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March 10, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

03:11:41

2634 The Bad Philosophy Show - Sunday Call In Show February 23rd, 2014

Stefan's daughter Isabella joins the show to talk about bad philosophy and comments on the various calls. Topics include: moral responsibility, self-defense and dysfunction, the pros and cons of regret, environmentalism in a free society and ambition is social.

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	Hello, hello.
	Hey, morning, Steph.
	Who's that, Boo?
	Hi, Mikey Mike.
	Hey, Izzy.
	Morning.
	Izzy is going to help out a little bit of the show today.
	She really wants to.
	I was telling people that.
	Everyone seemed pretty excited.
	Cool.
	Everyone's excited that you're helping, Boo.
	Oh, that's quite nice.
	Cool.
	Are we going to start off with the Bad Philosophy Show?
	Yes!
	And at the end, may I tell you what I'm going to say?
	Right at the beginning of the show, dating me, bang heads.
	We did.
	We almost bumped our heads together.
	We did.
	I felt it.
	We were knocking our brains together to make ourselves smarter, right?
	So, normally we try to do a good philosophy show, but today what are we going to do?
	Bad philosophy show, and what's that going to be like?
	If you want to get lots of money, always do.
	Go to Peter Joseph's World.
	That's right, because in Peter Joseph's World, there's no money.
	So, that's the bad philosophy show.
	And I would say, if you want to have lots of rain, make sure you go to the desert.
	Oh, she's left the room.
	Isabella has left the building.
	Isabella has left the room.
	Very short show.
	And what else do we have for bad philosophy?
	I sing, if you want to have lots of rain, make sure you go to the desert.
	If you want to have lots of leaves, always go to winter.
	Ah, very nice.
	If you want to have lots of leaves and flowers and pumpkins, always go to Iceland.
	Iceland.
	Right.
	Right, Mike, do you have any bad philosophy?
	Make up while you're singing.
	If you want to be cold, make sure you stand in a fire.
	Wait, no.
	If you want to be hot, always stand in some cold.
	Snow.
	And if you want to be frozen, always be steaming up.
	Very nice.
	And if you want to stand up, make sure you're lying down.
	If you want to have a kiss, always make sure you're banging eyeballs.
	Oh!
	No banging eyeballs.
	We talked about that.
	Mike, anything you'd like to add to the Bad Philosophy Show?
	If you'd like to be connected to the internet, make sure you unplug your router.
	Oh.
	It seems to regularly happen.
	If you want to be connected to internet, unplug around there so that you don't play Dragon Veil.
	Dragon Veil, that's a big thing.
	I would say, if you want to swim, make sure you jump in the rocks.
	If you want to swim, make sure you always get burned up.
	Very good.
	Mike, would you like to do one or two more?
	If you want to make Steph happy, be sure to cancel your free domain radio subscription.
	If you want to make Izzy happy, always put me out of the show.
	Always put you on the show?
	No, out of.
	Out of the show.
	Right, right, right.
	If you want to make Izzy happy, always put me in your eyeball.
	And Mike, one more.
	I think I'm out of bad philosophy.
	If you want to make listeners happy, make sure you give them bad philosophy.
	Ambo, would you like to do one more?
	Okay.
	If you want some warmth, you don't live in a house just isolated.
	If you want lots of power, make sure you come to Izzy's birthday party.
	If you don't want power, always come to nighttime where the power is all the way out.
	Very nice.
	And if you want to see where you're going, make sure you close your eyes.
	If you don't want to see where you're going, open your eyes.
	And Boo, do you know one thing you could do before we start the show if you like?
	What?
	So the song that you've been working on?
	Yeah.
	All the birds of heaven.
	No, the...
	Deck the Hall?
	Yeah, do you want to do that?
	Yeah.
	Deck the halls with boughs of holly.
	Tis the season to be jolly.
	Don me now, our gay apparel.
	Fa la la la la la la la la la.
	Gay apparel to be jolly.
	Oh, sorry.
	Did I not help you at the end there?
	La ha.
	Very nice.
	All right.
	Well, I think we should indulge the listeners a little bit.
	What do you think, Boo?
	Yeah.
	Okay, so Isabella's going to go play with her mama.
	We are going to listen to the callers.
	Hang on.
	We're going to listen to the callers, and then we're going to bring Izzy back, give a brief overview of the problem, and see what Izzy has to say.
	All right?
	Okay, so Mike, would you like to start with the first caller?
	I'll come give you a shout when it's time for you to talk.
	Call me like Isabella!
	Isabella!
	Alright, thanks.
	Alright, up next is Nicholas.
	Go ahead, Nicholas.
	Hi, hello.
	Oh, hi.
	G'day, Steph.
	I'm calling from New Zealand, so it's pretty early in the morning, so hopefully my tightness doesn't seep into the conversation.
	But I was just wanting to talk to you a bit about sort of responsibilities for the bad things that you've done personally in your life.
	Do you mean that one has done, or me has done, or you have done?
	Yeah, that I personally have done.
	A couple of years ago, when I was about 16, I got into a really dysfunctional relationship with this girl.
	She lived in Imercargill and I lived in Christchurch.
	It's about like a nine hour drive between the two.
	So we sort of communicated back and forth and eventually she started to tell me that she was being abused at home and sort of pushed it on me and said, you know, if you don't let me come and stay with you, then it's going to continue and you're kind of aiding that.
	And so I let her come up and it really forced a bad relationship to get worse.
	And eventually it got to the point where we broke up after three or four months later.
	But we got physically sort of...
	She punched me a number of times during the relationship at the end.
	It got to the point where I actually got in a fight with her and hit her.
	And so I just wanted to get your perspective on...
	Because you know how you say, don't blame the victim, and you've got to look at the source of it, and so it's like, well, do I sort of say to myself, hey, you're putting a situation through your upbringing and stuff, and she was as well, and sort of push it on to them, or is that just a cop-out?
	Am I not taking responsibility for getting in that fight, getting in that drama, and letting it happen?
	Right.
	That's a good question.
	I guess the question I would have is, how many times did you have, like looking in hindsight, how many times did you have evidence that things were going to escalate to a negative place?
	Almost from the beginning, to be honest.
	There's numerous occasions where I should have just said to myself, this is not worth it, and just left.
	There was a stage I did do that, but she tried to stab herself and I had to catch the knife.
	I don't think she would have done it, but she put that awkwardness and she made it very difficult for someone who was only 17, 16 to deal with.
	And I mean, just again, sorry to interrupt, but how on earth were you dealing with this as a 16-year-old on your own?
	Oh, well, my parents are split up, and I see my dad, but not too often.
	But my mom at the time, she was over in the Middle East.
	She was on like a six-month sort of holiday, and so she didn't really get there until it was...
	At that very, very, very bad stage.
	Well, hang on, hang on, hang on.
	Sorry, maybe I'm misunderstanding something.
	So, when your mom went on a six-month holiday, were you 15 or 16?
	I was 16.
	Okay.
	And were you, I mean, I don't even know how to put this exactly.
	How on earth do you go on a six-month holiday when you have a 16-year-old child at home?
	My sister's 18, and I was working at the time, so, yeah.
	I don't know.
	I know my mom's quite, like, caught up about it, and, you know, she always says the same things, you know, like, God, I wish I hadn't gone, et cetera, et cetera.
	Right.
	Was she going with a guy?
	My mom?
	Oh, no, she went with her best friend.
	Whose friend?
	Her best friend.
	Okay, okay.
	Yeah, I mean, it seems like kind of a startling thing to do.
	Now, obviously, and this is not any negative towards you, but obviously your judgment was not good at the time.
	No, no.
	Right, and it's not a negative at all.
	It's just, I mean, observable fact, right?
	Yeah.
	And what that means is that either your mom thought that your judgment was good, In which case, she had no clue what the hell was going on with you.
	Or she thought your judgment was bad, in which case, how on earth could she leave?
	So which do you think it was?
	Did she think that your judgment was really good and you were ready to live a life without parental involvement?
	In which case, she obviously was wrong.
	Or did she think that your judgment wasn't good but decided to go anyway?
	It would have been the first one, because, you know, she didn't quite know, like, my sort of life at school at the same time, so I think it would have been that.
	Like, she didn't...
	I think she had sort of like a, this is what a son, you know, is, and when he's 16, he's like this, and so now you treat him differently because he's 16, as opposed to, this is Nicholas, and this is how he deals with things, and this is, you know what I mean?
	Like...
	Not really.
	I mean, that's like me saying all women are the same, right?
	Like if she's got this idea that all 16-year-old children, all 16-year-old boys are the same, then that would indicate that she has no particular knowledge of you, but rather is applying some global template to you and making very important decisions without assessing you as an individual.
	Well, it would have been that.
	She would have thought that, you know, he's 16 now, he's got a job, so he'll be fine to manage the house for six months while I'm in the Middle East.
	Right.
	So the first error is your mother's.
	What set the ball in motion?
	I'm not saying you have zero responsibility.
	That would be an insult to you.
	So I'm not saying that at all.
	But what I'm saying is, look at violence as the culmination of a whole series of bad decisions.
	So you hitting the girl was the last in a whole series of dominoes.
	And the key thing about violence, to me at least, is to look at the dominoes that precede The final event, right?
	Everything that leads up to the final event.
	You know, I mean, because in the media, all you see is the final event.
	You know, a woman drives children into a lake in a car.
	And in movies, you're just guys shooting at each other, guys who are drug dealers.
	There's no dominoes, right?
	Because I have a domino theory that's a little different than...
	American geopolitics in the 60s and 70s.
	But it's a domino theory, which is, to prevent something, you look at the source.
	Prevention of violence is far better than cure, right?
	Because you're kind of discussing cure, and I'm being annoying, as usual, in trying to look at causes.
	So, a 16-year-old boy who's gone through You know, parental upheaval and divorce and so on and who is in the height of I would assume that sexual desire or lust had something to do with what could loosely be called your judgment, right?
	Yeah, especially at the beginning when, you know, because I mean it's something to off if you need to communicate with someone nine hours away, you know, So I definitely was clouded in making the decision to say that that was okay to be pursuing someone who lived on the other side of the island that I live in.
	Well, I would imagine that as a 16-year-old young man, you were more interested in pursuing the vagina.
	The bag of crazy that came with it is something you were willing to put up with, right?
	Yeah, yeah, it was.
	But then it did get to a stage where it became a sort of...
	Like, she would make me feel like if I wanted to do the right thing, which was, you know, think of myself and say, well, she's got her issues and they are hers and I need to deal with me, she would make me feel like it was, you know, a trade-off between...
	Like, if I left her, then I was being an evil person, and by staying with her, I was doing the right thing.
	So that sort of last stage was only really about like a month long, and then it was getting into this...
	Well, but by then you were in, right?
	No, but by then you were caught, right?
	And you were in this impossible situation where if you try and leave this woman, she tries to stab herself, right?
	Hmm.
	I'm not sure what that is.
	That is a sound, but I'm not sure what the sound means.
	Oh, I'm just sort of...
	I'm sort of understanding your thought process, if you know what I mean.
	Well, so what I mean is that, so, you know, the lust has you...
	Oh, yeah, you know, and also, you know, like some white knighting, right?
	Like this woman damsel in distress, right?
	I can help her, I can save her, I can, right, make a positive difference in her life, you know, put that together.
	But the lust, that's kind of an irresistible combination for a lot of men, right?
	And...
	So then she comes to live with you, and then by the time the lust wears off and the full depths of the crazy is evident, then you're stuck.
	What the hell are you going to do?
	You're 16.
	You've got this crazy woman or crazy girl who might kill herself if you leave her.
	She's moved there.
	She's dependent on you.
	What are you going to do?
	Call the cops to get her out?
	I mean, what happens then?
	Then you really are stuck, right?
	Yeah.
	Now, did you talk to your mother before you invited this girl to come and stay with you?
	Yes, I told her what was going on and mum said that if I wanted her there, then I could have it there.
	So she was, she go-kated it.
	So she thought it was a good idea.
	Um, my mum, she doesn't quite tell you what she thinks is good or bad.
	She kind of does this sort of thing where it's like, you do what you want to do, and if you stuff up, and you talk to me about it, I'll tell you then, as opposed to at the beginning, unless it's like really crazy and I'm gonna like, mum, is it okay to show myself in the head?
	She'll be sort of like, at a distance, if you know what I mean?
	Yeah, whereas this would...
	Be more like, Mom, is it okay if my dick shoots me in the head?
	Okay.
	But this was a situation where learning from consequences was not wise, right?
	Like, I mean, there's learning from consequences that make sense, and then there's learning from consequences that doesn't make sense, right?
	So you don't let a child stick a fork into an electrical socket because they'll learn from the consequences because it might kill them, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So this would not be a situation where learning from consequences, like invite this woman with a highly unstable past and highly manipulative and deranged personality structure into your house, right?
	I mean, there are professionals.
	I have no idea what...
	This woman would be.
	I mean, it sounds to me like with suicidality and threats and all of that, it sounds like a personality structure called borderline.
	I mean, I'm an amateur, I can't possibly diagnose, but it sounds to me.
	And if that's true, if it's true, then professionals cannot help her.
	As far as I understand it.
	I mean, she may mellow a little bit when she gets into her 60s, but therapists, to my knowledge, try and avoid borderlines unless they...
	You know, because they're just so much work, and they become stalkers, and they follow therapists around, and they, you know, stab their...
	Tires on their cars and then they call them at 2 o'clock in the morning threatening to kill themselves if they can't see them immediately and like it's really crazy, crazy stuff.
	So if professionals as a whole have a huge amount of difficulty trying to help these kinds of disturbed people, a 16 year old boy has no chance.
	This is not a learned by consequences situation, right?
	Yeah.
	And I also was wanting to talk to you about her at the same time, but it got to this sort of stage...
	Wait, about who?
	Your mother or the girl?
	The girl.
	It got to the stage where...
	You know how you're saying about the lust.
	That completely dissipated and it turned to the opposite.
	I was revolted by her.
	Oh, sure.
	She would...
	Because I was living with a few other people inside the house, she would always kick up a storm and she'd always be throwing things in the house and just yelling and making me feel just terrible.
	I'd feel ashamed at the same time as my friends were being woken up and they had work in the morning or whatever.
	And she would always do this when it came to sex.
	And so she would threaten me If I didn't have sex with her, then she would do this.
	And of course, I felt I hated this woman with every fiber of my body, but I would do it.
	And I was just wondering what you think that is, because I think the word rape just, it seems like it overkills it, but I don't know.
	What would you call it?
	I'm sorry, if you didn't have sex with her, what was her threat again?
	I just missed that.
	So, she would sort of...
	She would embarrass me and she would be screaming throughout the entire house, she'd be throwing things, calling me names, saying just anything and everything.
	So I guess the threat was really, she would make me feel incredibly uncomfortable and put me down and things like that.
	So it was quite verbal.
	Yeah, look, I mean, according to, as far as I understand it, according to the standard feminist definition of rape, that is rape, because it's verbally bullying, verbally abusing, verbally pressuring someone into sex that they don't want.
	That is a form of rape as far as I would understand it in the general nomenclature.
	You know, whether it's the legal definition of rape or whatever, it doesn't particularly matter, I think, fundamentally.
	But I've heard statistics which I'm still jaw-dropped about and I have yet to fully verify.
	40% of rape is female-initiated.
	So, this, to my understanding, if you've ever been bullied into sex that you don't want, feminists will call that a form of rape.
	And I think that it is, it's definitely in the category, you know, whether it would be legally actionable in a free society, I have no idea.
	But to verbally bully and humiliate someone into having sex with you against their will is...
	Yeah, I think that definitely falls into coercive sexual behavior.
	It's a form of sexual assault, as far as I would believe.
	And having sex when you don't want to is not rape.
	Right?
	But if you are having sex in order to avoid verbal abuse, verbal assault, that's a different category, if that makes sense, right?
	Hmm, okay.
	Yeah, so I guess those I think were important to sort of, as you're saying, you know, the dominoes.
	And then it got to the sort of point where we had broken up and she was living elsewhere because I'd sort of, you know, said to her, let's have some distance in the relationship, so not say we're going to break up, but just have distance.
	She moved out and as soon as she'd moved out, you know, just cut it.
	I was like, no, we're done.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	But then I had this sort of urge that, I don't know, I mean I don't agree with it now, but at the time I felt like she had shamed me and just Use me and spit me out, and I felt like I had to get back at her, so I wanted this final confrontation, knowing full well that it could escalate.
	I mean, I had all the history to show that it would, yet I went anyway, and it got to the point where she was pushing me, and I finally physically attacked her back.
	I mean, I hadn't done that too in the relationship, but I did at this point.
	So I'm sort of just wondering, you know, I know that's the wrong thing to do.
	How much do I need to reflect that against me and sort of my personal character?
	Well, I don't know.
	I mean, this happened when you were 16, right?
	Oh, this was 17.
	So you felt that you wanted to punish her for all the hell that she'd put you through.
	Hannah, how long was she living with you?
	About six months.
	And what did your sister have to say about this?
	My sister, uh...
	My sister, she had moved out just after mum had left, but...
	Wait, your sister moved out?
	Yeah, she moved out.
	She met a boyfriend and she...
	Wait, wait, wait!
	Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
	So when I said, wait a second, your mom went on a six-month trip?
	Yeah.
	And you said, no, no, no, my sister was home.
	Yeah, she moved out like two weeks afterwards.
	All right.
	So two weeks after your mom left, you were at the age of 16 alone.
	Well, yeah, I just had my friends living at the flat.
	And did your mother know that your sister was going to move out?
	I don't think she did before she left, but she knew when she was already away.
	So your mother knew that your sister had moved out, who was the adult in the house, and she thought, well, you know, I'm having a nice time out here, so I think I'll just keep on with my vacation, right?
	Yeah, I guess so.
	Now, you're laughing, but you understand that this is desperately terrible.
	Right?
	The adult has moved out.
	The legal child is now having a disturbed woman move in with no adult supervision.
	What the fuck?
	Like, are you getting this?
	Yeah, it's hard to...
	It's hard to...
	Because, you know, afterwards, me and my mum, we've connected a lot more.
	But I guess, yeah, at the time, it is...
	That's obviously not the right thing to do.
	Well, you're putting it kind of mouthy there, my brother.
	Yeah.
	No, listen, listen.
	This could have gone really, really badly.
	Right?
	I don't know if you understand that.
	You have some sense of it because you ended up in a physical fight, right?
	But this could, I mean, this woman could have stabbed you.
	She might have stabbed herself, right?
	She might have falsely accused you of assault or rape?
	Oh, no, she did.
	I had to go through the court system.
	Oh, were you accused of assault?
	Yeah, male assaults, female.
	But we were able to clear it because at first the fight sort of was a, she pushed me, I pushed her.
	And then I was trying to grab the phone because I could hear her mother on the other end screeching.
	So I was trying to grab the phone and she grabbed my finger and she bit it.
	And then that's when I punched her in the face.
	Because, you know, my finger was in there.
	So it was sort of...
	At the time, the police, you know, they always take the woman's side.
	You know, and they see a damsel in distress and they lock you up.
	But then when they looked at the, you know, all the statements, they said, well, this is a fight.
	It's not.
	Because no one was using excessive force.
	And you had bite marks.
	Yeah, they took photos.
	And, yeah.
	So I was cleared eventually.
	I mean, it took, like...
	I think it's like six months before they can come to that, even though if you read the papers the first day.
	Yeah, and that's not exactly a very relaxing six months, right?
	No, no it isn't.
	Especially when you're 17 and that's when you can get the permanent record.
	It went really badly, but it could have gone even more badly, right?
	Yeah, yeah, it could have.
	Right.
	So what I'm trying to sort of point out here is that Your mother was enormously, I mean, I don't even know an adjective big enough, enormously irresponsible to go on a six-month vacation with you in this situation, which she knew about without an adult in the house.
	Yeah.
	I mean, I don't want to sound like I'm making excuses.
	Although it probably is that.
	Let me ask you this.
	We'll just look at some basic facts, right?
	At 16, are you nine years away from final brain maturity?
	Yes, you are.
	At 16, are you a legal adult?
	You are not.
	I'm just talking about the existing system, right?
	People are going to say, well, you're 16, you could be hugely mature, blah, blah, blah.
	But you weren't.
	No, I wasn't, no.
	Right?
	And...
	Were you a legal adult?
	No.
	Were you in a place where you could make good decisions?
	No.
	Was there a legal adult in the house?
	No.
	Because your sister moved out two weeks after your mom left.
	Did your mom know that you were inviting a victim of child abuse to come and live with you who was unstable and dangerous when you were 16 without adult supervision?
	Yes.
	Is that good parenting?
	No.
	No, it isn't.
	Could it have been a literal life disaster?
	Yeah.
	I mean, in a lot of ways it was.
	It came damn close.
	Even with the situation that you were in, it came pretty damn close.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	I mean, let's say you'd have gotten for assault.
	Maybe you'd have gone to jail.
	Maybe you'd have been raped in jail.
	Maybe this would have been the start of a whole...
	Like, this is not a fucking learn-by-consequences situation.
	No, it's not.
	Okay, you keep laughing.
	I don't understand that.
	I don't know.
	I guess back from like when I was in high school, I've always sort of tried to cover bad things with like just trying to find it funny, if you know what I mean.
	Sort of just to try and mellow over it, if you know what I mean.
	You being in the proximity of rape, I don't find funny.
	You having a woman in your house who threatens to kill herself.
	If you try to get some separation from this bag of crazy is not funny.
	Your mother being off gallivanting around for six months while you're trying to deal with the borderline in your house, bullying you and cornering you and threatening you with suicide is not funny.
	And I understand the nerves and like we're kind of breaking through some ice here, right?
	Because you have obviously a social environment that Colludes with or creates the desire for humor in this disaster, right?
	Yeah.
	But this is completely horrifying.
	This is completely and utterly horrifying.
	Yeah.
	And there's got to be...
	I shouldn't say there's got to be.
	I would imagine...
	That there is anger in your heart for people not looking out for you, for people not protecting you, for people not supporting you.
	You know, when you're a teenager, particularly when you're dealing with the hormones and the sex drive that's, you know, interstellar, right?
	You need people around you who are gonna watch your back, who are gonna keep you safe.
	I mean, teenagers have immature brains, at least in the current system.
	Who knows?
	Biologically, it's going to be tough.
	It's not like puberty is going to be at the age of six in a free society.
	There are biological growths, right?
	The growth requirements, right?
	And so, when you're 16, you can't see over the horizon of your decisions.
	And that's exactly how nature demands you be, right?
	Nature is using you to make another person, right?
	And it doesn't really matter.
	What happens afterwards, right?
	Have sex.
	You don't think about the consequences.
	That's being a teenager.
	And there's nothing wrong with that.
	That's perfectly natural for being a teenager.
	But how on earth do you feel about nobody looking out for you and you with your sister and your father and your mother around ending up in this situation?
	It's their job.
	Not so much your sister, but your father and mother for sure.
	It's their goddamn job to make sure you don't end up in this kind of situation.
	And you're right, I do.
	I've definitely told my mum, and there's been a lot of tears and a lot of apologies, and me and my mum, we've been working really hard to, you know, to come a lot closer.
	I did tell my dad about it, and I told him about, you know, the rape side of it.
	And he sort of gave me this sort of, like, oh, don't be ridiculous.
	That's not rape.
	Because there was no gag ball and rope sort of thing.
	And you're right, I'm really pissed off with him about that.
	And I mean, I think he once told me during this relationship, and this is quite interesting because he had a relationship, he was about the same age, that turned exactly the same.
	So he had insider knowledge of what to avoid and he didn't tell me about it.
	And he just said to me, he goes, son, you don't want to lock yourself down because there's so many girls out there.
	And that's all he said.
	He didn't know.
	She bangs her face against a tree and makes it bleed because you want to go to a party that she doesn't know anyone there at.
	It's nothing like that.
	It's not like I didn't tell him.
	You know, he just sort of was like, why settle for one?
	And I mean, what a cop out.
	Yeah.
	You know?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And if your father has normalized his own relationship with a destructive woman or girl, then it's more likely that you're going to end up in the same situation, right?
	Because he's not going to be able to warn you about something that he has normalized for himself.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah, it does.
	It does.
	Yeah.
	Like, I mean, there are times, I mean, I haven't had a cavity in like 20 years, but when I would go and, you know, if I had a cavity, they'd drill it and they'd, right?
	And that's normal.
	That's, you know, you got a cavity, you get it drilled and capped or whatever, right?
	And so, you know, if my daughter says I have a cavity, I'd say, well, you know, better go get it fixed at the dentist, right?
	And that's normalizing things.
	And that's, I think, a reasonable normalization, right?
	But...
	But if I have normalized my own abuse at the hands of a crazy woman, and said that's fine, that's normal, that's whatever, right?
	It's a learning experience and this and that, then if you're heading in that direction, what am I going to do?
	Am I going to say, oh my god, no, you have got to stop this right now.
	Call the cops, get her out of your house, get her committed, whatever it takes, whatever it takes.
	Well, you can't get her committed.
	You're just the boyfriend.
	But, you know, or if you, you know, you phone up your dad and you say, well, there's this woman who's suffering from, this girl who's suffering from extreme abuse at home and she wants to come and live with me.
	And I'm 16 and there's no adult in the house.
	I'd say, oh my God, where's your mother?
	Oh, she's gone on vacation for six months.
	Okay, I am now going to quit my job and just come to live with you for a while because, you know, your crazy mom is whatever, right?
	I mean, there's a reason why you're susceptible to crazy women and it doesn't come from the crazy women, right?
	It comes from the older crazy woman in your life, right?
	Yep.
	So, there's a lot of people who made really, really bad decisions for you to end up in this situation.
	Okay.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	And...
	You were, you know, drawn in by hormones and the white knighting, which is, you know, every time you see a woman in distress, men will, you know, give their lives, right?
	I was listening to this story the other day.
	I think it was in Australia about a guy.
	He sees some woman being physically aggressed against by some guy.
	He jumps in to save her and gets himself stabbed to death.
	Yeah.
	Something like happened in Auckland as well.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, so the white knighting is a very strong impulse, and biologically, again, it makes sense.
	White knighting plus sexual drive at 16.
	There's a lot of people who made really, really bad decisions, including your sister, who's an adult, and who decided to move out and leave you alone, knowing that there was this crazy woman in your orbit, right?
	Yeah.
	So lots of people made really, really bad decisions, That led to you being in this situation, right?
	Yep.
	And the key thing, look, the fact that you went to go and confront this woman is not a good decision, right?
	But was there anyone in your life saying to you and helping you understand you can't go and confront crazy people?
	They'll always win because they're crazy, right?
	Yeah.
	I saw this meme on Facebook that says arguing with irrational people is like playing chess with a pigeon.
	No matter what happens, the pigeon is going to shit on the board, strut around and think that it's won, right?
	Yeah.
	You can't win arguments with crazy people because there are no rules with crazy people.
	The only rule that crazy people have is win at all costs.
	They're like street fighters, right?
	Yeah.
	It's like the Queensbury Rules boxing match where the guy is going to call in an airstrike.
	Well, you lose, right?
	No matter what.
	So the idea that you're going to go and confront this crazy woman and somehow achieve some sort of victory, you know, crazy.
	Interesting game.
	The only way to win is not to play, right?
	And so your desire for vengeance, which I understand, your desire to punish her back for the punishment that she'd meted out to you, I completely understand.
	And...
	You know, if I were your dad and you had that impulse and told me, I'd say, well, let's talk about this.
	And we'd have gone through, like, what is it you want to achieve and what is it that blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
	And we would have figured out that this was a bad idea.
	Yeah.
	But, of course, if I were your dad, this wouldn't have happened to begin with.
	Wouldn't have happened.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	I mean, because you'd have said, hey, I'm really interested in this woman who's suffered extreme child abuse.
	We're like, well, first of all, you wouldn't be interested in such a woman because you wouldn't have experienced abuse and abandonment in my environment.
	So you wouldn't be interested in such a woman.
	And even if you were, I would say, well, this is, you know, I mean, if someone was having a heart attack, what do you do?
	Do you invite them in your house and say, I don't know, I'll talk you through it?
	No.
	You call an ambulance and you get these people to professionals because you can't handle a heart attack.
	Neither can I. Now, as somebody pointed out in the chat room, there are some people who work with borderlines.
	But they're very robust, somewhat few and far between, and, you know, a 16-year-old kid cannot handle a borderline.
	I couldn't.
	I understand.
	I mean, if somebody's borderline moves into my house, I mean, my life's going to hell in a handbasket, too, right?
	Yep.
	So...
	So many bad decisions happened before you got bitten and punched her?
	Did your family know that you were going to go and confront her?
	No.
	No, they didn't.
	It sort of just happened in an afternoon at around four or something, so everyone's at work, etc.
	Right.
	And it's my guess that she wanted you to come and confront her.
	That you were just simply obeying her impulses.
	Yeah.
	Well, I mean, everything else had been some sort of manipulation of hers, so it's not a crazy idea to think that that wasn't either.
	Yeah, because by coming to confront her, she could escalate it to the point where you would hit her, and then she can abuse you further through the police and the court system, right?
	Mm.
	It's just another kind of rape, right?
	Yeah.
	Now you're laughing again, aren't you?
	It's a bad habit of trying to deal with things.
	It's just, we'll make it laugh and you don't need to think about it sort of thing.
	Right.
	But you need to think about it.
	You know, because you are at risk.
	You are an at-risk young man.
	Because you're still laughing, right?
	I see what you mean.
	Somebody is going to hear this story, know that you're laughing, and know that you're vulnerable, and they're going to sink their hooks so deep into you they're going to come out your ass, right?
	Okay, yeah.
	Right, because you are broadcasting your vulnerability with that laugh.
	You are saying to people, I am open to manipulation, I do not have self-defences, I do not have...
	A clan around me that will protect me from crazy, evil, screwed up people.
	Here is my invisible bat sound that's going to draw more crazy people into my life.
	Yeah, I haven't thought about it like that.
	I mean, since I've been like, you know, since I was younger, you had that sort of quite...
	You'd laugh at the darker stuff, but I didn't quite think about it in those terms.
	You know, it's a way of not thinking of things.
	It's just a laugh it off and keep going, but then it's like, yeah, I see what you mean.
	No, no, you've got to understand where the laughter comes from.
	The laughter doesn't come from you, because your experience was genuinely horrifying and terrifying, and you narrowly escaped a life-destroying series of events.
	I mean, literally, the bullet grazed your cheek.
	I mean, you were an incredibly lucky young man.
	I mean, you could have been eaten up by the legal system and never see the light of day again, fundamentally.
	Or you could have got this woman pregnant, God help you, right?
	Yeah.
	And then you got basically a bag of crazy tied to your nuts for 20 years and your wallet, right?
	That's true.
	You want to see how crazy people hurt other people.
	Just watch them dig into the legal system.
	I mean, she'd be changing stuff all over the place.
	She'd be preventing visitation.
	She'd be conspiring with the children to hurt you more.
	I mean, literally, this could have been a life-destroying series of events, and you very narrowly escaped that.
	So it's nothing to do with you that the laughter is occurring.
	The laughter is occurring because that's what your family needs you to do, not because that was your experience.
	Your family needs you to laugh so that you don't say, where the fuck were you people in trying to save me, in trying to protect me?
	How the hell did your child end up in this goddamn situation?
	Yeah.
	They need you to laugh at it.
	They need you to laugh at it.
	Do you understand?
	Yeah.
	Fucking this.
	I bet you there's no part of you, your genuine experience, is laughing at this because it is seriously not funny.
	But the people who are supposed to protect you need you to laugh it off so they don't actually experience the emotional consequences of failing to protect you and putting you in a near-life-destroying series of events.
	I mean, seriously, what if you punched this woman?
	What if you punched this woman, broken her nose, and driven it into her brain?
	She could have died.
	One punch can kill someone.
	This is what I'm saying by you so narrowly escaped this.
	What if she'd stag backwards and fall down a flight of stairs?
	Yeah.
	There's many, many instances of people who got into one bar fight, threw one punch, and ended up in jail for 30 years.
	So the complete catastrophe of this whole situation Which was your parents' job to protect you from.
	They need you to laugh at it.
	So that they don't have to experience the horror of their irresponsibility.
	Fuck.
	That's just fucked up.
	It is.
	It is.
	Yeah.
	It's really fucked up.
	It's the same thing that you're told to cheer the flag and cheer your sports team and all of that.
	It's just a profit from people.
	You know, you're supposed to cheer your troops and your government because it's highly profitable.
	The Stockholm Syndrome is highly profitable, right?
	Because it allows people to avoid the consequences of their immorality.
	Children forced into public schools, laden down with hundreds of thousands of dollars of unchosen debt when they draw their first breath, are supposed to pledge allegiance to the flag?
	Are you kidding me?
	I mean, it's a sick joke, right?
	And your parents can escape the consequences of appallingly terrible parenting if they can get you to laugh at this almost complete catastrophe.
	Which they are fundamentally responsible for.
	Yeah, one thing...
	I mean, you're dead right.
	I mean, it really does make me really pissed off.
	I guess the challenge is...
	I haven't thought about it in those terms, and now that I am, it's really getting to me.
	Is it worth to go out and say to my mother, what the fuck?
	Seriously, what the fuck?
	Or is it a better thing to ease it into, if you know what I mean?
	Is it okay to vent that anger?
	It's okay to be angry at the people in your life.
	Of course it's okay to be angry at the people in your life.
	Listen, did your mom ever get angry at you?
	Sorry?
	Did your mom ever get angry at you?
	I'm sorry?
	Yes.
	Yeah, okay.
	So if your mom got angry at you, then she can't really complain about you getting angry at her, right?
	Yeah.
	So you can do that.
	My suggestion, though, my suggestion would be if you can get to a therapist, you would really, really benefit from a therapist helping you through this process.
	That's a good point.
	I was actually considering doing it.
	Yeah, listen, I would do more than consider it.
	You know, if your mom or your dad have any money, I would go to them and say, listen, I really need you to pay for some therapy here because things got kind of screwed up and I'm dealing with a lot of aftermath here.
	And then when you're under the care of a therapist, you can begin to plan how it is that you're going to talk to your parents about this kind of stuff.
	Because it's going to be very difficult.
	My guess is, I don't know your parents, but my guess is that your parents are going to try to make you feel crazy when you bring up the insanity of the family.
	Because that's generally what people do.
	Yeah.
	You know, oh, you know, you're a young man.
	You made a mistake.
	We've all been there.
	You know, you're fine.
	Everything worked out.
	And they're just going to try and minimize it and then give you the impression that you're crazy for having any issues with how you were raised.
	And you need a therapist in your corner saying, no, you're not crazy.
	This is important stuff.
	Isn't that quite sick, though, that they would be willing to say, no, it's your fault, so that they don't have to deal with it?
	Of course.
	It's beyond sick.
	To me, this is evil, right?
	Yeah.
	To me, it's evil to have failed in your parenting and then to blame your children and then to further make them feel even crazier when they confront you on what you've done.
	Yeah, I mean, this is completely immoral.
	It's incredibly destructive.
	Which is why you need someone in your corner because you are going to want to conform to their preferences.
	You will always want to conform to your parents' preferences.
	I will always want to conform to my parents' preferences.
	That's just how we're hardwired as a species.
	I mean, that's because to disagree with your parents, to fundamentally oppose your parents throughout most of human history would simply get you killed, right?
	I mean, you would be abandoned or even if you survived your childhood, if you rejected the norms of your tribe, no woman would mate with you.
	So those genes of independence are not common, right?
	I mean, they were weeded out, which is why so much of the 100,000 plus years of human history is, or at least human prehistory, is so stagnant.
	Right?
	And the genes are still there.
	They're just squelched, right?
	They're always looking for an opportunity to grow, but they generally get squelched and crushed.
	So we will always have a desire to conform to our parents' preferences and expectations.
	It's a great power that I know of as a parent, which I try never ever to use.
	Right?
	But you will always...
	So if your parents' need is for you to be crazy in order for them to retain...
	Their sense of whatever, morality or efficacy or whatever, you will conform to that.
	Almost certainly.
	And so you need someone in your corner to help remind you that this is important, that this was extremely dangerous, that it was your parents' job to protect you, and that they completely and miserably and totally failed in their job to protect you.
	With almost completely catastrophic results, which is terrifying and angering for anyone who's still dependent upon the parents.
	And at 16 you are, right?
	Yeah, well, you did right.
	You did right.
	And I just wanted to tell you I'm incredibly sorry That you went through this.
	This is scarring stuff.
	It doesn't mean you're permanently scarred or broken or anything like that, but this is terrifying.
	Scary stuff.
	Not only that this happens in the world, but that it happened to you is really terrifying.
	I appreciate that.
	I really do.
	I really do.
	I think you're right.
	It is, but I guess it's more an extra hurdle that other people don't have to deal with.
	One more challenge to get through and then you can get back on the normal road.
	Do you know what I mean?
	Yeah, it's a big challenge and you shouldn't have to face this.
	I mean you shouldn't have had to face this at 16.
	You shouldn't have to face this now.
	I'm really, really, really sorry for the family hand you were dealt or born into.
	I mean this is not the people you would have choose to raise you and you don't have that choice unfortunately and I'm just I'm incredibly sorry that any of this happened to you.
	It's so unnecessary and so easy to protect children from Yeah.
	There was no need for you to go through any of this with any kind of decent parenting around.
	I'm not even talking stellar parenting.
	I'm just talking like basic, don't push your children into a lion's den parenting.
	I mean, Isabella is never going to have to face that.
	So you're right.
	Oh, you think I'm going to go take off?
	No, definitely not.
	I'd take off for six months when Isabella's 16 and she says, oh, you know, there's this guy who's been heavily abused.
	This young guy who's been heavily abused is really scary and dangerous.
	I'd really like him to come and live in the house while you guys are away for six months.
	And we'd be like, yeah, well, you know, you can learn.
	I mean, this is insane, right?
	It is.
	Definitely.
	Definitely.
	Well, um...
	So I guess for me it's sort of, I have to deal with those sort of, those realities that, although I may be the one who threw the punch, I sure as shit didn't design everything to lead up to it.
	So I can't really say, well, I'm a bad man because I have struck a woman sort of thing.
	Well, no, wasn't it self-defense?
	Wasn't she biting you?
	Yes, she was.
	She was biting me.
	Yeah.
	Well, that's very dangerous, right?
	It's more bacteria in the human mouth than there is in a dog's mouth.
	I mean, you can get sick.
	You can get blood poisoning.
	You can, right?
	I mean, this is dangerous stuff.
	Right?
	She might have contracted herpes.
	I mean, I don't know.
	I mean, I'm not a doctor.
	What the hell?
	But this is dangerous stuff.
	And it's incredibly painful.
	So you did not initiate the use of violence, right?
	No.
	So wasn't this, again, wasn't this self-defense?
	Again, tell me how I'm wrong.
	No, no, it was off the fence.
	So then you're morally off the hook, right?
	I guess, yeah.
	I mean...
	Seriously, seriously, look.
	No, no, sorry.
	Let me put it to you this way, because this is going to be tough.
	If a dog bit you, can you kick the dog?
	Yes.
	Right.
	If a man punched you, can you punch him back?
	Yes.
	If a man bit you, can you punch him?
	Yes.
	Yeah, so it's no different for a woman.
	Yeah, you are.
	You know, get out of the white knight thing.
	You know, bitch bites you, punch her.
	Oath.
	Oath to that.
	I hate to be blunt, but this is fully in accordance with the non-aggression principle.
	I don't see how you did anything.
	I mean, obviously, the whole, you know, going to confront her, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but none of that is immoral.
	You know, when she bit you, you know, gloves are off, baby.
	All bets are off.
	You know, you bite someone hard enough that they take photographs and it exonerates you from assault.
	That's a pretty hard fucking bite.
	Well, sorry, honey.
	You now took the gloves off.
	I'm going to punch you.
	Well, that means a great deal to me because when I got into the libertarian stuff, that just popped up.
	It just said, well, you believe in nonviolence, but you punched a woman in the face.
	No, no, no.
	No, I don't believe in nonviolence.
	It's the non-aggression principle.
	Self-defense is perfectly admissible.
	Well, that's lifted some weight in...
	Although now I have another one.
	No, all wait.
	All wait.
	All wait.
	The self-defense is not a, well, initiating violence is 100% wrong, but self-defense is only 50% wrong.
	This is not a bit.
	Sorry, the wrong phrase with the biting woman.
	Right?
	The initiation of force is 100% wrong.
	Self-defense is 100% right.
	Look, what might have happened next?
	Might she have tried to gouge your eyes out?
	Might she have kicked you in the ball so hard you'd be sterile?
	Might she have headbutted your nose?
	Might she have pushed you down the stairs?
	You don't know what might have happened next if you had not defended yourself.
	Did you keep yourself physically safe after being viciously assaulted through biting?
	Yes, you did.
	Did you kill her?
	No, you did not.
	You reacted as any sane mammal would react to an attack.
	I mean, you corner a rat, it's gonna bite you even though you're like 500 times its size, right?
	Yeah.
	So no, this is not some weight off your shoulders.
	You are acting in self-defense.
	Yeah.
	Which the cops agreed with, right?
	Yeah, eventually.
	Yeah, they did.
	Now, in a sane universe, the woman would have been charged with assault, right?
	Mm.
	Yeah, she would have, you know, bite people.
	Yeah, but, you know, the pussy pass is pretty powerful, right?
	Yeah, it is.
	And look, I don't know all the details of the attack, but I do know that if the cops dropped it, then they certainly did not consider you to have initiated it, right?
	Yeah, because they look for any excuse to run with.
	Right, so...
	So, no, listen, there's nothing...
	I mean, I think it would have been wrong for you not to defend yourself.
	Okay.
	Well...
	Yeah.
	I...
	I don't really know what to say, to be honest.
	I just have to rethink the entire thing.
	Yeah.
	Look, you already knew that this woman had a fantastically terrifying capacity for violence, right?
	Yes.
	Right, she'd already threatened herself with a knife, so no, I mean...
	She attacks you.
	You pop her in the face.
	I think it's a tragic situation to be in and there's lots of ways to avoid it.
	But, man, keep yourself safe.
	It's a dangerous woman.
	Well, thank you.
	It's brought a lot of insight.
	Will you at least call the therapist if you can send something up?
	Yes, definitely.
	Oh, good for you, man.
	I mean, it's like we said, it's a wise investment if it's going to lead to happiness.
	I mean, why do you buy a PlayStation, you know?
	To try and get a little bit of enjoyment, to be happier.
	Well, a therapist can, I guess, really get all that other more important stuff out of the way, so it's worth the money.
	I'll definitely look into that.
	Well, I did promise my daughter that she would get a chance to comment on listeners.
	I hope you don't mind if I give her the heavily edited version.
	Go for it.
	Hang on a second.
	Go for it.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	So we're talking to a fellow who's...
	He's from New Zealand, which is near Australia.
	That's where...
	Do you remember we saw a little bit of the movie The Hobbit?
	Yeah.
	That's where they filmed the movie.
	Oh.
	So I don't think he is a hobbit.
	But I can't tell because I don't see any video.
	That's really funny.
	Now, can I tell you a strange story that he just told me, and I want to get your thoughts on it.
	So, when he was 16 years old, which is even younger than Remily, he was still a child.
	He couldn't, he was not an adult.
	He could drive a car, though.
	He could drive a car, but you don't become an adult until you're 18, so he was still two years away from being an adult.
	Oh.
	Okay.
	So do you know what happened?
	Happy birthday.
	Yeah.
	So do you know what happened?
	His mama...
	Well, his father wasn't there.
	Is that right, Stephen?
	Your father...
	Did he live close or no?
	No.
	No.
	Okay.
	So his father wasn't around.
	Same city, but...
	His parents had...
	Divorced.
	His parents had divorced.
	That's right.
	And so his mommy decided she wanted to go on a vacation for how many months?
	One...
	Two, three, four, five...
	Six.
	Six months.
	With his child?
	With the child?
	No!
	What?
	Exactly!
	He...
	She did not bring him on her vacation.
	And she was gone for six months.
	Did she drop him off at the dad's place?
	Uh, no.
	He had to drive there?
	He didn't go to the dad's place.
	He lived in the house.
	Now, he had an older sister, but she left two weeks after the mommy did.
	He was 16, still a child, alone in the house for six months.
	How long did the girl stay for?
	The sister stay for?
	Two weeks only.
	Oh, well, that's not as long as six months.
	That's not as long as six months.
	So at least he gets some company.
	For a tiny bit.
	For a tiny bit.
	No, no, no.
	After she comes back, the sister.
	Oh, she went for the whole six months.
	She only stayed for two weeks and then she went for the whole six months.
	Oh.
	Not so good.
	No.
	At least she got some company which is good.
	For the two weeks?
	Yeah.
	Yes.
	But what about the rest of it?
	Thumbs down.
	Yeah.
	That job gets the thumbs down.
	That parenting job gets the thumbs down.
	And they should go to jail.
	You think they should go to jail?
	Me and Daddy?
	What would the police sound be?
	That's right.
	Hang on.
	Wait, wait, wait.
	I just need to close the door.
	Okay, close the door.
	And then I have one other question to ask you because he's very upset about something.
	So, let me tell you something, Boo.
	So, a woman...
	Another girl, basically.
	So he kissed her for a little while, but she became a little scary.
	And he said, listen, I don't really want to kiss you anymore.
	Because you're kind of...
	And do you know what she did, Boo?
	She bit him.
	Quite strange.
	That is quite strange.
	And she bit him so hard, he pushed her, and she fell down.
	And he feels really bad about pushing her.
	What do you think?
	I think it's a bit bad.
	Yeah?
	Yeah.
	Why is it?
	Because, I mean, I don't want to push every you down, poke.
	No, we don't want to push people down.
	Dad, may I do something?
	Beep.
	Beep.
	Beeping my nose.
	But I think that if she bit him, it's okay because she might just keep biting him, right?
	So I think it's okay to make sure she doesn't bite him again.
	Now, if the only way he can do that is to push her back, I think that's okay.
	Although I told him he shouldn't be in that situation to begin with.
	Does that make sense?
	He should just run away.
	Yeah, he couldn't though because she had him cornered.
	How?
	Well, in the corner of a room, right?
	So he couldn't get past her.
	Well, I was just duck under her legs.
	She should duck under her legs.
	I don't think she was that tall.
	Stephen, was she that tall?
	No.
	Definitely not.
	So he couldn't get under her legs.
	Oh.
	So, yeah.
	So he felt bad.
	And I said, look, it's really bad that you got into a situation where you got bitten.
	I said, I've never known anyone who bites people.
	And we don't.
	Do we know anyone who bites people?
	No.
	Well, sometimes when you put the...
	When you put the nail polish on your toes, they look a little bit like M&Ms, right?
	So he tries, my dad tries to bite.
	You tell me now, right?
	I'm kidding.
	So, in general though, we're not a very bitey household, is that correct?
	No.
	Right.
	So, yeah, I mean, that's the question he had.
	And I said, I think it's really sad that his mommy went away for that long and his daddy wasn't there.
	Yeah.
	And I said he should go and talk to his.
	Mommy about that and his daddy about that.
	But he should also go and talk to someone like Mommy to get some help.
	Yeah.
	And is there anything else you want to say to him?
	I think...
	No.
	No.
	Okay.
	Well, thank you, Boo.
	I will come and call you about the next caller.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Just call me wildly because I'm going to be downstairs coloring.
	Okay.
	Bye.
	Bye.
	See you.
	All right.
	Well, thank you very much.
	And bye.
	No, thank you.
	Thank you.
	All right.
	All right, Phil.
	Thanks.
	You're up, Phil.
	Hello, Steph.
	Can you hear me?
	I can.
	Awesome that your daughter is co-hosting the show.
	If she inherits your sense of humor, she's going to be lethal.
	Well, I appreciate that.
	Some may agree, some may not, but thank you for your thoughts.
	Yes.
	So, first-time caller, but long-time listener, and I do thank you for your show, and thank you for taking my call this morning.
	So...
	What I wanted to talk about today was I've been listening to your show for about a year, year and a half, and trying to go through all of the episodes, but I don't recall ever hearing you say anything about regret.
	And that's one thing I wanted to talk about today.
	So in my current situation, I'm 38, and so 40 is coming up on the horizon and starting to think very deeply about where I'm at in my life and where I'm going.
	I'd say since my teen years.
	After you get more experience and you start looking back to see if you made good choices or bad choices.
	I just wanted to get your initial thoughts on what you understand regret is and if you think it's useful in all cases or if it's a waste of time to dwell too much on the past.
	I think there are two areas of regret that have utility.
	The first area is to change your behavior.
	So when you have time to change your behavior, then I think that that kind of regret is helpful.
	It's a course correction.
	I mean, we all want to avoid negative feelings, which is why negative feelings exist, right?
	Because they're a way of correcting our behavior, right?
	So I don't know if you've ever driven and you're like, oh, I think I'm past my exit.
	I feel kind of uneasy or whatever.
	This is sort of before GPS or whatever.
	And...
	So, you get this uneasy feeling and that's the uneasy feeling is, you know, stop driving and get some directions, right?
	So, you want that kind of stuff.
	When I used to work up north in the woods, you get this uneasy feeling if you can't find your camp and it's getting late, you know, it's getting dark.
	That uneasy feeling means find the damn camp already because, you know, it's minus 20 or whatever.
	And so, the uneasy feeling is good, is helpful because we want to Stop having that feeling.
	So I think personal and regret is just one of those feelings, which is I regret something that I did and regret.
	Like all emotions are rooted in the past but pointed at the future, right?
	So there is a time in your life when you can change your behavior based upon regret about the past.
	Now, If you're 80 and you regret not having children, not really a lot you can do, right?
	I mean, I guess you could try to adopt or something like that, but that would be kind of irresponsible too, right?
	Now, Leonard Nimoy just got some sort of lung obstruction disease because now he quit smoking apparently like 30 years ago.
	He's 80.
	He's in his early 80s.
	And he tweeted and said, listen, everybody stop smoking now because it's really dangerous, right?
	And it's causing him great difficulties in his life.
	Now his regret, he's not going to quit smoking again, right?
	So that regret that he's broadcasting is for other people to learn from his lesson, right?
	Because he quit 30 years ago, he can't go quit again.
	So the regret that you can tell to other people is a way of helping them.
	You know, we need, I shouldn't say we need, there is value in people whose life has become a disaster.
	And It's not like you want people's life to become a disaster, but the reality is certain choices will increase people's risks of disasters.
	And if there weren't those empirical disasters, then there'd be no reason to course correct.
	Like if smokers never got sick, there'd be no reason to quit if you still liked it, right?
	And so I think personal regret is something that when you're young enough, if you listen to it, it can help change your behavior, right?
	So you're still young enough to be a dad and all that kind of stuff.
	So if you had regret about not having kids, I'm just making one up.
	I don't know, right?
	If you had regret about not having kids, you're still young enough to change that.
	Whereas if you're 80, you can say to other people or you can write a blog or you can write a book or whatever and say, you know, I regret not having kids and here's why.
	Here's what you need to think about.
	It's too late for me, but This can help you, right?
	It can help younger people to avoid mistakes that I've made.
	So, I think regret is good.
	Now, what regret can turn into is self-attack, right?
	And self-attack, I just had a call with somebody last night about this.
	I don't know if it's ever going to be public, so I'll just mention very briefly the talk that I had with this fellow about self-attack.
	Self-attack is when you take 100% responsibility for the disasters in your life.
	And the call that I just had with the guy from New Zealand was about looking at the environment of the circumstances which set the dominoes in motion to crash.
	And self-attack is when you then take 100% of responsibility for what happens in relationships.
	Now that is perfectly fine when you're dealing with inanimate objects, right?
	You know there's an old phrase or a statement which says, a good carpenter never blames his tools.
	Well sure, because if I hit a nail wrong, it's neither the nail's fault nor the hammer's fault, right?
	And when you're dealing with inanimate objects, it is sane and healthy to take 100% responsibility for what happens.
	And, like, if I close the document without saving it and lose it, then I can't blame the program or the computer or anything like that, right?
	And so when you're dealing with inanimate objects, 100% ownership of results is healthy and sane, right?
	You don't smash your tennis racket if you hit the ball badly.
	I mean, you can, but it's just everybody recognizes it's completely immature.
	Now, self-attack in relationships is when you take 100% responsibility for the negative effects of relationships and Which you can only do by treating the other people as inanimate objects, by giving yourself free will and making them deterministic, which is why determinism is so often a defense and part of an elaborate system of self-attack.
	So when regret turns into self-attack, it's when you assign yourself 100% responsibility for the effects of a relationship and That can only happen by dehumanizing the other person, by turning the other person into an object or a thing without choice or free will.
	In particular, from children to parents, this makes no sense at all because parents are virtually 100% responsible for the quality of relationships with their children because children will simply conform to the parents' expectations in almost all situations.
	So does that help at all?
	So yeah, so the personal regret, good for change.
	When it's too late for change, you can instruct others, but it's important to look at regret usually as relational.
	So this guy regrets hitting the girl, but it's a whole series of relationship failures that led up to that, and there was a way of understanding that ethically that was different from what he was thinking.
	Is that a useful context, or is there something else you'd like to add to that?
	Yes, there is.
	There's two other things I wanted to comment on.
	There was a book I read recently.
	It was published a couple years ago.
	It was called If Only, a very good book written by a psychologist.
	And so he tries to delve into the psychological underpinnings of the two most common types of regrets.
	One is things that are done and that you can't change, and things that are undone that you might still have a chance to do, but for some reason you don't do them.
	And he says that the The regrets that people feel the most strongly about are the ones of things not done, because when you've already done something, say if you've offended somebody, there's already a sense of closure.
	So the only thing that you can do is to, as you said, treat the person as an inanimate object, if I was understanding what you were saying correctly, and trying to make atonement to repair the relationship if possible, but of course the other person has to Just be willing to meet you halfway and proceed.
	And the other thing was about, you know, with the previous caller from New Zealand is that it didn't seem that he was completely aware of his circumstances.
	So that was another question I had about regret where it's, you know, just listen to all the callers in your show.
	About their childhoods and lots of people have issues in their childhoods, myself included, is if you did not know what the dysfunction was in your family and how that affected you and if you went to therapy and you found out what the problem was but so much time has passed and you're just like, damn, if I had known about this earlier, Then I could have done X, Y, and Z, or I could have avoided X, Y, and Z. And that was tied into my question of whether regret is useful in that situation.
	Does that make sense?
	Well, yeah, but I mean, regret, so you're saying if I had known how dysfunctional my family was earlier, then I would have not done X, Y, or Z that I regret?
	Yes.
	Well, that's still not 100% regret, right?
	Yes.
	Because regret is when you have made a decision that was against your values that you knew about or you chickened out of something that you knew was going to have negative consequences.
	And again, we all do that and there's nothing wrong with that.
	You know, you evaluate it and so on.
	And having regrets is perfectly fine.
	But what's, I think, different is that if you say, well, if I'd known how dysfunctional my family was, I'd have done better with my decisions.
	But that still, that your family was dysfunctional and that you even had to figure that out is a huge problem.
	I would still be more angry than regretful, if that makes any sense.
	Like, I'd have had better relationships in my 20s if my family hadn't been completely screwed up.
	But the reality is that my family was completely screwed up, which gave me a huge barrier to having functional relationships.
	In my 20s.
	So I regret not having better relationships in my 20s, but that's somewhat eclipsed by the anger that I had with regards to my family that I even had to go and spend $20,000 and two years in therapy to figure this shit out, right?
	Yeah, that's what I was talking about.
	I also was thinking more in terms of the time that was lost because it took you time to figure that out.
	But if in the end you figured out what the problem was, you could have avoided further problems.
	No, but it's not lost.
	You know, the shitty relationships – I shouldn't say they were all shitty.
	The less functional relationships that I had in my 20s, it's not time lost.
	That was time stolen by dysfunctional adults when I was a child.
	If you get stabbed in the side and you have to spend six months recovering, that's not time lost.
	That's time stolen by whoever stabbed you.
	Right?
	And now I can say, well, I regret that I had to spend six months in therapy or six months recovering from being stabbed in the side.
	I regret that, but I'm pretty fucking angry at the person who stabbed me in the side.
	And that everyone else who stood by and applauded The stabbed in the side thing doesn't really relate to family stuff very much at all, because if you get stabbed in the side, everyone says, well, that was really bad.
	And they don't say, well, you have to be friends with the guy who stabbed you, and you have to, you know, but he's your stabber.
	You know, you've got to go to his birthday party, and there's stabber's day where you've got to give him a nice card, and you've got to call him every week, right?
	You get some clarity with regards to people who stab you, but people who beat and abuse you, they're your family, right?
	So, you know, I got a lot of anger at the amount of bullshit that we have to claw our way through to get the briefest glimpse of moral clarity in this cultural world is sickening.
	The degree to which society as a whole colludes with child abusers and covers them up, well, of course, 90% of people in the U.S. are still hitting their children, so it's understandable that they don't want moral clarity brought to these relationships.
	Otherwise, there'll be a bigger revolution in parenting than there was in marital relations from the 60s to the 80s.
	So yeah, I sort of wanted to point that out, that even if there were problems that arise out of having been abused, I regret those problems for sure, but I still place the blame on the abusers, right?
	Yeah, that makes sense.
	Well, I want to make sure I'm not hijacking, though, with my own agenda because you started talking about regret and I started talking about abuse.
	So maybe I'm hijacking.
	I want to make sure I don't do that.
	Is this anywhere close to stuff that's useful for you and I to discuss?
	Yes, it's useful.
	And I wanted to segue into an issue that's tied with the regret to, you know, since you always ask people about their childhood, so I want to shed some light on my own perspective, my own situation.
	Yes, please do.
	Okay, so I consider myself one of the very fortunate ones is that my parents never divorced and they've been together for over 56 years.
	And I don't come from an abusive household because I was never – I mean I was spanked three times that I know of, one that I remember too that I was told of.
	But I was never verbally abused.
	I was never sexually abused or physically abused or anything like that.
	But, I mean, it was a very stable household.
	But looking back, I do not think that my parents really did too much to prepare me for The real world will say.
	Because they were a little bit too stable.
	And where I came from was a little bit too stable, kind of working class, and they didn't think too far outside of the box.
	I mean, the best way that I could illustrate this, my thinking about it was, and the younger listeners might not remember this, you remember the Peter Gabriel video, Big Time, from the 80s?
	Yeah, yeah.
	A song about a sort of financial predator, shallow, yuppie sociopath.
	Right, it was.
	But he talked about the place where I come from was a small town.
	They think so small and they use small words that he was trying to get away from that.
	Yeah.
	That's kind of how I felt.
	And I tried mightily to do that, but each time that I tried, I didn't have enough money and so I had to go back home to live with my parents because I didn't know what else to do.
	It's just keep trying, keep trying, keep trying and failing until I finally – like in my late 20s and my early 30s is when I really started to hit my stride.
	But then – I mean as far as the time stolen, I really feel this and maybe this is – I think this is tied in somewhat is when I was over in South Korea teaching English in the mid-90s is I was there for about a year and a half but then the Asian financial crisis happened.
	You probably remember that in 1997.
	Yeah.
	So I was faced with a choice, and my choice was to return back here to the States and try to do something else.
	But for a couple of years after that, I always had that feeling that The time was stolen.
	That kind of forced my hand.
	That I wanted to stay there, but at the same time, I didn't want to stay there.
	And then when I came back here to the States, it was really rough to try to get myself into another groove, like getting into IT. But I got into IT right when the tech bust happened.
	So that was bad timing.
	And then when I was in Korea, I was being in the wrong place at the right time.
	So during my 20s, it was very turbulent career-wise, and I was trying to figure things out.
	And sometimes I blame my parents thinking that, well, why didn't you tell me about this shit before I went in there?
	But by the same token, they didn't know.
	So some of it was self-attack because of the way that the culture has inculcated in people.
	It's that if you fail, it's your fault.
	It's not that the system works against you.
	Especially nowadays.
	I mean, does that make any sense?
	Oh, yeah.
	No, absolutely.
	I mean, there's a systemic abuse that occurs in the economy in that, I mean, people...
	I don't know.
	I don't want to go off on a rant here, so I'll just keep this very brief.
	But I get so weary of...
	Not you, but people in general saying...
	Well, I need help in retraining, you know, the manufacturing is in decline and this is why, like, goddamn, you know, I mean, tech changes all the time.
	There's ups and downs in the tech industry.
	You didn't see a whole bunch of programmers in the tech crash demanding government subsidies for everything they did.
	You know, just fucking adapt, you know, just change, you know.
	The economy is screwed up.
	Absolutely, completely and totally screwed up.
	And, you know, I'm incredibly sorry.
	You say bad timing.
	I hope that that's with no sense of self attack.
	I mean, did the average person know that it was a tech boom to be followed by a crash?
	I mean, you'd have to be deeply versed in Austrian economics and know the right timing and have privy to all the secret numbers that the Fed keeps from the general public.
	So it was really, you know, functionally impossible.
	You know, is it possible to know that there was a housing boom?
	Yeah, some people predicted it.
	But those people's predictions have been wrong in other areas, too.
	So some people, you know, if I yell out number, you know, red 22, and it's red 22, it's like, whoa, he's 100% right.
	And then I keep going and my numbers go down, right?
	So, there are broad general trends to be predicted in the economy, but there's no economic theory that can predict things with specificity.
	Otherwise, everyone who had that theory would be a bazillionaire and would have all the money in the world, right?
	So, yeah, the system is screwed up for sure.
	I don't think that it's...
	Anything to do with you, I mean, Asian crash, that sucks.
	You then try and take refuge in IT, which everyone says is the next big thing, and then that crashes.
	And it's wretched.
	It's completely wretched.
	And I remember trying to close a big deal in the business world many years ago.
	I don't name the company.
	It was a huge deal.
	And we were...
	You know, we were within a day or two of inking this thing and getting started.
	And then the pilots union went on strike.
	And it was all over.
	Every purchasing decision was on hold and this went on for a long time and so on.
	So you can't predict that stuff.
	Stuff happens and some people are on the right side and they call themselves talented and some people are on the wrong side and they call themselves unlucky.
	But it is just a bunch of random stuff.
	Some people sell their house right before the crash.
	I happened to sell the company that I co-founded right before the crash.
	That had nothing to do with any intelligence on my part.
	I was just lucky.
	And other people who tried to sell six months later were very unlucky.
	And what can really be said about that?
	So there is, you know, but to me, that's just a lot of anger.
	I mean, you know, people screwing around with the currency, people screwing around with regulations and so on is brutal.
	And it is absolutely horrible.
	You know, there's a scene, I think it's in Airplane.
	It's an old comedy movie.
	There's a scene where all these people are in an airport, and they've got all this luggage, and over the loudspeaker says, you know, the flight to Cincinnati has been moved to gate A4. Gate A4. And they all start running towards gate A4, right?
	And then it's like, the flight to Cincinnati has been moved to C19. C19. And they're like...
	They all start streaming the other way.
	And this is basically what people are doing.
	They're just trying to follow the bouncing ball of economic hysteria called the modern economy.
	And sometimes they ride it and sometimes they get squished.
	And some people get repetitively squished and some people repetitively ride it just by accident.
	And I am pissed off at the system as a whole and how ridiculously impossible it is to plan for anything.
	It literally is like trying to play chess with some guy screaming rule changes in your ear every 30 seconds.
	I mean, good luck, right?
	Some people might win, some people might lose, but nobody knows what the hell they're doing.
	Yeah, so when I first encountered some of that, and I was ignorant of Austrian economics and that kind of thing back in the day, but my default was just to withdraw.
	And it was a conscious choice that everything is just too unstable that I can't predict, so I'm not even going to try that hard and try to cut my expenses and live as frugally as I possibly could.
	But by the same token, I think I went a little bit too far in that I was cutting people off, pushing them away.
	It's because I kind of found them unstable as well.
	Again, in listening to your callers from the past, some of the situations they got in, especially like the guy from New Zealand, it's just like, wow, he really dodged a bullet on that one.
	I mean, if he's not scared shitless because of that, if he reflects on that, then I don't know what I could say about him.
	Well, again, but you're looking, sorry, just to help you with perspective, at least my perspective, whether it's true or not, you can decide.
	We have this tendency to look at, well, if he's not scared shitless and so on, he's just got that choice.
	Everyone around him who contributed to the crisis has a massive incentive to prevent him from being scared shitless because then they feel terrible.
	So he's part of a system which demands that he minimize and laugh about what happened to him.
	To me, it's a lot like, especially because he's, I don't know how old he is, but he's obviously pretty young still.
	It's sort of like saying, well, people in Stalinist Russia, they just weren't entrepreneurial.
	It's like, well, they were part of a system that if you're entrepreneurial, you get thrown in a gulag, right?
	And so, you know, 40% of Ukraine's economy is black or gray market.
	It's like, well, I guess they're just operating outside the law, don't they?
	Bunch of profiteers and shady...
	It's like, no, they're just...
	They're punished by regulations and ridiculous taxation and corruption if they try to operate above the, quote, law.
	And so people are part of a system.
	And I really try to resist, particularly when people are young, giving them...
	100% responsibility when they're usually part of a system as a whole, if that makes any sense.
	It does.
	But it takes some time to realize what kind of a system they're in.
	That's what happened to me, is that over time when these experiences...
	It started happening and the net at the time wasn't like it is now.
	I remember going back to my Korean example where I was really trying to steal myself against being taken advantage of because I had heard some horror stories of people that were over there where they – They had their pay held.
	They had their passports held to prevent them from leaving the country.
	They had some pretty shady operations.
	So what I did was I threw myself into a whole lot of research to try to prevent any kind of exploitation and be at a level where I could bargain a little better.
	And I think I did that quite well even though I left the country afterwards.
	But that was just, again, the situation forcing my hand.
	But it's that, you know, the withdrawing, as I was saying before, is you go into, like, survival mode.
	And I don't think that's healthy over the long term.
	Because you think everything is just so unstable that you can't trust anybody.
	I don't like to be in that position.
	I've been in that before.
	And I think I've mellowed out over time.
	And I'm with some good people now.
	But I don't know what to do.
	I mean, if I could go back and talk to my 21 to 22-year-old self and tell them what to do, I don't know what I would say.
	Right.
	Well, you'd give him the hindsight that is impossible to have ahead of time.
	You know?
	Get out of Asia here!
	Don't go into the tech market, go into something, whatever, right?
	I mean, it's all impossible to know.
	Now, I mean, my particular approach has been to continually move towards the mecca of as much freedom as possible.
	Right?
	So, I started off being an employee, which wasn't particularly liberating.
	And then I moved into being an entrepreneur, which was more freeing in many ways.
	But I still had to deal with a lot of regulations, a lot of taxation, a lot of governments and so on, a lot of government entities.
	And then I moved to podcasting, which is much more free.
	And I don't deal with government entities.
	I choose the topics of the shows and I can do as many or as few shows as I want.
	And I accept all the consequences of all my decisions.
	So for me, just moving more towards...
	I don't like dealing with organizations of any kind.
	You know, should I try and get a book published through a publisher?
	God, no.
	Why?
	Why bother?
	I can make my books available for free.
	So much better.
	And so I really would strongly urge you to look in areas of the economy where there are fewer restrictions, fewer controls.
	I mean, God, imagine trying to open a manufacturing plant in the United States these days.
	Or A nuclear power plant or a mine or, I mean, you name it, right?
	I mean, they can't even get a pipeline sorted out.
	This pipeline has been going on for years and years.
	They can't even drill in the wilderness of the Arctic because apparently the needs of three caribou far outweigh funding a tyrannical dictatorship like most of the Middle Eastern countries.
	So there are areas that you can go into where you can freelance and make money in a perfectly legal way, but with fewer interactions with controlling organizations.
	And that's been my urge.
	I mean, I started my show, what, six months before the biggest economic crash in the Western world.
	In 60 years, which is still continuing to this day.
	What a terrible time to be an entrepreneur.
	But in many ways, I have less risk now than I did when I was an employee.
	Because at least my income is dispersed, right?
	I mean, worldwide.
	It's concentrated in some areas, but it's sort of dispersed.
	So that would be my suggestion, to keep your eyes peeled for where there is still Some remnants of free interactions that are available to you?
	Yeah, that's what I'm trying to do myself because currently I work for the government and I'm trying to get over to...
	It's a step-by-step process.
	So leaving the government, that's priority one.
	Going to the private sector is the second priority.
	But going to the private sector where I can work remotely, so that way I don't have to go into an office like I do all the time, and beefing up my skill set to where, at some point in the next couple of years, where I can be almost completely remote, so that way I'm not tied to a particular geographical area.
	It's a challenge, but that's what my long-term goals are.
	Yeah, and I think those are good things to do.
	We're all in a boxing ring with the state, blindfolded.
	And after a while, you're like, damn, I'm tired of ducking stuff that I can't see coming.
	So I think I'm just getting out of the ring.
	And I got pretty tired of it all.
	I mean, the amount of regulations and controls when you are an entrepreneur and the amount of legal risk that you have.
	I mean, it's just horrendous.
	So, yeah, not for me.
	But, Steph, I have a question about the difference between...
	Because I remember you mentioning in the previous shows that you were kind of entrepreneurial when you did the show.
	So, how do you draw the distinction between when you were an entrepreneur and what you do now as a podcaster?
	Well, I mean, it's still entrepreneurial.
	What I'm doing now is more entrepreneurial than what I was doing before.
	And, I mean, it's...
	You know, my product is self-generated now, whereas before I was part of a team, right?
	I mean...
	I was a programmer originally and, you know, coded what the business requirements were that came in from other people and from the clients and so on.
	So I was, now I'm like the whole product guy, right?
	It's a no compromises show.
	And I am, you know, sole product guy.
	So it's still entrepreneur.
	I would say it's more entrepreneurial now than it was before.
	But I guess I just thought of myself for a while as a podcaster, but I did sort of recognize that It's more entrepreneurial.
	Entrepreneurs, they sort of have a goal, I guess, a lot of them, of build a business and sell the business.
	Well, I can't sell the business.
	I guess I could sell portions of the revenue stream, but I can't sell the business because I am the business.
	Well, actually, I could sell the business because this show will generate revenue For another hundred years, even if I stop doing any shows tomorrow, because people will still be listening to the shows in the future, right?
	Like, they're not making any more Friends episodes, but Friends is still making money, right?
	Because it's syndication and so on, right?
	So, but, I mean, it was a bit out of the box as far as entrepreneurial stuff that I've been experienced in before, so it took me a little while to get that, but I think that's what it is.
	Okay.
	That makes sense.
	Can I bring up one other topic if we have time?
	We do have a lot of callers, so if you could hold off until next time, I would appreciate that, just because otherwise we're going to have another four-hour show, which is a bit tough on the old bladder.
	But I do appreciate your call in, and I certainly wish you the best.
	And I'm sorry, again, that this is the kind of environment that we all have to live in.
	It is pretty rough for sure, and I'm sorry about that.
	Yeah, well, it's a long-term thing.
	I like the model that you prescribe is that if you can work towards more freedom, which it took me a while to get to the point where I can consider myself an employee because things were so checkered when I was in my 20s, just lots of things.
	So I really had to get over the sense of not, quote-unquote, making it versus somebody who maybe majored in engineering and they got a job when they were in their early 20s.
	So that way they experienced what it was like to be an employee early on and then they decided to be an entrepreneur and then moving in that direction.
	So for me it was a little late and that was another thing that I had to get over to is the feeling of being like a late bloomer or maybe being a late bloomer is not just a bad thing.
	It's just there's no timeline when somebody does it.
	I mean there was an article I remember reading from Malcolm Gladwell when he talked about late bloomers.
	And he profiled Picasso versus Cezanne.
	Picasso blossomed early, and the market rewards that.
	But Cezanne took a long time before he finally got to that point.
	But along the way, he had a lot of support.
	Right.
	Yeah, I mean, it blossomed early or late.
	I don't know.
	I mean, I think the things of quality just come later.
	And, you know, you really, obviously, I mean, I don't know if you know the man's history or not, but you don't want to be at all envious of Picasso.
	I mean, the man was a complete human monster.
	And you can just look up Picasso abuse.
	I mean, he was like as monstrous a human being as you could possibly imagine.
	So I would beware the famous.
	There's usually a reason why they're famous.
	Anybody who's famous and not particularly controversial in a dysfunctional society is somebody feeding that dysfunction.
	All right, so we can move on to the next caller.
	Thank you so much.
	Sure.
	Who's up next?
	Thank you, Steph.
	All right, Jason, you're next.
	Go ahead.
	Hello.
	Hi, Jason.
	Hi, Stefan.
	Thanks for taking my call, man.
	Thanks for calling.
	Yeah, I just wanted to briefly talk about some authority issues that I'm having, and just some kind of family issues that are kind of returning to haunt me.
	I grew up in a divorced family.
	My folks divorced early, and I think my authority issues might be stemming from this.
	I'm not quite sure, but I'd like to find out what you think.
	All right.
	I have two children myself, and I don't want to repeat the same mistakes that my folks made.
	I've kind of watched my family kind of get chewed by the system, and there's been quite a bit of turmoil and alcohol abuse.
	Chewed how?
	By what system?
	Well, just in general, the state can be kind of hard on people, as you know.
	Yeah, I've just seen a lot of alcohol abuse, and...
	It continues to this day, and I've confronted my family about it.
	Wait, wait, sorry.
	If you're talking about alcohol abuse, how is that the system?
	Well, I mean, I think they're kind of synonymous, alcohol abuse and perhaps slavery.
	These kind of things go hand in hand, I think.
	You say this like that's obvious?
	It's not obvious to me.
	You could well be right, but it's not obvious to me that lots of people are alcoholics who weren't slaves, right?
	Yeah, that's true.
	That's true.
	And, you know, I don't want to make excuses for people, but at the end of the day, I think it's important at some point that my family address the issue of alcoholism and what it does to families and perhaps maybe get some intervention or...
	Show some care, because there hasn't really been much in the way of a relationship between the grandparents and the grandkids, and they seem kind of distant.
	And I think kids need grandparents, you know?
	I think kids need wise elders and strong community.
	Well, hang on, hang on.
	Right, right.
	Gotcha.
	Yes, in some cases that's certainly true.
	So yeah, I think that being said, it might be my mistake to ascribe these qualities to people that kind of don't have the qualities and maybe it's my issue alone to expect them to be more involved or be more interested in the grandkids in the future, you know.
	Right.
	So what is it specifically that you'd like to talk about?
	I mean, so you have a wish that people who are alcoholics should seek treatment, and how long have they been alcoholics for?
	Well, since I can remember.
	So decades, right?
	It's been decades of alcoholism, and it's quite destructive.
	I mean, I don't, you know...
	I don't think alcohol itself is a real problem if it's used moderately or whatever.
	I personally don't like to use it.
	I don't get much from it, but I see the damage it does and I don't know.
	Is there a way to approach people without getting a serious backlash?
	I've tried numerous times recently to Bring the family together and maybe create some stronger bonds.
	I don't get much but resistance.
	Right.
	Which is important information for you to have, right?
	I'm very sorry that that's the information that you have, but that is the information that your family is giving you, right?
	Yeah.
	And, you know, one of the toughest things to do is to be an empiricist.
	You know, because empiricism goes against wish fulfillment.
	It goes against fantasy, right?
	Right, so, oh, you think you're a good singer?
	Okay, record it and play it back to yourself, right?
	That's how you sound.
	Now, for Freddie Mercury, yay!
	You know, for other people, ooh, that's not quite how it sounds in my head, right?
	Empiricism is very tough.
	Do you think this woman will go out with you?
	Well, ask her and find out.
	Endless movies and stories about the guy pining after the woman and not asking her out because he wants the fantasy.
	He doesn't want the empirical evidence.
	Being an empiricist is very hard because we yearn For the wish fulfillment of fantasy.
	And empiricism, you know, slaps that upside the head repeatedly.
	And that is very, very tough.
	Yeah, I mean, I wanted to be a novelist.
	Jeez, philosophical podcaster wasn't even on my list.
	Wasn't even on my bucket list.
	I wanted to be a novelist and a playwright.
	I wrote some plays, produced some plays, wrote some novels, tried to sell the novels.
	The empirical evidence said that this was not Economically at least, a very valuable use of my time.
	And so I kept morphing to try and find, right?
	Whereas if I'd written the books and said, oh, they're great books.
	Well, actually, I still think they're great books, but I can understand now why the culture doesn't want to sell them.
	But the reality is that that's just the empirical evidence.
	You know, like I had a call, last call-in show, a guy was talking about What he's worth, like some abstract thing, like he's being underpaid or something.
	But there's no such thing.
	Being underpaid is a fantasy that flies in the face of empiricism.
	Somebody's willing to pay you that much and you're willing to accept it.
	That's what you're worth.
	There's no...
	And there's this fantasy of perfection.
	I could be with...
	I remember watching a pretty confusing movie called The Fisher King.
	With Jeff Bridges and Robin Williams.
	And there's a scene in it where there's this gorgeous blonde woman reading Nietzsche.
	I remember as a kid, a young man, saying like, wow, a gorgeous woman who reads Nietzsche.
	That's what I want.
	Because it's a fantasy, right?
	And, I mean, not that there can't be gorgeous women who read Nietzsche, but...
	To say, I'm not going to date until I find that person, probably not too realistic, right?
	And the fantasy of idealization is extremely dangerous.
	It is a form of paralysis.
	It literally is like seeing a tsunami rush towards you.
	And pretending to be Moses.
	Well, you're just gonna get drowned, right?
	Yeah.
	And you have empirical evidence about your family.
	I think it's tragic evidence.
	But in your mind, there's probably some sequence of words that can change your family into something else.
	Even if you were to solve the problem of alcoholism tomorrow, you still have decades of dysfunction in history.
	Which is going to completely affect the relationship.
	Plus the alcoholism has had effects on the brains, on the livers, on the entire health systems of the alcoholics.
	Which is also going to have effects, right?
	Yeah, I'm concerned that, you know, one day I will be probably having to take care of my folks in some respect, and I see it as kind of very grave, kind of costly errors.
	No, but sorry, why would you have to take care of them?
	Well, I don't know.
	I feel kind of a sense of obligation.
	My folks did, I guess, whatever they could.
	They put my grandparents in nursing homes and stuff, and I guess these kind of things come up.
	I watched one of your shows about the baby boomers and where the finances are going to be in terms of their social security and And it seems kind of dismal.
	Don't get me wrong.
	I'm not saying you shouldn't take care of your parents or anything like that, but just assuming it's an automatic obligation, right?
	There are no unchosen positive obligations, right?
	If you choose to enter into a contract, then you are liable, right?
	It's a chosen, right?
	Parents choose to have children.
	Children do not choose their parents.
	That is why you can impose moral obligations on parents, but not on children.
	Right.
	This is what I'm trying to do.
	I've imposed these moral obligations on them and I become kind of the black sheep in a sense and it doesn't seem like any kind of worthwhile conversation is going to happen with any of my extended family.
	Should I just put it to rest or should I... I don't know.
	It's kind of something I obsess about.
	Right.
	Well, I mean, I don't know what you should do, because we're just talking for the first time, and even if we were talking for the 500th time, I would not be comfortable telling you what to do.
	I mean, I don't think there's any value in that.
	That's like me playing the guitar and thinking you're learning something, right?
	You might be enjoying the guitar, but you ain't learning how to play, right?
	You've got to play the guitar to learn how to do it.
	But some context would be that the best predictor of future behavior is relevant past behavior.
	If you want to know whether someone will be an alcoholic tomorrow, look at how long they've been an alcoholic.
	Right?
	When somebody continues with an addiction, then it becomes progressively less likely that they're going to break that addiction's hold, right?
	Because habits are, you know, as the Spanish proverb goes, they start as cobwebs and end up as chains, right?
	Easy to break at the beginning, hard to break later.
	And one of the things that happens particularly with alcoholism, as far as I understand it, from my usual amateur perspective, is that alcoholism prevents the development of social and is that alcoholism prevents the development of social and coping skills, because the social and coping skills are called alcoholism.
	right?
	So alcoholism, some people use it to self-medicate for anxiety, but they're not learning how to deal with their anxiety, they're just burying it in alcohol.
	I guess setting fire to it with alcohol or something is probably a better metaphor.
	And so if somebody's been an alcoholic for 30 or 40 years, they spend 30 or 40 years not knowing how to deal with their emotions, not knowing how to interact with people in a positive way, not dealing with the trauma.
	And those habits harm the areas of the brain which would lead them to want to quit alcohol.
	This is Gabor Mete talks about this, how one of the great tragedies of addiction Is that the part of you that would change is the first part to be harmed by addiction.
	So there's a coping strategy which involves not changing and continuing to be an alcoholic.
	And the part of you that would say, being an alcoholic is bad, I need to change, is one of the first things to go when you become an alcoholic.
	It doesn't mean change is impossible.
	But usually change will then only occur when somebody can't initiate it internally.
	Change will then only occur when a true catastrophe is achieved, right?
	When some absolute health scare or disaster or, you know, my wife left me, I've lost the house, you know, whatever, I'm sitting in a ditch under a bridge, then somebody might change.
	You know, it's the old, if you don't learn by reason, you have to learn by empiricism.
	And, you know, that famous, you know, you hit bottom and then you change, right?
	If you don't change based on, right?
	So, and the more people who are around supporting the alcoholics and enabling the alcoholics, the less likely they are To hit bottom, which may be their only chance of change.
	So, with regards to your grandparents, who, if I understand it correctly, have been alcoholics for decades, I personally, myself, I would not hold that hope of change.
	I think we have to accept.
	I would say to myself, look, I have to get out of wish land.
	I have to get out of fantasy land.
	Fantasy is isolating.
	Fantasy is dangerous.
	Fantasy pollutes my own decision-making capacity.
	Fantasy alienates me from other people.
	Fantasy only makes me compatible with other people who are delusional and therefore keeps honest truth speakers away from me and only surrounds me with people who will echo back the delusions that I need or rather that other people need.
	Our fantasies generally serve people who are irrational around us at our expense.
	Yeah.
	And if there is care for people with addictions then refusing to support them can be very helpful.
	I mean it might get them into treatment, it might get them to change.
	And if not supporting alcoholics doesn't get them to change, then being around them and continuing to support them is certainly not going to get them to change.
	Right?
	So I think that I would simply, as I do in general, try to strive to stay away from illusion.
	I mean, think of how toxic illusion is, right?
	The soldiers are different from other people who kill.
	Well, that's just an illusion.
	The police are there to protect you.
	Well, that's just another illusion.
	The government is there to help you.
	Well, that's just another illusion.
	Democracy is virtuous.
	It's just another illusion.
	The welfare state helps the poor.
	I mean, the amount of harm that is done by delusions, let alone if I do this, I'll get 72 virgins and get into heaven or whatever, right?
	If I pay off this guy in the funny hat, I'll be freed from a curse that he put on me himself.
	I mean, the amount of illusions and delusions that harm the planet and harm the species is almost beyond counting.
	And I can't change everybody else's addiction to illusion, but I certainly as hell can confront my own.
	And I think a very hard-nosed acceptance of empiricism is the basis of the scientific method.
	If you have a theory that's contradicted by reality, your theory fails.
	Your theory must be thrown out.
	And you have decades of empirical evidence with regards to your family.
	And you have a thesis with regards to your family, but the empirical evidence must hold sway if we are to be considered rational at all.
	Does that make any sense?
	Perfectly, yeah.
	Yeah, it does.
	And I wonder if there's any value in holding these people accountable.
	Because I see my parents almost like acting the way a government would.
	We're in either a nanny state that's being irresponsible or we're in some kind of dystopia that needs to be addressed.
	And I wonder, is it worthwhile addressing it or is it something that's, you know, we're just barking up the wrong tree altogether and should just focus on the youth?
	Well, I mean, to cure multi-decade alcoholism is far beyond your powers, far beyond my powers, right?
	I mean, that would require significant medical intervention, to say the least, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, the DTs are pretty brutal.
	And you cannot, you know, the old thing, you can lead a horse for water, but you can't make a drink.
	You can state your case that you find the alcoholism upsetting and disturbing and alienating.
	You can't have a relationship with addicts because their primary relationship is with the addiction, right?
	And everything must serve the addiction.
	Yeah, and I think the addiction kind of comes from the divorce.
	Comes from where?
	From divorce.
	When my parents divorced, the drinking starts.
	No, no, no.
	Come on, come on.
	There's triggering events, but that's not the cause.
	Because if alcoholism comes from the divorce, then the vast majority of people who are divorced would be alcoholics, right?
	Right.
	I see some self-loathing and self-harm, and I wonder, what is the source of it?
	Early childhood.
	Almost certainly.
	I just did a presentation, The Truth About Addiction.
	And again, don't take my word as gospel.
	I'm just a collator of other people's information for a lot of these things.
	And people get upset with me and just look at the sources, right?
	But I would have a look at that, and it talks about how alcoholism is a form, or most addictions are a form of self-medication for early childhood trauma that results in brain or physiological dysfunction.
	So I would look into that.
	And then traumatic events can be the catalyst, but they're not the cause, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	The multi-generational effects of it are quite astounding me right now.
	Obviously, like you said, we're not going to be able to remedy the problem of alcoholism or get rid of alcohol altogether.
	And I think ultimately people are responsible for their choices with alcohol.
	I don't think alcohol is inherently...
	for fat food or whatever.
	It can be used or misused.
	But yeah, in terms of how my family has handled their lives and their wealth and their relationship to us and to the next of I wouldn't call it post-traumatic stress, but it's something that I've woken up with dreams of and wondered, oh God, are we going to make it as a species?
	I wonder if there's any hope for the state and people that really want a free world.
	It's quite amazing.
	Well, I mean, you know, the best way to encourage yourself about people's capacity to reach the truth is to reach the truth yourself.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	If you despair about people's ability to reach the truth, it's almost certainly I would argue because you're rejecting an essential truth in your own life.
	Mm-hmm.
	And you're like, well, we don't have any hope as a species because even I am willing to reject the truth for the sake of immediate emotional comfort and the needs of irrational people around me, right?
	Oh, definitely.
	I mean, I constantly lie to myself.
	I mean, most people do.
	I find truth can be a hard pill to swallow.
	Well, stop that.
	Sorry, I mean, stop that, right?
	Because that's an addiction that comes from the addictions of those around you, right?
	I mean, the reason that you lie to yourself is because the truth is painful to those around you.
	You're lying for other people, fundamentally.
	We benefit from the truth.
	Irrational people benefit from us lying to ourselves or attacking ourselves or whatever, right?
	So, stop serving the needs of irrational people and pursue the truth at any cost.
	Otherwise, their addictions are causing you to separate yourself from your greatest values.
	And virtues, of which truth is the necessary prerequisite, right?
	And I wonder what the ramifications of that are.
	Like, when I have my wife, my two children with me, and I do really pursue a freedom-based lifestyle, there are real hard limits and ramifications to living in a state but pursuing a kind of a sovereign stance.
	What are your thoughts on that?
	Well, hang on a sec, because I think we're talking kind of abstract.
	Do your kids, are they around their grandparents?
	Well, no.
	We haven't seen them in years.
	Right.
	We'd like to.
	Yeah, no.
	You can't have kids around drunk sheeple, of course, right?
	It becomes very difficult.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	And I'm very sorry for that.
	I mean, grandparents are enormously helpful, I think, in life, if they are the elder wise people that you mentioned earlier.
	But, you know, if that's not...
	What the hand of fate dealt you.
	That's not what the hand of fate dealt you, and I'm very sorry for that.
	That's pretty tragic.
	Now, if you don't have another specific question, I would like to move on to the next caller just to make sure if we can finally get through the roster of one set of people in a call.
	Is that all right with you?
	Sure, that's fine, man.
	Thanks for taking the time.
	You're very welcome.
	All right, Cole.
	You're up, Cole.
	Go ahead.
	Hey, Steph.
	It's a great honor to be talking to you.
	I've got a couple questions for you today.
	I hope I don't disappoint.
	That's a high lead-in.
	Let me get my big girl panties on and I'm ready to talk.
	Okay.
	So, I have a question concerning the environment in an anarchical society, like national parks and such.
	How would they be dealt with?
	What's to stop, say, a large, evil, big corporation to come and destroy it all?
	Well, I mean, do you care about there being national parks?
	I do.
	Good.
	So then you would contribute money if you could or labor if you had no money to maintain the parks, right?
	Right.
	So there would be a clear ownership and title of the parks run by whatever community group and it could be for profit, it could be not for profit.
	Whatever community group found it important for there to be parks Which we can assume is the majority of people, because they're voted for in a democracy, and if anybody said, let's sell off the national parks to timber companies, people would go insane, right?
	And so we know that people will contribute to the maintenance of national parks.
	And so the parks would be owned, and nobody would be able to go in and trash them.
	And then what about things like, say, pollution?
	I mean, I've read your book, Practical Anarchy...
	And you talk about pollution insurance.
	Right.
	I don't know.
	Never mind.
	No, no, that's fine.
	I mean, so the pollution insurance, for those who don't know, is one possible way it could work is I just buy pollution insurance, which means that if the air on my property or around my house gets polluted, then a pollution company pays me $10 million, with which I can move to some location that suits me better.
	In which case, a whole bunch of Well, the company is going to have massive incentives to make sure my air doesn't get polluted.
	And there's a number of ways they can resolve that, which I talk about in the book.
	So that's one possible way that it could work.
	But sorry, go ahead.
	Okay, and then I also have a question about dispute resolution organizations.
	I mean, they are an insurance policy, essentially, right?
	Well, they're insurance, but dispute resolution is, insurance is part of that, but also it's contract resolution too, right?
	Which is not quite the same as insurance, although it may have insurance elements.
	We talk about that since there's going to be no taxes, that you would have much more disposable income.
	But wouldn't most of the stuff that you – or the money that you sent to taxes would go to keeping your contract with the DRO? You mean – well, certainly it's not the same as a tax, right?
	Because they cannot initiate the use of force against you.
	It's voluntary.
	Yeah, it's voluntary, it's competitive, and so on.
	So they cannot initiate the use of force against you.
	The worst thing that they can do is they can attempt to urge other people not to do business with you, which is not the initiation of the use of force, right?
	If I tell some woman, don't date this lunatic, I'm not initiating force.
	He may find it offensive or whatever, but I'm not initiating force against that person.
	So it's not the same as attacks.
	I certainly don't believe...
	that the fees for DRO would even remotely close to the fees, the tax fees.
	Because, I mean, for a wide variety of reasons, first of all, DROs would be about prevention, and governments are generally about cure.
	And cure is far more expensive than prevention.
	Secondly, the overhead in the welfare state is like 80% of the money goes to bureaucrats and politicians and all that kind of crap, and very little of it goes to the poor.
	Whereas, of course, a free market charity, the ratio is usually reversed, if I remember my figures correctly.
	80% of the money goes to the poor and 20% of the money goes to the overhead.
	So you have, you know, a five times reduction in price there.
	And, you know, the military-industrial complex is ridiculously expensive.
	A free society would never find enough people to fund 700-plus military bases overseas.
	It would say, no, thank you.
	And so there's a wide variety of mechanisms that would occur.
	And, of course, DROs, through their drive to keep their prices low, would continually seek to improve childhood.
	Because improved childhood vastly reduces the costs of dysfunction within society.
	And so people would probably want insurance for their children's behavior.
	So if their children did something egregious or something even accidental that caused harm to others, they'd want to be insured against that.
	And in order to give the lowest possible insurance rates, DROs would be funding research into best parenting practices and they would make sure then the parents followed best parenting practices.
	And if they did, then they would get vastly reduced rates, which would be a massive incentive for society.
	The costs of bad parenting are socialized at the moment, right?
	The cost of bad parenting should accrue to the parents.
	And at the moment, they don't.
	And this is, of course, a fundamental economic mismatch.
	Where reason and virtue fail, economic incentive succeeds.
	And in general, economic incentive is far more important than virtue, which is why you tend to get better service at Walmart than you do at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
	And so...
	In a free society, there is a massive incentive to reduce the cost of dysfunction, which does not exist in a state of society.
	In fact, state profits from dysfunction to a large degree.
	Dysfunction creates criminals with which the state can justify police.
	Dysfunction also creates people willing to serve as police officers and prison guards and soldiers and the sociopaths known as politicians and so on.
	So dysfunction is beneficial to the state, whereas dysfunction is beneficial.
	Not beneficial.
	In fact, it's extremely costly for a free market, which is why a free market will focus so much on the improvements possible in parenting to produce a truly peaceful world.
	Yeah, I mean, whenever I'm at school, I get the no-government-means-we're-all-going-to-die argument, right?
	Well, it's not really an argument.
	Yeah, it's more of a fear-mongering.
	Yeah, I mean, it's about as much an argument as an axe commercial.
	You know, like, if you don't By axe, then, you know, naked bikini babes won't drape themselves over your genitals, right?
	So, I mean, it's not an argument, right?
	Yeah, it's fear-mongering.
	You know, buy these glasses and you'll look like this model wearing these glasses.
	No.
	No.
	No, you won't, right?
	Right.
	You know, like, if you drink this beer, you'll have a six-pack like this guy at the pool.
	Well, no.
	Well, you'll have a six-pack of beer.
	Yeah, they have a one-pack, right?
	They don't have a six-pack, they have a keg, right?
	So, yeah, I mean, these aren't arguments at all.
	And anyone who says that is like, well, you know, you don't really know what it is to have an argument.
	It's exactly the same as saying, pay me this money or my God will send you to hell.
	It's not an argument.
	It's actually just a threat, right?
	It's just a shakedown.
	Yeah.
	So that brings me to another question.
	How would I argue such a thing or a point in...
	A totally brainwashed public school room of death.
	I think I have a name for my new public school.
	Look, it's tough.
	Yeah, no, it's tough.
	Well, I mean, when you're choosing people for your soccer team, you would try to choose people with legs, right?
	Right, you don't want the guy in the wheelchair.
	Well, you might.
	Maybe he'd be alright as a goalie.
	I don't know.
	But you don't want the guy who's 400 pounds to be your forward striker, right?
	Right.
	So when you're choosing people to debate with, have some discretion.
	Find out if they're even remotely capable of thought before you grace them with your intellect, right?
	Right.
	Before I try and have a debate with someone, it's important for me to know if they speak English.
	Because I don't speak any other languages that aren't computer-based, and therefore we're not going to have a very productive debate if that person doesn't speak English.
	And if they don't speak reason and evidence, we may have an instructive debate.
	In other words, this is what happens with people who don't speak reason and evidence.
	But it would not be something I would do.
	It's sort of a show thing.
	If it was a private conversation with someone who didn't speak reason and evidence, I wouldn't bother.
	I don't mind a public one to show just where an inattention to reason and evidence leads you.
	But I would not have a private conversation with someone like that.
	So recognize that your intellect is a rare gift.
	I mean, I know in high school, it's not nearly as good as gift as being tall and athletic.
	And having clear skin.
	But it is.
	It's a great gift.
	And just about everyone on the planet should be supremely grateful for people of high intelligence, for providing them with shit that they could never invent or discover themselves.
	You know, like the free market, like cell phones, like computers, the internet, microphones, you name it, right?
	People of average intelligence use this shit, but they don't make this stuff.
	They don't come up with it.
	And...
	Like all people who are dependent on those of higher intelligence to some degree, they are resentful.
	Because they're not smart enough to be mature about it and to be grateful.
	You know, I don't sing as well as Sting, but I'm sure glad that he's a great singer because I like his music.
	Or I guess I used to.
	Right?
	So, whereas an immature person will be resentful of Sting's singing voice and songwriting, or at least prior songwriting abilities and so on.
	So...
	Recognize that your intellect and your commitment to truth is a rare gift.
	And it is a form of inner beauty.
	And we all know that beautiful women are always trying to attract the alpha male in general, yet they have the problem in that they attract more than the alpha male who they then have to reject a lot.
	So being a very attractive woman is a lot about rejecting people, which is why they have to have this cold exterior and be beautiful but intimidating and all that, you know, all the normal stuff, right?
	And I sort of view philosophy as a beautiful spirit, a beautiful mind, a beautiful soul, whatever you want to call it, a beautiful being.
	And, you know, it's okay to be haughty.
	Right?
	So, you know, it's what I said to the guy in the last show who was arguing all sorts of nonsense.
	I just said, look, you're just not very good at this.
	You don't even know what an argument is.
	You know, I'm sorry you can't be in your orchestra because you can bang two rocks together.
	It does not make you a drunk.
	Like, I hate, you know, I hate to be honest about your limitations, but you're kind of forcing me to be honest about your limitations.
	Yeah.
	You know, if my daughter randomly bangs her xylophone and says, is that pretty?
	I will say, no.
	It's not pretty to me.
	It's not even music.
	It's just random banging.
	You know, if you like it, fine.
	Go ahead, make the noise.
	But it's not pretty.
	It's not music.
	You know, play a, play a tune.
	Yes.
	You know, that's, you know, but this random banging, you know, she was quite surprised, you know.
	What do you mean?
	No, it's a bing bing.
	I said, if I sing this, bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing.
	Not only have I come up with a chorus to a Philip Glass opera and a fair amount of Chinese opera, but I'm not breaking anything pretty there.
	It's not even scat.
	It's just random notes, right?
	So, you know, it's okay to be haughty.
	You know, you don't have to screw everything that moves mentally, right?
	Because, you know, a lot of social diseases come out of bad brains, right?
	Frustration, irrationality, despair.
	A lot of people will try and lure you into debates to make you despair for the human race.
	Avoid those people.
	Only be in an orchestra with people who can play their instruments, is kind of what I'm saying.
	If people have no idea how to think, I wouldn't bother debating with them at all.
	If they come up with stuff like, if there's no government, we're all gonna die.
	Yeah.
	Well, you can just say, well, why do you think that?
	Oh, I don't know.
	It just seems right to me.
	Like, okay, so you don't know that you're...
	Do you know that you're not making an argument?
	What do you mean I'm not making an argument?
	I just told you what I feel.
	Okay.
	So you're banging two rocks together and you want to do a drum solo in Madison Square Gardens.
	So, no.
	Maybe you're banging off two rocks together, you can light a spark.
	But you can't do a drum solo in Madison Square Gardens.
	You cannot...
	You cannot step in for Neil Peart if you can only bang two rocks randomly together.
	So yeah, just find out if they can think, and if they can't think, then okay, well I'm sorry, I can't debate with you because you don't know how to think.
	Right.
	I can teach you some basics about how to think if you want, and I'm sorry that nobody has actually gotten around to telling you that you can't think, but you can't.
	And then, since you were the president or vice president of a software company, right?
	Is insider trading actually a problem?
	Because I think it is.
	Oh, is insider trading a problem?
	Well, of course, if it was such a problem, then Congress would not have made it legal for congressmen.
	Right, because I saw an article in the Seattle Times the other day.
	Yeah, in a free society, look, is insider trading a violation of the non-aggression principle?
	We just have to go back to it, right?
	It clearly is not the initiation of force, right?
	Right.
	Now, in my opinion...
	Insider trading does distort the marketplace to some degree.
	It is not exactly a fair advantage, right?
	So if you know that your company is highly profitable before anyone else does, and then you buy up a whole bunch of shares, you're profiting at other people's expense with knowledge that they couldn't have.
	Now, how this gets resolved in a free market, I don't know.
	My guess would be that if I were an investor, I would want to invest in a company whose management team had signed agreements to not act on insider information.
	Now, then if they do that, then they violated contracts, right?
	Right.
	And once you violated contracts, then you are in the negative.
	So, I would say that this would be dealt with through contract.
	Now, maybe people don't care about insider trading.
	I don't know.
	But there would be a mix, right?
	And the right or economically optimal mix, sorry, the economically optimal solution would probably be found and would probably become a template.
	Like, no, how many people write non-disclosure agreements anymore?
	No, they just have a template, which, you know, mostly works.
	So, I think it is sort of an unfair advantage, but that's up to the market to decide, right?
	I mean, so if you have two companies in the same business, one of them says, look, we don't do insider trading, we've got contracts to prove that, here they are.
	And the other company says, oh yeah, we'll insider trade as much as we want, thank you very much.
	Which is going to be economically optimal?
	I would argue that the first one would be, but that would be really for the free market to decide.
	Yeah.
	Okay, well that was all of my questions.
	Alright, I'm just going to ask.
	This is something my daughter can talk about.
	Sorry, I just moved it down here.
	Do you want to sit on there or do you want to sit here?
	Alright.
	I'll come over there.
	Cole, his name is.
	Cole.
	Now, Cole says that he is in school.
	What do you think of that?
	I think it's fine.
	It's fine for him?
	How old is he?
	How old are you?
	Fourteen.
	He's fourteen.
	I think...
	Yeah.
	You think so, 14?
	Should we put you in school when you're 14?
	No, but...
	But it's okay for him?
	I think it's his choice.
	Right.
	Now, when are you going to school again?
	Never.
	Never?
	I thought you were going to 20.
	No, I don't.
	I changed my mind.
	Oh, yeah?
	So no school at all?
	No.
	Okay.
	So Cole, he's got a problem.
	And the problem is this, that there's people in his school...
	Who are not good at philosophy?
	What did they say to you, Cole, about the government?
	Without a government, we're all going to die!
	So if there's no government, we're all going to die.
	Is that good philosophy?
	No.
	Right.
	So it's just, like, scary.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	Like I said, Isabella, if you don't eat those vegetables, your hair's going to catch on fire.
	What would you say?
	That's not good philosophy, and you're not a philosopher, and you're...
	Going to jail.
	Going to philosophy jail.
	Exactly.
	So, do you think that he should debate with people who are bad at philosophy?
	No.
	Why not?
	Because I think they won't be good at it.
	And they will say, no, my choice is right.
	Right.
	And would they have good reasons or arguments?
	Arguments?
	Arguments?
	Like, would they have good reasons for what they were saying?
	I think they would have really bad arguments.
	Right.
	And a bad argument is like no argument.
	Like if I said, Isabella, I'm right because I'm taller.
	Is that a good argument?
	No.
	Right.
	Now, if I said, snow is cold, and here you can touch it and see, is that a good argument?
	No.
	Well, no, it's a pretty good argument if you can touch it, because then you can see if it's cold or not, right?
	Yeah.
	Does that make more sense?
	Yeah, it makes a lot better sense.
	A lot better sense.
	And so do you think...
	So I said that he should...
	Can I hold the microphone?
	You can hold the microphone.
	Absolutely.
	Now, do you want to ask him anything about school?
	How is school?
	It's brainwashing.
	I don't know.
	It's interesting.
	Brainwashing.
	I think you'll have to break that down.
	She is up for all five.
	Right.
	We get told that the government is good and virtuous and...
	We get to read large articles on how the government and how we need a government.
	So they tell him things are good or bad, but they don't really say why.
	Oh.
	So they're not giving him the chance to learn how to think himself.
	They're just kind of telling him what the answer is without telling him how to think or why.
	Yeah.
	But how is it for you with social friends and chatting and all that?
	Is it nice?
	I've got...
	I'd probably say five friends, two or three which I have converted to anarchist within the last two months.
	So he's got five friends, and two or three he's taught how to think well.
	Oh.
	That's good, right?
	Yeah.
	And how do you feel about, you've got three more years to go?
	About four, yeah.
	Four, yeah.
	So he's got four more years in school.
	Oh.
	Plus college, so.
	What's your favorite part of school?
	Lunch.
	Is that school?
	No.
	Math class is fun.
	Do you like math, boo?
	Oh, I love math.
	Yeah.
	How about letters?
	No.
	A Googleplex thumbs down.
	A Googleplex thumbs down.
	That's definitely it.
	All right.
	Well, is there anything else you wanted to ask him or say?
	Bye.
	Bye.
	Okay.
	Thanks, boo.
	I'll call you for the next one.
	Mike, who do we have next?
	All right.
	Thanks, Cole.
	Andrew, you're up next.
	I'm calling because I'm 22 and I don't have a job and I still live at home and I'm really not happy about that.
	Right.
	And are you in school at all?
	No.
	Right.
	Have you had a job in the past?
	Yeah.
	I've had a couple of jobs in the past.
	I worked for a retail store and I worked at a cooling company.
	Right.
	And what kind of job would you like to have, do you think?
	Anything.
	Anything where I can, well not anything, but something where I can use my creativity and actually like what it is that I'm doing.
	Now the emotion that you were feeling at the beginning of the call, where's that coming from, do you think?
	Mostly from A lack of just me avoiding these topics and other people, people who raised me, never talking about these things with me.
	Right.
	You're right.
	And what do you think the barriers are to you getting a job?
	Well, right now, for me to look for jobs, for me to follow up at places after I applied, I basically have to walk or take the bus, and I just haven't I haven't done that.
	But do you mean emotional or sort of practical?
	Well, I mean, the practical stuff can usually be overcome.
	I think it's more the emotional stuff, right?
	Yeah.
	I think it's that I... Well, I mentioned I live with my dad, and he has a very...
	How do I even say it?
	Very unfulfilling, very depressing, almost pathetic life.
	So he's like 61 or something like that now.
	He works at a Bonds, so it's a grocery store.
	He's not a manager or anything, so he still stocks shelves.
	Him and my mom have been separated for a long time.
	So maybe it's that I don't see what the point is of, I don't know, becoming an adult.
	Right.
	Why do you think your father is still stuck in shells when he's 61?
	Why do you think that's the case?
	Because he's been avoiding his own issues.
	I know he doesn't have the confidence to ask for added responsibility or he doesn't have social skills.
	He's like a schizoid.
	I've read a little bit about schizoids.
	My mom was, I guess, apparently schizophrenic too.
	So I've read a little bit about that stuff and he seems to fit a category of schizoid.
	So he's just not, he wouldn't be able to be involved in any job where you have to solve problems or talk to people on a deeper level than just, hey, how's your day going?
	Now, does he lack intelligence or is it mostly emotional difficulties?
	It's emotional.
	And how do you know that he's intelligent?
	Well, he's always been an intellectual, I guess.
	He reads a lot.
	I've always got the sense that he was pretty smart.
	Well, you could sort of argue, right, so, I mean, there's intellectual intelligence, there's also emotional intelligence, right?
	So, if somebody is very intelligent but is a massive underachiever, I would question their intelligence.
	I mean, if they want to achieve, right?
	I mean, if they're dissatisfied with whatever, right?
	Because if you are underachieving, then that's, you know, costly and frustrating and not great, right?
	I sort of always question, if he has emotional problems, then I think the intelligent thing to do is to say, look, I've got emotional problems, I should deal with them, I should read up on self-help books, I should journal, I should take some therapy, or whatever it is, right?
	So for me, people who sort of say, well, I'm intelligent, but I'm an emotional underachiever, or I'm an underachiever, it's sort of like saying, well, I'm intelligent, I broke my leg, but I didn't go to the doctor.
	It's like, well...
	I'm not sure how intelligent you are, then.
	I mean, you said he's unsatisfied, right?
	Yeah.
	Right.
	And does he know that he can get help for these emotional challenges?
	Yeah, I've told him before.
	And what does he say?
	Basically...
	Well, just to sort of frame the conversation...
	I think it was one morning when I brought it up to him.
	He was on his computer...
	And I started asking him some questions, and true to fashion, true to the way he raised me, anytime I wanted to talk to him, he would be at the computer screen or at a book or something, and he wouldn't even look up on what he was doing.
	He would kind of semi-answer, but he wouldn't make eye contact, and he would basically be so unenthusiastic that eventually I would lose interest in Whatever the topic was.
	I would give up trying to get through to him, trying to connect to him.
	So he does have some emotional skills, right?
	I mean, in that he can shut you down, right?
	Yeah, well, yeah.
	He's very manipulative, very...
	Yeah, yeah.
	Right, so he's not emotionally unskilled, it's just that they're not terribly productive in terms of having a good relationship, right?
	Yeah, well, that's an understatement, but yeah.
	Right.
	I'm trying to be as diplomatic as possible, right?
	Now, what's your father's reaction going to be if you become successful?
	I've thought about that before and that brings up something I was thinking about when I was thinking about how to approach this call.
	I would imagine that one scene I'm picturing in my head right now is if say I was successful and then he's at work and he sees someone at work that he knows and they, oh yeah, how are you doing?
	Good to see you.
	I haven't seen you in a while.
	How are the kids?
	How are things going?
	I have a feeling he would want to take credit for my success.
	Like, sort of a fake persona that he would want to present to other people.
	Oh, yeah.
	Sorry, I'm losing my train of thought, but his reaction to my success would...
	Externally, he would probably act like he was happy for it, but...
	I mean, I really have no idea how you'd react other than that because he's never been a part of my life other than me living under his roof.
	What do you mean he's never been a part of your life?
	I understand that.
	When I say he's always been distracted any time I try to connect with him, that was even true when I was really, really young, like three and four.
	I remember he would be on his computer and he would be playing his Commodore games and I would You know, bring a book over to him, like...
	I don't even remember specifically just anything and try to connect with him, but then he would ignore me, basically, or like, say whatever it was to get me off his back.
	And...
	And every time I would try that, he would...
	Basically...
	Sorry, I forgot the question.
	You said that he'd just not really been part of your life except for you living under his roof.
	Right, right.
	So what it was is eventually I just stopped trying to connect to him.
	Because what it was is when I realized I couldn't just show him things I was interested in and he would take interest, then I would just like...
	Like he had his hand on the mouse, I would just like flick his hand with my finger or something like...
	And he'd be like, oh, stop that!
	You know, it's like a little...
	I'm doing anything I can to try to get some attention.
	And if that means I have to annoy him or whatever, then that's what I would do.
	So, he's always been severely neglectful.
	Him and my mom, when they were still together, went on these Bible retreats, or I don't know what they were called, but...
	I can specifically remember one of those times of them being gone, and I wished in my head that they wouldn't come back, that they would die in a car accident or something.
	Right.
	And what did you think would happen if that had occurred?
	Then I wanted to go live with my godmother, who was a friend of my mom's, or my aunt or my uncle, or just live somewhere else.
	So like anywhere would be better, right?
	That's sort of the idea?
	Pretty much.
	I'm so sorry.
	I'm so sorry.
	I mean, it's amazing just how we can You know, like baby spiders shooting their webs into the air.
	Just try and go anywhere than where we are.
	I remember when I was, I guess about six or seven years old, that was, I don't even remember her name, but there was a babysitter my mom used to use when she was out on her dates.
	And she gave me a little curly-worthy candy bar when I'd go over there.
	She was fun.
	We chatted.
	It's the first time I'd actually stayed up also to watch the news.
	She didn't sort of make me go to bed kind of thing.
	And I remember very clearly watching the news on a black and white television, wondering what on earth adults could find interesting in a man talking, droning on.
	Of course, now I've become that guy.
	But anyway.
	And I remember, like, I was told, oh, you're going to go to this babysitter's tonight, and it turned out that it didn't happen.
	And I was just bawling the whole night.
	Just bawling.
	Nobody ever asked me, why are you so upset to not go to this babysitter's?
	Like, well, she takes some slight pleasure in my existence.
	I need that.
	We need oxygen as kids, people who take pleasure in our existence, because that's security, right?
	You're secure in your customers if they love your restaurant.
	This is the best food ever.
	No other restaurant comes close in terms of value and quality.
	You know those people are coming back because they're taking pleasure in your restaurant.
	That's your security.
	And if the other restauranteurs around hate you, so much the better, right?
	And so for a child, it is essential for security that the parents take an interest and a pleasure in the child's existence.
	Because, you know, the child knows.
	They can't really offer anything sort of fundamental in terms of value.
	"Here, let me shovel the driveway for you, Dad." - Yeah. - And so, for...
	This is why children are so desperate for the good approval of their parents, Because they need it for security, right?
	They need it to know that they're safe, that they're not going to be abandoned, that they are of value to their parents.
	And it is really tragic.
	You know, just the continual degree to which people don't feel that from their parents, right?
	And it doesn't sound like you got much of that feedback in terms of your dad or your mom taking pleasure in who you are.
	Well, my mom, I would say she did, but there was also the fact that she raised me A lot of fundamentalist Christian ideology, so there's also a lot of denying.
	So she did take pleasure in who I was as long as I conformed to her standard of behavior.
	You get that that's not true, right?
	I mean, I don't know if you hear yourself saying that.
	She did take pleasure in who I was as long as I conformed to her craziness.
	Yeah, yeah, that is crazy.
	That's absolutely a crazy thing to say.
	But then she's not taking pleasure in who you are, right?
	yeah exactly but at least I had before she left I I had the illusion of that I guess And so that was better than nothing.
	Why didn't you go with your mom?
	Well, she, like I mentioned, she was taking medication for Schizophrenia and I think bipolar disorder.
	She ended up wanting to move from California to Alabama because she thought it wasn't safe here that demons were going to get our family or something like that.
	Holy crap.
	She lives in a group home.
	So has she been institutionalized?
	She has before, I don't think she lives in one now, but the one she lives at, it's a group home, they have to take the medication.
	I mean, with the drugs that she's taking, it might as well be an institution, because I've talked to her on the phone a couple times, and there's no real humanity.
	I'm incredibly sorry, what a...
	What an appalling childhood.
	I mean, what an absolutely appalling childhood.
	I mean, nothing that you should have been taught and everything that you wanted to avoid was inflicted on you in perpetuity, right?
	That's absolutely appalling.
	I mean, my heart is breaking.
	I mean, what an unbelievably awful story and what an unbelievably awful existence.
	How you doing, brother?
	I've been listening to your show for six years.
	Long time listener, but I didn't realize how much pain and dysfunction I've normalized.
	And then when it comes out now, I almost feel crazy because there's so much rage, so much sadness, so much everything.
	Well, you wanted them dead, right, when you were a kid?
	Yeah.
	Which they taught you, because when you reject a child, there is a murderous intent in that, because a child has no other place to go for acceptance, right?
	Yeah.
	But I'm sorry, keep going, I didn't mean to interrupt you, sorry.
	That memory that I had of wishing they would die in a car accident...
	I imagined a car accident because that would not involve pain necessarily.
	I imagined an instant crash where they're just instantly dead.
	At that time, I realized I would be sad.
	I would miss my mom a little bit, but I realized I wouldn't miss my dad at all.
	I know that I have fantasies of killing him.
	Not that I would ever act on, but very primal.
	Yeah.
	I don't doubt it.
	I don't doubt it at all.
	When was the last time you saw your mom?
	Probably...
	I'm 22 right now.
	The last time I saw her was probably age 11 or 12.
	Probably 11.
	Oh, man.
	Did she try to contact you at all over the last 10 years or so?
	No, her mom, every once in a while, I would be at their house for a day or something, and she would ask if I wanted to talk to my mom, but that only happened a couple times, and like I said, there's nothing really to talk to anyway.
	Wow.
	Wow.
	I'm incredibly sorry that you got exposed to that level of indifference and lack of interest in who you are as an individual.
	It's hard to find yourself interesting when the people who gave birth to you don't find you interesting for yourself, right?
	And it's hard to feel like you can have value to other people if you don't even have value to your own parents, right?
	Because going to get a job, which is sort of where we started, going to get a job is saying, I can bring value to you.
	But if your own parents didn't experience you as bringing value to them, then how will you have the experience of being valuable to others?
	Yeah, and even in the past two jobs I had, I always...
	I mean, I know to other people, when I was on the job, I looked like very nervous, very neurotic, very on task at all times, no time to screw around, you know, working hard, not really making friends with people at work.
	So it was like, You always feel like you're about to get fired, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, because that's what your parents gave you.
	They could take you or leave you.
	You've got to work extra hard just to not get fired by your parents, right?
	Yeah.
	So this is called an insecure bond, right?
	So you don't Feel like your parents are really there for you, you don't feel like they're really interested in you, that you bring value to them, that you make them happy, that you are an essential part, that they wanted you, that whatever, right?
	Yeah.
	And so you feel like you've got to bring you plus, plus, plus, right?
	Yeah, it means I have to be the best employee every time.
	No calling in sick, no Yeah, I had the same, when I had my first professional job as a programmer, I mean, I was the same way.
	I mean, I was like, oh, I gotta work.
	And I remember a guy who was a friend of mine for quite a while, he was, like, much more experienced than I was.
	I mean, this was my first gig.
	He'd been working for quite a long time.
	He's like, we were chatting.
	We went to have a meeting about some programming problem, and we were chatting, right, about...
	Ourselves and all that, getting to know each other.
	And at one point I said, hey, you know, we're supposed to have a meeting here.
	We got to stop talking.
	We got to...
	Right?
	And he's like, back to work.
	Lex, you're taking this stuff way too seriously.
	And he was very successful.
	And he was kind of right.
	Yeah, there was a guy who I worked with who told me that same thing at my most recent one.
	He was right, too.
	Now, a more empathetic person would be like, wow, you know, you must have had a pretty insecure bond with your parents if you're afraid of chatting for 20 minutes when we're supposed to be having a meeting.
	Yeah.
	And it's great for the rich and powerful if we're raised in these shitty environments, right?
	Because then we can't demand or negotiate or We're not difficult as employees.
	Everyone talks about people exploiting the workers.
	Fuck!
	Those people who exploit the workers are their parents.
	Why is it the workers are open to being exploited?
	Because they had an insecure bond, but they're parents who exploited them.
	It's like saying, these workers speak English.
	It's the capitalists' fault.
	No?
	Who taught them that language?
	The parents.
	The school.
	The school exploits children.
	Government schools exploit children.
	And then the blame gets placed on the free market capitalist.
	Yeah.
	I mean, any Marxist or socialist who's not talking about government schools first and foremost and parenting in general is just an exquisitely detailed bullshit artist.
	Anyway, it's neither here nor there, but...
	But that's a challenge, right?
	So you go to work and you've got this whole history of feeling valueless, right?
	So how the hell, I mean, for you to get a job, it kind of feels like a con a little bit, right?
	Yeah, it's like, I'll put on whatever mask I have to do to get the job and then once I'm there, I promise I'll be a really good employee.
	Right.
	Just give me, yeah.
	But then you probably don't ever feel like a really good employee.
	You feel like you're just getting by all the time, right?
	Well, actually, that changed towards the end of my last job, and that may have been very significant.
	At some point during my six-month stint there, which was a couple years back, I sort of stopped self-attacking.
	Like, it wasn't obviously cut and dry, but it had been going down, or it had been lessening.
	And eventually I got to a point where I was feeling pretty secure in myself.
	Well, that's good.
	That's very good.
	Yeah, and it's because of your show and because of therapy and everything, so you deserve credit too, but...
	So when I got to that place where I wasn't self-attacking, I felt powerful.
	I felt like I could do anything.
	And I wanted to quit that job.
	But I know that it was not a very wise decision to do so.
	Why did you want to quit the job?
	Uh, well, okay.
	I was working, like...
	You know what?
	I was about to go into the specs of the job, but that doesn't actually matter, because I was actually...
	I was starting to become pretty happy at the place I was working.
	And that's when I thought about quitting.
	Right.
	Why?
	Um...
	Well, I had this fantasy that I could go back home because I was living in a different city.
	It was this fantasy that I could go back home and now that I don't have all this anxiety, now I can write a bunch of music and maybe get that script worked out or a movie script I've been thinking about.
	I had all these fantasies of things I would get done when I got back home.
	I've been good about...
	When you moved back in with your dad, you had this fantasy about all of this amazing stuff you were able to get done, right?
	Yes, exactly.
	Because your dad's house is such a great motivating environment.
	And that's where the insanity of the whole thing comes in.
	Well, do you mind if I'm blunt?
	Yeah, be blunt, please.
	I believe that your inner dad sabotaged your success.
	He's getting ahead.
	He's happy.
	He's outstripping me.
	He's becoming successful.
	that makes me feel like more of a failure.
	Got to get him to quit.
	Thank you.
	I know.
	I'll hold out these carrots of all these great things he can get done if he moves back into my claustrophobic, dead-ass zombie environment.
	Yeah, that's good.
	That'll work.
	Maybe I'll tell him I'll support him.
	Maybe I'll tell him I'll help him out.
	Maybe I'll tell him he can come and live here rent-free and get all these great things done.
	You know what's even worse, though, is that When I called him, I had already put in my two weeks, and he didn't want me to live there, and I convinced him to let me.
	He didn't want you to live at his house?
	Not really.
	Wow.
	To me, that's even worse.
	It just means that I did the work for him.
	Right.
	Well, if the theory is true.
	I don't know that it's true.
	It's just a theory, right?
	But it seems strange to me that you said that your father read a lot and is very intelligent, but it doesn't manifest in his productivity at work.
	And it seems to me that you had this fantasy of intellectual achievement that interrupted an enjoyable career that you were in, right?
	I mean, have you written the movies and the scripts?
	No, not the scripts.
	I've been making a lot of music, so I mean, I guess I stuck to that, but even then, what I imagined I would get done, I haven't even come close to it.
	No, but making music is not a career, right?
	Selling music is a career, right?
	Making music is not.
	So, do you think that, I mean, and going out and selling...
	Your creative work is very tough.
	That's why there are agents, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, even for people who are raised well, it's pretty damn hard, right?
	For people who'd be raised with indifference and contempt and fantasy and whatever, right?
	I don't know that you would have the emotional skills as yet to go out and sell music to people.
	Right.
	I mean, I think that's definitely self-sabotage.
	Right?
	I mean, have you tried to sell your music?
	No.
	Right.
	How could you, really?
	I mean, it takes balls of steel to do that, even if you race well, but lots of support, right?
	Where you're coming from, it would be a practical impossibility at this point in your life, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So it seems to me that you would have joined your dad in futile intellectualism.
	Yeah.
	And that's all I've ever had.
	Futile intellectualism?
	Right.
	But it's not all you'll ever have, and it's not all you are, right?
	That's not all you have to be forever.
	You know, all this shit is just history.
	It's just history.
	It doesn't mean it's not alive within you.
	But it's history.
	It's carved into the atoms of the past.
	It is not a dictatorship of the future, right?
	You don't have to end up like your dad.
	You don't have to end up like your mom.
	These people can be massive signposts of exactly what not to do with your life.
	It could be that the very purpose of their existence is to serve as a warning to you.
	It doesn't have to be your future.
	Right?
	But you have to be relentless in your self-knowledge and in your empiricism.
	You have to know the deficiencies from your history and not have the fantasy of achievement where there's no experience, right?
	I don't sit there and say, book me for Carnegie Hall, I'm doing a piano concerto.
	Because I don't have the experience to achieve excellence.
	And you don't have the experience in having value for people, in being confident in your own capacities and so on.
	You don't have that experience as yet.
	Doesn't mean you can't get it.
	Doesn't mean you can't achieve it.
	But the first thing in achievement is a knowledge of deficiency.
	Right?
	You have to know what you're not good at in order to know what you can improve on.
	In order to know what to work on.
	If I want to be a great pianist, I need to be realistic about my capacities at the moment.
	And if you want to write music and you want to write movies, fantastic!
	Fantastic!
	I think that's a wonderful thing to aim for.
	But you need to be realistic about your capacity to not just write, which is a small part of selling stuff or making money from it.
	The writing necessary but far from sufficient, right?
	So you have to be realistic about the challenges that you're going to face going out there And selling the wares that are the very heart of you when you have a history of indifference and rejection at the hands of your parents.
	Yeah, I didn't...
	I mean, I... I'd been in therapy pretty consistently for, like, a full year.
	And I guess we got to a point in the therapy where I... I wasn't getting as much out of it, but it was also...
	I didn't know what I needed to focus on or I was avoiding it at the time.
	And what does your therapist think about you, or what did your therapist think about you living with your father?
	He was concerned that I would go back to being isolated.
	And did that occur?
	I mean, you wanted the man to die in a fiery crash.
	You wanted him dead.
	May not be the most motivating place for you to hang out and create it.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	You know, if the best Father's Day card you can give to your dad is, Dad, I feel less like you should die in a fiery crash these days May not be the best place to launch your life from.
	Yeah, you're right.
	And if your dad is not significantly invested in your success, then it is a challenging environment to say the least.
	You know, I really, really believe that we can only be as successful as the people around us want us to be.
	Yeah, I can see that.
	Thank you.
	There's a pretty good movie called Broadcast News, and at the beginning, there's this ambitious kid being beaten up by the jocks when he's in high school.
	And he's like, none of you are going to move away from this town, and none of you people are ever going to make more than $17,000 a year.
	This was, I think, a film in the 80s.
	And, you know, the jocks turn to each other and say, yeah, $17,000 a year, that's pretty good.
	That's their standard, right?
	His standard is far higher.
	Now, if he'd continued to hang out with those people, he never would have made more than $17,000 a year.
	Because our ambition is social.
	You are not an isolated individual.
	Your ambition is social.
	I could not achieve what I achieve without the people around me.
	I could not.
	When you choose your ambitions, you must choose your tribe.
	Always.
	The greater your ambitions, the greater your tribe and support system needs to be.
	James Cameron was married to Catherine Bigelow, who is a director of ultra-violent nationalism films like The Hurt Locker and The One on Bin Laden.
	She's, you know, a true nihilistic climactic pornographer.
	But she and James Cameron were both directors.
	I think she was a writer originally.
	Do you think she woke up every morning saying to James Cameron, I don't think you'll ever be a director.
	You can't make a good film.
	That's for other people.
	No!
	When you choose your ambitions, everyone thinks, well, you just choose your ambitions and you just start working.
	No, no, no, no.
	You choose your ambitions, then you must choose the people around you.
	Because you will, I would argue, you will not be able to achieve your ambitions.
	Without the support and enthusiasm of those around you, and in turn you support, it's not right, not one-sided, you support them.
	You know, the people at the Algonquin round table in the 20s didn't invite the waiter to sit down with them.
	They're all talking to each other, these literary gods of culture, right?
	So if you want to make movies, make music, great!
	But then choose your environment before you put pen to paper.
	Right.
	And that's the exact...
	Because I couldn't choose my environment early on, that'd be the exact opposite approach that I would instinctively take.
	Yeah.
	All greatness...
	Inhuman endeavors carries a significant risk of harming the small-minded around us.
	And it's almost certain to harm the small-minded around us.
	All greatness creates light that hurts the tiny eyes of the mole people, right?
	Yeah.
	If you become incandescent, you were blind.
	The cave fish of your origins, right?
	Here's the thing.
	Yeah, yeah, you're right.
	And I'm thinking it could only go one of two ways if I became successful and I still lived in this house.
	Either he would start treating me differently, in which case that's obviously corrupt, or he would treat me the same, in which case I've changed my life and made myself a better person, and then I get the same treatment, which also isn't.
	No.
	I've got to be clear with you, though.
	There's no doubt about this.
	Because we have evidence.
	Or at least there's very little about it.
	We have already historical evidence.
	Could you talk when you were born?
	No.
	No.
	Could you walk?
	Could you dance?
	Could you tap your father's hand while it rested on the mouse of his Commodore 64?
	Yes.
	Or not when I was born, no.
	You've already had experience of you becoming successful around your father.
	It's called going from being a blob of baby goo, pooping at weird angles, to becoming a functional child.
	I mean, that's more success than you're ever going to have again.
	You've already been around him when You have been succeeding wildly.
	And what was his response?
	Nothing.
	Well, worse than nothing.
	Worse than nothing.
	Indifference, right?
	Boredom, self-involvement, rejection, coldness, lack of interest.
	We already know!
	You already know how you feel when you succeed around your father.
	How do you feel when you succeed around your father?
	Invisible.
	That is not a feeling.
	I feel angry that I'm not being acknowledged.
	Right.
	It's selfish of him.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	And kind of hateful.
	My daughter's enthusiasm for all the new skills she mastered is glorious.
	I have to make sure I'm not too enthusiastic so she loses motivation, right?
	Has your father listened to your music?
	Yeah, a couple of times.
	What do you mean a couple of times?
	When?
	Like five years ago, maybe.
	He took a video of me playing the piano for a little bit.
	Has he read any of your scripts?
	No.
	But the thing is, I wouldn't...
	When he took that video of me, it's not something I asked him to do.
	He just kind of came in.
	He wouldn't be anywhere on the list of people I'd want to share things with that I created.
	Right, so you're still hiding from him, which means you're hiding from yourself, which means that you're accepting a situation where you can't succeed.
	And if you accept that situation, you won't succeed.
	You can only swim so long against the current before you give up, right?
	Yeah.
	shriek And his death doesn't have to be your death, right?
	His suicide of opportunity doesn't have to be yours, right?
	But it's gonna be painful for him for you to succeed.
	Yeah.
	And being able to stand The pain of those you're outstripping is the great barrier to success.
	That's the great hurdle that everyone who wants to succeed has to get over.
	I mean, unless you're born to Steven Spielberg or if you're Jaden Smith, that's alright.
	But if your parents are not successful and you have high ambitions, Then dealing with the pain that they experience in general, for the most part, not always, with your success is the great hurdle.
	It's not just your parents.
	I mean, how do your friends feel about this?
	How do your siblings, if you have them, feel about this?
	When you set your sights high and relentlessly pursue high ambitions, the great hurdle is the unconscious resistance of those around you.
	If it's identified and acted upon, you can make it.
	If it's not, you can't.
	Our brain cannot process contradictions and survive.
	So if you want to be successful, and the people around you are afraid of success, your brain will default to social rather than personal standards.
	Yeah, and that's where I'm at right now.
	And it's your choice.
	It's your choice.
	It's your choice once you have the knowledge.
	You can follow your father into the bottomless pit of absence and resentful and regretful futility and be stacking fucking shelves in a grocery store when you're 61 years old.
	Or not.
	But it has to be a choice Which is not personal to you, but which creates necessities for your environment.
	Find the people who believe in you and believe them.
	Right.
	Now Abraham Lincoln, his father was abusive.
	And after he left home, he pretty much never saw his father again.
	Did not invite his father to his wedding.
	Did not even invite his stepmother to his wedding.
	Had nothing to do with his father.
	And his father began to write him increasingly desperate series of letters when his father was dying.
	And he wrote back and said basically, fuck you, no thanks.
	Good luck getting into heaven.
	Because his father was an abusive, neglectful, irascible man.
	Do you really think that Abraham Lincoln could have achieved a presidency with his father around him?
	No, I can't even imagine that.
	No.
	That'd be like out of a comedy sketch.
	Like Abraham Lincoln's about to go to the primary debate and then his dad's yelling at him in the other room like, oh, he left the light on in the bathroom.
	Idiot.
	Now go with that.
	Good luck with that Douglas debate.
	Yeah.
	I thought the Gettysburg Address was adequate in its own way.
	No, come on.
	We know that our standards default to the social rather than the personal because culture reproduces all over the world.
	Muslims become Muslims, Jews become Jews, Christians become Christians.
	Americans are patriotic in general, right?
	We default to social standards because that's what allowed us to survive in brutal tribes.
	We cannot be larger than the most petty person in our life.
	We cannot be stronger than the weakest person in our life.
	We cannot be more eloquent than the dumbest person in our life.
	And we cannot have more energy than the most depressed person in our life in the long run.
	We'll have fits and spurts, but we'll always return to equilibrium.
	Success is horizontal first.
	It is only vertical after the horizontal is there.
	You build the base of the house, and then you build the house.
	To build a skyscraper first, you dig into the ground, right?
	And you plant deep roots in the ground.
	Just to To build up, first you must dig down to have a stable base.
	You can start building a skyscraper.
	If you want, it's just going to fall over.
	To go up, you go down.
	First, you build a base.
	The base is the people around you.
	Right?
	Tell me I'm wrong.
	No, you're right.
	I know you're right.
	Of course I'm right.
	Alright, well, I don't want to take up too much more of your time.
	That's my question.
	That's where I'm at.
	I really appreciate you taking the time and all the hours you put in.
	It's my pleasure, and I'm just going to see if my daughter has anything to add.
	One second.
	Oh, you okay?
	Oh, I just got some apple juice.
	You know, sometimes that happens to me.
	Like, I get this tickle in my throat when I'm in the middle of saying something.
	And I'm like...
	Yeah, yeah.
	I'm having some apple juice, so some went down when I wasn't following.
	Oh, no.
	The wrong tube.
	It went down the food tube.
	Oh, and it should be going down the drink tube.
	Yes.
	No good.
	No good.
	Okay, so this man's name is Andrew.
	Would you like to say hi?
	Yeah, where is he from?
	Where is he from?
	Where are you from, Andrew?
	California.
	Oh!
	We're going to California.
	You're going to like the weather here, then.
	Yeah.
	But I'm just concerned it might be too snowy.
	It's going to be very warm.
	Very warm.
	We should tell him the philosophy show.
	What?
	We should tell him the philosophy show.
	Which philosophy show?
	Oh, the bad philosophy show.
	Do you want to do the bad philosophy show one more time?
	Yeah.
	I think he'll love it.
	Would you like him to do a bad philosophy?
	But first...
	Let's do one first, and then we can do it.
	Yeah?
	Okay, go ahead.
	You go.
	Me?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	If you want to have a short show, listen to a free domain radio call-in show.
	Yeah, that's funny.
	That's true.
	If you want to stay hungry, make sure you eat lots of food.
	Um, I don't.
	Andrew, would you like to try one?
	Sure.
	Mine is, uh, if you want your illusions to be healthy, don't call into the Sunday show.
	If you want us to think badly, don't call into the Sunday show.
	If you want to see, I would get covered by an eyeball.
	Alright.
	So, Andrew was talking about that he writes music.
	I'd like to meet him in California.
	Yeah, would you like to?
	You know, remember the song that you were singing on?
	Yeah.
	Not the Christmas song.
	Da-da-da-da-da.
	You remember that one?
	No.
	Da-da-da-da-da.
	Da-da-da-da.
	What?
	Da, da, da, da, da.
	No?
	No?
	Neither.
	What about All the Birds of a Feather?
	You want to sing that?
	Deck the Halls.
	Deck the Halls.
	Well, if people in the chat room want to do some bad philosophy, we'd be happy to read those off.
	In the meantime, let's do Deck the Halls.
	But should I sing with you?
	No.
	Okay, go.
	go.
	Dawn, we now are gay apparel, fa-la-la, la-la-la, la-la-la.
	And you'll tie carol, fa-la-la-la-la, fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la.
	Ooh.
	How was that first go at the last note?
	Not perfect?
	No.
	Not quite perfect, but you gave it great passion.
	I made it on purpose.
	Yeah, I know.
	You were being silly, right?
	Yeah.
	That was funny.
	Let's see what people have to say about the Bad Philosophy Show.
	Let's see here.
	Did they say it's funny?
	Let's see what they say.
	That was funny.
	If you want to stay healthy, eat a pound of bacon a day.
	If you want to get a girlfriend, yell and scream your head off.
	Oh, if you want to light a fire, get some wet wood.
	If you want to have a smile, eat lots and lots of lemons.
	If you want to paint a picture, throw out all your brushes.
	That's bad philosophy.
	Fantastic.
	If you want to make a friend, be really, really mean.
	Can I do one?
	Yeah.
	If you want to have a philosophy show, always be mean.
	That's a good one.
	If you want to have a philosophy show, always be mean.
	If you want to ride a horse, visit a bunny farm.
	If you want to have some power, I'll come to the fifth birthday of me so that you get the power.
	That's right.
	The power went out on your fifth birthday.
	Very exciting.
	Thank you, Baby Cakes.
	Would you like to say bye to everyone?
	Bye, bye, bye.
	All right.
	Okay, well, thanks, everyone.
	Have yourself a...
	Have a great holiday!
	Have a great holiday, and...
	Have a great vacation!
	Thank you, Izzy, for your help with people.
	Have a great vacation.
	Have a great vacation.

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