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Jan. 18, 2015 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:57:16

2888 Thou Shalt Not Talk About My Momma - Saturday Call In Show - January 17th, 2015

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Time	Text
	Good evening, everybody.
	Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Aid Radio.
	Hope you're doing magnificently.
	It is Saturday night, which means it's time to get our brain freak philosophy mojo on.
	And joining me from another place that's not exceedingly warm at the moment, Mike.
	Who do we have first?
	Alright, live from my igloo, up first today is Nikos.
	Nikos wrote in and said, as a student with a limited budget, how can I prepare for the upcoming economic collapse?
	I cannot buy much gold or silver.
	Should I start buying storable food every month, along with some portable water, supplements, that kind of thing?
	What do you suggest?
	What are you studying, Nikos?
	I'm an economics student.
	And I've been studying socioeconomic on my own.
	I've been watching Peter Seif a lot.
	Alex Jones, so I think I know what's coming and I have to prepare.
	What is coming for you, in your mind?
	Some kind of economic catastrophe at the moment.
	I mean, the ECB is readying up the gear for QE, inflation.
	I don't know what's going to happen.
	I'm pretty sure it is going to happen because you cannot start printing money and you're not going to stop.
	It's addictive.
	It causes a lot of problems.
	So I think you should be prepared.
	And I want to get prepared.
	Okay, but what economic...
	Dislocation, let's say.
	I mean, that's, I think, inevitable.
	There's no capacity for the system to slow down.
	This is an addiction.
	There's no political solution, which means the solution has to be grim mathematics, right?
	You simply can't print any more money.
	No one's accepting the toilet paper, and we're now Zimbabwe.
	So there is no political solution.
	There may be political slowdowns, and there may be political reversals.
	In Canada, when, I think this was in the 90s, when the Amount of money the government was spending on interest payments was like over a third of the budget.
	And they just collapsed the government.
	And I've got a video about this, so I won't go into it in any great detail.
	But they actually literally, you know, in the U.S., they call it a cut when the projected rate of growth is scaled back, which never is actually achieved.
	You know, well, it's going to grow by 10 percent.
	We're only projecting it to grow by 9%, so we'll call that a 1% cut.
	But in Canada, in very real terms, they did actually scale back the state and they scaled back the welfare payments and so on.
	And now, I think the federal government is running a surplus, again, whether you believe that or not.
	So there is a capacity to rein in spending and to slow things down and so on.
	So it may not be straight off a cliff.
	I'm sorry?
	Do you see that coming in Europe, though?
	I mean, right now I'm in the Netherlands.
	Yeah.
	They're trying to cut the budget.
	I don't think they're doing that much.
	Right.
	And they won't do it and they won't be able to achieve it.
	Unless it is reframed as a moral issue.
	Give a man a why, as Nietzsche says, and he can bear almost any how.
	People can handle what is ridiculously called austerity.
	Austerity.
	If I have a 10,000 calorie a day diet and I go to 9,800 calories instead, is that some sort of starvation diet?
	It's madness.
	It's madness.
	Are you still gaining weight?
	Why, yes you are.
	I mean, anyway...
	So, people will do it.
	I mean, people go to war.
	People send their kids off to get blown up if they believe there's a moral reason behind it.
	Morality is the great engine of human subjugation.
	And we should all subjugate ourselves to morality, just as nature to be commanded must be obeyed.
	We should all subjugate ourselves to physical laws, physical rules.
	And we either subjugate ourselves to a rational morality or morality is used to subjugate us to our rulers.
	You know, there's an ancient tradition of magic, right?
	And what is magic?
	Magic is spells and spells are muttered incantations that change reality.
	Well, that's called propaganda.
	Propaganda is wizardry.
	Propaganda is magic.
	Propaganda is spells and voodoo.
	Because it is the language that is more powerful than weapons of mere physical essence.
	So, if what is currently called austerity, if it's like kind of a regretful thing, like, well, I guess there was a bit too much spending, I guess we better cut back, it's going to be resentful, it's not going to be achieved.
	And if it can be reframed as a moral debate, then people will...
	Pay any price, bear any burden to make it happen.
	Once people are convinced of the morality of a cause, that cause and the success of that cause is absolutely inevitable, barring some giant asteroid strike.
	Once people accept the morality of a cause, the success of that cause is inevitable.
	And this is why when libertarians say, well, the free market is more efficient, you'll be richer, people don't give a shit.
	People cared about wealth.
	I tried to have such conversation with my mother and she wouldn't listen to me even though I'm studying economics and I might know something better.
	Well, I mean, this idea that If people were into economic efficiency, there'd be no people, because having children is not economically efficient.
	Very expensive.
	Yeah, yeah, that's true.
	So that's sort of it.
	Are you here?
	Then stop talking to me about economic efficiency, because you're wrong!
	Completely and totally wrong.
	And that's confusing for people to say the least.
	So I think from that standpoint, This fetish or this focus on economic efficiency is woeful and terrible.
	It's true.
	It's true, but so what?
	That's, you know, it's true, but it doesn't matter because economic efficiency is not what drives people, which is why we have people anyway.
	So there is a whole scale of things that could occur, right?
	There could be some sort of scaling back.
	There could be, I mean, when England at the end of the Second World War, and understand, I have no answers to this.
	I'm just giving you my thoughts because this is prognostication with some sort of crystal ball up your ass.
	So, I mean, this is all, who knows, right?
	But England after the Second World War was completely broke.
	And what they did was they saved approximately 12 trillion dollars a minute by getting rid of the empire.
	When America is similarly broke, they will be more likely to simply give up on the empire and this endless Cupid slash whale spearing marionette jiggery that they do around the world.
	They will give that up and they will stay home.
	They will Screw the rich, they will screw the middle class, and they will screw the poor, probably in that order.
	And there will be a huge incentive for violence.
	Whoever produces the most violence will get the goodies.
	This was shown very clearly in the 1960s.
	There was a huge upsurge of black and student violence in the 1960s.
	And basically the powers that be said, okay, okay, whatever you need, whatever you want, you got it!
	I mean, that lesson was very well learned.
	It says everything you need to know about higher education that 80% of the former Weathermen Underground who were terrorists are now university professors.
	I remember when I first read that, I was down for a Doug Casey conference in the States and I was reading about this and I was like, wait a minute, they were terrorists?
	And now they're university professors?
	What the?
	So yeah, I mean, they'll pay off anyone who shows the slightest sign of violence because that's just not what they want and it's not cost-efficient.
	But all of the dumb, complacent, barring, highly productive middle classes and sometimes above will just get shafted in general.
	And again, the poor who aren't going to be showing any kind of aggression will also get shafted.
	But the government, if It's wise in the ways of evil, and the government will simply attempt to...
	They'll completely change the narrative, as I've argued this for years.
	They'll completely change the narrative, and they'll start talking about responsibility, fiscal austerity is going to be like sacrifice for the kids.
	Suddenly they'll be trotting out how much the average child is born into debt, and this is not the kind of world we want to leave to our kids.
	And they'll say, well, the economy is like the environment, and we wouldn't despoil the environment, and therefore...
	We shouldn't despoil the economy.
	You know, we're borrowing the environment from future generations, and so we are borrowing the economy from future generations.
	All of this propaganda, which, you know, some people won't give much of a rat's ass about, but other people will take very seriously.
	So there's no way to know where on the scale of either reining in or hitting the wall, things are going to occur.
	So England collapsed the empire and...
	Russia, of course, just stopped paying pensions.
	And there wasn't much rioting.
	There was a little bit.
	But basically, old ladies just took to selling pencils on the street corner in minus 20.
	Horrendous and brutal.
	But they struggled through.
	So it's not necessarily going to be the case, I think, that the food...
	Food supply is going to go nowhere and this and that and the other.
	But again, who knows?
	We are entering into significantly uncharted territory.
	For there to be a first world government bankruptcy is unprecedented.
	I mean, first world, I mean sort of with all the technology and the communications and all that that we have.
	For there to be A first-world post-technological bankruptcy is, at least just off the top of my head, unprecedented.
	But, you know, these vermin at the top are very good at surviving.
	So they certainly will attempt to keep things going as long as possible.
	And whatever transition is going to occur, they will attempt to make as painless as possible.
	So it's not necessarily the case that you should learn how to hunt rats and live in the sewers.
	It's hard to know exactly what's going to happen.
	Have you had any thoughts about what's possible for you so far or at the moment?
	Well, the thing is, I'm from Greece.
	And, you know, Greece pretty much went bankrupt.
	And there were food shortages.
	I mean, the power grid was going down sometimes.
	You know, and I thought, wow, this is going to happen.
	And I'm there at that time.
	You know, how could I survive?
	Shouldn't we at least have some...
	I mean, the power grid went down and that's inconvenient, but there was not sort of any mass starvation or depopulation of the cities or like late Roman Empire stuff, right?
	No, of course not, yeah.
	But, I mean, who knows what's gonna happen, you know?
	Shouldn't we prepare for the worst and hope for the best, you know?
	Right.
	Well, I'll give you a couple of thoughts about things that I think are useful.
	First of all, you can't make money you don't have.
	And if you have money around, it may be worthwhile investing a small amount in some food that we'll keep.
	The freeze-dried, the canned, whatever it is, and some water and so on.
	That shouldn't be too expensive to do.
	And that's not because I think we're going to end up eating each other, but simply because there may be Hiccups and interruptions in the food supply and it's better to keep it to yourself and to keep it for yourself, or at least those you care about.
	That's number one.
	Number two is people that you trust, people who you really trust, people who get it, people who understand.
	Keep them close.
	Keep them close.
	If there is a disruption to the economy and to the food supply, then those who are in the know really need to know each other.
	Because other people are going to be completely freaking out and panicking.
	And even if you've had a million conversations with them about where statism is heading, They will pretend that they had nothing to do with it, that their support of the whole situation had nothing to do with it, that they're victims, that they're innocent, and they will attempt to ply upon your pity for them in order to gain access to your resources.
	In other words, from being those who side with the state and actively champion the cause of the state, they then will pitifully cling to your leg demanding food and water because, boy, they just had nothing to do with it and they're just victims and they're sorry and they should have listened but now they're hungry.
	And everybody has their own decisions to make as far as that goes.
	But this is one of the reasons why I say, you know, keep your friends close.
	Your ANCAP friends, your non-aggression principle friends, the people who really understand it.
	Because the veil of tears we are likely going to be heading into means that you have to have those around you.
	Who know what is going on and who are similarly prepared and who are not going to be freaking out because of a lack of knowledge or a guilty conscience.
	Those of us who have fought the propaganda of the state will have no bad conscience should the shite hit the fan.
	And I would rather have people around me who don't have a bad conscience and guilt and aggression and panic and hysteria and all that kind of stuff.
	So, you know, if we could sort of lumber along in limbo forever, it would be one thing.
	But...
	If war is coming, you need soldiers with you, if that makes any sense from an allegorical standpoint.
	So, yeah, I think get some food and some water.
	And I think that's a useful and worthwhile thing to do.
	And what's the worst case scenario?
	Worst case scenario is you have it around and you've paid for it when food is relatively cheap because the price of food is going up like in nutty, nutty ways these days.
	Peter Schiff has more on this.
	The last 10 years, the consumer price index has increased by...
	About 21%.
	Electricity price is an all-time high, 33% up since 2005.
	In December 2014, the price index for meats, poultry, fish and eggs also hit a record high, rising by 9.2% in a single year.
	The food index has risen by 28% in the last decade alone.
	And this is at a time when incomes are relatively flat and for some people, of course, have declined considerably.
	I know when I go to the grocery store, It's crazy.
	It's crazy.
	Like half a cart of groceries is like a hundred bucks or more.
	And you know, I'm not buying massively pre-prepared foods or anything, usually.
	So, yeah, the worst case scenario, you invest some money in food now and even if nothing bad happens but the price goes up, you at least have saved some money over the next couple of years by using that food.
	So to me, that's a no-lose situation.
	Make sure you have a group of people around you who know what's going on and who are willing to act intelligently.
	You know, hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
	I think that's really, really important.
	The amount of hysterical manipulation that is going to come out of those who have been roundly informed of the disasters of supporting the current system when the shit hits the fan, they are going to be extremely manipulative and emotionally dangerous, in my opinion.
	And so that's, again, everyone's choice to make.
	And now, trying to get skills that are portable, skills that...
	Our mental, I think, is important and helpful.
	If you have friends in the country or you can get part of a farmer's collective or anything like that, build contacts with people who have farms, who have food.
	Because if worse comes to worse, you can just go work in their fields and get room and board.
	Again, that's a very extreme situation, but at least that's better than something else.
	Sorry, you were going to say it?
	No, I'm sorry, I thought you said something.
	So, yeah, get contacts with people.
	Keep your skills as portable and as useful as possible.
	You know, your Xbox skills probably aren't going to take you too far.
	And stay fit and stay healthy because if worse comes to worse, we're all going to have to dive into manual labor.
	So, you know, if you're at school, you've got a gym.
	Yeah, work out, stay fit, stay healthy, so that you aren't like 50 pounds of flab if you have to pick up a hoe.
	And not the PUA kind, but the kind that leaves the other kind of blisters.
	Anyway.
	Not the PUA kind.
	I'm sorry?
	Not the PUA kind.
	Too many layers on that joke?
	And the other thing, too, is...
	I mean, let me ask you a question.
	Let me ask you a question.
	Because if you had a friend that you cared about, that's sort of a tautology, but you have a friend.
	Your friend is a great guy, but man has he ever got a bad gambling addiction.
	Just terrible.
	And he denies that he has any kind of problem.
	He considers himself a A generator of altruistic welfare for casino workers.
	And he's massively in debt.
	You know, guys with lead pipes are shadowing him in the parking lot.
	And his wife has left him.
	His kids don't talk to him.
	And he's got the kind of life that's such a complete mess.
	It staggers the imagination to put yourself in his shoes.
	And he won't even admit there's a problem.
	And he laughs about it and he jokes about it and he's optimistic about his chances despite all reality.
	And you care about your friend.
	But you cannot change his mind.
	What, oh what, would you want for him?
	Well, yeah, that's a scary scenario.
	You know, our friend in this analogy is civilization itself.
	But what would you want for your friend?
	Yes, I mean, because this reminds me of so many conversations I've had with my friends, you know, who they keep believing in the system, you know, and I've been trying to wake them up.
	No, they want more of the system.
	Exactly.
	A bunch of socialists just get in in Greece.
	It's crazy, you know.
	Fuck the brakes!
	More gas!
	More gas!
	That's what we need.
	Cut the brake line, put a brick on the gas pedal, and let's party on the roof of this truck.
	Yeah, it's not like, oh, I believe in the system.
	It's like, I want more of the system, more, baby, more.
	My God, yeah.
	But this is what gamblers do, right?
	Gamblers are like, well, I'm so much in debt now, I might as well borrow a little bit more and try and play something, because I can't possibly pay off these debts, so it's double or nothing, baby.
	Exactly, yeah.
	So what would you want?
	For your friend in this situation?
	For him to wake up, you know, in the middle of the night and say, you know, what the f**k have I been doing?
	Not gonna happen.
	Yeah, exactly.
	No, I mean, he's not listening to recent evidence being shattered by a hitman in the parking lot, and so he's not, he's not, it's not gonna happen.
	To expect that would be to expect the impossible.
	What do you, what do you want from him?
	I want the best for him, but if he won't listen, I don't know.
	I don't know.
	Oh, you do.
	You do, but nobody likes to think of it.
	Maybe for him to keep doing what he's doing since he's happy?
	Hmm.
	I think that's called enabling.
	Oh, does heroin make you happy?
	Here you go, right?
	I mean, that's not real happiness, right?
	And it certainly wouldn't be helping your friend, right, for him to continue this behavior.
	So what would you want for him to If he would not listen to reason or evidence.
	What could I want from him?
	If he won't listen to me.
	Hit rock bottom.
	Hit rock bottom.
	Yeah, I guess.
	Yeah, you need him to crash.
	People wake up when they hit rock bottom.
	That's true.
	That's true.
	That's right.
	And men and women of the mind Men and women of philosophy, reason, patience, virtue, possibly a slight sprinkling of decent humor, have been encouraging people to set aside their prejudices and bow down before the facts, before reason and evidence for 2500 plus years.
	No!
	Everybody knows better than everyone who can think.
	Everybody knows better.
	Why should I listen to you, Mr.
	Philosophy?
	Only 35,000 hours of philosophy and 30 years of philosophy.
	Why would I listen?
	33 years this year.
	Why would I listen to you?
	Why?
	Why would I listen to you?
	I'm doing fine.
	I know what's best.
	I know what's right.
	Why would I listen to you?
	You have experience.
	You have education.
	You have...
	No!
	Why would I listen to you?
	The absolute arrogance are the vast majority of people with regards to specialized disciplines outside of diet and exercise.
	And they'll listen to people who advocate certain kinds of diet and exercise, but they won't actually usually do it.
	But they'll at least listen to them.
	Absolutely not.
	You know, why would I listen to a nutritionist?
	I know what tastes good!
	Why would I listen to a personal trainer?
	He makes me uncomfortable.
	He makes me owie in my bendy parts.
	I mean, why would I listen to someone like that?
	Why would I listen to someone who says I need to clean the air filters in my car?
	I've never seen them.
	I don't even know if they exist.
	So he's a mechanic.
	Why would I listen to that?
	Why would I listen to someone who says I shouldn't put wine in my gas tank?
	It's got alcohol in it.
	That burns.
	I mean...
	People...
	People don't listen.
	They don't listen.
	They don't listen.
	And then they claim that...
	that nobody told them.
	Nobody told them.
	Tom Hanks.
	His doctor says to him, man, just try and get back to the weight that you were in your late teens, early 20s, and you won't get diabetes.
	Do you know what Tom Hanks says?
	What?
	Hit me with one order of diabetes, please, because I'm not losing weight for nothing, no one, no how, no way!
	Yeah, and that's the most annoying thing, you know.
	You try to wake them up, you try to help them, you know, because you care about them, but they won't listen.
	No, they won't listen.
	They just won't.
	You know, this gambling is going to get your kneecaps broken.
	I'll cross that bridge when I come to it!
	I'm having fun!
	Woo!
	You know, this socio-political economic system is completely unsustainable.
	It's going to end in a massive crash that could take the entirety of Western civilization down into the sewage drains for pretty much ever.
	I gotta get me some votes!
	I'm gonna shit goodies from a B-52!
	In the long run, we're all dead!
	It's all okay, I have an iPhone!
	Yeah, it's just what Kane said, you know, in the long run, we're all dead.
	Who cares?
	It's okay, because...
	Your mouth moving organ parts and making my head parts uncomfortable, so I'm going back to Candy Crush.
	Facts?
	What facts?
	So...
	I mean, that's just the reality.
	So...
	If people won't, and I've said this again for years, if people won't change according to reason and evidence, then they have to learn by bitter experience.
	Why...
	I mean, why did Christianity end up separating the church and the state?
	Because after X hundred years of bloody and unbelievably destructive, violent, violent religious warfare, they said, okay, okay, okay.
	All right.
	We're tired of dying.
	We're tired of being burned at the stake and drowned alive and driven into the sea, and we're just, we're tired of it.
	We're tired of it.
	So, listen, okay.
	Religion...
	Get the fuck in one corner.
	State, get the fuck in another corner.
	Do not even look at each other.
	No texting.
	No smoke signals.
	No releasing of carrier pigeons with messages tied to their legs.
	Don't even look at each other.
	Opposite corners.
	Giant wall.
	Separation of church and state.
	Because we are sick and tired of dying, so stop using the cross to sharpen the sword to stab us all to death.
	And how long did it take?
	Hundreds of years and millions and millions and millions of unbelievably gruesome deaths.
	Unbelievably gruesome deaths.
	And inquisitions and torture and, oh my god, 300 years people are like, whoa, time out.
	I mean, it was fun for the first 299 years.
	For sure.
	Absolutely.
	Get to strangle whoever I want, set fire to people in the middle of the night, dash their children's heads against a stone wall.
	That was great.
	I don't know if I'm getting old or getting a little arthritis in my arm, but I think 300.
	Time out, everybody.
	Let's cool it.
	I mean, Europe.
	Oh, my God.
	All right.
	Let's just count ancient Greece.
	We've had 2,500 years of pretty incessant slaughter, culminating in World War I, 10 million dead, World War II, 40 million dead, and now we have the power to vaporize the entire planet at the push of a button.
	But don't worry, because the password is 0000 and zero.
	In other words, the world could end because somebody falls asleep and their forehead hits the number zero.
	On the keypad.
	After 2,500 years, hundreds of millions slaughtered, and the capacity to destroy the entire world at the push of the button.
	You know what they say?
	Whoa!
	Time out!
	Time out, everybody!
	Okay, the first 2,499 years...
	Oodles of fun.
	Staggering amounts of fun.
	I mean, you know how kids just pile up those leaves and they just dive into them and wriggle about?
	We did that with an entire country full of bodies.
	Pile up the bodies, dive into them, swim around.
	They're all loosey-goosey, rubbery.
	Kind of fun stuff.
	I mean, I'm sure you don't get your teeth caught in the intestines or anything, but first 2,499 years, kind of fun.
	I feel the stakes are a little bit high now, so time out, everybody!
	Let's not have wars in Europe.
	Oh, yeah, but it's a proxy wars.
	Fine, we'll do all that shit overseas.
	But let's not.
	How much suffering does it take for human beings to say, time out?
	Okay, all those guys who were saying war isn't that great, all those guys who were saying slavery isn't that great, all those guys who were saying imperialism and the endless meddling in foreign affairs isn't that great, all those guys who generations have died with them gasping out their last breaths like, listen up, you dumb fuckwads.
	Let's listen to those guys, but let's pretend we just started hearing them now.
	So at some point, and I don't know when that point is.
	I mean, it hasn't.
	I mean, Islam's what?
	Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years old.
	They still haven't.
	Got it.
	Right?
	Separation of church and state.
	I mean, how much suffering is it going to take?
	Well, another 500 years?
	Probably, if they're on the mark with other religions.
	About 500 years.
	And they'll go, first...
	Now I'm getting tired of this stuff.
	Time out, time out everybody.
	So that reality of how much suffering the human beings have to endure in order for them to break a savage addiction, well it's because people don't listen to reason and so they have to be crushed by consequences.
	And there seems to be Absolutely no possibility that reason and evidence are going to win the day.
	I hope it's going to win the day with parenting, with the peaceful parenting that we talk about in the show for these last eight plus years.
	So I think that can work.
	That can work.
	Because certainly there's no law against not hitting your children.
	And there's usually not a huge amount of social disapproval that comes out of not hitting your children or screaming at your children or whatever.
	So, that's got, and the benefits accrue to oneself personally.
	I mean, you have this great family life, great relationship with your kids and all that.
	So, that I think has, you know, the best.
	And of course, that may change things, and it's my belief that it will domino effect, change things along.
	But society as a whole, what do we wish for a society?
	What do we wish for the addict who won't listen to reason?
	The crash.
	You know, if the guy...
	But the guy not losing weight, I mean, it's basically his issue, right?
	So it's hard to say that that's directly right.
	What do we want if we care about the addict?
	What do we want if we care about civilization?
	Well, we want it to crash because society has clearly indicated that it's the only way it's going to ever fucking listen.
	And it probably won't be the first crash.
	We'll probably have to go through this cycle a bunch of times.
	Again, absent Peaceful parenting, which will accelerate this stuff more rapidly than the development of glass that can survive being dropped from a nine-story building in a cell phone.
	But without peaceful parenting, it would probably be at least another two to three major civilizations before people even began to question taxation.
	With peaceful parenting, it would be a lot faster.
	So don't be afraid of the crash.
	That's the best chance we've got.
	I guess so.
	We could wish for, I guess, a soft crash, you know?
	We certainly do not want people to suffer that much.
	Although, I guess, you know, you could say that's how they're going to learn.
	Yeah, it's not a want.
	You know, I mean, the whole reason that we try to reason with people is to prevent their suffering.
	Right?
	But if they won't listen to reason, it's not like I want someone to suffer.
	It's not up to me.
	You know, like if you beg someone, please stop smoking, please stop smoking, please stop smoking.
	It's really bad for you.
	Please stop smoking.
	And they don't listen to you and they tell you to fuck off and they call you a conspiracy, fucktard and just nasty, mean, vicious all the way around.
	It's not like you want that person to get lung cancer.
	Oh, I can't.
	I hope they get...
	No, it's not like that.
	The whole reason you're telling them to quit is because you don't want them to get lung cancer.
	Now, if they insult you...
	And harassed you long enough that maybe the lung cancer may not come as the least welcome piece of item in your personal daily briefing.
	But it's like the whole reason that we try to teach people is to have them not suffer.
	But we know that they will suffer if they don't listen.
	We know that they will.
	We know that they're going to suffer if they don't listen.
	So it's not like we want them to suffer, we actually don't want them to suffer, but we recognize that they will.
	And then the great challenge when people don't listen to reason, the great challenge when they suffer is to give them no excuses whatsoever.
	Hey man, I gave you all the pamphlets on lung cancer, showed you the videos, Brought in a healthy lung and a diseased lung for you to look at.
	Got your doctor to tell you.
	Gave you posters.
	Went through the science.
	Went through everything.
	Gave you the statistics.
	Gave you the odds.
	I worked really hard.
	You didn't listen.
	Your fault.
	Your fault.
	You had every opportunity to change your ways.
	Not only did you not listen, you called me an idiot.
	You called me a conspiracy theorist.
	You called me whatever, right?
	So, because when people haven't listened to reason, when people haven't listened to evidence, and then the disasters hit them, they immediately turn into these well-oiled weasels who wish to evade personal responsibility for not listening to people who know what they're talking about.
	And That must be very strongly resisted.
	The people who have brought upon their own suffering through failing to listen to reason must be held up.
	Their agony and their pain must be held up and displayed like Batman's signal on a low-lying cloud.
	Shown to the world.
	Shown to the world.
	This is what happens when you don't listen.
	That way, you can scare other people into opening their minds a little bit to reason.
	When I was a kid, there were these series of unbelievably gruesome Horrifying ads on television about not wearing your seatbelt.
	And then when I got older, there were, you know, the guys who smoked the cigarette or who talked through the hole in their larynx with their computer voice and so on.
	I also read a, again, the Reader's Digest articles that I read a lot of when I was a kid.
	There was a book excerpt from, I don't know if anybody remembers it anymore, but It was called Scared Straight and it was about, they took troubled teenagers to prison to be basically harassed and yelled at by people in prison saying, do you want to end up like me, do you?
	And it scared the young people, apparently Scared Straight, scared them into, right?
	Changing their ways.
	And so it's not like I want people to suffer, I'm sure.
	Nikos, you don't want people to suffer either.
	But the fact is that they will suffer.
	And I will not give them absolution for the suffering that they caused themselves.
	And I will certainly not hide their suffering from others, but rather will amplify and display it as much as possible in the hopes of scaring other people straight.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yeah, it does.
	Thanks, Stefan.
	Thanks.
	Welcome the change, baby.
	Welcome the change.
	Mike, you wanted to add?
	Yeah, there's another component of this, too, that I just want to point out to you, Nikos, because it's something I've certainly thought about quite a bit when I first started studying Austrian economics and reading about the Fed and kind of observing the economic landscape without my mainstream colored glasses.
	It was like, oh jeez.
	Oh jeez.
	You know, it's obviously horrifying to think about what is a near economic certainty.
	Not a near economic certainty, it's a complete economic certainty.
	What mathematically cannot continue will not continue.
	And all this stuff is so completely and totally out of our control.
	I mean, there's nothing you can do, there's nothing I can do, there's nothing Steph can do right now to change the direction in which this is going.
	You know, Steph has certainly screamed from a high rooftop for a long time about this stuff.
	People like Peter Schiff have, Ron Paul, and no one wants to listen.
	They have to learn through experience.
	And so you can't, other than talking about it, you know, with people you care about, there's not a whole lot that you can really do to change the iceberg that we are headed towards present day.
	And oftentimes, I mean, I would kind of feel like, oh man, like, I see this is coming down the road.
	I know this is going to happen.
	This really sucks.
	And it would kind of be depressing.
	I almost don't want to do anything positive because there's this archangel of death looming over all of us in the form of economic disaster.
	And then it really just dawned on me and I really started to stress and focus on all the stuff that I do have a direct impact over.
	I mean, this has been something that Freedman Radio has talked about since the beginning of the show.
	You know, what can you personally affect in your life?
	What personal decisions, what personal steps can you take to make your life better?
	And stuff like, you know, what is the interest rate going to be with the Fed or what's going to happen with the currency moving forward or...
	Or what's the long-term forecast for the economic landscape of the planet?
	You know, this we really have no control over.
	But when it comes to the decisions that you make and what you can do day in and day out to put you in a positive situation, even if the world...
	Is, you know, descending into the pain that it has to experience in order to change and learn.
	You can still put yourself in a pretty positive position by making smart decisions, surrounding yourself with quality people, and just not succumbing to the fear.
	You know, it's kind of, it's called doom porn.
	At least that's what I call it.
	Some of the economic disaster scenario forecasts.
	And you can't help but look at that stuff just like, oh my god, it's like I just want to crawl back to bed and Not remove the covers from my forehead.
	Learn how to survive the coming catastrophe, deploying only the intestines of frozen homeless people.
	Here's some pellets that you can put into your toilet water so you don't, you know, die from thirst within the first 15 hours of this occurring.
	It's like, oh, I don't want to, I need to build a bunker and never leave it.
	And look, we could, I mean, those people might be right.
	And so I think some cautions are necessary.
	Sorry, Mike, go ahead.
	Oh, those people might be right.
	Hey, maybe building a bunker is not a bad idea.
	But the reality is there's a lot of stuff in your personal life now that you can affect positive change on, take steps in the right direction.
	And the stuff that you can't, it's important to be aware of that and be aware of, you know, the forecast of what's coming.
	But at the same time, if you can't affect it...
	Yeah, you know, the stuff that you cannot control...
	Worrying about it endlessly, just from a sheer productivity standpoint, doesn't really get you anywhere.
	If it's grinding you down and grinding you down, and I speak about this because this is kind of how I felt for a while hearing about this stuff.
	It's like, oh my god.
	You almost don't want to make major life decisions because you're like, well, you're building a sandcastle.
	Someone's going to come over and kick it over kind of thing.
	But there's a lot of stuff you can do and a lot of situations you can put yourself in.
	So even if someone tries to kick over your sandcastle, you're going to be in a far better position had you not tried to build it in the first place.
	The guy who was the Marlboro Man.
	He was a sort of craggy looking guy who appeared in all these Marlboro cigarette commercials.
	And he got lung cancer.
	And he spent, I don't know how long he lived after the diagnosis, but he basically went around saying, man, I'm sorry.
	You know, I can't believe I spent my life trying to get people to smoke this stuff that's killing me.
	And...
	Good for him.
	You know, I mean, talk about pulling a tiny nugget of gold out of a huge pile of crap.
	Yeah, the man did significant wrong with his life, but at least he wised up at the end and probably saved.
	He probably didn't save as many lives as he helped end, but you never know who's going to turn around once the reality begins to sink in.
	You'd think, of course, that there'd be a big upsurge in libertarianism, After the financial crash of 07-08, which was predicted by a lot of libertarians, and it really hasn't happened yet, which means that they only stubbed their toe, they didn't lose a kneecap, right?
	It hasn't been painful enough yet for people to start listening to reason.
	I wish that wasn't the way people were.
	But that's the way people are.
	You go to war with the army you have, so to speak, right?
	So, like, I was reading the other day.
	Actually, Mike, if you can pull this up.
	It was on the Huffington Post.
	All right, let me put on my space suit.
	Yeah, yeah, sorry.
	Put on your lid top prevention helmet.
	And...
	It was an article, you can read the first bit of it if you like, it's an article about how more than 50% of American school children are now poor.
	Oh yeah, yeah, I think I read about it.
	And that was based on the number of school lunches and subsidized lunches or breakfasts that were required and so on.
	And I always try and sort of put on my hat of don't know nothing kind of thing when I read these articles.
	And there was this kind of whiny, complaining tone to it, like, can you believe that there's been this growing gap between rich and poor in the United States, and now half of all schoolchildren are poor and don't have enough, right?
	And at some point, at some point, people are going to say, well, I guess the welfare state didn't work, did it?
	I guess the welfare state didn't work.
	Did it.
	Now, people aren't there yet, but they are getting there.
	They are getting there.
	So this is what the article says.
	Let me throw on my middle-aged eye lenses.
	For the first time, more than half of US public school students live in low-income households, according to a new analysis from the Southern Education Overall, 51% of U.S. school children came from low-income households in 2013.
	Statistics on students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches, eligibility for free or subsidized lunch for students from low-income households serves as a proxy for gauging poverty, says the foundation.
	The report shows the percentage of school children from poor households has grown steadily for nearly a quarter century, from 32% in 1989.
	By 2006, the national rate was 42%, and after the Great Recession, the rate climbed in 2011 to 48%.
	So, some woman from the Foundation told the Washington Post that the analysis shows poverty has reached a watershed moment.
	The fact is, she says, we've had growing inequality in the country for many years.
	It didn't happen overnight, but it's steadily been happening.
	Government used to be a source of leadership and innovation around issues of economic mobility.
	Now we're a country disinclined to invest in our young people.
	Highest percentage of poor students in southern and western states.
	Mississippi had the highest rate of low-income students, 71%.
	New Hampshire had the lowest at 27%.
	The report says, no longer can we consider the problems and needs of low-income students simply a matter of fairness.
	Their success or failure in the public schools will determine the entire body of human capital and educational potential that the nation will possess in the future.
	Now, even these responses to these kinds of things, they seem kind of tired, you know?
	Oh, you know, I guess...
	I don't know.
	What can I say that could be remotely believable while ignoring the giant elephant in the room that $15 trillion has been spent fighting poverty over the past 40 years and poverty has increased or income inequality has increased?
	I mean, it takes a lot of work and effort and willpower to ignore that elephant in the room.
	You've really got to crush yourself up against the wall and waddle past its ass.
	So it's like, well, governments used to be proactive.
	Yeah, because, you know, a lefty president has been in power for six or seven years.
	So naturally, government has completely given up on the poor and is now...
	Anyway, I mean, how do people...
	We used to invest in...
	I mean, how do people say this with a straight face?
	I mean, spending per capita on school students has gone rocketing up since the 1970s, like 200, 300 more, more percent.
	You can't spend more on young people unless you're actually shoving gold bars up their ass.
	So, I mean, at some point, people are going to be like, well, the war on poverty ain't going too well.
	We seem to be hitting them with some sort of weird ray that causes them to multiply.
	Yes, that ray would be called government power.
	So, it's, um...
	It's very strange.
	Um...
	Oh yeah, Mike found something about the Marlboro Man.
	One of the people that played the Marlboro Man actually died on Monday, believe it or not.
	Really?
	At least four actors who played the iconic cowboy died of smoking-related illnesses.
	No sign of this gentleman's cause of death listed in his obituary.
	No, 85, I don't bet.
	So the next generation's going to live to be 100.
	Social Security, farewell!
	Anyway...
	So I hope that helps.
	If we can move on to the next caller, let us know how it goes if you can, and good luck with your account agreement.
	Hopefully there'll be an economy to analyze when you're done.
	Thank you, Nikos.
	Have a good night.
	Good night.
	Up next, we have a couple, Caleb and Liz.
	They wrote in, and the question was, my wife lately has been talking a lot about the nature of relationships between the sexes.
	She often theorizes that the idea that there is no such thing as quote-unquote just friends is a myth propagated by society and that men and women should be able to have honest, healthy relationships at different levels without sex entering into the picture or being feared and used as a wedge between people.
	She thinks that much of what men and women think about how to relate to each other is built on false ideas.
	So the question is, is the idea that, quote, there is no such thing as just friends, just a myth?
	There was sex in a picture.
	That's what I got into.
	Is that shareable?
	Can you...
	I'm just kidding.
	How are you guys doing?
	Doing okay.
	And you're both on, is that right?
	Yes.
	Can you hear me too?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	I'm gonna go out on a limb and call you Liz.
	Yes, yes.
	So Liz, your argument, if I understand it correctly, is that there should be a friendship that's possible between men and women of similar ages and attractive people and so on, where there should not be any kind of romantic or sexual feelings involved and be just friends?
	Right.
	That is the idea.
	There's a few different things influencing this.
	I've been wondering a lot about how this works because I don't know.
	Wait, wait.
	I'm sorry.
	You've got to be specific.
	How what works?
	Basically, well, how the relations between men and women work in society as we know it versus how it actually can be.
	I think that there are a lot of things that people put on each other.
	And for instance, women saying that, well, men or women saying, well, you can't be just friends with a man or a woman because you're going to end up having sex with them.
	Well, I don't think that that's accurate.
	And I think actually that it's a manipulation tactic.
	I mean...
	Our genitals are not giant gravity wells, you know?
	I fought it as long as I could.
	I shot out sticky webs.
	I used suction pads.
	I tried hanging onto the airlock.
	Ah!
	Clang!
	Well, that's it.
	That's what happens.
	I mean, it's not a law of nature that men and women always have to end up having sex with each other, right?
	Right.
	And I guess what I'm kind of coming from is seeing people use...
	Comments like this to actually drive a wedge between men and women and it's really interesting because women and women are able to help each other and Really have good conversations and I mean improve the world together, you know So Why are we talking about women and women and how great they are at helping the world together?
	No, no, I meant to say men and women Oh, men and women.
	You said women and women.
	Oh, I'm sorry.
	Because if you want to share those pictures too, that's fine, but...
	No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
	Okay.
	Absolutely not.
	It doesn't look like you told me...
	All right, so men and women can work together to achieve great things.
	Okay?
	My husband is here laughing at me.
	Well, I'm laughing because this has come up a lot, and in my experience growing up, in my background, it was like, you know, avoid these sort of scenarios because temptation is lurking out there, and...
	Sorry, which sort of scenarios, Caleb?
	You mean where you're alone with a woman, not your wife?
	Yes, working alone and just even going so far as, well, you know, if you're not going to be dating them, then don't have a, you know, don't have a, don't be too close to them because people might think that, you know, something's going on.
	It's a very loaded thing.
	Who gave you these rules or standards?
	I would say that Society and the social groups that I was in at the time.
	Oh, no, no.
	Come on.
	Who?
	Who in particular gave you these rules?
	Your parents?
	Your mom?
	Your dad?
	Some sexual harassment seminar?
	I mean, who in particular?
	Yeah, I guess I could say all of the above at different stages, right?
	You know, when I was younger...
	There was a movement that I was peripherally involved in that was no dating and no sex before marriage, which could have its benefits by protecting you from certain things, but also created the inability to develop not so much in me,
	but I observed it in a lot of people, the inability to develop a way to be able to relate to the opposite sex without completely shutting down because you think, oh, that's The insinuation of that sort of teaching is there's really just kind of one or the other options.
	You're talking to them and you're going down this path of sexual activity or you stay away from them and everything's fine.
	I find that in a lot of circles.
	I mean, even in work in the corporate world, there's a lot of insinuations to that as well.
	I think that there is fear of male-female relationships getting romanticized.
	Now, romanticized doesn't mean that you clang your naughty bits together like a pair of punch-drunk, horny, baby-oiled robots.
	It just means that there is an air of sexual tension in the relationship.
	And nobody may ever act on it or whatever, but it's sort of there.
	And I think some people are concerned about that.
	But I got to think that the only people who'd really be concerned about that are people who don't know why they're partners with them.
	In other words, they do not have a secure sense of understanding as to why they're loved, right?
	Because if you kind of don't know why the person's with you, then you're going to be more prone to jealousy, right?
	Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
	But if you're secure, yeah, if you know that you're unique, one of a kind, irreplaceable, as valuable to that person as valuable can be, go for it, you know?
	I mean, like the idea that in my life I would place sort of restrictions on my wife's friendships.
	I mean, I'm completely secure in her attraction to me.
	She's completely secure in my attraction to her.
	So, you know, go, you know, I mean...
	Go have, you know, go chat with whoever you...
	I mean, I know, right?
	I know.
	It's like, I can say to people, go listen to other shows.
	You're gonna come back.
	You're gonna come back.
	Because this is sort of a one-of-a-kind conversation.
	So, I think most people in relationships don't know why the person's with them.
	I mean, why on earth did most people get together?
	Well...
	Cute and funny?
	Cute and funny.
	Sexy.
	Seemed stable.
	At the time.
	Until they got to the second half of the Blank Space video.
	And, you know, was the same religion?
	My friends liked him?
	I mean, most people don't have a clue why they are with the person that they're with.
	And because of that, there's no security, right?
	The number of people who really commit to virtue no matter what the cost, which is the necessary prerequisite for even the possibility of love, the number of people who commit to virtue no matter what are very few.
	One in a thousand, one in ten thousand, maybe.
	Maybe.
	I mean even people who listen to this show, you know, hundreds of thousands or millions of people who listen to this show, Very few of them ever donate, right?
	Which is sort of the basic integrity.
	I'm not going to nag you guys about it.
	Don't tell me.
	But, you know, that sort of basic integrity thing.
	I mean, even people really interested in a show about philosophy and integrity...
	Don't donate to what they consume and so that's a subsection of people really interested in ethics and philosophy and of those you know half a percent or a quarter of a percent of them end up donating.
	So the number of people who want to be virtuous and live and act in a virtuous way is tiny and if my theory is correct that love is our involuntary response to virtue in action if we are virtuous ourselves the number of people who know why the hell they're banging someone It's like one in a hundred thousand.
	Maybe.
	That's very generous.
	So most people, you know, their balls are like pinballs.
	I don't know how old you guys are, if this makes any sense to you.
	This is kind of an old school metaphor.
	But they're just ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, bouncing around the flippers and so on.
	Hey, I landed on this person.
	Let's get married.
	Yeah, there's an old joke about a woman in a subway...
	You know, wants to meet a man and it's really hard to meet a man on the subway.
	I mean, what do you say?
	Well, now that our groins have been mashed together for 45 minutes, want to start a family?
	So, the number of people who are together for reasons they can't conceivably fathom out.
	Available vagina!
	Man, my friend's thought was cute.
	I mean, they just don't have any clue why they're together.
	And they don't work at building and maintaining love and connection and intimacy and virtue.
	And so everyone else, I mean, they're replaceable, right?
	They're completely replaceable.
	Again, not to over lean on the comedians, but Jerry Seinfeld's got a bit about marriage.
	You know, guys and women are all looking, guys all look the same.
	Guys are completely interchangeable in a marriage, right?
	So that's why the bride has said, do you take this guy to be your lawful wedded husband?
	And if the groom doesn't show up, everyone just take, all the guys just take one step over and completely interchangeable.
	And that's true for a lot of people.
	They're interchangeable.
	And whatever virtues they may possess, like, oh, they're young, they're hot, they're sexy, full head, whatever, can fade and will fade over time.
	And so if you don't know in any fundamental secure way why your husband or your wife is with you, And you get that you're kind of replaceable.
	Human blob could be replaced with interchangeable other human blob.
	You know, that protozoa is totally unique.
	All the other ones are, right?
	I mean, then you're going to be kind of paranoid.
	And then you're going to be like, oh, God, he's friends.
	He's friends with another woman.
	I'm interchangeable with her.
	So I better put a barrier between any other woman.
	You can't be friends.
	It's all saying, right?
	It's just all they're saying is the food's not any better at my restaurant.
	So I'm going to put down the other restaurants in the hopes of keeping you here.
	Interesting.
	Did you want to tell him about your conversation with Michael?
	Because I thought that was very interesting.
	Oh, yes.
	Not you, Mike.
	Interesting.
	Not me!
	But let's move on.
	So I have a very good friend, and we're friends.
	It's a couple, and both my husband and I are really good friends with them.
	But they live a little while away.
	Hang on, sorry.
	So this is an F buddy, but a friend buddy, right?
	Right.
	Okay, got it.
	Yes, yes.
	So I have this friend who lives far away, and my husband and I are mutually friends with them as a couple.
	She actually introduced us.
	Yes.
	And so they know us very well.
	There's nothing to fear.
	I mean, she did have nothing to fear in my friendship with her husband.
	And it just struck me one day as I was talking to her on the phone long distance, you know, I never talked to Michael.
	I really should call him sometime and just see how he's doing.
	It just didn't...
	It's not something I'd thought of to do before.
	And then I just was prompted to ask, are you okay with that?
	Would that be okay if I call him?
	And she kind of hesitated.
	And I was really surprised.
	I was really surprised.
	And I'm like, what do you mean?
	And she said, well, I... She's like, it's not anything about you, but I just think that you're such a reassuring and encouraging person that it could jeopardize my relationship with my husband.
	And I was just stunned.
	You see, Liz, you're so friendly.
	You're so nice that all men will assume that means you want to have sex with them.
	If you open your mouth, you might as well be opening your legs.
	This is how dangerous men are, you see.
	If a woman is nice to a man, by God, she must want it bad.
	Yes.
	And so I was, oh, come on.
	I was like, okay, put Michael on the phone right now.
	I want to talk to him.
	And so she put him on the phone.
	I was like, Michael, have I ever done or said anything That would make you think that I was coming on to you or doing anything inappropriate.
	And he just, he's like, well, there was one time when you asked me what kind of music I wanted to listen to.
	And I just thought it was really strange because like, why would you care about what kind of music I'd like to listen to?
	And I'm just sitting there going, are you kidding me?
	I'm just being friendly and you're thinking this is strange.
	Actually, that's just considerate, right?
	Exactly.
	But I wonder, what do you think, Liz?
	Do you think that he thought this, or do you think he mentioned this to his wife, and his wife was like, whoa.
	I'm not sure.
	But I'm finding more and more, as my husband and I have a very good relationship, and he's helped me a lot to just kind of come into my own and Become a little bit more independent.
	I grew up in an extremely patriarchal kind of background.
	My parents literally didn't believe that it was worthwhile giving me an education.
	I come from this very male-dominated background.
	I must say, you have a gorgeous voice for somebody who's 480 years old.
	I mean, that's...
	That's really quite amazing.
	I mean, normally people get kind of creaky.
	You know, they sound like that woman who sings Little Boxes for Weeds.
	I mean, so good.
	Whatever you're doing with your voice, man, keep doing it.
	No, I mean, it's just a very...
	Are you a vampire?
	I must know.
	It was a very interesting, you know, subculture that I grew up in.
	And so coming away from that and kind of interacting with the real world...
	Wait, let me guess.
	Was it not entirely distant from our Lord Jesus Christ?
	Oh, it was definitely Christian fundamentalist, yes.
	Yeah, I think I would go with fundamentalist more than patriarchal.
	You know, just myself, because I think that was probably a little bit more of a consideration, right?
	The religion.
	Well, the only reason why I actually say patriarchal is because they took pride in using that word.
	So, like, they literally talk in terms of patriarchs of the family.
	Yeah.
	It's something that they take pride in.
	It's a very, very deep, deep, deep subculture far within fundamentalism.
	And it was a patriarchy of one, just like an army of one.
	When I first met Liz and had an opportunity to meet their family, I was shocked at this guy that was running his family.
	Yeah.
	There were some things that I observed, I won't go into them, because we're probably being recorded, but it was interesting.
	So what I've tried to do for Liz is essentially allow her to be her own person over, I mean, we've been married several years now, and that's what has sparked a lot of these conversations of, well,
	I don't have any problem with you being friends with other people, but They seem to weird out on it, and hence the question is, the men that Liz has become friends with throughout the business and work that she's doing, it's just like, I don't have a problem with it because we're stable in our relationship, but why are other people...
	There seems to be this reaction like, I can't talk to you because you're pretty.
	And there's no other option than to immediately want to go somewhere with this.
	Wrong.
	Wait, sorry.
	Sorry, go ahead, Liz.
	Oh, I was just saying, it's not necessary.
	The men really enjoy...
	I mean, I have some...
	I've cultivated some good, healthy relationships with other men that do not in any way go in an inappropriate place.
	But it makes their wives uneasy.
	And it's, so I'm kind of thinking more and more along the lines, back to the original question is, can men and women be just friends?
	Well, I'm wondering if this is not, this question is even, it's just divisive.
	It's something that women specifically, not just women, but I'm seeing that women like to use this to keep women away from their men.
	Or, I don't know, just keep the sexes apart.
	I'm not sure.
	Let me ask you a question, though.
	And I think you're right.
	But Liz, and Caleb, of course, do you think that the women are trying to keep other women away from their husbands, or are they trying to keep everyone away from their husbands?
	That is an interesting point.
	Something that I have wondered about as well is that by keeping men away from other women, it's kind of this idea that you're basically ending up from keeping them from having intimate relationships.
	Because men have a really hard time with that just because of the culture we live in.
	Sorry, have a hard time with what?
	Having deeper relationships with other people in general.
	Because in the culture we live in, it's kind of strange for men to be Really close to each other.
	No.
	I'm sorry.
	I think that's a cliche, and I don't think that's true.
	I know more men who have deeper...
	This is just my personal anecdote, so I can't prove it.
	But I know more men who have deeper relationships than I know women who have deeper relationships.
	Again, that's just...
	I think there is this kind of stereotype that because female...
	Girl-on-girl intimate action called conversation, social intercourse, is considered to be the norm or the standard.
	And if men aren't doing that, it's not intimacy, if that makes sense.
	But if men are talking philosophy or politics or having debates, it's very intimate.
	I mean, this is your deepest thoughts about how the world should work and so on.
	But women look at that and say, like, I remember I had a girlfriend who would listen to me talk to a male friend of mine who's an econ professor and And we'd be talking about ideas, thoughts, philosophy, and economics, and so on.
	And I'd hang up the phone after we'd been talking with my friend for an hour, and she'd be like, but you guys didn't talk about anything that was real or anything that was personal or anything.
	I'd be like, yeah, we did.
	We really did, because that's where our hearts and minds are.
	No, we didn't sit there and complain about other men or whatever.
	Sort of put this cliche of the stitch and bitch or the The pecking party or whatever.
	So we didn't complain.
	We didn't whine.
	We didn't, you know, talk about thoughts and feelings that don't particularly lead anywhere or complain about the same things that we're never going to change, which is a cliche, but some element sometimes.
	I think that male intimacy is not broken female intimacy, and female intimacy is not broken male intimacy.
	We just have different brains and needs and requirements in some ways.
	So I don't know that men have this huge and great difficulty being intimate.
	I think it's just defined, like women look at that and say, well, that's not intimate.
	In the same way that men can look at women's conversations and, you know, sooner stuck on a shotgun than do another five minutes.
	It's just different needs and requirements of the genders.
	Does that make any sense?
	That's not proven.
	I'm just a thought.
	No, that does make sense.
	And that's, I think, a good way to look at it, actually.
	I tend to have those kinds of conversations with people in general.
	I think that another factor might be that I really enjoy talking about more philosophical ideas and abstract things.
	And I have to say that it's very rare that I find women that I really, really enjoy talking to because they just don't have that interest.
	I mean, I have lots of friends that are men and women.
	I'm a very friendly person.
	I enjoy people in general.
	But it is true that I find that Those particular conversations are usually in the men's territory for whatever reason.
	Yeah, and I think that they are very intimate conversations to talk about right and wrong and good and bad and government and private and economy.
	These are very personal deep issues that have massive effects on society and people's lives and so on.
	I think this show has got a fairly broad Subject matter.
	We will talk about intimacy and emotional issues.
	And we also talk about intellectual issues and political issues, economic issues.
	But I think that your experience I'd like to know more about in terms of the difference you see between male and female conversations.
	If you could just tell me more about what you've experienced.
	Well, let's see.
	In what particular way?
	Well, so I was sort of doing a little bit about...
	So there's a cliche that men talk about thoughts but not feelings and women talk about feelings but not thoughts.
	Or men talk about abstract things they can never change and women talk about things that they could personally change but never will.
	You know, it's just these general cliches that men very rarely get together to complain about their feelings.
	Girlfriends or wives, but, you know, put four women into a room together who are married, and you'll get six or seven negative opinions of men in the space of as many seconds, and particularly their husbands.
	So what's your experience been of the differences in conversation styles between talking to men and talking to women?
	Well, you know, people are so different, and I guess...
	I mean, it's good to hear from you saying, just reminding me again that we don't want to fall into cliches because you're right.
	I mean, men, they just interact differently.
	I'd say in my own experience with women, it's usually, I basically had to learn how to have small talk.
	It's not something that I naturally am good at.
	I've had to really work on it.
	I grew up And again, you know, I came from an interesting background that's not normal.
	But the kind of background that I came from, the women talked about cleaning the house and taking care of the children and baking the food and, you know, the womanly things.
	And the men would sit in the next room and they would talk about philosophy and theology and various things.
	I know this sounds like I'm from the 1800s or something, but...
	That's really the way it happened, and I would, I grew up...
	1800s, yes.
	AD, no.
	Basically, I mean, I grew up kind of being guilted that I didn't want to sit with the women.
	It was something I had to work on to be able to enjoy.
	And so it's something that I just, I'm naturally drawn to Learning more about how the world works and how to improve the world and how to achieve the goals that I have set for my life, which have changed actually quite a bit since I left that environment.
	And I think that women, for whatever reason, they...
	They have a harder time going there.
	And I'm not really sure why I haven't figured this out.
	There are...
	I have a few very close girlfriends who enjoy these kinds of conversations and kind of have a similar experience.
	And it's interesting because a lot of them will tell me that when they were growing up, they didn't really...
	They played with the boys.
	They didn't have very many girlfriends.
	And so I don't know why this is, why I'm fitting into this very specific...
	Group of women when it comes to those that I especially enjoy, but it's just kind of the way it's happened.
	Right.
	I mean, I can share a couple of thoughts.
	I don't know the why, but I can share a couple of thoughts about the why briefly.
	And you tell me if it makes any sense.
	I didn't even tell you your own experience as a woman, but...
	So look at the tribe.
	I always go back to the tribe, which is a good place to look.
	It's not always the last place to look, but go back to the tribe.
	So in the tribe, men competed and women cooperated because competition was how men gained resources to get to the eggs, right?
	Woman gives up eggs for resources, man brings resources, woman has enough to feed the children unless she's generally disabled from the age of 13 to 35 or so, having endless rounds of children and breastfeeding and so on.
	So men compete and women cooperate because you can't Really compete with other women in child raising, but child raising requires a lot of cooperation As does sort of the local agriculture as opposed to the hunter-gathering stuff that the men did the local agricultural stuff broadly speaking would fall more under cooperation and So for me when men argue and debate and so on they're reenacting the competition aspect of what defines masculinity in its fundamental way
	and When women cooperate, then they are acting upon the cooperation requirement that was the recipe for genetic success, for sexual success and selection and so on.
	And so I've sort of found that men are much more comfortable with conflict because, you know, boys grow up having conflicts and having sometimes even physical fights, which then get smoothed over and you kind of continue.
	Whereas when girls turn on each other, man, I mean, it's pretty vicious and can escalate.
	And I think it would be a hugely great thing if in the long run girls...
	Got more comfortable with conflict and boys got more comfortable with cooperation.
	That's just a very general thing.
	I don't know the degree to which it's innate or cultural.
	I think it's worth doing.
	I work hard to make my daughter comfortable with conflict.
	When we have conflict, we stand, we talk about it, we figure out what happened and how to resolve it in a win-win way so that she doesn't view conflict as something uncomfortable to be...
	Avoid it.
	And this is why often I think with women, there's a kind of lowest common denominator.
	So whoever sets the bar the lowest, other women generally won't confront that person.
	Because again, if you rely upon your neighbor women in the next mud hut, so to speak, you rely upon your neighbor women for 30 years or for 20 years to help you raise your kids, you can't alienate them.
	And you can't really piss them off, which is why when men start arguing, women will leave and go and do something cooperative, you know, like tidy the dishes or sit and chat in the back porch or whatever it is going to be.
	I think it would be hugely great for women to get better at conflicts because I think one of the reasons why women are often so aggressive with children is because they don't know how to productively handle conflicts.
	This is, I think, why the divorce rate is so often initiated by women.
	It's not able to handle conflicts without this escalation because they know that if they're going to get into a conflict with another woman in a tribe, it's going to be significantly win-lose.
	It could split the tribe.
	So there's a conflict avoidance, I think, That goes on among women, which is why they go with small talk, because you can't get into much conflict over small talk.
	Sure as cold for this time of year is not going to spark off any kind of jihad, right?
	Whereas men are more comfortable with that kind of conflict because they're more practiced at, particularly through aggressive win-lose kinds of Sports whether individual or team they know how to Crash into each other at full speed and then shake hands and go for a pop Afterwards to to want to win win win and then still to win lose and then still be friends afterwards So I think that may have something to do with the fact that why so few women?
	are in Conflict-based disciplines, but are more in cooperative-based disciplines, like nursing and teaching.
	It'll be cooperative.
	Whereas, you know, the hard sciences and so on, you know, the table-thumping CEO kind of stuff is not, I think, comfortable for a lot of women because there's this avoid conflict at all costs and so on.
	So I don't know if that accords with anything that you've experienced or thought, but those are my thoughts on it.
	Well, that's actually really...
	Really interesting and not something that I have thought about before.
	And actually, it does help because one of the other things that I've gotten a lot recently is women telling me that I'm intimidating.
	Because you're willing to talk about things which there would be disagreement with, right?
	I guess so.
	I've tried to figure out exactly what it was.
	I wasn't sure if it was okay.
	Is it because...
	I can have a really good conversation with your husband.
	Is it because you think I'm prettier than you?
	What is the deal here?
	Because I will literally be able to have a conversation.
	This has happened.
	I'll be having a conversation with my husband and another guy, and the wife is standing off to the side steaming and jealous of my conversation.
	And I haven't been able to figure out why this is happening.
	And again, because of my background, I'm kind of trying to figure all this out.
	It's new to me to have the idea that I should be more independent, that I should be having conversations with men, that I should be expanding my horizons and my self-knowledge.
	All of that Is something that I've been working on for the past seven years in a way that I was never given even the opportunity to growing up.
	So that's part of the reason why this question has been on my mind because I've recently reached a different kind of a new level.
	I'm involved in politics locally and it's It's just brought this to a whole new level now where women act really strange around me and I haven't been able to really figure out what was going on.
	Right, right.
	And if there is a sort of rule among women to think small, live small and avoid conflict as much as possible, Then that, I think, could be one of the reasons why there's sort of intimidation, because you're kind of going against the rules of cooperation at all costs, right?
	Right, and that's exactly what I've been feeling, is that somehow I'm going against a society rule.
	And here I grew up thinking that it was the men that were trying to keep women in their place, and I'm really, really not thinking that anymore.
	It seems to me, I mean, sure, there are misogynistic men out there, but There are also a lot of women who are very intimidated by other women and are extremely territorial, and they'll do anything to keep what's theirs.
	Right.
	Right.
	Now, and what I've seen as well is isolation of men.
	And This, you know, the soul, and just generalized statements, and this certainly does not apply to all or maybe even most relationships, but I have sort of found that in relationships that I had prior to my marriage, there was a lot of subtle criticism and intervention and opposition to other relationships that I had.
	If I had other relationships, doesn't matter with who, It was kind of like I was being unfaithful.
	Like I just, I had to come and spend time with the woman and I had to spend time with her.
	And if I wasn't doing that, that was something wrong.
	There was something wrong with that.
	And I found this kind of claustrophobic after a while.
	Like we're not sort of walking side by side through life hand in hand.
	We're just sort of staring at each other, not blinking and really not getting anywhere.
	And what I found out eventually, and it's embarrassing how long it took, but you know, without social support, it's hard to reinvent the wheel.
	But what I found out was that the crazier the woman, the more I was isolated.
	Liz, I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but where the woman was not acting in a positive, rational, loving way, the less she wanted me to spend time with other people.
	And this is, abusers really want to isolate.
	They're victims, so to speak.
	And I found that this opposition to me having relationships was really to keep me isolated.
	Because my girlfriends would not want...
	It's not all of them.
	But my girlfriends would not want me to be around other people who then say, she's kind of crazy.
	Right?
	Because, you know, I might talk about the relationship.
	Yes.
	I do know a few women like that.
	I also know a few men like that.
	So I would say it's definitely...
	I'm not sure if it's just an insecurity thing.
	I mean, that's my dad all over, and he's a sociopath.
	I mean, there's different levels of crazy, I guess, and different reasons why people would be holding on to their man or woman so tightly.
	Right.
	I'm sorry to...
	I thought of a poem that I wrote many years ago.
	This is not about you, but this is about this idea of the conformist woman.
	And this is, I was thinking more of women in Arabic countries and so on, but I'll read it to you and tell me what you think.
	I wrote it many years ago.
	And the poem is called Just Until Born a free soul She reared to her father Bowed to her husband, flowed over her son.
	Rising early and young, she had warmed the coffee over the only fire she knew and woke her masters with gentle apologies, averted eyes and downcast breasts.
	A piece of perfect self-made plumbing The waters of her life disappeared without a murmur, sure that in the sewers would be her reward.
	One cold morning in a distant home, when the angel of procrastination came, she fled toward her reward.
	And just before there was nothing left to find, she found no banquet for the starved, no crown for the abdicated.
	And far too late, she railed against the chilling regret of quietly discharged atoms.
	So for me, and I was thinking because of the religious history, this idea that you'll get your rewards later, sister.
	You know, you are a subject to the man as the man is subject to God.
	You'll get your reward later.
	And I think at the end, I think there's this great, you realize we're not tumbling into heaven, the chilling regret of quietly discharged atoms.
	Hey, you had your life!
	You're discharged!
	And I really like the idea, not to praise my own poem too much, but I really like the idea, or found it powerful, that heaven is an angel of procrastination.
	When the angel of procrastination came, That after your death you will get your reward.
	That death is the angel of procrastination.
	I really like that.
	Anyway, so I think that there is a lot of deferral in the lives of women and you'll be happier later.
	I think you're right.
	Absolutely.
	I think that to a certain extent that's what women think that they're supposed to do.
	And there's value in it, you know, in the long past.
	There's value in it.
	But we don't need it anymore.
	We have voluntarism, whereas before we had tribalism.
	I mean, we have that in the economy, we have that, and we're trying to get it in the family, at least through this show, and we are really trying to get that.
	Yes.
	It actually really reminds me of my mom.
	My mom, as I said, she's married to a sociopath and she just has this idea that she's doing the right thing and she's just got to hang in there and stay with her man.
	And she's done this to the detriment of all of her children.
	And I'm the oldest of seven, so there's a lot of kids.
	And every single one of her children have suffered.
	And she, I mean, my youngest sibling is still, let's see, 12.
	So, you know, she's had her, she's had me, like me, I'm the oldest, tell her, Over many years now that she's destroying her family and that she's hurting her children.
	And she knows it.
	She just stands by her man and says, well, this is what I'm supposed to do.
	And it is a level of insanity at this point where you just...
	So many horrible things have happened because of this that she...
	I don't know if she could ever change.
	Yeah, I think once you sacrifice to a certain degree, questioning that sacrifice becomes, I think, almost practically impossible.
	Yeah.
	But this is the idea, is that I know at one point I've heard through friends and Other family members that there was a time in their early marriage where she was really struggling and she was talking about needing help or that maybe she would need to leave him.
	And I don't know what he did or how he did it.
	I have some ideas.
	But the longer she hung in there, the worse it got.
	And she just has had this idea drilled into her For the longest time, from my dad and by the people that they have surrounded themselves with, that this is her job.
	This is who she is.
	Her job is to, I mean, be submissive to her husband is what they would say, but really it's just enabling him.
	Right.
	So, yeah, when it comes to...
	There is, in religiosity, of course, and this is a huge topic, which we don't have time for tonight, but within religiosity, there is an incredibly complicated relationship to sexuality, some of which I think is hard-won wisdom that is worth remembering, and other is the paranoid competition of...
	The conflict between abstract divinity as the source of life and squishy sex as the source of life.
	You know that because in religiosity this is this platonic abstract purity As the highest of the high, the opposite of the body, the opposite of the material, the opposite of mortal, the opposite of finite, the opposite of humanity is the ideal and it is considered to be the highest and most powerful and most perfect and most wonderful and ideal thing to be the opposite of what human beings are.
	And what is the highest form of procreation?
	In the Christian mythology, the Virgin Mary.
	By God, thank God, finally, we can have a baby without all that awkward sex stuff.
	Right?
	Because the source of life is supposed to be non-physical, but life is raw and squishy and messy and bloody and very, very physical.
	And that's all it is.
	No body, no person.
	And so I think that there's this real tension between the animal and the divine as these two opposite poles, one of almost which creates the other.
	It is a horror of the body that has people flee into the abstract, abstractions of divinity.
	And it is the abstractions of divinity that further create a horror of the body.
	And so I think sexuality is a far better, I mean infinitely better, source of life than a divinity, a deity which doesn't even exist.
	And so I think that there's this real tension.
	It's called the mind-body dichotomy, and it's been explored by 10 billion thinkers, so I won't go into much detail.
	But I do think that that aspect of sexuality, where sexuality is considered to be, it's a curse, right?
	Work for men and childbirth, which really is sex, sex and childbirth for women, is a curse that Adam and Eve bring upon themselves by disobeying God.
	You know, you're so bad, you get an orgasm.
	I don't remember that from boarding school.
	But I think that horror and opposition to sexuality, because it is anti-divine, fundamentally, is a foundational part of a lot of religious...
	Opposition to control of paranoia about sexuality.
	Sexuality is a distasteful way and a necessary but distasteful way of creating more adherence to the faith.
	You know, in England, it was like, well, just lie back, ladies, and think of England, because she needs soldiers, so put up with your husband's mauling.
	And so there has, I think, in religion...
	It's been this horror and opposition to and fear of sexuality.
	That, I think, is the negative side.
	The positive side is that religion has, at least in its weird way, a proper respect for the power of sexuality.
	You know, as we talked about on the show, it's a big person's game that makes real people that don't go away.
	And...
	So I think that the respect for sexuality and the involvement in the elder generation in helping to channel sexuality towards its intended purpose, which is pair bonding for the creation of the next generation.
	You know, I mean everybody uses it like some recreational drug and I get that.
	I understand it's great fun, but fundamentally it feels good so that you pair bond with someone so you could raise the next generation.
	It's not your personal toy.
	And when you use it as your personal toy you tend to get STDs and screwed up broken hearts and unwanted pregnancies and abortions.
	So I think that The elder generation's interest in and channeling, sometimes obviously over control, but channeling of youthful sexuality towards its intended purpose was a positive aspect of religion.
	But I think that the negative, creepy, weirdo, horror stuff around sexuality that informs so much of religious thinking, particularly fundamentalist religious thinking, I think it's...
	It's too jagged a pill to get the benefits.
	And I think a more philosophical and rational approach to sexuality would do that.
	I mean, fundamentally, the elder generation gave up controlling or channeling youthful sexuality towards its intended goal when the welfare state meant that your pregnant daughter wouldn't have to live with you for the next 20 years, right?
	You wanted to get your daughter married or you'd make the daughter marry whoever got her pregnant so that they could go off and have their own life and you wouldn't have to have your daughter raise her kid in your house without a dad and cost you another quarter million dollars and sleepless nights and your daughter would never get married then.
	So when the negative consequences of irresponsible sexuality accrued to parents, they were invested and involved in and a lot of that was analogized or metaphorized through religion.
	In channeling youthful sexuality in a productive way through the hard-won wisdom of needing to keep the families together and so on, that sex is not a toy, but the awesome power of something that even a fictional god can't do, which is create life.
	The welfare state took all of that away, and people were kind of relieved and all that.
	So I just sort of wanted to pass that along, that I think that Where religion has some value in terms of sexuality, it is in reminding us what a powerful and foundational force It is.
	And where I think it goes awry is viewing it with that peculiar aesthetic horror of, oh my god, how could a deity possibly have involved these squishy, ugly, smelly things in making a life and all that sort of thing?
	There's only ejaculate.
	There's no soul.
	So I think that there's some value that you may have gotten out of that.
	But I think this hyper-control of sexuality and the horror of it is too much.
	So when it comes to having relationships and friendships with people of the opposite sex, do you think that there is anything that we can do to, I don't know, help these relationships grow in healthy ways?
	Well, I have them.
	I mean, I have friendships with women of the opposite sex.
	I mean, I have friendships with women that are an important and happy part of my life.
	I mean, there's no problem, there's no issue, there's nothing like that.
	It could be because we're all so freaking old, but no, I don't think that's it.
	But I remember what a penis looked like.
	But I think that, yeah, of course you can have relationships with people of the opposite sex and not have any sexual tension, but enjoy them for the thoughts and virtues and intelligence that they bring.
	To your life.
	So, you know, I'm completely in agreement with you that if you have the right people around you, then that is fantastic.
	You know, if you have, you know, creepy, grabby, Uncle Spanky fingers around you, then that probably isn't going to be particularly great.
	And there are, of course, people who are monomaniacal when it comes to sex.
	Like, I don't know if you've ever met these kinds of people.
	I generally give them a quick taser and head for the sewers.
	But, you know, the kind of people like everything becomes a sexual innuendo and everything, you know, it's just like, you know, there's more of them around when you're young, but they tend to peter out, so to speak, as they get older.
	But, you know, if you're a reasonably mature person and you're confident and secure in your romantic sexual relationship in your marriage, yeah, I have female friends.
	Often it's with married couples and so on, but that I've hanged out with either solely or have conversations with solely.
	Great people and happy to have them in my life.
	And we are friends and friends alone.
	And so I'm with you.
	I think it's perfectly feasible, but I think it requires a great deal of rational security in your romantic relationship.
	That makes sense.
	Do you think that there's anything that we can do to help our children towards these This kind of thinking as they're growing.
	I mean, I... I don't know.
	I wonder if part of the reason why so many people struggle with this is because of things in their background.
	And I know I have a kind of a unique background.
	And that's...
	In some ways, I think it's actually helped me.
	Because when I was growing up, literally, like, you couldn't even have...
	You couldn't barely talk to another person of the opposite sex.
	And if you did...
	It had to be absolutely above board and you had to say exactly what you were thinking and it couldn't go in any way inappropriate.
	So I have a lot of experience being just friends.
	I'm very good at it.
	I know when things are going the wrong way.
	I know how to turn them the other way.
	I'm wondering if that's just not something that many people have been taught.
	And I think that it was It's definitely taught me to an extreme and it wasn't necessarily always a good thing.
	But it is something in my experience that I've wondered if it is influencing the way I interact with people now.
	I may have lost the thread of that question.
	I do apologize.
	I just want to make sure I'm not inventing a question that works for me.
	Could you just summarize that?
	Oh, sure.
	I'm just saying that I'm looking at my husband here going, did that make sense?
	It did in isolation, but I'm still not sure exactly what to answer.
	It could be me completely, so don't worry about that, but just make sure I get it.
	Sure.
	I'm just saying, I'm wondering if part of the reason why I interact with people on this level, and it's very easy for me, is because to a certain extent, that's just how I grew up.
	Literally, we had to be very careful about how we spoke to each other.
	It had to be very above board.
	I mean, My parents wanted me to court and or be betrothed.
	So it was just it was in our culture that we didn't we didn't tempt each other.
	And so to a certain extent that was that wasn't good.
	But that that is my experience and I wonder if it is to a certain extent guiding me now.
	But my question was specifically is there are there ways that we can healthily in a healthy way help our kids In this as well to have to have good healthy relationships and ideas of the opposite sex Yeah, I mean I think that just if you have those relationships then your kids will understand that those are the relationships you can have You know, it's like, well, how do you teach your kids English?
	You speak English to them.
	You instruct them in it.
	And so I would say that have those relationships and where there is insecurity on the part of other people about those relationships.
	And look to the partner.
	Look to the partner for the most part.
	I mean, it'd be a fascinating conversation.
	I was thinking about the couple that you had the conversation with, with the guys like, well, you asked me what music I would like to listen to, so obviously you want me.
	Right.
	Tell me more.
	How does this come about in your mind?
	And they'd have to be really ruthlessly honest.
	I'd put a little bit of odds on the woman being uncomfortable with that.
	And the man not so much.
	And so I would explore that and see if that can be sort of teased out.
	And it would be, I think...
	Very important because I think it can show an insecurity and all insecurity is, is an opportunity for improvement.
	That's what insecurity is.
	It's an opportunity for improvement.
	If you care about what you're insecure about, then it is something that is an opportunity for improvement.
	So if this woman is like, well, I don't know, I just, if she's really honest, I felt uncomfortable, but then I heard that you asked that question or whatever, right?
	Maybe she thinks you're prettier.
	Than she is.
	And if that's true, then that's a very, very important thing for them to know, because then she thinks that her husband will choose someone who's prettier.
	And that means that she feels that mere physical attractiveness is what she brings, is the majority of the value she brings to the relationship.
	Well, I don't mean to shock her, but that's going away.
	I think we all know that.
	You know, there's not a lot of Margaret Thatcher pinups.
	You know, I mean, Margaret Thatcher in a bikini thong.
	So, if she feels that the majority of the value that she brings to the relationship is physical attractiveness, then she's going to feel concerned about other women who are physically attractive.
	But that's the least of her problems.
	Mm-hmm.
	Or she might say, well, you know, you are more into the things that he's into.
	Well, what an opportunity to get more into the things that he's into.
	You know, oh, you speak philosophy and I don't really talk about philosophy with him.
	Well, instead of getting upset with you, how about learning how to talk about philosophy with him more?
	So whatever, if it comes from her, then She has an opportunity to examine where she feels she's falling short relative to you and work to close that gap.
	I think that would be great.
	Now if If it's coming from him, right, then he may be giving his wife the vibe that you were coming on to him for some other reason.
	That would be maybe he's feeling that she doesn't find him attractive enough.
	And maybe if he drops hints that some attractive woman finds him attractive, she'll find him more attractive.
	Like, there could be great things to talk about.
	In this context, if there's enough honesty, what a great set of conversations that would be to have.
	And again, I don't know what your relationship is like with these...
	I think I could have that conversation.
	No, I think I could, actually.
	You don't think?
	Oh, good.
	Okay.
	So this has given me some good ideas.
	I mean, that was my reaction when...
	I mean, I was really taken aback because I consider myself very close to these people.
	And there has always been a very trusting relationship here.
	So...
	My first reaction when she said this was, and I didn't say it, but was, well, if you're intimidated because I can talk to him about the things he enjoys and he gets a kick out of that, well, can't you just get interested in those things too?
	Yeah.
	Right.
	No, but no, no, no, no, no.
	Listen.
	Oh, man.
	Listen, Liz.
	You can't say it with that kind of incredulity and superiority.
	Oh, no.
	I wouldn't say it that way.
	Don't take vanity because a lot of times when people say, well, like other people are intimidated by me, there's a kind of vanity in that.
	Now, if you happen to have, if you ever had this nature, I'm not saying that who you are and what you have is not earned and you have no pride in it, but as you said, your background gave you some strengths, right?
	And my background gave me some strengths as well.
	I mean, resistance breeds muscle.
	We know that, right?
	And so, if you, if you, I'm just trying to listen from the other woman's sort of state of mind.
	If you're like, well, why don't you just do this?
	You know, it's like, nails on a blackboard stuff, right?
	Try not to make your strengths, sorry, try not to make your accidents into your strengths.
	Oh, yes, absolutely.
	And certainly try not to make your strengths into accidents either, but that would be my, you know, well, obviously you should just do this is a great way of getting people to never listen to you, right?
	I mean, I try to avoid it myself, right?
	Oh, absolutely.
	I mean, I just mean that's my reaction inside is like, well, come on, just, you just do this.
	But I, yes, I get it.
	It's, um, This is a very tender subject for them, obviously, so I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to approach it, but it will not be in an offhanded or...
	No, and not in a superiority kind of way.
	Like, I can't believe you would think that would be any kind of come on from me.
	I was only talking about...
	Like, that's just a great way to get people to tell you to fuck off in their heart of hearts, even if they nod and listen politely, right?
	So...
	I think curiosity.
	Because if you don't know something about their relationship, that's a deficiency of yours as well.
	And that's the great thing about intimacy is you change someone...
	And your relationship with them simply by learning more.
	That's why intimacy never ends and can be a lifelong pursuit and endeavor.
	And this is why monogamy can be so great.
	So that would be my thoughts and suggestions.
	But yeah, it sounds like you'd have some great conversations about this stuff.
	Thank you.
	This has been a really good time, actually.
	I think this has helped me get some clarity on this.
	Fantastic.
	All right.
	Now, Caleb, thank you for not dominating the conversation totally.
	I try, at least.
	You know, when we first brought it up, I said, well, I don't actually have an answer for you on this one.
	Let's get someone else's opinion here.
	And was it helpful for you, too?
	I mean, we didn't really talk much.
	It was because, you know, it's eye-opening to me in that, you know, there are several factors that go into how people relate to each other.
	And to know that, you know, they're You know, men and women are approaching relationships differently.
	I kind of thought that might be the case that, you know, don't necessarily fear what's going on here because it isn't, you know, a natural thing that's taking place and then try to progress beyond it is kind of what I had a hunch to say, but I didn't really have any, you know, way to think through it in such a fashion.
	So it has helped me from that standpoint.
	I wasn't weirded out by her question.
	We actually didn't live in the same state when we met each other, so we spent a lot of time on the phone and I got to know her intellectually.
	Over the same century.
	Over the same century for that matter.
	But we had a lot of great conversations, and she's very intellectual from that.
	And I was thinking earlier in the conversation that I kind of lucked out because I don't just have someone who just wants to clean the house and shut their brain off all the time.
	It's challenging and rewarding to me as well.
	But it does help me to know that there are clues that I can pick up on for relating to other people.
	Sorry to interrupt.
	After just asking your thoughts.
	Do you have a child or is somebody actually feeding a cat into a blender in the background?
	The baby just woke up.
	We have a child and she is raised in a peaceful parenting method.
	Yay!
	But she screams when she wakes up because she wants to let us know it's time to go get her.
	It's a compliment.
	It's a compliment.
	It really is.
	Well, listen, go take care of your baby.
	You guys are delightful and thank you so much for calling in.
	A very, very enjoyable conversation.
	Please feel free to call back anytime.
	Wonderful.
	Thanks, Steph, for the time.
	Yeah, thank you.
	All right.
	This is an unrelated poem.
	Just before we get on to the next one, I kind of like it.
	I wrote this 24 years ago.
	Oh, Lord!
	I have to read this in my Crypt Keeper voice.
	And the poem is called...
	It's very short.
	It's called Come On Back!
	Bang!
	Life is a hole shot through water.
	Gone in its passage.
	Its only note a widening frown.
	A universal itch of outlaw atoms out on parole.
	The greatest gang can only rob once.
	I like that idea that...
	We borrow these atoms to bring them to life, but we only get that theft once.
	All right, Mike, we got another caller?
	I would comment on the poem stuff, but I'm incredibly jealous that you were talking to Caleb.
	So I'm just going to move on to the next caller.
	Why were you jealous that I was talking to Caleb?
	Not allowed to have other male friends.
	Oh, yeah.
	I mean, did you hear him coming on to me?
	I wasn't going to say anything, but my God, it was pretty clear and obvious.
	Come on now.
	Unbelievable man whore.
	Undressing you with his voice.
	Oh my goodness.
	Yeah, well, that's understandable.
	Up next is Jordan.
	Jordan wrote in and said, I'd like to talk to Steph about the philosophical topic of which I feel a bit confused.
	The topic is the definition of the word exist.
	He said government doesn't exist, and most recently rights do not exist.
	I think the first time I was bothered by this is when he gave the analogy of a forest, that a forest doesn't exist, it's just a collection of trees.
	My question for him is, what is the definition of existence?
	I'm sorry, what was your name?
	Jordan.
	Hi.
	Jordan.
	How are you doing, Jordan?
	I'm doing well.
	Alright.
	Do you think that the definition of existence would be different for philosophy than it would be for, say, physics?
	I don't think so.
	No, I don't think so either.
	I don't think so either.
	So to me, existence is matter and energy.
	Or you could say the effects thereof, right?
	Like gravity doesn't exist as a thing, but you can measure its effects through mass, through its effects on mass.
	So matter and energy or the effects thereof, that's existence.
	And I think, I'm not a physicist or scientist, of course, but I think that's probably not way outside the boundaries of physics either.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, I totally agree.
	And I'm with you there.
	I talked in this email that I sent in about how I would cringe whenever you'd say this thing or that thing doesn't exist.
	Wait, wait, cringe.
	Tell me the cringe thing.
	I'm sorry to interrupt you, and I promise you I'll get right back to that.
	The cringe thing.
	I see this comment occasionally, like, you do this and I cringe.
	I'm not sure what that means.
	Is it you high?
	Is it you allergic?
	I mean, what's the cringe?
	Is that a way of infecting me with a sense of embarrassment?
	I don't know if I quite understood that one.
	Well, it's the same feeling I used to get when you would talk about religion, where I'd be like, I'm going to turn this off.
	I'm not sure when you say, but you're really explaining a lot to me.
	Well, that doesn't get across the feeling that I don't want to hear this right now is, I guess, the best way to explain it.
	It's a feeling.
	It's a feeling that there's something wrong.
	Sorry to interrupt, Jordan.
	But for me, and this could be a bit of a British thing, to me, cringe-worthy in England meant that what you're doing is so embarrassing.
	Well, no.
	You think you're some great singer, and you get up there to sing Superstition, and you sound like the aforementioned cant in a blender.
	From the last call, it's cringeworthy.
	Or a comedian who's just steadfastly unfunny.
	How about that airline food?
	What's up with that?
	I mean, it's cringeworthy.
	So when people say, when you do this, I cringe, I mean, to me, it seems to come across as if the person is embarrassed for me for making such bad arguments.
	Now, that's probably an Atlantic thing, but anyway.
	Yeah, it's purely an emotional or physical reaction on my part.
	And not embarrassment for you, but it's just like, this doesn't feel right to me, so I'm wanting to go away from it.
	I wanted to get away from this argument or this thing that, oh, religions are bad or something like that.
	I should really thank you because I used to really feel bad when you would talk about religions and God and I was very religious and...
	But I love to listen to you on so much other stuff because I was learning a lot.
	But when you would talk about the religion, I remember a couple times, the first couple times, I would just turn you off.
	I would just be like, I can't do it.
	But I kept listening, and that feeling went away, and I started to evaluate things, and I came around and I understood the truth.
	I understood that...
	You know, you have to look at this world from an epistemological standpoint where you actually get your ideas from reality instead of just trusting ideas that you might not know are real.
	So I came around and I no longer have that feeling when you talk about those particular topics.
	But the reason I opened up my email with that little statement is that I still get that feeling when you talk about things not existing.
	And it hasn't gone away.
	And so I'm calling in to say...
	Hello?
	Hello?
	Oh, what a cliffhanger!
	So finally, I just wanted to mention that I'm calling in to say...
	Are you there?
	I'm here.
	Can you hear me?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Go ahead.
	So you said you were calling in to say...
	To say that that feeling hasn't gone away and that I'm either missing something or there's a way that I'm not understanding what you're explaining or some issue.
	I think I... Yeah, so the word that springs to my mind when I was talking earlier about religion is recoil.
	You recoiled from it.
	Yes, yes.
	That's probably better.
	Okay, and I'm not trying to tell you what your experience is.
	I just want to make sure that we're talking about the same thing because I think...
	Anyway, so...
	So, I can tell you why I think it's bothering you, because there's two ways that you can use the word exist.
	They're not massively compatible, but they're not complete opposites either.
	So, let's say I had a dream about an elephant last night, clearly the dream existed in my mind, right?
	I mean, something had to have changed in my mind.
	Some electrochemical fired and did its thing and so on.
	And you could say the ghost image of an elephant appeared in my mind.
	Oh, you know, let's talk about real dreams.
	I had a dream last night that I was in an airplane.
	It was not a big airplane and it was going like...
	Way up, so high, I thought we were actually going into space.
	And I was waiting for the oxygen mask to come drop it down.
	And then we go plummeting down, not like nose down, but just go down flat into this clouds that was so thick that they looked like snowy mountains.
	And I wasn't scared because it was kind of like a ride, but it made me a little anxious.
	And then we go into the...
	Clouds and we come back up and up and down and then down.
	We went like right above the ocean.
	Anyway, it's just the roller coaster of philosophy.
	But that plane did not exist in the real world.
	But it did exist.
	The dream did exist and the plane in a sense existed to me within the confines of my skull prison of a brain and all that.
	So you can use the word exists in two ways.
	So when I say trees exist, But a forest doesn't.
	The forest is the aggregation of the trees, the concepts that we wrap around the trees that are, you know, within a given geographical area and have at least some degree of similarity, I would assume, or some degree of compatibility.
	The trees exist because they're matter and energy in the world, outside of my head, right?
	In other words, if I'm struck by a meteor, the trees all still exist, right?
	Aha, yeah.
	But if I'm thinking of the word forest, or I'm thinking I'm mulling over a forest as a concept, and the meteor hits me, the forest is gone.
	Because it's just a concept in my head.
	But the trees are all still there, right?
	Right.
	Yes, they are.
	And so when people use the word existence, when I say rights don't exist, I think some people...
	Take that to mean that rights don't even exist as an idea within our heads, and clearly they do.
	Yes, yes.
	But we can't say that an idea in our heads Even tangentially related to the existence of things in the world because then we're back to what's called the ontological proof of God, which is that everything that's in our head must have some reality in the world because we have a concept of God in our head.
	This is very simplified, right?
	Because we have a concept of God in our heads, there must be some existence to a deity outside of our minds.
	And so I can't go to concepts exist.
	For a wide variety of reasons, and there's a whole introduction to philosophy series on YouTube and in the podcast stream about this as 17 or 18 parts if you want to go into more detail, but very briefly.
	Concepts to me, and I think to a rational philosophy, concepts are to instances or things.
	Concepts are to things as theories are to experiments.
	In science, right?
	So, if I have a theory which is contradicted by the experiment, what happens to my theory?
	It goes out the window.
	It's proven false.
	Out the window!
	I mean, it's the theory so bad it probably can't even find the window and just walks into the door.
	Concepts must change and adapt and are forever subject to empirical evidence, right?
	There is no instance in which a theory can trump, supersede, or validly oppose empirical evidence, right?
	Right.
	So they do not exist in the same class because one has infinite dominance over the other.
	The empirical measurements have infinite dominance over...
	The concept.
	Does that make sense?
	Oh, yes.
	There's no way at which I can stare at two coconuts and will them to be three coconuts and have the number create a coconut, right?
	Right.
	That could never happen.
	So, there must be a different category of validity for things in the world and things in my head.
	Because things in the world exist independently of my thoughts, and my thoughts, to be considered accurate, must correctly describe or predict or evaluate the things in the world.
	So, Existence cannot be used in the same way for things in the world and things in our heads because things in our heads are imperfectly derived from things in the world and in any conflict between things in the world and things in our heads, things in the world Don't just win a little bit, don't just win most times, always win all the time in every circumstance.
	So we can't use the word existence, it muddies in a very platonic kind of way, it attempts to assign things in our heads the same kind of metaphysical or metaphysical reality as things outside our heads.
	And that's simply not how science works, it's not how reason works, it's not how empiricism works, and it's certainly not how philosophy.
	So I can't use the same word to describe the elephant in my dream with an elephant in the real world.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yes, it totally makes sense.
	But I still have, I don't know, I guess an issue.
	Good!
	I mean, if I solved it that easily, that would not be good.
	Is there anything else that you wanted to explain as related to that?
	Well, okay, so there are two categories of concepts.
	Okay, there are three categories of concepts.
	The first category is something which accurately describes something in the real world.
	Hey, look, that's an ocean, right?
	Actually, it's just a bunch of H2O atoms and salt and crap like that in a big aggregation, but let's say ocean.
	That's true, it is an ocean, right?
	There is something which could be true, but is not.
	So, or at least is in a state of unproven-ness, right?
	I cannot definitively say that there are no unicorns, if by unicorn we mean horse that could fly with a horn on its head, whatever, right?
	That's a pegasus, I guess, plus a unicorn.
	Horse with horn on its head, right?
	I cannot definitively say that there's no such thing in the entire universe, and no one could ever say that there's no such thing in the entire universe.
	Because you can't look at the whole universe simultaneously and determine the existence or non-existence of what we call a unicorn, right?
	Right.
	And so, because, you know, the universe is, I don't know, what, 15 billion years across or whatever, or 30.
	So you could start at one end, go to the other, and the unicorn could have evolved where you started from.
	So you could never, ever say that there's no such thing as a unicorn.
	So that is a concept that is potentially valid, but is unproven.
	I cannot say there is a unicorn.
	I cannot say there is not a unicorn.
	So in the first, I can say there is a horse.
	We can go and see one.
	We can measure it.
	That is an accurate, true, valid concept and it's proven and so on.
	I can say there were dinosaurs.
	I've seen Joyce Beher.
	Anyway, so in the first category, concepts, boom, we got them.
	They're accurate, they're true about things in the world.
	On the second, it's concepts which could be true.
	But are unproven.
	Does that make sense?
	Yes.
	Third, concepts which cannot be true.
	There will never be a square circle in the universe.
	And please, people, stop emailing me your ridiculously complicated geometrical drawings.
	There are no square circles!
	It is a contradiction in terms.
	There is no place in the universe where two and two will make five.
	Right.
	And so there are, yep, it's proven.
	It could be true.
	It can't be true.
	It is true.
	It could be true.
	It can't be true.
	Those are the three categories of concepts.
	So I just wanted to sort of add that to the mix.
	That last bit that you talked about, I actually watched some videos in preparation for this call, and you ran into that in great detail in episode 743, Do Numbers Exist?
	And so that was great.
	That last thing where you can make a model of something in the real world, you can make a theoretical model, or you can make a model of something that actually can't exist.
	I'm with you there.
	My question then stems into this problem of the forest and the trees.
	It seems to me...
	That if you have a concept forest that can't exist because it's just a concept of an aggregation of trees...
	No, wait, wait, wait.
	See, now we're back to exist, and we've got can't exist.
	In the category of does exist, could exist, can't exist...
	Right?
	Then...
	When we're talking about a forest as an aggregation of trees, well, the trees all individually exist, right?
	And the forest as an aggregation of trees, we're accurately describing the aggregation of trees, but the concept only exists within our own mind.
	In other words, when someone first thought of using the word forest and the concept forest, nothing changed in the forest.
	Nothing changed outside the mind of the first person to think of the word forest, right?
	Right.
	So, given that we now have a concept, but nothing has changed in the outside world, we cannot say that the creation of the concept forest has created anything outside our heads.
	Right.
	Or altered anything outside our heads.
	Or taken anything away outside our heads.
	That's what I mean by does not exist outside our heads.
	The concept can be valid or invalid, but it does not alter anything.
	If all human beings vanish from the world tomorrow, nothing would physically change outside the absence.
	I mean, in the instant, right?
	I mean, there'll be a vacuum or whatever, right?
	But do you know what I mean, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	So now I'm thinking maybe it's just a matter of semantics.
	Because if you take that same...
	What would you call it?
	Strategy?
	The same definition.
	Approach, let's say.
	Approach, yes.
	And you would then apply it to the trees.
	You find that the trees don't exist in the same exact way that the forest doesn't exist.
	And you can apply it ad infinitum down to energy or something.
	Right, because the trees are aggregations of atoms, right?
	Right, exactly.
	Absolutely.
	Tree is a concept, but it's a different category of concept from forest.
	How so?
	Because the trees are physically bound together.
	It's how you know there's one tree or two trees.
	Is there discrete entities that are physically bound together?
	And have clear delineations, right?
	I mean, if you've ever tried to walk through a forest in the dark and had your nose or groin find a tree versus a non-tree space, then you know the trees have, they're physically stuck together and they have very distinct boundaries.
	And the concept forest, well...
	How many trees do you need to make a forest?
	Does it end where the end of the large branch is?
	Or does it end where the shadow of the trees create different foliage or different undergrowth underneath?
	Forests, of course, tend to fade out a little bit.
	They're patchy a little bit.
	And so the concept A forest is not nearly as...
	I mean, there is some differentiation.
	You don't say that a desert is a forest.
	Right.
	But a tree is a very stuck-together thing with very clear delineation between itself and other things.
	But the forest as a whole is not.
	It's not all bound together.
	It's an ecosystem, so you could say it's all sort of guided up together or whatever.
	But it's not stuck together in a physical way the same way that a tree is.
	In the same way...
	You can kill a person, but you can kill a number of people, but you cannot shoot into a crowd and only hit the concept crowd, right?
	Right.
	A physical person is stuck together, you know, which is why I'm keen on maintaining my physical integrity, having other people not borrow organs or, you know, whatever.
	And so a physical person, we're all stuck together.
	And clear delineation, right?
	If you doubt that, you're not going to make a very good boxer, right?
	I hit air, right?
	Or as Muhammad Ali used to say, just because I love quoting Muhammad Ali, man, I'm so fast.
	The other day I switched off the light.
	I was in bed before the light went out.
	So a physical person is stuck together.
	But the concept of crowd is kind of loosey-goosey, right?
	Clearly 10,000 people in a square, it's a crowd.
	Twelve people?
	Probably not.
	Three people?
	No.
	Whatever, right?
	And so it's kind of loosey-goosey.
	And the edges of it aren't physically...
	it can come and go, right?
	It's not something that's strictly defined by physical attachment and by clear delineation between the object and what's not the object.
	I'm having a hard time with this delineation because Couldn't you say— Wait, wait, hang on, hang on.
	Are you having a hard time with what we're talking about now, or are you having a hard time applying this universally, which I admit, obviously, is a challenge?
	Oh, maybe both?
	Let me just explain it.
	Well, no, hang on, hang on.
	Okay, but first, do we at least—you accept that the tree is a stuck-together thing, right?
	No.
	No.
	I'm sorry.
	It's not.
	I'm sorry.
	Okay, no, go for it.
	Tell me more.
	Well, the reason I'm having a hard time is because the tree, I mean, if you scale in, you see that the atoms are extremely far apart and the parts of the atoms are extremely far apart relative to the trees in a forest.
	You know, relative to their size.
	So, since most everything is just empty space...
	Oh wait, sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt you.
	I'm sorry, I'm not trying to trip you up.
	I just want to make sure I understand.
	So, of course, there's massive amounts of space between atoms.
	And what you're saying is the atoms are further apart in a tree than the trees are in a forest.
	Relative to size, yeah.
	Right.
	But it's not the proximity of atoms that gives things solidity, right?
	I mean, the question is, if there's so much space between atoms, why can't I walk through a wall?
	Right, yeah.
	But you know the answer to that, right?
	Which is that there are all these forces, and again, if I go one step further, I'm going to sound even more like an idiot within the realm of science.
	And I read this explanation some time back, but there's all these forces that atoms aren't just like, you know, too...
	I don't know, two nebulae could sweep through each other, and the stars are so far apart, the odds of them influencing each other in a significant degree is pretty tiny, right?
	Right, exactly.
	And they're like two clouds, right?
	But that's not the way, like, stuck-together matter is.
	You can't pass through it because of all the forces binding it together and their effects on each other.
	And I apologize if someone can, Mike, if you can find a better explanation for this or whatever, why can't...
	Atoms widely spaced or why can't I walk through a wall kind of thing, but there is a difference between atoms that are stuck together and Trees which are disparate entities Because you can walk through a forest you can't walk through a tree So it's it's it's kind of like a matter of degree rather than a matter of kind is that Is that accurate?
	Well, I mean, the only thing that exists outside of her head is matter and energy and the effects thereof.
	Yes.
	Right.
	And so, of course, yeah, I mean, you could go right down to the atomic level, but that doesn't mean, because you go down to the atomic level, that there's no difference in the aggregations of atoms.
	Here's something.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	We have this tree that's a thing because its forces bind it together.
	Now, couldn't you say that...
	In fact, I'll make the argument that the government doesn't exist, but I'll make it probably for a different reason than you would make it, because couldn't you say that Societal forces,
	people having motivations for certain reasons and stuff like that, can bind together a certain group of people to the rest of society, the ruling class and everything, into a government and call that thing an entity, an existing thing, because it has forces on the individual players inside of it.
	No.
	I mean, I think I get where you're coming from, but I don't think that belief does not create reality.
	Right?
	Belief does not create reality.
	So, let's say a blind man doesn't think that there's a tree in front of him, and it doesn't register in his consciousness or whatever.
	He doesn't get to walk through that tree, right?
	Right, yeah.
	So, belief or lack of belief does not alter things outside of our mind structure.
	Now, if you believe in voodoo, and I'm a voodoo practitioner, and you see signs that I'm casting some bad spell on you, and that makes you so tense and so worried and so stressed out that you get sick, nothing has actually passed between us in terms of magic, right?
	Yeah.
	And so you could say, well, Is not God that which gets everyone into church on a Sunday morning?
	Well, no.
	I mean, beliefs certainly have an effect on people's behavior.
	Good heavens, just ask the cartoonist at Charlie Hebdo, who themselves fired a cartoonist for making a joke about Jews, but that's a story for another time.
	So, Certainly beliefs have an effect on people's behavior, and it's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy in that the more that people believe that their beliefs actually reference external reality, the more those beliefs are going to have a change and effect on their behavior.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah, totally.
	Right, so the more, like if I just say, well, there's a nice guy down the road who's wise, I'm going to give him a donation at freedomainradio.com slash Donate, let's say.
	But if I believe that the priest's blessing is required to get me into heaven, I'm going to be much more likely to give him resources.
	So he ends up with more...
	I mean, this is why propaganda exists, right?
	Because people's behavior, if they believe that their beliefs represent something real outside their own heads, which is why people get teary-eyed saluting the flag.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	And why people go to war for their country.
	Because they believe that something exists, and it's why people thump on the table and demand their rights!
	Give me that unicorn!
	Actually, it's more like, give me that square circle, but anyway.
	So, there is absolutely a huge effect on behavior from belief systems, no question.
	But that still does not mean that the belief systems are referencing something external and real.
	I mean, to take an extreme example, a paranoid schizophrenic who believes that demons are chasing him might run off a bridge to escape them.
	Right.
	That does not prove the existence of demons.
	No, it doesn't.
	Mike has got us some information.
	Unfortunately, you cannot walk through walls.
	This is because it would violate a basic law of physics that says two things can't share the same space except in a Kardashian sex video.
	But aren't atoms mostly empty space?
	Couldn't you just slip into that space?
	Unfortunately, no.
	It's true that atoms are mostly empty space.
	If a helium atom were the size of the Earth, the electrons would be out in Earth's atmosphere and the protons and neutrons would be the size of a basketball at the core.
	But atoms can't overlap because only a limited amount of electrons can be in the same orbit.
	The reason for this is what's called the Pauli exclusion principle.
	Electrons have spin.
	Picture a screw.
	Its threads go in one direction, right?
	So imagine the screw turning in the direction of its threads like how it screws into a board.
	Now picture placing two screws side by side but pointing in opposite directions.
	Their spins are the reverse of the other.
	And you can get them close together.
	But the poorly exclusion principle only applies to particles like the ones in atoms.
	There are other types of particles, such as the ones that make up light, which can be in the same place at the same time.
	So...
	I hope that helps.
	See if that makes any sense to you.
	I hope that helps.
	I don't have a PhD in anything.
	I didn't quite get the screw thing, because I got Kim Kardashian sex tapes, and then there's lots of screwing, so my brain frits down.
	But...
	There seems to be some...
	Anyway, people can look that stuff up if they want, but I mean, I certainly know I can't walk through walls.
	Right.
	So, yeah, so we were talking about no matter how fervent the belief is and no matter how much people believe that what's in their head is an accurate reflection of what's out there, it is not proof that it is, right?
	It's not.
	No matter how fervently someone believes in the validity of a scientific theory, It does not change the effects of an experiment, his belief, right?
	That's right.
	That's absolutely right.
	And so I would say that the government doesn't exist specifically because what most people think of when they say the word government doesn't actually map onto reality for the most part.
	A benevolent, I don't know, democracy or something.
	No, no, wait, wait, wait.
	Why are you dragging the word reality in here, brother?
	We just went through this whole definitional thing.
	You can't cheat now.
	Oh, reality?
	How is that cheating?
	Because we were just trying to define reality.
	Oh, right.
	I mean, the validity of things that exist in your head versus outside your head, the non-existence of things in your head, or at least you can't use the same word as that which exists outside your head, and we've been talking about atoms and objectivity and science, so you can't just say the reality of government.
	Well, I'm saying that In reality...
	Okay, let's try it again.
	Let me do a quick analogy here.
	A bunch of crazy people all wake up one morning and no longer believe that forests exist.
	Okay.
	Does anything change?
	Nothing changes.
	Right, just their beliefs in their head, right?
	Yeah.
	A bunch of people wake up believing that trees don't exist and start running through the woods, right?
	Right, they get hurt.
	They get hurt, right?
	Now, if they believe that forests don't exist but trees do, nothing changes.
	They're still gonna dodge the trees, right?
	Right.
	But if they believe that trees don't exist, they're gonna hurt themselves.
	Now, if a bunch of people wake up tomorrow morning And there's no government or the government is not valid or whatever it is, right?
	Right.
	Then there is no government.
	But if I wake up tomorrow morning and think that there is no government and then go rob a store or something and police of the government come and take me away, I'm having a rude awakening with reality.
	Oh, absolutely.
	I mean, look at the guy, I think, in Saudi Arabia who posted some skeptical stuff about Muhammad.
	He's getting a thousand lashes.
	I think it's supposed to be 20 a week for, I mean, but now they have to wait because his wounds aren't healing and so on.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	But he's running into belief systems.
	Because I don't believe in government doesn't mean I don't believe that people don't believe in government.
	Or I believe people don't believe in government.
	I recognize the existence of errors in other people's minds and their inability to understand that they're errors.
	They believe it's the truth.
	They're in the matrix.
	They don't know they're in a simulation.
	So I recognize the existence of beliefs in other people's minds even while I don't recognize the existence of that which they fervently believe in.
	Which is why I can say there's no deity and talk about religion.
	Religion exists.
	God does not.
	I mean, religion exists within people's mind.
	God exists nowhere.
	But religion only exists because people believe that God exists outside their mind.
	If people accepted and respected that God as a concept exists within their own mind, then they'd view it as a manifestation of the unconscious, which is a case I made in a free book at freedomainradio.com slash free, It's called against the gods.
	What we think of as God is the unconscious.
	Where we all came from, it's bigger than us, it's collective, it's universal.
	We ask it questions, it gives us answers, it has deep instincts, it, you know, is the source of all life, and we are birthed out of it, it creates us because the unconscious precedes the conscious mind in our development as individuals and blah blah, the whole thing.
	So I recognize and respect the reality of And this is kind of multilayered, right?
	You're a smart guy, you get it, no problem.
	I respect the reality that people believe in false realities fervently.
	People believe falsehoods fervently.
	And therefore those beliefs will be manifested in their actions.
	People believe in the government, they believe in the validity of taxation, I pay my taxes.
	Because the consequence of not paying my taxes is to go to jail.
	And I get some tertiary benefits from the roads and stuff like that, which would be better provided elsewhere, but whatever, right?
	So I certainly recognize that a belief in government exists and a belief in deities exists, no question.
	Absolutely.
	And I adjust my life accordingly, where it's prudent and wise to do so.
	But that does not mean that because people believe something exists, I accept that it exists.
	That's not up to me.
	That's up to reason and evidence.
	So maybe my misunderstanding is really just in the definition of what government is.
	Because I get the God thing.
	I mean, other people can believe in God and give you lashes if you speak out or whatever.
	But I'm having a hard time relating to how that relates to the government.
	But if you define the government as people's collective belief, then it does not exist.
	Because we already established...
	That belief does not exist outside the head.
	If you define the government as people with guns and blue uniforms and a legislature and people signing bills, then you would have to say it does exist because each of those things do exist, right?
	Right, exactly.
	Okay, so it's a definitional semantic thing.
	I hate to push back, and again, I hate to be annoying, Jordan, but when people say semantics, they usually mean unimportant nitpicking things which don't really matter but which seem to matter to other people.
	No.
	Definitions is pretty foundational, right?
	It's not semantics that the word red can't be used for the color blue and have anyone make any sense.
	Or for unicorn can't be used for proton, right?
	It's not semantics, it's definitional, right?
	So, and again, this might be a cross-pond issue, but...
	Oh, it's just semantics usually seem to me like nitpicky, annoying definitions that refuse to be relinquished by people who've lost a debate.
	I'm not putting you in this category, but it's more than semantics as in unimportant definitions.
	Well, I just don't think I'm as well-versed in my vocabulary as you, so I just grope for the words if I can get them.
	Okay.
	But you said we established the fact that That concepts...
	What did you say?
	We've established...
	Concepts don't exist outside our heads.
	Right, okay.
	We've established the fact that concepts don't exist outside our heads.
	But concepts...
	I mean, the fact that it's a concept doesn't mean that it doesn't exist outside our head.
	I'm sorry.
	Yes, it does.
	Yeah, it does.
	It does, because a concept, by definition, is a mental action or abstraction that requires rational consciousness.
	It must be within consciousness.
	Oh, right.
	A rock cannot contain a concept.
	Right, right.
	Yeah, that's right.
	And an ant cannot contain a concept.
	I mean, the degree to which dolphins and apes, I don't know, right?
	Maybe.
	But in the way that it's used philosophically, an ape may have a concept, but it doesn't have the definition of a concept, if that makes sense.
	If I was to say that you see the world and then you make a mental model of it, is that the same thing as a concept?
	Well, a concept more technically, and I don't want to get into too much technical discussion here, but a concept is when you take an attribute of an instance and you extrapolate it to include all like instances.
	So if you take the concept of volume, well that's things which occupy space in a three-dimensional environment.
	And it's a measure of the space that they occupy.
	If you take a concept like length, that's all things that aren't dots, that aren't one-dimensional.
	And all of those things will have some aspect of length.
	If it's a line, it's the whole thing.
	If it's a square, it's I guess two things.
	If it's a hexagon, it's whatever.
	So it's taking the attribute of a specific instance and extracting and universalizing that abstract Sorry, that abstraction to apply to other instances with similar categories.
	And so that's really what a concept...
	I mean, a mental model of the world, you know, you could draw...
	I don't know, you could map out your proposed model of train set.
	I'm not sure that that would be the definition of a concept.
	That would be a mental map of the world.
	Or, you know, Peter Jackson or, I guess, originally J.R.R. Tolkien mapped out Middle Earth.
	That doesn't make...
	That's necessarily a concept.
	So you try to make it as wide and generalized an abstraction as possible.
	So numbers, of course, are extracting particular instances which can then be applied to all discrete instances of anything, right?
	And so...
	So, yeah, more technically, that's what I would frame a concept.
	A mental map of the world may not be specific or universal enough to be a good stand-in for the concept of concepts.
	Ooh, look at that.
	Man, so many layers.
	We've now got our head up our own ass so far.
	We can see out our own eyeballs again.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	I think I'm getting it.
	So, because...
	Government is a concept.
	It doesn't exist in the real world.
	Right.
	Right.
	And if you and I have a contract, there's nothing that binds us together, right?
	I mean, if we're Siamese twins, we're co-joined, right?
	Even if we tie a rope to each other with something that ties us together, however temporarily, a contract is an agreement.
	You exist.
	I exist.
	The contract exists.
	But the contract doesn't bind us together.
	The social contract doesn't bind us together unless we believe in the social contract, right?
	But that doesn't mean that the social contract exists any more than a belief in God makes God exist, right?
	I reject the ontological proof for God, and I reject the ontological proof for governments.
	Well, we all believe in it, therefore it exists.
	Nope!
	Not true!
	That's the definition of the asylum mates running the place, because they're in the majority, right?
	So, that I think is...
	Most foundational, yeah, belief in governments exists, belief in deities exists, belief in all kinds of irrational things exist.
	But the definition of existence from any rational, empirical, scientific, philosophical standpoint cannot have as equal status that which is dominant and that which is submissive, right?
	The dominant is empiricism, the submissive is the concept.
	As I say, I've always said, concepts are imperfectly derived from instances, which means I can say the concept forest includes a blue whale.
	I can say anything I want.
	I'm just wrong.
	It does not involve a blue whale.
	A blue whale might fall into a forest and we'd say, oh my god, a blue whale fell into the forest, not the concept forest now includes blue whales.
	So, yeah, I think we can't...
	For the stuff that exists in our head, there's no physics to dreams that you would ever present at a physics conference, right?
	The stuff that exists in our head is of a different order and different category from things that exist outside.
	And so when I say rights do not exist...
	And people then think or get confused and say, and this is my fault, of course, since I'm the communicator more than anyone else's, people then may say, are you saying that people don't believe in rights?
	And it's like, well, no, of course not.
	We wouldn't be talking about it.
	It wouldn't be part of a conversation.
	It wouldn't be in the UN's declaration of Hamina Hamina.
	So I fully accept that rights exist as a concept and that people alter their behavior based upon the belief that rights exist in the world or are valid outside of consciousness or are given to us by God.
	Of course people believe in all of that stuff.
	It doesn't mean that they exist any more than a belief in God means God exists.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Okay.
	Yeah, I think I understand now the answer to my question.
	And the last thing I'll say is why it's important.
	Because it is.
	Really important.
	Really important.
	It's really important because if the instance can never trump the concept, then there cannot be any aggregate rights that trump the rights of the individual.
	I know I just said rights don't exist, but just to use the colloquial for the moment.
	There cannot be the social good.
	There cannot be the collective good or the good of others that trumps the good of the individual because good is an attribute of the individual.
	It would be like saying that a forest is composed of properties that are the exact opposite of the properties of trees or undergrowth or everything else that's in a forest.
	Can't happen.
	Can't happen.
	And so it's really important to recognize that concepts can never contradict the instances that they're supposed to be describing, right?
	I can't take a bunch of mammals and say, well, you see, mammals, they're warm-blooded, they have fur, they give birth to life young, they suckle their young, and here's a lizard that's a mammal, too.
	Right.
	It can't happen.
	I got a concept called mammal, and then I've just thrown in an instance which has the opposite properties.
	Incompatible properties is that which is defined by mammal.
	Can't do it.
	Try that at a biology conference and they'd laugh you out of the room and they'd say, I don't know who let the stone janitor up on the podium, but get rid of the guy.
	And in the same way, we can't have that somebody has a right to an education or a right to health care or any of these things.
	Because that is to say that Human beings have the right to enslave other human beings and to force them at gunpoint to provide them with what they want.
	That cannot be universalized.
	That cannot be a universal category because you are giving opposite characteristics and properties and, quote, rights to the same species.
	One person must, under the force of violence, provide to another person what that person wants or needs or thinks that they need.
	So one person must be on the receiving end.
	Of a compelled service, and the other person must be on the providing end of a compelled service.
	Violence is really good at the...
	I mean, that's literally like saying that both the lion and the zebra are predators.
	Well, one only eats the other, so...
	Unless the lion dies and feeds the grass, and then the grass is eaten by the zebra.
	Yeah, yeah, I saw the lion king too, doesn't matter.
	Right, so the reason that this...
	Concepts are imperfectly derived from instances is you cannot, you cannot say that water is the same as a solid.
	You cannot say that gas is identical to a liquid.
	They have incompatible properties.
	And you cannot say that somehow putting enough trees together Produces trees and the opposite of trees.
	You cannot say that if you get enough zebras together some of them will become lions.
	You cannot say that if you get enough mammals together some of them will become lizards.
	You cannot say that any aggregation can provide opposite characteristics of the inhabitants which produce that aggregation.
	The characteristics that produce that aggregation.
	But that's all the government is.
	All the government is is this giant fantasy that if you get enough people together Spontaneously, there emerge people who can initiate the use of force.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Whoa!
	Wait a minute!
	Whoa!
	And it's moral for them to initiate the use of force!
	And it's completely immoral for everyone else to initiate the use of force!
	No, no, no, no!
	That doesn't work!
	Bad thinking!
	Naughty philosophy dog!
	Into the corner with you!
	No, yes, it is very important.
	Very important.
	That universalizing morals and I didn't understand any of this before I started listening to you.
	That is what was able to get me out of religion.
	When I realized that you know God should be held to the same morals that I am.
	Oh, geez.
	That was it.
	I wrote a blog after I realized that, thanks to you, that said, the latest in anti-Mormon technology.
	And it explains that concept.
	You can't get that.
	You can't get away with that.
	Yeah, I mean, anti-Mormon technology is...
	I didn't just phone sex that says, take off your undies.
	This is the devil.
	Take off your underpants.
	That's right.
	Nothing gets between me and my Jesus pants.
	So, no, it is absolutely important.
	And this is why we've got a huge amount of, and I had to battle through this crap too, a huge amount of static around this.
	Because the purpose of morality, the purpose of morality historically has been to reduce competition.
	If you want to be a great thief, convince everyone else not to steal.
	So you reduce competition.
	And morality has been the subjugation and enslavement of people throughout history.
	This is the story of your enslavement and also the never-finished documentary.
	But it is the creation of standards that you inflict on other people and exclude yourself from.
	You cannot initiate the use of force.
	That's wrong.
	And I have to tax you to pay for you to hear that message for 12 years straight.
	Oh, you initiate the use of force, but I can't.
	All right.
	Thou shalt not murder!
	Ooh, those people are pissing me off.
	Here's all the known water in the universe to kill you all.
	War is an abomination!
	If a private citizen does it, it's terrorism!
	You get enough pirates, they morph into a navy!
	Right?
	And it is all about futzing With concepts and instances.
	I mean, that is the low-level basic assembly algorithm of how we are so enslaved, is screwing around with metaphysics and epistemology.
	Everything else just flows from that.
	I mean, if you can get people to believe that countries exist and governments exist and social contracts exist and you can use different words for the same things, well, it's not theft, it's taxation, right?
	It's not Crazy, it's faith.
	Whatever, right?
	Exactly.
	We've got enough of us together.
	We can turn this craziness into a belief system.
	But it doesn't matter.
	None of that stuff...
	I mean, there are things that exist in the real world and our concepts describe them.
	And if you fuck something up in that, you're just wrong.
	And if you say, well, the non-initiation of force is a really great thing, except for spanking.
	And...
	Taxes and war and the provision of education and health.
	It's like, no, no, no, no.
	Start again.
	Right.
	Start again.
	Because the moment somebody's giving you universal rules and then slipping in unspoken exemptions to those universal rules, that is the infinite con job of history.
	That is the infinite con job of history.
	Let me give you another example.
	You may have heard of someone called the Pope.
	Now, the Pope was talking about Xavier and the shootings in France that happened recently.
	Well, of course, first of all, he said, well, you have the right to freedom of speech, but that doesn't give you the freedom to offend people.
	Really?
	Really?
	Oh, Mr.
	Pope, you can't offend people's belief systems.
	Okay, you worship a God who commands you to murder unbelievers.
	Yeah.
	You worship a God who orders you to murder homosexuals and sorcerers and witches and people who are cross-eyed and have too many freckles and God knows what.
	And now you're saying you can't offend people's beliefs?
	Are you kidding me?
	Read your book!
	R-Y-F-M, baby!
	It's read your something manual like I can't remember how it goes.
	Read your manual.
	Look it up!
	And he said, for instance, this doctor here who is a great friend of mine, if he says something bad about my mother, boom!
	I punch him in the head.
	Wasn't there some kind of turn-the-other-cheek thing?
	Did the Pope say that?
	The Pope said, if this friend of mine, who is a nice man and a doctor, if this friend of mine says something bad about my mother, boom!
	I will punch him in the head.
	Really?
	The Pope.
	Mister, turn the other cheek.
	Wow.
	I mean, that's not even an eye for an eye.
	He didn't punch you in the head.
	I punch him in the head.
	Wow.
	And people wonder why I have questions about the degree to which religion will promote virtue and consistency.
	Remember, if your enemy asks you to walk a mile, walk an extra mile.
	Remember, if he asks for your cloak, give him your shirt too.
	Remember, love your enemy, not punch him in the head!
	I mean, this is insane.
	I mean, oh my God!
	Oh my God!
	I mean, what can you even say?
	Not only that the Pope says this when the whole freaking point of the New Testament is to replace the Genocidal date of the Old Testament with the loves, hugs and kisses and dewy-eyed baby Jesus of the New Testament.
	Punch him in the head for insulting my mother.
	What, are you in a Scorsese movie, for God's sakes?
	I mean, I know you're Italian, and it's a tea-cozy mafia, but don't make it so obvious!
	Punch him in the head!
	Punch him in the head!
	I think Jesus would punch him in the house.
	What would Jesus do?
	Punch him in the head!
	Get your fucking shine box!
	Punch him in the head!
	God!
	And the fact that he said something like this, hey, okay, so he's only 9,000 years old, and he's only been studying the New Testament, and love your neighbor, and love your enemy, love your, right, do good to those who do harm to you.
	He's only been studying this for approximately 8,000 or 9,000 years, given his approximate age.
	But everyone can make mistakes.
	Who calls the Pope on violating one of the basic commandments of Christianity?
	Nobody.
	Love your enemy.
	Turn the other cheek.
	Oh, punch him in the head!
	Punch him in the head.
	And nobody's calling on it.
	That just shows that...
	Because either God said, punch him in the head.
	Hey, I'm rewriting this thing.
	You know, Jesus, Sonny Boy, went way off the reservation as far as that shit goes.
	I mean, I am a fire and brimstone son of a bitch.
	I fought sulfur and explosions on anybody who disagrees with me and a good time a number of people who do agree with me.
	Fuck this New Testament shit.
	We're going back.
	We're going Old Testament.
	We're going to go medieval on humanity's ass.
	I told the Pope we now punch people in the head who insult your mother.
	It's all over.
	Let's reverse it.
	It's all done.
	Forget it.
	Back it up.
	Beep, beep, beep.
	Jesus done.
	Back to Old Testament.
	Now duck and roll, babies.
	Because we've got sky fire until the end of time.
	So either God told him to do that because he's the Pope, he's infallible, everything he says must be true because God, you know, has his hand up his butt.
	In which case, well, that would seem to me a bit of a theological crisis in the realm of Christianity, wouldn't you say?
	That's the whole point.
	He came to bring the good news of resurrection and the new ethic, as Nietzsche called it, the resentment ethic of the slaves.
	I've got no power, so I'm going to worship powerlessness as a virtue.
	Overturning the New Testament.
	We're going to do something else now.
	Jesus is not correct.
	We, you know, sorry about that.
	Threw you off there for about 2014 years, but, you know, 2015 years now.
	It would seem to me a bit of a theological crisis now if you don't love your enemy and turn the other cheek, but you punch someone in the head who insults your mom.
	It seems like, did God change his mind, or is the Pope fallible?
	If the Pope's fallible, and nobody calls him on it, what the hell is the point of all this ethics?
	Love your neighbor.
	Turn the other cheek.
	Love your neighbor.
	Turn the other cheek.
	Walks a mile.
	Walks two miles.
	Do good to people who do you harm.
	Love your enemy.
	What is there, like a billion Catholics in the world?
	Why are people not completely up in arms about this gross violation of the entire essence of Christianity?
	Well, why do you think they can't see the universal necessity of morals, and even just in this instance?
	Well, I mean, because they are trained to universalities plus exceptions.
	I mean, the problem with the Old Testament is that The whole point of the Old Testament is to have a God who violates his own moral rules, so that people will bow down before a secular state that violates its own moral rules.
	That's why it works.
	That's why it's a successful religion, because it serves the only power that exists, which is secular power.
	And there's secular power in the church, and there's secular power in the state.
	And so, you know, when I was younger, I was like, wow, I wish the Old Testament were more consistent.
	But no, that's not the point.
	The point is to train!
	People.
	To exempt teachers, parents, priests, and politicians from the moral rules they claim to be universal that they continually and bloodily impose on everyone else.
	Thou shalt not hit!
	Thou shalt not steal!
	Now give me your money or go to jail.
	Kidnapping is wrong.
	The initiation of force is wrong.
	Using violence to get what you want kids is wrong.
	Now drop that marijuana or we'll send a SWAT team in through your window.
	With guns.
	And shoot you if you resist.
	So the whole point is to have a deity who violates the moral rules he imposes on everyone else.
	That sets up the whole template for children to excuse the actions of violent parents who tell their kids not to use violence.
	Of priests who say, love your enemies, but you're going to go to hell if you're an enemy of God.
	How fucked up is that?
	And politicians are now, as Mike mentioned as well, the Pope also said that you can't react violently to people who offend you.
	And then, but of course, you know, if a man says something about my mother, punch him in the head!
	It was that blatant, huh?
	Wow.
	And given that about a billion Christians aren't like, whoa, you humming a what now?
	It means that Christianity has not solved the problem of ethics.
	Which, you know, the wars of the 20th century pretty much all run by Christians with the exception of the Soviet Union and China.
	I mean, the First and Second World War all started by Christian nations.
	That might be a good idea.
	Atheism doesn't solve the problem of religion.
	I'm sorry.
	Atheism doesn't solve the problem of ethics either.
	Any more than refusing to Believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy grants you a PhD in physics.
	It may be a necessary, but certainly nowhere near sufficient requirement for secular ethics.
	So, you know, it may tear down an old house.
	It certainly doesn't teach you how to build a new one.
	How was the call for you?
	It's very good.
	I feel like...
	I kind of have a hobby in artificial intelligence, and so everything that I think of when I think of existing and concepts and models, I think of it as in an artificial intelligence or just a regular brain intelligence.
	Looking at the world and coming up with a mental model of what it's seeing and then experiencing that mental model.
	And so this idea that concepts are this universal thing, extrapolated mental models into some universal concept, I guess, So you're thinking of a robot negotiating around a room of blocks.
	It has to create an internal model of those blocks in order to be able to navigate.
	That's right.
	And the model it creates...
	But that's like radar.
	That's like radar or sonar or something like that.
	That's not a concept, right?
	Right.
	It's not a concept.
	So this is a new idea for me, actually.
	So I have to evaluate it and think more about it.
	But it was a good call.
	Yeah.
	And I mean, to me, I mean...
	My daughter is an unbelievably fascinating experiment in the growth of philosophy and the growth of concepts within a child's mind.
	I mean, we are concept machines.
	That is the essence of what we do as a species.
	And the ferocious mind-bending, unbelievably, Rapid, diverse, and widespread development of concepts in the mind of a child, effortlessly almost, is, I mean, man, if you've not seen it up close, which is why I'm so incredibly happy for one of many, many reasons why I'm so incredibly happy to be able to stay home with my daughter.
	I mean, seeing the human brain build itself from a blob or nothingness into language and concepts and reason and philosophy and evidence and empiricism and all by the age of 12 months, 14 months, 16 months, 18 months, 20 months.
	I mean, it's literally like standing in a giant melting spacesuit in front of a supernova.
	It's astonishing.
	Because most of us are too young to remember this process developing within our own minds.
	Or we were too young when it was happening to remember it.
	But seeing it is truly...
	I can't...
	I'm staggered by how it develops and how rapidly it develops.
	Artificial intelligence, I believe, will...
	I mean, requires an unconscious.
	It requires, you know, the unconscious has in many experiments and ways been found to be like, I think, 8,000 times faster than the conscious mind in certain areas.
	You need an unconscious.
	But you also need the capacity...
	to spontaneously develop concepts out of sense data.
	And that seems like a very long process to go or a very far road to go.
	You've got to get the unconscious and the instincts within the unconscious which work so often in parallel with the conscious mind.
	I mean, there are scientists who've dreamt that the guy who figured out the structure of the carbon atom dreamt of a snake eating its own tail woke up and had the answer.
	So there's lots of stuff that occurs.
	You know, my daughter, I'm teaching her how to skate and she dreams about skating.
	Next time she gets on the ice, she's like incredibly better at it.
	And that, you know, dogs dream about chasing rabbits.
	I mean, there's so much learning that goes on below the conscious level, particularly in the realm of nerves rather than neurons, that, yeah.
	Anyway, so I think the spontaneous development of consciousness based on sense data, sort of concepts based on sense data, would be fundamental.
	And the automation of those concepts into instincts, particularly moral instincts, would be a great challenge.
	I kind of mean, I'm not exactly an expert programmer, though I did it for a Actually, that's a pretty good program.
	False modesty is just another kind of hypocrisy.
	But yeah, it would be hard to imagine how to make that all work.
	But yeah, feel free to call in back anytime.
	It's a really, really enjoyable conversation.
	All right, I will.
	All right.
	Thanks, man.
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