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Oct. 20, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

03:37:06

2826 Philosophy vs. Stupid Human Tricks - Saturday Call In Show October 18th, 2014

The continuation of the previous Saturdays “vulnerability as a strength” conversation, answering – how to find a quality romantic relationship partner? What is the difference between a deterministic and a non-deterministic universe? How do we determine the categories in which moral theories apply? What kind of role do attorneys play in both today’s society and how will that change in the future? Includes: penis shrapnel, welfare as insurance for assholes, the value of MGTOW, female monetary entitlement, Stefan running for public office, dark matter, philosophy as the ultimate deferral of gratification, philosophy vs. stupid human tricks, heroes as distractions, can animals conceptualize, behavioral conditioning, the reality of addiction, the billion dollar question and the horrors of the modern legal system.

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	Hi everybody, Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Aid Radio.
	Hope you're doing well.
	So, we did a video today, I suppose, would be the way of putting it.
	And the video was John Stewart vs.
	Bill O'Reilly, the truth about white privilege.
	I hope you will check it out.
	I think it's going to...
	You know, it's strange.
	So, you know, we do something on Frozen...
	And we are just like lambasted, right?
	I mean like the hate ratio on the Frozen video is like unholy, you know?
	Hail Satan!
	And Frozen!
	But the like ratio is 903 versus 56 when we take on Jewish slave trading and black responsibility.
	I'm just telling you, it is quite fascinating to be talking to the planet as a whole.
	I think someone pointed out, and I think it's worth mentioning just as a sort of brief follow-up to that.
	I don't think it's worth the whole show, but...
	So, the Jews, not all of them, of course, there were exceptions, but the significant proportion of...
	I like these non-statistically verifiable numbers, a significant proportion of Jews, even up until the mid-19th century, were, you know, very pro-slavery.
	Because the Jewish...
	Faith has in it this concept of the chosen people, right?
	The Jews and the goyim, who are the non-chosen people, and according to some rabbis and Jewish thinkers, using the word rather loosely, not Jewish or rabbis, but rather thinkers, exist only to serve the Jews and so on, right?
	So there is something in Judaism that is a little bit closer to, let's just say, a dichotomy between the worthy and the unworthy, right?
	And Catholics, well, again, with some exceptions and some very honorable and notable exceptions, Catholics did not exactly go to the wall when it came to slavery.
	I mean, it didn't even go to the wall until the pedophile priests were outed.
	So it didn't exactly go to the wall against slavery.
	And so somebody sent me a message, which I think is valid, which is to point out that it wasn't just sort of white Western Europeans, which included a lot of Catholics and, you know, depending on how you classify, included a lot of Jews.
	But it really was the white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, the WASPs of the world, who were ferocious in ending slavery.
	And that there is...
	I got an email a while back ago from the head of the Independent Institute who was talking about how I needed to give more respect to Christianity when it came to ending slavery.
	And I think that's fair, and he sent me a lot of material that was important.
	But...
	It's not just all Christendom.
	But Christianity doesn't have this separation of the worthy and the unworthy, because all people are created in God's image and so on.
	And if you accept Christ and so on, which can be a very quick thing, as opposed to, what, ten years of mind-breaking study to convert to Judaism and so on.
	There's not this division in Christianity of the worthy and the unworthy, the sort of chosen and the goyim.
	There is that in Judaism.
	And so it is kind of ironic that an American Jew was castigating an American Catholic about slavery when neither of the peoples who backed them down the foggy path of history were particularly ferocious in their ending of slavery.
	But I, on the other hand, have, standing in the dim, foggy, no credit to me, background of history, a whole bunch of WASPs, white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, who were really key.
	And I think it's worth differentiating that as far as historical accuracy goes.
	Actually, I did record a much longer version of that was take two.
	There was a much longer version, which we decided to not release because we felt that, you know, over 40 minutes or whatever is a bit too long for most people.
	So we got into more detail about other stuff in the longer version.
	Maybe we can sort of throw that up in the donator section or something if people are interested.
	So we did trim out – I also rebutted a bunch of arguments about why blacks are arrested at far higher rates for drug use than whites.
	I won't get into all the arguments here, but – So yeah, we did a longer version, but I think this point was worth expanding on, so I just wanted to mention that as we move along.
	But that having been said, it is supposed to be your show, Steph, you selfish, selfish windbag.
	So if you'd like to serve up some listeners, I will take a swing.
	All right.
	Well, up for us today is Wes, who you may remember from the show last Saturday when Steph's battery died, midpoint in the conversation.
	So I'll just give a brief recap of what was being talked about, and then you guys can pick up where you left off.
	Oh, sorry.
	And can I just mention, Steph's battery dying is often associated with listeners getting the upper hand in a conversation.
	So just for those of you who are suspicious, your suspicions are extremely well-founded.
	Good for you.
	It was a conversation about honesty when dating and the most efficient way to potentially find the right woman.
	Steph pointed out some possible white knighting for women because Wes wouldn't be completely honest due to a supposed weakness on their part, adjusting his behavior to accommodate their fragility.
	It ended with Steph saying vulnerability was a strength, but there was disagreement on that.
	A lack of vulnerability is a sign of being low on the food chain.
	And Wes asked, really?
	Leaders don't express vulnerability?
	And then Steph's batteries died as we were talking about leaders being total slaves.
	Uh-oh.
	Oh, again.
	Actually, it's not the tablet.
	It's just my personal batteries that need to be...
	You know, I'm actually solar-powered, and it is October in Canada, so I'm afraid I'm going to go pretty much into hibernation.
	So, um...
	Yeah, so you sort of feel like political powers and so on, political leaders and those in authority don't show vulnerability, don't show weakness, and that makes them kind of alphas.
	Is that right?
	Well, I want to make sure that we differentiate between leader and ruler.
	Obviously, I'm not for rulers, as I know you're not either.
	But leadership, which is something I have a tiny bit of experience in, I understood what you were saying about in the case of if you're in a business sense where you're vulnerable to your employees or the people that are working with you on a project or something like that.
	Like, hey, we've got to get this done.
	We're under a lot of pressure.
	I like that example of showing weakness.
	But I think we really have to define weakness because No, no.
	I didn't say weakness.
	I didn't say weakness.
	Vulnerability.
	Sorry, sorry.
	Vulnerability.
	Come on.
	Give me a fair fight here.
	I'll give you another example which I mentioned to Mike after the show.
	Oh, wait.
	After my batteries had recharged.
	But so I mentioned this to Mike.
	So when I was – after I finished my master's at University of Toronto, I mean, oh, God, it was a horrible recession.
	I mean, just brutal.
	I mean, I couldn't get a job as a waiter.
	I couldn't like, oh man, it was just, it was rough.
	Rough, rough, rough.
	And I was like weeding gardens, doing odd jobs, like just anything.
	And, you know, as is the case, even though my rent was like 270 bucks a month for a room in a house with four gay guys and a lesbian, which was a fantastic place to live, by the way.
	I just ran out of money.
	Normally, there's something you can do.
	It's like that song...
	We're in or we're out of the money.
	Sometimes, tide comes in, tide goes out.
	But I just hit the wall.
	No money.
	No like, oh, the check's coming in.
	Even friends.
	I tapped out.
	A lot of people my age were going through tough times in those days.
	And so I... I had met this woman named Marnie who was working for a temp agency, like a placement agency.
	I called her up and I said, Marnie, oh man, I got to tell you, I need a job.
	I need a job so badly, it's ridiculous.
	I've been programming since I was 11.
	I know word processing.
	I'm a wicked typist.
	I know spreadsheets.
	Just...
	I really, really need a job.
	I want it to be with computers.
	I don't care.
	I'll move computers.
	I'll dust computers.
	I'll stack computers.
	I'll take computers on and off of a van.
	Just anything near computers.
	I'm absolutely desperate.
	I'm throwing myself completely at your mercy.
	I'm backed into a corner.
	I am totally desperate for work.
	If there's anything you could do, I would be eternally in your debt.
	And so...
	She got me my first professional gig as a programmer, a COBOL programmer in a trading company.
	And I was...
	That's pretty close.
	I mean, as far as I can remember, that's what I said.
	And it really...
	You know, when you show vulnerability, people will often want to help you.
	And, of course, you'll also reveal the sadists and cruel people.
	You know, like every time I put out a donation request, right?
	There is a clusterfrak of...
	Cosmic a-holes who say, stop begging for money.
	You know, just begging.
	You know, isn't trying to frame it like, oh, please, sir, can I have some more?
	A la Oliver Twist and so on.
	I mean, they're just complete tools, right, who are just trying to frame it in a particular way that, you know, asking for reciprocal generosity after I've put out thousands of highly educated, highly researched podcasts with tons and tons of experts and footnotes and all this kind of stuff.
	Asking for donations is not begging.
	You know, it's saying be reasonable and pay for the value that you consume.
	Be responsible.
	This is a show about ethics.
	Do the right thing.
	Be ethical.
	Pay for what you consume.
	Be an adult.
	Be responsible.
	I'm not your parent.
	You don't get stuff for free in this world.
	So if you're not paying, I'm paying.
	And if you're not paying, other people have to pay.
	So stop being a free rider.
	Be an adult and donate to the shows that you consume.
	If that's their donation model...
	And then people are, he's begging, right?
	So people will try to, if you show vulnerability, and it is a vulnerable situation to say, listen, we need money.
	We got to grow.
	We got to eat.
	We got to, right?
	And people will try to reframe that as weakness.
	And that's wonderful.
	That is one of the major, major benefits of vulnerability is, you know, it's like the talcum powder over the Invisible outline of the sadists around you.
	Be vulnerable and see who reacts with compassion and see who reacts with cruelty.
	It's amazingly powerful.
	I got you.
	Well, if I may, can I bring this back to the topic of MGTOW? Sure.
	I'll parlay it back.
	So, my aversion is to being vulnerable and putting yourself in a position of vulnerability to the state and By using the state as an extension of their will, women, in the case of marriage, divorce, child custody, things such as that.
	So, what do you think about putting yourself into that kind of vulnerable situation?
	Well, I mean, it's not advisable unless you really trust the person.
	Right.
	You know, when I was, I don't know, 17 years old, yeah, I was 17 years old, I went skydiving, and somebody packed my parachute for me.
	Because you could save 10 bucks by packing your own parachute.
	I wasn't particularly rich at the time, but it seemed like a pretty sound investment to me to pay for somebody experienced.
	So, you know, I put my life in that person's hands and jumped out of a plane.
	And so, it is, you know, I think what I love about the MGTOW movement is the degree to which they are alerting men as to the dangers of dick in a blender.
	And I think that's fantastic.
	You know, men need to have The sperm scared back into them because we're just photocopy, photocopy, eggs, right?
	As we were talking about last time.
	And so I think it's fantastic that they're pointing out, look, if I understand the sort of argument correctly, it's something like this very briefly.
	Would you go into a business which would have you in debt for hundreds of thousands of dollars for the next 20 years of your life if it had a 50% chance of failure, right?
	And there was a 60% to 70% chance if the business did fail that it would be your business partner who would initiate it even over your strenuous objections.
	And people would say, well, no, that's really not a very good thing.
	When I was starting my business, I remember signing personal guarantees for not hundreds of thousands of dollars but some significant coin and it was pretty alarming.
	But at least I had partners with me and we had skills and sales abilities and coding abilities so we were able to continue to grow the business.
	That's pretty alarming.
	But if you look at marriage as a business venture, which it kind of is because it involves so many assets and so many potentially lawyers and law courts and laws.
	So if you look at business as a potential marriage...
	Rather than the sort of male fantasy of photocopied honeymoon sex from here to infinity till your penis is worn down to a tiny piece of shrapnel that then explodes into your nuts with lawyers attached.
	If you look at marriage as a business venture, which is what the state turns it into, then you need to be very aware and very serious about the odds.
	And I am for anything which raises our moral expectations of our romantic partners.
	I am totally keen.
	That's why I hate the welfare state.
	The welfare state deteriorates our expectations of virtue, particularly female to male.
	Women can go for the hot guys because they've got the state and the betas to back up the financial problems that the hot guys create.
	So they can indulge in crappy, petty, stupid lusts because they've got the state to back them up on whatever is going down.
	And I dislike...
	You know, Medicare or Medicaid and all that kind of stuff.
	I mean for the reasons that they're violations of the non-aggression principle but also because they reduce the need for moral action within society.
	They reduce the rewards for being a good person.
	You know, I'm sure you know or maybe you don't but I think there's a lot.
	Two years ago, I got a lump.
	Last year, I finally had to flee to the United States and it cost me some money.
	I had to fly out, stay in a hotel, pay for surgery and the anesthesia and so on.
	And people covered my bills.
	People covered my bills.
	They covered my bills because they really like what I'm doing.
	They have great affection for me.
	They have great affection for the show.
	They wanted to continue.
	That's partly their reason and also they just cared that I was sick and cared that it was going to cost money and they helped me out.
	And more than help me out.
	I mean, they covered the bills.
	And that was a wonderfully generous thing.
	What the hell do I need a welfare state for?
	I'm loved.
	I'm cared for.
	What the hell would I need that stuff for?
	Young people are very socialist because...
	Sorry, it's tangent time.
	Young people are generally socialist because it takes a long time to build up the kind of reciprocity that gives you security in the face of life's vicissitudes.
	So if you have risks in life, in other words, if you're alive, you have risks in life, then you can either cover those risks by getting insurance or you can rely on your friends and family.
	And when people say we need a welfare state, what they're really saying is, I don't trust my friends and family to take care of me.
	Maybe you hang with a shallow crowd.
	Maybe your family are jerks.
	Maybe, you know, your friends are just into, you know, partying and looking cool and all that kind of stuff.
	And then if you get sick, they'll be like, oh, total bummer, man.
	I mean, massive amounts of, like, sympathies and stuff.
	But there's this rave going on.
	And totally, man.
	This, like, coffin thing you got going on, this pail thing, this I don't know what the hell is coming out of your arm thing.
	That is like a – it's just – it's down in my high.
	It's harsh in my buzz.
	We're going to go to the rave, but listen, man, best of luck with whatever's got going on in your veins or whatever.
	Best of luck with that, but, you know, it's really bringing me down.
	The little poodle in my purse is crying little tears of artificial sadness, so we're out of here.
	And so if you've got friends like that, you kind of need a welfare state.
	My welfare state is the kindness of strangers.
	I provide value as people see it, and I genuinely believe it's I've got the best value on the planet.
	So people take care of me.
	So, you know, I give out generosity and generosity comes back from a tragically small proportion of listeners, but it's enough to get by.
	And so if you don't have a welfare state, then you actually have to care for your friends.
	You have to put the social time in to break people's soup when they're sick and take care of their kids and so you've got that reciprocal social net.
	With the welfare state, you could be an asshole to anyone and everyone.
	You could be uncaring, thoughtless, shallow, needy, narcissistic, greedy, you name it.
	If the welfare state goes out tomorrow, if the welfare state ends tomorrow, mean people, selfish people, empty people, they're kind of going to have to learn to be nice.
	It's a bummer.
	It's a drag sometimes, taking care of other people and then hoping they're going to take care of you When the time comes, it's kind of risky.
	I mean, the welfare state's kind of a sure thing, at least until the money runs out.
	It's kind of risky.
	You know, your friends might move away.
	You might give and give and give, and then when you need something back, it turns out they're selfish pricks.
	So, you've got to be careful, right?
	There's so much that has blunted our need and desire for virtue.
	And what I love about the MGTOW movement is the degree to which you guys are going out there slapping men upside the penis with an oar and saying, stop thinking with that thing.
	Because there are lawyers powering ungreased dildos in a dark corner waiting to drag you down to the pit of family court and put your ass through a cheese grater.
	Be afraid.
	Be very afraid, right, that the predator is inside the house.
	The ring of unpower is the wedding ring.
	So scare the shit out of men.
	I think that's fantastic.
	Then if men do want to get married, and I didn't really want to until I met the right woman, they'll really look for virtue in women.
	Because look, there are lots of great women out there who aren't tens, who aren't tens.
	I hope the caller from last week will meet one someday on last show.
	But there are lots of great women out there who are equally frustrated by guys running after the Sofia Vergara character, the old Curves who looks like she's been a Playboy sticker peeled off a trucker's mudflap.
	So good women get really frustrated at guys continually chasing after shallow, sexy, dangerous witches.
	So I hope that men will look at the movie Shallow How, sort of look at the inner qualities of a woman rather than just the external markers of historical fertility, and look for a woman who is virtuous, kind, generous, hardworking, quality, good, caring, sensitive, and all that, and then the risks go down enormously.
	But you never know.
	Oh, no, you know.
	You don't know.
	Sorry, don't say me.
	I know.
	Oh, we'll never know.
	My wife and I are going to be together until we're dead.
	Absolutely guaranteed.
	There's no divorce.
	Not going to leave me.
	I'm not having an affair.
	Nothing's going to happen.
	We are just here for the duration.
	And of course, everyone, immediately, not everyone, a lot of people are like, oh yeah, we'll see.
	No, no, you will see.
	I mean, we married for, I guess, January 12 years.
	And together for 13.
	And it's better every day.
	Well, that's your life, and I'm very happy that you're able to say that about it.
	I mean, I would like for everyone to be able to, but as you said, carrying the message that There are risks associated.
	It's very important.
	And one thing you talked about just now was insurance.
	And I recall a couple months ago, I was getting it.
	Before I knew about MGTOW and I had a name for it, pretty much all through my 20s, I was just, eh, marriage, blah.
	Men don't need marriage, blah.
	A couple months ago, I was sitting in on one of those things where they trick you into sitting in a room where they can try to sell you on insurance or something like that.
	And the guy was talking about these annuities that you could pay into, and they'd pay you.
	Yeah, all that good stuff.
	And his selling points was, well, if you're sued, they can't come after it.
	It's completely protected under blah, blah, blah law.
	And I queried him very deeply about all the ways that someone could possibly come after it, and he said, no, this is solid.
	And then I asked him, well, what happens if you're married?
	Do you then get to keep it?
	And he was like, no.
	Yeah.
	But that's not suing, right?
	Yeah.
	Well, no, but I'm saying there's really no legal way for men to protect their assets.
	Yes, people say, well, just get a prenup.
	Well, the problem is there's case law and precedent across the United States where prenups are thrown out.
	It's really just up to the interpretation of the judge.
	Oh, yeah.
	Because I hear this, like on the Robin Williams video, you can see those comments.
	Oh, man, he should have just got a prenup.
	Like, it's magic.
	It's bulletproof.
	You are now invulnerable.
	It's like, no, it's the government, which means it's all subjective.
	It's all made up, and they are playing to the audience, and they are playing to the contemporary prejudices and so on.
	It's complete madness.
	Complete madness.
	So, yeah, the idea that a prenup is going to solve your problems is completely mad.
	It's like saying, well, I didn't break the law, so I'm fine.
	Well, not necessarily, right?
	And the only things that could be in a prenup are specifically, exclusively financial.
	There's nothing in there about child custody.
	That's all going to be up to the family courts to decide, so you're at their mercy.
	Obviously, you can't put in there, well, any other obligations.
	Like, you will have sex with me once a week.
	There's nothing in there that you could possibly put in.
	You can't indenture someone into sexual slavery, obviously.
	Financial slavery, yes.
	Because financial slavery is male and sexual slavery is female and therefore they're a completely different standpoint.
	Go ahead.
	And speaking of...
	Even within marriage...
	Anecdote from my personal life.
	Family.
	I'll try not to mention names.
	But uncle.
	Very successful businessman.
	Very, very religious.
	I come from a very religious family.
	I'm not one myself.
	But I do know that religious people don't break into my car and steal my stereo like someone has.
	So we'll just go with that.
	I'm okay with religious people on that grounds.
	But he stays married to my aunt.
	Partly out of, I'd say, religious conviction.
	Very recently, he had a heart attack, and we were sitting around a family gathering, and my mother asked him about his scar or something like that to my aunt, and she said, oh, well, I haven't seen it.
	So, if she hasn't seen...
	Wait, they cracked his chest for the heart attack?
	Yeah, well, they had to do a bypass surgery.
	So, he's got one of these, like, collarbone to sternum.
	I don't know.
	I just know that he has surgery and the...
	I mean, that's big stuff.
	I mean, I've seen one of those before.
	I mean, it looks like they basically started to unzip you and then you just caught it in time.
	It's a big-ass scar.
	And also, it's like they crack the...
	The ribcage, right?
	I mean, it's a serious bone-sword, like, Sweeney Todd kind of shit, right?
	Right.
	So it's a big deal.
	But she'd never seen it?
	My aunt had not seen my uncle's scar, which means that...
	Maybe she's big on scuba sex.
	No, probably not.
	Yeah, that's...
	So they're not having sex, right?
	Yeah.
	No.
	They would not be.
	Now, they're an older couple.
	They're probably in their 50s, but...
	That don't matter.
	I know.
	I know.
	Come on.
	I'm 48.
	You're talking to the wrong demographic if you're going to argue that.
	Well, you know, they're 50 if you can believe it.
	They don't attempt to eat their porridge through their eyeballs.
	They're relatively willing to drive and actually look over the steering wheel.
	Sex gets better as you age.
	You stay healthy or whatever, right?
	Right.
	But he stays with it to his testament.
	And he's always been a very successful business owner.
	All my life I've known.
	They've been very, very wealthy, very well.
	Well, to do two-story house, nice cars.
	My aunt, his wife, always drives a brand new lease BMW every three years, switches it out.
	And they started out, two daughters, both went to private out-of-state college.
	Okay, I got it.
	They got some money.
	You don't have to keep beating me up with the head with the money back.
	They've got money.
	Okay, I got it.
	Where I was going with that was not trying to be impressive or anything.
	I feel that he has fulfilled his duties, as you will, of the provider.
	Okay.
	So that's where I'm going with the story.
	And a couple of years ago, in 2008, his business started taking on a lot of trouble.
	I mean, he worked related to the housing sector.
	So obviously he was… 2008.
	I mean, he's not alone in that.
	Yeah.
	And that's about the time where my mom… You know what 2008 was?
	It's a wonderful fucking time to start a podcast.
	Yeah.
	I'm going to quit my job because I'm sure there won't be any problems in the economy that are going to prevent me from...
	Anyway, go ahead.
	Never mind.
	Yeah.
	Around about that time, they started having quote-unquote problems when his business wasn't doing too well.
	But they stayed together all through that.
	But that's when my mom would intimate to me that they were having difficulties.
	So wait, wait.
	You're saying that the man ran into financial or career difficulties and this provoked discontent in the woman?
	Never heard that.
	Never heard that.
	No, it's true.
	Often if you cut off blood flow to an extremity, the leech gets upset.
	But anyway, go ahead.
	So somehow in that though, he managed to make sure both his daughters finished school.
	Both of them got married.
	Hugely lavish weddings.
	Again, not bragging or anything, but just we're talking about he spent a lot of money doing all the things that he's expected to do as a provider male.
	And there was this instance where he got it in his head that he wanted to pay tribute to a childhood hero of his, someone that had been very influential in his life.
	And he wanted to erect sort of a monument to it.
	And it was his idea, but he was a leader in the town, and he was able to get a lot of funding together for it.
	But he was still going to have to foot a lot of the bill.
	So to erect this monument, he had to spend something to the tune of maybe, I don't know, 80 grand out of his money.
	And the level of backlash from the women in my family, every single woman.
	single one of them were all against him.
	Sure.
	Even my grandmother was pissed at him.
	My mother – Yeah, because the women want the money to stay in the family, right?
	Well, correct.
	But in my mind – we were driving in the car one day, my sister and my mother, and they were telling me about how horrible he was for doing this.
	And I'm listening to them.
	They're trying to convince me this is horrible.
	And then I retort to them, well, has he not paid for both – I asked him, what did he have spent the money for?
	He said, well, he's got two kids.
	Well, he put them both through college.
	They're both married.
	They're married with lavish weddings.
	Still living in that house.
	Aunt still has brand new BMW. Wait, wait, wait.
	I'm sorry.
	His daughters got married and they're still living at home?
	No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
	He and his wife, my aunt and my uncle, are still living in their house.
	I mean, Oh, okay.
	So his kids got married and – okay.
	So they're still living in a big house.
	Okay.
	Like the big house from the big family?
	No.
	The daughters, my cousins, they're out and living with their husbands.
	They've got their own lives, own careers.
	Everything's set.
	But just the level of entitlement that every single woman in my family had.
	That's our money, right?
	Right.
	Right.
	And I argued with them on it, and I wasn't going to convince them of it.
	And, of course, hush-hush is the order of the day in my family, so they were like, well, don't you say that we said that.
	So instead, well, okay, I respect that, and I went to see it.
	I thought it was actually very, very nice, and I complimented on it, said, I thought it was very good what you did, and left it at that.
	But I've had discussions with them, probed a little bit, but...
	Can't teach an old dog new tricks.
	I don't really see him ever bending.
	He just walks around with a smile on his face and just pretends like everything's fine.
	So he's just going to live that life.
	Yeah, I mean, he's just enjoying life.
	See, but what happened was, in my humble opinion, and this is not all women, but it's a depressing percentage of women, what happened was he had needs that had nothing to do with the women's needs, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	Exactly.
	Right?
	So he had a preference which did not benefit the woman in any way.
	And so said preference is incomprehensible to narcissists, right?
	Well, it's not my childhood hero.
	I would never spend money on that.
	So spending money on that is bad.
	It's like, but it's not your childhood hero, right?
	Yep.
	I mean, it's like, I don't like vampire movies, so I cannot for the life of me understand how there could be such a thing as vampire movies.
	It's like, are you stupid?
	No, I guess just completely self-obsessed, right?
	Right, and he attributes personally his success, like his moral acuity and his hard work ethic to this person.
	So...
	The argument could be made that he was influenced to such that he was so successful.
	And all of his wife and his daughter's benefit came from the line of that influence.
	But it's too many degrees separated for them to obviously see that.
	But I'm sure the women spent most of the money he made, right?
	I mean, women control like 80% of domestic spending, like spending in the household.
	Right.
	So it's less money for them to spend for a need that they can't comprehend because it's not their need, which just shows you how, to me, staggeringly selfish an indication of a really stunted and immature personality that is.
	Right.
	Right.
	That just serves.
	And this is my family I'm talking about.
	So these are the people that I'm going to be closest to, see the most of, know the most about.
	And this kind of example of female entitlement to a man's resources and labor, it doesn't really endear me to the idea of making myself vulnerable, as you were, to such a force as that.
	Well, okay.
	But let's look on the other side of the coin, right?
	So were these women stay-at-home moms?
	Did they raise kids?
	Did they volunteer in the community?
	Did they do stuff?
	Yes.
	They worked pretty hard.
	Obviously, for the first couple of years, then the kids go off to school, but they're still working running a household.
	So they did that stuff.
	I'm reaching here, but they weren't just ladies who lunch bonbons and Spanish.
	I'm entirely with you on that.
	I believe that if a woman gives up her career to stay at home, raise kids, then she would be entitled because she's given up that potential earning power.
	No, I don't understand that.
	She's given up that earning potential.
	I don't believe that at all.
	I mean, I don't.
	And I could be wrong about this.
	I've made the case.
	Just very briefly, she got paid for staying at home.
	She had a job called Stay at Home Mom.
	And she got 80% of the man's money for that job.
	What happens if you quit a job?
	Do you still get paid?
	True.
	No, and we have plenty of opportunities nowadays.
	Well, I don't care.
	Look, it's like me saying, look, hey man, okay, I have a job as a Starbucks barista.
	And if I quit or get fired, they owe me a million dollars because I could have been a rock star.
	And I sacrificed my rockstarness to be a Starbucks barista.
	So they owe me, man.
	They owe me stadiums.
	They owe me groupies.
	They owe me syphilis and tattoos and hair gel.
	That would be enough to choke a yak.
	So you owe me, you bastard Starbucks people, because I gave up rockstardom to make foamy, shitty lattes.
	Then I'm a little bit confused.
	You got paid for being a Starbucks barista, and if you quit that job...
	So you don't give – if a woman's – how the hell do you give up something and get paid for doing so?
	I'm confused though how you made that jump because at first it sounded – when you asked – like why did you ask what the women did?
	You asked if they were stay-at-home moms and that kind of thing.
	It's not because I consider their money theirs.
	It's just that they did work too, right?
	That doesn't mean that they – if in my ideal society – Which is what I would vote for with my dollars in a free society, like how things would work.
	It would be – I would get married to a woman and if she divorced me, then I owe her nothing.
	We share custody of the children and so we wouldn't be paying each other.
	This crazy shit like keep the women or the children in the style to which they've become accustomed, that is just estrogen-praising bullshit.
	That is just so ridiculous.
	You know what keep the children in the style to which they've become accustomed is?
	It's a way of women being able to leave their husbands without pissing off the children.
	Because what happens if mommy gets kind of restless and is feeling discontented and crabby, and then she leaves the husband, and then she goes from a nice house to a studio apartment on the wrong side of the tracks, well, how do the kids feel about that?
	Yep.
	They're not happy.
	I have total agreement with you.
	Yeah, total agreement.
	Yeah, they're not happy.
	And so this idea to keep the children in which they've been accustomed, it's like, fuck that.
	I mean, you know, the man has been accustomed to regular sex.
	Who's paying for that?
	Who's going to keep the man in the pussy to which he's become accustomed?
	Well, on that note...
	Well, on that note, marriage gives a man no guarantee to that.
	I mean, goodness, the feminists have eroded any sense of obligation that a wife would have to sleep with her husband.
	My fundamental point of that is the contract, the social contract that marriage was, marriage 1.0, as Dalrock would call it, no longer exists.
	And now marriage 2.0 is all the responsibilities put on the man.
	No, no, no, but… No, no, I get it.
	Look, I get it.
	But what you're saying is that marriage is defined by the state.
	Correct.
	But that's not true.
	Yeah, I would say that the marriage is defined by the state.
	How is my marriage defined by the state?
	Are you legally married?
	We are legally married.
	Well, then, in some way, you have a state-sanctioned marriage.
	Now, you can have a relationship, but then you go down to semantics like, well, we're married.
	Wait, hang on.
	So are you saying that like 11 years ago we signed a piece of paper and therefore the state defines my marriage?
	You define the relationship that you have, but the word marriage, that's going to be a state-sanctioned concept.
	Look, but that's like saying that because there's the welfare state, the government defines charity.
	No, I wouldn't say that.
	My wife and I had discussions before we got married about what would happen if the marriage didn't work out.
	And we both agreed that we would seek nothing from the other.
	Now, did we make a contract?
	No.
	Because I'm not going to marry someone, neither will I do business with someone where I need massive amounts of paperwork because that means I don't trust them.
	And we discussed it all.
	And I accepted her perspective.
	She accepted my perspective.
	It's never been an issue.
	It never will be an issue.
	And I don't know if the incomprehensible happened and we got divorced.
	She would stick by what she said and I would stick by what I said.
	And if I didn't believe that she would, I never would have married her because I had a pretty fine life without getting married.
	For me, it's a better life being married.
	But it wasn't to me like, Oxygen.
	So my marriage – look, I pay off the state but it's like paying property tax.
	You pay off the state but you still live in your house.
	Yeah, they own it technically.
	Who cares?
	Pay them off and forget them.
	So you sign your piece of paper and I don't see how that defines my marriage.
	I would say your relationship with your wife, you and she define it.
	The relationship that two people have, they can make that agreement out of trust.
	And that's what marriage is.
	The piece of paper, the laws?
	I've got to stick with my guns here.
	Marriage is defined by the state.
	In fact, in some states, if you introduce someone that you're in a relationship with as your wife, they can then use that as grounds in court to...
	But this is the MGTOW issue for me.
	This is the fundamental MGTOW issue for me.
	If you stare at the laws only, of course they're terrifying and ridiculous and absurd and dangerous.
	And the state, of course.
	Absolutely.
	But that's not what marriage is.
	That's what the government...
	Marriage has imposed, but that's not what marriage is, the commitment between two people to love each other for the rest of their lives.
	To say, you are my number one priority.
	This relationship is my number one priority.
	I would agree with you if you agreed to have a long-term relationship, cohabitation, but did not legally sanction the marriage.
	The problem then becomes if you live in the same place in some states, some jurisdictions, for a certain amount of time, you become common-law married.
	So the state still sees you as being in their definition of marriage.
	I understand that.
	And what I'm saying is that you find a woman who's an anarchist, right?
	How likely is a committed anarchist to invoke the power of the state in a marriage?
	Unlikely.
	This is what MGTOWs – it's like we've got this thriving anarcho-capitalist community.
	me.
	Property rights, individualism, no state power where at all avoidable, blah-de-blah-de-blah, right?
	And so just find an anarchist.
	It's like saying, well, I don't want to get married because you've got to get up.
	Your wife drags you to church every Sunday.
	It's like, then marry an atheist and you don't have to worry about that.
	Find an anarchist woman, and you don't have to worry about her dragging the state into your affairs.
	This may open up a whole tangent, but that's okay.
	But why don't you think that more people are anarchists?
	Why do you think that it's not as appealing as, say, being a socialist?
	You can look at my rebuttal to the zeitgeist debate.
	But very briefly, socialism arises out of unmet childhood needs.
	People want to turn the state into their family in the hopes of avoiding the necessary trauma processing of a childhood where you didn't get your resources because socialism and fascism and communism, national socialism,
	all these totalitarian style regimes are about staying a child and having the state As parents, the military state as daddy and the welfare state as mommy take care of you.
	So you never have to face the fact that you weren't taken care of as a child.
	And to me, the neglect that children experience, if you experience abuse, you're more likely to go towards totalitarianism.
	And if you experience neglect, you're more likely to go towards socialism.
	And so for me, it's just all these unmet childhood needs.
	I'm sorry?
	Yeah.
	Let me focus a little bit.
	What about in terms of incentives?
	Like, the socialist state offers a lot more incentives to, say, not work.
	Or the welfare state, for instance, would you agree there?
	Like, fewer people will work because they can make more money off of welfare or having, you know, being welfare queens than they would to go find a minimum wage job.
	No, but that's not granular enough.
	Because if you're a very smart person...
	Then the welfare state has almost no appeal to you, right?
	Because you'll do much better in the market.
	Idiots.
	No, idiots.
	Dumb people.
	Like people with IQs of like 85 or maybe 87 or lower, which is a significant proportion of the population.
	You know, as the old George Carlin joke goes, you know, look how dumb the average person is.
	Well, half of them are dumber than that, right?
	And so...
	It can be genetic, but basically people who are not smart are much keener on the welfare state because it pays them disproportionately beneficial rates compared to what they could get elsewhere.
	It was an incentive then to support the state because they're incentivized as opposed to the free market doing as it may, right?
	Well, yes, but then you'd have to say...
	If that were the case, you'd have to say, well, then, you know, rich kids at Harvard must all be capitalists, but that's not true at all.
	Rich kids in universities are overwhelmingly socialist, more so even, in my experience, than the poor people.
	Right, but would you say that incentives drive behavior or can influence behavior?
	I'm not sure why you'd even ask me.
	Do you believe that sometimes it rains?
	I mean, do incentives affect behavior?
	No, this is important.
	I mean, I know, but it's also important that you don't ask me questions completely obvious that insult my intelligence.
	No, no, I'm not trying to insult your intelligence.
	I'm just trying to lead you into a trap.
	No, lead me into a trap.
	Just don't do it so obviously.
	Yeah, I know.
	I don't like to see the netting before I step on that.
	Let me just lay my cards on the table then.
	I believe that the state creates perverse incentives to dissolve marriages.
	You can have someone that you trust and you can have someone that you originally trusted implicitly, but the economic incentives to having access to half or large percentages of a man's resources can outweigh rational or loving behavior.
	We're thinking like, well, you know, I can have everything I'm getting from them, but I don't have to put up with them.
	So I think that that incentive exists, so I'm going to take advantage of that and initiate the divorce.
	Now, as you said, finding someone that is honorable and virtuous can hopefully keep you away from that situation.
	But the state and its sanctioning of marriage, not the relationship between people, it creates these incentives that incentivize women to disregard or discard the men that were formerly their providers.
	I get all of that.
	And given that risk, if you are interested in having a long-term relationship and having children, given that risk, you need to work extra hard to find the right woman.
	You need to have somebody who thinks for themselves, a woman who has integrity, a woman who rejects the initiation of force as a fundamental moral principle.
	You know, talk about the non-aggression principle.
	I'm not farting out of my armpit.
	It's essential shit for your happiness in life.
	I agree.
	I agree with it.
	Right?
	Because if a woman says, I reject the non-aggression principle, and she is a virtuous person, she's committed to virtue, and she makes the necessary sacrifices to be virtuous… And to live consistently, which if you meet a woman who's already an anarchist and an atheist and a philosopher and a thinker and all that, it doesn't matter to what degree she's creative or what skill she has in the realm of philosophy.
	It only really matters that she has already taken the steps and made the sacrifices to be a moral person.
	Then she has sunk costs into virtue.
	You know what that is, right?
	So it's like if you wait for a bus for half an hour, you're much less likely to walk, right?
	If you wait for a bus for five minutes, you're more likely to walk.
	And so if you find someone, find a woman who has sunk costs.
	She's already made the sacrifice.
	Maybe she grew up in a religious family.
	She's become an atheist.
	She's taken those bullets.
	She's taken those hits.
	Maybe her mom's a schoolteacher and she's become an anarchist and she's taken those hits.
	And she has committed to virtue, even against...
	The hostility or scorn or condemnation of those around her.
	Right?
	You find someone who either already has or is willing to sink costs into being virtuous.
	Because the best predictor of future behavior by far is relevant past behavior.
	Right?
	And so if a woman...
	If a woman has defied the religiosity of her family, if a woman has defied the socialist or statist programming of her childhood and school and peers, then she has already given up comfort for the sake of virtue.
	She has already rejected the prize of social conformity for the sake of being virtuous.
	This woman will never use the state to take your money.
	Because she has already made the sacrifices.
	She's already shown and proven that she is willing to be virtuous at great personal cost.
	She is willing to place the fountainhead, the godhead, the north star of integrity above material concerns, above the approval of the tribe, above the approval of the family, above even perhaps the approval of her society.
	She's already said no To taking half your money by the time she's met you.
	And this is why you can find these people.
	They are out there.
	If you wish to have no government in your marriage, find a woman who has rejected the government.
	Find a woman who has already invested in virtue.
	And she has already guaranteed in the future by her past actions that she will choose integrity and virtue over material gain over emotional comfort every time.
	And then you have nothing to fear.
	Anybody out there worried about me running for office?
	Are you?
	You should.
	I don't think you'd like that.
	Are you worried about me?
	Do you think I'm going to run for office?
	I could.
	I'd be really good at it.
	Think I can't do a speech?
	Think I can't rouse a nation?
	Sure as shit can.
	Are you concerned about me running for office?
	You?
	You think I will?
	Yeah.
	I'd agree with you.
	You come from a place of rationality and you speak frankly and honestly.
	I don't think you would abuse the powers of the state.
	It's a shame.
	Do you think I'm going to run for office?
	No, you're not going to.
	Of course not.
	No.
	Of course not.
	But people like you should?
	Of course not.
	But they won't.
	Oh, I completely disagree.
	That's a great way to neuter me.
	If you want to be important in the moment and forgotten in history, run for office.
	If you want to be inconsequential in the moment but alter history completely, follow philosophy, espouse philosophy, spread philosophy.
	So anyway, that's my suggestions.
	Find the right woman and there are very clear ideological markers.
	A woman who's a conformist is a woman who seeks comfort over integrity.
	And she will then take half your house.
	Because it's more comfortable to have more money.
	And she's not barred from such action by any moral scruples.
	I think that puts it pretty succinctly.
	I like that.
	That is perhaps one of the red flags that you could look for.
	Comfort over...
	What was it you said?
	A woman who seeks comfort over integrity.
	Integrity.
	I gotcha.
	Everybody knows that being a good person in the world is...
	A buffet of largely delectable stuff with the occasional shit sandwich fired up your nose by a cannon full of assholes, right?
	And so if you want to find a woman you can trust, find a woman who has been willing to suffer for virtue and who fully recognizes the non-aggression principle.
	Then you'll get a woman who's not manipulative, who won't lie to you, who won't hit your children, who won't threaten you, and Because you are both the rarest of rare creatures, people who value integrity over comfort, she's not going to sleep around, right?
	Because she's not going to find someone like you.
	Be excellent, be rare, and be incredibly discriminatory.
	And you can find the people you can trust, and there are very clear philosophical and empirical markers that guarantee you Guarantee you certainty in your relationships.
	Gotcha.
	Thanks, Steph.
	I appreciate that.
	Thanks, man.
	Appreciate the call.
	All right, Mike.
	Who is with the next upness?
	All right.
	Up next is Errico.
	And he wrote in and said, What is the difference between a deterministic universe and a non-deterministic one?
	And how can philosophy shed light to an issue that seems to be restricted to physics?
	What is the difference between a deterministic universe and a non-deterministic universe?
	You see, you have already got a split, right?
	You already have a fork in the road, right?
	Like, we don't say, if we see a rock bouncing down a hill, we don't say, what's the difference between a rock bouncing down a hill and a rock choosing where it lands, right?
	Okay.
	First, Stefan, I just want to thank you for having All this valuable information available for free.
	And I also say that people who enjoy this free information but do not donate, they probably have no idea how hard it is to do what you and Mike and everyone there is doing.
	Well, thank you.
	I appreciate that.
	And they don't.
	Yeah, they don't.
	You know, if you want to know what a great singer is, try singing along with his song and then listening to yourself back and like, oh, that's why he's in a stadium and I'm in a shower.
	Okay.
	So, I appreciate that.
	It's very kind.
	So, I want to point out that when you start talking about a deterministic and a non-deterministic universe, you're talking about human consciousness, right?
	Sure.
	Yes.
	That's the point.
	Yeah.
	So, we don't put on a movie and say, I wonder how the characters want it to end.
	I wonder what they're going to choose.
	And we don't watch a movie over and over again hoping that the characters will learn something and the problems will be avoided next time, right?
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	But here's the thing.
	The end goal...
	No, hang on, hang on, hang on.
	Okay, go ahead.
	Right.
	So, like, you don't watch Jaws over and over again saying, boy, I sure hope that tiny butted woman doesn't go swimming in the dark this time because, I mean, the last ten times I watched it, she got chomped up.
	We know.
	So that's deterministic, right?
	That is – can't change.
	So the moment you start talking about determinism versus non-determinism, you are talking about human consciousness and nothing else, right?
	Yes.
	You don't wake up every morning and say, I hope that my liver chooses to clean my blood today and not go play World of Warcraft, right?
	Okay, so let's say that it's possible to predict human consciences.
	It's possible to predict human choice well before they are actually made.
	Wait, wait, wait.
	No, no.
	You're jumping quite a bit there, right?
	Okay, so I'm just trying to make a quick point.
	Okay, go ahead.
	So, even though it might be possible to predict human choice, we have no idea if it's possible or not.
	Because humans so far have only been able to understand 2% of the things that make the cosmos.
	So, if there's some mathematical rule that would enable people to predict choices, We are not aware of such a rule.
	But it doesn't mean that it's impossible.
	It only means that we don't know about it.
	So if people have only 2% of the knowledge of the cosmos...
	Wait, where do you get the 2% from?
	Okay, so the cosmos is made of regular matter and dark energy and dark matter.
	So about 98% of the cosmos is dark energy and dark matter.
	And those words mean nothing because nobody knows what those things really are.
	They are only able to detect it because of the gravity dragging things around or pulling things around.
	Sorry, it's a theory that if we can predict the behavior of dark matter, we then might be able to predict the behavior of human beings because we're full of dark matter.
	Is that right?
	No, no, no.
	Not at all.
	I'm just trying to say that… Hang on.
	Is there dark matter in the human brain?
	Probably.
	I'm not sure.
	Probably.
	So it's like ether?
	It's like in the sort of pre-scientific world, it's everywhere?
	Is that right?
	No, I'm just making a point that...
	No, no, I'm not...
	I'm just...
	I'm genuinely...
	Don't get annoyed.
	I'm asking you questions because I don't know.
	Yeah, no, I'm not saying that at all.
	No, I'm not saying that.
	To me, dark matter is just mostly what's being shaken around in an anaconda video.
	I'm no expert on this at all, right?
	So those words actually mean...
	Hang on.
	Is dark matter...
	Infused into everything?
	Is it like everywhere or is it some discrete chunk of stuff that's elsewhere?
	It seems to be everywhere and goes through regular matter undetected.
	But here's the thing, nobody knows what those things are.
	They could very well be named the free domain radio energy and you could say that the cosmos is made of free domain radio energy and nobody would know what that means.
	Okay, so hang on.
	I have no idea what we're talking about now.
	So you're saying that there's something called dark matter which comprises 98% of things.
	We don't know if it's in the human brain and nobody can say anything about it.
	Exactly.
	So nobody can say anything about 98% of the universe.
	So how are we making any statement about how the universe fundamentally works if we don't know even parts of 2% of the universe?
	Yeah, again, I can't speak to the physics of it, of course, right?
	I mean, that's all pretty, I guess you could say, opaque to me.
	I can't speak to the physics.
	But if there is a hidden aspect of consciousness that could be dominating consciousness that I'm not aware of, that would be obviously interesting, right?
	Sure.
	Now, if it could be the case...
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Okay, so if there is such a rule that so far we have not managed to detect because the current technology won't allow us, how are we to make a statement about something that we don't really have any evidence either way?
	Because how can human perception actually see the difference between a deterministic universe and a non-deterministic one, given that We don't know enough about the world to know if things happen at random or if they happen by some...
	No, no, no, come on.
	Things don't happen by random.
	Yeah, yeah, of course.
	Come on, I mean, they don't.
	I mean, we couldn't be having this conversation.
	Are you saying that the laws of physics are not stable?
	I mean, things don't happen by random, by accident, right?
	Exactly.
	So I'm just extending that idea to human choice.
	And I'm saying that we are not aware that human choice follows same mathematical rules because we don't know about the rules yet.
	And therefore, we can't make a statement.
	No, no.
	But look, first of all, this is just an argument called the guard of the gaps, which is to say, wherever there is a gap in human understanding, and you, of course, are aware, there will always be gaps in human understanding.
	We are mortal.
	We are finite.
	The universe is unimaginably vast and probably fairly unimaginably complex and so on.
	So there will always be limitations in human knowledge.
	We accept that, right?
	Yeah, that's true.
	Okay.
	So you can't stuff whatever you want into the unknown.
	Like I can't say – I don't know.
	There's dark matter and therefore there could be square circles, right?
	Or there's dark matter and therefore two and two could make five, right?
	So you can't stuff some – I'm not calling your ideas crazy – but you can't stuff some irrational or crazy idea I recommend
	suspending judgments.
	No, no, no.
	Listen to your words.
	You recommend suspending judgment because of.
	That is a statement of free will.
	Yes, and it might be following some way that I'm not aware of.
	No, no, no.
	You can't use what you're trying to deny.
	I can't use the phone to call you and tell you that phones don't work.
	And you can't make statements that rely upon free will to become an agnostic about free will, right?
	Okay, so let me ask you a question.
	No, no, no.
	We've got to finish a point here.
	We can't just keep bouncing around like crazy atoms, right?
	No, no, no.
	Forget the question.
	We need to go back to what you said.
	Okay.
	You said, I recommend...
	My personal suggestion is to suspend it.
	No, I get it.
	I know what you said.
	Stop answering everything just when I take a breath.
	Otherwise, I'm going to have to inhale for half an hour before taking my next sentence on.
	You said, I recommend, which means you think that there is a preferable state, right?
	Yes.
	A preferable state of truth versus error, right?
	Correct.
	Now, if there is a determinist universe, if the universe is determinist, there can be no preferential state.
	Why not?
	Because everything is deterministic.
	And?
	And therefore you can't have a preferred state.
	Why not?
	Because if a rock is bouncing down a hill, is there a preferred state for the rock to land?
	It's an incomprehensible question.
	It's going to land where it's going to land because it has no choice.
	The rock will just fall down the hill and we will make the decisions and we might have...
	No, no, no, no.
	Forget you.
	No, no.
	You are a rock in a deterministic universe.
	Yes.
	You are indistinguishable from a rock.
	You may be a complex rock, but you're still a rock.
	And so if a human being acting is exactly the same as a rock falling down a hill, a rock cannot have a preferred state of landing, a human being cannot have a preferred state of anything.
	Okay, so let me ask you...
	No, no, do you accept that?
	No, I don't.
	Okay, so then we are different from rocks.
	Okay, my subject...
	No, no, you've got to answer these questions.
	Let me try to explain it.
	No, no.
	Are we different from rocks?
	In a deterministic universe?
	Depends the way you frame the question, so I'm not sure how to answer the question.
	Okay, let me ask the question again.
	A rock cannot choose but is subject to the laws of physics which act upon it blindly, right?
	Without preference.
	If the rock has the inclusion of choice, it doesn't make a difference.
	No, no.
	I need you to answer the questions that are specific.
	I'm not trying to catch you out or anything, but if we're going to make progress, you need to answer the specific questions.
	A rock cannot choose a preferred state.
	Gravity cannot act upon it with favoritism, right?
	Correct.
	Okay, so a rock cannot have a preferred state when it is rolling down a hill.
	The rock, so to speak, or an impartial third-party observer may not know where the rock is going to land because there's so many factors and variables, right?
	Wind, the bouncing on the whatever it's bouncing on and air resistance and whatever, right?
	But the rock cannot have a preferred state because it is simply blindly following the laws of physics.
	It's actually following some very specific rules that people think that they are...
	No, no, no.
	Stop.
	Stop.
	No, listen.
	If you want to talk to me, we have to go one step at a time, which means you need to give me Socratic-style yes-no questions.
	Does the rock have a preferred state?
	Or can it?
	No.
	No.
	Okay, fine.
	In a deterministic universe, a human brain is a rock.
	It is following the laws of physics.
	It has no choice.
	It has no...
	Preferred state.
	It cannot have a preferred state because it is exactly the same as Iraq.
	So, in a deterministic universe, I think we have agreed a human being cannot have a preferred state.
	So, when you say, I recommend, You were saying you have – no, let me finish.
	Let me finish.
	When you say I recommend, you are rejecting a deterministic universe because you're saying there's a preferred state called agnosticism or the truth is we don't know.
	So you're saying there is a preferred state in your mind that you want to talk other people into accepting.
	In other words, you have simply and immediately and foundationally detached your brain from a deterministic universe and put it outside of determinism because the moment you mention or refer to or express any preference for a preferred state, you have taken your mind out of the deterministic universe.
	Okay.
	So let's say that my preferred state is our response to the environment.
	No, no.
	Do you agree?
	Then you can talk.
	Because we have to establish some stuff here, right?
	Otherwise we're just going to keep batting ideas back and forth.
	Yes or no question?
	Do you accept that when you say...
	It's syllogistic, right?
	Everything that is subject to the laws of physics alone cannot have a preferred state.
	In a deterministic universe, human consciousness is subject to all the laws of physics...
	And therefore cannot have a preferred state.
	Yes.
	And by subject to, I mean can't choose, right?
	Yes.
	And therefore, if you say that you have a preferred state, you have automatically rejected the deterministic universe.
	Yes.
	Yes.
	I might not be smart enough to tell if I'm really choosing to make a preferable statement or if I'm following some rule that determines my behavior.
	It doesn't matter.
	It doesn't matter.
	The moment you say that you believe in a preferred state, then you are rejecting the deterministic universe.
	I don't see how that follows.
	Well, I can't explain it again because I'll go insane.
	I've already explained it like five or six times, right?
	Yeah.
	Because in a deterministic universe, you are the same as a rock.
	So let me ask you a question.
	Is human perception fallible?
	Is my perception fallible?
	Human perception is fallible.
	Is it?
	Well, no, no.
	See, compared to what?
	Can you tell me how the radio waves from the wireless network around you, how that looks like?
	I can't by looking at them because they're outside of the visible spectrum, but I can certainly measure them using other techniques.
	You will not be able to even tell that the radio waves are there if we're not for technology.
	So you actually have to say, I suspended judgment about radio waves because I can't see it.
	No, no, come on.
	I know the radio waves are there because I can connect wirelessly to the router.
	Exactly.
	So I know they're there.
	And I know that I can connect wirelessly.
	It will not make any sense to talk about having a choice in radio technology.
	But the only reason we can make a choice about it is because we know it's there.
	But if that information was not available, then we will have to admit that we don't have enough evidence to tell if radios exist or not.
	I'm sorry, I'm trying to follow.
	So you're saying that if I bring like a pick-me-from-the-Amazon into my house and I ask him if there are Wi-Fi radio waves, he won't be able to answer, right?
	Exactly, because in his perspective, he never heard about it and doesn't know what it is that you're talking about.
	Yes, but you're missing what we're talking about.
	What you're talking about is a deficiency of knowledge.
	That's not what I'm talking about.
	I'm talking about you cannot reject a principle by using the principle.
	We don't need any other knowledge.
	It's not like, well, this is a pygmy trying to figure out radio waves.
	There's nothing to do with that.
	The moment you say, I recommend, then you're saying there's a preferable state.
	The moment you want or accept or use a preferable state, you have rejected the deterministic universe.
	These two words, I recommend destroy the deterministic universe, at least in your mind.
	Now you can then say, well, I want the deterministic universe, or I believe the deterministic universe is true or valid, or we should believe in it because, or we should be agnostic because we don't.
	You are continually expressing preferred states.
	Yes.
	But if you express preferred states, the universe cannot be deterministic.
	You have rejected determinism by expressing preferred states.
	Because from my perspective, the universe is not deterministic.
	But my perception might fail me.
	So I live my life as if there was not such a thing as determinism.
	But it doesn't say anything about the fundamental nature of the universe.
	If I just say that I live my life in a way that there is no such thing as determinism.
	It just shows that I have preferable behavior and that I'm not aware of any other option.
	But you see, it doesn't matter.
	Because if the universe is deterministic, then it is predetermined that you will live your life as if you have free will and you have no choice in the matter anyway.
	Yeah.
	So, there's an experiment where people are starting to measure some of how human decisions are made and they actually find out that people make their decisions well before there's a conscious connection about the decision.
	And it's possible to predict such a decision beforehand, before it happens, by examining the waves inside the brain.
	So maybe, maybe, there's some yet-to-be-found rule that will allow us to predict human behavior, but we don't know about it yet.
	Well, look, those experiments are generally, it would be interesting for me to see those experiments before and after people have rigorously pursued self-knowledge.
	In other words, people have pursued therapy or journaling or some rigorous program, you know, hopefully with a professional at the helm.
	of pursuing self-knowledge because it certainly is true.
	The vast majority of people are unthinking prejudice machines, right?
	I mean there are studies that are even worse than what you're citing.
	There are studies that show people making stuff up after the fact to justify a position that it turns out they didn't even hold.
	There are significant indications If not downright proof that if you show contrary information to somebody with a particular ideological bent, it reinforces their ideological bent.
	In other words, their ideology is not only immune to counter-information, it is strengthened by counter-information.
	And so, you know, it's sort of like if you continue to disprove the Christian or the religious person's beliefs, then they just say, well, this only strengthens my faith because it shows me what a virtue it is to believe against all this evidence, right?
	So this is absolutely true.
	But the reality is that, of course, the goal that I have and the goal that lots of other people in the world have is, yeah, people are really bad at thinking.
	They react emotionally.
	They usually don't have a neofrontal cortex to intercept all of the impulses flowing up from the monkey brain, the lizard brain, the amygdala and hypothalamus.
	And this is all very tragic.
	But this can change.
	If you see the brain scans of people after therapy...
	When they've pursued a rigorous program of self-knowledge, self-study, and I would also throw in rational cognitive development, like the ability to reason, the ability to be skeptical, the ability to refer to evidence, then you will find that their near frontal cortex has strengthened, that they are able to change the impulses or intercept and alter the impulses that come up from their deep brain.
	And over time, the impulses from their deep brain change as well.
	So if you look at, it's like saying, well, nobody can run a marathon and I'm going to interview all these people who've lived on a couch eating potato chips for 10 years and say, well, look, nobody can run a marathon.
	Marathons are an illusion.
	It's like, well, if you only deal with the lazy, with the ignorant, then of course you're going to get results that make everyone look bad.
	But this only proves the value of getting off the couch and going for a run.
	It only proves the value of self-knowledge because then you can not act in automatic and unthinking ways based upon emotional anti-reasoning impulses.
	Yeah, so the sad thing is, is everyone actually capable of such level of self-knowledge?
	No, no.
	I mean, look, people with an IQ of 70 or 80, I mean, seems highly unlikely.
	Doesn't mean they're going to be bad people or anything, but no.
	Yeah, so how do you deal with people if they're the majority of people on the planet?
	Well, you don't have a government.
	Because the moment you have a government, you have voting, which means that idiocracy becomes not a fictional movie, but a documentary, right?
	So, yeah, you don't have a government...
	Because one of the huge problems that happens with governments, particularly democracies, is that the moment a particular group of people get the vote, whites, blacks, males, females, it doesn't really matter.
	The moment people get the vote, there is little more demanded of the leaders than the endless flattery of fools.
	And so...
	Leaders really have to praise and pander to all of the prejudices of the majority, which are generally the average to below average people, because above average people don't run to the government for solutions, because they're smart enough to know that the government is really not going to be their friend in the long run.
	Dumb people do run to the government for solutions, because they're dumb, they're going to make less in the free market, so they like getting more from the government, and because they're dumb, they can't understand the hidden costs of...
	Everything the government is providing to them and also they're usually not paying those costs because with a graduated income tax, they're usually on the receiving end of the money that the smarter people are having pulled out of their armpits by IRS agents with chainsaws.
	So the moment you have a democracy, people have got to go around praising the heroic single mothers and pandering to every victim group known to mankind and never having any truth spill out of their lips I mean, it's just not a good idea.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	The way democracy works right now is that people are elected democracy by the majority and then once they reach power, they enact laws that make them immune to democracy because they make themselves special.
	So they are elected by the majority, and once they reach power, it's really irrelevant how they got elected, because they will enact laws that will benefit themselves personally.
	Oh yeah, no, idiots vote for the same reason that idiots do rain dances.
	I mean, the rain dances don't actually bring any rain, and voting doesn't give them any power over the government, but it gives them the illusion of power.
	And...
	Smart people recognize – they say, look, politicians don't sign any contract with me.
	There's no enforcement mechanism for having them hold their promises when they get in power.
	So why would I participate in this sham?
	Whereas, you know, idiots are like, oh, great.
	Obama's in power.
	I get free gas now at free healthcare.
	It's like – because they're idiots.
	But in the free market – There will be people who pander to idiots, of course, because idiots have money and there's a market, right?
	But in the free market, in a free society, there's no universal compulsion to flatter idiots because anybody who's smart views flattery as a potentially dangerous form of manipulation and usually an insult to their intelligence, right?
	I don't mean sort of compliments.
	You called up and you said, I appreciate what you're doing and I appreciate that.
	That to me was not flattery, right?
	Idiots lap up flattery because they don't have any real abilities so they love the fantasy of ability that's provided by sycophantic flatterers aiming to rule them.
	But smart people sniff flattery like a dog shat in their shoe.
	How do you deal with the world of idiots?
	Well, you free the smart people from the control of idiots through the state and then in the long run, Everybody will do better.
	But, of course, the idiots won't like it in the short run.
	Because, you know, part of idiocy is not being able to defer gratification.
	And that's why, you know, there's all these things about how this meme floating around among college kids at the moment, like, Denmark is the best place ever!
	You know, free healthcare, free university, a minimum wage of $4,000 an hour!
	And it's like, oh my god!
	But this goddamn place...
	Fuck!
	I mean...
	They have a 200% tax on cars.
	A $25,000 car costs $75,000.
	They have a top income tax bracket of 60% plus like a 15% or 20% tax on everything you buy and the top income tax bracket of 60% kicks in at $55,000.
	God almighty!
	We actually have the same amount of taxes except we don't get any of the benefits.
	Oh, right, right.
	So that's even worse.
	It's even worse.
	And so, I mean, this is what people think.
	You know, idiots think there's a free lunch.
	The government has all this money.
	The government pays for stuff.
	Let's go get some of that government money.
	The government has no money, right?
	But that takes a layer of abstraction, a layer of...
	Right?
	To even be able to observe yourself and wonder if you're doing the right thing, which is really the fundamental reality of free will, right?
	By my definition, I've got a whole series of this...
	Free will is part one, two, and three on YouTube and in the podcast feed.
	You can go to fdrpodcast.com and do a search.
	We have the capacity as human beings, most of us, to compare proposed actions to an ideal standard.
	That to me, that's all free will is.
	Because people say, well, what is free will?
	The ability to choose.
	Well, that's – since if you define free will as the ability to choose and then you really – Try and figure out what the ability to choose is, you end up defining it as free will.
	It's just a tautology, right?
	It's like saying, Coke is it.
	What's it?
	Coke.
	Oh, say Coke is Coke.
	You haven't added anything to the equation.
	But if you say free will is the capacity to compare proposed actions to an ideal standard, well, then there's the place for philosophy, of course, which is the ideal standard.
	There's the role of education and self-knowledge, which is to compare proposed actions, which means don't act impulsively.
	Think ahead, intercept your emotions, and figure out whether they're going to get you what you want in the long run, blah, blah, blah.
	We're all – my daughter was doing this at three.
	I think I mentioned this the other day.
	I mean to hell with the marshmallow test where it's like you get one marshmallow now or two in 15 minutes.
	The other day, she had had some sugar and we're really trying to help her understand why it's important to limit sugar.
	So she said – I said you're going to have half a lollipop because you had something earlier today.
	I didn't say you can have because that's very authoritarian, but we said, you know, here's what I suggest and here's why.
	And she said, you know what?
	That's okay.
	Like I know I'm going to get some cake at this place tomorrow.
	I'll just eat it in two days.
	And she put it back down on the counter and wandered off.
	I mean, I'm not sure I could do that as a 48-year-old, and she's doing that when she was five, or does that when she's five.
	And actually, that's the best way to predict success in the future, the ability to deter gratification.
	That's actually more important than IQ or any other test that I'm aware of.
	It's sort of related to IQ, but it's not identical because you have to be smart enough to predict the outcome of your actions in order to be able to defer gratification.
	And this is why most people are not philosophers because philosophy is really in a sense the ultimate deferral of gratification because you suffer socially.
	You suffer the comforts of conformity with the tribe to buy a better world you will not live to see.
	So it's like heaven.
	It's like the ultimate deferral of gratification.
	I'm going to be a monk.
	To get into heaven, it's like, well, that's kind of like being a philosopher, except you actually never get to heaven because you're dead and you're just in the ground.
	So I think that's why people have a challenge.
	With philosophy, in many ways, it's the ultimate deferral of gratification.
	I mean, Socrates was trying to reason with the planet.
	2,500 years ago, the planet is still pretty far from rational.
	So sometimes it can seem you measure the deferral of gratification in the millennia.
	So hopefully we can get that down a little bit with the technology we have now.
	So, yeah, I mean, I'm very comfortable with all of that with her.
	I think she's got great capacity to defer gratification.
	Yeah, sure.
	And that actually scares me, because philosophically, we are not very far away from 2,000 years ago, except now that we have nuclear weapons and geological weapons, and so we are really just the same monkey, except now we can destroy the planet.
	Well...
	Okay, I mean, I kind of get what you're coming from, and I don't disagree in many ways.
	But I'll be goddamned if I'll let that continue.
	I will be goddamned if I will let that continue.
	I have...
	Okay, just settle back for a rant, because this is something I feel pretty strongly about.
	But I am so fucking sick and tired of philosophy being this nerdy loser, you know, sitting around the I'm so fucking tired of that shit.
	Philosophy is a kick-ass monster beast of grab you by the balls and shove you upside your human potential until you cry tears of wisdom.
	That is what philosophy is.
	Philosophy is a motherfucker of a dinosaur out to stomp out the bullshit mammals of history.
	And philosophy is just this unbelievable beast.
	I view philosophy like the Hulk.
	I view philosophy like the rock taking a deep breath and And pumping all his muscles at the same time.
	I mean, philosophy is a human being so full of potential, if he holds in a sneeze, he'll blow his abs out.
	And I'm just so sick and tired of philosophy being this abstract, oh, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
	Oh, there's a streetcar rolling down these tracks that you have a switch on.
	Hanging from a flagpole.
	People in a lifeboat who are going to eat.
	Starving.
	Property rights.
	And what if you're floating above the world before you're born and who you choose to be?
	Oh my God, will you fucking shut up?
	Shut the fuck up!
	And do something useful for the planet, you giant-brained ass-wipes of wastes of human skin and lack of potential, distractors from the essential progress of the human condition, motherfuckers!
	Oh my god!
	Philosophers as a whole drive me batshit, as far as that stuff goes.
	They are the most essential, meaty, muscular, I dare say manly, although I've been more influenced by female philosophers than male philosophers, But they are, you know, hairy-chested, deep-voiced, big-hearted, fists-in-the-face-of-an-irrational-humanity superheroes.
	And oh my god.
	Oh my god.
	The idea that philosophy is just sort of, I don't know, it's an interesting abstract discipline.
	Or, you know, people say, oh, what did you get your degree in?
	I got my degree in history.
	Really, my master's was about the history of philosophy.
	And people are like, oh...
	I feel I should send you a card, sort of reading like, oh, did you study philosophy?
	Oh, I'm so sorry.
	How sad, how tragic.
	Why couldn't you have studied something useful like engineering?
	Hey, do you know why engineers are able to build shit?
	Philosophers, baby!
	Philosophers figured out the scientific method.
	Philosophers came up with the free market.
	Why didn't you go and be a doctor?
	Hey, do you know how doctors are not killing human beings now?
	Do you know until the 19th century, late 19th century, if you went to a doctor, you were more likely to die than less?
	Do you know how doctors are able to cure people and not kill people?
	Philosophers, baby!
	Figured out the scientific method, double-blind experiment.
	That all came out of philosophy.
	Yeah, you used to be called the natural philosophy.
	Right.
	Study of nature and study of how to extract the most value and knowledge out of nature without resorting to religious bullshit or bullshit.
	And so, no, listen, I sympathize with you.
	Philosophy to me is the ultimate superhero and it charges and energizes me to no small degree.
	And I have worked hard and I have obviously a bit of a gift of the gab as far as explaining things and I do have these – Weird geisters of metaphors that occasionally hit the mark that erupt within my heart and mind.
	But people should be like, philosopher, oh man, you're from Krypton.
	You can do anything.
	Philosopher, man!
	People are like, that's Kobe Bryant.
	He bounces a ball.
	Wow!
	Brad Pitt, that guy has nice air.
	And some pretty sick abs, man.
	And he can mumble and move on screen like it's real.
	Man, he is a good faker.
	He is a good make-believer guy.
	Let's give him all the money in the known universe.
	That George Clooney, he's pretty.
	And again, nice hair.
	And Purdy.
	You know, we mentioned Purdy.
	And he's also really good at pretending he's not George Clooney.
	Yeah, it's insane.
	And also for people that all they can do is kick a ball around and they get paid millions for it.
	Danica Patrick?
	Those dicks move really fast!
	That's like, oh my god!
	And people are like, Oh, man.
	You studied philosophy?
	Oh, man.
	I'm sorry about that.
	Holy philosophy!
	Man, you must have drawn the short straw in figuring out what you wanted to do with your laugh.
	Philosophy?
	Oh, my God.
	I mean, why did you study basket weaving and get it over with philosophy?
	Oh, that's tragic.
	Oh, my God!
	Look, it's Jim Carrey!
	He makes funny faces!
	Let's go photograph him!
	I mean...
	Oh my god!
	That's Taylor Swift!
	She looks like an animated Kewpie doll with a nice voice!
	She sings pretty and has red lips!
	Let's go take her picture!
	Step on the philosopher's head!
	Because, you know, he's just on his way to go make us a latte anyway.
	He only studied philosophy!
	Yeah, so the tragedy is also that it's okay to study to be an actor, but not as much okay to study to be a philosopher, but People don't even consider that they have to study to have kids.
	Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.
	No, I mean, the real heroes are the great parents.
	I mean, that's really all it comes down to.
	The real heroes are the great parents.
	Do you know, I mean, I'll tell you something, just between you and me and the garden fence and the rest of the internet.
	The number of kids who said to me, I wish you were my dad, oh my god, heartbreaking.
	It's heartbreaking.
	It's heartbreaking.
	The real heroes are the great parents.
	The great parents need philosophers.
	They need the non-aggression principle.
	They need clarification on spanking.
	They need the psychologists.
	They need the research scientists, the neuroscientists.
	I mean, all of that stuff.
	But, man, if you think you can be a great parent without philosophy, you are deluding yourself because you need to have those standards of behavior, those principles.
	Which are inviolate.
	And you need to know why they cannot be broached.
	They cannot be abridged.
	They cannot be broken.
	And that stuff is absolutely fantastic.
	I mean, the degree to which we look at stupid human tricks and mistake them for genuine value is just absolutely astounding.
	And this is nothing new to me.
	Socrates said this In the trial when he was accused of not believing in the gods of the city and of corrupting the young.
	Oh!
	There's an original accusation for a philosopher.
	And he said – they basically said, what should your punishment be?
	And he said, well, you know, when somebody wins in a sport like does really well in the Olympics, you give that person a free house – And you give that person free meals for the rest of their lives.
	Because they threw a spear really, really far.
	He said, you know, I have been exhorting you Athenians for many, many years in virtue, in self-knowledge, in wisdom, in moral excellence, in thinking.
	A little bit more important than Oh, look, a spear went really far!
	So he said, I would take what you have provided for the Athenian sports dudes.
	You know, give me a free house.
	He said, because look, I've been sitting around here talking many, many years with the Athenians about virtue.
	It's kind of been at the cost of my life, my wealth.
	You know, I could have been a politician.
	I could have, I don't know, gone into business, bought and sold slaves or whatever, right?
	But instead, I sacrificed a lot of my income to talk virtue, which is a much more important thing than, wow, a spear, ooh, ah, that's far.
	So he said, I will take that.
	And everyone was profoundly insulted by what Socrates said.
	There are some historians who basically said Socrates was begging for that hemlock, man.
	He was just begging for it.
	He was just being so...
	And he was being so insulting and provocative that he basically was daring them to kill him.
	And I think what he said, where he said, sacrifice a cock for me, and basically this is a thanks for a gift, and the gift was death.
	And that was the traditional sacrifice for when you received a gift, and the gift was death.
	Because I think he basically had given up wanting to live in Athenia.
	Can you imagine how ignorant people were at this time?
	Yeah, I actually can.
	I can.
	I have these scrolling apocalypse of mental destruction known as YouTube comments to occasionally refer to.
	Yeah, and those are the ones that have been through the Flynn effect.
	Yeah, and although the Flynn effect, as far as I understand it, Just by the by, James Flynn, you could look it up.
	The fact is that you get smarter and smarter.
	He thinks that we've kind of hit the max of that, right?
	We've sort of gone as far as our genes can take us, as far as intelligence goes.
	But that's neither here nor there.
	So this complaint that people are more interested in stupid, steroid-charged, idiot human tricks, this frustration that thinkers have...
	At the way in which money follows idiot desires is as old as philosophy and really as old as the human condition.
	And it is as old as the frustration that wise people have at people's addiction to pretty.
	Pretty on the outside, and this goes back to the symposium, which is the four levels of love.
	Of course, the first is pretty.
	And Alcibiades, of course, was very pretty, apparently, which they all sort of fell in love with.
	But this frustration...
	But I... The life of the mind, the life of what could be called the soul, the life of the conscience, the life of virtue, is to me what makes us human rather than mammalian.
	Because there are so many aspects to what drives us that are mammalian.
	Hip-to-waist ratio indicates fertility.
	Up comes the super jock rocket penis cannon, right?
	And wow!
	Even features indicate alpha gene pool.
	Right?
	Tits!
	Eggs!
	Yeah, and that stuff is all...
	Actually, I found those gross.
	But that stuff is all mammalian.
	You know, it's shared by the peacock, right?
	Why is the woman's clitoris where the woman's clitoris is?
	And why are the woman's tits where the woman's tits are?
	Because a woman generally is better to get pregnant if you have sex with her missionary rather than doggy.
	So the tits are in front so the man can stare at the tits and have sex missionary and therefore be more likely for the woman to get pregnant.
	The clitoris is where it is so that she gets more stimulation from the missionary position.
	So our entire apparatus of carrying around the Human brain with the mammalian body, the bald ape body, all of that stuff, it's fine.
	I don't want to have this mind-body dichotomy thing about the only real thing is the neofrontal cortex and the rest is just a vehicle to serve the rest.
	We are animals.
	We are mammals.
	It's actually something my daughter has real problems with.
	She thinks there's people and then there's animals.
	And when I say, but we're animals, she's like, no, we're not.
	We're not.
	She says, who lives in this house?
	People or animals?
	People.
	We make our own houses.
	Yeah, we make our own houses, right?
	I mean, go find a frog in the woods, you know, you don't see a staircase, right?
	It's stuck itself into the ground, right?
	So, with my daughter, there's a distinction between people and animals, and I think that's an important distinction to remember.
	And so much of what human beings praise is based purely on Mammal egg fetish.
	That's all that shit is.
	It's fucking mammal egg fetish.
	That guy's tall.
	Tall people are good hunters.
	They're tall.
	That's actually scary to think about.
	I was reading about the Red Queen effect and to think that that's actually what shapes human behavior.
	It's actually very scary.
	Sorry, the what effect?
	The Red Queen effect.
	The Red Queen Theory of Reproduction.
	It basically says that much of the human behavior is based upon the ability to reproduce and pass on the genes.
	Right.
	So a lot of our behavior will focus on such ideas.
	And that wouldn't bother me so much, except that people aren't honest about it.
	And that's the only way you know that they're actually human rather than just mammals, is that the peacock, right?
	The male peacock has this stupid-ass tail, right?
	And why does he have the tail?
	Because, you know, I mean, nobody knows for sure, but the theory, I think, is that it shows his reproductive fitness because he can carry this giant-ass tail around and still survive, right?
	So there's sort of a...
	You know, but the female peacock...
	Doesn't say, well, you see, his giant ass feathers represent extreme virtue and heroism.
	No.
	They're like, yeah, okay.
	Strong guy.
	You know, got some feathery junk in the trunk?
	Let's get it on.
	Right?
	So that's why they're honest about that shit.
	And that's all I want.
	But people really can't be honest about it.
	People can't be honest about it.
	And that's what bothers me.
	Because people have to say, sports, what's the word?
	Heroes.
	Sports heroes.
	Yeah, sports heroes.
	They're not heroes.
	No, they work hard.
	Yeah, they work hard.
	Movie stars.
	They're not heroes.
	It's not heroic to bounce a ball and throw it into a net.
	It's not.
	It's not.
	It's hard work.
	So what?
	Digging ditches and filling them in is hard work too.
	It's not heroic.
	Is it skilled?
	Sure it's skilled.
	Absolutely.
	You know who else is skilled?
	People who can shoot people from a great distance.
	You know, like the Washington sniper of many years ago.
	Yeah!
	Yeah!
	That's skilled!
	You know, it's not easy to dispose of a body using boric acid, lime and lemon juice, but people do it and they hide their bodies and they get away with murder.
	Skilled, not heroic.
	Not heroic.
	Military heroes.
	Military heroes.
	They're good at killing people.
	Well, they're not even good at killing people.
	They're good at obeying orders.
	They're good at being told to kill people.
	But most of them don't kill people.
	And most of them who do try to kill people aren't actually that good at it.
	And so...
	Just war and all that.
	We'll do it another time.
	But military heroes.
	Go kill that guy.
	Bang!
	Look, a hero.
	Just following orders.
	Just following orders, right?
	And so if you look at the word hero and try to find moral qualities, moral qualities, you will almost never find them co-joined.
	Hero is that which distracts the herd from the necessity and value of moral qualities.
	Look, if we call enough people who bounce balls heroes, people won't have any idea that hero is supposed to mean moral hero.
	And then, people are just shocked when people like Ray Rice beat the shit out of his little boy, but he was our hero.
	Yeah!
	Because he ran, and he threw, and he caught.
	That's not heroic.
	I mean, horses run faster than people.
	Are they thus more heroic?
	I don't think so.
	Most heroic?
	The cheetah!
	And that really comes from the illusion that humans are different from other animals.
	So, for instance, there's the saying that some kind of birds have single reproduction partners, so they stick with the same partner All their lives.
	And then there was some genetical analysis to the actual children of those animals and was found out that one-fourth of the children were not really from the same partner.
	So what is really happening is that some birds are looking for the best male option they can find.
	But instead, they settle with the one that will be the best father.
	So occasionally, they will sleep around so they have the best DNA, and they will use the best father to raise the best DNA. Right.
	Sorry, I just want to correct something I said, which is that I was talking about Ray Rice.
	He's the guy who hit his fiancée.
	It was Peterson who hit his son.
	Sorry about that.
	It doesn't matter, but I just want to mention that.
	And, I mean, single moms are heroic.
	It's like, I don't know that it's really heroic to fuck an idiot and get paid for it.
	I don't know that it's absolutely and totally heroic to do that.
	I just, I haven't, I mean, Socrates is sort of, you know, my gold standard and other moral heroes of history.
	Not, hey, look at that, I managed to coax a man into having sex with me who didn't stick around.
	Now, I run to the government and extract money from better men and women by force.
	Look, I'm a hero!
	No, you're not.
	Anyway, listen, we've got to move on to the next caller, but I really, really appreciate you calling in, and great questions, great comments, and perhaps we can talk again.
	Sure.
	Thank you.
	Alright.
	Lowall is next.
	He wrote in and said, How do we determine the categories moral theories apply to?
	Do we automatically assume it only applies to humans?
	Or is that assumption based on another argument?
	And what does it mean to have self-ownership?
	And how does this translate into other property rights?
	Two different questions, but, you know, put them both together.
	Right.
	42.
	All right.
	Is there any that you want to focus on, just in case we don't get to all of them?
	I prefer to do the first one first.
	The first one first.
	I think I can go with that tautology.
	Okay.
	Before I get into it, I would like to confirm something with you.
	That things can only be true by definition or true by observation.
	Do you agree with that?
	What can be only...
	Oh, things can only be true by definition or observation?
	Yeah.
	Um...
	Well, definition is a bit of a broad term, if you don't mind me saying so.
	Because things can be true syllogistically, right?
	And things can be true because they're reasoned out syllogistically.
	Things can also be true, as I talked about with the guy around the question of determinism, you can falsify a proposition if someone is relying on I'm sorry?
	That's more of a true by definition.
	But there is also true by – that's true by syllogism too, right?
	So all men are mortal.
	Socrates is a man.
	Therefore, Socrates is mortal is a true statement.
	Would that fit into definition?
	Well, technically, that's still – yeah, that's true by definition.
	But whether Socrates is a man is true by observation.
	Yes, agreed.
	Okay, so I think – sort of analytic, synthetic or whatever.
	So yeah, some things are true – Without empirical observation, there's no square circle because it's oppositional definitions.
	And some things are true by observation.
	So if you could scan the whole universe and find no unicorns, there would be no unicorns in the universe.
	But you could never establish that logically ahead of time, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Yeah, I'm with you on that.
	Okay.
	So the question pertains to when you say universally preferable behavior, right?
	You're referring to I'm not sure what you mean by the universal part, because you're obviously not talking about the whole universe.
	You're talking about a particular group.
	Wait, wait, what?
	Why am I not talking about the whole universe?
	Because then you'd have to apply it to the whole universe, which again...
	No, no, no, no, no.
	Look, if I'm a physicist...
	And I make a statement that is common to all matter, then it must apply to the whole universe, right?
	Well, technically, physicists don't study all matter.
	They study the matters they can observe until they find new matter, in which case...
	No, no, no.
	But I study...
	But I study principle, right?
	So if I say a law, right?
	Let's say there's a law of gravity, right?
	Yeah.
	That mass attracts mass, right?
	Sure.
	Then this must be true everywhere there is mass throughout the universe, right?
	I want to agree with you, but there has been cases when science has been updated because – No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait.
	I'm not saying it's proven true, but if I'm making a statement common to all matter, then it must be common to all matter in the universe.
	I may make a statement that's incorrect.
	Sure.
	Right?
	So it's not like...
	But if I am a physicist working with...
	A definition of the behavior of all matter, then it must be universal, right?
	It doesn't have to be.
	No, no, no.
	I just said all matter.
	Yeah, if you are making a statement about all matter, then sure.
	That's what I just said!
	Yeah, I agree.
	I'm trying to make it sort of a weird nitpicking where you have something like Newton who studied...
	Oh, if only nitpicking were weird.
	Go ahead.
	Newton studied motions on Earth where he had absolutely no idea how motion works on a micro scale or on a macro scale, but he could sort of do a really good job of everyday motion.
	Well, sure.
	He wouldn't say that's a universal law of motion.
	It's like the Galileo experiment where he dropped – from the leading tower of Pisa, he dropped an orange and a cannonball, and everyone thought the cannonball being heavy, it would fall to the ground sooner, and it turned out that they fell to the ground pretty much at the same time.
	Yeah.
	Now, he may start to work on more universal laws from that, but in that moment, he's measuring an orange and a cannonball, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	So, yeah, I get all of that, but they weren't, I think, claiming to say, this is true of all matter throughout the universe.
	They started off with their local observations, right?
	Yeah.
	And I think, obviously, the heliocentric model of the solar system, I don't think they said, and this is how all matter throughout the universe and all other, right?
	They were simply trying to establish what worked and accorded with the observations, right?
	Like the retrograde motion of Mars and stuff.
	They're what accorded with the observations in the moment.
	Absolutely.
	But if I am making universal statements, if I'm saying this is true for all matter, right?
	When they say, like Einstein, the theory of light is constant, that is throughout the universe, right?
	Yes.
	Well, again, barring we don't observe any new situations where that's not true, then yes.
	Well, no.
	The claim is that it applies to all matter.
	Whether it does or not, It's determined over time, but the claim is that the speed of light is constant throughout the universe, right?
	Okay, so when Einstein is making a claim about the speed of light, it's universal.
	Yes.
	Okay, now he may be wrong.
	Yes, because that one has to be either true by observation or not true, since it's not a definitional thing.
	It's not definitional, absolutely.
	It's not definitional.
	Yeah, so if they find something that we can see...
	That is further away than the speed of light could possibly have covered, then we have a problem, right?
	It means that something's traveled faster than the speed of light, and we're all in Tachyon universe, and finally we can join Captain James T. Kirk in banging nine-headed aliens up against the wall of the Enterprise.
	But, so, okay, so I'm with you about all of this.
	So when you say...
	So then my concern then is this.
	When you say UPB then has to be applied to everything, literally everything.
	No.
	No?
	I'm not sure what everything means there.
	It's universally preferable behavior.
	Yes.
	Which means it must apply universally to the behavior of beings who are capable of preference.
	Sure.
	So that's not everything.
	That's human beings, right?
	Yeah, that's everything that can choose to behave.
	Yeah, which could be space aliens, but let's just say people for now.
	There's no reason to restrict it to people.
	We also have animals.
	Well, that kind of thing.
	No, no, no, no, no.
	Because I wouldn't say that animals are capable of – preferable means to me not frogs-like shelter.
	Preferable to me is, as I talked about with the free will guy, preferable is being able to compare proposed actions to an ideal standard, which is a uniquely human capacity.
	Well, how do you do that to uniquely human capacity?
	Certainly, animals can learn, which suggests they have some level of capability to compare one thing to the other and then make conclusions.
	To an ideal standard, because an ideal standard would require language.
	It doesn't...
	No, particularly a language of concepts.
	Define language, then.
	Because animals communicate.
	They may not use language, but they communicate.
	But they don't have a language of concepts.
	They don't have words that indicate concepts.
	We can't measure that.
	We have some indication.
	We know they have some ways of measuring it.
	And what way would that be?
	Sure, they haven't produced a book but that doesn't mean they don't have an internal representation of the outside world.
	But I'm not talking about an internal representation of an outside world.
	I'm talking about measurable demonstrative language that is conceptual.
	So language then is the basis on which UPB is applied.
	Well, see, I'm not sure that you're listening very well, if you don't mind me saying so.
	Okay.
	So universally preferable behavior is universal in that it's not right to murder on Mars any more than it is in Philadelphia, right?
	Right.
	If you break Earth's orbit, moral rules don't change, so it's universal.
	And the reason for that is that logic is universal.
	Sure.
	If 2 and 2 make 4, it doesn't change on Jupiter or here.
	In fact, you'd never get to Jupiter if you thought it did, right?
	Because you wouldn't know how much fuel to put in the spaceship.
	I don't take the 2 plus 2 to equal 4 thing, because that's actually true by definition.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	Okay, but there is no place in the universe that I can imagine where all men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal, would not apply.
	Sure.
	Okay, so that's universal.
	Yeah.
	So, UPB applies universally to all beings capable of comparing proposed actions to ideal standards...
	But how do we measure that, Dan, is the question.
	How do we measure...
	Hang on, hang on.
	No, but that's the last word, is what?
	Behavior.
	And that's how we measure it.
	Which is why you say, well, there could be some internal...
	Maybe bonobo monkeys are psychically transmitting all the most amazing philosophy back and forth to each other, but because I'm an empiricist first and foremost, because philosophy derives from empiricism and we only have concepts because of the stability of matter, cells, and atoms...
	So I'm an empiricist.
	So you can't create a magical god of the gaps where anything could be occurring.
	Maybe they're composing symphonies better than Mozart, you know, while they pick ticks out of each other's back.
	But that's all just made up shit until you can show me some empirical evidence, right?
	I agree, but I'm saying how do you measure that claim, Dan, is the question.
	Which claims?
	The claim that you need to know that it can measure to an objective sort of stand.
	Oh my god, do you have an input?
	What did I say?
	How do you measure it?
	Look, I can't repeat myself in a conversation, right?
	What did I say?
	No.
	I'm not saying you agree with me.
	We haven't observed them do something that suggests.
	But I, in fact… No, no.
	Listen.
	I'm not asking you to agree with me.
	I'm just asking you, because I don't want to repeat it for the third time.
	What did I say about how you measure it?
	Did you observe them?
	It is specifically language that denotes concepts.
	Because an ideal standard is a concept, right?
	Yes.
	And so if there's no evidence that the creatures are able or possess a language that involves ideal concepts or just concepts, then ethics, universal preferable behavior does not apply to them.
	But in my argument, any form of learning requires being able to conceptualize.
	Any form of learning?
	Yeah.
	Oh, come on.
	Oh, come on.
	I mean, you know, bees can do a dance that tells the other bees where the pollen is.
	Are you saying that they're philosophizing?
	That isn't learning.
	The other, what?
	It's not learning.
	Okay, so then are we just doing a tautology?
	So you're saying all forms of learning involve concepts?
	Yes.
	Okay, fine.
	And we know through human experience that people have trained dogs to perform new actions that they previously couldn't perform.
	Right.
	Are you saying that the dogs have a language that they can express concepts using?
	I'm not saying they have language.
	I'm saying they can learn.
	And if learning requires being able to conceptualize, then it does require that they're able to conceptualize whether we understand what that is or not.
	So you're saying that any animal that can be trained...
	Is the same as a philosophizing human being, a reasoning and conceptual human being?
	No, I didn't say they had the same capacity to conceptualize as human beings, but they have some level.
	And even within human beings, there are different capacities to conceptualize.
	But how do...
	Oh my god, man.
	Have you ever trained a dog?
	Nope.
	How do you train a dog?
	Um, you...
	You allow it to perform certain actions because it's to perform other actions and then you reward it when it performs the actions you want.
	Okay.
	You reward it?
	Yes.
	See, that's not conceptual.
	You're not arguing that the dog should not hunt the rabbit because the rabbit has feelings and it's immoral to harm.
	Bad dog!
	Good dog!
	That's not conceptual.
	That's simply Pavlovian.
	That's just training the nervous system to react positively or negatively to certain stimuli.
	You might as well run an electric current through a jellyfish and call it a philosopher.
	No, it requires the dog to be able to make a connection between two different and obviously unconnected things.
	To be able to come to the conclusion to perform those actions when certain actions by the human is performed.
	Oh my god, but you've never trained a dog?
	No.
	But you know how dog training works?
	Yeah, I've read about it.
	Okay, so it can't be conceptual if it's, here's a reward, here's a treat if you do this, and then the dog associates doing that with getting a treat, right?
	That's not conceptual.
	And it's not conceptual if you swat the dog on the butt with a rolled up newspaper or say, bad dog!
	That's not conceptual.
	That is really at the level of sense perception.
	It's called training, not reasoning, not debating, not arguing.
	It's called training because you're conditioning the dog to perform certain actions because you give that dog a reward.
	And so it associates the actions with the reward and will pursue the actions in the hopes of getting the reward.
	Said behavior also works with chickens.
	Yeah, and those actions require to be able to process those two things somehow and figure out that they are connected, at least when it comes to you performing an action, when they're obviously not.
	Oh, come on.
	No, they're not figuring anything out.
	All animals pursue that which is pleasurable and avoid that which is painful.
	That's not conceptual.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I'm not saying that's conceptual, but the ability to connect to ideas is.
	No, no.
	They're not ideas.
	A chicken has a brain approximately the size of my fingernail.
	It's quite a bit smaller than a human wetware.
	It's not conceptual.
	It's behavioral conditioning.
	It's not conceptual.
	It's not like you're debating the dog and saying, you know...
	I, as the owner of you, I give you lots of food.
	I rub your belly, don't I? Here's a nice belly rub.
	I do lots of nice things for you, dog.
	I would like to enter into you a social contract wherein I do lots of nice things for you and it would be very nice if you were reciprocated because I have feelings too and did lots of nice things for me.
	So, roll over!
	Right?
	That's not how you train a dog.
	That's how you bore a dog, right?
	Sure.
	You train a dog by saying, roll over, and you show it, and you help the dog roll over, and then you give it a treat, and you keep doing that until the dog does what you want, right?
	So that requires no capacity for conception?
	No, because you are not training the dog by appealing to the dog's conceptual ability.
	You're training the dog by appealing to the fact that dogs like certain foods.
	I mean, they don't reason with the dolphins.
	They don't say, listen...
	We charge – hang on.
	They don't say, listen, man.
	Listen, dolphin.
	We charge people to come in and watch you do these jumps.
	Now, I know you don't necessarily like being in this little pond.
	You like to be out in the open ocean.
	So let's you and us make a deal, right?
	After you eat 5,000 pieces of fish, we will set you free.
	Is that okay with you?
	No.
	That's not how – it's not how they train a dolphin.
	They train a dolphin by do some shit, here's some fish.
	They're not entering into a contract with dolphins.
	Dolphins don't have agents.
	Right?
	They don't review the contract and come back with counter offers.
	They don't work for money.
	It's like, jump!
	Fish!
	That's it.
	No concepts involved.
	Well...
	I have to say, I guess we just don't agree on that, and I guess it's not an exchange of mind.
	No, that's not an answer.
	To say there's no concept involved means the ability to connect ideas doesn't require being able to conceptualize at all.
	Okay.
	You keep using the word ideas.
	Yeah, because one, you have the action that the dog performs and the thing that the dog receives.
	Those are two different things.
	Right.
	But why do chickens peck in the dirt?
	Because that's where the food is.
	I mean, why do ants pull a piece of sausage back to the anthill, all coordinated and pulling in the same way?
	They're not going to unionize.
	I mean, they're just doing what they do because it maximizes their pleasure and it minimizes their pain.
	That would mean they would be able to At least figure out that some things maximize pain and some things minimize.
	Cause and effect.
	Yes, animals can do cause and effect.
	If they didn't, they wouldn't be alive.
	Right?
	So animals, what do they want to do?
	They want to have sex, they want to not get eaten, and they want to eat so they can have sex again in the future.
	That's what they do.
	All animals pursue pleasure and avoid pain.
	If they weren't able to do that, in other words, if they did that enthusiastically which damaged them and avoided enthusiastically that which helped either them survive or their genes reproduce or both, they would not survive.
	To be alive means that you pursue a preferred state and avoid a negative state.
	That is what life is and that's how life works.
	It exists and grows and evolves.
	So, of course, all animals, all that is alive, has some concept of a preferred state and some concept of a negative state or some way of enacting that behavior.
	But that's not to say that they're able to process concepts and moral philosophy and social contracts and reciprocal obligations and empathy and all the other stuff that goes into moral reasoning.
	There is a difference though.
	I mean, certainly I would agree that humans have a much higher capacity for processing those same types of information, but certainly it differs from, again, between animals and one species and another, and even between humans.
	And again, I guess we're going to have to disagree because...
	You don't think it necessarily needs them to internalize anything to be able to make cause and effect connections.
	But I think if they can't internalize, then it could all be biological and they don't really have to because you have stuff like bacteria which doesn't internalize anything.
	That's just a purely biological or at least chemical effect that causes them to act one way or the other.
	Okay, but we get back to what you said human beings have more of a capacity.
	Yes.
	No, I don't see that there's any support for that in biology.
	Human beings are not better at analytical philosophy than dogs are.
	Right?
	Like, dogs have a better sense of smell than human beings, but both human beings and dogs can smell, right?
	Yes.
	But...
	Bats have the capacity to navigate through sonar, which I don't believe human beings can do at all.
	I guess maybe you could yell in a cave, and if you got really experienced, you'd get used to the echoes or something like that.
	But it's not like human beings...
	It's not like fish are better at breathing underwater than human beings.
	Human beings, unaided, cannot breathe underwater.
	Right?
	It's a functionally different capacity.
	Right?
	I mean, mammals are not just better at internally regulating their temperatures...
	Then lizards, lizards can't do it at all.
	So I don't think it's reasonable to say that human beings are better at these analytical or abstract or conceptual capacities than other animals.
	It's not – they don't have this capacity.
	It doesn't mean that they don't have affection.
	It doesn't mean that they don't have attachment.
	It doesn't mean that they can't put together cause and effect.
	Of course they can.
	They're animals.
	They wouldn't be alive if they couldn't, right?
	It doesn't mean that they don't have preferred stages.
	It could be purely chemical, as in chemistry or biology.
	Sorry, what could be purely chemical?
	Like you have the ants that move that's just purely chemical.
	Biology working its way through it.
	They don't really think.
	They don't conceptualize anything.
	I mean, if you're stepping on them, they'll still keep acting the same way.
	Unless, again...
	Okay, so we agree.
	Look, ants don't conceptualize.
	No, not at all.
	But then you have things like dogs that certainly respond to signals and over time learn to adapt to different environments.
	Dogs are smarter than ants.
	Absolutely.
	Dogs are smarter than ants.
	I mean, that's not much of a debate, right?
	Yes.
	But that doesn't mean that they're Like human beings, but less.
	Like, dogs are not only half as good at people as philosophizing.
	Right?
	Dogs are not, like, even 5% as good.
	Like, wow, that dog is really not a very good philosopher compared to a person.
	Right?
	I mean, that's just not the way it works.
	I mean, somebody with an IQ of 60 is not a good philosopher or probably able to philosophize at all.
	And that's still infinitely smarter than a dog, right?
	Well...
	I want to agree with you, but we have no way to measure that, which is why I'm sort of hesitant.
	Sure we do.
	Sure we do.
	I told you.
	I could tell you for the fifth time, if you like, through empirical evidence, through looking at the dog's capacity for conceptual language.
	Which is why I'm saying, well, then we look at language, right?
	Right.
	Conceptual language.
	I mean, whales have songs, right?
	I mean, you could say that the dance of the bees saying where the pollen is is a kind of language that communicates information, geographical information, I suppose.
	But it's conceptual language that is the key.
	What's the fundamental difference between conceptual language and language?
	Are you saying you don't know what a concept is?
	I'm not trying to be insulting.
	I'm just trying to really understand what you mean.
	I know what a concept is, but...
	Then you know what the difference is, right?
	No, no, no.
	One of them has concepts and one of them doesn't, right?
	No, no.
	All concepts, you have the one-to-one concepts like a chair, which is a one-to-one concept.
	And then you have the more complex concepts.
	Wait, wait, wait.
	Hang on, hang on.
	What is a one-to-one concept?
	It's sort of like the linguist thing where there's something in the real world and we're conceptualizing our mind as an idea.
	Like a chair, we know what a chair is, but we have the word chair in our mind and when we speak it, Everyone sort of gets the image of it in their mind.
	So that's a one-to-many because we have synthesized the essence of a chair, we've abstracted it, and now we can apply it to new chairs that we haven't even seen, right?
	Sure.
	And we can describe it because a dog can hunt a rabbit that it's never seen before because it knows it's a rabbit.
	Yeah, and you can figure out it's a rabbit even if it's slightly different.
	Yeah, in fact, if it couldn't, it wouldn't be alive because if it didn't know, oh my, what's that fuzzy thing, right?
	It must be a fur glove.
	I think I would go and masturbate with it.
	So it wouldn't be alive if it couldn't figure that stuff out.
	But there has to be a conceptual language to describe what has been learned, right?
	Which is why I keep insisting that then it's language.
	Because communication, of course, we can't communicate rabbits or dogs or whatever, but if we could, or at least if we could measure brain activity and figure out if they do sort of make disconnections, then we could figure it out.
	But as far as It is now.
	At least I haven't found any research that's looked into...
	But there would be no...
	Sorry to interrupt, but are you saying that dogs could have conceptual language that we're not aware of?
	I'm not saying conceptual language, but at least they have to have some conception, because again, they have to recognize a rabbit, even if it's different from every other rabbit they've ever hunted.
	Right, right, but that's why I'm saying there has to be the conceptual language to describe it.
	I guess the reason why I'm really nitpicking is because then it's like, well, it's not necessarily to be able to internalize those concepts, but to be able to communicate it.
	That's the focus of what UPB applies to.
	Yeah.
	So until we can communicate with Animals?
	No, we won't be able to communicate with animals.
	Look, are you saying that there's some massive capacity in animals that has simply been developed in their brains but has remained unexpressed in their capacity for language?
	Because that makes no sense.
	I'm not underrepresented, but I think I've seen a documentary where a lady had a I'm not sure what type of monkey or maybe it's a bonobo.
	I'm not sure.
	But I think she was teaching sign language.
	Right.
	And I've heard various, you know, it's true, it's not true stuff about monkeys or apes.
	There was Coco the gorilla and I think it turned out to be mostly a scam or a sham or whatever.
	And look, there will be some rudimentary capacity for apes to probably sign for, you know, I want a banana, right?
	Sure.
	Sure.
	But that's not conceptual.
	That's pointing.
	You know, babies can point.
	I think we're the only species that points.
	But babies can point to things they want.
	That doesn't mean that they have conceptual language.
	Which is why I ask, what's the difference between conceptual language and just language?
	Well, it's the concept, right?
	We could just keep going round and round here.
	It's the concept.
	No, because I just described to you, obviously, a dog has to have a concept of a rabbit if it's to hunt it.
	No, no, no, no, no.
	Because there's a difference between recognizing sense data that repeats and actually having the language to describe.
	Like, you would never get a dog to understand that a rabbit is a mammal.
	You would never get a dog to understand the concept of mammal, right?
	Well, I don't know any way to do so.
	Certainly, sure.
	No, no.
	A dog has no capacity.
	How do you know a dog has no capacity?
	It has no capacity to understand a concept called mammal.
	Warm-blooded, suckles its own, young, bloody, bloody, blah.
	And the reason we know that for sure is that language in the brain and the capacity to speak evolve simultaneously.
	There's no massive part of a dog's brain that it will grow which will have all of this amazing language but have no capacity to speak it or write it down.
	Because nature doesn't do that.
	Nature doesn't give you...
	So let's say that a dog developed a huge language center.
	It would then have to feed that.
	It would then have to keep it watered, right?
	The brain uses a huge amount of water.
	It would have to carry it around, which is tighter on the muscles and harder on the neck muscles, right?
	I mean, people like me with giant heads, we've got to do lots of neck exercises to make it topple over like a weeble.
	And so a dog, if it developed a language capacity...
	For no benefit, in other words, it could not communicate concepts, it could not write them down, it could not store and accumulate knowledge across the generations, all the stuff that defines as human beings, that dog would die.
	That would be an evolutionary dead end because it would have a huge amount of overhead in the development of language centers in the brain, but it would gain no evolutionary advantage.
	In fact, it would be at an evolutionary disadvantage.
	It would need more food.
	It would run slower.
	It would need more water.
	And it would come with no concomitant advantage.
	Whereas human beings, the human beings start to develop the capacity for language, like not barking or squealing like whales or whatever.
	But capacity for language, well, okay.
	So you get a little bit of a bigger brain and you get a bit more of a facile tongue and lip and mouth and all that.
	So you can start to really communicate.
	Well, wow.
	That's amazing.
	There's an evolutionary advantage.
	So the brain gets a little bigger and at the same time, the mouth gets a little bit more dexterous.
	And then the people who have the slightly bigger brain, the slightly more dexterous mouths, they survive better because they are able to better communicate.
	They're able to better store their knowledge, you know, whatever.
	They're better able to plan attacks.
	They're better able to plan how to surround another village or a lion or whatever they're hunting, right?
	So they do better.
	And then they get a little bigger.
	The mouth, the capacity to speak and the brain part – brain part, listen to me getting all technical – the stuff in the head.
	So the capacity for language and the brain part that controls language, they all develop simultaneously.
	There's no development of the brain part for language without the capacity to express language because without expressing language you can't translate the brain part into an evolutionary advantage and therefore it becomes a liability and hampers your capacity to survive and reproduce.
	So there is no big giant latent capacity within a dog to process concepts because it would be an evolutionary liability to develop that much brain matter Without being able to translate it into language that would aid in your survival and in the survival of your genes.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	And the second part of that question.
	Okay.
	Even within humans, when you apply UPV, you do make distinctions between some people who have greater capacity and some people who have lower capacity.
	Okay.
	But then my question is this.
	If there's no way to measure people's capacity, do we then assign...
	Or does it even matter whether we can measure capacity for choice?
	No, no.
	You can measure moral capacity.
	How do we measure it?
	Well, it's the insanity defense.
	This has been...
	There's no reason why you'd know this, right?
	But, I mean, it's been very well explicated throughout thousands of years of common law and various legal traditions, right?
	So...
	frontal cortex and let's say another brain tumor that inflames their base of the brain impulses, that that person is physiologically barred because of a medical condition from intercepting their impulses.
	And so if they lash out and hit someone, then we would say, well, it's a brain tumor.
	We can't blame this person morally because they're suffering from a deficiency, right?
	They have an inability to recognize that what they're doing is wrong because a brain tumor has eaten up their or displaced their moral reasoning center in the front of their head, right?
	So this would be one example of the insanity defense.
	If somebody had, you know, just some other medical condition that there's a variety of them that would interfere with their capacity for self-correction, for intercepting impulses and so on, then that would be another.
	Now, on the other hand, if someone plans a murder ahead of time, creates a plausible alibi, kills someone in some nefarious way that's very hard to trace, cunningly disposes of the body, then they have cunningly disposes of the body, then they have the capacity to plan they're not acting in the impulse of the moment, and they know that what they're doing is wrong because they're hiding it, right?
	Yes.
	So this person, unlike the person who impulsively strikes someone and you find out they got a brain tumor, this person would be held morally responsible.
	And this is another reason why something like manslaughter, where you get really pissed off and somebody dies almost by accident, is different from first-degree murder, which is with malice of forethought and with a desire to escape.
	So if some guy runs into a bank and just starts screaming for money, that's...
	At a different level of moral responsibility than someone who spends three months drilling up from the sewers into the bank vault.
	Well, in light of that, I guess a more appropriate question would be, is it an either-or or are there gradations of capacity for choice?
	Well, I think there's gradations.
	I mean, I think there's either-or in some situations.
	But, you know, the question is, you know, like a 15-year-old kills someone.
	I don't know.
	I mean, they're still 10 years away from brain maturity.
	How much of that do you pin on the parents?
	Or bad genetics, if that ever turns out to be the case?
	And how much do you pin on the kid?
	I mean, those are difficult situations.
	So there certainly are gradations.
	I don't think there's black and white issues with regards to moral responsibility.
	But the vast majority, I think, of those evaluations would be pretty clear-cut.
	What about situations of addiction or compulsion, that kind of thing?
	Because you have people like child molesters who...
	Do you seem to have compulsion for certain actions?
	Certainly, of course, maybe they can exercise.
	Some people have maybe greater strength of will to restrain themselves and maybe others don't, like in the case of addiction.
	Then, how responsible are they if we can determine that they have certain...
	Well, but addiction doesn't just arise full-grown, right?
	I mean, it's not like, well, the first time someone has a cigarette, they are doomed to be a chain smoker for the next 50 years, right?
	Well, maybe not because you have stuff like heroin.
	No, no, no.
	Look, even, like, so...
	The majority of heroin users during the Vietnam War, like, who came back, 92% of them never touched heroin again.
	Right?
	So even habitual heroin users...
	I think 8% of them ended up going on to become heroin addicts.
	So even somebody who's a habitual user of the drug can choose to stop, obviously, when the circumstances are less.
	Now, to me, though, addiction...
	It's a big, complex topic, so I'll just touch on it briefly.
	But I think that if people knew much more clearly the relationship between child abuse and addiction, addictive tendencies...
	I would hold addicts more responsible.
	So like Dr.
	Phil, Phil McGraw, the TV guy in America, his father was an alcoholic, so he's never touched it.
	He's never touched alcohol, according to his claim.
	No reason to disbelieve him.
	So he knows that he may have a genetic basis or certainly an experiential basis for weakness or susceptibility to alcoholism.
	So he doesn't touch it because he knows the relationship.
	Now, if people knew the relationship between child abuse and And addiction, which is not perfect and not exact, but neither is smoking and lung cancer, but we still put terrifying pictures on cigarette packets, right?
	So I'd like to see alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, and tits all with a label that says, if you had a bad childhood, you are much more likely to get addicted to these.
	Casinos, thrill sports, these will replace the dopamine that your mom and dad never gave you.
	I'd like for people to know that, which is why I do a lot of work to promote sort of the bomb in the brain, FDRURL.com slash B-I-B.
	Going to give speeches to high school kids and all that on this stuff.
	Because we don't excuse someone who's a drunk driver because he's drunk.
	right?
	Sure.
	So he chose to get drunk.
	Now, we recognize that he has diminished capacity because he's drunk.
	But he chose to have drinks and then chose to get into a car.
	So we know he has diminished capacity, but he's still responsible.
	If he's an alcoholic, he's still responsible, right?
	In fact, it's worse.
	If you crash a car and you're drunk, it's worse than if you're sober, right?
	Sure.
	But if he's an alcoholic, I guess, then his capacity to choose not to drink Then it's not the same as that of a regular person.
	Yes, but why?
	Somebody doesn't have one drink and become an alcoholic.
	So, the thing is, of course, if you have, like, for instance, let me give you an example from my personal life.
	So, when I was younger, let's say young, not young, I'm 48.
	So, when I was young, I was best man at one of my best friend's wedding.
	And for his bachelor party, we went to gamble.
	And oh, my brother.
	Did the Steffbot like the gambling?
	Oh, yes, he did.
	Oh, did I love the gambling.
	And I mean, wow.
	And I saw this just big, giant, dark tunnel of Dostoevsky and hell opening up in front of me because I was like, oh, man, that is really good.
	That is really fun.
	I was so, I mean, distracted from myself and And it really just focused on a single thing and it was exciting and thrilling.
	When I won, I wanted more and when I lost, I wanted more.
	And I spent the night gambling and I was like, well, you know what I should never, ever do again?
	I should really never, ever gamble because that is a very, very bad idea because I loved it so much, right?
	So...
	For people who, let's say they have a drink, right?
	And they say, wow, that's really nice, right?
	Then they have a fork in the road, right?
	I mean, I can drink or not drink, right?
	I mean, I had a beer tonight at dinner, a light beer, and then in a week I might have another light beer.
	I can drink or not drink.
	To me, the only place a beer is fantastic is if you've been doing yard work and it's a hot day, then, dear God, a beer is like a beautiful thing.
	Other than that, I don't like wine.
	Hard liquor is like I pay to not have it basically.
	And so I don't have any issues with drinking.
	But gambling, that could have been my nemesis.
	That could have taken my life in a whole different direction.
	So people don't just – I had a drink.
	I'm now an addict.
	There is a series of steps that people take in order to develop a physical addiction.
	Now, we don't all start off equal, right?
	There are people who have these missing dopamine receptors or dopamine juice and they get it from cocaine or nicotine or whatever.
	So we're not all equal.
	So if people had more knowledge about the relationship between childhood trauma and addiction, then I think they'd be more responsible.
	But people generally hide this because it's negative to women in general.
	So it can't be spoken of, right?
	But addicts don't just suddenly pop out full-blown addicts.
	They have something and they take – I hate to put it this way, but I think it's true.
	They take the easy route.
	So when an addict has something like cocaine or heroin and it feels fantastic and it feels wonderful, then that's a sign to them that they're missing something, that they need something.
	Rather than go in pursuit of that and develop self-knowledge, figure out their trauma and so on, They just take the easy route or the lazy route in some ways of saying, well, look, I'll just have this again.
	Like somebody with social anxiety might self-medicate through alcohol rather than deal with the social anxiety.
	But that's a choice.
	It's a lazy choice.
	Stop drinking and deal with your shit.
	Well, that presumes they understand they have a problem.
	Like in your case, when you went and gambled, you could have just thought, well, it's a great time.
	I should do it again.
	Or some people don't recognize immediately that this might turn into a problem for me.
	But I can do math, right?
	And there's no possible...
	You know what I noticed?
	I noticed that the people in the gambling casino...
	It wasn't a gambling casino.
	I can't remember where we were.
	But I noticed that the people had clothes on.
	And what that meant was they had bought their clothes with something.
	And they sure as hell weren't buying their clothes from their losses, right?
	People go into the casino and they say, wow, look at all the lights.
	It's so pretty.
	Wow, look, I get free drinks.
	It's like, that's because you're going to lose.
	They pay for that because you're going to lose.
	The more lights, the more you lose.
	The prettier the girls, the more drinks, the more you lose.
	The nicer the outfits, the more starched the colors, the more you're going to lose.
	The prettier it is, the worse it is for you.
	So, it's just basic math.
	Casinos exist because they're profitable and they're profitable because more people lose than win, right?
	And so, that's not brain surgery.
	I mean, the fact that casinos are profitable is not confusing to people.
	And the fact that the profits must come from the losses of the people gambling there is also not brain surgery, right?
	I mean, if you can figure out your bus fare, you can figure that one out, right?
	Sure.
	So that, I don't, you know, I may make some claims to intellectual greatness over the years.
	That won't be one of them.
	Yeah, I understand that, but the question is not whether or not they can figure it out.
	It's whether or not they can figure out they have a problem of addiction from just one, I don't know, enjoyable experience.
	Sure.
	And again, nobody becomes an addict because of one drink.
	So, but at some point, before there's a giant problem, there's a smaller problem, right?
	Like, nobody wakes up 100 pounds overweight, right?
	Sure.
	Right?
	I mean, people who are overweight go through a process of getting overweight.
	I mean, I'm not talking about like the poor kids whose parents screw them up by feeding them too much crap and, you know, the kids.
	But as an adult, I've known people who've gone from like $1.50 to $2.50.
	And, you know, every now and then you know someone who's like not thin and then you see their wedding pictures and like, holy crap!
	You ate that whole person?
	Right?
	Wasn't there some cake or something?
	Did you have to just go and eat that poor person?
	Are you okay in there?
	Can we lower you down some rice crackers?
	Yeah.
	But they don't just boom.
	Well, next thing you know, I'm big boned.
	It's like, nope, Brontosaurus is a big boned.
	You're fat.
	And so they gain weight.
	And They know that they're gaining weight because they have to keep buying new clothes.
	And they can't see their junk anymore, right?
	Where are my toes?
	Dunno.
	Hope they're okay.
	Wiggle, babies.
	See if I can still feel you.
	Right?
	So they don't just...
	It's a process of continual non-self-monitoring.
	I've never, frankly, understood how people can gain that much weight.
	I mean, at some point, doesn't it kick in that this is pretty horrifying?
	Again, just something I don't...
	I don't understand.
	And look, I've gained a little and dropped a little over the years.
	So I think I'm 25 pounds down from like five or six years ago.
	And I've kept it off, which just puts me in the 3% category.
	But the reality is that...
	And everybody knows that, you know, you are likely to gain about a pound a year as you get older or two pounds a year as you get in.
	Metabolism slows and your life gets busy.
	There's time to exercise and all that.
	So, I mean, people don't just wake up fat and people don't just wake up addicted, right?
	There is...
	A process that occurs.
	And it's not the first bite of cheesecake that makes you put on 100 pounds.
	But at some point, you're eating too much and you're exercising too little, right?
	It's just calories in, calories out, and you know that you have a problem long before it becomes health-threatening, right?
	Sure.
	Again, assuming you have...
	You self-minitor.
	Assuming you have what?
	You self-minitor.
	You monitor yourself for...
	No, your pants will do that for you.
	Yeah, but yeah, in case of, I guess, you can just see it as, I don't know, it's a minor inconvenience for the moment, and it'll go away.
	Some people would sort of do that sort of self-deception, where it's like, oh, it's just...
	No, no, no.
	Your pants...
	Pants don't lie, baby.
	That's what I learned from Shakira.
	Hips and pants don't lie.
	You know, if you can't fasten those bad boys together under your little tsunami of beer gut, yes, pants don't lie.
	If you're...
	Putting your legs in your pants and you look like a Zeppelin in a condom, then yeah, you got a problem.
	So it's not, to me, that hard to figure out what's going on, you know?
	Can I fit through the doorway?
	No!
	I might have put on some weight, you know?
	Is my car driving at 30 degrees?
	Well, I might have put on some weight, right?
	When I step on the bus, does it half fall over?
	I might have put on...
	You can go on and on, right?
	When your mama sits around the house, she really sits around the house.
	So, you know, these things are not, you know, people who've got genuine medical issues.
	I had a friend who said, I'm taking medication that is making me gain weight.
	And it's like, really?
	So the fact that you have nine pounds of pasta every dinner, plus this weird combination of nine pounds of veal parmigiana pasta, plus this medication, is making you gain weight.
	Yeah, you have people like this who do engage in self-deception.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	But he knew he was gaining weight and he lied to himself about it.
	Okay, that's fine.
	Then you can lie to yourself about it.
	But he's responsible for that, right?
	I can lie to myself and say, I'm fine to drink if I've had five – I'm fine to drive if I have five drinks and I'm responsible for that.
	Yeah, but my question isn't so much whether you're responsible.
	It's if you have less capacity to control yourself as a regular – like, again, a regular person could eat and they'll be fine and they'll move on.
	To what degree are you responsible as if a normal person were to engage in such a thing?
	Because obviously you have a diminished capacity for control.
	Why obviously?
	Because you have a problem?
	I guess a psychiatrically diagnosable problem?
	Oh, don't stop me on the psychiatrically diagnosed mythological illnesses.
	You've got unicorns!
	Here's some drugs to stuff up your ass that would take down a horse!
	Um...
	So, but this to me is this tautology because you're sort of saying, well, what about people who have diminished capacity?
	Well, how do we know they have diminished capacity?
	Because they act like they have diminished capacity.
	It's like, well, I don't think that's really added much to the discussion.
	And this goes down into the mystery, which we don't know from the outside, which is people say, well, I just couldn't stop myself, right?
	But to me, and I made this podcast years ago, we should probably move on to this, but it's the billion dollar question.
	It used to be the million dollar question, but then there was quantitative easing.
	And the billion dollar question is, you know, if you've got cancer, people can give you a billion dollars.
	Do you still have cancer?
	Yeah.
	Sure do.
	Now, if you're about to take a drink and somebody says, here's a billion dollars to not take a drink for the next five minutes, what do you do?
	Obviously, I don't have a problem with drinking, so I'll take it.
	Look, there's no addict in the world that couldn't defer that drink for five minutes for a billion dollars.
	I agree with you, but I've seen some people that are like heroin addicts or meth addicts.
	No, no, I get it.
	I get it.
	I understand.
	I understand.
	But they cannot act on their addiction for five minutes if there's sufficient incentive.
	There's no incentive in the world that can make someone not be a cancer patient For five minutes.
	There's a difference.
	If my arm gets bitten off by a bull shark, there's no amount of money in the world that gets me to regrow my arm.
	But addiction is to some degree a matter of concentrating on incentives.
	That's all it is.
	Addiction fundamentally is saying the next five minutes are more important than the next five years.
	That's why the billion-dollar question is important because you shift the incentives.
	Now, if the, quote, disease can be cured by the shifting of incentives, it's not a disease because that doesn't happen with multiple sclerosis.
	It doesn't happen with diphtheria.
	There's no amount of money you could shovel at Thomas Duncan to make him not die of Ebola five minutes before he was going to die of Ebola.
	So there is, in addiction, a shifting of incentives to the very short term.
	up a smoke and says, "Well, this basically says later, 'Well, I shouldn't smoke, right?
	Because it's bad for me, right?" But it's uncomfortable to not smoke, so you light up another cigarette and then you keep lighting up cigarettes and you have this debate with yourself all the time.
	Is it time for another cigarette?
	Is it dangerous?
	Should I do this or that?
	But basically, then when the smoker gets sick, if the smoker gets sick, the smoker says, "Well, that was stupid.
	Now I'm sick, right?" And so they're focusing on the short term.
	And look, we all do this.
	I mean, there's nothing, you know, short term, long term, there's no big moral thing to go for only long term, right?
	I mean, you could starve yourself your whole life saving for your retirement, get hit by a bus and be revealed as an idiot, right?
	So, but with addicts, The mystery of why some get better and why some don't, to me, is simply just a matter of focus and concentration and getting appropriate help.
	I think therapy is fantastic for addiction.
	And why do some people do that?
	Well, because they choose to shift their cost-benefit analysis.
	Anyway, so I don't have big answers.
	This is just sort of my theories, but I think that there is choice.
	And I think the problem with saying to addicts, you have an incapacity, you have no choice, it's a disease and so on, is it robs them of the very muscle they need the most, which is the billion-dollar question is really important because if you are an addict and you pursue a dangerous addiction for too long, then you will die.
	I mean, heroin addicts overdose and smokers get lung cancer and drinkers get cirrhosis of the liver and fat people get diabetes and heart attacks and strokes.
	Like at some point, you'll be dead or you'll die from your addiction.
	And then if you had a billion dollars, you would give that billion dollars to live longer.
	So the idea of the billion dollars for five minutes, you know, you'll need that billion dollars when you're dying because...
	If you could buy your way free, you would.
	And if you keep going with those five minutes, you end up not being addicted, right?
	All addictions are just five minutes, five minutes, five minutes that go on forever where you don't do your addiction, right?
	Yeah, but you still have the science behind some addiction, again, like the dopamine levels and that kind of thing, which suggests, sure, it's partly that they can't, I guess, the incentives and then partly also brain chemistry.
	Absolutely, absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	But this is why we want to tell people about the childhood relationship and we also want to remind people if you find something takes away your pain, you're better off embracing the pain.
	I'm not talking like a headache or something, but I mean emotional pain.
	Then you're better off walking into the fire than running from it because then you'll just burn up in the distance.
	And I'm always concerned about...
	Well, it's brain chemistry, so you don't have a choice.
	That's like saying to every fat person, well, it's a thyroid condition.
	You can't lose weight.
	It's like, well, what if they can?
	Shouldn't we reinforce that muscle?
	I don't have the answer.
	I don't think anyone does, but I sort of err on the side of providing people as much empowerment as possible and seeing what happens.
	I'm guessing that's also sort of the same answer for compulsion.
	Yeah, I think so.
	I mean, I think we want to do as much as we can to promote free choice and free will, while at the same time giving sympathy for where people, you know, not everyone starts off equal when it comes to addiction and our susceptibility to addiction.
	But that very fact is important, right?
	I mean, not everyone's going to die of lung cancer who's a smoker, but you don't know ahead of time how susceptible you are to lung cancer, right?
	And because of that, you shouldn't smoke, right?
	And so, yeah, we don't know how susceptible we are to various addictions, and so don't, you know, don't do the kind of stuff that's going to end up with you being addicted, right?
	I don't think anyone could be called an addict who has a beer a week.
	Just don't do more, right?
	Because it's going to go down that path.
	And I think just reinforcing that for people is important.
	It's not going to solve everything.
	But I think it will help.
	Anyway, we're going to do one more call.
	I really appreciate you.
	Great questions, great comments, and very enjoyable.
	And I'm certainly looking forward to all of the massive piles of hatred that will pour our way whenever the topic of animal ethics comes up.
	But, you know, I'm sure the people will figure out that the animals are their own childhoods and solve it in the long run that way.
	But I appreciate the call.
	Welcome back anytime.
	Okay.
	Thanks for having me.
	Thanks, man.
	Alright, well up next is Matt.
	Matt wrote in and said, What is the role of the anarchist in getting attorneys to understand the role that they play?
	Should anarchists view attorneys through the same lens as they do the police?
	It just seems like after parents stop abusing their kids, immorality, or UPB is taught, aren't lawyers the next biggest thing standing in the way of creating a peaceful, stateless society?
	This is, if there ever was going to be one here in America.
	Hi, Steph.
	Do you know an attorney?
	Are we talking about something in your life, or is this more abstract?
	A little bit.
	A little bit of both.
	There are a couple attorneys I'm related to, and it just seems like, kind of like I stated, after, let's just assume everybody understands UPB and understands and grows up without being spanked, it's kind of like If I could make a metaphor, it's like if the state is a giant...
	No!
	No metaphors in this show!
	If the state is like a giant crazed octopus and the cops are the suction cups on the tentacles, then it seems like the lawyers are kind of like the tentacle itself.
	So it's like once we can establish cops not committing heinous actions against people, against their will, it's like we still have to deal with the lawyers as a part of the system.
	You may be begging the question a little bit here, brother.
	Once we solve the cop problem, let's move on.
	Should we then move on to the lawyer problem?
	I think that first step might be a bit of a doozy, right?
	Once we figure out time travel, should we go watch the 57 Brooklyn game?
	I think that first step might be a little bit more important than the second one.
	I hear you.
	It just seems like they're all part of the same monster.
	How do we deal with Do we educate them?
	Do we say, hey, you know...
	Sorry, you've got to tell me the personal side of this.
	They're part of the system.
	Hang on, who do you know who's a lawyer?
	I have two uncles that are lawyers.
	Okay, so this is your...
	Game plan, right?
	Like, if you can convince your two uncles that they're enmeshed in a corrupt system...
	Oh, I mean, that's a problem, is I don't even think I'd be able to, because they just, because of their, because of what they do, I think, as a profession, and they're going through law school, and they're being so much invested in what they do, it's kind of like, when you talk to them about anarchy, and about all these ideas, and these philosophies, or, you know, this philosophy, it's just like, It's like they always find a reason to shoot it down and say, oh, well, it'll never work that way.
	And I can see where they're coming from because they're part of the system that we're saying that needs to go away.
	Yeah.
	I mean, they're going to be well paid for that, right?
	It's just like, you know, you would think defense attorneys would be the most anarchic people out there because they're always trying to defend criminals against the punishment of the state.
	And it's like, But they're not.
	They're still part of the same beast.
	And how do we deal with that?
	Wait, so are you saying that you want people to give up their professions, their training, their education, their income, and their seniority because the system is corrupt?
	I guess – You do.
	I mean, look.
	Be honest.
	That's what you want, right?
	Yeah.
	I'm not being critical.
	I'm not trying to make it sound dumb or anything.
	I just want to be really clear on what you're looking for, right?
	I just feel...
	I'm not trying to make fun.
	I'm serious.
	That's what you want.
	Yeah.
	Again, if there's ever to be a free society, how do we...
	Peel that apart.
	How do we get them...
	It ain't going to be your uncles, I'll tell you that.
	It's not going to be your uncles.
	Are they just future DRO agents?
	Or it's like, what is their role?
	I understand that there's going to have to be people around to...
	Okay, hang on, hang on.
	Hang on, hang on, hang on.
	Future DROs.
	Okay.
	Do you think you can convince them to not hit their children?
	I probably could make some good arguments to them about that.
	And I don't think they do.
	The ones I know, at least.
	Okay, good, good.
	Could you convince them to not yell at their children?
	Yeah, yeah.
	That would be a little harder, but yeah.
	Do you think you might be able to convince them to not punish their children?
	No, no.
	They're going to want to punish their children as they see fit.
	Why do you think that last one was so certain?
	You're like, yeah, no hitting, no yelling.
	Oh, punishment.
	No, I can't do that.
	Well, I mean, the arguments are strong, right?
	Yeah.
	The moral argument is pretty clear, which is that you punish because you're bigger, because you have the capacity to, and it's a failure of reason, right?
	Like, they wouldn't say, listen, judge, you wouldn't say, listen, judge, you don't accept my argument, I'm punching you.
	You overruled my objection, I'm roundhousing you to the head, right?
	Right, so if they lost a debate or didn't get their way with a judge, they would not resort to force, right?
	Correct.
	And if they lost a debate or didn't get their way with their children, resorting to size and strength and power is equally illegitimate, right?
	Correct.
	And the empirical evidence is exceedingly strong for this approach, right?
	That punishment doesn't work.
	What kind of punishment doesn't work?
	You know, like physical punishment.
	That's what you're talking about.
	No, because what punishment isn't physical punishment to some degree, right?
	Because if you are attempting to train a child like a dog, you're not respecting that child as a human being.
	So we give dogs treats and withhold whatever and say mean things to them or no, bad doggy or whatever, right?
	To train a dog.
	And what is used to train a dog is really not befitting a human being, right?
	Right.
	And there is huge amounts of evidence that, for instance, grades tend to – grades are rewards, right?
	And failing grades are punishments.
	And grades tend to diminish curiosity and capacity for learning, which is why children become less intelligent, less curious, less able to think the longer they're exposed to government systems, which are all heavily reliant on grades and so on, right?
	The punishments and rewards system tends to promote compliance with the punishment and rewards.
	It does not tend to promote any kind of independent thinking, curiosity, self-growth, commitment to higher learning, commitment to empathy, and it certainly doesn't teach empathy.
	Right, right.
	Let's say you take something away that a child has and a child wants.
	The child's favorite thing is his iPad, right?
	You say, you did something wrong, I'm taking away your iPad.
	What you're saying then to the child is that empathy is used for cruelty.
	Because you're saying, well, I know what you like the most, and that's what I'm going to take away.
	In other words, my knowledge of your preferences is used to harm you, not to benefit you.
	And so when you take away something that the child wants, like if some child has a bag of garbage that they want to throw out and it's smelling up the room, and you come in and you say, bad child, I'm taking away your garbage.
	I'm throwing it out for you.
	What's the child going to say?
	Sure.
	Go ahead.
	Thanks!
	Can I do anything else wrong?
	Because, you know, I've got some toe jam that needs scraping out too, right?
	Yeah.
	There's cat litter in the closet.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I mean, bad child, I'm cleaning your bathroom, right?
	So when you say bad child and you punish the child, even if it's just like taking away something or you can't go to the party on Friday night...
	Well, you would only do that because you know the child really wants to go to the party on Friday night, right?
	So you're using your knowledge of the child's preferences, you're using your empathy with the child or of the child's preferences to harm the child.
	In other words, the child now knows that revealing preferences makes him a target for harm.
	And then is the child going to want to share what he or she likes with you?
	Of course not.
	No.
	Right?
	If the child, let's say you got a teenager who really wants to go to a party...
	And also wants to break curfew.
	Right?
	They're going to say...
	They're not going to say, I really want to go to that party.
	They're not going to say, I really want...
	Because they know then that's what's going to be taken away.
	So you've created a hider and an evader and an obscurer and then kids say...
	The parents say, I don't know, he doesn't confide in me.
	It's like, well, duh!
	Of course he doesn't!
	Because you used the knowledge against him!
	Of course he's not going to confide in you!
	Yeah.
	Shock there.
	So, I mean...
	Yeah, of course it doesn't work, right?
	Right.
	So how does that tie in with lawyers kind of being an obstacle, I guess?
	I'm just still trying to – it's just like if we're trying to – Okay, no, no, no.
	The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, right?
	So if you can get them to stop hitting, if you can get them to stop yelling, and if you can get them to stop punishing, you have done the greatest and most necessary step to making a free society.
	So teach reason.
	Don't just kind of allow punishment to happen as it happens.
	Yeah.
	People grow up and they say, without authority that can punish and reward us, it would be anarchy.
	Yes, it would!
	Right?
	Yes, it would!
	Yes, it would!
	Yeah, wouldn't that be great, right?
	Without rape, there would just be sex.
	It's like, yes!
	And that's a good thing!
	Right, right.
	There's been a lot of talk, even with the previous calls and your last few shows, just about how lawyers are just these monsters, it seems like, that just don't do anything, really, to benefit real justice from being...
	We're working towards this whole checks and balances thing.
	It's just like they inadvertently bolster, like I said in sort of my question, they inadvertently bolster the system.
	Oh yeah, they are the system in many ways, right?
	I mean, you know this probably better than anyone, including me, because you've got relatives who are lawyers, but...
	Basically, what is the purpose of lawyers in a state of society?
	The purpose of lawyers in a state of society is twofold.
	Number one is to restrict other people from becoming lawyers, which is why they put heavy quotas on who can get into law school and how many law schools there are.
	So restrict entry into the profession.
	And number two is to make the law so fucking complicated that you have no choice but to hire a lawyer.
	That's the sole purpose.
	Keep people from coming into the field and use the power of the state to make our services so incredibly necessary that nobody can survive without us.
	Lawyers should not be necessary.
	Do you need a lawyer to sign a contract to lease a car?
	No, you don't because that's a market situation.
	Do you need a lawyer to even buy a car?
	No, you don't.
	Because that's a free market situation.
	Do you need a lawyer to get a cell phone contract going?
	No.
	Free market situation.
	You get arrested by the cops for some goddamn thing.
	Do you need a lawyer?
	Fuck you do.
	Of course you do.
	Because you've got 9,000 law books raining down upon you that can put you in a very dark place with some very anally interested people for an extraordinary number of years.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	And it's interesting how really any school system is supposedly preparing us for Life, or so they say, and then it's like we become 18, we get a little independence, and we're thrown out into life, and they teach us nothing about how to deal with law.
	Oh, God, no.
	They can't teach you anything about law?
	Are you kidding me?
	If they taught kids anything about law, there'd be a fucking revolution.
	Yeah, yeah.
	They'd say, are you kidding me?
	You know what I'd say as a kid?
	They started to teach me anything about law, right?
	I'd say, okay, can you bring the law books in here?
	Bring them in!
	I want to see these things, right?
	On one of those carts from Home Depot.
	How many books of law affect the average citizen?
	Hundreds and hundreds of densely printed, tiny text.
	Thin tissue paper, That change every year.
	There are hundreds of thousands of new regulations and laws just in America coming through the Federal Register and other places, right?
	It is impossible to comply with the law.
	But that's what rulers want.
	Law is an excuse for shakedowns from the legal profession and it's used to terrify the population with an incomprehensibly dangerous beast of legal bullshit.
	The law has nothing to do with controlling crime.
	It has nothing to do with keeping the people safe.
	It is a blunt instrument used to cudgel the people into desperately dangerous submission.
	And it is kept by an occult priest of assholes who restrict entry and make themselves necessary because they pretend that they are the shield between you and the state.
	Very good.
	Most lawyers are about feeding their clients into a system which demands that the clients plead guilty.
	Otherwise, they would go away for a pretty unspecified amount of time, right?
	Which is why like 95%, 96%, 97% of court cases never go to trial because the government simply says, well, you know what?
	We have so many laws, we can just pick and choose shit that might stick.
	And nobody knows whether it's going to work or not.
	Nobody in the judges don't know.
	Nobody knows.
	Nobody knows whatsoever.
	It's like saying that a fireman is in charge of a forest fire.
	They don't have a fucking clue what's going on, and they certainly can't control it, one fireman.
	And so...
	They throw all this shit at you because there's so many lawyers.
	They can find some goddamn thing, right?
	Right.
	And then they say, well, you know, we add all this stuff up and you're looking at 10 years.
	But if you plea down, you know, you get six months.
	But it wasn't me.
	It was the one-armed man.
	Yeah.
	So lawyers, they are human traffickers.
	They are pretty much slave owners in my humble opinion.
	Not every single lawyer and so on, but in general as a profession, they are in the service of feeding people into the state apparatus for money.
	Right.
	And that's why they say, just plea out.
	Right.
	Are you crazy?
	If you go to trial, it's going to take you years.
	And the system is so terrible.
	I'm talking particularly about the US. I don't know much about Canada or history or biology.
	Anyway.
	But the system in the US is so horrendous.
	It's so god-awful.
	So unbelievably destructive that the best you can hope for from the lawyer is a flesh wound rather than decapitation.
	That's the best you can hope for.
	Well, they're going to shoot you somewhere.
	I'll hold down your hand.
	That way you don't get shot in the leg.
	That's the best you can hope for.
	It's a staggeringly terrible system.
	In Divorce Corps, it's a very important and instructive movie to watch.
	We had the filmmaker on the show a couple of months ago.
	There's a lawyer who's thumbing through – Divorce Corps, C-O-R-P. There's a lawyer who's thumbing through the family court, family law.
	And he said – he's a lawyer approximately, I don't know, 3,200 years old – And he says, you know, well, this was the family law when I first started, and it's this tiny little book, big print, you know, like, see Jane Sue, see Dick Run.
	And it was, you know, I don't know how long.
	It was pretty short, right?
	Pretty clear, right?
	And now he says, and now this is just the law in California.
	And he says, this giant tome basically almost flips him right over.
	And he's thumbing through these tissue papers, and he said, and yeah, and here's the addendums for this year and shit like that.
	It's like...
	Oh, man.
	I mean, Dickens got a great explanation of the law.
	And the system is so horrible that the process is the punishment.
	In other words, if let's say you get charged with something false and whatever, right?
	And you go through years...
	Fighting to clear your name.
	Ever-present threat of arrest.
	Your whole life is on hold.
	You can't sleep.
	The process is the punishment.
	That is exactly what happened to me.
	I just got done dealing with two years of just exactly that.
	Right.
	Your whole life's on hold, right?
	Yeah.
	Hey, feel like dating?
	No, I'm getting fucked anyway.
	And the amount of stress.
	I mean, I'm applying to graduate schools and I'm thinking, is this all even worth it?
	Yeah.
	I'm just waiting around to hear some verdict for something I know is unjust.
	I know that I wasn't guilty of doing.
	And it's like, is this all worth it?
	The graduate schools are going to look at this and is all of the four years I went through college and all this work that I had to do to fill out these applications, is the hundreds of hundreds of dollars I had to pay to submit these applications, is it all just going to be for nothing?
	And the amount of stress that that brings on is...
	I mean, it almost drove me crazy.
	It almost drove me nuts.
	And the only person I could go to for any solace was actually my uncle, who was the guy who helped me out.
	Well, and so you were lucky enough to have a lawyer in the family, right?
	So you weren't paying $500, $600, $700, $800, $900 an hour.
	Right.
	And so even if you're completely exonerated, you're fucking scarred, right?
	Right.
	Take away the cash and it's still...
	Just the amount of stress.
	I mean, the amount of cortisol that was pumping through my veins.
	After I knew that, oh, hey, this changed, and this new thing came out, and this might change our case.
	I mean, it's just like, oh, my God.
	It wasn't worth it.
	It wasn't worth that amount of stress at all, and I had to endure it regardless.
	Yeah, because, of course, your body reacts to it like there's a lion in the room.
	So your body reacts with this cortisol like, okay...
	So, in approximately four and a half minutes, either the lion or me is walking out of the room.
	So, four and a half minutes, right?
	And you stretch that shit out for years.
	I mean, it's wearing on the system, right?
	It wore on me, yeah.
	Yeah, you lose weight, you can't sleep, you can't enjoy everything.
	And it's like a dimmer switch.
	Like, you can turn it down, but you can't turn it off, right?
	And that is...
	Yeah, for people who've not been through this kind of stuff...
	You know, God help you if you do, right?
	Because the punishment is the process, and the process is the punishment.
	And in the end, of course it matters, you know, I mean, to the outsider.
	It matters whether you're innocent or guilty or found that way.
	But, you know, when I hear people, oh, found guilty of something, it's like, nope, I don't believe it.
	I simply don't believe it, because I'm no expert, but I know enough about how the system works, particularly in the States.
	You get caught in that machinery, and...
	You know, like Aaron Swartz, you know, he was going to be found.
	The guy was facing fucking 35 years in jail.
	Yeah.
	For stealing, quote, stealing some stuff from JSTOR. JSTOR didn't even want to press charge.
	They withdrew everything and they said, fine, take it, put it on the internet.
	Who gives a shit, right?
	No.
	They have to make an example.
	Make an example.
	Teach a lesson.
	And it's like, oh, yeah, yeah.
	You bunch of just a bunch of sadists.
	And nobody can work in that system, I think.
	Now, again, there are decent, nice lawyers, I'm sure, and all that, but the system is so – I mean, I've never – I've brushed up against the legal system.
	I've never had any charges.
	I've never had any criminal blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
	But, oh, man.
	I mean, from what I've seen and the stories that I've heard, I am so sorry for what you went through, man.
	I am so incredibly sorry for what you went through because it is a brutal, brutal situation.
	What experience?
	To be in that kind of searchlight?
	To be in that kind of targeted environment?
	And you're so helpless.
	And all you can do is just wait for the next blow that's going to come out of you-don't-know-where, right?
	And you know what the worst part was?
	Is that my pending court case, which was first dismissed, it was first dismissed because it was for a DUI. I hate admitting it, whatever.
	DUI. And it was like, oh, well, After year one passed and I hadn't even had a conversation whatsoever with any lawyer or judge, I just kept showing up to these court cases and continuance after continuance.
	A year passes by, my case gets dismissed and then it gets reopened the next year and it's like, oh sorry, we have so many DUI convictions ahead of you, we have to take a whole year to process yours.
	And it's just like throughout that year, this dismissed court case It was still on my public record.
	So this dismissed court case kept me from succeeding in the private market.
	I just, I had to contact, I mean, I finally had to get the job that I have now, I finally had to earn because I had to go in and talk to the CEO of the HR company and explain to him that this was dismissed and it's still being decided and I'm, you know, these are all the convictions but this is what happened and it was embarrassing.
	And I had to put two and four and five together and call my uncle a million times to figure out what was going on, why I was getting basically denied from all of these jobs that I was applying to.
	And it was because a dismissed court case was on my public record.
	And it cut me deep in the financial aspect and in the private market.
	What kind of crap is that?
	Right.
	Well, it's the kind of crap that, you know, I mean, I assume if it was dismissed, they didn't have anything particular to go on.
	And, you know, again, I don't want to ask you what happened.
	Right.
	We don't have to go into it.
	No, I mean, I'm obviously interested, but I just don't want to ask you.
	But it is a brutal system.
	And the idea, of course, was that you had a right to a speedy trial.
	Right.
	Well...
	And you, you know, you had...
	And also, to me, like, where's...
	Where's the jeopardy for the prosecutors?
	Right.
	Right, so if you fail to prove your innocence, you know, to the satisfaction of whoever, whoever, you go to jail, you get massive fines, you have a record, right?
	There's huge negative consequences if they're right, so to speak, right?
	Right.
	But what if they're wrong?
	Yeah, then I still...
	What do they suffer?
	Yeah, what do they care?
	And I still lose all that time, yeah.
	Well, and time and stress and money.
	Right.
	And you now have a permanently different relationship to your society, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, you see a cop now.
	How long is it going to take for your heart to stop pounding, right?
	It's not even fair.
	It's just – it's horrible.
	I think your dog is trying to argue some abstract court case to the satisfaction of the listeners, right?
	She agrees.
	Yeah.
	So – So I'm – look, I don't know what happened and I'm obviously no fan of drunk driving as I've talked about in the show before.
	So I don't want to get into any of that.
	But I just want people to understand that even if you did something wrong, the process is brutal, right?
	And you should either – but of course the whole system is clogged up with all these non-crimes, right?
	All this drug stuff and prostitution stuff and you name it.
	It's like, oh, God.
	I mean, of course they can't get to anything real and important.
	Because the cops are just busy getting numbers up by arresting pot smokers because pot smokers are a hell of a lot less dangerous to deal with than murderers and thieves.
	And it was, reluctantly, it was a marijuana DUI, which I didn't even know could be a thing.
	I was 21 at the time.
	Don't smoke and drive.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I know there's mixed studies about it and all that, but don't smoke and drive.
	Right, and I would like to see more come out on that, because a lot of people debated, and it's a back-and-forth thing.
	It was a stupid decision.
	That's not what's the issue, obviously.
	It was stupid.
	It was stupid to smoke and drive, but at least I wasn't belligerently drunk, and it was on New Year's Eve when they have a huge task force and big vans and practically...
	Like semis, you know, like semi-trailers full of, you know, machines and, like, centrifuges to, like, process people's blood samples, and it's just ridiculous.
	It's all this money that goes into...
	Don't drive New Year's Eve.
	I mean, go out, for sure.
	I mean, it's a fun party night, but, you know, boy, you never had a more expensive saving of your cab fare in your life, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah.
	So just kind of going back to the lawyer thing.
	So when we were talking about that, it just sort of sounds like lawyers are kind of just like this ploy, like they're kind of pretending, like you said.
	And that goes along with one of my other questions was, what is your opinion or what do you think about the link between lawyers, sociopathy, and Hollywood?
	In other words, actors.
	Because time and time again, I keep seeing...
	Okay.
	I know it's crazy, but here we are.
	It's literally word association football.
	Okay.
	I know.
	I vaguely remember reading something about this.
	I think that actors are narcissists and lawyers tend to test high for sociopathy.
	Yeah.
	Just time and time again, I keep hearing on TV that I'll watch the Today Show and there'll be some new actor coming on talking to Kelly and Michael and...
	It's like every single one of them is like, oh, well, you know, I was in law school and I didn't know what I wanted to do at the time.
	And so I talked to my, I think, Gerard Butler, Gwyneth Paltrow, maybe?
	I'm not, maybe I'm thinking of some other.
	Oh, Gwyneth Paltrow?
	That's a pretty easygoing law school, but get me wrong.
	I'm not sure, but some, some, some, quite a few of these really, really, you know, A-list actors were once in law school.
	Or thinking about law school, and I'm just trying to understand if there's a link that we haven't looked at or analyzed yet, if there's a link between wanting to be an actor or just pretending this idea that you can pretend, sociopathy and lawyers, it seems like there's something going on there.
	So what do you think about that?
	Well, the...
	The actor thing is interesting, right?
	Because I have some experience.
	I went to two years of national theater school in Canada and did some acting, I guess you could say, and wrote some plays and all that.
	There is an interesting aspect to acting, which is kind of tough to explain.
	But most people, if they're being watched...
	Like, if a thousand people are watching you, is it easy for you to act naturally?
	No.
	No?
	It'd probably make you pretty nervous, yeah.
	It would make you pretty nervous, right?
	I mean, a thousand people.
	I mean, you know, let's just say you come down in the morning in your bathrobe and, you know, you're going to have a coffee and some toast and something like that, and there are like a hundred people, you know, staring through your windows...
	Watching everything that you do.
	Well, you're going to be kind of, let's just say, self-conscious about that, right?
	Right.
	Now, actors, though, have the capacity to function as if nobody's watching.
	Right?
	That's a very interesting mindset.
	So they have the ability to sort of distance themselves.
	To block out the presence of other human beings is essential.
	Sounds a lot like sociopathy.
	No, I think it's more narcissistic.
	Again, I don't know the technical definitions.
	Just use these as an amateur.
	But I think it's more self-absorbed.
	Like a sociopath generally will want to use other people.
	Maybe there's some aspect to it.
	But as a sociopath, you're, I mean, in some level, and correct me if I'm wrong, or just, again, just comment, if you will, but you're sort of, as a sociopath, you're sort of At least on some level conceptually distancing or blocking out truth.
	So it's kind of like I have this ability to sort of distance myself from reality, from what's really going on in the present moment and not being able to be obligated to understand or recognize what's happening in the present moment or what's true.
	Yeah, I think the blocking of other people's emotional reality is essential for an actor because you have to act like nobody's there, particularly in movies, which is an even more artificial environment in some ways because you've got all these lights and camera people and you've got to keep stopping and starting and so on.
	So acting as if no one is there when there are lots of other people there is kind of weird.
	Now, in plays, it's a little bit different, right?
	So in plays, you have to...
	Pretend that other people aren't there in order to act in a natural manner.
	But at the same time, you have to know that they are there.
	So if you're doing comedy, like I was in a Chekhov play called The Bear where I did a comic roll, you also have to measure your speech, your language based upon the audience's laugh, right?
	Right.
	Right?
	So you don't want to keep… Speaking until the laugh has died down a bit.
	So you have to pretend that they're not there to act in a natural manner.
	But you also have to know that they are there so that you can measure and moderate your performance based upon what works and what doesn't, right?
	Right.
	So there's some response with theater actors as opposed to… Screenplay actors, I mean, they got a bunch of props and maybe some people around, but all the people who are around screen actors are sort of invested in what the actor's doing anyway.
	They're sort of there for the movie.
	Yeah, they're there enthusiastically.
	It's got to work, right?
	And so there is a very...
	Interesting and important thing.
	Now, have you ever had it where you are in a public place and you burst into tears?
	Luckily, that's never happened.
	Now, you said luckily, right?
	Now, if you were an actor, you'd say, I'm shitty at crying.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	No, this is a very important distinction because for you and, you know, maybe me too, I mean...
	In public space half the time, I'm bursting into tears during these shows, right?
	But for most people, sort of being vulnerable, being emotional, is something that we avoid that, right?
	But on the other hand, if you do it on screen or on stage, it's considered to be amazing.
	Right, the sociopathic.
	Powerful acting, right?
	Sort of, yeah.
	It's sort of a...
	reinforced right oh yeah definitely so and so i think yeah last last tango in paris last tango in paris um marlon brando is is give the speech by uh by the i think his dead wife or something like that and it's it's incredible i mean the man is the staggeringly i don't know even a gifted talent who knows what to call it but he's an incredible actor and of course a completely miserable and fucked up human being One kid committed suicide.
	Another kid murdered someone.
	I mean, he gained 9,000 pounds.
	And, I mean, he was just a – I mean, watch a Connie Chung interview with him.
	It's like watching an asteroid orbit Jupiter.
	And so, I mean, he was a – and I read his autobiography years ago.
	An incredibly messed up woman – sorry, messed up guy who had incredible problems with women as a result of his mom.
	I can't imagine what that would be like.
	But apparently, it's tough.
	So – So there is a kind of dichotomy in the mind of the actor, in my experience.
	And please understand, my experience is scarcely authoritative.
	But you have to be aware of the audience and act as if they're not there.
	But at the same – and you also have to have – like if you're acting in a large theater space – I acted in a theater space which held 2,500 people.
	And if you act in a large theater space, you're not miked, right?
	If you're doing musicals, you have to usually be miked because you can sing that loud without blowing your voice up.
	But you also then have to have tender love scenes where you're yelling at someone, basically, right?
	I remember going with an actor who was in my class.
	His name is Rick Roberts.
	He's actually a very good actor.
	And...
	We went to go and visit – we all went to go and visit Stratford, which is the sort of holy grail of Canadian acting, I guess, for whatever that's worth.
	And we were practicing speaking on the stage.
	I remember Rick was saying – he said, I can't quite get used to this.
	And he actually ended up doing a lot more film work and very well too.
	But he said, I just can't get used to this.
	You're talking to someone and having some sort of intimate scene and you're making sure – That, you know, the hearing-impaired grandma in row 300 can hear you as well.
	And he said, that's just weird.
	And it is.
	So there is a lot of splitting that goes on, where you kind of have opposing things.
	You have to be speaking to somebody tenderly in a scene where your voice is not loud and doesn't sound to be loud.
	It's audible to everyone, but it's supposed to be an intimate conversation.
	Like, it's fucked up in a lot of ways.
	There's a lot of Splitting that goes on.
	Lots of fucked up things that go on in the minds of actors.
	And I don't know the degree to which that comes from a very healthy and integrated place.
	I mean, I've thought often in the years since, right?
	Whether I should have continued the work in acting that I did or playwriting or whatever, I'm...
	I'm satisfied.
	I'm very sort of happy with the decisions that I make.
	Like I sort of listened to some of my speeches back that I spontaneously give in this show and I'm like, I don't think I would have been that great a vessel for other people's words if I have this many of my own that are useful.
	So I'm glad.
	And I was thinking the other day, just sort of by the by, I can't imagine any other gig, to put it In a weird way.
	I can't think of any other gig where I would have this kind of opportunity to speak in this kind of way.
	If I were doing improv, like I did lots of improv in theater school, if I were doing improv, then it would all have to be funny.
	Some of the stuff I do is funny, but it's obviously with a lot of underlying seriousness to it.
	So I couldn't do philosophical rants if I were doing improv.
	I couldn't do philosophical rants if I was an actor in someone else's play because they kind of want their lines to be said, right?
	Right, right, right.
	I'm going to break off from Hamlet a little bit here to deliver a discourse on Descartes or lawyers.
	Yeah, yeah.
	So I couldn't – sorry, I just finished up in a second.
	I couldn't have done what I do now in any other venue anymore.
	Than how I'm doing it and what I'm doing.
	If I had a newscast, if I had a TV show, if I simply couldn't I guess Rick Mercer is a Canadian comedian who does these kind of rants and all that, but this is not...
	I couldn't do what I'm doing in any other venue or any other environment or any other kind of interaction than what I do as I do it in the here and now in this show.
	This to me is, again, and I thank all the donators who've made this possible.
	I thank you and everyone who calls in for making this possible, for giving me this platform and this interaction to be able to do this.
	It's...
	There's no other way I could get the language within me across.
	And I tried poetry.
	I tried playwriting.
	I did acting.
	I did improv.
	I did a little bit of stand-up.
	I did novel writing.
	I had like seven novels and shit like that.
	I had like 30 plays and stuff, right?
	It was never what I needed.
	It was never what I wanted.
	I never felt like I was really stretching things.
	My capacities as a human communicator.
	What I do here, the participation of you and Mike and Stoyan and other people, this is – I'm right.
	I'm always at the edge of what I could do.
	I think that's why people keep listening because every time I'm like, well, that was really good.
	Move the goalpost.
	Not doing enough.
	Do more.
	That's what keeps it interesting and exciting for me.
	I don't want to do the same thing over and over again.
	And I just was thinking the other day, like if I'd stayed as an actor, I could have done okay as an actor, I think.
	If I'd been a playwright, well, you know, playwrights generally starve, but I could have done okay as a playwright, except, you know, all the rational, non-lefty stuff would have been real tough to get across in the art world.
	Art world is relentlessly, particularly in Canada...
	Relentlessly left-wing.
	Like, just...
	Oh, my God!
	Like, when we first went to theatre school, we were all sitting there, and the director of the theatre school's office, and he said, well, you all seem pretty young, white, and bourgeoisie to me.
	Which, short for bourgeoisie, which means that he's...
	Yeah, like, he's a leftist and a communist and all this sort of crap.
	I don't know about communists, but certainly a leftist.
	Into Brecht, and, you know, all these...
	And Brecht was one of the most hideous human beings who ever lived, let alone an artist.
	But, um...
	So, anyway, I just sort of...
	I know a little bit about the lawyer stuff and the lawyer stuff I just sort of mentioned very briefly because we started and let you have the last word.
	We started with sort of lawyers and police.
	I don't think if I were a lawyer, I think it would really torture me to say to people, plea bargain for what you didn't do because the system will fuck you if you don't.
	I think that would be, like, I don't know.
	I could not live with myself.
	I could not live with myself.
	I mean, when you're nagging mankind with moral advice, you have to be careful enough.
	Right.
	And I have not done anything that has violated my conscience.
	And I sort of have an active relationship with my conscience.
	Like, I'll definitely say we're doing okay, but I also let my conscience slap me upside the head.
	And so far, we've had a good ride.
	Right.
	It doesn't mean I haven't made mistakes, but I haven't done anything that has given me great and terrible horror in my conscience.
	But I think if I had, as a job, saying to people who I genuinely or believed or believed there was a reasonable possibility that they were entirely innocent, and I was saying to that person, take the hit, take the sentence, take the guilty plea.
	Because if you don't, I don't know what's going to happen.
	Yeah, the state's going to screw you either way.
	Yeah, or anyway.
	And that's the thing is I don't think lawyers, they don't conceptualize it that way.
	They don't see it that way.
	They do.
	Deep down they do.
	Deep down.
	But they're just able to ignore that.
	And then that's sort of why I brought in the sociopathy with just sort of being able to distance themselves morally.
	Yeah, it's like the cops.
	The cops...
	Every cop, I'm sure, has sent someone to prison who was innocent.
	And sometimes they even know it.
	I'm not saying it's that often.
	I don't know.
	But you hear about these things where they falsified evidence and they cooked up their testimony and they sent this guy to jail and this and that and the other, right?
	Well, they fabricated their police report like what happened with my case.
	Okay, fabricated police report.
	Now, I would not be able to put my head down on my pillow without thinking about the poor bastard in jail.
	Because you have a soul, yes.
	I think a conscience.
	I think some empathy.
	I would be like, oh my god, how terrible would that be?
	I would sit there, oh man, the guy's been in jail for three days.
	I would be torn up inside.
	I'd be thinking about him all the time.
	I wouldn't be able to rest.
	I wouldn't be able to sleep.
	I'd feel like shit if I'm out there enjoying myself because I'd put a guy in prison who didn't deserve to be there.
	But I assume that the cops who do this, and I'm not saying they're in the majority at all, But the cops who do this stay along with their lives.
	And they just justify it to themselves, you know, at night or in their own head.
	And, you know, I think that's sociopathy in its form.
	Yeah, and I think I'll have to amend...
	Motion to amend, Your Honor.
	I think we'll have to amend my earlier statement where I said deep down they know it.
	I don't know.
	Yeah.
	I don't know.
	I have...
	I have, in my personal life, confronted people who I suspect of having no conscience and seen enormous pain in them.
	But then it kind of seals up and they move on.
	And then it just doesn't get referenced again.
	So I don't know.
	I don't know if there's like...
	I'm obviously not a Christian, so I don't believe there's a soul that survives no matter what.
	So I don't know if there is a pain or not.
	I don't know if there is a pain deep down or not.
	It's just really hard to tell, and that's why it's such an interesting connection to me.
	In watching the last few videos that you posted, there's been a lot of discourse lately just about lawyers and attorneys in general.
	You were talking to Joseph Sorge or whatever about the divorce court thing and how networks will sue so that they don't appear – so that they don't make judges look like fools basically.
	Yeah, the judges are always perfect and judges are always right because entertainment companies spend so much time in court that they don't want to bias judges against them, which again just shows you that it's a completely subjective process.
	Right, absolutely.
	Again, it just sort of ties in with the sociopathy and lawyers being up in front of the judge like actors almost.
	And they literally practice these things.
	And I think that's why aspiring actors make such good lawyers and vice versa.
	Because they're able to distance themselves morally and intellectually from reality and from truth.
	And they can just sort of justify all these things because, oh, this is the play that I'm in.
	This is the movie that I'm playing in right now.
	Yeah, the people are pawns.
	I mean, it's always sort of struck me that lawyers seem to be like chess players more than human beings.
	Right.
	Because, you know, you win some, you lose some.
	It's like, well, you're talking about people's lives here.
	I mean, they're not pawns.
	They're people, right?
	I mean, like military generals, right?
	They try and win the war and the generals, you know, the maps move from side to side and, you know, they've got these little markers and pins and stuff.
	They're people, right?
	Yeah, it's not a game of risk.
	Yeah, it's not a game.
	It's risking people's lives.
	Yeah, so I think that to practice, I think that lawyers in a free society would be a very honorable profession.
	And there could be hero lawyers who help keep people away from bad things and so on, but...
	Again, I know more about the US system than anything else, and precious little about that, to obviously be clear.
	But it just seems to me, man, if 95% of people never get their day in court, it's not like 95% of people who are charged are guilty, for heaven's sakes.
	I mean, cops got their numbers to make too, right?
	And that, of course, is a terrible system where you have quotas.
	It's also terrible, of course, as has happened in some places in the US where judges are found to have I mean, they have been punished, I think, for that.
	I could not get involved in a system where I was facilitating such vast human destruction.
	I just can't think of any amount of money that would ever make that worthwhile.
	I hope that would never be a choice that you would have to make, obviously.
	No, no.
	I'd rather work at Starbucks than just thinking like that.
	And you used the word hero correctly when you were speaking earlier about lawyers in the future or future DRO agents because these people would be morally accountable for the actions.
	If you charge – I mean I think that there used to be a common law practice that if I charge you and my charge fails, I get the sentence.
	Yeah, yeah.
	So I mean if a woman charges a man with rape and the charge fails, she gets the sentence he would have gotten.
	And that is of course designed to discourage false accusations.
	And everyone – like if you have a system where everyone can't get their day in court and where you are completely terrified of explaining the legal system to young, right?
	Ignorance of the law is no excuse, but nobody can know the law, and it's never explained to children.
	I mean, how ridiculous is that, right?
	It's ridiculous, and like I said, we get hurled into this world when we're 18, and it's kind of just like, you know, I mean, my parents were very old-fashioned in that sense.
	They just, you know, I was cut off financially when I was about 16, 17, and then pretty much I moved on to college when I was about 18, so...
	It was – they just kind of boot you into this world and there's just this thing called the state that you never really learn about.
	You just learn about the history of how it's been horrible to people and then these things … No, no.
	But the important thing is that you know all about the War of 1812 and the British North American Act and all that, what's legal and illegal and how the law works.
	Why would you need to know that?
	The important thing is to know how Indians built their goddamn teepees.
	It's just ridiculous.
	And it's really something to be ridiculed, like literally ridiculous.
	It's really sad that we're hurled into this statist kind of a world and that it's just something that I noticed and it's really discouraging.
	I have a little brother.
	He's 15.
	He's in high school.
	He's going to be getting his own job pretty soon.
	He's going to be You know, a couple years hurled out into the same world as me, and I want to be able to tell them, I want to be able to educate them, hey, there's a monster out there that you're going to have to avoid, that you're going to have to work yourself around.
	And if you come in contact with one of its tentacles, you know, it's, you better know what you're talking about, and you better know, you better know the law.
	And you better not talk.
	Yeah.
	And people like Mark J. Victor, who's, I'm from Arizona, which is, As statist of a state as they come.
	And people like him are great because they go around teaching these things to college kids who need to learn these lines to spit out at these cops whenever they pull you over.
	I'm sure you've heard Mark J. Victor's speeches before.
	Yeah, I think we've done a couple of speeches.
	Well, not speeches together.
	We've done a couple of shows together.
	And yeah, I think he's very heroic.
	He's a lawyer who really does help people stay out of the clutches of the state.
	He's great.
	So anyway, I kind of want to point it out.
	And my last question is, I guess, I don't know if we're stopped for time, but why?
	We are.
	No, it can be very quick, but it's been almost a four-hour show.
	Yeah, I'm sorry.
	Real quick.
	Why haven't you done a TED Talk?
	Why on earth would I be invited to do a TED talk?
	They're not crazy, right?
	I don't know.
	Are they too liberal of an agenda for you?
	I think you'd be great up on stage talking at one of those TED conferences and spreading knowledge about Bitcoin and anarchy.
	I think it would be great.
	Well, I appreciate that, and I would be great.
	I'm not going to disagree with you.
	I know my strengths and my weaknesses.
	I'm an indifferent karaoke singer, but I'm great at speaking about ideas on the stage.
	I mean, if I were them, I wouldn't.
	I mean, they've had some pretty radical people on there.
	I mean, not quite as radical as you, maybe, but I think that that crowd has something to learn.
	And I think that it's...
	Like I said, I think you do great on stage talking to those people and really turning their heads and raising their eyebrows at Bitcoin and anarchy and moral philosophy and all this.
	So...
	Well, I appreciate that, and I certainly would not object to the opportunity, but I am certainly not holding my breath, and I don't think it's particularly necessary.
	The show is growing very well without it, and I certainly would be interested.
	I mean, we've had TEDx invites to go and speak at TEDx, and at some point, one of those will coincide with what we want to do, and we'll sort of go from there, but I appreciate that, but I don't think it's particularly necessary.
	And I think that it would be a challenge for them in terms of controversy.
	And I don't know what the cost-benefit would be like for them.
	But I haven't seen too many really radical people do TED Talks.
	Maybe I've just missed them that are out there.
	I think they've had people go up on there talking about Bitcoin already.
	But just nothing to the...
	The theme of what you would be able to tell them.
	It's just, oh, it's this new thing, and everybody should look into it.
	With you, it's like...
	Well, that's legal, right?
	Bitcoin is all perfectly legal.
	But as far as I understand it, TEDx doesn't do politics.
	They don't do religion.
	And ethical philosophy would have to talk about politics, and epistemological philosophy would have to talk about religion, as would metaphysical philosophy.
	And, of course, political philosophy they don't do, unless they wanted to do bomb-in-the-brain stuff.
	But if they wanted to do bomb-in-the-brain stuff, they wouldn't get a podcaster out there.
	They'd get an accredited expert, which would obviously make sense in a lot of ways.
	And what are they going to do?
	Get men's rights activists out there?
	Yeah, I'll be waiting for that to happen.
	Emma Watson's busy?
	Oh, let's get Paul Elam, because both sides of the coin is important, right?
	Yeah, right.
	I'll be waiting for that.
	Yeah, I don't know.
	I don't think it's a particularly good fit.
	And I want to reach the people who are going to go as much of the distance's philosophy as they can.
	And I think that a lot of the people who are the audience for the TEDx are pretty comfortable professionals.
	And I just don't think that they would have much interest in something which challenged the paradigm, not just of any particular part of their world, but of their entire world.
	Yeah.
	This is my thoughts on it.
	I haven't really given much thought to it, but we're pretty selective about speaking engagements now.
	They're pretty time-consuming.
	In the time it takes to give one half-hour speech, I could do five or ten shows.
	What has more reach and more potential to get more people?
	The speeches that I give, I think what do we get?
	Maximum 70,000 views.
	But I can whip off something on something else that might get half a million views.
	The cost-benefit is not great.
	We're just really focused on whatever can get philosophy into the hands of more people.
	I don't know if it's that great a fit.
	I'd certainly be happy to chat with them should it ever come to that.
	But I'm certainly not holding my breath or looking for opportunities.
	I hear you.
	YouTube is certainly a fantastic way to do it.
	YouTube itself is just amazing, this technology that we have.
	It's just fantastic.
	I mean, there's never been anything like it.
	I'm playing for mankind.
	Yeah, that's the plan, right?
	Take on the Bob Marley thing.
	He's playing for mankind.
	That's why he was able to write such great shows, and I'm playing for mankind, and I'm playing for all time.
	And that's what helps drive the metaphor engine.
	And my metaphor engine runs on greed and terror.
	And greed for audience and terror at the world not getting more moral generally tends to get the friction of my matches going with fire.
	So listen, thanks a lot for calling in.
	Thanks, everyone, so much, of course, for your continued support and, dare I say, affection for the show.
	And as usual, I end with the request for you to step up.
	Not man up, but step up.
	To help support the show at fdrurl.com slash donate.
	It is essential for our motivation, for the growth of the show, for all of the endless equipment that seems to be needed to run this, I guess, fairly sophisticated operation now.
	So fdrurl.com slash donate.
	Thank you so much, everyone who calls in.

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