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April 10, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

03:14:30

2662 Women Good. Men Bad. - Wednesday Call In Show April 9th, 2014

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Time	Text
	Good evening, everybody.
	Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
	I hope you're doing, as my daughter would say, poochie.
	That is her word for cute or well.
	Poochie is good and she wishes you a dillion quill happiness.
	A dillion quill is the number that she's working to get everyone to accept that is higher than a Googleplex.
	Last but not least, it is very important that everybody pet They're kitties.
	With that in mind, let's move on to our first picture caller, Mike.
	All right.
	Up first today is Philip.
	And Philip wrote in and said, The NAP, non-aggression principle, applies only to those which are responsible for their actions.
	A lion isn't responsible, therefore he isn't evil if he eats somebody.
	Because of that, the NAP doesn't protect the lion.
	It is perfectly moral to use violence against it.
	Is a three-month-old child all responsible for his or her actions?
	If this is the case, does the NAP not apply?
	Since you probably don't agree, can you tell me where my error is in this thinking?
	Well, sure.
	The error is in the potential.
	You can't just look at morality as a continuum, which is why these snapshots that people have of lifeboat scenarios and disaster this and God forsaken that and so on, they don't really mean anything.
	They don't count because it's like there's a picture of a guy jogging down a street.
	Is he healthy?
	Well, you'd probably say yes, and just out of the frame is a giant-ass piano about to land on his head.
	Well, he is healthy, but he's about to die, right?
	So it's, you know, these photos don't work in philosophy, right?
	So a lion has no potential to achieve...
	A state of negotiation, right?
	A lion is never going to be able to negotiate, is never going to have the neofrontal cortex, doesn't genetically have the capacity to be a reasoning being, can't enter into contracts and so on.
	This does not mean that it is perfectly permissible to use violence against it.
	Just because an animal is not part of the social contract doesn't mean that you can go and stick bamboo up its ass, right?
	I mean, there are standards of cruelty and decency which we share with living things as a whole that I think are decent.
	I think they're aesthetically preferable.
	But the difference with a three-month-old baby is a three-month-old baby is on its way to being an honest-to-goodness, reasoning human being.
	So the fact that somebody is not in a reasoning state at the moment doesn't mean that you can initiate force against him or her.
	Otherwise, it's like, well, I killed that guy.
	It's true.
	But he was sleeping.
	And so he wasn't able to reason with me at the time.
	Or he was in a coma.
	Or he was knocked unconscious.
	And so on.
	Right?
	So...
	Somebody who's sleeping is going to wake up and be able to reason with you and somebody in a coma has the potential to wake up and be able to reason with you and someone who's knocked unconscious, blah, blah, blah, right?
	So a child has the greatest need of protection because without the care and protection of a parent, the child dies, right?
	So when you have a child, you are entering into a multi-decade contract and To provide resources to that child or to openly give that child up to someone else.
	And if nobody else wants to take that child, then you're stuck with that child.
	That's the deal.
	That's how it works with children.
	It's not the case for rape victims.
	If it's not a chosen positive obligation, then you don't have to do it.
	But in the situation where you choose to have a child and choose to keep the child, then you're responsible for that.
	You're not responsible for other people in the world.
	I don't have to feed some starving guy in Asia but I do have to feed my own child if my child – because my child is a prisoner in my house.
	So it's not the case that because a three-year-old can't enter into a contract that the three-year-old is deserving of less protection but rather more because the child is going to grow into someone who can enter into a contract.
	And in fact, the greatest chance for the child to grow into someone who's going to enter into a contract is the very fact that they're going to be taken care of and loved and nurtured and all that.
	And it's much more than just taking care of physical needs and all that kind of stuff.
	So does that help?
	I would or I would I would agree with you, but I would still argue that we are not talking about the NIP. I would argue that, for example, if there's a lawyer and if he has heritage from somebody else, he should give it to the rightful owner.
	Sorry, I don't understand.
	A lawyer with heritage?
	What does that mean?
	Wait, just my bad explanation.
	For example, if somebody says to you, if I die, you take my money, but you don't keep it.
	You just care for it, and if the rightful owner, for example, my lost son or whatever, comes along, then give it to him.
	So you are just caring for the money.
	You are not owning it.
	You are like a bank.
	You understand?
	Yeah, so this would be like a lawyer who has custodians.
	I wasn't finished.
	Just to establish this, I would compare this situation to the situation between a child and his parents.
	Like, the parents don't own the child, they just care for it as a future being, right?
	All right.
	Yeah, but that's not the NIP, right?
	Because the NIP is based on the fact that moral rules have to apply the same way to everybody or every sane grown-up being.
	I would much more argue that then, for example, spanking children is a property violation.
	No, no, no.
	It does apply to every person.
	Everyone who I kidnap and place in my house, I am responsible for feeding.
	Okay, so then it's immoral to kill cows.
	We can't get into a debate and then you jump into animal rights, right?
	Anyone who's trapped in my house, who can't get food in any other way, who I trap in my house, I am responsible for feeding, otherwise I'm guilty of murder, whether it's an adult or a child.
	Did you understand that?
	Yes, of course.
	Okay, so that's universal.
	And the children just happen to be trapped there biologically and cannot get their own food, right?
	Yes.
	So you are responsible for feeding them?
	Yes, I do agree with all of that.
	I do agree with not hitting children.
	I agree that it's immoral to hit children.
	I just don't agree with the line of argumentation to get there.
	I'm not sure what we disagree on, so why don't you tell me what you disagree on.
	Okay, okay, okay.
	As I understood it, if you argue to NAP, I understood that it's based on the fact that I can't formulate a moral rule which applies to two persons in the same room which have the same rights.
	Right?
	So, for example, if there are two persons, I can't formulate a rule which says it's morally neutral or good to initiate force against the other person, right?
	Yeah, but now this only works if the rules apply universal to both persons.
	But, for example, if you have a very young child, They aren't able even to make their own decisions.
	So how could this argument work there?
	I would much more argue that if you hit the children, you are violating the property of the future adult.
	Because of all you have argued.
	Wait, wait, wait.
	Hang on, hang on, hang on.
	Okay.
	You can't hit children because it's an initiation of force.
	An initiation of force doesn't survive the UPB test, right?
	It can't be universalized.
	So you can't hit children because it is the initiation of the use of force.
	Sorry, I... You can't hit children because it violates the non-aggression principle.
	Because it's not self-defense, right?
	You're initiating violence against another person.
	Yes and no.
	I would disagree because there's not really any magical line like...
	Ethics doesn't care about biology, right?
	For example, ethics doesn't care which race you are or whatever.
	Ethics does only care about responsibility.
	That's the only thing that matters.
	If space aliens land tomorrow on the Earth and they are just as intelligent as we are, the same ethics apply, right?
	Yes.
	Yeah, but then a child which is young and which isn't responsible for its own action, they can't apply the same moral rules because ethics doesn't care about biology.
	Ethics doesn't look at the DNA of the children and says, oh, it's a human, they have to apply other moral rules.
	Okay, I'm sorry.
	I think I'm just going to have to – I have no idea what you're talking about.
	So I'm just going to – I'm sorry.
	I can't follow your arguments.
	Children can't reason yet, and I've already made the case that a sleeping man can't reason.
	You don't get to hit a sleeping man.
	A man in a coma can't reason.
	You don't get to hit a man in a coma.
	So the fact that children can't reason is no reason to bypass the non-aggression principle.
	All who are – you can't initiate force against other people.
	Animals, right?
	There is a reason.
	That is a reason.
	I'm sorry?
	But for example, at animals, there is suddenly a reason.
	How can you switch?
	No, no.
	There is a reason.
	And I've gone over this a million times.
	Not in this call, but before.
	So the reason that animals cannot negotiate.
	They cannot reason with you.
	They cannot trade with you.
	They can't enter into a binding moral contract with you.
	They can't recognize.
	I mean, good luck talking to a lion about the non-aggression principle as he chews your gonads off, right?
	So...
	Lions and sharks and bears and so on are not part of the social contract.
	They're not part of our capacity to negotiate, and therefore there's no possibility of morals, rules applying to them.
	It doesn't mean that you can just go shoot them or torture them or anything, but yeah.
	So can I just try to argue your position one time and you say to me, like, maybe, maybe...
	No, see, I'm still not...
	I'm not sure what we're even talking about.
	What are we disagreeing about here?
	Can I try to rephrase it one time and then if it doesn't work, I got some other questions.
	No, I think if it doesn't work, I think we'll move on to the next caller, but go ahead.
	Okay.
	So, you said the lion isn't protected by the non-aggression principle because he can't reason with you.
	That's right.
	And never will be able to.
	Never will be able to.
	And the child is protected by the non-aggression principle because it can't reason for you, but it will in the future.
	Yeah, about the age of 18 months to 24 months, children can begin to negotiate on moral grounds.
	And I agree with all of that.
	I totally do.
	But I would say that this is an argument from the property because it's the future.
	It's like an investment in the future.
	As I understood it, the NIP is really an argument Totally in the present, because it's totally the argument that if there are two persons in a room, they can't both act morally at the same time if initiating force is...
	Okay, I'm sorry to interrupt you.
	The challenge that we have is that you can't listen.
	Because at the very beginning of this conversation, I said philosophy is a continuum.
	Ethics is a continuum.
	It requires context and perspective.
	There's no such thing as a snapshot.
	And now what you're saying is as far as you understand my position, it's that ethics is only in the moment.
	So I'm afraid without that listening and being able to absorb what it is that I'm saying, that doesn't mean agree.
	When I say listen to me, that means understand what I'm saying and process it.
	But you're just kind of like a broken record.
	Like it doesn't matter what I say.
	You just keep saying the same thing or misinterpret my position or whatever.
	So I'm sorry.
	That's not going to be satisfying.
	But perhaps we can try this another time.
	But first and foremost, when I say philosophy can't be a snapshot and then you say, well, as far as I understand it, the non-aggression principle is only in the moment.
	That means that you're not processing what I'm saying, and therefore we can't have a satisfying conversation.
	So I'm sorry about that, but let's move on to the next caller.
	All right.
	Fred is next, and Fred writes in and asks, Is true love conditional?
	Should we spend time with people whose love we discover to be highly conditional in nature and subject to change?
	What do you mean by conditional?
	Okay, so by conditional, I mean like...
	It's, like, not there, like, under certain conditions, obviously, right?
	And then once the situation changes and, like, you have more value and, like, you can bring in, like, yeah, basically you have more value in some way than now, like, all of a sudden, you know, oh, like...
	They like you now, you know?
	I don't know what you're talking about.
	I'm sorry.
	What are you talking about?
	Give me a concrete example because I don't know what that means.
	Okay, yeah.
	Could be my idiocy, but go ahead.
	No, yeah.
	I mean, I'm being really vague.
	So, okay.
	Basically, like, when I was, like, younger, you know, and, like, I had no real, like, power to, like, gain any valuable, like, knowledge or to, like, make money or anything, like, I felt kind of like the people that I was living with, my parents, they kind of just took me for granted.
	But then I went out and I graduated and now I got into medical school.
	Okay, hang on a sec.
	If you want to continue chatting with me, I need you to offer to pay me a dollar every time you use the word like.
	Okay, I got you.
	Is that a good deal?
	Yeah, yeah.
	It's a good deal for me.
	I don't know if it's going to be a good deal for you, but it's a good deal for me.
	I'll be more eloquent.
	Thank you.
	Well, okay, but do you see what I said, though?
	So, I still don't know what you're talking about.
	So, your parents didn't love you, and then they did?
	When something changed?
	I wouldn't say it like that, because...
	That's why I have to ask, what is love?
	Is it conditional?
	Because I don't really know what to call it.
	I know that it was not a relationship that I enjoyed very much.
	I was living with one parent.
	I was living with my mother.
	And then I went to my father's house.
	And then I got a lot of stuff done.
	I graduated early.
	I got into...
	Are you stoned at the moment?
	I'm just curious.
	No, I'm not.
	I don't smoke weed.
	You don't smoke weed?
	And you haven't taken any substances, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay, just checking.
	No drink?
	No?
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	Can I send you a latte?
	All right.
	So, look, conditional love is...
	Natural.
	I mean, of course you should have conditions for love.
	Otherwise, it doesn't matter who's in your bed.
	It doesn't matter who's in your life.
	It doesn't matter who's the mother of your children.
	It doesn't matter who's the father of your children.
	Of course love should be conditional.
	Otherwise, you're like a love whore.
	You're just like – except not even getting paid.
	So yeah, of course love could be conditional.
	I mean if someone is a bastard or some woman is a bitch, then yeah, we can't love that person.
	It's dependent upon the consistent virtuous behavior on the part of another person.
	And love is involuntary.
	So if you want to find love, if you want love to work for you, if you want to really connect with someone that you love, you work on your own virtue.
	Right?
	You work on your own virtue.
	Right?
	You work on becoming a good person, a strong person, and you look at scouring in a true philosophical, perhaps looks a little bit like Steph, Mr.
	Clean kind of fashion with a big old giant scrub brush.
	You work at reforming your relationships so that you get the backstabbers, the dipshits, the sarcastic people, the underminers, the abusers, the indifferent, the boring, the unmotivated, the sneering, the snarky.
	You get all those people either shape up or get the fuck out of my life.
	And when you get better people around you and you get quality people around you, or the people around you are stimulated by your example of virtue and become quality people themselves, well, then you are in a pretty good situation.
	Because then what happens is when you find someone else who has the virtues that you are in pursuit of or you are...
	Trying to achieve consistently in your own life, then you will find that you will love that person.
	You will love that person.
	Guilty people who don't want to change love people who pretend to forgive them.
	People who are criminals love people who don't call them on being criminals, who don't bring them up short for being criminals.
	People who are abusers love other people who say, yeah, good swift kick to the butt, that's what kids need these days, right?
	Yeah.
	So, love is, I mean, that's a loosey-goosey word, but my definition is love is our involuntary response to virtue if we are virtuous.
	Love is our involuntary response to virtue if we are virtuous, right?
	And if we're not virtuous, then we'll love other people.
	So yeah, my love is highly conditional.
	It's incredibly exclusive.
	It has a club of very few people in it.
	It doesn't mean I don't like the listeners and have affection for them and all that.
	But the people I genuinely, deeply love is very few.
	I mean, how many really virtuous people do you see in the world?
	Yeah, not a whole lot.
	Okay.
	So yeah, love should be highly conditional.
	Absolutely.
	But the idea that love should be – like we should have some sort of standard for love, I don't like that.
	And now I know.
	I mean I just put a bunch of standards up like virtue and this and that and the other.
	But love is a feeling.
	The problem I have with things like conditional love or unconditional love, it's sort of like if people can convince you that you owe them love and they're bad people, you're screwed.
	Your life is just going to be one series of...
	Shit heap brain-dead potholes after another.
	So I'm sort of concerned when people say, well, there are these standards for love, see?
	And you have to meet these standards for love.
	And if you don't meet these standards for love, then you're a bad person you can't love.
	You're not paying people what they justly owe.
	Like, you know, family.
	You've got to love your family.
	Why do you have to love your family?
	That's a fundamental question.
	Why do you have to love your family?
	Because they happen to be born close to you?
	Because you have to drop out of your mama's hoo-hoo?
	Why does that mean?
	Did Hitler have to love his parents?
	What about Stalin's daughter?
	Did she have to love her parents?
	What about Charles Manson's kids?
	Did they have to love their parents?
	What about Ted Bundy's kids?
	Did they have to love their parents?
	You know, what about guys who are in the KKK? What about Nazis?
	What about racists?
	What about real, nasty, pig-ignorant sexists?
	Do their children have to love them?
	Jesus, I mean, you don't even choose your goddamn parents.
	What are the odds that they're going to be virtuous, great, glorious people that you love?
	I mean, Jesus Christ, even when people get the chance to choose who they make a family with, like they get to choose that person, they get to date them, they get to go out with them for months, they get to get engaged for months or years, they get to get married.
	And then they usually take years before they even have children.
	So they've had 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years to choose from a wide variety of people, test drive a couple of people, go on dates, get engaged, get married, figure out if they like each other, figure out what their values are.
	And then they decide to have children.
	And how many of those marriages work out?
	Well, failure rate for marriage, about 50%.
	So even if you get to choose from a wide variety of people based upon your values, even if you get to test drive them for years, 50% of those relationships break up.
	So parents, what are the odds that it's going to be compatibility?
	I mean if people you choose Can't even stand you or you can't stand them.
	How about the people you never even chose?
	It's sort of like saying, well, I have an infinite menu here.
	I'm in this restaurant, the restaurant called Dating, Sex, Babies, all that kind of goody stuff, the dating restaurant.
	Man, I got an infinite buffet.
	I mean, there's some languages on this buffet.
	I don't even know what those languages are.
	I can still order from them.
	There are some pages stuck together.
	All right.
	I put on my rubber gloves, nose clips, and in I go, peel those things back.
	It's just perfect.
	It's pictures of space aliens.
	I can order that shit too if I want.
	It's an infinite buffet in an infinite restaurant.
	And you know what?
	I've tasted and can choose and take little nibbles and all that.
	And even after that, I've tasted, I've chosen, I've gone up to the buffet.
	I've chosen just a little taste.
	Oh, that's good.
	Oh, what the hell is that?
	Some sort of seaweed ass?
	Forget that.
	Throw that one back, right?
	I got my plate.
	I've been up there for days sampling everything from the infinite buffet.
	Put it all on my plate.
	I take it home.
	I hate that meal.
	I'm going to divorce that meal.
	I hate that meal, right?
	Yeah.
	Now, so that's – you've got the infinite buffet and people can taste and test and choose and this.
	Still half the meals they take to their table tastes like the clown of an osteoanobics, right?
	Yeah.
	And so what happens if people just randomly throw shit on a plate and give it to you?
	What are the odds that you're going to love that meal?
	I'm very high, right?
	So I think love should be conditional, and love with regards to parents should be exceedingly conditional because it is the least voluntary relationship that any of us will ever have.
	Okay, so thank you for those comments, and that brings up a few questions.
	Of mine.
	So first, you know, if you're not getting love from, like, people...
	Sorry, I guess I owe you a dollar now.
	Don't worry, it's two bucks for, you know.
	But anyway, go ahead.
	Yeah, so if you're not getting love from, say, like, a parent, then does that mean that you are not virtuous?
	Because you said it's an involuntary reaction.
	No, if you were virtuous, right?
	I mean maybe your parents are a jerk.
	Maybe your parents are a narcissist or a sadist or close-minded or petty or vindictive or boring or dead inside or patriotic.
	Sorry, but I repeat myself.
	Or maybe they're lost in fantasies of Zeus and Jesus coming back in some big squishy gay male threesome with Hermes or something.
	Like, who knows, right?
	Who knows what's going on?
	They may have given up on life six days out of the womb.
	I don't know.
	But it could be that your parents are just jerks and incapable of love or incapable of empathy.
	And so, no, the fact that your parents don't love you doesn't mean that you aren't virtuous.
	And in fact, it can never really mean that because if your parents are virtuous, then they will raise virtuous children, right?
	In the same way that people who speak English tend to raise children who speak English, right?
	Not that complicated.
	You know, the The leading researcher, I think in the Genome Project in the UK, has spent 15 years trying to find any genes associated with personality and has come up empty.
	There are no genes, to our knowledge as yet, associated with personality.
	Personality is, to a large degree, environmental.
	Now, I don't mean things like, I think that there's some effects on being outgoing versus introverted or whatever.
	But I mean, in terms of virtue, there's no genetic basis for virtue that could be conceived of.
	Because if there was, it wouldn't be virtue by definition.
	Virtue has to be that which is chosen, right?
	So if we said, well, how tall you are is how virtuous you are, then short people would say, well, screw you.
	I didn't choose to be short.
	So anything that is genetic is automatically not part of virtue, right?
	So if you have virtuous parents, then they're going to raise you to be a virtuous person.
	And they're going to love you and you're going to love them because it's just this big, happy...
	Virtue stew that everyone's stirring around in, right?
	So that's all good.
	If your parents are bad people, then the first thing that they will do is not take a single goddamn shred of responsibility for their parenting.
	And this is so common, it's ridiculous.
	And I mean, I've watched just about every 99.1 show on Netflix, and I highly recommend it.
	And again, no, these aren't all typical families.
	These are actually the best families in some ways, because they're the ones who are actually trying to get outside help.
	And they're like, oh, my kids do these bad things.
	I have no idea what the problem could be, right?
	I saw Dr.
	Phil the other day.
	Man, oh man.
	There was this kid.
	He was eight years old.
	He had given a teacher a black eye.
	He'd broken another teacher's nose by headbutting them.
	He'd been caught in fights at school.
	He had threatened to murder his parents.
	Eight.
	He had threatened to murder his parents in their sleep with a butcher's knife.
	He punched holes in the wall.
	And just, you know, an incredibly dangerous and violent kid, you know, heading straight to news at six, right?
	And...
	Dr.
	Phil brings his parents in and he says, do you have any idea why your son is this way?
	And they say, we don't know, Dr.
	Phil, we have no idea why our son is this way.
	It makes no sense to us.
	And so, turns out, no shock of shocks here, turns out that the kid was born into a parent who physically assaulted each other in front of the child.
	They would punch each other bloody in front of the child.
	What a shock.
	The child believes that coercion is a valid form of interaction, that it's useful.
	Imagine how terrifying that is.
	It literally would be like seeing 80-foot people punching each other with thunderbolts over your house.
	I mean absolutely, completely and totally terrifying.
	Verbal abuse raining down.
	They beat the child.
	They divorced when the child was three, when the boy began to show these violent symptoms.
	The parents divorced, and now there's a new stepdad, and his idea of discipline is to beat the child black and blue with a belt.
	And, you know, they literally say, with a straight face, mind you, they literally say, That they have no idea why their son is violent.
	No idea whatsoever.
	The mom's in tears.
	The parents are like, well, you know, we just want the best for that boy, but we don't know.
	You know, I don't know.
	I guess they're Christians so they can believe in the devil.
	But this is the level now.
	Do they love their son?
	It's hard to love somebody who wants to stab you to death.
	You know, and Dr.
	Phil goes and talks to the kid.
	The kid says, well, first of all, when the kid got to the studio, he said he wanted to burn down the studio and everyone in it.
	And then when he sees Dr.
	Phil, he says he wants to put a piece of dynamite inside Dr.
	Phil and watch him blow up.
	Wow.
	Sorry to laugh.
	It's just – I mean, no, but this is – and of course, if and when this kid goes off the rails and takes down half a school wing, people will like – Well, you know, he came from such a nice family and I don't know.
	I mean, what could possibly have gone wrong?
	So this is the kind of madness that we live in in society.
	And I mean, people genuinely say they have no idea why the child is violent.
	This parental incomprehension is something I find.
	It's so inevitable, but it's just so skin-crawling.
	You know, it's just like, ah, you creep, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Mike, you had some thoughts as to what people will say?
	Oh, it's, you know, those violent video games.
	That's why he is the way he is.
	Or, you know, that music he's listening to.
	It's, you know, the rap music or maybe Marilyn Manson or something of the sort.
	Yeah.
	I'm dating myself there.
	But yeah, it's always something else.
	It's always the external, you know, cultural thing as opposed to how you raise your child for the first 18 years.
	Yeah, I know Marilyn Manson had something incredibly intelligent and sensitive to say about the Columbine shooters.
	When some interviewer said, what would you have said to the Columbine shooters?
	He said, I wouldn't have said anything to them.
	I would have listened to them, which is obviously what nobody did.
	Yeah, I heard him say that.
	Yeah.
	So, yeah, I mean, your parents just could be complete and total tools.
	And then they're not capable of love.
	And in fact, you don't want bad people to like you.
	You know, seriously.
	You don't want it.
	It's like, oh, man.
	And you don't want them to be indifferent to you either in the long run because that means you're not doing anything to harm their interests, right?
	But yeah, you want bad people to curse your name with every step they take and every breath they take and all that sort of stuff.
	But, you know, I'm not the...
	I'm not...
	I feel like it's a bit presumptuous for me, at least, to call them bad people or to say that, you know, there's some flaw in them.
	You mean your parents?
	Yeah.
	I just, you know, I just don't know.
	I mean, I feel like it'd be kind of hard to get this far in life if you were incapable of love, you know?
	Yeah.
	I just don't know.
	You know, the problem is we're talking in abstractions.
	You sound kind of tired, so maybe if you have a rest, we can come back and talk about your parents more if you like.
	But I just wanted to get you some perspectives on it.
	No, if your parents don't love you, it does not mean you're a bad person at all.
	It might mean that you're a really good person.
	Yeah, I mean, I'm not particularly tired.
	I might sound it.
	You know, but I'm not.
	And we can talk about it.
	The problem is whether you're tired or not.
	You're making me tired.
	And I've got a long show to do because it's kind of drawly and slow.
	And you're giving me a lot of abstractions.
	So mull it over.
	I mean, if you want to call back another time and talk more about your parents in detail.
	But it's all very abstract.
	So I think we will have to move on to the next caller.
	But I really do appreciate your calling.
	All right.
	Thanks.
	Thanks, man.
	Right.
	Chris wrote in and said, With a growing awareness of myself and what surrounds me, I've experienced anxiety and a sense of dread.
	Thoughts of my mere existence also provoke these incredibly strong emotional responses in me.
	What do you believe to be the origin of this dread and anxiety?
	I believe Mike nailed it when video games and rap music.
	Marilyn Manson.
	It's cut and dry.
	Okay.
	Sorry.
	So can you tell me a little bit more about when these feelings...
	Are they all the time or just sometimes?
	Alright, so it's pretty much most of the time actually.
	So it's happened after, pretty much has been going on for the course of almost like a year now.
	And literally anything that I can sort of just like experience in terms of just my vision or Just natural life experience.
	It kind of provokes this, like, you know, like, holy shit, I'm alive.
	What the hell are you talking about?
	Everything you could experience in terms of your vision?
	Well, I'm saying in terms of my senses.
	What is that?
	It's like a fortune cookie where the monkey had an epileptic attack.
	Everyone's so abstract.
	Yeah, I'm extremely abstract.
	Yeah, I know.
	Okay, well, don't.
	We're empirical here.
	We're concrete-based lifeforms.
	So don't give me any of this mumbo-jumbo, hoo-hoo, woo-woo stuff.
	Give me some concrete stuff.
	So when do you feel like crap?
	I mean just being alive I guess.
	I mean it's really hard to… Is it any better or worse at any particular time of day or if you're on vacation or on a weekend or is it pretty constant?
	Yeah, I mean, it's pretty constant.
	I just constantly just have this thought that's always going through my mind that I'm, you know, I guess I'm extremely just, you know, aware of my existence, and it's just strange that we're here.
	And I know, you know, I read a lot on physics and stuff like that, so I know, you know, how the earth happened, how life began, evolution.
	But still, even with all that knowledge, I still kind of, I just can't get over it.
	I let go, you know, just how strange it is that we're all here.
	It's just, it's really strange.
	Compared to what?
	Compared to, I guess, just how I thought about it before.
	How did you think about it before?
	I don't know.
	I've never really...
	I mean, I've always been aware that I'm alive, obviously, but I've never...
	It's never been...
	Good.
	Good.
	I think we're on the same page as far as that goes.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	Well, no, but...
	So you're saying it's strange that we're here now?
	Yeah, well, I guess that you're getting...
	But compared to what, right?
	I mean, compared to what?
	I mean, I look strange to a race of people with nine nipples because I have only 6.4, right?
	So...
	What is strange compared to what?
	I guess it's just like a really just an ultimate mindfuck.
	I mean, you know, when you're younger and you're always, you can't contemplate infinity, you know, you sit there in your mind, you try to contemplate just how strange it is that, you know, we're alive, you're going to die and that's it, it's over.
	So it's along the same lines of that sort of question where it's just like we're here and it's...
	We're here.
	So literally, your statement is because it's so strange to be here.
	We're here.
	We're queer.
	I can't get used to it.
	Right?
	Okay.
	All right.
	All right.
	So, no, okay.
	So, what is the feelings?
	What are the feelings?
	Now, don't give me this abstract garbage, right?
	What are the feelings?
	If you were an ape feeling this stuff and you wanted to grunt and signal to me, where would you point on your body, right?
	Where did the nasty abstractions touch you, young man?
	Show me on the doll.
	All right.
	No, I mean, I guess it's more just in my mind.
	I just, it's not really sort of like bodily feelings besides the, you know, just the normal, I guess, anxiety that could come with anything that you're anxious about.
	But it's just constant confusion to where I'm just, it's just, it's true.
	Did you really just give me the sentence, the normal anxiety that you feel whenever you're anxious about something?
	Oh my God, man.
	All right.
	No, I, hey, I'm rolling on my sleeves.
	I'm willing to go deep, man.
	Yeah, no, I want to go deep.
	I want to go deep with you, man.
	All right.
	All right.
	Okay.
	Balls deep?
	Are we going balls deep here, brother?
	We're going balls deep, man.
	All right.
	Let me limber up a little here.
	Limber and lube.
	Limber and lube.
	Just like at the rave.
	All right.
	Okay.
	Are you an only child?
	No.
	I have a sister and a brother.
	Where are you in the birth order?
	I'm the first.
	You're the oldest?
	Correct.
	How were you disciplined as a child?
	I was spanked.
	I was put in...
	I guess the corner or I was put in the bathroom.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	And how often were you spanked?
	I mean, honestly, I don't really even remember that much.
	A lot of my just younger years in terms of that much detail.
	I mean, I know I was spanked.
	Dude, dude, dude, don't fog out on me now.
	You know, you want to go deep, don't you start giving me this static now, okay?
	No, that's how it always is.
	Was it once?
	No, come on, come on.
	I'm not asking for down to 12 decimal places.
	Was it once a year, once a decade, once a week, once a month?
	It was often enough, I guess, like more than once a week or once a month probably.
	Wait, you just said more than once a week?
	Yeah, I changed my initial answer.
	So you do know.
	Yeah, I mean, I guess I try to get more detailed with it, but...
	I give you...
	I will give you three.
	I will give you three non-answers before I pull the plug.
	I'm saying this so that you don't waste our time.
	Okay.
	Right?
	And I'm not even...
	These last two were a gimme.
	Mm-hmm.
	Right?
	Three more non-answers.
	Because I have to be respectful of my audience time.
	Hundreds of thousands of people are going to listen to this, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	And if you jerk me around for ten minutes, that's person years of time scrubbed from the planet, right?
	Okay.
	Okay, I'm not telling you this to be mean.
	I'm just...
	I really want you to focus.
	Yeah, okay.
	Alright?
	Okay.
	Okay, so...
	You were hit maybe once a month.
	Mm-hmm.
	Is that true?
	Yes.
	Why did you say once a week and then change it to once a month?
	Because I'm still unsure of the exact amount, so I just sort of like...
	No, unsure of the exact amount is...
	A false statement.
	It's a red herring, right?
	It's a straw man because nobody knows the exact amount of times they were hit.
	Because you were a baby sometimes, right?
	Probably, or a toddler.
	So having the exact amount, but you just changed it by a factor of four, right?
	Once a month to once a week.
	Once a week to once a month.
	I'm not saying that you're right either way.
	I just want to know why it changed.
	I guess it was just an impulse.
	I thought that maybe a month would sound a lot more accurate.
	Would sound a lot more accurate.
	Oh man, you are working hard to keep me far, brother.
	That's not a strike though because you're honest about that.
	No, what you said was once a week and it sounded horrifying to you, right?
	So you changed it to once a month, right?
	Yes.
	Is that fair to say?
	That would be fair to say.
	Okay, so it wasn't that it sounded more realistic.
	It just sounded less bad to say I was hit once a month rather than once a week, right?
	Correct.
	How old were you when you were last hit?
	Probably, maybe 12, I would say.
	Once a week is obviously 50 times a year.
	Even if we don't throw in a couple of extra for Christmas and all that kind of stuff, right?
	Or vacations, where it happens more, right?
	Let's just say, we'll be conservative once a week.
	So you hit 50 times a year for 12 years.
	624 times.
	624 times.
	Mike, if you've got the calculator handy, let's say spanking episodes are 10 minutes each.
	I don't mean 10 minutes of straight spanking, but you've got to wrestle the kid down, you've got to lecture, you've got to hit, right?
	10 minutes each.
	6,240 minutes.
	How many hours?
	104 hours.
	104 hours of spanking.
	104 hours.
	That's two and a half work weeks, right?
	40 hours a week?
	I mean, with unions, that's like nine years of labor.
	So that's a lot of hitting, right?
	Yes.
	You say yes like you're not sure?
	I was going to just be more extensive and just say, well, according to those calculations, yes.
	Mm-hmm.
	Mm-hmm.
	So 100 hours is five days straight, right?
	Okay, yeah.
	Five days, day and night.
	Minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day.
	Hit, hit, hit, hit, hit, hit, hit.
	It's a lot of pounding, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	I mean, imagine if...
	A woman called the cops and said, my husband has been hitting me for five days straight.
	My husband has hit me 624 times in this marriage.
	that's horrifying.
	Yeah, well...
	No, go ahead.
	No, I was just going to say, obviously I've watched your shows quite enough, so I know that you want the more solid answer.
	But just in general, I've seen therapists in the past year or so, and they've also had a problem with me not really just having like, I'm too abstract or I have a...
	No, no, listen.
	This is another false dichotomy.
	I'm sorry to be annoying and interrupting.
	I really am.
	But I don't want an exact answer.
	What I want is an honest answer.
	You see, your abstractions are a dishonest answer.
	And by that, I don't mean that you're like consciously trying to lie to me.
	I don't mean that at all.
	I'm not trying to judge you morally because I assume this knowledge is not conscious to you.
	Right?
	Yeah, like I said, honestly, I would not really remember.
	I know I got hit.
	No, no, no.
	You're going back to the hitting thing.
	So what I'm trying to tell you is that you had a feeling when you said once a week, right?
	Now, the feeling was really quick, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	And it was like, ooh, better change that.
	That's not good, right?
	Yeah.
	Right?
	Were you aware of the feeling?
	I mean, I guess just basically I just said once a week and to me that just sounded like, whoa, that's a lot.
	So I was like, hmm.
	So obviously I'm just going to be like, maybe it wasn't once a week.
	Right.
	You just gave me an intellectual thing.
	Yeah.
	Was there a feeling when you said once a week?
	What was that feeling in that moment?
	Like, ooh, that's a lot.
	That's a thought!
	What was the feeling?
	I don't really remember.
	I guess I'm mostly in my thoughts.
	I can tell you what the feeling was.
	You already told it to me about nine times.
	Anxiety.
	Okay.
	Fear.
	Mm-hmm.
	Am I wrong?
	No.
	Don't give me a no.
	You're some family girl giving me a question.
	Hi, want to go to the mall on Tuesday with me and Mimi?
	Which one of those is a question?
	Right?
	Okay.
	Okay, so if you say something, like I was hit once a week, and then you feel anxious about it, That must mean that you are telling a secret that you're not supposed to tell, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	Okay.
	Are you going to engage in the conversation or not?
	Because you give me these mm-hmms like you're on the dark side of the moon and I'm talking to you about a fucking laundry list.
	This is your life.
	Yeah, no, I'm just listening.
	I'm just trying to see what you're getting at.
	No, don't just listen.
	It's a conversation.
	If I wanted you to listen, I'd tell you to shut up and I'd give a speech, right?
	Okay.
	Okay?
	So...
	If you don't want to engage in the conversation, that's no problem.
	You can wait for the next person to want to go balls deep in a topic with you that might come along, and I suspect you'll be waiting a hell of a long time.
	Probably the next person who wants to go balls deep with you is the guy who says, what do you want to do with your belongings when you're about eight minutes from dying?
	But if you want to get engaged in a conversation with me, I need you to be present.
	I need you to be really honest.
	Okay.
	Don't distance yourself from me.
	All right.
	All right.
	I'm not trying to be mean.
	I'm really not.
	But I can't have a conversation with you if I feel like I'm trying to chase you for any kind of connection.
	Okay.
	Alright?
	Okay.
	You had a feeling of anxiety, which was, I'm not supposed to say this.
	Does this make you look bad?
	No.
	You're a victim.
	You say once a week.
	Who does that make look bad?
	I guess my parents.
	Are you guessing?
	Yes.
	Well, my parents.
	Thank you.
	That's your first strike, by the way, because that was a really obvious one.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	So, it makes your parents look bad if you're getting hit every week, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	So, you say, and this is just to tell you how brilliant you are, how smart you are, how fast your brain works.
	It's blinding!
	How quick the unconscious works.
	It's hyperdrive.
	It's a GPU that could power the physics of the entire universe.
	I'm telling you, if you could get our unconscious hooked up to Bitcoin, we'd be at 21 million before the end of this conversation.
	So I said, how many times did you get hit?
	And you said, once a week.
	And then it's like, shit.
	Your inner parent says, hey, hey, hey, hey, that makes me look bad.
	Change that.
	Change that now.
	But I'm not going to tell you why.
	I'm not going to let you have the feeling.
	Just change it.
	Or bad things are going to happen.
	Okay, I agree.
	Right.
	So that's how quickly it works.
	I was talking to you when you said one week.
	I was talking to your mom when you said one month.
	Once a month.
	Okay, that's interesting.
	That's how quickly alter egos rush in when we're traumatized.
	And this is why self-knowledge is so important.
	Because for you, it was just like a little stumble and you just, quote, corrected yourself, right?
	But that's how quick it is.
	You know, you ever watch tennis?
	Those guys, they hit that ball so hard.
	It's like a tiny split second that ball's on that racket.
	Then it goes like, there was a guy when I was a kid, Roscoe Tanner, his serves were like, broke the sound barrier and shit like that.
	It was so fast, right?
	You literally had to know where the ball was going before he even...
	Hit it based on the angle of his racket, and otherwise you'd have no chance to return it, right?
	But that instant takes years, years of practice to master, right?
	And so the rapidity of your brain in that moment was prodigious.
	It was extravagant.
	That's greased lightning at Mach 12, right?
	That's not impulse power, right?
	I guess it is.
	So I just really want to point that out because this is why self-knowledge is so important.
	Because the purpose of self-knowledge is to slow the fuck down.
	Slow down, right?
	You, with abstractions, you try to move really fast.
	It's the same thing with the guy I was talking to in this first call.
	Well, then you can go kill a cat.
	We're off on some other topic.
	Yeah.
	Abstractions are a defense that makes people go way too fast.
	And the purpose of self-knowledge and the purpose of philosophy is slow down.
	Right?
	Slow down.
	When you slow down, you get to see all of the little light and dark elves bustling around, yanking at all the levers of your inner machinery.
	You get to see them doing their work.
	Mm-hmm.
	There was an old Star Trek where everyone just felt this go around them.
	And it turned out there were people around them moving super fast.
	And this is what it's like with the unconscious.
	You've got to slow down and see what that slippery little son of a bitch, that glorious Loki of confusion and possibility, what it's doing down there.
	Yeah, it's an interesting way to look at it with the unconscious.
	But it means slowing down and not being...
	Not allowing other people's defenses to overcome your true experience, right?
	I mean, that was like trying to talk to someone in North Korea.
	And they give an honest answer and then it's like, oh, I'm sorry, I'm not supposed to say that.
	The answer is three fuel meals a day, not a month, right?
	And I just want to sort of illustrate that.
	Yeah, I understand.
	To give you something to look for.
	All right.
	Have you ever had a near-death experience?
	I mean, how close is near-death?
	I mean, I've had instances, just like I said, the past year where I passed out from marijuana, and I guess that really startled me.
	And that's probably a lot of what started this whole cycle of thoughts that I'm still in with these existence experiences.
	Questions that I'm having.
	That's where it all began.
	Right.
	So you have trouble slowing down.
	Does marijuana help you slow down?
	Does it help you mellow out?
	No.
	Actually, I don't smoke anymore.
	I haven't smoked in the past year since that happened, actually.
	I've been so just not into that.
	But I did it for about a year and a half.
	And really, it just caused me just sort of anxiety, I guess, too.
	Oh, come on.
	You voluntarily did something dangerous and illegal, putting God knows what into your system from God knows who because you just wanted a little bit more anxiety in your life?
	Well, mainly what it did – I didn't want the anxiety but it killed time.
	Like it was something to do to where – You should not ever, ever write advertising copy for marijuana plants.
	I just – if you have a job and that's your job, you need to change your job.
	Smoke this shit.
	It will really, really make you anxious.
	It will rev you up and make you think that space aliens are taking their sneaky fingers out of your nipples to strangle you in the esophagus!
	Boo!
	Right?
	I think those nachos are going to try and kill you.
	Needless to say, mainly what it was, it was just something to do with friends and kill time, and that's what it did.
	It was really something to where I knew I could always do it.
	I wake up at 2 in the morning, I can do it.
	I had something to do, and then I could just...
	Do something else.
	Watch a movie, something like that.
	With friends?
	And your friends would generally...
	Are these pot friends?
	Yeah.
	And that's mostly what you did, was you got together and you smoked pot?
	Well, I mean, it was with a friend that I've known since I was 11, but we started smoking together.
	So friends?
	Yeah, so it was a friend.
	So why did you say friends?
	Well, I mean, this is...
	I have mainly my one friend.
	The other friends were his friends that we'd do it with.
	So I really wouldn't consider them friends, just acquaintances.
	It sounds better to say friends than friends.
	It's another little piece of propaganda adjustment, right?
	Correct.
	But that's okay.
	That's not a strike two because that's unconscious completely.
	All right.
	And why do you have so much time to kill?
	I mean, do you have such an excess of time on your hands?
	I mean, do you work?
	Why do you have so much time to kill?
	Right now I work at Starbucks and I'm getting 11 hours a week right now.
	And I basically live alone.
	In my house that I grew up in but my parents actually moved up to Jacksonville for a job and so they went up there and I'm still living in the house and it's about to be sold so I gotta find another place to live soon.
	So I just spend a lot of time alone and I think that I have a lot of time to think about things.
	And so my thoughts have driven into the path of just, I guess, existence, existing, and not really any sort of content within existing.
	I'm just sort of drawn to just, I'm kind of here, and it's just, it's very, it's weird to come to that really, like, I guess, deep epiphany of it.
	I mean, obviously, I've always known that I've existed.
	Okay, no, no, no.
	Don't give me this deep epiphany shit, man.
	I'm sorry.
	That's what it feels like.
	That's exactly what it feels like.
	No, no, no, no.
	I mean, look, don't give me this deep epiphany stuff if you don't even know that your mom was correcting your report of your spanking.
	I hate to be condescending, but Junior, you're not even at the starting line.
	Don't give me this, I finish the marathon, right?
	You can't get deep epiphanies if you know so little about how your own mind operates.
	All you can get is confusion in the shape of a pseudo-epiphany, right?
	Okay.
	I'm baffled.
	That must be deep.
	Okay, yeah, okay, I agree.
	I'm staring at infinity.
	That must mean my brain is stretching, right?
	Okay.
	What else happened in your childhood that was negative?
	My aunt died.
	She was a big part of my, I guess, my family.
	I mean, obviously, but she was always around.
	And she died from cancer when I was going into high school, I think, in eighth grade.
	And that was a big impact on everybody.
	I don't really remember too much of, you know, the timeframe around that anymore.
	But it affected everybody around me.
	I mean, we'd always hang out with her.
	She'd always come over to the house.
	And it was my mom's sister.
	And she was really great.
	I remember that much.
	She was really nice.
	So that was obviously probably a really big impact on just the social landscape of the family, for sure.
	And how was the grieving process for that?
	Honestly, I don't even remember grieving.
	I remember going to the funeral.
	That's the trauma.
	Yeah, probably.
	No, no, seriously, this is essential.
	First of all, I just want to tell you, since we are being honest, you know, because I had cancer, whenever I hear people say, so-and-so died of cancer, well, their cancer came back, I'm like, anyway, just sharing you with that, so it's not a one-way street.
	But, your aunt died, terrible, awful, you're a nice woman, right?
	But the trauma is not the death.
	The trauma is the non-grieving.
	I knew that there was incomplete grieving.
	In your family.
	How did I know that?
	You're a wizard, Harry.
	How did I know that?
	Would you like me to tell you?
	I would.
	Alright.
	Officer, my husband has hit me 624 times over the course of Of our marriage.
	And he didn't even let me grieve when someone died.
	Now, given the first statement, is the second statement surprising?
	No.
	Right.
	Let me tell you something that you need to get tattooed on the inside of your eyelids.
	Because this is truly make or break for your life.
	If you understand this or not, this is make or break for your life.
	I'm not exaggerating.
	This is truly make or break for your life.
	People who hit children have no empathy.
	People who hit children have no empathy and may even be sadists.
	People who hit children have no empathy.
	Children need to grieve.
	People who have empathy help facilitate a child's need to grieve just as they facilitate their own need to grieve, right?
	So if you were hit 624 times during the course of your childhood, you were hit by people who have no empathy.
	In fact, they have anti-empathy in that they know what you don't want, which is to be hit, and they do it.
	Because they know you don't want it.
	That's anti-empathy.
	And so the idea that they would then help facilitate you through a grieving process from someone that you loved is inconceivable.
	This aunt was around a lot, huh?
	Did she know you were being hit?
	Yes.
	What did she do?
	Nothing.
	She didn't interfere, obviously.
	She came from the same family as my mom did.
	So she probably was aware of the hitting as well in her own family?
	Oh, no, no, no, no.
	No, no, no, no, no.
	Don't you stop pulling out estrogen excuses on me, brother.
	Oh, no, no, no, no!
	Oh, don't make me go off on another one of those rants.
	Although I love the trouble I get into with this stuff.
	Don't make me do it.
	Don't make me do it!
	Let me tell you.
	Okay, I'll do one.
	Very quick.
	When I was growing up, Men were pigs when I was growing up.
	Men were bastards when I was growing up.
	Men were thoughtless, caring, unfeeling, emotionally unavailable.
	Men, children, addicted to sports and drinking.
	Women were sensitive, diaphanous angels of light and beauty and purity and goodness who had to somehow and for some reason put up with these monstrous men.
	Oh, these Joan of Ox nailed themselves to the crosses of these giant penises they were lashed to against their will.
	Oh, what they had to put up with was so horrifying.
	And man, do you know, some men hit their wives.
	Like, they really did.
	And do you know what no one ever said?
	About these men who hit their wives?
	Do you know what no one ever said about these men who hit their wives?
	Well, it's okay, because he came from a family where the men hit the women.
	So, let's cut him some slack, shan't we?
	No, I never heard that once.
	Men, you see, were peeled off from history.
	Sent out into the space of perfect moral responsibility with no history, no momentum, no past wrongs that ever cascaded like dominoes into their souls and made them do things that they just didn't want to do or weren't good or didn't make sense in the long run.
	These men had no history.
	I never once heard a feminist or a woman say...
	Well, yes, but you have to understand, you see, men have anger towards women because they were raised by women and those women hit them.
	I'm not excusing their behavior, but it's really important to empathize with why a man might be aggressive towards women.
	Because, I mean, men are raised by women.
	I mean, when I was growing up in the 70s, I mean, they were all talking about men who were raised in the 50s.
	Who was raising men in the 50s?
	Men?
	No!
	Daycare workers?
	Not really.
	It was women.
	Women were home.
	Women were raising the men.
	And women were hitting the little boys like fucking pinatas!
	I mean, this was even going on in the 70s.
	I didn't know one boy who was not regularly pounded by his mother.
	Not one boy who was not regularly pounded by his mother.
	Even now, 40 years after I was a boy, 30% of parents, mostly moms, say they're still hitting their baby boys and baby girls.
	Although I bet you they're hitting their baby boys a lot more because boys get it more from women than girls do.
	So when male aggression was talked about, Men were autonomous moral agents, cut free completely from ever having been beaten up by women.
	They just had this weird irrational fear and anger towards women.
	The fact that women regularly Mike Tyson'd their faces was never even mentioned.
	Never even mentioned.
	The real victims...
	Guess who the real victims were, my friend?
	The real victims were women.
	Adult women were the real victims.
	Adult women who chose these men and could leave any time.
	They were the victims.
	The little boys being pounded by the moms in the silent secret dungeons of your average house and apartment.
	Those children who never choose their mothers and had no chance to leave Whatsoever those little boys and little girls pounded by the mothers.
	They weren't victims at all.
	They were so non-victimed that they weren't even worthy of a dismissal.
	There was such a buried secret of the origins of male aggression towards women that it's never even mentioned.
	So don't you give me these goddamn excuses as to why women didn't intervene because they just came from that kind of family.
	And, you know, really, these women, what choice did they have?
	Well, I'm going to give women the same respect that women gave men when I was growing up.
	Which is to say, I don't give a fuck about your environment.
	I don't give a flying fuck about your history.
	Stop hitting children!
	And to men too.
	I don't give a flying fuck about your history.
	I don't give a flying fuck about what came before or who you're related to or what you saw when you were growing up.
	Stop hitting children.
	Because the first thing we do – and you can send me examples for this.
	I've been meaning to put this call out for a while.
	Please, do me a favor, famous, fabulous listeners.
	Send me in examples of domestic violence.
	Anytime they talk about women hitting children, you give me the sentence or two that follows that which explains away why it happens and gives the women no responsibility.
	Yes, while it is true that women do sometimes hit children, women often feel overwhelmed by the pressures of parenting, particularly if their husbands have left them and they're single moms.
	Thank you.
	Yes, it's true that some women do abandon their children or are neglectful, but they do have to work to put food on the table if the deadbeat dad has left.
	And sometimes women are stressed by lack of quality childcare provided by the state, for lack of quality healthcare provided by the state.
	So women do get stressed and unfortunately and sadly they take it out on their children.
	But it's just stress that happens to them.
	Don't ever remember hearing when I was a kid, well, yes, it's true.
	You see that some men do hit their wives, but men face a lot of stress at work.
	You know, they have to provide for their Never heard that shit.
	Men were just autonomous, badass, nasty moral agents with no domino history effect whatsoever.
	They made their choices in a perfect Zeus-like isolation of Olympian detachment from history and environment and circumstance and upbringing and women and parents and children and all that.
	Men just acted completely in isolation and were just bad.
	Women good, men bad, women good, men bad, women good, men bad.
	Repeat after me.
	Rinse and repeat.
	So, when I pointed out something that your aunt didn't do, what did you say to me?
	Well, but she came from the same family, so she's not responsible.
	Have you ever heard that?
	If a man beats up a woman to say, well, you know, but he saw his father beating up women, so, you know, let's understand that.
	Mm-hmm.
	I'm sorry.
	I'm not sure what… No, I was… I guess when I said that, I was just sort of just leaning toward how I was aware that that's the reason why they… I don't know.
	I was just going to say that's the reason why they… Let me ask the question again because maybe you nodded off there.
	Have you ever heard it when a man hits a woman saying, well, you know, but he was stressed at work and he was probably hit by his mother when he was growing up so he's got resentment towards women and he'd had a long day.
	Maybe he hadn't slept.
	And he also grew up in a household where his father hit – where his mother allowed his father to hit him and therefore he got that as a template.
	So let's cut him some slack.
	Yeah, I've probably heard that before.
	You have heard that before?
	Yeah.
	I mean not directly.
	I've never heard or seen that.
	All right.
	So let's – I just wanted to point that out and I'm sorry for the rant but it is a really – I need to speak to men in a language that they understand, right?
	And I need to speak to women in a language that they understand as well.
	People think this is somehow anti-women.
	I could not conceivably be more pro-woman if I turned myself into a woman.
	I could not be conceivably more pro-woman.
	The assignation of moral responsibility is the greatest act of respect that a philosopher or a human being is capable of.
	Making excuses for people is so infantilizing toward them.
	Now, women can say, well, wait a sec, Steph.
	Steph, you possibly misogynistic, bald son of a bitch.
	But you say that women are excused based on circumstances, but aren't some circumstances excusable?
	Well, I think that's a perfectly valid point.
	But before we start talking about that, let's get a huge giant fucking apology to men.
	Let's not brush off this last, I don't know, couple of thousand years of men bad, women good.
	Of damning men and excusing women.
	Of creating this fog of circumstance and the domino theory of history to excuse and explain every bad action that a woman takes.
	She was stressed.
	Give me a break.
	Try that at work.
	If a woman gets angry, say, are you on your period?
	You get how insulting that would be.
	I'm not going to respect your anger.
	I'm going to give it a cause outside of yourself.
	So that you're just a puppet of hormones, lady.
	No.
	It's insulting to say to a woman who's angry, you must be on the rack.
	So, yeah, I get the circumstances which have been denied to men.
	Which have been denied to men.
	Women get the excuses.
	Men get the blame.
	Now, before we start talking about anything, let's get a fucking apology from everyone, men and women.
	It's not like it's only women who do it.
	Let's get an apology from everyone to men as a whole.
	Until that apology comes, I'm just going to keep fighting the good fight.
	Until people are like, holy shit, that is a pretty big discrepancy.
	That is incredibly sexist towards men.
	But people don't want to say that.
	Because that blows the bullshit of the patriarchy right out of the water.
	If men designed the world and the world was run for men, why the fuck do the men get blamed with no context and the women get excused even with no context?
	Men run the world, my fucking ass.
	Yeah, that's why we all send women to war, right?
	Anyway, so, what are you going to do when the house is sold?
	That's just the overarching question.
	I am trying to think about moving up to Gainesville to continue my education.
	I just need one more class and I have my AA. And then I plan on possibly going into biology.
	What is an AA? Just an Associate in Arts.
	Associate of Arts.
	Is that a college degree?
	What is that?
	Yeah, it's a college degree.
	It's like the initial basically 60 credits.
	Is it like an undergraduate degree?
	Well, I mean, it is undergraduate, but it's right before a bachelor's.
	So you do it, you know, then you would take your, you'd go for your bachelor's to finish off in your last two years.
	Well, how long would the BA take with that?
	So you've done two years of college, basically.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, in abstractions.
	Oh, good.
	Right.
	And what do you want to do with your life?
	What do you want your life to stand for?
	What the fuck do you want on your tombstone, my friend?
	I just want to say that I went through it and I'm okay.
	That I just, I... Oh, so you don't want anything special?
	No, not right now.
	Honestly, right now...
	No, no, no.
	Not right now.
	This is your tombstone.
	There's no right after your tombstone.
	There's no asterisk there.
	By the way, I'm going to clear up some of this stuff later.
	No, you're dead, you're done.
	What's on your tombstone?
	I don't know.
	I don't even – I just – I don't know.
	You know you're going to die, right?
	Of course.
	Biology, right?
	Yeah, of course.
	Do you really get that though?
	Is it just like an abstraction to you?
	I mean you sound pretty young, right?
	So you're in your early 20s or whatever.
	Yeah.
	Do you get though that you've gotten 50 years and then you're dead?
	I do.
	Okay.
	And you don't want to achieve anything in particular with your life as far as I understand it?
	No.
	Okay.
	All right.
	Well, let's move on to the next caller then because if you don't have any ambitions, then the philosophy is probably not going to be hugely helpful to you.
	Who's up next, Mike?
	All right.
	Harrison wrote in and said, First time job after college.
	I have the opportunity for a great salary and great position at a large corporation that is well known.
	While I do enjoy the work, do you believe there is benefit in taking the risk now to join a startup?
	Or do I spend the two years at the large corporation building skills and then move on to where I desire?
	Safety versus risk.
	I'm sorry.
	Can you just – sorry, Mike.
	Can you just read that again?
	I just – I fell asleep twice every time you said the words large corporation.
	And I think I – I think I actually have a bit of an owie on my forehead.
	Okay, I'm sorry.
	Something about an exciting, cool startup where he gets to be his own boss, or at least near that, versus inserting himself like a giant fucking faceless cog into a huge corporation where he would get enormous skills at ass-sucking, prostrating before clients, and working late for somebody else's profit.
	I'm sorry, but what was the question again?
	I think it ended with safety versus risk.
	What is your previous experience?
	Are you on?
	Harrison, are you on?
	I'm here now.
	Are you 80?
	Am I speaking at the right volume?
	Are you 80?
	Harrison, can you hear?
	Is this your good ear?
	It's both my good ears.
	Oh.
	Harrison, you have a very nice voice for an elderly man.
	Thank you very much.
	How old are you?
	25.
	Are you married?
	Nope.
	How many dependents do you have?
	Zero.
	Hmm.
	What do you think I'm trying to say here?
	Yeah, I understand.
	I mean, the question was stated.
	I have picked up a lot of great, I don't know if you want to use the word, time management skills, but the project management and everything I've been doing so far, I'm with the company for, I'll be with them for a year, and then that's when the two-year contract comes in.
	You're 25 and you just used the words time management skills with me?
	I mean – well, Steph, I mean I'm doing – You've not been an entrepreneur before, right?
	You don't get time management skills when you're an entrepreneur.
	You get something called time panic skills.
	Yeah, well, I'm working for – You know, when you're an entrepreneur, your day is like – you fucking get loaded up like some circus clown in a giant cannon and you get shot across the room and you hope to land somewhere in your bed.
	Okay, well – Do you care about the startup?
	Does it mean something to you emotionally?
	Well, I don't have a startup in mind.
	Just a very short background.
	I'm still at school full-time, 12 credits plus 40 hours a week at the job.
	So I am literally booked from 7 a.m.
	to 7 p.m.
	every day doing my thing.
	I'm done with school in July, and I have this job, which is with a Fortune 500 company, until August.
	And the question is, do I want to continue with the contract for two years and make the salary and continue with them to learn whatever I can learn?
	Or do I move to a city that is not as fast-paced as New York City and join a smaller company where I can be a bigger fish in that pond?
	Sorry, why wouldn't you start a company?
	I could certainly look into...
	Different aspects, but I mean just, you know, finding people.
	Oh, oh, oh, fog.
	You know, Mike, we need to get a foghorn.
	We be sailing into some foggy hearties.
	Okay.
	Why don't you want to start a company?
	I haven't honestly thought about it.
	I would be more than happy to look into it.
	Okay.
	Think about it.
	Do you want to start a company?
	Well, so for instance, I want some of your background.
	I know you started your own company, but out of – I mean you've obviously had jobs with companies where you picked up skill sets and learned how to deal with clients and how to – Nah.
	No?
	Nah.
	I mean the best job I ever had was a waiter as far as customer service goes.
	Okay.
	And nothing has influenced this show more than the years I spent as a waiter.
	Because, you know, that's some cutting-edge customer service shit.
	That's not like, do you get your quarterly bonus?
	That's like, how much change are you taking home in your pants tonight?
	Right?
	So, as far as being customer-focused, I learned just about everything from being a waiter.
	I had a job for a grand total of 11 months as a programmer before I co-started the company.
	And I learned nothing of value in those 11 months.
	And this was with a giant corporation, a big trading company.
	One of the largest in Canada.
	And I was like chewing my own arm off to get out there.
	It was scary.
	Don't get me wrong.
	It wasn't like – it was scary.
	One of the great things in life is – I mean I really hate not knowing how well things turn out.
	It's funny.
	I was scared about everything in my life except having cancer, which I knew was going to work out well and did.
	Right?
	So – I wish I knew how well everything turned out.
	Like when I quit my job to do this crazy shit, I was like, oh, this is scary.
	Now I know how well it's turned out.
	And it's only going to keep turning out better.
	Actually, no.
	Two things.
	I also knew my marriage was going to work out well, and it has, right?
	Oh, three.
	I knew that working with Mike was going to work out well, and it has.
	So, yeah.
	I mean, what are you going to learn at a large corporation?
	Well, I mean, I can give you some examples of what I've learned...
	Um, for the past six months, um, you know, I, I have done stuff prior where I was, I was doing, uh, currency trading.
	I worked at a brokerage house, didn't like that.
	And now I'm in the IT field, which is I'm managing, I'm doing project management for, uh, websites for healthcare professionals.
	And, uh, What I've basically learned, the big takeaway has been dealing with numerous people to make sure that the deadlines are met and that the projects are done to the demands of the clients and working with the developers for the software or for the graphics, etc.
	So, I mean, it's kind of like running a business in the sense that I have to know the finance of what we're working with and that the...
	Nah, yeah.
	Nah, it's not.
	I'm sorry.
	I mean, it's not.
	I'm sorry.
	It's not.
	Because how much of your skin is in the game?
	Well, how much – my skin is only in the game if I don't do a proper job, then I will not be offered the full-time position, which means I – that's the only skin in the game.
	No, no, no.
	Listen.
	How much of your skin – no, no.
	If it's your business, it's a whole different thing.
	Right.
	I understand.
	Right.
	It's like taking someone's friend's sister out on a platonic date versus meeting the woman of your dreams and hoping she likes you.
	Right?
	I will tell you a great secret of success.
	Terror breeds excellence.
	And the more scared you are, the faster you will learn.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	The more scared you are, the more adrenaline you get, the more focused you get, the more motivated you get, the more your mind stays on the problem until it's solved.
	It's one thing to do a Sudoku, right?
	It's another thing to do a Sudoku, whereas if you don't finish it in 20 minutes, I don't know, they blow up Hawaii or something, right?
	Hello, NSA. But if you're worried about skill set development, putting yourself in a situation of panic...
	That's the way to do it.
	Yeah, I mean, I can, as I was saying, I can attest to that in terms of this job that I just got with this full-time school.
	That put me in a panic mode.
	And when I saw what the other kids were doing prior to me when I came in and they did the introductions, I thought they were much more above my skill set level.
	And I was like, wow, I'm going to be totally swamped and screw up at this company.
	But now I've gone above and beyond what even they did.
	Now I know you're saying that what I'm doing is not necessarily...
	The skin in the game, but I have – I can certainly attest to the fear aspect.
	I didn't say you had no skin in the game.
	I just asked how much.
	Right, right.
	Can I give you a secret of this show's success?
	And this is directly relevant to you.
	Yes, absolutely.
	Okay.
	So I don't even know – what is it, Mike?
	Five or six years ago, some media articles were out that were highly critical of this show, right?
	Yep, read them.
	And – Not critical like, well, there seems to be a few syllogisms missing in this complex argument for ethics, but, you know, Steph is some sort of internet succubus that will eat your children, something like that, right?
	I may be paraphrasing, right?
	Now, let me tell you, I don't know if the people who were behind this thought that this was going to make the show stop, but what I realized out of that was, hey, you know what?
	It's unlikely I'm ever going to get a job in IT again.
	Because everyone Googles you these days, right?
	And so what that was for me was, oh, okay, I better make this the best fucking show on the planet.
	This better be the most gripping, involved, exciting, enticing, challenging, controversial, screw with your head six ways from Sunday, put it back on, burn a clear hole through the cultural fog with eye lasers of truth kind of great show that has ever been.
	Right?
	Out of anxiety, out of terror, out of a lack of alternatives comes excellence.
	Necessity, as the old saying goes, is the mother of invention.
	Right.
	Now, when you put yourself in a situation of make or break, and the make or break for me, look, I mean, I could have just quit the show.
	I could have decided to, I don't know, like, we had a kid, right?
	Right.
	I'll be a stay-at-home dad, you know?
	Screw this internet stuff, right?
	And that would have been fine.
	I mean, stay-at-home dad is fine.
	It's a fine thing to do, especially if your home's grilling and all.
	I could have done that, for sure.
	But I knew that the world needs this show.
	I know that the world needs this show.
	Look, if some sitcom gets cancelled, people are upset.
	But it's not like there aren't 12 million other sitcoms in development.
	Or on TV, right?
	I mean, to people, they care, right?
	But there's nothing else like this show.
	Nothing else like this show.
	And so it was, you know, oh, okay, well, maybe I do have this unique and weird set of skills necessary to personalize and bring philosophy to the masses for the first time in God knows how long.
	Maybe I do have this skill.
	But, you know...
	Maybe I'll just let this opportunity pass me by.
	Maybe I'll let this call to arms pass me by.
	And the world can wait for another idiot to come along who's willing to go and defend the helpless, the children, the future.
	I'm willing to passionately argue for virtue and truth with entertaining jokes and ridiculous impersonations and pretending to be a lion ordering gazelles on pizza and all kinds of crap like that.
	Anything to engage, anything, I'll sing, I'll dance, I'll do whatever, right?
	To be able to engage people in the pursuit of truth and virtue, oh, those guys come along, what, every when?
	Every couple of hundred years?
	Every couple of hundred years?
	Did I sort of say, oh, you know, well, there's nine other guys doing what I'm doing and probably better.
	So, you know, what am I, you know, right?
	So it was not anxiety.
	It wasn't really terror for myself.
	You know, I had a great life being a stay-at-home dad and all that.
	But it was terror for what's the world going to be like if I don't put my skills and abilities to work, right?
	That's the kind of stakes that matter.
	I would imagine that a couple of hundred thousand families have stopped hitting their children as a result of this show.
	And that's a life well lived if that's all you ever do and I'm only beginning.
	We've got light years to go as far as this conversation goes.
	We're just starting out as far as I'm concerned.
	We're just exiting startup mode.
	I mean, I have another employee, right?
	That's usually...
	I mean, you can still be a startup with two people on the team, right?
	So, I aim for hundreds of millions of families to stop hitting their children as a result of what we're doing here.
	That's my goal.
	I'll be satisfied with less, but not much, right?
	Every month, Mike, I say, let's move the bar.
	How do you feel about that?
	Initially, I'm like, oh, again?
	Goddamn it.
	Of course we go to Mars.
	That's next.
	And then we go to the asteroid belt, and then Jupiter.
	Yay!
	That's next!
	We achieved some success.
	Now let's move the goalposts as far back as possible and enjoy the success with just a nanosecond and move forward to the next goal.
	Hey, remember that feeling of great satisfaction we had yesterday?
	Let's make it incredible dissatisfaction for today!
	My performance review?
	You're too happy!
	But we do, right?
	I mean, look, I literally have the goal to change the world.
	I have the goal to change the world.
	And I try to be...
	I'm conscious of that every day.
	And that's why I do what I do.
	That's why I take the bullets that I do.
	That's why I won't even go through all the list of the hardships.
	But that's why I do it.
	Because who the fuck else is going to do it?
	So what I would suggest, Harrison, is find something that you're really, really, really passionate about.
	Where you can't find someone else.
	Because then you don't just have personal ambition.
	You have like world-saving anxiety on your shoulders.
	That sounds like a bad thing.
	It's really a great thing.
	It's really a great thing.
	That's why this last caller is like, yeah, I'm okay working 11 hours a week at Starbucks pretty much for the rest of my life.
	I'm paraphrasing, right?
	It's like, oh, okay.
	Well, then this is like – this is for the Olympians, right?
	Yeah.
	This is for the people with ambition.
	It doesn't have to be world-changing, whatever.
	But for people who really want to live and make a difference in the world, it's not the only people that philosophy is for, but it's the people I want to talk to most.
	So I know that you're in libertarian circles.
	We've done a show before.
	What are you really passionate about that's going to give you terror if you don't succeed that the world isn't going to get better?
	You want to save the world like all libertarians do, right?
	I mean, I was going to just kind of throw it back.
	In a way, am I really trying to save the world, or are you?
	Or is your baby, so to speak, of FDR, or I don't know, Steve Jobs with Apple, is that just a side effect?
	That's just a side effect of the world being saved, so to speak, from the passion that you want to put into your outgrowth.
	Those are just...
	You know, externalities that come about.
	I'm sorry to be a dick.
	I really am.
	But I am.
	I'll roll with it.
	What are you saying?
	Look, in libertarian circles, libertarians know the world is completely pooch-fucked unless seriously good people take some serious fucking risks, right?
	I mean, tell me if I'm wrong.
	Nope, I agree 100%.
	What happens to the poor if the Fed keeps doing its shit?
	Continued devaluation, etc.
	Well, it's going to be like the LA riots, but everywhere.
	Like, people are going to die, and they're going to die not in dozens or hundreds, but thousands and thousands.
	You know, a dependent population, when the currency runs out of bullshit juice...
	Gets all kinds of zombified up in each other's faces, right?
	Yep.
	I mean, we are trying to avert a world historical disaster.
	And the only reason that the expediency of war has not been pursued is because the leaders are shit scared of radioactive weapons, right?
	Yep.
	So, the knowledge that you have in ethics, in economics, in philosophy, if you believe the inevitable mathematics...
	Of the reserve currency expansion, the inevitable mathematics of debt.
	Right?
	I mean, right now, working Americans are born into $1.4 million of unfunded liabilities in government debts.
	Right?
	I may be jumping the gun, but if that's the case, if it's the inevitable mathematical equation, then what is the point of pushing against that wall that's coming towards you on that end?
	And I know this is going away from my...
	Give up!
	Give up then!
	No, I'm not saying give up.
	I'm saying...
	No, you said what is the point of pushing back?
	What is the alternative to pushing back, Harrison?
	Right.
	And I understand the alternatives such as education of Bitcoin and moving people away from these paradigms and the proper child raising.
	That's how the future will move.
	But the way that you were just phrasing, I just wanted to clarify.
	Look, we all don't know if it works, right?
	Right.
	I mean, there are a lot more spankers being produced than I can take away.
	Right.
	Right?
	Right.
	A lot more child abusers being bred than I can reason them out of, right?
	It's not hard to break a child's mind.
	It's very hard to repair it.
	Absolutely.
	Easier to break a vase than to make a vase, right?
	Easier to detonate a building than to build one.
	Easier to shoot down a plane than it is to fly and build one.
	Destruction is far easier than salvation.
	Prevention is easier than all, but prevention benefits no one in the moment.
	So, you know, as far as I understand, the degree to which the world is screwed, right?
	I mean, this current system, it can't continue.
	And when the current system can't continue, the population is currently primed for fascism.
	They are primed for, well, we tried giving the free market a chance.
	Boy, did we ever try that.
	Oh, free market, man, we really tried it.
	Oh, and look what happened.
	The moment we stopped regulating the finance industry, they just screwed over everyone.
	You know, the beasts of the free market and the rabid wolves of the capitalists, they're only being held back from the throats of the poor by the might of the state.
	And when the economic system collapses, people still think that the government controls the money, but we live in this magically free market.
	People still think that though there are hundreds of thousands of pages of government regulations, that free market musclemen just roam the countryside beating up on cats.
	Right?
	So they have been primed, hypnotized, programmed, literally programmed, By thousands of hours of video games, Unreal 3, Leandry Corporation, has taken over the planet and has established gladiator wars among formerly free people, right?
	Every single time, it's the fucking corporations or the beasts, the bastards, and the vestiges of the government, blah, blah, blah, right?
	The corporation is your enemy.
	It's Monsanto, right?
	It's Walmart is your enemy, because remember, Walmart, Declared war in Iraq.
	Walmart has the power to devalue your currency.
	Walmart forcibly indoctrinates your children for 15,000 hours in a row.
	Walmart has the power to send your children home with three hours of homework every single night.
	Repeat after me.
	Government good, market bad.
	Government good, market bad.
	People have been hypnotized.
	The CIA is out there defending our freedoms.
	If it wasn't for the men in uniform, you wouldn't have any freedoms at all.
	So praise them or grab a gun.
	It's Blackwater that's the problem.
	All right, so wait, Steph.
	Malia is a hellhole.
	Hellhole.
	Hellhole.
	Right?
	Somali pirates are bad because they have fishing boats.
	The fact that $9 billion worth of U.S. weaponry is in approximately one square inch of the Indian Ocean is not piracy.
	That's law and order.
	I could do this all day, so just stop me.
	Yeah, but what you just did right there was bring up corporation as a market entity versus the state, and my initial question was, you were talking about Walmart and And all these corporations – I'm working at a large corporation.
	That is the market entity.
	These companies are providing the goods and services that you and I use every day, whether they're taking subsidies or not.
	I'm a fan of the market.
	Don't get me – look, I'm telling you what people believe.
	And so when the economic system – But you don't believe that, that the corporations are evil?
	I don't want to say corporations.
	No, of course not.
	Of course not.
	I believe that the corporations are opportunistic in a fascistic system.
	I think it's scum.
	I think it's vile.
	But it's completely understandable given the demands and drives for profits within the shareholder environment.
	Legal and fiduciary responsibility to maximize resources for your shareholders.
	But the people who are at the top of corporations, I mean, do you think they want a free market?
	Fuck no.
	They bought all these politicians.
	They don't want the politicians to lose their power.
	It's like saying to NASCAR, hey, I've got a great electric car for you.
	All you have to do is give up gasoline.
	And they're like, fuck no.
	We want gasoline because that brings Danica Patrick over and she's got a great ass.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, I mean, I understand.
	By corporation, I'm obviously referring to—I'm trying to refer to the companies that are providing goods and services.
	I mean, Walmart is doing that, and as you've said numerous times, if you find a lottery ticket on the ground, you're going to take it.
	Human action is going to dictate— People say, well, they shouldn't be using eminent domain, right?
	Oh, yeah, because if Walmart doesn't use eminent domain, I'm sure no other company will.
	I'm sure the government never will either.
	That house will just stay there until the end of time.
	Look at— If it's not Walmart, it's going to be someone else.
	The problem is eminent domain, not what has to happen in the residual mess of the free market in order to profit from this giant fucking gun-based soup that everyone has to swim in.
	Right.
	So we both understand where the human action comes from.
	People are going to take what they can get.
	Okay.
	No, no, no.
	We're totally getting off track.
	Let's get back to you and your ambitions.
	I don't want to get into a discussion about corporations.
	What I'm saying is that everyone's primed that when the economic system collapses, let me tell you what speech will not be coming.
	I'm sorry to get comfortable.
	I'll keep this brief.
	But let me tell you what speech is not going to be coming from the politicians.
	Well, your money has now finally descended to be worth exactly what it is, toilet paper with assholes pictures on them.
	Sorry about that.
	You know, you really can't blame the free market.
	We've had control of the entire monetary system for over 100 years.
	We control the interest rates.
	We control the money supply.
	We control the foreign policy.
	We control the corporations through regulations.
	They pay us through lobbying and then we reward them.
	You really can't blame the free market.
	It's all our fault.
	Sorry about that.
	We're going to reduce our power voluntarily because that's what I got to the summit of political power was for to reduce political power.
	I've been working the inside job for quite a while.
	So they're not going to say that.
	They're going to say, well, clearly markets have failed and we need to go to central planning.
	These guys are addicts.
	They're addicts to political power.
	They're never going to stop themselves.
	Ever, ever, ever, ever, ever.
	Which is why you're not concerned with them in that sense of that's – they're going to be – I'm not concerned with what these politicians do.
	I'm done with that system.
	And so as – I'm trying to get back to my question now.
	And your answer, which would be – your answer has been to take the risk.
	And that's what I'm saying.
	Where am I going to get the risk?
	No, that's not my answer.
	No, wait.
	I'm sorry.
	And I'm sorry it's such a roundabout thing.
	But I'm not just speaking to you.
	I'm speaking to all the people with knowledge out there.
	Look, the tsunami is coming.
	We know that.
	We know that better than anyone.
	The tsunami is coming, and there's a fork in the road that is coming, and it's not long to come.
	The fork in the road is either we reduce the state – Or freedom is done.
	Stick a fork in it, turn it over, it's done.
	Right?
	No, I mean, we know.
	Historically, we know.
	I mean, towards the end of the Roman Empire, what did they do?
	Did they say, oh shit, we've really devalued this currency like crazy.
	We're way too imperialistic.
	We better scale all that shit back.
	No.
	People were so conditioned, more power, more power, more power.
	End of civilization, as it is known.
	Where the population of Rome goes from millions...
	To 17,000 people living among the ruins, hunting caribou.
	I don't – caribou don't live in Italy, right?
	But hunting whoever the fuck they were hunting in this post-apocalyptic fight club bullshit end of times universe.
	So this is coming.
	So where is your passion in averting this end?
	You have the knowledge.
	Sorry, you're fucked now, Harrison.
	You have the knowledge.
	With the knowledge comes a responsibility.
	So is there anything that you are passionate about to avert what is coming?
	Passionate about philosophy.
	I'm very passionate about Bitcoin.
	Music.
	I like music, write a lot of music, lyrics, which obviously there's a huge incentive for change through music.
	It may not be happening right now exactly, but that's certainly an avenue to go down as well.
	But yeah, music, Bitcoin, and philosophy.
	All right.
	And personal relationships.
	That's the big one.
	I need the interpersonal relationship and honesty.
	That's what I've found.
	And that's what your show has put me through the most.
	It's a difficult struggle.
	Even at my job, some of these other students, they're more reserved.
	But when I went in there, I just was very open.
	No holds barred, just everything I wanted to ask.
	I asked any criticism.
	I said, what am I doing wrong?
	Is there anything I can help?
	And it really opens up people.
	So interpersonal relationships, Bitcoin philosophy, music.
	So those would be the overarching things.
	I never really thought of it in a sense like that.
	Look, if you're a physician in a time of plague, roll up your sleeves, right?
	Right.
	I mean, you can't have hobbies when you have life-saving skills.
	I'm sorry.
	I mean, all the objectivists are like, you can't tell us what to do.
	You don't have obligations.
	Yeah, fuck off.
	Sorry.
	Like, sorry.
	If my fucking wife is choking to death on a herringbone, I want anyone who knows the Heimlich maneuver to save her fucking life.
	And people say, well, but my cheesecake was really good.
	Fuck you.
	You know how to do it?
	Save my goddamn wife.
	I would.
	Yes.
	If I knew how to do it, I'd save her.
	I'd save your wife.
	I'd save the whole fucking front row here.
	Second row, not so sure.
	Front row, yes.
	Right.
	You know what's coming, and you know how to avert it.
	And my suggestion is, fuck a contract for two years at a big-ass corporation that's going to make you some money.
	You know what's going to happen to the money.
	Right.
	Find something that is going to keep you safe and your family.
	I'm not saying be a self-sacrificial lamb.
	No, absolutely.
	I'm not saying, you know, give everything to the poor and follow Jesus as he walks on water.
	What I'm saying is do stuff.
	If it's going to be Bitcoin or it's going to be something that's going to keep your money safe, some gold, some resources, do that shit and get the word out.
	Because when the shitstorm hits, and it will, when the shitstorm hits, people are going to have a choice, freedom or fascism.
	Freedom or fascism?
	And with the technology that the government has now, courtesy of the remnants of the free market, when might that end?
	How on earth are we going to overthrow the government where they can watch and listen to everything we do?
	Not I'm saying that we should now, right?
	But in the future, if it goes full fascism, when is that going to end?
	I read a futuristic story once that said that the Orwellian government, the 1984 government, lasted for 9,000 years.
	9,000 years.
	It's possible.
	You know, the technology which allows us to talk has become so great that I'm not sure that if freedom goes out, it's ever coming back on again.
	They just know too much.
	They have too much power, too much control.
	And they've worked too hard to poison the concepts of freedom and to create a dependent class.
	So you need to find a way to steel yourselves, to steel your heart against those dependent classes who are going to come yuling and crying and begging for the handouts, where the handouts dry up.
	But I have to say, listen, sorry, you've got to spine up.
	You've got to spine up.
	This gravy ride, this bullshit existence...
	Of welfare and – like, I'm sorry.
	It can't last.
	It didn't last.
	You've got to step up.
	And they will.
	Of course they will, right?
	I mean people – you'd be surprised how much resolution and independence people have, right?
	When I said earlier that terror is the great provoker of excellence, that's true among the dependent classes as well, right?
	I mean that among the rich and the poor.
	They'll be fine.
	Right.
	But find a way to communicate to people that it is not freedom but force that has failed – Because otherwise, people are going to eat more of the poison.
	And then it's going to go from dangerous to terminal.
	And that, when you get that, and whether that's, you know, go meet with some Bitcoin people.
	Say, what are you guys up to?
	You know, when I was at the Bitcoin conference in Texas, I saw some Bitcoin technology.
	Blew my mind.
	Like, I have a little mole on my right ankle.
	My mole crawled up my leg and said, quit this philosophy business.
	Let's join these guys.
	These guys are the future.
	I'm like, I'm kind of building a studio.
	Sorry.
	No.
	Yeah, I mean, I've been involved with the Bitcoin and the Dogecoin on the New York City side, and I'm active in all that stuff.
	Yeah, so find those guys.
	Find those guys and find something that you can build, and then take what you're building and find a way to communicate with people what makes...
	What makes the future free?
	Now, that's my suggestion, but whatever is going to get you out of bed, like, it's a great day to stand firm against the forces of evil.
	That feels good.
	Whatever lightsaber is going to get your alarm clock swept off its table the first thing in the morning, you grab that shit, right?
	I am excited.
	You know, like, I'm like...
	Oh shit, is it really two more days till a listener show?
	Damn, I love those listener shows.
	These guys are great.
	Ah, I love chatting with these guys.
	I'm curious what I'm going to say.
	Hey, I wonder if my deep philosophy brain engine is going to come up with anything useful.
	Let's hope so.
	I love that high wire act.
	And it's a very incredibly rewarding and exciting thing to be involved in this conversation.
	And there's something like that for everyone to...
	Who's willing to commit to the knowledge that they have?
	And to commit to the knowledge that you have is all I ask of everyone.
	There are certain ideologies you can't commit to, you know, like anything based on the Old Testament.
	I mean, you're either out there strangling homosexuals or you're a hypocrite, right?
	But libertarianism, we really can commit to.
	Non-aggression principle, you really can commit to it.
	And so that would be my suggestion, Harrison.
	Absolutely.
	I appreciate your time, and Mike, thanks for setting this call up.
	Hey, listen, listen, last thing before you go, right?
	I mean, we have a great community, hundreds of thousands of smart, energetic, talented people.
	If you want me to post something, if you want to meet other entrepreneurs, use the message board.
	I'm happy to post something on Facebook.
	Use this community.
	This is an invitation to people in general.
	Use this community to meet like-minded people.
	Meet people to marry.
	Meet people to do business with.
	Meet people to be friends with.
	Use it.
	It's a great hub.
	Don't be lonely.
	So that's my suggestion.
	Go for that if that helps.
	You're the man.
	Appreciate it very much.
	Take care, man.
	Bye.
	All right.
	Thanks, Harrison.
	All right.
	Up next is Dan.
	Dan wrote an email to me today.
	Let me just pull it up because it's a bit of a last-minute call.
	My question is a personal question today.
	As my younger brother got into an auto accident on his friend's quad, and he went to the hospital to check on his condition, and needless to say, there's quite a bit of damage.
	He felt rather horrified.
	To the brother, not to the quad, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, to the brother.
	Okay.
	He felt horrified seeing his brother in this condition.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And the seriousness of the event hasn't struck him yet, and he's kind of questioning his humanity, like, because he's not really connecting to this extremely serious situation that just occurred.
	I was hoping that he could talk about it.
	I'm just wondering if you can give me, like, a more difficult call.
	That just sounds like it's going to be...
	Let me look.
	Let me see if I can...
	It's too easy.
	Is there a determinist nearby that I can...
	I can't fight them.
	There's no fighting determinists.
	All right.
	And what's his name again?
	Dan.
	Dan.
	Dan, are you on?
	Yes, I'm on.
	I'll just get myself muted for a second.
	Yeah, no problem.
	So what happened?
	How's he doing?
	Right prior right now, he was in an emergency room, and now they're probably transferring him to ICU. He had seven broken ribs, collapsed lung, and partly broken collarbone and broken shoulder.
	Yikes.
	Yeah.
	Wow.
	So he's looking at some long and painful rehab, right?
	Yeah.
	Shoot.
	But nothing critical, nothing life-threatening?
	Serious, but not life-threatening, right?
	Yeah.
	I thought the lung was going to be a problem because when I think of that, I think of if it clots and then it freaking goes into a seizure, he strokes out from that.
	You mean from the collapsed lung?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, yeah.
	But they just reinflate that thing back up?
	Yeah.
	I say just like I know what the hell I'm talking about.
	Yeah, they're making sure if it doesn't, they'll reinflate it and whatnot.
	And they got to put a plate near his rib.
	So they got to fix that side of his rib up.
	And with the ribs, was it seven, all on the same side?
	I believe so, yes.
	Right, right.
	Shoot.
	I mean, he's got to be under some heavy painkillers, I would imagine, right now, right?
	Yeah, prior to that, he actually got up and he walked over across the street from his friends.
	And his girlfriend didn't call.
	Well, it's hard to explain, but his ex called.
	It took like 20 minutes to call the ambulance.
	And I don't know why they waited, you know.
	It collapsed long.
	You can't fucking breathe.
	Wait, did he with his ex-girlfriend when he had this accident?
	Yes, they were over at a friend's house.
	The fuck is he doing hanging around with us?
	Anyway, never mind.
	That's not the most important thing.
	All right.
	Alright.
	Alright.
	And when did this happen?
	Today.
	Just a few hours ago, around like 4 o'clock.
	And so, are they putting him in surgery at the moment to figure out what's happening with his, like, to put the bolts in with his ribs around and stuff?
	I'm not sure if they did.
	I think they might have already done that.
	And have you been to the hospital?
	Yes, I've seen him.
	He was hooked up to the tubes and whatnot, and they had him in the neck brace, and they were on the table, like, both brackets were up.
	Was he pretty groggy?
	He's like, I'm fucking hurting.
	I'm like, yeah.
	I bet, yeah.
	Do you have any sense of how he feels about it?
	I've been under the knife.
	I had a hydrocele a few years back.
	A hydrocele is basically fluid around the testes.
	My scrotum was about the size of a softball.
	And I had that for five years.
	You what?!
	What do you...
	Okay, you know, not that I'm not always curious about more medical things to worry about, but what the hell is that?
	I had a...
	I was really...
	Actually, I was born with it since I'm a premature.
	I was born at six months along with my sister, and I had a hernia.
	And it said they...
	The doctor said basically what happens was there's a hole in the bottom where your scrotum is.
	There's fluid that passed in without that membrane.
	And basically what happened is...
	Is that what they cut with the circumcision?
	I mean, sorry, with the vasectomy?
	It doesn't matter.
	It doesn't matter.
	Sorry, go on.
	Yeah, I also got circumcised too.
	So on top of that, so being a premature and having a hernia.
	So I've been through a lot of trauma and plus childhood trauma.
	But other than that, let's get back to that so I don't get off on topic.
	Basically, he thought it closed up, but when I was around my teens, my early teens, I started getting pain down there, and it started swelling, and the doctor told me that when I got my physical, it was like, wish you could check out the swelling.
	And a few months down the line, I was doing martial arts at the time.
	I got kicked.
	I went for a spinning roundhouse kick to the guy's head.
	He came up and did basically a roundhouse turn right to my scrotum.
	Knocked the wind out of me.
	And I basically...
	A few months later, after I quit, I got the HydroSeal, and I had to go to the hospital.
	And they told me that that's what it was, and I had to do that.
	And prior to that...
	So it's just fluid that's collected around...
	Is it one testicle or both?
	It fills the whole thing, so it's around both testicles.
	And they were the size of how big?
	My scrotum was about the size of a softball.
	Jesus.
	I mean, mine is too, but that's just the result of philosophy.
	I mean, if it comes through medically...
	That's hell.
	You know, I'm sorry to be an asshole and make a joke about something serious like that, but I'm sorry about that.
	And did you go all the way under for that?
	Yes, went all the way under.
	I woke up very groggy.
	I went to go take off the nose piece and she said, keep that on.
	I'm like, okay.
	I'm like, ugh.
	I had that for that.
	I had since I was 16 all the way until I was like 21.
	Wow.
	Wow.
	And that meant sex life, I guess, is a bit on the back burner, right?
	Yeah.
	I couldn't sit properly.
	I had to sit in a very open position.
	You know how some women sit?
	They have a provocative type sitting.
	That type of sitting.
	I had to sit like that.
	You mean the kind of women you find on websites?
	Yeah.
	Spread your legs.
	Let's see.
	What else?
	Explain my childhood really quick and summarize it.
	I've been bullied.
	My father hit me every day, along with my older brother.
	Yeah, because, you know, that's what you want to do, particularly with a preemie, right?
	Make sure that you toughen them up, right?
	Yeah, the things he told me.
	I was crying.
	I used to cry hysterically.
	Like, I would, like, that type of crying.
	That hysterical crying.
	And what happens is, I'll give you something to cry about, and I would immediately stop.
	I tried to stop myself.
	Sure.
	Yeah, because you're asking, basically, for sympathy.
	Yeah.
	And empathy, and instead you're getting sadism.
	So yeah, you gotta stop that shit, right?
	Alright.
	Me and my older brother got probably the worst.
	My younger brother is the one in the hospital.
	He's the youngest out of all of us, so he's like the fifth child.
	And has he been a thrill junkie at all?
	He likes going fast, yeah.
	Yeah, why do you think that is?
	Irresponsibility of my father.
	Irresponsibility of my mother.
	Not instilling the proper morals in him.
	Not to do these things.
	You're not Superman.
	Not being around enough, not being empathetic enough.
	I'm not afraid to say what I have to say.
	I gotta go back from the last caller.
	I gotta have balls, and I'm gonna be honest, I'm a fucking coward.
	Well, but you're not going far, right?
	Yeah.
	Not being empathetic enough is not nearly far enough, right?
	No.
	Because, I mean, people who beat children are not, like, not quite empathetic enough.
	It's like they're actively sadistic, right?
	Yes, they're actively sadistic.
	Right, I mean...
	The guy who pulls all your teeth out of your mouth for fun, you know, when you're under to get a filling, he pulls all your teeth out.
	He's not just not the best dentist in the world, right?
	I mean, anyway, so.
	All right.
	All right.
	Well, I'm sorry about all of that.
	That's really rough.
	Really rough stuff.
	So, what about emotional stuff?
	I mean, the physical abuse is clear.
	What about the emotional stuff?
	So, you mentioned this.
	It's sort of, I'll give you something to cry about, which is...
	It's weird.
	I mean it's just weird how we have these standards where people are confused.
	Like somebody posted the other day and said, well, Steph, what do you think about the statement?
	I brought you into this world.
	I can take you out.
	It's like, well, that's a death threat, right?
	Yes, it's a death threat.
	That's a threat of murder.
	I mean if I said that to someone, I'm capable of killing you and I will kill you if you displease me.
	I go to jail, right?
	I mean that's a death threat.
	But people say this to kids and it's like, oh, oh, oh, right?
	Try that in your next fucking meeting, right?
	At work.
	And they're saying that he said when I was fighting with my siblings over some silly things, one screws up, you all screw up.
	So if one gets in trouble, we all get in trouble with him, which is kind of odd.
	I find that kind of scary too.
	Well, it's not odd if you're in a gulag.
	It's not odd if you're in prison.
	It's not odd if you're in a concentration camp.
	This sort of collective punishment is natural.
	And it indicates such a huge imbalance of power.
	You don't see this shit happening with people who run restaurants.
	If one of you doesn't tip well, I'm going to spit in all of your food.
	Because their customers, they have a choice.
	The only reason you see this kind of brutality is where people don't have choice.
	The victims don't have choices.
	Of course, children have got no choices at all.
	They've just got to shut up and put up with whatever shitty hands their parents might be dealing with.
	Yes.
	Yeah, I'm sorry about all of that.
	How are the other siblings doing?
	My sister, she's alright right now.
	I'm not sure in an emotional state.
	I couldn't tell.
	I think she's a little distraught about it, but she has a child now, and I'm trying to help her with everything I can.
	And she had basically a wedlock.
	She had a boyfriend, and her boyfriend is living with us, so we're working together as a group.
	Her boyfriend?
	Yes.
	Why didn't she get married?
	I don't know.
	She's planning on to, but...
	Okay, all right.
	It's just that's an unstable situation for a kid, right?
	Yes.
	You know, like if you can't commit to the mom, don't have a child, right?
	It's like, well, I find the commitment to voluntary marriage a little overwhelming, but I'll be happy to take care of a dependent human being for the next 20 or 30 years, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	All right.
	And, of course, abuse is higher among...
	Children of non-married parents, right?
	It's not like getting married magically makes that go away, but I think it helps.
	Alright, anyway.
	I know that's not the purpose of your call.
	So, and the other siblings?
	My older brother, he's abused by his girlfriend.
	I don't know why he sticks with her.
	I said, I think you should leave her.
	And he sticks with her for some reason.
	I think it's a maternal attachment to a mom and stuff.
	I'm trying to figure out myself.
	It's like, I'm trying to take up a bunch of your time.
	It is a lot more important.
	No, don't worry about it.
	It's not a show I have to end soon, so take your time.
	My parents got divorced, and my mom, she left us.
	I remember waiting up for her around until like 1 in the morning when her getting back for a wait-to-a-shitting job.
	I'd lay next to her.
	I'd sleep next to her and stuff.
	My father used to hit me.
	I used to go to my mom's Get some type of protection, but she never did anything to protect me.
	She'd just stand there and say, listen to your father.
	I'm trying to figure out where my older brother is.
	I think he's- Sorry, but why did your mom leave your dad?
	Because your mom left her.
	Let's see.
	My mom left because she wasn't happy with him.
	He had a bastard child with another woman prior to the first child.
	And she couldn't take any more.
	He wasn't giving, like, attention.
	Like, I should be saying, like, okay, give you a dollar.
	Yeah.
	Don't worry about it.
	You're off the hook for that one.
	There was no...
	It was a shitty relationship, and she shouldn't have gone into it.
	And he's a sociopath, and she's a sociopath.
	It's just...
	It was a bad call on her.
	And she wanted to get out of it, even though she had kids.
	How old were you when they divorced?
	The fighting started around when I was nine years old.
	You mean they had a harmonious marriage before that?
	I'm not sure if it was harmonious.
	They kind of hid it with their emotions pretty well, I think.
	I'd never seen it.
	I forget what kind of theory it was.
	Treat it like a plant, basically, is how we would treat it.
	Food, water, yeah, got it.
	Food, water, money, whatever.
	I couldn't tell.
	I didn't see it.
	I think there was always been a problem.
	She just died.
	She couldn't take it anymore.
	She wanted to leave.
	Right, so the fact that you were being beaten up and all of that was fine with her, but when she was unhappy, when she was dissatisfied, then she was very able to take concerted action to change things, right?
	Yes.
	Do you know how much I fucking hate that?
	I know how much you hate it.
	Yeah, I'm probably not as much as you hate it.
	It's so disgusting.
	It's so fucking vile.
	I can taste that.
	It's like iron filings between my teeth.
	How vile that is.
	I was so helpless.
	You know, your dad...
	Hey, I'm unhappy.
	I'm out of here.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	Well, how about the fact that your kids are getting beaten, lady?
	Maybe that could make you a little unhappy and cause you to change things.
	No.
	No, no, no, no, no.
	As long as she's happy, then the kids can get beaten.
	But the moment that she's unhappy, regardless of the fact of whether the kids are happy or not, in fact, probably going to make the kids unhappy if she leaves, but now she's suddenly found resolution to get in there and change things up.
	Right?
	Because she's unhappy.
	Her kids being beaten, well, that doesn't really have any impact on her decisions.
	It doesn't really rouse herself to change any of that shit.
	But now she's unhappy, so it's time to change.
	God, so sorry.
	So sorry.
	What a shitty example.
	All right.
	And what happened to your dad?
	My dad, he was running an entrepreneurial business.
	He was doing finishing work on houses and whatnot.
	He wanted a divorce.
	He won the divorce technically, but he didn't get my younger brother.
	How did he win the divorce?
	Money...
	It's not the most common story in America, so...
	Money and that, but I think she got...
	He was basically paying rent for her apartment and whatnot, and paying for my younger brother, and I lived with my father, and my older brother, and my sister, and my younger brother lived with my mom.
	So they split the siblings up?
	Yeah.
	My sisters would want to go with my mom.
	I was originally going to go with her, but I didn't like the apartments.
	It was kind of like a ghetto-ass apartment.
	I'd just rather be at home with my dad.
	Did your mom fight for you at all?
	Like, to have you come?
	Yes.
	And why does she want you to come?
	More child support?
	Yeah, I guess.
	I assume so.
	I mean, was it that she loved you so much as an individual and wanted your company?
	No.
	No.
	Of course not.
	Right.
	Right.
	So it was, you know, you were like a meal ticket, right?
	Yes, I was a meal ticket.
	Get out of jail for a free card.
	And I remember my dad being thrown in jail for a few times because she used the excuse that he beat us, even though he did beat us.
	It's just like he told us not to say that we were beaten by him.
	And somehow...
	Oh, so, okay, wait, wait.
	So she gets...
	That it's bad and illegal and makes your dad look bad.
	She doesn't do it to protect you, but to get back at your dad, she'll play that card.
	Yes.
	Are you really, like, I mean, you just make me throw up in my mouth right here.
	Like, right here.
	This is, like...
	Ugh, stomach turning.
	I'm so sorry.
	I'm so incredibly sorry.
	That's not even the worst of it yet.
	Go on.
	Tell me it all.
	When I was around 15 or 16, actually the day's coming up, it's pretty funny, there was a SWAT team raid on my house.
	April, let's see, April 13th, Friday the 13th, 6.28 a.m., They kicked down my door.
	It was a drug raid because by then my dad, when he lost the entrepreneur's business, he was starting to get back to selling drugs and whatnot.
	And it was pretty shitty, dirty work.
	And some of that stuff was pretty expensive.
	And the market on cocaine back then, when he was doing it, was about $10,000.
	That's pretty...
	It was pretty shocking.
	And they always told me not to do drugs, not to do any of these, not to be a thief, not to be a liar, not to hit, not to steal.
	Sure, yeah.
	Who wants competition, right?
	Yeah.
	And they kicked out the door.
	I was handcuffed.
	Everyone in the house was handcuffed.
	My dad was thrown into a car.
	He was taken away.
	To jail to be up there for upstate for three years.
	He had a uh an illegal firearm and uh and pills up in the uh garage that we had in the back and um He was going for about three years.
	I went to a starvation period.
	I lost about Wait, wait, where was your mom?
	My mom was there.
	She was also got handcuffed and she got charged of having some type of drug or whatever, but She just pleaded guilty, because that's what you have to do, is plead guilty.
	Oh, that's what everyone does.
	Oh, yeah.
	I got it.
	So...
	Wow.
	So, I mean, so you were 15, right?
	Is that right?
	16 at the time.
	And did they make any arrangements for you guys to get social services, or...?
	My mom had got social services, but when my brother, when he graduated that year, he...
	Oh, so he basically got promoted to parent.
	he's a kid, you know?
	Kind of bullshit.
	Complete bullshit.
	I mean, he's a child raised by people who have such bad judgment that are now in jail for selling drugs and he's supposed to be somehow a new parent here?
	Yes.
	I mean, if he was a woman and got pregnant, he'd have all the social services in the world, but he's a guy and so he gets promoted So the head of the household is like, fuck you, make it work, right?
	Yes.
	Right.
	I've been into an emotional rollercoaster.
	I'm not sure how I survived this.
	I don't.
	And the chat's wondering how old I am.
	I'm 24.
	So I'm just going to let you know.
	I'll be 25 this year.
	I'm sort of in this, like, The example you brought up, the rat.
	I feel like I'm the rat without ambition or motivation.
	I feel like I'm stuck.
	Again.
	Which rat?
	Rat?
	Yeah.
	Put food in his mouth.
	Oh, thanks.
	Oh, okay.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	But I'm not sure what to do with my life.
	Where do I want to go?
	I feel stuck.
	I was actually going to college for a little bit.
	A while, and then I couldn't do it because I had to do all the high school work all over again because I was struggling in high school at the time, too.
	Oh, yeah.
	Yeah, I know.
	I was just reading this article about homework.
	You know, I never did homework.
	I hated it.
	I never did it either.
	I never did it.
	I never did it.
	I mean, I just couldn't.
	I mean, just surviving my home was hot enough, right?
	I mean, couldn't...
	Yeah.
	I never did any homework, and I kind of...
	These kids get three hours of homework a day?
	Are you fucking kidding me?
	That's the new homework standard for high schoolers.
	Yeah.
	When you get two fucking kids for seven hours a day, they get three more hours of homework, half an hour each way on the bus.
	It's 11 hours.
	Yeah.
	Try...
	You know, and they're 15 years old, for Christ's sakes.
	Oh, I don't know why these kids are getting fat.
	Well, maybe if you start giving them so much goddamn homework, let them go outside.
	Anyway.
	Um...
	How did I expect to reach this stage?
	I actually didn't expect to reach this stage, Chad.
	Half a year ago, I wanted to commit suicide.
	I was up in my dad's room.
	My brother has a long rifle, and I kind of just wanted to end it, but I didn't.
	I said, no, don't.
	You were at your dad's?
	I live with my father still, yes.
	He's out of jail, so he's working a normal job now.
	Guess where?
	He's working a normal job.
	Oh, government job, right?
	Yep, government job.
	Yeah, of course.
	And I'm sort of stuck in this position where I want to get out.
	Why are you living with your father?
	I don't have a job or anything.
	I don't have any skills or anything.
	I feel like I'm a useless piece of shit.
	You feel like you're a useless piece of shit?
	Yes.
	Right.
	I wasn't given any good values to run myself by.
	Go on.
	And I've been stuck and I haven't had ambition.
	I don't have the drive.
	And my father raised me that way.
	He's putting me below him.
	I feel like I'm in his shadow.
	I feel weak and meek compared to him.
	I shouldn't be.
	So far what I see, I'm I'm a human and he's more of a monster compared to me.
	Wait, wait, but you said you're below, but he's a monster.
	Wouldn't that be below you?
	Yes.
	Sorry, I have a question.
	No, no, no, don't contradict this.
	Tell me exactly what you think.
	I'm not trying to nitpick.
	I'm just trying to understand.
	I feel like I can't get anything done.
	I don't feel like I haven't...
	No, no.
	Get to the point.
	And what do you want to get done?
	I want to get my life on track.
	I want to get out of this hell I'm living.
	You mean at your father's house?
	Yeah.
	No, I don't want to put words in your mouth.
	I'm trying to use this hell that you're living in.
	Is that where you're living or something else?
	I'm living here, yes.
	Yeah, okay.
	All right.
	Now, what kind of job do you think you could do?
	Cashier.
	Prior to this, I was working on a 7-Eleven for 12 hours a day.
	And it was my friend's mom, since my friend offered to be the job.
	And my friend's mom was basically, she's an abused housewife.
	And I could tell off the bat, she would pick on me and pick on her son.
	And her husband was working with her too.
	And put it in perspective that they're Muslim.
	Oh, hang on, hang on, hang on.
	Oh, man.
	Look, I'm not trying to shoehorn your thing here, right?
	But you said she's an abused housewife, right?
	Yes.
	And then you said she picked on her son and picked on you?
	Yes.
	Doesn't that make her an abuser?
	Yes, that makes her an abuser.
	I don't know if you heard the earlier part of the show, right?
	Yes, she's an abuser.
	There's no...
	Yeah, but this is how automatic it is for us, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	Before we say or after we say a woman did something bad, we have to give her an excuse, right?
	No, there's no excuse to that.
	No, I'm just pointing it out because this is a habit.
	You haven't really talked much about your mom, but this is sort of a habit that we have, which is dangerous.
	And I just want to highlight it for everyone else.
	I don't want to make this about that for you, but I just really want to point it out.
	Just try it.
	Try criticizing what a woman does without providing an excuse.
	It will make you very uncomfortable.
	And that discomfort is really important to penetrate because I really want women to be treated with respect, which means to give them the same.
	We either reduce moral autonomy for men or we increase it for women, but I really am in for equality between the sexes.
	But anyway.
	Okay, so what happened with the job at the 7-Eleven?
	I quit because his mom was abusing me while I was at work.
	Yeah, I mean you're stuck in an underworld, right?
	It's like wherever you go is dead people, right?
	Yes.
	Like you're stuck in a fucking zombie movie, right?
	I'm figuring out where I can go.
	What kind of skills can I learn?
	How do I survive on nothing?
	Well, why do you have to survive on nothing?
	Well, not nothing, but more of...
	More of what?
	I need to be more wholesome.
	I need to be not so dead inside.
	I feel like I'm hollowing.
	I'm becoming a zombie, which I don't want to be.
	I'm scared of that.
	Do you know why?
	Anxiety.
	Fear.
	No.
	No.
	Those are symptoms.
	What is the cause of you hollowing out?
	All the trauma I've been put through.
	No.
	No!
	Oh, I'm such a dick, but I'm going to be firm because you're worth it, right?
	Yes.
	No.
	No.
	People go through trauma.
	They don't end up being continually and progressively hollowed out and suicidal into their 20s, right?
	Yes.
	So what is causing this hollowing out?
	Environment.
	Go on.
	My parents.
	Yeah.
	Proximity to toxicity.
	Should I just leave?
	Proximity to toxicity.
	You said when you're around your father, you feel yourself diminishing.
	Yes, and I feel terrified.
	You said you feel like you're beneath him and he's a monster.
	Yes.
	That means that you feel in a subjugated position to a moral monster.
	You don't mean a monster like he's ugly, right?
	No.
	He's got a hunchback.
	I mean, there's no moral content in those things, right?
	You mean a moral monster, an evil man?
	Yes.
	Right?
	So, proximity to evil, what does that do to good people?
	It destroys them.
	It does.
	It really does.
	I mean, he's kryptonite, right?
	Yes, he's kryptonite.
	I can't be the Superman next to the Kryptonite.
	No.
	No, he dies.
	Right?
	I mean, just by the by, right?
	I mean, you know the metaphor, right?
	And the metaphor works.
	Because where's Kryptonite?
	He wants to be Superman.
	He wants to be powerful.
	Kryptonite is where?
	It's from his home.
	It's from his father's planet.
	He can't be Superman when he's around his home.
	My daughter's watching the movie Hercules, and it's this guy, you know, it doesn't really matter the story, but he's got these kind of dunder-headed parents, and then he decides he wants to be a hero.
	And he leaves his parents, and his parents never show up again in the movie.
	He goes off and has all these adventures.
	If you want to be great, and I would suspect that you want to be great, you have no choice now, right?
	You've gone through so much.
	You're either going to be great or you're going to be dead.
	Right?
	You have become so battle-hardened that you're either going to be a hero or a gravestone, right?
	Yes.
	I mean, tell me if I'm wrong.
	This is my thought.
	I want to be a hero.
	I don't want to be stuck in this hell.
	I don't want to be nothing.
	No.
	Yeah, you have become so toughened by experience.
	And I don't mean toughened like just hardened and drobody.
	You have been strengthened to the point where you will not be able to stand a mediocre life anymore.
	It drives me mad.
	Yeah, I mean how on earth could you have a mediocre life or an average life when you have gone through so much?
	You can't.
	You've got to be ambitious.
	You've got to flare.
	You've got to be like a solar flare.
	You've got to explode.
	Make that hell count for something in this world.
	Do you know what I'm saying?
	Yes.
	Make that fucking hell count for something in this goddamn world.
	Make that hell you went through make that turn you into a diamond, right?
	Yes.
	Into something bright and hard And glittery and that cuts through everything.
	Otherwise, what was that hell for if it wasn't to turn you into a god?
	That's the only way to make that hell bearable.
	I don't want to be the Sandy Cook shooter.
	I don't want to be any of that.
	I want to be far away from it.
	I want to be the fucking spectrum off that spectrum.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I mean, you know, the heroes of the ancient world.
	The heroes of the ancient world.
	Do you know what happened to them?
	They were deified.
	At the end of their lives.
	Yeah, but do you know where they were put?
	There's no reason you would know.
	It's geeky knowledge.
	They were put into the sky at night.
	They were launched into the stars.
	They became the constellations.
	And do you know what mankind does with stars, fundamentally, in the ancient world?
	Even now, do you know what we do?
	We grasp them.
	We look for them.
	We're inspired to get that far.
	Yes, but you know what we really practically and fundamentally do with them?
	Human beings navigate.
	By the stars.
	The heroes of the species, the brave, the courageous, the magnificent, the warriors, were cast into the sky by which mankind navigates.
	And that is the potential that we have.
	We battle hardened diamond souls.
	Is we get to glow so bright that the species can use us for navigation when they're lost at sea, when they don't know what to do, when they don't know where to go.
	Most of the heroes that we see do things we can never achieve.
	Superman flies!
	Faster than a speeding train, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single band.
	Can't do any of that shit, right?
	Nope.
	Sorry, Bradley Manning, I don't have any access to classified documents, and I don't look good in a tutu.
	Edward Snowden, good job.
	I don't have access to any of that shit.
	I can't do what you did.
	Most times, people want heroes...
	That remove from them the responsibility of action.
	And that's what they're really worshipping.
	Is their excuse for inaction.
	Right?
	Libertarianism...
	I can follow these people.
	This is not to condemn libertarianism.
	It's simply a fact.
	I come to libertarians and I say, oppose child abuse.
	Right?
	Right?
	Oh shit, is that something I can actually do?
	Ooh, ooh, okay.
	Oh, that guy's wrong.
	Oh, that's no good.
	Oh, let me go back and read another book about the Fed.
	Because I can't do anything about that, right?
	Can't do fuck all about that.
	Oh, that foreign policy, that's really bad.
	What are you going to do about it today?
	I don't know.
	I'm going to post that it's really bad.
	Can you change it?
	No.
	So you're just typing.
	Right?
	But whenever you start to talk about kids and personal relationships, non-aggression principle, where you can actually make a difference.
	Hmm.
	Oh shit.
	That's heroism with traction, right?
	That's heroism where the rubber actually meets the road, right?
	Yes.
	It's carry the torch, keep running, run as fucking far as you can.
	Yeah.
	Hey, know all those heroes you worshipped?
	You remember how you cheered for Luke Skywalker and Odysseus and Nietzsche and Winston Churchill?
	Right?
	Hey, guess what?
	It's your turn, motherfucker.
	Get the fuck up there and take one for the species.
	It's your turn now!
	And people don't like that, right?
	No, they don't.
	They're afraid of it.
	No.
	See, it's much better on a screen.
	I like my heroism in a comfortable seat with nicely buttered popcorn.
	And not too big a pop that I feel like I have to pee.
	Because, you know, that's uncomfortable.
	When you're watching Saving Private Ryan and seeing 9 million guys get their heads blown off, I really don't like having to pee.
	That's uncomfortable.
	Life's all about being uncomfortable.
	You gotta...
	Well, yeah, sorry, you know, it was pretty uncomfortable to do some of the things that people did to make our world free, right?
	Pretty uncomfortable to take on the aristocracy.
	Pretty uncomfortable to have, say, a revolution in 1776, right?
	I mean, the Tea Party people should be like, well, you know, we haven't really done much to reduce the size and power of the state.
	What else can we do?
	Oh, child abuse, really?
	No, no, you see, we can do that, so let's have another rally!
	Where's that Sarah Palin?
	She's purdy!
	People don't want...
	That's why you put your heroes at a distance.
	And that's why everything that they do has a subtext.
	And the subtext is, not you.
	Not you.
	Oh, I'm sorry.
	Are you a multi-millionaire with a belt full of fantastic toys and the kind of motorcycle-only a man with a tiny penis would want to drive?
	Well, you can't be Bruce Wayne in Batman.
	See that hero?
	He's not you.
	So you sit there in your fucking chair, eat your popcorn, get fat, and don't disturb anyone.
	I like my heroism T-vote!
	I like heroism that I can pause when I have to pee.
	Everybody wants to watch it.
	And that watching it in fantastical elements and realms...
	If I were that hobbit, I'd be that courageous.
	Fortunately, hobbits don't exist.
	Right?
	Boy, you know...
	If some woman came to me and unplugged me from the Matrix, I bet you I'd turn aside as bullets flew past my groin too!
	I'd be shitting my pants, fuck that.
	Fortunately, that's not gonna happen.
	Oh wait, actually, a woman who comes to your house is just some waffly guy with a vaguely British accent in a podcast.
	Ready to unplug?
	Oh shit, no.
	Is this something I can do?
	No, no, no, no!
	No!
	Let me turn on Star Trek again because I like my heroism with pointy ears!
	And spangable space aliens!
	So, almost all heroism is designed to make you inert by placing it in a context that you can't possibly act on.
	By placing it in a realm of the future or fantasy or a comic book or requiring you to be born on another planet or under the sea or the son of a god or whatever, right?
	Whatever it is, it's heroism.
	It's not for you.
	That's all it is.
	It's the same goddamn movie over and over again.
	Heroism!
	It's not for you!
	That's all it is.
	But you don't It doesn't have to be that, right?
	I mean, for you, the heroism is right now, right here, right?
	Something you can do.
	And there's a lot of boring, gritty bullshit in heroism.
	You know, everybody loves the picture, you know?
	The man with the square jaw on top of the snow-capped mountain saying, One does not simply become a hero without a strong jawline.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	My heroism is counted in abs.
	This is what people...
	Right?
	My heroism comes with CGI. And spray paint.
	And spray paint.
	Right?
	My heroism means I must speak like this.
	And your heroism is detoxification, right?
	Yes.
	These people have eviscerated you, right?
	They have shredded your childhood.
	They have endangered you, right?
	Yes.
	Dealing drugs.
	Look, I'm against the drug war, but Jesus Christ, you cannot be dealing drugs with children in the house.
	I mean, people know where you live.
	What if somebody puts a hit on you?
	What if somebody decides to blow up your car?
	What if somebody decides to take out the competition?
	It's dangerous, terrifying, criminal shit these days.
	Like, I'm sorry that it is, and it should not be illegal, but it is.
	And if you are...
	I mean, I don't even know why this needs to be said in a sane universe.
	But it's like, hey, you know what's a good idea if you have five dependent children?
	Not doing shit that gets you thrown in jail.
	Because you have five dependent children, right?
	So, these are messes of humanity, right?
	This is the toxic waste of unexamined history, right?
	It was hard to dig through this history.
	It was hard to tell my inner attacker to shut the fuck up and think about this.
	Let me feel this.
	Let me see why I feel outrage and why do I feel terror and why do I avert my eyes when I'm looking at my dad?
	Why do I have this grudge against my mom and feel that even though she's immoral, I shouldn't be bound by her.
	I shouldn't feel like, it's all your fault!
	I gotta move.
	I gotta get up.
	I gotta do something.
	I can't be having cement on my legs.
	I gotta move.
	Was your brother, and I appreciate what you're saying.
	It is really hard when people haven't done it.
	You have no idea.
	Was your brother the only son who went with your mother?
	Yes.
	And he's the only one in the hospital now, right?
	Yes.
	Do you think that's a coincidence?
	No.
	Why not?
	Because usually children and their mothers usually do poor because of the fact that there's not two parents.
	There's only one.
	One's financially dependent.
	And she's a leech and parasite as a person.
	And I shouldn't pick her as an example of being my mother.
	I feel pretty empty and hollow inside because of that.
	We have two men Who performed risky behaviors while living with your mother, right?
	Yes.
	Your father with drug dealing and your brother with some crazy ATV shit, right?
	Yes.
	Look, there are accidents in the world, right?
	So not everything has a psychological cause, but that's why I asked you earlier, did he have a habit of thrill-seeking?
	Yes.
	If he didn't, right?
	Oh, it was his first time on an ATV. He's normally very cautious.
	It's like, oh, bad luck.
	Shit, right?
	If he has a history of thrill-seeking or engaging in risky behaviors, then this accident has a psychological cause.
	In other words, it's just a matter of time until, right?
	Yes.
	I like to drive blindfolded.
	Hey, it's just a matter of time until you poor walk yourself into the lower stratosphere, right?
	Yeah.
	So what is it, do you think, in your mother that encourages Risky behavior on the part of the men.
	She's a thrill seeker.
	Go on.
	She doesn't care about herself.
	She endangers herself.
	I'm not sure what else to say about it.
	What relationship does she have to dangerous behavior on the part of the men around her?
	She doesn't care.
	She sticks with them.
	Look, I don't want to tell you your experience, and I certainly don't want to put words in your mouth, but I think neutrality is not enough to explain your brother's thrill-seeking.
	So, at the risk of leading the witness, Your Honor, I mean, does she encourage it at all?
	Does she view it as cool?
	Does she view it as exciting?
	Does she view it as interesting or sexy or...
	Yes.
	She wanted me to join the military a few years ago.
	She wanted me to be a Marine.
	Why?
	Because her grandfather did it.
	No, I know.
	But, you know, her grandfather probably tilled the earth and delivered babies from cows or cows' calves by hand.
	That doesn't mean she wanted you to do that.
	So what was it that she encouraged you?
	What did she say about it?
	You can't have a cell phone.
	My grandfather didn't have one.
	Well, no.
	We were willing to do things differently than our grandfathers did.
	So what did she say about joining the military to you?
	You get to have an adventure.
	You get to explore the world.
	An adventure.
	Right.
	That's positive.
	That's not neutral, right?
	Yes.
	You get to have an adventure.
	So, killing people is an adventure, right?
	Yes.
	Death is exciting.
	Truly sisters to can die.
	Pock of shit.
	I'm sorry, can you say that again?
	Truly sadistic and horrible, diabolical shit.
	Yeah, it is diabolical shit.
	I've seen the Iraq War pictures that the kid, his Muslim father, has a face of horror and the kid's legs blown off.
	I was torn in my stomach.
	I felt like I was going to hurl, to be honest.
	Oh yeah, I saw a picture and I can barely look at it.
	I have to like grit my teeth to look at it and it's an Iraqi father lying in the grave with his daughter.
	And you can see from his face, he just wants to be buried with her because she's dead.
	And it is, I mean, as a father to a daughter myself, it is...
	It is an unbearable image to look at.
	And...
	Sorry, I want to stay focused on this.
	Yeah, I just want to stay focused on what you're talking about.
	So...
	And nobody doesn't know this by now, right?
	2001, everybody had the war fever, right?
	And then they're all going to complain about their taxes.
	It's like, this is the fucking place you pay for bloodlust, you vampires.
	Yeah.
	I just wish that the peace lovers didn't have to pay for your fucking bloodlust, too.
	Goddamn assholes.
	Let's cheer the scuds!
	Hey, my house mortgage is too expensive.
	I don't have a job.
	Yeah, you know what?
	You fucking pay for wanting to blood-slaughter other people by the hundreds of thousands.
	You know, there's a million Iraqi dead, and Americans are whining about the fucking economy.
	Well, that's the price you pay!
	For wishing death on a million people.
	Your economy will fuck up.
	The banks have too much power.
	Well, you all wanted a war that you could cheer the slaughter and disassembly of a million plus fellow citizens on the planet.
	But you didn't want to pay the bills now, did you?
	Well, the government had to get that money from somewhere to satisfy your bloodlust, that it was cheering and leading on, still had to satisfy your bloodlust.
	3,000 of our people are dead!
	Let's go nuke some sand niggers!
	Well, if they'd sent you for the bill, then you wouldn't have liked the bloodlust quite so much, right?
	No.
	You would say, what the fuck?
	This is my eligible bill.
	You know what?
	I think I'm going to turn to the blessed are the peacemakers part of the Bible rather than the eye for an eye, which doesn't even matter.
	What is it?
	Most of the people who hijacked those planes were Saudi America.
	They nuked Iraq.
	What do they do?
	Said the comedian.
	Miss?
	Oh, God.
	It's so embarrassing to hear Americans whine about the economy.
	I didn't blame it.
	It's so high.
	Well, you know, it is quite expensive to disassemble people around the globe.
	It is quite expensive to burn billions of prehistoric trees cruising around the ocean looking for pirates.
	It is quite expensive to have only 5% of the world's population and a quarter of the world's prisoners.
	It is quite expensive to have a war on drugs.
	It is quite expensive To have a stupid ass population because the teachers unions want summers off and so the kids get retarded every summer.
	Other countries don't do that.
	You know, when you appease evil people, oh, you know what?
	Not that great for productivity.
	When you have an empire...
	Where people get murdered by the tens of millions since the Second World War with propping up insanely evil regimes and selling weapons of mass destruction to dictators and being the biggest fucking arms dealer on the planet.
	Not great for the planet.
	Oh, and guess what?
	You don't have a job.
	That's what you pay for being a bloodlust fucking asshole.
	Who doesn't give a shit for people who look different from you who are in oceans away?
	Well, guess what?
	The war is a boomerang, bitch!
	Don't fucking whine to libertarians about your shitty economy when we said to you the war will be a disaster.
	Morally, economically, nationally, catastrophically, a disaster!
	And you went, no, kill, kill, kill, kill, what, I don't have a job?
	Well, you know, you don't have a job, they don't have a heartbeat.
	And you whine?
	God almighty, I gotta imagine that the planet as a whole looks at America and just wishes a giant sinkhole would open up.
	Yeah, we're like the Romans.
	In every way I can see it, it's a repeat of history.
	I just hope we don't get to Dark Ages again.
	Oh god.
	Well, we're working on that.
	You're working on that too, right?
	Part of this convo.
	Yeah.
	Alright, so this toxicity, right?
	These people shredded your childhood.
	Your mother's bloodlust, your mother's lust for danger, for excitement, for thrill-seeking, and for sacrificial man-meat, right?
	Did she go to jail as long as your dad did?
	No.
	Of course not.
	Got a pussy pass, right?
	Yep.
	Much less risky for her, right?
	Who's in jail?
	Her, the thrill seeker?
	Or your brother?
	My younger brother.
	Right.
	If you had gone to Iraq or Afghanistan and had your legs and one giant nut blown off, who would have been in a wheelchair for the rest of Women goad violence.
	Women provoke violence.
	Not all women, not all the time.
	My boyfriend's back and there's gonna be trouble.
	I'm gonna tell him what you did and he's gonna beat you up.
	Women goad.
	Violence.
	And I said in one of my recent videos, ladies, maybe you can stop banging the murderers.
	You know, every time a vet calls in, well, my wife and my kids, it's like, what?
	What?
	Your wife?
	I'm not saying that these men should never be loved or never have marriages, but they're fucked up vets.
	I think they'd be the first to admit that.
	That's what they call in for.
	And they're all married.
	Ladies, stop banging the blood dicks.
	If women say no to anything, it doesn't happen.
	If women say yes to something, it always happens.
	Men are just trained to have access to the uterus and we're trained to have access.
	And if women say no, our genes die.
	So basically we have to say yes to whatever women want and no to whatever women don't want.
	This is what People don't fundamentally understand.
	Feminists haven't asked women enough.
	Sorry, feminists haven't asked men enough what it's like to be a man.
	I rather have my genes die, to be honest.
	No, no, I get that, right?
	I get that, and you get that, but the genes don't get that, right?
	No, they're just like, no.
	Yeah, yeah.
	You up there on top of the brainstem, you can say whatever the fuck you want.
	We're just going to go find us some eggs.
	You do whatever you need to do.
	I don't care if it's going to be a night emission that goes over and a cockroach's back crawls up there.
	We're going to get some semen in there.
	We're going to make some new genes.
	I don't give a shit what you say.
	Too bad, right?
	Yeah.
	And now the women are all like, well, you know, I don't have a job.
	Well, women were baying like rabid skeletal bloodhounds for the blood of foreigners too.
	Get off the hook.
	War is not a male occupation exclusively.
	How many men do you think would go to war if they knew that women would never date them?
	They wouldn't go to war.
	They were like, hell no.
	I'm not getting any benefit from that.
	You mean I get a gun and no pussy?
	Fuck that!
	I gotta go fight these guys and I don't get pussy?
	Oh no thank you brother.
	Thank you no.
	There's not enough portable R&R I can take with me there to make that worth my while right?
	Stop sleeping with the murderers and maybe we'll get less murderer.
	Pussy is the ultimate subsidy that nobody talks about, right?
	Whatever pussy subsidizes will be done.
	Whatever pussy bans will not be done.
	By thy will, pussy, it will or will not be done.
	Our pussy who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
	Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
	Give us this day our daily pussy and forgive us our trespasses.
	Sorry, honey.
	As we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from masturbation, for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever.
	Please give me some.
	Your mother, I would imagine, goaded risk-taking for her own thrills.
	Your mother encouraged risk-taking.
	I would guess, though I can't speak for her of course, but I would guess that there was something about this is risk-taking and manliness go together.
	Yes, my dad was very masculine and he's pretty huge compared to me.
	I'm like 40 pounds lighter than him.
	You're 40 pounds, you said?
	I'm about 150.
	He's about 180, 190.
	He's all muscle compared to me.
	Right.
	Right.
	Well, you're lighter than him because you don't have a blood-soaked shitty conscience in your head, right?
	Yeah.
	So, yeah, so your dad is like the manly man, right?
	And your mom married the manly man who is insane, aggressive, takes risks, is unempathetic, cold, beats his children, right?
	He's an ape, basically.
	Although that's sort of an insult.
	1950s mentality.
	Yeah, well, 1950s also produced Cary Grant, so I wouldn't characterize the whole decade that way, but...
	Right?
	But so she was like, yeah, that's a real man, right?
	Real men, they beat their kids because, you know, they love equal fights, right?
	So...
	So that's what a real man is, right?
	I don't think...
	I mean, she didn't say...
	I bet you she probably never said your dad's a pussy, right?
	No.
	No, I haven't.
	I don't think no, no.
	Right, so...
	And this...
	Okay, so...
	I'll try to make this brief, right?
	So why are we attracted to women like our mothers, right?
	I mean… There's Freudian bullshit that I don't care about and I don't think it's particularly relevant.
	And the whole Oedipus or Electra complex, Oedipus being a son who wants to sleep with his mom and Electra complex being the daughter who wants to sleep with her dad, is complete bullshit and it was all made up.
	What happened was – and this is actually going to be very relevant.
	What happened was in Freud's practice when he began talking to people about their dreams and their unconscious and so on, he uncovered a massive – Prevalence of childhood sexual abuse in late 19th century Vienna.
	All the women were raped by their uncles and by their fathers, and both Freud and Jung experienced rape at the hands of male relatives.
	And so he began publishing this stuff, and he said, like, oh my god, there's all of this...
	My dad fucked me.
	My mom sexually abused me.
	You know, there's all this stuff going on in my office.
	He's began to write about this stuff.
	And of course the entire ring of pedophiles that seems to be generally in charge of the planet, BBC, they started threatening him.
	You know, pull his license, destroy his livelihood, hound him and expose him in the press.
	You know, all the usual shit that happens when anyone accidentally talks about truth that harms the interests of those in power.
	And he got scared.
	He chickened out.
	I'm not condemning him for it, but it's a fact.
	And he said, oh, okay, well, these women seem to be talking a lot about being raped by their fathers, these women with these incredibly destructive psychological problems.
	Like, these are women who had hysterical blindness, like they couldn't see, although there was nothing wrong with their eyes, their pupils dilated and everything.
	Or women who couldn't feel their arms.
	You could stick pins in them even though there was nothing wrong with their arms.
	And so Freud said, okay, all right, if all these pedophiles and these child rapists are going to threaten me with pulling my license and being mean to me and so on, then I guess I'll switch it up a little.
	And I'll say, well, there are a lot of women who complain about having been raped by their fathers and But I'm going to say it's a wish-fulfillment fantasy.
	They didn't actually get raped by their fathers.
	They really wanted to have sex with their fathers, and that I'm going to call the electrocomplex.
	Oh man, there's a lot of young men in my office who claim to have been sexually molested by their mothers.
	When I talk about this as if it's true, I get threatened by all the child rapists in society who are pretty powerful.
	They like to be up there in terms of power.
	So I think what I'll do is I'll pretend that this is not true, this is not real, and that these little boys or these young men who complain about being molested by their mothers, I'm going to say that they really just dreamt about it and really want it.
	They want to sleep with their mothers, and that's why they're complaining about having been raped by their mothers.
	And this, I mean, is evil.
	I mean other than the actual child rape, this is about as evil a thing as can be imagined.
	I mean imagine if when a woman complained about being raped by a man, they said, well, you just want him as your boyfriend and so you fantasized about him raping you because that's what you really want.
	I mean can you imagine?
	But you can do this to children, right?
	You can have an entire psychoanalytical tradition in the West founded upon this pedophilia covering up evil bullshit.
	Because, because, because.
	Anyway, there's only children, right?
	What the fuck do children matter these days?
	Or ever, for that matter.
	So, why are we attracted to women like our mothers?
	It's not anything to do with this Freudian stuff.
	It's got a much simpler biological explanation.
	We are attracted to women like our mothers because our mothers are an example of...
	Because successful sexual selection.
	Why?
	Because they had children.
	Right?
	Why do we want to be like our fathers?
	Because our fathers had sex with a woman and had a child, which is what our genes want us to do.
	Right?
	And of course, through most of human development, there was no multiculturalism.
	There was no differences.
	Right?
	There may be in a tribe of 100 or 200 people, there'd be 10 or 20 women, unattached women of childbearing age, and they're all pretty much the same.
	All pretty much the same.
	And so if it worked for your dad, it's going to work for you.
	And if you're attracted to a woman like your mom, then you are going to have access to a woman who's like your mom who's going to be just some other chick in the tribe, right?
	Yes.
	And this is why we want to please and conform to our mothers because it prepares us to please and conform to our The mothers of our children who are going to be pretty much like her mom because culture didn't vary much in a 100-person tribe for 10,000 fucking years, right?
	So whatever your mother defines as attractive, as exciting, as positive in a man, you are going to be drawn to emulate, right?
	That's why I asked whether your brother who's in the hospital had the most exposure to your mother Who worships risk-taking men.
	Because she's going to program him to take risks because his genes are going to assume that the women in the tribe love a risk-taker.
	And they don't frankly care if he survives.
	They just care that he has a baby, right?
	And if risk-taking men is what the women like, fuck it.
	I'll light my dick on fire.
	I'll run off a cliff.
	I'll grab four eagles and try and fly.
	If that's what gets the ladies' juices flowing, that's what I've got to do.
	If that's what mom likes, that's what the other women of the tribe are going to like.
	So by God, that's what I'm going to do.
	So he was probably trying to impress someone, maybe his ex-girlfriend.
	He was probably trying to impress a woman with how cool he was.
	Bang!
	Right?
	And deep down, he's trying to impress his mom with how exciting he is, with how risky he can be.
	And this is the toxicity that you're facing.
	He probably has no idea.
	It's like a charging ball.
	You gotta get out of the way, or else it's gonna run you over.
	Right.
	So, I'm getting first steps, find a job, get out of the risk-taking, get away from the toxicity, and move on with your life.
	Yeah, and look, you can't vault out of the underworld in one go, and I'm telling you this, because it'll take you a lot less long...
	A time as it took me.
	And the reason being is that, you know, like really good managers don't work in a 7-Eleven, right?
	They're a head office.
	Right?
	So, you know, it's like people complain, you know, my restaurant manager is shitty, right?
	Where do you work?
	A diner.
	Well, duh, right?
	Good managers don't end up in a diner.
	So, you're going to have bosses who stink, right?
	Who are petty, mean, abusive, dysfunctional.
	Because you've got to climb out of that.
	But there's no leap.
	I don't know.
	Maybe you can.
	I'm just telling you my experience.
	Because what's going to happen is you're going to go out in the world and you're going to get jobs and you're going to say, my God, everyone's an asshole.
	And then you're going to be tempted with sucking a shotgun, right?
	It's like the line from Paradise Lost.
	Satan.
	Satan flying along and he says, he tries to fly out of hell and he says, everywhere I turn is hell.
	I am myself hell.
	He can't fly out of hell because hell is within him, right?
	He can't escape hell.
	Everywhere he goes is hell.
	So, because you're Raised in a fucked up household, you're going to try and get out and you will.
	And then you will work at some place with a shitty manager.
	Most likely.
	Maybe you won't, but most likely, right?
	And then you'll be like, fuck, it's not any better out here.
	And then you're going to look down the road towards your future and you're going to say, this is a childhood I can never outgrow.
	This is a history that will always outrace me.
	I can't ever, ever get out of the revolving door of yes to fucked up day, right?
	And then you'll be tempted with despair, but keep fighting.
	Once you break through that crust, once you get out into the clear air, once you get above the shit canopy of the underworld forest, it is clear skies, it is blue saline, there are better people.
	I grew up with unbelievably shitty people around me.
	I have zero shitty people in my life now.
	And every now and then, I'll tell you, I'll tell you Dan, every now and then, I do a little flame around.
	And do you know what a flame around is?
	For me, a flame around is when I say, this is what I really, really think.
	Now, I always say what I think.
	I don't bullshit on these shows at all.
	It doesn't mean I'm always right, but I'm always saying what I'm thinking.
	But there's always a choice about how far to go, right?
	And sometimes I'm like, you know what?
	A little bit of undergrowth around here.
	Let's give it a flame treatment.
	Right?
	And so, yeah, I'll do a show like Estrogen-Based Parasites, right?
	And then some people will, huh, they'll get in the snit.
	Right?
	What he says is rude and mean.
	I don't like him.
	Right.
	Now, what they won't do is call me up and say, you know, Stefan, you sounded really angry there.
	Like, it was a bit upsetting to me, but, you know, what was going on for you, right?
	They won't do a humane thing, right?
	Especially all these people into the non-violent communication paradigm, right?
	Right?
	Right?
	They don't call me up and say, wow, that was quite a rant.
	Where did that come from?
	Right?
	Help me understand your experience to produce that level of emotion.
	Right?
	No, they just...
	He's misogynist.
	Right?
	He hates women.
	Good.
	We're clearing the undergrowth.
	Excellent.
	Excellent.
	Because don't be a dipshit and like my show.
	Don't be a hypocritical idiot and like my show.
	You got a problem with what I'm saying?
	I'm on the air six, seven hours a week.
	I'm about as accessible as any intellectual you'll find on the planet today.
	You know, try calling up Sam Harris and having a good old chat with him for an hour.
	It happens all the time.
	Here.
	Right?
	I love to clear the undergrowth.
	People got a problem with me.
	People think that I'm doing something wrong.
	Call me up.
	My Skype is on almost all the time.
	Give me a shout.
	Call in.
	Mike, do we ever say no to people who want to call in and tell me I'm wrong?
	No, I actually move those people to the front of the list.
	Absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	Thanks, Mike.
	Right.
	No, I want to move those people up.
	Hey, tell me.
	I've got no corner on omniscience.
	So, yeah, and this is going to be one of those shows too.
	I love it.
	Clear the undergrowth.
	Right?
	Assholes run from fire because fire has light in it.
	Right?
	Nossals don't want to look in the mirror and say, I seem a bit puckered today.
	Ooh, need to pluck.
	Right?
	So, no, it's good to clear the undergrowth.
	So, because, you know, they creep back in, especially when you're a public figure, right?
	I mean, people creep back in, right?
	And Mike, so of all the people who were upset about the estrogen-based parasites show, was there anyone who showed even the slightest bit of empathy or curiosity towards my feelings or motives?
	Well, let me see.
	Um...
	Um...
	Oh, you're such a bad...
	Um...
	Um...
	I'm sorry.
	Once more, with feeling.
	Pretend you're dialing for gazelles.
	Yeah, not much in the way of empathy as, you know, as to where that came from or what you were feeling or nothing.
	What do you mean, not much in the realm of empathy?
	How much exactly, Mike?
	Uh, zero.
	Zero!
	Zero.
	That's what I thought.
	That's what I thought.
	Like, I posted this thing.
	I'm sorry, Dan.
	I'm being completely rude.
	We'll go back to you in a sec.
	I posted this thing the other day about how 40% of moms say alcohol helps them get through parenting.
	Parenting is hard.
	Yeah.
	These women are stressed.
	Oh, yeah?
	Do you think men don't drink?
	My God.
	Do you know when I post that 90% – sorry, when I post that 98% of soldiers on the front lines are male, do you know what people post?
	Oh, yeah?
	Well, women hit children.
	No, they never do.
	They never do, just in case you were wondering.
	Because whenever anything negative is posted about women, we must find ways to excuse them.
	Otherwise, they might not give us their pussies.
	So we must always be defending women because if we piss off women – We don't get to reproduce.
	I mean, it's so biological.
	I mean, I don't really condemn people for it.
	I mean, it's so biological.
	And I'm an empiricist, right?
	It's so biological.
	And I really do think that women laugh at this kind of stuff.
	I mean, dance, puppets, dance!
	You know, this is why they can't have mustaches like Fu Manchu.
	They'd be for rubbing them forever, right?
	Anyway, not all women are like that.
	So...
	So, Dan, I'm just sort of pointing out, it may take you a little while to climb out of the underworld.
	Like, you'll get a job with a shitty manager, you'll save your money, you'll get to a job with a better manager, and a better manager, right?
	And then you may become a manager, or an entrepreneur, or whatever, right?
	But I would assume that this, you know, you have, you called your dad a sociopath.
	If he's an unapologetic sociopath, which I guess is kind of synonymous, then I will tell you that your unconscious is at war with his unconscious.
	This is so common in relationships, particularly familial relationships, though not all families are like that.
	But being at war unconsciously is so common.
	It's really where war comes from fundamentally.
	So you have a moral reality that's real for you, and your father and mother...
	Have an immoral reality that's real for them.
	And there's a grim fucking battle going on under the table, right?
	Above the table, everyone's clinking glasses.
	Underneath, everyone's kicking with shivs on the end of their steel cap boots, right?
	Yes, I can feel it.
	Yeah, there's a war.
	Who's right?
	And there was a war in my family.
	I said there was abuse.
	Everyone said there was no abuse.
	There was some dysfunction, but there was no abuse.
	War, war, war.
	And when I look back on my time with my family of origin, my foo, it's a ritual I have to use, then I see that war so clearly.
	At all times and in all circumstances, that war was occurring.
	Right?
	What is real?
	Is my reality real or your reality real?
	Because they are violently opposed.
	And that war that occurs is exhausting.
	And good people have much less at stake in that war than evil people, which is why good people always lose if they stick around.
	Whoever has the highest stakes will always win.
	A war of attrition, right?
	And an unconscious battle about reality?
	I mean, does your father admit the abuse?
	And what does he say about it?
	I was there to discipline you.
	But then he doesn't admit the abuse.
	It was for your own good.
	There we go.
	It was for your own good.
	So it's not abuse to him.
	It was parenting.
	Yes.
	Yeah, because I tell you, I mean, my jaw just hit my fucking crotch.
	Well, you know, obviously that's a metaphor.
	Otherwise, I probably never would have ended up married if I could be so flexible.
	But...
	You know, when I said, does your father admit the abuse and you said yes, I was like, what?
	Ah, no!
	Theory's breaking up!
	Can't hit this, right?
	My bad.
	The hypothesis cannot take the strain, Captain!
	Right, so...
	No, but I always want to – look, I'm an empiricist.
	If he did, if he's like, oh, fuck, okay, Jesus, I've got to reorient myself because this doesn't make any sense, which means that I need to adjust what I'm thinking to – but then I'm like, okay, well, no, it was discipline, right?
	It was good for me, right?
	So he doesn't admit that it was abuse.
	Yeah, my bad.
	My brain got stolen.
	No, it's fine.
	It was good parenting for him.
	So he has a reality called beating the shit out of you was great for you, and you have a reality called beating the shit out of me was terrible for me.
	and a terrible thing to do.
	That war, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, every day, every time you're in the same room, that fucking force fields are jostling with each other.
	You guys are like fucking lightsabers, crackle, crackle, crackle, crackle, crackle, all the time.
	What is real?
	What happened?
	What is true?
	What was virtuous?
	What was right?
	What was good?
	What was evil?
	What was virtuous?
	What was moral?
	What was helpful?
	What was destructive?
	What is masculinity?
	What is femininity?
	What is family?
	What is truth?
	What happened?
	Is my experience valid or are your delusions valid?
	Is my truth valid or are your defenses valid?
	It's war in that house, which is why you are probably getting exhausted.
	Worn down.
	Because if he wins, you will die.
	Because his father won, and he died.
	Right?
	Yes.
	And his mother won, and he died.
	And your mother's father, was it her grandfather or your grandfather?
	My grandfather.
	Who was in the war?
	My grandfather.
	Or was in the military?
	So her father won that lightsaber battle with her about good and evil.
	And she died.
	And her mother won.
	And it's never an open battle.
	It's just a war of attrition.
	An open battle can be won or lost.
	A war of attrition will always destroy virtue.
	And this is why I say to people, I'm not saying this to you.
	I say to people in general, I don't think it's a good idea with you, but I say to people in general, if you have conflicts with your parents, bring it out in the open.
	Don't do this under the table shit.
	Bring it out in the open.
	Fight clean.
	Fight above the belt.
	Fight fair.
	Fight openly.
	Fight with words.
	Have your conflicts out in the open and hash that shit out.
	Because evil people are incredibly dedicated to maintaining the fairy tale of turning evil into good.
	It's for your own good, dammit.
	Should have done more.
	It's discipline.
	Suck it up.
	Take it.
	Let go of the past.
	Move on.
	Grow up.
	Like I did.
	Right?
	Evil people are incredibly invested into turning their evil deeds into virtue.
	Right?
	They are...
	That's most of their energy.
	Good people...
	Get worn down because they don't have the same motive.
	I mean, you don't know what it is.
	I assume you haven't strangled ducks in their sleep or anything, right?
	You don't know what it's like to live with a bad conscience.
	I don't either, but I get it.
	To live with a bad conscience means you are always at war with virtue.
	Now, if you're a good guy and you're living in a house with an evildoer, that guy is always at war with you and his incentive to win is way bigger than yours.
	You understand, this is a kind of asphyxiation murder of the child in a house full of air.
	If he wins, you will die.
	Physically, emotionally, in a way it doesn't really matter.
	But if he wins and you accept his reality that your child abuse was not abuse but virtuous parenting...
	You will die because you will lose all connection to your organic original self, to your inner child.
	You will be complicit with your father and your mother in strangling that precious infant in the fucking crib.
	Right?
	You must guard the truth of your real experiences that it was brutal, vicious, evil, dysfunctional parenting that you barely survived.
	You know, a guy shoots at your head and it grazes your ear.
	He says, hey man, I'm just testing your reflexes.
	It's a joke.
	That's not believable, right?
	No, it's not.
	It's insane.
	Yeah, and you don't hang around for a second shot, right?
	No, you fucking run.
	You fucking run.
	Because he's only telling you that so he can shoot at you again, right?
	So...
	Yeah.
	You can't win.
	You can't win this one.
	All you can do is try to win until you die.
	I can't beat the armless man in an arm wrestling competition.
	You simply can't.
	And you don't have the incentive.
	You don't have the incentive.
	Because you don't have a bad conscience that you're constantly keeping at bay.
	This is his sole focus.
	It's the justification of his life at the expense of you.
	You have a life to live.
	You've got plans to make.
	You've got people to see.
	You've got shit to do.
	You don't have the same focus.
	You don't have the same intensity.
	And he will burn himself to the ground in pursuit of this justification.
	I've seen it many times.
	My own mother, she burnt herself to the ground.
	Lit herself up like an incandescent match from hell.
	Shot bloody sparks right up into the deep ass of the devil that lit her heart.
	And she burned her brain out.
	She burned her adrenals out.
	She burned her health out.
	Justification, justification, justification.
	I was good, damn it!
	I was right!
	Which is really just license to abuse again, right?
	You're probably even more terrified of your dad now than you were when you were younger.
	In the house.
	Because you're more knowledgeable, right?
	You have to hide more of your knowledge.
	Yeah.
	I feel like I have to hide it more.
	Yeah, of course.
	Because they know, right?
	They're scanning.
	They sense, right?
	Knowledge, truth, virtue, goodness.
	They sense it all.
	So, yeah, I would suggest it's time to get out of the sunken wreck of dead pirate skulls and Strike out for the surface.
	As for your siblings, I don't know.
	I mean I get the question a lot and there's no easy answers.
	I think that the best way – I mean you obviously talk to them and tell them what your plans and your thoughts are.
	The best way to help people out of a bad situation is not to stick around and drag them but to get free and be a beacon.
	And those who want to follow, you can help.
	And those who don't, at least you didn't waste your life staying down there in the filth with them.
	So go be happy, grow, strike out for the sunlight above the shit pines of your historical swamp.
	And be available to people who want to follow and help and encourage them and show them how it's done.
	I can't make someone want to be a good tennis player and I can't go around there grabbing their arms and making them hit the right way.
	But I can show them what good tennis playing looks like and maybe they'll be inspired.
	Does that make sense?
	Yes, it makes sense.
	So your job is to save yourself.
	The degree to which that inspires your siblings...
	To follow in your footsteps with your encouragement and help is great.
	That's a hoped-for side effect.
	But your siblings may be as apt to drag you down as your parents were.
	Maybe.
	I don't know.
	I don't know.
	50% of sibling relationships are characterized as abusive anyway, so you don't owe anything.
	Your siblings are accidents of birth just like your parents were.
	Now, you have hopefully the added connection of having grown up in the same hellhole together, but just because you're kidnapped by the same people doesn't mean that half of you didn't get Stockholm Syndrome, right?
	And are now colluding with the abusers.
	I don't know.
	But you focus on yourself.
	Getting yourself free, getting yourself into a better position.
	And time is of the essence.
	Every day that you stay, you're getting weaker.
	You shook off the death wish last time, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, but come on, man.
	How many brushes do you want?
	Not anymore.
	How many near misses are you hoping the gods are going to give you?
	I guess.
	Don't tempt the odds, brother.
	Russian roulette only has so many chances, right?
	It's one in six.
	Don't want that one in six.
	Right.
	Will you drop us a line and keep us posted?
	I will, yes.
	Will you ask for help if you need it?
	Yes, I will ask.
	I'm not going to be a coward.
	Listen, if you're desperate, if you need some money to tide you over, I've done it before, I'll do it again.
	Listeners in need, call me.
	We'll work something out.
	So...
	You're not alone.
	You've got support.
	Thanks.
	I appreciate that.
	Yeah, it's not just words.
	We really do try to help people, too, who need it.
	And you're doing such amazing, courageous work that whatever we can do, whatever I can do...
	Mike, are you going to follow the guy and see if he needs anything?
	Oh, absolutely.
	Is there anything you wanted to add to this chat, Mike?
	I just want to say, Dan, from the start of this call, just how completely and totally impressed I've been with, I mean, your ability to stay connected to your emotions.
	And the more you talked about your history, the more impressive that became to me.
	You're talking about some seriously, seriously difficult things.
	And, I mean, you were correcting yourself.
	Like, you would say something that was incorrect and you'd immediately catch yourself and go back.
	I mean, like, that's...
	I mean, major kudos to you.
	I just want to say that.
	I mean, the emotional bandwidth that you have to do that, especially given your history, is nothing short of amazing.
	And I mean, huge kudos.
	And that's going to take you very, very far as you continue to apply yourself in the self-knowledge arena.
	I mean, you listened earlier when there was someone on the call who was comfortable working 11 hours a week at Starbucks and doing nothing for the rest of their life.
	And it's fantastic to get someone on the line who actually wants to talk about what's important to them and emotionally connect with it and do some real work in a conversation.
	I mean, it's absolutely fantastic.
	And unfortunately, it's also rare.
	Yeah, you look like a skinny guy come out of a concentration camp after four years of starvation rations, weighing 120 pounds, who then casually lifts a car.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	I feel like a wreck, to be honest.
	I feel like I'm in shambles.
	All right.
	But that's good.
	I mean, because, right?
	I mean, if you weren't a wreck, you'd be a sociopath, right?
	Yeah.
	That would be my guess, right?
	Yeah.
	I don't want to be that.
	I want to be far from that.
	You want to feel broken so you get fixed, right?
	Yeah.
	So, all right.
	Well, you know, stay in contact.
	Stay in touch.
	We certainly wish you the best.
	And if there's anything we could do to help, as always, just let us know.
	All right?
	All right.
	I will.
	Thank you, Stefan.
	Thank you for your time.
	Great work, Dan.
	Magnificent soul salvation, brother.
	Well done and a great turning point for your life, I do believe.
	All right.
	I think that's probably it for my level of energy for tonight, even though I had half a caffeinated beverage at about nine.
	I'm sure nobody knew.
	It's so subtle.
	Yeah, no, I had a feeling this would be a mildly reinforceable chat.
	So, yeah, thanks, everyone.
	I'm not even going to do my usual outro with the donation pitch because I don't want to do anything to interfere with the great chat that just happened.
	But thanks, Dan.
	Thanks to all the callers.
	Even the early callers were incredibly instructive relative to the later callers.
	This is going to screw you up if you change the order, right, Mike?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Oh, yeah, baby.
	You're back from vacation now.
	All right.
	And, yeah, have yourselves a great week, everyone.
	I guess I'll see some people at the Bitcoin conference this weekend.
	And we will be back on the air, 10 a.m.

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