and politics and you know I could give examples if you want to comment on that or you know have me talk about it more.
	No no go for it.
	So I see something like the war on drugs and you know it's disgusting how it's dragged on for four decades nothing but negative results destroying lives and You know, I think that...
	Like, I've had a few conversations with a few baby boomers about it.
	I've given them all the evidence, all the facts as to why it's absolutely terrible.
	And they'll either give me, you know, well, it's hard for me to take a stance on that just because it wouldn't be societally acceptable to them.
	Or they'll say, you can't tell me that drugs being illegal, it doesn't...
	Give people an incentive.
	Even when I provide facts contrary to that, they just will deny it.
	And also, I think this comes from the silent generation, the generation before them, raising them.
	I think the silent generation, I don't know if you'd agree with this, I think they were very patriotic and religious.
	And I think this led the baby boomers to kind of never question their...
	You know, if they were raised Democrat or Republican or atheist or Catholic, I think they've never really questioned it because they're just close-minded.
	I think the internet has been huge with Generation Y and the Millennials in really presenting new ideas.
	So yeah, my question is, why do you think, if you agree, why do you think that the baby boomers Are this way.
	Why are the babies the way that they are?
	What do you think it is?
	Well, I think it was the way that they're raised by the Silent Generation.
	By the Silent Generation and not being exposed to things the internet like Generation Y has.
	And Mainly their upbringing, though, is my theory.
	But what aspects of their upbringing, do you think?
	Well, like I said, the silent generation being very patriotic.
	They were just coming off of World War II, so there was a feeling of national pride.
	And I find that that generation was very religious.
	So, you know, Baby Boomer likes to have...
	I don't find that Baby Boomers are as religious, but they like to have that...
	A title next to their name to be sort of accepted in society, if you know what I mean.
	Well, they usually like to call themselves spiritual.
	Right, yeah.
	Which is like all the comfort of religion, but none of the obligations.
	Like, say, of going to help the poor directly or something like that.
	Right, yeah.
	Or they'll say, yeah, I'm Catholic, but I mean, they go to church like two times a year.
	Yeah, hedging my bets.
	Yeah, right.
	So, uh...
	Yeah, that's what I think.
	If you want to comment.
	Well, I think, I mean, there's lots that could be said about it, and I'll just touch on it briefly, because it's a big topic, of course, right?
	But I think fundamentally what happened was you can lose your strength when you have comfort.
	It's like a muscle you don't exercise.
	Human beings are designed to strengthen through opposition, just like a muscle.
	You work the muscle, it gets bigger, you let it sit on the couch, it gets weaker.
	And certainly in the West, and particularly in America, the children who grew up after the Second World War had it fairly easy.
	I mean, they did have the nuclear war thing, which was a huge fucking deal.
	When I was a kid, like I, I just read Ben Shapiro's book on how the left conquered Hollywood.
	And he talks about the movie The Day After.
	And I remember the movie The Day After, there are a couple of movies then about nuclear war.
	And I mean, I don't remember feeling as angry about anything as I did about nuclear war, about the helplessness, about the fucked upness of the world, that people on the other side of the planet could Push a button and turn me into a nuclear shadow in about an hour.
	I mean, it's just completely destabilizing.
	So they had that and I'm not going to minimize that.
	That was not unimportant and that was a big and very real threat which, you know, even if the war on terror were real, I mean, fuck.
	Compared to the complete annihilation of all life on the planet, you know, kids these days got it pretty easy, right?
	Yeah, so I think that there is a problem that happens without philosophy.
	With philosophy, you always have more challenges.
	But if you are simply in your base mammalian comfort zone, then if you get more stuff, then you get kind of lazy.
	And, you know, in the sort of post-war period, I mean, there were like 20 years there of pretty much straight economic boom times of like incredibly, what is it they say?
	Old Economy Steve is a meme that's floating around.
	I don't know if you've seen it.
	Some guy with like this Kiss Girls disco bondage headgear from the 1970s.
	And, you know, he's like, I didn't like my job at one place.
	I walked across the street and got a job at another place.
	You know, at the time I was 28, I'd paid off my house.
	Because that was the old economy.
	They had a lot of stability.
	They had a lot of opportunity.
	They had a lot of growth.
	And because they didn't have ideals to strive for that put them in rational opposition to the existing power structures, they just, I think, got kind of lazy.
	They got kind of, you know, like the good times are there.
	The good times are fine.
	And you don't have to nurture the economy.
	You don't have to protect and defend your freedoms because we're all very, very comfortable.
	And I think there's that aspect of it as well.
	But, you know, I mean, the boomers are going to pay.
	You know, I mean, I hate to say it, and I sure wish it had been different, but it's not.
	And, I mean, so much of what's going to happen to them in terms of healthcare is going to be brutal, is going to be brutal.
	Let me ask you a question.
	I mean, you're young, so what the hell do you care about this stuff?
	But trust me, I thought I'd be young forever, too.
	But...
	What percentage of U.S. healthcare spending do you think is spent on chronic conditions?
	Like stuff that you can't really cure, but doesn't kill you.
	Like diabetes and stuff like that.
	Low red heart disease and stuff.
	I'd imagine it's pretty low.
	Chronic, like diabetes.
	Well, no, like all the stuff that just requires people to be on medication, blood thinners, insulin, you know, all that kind of stuff.
	Oh, you mean like medicine for high cholesterol?
	Yeah, all the stuff that you can't cure it exactly, but it doesn't usually kill you, at least not for a long time.
	Man, I'm not sure.
	It's 85%.
	Wow.
	Yeah, because all the medication...
	85%.
	And like half of Americans have at least one of these chronic health conditions.
	And like 20% or something like that have like two or more.
	Yeah, my dad's on one.
	He's on...
	I think maybe blood thinners, definitely for high cholesterol, though.
	He's on some medication for that.
	Yeah, now there are a few people who've got high cholesterol for genetic reasons, but the vast majority of people, you know, they didn't exercise.
	Right.
	You know, osteoporosis and shit like that, like blood, like when your bones get thin and brittle, it's mostly because people didn't drink milk and exercise.
	Yeah.
	And like 70% of all health issues are lifestyle related, which basically means people choose them.
	And among chronic conditions, I assume it's even higher, right?
	Yeah.
	And, of course, there's massive profit in getting people onto these drugs, these treatments, these protocols that just go on and on forever.
	And, like, I think they're talking about lowering cholesterol thresholds now so that 40% of American men would need to be on these pills.
	Hugely profitable.
	And of course, you know, it's paid for by the employer and so on.
	And the reason I'm sort of talking about all of this is that it's all complete madness.
	I mean, insurance, if I drive blindfolded at 100 miles an hour and I have a crash, no rational insurance company would cover me, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	Like, there's, if you're an asshole phase, like, clause.
	This clause in contracts is, it should be, it would be standard in a free society.
	Like, we'll cover you for car accidents unless you're being a turbo-jacked asshole.
	Right.
	Like, unless you're, like, racing down a suburban street at triple the speed limit, then we're not covering you for shit.
	In fact, we'll follow the lynch mob past the trail of kids to string you up, right?
	Right.
	So, if you are engaging in behavior that is excessively risky, incredibly risky, then insurance is not appropriate.
	Insurance is for the, oh shit, you know, I got hit by lightning out of a clear sky, right?
	Right, yeah.
	That's what insurance is for, right?
	That's why you don't get insurance for your oil change, right?
	I need insurance because my car is going to run out of gas and someone's got to fill it, right?
	So, insurance shouldn't, ideally, it shouldn't cover...
	You know, shit that you did to yourself.
	Or that was avoidable, right?
	Like Tom Hanks just got diabetes, right?
	He was diagnosed with diabetes.
	And for years beforehand, his doctor was saying, just drop some weight.
	Just go back to what you weighed in high school.
	You'll be fine.
	He's like, no, I'm not going to do that.
	I'll lose like 900 pounds for a shitty movie like Castaway, but not to avoid, you know, my foot falling off and shit like that, right?
	So the whole insurance market is completely screwed up.
	Because...
	Most of what people are getting sick of is environmental preventable stuff.
	Like obesity.
	It's driving like a third of American healthcare costs.
	And obesity is incredibly treatable.
	I mean, just put the fucking cupcake down.
	I hate to put it that bluntly.
	Like I gained a bit of weight and I'm losing a little bit of weight now because when I was on treatment for cancer this summer, there was a particular kind of food that I don't normally eat that could get rid of the chemical taste in my mouth.
	So I gained like, I don't know, six or seven pounds.
	I'm losing it now.
	And so you just don't put the cupcake down and get off the couch.
	I mean, you can still watch TV. You know, like I watched a Dr.
	Phil last night.
	I did 150 sit-ups.
	I mean, you can still watch TV. You just do your leg lifts or whatever.
	Just move a little bit.
	And, you know, most of what people get sick from.
	But anyway, so people have made these really shitty lifestyle choices.
	And one of the reasons they do that is A, because they don't have people in their life who are saying, hey, you know, let us get off the couch, put down the donut and let's deal with this problem, right?
	Because maybe everyone else is around them like that.
	But they also don't have insurance companies that are allowed to say, if you don't drop 20 pounds, your premiums are going to double.
	Because everybody wants to pool all their risks to everything else, right?
	So these early warning signals of the true costs of your health care have all been dampened out by the marketplace.
	Like 15 or 20 years ago, I read something long before all the government got even more involved in insurance and all that.
	I read about a guy who was like, oh, you know, I was kind of overweight and this and that.
	And I got a letter from my insurance company saying, you know, we're dropping your coverage if you don't get your numbers below this because you're just too expensive.
	And he's like, that was a real wake-up call to me.
	And so he's like, I started doing this, I changed this, right?
	And this has all been diluted away.
	I mean, it should be individual insurance, one person and the insurance company.
	None of this fucking bullshit where you get enrolled with everyone at your workplace and everyone's costs get diluted.
	That denies you the early warning signals of bad health habits.
	Yeah, it takes the responsibility away from people.
	Yeah, and they just kind of drift through life doing this shit and they don't get somebody.
	You've got to go up against people sometimes like a pinball.
	Just bang!
	You bounce back hard, right?
	And how many people in life tell each other the truth?
	Jesus, it's like we're an entire conspiracy of deluded Cartesian silence.
	It's just sick the way that people delude each other and avoid the truth with each other.
	You know, you got 10 fat people around a Thanksgiving table, you know, eating more than an African village could consume in a monsoon season, and not anyone is saying, you know, holy shit, maybe we should go for a walk after dinner, guys, because, man.
	This is not good, right?
	So the reason I'm telling you all of this is that, I mean, they're just going to bankrupt the healthcare system.
	I mean, this healthcare system is like less than five years away.
	And this is not just my estimate.
	It's like five, six years away from just being completely bankrupt.
	I mean, Barack Obama has taken the debt from $20 trillion to $20 trillion from $10 trillion.
	In other words, he's added more debt in two terms than the entirety of US presidents before him.
	And again, I know it's entitlement spending and a lot of it is not under his control, but nonetheless, this is the sort of reality.
	This is ridiculously unsustainable.
	Young people are just going to drop out.
	I mean, Atlas Shrugged wrote about—this was written about in 1953.
	They go to the grey market.
	They go to the black market.
	They're like, you know, basically, you know, fuck your fat hides.
	I can't spend my life slaving away to pay for all of your stupid decisions about not exercising and eating like a pig.
	I'm sorry.
	I can't do it.
	I have compassion.
	I care.
	I wish you'd made different decisions 40 years ago, but I'm not giving up one of my healthy lungs because you were a chain smoker and didn't quit.
	So they will.
	You know, they'll pay.
	And it will be a massive and ugly lesson in what happens when you don't fight.
	The growth of state power and when you get sucked into the oldest con game of assholes promising you something for nothing.
	I mean, this is the entire history of the state.
	You know, just volume one, assholes promising you something for nothing.
	Volume two, more assholes promising you something for nothing.
	Number three, assholes in funny hats promising you something for nothing.
	Number four, assholes in suits promising you something for nothing.
	Right?
	That's all it is.
	Assholes promising you something for nothing.
	I mean, everybody knows you can't get something for nothing.
	There's no such thing as a free lunch.
	And the reality, of course, is that it's just a lesson people have to learn over and over and over and over again.
	And hopefully, we're getting smart enough, right?
	You're genetically much smarter than I am.
	And hopefully, we're getting smart enough to not be fooled by it again.
	And the last thing I'll say, which is going to sound like youthful pandering, but...
	But I really believe that your generation, like you guys, are made of stronger stuff.
	I hope so.
	I do believe that.
	I think that you've looked at what's come ahead and you said, well, we've got a bunch of flaccid people that look like everyone in the second half of Wall-E, and this is not where we want to go.
	This is not who we want to be.
	And we see the consequences of what happens.
	You know, like this thing I read earlier.
	When I was a kid, I don't know, I was like eight or so, in Reader's Digest, and it left a really strong impression with me.
	It was called Scared Straight.
	It was a Scared Straight program, and they touched on it in Orange is the New Black recently, but basically they'd take these kids who were juveniles, delinquents, and so on, and they'd take them to prison, and the prisoners would scare the shit out of them about what life in prison was like and all that kind of stuff.
	I think that your generation has looked at what has happened to freedom and has seen the effects of what happens when you, through the painless laser surgery of propaganda, remove an entire generation's spine.
	And get them addicted to all of the free evil blood pellets of state power.
	You see what happens.
	You've seen what happens.
	It's pretty clear.
	And you guys are facing this tsunami of bullshit and debt that's rolling down the hill.
	And I think that you've seen it.
	And I think that there's a kind of like, you guys are going to have to do some seriously brave stuff.
	Oh, yeah.
	And it is going to be a take-no-prisoners kind of situation, and much though I hate to see suffering of any kind, when people have brought it on themselves, I cannot see the justice in forcing other people to...
	To pay for that.
	I just, I cannot see the value in it.
	Like if I do something really stupid and poke my eye out, I don't think I get to scoop yours out with a spoon and pop it in my socket.
	Like I'm sorry, I have to live with the consequences of my decisions.
	And everybody makes bad decisions and then like everybody who makes bad decisions, you're desperate to avoid the consequences of it.
	Not you, but people are.
	And I think that your generation has really seen that In a very clear way.
	And you've also seen all the lies that people say are social virtues.
	You know, like, well, we care so much about the children.
	Really?
	Feel like taking on the teachers' unions?
	No.
	No, not really, because it's a lot easier to just talk about how much we care about the children and then let them get fucked up by shitty schools and laden them down with completely unsustainable levels of national debt and sell off their future pound by pound to foreign banksters.
	It's much easier to just say that we care about the children and then act in the complete opposite way.
	And I think that there's a cynicism that's healthy and rational that your generation has looking at what is done versus what is said, because there's nothing less excusable.
	Than moral hypocrisy.
	Because moral hypocrisy is when you know what the right thing is to do and you loudly proclaim what the right thing is to do and then do the exact opposite.
	Because then you can never claim a lack of knowledge.
	Yeah.
	It's very scary for someone like me, you know, I'm 18, about to enter college and I just see what's before me, this massive debt.
	You know, now the socialized healthcare, which is obvious, is obviously unsustainable.
	And it's just really scary, obviously.
	It's a tough road ahead.
	No, no, no.
	You're missing something.
	And I'm sorry, it's annoying to interrupt you, but you're missing something.
	Do you know what is available to you that is greater in its positive potential than fear is in its negative?
	Do you know what you get the most wonderful potential for and capacity for?
	True, balls to the wall, base of the spine, heroism.
	You guys have this incredible opportunity to be brave, heroic, stern, staunch, rational, and just.
	Because you've seen the consequences of not, right?
	What happens when you don't.
	And there is, of course, there's fear, absolutely, of course, right?
	But, you know, when I grew up, there was all this fear, soldiers going to war, they were scared, right?
	But...
	You know, they said, but you get to be heroic, you get to wear medals, we'll have poppies in your honor, right?
	You'll get statues, you will have your own day, you'll be heroes!
	Just for one day, right?
	So you'll be heroes!
	And this was supposed to be fantastic, right?
	And you get that chance without all of the annoying bullets and landmines, right?
	And bombs.
	You get the chance for heroism in the most noble of spheres, which is heroism for rational righteousness.
	There's a great quote from the movie Patton with George C. Scott.
	He says something like this.
	The purpose of war is not for you to die for your country, but to make the other sad son of a bitch die for his country.
	It's a great line.
	And look, unfortunately, we are now in a situation as a society where enormous suffering is going to result from all of the desperate mistakes that have been made and the desperate cowardice and avoidance of your elders.
	And either your life gets sacrificed for mistakes you never made or other people's lives and quality of lives are going to have to get sacrificed for the decisions that they have made.
	So when the old people come along and they say, well, we need you to pay taxes at 75% because I sat on the couch and did an exercise for 40 years, the resolution and courage in your generation may be to say, look, I'm sorry.
	I'm desperately, incredibly, and totally sorry.
	But no.
	No.
	You had your choice.
	You had your chance.
	You had your life.
	You made your decisions.
	You know, when I was six years old, if I'd made the decision not to study for a spelling test, did you know what I got?
	F. I got an F. And people say, well, but this is much more important than a spelling test.
	Well, not, you know, in many ways, not so much.
	If I didn't pass a grade, I lost a year of my life.
	Got stuck back a year.
	If I didn't get out of high school, it cost me about a million dollars in earnings over the course of my life.
	It's not small.
	It's a very big deal.
	And if kids are responsible for the negative consequences of their choices, why are not 70-year-olds responsible for the negative consequences of their choices?
	And then people say, well, yes, but it's life and death.
	And it's like, exactly it is life and death, which is why it's so important to make better decisions.
	Yeah.
	And so I think that there is going to be a giant panicked sucking sound coming from the elder generation when they realize they handed over all their money to a government that has blown it all on all the blood-soaked bric-a-brac of power And there is going to have to be a swallowing and a resolution in your generation, I think, to have to say, no, unless.
	No, I will not unless.
	Unless you accept that the system must change.
	I've said this, I will be happy to pay 75% taxation as long as the old people say the system must change.
	If they don't want the system to change, I really have no sympathy in my heart for them because then they're just predatory.
	And sorry, that's just, you know, it's wrong for anyone to prey on anyone, but for the old to prey upon the young is a special kind of scumbaggery.
	I don't care how high your Florida pants are hitched.
	I don't care how many fucking black socks you wear with your sandals.
	I don't care how short your suspenders are or how many kids you want to get off your lawn.
	You don't get to prey on the young and innocent because you made stupid ass decisions about your health and about state power throughout your entire life.
	People must accept the consequences of their decisions.
	That's what I was taught when I was six and I'm damn well not going to withhold that lesson from people who are 80 or 70.
	Yeah, that's what you're saying.
	I know exactly what you mean.
	Yeah, our generation has a noble task ahead.
	Hopefully we're smart enough to not repeat the same mistakes that our ancestors made.
	Oh, you are.
	You know the Flynn effect, right?
	It's a couple of percentage points smarter every generation.
	Really?
	Mm-hmm.
	That's why I said earlier, genetically, you're smarter than me.
	Significantly, because we're two generations apart, right?
	I'm pushing 50 and you're not even 20.
	So we're like...
	Right?
	So, at least a generation and three quarters.
	So, yeah, I think it is necessary.
	And there will be a massive, you know, shiny gray catawalling.
	From the elder generation and from the generation who had shitty choices, like from the women who made shitty choices in who they wanted to father their children, and from the people who've made shitty choices about careers and have decided to rely on the state rather than fend for themselves.
	You know, the massive parasite classes are going to squall and cry and use every conceivably evil emotional manipulative trick in the book.
	In order to extract yet more resources from the innocent and pour it into their own guilty hides.
	And I wish that we could snap our fingers and have it be different.
	I wish we could snap our fingers and bring enough resources into the world to take care of everyone.
	But there is no magic under sun or moon.
	And if it comes to a choice, I would definitely suggest that you guys fight for your future rather than attempt to scoop out your innards and fill it into the holes of people's past mistakes.
	All right.
	Well, actually, you answered both my questions in one, so I really appreciate it.
	Usually that means I didn't, but you're just sick and tired of the speechifying.
	No, no, no.
	Well, I'm glad it was helpful.
	All right.
	Thank you so much.
	Thank you.
	All right.
	Cedric, you're up next, Cedric.
	Go ahead.
	Hello, hello.
	Can you hear me?
	Mm-hmm.
	Oh, great.
	I'm calling to talk about, I don't know if you've ever heard of it, a book by an anthropologist, Pierre Claste, a French anthropologist.
	I'm sorry, what was that name again?
	Pierre Claste.
	I don't know how to speak French, so...
	Okay.
	I don't know.
	The name of the book is Society Against the State.
	I have not.
	It sounds like my cup of tea, though.
	Yeah, he's a left anarchist, so much of the content of the book is pretty much wrong, plain flow wrong.
	Well, he is French.
	Yeah, I think he's part of the anthropologist movement.
	Other than Veronique de Régis, I don't know too many French libertarians.
	I'm sure there are some.
	I think Walter Block has talked about them in his debate about the value of academics.
	But go ahead.
	Yeah, there was this movement in anthropology where they tried to study the indigenous population, trying to justify the thesis that basically economic...
	Economic disparities will be the cause of all the problems in the world, you know?
	So yeah, pretty much there are many things in this book that's wrong, but I think that what's really important about this book is the insight that an anarchic society is not really a society that's without a state, but a society actively against the state, you know?
	You mean like forever?
	No, no.
	I mean a society that's actually actively and rationally standing against the state.
	The concept of the state and the...
	You know how we usually talk about...
	You know how usually many people try to bring up Somalia as an example of a stateless society?
	Yeah.
	Exactly.
	But I would argue that that's wrong because...
	Anarchy is not just the scenario where the state disappeared, but a scenario where the people in that society are rationally and actively against a state institution.
	No, I'm sorry.
	I don't know what you're talking about.
	For example, because his argument is that the indigenous people, it's not that, I mean, mainstream anthropologists used to say that indigenous societies were too primitive to even think of a state, you know?
	Like, they're too primitive to have a state.
	They're too primitive to be civilized in a manner that they have a state.
	Well, yeah, but it's still the same thing.
	That's like saying that Stone Age people didn't have machine guns.
	They only had clubs.
	It's still a weapon, right?
	I mean, they had abusive hierarchies, violent hierarchies.
	They just hadn't evolved to the modern state, for sure.
	Yeah, exactly.
	But his thesis is that these indigenous societies are actually against the state.
	And I think he's pretty much wrong about his thesis, but I think it's an important insight.
	Wait, is this the noble savage bullshit?
	You know, like, ah, these Indians, these Native Americans, they lived in peace and harmony with their...
	With their surroundings.
	And then Western Man came along and corrupted them and blah, blah, blah.
	I mean, it's all complete and embarrassing nonsense.
	I'd love to send some of these people back in time to spend six months in these kinds of societies and just see what happened when they got a toothache or stubbed their toe.
	Or, you know, a bug bite with tetanus.
	Anyway, go on.
	Yeah, pretty much.
	He comes to the ridiculous statement that the Indians waged war for fun, you know, for sports.
	He's like, oh yeah, let's see if I'm going to die today, you know?
	So they were just sadists?
	I mean, they took enjoyment out of these kinds of conflicts.
	Yeah, I mean, it's funny.
	You know, it's like...
	This idea that somehow, and this comes out of like Kunta Kinte and Roots and Alex Haley's stuff, which I remember watching as a kid.
	This idea, you see, that Africa was full of noble...
	Nubian savage beauties who lived in harmony with nature and who never thought of harming a fly and would whisper pairs of apology towards the animals before they gently ate them.
	And then the white man came along and enslaved them and it's all been downhill from there.
	It all comes from this Garden of Eden nonsense, right?
	That back in the day, boy, don't you know, there was just all this great, wonderful stuff.
	And then...
	Civilization and shit came along.
	And basically it's just an emotional projection of infancy, right?
	Infancy before you learn about the state and before people start scaring the shit out of you with hell is a pretty idyllic time.
	And so there's this idea.
	And people then project that onto primitive societies and they say, well, you know, when I was a baby, I wasn't scared by propaganda.
	I didn't have to go to school.
	I certainly don't remember being spanked and it was warm and cuddly and lovely.
	They then project that for various emotional mechanisms onto primitive societies and say those primitive societies were peaceful and loving and lovely and this and that.
	And they also project that, of course, into future societies.
	You know, the workers' paradise, the zeitgeist supercomputer and stuff like that.
	The paradise is just there.
	It's just out of our reach and so on.
	And...
	Historically, it's all nonsense.
	They excavate the graves of these natives and they all died from horrible blunt trauma wounds to their heads and sacrificed their children.
	They're a bunch of...
	I mean, not even sociopathic, just completely psychotic savages.
	And this is why whenever you see a society that doesn't change, then you see a society with extraordinary sadistic amounts of child abuse.
	And the whole myth of Of slavery, and you can go to Thomas Sowell, The True History of Slavery.
	It's actually on YouTube if you want to listen to it.
	Very, very briefly, of course, I mean, it was the white Western race that fought the entire world to end slavery.
	You know, they fought...
	I mean, you couldn't go into Africa as a white guy and pick up your slaves.
	Because the average life expectancy for a guy who went inland, a white...
	I mean, you get killed by microbes or some god-awful animal or something like that.
	And so they bought all the slaves from all the blacks who were catching and killing all the slaves as they had been doing for the previous 100,000 years.
	And yes, they bought the slaves, and for a short period of time there was European involvement in slavery, and then the Europeans went, wait a sec, this is as evil as fuck.
	And then they fought, literally fought, tooth and nail, against massive profits to end slavery.
	I mean, England paid 5% of its GDP. To buy off slave owners.
	They would have tried this in America, except there would have been about 50% of GDP to buy off all the southern slaveholders, although that still would have been cheaper than the 600,000 plus killed in the American Civil War.
	And the British paid tax and paid and suffered extraordinary abuses and cruelty on the open seas, trying to hunt down the frigates with the slaves on board.
	And when the frigates, the Arabs in particular were insane, insanely evil with their slave owning.
	The Arabs, if they were being pursued by a British frigate, they would actually cut the throats of the slaves and throw them overboard so they wouldn't be caught with the contraband.
	And the British would sometimes attempt to board these and interfere with that and stop that.
	They fought literally tooth and nail.
	It was the white Western European race that ended slavery through bribery, through force of arms, through the immense spending of blood and treasure.
	They ended one of the oldest occupations in human history.
	And, of course, nobody ever...
	I'm glad you brought up slavery because I think it's always a perfect analogy for the state.
	I guess the point I'm trying to make is, let's suppose all the slaves just ran off in 18th century America.
	Would that make it a slaveless society?
	Of course not, because, you know, it would be a matter of time until some slaves were caught up or new slaves were brought in or bought, you know.
	So the concept of a slaveless society is a society where the majority of people actually take on abolitionist philosophy.
	Yeah, I understand, but they recognize it as a moral evil, right?
	Yeah, exactly.
	So, the point I'm trying to make is that the concept of anarchy is not just a society where the state is absent momentarily, like in Somalia.
	But a society where people understand the concept and are actively acting against the trial of state actions, you know?
	And, for example, even in the case of slavery, it's still pretty common cases of slavery today all around the world, you know, like women enslaved in prostitution or, you know, People in farms, like some hidden farms working as actual slaves, like 100% slaves.
	But we still don't say that we are in a slave society nowadays, although there are some rudimentary cases of slavery.
	Because what determines what a society is, is how the people living in it actually act toward...
	The concept of how the people living in the society interprets the legitimacy of the use of force, you know?
	No, I agree.
	I agree for sure.
	Absolutely, I accept that.
	I mean, I would certainly argue that what I call the undocumented or the illegal...
	Aliens, which always sounds a lot more fun than it actually turns out to be, they're neither blue nor almond-eyed nor do a lot of anal probing.
	I guess some do.
	But, you know, these people are living a pretty wretched existence as a result of statism.
	It's so funny, of course, that a lot of people on the right in America are against what they call illegal immigration, in which a rational person calls moving.
	And they are also for the war on drugs.
	And they obviously don't really understand the connection between the two, right?
	That if you go and bomb a whole bunch of crop fields in Mexico, then people can't grow anything.
	And also, if you take all of your subsidized food and dump it on the Mexican market, then you put a whole bunch of Mexican farmers out of work.
	And where the hell can they go?
	Well, they end up having a troop across the border and try and scrape by picking shit in Canada.
	Sorry, in America, right?
	The fruit and so on, right?
	So I would sort of remind people that it is, yeah, it's the principles that you're focused on.
	And sometimes the state is way behind on the principles that the people have, right?
	So Brazil was one of the last countries to get rid of slavery.
	And people became kind of embarrassed.
	You know, I'm from Brazil.
	Oh, yeah, we still have slavery.
	It's really shameful.
	I'm from Brazil.
	Oh, yeah.
	So, okay.
	So, it was interesting the way that it ended up ending, which was that it became embarrassing to own slaves because kind of like the rest of the world had been yanked along by the Europeans to recognizing that this eternal and ancient human evil had to end.
	I don't know this fact from history, but England actually passed an edict prohibiting slave smuggling across the oceans.
	Since Brazil couldn't fight off that, they passed a law right after prohibiting also.
	It's not that Brazil actually prohibited it because they actually thought it was wrong, but just because they didn't want to fight off England.
	No, but, and I agree with that for sure, but what happened socially was interesting before that, which is that it became socially shameful to own slaves.
	It became, rather than a status symbol, it became a mark of Just shittiness, right?
	And so what happened was people began to shun people who owned slaves.
	And so what happened was people actually began to free their slaves for two reasons.
	One, because it was considered socially shameful.
	And two, because most people didn't want to catch the slaves.
	If you were a slave who escaped in the South, like in the early 19th century in America, I mean, you had to use the Underground Railway because if people caught you, they're like, damn, that's a free slave.
	We've got to put him back and they call the cops and they'll whatever, tackle you down and tie you up and all that and there's a reward and so on.
	So there's a lot of social stuff that has to go into that, particularly pre-electronics and so on, into catching slaves.
	And in Brazil, people are like, yeah, a slave who's got away, good for you.
	Here's some food.
	Here's some money.
	Go.
	Go where you need to go.
	They didn't call the cops.
	And so basically, because nobody participated in catching the slaves, the slaves couldn't be caught.
	And what was happening was the landowners in Brazil were freaking out because they had all these workers who were, you know, they trusted the slaves, right?
	And they were all just wandering off.
	And so they said, okay, we're going to free you, but just stay here.
	I'll pay you.
	I'll turn you into a worker.
	I'll free you legally.
	Stay here.
	And this is kind of what they did.
	And after all of this, then I guess it was all made illegal and so on.
	But it was already happening before the government caught up.
	It was happening through social enforcement and through all of that.
	And I think that's really important.
	It's sort of an interesting case study of how things can change long before the state catches up.
	Yeah, and that was the case of the immigrants here also, you know, the Italian and Japanese and German immigrants, they came here to work basically as slaves also.
	Yeah.
	In the 19th century.
	Right, right.
	Terrible lives also.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, of course, there is still a slave market, and Peter Joseph pointed this out in the debate, and he's quite right.
	I mean, there is still a market for slaves in the world, particularly sex slaves, and of course, and particularly the underage sex slaves.
	I mean, this webcam, Sex Trade, which, you know, if the stories are to be believed, they put together a computer-generated 10-year-old Filipino girl called, I don't know, Sparkle Thighs or something like that, And a whole bunch of creeps around the world wanted to pay her to have sex with her sister or, I don't know, one of these Japanese handjob robots or something like that.
	And it is, yeah.
	I mean, it is wretched the degree to which this enslavement is still occurring around the world.
	Yeah, exactly.
	The point is, if people find out that there are happening cases of slavery nearby, they will revolt against it.
	That's how you determine if a society is free of slaves or anti-slavery.
	I think the case of anarchy is also the same.
	We have to...
	I mean, I think it's...
	It's beneficial if we define anarchy as a society against a state, you know?
	Yeah, but I would argue with not against a state.
	I mean, there's not a principle, right, to be against a state.
	I mean, the problem that causes have, or that people have with causes, is they just don't work them philosophically.
	Right, so people are grossed out by slavery and the slavery is immoral, right?
	Okay, so then they have to figure out what about slavery is immoral.
	Well, it's the forcible transfer of someone else's labor, right?
	Okay, so if 100% slavery is wrong, what about 50% slavery?
	What about 10% slavery?
	What about 1% slavery, right?
	Which is the taxes system, taxation system.
	So if the forcible transfer of somebody else's property and labor is wrong, somebody else's personhood is wrong, Then it's wrong in proportion, right?
	And therefore you say, okay, well now we're done with slavery, we've got to take on taxation.
	Because that is the same principle.
	But people emotionally respond to something and don't examine and explore the principles.
	Which is why we simply keep replacing one evil with another.
	It's just playing whack-a-mole, right?
	Anyway, that's one of the things that UPB is designed to do, or has the happy results of achieving, is to really help people to understand the principles behind what it is that they oppose, so that they're not forever playing whack-a-mole and replacing one evil with another one.
	Well, I would like to thank you for your patience and sorry for stuttering so much because I haven't had a conversation in English in so long, so it has been in ages.
	And I would like to ask you if I could schedule to have a quick Q&A with you sometime because I'm part of the Students for Liberty in Brazil and I would love to have a quick Q&A with you to post on our website.
	Would that be possible?
	I appreciate that.
	And anytime you lovely Brazilian Liberty folk want to invite me back, I had some fun.
	Yeah, I watched your debate.
	It was awesome.
	Yeah, I had some fun stuff last time and spoke some truth to power.
	And my daughter, I mean, I would love to go back.
	She still talks about it a year and a half later.
	So, oh yeah, she just, she loved it there.
	And, I mean, we flew in a private plane to Rio because of the generosity of one of the host's moms.
	And so it was hard for her not to have a great time.
	Plus, she loved the movie Rio, and then she's on the beach where it all happens, and she just went mental.
	So anyway, yeah, just give an email to Mike, operations at freedomainradio.com.
	And I believe he only takes, if I remember rightly, he only takes emails with nude pictures attached.
	So just get busy.
	I think he likes some 3D as well.
	And if they have smell-o-vision, so much the better, although that may require a 3D printer that he also has right by his bedside.
	So thank you so much for your time, Mike.
	The website just crashed.
	I don't know what happened.
	It just disappeared.
	Oh, that's just me.
	That's just me as usual, Mike, trying to pass your firewall with more nude pictures of me.
	I see.
	Adding to that sexual harassment lawsuit.
	Ever since chemo, the carpet doesn't match the drapes anymore.
	All right, after that, Michael, you're our last caller today, Michael.
	Go ahead.
	He's the last one who wants to be on the show.
	If you still want to be Michael.
	Right.
	Hello, Stefan.
	I spoke to you a couple of nights ago.
	I was curious about homeschooling.
	This is something that my wife and I are going to do.
	Actually, she had wanted to – she had talked about this a couple of years ago, and I was actually ambivalent about it, and now I'm very gung-ho about it.
	My sons are only three and one's going to be one tomorrow.
	We have plenty of room in the house.
	She even set up like a little classroom and everything's going really well.
	She's really terrific at it and she worked with kids a lot before and she's really a great mother all around.
	And we talked just the other night, right?
	Yeah, I talked to you about my brother.
	And dude, listen, I mean, holy crap.
	Thank you so much for that subscription.
	Wow.
	Oh, it's well worth it.
	It's my pleasure.
	I'm currently, of course, slithering around in a bathtub full of gold coins, and I would just like to say thank you for that opportunity.
	I'm sure you got the private webcam feed, which has probably caused your webcam to commit harikari with its power cord.
	But thank you.
	I don't have that, actually.
	No.
	Well, for lower donations, we send that out.
	But sorry.
	Go ahead.
	No, no problem.
	By the way, one entrepreneur to another, your site is very easy to pay if you're not already a subscriber and really good for one-time donations if you are.
	And frankly, it's always a good idea to make it easy to pay.
	But I do appreciate it.
	By the way, I'm in the tax business.
	I would love to be able to direct deposit people's refunds with Bitcoins.
	I'm thinking of putting a sign in my door that I accept them.
	But you must be making a fortune, on the other hand, even though they're not that liquid.
	Well, I don't know.
	It's, you know, everything's on paper.
	And tragically, I lost some bitcoins that I try not to think about too much in a terrible system crash, which was my idiocy not knowing enough about the technology.
	But yeah, it's certainly no complaints about what it's doing.
	And I mean, I hope the people who watch my Bitcoin presentation were able to buy in when it was much lower.
	So we'll see.
	But is it tough?
	Is it tough to make them liquid in bulk?
	No.
	I certainly have some people up here in Canada who will cash them out anytime I want for 1% overhead.
	So it's fine.
	That's pretty good.
	That's pretty good.
	My question about homeschooling is my three-year-old was in daycare for three days a week and he was having some speech issues when he was like one and a half.
	Really, we had some people come in and they basically saw in two seconds that he had low tone and he should use a straw.
	I'm sorry, what was that?
	He had low tone, should use a straw?
	Low tone in the jaw.
	I don't know what that means.
	Oh, like muscle tone?
	Yeah, muscle tone.
	I'm sorry.
	Oh, okay.
	I didn't know what it meant at the time either.
	Low tone?
	What does he sound like, Barry White?
	What the hell does that mean?
	Get him on stage, man!
	By the way, it was amazing advice.
	We gave him a straw and two weeks later, he spoke clear as a bell.
	Oh, that's because the straw works the cheek muscles and all that?
	Oh, okay.
	Right.
	So, I mean, these people from the state came in to do this analysis and I was sort of against it at first.
	By the way, the state sends four people to your house to do this.
	And one doesn't work and the other three literally watch.
	Nice.
	You know, but that was all worth it.
	The first two minutes, she just saw this right away.
	And after that, you know, there was some social issues we were worried about.
	So he wound up going to daycare for three days a week.
	And, you know, he's three now, so he just stopped.
	And, you know, he went when he was a year and a half?
	A little older than a year and a half.
	Yeah, three days a week and how often during the day?
	How long?
	Well, he was signed up for the whole day.
	A lot of times we would get him like after a few hours in the morning because they don't really do a whole lot in the afternoon, to be honest.
	Like anything educational is in the morning and social.
	So, but let's say he was there at five o'clock, maybe one or two days and to like 11, 12 o'clock the other days.
	All right.
	And, you know, he loved it.
	You know, I told, he's fond of saying now to, especially my wife, that, you know, daddy told me, you know, I don't have to go to school anymore and I could stay home with mommy all day, which isn't exactly the way I put it.
	But basically, you know, he's very excited about the whole thing.
	And frankly, in the last couple of weeks, to my mind, you know, that he's been home, you know, he's actually more, to me, obviously more empathetic.
	I mean, I mean, it amazes me the things that he thinks of and says.
	Like, he asked me if I feel bad because his boo-boo hurts like two days later.
	I mean, you know, he's really thinking about other people and developing in all kinds of ways.
	But he is becoming more clingy.
	So in my wife's way of looking at it, he's sort of regressing.
	Hang on, what does clingy mean?
	Ah, this is like a conversation I had a lot lately.
	That's just got a negative connotation to it already, right?
	Right, and this is exactly what I'm saying.
	He wants to be with his mother.
	That's kind of natural.
	And basically, her point of view is it's just like all the time, all of a sudden, he goes to the bathroom with her.
	And that didn't happen before when he was at school, even when he was home from school, of course.
	So...
	But you know why that is, right?
	What's that?
	You know why that is, right?
	Well, I'm curious on your thoughts.
	I would assume the change in his routine must have a serious effect on him.
	Well, no, because he's scared of being sent back.
	Ah.
	Of course.
	But here's the thing.
	Oh, here's the other thing that makes it tricky.
	He says that, you know, he misses his friends and he has no friends now.
	And mommy's his best friend.
	You know, so, he's like used to being around these kids at school.
	And frankly, you know, I didn't even necessarily love him being around this kid so much.
	It was like the director's son, and it was kind of ridiculous.
	The things that were going on is one of the reasons I kind of sowered on the school even before I decided to homeschool him.
	But, you know, but to her, you know, it's kind of like she's not necessarily doing enough so that he doesn't feel like he doesn't have any friends, like he's not getting enough socialization.
	You know?
	So, I'm just having trouble...
	Well, okay, but hold on a sec.
	So, of course, there's no reason why you can't schedule your playdates and your sleepovers and all that kind of stuff, right?
	And that's what we've been doing, you know?
	But it's so new, you know what I mean?
	So, I kind of feel like that's kind of inevitable that he's going to say stuff like that.
	And, I don't know, my wife's concerned about it, and there's this clingy thing that she's worried about.
	To me, school was abandonment.
	A little bit of what you learned about me last time, I can assure you, I have an absolute hatred for all authority.
	And not to mention, there's no real valid education there, and a lot of the social media are involved.
	But my wife is sort of on the trail of her own experience.
	So even though she's for homeschool, she's not necessarily against school, And she thinks like maybe my older son would benefit from that because of these things.
	Okay, sorry.
	Just before we get into that, let's go back to the...
	I mean, the word clingy is obviously negative to begin with.
	I'm just curious why it wouldn't be something like affectionate.
	That's the way I see it, and that's just not the way she sees it.
	She has been...
	She's had this postpartum depression that she was diagnosed with.
	And it's very weird, like it's very hormonal, like how it could shift from one thing to the next.
	But, you know, I mean, she's great with the kids.
	She gets so much enjoyment out of it.
	So it is hard for me to understand that, to be honest with you.
	What was her infancy in childhood like?
	Early childhood?
	Hard, absolutely.
	My childhood was wonderful next to hers.
	Yeah, so let me just say, and look, I say this with all of the infinite caveats that I want, you know, that I don't know my ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to expertise in this area.
	So this is all amateur bullshit.
	But, you know, postpartum depression to me, it's mostly associated with people who had really shitty infancies, whose bodies are then remembering all the loss that can't make it to consciousness.
	I didn't know that.
	I've been reading about it.
	I did not know that.
	Well, no, this is not something to know, because this is just my opinion, right?
	This is not, ah, this is an answer.
	This is my opinion.
	Because, I mean, I've certainly known people who've gone through it.
	Everyone I've known who's gone through it, this is why I asked about her infancy, everyone I know who's gone through postpartum depression had a shitty, unstable infancy.
	That's interesting.
	Now, this is not scientific, you understand.
	Again, all the caveats, please don't take this as any kind of answer or anything final.
	It's just, it's a correlation that I have noticed.
	I appreciate your insight, by the way.
	It's just something to talk about.
	Here's an example.
	This is what I think clingy means to people.
	Let's say that your wife did not have a strong bond with her own mother.
	But she really wanted that bond with her mother because all babies do.
	We were desperate for it.
	I mean, people...
	Like, a baby will choose...
	A starving baby will choose mother over food.
	It's that fundamental to our survival.
	And because we can survive without a meal for 10 minutes usually, but we cannot survive without a mother at all.
	I mean, just die, right?
	And so if your mother had...
	Sorry.
	If your wife had a yearning for an absent mother figure, then all of that yearning would still be in her.
	It never goes away.
	You can work with it, but it never goes away, right?
	And then if her child is expressing a great deal of need for her, that's going to awaken in her unconsciously her own unmet childhood yearning.
	And she's going to recoil from it and she's going to call it clingy rather than affectionate.
	Wow.
	Because it causes anxiety within her.
	It causes a pain in her about her own unmet needs.
	Because that's her, right?
	In her unconscious, that's her.
	She has a relationship now with her mother.
	Do you think that plays into it at all or that's just a consequence of what happened then like this is?
	Tell me what you mean.
	I want to make sure I'm answering the right question.
	She's had a relationship with her mother continually.
	Well, does she have what you and I, or sorry, does she have what I would call a relationship with her mother?
	Absolutely not.
	So I'm wondering if that's a consequence of it or that's part of the cause of it.
	Oh, yeah, look, if she is still around a mother with whom she cannot express needs or preferences or wants or be herself or talk about the past or if she is around a mother who is not meeting her needs now, that keeps her unmet needs as an infant right below the surface.
	And then when your son comes along with his needs, that causes her significant anxiety, right?
	And she wants to avoid your son because your son is re-evoking in her her unmet needs from infancy.
	And then she's going to say, well, he's been clingy.
	We should put him back in school.
	Right.
	That's the thing.
	She always says, logically, I know this isn't true, but she feels overwhelmingly that she's not a good mother.
	She's not a good wife.
	She does help me in my business.
	She does a few functions for my business from home.
	She doesn't feel like she's good at that.
	It's so the opposite on all these levels.
	The relationship with her mother is quite the opposite.
	It's always like, What she could do.
	She's an employee of mine, for instance, and then there's always these things you got to do, but it's like she brings up her childhood with her sister, who's two years younger, and I've seen this in front of me, and they just want to pull their hair out because I have no idea, I have no memory of that, or that never happened.
	Oh, that's what her mother says?
	Yeah, this is a common motif when it comes to anything in the past that's emotionally painful.
	It either didn't happen or it didn't exist.
	There's a lot of that kind of stuff.
	Right.
	So if your wife has a pattern of discomfort breeds avoidance, then when her son makes her uncomfortable, what's she going to do?
	Right.
	She's going to avoid, by the way.
	Sorry?
	What am I going to do is the real question, by the way...
	Well, has your wife ever thought about therapy?
	She has been going.
	Oh, she has been going, okay.
	Yeah, not for a long time.
	It hadn't started a long time ago.
	This has been going on for maybe a year.
	And it was very obvious to me.
	And I was like, we were unable to really talk about it.
	And then she kind of...
	Wait, wait, sorry, sorry.
	Didn't you say she had postpartum depression and your son is three and a half?
	I have a one-year-old too.
	And the postpartum depression was after the second child.
	And where is your wife in the birth order?
	She is the oldest of two girls.
	Okay, okay.
	And we have two boys.
	Right, right.
	Yeah, it could also be of course that she experienced significant decreases in maternal involvement when the second child came along, when she was a baby.
	Yeah, this is something that really she worried about a lot even before.
	You know, like how is she going to handle two?
	And I can tell you that two is a lot harder.
	The amount of stuff you got to do and just, you know, the stress being a parent.
	But it is more than twice as fun, by the way, too.
	Yeah, yeah, for sure.
	And when it gets older, they'll cancel each other out a bit in the basement.
	So, you know, I am a big fan of direct honesty.
	Right?
	So, you know, I would certainly say, I mean, if this was my wife, right, I would say, look, you know, life is short.
	And, you know, people obviously don't live forever.
	And I think you need to have a more real relationship with your mom.
	And if you need to go back into therapy to facilitate how to handle that, if you need to get your mom to come with you to therapy, you need to have...
	A more direct, honest, and open relationship with your own mother.
	Because it has an effect on who you are as a mother.
	It also has an effect because when your kids are watching you guys like hawks, right?
	Right.
	Right?
	The other day I had something I needed to dig out of my nose.
	So I just, I went in and got it, right?
	Because it was driving me crazy, particularly one of my nose hairs.
	And of course, you know, what happens is my daughter is just staring at me.
	Now, I'm not up to my elbow or anything, but you know, I'm there.
	I'm in there.
	I'm digging for gold.
	And I'm like, because it just reminds you, they watch you all the time.
	And your wife is being watched by your children when she's with her mother.
	How she interacts, what she's like, and they will imbibe those values no matter what you do or what you say to them.
	So if they ever see your wife trying to talk to her mom about something and then she gets rejected or shut down or pushed back or avoided and then she accepts it, they'll say, oh, that's what you do.
	That's what being an adult is.
	Everything you do in the house models what your children will become.
	And you want to model open, honest, connected, empathetic and curious relationships to your parents in every one of your relationships.
	I mean, I won't treat someone badly around my daughter no matter what.
	You know, maybe if somebody actually pees in my lobster bisque, yes, but I will not do it.
	I'm friendly to the waitresses and so on.
	Now, if the waitress is really bad, then I'll say, well, I'm not going to give her a good tip because it affects Y and Z and blah, blah, blah.
	I don't dislike her, but it was really inconvenient and blah, blah, blah.
	Food was cold, had to send it back, and then it got the wrong order or whatever.
	You've got to teach the standing up for yourself.
	Yeah, like I don't want to teach her that I just smile no matter what.
	But in terms of the people who come to our house, there's nobody who comes to my house that I cannot be honest with.
	Because I never want my daughter to see me being dishonest, even by omission.
	Right.
	I mean, I don't want to do that for myself.
	But I certainly feel that I cannot model that for my daughter.
	Right.
	Right, absolutely.
	My wife has a tremendous amount of sympathy for being a communicator to her, in other words.
	And like, dismantling the idea of the state always comes down to the fact that she was literally fed by the state as a child.
	You know, I had a single mother.
	Father was like out of the picture very early and then was like literally sadistic to her sister.
	Sadistic to her dad for a long time with the mom knowing it and all this kind of stuff.
	But she wasn't fed by the state because the state has no money and the state has no food.
	Believe me.
	You don't teach it to the choir.
	But that is...
	What ultimately it comes down to is, yet I wouldn't have been able to eat, and at the end of the day, that just hits so close to home for her.
	Wait, but sorry, so she had a bad dad, but where was the child support?
	Where was the alimony?
	There was no payments on the child support.
	No, no, but if she thinks that the state was somehow helpful, I mean, where was the state in getting that money?
	Right.
	That's the law, right?
	Right, right.
	I mean, the state kept the money from her.
	It refused to go and get it.
	It did not get the money it was supposed to get.
	Right.
	It failed her.
	It didn't feed her.
	It failed her.
	I see.
	Let me just think how she would respond to that.
	Basically, I think she feels that they just would have been destitute.
	It wouldn't have mattered.
	In other words, the state is the only one that did anything at all.
	Well, no.
	To be fair and to be annoyingly precise, it was not the state who failed her.
	It was her mother's choice of a husband.
	That's where things get really excited in my house when I say anything like that.
	Well, was her mother not responsible for who she chose to get married to?
	My wife, I don't know why, it's very difficult for her to make that leap.
	Well, I know why.
	Right.
	I know exactly.
	Because her mother is probably playing the victim.
	Oh, my God.
	I mean, she is, you know, the quintessential victim for sure.
	Right.
	So she plays the victim and she's like, well, I was abandoned by my husband.
	You know, people say that shit and women in particular say this stuff and I don't know how they get away with it.
	I don't know how they get away with it.
	I mean, you could have chosen, I assume she didn't look like the elephant woman, right?
	She could have chosen any number of men to date.
	She could have chosen to not get married.
	She could have, you know, she dated this guy.
	She got engaged to this guy.
	She got married to this guy.
	She chose to have a child with this guy.
	I mean, does she have zero capacity to judge human characteristics at all?
	I've never been able to get that far.
	That would just be like driving the knife through the back.
	But then you are exposing your children to somebody who takes no responsibility for her life.
	That is going to leave an impression on them.
	Well, that's the thing that's so weird is that she takes...
	And you don't call her on it!
	Well, she takes too much responsibility when it comes to everything else, like all these other things.
	You know, she's very responsible in her own life.
	That's the thing that's so odd about it.
	What do you mean?
	She takes too much responsibility for all these?
	I don't know.
	Well, a lot of times she thinks like, you know, well, because my son is too clingy, you know, that's like a reflection on her doing a bad job.
	Oh, wait, this is your wife, not your wife's mother.
	Oh, my wife's mother.
	I misunderstood what you said.
	Okay.
	No, no, no.
	I'm talking about when their grandma is around.
	What they see is they see someone who's not taking responsibility and that she gets away with it.
	Yeah, that's 100% sure.
	And then what's going to happen when they face difficulties in their life?
	They will know that you respect people who don't take responsibility and that you have no problem with people who don't take responsibility.
	You don't call them out and they're welcome at your house anytime.
	That's a fair point.
	And then people say, gosh, I don't know what happened with my teenagers.
	They just, you know, they went off the...
	I'm not saying this is going to happen because you sound like a great dad.
	But, you know, it's like, well, you exposed them for years.
	Yeah, this is great.
	This is fine behavior.
	She loves you.
	Don't we love grandma and all that, right?
	And I'm not saying don't love her.
	I'm not saying she's her enemy or anything like that.
	But I'm just trying to bring to sort of awareness that your kids are going to be absorbing everything.
	If we have a relationship and an open disagreement about those subjects and are open with our children, is that a degenerate example to the children?
	Sorry, can you say that again?
	A relationship with her, but an open conversation between us as a family, that this is not acceptable, these aspects of grandma or whatever, is that a degenerate example to the children?
	I mean, it's a tough call because are you going to ask them not to talk to grandma about it?
	I would never do that, just personally.
	I just wouldn't do that.
	So if they go up to your grandma and say, my dad says you don't take responsibility, what's going to happen?
	She's probably not going to like that too much, but I can't see her getting upset at her grandkids in any significant way.
	Was she going to get upset at you?
	Yeah, of course.
	Of course, right?
	Right.
	And look, I don't know what to do.
	Honestly, there's no magical solution to any of this.
	But the important thing is to be conscious of the effect that your choices have in relationships around your children.
	There is nothing neutral that you can do around children.
	Everything is a communication of values or lack thereof, right?
	This is something that I struggle with, by the way, when I think about how to raise my children, because it's like, you know, for instance, there's something to be said for the skill of dealing with people in this situation.
	In many ways, sadly, this is more of a...
	...life and have, you know, the Marian life, but...
	For better or for worse.
	Sorry, you keep breaking up a little bit and I just lost it.
	I can usually figure it out, but I lost a little bit there if you can repeat it.
	Sure.
	Well, I just struggle with the idea that on the one hand, you're absolutely right to want to be protective of your children, of course.
	But on the other hand, you also need to expose them to the things that they're going to deal with.
	You know what I mean?
	But you're not dealing with it.
	You're avoiding it.
	Well, then it is not possible then to maintain, you're saying, a relationship with Earth in that context.
	I'm not saying anything.
	You said to me that you have to expose your kids on how to deal with difficult people, right?
	Well, I'm not saying this has to be the way to do it either.
	How are you dealing with a difficult person?
	You're avoiding it, right?
	Well, let's say you deal with it, right?
	That would mean confronting it directly, honestly, right?
	I think that would be a good thing to do, yeah.
	Right, I do too, by the way.
	And then let's say there's like, you know, whatever, some acknowledgement, but maybe not much else.
	And as you're saying, you know, it doesn't mean you don't have to like love the person or end the relationship.
	So where does that leave you then?
	You know what I mean?
	Where is that place where you have a relationship but you're honest and direct and a good teacher to your children?
	Or is that an impossibility?
	Well, I don't know because it's impossible to predict how other people react to changed situations, right?
	Sure.
	I mean, if you walk up to me and hold out your hand for a handshake and I just stand there, you're not going to stand there for 10 minutes.
	You've got to do something with your hand.
	You probably pretend to be brushing your hair or scratching your nose or something like that, right?
	But you have to do something different if I don't do the usual, right?
	Yes, that's for sure.
	And, you know, but the important person in the equation, it certainly is your kids, but, you know, I would say even more importantly is your wife, right?
	So if your wife is around her mom and feels stifled and feels like she can't talk and she has to cater to your mom's whatever, whatever, right?
	That is kind of debilitating because I'm sure your wife has a value called truth and honesty and openness.
	At least this is what, you know, she'd want kids.
	Kids, you can come to me with anything.
	Kids, you can tell me whatever's on your mind, right?
	Oh, she's great.
	Like, exploring their inner worlds and their emotions.
	Like, she's so sensitive to them and to me, you know?
	And that's magnificent and good for her.
	Like, man, massive virtual hug.
	Fantastic.
	But is she that way when her mom is around?
	She's very much set in the idea that her mom is who she is, that she's the more responsible person in the relationship.
	Sorry, that who is?
	Your wife or her mom?
	My wife is.
	When she was a kid, she did all the laundry.
	When she was seven years old, she did the cooking, the laundry.
	Basically, in a way, it's almost emotionally still like that.
	Well, no wonder she got postpartum.
	She didn't have a damn childhood.
	She had no childhood.
	Her father literally locked her and her sister in a closet with a light bulb hanging from the ceiling for the whole weekend where he would do cocaine with his girlfriend and all that sort of stuff.
	Are you kidding me?
	No, I mean, this was her childhood.
	Wait, this is the guy her mom chose?
	This was her father, not the boyfriend.
	This was her biological father that lived apart.
	This is the guy that her mom chose as her father?
	Correct.
	A drug addict Who locked her in closets for a weekend?
	This would be like when she would go over to his house with her sister, like for the weekend on the, you know, on occasion.
	No, I got it.
	I got it.
	Pick her up, you know?
	I got it.
	Wow!
	I mean, it's crazy.
	Hang on, I'm just peeling myself off the ceiling here.
	Oh my God!
	The worst one I ever heard, so you can only imagine what really happened, my wife...
	My wife witnessed her baby sister, who was born very prematurely in front of her, by the way, witnessed the father preventing her from rolling over as a baby, like physically.
	So the only thing that happened good about her father...
	Wait, sorry, I don't understand that.
	You witnessed her preventing her from rolling over?
	What does that mean?
	My wife was like two, three years old, and her baby sister is six months old, And the fathers are preventing her from rolling over with his hands.
	I don't understand that.
	Why would he do that?
	I can only imagine that this is some sort of sadistic pleasure.
	Oh, you mean so the baby was trying to roll over and the father was preventing her because he liked watching her struggle or something?
	Well, I mean, my wife was two years old.
	I can only imagine that there was some really sick motivation here.
	I can't even think of...
	How long, sorry, how old was your wife when this guy was, when the marriage ended?
	She was probably under two years old and then he was in her life, maybe she was five or six or so, like in and out, sort of.
	And why did the marriage end, do you know?
	You know, that's something I can't necessarily be a straight ass around, but there was a lot of drugs and craziness and things like that, for sure.
	And was the grandmom involved in these drugs?
	It's interesting.
	The younger sister is doing all this research and she's going back to school to become a school counselor.
	And this is sort of something that she's kind of bringing to light.
	That's sort of one of these, you know, ambiguous things, you know what I mean?
	Okay, so you can't get the truth about it, but there may have been...
	I have my sense of it, from what she's told me, but I don't have, you know...
	I also have my wife, who, you know, loves her mother, and her mother was always the one that was there, and doing this, and making sure she did well in school, but, you know, she had, like, nervous breakdowns, my wife, when she was eight years old.
	Wait, sorry, what do you mean you say her mom was always the one who was there?
	Didn't you just say that you're...
	Your wife is the one who did the cooking and the laundry and the cleaning?
	Oh, right, right.
	That's why it's such a sick relationship in a way, you know?
	You've got to listen back to this.
	You'll notice when you veer off into story land.
	Sorry.
	So, wait, so your wife's mother, did she know that this guy was a drug addict?
	Well, she definitely knew.
	I mean, when she knew is, you know, something...
	But she knew when she was sending...
	The kids over?
	Oh yeah, and you know, they would, you know, never want to go, you know, and of course they would...
	Yeah, and they would go back.
	So wait, wait, wait!
	So you're saying...
	Yeah, she sent her back.
	that the kid's grandmother knowingly sent their mother to a drug addict's house.
	Yeah, yes.
	Knowingly?
	Yes.
	With no supervision.
	No drop-bys, no call-bys to make sure the kids were okay.
	I don't really know how that part went, but I know that they went back.
	Well, we know that they were in the closet for the weekend.
	Right.
	So we have some idea how it went, right?
	Right.
	Yeah!
	What if she did that to your kids?
	What if she was supposed to babysit for the weekend and she sent them over to a friend's place and that friend was doing drugs and your kids were locked terrified in the closet all weekend?
	I mean, look, frankly...
	No, no, what would you do?
	Oh, I mean, I would have gone crazy for a much lower threshold, you know?
	What would you do?
	If someone locked my kids up in a closet...
	If she did it?
	Oh, if my wife did it.
	No, if your wife's mother did it now, to your kids, they're going over to her place for the weekend, and she sends them over to some friend's place who's doing cocaine and locking them in a closet for the weekend.
	Okay, well we would never see her again, and then we would use as much possible force against her as we could.
	Okay, so this was done to the woman that you love and the mother of your children.
	Right.
	Right, so what's the difference?
	So what's the difference?
	There shouldn't be any difference.
	And it's not acknowledged, as far as I understand it, or apologized for, or restitution made for.
	I know.
	It's so hard.
	I mean, like, I understand, like, to you, it's so clear.
	And I see that, too, by the way.
	And I'm, like, stuck in this weird world because, you know, I live with her emotionally, too, of course.
	So it's like, you know, it's so hard to get through that.
	She's going to therapy.
	She's telling me how brutal it is that they talk about her childhood and It's just so it takes everything out of her.
	And, you know, so it's very tough.
	And then, of course, like, very quickly, you know, I'm perceived by her to lack empathy towards her.
	And it's really rough.
	Do you mean towards her or towards her mom?
	Well, ultimately towards her, but also towards her mom.
	Yeah.
	Well, you know, if empathy is such a value, you know, then where's her mom's empathy?
	You know, I don't know why it has to be this one-way street.
	That is so hard to break through.
	Because if you're around a narcissist, everything is a one-way street.
	I don't know if the mom's a narcissist.
	I don't know if I can diagnose anyone, but everything is a one-way street and you adapt to the most irresponsible and selfish person's needs.
	When you're around selfish people, everything is one way.
	What do you...
	Are there any...
	Is there any advice you could give me as to maybe a different way to broach this?
	I mean, I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but I never seem to make any progress into this.
	Well, I don't know, obviously, what you should do.
	I mean, we've only talked twice and so on.
	But I don't...
	You know, I'm not a fan of anyone who hurts my wife.
	Right.
	Believe me, I'm with you.
	And...
	If someone's hurt my wife and there's not restitution, and there's not acknowledgement, I mean, I'll just tell you for me, I'm not a fan of that person.
	I can't dictate, obviously, who my wife sees or her choice or anything.
	I am not a fan of that person.
	I don't interact with them.
	I am not positive or friendly towards that person.
	And I'll make it very clear that you did incredibly harmful things to my wife.
	You exposed her to drug dealers.
	You sent her over to unstable people's places.
	You ruined her childhood.
	You used her as an inappropriately mature house slave.
	Like, this is wrong.
	What you did as a mom, you may have done some wonderful things.
	Maybe you made great birthday cakes and sung her lullabies every night.
	But there were things that you did that were really, really bad.
	And you need to acknowledge that.
	You need to have the basic respect for what my wife has gone through.
	To at least acknowledge that what she went through was wrong, because that will lift a burden from her.
	Because until the people who've wronged us acknowledge that they've wronged us, we are continually fighting against their unreality, against their rejection, against their avoidance, and especially if they're parents, they have so much power over our consciousness that it's almost always a losing battle.
	Until the wrongs are acknowledged, you expend massive amounts Of emotional and spiritual energy trying to maintain the reality in the face of their blunt, cold-faced, constant denials.
	I know, and it wears you down, by the way.
	Like, I can't maintain the energy of outrage for six Thanksgivings, you know what I mean?
	Yeah.
	It wears you down.
	It wears you down.
	And so, you know, the first thing when people have wronged you, the first thing they need to do is to acknowledge that they've wronged you.
	It needs to be said.
	Because the degree to which they do not acknowledge that they've wronged you, they are perpetuating the abuse.
	Right.
	Because they are saying, because I feel uncomfortable admitting things I did that were bad, I am going to selfishly avoid and ignore it, and therefore you will pay and continue to pay just as you did in the past.
	It is a continuation of the original problem.
	It is.
	It's them selfishly avoiding their own discomfort and heaping more upon their children.
	I mean, if your mom, if your grandmother, sorry, if your wife's mother had acknowledged this stuff, I'm guessing that it would be much less likely a wife would have gone through postpartum depression.
	In other words, she would have been able to celebrate the birth of her child rather than view it as a gray cloud to walk through.
	It's selfish when you've harmed people to not acknowledge it.
	Because it continues to selfishly avoid your pain.
	You continue to selfishly avoid your pain while heaping more pain on them.
	And more avoidance and more confusion and more depression.
	You're just continuing to roll an iron ball that they have to carry.
	Right.
	Because your back is too tender.
	Well, it's your damn iron ball.
	You pick up the goddamn thing.
	Right.
	I don't really know what to say to that.
	I think you gave me a lot to think about.
	I think that it's definitely something that I've got to do, but at the same time, the consequences of them being rejectionist towards what I say from what I know about her is very high.
	Well, let me be really, really ridiculously sexist here.
	Let me just be ridiculously sexist here.
	And I'm, you know, unapologetically so.
	Okay.
	But man to man, husband to husband, you got to really take care of your wife in this situation.
	If this level of abuse and neglect occurred and remains unacknowledged, you have to step up as the husband, as the man of the house, and you have to build a little bit of a wall around your wife so that she can heal.
	I don't know what that looks like.
	I have no idea what that looks like.
	So this is all bullshit metaphor useless time.
	And to be fair, if I was talking to the wife and you were in this situation, I'd say exactly the same thing.
	But I'm going to appeal to the patriarchy here for what it's worth.
	You cannot let this dysfunction dictate your values.
	Or what happens if and if they get upset?
	No.
	You have your values.
	You have your moral core.
	You have your moral strength.
	I believe, and look, don't do anything until you talk to your wife's therapist or, you know, this is just my opinion.
	I can't prove any of this stuff, right?
	I'm just telling you what I would do.
	What I have done in my relationships is I know what my values are, that abuse must be acknowledged, wrongs must be righted, honesty is the value.
	Now, people step up to that, maybe they don't know about it, maybe they've never experienced it, then maybe you need some patience, it might take weeks, it might take months, but you keep revisiting the conversation.
	Okay.
	And your goal is to take the burden off your wife and keep it from accumulating on your children.
	Is there anything you could tell me to make it seem to her like I'm not trying to be aggressive to her?
	Like that seems to be a problem.
	When we talk about it is that she gets like very defensive and it's like one of those situations that isn't like a normal conversation between me and my wife.
	You know women could do that thing where it's like oh anything you say as a man is just aggressive because I don't like it.
	And it's very unusual for us to have that, but definitely one of the things that kind of...
	I mean, that's her mom.
	That's her mom speaking through her, right?
	Your wife does not sound like she has much of a manipulative bone in her body.
	Oh, not at all.
	And you have to be aware with your wife when it's her mom talking through her.
	Are you talking to your wife or are you talking to your wife's mom in your wife?
	It's interesting, you know, when you get skilled in conversations, and I'm not saying you're not, right?
	It sounds like you guys have great conversations.
	But we're not always talking to the same person, right?
	So if you say something to your wife that is going to threaten her mother's selfish interests, then that will awaken the alter ego of the mom in your wife.
	Is there any way to dispel that or talk around that?
	Is there any technique to doing that?
	Well, I mean, you can read Internal Family Systems Therapy by Dr.
	Richard Schwartz.
	He's been on this show.
	It's a great way of understanding that we are an ecosystem of competing personalities.
	And if your wife has had a habit of having to conform to a selfish person, Then that selfish person is going to be in there and is going to step right into the control room and take over your wife when any conversation that happens that might threaten that person's interests.
	Right?
	So how you disarm that, I mean, again, I'm not a therapist.
	I don't know.
	But the first thing to recognize is that it's happening, right?
	Right.
	Because when you say, well, this never happens with my wife except in these situations.
	Well, in this situation, you're talking about something that is negative to her mother's selfish interests.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Now, your wife could not, I believe, have survived as a child, or at least she wouldn't have taken that risk, if she had actively acted against her mother's self-interest.
	You said that your wife...
	Sorry, it sounds like I'm cornering you.
	What you said!
	What I mean is that you said that your wife did not, as a child, want to go to the drug addict dads, right?
	No.
	So the question is, why did she go?
	Because she had to.
	Why did she have to go?
	Because your mom made her.
	Right.
	I mean, your mom certainly wasn't...
	I mean, she didn't even make this guy pay alimony or child support.
	It's not like she's forceful in everything, right?
	Right.
	So she had to go and get locked in a fucking closet all weekend while this asshole did coke with his shitty girlfriend, right?
	Correct.
	So she could not stand out for herself and say no.
	Right.
	And so she could not act in a way that threatened her mother's selfish interests.
	And so when you start talking now about something that is going to threaten her mother's selfish interests, that inner mother awakens and says, nah.
	Right.
	You are not allying yourself with anyone against my selfish interest.
	I will step in and interfere with any bond you make with anyone who is going to be against my selfish interest.
	So how do you put the mirror between those two people?
	Again, you're asking me these questions like this.
	I'm going to give you a magic phrase or a secret handshake or something like that or some sort of exorcism ritual or something.
	I don't know.
	But the knowledge is the first component, right?
	Right.
	I'm just wondering how you separate the two people's interests if they're so closely aligned.
	Oh, no, no, they're not closely aligned.
	If they were closely aligned, they wouldn't be an alter ego.
	They're not.
	No, no, look.
	Her mother wanted stuff that she didn't want.
	I mean, she had to conform, but you conform out of fear and develop the scar tissue of an alter ego because you have the exact opposite desires of the authority figure.
	Okay, so you need to introduce reason here, of course.
	That's the key to this.
	Well, you can ask her, what if your mom did to our kids for one weekend what she did to you so often?
	And she would freak out at the very thought.
	Right.
	And then you can say, that's how I feel about what she did to you.
	Ah, I like that.
	That makes sense.
	Because there's no reason why your children are deserving of more protection than your wife was as a child, or even now.
	Right.
	Right?
	So, what your wife suffered, if you can get her to picture that occurring to her children, that's a way of connecting with her own pain.
	And then when you say, when I see your mother, I think of that happening to you.
	I think of you sitting in that closet with your sibling, with a bear swinging light bulb, not knowing what the hell was happening out there.
	Terrified, hungry, got to pee.
	Terrified to go out.
	No one to call.
	No support.
	No security.
	No stability.
	No love.
	Fear.
	And that your mother sent you there.
	And that you either didn't tell her about it because you knew she didn't want to hear, or you did tell her about it, she didn't do anything but send you back.
	Horrifying.
	You know, I have trouble reading stuff.
	I was refreshing, for a variety of reasons, Thomas Sowell's book on slavery.
	Or his chapter on slavery.
	And, I mean, there's such gruesome stuff in there.
	I have to stop listening to it.
	Because when they talk about cutting the throats of 24 slaves and throwing the bodies overboard so they don't get caught by the English.
	Jesus.
	I see that.
	Like, I imagine that.
	The head being pulled back, the knife going through.
	Like, it makes my body contract.
	All my muscles contract.
	I have to really measure the amount of historical horror I imbibe because it goes right into me.
	And I picture it.
	Vividly.
	Blood splashing on the decks.
	People falling forward, twitching, being thrown overboard.
	Some of them half alive or maybe alive even.
	They don't know how to swim because they grew up in a jungle in Africa.
	I don't know, right?
	So I feel that 24 times in a row.
	Body shocks.
	That's part of what I have to do to limit my exposure to evil.
	And that degree of empathy we often have with our own children But we don't have with ourselves as children.
	But that connection needs to be made.
	Because the needs of your wife as a child and the needs of your children, the needs of your wife as a child for protection, for love, for security, for stability, for empathy, for curiosity, for protection, are as vivid and strong and necessary As your children's need for all of that.
	And anyone who would violate your children in the way that your wife was violated would not be your friend until there was absolute security in that relationship again.
	Which means acknowledgement, which means restitution, which means taking on the ownership of guilt rather than harming others through denial.
	So if you can get your wife to connect With her mother doing this to her kids, then she can find through that a way to connect to herself as a child and she can then understand that your urge to protect her as a child and the child still within her is as strong as your urge to protect your own biological children and for the same reason and from the same love and from the same strength and from the same compassion.
	I don't see how she can view that as aggressive. - So is it gonna be a What happens when a person makes that transcendence and seeks true acknowledgement and at that point either like doesn't receive the acknowledgement or receives like less than total acknowledgement?
	Is that a...
	Is the liberating experience the earlier transcendence?
	In other words, does it happen before the acknowledgement?
	In other words, once she gets to that point, Is it crucial that she receives acknowledgement?
	I mean, obviously it would be nice.
	Well, I mean, yes.
	Because acknowledgement is the first step towards non-repetition, right?
	I mean, the reason why we need people who acknowledge their wrongdoings is so that they have less likelihood of repeating them.
	Right.
	Right.
	Definitely.
	And without...
	Acknowledgement of wrongdoing, the repetition is for certain.
	It's not even a possibility.
	It is for certain.
	Because by the very act of not acknowledging, as I said, it is selfishly hurting your victim for the sake of your own immediate emotional comfort.
	That's right.
	And the truth is that she needs to do this for so many other reasons, for her own children, for herself.
	I mean, the truth is really always the way to go and that's one of the reasons I really relate to your thinking so well.
	Well, I predict that if this doesn't occur, then you guys, I mean, you've got toddlerhood, you've got the latency period but once teenage stuff hits and hormones hit and the size differential decreases between you and your kids, I think that you need to get this stuff squared away now in order to avoid real problems in the teenage years.
	A lot of parenting is aiming at the teenage years, right?
	And I've talked to people who've been peaceful parents who say, oh, the teenage years were great, right?
	But you've got to aim at that.
	And that's a pretty narrow thing to aim at, right?
	It's a pretty small target, especially in sort of modern society.
	And so you really want to aim at that.
	And what you need to survive the teenage years is you need your children's respect.
	Which means that you have to have acted with integrity when you had all the power as a parent.
	Right.
	Because that power is going to diminish.
	And if they know you acted with integrity and with virtue and with courage and with resolution to protect them, if you did that when you had all the power, then when they gain power over you, which inevitably happens as they get older, they will use that power as wisely as they saw you using it.
	But if they see you weasel out, if they see you avoid, if they see you minimize, if they see you compromise, Then they will recognize that more power means lower standards.
	And then when they get more power as a teenager, their standards will descend as well.
	Yeah, okay.
	This is so much related to me also.
	I was really taught that.
	I was so indoctrinated into that way of thinking about my father.
	Which way of thinking?
	That way of thinking that power is weakness.
	It's just obligation for no cause to be resolved.
	Pure obligation, you know what I mean?
	To everyone, just because this one's your brother or this one's your mother.
	I mean, there's nothing behind it, you know?
	I kind of grew up that way with a father like that.
	And I could see this weakness now in my own life, you know, how clear, especially with things like this, I mean.
	Well, again, I wouldn't necessarily characterize it as weakness.
	I mean, I'm not ignorant because I don't know the exact height of Mount Kilimanjaro, right?
	It's just prior to knowledge.
	You're in a state of nature.
	Once you have the knowledge, then you have the responsibility.
	But I wouldn't start characterizing it as stuff like weakness or anything.
	I think that's a negative judgment.
	It might be the wrong word, but I feel the negative emotional impulse of guilt and crap that I know is just garbage that was thrown onto me when I was a kid.
	Like, I feel that palpably, you know, still, you know?
	And you always will, you know?
	No, listen, you always will.
	Listen, you are very good at English.
	Oh, thank you.
	No one ever said that to me, by the way.
	Your English is wonderful.
	Now, let's say you don't speak English for 10 years, and then somebody comes up to you and speaks to you in English.
	Will you understand what they say?
	Yeah, sure.
	Of course you will.
	You will never, ever not speak English.
	Right.
	So in these childhood patterns, we will never ever not speak them.
	There's a language called abuse.
	There's a language called dysfunction.
	And people speak it.
	And if I knew a language, and every time I heard that language, it told me horrible, scary, ugly, unpleasant things.
	Like if every time anyone ever spoke to me in English, they would say the most ugly, vicious, and nasty things.
	Right.
	Then I would have to either get them to stop speaking English or I would have to not talk to them.
	Right.
	And that's how it is with the language of abuse, right?
	That's a way, there's no way to reprogram that, you don't think.
	The emotional aspect of it, the physiological aspect of it is stuck.
	I mean, until someone can tell me how a native English speaker can stop understanding English, I don't think there's any way to do it.
	It's just such a dreary thought.
	No, but it's facts, as far as I know.
	Like, if my mom came and knocked on my door tonight, I'd shit my pants.
	That sucks.
	But I know that.
	I know.
	And they say this about addiction.
	Like, you can't put yourself in the environment Because of the triggers.
	Like, how do you stay sober?
	I think it was Steve Tyler from...
	Is it Steve Tyler?
	Yeah.
	Aerosmith, the Aerosmith singer.
	Like, you know, they called him and Joe Perry the toxic twins, right?
	Because they were just snorting up half of Peru throughout the 80s, right?
	And he said, like, well, when we went sober, like, we had to stop everything.
	We couldn't be around the same people.
	We couldn't be in the same environment.
	And, you know, he also had multiple addictions.
	He was an alcoholic as well.
	And he said, now, like 20 years later or 15 years later, now maybe I can have a beer on a hot day.
	But I can't go back to the clubs.
	I can't go back to the people.
	I can't go back to the scene.
	This is what they say.
	To quit addiction, you have to break the associations.
	You cannot quit smoking and be around a bunch of smokers doing all the same things you used to do before you quit.
	Right.
	So for me, I took that very much to heart.
	So I had a habit called, I speak abuse.
	I know abuse.
	So I had to either get people to stop being abusive, or I had to not be around abusive people, because that's what they say around drunks and addicts and so on.
	You just cannot be around those people.
	Yeah.
	That's good advice.
	And that's not my advice.
	Again, I'm no expert, but that's my understanding of what that all means.
	And I don't see how abuse would be any different than nicotine or gambling or heroin or any of the other addictions.
	Are we still on?
	He's back.
	I don't know what happened.
	Sorry.
	I think that your mother-in-law, who works doubtless for the NSA. Anyway, listen, that was really all I sort of had to say around that, if that helps.
	It does.
	It does.
	I never heard anyone apply that to abuse before, by the way.
	That's very helpful.
	Right.
	And it's tragic that people don't do that.
	But it's understandable, right?
	Unfortunately, there are quite a lot of people like your mother-in-law.
	I always wondered when Nietzsche said, I think it was Nietzsche that said that history is a nightmare that I'm trying to awake or something to that effect.
	I always wondered if he's talking about the history of man or his own history.
	Most of what he was writing about was his own childhood.
	Like when people, there's a writer who said the past is a different, the past is a foreign country.
	They do things differently there.
	What he's basically saying is that Well, I really thank you for a fantastic conversation.
	I'd love to talk to you about your investing podcast one time.
	And I don't necessarily think there was a contradiction in there, but there's something that always bothered me about that that I always wanted to talk to you about.
	Well, feel free to.
	I certainly want to make sure that we keep coming over and refining what we talk about here.
	So please feel free to call back anytime.
	And of course, drop me a line if you can.
	Let me know how it goes.
	I certainly wish you and your wife the best with this.
	Thank you very much.
	You're very welcome.
	And thanks everyone for, of course, such...
	It's wonderfully engaging.
	Really, the time flies.
	My brain is like incandescent during these calls.
	Afterwards, it goes completely dark and I have to remind myself that it's important to talk to other people in the household.
	But I really do appreciate everyone's questions, great feedback and wonderful stuff that is going on in this conversation.
	This is the most important stuff to talk about in the world because if we can't build the future on reason, it's going to be built on force to the detriment of all FDRURL.com forward slash donate and have yourself a wonderful week.
	I'll talk to you all Sunday morning.
	Oh yeah, we got a speech coming up at the University of Toronto.
	Mike!
	Would you like to fill the listeners in on the details?
	While Mike is pulling on himself, I just wanted to mention that for those who donate, the novel that I wrote like 20 years ago about Russian revolutionaries and the choice between Changing the world through force and changing yourself through reason.
	That's a great novel.
	I was very, very proud of that.
	And you get it for free if you donate to the gold level.
	It's like 20 bucks a month, or as I like to think about it, one Bitcoin every 14 years or something like that these days.
	I got the info for Saturday.
	Yeah, go.
	Did I stall in that field?
	Good, good, because the next part was going to be really filthy.
	The Students for Liberty Canadian Regional Conference, November 16th, which is this coming Saturday, at the University of Toronto, St.
	Michael's College.
	Steph will be giving a speech on the true cause of war.
	And the organizer just sent me the itinerary.
	What, war?
	On war, the true cause of war.
	No, no, I thought it was the true cause of war.
	I mean, I've been doing all this research with my bitcoins and that Japanese handjob machine.
	Oh!
	Okay, I've got to write this down.
	Oh, I can't write it down.
	Do you know why?
	My hand is cramping.
	Anyway.
	They've got you on at 5.45 to 6.45 Saturday, and there's going to be a lot of people there.
	Oh, 5.45 p.m.
	to 6.45.
	I thought it was in the morning, no?
	Yeah, they just sent me the itinerary, and they got you on later.
	Am I closing the place?
	No, Lawrence Reed from the Foundation for Economic Education is finishing it off.
	He's the keynote for the night.
	Well, he will be finishing it off if he can wrestle the microphone from my cold dead hands.
	You know, once I have it.
	Well, they do have dinner scheduled directly after your speech, so they might be able to lure you away with that.
	Hey, I can talk over silverware, even without a mic.
	I'll just loom up.
	You know, they usually have a hole in the middle of the table.
	I'll just loom my way up through it, you know, with a little X-Acto knife, cut my way through, and slowly rotate while continuing to spew my rational stuff.
	I don't know how...
	Anyway, yeah, it'll be great.
	I like Lawrence.
	I promise that, for Christ's sake.
	Right.
	Japanese sex machine.
	Check.
	Okay.
	I think we're all set for something which will be broadcast live.
	So, yeah.
	Have yourself a wonderful week, everyone.
	I'll talk to some people Saturday live and talk to Sunday virtually.
	Thanks, Mel.

▲