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Dec. 16, 2013 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

03:02:31

2560 Paid to Not Masturbate - Sunday Call In Show December 15th, 2013

The recent Paul Walker video controversy, if you do not have sex or masturbate... I will pay for your college education, preparing children for adult sexuality, guarding how your children respect you, lacking social skills, overcoming depression through anger and the definitive answer to minimum wage subject.

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	Good morning, everybody.
	Hope you're doing well.
	Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
	I'd like to thank Peter Schiff again for turning the reins of his show over to me.
	My goodness, is it a challenging bit of precision excitement to do shows with the staccato of commercials puncturing the magic of your prose.
	But it's a real pleasure, and I hope to get to do it again soon.
	I have received a speech invitation which will...
	Encompass speaking to thousands of people live and another few tens of thousands of people on webcam or on streaming, and that's going to be very cool.
	I am looking forward to that.
	I am a Freddie Mercury crowd slut.
	The bigger the crowd, the more I like it.
	So I did a video, just one or two things before we get underway.
	I did a video on Paul Walker.
	The 33-year-old actor who had a predilection for dating 16-year-old girls, as the character in Dazed and Confused says, Matthew McConaughey's character, because he's one of the high school guys who keeps hanging around high school, I keep getting older, but the high school girls just keep staying the same age.
	So I just wanted to mention a few things about the philosophy behind what I was saying, shockingly, for a philosophy show.
	I thought we'd give that a shot.
	And first and foremost, people say, well, biologically, we're attracted to 16-year-old girls.
	Okay.
	I mean, I have no particular issue with that.
	Of course, they're very fertile.
	And at the peak, you could say, I've never been particularly attracted to 16-year-old girls, but I can understand that, you know, they're young and fertile and all that kind of stuff.
	Yeah, I get that.
	But see, one of the things you may have missed in the philosophy show is the philosophy part, right?
	So philosophy is required because our desires are not always virtuous, right?
	I mean, it's like saying to a nutritionist, but we like chocolate.
	It's like, yes, of course we like chocolate.
	That's why there's such a thing as nutrition.
	Because if everything we ever wanted to eat was the only thing that was ever good for us, we wouldn't need nutrition as a discipline.
	And if all our desires were perfectly valid and always just, moral, and righteous, we would have no need whatsoever for philosophy.
	So philosophy is required because we want to do shit that's bad for us and bad for others.
	And so...
	We must, you know, people want stuff for free as well, but I don't see a lot of libertarians defending the welfare state because of that.
	You know, some people like to go and kill people.
	I don't see a lot of people justifying murder based on that.
	I don't think there's a defense for rape called, but biologically, we like to spread our seed, right?
	I mean, the whole point is we can surround biology through philosophy.
	This doesn't mean that biology is our enemy.
	It's just a recognition.
	Nutritionist doesn't view a sweet tooth as the enemy that is evil, right?
	So, yeah, sorry.
	This idea that in history we had lots of relationships between powerful older men and girls, so what?
	You know, if you want to make that an objective argument, then you need to say, well, we need to bring back slavery.
	Because throughout history, one group of people tended to dominate another group of people quite consistently and therefore let us bring back slavery.
	Don't see a lot of people making that argument either.
	Long time ago, the Aztecs used to sacrifice children to the gods.
	Let's bring back the bloody altars of kindergarten.
	I don't think that's a very good argument either.
	So the biological argument is, you know, the funny thing is, that's actually very Victorian.
	I mean, people say, oh, Steph's so Victorian, having standards around sex and so on.
	No, actually, the people who make up very silly arguments suggest, I mean, they're the ones who feel bad about being attracted.
	Nothing wrong with being attracted to a 16-year-old girl.
	You just don't act on it.
	I mean, unless you're a 16-year-old, you know, or some proximate in age guy.
	And it's legal.
	But...
	There is...
	Oh, come on.
	I mean, we all know this.
	I mean, when you're 16, what do you make your decisions based on?
	Some people gave me flack for saying that 16-year-olds are emotionally retarded relative to, say, 33-year-olds.
	Well, sorry, that's true.
	I was, as I said that.
	You are still almost a decade away from brain maturity.
	Doesn't mean you can't make any decisions.
	And you can have a lot of intellectual intelligence, right?
	But your emotional maturity...
	You're still going through puberty, for God's sakes.
	You haven't finished growing.
	You haven't finished growing out of childhood.
	So, yeah, look, if you were 16 and you were as smart and wise and philosophical and virtuous as you were ever going to be, what the hell would be the point of the next 80 years of your life?
	No.
	You've got a long way to grow.
	As did I, and I'm sorry if that shocks you, but I'd like to go with the facts.
	It's easy to get distracted by the fact that Paul Walker was pretty.
	I mean, imagine if it was Michael Moore with a 16-year-old girl draped on his salami arms.
	Would you find it creepy then?
	Philosophy does not distinguish between the two men.
	People say, well, you see, age of consent, it's just a number.
	You know, it's funny.
	People say it's just a number.
	You know, a paycheck is just a number, but still people disagree with it.
	Minimum wage is just a number.
	People still disagree with it.
	The national debt is just a number.
	People still disagree with it.
	Saying it's just a number is ridiculous.
	I mean, come on.
	Six is just a number.
	That doesn't mean you can have sex with a six-year-old and not be anything other than an irredeemable scumbag, right?
	So, it's just a number.
	Oh, and then some people say, well, you see, because...
	Because you have some moral reservations about a 33 year old movie star preying upon a 16 year old girl You must be a statist.
	I mean, where the hell does that come from?
	Do people not think there were moral standards before?
	You know, we don't like the fact that people conflate society with government.
	Don't conflate government with society.
	Society had standards that predated these government laws that arose out of these government laws.
	It wasn't social standards that produced the need to have a license to do a hair weave, but it was social standards that said there are some women who are too young to have sex with.
	That is a fairly old prohibition.
	At least in common law.
	And so, yes, the fact that the government's legalized that which was in common law or turned into law that which were community standards doesn't mean that when you throw out the laws, you throw out the community standards.
	It's like saying, well, if we get rid of welfare, we have to then prevent charity as well.
	Right?
	If we get rid of the army, we cannot have any kind of private defense.
	This is a mistake that people made, and I caught some flack.
	About the Ron Ford video I made.
	Crack smoking, mayor of Toronto.
	And people say, well, Steph is against the guy for smoking crack.
	Therefore, it's hypocritical for him to be against the drug war.
	There's nothing immoral about smoking crack.
	Yeah.
	There's nothing immoral about smoking crack.
	It's kind of hypocritical to run a mayoral campaign partly based on prohibition against hard drugs while smoking crack.
	That's kind of hypocritical because remember, you can look at the government either through the lens of morality or through the lens of popular culture or general culture.
	And since most people want people thrown in jail, For smoking crack.
	The fact that the mayor of Toronto is not thrown in jail for smoking crack tells you something about society as a whole.
	Doesn't mean that I approve of the drug laws.
	You guys gotta up your game just a little bit with all love and respect.
	You gotta think a little more clearly and not just emotionally react, right?
	That's bomb in the brain stuff, which I sympathize with.
	But you gotta recognize it and you gotta think your way through it.
	A 16-year-old girl who is faced with the possibility of dating A gorgeous 33-year-old movie star worth millions cannot make a decision that is rational.
	She's going to gain so much status, so much access to money, so much access to travel, so much access to opportunity that she doesn't have to earn herself except by being in possession of one ka-ching young vagina.
	How is she supposed to judge that?
	Is she supposed to say, Because she's 16 with all of that hypogamy instinct to trade up men.
	Is she supposed to say, well, okay, he is a gorgeous movie star more than twice my age.
	I'm only eight years older than his daughter.
	But you know what?
	Either I'm fantastically mature and just happen to be housed in a gorgeous body, which is physically not possible because I'm 16.
	Still going through puberty, almost 10 years away from final brain development.
	So it can't be that I'm just so fantastically mature.
	My vanity will want me to believe that.
	I've known 16-year-olds who are more mature than 60-year-olds.
	Well.
	But how is she supposed to judge that?
	How is she supposed to judge that?
	Is she supposed to say, well, it can't be that I am so mature.
	Therefore, he must be enormously immature.
	If his greatest compatibility at the age of 33 is with a 16-year-old, he must be enormously immature.
	Now, if he's enormously immature, then he's not going to grow, which means in order to remain his compatibility with me, he's going to either have to prevent me from growing or trade me in as he's done one time before for another 16-year-old.
	Expecting a 16-year-old girl to make that decision wisely is impossible.
	It's ridiculous.
	It's foolish.
	It's like Kim Kardashian comes on to a 16-year-old boy, and what's he supposed to say?
	Well, no, you see, there's some bad publicity that's going to haunt me for the rest of my life.
	This woman got her start doing sex tapes, and I've watched a couple of the Kardashian episodes.
	She's a complete psycho.
	And my name is going to be publicized as a boy toy, and I may get wrapped up in legal problems because I'm underage.
	No, he's going to be like, wow, those are some nice tits.
	Off we go.
	It's one of the delightful things about teenagers.
	Okay, and the last thing I'll sort of mention before we get on with the show.
	Sorry, delightful things about teenagers.
	They don't think that much about consequences, which has its pluses and its minuses.
	So people say, because I said I would not let that happen in my household, and then people think that I'm suddenly turning into domestic Joe Stalin or something like that.
	I'll lock my daughter in a basement if any 33-year-old guys come sniffing around when she done be 16!
	And also, can I just mention that if you start off any moral argument with, if it bleeds, dot, dot, dot, please excuse yourself from the conversation and go back to the psycho-retard table, because that's just gross.
	But the parenting is not going to start when she's 16, people.
	Right?
	Why do I not have to lose 100 pounds?
	Because I haven't gained 100 pounds.
	It's pretty easy to gain 100 pounds.
	Just gain 5 pounds a year for 20 years and boom, you're 100 pounds overweight.
	And so I don't have to diet and lose 100 pounds now because for the last 47 years I haven't overeaten wildly and failed to exercise.
	So people say, "Well, why don't you have to lose 100 pounds?" Well, because I put in the necessary groundwork.
	And so, people say, well, what are you going to do about your daughter if some 33-year-old guy comes sniffing around?
	Well, the reality is that I won't have to do anything because I'm doing the job now.
	When I say I won't let it happen, what that means, of course, is that I'm going to expose her to the mature love of my wife and I, who are a year apart in age.
	The mature love of my wife and I are going to be on constant display, and so she's going to see that as wise, compassionate, virtuous...
	Benevolent, romantic, fun, love.
	And then some 33-year-old guy comes around.
	She's just not going to be interested.
	Why?
	Because of all the work that's going in now.
	She is going to model her definition of masculinity off the men in her life.
	Myself, Mike, other friends that we have.
	That's what manhood is going to be for her.
	And if someone like Paul Walker comes over, she's going to spot that guy as a creepy phony, you know, after he rings the doorbell half a time.
	It all is in the preparation.
	Very little of it is in the execution.
	You don't start learning how to ski when you're going down the double black diamond.
	Everything's in the preparation.
	Then people end up with difficult, balky, or challenging teenagers, and they go, oh, now I've got to clamp down.
	No.
	This all was laid in.
	Years and years and years before.
	So, anyway, I just wanted to mention those couple of things.
	And let's move on to the first caller.
	Thank you for your interest in Free Domain Radio.
	All right.
	Before we get to who's up first today, I just want to say, if anyone wants to call in and talk about this subject, operations at freedomradio.com, just shoot me a message and I'll move you to the front of the caller queue.
	It's definitely been, there's been an interesting reaction to this on social media and such.
	So anyone that wants to call in, anytime, just send me a message and we'll move you to the front.
	All right.
	And up first today is Nathan.
	Go ahead, Nathan.
	Hi, Stefan.
	Hi, Stefan.
	Hello.
	Hi, so my question for you today is I'm wondering what your thoughts are on parents signing contracts with their children at say a later age in their time with their parents.
	So say maybe 16 to 18 when they're just kind of finishing up in the home.
	I don't know if you want to go into full details of why I asked that question but That's kind of what I'm wondering your thoughts on today.
	Yeah, I mean, I don't necessarily think that love is contractual.
	And so, I don't...
	I mean, to me, I guess if you need to sign a contract, it means that there have been significant issues in the parenting hitherto.
	Yeah.
	You know, like if I need to get...
	My wife to sign a contract that says I'm going to stop sleeping with Spanish bullfighters named Raul, then we can only assume that there have been some significant problems in the marriage.
	Like I don't have to wake up every morning and And say to Mike, Mike, don't steal.
	Sign here with blood.
	Don't steal from the show.
	Don't post horrible things about the show for no reason.
	And please don't kick me in the nads.
	Okay, well, sorry.
	One of those.
	We have to remind him of.
	Right?
	I just don't need to do that.
	Now, I do need to remind to my daughter sometimes to ask for things nicely and, you know, that kind of stuff.
	Because she's four, right?
	I don't have a contract with Michael.
	I don't have a contract with the person who's building the studio.
	We just, you know, because we trust each other already, we just talk about things.
	So if there is a need for a contract, it's because, I mean, the reason usually people need a contract is one for two reasons.
	First is because they don't know the person very well and they don't trust the person very well.
	And that could be perfectly fine.
	Nothing wrong with that.
	Lots of times we do stuff with people we don't know very well.
	So that's the first.
	And the second is because they do know the person quite well and there's been a history of problematic or egregious behavior.
	Now, neither of those situations should be applying to parents and children, teenagers or whatever.
	I mean, it's not like you all don't know each other, number one.
	And number two, if there has to be a history of egregious behavior, then the parent has to take the responsibility because they were the parent and are the parent.
	So, again, I'm not saying it's the worst thing in the world, but it should be, I think, entered into with full knowledge that it arises out of a failure of parenting.
	Does that make any sense at all?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Let me maybe go into a little bit more detail so you can get kind of what I'm trying to ask.
	When I was, I think, 16, 17, my dad came to me and wanted to talk about him helping out with my post-secondary costs.
	And he said, well, if you want me to help out, here's a contract of, you know, we'll help pay for 70% if you sign here and, you know, a long list of stipulations and things I'd have to do and some of them are,
	you know, pretty much, well, if you, you know, follow my moral code and don't do anything that I think is wrong and You have to, you know, stay at an approved place and this and that and whatnot.
	And what are a few of the elements of the moral code that your father feels that you need to sign to?
	Yeah.
	It wasn't all laid out.
	It's basically his Christian beliefs.
	So it wasn't laid out, but I kind of knew by the point because I had been living in his house for so many years.
	- Okay, and what do you understand that to mean? - It would be around like, don't-- - Okay, come on, dude, dude, come on.
	We're doing a live radio show here.
	You're going to have to step up your answers just a little bit.
	You shouldn't have to wonder about this stuff if you've known the guy for a decade and three quarters or something, okay?
	So, just roughly, what is it?
	Like, no sex, no gambling, no drugs, no what?
	I mean, what are we talking about?
	Yeah, all of that.
	Okay, do you have to go to church?
	Yes, yeah.
	Do you have to pray?
	No, I wasn't forced to do that, no.
	Well, you don't know.
	As you said, it's somewhat...
	I mean, there's nothing spelled out, right?
	So, I mean, if you're going to go the contractual route, then everything needs to be spelled out, right?
	The whole point of the contract is to remove ambiguity, right?
	So, from that standpoint, I think that's sort of problematic.
	Does he believe that you are not going to follow his moral code?
	I guess because he wants you to sign a contract, then...
	He must believe that you won't, right?
	Yeah.
	Now, why does he think that you won't?
	Because he knows or he knew that I wasn't along the same beliefs as he was.
	Are you an atheist or an agnostic?
	Agnostic.
	Rastafarian?
	Trastafarian?
	Okay.
	So you're an agnostic.
	All right.
	And does he believe...
	That God will respect someone who puts on a moral performance for money?
	I don't know.
	Probably not.
	Of course not.
	No.
	Right, so God knows in your heart If you believe in the commandments and are doing what God terms as the right thing because of a genuine acceptance of the moral standards, and he will know because he knows everything, right?
	He will know if you're simply putting on an empty moral kabuki theater because you want to get paid, right?
	So, does your father think that this is going to keep you a moral person in the eyes of God?
	Well, of course not.
	Of course not.
	So what's it about?
	It's not about keeping you virtuous in the eyes of God, because that would require persuasion, right?
	Yep.
	It would probably be about me looking good for Him.
	That would be my guess.
	Yeah, so it could be about status, right?
	Look at my son, he's in school, he's following the commandments of Christ, he doesn't do this, he doesn't do that, and so on, right?
	Was there anything in the contract about grades?
	Yep, I wasn't allowed to fail.
	Right, okay.
	Okay, and what is your emotional experience of this contract?
	I mean, at the time, I wasn't too bothered by it because, hey, money.
	And then, of course, later on, when I breached his moral code and he wanted me to pay for everything and I had chosen a school based on that contract, it was a little bit more frustrating.
	And how did you break the moral code?
	I had been seeing a girl without him knowing.
	Oh, so was it in the contract that you weren't supposed to date, or you were supposed to tell him if you were dating?
	I wasn't supposed to...
	I went and stayed over at her place.
	I wasn't supposed to...
	I guess I was supposed to be home every night.
	So no sleepovers.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So you could have sex, but it had to be like an afternoon delight rather than an overnighter?
	Is that right?
	I wasn't allowed to, but I guess it would have been easier to hide, I guess.
	Oh, you weren't allowed to have sex at all?
	Is that right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	And what about masturbation?
	He was against that.
	So you weren't allowed to have sex and you weren't allowed to masturbate?
	And your father basically paid you to not touch yourself?
	Sure, yeah.
	I mean, that's not healthy, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, it's not healthy on somebody.
	Just even at the physical level, men need to ejaculate, you know?
	I mean, it's just not good for your prostate, it's not good for your health as a whole, as far as I understand it, to not ejaculate.
	So, okay, so...
	Part of what your father was doing was paying you to not masturbate and to not have sex, and because you had sex, which was revealed through the sleepover, and how did he find out about the sleepover?
	I don't remember the details.
	It was several years ago, but...
	I think I remember I was trying to hide it and just had my room closed and I don't remember the details.
	I think he was supposed to maybe have been away and he discovered it somehow.
	Oh, that you had been away from your room?
	Yeah.
	Right, right.
	Okay.
	So then he confronted you and is it that you confessed to having an overnight sexcapade, is that right?
	Pretty much.
	I mean, I might not have confessed in detail, but he got the idea.
	Right.
	We don't need the positions, how many goats are involved, or anything like that.
	Where the vat of baby oil and lava were positioned exactly, I understand.
	So, I guess my next question is, then you had to pay, did you have to pay back all the money for your education?
	I have been in the process of that.
	So I've paid...
	Sorry, you have been or you had been in the process of that?
	Have.
	So I've been paying him monthly.
	Can I ask you if the sex was really, really good?
	Not worth it.
	Because that's what you ask divorced guys, right?
	I mean, was she really great in bed?
	Because it's, you know, arm, leg, pound of flesh, it's expensive as hell.
	I mean, it's obviously not worth it because, you know, I mean, it's very expensive.
	But was it good?
	At the time, sure, yeah.
	Okay, good.
	Yeah, because I mean you don't want to be paying thousands and thousands of dollars for like a sandpaper hand job or something like that.
	I mean you want something that is going to put a smile on your deathbed.
	You know, something involving several Cirque du Soleil members, trapezes, perhaps even an elephant.
	But, okay, I just wanted to check on that because, you know, if we have to pay for our sins, at least we hope that the sins were very, very tasty.
	Sandpaper handjobs?
	Yes, it would be a fine name for a band for those who are wondering.
	And did have to do a lot of scratching.
	Can I mention that?
	Now, I imagine that this was quite a lot of money, right?
	I mean, higher education can be pretty pricey.
	Yeah, it was a private school.
	Right.
	So tens of thousands, is that right?
	Yeah.
	Wow.
	Wow.
	How much time do you have left to pay the debt?
	If I keep up with what I'm currently paying, it'll be 2016, 2017.
	Right.
	And has your father, does he appear to be firm in his convictions that Kind of forcing you to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a sexual encounter is good, fine, is reasonable.
	He's rock solid on that, right?
	So he has no doubts at all, right?
	No.
	I'm very sorry.
	I'm incredibly sorry.
	This is a completely heartbreaking story, at least from my perspective.
	I'm incredibly sorry.
	That this level of control and consequence is in your life.
	To me, this is not how adults deal with sexuality in their offspring.
	This is not, I mean, even remotely healthy.
	I'm incredibly sorry that it has panned out this way That there isn't a conversation, that there isn't reason, that there isn't an attempt to find some sort of win-win situation, and that the punishment for you having a sex life, I assume you were, what, 19, 20, 21 kind of thing?
	Probably like 18.
	18.
	It wasn't with Paul Walker, right?
	Okay, because otherwise he could probably pay off your debt.
	Anyway.
	So, and I assume that the woman that you were having sex with was not, you know, either 12 or 80?
	No, we were one year apart.
	One year apart.
	Okay.
	So, I am very sorry that this is the situation.
	There is to me always a kind of desperation in paying people for virtue.
	It would be like me saying, well, the way to combat Nazism is to pay Hitler a million dollars to say universally preferable behavior is a great moral theory.
	I mean, there's a kind of desperation in that.
	Like, I can't think of anything else.
	I have to get my way.
	I can't make a good case.
	So bribe and debt is all I've got.
	And of course, that is the essence of religion, right?
	If you obey my moral rules, I will give you these goodies called heaven or paying for your 70% of your college.
	If you disobey my rules, I will punish you with hell or debt, right?
	It is the confession of no good argument, no win-win negotiation.
	Now, when it comes to sexuality, how did your parents prepare you for this essential component of adulthood?
	Sex and taxes, I guess kids pay taxes when they buy a candy bar, but sex and taxes, productive work, romantic love, independent thought, these are all very key aspects of adulthood and something the parents have a real responsibility to teach their children about and to help them make good decisions when it comes to sex.
	Sex is a glorious, wonderful, exciting part of our lives.
	And the philosophy has some, dare I say, juicy stuff to say about sex.
	And reasoning about sex, how to integrate it into your life, what standards to have, how to get the fruit without the worm, how to get the rose without the thorn, is a challenge.
	Biology works with us and yet against us at times, so it is a challenging topic.
	I'm going to do a sex series in a bit, but I have to get a high-def webcam, naturally.
	Obviously one with widescreen.
	But it is a challenging topic, and in what ways did your parents help prepare you for the naughty bits?
	Yeah, not too much.
	My dad read me a Christian-based book, And it was pretty awkward, but I think we got about three quarters of the way through it when I just really didn't want to hear it because it was all of his, you know, masturbation is wrong and only between married couples.
	At the time, I already kind of knew everything through, I don't know, friends, school, other ways of hearing about sex and how that works.
	Yeah, almost the biggest demographic that consumes pornography is 12 to 17-year-old boys, online pornography in particular.
	And I just can't quite imagine how a Christian text could compete in any visceral manner, you know, unless the Christian text comes with some well-shaped Holy Ghost and pop-up pictures in a lube ointment.
	I mean, it's just, right, just it can't compete.
	So, I mean, that's not a particularly practical way.
	Finger-wagging morality is really a practical way to instruct people.
	And if you have good reasons and you can make a good case, I think that's the case.
	Also recognizing that sexuality is the most powerful force, frankly, in the biological universe, because it's why we're all here.
	I mean, it's why evolution occurs.
	It's why we're not jellyfish or single-celled organisms or lobbyists.
	It is why we are here.
	And, you know, I used to sort of wonder sometimes.
	I still occasionally do.
	I sort of wonder.
	I look at a person and I wonder to myself, I wonder in which position they were conceived.
	I do.
	I look at the person and say, that person definitely reversed cowgirl.
	No question.
	No question whatsoever.
	You know, their pants are hanging low.
	If they've got their baseball cap on backwards, you know that's a primal sperm echo.
	So, I mean, I just, you know, because this is the reality.
	A sperm and an egg came together, and bingo, bango, bongo, I've got someone to fill my gas tank.
	Right?
	Or do my taxes.
	And I just, you know, always curious about this kind of stuff.
	It's just idle thoughts for idle moments, but, you know, when you become a father, you just realize that, you know, sperm and an egg mates person, and that's the only reason why we're here.
	And, of course, control of sexuality...
	Is control of people.
	If you can get people to self-attack on sexuality, then you really have done a lot to control them.
	The provoking of self-attack is the modern sacrifice, right?
	So people found it relatively unprofitable to cut people's throats on an altar because then they're dead and can't produce you any stuff.
	But people have found it much more productive to sow the seeds of guilt and self-attack in people.
	And then once you get people to self-attack...
	Then they will pay you to absolve them of that self-attack.
	And literally, I mean, when faith is called a virus, basically I think the argument is that the body can attack itself, right?
	And that is a huge problematic thing.
	I mean, everything from arthritis to some of the autoimmune diseases where the body begins to attack itself is a significant problem.
	People die from that, and that's what allergies are, is the body mistaking a benign substance for a deadly substance.
	And the same thing occurs in the mind.
	When you can be provoked into self-attack, then that is a painful and uncomfortable situation to be in.
	And then if you can pay someone to relieve you of your self-attack, then they will become very wealthy.
	When you look at the throne of gold and the tea cozy outfits of the Pope, who rails against the accumulation of wealth through capitalism, what you are seeing is the money that people have paid to push back the mental virus of sin that has been infected by the priest.
	The priest infects you with sin, and you pay the priest to remove the mental discomfort of sin for a certain amount of time, and then it must always come back, which is why there's no permanent cure for sin except death.
	And since we all have sexual thoughts, and since we all have sexual thoughts that Are not confined to monogamous, God-fearing relationships since it is involuntary, particularly at your age, right?
	I mean, men think about sex about every 15 seconds for, I think, about 15 seconds.
	And some of those sexual thoughts don't have anything to do with the merging of one's higher spirit and the mutual veneration of creating another Christian for God, right?
	A lot of it has to do with, that's a nice wobbly bit.
	I would like to jump it.
	And that's natural.
	There's nothing wrong with that.
	I mean, walk past a candy store and don't want any candy is ridiculous, right?
	It doesn't mean we have to act on any of that stuff, but it's there.
	And if you can get people to self-attack for natural biological impulses, for natural biological drivers, which is why we're all here to begin with, then you are in a perpetual state of ke-chinging in on relieving them of the attacks that you have created within them.
	I mean, this is all, I'm sure, fairly obvious to you.
	But it is a really crappy way to prepare people for adult sexuality.
	To basically say, every time you masturbate, Jesus loses an eyeball.
	That is a really terrible thing to say.
	And it is mentally and physically extremely unhealthy.
	So I am incredibly sorry that this is your background for sexuality.
	And it is of course a tragically common background.
	All of the healthiest and most natural desires are hooked into by religion and turned against the owner of those desires so that you can be paid for relief from those desires.
	And sexuality in particular, I mean, you know, if you have a great meal, you don't really think about eating for a couple of hours.
	But even after great sex, you know, particularly as a young man, you can be turned on again in ten minutes, five minutes.
	And so sexuality is the greatest source of revenue if it can be turned into self-attack.
	And I think it's a monstrous and terrible thing that has produced an enormous amount and really an incalculable amount of human agony and dysfunction over the years.
	So I'm really sorry that this is in your background in any way, shape or form.
	I don't think that it is a remotely healthy thing.
	To pay a child to not have sex and not masturbate or to pay a young man, you're 18 or whatever.
	I think that's extremely dysfunctional.
	I'm even more disturbed by the fact that there does not seem to be any part of your dad that says, well, this just does seem a little bit crazy.
	So my son, who's 18, who's still six or seven years away from brain maturity, my son who's 18, let's say you made a mistake.
	I don't know if you did.
	I don't know.
	Because I don't know you.
	I don't know your level of maturity.
	I don't know, right?
	And Paul Walker was not involved, although he probably was watching in some capacity.
	But I don't know whether you made a mistake or not, but let's say you did, right?
	I don't think you did, but let's say you did.
	Let's say you made a mistake.
	For your father to be perfectly comfortable having you pay for, what, seven or eight or nine years, Thousands and thousands of dollars, which I assume he can afford and you can't, for having sex for one night is pretty deranged.
	For there to be no like, you know what, this is a bit too much.
	But for him to continue to put the heel in, to put the grind in with no sense that this is inappropriate or disproportionate or not virtuous even by his own standards, right?
	It is not virtuous to bribe you into virtue.
	Because God knows that you're only doing it for money.
	And if God knows you're only doing it for money, then God is going to have even less respect for you than if you didn't do it for money but did it anyway, right?
	Because then you have conformity, hypocrisy, and the sin of avarice or greed, right?
	So even by his own standards, what he's doing is desperately wrong and dangerous to your soul.
	And making you a worse person in the eyes of God.
	Now, you understand, as an atheist, this is all nonsense.
	But even by his own standards, what he's doing is exactly the opposite of what he should be doing.
	Now, do you think there's any chance to get your father to sit down with a therapist or to sit down with a priest who may help you to, you know, you're supposed to turn the other cheek.
	You're supposed to forgive your enemies.
	I don't think you're supposed to keep charging them for a single ejaculate years ago.
	Yeah.
	I think we'd only get a chance to sit down with someone who agrees with him.
	He's an elder in his church and pretty much he's along the same.
	The pastor in the church would agree with him on that.
	I don't think there would be any way we could get him to sit down with a secular therapist.
	Well, I mean, I wish I could help you.
	I think it's desperately wrong.
	I'm very sorry that this is the situation that you're in.
	I'm glad that you are not agreeing with him.
	I'm sorry that these are the consequences.
	I'm sorry about the irreparable harm that this is doing to your relationship with your father.
	You know, people who want to meet at the table of ghosts end up lonelier than anybody else in the world.
	People who say, we will meet in Christ are basically saying, I will love you when we can ride unicorns together.
	I will love you when unreality is our environment.
	I will love you when the world is banana shaped, up is down and black is white.
	I will love you when the impossible comes to pass.
	We will meet where there is no meeting.
	We will hug where there are no bodies.
	We will have a meeting of the minds in the graveyard of non-existence.
	It is an entirely tragic perspective and the loneliness and isolation of That accrues to people who wish to dominate and to connect through fantasy is, I believe, what could power a thousand or even a million suns.
	And I'm incredibly sorry that you're caught up in this mess.
	I don't have any other particular advice to give you.
	I would certainly talk to a good therapist about this situation.
	As you probably know, it's not about the money.
	I'm not saying the money is unimportant.
	It's what the money means and what the power means.
	And now that I understand that he's an elder in the church, I can understand that what he wants is to save face and to have conformity.
	And then now he can even save face, though you have transgressed, by describing the punishment to everyone around him and being the self-righteous Old Testament fist of an asshole God.
	So I'm really sorry that you're caught up in this.
	I would definitely talk to a therapist and try and Figure out how you can resolve these issues, but it's monstrous and unjust.
	Thanks.
	One question related, if you have a minute.
	In my mind, at least, several years ago when this was just all fresh and hot, I probably wouldn't have paid him back if it weren't for his threats to not include me in his inheritance, and I almost still feel that way.
	I'm not sure if that's The way I should be feeling and whether I feel like I should be feeling that because I signed this, I am owing him my word as far as that goes.
	I don't know if you have any thoughts on whether...
	Oh, I would not.
	No, the contract is not binding.
	In any moral sense, the contract is not binding.
	I mean, the contract is...
	When did you sign?
	How old were you when you signed the contract?
	I'd have to look back, but 16, 17...
	Yeah, 16-year-olds cannot sign contracts.
	There's no legal binding.
	I mean, in a free society, you wouldn't let a 16-year-old sign a contract.
	Rain of maturity and so on, right?
	I mean, they can't process consequences nearly as well as older people.
	Again, it's not a fault.
	It's just a reality.
	I'm not insulting children by saying that they're short.
	It's just a physical reality.
	So you're just basically just saying that it's up to my choice on what I want to do there.
	Yeah, I mean, no court would uphold—and talk to a lawyer.
	I'm not a lawyer, right?
	But what court would possibly uphold a vaguely worked contract between a father and a 16-year-old?
	And also the other thing, too, is that if he doesn't want you having sex, then trying to enforce a contract where failure to pay will result in jail is not exactly the way to achieve that, right?
	In fact, you end up with the kind of involuntary sex that the Bible strongly condemns and says that the practitioners of should be murdered, right?
	And I don't believe that there's any moral, any morally binding nature in the contract in any way, shape, or form.
	Moral or legal, or again, legal I can't speak to, I don't know.
	Moral I can make a case for, though I can't prove conclusively, but I would not trouble yourself with the ethics of paying back or not.
	I think that it is ridiculously unjust.
	There is no contract where you can say to someone, if you have sex, I mean, unless you're married to a woman, sorry, unless you're married to a woman and you sleep on her, sleep around on her.
	There's really no contract in the world that says if my 18 year old has sex, he owes me $20,000.
	I mean, which is really or, you know, if he found out you masturbated, he might also charge you $18,000 or $20,000 to masturbate.
	There's simply no valid or just contract, particularly between a parent and a child, because he's responsible for your ethics.
	So I don't believe there's any moral content whatsoever in what you call the contract.
	Okay.
	Alright, best of luck to you, my friend.
	And again, I'm incredibly sorry that this was your experience of elder masculinity and fatherhood.
	I'm really sorry.
	So, if we can move on to the next caller?
	Alright, Jesse.
	You're up next, Jesse.
	Go ahead.
	Oh, I wish I had your girl.
	Go ahead.
	She is pretty awesome.
	I loved your talk with Alex Jones on Friday.
	I had called in to try and talk to you then.
	I found it...
	Very fortuitous that the person who woke me up to the truth and you who woke me up to philosophical perspective were on the same line.
	So I thought that was a good experience and I hope a lot of people took advantage of it.
	Thank you.
	So I served in the Army for eight years.
	I spent most of that time deployed overseas.
	Woke up to a lot of stuff.
	Well, some stuff when I got back and got out and then I got reactivated and sent back over.
	And then I got out, I got really depressed.
	You know, obviously the more I found out and ended up being homeless for a while.
	After I got reactivated, I was sent down to New Orleans where I live now to help out with Katrina.
	And I promised I'd come back here afterwards because it was awesome, even in a squalor.
	I ended up meeting an awesome girl and we got married and we're married now.
	I guess my question is about the non-aggression principle.
	We have twin boys now, 18 months old, and we both come from fairly broken homes.
	Both of my parents were alcoholics.
	My mom was a pretty Bible-thumping Christian.
	Once she sobered up, she got into AA, which is predicated a lot on faith and all that stuff.
	She would drag me to those meetings a lot as a kid.
	Why did you have to go?
	I think she was concerned about, because I had shared a visitation with my father who was still actively drinking, and I think that she felt that it was a deterrent, I guess, to keep me from going down that road or whatever.
	I'm sorry to interrupt, but the soldiers that I've talked to, I mean, almost universally, and I say almost only because I haven't cross-examined soldiers, But the soldiers and ex-soldiers that I've talked to all have incredibly dysfunctional backgrounds.
	And the fact that we put weapons in the hands of the most damaged to be led by the most damaged, to be commanded by the politicians who are the most damaged of all...
	I should give people a sense of pause.
	Obviously, the use of force is one of the most challenging and sophisticated moral problems that there is.
	What is proportional self-defense?
	What is the initiation of force?
	What is fraud?
	To what degree can we retaliate against people who've not initiated violence against us through force?
	It's a very complicated and challenging questions, and they tend to be answered by the people with the most traumatic childhoods, and that, of course, is...
	It's literally like saying, well, we can only hire a surgeon if he's blind and has hooks for hands.
	So I just sort of wanted to mention that, but please, please go on.
	Yeah, I mean, and like I said, you know, in the beginning of the call, you and Alex and others have really helped me kind of come out of my funk, as it were, and really put things into perspective for me.
	I, you know, since I met my wife, she's been my rock, not to use a, you know, biblical reference, but she was my rock.
	We're both agnostic.
	She was raised Catholic, but I was a pretty diehard Christian throughout my time in the military and everything.
	But once I got out and started, you know, that was amongst my truth journey was kind of moving away from that.
	Anyway, you know, from her perspective, and I wanted her to kind of be on the call too, but she's taking care of our kids downstairs.
	Both of her parents were very verbally abusive.
	They're constantly yelling.
	They both hate each other.
	They have for probably 15 years.
	Literally like they sleep with divorce papers under their bed.
	I mean it's not a very good home.
	So basically my question and the dilemma that we have is that we both end up kind of allowing our parents to come out and our parenting with our children.
	And just through my experiences in the military, and I just recently quit drinking because it was becoming a huge problem for me.
	It was a huge problem for my family and in turn a huge problem for me because...
	Good for you.
	I've been exposed to you and others and I want to...
	I was actually secretary for the Libertarian Party here in our local area and I actually left them because they were so...
	I'm insistent on being kind of uber-right Christian-based and not open to including anybody else that wanted to participate in the liberty movement that wasn't based in Christianity.
	And I felt that that was really tragic because there needs to be, and this is not to say that Christians aren't Aren't logical, but there needs to be that unbiased, logical base when it comes to that kind of thing, and an unemotional kind of approach to policy, and especially when it comes to non-aggression, not forcing people to do anything that they don't want to do or believe in anything they don't want to believe in.
	I ended up leaving that because it was too frustrating for me.
	I couldn't talk to anybody because it always went back to the Bible, which I was happy to meet them at because being a Christian before, I know the Bible quite well.
	I'm sorry, I appreciate the political side.
	Let's make sure we stay on the parenting side.
	So do you yell at your kids?
	Is that what's happening?
	Okay, so I was actually pretty more or less open to light, and I know there is no such thing as light, but spanking until I actually listened to your conversation on it.
	And that really opened up a lot to, because that's how I was raised.
	I mean, my dad would make me go, as he called it, toe-to-toe with him when he was, you know, drunk or angry or both or whatever.
	What do you mean toe-to-toe?
	Do you mean like he would make you box with him?
	No, he would literally make me stand toe-to-toe to him and do like a stare down and dared me basically to do something at him like that.
	Just wait till he's sleeping.
	Right.
	Anyway, sorry about that.
	That's incredibly weird, but okay.
	I mean, yeah, so I mean, and he...
	So, I mean, I don't know.
	I'm just, at this point, like I said, my wife and I, we argue a lot, and it's mostly about really trivial things.
	She has a tendency to yell like her parents did, basically by default, as like a default mode of communication.
	Can you give me an example of, can you tell me, can you give me an example of When she might yell?
	Like, what would the kids do that would make her yell?
	Or that would cause her to yell?
	Well, I mean, they're 18-month-old kids, you know?
	They wiggle when we're changing diapers.
	They won't listen to her, not because they're intentionally not listening to her.
	They just don't understand or they don't, you know, they're not...
	At that point where you can talk to them and they understand exactly what you mean.
	And she gets overwhelmed and she's frustrated.
	I'm at work.
	She's alone with twins.
	So it's frustrating.
	It's overwhelming.
	I get that totally.
	Well, but it gets much more frustrating if you're constantly yelling, right?
	Right.
	Parenting people say, well, I yell because I'm overwhelmed.
	And I would argue that you're overwhelmed because you're yelling.
	I mean, if you have irrational expectations for children, and then they're constantly chafing at you because they don't know how to fill out your tax return or go pick up groceries for you in the car, then of course you're going to be constantly all the more stressed, right?
	I mean, if you have a calm and peaceful relationship with your children where your expectations are age-appropriate, well...
	Then it's a whole lot less stressful.
	People don't yell because they're stressed.
	They're stressed because they yell.
	I mean, I don't want to really point that out.
	If your wife didn't have the default go-to position called raising her voice or getting frustrated or getting angry, if that was not an option for her, she'd be a whole lot less stressed, right?
	Right.
	No, and I totally understand that.
	And I've tried to offer bringing somebody in to help people.
	But neither one of us are particularly enthusiastic about that idea, both from a moral and a financial standpoint.
	Because at this point...
	Hang on a sec.
	What about...
	Are the grandparents around?
	So her mother hates me because her mother...
	You don't need it because...
	I mean, sorry.
	It's not for any objective or rational reason, I'm sure, but...
	Sorry, I didn't interrupt.
	You were going somewhere else.
	What else is going on with the hate?
	Well, I mean, her entire family is not thrilled with her mother, but that's another story.
	So yeah, her mother hates me and for the most part hates her daughter.
	You know...
	She went on a date with her boyfriend to the movies and told her dad, but didn't tell her mom, so she flipped out.
	I just missed that last bit, if you could help me out of it.
	When my wife was 16 years old, her mother threw her stuff in the yard and kicked her out because she went to the movies with her father's permission and her mom didn't know about it.
	So I mean, that's kind of the level of irrationality that we're dealing with from that front.
	And her father, as of now, is all over the country with work, so he's very rarely around.
	And my parents live away.
	My mom's in Maine and my dad's in upstate New York, so they're not around.
	So we're kind of on an island here.
	Right.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Do you notice any patterns?
	Are there increased or decreased stress times in your parenting?
	I mean, money is good.
	You know, I'm an IT person.
	I take a lot of contracts with us.
	So, you know, as I'm sure you're aware, sometimes it's good and sometimes it's not so good.
	You know, she's She's extremely good with money, and that's one of the things I love about her.
	I have no idea how much we pay for bills, but I just hand her all my money, and the lights stay on.
	So she does a really good job as far as that goes.
	And I really, really rely on her.
	Alright, hang on.
	I want to stay on topic.
	I'm sure she's great.
	Okay.
	I tell you from my experience, when I had spent time with dysfunctional people, that came back in the house with me.
	When I was in conference—and it could just be phone calls.
	It could be anything.
	When I was around dysfunctional people, that came back in the house with me.
	Oh, I see what you're saying.
	I see what you're saying.
	Yes, when she does, the few times she has brought the kids over to see her mom, because her mom's made it clear that she's allowed to come over with the kids whenever, as long as I'm not with them— So, so basically, you know, she doesn't come to their birthday party.
	She didn't come to our Christmas party.
	She, you know.
	So, wait a second.
	So, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
	Hang on, hang on, hang on.
	So, your wife loves you and her mother hates you.
	Yeah.
	Why, why, why does she get to have both?
	I don't understand.
	Well, I mean, I guess we're caught, we've had that conversation and I'm not going to give her an ultimatum of them or me.
	No, no, no.
	It's not about you.
	No, no.
	Sorry.
	It's not about you having the ultimatum.
	Where are her standards in this?
	Yeah, I mean, I think she wants my kids to have grandparents.
	I mean, I think that's where that is.
	Well, okay, but where are her moral standards in this, in that she will take your children over to a highly toxic individual who is probably at some point, if hasn't already, is going to trash talk you in front of them.
	And that they're going to see that their mom is a great fan of someone who trash talks their dad.
	No.
	No.
	You do not have the right and your wife does not have the right to expose your children to that.
	If your wife wants to go over and self-flagellate on the altar of cultural conformity, fine.
	But I do not believe that you have the right and your wife does not have the right to expose your children to people who are going to damage your children's perception of you.
	The bond is everything.
	The bond is everything.
	And parents do not have the right to expose children to people who harm the bond.
	It's damaging.
	Very damaging.
	And very confusing for children.
	I love daddy.
	I love mommy.
	Don't like grandma.
	Mom takes me over to grandma who hates daddy.
	What the hell is up and down in this universe?
	Right, right.
	I see that.
	I understand that.
	And your wife needs to understand that.
	So, what would be your recommendation, and this was kind of the core of my call, for working together to try, and we are seeking a therapist to talk to.
	Unfortunately, most of them down here in Louisiana are faith-based, but I found one guy who's pretty open to Just speaking with non-religious people without kind of saying the only way it works is through Christ and all that.
	But how would you recommend kind of working together to filter out and kind of keep other than, you know, obviously separating ourselves from the negative aspects of our family?
	Keeping that influence from coming out of us to our children.
	I'm sorry, when you say separating yourself from the negative aspects of your family, do you mean not seeing her parents or your parents?
	Right.
	Well, I mean, the first standard is you do not have the right to expose your children to toxic people, to unstable people, to abusive people, to mean people, to disrespectful people.
	You simply don't have the right to expose them to those people.
	Because children, they're like snow, right?
	Whatever you throw in leaves an impression.
	They impress.
	And they impress, people impress upon them and values impress upon them.
	Right?
	I am very conscious every time my daughter meets someone that that person is in my daughter's life with my approval.
	Right?
	Right?
	And so every person who's in my life, who's in my daughter's life, my daughter gets to judge me and my values because that person is only in my daughter's life with my explicit permission and encouragement.
	And I'm saying, this is good for you.
	Right?
	Who this person is, is good for you.
	Because I cannot say to my daughter, I am now going to repeatedly expose you to somebody who I think is very toxic, very dysfunctional, very destructive.
	Because then my daughter is going to say, why?
	Why are you exposing me to a destructive and dysfunctional person?
	I mean, if I had a relative who hated my wife, that relative would not belong in my contact list.
	Sorry, you don't get to hate my wife.
	You don't get to hate my wife and be in my life.
	I'm sorry.
	That is not an option.
	I'm telling you my thoughts.
	I can't tell you what to do.
	I can't tell you what to do.
	Right.
	No, I totally understand that.
	And I think her biggest influence in trying to keep her mother around is that her father is basically telling her that she has to not...
	What he's not saying is it's to make his life easier because they still live together, but basically that she has to and we have to include her, invite her to all our functions.
	No, I get it.
	Sorry to interrupt.
	Her father is telling her that she has to be really nice to his wife, right?
	Right.
	How's he living that?
	Don't you say they sleep with divorce papers under the bed and scream at each other?
	Right!
	No, that's my...
	I mean, seriously, you've been in the army, so excuse my French, but who the fuck is he to say treat this woman well when he treats her like shit?
	You know, hey, dad, show me how it's done.
	Yeah, no, I hear you.
	Show me how it's done.
	You're a tennis expert?
	Show me how you play.
	You're an expert on treating your wife really well and really being considerate to her?
	Show me how that works.
	But don't tell me to do something that you don't do.
	That's ridiculous.
	Show me how it works.
	But if you can't do it, don't ask me to do it.
	It's not so much that her father doesn't treat her with respect.
	It's that, you know, he made a marital error some years ago.
	And instead of kind of dealing with it at that time, she's kind of held it over his head.
	Oh, so he had an affair and she's using it to grind his balls, right?
	Right, basically.
	Well, that's who he chose to get married to.
	Right.
	I think the marital error may have been a little bit earlier than a few years ago, right?
	And he is accepting that.
	Look, if you make a mistake, look, if you do something wrong, you make a mistake in a relationship or you do something that is bad, then you make atonement, you make restitution, but if the person decides to stay with you, they have to let it go.
	But they have to.
	There's no other choice, right?
	So if I yell at my wife...
	And I say, man, I'm sorry.
	I go to therapy.
	I work in it.
	I deal with it.
	I make restitution.
	I promise to never do it again or whatever.
	Then she cannot continue to hold it over me.
	Because then it's like, okay, well, if you can't forgive me, we have no relationship.
	Because I will not be in a relationship where I subject myself to petty and arbitrary power.
	I don't want it in the government.
	I sure as hell don't want it in my bedroom.
	Right?
	I've said that one before, yep.
	Yeah, so it's not because, like, the reason that he's getting his balls ground is not because he made a mistake or had an affair or whatever, right?
	It's because when you make a mistake with someone, you are vulnerable.
	The most important thing in any relationship, the most important thing in any relationship to figure out is how that person handles power.
	How does that person handle power?
	When you are vulnerable, when you have made a mistake, when someone has kicked you when you're down, you are in a low status position relative to that person.
	How does that person handle power over you?
	Now, if they're a petty tyrant and turn your life into a little domestic mirror of North Korea, it tells you how they handle power.
	It tells you you can't be vulnerable around them, so you can't be dependent upon them.
	Because they'll just grind you when you're down, and they'll keep grinding you until...
	You turn into a ghost.
	So it is also you say he doesn't treat her disrespectfully.
	Allowing people to grind you down is treating them disrespectfully.
	It is treating them disrespectfully.
	Allowing people to abuse you, allowing people to denigrate you is harmful to them.
	Enabling people's bad emotional habits and destructive relational interactions is bad for them.
	You might as well be forcing cheesecake in the mouth of a diabetic.
	Allowing people to harm you, allowing people to harm those you love is highly destructive to them.
	The people who were in my life who were abusive...
	I could not allow them to do that to me based upon the vestiges of love and attachment I had to them.
	I will not enable people's bad behavior.
	And if that helps them, I think that's great.
	But if it doesn't, at least I'm not continuing to harm them by allowing them to do bad things to me.
	Every time somebody puts you down, every time somebody insults you, every time somebody yells at you, they get a little worse.
	And you are enabling them getting worse by looking the other way or turning the other cheek or allowing that to continue.
	It is harmful to those you have some historical attachment to.
	If you have any caring left for people who are harming you, you must not allow them to harm you.
	It makes them worse.
	You are buying drinks for the drunk.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	That's exactly why her mother doesn't like me.
	It's because I called her out within the first three months of my relationship with my wife.
	I called her out in kind of an open fashion.
	Well, you kind of didn't.
	Sorry to interrupt you.
	I really apologize for the interruptions, but you kind of didn't.
	Right?
	Because your wife is still hanging out with this woman who hates you.
	You didn't get that solved before you got married.
	You didn't get that solved before you had kids, right?
	Now it's tougher.
	No, I agree it wasn't effectual, but I mean...
	I basically did what I did, called her out, and then the rest of the family was like, Oh my God, why did you just kick the bee's nest?
	And then I basically just...
	So you're in a worse situation now than if you never called her out at all, right?
	So to speak.
	Well, I think I have more respect for her family because I said what they all basically think.
	But it created this scenario where we can't function.
	Wait, wait, wait.
	You have more respect for her family because you said what they already think and then they got upset with you for saying that.
	In what possible universe could that engender respect?
	For her sake.
	What I'm saying is as long as she's not in the picture, as long as we're somewhere where she isn't, it's fine.
	But as soon as she's around or as soon as she's involved, you know, they basically Judas me to her.
	Okay, so this is not something that's going to bring respect to your heart, right?
	I mean, it's not something I'm really seeking.
	I really just want to have my family with my wife.
	And if her family is going to decide to enable this person, then that's...
	I mean, I can only do so much.
	I feel I can only do so much in that regard.
	And I feel that making my point known and making my stance very clear with my wife that I don't want that conduct in my house.
	And I want our relationship and our, you know, kind of performance with our children to be positive and nurturing and, you know, developmental and stuff like that.
	And something like what you said the other day or that I heard the other day in your show is that, you know, we're exploring new avenues together and we're learning as well as our kids are about this new kind of style of living.
	This non-aggressive kind of positive vibe that neither one of us have been particularly exposed to before.
	But this continual negative...
	Sorry, I'm just going to...
	Look, I appreciate this, and I don't mean to sound like I'm dogging on you, brother.
	I mean, you are doing some fantastic stuff.
	I mean, you quit drinking, you've stopped spanking, and you're working at the yelling, right?
	I mean, massive kudos to you.
	You know, if I could light a prayer candle in your direction, I would set off some fireworks.
	So I really want to sort of point that out, that you are like at the graduate level of parenting relative to most.
	And I really want to appreciate that and acknowledge that.
	So I don't want to sound like, you know, I'm dogging on what you're doing.
	But since I try to give as much honesty as I can in every response, then this would be my advice to you.
	First of all, you need to gather the evidence about how harmful yelling is.
	Man, you think spanking is bad?
	Yelling is worse.
	Right.
	So replacing spanking with yelling is like replacing a little bit of arsenic with more arsenic.
	This is not towards health.
	Now, I know that that's a huge challenge, but gather the information.
	Just do harmful effects of yelling, Google that, get the facts, get the science, get the data.
	Present it to your wife.
	Say, look, this is...
	Your wife's going to say, I'm overwhelmed.
	I'm going to say, well, but that's because you're yelling, most likely.
	Right?
	Right?
	And so that's the first thing I would do.
	You have to just make the fact-based case.
	And, you know, also remind her that she needs to have age-appropriate expectations for your kids.
	Twins are hard.
	I mean, my God, I get it.
	I mean, I probably don't get it.
	But I can sort of picture it.
	So the other thing that you need to do is you need to Read up everything you can on typical development pathways for children.
	Every month, I would sit down with my wife and we would read down the latest research, the latest facts about the next six months, right?
	What is Isabella supposed to do at six weeks?
	It was every week at the beginning, right?
	We would sit down and say, well, what is it to be expected at three months, six months, nine months, 12 months, 24 months, and so on?
	What can children do?
	What can they not do, right?
	Because you need to have the facts about what is age-appropriate developmental capacities for your children so that you don't refrain from pushing them to do what they can do if, you know, encouragement and all that.
	And you also don't blame them for not doing what they simply cannot do.
	So you have to get your expectations in alignment with reality, right?
	You bring sunscreen to the beach because it's sunny, right?
	You bring an umbrella when it's raining.
	You have to adjust what you're doing to have rational expectations of cause and effect.
	So, find out the facts about yelling, find out, and maybe you have, I just want to remind you, read up on emotional development.
	If your wife is upset at your boys not doing what they can't do, then she needs to change.
	And then, I mean, because of your background and your military history, you think in terms of compliance or ultimatums, right?
	But there's a third way.
	More or less, yeah.
	Yeah, of course, right?
	You either take the orders or you give the orders, right?
	Compliance or ultimatums.
	Exactly.
	But there is another aspect.
	Of course, there is appeal to self-interest.
	The most precious thing to guard is your children's respect for you.
	The most precious thing, that is your true currency as a parent.
	It's not power, it's not authority, it's not size, it's not strength, it's not independence, it's not money.
	If your children respect you, your job as a parent, it doesn't become easier, it becomes possible.
	Right?
	In other words, you're not heading in the wrong way.
	Like, if you're heading in the wrong way, If you're supposed to go north and you go south, going north doesn't make it easier to get where you want to get.
	It makes you possible.
	It makes it possible for you to get where you want to get.
	So you need to fiercely guard, like gold in the basement, like diamonds in the nutsack, you need to fiercely guard your children's respect for you, which means that you need to act in a way that promotes as much health and reduces as much toxicity as possible.
	Make that case to your wife.
	And also, you can ask her, under what conditions is it no longer productive to see her mother?
	So, for instance, if your mother, sorry, if her mother trash talks you in front of the kids, is that it?
	Is that the moment?
	You know, oh, that guy's a fucking asshole.
	He's a sleazebag.
	He's a lazy bastard.
	He's not worthy of you.
	But if that goes on in front of your children, Is that the time to pull the pin on the grenade?
	I don't know.
	At some point, there has to be a standard.
	Right?
	I mean, if she burns an effigy of you in the front yard, is that the standard?
	If she just puts you down or says you can do better or anything relatively innocuous but which is going to sink like an anchor into the hearts of your boys, confusing them, frustrating them, and bewildering them.
	You don't want to be bewildering To your children because bewilderment is the seed that grows into the flower of contempt.
	You must guard the future happiness of your family like the prize and the jewel that it is.
	So my daughter gets fussy about the clothes that she wears and wants to change a lot, get into a lot of conflict about it.
	So I had a long chat with her saying, that can't happen because I want to fiercely guard the happiness that we have together.
	And if we get into a lot of fights about clothes...
	That's going to be a problem.
	So let's sit together while we're calm, when we're not trying to get dressed, and figure out how we can best solve this problem.
	But what's not going to happen is fights every day about clothes.
	Now, this is too tight.
	This is uncomfortable, right?
	I mean, if you say that you like something and we buy it for you, you have to give it a try.
	Or we have to take it back.
	And so it's not just saying, well, you can't do that, right?
	It's, you know, let's put our heads together and figure out how we can solve this problem when we're not having this problem in the moment.
	So...
	I think that's one of our biggest problems, is that we try and talk about these things kind of on the tail end of a blowout or, you know, whatever, an event.
	And it's so emotionally charged, it just...
	It doesn't result in anything concrete or, you know.
	I mean, as you know, problems are all about prevention.
	You can't in the moment.
	In the moment in a conflict, I will almost always defer to my daughter.
	Because if we're having a conflict, especially if it's one that's happened before, then we are mostly having that conflict because I have failed as a parent to solve the problem when we're not having the problem.
	Right?
	So I'm not going to snap at my daughter, oh, just wear what you chose.
	Right?
	It's not tight.
	Look, I can put my finger in, right?
	It's not tight.
	If we're having those repetitive conflicts, that's my fault.
	100% my fault as a father for not solving the problem when we're not having the problem.
	So that we have rules that we've all agreed on and they can always be renegotiated, but we have rules to negotiate the conflicts.
	Right?
	So you need to sit down and have the rules with your wife and your kids, you said they're 18 months?
	Yeah, they'll be 19 months here coming up.
	Okay, so at this age you can start to involve your boys in the rules, even if it's like, is this good?
	Yes or no, right?
	I mean, kids can start to negotiate from 14 to 16 months onwards.
	I was curious about that.
	I know you had mentioned that in the past and I don't want to take up too much more of your time.
	I know you've got a lot of people on the line, but if you could expound on that, that's something that I've been very interested in, and I know you spoke on it before, but not in any great detail that I could find anyway.
	Well, parents, I mean, let's look at the challenges first, right?
	So parents say, don't hit, don't yell, right?
	But we think that that's rules for our kids, and I guess it kind of is.
	But UPB says that it's far more rules for the parents, right?
	You cannot tell your children not to yell if either you raise your voice, your wife raises your voice, or they are exposed to anyone who raises their voice.
	Right?
	You cannot tell your children not to hit.
	Obviously, if you hit or your wife hits, I know that's not an issue around anyone who hits.
	Or you regularly put them in the company of children who hit.
	Right?
	Whether it's a daycare or a school where there may be hitting going on.
	If you regularly put them into an environment that violates the moral rules that you lay down for them, those moral rules will not stick.
	In fact, they will cause more problems than they solve.
	You have to model the behavior and the behavior that you model has to be consistent in everyone they interact with.
	Let me say that again.
	You not only have to model the behavior you want from your children, but that behavior has to be consistent with everyone they come in contact with.
	You cannot teach your children words if the grandparents are teaching them the opposite words or different words.
	That's only going to confuse them and cause lots of problems.
	And this is the challenge.
	We think the rules are for the kids.
	The rules are for the kids' entire environment, including ourselves and everyone they come in contact with.
	Right?
	So I say, don't yell.
	My daughter's not a big yeller, but I say don't yell.
	I mean, I don't really say it like that, but you understand that's kind of a rule.
	We don't yell, right?
	And that means it's responsible.
	My responsibility is to ensure that she's never around someone who yells.
	Or if she is around someone who yells, we remove ourselves from the environment and we talk about it as unacceptable.
	Right?
	If I say don't say mean things, again, I don't think she said a mean thing in her whole life, but if she did, First of all, I'd have to figure out where it came from.
	We don't like the fact that children are in fact just little mirrors of their environment, most of which is the parents.
	So, if I say don't yell, I have to make sure she's never around anyone who yells, or if she is, we remove ourselves from the situation or I confront the yeller, and then we say how unacceptable that is.
	We can't say you need to listen to mommy and daddy if we don't listen to her.
	Can we say, don't interrupt if we interrupt?
	Or if she's around other people who interrupt?
	Right?
	So if we say to my daughter, we're working on the don't interrupt thing.
	And so if we are around other people who interrupt, we have to say to them, I'm sorry, don't interrupt.
	Right?
	If I interrupt her and she says, don't interrupt, I have to say, oh my goodness, I'm so sorry.
	You're absolutely correct.
	That was very rude of me.
	I completely apologize.
	I would really try not to do that again.
	If we see someone interrupt someone else on television, we have to say, did you see that just interrupted?
	That's not good.
	It has to be consistent.
	And then you don't need to enforce the rules any more than I need to bribe her to use the word candy for candy.
	It's just the word you use.
	Right?
	Whatever rules you want from your children, whatever behaviors that are consistent that you want from your children, you must set up an environment where they are not exposed to anything different.
	And then, as night follows day, that is what they will do.
	Does that make any sense?
	Absolutely.
	Crystal clear.
	Okay.
	Fantastic.
	Yeah, definitely.
	Thank you very much, Stefan.
	You are very welcome.
	You are very welcome.
	My daughter's fascination with Peter Joseph continues.
	It's true.
	I mean, like, right, because I've told her a little bit about the debates, and we talked about it, and then his, you know, hate-filled, you're a piece of shit, con artist rant, obviously I didn't tell her any of these words, but she's fascinated by it.
	And she's like, tell me more about Peter Joseph.
	Tell me about the debate again.
	Start from the beginning.
	I want to know what happened.
	What did he say?
	Why do you think he said that?
	And I, you know, I've been asking her why are you so fascinated by Peter Joseph?
	And she says, because I don't know anyone who says mean things.
	Right now she wants to work for the government.
	Thank you.
	Caught me by surprise.
	But we've been talking a lot about the economy, right?
	And I've talked to her about central banking because she's really interested in where money comes from and all that based upon bitcoins, right?
	We talk about bitcoins, explaining bitcoins and gold and fiat currency.
	So the other day, somebody said, well, what do you want to do when you get big?
	She says, I want to work for the government.
	Why is that?
	Well, because then I can type whatever I want into my bank account.
	And that beats working.
	Well, I can't quite argue with that quite yet.
	We'll continue to work on that.
	Anyway, so, all right, who do we have next?
	All right, Josh, you're up next, Josh.
	Go ahead.
	Hello, Stefan.
	Can you hear me?
	I can't.
	Hello.
	I want to talk about, I have trouble meeting people and connect with them.
	Can you just back off from your mic a little bit?
	You're over amplified.
	I'm too loud?
	Yeah, no, you can speak the same.
	Just back off from the mic a little bit.
	Give yourself a bit of space.
	Okay, yes.
	Is it better now?
	You're crowding my brain, man.
	Okay, so yeah, go ahead.
	Okay, good.
	Yes, I have trouble connecting with people.
	They seem to reject me.
	They don't reject me directly, but in a soft manner, in an implicit manner.
	So I reach out for them, but they don't really respond to me.
	They don't take initiative.
	They are really passive.
	For example, when I hang around with a group of people at my university, and so they never invite me into a party or so, and so I invited me in for myself, so I said, can I come by?
	And they said yes, and it was all fine.
	And I came there and They didn't even ignore me or so, but after that, they never take initiative.
	And that's a pattern with all people in my life, basically.
	So I don't have really deep friends, deep connections with anybody.
	I'm very sorry.
	So maybe you can help me understand how that works and how I can fix it and why it is.
	Right.
	Well, Have you listened to this show before?
	Yes, I've been listening since about six months.
	What's my first question?
	It's about my childhood.
	Childhood.
	Yes.
	Yes.
	So, I've already thought about that.
	So, I'm prepared.
	What do you want to know?
	Well, relative to the issue at hand, right?
	Yes.
	Did you feel close to your parents?
	Yes.
	I grew up in a single mother household, so it's only one parent.
	And I don't have a very good relationship to my mother.
	So, if I really feel close, I guess not.
	No, no, no.
	Did you receive any coaching on social skills when you were young?
	Do you mean explicit or do you mean by role model?
	No, explicit.
	Let me give you an example.
	I went out to a place where there were lots of kids with my daughter.
	She's super friendly, as am I. She goes up to girls and says, Hi, would you like to be friends?
	Of course, they're always a little bit startled.
	Some of them are quite nice and some of them are just like, What do I do with this?
	And so I point out to her, I said that, I said, you remember when you were younger, and she's much better with new people now, but she went through a phase where she just didn't like really spending any time with new people.
	I said, remember when you were younger and new people, like you'd say, well, it takes me a while to get used to new people and so on, right?
	So you're new to them, and so if you go up to them and say, hi, do you want to be friends?
	They don't know you yet, and they don't know if they want to be your friend because they don't know who you are and so on, right?
	So if you want to go up to them, I would suggest, right, you go up and say, hi, what's your name?
	I'm Isabella.
	You can say, I'm four.
	She's going to be five in December and December.
	How old are you?
	Do you go to school?
	Do you like school?
	What's your favorite thing to study?
	All of the questions just to find out to get to know the person before you try and jump on them with the sticky goo of the friendship question.
	And there are times where she's talking with someone and I will murmur to her some useful questions to ask so she gets used to how to chat to people.
	It's not something that's innate to us.
	It is a skill to be learned like every other skill.
	And when people call me up in general and they say, I can't do X in my life, all I hear is, I was never taught to do X in my life, right?
	So if you called me up and you said, Steph, I don't know how to ride a bicycle, right?
	What would my first question be?
	Well, why weren't you taught how to ride a bicycle?
	I mean, not that it's bad, right?
	But I would know that you had never been taught how to ride a bicycle.
	So if you're having trouble connecting with people, then I know that you weren't taught how to connect with people.
	In other words, it was neither implicit in terms of your relationship with your mom nor explicit.
	Implicit stuff only has so much value, right?
	So if I'm comfortable meeting new people and chatting with new people, which I am, it's kind of what I do, Then, unless I explain the principles of that and offer explicit guidance to my daughter, she's not going to be able...
	Like, my daughter's not going to learn how to play tennis by watching me play tennis.
	Right?
	She may learn a little bit about the rules, but she's not going to have the experience.
	And when I teach her, I can't just say, do what I do, like you've watched me do.
	I have to tell her how to hold the racket and how to swing it and all that kind of stuff.
	I have to be very explicit.
	Even if I'm implicitly good at something, and even if she experiences it implicitly in our relationship, I need to be very explicit...
	In explaining.
	So when you say, I don't know how to connect to people, I hear it was neither probably implicit and it certainly was not explicit in how you were raised and the skills that you were provided.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yes, you are right.
	It was not explicit to explain to me at any time.
	And was your mother a social person herself?
	No.
	She has the exact same problem as I have.
	She has also issues with friends and they don't call back and she has trouble communicating with them and relate with them.
	And was that taught to you as...
	Did she know that and explain that to you and say, there's a value called knowing how to talk to people, I don't have it, so here's how you're going to learn it, right?
	So if my daughter really wants to know how to play piano, I will say to her, I don't know how to play piano, let's hire a tutor, right?
	Yes.
	No, she don't.
	I just know that because she is complaining about that and that hurts her.
	The fact that she has rejected herself hurts her and she is not...
	I don't know if she's conscious about the fact that she lacks social skills, but social skills is not a topic.
	Do you understand?
	Okay, so as far as...
	Like if I said...
	I've been playing chess for 20 years, and you said, I don't know how to play chess.
	I might play a couple of times with you, but you would not be a regular chess partner for me because the skill sets are not equal, right?
	Okay.
	Okay, so if you don't have social skills, then people who do have social skills are going to find it kind of exhausting to be around you, right?
	In the same way that, right?
	You understand, right?
	I don't like to play tennis with people who don't know how to play tennis, right?
	Or squash or whatever it is, right?
	And just in the same way, I don't expect people who are really good at something I'm not good at to, like, a friend of mine plays drums in a band and I don't expect them to ask me to come up and jam with them because I don't, right?
	I don't know how to play those instruments and I wouldn't be able to...
	So it wouldn't make any sense, right?
	So if you lack social skills, then it's not because people don't like you.
	Like I can choose not to play chess with someone who doesn't play chess well.
	It doesn't mean I don't like the person.
	It just means there's not a match in skill sets, right?
	Yeah, I don't know if they like me or not.
	Yes.
	Okay, that's maybe not the causation for the rejection.
	But what is it?
	Well, I think I just told you.
	They know how to socialize and you don't, right?
	Yes.
	It's a lack of social skills, which means that it's really complicated and probably not very interesting for them to socialize with you because you don't really know how to socialize.
	And for that, I'm incredibly sorry.
	Yes.
	Highly irresponsible if your mom...
	To not recognize her own deficiencies and work to correct them, right?
	So she could say, look, I'm shy, I'm socially awkward, and so on, so I can't teach that to you, but obviously you need to know it, right?
	And therefore, I'm going to...
	Like, parents don't have to be good at everything in order to teach their children, but they do have to know what they're not good at and bring the necessary resources in to deal with it, right?
	I mean, if my daughter wants to learn Mandarin, I'm not going to teach her Mandarin.
	I don't speak it.
	But I know that I don't speak it, so I get someone else to teach her, right?
	And so your mother, right, to be a responsible parent, at least, and I'm not saying she was irresponsible in general, but in this area, she owed it to you to say, I am not very good at socializing, but clearly socializing is an important part of life.
	And therefore, you know, we're going to sign you up for Toastmasters.
	Are we going to sign you up for public speaking?
	Are we going to sign you up for social mixers?
	Are we going to sign you up?
	I don't know.
	I don't know how one goes about learning social skills in general, but because I'm pretty good with them, but there are ways.
	Or I'm going to read books, how to win friends and influence people, or how to do small talk, or I don't know, whatever.
	We're going to figure out how to provide you the skill set that you need that I don't have.
	But it sounds like your mom just kind of didn't do anything.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Okay, my mom pushed me in this direction.
	For example, we went out at a swimming park, a public swimming park, and I was already 13 or 14.
	And I was the oldest kid who was going out with his mom.
	Yes.
	And she recognized this and told me that at my age, I should look out for other people, for example.
	But it was always the result.
	It was always the result.
	Focused.
	Focused.
	And I've already...
	Look, listen, listen, listen.
	Your family is so bad at social skills that you don't even know that what you told me has nothing to do with social skills.
	Right?
	So when you say 13 or 14...
	It's already way too late as far as, right, how you should have been taught these things, right?
	And what she said doesn't have anything to do with social skills, or this example.
	Yes, not with the skills, but with the resource of the skills, with being in a group, in a group of friends and going to a swimming park.
	So she said you shouldn't be with your mom?
	Yes, basically.
	Yes.
	Yeah, but that's like saying if you need to learn piano, we should have a piano.
	That still doesn't teach you piano.
	Yes.
	Yes, you're right.
	You're absolutely right.
	I just wanted to tell you how she thought about it.
	Okay.
	Well, you're telling me that she didn't really think about it and she didn't help you to acquire a very essential skill.
	And she did not, I assume, she did not, if you say you're not close to your mom, then she didn't even give it to you implicitly through her interactions with you, which would be a huge amount of help, right?
	So, you know, the tragedy is that you are now an adult who lacks some very essential skills.
	That's very sad.
	I'm incredibly sorry for that.
	It has nothing to do with your intelligence.
	It has nothing to do with your personality.
	It has nothing to do with your likability.
	You just don't have those skills, right?
	Yes.
	Right?
	Like, if I say to you, I don't know how to hang glide...
	What does it tell you?
	It tells you nothing about me except I don't know how to hand glide.
	It doesn't tell you anything about whether I'm a nice guy or a nasty guy or a fun guy or if I have a good sense of humor.
	So when you tell me I don't have social skills, all it tells me is that you weren't taught social skills, right?
	Now we'll try and often make it into all these other kinds of things about ourselves.
	But that's the basic reality, right?
	And I'm very sorry for that.
	I mean, it's a really, you know, to parents out there, teach your kids how to socialize.
	It's hard to make money if you don't socialize.
	It's hard to meet people if you don't socialize.
	It's hard to find someone to marry if you don't socialize.
	It's hard to stay married if you don't know how to interact with other people very well, as I guess your mother is testament as a single mom.
	So, teach kids the things that you're not good at.
	I mean, I don't even know why this needs to be said to parents, but apparently it does, right?
	Teach kids the important skills that you're not good at, right?
	Yes.
	I mean, if you needed to learn algebra, right, and you were having trouble with it, and your mom didn't know algebra, right, she wouldn't just say, well, I guess we'll buy you an algebra book, right?
	Anyway, go ahead.
	Yes.
	And how do I acquire the social skills?
	I've already read books about it, but obviously they didn't help.
	Because, obviously, I have some problems I don't really understand.
	I don't really understand why they reject me.
	I don't really understand what I'm doing wrong in the communication.
	And the books don't really help me.
	For example, Dave Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People, I've read it.
	And I'm applying it, yes.
	I don't know.
	I'm going to throw this out.
	Sorry, because it's nothing I've ever really studied, I'm going to throw it out to the chat room.
	Mike, do you have any sort of thoughts on how somebody might be able to acquire social skills?
	I know there is Toastmasters where you get up practicing speaking and mingling with people, but I'll let you read off the chat room or anything that people might have suggestions about how this fine fellow might learn to acquire these skills.
	Yeah, I know for me, I mean, I didn't receive that training when I was younger at all, and it was definitely a big challenge trying to get acclimated to killing in social situations.
	I'd have heart palpitations and anxiety attacks, you know, if I was in a group of people, like, oh, is this going to be my turn to talk now?
	Oh, geez, oh, geez, oh, geez.
	And I mean, frankly, the only thing that really helped me get past that and get to a point now where that's not the case is practice.
	I mean, a lot of self-knowledge work, went to therapy, spent a lot of time there, and putting myself in those situations, almost exposure therapy.
	And, you know, practice, practice, and training myself to become not terrified of being in those situations, and then it was a slow...
	I can be myself and communicate what I want to communicate and not feel like, oh geez, am I going to say something stupid and people are going to attack me or criticize me?
	And really just getting comfortable in my own skin through the self-work and therapy to the point where I can put myself in the periphery of other people and not feel terrified.
	Yeah, I mean, certainly I think ask people questions.
	Most people are happy to talk about themselves, and we, you know, we don't often ask questions of each other, right?
	I was at a kid's birthday party yesterday, and I was chatting with a few parents.
	Some of them were super nice, but a couple who, you know, they're asking them questions for 10 minutes.
	They never ask me a question back.
	So I'm like, okay, well, I guess I'll move on, right?
	Because I don't want to sort of throw my words into a black hole that don't come back.
	So I think that's important.
	Also, you know, when you learn to lift weights, you start with the lighter weights and start with the lighter topics.
	Do not be afraid of small talk.
	There's nothing wrong whatsoever with small talk.
	Learn to talk about the weather.
	Learn to talk about the news.
	Learn to talk about sex, religion, and politics.
	Right.
	No, but talk about smaller things, right?
	I mean, and practice small talk.
	Yeah.
	But just keep asking other people questions and usually that's the best way, right?
	Because when we're not good at something, we feel generally self-conscious, right?
	And so when you get good at something, the whole point is you can focus on the thing itself and not how it's going for you, right?
	On the Peter Schiff show, I asked for an audio cue after Big Lead-In and they gave me the wrong audio cue.
	And I had to do the remaining segment with the wrong audio cue on the fly.
	And I mean, just focus on the listener's experience.
	Don't focus on Oh, the great thing about being post-cancer is I really don't care about that stuff.
	It doesn't even bother me or alarm me in any way, shape, or form because the fundamental business plan of stay alive has been achieved and everything after that is kind of cookies and cream.
	So yeah, focus on other people.
	I think practice.
	Learn to do small talk, but just ask people questions.
	I like to learn about people.
	I love to learn about people.
	What was it?
	We went out for dinner.
	No, we went out for lunch the other day after Peter Schiff.
	Do you want to tell that story?
	Because I remember you talking about that when I was chatting with the waitress.
	Well, I've noticed this quite a few times.
	I'm just fascinated with Steph's ability to chat up everyone that's around him, as if there's a gravitational pull.
	He's in line at a subway, and the person that's making his sandwich, he's having a whole conversation about, do you like the job?
	Why are you doing this job?
	What's going on?
	To me, it's like, I would have never even thought to have a conversation with this person.
	And most people just shuffle along in line, and here you are having a conversation and getting, I think you described it as a window into their life.
	It's interesting stuff.
	Like, yeah, at dinner the other day after the Peter Schiff show, waitress came over with the tab and just talking to her, she was running through the credit card transaction.
	And wouldn't you know it, she was working three jobs and this is why she's at this job now.
	And just you get a glimpse into people's world.
	And I mean, I just find it absolutely fascinating to the degree that you can have those conversation stuff.
	And it's something I aspire to be that comfortable with.
	To, you know, be curious with people.
	And I think there's a lot you can learn in those small little conversations, even if they're only two, three minutes.
	It's a little moment of humanity where the person is not just a wheel to bring your food to you, but is a person and all that.
	So anyway, I hope that helps.
	Did we get anything from the chat room?
	Other than the people who said they haven't left the house in three months, they may not necessarily want to be your mentor.
	A couple people are saying, you know, join activity-based clubs with plenty of opportunities to chat, like book clubs, film clubs.
	Al-Qaeda.
	That's one option.
	How to meet friends and people.
	Blow them up.
	Don't stick around to watch the washing up.
	Sorry, we've got to throw one NSA nugget in every show, right?
	You know, we just got taken off the watch list, Steph.
	Thanks, thanks.
	Yeah, a lot of people are echoing the curiosity sentiment.
	You know, show curiosity to people.
	If you're genuinely curious, it's a lot different than if it's kind of forced or fake curiosity.
	But, um, let's see.
	Yeah, I think that's important.
	Like, I genuinely want to know the answers to these questions I'm asking, right?
	I don't have any motive.
	Like, I'm not going to say, and listen to my show, or, you know, I'm giving this to you instead of a tip, or anything like that.
	I mean, I genuinely want to know what people's lives are like.
	You never know.
	We might go see the same waitress again, say hi, or whatever, and, you know, chat a little bit more.
	Why not?
	But if you're not interested in the other person, then don't pretend to talk to them.
	Like, don't fake.
	I mean, don't pretend is really important.
	And don't bring massive neediness to the conversation, like, well, why is it you people don't like me?
	That's an honest question.
	It's like, yes, but that's, you know, when you're already friends and already have that connection.
	So if you're not interested in the people you're with, then don't try and socialize with them, right?
	Because then you're just going to have to pretend to ask them questions or be interested in anything they have to say.
	And, you know, if I go to a party but I don't speak the language, Then I'm not going to pretend to be interested in the people because I can't, right?
	So I would, you know, work on...
	And if you're not interested in people, then, you know, try and figure out why and all that kind of stuff.
	So does that help at all?
	Yes, thank you.
	You're very welcome.
	And keep me posted if you can about how things are going.
	And I wish you the very best.
	And again, I'm sorry that you didn't learn these skills, but just don't judge yourself negatively for that.
	There's no way you could have without help.
	Okay.
	And it's not like everybody else just is really good at it and you're really bad.
	You know, like everyone else just walks upstairs and every time you do, you faceplant and skid your chin down nine flights, right?
	I mean, it's not like people are just magically better at this stuff than you do, right?
	Again, to overuse the language metaphor, if people speak fluent Urdu, I don't assume that's because they're super smart and I just never picked up Urdu.
	It's like they learned Urdu and I didn't.
	Doesn't make them smart.
	Doesn't make you dumb, right?
	So try not to put any of the sort of judgment in.
	And don't confuse yourself with native speakers.
	They're not smarter.
	They're just, you know, they've had that exposure.
	So anyway, who's up next?
	All right, Kevin, you're up next, Kevin.
	Go ahead.
	Can you hear me?
	Yes.
	Go ahead.
	My next link in the such as Fesh chain.
	Go ahead.
	Hi, Steph.
	Hey, my name's Kevin, and I've been listening to you just for a few months, and I really, really, you've really opened my eyes.
	A few months straight, I hope.
	A few months straight, like no sleep, no eating.
	I think I allow blinking in some of the more boring shows.
	I hate to tell you, but it's almost that way.
	I've listened to you quite a bit.
	You know, if you're going to get into something, get into it.
	I mean, whether it's me, philosophy, being in a band, I just, you know, I'm a 120% kind of guy.
	I could go to 200% except that I expose my less than 100% math literacy.
	But yeah, I mean, I think that's great.
	If you find something powerful and interesting, go for it.
	I mean, I'll listen to Freddie Mercury's solo crap because I'm into that, right?
	So if you're going to do something, then do it.
	Yeah, I mean, when I got into Ayn Rand, I read everything she wrote.
	I mean, read things that she, you know, left.
	There were notes she left on restaurant bills and stuff, right?
	Read about how she loves stamp collecting and tiddlywings music.
	I mean, if you're going to go in, go.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	No, you're absolutely right.
	I was actually running out of videos to watch on YouTube.
	I was like, wait a minute, I think I've seen them all practically.
	Not all of them, but quite a few of them.
	Anyway, my question is that, it actually requires a little bit of background, but the question is, you know, I've had a lot of difficulty becoming a successful entrepreneur.
	And in the internet marketing space, actually, I started a business in 2011 to do local internet marketing for local businesses.
	And prior to that, I had 14 years in the military, split up between the Marine Corps and the Army.
	Did have a pretty violent childhood.
	A lot of callers today I have to be really nice to, right?
	Because they are really good at disassembling people.
	So go ahead, my friend.
	I'm all ears.
	Yeah, I know.
	I said, I don't know.
	I don't know if he's going to like me when I tell him all my statements.
	Don't sweat it.
	Don't sweat it.
	Go ahead.
	My dad was really violent.
	And, you know, one of the things you said earlier in this call was about how yelling can be worse.
	My dad was an explosive yeller.
	He also was a hitter, but he was an explosive.
	And you never knew when he was going to go off.
	So, you know, that's just part of my history.
	I am doing therapy.
	Sorry, when you say yeller...
	I mean, there are so many gradations of verbal aggression.
	I mean, there's the people who go really soft and kind of Duke Nukem threatening, right?
	And then there's the people who just get kind of...
	kind of snappy, but not particularly raised voice.
	And there's people who raise their voices.
	There's a little bit...
	I can't remember the name of the song, Mike.
	Do you mind looking it up?
	It's a Doors song.
	Jim Morrison starts it off by saying...
	When I was back there in seminary school, there was a person there who put forth the proposition that you can petition the Lord with prayer.
	Petition the Lord with prayer!
	Petition the Lord with prayer!
	You cannot petition the line with prayer!
	Yes.
	Right, and I don't know if you've ever heard that, but it gave me goosebumps.
	I was listening to it once at the gym, and I almost shot the weights through the roof.
	I mean, I would have if I don't have the arms of your average girl guy.
	But he really shrieked that out.
	And my mom had this kind of incredibly pressured helium shriek.
	That was truly terrifying because, yeah, his dad was an admiral.
	And so it is the soft parade.
	Yeah, just listen to that, but do not have your headphones up.
	If that doesn't give you goosebumps about a glimpse into his childhood, it is something very powerful.
	He was, I think, an incredible artist, of course, an entirely disturbed human being, but an incredible artist as that.
	So what kind of yeller was your dad?
	Uh, he would, my dad literally would be the very last, uh, part of the door song of, uh, Jim Morrison's scream.
	I mean, he literally was the loudest, most explosive vein sticking out on his head, like just out of control.
	Right.
	So, you know what, put that song in if you can, when we do the final thing, just put that little clip in cause people won't get it and take my bit out cause I can't do it nearly justice.
	I don't have his vocal skills, but, um, Right, so what does that say to you as a child, right?
	I mean, you basically hear there is absolutely no possibility that we are going to negotiate in any way, shape, or form, right?
	Yeah, there was no negotiation in our house.
	It is a way of verbally destroying and eliminating somebody else's personality because then it's such a level of threat display on the part of the yeller That it seems almost for certain that the next thing is going to be attack, like physical attack without conscience, without restraint, which of course is kind of a suicide course for a child.
	So that level of verbal escalation, like the full-on veins in the throat, Klingon screaming, forehead bulging, that is a complete erasure of the child's personality.
	I mean, I don't want to overstate it.
	That sort of was my experience of it.
	I mean, does that ring a bell with you?
	No, you're absolutely right.
	That's the way it was.
	And there was a full-on attack sometimes.
	That's the way it was.
	When I got older, I got to be a teenager.
	I started fighting back because I was the youngest of four and I kind of was the most rebellious.
	I'm big, so I started fighting back.
	I've been in a fair amount of therapy over the years, but never a long, concentrated course to deal with it.
	The Marine Corps was, for me, a natural thing.
	The screaming and the yelling, even though it made me feel the same way, I did as a child, which was kind of just like I wanted to cower in a corner.
	For some reason, I felt like, well, this is what I deserve.
	You know, I should be...
	Well, this is what you're used to managing.
	You're used to managing the anxiety and the terror and the rage that comes out of that kind of verbal abuse.
	So, I mean, this is how you...
	Like, if you can't control your environment, all you can do is control your response to your environment.
	And since that's the only efficacy you know, you're constantly drawn back to that environment so you can exercise control over your responses, right?
	Um, yeah, no, you're, yeah, I mean, you're right on.
	It's really not a whole lot.
	It's disorienting.
	If someone's not yelling at you, it's disorienting and anxiety provoking if that's not in the, and this is what I was talking about, like the people who end up with the guns are usually the people with the most dysfunctional histories, you know, and I mean this with all incredible sympathy.
	I mean, what a terrifying environment to be in.
	Like the last, I think the last, sorry, the last actual conversation I ever had with my mom was, you know, she's constantly talking about how crazy paranoid stuff or whatever.
	And I didn't say she was wrong.
	I gave up on that years ago.
	But I said, you know, like I just feel like we never get to talk about anything else, that all we ever do is talk about this stuff that is very upsetting for you.
	And I'm not saying it's not upsetting.
	I'm not saying it's not real.
	But I just feel this all we ever get to talk about.
	And I just like sometimes for us to be able to talk about other things than this.
	Right.
	And honestly, it was literally that.
	I was really that calm, that reasonable.
	It was not irrational.
	I wasn't saying, you crazy bat, stop talking about this crazy stuff or anything.
	I'm like, I get that, but let's at least have the opportunity to talk about other things.
	In other words, I expressed a minor preference in the relationship.
	She got so crazy.
	She was screaming, throwing pillows, throwing herself sobbing on the couch.
	Honestly, that was the escalation that had nothing to do with me.
	It's just I have a minor preference that it goes against what I mean, that's when I really got, like, this is why you want to put reasonable requests into your relationship and see what happens.
	And that's when I got, like, I simply was not allowed to have any preferences in the relationship.
	I just had to conform to everything that she wanted, no matter what.
	And, you know, my decision or my choice became pretty easy.
	Not easy emotionally, but intellectually became pretty easy.
	After that, you want to express your needs and preferences.
	People find out how they deal with it.
	If you don't do it in a way that is going to be escalating, then you get the glorious get-out-of-jail-free card.
	If there is escalation after you bring things up calmly, you know it's not you, and you can make your decisions accordingly.
	I think I know where you're coming from, although it's a female rather than a male.
	It's the same shit, different pile.
	I'm incredibly sorry that it happened to you.
	I'm obviously incredibly sorry it happened to me.
	It is a terrifying thing.
	It is incredibly abusive for parents to use the power to that degree.
	You know, all parental power is like electrodes on the nuts, right?
	I mean, you don't need to turn it up a lot for it to hurt immeasurably, right?
	Yeah.
	And one of the things I really appreciate about you is your...
	Your empathy.
	I really do appreciate that.
	I'm not here looking for sympathy, obviously.
	You get that.
	The other piece was I was in combat in the Gulf War.
	I kind of wound up with PTSD from actually two tours.
	Did you get any of that syndrome stuff that people talk about or was it mostly the emotional stuff, which again is incredibly real?
	No, I didn't.
	I didn't get the Gulf War Syndrome issues.
	For me, it's been – I've been struggling with PTSD for quite a few years and also depression.
	Well, I grew up in New York City, so you would think I could be alright with crowds and stuff.
	I cannot do crowds.
	I love people, but I have a lot of difficulty being around them.
	I get very nervous.
	Sorry to interrupt.
	Isn't crowds where the enemies were in the Gulf?
	When I was in the Gulf War, we were pretty much out in the desert most of the time.
	I was in field artillery.
	But, I mean, you could say that.
	I wasn't patrolling the streets of Iraq.
	I was in the Gulf War.
	But that's where the danger was, right?
	I mean, that's where the insurgents were, whatever you want to call them.
	But that's where they held out.
	That's where they hid out, right?
	They would disappear into crowds.
	They weren't in their own uniforms in the desert in a formation, right, where you could call in some airstrike.
	They hid in the people, right?
	I was more in the calling in the airstrike type of combat.
	No, but I understand that.
	I know what you're talking about.
	When danger was being talked about in that environment, they had three airplanes.
	It was like Mussolini going into North Africa in 1933 into Ethiopia.
	So you weren't worried about airstrikes, right?
	Like, I mean, in the First World War, it was shells.
	It was whistling in the air.
	It could even be bird noises, because that's...
	So the danger that the troops were facing were, right?
	I mean, civilian, quote, civilians who were insurgents blending into the crowds, right?
	And not that you had to experience that directly, but that's where the danger was in the environment, as far as I understand it.
	Right, I understand.
	I just didn't want to mischaracterize my experience.
	No, no, fair enough, fair enough.
	But that's what you would have to be careful of.
	That's what you'd have to be aware of, right?
	And also, aren't the crowds...
	I don't know how to put this delicately.
	Not because I think you need delicacy, but I don't want to sort of tell you what you're feeling, but aren't those the crowds who cheered you going to war?
	Well, they cheered when we came back.
	No, I think they pretty much cheered when you were heading to war, too, right?
	I mean, the lighting up the sky on the TV and all that, the media was all...
	Look, the media is a reflection of people's desires, right?
	The media doesn't do fundamentally long-run stuff, which people don't want.
	And there was 24 wall-to-wall coverage.
	I remember all of those, quote, fireworks going up in the sky and all that.
	They'd show the same Tomahawk missile going off the cruise ship like 20 times an hour.
	People loved that war, as far as I could tell.
	Of course, not everyone, but people were pretty gung-ho, weren't they?
	Well, I realize I wasn't privy to that.
	I was out in the middle of the desert, so I didn't know what was going on until we came back.
	So it was kind of an odd time.
	Well, sorry to interrupt you, but let me ask it to you a different way.
	Sure.
	If the majority of American people had been against the war, do you think the war would have happened?
	The Gulf War, the first Gulf War, I think it would have happened.
	It didn't happen with Syria.
	I agree.
	But I think because the oil resources in Kuwait are so rich and the fact that they have direct access to a seaport, I don't think the United States would have let Iraq keep Kuwait.
	I mean it was just too valuable to us in terms of economics.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I've heard the argument that it's an oil-based war and all that, but the reality is, I mean, how much oil is the American army pumping out and sending to gasoline stations in America?
	I don't know.
	None?
	I mean, they can't even get this shit working, right?
	Saddam Hussein blew them all up or set fire to them or whatever, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, there's no oil.
	They're not getting any oil.
	You know, it's like you break into a bank and leave all the gold sitting there.
	I mean, there's no – because the government's not competent to get the oil out and get it shipped.
	At least to have some elements of the free market, right?
	Private sector.
	Right.
	From Iraq.
	Okay, but sorry.
	Let me not sort of intrude with my theories and go on about that.
	No, no.
	I don't mean to like – I just want to make sure that you're – like we're talking about like my first combat experience was in the Gulf War.
	Then I went and became a physical therapist and then after 9-11, I thought it would be a great idea to go back in the military.
	Sure.
	And eventually got sent to Iraq again.
	But I wasn't really in combat.
	I was in intelligence.
	So that was a little more a lower key.
	But nevertheless, that wasn't, you know, the whole point.
	Oh, by the way, I also went to 12 years of Catholic school, so I'm sure...
	Sure.
	That's...
	So...
	Sure.
	I mean, it's a real shame.
	You go to 12 years of Catholic school and they skip the thou shalt not kill and love your enemies bit.
	Other than that, I'm sure they did a fine job giving you ethics.
	You know, I actually love that the videos that you did about...
	Costs of War.
	I've actually watched that – I probably watched that four or five times just because I really agree with it.
	And it's kind of hard to be – I'm almost your age.
	I'm 44.
	And it's kind of hard to look back and go, wow, I was a part of all this.
	Sure.
	And you thought you were doing the right thing.
	I really did.
	I was really – When people find out that you – sorry to interrupt.
	When people find out that you're in the military – You know, us soft-bellied civilians, when most people find out that you were in the military, what do they say?
	Thank you for your service.
	That's what they say.
	And I really have a difficult time accepting it.
	I just kind of cringe and say thank you and try and change the subject, honestly.
	I don't spend a lot of time talking.
	And I remember very vividly being at a party in my early 20s.
	And meeting a guy who was in the military.
	He was an older guy.
	And I said the same thing.
	Why?
	Because I was just a propagandized idiot, right?
	I mean, what do I know, right?
	And I remember saying, you know, hey, thanks for all the stuff you're doing kind of stuff, you know, because, you know, you think that they're out there keeping the Nazgul at bay or whatever.
	And I just remember him looking really uncomfortable.
	Like, You know, like a con man with a conscience is going to feel bad if you thank him for stealing your money.
	He's going to be like, oh, okay.
	And I'm not saying you're a con man, or he was.
	I'm just saying that he taught me something about the military there that took me a while to understand.
	And it must be uncomfortable, right?
	And so the crowds thing, these are all people, almost all of whom will say, thank you for your service, right?
	And of course, you know that it's not service, and certainly what's happened to the Iraqi people.
	I don't know if you've watched Iraq a decade of hell, but what's happened to the Iraqi people has been completely monstrous.
	And surface is not really the right phrase, right?
	I have watched it, and it is monstrous, you're right.
	And I never really thought of it.
	Never really thought about the...
	You know, I heard it.
	I heard it on the news, but I always was...
	It was like, well, they're over there.
	They're not...
	You know, it's almost like they're not people.
	They're not human beings almost.
	Yeah, I mean, military isn't going to have much use for you if you think of the people on the other side of the target, right?
	Well, no, you're right.
	You're right.
	I mean, there's not going to be a lot of empathy for Iraqi courses in the military, right?
	I mean, that's sort of the whole point.
	No, absolutely not.
	Here's the pictures of what you did.
	Yeah.
	I can honestly tell you that when I went back in the military, I was in the Army National Guard, which is a different deal.
	But the Marine Corps is, they really glorify and train killers.
	They really do.
	I'm not exaggerating.
	I'm not making that up.
	It's just killing is glorified in the boot camp and all through my four years on active duty.
	It really is.
	It was just something we, I mean, we would sing, you know, we would sing chants when we were running about napalming children, and that was supposed to be funny.
	Sure.
	And...
	Didn't think about it.
	No, and I've heard from military people that their commanders say, like, I can't believe I get paid for this.
	I mean, if I were over in the States, they'd throw me in jail for killing.
	I love it.
	And I can't believe that they give me money for this.
	It's like, you know, do what you love and the money will follow.
	Well, I love killing people.
	And I found a place where I get paid for it rather than being thrown in jail.
	Like, what a great country is this, right?
	Yeah, and I never...
	I never felt that way, but nevertheless, I was still a part of it.
	I can't deny that I was part of it.
	Right.
	And, I mean, I've written about this like seven or eight years ago.
	You were propagandized.
	You know, expecting every individual to completely intellectually surmount their culture.
	Is insane.
	It's ridiculous.
	You know, it's like saying, hey, you want a car?
	Here's a rock and a bush.
	Now go through the entire history of human inventions and make your own car, right?
	It's not going to happen, right?
	So, you know, in terms of what happens while you're in the matrix, it's morally neutral.
	I mean, you're propagandized and you were, of course, doing what you felt was right and what society praises and approves of.
	I mean, Dr.
	Phil, asshole extraordinaire, smart stuff to say about some stuff, but every time he praises the military, blood on his hands, man.
	Blood on his hands, because the military can't do what they do without everyone saying thank you for your service.
	But go ahead.
	I'm sorry.
	I lost the train of thought.
	Do you want to talk more about the PTSD? Well, what I was going to say is that they had huge parades, huge parades.
	I don't know if you remember the post, the first Gulf War when we were coming.
	They had huge parades and, I mean, it was like, you know, the conquering heroes are returning.
	I didn't feel that way then and I don't feel that way now.
	I mean...
	I never felt that way.
	I never felt like...
	I mean, it was kind of like, wow, I've never had anybody hold a parade for me.
	But I didn't feel...
	I've never felt like a hero.
	I've never felt like...
	And when people say, thank you for defending our freedom, and I always think, well, how did I defend our freedom by going to...
	I don't think I defended our freedom.
	I think we did something else there.
	Does that make sense?
	Well, you made a lot of money for private contractors, right?
	Well, yeah.
	I mean, that's, you know, there weren't as many in the first Gulf War, but yeah, that's certainly in...
	Well, no, but I mean in terms of the people, every bomb you explode is a bomb that has to be reordered.
	Every bullet you fire is a bullet that has to be reordered.
	Oh, absolutely.
	That whole thing makes me sick.
	It literally makes me sick to my stomach to even think about it.
	I mean, the people who say that the army is wasteful are saying it like that's not the point.
	The point is to waste stuff so that you have to buy more so that the politicians can get lobbying from the military industrial complex.
	I mean, the whole point is to be like, oh, they shipped all these billions of dollars over in crates to Iraq and they all went missing.
	It's like, well, they're supposed to go missing.
	That's the point.
	I mean, how can you take money if you keep track of it?
	I mean, you know, the bank robber went to the bank and left with money and didn't open an account.
	That's the point of bank robbery, right?
	I mean, the point of the military is to waste stuff and to blow things up and to kill people so that you can reorder stuff and flex your power.
	I mean, that's...
	I don't know.
	Army waste is like we've got to make the army more efficient.
	It's like saying that we have to make the army more pacifist.
	I mean, the whole point of it is to waste and reorder and make money, right?
	No, you're absolutely right.
	And I didn't obviously come to that...
	Realization until much, you know, until really only in the last few years since I actually wound up being medically retired for PTSD in 2007.
	And it probably was the best thing that could have happened to me because since then is really what I've really been discovering the truth, really.
	Right.
	And that puts you in a tough place, right?
	Because you're not like a civilian who's discovered the truth.
	And a lot of people who are in the military don't discover the truth.
	So you're kind of torn between two worlds, right?
	Or lost in space.
	Well, yeah, you're absolutely right because I certainly do have an allegiance to my – at least the people that I was in with.
	I still have an affection for some of those people and talk with them sometimes on Facebook.
	But it's very hard to introduce these types of – it's certainly very difficult to try and introduce these types of ideas to them because most of them are still – I'm kind of living in that propaganda about, we were heroes.
	And I see, and I'm like, okay.
	I just, I don't want to get into it on Facebook or something.
	It's not...
	Anyway, the other, you know, the other piece, Stefan, that I want, because I really wanted to tell you is that, you know, I watched that Bomb and the Brain series four times through, and it's just something that really blew me away.
	You know, I always knew that I had some issues around all this, but, you know, to really see what the physical effects on the brain, you know, between what I experienced as a child and what I experienced as a early young adult, late teens, early twenties in combat.
	That really opened my eyes as to, okay, there is kind of a physical manifestation of why I've had these problems.
	Since then I've had the PTSD and multiple bouts of major depression.
	When you talk about major depression being a serious illness, it really is.
	It's like you can't get out of bed for months, in all honesty.
	I've gone through that.
	It's completely debilitating, right?
	It sucks.
	It's horrible.
	It sucks.
	Bottom line.
	Yeah, I mean, it's almost like a physical disease is better.
	Well, at least you'd know, you know.
	Yeah, you know what it is.
	You can treat it, right?
	Or not.
	But this undead status of major depression is, you know, certainly runs in my family.
	I don't think it's genetic, but I'm, you know, I have had certainly some exposure to it.
	And it is an incredibly difficult experience.
	It is.
	It is.
	And one of the big things is that you wind up really hating yourself because you're like, well, there's nothing wrong with me, is what you tell yourself.
	There's nothing physically wrong with me.
	I'm in generally good health.
	Why can't I do what other people are doing?
	It is.
	It's very debilitating.
	I appreciate that you brought that out, that there is a difference between having the blues versus major depressive disorder.
	A lot of people don't understand that.
	As a matter of fact, you wind up, I think, misunderstood by a lot of your friends and people that know you.
	I mean, I've alienated a lot of friends because they're like, well, you just disappeared for two months.
	All I can really say is I'm sorry.
	I'm sorry I did that.
	It was something.
	Wait a minute.
	Why aren't your friends at your bedside?
	I don't really have a lot of close friends.
	So they're more like acquaintances and whatnot.
	I find that I can't live in New York City.
	I grew up there.
	It's just too much.
	I live out in Colorado.
	Well, yeah, I mean, those 9-11 anniversaries would be pretty rough for you, right?
	I mean, to say the least.
	That, and the pace, and really all the, just even being close to my family, there's a lot of denial in my family that abuse went on.
	Right.
	And it's a noisy city, right?
	I mean, I remember when I was there to give a speech earlier this year, it's like, you just want to open your...
	Open your window and say, hey, hey, shut up!
	Turn those sirens off!
	Everybody, go inside!
	Get some rest!
	And I grew up in Queens, so it was crowded.
	It was, you know, it was crowded.
	It was...
	And once I got a taste of...
	When I was in the Marine Corps, I was actually stationed in Hawaii.
	When I got a taste of actually what it felt like to feel relaxed, I never wanted to go back, you know?
	Sorry, you were talking about your denial in your family and your sisters just before we went on there.
	Yeah, I'm the youngest of four and my two sisters are just kind of pretty much in complete denial.
	They've never really...
	I mean, it's interesting that in my family we just talk about how, oh yeah, I remember that time when dad blew up and went crazy.
	And he would do it out in public too, as well as in private.
	And now we're supposed to talk about it and laugh as if it was funny.
	You know, haha, daddy, dad, you know, went crazy and started screaming at that person and started screaming at us and started...
	And that, of course, is the root of what results...
	Sorry, that's the root of what results in napalming babies is funny too, right?
	I guess.
	I mean, I never really made that connection, but I mean, it makes...
	No, I mean, I face this a lot of this show where people are constantly inviting me to laugh at their own mutilation.
	To laugh at the horrendous scars that abuse is left upon them.
	You're not doing that to your eternal credit.
	And I understand why people do it.
	Because we feel the need to explain ourselves to others, but then we want to deny the consequences of that explanation.
	So people will tell me about all this trauma as if it's funny.
	Thus inviting me to join the ranks of their abusers in enjoying the mental, physical, emotional, and sexual torture of children.
	So I appreciate that you're not doing that.
	I mean, that speaks to your strength.
	And to your integrity as a human being with some, I think, very admirable degrees of moral sensitivity.
	But it is tragically common.
	Is your father still alive?
	He is.
	He is.
	My mother passed away in 2007.
	But my father is still alive.
	He's probably about 77.
	Only the good die young.
	Interestingly enough, he – my mother was – I'm not going to sit here and say my mother was a saint, but she was kind of codependent.
	But she was a very sweet person and she put up with his – he abused her as well.
	And – What?
	What did I say?
	Why do you make my truth beast so hungry?
	Come on, did she protect you?
	It was her duty to protect, right?
	It was her duty to protect you.
	At times she tried.
	I know she really did.
	It was her duty to protect you.
	Well, then she didn't.
	Not only did she not protect you, but she chose as a father.
	I know it's kind of weird, because if she didn't choose that guy as a father, you kind of wouldn't be here.
	But nonetheless, if we can screw around with time and causality, right?
	She chose to date a man, to marry a man, to have children with a man, to expose children to repeated psychotic verbal abuse.
	And she could have left at any time.
	She could have, you know, really taken a stand and told him to get help or whatever, right?
	She would have been entirely within her rights.
	She would have been financially secure under the current legal environment, right?
	She would have had four kids.
	She would have been able to prevent visitation that was not supervised unless he got anger management.
	She would have been able to go to the court.
	She would have been perfectly secure on his military pension.
	So, yeah, she was...
	Oh no, my father wasn't in the military.
	Oh, I'm sorry.
	Maybe I made that mistake.
	He was just an Irish Catholic.
	Oh, we're talking about Jim Morrison's father.
	Sorry.
	You're not Jim Morrison, right?
	Oh, I know.
	Thanks, Jim, for helping give a Jim Morrison bump for podcasts I think would be pretty significant.
	But no, she was responsible.
	I don't disagree with you, Stefan.
	The only thing I would say is that you're talking about Now, and this was the 70s and 80s, and I'm not trying to make excuses for...
	Divorce went up 300% in the 70s.
	I believe it.
	Divorce was a constant topic and certainly from the late 50s onwards, abuse was a, I mean, there's no possibility that, I mean, unless you all lived in the caves in Afghanistan, which would make your military service rather incomprehensible, there's no possibility that your mother did not know anything about abuse or divorce or taking a stand in those ways.
	No, I'm not saying she didn't.
	Okay.
	I mean, you have to, I try and look back and make sense of why things happened.
	My mother was an adult child of an alcoholic father.
	And so she had those issues.
	She didn't have a career of her own.
	She was afraid to leave.
	I mean she explained that to us many times that she apologized over and over.
	And I understand what you're saying.
	But, you know, at some point, I think— I only point this out.
	As you know, I'm no psychologist and I don't know what the causality of these things are in any specific manner.
	But if I were to hazard an amateur guess, I would say that if there is unresolved anger, then it can manifest itself as depression.
	You'll hear this when you listen back to this, which I hope you will.
	You really are rushing to her defense.
	And I've said this before, and this is a natural tendency for us.
	All of us.
	The bad parent and the parent who gets away with it.
	But the parent's parents are a system.
	If your mother was the adult child of alcoholics, then she knew that she had a susceptibility and a vulnerability to dysfunctional people.
	I mean, AA was, like, anti-alcoholic stuff has been going on since the 16th century, probably before that.
	I think there was anti-alcoholic campaigns in the Roman Empire because its destruction on the family was evident, right?
	And prohibition didn't come out of nowhere.
	And so if she knew that she had this background, then she is, it doesn't reduce her responsibility, it increases her responsibility.
	Like, if it turns out that alcoholism is genetic and your mother didn't have any idea that she was adopted, And it turned out that both her parents were alcoholics, and then she would have no responsibility in the matter, right?
	But she knew that she was the child of alcoholics, and therefore she has a higher responsibility to get help, right?
	Like if I find out I have a congenital heart defect, and then I say, well, I'm just going to sit on the couch and eat pork rinds, I don't get to say, well, it's because I have a congenital heart defect, so I don't, right?
	I don't need to act to counteract that.
	My responsibility to eat well and exercise goes up considerably.
	Because I know I have this history like so I had radiation treatment for lymphoma on my neck and now I have to use like SPF 900 and get a hat that makes me look like a Jackie Onassis's helicopter twin and that's just my reality right?
	I can't say well I'm gonna end up back with skin cancer because I had this radiation treatment so like and now I am responsible for mediating the effects of that because I'm aware that I had that right?
	So I don't see how, saying my mom had this excuse, she was the child of alcoholics, this has been well known that this produces dysfunction, and so you need to take the necessary steps to prevent that from recurring, and if you don't, you cannot claim your childhood as an excuse.
	Even if we accept that it is true that your mom had diminished responsibility, this, that, and the other, you didn't know any of that as a child.
	All you knew was that your mother married a man who screamed at you, terrified you, Verbally abused you.
	You said he was also a hitter, if I remember rightly.
	Yeah, he physically abused us too.
	Physically abused you.
	So emotionally, physically, and verbally abused you.
	And she stayed with him.
	I assume she claimed to love him to some degree.
	Did she say that she loved your father?
	Okay.
	Yes.
	So you grew up with a woman who loved your abuser.
	Loved the man who terrified and abused his children.
	Come on.
	Are you telling me that as a child that didn't make you angry, that didn't hurt you deeply, that didn't make you horrified, contemptuous, perhaps even vengeful?
	Come on.
	If you deny all of that stuff, I think it's a challenge.
	I think it's going to be a significant challenge.
	I don't deny that.
	I just could say that I can't really remember consciously thinking that.
	No, I get it.
	That's even worse, right?
	Because if you can't remember any of that consciously, it means it was a completely forbidden topic, which means it goes even deeper into the unconscious, right?
	Well, there were a lot of forbidden topics in that household.
	Yeah, but you can probably remember that some of them were forbidden, right?
	Yeah, no, I agree.
	There were a lot of forbidden topics.
	But this was a forbidden topic that it doesn't sound like you're even particularly conscious of avoiding.
	I think only in recent years, because I have an older brother who's had issues with depression as well, and he has Kind of voiced to me anger at my mother.
	And I was very surprised by that.
	I was like, anger at our mother?
	She was the saint.
	You're not allowed to be angry.
	Almost, you know, that feeling.
	Like, you're not allowed to be angry at her.
	Now, that's her need, right?
	That's her preference.
	So, if she has a narcissistic need to be seen as a victim, as a savior, as a sweet person, and you're not allowed to get angry at her, or you're not allowed to question her, then she's putting her own selfish needs ahead of what is healthy for her children.
	If you stay with an abuser, you're setting your own selfish needs ahead of what is best for your children.
	And if you're serving your mom's narcissistic, I am a sweet person thing, that is at the expense of your own mental health because it is not sweet or good or nice to expose four children to violent physical and verbal and emotional abuse.
	It is not sweet or nice.
	I mean, that's the propaganda, right?
	You see through the state.
	You see through the state.
	You see through the military.
	No, I agree with you on an intellectual level.
	It's harder on a feeling level.
	I think – I never really saw my mother as a narcissist.
	Again, she's passed away, but more she kind of presented herself as a victim.
	That was more how I saw, well, that she's a victim.
	Right.
	No, I get it.
	But you guys were the victims.
	Right.
	You were the victims, right?
	Because you're the children.
	She's an adult.
	She's got full legal independence.
	She voluntarily chose to marry your father, voluntarily chose to date him, voluntarily chose to stay with him.
	You were the victims.
	She cannot claim victimhood over and above her children, even remotely.
	Because you didn't choose to be born there, you didn't choose your father, and you could not leave, right?
	That's true.
	So if victimhood is being handed out, I see four children at the front of the line, I don't see a mom anywhere in the goddamn picture.
	Yes, I agree.
	And to plumb the motives as to why this would continue, again, I don't know, I don't know, this is just spitballing, but to plumb the motives as to why your mother, she obviously preferred to stay, we know that because she stayed, right?
	I'm not saying she loved it in every way, shape, or form, but she preferred to stay because she stayed.
	She obviously knew by the time the second, third, or fourth child came along that your father was a chronic physical, emotional, and verbal abuser, right?
	She knew that before...
	And what did she say?
	She said, hey, have some more kids.
	Well, she knew that before she ever had any children.
	You know, if abusing two isn't enough, here's three.
	If abusing three isn't enough, here's four.
	I can't see how that's being a victim.
	I see that as victimizing others, but I try to be very fair to women.
	I really do.
	You know, occasionally I'm accused of as being sexist which is generally what insecure and neurotic people call those who apply universal standards I will not take away moral responsibility from women because I was taught my whole childhood women are the equal of men women are the equal of men and I imagine right so imagine this imagine that your father was widowed
	at a very young age he had four children And then he chose to get married to a woman who physically, emotionally, and verbally abused his children.
	And he saw all of that before they got married.
	He got married anyway.
	What would you say about a man like that?
	At the very least, he has poor judgment.
	Nope.
	A total asshole.
	Ha ha ha!
	Sorry, this is egalitarianism.
	If a man takes four of his children and exposes them to a known abuser, for years he is an asshole.
	I don't disagree.
	And if women do that, I'm sorry, it's the same standard.
	Right.
	With the caveat that it's far easier for a woman to leave a man than for a man to leave a woman, legally.
	And if you can find me a situation wherein a man who voluntarily exposes his four innocent children to repeated verbal, physical, and emotional abuse while being free to leave at any time, if that person is not an asshole, hey, I'm open to the moral argument.
	I don't have everything tied up in a neat bow in the realm of philosophy.
	It's complex stuff.
	I'm totally open to the argument that there's a way in which that man is not an asshole.
	But I think if you expose your children repeatedly to abuse when you could leave at any time, and if you continue to add more children to the orbit of an abuser, I don't see how that makes you a victim.
	Like there's no defense in court for child abuse called I had a bad childhood.
	I've never heard of a man who beats his wife who said, well, but I grew up with my dad beating my mom, so can I go now?
	Well, and I think that's a big reason why I was married for a short period of time, for four years.
	My ex-wife said, because I wasn't always the way I am now.
	My ex-wife said, well, if we have kids, you'll traumatize them.
	And at the time, I thought that was...
	That was mean and insane but she was absolutely right.
	She was right to leave me and she was right to – I wasn't hitting her or anything but I was doing the yelling and losing my temper and she was right.
	I would have without really knowing better and without real excuse.
	I would have traumatized kids.
	So I don't have children as much as I love children.
	I love my nieces and nephews to death.
	I would have perpetuated that, and she was right to leave, and I'm glad she did.
	And she did you a great favor by not putting children into your orbit if you were still in that phase.
	So listen, all I will say is judge women as you would a man.
	Judge your mom as you would a man.
	No, I don't disagree, and I really appreciate...
	You do disagree.
	Certainly, to be fair, you did disagree with me earlier.
	Because what you talked about with your dad and what you talked about with your mom, judge your mom as if she was a man.
	UPB doesn't care about your peepee.
	Right?
	It doesn't care if you have an innie or an outie.
	It's UPB. Not UPB vagina star asterisk exclusion, right?
	Right.
	So that's what I would focus on.
	I think that would be probably the most advantageous thing with regards to the depression.
	That would be what I would focus on.
	Well, I appreciate it and I really do appreciate the talks, the stuff you put out about men, what's going on in society about men and women.
	It really opened my eyes.
	I kind of knew it was going on but couldn't really put my finger on exactly what it was.
	I've seen it happen to my friends, lose their stuff, lose their kids.
	So I really appreciate that stuff as well, and I really appreciate you, Stefan.
	Thank you so much.
	Thank you.
	I appreciate that.
	Have we got one more?
	All right.
	I'm afraid we're going to have to keep it brief, brother or sister, but most likely brother.
	Who have we got?
	All right, Nick.
	Go ahead, Nick.
	Hello.
	Can you hear me?
	Nick, where does that name come from?
	Oh, I don't know.
	Just something my father thought of while he was shaving.
	Go ahead, my friend.
	Okay.
	Briefly, I just want to say the radio show is amazing.
	I came across it a few months ago, listened to it a lot.
	It has really changed the way that I've approached a lot of the things I do.
	And anyway, with that aside, thank you so much for having this radio show.
	Thank you.
	It's not radio.
	I also wanted to mention for people, sorry, I forgot to mention this, FDRURL.com forward slash BIB. And just for people who wanted to follow that up, it's very, very important work.
	But go ahead, Nick.
	What can I do you for?
	Okay, so I've written down a question here, and you might have addressed it in a previous podcast, but I'll go ahead anyway.
	It's about the current minimum wage increase campaigns.
	And so there have been several recently in the U.S. and Canada.
	Where I live, people have been campaigning for that.
	And it happens pretty often.
	Whenever currency inflates, cost of living increases, people want higher wages.
	And I am having trouble deciding where I stand on this issue for a number of reasons.
	I mean, one is I've recently come to understand that the government is immoral and forcing people at gunpoint to run their businesses a certain way is immoral.
	But then the other side is that workers need higher wages because their current wages leave them very often At the poverty level, as far as I'm aware, and obviously the way to solve this problem that is most familiar to people and seemingly the easiest is to get the government to force it to happen.
	I also see that it's a band-aid issue and the government and major issues of our social structuring will probably not be resolved anytime soon, but the large number of people working as wage slaves still need help and they need some sort of change of wage.
	I don't know how to help them or if supporting government-based solutions in any way is a bad idea at all times, particularly because that's the current system that we have.
	I don't want to support it, but I guess I'm confused As to, like, what programs I should or should not support.
	So I would just like to hear your opinions on the current drive to increase minimum wage.
	And again, if you address this in an earlier podcast, that's understandable.
	Yeah, I mean, I've got a podcast about the minimum wage, but let's start with something a bit more visceral.
	So who has more listeners, Rush Limbaugh or me?
	Rush Limbaugh, I would think.
	Rush Limbaugh.
	So I need more listeners, right?
	Okay.
	So should the government force people to listen to me?
	Definitely no.
	Why not?
	He's got more, I've got less.
	Where's your egalitarianism, man?
	Where's your sympathy for the under-listened to?
	Why can't you force people to...
	I mean, I shouldn't have to go out and earn more listeners.
	The government should give me more listeners for free using force, right?
	Yeah.
	No.
	No.
	Well, why not?
	They should not.
	Because the initiation of the use of force is immoral, and you don't in any way deserve these listeners.
	Like, you deserve more listeners if more listeners decide that they want to listen to you.
	Right.
	So we understand that I earn listeners.
	Right.
	Based upon my choices.
	And I make choices that reject listeners.
	I make choices that drive listeners away.
	Right?
	I mean, there's topics that I come up with that people get really upset about.
	You know, so I just did the Paul Walker thing and a guy, I won't mention his name because I don't know if he's into the privacy or not, a guy who was the biggest single donator to Free Domain Radio in history was really upset by that topic.
	You know, I'm incredibly sorry.
	I've actually, I mean, I left a message with him a month or two ago.
	I just wanted to chat with him to say thanks again.
	He was really upset by the topic, but I would do it again.
	You know, if I were agnostic, I would have 10 times the listeners.
	If I was religious, I've had 100 times the listeners.
	If I were not an anarchist but a libertarian, I would have 50 times the listeners.
	Right, so I make my choices When I choose integrity that is offensive to some people's sensibilities, it costs me listeners.
	I'm willing to pay that price.
	In fact, I love, I love when listeners go away.
	I mean, it's an essential, pruning is an essential part of gardening, right?
	And so all the people who think there's absolutely zero problem with a 33 year old movie star having sex with a 16 year old girl, I want those people to not listen to my show.
	I want those people to dislike my show, you know, if they can't work through it or whatever.
	Oh, maybe they come up with great arguments I haven't thought about.
	But if they're just like, well, Steph's a Victorian prudish asshole and do what you want and blah, blah, blah, right?
	I want those people to like say, oh, I hate that show.
	I really think it's great for 33-year-old movie stars to have sex with 16-year-old girls, and I don't like free domain radio.
	Yes!
	Please post that.
	Put those two together.
	Absolutely.
	I am pro-war and anti-free domain radio.
	Yes!
	Feel free to post that anytime.
	I think that...
	Abusive parents must be automatically forgiven and praised.
	And I dislike free domain radio.
	Please post that if you can.
	Set up your hate sites.
	Do as much as you can to broadcast how much you like corruption and immorality and dislike free domain radio.
	You know, I wanted my cancer to really not like the treatment.
	You know, I wanted it to hate it and really hate and fear it.
	I certainly didn't want my cancer to like the treatment.
	So I'm very aware of those choices.
	That I make and how essential they are for the slow and steady growth.
	I will not compromise anything for the listeners.
	I think everyone gets that.
	Doesn't mean I'm always right, of course, right?
	Yes, I was wrong about Nelson Mandela and nationalization.
	He talked about it as a central core part of his socialist slash communist policy for about three and a half decades.
	And then at the last minute, he abandoned his implementation plans because...
	He heard from some bankers that it would cost foreign investment, and he heard from some Chinese officials that they were going in the opposite direction.
	And he realized, whether it was pragmatic or what, I don't know.
	But he abandoned the policy, and I said that he did nationalize.
	And my source was incorrect, so I apologize for that.
	So I will not compromise for the sake of popularity.
	Right?
	Because I know the difference between short-term gain and long-term gain.
	I might gain listeners by compromising certain things or not addressing certain topics, but I'm not in it for the short haul.
	And truth and reason and evidence will win in the long haul.
	So I consider it, you know, I don't do it to piss off listeners, but I will never, ever refrain from talking about a topic because I think it might cost me listeners.
	Because when I speak the truth as I see it and have good reasons and evidence behind what I'm saying, if that costs me listeners, that is essential to the growth of the show.
	And that's why we're doing so well.
	So, I choose the number of listeners that I have, and so does Rush Limbaugh, right?
	I mean, if Rush Limbaugh started studying atheism, then he would have an interesting choice.
	If Jon Stewart started studying libertarianism, then he would have a choice, which is probably why they avoid these topics.
	So, no, I do not deserve any more listeners than I earn.
	Not even a tiny bit.
	You know, lots of people don't have as much sex as they want.
	Does that mean we use force to redistribute vaginas and butts around the world?
	No.
	You get as much sex as you earn.
	And that's my sort of approach to this.
	So, no, you don't get the right to use force.
	Now, people are generally ridiculously misinformed about the minimum wage.
	Fewer than 1% of workers have anything to do with the minimum wage.
	And almost all of those are out of minimum wage within 12 months of it starting.
	It is a tiny, tiny aspect of the economy.
	It is when people are starting out, when as a result of shitty government schools, they have almost no skills.
	When people start out, they end up in this situation where they...
	Can't provide much value and therefore that's all they can get paid.
	If you have a problem with minimum wage, start teaching economically useful stuff to teenagers and then you won't have to worry about the minimum wage.
	If teenagers came out of school skilled in some trade as plumbers or computer programmers or electricians, we wouldn't really need to worry about the minimum wage, now would we?
	So if you were to reform school to provide people some economic value, even if it was just being good readers and writers and reasoners, they'd be a hell of a lot more valuable.
	So minimum wage is a product of shitty schools.
	It affects less than 1% of the U.S. population and almost everyone who has it is out of it within a year.
	So it's just window dressing.
	And people think, well, it's tough to live on a minimum wage.
	Yeah, which is why people should upgrade their skills and earn more.
	But it is an effect of the status system.
	For instance, if you're concerned about the minimum wage in the 1960s, I can't even remember.
	It was, I don't know, 50 cents or something like that.
	And if the minimum wage had kept pace with the value of precious metals, particularly silver, then the minimum wage right now would be over $26.
	Now, we wouldn't have much of a problem if the minimum wage was over $26.
	So what's happened?
	Well, the government's fucked up the currency by printing too much of the damn stuff and driving down its value.
	So why is $7.85 really bad?
	Because...
	Inflation and the money supply has dropped the value of what people can earn so much.
	So if you care about poor workers, then you should not have the government print so much money, right?
	And so, you know, reform public schools and not have the government print so much money, privatize public schools and not have the government print so much money, that would immediately solve 80-90% of youth poverty.
	Or, you know, young people's unemployment encourage people to get married before having children would solve about 90% of poverty as it currently stands.
	The welfare state is the faceless alpha male substitute for single moms not having providers because they made bad decisions.
	So, yeah, I mean, again, it's just people, they want to play whack-a-mole with symptoms, which give the government more power, when it's government mismanagement of power, which is to say government power, is why we have the problem in the first place.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yeah, it makes a lot of sense, actually.
	Thank you very much for that.
	You're very welcome, Micah.
	We'll do a quick one.
	Okay, can I just...
	Every time I go to Reason Magazine, I actually want to do something intellectual, and it's just boobs.
	You ever notice that?
	No, seriously, go to Reason.com.
	I like Reason.
	I like Reason Magazine.
	But they've got this woman who looks like she could feed a small African village...
	Selling t-shirts.
	Apparently I'm supposed to read what's on the t-shirts, but it's kind of cold, so it looks more like braille than letters.
	It's just Boob Planet.
	And I'm like, I'd really like to do something intellectual.
	Boobs!
	I'm sorry, what was my question again?
	I'm sorry, what was your question again?
	Boobs!
	No, I'm back.
	Go ahead.
	And why do Reason.com, why do they want to marry Asian women?
	I'm still trying to figure this out, but it probably has something to do with feminism.
	Go ahead.
	Boobs!
	I had a thing that I wanted to say, and that was...
	I have really strongly come to realize that the initiation of the use of force is immoral as a principle, and that the government...
	At its base violates that.
	And so I'm still coming to terms with being able to cling on to that and not be shaken off by people's claims that, oh, but if I stick to that, then I'm going to be hurting someone's life by, say, not increasing the minimum wage so they don't get enough money.
	And then in the short term, like, they don't have much money.
	And then it's difficult for me emotionally.
	Sorry, wait, wait.
	So people say that Yes, that's a concise way of saying it.
	Yeah, no, that's a huge problem.
	Absolutely.
	You know, this is one of the reasons why slavery was such a great institution.
	Like the end of slavery threw a lot of slave catchers out of work.
	And it also threw a lot of people who made whips out of work.
	And it threw a lot of sadists out of work because, you know, it's tougher to beat workers than it is to beat slaves.
	It also threw a lot of shipbuilders out of work who built the slave ships and a lot of sailors.
	And also they had to retrofit their ships to not have manacles and so on.
	So yeah, no, the end of slavery was a huge, huge problem.
	I also remember in the 50s when women started talking about equality and independence that everyone said, well, no, you see there's a lot of abusive husbands who are going to suffer if their wives leave them if you remind them that they don't have to be in abusive relationships.
	So I remember this huge movement going on saying, well, don't talk about freedom and the possibility of leaving abusive relationships because it will be really upsetting to the husbands who like to beat their wives and scream at their wives and so on and so forth.
	So I remember that being a huge issue.
	And I also remember when I was a kid, if I didn't study for a test and I failed it, I do remember the teacher saying, well, you know, I'm going to give you an A because I know it will be upsetting for you if you fail.
	And actually, I remember none of that stuff happening at all.
	So that would be my answer.
	Okay.
	And then sort of in a related way, I've found that when I have conversations with people...
	Sorry.
	I'm sorry to interrupt.
	I said that so I bit the ending.
	What I'm basically saying is if you want to not make the minimum wage, read some fucking books when you're a kid.
	You know?
	No one's going to pay you for your Xbox skills.
	You know?
	Like, just read some fucking books.
	You know?
	Do a little extra homework.
	Learn how to think.
	Pick up a book on logic.
	You know?
	This is not...
	It's not brain surgery, right?
	I mean, just do some stuff that's going to add to your economic value and don't come out with this entitled sense of, well, I guess the government's got to pay me more because I played a little bit too much Halo 3.
	But anyway, go on.
	So, um, in that way then, if I am looking, if I'm having a conversation with someone that's working a minimum wage and they were raised by parents that didn't really encourage them to build skills, they didn't, they were alright with them playing Xbox all the time and just fucking around and not doing anything, uh, because that person sort of missed their chance in their childhood to build a lot of skills.
	Did he just swear?
	He just swore.
	One second, Mike has to administer smelling salts to my Victorian sensibilities.
	Oh lord, I think he done swear!
	Oh!
	Okay, I'll give him a minute to do that.
	Okay.
	Whoa!
	Mike!
	Why do I feel so hyper?
	Oh my god, let's keep going on with the show!
	Are we done yet?
	Who's online?
	Hello.
	Boobs!
	Sorry, go on.
	I accidentally administered the caffeine enema.
	I'm sorry, Steph.
	Okay, it's supposed to help with my cancer.
	Actually, I'm just making a cocaine joke.
	Actually, I did get a lot of those recommendations.
	And can I tell you what?
	Can I tell you what?
	People don't think about what they say.
	So everyone says like a caffeine enema and suddenly you're getting kicked out of Starbucks.
	I mean, where's people's compassion for what I have to do to get these things?
	No, it's sort of half between to stay and to go.
	Do you have bendy straws and shades?
	All right, sorry, go ahead.
	Okay, where was I? Yeah, okay, so if this person...
	I think I win.
	We were talking about, so some kid who doesn't have any skills, plenty of time playing Xbox, no guidance, bad teachers, blah, blah, blah.
	Okay.
	Right, and now if I'm going to say, no, I don't want to support an increase in minimum wage because I think that the government is immoral and I don't want to support their programs, and then he wants, like, okay, well, what do I do about it?
	I assume what I should be telling him is build some skills.
	Right.
	No, no.
	What you do is you say, well, what do you think you should do about it?
	Right?
	This is the whole point of not being paternalistic to people.
	Right?
	What I say to people all the time, I don't know what you should do.
	Here's a couple of principles.
	You know, what was your childhood like?
	I'm not going to assume I know what the problem is.
	I have some ideas, but I'm always willing to be wrong.
	Of course, right?
	So the whole point, this paternalism is almost like, well, I need to tell this person that to get paid more, you need to have more skills.
	Well, if somebody doesn't know that, then they should probably be in a very soft room playing with plastic scissors.
	Of course everybody knows you get paid for what you know.
	Everybody knows that.
	It's like me saying, well, wait a minute.
	Wait a minute.
	I have to be good-looking to be a model?
	I mean, everybody knows that, right?
	Everybody knows that.
	You mean I can't do a shoot for skin cream when I have a pimple the size of a small starling on my nose?
	Okay.
	Of course, everybody knows that.
	Doctors get paid more.
	Why?
	They know more.
	Lawyers get paid more.
	Why?
	They know more.
	Accountants get paid more.
	Why?
	They know more.
	Right?
	Models get paid more.
	Why?
	They're prettier.
	And they're willing to do the work to be models, right?
	Which is to not eat and smoke and pretend to be healthy and all that kind of stuff, right?
	So, I mean, everybody knows that you need to learn some stuff.
	I mean, if you go to any person who's not fatality, like the video game expert, you go to every person who's 14 and say, do you think that playing this Xbox game is going to add to your marketability as an employee?
	What's everyone going to say?
	Fuck you, I don't play video games.
	Well, they're not going to say yes, right?
	You know, is a porn addiction going to help you get a girlfriend?
	Well...
	Not a real one, right?
	I mean, everybody, we all, you know, I try not to insult people's intelligence and I'm not saying you would and I'm certainly not insulting yours, but I don't, you know, I really try not to state the obvious to people.
	I try my very best.
	I try my very best not to state the obvious to people and I always point out when it's embarrassing to have to state the obvious to people, right?
	So I assume that everybody with half a brain Everybody knows that you need to know stuff to get paid more.
	And if you don't know much, you're not going to get paid much.
	Right?
	I mean, we all know that.
	Because we're all told that in school.
	Study so you can get good grades.
	So you can learn stuff so you can get well paid.
	Go to college so you can learn more so you can get paid more.
	I mean, we all know this from about the time that we are five.
	My daughter's figured this out.
	So, if my daughter's figured it out, I'm not going to insult people's intelligence by telling them something that is obvious as learn some skills.
	I'd say, well, you already know what to do to not be in the minimum wage ghetto.
	You already know what to do.
	Get a job, keep a job, do a good job, and as soon as you become worth more than $8 an hour to your employer, likelihood is you'll get that from that employer or someone else.
	Right?
	You get what you earn.
	You get what you're worth.
	Again, in a free market, there's lots of bullshit that goes on and all that, right?
	But if you want to earn more, provide more services.
	Provide better services, right?
	That's it.
	You know, I mean, if a 300-pound guy wants to pick up a woman who's gorgeous, you know, he knows what to do.
	So, yeah, I mean, everybody knows what to do.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Yeah, that's actually very, very helpful for you to point out because I find that I probably do point out the obvious fan mountain.
	It's not really helpful and I guess I've really just been trying to address how to have these conversations with people where I'm really just arguing a moral principle and it's frustrating because that conversation Will often just lead to...
	The conversation has to end because neither of us has evidence of how to solve the problem in other ways or knowledge about the issue, like minimum wage.
	I don't know a whole lot about it.
	And so people have expressed to me frustration because they find that the conversation always just ends at a dead end.
	Oh, but now that I think about it, just the moral principle of the initiation of the use of force is immoral and so the government is immoral.
	No, look, your job, your job.
	Sorry, your job is to get people to think, not to give them answers.
	Right?
	You say, yeah, of course, right?
	Your job is to, like, I don't really do speeches anymore.
	Every time I'm planning it, I talk it over with Mike or my wife and say, well, I could do this, I could do this, but you know what I really want to do is just have a conversation with the audience and ask them questions.
	So that's what I do now.
	I just, I'm always like, What do you guys think?
	Or what's the answer?
	Or what would you guys do?
	Or, you know, this is Socratic method.
	You ask questions.
	You know, why are people being paid so little?
	Corporations are greedy, right?
	But if corporations are greedy, then they should want to exploit workers.
	And if all corporations want to exploit workers, then they will have to bid up the salaries of those workers to the point where they're only marginally profitable, right?
	Because if you're paying a worker who produces $20 an hour, $2 an hour, then I'm going to offer him $3 an hour.
	Then I get to exploit him for that much more.
	And then someone else is going to offer him $4 because they're greedy.
	Saying that people are underpaid because people are greedy is ridiculous.
	It's like saying I'm too hot and too intimidating for anyone to ask me out.
	I mean, I am.
	But that's different.
	But it just shows a basic not-thinkingness about things, right?
	These people are being underpaid.
	The only way to get them more paid is to have the government make people pay them more.
	I mean, that just shows that people don't understand anything about economics.
	And if you don't understand anything about economics, then you shouldn't be Talking about economics, I mean, but so just ask people questions.
	The whole point is not to say, get them to repeat your mantra that the minimum wage violates the non-aggression principle.
	Well, get them to think about it.
	Well, how many people does the minimum wage really affect?
	And if they don't know, well, okay, the answer is less than 1%.
	How long do people usually stay on minimum wage?
	The answer is usually way less than a year, right?
	So you get that it's a tiny problem, right?
	And it's a transitional problem.
	And then the question is, why do some people get paid more and why do some people get paid less?
	Right?
	And if people don't know the answer to that, then say, well, you should read economics in one lesson or you should study a little bit about this stuff before you start having opinions about it because it's a serious topic and it deserves important attention.
	Yeah, thank you.
	That's very useful.
	Yeah, try not to give people answers, right?
	Just try and get them to think as best they can and...
	You'll very quickly differentiate the people who just like talking shit and people who actually want to learn how to think, right?
	Because if people realize they're not thinking about something and they have any kind of integrity, then they'll say, oh shit, I'm not really thinking about this, so I should, right?
	And if they're just bullshit artists and sophists who just, you know, like mouthing off, then they'll get upset and they'll whatever and they'll call your names and then good, you've saved yourself some time because they can go off and do their niceness elsewhere.
	Yeah, that I sometimes recognize that I really should just be asking people questions.
	I don't need to tell them things.
	I just need to practice it more because sometimes I feel like, oh, I'm on the spot and they're demanding answers from me about all these things.
	Right.
	The more you have answers, the more you serve socialism, right?
	How so?
	Because socialism is about central planning, right?
	I get it.
	Yeah, yeah.
	You know.
	Tell me why.
	Why?
	Because socialism is about telling people what to do.
	It's central planning.
	You need a government.
	You need to be saying that you have the answers.
	You know what's happening.
	And that is the issue.
	People do not have the answers.
	I don't know.
	I don't know.
	People like to go into the 15th century and saying people really like to talk to each other.
	How are they going to talk to each other in the year 2013?
	Well, if you can't answer that, we need fascism.
	What?
	What sense is that?
	Of course we can't answer it.
	Right?
	How are people...
	How is this going to be solved in a free society?
	I don't know.
	But I sure know it's not being solved now.
	Who is this woman going to date if you don't rape her?
	Oh, you can't answer that?
	Then go rape her.
	Well, that doesn't make any sense, right?
	No.
	It does not.
	So, anyway, I hope that helps.
	Listen, just seriously, everyone, pick up your Plato.
	Read the dialogues.
	They're actually pretty good reading.
	You can get them on audible.com.
	Username StephBot, if you're referred.
	But, yeah, listen, get, you know, or, you know, you can get, I use advanced text-to-speech to convert web pages to audio.
	Sounds pretty good.
	You can get some AT&T natural voice.
	It's pretty cheap.
	Convert them to...
	Audio, if you want to listen to them on the go.
	But listen to your Play-Doh.
	You know, listen to Socrates.
	It's good stuff about the asking of questions.
	And show people, you know, if you think someone's so stupid that you have to give them answers, don't have a conversation with them.
	Right?
	And if they're smart enough that they don't need you to give them answers, then don't give them answers, right?
	And I'm sorry, I just, because I'm kind of late in the show, I gave you an answer just now, which you interrupted me after I told you not to give answers, but it's just because I got to pee.
	But that's my suggestion, and your goal as somebody to attempt to illuminate, right, is not to have them dazzled by the light of your candle, but to light their candle, right?
	Yes, yeah.
	And then you've got your candlelight, they have their candlelight, and you've showed them how to light other people's candles.
	But you don't want to sit them and say, I want people to feel smarter after talking to me.
	I don't want them to think I'm smarter.
	Yeah, this has gone much better than I could have hoped.
	This is perfect.
	Thank you very much.
	Fantastic.
	You're very welcome.
	And for the listener who has said that the 300-pound man should get the woman by...
	Throwing himself on top of her.
	I said date, not bury, so that's important.
	And for the people who are saying, what does that mean I can't play video games?
	Eating does not add to your economic value, but still we should do it, right?
	And leisure is fine, obviously, right?
	The fact that something doesn't add to your economic value doesn't make it bad.
	It just means that if you do that to the exclusion of adding to your economic value, you won't end up with much.
	So thank you everybody so much.
	Thank you, Mike, for sitting through another chillingly truncated non-four-and-a-half-hour show.
	Thank you to the listeners.
	Christmas is coming up.
	I have recorded a Christmas song.
	I don't mean that to be a threat, but it probably is.
	Hey, I'm happy to have any kind of singing voice back after this year.
	So I will really appreciate it if you could.
	If you're listening to this, you haven't donated, you've listened to a bunch, you know it's time.
	You know it's time, right?
	Don't leave a lump of coal in my stocking.
	Otherwise, I will have to do a show wearing a stocking with a lump of coal in it, and that's about it.
	That is a threat while singing Santa Baby.
	But FDRURL.com forward slash donate.
	You know you need to.
	You know you want to.
	And so you should.
	And have yourselves a great week, everyone.
	We will talk to you Wednesday night.
	We got a show, right?
	We didn't forget any other announcements?
	No?
	Wow.
	First time for everything.
	Have yourself a great week, everyone.

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