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Dec. 13, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

03:05:19

2863 The Consequences of Anti-Male Propaganda - Wednesday Call In Show December 10th, 2014

I work in a Chinese school that still uses punishment – is it peaceful enough? Do you consider Nietzsche to be an Authoritarian? In reading Universally Preferable Behavior (UPB), I noticed that it did not include a proof for moral consideration, or how to identify whether or not something is a factor in the realm of morality. A rock has no moral consideration, but a person typically does - where exactly is the line drawn? Includes: why compliance works, surviving to replicate, not everybody is looking to grow, living a life without boundaries, the hipster enthusiasm back hole, loathing culture, lies reinforced by time, the origin of consumerism is the lack of a parental bond, opposing third wave feminism, the consequences of anti-male propaganda, working parents have a long distance relationship with their children, subjective morality and a fantastic exploration of ethics.

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	Good evening, everybody.
	Hope you're doing well.
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	Mike, who do we have on first?
	Alright, up for us today is Michael M. He wrote in and said, I work in a kindergarten of two and three year olds in China.
	The school is meant to be peaceful and non-threatening as possible, but it's not.
	There still is the naughty chair for things like not eating your food.
	I don't put people in the naughty chair, but I'm still working in a place that does, in addition to using other types of rewards and punishments.
	The question is, is it possible to teach peacefully?
	And if so, do you have any suggestions from raising your daughter?
	Is it possible to teach peacefully?
	Um, can you just expand on that a little bit?
	I want to make sure I understand.
	Hello?
	Hello.
	Hi, Steph.
	Hi.
	I'm really excited.
	I'm very excited.
	I can expand on that.
	Um, so I teach two and three-year-olds partially, um, And they really, they kind of have a choice of coming to our school.
	It's not like a public school or anything.
	It's completely free market.
	But at the same time, they kind of have to do what their parents say and to do what we tell them to do.
	And, like, I'm having trouble finding the words.
	But, like, the threat of the naughty chair, we've been using that, is...
	I like putting them in jail, and I don't like using that, but at the same time, it works.
	It can get them to line up and get them to not push each other and stuff like that.
	Of course it works.
	Okay.
	I mean, taxes work too, right?
	Right.
	And if you really want to take an extreme example, if you really want to get a woman pregnant, rape works too.
	It just doesn't mean that it's right.
	But yeah, coercion works.
	I mean, in the...
	Evolution of human society, it has retained a central place because of its effectiveness.
	Because human beings, as you know, and again, these are extreme examples, but human beings, as you know, are biologically designed not to be free, not to be moral, not to be self-righteous, and not to sacrifice their genes for the sake of the advancement of abstract virtue.
	They are designed to reproduce.
	And reproducing in a situation of aggression requires either becoming an aggressor or obeying.
	Human society just follows the same model of apes.
	It's dominate or be dominated.
	And violence works because that's how we are programmed biologically is to submit to violence and to breed.
	And all of the genetics...
	All of the genetic tendencies we may ever have had to place virtue above reproduction would have been bred right out of the gene pool lickety-split, right?
	So, yeah, I mean, I'm not surprised that it works.
	It works very well.
	Okay.
	I feel sad now.
	Or depressed.
	Why?
	Because I'm at this place.
	What I really want to talk about is whether or not I made the right decision to come out here, but I don't If you don't want to, I don't want to make the show The Michael Show.
	No, listen.
	I get The Steph Show a lot.
	It is The Michael Show.
	No, really.
	It is The Michael Show.
	Whatever you want to talk about is what I want to talk about.
	Okay.
	Well, I would like to talk about the place that I'm at right now, both in my life and physically in China.
	Tell you a little bit about the school and get your take on this small business and whether the people running it, if you think it's going to be successful or just like a mirage of successfulness.
	All right.
	So, the schools founded a few years ago based on a vision that education sucks in the world and that most of schools, just all schools, they don't teach anything, they just produce robots, especially in China.
	And so, the founder wanted to make a place where people actually learn and are able to think for themselves.
	Like, the motto of the school is give a man a fish, eat for a day, teach a man a fish, eat forever.
	The results work for our English program.
	There's no test.
	There's no books.
	It's based off of neuroscience.
	It's meant to be as fun and engaging and enjoyable as possible.
	And there are kids who've been there for two or three years who are six years old and can sing We Will Rock You fluently and can joke around and be normal human beings, which in China is not always the case, unfortunately.
	Okay, so...
	Those are the pros.
	Well, more pros.
	It's really fun to work at.
	Farting is encouraged and permissive.
	Like the boss when we were teaching the kindergarten together told a two-year-old, Hey, Xilan, pull my finger!
	And she pulled his finger and then he farted.
	And the kids were oblivious to it, but we thought it was really funny.
	It grew a lot.
	It started as like a one-story little crappy schoolhouse five years ago and now it's a big two-story place with a few hundred students.
	We're doing an entrepreneurship program where we're teaching eight and nine-year-olds how to flip educational books, like getting them from a supplier and then going to the street corner and selling them and stuff like that and really like paying them.
	For their time, rather than them paying us.
	The leader's very ambitious, and we've got good partners in our city.
	We're partnered with a group that has the license for a very famous cartoon character, and we're going to do events in shopping malls and places like that.
	And I have a lot of responsibility.
	I've been here for six months and I'm now the CFO and basically running the company in the founder's absence because he's working on other business projects.
	Right.
	So, here are the cons though.
	The founder of the school has a failing marriage and his wife, like, When they got drunk like told me like I don't know what I just don't know sometimes if this is if this was the right decision and I don't know if I can stay together.
	There's some drug use with the higher management like weed and acid like occasionally like on Thanksgiving we had the next morning off and so we Got drunk and then got high and then dropped acid and stayed up all night and climbed a mountain and I ran across a mountain range until 8 in the morning and then had to stay up for 12 more hours.
	The cons are we're kind of a bunch of misfits all with like bad childhoods.
	Like we're professional but like the stories I've heard from Some of the people who work there, like both Chinese and foreigners, are just not good.
	Like, one Chinese person really, like, her parents all the time told her she wasn't good enough, she was ugly, she wasn't smart enough as her older brothers or as her friends, she was never good enough.
	Stuff like that.
	And I'm the only one who went to therapy.
	I feel really nervous right now.
	And that is...
	That's basically it for the cons.
	Okay, you started off talking about some of the cons for kids.
	Say that again?
	Oh, the cons for kids?
	Yeah, it's meant to be peaceful, but at the same time, there's still coercion with the naughty chair and if you don't sit nicely in the class or if you interrupt the class, you can't be in, you have to leave.
	Right.
	And so that's basically it.
	Those are the cons.
	So obviously no corporal punishment or anything like that, right?
	Hell no.
	No.
	And dude, we stop it too.
	It's awesome.
	I stopped a grandma.
	She was trying to rip a kid's sweater off.
	And so I grabbed her arms and got her off of him.
	And she was all huffy and puffy and pissed.
	And I told her that if she does that again, she's kicked out and she can't come back in.
	And the founder of the school is really excited.
	He's really happy that I did that.
	And all the other teachers were too.
	Right, right, okay.
	So yeah, it's meant to be peaceful, but it's just not all the way there yet.
	Right.
	But it certainly sounds, I mean, I can imagine it's almost infinitely better than what else is going on in China.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, seriously.
	And yeah, yeah.
	And the kids really do like us, like with the two and three-year-old babies, like whenever they see me, one girl, oh, so sad, man.
	Like this one girl is raised basically by her grandparents who fucking just like yell and scream at each other and hit her and always tell her like, hurry up, put your shoes on, get, get, get, let's go, come on, come on, come on, come on.
	And like whenever she sees me, she starts running over like and just calls my name like as I'm walking away like, Michael, bye, Michael, bye, Michael, and runs and gives me a hug whenever she sees me.
	And one time she was being really rude to the other kids and I said to her, kind of in like broken Chinese, hey, don't talk like that to other people.
	People don't like it when you talk like that.
	And she said to me, but that's how we talk to each other at home.
	And her mom's away on business all the time and just has no time to see her.
	And when she does come back to see her, she has to stay up really late till like 10.30 or 11 because she doesn't get home From work until like 9 o'clock and then doesn't have any time to spend with her daughter.
	It's just really sad because that happens a lot, you know?
	And you can see the troublemaker kids, like the quote troublemaker kids, always like, well, when I talk to their parents, well, did you hit them when they were babies?
	Yeah.
	We stopped now.
	And it's just, oh man, you guys.
	They're just forcing them to do a bunch of shit they don't want to do.
	And it's not consistent at all because the parents will always try and push them to do all these things that they're uncomfortable with, like get in front of a crowd and sing a song for everybody or do a tongue twister in English.
	And then when I say to the parents, you go up there.
	No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
	Right, right.
	So yeah, I want to hear your take.
	On what?
	On the whole situation.
	You've got to focus me in a little there, bro.
	Alright.
	What do you think about the management, the cons, the failing marriage, the depressed wife, the drug use, and that?
	Can something be successful with that?
	Can a business be successful with that?
	Well, you know, Steve Jobs had a daughter I think he failed to acknowledge for quite some time.
	That's what I was thinking.
	And you can have...
	Successful businesses, yeah.
	I mean, I was a singer for Creed.
	Creed, one of the biggest Christian rock bands of the 90s and early 2000s, I think.
	I mean, the guy's just, as far as I understand it, completely gone off the deep end.
	And, yeah, there are lots of unstable people who are very successful.
	So, yeah, I think...
	I think that if people have a lot of talent and drive and so on, it can overcome a lot of dysfunction.
	Okay.
	No, he definitely has that.
	Yeah, during a creative time in the band Queen's existence, Brian May was so, I think, if my memory serves, this is all off the top of my head, but I think he was tempted with having an affair outside of his marriage and he was driving along and it's like, hey, the water under that bridge looks pretty inviting right about now.
	And there are a lot of people who go through significantly dark periods during their lives and their creative output seems to either be unaffected or sometimes even affected positively.
	Yeah, because sometimes it can push you to do things like...
	I don't know.
	I feel like I went through something like that too, like a couple years ago when I started my own business with a friend and I was in a really dark place.
	Yeah, I mean, I think that it seems to be a fairly common refrain among artists and creators and entrepreneurs that heartbreak cracks your soul and the white stuff that oozes out is beneficial to the world.
	Like a big, beautiful egg.
	Well, yeah, I mean, when you get severely smashed up, you know, sometimes you bleed darkness and sometimes you bleed light.
	And...
	It's not a recommendation for smashing anyone up, but it's some things that can come out of this.
	But, of course, a lot of it has to do not so much with the circumstances of adulthood, but with the circumstances of early childhood.
	Steve Jobs' father was one of the few parents around in the day, way back in the day, who never hit his son.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	And in the 50s?
	Unprecedented.
	Unprecedented.
	And his father stood up against child abuse to the significant resistance of sometimes those around him.
	So he had an example of moral courage and he had an example of relatively peaceful parenting.
	And so people who grew up like that look like freaks to a lot of people because they have such different experiences from the majority.
	It's so different.
	Yeah, right, right, right.
	Yeah.
	Because they say, well, that guy's kind of weird.
	It's like, well, he's weird on two levels.
	He's weird because he's had a very different experience from you, and he's weird because he's also had a very different experience from almost everyone.
	So not only has he had a unique experience as a child, but it's so rare in those situations and those circumstances, it's so rare, that it's hard for him to find a place to fit in.
	So then people say, well, you know, those kids who are raised peacefully, you know, they're kind of weird.
	Yeah, that kind of don't fit in.
	It's like, well, yeah, that's right.
	You know, that kid who's not raised to enjoy the taste of human meat doesn't seem to enjoy our meals very much.
	He doesn't come around very often.
	Yeah, it's like, I don't think from that we get yay cannibalism.
	Right, right, right, right.
	You know, like, you know, that guy who doesn't like beating the slaves?
	Oh, man.
	Yeah.
	What's the matter with him?
	That's funny.
	Yeah, so, I mean, feeling out of sorts with your society, you know, there's an old saying which says it is no mark of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly disturbed society.
	Right.
	That's good.
	That's good.
	That's true.
	That's true.
	So, you know, and the other thing, too, is that in the process of human, or in the process of personal evolution, you can't You can't guarantee that everyone is going to grow.
	There are a lot of people, like in terms of personal growth, and I don't know, obviously, I have no clue what's going on with this guy's marriage, but if I were to hazard a guess, it would be something like, maybe he's committed to growth, or she's committed to growth and the other person isn't.
	Or they started off being committed to growth and then they hit something that stopped them in their tracks.
	Can I fill you in a little bit more?
	No, no, because they're not here to really talk about their lives.
	So I'd rather not do that.
	But when I started down the road of personal growth, I did so because I felt that there were a lot of people ahead of me.
	When you're young and you've had a tough childhood, the healthiest thing you can feel is insecure.
	The overcompensation where...
	Friends I had when I was a kid, they seemed so immensely confident to me.
	They were very funny and I remember there was a guy who was living with us and we were all sitting around chatting.
	The couches were full except for one seat and two guys went for that seat and one guy was there and then the other guy who was living with us just kind of slid into that seat.
	And then the guy who was about to sit down, who was actually closer, was like, dude, I was just about to take that seat.
	And the guy sort of shrugged, right?
	Right.
	And he's like, no, I got here first, right?
	Right.
	And that seemed to me like, wow, I was half fascinated and half repulsed by that.
	And half, you know, another half admiring.
	And, yeah, like, where's his, like, well, maybe I'm wrong.
	Maybe that was a dick move to steal the guy's seat from out from under him.
	But no, just like, oh, whatever, I got it.
	Yeah, and this same guy, like, I have never been a tit-for-tat money guy.
	Uh-huh.
	Right, so in general, it's like, oh, you know, I'll get this one, whatever, we're out for dinner.
	I'll get this one, you get the next one or whatever, right?
	And it's not formal or anything like that.
	Right, right.
	It tends to work out really well.
	It tends to work out really well.
	Mm-hmm.
	But I've known people who were like, okay, you had the club sandwich, I had water, you had a pot.
	I had a dessert that was $4.99, you had a dessert that was $3.99, carry the two, add tax, you know, all that kind of stuff.
	Like, literally, it's like I'm waiting for them to take out a nail file and start shaving down a goddamn penny.
	And this guy who took the seat was like that.
	So literally, I mean...
	Literally, we went and bought $18 worth of groceries.
	And this is back when $18 worth of groceries could feed an army for a month, right?
	It could get you halfway to Stalingrad and back in the dead of winter.
	And I didn't have my wallet.
	And, you know, basically my philosophy is, yeah, yeah.
	I mean, it goes into the general, tide comes in, tide comes out.
	Uh-huh.
	The finances.
	You know, next time we go to a movie, I'll say, oh, you know, you got the groceries.
	I'll get whatever, right?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	But this guy, this guy literally was, okay, now we're going to your bank, right?
	Seriously.
	And this is back in the day.
	No bank machines.
	You know, when I was 15 or 16.
	And this guy was like, we're going to your bank.
	And we're going to, you know, we get to the bank.
	And he's like, well, you've got to take out the nine bucks.
	And you've got to, you know, Go up to the cashier, withdraw for $9, and hand me the $9.
	And, you know, there was like a big lineup, because there's always big lineups at banks or ATMs.
	Open Monday to Thursday, 10 to 3, for your inconvenience.
	You closed for an hour.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And, um...
	And I had to, you know, what am I going to do?
	Am I going to say, are you kidding me?
	No, I was too shy for that.
	I was like, okay, we'll go to the bank.
	I'll take out the money.
	I'll write you the check.
	And...
	And here's your money.
	And part of me was like, what is your major malfunction, OCD bot?
	I mean, what are you?
	Shouldn't you be washing your hands 400 times a day or something?
	And another part of me was like, wow, this guy really stands up for himself financially.
	True.
	And holy!
	So people and the degree of confidence that they had to make jokes...
	Sometimes they would go up and rib on strangers and stuff.
	It's like when you see people – I think it was Samantha Bee.
	I don't know if she's still on The Daily Show.
	She used to be on The Daily Show.
	Yeah, I know.
	Yeah, so she did a skit, if memory serves me right, where she put on a pair of women's panties and coming out of the women's panties was an ungodly amount of pubic hair.
	Uh-huh.
	And it was fake, obviously, right?
	Anyway, so she'd come out and she'd ask her boyfriend, and they were filming this, right?
	Oh, how does this look, right?
	People were like, oh my god, what's that?
	The Sasquatch with a suntan?
	And she was saying like, oh man, it feels so terrible to do that kind of stuff, but you know, you commit and you get it done.
	And my friends when I was growing up, not all of them, but a lot of them had this odd kind of confidence, right?
	And I was really quite – I was quite fascinated by it.
	I somewhat admired it and I was somewhat afraid of it.
	It seems like – I mean I knew that they'd had some pretty dysfunctional histories.
	And part of me was like, well, they seem to be doing okay.
	Right.
	I know I live with a few guys who are just like that.
	I know exactly what you mean.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	They're going up and they're – Talking to people, asking women out, and, you know, they're...
	And, of course, it seems to come with this unholy amount of personal ribbing.
	Right, right, right, right.
	Like, they're always, like...
	I never felt, like, safe around them.
	Like, it was fun and exciting, but, like, dangerous at the same time.
	Oh, yeah.
	It's like this bullwhip zing fest all the time, which...
	Exactly.
	But also, like, amazingly funny guys.
	Exactly, yeah.
	Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.
	But also...
	Yeah, and also they had a truly spinal itch form of restlessness.
	Go on?
	Well, they were constantly in motion.
	I mean, their hearts were just brownie in motion, thumping all over the place.
	Like the idea that you'd go to the library, pick up some books, put up your feet, and just read quietly for an evening?
	Mm-hmm.
	Pretty incomprehensible.
	Hmm.
	To...
	To these guys.
	And they did...
	Yeah, some of them had a sort of...
	I mean, to me, at least a dangerous...
	Like, my life has always had walls and rules and boundaries.
	Like, I'll do this.
	Not going to do that.
	And these guys, it's like they just...
	Like, where I would come up to a wall, like some giant-ass Berlin-style Pink Floyd wall, they just walk right through it.
	And...
	So, like, yeah, with drinking to excess, with drugs, and so on, they just didn't seem to have any breaks, or any, like, B-R-A-E-S, didn't seem to have any sense of restraint in particular.
	Yeah, I know what you mean.
	I know what you mean.
	And if you did, you were sort of, there was this automatic...
	Come on, come on, come on, let's party, let's party.
	Yeah, to some degree.
	I mean, I don't know if they ever cared enough about me to want to drag me along, you know, in general.
	And I felt pretty small relative to these guys.
	Because the things that I was interested in, the things that I was doing and so on, were not things that they...
	I mean, we hung out a lot and have a lot of affection for a lot of those memories.
	And they did teach me a lot about music.
	And they did teach me a lot about quality.
	Like we used to get together and have what we called the Decca dinners, which was, you know, every six months you'd scrimp and save.
	And then you'd go and buy the most inconceivably expensive stuff at the grocery store and make it all in one meal.
	Along with like $20 a pound Ethiopian coffee and you'd get hot plates with like the most delectable shrimp and you'd make your crazy desserts that like profiteroles and stuff.
	You just basically spend a whole day buying and cooking and eating to the point where you just couldn't eat anymore.
	Okay.
	And those were real oases in a pretty pinched youth.
	And so, yeah, so I mean useful people to have had in my life and I'm very happy to have known them.
	But man, their personal relationships were a mess.
	Yeah.
	I mean that's the old Freudian thing, right?
	If you can get work and love right, you pretty much got it right.
	Thank you.
	And these guys, you know, often hardworking and so on, but at least...
	And that smoothed out, at least for one of the guys I'm thinking of later on.
	But, yeah, just a mess.
	And no vulnerability, no inner lives, no talk of insecurities, no...
	You know, there was just a lot of bluster.
	And some of it seemed very organic, you know?
	Like, you know, you can often detect insecurity at the bottom of bluster, but...
	These guys just seem to be extremely confident with no sense of boundaries or sort of right or wrong or good or bad.
	And exciting but dangerous.
	Like a motorcycle that's… A little tiny bit more powerful than you can handle.
	It's exciting.
	That motorcycle certainly has your attention, but that's partly because you're afraid of hitting a wall and bursting into flames.
	So I sort of don't want to make this about my teenage friends.
	How did we get talking on this?
	I can't remember.
	We were talking about...
	Function and dysfunction in work.
	Oh, right, right.
	Okay.
	At least I wanted to talk about people's level of confidence and growth.
	So as I was sort of growing up, it's tortoise and the hare, right?
	You start off slow and you end up winning.
	I mean, winning sounds like the wrong way to put it, if that makes any sense.
	You start off slow and you're like, okay, you guys race ahead without self-knowledge and all the time I'm investing in self-knowledge, We'll have me drop further and further behind.
	Right.
	But like when you're 40, they're still exactly, they're like a few inches ahead of where they were when they were 25 and you're like 10 miles up ahead.
	Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, except they have usually accumulated a fairly significant amount of disasters in their lives.
	I see.
	You know, like divorces or, you know, whatever it is, right?
	I mean, just Okay.
	For my generation, it'd be like getting a kid out of wedlock or getting a girl pregnant.
	Yeah, or an STD. Or, you know, some bullshit tattoo that you don't know what the hell you were doing.
	Or some, you know, big mountains of credit card debt or getting fired.
	Yeah, getting involved with some married woman or guy.
	You know, just some mess.
	Yes.
	No, I'm just thinking about the people that I used to live with that sound pretty similar to the guys that you used to live with.
	We'd have once a week or once a month really nice dinners and we had a really shitty house that we transformed into something really beautiful and one of the guys, his body is just covered in tattoos from toe to head and he was really self-confident and he had a terrible childhood.
	But he would be kind of vulnerable about it, but the other two guys would be all bluster and no real talk about that.
	And yeah, I was just thinking back to sometimes living with them.
	Well, of course, people ink their childhoods on their skin so they don't have to have it on their face or in their voice.
	It's the parents, I think, who drive the tattoos.
	Yeah, I think you're right.
	To mark the child as broken.
	Yeah.
	I'm thinking back to his tattoos, and I'm seeing that.
	Oh, yeah.
	I mean, when I was in my early to mid-20s, I wrote this novel called Revolutions, which people can buy if they want at freedommainradio.com.
	And it's about 19th century Russian radical anarchists.
	And when I was...
	Oh, Lord.
	I wish I could tell these cards apart sometimes.
	But anyway, at some point, I was living in a frat house in a room with another guy.
	And one of the guys who was living in the frat house for the summer, I don't think he was part of any frat, but he was in charge of painters, like student painters.
	And he had these, yeah, giant tattoos on his chest and all that.
	We spent a lot of time topless and had this weird, eerie to me kind of self-assuredness and confidence to him.
	Now, I say weird not because I have any problem with self-assurance and confidence.
	I say weird because, you know, the shaven head, I think he had a nose piercing, the giant tattoos all over his torso and so on.
	You know, they scream dysfunction to me.
	Right.
	And so the fact that he seemed so relaxed and confident, it kind of blew my mind.
	And I used him.
	I didn't chat with him much, but I observed him a lot.
	In social situations and I used his body language for the main character in my novel.
	And I was fascinated.
	You know, this guy had an ease and a receptivity to him and so on.
	And what it meant to me was that he had created a milieu around him where nobody questioned his choices.
	And that I don't think is a very good milieu to be in.
	So there was nobody who was saying, hey man, why are you thinking of getting a tattoo?
	Right, right, right, right.
	It was just kind of a reinforcing bubble around him.
	Yeah, it's like the hipsters who nobody ever says, don't you think that being ironic about other people's achievements is ironic in and of itself?
	I'm so sick of the hipsters.
	I'm so glad I'm not around them anymore.
	I know you've got tight lobster pants and keble elf shoes, but dear God in heaven, can you actually produce something that makes you vulnerable and can be rejected?
	Seriously, and quit talking shit about successful people and, like, successful companies.
	Sell out.
	Yeah, it's like they're really just exploiting people and, like, I'm glad that I don't work for something like that and make fun of all their co-workers if they work for some job.
	Like, whoa, this guy just...
	You just need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and then they all laugh.
	Ha, ha, ha, those Republicans.
	Yeah, it always – they sort of look on society.
	I don't know if you've ever seen a film called Office Space, but Jennifer Aniston's boss, you know, who's this earnest, homely guy who wants everyone to wear a flare, you know, like buttons on there.
	Oh, you want me to wear more flare?
	You know?
	Well, no, you have to want to do the flare.
	You want – wait, you want me to put the flare on?
	Do you want me to want to put the flare on?
	Like, you know, that kind of stuff where – I could do a whole bit on hipsters, but there are some traumas that I really get and I have a huge amount of sympathy with.
	Hipsterism is not one of them.
	No, why not?
	Because most of those kids are like the dorky kids who are out of place, at least thinking back to the ones that I knew.
	They weren't good at sports and of average intelligence, and so they do something to distinguish themselves, but they all end up doing the same thing.
	No, because there's trauma which is harmful to the self, and then there's trauma which is harmful to others.
	And as Socrates said, and as Jesus said, and as many other thinkers have said, it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong.
	And the problem with hipsters is that they're in this self-reinforcing, self-erasing, superior to anything that moves while remaining perfectly still themselves.
	And because they don't keep it to themselves, they are a corrosive force in the rest of the world.
	They are like evil Jedi luring you to the dark side.
	Join us over here!
	With our organically grown lattes, with soy milk, and we will watch the parade of fools called the world, and we will complain about those who sell out despite the fact that we never even got an offer to sell out.
	You know, hey, I don't mind someone who says don't be a sellout, but you at least have to have gotten an offer.
	Otherwise, you're like a homely virgin praising abstinence.
	You know, it's like...
	If someone came up to you as a hipster and said, I will give you a million dollars to star in my commercial, and they said no, Yes, okay.
	Props to you.
	It may not be a wise decision, but these guys, I mean, who the hell is offering to buy them out?
	You're a sellout.
	It's like, well, when have you ever been tempted?
	Has someone come up and offered you a lot of money for something against the grain?
	Don't give me this shit.
	Go out there and do things in the world.
	The other thing, too, is that I don't like the tiny black holes of a lot of people's personalities.
	They're very small.
	They live very small.
	In other words, they could not inspire anyone.
	And hipsters are like these vampires that fasten their little pegs on the jugular of enthusiasm that makes the entire world.
	And they go and congregate in coffee shops and they sometimes will occasionally read found poetry to each other and shit like that.
	And it's like, well, you know there's only a coffee shop here because no one's being ironic.
	And you know the guy who picked your fucking coffee was not doing it to be ironic.
	And you know the people who come to work here do it not to be ironic.
	So you're living in this world where everyone's achieving and creating and you're just mocking and being negative towards everything.
	And it's...
	It's a black hole that pulls other people's enthusiasm in, and I keep a very close eye on my own level of enthusiasm.
	I'm like a guy carrying a candle through a storm.
	And if there are people around who make that enthusiasm flicker, I get the fuck out.
	Gotcha.
	I'm going to remember that.
	I'm going to write that down.
	As far as keeping the treasure of enthusiasm alive...
	Man, it is a flickering candle in a high, wet, stormy wind.
	And you've got to cup that shit and keep it safe.
	And you've got to cover it up.
	You've got to guard it.
	And you've got to take it to the basement.
	And you've got to double tape the windows.
	And you really have to keep those who piss on your light safe.
	I feel really good.
	My boss and business partner, whenever we talk about the future of the business, we both feel really energized.
	I feel so much better after talking with him and some other people around here, I feel worse.
	That's really good.
	I feel a lot better.
	I feel really good.
	Yeah, and so the hipsters, it's not so much that they seem afraid to try anything or to do anything or be vulnerable.
	That's not the problem to me.
	The problem is they've made a virtue of it.
	Right.
	It's a good thing to be like that.
	Yeah, like they'll like the band until there are more than 12 people in the audience.
	Like the people who turned on Bob Dylan when he went electric, when he just wanted to do something else.
	Oh, my God.
	Don't even get me started on that bullshit.
	Like, seriously.
	Oh, my God.
	Oh, my God.
	You know it's the 60s, right?
	You might have some more important things to deal with than the fact there's electricity in his guitar.
	He's not a demon god of voltage.
	He's just a guy who plugged in his guitar.
	And the outrage – or God forbid.
	When I was a kid, this is going way back, right?
	God forbid.
	There's only one mortal sin in the hipster universe.
	Only one mortal sin in the hipster universe.
	And that is saying you like a song without knowing it's a cover song.
	I see.
	You know?
	Like, oh, I really like Dancing in the Streets by Van Halen.
	Van Halen wrote that song and recorded it, but you don't know it was like Martha and the Shirelles or whoever the hell it was.
	Like, you don't know that it's a cover.
	You know?
	God forbid!
	Boy, you know that Fuji's version of A Change Is Gonna Come.
	Boy, that's a great song they wrote.
	Don't you know that Sam Cooke?
	He wrote it three days before he was murdered for, I mean, or killed, not murdered.
	But yeah, so if you put forward a song that you like and you don't even know that it's a cover song, oh man, I mean, I think that's the only death penalty clause in the hipster universe.
	I see.
	It's a little bit different now.
	Now it's liking a song that other people like, that non-hipsters like.
	That's the death sentence.
	Oh, yeah.
	God forbid you...
	Do they just have to regularly go through and purge their iTunes collection of anyone who's made it?
	And I had to do that, too.
	I had to do that, too.
	I couldn't admit, like, I like that song.
	That song's cool.
	Just like, oh, no, that song's stupid.
	Right.
	Or the ultimate four-letter word, lame.
	Lame.
	People my age don't say that.
	Well, a few, dude, in the Midwest.
	I grew up in the West Coast.
	That's an old school word, man.
	You saying there, Sonny?
	When I say it, it's double plus Sonny.
	What are you getting?
	No, so what is the new word which is just like, sigh, roll your eyes, negative, can't even be discussed, there's no point in it.
	Let me think, let me think.
	Alright, so, like, oh my god, that is just so, like...
	Well, if they're a girl, unacceptable is a really...
	That's more like for political or like...
	Inappropriate.
	Inappropriate, not unacceptable.
	Inappropriate, unacceptable.
	I remember in college, my roommate and I were throwing water balloons at his van because we were bored.
	Well, because we hated our lives and we hated the college and everybody around us.
	And so we took it out on the van.
	And we got in trouble with the RAs.
	And I remember one of the women, one of the girls saying like, Oh my God, that is just unacceptable.
	Yeah.
	Not even I don't accept it.
	It's somehow third-party unacceptable.
	Jesus cries.
	Yeah.
	I want to change the...
	I don't know what word is lame.
	I don't know.
	Just the whole stupid attitude.
	But I want to change the subject and make it something more, like, hopeful and positive for people in the US or Canada.
	Sorry.
	That's all right.
	If you're feeling like that, if you feel trapped with a bunch of shitheads and maybe you don't know why you're feeling like that, because I started listening to your show three years ago when I got back from Australia and turned into an ANCAP, and I had to turn it off.
	I was too scared to listen to it because it was hitting too deep of a nerve.
	Because I knew that I had to make big changes in my life if I was to keep listening to you because I couldn't share that type of shit with the people I had around me.
	Hang on a sec.
	Hang on a sec, Mike.
	I'm just making a note here.
	Scared of free domain radio because it's too deep.
	I knew sooner or later that was going to happen to someone.
	It's good, man.
	I wanted to make a note.
	Let the word be put forward on this day of the eighth year of this show.
	Finally, somebody found philosophy too deep to be comfortable.
	Anyway, sorry, go ahead.
	No, you have a great show and you have really provocative titles and And you do such a better job of getting people hooked into this type of deep, important shit than other libertarian or Austrian economic type stuff, which are just so dry.
	And I'm really smart, and so for me it's interesting, but for most people and for girls or normal people, that stuff's so boring.
	But Michael...
	Michael, don't you know that Freedom Main Radio was so much better when he did it from his car?
	I don't know today.
	I totally sold out.
	Has anybody ever said that to you?
	Oh yeah.
	What?
	Are you serious?
	Yeah.
	No way.
	He seemed more open and more personable and more relaxed with himself, but he was just doing it to a smaller audience from a car.
	Oh, that's the word.
	Okay, so a good word is chill.
	It's just a lot more chill.
	Now it's not chill anymore.
	It's not the same.
	That Steph guy, I mean, now that he's got a big audience, he's hit like 100 million show downloads.
	I mean, it's just a different thing.
	He can't obviously be the same guy that he was at the beginning.
	And look, if you get that much success and you get that many people listening to you, I mean, how could you be the same person?
	It changes you, bro.
	It does.
	And the thing is, you're not even aware of it.
	Right.
	From the inside, you just look like you're doing the same thing.
	But I'm telling you, as someone who's been listening from the beginning, you've changed.
	It's just not the same.
	Now, you'll notice that basically it's just a cannon full of adjectives that they fire at you hoping that something will stick.
	Nobody can actually quote you anything in particular.
	Right.
	Tell me how.
	Tell me how.
	How did I change?
	Well, you know, it's just a feeling.
	It's a gut instinct.
	You can take it or leave it.
	I'm just trying to give you that kind of feedback.
	So basically, they back away and claim instinct.
	Right.
	Because that works so well in, say, fucking science.
	I disagree with the theory of relativity.
	It's my instinct.
	I have a gut feeling that you can't freeze time by going really fast.
	That's what my gut says.
	It doesn't feel right.
	I don't like the way it feels.
	It doesn't sit well with me.
	What is it, a dog that won't obey you?
	I am more than happy to...
	To take criticism and feedback, of course, right?
	But I simply will not – I have no patience for people who just give me their gut without – like if you haven't taken the time to figure out what your gut is telling you, then basically you might as well just shovel me some of your lower intestine bacteria in a handshake and say that you're making me better.
	Like, don't like.
	It's just – it's the endless appeal to insecurity.
	You've just changed, man.
	You're just – well, I hope so.
	It's been eight years.
	So let me – just one other thing I wanted to say just before we move on.
	I do want to do the last topic, but there's one other thing I wanted to say about these kids.
	Sure.
	I have a lot of sympathy for teachers.
	I'm sorry about my voice.
	I know it sounds a bit rough, but I have like a weird half cold.
	I think it's a cold I've had before.
	So my body knows how to fight it, but it's not exactly a KO. Anyway, but yeah.
	So look, I have a lot of sympathy for teachers in a lot of ways because teachers do a lot, as you know, of wrangling.
	The mistakes inflicted by parents on early childhood?
	Yeah, man.
	You know, here's my broken brain child.
	Now teach him something.
	Good luck.
	Like, could you maybe send us some non-broken children?
	No!
	Yeah, I mean, so, you know, when you have parents pressuring, yelling at, confining, punishing, you know, and there's a lot of this, like, even when they don't, even when parents aren't hitting.
	Mm-hmm.
	I see a lot of this heavy call-in the estrogen-based airstrike of guilt and disapproval.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I'm disappointed.
	Yeah, I'm so disappointed with you kids.
	You know what the right thing to do is and you just decided on your own, off your own initiative, you just decided to do this.
	I am so disappointed with you children.
	I don't even know what to say.
	I'm going to go and put a burlap sack over my head, and I'm going to be in the corner here, and I want you guys to just think about what you've done.
	Oh, yeah.
	No, it's brutal.
	Yeah, man.
	And it's like, that to me is like, I mean, it's like this giant womb club.
	It's like hitting someone with a giant jellyfish of guilt.
	Exactly.
	A big padded velvet club.
	Yeah, and it's like, I didn't hit them, yet psychically, I have crushed their souls.
	Yeah, feel it so soft.
	This doesn't hurt.
	Yeah.
	I mean, this way you don't have to go to the ER. You just go to a therapist in 15 years, right?
	I mean, that's – and so there's a lot of – and that stuff, I think, is really, really crippling for initiative.
	It happened to me, man.
	No, is that your experience of like – I thought we'd agreed on how this was going to go and you just decide to do it.
	Yep, yep, yep.
	Yep, yep, yep.
	When I started my business like three years ago from my dad, I got, you gotta knock off this free market shit!
	And then from my mom, like, she didn't really say much.
	Well, I hope it works.
	And then before I came here, I thought about becoming like this accountant for this group of like startup restaurants.
	And I told her I was all excited.
	Like, Mom, guess what?
	I just applied to be the executive accountant for blah, blah, blah, this chain.
	Well, you're not an accountant.
	Bye-bye.
	So yeah, go on.
	You were saying about the kids.
	Well, so there's a lot of this, I'm very disappointed in you.
	So even when there's not this direct aggression, you know, I mean, again, I'm going to generalize about women.
	It's not true of all women, but...
	Please, go for it.
	No, I do that so people know what to cut out.
	Okay.
	Now, if you're going to slice and dice this podcast up to make me sound bad, I'm just going to start inserting beeps into the podcast so that people know how to slice.
	You should do it for them.
	Do it for them.
	Okay.
	This does not apply to all women.
	It's a gross generalization.
	There are many exceptions, and it's not philosophically proven.
	Beep!
	Okay, now, right, so, it's a weird, and I don't get how this exactly works or happens, and I can't imagine what this is like.
	Look, Michael, you get upset at things, right?
	Yes.
	Do most people give a shit?
	Kind of, yeah.
	Okay.
	Maybe not most, but, like, people around me.
	Right, but, I mean, does everyone, like, stop?
	What they're doing, because you're upset?
	Um...
	No.
	I don't mean if you're trying and beating your head into your country.
	No, no, no.
	Like, if you come in and you're upset, the people are like, whoa, Michael's upset.
	Uh-oh, everybody.
	Hold on, hold on.
	Stop the traffic.
	Holy shit.
	Stop the clouds.
	Make rain freeze in midair.
	Nobody move.
	Michael's upset, and until Michael is no longer upset, the world better stop turning.
	Now, everyone focus on Michael.
	Oh, yeah.
	Right, right, right.
	And...
	So for guys, I'm upset.
	You know, people may care, they may not, but the world doesn't stop, right?
	But women have this, like, weird spell.
	It's like a freeze time, freeze balls, freeze heart spell called, I'm upset.
	Well, I'm upset.
	I'm very disappointed in you.
	It's like, well, thank you for sharing your subjective experience.
	I mean, like, there's this There's this couple of...
	Sorry, I know we're drifting around a lot, but I sort of wanted to get this point across, because you're dealing with a lot of the fallout of this.
	Because when you say to moms, don't hit...
	But they don't listen!
	Yeah, that's fine.
	I've got backup compressed Jewish matriarch guilt blow dart that I could use.
	Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	And that, in some ways, I think makes it even more difficult for For teachers.
	Because, okay, well, you know, we're not going to hit anymore.
	I'm just going to sit my fat ass of guilt on their head until they asphyxiate.
	Right.
	And I don't want to do that.
	No, you don't.
	But, of course, there's some fallout that is like – it happens for kids where I don't want to disappoint.
	Like, men don't have that power where I am upset.
	Therefore, other people must change.
	Right?
	Right.
	Whereas women do have this, because, you know, when women are upset, you know, they say happy wife, happy marriage kind of thing.
	Does anyone ever say, well, you know, if the man's happy, the marriage has got to be great?
	Of course not.
	Of course not, right?
	Everyone's just focusing on, are the women happy?
	Is she happy?
	If she's not unhappy, go in and bring your mother a tea.
	Make her feel better.
	You've got to go over there and talk to her.
	She looks really upset.
	Yeah, listen, whatever you said, whatever you said is really upsetting to her.
	Just apologize, dude.
	Yeah, just apologize.
	I don't care what for.
	Or like that old, there was some old Drabble joke where the husband comes up and says to his wife, listen about that thing earlier.
	I'm totally sorry.
	I shouldn't have done that.
	I really, really apologize.
	And she says, well, I guess that's okay then.
	And the son says to his dad, what was that for?
	He says, I don't know.
	I don't know, I just do that a couple of times a day.
	Sadly true.
	Yep.
	I know.
	Yeah.
	I'll give you a tiny example.
	It's fairly big.
	There have been two allegations of rape that have been clouded in controversy recently.
	One is a woman who told her story to a Rolling Stone reporter that she...
	I'm just going off memory here, so I was...
	So she was, I think, at UVA, and she was at some frat party, and she was invited upstairs.
	And when she went in, she says, you know, some guy punched her in the side of the head, knocked her down onto a glass table, which broke, and then she was raped by seven guys for three hours, including with a beer bottle.
	Right?
	Okay.
	Now, when she told the story to this reporter, she said, I want to tell you, but you can't contact any of the rapists.
	Okay.
	So they published a story, and then I think Breitbart sent some...
	Breitbart.com sent some reporters out or sent some investigators out or started doing some investigations.
	Oh, no, that was for – sorry, the Breitbart thing was for the Lena Dunham stuff.
	But it turns out that there was – like the France have to register their parties.
	Okay.
	And there was no party that weekend.
	She also said it was during rush and there was no rush that whole month.
	God damn.
	The assailant, and they don't match.
	So the story seems to be falling apart.
	She told one woman it was five guys, and now she's saying it's seven.
	There's just a mess.
	Oh, and she also says that apparently rape is part of the initiation.
	No, it's part of the initiation of this frat, right?
	Because, remember, you see...
	Society doesn't work very well at oppressing a group that gets together and talks, which is why there are no male groups allowed in society.
	You can't have an all-male club.
	Shriners and all those clubs, they're all gone.
	Because men can't get together and talk, because otherwise we might realize that we're actually pretty fucking oppressed.
	And so the reason that people are against France is because it's a place where men get together and talk about this.
	And hang out.
	They might actually say to each other, listen, watch out for alimony and child support and unequal sentencing and circumcision and all that sort of shit.
	Men might actually get together and have strength.
	I lived twice in a frat house.
	I never joined a frat, but I lived twice in a frat house.
	They're pretty nice guys.
	I'm just telling you my personal experience.
	Yeah, they had some kooky and silly initiation rituals, but nice guys.
	They invited me to join.
	I said, no thanks.
	We all got along really well.
	Yeah, same with me.
	Same with the people that I've known.
	Some are dickheads, but most are just good guys.
	So that's the one that's sort of – and Rolling Stone has basically said our trust in this story – the woman who told the story, our trust was misplaced.
	I think they then backed away from that statement.
	The other one is Lena Dunham, who claims that she was raped by a campus Republican at some college, and she gave – A Republican?
	Yeah, well, the fact that she gives this political affiliation is not accidental.
	Yeah, she writes this HBO series, An Accident, called Girls, which is...
	Oh, I know that show!
	Yeah, in my view, that is literally...
	It's a sign of the apocalypse, that show.
	That show sucks.
	Well, I mean, it is unbelievably disturbed.
	So anyway, she claimed this in a recent autobiography wherein she's been criticized also for graphic depictions of sexually abusing her sister.
	And she said, oh, this guy, you know, he had a mustache, he had purple cowboy boots, he did a radio show, and, like, all these identifying details.
	Like, I think he worked at a library or something.
	Anyway, so...
	Anyway, people have gone out and tried to track this guy down, and they can't find anybody who matches that description, although there is some poor guy who was a prominent Republican whose name is Barry, which is the same...
	And...
	She says that at the beginning of the book, she says, oh, you know, nothing is real, blah, blah, blah.
	Of course, it's a memoir, not a work of fiction.
	And early in the book, she has an asterisk beside someone's name where she says at the bottom, oh, this name has been changed.
	And she doesn't have that on the Barry guy's name.
	And her story seems to be fought apart in that nobody can find anybody who matches the description of the man that she's talking about.
	And...
	Well, I don't know.
	I don't know what the story is.
	Okay, but it sure sounds like it.
	He had a big shirt on and he wore an elephant mask and he told me, hey, guess what?
	I'm a Republican, so therefore don't vote Republican next election, 25-year-olds.
	Yeah, well, no, I get it.
	It is, you know, pretty standard left trashy kind of crap and all that.
	But here's what I'm talking about in terms of men and women.
	This is sort of the point of what I'm saying.
	Yes, it's finally happened.
	But the point of what I'm saying is that I must have read, just looking for this, I must have read like two dozen articles on this.
	And with maybe one or two minor exceptions, and those are the articles focusing specifically on Barry and his potential defamation lawsuit against Lena Dunham and so on.
	Everybody is writing about The Rolling Stone, I was raped in a frat house on broken glass table for three hours.
	And, I mean, to me, that would, like, you're on broken glass.
	Like, you'd need, like, incredible stitches.
	Like, I mean, you'd be lacerated down to the bone.
	I mean, you'd lose blood like crazy.
	But it's supposed to be visceral and make you recoil from the story.
	Evil frat dudes, yeah.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And you always have to be careful when...
	A narrative fits too close to a stereotype, right?
	Like evil frat guys.
	I mean, we already went through this with the lacrosse rape allegations, this Crystal Mangum stuff.
	Poor dudes.
	But here's the thing, right?
	So every article that's not focusing specifically on this Barry guy for Lena Dunham, every article has said basically this.
	This is a great tragedy, right?
	Because it will be harder for women to come forward.
	This is a great tragedy because it means that women may be less believed in the future.
	This is a great tragedy, you see, because how it may potentially negatively impact women in the future.
	That's so shitty, dude.
	Goddamn.
	But that's what I mean.
	Like, the women are upset.
	And we have, like, the idea...
	That it's a little fucking more serious for these men who are accused of rape doesn't enter anyone's mind.
	Like, the fact that the men are...
	Like, this Barry guy, I mean, that doesn't seem to have anything to do with it.
	The guy's got a job, he's got a career, I mean, he's got a wife, he's got kids.
	Like, holy shit!
	Like, the fact that it's like, no, this is bad because you are falsely accusing, or potentially falsely accusing someone...
	Of the crime second only to murder.
	And nobody seems to be able to – oh, well, you see, this could be bad for women in the future because – how about the guys right now?
	Like, all of the frat activity was suspended on the campus.
	Yeah.
	How about all those guys?
	Yeah.
	How about the guys who – you know, they're now waiting for every phone call about, like, is this going to be some – the cops?
	Yeah.
	Every time the phone rings, their heart's starting to race.
	Every time they go to class, they're just so, like, fucking, like, either pissed off at everybody or hyper-paranoid, like, if people look at them, like, shit, did that person, like, do they know who I am?
	Are they thinking that I'm a rapist?
	At least that's what I think I would be like in that situation.
	So the idea that this is...
	that that that it's the men's experience feelings and fears that would be what anybody would focus on it's not even mentioned in passing you know oh plus it's bad for the guys like it's not it's just not part of anyone's processing of this it's like well but you see we got to focus on how this might affect women in the future dude the u.s fucking sucks in that way absolutely I mean, I want to put a plug in for China.
	Like, I've been here for six months, and in a lot of ways it's, you know...
	Not even in a lot of ways.
	In a few ways, it's like, you know, retarded.
	Their culture is really, really strong, and, like, it's tough to, like, get through to them on some level in that regard.
	But in a lot of ways, the people here are just so much more open-minded and friendly, and maybe it's just because I'm a foreigner, but, like, I was talking to a co-worker, a girl, about, like, alimony and, like, what it's like in the U.S. for guys, and she said, that's not fair.
	That doesn't seem fair.
	And, um...
	And then, like, she even said, yeah, I agree.
	It's very difficult to be a guy in a lot of ways, and most people don't see that, but I do.
	And then, like, talking about, like, government or economics, I got a Chinese parent who was talking about, like, the GOV, and I don't know.
	I know they're recording everything, so I'll just keep it blasé.
	But just, like, we were talking about some activities, And I was being diplomatic and said, well, you know, maybe they could either be really stupid and have the good intentions or they could be, like, crooked.
	I don't know.
	It's tough to know.
	And she said, they're crooked.
	They're evil.
	They're just stealing.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I mean, what's more prevalent in society?
	Rape culture or alimony culture?
	Alimony culture.
	Of course.
	Yeah.
	Anyway, listen, you had one other topic you wanted to dip into before we move on?
	Yeah, I don't really want to talk about that right now.
	I don't know.
	It's kind of a...
	I do, but I don't want to take up too much of your time.
	Okay, well, listen.
	Call back in.
	I mean, a very, very enjoyable chat, and obviously, Michael, you're welcome anytime.
	I hugely appreciate the exposure that kids have to you.
	Thanks, man.
	Wherever you are.
	It's also nice to be working in a culture where you're not considered a pedophile for enjoying working with kids.
	Dude, seriously.
	I mean, it's so much better.
	I want one more plug.
	For any dude working with kids, I worked in a school for two years in the U.S., and I was so scared.
	The kids were my best buddies because I was nice to them, unlike all the other dickhead teachers.
	And from the other teachers, you've got to be careful.
	Just be careful.
	Keep the door open.
	No hugs.
	Blah, blah, blah.
	Dude, it's so ridiculous.
	So, anybody who's going through that type of thing, just get out of the US. Fuck that shit.
	You are young, and the US is fucked, and it's so much better being out of the bubble.
	Like, I don't really know any of the, like, current event type of stuff that you do, and it's just so much, like, it's nice to, like, dip in every now and then to get your take on the latest retarded culture stuff, and it doesn't really make me mad.
	Like, it just makes me like, oh, that sucks, but I'm glad that nobody else is talking about that over here, because...
	Nobody has a clue.
	It will literally take generations for the scar tissue of this hyperpolitical correctness to ease.
	I mean, there's been such damage that has been done, particularly between gender relations.
	Such unbelievable amounts of damage has been done.
	You cannot break the family up without breaking up hearts.
	You cannot make everyone reliant on the state without destroying...
	The family unit.
	And you cannot destroy the family unit without breaking everyone's heart.
	And it is unbelievable the amount of damage that has been done between the genders.
	And it will take generations.
	Even if things were to reverse tomorrow, it would take generations to heal.
	Yeah.
	I want to not believe that.
	You're exactly right.
	And a couple years ago, I would have thought, no, no, it's possible to fix it now.
	But you're right.
	It sucks.
	All right.
	Well, thanks, Michael.
	Appreciate your call.
	Feel free to call back in any time and keep up the great work with the kids, man.
	They are lucky to know you.
	Thanks, man.
	I really appreciate it.
	Thank you, man.
	You're such a good person.
	Same to you, Mike.
	Thanks, man.
	Bye-bye.
	All right.
	Thank you, Michael.
	Up next is Michael.
	Michael H is up next.
	He wrote in and said, do you consider Nietzsche to be an authoritarian?
	Well...
	What do you mean by authoritarian?
	I guess my response is basically to what Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com, mentioned in a Bitcoin presentation.
	That the overman, or the Zarathustra, which is Nietzsche's overman, Is somehow related to an authoritarian kind of perspective, not as an individual.
	Yeah, you just used the word authoritarian without defining it when I asked for a definition, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to try again.
	Yeah, well, it isn't the economic perspective, which was kind of what that speech was about.
	But the authoritarian, not an individual free agent, but rather a submissive role to the power of the state, which It would be because he doesn't have a power of the religion over him.
	Okay, but tell me what your understanding is of Anichi Zubamanchur or Superman.
	Yeah, the overman.
	What is it to you?
	Because, I mean, it's not like there's some massive syllogistical definition.
	There's a lot of adjectives which are cool and attractive, but what do you get out of that?
	Well, yeah, and that's kind of what was troubling me about it, is because I like Nietzsche, and I don't want to 100% subscribe to any ideology, but I thought it was good, and I didn't think he was authoritarian, and I thought that that overman or the Zarathustra...
	Could perhaps be his personal reasoning over maybe the desires to have pleasure, the humanly desires.
	That's kind of a description that you've used with the frontal lobe.
	And I thought that that could possibly be his overman, meaning kind of like your reasoning because...
	Another part about Nietzsche's life that maybe disputed or not is that he didn't want to take the easy way out, you know, rather than conforming, maybe facing the hard truths.
	And that did lead to his kind of isolation too.
	All right.
	Still not sure what you mean by authoritarian.
	Okay.
	I mean, if you said dictatorial, I'd, you know, I'd put that more in the camp of Plato's heroes.
	You know, the philosopher kings is like, we can't explain to you why you need to obey us, but you need to because we are enlightened and you are not.
	Yeah, because that would be sort of dictatorial, but I'm not sure.
	Authoritarian is kind of loosey-goosey.
	It's like fascism light, and I just, I'm not sure what that really means.
	I'm not sure that I do either.
	Well, that's important.
	Do you view the Superman?
	It sounds kind of weird because I just think of Christopher Reeve in tights.
	But let's call him what?
	The Ubermensch?
	It's the – Because it's beyond man.
	It's not over man.
	It's not Superman.
	It's not dominating man.
	It's beyond man as he existed in the 19th century that he was – that Nietzsche was talking about.
	It's Uber – Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alice, you know, like the Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alice, the national anthem.
	Deutschland, Germany, Germany, over everyone!
	Yeah, yeah, that's great.
	Never caused any problems before.
	But in this context, it's beyond.
	So some people say Superman, some people say beyond man, but it doesn't mean dominating man.
	Because the Superman comes back, Zarathustra comes back.
	And tries to enlighten people.
	That's not dominance, right?
	I agree.
	He doesn't come back and try and raise an army of the undead to take over mankind and have them read his thoughts, right?
	Yeah, and I don't believe that he was so fond of that culture in Germany and actually was more of a critic.
	Oh god, yeah.
	He hated the culture.
	Yeah.
	I mean, God, all philosophers are supposed to hate culture.
	I mean, dude, God, it's like, you know, Jesus seemed to have a bit of a problem with the devil.
	I don't know what that was all about.
	It's like, they're opposites, right?
	Good point.
	And yeah, I mean, any philosopher who doesn't loathe culture, I mean, I would argue, and I've argued before, I won't get into it now, just doesn't understand either philosophy or culture.
	Okay.
	Culture is lies reinforced by time.
	And that is something which – because culture makes lies plausible through exposure to time.
	And it makes prejudice seem like physics intergenerationally.
	And so it is the most dangerous opponent of philosophy because it feels the most credible to the average person.
	Okay.
	And that's just by looking around the social groups, I mean the conformity.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And so for Nietzsche, what is one of the first things that Zarathustra, the overman, came back and said, God is dead.
	God is dead.
	And that was not so much, I think, a statement of atheism.
	I think what it was, because an atheist would never say, God is dead.
	Yeah, because God never existed to the atheist, right?
	Yeah.
	Well, that's like teaching a kid there's no Santa Claus by shooting Santa Claus.
	You know?
	If there's a body, then he was here, right?
	I mean, help me hide the body of Santa who doesn't exist.
	I mean, that wouldn't make any sense, right?
	That's right.
	So, I would never go forward and say, God is dead, of his pity of a man, hath God died, or whatever.
	But what he meant by God is dead is that There is no external kabuki of values that organizes your life.
	You are not a bit player in a cosmic drama.
	You are not the deciding vote in a Manichaean duality of war between good and evil.
	You are not being tempted by the devil and worming and biting and chewing your way towards the divine.
	Nobody outside you is obsessed with you.
	Because that's the weird thing about...
	I mean, the pattern between democracy and theology is that in both of these systems, people really care about you who otherwise wouldn't.
	I mean, one of the weird things about democracy is It's that you have to appeal to the vanity of the average fool in order to get his vote.
	You have to figure out what he wants.
	You have to poll him.
	You have to figure out what he likes.
	You have to pander to him.
	You have to focus.
	So you've got people of incredible intelligence, skill, and ability, and politicians certainly fall into those categories.
	Notice I didn't say virtue.
	And they have to really, really care about what the average man thinks.
	What do the soccer moms want?
	What are the 18- to 35-year-old Hispanics?
	What are their big-ticket issues?
	And you have to pander to these people, and you have to figure out what they want, and you have to craft your message to appeal to them.
	In other words, you have to really care.
	I mean, you don't care about them as individuals, but you care about them as resources that give you power.
	And that is a wonderful treat for the average person.
	They get to feel special because politicians are focusing on them.
	And it's a shitty specialness.
	And it's incredibly destructive to everyone involved.
	But yeah, you know, Barack Obama's doing a town hall.
	He's coming to my town.
	He's going to answer questions.
	I'm going.
	He really wants to know what I think.
	I'm going to write to my congressman.
	He's going to have to write back.
	So people who otherwise would not really gain much focus from People like politicians do.
	Now, don't get me wrong.
	I mean, Disney, of course, does a lot of test marketing for their movies and shows and all that kind of stuff too.
	But there's something in particular about democracy that plays to the vanity of the masses.
	And since the masses are so ridiculous, and I say that not out of any prejudice because I am ridiculous in almost all endeavors of human rights.
	Skill or capacity.
	I can't build a guitar.
	I can't do dentistry.
	There's so much that I can't play any instruments with any competence.
	But you can think.
	Yeah, I can think.
	But that doesn't put corn on the table, right?
	And the other thing is that in religion, supernatural beings are obsessed with you.
	You're like the hottest girl at the bar.
	Stuffed to the gills with pickup artists, right?
	Because Satan really wants your soul, man.
	He's thinking so hard, his horns have electrical arcs going between them.
	Satan really cares, cares, cares, cares, and is obsessed with getting your soul.
	And God is obsessed with bringing you home, bringing you to heaven, stay on the straight and narrow.
	The most majestic, enormous, powerful, omniscient beings in the whole universe are really focused on you.
	So that reminds me of the advertising industry as well.
	And it's kind of like playing to the insecurity.
	So if there's enough insecurity, they're going to need to buy.
	They're going to buy into the saving as well.
	Yes, and to me it all comes from...
	Whatever is left hollow within you will almost certainly be filled up by corruption.
	Whatever needs, whatever needs, whatever foundation or fundamental needs remain unmet within you, evil people will offer to meet them for you.
	And so this is why I focus so much on parenting, particularly infancy and early childhood.
	If you have a strong and secure bond with your parents, Then you don't have a void, a loneliness, a lack of attachment, a need within you that other people can go fishing in and pull out your very heart.
	Yeah, and end up in a bad relationship, yeah.
	Oh, you end up in the military, you end up in the police, you end up cheering.
	Whatever local political leader there is, you end up cheering for war.
	So if we have our needs met, When we are little.
	Well, I mean...
	You're spot on.
	You know what it's like?
	It's like if we have our needs met with little, when we're little, then people can't give us plastic food and tell us to eat it and be full.
	Because we know what real food is and we don't...
	Like the fake stuff doesn't...
	Like the fake unity of the empty crowd doesn't appeal to us because we've actually had our needs met.
	I mean, let's assume you're some non-neurotic man, and somebody says, you can have sex with this wonderful, sexy woman, or I'm going to give you a flashlight, which apparently is some penis pump thing that you can pretend to have sex with, right?
	Well, why would you take the fake thing?
	Over the real thing, well, you wouldn't.
	And this is why governments are perpetually trying to get children away younger and younger and younger from their parents.
	Because if you can get the kids away from their parents, the kids grow up with unmet needs for connection and unity and what Freud called that oceanic feeling of oneness with the universe, but comes from being cradled in your mother's arms when you're a baby and being cooed to and being played with.
	And if you grow up without that, You're alien.
	You don't feel like a complete picture.
	You feel like a small piece of jigsaw puzzle that needs to fit into something bigger.
	Like here in Canada, they're trying to get the universal daycare.
	It's like, oh yeah, we'll get you away from your parents that much sooner.
	I mean, that's building block 101 for power.
	So, I mean, back to Nietzsche.
	So, Nietzsche said, because Nietzsche said God is dead, and what that means is...
	I think, there's a lot of interpretation in Nietzsche, but what I think he was meaning was that values are no longer provided to you by synthetic drama.
	In other words, you're not going to be bribed and you're not going to be punished in your life choices.
	That – what he called the revaluation of all values is if God is dead – and it's something which is very hard for us to understand because God has been dead for a lot of people for a long time.
	But if God is dead, you're not on stage anymore.
	You're not even in the audience.
	There's no theater anymore.
	Nobody's giving you your lines.
	Nobody's looking over you and saying, well, if you do this, you go to hell.
	If you do this, you go to heaven.
	If you pray, you do this or – There's no one who is inflicting values upon you in a way that can scarcely be called voluntary.
	And so that was the sort of basic question, which is, okay, so how is humanity going to transition itself from being force-fed values at the fiery point of a theological weaponry?
	How is mankind going to survive?
	What is the hangover going to be of the death of God?
	How is humanity going to survive when it is no longer obsessed by imaginary beings and is no longer forced and threatened and cajoled and bribed into accepting, quote, accepting values?
	When it's no longer value rape, what is going to happen?
	Now, his big concern was nihilism.
	And this was a huge concern in the 19th century as a whole.
	When you stare into the abyss, the abyss also stares into you.
	Or he also said, be careful when you fight monsters that you do not become yourself a monster.
	He was concerned that with the death of God, it's not an abstract thing that is removed from the sky that was never there and people just basically go on.
	In other words, he didn't say that God is a manifestation of an underlying human desire for virtue and Yeah.
	Yeah.
	If her desire for power over each other, you get rid of the state.
	It's going to show up in some other form and blah, blah, blah, right?
	And so Nietzsche did not believe, I think – Like the neocons and in the universities that they drill us with what the failed state is.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	So if the state collapses, you get a bunch of warlords and so on, right?
	And they don't understand, of course, that that is just childhood and child abuse and just writ large and all that.
	And, of course, religion.
	The failed states always seem to occur in religiously hysterical regions, to say the least.
	And so Nietzsche, he didn't say, well, we have this desire for good and it's innate within us and we have this fear of evil.
	And that manifested itself in religion.
	He said, no, no, no, that's not how it works.
	How it works is that religion is an artificial structure that was imposed for a variety of reasons he goes into.
	We don't have to get into.
	It was imposed upon humanity and it has defined what our values are.
	And when God goes and organized religion goes, there's nothing left in the moment.
	It's not like you put a big rock in a river, the river just goes around it.
	You put a rock in this river, it's no longer a river.
	It's not even a desert.
	It's interstellar space.
	So his concern was that when the death of God was truly understood in society, that the void created by the end of external values being imposed at gunpoint would lead to nihilism and people would recoil from nihilism and run into dictatorships.
	Yeah.
	I can't live without being told what to do.
	Yes.
	And therefore, when God dies, man gods must arise, be they Hitler or Stalin or Marx or Mussolini or… Like you called it the atheists too that have gone that route into just turning the civil authorities into their new gods pretty much.
	Oh yeah, the idea that we flourish in the absence of aggression is incomprehensible to people.
	This is why when you elbow out God, you call in dictatorship.
	You call in the left, right?
	And so, you know, you've got to be ruled.
	It's either going to be supernatural or it's going to be secular, but you've got to be ruled either way.
	But that's just a cover-up for the tragedy of unnecessarily aggressed against infancy and childhood.
	I mean, this is a little bit different, but similar.
	Is it possible, I mean, even with the strongest family bond, is it possible to avoid the insecurities because of how heavily they are messaged in the mass media?
	Oh, yes, absolutely.
	Look, I say this glibly.
	I cannot provide empirical proof for it.
	Yeah.
	But absolutely, you know, the people who helped the Jews were interviewed, right?
	People who helped the Jews in Nazi Germany were interviewed.
	And I believe it's almost to a person they were raised peacefully and benevolently.
	Wow.
	Okay.
	There is so much – and this is just – you can go into it.
	I mean, you can look at The Origins of War and Child Abuse, which is a free audiobook I'm reading from Lloyd DeMoss.
	But if you have a strong bond with your parents, that creates within you something that is deeply rooted and unshakable.
	It doesn't mean it can't be killed or traumatized out of you as an adult.
	But The people who do well in war are the people who were raised more peacefully.
	The people who don't get addicted to drugs are the people who were raised more peacefully.
	The people who don't become criminals despite adversity are the people who were raised peacefully.
	I agree.
	I've heard your bomb in the brain speech.
	You know some of the bomb in the brain stuff, right?
	Oh, yeah.
	And I'm halfway through real-time relationships.
	Right, right.
	And so when we have that bond, if we know that we are loved and treasured as children, and people are genuinely interested in us, and we really enhance other people's lives, and we are welcomed and enjoyed and respected and valued, that's a nourishment that you can't ever starve from.
	It would be nice to know.
	It'd be nice to know that.
	Yeah.
	But I look at the...
	And most of us don't know what that is.
	Right.
	Unfortunately.
	I mean, I can certainly see it in my daughter.
	Do you allow her to see much of the media, television, or movies?
	Oh, television?
	No.
	Movies, she's not that interested in movies.
	She was when she was younger.
	Right.
	And we watched a few, and...
	She enjoyed it.
	The thing is now, she's writing her own stories now.
	Very good.
	And she's got this whole creative writing books and she does her stories and she makes her pictures.
	And that's cooler for her than going to watch a movie.
	I haven't been able to take her to see a movie in the theater for like a year and a half.
	And she doesn't...
	She used to, again.
	But it's sort of like bands do cover songs.
	And then they write their own stuff, right?
	And for her to be passively absorbing a story when it doesn't compare to her drawing and creating and writing her own stories.
	So when she was younger, she watched a bit of a TV station called Treehouse, and she liked a couple of kids' movies, but she hasn't wanted to watch that stuff in forever.
	I mean, I'm certainly not going to say, well, no, you can't.
	But generally, she would prefer for me to tell her a story than to watch it.
	But there's sometimes where she'd want to, oh, I can put this on and we'd watch it.
	But the important thing is, for me at least, that the movies should not be passively consumed with children.
	But you pause the movie.
	What do you think?
	This is what's happened.
	You make sure they understand it.
	You make sure who's the good guy, who's the bad guy, and why.
	And it becomes something that you can share and talk about.
	And I think that's the best way to work with those things, if that makes sense.
	Even the – I mean, they aren't produced in Hollywood, are they?
	What, the films my daughter watched?
	Yeah.
	Some of them were, for sure.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	It just seems so tough because this is a very, you know, quite scientific indoctrination tool.
	Yeah, but again, if you've got a strong bond...
	It doesn't affect.
	You know, I mean, she can eat peanut butter.
	She's not allergic to peanut butter, right?
	She can consume, quote, propaganda, but she's largely immune to it, if not completely immune, because of the strong bond.
	Just, I mean, look at the power of consumerism.
	And how they drive that through the advertisement.
	And like you said, to get a grasp of the people that they're appealing to, how silly these commercials are.
	No, but the commercials only work because people haven't been loved.
	Like, when you haven't been loved, you have to...
	You have a huge yearning to be admired.
	Or to be lusted after, or to be wanted, or to make money.
	Yes.
	Right?
	All of that is just the sad echo shouted into a canyon called no love.
	Save someone and maybe even perhaps sacrifice yourself to save someone else.
	I'm sorry, what was that?
	You kind of feel like you want to be a hero sometimes too.
	What do you mean?
	Oh, you mean like, oh, yeah, yeah.
	I mean, white knighting comes from not being loved.
	Yes, yes, yeah.
	Because if you're not loved, then the only way that you can be found valuable in a relationship for a man is through giving stuff.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	So if you're not genuine, like if you grew up with a mom or dad and didn't genuinely love you for who you are, Then you always have to have utility to people.
	You have to basically, in the absence of intimacy, you have to be a business.
	Me plus, with that you were speaking.
	Yeah, me plus.
	I mean, nobody...
	Like, you go to a restaurant because they'll make you food, and you give them money.
	It's an exchange.
	There's nothing wrong with it.
	I'm a free market guy.
	It's perfectly fine, but that's not an intimate relationship.
	But...
	For a man, I mean, the big question is, for men, you know, what do women want from me?
	I mean, that's the fundamental question of masculinity because men propose and women dispose.
	Men ask for relationships, ask women out, women say yes or no, in general.
	And so this is, I mean, you've heard of, I don't know if you've heard of this sex art, this men just abandoning relationships, leaving relationships.
	The dating scene and so on.
	Yeah, because men don't know what the hell...
	So men have been told, particularly white men, have been told for generations now that they really have nothing of value to offer.
	And in fact, they mostly bring danger and dysfunction to the relationship.
	You know, you're going to hit me, you're going to rape me, whatever, right?
	Just crazy stuff.
	And the reason that it's very profitable for a lot of women to take that stance...
	It's that it gives them great power.
	If you're Brad Pitt, you have a lot of power in negotiations.
	If you're Brad Pitt and you want a rewrite, you're probably going to get a rewrite.
	But if you're some extra in the background and you raise a stink about how the scene's being shot, what are they going to do?
	Find a new extra.
	Fire your ass.
	Get off the fucking set, you lunatic.
	Because you're not providing much value.
	And so in a relationship, if you can convince the other person that the other person is not providing much value to you, that you can take or leave them, I mean, you get all the power in that relationship.
	And of course, men have been displaced by the state and we get in all of this stuff.
	But basically, there's this – women can afford – like I'm watching some of Aaron Sorkin's stuff.
	He's got this teleplay called The Newsroom.
	The amount of verbal and physical abuse that the women heap on the men, staggering.
	I mean, it's like watching a Looney Tunes cartoon or an old Tom and Jerry cartoon.
	I'm waiting for someone to whip out a saucepan and hit a guy on the head with it.
	I mean, they call them stupid.
	They call them idiots.
	They continually tell them to shut up.
	They hit them.
	They slap them.
	They push them.
	And, I mean, it's crazy.
	It's crazy.
	Crazy – I mean, again, just reverse it and see everybody would go insane.
	So if you can convince men that they have very little to bring to the table for women, then women approach – like men approach, oh, can I please have a kid?
	I don't – you know?
	They're like somebody who – That's basically where we are now, yeah.
	Because they're like some guy pushing a broom demanding a raise.
	Hey, man, you can be replaced.
	You're just pushing a broom.
	Steve Jobs wants a raise.
	They're going to talk, right?
	The guy pushing a broom in the warehouse, he wants a raise.
	And it's not even like men are not even perceived as offering that much.
	Men are actually perceived as a threat.
	Well, white men, which of course is not where threat comes to from women, but of course that's got to be obscured for obvious reasons, right?
	So this is Where men are.
	What do women want?
	Well, they want something that's the opposite of this caricature of masculinity.
	To a degree, don't...
	I mean, it seems like they also can...
	They do get a little bit sick of that, too, even.
	Who?
	Women that have the push-around man, or the kind of white knighting man...
	It seemed like even after a while of that, even after having all of the power, they're not going to like it.
	Like they've molded the person into something that they don't like.
	Oh, yeah.
	Be careful what you get for, right?
	Yeah, I mean, the idea that it's nice guys who get laid.
	Well, I mean, it's...
	I'm sorry, get laid is a coarse way of putting it, but there is that aspect to particularly a young man's approach.
	But the idea that...
	Nice guys is what women want is biologically untrue.
	And that doesn't mean that they want mean, abusive guys at all.
	I'm not trying to say that.
	I mean, there are obviously some women who do, just as there are some men who do.
	But if you consistently and continually tell one half of a negotiation, like one party in a negotiation, that you don't need them, that they're crappy, that you'd be better off without them and so on, Wow.
	Well, that is...
	You know, why would you bother?
	Why would you bother getting involved in all that nonsense?
	A lot of guys are getting that.
	They're fundamentally understanding that.
	Okay.
	They complain men don't listen.
	Well, men are starting to listen now.
	Men are starting to listen now.
	Oh, we're rapists.
	We're patriarchs.
	We're horrible people.
	We're...
	Wife beaters and girlfriend beaters.
	We're insensitive.
	We're emotionally unavailable.
	We're workaholics or we're lazy.
	We have failure to launch.
	We're just men, boys.
	We're peter pans.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	You don't want us.
	Got it.
	It's okay.
	I can meet my physical needs with pornography and I've got great male friends.
	And then the funny thing is that men who aren't interested in dating women, what are they told?
	You're a loser.
	You can't even date a woman if you'd wanted to, right?
	Yeah.
	Oh, that lures me back.
	Now it doesn't, right?
	And it's, yeah, I mean, I think that men are listening now and taking what's being said seriously.
	And I get that this is not what all women believe, and it's not even what all women want.
	It's not even what most women want.
	But...
	It's sort of what they say about radical Muslims.
	It's not the radical Muslims who are the problem.
	It's everyone else who's not calling them on it.
	The enablers, yeah.
	Yeah, and so until women start to oppose these radical third-wave feminist crap and say, you know, men, we need you.
	But the reason for that, I mean, it's manyfold, right?
	And I think there are two main ones.
	One, of course, is that the state has replaced men as the providers.
	Therefore, women can afford to be insulting because they're not reliant upon men's resources.
	I think that's the first major reason why this has all happened.
	The second major reason why it's all happened is that society has yet to process how bad single motherhood is for children.
	And single fatherhood, for that matter.
	But, you know, single motherhood is by far the majority.
	So once, like, even if you say, well, the government's paying for everything, and therefore I don't need a man, once you get how unbelievably destructive single motherhood is for children, in particular, in particular, I'll tell you the worst configuration that I've ever seen.
	Worst configuration I've ever seen is single mom and single son.
	Single mom and an only son.
	I had a friend when I was younger who was the single son to a single mother.
	And he was aggressive towards her.
	He'd push her up against walls.
	He was incredibly reckless with his own safety.
	We went into dirt biking.
	And he would take his dirt bike and just drive off walls and drive into walls and just incredibly reckless with his own life.
	He had, you know, all the compassion of a sociopathic vampire in many ways.
	Like, I was too poor to afford gloves.
	We'd go out in the cold and bike, and my hands would turn into these claws.
	And he'd have these big—he had played hockey.
	He had these big hockey gloves.
	And I knew they were warm.
	I could almost taste that warmth.
	And I'd say to him, oh, man, can you just, you know, five minutes, give me your gloves.
	He's like, well, why didn't you bring yours?
	Which, like, that's the important—he knew.
	He knew I was broke.
	And so we had this—we had this friendship— For want of a better word, we had things in common we liked to do.
	We both liked model trains.
	We liked biking.
	I was pretty young and all that.
	But anyway, friendship came to an end in a strange way.
	I think I was maybe 12 or 13.
	And we'd been friends for a year or two.
	And we were biking back from somewhere at nighttime, and I was ahead of him.
	And I I saw a rock on the sidewalk.
	It was big enough that if you hit it, it could, you know, skid your, you know, flip out or whatever, skid your bike.
	I was biking home, and I had to swerve out of the way of this rock.
	And the guys, call him Bob, it's not his name, this guy Bob, he got really angry at me.
	Because he was like, you cut me off, he cut you off, he's in you.
	Of course, go right in front of someone and so on.
	And I said, no, you were tailgating.
	And this was like a giant conflict.
	And I knew he had a temper.
	But I was like, nope, you know what?
	No.
	No.
	I wasn't like bottled up and I wasn't like, well, fuck you, man.
	I've just been building for a year.
	It wasn't anything like that.
	It was like, well, no.
	No, listen.
	I said, look, I had to swerve.
	If you were so close to me that that's a problem for you, it's not me cutting you off.
	You were tailgating.
	You were too close to me.
	And I wouldn't back down.
	I didn't yell at him or anything, but I was like, nope.
	No.
	And he had such an inability to handle conflict that he actually kind of went crazy.
	And that sounds like a strong...
	But like, kind of went crazy.
	Like...
	I basically just – I just had to – like he was like picking up his bike and he was throwing it down on the ground in a parking lot of the mall at like 10 o'clock at night.
	I mean he was like screaming and like I actually – I had to get on my bike.
	I had to bike home.
	I had to go in – we live in an apartment building.
	I had to go in quickly, close the door behind me.
	Up at the balcony, I could still hear him screaming down – like holy shit.
	That guy was crazy.
	Yeah.
	And, I mean, obviously that was it.
	I don't have anything to do with the guy from then on in, and he sort of plaintively called me a while later.
	Of course, these are the kind of people who can never acknowledge or apologize, and therefore I don't, you know, get re-engaged or re-involved.
	And, I mean, this was a single-summed single mom.
	I'm not saying they're all, right?
	Exactly.
	But I knew three or four of these guys, and man, man.
	And this guy, um...
	Died.
	He's dead.
	Long dead now.
	I read about it in the newspaper.
	He graduated from dirt bikes to motorcycles.
	Was still as reckless as ever.
	And he was decapitated on his motorbike.
	Horrible, horrible stuff.
	And I won't get into all the other stories of the single moms and single that I knew, but oh man, it was horrible.
	And They really don't date because they've already been married by the time they get to be 18 for 18 years.
	So it's really – and again, I'm not saying that obviously the kids of all single moms don't turn out this way and so on, but that in particular, the single mom, single son combo seems to me to be pretty bad.
	And so even if – like women can say, oh, man, a bunch of rapists and patriarchs and whatever.
	Like whatever the message about idiots, fools, bumbling people who can't get it together and so on, right?
	The Homer Simpsons.
	Yeah, the Homer Simpsons.
	I mean, name it, right?
	I mean, just name the sitcom, right?
	Name the movie.
	And so there's just become this cliché, you know, like – This cliche of the woman in tight jeans and tank top who's like the punk girl in video games who knows how to do everything and handle everything and can do everything just like a man can do even though women have 40% less upper body strength than men.
	It's just become this cliche.
	Women are tough and strong and don't need men and so on.
	Fundamentally, it's not even about gender.
	I mean, I think that boys need fathers.
	Of course they do.
	Of course they do.
	But if it's a gay couple that has three kids or two kids or even one kid, if that gay couple splits up, I'm like, well, that's bad.
	Right?
	Because now there's only one parent in the house, and when there's only one parent in the house, you can't play hot potato.
	I've got to get something done.
	Can you watch the kids?
	Right?
	I've got to get something done.
	The kid's got nothing to do.
	Now, in my day, I mean, there was...
	12-inch black and white TVs.
	We never had one that worked very well.
	They always had these weird intergalactic ripples going up the top and bottom.
	There's nothing on TV, so...
	You had to sort of make your own fun.
	But now, of course, it's like, you know, here's your 40-inch TV and your iPad and so on, right?
	And these kids are just not getting the connection.
	And a lot of it has to do with the single-parented stuff, so...
	Very interesting.
	It is very...
	It's incredibly tragic how...
	The value of men and of masculinity has just been scrubbed from society.
	And not just scrubbed like it doesn't exist, but turned malevolent, turned dangerous, turned oppressive, turned rapey.
	And after this amount of propaganda and this amount of boys are stupid, let's throw rocks at them, I think men are...
	Well, they're listening now.
	And they're accepting it.
	You know, I think with great sorrow.
	I don't think it's a conscious sorrow.
	But, I mean, it's one of the reasons why the birth rate is falling so much.
	Men are like, okay, okay.
	We got it.
	We got it.
	We're dangerous.
	We're disturbed.
	We're dysfunctional.
	We're immature.
	We're emotionally unavailable.
	We're oppressive.
	We're bad.
	Okay.
	So, let us relieve society.
	Of our presence.
	And that, to me, is an eminently understandable, if not downright sensible thing to do.
	Well, hopefully not in a self-destructive way.
	That might be similarly the way the young friend Bob felt with the recklessness.
	I mean, you might not feel much of a purpose if you hear that enough.
	No, but from a larger perspective, it doesn't matter.
	If it's self-destructive or not.
	Because when men check out of society, I mean, culture dies.
	I mean, okay, good, culture dies.
	Civilization dies.
	Yeah.
	I mean, and it would be the same thing if women checked out of society.
	I mean, if women just grew up hearing how bitchy and horrible and oppressive and dysfunctional, disruptive and rapey and beady and, I mean, they'd be like, oh, man.
	Men really seem to hate us.
	Men really, okay.
	So...
	Yeah, apply that to the narrative of the female oppression, considering the population of the world.
	Yeah, well, I mean, Western societies are way below replacement rates.
	Way below replacement rates.
	And, I mean, God, in China, in Japan, it's ridiculous.
	Yeah.
	I mean, China's had this one-child policy forever, and now they've got this inverted pyramid of a society where, I mean, it's insane.
	You know, it's like, I think, 40 workers for every retired person when Social Security came in in a couple of years.
	It's going to be three workers, including government workers, for every retired person.
	I mean, it's not even remotely sustainable.
	And when men check out a society, look, I mean, you just go through, as I've talked about in the Estrogen-Based Parasites podcast, just go through history.
	Go through history and figure out, and you know, I hate to put a race on it, facts are facts.
	You know, if you include Jews as sort of white, although a lot of Jews don't say, I'm not white, I'm Jewish, right?
	If you include Jews amongst sort of white males, I mean, look and find stuff that wasn't invented by white males.
	Like, it's, I mean, there's obviously some stuff there, but it ain't much.
	And so when men check out a society, society stops progressing.
	Men, I mean, are like the idea hamsters and the workhorses of society.
	When they check out, for reasons I completely and fully understand, it's a different world than it was for me 30 years ago.
	I mean, when I was going to college, in my, I think I was about 19 or 20 when I first went after I took some time off to make some money after high school.
	I mean, they just...
	I mean, it was starting, but this general hysteria was just not there.
	And, you know, like, I don't ever remember being forced to attend a try not to rape class.
	And so I get it.
	You know, there are these experiments that were run to try to create a mouse utopia.
	It never works.
	Oh, all the food, all the sex, the kids are all taken care of, the baby, never works.
	And what happens is, the more you try and jig with the natural ebb and flow of mouse society, my society, the men generally check out and they spend their time napping and grooming themselves and observing the growing mayhem.
	And they're called the beautiful ones.
	And they sit outside of society and look in.
	And they don't Engage in the hurly-burly of getting engaged and getting married and raising kids and building communities.
	I mean, they just don't.
	And I get it.
	I mean, you can only tell a fucking group for so long how horrible and hateful they are before they'll actually start listening.
	And listening not with, I guess I am horrible and hateful.
	Like, if you date some woman and then she breaks up with you or you break up with her...
	And she says, you know, I just hate you.
	You're a terrible person.
	Well, it doesn't mean you believe that you're a hateful and terrible person, but you accept that she feels that way about you.
	And you're like, okay, well, so it's over, right?
	I'm off, right?
	But the reality is that men can survive a single life much better than women.
	When women try to act like men, in particular with sleeping around...
	Fairly significant number of studies, it really messes them up.
	And there's obvious biological reasons as to why that would be the case with regards to the cost of an egg versus the cost of a sperm.
	But women do much worse without men than men do without women.
	And that's really tragic.
	And that may change, of course, as I've talked about before, when the government runs out of money.
	Suddenly, the women are going to be all like, hey, men, come back.
	Come back.
	We need stuff.
	Hey, listen, I'm really sorry about that, say, half century of calling you all evil patriarchs and itchy-fingered rapists.
	I'm really sorry.
	We're so sorry that so many of you get sent to jail for false rape allegations and we're so sorry that so many women going through divorces accused you of child molestation that was false and we're so sorry – Boy, that was our bad.
	Now, here's some tits.
	Can you come on back?
	And I don't think that they're going to be like long-lost dogs in the woods who hear their owners' voices.
	I think that men are going to be like, nah, I'm good.
	I'm good.
	Good luck with all that.
	Maybe you can go and find the guy who gave you those two or three kids and And maybe you can try and find a way to lure him back into paying for all this shit.
	But I'm sorry the government ran out of money.
	But no, sorry.
	And it's just going to be horrible.
	And I, for one, would not say to men, go white knight all this shit.
	Because once you have adjusted yourself to a particular kind of life and you've accepted and grieved...
	Maybe a life that you might have wanted around kids and family and so on as a man.
	Once you've gone through that process and once you've mourned and grieved, then it's sort of like this.
	Like you had a loved father and your father died after a long illness and you buried him.
	And you're out visiting his grave.
	And then, like, a fucking hand comes up out of the grave that's rotten and all that kind of...
	You'll be like, whoa!
	No!
	No, that's not good!
	I don't want you to come back to life!
	You're dead!
	I've grieved!
	I don't want to know!
	Get a priest!
	Right?
	And I think that's how it's going to be, like, when the government runs out of money and women are like, whoa!
	Whoa!
	Oh, you know what?
	We can't really get away with just insulting men because it turns out that we really kind of need them.
	And that is going to be brutal for women.
	And, you know, I'm sorry, but you don't get to insult like half of humanity.
	Or allow others to insult without interference.
	You don't get to insult the honor and dignity and virtue of half of humanity for more than a half century and then just have them come back when you need them.
	I just don't think that's going to work and I think it's going to be unbelievably brutal.
	And what's going to happen is the daughters of these women are going to grow up and say, you know what?
	We really need men.
	Well, at that time, won't the idealized propaganda become the – looking at traditional things, kind of an ebb and flow now because that's where the stability is going to be?
	Right now we're really on the downside to destabilization of the power that remains in a family unit.
	But that isn't very profitable.
	I mean after it's been milked out and it's gone, they're going to need the wealth to be built back.
	Well, yeah, and like all of these kinds of situations, as I talked about a couple of years ago in Why Men Don't Want to Get Married, people better fucking apologize.
	Because the tendency of a lot of people, I would say maybe slightly more women, is to pretend nothing happened.
	And I, you know, I sort of counsel men out there.
	No, no, no, no.
	No.
	You know, if you start to see this weird shift and men are portrayed in a positive light and married life is happy and wonderful and so on, right?
	That's, like, no.
	We need an explicit apology as a gender.
	An explicit apology.
	Like, wow.
	You know, we really let some crazy feminists and white knights...
	Go to town on you guys.
	And we didn't do anything about it.
	We're sorry.
	And until that apology comes, you know, I mean, Atlas Shrugged had it wrong.
	It's not the producers who go on strike.
	It's the balls that go on strike.
	It's the men who are going to go on strike.
	And they're already going on strike in massive numbers.
	Massive numbers.
	All around the world, at least in the Western world and in the more developed economies, the men are going on strike.
	Because I don't think anyone should have the vote as an anarchist, but when women got the vote, politicians started replacing fathers and husbands.
	Because having a state means never having to say you're sorry and never being responsible for your own mistakes.
	If you're some giant financial institution and you make a bunch of bad bets on real estate, well, fuck you, taxpayer.
	You're footing the bill.
	Now they're trying to push derivatives down to be traded and subsidiaries covered by the FDIC so that taxpayers will be on the hook for the next crash.
	I listened to that video this morning with the trends report.
	Terrifying stuff.
	Terrifying stuff.
	And so that they don't have to admit their faults.
	They don't have to admit mistakes.
	I mean, you've got Jonathan Gruber recently grilled in front of congressmen and congresswomen because he basically said, yeah, we lied and we made it obscure because, like, Americans, voters are idiots and they just vote for, like, you know, we intentionally left this and that, right?
	They are authoritarians, a lot of people, in the sense of this one would be the definition that they would prefer to be told what to do.
	No, no, no, no, no.
	Sorry.
	I know that that contradicts a little bit of what I said earlier.
	No, they wouldn't be told what to do.
	They want stuff for free because they were not loved.
	Well, that too.
	I mean, yeah.
	You can be – No, no, because look.
	I mean to be told what to do, how much luck did Scott Walker having to tell unions that they couldn't negotiate for future stuff?
	They could only negotiate for stuff in the present.
	He told them what to do.
	How did they react?
	They went mental.
	They went crazy.
	They opposed him and tried to get him.
	They got a recall election going and all that.
	So it's not like people want to be told what to do because if you say to public school teachers, you're now going to be subject to free market forces.
	You're telling them what to do.
	This is how it's going to change.
	They go mental.
	People want free stuff and why do they want free stuff?
	Because they don't think that they can earn it.
	And why don't they think they can earn it?
	Because they weren't loved and treasured.
	And I mean love is the answer.
	And a very specific kind of love, which is love from parent to infant, that is the answer.
	And it needs a two-parent household to achieve that.
	You cannot, you know, given the time constraints, it's very, it's functionally impossible to provide the same level of care as a single parent as there is for two parents.
	You know, all other things being equal.
	I mean, it's functionally impossible to provide the same level of care and attention to your children when you're a single parent than if you're two parents.
	And that's at the expense of the children.
	And so men and children just aren't being listened to because everybody's focusing on what women want.
	Because once women got the vote, in particular, everyone had to focus on what women want because that's what most men are programmed to do.
	And women, like all of us, want children.
	To keep the money when we win and get subsidized when we lose.
	And so women, if they marry right, then they obviously want that to be respected and maintained.
	And if they marry wrong, then of course they want the government to give them money.
	Because the guy turned out to be a dead beater or a wife beater or whatever, right?
	And they had kids with him and it's not their fault.
	And of course it's not the kids' fault.
	But...
	No, I, you know, I'm very aware of the degree to which men are checking out.
	It's too much hassle.
	You know, what is the huge benefit of getting involved in relationships?
	I mean, yeah, you find a great woman.
	Yeah, I get it.
	Don't have to sell me on that, but make the case.
	You know, make the case for the average man.
	Facing a 50% divorce rate.
	Make the case.
	It's pretty damn tough to do.
	Hey, want to get involved in a business?
	50% chance of failure.
	And you might even, you know, a lot of you will hate the job even if it doesn't fail.
	And if you fail, you'll be on the hook for maybe a couple grand a month for the next 25 years.
	What do you think?
	Yeah, it's time to check out.
	But I wanted to mention something about kind of the divorced parents, too.
	I was going to run this by you.
	It seems like neither one of them would like to be disciplinary in that situation, too, for fear that they're going to be the mean parent or, you know, It just turns into a competition between the parents to win the child's attention and win the time with the child.
	Well, yeah, because most parents have with their children in the West these days a long-distance relationship with their own children.
	If you've ever been involved in a long-distance relationship, the last thing you want to do is fight.
	Yeah, exactly.
	You want to eat good food like a bag of minxes, right?
	I mean that's – you don't want to like, oh, I just flew in.
	I'm here for the weekend.
	Let's have the best time ever.
	I mean this is why it's so addictive and why it's so unrealistic and it's why – same thing with affairs too.
	I mean you don't pay a hooker to fight with you about dinner, right?
	And so with long-distance relationships, you are conflict-averse by its very nature.
	Because you have so little time together.
	I mean, if you fly out for the weekend, you spend the weekend fighting and you fly back, I mean, you really feel bad, right?
	And so because most parents, I mean, certainly parents who work, I mean, they have a long-distance relationship with their own kids because they have so little time together, which is unstructured.
	I mean, as I've talked about before, you get your kids up, you're hurrying them out the door, you go to work, you fight traffic to get them, you drive them home, and then you've got to make dinner and you've got to make sure they do their homework and then you've got to bathe them if they're young and all that kind of stuff and you've got to get them ready for bed, right?
	And maybe you've got some chores to do, you've got to buy some groceries, you've got to clean up after dinner.
	I mean, there's no unstructured time.
	And so, parents have become, to some degree, I think, conflict-averse.
	Mm-hmm.
	Which usually ends up with chronic conflict, right?
	I mean, to avoid conflict is to entrench conflict in so many ways.
	And I think it's been really rough for family relations.
	I mean, it makes very little practical sense to have a kid if you're working.
	To me.
	At least I never wanted to do it.
	I mean, why?
	I mean, it's not like you get all this quality time.
	You have a lot of expense, you have a lot of conflict, you have a lot of missed opportunities, and you have a lot of missed events, and you have a lot of stress, and you have a lot of constraints, and you can't travel, and kids get sick, you're up all night.
	I mean, if you're not really enjoying your children's company in an unstructured environment, like, God, I mean, why?
	Why would you?
	Why would you?
	Anyway, listen, we've got to do one more call if that's all right with you.
	I really, really appreciate – I'm sorry we drifted so far, but maybe we'll do more on Nietzsche another time.
	But great, great questions.
	I really appreciate the conversation.
	Very good.
	Thank you, Stefan.
	Bye.
	Thank you.
	Alright, next up is Nathan.
	Nathan wrote in and said, In my reading of UPB, I realized it did not include a proof for moral consideration or how to identify whether or not something was a factor in the realm of morality.
	A rock has no moral consideration, but a person typically does.
	Where exactly is the line drawn?
	Where exactly is the line drawn?
	Why is it exactly important to you?
	So yes, I... I guess I threw the word exactly in there without thinking too much about it.
	Let me ask you this another way because it's a bit of an abstract question to ask.
	Do you have in your life challenges with this question whether you don't know if someone has what you call moral consideration?
	Absolutely.
	I suspect that The reason why actions such as self-defense are validated are because the target of the violence of the would-be self-defense does not have moral consideration.
	It's a theory I'm playing with.
	I don't know if it's true or not.
	Wait, no, sorry.
	I'm happy to talk about the topic, which is interesting.
	Sure.
	But what I meant was, in your life, do you have people, say, of such low mental ability that you're not sure if they have moral consideration?
	Oh, sure.
	Wait, do you mean oh sure as in you do, or oh sure as in you understand the question?
	Both.
	I have people in my life that have, say, abusive parents that use faulty logic to justify their actions, or for example...
	Wait, did the parents or the children use faulty logic to justify their actions?
	The parents.
	The parents used faulty logic to justify their child abuse.
	Okay.
	As well as, just an example I'm pulling off the top of my head, I debated about morality in UPB with an ex-friend of mine now who is a member of the military and We had the discussion of whether or not is it morally right for the U.S. to be involved in the Middle East and what we're doing and all that.
	And he used the justification that morality is essentially subjective and everyone's subjective preferences define what makes their actions right.
	And so he did very specifically say that the U.S. war in Iraq is justified because we want lower prices on oil.
	Well, so he can't say that morality is subjective and then say that something can be justified.
	You don't get both.
	Our action – any person's actions are morally justified if those actions coincide with that person's subjective preferences.
	And there are tons of fallacies in his argument.
	So basically he doesn't need the word morality.
	He can just say preferences.
	He doesn't need to layer on – And that's very faulty, of course, because morality is assumed to be universal.
	Because if he's just saying subjective preferences, then it's like, well, even if we were to accept the argument that the US is getting lower oil prices out of the engagement in Iraq, which I would not for a moment believe to be true, then… For something to be cheaper, then of course there should be no laws against stealing.
	Because if I go steal a car, it's clearly cheaper to be than buying it.
	And so there should be no laws against stealing.
	Of course, if there's no laws against stealing, in other words, the unchosen transfer of wealth, then his paycheck is going to have a significant problem getting cashed.
	Because without the involuntary or coercive transfer of wealth, There's no taxes to pay for his military salary, right?
	right, for his salary or his equipment.
	So it doesn't take very long for that entire thing to unravel.
	But it is quite interesting to me, at least, that there's a man in the military, and I'm sure that there's more than one, a man in the military who openly seems to be very comfortable with being a mere agent of amoral power.
	Like, yeah, I'm a stormtrooper.
	I know Darth Vader is one evil bastard, but, you know, I want what he wants because I like power and I like being able to impose my will and I like being paid for it.
	It's nothing to do with virtue or goodness or anything like that.
	It's just, you know, I like being an agent of power.
	Yeah, for nothing more than practical reasons.
	Right.
	Well, and he's assuming those practical reasons are true, right?
	Yes.
	I mean, if subjective preference is always justified, then there can be no such thing as rape being illegal or wrong, right?
	Because the rapist obviously wants the sexual encounter and the victim obviously doesn't because it's coerced.
	And so the morality – so obviously, I mean, he's been pretty damaged in childhood and by his actions as an agent of imperialism.
	And I'm – this is like a stormtrooper who's become welded to his uniform and can't even take it off anymore.
	That's really tragic.
	I'm sorry about that, of course.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I don't know him personally too well.
	He's just someone I've talked with online.
	We used to play games together and whatnot.
	But in any case, the initial question of where do humans' moral consideration come from is important to me.
	No, no, that wasn't it.
	Hang on.
	Sorry, that wasn't the initial question.
	If I remember rightly, the initial question was between a rock and a person, where's the dividing line of moral consideration?
	Do you mean moral agency or moral responsibility or moral applicability?
	Moral consideration.
	Yeah, I know, but what does that mean?
	Subject to ethics, is that what you mean?
	Yeah, yeah.
	A rock has no...
	No moral attributes are attributed in any way to a rock.
	A rock cannot commit a...
	Can we say, I think a more standard term is moral agency.
	In other words, you act in a manner that you can apply moral standards to.
	Or you can evaluate someone's actions, right?
	So if I act in a mathematical manner, then we assume that whatever I'm doing can be subject to a mathematical evaluation.
	You know, if I'm doing some free-form dance, it's probably not that mathematical in nature, right?
	But if I'm proposing, you know, a solution to Fermat's last theorem, then that would be in the realm of mathematics, right?
	And would be subject to an evaluation of its mathematical content.
	And so if we can say moral agency, that would be actions taken by an entity that can be subject to a moral evaluation.
	In other words, they understand what morality is, they may appeal to morality, and therefore we can, you know, if somebody understands what mathematics is and says, this is my mathematical proof, They can't really object to that mathematical proof being subjected to a mathematical evaluation, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay, so let's just say moral agency, for want of a better phrase.
	Because moral consideration to me sounds a little bit like we're putting a movie called Morality in for an Oscar.
	But anyway.
	Yeah.
	So what I was going to say was the reason why it's important to me was because As I was developing as a child and whatnot, I was always very interested in philosophy.
	I thought most philosophical arguments that people put forth were just utter garbage because they contradicted themselves.
	Hey, don't insult garbage.
	At least that was once useful.
	But yeah, go ahead.
	Yes.
	And so I never explored it too much.
	I did go through it, but I never came out with what I would be satisfied with as a conclusive proof such as UPV. And the rule of thumb that I use to excuse that necessity is what – I had gone on the assumption that decision-making entities or anyone with consciousness ultimately – No, but that's probably circular, right?
	Sorry to interrupt, but that's probably going to be circular because you say, well, a moral entity is someone with – a decision-making entity is someone with consciousness.
	Oh, yes.
	But then you'd probably end up defining consciousness as that which can make decisions.
	So it probably is kind of circular or tautological.
	A little bit.
	Where I was going with it was I assumed that invalidating someone else's ability to make their decisions is wrong.
	And that, I assumed, was the...
	I'm sorry.
	Can you repeat that, please?
	Shoot.
	I had this written down so I don't misword it.
	No, I wasn't faulting you.
	I just wanted to make sure I understood.
	What I always assumed was the root of evil is invalidating people's or interfering with people's ability to make their own decisions.
	To exist as a consciousness.
	And so that would be the root of why voluntarism is never wrong.
	If it's truly voluntarism in all senses, then it can't be wrong.
	And so...
	But why would it Be wrong to interfere with someone's decisions.
	I mean, that's just a statement.
	That's not an argument.
	That was always the assumption that I had gone on.
	Yeah, but you know, unless you want to start making burrow noises, you know, that old never assume it makes an ass out of you and me assume, right?
	So, you know, you can plant that flag there and say, well, if we assume that to interfere with other people's decision is the ultimate wrong, it's like, but that's begging the question.
	Yes, that's exactly my point.
	I never came up with A conclusive solution to that.
	And UPB pretty much filled that in for me.
	But what bothered me a little bit about UPB is it didn't describe specifically what makes someone a decision-making entity.
	Sorry, sorry to interrupt.
	And I'm sure this would be good to put in more detail in version 2.0.
	But I don't need to define that.
	That's not necessary.
	And I'm sorry to be annoying.
	And I'm not just going to brush you off and say, well, it's not necessary.
	I've waved my magic wand and therefore you're...
	Right?
	And the reason that I would say that is let me give you an example, which is a direct analogy.
	What's a sport that you play?
	I've played tennis before.
	Okay, tennis.
	Perfect.
	Perfect.
	Okay.
	So let's say you and I decide...
	I call you up and say, let's play tennis, right?
	Yes.
	And you're like, okay.
	And I show up with a tennis racket and three golden orbs of tennis balls.
	And I have the white shorts on and I have the right footwear and I have the headband.
	And you and I then play tennis for an hour.
	Right.
	And I know, you know, it's, you know, 15, 30, 40, love.
	I mean, we do sets, you know, I know, you know.
	So, and at the end, if I say, if you say, hey, that was a great game of tennis, right?
	And I say, what now?
	No, I was playing hockey.
	I don't know what, what do you mean tennis?
	What would you say?
	I would say we probably have different definitions of what we think the word tennis means.
	Well, that's one possibility, except I couldn't possibly have learned tennis without calling it tennis.
	Most likely, yes.
	No, no, not most likely.
	Come on.
	You meet at a tennis course.
	You have a tennis coach.
	I have to go buy a tennis racket.
	I have to go buy a tennis ball.
	There's no possible way that I could not know if I'm good at playing tennis.
	There's no way that I could.
	I mean, and I even said, let's play tennis.
	So it's not different.
	That's very non-confrontational and very nice, but not accurate, right?
	I couldn't possibly know.
	I couldn't possibly be good at tennis without knowing it's called tennis, right?
	Correct.
	So we accept that, right?
	Yes.
	Do you have to prove that I know what tennis is after you've just played with me for an hour?
	No, you have done that yourself in this case.
	Right.
	Right.
	So how do you know someone is a moral agent?
	How do you know that someone is a tennis player?
	They play tennis.
	And how do you know that someone is a moral agent?
	They make universal arguments of preference.
	They argue or they use the concepts of universally preferable behavior.
	That's how you know someone is a moral agent.
	You don't have to prove it in some third-party way.
	You simply listen to what they're saying.
	Now, if they use language in a comprehensible manner, they're already performing universally preferable behavior.
	But the moment they use any kind of moral argument or any kind of argument for universal preferences, that may not be a moral argument.
	It could be an argument, well, you know, you say, if I say Cairo is the capital of Scotland and they say, well, that's incorrect, bang!
	Universally preferable behavior, right?
	There's an objective standard.
	Your subjective interpretation is incorrect.
	You should change your subjective interpretation to match the facts, right?
	Yes.
	And so, like, the moment this crazy army guy said justified or true or valid or wrong or right, I don't mean morally, even just factually or logically...
	If I say all men are mortal, Socrates is a man, but Socrates is immortal, is someone going to say, well, okay.
	No, they're going to say, no, no.
	If all men are mortal and Socrates is a man, Socrates must be mortal.
	Yes.
	You're wrong.
	Right?
	So then what they've done is they've started playing tennis.
	They've got a tennis racket.
	They've got tennis balls.
	They're on the tennis court.
	They've got the right outfits.
	They know the score.
	They know who wins and loses.
	Right?
	You cannot make an argument for, against, or even about morality without admitting to its existence.
	Well, yeah.
	I mean, then it's like, well, we've just been playing tennis for an hour.
	I don't have to prove that you know what tennis is.
	I don't.
	You just spent an hour showing me.
	And even if I say, let's play tennis, and I show up at the tennis court with a tennis racket, even before I serve, I know what tennis is.
	That doesn't mean I'm any good at it, but I know what it is.
	Because I've got the right racket.
	I'm in the right place.
	I've got the right balls.
	I'm not showing up with a cannon and a pterodactyl, right?
	Yeah.
	And so the moment somebody starts debating with you and tells you that you're wrong or you're right, boom!
	They're a moral agent.
	Now, monkeys don't do that, right?
	Dogs don't do that.
	Fish don't do that.
	Nobody calls up a manatee and says, let's play tennis.
	So they're not tennis agents, right?
	Yes.
	But the moment somebody says, you're wrong, let's debate, let's talk about the facts.
	The moment somebody says, no such thing as morality, oh boy, universally preferable behavior right there.
	We'll see...
	I have heard that people use the justification that all of that can exist in a subjective environment and they're just asserting their own personal preferences.
	Wait, all of what?
	Sorry.
	All of what can exist in a subjective environment?
	All of the things that UPB calls for.
	I'm not sure what you mean by...
	Sorry, I'm not...
	Philosophically, I don't know what the term calls for means.
	The axioms.
	I actually marked them down if you'd like me.
	There's eight that you listed in the book.
	Yeah, the supports for UPB. But the fundamentals of UPB is not something that really can be overthrown.
	So the basic argument that theft cannot be universally preferable behavior because it must be both a value and the opposite of a value is At the same time and in the same environment for two different people, therefore it can't be universal.
	If I steal something from you, I know you get this, but if I steal something from you, you must not want it stolen.
	So we can't both value theft at the same time.
	We can't both value property rights and we can both respect property rights, but theft cannot be universally preferable.
	Because if it's universally preferable, you must want me to steal from you, but if you want me to steal from you, it's not theft anymore.
	So theft cannot exist as a universally preferable behavior.
	Now, that is incontrovertible.
	You can't overthrow that.
	And fortunately, since I've been testing my daughter on UBB since she was two years old, you don't even have to be It's intellectually or emotionally above very, very young to get it.
	Yes.
	Right?
	Because if there was some proof for morality that was so abstract and esoteric that it required an IQ of 142, right, then it wouldn't be much use to anyone, right?
	Yeah.
	Unless you're arguing from the authoritarian principle, but then it would also self-destruct.
	Well, yeah, especially if it was around the non-aggression principle because then you'd have to have it inflicted by philosopher kings and so on, right?
	Yes.
	So, you know, the great news about UPB is it's ridiculously simple and it's unassailable.
	You know, it is – and I've had tentativeness and so on, but I've argued this now for six or seven years.
	It is unassailable.
	You cannot overturn UPB because there is no possible way – That something can be both oppositely valued and universally valued at the same time.
	It is absolutely impossible for stealing to be universally preferable.
	It's absolutely impossible for rape and murder and assault to be universally preferable.
	It can't happen because one of them has to be – like every one of those is an unwanted instance.
	So something cannot be both universally wanted and individually unwanted at the same time.
	That is as basic as all men are mortal.
	Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal.
	I mean, everyone, like my daughter, understood that when she was three.
	And so UPB is both unbelievably simple, and I give myself like a 76% or a 77% at succeeding at making it that way, which is not a passing grade for me.
	I mean, this is why I need to do a revisal of the book.
	But it is dead simple and unassailable.
	And the only reason that people complicate it is because if morality is dead simple and unassailable, people got to stop talking and start doing.
	And everybody wants to argue over diet books rather than change their diet, right?
	I did want to say I'm not refuting UPB here.
	No, no, I get that you're not.
	I'm not just talking to you.
	I know, I know.
	It's a little bit difficult from my perspective of understanding what points you're making to me as opposed to the audience.
	Yes, I'm sorry about that.
	That's fine.
	Don't worry about it.
	It's the nature of the beast.
	I would like to try and stay on a little bit of track here, though.
	We've gone some ways in terms of moral agency, right?
	Yes.
	I don't need to prove it.
	Once somebody is exercising an appeal to morality, they're a moral agent.
	That's how you know.
	And by the way, that's how the court system works as well.
	Yes.
	Because if somebody is insane, then they're not a moral agent.
	That person is not a moral agent.
	But that person also will not try and hide their crime.
	Yes.
	The insanity...
	I had written out a big tree of arguments to put forth in this, and little of that seems to be applicable in this conversation already.
	But...
	Oh, shoot.
	I even lost my track.
	Sorry.
	We were talking about moral...
	We've come some way in dealing with moral agency.
	Now, the challenge, of course, is that...
	If somebody strangles a hobo in front of a policeman, we assume that that person is insane, but they could also be sick and tired of being homeless.
	They know exactly what they're doing is wrong, and they want to go to jail.
	There was a story, I can't remember, in some TV show, I think it was, where some guy committed a crime to get into jail so he could get treatment for his cancer.
	Or in Prison Break, the brother—oh, spoilers.
	Now we know this pretty quickly, right?
	But the guy commits a crime because he wants to get into prison to break out his brother.
	So he's not insane, but he's not hiding his crime.
	Yes.
	It's an objective preference for truth, which is one of my efficiency criticisms for the UPB axioms.
	There are eight axioms that UPB includes, and I believe...
	Three or four of them are simply implications of the objective preference for truth.
	Well, no, sorry.
	An axiom is something that is self-evident and not reasoned.
	And they're not axioms.
	They are syllogisms or arguments because there's a series of them, right?
	Yes.
	And I would revise that, as I mentioned before on the show.
	There are supports for UPB. I wouldn't say that they're outright proof.
	UPB is its own proof, but these are supports as to why UPB is valid.
	Oh, I do not mean the various chains of arguments such as the… The one on language and biology and all that?
	Yes, not those.
	Okay, sorry about that.
	So what do you mean?
	That's fine.
	Okay.
	What I identified as the UPV axioms were, one, we both exist.
	The senses have a capacity for accuracy.
	Language has the capacity for meaning.
	Correction requires universal preferences.
	An objective methodology exists.
	Well, sorry.
	I can't remember if I used the word axioms there.
	You did not.
	Yeah.
	Because I would be surprised if I did.
	I specifically tried to avoid the use of the word axiom.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	As the foundation, because axioms are like, if you accept this, then, you know, we go from here.
	And I, you know, I really try to, like, for you, say, well, if you accept that interference with people's rational decision is bad, we can go from here.
	But I, you know, I, to me, if you're going to take on the, but you can't have that, well, if you accept that, then we go from here, right?
	That, to me, is not...
	You can't – because then you're just preaching to the quiet, right?
	Sort of.
	My concern is that I wanted UPB to be indisputable, rationally indisputable even for people who have no interest in the non-aggression principle, like outright fascists or totalitarians or communists or socialists or statists, right?
	And so I tried to avoid axioms, but what I would say is that The big trick, I guess, is one way of putting it, but the thing that I'm really focused on is this tennis analogy.
	I don't need to prove that someone knows tennis.
	They just have to show up with a tennis racket, and then they can't argue.
	They can't argue.
	If I say to you, let's meet at the tennis club and play some tennis, and you show up at the tennis club, You can't say that you don't know what the word tennis means.
	You can't say that you don't know what tennis is, right?
	Or you can.
	You're just defeating your own argument.
	But no, you can't.
	I mean, you can say it, obviously, physically.
	I can say two and two make five.
	But you can't philosophically, validly say it.
	It's not true.
	Right?
	It's not true.
	And that's what I wanted.
	So somebody can, like somebody could genuinely believe that I don't exist.
	But so what?
	I will never, ever talk to that person because the moment they talk to me, they're affirming that I exist.
	Like, they're absolutely inconsequential to my life.
	They will never show up.
	And they will also never show up in anyone's life who believes that I exist.
	Right?
	Because if someone's talking to me, And, like, if you're talking to me and your friend who believes that I don't exist comes up and talks to you and says that Steph doesn't exist, why would they believe that you exist?
	If they accept that you exist, why would they reject that I exist?
	Yes.
	It wouldn't make any sense.
	It's like saying, well, there are two rocks there.
	I can touch them both, but one of them exists and one of them doesn't.
	Well, that would, you know, try saying that to a geologist.
	I mean, you'd be insane.
	You'd be insane to say that.
	Yes.
	Right?
	So, nobody who believes that other human beings...
	Don't exist will ever show up in any philosophical conversation.
	So they are irrelevant.
	They are completely and totally irrelevant to philosophical conversation.
	They have about as much relevance to philosophy as some guy living in a shack in Montana who never talks to anyone has to the field of physics.
	No relevance whatsoever.
	He never works in physics.
	He never writes anything down.
	He knows no math.
	Completely irrelevant.
	And if you were to go to, you know, Dick Feynman or when he was alive or, you know, whoever the physicists are these days and say, well, what about the guy in the shack in Montana who knows no math?
	Like, why the hell would...
	What are you talking about?
	Why would he have anything to do with the field of physics?
	I mean, and it's as simple as if people believe that I don't exist, I simply walk at them.
	And if they move aside, well, busted, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, it's that simple.
	There's no interest in those arguments.
	So it's not even like an axiom, well, you just have to accept that I exist and then we can go from there.
	It's like, nope.
	Because the moment someone's talking to me, I know they think I exist.
	And they can't say that they – I mean, they can say that.
	They're just wrong.
	Yeah.
	Anybody who says that I don't exist and anyone who says objective reality doesn't exist, it's just wrong.
	Just wrong.
	Because they can only communicate that idea to me using objective reality.
	It's like me calling you on the phone and saying phones never connect to anyone.
	These aren't axioms like, well, okay, let's just accept that these are true arbitrarily and move on from there.
	It's like, no, that's why I tried not to use axioms, because axiom is something which you just plant your flag here and we'll go from here.
	No, no, this is like, it can't be...
	So you proved what I would...
	If I were in your position, I would have written UPB and simply called them axioms as opposed to explaining them out, but you actually proved their existence.
	Yeah.
	Well, no.
	This is the tricky part.
	I'm not proving their existence.
	This is why I said earlier, do you need to prove that I know what tennis is?
	No.
	I have done that through my own behavior.
	I have proven that I know what tennis is by my own behavior.
	Let me rephrase that.
	You're proving that any potential rebuttal It admits that those claims are correct, such as we both exist.
	Right.
	So I focus on the behavior of the other person, and I unpack the truths that the other person is embodying, and all I do is hold up a mirror to that person and say, this is what you must already accept in order to be doing what you're doing.
	So don't tell me this is open to question when you must have accepted it by doing what you're doing.
	Yes.
	Like, it's the old argument I've made, like, language is...
	Somebody says language is meaningless.
	Well, you just use very specific instances of language, very carefully chosen, to communicate that it doesn't matter what you choose in language.
	It doesn't matter what words you could...
	You could say, and it would have exactly the same meaning as language is meaningless, but you didn't say that.
	You chose very specific words to convey that words have no specific content or purpose.
	Well, that's just not valid, right?
	I just, you know, you show up at the tennis racket, you know what tennis is.
	And then that, to me, I'm not saying I invented that or anything like that, but bringing that to ethics, because ethics has always been outside the conversation.
	Ethics is the law that's written down.
	Ethics is the social convention.
	Ethics is the Ten Commandments.
	Ethics is what God wants.
	Like, it's always been something you have to prove outside.
	But once you get that there's nothing outside of humanity that supports or denies humanity, Ethics.
	Then you either have to go with your military friend down Hume's nihilism of the is-ought dichotomy or you have to find some other way to establish ethics irrefutably without any axioms and without any reference to outside agencies that enforce these ethics or any reference to historical momentum or generally accepted beliefs or anything like that.
	It's a hell of a challenge.
	Sorry, you were going to say it?
	Yes.
	Earlier today, actually, I had an idea that I hadn't obviously had enough time to really think through.
	But I would argue that there is actually a basis for ethics in reality itself in that the only ethical statement we make, I would say that reality upholds an objective preference for truth.
	You can't point out a single case where falsehood is upheld by reality because it's sort of a by-definition thing.
	And so that being an ethical statement by nature, you cannot – Wait.
	Sorry.
	I'm sorry to interrupt.
	Sorry.
	But what you mean is that wishing doesn't make something so, right?
	I can believe something false about reality.
	I believe I can fly, but that doesn't mean I can fly, right?
	Correct.
	Is that what you mean by not supported by reality?
	It might allow you to fly in your hypothetical situation you're dreaming of, but that's all that it does.
	There's no extent other than the direct wishing you can fly.
	Yes.
	However, I would argue that falsehood is enormously profitable in reality.
	Oh yes, because it's interfering with other people's decision-making by convincing them that certain things are other than what they actually are.
	Pay me a tithe, because God wants you to.
	Yes.
	Look at that.
	I'm a multi-billionaire, right?
	I sit on a throne of gold.
	Falsehoods are incredibly profitable In reality, because human beings are in reality, and human beings have choice and free will, as I've sort of argued before.
	So a man on a desert island profits nothing from lies.
	But a man in the company of other men can enormously profit from lying.
	Which is why lies exist, because they're just so incredible at gaining resources.
	I mean, people got to go out.
	I mean, going out and growing crops is a lot of damn hard work.
	You're preaching a sermon and give me your money or go to hell.
	Hell of a lot easier, right?
	Absolutely.
	So lies and falsehoods have an incredible harvesting value as long as your crops are people, not things or actual crops.
	Yes.
	It's a...
	Using lies and falsehood in regards to other consciousnesses is essentially like removing their consciousness from the equation.
	It's removing their ability to make decisions.
	I mean, it isn't actually doing it, but it's simulating the effect of removing their existence and replacing it with whatever action you want them to perform.
	Yeah, I mean removing is tough.
	I mean I was raised religious and became an atheist and I was raised and became – was a socialist and became a libertarian and an objectivist and then an anarchist.
	So I don't think it removes because that's to say that to be lied to makes you no longer a moral agent.
	Oh, no.
	Which I don't think it does because reality is constantly reinforcing that you're being lied to.
	I suppose suppressing would be a better term for it.
	I mean, the absurdity of it is obvious to those who are willing to look at it, and I don't mean you, willing to look at it with even a remotely skeptical eye.
	I mean, if you, you know, go join a church and then put your hand up and say, God is speaking to me directly.
	He is telling me what to do.
	What's everyone going to say?
	They're going to say you're crazy.
	Yeah, they're going to say you're crazy.
	Yep.
	They're going to say, you're crazy.
	Because God doesn't talk to anyone.
	And everybody kind of knows that.
	So if you say, oh yeah, this religion is true, I prayed to God and He gave me a very clear answer.
	Well, people would say, well, that's crazy.
	So they're basically saying that the foundation of their religion is crazy.
	Because God certainly spoke to people to write down the holy books, and God certainly spoke to people to inspire them to do X, Y, and Z. In the whole Bible, there's God talking to this, and God telling someone to do that, and God giving someone else a sign for that, and God smiting this, that, and the other.
	The whole reason that there is a religion, but then if you say, oh yeah, God's talking to me, just like he talked to everyone who wrote down the book, we all worship people, like, you crazy.
	And so, reality is constantly crowding out falsehoods, which is why everyone who lies together clings together, right?
	Yes.
	Because then they can hold up the human shields of universal compliance.
	You know, any religion in a minority of one is a mental illness.
	And so the world doesn't support lies.
	Like nature and reality outside of humanity doesn't support lies.
	But damn, lies are profitable for states and religions.
	Massively profitable.
	And so I would say that...
	Using lies to impact people's behavior is, in essence, trying to replace them with what would be akin to a computer.
	I mean, you're trying to remove their identity from it, and I believe that is—the reason why that is wrong is because it's denying—I would call that violence against truth.
	You're denying their ability to make decisions, which is why it's— It's inherently wrong for people to be misinformed, not uninformed, but misinformed.
	Well, okay, sorry.
	The word violence there is a challenge?
	Yes.
	Because I think you're stretching it pretty wide.
	So if I go up to someone and if I'm part of a religion, like the people who come and knock on your door and they want to convert you to whatever religion they're following, and they talk to you for a while, they're not doing violence to you, right?
	Um...
	Not really.
	No, no.
	Come on.
	This is a bit binary, right?
	I don't have too clear of a definition of violence in that sense then.
	You can order them off your property.
	You can refuse to talk to them.
	You slam the door in their face.
	They've got no recourse, right?
	Yes.
	And so they're not committing violence against you if they attempt to convert you as an adult to their religious perspective, right?
	I... Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by violence, but I would distinguish violence from force.
	A force is compelling someone to do something without their choice, and violence is...
	A boxing match is violent, even though it's not forceful.
	Or maybe it is forceful, but it's done with both parties' compliance.
	It's voluntary.
	Yeah, see, I mean, that's the challenge, right?
	I mean, I think if you're going to go on non-standard definitions, you're going to have a tough time of it, right?
	I don't know what definition or term to use.
	I'm just sort of...
	Well, but on the other hand, a death threat is certainly violence, right?
	Even though you may not even want to carry it out.
	But if you make a death threat against someone, that is violence, right?
	Yes.
	And...
	I mean, it's as surely violence as a deferred debt is still money, right?
	Just because it's deferred doesn't mean it's not relevant.
	And so if someone comes to my house and says to me that they're going to kill me if I don't join their religion, then they're committing violence against me.
	And if they go to someone, let's say they go to a child and they say to that child, you have a soul, It's going to burn in hell forever if you don't join our religion.
	I would view that as violent.
	Because that is a threat against a child.
	And it's even worse than a death threat because it's eternal torture, right?
	Yes.
	Now, does that mean you get to shoot people who are blah-de-blah-de-blah?
	I don't think that that would be a valid way to do it.
	But that's certainly, you know, if somebody threatens a child.
	Now, again, this is all subject to some knowledge, right?
	People who've never thought of it that way or never had explained to them that way and it's how they were raised and so on.
	Like, I get that that doesn't mean that everyone who tells their children about hell is innately violent against their children or whatever, right?
	Because from their perspective, they're being about as violent as grabbing your child's coat when they're about to run into traffic.
	Keeping them safe, right?
	Yeah.
	So, I mean, again, this is, as I've argued from the very beginning, which a lot of people overlook, I get that there's context.
	You know, I mean, one of the first articles I ever wrote back in 2005 was Sympathy for the Soldier.
	You know, understanding how much propaganda he's been subject to and so on, right?
	So I get that there's context.
	Which is why I'm not out there shooting religious parents, right?
	Not that that would...
	I mean, I'm out there making arguments because...
	The important thing is that people understand what the truth is, and then they become moral agents.
	I view people in a state of propaganda and delusion to not be moral agents, which is why I don't suggest self-defense against people who are telling kids about religion or sending them to Jesus camp or whatever, right?
	It's horrible stuff.
	It's horrible stuff.
	But they are in a state of pre-knowledge.
	And until they gain knowledge… Yeah, that's why I put out stuff about spanking.
	I make the recent arguments.
	I expand people's understanding.
	I make the case.
	That's the whole point.
	Now, once somebody is exposed to the case, then they have moral agency with regards to that.
	Once somebody has been exposed to the arguments against spanking, they either need to rebut those arguments or stop spanking.
	Yes.
	Right?
	That's a different matter.
	And again, it can take some time.
	It's like being exposed to anarchism or whatever.
	It can take some time and all that.
	But they are not moral agents until they've been exposed to better arguments.
	Like, not everyone was totally evil before the end of slavery.
	And now, of course, people who Enslave others or evil.
	But it's not like the entirety of humanity was evil before slavery was abolished or anything.
	I mean, there is progress that takes time.
	There is understanding that takes time.
	There's arguments that take time.
	And there's a lot of pushback, of course, because people don't want to.
	I mean, if they expand their moral definitions, then they have a great challenge in their lives and they've got some apologies to make, right?
	They don't want to necessarily do that.
	Everybody wants to die with the same ethics they were born with.
	I suppose I would like to distinguish between what you're saying of moral agency, responsibility for your own decisions essentially, or moral responsibility for them.
	And what I initially meant when I said moral consideration of a rock does not have moral consideration that if we crack it, it does not matter.
	But say an unborn infant or an infant that does not have moral agency, they're not truly responsible for their own decisions yet, but they still would have moral consideration in that if we crack it, it's not.
	Right.
	And that's the little bit that I'm having a bit of difficulty distinguishing there.
	And I'm – of what's the difference between moral consideration of being the object versus the subject of – Or the victim.
	Yes.
	And so I'm having difficulty drawing the line between sperm and egg to infant to adult.
	Figuring out the abortion thing is obviously a big challenge.
	And I've written about it before.
	We've cast the net pretty wide, though.
	So just because somebody is not currently exercising moral agency does not mean that they do not have the capacity to exercise moral agency.
	So if I take a nap, I'm not currently exercising moral agency.
	That doesn't mean I can be strangled with impunity, right?
	Because I'm going to wake up and then resume moral agency, right?
	Yes.
	So being in a state of non-moral agency when you have the capacity to be in a state of moral agency does not mean that you get treated as if you have no moral agency.
	It doesn't mean that you then – we don't put babies in burgers, right?
	Yes.
	Having the capacity for moral agency – It's what causes moral consideration.
	Right.
	So a baby can't be killed because the baby is going to grow into moral agency.
	The baby is essentially napping for a year or two until they begin to develop moral agency.
	Like a guy in a coma whose brain is intact or whatever, I mean, hopefully you're not going to just kill the guy and eat him, right?
	Because, you know, you wake up from a coma.
	I mean, when I was getting neck surgery, I was under.
	I couldn't be woken, right?
	But that doesn't mean they get to just pull an OJ on me and, you know, sever my neck and kill me, right?
	Because I am going to resume my moral agency.
	And so that's, um, I think that's specifically what I was, what I got onto this subject with was, um, what justifies murder or violence against an individual.
	Um, No one really refutes that self-defense in utter necessity is not morally wrong.
	For example, in the...
	I won't use real-world events because that gets complicated.
	If someone's running at you and they're going to kill you, it makes sense that you do...
	I'm sure nobody knows which real-world events you're talking about there, but go ahead.
	Yeah, um...
	If someone's running at you and they're going to kill you, it makes sense that you do what is necessary to prevent their use of violence.
	And so, I feel...
	This is an emotional argument.
	I feel as though the answer to solving the self-defense problem is at least in some part related to our definitions of moral agency and moral consideration.
	Because in that situation, we're not treating the...
	The perpetrator, I guess, as something that has moral consideration.
	Well, no, because the perpetrator is not treating us as a moral agent, so we don't have to treat them as a moral agent.
	Yes.
	That's what I was hoping you were going to say.
	Because they're going to kill us, right?
	Which means that they're ending our capacity as a moral agent.
	So, yeah, I mean, it's like saying, well, you know...
	I'm selling iPads for $400 and somebody sends me a check for $400 that bounces.
	Do I still have to send them my iPad?
	Well, of course not.
	Right?
	I mean, because they have failed to fulfill their side of the obligation, so naturally I have no obligation to fulfill my side.
	And so if somebody is not treating me as a moral agent, I have no need to treat them as a moral agent.
	In the same way as I have no obligation to tell the truth to a chronic liar.
	And so I believe that, or here's my theory, that moral agency and moral consideration come from an individual's acknowledgement of other people's agency and consideration in that it's a voluntary contract.
	Well, no, but you see, I think you're starting to complicate it then.
	We already have UBB. What do we need?
	We already did the whole tennis analogy.
	Why do we need anything else?
	It's important to know when to stop selling.
	When is it okay to kill someone?
	Well, no, no, no.
	See, that's not a matter for philosophy.
	That's a matter for law.
	That's a matter for a court system.
	A little bit.
	No, no, no.
	Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
	We're talking physics versus engineering.
	They're not the same discipline.
	Philosophy is physics.
	Law, that's engineering.
	Yes.
	So physics is obviously you can't have engineering without physics.
	You can't have physics without engineering.
	But it's like asking a physicist...
	What tensile strength is necessary for this bridge to stand?
	Well, that's an engineering question.
	So philosophy doesn't need to answer under what circumstances exactly is someone justified in killing in self-defense?
	I mean, I've got a whole article on UPB and self-defense, which people can look up if they want.
	But self-defense is justified, according to UPB, Murder cannot be universally preferable behavior.
	That's it.
	Now, how that is implemented in each particular situation is not the job of philosophy anymore than it's the job of the physicist to know what is the most economically efficient way to build a bridge that will stand in these particular locations.
	That is not the job of a physicist.
	It's to study the nature of matter, not the practical implementation of materials.
	And getting dragged into law when you're talking about philosophy is a grave trap because you can't ever answer that.
	Because what you're saying is, What is the ideal material that is economically efficient and strong enough to withstand every conceivable situation?
	You understand if you take that to an engineer, he can't answer it.
	Some will need to be stronger.
	Some will have storms.
	Some will have earthquakes.
	Some will be in someone's backyard going over a little puddle.
	Right?
	Each individual situation needs to be figured out.
	But I'm telling you this.
	None...
	Of those instances of good bridge building will be in opposition to the laws of physics, right?
	Correct.
	And so you've got to avoid a jury situation.
	You've got to avoid a trial.
	You've got to avoid the law when you're talking about virtue because then you're switching professions and you can't make any There's a philosophical definition that will adjudicate every act of self-defense because then you wouldn't need law.
	You wouldn't need evidence.
	You wouldn't need a court system, whatever that's going to be in a free society, whatever developed in common law.
	So you're saying, well, if I'm a good enough physicist, we can get rid of all engineering.
	No, you can't.
	There are two very disparate disciplines.
	Now, clearly, engineering is subservient to physics.
	Engineering has considerations that physics doesn't have.
	Physics is studying the nature of matter as it is.
	And engineering is saying, well, to use materials in the most economically efficient and productive and useful manner.
	But what the hell does physics have to do with economically efficient?
	And what the hell does physics have to do with The right amount of tensile strength for this particular environment, they're just not the same at all.
	And so if you start to say, well, okay, we've now said that self-defense is valid.
	Murder, theft, rape, and assault cannot be universally preferable behavior.
	They're immoral.
	What a great job we've just done.
	We've completely revolutionized society just with those statements.
	Now, if we then want to leap into every conceivable situation where these laws might be applied, well, now we're not philosophers.
	We're lawyers.
	We're judges.
	We are expert witnesses, right?
	We are a jury.
	We can't take philosophy and have it replace judge, jury, and executioner.
	That's not the job of philosophy.
	Yes.
	Nobody ever says I need to build a 200-story building.
	I need a physicist.
	No, they say I need architects, engineers, whatever, right?
	Not the same.
	Yeah, there's...
	I think the philosophy to law is to physics and engineering is a perfect analogy there.
	I mean, there's a lot of various extrapolations and details that are analogous.
	And you want to and I want to delve into law because we don't want to stand with the physics because the physics are very uncomfortable because if we've just proven rape, theft, murder, and assault are immoral and universally immoral, you understand we want to jump into individual instances of the application of those rules because otherwise we just have to work on spreading those rules.
	And getting people to understand those rules.
	And that's quite uncomfortable because that takes away the state.
	That takes away religion as the source of virtue.
	I think we have enough work cut out for us with the state and religion without having to worry about potential theoretical situations in the year 2250 that we also need to answer.
	Do you see what I mean?
	Absolutely.
	We want to leap into practical application because spreading the ideas is really tough.
	It's like saying, well, I'm not going to advocate for the end of slavery until I figure out which job every slave is going to have.
	Well, clearly that's just a way of avoiding advocating for the end of slavery, right?
	Yeah.
	And so we want to jump into adjudicating in the courtrooms of our imaginary futures because that makes us feel like we're doing something, but we're not.
	We're avoiding doing something.
	Something much more important, which is we need to spread that slavery is wrong.
	And that is a very simple and clear message that needs to be repeated at infinitum until people get it.
	It's the same thing with UPP. We want to sort of – that's why I asked when you said exactly.
	Exactly is not a very useful term in philosophy.
	I mean, something is valid or it's invalid.
	It's true or it's false.
	But exactly – the moment you said exactly, I knew you were heading to legal land.
	Yeah, the particular case, I guess it's not too specific.
	The example that brought about this line of thinking for me was, if I know people who have abusive parents and will continue to be abusive people and have openly and directly admitted to their own immorality and they disregard morality as a valid subject, then I'm having difficulty justifying the wrongness of violence used against them.
	For example, if they were to be imprisoned or killed or so on, I'm having difficulty seeing how they fit into the – how they have moral consideration.
	So, wait, are you saying people who abused their children?
	Yes.
	But not as in they abused them because they didn't know about the immorality.
	So they abused them because they were cruel.
	Yes, truly and openly sadistic.
	But why would you want...
	I mean, what would that have to do with spreading UPV? It doesn't.
	But it's distracting.
	Somewhat.
	It's a means of preventing them from continuing their own actions.
	Which are – those actions would be against upholding UPB, but – so I'm not sure if that fits into what you're saying.
	Well, but you – if you want to – I mean, when their kids become adults or to the world as a whole, you can talk about voluntarism within the family.
	You can give people the basic fact and reality that they do not have to spend time with their parents.
	Yes.
	You know, I mean, everyone thinks they're a slave, but you can quit any time.
	It's sort of like in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, when Randall Patrick McMurphy realizes, spoiler, realizes that most of the people are there by choice.
	He's there because he's been ordered there.
	The court has sent him there for sex with a minor.
	Chick, not hat.
	And Towards the end, he realizes that the people are there by choice, that they could check themselves out anytime.
	And with regards to families, you don't have to be there.
	That is going to change people's behavior in the most fundamental way possible.
	And people talk about privatizing the school system, privatizing the post office, even privatizing the currency.
	All that is predicated and requires privatizing the family first.
	People can't be any more free than their personal relationships.
	And if they feel no choice in their personal relationships, they will value no choice in any other relationship, be it political or economic or anything like that.
	And if you promote the idea of voluntarism within the family, you will be innately encouraging and inexorably encouraging better behavior on the part of parents.
	I mean, if we could somehow magically privatize the school system tomorrow, The teachers that would be there six months from now would be vastly better.
	You wouldn't have to go and convince each teacher to become better and say, well, it's in your interest to become better.
	Right now, you just need to make things voluntary and quality improves on its own.
	You know, rather than lifting a whole bunch of boats using winches, just top up the water and they'll rise on their own.
	Once you introduce volunteerism, quality improves.
	Occurs inevitably, inexorably, naturally.
	And this has been shown so many times when things get privatized and when things become voluntary.
	And so, if you want to oppose the interests of abusive parents, I applaud you for that.
	Brave man, good man, the best man, the best thing you can do.
	The most practical, important, and liberating thing you can do.
	You just promote volunteerism within the family.
	You don't tell people to stay or go, because that's not promoting volunteerism.
	You say you are free to go, or you're free to stay.
	And once volunteerism works its way into the family, families will improve.
	In the same way that when you privatize a restaurant, the quality of the food and service will improve.
	Ever try and get a meal at a Soviet-era restaurant?
	It's terrible.
	And so, if you want to improve families, promote volunteerism.
	There's no other way.
	There's no other way.
	I mean, we all know this economically.
	If you want to improve currency, privatize it.
	If you want to improve the post office, privatize it.
	You don't argue with every postal worker while leaving it in the hands of the government.
	It would get you nowhere.
	And if you want to improve the family, which is The most essential thing that's necessary for the improvement of everything else.
	Promote volunteerism within the family.
	Because it will improve the family as much as privatizing the post office will improve the post office.
	Now, lots of people don't want that.
	But sorry.
	I mean, right is right.
	But it sure beats adjudicating potential law cases in 2020.
	No, 2220, right?
	Yes, it does.
	All right.
	I'm afraid I have to end here because my voice is beginning to fade.
	But I really, really appreciate.
	Great, great call.
	I do love me some UPB talk.
	And I really appreciate your focus and attention in bringing these topics up and giving me another avenue to expand upon this work.
	And freedomainradio.com slash donate to help out the show.
	Help us.
	Survive and thrive.
	And have yourselves a wonderful evening, everybody.
	We will talk to you.

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