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May 8, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
41:17
2689 Don't Kill Your Conscience.

The recent - How They Are Winning. How We Are Losing. - video elicited a very strong reaction from the YouTube audience. Stefan Molyneux speaks to a listener about his frustrations.

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Hi, everybody.
Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
Hope you're doing well.
I'm here with Kirk.
Now, Kirk, why do you hate the Free Domain Radio listeners so much?
I mean, I love them with all my giant T-Rex beating heart.
Why pour the hatred on the listeners so much, even more than me at times?
What prompted that for you?
Well, it was actually a listening, I think it was a few weeks ago now, but I had listened to you, and I think what kind of started it was after you guys had sent out the State of Freedom, Maine Radio, or the thing Michael had done, basically, to me it was sort of like a perspective.
This is kind of how I saw it, for me being a donator and then seeing what has happened and what you guys have accomplished over the past few years and how much this stuff has grown, and I was really excited about that.
And then to hear you say that There was like a rash of subscriptions that canceled in one of the podcasts.
You know, that just kind of bothered me because I don't know, I guess partly as part of donating, I kind of see it as a part of the division of labor and as me donating and you being very good at what you do is changing the world in that sense.
But to think of people when they find out something's doing well, and what to me is doing what I'm donating for, To cancel just is a little frustrating.
Yeah, it sort of feels like we're carrying this giant mattress up like 90 flights.
And suddenly it was like, hey, you know, now we're doing, you know, two flights an hour rather than one.
And then people are like, great, well, I guess I don't need to...
I need to help with this.
I'm going to go have a smoke.
And they wander off.
And it was a little surprising.
We thought that it was like saying to people, here's what you've donated for and here's how we've grown.
Isn't that great?
And people, I think, were basically like, oh, well, I guess it doesn't need my help anymore.
I mean, why give the guy a kidney if he's got two functioning kidneys, so to speak?
Which I think is sort of missing the point of how little we've penetrated.
Like, we've grown like crazy, but relative to the world that we need to talk to as a whole, it's, you know, it's minuscule.
Yeah, and I think for me, and then it was, you know, listening a little bit after that too, and it was bringing up, you had talked too, about people suggesting advertising.
And to me, that frustrates me as well.
To me, that's, I don't know, maybe they just see it differently than I do, but to me, it's like they're not quite getting it.
First of all, to me, it's a little bit, I guess, what I'd call passive aggressive.
If someone comes up with an idea that's obvious, and that, you know, I've heard you reiterate not wanting to do it many times on the podcast, But for people to still bring it up, and to me, it's just that I think, obviously, when you ask for donations, that someone's feeling a little bit of guilt or something like that, that they're questioning...
They're getting an uncomfortable feeling when you're asking, and then they're obviously suggesting ads, so that eliminates their...
If he just does ads, then I wouldn't have to do anything.
Yeah, then I can watch and I've got my ad block running and then my guilt is relieved.
And it is, you know, it's tough, you know, because people listen to this show.
And I mean, they probably do it with other shows too.
But people listen to this show.
And it sort of reminds me, I don't know if you've ever seen the TV show, Dr.
Phil.
So every now and then I'll watch a Dr.
Phil.
And...
He gets people to come on the show whose lives are a complete disaster and who have zero insight into how their history may have shaped who they are, how their impulses may have risen out of childhood trauma.
No insight whatsoever.
And they say, I never miss a show.
I've watched your show religiously.
I've been watching it.
I think he's been on the air like 10 or 11 years or something like that.
I've watched every show.
I TiVo them.
I watch them slowly.
I kiss the screen.
I get static reflections in the deep corneas of my eyeballs and stuff.
And I guess a lot of people think that just viewing or consuming something is a way of learning it.
And that's really not...
Like, I can watch a whole lot of tennis.
That does not make me a tennis player.
And I think people, when I say you need to act on your values, in whatever form that is, and donating is a pretty easy way to do it.
It's a lot easier than most of the other alternatives, like confronting your friends and family about statism and child abuse and spanking and, you know, the military...
You know, 10 bucks a month or whatever is pretty easy.
But when I'm telling people, look, you need to stop listening, you need to start doing.
This is not a show for consumption any more than you just read a diet book and say, well, that was interesting and, you know, face plant into three cheesecakes.
You need to actually change your behavior based upon these values.
I think because the show is quite entertaining, I think people then are kind of reminded that this is not just a fun show.
This is not just a show where you get to watch people wrestle with their challenges or whatever.
But it's a show for you to change your behavior.
I think it takes what they used to call the fourth wall in theater school.
The fourth wall is you've got this room in a theater and then there's a wall missing and the audience can see what's going in.
And sometimes you used to freak audience members out by crossing out from the fourth wall, going and talking to the audience, involving them in the play and so on.
And actually, a friend of mine was in a play where the audience sat on the stage and the entire play took place where the audience normally seats.
And it screws with people's perceptions.
It sometimes can make them quite upset.
And so when I kind of reach through the screen and say, no, no, no, this is not for you to sit back and watch.
You can listen to the show while playing World of Warcraft.
That's fine.
But at some point, the point of philosophy is to change your behavior.
And donating is a pretty easy way to do that, to sort of put your money where your mouth is, so to speak.
And I think that really bothers people.
And the amount of backlash that seems to pop out whenever I remind people that they need to do something action-oriented with integrity, it seems kind of shocking.
Like a whole bunch of people come into an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, then at some point someone says, you know, you really should stop drinking.
And they're like, what?!
What are you talking about?
I'm here for the stale coffee, the donuts, and the sweaty hugs from Meat Love.
So they just really freak out.
And then, as I mentioned before, I think what happens, Kirk, is they go into a parental alter ego.
I'm coming up and saying, listen, I would like some reciprocal resources, and this is like a kid asking nasty parents for something.
And I think that if they've had those kinds of bad childhoods, which is a real shame, I think that they switch into that parental alter ego and pour scorn out of a guilty conscience on the person who's asking for reciprocity.
It is pretty tragic, but it certainly seems to happen every time.
But that's just the price of asking for stuff.
This is why a lot of people manipulate and do all this passive-aggressive stuff, because openly asking people for stuff, It provokes a lot of tension in people and can provoke a lot of hostility.
Yeah, and I think too is just those conversations as well.
I think it must put you into a tough situation because trying to ask and legitimately push a free domain radio forward, you have to ask the stuff, but yet that puts you in a...
Then when people are fighting back and then if you say something back, whether it's the dollar Like the dollar donation thing or something like that.
It puts you in a tough spot to, you know, you still need to represent the stuff and, you know, actually ask for the stuff because, I mean, you're not going to get things, you know, if you don't ask for it.
You have to, you know, be the forefront out there.
But then I think that's where it's confusing.
I think most people maybe get it confused or something like that.
It's like that it's just for you.
It's not like something, you know, more than that is, you know, if you run a business or anything like that.
Hiring Michael or doing all this stuff, there's a lot of work that goes into that.
To me, I would feel like in your position too, it's not like you're just asking it just for you.
That's kind of the position they put you in, I guess it seems like.
Well, I mean, it's for the show, right?
I mean, I need food and shelter, but I mean, as Mike can probably testify, a lot of money.
I mean, people donate for, you know, this studio, they donate for the technical equipment, they donate for the travel expenses I sometimes have for speeches, they donate for lighting, for cameras, for audio, for bandwidth, for computers, for, I mean, for research time, for the research time that we pay, for books that I have to buy.
I mean, It's, you know, it's not cheap to run the biggest philosophy show around.
But people are kind of freaked out by just plain asking.
And the other thing, too, is people then, you know, because, yeah, occasionally I'll pour scorn on someone who sends me a dollar.
I think that's kind of insulting.
And I think it's pretty tragic because someone can send me a dollar and say, man, I'm really broke.
This is all I've got.
At which point I'll send the dollar back and say, listen, if this dollar is meaningful to you, please, God, don't send it to me.
Like, oh God, what a terrible thing that is, you know?
Steph, with my last bit of energy, I could theoretically go and get a granola bar, but I'm sending the money to you.
And it's like, God, if the dollar is meaningful to you, like if it's a significant portion of your daily food budget, for God's sakes, don't send it to me.
I mean, that's not what I want, you know?
Well, the starving kid in India is going to die because someone wanted to send a dollar to freedom.
So when people say, like, I made fun of the last guy for the dollar, they said, what if that's his last dollar?
It's like, dude, he's in college.
And he plays hockey.
Do you know how expensive hockey is to play?
Like five, six, seven thousand dollars a year.
I think he's not starving.
You know, if somebody sends me, you know, a billion dollars Zimbabwe note that they could otherwise use to get medicine for their child, I will mail it back to them and say, with more money, saying, please don't, you know, don't send it to me.
So, but I just do the ad thing really briefly because people get confused, right?
I want to be in the business of delivering philosophy to the listeners.
As soon as I take ads, I am now in the business of delivering listeners to the advertisers.
That is not a good thing.
I've also talked about, you know, I mean, in the show, when we talk about you can't invade an anarchic country because it's so dispersed and spread out, there's no central tax base to take over.
I like, because I do stuff that's controversial.
When I do stuff that's controversial, people get annoyed.
And what do they do to people like Rush Limbaugh?
They attack his advertisers, right?
And so I don't want to have, you know, five advertisers that people can go after and mount campaigns against if they get upset.
I like being dispersed and spread out and people not knowing where the money is coming from.
I don't want to interrupt the show with advertisements.
I just don't.
You know, we talk about really intense, deep stuff in this show.
And now it's like, you know, I'm sorry that you're sobbing about what happened to you when you were seven.
But we really need to hear about some pill that's going to turn your toilet water into a geyser of potable drinking, a potable drinking fountain.
You just, you can't.
I mean, you can't interrupt that kind of stuff with advertisements.
I like doing the Peter Schiff show, but the commercial interruptions are a real challenge.
You know, like 20-30% of the time is commercials.
And that's a lot worse for me than, you know, donating $10 a month.
So, like anyone who listens to a reasonable amount of material.
Like, let's say that they listen to...
I mean, let's just say 10 hours a month.
That's not much, right?
10 hours a month.
And let's say that 30% of that time would otherwise be commercials, which is kind of the ratio in radio.
So I'm saving them three hours a month and they're getting three hours of great content rather than three hours of ads or two hours or whatever.
If someone donates for like 10 bucks a month, that's $3.33 an hour for their time where they get to listen to philosophy rather than ads.
I think that's great.
So for a wide variety of reasons, it just doesn't.
And also, I mean, let's say I advertise off YouTube.
Well, recently we just got shut down after I came back from a speech in Amsterdam.
Okay, so if I'm going to rely on ads, then that's it for my revenue if one place decides to pull me.
Even if the advertisers are fine, if one place decides to pull me, whether it's YouTube or whatever, then that's it.
Whereas, of course, YouTube can pull me and the income can still continue with people who are...
So it's a wide variety of things, but it is annoying.
It's the Donnie Kruger effect.
People forget that I've been doing this for like seven or eight years.
And before that, I was an entrepreneur for 15 years.
Basically, I've got 20 to 23 years of entrepreneurial experience.
I've thought of ads.
You know, like, I mean, it's just how do you, you know, you know, like, it's like some musician who's really great.
He's like, did you ever think of playing for other people?
I mean, did you ever think that maybe you could like record a video and put it on YouTube?
I think that happened to some Bieber fellow.
And it's just like, wow, I guess you're right.
You know, everybody wants to be smart, not because they're smart, but because other people just are too dumb to tie their shoes together.
Anyway, sorry for the rant, but I wanted to sort of clear that up for people.
It's not a model that I feel comfortable with.
I always want to be pointed like a salmon in a swift current.
I want to be pointed right at the listeners.
And that means doing stuff that's meaningful for the listeners and that works and is powerful for the listeners.
That's why we do so much call-in stuff.
I mean, I enjoy it too.
And that's why I want the show to be funded by listeners.
It keeps it so much cleaner, the whole relationship.
And also, I wanted to bring up, too, as far as with the advertisements, and maybe this is kind of what I've gotten from it as well, as far as the show listening, is that, too, if you're going to get advertisers in, then if you went to advertisers, your main thing is getting viewers, is the amount of views, that kind of stuff.
That's where you would be chasing to get more money to, like, spread the show.
But, you know, a lot of the stuff I know that you're doing, whether it be more like a...
Newsworthy stuff.
I think you guys just did something on Benghazi or something like that.
That doesn't mean that you're converting these people that are listening.
If you get a million views to watch Zimmerman, it doesn't mean they're converting over and starting to get rid of the illusions.
They might just be interested and watch the video.
Well, yeah, and the videos of the call-in shows, I mean, one of the reasons we invested so much money in the studio was so that I could easily do video while doing the call-in shows.
I simply cannot sit for three or four hours.
It's bad for me, and I don't think as well, so I needed a place where I could sort of walk around.
And...
One of the reasons we're investing in all of that is to try and up the views of the call-in shows on YouTube.
If we just look at the YouTube statistics, the call-in shows seem to be relatively unimportant.
They'll get 20,000, maybe 30,000 if it's a big one.
But in terms of podcast downloads, they are by far the biggest shows that people listen to.
Basically, it's a giant call-in show delivery mechanism where they wade through all the other crap just to get...
So we get hundreds of thousands of downloads of the call-in shows with like 20,000 maybe or 25,000 views on YouTube.
And that makes sense, right?
It's a three or four hour show.
People are going to sit there and watch a screen for that.
They're going to download it and listen to it as they roll around.
So again, if we're doing advertisements, then we've got to jam a whole bunch of ads...
Into the podcasts and those ads, what happens if the company goes out of business?
Or what happens if the company says, I don't like your show anymore?
You talked about my wife as an estrogen-based parasite, and therefore we want to pull all of our ads out of your show.
They're mp3s.
They're embedded in.
What are we going to do?
Are we going to go back and slice and dice them all up?
That will take...
I can't even imagine how long that would take.
And then do we put other ads in?
Or is some...
Anyway, it's just crazy.
It doesn't work.
So yeah, so sorry, people suck it up and pay.
Or live with a bad conscience.
But don't take it out on me that stuff costs money, you know?
I guess I wasn't making my point clear.
But what I was kind of trying to say is that For, you know, as far as FDR, from what you've said, this is what I'm gathering, is that, you know, it's to change the world of, you know, stop people from hitting and delusion and that kind of stuff.
And I would think that a better marker of that would be donations, people freely donating.
For shows that are offered for free than people watching and getting advertisements, just looking at a bunch of views.
You know, I know for me, it's like, once I was like, I listened to you, I actually heard you on the Peter Schiff show first.
And I started listening.
I actually listened to real-time relationships.
It was like the first thing.
And that's before we did the call-in show, right?
Yeah.
You called in with your then-fiancé.
By the way, you did get married, right?
Yeah.
Congratulations, that's fantastic.
How's it going with that, just before we move on?
It's good, it's good.
It's good, okay.
Really good.
Okay, so sorry, you heard me on the Peter Schiff show.
Yeah, no, but I was saying, so once I kind of, I listened to that book, and it was like, you know, it started making sense to me, and then I, you know, started buying into, or I shouldn't even say buying in, but, you know, it kind of unlocked a new way of thinking for me, is to see kind of the world for the way it really was, and then that sort of, then once I saw that, and I kind of saw like, well, For me, following my values would be donating.
I think I started out with, you know, with, like, a $10 or $20 donation subscription or something like that.
And, you know, I went up from there, but it's kind of like, the more I... The more it changed my life, the more I wanted to help others, I guess.
That's kind of more...
And that's the other thing I want to talk about, too, is why I donate, is to help others.
It's not for me.
I mean, once I've listened to some or something like that, but I'm not gonna stop donating, If there's shows I'm not gonna listen to or something, like, I'm not donating per show.
I don't even see it like that.
I see it as, like, I guess, for me, it's like having empathy for myself.
If someone would have got to my parents or something like that when they were younger, if they had something like this, or, you know, luckily, it got to me before I had kids, and, you know, to end that cycle for anyone else, and, I mean, that's really, to me, what's so important, but I think that's a better marker Of the success is the donations that you're getting.
So I think that relying on donations is going to keep you driving towards that which is best for the world, I guess.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, I mean, yeah, no, I think it makes sense.
To some degree, I think you're saying that the donations scale more in terms of how Mike and I can view them and how we view our contribution than an ad.
An ad is going to be the same if...
Like if the person is blown away by the show and it changes their life, then they've watched one ad.
And if they're like, well, you know, it was an okay show, but I was just listening to it in the background while I was doing my hair or whatever.
So we don't know the difference.
With donations, people can say, damn, Steph, that was a fantastic show.
Here's $3.
You know, rather than $2 or $1 or something.
Just kidding.
But no, they can donate it.
They can say, this show, like we sometimes get donations where we say, this show just blew me away.
And then if they give a substantial donation, then it's like, okay, well, that show, at least for this person, it's more measurable in terms of its impact with money than it is in terms of its impact with just a click.
We don't know.
It's like binary as opposed to scalar, if that makes any sense.
Yeah.
But, yeah, I don't know.
The other thing, too, is about that dollar thing.
I was thinking about that dollar thing.
I was gonna try a little experiment with a similar to that.
I was gonna write it down on a receipt at a restaurant.
Really, really great service.
Best ever.
One dollar tip.
But I just couldn't seem to Oh, no.
Don't make the waiter suffer because someone is that way inclined for this show.
And I used to refund those.
Like, for me, anything I'd get that was a couple of bucks, I would just refund them because I was just like, I don't want it.
Just by the way, and people say, but Steph, you have 160,000 subscribers, 175,000 subscribers.
If every one of them donated a dollar, it's like...
Yes, and if all the rain in the world fell on me, I would be crushed.
But it doesn't.
Anyway, so it does kind of spread out.
But I used to refund it, but people then would get really upset and say, oh, my $3, I guess, wasn't good enough for him.
And they'd type all over Facebook and all that kind of stuff.
And it's like, oh, forget it.
It's like too much work to refund.
I'll just every now and then point it out.
Because if somebody sends me $1 along with you changed my life, I mean, it's so...
in the other person's shoes yet that I don't actually believe I've changed their life yet.
You know, change my life would be, you know, a year ago, I would have just sent a dollar and thought that was great.
Now I understand I empathize with what it's like to be on the receiving end of you change my life, here's a dollar.
And so I'm gonna just send you a nice note.
I would way much better get a nice note than a dollar.
People say, I don't have much money.
I'm always super polite and thank you.
That's wonderful to hear.
Obviously, take care of yourself before feeding the internet beast of Free Domain Radio.
But it speaks that they still don't get what the show is about if they don't understand what it's like to be on the receiving end of getting a buck while saying, here's my really, really expensive hobby and you changed my life.
It means that I haven't actually changed their life.
That's kind of why I want to still refund it.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, they're kind of telling you with that that the show hasn't had the effect that they're saying.
And if you don't say something back to that almost, it's like, You know, it's kind of almost like you're letting it stay, not that I guess you're obligated to tell them anything.
Yeah, and I mean, what's wrong with, you know, the funny thing is, you know, I have this whole book about being honest about your thoughts and feelings in the moment.
You get a donation like that.
What's wrong with being honest about my thoughts and feelings in the moment?
Yeah.
You know, people just get mad at me.
It's like, well, Steph, you shouldn't feel that way.
Hey, I stubbed my toe.
You can say to my toe it should feel differently, but this is how it feels.
I'm going to be honest about it.
But it's good to prick people's conscience once in a while.
And it's also great to take the giant fire hose of the band hammer, like to the YouTube channel.
And to the message board from time to time, and to Facebook.
You know, when you say stuff that really pricks people's bad conscience, if they believe in economics, and they say, well, we don't need the government because the problem of the free rider can be solved in a free society, and then they themselves are a free rider who refuses to pay for something.
Then, you know, if they get angry, it's like, the Ben Hammer is thirsty for the blood of trolls this morning.
She shall drink deep of the blood of the goblin trolls.
And it's great.
I love just cleaning those people out.
And, you know, the last thing I want is for a total dickhead to say to people how much he loves Free Domain Radio.
Like, I think that is really, really fantastic.
Like, you want the fattest people in the world to say they hate your diet book, not that they love your diet book.
And so getting trolls angry and storming out is like, I mean, it smells like victory.
It smells like delectable troll farts of exit strategy.
So I sort of want to point that out.
And there's this weird thing in business where you have to keep all your customers.
Absolutely not.
Absolutely not.
Oh, man.
The idea that the customer's always right and you keep all your customers is fine for retail when people are cycling through, but it's not for any kind of movement that aspires to any kind of virtue.
Anyway, sorry, I'm sort of rambling, but I hope that makes sense.
It's like Pareto's Law that 20% of your customers would take up 80% of your time.
Yeah, and...
If people are, you know, trolly or difficult or negative or volatile or something like that, I want them to really not like this show.
And that way they keep other people away from the show, you know?
Because anyone who says, you know, this guy is a real asshole.
I'm not speaking about the dollar guy.
I'm just speaking in general.
This guy is a total asshole and he really hates that show.
Hmm.
You know, I think I should go check out this show.
If assholes hate it, it's got to have something to it.
But if he's a complete asshole and he's like, oh, I'm a huge fan of Free Domain Radio, then people are like, ooh.
No, I don't really.
You know, it's not like a movie where you take the 10 bucks from the asshole as much as from the nice guy.
That's not, you know, that's not what you want at all.
What you want is to, you know, if you know the movie critic is going to hate the movie, you don't let him in.
But you don't know he's a movie critic and you don't know if he's going to hate the movie.
But in this kind of thing, keeping people away from the show...
Is, you know, 51-49.
51% we want to bring great people to the show.
49% we want to drive douchebags away from the show.
That is essential.
And if I was advertising, I wouldn't care.
No.
Right?
If I was advertising, like, hey, you know, trolls come, click, you know, no problem, you know, it gets me more money.
But with this situation where the quality of the community, the quality of the listenership and so on is really important, especially to donators like yourself, you know, driving people away from the show is almost as important a job as bringing them in.
Yeah.
And I think the fact that you're doing that and...
Having it free and then taking donations.
Although, even for myself, when I first started donating, it does put you in a weird situation that you're not used to.
It's like, oh, here's this for...
It's not like if you had a subscription that just said, oh, you had to pay this much.
It kind of takes the onus off yourself.
Like, oh, I don't...
You know, okay, I just pay this and we're good.
We're equal, right?
Or we're even.
Or if it was advertisements, oh, I don't have to pay anything.
I just have to watch these ads or whatever.
But when you say, here's this...
And it's not like a good, like, you know, sometimes they have the donation car washes, so you go there and you're like, well, how much should I donate?
You kind of have an idea about what they're expecting or something like that.
And you know, it's not their living, right?
It's just a charity.
So it's not like the kids go hungry if you don't give them 10 bucks for the car wash or whatever, right?
And I think that might be some of the thing with Free Domain Radio, because it is such a valuable thing, and I don't know, for me in my life it was, That you kind of never feel, even for me, I never feel quite right about what I'm doing.
It's like a thing that I have to weigh and I'm constantly weighing.
It does feel like some pressure in a sense, but to me, I think it's good because it really makes you accountable to yourself and your values.
Yeah, I mean, I want people to donate because they get it.
Yeah.
Because they really get what voluntarism is all about.
You know, here's the thing, right?
So virtuous people, if they know they can shoplift, they won't shoplift.
Right?
They won't.
Like, if you knew for sure I could go and grab this iPad or this candy bar, walk out of the store and never get caught, a virtuous person would not even be tempted.
Not even be tempted.
You know, like if I find a cell phone, dial the number here, you know, give it back to you.
I don't want a reward or whatever just because I know if I lost my cell phone, blah, blah, blah.
I mean, you just do the right thing.
And this is sort of a test of people's virtue, which is you can shoplift the shows.
There's no security guard.
The candy is all out there on the counter.
You can go and take it and you can wander off if you want.
But there's a little sign there that says, you know, 50 cents a show or 50 cents, you know, for a candy bar or whatever.
But you can grab them and you can walk out if you want.
You can come back later, right?
So a virtuous person is like, okay, well, so if that's the deal, right, if the show takes donations, then obviously I will donate.
50 cents a show is very low.
Some of the shows are like three or four hours or whatever.
And so this is sort of the question that people ask themselves is that if there was a store that had a suggested donation for whatever you consume, would you just go in and grab it and Run away and sort of, ah, I got some stuff for free, well, then you're not a good person yet, right?
But if you come and you partake and you listen and they keep reminding you in every show, hey, you know, you got to donate, you should really donate, you should really donate.
Will you actually do it?
Well, it's a store with, you know, vague prices and no security guards and everything's out there on the counter and you leave a tip if you want.
If you don't, well...
You got to look into your own ethics around that situation.
And that's why, but I can't tell people to do it.
And the moment I charge them for it, then people are just, ah, I've anonymously seeded them.
Good luck finding me.
You know, forget that, right?
That's just an invitation for people to try and mess with your business model.
But I know when people donate, if they're long-term listeners and if they're getting real value out of the show, I know, like you, that they get it.
Right?
They're going into a store.
The store owner needs to live.
He's offering his wares for free.
Not for free, but here's a suggested donation.
You know, eat what you want, pay on the way out.
And if there's a restaurant that says, eat what you want and pay whatever you think it's worth on the way out, here's what we suggest.
And you don't pay and you keep coming back and you keep eating and you go out and you don't pay and you keep coming.
I mean, at some point people got to say, well, I'm listening to a show about ethics and But I'm consuming without reciprocity and I'm going against the request of the support of the show.
And all I can do is keep making the case.
And maybe people have never encountered someone who makes a passionate case without aggression.
Maybe they've not come across someone who, like, I don't feel that uncomfortable asking for donations.
I mean, God, I was doing sales for 15 years off and on before that, asking for like a million dollars for a software package, 50 cents a show, it's nothing.
But it's not really up to my level of comfort, right?
The important thing is the more that money I get, the better quality shows I can produce, the more travel I can do, the more people I can hire to do research, and the quicker we can finish a documentary and the other things that we're working on.
And it's not about my level of comfort.
It's about, well, every time I do a show, then, you know, a hundred people or a thousand people or whoever knows what the number is, we'll stop hitting their children.
So the fact that it may or may not be uncomfortable to me, it's completely irrelevant.
I mean, it's completely irrelevant.
I mean, if you're running to save someone...
And you stub your toe a tiny little bit.
You stop and say, ooh, my toe.
I really, you know, it's like, no, I gotta go.
My kid is hanging from a, you know, hanging from a bush on a cliff edge and I gotta go and save that person.
And you don't really think about your level of comfort or, you know, whether you stubbed your toe or whether you stumbled a little bit.
I mean, you just, because the urgency is that high.
And maybe people have not met someone Who recognizes the true urgency of the mission.
And, you know, I'm sorry if it makes people uncomfortable, but we really have a whole lot of children to save from being yelled at and hit.
And I don't frankly give a fuck if it makes people uncomfortable.
That's the mission.
Yeah, and maybe that's part of the thing is that if they don't see it, they see it more as entertainment and not as like a world changing type thing.
Then, yeah, then those people should, you know, take a fly-and-get-the-hell-out-of-here bus, you know?
It's like, please do not stick around the show if it's entertainment value only.
I would rather cut the show's numbers in half or three quarters and have the people who are really dedicated.
Because, you know, like 4% of people donate to the show or, you know, depends, you know, it's how you measure it or whatever.
But it's definitely low to mid-single digits.
So, you know, we could cut the show by like 90% of listeners and still have the same income.
And I think that, you know, if I could sort of snap my fingers and do that, I'd be sorely tempted.
Of course, the goal is that some of the other people are just starting out.
They're just listening.
Maybe they've never heard a donation request, although it's in almost every show.
It's in almost every outro.
And it's definitely in the low bar for every video.
And...
So yeah, people are just cruising along and maybe they just haven't kind of got around to it or they haven't really tried to implement the values, the sort of the RTR stuff, the honesty stuff, the integrity stuff.
But yeah, you know, the people who are just like, hey, that guy makes some funny jokes.
It's like, please go see a comedian who's not invested in virtue because I don't want people orbiting at that distance.
It's bad for the whole solar system.
Yeah.
It's kind of amazing to imagine only like 4%, but It would seem hard for me to believe, I guess it's kind of dumbfounding to me, to listening to these call-in shows and imagining the stuff that people are getting to talk about and kind of trying to change in their lives.
It's so...
I mean, it's just so powerful as far as for me listening that you would think that people would understand it more.
I know you've read some stuff from people that have wrote in and how it's changed their life and stuff and things with kids.
And I know, like, for me, too, I wrote in to, you know, Michael, too, and talked about stuff that's changed in my life, for my whole family, really, you know?
It's like taking this stuff back and You know, now my brother and my sister, you know, when they have kids, they're not going to hit.
They're not, you know what I mean?
And taking that stuff to change it throughout families.
And even talking to people at my work, I, you know, talk with them about, you know, not hitting their kids, not doing that kind of stuff.
And, you know, trying to spread the message that way.
And it's amazing.
I mean, because this stuff is only, you know, I know you say as far as multi-generational, but you think of stuff like Bitcoin and things like that.
But, you know, as smart as kids are, and really, if you do, it really is about how you approach them and talk to them.
And they're not far from changing.
The kids are, they're already, they've already changed.
You know what I mean?
It's just us not changing them the wrong way, I guess, is the thing.
So I just can't believe that people don't get behind this a little bit more.
Well, I mean, to translate from theory to action is a domino effect, right?
So it's like, okay, fine, I'll donate 20 bucks a month or, you know, what is that, 80 cents a day or something like that.
Then what happens is your brain says, shit, really?
What?
We're not just listening?
We're going to actually start to change our behavior based on philosophy?
And again, I would rather people donate much less money and spend more time doing what you're doing.
Don't get me wrong.
I appreciate your support as well.
But if people were saying, I can only afford five bucks a month, but I have committed to telling 10 people a month about peaceful parenting, fantastic.
Then I can live on the five bucks a month, and I'm much happier then.
For that, but I don't think people really get what it's like to actually just start living your values in whatever way shape or form and It's hard for me to sort of explain to people.
You're just you're just happy, right?
But I think you'd mentioned that you felt a sort of before and after when you began to sort of support the show and really put stuff into practice It makes a big difference that you can't really explain to people before they do it.
I guess I was kind of talking about the Transitions I went through since I started donating and that you know Like I was saying about it being something that's kind of up to your conscience and that I felt there was times where I felt like I wanted to quit donating and I was saying it had nothing to do with the show or anything that was going on.
Not that the show wasn't good or anything like that, but I don't know.
It's just like a weird, it was just like a weird relationship for me to myself, like donating to some, I don't know if it was like doing good or following my values, you know, but Well, look, we all want to jump out of philosophy from time to time.
I mean, we all do.
I mean, there's nobody who quits smoking who says, ah, that was wonderful.
I'm never going to have an urge for a cigarette again, right?
I mean, we're all raised to be addicts to illusion through government schools, through religion, through family structures that are often dysfunctional.
We're all raised to be addicts to illusion.
Philosophy is saying, screw the illusions, I'm going for truth, reason and evidence.
But it's not like that just changes.
I mean, there's times when I've wanted to just say, screw it, I'm going back to the software world.
Because there's steady income and less controversy and so on.
But Yeah, we all want to get off.
Of course we do.
Absolutely.
I mean, this is true of all change until, like, people who were quitting or wanted to end slavery.
I mean, some of them were like, oh, I don't know, there's a moral crusade, but, you know, it's kind of dangerous, kind of upsetting.
People were getting mad at me.
Now, we're not tempted by slavery at all, at least the overt kind.
But, yeah, during that time of transition, I mean, there's no, like, oh, I just, I took the red pill, and now I'm never tempted...
Buy the blue pill.
And I never want to go back.
Of course.
I mean, that's natural.
I want to quit donating.
I want to quit doing the show.
It happens from time to time.
And you just say, okay, well, this is just my addiction trying to lure me back.
And, you know, you listen to it and you negotiate with it and you move on.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think that's true.
You know, as far as those times are pretty much long gone.
And it does feel good knowing to...
I think that's the positive end of donating for me is to knowing that there's people...
And hopefully there are people out there that can't afford it that, you know, my donations enable them to be able to listen.
You know, that's the person I imagine I'm helping that there's someone that's, you know, listen, they're not hitting their kids or someone that's, you know, changing their mind or maybe there's someone like seeing you, just even the fact that there might be someone, you know, that's in their teens right now that's hearing you and saying, wow, this guy can make it doing philosophy as a podcast.
I want to do that.
And he's going to dedicate his life to doing that and like, You know, And he might, you know, that person, that man or woman might leave me completely in the dust, might be like fantastic and way better at what I do.
You never know who you're going to reach, who's going to have either money or talent or resources, who is going to just be the next great big thing and can take it far further than maybe I could for whatever reason.
And that's what people help as well.
Or the people who say, well, I used to listen to that show, it hugely helped me and now I've moved on and therefore I'm not going to donate anymore.
And again, when I say that I always mean time and or money or whatever it is, right?
And it's sort of like, well, I graduated from that school, so I'm never going to, you know, but they have this whole alumni thing where you give money to the school, even though you've graduated, because you want other people to have the great educational experience that you had, even though you're no longer attending the school.
People kind of get that, you know.
It's like, well, I was baptized, so I'm never going to contribute another penny towards baptisms.
It's like, no, that's, you know, according to the philosophy or the theocracy, that's how you get into heaven and so on.
Yeah.
Yeah, even people who say they've moved on, it's like, okay, well, they had a huge positive impact in your life.
And so you can help that spread to other people with whom it can have the same positive impact, but, you know, keep sharing or keep donating or whatever it is going to be.
But people are like, well, I've moved on.
And it's like, philosophy is not the kind of thing that you just kind of...
Well, A, you don't just move on from it, you know?
And B, even if you've found some way to do it, the more people share, the more they support the show, the further philosophy can reach.
And, you know, we've got some significant competition.
You know, we can't dunk babies' heads in waters.
We can't snip the ends of penises off for kids.
We can't get tithes.
We can't, you know, I'm not going to threaten people with hell.
All I'm going to do is remind them that the buffet is free, but donations are necessary for the food.
And so don't steal, basically.
Yeah.
Now listen, Kirk, we can move on because I know you had another, we can sort of switch if you want, because you had another question.
Should we just like hang up and call back about that?
Yeah, that's fine with me.
Okay, fantastic.
And thanks for talking to me.
Oh, thanks for bringing it up.
It's obviously a big topic and something that, you know, we as a community, I mean, I make my request, we as a community can talk about if there's better ways to do it or better ways to spend time, energy and resources to spread philosophy.
You know, I'm certainly happy to hear it, but I appreciate you bringing up this topic.
And, of course, I hugely appreciate the support that you've shown the show.
And I'm glad that you got married and you're enjoying it.
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