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March 31, 2015 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

09:52

2941 Why Advertising Corrupts

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	Hi everybody, Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Main Radio.
	Hope you're doing well.
	A couple of times a year I need to delve into this topic.
	I've been reminded of it recently by the Germanwings pilot who flew 149 other people into a mountainside, killing them instantly recently.
	There is, according to the investigators, handfuls or mountains of antidepressant medications were found in his apartment.
	And the link between Antidepressants and problematic psychological states are very well established.
	In fact, the FDA, as I mentioned in a recent show, put a black box warning label on these kinds of medications to remind people just how dangerous they can be.
	People who are depressed can be up to three times as likely to be more violent.
	There could be comorbidities such as they're self-medicating with drugs or alcohol, but There is a correlation, the causation remains unclear, but there's a correlation between depression and an up to a 300% increase in risk of violent behavior.
	So, in this whole tragic situation, this whole, I would argue, evil situation, one thing is pretty clear is that the mainstream media is not drawing the obvious causal potential.
	It's obvious that it's causal, but there's no proof.
	this causal potential connection between antidepressants and aggressive or suicidal behavior and the reason that they're not doing that is very clear which is that the pharmaceutical companies spend a huge amount of money on advertising which the mainstream media consumes I guess as much as this guy seems to have consumed antidepressants and they don't want to go against their advertising dollars Now,
	this sort of reminds me, because I get asked this question quite a bit, which is, Steph, you get a couple of million downloads a month of videos and podcasts and so on.
	Why don't you put advertising in?
	Well, the reason for that is I want to stay focused on you.
	I want to stay focused on what's most important to you, what's most relevant, what's most powerful, what's the greatest use that philosophy can be put to in your life to help you live a happier, more powerful, more effective life.
	And turn the natural entropy of the moral universe as it decades towards amorality and immorality and nihilism to help us push back against that seeming tsunami of negativity known as late-stage democracy and push back with the only spears of light that will really work, which is reason, evidence, commitment, passion, and a very visible and public moral stand.
	So, not taking advertising is foundational to that.
	If I took advertisers, I would inevitably be distracted by the needs of advertisers, which may not coincide with the needs of you, with your needs.
	I want to stay focused on you.
	That means, of course, that the model is donation-based.
	Now, of the couple of million downloads and views that we get every single month, only a small, very small proportion of you are donating.
	Now, the request is 50 cents a show I mean we pour a lot of time and energy and effort and research into our presentations and we're right a significant amount of time if you sort of look back over the list of videos we get it right a lot and that's because of principles and because of the quality of the work that we're putting in to the shows and that all costs money as you all know now think about I mean just Where does society
	go?
	Society goes where people put their resources.
	And people put massive amounts of resources into their religions.
	People put massive amounts of resources into their politics, their political parties in terms of donations.
	And so, you know, religion and politics seems to be the way that society is heading.
	And I have made many more friends, made much more of a friend of religion Recently than I have in the past but nonetheless given the hundreds of billions of dollars around the world that are flowing towards religion and politics it would be nice to see some obviously small proportion of that heading towards philosophy as a whole since of course I believe and I think I've made the case very strongly in this show that philosophy is what the world needs for a rational peaceful future.
	This show has huge influences on parents, According to sort of our back of the napkin calculation, hundreds of thousands of parents have given up aggressive parenting and adopted peaceful parenting, negotiating with children and not hitting their children or intimidating or threatening or yelling at them.
	And that's a fantastic, fantastic benefit to the world as a whole because, of course, we're just at the beginning of getting the ball rolling on this count.
	And the more peacefully we raise our children, the smarter they'll be, the less traumatized by reason and evidence they will be.
	And the greater the seeds of a peaceful future they can sow in the hearts of those around them and of course in their own children as well.
	And so we have done a lot through this show to really fundamentally and tangibly make the world a better place.
	We're not sort of saying, hey, give us money.
	And we'll get into political power and we'll make the world a better place for you.
	That doesn't ever really seem to pan out, but that's a promise that is often made.
	We can provide, through philosophy, through the tangible application of reason, universals, ethics and evidence, we can really help you make your life a lot better.
	And so, the world goes where you put your resources.
	If you think there's another group or another show or another conversation or another person out there who's doing a better job than I am or that we are here at Free Domain Radio, then you should give your money to them.
	But if you think we're doing a really great job here, then you should give some resources to us.
	It doesn't have to be money.
	I know there's a lot of people out there who don't have a lot of money.
	It doesn't have to be money at all.
	You can share the videos.
	You can comment.
	You can do lots of things.
	Get into the podcast.
	You can do lots of things to help spread the conversation about philosophy.
	It doesn't have anything to do with money.
	I appreciate that as much.
	If you don't have that kind of time or don't have that kind of inclination, then yes, we do request 50 cents a show if you are consuming a lot.
	And there are a lot of you who are consuming a lot who aren't paying.
	And I'd sort of put this down to sort of a basic remind slash nag slash prod the old integrity spine in your mind which is to say you know that if you consume resources you need to provide for their maintenance and support their expansion it costs money to produce the show it costs money to host the show and it costs money to share the podcast YouTube of course handles the bandwidth feeds for videos and other video sites do as well but we're paying bandwidth fees
	for the millions of podcasts that are being downloaded so all of those Resources require your resources, and you can share and spread, but also you can support the show.
	You can donate to the show.
	That's what keeps me focused on you.
	Now, if you donate to the show, this is late March, of course.
	If you donate to the show, please, please, please send us a note through your donation.
	You can do that as you donate at freedomainradio.com.
	Send us a show.
	Send us the kind of shows that you want us to focus on.
	Where do you want My rap name, as I talked about many years ago, is Yo-Yo Big Chatty 4-Head.
	Actually, it's a 5-Head.
	But where do you want a point, Big Chatty 4-Head?
	What information do you want run through my DimeStraw Wind-Up Chattering Teeth Box?
	I would really like to know.
	We'd all really like to know what's most important to you.
	What is most meaningful to you?
	Of course, I get that through the call-in shows when people ask me questions about their lives and we try and come to some useful conclusion using principles but I'd like to know from you as well.
	My request stands.
	I do it for philosophy.
	I do it for freedom.
	I do it for the future.
	I do it for you.
	I ask that you support the show.
	Please, please, please help us out.
	Help us to grow.
	Help us to survive.
	Help us to maintain what I consider the most essential conversation in the world today.
	Because for evil to win, as the saying goes, the only thing that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men and women to do nothing.
	And if you want to start a show, start a show.
	If you want to spread this show, spread this show.
	If you'd like to support, which I think you need to do, and I think you owe the show, if you're consuming a lot of it, please go to freedomainradio.com slash donate.
	Let's work together to continue to spread using this incredible technology to continue to spread philosophy in a way that's never been possible before.
	Socrates used to go down into the marketplace and talk philosophy with people and say, hey, Can you buy me lunch?
	Well, this is sort of I'm going down into the digital marketplace of humanity.
	I, as Bob Marley says, I'm playing for mankind.
	I go down into the digital marketplace of humanity.
	I speak philosophy.
	I say, hey, can you buy me some lunch?
	I'm getting hungry.
	So please go to freedomainradio.com slash donate.
	Help us out.
	And I promise the show is only going to continue to get better.
	We never rest.
	We never, ever say, well, we've hit our peak.
	We have so much further to go.
	We have so much more of mankind's attention to gather and grab.
	And we have so much more philosophy to bring to the mind, hearts, and souls of humanity.
	It's your help that will get us there.
	freedomainradio.com slash donate.

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