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March 19, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
28:50
2641 How Can You Stop Animal Abuse?

How would a free society prevent slavery? What are your thoughts about the use of swear words around children? What could be done under an anarchistic system if some psycho is torturing animals?

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Hi everybody, Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
Hope you're doing well.
So, we have some listener questions which have been sent in.
I'm sorry it's been a while since I done got to them, but I'm on them now.
So, you can send your questions in to mailbag at freedomainradio.com and we will try to get to them.
So...
Thomas asks a question, how would a free society prevent slavery?
So a free society, for those not in the know, is a society without a government, where there is spontaneous self-organization, a voluntarist society, you could call it an anarcho-capitalist society, but it's a society without a government.
So how would a free society prevent slavery?
Well, slavery is a manifestation of the state.
And it's like saying, how would a free society prevent the DMV or the Department of Education?
Well, it would not be part of that society.
Slavery is extremely expensive and extremely inefficient.
If you pay a person, that person wants to do a good job, wants to advance, will bring their ideas to the job, and so on.
If they're your slave, they're inert.
They're like a rock.
You push it, they stop.
You push it, so you have to hire all these people to oversee and whip and harm them and so on.
And slavery is very expensive in that your slaves can just run away.
And so the state...
Has to pay for all these slave catchers.
In other words, it has to be illegal to run away if you're a slave.
If each slave owner had to pay for his own slave catchers and all the people to control and whip his slaves and so on, it would not be possible.
Now, a free society is only going to become a free society if certain mindsets are already in place.
So the vast majority of people in a free society must find slavery morally abhorrent, as it is, in which case if you want to set up your own slaves, then you've got to go and catch them.
Those people have to be unprotected by any what I call dispute resolution organizations or organizations there to protect you and help resolve contractual or legal disputes you have with people.
So I don't really think that we're going to have to worry too much about that.
It's like saying, well, why doesn't the next president advocate slavery, the return of slavery?
It's because that offends the moral sensibilities of people in the West.
So we don't really have to worry about slavery coming back in the way that it used to be there.
So I don't think we really have to worry about slavery in a free society.
It's economically inefficient.
The vast majority of people won't want it, which means they'll welcome slaves and protect them, and the contracts won't be enforced.
It was the government that enforced the contracts of buying and selling slaves and captured the slaves and sent them back and so on.
If each individual has to pay for that, it becomes unviable.
How would a free society prevent itself from falling back into tyranny?
I believe I may have had this question once or twice before.
To me, this is sort of like saying, how does the happiest married woman We're good to go.
By the time they're 18, with like 15 or 16 years of peaceful negotiation, they've never been hit, they've never been yelled at, they therefore are not going to become criminals or sociopaths or drink the blood of bunnies or anything like that.
They're going to be nice, convivial, productive, happy people.
This is very well established scientifically that raising happy kids is...
The righteous practice of following the non-aggression principle and not initiating force against them.
So, it's like saying, how would a happy moral person prevent himself from waking up as a sociopath the next day?
It doesn't work that way.
It's like saying, I'm fluent in speaking French, so how am I going to prevent myself from waking up tomorrow not being able to speak French?
So the habits learned in childhood last throughout a lifetime.
Personality is one of the most inert substances known to man.
And so when a society has all the freedom and all the benefits and has the wisdom and strength to identify evildoers very quickly and easily, which good moral people do when not disarmed by various fantasies, there would be no temptation to fall back into tyranny.
Society is not like a person who is addicted to heroin and then gives it up in this teeth-gritting kind of way.
Society of the future is not going to be tempted by evil because it will not have been exposed to evil.
Evil is a temptation once you've had repeated exposure to it and it's harmed and scarred you through child abuse and so on.
So it's not going to be teeth-grittingly avoiding the temptation of falling back into tyranny.
And of course, societies in the future will have a great vested interest in protecting children, which societies in the present simply do not.
Children are resources to be bullied, tyrannized, held hostage by public sector teachers, unions, and sold off to foreign bankers for the sake of a few pounds of hashish and cash in the here and now.
So, I think through national debts and so on.
So, in the future, there's not going to be a temptation.
You know, I... I don't wake up every morning saying, man, just today I'd really like to get through one day without strangling a bunny.
It's not tempting to me.
Same thing will be tyranny in a future society.
How would a free society prevent a major property developer from ruining my view of the ocean?
I don't see how you own the view of the ocean.
You know, I don't see how you own that.
A line of sight is not something you can own unless you buy the land between you and the ocean, right?
So if you're a half mile back from the ocean and you buy the land between you and the ocean, then no one can build there.
And bingo, bingo, bongo, you've got your view protected.
But if you don't own that land, then you save yourself a lot of money.
You don't have to buy the land.
But at that same point, you risk somebody building a big tower to block your view of the ocean.
Sorry, it's a risk.
It's a risk you take.
And so there's ways of bypassing it.
But all right.
How would a free society prevent something like pre-unification Germany from occurring, i.e.
a series of privately owned pieces of land preventing trade and prosperity by charging tariffs?
It is not just a statist practice.
So, okay, so let me see if I understand this.
So Bob builds the mall and then charges a tariff to enter the mall?
That's not going to happen.
Um...
Why would Bob charge people to come into the mall?
You don't get charged to go to a mall.
And if Bob goes to his investors and say, well, I'm going to charge people 50 bucks to come to my mall, they're going to say, well, why would they pay 50 bucks to come to your mall when every other mall in their own universe is free?
They're not going to give him any money.
These things simply won't occur.
To do a major capital project like building a mall, you need to get investors.
And investors ask, and trust me, I've both been on the receiving end and the delivery end of these kinds of questions.
They ask 6 million questions about what could go wrong.
And if you propose in a free society, buying a bunch of land and then charging people to cross it, nobody's going to want to work with you.
Nobody's going to want to invest in it because they will get, you know, oh, ABC Group invested in this jerk who bought 100 acres and is charging people to cross it and so on.
Nobody's going to want to do business with them.
You're not going to get the capital.
It's going to be just annoying and people don't like that kind of stuff.
So in a free society, this stuff simply, there's so many checks and balances in a free society.
If you want to be an asshole, you're going to actually have to pay for it personally.
And maybe there will be a few people who will.
Who will build, buy 100 acres and set up fences around it and charge people to cross it.
Okay?
So nobody wants to do business with them.
Nobody wants to deliver electricity to their house.
Nobody wants to deliver water to their house.
Nobody wants to fill their gas or sell them groceries until they stop being jerks.
Economic ostracism is more powerful than prison.
right now because we have prison and we have a monopoly.
I mean, it's used in some places, like on eBay and other online auction sites.
Economic ostracism, i.e. don't do business with somebody who's got a terrible reputation rating, does occur, which is why eBay is one of the world's largest employees with over 350,000 people making their full-time living from it with no access to a government.
And if somebody does want to blow their money being a jerk, Then they're separated from their money.
They spend all their money being a jerk, and then they die, and the money has passed into the hands of people who aren't going to be jerks, and that's better.
John asks, I heard your podcast about lying to kids regarding Santa Claus stories, and I'm curious about your thoughts regarding children and the use of swear or cuss words.
I don't mean swearing at them, but letting colorful language fly in their presence.
I do not swear around my daughter, and I don't let other people swear around my daughter.
And that is because she's five and does not understand the social impact of strong words.
I don't mind swear words.
I will swear occasionally on my show if the mood doth strike.
But she can't understand the social impact on her friends, on other people, in hearing F-bombs and so on come out of the mouth of a five-year-old.
So because she can't understand the words, the power that they have, the impact they have on others, and can't use them wisely, we restrain that.
I mean, I don't let her drive either.
So we restrain that from her.
She's got a bit of curiosity about it.
But she's not exposed to it.
She doesn't even know what those words are.
And so...
I don't think she's ready, and it's not a big problem, though.
Warren writes, the hoifong plant that creates the amazing sriracha sauce in Los Angeles has come under the scrutiny of late for odd and potentially harmful or hazardous odors affecting the surrounding neighborhoods.
I need to find a clean, clear, and crisp...
Way of outlining to those I may debate with how this issue is resolved in a stateless society or a libertarian society.
Yeah, I mean, when I was doing my master's, I lived in a room, a house, actually, with four gay guys and a lesbian.
Fantastic.
Pristine and beautiful.
I had actually a...
A girlfriend of mine came over and said to her boyfriend when she saw this absolutely gorgeous kitchen, she said, you know what?
Just be gay.
I would give up sex for a kitchen like this.
Not actually a bad way of looking at it, but behind the place I lived in Toronto was an abattoir, and yes, it stunk.
And I saved money.
I spent 270 bucks for a room in the house, and it was cheaper because sometimes it smelled.
So, if you want to keep...
The smell good, it's easy enough.
You simply buy stink insurance.
Stink insurance.
And what happens is you pay $50 or $20 or whatever it's going to be a month to a company, and that company guarantees that your air is going to smell good, or at least not smell bad.
And so a bunch of people pay into this thing, and then...
This company has, you know, millions of dollars a month in income that depends upon them keeping the air clean.
So they're going to make sure nobody builds around, they're going to buy up land if necessary to make sure people don't build, and so on.
And the free rider concept is going to be pretty easy.
Neighborhoods can enforce this very easily.
You get a sticker on your car if you have been part of the Clean Air Insurance Fund, and if you're not, people are going to not invite you to their barbecues.
This is how you get things done in a civilized society and throw people in jail.
So, you just get the insurance, and then if the insurance company makes a mistake and some bad smell occurs, then they will pay to move you to a place of your location, or they'll pay to clean it up, or they'll pay to whatever, right?
So, you just buy insurance.
Is that perfect?
No, of course not.
But so what?
I mean, it's not perfect.
There's no, boom, magical solution called government which resolves all problems.
Government is to social programs like God is to physics, you know?
Don't know.
God!
Ah!
I answered it!
One syllable.
Isn't that amazing?
Don't know how it's going to happen.
Government!
Ah!
I answered it.
One syllable.
It's amazing.
Well, more than one syllable.
One word.
It's amazing.
Government doesn't answer anything.
There's an old story from...
I guess, anarcho-capitalist law.
Murray Rothbard was writing about the 19th century and a bunch of Apple farmers who had orchards outside of London, of course, the satanic mills came up and belched forth their smoke and coated the apples in soot using an old common law thing where if you pour crap onto my property, whether it's water or soot or anything, you destroy my property, I will take you to court for restitution.
They went to the court and the government said, hmm, factories are paying us a whole lot more taxes than the farmers, so screw you farmers, we're siding with the factories for the social good.
So pollution is not solved by the problems.
The solution is not solved by the state.
But what you want is people whose direct financial interest is meshed in with the provision of whatever environmental protection you want.
So that would be my suggestion.
Nate asks, if a philosopher offers you a theory with a claim that do X and you will achieve your best chance at Y, if you implement such a theory and don't move towards Y or move towards the opposite of Y, does this invalidate the theory?
Are you able to rightfully call a theory wrong, despite the reason and evidence behind it?
Well, if there's evidence behind it, but you don't...
Have it, that evidence, then there's evidence against it, right?
So if you do X and don't achieve Y, like if I say massive promiscuity will breed long-term happiness, right?
Now, if there's reason and evidence behind it, then if it doesn't work for you, there's some exception, which is important, right?
So an individual's experience does not necessarily invalidate a theory.
So reason equals virtue equals happiness is not the same for everyone.
Some people, if you end up being rational, some very fortunate people, tragically a minority, they're rational, and they're like, wow, you know, I took the red pill, I woke up, I'm out of the matrix, and I'm going to talk to my friends and family about my new thoughts.
And the friends and family say, wow, that's great stuff, man.
That's really cool.
I've never thought of it that way.
Tell me more.
The magic words of growth, right?
Tell me more.
Whereas the majority of people, they start thinking for themselves and rationally questioning the ethics of the society they live in, and all the fires of hell descend upon them from every offended, uptight, stressed-out, state-dependent jerk around them.
And they then become known as the lunatic, the tinfoil hat guy, the conspiracy theorist who thinks all the government people are out to get him and you can't bring it up at Thanksgiving dinner or anything like that.
So does that person become happy?
Well, not immediately and maybe not for a while.
So one guy starts thinking and talking with people, becomes happy very quickly.
Another guy has to go through hellfire.
Those relationships may not survive, or he'll try and stuff his thinking for himself in a drainpipe and flush it out with sulfuric acid into outer space.
So, I don't know.
So, he says, I'm concerned with the actual testings of the theories and not so much the ones where the theory has little chance of validation.
Like, if you're in a maximum security prison and you're putting RTR, that's real-time relationships, speaking honestly about your thoughts and feelings with someone in the moment.
You're putting RTR into practice, into every faucet, I think he means facet, of your life.
The theory not working out, perhaps achieving a worse state, wouldn't be that surprising.
Since theories of life are...
Okay, so...
I go by a general maxim, which has been quite well validated in a wide variety of situations.
I got this from my college roommate.
Hi, Rich!
I treat people the best I can the first time I meet them, and after that I treat them the way that they treat me.
So, great.
You can treat someone the best if they're honest, if they're honorable, if they're open, if they're committed, if they're friendly, if they're virtuous, then great.
You know, we share that.
If they turn out to be a manipulative jerk, I have no compunction whatsoever about being a manipulative jerk if necessary with such people.
So, I treat people the best I can when I first meet them, and after that, I treat them the way that they treat me.
So I don't think that you owe people honesty and depth and connection and every facet and nook and cranny of your heart as a whole every time you meet them.
No.
Absolutely not.
If someone steals from you, you can steal it right back.
You don't respect their property rights if they're not respecting your property rights.
That's the whole concept behind self-defense.
If someone's going to use force against you, you damn well use force against them.
You treat them the way that they treat you.
So people have to earn virtuous behavior from me.
They don't have to earn it the first time, but they certainly have to earn it afterwards.
All right, I'm having trouble understanding two separate things you had said when placed together.
You said you do not affiliate with status, especially not beyond a certain point of discussion.
But you had also said at another time that one should do everything to maintain a positive relationship with one's own parents if you decide to have kids of your own.
Suppose one's own parents happen to be unrepentant statists.
Suppose one wished to move to a different country, like Doug Casey or Jeff Berwick.
What takes priority?
Okay, so for those who don't understand, I don't affiliate with statists because a statists want me thrown in jail and possibly raped for peaceful disagreements with them.
It's called the against me argument.
So, I don't use drugs and I never have, but, well, decaf accepted, but...
But I believe that people have the right to use drugs, of course.
I mean, it's a peaceful activity and, you know, obviously makes some people enormously creative and so on.
So I'm fine with people using drugs.
Now, let's say I did like to use drugs, smoke marijuana or something like that.
Somebody who was for the drug war wants me thrown in jail for that.
They want armed thugs to come to my house, drag me away, lock me in a car, lock me in a cage for months or years because of what I want to do.
I do not like being forced to pay taxes to support programs I find deeply immoral.
A war and the growing dependency of the underclass on the welfare state and the massive bailouts to the banksters at the top of the financial hierarchy.
I find this stuff deeply evil.
And if I disagree with a statist about this, they want me arrested, locked in the cage, possibly raped for years.
That is not a civilized interaction.
I don't put a mask of virtue on a fist in the face.
When I'm talking and the other person is pulling out a gun, I don't pretend we're having a pleasant conversation.
And statists support the use of violence against me when I peacefully disagree with them.
I don't agree with the welfare state.
I think it's immoral.
I don't agree with the bailouts for the bankers.
I think it's deeply immoral.
I don't agree with the national debt.
It is deeply immoral.
I don't agree with foreign policy and war.
It is immoral.
I don't agree with forcing children to go to school and forcing parents to pay for crappy schools.
It is immoral.
I am not allowed to disagree with statists because they will call upon their...
Goon thugs as an airstrike to come in and drag me off to jail.
It's not a civilized interaction.
I'm not going to pretend that it is.
So, if you have kids of your own, if their grandparents can be involved in their life, I think that's fantastic.
And it's very good for the children if they have grandparents involved in their life, statistically.
Wonderful.
But not if their grandparents are KKK members or Nazis or, you know, extreme status.
So, you don't have to bring up the against me argument, you know, that you want me thrown in jail for disagreeing with you.
You don't have to do anything.
You can have a shallow relationship where you talk about sports and the weather.
You can do whatever you want.
I'm not a big person to tell other people what to do.
So, um...
I don't want to expose my daughter to people whose ethics result in great evils against me.
I mean, if I was a black guy, I wouldn't be friends with an unrepentant advocate of the KKK. Like, I just wouldn't.
If I was a Jew, I would not be friends with an advocate of Nazism who wanted me arrested and put in a concentration camp.
I mean, we understand that.
It's just tougher to see with anarchism and status because, you know, it's a minority and a majority and so on.
So it's completely up to you.
My choice is I don't have status in my life.
I am not going to explain to my daughter why I have people in my life who I pretend to be friends with, who I pretend to have civilized conversations with, who fundamentally want me kidnapped and thrown in a rape cage if I disagree with them peacefully.
I'm just not...
How can I have any moral authority with myself or with other people if I'm willing to ignore that there's a gun in the room when I'm talking to a whole bunch of people?
But you can do whatever you want.
This is just my particular choice.
I mean, I don't give orders.
That would be insane.
All right.
I'm in my senior year.
It's only a few days to go.
He says, I come to even know that another economic collapse could happen.
I'm financially dependent on my parents.
Advice in a similar situation.
Okay, so...
If there is going to be an economic dislocation, and there will be mathematically, it's going to be, it may not be catastrophic, but there is mathematically going to be a significant adjustment.
That which mathematically cannot continue will not continue, and so on.
And the best thing that you can do is find great friends with shared values and get to know them really well.
Learn some skills that are going to be useful outside of browsing YouTube and playing on an Xbox.
Up your human capital.
Learn things that are of value and become a repository of value within your own head and within your own body.
Stay physically healthy, physically strong, and learn useful outdoorsy style skills.
I think that's the way that I would do it.
That's what I'm up to.
And that would be my suggestion.
If you're going to go for education, I think going for education is a great thing to do.
There are two kinds of education.
Education which leads to job and the arts.
And I would strongly suggest staying away from arts degrees at the moment.
You can get all of this information online.
All of the major colleges and universities have their curriculums online.
You can get all of this great stuff online.
I don't really think that you need to go to a four-year college to learn about the history of education.
I did take half an English degree.
I took a history degree.
I went to the National Theatre School in Montreal for two years, studied acting and playwriting, and I got a Master's in History focusing on the history of philosophy from the University of Toronto.
So I did the arts thing.
Fortunately, I managed to make a career out of it by being a podcaster, but before that, based upon my hobby interest in computers and programming, which started at about the age of 11, I was in the computer field as an entrepreneur and So, if you've got something that you're interested in, like history or English and so on, I think you should study that outside of school.
But if there's something like you want to be an accountant or you want to be a lawyer or you want to be a dentist or you want to be a doctor where the education and the state licensing is essential, then that is a different matter.
Those things will almost always be in demand and you can do that.
So, that's my particular thoughts and ideas about that.
Alright, still last one.
I would say...
What could be done under an anarchic system if some psycho is torturing animals?
I don't think there's anything one can do without a government short of vigilante justice.
Why?
And that is a messy idea.
The only other thing I can think of is forming some sort of non-violent protest to try and persuade the guy to stop.
But I don't know how effective that would really be.
Well...
The protection of animals, which I think is a very important job in the world.
The protection of animals requires the protection of children.
The way that we protect animals in the world is we treat children with great empathy, and then those children will treat animals with great empathy.
It flows downhill.
Expecting children to treat animals kindly without treating children kindly is like expecting to drop them off in Beijing and expect them to suddenly speak Mandarin without ever having been exposed to it.
So the way that we protect animals in society is we protect children.
A lot of people want to go and protect the animals or protect the environment and so on without first focusing on let's not spank, let's not circumcise, let's not hill hit, let's stay home with our kids, let's breastfeed for at least six months, all the things that are well known and well proven To create bottomless wells of empathy in children.
Once we get those things done, we won't have to worry really about the environment or animals.
People will take care of the environment and people will take care of the animals.
So, in a free society, you're going to have a free society where the majority of people are raised with great empathy and have great care and concern for animals.
So if some idiot is out there torturing animals, maybe he's got a brain tumor, maybe he got hit by lightning, maybe he got some brain injury, and he's lost his empathy centers or something, well, this is going to be disagreeable to people.
So either people know about it or they don't.
Now, if they know about it, I mean, he can go live where he lives, right?
That's his house, assuming he owns it.
But people aren't going to want to sell him food.
They're not going to want to deliver electricity to his house.
To participate economically in a modern society, people have to kind of like to do business with you.
And the vast majority of people in a free society will find the torturing of animals morally repugnant, reprehensible, and horrible, as do I. And there's so many ways to do it peacefully.
You simply stop participating with someone until they get help.
And if you don't participate with people in a neighborhood, and economically or socially, it's almost impossible for them to survive.
And so that's, I would imagine, how it would be done.
In a free society, of course, the government doesn't do anything to help animals.
I mean, wars regularly, they bomb the living crap out of animals.
There's all kinds of testing for the most shallow and stupid shit in the world, like makeup on animals and...
It's just wretched.
I mean, the kind of factory farming that goes on is largely driven by agricultural subsidies, which small farmers and more humane farmers can't compete with.
And the subsidization that goes on in the meat industry makes meat that much cheaper relative to things like vegetables.
You know, it takes, what, $7?
Pounds of corn to make one pound of meat, so why isn't meat seven times more expensive and so on than corn?
Well, this is because the government distorts all these things.
The true cost of meat should be borne by the consumer.
That would vastly drive down the costs of the consumption of meat and so on.
So this is a very brief thing.
You treat children better and everything in the world gets better.
And any time you try and step over the problem of treating children better and try and deal with the problem without including treating kids better, you're really just wasting your time.
I mean, you may be posturing morally for yourself, but you're just necking with a mirror and thinking you're on a hot date.
So this is Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Main Radio.
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