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Dec. 2, 2013 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:08:50

2544 Discover Your Passion Now - Wednesday Call In Show November 27th, 2013

I want to help my handicapped friend, the value of a violence expert in a free society, finding motivation by discovering your lifes goal, why Stefan has dedicated his life to philosophy, why parental involvement is essential, the death of the mainstream media, restitution for immoral actions and putting yourself in a position to succeed.

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	Hi, everybody.
	It's Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Main Radio.
	I hope you're doing very well.
	27th of November, 2013.
	Oh, I feel dated already.
	So I just wanted to...
	I had a great chat with Peter Schiff yesterday.
	Look, I mean, I love the guy.
	His expertise is second to none as far as investing goes.
	And, you know, he said...
	You know, when debating with experts, my goal is just not to make a complete idiot of myself, right?
	So there's some things I'm pretty good at, you know, some history stuff, some ethics, some philosophy and so on.
	You know, investing is not my thing.
	I'm not a big investor and he's obviously got decades of experience.
	He runs a very successful company and all that.
	So when it comes to talking about investment vehicles, I'm glad I didn't make an idiot of myself.
	People are sort of saying, well, someone won or someone lost.
	Look, I just want to sort of mention that this was not a debate about right or wrong, truth or falsehood, violence versus non-violence and so on.
	This was not a debate of science.
	This was not a debate of ethics.
	This was not a debate of empiricism.
	This was a debate of speculation.
	And in speculation, is there really a complete right or wrong?
	Well, I think there's factors to be taken into account.
	I presented some of the pros and Peter represented some of the cons which are always really important to know about when you're investing in anything.
	So this was not a win-lose kind of debate.
	He wasn't talking like Jan Helfeld about marching me off into the sea at the point of a tank and so on.
	So it really is not a win-lose situation.
	It's more we have differing opinions about...
	The future and speculation and costs and benefits, this is not a win-lose situation.
	I just want to be sort of clear about that.
	Nonetheless, I won.
	Just kidding.
	I didn't, but I did.
	Or did I? Well, the future will tell, but I'm still hanging on to my Bitcoins.
	So, that's it for my intro.
	Mikey Mike, who we got?
	All right, Carl, you're up first.
	Go ahead, Carl.
	Hi, Steph.
	I was hoping to talk about This girl who's a friend of mine, I don't know if you've ever dealt with someone who's had brain damage before, but I've listened to your show for a while, and a lot of the moral situations that you bring up, I'm having a hard time figuring out how to apply it to someone who has been a little bit compromised since, say, a frontal lobe damage caused by a car accident.
	Hmm.
	One...
	One thing I seem to notice is that, well, okay, so she said this, and her parents have said this, she seems to have reduced emotional self-control, like she's more likely to, I don't know, speak out, she's more likely to say something inappropriate, or she seems to, you know, seems to have a hard time holding back from things like smoking and drinking, and they kind of partially attributed this to the car accident.
	I'm not an expert on this stuff, by the way, so I don't know.
	Yeah, I mean, I've heard experts talk about that kind of stuff.
	You know, so there's a phase in the progress of the species where inhibition is really important, right?
	Inhibition, not that important for a tiger or an ape Or a rap star.
	But inhibition in the transition towards a rational, healthy society is kind of important because you have traumatized people who have bad impulses and they need to restrain those impulses.
	And so, of course, impulses are generated from deep within the brain.
	They flash towards the neofrontal cortex and you have about a quarter second to intercept them.
	Now, I've certainly heard that people who've experienced physical brain damage end up disinhibited, you know, like in a sort of permanent but non-disoriented state of alcoholism where you've kind of disinhibited and not necessarily dancing on tables and so on.
	There's an old famous story about a guy who got a railway spike to the forehead who was turned from a gentle guy into a sort of a homicidal maniac and so on.
	There does seem to be an uncorking of base of the brain, fight or flight stuff.
	There seems to be less capacity for the deferral of gratification and so on.
	And so – and we're just – we're talking more specific brain damage.
	You ask if I deal with people that brain damage all the time.
	I deal with people who went to public school all the time.
	So that's sort of socially engineered brain damage.
	But it is challenging.
	You know, they have lost some of the ability to notice and control their impulses.
	Now, neuroplasticity, which is of course the brain's ability to adapt to damage and to find other ways of achieving its goals, does mean that moral responsibility doesn't get erased from someone who's gone...
	I mean, assuming it's not completely catastrophic, but it is something that...
	Needs to be worked around.
	Does she actually know this about herself?
	Like, does she have any sense of her former self and know that her current self is different?
	Yes, that is what she says to me.
	She seems to notice these things.
	And, I mean, that's what really bothers me.
	I mean, heck, I know people who have never been in car accidents who drink and smoke and act like Christopher Hitchens and such.
	But what bothers me is that...
	I feel like she's more independent, but her parents, they seem to think that she is severely – they feel like she's severely handicapped, even though it's been already almost four years since the accident.
	Maybe – I don't know whether that's an appropriate amount of time or not.
	And they put her in this assisted living facility where – have you ever seen a movie called – what was it?
	One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest – Oh, yeah, of course.
	I mean, if you haven't seen it, you know, finish the show and get it.
	It's an incredible, fantastic film.
	And it's like Spock, the famous actress from later on.
	Danny DeVito is in there, that guy with that weird lopsided melting fish face.
	I can never remember his name.
	Jack Nicholson, of course.
	And the woman actually, Nurse Ratched, she won an Oscar.
	And then I don't think I never heard of her again.
	But yeah, it's an incredible film.
	And the book is also a fantastic film.
	Ken Casey's novel is also well worth reading, especially the description of the pecking party.
	But yeah, go ahead.
	Well, I'll put it to you this way.
	I think the nurse is kind of on the strict side and her mom is on the strict side.
	And I'll be honest with you, they kind of both remind me of the female star of that movie, if you catch my drift.
	Why is this woman in your life?
	Excellent question.
	Well...
	Look, I understand.
	I'm not saying she should or shouldn't be.
	I'm just curious, right?
	I always want to be clear about that.
	Why is this person in your life?
	It's like, so hit the eject button.
	Not that I ever say that, but I'm always just curious what people's connections are.
	Alright, well...
	This person is a friend of a...
	Okay, so her mom is a friend of my mom and such.
	And I think they...
	There's some sort of meet-up sort of thing.
	I mean, I try to be a friend.
	I... Tried to, you know, date her, but she just wasn't appropriate, so...
	But then, I guess she wanted me to just, you know, kind of be friends, so...
	And I'm just...
	And do you find, sorry, do you find the friendship satisfying, engaging?
	Are her values such as they're able to be implemented in her brain?
	Are her values compatible with your values?
	I assume that's a mismatch, otherwise you wouldn't be, you know, people don't call in the show because everything's going gray, usually, right?
	Well, um...
	To be quite honest, there is quite a mismatch of values, but I'm kind of understanding of that, considering her situation.
	In other words, I'm more forgiving of her for the mismatch of values than I would say someone who has not been in this car accident situation.
	She's just a friend, and that's really odd.
	What I'm trying to worry about is...
	I'm trying to...
	I feel like she is more independent than her parents give her credit for.
	In other words, I know some other guy who got into a car accident, also brain damage, but he himself is working a little bit.
	He himself has his own vehicle, but it's like...
	It seems like her parents, they always assume the worst, and they feel like she can't handle anything about herself.
	And I'm just trying to think of, well, what's the best thing to do for this person is when I'm really getting at it.
	I mean, there's a lot in what you said, so I'll just give you a couple of thoughts, then ask a question.
	People's expectations of us are almost always who we become.
	I mean, I know that's, you know, for the objectivists, second-hander, social metaphysics, and blah, blah.
	And I get that.
	I really get that.
	And I think that personal integrity and commitment to values and so on is really important.
	But the people who are around us, this is why I'm constantly focusing on who's around people.
	Who do you surround yourself with?
	Who you surround yourself with is who you're going to be.
	You know, I dated lots of women before I got married, and I guarantee you that none of the women I dated, I could not have done this show with any of the women I had dated.
	Not because my wife's involved or anything like that, but just couldn't have done it.
	It just wouldn't have happened.
	But this is why it's so important who you surround yourself with.
	And I'm talking about this not with regards to you, although that's an important question, but this woman and her parents, right?
	If her parents feel that she's incapacitated and she's not, then most likely she'll be incapacitated, right?
	I'll give you a little anecdote.
	So last weekend I took my daughter for her first real skating lesson.
	And so I carry her out there.
	We're wobbling along the ice.
	I'm not a great skater.
	I'm sort of okay.
	I can sort of skate backwards, do a couple of spins, but I'm not really very good.
	And so I was like holding her up, you know, 45 pounds plus weights of everything going this way and that way, making sure she didn't fall.
	And it was really tough.
	I'm like, oh man, this is hard on the back and my knees.
	I'm sort of leaning over, making sure she doesn't fall and try not to fall myself and all that.
	And I sort of look up and around and all these kids on the ice.
	And there are like no other parents.
	So I sort of skate back and I say to my wife, you know, this is kind of rough.
	I mean, I don't know what's going on, but I'm the only parent out there.
	And she's like, oh, the parents are supposed to be out there.
	And this woman came up to me and she said, yeah, you know, my son's out there.
	He's four.
	I just put him on the skates and put him on the ice.
	You know, that actually is not too bad an idea.
	Yeah.
	So I gave her less help and so on and then she was mucking along and she had a helmet on and, you know, 14 to it, wrapped.
	We'd sort of duct tape 12 mattresses around her and all of that because we're parents in our 40s, therefore we're paranoid.
	But it is important to recognize that other people's expectations...
	Are the surest map to our future.
	If other people don't think we can achieve something and they remain in our lives and they continue to not support us or undermine us maybe even in what it is we want to do, those people will define who we are.
	I don't think it's possible to overcome particularly the unconscious beliefs of people around us about who we are.
	To break free of the past, tragically, is often to break free of people's expectations of us.
	And how we do that, whether it's physically or emotionally or just through conversation and helping them redefine who we are, is really, really important.
	So that's important.
	If her parents feel that she's crippled or massively under-functioning, I don't know.
	I mean, what the hell do I know?
	I'm just an idiot on the internet.
	But if it's not true, then it sure will kind of be true.
	Like, there's an old statement from Henry Ford.
	He says, if you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.
	But I would extend that to say that if you have people around you who think you can or think you can't, they're right because you've chosen to have them around you, right?
	So as far as what you can do, well, the first question is, is there a problem, right?
	Maybe she likes living in an assisted facility.
	Maybe she didn't really like adulthood.
	Maybe she wants a state of perpetual underachieving semi-childhood, right?
	I mean, the first question is, is there a problem?
	Because sure as Sherlock, you simply cannot fix a problem that other people don't even think is a problem.
	And in particular, if they think it's a virtue, this is the great problem with the welfare state, right?
	I mean, studies have been done repeatedly that show that when welfare goes down, criminal behavior also decreases.
	Civility increases, neighborliness, connection, community, all increase.
	But people think it's a big virtue, right?
	And so you cannot solve problems that people think Are not problems, and you sure as hell can't solve problems that people kind of secretly or openly really like and think are virtues.
	So if the woman feels frustrated or feel that it's a problem, then you can support her in something if you want, but if she doesn't think it's a problem, in other words, if she's not like, oh man, this is driving me crazy, I want to get out of this facility, I want to get on with my life, I want to, right, then, I mean, it's just like pushing string, right?
	So, okay, well, let's assume that's how it is.
	She is actually going crazy in this facility.
	She wants to get out.
	She wants to move on with her life.
	She's actually, before she had an accident, she was very close to finishing her master's degree two credits away from some of the East Coast college.
	And I think that, yes, if she would go back and do it, it would probably be hard for her, but I personally don't think it would be impossible.
	We're in a situation where she wants to be more independent.
	That's what it is.
	Well, I mean, then there are steps that she can take to become more independent, right?
	I mean, again, I'm no expert in this, but I assume that the facility has some standards that you have to achieve in order to get day passes or weekend passes or to transition out of the facility.
	There are steps that she needs to take, and she's either going to take those steps or not.
	She's either capable of taking them or not, or she's going to take them or not.
	But let me tell you, you cannot get behind people and push them in life.
	You can be there to facilitate them and to encourage them if they're currently in motion, but you cannot get them moving.
	So if she's like, I want to get out of here, then the first thing you do is you sit down with the people and say, what do I have to do to get out of here?
	How do I have to prove that I'm capable of being out of here?
	And then there are obviously steps that you can take to do that.
	And so if she's in the process of doing that, And she wants to talk about it.
	I think that's great.
	But never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever get sucked into substituting your energy for other people's lack of ambition or frustration.
	That is just a quagmire that you will never get out of.
	You know, if you're like a coach, then you can coach people who show up and train hard and you can make them a little bit better.
	But you cannot drag people off the couch who are currently dusting their nicotine stained fingers with Cheetos and get them to be a great athlete.
	So that's just really if she's currently in motion and she, you know, then you can help her a little bit here and there.
	But fundamentally, you cannot get behind people and push them.
	You just turn them into ghosts.
	All right.
	Thank you.
	Well, then that was a little bit more of a twist.
	I mean, maybe you don't have to answer this if you don't want to, but what if, let's say, one parent feels like she's independent enough to drive and the other parent feels the opposite?
	I mean, I don't know.
	I mean, here's one thing I'm going to do.
	I'm actually going to take it to a driving test, which is a special test for those with disabilities to see if they have the right motor control, that sort of thing.
	And I'm just wondering, how do you handle the situation?
	Let's say, some of those around there feel one way, some of the others feel the other way.
	That's what I'm trying to figure out here.
	Well, I mean, I would tell the parents that it's not their choice, right?
	I mean, there are experts in the field who know whether people are capable of driving.
	And that's not...
	It's not up to the parents fundamentally, right?
	I mean, they can choose to buy her a car or not.
	It's their money or whatever.
	But, you know, I would say, you know, there are experts who are very good who make their entire careers out of figuring out whether people can drive or not and let those experts do their job, right?
	Speaking of one of the parents, I actually had a debate with one of them.
	I feel it's even more controlling one.
	And I was pointing out what I felt would be another facility, which I felt would be a better step, better way for her to transition to full independence.
	And she was like – the message to me was they spent forever looking for this particular place, and this is not my concern.
	I have no authority in this matter.
	That was what was said to me.
	Yeah, look, I'm sort of having difficulty understanding she's not family.
	She's not a wife.
	She's not an ex-wife.
	She's not a girlfriend.
	I'm just trying to understand why you're so involved.
	I'm not saying it's bad.
	I'm not saying it's wrong.
	It just seems like you're really neck deep in this thing.
	What's your stake in this?
	That's what I'm trying to understand.
	Well, whenever I see people that I know who are kind of what I feel needlessly suffering, I feel like Sorry, sorry.
	But you're suffering.
	I understand that.
	But you're suffering, right?
	Because you're extending, I would imagine, or expending a huge amount of intellectual and emotional energy trying to solve this family, medical, legal, structural problem that you have no authority in, right?
	You're not the parents.
	You're not a guardian.
	You're not a lawyer.
	You're not a court.
	You're not an administrator of the facility.
	You're just, you know, I hate to put it, you're some guy, right?
	Uh-huh.
	Are you hoping to date her when she gets out?
	Uh...
	No, well, not really seriously.
	Not like...
	Hey, hey, hey, hey!
	Come on, give me a yes or no here.
	Don't give me this weasel stuff.
	Are you hoping to date her when she gets out?
	It's not a problem.
	I'm just curious.
	Are you hoping to date her when she gets out?
	See, this is my problem with the word date.
	Does that mean just have coffee with someone?
	Does that mean have a beer with someone?
	Does that mean, like, go the full...
	That's what I don't understand.
	I'm sorry to be annoying.
	Wait, wait.
	Are you telling me you don't understand whether everyone you have a car with you have to date?
	Well, I don't understand what the definition of the word date is.
	I know I sound like I don't speak English as my first language, but it just seems like it's a very squirrely definition of the word date, the way I've seen it apply to my life.
	Well, not by myself, but by other people.
	Alright, that's fair enough.
	We are a show about definitions.
	So date, of course, is to see someone with the intention of becoming romantically and or sexually involved.
	To kiss them in a non-platonic manner, to perhaps progress to a physical relationship, to have that person in your life as more than a friend with the potential of becoming a lover or a wife or the mother of your children or who knows what, right?
	Well, thank you very much.
	Now I understand.
	To answer your question, that will be no.
	I don't intend to date her.
	Okay.
	Alright.
	But you did date her in the past?
	Yes.
	And are you short of friendship to the point where you need to rescue people to become your friend?
	Okay, so you have enough friends, right?
	I do have enough friends, yeah.
	Okay.
	Well, then, obviously, the only power that you have is verbal.
	You can make the case to the parents if you want.
	You can encourage the woman to get independent.
	You can also encourage her to get legal counsel if she feels that she's not being given the kind of freedoms that she wants.
	But again, I would caution you against investing your precious and finite life resources in a situation where you neither have expertise nor any control because I think that can be a real quagmire and it may be that it's distracting you from other things you need to get done in your life.
	Okay.
	All right?
	All right.
	Okay.
	Well, thanks and good luck with the non-dating.
	Thank you very much.
	You're welcome.
	All right.
	And who's coming up next?
	All right, Dalton, you're up next, Dalton.
	Go ahead.
	Hey, Steph, can you hear me fine?
	Yes.
	Yes, what's on your mind?
	Okay, I have a couple, a few questions.
	My backstory is that I am an officer in the United States military.
	And...
	After listening to maybe a moderate amount of your material, I started to think about how I fit into all this.
	Specifically, I started to think about what the role of a person who specializes in the use of violence would be in a free society.
	I wanted to get some of your thoughts on that.
	I have a Kind of a few continuations of that, depending on what your answer is.
	So the role of somebody who focuses on violence in a free society...
	Yeah, go ahead.
	Okay, so I... Maybe preempting what I... You could potentially misunderstand me...
	In some of your prior material, you have talked about violence existing in a free society, because I think we can both agree that even if we were able to significantly reduce it through changing the way we raise our children, maybe decreasing or eliminating poverty, things like that, that evil people will nonetheless still exist.
	And there would be the need for force to be used against those people in certain situations.
	And...
	It seems to me that you would still need people who specialize in the use of violence in a free society.
	I mean that only in situations where it was deemed to be absolutely avoidable.
	It is possible that you could take a pacifist stance and argue that violence is always avoidable, but I don't see that as being a realistic option.
	I have heard you speak on Self-defense concepts and things like that.
	I don't think you would take that position either.
	Yeah, I mean, to be realistic, I view evil people as the most, the gravest and most dangerous predators.
	That human beings can never be faced with.
	I don't take a pacifist stance if I have an infection.
	You know, I just nuke that shit with whatever I can get my hands on.
	You know, napalm, flamethrowers, repeated exposures to the Ricky Lake show.
	I mean, whatever is going to kill that thing dead, I'm just going to keep nuking it until it's gone.
	You know, I didn't take a pacifist stand with cancer cells.
	I'm like, yeah, you know, whatever you got to throw at that thing to make it dead and stay dead, I'm down for.
	And cancer is less dangerous than people.
	Frankly, I mean, cancer mostly strikes older people and governments and wars and famines and all of that strike a lot of younger people.
	So, no, I think that the use of violence in a free society, because a free society is going to be enormously productive and therefore is going to be a magnet for thieves.
	Right?
	Especially if it's a stateless society, it's not going to have border controls and so on, right?
	So there is going to be an influx of people who are like, hey, you know, great, slim pickings, sorry, great, rich and thick cattle to feast on, and they may come swarming over from other cultures that are still statist or superstitious or primitive or whatever, right?
	So I think that there will be some need for...
	No, go ahead.
	Oh, okay, so that actually plays exactly into what my follow-on question was going to be, but I'd also like to say that...
	Actually, my mind just went blank.
	Okay, yeah, so that actually goes right into what my following question is going to be, but did you have something else you wanted to add?
	No, no, no.
	Before we go to the following question, which is, you know, how's the transition going to occur for one geographical region in a statist world?
	I think there will be some need for protection.
	Most of society's resources in a stateless society will be consumed by focusing on prevention, right?
	So having children raised peacefully and reasonably and not hit and not yelled at, not screamed at, not separated from their parents, breastfed, all that kind of useful stuff.
	And there will be, of course, people who come in.
	Now, how do you have border controls in a free society?
	Well, in order to function in a free society, you're going to have to have what I call DROs or dispute resolution organizations, which, you know, in the world of Bitcoin could be a heck of a lot cheaper than I even imagined.
	I'm going to do a presentation on that later, maybe even tonight about that.
	So you're going to have some sort of DRO representation.
	So DRO representation, let's say you come from, you know, Butlandia, Africa.
	And in Butlandia, Africa, people are raised brutally.
	You know, the boys are circumcised, their nipples are stretched out and tied together, and they're only allowed to wipe their asses with porcupines currently having epileptic attacks.
	Let's just say childhood in Butlandia, Africa is a really terrible thing.
	So when someone from Butlandia, Africa wants to come, you know, they land at the airport, they're going to say, hey, you know, who's your representative for dispute resolutions or...
	Or they say, I have none.
	I am from Butlandia.
	I am currently sitting on a porcupine that's having an epileptic attack, and I found that it violently turns me on now.
	In which case, they'll be like, well, you know, we're not going to stop you from coming in because...
	You're a human being and we don't have a state, but I tell you, you're going to have a really tough time doing anything here without any representation, right?
	Without anyone who's going to guarantee that if you steal something that you're whatever, right?
	And if you say, you know, I want to apply for representation now, then they'll come.
	And what will they'll do?
	Well, they'll ask you about your childhood.
	They'll, you know, all that kind of, how were you raised?
	How were you, you know, all that.
	And then they'll scan your brain.
	They will scan your brain.
	And if your brain is like three cells of neofrontal cortex and a massive Himalaya of hippocampus and base of the brain fight or flight stuff, then they know that you're going to be a very dangerous predator.
	Not that hard to figure out what's going on.
	And it's going to be much more expensive.
	Right?
	So there will be significant discouragement of having people coming in who fit the brain profile.
	Of criminals from coming in.
	Some people will come in.
	Absolutely.
	And there will be people who don't want to use violence themselves.
	The vast majority of people are not constitutionally set up to use violence against others.
	And so for those people, they will want professional guards.
	And of course, there may be people who threaten from overseas.
	There also may be space aliens who come and fulfill Paul Krugman's A Keynesian wet dream of uniting humanity fighting against the alien squid-eating tentacle brains from Alpha Centauri.
	So you'll need people who may be able to use violence against silicon-based life forms or whatever.
	So yeah, I think that's fantastic that we'll still need people who specialize in that.
	I would also argue that at least currently people like surgeons probably fit the profile of sublimated sadism.
	Again, there's nothing wrong with that.
	It's just that I'd probably feel kind of nauseous cutting into someone, but they have a great time, with the exception of the fine folks at the Surgery Center of Oklahoma who did a wonderful job of fixing up my neck.
	I would say that there will be some value.
	There may be some training for people in that.
	But it'll mostly be about prevention and trying to keep these people away.
	But yeah, there will be some people who show up.
	And I think that there will be people who will be good at violence who will help out with that.
	All right.
	And I remember the thing that I was going to say was that the reason that I asked this question was because I feel like the...
	The necessary nature of violence is a subject that has been, that I felt somewhat avoided in your shows, especially like, I mean, a good example would be kind of what I felt from the tone of the last caller.
	It sounded like almost a position of that, you know, violence was to be, I don't know, the violence was almost a pacifist stance was the feeling that I was getting from that.
	It was that people should absolutely refuse to use violence.
	And anyways, that was the reason that I asked the question.
	And then kind of the continuation of that was, and I know you don't like necessarily the hypotheticals of what if in a free society, that kind of thing, but you already touched on this, which was the existence of a free society alongside status societies.
	I feel like that's another scenario that necessitates people who specialize in the use of violence, because as we see now, which I am a part of, status societies are capable of fielding very powerful military forces, which could be Which could be used against a free society were it to ever exist.
	And in that case, the free society would need the ability to contest that considerable military power fielded by its surrounding statist powers.
	And I actually honestly question whether or not a free society would be able to field such a force.
	Oh, yeah, but come on.
	I mean, you're in the army, so you think of things like fielding forces, you know, which is like the British saying when they're attacking the American revolutionaries, let's all dress in bright red, march in a straight line and have big X's on our chest, right?
	Because that's just what they were used to.
	A free society, the defense of it will not be fielding a force, right?
	Like, I mean, in Iraq and Afghanistan, they're not fielding forces, and they kind of won, right, in a lot of ways.
	The guerrilla army and the army that targets the leaders of the enemy.
	So if you're the head of a government and you're invading another government, there's kind of like this deal.
	It's not explicit, but there's kind of like this deal, which is we let the peons fight it out.
	We don't attack each other.
	I mean, there's some exceptions to that.
	I mean, they tried to get Hitler killed in the Second World War and so on.
	But for the most part, there's this kind of gentleman's agreement, which is we don't target each other because we're in charge.
	Now, of course, in a stateless society, the first place you'd go to is whoever was giving the order to war because they are the causal agent in the start of the war.
	Right.
	So, I mean, if you look at something like the First World War, you had 10 million poor bastards killed in the trenches and nobody ever made an attempt – And, of course, the whole thing started because some Serbian nationalist rolled a grenade, rolled a bomb under the carriage of the Archduke Ferdinand in late summer 1914.
	But they didn't target each other, the political leaders.
	I mean, the political leader is going to know for sure the moment that he targets...
	A free society, every single resource in that free society is going to be bent towards his destruction.
	And who knows how that is going...
	But I think they're going to go for easier pickings.
	But it's going to be pretty hard to invade a court of free society because there's no tax base to take over and all that kind of stuff.
	So listen, I mean, I think that as a man who studied violence, you're going to find some job opportunities in a free society.
	Not that either of us will probably live to see it unless you're like minus 50 and calling from a very Wi-Fi enabled womb.
	But, you know, there will be definitely work for people who are trained in violence.
	But I think it will look quite different than it does now.
	Okay.
	I'd like to add that I'm not actually in the Army.
	And I wouldn't consider myself to be a particularly conventional thinker.
	I also do think that had the United States had the opportunity to kill Hitler in World War II, that they would have taken that opportunity.
	But it's just not as easy whenever he's in...
	What was it?
	Fortress Europe.
	But even given guerrilla warfare, things like that, you would be fielding a force.
	And fielding a force doesn't necessarily...
	Doesn't necessarily mean a conventional force.
	Fielding a force could refer to any kind of force that you want to use to achieve what your purpose is.
	Well, I mean, no, but I mean, you're thinking outside the box, right?
	You can design a virus now that only kills one person.
	And you simply release that virus into the air or the water system anywhere around.
	It's biological warfare that's targeted.
	It's only going to kill one person.
	So again, there's lots of things that can be done.
	And if there were any kind of threat, the cost-benefit justification for designing that kind of weaponry would be so obvious that everybody would chip in the necessary penny and a half to make that happen.
	So you would be dealing with a highly motivated, highly intelligent person.
	Free market environment, an entity and group of people really trying to maintain its independence from what it would consider a fate worse than death in some ways, which is going back into a state of society.
	And who knows?
	You know, maybe the attack could be electronic.
	Maybe the attack could be a very gene-specific biological weapon.
	Could be any number of things.
	But I think that you could find lots of ways to discourage that from people coming in.
	Okay.
	Well, thanks for your time.
	Thanks, man.
	I appreciate it.
	Take care.
	Next.
	All right.
	Up next today is...
	Emmanuel.
	Go ahead, Emmanuel.
	Yes, hello, Stefan.
	Emmanuel, I have never read you.
	Go ahead.
	I just want to tell you I'm a little bit anxious right now.
	But I really want to thank you for everything that you do.
	It's really changed the way I see the world and my relationships with some people.
	I want to thank you for the courage that you have to get these ideas out there.
	And so I'm going to get to my question.
	Sorry, to interrupt you just for a second.
	Is your question, is Butlandia the best name for a gay club that's ever been invented?
	And I would say no, because when I lived in Montreal, there was a club that I used to go to sometimes That the name was K-O-X. I thought maybe that was some call sign or a radio station until you spell it out.
	Gox.
	And so, you know, if that was your question, I wanted that to be the answer.
	If it's not your question, then please continue.
	And I'm sorry for the interruption.
	Oh, no, that's okay.
	So I've decided that I want to study from home on the internet.
	There's some free lessons that you can...
	It's like going to college, but you do it from home.
	And I'm having trouble setting up my priorities and managing the time to actually get down to studying.
	Right.
	And what are you studying and why are you studying it?
	Well, I'm going to take...
	My first course is going to be astronomy, and it's just something I find really interesting, and where I am, I can look at the sky, and I'd like to know how everything works there.
	I'm sorry, could you just repeat that again?
	Yeah, I'm going to study astronomy, so I'm really interested in seeing how the universe works and how I can look at it and understand what's going on.
	And why do you want to do that?
	Because it's part of what's true and it's something that amazes me how big it is and how old it is and how it affects me to this day.
	Right.
	But how is it going to fit into your life and what is it going to help you achieve, right?
	Most of things in life are a means to an end and you don't need to take courses online.
	Just pick up a book on astronomy and read it at your leisure.
	So why are you studying it in a sort of even a semi-formal way?
	What's the goal?
	I haven't really thought about that.
	It's just I thought it was a good way to learn about it.
	Well, I'll tell you something that changed my life.
	Very, very short quote from our good friend Friedrich Nietzsche, the philosopher, who looks like he was sneezing out to ditch rats out of his nose.
	Nietzsche said something that really, really revolutionized my life.
	He said, give a man a why, and he can bear almost any how.
	What that means, of course, is that if you know why you're doing something...
	Then how you get there, you can do anything.
	You can do anything.
	I mean, if you're stuck in a car that's being driven into a lake, right, you're going to do everything you can to get out of that car.
	You're not going to be short of motivation to get out of that car and...
	To get to the surface, right?
	Of the lake.
	Because you know if you stay in the car, you're going to drown.
	It's going to fill with water and you're going to drown.
	So there you have a why.
	Why?
	I want to get out of the car so I don't drown.
	I want to get to the surface of the lake so I can breathe air, which I find fairly functional in keeping me from dying.
	And so what are you going to do to get out of that car?
	Right?
	Or, more specifically, is there anything you won't do to get out of that car?
	Right?
	You'll do anything to get out of that car.
	Now, somebody's just written in the chat window, if there's a will, there's a way.
	I don't That's not the right way to put it.
	What it means is that you have to find a goal for yourself, my friends.
	You have to find a goal for yourself that is so compelling, you will literally chew your way through limestone to get there.
	Then you will never, ever, ever have to worry about things like procrastination or commitment or boredom or indifference or lack of motivation or what am I doing this for or why am I doing this or If you give yourself a goal that is so compelling to you,
	whatever that is, for me it's saving the world through the non-aggression principle, saving the world through philosophy.
	That is my goal.
	So you have to find something for yourself that is as compelling a use as Of your precious time in this world, that you will do almost anything to achieve it.
	And that's why I ask, what is this for?
	What is this for?
	And if you can find that thing, almost every other challenge in your life will vanish.
	At least internal, it'll be external challenges and so on, but almost every internal challenge in your life will vanish.
	I'll give you a tiny example.
	So a friend of mine is going to help me with building a studio.
	And, you know, because this white backdrop and all that, it's okay, but I'd like a bit more of a studio, right?
	And she was like, well, you know, I'll get round to it.
	I'll, you know, do it, you know.
	And nothing was really happening, but I knew she was the person to do it.
	She was the person to get it done.
	And I said, let's call her Jackie.
	I said, Jackie, let me explain to you what this means.
	Let's say that you build me a set.
	And that set gives us...
	5% more listeners.
	No, 10% more listeners, just to make it easy on the math.
	So we're currently doing 2.5 million views a month, right?
	And that's not all individual listeners, but let's just say that you're set as 10% to the listener count, right?
	So that is an additional 250,000 people or 250,000 views a month.
	And let's say that only 5% of those people end up, or say 10% of those people end up not hitting their children because they get that message, right?
	And that's a pretty impressive number, right?
	So that means that we have 25,000 extra people a month or 25,000 views or viewers or whatever you call it, right?
	Let's say only 10% of those people are actually new people who have kids who are going to end up not.
	So that's 2,500 people every month who stop hitting their kids because of your set.
	Every single month, 2,500 people will stop hitting their children because your set has made them interested in this show and made it more professional looking and better to share and all that kind of stuff.
	Now I said to her, I said, Jackie, if you could find a better use of your time than spending time doing this so that 2,500 fewer people will hit their children every month.
	Well, and that's cumulative to say.
	It's 10% more every month, right?
	Now then she's like, okay, I get it.
	I'm going to do it.
	So find a way to frame something within yourself where the goal becomes so important that how you get there is just a matter of how.
	Not if or when or should I or shouldn't I or I lost motivation.
	It is just so clear that you have to get there.
	If you're a good swimmer and you see some kid drowning 150 yards offshore...
	What is your motivation?
	What is your hesitation?
	What is your self-doubt?
	Nothing.
	It all clears away.
	And you sprint into that surf and you swim like a son of a bitch and you save that kid.
	And there's nothing that is in your way other than getting that thing done.
	And if you don't get it done, you'll die inside.
	And if you get it done, you'll walk tall for the rest of your life.
	Or at least the rest of the day.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	So, I'm guessing, correct me if I'm wrong, I'm guessing that you don't have like a thing that you want to achieve with your life, an effect that you have, could have on the world.
	That is irresistible to you.
	Is that right?
	No, no.
	Have you in the past?
	No.
	Right.
	So that is important, right?
	And I think that until you answer that question, what is my life for?
	What do I want on my gravestone?
	What is my fantasy eulogy?
	How many people do I want to mourn my passing?
	How many people would I like to fight over holding my coffin when I'm going into the gaping maw of the earth, into the great beyond, a flattened mattress-like meat of nothingness?
	Right?
	Yeah.
	And are you committed to living large?
	Are you committed to living powerfully?
	Are you committed to leaving your mark on the world?
	Now...
	Maybe you're not.
	Maybe you want to live easily and quietly and leave not even a shadow visible from three inches away on the earth.
	I have no problem with that.
	I mean, you know, everyone's got to go out and thunder themselves to the front of the human parade.
	But I will say that you'll die either way.
	I will say that the immediate gains of a quiet and easy life are like staying a smoker.
	It's a lot easier to stay a smoker in the moment, and it is a lot harder to stay a smoker in the long run.
	It's a lot easier to live a non-controversial, quiet, easygoing life where you kind of agree with people.
	That's easier in the short run.
	It's a hell of a lot harder in the long run.
	So...
	Is there anything, you don't have to come up with this now, but what would be the most meaningful thing that you could achieve with your life?
	For me, it's the better treatment of children.
	I mean, that's really fundamentally what this show is all about.
	There's a lot of smoke and mirrors and noise and dancing and flashpots and glitter dancers and so on.
	But it's really just focusing on the better treatment of children.
	I teach people reason so they don't have to aggress against their children.
	I teach people that we don't need a state so they won't be status at home with their children.
	I teach people the value of reason and evidence so that they can convince children rather than aggress against children.
	To me, it's just really focusing and centered around the better treatment of children because that is the very best, the very best thing that It would have been a hell of a lot damn easier.
	Some days it would have felt a hell of a lot easier to just do that.
	Hey, you know what sucks?
	The Fed!
	I can't believe the Fed is doing this stuff.
	Isn't that terrible?
	Oh my God!
	The national debt is not going to work.
	And this politician said this, but they meant that.
	And the opposite thing happened from this government program and let's get Charles Murray on to talk about losing ground and all this libertarian stuff, right?
	I mean, it's never going to get anywhere, so it doesn't really piss any evil people off.
	Affecting evil people's lives in any negative way whatsoever.
	So I took the non-aggression principle and said, let's apply it as personally as we can.
	And it took me a long time to get that.
	That's why I'm sort of endlessly patient, I hope, at least with other people.
	It takes a long time to get that philosophy is supposed to be lived in your life.
	It's not supposed to be talked about.
	It's not supposed to be read about.
	It's not supposed to be politicked about.
	It's not supposed to be blogged about.
	I mean, that's all fine.
	But philosophy, the non-aggression principle, is supposed to be lived in your own life.
	As vividly and as powerfully as possible, and that comes down to how you treat the people around you, and in particular, we know that government is the abuse of power.
	There's no greater power than what parents have, and therefore we have to be careful of the abuse of power called parenting, or bad parenting.
	So yes, that is the most meaningful thing.
	That can be done.
	Not that I can do, but that can be done.
	Now, I'm not saying be me.
	What I am saying is that if you want to figure out how to organize your life, figure out what is your goal that is like air to a guy trapped in a car.
	If you can figure that out, no matter how fantastical, no matter how insane it could be to be Justin Bieber's main backup dancer, I don't even care.
	It could be to be the best popcorn manufacturer the world has ever known.
	It could be to have the most efficient office cleaning company, to paint the best plaques, to have the best hair plug business.
	It doesn't matter to me.
	But if you can find something that is like oxygen to dying lungs for you, you will never have a problem with organization or procrastination again.
	Anyway...
	Enough of those thoughts.
	Does that help you even remotely?
	Yeah.
	I just have a question.
	How did you find out that's what you wanted to do?
	Well, I mean, that was part of the journey of introspection, right?
	Which is why self-knowledge is essential to effective ambition, right?
	So, in some ways, what happened to me...
	I recognized my commonality with humanity.
	I am not special.
	I am the all-stinging, all-dancing crap of the universe.
	I am not a unique snowflake.
	I am like everybody else.
	I'm like everybody else.
	And what that means is that what was most painful to me and what was most destructive to me is what is most painful and destructive to humanity.
	The most painful thing that ever happened to me was my childhood and the specific abuses and hostilities and violence that occurred for me within my childhood.
	I never assumed I was alone in that.
	I never assumed that I was weird or special in that.
	Now, a lot of people will try to make you feel alone.
	Oh my God, Steph, you had a really bad childhood.
	And I would, yeah, in some ways I had a really bad childhood relative to most, for sure.
	Certainly most in the first world.
	But...
	I realized...
	What was most painful to me was probably most painful to other people.
	And there were two things that were painful to me about my childhood.
	Number one was that it happened.
	Number two was that nobody wanted to hear about it.
	That my childhood experiences of being abused made people very uncomfortable.
	And then I paid to go To a therapist.
	And there's a lot of reasons why you go to a therapist and so on, but one of the things that is important about why you go to a therapist is to find somebody who will actually listen to your histories and stories, right?
	I mean, I'm not doing it right now, and I apologize for that.
	I just want to get a lot of information across, but usually, usually...
	I ask a lot of questions from people about their child and their histories.
	And if they get emotional, if they get upset, if they find something difficult, then I will listen.
	Just listen.
	And there are principles that can be applied to that.
	And that's not therapy.
	Therapy is not about the application of philosophical principles to life challenges.
	That's philosophy.
	Philosophy is the application of philosophical principles to life problems and challenges, whether they're personal, political, you name it.
	And so for me...
	Being listened to was helpful.
	What I brought to my therapeutic process, which was not my therapist, but what I brought was just realizing that there were principles that were essential.
	And most people go through life without being listened to.
	They go through life avoiding anything of any importance.
	With the full-on enthusiastic participation of everyone else in their life who doesn't want to talk about anything important.
	So once I knew what hurt me, I had a pretty good sense of what hurt people in general, right?
	I don't stub my own toe and say, well, everyone can stub their toe.
	They don't feel anything.
	It must be completely freaky for me.
	And so I kind of knew that what hurt me hurt a lot of people, if not everyone.
	And the research has certainly borne that out.
	So, let me ask you then, live by my values, let me ask you then, Emmanuel, what capacity did you as a child have to set your own goals and achieve them meaningfully when you were a child?
	I don't think I really had any My...
	I mean, I... My parents took me to my grandparents' place and my aunts' and uncles' places, and...
	You know, my...
	Well, there were the family of my dad, but my mom, she tells me that they were always, like, really mean to the children, but...
	I mean, I probably didn't like going there, but my dad kept bringing me around.
	Okay, okay.
	Sorry to interrupt.
	Why did your dad keep bringing you around someplace you didn't want to be?
	Well, I think he...
	If he said to himself that his...
	You know, his family was not good.
	I don't think he could have done that.
	Oh, so if you said, I don't want to go over there, then he would obviously have to ask why, and you'd say, well, these mean or bad things happen, right?
	In which case you have a challenge, right?
	Oh, sorry, your dad has a challenge, which is how is he going to process that, right?
	Yeah.
	Right.
	And one time I told my dad that I didn't want to go to church anymore, and he just looked at me and left the room without saying anything.
	He looked at me like I was crazy or something.
	Right.
	Right.
	And of course, if there's any kind of even remotely implicit threat of parental abandonment or rejection, we generally tend to fall in line as kids, right?
	That's, I mean, there are mechanisms for survival.
	There's no backup usually, right?
	Yeah.
	Right.
	Can you think of goals that you set and were able to achieve with the approval or even help of your parents at any time in your childhood?
	No.
	No.
	No, I just think about things that I wanted to do, but no, I didn't really want to do.
	And then, you know, I just didn't do it.
	Right.
	Now, why didn't you do it or do those things?
	What were you expecting or anticipating?
	What was I expecting from what exactly?
	Well, so if you have a goal as a kid, right, and you don't go for it or don't achieve it, then you must be expecting something negative from your environment, right?
	From succeeding in the thing?
	Yeah.
	No, even from pursuing it, right?
	Right, so, you know, to take an example, right, so I saw this YouTube video of some kid from some lower-class town who had this beautiful operatic angelic voice that sounded like a castrato, and it was a little boy, and everyone, you know, everyone laughed at him, right?
	And he sounded beautiful.
	So his barrier would be, well, people can laugh at me and call me a fag for singing like an angel.
	Right.
	Well, I can't say what exactly would have happened, you know, because I remember trying to play the guitar, and my parents bought me a guitar and paid and my parents bought me a guitar and paid for my lessons, but I...
	I just don't know.
	I remember just playing it and I was alone playing the guitar and I just lost interest.
	And did your parents listen to your guitar playing?
	Did they give you feedback?
	Did they get other people to play with you?
	Did they help you facilitate any goals with your guitar playing?
	Apart from sending me to the lessons, no.
	Right.
	And did you want to play guitar?
	Well, I thought it would be cool to be able to play music.
	So, yeah.
	Right.
	And do you know why you lost interest?
	Well, I didn't feel like I was getting any better at it.
	And...
	Now that I think about it, I didn't practice really, but...
	Why didn't you practice?
	I'm not accusing you.
	Why didn't you practice?
	I'm just curious.
	You knew that you had to practice, right?
	And your teacher probably said you need to practice, but you didn't, right?
	Why?
	Well, I think I just found it too hard to try to understand all of it.
	And did you talk to your parents about how you found it hard?
	I don't think so.
	Did they notice that you weren't improving?
	I don't remember them talking to me about it.
	So you were sent for lessons, you didn't really practice, you didn't really improve, and your parents didn't help you to sort of understand that, right?
	Like that you need to sit down and say, well, you know, obviously you're having trouble practicing, what's going on, how can we help, that kind of stuff, right?
	No, nothing like that.
	Can you think of something in your life where your parents' energies and enthusiasms and involvement was high?
	Well, no.
	Right.
	Right, so you want to study the stars because you're somewhere out there.
	Kind of lost among the stars, right?
	Because I can tell you as a parent that parental involvement needs to be very high, particularly with children of high ability.
	Parental involvement needs to be super high.
	When I wanted to take my daughter skating, I told her, you know, I said, this is going to be frustrating.
	It looks cool.
	You've probably seen it on TV, but you're going to get out there on the ice, and you're going to get wobbly, and you're going to fall, and your ankles are going to hurt, and you're going to bump your elbow, and it's going to be frustrating.
	I wanted her to know that, because she's four, and it is going to be frustrating.
	And then I was out there, do you need help, and all that kind of stuff.
	And then afterwards, how was it?
	What did you like?
	What did you not like?
	And so on.
	And that is...
	You know, that is important, right?
	When it came to, you know, she's cranking along, she's pretty good now at learning how to read, but she was really resistant for a long time learning how to read.
	And the reason for that, I knew why, is because she didn't want to fail, right?
	Because when you are coming out of toddlerhood, you've had a whole bunch of failure, right?
	And the failure is, I didn't know how to walk.
	I didn't know how to run without falling.
	I didn't know how to climb things.
	I didn't know how to feed myself.
	I kept putting the tapioca in my eye.
	And so when you're a toddler, you want to do well at things, and of course you've just mastered a whole bunch of things, and it's emotionally difficult for you to deal with failure, and reading is about a huge amount of failure, right?
	And so I keep suggesting, let's do our letters, and she keeps saying no.
	And so finally, I sort of sat her down, and we talked about it.
	And she'll say, I don't know, right?
	Because it's easier than...
	She knows.
	But I sort of tried to explain it to her in a way, like, is it tough if you want to do it and you don't know if you can do it?
	And she says, yes, that makes me sad.
	And then she just burst into tears, and we talked about...
	What it means to try, what it means to fail, why reading is important, why even bother, what is the value of it, and all that kind of stuff.
	And since then, she's been really good with letters, right?
	I mean, she's sailing along.
	You know, we'll do them for, you know, half an hour, 40 minutes every day, which is, you know, I think fine progress and concentration.
	She's doing math.
	Her favorite word is Googleplex.
	But that requires a significant amount of involvement.
	You know, when she was younger, she would randomly beat the xylophone and say, Daddy, do you think that's pretty?
	And I'd say, well, no.
	Actually, it's really not.
	I mean, I'm glad you're making music.
	I said, I'm glad you're making noise.
	That's not music.
	That's just you randomly hitting keys.
	I don't mean to be negative.
	You know, it's great that you can do it, but that's not music.
	Or, you know, she got a harmonica, and she's blowing randomly on the harmonica, and she says, Daddy, do you think that's pretty?
	I said, no, I don't think that's pretty.
	You know, I gotta be honest.
	I'm glad that you can make the noise.
	I love harmonica.
	I think it's a really underrated, fantastic instrument.
	But...
	To learn how to play the harmonica well takes a long time.
	I'm really trying to help her understand that to learn how to do something well takes a long, long time.
	I've got probably close to 40,000 hours now in philosophy.
	It takes a long time to become good at things, and you need to help your kids understand that, to develop the patience, to develop the focus, to really learn how to do things well.
	Because there's so much to learn.
	My daughter is completely fascinated by bitcoins and I've spent hours explaining to her what bitcoins are, why they're important and so on.
	And it's a challenge.
	It's a challenge to figure these things out.
	And that's why I was sort of asking about, do you have a template for how to set goals and achieve them?
	And if you don't, you're going to waste a lot of time half doing things that don't pan out.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And if your parents weren't particularly involved, then you lack that skill.
	And trying to set goals for yourself when you haven't had years of coaching from an involved parent Could be a teacher, but I think it has to start with the parent.
	If you haven't had years of training, then you need to have respect for the knowledge you don't have.
	You don't know how to set goals and pursue and achieve them.
	And there's nothing wrong with that.
	It doesn't make you dumb or bad.
	It's simply that you...
	You didn't learn that skill any more than you learned how to speak Mandarin, right?
	If you've never heard Mandarin in your house, then you wouldn't grow up thinking, I can speak Mandarin.
	You wouldn't go to China and make Mandarin-like sounds and think that you're speaking a language.
	And if you haven't had years of experience from involved parents on how to set goals, how to achieve goals, and all of that, then you don't know how to do it.
	it and I'm incredibly sorry that you don't know how to do it.
	And if you know that you don't know how to do it then it won't be baffling to you as to why you're not able to get things done like study astronomy or play guitar or something like that, right?
	Which means that you have a knowledge deficiency, which I think is tragic.
	I think it's a derelict duty on the part of parents to not teach children how to set and achieve goals, because that's all adulthood basically is.
	And knowing that you don't know how to do that stuff means that you can now go and study how to do that, right?
	Does that make any sense?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Do you have any resources that you can recommend?
	Oh, I mean, the how-to-get-things-done industry is huge.
	Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is one way to look at it.
	What's your dangerous idea?
	It's a book I read that doesn't have to be quite prophetic.
	And maybe I'll come up with a list of the stuff that I've...
	Because, look, I didn't know this either.
	I hope you understand.
	I was in exactly the same boat.
	I didn't know my ass from a hole in the ground when it came to actually getting things done.
	And so I would...
	The first thing is self-knowledge, right?
	You pursue self-knowledge at the same time as you pursue how to get things done in the world.
	And through your self-knowledge will come your passion.
	I think everyone has a passion.
	Everyone has the passion.
	Mike is currently slumming it in FDRs, hoping to break into security work.
	He has a passion.
	I am slumming it here.
	If I can break into waitering again...
	I will be opening a vein if I do, right?
	But through self-knowledge, you will figure out what your unique passion is and what is going to make you like the guy.
	In the car halfway down a lake, right?
	Just doing anything you can to get out.
	And so, yeah, Tony Robbins, what, giant tooth banana hands?
	Absolutely give him a shot.
	He is a very interesting fellow.
	I think the fact that he's like 19 feet tall and looks like a steroided up Ken doll.
	Hope he comes on the show.
	No, I mean, he's all about, well, the power of being you.
	And it's like, well, yeah, if everyone looks up your nose hairs at your perfect Ken doll face, yes, you have a lot of power.
	But anyway, there's lots of stuff that's out there.
	Just go to any self-help book or how to get things done or how to achieve things.
	Some project management training I found very helpful and that kind of stuff.
	So just recognize you have a deficiency.
	Just don't keep flailing around.
	And...
	Thinking that you're going to get something done which is complex, like how to set and achieve life goals.
	That's something you don't know how to do, and I'm incredibly sorry.
	Sounds like you don't know how to do.
	And I'm very sorry about that.
	But if you know you have a deficiency, then you can really work on that.
	Oh, Psychology of Self-Esteem was fantastic.
	A fantastic book.
	Changed my life.
	So that helps.
	Does that give you some place to start?
	Yeah, I think that's what I needed.
	I want to thank you for taking the time for the call.
	Oh, listen, it's my pleasure.
	That's what I'm here for.
	Otherwise, I'm just talking to myself again.
	All right, who's up next?
	All right, Mike.
	No, not me.
	Another Mike.
	He's next.
	Go ahead, Mike.
	Oh, salutations and good greetings, honorable sir.
	How are you doing this wonderful day?
	I know you've been asked, actually, like several times, but...
	Mike, I gotta tell you, when you have a top hat that big in your avatar, you absolutely have to start every single conversation with the word salutations.
	That is a given.
	You either remove the hat or keep that word.
	I can only assume that you also help attract the ladies with amateur magic.
	Is that true?
	No, no, no, I'm not quite that talented, but...
	Alright.
	What's on your mind?
	I wanted to kind of boast the subject of how the mainstream herd used anarchy as a destructive philosophy and without absence of rules.
	And I kind of wanted to ask about how we could, as Practitioners try to make a positive image of what self-governance would be like in the mainstream mind.
	Why are you interested in changing the mainstream mind?
	Because I think it's very detrimental to stay a state, to be sucked into that vortex of Terrible violence and hate-mongering.
	And I just...
	Sorry, sorry, hang on a sec.
	Are you talking about...
	Sorry, sorry to interrupt.
	Are you talking about the mainstream media or people as a whole?
	People as a whole, the way that you quote-unquote anarchy through their misconceptions from the media.
	Oh, they only get it from the media, right?
	You can't change people's minds without changing the media because the media is the barrier between...
	I mean, until the internet, right?
	The media was the barrier between thinkers and the audience, right?
	I see.
	With some exceptions, but as far as I have experienced it, both directly and indirectly, people in the media are godforsaken, scabrous hags of state-worshipping, slave-enhancing, liars, propagandists, and utter soulless scumbags.
	So I'm not sure how it is that you could think that you could change the minds of people so dedicated to covering up evil at the expense of virtue.
	Yeah, like I said, I might just be a hopeless romantic in that ideal.
	It's just, I kind of wish the betterment for humanity.
	But I totally agree with your ideas of the children will be the future, so raise them peacefully and peace will come through them.
	It's just, I know, I live in this generation, so I want to see it now selfishly, I admit.
	Yeah, I mean, look, I'll sort of give you an example, right?
	Just a little example, right?
	So, I don't know how old you are, but...
	There was a case, I think it was 2006, which a bunch of lacrosse players from Duke Lacrosse, from the, sorry, Duke University, were accused of raping a woman who came over to strip for them.
	Right.
	And none of it was true.
	In fact, Naifong, who was I think the district attorney, was stripped of his license for pursuing a case just on racially provoked grounds and so on.
	And it was all a complete lie.
	And even when they had clear evidence, they accused one guy of raping her.
	There never was any physical evidence.
	In fact, he had ATM footage from the time the rape was supposed to have occurred with him getting money out of a bank, which I think is more around withdrawals than deposits.
	And yet this all just continued, right?
	It all just continued.
	And the media was all over it in the same way they were all over George Zimmerman, just destroying people's lives left, right and center and so on.
	And recently, the woman who made these false accusations of rape was convicted for 14 years for stabbing her boyfriend to death.
	Now, the number of television stations that carried the Duke Lacrosse accusations was in the hundreds and hundreds of them.
	Do you know how many of those same...
	Television stations carried the news of the false rapist accuser's conviction for murder?
	Probably one or two scattered in areas that people really couldn't influence too much of the ideals of the nature apocalypse.
	Yeah, there were three television stations in fairly small districts that carried it compared to hundreds and hundreds that carried the false accusations.
	And...
	That's just one example out of an endless amount of examples.
	I mean, you can read Bernie Goldberg's about liberal bias in the media, and Coulter is really good on this stuff as well.
	And it is, I mean, the people in the media, oh God, I mean...
	They are the high priests who call child sacrifice glory to the Aztec deities in the old world.
	I mean, they are just the most scabrous, venom-filled bunch of universal verbal abusers and exploiters that I can possibly imagine, again, with a few exceptions.
	And, yeah, I mean, I don't know how these...
	I mean, to me, it's just another mark of the power of divided thinking, if not outright sociopathy, how these people are actually able to get up and go to work every day.
	But the idea that you're going to somehow do something effective with the mainstream media is...
	Outlandish?
	I mean, it's completely outlandish.
	I feared so much, but...
	I was kind of hoping maybe there was something we could do.
	Well, I guess there is something.
	There's what you're doing right now, third-party information sourcing.
	I use that term slightly.
	But I don't know.
	I feel there's a growing wave, but I don't know if it's going to Oh, no.
	Sorry, sorry to interrupt.
	The mainstream media is definitely a dying beast, I mean, as far as that goes.
	I mean, the value of newspapers is collapsing.
	They're having a tough time selling their digital content for 99 cents a month sometimes.
	It is just how older people get their news.
	Sorry to say it, but you don't find a lot of 22-year-olds who aren't Michael J. Fox's character on Family Ties, Alex P. Keaton, who have subscriptions to the New York Times, right?
	I mean, nobody who has any brains gets their news from the mainstream media, right?
	I mean, just another tiny example.
	You go to Fox News, which I actually think is quite good.
	I mean, as far as fair and balanced goes, not bad at all compared to the unbelievable liberal tsunami of the mainstream media.
	You go to Fox News and they'll have stuff critical of right-wing positions and critical of left-wing positions.
	The Drudge Report is interesting.
	But, I mean, go to some place like the Huffington Post and everything is so ridiculously slanted.
	I mean, once you see it, you just realize that there are these tentacles trying to go up in your goddamn nose and rearrange your brain cells to spell L and O. And, like, so the guy, Project Veritas, right?
	The guy who goes and does these undercover sting videos, which took down...
	Some of the Planned Parenthood stuff and ACORN and stuff like that.
	Well, he went to the Obamacare navigators and they were all counseling, here's how to hide the money from the IRS and break the law and lie and get lower insurance and get subsidies and so on.
	Repeatedly lying everywhere.
	Lying everywhere.
	This is huge.
	This is people paid by the government teaching you how to break the law at every turn.
	And partly because they all seem to be black women.
	Maybe nobody wanted to talk about it because of that.
	I mean, you saw this very briefly on Fox.
	I was just out of curiosity.
	I checked Huffington Post.
	It never got reported at all.
	I mean, they're just continually rearranging everything so you don't get anything which upsets your narrative.
	You know, did you know Al Franken owed over $70,000 in unpaid taxes?
	Yeah.
	Wow.
	He's now a senator.
	He's a congressman from, what, Massachusetts or something?
	I mean, this is insane.
	This is a guy who wants to tell you you need to pay more taxes because he's a Democrat.
	You need to pay more taxes to help the poor.
	He's not even paying his own goddamn taxes.
	Did you ever hear about that?
	No.
	Do you know how much the mainstream media aspired to keep John Edwards' affair?
	A secret?
	They portrayed him as this guy who his wife is dying of cancer and he's out there campaigning for the good of the land and My God, I mean, they actually had memos from major news organizations saying, we cannot talk.
	Whatever you do, do not talk about this story.
	I mean, God Almighty, the mainstream media was scooped by the National Enquirer on the fact that he had a love child, for God's sakes, with his mistress when his wife is dying of cancer.
	It's a matrix, a clusterfrak of biblical proportions.
	It is the Bible.
	You might as well crawl into the Old Testament and call yourself having a scientific viewpoint from peering out from the ruins of ancient Aramaic.
	It's madness.
	So, yeah, mainstream media, the idea that you're going to get any kind of reality, you know, I mean, my goodness, that's like, you know, let's take over Pravda and make them pro-capitalist, you know?
	Let's take over the Nazi-armed newspaper and make them pro-Jewish.
	It's...
	Madness.
	Anyway.
	I mean, some guy just suggested that a fitting punishment for Sarah Palin would be to have somebody shit and piss in her mouth.
	I mean, my God!
	I mean, you may not like Sarah Palin, but surely defecating and urinating in her mouth is not something that we should be suggesting in a civilized society.
	Because she said the national debt was like slavery, and then they dug up some Jamaican slaves, he was punished by having people shit in his mouth and pee in his mouth, and then they said, well, this would be a suitable punishment perhaps for Sarah Palin.
	I mean, dear God in heaven, and where are the feminists?
	Well, nowhere to be seen, of course, because she's pro-life.
	Feminism is all about giving the tender sex the right to kill babies in the womb.
	So, anyway, I just wanted to mention that the idea you're going to get...
	I have to hold my nose and do it.
	It's part of my job, but I feel I all need a good cleansing shower of Dettol and radiation after I read some of that stuff.
	Hi, sir.
	Well, thank you.
	I really appreciate it.
	It was very enlightening to hear.
	I mean, it's sad to understand that There is nothing we can really do to convince the quote-unquote mainstream to be more of a proponent for self-governance.
	I guess, in retrospect, it is enlightening to know that there are people like you out there spreading the good word of enforced philosophy in your life.
	And I don't mean using force to enforce your philosophy, but enacting, rather, in your own life.
	So I'm excited and I'm a little nervous to see what the future will look like, but I'm fairly confident in humanity.
	I'm not a nihilist.
	Speaking of, I liked your reference of two rats coming out of his face.
	That was very hilarious.
	And another thing, it's Bootlandia, sir.
	Are we back on Bootlandia?
	Yeah.
	Bootlandia.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Just before we move on to the next call, we did get some very nice comments in the chat room, which is that Butlandia is not bad.
	Some people prefer Butopia.
	Which I believe is a beach in Brazil.
	And also that if you were going to trade bitcoins in this area, it should be MT Cox.
	Because that would be Mount Cox, which I believe is actually a fairly accurate depiction of certain habits in the community.
	And also, listen, just sort of get a sense of the mainstream media stuff, right?
	So, Michelle Malkin is...
	A very intelligent, very capable writer.
	And she's kind of a firebrand.
	I'm kind of a fan.
	And I think she's great.
	And I'm just going to, if you don't mind, just look up because I read this book and it's worth looking at.
	And I'm just going to see if I can find it here.
	Michelle Malkin, she wrote a book on Obama's history of corruption in the sort of Chicago area.
	World.
	And it really is quite astonishing just how wretched his history was in terms of corruption.
	There's stuff that blows my mind, like the Bill Ayers connection, right?
	So as you probably know, Bill Ayers was a member of the Weather Underground who blew up a whole bunch of stuff in the 60s as part of their sort of revolution.
	He's now a professor.
	I can't tell you how this blows my mind.
	And he also was It's foundational to getting Barack Obama started in politics.
	I mean, this guy is a terrorist.
	I mean, he said on September 10th, 2001, which is not a great day to be talking about terrorism, he says, the only regret I had about all the bombings we did was that we didn't do more.
	And, you know, this guy's a great friend of Barack Obama's.
	Barack Obama's whole political campaign was apparently launched from this guy's living room.
	He's a professor, despite having been a terrorist.
	And Culture of Corruption, that's the name of the book.
	It's well worth reading.
	I mean, of course, it's natural to those of us in the know, this is how it's going to be.
	But it's worth reading just because you can see how much the mainstream media ignores because of this...
	This worship of what's going on.
	Culture of corruption.
	Obama and his team of tax cheats, crooks, and cronies.
	It is entertaining and enlightening reading.
	I would certainly recommend it.
	And, you know, if you get to see a chance of her doing an interview, she's a firebrand.
	And I think a very courageous person.
	Somebody says, my Republican bias is showing.
	Well, I'm not talking about atheism at the moment.
	And...
	I like the Republican writers more in general.
	I'll definitely read the left-wing writers.
	I find Republican writers to be usually better informed about history.
	Their research is impeccable.
	And they're just funnier.
	Ann Coulter can be absolutely hilarious.
	Michelle Malkin can be quite funny.
	Ben Shapiro can be very entertaining in his writing.
	And there's lots of...
	People on the right who are really funny.
	Andrew Breitbart is also very funny.
	I think it is very interesting to read the conservative writers.
	They just have – they have to be better.
	I always like the people who have to be better.
	I have to be better because I'm a podcaster and because I don't have a PhD in philosophy from Harvard.
	So I have to be better at what it is.
	I like the people who start behind the starting line.
	They're the people to watch because they're the hungriest.
	They're the ones who want to do the most.
	They're the people who want to do the best.
	And what I like about the Republican writers is that they're starting way behind the goalpost because they don't get pushed from their liberal medias.
	So I like the fact that they have to work that much harder to come up with great stuff.
	And every error that they make is exposed and condemned, so they have to be pretty impeccable.
	And so I find them, in general, I mean, it's 60-40, but I find them pretty good.
	And I think that libertarian writers could do a lot more to learn from how to be kind of entertaining.
	Libertarian speeches could stand to be a little bit more entertaining.
	And so I find conservative thinkers just more interesting in general.
	And there's so much momentum in the media behind The liberal writers, I just find them lazy and uninvolved.
	With the one exception.
	With the one exception of...
	Oh, I just mentioned his name too.
	Oh, Stuart Smalley guy.
	I'm smart enough, I'm strong enough, and gosh darn it, people just like me.
	Anyway, so he wrote a book, Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot, which, you know, not a great book, but there was a great line in it where he says...
	You know, people think that's this radical feminist argument that all heterosexual intercourse is rape.
	You know, I've never met a woman who ever argues that passionately with the exception of my wife and we've been married for 20 years.
	It's a pretty good line, but not usually is it the case.
	Al Franken.
	Al Franken, thank you.
	All right, shall we move on?
	Let's do another call.
	Steph, before we get to the next call, I mean, do you really think bitcoins would be able to penetrate the Botopia financial markets?
	Warp, gear up next.
	I can't think of anything good to come back to that.
	I really, you know, I'm like, is cryptography anything like bondage?
	No idea.
	All right, who's up next?
	Go ahead, World Tech.
	Hey, Steph, is the audio quality sufficient?
	No, it's alright.
	People, get yourself some decent mics, I'm telling you.
	And you phone people?
	Don't even get me started.
	But anyway, go ahead.
	You can hear me, though.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Before you get a bad first impression, don't worry.
	The name was made up when I was in 7th grade.
	I'm not a war monger.
	Okay.
	Well, you were in 7th grade.
	Yes, I certainly still like first-person shooter games.
	But anyways, before I get to my question, I wish to inquire Is it at all possible?
	Like, I've just recently gone through, I suppose you could call it my first emotional experience, and I am not comfortable putting that out on the interweb.
	What?
	Wait, wait, wait?
	You just went through your first emotional experience?
	I thought you were going to say, like, nine-way or something like that.
	I mean, what do you mean?
	I guess that could be an emotional experience, too.
	The emotion being friction to the point of whittling yourself down to a toothpick.
	But...
	What does that mean?
	Your very first emotional experience?
	I'm not trying to denigrate.
	I'm very...
	No, no.
	I didn't understand.
	I misstated.
	The first time that I understood why...
	The first time I experienced emotion firsthand and it wasn't just something that I hear songs about or something like that.
	But I'm unfortunately not comfortable...
	Like a really spontaneously passionate, can't fight it kind of experience, right?
	Yeah, definitely.
	But unfortunately, I'm not quite comfortable talking about that on the interwebs.
	Well, I have an emotional, spontaneous emotional experience that you are a great big tease.
	I just wanted to mention that.
	But that's fine.
	I can have my nine-way later.
	Go ahead.
	Would it be at all possible to bring that up with you in private or perhaps not published?
	Because I'm just not personally comfortable with putting that on the web.
	Well, it's possible.
	I'm not doing as many listener combos as I used to because a lot of them end up not being released and because I don't charge anything, right?
	It's time I could have been working on stuff that can generate donations.
	I understand.
	But no, talk to Mike and if it's not going to be two hours or whatever, we can certainly have a chat about it.
	Thank you.
	I'll put that on the list.
	But my question I called in for, atoning for moral infringements.
	So if an individual, Bob, infringes on – shoot, I'm trying to – I'm reading – I've just finished Real-Time Relationships and Against the Gods, and I'm reading UPB right now.
	And I'm trying to remember the two people you use constantly as examples.
	But anyways, so Bob and Jeff are in a room.
	And Doug, thank you so much.
	So I want to use the correct examples.
	So in the case of theft, if Bob steals from Doug...
	If later in Bob's life, or two seconds after that, Bob wants to put that right, and he gives the object that is stolen back, or any immoral action, and he gives that object back, or he tries to make amends for that action, how do you make amends for an immoral action?
	So if you commit an immoral action again in someone, how do you atone for that?
	Is it enough to give it back and perhaps pay extra?
	How do you do that?
	Do you talk to the person?
	Do you talk to the person that you infringed upon?
	Or is there any agreed-upon way?
	Or what are your thoughts on that?
	Yeah, I don't know if there's an objective.
	I mean, there's some objective stuff which is necessary.
	If I steal $500 from you, clearly I can't give you back less than $500 and consider it.
	Of course.
	A square deal.
	Five million is too high, right?
	So it is a proportional problem, a problem of proportionality.
	So less is unjust and excess is unjust.
	It's kind of an Aristotelian mean, of course, right?
	But I think that the way it should work, I don't know how it would work, but I think the ideal way that it would work Is you continue to provide restitution until such time as the person you've wronged is now neither positive nor negative about having been wronged.
	Okay.
	Right?
	So let me sort of explain what that means, right?
	So if you steal $500 from me and the restitution is $5 million...
	Then clearly I want you to steal from me, right?
	Because I'm going to make a fortune, right?
	Okay, the incentive.
	Yeah, the incentive then would be to fake steal, to, you know, oh, that guy stole, he turns out to be your third cousin or something like that, and you get the five million, you split it both ways.
	So if the restitution incentive is so high that people want the bad thing to happen to them, that's not good, right?
	Right.
	On the other hand, if restitution falls far short of what is satisfying, then it's not good because people don't have to provide enough restitution, right?
	Right, right.
	then the person whose rights were infringed would not feel satisfied with the interaction as a whole.
	Right.
	Yeah, and certainly in a free society, they would say, I'm sorry that if you say somebody steals 500 bucks from me, they only have to pay me back 100 bucks and we're square – I'm not satisfied with that, right?
	And then, see, if the restitution is too low, then there's more incentive to steal, right?
	If the restitution is too high, there's too much incentive to be stolen from.
	If the restitution is too low, then there's more incentive to steal, right?
	Because if the restitution is...
	If I steal 500 bucks from you and I get caught...
	Then I have to give the 500 bucks back, and that's the limit of my negative repercussions, then the worst that can happen is I lost the labor to steal it, right?
	But I don't actually suffer any hugely negative consequences, which means I'm just going to go steal stuff if I'm just sort of making pragmatic calculations.
	I'm going to steal stuff because my downside isn't really very high, right?
	The worst that can happen is I've got to give it back.
	Well, okay.
	If half the time I make off with it, that's good, right?
	Yeah, and that would provide quite an incentive as a steal.
	Now, restitution is also different based upon the economic value of the person you're stealing from, right?
	So if I steal $500 and somebody spends five hours dealing with it, And they make $1,000 an hour, then I've actually stolen more than $500, right?
	I've stolen $5,500 at least, right?
	And then all the time they've spent thinking about it and answering calls and whatever, identifying me in a lineup or whatever it is, right?
	So if somebody makes a lot of money, the restitution that's required is much higher.
	I mean, just from a pure cash standpoint.
	Whereas if they are...
	you know 10 bucks an hour 20 bucks an hour whatever right so there's some differences depending on the value of the time that's also taken in addition to the property if that makes sense yes so there's some subjectivity involved in that as well right not subjectivity but yeah it doesn't always have to be the same because what What's stolen when something is stolen from you is a wide variety of things that are harder to quantify monetarily.
	Now, so the time you spend dealing with it, which is an hourly rate, blah-de-blah, right?
	But what does it cost if someone comes into your house and steals stuff?
	What does it cost for you to freak out every time you hear a bump in the night, right?
	I don't know.
	There's a lot of problems with our current legal system with that.
	Oh, he'll never be the same.
	Oh yeah, these don't, I mean, at the moment there's no restitution, right?
	I mean, the cops might try and get something back for you, but, you know, the system right now is, I mean, we could go on and on.
	It's completely ridiculous, and it's the opposite of common law.
	It's the opposite of any kind of free legal system that would help.
	But what I would say is that when you have reached the point of equilibrium where another dollar would make you glad you got something stolen from you, whereas a dollar less would make you feel deficient or would make the whereas a dollar less would make you feel deficient or would make the thief feel like he got away with something, then either of those two things are starting to go
	And so it is that sweet spot where you feel okay about having been stolen from.
	Like, okay, all right, I'll move on, right?
	And the thief doesn't feel like, wow, this is great.
	You know, I'll just keep stealing because the worst thing is all I have to do is give something back, right?
	So there is that sweet spot that can possibly be found by a government system.
	A government system just passes a law.
	Oh, you stole something six months to 12 months in prison.
	What the hell does that mean?
	It's negative for the thief, but positive for his career because he's going to meet lots of other thieves in there and develop contacts.
	You know, there's a famous book by Truman Capote called In Cold Blood, which is a fantastic book.
	And Should I give a spoiler?
	Yeah, it's very well known.
	A very young Robert Blake played one of the murderers who later became, apparently, a murderer.
	Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.
	Don't do it!
	I can't believe they didn't hire me for that jingle.
	But anyway, so they found, they went to go and rob this guy because of bad information that they all got while they were hanging out together in prison.
	So anyway, I don't know.
	The answer is I think that there's some ways it can be designed that will make sense.
	Other challenges too, right?
	So let's say someone steals your bitcoins, not that you could, but let's say someone did if you were no security and you had a virus or something.
	Someone steals your bitcoins, they double in value.
	Will you just give the bitcoins back?
	Well, I guess in that case, you would give the bitcoins back.
	But what if they stole the money you were going to buy bitcoins with, and then you couldn't afford to buy bitcoins, bitcoins doubled in value?
	You know, it's tough, right?
	At the same time, people could say, well, I was going to buy bitcoins with that, so you're going to give me back twice, and then they're happy that they got stolen, right?
	It's really complicated, and that's why you need to...
	What hierarchical, centralized control you need.
	It's like saying we only need one size of clothing because we're human beings.
	It's like, no, we need a wide variety.
	Does that help at all?
	Sure.
	Yes.
	I wanted to take that one step further.
	Let me think about how to frame this.
	In the case of a moral wrongdoing that is more personal, that goes into...
	Yeah, stealing is easier.
	Something like rape is not, right?
	Because I don't think that you can...
	Sorry to interrupt.
	Just to be clear, I don't think that you can ever provide restitution for rape.
	Like, I don't think there's anything that you could ever provide to a man or a woman after you've raped them where they would say, yeah, I guess I'm okay with it.
	Like, I mean, I don't know.
	Unless it was saving their loved one from cancer or – like, I don't know.
	I mean, I don't know what – That would be scary on the individual.
	Well, yeah, I guess.
	I just – it's such a heinous crime.
	You know, if you go strangle someone's loved wife, I mean, what is the restitution that makes it say, well, you know – I guess she had her annoying parts and, you know, she didn't photograph well from the left.
	So, okay.
	All right.
	You gave me four bitcoins.
	I guess that's the price of love.
	So, you know, there's some things for which, you know, stealing an iPad, blah-de-blah, we can talk about restitution.
	I think that there are some things for which restitution is impossible.
	Like, so, you know, what would I take as restitution for my childhood?
	Well, I wouldn't.
	Take anything.
	Like, there's nothing that would make that childhood like, okay, I'll accept the childhood in return for X, right?
	It wouldn't be money, because I can make money.
	What would it be?
	You know, maybe if they said, well, if God came down and said, well, I'm going to get rid of all child abuse in the world, and, you know, the price of that was your bad childhood, I'd say, okay, well, yes, I will definitely do that.
	But that's not going to happen.
	It's impossible.
	So explain to me how you exist.
	Yeah, you do that and then the other one, right?
	I've gone mad!
	I better not do shows for a little while.
	So yeah, there are some things for which I think restitution is kind of impossible.
	And I think where restitution is impossible, I think ejection from the society is the most fair thing, the most just thing.
	In other words, if you can't make it up to someone that you've wronged, then...
	Ejection from the society If you do wrongs for which restitution is impossible, would be something I think would be interesting.
	Again, I don't know if it's the final answer, but I would certainly be interested in that.
	I certainly do believe that where restitution is impossible, repentance is kind of impossible, and a restoration of a mind and heart to a Situation of virtue becomes pretty much impossible, which is why it's sort of important to avoid doing big wrongs to people.
	So does that help at all?
	One more thing.
	What about in the case where the person whose rights were infringed, the person who was wronged, what if that wrong served him well?
	So one example that I might use is, do you know what RuneScape is?
	RuneScape?
	A massive online multiplayer game.
	It's a D&D, infinite D&D game, right?
	Yeah, basically.
	And in that game, I was talking to one of the kids that uses hacks.
	He was saying, oh, I'm good to their...
	It's good when I hack them, when I hack their accounts and take away all their stuff because that gets them out into the real world.
	And there might be an economic argument for that.
	Ah, nice.
	So great.
	Nice.
	You know, you've been stuck inside the house all day.
	I just set fire to it.
	You can thank me later.
	Because it's beautiful out here once you get away from the ash and the smoke and the burnt kitties.
	Yes, it's wonderful.
	What a beautiful sunny day.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	And you know what's also true?
	Let me tell you this, man.
	I was spending way too much time styling my hair in my early 20s.
	So, what a relief it is to be a solar power sex machine.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Well, in the case of being hacked, I think the economic argument there would be much stronger because it's quite apparent that you are wasting your time on that video game economically speaking.
	So the time that you spend on the video game could be spent doing...
	An enormous variety of other things.
	You could turn off the game and you're still connected to the internet so you could go on Khan Academy and learn calculus too.
	Something like that.
	So there's a huge economic argument there that says if you're not doing RuneScape, then you could be doing something else.
	That is not an economic argument.
	Because an economic argument doesn't say it's better to save or to spend, it's better to learn or to play or anything like that.
	It simply says that there are costs and benefits to both things, right?
	I mean, yes, you can learn more on the Khan Academy, but you have more fun playing RuneScape.
	And an economist will not say it is objectively bad to play RuneScape and it's objectively good to watch the Khan Academy, right?
	Right, so while some people might say, that would be like the socialist saying, it's better for you to do Khan Academy, so you should, I'm going to hack your account and do Khan Academy.
	Well, no, the socialist might think that, but anyone who understands economics understands that the person who is playing RuneScape instead of doing Khan Academy, he's the one that should be making the decision.
	It's his life, not yours.
	So, back off.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, and look, for a lot of people who are socially shy, or have social anxiety...
	They can get used to chatting with people.
	It's obviously very absorbing.
	They can make virtual friends.
	They can travel to meet them and get killed in the back of a windowless van, as happens every time you meet everyone off the internet, which is why there were so many windowless vans parked outside of my house when we had these barbecues.
	But anyway, no, I mean, there's value to video gaming.
	It's good for the brain.
	It improves reflexes, hand-eye coordination.
	I just read a report that says there seems to be no negative effects on kids.
	So it's hard to, you know, these are all, you know, the great thing is, you know, when there's no government, we will stop being, I'm not saying this is you, but we will just stop being such unbearable busybodies.
	You know, like, everybody wants to pass a law about, oh, let's restrict this or let's ban this.
	It's like, but if there's no government, you actually go out and get something done with your day, because you're not going to walk up and down your street and try and nag people into doing stuff.
	You know, or not doing stuff or whatever, right?
	I mean, just when they have this government, the temptation to be these unbearable busybodies and try and say what is good and better for other people is just going to go away because you'll actually have to invest your own labor rather than bringing down the infinite mail hammer of the state to make people do stuff that you would like and not do stuff you don't like.
	So I just want to sort of point that out, you know, like, you know, we got to have inspection of the food.
	Make sure people don't die, because God knows restaurant owners have no incentive whatsoever to keep customers alive.
	Anyway, it's just, you know, such...
	Yeah, you're right.
	It's a very dangerous thought trap to get into.
	Oh, it's good to hack your account.
	Oh, shut up.
	Well, no, even just the Khanum Academy is better than playing RuneScape.
	I mean, I don't know.
	I mean, I can think of situations where both would be appropriate.
	If you've worked really hard all day and you want to just blow an hour relaxing, I'm sure that RuneScape is great.
	If you have a test and Khan Academy can help you get ready for that test tomorrow, but instead you spend 19 hours straight playing RuneScape, I could set not being particularly helpful.
	But helpful or not helpful, again, it's kind of relative.
	I just read this interview with Mike Hammer.
	Not the guy with the parachute pants, but the guy with the gravelly voice.
	Mike Hammer.
	Stacy Keach.
	And I gotta tell you, it takes a very fucking tough guy...
	To play a tough guy while having a name Stacy.
	That is a very seriously tough guy.
	This is a tough character.
	He was...
	Mike Hammer, I think, was the name of it.
	His hard-boiled private eye.
	You can actually catch him as the old airplane in planes.
	I only know that because I've got a four-year-old.
	And he was kind of a TV star.
	He still does a huge amount of stage work.
	He's a fine actor.
	And...
	He was caught, I think, in 84 with two shaving cream cans, one of which was filled with shaving cream, the other which was filled with cocaine.
	And he was busted.
	I don't know what the hell happened.
	But he basically said, that was like the best thing that ever happened to me.
	It was the best thing.
	Now, of course, at the time, you're like, fuck, I don't want to get busted for coke.
	I got sick with cancer this summer.
	I mean, I swear to God, in some ways, the best thing that ever happened to me.
	I don't want it.
	I didn't want it at the time.
	I still would rather it didn't happen, but the positive effects are undeniable.
	I mean, I have the balls to call a podcast show, Enter Ye the Infinite Forest of Blowjobs, which I believe is going to be...
	When is this damn thing coming out?
	When are people going to get the blowjobs they deserve, Mike?
	It's already on the podcast feed.
	It might be well for the video, though.
	We're a bit behind on the college shows.
	All right, fine.
	If you want the infinite forest of trees, in which I am, of course, the redwood, you can infinite forest of blowjobs.
	So I don't know.
	Let's say that you do blow 19 hours of your life right before a big test playing Minecraft and you fail out of the test.
	It might be the very best thing that ever happened to you because you may realize that you really, really don't.
	Want to do whatever it is that test is going to have you do.
	Maybe it's being a tax accountant or whatever it is, right?
	So I don't know even if playing 19 hours of Runecraft and blowing a test is a bad thing.
	It might be a fantastic thing.
	So.
	Oh dear, Redwoods are pretty old.
	Oh!
	Oh!
	That wasn't what I was going for.
	These listeners are thinking for themselves and I sense disrespect in the air.
	No blowjob, Forrest, for you!
	You're out!
	Well, thank you for your time, Steph.
	That's funny.
	I mean, in a way that really hurts.
	It is very funny.
	It's okay, because I'm old, so the hurt will vanish from my mind.
	Oh, what were we talking about?
	Does that help?
	Why was the podcast called Forrester Blowjobs?
	You will not believe me, but it actually makes fantastic philosophical sense when you listen to the show.
	That's a show that also went 4 hours and 20 minutes.
	Yeah, it was a long show, but it was a good show.
	It was a good show.
	Is that what it's going to be named on YouTube?
	Unfortunately, I only view your videos on YouTube.
	I don't tune into the podcast very much.
	Alright.
	I'm only upset that it wasn't called In the Land of Misfit Vaginas.
	Well, can I tell you?
	Because I don't think that for a man there's such a thing as a vagina that doesn't fit.
	Like, I don't think anyone's ever said, sorry, it's shaped like kanji, I can't go in.
	You know?
	It's a corkscrew shape, and I think there's a ferret at the end.
	I'm not doing it.
	It just, it always fits.
	Why can I tell you?
	Alright.
	No, no, not two more.
	Let's do one more.
	Yeah, I can't do two.
	Jared, you're next.
	Go ahead.
	Hey, Steph, can you hear me?
	I can.
	Hello?
	Okay, sweet.
	Man, I think my question has already been answered in like the sea of people you got to today, so I'll try to be quick.
	But basically, I'm going through this kind of weird, vicious cycle in my academic life.
	I'm so sorry to interrupt you.
	Let me just hold your thought for a sec.
	Because we're talking about weird, vicious circles, and someone who is in fact a guest has just said, corkscrew-shaped ducks have corkscrew vaginas.
	Fun fact, I'm afraid I have to ask that person how he knows and which doctor he saw afterwards and how he explained the shape of his penis afterwards, why it was quacking in a spiral.
	Anyway, but sorry, go ahead.
	Your vicious spiral is probably even more important.
	Go ahead.
	Well, I come in class and I took this semester off, but I'm in my classroom and I'm thinking to take psychology and I just can't help but, like, feel these feelings of, like, man, I can't believe I'm paying for this.
	This is insane.
	Like, why am I paying to learn in such a way?
	It seems like so...
	I don't want to say...
	No, it is boring.
	Absolutely boring.
	It's just like the teacher is just reading, you know, slides off of, you know, the screen or whatever.
	And it's just like, well, I hate this.
	And I just...
	It makes me really unmotivated to learn.
	Like, I feel like I've learned more about psychology from my girlfriend than being in class.
	And I just can't stop thinking about that.
	And then it gets to the point where I don't want to do work.
	And then I freeze up whenever I think about looking at my courses for XMS. I just think, ugh, why do I want to do that?
	I can't believe I'm pouring so much value into this when I just see this huge mountain of work before me.
	If I want to go anywhere in psychology, you basically need your master's.
	And why are you taking psychology?
	Because I think it's fascinating.
	Well, hang on a sec.
	Do you think psychology in school is fascinating, or psychology itself is fascinating?
	What is the difference?
	Well, I mean, I find philosophy endlessly fascinating.
	I did not find philosophy in school to be endlessly fascinating.
	Okay, yeah, pretty much.
	I'm right there with you, yeah.
	I mean, I had a professor so old, he could have been Socrates' cellmate.
	And he was, you know, he literally had a TA, had to help him up to the board.
	And, you know, sometimes it looked like he just dozed up, sort of pressed up against it.
	And I remember taking Descartes with him, and he was talking about the Cartesian demon.
	demon and i sort of tried to engage him in a debate about uh you know whether this would be about the idea that you're sort of a brain and a tank and everything is produced by a demon that could be whatever right and uh you know just got that you know thousand yard stare he looked like the sad imitation of a philosopher in bill and ted's excellent adventure when he goes back in time and talks to socrates you know the dust in the wind man so great yeah And, I mean, it was just, it was wretched, you know?
	This is a very powerful, muscular, brain-enhancing discipline, and to have this...
	I didn't mind that he was old, you know?
	Of course, you know, he probably was 48.
	No, I'm kidding.
	I didn't mind 47.
	No, 48 is old, because I'm 47.
	But I didn't mind that he was old.
	I just, you know, where's the engagement?
	Where's the passion?
	And to remember, of course, that universities and schools are, you know, the government paper mills, right?
	So...
	I did a talk recently at U of T, and beforehand, there was a guy who was a professor of philosophy at Western, I think it was.
	And he came up and he read his paper.
	And I'm like, dude, that is a long way from a free market public speaker.
	I got up there and making jokes and getting people engaged in the audience, asking them questions and so on.
	And you say the people are up there reading their notes and so on.
	It's because they're not competing for their audience.
	Right.
	They're not like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or whoever.
	I think even Al Franken had a show or whatever.
	They're out there trying to compete for years, trying to get – this is what I'm doing.
	I'm trying to be engaged and engaging to the point where people will say, philosophy, maybe it's not crap.
	That should be our tagline, philosophy.
	Maybe it's not crap.
	Maybe it's not, you know, how to resign yourself to the inevitable grinding of the glacier called fate or something.
	Maybe it's something useful and powerful and muscular in my own...
	This muscular Christianity was the thing that went on in the 19th century, which I kind of liked, you know.
	Christianity is not, you know, it's getting out there in the world and getting muscular and things and strength and all that was pretty cool.
	Yeah, every philosophy professor by definition is a communist.
	Well, they're in a sort of socialist environment, so they're going to be that way inclined.
	But why are you studying something that you have great interest in in a government environment?
	Because I want to make money doing what I love, right?
	Do you want to be a psychologist?
	I was thinking therapist, organizational psychologist, I'm not sure yet, but no, I've been leaning towards therapist.
	So how long is that going to take you?
	Let's see.
	Four years for a degree plus the additional, what is it, three for a master's?
	Yeah, and then I would assume, I don't know if you need to be mentored or need to be under somebody's tutelage or supervision or something like that.
	Yeah, something like that.
	Yeah.
	And your governing body will doubtless enforce the standards of psychology that are currently present, which is they seem to have some significant respect for SSRIs and refer people to psychiatry and all that kind of stuff, right?
	Marriages are optional, but parent-child relationships must be preserved at all costs because power differentials never occur in those.
	So you are going to be gaining some access to insurance money, but you will, of course, be subjecting yourself to the best practices of the governing body, which you may or may not agree with.
	Yeah, and the weird part is I haven't even really gotten to the whole cycle of this thought process.
	And what kind of happens is that I get the fact that I don't really want to do that.
	I think that it's – I have a meme inside my head that comes from my parents, most notably my mother, which says to be a good person.
	So listen, you can go – I don't know where you are or what the laws are.
	You can go be a life coach and you don't need any training at all.
	And then you know what you're going to have to survive on is you're going to have to survive on the actual life value that you bring to people, right?
	Right.
	I think it's always important to put yourself in situations where the very best is required of you.
	Look, I have taken the most boring subject, philosophy.
	Oh, God.
	I mean, imagine you sit next to a dinner party, right?
	Yeah.
	One guy's an MMA fighter and the other guy's studying philosophy.
	I mean, who are you going to talk to, right?
	I mean, you're going to talk to the guy whose breath whistles through half his teeth, right?
	And it's the guy who's studying philosophy who got punched out by the last people he tried to talk to and wished he'd studied more MMA. But, I mean, no, seriously, come on, philosophy, childhood self-confrontation, self-knowledge, I mean, blech, right?
	Ethics, property rights, I mean, oh, how boring can you get, right?
	I mean, we don't even do that much politics anymore.
	And asking people about their childhoods in a public forum when maybe that's not even what they're coming in to talk about and asking people the most intensely personal questions that they're likely have never been asked before, giving people hopefully the most meaningful conversation they've had to date.
	What an insane idea.
	What an insane idea.
	I've had to be so good at doing what I'm doing because the subject matter is so much against...
	what I'm doing, right?
	And so I put myself in a situation with the most uncomfortable, disorienting, challenging, discombobulating conversations.
	I mean, I get so many emails from people who are like, I hate you, you bald bastard.
	You son of a bitch, you know?
	I hate you for being entertaining and engaging because you kind of sucked me into your reason and evidence self-knowledge matrix.
	And now, like, oh man, you know, half my people are half the people I know who are talking to me and I've annoyed the other half, right?
	So it's the most challenging, annoying, frustrating, difficult, and sometimes dangerous conversation.
	And I've had to be as...
	I'm engaging as humanly possible out of respect for what it is that I have to do.
	Now, if I was teaching at a university, people kind of had to be there because they wanted a piece of paper and I had power over them and they couldn't disagree with me because I might give them a bad mark, which would, right?
	Right?
	Yeah.
	Oh, yeah.
	Anarchism, atheism.
	I mean, my God.
	I mean, could you come up with more challenging and unpleasant conversational topics?
	Telling people that they're jerks for hitting their children.
	Oh, when 80 to 90 percent of Americans hits their children.
	Oh, what a lovely and popular topic.
	On Swedish radio, I guess that's not controversial, but in North America, it's quite a challenge, right?
	And, yeah, confront people about their support of violence against you and family relations should be judged through the lens of virtue, not history.
	I mean, these are all insanely challenging and off-putting topics.
	You know, I get this email the other day from the guy who was like, You know, every time I sit down and watch one of your damn videos, I'm like, I'm giving this guy five minutes.
	Five minutes!
	That's it!
	And I look up and it's like 45 minutes have passed.
	And I'm like, damn!
	What do you do?
	What voodoo are you casting on my brain that I keep watching?
	Your stupid stuff!
	It's, you know, people...
	And those are the people who end up liking me.
	There are people who just hate me and don't ever get out of that rut, right?
	And...
	In this show, I have the challenge of the most off-putting, unpleasant, and challenging topics that can be imagined that most people think are about as boring as conceivably could be, and trying to find a way to make it engaging and interesting and useful to people, stuff that they can do something with.
	Now, how does my conversation compare to a psychology professor of yours?
	Oh, this is like a banquet of food compared to like a cracker.
	Right.
	Because I'm in the free market and they are in a government system.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I know.
	Yeah.
	So, philosophically, you know that the service in the government system, because it's fundamentally coercive, is going to be crap, right?
	Yeah.
	And you're setting yourself up for years of that and then more micromanagement by the government and government-sponsored agencies and government-sponsored monopolies afterwards, right?
	I mean, I thought that we were kind of aiming to be free of the state, right?
	Yeah, that's absolutely true.
	I mean, I knew that going in, but I... Yeah, but you're confirming it now, right?
	Don't you hate it when...
	Don't you hate it when you end up being right about stuff that you don't want to be right about?
	Oh, it's the worst.
	It's the worst.
	Or what's even worse, when you damn well know that you should have been right about it.
	You knew you were right about it, but you ignored it anyway, which for me is like every third day, right?
	But that is important.
	Now, whether you should or shouldn't be a psychologist or a therapist, obviously, I don't know.
	I mean, I can't make these decisions for anyone, right?
	But what I would say is don't assume that the only way you can talk to people and help people is by going that route.
	Look for the free market alternatives, right?
	Look for, can you be a life coach?
	Can you, you know, what does that allow you to do?
	Can you find a way to help people that does not involve, like I don't know what, there's some term up here in Canada, I don't know what it is.
	Is it psychotherapist or whatever it is?
	I don't know.
	But there's some term up here you don't have to be licensed.
	Now, you can't take insurance money, but that's all right.
	I mean, that just means that you will be dealing with people who really are interested in self-knowledge rather than, you know, whatever, right?
	Something from the insurance.
	It doesn't mean the insurance people aren't.
	It just means that for sure, people who are paying for themselves are going to be more motivated.
	So it might be better all the way around for you to look at more free market alternatives, ways of getting out there to get to do what you want to do in less than a decade while being micromanaged by the state.
	Okay.
	That's awesome.
	I never really thought about it that way.
	I did.
	But like you said, confirmation.
	Yeah.
	He could be a hypnotherapist.
	Yeah, I don't know.
	I don't know much about hypnotherapists.
	No, thanks.
	I've just got this ticking clock nonsense, googly eyes, Roger Rabbit stuff.
	I don't know whether that stuff works or not.
	Anyway, I don't know.
	But just think about ways that you could do it in a free market way, right?
	Sure, sure.
	Okay.
	That's great.
	Thank you so much.
	You're very, very welcome.
	Yeah, Dan Carlin, we just did a show, actually, and it was fun.
	It's going to go out.
	Lord, Lord, we've got so many to bleed off.
	It's sad, sad, sad.
	But I shouldn't really complain.
	So, thanks, everybody.
	FDRURL.com forward slash donate.
	If you could help out, that would be great.
	We've got a Bitcoin address, a Litecoin address, which we'll put in the podcast notes.
	And, of course, I will get the QR code tattooed.
	On my forehead because I'm all about encryption.
	Occasionally I will frown.
	Wrinkle my forehead so it's encrypted.
	So thanks everyone.
	Have a great week.

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