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April 7, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:30:04

2657 Why You Were Bullied - Sunday Call In Show April 6th, 2014

Clear ethics require action, the end of flagpole scenarios, nonexistent parental bonds, universally preferable behavior, defining self-ownership and avoiding responsibility through bad philosophy.

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	Good morning, everybody.
	Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
	I hope you're doing...
	Well, I guess I can only say magnificently.
	I hope you're doing magnificently.
	This morning, this afternoon, this evening, hello!
	Thousand years in the future?
	Oh, yes.
	That's where I plant my delusional grandiose flag in how long these conversations are going to be of utility to mankind.
	You will be played for millennia, but don't let there be any pressure on the callers.
	Mike...
	Good morning.
	Good morning, Steph.
	Up first today, we have Chris.
	Wait, how are you doing this morning?
	You good?
	I'm good, I'm good.
	The caffeine's flowing through the bloodstream, you know, in a Motel 6 hotel room.
	I've mixed it up a little.
	What I've done is I've tried to inject some blood into my caffeine stream.
	And it's actually making me tired.
	So it's not the way to go for me, clearly, but I'm glad it's working for you.
	Can we replace your blood with bulletproof coffee?
	Is that an option?
	And that way I'll need less Kevlar.
	No, I am good.
	And up first today is Mr.
	Chris.
	And Chris has some questions regarding UPB, which I will let him ask you directly.
	But are you on the line, Chris?
	I am here.
	Can you hear me?
	Loud and clear.
	Okay, perfect.
	Stefan, it's great to finally talk to you.
	Well, thank you.
	Nice to chat with you, too.
	Basically, I've been trying to engage in Facebook debates with friends regarding UPB because, to be honest with you, I have for the longest time thought that what What we need is some sort of secular definition of morality.
	And I came across UPB, and I found it pretty fascinating.
	And I just have a few questions.
	One more of a clarification, because in these debates, people googled arguments against you.
	It seems like my understanding when I listened to your first podcast...
	Wait, wait, wait a sec.
	Wait a sec.
	Sorry to interrupt.
	So people Googled...
	I hadn't really thought of that.
	They Googled arguments against UPB? Yeah, they did.
	That's so sad.
	Well, from my perspective, since I was trying to engage people anyway, I was actually somewhat impressed with the effort.
	No, that's not effort.
	That's not effort.
	Sorry to be annoying.
	That's like, oh, here's something I don't quite understand.
	I better Google it.
	I thought Google replaced our memory, which was kind of like a useful thing.
	It was a good thing.
	I didn't realize that Google was actually replacing our critical thinking faculties as well.
	So that's interesting.
	That's interesting.
	I mean, it really is like, oh, just go look up the answer, right?
	Well, I see your point.
	I definitely see your point.
	That's just new for me.
	I don't think I ever would have imagined if I had an argument to evaluate to Google criticisms of it.
	That is really fucking lazy.
	I'm sorry I have to say that.
	I really have to point out thinking is a very individual act.
	And if people's first inkling is, oh, here's an idea that's really important, that's tricky to understand, I'd better Google the answer.
	Or Google the criticisms or whatever.
	I mean, that's...
	I gotta say that's kind of terrible.
	But anyway, neither here nor there.
	I just wanted to sort of share my reaction to it.
	Well, and to be honest with you, I hadn't read any of these criticisms either because I hadn't thought of Googling.
	Yeah, because you had thought.
	Yeah.
	But it seems like one primary thing, people seem to be nitpicky about what UPB is.
	And my understanding based on, you know, I started listening to your podcast from the beginning and it's going to take me a long time to get caught up.
	So I kind of gave up on that idea.
	But it seemed like it was more because people seem to go after the, well, It's universally preferable to breathe, but some people are suicidal and don't want to breathe, so how does UPB apply to them?
	And it seems to me more...
	But these are people who haven't read the damn book, and this is why it's so difficult to go into criticisms without the source material.
	Right.
	And I've got to tell you, that is such an obvious objection to UPB. That if the book is worth discussing at all, I must have addressed that objection in the book.
	Right, and I have read the book.
	Otherwise, I'm just a complete mouth breather who's typing with his forehead, you know, while masturbating.
	Which, although fun, is not actually how I produced the book.
	But anyway, go ahead.
	Well, so, then, just to clarify my understanding so I can address the objection, it's more...
	There's...
	I took it from an evolutionary perspective that if a person wants to survive, there are certain universally preferable behaviors they must engage in to survive.
	So, you know, that would be breathing, eating.
	If you're suicidal, well, then you don't want to survive, and so then you fall...
	It doesn't apply to you anymore.
	Well, see, I mean, and the clue is in the title.
	I mean, this is what's so funny, and this is how...
	Tragic our critical thinking is these days.
	Because the title is not universally preferred behavior, right?
	In other words, everybody must prefer this at all times.
	Or I am describing that which everybody universally prefers at all times.
	That would be universally preferred behavior.
	Universally preferable is different, right?
	This is going to describe universally preferable behavior in the realm of ethics.
	Now, in the realm of ethics, who gives a shit whether somebody decides to breathe or not?
	That's not a moral choice.
	Suicide is not a moral choice.
	Because we own ourselves, we can morally destroy our own property.
	Like if I said to you, I got so angry at my iPhone that I threw it against the wall and it broke.
	Now, you might not think that I'm the most mature person in the known universe, right?
	But you wouldn't say, well, shit, I've got to call the cops.
	You destroyed property, right?
	It's not a moral issue to destroy your own property.
	And you own yourself, and if you choose to destroy yourself, i.e.
	suicide, that's not a moral issue.
	Right.
	So it would not.
	So the question of whether somebody decides to breathe or not would not fall.
	And that's why there's no chapter on suicide in UPB. Right.
	Okay.
	So, I mean, I didn't want to belabor that one because I thought it was pretty straightforward.
	And I just wanted to make sure that I was understanding properly and not misrepresenting you or the theory.
	Right.
	So my next question is, I mean, going through these criticisms, I agree completely that there are going to be lifeboat situations, and I listened to your podcasts in response to that, particularly the FDR 1029, where you went through the guy dangling off the building, and does he swing into the apartment and violate someone's property rights to save his life situation?
	Okay.
	The concern I had with that more is it sounded like an argument from effect, which is why the argument for morality is supposed to exist.
	Because you're saying, you were giving the idea that if the property owner had the option of okaying the breaking of his window, he probably would.
	But that doesn't That doesn't seem sufficient if what we're trying to do is to say something in all circumstances, it would be moral or immoral.
	And my answer to that, and I'm just curious if you'd agree with this, is I don't think life situations are so important because it's not so much...
	Sorry, hang on.
	I'm sorry to interrupt, but just before we move on, right?
	Sure.
	There is a tendency in our thinking to try and imagine that ethics is like physics.
	And I mean all soft sciences or all soft disciplines, like psychology, like sociology, and to some degree like philosophy, have like physics envy.
	Like, oh my god, if only we could have the precision and certainty of physics, wouldn't that be great?
	Right?
	But the problem with that with regards to ethics Is that no objection means no violation, which is not true with ethics, sorry, with physics, right?
	With physics, it doesn't matter whether you like or don't like something, it just is the way it is, right?
	Right.
	I mean, if you throw a banana peel out of your car window, that's one thing.
	If you throw a diamond ring by accident out of your car window, that's another thing.
	But physics doesn't care about your preferences, right?
	Right.
	But the problem is that ethics really does.
	And it's not subjective.
	It doesn't make everything subjective.
	What it means is that if you throw a brick through my window and jump into my house, I don't know you, I don't want you there, you say I'm here to rob you, clearly that's breaking and entering, right?
	Right.
	Right?
	If you dive through my window...
	And there's a lion chasing you.
	That's not the same, right?
	It isn't the same, but my take on this, which I wanted to get your thoughts on...
	No, no, wait.
	Sorry, I'm still bidding the case for something.
	That's not breaking and entering.
	Because you are under a situation of no choice, right?
	So the guy who goes through my window with a gun and says, you know, give me your valuables, is acting willfully out of a situation of infinite choice, right?
	He could have done anything.
	The man who's been chased by a lion, this did actually happen.
	I mean, that's why it sort of popped into my head.
	I think in Africa, a guy banged on someone's door, he's been chased by a lion.
	And so, if you're being chased by a lion, you're not in a situation of choice, right?
	And ethics requires that you be in a situation of choice, which is why you put a gun to someone's head.
	There's no way to morally evaluate what they're going to do after that.
	I can morally evaluate you putting a gun to their head.
	I cannot morally evaluate what they do after that, because they're not in a situation of choice anymore, which common law has recognized since the dawn of time, so...
	I don't think we need to discuss that too deeply.
	But if you borrow something, like let's say I have a standing arrangement, you can use my car anytime, and then you drive off with my car, you're not stealing, right?
	Well, right.
	But if I don't know who you are and you drive off with my car without my permission, then you are stealing.
	So ethics only applies in situations of choice And offense.
	Stealing is not an objective action.
	Stealing is in the response of the person whose property is being taken.
	That's where stealing originates.
	That's what it is.
	It's in the objection.
	Right?
	So if you kick in a window because you're hanging from a flagpole, and the person doesn't object, then there is no moral Evaluation that's possible.
	Because it's not break and enter.
	It's like I'm glad to have given you shelter from falling to your death.
	That's a pretty good day to save someone's life, right?
	So there's no objection.
	And we understand this, right?
	You can have rough sex if the woman doesn't object, the man doesn't object.
	It's not rape.
	Rape is in the objection.
	At the time, not later, at the time.
	And so these moral categories of negative actions are created in the response of the person being acted upon.
	If I'm fine with you taking my car, you didn't steal it.
	And so I just really wanted to point that out, that lifeboat scenarios are usually, they obviously involve coercion, in which case, or they usually involve coercion or no choice, in which case there's no real moral category.
	To be evaluated.
	And secondly, they assume a negative response on the part of the person being acted upon.
	In other words, I'm hanging from a flagpole, I kick in someone's window, and then they charge me with breaking and entering.
	I mean, that's not going to happen.
	It's really not.
	And even if it does happen, How many juries are going to say, shit, yeah, put that asshole in jail.
	Broke into the guy's house.
	They're not going to do that.
	It's not going to have a negative repercussion to the person saving his own life.
	Now, the person saving his own life will probably offer to pay restitution for the window and stuff like that and so on, right?
	But anyway, I just wanted to sort of point that out, that it's not.
	But go ahead.
	I get your perspective on that.
	And maybe, I mean, in your example, I can definitely see that most people would be fine with it.
	They'd be glad someone's life was saved.
	And you even addressed the fact that if the guy was a jerk and still has a problem with the window being broken, there are ways to deal with that.
	My take on the whole lifebook scenario is to just say, even when I was debating with a friend, he said, well, what if some guy had on his property and his property alone a cure for cancer, like some plant that would cure cancer?
	And he is going to publish all this, all this sort of stuff, and then has a change of heart and he's going to burn all the plants.
	And some guy comes on his property and steals the plant because he thinks that's the better option or whatever.
	My take is that in these situations, the act is always wrong.
	It's just the question of, well, would a jury convict?
	I think it's important if we're going to have moral rules, the moral, we don't It gets watered down once we start making exceptions.
	We just say, it was wrong, but would you punish the person?
	Has this ever happened?
	Well, it's not so much...
	I mean, no, no.
	That's my first question.
	Has this ever happened?
	Look, why would...
	Let's say it's a naturally occurring plant, and it's not just going to occur on one guy's place, right?
	Now, if it's some sort of weird hybrid plant that he's grown in his greenhouse and so on...
	Then he's obviously grown this plant with care and attention with the goal of doing something with it, right?
	I mean, if he's found out that it's cured cancer, what that means is that he's submitted it to a lab, they've done double-blind experiments, and the lab has tons of samples of these plants.
	This couldn't happen.
	How would you even know this goddamn thing cures cancer?
	Unless some lab has figured it out and has all the copies of it.
	Well, right, but I think you squash all these kind of scenarios if you just say it's always right or whatever the act is, it's always right or wrong.
	The question is, would you punish someone for breaking...
	No, no, no, no, no.
	Look, you can't...
	What are the ethics of unicorn hunting?
	I think we've got more important things to do.
	This is a scenario that can't possibly happen.
	And look, I'm willing to put the theory to the challenge.
	But it's like saying, well, your cure for cancer doesn't cure orcs and Klingons and hobbits, and therefore we should not apply it to human beings.
	It's like, but those are imaginary.
	And we have real human beings who have cancer.
	And so people come up with scenarios that couldn't possibly happen and then say that this is a challenge to a theory.
	But that's like, I mean, it literally is like saying, your theory of physics doesn't account for ghosts, therefore fail.
	Okay.
	But these things, like, this couldn't, you understand, this couldn't possibly occur.
	How would you even know?
	Without multi-year testing and double-blind experiments, you'd have no idea whether this thing cured cancer or not.
	So it couldn't happen that there's just some mystery plant that everybody knows cures cancer on some guy's property.
	Nobody else has any, and he doesn't want to.
	Give it or sell it to anyone.
	I mean, this just couldn't happen.
	So, you know, sorry, that's just irrelevant.
	It's a made-up nonsense scenario.
	It's an alternate dimension example.
	And so you don't want to address my...
	I would just rather get...
	Because my interest in it is having a complete theory that...
	And not having to deal with lifebook questions ever again because the...
	Oh, no, no.
	You will always deal with lifeboat questions.
	And I understand them.
	Look, let me tell you a little personal story, right?
	So, I don't know.
	I don't even know how many years ago now it's becoming more fingers and toes than I have to calculate.
	But when I was very young, you know, I had a wide variety of jobs.
	And one of the jobs that I decided during a terrible recession, I think it was in the early 90s, I couldn't get jobs doing anything.
	I mean, not even waitering, nothing, right?
	I ended up like Cleaning people's cars, and I weeded people's gardens, and I even took some old lady around town for a week or two because she was visiting and the family was too busy.
	So they fobbed her off on a young stranger, which, you know, even at the time I thought was kind of hinky.
	But one of the jobs I went for was security guard.
	I ended up not doing any security guard stuff, but I went for the training.
	And in the training, You know, they said that, you know, your job as a security guard in, say, an apartment building, if you're behind the desk, is to make sure that everyone who goes up into the apartment building or the condo building has permission to go there, right?
	So, you know, someone says, I want to go and see Rachel in apartment 14, and you call up to Rachel in apartment 14, and she says, okay, and then the guy goes up, she says, no, you can't let him up, right?
	Now, immediately...
	I went to, well, what if she says okay and then changes her mind before the guy goes up, right?
	And the guy just kind of rolled his eyes at me and says, you know, you figure it out.
	You call the cop.
	I've never had this happen 20 years, right?
	It's never happened where someone says, yeah, send him up, and then calls down 30 seconds later and says, oh, God, don't send him up, right?
	It just doesn't happen, but, you know, you call the cops or whatever.
	It was sort of irrelevant, right?
	But this is sort of where I went to and that's because I was young and screwed up.
	And the reason that lifeboat scenarios exist, in my opinion, and in 30 years of debating experience, is for two reasons.
	One is that clear ethics require action.
	And if people can pick at ethical theories then they don't have to act.
	Right, which is why people make up a bunch of imaginary nonsense so that they can say, well, that ethical theory doesn't work and then they don't have to act in an ethical manner.
	Right, so, you know, my apologies that UPB only deals with 99.9999999% of the evil in the world and you can make up or imagine scenarios where.0000001% of scenarios Couldn't be covered or might not be covered or whatever, even if they've never happened, even if they couldn't happen, right?
	Yeah.
	But it's interesting how this guy says there's a cure for cancer.
	Now, let's say that there is a cure for cancer, and you can ask him this, or you can play this back to him.
	So let's say there is a cure for cancer.
	Well, very few cures are 100% efficacious, right?
	Some cures will always never work, right?
	Yeah.
	And so the funny thing is that let's say there's a cure for cancer and it only cures 99.99999% of people.
	Would he then say, well, I'm not going to apply the cure to anyone because there are some theoretical scenarios under which the cure might not work?
	Would he focus on that?
	No.
	He'd tell the people, listen, this thing has a 1 in 100,000 chance of not curing you.
	Do you want to take it?
	And what do you think most cancer patients would say?
	Right.
	Hell yeah.
	Give it to me.
	Right?
	But they wouldn't say, I'm throwing out the whole cure because there's one in 100,000 people that it won't cure, or might not cure, or could possibly not cure.
	So, the funny thing is he's talking, he wants to throw out or oppose an ethical theory based upon a cure for cancer, which is not a standard he would ever apply to that cure for cancer, right?
	Right.
	This is how silly it is.
	The first reason is they don't want to act.
	If you get UPB and you understand it deals with rape, assault, theft and murder, which is 99.9999999% of the evils which strike society, particularly when those ills are visited on children.
	Let's say it's just spanking and yelling.
	Yelling at children is a violation of UPB because It harms them physically, and they can't escape.
	Even though you're not hitting them, well, if you starve someone in your basement, you're not hitting them either, but you're still harming their bodies, right?
	So let's say that the only thing that you take out of UPB is spanking and verbal abuse against children.
	Well, you got your lifetime's work cut out for you.
	I mean, you've taken on more than any human being could possibly achieve in his or her lifetime.
	To take on those things.
	You'll never run out of moral crusades if those are the only, let alone taxation and war and the state and the military and prison guards and the court system and police.
	Forget all of that stuff.
	National debts, counterfeiting, the Federal Reserve, central banking.
	Even if you just take any one of those items, which are all very well dealt with in UPB, just take one of those items.
	That's your entire life's work right there and you won't be done when you're dead.
	So why wouldn't people take that?
	Because they don't want to act.
	They don't want to be certain about ethics.
	They want to paralyze themselves with regards to ethics because otherwise they have to act.
	And when you act on ethical principles, it brings you into conflict with evil people who can be mean and difficult and dangerous and all that.
	And look, I can understand that.
	I mean, not everyone is cut out for that kind of heroism.
	So then you can...
	The reality that it's not a fight you have the stomach for.
	It's not a fight you have the balls for.
	Well, just say.
	You know, I find ethics kind of uncomfortable because I don't like getting into conflict with evil people.
	I mean, that's fine.
	I don't criticize that at all because that's a true statement of clear self-knowledge.
	But instead, what they do is they try and say, because they don't want to confront their own...
	I mean, it's hard to say it's cowardice.
	But it kind of is.
	If they're interested in ethics but don't want to fight evil people, well, that's...
	You know, like, well, I really want to cure cancer, but I don't want to harm any cancer cells.
	Well, then you don't really want to cure cancer, then do you?
	Right?
	The whole point of curing cancer is harming the cancer cells.
	And hopefully not the other cells.
	And the whole point of being involved in ethics is to fight evil people.
	I mean, that's what you do.
	They're the cancer of human society, and if you're an anti-cancer guy, then you want to harm cancer cells.
	That's the whole definition of what it is to be an anti-cancer guy, and if you're a moralist, then you want to harm evil people.
	That's the whole point.
	I mean, there's no point having an immune system that doesn't attack any foreign cells or viruses or bacteria or anything like that.
	I mean, that's the whole point of the immune system.
	That's what it's for, not to shake hands with them or say, well, you know, I can't attack this flu, sorry, but under some scenarios, a Klingon flu might be unattackable, right?
	I mean, that's not what you want your immune system to do.
	So I think it's important to not get dragged into the emotional mess that are lifeboat scenarios, right?
	Because just, I mean, the way that you find this out, right?
	Is you just simply say to the person, well, do you accept that UPB deals with the vast majority of cases of theft, assault, rape, and murder?
	Now, they have to, because it does.
	It does.
	Now, if you then say, okay, well, isn't that enough work for you to do in this world?
	Isn't that enough work for you to work on?
	We're never going to make much of a dent in these things as individuals.
	It's a multi-generational project, so that's enough, right?
	That's enough.
	You don't have to, you know, you don't have to close off that 1 in 100,000 cancer patients that the cure might not cure in order to start curing all the people that it will, right?
	Selfish mean.
	And the funny thing is this guy is talking about withholding a cancer cure, but he is withholding his support for an ethics cure, which is even more important than a cancer cure.
	He is the guy in the story, right?
	Because he's nitpicking at bullshit.
	When the world dies from a lack of clear ethics.
	He is the guy.
	Everyone's always like, oh, this pharmacist has a cure for your wife, but he won't release it.
	He just keeps it in his pharmacy, blah-de-blah-de-blah.
	Well, these are all the goddamn people nitpicking at ethics.
	Stop fucking nitpicking and go and fight some evil people for Christ's sake.
	Okay, so that's a perfect segue because one thing that I've, what I seem to notice In my listening podcast, I read the book, all that sort of stuff, is UPB is great for the thou shalt nots, which is 99% of things, at least if we're trying to cure evil and whatnot.
	And I certainly get why that makes sense, because If you have a moral rule that says, thou shalt not, as long as you're not doing that thing, you can be a moral person.
	I get that logic.
	Well, no, no.
	No, sorry.
	I don't think that follows.
	I don't think you can say, well, as long as I'm not stealing, I'm moral.
	Okay, you're obeying that moral rule.
	Sorry.
	Well, no, you're just not immoral.
	Well, I thought in your...
	You can't have a moral rule that says thou shalt murder because the person being murdered can't be murdered.
	No, no, no.
	I understand that.
	So, sorry, if you violate UPB rules, then you're immoral.
	Right.
	But if you conform to UPB rules, that doesn't mean that you're automatically the most moral person or you're really doing good in the world, right?
	You're simply not doing evil.
	Right?
	But there's a difference.
	Let's say some Howard Hughes-style guy sits in his room all day.
	Picking at his fingernails and watching Desperate Housewives.
	Well, he's not violating any UPB rules, right?
	But we wouldn't say he's a moral hero.
	Some other guy goes out and takes bullets by taking down the arguments of volatile and dangerous people and all that.
	That's better, right?
	Than just sitting at home and letting the world go to ruin.
	So, UPB is a thou shalt not, for sure.
	But it's not a prescription for the highest virtue.
	It's simply a way to avoid the worst habit.
	So, let's say somebody is not overweight and doesn't smoke.
	Does that mean that they've reached the summit of human health?
	No.
	They still might be sedentary.
	They just might not be eating that much.
	Right?
	Are they exercising?
	Are they eating well?
	Are they watching their sugar?
	Whatever it is that's going to be to keep them healthy.
	These are just, you know, don't smoke and...
	Don't be obese is not enough to make you healthy, but it certainly is a pretty good way to refrain from unhealthy habits.
	So I don't think UPB, if you conform with all of the UPB rules, and you say, well, today I didn't rape anyone, I didn't steal from anyone, I didn't assault anyone, and I didn't murder anyone.
	Well, that means you're just, you're not an evil guy.
	But I don't know that that makes you a really virtuous guy.
	Does that make any sense?
	It does make sense, and actually...
	I think you answered my question.
	I took what I thought was missing in UPB, at least from your intent of saying kind of your opening with slaying the beast and whatnot.
	I would think that you'd also want to have some sort of philosophy of what is moral and not just saying what you shouldn't do, but what you should.
	And maybe I Maybe that wasn't your goal.
	If it wasn't your goal, that's fine because, again, at least you're not doing those things.
	But I just want to make sure...
	I mean, it sounds like you acknowledge that UPB is not meant to define what is moral.
	It's more to just basically define what is immoral and to help identify false moral rules.
	Yeah, because positive moral obligations don't exist.
	Right, so there's no UPB which says, fight evil.
	You can't have that because a guy, it doesn't pass the coma test, right?
	So a guy in a coma isn't fighting evil, but he's not immoral.
	So the only rules that you can have in an ethical system are bans.
	Because positive moral obligations can't be universalized.
	I can't say to someone, that's why I just said earlier, if someone decides not to fight evil...
	That's fine.
	If somebody decides to go murder someone, that's not fine.
	If somebody says, look, I don't want to fight evil.
	What I want to do is stay home and take care of my kids and not stress myself out fighting evil.
	What am I going to say to that?
	That's evil.
	No, it's not.
	It's a fine choice.
	I have no problems with it.
	All I want is people to be honest about it.
	Honesty is important.
	But I don't think you can have...
	Absolute, universal, moral, positive moral obligations.
	Do this, do that.
	You can have, don't do this, don't do that, which is much less restrictive.
	The moment you say, do this, you're giving a person one course of action.
	When you say, don't do this, you're denying them one course of action over a near infinite set of possible actions, right?
	So, UPB, in terms of its definition of ethics, I mean, if you wanted an example of positive ethics, writing the book and publishing the book, UPB would be an example of positive ethics.
	Right?
	And giving it away for free would be an example, I think, of positive ethics, right?
	Because you know, I mean, you're going to get a shitstorm of nitpickers and naysayers and nasty little trolls, you know, and some great people too, which I think you're one, which I appreciate.
	But, I mean, that's an example of putting out a pretty clear and accessible exposition, you know, compared to reading something like Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.
	It's pretty accessible.
	And so I think that would be an example of some positive ethics, what it is that I'm doing.
	With the show as a whole, I think is an example of positive ethics.
	But I can't say everybody has to write a book on ethics or everybody has to run a philosophy podcast because that would be a positive obligation which would not pass the coma test, therefore can't be universalized, therefore can't be part of an ethical standpoint.
	And the last thing around positive versus negative ethics is that people are in such a situation of compulsion these days that giving them positive ethical absolutes It's irrational because, as I said, ethics don't exist in a state of compulsion.
	And people have to pay so much in taxes and they're bound by so many hundreds of thousands of regulations.
	And they're threatened by family courts.
	You know, like the number of people who wrote to me who said, my teacher prescribed psychotropic meds to my child and I was told if my child did not take them, Then the government would take my children away.
	Now, am I going to say to that person?
	Well, let's say that homeschooling is not allowed.
	Your children are forced to be in government schools, and they are forced to take these medications, otherwise you will lose access to them.
	Now, that is so woefully evil.
	I mean, it is a holocaust of frontal lobes for kids who are in that situation.
	The government will drug your children, Or take them away.
	I mean, that's just horrendous.
	Absolutely horrendous.
	Now, am I going to say to that person, you have a moral choice about giving your children drugs or not?
	I would not say so.
	The immorality is on the part of the state and its supporters who sanction such monstrous evils.
	So, you know, there's so much compulsion.
	It's like demanding that people build a beautiful house in the middle of a thick wood, a thick forest.
	I mean, first you've got to clear the trees and the underbrush, and then maybe you can build your house.
	I can't tell people what kind of house to build in the middle of a thick forest.
	You can't build anything.
	There's too many goddamn trees.
	I can't tell people exactly how to act morally in situations of compulsion.
	Because as I've repeatedly argued over the years, where there's compulsion, there's no ethics.
	I'll give you a scenario wherein not abusing your child might get your child taken away.
	If you're in a situation where government schools are enforced upon you, and you bring your child up peacefully to not kowtow to authority, to think for themselves, to challenge incorrect opinions and ideas, well then they go into school and they make life difficult for the government teacher.
	The government teacher then says, well, we've got to drug him.
	You can't take your child out of school.
	Wasn't there a German family that's seeking asylum in the U.S. because Germany's forcing their kids into government schools?
	Yeah, I read about that.
	Political asylum.
	Yeah.
	And then let's say, they say, well, listen, if you don't drug your children, we're going to take them away.
	Now, all the other kids who've been broken and ground up by their parents when they were babies and toddlers, I mean, they're Doing, quote, fine in this system.
	But the children who think for themselves and challenge the teacher, they're the ones targeted for these biochemical takedowns, right?
	So there's a situation where not abusing your child puts you in direct conflict with the state where you have to drug your child or lose them.
	So, I mean, what a horrible situation.
	How can I tell people how to parent in those situations?
	So the idea that We apply UPB to the state and to religion and so on, right?
	I mean, telling children about hell is a violation of UPB. It is a torture, murder, endless death threat.
	Like if I say to someone, give me money or a friend of mine is going to take you and torture you for 10 years, that's a crime against an adult.
	Telling kids that God is going to do it forever It's a violation of UPB. It's deeply immoral.
	So, all of this stuff can be cleared away with UPB, and then we can start talking about more of the positive behaviors, but right now, there's too much of a web of coercion in the way for people to be able to make clear moral choices.
	Does that make any sense?
	It makes sense.
	I guess then, and this would lead to, I think, my last question, really...
	Is that given not wanting to make positive obligations on people and whatnot, and how well you build your case throughout the entire book, there was one piece that just sort of, maybe I missed something, but it just seemed very out of left field.
	I agree with the statement, but I don't know how to foundationally back it up.
	Given the framework, is on page 87, when you're talking about self-defense, you say, since that which is evil can be prevented through the use of violence, throughout the whole book,
	there's a lot of, you know, the thou shalt nots, but then you're saying, it's okay to use violence to prevent violence, which feels like it opens up a huge can of worms to, you know, I mean, that's the war on terror, kind of.
	You know, it can be...
	No, no, no.
	Come on.
	Well, I mean...
	No, no.
	You've got to get better.
	No, no.
	But you can't exaggerate when it comes to ethical issues, right?
	I mean, that's just lying.
	And I'm not saying you're lying, but what I mean is that if you...
	The war on terror is not that.
	Because the war on terror relies upon the initiation of force against domestically captive citizens.
	But you can't leave the U.S. They'll tax you anyway.
	If you want to go and move to another country, it takes years, tens of thousands of dollars, massive amounts of time for an uncertain outcome.
	So, the war on terror, as a government action, first requires the initiation of force against domestic citizens.
	And it requires that we sell the labor to foreign bankers of people who aren't even born yet.
	Which is a complete violation of UPB. They can't possibly assent to a contract to give their future labor to bankers when they're not even born.
	Well, okay.
	Right?
	So the war on terror is a complete violation of UPB. Okay.
	Sorry.
	I'm...
	I'm anticipating people's responses.
	I guess, rather than go into the weeds of examples, how do you say that evil can be prevented through violence?
	What would be your justification?
	Because it sounds like now you are actually giving someone a moral prescription that if there is evil and you can stop it and not violate...
	Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
	What does the word can mean to you?
	Does it mean must?
	Does it mean should?
	Does it mean ought to?
	Does it mean you have an absolute obligation to?
	No, it doesn't mean any of that.
	It means it's possible to.
	Not you're obligated to, right?
	You can go to France.
	I'm not saying go to France or I'll shoot your dog, right?
	Is can meaning you have, you are, it's morally permissible?
	Sure it is.
	Yeah, self-defense is morally permissible.
	I've got a whole essay on self-defense.
	But the statement, I mean, I agree with you about self-defense.
	And I follow your logic about self-defense.
	But saying just blanketly, evil can be prevented through violence.
	Right.
	That...
	But that's self-defense.
	Some guy is going to come and chop my head off and I shoot him in the knee.
	I've just used violence to prevent the evil of murder.
	And so you wouldn't apply that statement to evil being done to other people?
	Why?
	Self-defense is a universal, which means I can defend the selves of others as well, right?
	Like I said, I don't disagree with the idea of the idea.
	Like, sorry, when you say you have the right to use aggression to prevent evil, that doesn't just mean, it's not specific to one individual.
	It doesn't mean only you, because it's universal.
	Anyone can use violence to prevent evil.
	So you can certainly use self-defense on the part of another.
	Otherwise, you'd have a moral rule that only applied to one individual, which would not be a moral rule because it's not universal, right?
	Right.
	It just seems to me to be a very powerful statement to just say, because, I mean, violence is what we're supposed to be against, and yet, I mean, it just...
	Well, that's no, I mean, again, it depends how you define violence.
	If you define violence as the initiation of force, then yes, but then clearly that doesn't apply to this example, because I'm talking about responding.
	To the initiation of force, right?
	Which is self-defense.
	Now, if you just say violence will be anything that harms someone, well, then self-defense certainly has the potential to harm someone, right?
	But it's moral.
	At least it's not immoral, right?
	It's not moral like you have to do it, but certainly if you do it, I don't think anyone's going to have any real problem.
	They'll probably say, I'm sorry you were even in that situation, but I don't think they're going to throw you in jail for self-defense, right?
	Well, right.
	Right.
	It just seemed to really, like, it seemed like a very powerful statement.
	I don't know what it seems.
	No, no, but it seems just one of these words that means it emotionally triggered me, and I don't know why.
	So the question is, why did it emotionally trigger you?
	Because whenever I respond to an argument and then people say, well, it seems to me that what they're saying is, I don't give a shit what you just said.
	My emotional issues have been unaddressed.
	So I'm going to keep repeating it.
	So the question is, why did that statement jump out at you?
	I mean, I think you can understand that even taken in and of itself, it's not very controversial.
	Certainly in the context of UPB and self-defense, it's not controversial at all.
	So the question is, why did it jump out at you so much?
	I mean, I remember I was listening to it as the audio book in the car, and I just, it felt to me...
	It just felt like there was...
	I get what you're saying.
	What was the feeling?
	Not, it felt like it was followed by an intellectual, right?
	What was the feeling?
	Anxiety, anger, fear?
	What was the emotion?
	No, because I agree with the statement.
	I just felt like there should be more of an explanation.
	I really don't, I mean, I was, it really made me stop and go, wait, there's no other explanation?
	What was the feeling?
	Confusion.
	Was it upsetting at all?
	No, it wasn't upsetting.
	And that's the part that...
	Truly, I don't know why it...
	I mean...
	It just...
	No, and the reason I'm saying is that I've given you a very clear explanation, but you still haven't budged, right?
	Which means that we're not dealing with the real issue.
	Have you ever been in a situation that required forceful self-defense?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So probably we're a little closer.
	What happened?
	Oh, I was...
	I mean...
	The way I tell people is I was two rungs up the social ladder from Steve Urkel growing up.
	I mean, just about everything was done to me.
	But, you know...
	What do you mean?
	Do you mean in terms of...
	I mean, as far as being picked on, I mean, between names to being dragged through a field at the court on the hood of your jacket, one guy holding one end and a bunch of other people holding the other.
	I mean...
	Jesus.
	I'm so sorry.
	That's just horrendous.
	I was in third grade when that happened, and I wasn't near the end of it.
	But in any case, I mean, my personal history is I believe in self-defense, but at the time, since I saw the world very black and white back then, I didn't want to be like the people that broke the rules, so I didn't fight back because you weren't supposed to.
	Well, that's a whole bunch of complicated, contradictory information right there, which we'll get back to in a sec, because you said, like, I didn't want to because it's not the right thing, and then you're not supposed to, which is two very different ways of evaluating ethical issues.
	But let's get back to that in a sec.
	What was going on at home that this was possible in the school?
	Well, the...
	The school I went to, if you look at the kids that were complete monsters by high school, they all went to my elementary school.
	There was no discipline there.
	I mean, the principal suggested to my parents that they take me to another school.
	Hang on, hang on.
	What did I just ask you?
	Well, you asked me about at home, but I don't believe that has as much of an impact as just the fact that the people there didn't do their jobs.
	Well, how do you know?
	Because all those kids, the majority of those kids, I mean, there was no change in behavior.
	No, no, sorry.
	I'm sorry, because I guess self-knowledge is kind of new for you, so I'll...
	Like, you didn't know the degree to which my statement in the UPB book triggered your history, right?
	Because I had to sort of repeatedly ask for that.
	And it's not a complaint.
	It's just an observation, right?
	Okay.
	And then you're perfectly sure that your family life had nothing to do with being bullied at school.
	But if you missed the first connection, I can't believe the second connection.
	Does that make sense?
	It makes sense.
	I believe...
	Okay, so let me just ask.
	Let me just ask.
	You don't have to talk about anything you don't want to, of course.
	But...
	What was your home life like when you were little and particularly into the latency period, sort of 7 to 10 or 11 years old?
	Well, I mean, my parents don't have a very good relationship.
	And there was a lot...
	My dad was very hard to live with, a lot of yelling and all that sort of stuff, verbal abuse, whatnot.
	And so I didn't have a happy home life and probably had impacts on self-esteem to make me a target.
	I guess the reason why I'm trying to say I don't want to focus on the family issue is because I believe that regardless of whatever made me a target, it was still not okay what they did and the people there should have, I mean, at the very least, I shouldn't have been told that I should probably go to a different school.
	That is my issue.
	I believe that my family life has an impact on all those things.
	I don't discount that.
	I'm just saying, I mean, family life can be a whole other valuation of me.
	I'm okay with that.
	I'm just trying to draw the line in the sand that I feel failed by the system.
	But I'm sorry, and I'm trying to sort of understand your perspective.
	So let's say that you're a teacher, and you are being bullied by the other kids.
	And did you go to the teachers?
	Oh yeah.
	Okay, so you go to the teacher.
	Now, you as the teacher, what are you going to do?
	I... I don't know, but I wouldn't have told...
	A child that maybe they should go to a different school or I wouldn't have told a child that...
	No, no, I'm asking you and I'm not trying to say that the teachers were right or anything like that.
	I'm just really trying to understand what you would have done.
	Like saying, people should have acted differently, but I have no idea how, even though I'm an adult.
	I don't think it's enough of an answer to give you any kind of peace with this, right?
	Well, you're right.
	What I do know is once I was out of elementary school and into junior high, the administration there took what was going on a lot seriously, and there seemed to be either stiffer punishments or something, because things got better.
	And I won't even lay the...
	it's not the individual I understand the perspective of what you're saying You can't take kids out of school and everything, so you just have to deal with what's there.
	Well, no, no.
	Sorry.
	Technically, you can take kids out of school, right?
	You can homeschool them.
	No, no, no.
	The government school has to teach the kids.
	If it was privatized, they could kick out the bullies.
	I think schools have the right to suspend or remove children.
	I don't know at what age.
	Well, it seems like now it's because you see the kids getting suspended for drawing pictures of weapons and stuff like that.
	So apparently they can.
	They didn't then.
	But...
	I don't...
	I honestly don't know what I would have done in those situations.
	I just feel like nothing ever got better.
	By the time I was fifth, sixth grade, I spent my recesses in the bathroom because I was safe there.
	Right.
	Gosh, I mean, that's like locked in a stall kind of thing, right?
	Kind of, more or less.
	I mean, I was told by the...
	I mean, and I'm less about the teachers in the classroom, the playground teachers during recess who told me because I'd climb on the monkey bars and people would try to pull me through that I wasn't allowed to go on them and had to come after school if I wanted to play on things because they didn't want to have to deal with the fact that I was being terrorized.
	I mean, so this is where I'm trying to say I don't have an answer for what they should have done, but making me the...
	The victim, the bad guy, is not an okay thing in my book.
	No, no, no.
	Look, don't get me wrong.
	I'm not defending what the teacher's done.
	I mean, there's fewer people, maybe Brett Vernant, who have a larger hate on for public school than I do.
	I'm absolutely not saying that the teachers did the right thing.
	But what I'm curious about is you are expecting good service from the government.
	Well, I see your point.
	I mean, what's the teacher going to do?
	The teacher's going to start confronting these dangerous little sociopaths, right?
	And what's going to happen then?
	Well, they're going to hear from the parents who think their kids are perfect.
	Yeah, so basically they're going to get complaints from the parents, which are going to be difficult and time-consuming, right?
	And what's going to happen is they're going to escalate problems with these little sociopaths, right?
	So what could happen?
	Tires could get slashed.
	Brake wires could get cut.
	It's not unprecedented.
	They could get harassed.
	The kids could find out where they live.
	Could, you know, do things as innocuous as spread their garbage over their lawn or spray print the word fuck on their garage door.
	They could harass them online.
	Right?
	They could create fake face...
	Okay, but I mean, sort of...
	When this...
	I don't know when you were...
	How old are you?
	32.
	No, no, they could have.
	I mean, there was internet back in the 90s.
	And, you know, they can create fake pages.
	They can put pictures of the teacher's head on porn stars and send them to the principal and say, did you know she was a porn star before she became a teacher?
	And how much mess is that teacher going to go through before things are cleared up, if they even ever are?
	So is it something that you want to take on, combining abusive parents with dangerous children, with Professional reputation with harassment, with online stuff, with false charges being...
	The kid can also say, oh, the teacher touched me.
	Right?
	Again, not unprecedented.
	And then what?
	Oh, fuck, right?
	And what can they really do to protect you?
	If they send the kids home, there's no parent for them to go to.
	I assume.
	Or the parent who's there is going to hit the roof.
	So if they send the kid home, then the parents are going to do everything that they can to get the kid back into school because the parents go to work or whatever, or just want the day to themselves if they're on welfare or whatever, right?
	Also, if the kids are black or Hispanic, oh, guess what?
	You get brought up on charges of racism and shit like that, right?
	Could happen, right?
	So, look, I'm not trying to say, certainly, of course you know, I'm not trying to say that what happened to you was even remotely right, or whatever, right?
	No, I know that.
	But this is a situation where I think you can at least understand why the teachers would say to a kid who's being bullied, you should go to a different school, rather than, because what tools do they have to take on the bullies?
	I mean, a private school, easy peasy.
	Violated codes of conduct, off you go, right?
	Yeah.
	Public school, wow.
	Kids have to be there.
	Right?
	They can't bus them somewhere else, at least rarely.
	So...
	This is a situation of coercion all around.
	Kids are forced to be there.
	Parents are somewhat forced to work by high taxes.
	Teachers can't be fired, which means good moral teachers generally leave because they don't want to hang around a bunch of deadwood, right?
	Which is why most teachers quit in the first five years, right?
	And it's certainly not the worst teachers who quit, right?
	Because the people who quit have better opportunities elsewhere.
	The people who stay don't, right?
	And so you are going to end up with the detritus, right?
	But the people you at least want interacting with the children are generally the ones who end up with the longest teaching careers.
	Yes, there are exceptions, blah-de-blah-de-blah.
	But that is...
	The situation was...
	Horrible, nasty, and the kids were little bastards, right?
	I mean, they knew what they were doing was wrong.
	Of course they did.
	They didn't do it in front of teachers or cops or whatever.
	So they're nasty little kids.
	I get that.
	Obviously, they had abusive histories in the home, and their parents did, and blah-de-blah-de-blah.
	But the system which we inherited is really a prison.
	You know, parents are forced to pay and kids are forced to be there.
	It's identical to a prison.
	So I'm very sorry about all of that.
	But the only people who had, I think, real choices were your parents.
	And this is why I'm sort of focusing back on that.
	So why did your parents not take you out of school or put you in a different school or whatever, right?
	Well, I can say when it was suggested, because it wasn't put directly to me, it was put to my mom, although she told me this was said, it was more of an indignation because I'm the victim here.
	I shouldn't have to be the one to go somewhere else.
	It was an expectation, given all that you just said, unreasonable, I guess, expectation, but that they do...
	I don't want to say their jobs, because I don't believe teachers should have to parent kids, but more or less, you know, I shouldn't have to be the one to change because I'm the one being victimized to an extent.
	And, I mean, to be honest...
	No, I get all of that, but given...
	No, I understand all of that.
	But given that this wasn't going to change, surely it was your parents' responsibility to make sure you weren't bullied when you went to school.
	Right, so saying, well, it shouldn't be this way, Okay, I agree it shouldn't be this way.
	But that doesn't change the way it is, right?
	Right, but I guess what I was trying to get at is, I mean, we wouldn't be down this road if you hadn't narrowed in on the Self-defense objection, but I think my reason for wanting positive moral rules is also well-founded in this, because I want to be able to say, well, there is some obligation that these people had to make sure, or at least not blame the victim.
	I mean, I think that's why I'm wanting UPV to tell people that they should, you know, what they can do to be better people and not just evil people.
	Well, but in a situation of compulsion, there are no ethics.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	And so hoping to reform government, public schools, and I mean, the people, if, boy, you know, if teachers read UPB, there'll be no more bullying.
	This is not, right?
	This is not going to happen.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	The system is the system.
	And, you know, like Nietzsche's old quote, when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
	Right?
	The system changes people.
	The system changes people.
	It makes them cowards.
	It makes them unempathetic.
	It makes them cold.
	Because they can't admit to themselves, I can't help this poor victim of bullying.
	The system is set up in such a way that I cannot help them.
	So what do they say?
	Do they say, well, I'm in an evil system?
	Where the best advice I can offer a bullied child is to change schools.
	How terrible.
	They can't say that.
	They have to say something else.
	You know, well, you know, maybe this kid's got some social problems or, you know, the best way to solve it is for your kids to leave the school or whatever.
	That's really tough.
	But, and I get that, and obviously I get that you don't want to talk about your family and that's totally fine.
	I mean, this is The show is your choice on what to deal with.
	But, you know, my concern is if you haven't processed this stuff, I just wonder if you're engaging with internet moral trolls because you're just used to being bullied.
	But anyway, it's just a thought.
	I thought I examined the totality of family influences on various different things.
	I had never thought about the I really hadn't thought about it as on my parents to keep me from being bullied at school.
	I mean, that doesn't seem...
	That is not something I've ever contemplated.
	Let me give you an example, just sort of to drive the point home, hopefully not too much.
	So let's say my water comes out brown when I turn the tap on, right?
	Now, clearly my water company should be delivering clean water, right?
	That's their obligation.
	But do I still make my child drink clean?
	the water well no but I mean what is your suggestion Other than either put me in private school, that's still...
	You would be playing into the...
	Well, you go somewhere else.
	I mean, my mom would talk to the other...
	Yeah, so what?
	Look, no, no, no!
	Look, if there's...
	Look, let's say I take my daughter to a playground and there's a lion...
	prowling around the playground.
	Do I say, well, you play there.
	We're not going somewhere else.
	We pay taxes for this playground.
	We have a right to be on this goddamn playground.
	Just keep moving.
	And don't look tasty.
	Why should we go somewhere else?
	Well, because there's a fucking lion in the playground.
	Because there are predators in the playground.
	So yes, you go somewhere else, because you can't change that there are predators in the playground.
	Whatever it takes.
	Right?
	That's called commitment.
	Whatever it takes.
	You keep your children safe.
	Whatever it takes.
	And your mom can take this big fucking high moral stand and say, well, I'm not putting you, I pay taxes for the school, I'm not putting you somewhere, but you're the one going to get bullied, right?
	But I agree with that.
	Fine for her to take this stand, but you're the one being dragged through the field by the drawstrings of your hoodie.
	Right, but I agree with the sentiment.
	I shouldn't have had to go somewhere else.
	Okay, so you think that I should make my daughter play where there's a lion in the playground, because we shouldn't have to go somewhere else.
	Well, yeah, but now you're...
	That's almost more of a lifeboat scenario, because it's not...
	To make your situation more applicable, there is a lion there and the zookeeper or whoever is standing right there and letting the lion terrorize the people on the playground.
	Right.
	Do I still make my child play there?
	You know the answer.
	I know the answer.
	Especially if my child repeatedly gets mauled and I keep sending the child back and saying, well, the zookeeper should be taking care of the lion.
	It's like, mom, zookeeper is not taking care of the lion.
	I keep getting mauled.
	Well, it's his job, but he's not doing his job.
	I keep getting mauled.
	Well, go back anyway.
	It's his job, but he's not doing his job.
	Right?
	Right.
	In the years that you were being bullied, it was clear that the school was not going to keep you safe.
	Your parents knew, with no doubt whatsoever, that the school, for years, was not keeping you safe.
	And the parent's job is to keep the child safe, whatever it takes.
	You're, I think, going to object to my counterexample, but it's the best I can.
	It's 826 where I am, so my caffeine hasn't kicked in quite yet.
	But what would you say then to, you know, in 1950s, 60s, South, American South, African American parents that sent their kids to now unified schools where no one's happy about it?
	I mean, Should those parents have somehow not sent their children to those types of schools?
	Because, I mean...
	Where it's possible, where it's possible to keep your children safe, parents have an obligation to keep their children safe.
	Whatever it takes, no matter what the cost.
	So yeah, if they had the option, if they weren't forced to do it, if the parents have the option, can possibly achieve it, No matter what the sacrifice is, parents have an obligation to keep their children safe no matter what the cost.
	Am I going to put my child in public school?
	Hell no.
	Oh god no.
	People are asking me this all the time.
	Where's she going to school?
	She's not going to school.
	I say, do you even remember what school was like?
	what the hell would I put her in there?
	I just feel like, let me put it this way.
	I agree that, and I struggle with this, I really wish I had had a better childhood, but part of the reason why I am who I am today is because I was, you know, put through the crucible, so to speak.
	Then you should not be angry at your tormentors, because they helped you.
	Yeah, that's a real hard thing to wrap your mind around.
	Because it's terrible.
	Look, look, look.
	You've got some good shit out of being abused, right?
	Yeah.
	You got toughened up out of being abused.
	Well, I don't know about toughened up, but I certainly...
	Well, you've got some positive benefits out of being abused, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Sure.
	But that does not make the abuse...
	That doesn't justify the abuse.
	It just means you've got some good out of the shitstorm.
	No, no.
	I'm not justifying it.
	But I'm saying...
	Or I'm not justifying the actions or the people, but I'm saying any progress we make in society takes people being put through shit.
	And to...
	We now have unified schools.
	Yeah, look, I mean, I can't enable this stuff.
	I mean, sorry, like, I can't enable this in the show.
	Right, because now I've made an ironclad case that your parents should have kept you safe, and now you're saying, okay, they didn't keep me safe, but good stuff came out of it.
	So the level of defensiveness, I'm not even talking to you fundamentally, I'm talking to your parents, but the level of defensiveness that you have around this issue...
	It's too strong and I can't pretend to enable it and neither can I break through it.
	Okay.
	So I would just invite you to mull it over.
	Yeah.
	And this is why you brought up that self-defense issue, right?
	Because you were not defended.
	And you could have been defended with no aggression, right?
	If your parent took you out of the school and found some other place where you could be, right?
	You fucking move.
	Like, I don't know why this is so complicated for parents.
	Right?
	Find a Waldorf school.
	Find a Montessori school.
	If your parents are broke, they have scholarship programs.
	Get charity.
	Invite your church.
	Invite your neighbors to help.
	Invite your family to chip in.
	Sit down with a fucking tribal meeting of everyone in the child's life and say, this kid is being bullied.
	And the school is doing nothing about it.
	So we as a tribe have an obligation to protect our helpless offspring.
	I didn't breastfeed this child and take care of him and keep him well and change his diaper so he didn't get a rash and burp him after every meal so that nasty little sociopaths could reach in with their fucked up electric fingertips and blow his wiring away.
	Didn't keep his body safe to subject him to daily torture and have him hide in a toilet to avoid his peers.
	So, everybody put the brakes on.
	Everybody stop what you're doing.
	We all got to sit down and figure out how to protect one of our own.
	I don't have a lot of money.
	I have to work.
	So who's going to help out?
	Who's going to chip in?
	You know, because blood is thicker than water and families do for families, right?
	And there's a Waldorf school in the next town where I went to visit and there's no bullying.
	Zero tolerance.
	It's 5,000 bucks a year.
	Kids are doing really well coming out of it.
	So we're going to move.
	Why?
	Because my child is being bullied.
	My child is being mentally and physically tortured.
	So we're all going to sit down and figure out how to solve this issue.
	If I have to drive an hour every morning or two hours every morning to go drop him off at some school where he's not going to be bullied, then that's what I'll do.
	If I have to take him home, if I have to It's only going to be for six years or five years or whatever.
	If I have to take a massive drop in income and live in someone's basement, homeschool my kid.
	Well, the one absolute is the child needs to be protected.
	And we make that commitment as a clan, as a family, to keep this child safe.
	To have this child experience the character-building joys of having a happy childhood.
	Because he's not there by choice.
	He didn't choose us as parents.
	He didn't choose the school.
	Neither did we, but we can make different choices now.
	But as a parent, I cannot possibly ask my child to go hide in a toilet for fear of being abused.
	Physically, emotionally, mentally.
	I cannot put my child's precious brain into the grim poisonous shredder Of sociopathic interference.
	Can't do it.
	That's not an option.
	Whatever we have to do to change this situation, we will do.
	But there is only one thing that is not, I don't know what's going to happen, there's only one thing that's not going to happen, which is I'm not sending my child back in to hide in a fucking toilet three times a day because he's terrified of his classmates.
	Can I ask you one last question regarding that?
	Because I think, at least in my situation, I feel like had I gone somewhere else, there's no guarantee that whatever made me a target because I was unhappy at home, etc., You don't even know what made you a target, do you?
	You don't even know what made you a target, do you?
	Honestly, I don't, but I can at least...
	I'm telling you exactly what made you a target.
	Disrupted family environment and a certain knowledge on the part of the bullies that your parents weren't going to give that speech I just gave.
	That speech I just gave would have meant that I would never have to give that speech.
	Lack of parental support.
	Right?
	Right.
	Unstable family background, conflict in the household, lack of parental support.
	That's what put the mark of Urkel on your forehead, man.
	Right.
	Because your parents weren't going to do that speech.
	Because your parents were like, oh, my child's getting bullied.
	Well, there's not much we can do.
	Okay.
	Right?
	Unleash the dogs of bullies.
	Here they come.
	Because you didn't have parents who were going to protect you, no matter what.
	And that's why you got bullied.
	Because they know that about you.
	Right.
	So it wouldn't have mattered where I would have gone.
	Oh, God.
	Okay, I'm just going to say this for the listeners, because you're obviously not ready to hear this.
	Yes, it would, because if your parents had come to the point where they protect you no matter what, then you wouldn't have been bullied at the next school.
	If your parents had said, well, we've got to figure out why our child is being targeted, what's happening at home that's allowing him to be targeted.
	Well, let's figure that out.
	Let's go to therapy.
	Let's solve these issues.
	Let's find...
	Right, anyway, we've got to move on to the next caller.
	Thank you, Stefan.
	Because I know when I'm defeated, but thank you very much for calling in.
	Well, thank you.
	You're welcome.
	Now, Steph, before we get to the next caller, I just want to note, I mean, I was bullied relentlessly in school, and I was bullied relentlessly because I had no parental bond.
	I had no one that would listen to me, no one that would protect me, no one that would keep me safe, no one that would get me out of that environment.
	I was a sitting duck.
	I was an easy target.
	That's why I was bullied.
	That's why I had to run into the bathroom during lunch out of anxiety because I had no parental bond and no one was there to help me.
	And the kids picked up on that.
	The people that had been bullied relentlessly themselves at home, it all rolls downhill.
	And they saw that I was an easy target and I got bullied relentlessly because I was an easy target.
	If I had that strong parental bond, I mean, good God, if Isabella, we've told the story on the show, she had a bad interaction at a play center with a little girl and it was all she was talking about for two weeks.
	With you guys.
	And we were all over it.
	All over it, right there, having conversations with her, saying please don't do that to the little girl, and she continued to do it, and then she left.
	But if she didn't leave, Isabella would have wanted to leave the situation, or you would have taken Isabella out of the situation.
	She wouldn't have been exposed to that type of toxicity.
	Because you protect your child.
	Yeah, I mean, we just said, look, you've got to stop playing with us.
	Isabella said, I don't want to be your friend.
	I don't want to play with you.
	She said, you've got to move away.
	You've got to move away.
	And she did.
	Because look, I mean, then she's, this is a protect, like, why do lions pick off, like, which gazelle do they pick?
	The old, the sick, the weak, the separated from the herd?
	They prey on, this is how awful it is, right?
	Yeah.
	And, you know, I'm very sorry for your experiences.
	I developed, I mean, I was sort of made fun of for my accent and all of that.
	But, I mean, A, I was a good looking kid, which helps a lot.
	And B, I developed verbal skills.
	Ooh, isn't that a shock, right?
	So, yeah, I developed verbal skills either to put people down and to be assertive and to also make people laugh.
	If you make people laugh, they can't be bullying you.
	And then you have some value to them, and they know if you're unhappy, you're not going to make them laugh.
	So you become a little bit of a dancing clown court jester.
	Fortunately, I've broken out of that role.
	But yeah, so I'm sorry about what happened to you, Mike.
	I mean, it is terrible, but they know.
	They know.
	Yeah.
	They know.
	Intuitively, you know.
	I mean, you can just take a look at some people and tell this is someone that doesn't have a parental bond.
	The insecurity, I mean, you can see it in a simple glimpse.
	It's the body language, the hunched shoulders, the nervousness around interacting with people, the lack of eye contact, lack of confidence, lack of open and assertive physicality.
	I mean, it's broadcast.
	You can't hide it as a kid.
	And I just implore Chris and anyone listening that is having similar thoughts, That didn't change for me.
	That kind of like being an easy target, social anxiety, you know, being someone that was an open target for bullies, that didn't change for me until I got where it came from, until I really connected to and understood where it came from.
	And it came from that lack of parental bond.
	And once I understood that, assigned responsibility to the people who didn't provide that bond, and, you know, spent some time in therapy thinking about that and the reality of it, Only then was I able to move forward and progress past the point of being a target.
	I'm not a target anymore.
	I'm not concerned about being bullied.
	I'm not concerned about anything of that nature anymore.
	I'm not a target.
	And that is only because I processed the origins of what made me a target in the first place.
	So I really strongly encourage anyone who's been bullied, who has strong social anxiety, to really look to where that comes from.
	Did you have a strong parental bond?
	Were the people around you protecting you when you were young?
	If not, why not?
	That's a very important question.
	And it's really essential if you want to start moving forward and escaping these horrible traps that you were thrust upon.
	I mean, this bullying stuff is ridiculous.
	And these days, it's kind of enraging.
	There's the whole anti-bullying craze going on.
	We'll do infomercials, and celebrities will wear T-shirts and say two lines into a teleprompter saying, stop bullying, or if you see something, say something.
	But of course the teachers are all funded through coercion and taxation, and the whole system is designed up to promote the bullies instead of actually assigning responsibility and removing them from the system.
	If there's an abusive parent or a bullying parent, oh, just avoid that one.
	You're not going to actually do anything about it.
	There's nothing you can do about it.
	The system is set up.
	Right now to promote the bullies and so the bullies win.
	And the more we shine a spotlight on that system and the origins of this bullying behavior and the damaging effects that it has, the sooner we can move forward as a species and situations like Chris described where we're getting dragged across the playground by his sweatshirt strings.
	We can nip that stuff in the bud and prevent it from happening in the future.
	Yeah, and Chris, just the last point as well is that what you're communicating to me is helplessness around bullying.
	Now, if you become a father, your kid is most likely to get bullied if you feel helpless about bullying.
	So you don't want this to happen again if you become a father, and you have to not feel helpless about bullying.
	In order to not feel helpless about bullying, you're going to have to recognize that your parents did, but they didn't have to.
	And this is a pain of growth.
	The pain of growth is, I now have choices that were available to my parents that they didn't exercise.
	I'm going to act differently.
	The negative consequences that has on your thoughts and feelings about your parents is the price of growth.
	I don't want to own slaves.
	My parents did, and that was wrong.
	How the fuck do you end slavery without criticizing your parents for owning slaves?
	You can't.
	Otherwise, you're going to say everything is totally relative.
	Well, it was fine for them to own slaves because it was acceptable, and now it's not.
	It doesn't give you any strength for a moral crusade to just assume it's like liking jazz.
	Nobody has a moral crusade about blues or best, or if you combine country with rap, you get crap.
	I mean, there's no moral crusade about aesthetics.
	There's only moral crusades about absolutes.
	Absolutes that exist through time, and if the absolutes exist through time, Then your parents' failure to meet moral standards is painful.
	That pain is the price of moral progress.
	So, alright, who's up next?
	I'll say two, Steph.
	I bet some of those slaves had nice strong backs from all the work they did in the fields over the years.
	You know, they did have some...
	Their vitamin D? Yeah, vitamin D was through the roof.
	I mean, all out in the sunshine.
	Yeah.
	Doesn't make it right.
	Doesn't make it moral.
	Hey, if I hadn't been a slave, I wouldn't have met my wife.
	She was a slave too.
	Right, right.
	Up next is Joshua.
	Joshua writes in and says, How do you define and describe self-ownership?
	How can the body own the body, the mind own the brain, and so on?
	How do you derive human rights using self-ownership?
	Go ahead, Josh.
	Josh, that typing thing you were doing when you sent Mike the message?
	Yes.
	That's it.
	I'm confused.
	That's self-ownership.
	Well, I understand that, but...
	I mean, you type, right?
	Yes, of course.
	Are they your thoughts?
	Yes.
	Are they your questions?
	Yes.
	Did the email come from you?
	Yes.
	So that's it.
	Okay.
	I guess the whole...
	The reason I asked that question...
	Um, is because, um, uh, I try to look at other, uh, points of view and other philosophies and stuff like that.
	And, um, a friend of mine, uh, pointed me to this guy.
	His name is, uh, uh, Francois, um, Trombley.
	Trombley.
	Oh, you actually know this guy.
	How about that?
	He was actually one of the first show.
	I think the first show I ever did was his show.
	Something atheist.
	Do you remember Mike?
	Anyway, it doesn't matter.
	Yeah, Francois Tremblay, he was actually an early board member, but he had a bit of a Quebecois temper, let's say.
	And so he wasn't really a good guy to chat with about philosophy.
	But yeah, he's been doing a show.
	I don't know if he's still doing shows, but I guess seven years ago or eight years ago, he was the first guy I ever did a show with.
	Yeah, that's where I found the article.
	It's from 2008.
	So it's an old article.
	But basically he was just trying to describe that it's a rather disappointing conclusion that self-ownership means the body owns the body.
	But he says that it's an utterly trivial and useless proposition.
	And he goes in the example, if I own this chair, it means nothing to the fact that I legitimately control the chair, but there can be no relationship of control between entity and itself.
	If there is no distinction between owner and owned...
	Oh, come on.
	That's this, I mean...
	I think he just wants to not admit he has a bad temper, which is why he denies self-ownership.
	Look, the body is not the body.
	It's like saying, does my finger own itself, right?
	So let's say I strangle some guy.
	Do they cut my hands off and put them in jail?
	No.
	Right?
	Because my fingers are obeying what I tell them to do, right?
	Right.
	Right?
	So...
	It's the brain that owns the body.
	And what that means is that the brain has direct control over the body.
	That's not controversial.
	I mean, that's just biology, right?
	There's a whole lot of wiring that goes from my brain to the body, right?
	And nobody else's wiring goes down my spine and flows into my neurological system to control my body, right?
	Right.
	So the fact that the brain controls the body can't be controversial.
	And where it is, we recognize that there are exceptions to moral standards, right?
	So if I suddenly get a fit of epilepsy, then my brain is not in control of my body because there's a seizure that's happening, right?
	Right, right.
	But yeah, the brain controls the body.
	That's physiological.
	And unless you have somebody else's ganglia and nerves going into your spinal cord, then you control your body.
	So when you say the body owns the body, I mean, that's...
	You know, it's like saying there's a guy in the car, and the guy and the car own the guy and the car, and therefore it's tautological.
	It's like, no, the guy in the car is the one driving, and the car is the one doing what the guy in the car tells it to do, with the wheel and the gas and the brake, right?
	The gears.
	Right.
	And I'm just trying to understand if this is even worth understanding this argument.
	Well, I think, no, I think we just disproved it, didn't we?
	I think so, but the reason I'm curious about this is because a friend of mine brought it to my attention and I'm trying to understand what he's trying to say to me.
	I guess the whole reason for defining what self-ownership is and the fact that Or the assumption is that Mr.
	Tremblay says it's a meaningless concept and you should use something else.
	I mean, I don't understand what he's trying to get at when he says, why use self-ownership to define human rights?
	And he defines human rights as if there are no aggressors in society, we would not need to defend ourselves or to examine whether such defense is just or not, and thus we would not talk about rights.
	And the only reason you have a right is because aggressors exist.
	But you don't have a right.
	I'm sorry.
	I've had this conversation a bunch of times before, but can you tell me where your right is?
	Is it by your spleen?
	Is it somehow attached to your hair follicles?
	Is it right behind your left eyeball?
	Where is this thing called the right?
	What is it even?
	Well, I understand it's not an actual physical manifestation of a thing.
	It's just an idea.
	Which means you can't have it.
	Right.
	It's like me saying, do you have UPB? Or do you have the theory of relativity?
	That wouldn't make any sense.
	You can't have a concept.
	You can understand a concept, you can think of a concept, you can accept a concept, but you can't have it.
	Right.
	Give me my rights!
	Like, in a box?
	Would you like them?
	A piece of paper.
	Yeah, I mean, give me some words that are completely unenforceable, right, that have nothing to do with, that require people's acceptance and blah-de-blah-de-blah, right?
	So, I mean, I don't, I think that the word rights is, I think what we want is consistency and truth.
	Philosophy, I don't think, would recognize something like rights.
	It's like saying, I have a right to something in mathematics.
	Well, I don't.
	I have a right to something in science.
	Where's my science rights?
	Well, that's a meaningless concept.
	And since science and mathematics are theoretical consistency and empirical evidence, and since philosophy is theoretical consistency and empirical evidence, if there's no right in math and science, I don't see how there could be a right in philosophy.
	I mean, a theory is either valid or invalid.
	It's correct or incorrect.
	First, logical consistency.
	Second, empirical verification.
	And so I don't know what it would mean to have a right.
	It just seems to me...
	I think that the word is sort of invented by statists, for statists.
	In other words, the government has something called a right that it sells to you in return for money.
	But that seems to me very similar to the idea that the Catholics have something called redemption that they sell for you for money.
	Oh, I see.
	Or freedom from sin, right?
	I mean, the government doesn't possess these rights.
	Here's your charter of rights of freedoms granted to you by the government.
	It's like, when the fuck are you to give me something that doesn't exist and charge me money for it?
	I mean, that's just a fraud.
	I'm going to sell you the concept unicorn for a million dollars.
	Here's your bill for a million dollars.
	I don't want this concept.
	I don't believe in unicorns.
	Sorry, it's a million dollars or a jail.
	Right?
	I mean, this wouldn't make any sense, right?
	So I think that the concept rights is this idea that there's something the government has, which if it writes these magic words down on a piece of paper...
	You have these things which protect you, and you've got to pay the government money for it.
	In the same way that if the priest or the pope forgives you from some made-up nonsense called sin, then you pay him and he keeps you safe from hell.
	I mean, it's the same bullshit.
	It's just a different pile.
	Okay.
	So I guess the whole concept of human rights was invented by governments.
	Yeah, this is what they sell you.
	You have a right to property, and we're going to steal half your income at gunpoint to ensure that you have this right called property.
	It's like, wait a minute, aren't you the ones violating my property?
	Aren't you selling me protection from something that you're using to violate me, which is the same as sin, right?
	You give me $1,000, and I will grant you absolution from sin.
	It's like, wait a minute, aren't you guys the people inflicting sin in the first place?
	Yeah, the concept of sin invented by religion.
	Yeah, the concept of rights is...
	Something that the government – it's what they pretend to sell you, right?
	When in fact it's what they violate, right?
	Even if these things did exist, right?
	So I guess this whole argument is pointless to define self-ownership in regards to human rights because human rights don't exist.
	Human rights were invented by governments, so why even bother with defining rights with self-ownership?
	Yeah, I mean, I think self-ownership is an important concept, but it's not very important philosophically.
	Because it's just one of these obvious things.
	And anybody who argues against self-ownership has to exercise self-ownership in order to do so.
	Right?
	Right.
	So, not that he would, I'm sure, but if Francois were to call into the show, he'd say, Steph, you're wrong to disagree with my argument about self-ownership.
	Which would be establishing his self-ownership for his arguments and my self-ownership for my arguments.
	Steph, your arguments are wrong about my arguments, that we don't have self-ownership.
	It's like, well, if I don't have self-ownership, who the hell are you talking to?
	You're saying they're my arguments.
	Therefore, I am responsible for the creation and dissemination of those arguments, whether verbally or sign language or song or text or whatever, right?
	Yeah.
	So it's just one of these very easy ones.
	It's, you know, what I call self-detonating statements, right?
	Which is, you can't argue against it without exercising it.
	It's like me going to you and saying, language is meaningless, right?
	Or the example I've given before, it's like me mailing you a letter saying, letters never get delivered to the right person.
	Well, I have to assume they're going to get delivered to the right person, and therefore if you open it and I say, letters never get delivered to the right person, clearly I'm, right?
	Right.
	I'm not making any sense.
	And I don't even know that I'm not making any sense.
	You can't argue against self-ownership with someone without accepting self-ownership on your part and the other person's part.
	Right?
	So let's say Francois, a guy named Bill, and I were debating this, and Francois made his case, and I turned to Bill and said, well, your argument is incorrect.
	Bill hadn't opened his mouth.
	What would Francois say?
	He hasn't even made an argument yet.
	Yeah, why are you talking to him?
	It's my argument.
	Bingo!
	Bingo, right?
	Yeah, you just exercise self-ownership right there.
	Right, so people who don't understand that or who reject that have an emotional ulterior motive that can't be addressed through argument, right?
	Right, so I wasn't having any luck addressing Chris's first conversation about self-ownership and protection from evil, and we started trying to talk about Family influences, and he steadfastly resisted for like 45 minutes to talk about anything to do with his family.
	Right, so then I'm not going to return to the intellectual argument if the emotional stuff can't be addressed.
	Right, and the intellect is 99 times out of 100 an emotional defense.
	Scar tissue raised by trauma.
	I know this from the Bomb and the Brain series, right?
	It's not abstract for me.
	Right.
	And so if somebody is denying self-ownership, it means that they've done something that they're ashamed of.
	And they're keeping self-ownership at a distance because it's painful for them to accept ownership for what they did.
	Or they're denying self-ownership on the part of others.
	Maybe parents or teachers or priests or whatever, right?
	But there's an emotional reason as to why the argument is being rejected because it's too obvious.
	Like if somebody didn't know that they were making their own argument and when you pointed it out they continued to resist it, then they're either completely retarded In which case, I don't even know why they'd be using such big words.
	Or, they're emotionally defensive, right?
	So, just for an experiment, I did a rant recently on, what is it, approximately 12 billion emails Mike and I get every week and comments on YouTube where I make a generalization about, say, women.
	And people say, well, not all women are like that, right?
	It's such a common argument, it's called nawalt.
	Not all women are like that.
	And it's so retarded.
	It actually, it makes my computer run slower and it makes my mouse eat its own tail and my eyeballs roll so far back into my skull, I'm looking down my own spine at yesterday's dinner.
	Interesting.
	Because it's, I mean, it's just so ridiculous.
	If I say Chinese people in general are shorter than European people and someone pipes up and says, I know a tall Chinese guy!
	I mean, it's so stupid.
	It's such a non-sequitur.
	It really is so ridiculous.
	It's like, you know, a two-year-old scrawling finger paint on the Mona Lisa and said, I made it prettier.
	I made it better.
	I'm adding something.
	No, no, you're really not.
	So, I mean, either people are so stupid or it's just an emotional defense, right?
	They can't be that stupid, otherwise they wouldn't even know how to turn on a computer, right?
	Yeah.
	So, it's just an emotional defense.
	If you can't deal with the underlying emotional trauma, then fencing about intellectual bullshit is an insult to philosophy, right?
	Anyway, so, that would be my sort of guess.
	Okay.
	Well, that pretty much answers my question.
	I realize that...
	This particular author probably might have some other issues, and since you're aware of them, I'll just yield that information to you.
	We go on these verbally abusive tirades on the forum, so we have to ban him, right?
	Kind of have people at dinner parties swearing at people.
	Well, you can go swear, it's just not at my house, right?
	Yeah.
	So, yeah, I mean, unless that's significantly changed and he's gone to therapy and dealt with whatever trauma is triggering that kind of reptile response, then obviously he's going to have a problem with self-ownership because he has been abusive, I'm sure, to people, not just people on my forum.
	And does he want to accept responsibility for that and change it?
	I imagine it's probably easier to just imagine that there's no such thing as self-ownership.
	Yeah, so he doesn't have to take responsibility for his own actions if there's no such thing as a concept as self-ownership.
	Yeah, so he has to basically say, look, I've behaved like a prick to people.
	I've been nasty and abusive and difficult.
	I have also cast disrepute upon the freedom movement by being such a caustic and abrasive fella to interact with.
	And then he has to say, well, okay, well, if I own my shit, then I have to figure out where this shit came from, right?
	Yeah.
	And when you figure out where the shit came from, it leads to your parents and your teachers and your priests and blah, blah, blah.
	And then because we are all universal machines, if you accept self-ownership, then they have to accept self-ownership in your mind.
	And they resist doing that.
	Right.
	I mean, all I was doing was talking to Chris's parents.
	I wasn't even talking to him.
	It's just his parental defense, right?
	Parental alter ego.
	And parents resist having self-ownership thrust upon them if they've been abusive parents.
	Mm-hmm.
	So, yeah, it's a long road and it's a lot easier usually to just blast people and pretend there's no such thing as self-ownership.
	Yeah, I guess I never tried to delve that deep into the person behind the argument.
	Well, it's the why.
	You know, listen, I'm sorry to interrupt you.
	It's the why.
	Why is this important?
	Why is this even a question?
	I think we could see, not to pick on Chris or anything, but just he's the example that's self-contained in the show.
	Why was all this stuff so important to Chris?
	Because he'd been bullied as a child.
	Horribly.
	Tragically.
	And people hadn't done the right thing.
	So why is he so interested in moral arguments?
	Why is he so interested, so fascinated, so stirred up by the concept of self-defense being violence?
	It goes right back.
	And this doesn't mean that his arguments are true or false at all.
	I had a guy years ago on the show talking about determinism.
	It turned out his parents drugged him and locked him in his room.
	And he was a determinist.
	Because as a kid, he had very few choices.
	And again, that doesn't mean determinism is true or false or free will is true or false.
	What it does mean is that there's always a reason why people get interested in a particular question.
	There's always a reason why people get interested in a particular philosophical question.
	Turning point for me in my life was, you know, my whole life I had the shit beaten out of me, screamed at, and all that stuff by my mom, and nobody ever called anyone.
	They didn't call the police, didn't call Child Protective Services, even anonymously, right?
	Then when I was 16, I had a party.
	And half the building called the cops.
	And the cops came by and they said, you know, we've been listening outside.
	It's really not that loud.
	I don't know what everyone's so upset about, right?
	And I was like, oh, I get it.
	I'm surrounded by fucking assholes.
	I get it.
	So if I'm being beaten up as a child, nobody picks up the phone.
	Do I hear the distant sounds of fun?
	Oh, fuck me, I'm calling the cops.
	That little shit is having fun.
	Hey, he's getting beaten up, no problem.
	But if I hear any sounds of laughter or fun coming from that household, fuck him, right?
	Calling the cops.
	And I get it like, oh, so they can call the police.
	I get it.
	They can call the police.
	But not if there's anything negative going on.
	Only if there's something positive going on.
	And I was like, oh, I think I understand it.
	So, anyway, these are just sort of particular turning points and trying to understand why I was surrounded by assholes or if arseholery could be cured, you know, kind of an important part of my life.
	It's understandable.
	So, I was just, I mean, I don't know if it's...
	Maybe it's my relationship with my friend who brought this topic to light that I'm interested in keeping.
	And I'm pretty sure of the other conversations I've had since the argument was that...
	Wait, sorry.
	Is this your friend?
	Did he send you to Francois' argument because he agreed with it?
	Yeah.
	So your friend thinks that there's no such thing as self-ownership?
	That's the, from the words that I read from his, you know, the forum that we're in.
	Yeah, that's basically what he's trying to say, I'm guessing.
	Right.
	And how's his behavior?
	Well, from what I remember, I mean, I haven't seen him in a few years, but he's a Very argumentative and very well-spoken for most times.
	He just says what he thinks and doesn't care about what anybody else thinks.
	What do you mean he doesn't care?
	He's completely insensitive to his effect on others?
	I get that kind of vibe from him when I knew him.
	I'll just tell you where I knew him.
	We were in the Navy together, and we served on a submarine, and we had a lot of interesting conversations.
	It seemed like every time we had a conversation, his position wouldn't budge, and I would just agree to disagree with If I disagree with him, sometimes I agree with him, sometimes I would disagree with him.
	And it just seems like he would not budge from his position.
	Yeah, so he may not be responsive to feedback.
	Yeah, I guess that would be a description of him.
	In which case, he doesn't care what other people think.
	Right.
	So, he doesn't care about you.
	Yeah, and my problem is I care about him.
	Why do you care about him?
	Well, because I knew him.
	No, no, no!
	Oh my god.
	This is all like self-knowledge 101.
	You knew lots of people in your life, right?
	Yeah.
	So why do you care about him?
	Hint, it's not him.
	Well, I guess I don't know why exactly.
	Do you know why approximately?
	Or are you hedging?
	Don't turn weasel on me, brother.
	You've been in the Navy.
	You can handle this conversation, right?
	Well, I guess I just care about people and what they think and how...
	And what they think about me?
	Oh, God, no, no, no.
	Look, it's like saying, well, I care about fulfilling contracts, so I'm going to pay the guy 500 bucks who never shipped me an iPad.
	Right, so caring about fulfilling contracts is great, which means that you don't fulfill contracts with people who don't fulfill their contracts with you, right?
	Right.
	So saying you care about people is fine, but if they don't care about you, then...
	Right?
	So...
	Let's go further back, shall we?
	Um...
	Where should I go?
	Oh, I think you know.
	I think you know.
	You can't be that new a listener, right?
	Nah, I've been listening for at least a year.
	Alright, so you know, right?
	Well, um...
	I don't even know where to begin, exactly, or approximately.
	I will give you a hint.
	Okay.
	Was there anyone in your childhood who was emotionally unavailable?
	Well, I can say that my mom never really tried to connect with me emotionally as much as my dad did.
	Even though my dad traveled quite a bit during my childhood, like he would be gone for a week or two, at least once a month.
	And whenever my mom was just there, we would never talk about anything really.
	Just what's going on with school or what she's doing at work or what's going on around the home or basically nothing.
	So I can say that Trying to have a deep emotional relationship with my mom never happened.
	Well, trying to happened.
	I'm sure you tried.
	Yeah, I have tried to talk to her.
	Not recently though, but as a child I did.
	Right.
	Now, did she ever ask you what you would like to chat about?
	Not really.
	Wait, wait, don't give me fuck, brother.
	Well, I'll say that she, I don't remember a time that she tried to talk about anything, about anything, really.
	Yeah, because, I mean, when you're involved in a conversation with someone, or you're involved in a relationship with someone, it's really important to ask the other person what he or she wants.
	Right?
	Say to my daughter every day, what would you like to do today?
	How do you feel like spending your time?
	Is there anything you'd like to chat about?
	Anything on your mind?
	What would you like to talk about?
	And almost always it's like, tell me about one of your shows that I have the challenge of downshifting to.
	Anyway, but I say this, you know, to listeners.
	Why is this show successful?
	Because I listen.
	I get six hours of people telling me just in the call-in shows, let alone YouTube comments, let alone email feedback, let alone other shows.
	Six hours of customer feedback.
	What do you guys want to talk about?
	I don't say usually.
	I think I've done it once or twice.
	This is the topic for this week.
	All right.
	And then people say, well, he doesn't do determinism on the message board.
	That's bad.
	It's like, well, I guess you've never run a customer service organization, a customer focused organization.
	It's not my will to impose these things.
	It's that I was getting lots of complaints about the topic of determinism.
	The people's enjoyment of the show and of interacting with other people were being interrupted by all these deterministic trolls.
	Pro-determinism trolls.
	And people were saying, I don't care about the topic.
	I don't want to talk about it.
	It's resolved for me.
	I've watched the debates.
	I've listened to it.
	I just don't want it anymore.
	So it's like, okay, let's not do this anymore.
	And people say, he's censoring me.
	I love that use of the word censorship.
	I delete a comment that's negative or just has no intellectual content, but it's just insulting.
	He's censoring me.
	He's censoring me.
	You know, he's putting me in prison because he's not letting me pee on his lawn.
	So funny.
	Anyway, but...
	Did your mom inquire as to what your preferences were in your relationship with her?
	Doesn't sound like she did.
	No.
	Because you'd remember.
	Yeah.
	It would be such an exception, right?
	Yeah.
	I don't remember any time we had any type of deep conversation about anything.
	So...
	That's not what I asked.
	And it's interesting that you changed that, and I'm not criticizing, I'm sort of pointing it out, right?
	Because I asked if she ever asked you what you wanted, and then you said, well, we never had a deep conversation, which isn't, like it's just going to happen or something?
	In order for her to have a deep conversation with you, either A, she'd want to have a deep conversation, first and foremost, or B, she would have inquired what you wanted and changed her behavior accordingly.
	Right.
	I mean, sometimes my daughter wants to sit on the couch and show me her dragons in Dragonvale.
	Right?
	Is that my joyful way to spend my time?
	No.
	It's okay.
	But she cares about it.
	Right?
	And I care that she cares about it.
	Right?
	Right.
	So.
	Hello?
	I'm still here.
	Can you hear me?
	Oh, yeah.
	Am I okay?
	Yeah, someone else was talking, I think.
	Okay, sorry.
	Yeah, so she wants to play Monopoly.
	Now, as you know, Monopoly is like a fucking vampire game from hell.
	You can't kill it no matter what, right?
	But, you know, I think it's so cool to play adult Monopoly with a five-year-old that, yeah, let's see how her math is, let's see how her negotiation skills are, it's all that kind of stuff, right?
	And she beat me.
	It's so embarrassing.
	Anyway.
	And also learn how to deal with the randomness sometimes of life, the dice roll and all that.
	And model to her losing well and all that cool stuff, right?
	So I ask her what she wants to do.
	I'm not going to sit there and play Monopoly with my wife if my daughter's not there, but that's what she wants to do.
	And that's the deal, right?
	She didn't choose to be here and she can't go somewhere else, so it's incumbent upon me to find out what she likes.
	And to a reasonable degree, not to the point of making it all about her, but to a reasonable degree, supply what she likes, right?
	Right.
	So, a deep conversation, if your mother wasn't that way inclined, wasn't going to just happen.
	It would happen as a result of her inquiring and understanding you and your preferences.
	Right.
	And you said your dad was better at that?
	Yeah.
	Sometimes whenever we had time together, him and I would talk about things and I would bring up a topic and he would engage and then talk about whatever the topic is and We'd spend time together working on engines or cars or whatever.
	That was something he was interested in, but I myself wasn't terribly interested in.
	And then sometimes when I would like to play with my Legos or whatever, and he'd say, okay, go play with your Legos, and he'd end up doing something else.
	So...
	So your father enjoyed deeper conversations?
	Yeah.
	So how pretty was your mom?
	Average.
	I mean, I wouldn't put her on a cover of any magazine.
	And how attractive was your father?
	About the same.
	Right.
	No, I'm just wondering, right?
	So if a man likes deep conversations, why would he marry your mom?
	Um...
	I don't know.
	I never asked him that question.
	It's an important question to ask though, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, it wasn't like she was having deep conversation.
	Did you ever hear her have a deep conversation with him?
	No.
	Would you say that your mother was intelligent or not?
	I believe she's intelligent, but maybe not.
	I mean, she's intelligent in the ways of her job.
	I mean, she's a chemist, so she understands the scientific method and that sort of thing.
	But I wouldn't say that she's intelligent in regards to philosophy or...
	It's kind of concrete, right?
	That's often the case with engineers and chemists and all that.
	Like, very, sort of, in a sense, practical or pragmatic, but not particularly interested in the inner life.
	Right.
	So, maybe a high IQ, but not EQ, emotional intelligence, right?
	Right.
	Well, I think it's an interesting question to ask your dad, which was, you know, what about mom?
	Right?
	I mean, the love template, or the bond template between our parents has a huge influence over our own lives, right?
	Right.
	And so finding out what your dad found so attractive about your mom is really important for everyone to understand.
	You either understand it or it runs your life, right?
	Right.
	Often into the ditch, right?
	I mean, I assume that you wouldn't want to marry someone like your mom.
	No, I would rather have someone that I can talk to and understand what she wants and she understands what I want.
	And try to provide it, right?
	I mean, if you can't, you don't get married, right?
	Right.
	So, you are used to people not wanting, or at least one person, your mom, not wanting feedback, not soliciting feedback, and not responding to what you want.
	Right.
	Right.
	So, was she your primary caregiver when you were a baby?
	Yes.
	Yes.
	I mean, my dad and my mom were there.
	It's just that, like I said...
	No, but your mom was primary, right?
	Did your dad travel a lot when you were a baby?
	Yeah.
	He would leave for at least a week at a time, at least once or twice a month.
	And he worked during the day.
	Did your mom stay home with you during the day?
	I went to daycare...
	I don't remember when it started, but I'm sure, I can't remember it, but as an infant, I'm able to, I don't even know what age it was when I started going to daycare, but it wasn't too much further from infancy, probably two or three years old, when I went to daycare and she went to work and dad went to work.
	So your mom was home with you for like a year or two?
	Yeah.
	Do you know if you were breastfed?
	I'm told that I was, but I don't remember it.
	Well, no.
	I may assume that that's true, right?
	Yeah.
	So your mom was home with you full-time for a year or two, breastfeeding you before you went to daycare.
	Is that right?
	Yes.
	Right.
	So that's why you ended up on a submarine.
	That's a big leap.
	Not really.
	Honestly, no.
	It's not really a big leap.
	Well...
	I guess I don't understand the connection.
	I guess more choices have to be explored and the reason why those choices were made before we go from breastfeeding to submarine.
	Right.
	No, I understand.
	Okay, so let's just say, I don't know for sure, obviously I'm just an amateur in all these matters, but your mom doesn't sound like she is suffering from an excess of empathy.
	No.
	Right?
	And this would have been the case when you were a baby.
	I can only assume that because I don't know.
	No, we can know that.
	It's not like you develop a bunch of empathy and then it goes away again.
	It's like saying, well, she spoke Japanese really well when I was younger and she still keeps speaking Japanese every day but now she doesn't speak Japanese.
	Right?
	I mean, she wouldn't have had no empathy Given birth to you, developed empathy for a year or two, and then had it go away again.
	Empathy is involuntary.
	Empathy is a very deep combination of between 10 and 12 brain systems that work together and require specific development at particular parts of your youth, right?
	Yeah.
	Go ahead.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	I was going to say that...
	So I guess the act of taking care of me from infancy to two or three years old was like an act of...
	Necessity or responsibility and not an act of empathy?
	Well, yeah.
	I mean, if she doesn't ask you what you want as an adult or as a child that you can remember, then she's not trying to get to know you, right?
	Right.
	And this would be the case, you know, what you need as a parent, and I say this as a stay-at-home dad, you need to mirror your child's emotions.
	You need to deeply understand how they feel.
	You need to reflect it back to them.
	And their emotions need to change your behavior.
	I don't know if you've ever had it where you're really upset and someone comes in in a good mood and then they get annoyed at you for being upset.
	Or they act as if you're not upset and just continue as if you're...
	It's weird, right?
	I don't know if you've ever had that happen.
	I can remember one or two times that happened.
	Right.
	And it's frustrating and it's alienating because it's like, well, wait a second.
	Don't you even notice that I'm upset here?
	I remember when I was a kid, I had a pair of shorts.
	I guess my mom used some pretty harsh detergent on them.
	And I had a pair of shorts and they shaved the crap out of my inner thighs.
	Like they were raw, right?
	And I was like staggering home.
	Clutching my legs in agony, tears streaming down my face.
	Another kid came up to me and said, Hey Steph, want to play some football?
	And it's like, oh my god.
	Can't you see I'm in agony?
	I mean, how do you even respond to that?
	Confusion, I guess.
	Honestly, I have no idea what to say.
	I mean, because I can't say something that's not immediately evident to anyone with eyes and eardrums, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, seriously, it's like if I'm some deep, chocolatey color, right?
	A deep, ebony, glorious Nubian blackness, right?
	Guy comes up, shakes my hands, looks me square in the eye and says, Are you black?
	I mean, what do you even say?
	I mean, I don't know.
	I don't know what to say.
	I don't know what to say.
	Or, you know, I go to the barber and he says, well, how do you want me to do the top?
	Just a little off the side?
	Trim my ears.
	I'm over 40, for Christ's sake.
	Anyway.
	Right, so mirroring, which you can look up, right?
	Mirroring is understanding your child's emotional state and responding appropriately to it, which makes the child feel secure and bonded.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Right, now, this was, I mean, I'm going to say virtual certainty did not happen when you were a baby, right?
	Right.
	And so...
	Your own capacity for emotional connection would have not had exactly the chance to flourish that it could have, right?
	Yeah.
	I can see that.
	Now, you can't join an imperialistic military if you suffer from an excess of empathy.
	Now, you can join like a militia if some people are about to invade, you can grab a pitchfork or something, right?
	Because you care for the people around you who are about to be harmed, right?
	Right, it's a whole self-defense type thing.
	Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
	You know, if your military is an honorable, minimum, self-defense-oriented agency, then you can join that out of care and compassion for the people who you are protecting, right?
	But America, you know, uniquely positioned for peace, having friendly neighbors to the north and south, and giant oceans to the east and west, certainly does not need to be, you know, five or six times the greatest military spending in the world, right?
	Even its closest, nearest neighbor.
	I think China's, the next one is like five or six times less, if I remember rightly.
	Right.
	So...
	The American Defense is about world control, control of resources, and it's a 3D chess play thing for sociopathic pawnbrokers, right?
	And this is all clear.
	I mean, there's no...
	There's any particular doubt about this, and I'm not telling you anything that you, having been in the military, don't know very well.
	Yeah.
	I wish I'd known that before I joined, but I didn't.
	I know.
	There's a reason why they don't get Noam Chomsky on CNN, right?
	Yeah.
	Got to keep the propaganda machines rolling, right?
	Right.
	Or me, for that matter.
	Noam Chomsky would be better.
	So, when you don't get mirrored, when you don't have curiosity about you as an individual, when your emotions don't have an effect on other people, then other people's emotional reality don't become particularly real.
	And this happens in sports.
	And I don't mean recreational sports or playing for fun.
	I'm not playing to win.
	Everyone who's a competitive sports player has to turn off empathy.
	I mean, obviously in boxing, right?
	You have to turn off empathy.
	Because it hurts when you hit the other guy, right?
	And the other guy wants to win as much as you do.
	But you have to only go on your preferences, not the other person's preferences.
	I mean, as a kid, I used to go to these.
	It was 10 pennies to get into the theater and see a bunch of cartoons and the odd short film.
	I remember there was one film, it was a black and white film about...
	Anybody who knows it, send it to me.
	I'm always curious to see stuff that I saw as a kid.
	It was a black and white, you know, the usual ragtag bunch of soccer kids and all that, and they banded together under an irascible coach, and they won the championship, right?
	And yay, cheering.
	And of course...
	If the camera had been on the other side of the field, it would be exactly the same.
	Bunch of kids all want to win.
	Coach wants them to win and they win.
	Yay!
	Right?
	It's win-lose.
	Sports is win-lose.
	War is win-lose.
	Domination is win-lose.
	Theft, win-lose.
	Murder, assault, rape.
	Win-lose.
	And whenever anything is win-lose, people who have empathy can't participate.
	I couldn't box because I have these mirror neurons, which means I hit someone in the face, I feel it myself.
	It's like that old Joe Haldeman story, Study War No More, I think it was called, about a guy who gets infected by an alien with feeling what other people feel, and he turns from being cruel to not being cruel because he gets overwhelmed by the negative feelings of his victims.
	It's a very powerful and important story for me.
	Is that a book or a movie?
	It's a short story.
	Oh, okay.
	I think it's in a collection of short stories, I think, called Study War No More, and I read it when I was very, very young.
	If I remember right, I don't know when it came out, but if I remember right, I was 11 or so when I read it.
	Okay.
	And, um, right.
	So to, to be in a expansionist or, or a predatory military, uh, means basically that you, you You can't have empathy for the people who are forced to pay for your salary.
	You can't have empathy for yourself when you go through that screamy-yelly basic training, if that's what you went through.
	You can't have empathy for your sovereign self because you have to take orders.
	And everyone says, well, you can't obey an unlawful order, but frankly, how many people bother, right?
	Yeah, just follow orders.
	Yeah, and you certainly can't have empathy for the victims.
	Yeah.
	Right, so what I mean is that when you...
	When your feelings weren't taken seriously, when your feelings weren't mirrored back to you, your sense of emotional self-knowledge didn't develop very well, your sense of empathy didn't develop very well, and that was necessary for you to end up in a submarine which could have launched missiles that could have killed thousands or hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions of people.
	Right.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah, and it's looking back on the decision to join the Navy, I really didn't consider what the military does, what the U.S. military does, not just any military, just the U.S. military does around the world.
	I never considered that being a part of that would be...
	Would be because I don't have the empathy for the people that it affects.
	Well, and this is why I'm going to ask a few more questions about your father.
	Okay.
	So, what did your father say when you said, I want to join the military?
	Well, he agreed that it was a good idea.
	And I think mainly...
	All right.
	So, he married your mom and he thought the military was a good idea.
	Well, he was in the military before as well.
	So, tell me where all this empathy is coming from, from your dad?
	Well...
	I think...
	Maybe I don't know...
	Let's see...
	I guess I thought of him having empathy because he would listen to me and engage with me and listen to what I want to do and that sort of thing.
	Is that considered...
	Yeah, that's certainly a first level.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	That's the first level of empathy.
	But another level of empathy would be to encourage his wife to connect with you emotionally because that's so important for emotional development.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	And if he wasn't around as much, he would know exactly or as much as connection.
	I'm not sure if I'm making a good sentence here.
	No, no.
	So I think I understand.
	So he either knows that your wife is not emotionally connected to you but doesn't do anything about it, which is cold, or he doesn't even know that his wife is not emotionally connected to his son, which is even colder.
	So either way, you're cold.
	Yeah, it's, you know, cold versus colder.
	Frozen versus frozen-er, right?
	Yep.
	And he was in the military, and he married your mom.
	Not signs that point to...
	I mean, let me sort of give you an example.
	I haven't been talking down the military, and I've talked a little bit about war with my daughter.
	And the other day, I mentioned that I had a show with a soldier...
	And she said, I am never, ever going to join the army.
	Now, she still does want to run the Federal Reserve.
	Right?
	Who doesn't?
	Yeah, I mean, free money?
	It's pretty tempting, right?
	And I'm explaining to her how free money is stealing and all that, right?
	But, I mean, this is not something I've told her.
	Military good.
	I've told her what it is.
	And she's like, I would never, ever join the military.
	And don't you ever go to war either, Daddy.
	She says that?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Wow.
	It's amazing.
	It's not, though.
	I mean, I know it is.
	It seems that way.
	But it would be weird if she's like, oh, I'd love to join the military.
	I'd be like, oh, man, what did I do wrong?
	Yeah.
	I mean, you don't see very many examples of the development of a child the way you have raised yours.
	At least...
	Right, right.
	...or videos and movies or even fictional movies.
	You don't see very many examples of that.
	No, and I appreciate that.
	Although what I'm doing...
	Is, in fact, what everyone claims they're doing.
	Right?
	And this is what's so challenging about changing the family.
	Look, if you've got a friend who's a Nazi, he says, I really hate those Jews, or I really want to invade Poland, I don't know what the hell, right?
	What the hell do I know what Nazism about, other than most of what's been enacted in the West over the past 60 years since we defeated Nazism, right?
	But he's open, right?
	Right.
	Whereas parents are different.
	Like, so if some guy says, oh, I love the Jews, I would do anything for the Jews.
	The Jews are like the most magnificent, heroic, intelligent, creative force in the known universe.
	They are the greatest thing.
	I would lay down my life for Jews, right?
	Yeah.
	I think Glenn Beck says something like that sometimes.
	Well, it's tough.
	Yeah.
	I mean, then it's tough to see the anti-Semitism, right?
	And so all the parents say, I only want what's best for my child.
	Right?
	Right.
	I will do whatever is best for my child.
	There's nothing I wouldn't do for my children.
	My children are everything to me.
	I love my children.
	Right?
	Right.
	Oh, so you'll do whatever's best for your child.
	Do you know that spanking has all these negative outcomes?
	Were you spanked, by the way?
	I remember being spanked maybe once or twice between three or four years old.
	But after that, I don't remember ever being spanked after that.
	What did you experience?
	Well, I remember the pain and I remember crying about it.
	And then I remember going to my room and And then, at some point, I had to get out of my room and we never talked about it again, really.
	But it didn't happen much, right?
	Right.
	It only happened once.
	But how were you disciplined?
	How were you disciplined when you got older without spanking?
	Well, I don't remember.
	I remember going to timeout.
	But it wasn't my parents that put me in timeout.
	It was like at daycare.
	Right.
	But I don't remember ever going to timeout with my parents telling me to go to timeout.
	I honestly don't believe the discipline that I developed wasn't the result of being spanked going to timeout.
	I think it was I developed because of just emulating, or better yet, because I have siblings too.
	And I saw a lot of my siblings get disciplined either by spanking or timeout.
	And I just didn't want to do that either.
	I didn't want to be spanked.
	I didn't want to go to timeout.
	So whatever it is they were doing...
	Where that happened, I didn't do, and therefore I never got the explanation.
	Right.
	So you conformed in a sense, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And again, that's necessary for soldiering, right?
	Yeah.
	You see the threat of punishment and you conform, right?
	Right.
	Without really understanding why and take orders.
	Yeah.
	I definitely experienced that.
	Right.
	Right.
	So, yeah, so when you say to parents, look, spanking is objectively bad for your children, and you said that you do whatever is good for your children, right?
	How many parents do you think say, oh my god, I had no idea.
	I had no idea.
	And I'm responsible for having no idea.
	Because I'm the parent, right?
	And everybody knows that standards change.
	We don't let children play with lead toys anymore.
	Or things with lead paint.
	We, you know, lawn darts were fine when we were a kid.
	They're banned now.
	Asbestos was fine when we were kids.
	It's ripped out now.
	BPA, fine.
	No, it's not fine, right?
	So everybody knows that standards change from generation to generation, that knowledge improves.
	Everybody knows that there used to be slavery and now there is not.
	People believe that women used to have no rights and now they do and all that kind of stuff, right?
	So even just if we look at the general matrix man and woman, They know that standards change.
	They know that they need to do research, right?
	They know that treatments for illnesses change, right?
	Yeah.
	And so, if you are going to be a parent, then you have to research the new standards, right?
	Yeah.
	And you'd say, okay, well, what's the evidence on spanking?
	Well, the evidence on spanking has been around for 40-plus years.
	Wow.
	Oh, circumcision.
	What's the evidence on circumcision?
	Wow.
	What's the evidence on yelling at kids?
	This has all been known for decades.
	It's not a mystery.
	It's not kept secret.
	There's no skull and bones ritual you have to inculcate your way into to get this secretive information.
	With all the propaganda around, I think it's kind of created as a secret because no one wants to bring it up.
	No, it's a Google.
	It's a Google.
	No, it's parents.
	Parents don't want to change.
	They don't want to confront that they were mistreated as children and so a lot of them, not all of them, acted out again.
	I mean, 30% of moms and some dads admit to hitting their babies over the last month.
	And they didn't do the research.
	So, you know, they say, well, I'll do anything to keep my kids healthy and happy and my kids' health and happiness and success in life is everything to me.
	Oh, okay, well, the research is very clear that Homework creates stressed out, sleepless, nervous wrecks of children, right?
	These days, children in early high school have like three hours of homework a night.
	Seven hours in school, an hour going back and forth to school, three hours of homework, that's eleven fucking hours.
	Eleven fucking hours of schoolwork and school-related shit every day.
	I mean, are they serious?
	And then, oh, childhood obesity is a big problem.
	Michelle Obama is going to show you how to do bicep exercises.
	Fuck that.
	How about no homework?
	And there's no proof that homework does any good to children whatsoever in terms of academic success.
	It's just a way of stressing them out and controlling them and bullying them.
	It has nothing to do with anything like that.
	So you say to parents, well, spanking, yelling is all bad, known for decades, so stop doing that, right?
	Because you said that you were going to do anything to protect your children.
	But then they just change their story, right?
	So that's the problem.
	It's that they're anti-child, but they just say that they do anything for children.
	Yeah.
	So in essence, they don't know what's best for their children.
	Oh no, they know.
	Because, I mean, the information is out there.
	I mean, it's like saying, I don't know, but you didn't do the research.
	So I guess the better answer...
	But then you chose not to do the research.
	And if they do the research...
	The spanking argument is...
	Boy, talk about...
	They say global warming is done.
	The argument is over, right?
	Which is bullshit, but...
	It's weather, for Christ's sake, right?
	But spanking is like...
	The debate is done.
	And has been for decades.
	And parents don't want to hear it.
	Look, if parents wanted to hear it, it would be all over the media.
	You understand?
	The media loves scaring the shit out of parents in return for ratings.
	Right?
	I mean, I did a whole podcast on reading off all the false media scares, right?
	Yeah.
	I don't think I've seen that one, but...
	And then, you know, they praised the war, because war is really great for young people.
	Anyway, so if parents wanted to hear about the dangers of spanking, it would be all over the news.
	I mean, you're not even a parent.
	It sounds like you probably have heard that BPA is bad for bottles and shit like that, right?
	Yeah.
	You get warnings on plastic bags, right?
	There's no warning tattooed on the back of parents' hands, right?
	You know, it's funny.
	I started hearing about that through alternative media, but then the mainstream media picked it up later.
	But they're not hammering it.
	True.
	Right?
	Because parents don't want to hear it.
	And they sure as hell don't want the kids to be exposed to it.
	You know, where are the kids' books about spanking?
	They don't exist.
	Because parents don't want children to know how bad spanking is for them, because then the parents' protestations that they care about the children will be revealed as complete and total bullshit.
	Look, Mommy.
	Look, Daddy.
	Spanking is objectively bad for me.
	It costs me IQ points, creates defiant disorders, lays the groundwork for future illnesses ranging from cancer to ischemic heart disease.
	It's really bad for me, and yelling is even worse.
	So since you care about me, you'll stop this now, right?
	Just as you told me to stop doing things like pushing other kids and grabbing their toys, which I wanted to do.
	I stopped because you told me I absolutely had to stop and clearly you're adults and I stopped what I was doing that was bad when I was five and you guys are 35 so you should stop doing what you're doing because it's objectively bad for me just as you told me to stop doing what I was doing that was bad for me too.
	You tell me no sugar, I'm telling you no spanking.
	What do the parents say?
	But that's what my parents did.
	That's what the Bible says, etc, etc.
	Yeah, in which case they're doing stuff which is harmful to the child.
	The child knows it.
	They know it.
	So they can't claim that they care about the child, right?
	Yeah.
	I never considered a parent that doesn't care about the child enough to understand the ramifications of their actions.
	Oh, childism is the most prevalent form of bigotry in society.
	Without a doubt.
	Look, if white people...
	Kept spending all this money and burying black people in debt?
	What would people say?
	It's terrible.
	How racist.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	Where are the adults protesting about the national debt?
	Yeah.
	Not very many, but there are people out there that do.
	If people had to go to work in an environment that was like public school, if they were assigned a job, taken to that job, had to go through metal detectors, had to raise their hands to go to the bathroom, were told what and how to work on, were interrupted constantly, and were surrounded by workplace bullies and sexual harassment, what would adults say?
	Well, they should do what they can to stop that from happening.
	What the fuck is this?
	North Korea?
	Jesus.
	This is a fucking gulag.
	This is a prison camp.
	Right, I mean, if every boss said work a seven-hour day and he has three hours of work to do at home.
	And they don't get paid for it.
	What would people say?
	Yeah, they don't get paid for it.
	What would you say?
	I wouldn't do it.
	I wouldn't have that job.
	You're an abusive asshole.
	I'm not working for free.
	Do your goddamn job.
	That's what you say to teachers.
	Why the fuck do you get my kids for seven hours?
	Do your fucking job.
	Don't send them home with three hours of homework.
	That's my time with my children.
	And I'm not spending my time with my children fighting with them to do homework so that you can get more school funding.
	Right?
	Because it's sometimes in the US in particular it's based on the test and shit like that, right?
	Yeah.
	It's written into law.
	You can't hit anyone except children.
	In the past, when blacks weren't allowed to testify in court, everyone said, well, that's horrible, right?
	That's terrible.
	We can't have that, right?
	We can't have that.
	Monstrously racist.
	Unfortunately, change doesn't happen soon enough in society.
	Well, no, no.
	See, the problem is, though, that it's not even recognized.
	You ask people, what is childism?
	No idea.
	I mean, we're so far from a solution, we don't even know that there's a word for the problem.
	I mean, at least in the 16th or 17th century, racism was understood.
	Yes, blacks are inferior.
	We don't give them full rights because they're not real human beings, right?
	It was openly discussed, talked about, clear.
	We didn't have a society that said, well the blacks are everything to us, we would do anything for the blacks.
	Our whole society is founded around the success of the blacks.
	But they can't testify in court, they have no economic independence and you can hit them at will.
	This is how completely insane our culture is.
	At least they had the integrity to treat blacks like shit when they were overt racists.
	It's not right, obviously, right?
	But at least their words matched their deeds.
	Blacks are inferior, yeah.
	We'll enslave them.
	I know it's more complex.
	It's a popular narrative, right?
	But we say, as a culture, we'd do anything for our children.
	Children of the world to us.
	There's nothing we wouldn't do.
	Okay, we'll hit them.
	We'll lock them up in state gulags.
	We'll have each of them borne half a million dollars in debt because we won't curb our government and we won't protest about it.
	Fucking old people are like, more Social Security, more Medicare, more Medicaid, more government benefits.
	I don't see the AARP saying, you know, we really have to...
	You know, we really have to watch out for this overspending stuff.
	Because it's children.
	They matter.
	And they don't have a choice in the matter.
	We've had our full lives to reform the system.
	We really can't pass the bill on to the unborn.
	That's completely unfair and unjust.
	No.
	Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme!
	Wah, wah, wah.
	Right?
	They're fucking toddlers.
	Well, um...
	I don't know how much more we should go into this.
	Um...
	But I think I've answered my question.
	It's all stemmed from basically the culture of families and where the idea that self-ownership is meaningless to people because they don't want to ask what other people want to do or what their preferences are.
	So they don't have to take responsibility for that Action.
	Well, and more particularly, your friend who didn't care about what you thought and felt, you're susceptible not because you care about him, but because you have a template for that with your mother, and possibly your father to some degree.
	Yeah.
	Well, I definitely appreciate the conversation.
	I'm very glad you do, and are you out of the military now?
	Yes, I got out about four years ago.
	Oh, good.
	I just did my first enlistment.
	The only reason I joined was because I wanted to take advantage of the post-911 GI Bill.
	But having second thoughts on that, taking advantage of something that costs so much, does it even...
	Right.
	To even use that.
	So I'm looking at other opportunities to get me through college and not use the GI Bill at all.
	Fantastic.
	Fantastic.
	All right.
	Well, thank you so much, of course, for the callers.
	I'm sorry if we didn't get to everyone, but I really, really enjoyed all these conversations.
	That is great, great stuff.
	I really, really appreciate everyone who calls in.
	As usual, I put out my request donation, fdrurl.com forward slash donate.
	How about, a subscription is great, you know, 10, 20 bucks a month.
	20 bucks a month is like what?
	Eight coffees, seven coffees a month.
	I guess five if you're into expensive coffees.
	And it really does help the show spread, I guess, as we found out at the beginning of the show.
	We kind of need to do a little bit more soundproofing in the studio.
	Although I did actually shoot something which I'm going to release.
	My essay on defending my supposed ad hominem attacks.
	Thanks Mike and James for running the show.
	Have yourselves a great, great week everyone.

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