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Dec. 8, 2013 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:22:32

2551 Billion Dollar Tang - The Benefits and Costs of NASA - Sunday Call In Show December 8th, 2013

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	Good morning, everybody.
	Stefan Molyneux from the Radio Domain of Freedom.
	I hope you're doing well.
	It's the 8th of December, 2013.
	I hope you're having a great week.
	I guess there's a little tiny story before we start.
	So, my daughter is rabidly interested in these shows.
	I live in the moment.
	I am a bubble of the now, sometimes it feels like, which is why I have such a tough time finding my keys.
	And she will always ask me.
	I said, oh, I had five callers or six callers.
	She's like, Daddy, tell me about your show.
	I'm really interested.
	What was the first call?
	What did he say?
	And she wants to know the content of the shows.
	And it's really a challenge.
	Sometimes I'm like, I know that was some great calls.
	I remember having some great rants.
	But it's all, you know, it's like a night in Vegas.
	You know, you had a great time and you just wake up with a tattoo.
	But you can't remember too much of it.
	Sometimes that's what it's like with the shows.
	So I've decided to start taking notes.
	But she's really, really interested in the show.
	And we had a guy last week who was talking about bitcoins or asking questions.
	So we were talking about intrinsic value.
	She's really pretty good at this stuff.
	We have a game called Subjective vs.
	Objective.
	Right, so...
	I like lizards.
	Subjective or objective?
	And she said, I did this this morning, she's like, subjective.
	Lizards can be green.
	Subjective or objective?
	Objective, right?
	We're trying to sort of figure out the difference between preferences and facts.
	And I mean, she's, I mean, you know, my whole life, literally my whole life, and I remember saying this to my wife years and years and years ago, I mean, my whole life, I was like, why is it so hard to have conversations with children?
	I've known children for years and have never had any kind of real conversation with them.
	And it used to drive me kind of crazy because I remember when I was a kid, I had great conversations with a few people here and there sort of scattered.
	You'd find these like-minded people or just minded people, I guess, and I'd have a little chance with them.
	And it always frustrated me that they'd have these sort of shallow conversations or non-conversations with kids.
	Or you'd try to get them engaged in a topic and they'd just be distracted and not be able to hold up anything.
	But yeah.
	But I can talk for an hour with my daughter about philosophy or cats or whatever.
	She's dying for a cat.
	I like cats a lot, and I would be very interested in getting a cat.
	Right now, there's just a little bit too much travel going on, but it's certainly something we'd love to do.
	They're lovely creatures, as long as you get them from sort of kitten upward and train them to be as...
	Well, not train them, but I guess open them to...
	I like a cat who's physically affectionate.
	I like a lab cat, because I like that drug.
	I think you get endorphins from petting cats or something like that.
	Anyway, so we were talking about intrinsic value the other day.
	You know, what things are worth.
	And, you know, the traditional argument from the non-intrinsic value people.
	Gold has intrinsic value.
	Okay, so if you're thirsty in a desert and a guy says you can have, you know, either a bar of gold or a jug of water, you're going to take the jug of water.
	Regretfully, perhaps.
	But, uh...
	Just a jug of water.
	Also, there's a bit in...
	We spent almost a year reading The Hobbit back and forth, sort of various scenes and all that.
	And in it, the dwarves are all in Smog's lair.
	He has all these gold and diamonds and jewels and stuff like that.
	And he says to Bilbo, so you have all these gold.
	You can have all my gold and diamonds.
	What are you going to do with it on the mountainside?
	You know, I can fly.
	I'll find you if you try to leave.
	So what are you going to do?
	You could grab it on the mountainside.
	What are you going to do with it, right?
	Of course, the answer is, it's just going to weigh you down.
	Something pretty to look at when you burst into dragon fire.
	So I gave her that sort of choice.
	Now, she gets gold and she likes gold.
	She loves rocks.
	My father's a geologist, so maybe, I don't know, maybe it skipped a generation.
	She loves rocks.
	But I thought, you know, her favorite thing at the moment is toy kitties, like furry little toy kitties.
	And so I said, okay, so you're really thirsty in the desert.
	And a guy says, you can either have a bottle of water or a toy kitty.
	And she said, actually, I would like a bottle of water with fur and a tail and ears in the shape of a toy kitty.
	And, you know, well, checkmate Austrians.
	What can you say?
	Unarguable.
	So, that is the fun of parenting, and it's sure coming sooner than I expected.
	I've never known anyone like her.
	She is an unbelievable treasure to me.
	So, let us move on with the caller's mic.
	Who's first?
	Right up first today is Adam Viaphone, calling back to 1972.
	Pick up the rotary dial, Adam.
	Hello?
	Hi, Adam.
	How are you doing?
	I'm doing good, Stefan.
	Good.
	Good.
	All right.
	So, what can I help you with, my friend?
	So, my question is, have you read the book Walden II by Via Skinner?
	No.
	You haven't?
	All right.
	Well, that's still interesting because this book, I feel like, We're good to have a great conversation if you were to read this book.
	I know some of the ideas.
	This is B.F. Skinner, the psychologist, right?
	Yep.
	Yeah, I know some of the ideas of B.F. Skinner, but I can't say that I've read Walden, too.
	All right.
	Can I just address one thing?
	So in the book, he basically describes a society in which the children are raised in a way that I know that you've advocated previously.
	on your show to a point.
	I mean, there's no force, obviously, but I guess there's a little bit of indoctrination with positive reinforcement or whatever.
	But at the same time, there's also things in this book that are very not free market.
	So it's like he has one side, like the no force and all that, but then the free market kind of lacks through.
	So I was wondering if you had any commentary on that.
	Well, he's an intellectual, right?
	And intellectuals have traditionally been opposed to the free market.
	See, intellectuals are know-it-alls.
	Intellectuals are tyrannical in many ways by nature.
	And there's not a lot of place in the free market for know-it-all bossy pants.
	And that is something that frustrates intellectuals, right?
	Right.
	Intellectuals wake up in the morning and look with contempt upon the rabble and feel that they should tell the rabble what to do.
	They are surrounded, as they believe, by fools Who don't know what's best for them and roll their eyes at popular sports and obesity and cheering and the Lions Club and all this kind of stuff.
	And what they do is they genuinely believe that if they were in charge and telling people what to do because of their vastly superior intelligence, that everybody would be just so much happier.
	You know, just call me in the morning.
	Tell me what you should do with your day.
	And I will tell you, as a smart intellectual, I will tell you what to do.
	And the decisions that you make for yourself are foolish and silly and immature.
	And you should not be into NASCAR racing.
	That is a waste and it's loud and it spoils resources.
	And you should not be into all these popular things.
	You shouldn't be watching Lost.
	You should be reading Plato.
	Intellectuals really don't like the choices that the majority of people make, and so they want to be in charge.
	Now, the free market doesn't really pay people Who are annoying and bossy and know-it-alls and condescending and superior and blah-de-blah-de-blah.
	If you want to be an intellectual and you want to talk to people as a whole, then you have to meet people where they live, right?
	So in this show, I'm sort of aware, people who are listening are rolling their eyes and saying, well, Steph, you think that popular sports are blah-blah-blah-blah and obesity and so on.
	Yeah, of course, absolutely.
	But I don't believe that I can tell people what to do.
	How many times have you heard me say in this show?
	You know, people say, Steph, what should I do?
	I say, I don't know.
	I can tell you some of my thoughts.
	I can tell you some of my experiences.
	But I cannot tell you what to do.
	And so having the humility of recognizing that ordering people around does them no good whatsoever.
	In fact, it harms them.
	It absolutely harms them.
	It's like somebody coming to you in a wheelchair and saying, I know I can get out of this wheelchair.
	But I, you know, I don't have the muscles for it right now.
	What you do is you give them the physical training to get out of the wheelchair if they can.
	What you don't do is strap on a concrete-based seat belt and keep them there forever, which is what telling people what to do generally does.
	And so when it comes to people like Skinner, smart guy and believes that he knows a lot more about people than they do themselves, And therefore he wants to tell them what to do.
	And so in the free market, what you have to do is find ways to communicate ideas to people in a way that's entertaining, that's motivating, that is encouraging without being condescending.
	It's a delicate, challenging, exciting balance.
	It's what gets me out of bed to do the show when I'm doing the show.
	It just is a really interesting challenge.
	Now, to be fair, intellectuals drown in In the idiocracy, right?
	So intellectuals are subjected to the vote of the majority.
	And the vote of the majority is, you know, generally self-interested and kind of retarded in a way.
	I mean, it's retarded in terms of long-term benefits.
	It's not retarded in terms of short-term calculations.
	And so intellectuals look at this sea of idiocracy called democracy and say, well, why does my vote count as much As that guy who cuts people's hedges for a living?
	Why does my vote count as much as the guy who takes my car in to get serviced?
	Why does my vote count as much as the guy who cleans sewage grates?
	And they get frustrated and they feel, well, I'm going to be bossed around and dominated by the idiocracy, so I better be in charge of the idiocracy.
	And that really was Plato's idea, right?
	Plato saw the majority rule in Athens kill his mentor, kill his beloved Socrates, and so he thought, well, the philosophers better be in charge because people are so stupid that they administer hemlock to the greatest thinker in the world simply for You know, doing what is the time-honored job of philosophers, which is what is called corrupting the youth, which is allowing them to resist the corruptions of their elders with reason and evidence.
	So, in a democracy, in the free market, know-it-all annoying intellectuals don't really get paid very much or very well, which is why they like academia and why they like, you know, publishing all these books which are mostly read by other intellectuals who feel a deep sense of Power lay satisfaction at the idea of her lauding it over the masses.
	But on the other hand, the masses are threatening the intellectuals with idiot democratic mob rule.
	And of course, the solution is to not have a government.
	The solution is not to take over the government.
	But most intellectuals, of course, are raised in that way.
	And most intellectuals are intellectuals because of various things that happened in their childhood.
	One, of course, is being dominated and bullied by You know, sports people and good-looking people and all that kind of stuff.
	And so this is a complicated relationship, but intellectuals certainly do have a significant fear of the free market because the free market punctures the vanity of most intellectuals.
	Because if you're a know-it-all and you don't use force, then you have to really be good at communicating, right?
	If you know a lot of stuff and want to convince people of a lot of things and you don't have If you have academia where you've got a captive audience and you don't have the media where you have a propagandized audience and you don't have politics where you have an enforced audience and you get to enforce your rules, then you have to really be good at communicating, which means you have to surrender your ego to the requirements of your listeners.
	That is really important.
	Most singers would rather sing without holding a microphone.
	I mean, I hate doing speeches with microphones.
	It's just better than not doing speeches at all.
	But most singers, in singing without a microphone, without having to hold it and manage the distance from the mouth and all that, so you can sort of go orangutan arm's length with a Celine Dion belt-a-thon.
	But if they sing without a microphone, nobody can hear them outside of the first two rows, right?
	So that's just a reality.
	You know, you may be a smart guy and you may have a lot of stuff, but you really have to surrender to how people listen and what motivates them.
	And you have to listen to what people are interested in, which is why, you know, I do all these call-in shows.
	So I just wanted to sort of mention a few things about intellectuals and society, but let's return to our good friend, Mr.
	Skinner, and you can go on with your point.
	All right.
	Thank you.
	That's actually very interesting.
	In the book, though, Skinner totally roots on democracy.
	He basically says that it scapegoats the people that vote because they pick random people that really have no clue how to tell them to live their lives or how to implement anything.
	And the people are the ones that end up getting blamed for everything sucking, which, well, I guess is technically true.
	But he points out that it's a skip to democracy and how that works.
	He also mentions how he doesn't believe that any politician can make any statement based upon Like how they think they should solve a social problem because there's no scientific proof saying that showing correlation, saying that doing one thing will stop this other thing from happening.
	So he rips on the fact that politicians make claims like, if we do this, then this will happen with no scientific proof.
	And he said it's all garbage and we need to have a society where we can slowly implement different variables in order to Well,
	sure, I mean, but he didn't I mean, he didn't really believe in free will, if memory serves.
	It's been like 25 years since I studied Skinner in Intro to Psych, but he viewed people as sort of machines, right?
	As input-outputs and as gratification-pursuing monkeys, right?
	And so for him, it would be like tinkering with a machine.
	It would be like cross-pollinating crops and experimenting with various kinds of fertilizer and so on.
	So that would be sort of his approach.
	And if you think that people are dumb, then the free market doesn't really make any sense.
	It's literally like saying, let's put the cows in charge of the farm.
	It doesn't make any sense.
	So from that standpoint, I understand...
	Where he's coming from.
	And also, if people are dumb, then morality doesn't make any sense.
	Again, we don't go to monkeys and teach them about ethics.
	Because they're monkeys for guys.
	They're monkeys.
	And in the same way, the idea of having moral principles that you start from Is incomprehensible to most intellectuals, right?
	As most communicators, most people in the media.
	Most people, most human beings in general.
	The idea that you would look at society and say, forget all the complexity right now.
	What is moral and what is immoral?
	Well, and that's not hard to figure out.
	What's moral and immoral?
	The reasons behind it, I think, are pretty hard to figure out.
	At least it took me a long time to come up with UPP. But what is right and what is wrong is very simple.
	A dog can catch a Frisbee.
	A dog cannot write the equations of gravity and air friction and the centrifugal force of the Frisbee and all that kind of stuff.
	But a dog can catch a Frisbee in its mouth.
	The same thing, you throw a ball at a four-year-old and they'll probably catch it.
	But you ask them to go through the math about why they caught it, they don't have a clue.
	In the same way, I mean, everybody knows what's right and wrong.
	Don't steal, don't hit, don't assault, don't rape, don't murder.
	I mean, everybody knows that.
	Nobody is outraged that those things are illegal.
	There's not a big campaign for legalized murder, right?
	There's a campaign for legalized pot, rightly so, but there's no campaign for legalized rape.
	And so we all know, but the idea that we'd simply say, okay, well, we've got the four basic moral principles, don't steal, don't rape, don't kill, don't assault, and let's just build society from a blank page based upon those moral principles, that's incomprehensible to people.
	And it's incomprehensible to a lot of intellectuals because most of them are captured by the state.
	And this is why they are captured by the state.
	They are captured by the state so that property rights become anathema to them.
	And I think this is really, really important to understand.
	Why does the government fund education, public education and this and that and the other, right?
	Well, the government does that to create an emotional barrier against universal property rights in the intellectual classes, right?
	So Skinner was a professor of psychology from like the late 50s until I think he retired in 74.
	And as a professor at Harvard, he benefits from state unions, he benefits from state funding, and he benefits from the whole diploma process, which is enforced and supported by the state.
	And therefore, the idea of the initiation of force being immoral, the idea of universal property rights, is emotionally anathema to him.
	And so all you do is you give people a drug that they are unconscious of.
	So they know they're getting a drug.
	They know they're getting blood money, unjust money.
	They know that they're rent-seeking, economically predatory social climbers.
	And then, whenever anyone brings up property rights, they roll their eyes.
	As soon as you get people to take a drug, as soon as you get people to take privilege, You don't have to do anything else to completely destroy the intellectual integrity of society.
	As soon as you get the smart people to take privilege, then you know, as a guy in charge, and this has scientifically been verified so many times it's ridiculous, the moment you get people to take unjust privilege, like the most fantastically complicated,
	beautiful and evil weeds, ex post facto intellectual justifications to obscure And venerate their dependence on violent privilege will spring up after that.
	People do stuff that they're greedy for and they corrupt themselves in the pursuit of power and prestige.
	And then you don't need to tell them to justify it with emotional and intellectual machinations.
	They will do that of their own accord.
	As soon as you get people to take power, they will justify that.
	And they will never talk about it, but they will justify it in the abstract.
	Right?
	And so, once you give people these plum positions, I am Professor at Harvard, right?
	I mean, you know that they're just going to completely fuck up anything to do with the free market, they're going to completely fuck up anything to do with universal ethics, and they are going to react with Scorn and condescension and superiority and contempt to any attempt to bring any kind of universal ethics or property rights to the equation.
	Naturally, you get people to take the fruits of evil and they will now oppose the idea that there's such thing as evil.
	And they will oppose any kind of universal ethics.
	Of course they will.
	Of course they will.
	I mean, you can't even get the average German population living downwind from a concentration camp to admit that there's anything wrong in the neighborhood, let alone get Harvard professors to talk about universal property rights.
	Nobody wants to self-illuminate themselves as a hypocrite.
	Nobody defines a system that defines them as evil.
	This is really important.
	Nobody will describe a system or create a system that defines themselves as evil.
	And all you have to do is have a conversation with the parent about spanking to see that in action.
	So that is, I mean, that's the whole role.
	So when I hear stuff coming out of the ivory tower, when I hear stuff coming out of intellectuals enthralled to the state, and this means that they're either in the media or they're in academia, when I hear, I know that I'm going to hear a whole bunch of tortured justifications for They're taking of state privilege.
	And it's going to be gruesome.
	It's going to be watching someone do, like opening up their forehead, taking a potato peeler and doing harikari on their neofrontal cortex.
	It's just the way it's going to look.
	Because they can't look.
	So the fact that he says, well, you know, we should not have democracy, we should do all these various experiments to find out what is optimal, then this and that and the other.
	It's the same thing that Sam Harris does.
	You know, science should answer our questions of ethics.
	Well, that's not rational.
	Ethics is universally preferable behavior.
	Science is morally neutral.
	Science is morally neutral.
	Is mathematics good or evil?
	It's not either.
	Because you can live a virtuous life while knowing virtually nothing about mathematics.
	You can be a mathematician who beats his wife.
	Mathematics, science has no bearing on ethical questions whatsoever.
	E equals MC squared.
	Virtuous or evil?
	It is not even remotely a comprehensible question.
	So the idea that you're going to bring...
	I mean, all he's doing is he's creating a society where he's in charge.
	Right?
	He is the guy who's the professor of psychology at Harvard, He's the guy whose free will is an illusion.
	I'm just getting this from Wiki, right?
	Opera and conditioning chamber is the Skinner box.
	He was a firm believer in the idea that human free will was actually an illusion and any human action was the result of the consequences of that same action.
	If the consequences were bad, there was a high chance that the action would not be repeated.
	However, if the consequences were good, the actions that lead to it would be reinforced.
	The reinforcement principle.
	In the book, it's like you're in charge, but not in charge.
	Well, of course, nobody wants to say, I mean, I want to be the dictator.
	I mean, a few people are pretty honest about it.
	But so he creates a society where he is in charge, where he is in charge.
	And naturally, I mean, all power seekers want to create a society where they're in charge, which is why intellectuals have trouble with the free market.
	They want to be in charge.
	They want to dominate for reasons of vanity, insecurity, and prior trauma at the hands of less intelligent children.
	So they all want to be in charge, of course.
	And what does the free market say to people who want to be in charge?
	Good luck.
	Go for it.
	But you can't use coercion to do it.
	If you want to have influence, then you better be really good at talking to people.
	And you better be really good at making your case and you better really listen to people and you better find a way to do it that way.
	But everybody wants to set up a society where they get their way, but they never want to talk about the compulsion.
	They never want to talk about the coercion, right?
	They all want to set up a society where they're in charge, but they will never say that explicitly.
	It's just that they create a society where they are the only logical people to be in charge, but they'll never say it directly.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yeah, it does.
	So where do we get this idea that some people are smarter than others and more qualified to make decisions for the masses than individuals shooting for themselves?
	Because it would seem like there would be people that are smarter than others, But in only certain areas.
	I mean, a PhD in physics can't really do much when it comes to the arts, right?
	So where do we get this idea of different intellects and some people having the merit in order to rule where others should just take a back seat and not do much?
	Well, I mean, that's a very, very big question.
	And we can't answer that question until people are honest about their childhoods.
	I mean, we can answer that question in terms of principles, right?
	Why is it that we get the idea that somebody should be in charge and telling us what to do?
	Because when we were children, we had people in charge telling us what to do, right?
	Priests and teachers and parents, fundamentally, right?
	The idea that a child should be...
	I'm sorry?
	That's probably why I'm an anarchist.
	My parents really didn't do that.
	They kind of gave me freedom from a young age.
	Okay, well good.
	So this is, you know, one more pile of evidence on the thesis.
	I actually had a fairly anarchic childhood myself in that I was not told what to do a lot.
	I suffered a lot of abuse, but I was not actually controlled.
	Some parents are sort of hyper-controlling.
	That wasn't the case with my mother.
	And So, if B.F. Skinner had written a true history of his own childhood, then we would understand quite a lot about his adult theories.
	The only thing I can say here is that after graduating, B.F. Skinner tried to write a great novel while he lived with his parents, which he later called The Dark Years.
	The dark years.
	What does that mean about his parents?
	What does that mean about his childhood?
	Well, we don't know because...
	Maybe he has written a lot about his childhood.
	But I don't know anything about his childhood.
	And of course, for a psychologist to not write about his childhood is ridiculous.
	I mean, the influence of childhood...
	Upon adulthood has been known for literally thousands of years.
	You can find it in the ancient Greek plays.
	The famous line, the child is the father of the man, is important.
	But you don't hear a lot about people's childhoods.
	Like a psychologist should first say, here's my childhood.
	This is what happened in my childhood.
	Because all psychologists know that childhood has an influence upon adulthood.
	And this is one of the reasons I talk about my childhood because you cannot evaluate my theories for potential bias if you don't know about my childhood.
	So if Skinner's childhood was, you know, rigidly controlled and he was given lots of rewards and punishments and so on, then the fact that he would want to design a society where someone was in charge and gave people lots of rewards and punishments It would make sense.
	It wouldn't mean that his argument was good or bad, or right or wrong, valid or invalid, but it would mean that he would have a motive for having an affinity for that kind of society, right?
	We would understand that.
	I experienced a lot of arbitrary authority as a child, so my skepticism of authority makes some sense.
	I was exposed to a variety of schools in a variety of countries.
	Which means the idea that there's a central culture that is true is going to be harder to sustain with me.
	I had a very, apparently very loving nanny.
	My mother was hospitalized for depression, postpartum depression, I guess, after I was born.
	And I was in the care of a nanny who was very physically affectionate and we had a very strong bond.
	And she later named her son When she had her son years later, she named him Stefan because we'd had such a close bond.
	Did that have an effect on my development of empathy?
	Yeah, I would imagine.
	I know for a fact that it did.
	The government has taken over care of my mother.
	The government pays for money.
	She gets welfare and disability benefits.
	And so I... I can't hold any sway over her.
	I can't say, you know, if you want me to pay your bills, you need to go and get some therapy.
	You need to do X, you need to do Y in order to get better.
	The government has taken that over and I have no authority in that area anymore.
	And so I have some, obviously there'd be some emotional reasons to have frustration.
	With the welfare system, I grew up around a lot of highly dysfunctional single moms and therefore I am not, I don't have any problem with the reality that Single motherhood is almost universally significantly tragic for children, particularly sons.
	So, I mean, this is just very brief, but my childhood gives me a lot of forethought and foreshadowing towards my adult arguments.
	And I've talked about this stuff many, many times.
	It doesn't mean my arguments are valid or invalid.
	It just means that people can understand where I'm coming from.
	I don't sort of start reasoning from a blank page.
	that there are things that I have an affinity for that means that people need to be extra skeptical, because as do I.
	Yeah, I think I had quite a few tyrannical 30 figures in my childhood history.
	I can remember their names pretty specifically.
	Right.
	Awesome.
	Thank you very much.
	I hope that helps.
	Mike, who's our next caller?
	All right, Robert.
	You're up next today, Robert.
	Go ahead.
	How are you doing, Stephan?
	Really a pleasure to talk to you.
	I find you fascinating to listen to.
	But I want to challenge you on a couple of things that I've heard during your podcast over the time.
	Please do.
	First, on a lighter note, how does a man that lives in Canada not venerate Rush?
	As a libertarian-minded person, they are libertarian-minded people.
	You know, I've got to tell you, I've actually seen Rush, I think, three times live.
	And as far as being musicians, they are fantastic.
	I mean, the wall of noise that three homely guys can produce is truly astounding.
	And so their musicianship is first rate.
	I just tell you, I cannot quite...
	Get into the shrieking Madonna Hobbit, Mickey Mouse on helium vocals of Geddy Lee.
	You know, his constant efforts to say three octaves above mortal man I just can't quite get into.
	And I mean, to me, they're quite similar to Yes.
	Now, I mean, John Anderson has got this countertenor control to a voice as well, but it's softer and warmer.
	And because I like to sing, the thing I always notice is the singer.
	You know, people who love to play guitar, they don't even hear the guitar player.
	I hear the singer, and I've just never quite been able to get into...
	The vocals of Geddy Lee, although he's a good singer, obviously.
	The drummer's lyrics are fantastic for the most part.
	I also wish that they would just go a little bit further into actual libertarianism in their songwriting.
	2112 is a mantra for anti-establishment, anti-religion.
	Well, and maybe I have not heard that one, or maybe I've only heard it in passing, but I've also never really sat down and listened to them with headphones.
	Red Barchetta, I think, is my favorite song of theirs, which I think is a pretty great song with some great lyrics.
	Red Barchetta is amazing, but I do recommend 2112.
	Just on a side note, Queen is my fifth favorite band of all time.
	But I read a statistic on Queen, and Queen is the only band where every member has written a number one single.
	Even the Beatles can't say that.
	Yes, that's true.
	They all contributed.
	Originally it was May and Mercury, and then Deacon came out with You're My Best Friend, which, you know, when you think about it, I mean, it's a completely ridiculous song for a pretty hard rockin' band to do.
	Oh, you're my best friend.
	This is about his wife, who he loved very much.
	So yeah, they are a remarkable band.
	What I love about Queen, and I could do a whole show on this, but if you won't, is the sheer variety of the music that they did.
	To me, Rush doesn't have a lot of variety.
	So they do YYZ, which is an instrumental version, but it's all kind of prog rock.
	And again, that may be my, you know, people who listen to Queen's greatest hits.
	Well, no, even Queen's, I mean, Queen did like acapella stuff, they did ragtime, they did country, they did rock, they did disco, they did, I mean, it's hard to find a band that has tried more musical styles and so on.
	And they did like regular old top 40 hits and they also did like just wacky stuff like March of the Black Queen, which is like 12 different songs mashed into one glorious prog rock mix.
	So they just, they did such a wide variety of things.
	Just go listen to 39, followed by Seaside Rendezvous, followed by Good Company, followed by Bring Back That Leroy Brown, followed by Hammer to Fall.
	I mean, just the sheer variety and curiosity of their musical explorations, I think is, I've just never known a band ever.
	Who did so many different styles, and I think so well.
	For me, I'm a bit of a stimulus monkey, as you can imagine, so I think that the different styles is really impressive.
	Very good, very good.
	Now, would you agree that the common sheep amongst us try to take the path of least resistance?
	Try to take the path of least resistance.
	I have some reservations about that as a blanket statement.
	I mean, having children is scarcely taking the path of least resistance, and most people have children, right?
	I actually know a lot of couples my age.
	They joke with me that I have to have 14 children to make up the fact that they all don't have children.
	I know a lot of 30-somethings who...
	It's that step where...
	You know how the man checks out and they're like, well, we don't need kids.
	Well, they get in a relationship and they're just best friends and they spend all their education and come on, you know, like motorcycles and kayaking and, you know, all this.
	And they're like, we don't want kids.
	That's a responsibility.
	I'm sorry.
	Did you say the man checks out?
	I just wasn't sure what you said at the beginning or what it meant.
	Yeah, you've mentioned that in the past that men have chosen not to be there because the government's there for the woman.
	I've heard you say that before.
	Well, sorry, just to be more clear, it's not that the man says, well, I really love this woman.
	She's really wonderful.
	I trust her with my life, but I don't like the welfare state, so I'm going to leave her.
	That's not obviously what men do, right?
	What happens is that power corrupts, right?
	And women have gained increasing amounts of power in an increasingly democratically based gynocentric society.
	And therefore women have changed.
	Women have been told you don't need a man and men are pigs and never trust a man, never rely on a man.
	You've got to have your own career because you don't have the man to support you and they're deadbeat dads.
	So women have been elevated to have greater power, legal power in a relationship.
	And at the same time, they've been told repeatedly how foolish and silly and immature and ridiculous and petty men are.
	And so they have changed as partners to become far less attractive and far less trustworthy.
	But sorry, go ahead.
	Okay.
	Well, generally, there's a large population of us that go path of least resistance because we don't like to, you know, If we had an apple, or I could go take an apple out of the refrigerator, or I could go pick an apple out of the tree.
	Well, I had to get out of the house, I had to get dressed, I had to go out of the tree.
	I'll just take the apple out of the refrigerator if it's there.
	If you want an apple, you could take one fresh off the tree, or take one that was store-bought, and it might be going a little soft, but you'll eat it.
	It goes back to the last podcast you had where you were talking live and you're talking about the benefits or the ramifications of war.
	And you had those two guys come up and you had one guy be a businessman, another guy be a businessman, and the other guy was the crook or the arsonist.
	In my view of that, the first guy If he wanted a crook to go do this for him, he would bind himself in some fashion to that person, such as giving him a daughter to marry, or giving him free tires for life, or they would make a connection.
	And then it's almost like that mob mentality.
	I'm sorry, just because a lot of people haven't heard that speech.
	So, yeah, very briefly, my argument is that in a stateless society, let's say that you want to go and hire someone to burn down the factory of your competitor.
	Then you have to become an expert in hiring people to do underworld violence, expert in hiring arsonists.
	And maybe the arsonist is going to turn around to the – he's going to say, oh, it'll cost you $50,000 for me to burn down the factory with your competitor.
	You don't know because it's the fog of war, so to speak.
	You don't know if he's then going to go to your competitor.
	And say, I'll give you $75,000 for information about this guy that is going to be really important.
	So then he goes and gives $75,000 to your competitor and says, I recorded the conversation where this guy offered me $50,000 to burn down your factory.
	Then your competitor can take you to anarchy court or whatever.
	And then you're in monstrous trouble and the guy doesn't even have to burn anything down.
	In fact, you might get a reward.
	So, I mean, this is where he might just say, give me 75,000 bucks, I'll burn this guy's factory.
	So once you start letting slip the dogs of war, so to speak, you don't know how it's going to end up.
	And that's one of the reasons why people like the state, is that the state, you know how it's going to end up, right?
	Like if you get the state to pass some law that harms your competitor, you know how it's going to end up.
	Which is not in this area of uncertainty.
	And so the state makes evil actions and the use of violence have a certain outcome, whereas the uncertain outcome of, quote, free market violence is one of the things that limits its application and makes it much, much more risky.
	So I just want to mention that.
	So you say there's a solution to that?
	Well, I'm saying that if you were going to pull the trigger, so to speak, and want to burn down You're a competitor's factory.
	Before you commit to that, you would ingratiate yourself to a person and then try to bind him to you in some fashion, either an oath of loyalty like in the mob or mobsters would very much co-mingle their relations.
	I'll give you a son.
	You have a daughter.
	We'll marry.
	Now we're family.
	Now we as a family are going to go take care of that competitor.
	And going back to my theory about path of least resistance, so he burns down the tire factory.
	Hang on a sec.
	Just so we can talk about that point before we get to another point.
	Sure.
	Mm-hmm.
	So your argument is that if you get your daughter to marry the arsonist, then you're protected from retaliation?
	Or the arsonist's son or something in that fashion.
	I'm sorry, you said I think you have kids, right?
	No, I do not have kids yet, but I intend to have children, yes.
	Okay, good.
	I plan on getting married in June.
	Well, congratulations.
	But let me understand this.
	So how do you get your daughter to marry this criminal?
	Well, if you're an evil dude, you don't believe in giving her a choice.
	Yeah, but we're talking about a free society, right?
	So in a free society, you cannot force her to marry anyone, right?
	Sure.
	You can manipulate it, but I hear you.
	Yes.
	Okay, so I'm not sure how you've solved the problem.
	I mean, you can't force your daughter to marry the guy, and you have only so many daughters, and there may be more than one competitor and all that.
	So I'm not sure how we've solved the problem, but I'm certainly willing to hear more.
	Well, I'm sure you've studied Milton Friedman.
	And he believes that we're a family society and not an individual-based society.
	And you've chosen, and I know other people have chosen to hang around like-minded people.
	Now, is your example, the example you presented in your podcast, is that an example where, in your eyes, that all children were raised with non-aggression principles?
	Well, nobody can guarantee that.
	But I know for a fact that The majority of people must be raised according to the non-aggression principle before we have a free society.
	Therefore, if we have a free society, the vast majority of people will be raised peacefully.
	Like, nobody advocates slavery anymore in general.
	You can probably find a few people the world over who, I mean, a few people, let's say, in the West, in Europe, who think that slavery is a good idea, like a few nutbars, right?
	But the vast majority of people are like, yeah, we don't.
	You know, we don't do the slavery thing, right?
	And so, as I've mentioned, evil parents will be very quickly identified in a free society.
	They will be offered resources to improve their parenting, and they will have to pay a huge amount of money if they don't, because their children will be so much more expensive to insure, right?
	Because their children will be...
	A greater capacity for aggression and all that kind of stuff, right?
	So yes, we're going to assume that the vast majority of people are going to be peaceful parents.
	There will still be a few, right?
	Some single mom has a brain tumor and hits her kids and stuff like that.
	I mean, that can certainly happen in a free society.
	Personality might change based upon biological factors and so on.
	But yeah, the vast majority of people will be raised peacefully and there will be very strong incentive systems for that in place.
	Okay, so if your scenario existed in that world, okay, I can hear the more practicality of what you're presenting.
	So, okay, I will move past that one.
	As you're saying, the vast majority of people are already in that scenario.
	Are following non-aggression principles and things of that nature.
	So I would agree that in that kind of world, to get enough evil people around to make a mob family, a la like the Godfather, for example, would there be fewer people for, you know, a Michael Corleone, for example, to go recruit to make his, you know, Domination of his little underworld.
	So I will concede that one to you under the grounds of your statement here.
	Well, sorry, and also just to remind you that the mafia, when you start bringing the underworld and the mafia and organized crime and so on into play, as an argument against sort of free market thinking, I'm sure you're aware of this, but for those who aren't, Organized crime is almost entirely dependent upon the state.
	They are the shadow cast by power.
	What does organized crime make its money from?
	Drugs, gambling, and prostitution.
	And the only reason that they make money from those things is that they're illegal.
	And people wonder why it's hard To legalize drugs.
	Well, it's hard to legalize drugs because I think people who are prominent and look like they're going to be imminently successful in the legalization of drugs might well be targeted by organized crime, right?
	So it is really important to understand that you can't use organized crime analogies in a free society because there is no...
	Organized crime in a free society because they don't get to eliminate competition.
	There is also extortion.
	Give me money or your house will catch fire.
	I don't know why.
	The mob was also an extortion racket where, yes, they did protect businesses.
	Like, that's my business.
	Don't burn that down.
	You're going to deal with me because he's paying me.
	Now, it's almost like you're one of your insurance companies, okay?
	But where the mob did it compared to an insurance company, you're entering a contract with competing insurance companies.
	So in that regard, I mean, I could see where the mob would not exist in a free society as you're describing it because there wouldn't be enough people to organize.
	You know, that mob, so to speak.
	Does that make sense at all?
	Yeah, I think it does.
	And certainly, I mean, in a free society, you could have bad people who threaten to burn down your building, in which case you would call your DRO and say, you know, by the way, I got this guy on camera.
	I have a camera in my store.
	He came in and said that he wants to burn down blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
	And then the DRO would go and And deal with it.
	Would that guy be hugely hard to find?
	You know, probably not.
	Even if he was some anonymous thing, they would put security guards around your place.
	They would put cameras and motion detectors and sensors and all of that around your place.
	And they would just make it tough.
	That's all.
	Is your pain for that service?
	Sure, yeah.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Okay, so I will capitulate that topic.
	Thank you, though.
	I mean, I want to make sure we're in that criteria.
	So the other question is, is how do you deal with – I've heard you mention this before about segregating yourself from people that won't change.
	Like you said, you actually lost friends over exes.
	I don't specifically remember what, but you as a public speaker and as a philosopher or teacher, you've repeated yourself a number of times about non-aggression principle, stuff like that, to strangers, people that you have no emotional attachment to whatsoever.
	They're strangers, which is great.
	But, for example, my parents are...
	You know, Christian.
	They never, I mean, since I've become an adult and that they've sort of let me migrate away from the church.
	They don't pressure me to go to the church and things of that nature.
	But why would I segregate myself from them because they don't believe as I do?
	I mean, that's like showing a massive lack of tolerance, doesn't it?
	It's so funny how this happens in general.
	One of the reasons these shows are so long is that people only get to their real issues at the end, right?
	You know, what is a more important moral question to you at the moment, right?
	Your relationship with your parents or how arson might be combated 200 years from now, right?
	Okay, okay.
	Sorry.
	Okay, so if I understand this correctly, you're saying that an intolerance of other people's viewpoints is not good, right?
	To people that you are mostly invested in.
	Well, I would not say...
	Look, if it's a moral principle, then it can't be blood-based, right?
	Like, if you say, well, don't murder people inside your clan, that's maybe practical considerations of unity and defense, but that's not a moral principle.
	A moral principle is not dependent upon...
	Relationships, right?
	Like if I said, you know, don't rape black women, would that be moral?
	Not really, right?
	Well, yeah.
	I mean, don't rape them.
	Don't rape any women.
	Don't rape anyone?
	Yeah, that would be a moral statement.
	Don't rape black women would be an implicit, yeah, but everyone else is fair game, right?
	Oh, yeah.
	Okay, yeah.
	Okay, so I said, if I understand what you're right, you're saying intolerance of other people's opinions or perspectives is a negative, right?
	I think so, yes.
	Okay.
	And you said that your parents are Christians, right?
	Which obviously means that they believe in the moral validity of the Bible, right?
	Well, see, I know we're going to go here, and you're going to jump on Old Testament scripture and things of that nature, but here's my problem with the Bible.
	I've never heard my Christian parents – I've never heard any of my religious people I grew up with say, well, we need to kill all the atheists.
	I know the Bible might say that, but the Bible hasn't been amended.
	No one's gone in and said, You know, maybe this should be adjusted here.
	Like the Constitution, the United States Constitution, which I know you have your beefs with, but it's been amended over the years to be changed.
	Now, no one has the balls to stand up and say, I'm going to amend the Bible.
	Maybe you should do that.
	That'd be a really interesting tactic for you to do.
	No, see, if I'm going to amend the Bible, they already sell books with blank pages.
	They're just called notebooks.
	So I don't think I... I just scrubbed the whole damn thing, so...
	No, but you understand the issue, right?
	So if intolerance of other people's perspective is a bad thing, then the fact that your parents worship a deity who commands the faithful to kill me...
	And to kill my wife and to kill my friends and so on.
	That is far more intolerant than anything I could ever conceivably imagine coming out of my mouth.
	So if intolerance is the issue, focusing on me is avoiding the issue, right?
	Okay.
	Now, if your parents say, and I have no doubt that they do, if your parents say, I reject...
	The moral commandment to kill unbelievers because it's evil.
	Which it is, right?
	Obviously.
	Well then, okay.
	I think that's...
	I'm relieved.
	Right?
	I think that's great.
	But what they're then saying is that there are moral standards which condemn the commandments in the Bible as utterly evil.
	In fact, if that commandment were followed...
	In other words, kill everyone who is an unbeliever.
	Since the Bible is contradictory, following that commandment would require that all of humanity be wiped out.
	Because there's no such thing as a believer.
	Like, there's no such thing as a Christian.
	Because the Christian documents are entirely contradictory.
	And therefore, you cannot possibly be consistent with those doctrines.
	I mean, an eye for an eye, or turn the other cheek.
	Love your enemies, kill your enemies.
	I mean, you could go on and on.
	Contradictions in the Bible is sort of a, there's a whole cottage industry on the internet, just look at it and, you know...
	Do this on the Sabbath day.
	Whatever you do, don't do that on the Sabbath day.
	I mean, it's impossible.
	It's literally impossible to follow the Bible, and therefore everyone can be classified as an unbeliever.
	So kill unbelievers means wipe out the entire human race, because there's no such thing as a consistent believer in biblical doctrine, because there's no such thing as consistent biblical doctrine.
	And so I'm glad that your parents are not into eliminating the entire human race.
	I think that's great.
	But the moment that they say that this doctrine in the Bible is evil and irrational, then what they're saying is that there's a moral standard that is infinitely superior to the Bible.
	Right?
	I think that's great too.
	No, that has to follow.
	If they reject the murder of unbelievers, then they're saying God was evil when he said that.
	God has allowed that to be passed down as doctrine.
	Therefore, even if we say, well, that was a mistranslation and that was the right, God only has made himself known to humanity by intervening in the affairs of people.
	I mean, God is not a deist, right?
	God is not some ghost out there beyond Alpha Centauri that we'll never see.
	God comes down and talks to people and corrects them and tells them to go rape the virgins and kill the men in the enemy city and goes and drowns all of the people in the story of Noah's Ark and the flood and so on.
	So God is doing all this kind of intervening, right?
	All the time.
	And so if there's something in the Bible that That is evil.
	Then God...
	It's there because God allows it to be there.
	Obviously God could change all of the words in the Bible.
	He could write in the sky.
	Sorry, this was a mistranslation.
	He could come down and divinely inspire someone who was doing the translation to fix the translation.
	So if there's something in the Bible, it's there because God wants it to be there.
	Because God is only in the Bible because He wants to be there.
	So...
	The commandment to murder unbelievers is God's will.
	Now, clearly, that is an evil doctrine.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Okay, okay, okay.
	Here is another atheist.
	Do you know who J. Michael Krzynski is?
	No.
	J. Michael Krzynski, he wrote Babylon 5.
	It's a sci-fi series back in the 90s.
	But he had a very interesting...
	Aspect about God and how he presented it is there was, in his world, science fiction, fantasy, of course, there were a bunch of ancient races called first ones, okay?
	And they basically created us and then just left, okay?
	So God, the Christian's God, okay?
	If you go to that philosophy, he may be somewhere else in the universe.
	He's like, I'm tired of that ant farm over there.
	That was cool.
	I'm not sure why we're discussing a science fiction series when I'm in the process of making a rational argument.
	Well, you're talking about God, if God existed, could tell us that's wrong.
	I'm saying if God exists and he is just not caring for No, no, no, sorry.
	No, but we're talking about Christianity here.
	You said your parents are Christians.
	We're not talking about the theology of Babylon 5.
	Right?
	I mean, I can understand why you'd want to bring that up, because this is uncomfortable stuff.
	But...
	No, God has directly dictated...
	The Bible is the divine word of God that is inspired by God, dictated by God, and all the translations are monitored by God and corrected by God, of course, right?
	And so, if your parents...
	Accept the Bible as the Word of God.
	I don't even mean the literal Word of God.
	I mean, the Bible is the Word of God.
	The only reason it's a theological document is because it describes and is the result of the work of the deity.
	And so clearly, even just that one commandment to slaughter unbelievers is so abysmally evil that it cannot be the product of a virtuous deity.
	It is either not the product of a deity or Or it is.
	Now, if it's not the product of the deity, then the deity cannot be omnipotent, right?
	Correct.
	Because if God somehow is unable to correct what people write down based on what he says, then God cannot be all-powerful.
	In other words, he can't even get someone to correct a misquote like kill all the unbelievers, right?
	Now, if God doesn't have the power to do that, then he can't be God.
	He can't be omnipotent.
	He can't have the power to make the entire universe, to create human beings from clay, to make it rain for 40 days and 40 nights, to bring people back from the dead, but not have the power to correct a typo, right?
	So God cannot be all-powerful if He cannot correct that typo in the Bible, or that and many, many other typos in the Bible.
	Now, if God is all-powerful, which seems to be a characteristic of God, or if God at least has significant power, Then he has the power to correct a typo.
	If the typo is not corrected, it must be to God's pleasing.
	And therefore God must be an enthusiastic endorser of the principle kill unbelievers.
	Now if that is the case, then God is evil.
	So God is either completely helpless to fix a typo, in which case he's not God, or God can fix a typo but has decided not to correct the doctrine kill unbelievers, in which case he's evil.
	Also, if God is helpless, then the Bible is entirely false.
	If God cannot fix a typo, in other words, he's virtuous, but somebody misheard him, and he actually meant respect unbelievers, but somebody wrote down kill unbelievers, if he's completely helpless to fix that, not only is God not God, but the stories in the Bible where God has significant power must be false.
	Sure.
	Well, let me ask you this question.
	Assuming there is no God.
	I agree with that.
	There is no Christian God.
	Wait, sorry to interrupt you, but you brought this up with regards to your parents.
	If we get into abstract theology, I'm concerned that we're not going to address your question.
	Back to my parents.
	I tolerate and I love my parents.
	I am emotionally invested in them.
	And they've done a great thing to allow me to live my life.
	I am, you know, a militant agnostic.
	I hate organized religion.
	But I think the God that's in the Bible may have been something that is not the Christian God, but something of potency that helped form us at one time in our lives.
	At some point.
	I'm not saying that they...
	I think that the thing that someone saw as a god was mortal and it's died.
	It's been dead for a long time.
	Okay?
	Okay.
	Based on...
	It's like that whole can thing where you...
	Sorry, sorry.
	I mean, I just have to interrupt you there.
	I mean, this is a philosophy show, which you know, right?
	Yes, yes.
	So your opinions about something with potency that might have created us and died...
	It has no bearing whatsoever on any truth statement, right?
	Sure.
	You have an opinion about something that may or may not have happened in some incomprehensible manner at some unfathomable time in the past that can never be verified or recorded and is entirely irrational.
	So this has no...
	I mean, what you're saying has no place in a philosophy show because you're making completely wild claims with no...
	Empirical substantiation, which repeatedly violate the laws of physics and therefore are impossible and are, you know, impossible to verify.
	I just want to point out that in this area, this is the cost of religion, right?
	In this area, you sound like a lunatic.
	And with all due respect, and you're a nice guy and all that, and you're a smart guy, and I'm enjoying the conversation, but you sound like a madman when you're talking about something of potency that created us and died.
	Not created like out of thin air.
	Okay.
	No, it doesn't matter.
	The in thin air is not the problem, right?
	And again, I'm not trying to be mean nasty.
	I'm just telling you that it's insane.
	Like what you're saying is deranged.
	I'm saying that something led us at a certain time in our lives or in human history.
	You're right.
	It cannot be clarified.
	Let's call it my delusion.
	No, it's not your delusion.
	Look, I'm sorry to be clear.
	It's not your delusion.
	You're a smart guy saying crazy things, and all that means is that you love your parents, and you're troubled by their religiosity, and this is an emotional defense that allows you to live with it.
	Am I wrong?
	That could be, yes.
	At the beginning of the show, I said, people will create justifications...
	For what they prefer.
	Right?
	So you say you're a militant agnostic.
	Whatever that sounds like a complete contradiction to me.
	But you are troubled by your parents' religiosity.
	And you don't want to confront them on their religiosity.
	And that's fine.
	Look, I mean, it's your family, right?
	Do whatever you want.
	The only thing that I would suggest...
	Instead of inventing Babylon 5 deities, you simply accept that you're troubled by your parents' religiosity.
	You are not, at the moment, comfortable with talking to them about it and attempting to reason them out of their faith.
	Just be honest.
	I mean, you don't need to invent all this other stuff with militant agnosticism, because the only thing that matters is honesty with yourself.
	And if you don't have honesty with yourself, then you're going to end up with all this distorted thinking.
	So you're troubled by your parents' religiosity, which makes sense.
	Religiosity is troubling.
	And you don't want to talk about it with them at the moment.
	You may never want to talk about it with them.
	You may feel that if you talk about it with them, it will irreparably harm your relationship with them.
	And that may well be true, right?
	And if you decide not to talk about religion with your parents, I mean, that's fine.
	I mean, not that you care what I think, right?
	But you can decide not to talk about religion with your parents.
	Or what I really mean by that is, You can postpone having the conversation about religion with your parents until after your son or daughter is born because it'll come up then, I guarantee you.
	Religion is drawn to the young, right?
	Because the young lack independent critical thinking and they're, of course, dependent on their parents for sustenance and the best time to get people to believe irrational stuff is when they're young, obviously, right?
	We don't tell stories of Santa Claus to 23-year-olds, right?
	And so, if you don't want to talk to your parents about religion, I mean, that's your choice.
	That's your choice.
	It's saying something about the limits of the relationship.
	In other words, your concern is that if your parents are asked to choose between God and you, they will choose God.
	They will choose delusion over you.
	That's painful, right?
	That's scary.
	That's upsetting.
	Nobody should choose ghosts over flesh and blood.
	But you are telling me very clearly that you are concerned about that.
	That is a terrifying conversation to have, which it is, of course, right?
	But I think you just need to be honest with yourself about all of that and not come up with this other stuff.
	Hmm.
	It's interesting how you did that because, you know, I've tried, I have an older brother, a younger brother, and my younger brother converted to Catholicism to marry his wife, and he has a child.
	And then my older brother, he has a child now, and I try to talk to his wife about, she's like, Santa Claus is coming.
	I was like, you're really going to start that lie?
	And I was like, she's like, what are you talking about?
	I was like, Santa.
	And I was like, yeah, you tell him that lie.
	What are you going to do to tell him about God when he figures out, you know, You can't prove God exists.
	Because if you said Santa exists, and then he figures out later, well, Santa doesn't exist.
	Well, who else doesn't exist?
	What else has mom and dad been lying to me about?
	Because, you know, they're all, you know, the majority of my family is still religious, but I try to poke at them like that.
	Like, are you going to tell them that lie?
	What other lies are you going to tell them?
	You know, and try to make them think that But with most of the times when you help people or when you try to offer your advice, you're like, go confront your parents about this.
	Okay?
	Which, you're right, I'm going to have to do.
	No, I didn't.
	No, no, no, no, no, no.
	I did not say go confront your parents about this.
	What did I say?
	You said that when my child is born, it will come up.
	They will initiate it.
	Okay?
	And at that point, we're going to have to have that conversation.
	Okay?
	Okay.
	But the thing is, their parents are now long dead.
	So how do I help them without...
	Because part of the healing process, you say, is discuss, come to an understanding, and move on.
	But their bridge to that is their parents are dead.
	So how can I get them...
	Or I may not be able to convince them, but...
	Because how do I repair them?
	Because I'm emotionally invested in them.
	I love them.
	Is there any advice you can give when that topic...
	I mean, other than just point out the facts, what you just did to me here, like, hey, if God's this, he should be able to do this.
	You agree that this is wrong, right, Dad?
	Yes.
	Then you have to agree everything else could be wrong, too.
	But he...
	He doesn't have that bridge to his parents anymore to help the healing process.
	Does that make sense at all?
	Well, I'm not sure if I understand you correctly.
	You're saying that talking to your parents about things you disagree with and trying to find a resolution is important, but your father can't do that because his parents are dead?
	Yeah, I mean, he doesn't have that mechanism to help heal himself.
	Well, but you don't I mean, people whose parents die don't stop growing emotionally and intellectually the next day, right?
	It's true.
	You don't have to.
	I mean, psychologists say you can go talk to the gravestone.
	You can write imaginary conversations.
	The person doesn't have to be in the chair for you to chat with them.
	I mean, there's lots of things you can do that are sort of creative and imaginative to work on that kind of stuff.
	But I don't believe that...
	The death of a parent means that you can't anymore process trauma.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	It's a good way to think of it.
	You're saying I should give them a little bit more credit.
	Just people in general, you should give them a little bit more credit.
	Well, I don't think there's anything in philosophy which says because your parents are dead, the truth is denied to you.
	True, true, true.
	Okay.
	Well, Stephan, it's been really great.
	I hope that one day I can call back in again.
	I talked to Mike and he says there's a plug for people that want to come and talk to you, which I can understand.
	But, you know, I'll let you get to the next caller.
	And thank you.
	It's an enlightening conversation.
	Thank you.
	And listen, I want to tell you something that I hope you will Appreciate.
	I don't mean like you owe me appreciation, I just hope.
	I am very sorry that you're in this position.
	I'm very sorry that your parents are in this position.
	I really am.
	I'm sorry that you have to compete with ghosts in the hearts of your parents.
	I'm very sorry that having a simple conversation about reality and truth It's so emotionally alarming, and I get that it is.
	I get that it is, and you're not wrong about that, in my opinion.
	I'm very sorry that these 5,000-year-old Stone Age deities are still casting their shadows between the hugs of people.
	I'm very sorry that these ancient superstitions are still clogging the clear veins of human communication.
	And I'm sorry that this confrontation has to occur.
	I'm sorry that this emotional risk has to occur.
	If it does occur, it's up to you.
	Maybe up to your parents.
	But if it does, I'm incredibly sorry that this is still part of your relationship.
	Right?
	I mean, it's not your fault.
	And to some degree, to some degree, it's not your parents' fault.
	Because what they were propagandized with as children, they are not responsible for.
	They are responsible for thinking and reviewing the facts as adults.
	But I'm very sorry That after hundreds of years of science and reason and thousands of years of philosophy, this is still a conversation that billions of people the world over are probably going to end up having, which is alarming and difficult and may result in your parents choosing ghosts over you,
	which I think is about as tragic as As can be.
	So, I just want to say, I'm kind of pissed at philosophers throughout the ages for not making this stuff clearer.
	I'm kind of pissed that the philosophers who have been atheists, like Skinner, tend to be totalitarian socialists at the same time.
	You know, pick your poison is not how you encourage people to grow and to change.
	Hey, step out of the church and step into my Skinner box of kibbles and sparks.
	Oh yeah.
	You take one master for another.
	I think it's terrible.
	I'm sorry that your parents were given that false dichotomy.
	The only thing I can say is that the conversations are so uncomfortable that they've been postponed until the 21st century.
	So I am very sorry that you're in this position.
	I just wanted to really mention that.
	Thank you, sir.
	You're welcome.
	Bye now.
	Bye.
	Alright, Harry.
	You're up next, Harry.
	Go ahead.
	Hello.
	Do I sound alright with my 15 buck headset?
	Not great, but certainly better than the last one.
	Oh, okay, sorry.
	Okay, so this is like a relatively simple point.
	I'm sure you've argued against it before.
	So in your recent Mailbag show, you talked about the tangible, visible benefits versus the invisible costs for state-funded projects like NASA, like the space launch and the moon landing and stuff.
	Why did you not talk about or do you not think that government institutions have access to economies of scale which can introduce more innovation than private sector institutions?
	So with NASA, I mean, sure, they've got the pretty rise pictures and stuff, but a lot of what they've done is create innovative technologies that have probably had big multiplier effects in other areas of the economy.
	So what would you think of that topic, like of government institutions being innovative and creating technologies that might not have otherwise been created by the same money being spent in the private sector?
	Well, I have no doubt that that is the case.
	I mean, I'm sure that certain technologies have been created by government spending that otherwise would not have been created.
	I have no doubt about that.
	Those are the visible benefits.
	The hidden costs are all the technologies that would have been created otherwise.
	And we have no way of knowing, for instance, if the internet as it currently stands is the best way for mass human communication.
	Internet comes with scams.
	Internet is not secure.
	Internet is subject to spam, right?
	I don't know.
	Would it be more economically advantageous for people to spend one penny an email to send it?
	Would that be economically advantageous?
	Well, currently the architecture basically doesn't work that way.
	So I don't know.
	I have no idea.
	Whether things are the right way or not.
	They are the way they are, and some of it has to do with government spending.
	So sure, I have no doubt that when NASA spends a billion dollars, that stuff comes out of that, and some of that stuff has utility to the private sector.
	Absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	But the reality is, there's all this stuff that wasn't created.
	That would otherwise exist.
	So if I say to you, listen, take a million, work really hard, take a million dollars, and then go burn it in a big pile in your front yard.
	And because of that, other people's money will become marginally more valuable because some money has been taken out of circulation.
	You would probably say to me, well, that's not really a good idea even though there's general benefits.
	There are very specific costs, right?
	And if you only say, well, I've got something which will magically make other people's money more valuable, you'd be like, great, let's make other people's money more valuable.
	And if I say, well, it involves burning a million dollars of yours, you'd say, well, I'm not really so down for that, right?
	Okay, yeah.
	But if we talk about an injection into the economy, so if we have, say, a billion dollar injection to NASA or to a state-funded institution, versus the opportunity cost of a billion dollar injection into the private sector, or just that billion dollars not being collected through taxes, Isn't it likely that that money is likely to be spent more efficiently in the public sector because they have access to these economies of scale?
	You know, they can bring all the top scientists and stuff together.
	Within the private sector, first of all, it depends on the marginal propensity to save, right?
	Because people are going to save some of that money.
	It's not all going to be spent.
	I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean by money being spent more efficiently.
	I'm not sure what that means.
	I mean, so, in terms of, like, net benefit.
	I'm not sure what you mean by net.
	I don't think that there's an argument to be made for money being spent efficiently.
	I mean, that's saying that there's some external standard by which money should be spent.
	If we talk about money making more money, if we put a billion dollars into the public sector, isn't it likely to create more innovations to lead to larger standards of growth than it would be if that money was put into the private sector?
	Well, but we don't need taxation for that, right?
	So, if you're an investor and you have a billion dollars, right?
	Then you can decide to invest that money in something called the public sector or some company, in a free society, some company that mirrors what the public sector is doing right now, and then you will get a lot of benefits, right?
	So you will get Tang, right?
	And you will get other things that come out of the space program, and that would be a really worthwhile investment to you.
	But I don't think that if you have an investor, I don't think that they're going to want to give a billion dollars to NASA as an investment, right?
	They're going to want to give it to private companies where they can get equity, where they can monitor the progress and so on.
	And the billion dollars that goes into NASA is simply a billion dollars that's not available for people to start their own companies.
	Right?
	There are literally hundreds of thousands of people who never got a chance to start their own company because of NASA. Because that money was not available as startup seed capital.
	Right?
	So this is really, really important.
	You know, you can say, well, we got some benefit.
	Yeah, okay.
	Hundreds of thousands of people ended up working for someone else when they desperately wanted to be an entrepreneur because that money was not available to them to start their own company.
	And if you're going to say to me that giving a billion dollars to NASA is empirically better than hundreds of thousands of people pursuing their own dreams, trying to meet actual market needs...
	Growing companies based upon their own passions and their own capacity to satisfy consumer demands, you cannot possibly say to me that that's empirically better because the other thing is not knowable except that it conforms with virtue and doesn't involve theft.
	And, you know, as far as economic efficiency goes, that which is most economically efficient is that which facilitates people's free choice the best.
	But that's the only thing.
	Economic efficiency is not people spend their money sensibly.
	There's no such thing as spending your money sensibly at all.
	Because that's everyone's personal choice.
	Right?
	So, you cannot tell people how their money should be spent.
	I mean, you can tell them, I think maybe you should not spend quite as much money on gambling, and gambling may be a bad decision for someone.
	But you cannot possibly force someone to spend their money in a better way.
	Because That's violating property rights to suit your preferences.
	And again, we don't have the except for.
	I respect property rights except if somebody's a gambler.
	You cannot.
	And also, what if they gamble and they end up making a million dollars?
	I don't know.
	Some people who play poker make a huge amount of money.
	I mean, I can't tell them that's...
	I mean, there's no such thing as economic efficiency other than not using violence to determine the outcome of a money trajectory.
	Does that make any sense?
	It does make sense, but I mean, isn't the point that from technologies created by NASA, people have the opportunity to create businesses anyway.
	So I mean, there's a load of jobs made for NASA. It's not like everybody wants to be an entrepreneur, right?
	So even if there was access to that money, A lot of people still might want to go and, well, you know, do what they like in science, something that's not necessarily massively, it doesn't necessarily make them a huge amount of money.
	But then they have the opportunity to go and work for NASA or institutions like that in producing, you know, doing some really great things.
	I mean, short and less good things, whatever.
	But then also NASA creates the innovative technologies that means that people who do want to become entrepreneurs have working.
	The market changes and there's more possibilities.
	There's new emerging markets and stuff.
	So there's actually more opportunities.
	No, no, no, no, no.
	No, sorry, sorry.
	So, I didn't say everyone wants to be an entrepreneur.
	You have to, you know, listen with precision, right?
	I mean, I said, right, I said hundreds of thousands of people, which is probably conservative, did not get a chance over the last 40 years to start their own business and save everyone, right?
	But there's two fundamental things that NASA does that is harmful to entrepreneurship, right?
	The first, of course, is it sucks up Capital, right?
	And the second thing is it sucks up human capital, right?
	So it's much more expensive to hire an engineer in the free market because of the pay that NASA will provide them, right?
	And so as a result, not only do people pay in terms of taxes, but they also pay in terms of having to pay more for every other thing that involves engineers or scientists or technologists or whatever, because every entrepreneur has to compete with NASA in terms of paying scientists, right?
	Sure, but then more people become engineers and the equilibrium comes down.
	Okay, but you've got to understand economic thinking.
	More people become engineers, which means there are fewer doctors.
	So people then have to pay more for doctors.
	You see, you can't escape it, right?
	I suppose.
	But can I just bring it back to that point where you said that money would be available for entrepreneurs or people who wanted to start their own business?
	I mean, that's the same thing, but yeah.
	It might be.
	Some of it would be, yeah.
	So, yeah, surely only a relatively small portion it would be, because if that money is taken to taxation, then, you know, it's not like all of that money is injected back into the economy.
	And it's not like that money becomes available.
	That money, some of that money, would have gone into spending in, you know, whatever, in the private sector.
	But that doesn't necessarily mean that the money is available to entrepreneurs.
	Yeah.
	The whole point is we don't know.
	I mean, that's what I'm saying.
	We don't know what would have been created in the absence of the space program.
	We have no idea.
	I agree with you.
	But if you have to weigh up the relative benefits, then you have to think, right, there's visible benefits.
	No, but then, sorry, you have to look.
	Defending NASA has nothing to do with what you're saying.
	If you think that some centralized space agency...
	It's going to produce net benefits for society, then what you need to do is go make that case to society, right?
	You need to buy ads and go give speeches and tour the world and say, listen, for 50 bucks a year, you can have this.
	You get to see guys go to the moon, you get movies filmed with Tom Hanks and Kevin Bacon in the belly of an aircraft at steep descent, you get all this, you get Tang, you get all kinds of cool stuff, right?
	You get bits of Sally floating on the water, whatever it is, right?
	So, If you think that it's got benefit and you can make that case, then go make the case.
	And you may end up with something very similar to what we have now.
	What you can't do is force people to fund it, right?
	No, that's the only thing that matters.
	See, people...
	People think that, like, well, you have to make this case for NASA. It's like, okay, go make the case for NASA. But you can't make the case for NASA with me using reason and evidence and then say, well, fuck it, we're going to point guns at people to find it anyway.
	Right?
	Like, if you want guns pointed at people, then don't pretend to make a case.
	Right?
	Don't buy flowers for someone you're going to rape, to use an extreme metaphor.
	Right?
	So the moment that, I'm not saying you, but the moment people say, well, you know, I'm going to make this case, but it doesn't matter if you agree with it or not.
	I'm still going to steal the money from you anyway.
	Right?
	Then it's like, okay, well then don't make the case.
	Right?
	Don't bother.
	If you can make the case effectively, then you don't need the gun.
	And if you're going to make the gun, if you're going to use the gun, then don't make the case.
	It's an insult, right?
	Okay.
	I know.
	I understand.
	I do kind of agree.
	I think you get it.
	Maybe that makes sense.
	All right.
	So, you don't necessarily agree with, like, centralized...
	Okay, yeah.
	You disagree with centralized institutions.
	You don't agree with the collective systems that are funded through non-coerced units, right?
	Oh, I think space travel is super cool.
	I love astronomy.
	I love the Hubble telescope.
	I think space travel is super cool.
	I think space travel is so super cool that I want the government to have nothing to do with it so that I get to go to space before I'm dead.
	I would love to go into space.
	I would love to experience zero gravity in tiny shorts in a fetal position.
	I would love to do that.
	I just don't want the government having a monopoly on it because when the government has a monopoly on it, it's never going to be available to me.
	As long as the government is doing all this space travel, it's going to be an elite activity unavailable to the masses.
	Like if the government was running cell phones, I would never get a cell phone.
	If the government is running space travel, I never get to go to space.
	So I love space travel so much, I want to get the government out of the way so I can buy a ticket.
	But cell phones came as the products of government innovation.
	So if you didn't have the government collecting people's taxes and dealing with everything, you might not have a cell phone anyway.
	Are you saying that the cell phone is the product of state power?
	I'm saying that the technology, or one of the technology which created cell phones, is a product of state power.
	So without that state power, the technology wouldn't exist.
	Oh, so then by that argument...
	Oh, sorry.
	So then by that argument, the more powerful the state is, the faster the economic growth and technology growth should be, right?
	Are you going to make that argument?
	Yeah.
	I'm not saying it's philosophically justified.
	No, no.
	Your argument is...
	Your argument is the bigger the government...
	The faster the economy should grow and the faster technology should grow, right?
	Well, sure.
	I mean, I'm sure that the point...
	Okay, so you, I'm sure, are fairly aware.
	Hang on a sec.
	Hang on.
	Hang on.
	So you're fairly aware, of course, that the history of the world has been the history of restraining state power.
	And therefore, we should have had the greatest technological growth when governments were the biggest and the most powerful, which would be sort of ancient Babylon, ancient Egypt, and so on.
	Of course, that's quite the opposite.
	The more powerful states are, the less economic.
	So the most powerful state, I would argue, probably is North Korea.
	And so North Korea should have the highest standard of living and the greatest technological advancements, right?
	No, because that doesn't take into account how the government spends the money.
	Right, so if we have governments which spend money on institutions like NASA, or like technological or scientific institutions, then yeah, if the government is bigger, then more money is going to get spent in those places.
	So there is going to be more innovation, there's going to be more scientific development.
	But in a place like North Korea, where maybe they're not spending their money on the right things, or they're not investing in emerging technologies, then that's not going to happen.
	So can you tell me which government spending produced the internal combustion engine or the power loom for agricultural innovation?
	Which government spending produced the brace for the horse's neck rather than its throat which allowed much more efficient farming or winter crops or using turnips and so on?
	Or which government spending created the steam engine and so on, right?
	Because in the past, right, I mean, in the Industrial Revolution, there was not massive government agencies spending money on technology, but there was a huge amount of technological innovation, right?
	Yeah, sure, but that's not to say that if there wasn't more government standing in those areas, that there would be more innovation.
	Well, now we're back to visible benefits versus hidden costs.
	I feel we've gone full circle, and in the interest of time, I'm going to have to move on to the next caller, but thank you for calling.
	It's a very interesting conversation.
	Who's up next, mate?
	Thank you.
	All right, Joe.
	You're up next, Joe.
	Go ahead.
	Hi, Stefan.
	Hello.
	How are you?
	I'm very well.
	How are you doing?
	I'm doing quite well.
	To be honest, I'm pretty nervous right now.
	So, you know, just keep that in mind.
	I appreciate that, and I just wanted to tell you that the best conversations always start when people are talking about how they feel.
	So, good for you.
	Okay.
	And, you know, I just also want to thank you for just all your work and Mike's help as well.
	It's been a real great improvement to my thinking over the last eight months or so.
	It's really set my atheistic thinking straight.
	I'm very glad.
	But to get to my point, I recently launched a podcast you did about six years ago.
	about drugs and there was one set of drugs that you did not talk about which I have found much interest in and those are the psychedelic hallucinogens and I was wondering what your thoughts about those were.
	I have mine pretty set in stone with evidence but I'd like to hear your thoughts first.
	I mean, so you mean the ones that alter sense experience, is that right?
	Yeah.
	Like LSD and so on, right?
	Yeah.
	Right, so these are ones that don't necessarily give you a sense of euphoria, but will create waking visual hallucinations, is that right?
	True.
	Right.
	Well, I mean, there's no philosophical content to that, right?
	I mean, induced hallucinations are induced hallucinations.
	Philosophy can say, well, they're hallucinations that you are messing with your sensory mechanism to the point where it's producing things that aren't there, right?
	So philosophically, the question is, why would you want to break something, right?
	I mean, you are making them not work.
	Right?
	So if you have, you know, you take LSD and the moon looks like it's on fire or something, which was somebody telling me their LSD experience one.
	They looked at the moon and the moon looked like it was on fire.
	Well, the moon's not on fire, so you've kind of broken your sense data, right?
	And why would you want to do that?
	I mean, it's like cutting your arm.
	I mean, why would you want to do that?
	Well, unless you're in some kind of pain.
	Right?
	I mean, why would you want to...
	No, it is.
	Sorry, it is.
	Sorry, it is insofar as you're damaging something that will heal, right?
	So once you come off the LSD, then you don't see the hallucinations anymore, except, of course, it stays in your fat cells and can be released at any time in the future.
	So you're kind of messing with a lot of stuff there.
	But I don't mean in terms of it's being painful.
	What I mean is that you're voluntarily damaging something which will heal over time, right?
	And so you are damaging...
	Your brain's capacity to create meaningful sense data that accurately reflects the empirical world you live in.
	And I guess my question is, why would you want to damage that aspect of your brain, even if we say it's temporary, and even if we say you'll never have a flashback?
	I just, you know, I can't understand why you'd want to take something that works well and break it.
	Well, there are a lot of...
	So what psychedelics do is they really change perception.
	And they can do that on a very intense emotional level, which can change people's views to a more empathetic.
	Or I guess what psychedelics really do is they just really open up the variation between So when you experience things that are, you know, happy, you feel really happy.
	And when you experience something that's, you know, maybe just is uncomfortable, it might feel very terrifying.
	And this is a part of...
	A couple factors that make these drugs different from a lot of other drugs, which...
	Okay, so, sorry, you're making a lot of claims here.
	So, I know that in the 60s, there were a number of psychiatrists who tried to treat sociopathy with hallucinogens.
	And they made people far worse.
	So the idea that hallucinogens can regrow empathy, the growth of empathy is an early childhood brain structural event that altering people's perceptual processing later on in life does not replace years of early nurturing.
	I don't believe that it is possible or has ever been scientifically proven that hallucinogens cause the growth of mirror neurons in the brain.
	So, people may feel a sense of empathy, but I don't know that it actually regrows the part of the brain that is missing when people, right?
	Because it's easily testable, right?
	It's very easy to test, right?
	I mean, there's very clear tests for sociopathy, both verbal and fMRI, scan the brain and so on.
	You see if the happy center lights up when they see people in pain and so on.
	So then you would do that.
	People would then take this stuff and then they would test them again afterwards to see if there's been an improvement in empathy.
	And it seems to be quite the opposite, that they become more sociopathic when the LSD is applied.
	At least that's what happened in the past.
	So I'm going to stop you there because I was very inaccurate.
	So I've recently had a discussion with a I'm a psychiatrist who is administering MDMA, which is also known as ecstasy.
	It's not a classical psychedelic where it makes you see stuff, but it's classified as an empathogen, or more formally an empathogen, which means N for endogenous, tacto for feeling, and gen for creation, so creative feelings.
	Basically, and these feelings have been categorized scientifically to lower fear and to increase openness, and this has led to a potential use in treating PTSD,
	which is being studied actually by the U.S. government for military I would urge you to look at a lot of new science coming out about psychedelics,
	mainly on a good website called maps.org, which stands for Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies.
	In which they promote and catalog a lot of scientific research.
	And a lot of this research, I mean, especially with, you know, like...
	Sorry.
	I'm really interested right now.
	So...
	Okay.
	Can you just talk because I'm really...
	Oh, sure.
	No, no problem at all.
	We'll get to that in a sec.
	So I'm just looking at a place called Scientopia.org and it's called The Clinical Trials of MDMA for PTSD, Garbage In, Garbage Out.
	And so a study was released.
	It made the bold claim that MDMA augmented therapy has an 89% success rate in treating PTSD. The study was first published back in 2011, and the study tried to use a double-blind design to investigate the effects of MDMA as a psychotherapy adjunct, that means sort of in conjunction with psychotherapy.
	They recruited 20 subjects, and then they used an unbalanced design, unequal sample sizes.
	Their active drug group was 12 subjects.
	The inactive placebo group was 8 subjects.
	They used common evaluation tools such as the CAPS as the clinician-administered So they wanted to compare MDMA to a placebo.
	For the active drug, they administered 125 mg of MDMA at the start of the therapy session and offered an optional supplemental dose of 62.5 mg of MDMA, 2 to 2.5 mg I assume they also offered a supplemental dose to the inactive group.
	Not all the subjects took them up on this.
	That kind of complicates things, right?
	So some people got more MDMA and some people got less.
	It also gets harder to interpret this when you also consider that patients were asked to discontinue use of any psychotherapeutics for the duration of the study, right?
	So this is the SSRIs.
	And so we don't know if they had withdrawal effects, rebound effects, how long were they off the meds.
	There's no way to know.
	So when you wish to make a big claim, your work is under a level of scrutiny that directly correlates with the size of the claim you intend to make.
	Their entire study design seems to treat subjects and groups inconsistently, which is a big problem when you want to harp on the strengths of the prospective double-blind design of the study.
	They found plenty of effects which may or may not be directly related to the primary finding, that people are very good at determining whether or not you gave them MDMA, right?
	So the study observers know who has the MDMA and the people can feel the effects of the MDMA or not, right?
	So it's kind of a challenge.
	So let's see.
	They offered MDMA plus therapy to their placebo group members in an open-label crossover phase.
	Except for one placebo subject, they felt satisfied with their experience and declined further participation in the study.
	So a second placebo subject experienced a decrease in their score, of CAPS score, from 54 to 15 after therapy, which later increased to 64.
	It makes me ponder the effect of the therapy protocol as well as the drug treatment, right?
	So both therapy, like you need the long-term studies and all that.
	You need a much bigger set of experiments.
	You need true double-blind stuff.
	And ideally you should be applying a medication that's not pretty obvious whether it's in there or not.
	Or not.
	So again, I'm not saying this, you know, it's a tiny study.
	It's primarily female, primarily survivors of child abuse or sexual trauma.
	And so to go from 20 people with a fairly poorly designed experiment to making a claim for everyone is really a challenge.
	And also to mix it in with therapy.
	As well, is important.
	So, again, what do I know?
	I'm just pointing out that this might not be as conclusive as you think.
	True.
	I mean, it is very convoluted because the war on drugs has been going on for a good 40 years, or 30, or, yeah, 40 years.
	So, I mean, there has been a halt of scientific exploration into these Drugs and MDMA may not be the best drug to use.
	I agree that it is kind of risky, but there are many other psychedelics that offer...
	I mean, psychedelics in general usually do not have a very high lethal dose or LB50 rate, which just means lethal dose 50% of Test animals die at the dose, so it's pretty high, much higher than anybody would normally take.
	And so they are physically safe, and mentally they are questionable.
	And this is because of a factor that sets these drugs apart, is that set and setting is very important.
	And you talked about how it's interesting how It was combined with therapy.
	This is because just taking the drug on its own will not do anything.
	It's only a catalyst for further development.
	And the setting, like I said, is very important.
	So set would be like, what are you thinking?
	How are you feeling?
	What is your intent?
	Just your state of mind.
	And then setting is, who are you with?
	And if you're with people who, you know, are making fun of you or just are ostracizing you or just treating you negatively, you're going to have a terrible trip.
	And this could have, you know, negative implications, you know, very big negative implications.
	I mean, you can go on a bad trip.
	You can really severely injure your psyche.
	And this is why it's important that we should I put this information out to help people understand that you really have to regulate your actions on these drugs.
	A big setting change for a lot of people, I know people have taken psychedelics at raves or electronic dance parties.
	And that's a terrible place to take them.
	Okay, let me just...
	Because this is a lot of conjecture and I don't mean to interrupt you or be rude, but I'm more curious about why you feel nervous about this topic.
	Well, I guess I just feel nervous talking to you because I really respect your work.
	Sorry, and I appreciate that, but why is this topic important to you?
	It's important to me...
	Well, first of all, I... I'm a medical cannabis user or medical marijuana user for severe chronic pain, which marijuana has been really the only medication that has helped me with that.
	I have put that in conjunction with a lot of therapies and a lot of doctors.
	So, but being that marijuana is a therapy- Sorry, sorry to interrupt you, but that's not, I mean, I have no doubt that marijuana has medicinal properties for sure.
	Because morphine comes from the opiates.
	The opiates come from poppies, and poppies is a plant, right?
	So I fully accept that plants have medicinal purposes, and marijuana...
	Has medicinal purposes, right?
	For nausea, for cancer, for...
	You know, it's funny because when I got cancer this summer, I was thinking, well, if I have heavy nausea, I wonder if I'll end up finally doing weed or something I've never done, right?
	But yeah, it has medicinal properties and you're using it in a medicinal manner.
	For glaucoma, you can use it.
	So I think for using a plant's medicinal properties, I think is entirely fine.
	But that's not what we're talking about here, right?
	I mean, because you were talking about, you know, mind-altering substances not being used in terms of their medicinal properties, but in terms of recreation, right?
	Well, I was saying, I was going to, before you cut me off, I was going to say that people use them in a very reckless manner at raves and such, and it would be much better and It's safer for them to use it with,
	like, laying down in a dark room, you know, with a sitter, somebody who's there who has a rational mind and can take care of you, someone who can answer the door, get you water, whatnot.
	So you don't have to really interact with the world while you go on an inner trip and inside yourself.
	And this is what's really...
	What's amazing about psychedelics is that they have the ability to create mystical experiences.
	Well, but you know, as a philosophy show, mystical experiences is not what we're about, right?
	Yes, and I understand that.
	And this is one thing that I really do like about psychedelics is because I'm trying to approach them from a rational mind.
	I try to look at them from a scientific perspective.
	And the science about this that's coming out recently is really interesting.
	So if you let me continue.
	So part of this mystical experience is this feeling of interconnectedness and unity.
	And this has really just been Looked at by the Imperial College at London and there was a short video on recent TV that included the scientist who helped with this study and what they found is that when
	psilocybin is introduced into the body, the brain lowers blood flow to a Portion of the brain called the default mode network.
	And this portion of the brain could be considered like Freud's ego.
	So it deals with autobiographical information.
	And then there's another portion of the brain.
	I forget the mode network name, but it's It deals with the external.
	So you could think of it as self and other, these two portions of the brain that recognize those things.
	And what psilocybin does is it actually lowers blood flow to the default mode network.
	So people experience an ego death or ego disillusion.
	And in conjunction with that, they also The brainwaves from these two networks start to coincide instead of be competitive as they are.
	And this creates the experience of finding, feeling unity and a very odd, not rational frame of thought, which is why it is important that, why this experience can be important.
	And this is what's really important about it, is that it's not just some religious woo-woo.
	You can actually see this.
	I mean, you don't have to just take it on faith.
	But, I mean, you should also not just take what you see in there on faith, either.
	And so people can experience, you know, ego death, ineffability, mystical experience, and all these are stuff that I was listening to one of your recent podcasts in which you were describing spirituality as sort of a hole-to-hole, as you say, birth-to-grave.
	This is what's really interesting about the psychedelic experiences.
	Actually, there are rebirth experiences.
	There are very vivid childhood experiences.
	And this is what helps people.
	This is the therapeutic aspect of them, is that it helps people revisit those and take those in consciously.
	Now, there's also, you know, near-death experiences and whatnot.
	So, like you said, hole to hole.
	And all in this experience, which is, you know, pretty amazing that this can just be, you know, introduced by a drug.
	And the interesting thing that What people should really understand is that's not the drug.
	That is you.
	It's just the drug sort of manipulating your brain to see a different way.
	And that's what's important about the experiences, that you see something differently.
	And you learn not to take things as much for granted.
	And that's the really big thing to take away from The psychedelic experience.
	And there are different ways without drugs that you can manage to experience it, but I feel like I'm rambling, so I'll let you talk.
	Well, but I mean, this is the problem with the drug stuff, right?
	Is that it ends up being stuff like, well, you see things differently.
	Well, yeah, and that's what we started.
	It messes with your perception.
	It breaks your perception.
	You see things that aren't there.
	Oh, you see things that aren't...
	You think things aren't there that are there.
	So, yes, you see things differently.
	Absolutely.
	If I poke you in the eyes, you will also see things differently for a little while.
	You'll see spots, right?
	And so I get that it helps you to see things differently.
	Someone in the chat room was saying that it helps break your propaganda and so on.
	And it's like, no, it doesn't.
	It confuses you.
	Now, maybe people can find some benefit out of being confused.
	But I don't see why you would want to be confused when you can be philosophical.
	The way to break propaganda is not to break your senses.
	The way to break propaganda is through reason and evidence.
	So I think that is much more powerful.
	I think it's much more sustainable.
	It's certainly much healthier.
	I think the drugs should all be legal, of course, right?
	But That doesn't mean that I think that they're superior to self-knowledge, to, you know, really good rational therapy and to philosophy.
	So if, look, if there's some drug that can regrow the empathy, the mirror neurons of the empathy sentence, but I just don't think there is.
	Empathy is, according to the neurological research that I've read, is 12 or 13 complex interacting systems.
	It's like saying that drugs can regrow empathy is literally like saying that you can smoke a drug that will regrow a severed arm.
	I don't think that it's really possible to do that.
	Now, if the science changes that, or if there's really clear, unambiguous, long-term evidence that drugs regrow empathy centers, then I certainly would be thrilled to read that.
	It's not there yet.
	And as far as what I know about empathy, that it's really complicated stuff and it's a huge amount of interoperating systems and experiences and so on.
	I don't think a drug can do that.
	A drug can mess with your perceptions.
	It will make you see things differently.
	Fantastic.
	Philosophy will make you see things differently.
	Taxation is theft.
	Fundamentally changes in a way that no drug could ever achieve.
	Fundamentally changes your perception, view, and relationship with society.
	War is murder, fundamentally changes your view of society.
	Spanking is abuse, fundamentally changes your view of society.
	Those three statements, I think, are much more powerful than anything else that could occur from a drug, and processing that kind of stuff, I think, is important.
	There is no God, fundamentally changes your relationship, not just with your personal society, but again, with your society as a whole.
	Countries are fiction.
	This fundamentally changes your relationship with the world as a whole.
	The world is a map of zoos, is a fundamental change in your relationship with society, and you don't need any drugs to see things, not just differently, but truthfully, the way they are.
	And so I think that...
	I mean, I think that...
	I'm sorry about your chronic pain.
	I mean, that's a very, very difficult thing to live with, and I'm hugely sympathetic to that, and I think it's...
	Marijuana is what solves or at least helps alleviate the pain and it's the most effective for doing that.
	I think that's fantastic.
	I think that's just great and I'm certainly hugely relieved that you have a drug that can help you do that.
	But as far as changing perceptions go, I'll take philosophy over breaking perception any day of the week and obviously twice on Sundays.
	But my question is, does philosophy change addiction?
	How about that?
	Because there's been multiple studies showing that psychedelics can also help with addiction.
	And this is what I mean by changing your perception.
	I don't just mean like changing it some way.
	And yes, it does change it some way, but this is what I mean by Enacting set and setting.
	It's changing it for the best.
	And this is what has been shown that LSD can actually increase the success rate for getting over alcoholism from AA's 33% for 10 years to 49%.
	And then there...
	I don't know if you've heard of iboga, which is a African root to a chili pepper.
	And so this ibogaine, which is the main compound, helps to eradicate opiate addiction and polydrug addictions like methamphetamine, cocaine, alcohol, with a success rate of 67 to 93%.
	And iVoga actually even takes away the physical withdrawal of opiate addiction within the first couple hours of its administration.
	And so these are the type of perception changes that I'm talking about.
	That it could be useful for.
	Now, I'm not...
	Sorry, just to interrupt.
	So I'm just having a look here.
	I'm not disbelieving anything you're saying.
	I just want to give the references.
	So there's an article in Scientific American called LSD May Cure Some Addicts.
	And sort of very briefly, I mean, I think this is right in line with what you were saying.
	Of those who had taken LSD, so this is a treatment, standard treatment for all addiction.
	Some were given a single small dose of LSD during a therapeutic session.
	And so these guys combined six small studies into one big study, and he says, of those who've taken LSD, 59% decreased the alcohol consumption as compared with 38% of subjects who did not take LSD. Six months after leaving treatment, those who took LSD were 15% more likely to be sober.
	I didn't know anything about this, so I appreciate you bringing this to my show.
	So he says here, That's the kind of stuff you're talking about, right?
	I think that's fantastic I still would be very interested in seeing Therapy plus philosophy in terms of its treatment, but that remains purely theoretical.
	So yeah, I think that's fantastic.
	So the article, The Scientific American, you can look it up, LSD may cure some addicts.
	And yeah, a 15% improvement over six months obviously is impressive.
	And if that's a valid study, which I have no reason to disbelieve it, that's really great information.
	I did not know about it.
	And thank you so much for bringing it to my attention.
	Yeah.
	Now, I have another caller to get to, and we spent a fair amount of time on this topic, so if you don't mind, I could move on to someone else.
	Unless you have another bomb to drop, that would be great.
	Well, I would also just like to add in that you don't have to take drugs to get this experience.
	There are multiple other things that you can use.
	Meditation.
	That's very good.
	Like a float tank or an isolation tank, which Joe Rogan actually uses.
	Um, holotophic breathwork, meditation, uh, hypnosis, um, all of these things can help sort of break the barrier between the conscious and the subconscious and help you sort of integrate things into your life.
	Right.
	Well, I appreciate that.
	Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention.
	New information?
	And I think that's fantastic.
	So thank you.
	All right.
	We can do one more caller.
	All right, Charles, you're up next.
	Go ahead, Charles.
	Hello there.
	Hello there, Stephan.
	Can you hear me?
	I can.
	Ah, that's good.
	Anyway, I love your website.
	I'm just a new person who's been following.
	I mean, I've been hearing about you and everything else, and I just signed up to your website, and I'm going to be donating some cash in your way today.
	Thank you.
	After everything goes right and everything.
	There's some things I agree with you or disagree, but there are some things I agree with you more often than I disagree with you.
	So I just don't want to say that to you.
	But here's something that I want to ask you, and since you are a person who was rebelling against the state, And, you know, someone who is not really friendly would say, when did you start getting this whole, the idea of, like, the drug war was bad?
	When was your first, like, okay, the drug war that United States, I know you live in Canada or what have you, I know what the laws have said there, but when did you start looking at, say, you know, the drug war that was like, you know, this thing isn't working out, you know?
	When was your, like, big epiphany of that?
	Because with me, I started, you know, When Penatella did an episode of The Drug War that really opened my eyes, and I did more research about it after that, and I was like, oh my god, this is horrible.
	This is just barbaric, and why do we still have these horrible laws that hurt not only African Americans, but also I just want to know, when did you start hearing the drug war in Canada and such?
	When did you start being against it?
	If I remember rightly, I think I was still in high school.
	I was probably 16 or 17, and I went to a libertarian conference at Glendon College, which I actually ended up going two years later.
	For English Lit.
	I think there was a speaker who was talking about the drug war briefly.
	I got the non-aggression principle pretty easily.
	I think everyone does.
	Since drugs did not initiate the use of force, it seemed pretty easy.
	Once you just apply that principle, things get intellectually easy and emotionally hard.
	Consistent principles make things intellectually easy and emotionally hard.
	And this is why people have a great deal of difficulty with consistency because if you come up with exceptions, you know, like the guy I was talking to at the beginning about consistency, if you come up with exceptions, then things become intellectually difficult but emotionally much easier because you can let people and yourself off the hook.
	So back then I kind of got the non-aggression principle, but I could not get all the way to a stateless society.
	It was just kind of incomprehensible to me.
	It wasn't even something like I thought of and rejected.
	It was just something I never even thought of.
	So, yeah, so I guess it was in my sort of mid to upper mid-teens that I first heard the argument, and it just seemed very, very consistent with the non-aggression principle.
	Yeah, and it's something that affected me and such.
	And, you know, as someone who is an African-American descent and Just seeing how these laws basically, I think, has destroyed countless lives of not only my race, again, and other stuff.
	It just seems to me, it's just, how can someone, and I just don't get how can someone be so sociopathic and ignorant about history, but they did this with prohibition of alcohol, and it didn't work, and yet it just seems like They just did another painting over and say, no, this is not prohibition.
	It's just a war on drugs because the war on drugs is more evil than alcohol or stuff like that.
	I don't know.
	It just seems like it's probably one of the most evil things People support is this war on drugs.
	I don't know if it stands on using the word evil, but to me, that to me is probably one of the most evil things to basically lock people up and to have done no crime, no real crimes against any other people, like your previous caller, who's doing these types of like, elusive drugs, LSD, whatever, in his own type of way.
	And he has to hide that out for, you know, because if the police or anyone else catch him, he has to serve like 5, 10, 15 years in prison.
	And just, it's just mind-blowing.
	Oh, it is.
	It is absolutely horrendous.
	And I agree with you.
	It is one of the most evil things that occurs.
	And I'm just, I just posted an article quite recently.
	97% Of drug users, of people who are accused of drug crimes, never get a trial.
	They never, ever get a trial in the United States.
	Wow.
	That's heartbreaking.
	It's monstrous.
	Yeah, it's absolutely monstrous.
	Let me just read you a few bits about it.
	The technicals of it are kind of convoluted, but basically the way that it works is Particularly for repeat offenders, they can just tack on sentences like crazy, all of which are served not concurrently, but consecutively.
	And if you even have a gun, even if that gun is legal and you trade drugs, that's considered to be an armed crime, and they can slap another 10 years on you if you want.
	And that is just absolutely horrendous.
	So you can't...
	Have a system where 97% of people plead guilty because they're threatened with basically 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 years in prison.
	Because then you have no idea whether they're innocent or guilty anymore.
	I mean, it's a plea bargain, which is basically calling, like saying that somebody is guilty of a crime based on a plea bargain is like saying somebody is donating to a mugger.
	No, you just don't want to get shot so that you give them your wallet.
	And so you don't want to go for jail for 20 years, so you go to jail for 5 years and you plead guilty.
	But there's no possibility of guilt or innocence and any knowledge thereof, even under the existing laws.
	And it gives cops unbelievable power.
	They can just come and plant something on you, in your car or whatever, if they don't like you and you're fucked.
	And you're fucked for like years.
	And your life will never be the same.
	So it is an abominable evil.
	27% growth, I think, in federal prisoners over the last 10 years, and a lot of it has to do with the drug war.
	But the drug war, sadly, has so many benefits to so many sections of society.
	It destroys neighborhoods and increases dependence upon the state, so the state kind of likes it that way.
	It's a lot easier for cops to go after nonviolent people.
	It's a lot safer for cops to go after nonviolent people than it is for cops to go after violent people.
	And so cops would rather harass people selling drugs than they would go after murderers and people who might actually shoot at them and stuff, right?
	Yeah.
	And they also get bribes, right, as you know.
	I mean, the cops get a lot of money from drug dealers to look the other way and so on, right?
	And governments like it.
	Give them more power.
	I mean, as soon as you can invent a demon, you get salvation, right?
	And as soon as you can invent a scare, then people will run to the government, particularly in this case.
	The other thing, too, is that governments, and particularly the Democrats in the U.S., they like the drug war in many ways because it creates...
	I mean, as you know, you come from the African-American community in the States.
	I mean, the number of single moms is, you know, to some degree, significantly involved in the drug war, right?
	I mean, these...
	Men get nuked into the drug system and then they're either in the drug prisons or they can't get work because they're now a felon and stuff like that.
	And so it destroys the family and anything which destroys the family enhances the power of the state.
	And so it is unfortunate.
	It's become so embedded that it's far beyond rational arguments.
	And so I think that's kind of an important thing.
	The other thing that I would say too is that Religions in particular have more problems with psychedelics than they do with alcohol.
	Alcohol doesn't seem to have the kind of, what this caller was talking about, the oneness and so on, this illumination, this waking up from illusion kind of thing.
	That doesn't really happen with alcohol.
	It does happen with psychedelics.
	And one of the reasons that, you know, it is Christian governments that ban psychedelics, and I would say that that's to some degree because psychedelics are a competitor.
	To religion.
	And so, like all people, like all groups, they attempt to do rent-seeking through the government and to eliminate competition is helpful for religions.
	Does that help at all?
	Yeah, it does.
	And I just hope that with programs like yourself and, you know, The other law officers and other things, organizations like Law Enforcement Against Corruption, LEAP, I hope that one day we will finally at least decriminalize.
	I think one country did it.
	I think it was Peru or someone else's country.
	Portugal.
	Yeah, Portugal, who actually did this like seven years ago, and guess what?
	Then the crimes are going down.
	Then more people are getting more help.
	People who are addicted to these drugs, who are getting help.
	And getting, you know, things that, hey, they're addicted to getting help instead of being taught in a jail, they're getting, you know, rehabilitation.
	I don't know why, I just, I know it's a money thing, and they're getting them paid, but just, why can't we follow that example?
	It's already been proven, but yet none of the big other countries – the UK, Australia, Canada, or the United States – I mean, they're not even coming close to that stuff.
	It's just really, really – I feel like it's just like willful ignorance or just – Really sociopathic behavior by our so-called leaders.
	That's why I feel like it is.
	Anyway, I've got to head out here, so I don't want to keep you, man.
	I think that's fine.
	You can listen to my final comments after you get back.
	Thanks for the call.
	As soon as you can create a demonic subclass, then you can do whatever you want to them, right?
	I mean, if you get enough propaganda saying that Jews are, you know, like hook-nose international banksters destroying the world and eating Christian babies, then you can go and throw them into concentration camps and cyclone beat their asses and stuff like that.
	In the conflicts in Rwanda, you know, they would refer to each other as cockroaches.
	As soon as you can dehumanize someone, you can make them bad.
	Then that's the prerequisite.
	Dehumanization of the other is a prerequisite for mass brutality.
	And people who take drugs take drugs to a large degree because they were traumatized as children and naturally they end up being re-traumatized in prison and their lives are ruined and so on.
	It's just simply a matter of human compassion.
	We see drug users as people who are attempting to self-medicate traumatic childhoods in the absence of Better alternatives in society.
	I can.
	I think it's pretty tragic what happens.
	I mean, I think it's understandable why people abuse drugs.
	And I'll differentiate it from use because, you know, we just had a guy who was using medical marijuana and we talked about how it might help with de-alcoholizing people and so on.
	But people who abuse drugs, I mean, they do it because, and you can read Gabor Mate's in the Realm of Hungry Ghosts for the science behind this, but they do this because They are in chronic psychological pain as a result of early trauma and this is the only thing that makes them feel even vaguely normal and so if you don't know how much your life is painful until the pain stops and then your pain is visible to you.
	It's really visceral to you.
	And so drug users and the drug culture and so on, they have been just demonized for the majority of people and of course If you are a shitty parent, you're an abusive, neglectful parent, a controlling, dominating parent, then your kid is going to be drawn towards drugs.
	And then, of course, rather than say, well, I guess I was a shitty parent and that's why my child is drawn towards drugs, you want to ban the symptom rather than identify yourself as the cause, right?
	So you say, well, the problem is the drugs, right?
	Not shitty parenting that makes people susceptible or prone to abusing drugs.
	I mean, you know, bad parents by definition are not going to take ownership and responsibility, almost by definition.
	I mean, a few do, and they write to me, and I think that's great.
	But almost by definition, the vast majority of really bad parents are going to externalize and brutalize and so on, right?
	And so when they see that their kids are experimenting with drugs and so on, then this, of course, is a symptom of their bad parenting.
	And what are they going to say?
	Are they going to say, wow, what did I do wrong as a parent that my child has ended up in this situation?
	Why is my child drawn towards artificial happiness?
	Well, because they don't have any real happiness as a result of bad parenting, right?
	So are the bad parents going to say, well, the problem you see is my parenting?
	No, of course not.
	If they had that capacity to self-correct, they wouldn't have teenage kids and still be bad parents, right?
	They would have noticed earlier that their parenting was not productive or optimal and they would have learned better ways to do it and so on.
	So in general, when the kids get into drugs, the parents aren't going to look in the The teachers aren't going to look in the mirror.
	Society as a whole isn't going to look in the mirror and say, why are we creating a generation of kids who are so drawn towards drugs?
	Because the science is very clear on that.
	Because you screwed them up as infants and toddlers, right?
	You neglected, abused them, put them in shitty schools, daycares, and so on.
	So they're abandoned, neglected, traumatized.
	You spanked them.
	So you traumatize your kids and therefore they're drawn to drugs.
	The science is very clear on that.
	But People can't handle that level of self-criticism, right?
	If you've permanently harmed another human being as a child, I mean, there's no restitution, there's no recovery.
	And when there's no recovery, there tends to be a hardening of defenses, right?
	People can recover from wrongs they've done if they're not permanent and if there was no real way to know beforehand and so on, right?
	But if you have permanently harmed another human being, which is what childhood trauma does, Then the vast likelihood is you're simply going to double down rather than admit fault.
	Because admitting fault won't solve anything.
	It will actually...
	Well, I shouldn't say that.
	It won't solve anything in the past.
	It will certainly help your children.
	But if you're interested in helping your children, fundamentally you wouldn't be spanking them and abandoning them, throwing them shitty schools anyway.
	So...
	People want to...
	People with really bad consciences always want to deal with the symptoms of their immoralities, not the cause, which is themselves.
	And so people are drawn to drugs because of traumatic childhoods.
	And then the parents say, well, drugs are the problem.
	And therefore we need to ban drugs.
	That's further traumatizing their children and other people's children and many adults and so on, right?
	So this is how evil tends to perpetuate.
	And I think it is very, very sad.
	But what can I say?
	We've got a plan.
	We've got a plan to heal the world.
	And be nice to your children today.
	Is every day.
	So FDRURL.com forward slash donate if you would like to help out with the show.
	We've got a debate tomorrow with Walter Block, Alex Jones on Friday, 2 p.m.
	Peter Schiff, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday morning.
	It's a bitty week for the Stay at Home Dad.
	And thank you, of course.
	It is your support that is making all of this possible.
	So thank you so much for everyone who supports what it is that we do.
	Thank you, Mike.
	For breaking your marsupial nocturnal hours and de-owling your schedule to get up at this godforsaken farmer's milk and cows hour.
	Have yourself a wonderful week everyone.
	I guess we will talk Wednesday night.

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