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July 6, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

03:58:35

2740 Conformity and the Cult of “Friendship” - Wednesday Call In Show July 2nd, 2014

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	Hi everybody, Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain Radio.
	Hope you're doing well.
	2nd of July, 2014.
	So, just before we start the show, I did get a message from a woman who's, I mean, suffering, and of course a family that is suffering just what must be astonishing and astounding and horrifying emotional tragedy.
	This is the mother of one of Elliot Rogers' victims.
	For those who Don't know, and I don't imagine there's too many of you out there who don't know.
	But Elliot Rodger was the young shooter who killed three of the men living in his assisted living facility before he went on the shooting rampage in Isla Vista in California recently.
	And we did a video here from Free Domain Radio.
	We did a video on the truth about Elliot Rodger, which is I think somewhere north of half a million views, which is fantastic.
	I mean, just on YouTube, that doesn't count the downloads, which is a pretty fantastic way to get the peaceful parenting message across to a lot of people.
	I mean, you never want those kinds of situations to be the platform on which people may listen, but it was, in this case, the best I felt that could be done with such a horrendous tragedy.
	So, we got a message from The mother of one of his victims, and she said, I guess she watched The Truth About Elliot Rodger.
	We'll put a link to this in the notes to the video and the podcast.
	You should really watch it if you haven't already.
	Whether you're that interested in his particular situation or not, I think it's useful and important.
	I would dare say essential stuff to know.
	She wrote, Hi, Stefan.
	Thanks for sharing.
	You've made some great points.
	I am the mother of George Chen, who was one of the first Three victims.
	My family and I are experiencing the enormous pain of losing our beloved son.
	We agree that Eliot's miserable childhood, such as lack of love from his father, an abusive stepmother, paternal abandonment, physical insecurities, extreme loneliness, etc., had caused tremendous pain and hatreds inside him.
	In a way, Eliot's cold-blooded and selfish father had turned the poor kid into a monster.
	As a mother, I feel so sorry for the kids that are suffering from abusive parents.
	Although it is too late to save my son's life, it is not too late to save other children.
	Please share your ideas on reaching out and helping other potential Elliot's.
	I have faith that with love and care and proper treatment, every child can have a beautiful life.
	Every child deserves a beautiful life.
	You may also visit George Chen's RIP page on Facebook and leave your messages there.
	Please support our goal to end the senseless killing of the innocents.
	To love and care for every single child.
	Please.
	Please, to...
	Sorry, let me just get the right...
	So...
	I just wanted to give the...
	George Chen's RIP page is facebook.com forward slash RIP George Chen.
	Mike, was there anything that you wanted to add to that?
	I just was really struck by the message.
	The idea that the mother of one of the victims could watch the presentation and be impressed with it was… I mean, considering how popular our presentation wound up being, it's, I guess, not surprising.
	It's something that never even dawned on me, but I was incredibly proud of our coverage of that terrible situation.
	And like you said, Steph, if there's some small positive that can be taken out of such a tragedy, it's to look at the origins of what made it happen.
	And give voice to those origins and hopefully people can take steps as we're trying to do to make sure stuff like that does not happen in the future.
	So the fact that we could get a message from one of the mothers of the victims, I was really struck by that and how wonderful it was that she...
	I took the time to share that and the time of going through just unimaginable pain that I can't even fathom.
	So that was really, really kind of her.
	It's not like we're going to stop talking about the effects of peaceful parenting and how crucial and important it is in situations like this.
	Really bring that to the forefront.
	Yeah, and I guess she, like all of us, but of course infinitely more so with this She's looking for answers.
	How could this situation have come about?
	How could this man have gone from the great peaceful and innocent fetus to a homicidal, suicidal murderer?
	I mean, of course, the fundamental answer is nobody knows.
	Nobody knows for sure.
	And I still, of course, accept The philosophical basis of free will.
	And because of that, we will never know for sure because there are choices.
	I think as Ayn Rand pointed out, the choice is what you focus on and what you choose to avoid.
	Whether you think and focus your mind or whether you dissociate and space out.
	And those are choices.
	So I don't believe there will ever be a certain answer As to why somebody does something like that.
	Somebody asked if I wished that Elliot Rodger had called in to this show.
	And I'm of two minds about that, honestly.
	I don't know.
	I mean, I certainly would have bent every effort of will and concentration that I had to listen to him, to try and understand.
	Marilyn Manson said when he was asked, what would you say to the Columbine shooters?
	He says, I wouldn't say anything.
	I would listen because that's apparently what nobody else did.
	So I don't know.
	I mean, because is there a two-lightness to this kind of tragedy where intervention doesn't help?
	I don't know.
	I'm also sensitive, of course, to the fact that if he had called into this show and I'd talk to him and then he'd gone on a mass shooting, well, good Lord...
	Internet radio show drives innocent men to mass shooting.
	I mean, we don't mind testing the limits of there's no such thing as bad publicity, but maybe not that far.
	So I don't know.
	I certainly would have liked to have talked to him at some point in the years leading up to it.
	And by that, it mostly means asking about his childhood and listen.
	But who knows when the point of no return had occurred.
	I think about, and I've thought about this a number of times since the shooting, I think about that morning.
	The morning that he woke up on the day that he was going to do such immense evil.
	I think about that morning.
	You know, he's walking down the hallway with a knife and he's going to kill, I don't know if he knew he was going to kill three people, I don't know.
	If it just was bad luck, wrong place, wrong time for the people there.
	But I do think about that morning and whether there was any way that he could have turned back at that point.
	You know, until the knife goes into the first body, everything is recoverable.
	After that, it seems to me there's really not any or much turning back.
	But before that, was there any, you know, did he...
	I feel like he was in that Doors song, The End.
	The killer walks on down the hall.
	Is he out of his body completely?
	Is he observing his own evil doppelganger from a midpoint above his head?
	I don't know.
	Until that first knife goes in.
	And I assume that, like Che Guevara, he liked it.
	Because otherwise, if he found himself repulsed and throwing up and so on, then he would have stopped.
	But he must have found that he really liked it.
	And that is a horrifying thing to contemplate, but I always wonder, before the evil is irrevocable, whether there is a sense of a potential to turn back, to avoid, to change, to reverse, whether people scare themselves by their own imminent evil to the point where they will run back into something saner and humane.
	I don't know.
	We'll never know in this particular situation, of course, because he's dead.
	But I certainly appreciate the email.
	And I basically just wrote back and said, look, I mean, I'm incredibly sorry for what you're going through.
	It is a horrifying tragedy.
	And I mean, I can't say for certainty that it was the parenting that caused this.
	I mean, nobody can.
	I think it's a damn fine place to start.
	And it doesn't matter if you think it does or it doesn't.
	It's good to treat your children well.
	I mean, it's just a moral and right thing to do, to listen and to love and to be curious and...
	To be gentle and to reason.
	I mean, whether we feel...
	I don't sort of wake up every morning as a parent and say, well, it's really important for me to prevent mass murder by being nice to my child.
	Because it's not like I have a burning itch to be not nice to her, which I then restrain through potential disastrous effects.
	So nobody knows for sure.
	But I wrote back and I just said, I'd be incredibly sorry.
	Look, if there's anything I can do.
	If there's anything I can do in terms of listening or, you know, if you want to talk, I'm sure she has a support network and all that, but I certainly did offer her any support that I could.
	I mean, what an unbelievably horrifying thing to experience.
	And, you know, for those of you who aren't parents, which is an annoying thing to say, and I understand that the moment that I say it, but for those of you who aren't parents, it's important to understand that when I mean, you spend a lot of time being afraid as a parent.
	It's just natural if you have, you know, an open-hearted and tender concern, of course, for your child's welfare.
	At least once or twice a day, these scenarios go through my head about how my daughter could get injured or bad things that could happen to her or whatever.
	And I've learned to not interfere with her because actually she ends up falling or whatever when I say, hey, don't!
	She turns and says, hey, what?
	You know, so she's good at managing her own safety now and she does a great job with it.
	But you spend so much time worrying about bad things that can occur for your children.
	Add on that the libertarian, voluntarist knowledge of where society is heading and what is going to happen to the finances, to the job opportunities, to the currency, to the power of the state.
	And you have a recipe for Well, not a tiny amount of tossing and turning.
	And I'm certainly trying to do what I can to make the world a better place for my daughter and for your son and your daughter and all of the generations to come.
	That's certainly my goal.
	And with your support, I mean, I think we're doing a damn fine job.
	Certainly better than I anticipated.
	And that speaks, I think, to the quality of the listeners, of the donors.
	And of people who come across, who are open-minded enough, who come across new information, who are willing to give it a chance, give it a try.
	And this poor mother, I mean, she took her child to the doctor.
	She took her child to the dentist.
	She took care of him.
	She stayed up with him when he was sick.
	She made sure he ate his vegetables.
	And then he ended up gutted like a fish.
	On a linoleum floor because of a rank evil stalking the hallways, the origins of which are a truly black-hearted mystery.
	Her life is now forever changed.
	She will never laugh in the same way again.
	She will never feel light-hearted in the same way again.
	It is horrifying what can happen to your children in the world.
	All that we can do to reduce violence in our society must be our very first and highest priority.
	We take our children to the dentist.
	We should make sure that the children around them are being treated well as well, because that is a dangerous, dangerous virus as well.
	So, I'm sorry to start with such a grim topic, but it is, I think, important to understand that we are engaged in the essential reclamation of the human heart in this conversation.
	And it is really out of a love for the future that we act against the darkness of the present.
	So, with that being said, I wish the very best to this lady.
	And again, if there's anything that I can do to help anyone involved in this tragic situation, I am all ears.
	It doesn't have to be a show.
	It doesn't have to be a public conversation.
	It doesn't have to be recorded.
	It can be anything that people want to talk about.
	I'm a good listener.
	So, Mike, who do we have first?
	All right.
	Up first today is Ryan.
	Ryan wrote in and said, I really struggle to stay focused on long-term goals, but usually end up feeling overwhelmed.
	I recently realized that I'm still subconsciously looking for someone to tell me what I should do.
	How do I overcome the fear that I may set upon a path that leads to regret?
	Haha.
	Great question.
	Great question.
	Thanks, Steph.
	How's it going today?
	It's going well.
	It's going well.
	So, do you have a particular...
	Do you want to talk about a particular project or do you want to talk in more general terms?
	I guess we'll start generally because, I mean, as far as the particular project, there are certainly many long-term goals change pretty frequently.
	And the short-term goals that I know I really want to accomplish sometimes I feel I'm putting off even though I know it's important to me and I want to get it done.
	I don't want to say motivation because it depends on what it is, but I do find myself diverting quite a bit.
	For instance, the other day I was sitting down looking at my bookshelf and noticed, wow, I've read every single one of these books, but I haven't finished one of them.
	So it's kind of like this idea where I'll really get started on stuff, but I have difficulty staying on path to finish, and I can apply that to the long-term goal as well.
	Does that make sense?
	Right, right.
	Okay.
	So you're talking more about books and so on.
	I mean, maybe the books suck, right?
	That's true.
	That is a good point.
	That is a very good point.
	Could be.
	Yes, it could.
	Right.
	Are there any bigger projects that you'd like to get into in more detail?
	Again, I'm happy to talk about general principles, but I want to make sure we can apply it to something specific if that's of value.
	Okay, absolutely.
	So I guess maybe the best thing would be to hone in on exactly what I'm trying to do.
	So long term, I know what I enjoy and obviously what I enjoy isn't the most important thing.
	I enjoy playing Xbox.
	That's not that beneficial.
	But I work part-time as a personal trainer and I go to clients' houses and I work with them and I work with an older population.
	It's very rewarding and I get a lot from it and as do they.
	So that's something I enjoy and I know long-term I want to incorporate my passion for psychology, my passion for fitness and really help people because I believe it's super empowering to do that.
	But right now, like I mentioned, it's a part-time gig because I'm working full-time as something that's paying the bills but not necessarily something I enjoy too much or aiding me.
	So that's where I'm at currently.
	What happened when you were a child and you had plans or goals?
	That you wanted to achieve?
	The childhood.
	I think this is a great point, a great place to start.
	So I don't really ever remember communicating what it was that I wanted to do to anybody in my family.
	Which means you did at some point and got a negative response, right?
	Or wasn't listened to or there was no feedback at all, but yeah, for whatever reason, I'm sure I had plenty of goals.
	I mean, I can think of a few of the things I wanted to do as a child, but not received either well or at all.
	Right.
	Yeah, and I mean, not to make this about me, but, you know, to give my mother credit where credit is due, she did take aspirations seriously.
	Like, I was very rarely laughed at or poo-pooed.
	You know, I said, I want to write a novel, right, when I was 11.
	And I started to write a novel called By the Light of an Alien Sun about a guy in a space station and his love for the woman he was stationed with.
	I mean, it was fun to write, and she took that seriously when I wanted to write poetry, when I wanted to go to theater school, when I wanted to act.
	These were all things that she accepted as, okay, you know, that's something to do and all that.
	So...
	I mean, that's not inconsequential in what I'm sort of able to achieve.
	I don't believe that I was ever mocked for ambition as a child.
	And do you have any memories of...
	You said you didn't tell it to anyone, and I sort of said that you must have at some point, so that you decided not to because of negative...
	Do you remember any negative responses to ambition?
	No, I truly do not.
	And I don't want to divert too much, but it's funny you ask, you know, do I remember these certain things?
	I've been recently really trying to hash this kind of stuff out and what I do remember from my childhood.
	And between myself and my younger sister, she's younger by four years, we both realized we don't have many memories barring a couple before we were about two.
	13, 14, when things drastically changed in our household.
	So up until then, it's like I don't really remember too much of interaction with my parents at all.
	Obviously, they were there, but not enough to be really a positive influence in any way, shape or form.
	And what was the structure of your parents' time with you?
	Did they both work?
	Did you have a stay-at-home parent?
	How did that look?
	So they both worked.
	They were young, not as an excuse, but they were 22 when they had me and we lived at my grandmother's house, who was my mother's mom.
	She was my primary care provider as my parents both worked and my grandmother did not work.
	So I was with her Most of the time then they got pregnant with my younger sister four years later moved out and my grandmother got a house like I don't know maybe a street away from us and Continued to still be the primary care provider as I was growing up.
	My dad worked about 60 hours a week and my mom about 40 Why did they work if they were able to live I guess rent-free at your grandmother's house?
	Well They had no clue how to manage money, I guess, because I didn't realize this until later in life that my dad made really good money for kind of where he ended up.
	It's pretty shocking.
	And they just would spend and buy things.
	We'd have Christmases where you couldn't even walk in the living room and there'd be gifts that wouldn't even be opened a whole year because they bought so much crap.
	But meanwhile, it's time for college and it's like, oh, I hope you can figure it out.
	That kind of approach to finances.
	Yeah, you know, family finances, I find everyone's finances really fascinating.
	I really do.
	And I remember when I was working up north doing gold padding and so on, I can't remember why, but for some reason I got to thinking about a time when I was working and my brother was working and so on, and we were living with my mom, and I remember thinking like, wait a minute, my brother was making this, I was making this.
	Where the hell did all the money go?
	And I actually got a whole bunch of bank statements from back then and tried to sort of figure it out.
	Where did all the money go?
	And I never could really figure it out.
	I mean there would be like three withdrawals of $50 on a particular day from the bank machine, which is back when $50 was like, I don't know, $250 now or something like that.
	I was like, who the hell needed $750 or $600 of cash in the day?
	Like, what the hell?
	Were we running a gambling ring?
	Were we running a cash-based prostitution business out of the house that I wasn't aware of?
	And I just, I never figured it out.
	And it was a huge mystery, you know, which is massive amounts of money coming in.
	And lots of people, right?
	The massive amounts of money coming in or reasonable money coming in.
	And it's like they just set fire to it somewhere.
	And it just kind of slips through their fingers and vanishes.
	That's insane.
	Yeah, it's the same thing, right?
	So, I mean, this is a real tragedy.
	They're spending all this money to buy you guys presents that don't even get open the whole year.
	But what you want is not presents, but they're presents, right?
	It's not TS, but CE. Exactly.
	Exactly.
	It's a very good point.
	And that's kind of a good summary of just their overall approach.
	It's just extremely short-term.
	Like, I buy you the Power Ranger toy.
	You're going to have a lot of fun right now.
	I'm not thinking about when you're going to want basic things or necessary things or how I'm going to make my life easier in the future.
	Hey, if we don't buy half as much of that stuff, put it aside, we might have a little chunk when our kids want to continue their education or whatever happens.
	No, no, no.
	That's true, but that's not what I'm talking about.
	You mean like being there?
	Sorry to interrupt.
	You mean being there?
	Yeah, I got you.
	Being there.
	Which is obviously more important than anything, and we should probably talk more about that.
	First couple of years, right?
	First couple of years, did you want shit under a tree, or did you want a mom to smile with you and play with you and listen to you and teach you stuff and have fun with you?
	I mean, that's what you want, right?
	Of course, of course.
	Absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	Well, I'll tell you the secret, if you like.
	Ask the universe with big boobs and the universe will provide.
	But no, this is the great secret to overcoming the effects of childhood.
	This is the great secret.
	See, I've waited until show 2800 and change or whatever the hell we're at.
	You know, because I'm a coy bastard, right?
	I don't want to spoil it, but it's not the Men in Black flash device that makes me forget the whole thing, is it?
	Oh no, you've got that.
	You actually need the opposite of that.
	You need some more remembering and a little bit less forgetting.
	Of course.
	And I'm going to speak in absolutes here, because, you know, there may be a few people who fall out of a 14-story building and walk away from it, but it's still not, you know...
	You don't say that to people.
	I don't say to my daughter, listen, don't run across the highway, even though there probably have been some kids who run across the highway and are okay.
	I just don't tell her that.
	It's a bad idea.
	I won't say, well, it's a bad idea for most kids, but I'm sure a few kids survive.
	It's just a bad idea.
	So here's my absolutes.
	So the way to escape the effects of childhood trauma The way to escape the effects of childhood criticism, the way to escape the effects of childhood dysfunction is one simple sentence.
	Are you ready?
	I am ready.
	Are you sure?
	Life-changing moment.
	I'm ready.
	Sky-splitting lightning bolt of insight about to rend your skull in two.
	Are you ready?
	I'll sit.
	I'll sit.
	Okay.
	Let me know when you've seated.
	Let's do it.
	Do you need to hold your head?
	Like, in?
	I don't believe so.
	All right.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	So, the secret to overcoming negative childhood interactions is this.
	Everyone around you, when you were a child, was intergalactically full of shit.
	That definitely resonates.
	All right.
	I will turn it over to you.
	I mean, it definitely, definitely resonates.
	The first thing that I think about is my dad, when you say that...
	Just because his whole life is just bullshitting.
	I feel like he's just always been the person to promise and tell you everything he's going to do and never follow through.
	And it works for him because he's a charismatic, good-looking guy, so it works for him out there in the world.
	But when your kids are at home waiting for you to show up or to follow through with that promise and you never come through, that's pretty disappointing.
	So that's the first thing that comes to mind when you say that.
	Right.
	Not to mention...
	They didn't know when to have a kid, right?
	No, obviously not.
	They're 22, right?
	Yeah.
	And they both need to work full-time, although they have free room and probably board from your grandmother, right?
	Exactly.
	They don't know when to have a kid.
	They don't know what their children want.
	Did they ever ask you?
	Did they sit you down and say, listen, son, you have a choice.
	Your mother...
	Can go to work for 40 hours a week, plus commute, plus getting ready for work.
	That's like 50, 55 hours a week.
	But in return, we'll give you a bunch of shit that you're not even going to bother to open up after Christmas.
	Would you like your mom to be home with you and take care of you and love you and play with you?
	Or would you like a bunch of shit that you don't even open?
	When you say it like that, I mean, obviously I know it, but it just sounds so ridiculous.
	It is literally insane.
	Like, I'm really trying to point out just how intergalactically full of shit everyone was around you when you were a kid.
	I mean, it's so well put.
	You're right, it's so simple, but it's so well put.
	I mean, we can delve into it and it gets significantly worse, but, I mean, you're right.
	You're 100% right.
	Well, because people say, well, I'd do anything for my kids, and my question is always, well, did you ask them what they want?
	Yeah.
	Good luck.
	I'd do anything for my customers.
	Oh, here's a customer who wants to tell you what he wants.
	Kick him out.
	Shut him up.
	Get rid of him.
	He's going to interfere with me pleasing customers.
	If he actually tells me what customers want, that's going to put a whole wrench in the plans of me pleasing customers.
	Get rid of the guy.
	Throw him through the trap door.
	Catapult him through the skylight.
	Chloroform him.
	Throw him in the trunk of a car driven by Luca Brazzi.
	Get him out of here.
	Right?
	Yeah, I laugh, but I feel like I'm that customer.
	Yeah.
	And, you know, the public school teachers, did they know anything about anything?
	Not really.
	Oh, absolutely not.
	No, that was just as terrible of an experience.
	Yeah, I mean, those people don't...
	I mean, they keep changing the curriculum, you know?
	Mm-hmm.
	Just as a little aside, sorry to interrupt.
	As a little aside, just to kind of validate your point of elementary school, I had this crazy kid that used to kind of, well, I can't say kind of, bully me psychologically, phone calls, and seventh grade made a death threat to me.
	His friend was going to hold a shotgun, and obviously this is a big problem, but the teacher that, when this all started, was my sixth grade teacher, and this kid was giving me a hard time in class, and I kind of yelled at the kid so he would stop and to get the teacher's attention.
	He paid no mind to it.
	This same teacher at one point in the school year was taken away by the ambulance because he passed out drunk.
	So this is the kind of people that you get sent away to be your supervisor, so to speak, and to cultivate kids in a supposed good environment.
	It's pathetic and embarrassing.
	Yeah, I mean the teachers I all had seemed to have one singular mission to use the stun gun of infinite boredom to keep the children in line.
	Like, we can't act up if we're in another dimension out of boredom.
	So that's why the teachers are just so unbelievably dull and pedantic and inconsequential and boring.
	It's funny how education can be boring, though.
	I mean, who doesn't get excited about learning stuff?
	But they figured out a way to make it the most annoying process.
	Oh, man, yeah.
	I mean, look at this goddamn show.
	Most ridiculous thing on the planet.
	I don't grant any degrees.
	Your life will become enormously more difficult.
	Right?
	Your spouse may leave you.
	You may have to apologize to your children.
	Like, I was in Detroit.
	Doing a speech, talked about circumcision.
	Guy comes up to me.
	This black lawyer guy.
	Huge.
	He's like, you know, I... I wonder if you're right about that circumcision stuff, because I just told my son to get his kids circumcised, and now I'm thinking like, holy crap, maybe I've just...
	Like, I mean, hey, welcome to philosophy.
	Massive dumps, dinosaur dumps of regret on every omelet in the future you get to eat.
	Absolutely, absolutely.
	And people are thirsting for this stuff.
	You know, shit, this year we might pass 100 million downloads.
	No degree makes your life...
	Really bad for quite a while and people can't get enough of it.
	Crazy masochistic bastards you all.
	Of course, but I mean the people that listen to your show recognize the short-term discomfort for that long-term gain and that's where everybody needs to get to.
	Yeah, I mean, talk about personal training.
	It's like, Freedom Main Radio, we're a personal trainer.
	We will come to your house and poke you in the eye and disappear into the night.
	And then we're going to take a slow pee into your car flakes every morning and then disappear into the morning mist.
	I think I have a new marketing pitch.
	This is why Stuff does not write the advertising copy.
	That's all I'm going to say.
	Well, no, this is why we don't have advertising copy, because I'm not allowed to write it, but you're also not allowed to lie.
	So we have none.
	Because, right?
	No, tell me, don't you think, Mike?
	It's like, hey, I'm going to disrupt your capacity to earn a living.
	I'm going to disrupt your relationship with just about everyone in your life.
	I'm going to make it all horrible, and it's going to cost you bandwidth to download.
	Are you in?
	Yes!
	Say hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people.
	I'm in!
	And it's crazy.
	So this is the hardest stuff for people.
	It's the most disruptive stuff for people.
	It costs people, and people can't get enough of it.
	Now, if I can sell knowledge with this kind of blood price, When I'm not even really selling, but if I can get hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people fascinated by philosophy and downing it by the unwise, quart per minute, drink from the fire hose until your ass explodes scenario...
	Well, anyway, but you can see this, you know, if you ever have a day to kill, right?
	You can run through speeches at conferences.
	And you can try and figure out who's the free market speaker and who is the non-free market speaker, right?
	Who's the academic?
	Who's the lawyer?
	Whereas who are the people who are actually making their living from speaking?
	And you can see that.
	So to make knowledge boring is not...
	I mean, it's a special kind of talent for stone-walled inertia.
	And, you know, kids are so hungry and thirsty for knowledge that it's really quite astounding.
	I mean, so...
	Anyway, so the whole point about your childhood is that everyone in your childhood was intergalactically full of shit.
	Which means everything they taught you was wrong.
	And it wasn't the worst kind of wrong.
	Sorry.
	It wasn't even the normal kind of wrong.
	It was in fact the worst kind of wrong.
	The normal kind of wrong is, oh, you should go down this road to get to the gas station.
	You go down that road for a mile or two and you're like, shit, no gas station.
	Guess we'll turn around, right?
	This is a special kind of wrong where you don't even know that it's wrong.
	Like the gas station will be there.
	Just keep going.
	And you never have a point of reference to say it's time to turn around.
	Does that make sense?
	No, like, you know, it's such a cunning illusion, such a cunning matrix.
	You go down there, right?
	You fill up your gas, you drive out with your GPS, and you end up on the fucking moon with no gas.
	It's like, how the hell did that happen?
	Well, the whole thing was a cunning illusion, right?
	The whole thing was cunningly rendered, right?
	Quad-core SLI, right?
	You don't even know that you're wrong.
	Yeah.
	And so, you know, with religion and government schools and various kinds of indoctrination, nationalism and all that kind of crap.
	Absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	They're so incredibly full of shit.
	I mean, they're not even honest enough to teach you about the national debt.
	You know, my daughter is $20,000 in debt just for this goddamn province that I live in.
	It's five times the debt per capita of California.
	That's insane.
	Yeah, if she's, hey, honey, I'd like to send you to school, I'm sure they're going to say, this is what they're going to say to her at school, first day.
	I'm not saying she's going to school, but if we send her to school, this is what they say first day.
	They'd say, hey, kids, great to have you here.
	This is government school.
	Great to have you here.
	I wanted to mention a couple of things.
	Number one, please don't hit each other.
	That's for the union thugs to do to make sure that we get benefits and summers off.
	B, this is ridiculously inconvenient.
	Generally, the school starts after your parents have to be at work and ends before...
	They leave work, but screw you.
	I like afternoons with a mint julep on the porch, looking out at the back 40, looking at the taxpayers toiling in the fields like whales diving up and down through waves of wheat to give me my benefits and pay.
	Number three, we're going to try and come off as some kind of authority for you, but the reality is that we are so screwed up financially that you're all at $20,000 in debt just for this province.
	A good portion of that is because I'm a greedy son of a bitch.
	Who wants more pay, less work and more benefits all the time.
	So we've really screwed you and we sold off your future.
	So it's $20,000 now.
	You guys are four or five.
	By the time you get to be like working age, it's going to be like $100,000 that you're going to be in the hole because we are greedy, entitled bastards who really don't want to compete and work for a living.
	So, with that having been said, let me now position myself as your moral authority and tell you how you should live, because I'm so wise and virtuous, right?
	Absolutely.
	It's sick.
	It's really sickening.
	And it's just, I mean, it's completely, people being irresponsible, people being self-absorbed, everyone not thinking about, oh, my decisions actually affect others.
	It's just, how do I feel right now in the moment?
	Good?
	Okay.
	Keep going.
	Keep doing it.
	It's pathetic.
	Right.
	So, yeah, I mean, so it's not just your parents or your teachers directly.
	I mean, the whole goddamn society that we live in is a massive exercise in immediate greed.
	Fuck the children.
	Fuck the future.
	Fuck the consequences.
	Right?
	I want money to bribe my constituents with right now.
	So I'm going to print and borrow and tax.
	Right?
	The rich are fewer, so let's fuck them to feed the majority.
	I mean, the whole society we live in is a massive exercise in watching a three-year-old in a candy store, and he also has brain damage and, of course, soon diabetes.
	Our entire society is a three-year-old in a candy store That gets really upset when real three-year-olds seem to have no capacity to defer gratification.
	It's embarrassing.
	That's the best I can say.
	Right, so the great liberation of all of this, right?
	The great liberation that comes from all of this is that nothing anyone said to you as a child was anything other than exquisite bullshit.
	Yeah, you're right.
	Once you see that, you get what philosophy offers you is horror and freedom.
	Horror and freedom.
	That's the twin poles of philosophy.
	I recognize that.
	Definitely, I recognize that.
	Like, holy shit.
	It's true.
	I live in a fucking madhouse.
	Like, this world is full of insane people, hypocritical people, evil people, people so full of shit that I can't believe everyone's eyes aren't brown.
	Who are lecturing me on moral responsibility and the deferral of gratification.
	And so that's the horror that philosophy provides you.
	Right?
	It's not like the lunatics have taken over the asylum.
	It's that there's nothing but an asylum.
	And, you know, when you bring basic rational arguments to people about spanking or taxation or whatever it is, national debt being horrible and unjust, problems of democracy, you know, the realities of female...
	Child abuse and female relationship abuse.
	I mean...
	People are just so...
	Incredibly full of shit.
	Absolutely.
	They don't Yeah, and they cover it all up.
	So this is the horror of the asylum that we live in that is so widespread that everyone thinks it's normal.
	Now, so you see, oh my god, I live in an asylum.
	Then you wander the halls and scrabble through the duck work like Ripley trying to figure out whether you can find anybody else who knows that it's an asylum, and then you hold them fast to your heart as best you can.
	So that's the horror.
	That's the horror.
	Now, the freedom is you got it when I first said it.
	What's the freedom?
	Yeah.
	Wait, did you ask me what's the freedom?
	I'm sorry.
	Yeah, what's the freedom that comes from that?
	The freedom is that I recognize all these people are insane, I don't need to be around them, and I can stay with the people who I find actually get the bigger picture, who have clear view.
	You know, it's liberating to just, you have to recognize it.
	You can't just, if you identify, you normalize, you continue to do and assume this is what's right, you're perpetually going to be stuck in an asylum not realizing where you are.
	That's all true, but I'm talking about the stuff in your head because what you talked about was not problems in your relationship outside, but the problems you had with your relationship in your head, right?
	Like about getting things done.
	Everything that everyone told you about how to get shit done is insane.
	Like what they said is insane and they themselves are insane.
	Absolutely.
	I mean, people get these letters like, man, how do you survive all this criticism that you get?
	It's like, well, if I was an artist and there was a truck flying by the highway with monkeys throwing poo at stuff and one of those pieces of poo happened to hit my canvas, I wouldn't say, oh shit, that must mean I'm a terrible artist.
	Monkey poo throwing.
	That's all that people are doing.
	They don't have any clue what they're doing.
	They have no principles.
	All people are doing is trying to seek advantage over you by getting you to self-attack.
	That's all people are doing.
	They're pushing this button and saying, ooh, does this push self-attack?
	Does this push self-attack?
	Does this push self-attack?
	It's like, it's pathetic.
	This is why nobody calls in to really have a go at me, usually.
	I mean, occasionally people do if they don't know, right?
	That they go in and I'm like, ooh, look, another monkey poo thrower.
	Right?
	I can't take it personally.
	To take it personally would be an insult to monkey feces, which at least can fertilize something, right?
	Absolutely.
	I listened to one of your talks on accepting criticism.
	It was really well done, obviously, so is everything you do, but you made a very good point in which it comes from a place of empathy where people need to understand what it is you're trying to do and get what your goals are before they can issue any type of criticism.
	It really spoke to me because I've experienced that.
	Luckily, now in my life, I have a very supportive girlfriend and a really great best friend.
	He recently was able to write me a letter in an exchange that was very critical of what I was attempting to do.
	But it was like the most powerful thing I've ever read because it came from a place of concern.
	Like, hey, I really care about you.
	I don't want to see you make a mistake.
	This is my problem with all of that that you said.
	Here you go.
	Have at it.
	And it was like, wow, this is really critical, but I'm enjoying reading it.
	I've never seen that in my life before.
	It was always just like an insult.
	Beautiful.
	Hang on to that guy with a death grip.
	Oh, I do.
	But not around the neck.
	I remember this with Mike.
	I remember this with the interview with Mike when we first talked about working together.
	I grappled him with like, well, first of all, it was thighs.
	And then he said, too close.
	I want to be close.
	This is too close.
	So hold on to him with a death grip.
	Neither nuts nor neck would be my suggestion from a moral and legal standpoint.
	We'll go with a bear hug then.
	Yeah, that's good.
	Okay, let me give you a tiny example here, right?
	I was just thinking of this today.
	So there's a thread going on on the message board about, you know, when I talk about Once statists understand that the government is evil, then they're supporting evil.
	If somebody makes a moral argument, you either have to rebut it or accept it.
	You can't just wish it away.
	You know, when they said, Steph, you have cancer.
	Well, I could choose to get treatment or choose not to get treatment, but I couldn't choose to not have cancer, right?
	I just wish it away, right?
	I make my choices there.
	I can listen to the internet and put coffee grounds up my ass and then assume I'm going to be all better, or I can go with what science says.
	Anyway, so I talk about, you know, statism, the belief in the initiation of force against peaceful people who are following with their conscience, right?
	And people get...
	It's not funny, but it kind of is.
	You'll see how funny it is in a sec.
	So people get upset with me.
	Like when I say, well, if your philosophy defines this as evil, I'm just going to say your philosophy.
	I know I have problems with that, but let me just, for the sake of convenience, for the moment.
	So someone comes up to me and says, my philosophy defines Bob as evil, right?
	And I said, well, you know, you shouldn't really hang around with evil people, right?
	And then they say, you're trying to separate me from Bob.
	It's like, that's completely insane.
	It's your philosophy that defines him as evil.
	Racists are evil.
	Bob is in the KKK, and he enthusiastically supports the KKK, and I think racism is stone evil.
	It's like, well, then you probably shouldn't hang around with Bob.
	You cult leader!
	You're trying to separate me from Bob!
	It's like, actually, I'm just listening to the shit that you're saying and reflecting it back to you in a true manner.
	I just think it's so funny.
	I mean, libertarians define the state as evil.
	And they say, well, boy, support of the state is what allows it to function.
	And I sort of...
	Oh, boy.
	Are you still there?
	Nope.
	What happened to Steph?
	I think we lost him.
	Skype is trying to separate us from Steph!
	Well, let me just tell him we'll get him back.
	All right.
	Thanks, Mike.
	But I also wanted to say, Ryan, I mean, it's great that you have your girlfriend, and it's fantastic that you have the friend that gave you that kind of feedback.
	I mean, seriously, hold on to people like that with the death grip.
	People that will actually give you critical feedback with your best interests in mind are so incredibly rare.
	And if you want to do big stuff, if you want to do cool stuff, if you want to do important stuff, it's so essential to have a support system around you.
	Oh, absolutely.
	I don't mean to interrupt.
	I just want to say like my perspective on it because I have been around so many shitty people throughout my life and the people I actually call friends.
	I'm embarrassed to now use that word with the people I associate with now.
	And it's like to really have a shared experience, someone you really love and people that really love you back and you care about.
	It's when you finally taste it, it's like, you know, I eat shit food my entire life thinking it was great, and I finally taste good quality food.
	It's like, how the hell did I eat that for my whole life, you know?
	So I recognize the importance and how rare it really is, but I do appreciate those words of encouragement.
	I will take that to heart and make sure I keep those people around for sure.
	Alright, where did we drop off there?
	Skype was trying to separate you from us, Steph.
	Yeah, yeah.
	No, I mean, this is literally how insane people are.
	Right, so some Jewish guy comes up to me and says, anti-Semites are responsible for all the evil in the world.
	And it's like, here's a friend of mine, he's a Nazi.
	And I'm like, well, how can it be a friend of yours if he's a Nazi who you define as responsible for all the evils in the world?
	Maybe you shouldn't, you know, you should revisit that relationship, right?
	And he's like, oh, you're trying to separate me from Bob the Nazi.
	It's like, no, I'm simply pointing out that your philosophy is defining him as evil.
	And people, like, I point out this obvious fact, and people get all upset with me, like, I'm trying to break up relationships.
	I really want to live.
	This poison will kill me.
	Hey, maybe you shouldn't eat that poison.
	Oh!
	You trying to separate me from this poison!
	It's like, well, no, you said that you wanted to live.
	Ah!
	Right?
	I mean, what a bizarre trap that is!
	I mean...
	I don't know if you get just how completely insane this is.
	No, it's ridiculous.
	It's absolutely stupid.
	It's stupid.
	Oh, he's going around breaking up families.
	You're defining these people as immoral, deeply immoral, supporting the greatest immorality in the world, and then you want to have a barbecue with them.
	Okay.
	Well, then you have to do one of two things.
	Stop having barbecues with them or stop defining them as evil.
	Or just live your life being a hypocrite, which I don't know how people get away with.
	Yeah, or say when it comes to libertarianism, I'm a dilettante.
	I'm a tourist.
	I just play with the ideas.
	I like reading diet books because the pictures of the food look pretty, but I have no intention of changing my behavior in any way, shape, or form.
	I'm going to cast around these big fiery spells of good and evil, but nothing's going to change anything that I do.
	I'm like, okay, fine.
	That's a huge relief.
	Then shut up about your adherence to libertarianism or philosophy or virtue and just say that you're a bullshitter.
	That's fine.
	Then at least you're not discrediting the ideas with all your bullshit and hypocrisy.
	Boy.
	Bye.
	Well, you dropped off there, Steph.
	We were talking about support systems.
	And having those kind of people around you, people that have their own inner war going on with their own beliefs versus their behavior and actions, having those people around you when you're trying to do big stuff, important stuff, challenging stuff, oh my god, it's such a drain.
	It's such a drain.
	I mean, those type of people, I don't think you're going to be getting the critical feedback supportive letter from those kind of people.
	You're not going to be getting the letter going, I'm not sure what you're doing right now if it's in your best interest because they're too busy managing their own inner hell.
	If they even read the letter or if they listen to your idea of what you're even trying to do.
	Or, you know, if people are really concerned about families being broken up, anyone who supports the war on drugs is breaking up hundreds of thousands of families every single year by getting innocent, peaceful people thrown in jail.
	For years.
	For years, anybody who supports the current version of what's laughably called national defense, which is international offense, is getting families broken up, both by the police being shipped overseas, and this is true of some women whose kids got born two months ago, they're shipped over to Afghanistan or wherever.
	So there are hundreds of thousands of families broken up by the military, and hundreds of thousands of families in Iraq and Afghanistan physically fucking disassembled by this foreign policy.
	Families are broken up by public schools because people have to work extra hard to pay taxes for these shitty institutions.
	What was the divorce rate, Steph, at the conference in Detroit?
	We were talking about the divorce rate amongst active soldiers when they come back home.
	Oh, yeah, it was insane.
	Now, this was his sort of personal experience, but it was mental, right?
	It was mental.
	So then anybody who supports the state is supporting and enthusiastically praising the And is cheering and waving the flag of an institution that physically destroys hundreds of thousands of families every year.
	This doesn't even count the god-awful family court system that further disrupts, destroys, and smashes up families.
	Or the alimony and child support system that literally rewards the 70% of marriages broken up by women.
	And so the funny thing is that somehow I'm considered responsible for the breakup of families when I'm merely reflecting back the logical consequences of the evil bombs that people are throwing around, which I happen to agree with.
	But they're the ones who say, right, that these people are stone evil.
	And I'm like, well, you can't really hang out with evil if you're a good person, right?
	Oh, what are you talking about?
	I'm talking about you actually doing a goddamn thing to live by the values that you're so loudly thumping yourself on the chest and proclaiming yourself to be an adherent of.
	Oh, I can't believe it.
	What would you say?
	Are you breaking up?
	Right?
	And the funny thing is, too, is that statists break up infinitely more families than philosophy.
	Right?
	Statism and status are responsible for the physical destruction and moral and emotional destruction of millions of families worldwide every year.
	Every year.
	Right?
	And then, does anybody sit there and say, well, you know, the state is really bad at breaking up families.
	And the state does it by force.
	Philosophy doesn't do it by force.
	Right?
	Philosophy says, here's the argument for good versus evil.
	And you want to be a good person?
	Then you accept or you refute.
	Motherfucker.
	Accept or refute.
	Accept the argument or refute the argument.
	Those are your only two choices.
	Because to ignore the argument is to accept the argument.
	If I ignore that I've been told that I have cancer, I'm accepting that I have cancer.
	Because it's not going anywhere just because I ignore it.
	If I'm standing on a train track, and the train's coming, and someone says, Steph, get off the train track, the train's coming, and I ignore them, I'm accepting the train.
	Because we all know what's going to happen next, right?
	And so it's accept or refute.
	Accept or refute.
	That's the choice.
	Everybody's desperate to avoid those choices.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	That requires you to think, and a lot of people don't like to think for some insane reason.
	You talk about putting yourself in uncomfortable situations and thinking about this stuff and taking the evidence, and you have a choice.
	You're either, like you said, except there are a few, and that requires you to delve in a little bit, maybe do your research.
	A relatable example to this is my younger sister had a baby back in January, and around November or so at Thanksgiving, or right before, I shared your circumcision video with her and her boyfriend.
	And at the dinner table at Thanksgiving, which I will know that's the last holiday that I attended, but I said, hey, did you get a chance to watch that video?
	And she said, yeah, but I turned it off halfway through.
	I just really had trouble watching it.
	And to me, that says everything.
	Did she have trouble watching the mutilation of little boys?
	Yes, obviously.
	Obviously.
	And then what did she do?
	Of course she did it, but it gets worse.
	Oh, man.
	Are you kidding me?
	Wait, wait.
	We have to pause.
	We have to pause just for a moment.
	I really feel that Mike is having like a philosophy gasm here.
	So, Mike, I will let you take this one.
	That's sick.
	Go ahead, Mike, and I'll finish, but go ahead.
	Oh, it's too hard for me to watch, but I'll just inflict that on my child.
	Right, like the disconnect or the cognitive dissonance in that.
	I can't watch the knife actually remove the foreskin with the nerve endings and all that.
	I can't watch that.
	I'll let my baby, my infant, experience that.
	Oh my god.
	But, just to add to it, when I did bring this up at the dinner table, obviously plenty of time to go against the decision, but the baby's not born yet.
	I said, hey, did you watch that?
	My mother was curious, hey, what are you guys talking about?
	I told her, and then she said, oh no, they're getting it done.
	My grandmother jumped down my throat, oh, they're getting it done.
	And then my stepdad's mom, same thing.
	Notice all females jumped down my throat and attacked me.
	My mom said, oh, what video is that?
	Oh, you think Stefan's God, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	And so nobody had any evidence, nobody had an argument.
	Everyone just said, oh, it's not what I know already, so it can't be right.
	No, you see, no, hang on, no, no, see, the argument that I'm God...
	Would be pretty refutable because if I were God, then there would be like lightning bolts going through their spines while they stood in the middle of a house.
	So, you know, for self-defense against the poor boys, soon to be mutilated genitalia.
	So, yeah, there's a fairly refutable position.
	Yeah, that's a very good point.
	But that's just the kind of – I mean, just to talk about what you're saying.
	I mean, that's the kind of argument that I was exposed to, for one.
	But secondly, it applies at a grander scale, these people that just don't want to think about things that make them feel uncomfortable.
	But that should tell you everything you need to know.
	Yeah, so the women – and I assume that they're all pro-choice, right?
	So that they want to make sure that nobody tells a woman what to do with a fetus in her body that she pretty much chose, unless she was raped, to have in her body.
	My body, my choice, right?
	Right.
	A boy's body is my choice, too.
	Like, what the fuck?
	My body, my choice.
	Why doesn't that apply to the infant boy?
	Well, it's sadism.
	It's just sadism.
	It's the assertion of generally female power over men.
	It's the branding.
	We bitches own you, right?
	I mean, it's what farmers do to their cows.
	They brand them, they cut them, so that they know who owns them, right?
	Because patriarchy.
	Anyway, so sort of to return to the point, right?
	So, people who criticize me, hey, there's some people who do a great job, and I learn from them, and I listen to them, and fantastic, right?
	Mike gives me feedback.
	People give me feedback.
	It's great.
	Listeners give me feedback.
	But...
	Because I am a rational and empirical human being, I recognize that just about everybody is intergalactically full of shit.
	And so the voices in your head, the people who you grew up with, they're just shit fountains.
	They're just the fountains of idiotic, monkey-poo-throwing, defensive, hypocritical bullshit.
	I know that's not like a magic spell that makes everything better, but I do think that it's important to really understand that.
	That all the rules that people gave you, all the indifferences that parted people's feelings before you, like Moses striding through the Dead Sea, all of the hostilities, all the calumnies, all the insults are spewed by people Who are pretty much irredeemably full of nothing but shit.
	Oh, absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	And it's all too obvious to me.
	I mean, I've had plenty of negative experiences and things that I've tried to revisit and try to hash out.
	And I've approached my mother about my stepfather who had an excessive drinking problem the whole time.
	He lived with us.
	And I had said to her one day when I was...
	I think I had just moved out at the time or maybe in the time moving out.
	But they had some type of issue, and I said to her, what are you doing?
	I mean, this guy, it's been years, but it's like he drinks four to five beers a day.
	He's clearly an alcoholic.
	He's not a functioning human being.
	And her response to me was literally, he does not drink four or five beers a day.
	He drinks maybe three.
	And that was somehow enough to say, oh, you're wrong because I have a different number in my head and that completely, you know, destroys your argument.
	And I don't have to worry about it because three bears are okay.
	But if it was four or five, that'd be a problem.
	I'll deny that and we'll move forward.
	And your whole experience can just be denied.
	And it's sick.
	But the whole point of that, right, the whole point of somebody saying something that ridiculous is to make it so exhausting to continue a conversation.
	Oh, yeah.
	What do you say to that?
	If I'm in China and I start speaking to someone in English and then they start speaking me back in Mandarin and I don't speak Mandarin, they don't speak English, what are we going to do?
	Am I going to start to teach them English words and scratch them on the ground?
	Are they going to pull out a...
	This is back in the day, right?
	Before Google Translate and shit like that, right?
	But am I going to really try and teach them English?
	Are they going to try and teach me Mandarin?
	Are we going to try and figure out how to communicate?
	No, I just roll my eyes and say, well, I guess we're not talking with this guy.
	Let's go and find somebody we speak the same language.
	The whole point is that kind of defensiveness is just to make you give up.
	I give up.
	You win.
	I can't possibly teach you anything to do with common sense if you've reached the ripe old age of 50 without having amassed a shred of it.
	I give up.
	It's like trying to give financial advice to a homeless person.
	I give up.
	What you're saying to me is so clear.
	So, yeah, so the next time that you, you know, want to do a big plan, there'll be voices in your head to say, well, you won't be able to do it or it doesn't matter or do this instead and so on.
	Just recognize that they come from people entirely full of shit.
	And, you know, if you doubt me, just look at the empirical evidence of their lives.
	No, that speaks wonders.
	And my examples are always, okay, well, I don't want to be anything like these people, so let's try to do the opposite, you know, or at least not do that, you know?
	And that's the best example I've ever received of all these people around me just making constant mistakes, not reflecting, not having reason for doing the things they are doing.
	It's just mindlessly existing and just kind of coasting through life, and nobody's happy, you know?
	Like now I have, like I said, a 19-year-old sister with a baby who's keeping the cycle going, you know?
	And it's just...
	It's so unfortunate.
	That's who my heart goes out to and I feel the worst for because I feel like she made a lifelong decision without the proper tools to even understand that type of decision.
	Yeah, when you get older, you can tell that kid that it was his mom and his grandmom who ferociously fought to make sure that a third of his penis got hacked off shortly after birth, right?
	You could just tell them the truth.
	And then these women who are very proud of their decision and feel that they're doing the right thing by cutting up boys' penises, even though they don't have any penises, it's really important that men don't speak for women because we just don't know what it's like.
	But of course, women can speak for men's penises.
	They can live with that decision and they can live with the questions and all the science is going to be going up between now and then to sort that out.
	I'm saying that's something you can't undo, you know, and that's what's really unfortunate about it.
	I mean, just in regards to circumcision, I mean, you do it, and then it, obviously it is wrong, but then people become privy to that.
	There's no undoing that.
	As opposed to if you didn't do it, and then it comes out like, oh, you really should get it done.
	It's so much better for whatever reason.
	At least you have the option.
	So it's just stupid, regardless.
	I mean, we obviously know it's evil, but it's just a stupid decision.
	Like, this is permanent.
	I'm not going to think about it.
	There you go.
	Good luck.
	Yeah, I mean, I think that the practice originally evolved out of a religious sect, which I can't remember the name of, but it's something to do with apple juice.
	But it's a religious sect that looks like the other people in the region who need to make sure that their women are only mating with members of that religious sect.
	And so you give them a marker on a sexual organ that shows that.
	I mean, it's all just about basic tribal branding and keeping the gene pool of that tribe intact and making sure that nobody fakes their way in.
	But, I mean, it's all complete nonsense.
	You know, the first clue should be that it was first described 4,000 years ago by Egyptians.
	And that should be kind of a hint as to whether it should be open to question or not.
	But, Mike, did you want to add something?
	Yeah, I just wanted to say something on the point of, you know, the people that are the first ones to reject reasoned arguments or evidence when you bring it to them about decisions that they've made in their life, they're the first people that tell you why you shouldn't do things, why it's a bad idea.
	I know when I was working at my jobby job and I was planning to quit to come work with Steph on Freedom Main Radio, I had, oh, every single person I knew in that building just about tell me why this was a bad idea.
	What is your health insurance going to be like?
	Hold on.
	I'm really concerned about that.
	Pension plan, let's talk about that.
	How are you really doing?
	All these people that didn't really give a shit about me for, oh, I don't know, the 10 years that I worked there now were very, very concerned about what I was going to do, my future, my goals, my dreams, my hopes.
	What they saw was someone who was happy and who was escaping the fucking cage.
	Someone that was escaping the hamster wheel that they had been running on, some of them for 10 years, 20 years, some 30 years.
	I've heard stories from people when I was working there.
	You know, the guy comes in for the college summer job type thing.
	Oh, he's just going to work, scrap up some money, put it together, you know, and then he'll be gone in, you know, a couple months.
	And then they're still there 30 years later.
	They got trapped in the comfort because, hey, the check keeps coming.
	Hey, this is kind of easy.
	This doesn't push my boundaries too much.
	It's not too uncomfortable.
	And they decided to stay there.
	Stay there, which is fine for a day, fine for a week, fine for a month, fine for a year, maybe even a couple years.
	But then before they know it, they wake up and they're six years old.
	They're still working at this job that they hate and they have no passion for.
	And they hate to see anyone make a move or make a decision to better their life and pursue their dreams and pursue something more than what they now have.
	Because they pissed away their opportunities.
	They pissed away their chance.
	They pissed away their opportunity to live their dreams and pursue something that they were passionate about.
	And now they just want to tell you why you doing what you're doing, why it's such a bad idea.
	Because just the fact that you have that option and you're breaking out of that cage, you're breaking out of that mold, you're escaping that hamster wheel.
	That just shines a spotlight right in their face at every missed opportunity that they had.
	Everything they pissed away, all the time they wasted.
	And the fact that they're going to go to their grave as cowards, not having pursued their dreams, not having pursued that which they're passionate about.
	And they just stayed in the creature comforts of a comfortable job.
	a paycheck that comes reliably every single two weeks, and, you know, oh, that 401k plan, that's probably not going to be worth shit when the dollar completely collapses and everything that was inside it goes...
	Completely belly up.
	But yeah, the people that want to say why you shouldn't do stuff if you're excited about a big goal or dream, be very skeptical.
	And as you said, look at what their life is like.
	Where does their credibility come from to give any kind of advice?
	Are they aware that they have no credibility if they have no credibility?
	There's nothing worse than the person with no credibility talking as if they have credibility.
	So, you know, if someone who's pissed away their life is saying, go, go live your dreams, don't end up like me, I'm aware, you know, I'm aware how this looks coming from me, but don't make the same mistakes I did.
	That's something to listen to.
	But if it's someone that hates their life, hates their husband, hates their kids, hates everything about their job, walks in the door every day with a scowl on their face, hating the air that they have to breathe, don't take advice from that person.
	And like you said, you're probably better off if you just do the exact opposite of what they did.
	You're probably going to wind up in a far better place.
	Oh yeah, the planet is full of just people who are like, there's a dream!
	Kill it!
	Tall poppy, cut it down!
	Yeah, yeah, tall poppy, cut it down.
	The hammer's sticking up, nail it down.
	Yeah, I mean, they're just dream killers.
	They're just dream killers.
	And most people, if you share something that you're passionate about, will do their very best to strangle it in its grip.
	I'm sorry, it's just a reality.
	And then you have all these movies, right?
	All these movies out there about basically live small.
	Live small.
	Isn't getting drunk funny?
	Isn't it cool to just hang around and play video games?
	But then a man is going to show up.
	Some man is going to show up and whisk you away to a life of magic and excitement and passion.
	Someone's just going to come and find you.
	Right.
	And you're going to be special.
	God loves you because...
	Who else can handle it?
	Who else can stand it?
	Anyway, listen, Mike, let's move on to the next caller.
	I want to make sure we get through our queue today.
	God help us at least once.
	So, yeah, thanks very much for calling in.
	Great questions.
	I know we sort of danced around quite a bit, but hopefully it's useful.
	And if you do, of course, get stuck, feel free to call back in.
	I appreciate that, Stephan.
	Thank you for taking the time.
	I just wanted to end by saying I really do appreciate this.
	I thought I was coming to this call to cry about all my childhood experience.
	I don't want to make light of that, but through this call, I realized I am doing a great job of getting past that.
	Obviously, through your show and listening and implying philosophy to my life, I think that I'm ahead of where I thought I was, if that makes any sense.
	Yeah, and you're doing a way better job than your demon barber sister, right?
	Snip, snip, snip.
	So, good for you.
	Keep us posted, though, if you can.
	Thanks, Steph.
	Thank you, Mike.
	Alright, thanks, Ryan.
	Up next is Jeremiah.
	And Jeremiah wrote in and said, My wife said that she is considering leaving me because I renounced Christianity.
	We have a son, and I still want to be with her.
	What can I do?
	Yeah...
	Ooh, I don't know.
	First of all, congratulations on the exceedingly Old Testament name.
	That really sets the stage for this.
	Can I assume that you, of course, were raised religiously yourself?
	Yeah, I was actually circumcised twice.
	Twice?
	My mom tells a story proudly about how the first time it was just a trim job, and then we got a good Jewish doctor to do it right the second time.
	Right.
	Well, I'm sorry about that.
	I'm sorry about that.
	I'm very sorry about that.
	What happened with your son?
	Do you know?
	Well, of course you know what happened.
	Did he get circumcised?
	Yeah, I feel terrible.
	We spanked him, and my voice is breaking up.
	I don't know how well I'm coming.
	Oh, I can hear.
	That's totally fine.
	That's totally fine.
	I mean, you can let your feelings flow here.
	This is a...
	Feeling friendly zone.
	So what's going on for you?
	So I only came to philosophy after hearing you on the Joe Rogan and realized that I'd been doing lots of things wrong.
	And so I've been trying to bring my family along.
	My wife agrees that it's not good to hit.
	And she agrees that it's not good to threaten our son with eternal damnation if he disobeys.
	So that's a really good start, I think.
	Right.
	Right.
	How old is your son?
	Almost five.
	Now, as far as the religion goes, is it my fault?
	Was it this show?
	Was it something else that broke the faith fog?
	Yeah, it's pretty much your fault.
	All right.
	No, it's fine.
	I'll take that.
	Like, I had intentionally avoided, like, atheist arguments just because I knew that I didn't want, like, I knew it would be disruptive.
	And I remember the podcast I listened to was 10 Arguments for Freedom, and it's, like, your atheist arguments snuck up on me.
	So I was, like, trying to avoid it, and...
	Yeah, but you caught me.
	Right, you kind of got roofied.
	Sorry about that.
	I mean, sorry that it was a surprise, but go on.
	So, yeah, like I've been calling myself a moralist now, and it's got lots of conflicts in my family and so on and so forth.
	But I, like, I... I've had lots of good talks with her since initially sending the question in to Mike.
	And I don't think we're in danger of divorce, but I just want to know how to talk to her.
	What is the emotional driver behind the religiosity?
	I mean, again, it's been so long since I believed in a deity that...
	I have a tough time believing that people do it because it really makes a whole lot of sense to them.
	I assume that there's emotional drivers.
	I'm not saying that everyone's a hypocrite who believes, but are there strong emotional drivers?
	Like if she were to accept atheistic arguments, what would be the immediate relational or emotional consequences for her?
	Her family, her mother and father, Are very religious and spent 30 years teaching in a Christian school and in church.
	Right.
	But she's sort of...
	Coming around in that the pastor of that church has really treated them like shit.
	Oh, you mean her parents?
	Yeah.
	Her mom has cancer and...
	They just decided to close the school and cut off her parents' benefits effectively without warning.
	It doesn't seem wildly in the charitable domain.
	No.
	So I think that's a driver in the anti-religious direction, I guess.
	Yeah, I mean, it's one thing if you have the virus.
	It's another thing if you have actively infected others with the virus of faith, right?
	So, I mean, if your wife is, you know, well, this was inflicted on me.
	I'm not saying that's what she believes at the moment, but if she sort of comes to that perspective, that's one thing.
	But if you accept that faith is a harmful delusion and you have actively, I assume if they've been teaching kids for 30 years, right?
	Hundreds or probably thousands of children have been infected with and had their faith virus fed and grown fat in blood and words.
	That's a really rough thing to look back on your life and say, this thing which is not true and is harmful is something that I pretty much force fed to kids for 30 years, right?
	Yeah, of course.
	Because it's important to look at the cost of changing people's minds, right?
	I mean, most people...
	The only principal that they know is the one that they sat in the office in the school, right?
	I mean, they don't make decisions based on principals.
	It's a cost-benefit analysis, and that's sort of why I ask, what would it cost?
	Right, so with your wife, it would cast that her parents, who she grew up imagining, thinking that they were doing all kinds of good and saving souls and bringing people to Jesus and saving them from the devil and so on, that if she recognizes the falseness and therefore the harm of religiosity, then she has a very, very different relationship with her parents, right?
	Of course, and similarly, we were both in the military when we met, and her brother, like, she's got one brother who's a police officer in the military also, and then another one just joined up, and I tried to talk to him about morality, and it just...
	Like, she just wouldn't accept it.
	It was just like, I need a job, I need to do something with my life.
	And it's hard for her to accept that, like, basically accepting philosophy, I think, is rejecting her family.
	Like what you were talking about earlier in the call, with a lot of what Ryan was saying, it really connects with me also.
	Right, right.
	Right.
	And I mean, it's obviously enormously complicated by your son.
	I mean, infinitely really complicated because he's an innocent party in all of this.
	And like, first of all, I really want to, holy crap, if I dare use a mixed metaphor, fire a cannon full of philosophy medals at your chest because, wow, what a journey to make, my friend.
	That's astonishing, right?
	What an amazing journey to make from military and religious to, I guess, where you are at the moment.
	You said you weren't listening to the Atheist talks, I guess you were listening to some of the libertarian or a voluntarist or anarchist talks and all that kind of stuff.
	You don't have to talk about where you are there, but even to have an open mind to listen to, to receive the arguments, that shows a keen mind and a very deep and admirable capacity for integrity.
	I just really wanted to express my incredibly deep admiration for your ability to process arguments, your willingness to stick with difficult topics.
	Remarkable.
	Would that there were more people such as yourself, the world would be healed a lot faster.
	And I just wanted to mention that up front.
	Well, that's wonderful.
	Thank you very much.
	So...
	Is your wife willing to fake it?
	In what sense?
	Like, my mom...
	Well, be a double agent of truth and reason, right?
	Is your wife willing to...
	Like, would she be willing to be...
	A skeptic around you and more pious around her parents, so to speak.
	Is she willing?
	I assume you're not living with them, right?
	So it's not going to be 24-7, right?
	But, you know, is she willing to bow her head and say grace to keep peace with her parents even if she's more skeptical outside of their presence?
	That's a good question.
	I've tried to do that myself, being respectful, and I have a hard time with it.
	I haven't asked her to do that sort of thing.
	But an easier time than a divorce, right?
	Yeah, of course.
	Right.
	I mean, I wouldn't be suggesting this except for there's a son, right?
	And, you know, he needs his dad.
	Obviously, you know that, right?
	He's an innocent party in all of this, and if your wife feels that if she accepts atheist arguments, then she must be an open atheist with her parents, well, you know, a lot of people know they're gay a long time before they come out to their parents, right?
	I'm not saying the man someone never do, right?
	Yeah, that's a reasonable metaphor.
	And, of course, if her mom has got cancer, and I don't know what her health status is or whatever, but, you know, obviously, if you're...
	I'm not saying this is, but if it were the situation that her mother were, like, two weeks away from dying, then...
	Going in with atheism and religion is a lie and harmful and you spend your whole life doing...
	I don't know.
	That just seems a little bit rough and not particularly necessary.
	I mean, it's not like she's going to be teaching anyone else about religion in the last two weeks, right?
	Right.
	The prognosis is good for what it's worth.
	Oh, good.
	Okay.
	All the better.
	So, I, you know...
	All is permitted with honesty.
	This is my basic approach to things.
	This is why everybody keeps trying to make me into someone who's giving people rules.
	Like the moment you become an atheist, you must be an atheist with everyone.
	Nobody must be hidden from your illumination, right?
	And you must expose and – Spray out the faith virus wherever you find it.
	I just think that's crazy.
	I mean, philosophy is not Sergeant Major self-improvement who screams at you and calls you a maggot until you do 50 and heal the world of everyone who believes in religion, right?
	You all had enough of that, I assume, in the military, right?
	Indeed.
	Yeah, and philosophy should not become a boss.
	Philosophy should not be like a computer programmer that tells you what to do, like you're a computer, right?
	The whole point of philosophy is honesty and choice.
	And everything that you're honest about with yourself, I believe, is not only survivable but healthy.
	So if you were to say to your wife, look, you and I have a relationship even though we disagree.
	You and your parents can have a relationship even though you disagree.
	We just have to be honest about it.
	And so I don't want you to think that...
	The moment that you accept atheist arguments is the moment then you become like a scud going towards the yurt hut of your parents' belief systems.
	I don't believe that's true, right?
	The acceptance of a belief is not a commandment to action.
	If I say I'm fat, that doesn't mean I am now programmed to diet, right?
	It just means I'm accepting a truth about myself.
	I never thought of that that way.
	But it is so essential to not turn philosophy into the new authority, right?
	Are you tired of God?
	Are you tired of government?
	Well, philosophy can be your new dictator.
	Well, no.
	No, that's not the point.
	And there's not value in that.
	Philosophy expands choice.
	There's no military police, no brig, and no orders.
	And so if you say to your wife something like, look, let's forget about the consequences of these beliefs because there are no enforced consequences to beliefs.
	There's no heaven and hell in philosophy.
	There's a good and bad conscience which mostly has to do with honesty versus self-deception.
	But if you can say to your wife, let us explore these ideas while rejecting any automatic consequences to this exploration.
	We can look at a map without planning a trip, right?
	We can look at the night sky without having to become an astronaut.
	We can look at a cookbook without having to become a cordon bleu chef.
	We can go to the bakery without having to buy every cake, or even any cake, for that matter.
	Philosophy is about exploration, with principles.
	The exploration is not a commandment to action.
	Now, this is different from religion, and it's different from the state.
	So just in traditional Christianity, If you accept that Jesus is your savior and without Jesus you go to hell, and the way that you worship Jesus is go to church and pay a tithe, what do you have to do?
	Go to church and pay a tithe.
	Yeah, there's consequences to this belief.
	And the consequences flow from the acceptance of the proposition, right?
	Yes.
	Now this is not the case in philosophy, because there's no heaven and hell.
	So in philosophy, you explore ideas and arguments, but without it being a flick on a giant Goldberg machine domino effect.
	First we say, what is truth?
	Then we say what is universal.
	Then we say what is preferable.
	Then we say what is virtue.
	In none of that exploration is there a commandment to action.
	Is there a commandment to making or breaking anything?
	Right?
	There may be things that flow logically from A particular set of beliefs, but even that is not a commandment.
	I've never said to people, you have to break with status.
	I say, well, look, if you define these people as evil and you have informed them of the nature of their immorality and they continue to persist in it, I don't think it's a wise thing to do to hang around with people you've openly defined as evil, but these are merely the logical consequences of a particular set of beliefs.
	But they're not commandments.
	They're not commandments.
	Now, in the Bible, it says, shun unbelievers and all that kind of stuff, right?
	But that's a commandment.
	And so we're so used to value judgments being commandments.
	And that's your wife's paradigm.
	If I believe on something, it must fundamentally change my actions, right?
	Yeah, I think that's where we're coming from.
	And the reason that most belief systems in the world say that acceptance of belief is a domino that results in dollars falling into someone's wallet for the most part, right?
	It's the same thing with the state, right?
	If you accept the state, in other words, if you live in the country, by God, you must obey the laws, right?
	Love it or leave it.
	Love it or leave it, right?
	And so, with the state and with religion, it is obey after acceptance.
	And you are punished even if you don't accept, so just obey, basically, is all it comes down to.
	But with philosophy, that's not the case.
	Philosophy is much closer to science.
	I mean, it's really the father or the mother of science, but...
	Philosophy is about exploration.
	Where do you want to go today?
	Do you want to go anywhere today?
	Here's some maps.
	Here's some compasses.
	It's up to you.
	Now, if you want to go to San Francisco, well, you have to do...
	Don't head north from Toronto, right?
	Unless you're willing to swim quite a long way.
	But this is really important to detach consequentialism from the exploration of Yeah, that's what I
	was doing.
	And...
	So if your wife is like, well, okay, if I even dip my foot into this pool, a giant shark is going to come out and eat me whole, then she's not going to want to go anywhere near the water, right?
	Right.
	Removing the consequentialism takes away the hysteria from the exploration of arguments, right?
	Well, let's say we accept all these atheist arguments.
	It doesn't mean that we have to do anything as a consequence.
	That's profound to me.
	I think that's really going to be something that helps.
	Well, and I think that the reason that you could appeal to this with regards to the son, right?
	With your son.
	I mean, I would assume that she does not want her son to agree with her because he's afraid of her, right?
	Absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	She wants her son to agree with her if what she's saying makes sense.
	And if it doesn't make sense, she doesn't want him to fake it, right?
	And so she doesn't want her son's adherence or acceptance or allegiance or obedience.
	Look at me going through the synonym dictionary.
	Somewhat synonym dictionary.
	But she doesn't want her son's obedience because he's afraid of the consequences of disobedience.
	In other words, she does not want her son's integrity to be driven by consequentialism, right?
	Right.
	That's one thing we've talked about, that we want him to do what's right, not because he's afraid of the consequences, but because he understands what is right.
	Exactly.
	And the idea of truth as altering physics is why people avoid truth, because they don't want physics to be altered.
	They built their houses on one side of physics, they don't want it to go from Earth to Jupiter, because then Their houses will collapse as dozens of times the gravity, right?
	So truth is not physics.
	Truth is simply exploration.
	And to avoid topics and being honest about them is fine, but you cannot avoid topics logically because of a fear of consequences because topics Do not contain, inherently, consequences.
	Topics in philosophy do not contain consequences.
	If you step off a cliff, the consequences you're going to fall, right?
	So physics contains consequences.
	You drink arsenic, you're going to die, right?
	So, in physics there are consequences.
	In philosophy, there are not.
	There is exploration.
	Now, Consistency may drive consequences, but consistency can be violated in my book as long as there is honesty about the inconsistency.
	I choose not to be an atheist around my parents because blah, blah, blah, ABC, XYZ. I have no problem with that as long as there's honesty.
	And so if you can detach the domino theory of infinite consequences from your wife's exploration of these ideas, then she will be able to explore these ideas without the emotional volatility of disastrous consequentialism.
	And she can be as religious as she wants around her parents and still explore these ideas.
	Because we must Ferociously fight against all commandments in philosophy.
	That makes complete sense, and I'm really excited to share that with her.
	Yeah, just say, if there were no consequences to our discussion, wouldn't it be fun?
	Yeah, and we've been having more discussions recently and enjoying them together.
	Right, and you don't want your son to obey you because He's afraid you're going to spank him, right?
	You said that you were moved, and I appreciate that and respect you for that.
	Moved about the prior spanking choices, and you don't want that.
	And you don't want fear of disaster in relationships to be that way, which you cannot explore these topics with your wife.
	Just throw away the consequences and explore the ideas, and that's, I think, much more intimate.
	But when people are terrified of consequences, you know, drink this as water is one thing.
	Drink this as poison is another, right?
	Yeah.
	And there's no poison in thought, right?
	I feel like we've been taught that, though.
	Well, in religion there's that, and in statism there's that, but that's why philosophy needs to make more of a center stage in human thought, right?
	Right.
	And if she wants to call into this show, I mean, I'm certainly happy to chat with her.
	I'm happy to answer questions.
	You know, we had this woman...
	I guess when we did the show last week, who broke up with a guy because she couldn't accept the arguments for strong atheism, which I then provided to her in about four and a half minutes.
	And she was like, oh, and I was like, don't call in sooner.
	So if she wants to call in and speak with, you know, not a great Satan, but probably a medium sized one, she's certainly welcome to do that.
	Alright, I will invite her to do that.
	And I am very thankful for everything you do.
	And I have donated and will continue to.
	Well, I appreciate that too.
	And if we can save you the cost of a divorce, it will hopefully be money well spent.
	And I don't see any reason why that would be necessary or inevitable.
	So yeah, keep us posted.
	And again, if there's anything else we can do, I am very keen on keeping good families together.
	So give us a shout if there's anything we can do.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Thank you so much for calling in.
	And Mike, who will be next?
	Alright, just before we move to the next caller, I just want to point out there's two really great podcasts on this subject that I strongly recommend people dig deep into the Free Domain Radio archives and listen to.
	They're titled Screw the Rules 1 and 2, and they're numbers 963 and 964.
	That's Screw the Rules, and pretty much How to Keep Philosophy from Bullying You, where Steph elaborates on what he discussed in this previous call, and I personally found those to be incredibly useful.
	So, strongly recommend those.
	That's 963 and 964.
	Yeah, and it is, you know, I steadfastly reject and refuse, and one of the biggest fights that I have as a public intellectual is the fight against personal authority, the fight against the imposition of rules.
	Yep.
	All that is required is honest.
	Look, if you want to be a libertarian and hang around with statists, be a libertarian and hang around with statists.
	That is entirely fine.
	Just be honest about it.
	That's all and say, well, I don't take these beliefs very seriously.
	That's completely fine.
	That's completely fine.
	Say there are limits to the degree of integrity I'm willing to practice.
	That's fine too.
	But don't say, I'm really committed to these ideas and then hang with people that your ideas and your philosophy define as immoral.
	Because then if things go wrong, people will think, well, see, this is what happens when you live with integrity.
	Like, if you're not going to follow a diet, don't read the diet book in public and then tell people you're following the diet if you keep gaining weight.
	That's all.
	Just say to people, I'm reading this diet book.
	I'm doing the exact opposite of what the diet book recommends.
	And that's fine.
	Then people, if you keep gaining weight, people then won't get confused and blame the diet, right?
	Just all you have to do is be honest, not just with yourself, but with those around you.
	So, all right, and...
	Who's next?
	All right, Alexander is next and he's got some questions on friendship, one of my favorite subjects.
	First question is, is it more important for co-workers and friends to respect you as a person for the work that you do or for you as a person?
	All right, so we've got four quadrants here, right?
	Friends, co-workers, work you do yourself as a person.
	So which one do you want to align first and examine?
	If it's all right, I would like to examine the co-worker and work one first.
	Okay.
	Okay, so co-workers and the work that you do.
	Do you want to talk about the work that you do or do you want a hypothetical?
	You know what?
	I think it would be best if I talked about the work that I do.
	It might make it a little easier.
	All right.
	Please tell me you're a sex worker.
	Oh, male.
	No, but you don't – like are you a webcam sex worker?
	What?
	Oh, no.
	Sorry, sorry.
	I thought you said the sex of my coworkers, and I said they're all men.
	Turn on your webcam.
	I need to check.
	No, I'm just kidding.
	Okay, so what do you do?
	Well… Right now I just got a job in collections, but actually what all these questions are really about are the band members I'm in.
	I'm in a band and there's a really, really good chance that I could do this for a living.
	And that kind of puts the co-workers and friends in a...
	I think it blurs the line.
	And so when it comes to these relationships, I'm kind of wondering If it's possible, if I can, you know, keep them strictly as co-workers, if that's necessary, if that would work, or...
	Wait, wait, I don't, sorry, I don't understand.
	Oh, what does being in a band have to do with co-workers?
	I'm missing that point.
	Oh, well, maybe it's just, maybe it's the language we use that's confusing.
	A lot of, two of them have full-time jobs, you know, we're really...
	Oh, you mean your bandmates?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Oh, I thought you meant the people of the collecting agency.
	Unless your band owes a lot of money.
	No, no, no, no.
	Sorry.
	Those are totally separate, yeah.
	Okay, so your bandmates.
	Yes, my bandmates.
	So two of them have jobs.
	Yeah, full-time jobs, working overtime.
	Everybody's kind of trying to get in that category because running, financing a band, it's kind of difficult when you're starting out, so...
	You mean like tours and equipment?
	Yeah.
	And what kind of band are you guys writing your own stuff or are you covering?
	We're a metal band and we're writing our own stuff and it's really difficult in terms of it's very technical so we have to practice a lot too.
	It's a big time commitment.
	There's a lot of energy that goes into the writing process.
	Oh yeah.
	So, juggling a full-time job and trying to do everything you can to get the highest quality equipment, paying for advertising, paying for all the people who will help out, say, even the makeup artists, the actors for the music video we just did.
	You know, there's a lot of...
	Do you want to do a plug here?
	I mean, I'm happy to put this out to the listenership if you want to put a plug in for your band name, location, website.
	Oh, let's see.
	Iron Poodles?
	Wait, no.
	Well, I'm trying to...
	You know what?
	I don't think that would be a good idea because, well...
	Alright, you know what?
	Alright, for whatever.
	We can cut it out.
	I mean, we've still got an editing process to go through, so put it in now.
	It's easier to cut it out if you don't want it later than to put it in if you want it.
	So do it now, and then...
	Yeah, I'll do that.
	Okay, our name is Shallow Grave, and we haven't actually launched anything yet.
	We're just waiting the next two weeks to launch our website.
	The music video kind of start throwing and pushing out all of our material in a In a strategic order that we're still kind of working on.
	We're based out of Brooklyn, New York, and our influences are August Burns Red, Parkway Drive, and basically a bunch of other bands on Sumerian records.
	And what was that other record label?
	Well, more on the Sumerian side, I believe.
	So if you're interested in those, then you would probably like our stuff.
	As well.
	All right.
	So even though none of the bands that you mentioned is composed of Queen, I think that it's very good that you are promoting your band.
	Listen, I understand for the younger people, you may have listened to bands other than Queen for reasons I have yet to figure out, but obviously you'll be looking into it now.
	Shallowgrave is the name of the band.
	And yeah, I hope people will check it out.
	By the time this goes live, your website should be ready to roll.
	And, yeah, go check him out.
	And do your bandmates have families?
	Is this why they're—what's the—right?
	Well, one of them just got out of college, and he's planning on getting married.
	The rest, no.
	We're kind of—the rest are— Well, my singer is...
	Yeah, young single guy.
	Now, the guy who's getting married, is he like the front man?
	What's his gig?
	What's his job?
	He's the guitarist.
	And the other guitarist, by the way, is actually a fan of Queen, so just throwing that out there.
	All right.
	No, I appreciate that.
	I appreciate that.
	I mean, you can lead with that next time, but it's okay if you don't know your audience that well.
	That's all right.
	And so you've got two guitarists.
	That's good.
	That's metal.
	Who runs a chainsaw?
	No, I'm kidding.
	So, the guy who's getting married, what does his fiancé think of the band?
	That's a good question.
	I asked him, does she like metal music?
	And he actually told me that he doesn't think she's particularly into it, but it's...
	No, no, no.
	Didn't ask about metal music.
	Oh, I'm sorry.
	What was that?
	I asked about your band in particular.
	Oh.
	Shallow Grave.
	Right, right, right.
	What does she think of Shallow Grave?
	Um...
	I actually didn't get an answer to that, so I honestly don't know.
	Would you like a guess, or...?
	No, I think it's something you need to know.
	Okay.
	If she's not behind it, it ain't gonna happen for him, right?
	So I would be pretty ruthless.
	I did a bit of garage banding when I was a teenager.
	I'd be pretty ruthless when it came...
	Like, you know, I mean, I don't have to tell you, right?
	Yeah.
	Touring is brutal, right?
	It's necessary, but it's rough.
	And so if people aren't committed to it, like if you're going to go on tour, you might go on tour for six months.
	You might go on tour for a year.
	Now, is this woman going to be coming along or is she going to be sitting at home with, you know, a slender, twitchy hole in the bed where her husband used to be, right?
	Right.
	Just going with my guitar stereotypes, right?
	But...
	Right.
	So that's the question.
	I mean, I assume that touring is something that you need to do to build your audience.
	I don't know.
	Do bands still tour?
	Oh, yes.
	And it's your Justin Bieber, right?
	Touring is the deal, right?
	That's where you go and get your audience.
	Touring will take you a couple of years before you may get anything major going on, right?
	And is she married knowing that this is what this guy wants to do?
	Now, if he's not told her about it or if she's not into it and so on, personally, in my humble opinion, I would look for another guitarist, but that is, you know...
	Oh, I... Yeah, I'm sorry.
	She...
	She went to the first filming of the music video and she was with us in the recording studio sometimes.
	So, yeah, it's totally obvious based on her actions that she's totally supportive and behind him and the band because she knows.
	Well, no, no.
	But does she know what all this means?
	Like, is she going to tour with you guys or is she staying home?
	Oh, and is she going to be comfortable like guitarists, right?
	If he's a good looking guy or even if it's just a guy with a guitar, right?
	And guitars make, you may not know this from an audio engineering standpoint, but guitars set off sort of sub harmonic waves that make panties disintegrate, right?
	So it's like high notes for a singer, right?
	I mean, it just makes bras explode in very syrupy and, I dare say, lubricated ways.
	So is she going to be comfortable?
	If she's not coming on the road, is she going to be comfortable with women's panties exploding around her husband's fretwork and shredding technique, right?
	So these are all kind of important questions, right?
	Yeah, I've thought about him.
	I guess I wasn't sure when would be an appropriate time to ask more about him, or if that's more of his thing, but I don't know.
	I guess it's not clear whether or not she would go with the band or not, but based on the fact that all of our favorite bands, like the one band that we all like, Between the Buried and Me, they're It's pretty well known that they, and actually a lot of other metal bands, eventually every member got married.
	Some have kids.
	But that's after they were established, right?
	Yeah, that's true.
	That's not an accident, right?
	Right.
	Yeah.
	Now, why not make the case that everyone should just quit their jobs?
	All of that?
	Yeah, that's something we did talk about, and that's basically we have to get signed before we can quit our jobs and actually be on tour and have some kind of income from merchandise.
	No, but hang on.
	No, you can get paid for being on tour, right?
	I mean, like bars and clubs and all of that, they pay bands, right?
	I know it's not a huge amount, but you can get paid for being on tour, right?
	Yeah.
	Oh, you mean like if we organized our own tour before we got signed?
	Yeah.
	Oh, okay.
	Well, that wasn't part of our plan, the way our singer and his friend who does a lot of producing, video editing, that sort of thing, and advertising, that's not kind of what we had in mind.
	We were doing it in a kind of reverse order, but yeah, I was kind of thinking about that.
	I mean, look, again, I don't know a huge amount other than band biographies that I've read, so this is just my entrepreneurial side and a tiny bit of musical knowledge, so take this for what it's worth.
	But I would assume that the more practiced you are, the more polished you are, and the more original material you have when you're signed is the degree to which signing will Happen faster and better and this kind of stuff, right?
	Yeah, that's definitely true.
	That's why we're all practicing as much as we can on our own time whenever we're not working.
	So I guess the other question is I think everybody's convinced that they can make it happen with the full-time jobs.
	And so far it looks like we need the money more.
	Because there are certain financial problems we're going to run into.
	Like what?
	Well, let's see.
	My singer, he just got evicted and he's having financial problems because he can't even really afford to keep living where he's living.
	I'm trying to move out of the house or at least be able to afford more studio time and Transportation, cars.
	Some of us don't have cars.
	We're trying to save up.
	We're just saving up for gas.
	Well, maybe more advertising.
	I'm not sure.
	Now, do you have anybody with musical business experience around you?
	No.
	I don't.
	That may be something to think about.
	And it doesn't mean you have to pay someone.
	Right?
	Bands that you like who aren't super big, they may give you some advice.
	You might find them on Facebook or give them a pig and say, listen, you know, how did you guys do it?
	I've read a bunch of...
	I find bands and music completely fascinating, so I don't know how many band bios I've read about what they did and how they made it.
	And a lot of it seems to have a lot to do with commitment, right?
	Like, to go back to Queen, right?
	So, you know, the drummer...
	Roger Taylor was in dentistry school.
	The guitarist, Brian May, was doing his PhD in astrophysics.
	Freddie Mercury was in art design school.
	I can't remember what John Deacon was doing, but they're all pretty educated, and they gave up that stuff to just tour.
	And for years, Freddie Mercury was living in this tiny little room with mold on the wall and shit like that.
	And they just went and...
	Toured and built up an audience through touring and they were a cover band originally.
	And Freddie was basically like, look, if we want to do anything, we have to do original material, right?
	You can only cover band your way to the middle.
	You can't cover band your way to the top.
	I don't care how good you are, right?
	And we need to work on original material.
	And so basically they gave up being a cover band and just started working on original material.
	And you know, Queen 1 went nowhere.
	Queen 2 gave them Seven Seas of Rye.
	That was their only hit.
	Although I think it's a side too.
	Freddie's side is a pretty great set of songs.
	And then my sheer heart attack, you know, gave them one or two hits.
	And then, you know, they started to get some more stuff.
	I guess what was their first big hit?
	I still remember seeing this on Top of the Pops, Killer Queen.
	And then, you know, so literally, you know, the 10,000 hours, right?
	I mean, it takes 10,000 hours to start doing stuff that's really cool and original.
	And it certainly was the case with me with philosophy.
	It seems to be the case fairly well documented with music as a whole.
	So, and it's one of the reasons why the Beatles were so big is they played for seven hours a day in Hamburg for years, right?
	More, you know, more time there than most bands ever play live their whole life.
	They did this when they were young and had the time and they all just gave up their lives and went over to go and live in Hamburg and play.
	And then they started writing songs and, you know, they just, they thought and they did it, right?
	I mean, that amount of practice is, you know, practice seven hours a day, you're going to get pretty good at anything.
	Oh, yeah.
	I mean, I... So, sorry.
	So, you know, the first thing that...
	When I look at any particular kind of venture, right, the first thing that I do is look at commitment.
	And, you know, the old thing that they say about the arts, like, if you can be happy doing anything else, then do that other thing, right?
	Because it's hard.
	And the people who fall away are legion.
	And, you know, if you want to be like a bar band, that's fine.
	If you want it to be a hobby, that's fine or whatever.
	But if you really want to make it, and I, you know, I'm the kind of person who's like, well, if I want to do something, I just want to be the best.
	I mean, why aim for the middle?
	That's kind of depressing, especially when it's music where there's such a high toll rate, it takes such great sacrifices and so on, right?
	Yeah.
	So, you know, aim to be like the baddest, kick-assest, most exciting, make the crowd's heads explode with thrill and excitement and great tunes.
	Aim for that.
	And that takes your 10,000 hours.
	It takes your commitment.
	And most people who put in the 10,000 hours end up doing a great job.
	And most people who don't, don't.
	And so if you guys want to do it, you know, where there's a will, there's a way.
	Or as Nietzsche said, give a man a why and he can bear almost any how.
	And if you guys want to be the best metal band around, then to me it would just be like commitment.
	Like I want to be the greatest philosopher ever.
	I want all philosophers after me to say, damn, I wish I'd been that guy when that technology came around.
	Because, you know, he tied it up a whole bunch of shit and now we're just cleaning up stuff, right?
	I mean, that's what I want.
	I mean, that's what I aim for.
	I've always been open about that level of ambition.
	I just, you know, why would I want to be just someone who's contributing a little bit to the interconnected human fabric of thought?
	It's like, no, I want to revolutionize the goddamn discipline and take these spinning abstract platonic wheels, slap some Aristotelian rubber on them and put them on the goddamn road and have them go somewhere and take people with them.
	So, those are sort of my thoughts about what it takes to succeed in the arts.
	I didn't have that when it came to acting or playwriting or even novel writing.
	I was willing to put the time in, but I just...
	Well, first of all, it was two reliance on other people, and I didn't like that.
	I like relying on myself and now Mike and soon-to-be employee number three.
	But I really like just I'm going to do the job.
	I don't like gatekeepers.
	I don't like people who decide whether what I'm doing is appropriate or not or whatever.
	Correct in some way that I can't quite define or not.
	I just want to have that.
	And bands have that now, right?
	You can go direct to the audience.
	You cut a great video and you can get a lot of attention and you can get booked through that, right?
	I mean, the capacity to make a go of it as a band now, it's not just Bieber, right?
	It's other people too.
	So as far as I think that you want to sit down with your band members and just give them the fucking take no prisoner speech.
	If we're going to do this thing, Then let's do it.
	And if we have to live in a van for a year or two, then we do it.
	I took a huge pay cut to do what I'm doing and invited all kinds of calumny and hostility and crazy shit into my life that is just part of the price of doing what I do.
	But yeah, I liked it when nobody knew me.
	That was really nice in a lot of ways.
	I like that people know philosophy.
	I wish they didn't give a shit about me.
	I like that they know philosophy.
	And if I could have done this in some anonymous way, well, that wouldn't have worked out because...
	Then I wouldn't have had the courage of my convictions to stand in front of them and show who I was.
	But to me, it's like you don't take a water gun to D-Day.
	You know, like if you're going to take the beach, then, you know, suit up and go in blazing.
	Hmm.
	Okay.
	Yeah, that...
	Well, that makes a lot of sense.
	It just...
	I'm under the impression that I didn't quite make the point that we're all...
	These are the best musicians I've ever played with, ever.
	They're really, really good.
	Let's see.
	How do I... Well, pretty much ever since I started drumming, I've also practiced a lot.
	So just the amount of hours I've logged practicing throughout my life up until this point is really, really unusually high.
	So I think based on the time that most of us have practiced, well, yeah, all of us really have practiced, I think that kind of gives us some leniency or at least some time.
	That we can devote to making money, and I think that's probably why we're confident that we can hold on to the full-time jobs at least for now.
	I mean, yeah, maybe, yeah, we might go plan some kind of tour maybe early next year.
	That's actually a possibility.
	But I think that's why we're confident right now in what we're doing.
	And secondly, we actually, the one person who knows the most about the industry, how it is now that we know, is the producer who When he makes this video, it's going to kind of jumpstart his career so that he can do more of that for metal bands.
	He's currently doing all kinds of photography and video editing for, I think it was some kind of lighter genre of music.
	But anyway, so he wants to do more metal.
	He knows the industry and he basically told us that We need to look like we have money because a lot of record companies, you know, bands, there's some kind of financial thing with bands and then they break up based on that.
	And record companies, if they see that we already have some kind of money, then they're not as concerned about that or that their investment isn't as risky, if that makes sense.
	And that's just what I was told.
	I'm trying to process that too.
	But it sounds reasonable to me.
	I don't know.
	What do you think?
	Well, it sounds like, I mean, you've got your decisions lined up.
	Then I certainly wish you the very best with the band.
	Those are just my thoughts.
	I'm a big one for kind of go all in.
	Especially when you're young and single and pre-kids and all that.
	I mean, just...
	Go and play.
	If you've got to play in coffee shops, go play in coffee shops.
	If you've got to, just go play.
	And the word will get out.
	And write.
	Play and write and play and write.
	That would be my suggestion.
	If the guy is homeless, it's a good time to not get a new place, right?
	Yeah, well, I think the main reason why I kind of wanted to talk about the whole respect thing and friendships and co-workers, though, It wasn't really because of our financial situation.
	Maybe it's probably related to the psychological pressures that come with that, but it's really more of respect and the writing process.
	We've had a few arguments.
	Some of them get kind of intense sometimes.
	It's not as clear as if you're hanging out with a friend who you just know from school or from your childhood.
	There's no professional relationship, so that person kind of has to respect you as a person before work is relevant.
	And somebody who you just work with, who you just met, that's neatly in that category.
	But when you're in a band and your work and your personal relationships are kind of mixed, does that mean that if I have any kind of Personal problem or if anybody else has a personal problem, if there's some kind of conflict at the personal level, then we can't work together.
	So I'm just trying to figure out, you know, I'm trying to draw the lines and figure out if this happens, would this be enough that the band might break up over it or we'd have to just get rid of that person or I would have to leave.
	So I guess that's the main reason why I was calling in.
	Well, I mean, if you believe in each other as musicians and you believe in each other as creative artists, then you just make that commitment to stay, right?
	Okay.
	Alright, you think it's that simple?
	Yeah, so you sit down and you say, okay, look, obviously we're going to have disagreements, right?
	I mean, obviously we're going to fight about whose song we should play or whose song we should learn or whose song we should work on or we're going to fight about royalties.
	Look, we're going to have conflicts, right?
	And what do we do?
	What do we do?
	When we have these conflicts, right?
	And so, you know, my wife and I, we were aware that we were going to have conflicts.
	And we say, listen, if we're going to get married, then we're going to stay and work on the conflicts.
	We're going to work out the conflicts.
	Nobody gets to storm out.
	Nobody gets to threaten divorce.
	Nobody gets to, right?
	I mean, not that we've come anywhere close to that, but that was our commitment.
	We are committed to this relationship and we are going to make it work, right?
	Right.
	Okay, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
	And you just have that conversation to say, look, is this what we're going to do?
	Now, if people are like, well, you know, I don't want to be comfortable with that, you know, I mean, I'm happy to walk you out if I have too many disagreements and so on, then you're kind of in a constrained place, right?
	You need trust to be creative.
	Oh, yeah, yes.
	Right, you need to know, like, I can come up with some creative, like, Micah, how many show ideas do I come up with that suck?
	Oh, I don't think there's that many.
	But there's some, right?
	There's some that we go, no one would be interested in that.
	What were we talking about, like historical anarchism?
	History of anarchism, history of philosophy.
	Who's going to click on that on YouTube kind of thing?
	Or even things did that mashup about the truth, right?
	And I was like, hey, we should upload this to our channel.
	And you're like, eh, you know, for X, Y, and Z, right?
	Right.
	And I have the same thing.
	I have plenty of ideas.
	And it's like, nah, let's not do that.
	So when it comes to creativity, then you need to have trust.
	And trust is the essence of creativity.
	If you don't have trust, then you self-censor for fear of upsetting the relationship.
	And if you self-censor, you can't be creative.
	Oh my, you just blew my mind with that.
	That's, wow.
	Okay.
	Yeah, how would it be, Steph, if when you propose an idea that I didn't like and went, Jesus Christ, Steph, what are you talking about?
	That?
	No, no, it's no, Jesus, no, Jesus Christ, Steph, no, if you said that, I quit.
	Right.
	I'm going to take my ball and go home because you had this idea that I didn't like.
	Yeah, then, I mean, even if we work that out, I know that if there's some idea you don't like, then you can just shut me out, right?
	And therefore, how creative can I be?
	I'm happy.
	Yep, absolutely.
	Wow.
	All right.
	What's going on in your head right now, Alex?
	It seems like...
	Basically, I've been in bands in the past with...
	People who are pretty difficult to work with.
	The guitarist in the first band I was in that went in the studio and we started out to be kind of serious.
	We had some kind of trust issues and he...
	Didn't want me to do a lot of things on the drum set because he's the guitarist.
	He wants to spotlight most of the attention, that sort of thing.
	So he thought the drummer should kind of hang back sometimes.
	And I'm a little more ambitious than that.
	In fact, I'm very ambitious and have a lot of my own ideas and try to incorporate them.
	We fought a lot.
	And that ended very badly.
	We used to be best friends now.
	We hate each other.
	I want nothing to do with them.
	He invited me to his wedding.
	No, I don't want anything to do with them.
	I mean, all kinds of problems with that.
	And all my personal relationships, I have trust issues and they're being tested in this band right now.
	That's why it's so hard for me to trust everybody in this band, and that's why the writing process is so difficult.
	That makes a lot of sense.
	Yeah, and I'm sure this goes back to childhood stuff.
	I mean, it's the usual theme of the shows, right?
	Like this guy was talking earlier about commitment and focus and pushing through stuff and so on.
	And, you know, again, watch – they're on YouTube.
	Watch Queen work on, you know, a song that's not that great, One Vision.
	But, you know, watch them.
	And Freddie keeps saying to the guitarist, don't try it this way.
	I don't like it.
	Try it that way.
	And the guitarist is like, yeah, absolutely.
	Yeah.
	I'm sorry, the drummer.
	The drummer is saying that, right?
	And listen, I mean, one of their early hits, I mean, they were kind of a hard-rockin' band early on.
	And one of their first hits was You're My Best Friend, which is this guy talking about his wife, you know?
	I mean, it's one of the gayest but loveliest hard-rockin' songs that you can possibly imagine.
	They started off playing Muddy Waters and stuff, and it's like...
	Ooh, you're my best friend.
	It's just like, oh man.
	But they're like, hey, this is a great song.
	Let's make it as fun as we can.
	And it's a light, funny song.
	And Killer Queen, I mean, it's all falsetto.
	I mean, it's like Marie Antoinette.
	Are you kidding me?
	I mean, for a metal band to say, let them eat cake, she says, just like Marie Antoinette.
	I mean, that's crazy, right?
	Yeah.
	And I mean, can you imagine the first time somebody comes in and starts hearing Bohemian Rhapsody, and he's like, they play the opening bell and stuff, and it's like, oh, well, you see, here's where the opera kicks in.
	And I'm like, what are you talking about?
	I mean, if they didn't trust this process, how could they have got anything done that was of any consequence, of any originality?
	Hmm.
	Freddie Mercury suddenly decides that he wants to do an opera album and he just goes and does it with Monsieur Caballet.
	He also decides that he wants to go and do ballet with the National Ballet because he really wants to look as straight as humanly possible.
	And he just...
	You know, they're like, yeah, go for it, right?
	I mean, there was also more of the solo stuff or whatever.
	But it's, you know, and then like most people, the solo stuff that they do is pretty crappy, right?
	But the stuff they all do together, at least in sort of the middle 15-year creative period, was great.
	But I don't...
	You know, people have – the commitment is to the music.
	The commitment is not to the ego.
	The commitment is not to the attention.
	The commitment is how can we make this song better?
	Or how can we make the most pulse-pounding, energetic, kick-ass, dark or light, gay or straight, funny or serious ballad or something that excavates a ghoul's heart and smears it on your brain?
	I mean, whatever we're going to do, the commitment is to the music.
	And whatever it takes to make the music as great as possible, that's what you do.
	And if the guy who writes the song tells you to squeak like a penguin on your head, do that.
	Like a friend of mine was in a heavy metal band and they did a song called Fairies or Boots and they wanted me to come out and attack the guitarist and then throw myself into the audience because that was part of the song, the way.
	That was the way it was in the video.
	And I'm like, yeah, all right.
	Sounds fun, right?
	And so I went down.
	They were playing the Alma Combo when I was a teenager.
	And I came out, went insane on stage, bit the guitarist and jumped into the crowd.
	It's like, well, that's what the song was.
	That's how it worked.
	And so, yeah, sounds great.
	What am I going to say?
	Well, I'm not sure that's really in my dignity as an artist.
	artist is like, no, fuck, do it, you know?
	Hmm.
	That's wild.
	Wow.
	I think the – one of the most frequent criticisms I get is, well, no, that's a little too – Over the top.
	Because, you know, if we don't fit the mold, then the record company won't...
	Wait, wait.
	A metal band is worried about being over the top.
	Yeah, I know, right?
	You know, your clown makeup is too clowny.
	You know, that doesn't...
	You know, as an exotic dancer, I find you too naked-y.
	I mean, isn't that sort of the point?
	We want to be noticed, but we don't want to go over the top.
	It's like, go over the top?
	I mean...
	Freddie Mercury was once talking about, for the works tour, he said, here's what I want, darlings.
	Here's what I want.
	You see, I want there to be a giant open mouth over the stage, and I want this giant cock to come floating in from the end of the stadium and jam itself balls deep into the mouth over the stage.
	Wow.
	Now, that didn't actually happen, but more for reasons of legality than anything else.
	But yeah, interesting.
	Let's explore that.
	I mean, just be open to creativity.
	It's really important.
	So this over-the-top stuff, that's guessing the future.
	Over-the-top is not something that is measured by music.
	I mean, how do I go over-the-top as a philosopher?
	I mean, I don't even know what that would mean.
	Well, I think the difference there is that there's no philosophy company that you have to convince that you're worth to sign a – Yes, there is.
	It's called My Audience.
	Oh, okay.
	I mean, do you think I get paid for nothing?
	I get paid for what I do.
	And I will stop at nothing to serve philosophy.
	I will lead crowds and sing-alongs.
	I will sing well.
	I will sing badly.
	Again, not to bring Queen into everything, but they've got this song which says, "We'll sing to you in Japanese.
	We're only here to entertain you." They'll do anything, whatever it takes to keep the audience's attention and get the And that's just for some stupid songs, let alone virtue, truth, and goodness, right?
	So in the service of music, in the service of philosophy, in the service of your dream, you've got to keep adjectives out of the mix and just commit to fully engage in music.
	The process.
	And who knows?
	What the hell does over the top mean?
	It just means that it makes me anxious to do it.
	Well, good.
	That means you're breaking new ground.
	Then do more of that, right?
	Well, yeah.
	In this case, based on my singer and his background, it seems like it means he's afraid that if it's over the top, it means the two record companies that he thinks we have the best chance at getting signed to or with That they're not going to like it.
	So he's trying to come up with ideas that have worked for other bands and we shouldn't deviate too far from them.
	That's kind of what he means by it.
	Is that your vision?
	Not at all.
	What a successful band looks like?
	No.
	One of the guitarists and I, we have way further crazier ideas that are out there and kind of stretching and pushing the genre and doing all kinds of new things.
	And then the other two guys are kind of like in between both extremes.
	So we have a mix of views on how it's going to work out.
	So far, we've been able to compromise a lot, but I don't know.
	I mean, we'll see what happens.
	Well, then look, if you want to be the creative leader of the band, right?
	And that just means breaking the ice.
	It doesn't mean swimming for everyone, right?
	Yeah.
	But...
	Then, you know, you have to have the same philosophy, right?
	So, Mike, I mean, how do we know?
	What would be something over the top for us?
	Oh, that's a good question.
	I don't know.
	I think you taking your shirt off in the middle of a show was approaching over the top, but that was great.
	Over the topless is different.
	Over the topless.
	I've talked about buying a wig and a...
	Some makeup for you so you can do a show with Stephanie Molyneux talking about feminism.
	I don't know if that's over the top.
	Yeah, I was thinking if there were going to be lots of protesters at the Men's Rights Conference, I was going to go in in drag.
	Right, like I'm with you sisters, let me just slip in through the side here.
	And with a beard so that they couldn't get overly gender stereotypical.
	But, yeah, I would have done the whole thing in full drag if that was going to be what was necessary to get the message across.
	Wow.
	Yeah, you got to do what you got to do.
	I mean, the creativity is really what gets the audience, right?
	I mean, if you have nothing new to offer, then why would any record company be interested?
	No, no, but you guys know.
	You must see the points.
	Oh, sorry.
	Sorry to be annoying.
	No, no.
	What am I missing?
	The point is it's not the fucking record company.
	It's the fucking audience that matters.
	If you guys are playing for the record company, it's the audience that matters.
	If you get a deal with the record company and the audience doesn't love you guys, you will fail.
	Aim at the audience and the record company will be the path to your door.
	Aim at the record company and the audience won't give a shit.
	We're assigned.
	That's for your ego to explain to other people what you're doing.
	It's the audience is what matters.
	Yeah, definitely.
	You aim at the audience.
	What is going to get the asses in the seats?
	And then what's going to get the asses out of the seats so that they'll mosh pit or dance, whatever the hell people do at metal concerts, right?
	Do the robot?
	I don't know.
	But it's the audience, right?
	So this is the focus.
	So if somebody's like, well, I know what the record company's like and the record companies won't like this and won't like that, it's like, hey, I came here for two fucking things, music and an audience.
	The record company is a necessary evil to get that shit accomplished.
	Maybe, I don't know, right?
	But I came here for the music, and I came here for the audience.
	We make great music.
	We connect with the audience as a live act.
	The world is our oyster.
	We don't do those things.
	We may get signed, but everyone's going to lose money, and that's our one shot.
	Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
	I mean, one of my favorite bands, they were signed to a really big record company, and then they were, because they had a really, really loyal fan base, were able to drop off of the record company and do something more independent, and their name is still pretty big.
	Well, yeah, listen, I mean, again, I'm not a band, but I'll tell you this, I mean, All we think about is the audience.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	Absolutely.
	I mean, we think about philosophy and we think about the audience.
	Right, Mike?
	Absolutely.
	There's plenty of shows that I would like to do.
	Like, oh, that would be interesting to look into, but I know it would die a slow death on YouTube.
	And it's not the best time investment.
	Mike, how often do we worry about what the mainstream media is going to say?
	Zero percent of the time.
	Zero percent of the time.
	How often do we think about what trolls are going to say?
	Zero percent of the time.
	Yeah, 0% of the time.
	How often do we think about whether, I don't know, there's some particular interest group somewhere out there, whether they're going to be bothered by what we're going to say?
	Don't give a shit.
	Yeah, occasionally we will think about it and aim at it.
	We've done shows.
	When we did the unschooling show a little while ago, I was like, I'm excited for this show because I know it's going to provoke a lot of conversation within the community.
	It's going to be pretty polarizing.
	I was excited about it because it's an important subject, an important topic.
	I actually like going towards the topics that are going to rustle people's jimmies.
	I know those are the shows I'm most interested in.
	The fire is going to come anyway.
	You might as well walk towards it.
	So what we care about is...
	Is it true?
	Is it valid?
	Is it important?
	And then we care about the audience.
	And it's the intersection of these two things that matters and that is the entire success.
	I think that the audience gets, you can't fake anything and most communication is nonverbal.
	I think that the audience really gets how committed we are to bringing philosophy to the audience in a valuable and engaging way.
	You can't fake that.
	You can't pretend it.
	And they know because sometimes I'm like two and a half hours on a call with someone, right?
	Until we get something of value out of it, right?
	And I know that drives people nuts.
	Like, oh, these shows are too long and this and that and the other.
	Yeah, I get that.
	I get that.
	Tons of cats out there playing piano on the YouTube if you want to go do that stuff.
	But here, you know, we don't expect to change people's lives in 28 seconds or more or less, right?
	Sometimes it does take an hour or two.
	To really connect with someone in a way that's going to alter their life trajectory.
	And if people don't want to wait around for that, they don't have to.
	But I am committed to you, the caller, and I'm committed to the audience as a whole.
	So, and the reason I'm saying this is not because you want to start a philosophy show, but because you want to be a great, you want to be in a great band.
	And that means making sure that you commit to the music that commits to the audience.
	Everything else is a distraction.
	And there's nothing wrong with those distractions.
	I mean, they're necessary.
	You've got to drive to the gig.
	But it's like, how can we make the songs that connect to the audience?
	What lyrics can we write?
	What bars can we work in?
	What styles can we use that is really going to connect with...
	I mean, if it's metal, I assume it's some of the anger, some of the pain, some of the frustration, some of the hopes, some of the disappointments that your audience members...
	Will be happening.
	So the audience can look at you and say, these guys are playing my life.
	I had a picture when I was in theater school of a young Marlon Brando, and he was like, he gets it.
	Looking at that picture, like, he gets it.
	And I think that's one of the reasons why Brando, like, he gets some of the existential angst and challenge and horrors and hopes of the modern world.
	You want to create, I think, the kind of stuff where people come to your audience and they feel visible.
	Their inner selves, their secret selves feel visible.
	Maybe for the first time in their lives, they're like, fuck me, these guys get it.
	They get what it's like to be me.
	They're singing my life.
	They are playing my fucking life.
	And I will...
	Walk across a desert for these guys.
	You create the loyalty of visibility, of the visibility of the secrets that everyone is holding inside them.
	You bring those secrets to the light and you make them fucking sparkle with creativity and depth and wit and intelligence and people love you for loving the secrets they never thought they could tell.
	And you can write music like that in any genre.
	Yeah, I think the only thing to add to that would be, because of the really large percentage of the metal fanbase, they also play instruments.
	A lot of the music's really technical and involved, so a lot of the people who can really appreciate it kind of understand the finer details about how this drummer played this fill or groove or this guitarist can do that sweep or whatever.
	I am mighty skeptical of that.
	Oh, really?
	Look, I don't know.
	Oh, no, no.
	Oh, I'm sorry.
	It sounds like you're making it about an appreciation of your technical skill.
	Well, that's the...
	I guess that was my focus in the band, because I don't write...
	No, no, no.
	They don't care if Britney Spears can sing or not.
	Can she sell tickets?
	No, and look, I mean, this comes straight from Quincy Jones, right?
	One of the great producers of the 20th century, right?
	So, Quincy Jones, some guy was coming in to audition and is playing all these riffs up and down on the piano, technically very difficult, and he's like, yeah, okay, it's great that you can do that, but, you know...
	I want songs that you can play with one finger.
	Right?
	You know what he meant by that, right?
	Which is...
	Right?
	You can play Sitting on the Dark of the Bay with one finger.
	Well, I mean, that stuff is catchy.
	It's...
	No, no, no.
	Catchy is what accomplished musicians use to talk about melodies they can't yet write.
	Catchy is a put-down phrase, right?
	Oh, that's catchy, like a bi-menon, like a jingle.
	No, no, no, no.
	No, writing melodies, and melodies doesn't mean pop, right?
	You can have powerful melodies in metal, in punk, you name it, right?
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	But something you can play...
	With one hand.
	You can play with one finger.
	You can play all of Bohemian Rhapsody with one finger, and everybody will recognize it, right?
	Yeah.
	And so, wanting to be known for your technical excellence is a bit of a vanity project.
	And it's not...
	Then you're trying to make it about you and your skill.
	And I'm saying make it about the music and the audience.
	Huh.
	Okay.
	Yeah, I mean, I was trying to do both, but it seems like— No, no, forget the vanity stuff.
	The art is that which conceals art.
	You want to make it look easy.
	And look, there will be people who go like, holy shit.
	Like, damn, that guy can play.
	But look, Eric Clapton has people who don't know which end of the guitar to hold who say, yeah, great songwriter, great singer, right?
	Yeah, is he a great guitarist?
	I don't know.
	I like Layla, right?
	And then there are other people who are like, dear God in heaven, like that man basically was born with a guitar coming out of his ass and he just pushed it the other way and learned how to play it, right?
	Yeah.
	No, so it doesn't matter.
	Listen, I was into Queen long before I got what incredible musicians they are.
	Forget, forget.
	I would rather go see a band play a great song badly than play a bad song really well.
	When I was in Detroit, I turned on the radio, and it was some local campus radio, and they were playing some song, and it was like, oh my god, this is physically unpleasant.
	I'd pay good money for this band to stop playing this song.
	It was atonal, it was offbeat, it was off-kilter, and it's just like, oh my god, that's horrible.
	And everyone who's an aficionado of any band has a couple of songs that are just terrible.
	Right?
	Like Queen has Sweet Lady, right?
	Like, you call you sweet like you're some kind of cheese.
	You call me sweet like I'm some kind of cheese.
	Like, oh my god, there's terrible lyrics, right?
	Or Yellow Breezes or even Stealing.
	I mean, there's bad stuff that they do.
	It's just terrible, right?
	I was very excited when I first got a hold of the live version of Manish Boy because it's a great song.
	But my god, they do a terrible version of it, right?
	So, I mean, the great musicians just doing terrible stuff.
	And who wants to hear it, right?
	So forget about, you know, obviously work on your skills and all that.
	Listen, I mean, if people understood, I would like people to understand more about the technical stuff that I do that is really great, or the insights that I come up with sometimes on the fly, or the stuff that is at the end of the conversation that I say after an hour, this is why I brought it up at the beginning.
	I'd like more people to say, wow, for that kind of stuff, right?
	But fundamentally, that doesn't matter because it's not about people's applause at my skill in these conversations.
	It is about whether I connect with someone to help them with their lives, to help them with their lives with principles.
	So I'm really concerned if somebody says, I want the audience to know how great I am technically.
	That comes from an insecurity.
	I mean, look, listen to Clapton Unplugged, right?
	There's like no fast fretwork in that shit at all.
	I mean, it is slow, lazy, slight guitar, right?
	Absolutely precise and fantastic, right?
	I mean, or you can go listen to Freddie Mercury live doing the Prophet song, where he literally for like six or seven minutes, it's just him and a microphone and a loop back.
	Or, you know, Brian May does his endless wank job guitar solos and stuff like that.
	And I don't care that much about guitar, so I generally skip over those.
	I care more about the vocals.
	But forget it.
	It's not about people's appreciation of your skill.
	It's about you being an invisible pane of glass through which people can see the painting.
	People don't want to say, well, that's really clear glass, isn't it?
	That glass was made so expertly, there's not a bubble in it, there's not a ripple in it.
	You want people to forget about the glass and just see the painting.
	And you want people to forget about you and just see the music.
	Now, the better you are as a musician, the more people are going to see the music and the more people are going to get the music.
	And then some people later will say, well, I guess that was really clear glass that I could see the music through, right?
	That I could see the painting through.
	But if you want people to see what a great musician you are, you're putting your ego between them and the music.
	And that's where you're going to fight for attention, right?
	Yeah, that's a big problem.
	Does this make sense at all?
	Yes, it does.
	And I think I also, wow, just made a connection based on that.
	I think the whole reason why this is such a really big problem is because three of us Well, one of the guitarists, he's really one of the smartest guys I know academically.
	I'm kind of ambitious too.
	I wanted to go to law school and do all these things.
	I always thought it was a matter of just working really hard and reading these books.
	If I do that, I'll get accepted to a law school.
	So I kind of treated this the same way.
	I thought the only thing that mattered was practicing and technical skill.
	If I did this, then, you know, my band would succeed and that's it.
	And now that you're telling me this, I'm starting to realize, well, technical skill is more of, to go back to the pain glass, the greater my skill, the more colors I would have to work with through which the audience can see and appreciate the music.
	Does that make sense?
	Yes, yes.
	Look, I mean, When you go to an art gallery, you don't look at the technique, do you?
	You look at the pictures.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	Now, if you're an artist or if you're interested, you can go.
	But the whole reason that the pictures are hanging there is because they speak to someone.
	They mean something.
	They matter to someone.
	They compel someone.
	They move someone.
	And...
	You need technique to do that.
	I'm not saying, you know, go play the xylophone with five minutes practice and expect to fill Massey Hall.
	You need the technique.
	But the purpose of art, and this goes way back, the purpose of art is to conceal art.
	If you're watching a play and you never forget that it's a play, they've done something wrong.
	Right?
	Like, if you're watching an actor, like, let's say you go watch Harrison Ford do a movie, right?
	And you're like, wow, that really is Harrison Ford.
	Yeah, he's got that same smirk, that same sneer, that same clenched-jawed angry shit that he did all the way from American Graffiti, right?
	Then he's not doing a great job.
	Now, if you forget that it's Harrison Ford, then he's done an amazing job, right?
	Like, you can go and watch Capote and you can forget that it was Philip Seymour Hoffman because he just transforms himself, right?
	Yeah.
	Or if you watch...
	The Godfather.
	And then you watch the movie.
	I can't remember.
	I think you made it with Bertolucci.
	Something Paris.
	Mike, if you can look it up, it's a Brando film with the word Paris in the title.
	I can't remember it for something.
	So, because I watched...
	Last Angle in Paris.
	Last Angle in Paris.
	Thank you.
	So I watched The Godfather where he plays this 65-year-old guy.
	You forget that it's Brando because it's just like, wow, it's amazing.
	And then a movie he made after it called Last Angle in Paris.
	He's playing a dissolute 40-year-old expat in Paris, you know, who perhaps was the inspiration for the marketing phrase, get the butter.
	But he's like a completely different guy.
	A completely different guy.
	Now, Robert De Niro tends to be Robert De Niro.
	They're more characters than they are actors.
	But when people really disappear into a role, that's – to me, then you forget about the art and you're simply – that's a person.
	That's a character.
	Where you're no longer conscious of the effort of art, but you are simply reaping the rewards of art.
	There's no strain.
	There just is, right?
	You have to work really hard to pull a tree out of the ground, but you can just pick a piece of eye-level fruit very easily, right?
	And so I don't want people to think, wow, you know, Steph is really good at these conversations, right?
	Well, I wouldn't mind it.
	It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.
	But I recognize that if I'm going to be the best at the conversations, then my process has to be invisible in the conversation.
	You know, if somebody, like I remember going to see, when I was at a business conference, we went out to do karaoke.
	And someone was singing, I don't even know the name of the song, but it sort of goes, and she will be loved, or something like that, right?
	And man, he just fucking muscled that note, you know?
	I mean, he just didn't know anything about, you know, singing from the belly or relaxing your throat or anything.
	And, you know, there's people who hit the note and then there's just people who fucking punch it, you know, and the note just falls over.
	It's like, okay, you hit the note, but it really hit your back and you'll feel it in the morning, right?
	And that's, whereas a singer who can just sing and it's, you know, effortless or whatever, that's the person you want to go hear or whatever, right?
	And so that, the lack of effort that results from a huge amount of work.
	It's really important, right?
	So people, like I went to the speech in Detroit and people are like, wow, that was a great speech.
	You really connected with the audience.
	You really this, you really that, you know?
	Like it's some sort of miracle.
	You know, like, wow, you've got real talent at public speaking.
	It's like, good God.
	I've been talking to people now, you know, for four, five, six, seven hours a week for eight years, for seven years, for six years, whatever it is, right?
	I mean, every...
	Every speech is a speech.
	Every show is a speech.
	This is a speech.
	And then people find it some sort of miracle that I'm able to talk in front of them.
	Anyway.
	But I like that.
	I like that people are like, well, of course he's going to do a great job.
	I mean, look at all that preparation.
	I want them to think it's a kind of miracle because that means they're not focusing on me and the effort, right?
	So I think as far as connection goes, I want to be...
	The clear pane of glass through which people can see philosophy, through which people can see the truth.
	I really want people to focus on the truth and not me.
	The more they focus on me, the less well I'm doing my job.
	And you'll see this in stupid criticisms of what I do, is that they don't focus on the arguments.
	They focus on me, on my personality, on the effects of what it is that I'm saying, but they won't focus on the arguments.
	Right?
	All they do is look at the glass, they don't look at the picture, and they think they're criticizing the picture.
	But the fact that they're looking at the glass means they're avoiding the picture, and which means they don't get philosophy, which means they have no right to criticize a philosopher, right?
	I mean, I can't criticize an artist by saying the glass in front of the picture is a problem, right?
	I may be criticizing the glass, but I'm not criticizing the art.
	You want people to get so swept up in the music that they don't even know how good you are.
	You're that good.
	You want to aim higher at a recognition of your talents to the point where your talents are invisible.
	That's the supreme ambition.
	The supreme ambition is to have your skill set invisible to the vast majority of people and have it blow the minds of the few.
	Wow.
	Wow.
	Okay.
	Huh.
	Wow.
	That is not something that I would have ever figured out on my own, given the kind of culture and metal and just drumming.
	Wow.
	That's crazy.
	It makes sense, though.
	Yeah.
	A great drummer is like, I don't even know why the fuck my hips are moving, but they sure are, right?
	Yeah, I mean, yeah, it also explains another...
	Why I like music is a little weird, too, because, yeah, I like it for a lot of technical reasons, but there are a lot of songs that I can't explain why I like them, because there's no particular technical reason, and more often than not, a lot of other people really like them, and it's pretty much for the reason you just mentioned, because you can kind of get lost in them and forget about all the band members when you're listening to them.
	So, that makes sense.
	And Alex, there's another component of this too that we touched on gently at the start of the call, and that's the idea of going all in versus having a part-time job or doing it on the side or trying to fit it in or make room for it.
	And, Steph, I know you, when you were making the decision to go full-time to Free Domain Radio, you had the option of working, what was it, three days a week for a decent chunk of change?
	Yeah, pretty good chunk of change to work three days a week and then have four days a week for philosophy.
	This is before I had kids.
	And what was your thought process?
	Why you didn't take that and go, oh, I'll do three days work, four days in philosophy?
	I mean, what was your thoughts around the idea of going all in versus kind of hedging with the stable, reliably?
	Well, I mean, it's a long process, but fundamentally, it was not about me.
	What does the world need?
	Right?
	What does the world need?
	Does the world need part-time philosophy?
	If I thought that it wouldn't make a difference whether I was part-time or full-time, I shouldn't do it at all.
	Like if I think I'm good enough to do it, then the world needs more of me, right?
	Which is why we have a second call-in show now every week, right?
	So if this is helping people and if there's nobody else who can do it in this particular way and if this is essential for the future, then what right do I have to do it part-time?
	If you guys are going to make music that's going to connect people, that's going to inspire people, that's going to kick people out of complacency, that's going to wake up secret parts of themselves that they may have thought were long dead, what the fuck do you have to have a part-time job?
	The world needs you.
	Go do it.
	You know, it's like a doctor saying, well, only I can cure this disease that is killing millions of people, but I'd really like to do some woodworking three days a week.
	It's like, fuck, people are dying.
	Go help them, for Christ's sake, right?
	And I think that comes through in what you're doing.
	You know, if you're all in versus if you're kind of hedging.
	You can't fake it.
	I mean, how many books did you write in the first year, Steph?
	Oh, I wrote two books a year until I had kids.
	And I'm hoping to get back into that.
	But yeah, people know.
	They know if you're all in.
	And I was faced with a similar decision.
	I could have stayed at my jobby job, maybe tried to go part-time, or tried to fit in free-domain radio stuff on the side.
	But we wouldn't have grown the show download-wise three times if I did that.
	That wouldn't happen.
	I wouldn't have been able to just focus 100%.
	And it would have come through in the work that I did.
	Absolutely.
	Well, and my...
	Desperate and bottomless neediness would have invaded your life anyway.
	So, you know, I mean, as soon as I had your text number, I mean, or where you were working, it would have happened anyway.
	Someone called it another bomb threat.
	We don't know what's going on.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Hello, Anderson.
	Right.
	Yeah, yeah.
	No, I mean, it is, you know, Mike goes to the washroom and I panic.
	Yeah.
	And another aspect of this, in addition to going all in, which we touched on earlier, is having the support of the people around you.
	That's the scariest part, by far.
	Because if you don't have that support, it's not going to happen.
	Like, if the bandmate that is getting married, if she's not all in, it's not going to happen with him.
	Yeah.
	If my wife wasn't all in in me doing this, it wasn't going to happen.
	Steph, if your wife wasn't all in, it wouldn't have happened.
	If you don't have people around you that are going to support you, And what you're doing and be there with you if you're passionate, excited to go all in about something, it's not going to happen.
	Well, it's a lack of love, right?
	I mean, if this is what makes me happy, if this is what makes Mike's happy, then our spouses should be into it because they care about us.
	Right?
	So Tom Likas has an argument that I'll just sort of pass along.
	I don't know whether you accept it or not.
	I'm still mulling it over.
	But he basically says, look, women are dream killers because a woman – like whatever you want to get done, get done before you get married because most women do not want their man to continue to upgrade himself because then – They'll sort of feel that he can just do better than them, right?
	Which is sort of why you see usually two fat people together, right?
	Because the woman is like, well, if he loses weight, then he can do better than me.
	He's going to dump me, right?
	I don't know what the man feels, the same thing maybe.
	But women in particular, if the man gets higher status, they're concerned that he's going to dump her and trade up, right?
	And whether you accept that or not, I think it's worth thinking about.
	I can't vouch for it.
	It's not exactly a philosophical truth.
	But this is based on a fairly well-documented hypergamy approach, which is women want to trade up and so on.
	And so that's sort of what I'm asking.
	Is this woman going to be comfortable being married to a rock star who's going to have his pick of women?
	You've got to be a confident woman.
	To want to be married to a rock star, right?
	You got to feel like you got the buns of Heather Locklear and whatever, right?
	Or whatever it is, you got to feel so much like your man loves you so much that even if he has the choice of all the women in the world, he's still going to choose you, right?
	I would think so.
	And so if she's not going to be comfortable being married to a rock star, guess what?
	He ain't going to become a rock star one way or another, right?
	Yeah.
	That would be a really big problem because he's also the one who started the band.
	Definitely the one who got me into it.
	Well, again, these are just things to figure out, right?
	Yep.
	I hope that helps.
	And listen, I mean, Shallow Grave is a great name.
	I wish you the very best with the band.
	And if you want us to help you publicize, I'm all down for being there for the listeners.
	So just let me know what we can do and we'll help.
	That would be amazing.
	Thank you so much for the call, the opportunity to speak to you.
	Wow.
	Thanks a lot.
	I just demand doing backup vocals when you do your final album.
	But anyway, that's a different situation.
	I bet you will.
	You see?
	I got it.
	Anyway, okay.
	So, Mike, who do we have for the last caller?
	All right up.
	Next is Sven.
	And Sven wrote it and said, In my own history, I have overcome a serious drug addiction.
	Given that I'm prone to addictive behavior, how do I know that my obsession with philosophy is healthy?
	Well, you see, you're kind of poisoning the well there, Sven, by using the word obsession.
	I wrote the summary.
	I wrote the summary, so that's not exactly his words, but that's a summary of it, yes.
	Mike, you're transposing back.
	I just wanted to make that clear.
	Just trying to get people in trouble now.
	No, would you say it's an obsession, Sven?
	Yeah, I think so.
	How would you characterize that?
	How would you know?
	Wait, do I have an obsession with philosophy?
	No.
	I think so.
	I think it's – but the question is if it's healthy or not, I guess.
	Well, no.
	If it's an obsession, I think by definition it's not healthy, right?
	Because that's a desire beyond reason and health, right?
	Well, that's sort of tautological.
	But I think – I don't think there's many people who would say that – like if you say I'm obsessed with my ex-girlfriend, how many people say that sounds great?
	Yeah.
	I'm kind of a bit lost now because I was hoping to give a bit of feedback on the first time I called in to the show before we get into the question.
	Is that okay?
	Yeah, whatever you like.
	Because we were on a show called Commitment Kills Procrastination.
	I was the Sven from Australia.
	I don't know how good your memory is for past shows.
	That was about nine months ago.
	I think I remember, but go ahead.
	Yeah, it was because my partner and I, we'd started our new business and I was, well, procrastinating on throwing myself into that.
	So, yeah, I just wanted to let you know, like, I'm sitting in the office of our factory now.
	We signed a three-year lease, so that's pretty committed.
	We've got distribution and our website will be up soon and I wanted to pimp that and also a little offer for FDR listeners that there's like a It's a 10% discount coupon if you use the code FDR1337. And that's activeearthfood.com.au.
	So, yeah.
	1337 LEED. Is that LEED, right?
	FDR LEED? Oh, yeah.
	You know it.
	Okay, okay.
	Yeah.
	What's the website?
	Activeearthfood.com.au.
	It's not quite live yet.
	We're sorting out PayPal integration, but by the time this is released on YouTube, it'll be live.
	And the discount coupon for FDR listeners is FDR1337. So, yeah.
	Well, thank you very much.
	We'll help with that too.
	But, okay, go ahead.
	So, yeah.
	And the other big commitment that I wanted to mention as well is my partner's pregnant, so I'm going to be a dad.
	So, yeah, that's very exciting.
	Well, congratulations.
	Yeah.
	So yeah, the feedback that I wanted to give about the call is because it was about my workaholic dad pretty much.
	It sort of focused around and you pointed out that workaholism is just another form of procrastination.
	I mean, you're procrastinating on love, right?
	So I just wanted to tell a little story because it was interesting to me.
	My sister was over at my parents' place and she texted me like in the middle of the The night pretty much and I had to come basically rescue her because she got in this situation with mum and dad standing over her and kind of aggressive and upsetting to her and this was sort of the first full family discussion about history that we'd had and the topic got around to sort of spanking and stuff and my dad he was trying to sort of defend his position I guess and he
	got up and sort of Stood over me and took this little swing at me and gave me a little tap on the cheek to say, this is all it was and no big deal.
	In the moment that he did that, I just got this full body reaction.
	I don't know if it was an adrenaline rush or something like that, but I kind of just lost it at him.
	My voice was raised and I was really angry and I told him exactly what I think about hitting children.
	It was really weird because I was totally calm inside and watching this happen, but I was really assertive.
	And I guess almost angry on the outside, but I think it was the first time I had valid reasons for my anger and I had the words to express it.
	And I just found it really interesting how calm I was inside, even though I was so emotional and assertive on the outside.
	That conversation and they also listened to our podcast and it sort of really opened up.
	Truth is the standard now in our family relationship.
	So that was just the feedback I wanted to give.
	Fantastic.
	I thought it was interesting you said I lost it.
	It sounds like you found it, brother.
	Good for you.
	Congratulations and please do thank your parents for listening.
	Being open to the feedback, I know that's really tough.
	As parents, it's incredibly raw to be criticized by your own children.
	Should I ever encounter it?
	No, I'm kidding.
	But no, it's really one of the tough spots.
	So, good for them.
	Good for them.
	Yeah, okay.
	So, yeah, thank you.
	On to my question about the obsession thing, I guess, because I've been reading In the Realm of Hungry Ghost as well, and he talks about addiction and obsession and addiction.
	I guess there's negative parts to it because, I mean, for instance, I post these things on Facebook.
	Like, I happen to be reading Atlas Shrugged again and there's a lot of quotable lines in that and, you know, post them to Facebook and just the arguments that you get, I mean, you understand.
	But I have this real, you know, debative streak to me and I don't know if I'm addicted to just arguing my point or being right or something like that.
	If that makes sense.
	Why do you think you do it?
	Why do you post these things?
	It's not a criticism or I'm just genuinely curious, right?
	I mean, everybody has different motives for stuff and what's...
	Well, look, I mean...
	I sort of wanted to jokingly start this call with like, you know, hi, my name's Sven and I am an addict, you know, and it's like I'm addicted to the FDR podcast.
	I'll come into work on a Monday morning and if I see like a four-hour podcast, that would be just the greatest thing because I'll be in the kitchen working and I can listen to a four-hour podcast and then just get to the end of it and go, well, I'll start listening again.
	You know, I literally can't get enough of this stuff and I think...
	It's because I didn't have a strong bond with my own father, and he was supposed to be the truth teller in my life as a child.
	And since my early 20s, I'm 33 now, I've always had these male guru role model figures that I would just devour all their audio content.
	Well, except this one did not...
	Render you impotent, right?
	This one has rendered you potent, right?
	Your conversation?
	The FDR? Yeah, I mean, the shows with regards to your business, with regards to your father.
	Oh, that's why I listen to it.
	You acted and so on, right?
	I think a guru is generally – I always associate that with somebody who diminishes other people's energy, you know?
	Right.
	I think the people I listened to would genuinely, you know, they'd found a truth and they wanted to share it.
	I think it was, you know, good intentions.
	I mean, it started with Tony Robbins, you know, someone handed me one of his lecture series and, you know, I just have the impulse to say I listen to it religiously or obsessively.
	And I think, in a way, that's the only way to really achieve something is to, like, do it 110%, you know?
	Yeah, I mean, I think that's true.
	I mean, if you find that someone is giving you compelling value and stimulating you to excellence in a particular field, then to me that's like saying, well, I found the best.
	I want to be fantastic at karate.
	I have found the best teacher and so I'm going to practice every day.
	I mean, who would say that that's bad?
	I mean, if that's your goal and you found a great teacher, Wouldn't you want to absorb as much knowledge as you could to achieve excellence in the field?
	Yeah, that's what I'm trying to do.
	So, is that obsessive?
	I don't know.
	I mean, that's basically saying that all excellence is obsessive.
	I don't feel comfortable with that myself.
	Right.
	Okay.
	I mean, it must be something...
	If I had more conversation like this in my own life, I guess I wouldn't need to listen to six plus hours of FDR a day.
	I don't know any other way to draw those sorts of people to me but to keep being rabid for truth in whoever I meet or in social media or whatever.
	And even if 99.9% of the people just ridicule and there's got to be someone out there that will listen.
	No, I think that makes sense.
	I think that makes sense.
	I mean you're sending out flares I would assume to find people who are capable of thought.
	Yeah.
	I was watching an episode of Sherlock.
	And in it, they mention something about Ayn Rand.
	It's the usual, oh, she was high priestess of the philosophically ignorant or something like that.
	You know, again, no argument, no analysis of her work, no rebuttal of her arguments or anything.
	It's like, well, you know, she died on Social Security.
	She's a hypocrite, man.
	She smoked.
	She's a...
	God Almighty.
	I mean, it's just...
	It's ridiculous and exhausting.
	And it is...
	I mean, futile.
	And the sad thing is that these people, they try to gain popularity in the moment.
	And generally the reason that people put down Ayn Rand is because women don't like her.
	And mostly that's the case.
	And so to please women and to gain access to the eggs, other people, oh yeah, I hate that Ayn Rand too.
	Can we have sex now that we've established that?
	Yeah, so I mean you're shooting up these flares so to find out whether people can think or not, right?
	And most people can't and don't know it.
	And so you keep moving so that you can have these kinds of conversations in your life.
	Does that sort of make sense?
	Yeah, and I know what you mean with it's exhausting because I'll post something about, you know, what is morality and the amount of, like, just total subjectivist, relativist stuff.
	Like, people can't even agree that, like, a real universe exists and it just blows my mind.
	Yeah, they can't.
	They can't figure out whether anything is true, but they can sure figure out that Ayn Rand was false.
	It's like, oh, come on.
	I mean, please, can you make it a slight challenge for me to dismiss you?
	Come on.
	Give me a little subtlety.
	I mean, basically, it's like getting into a ring.
	And somebody...
	You're going to have a great box.
	You've been training for a while.
	And then somebody just fucking chloroforms themselves and falls over.
	It's like, well, this is sort of pointless.
	What the hell was the point of that?
	Come on.
	You can throw a punch or two.
	I mean, just beat yourself up and make yourself pass out.
	I mean, it's ridiculous, right?
	Yesterday, I posted the question like...
	Well, the quote from Ayn Rand about non-contradictions cannot exist.
	And I mean, people come back with this quantum stuff like Schrodinger's cat exists and doesn't exist at the same time.
	And I'm like...
	God, you can't even say whether or not reality exists, but you're trying to tell me what is right and wrong.
	There's this thing in Atlas Shrugged, and I sort of struggle with the book because all those characters who are the negative parts, and I find it so hard to read because they're just logical absurdity after logical absurdity, like the Jim Taggart and Wesley Mooch and stuff.
	That's the frustration, I feel.
	You know, with people all the time and I don't know, like am I in that middle zone of philosophy where I've seen the truth now and when do I get to the point where I have philosophical people in my life or when does it stop getting frustrating?
	I mean, are you still frustrated?
	I think amused...
	I mean, I hate to sound overly sophisticated, like, oh, the little people just amuse me, but I do find it mostly amusing because it's just so patently obvious.
	And literally, the people don't know just how foolish they look, how absolutely ridiculous they seem.
	Like, okay, so let me give you an example, right?
	So one of the big criticisms of Rand is that the female...
	Heroines, some of them like rough sex, right?
	First of all, how prudish and Victorian can you be, right?
	So, they like rough sex.
	Okay.
	Faint!
	I must faint!
	You know, good heavens, you know?
	None of that's really...
	Have you heard about this...
	Sorry?
	That stuff's sort of even implied in the book.
	It's not like it's explicit, overly rough sex, you know?
	Like, she was writing in the 1920s or whatever, so...
	And also, I mean, there's lots of biological evidence that a lot of female apes like rough sex.
	So in certain ape species, the females will provoke the male chimpanzee until the chimpanzee is about to physically assault them, and then they will offer him her vagina.
	Classy.
	Right, because they want the most aggressive blah-de-blah-de-blah, right?
	So the fact that hominids like rough sex is not confined to the pages of Atlas Shrugged.
	In fact, nine and a half weeks.
	But anyway, so have you heard of this guy Jeremy Meeks, by chance?
	Yeah, that name rings a bell.
	I'm not sure where you're from.
	Yeah, so Jeremy Meeks is this guy who his mugshot was put out.
	I don't know how or why.
	And I guess he's considered a pretty good-looking guy.
	Now, he's got a little tattoo tear, which I think means that he's performed some horrible act for some criminal gang, and he's served – he's accused of 11 felonies, and he's been held on a $900,000 bond, and he's been liked on Facebook more than 100,000 times, and he just got offered a modeling contract.
	So, he's being held on charges that include street terrorism, felony weapon charges, and all that kind of stuff.
	And he served quite some time in jail before.
	So, you know, a pretty dangerous guy, I assume, right?
	I mean, based upon what is being said.
	But women are going mental over him.
	You know, the fact that convicted serial killers received love letters in jail, marriage proposals.
	And so on.
	And this guy, who seems to have a pretty criminal and heavy-duty past, has become a complete viral sensation because women find him attractive.
	But the big problem is that there's some rough sex in that.
	It's just like, have you not looked around?
	Anyway.
	But yeah, it is...
	It is nonsense.
	And, you know, I will occasionally check YouTube comments.
	That's actually how I found this one from the mother of one of the victims of Elliot Roger.
	And it is, I mean, wearying.
	I wouldn't find it wearying.
	I find it interesting.
	And when you have become really good at something, people's incompetence It's not offensive, if that makes sense.
	Yeah.
	You know, like, I'm really good at philosophy.
	I'm really good at self-knowledge.
	I'm really good at principles.
	I've still got a long way to go, trust me.
	I've still got a lot to learn, which is what keeps it so interesting for me.
	But when you become really good at something, then people's lack of skill at it is no longer offensive.
	Right?
	So my daughter, you know, when she was younger, she'd hit the xylophone randomly, right?
	And then she'd say, Daddy, do you like that?
	And I would say, no.
	Not really.
	I said, you know, I'd show her to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or whatever, right?
	But I was not offended that she was so bad at it.
	And also that she didn't know how bad she was at it, right?
	And that's how people are with philosophy.
	They haven't studied it.
	And if they have studied it, they've studied it in government schools, right?
	Which is like going to the DMV to learn about marketing, right?
	I mean, you don't go to the government schools.
	You don't go to academics.
	You don't go to universities, for Christ's sake, to try and understand philosophy because their very existence is a violation of the non-aggression principle to begin with, right?
	Oh, tenured professor, teach me about the virtue of freedom and voluntarism.
	Right?
	Yes, you work three or four hours a week for $150,000 or more a year because you get to hand out state certificates that grant other people entrance to this palace of blood-soaked riches that you currently enjoy.
	Please tell me all about virtue.
	No.
	They all study Socrates.
	But they don't want to, as I do, live like Socrates, right?
	I mean, the academics will all say, well, Socrates, you see, is the founder of philosophy.
	And what he did, you see, was he went to the marketplace and he talked to people about philosophical ideas that were of value to them and actually changed their lives in a very real way.
	He was not part of any academic circles.
	He certainly did not have tenure.
	He didn't have any benefits.
	He certainly didn't have the kinds of job protections that I enjoy.
	And he really risked a lot for his own personal values and to spread philosophy.
	And he's considered to be the foundations of philosophy.
	And if anybody ever suggested that I even remotely live by the values of the person who founded the entire discipline I profit from, I would consider them completely insane.
	I want to lecture other people who are going to get a hold of government certificates like I have so that we can milk money of the taxpayers and drive the economy off a cliff while all proclaiming about how virtuous we are.
	Right.
	So this is the reality that – yeah, I mean I'm the guy living like Socrates.
	I'm out there in the marketplace talking to you, talking to other people and saying, will you buy me lunch if you find it valuable?
	Right?
	FDRURL.com slash donate.
	And so all of these academics push their noses up at me while then going to teach Socrates – To their students.
	And again, it's just so hilarious.
	When you see it clearly, it is absolutely, completely and totally insane.
	I think I might...
	I must still be too emotionally invested in these arguments because I get...
	I get a physiological response, you know, I get like tightness in the chest and sort of excited or anxious and, you know, if I'm making an argument in one of these, you know, Facebook conversations and I think I'm too attached to having other people, you know, agree or, you know, actually just think, you know?
	Hey, dude, dude, you're talking to a philosopher.
	What are you saying things like too attached?
	I mean, what does that mean?
	Are you tied to something?
	No, no, it means that you're not being empirical.
	Okay.
	How long have you been talking ideas with people?
	Since I was a teenager, I think.
	Okay.
	So 15 years?
	Yeah, easily.
	Okay.
	It could be 20.
	Let's just say 15 years.
	Okay.
	Roughly, right?
	This is back in the napkin shit, right?
	Roughly, how many people have you talked to about ideas?
	A thousand, maybe?
	Yeah.
	Alright.
	Of those thousand people, how many have you found to be genuinely curious, genuinely open to rational arguments, and of high quality in their capacity to acquire knowledge?
	Like five.
	Okay.
	Five.
	And I think that's probably about right.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So, right.
	What are we talking about?
	What ratio?
	So you're looking for five people in a thousand, right?
	Now, I think that's pretty good, right?
	That's half a percent, right?
	One person in every 200 people.
	One out of every 200 people.
	Now, have you recognized that statistic?
	Have you absorbed and accepted it?
	Are you empirical with your experience?
	Yeah, I know that.
	I know that.
	Yeah, I have.
	No, you haven't.
	No, you haven't.
	Because if you recognize that it's one in 200 people who are going to be reasonable, right?
	Who are going to be able to dedicate themselves to truth and evidence, even against...
	Emotional self-interest in the moment.
	If you have recognized that, then you will not get excited when you're having a conversation.
	Yeah, I think it would be more like when I got angry with my dad.
	I was calm inside, but I could still be assertive.
	No, no, no, no.
	No, God.
	Okay.
	If only one half of one percent...
	I don't know how to put this.
	The purpose is to discard, right?
	Your purpose in the Facebook conversations, logically, must be to discard, right?
	To get away from and stop wasting your goddamn time with...
	The 199 people who will attack thought and find the one person who won't.
	Your purpose is discard, discard, discard, discard, right?
	You know this, right?
	Listen, you're a businessman.
	Do you do sales?
	Yep.
	Okay.
	Your purpose as a salesperson is to...
	Get out of the conversations with people who won't buy as quickly as humanly possible so that you can get to the people who will buy, right?
	Sure.
	You understand that, right?
	And most people won't buy from you, right?
	Yep.
	And so it's the same thing when you're floating thought bubbles in the world.
	discard discard discard discard discard discard discard discard And people will tell you, if you're honest and open with them, people will tell you almost immediately whether or not they have the capacity to think.
	Oh, sure.
	Right?
	Right, so why are you getting excited?
	You get excited when you meet the one person Yeah, I understand that, but I'm not sure why you'd get excited with all the other people.
	Yeah, I mean, I get excited having real conversations.
	You know, like, it's passion.
	No, you're not having real...
	No, no, no.
	I'm sorry to interrupt you.
	Look, dude, you're not having real conversations if you're not being empirical.
	If your fantasy...
	Is including the other person's truth, the other person's reality from you.
	You're not having real conversations.
	In other words, if you're pretending that people can think who can't think, that is not a real conversation.
	That's literally like me, who doesn't speak Mandarin, talking to somebody who speaks Mandarin and doesn't speak English, and we're both making syllable noises with our eating holes.
	And then saying, well, we're having a real conversation.
	It's like, nope, we're not.
	We are not even speaking the same language.
	And when there's like glimmers of thought that you see in some of the responses, I mean, I've got to try to encourage those and cultivate them so I keep coming back to the conversation.
	No, no, no.
	Listen, some Mandarin words sound like English, right?
	Yeah.
	Right?
	Phonetically, yeah.
	Yeah, phonetically.
	And I'm sure that there are some Mandarin words that by coincidence both sound like and mean the same as an English word, right?
	Sure, sure.
	Does that mean that I continue to speaking to people in English in the hopes that these coincidences are going to increase?
	Oh, it's like they're accidentally right, but they don't have principles.
	Right.
	And you will get these glimmers.
	I remember dating a woman in high school.
	Not the smartest cookie.
	And I remember once or twice, though, she said something pretty smart.
	And I was holding on to those, right?
	Right, but shit.
	I said, I'm going to university.
	What are you doing?
	Well, I'm not going to university.
	Community college?
	Oh, no.
	No, she knew her limitations, right?
	She was not smart.
	She wasn't dumb, but she wasn't smart.
	Doesn't mean she never said anything smart.
	Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
	But she's just not smart, right?
	If I play piano randomly, every now and then, I'm going to produce a pleasing sound.
	It doesn't mean I'm learning piano, right?
	And people can occasionally say things that are very smart, but this is not like a little fire that you need to blow and protect and get the ember.
	Let me ask you this.
	When you were first exposed to critical thinking, what happened?
	Angels sang, you know.
	Yes, exactly.
	And that's what excellence is.
	Right?
	That's what excellence is.
	Like you can't miss it.
	Yeah, when you talk to people who play an instrument, they're like, oh man, the first time I picked up this instrument, I felt like it completed my body, you know?
	Like they love it.
	They had to have it, right?
	Yep.
	First time I met my wife, first time we had a conversation, that was it.
	We spent one day apart and then we spent every day together until we got married 11 months later and we spent almost every day together since and it's just a blessing and a privilege and gets better all the time.
	I'm like that with my partner too.
	Right.
	So you want to keep finding people who ignite When lit up with reason.
	Not people who you kind of have to coax and bully and wheedle and cajole and, you know, because basically it is whining.
	Come on.
	Be rational.
	Be logical.
	You'll be happier.
	I'll be happier.
	The world will be a better place.
	Come on, guys.
	I get that way of sharing your podcast and stuff.
	Like, just please try listening to this.
	And there's sort of that thing with, like, I love it so much and part of me can't even, like...
	I understand, but the reality is that we have to be empiricists, right?
	Sure.
	Which means we go with the facts as they have presented themselves, particularly when we've had a lot of experience, right?
	Yeah.
	And the facts are that most people really dislike thinking.
	Yeah, it's hard.
	No, no, no, no.
	It's not that it's hard.
	People do lots of things that it's hard.
	And, you know, boy, you think not thinking is...
	If you think thinking is hard, try not thinking, right?
	Yeah, I shouldn't have said that.
	That was just an automatic thing.
	It's not hard for me.
	No, it's a defense, right?
	I mean, playing guitar is hard.
	Lots of people do it, right?
	So, do you have, like, a lot of close friends?
	Because, like, you know, when you say...
	Because, I mean, I could count them on one hand.
	You know, people that I can actually...
	Talk to and share stuff and be myself around?
	I do not have a lot of close friends.
	I would consider that an impossibility.
	The cult of friendship, it disturbs me.
	Sorry for the rant, and I'll just try and keep this brief.
	But the cult of friendship bothers me.
	Like, when you hear people say, I don't have a lot of close friends, what do you think?
	Loser!
	What's not to like about you?
	No, no, but I mean, not when you hear me, but when you hear people say, oh, I don't have a lot of close friends, what do you hear?
	You must not be very likable.
	There must be a reason.
	Unpleasant, nasty, right?
	Bad person, right?
	Don't, uh, we're supposed to be measured, our quality is supposed to be measured by the number of friends we have.
	Whereas for me, it's quite the inverse.
	When somebody says, I'm friends with everyone, I just assume they have the spine of your average jellyfish and the integrity of your average soap dish.
	I have tons of close friends.
	It's like, okay, then you obviously have no standards.
	Yeah.
	I've slept with lots of people.
	Good.
	I will shake your hand from inside this hazmat suit, right?
	And I sort of...
	My daughter's kind of, you know, friends...
	See these fucking kids' programs?
	What is this all about?
	Friends!
	Friends!
	We gotta have friends!
	Friends are everything!
	I've got pony friends!
	I've got dinosaur friends!
	We go see things on a train!
	It's all friends!
	Friends!
	If you don't have friends, you're nothing!
	I don't have anything in isolation!
	It's all about friends!
	I have nothing!
	I do not exist!
	But I can see in the mirror of my friend's eyes that I do!
	It's all about...
	Friendship, friends.
	Gotta have friends.
	Friendship is everything.
	I've got pony friends, right?
	I mean, it's not good.
	It's not good.
	I don't like it.
	It's like you have to have friends or you're nothing.
	And you gotta have lots of friends.
	And the more friends you have, the more value you have.
	But given that most people are of extremely low quality, the more friends you have, the lower quality you are.
	Right?
	I mean that's just – that's logical, right?
	That's just basic logic, right?
	If most people are of low quality, the more friends you have, most likely the low – right?
	The worst quality person you are because you've got to do the lowest common denominator shit, right?
	Right?
	And so this is why the cult of friendship is proposed and put forward so much and so insistently.
	Gotta have friends.
	Don't have a lot of friends?
	Loser!
	Unlikable!
	Bad person!
	Right?
	Low status!
	Right?
	This is a way of forcing us to lower our standards to fit in.
	Right?
	The fuck do I need all these friends for?
	I mean, dear God!
	Who has time?
	Who has time?
	For all these friends!
	You know, friends is...
	I mean...
	It's just having warm bodies to dance around when you're young.
	When you get older, you know, my wife is a great friend.
	Mike and his wife are great friends of a couple of other people that I know.
	Good friends.
	But, God, I mean, well, I have 20 close friends.
	No, you don't.
	Yeah, there's not enough hours in the day.
	Because there's only so many hours in the day, right?
	Yeah, exactly.
	I said the same thing.
	There's not enough hours in the day.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I have 20 close friends.
	Then you have no ambitions, right?
	You're not pursuing excellence in anything.
	So, no, I... I mean, I've...
	I won't get into all of the details, but you read these...
	There's biographies of people.
	And they're like, oh, and then I went here with this friend, and I went here with this friend, I went there with that friend.
	And then my kids grew up and they didn't, you know, they complained they didn't really know me at all.
	It's like, well, yeah, because you had friends, right?
	You had children, you preferred friends.
	And, you know, divorce, you know, in divorce, you know, well, it's because you didn't work on your main friendship, your primary friendship.
	No, fuck friendship.
	I'm sorry.
	I mean, I hate to be...
	I mean, again, I love my friends.
	They love me back.
	But I am a big fan of quality over quantity.
	And this cult of friendship bugs the shit out of me.
	I mean, everybody wants to look at their life like it's a beer commercial they can just climb into.
	Look, my friends are all underdressed.
	We're dancing around a pool.
	Look, we jumped off the roof of the house into the pool.
	Wasn't that cool?
	And friendship, the larger the circle of friends, the more alcohol is involved.
	To blind yourself to the fact that you can't stand most of these assholes.
	The larger the circle of the friends, the more cultural or religious bullshit is involved to remind yourself that you have nothing in common with these people other than your shared delusions.
	If you really seek the truth, discard, discard, discard, discard.
	The whole point of any discipline is knowing where not to look, right?
	I mean, if you are a good paleontologist, you're not spending a lot of your fucking time in the North Pole, right?
	Or on a cruise ship, right?
	Or on the moon.
	Hey, my expertise is knowing where not to look, right?
	When I got a tumor removed from my throat, I didn't want them cutting into my feet, right?
	Or my car, right?
	Right?
	Or my pant.
	I need you to know where to cut.
	Everywhere you don't want to cut, don't cut there.
	So you know where to cut.
	When I was working as a gold pattern prospector for a company after high school, there was a theory, right?
	Which was that the glaciers had smeared the gold.
	We found the gold, found the glacier patterns.
	We were trying to look back to where the gold source was.
	It's a good theory.
	It's a good theory.
	So the whole point was don't look anywhere else except where you find gold back up the glacier path.
	We didn't look in a mall.
	There ain't no coup de ville hiding in the bottom of a Cracker Jack box.
	I mean, you'll never dig for oil on a sandy beach.
	The whole point of becoming an expert in something It's knowing where not to look.
	Discard, discard, discard, right?
	I mean, if you're a script reader, what do you spend most of your time doing?
	Reading scripts and going, God, that's terrible.
	Yeah, fuck no.
	Right?
	Oh, God.
	Oh, that's terrible.
	Jaws meets American Beauty?
	I don't want to see any nymphs get eaten by sharks, right?
	So, I mean, the whole point is discard, discard, discard.
	That's the whole point of expertise.
	If you're Simon Cowell, the whole point is you say no to just about everyone, and then you say yes to the final winner, I guess, or the audience does, right?
	But American Idol, they get, what, 20,000 auditions?
	And they say no to all but, I don't know, 20?
	I don't know how many start with American Idol.
	But it's saying no!
	No!
	The whole point of expertise is you say no!
	No to people.
	It's like that old Steve Martin routine where he says the whole point about getting older is you develop prejudices because you've done stuff before.
	And people say, so the whole point is you're closing a series of corridors when you get older.
	And people say, hey, let's go camping.
	Sorry, we're closed.
	Right?
	Because we've done that before.
	We don't like it.
	It's very rare.
	I get it.
	Do you still see any value in debating just to learn how to debate and to practice arguing?
	I'm not sure that I need to learn how to debate.
	I mean, if I don't know how to do it by now, I'm retarded, and I should not be doing this.
	But with me on my Facebook, for instance, and I was way too promiscuous in adding friends.
	No, no, it's like saying, would you like to, like, is there any point, I'm an expert musician who's been practicing for 15 years, is there any point me doing a duet with somebody who's got a pair of spoons and no legs?
	You're a five-year-old.
	Yeah, sure, okay.
	Okay.
	It's not a debate if they don't know how to think.
	It's an insult to debating to debate most people.
	Yeah, that's right.
	It's like getting Placido Domingo to warble along with some guy who's got a robot voice where the cancer made a hole in his throat.
	It's not a duet.
	It's an insult to singing.
	Yeah, so...
	Yeah, if you've become an expert in something, you need to value your own expertise.
	So, a book that I read when I was, I don't know, maybe 20 or 21, when I was first at the National Theatre School of Canada, was a book called Respect for Acting by Uta Hagen, I think her name was.
	And it basically was saying, look, acting is a skill, and it's a talent.
	So, not just a talent, it's a skill, and it's a skill that you can be trained in, that you can learn.
	But you don't just sort of walk off the street and act and so on, right?
	And it was sort of my first brush with the problems of the idea of talent.
	And I think it could be the case that human beings have some instincts for talent.
	Sorry.
	Shit.
	Let me start this again.
	It could be the case that human beings have some instincts for thinking.
	I think that's true.
	Certainly in my limited experience of working in a daycare, having lots of kids around and being a father, kids do have some good instincts for thinking.
	They're good at identifying contradictions.
	They're good at thinking.
	As far as abstract reasoning from first principles, I've yet to see a huge amount of evidence with regards to my own daughter.
	Again, I'm keeping my eyes open.
	I certainly don't want to impose Thinking on my daughter because you can't impose thinking, right?
	But to really be able to think critically, to really be able to think, it takes a lot of study, right?
	You can't provoke it in a Facebook debate.
	You can't just kind of make it happen.
	Now, it could be that you show someone what critical thinking looks like and they get very excited about it and then want to study it, right?
	Yeah.
	That could happen.
	I'm trying to demonstrate it in the Facebook conversation.
	Okay.
	Well, but you get excited.
	Which means that you are not recognizing reality.
	It means you have inappropriate hope.
	And if there's one thing that philosophy is really good at, it's crushing inappropriate hope.
	No, it is.
	It's absolutely essential because you need to know where not to look, which means give up.
	Give up your hope.
	Give up your hope.
	Be empirical.
	Empiricism is the opposite of hope.
	Hope is that which we have in the absence or in direct opposition to empiricism.
	It is the faith of the thinker.
	It's called hope, and it's as irrational as religious faith.
	Hope must be crushed because we are empiricists, and where you are an empiricist...
	You don't have hope, right?
	You buy a man's services to build you a house, and he says, Ooh, I hope this stands.
	How do you feel?
	Oh, no.
	I want you to know that it stands.
	I'm not paying you for hope!
	You're a chiseling, cheating bastard, right?
	I'm not paying you for hope.
	You know, FedEx comes to pick up a package.
	They say, Hey, hope this gets there.
	Oh, no.
	No!
	I don't want any hope!
	Don't give me your hope!
	I'm not paying you for hope!
	Right?
	Hope I don't cut your artery!
	No!
	Don't hope if you're hoping I need to find somebody else, right?
	Hope must...
	Inappropriate hope must be killed.
	And it must be killed under the giant dinosaur foot of empirical evidence, right?
	Yeah.
	Right?
	Kill inappropriate hope.
	Now, and hope is fine.
	Hope as a whole, I hope I meet someone nice.
	Well, that's sort of in the expression of desire, right?
	But it's sort of like saying, I hope I can learn guitar.
	Okay, now go learn guitar, right?
	Hope is nothing other than the expression of a desire, right?
	Right.
	And then if people don't do anything to achieve that desire, then it's a mad delusion and a huge waste of everyone's time, right?
	Yeah.
	So, no, no, no.
	Philosophy, you know, get rid of hope.
	Get rid of hope.
	Right?
	Because the moment you've expressed a hope, you either translate it into tangible action or shut up about it.
	Right?
	Mike, have you ever heard...
	Hang on.
	I'm just trying to think if I can phrase this in a way that's going to get through to you.
	Have you ever heard of people who would like to work for Free Domain Radio?
	God, Steph, don't do this to me.
	No, no.
	Don't do this to me.
	Let's bring it all out.
	Come on.
	Come on.
	Let's bring it all out.
	Don't hide on me now, brother.
	My connection's getting bad.
	I don't know if I can.
	Have you ever heard of people who would really like to work for Free Domain Radio?
	No.
	I have on occasion gotten those emails after we talk about it on the show like this, yes.
	Right.
	Now, how good are people at translating their hope or their desire into working for Free Domain Radio?
	With one exception, not good.
	Not good.
	Not good.
	You over-diplomatic, hypocritical son of a bitch.
	Fucking terrible.
	They're fucking terrible.
	They're terrible.
	Terrible.
	I'm telling you this.
	If I had been like, hey, Ayn Rand is looking for someone to work with her, I'd be like, okay, move any mountain, go live in her basement, go live in the woods near her house.
	I'm there.
	Whatever she needs.
	And I would sweat bullets to do the very best job the first time I handed something over to her to impress her.
	I'd just be dying, right?
	Oh, yeah.
	Well, God, that's what I did with you.
	Yeah, and so, you know, you give people assignments saying, hey, you know, we'll pay, but, you know, we need you to do some research on this, and they're like, here, I made some doodles!
	Yes.
	So, would you say a better word than obsession is, you know, like, just committed?
	You know, like, to not have that negative connotation to it?
	I'm sorry, what now?
	Well, I mean...
	What you were just saying about Ayn Rand, like, you know, you could characterize that as, like, you're obsessed with going and, you know, working with Ayn Rand, but, like, maybe a better word to not have the next...
	I mean, since when did just doing a good job become obsession?
	Yeah, right.
	I mean, why would you use such a term?
	Well, you're committed to excellence.
	I mean, I don't care.
	The guy who cut my neck, it's like, I just do a fucking good job.
	I'm obsessed with the surgery.
	I mean, what the hell does that even mean?
	Are you good at what you do?
	Yes or no?
	If you're good at what you do, I mean, thank you.
	I don't know that obsession needs to be...
	You are very interested in philosophy.
	And you know it's going to take about 10,000 hours to get really good at philosophy.
	Do you have the goal of being really good at philosophy?
	Absolutely.
	Right.
	You know it's going to take you, give or take, roughly about 10,000 hours, right?
	Yep.
	Okay, so you have a goal and you are in pursuit of that goal.
	Why does any emotionally charged term need to come into it?
	I want to drive to San Francisco.
	It's going to take me five days.
	I better leave now.
	Oh, you're just obsessed with getting to San Francisco.
	No.
	I want to get to San Francisco.
	It's going to take me five days.
	I need to leave now.
	You're obsessed!
	What?
	I want to go to San Francisco.
	You understand, right?
	The obsession and addiction as well is I've got to be wary of it because I have had a history.
	With that, so that's why.
	Well, but your addiction is to the word addiction?
	What?
	Your obsession is with the word obsession.
	You have a goal, and you're going to pursue it, right?
	I want to become a doctor.
	I'm going to medical school.
	You're obsessed with medicine!
	What?
	What?
	Yeah, actually, I just connected with something.
	I really want to paint this wall.
	You're obsessed with color!
	What?
	Yeah.
	I'm going to paint the wall.
	I've got to go buy some paint.
	Well...
	No, I had a connection just now because it's not my word.
	Obsession is what other people have called what I'm doing.
	Oh, I know.
	I know.
	Obsession is the word that people use who are addicted to mediocrity with regards to people who want to achieve excellence.
	It's their way of saying that excellence is a mental health problem.
	These same motherfuckers, frankly, though, if there's one goddamn pixel that's burnt out on their TV screen, they will bring it back.
	Right?
	So they desperately need and want and punish anyone who's not excellent in the shit that they really like.
	Right?
	My internet was down for two hours this year, bastards.
	I'm getting a refund for that whole month, right?
	Yeah.
	Well, that excellence in the service of their shit...
	Well, that's what they expect as customers, right?
	But excellence in the pursuit of anything that makes them uncomfortable, well, by God, by God, that's just obsessive.
	Yeah, right.
	You see, this is the bullshit that people say.
	This is what I was saying about earlier.
	It's complete bullshit.
	Obsessive has zero philosophical content.
	Sure, sure.
	It's what frightened people do when the thought bunny hops over them when they're napping, which is their entire fucking life.
	I got startled!
	Obsession!
	Cult!
	Bad!
	Devil!
	Boo!
	Right?
	Well, thank you for your contribution.
	That sounded like my Facebook conversations.
	Right?
	No, seriously.
	I mean, if you are in hot pursuit of excellence that threatens other people's complacency, they're just going to give you ad hominems.
	Right?
	You know, I've really struggled to clarify my own opinions and I owe the truth enough integrity and responsibility to defend it to the best of my abilities.
	Oh, you're just obsessed with being right.
	Okay.
	I mean, what is that?
	I don't know what that means.
	Compared to what?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, that was the gold.
	I wasn't precise in using that word.
	Well, you were very precise in that it was a word that people use against you, right?
	I didn't recognize that it was someone else's word or other people's word.
	Yeah.
	I've never been in a car accident.
	You're just obsessed with good driving!
	Okay.
	Fuck, I mean, sorry.
	Just discard, discard, discard.
	See, I mean, the difference is philosophy.
	And the philosophy is a very, very singular discipline this way.
	Right?
	So, most people will accept that they're not that great at physics, right?
	Yeah.
	So what?
	What does that change in their lives, right?
	Not much.
	I'm not a very competent mathematician.
	I'm not even a remotely competent mathematician.
	I'm okay at some basic math, but I'm just not good at math, right?
	And what effect does that have in my life?
	Well, nothing.
	Because I'm obsessed at keeping math at bay, right?
	No, but it doesn't have much effect on my life.
	Now, the problem is, though...
	With philosophy, well, that has huge effects on people's life, right?
	Philosophers cock-block self-righteousness.
	They do.
	We fuck up self-righteousness and self-congratulatory, hypocritical, pseudo-moralization, right?
	Yep.
	And so if people – yeah, look, if you take away people's drug, their morphine drip, their heroin high of self-righteousness, I mean most of them won't even want to get out of fucking bed in the morning.
	Wait, I have to face a day where I can't be morally righteous about anything?
	Where I can't get mad at Obama or Hillary or Romney or complain about the immigrants or, you know, taxes.
	I can't be morally self-righteous.
	Fuck me.
	I'm not getting out of bed.
	I mean, people are like these hollow, empty, straw-cased monkeys propped up on the helium farts of self-righteousness.
	You turn off that spigot, they just fucking collapse.
	It's like dialing up the gravity to 11.
	Right?
	And philosophy takes away self-righteousness.
	It takes away moral pomposity.
	It takes away self-congratulatory bullshit and the self-praise of considering yourself a moral person when you have no fucking rational clue what morality is.
	And it's the same in Socrates' day as it is now.
	Why do they kill philosophers?
	Because philosophers kill everything about them that they think they know.
	It kills every piece of identity that they think they have.
	You know, the second-handers, the Wesley Moochers, the Taggerts, right?
	And it's a war to the death between philosophers and what T.S. Eliot called the hollow men, headpieces filled with straw, alas.
	And philosophy exposes ignorance.
	People build their personalities on ignorance.
	And therefore philosophy is a form of soulless murder to the ignorant and therefore the self-congratulatory.
	Right?
	Do you understand?
	Yeah.
	And so the reason that you get thrilled is just as you used other people's words like obsession for your pursuit of moral excellence and knowledge.
	The reason you get thrilled, my friend, is because...
	Other people are thrilled that they suckered you into giving them brains to eat so they can live another day.
	They suckered you into pretending that there was a capacity for a debate with people who have no clue how to think and react to any clear thought with fear and aggression, who are the enemies of thought.
	It's their thrill, their excitement, their relief, their desire that you engage.
	Because if you engage with them, they can pretend that they're thinking.
	Right?
	You animate the dead and call yourself surrounded by people.
	You're like somebody who's having a house party of hand puppets.
	Discard, discard, discard.
	That is the essence.
	Expertise is knowing where not to look.
	An expert geologist knows exactly where not to look for gold, and most of his knowledge is about where not to look.
	Archaeologists, you name it.
	Somebody who's really good at identifying a disease knows everything that he needs to not look at in order to see that disease.
	Scan here with this.
	Don't scan over there with anything else.
	When the dead can engage you as if they're living, they feel a massive relief from the walking corpse they call a life.
	Vampires.
	Vampires.
	Drain the blood of the living in order to sustain themselves.
	There's a reason why those goddamn vampire movies and vampire shows are so popular these days, is that the mentally destroyed and destroying, those who have not just been harmed but are now harming, have a desperate desire to engage with the thinking and to gain the respect of the thinking, and I say, don't enable the dead.
	Do not enable the dead.
	Don't feed the trolls.
	Discard, discard, discard.
	Beam me up, Scotty.
	There's no signs of intelligent life here, right?
	Yeah.
	That's empiricism.
	Yeah, I think I'm feeling a bit sad because it's just recognizing how lonely it will be.
	Oh my god.
	You're still missing the point.
	The loneliness is not in the future.
	The loneliness is in the past.
	You're not sad because of the future.
	You're sad because of the past.
	The loneliness was in the past.
	Hey, how great and connected did it feel to be engaging with all these brain-dead trolls and idiots and anti-thinkers?
	Oh, it's frustrating as hell.
	On social media.
	It's frustrating as hell.
	Yeah.
	Does it assuage loneliness?
	No, it just makes me gnash my teeth.
	Well, what it does is it keeps you in the land of the dead, right?
	Because every wise person who sees you engaging with the dead...
	Thinks of you as a delusory necromancer or an active necrophiliac, right?
	It keeps the good people away.
	And that's the price of dallying with the dead is the living have to leave you behind.
	You go in the discard pile.
	It keeps you from connection.
	The sadness is about the past.
	It's not about the future.
	If I said to you, you've been heading in the wrong direction, you've been driving in the wrong direction for four hours, is your regret for the past or for the future?
	For the past.
	Sorry, my mind is just elsewhere.
	No, tell me what you're thinking about.
	Do I just cull these people from my Facebook?
	Like, I mean, it's not like I see any of these people in real life.
	No, you're not.
	Did you be listening to this show?
	Have I been listening to this show?
	From the beginning?
	Pretty much, man, yeah.
	And are you really going to stand right there, right now, and ask me to tell you what to do?
	No, I wasn't.
	That was what I was thinking in my head, you know.
	Right.
	So now you're saying, well, if you tell yourself what to do, if you try to jump to a conclusion based upon a new knowledge, if you try to make that new knowledge give you a domino of action, then it's better than if I tell you to do it.
	So if you internalize such a major philosophy as opposed to making him me, that's somehow better.
	The point is not what you should do.
	Right.
	The point is what you need to accept.
	Sure, sure.
	At the most generous estimate, it's one person in 200.
	Yeah, yeah.
	One person in 200.
	Yeah, I mean...
	The others are not indifferent.
	Like, one person in 200 may want to learn Mandarin, but that doesn't mean that the other people hate Mandarin or think they speak it, right?
	One person out of 200 wants to really learn philosophy.
	The other 199 people all think they know it and hate its actual manifestation.
	And desperately need it so that they can be self-righteous, so that they can vote, so they can dominate others, so they can beat their conflicts with their wives or their husbands, so that they can hit their children, so they can yell at their children, so they can correct their children, so they can drag their children to church.
	People don't have a fucking clue what to do with their relationships if they don't have moral self-righteousness.
	That's a little different from I'm indifferent to learning.
	Mandarin, right?
	Yeah.
	You take away false moral values from people.
	What are they going to do?
	Oh, they get angry.
	Of course!
	You're disassembling everything they know to be real.
	Let me just undo physics and send you to hell.
	Here I go.
	Ah!
	Shoot!
	Right?
	Bomb.
	Nuke him from orbit, right?
	Yeah.
	And if people – I mean particularly if people have been parents or if they've bullied their relationships or bullied their wives or husbands or whatever, bullied their kids, you get people to admit that what they thought was true was not true, what they pretended they knew they did not know when it comes to virtue.
	Oh my god.
	Imagine how many people the average 40-year-old has to apologize to if they've been morally self-righteous in bullying people.
	Their whole adult life.
	Oh, yeah.
	Anyone want to do that?
	Okay.
	I think the challenge for me is because I'm so passionate about these ideas, I'm still compelled to share them, but I've just got to recognize that it's not going to connect with 99.9% of the people out there.
	Well, you can accept.
	You get frustrated when people accept reality, reject reality, right?
	But by modeling this, you are rejecting reality, right?
	You gotta live your values.
	It's bothering you what I'm saying, right?
	No, not at all.
	You sure?
	Okay.
	Yep.
	Hmm.
	When you accept reality, it's very painful to other people because when you accept reality, you reject unreality and most people are unreal.
	Yep.
	They're like the hero's sister in the glass menagerie, Laura.
	Right?
	She's got these little glass ornaments.
	She says, if you touch them, they break.
	Contact for people is non-existence.
	This is why they're so allergic to intimacy, to honesty, to openness, to truth.
	If you touch them, they break.
	Which is why the idea of having a lot of friends is like time travel.
	In the future, maybe we can have more.
	We still only have so many hours in the day.
	But most people, if philosophy touches them, they shatter.
	They atomize.
	They turn to dust.
	It is win-lose between philosophy and delusion, and most people are almost entirely composed of delusion.
	They are only allowed as much reality as serves the masters.
	But they are not allowed any reality which disturbs their masters.
	And it could be the priests, the parents, the teachers, the government, whatever, right?
	Do you think it's your, I mean, your confidence in the arguments and, I mean, is that what shields you from, like, people's disapproval or, like, disagreement and stuff?
	I didn't say that very clearly, but...
	Sorry.
	Yeah, I'm a bit befuddled now.
	It's just empiricism.
	And look, I'm saying this stuff kind of glibly.
	This is hard-won knowledge for me.
	This is not like when I was seven, I finally realized it.
	This is knowledge I've acquired or accepted, really, since I went full-time.
	Yeah, that's what I was wondering about.
	No, no.
	Look, my God, five or six years ago, I still talk to the mainstream media.
	Because I thought that facts mattered, right?
	I thought that the truth and reality and evidence mattered, right?
	Right?
	So the media said, oh, Steph is telling someone to leave his family, right?
	I listened to the show.
	I'm like, oh no, the show that's been published, I'm clearly saying I'm not telling you to leave your family.
	I said that two or three times.
	I'm not telling you to leave your family.
	I'm just saying that it's physically possible.
	I'm not telling you what to do.
	I'm not telling you to leave your family.
	And I thought, well, no, it's right there.
	I mean, obviously, right?
	And I needed to be schooled.
	That was my first real encounter with the mainstream media.
	And that's why I have nothing to do with them anymore.
	I get requests for interviews.
	Just completely ignore them.
	Just don't talk to them.
	So this is more hard-won knowledge, right?
	I mean, it's the degree to which people will just simply make up stuff and lie.
	I clearly say, I'm not telling you to leave your family.
	Headlines around the world.
	Guy tells kid to leave his family.
	Well, he was an adult.
	I never told him to leave his family.
	Doesn't matter, right?
	Facts don't matter.
	So, I mean, this is sort of hard-won knowledge for me, right?
	I hope you don't have to go through that, right, to get this kind of knowledge.
	I'm trying to give you the shortcut or the shorthand version of it, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	But that – all the mistakes that I make is because I fail to go back to empiricism.
	I fail to go back to the evidence.
	It's because other people's need for me to believe that there is something other than who they are infects me, and therefore I ignore the evidence of who they are.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	It's a lot easier for people to try and fool me into thinking they can think than it is to actually learn how to think.
	All right.
	If I had a magic switch that if I just strum random shit on a guitar, people think I'm a great guitarist, that's a lot easier than actually learning how to become a great guitarist, right?
	yeah so that's just go back to This is what I have to keep reminding myself.
	Whenever unreality opens its white, shark-like jaws under my Motive powers, I just go back to the evidence.
	What is the evidence?
	I have a hugely, unprecedentedly unique historical perspective on the intelligence of the species because I'm running what I think is the most intelligent conversation in the world.
	I've been running it for many years.
	I have received tens of thousands of discrete data points worth of feedback, at least probably a hundred thousand or more by now.
	I have a very unique, unprecedented perspective on the philosophical capacities of the species.
	And things get fucked up when I surrender to other people's delusions of competence, rather than going with the explicit, highly repetitive evidence that grinds over me every day like a bunch of marching red ants that takes my flesh if I am well protected.
	Just go back to the evidence.
	I'm never trying to substitute my judgment for other people's judgment, right?
	These are my arguments.
	And so my suggestion is, I'm not going to tell you what to do, but my suggestion is, no, don't cut people out of your life, because they are evidence you've been ignoring, and to cut them out of your life is not going to have you accept the evidence.
	Keep engaging.
	Keep doing what you're doing, but be aware of what you're doing.
	Think about what you're doing.
	Crush illegitimate hope and look at the evidence of how people respond and what happens.
	Keep doing what you're doing, but do it in an alive and awake way.
	Yeah, I'm compelled to do it.
	I don't want to stop.
	No, no.
	Then keep doing it, and at some point, you will want to stop.
	Every time I check on the intermittent times that I check the YouTube comments, I must ban 10 people at least.
	At least.
	Not for disagreeing with me.
	That's what idiots say.
	They're just disagreeing.
	Bans people who disagree with him.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, it's like my supposed anti-Semitism, right?
	Like, he's rumored to be anti-Semitic.
	It's like, yeah, and it's a lot easier than actually finding anything I've said that's specifically anti-Semitic.
	Because for it to be anti-Semitic, it would have to be against Jews and not against other religious groups.
	I try not to discriminate in my dislike of religious groups.
	But, um...
	People who obviously are just hostile or crazy or manipulative, it's like, no, I'm not going to try and engage you because I know how deep-rooted that behavior is.
	It can't be fixed over the internet.
	You know, dedicated teams of psychiatrists can't cure a lack of empathy.
	They can't cure sociopathy.
	They can't cure any of that shit.
	Do I think my typing is going to do it?
	God, no.
	It's delusional.
	Hmm.
	They can incarcerate people.
	They can put people in LSD drug trial programs.
	They can give people therapy 12 hours a day when they're completely under these therapists and psychiatrists' power.
	They still can't solve sadism, cruelty, and a lack of empathy.
	So what?
	I don't have control over these people.
	I don't have all the drugs in the world and all the therapy in my world.
	I don't have the confined in some place.
	The fuck do I think I can do?
	I can't do a goddamn thing.
	I mean, if the experts with all the resources and all the legal and white might of the state at their disposal can't cure these people, my typing is magic, right?
	My typing can change human biology.
	It can grow mirror neurons in other people's brains.
	That's amazing typing!
	No, it's just typing.
	But, I mean, you still do the show, right?
	Well, yeah, but...
	But with awareness.
	Yeah, with awareness for sure.
	And the awareness is I'm just – I'm trying to find the 1 in 200.
	I'm not sure it's 1 in 200, but let's just go with that number.
	I'm just trying to find the 1 in 200.
	That's all.
	Together, if we get enough numbers together, we'll be unstoppable.
	But there will be a great rending horror of self – of recognition of self-annihilation, of recognition of participation in evil, which I can't – We must have a tribe that can stand together and accept the mind-rending
	horror of the inhumanity of the planet I can't do it alone.
	You can't do it alone.
	Mike can't do it alone.
	Other people can't do it alone.
	We need enough people who can see that we can be a tribe that can sustain each other while swallowing the wretched horror of mankind's self-hatred and self-contempt for the infliction of false ethics, particularly on children.
	This is not something that an individual can survive the sight of.
	So I'm just trying to build a tribe of people who can see, who are willing to accept evidence, and I'm working on my own capacity to continue to accept evidence, to continue to accept the truth, not just in a theoretical way, not just in a wish-fulfillment way, which is very dangerous, but in a practical, tangible, this-is-the-shit-that-we-see way.
	And if there are enough people who can get together without any illusions left, where all of the delusions have been absorbed by the great white, sleepless shark of truth...
	When we have no illusions and we know each other and we can stand together against the collective madness of mankind then we can build what will in effect be a new species.
	An unscarred, unbroken, unshattered species that can speak, that can communicate, that can love, that have empathy, that have curiosity, that recognize evil and the rare occasions when it will arise and can act against it as one and keep the world safe from the ultimate predation of emotional emptiness.
	But we are a long way from that.
	Those people, very few of them can be made, most of them will need to be bred.
	And they need to be bred in an environment uncontaminated by the endless bullshit of the old world.
	The whole breeding arena of the species needs to be cleaned the fuck up.
	I don't allow crazy people around my daughter any more than I allow people with Visible, rotting sores and spots to give her a big, juicy, sweaty, infecting bear hug.
	No.
	My breeding arena is pretty fucking tidy.
	And that's why I say, if you've got crazy, abusive, nutty people, hey, you can choose to have them in your life.
	You don't have that choice when you have kids.
	You can choose to inject yourself with an illness if you're a crazy bastard.
	But you don't have the right to inject anyone else with the illness, particularly people who are helpless and dependent upon you.
	And that's why I knew I wanted kids.
	As soon as I started dating my wife and got married, I knew we wanted kids.
	And I knew.
	Clean up the breeding pen.
	Clean up the breeding arena, babies.
	Because I can subject myself to my crazy family of origin.
	I cannot subject my child.
	And I really don't have much of a right to subject my wife to it either.
	It wasn't her goddamn fault.
	It wasn't mine either, but...
	Right?
	Sure.
	So, this is why I'm raising my daughter without crazy people.
	And without the effect that crazy people have on me.
	Right?
	In my life.
	Online, who gives a shit, right?
	But in my life.
	Yeah.
	And we are a hell of a long way.
	From people even committing to breeding their offspring in a sane environment.
	And so we're still at least two generations away from a tribe of people committed enough to reality to be able to absorb the collective horror of a highly manipulative ex-mankind as we transition to something Who would generally be called Superman, Superwomen.
	And you could be one of those people.
	Why not?
	I intend to be.
	I hope you will be.
	And that's the stakes that we're playing with, if that makes any sense.
	Yeah, and I do see value in the Facebook thing.
	I mean, like the anti-spanking thing and the circumcision videos and stuff that I've shared.
	Even if I get a lot of flack for that, if it gets through to one in a thousand people, that's good.
	And I wanted to mention that Austin James started a post on the board about Facebook strategy and just, you know, maybe some of the FDR listeners, like I don't mind having fellow FDR listeners on my Facebook just so that we can back each other up in conversations like this, being aware that, you know, we might not get through to people, but yeah.
	Alright.
	Well, I certainly wish you the best.
	Thank you for a wonderful call and thanks again to all the listeners.
	Tonight, I actually missed a lot to show on Saturday night.
	I was like, oh man, is it only Monday?
	Oh man, is it only Tuesday?
	Yay, it's Wednesday!
	Get to talk to the listeners.
	So, I hugely appreciate that.
	Thanks to everyone who calls in.
	Thanks to everyone who's supporting the show.
	FDRURL.com slash donate.
	It's always awesome.
	Massively, massively appreciated.
	And have yourselves a wonderful, wonderful week, everyone.
	I guess we will talk to you.
	Don't let Saturday.

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