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Aug. 15, 2015 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:31:44

3050 What’s In It For Me - Call In Show - August 12th, 2015

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	Hi everybody, Stefan Molyneux from Freedom In Radio.
	Hope you're doing well.
	Welcome, one and all, as always, to our, wait, Wednesday night philosophy show.
	I hope you're having a wonderful week.
	Hope you're having a glorious summer.
	And for those of you on the other side of the world, sucks to be you, winter, over there and not over here, which we're very, very happy about.
	So we have a caller who has a dream.
	But I don't know what order we're in tonight.
	Mike, who's up first?
	Well, up first is Bob, and he does have a dream that he would like your thoughts on.
	But could you first give a brief little run-through of dream analysis?
	And some people that are new to the show and haven't heard one of these before might be like, dream analysis?
	What is this quackery?
	Could you just explain that to people?
	That's, I guess, the best thing we could say.
	It's just a different kind of quackery.
	So for those who don't know, I place great stock in dreams.
	And not the kind of dreams that your high school teachers tried so studiously to crush.
	But dreams that happen at night.
	Freud called them the royal road to the unconscious and I think that they are very powerful ways of figuring out what your brain is processing outside of cultural norms, outside of what you may consider acceptable.
	And I've got a podcast in the feed somewhere which is where I talk about why I think that dreams are important and why they must be looked at and analyzed.
	And of course I did a sort of live dream analysis Of my own recently about the Dylann Roof shooting called My Dylann Roof Dream.
	So hopefully that makes some sense.
	This is not science, just so everyone is fully aware.
	And it is not philosophy insofar as it's obviously not subject to empirical proof.
	However, it is philosophy in terms of Socrates' dictum, Know Thyself.
	That you must first know yourself before you can know the world, particularly when you've been raised anti-reason, anti-evidence, as so many of us have been.
	So we roll it.
	We roll the dice.
	We see what can come up from these kinds of dreams, and usually we find them to be quite helpful.
	So that hasn't been said.
	Mike, are you going to read the dream?
	I'm going to read the dream.
	All right.
	Bob wrote in and said, Somehow my older brother managed to scrape off nearly all of his skin.
	Looking at him, most of what I could see was raw, exposed meat of his muscles.
	My brother himself seemed to be feeling okay.
	I came up to him and started helping by taking a razor and slicing off remaining shreds of skin from his chest so that it would look more uniformly skinless.
	He decided to have a skin graft from a remaining patch of skin on his back to the rest of his body.
	As soon as the process of skin grafting was about to begin, the role switched.
	Now I was the one without any skin.
	My brother was standing next to me as my doctor.
	He was wearing a white lab coat and everything.
	By the way, in real life, he's not a doctor.
	In his hand, he had a tool which he was going to use to peel off thin layers of remaining skin from my back and graft it onto the rest of my body.
	But instead of using the tool himself, he hands it to my wife.
	Rose was confused as to why my brother handed her the surgical tool when she has no medical experience whereas he is the doctor.
	However, she felt too awkward to say anything and started using the tool to peel off layers of skin from my back.
	Since she was not practiced with this tool, the patches of skin she peeled off ended up butchered up.
	She would hand these pieces to my brother.
	He would straighten them out and slap them onto my body in random places.
	He used no stitches or adhesive.
	He simply stuck the pieces onto my exposed flesh and hoped they would stay on.
	Often corners of these skin pieces would start to peel off.
	Through all of this, I remember feeling mildly scared and mildly confused.
	I remember worrying that I did not have enough remaining skin on my back to cover the rest of me and make me whole again.
	However, I remember my emotions being very muted.
	On a whole, I seemed to care very little about the condition I was in.
	That's what Bob brought in with.
	So welcome, Bob.
	Hey, great to be here.
	Very excited to talk to you, Steph, and thanks, Michael.
	All right.
	I'll just tell you something before we start.
	For those who don't know, I was in intensive therapy for two years, or as some of the internet would probably say, about 20 years too little.
	But I was sort of going three hours a week.
	I was spending 10 hours a day journaling.
	In the middle of a really intensive phase of Therapy.
	I had a dream that my mother had no skin.
	It really reminded me of this.
	And the strangest thing happened that I was on a bus or a subway.
	And there's like a newspaper, one of these free newspapers they give out on the buses, which is basically just a vehicle for ads.
	But in it, they talked about having found an ancient Egyptian mummy...
	With no skin.
	It had been mummified without it.
	So I had this dream and like a day or two later, I saw a mummy with no skin, not just in my dream, but in a picture of which I brought into my therapist that we talked about for quite some time.
	So I just was really struck by this skinless-ness of your brother.
	Okay, so have you been talking with your brother about, we'll call him Art, is that okay?
	Art.
	Yeah, that works.
	It works on a few levels, as dreams tend to.
	So, have you been talking to him about philosophy at all?
	No, I've barely.
	I mean, we talk about two or three times a year.
	And never about anything of substance.
	Why?
	Why do you never talk about anything of substance?
	Man, I've got to be careful with you to give a causal explanation, but actually, I don't know if I have one.
	I know that...
	Fear!
	Uh-huh.
	I mean, that's the only reason we avoid depth is fear, right?
	Hmm.
	Yes, actually.
	I'd say that's true.
	I mean, why wouldn't you?
	It's fun to talk about things that are deep.
	And any time we self-censor, in other words, every time, we're all thinking deep thoughts all the day.
	Like, we just do.
	That's our nature as a species.
	And the only reason you wouldn't want to talk about deep thoughts with people is because you're afraid that it's going to harm the relationship, that they're going to get angry, they're going to reject you, they're going to get upset, whatever, get aggressive, whatever.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah, yeah, it does.
	I don't even know at this point if I'd call what he and I have a relationship.
	It feels almost too humanizing.
	We're kind of two loose acquaintances that kind of get along conflict-free, and that's about it.
	But you get along conflict-free by not having any depth to your interactions, right?
	Yes, yes.
	Okay.
	So it's like saying two people have stopped fighting because they're dead.
	Now, what was your relationship like with him when you were growing up?
	Probably, actually, remarkably close to now.
	It's just we interacted a lot more often.
	I mean, we were the...
	The only two siblings.
	And oftentimes we were each other's only company.
	And we got along fairly well.
	I mean, there was never a whole lot of fighting.
	We'd play games together.
	We'd talk usually just about superficial topics that we were both interested in.
	But beyond that, I remember when we were fairly little, I was consciously aware of this.
	He started pulling away from me.
	And he was about...
	How little?
	I was about maybe seven, eight, nine.
	He was about two or three years older than me.
	And I remember like overtime happened gradually where he spent less and less time with me and more and more of his older friends.
	And even when I would actively want to interact with him and his older friends, he would kind of push me away and shut me out.
	Sometimes literally shut me out.
	You become like the embarrassing snot-nosed younger sibling, right?
	Yeah, yeah, I think I was embarrassing to him a lot of times.
	It's always struck me just the degree to which, you know, as close as brothers, you know, that's what people say, as close as brothers.
	It seems to me a lot of times siblings ditch the younger siblings for the sake of smarmy, shallow, horizontal social relationships that in the long run never add up to anything.
	I think that's pretty tragic.
	Your sibling is the one person who should be able to go with you through your whole life.
	Your sibling, of course, is the only person when you get old who knew you when you were young.
	Parents aren't probably going to live that long.
	And it's such a very, very important relationship.
	And it could be a really central relationship, and I think should be a really central relationship throughout your life.
	But the degree to which siblings take each other for granted, the degree to which they're like, oh, you know, I'm going to go off with Biff here.
	And then, as it turns out, Biff, you know, is gone within six months.
	But the harm to the sibling relationship from the rejection is kind of permanent, or at least can be.
	And I just wanted to mention, I'm not trying to put my own experience onto yours, but sibling relationships often, in my experience, are pretty tragic and massively wasted opportunities for intimacy.
	I agree.
	And yeah, I don't think he's friends with any of the same people anymore.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, and it's too bad.
	I mean, when my brother got married, I wasn't best man.
	I'm his only sibling.
	But I wasn't best man because he had this friend of his who he was, I don't know, a roommate with or something.
	And it was this friend, and I was not going to be best man or in the party.
	I had three best men at my wedding, but that's a different story.
	But, you know, I think a week or two after he got married, he had some blow-up with this guy, and they never spoke again.
	It was like...
	Sorry, that reminded me of something.
	I was actually best man at his wedding, and that's something I'm hoping at some point in this call to at least touch upon, because I think that's an important part.
	And he would have been a best man at my wedding, at least one of several, if he was able to make it.
	For reasons related to his own wedding, he couldn't.
	And the reason I was the best man at his wedding is because literally by the time he got married, all of his old friends had fallen away.
	Yeah, so all the people that he ditched you for are no longer part of his life.
	And that's just part of what I wish people could understand about sibling relationships.
	Like, man, don't ditch your sibling for some stupid-ass junior high friends.
	Mm-hmm.
	And how did he, but I don't understand how he missed your wedding.
	Okay, so I would say, you know, we're talking about my brother, but at this point, probably the biggest connection I have to him is not that, you know, we're blood siblings, but actually it has to do with the woman he's married to.
	So I don't know how much of the email you read, I gave like a brief background story.
	I can just give what I think is relevant, if that helps, or if you want to, you can ask.
	Okay.
	So essentially...
	Like I mentioned, he's like two and a half years older than me.
	In high school, there was this female classmate of mine who was pretty apparently interested in me.
	But she never made a move and in fact she was in a relationship and later actually got pregnant in high school, gave birth, was a single mom for a while.
	I, meanwhile, went off to college and I don't hear from her for two years.
	Then she hits me up on Facebook and says, hey, when will you be in town?
	And I'm like, hey, I'll be in town next weekend.
	So we started going out.
	We went out for a total of three weeks.
	Keep in mind, she's a single mom.
	And as it turned out later, completely insane.
	And there were plenty of warning flags.
	You know, you had me at single mom.
	Yeah, it goes way deeper than that.
	But yeah, she's insane.
	So, and then during the relationship, I even tell her, it's like, you know what, I'm actually just getting over a breakup because I was actually dating Rose.
	And then Rose said, you know, I just, I don't think I can do this.
	So we split ways.
	She said, I don't think I can be in a relationship anymore.
	And I told this other woman, you know, I, I'm actually still in love with this other woman.
	Are you sure you want to date me?
	And she's like, oh, sure.
	And again, three weeks into that relationship, Rose comes back and says, you know what?
	I think I'm ready to actually give this relationship a shot.
	So I leave this other woman.
	I get back together with Rose.
	I proposed to her two months later.
	We get married two years later.
	Now we have a kid.
	We're peaceful parents.
	Closest thing I've ever heard to a happy ending.
	But meanwhile, this woman stalks and harasses me and Rose for about a year or so afterwards with like 17 phone calls in three hours, pestering us online everywhere she can.
	And it took about a year.
	About what?
	Just because you're like the ATM who got away?
	There was no money exchange.
	No, I never paid for anything.
	If anything, she paid for my stuff sometimes because her family owns a grocery store, so she would take me in it and have me pick out whatever I wanted.
	So she didn't pay.
	Her family paid.
	Yeah, her family paid.
	Yeah, that's not unimportant.
	No.
	And she was willing to give you free stuff that she didn't even have to pay for.
	Yeah.
	That's right.
	So for about a year, like I said, we actually tried to be friends with her.
	And in that time, she was like, you know, also another mistake.
	I tried to be friends with her.
	And I felt really bad after breaking up with her and leaving her for another woman.
	So I set her up with my brother.
	I thought that would be a fantastic idea.
	Why not?
	You know, she was single.
	He's chronically single.
	They got engaged, I think, even faster than us.
	They got married before us.
	And in fact, intentionally, she wanted to get married before us.
	She turned it into this kind of a one-up game between her and Rose of, like, who can get married first, who can have children first, all these things.
	And actually, while she was engaged with my brother...
	Hang on, hang on, hang on.
	Okay.
	So let me just sort of understand.
	So you dated this woman for three weeks.
	She turns into a stalker.
	Yes.
	And you're like, you should really date my brother.
	Oh, no.
	She turned into a stalker a while after that.
	So, like, literally a couple of weeks after I broke up with her.
	Back then, we were just kind of friends.
	We were talking to each other here and there.
	She was not a stalker.
	She wasn't harassing anyone yet.
	And I set her up with my brother.
	And, like, within a month, they were serious and talking about marriage.
	And within a year, they were married.
	And so during that time...
	Huh?
	When did she start stalking you though?
	Probably a couple of months after I broke up with her.
	So while she's dating your brother, she's stalking you and your wife?
	Yes.
	And in fact, while she was engaged to my brother, she told me, you know, the only reason I'm with him is because I'm still in love with you and I want to be close to you.
	Sorry, just dropped my floor, my jaw to the floor.
	And how long ago was this?
	At this point, this would be about four or five years ago.
	Before you were listening to this show, right?
	Yes, yes.
	Before.
	This show, I think, opened up my eyes.
	The obvious signs I missed.
	Yeah.
	Did you tell your brother about this stalking and I'm still in love with you stuff?
	No.
	Actually, I tried to one time have an honest conversation with him about this woman and how crazy she is and how much she lies and stuff like that.
	I couldn't even start the conversation because apparently when Art and this woman started dating...
	She told him that her and I never dated.
	And I guess she said it often enough that he believed it.
	And so when I started asking, oh, you know, when I was in a relationship with this woman, he would just shut me down and say, you were never in a relationship.
	I'm not going to believe that.
	I know you weren't in a relationship.
	So I couldn't even start, like, an honest conversation with him about this.
	Did you not have any proof?
	Um...
	I guess three weeks, not really, right?
	Well, actually, no, I... I didn't think of that.
	I could have shown him some, like, online conversations we had, which would have proved it about as beyond doubt as you can.
	Dude.
	Dude, hang on.
	Hold the phone.
	Holy crap.
	You must really, really dislike your brother.
	Yeah, okay, I'm listening.
	Well, tell me if that's way off base.
	If so, I don't think I'm consciously aware of it.
	Dude!
	He's caught in this giant hairy vagina of ball-chewing lies, deception, manipulation, and other man's spawn.
	Yeah, and all of that did not occur to me until about a year after.
	It literally took me over a year to realize she's crazy.
	What do you mean?
	She lied to him.
	She's stalking you.
	Okay, I think I know how to clarify this.
	And that's one of the points I wanted to make sure I made in this call.
	It's not actually until very recently, like literally a couple of weeks ago, Rose and I were having a conversation and Rose pointed something out.
	This woman is actually remarkably similar to my mother, to our mother.
	Of course she is.
	Of course.
	I mean, of course she is.
	So I thought all of that was normal.
	In fact, my mom has at one point openly advised me to lie to my girlfriends in order to get them to stay with me.
	She advised me against telling the truth, and I thought that was normal.
	So your mom obviously has no problem with this vagina dentata dingbat, right?
	No.
	When I left her for Rose, she tried to talk me into going back to this other woman.
	Oh, go back to the single mom.
	Yes, go back to the single mom.
	Let me ask you this.
	It was money.
	Let me ask you this, Bob.
	How's your relationship with your mom been now that you're around a sane woman?
	Last time we were over for Christmas, we got so frustrated, we left and now keep a safe distance and see each other for very limited guarded periods of time.
	Yeah, this is a...
	Do you mind if I just give you a tiny little rant?
	Not for you in particular, because I think you understand this, but for others?
	Please.
	Crazy is the enemy of sane.
	Manipulative is the enemy of honest.
	Evil is the enemy of good.
	Liars are the enemies of truth-tellers.
	And those hypocrites and self-betrayers are the enemy of anyone with half a spine and four ounces of integrity in their neurosystem.
	And if your mother, just talking about your mom here, could be talking about dads, talking about moms at the moment, if your mother is 19 pounds of crazy in a 4 pound Gucci bag, then she's going to be doing this in general.
	She's going to be circling your penis with a crazy whip.
	She's going to be circling around, round and round and round.
	And any time any remotely sane woman Is eyeing you with romantic intent?
	She's gonna hit her with the crazy whip.
	Well, actually, she's gonna hit you with the crazy whip and she's gonna sow seeds of doubt and cause problems in that relationship.
	Because we can only have one kind of person around us in our lives in the long run.
	You can, you know, you can't swim underwater.
	That doesn't mean you can't dive down 20 feet and get a pearl.
	Right?
	You can jump into crazy if you live in a sane universe, and you can jump into sane if you live in a crazy universe, but in the long run you can only have a one count and one kind of person around you.
	And the crazy people do not want you to know any sane people.
	Just look around you.
	Hey, I listen to Free Domain Radio.
	Ooh, that guy's evil!
	Because internet and accents and voluntarism.
	Brutal.
	You're into Ayn Rand?
	She's evil, evil, evil, right?
	I mean, they simply have to keep sane, healthy people away from you for the same reason that cockroaches don't like the light on.
	Because cockroaches get to feast on the remains Of domestic filth until you switch the light on, in which case they scatter.
	So it's cockroaches versus the light when it comes to crazy people in your life.
	And so your mother was very clearly saying, go back to the crazy woman, don't turn on the sane light, otherwise you're gonna see that I'm an over sequined cockroach with eye makeup on.
	I don't mean to dehumanize, I'm just using the analogy.
	And so she wanted to keep, she was circling your penis with the crazy whip.
	Rose is a sane, good woman, you say, peaceful parenting and love.
	And a sane woman will look at your mom and say, Danger, suction, sewage, vacuum vagina on the alert.
	And she's going to square her off.
	She's going to square her off.
	Any sane woman around a crazy woman, if she loves you, she's going to stare down the crazy woman and it's going to be like high noon in Estrogenville.
	And it's, you know, two ladies went in.
	Well, one lady and one crazy person went in.
	Only one person emerged.
	And it is kind of like a fight to the death of the relationship.
	And either the crazy mother wins, in which case you get Pink Floyd's The Wall, or the loving good woman wins, in which case...
	Get me behind me, Satan witch from hell!
	And it is a fight to the life or the death of the relationship.
	So I just wanted to sort of mention that if you've got a crazy mother, whoever she dislikes is probably in the category of your best friend and salvation.
	Oh, I wish I'd realized that sooner.
	I really do.
	Well, at least we can help other people realize it, right?
	Yes.
	Yes.
	Hey, you know that click?
	That's a grenade.
	It says, one hoot Stumpyville, right?
	But, alright.
	So, how long have they been married now?
	Me and Rose, or my brother and the woman?
	You, a brother and the woman.
	They've been married six years, seven maybe.
	Now, so she wanted, this woman, we'll call her Vixen.
	Vixen?
	With three X's.
	Because, you know...
	A few more sit-ups.
	She's got stripper potential from hell written all over.
	So Vixen and your brother have been married for six or seven years.
	And I would assume, I think you mentioned that Vixen wanted to get married very quickly and then wanted to have a child very quickly.
	And that's called getting leverage.
	That's called getting a giant hitman called the government to stand over your brother with a giant club that will hack off his penis, right?
	All right.
	All right.
	I'm just looking at the dream again.
	Just anything that happened several days ago, I know that's when you sent the email, probably a little while since then.
	Do you remember anything that may have happened, Bob, on that day that might have given you something, some thought about your brother?
	Actually, I just...
	I started a new job.
	In fact, my first full-time job.
	Literally, I've only been a couple of days now.
	I started right after, I think, I sent that.
	One thing that's been occurring to me is, for the first time ever, your younger sibling, you look at your brother and he's like, he can do all these amazing things you can't even dream of.
	And now for the first time, I can honestly say my paycheck is twice the size of his.
	And I remember when we were kids, that's one thing we would fight about.
	He had these incredibly unrealistic dreams.
	He said, I'm going to get a business degree.
	I'm going to be making like $100,000 within my first year.
	And now I'm going to retire after 10 years as a millionaire.
	And I kept telling him, I was like, no, that's insane.
	That makes no sense.
	And he's like, no, you just don't understand anything.
	You're too young.
	And now I can say, you know...
	He's now married to a crazy woman and working a close to minimum wage job, and I'm making twice what he is.
	I've been thinking about that a lot lately.
	I don't know why it keeps popping up to me, but it's almost like tangible proofs.
	Finally, I can say you're wrong, and I have proof.
	No, it's a good feeling, wouldn't you say?
	Yeah, very much.
	There is this idea that if people have done you wrong that you should not glory in their failures and your successes.
	I have no idea why that would be the case.
	Don't you celebrate the end of a war?
	Don't you celebrate a victory in a war?
	And if you have a particular constellation of your sibling or siblings or family where you are in opposite sides of the fence.
	And again, I don't want to talk too much about my own experience here, but if you are in some ways diametrically opposed to someone, then you should dance on the grave of their hopes and dreams.
	Because it's win-lose.
	It's win-lose.
	If you've been fighting fiercely with a competitor in the business world for many, many years, and both companies are down to their last 5,000 bucks, And you're both up for a multi-million dollar contract.
	And you're the only two vendors vying for this contract.
	And you've been working hard night and day for months to get this gig.
	You've traveled, you've gone into debt, you've borrowed stuff.
	And you get a call from the client.
	The client says, I didn't give it to the other company.
	What's your feeling?
	That's pretty crappy, I guess.
	I didn't give it to the other company, and there's only two of you.
	Oh, wait, okay, yeah.
	Stay with me, Bob.
	Yeah, okay, sorry.
	Yeah, I'd be really excited.
	Yes!
	Yes!
	You do your victory dance of business survival.
	Yes!
	Woohoo!
	And it's not so much, suck it, competitor.
	It's like, it's only one of you gets to win.
	And if one wins, the other one loses.
	Everyone in your life who's diametrically opposed to your position, you should celebrate their failures.
	You should celebrate their failures.
	Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
	When you're in a boxing ring and you knock someone out, you don't sit there and cry and give them CPR. You do a victory lap.
	You've won!
	They've lost!
	Only one of you could win.
	So this...
	Don't...
	Oh, I'm gonna take the high road.
	Oh, bullshit.
	The high road is just the loser's way of trying not to feel bad.
	I've lost, so I'm going to try and make you feel bad.
	I've lost, so I'm going to try and make you feel guilty for winning.
	You're not taking the high road.
	And all the losers who are afraid of losing are so desperate to maintain their fragile little non-egos that every time somebody does a victory lap or is happy about their success or is confident about their success, They're all like, you're gloating.
	You take the high road.
	You shouldn't be so happy.
	How do you think the other person feels?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Give me a break.
	Oh, you're right.
	That's a great feeling.
	Oh, and I'm sorry to keep throwing details.
	Another thing that just occurred to me is as I took this job, I also had to move closer to him than I've lived since the stalking and harassment.
	So I'm now within a couple hours' drive of them, which hasn't been the case in, like, Six years.
	Okay.
	So, yeah.
	I want those opposed to me to lose and fail.
	Yeah.
	Just as they, if they've got any brains at all, they want me to lose and fail.
	You know, if I'm going in to play a tennis match, I'm going to give it my all.
	And if I win, I'm going to shake your hand.
	I'm not going to be a douchebag.
	I'm just going to be...
	I won!
	See those guys that throw the rackets in the air, they do a victory dance.
	You know, when the guy scores the touchdown, he doesn't go and give the opposing team a hug.
	You guys okay?
	I'm sorry I took that ball all the way down there.
	Like, in hindsight, that was pretty selfish of me because, you know, we're all here to win.
	Everybody gets a prize.
	How's that?
	Let's just pass the ball back and forth to each other, really gently.
	I mean, the pitcher wants the batter to not hit the ball.
	And the batter wants to hit the ball.
	And it's win-lose.
	And if you win, you do a factory celebration.
	You know, I remember I was living in a house with like a bunch of other people.
	And my master's when Toronto was playing the Toronto Blue Jays, a.k.a.
	the Dolphin team, as I made a mistake many years back.
	But the Blue Jays, they won the World Series.
	And I actually had a really sore throat.
	But I remember going out into the crowds and crowd surfing and talking to people.
	And everyone was like, yeah!
	Woo!
	We are the champ!
	Everybody was, like, thrilled and exciting.
	I don't remember anyone saying, guys, guys, you know, we really should think about the other team.
	Like, how they're feeling.
	Because it's true that our team won, but they really did lose.
	And, you know, they have just as much of an...
	Right?
	No, it's like, we rock!
	So yeah, sorry, if you're diametrically opposed to me, I am going to revel and enjoy all the disasters that happen to you.
	I don't want those disasters to happen to you.
	I don't want those disasters to happen to people.
	I want those disasters to happen to my enemies.
	Of course, because it's win-lose.
	In the realm of philosophy, in particular, it's win-lose.
	And, you know, you don't see when the Democrats win in America, you don't see them saying, well, I don't know, let's give enough votes to the Republicans so that we're equal and we all get to rule.
	You know, let's let's promote someone to be president along with Barack Obama because, you know, they want to win too.
	And oh, they win.
	And being liberals, they lie and cheat and do whatever they want to get to get their way.
	And they want to win.
	And for them to win, other people have to lose.
	And if you are opposed to your brother in any fundamental way, then you're probably going to feel some level of joy and relief at his failures.
	I don't mean that you want him to fail.
	I don't want people to fail.
	What I'd rather is that...
	Let's say somebody listens to my show.
	Sorry, this is just a by-the-by because it's an important thing for people to get.
	Let's say some guy listens to my show.
	And he's like, fuck that, douchebag!
	I'm gonna listen to him.
	I'm gonna hit my kids.
	Whap!
	You know, and he puts on the big foamy Incredible Hulk finger fists and he's like, I'm gonna hit my kids!
	And off he goes and he hits his kids, right?
	I don't want him to hit his kids.
	I'd much rather he say, wow, that guy makes a really good point.
	I'm going to research it more.
	I'm going to talk about it more.
	I'm going to read about it more.
	Hey, I'm not going to hit my kids because that's wrong.
	That's what I'd much rather.
	But if he decides to go and hit his kids and his kids grow up hating him, I'm not going to feel sorry for the guy.
	I'm not.
	You did it to yourself.
	You brought it on yourself.
	You had better information.
	It's your damn fault.
	And, you know, he probably wants my kids to grow up hating me.
	I get that.
	I understand that.
	I mean, the guy at the other end of the tennis net in Wimbledon wants me to lose and wants him to win, himself to win.
	So it's not like you want your brother to be unhappy, but given that your brother doesn't listen, doesn't take advice, doesn't think sensibly, and not only that, but is incredibly condescending to you as well.
	Hey, you're just a little kid.
	What do you know?
	I know how to make a million dollars by the time I'm 30.
	I'm joining the Fed.
	Only a million by the time you're 30 seconds from now.
	But because he was so condescending and such a know-it-all and didn't listen, even when you tried to warn him about this woman, you know, they live, you learn.
	They win, you lose, you win, they lose.
	And I would rather win than lose.
	So anyway, I don't want to mean like you wake up every morning saying, I hope bad things happen to my brother.
	But it is pleasant and good for the heart and soul of all virtuous minds and hearts to watch immoral people suffer is one of the great joys of morality.
	I think that makes sense.
	And we know that.
	We don't put people in jail to make them feel good.
	Everybody knows that.
	It's just, when it comes to personal relationships, somehow every rule of sports and law and prison and justice and fairness and war, all of these rules go out the window and now we've got to be so sensitive to everybody.
	Don't make that person feel bad.
	Why?
	Why?
	All you have to do is imagine how they'd be if they won and you lost.
	You know, if you meet people, first time you meet them, treat them best you can.
	After that, treat them like they treat you.
	Yeah, I mean, I just put this video at 15 reasons to date a single mom.
	You're so mean.
	Or Bernie Sanders, right?
	Donald Trump is a heartless, ham-colored clown.
	No, he's just an alpha and he makes you feel small and weak.
	And as Nietzsche so famously predicted 150 years ago, Odd, when you are weak and scared, you have a choice.
	You can face your fears and you can overcome your fears and you become a bigger and stronger and better person.
	Or you can try to make other people guilty for making you feel small.
	You can try to make other people bad for you feeling small.
	If I've got an important tennis game and I don't practice and I don't get any training and I eat four hoagies the morning of the match, I'm gonna lose.
	And then what am I gonna just sit there and stew in my resentment?
	Resentment is the hallmark of powerlessness.
	You want to find a powerless person, find someone who is full of resentment.
	I wouldn't feel dumb if you weren't smart.
	I wouldn't feel unread if you weren't well read.
	I wouldn't feel short if you weren't tall.
	I wouldn't feel poor if you weren't rich.
	And this resentment is this basic, it's like this poisoned grappling hook, right?
	You can shoot a grappling hook like every spy movie known to man.
	You shoot a grappling hook over the Nazi castle wall to climb up over the Nazi castle wall.
	Up we go, right?
	However, the resentment approach is to shoot the grappling hook up and try and pull the Nazi castle down.
	And unfortunately, it's tragically successful.
	And yeah, Bernie Sanders, of course, appeals to people who didn't have a dad and therefore wants someone to give them free stuff, as their dad should have, and that's sort of natural.
	But you ought to have free stuff.
	People ought to give you stuff.
	God, how insulting would that be?
	I was thinking, sorry to slight tangent, but I was thinking about this the other day.
	I thought about this the other day.
	Mike, tell me what you think about this.
	Let's say we get a call from the government.
	The one guy, hello, I'm Mr.
	Government.
	And we say, hello, gov.
	Oh, that's a British joke.
	Anyway, governor.
	Hello, governor.
	And they say, Mike and Staffenstoy, we've got a great plan for you.
	Here's what we're going to do.
	We feel that there's too many people going to other YouTube channels and other media.
	So what we're going to do is we're going to pass a law that says that you must receive at least 1% of the views on YouTube.
	And we are going to redirect browsers to you and we are going to...
	People log in.
	They're just taken immediately to your page.
	The only way they can stop it is to unplug their computer.
	And that's how we're going to boost your views.
	Because, you know...
	Rush Limbaugh speaks to like 20 million people.
	You guys are only meeting like 2 or 3 or 4 million a month and he speaks to 20 million every day.
	So we're just going to take the browser, we're going to redirect them to you.
	And that's how we're going to deal with this inequality of you not getting enough views relative to other people in the media.
	And what would you think, Mike?
	That sounds like a terrible idea for 8 million different reasons.
	Give me three.
	Number one, sounds a bit immoral.
	Number two...
	A bit immoral.
	Just a bit.
	It's a lot immoral if it doesn't benefit us at all.
	It's a little bit immoral if it benefits us enormously.
	Just a bit of the immoral.
	Just a bit.
	You know, like a pinch of sugar in the...
	You know what?
	You said that almost regretfully.
	Son of a bitch!
	I'm not expecting this phone call.
	It's a bit immoral.
	If we have the subsidy of people now have to watch the show, the quality of the show will undoubtedly go down because, well, when something isn't subject to potential market failure, the quality is going to decrease, hence post office.
	Not exactly concerned with how quickly my little letter gets there or how long the line is or how terrible their fucking decor looks.
	Wait a minute.
	The only thing that's really made you angry so far in this entire conversation is the decor?
	Have you been watching a little too much Queer Eye for the straight guy, you know?
	The decor of the post office.
	Fine.
	Okay, fine.
	They can take my money.
	They can take my mail.
	They don't have to deliver anything on time.
	But by God, a plastic potted plant against Formica?
	My God!
	How could we...
	God, get out of bed in the morning!
	All right.
	Decor.
	Now, everybody who emails Mike, we found his weak spot.
	Post office decor.
	There you go.
	There you go.
	But, yeah, I mean...
	Immoral, and the subsidy of it is going to lead to a decrease in quality of the show.
	Well, and we get a whole bunch of listeners clogging up the pipes and sending us emails who have absolutely no interest in philosophy fundamentally or want to change.
	And they'd hate us.
	It's like, I don't want to see you.
	I want to see Prax Girl.
	Yeah, we got a whole bunch of new people watching that Bernie Sanders video that we just put out.
	A whole lot of people that I don't think are going to be fans of philosophy, libertarianism, or rational arguments anytime soon after their rebuttal of your Bernie Sanders comments amounted to nothing short of, but shut up, idiot Koch brothers.
	Who do I work for, Mike?
	But if you want to cure people of an addiction, sadly, you have to go to where the addicts are, and a lot of them don't want to be cured.
	So I just wanted to sort of point that out, that when it comes to things like affirmative action and subsidies for people, as I said, It's like, who would want that?
	Government needs to tell my employer how much.
	Like, we'd be like, no, we'll go get our own viewers.
	Thank you very much.
	What an insult it would be to us to have people herded to us.
	And what an insult that would be to philosophy.
	And how pathetically low would we have to have an opinion of ourselves if...
	We found that attractive.
	Yeah, force people to come to listen to my side.
	Yeah, bring this woman to a date at gunpoint, because I'm really not attractive, so you're going to have to do it that way.
	Anyway, sorry, Bob.
	Let's get back to your drink.
	Are you still with us?
	Did you stay awake?
	I'm still with you.
	He's just stewing in anger about thoughts of post-office decor.
	I think that's pretty clear.
	That'll keep me up at night.
	All right.
	I certainly know now, when Mike really is tired and has good sleep, I certainly know what I'm going to be doing next.
	Putting a whole bunch of mailboxes in his house, and a giant, giant-bellied woman on a tiny stool with glasses at the end of her nose, looking down at him.
	No tweaking Mike today, Steph.
	Mike hasn't had a lot of sleep.
	No.
	Sorry, all I heard was, twerk Mike.
	Was that?
	Twerk it, Mike.
	That's what I heard.
	Oh, dear.
	Yep.
	All right.
	It's not so much starting the twerking that's the problem.
	It's stopping it.
	This is not Bob's dream.
	This is not Bob's dream.
	Well, it will be tonight.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Okay, call it next week, Bob, and run through it.
	And there's no cure for that.
	All right.
	My older brother managed to escape off nearly all of his skin.
	Okay, skin, to me, I don't know, this is not scientific again, but we'll just bat it back and forth until we hit some robust emotional material.
	But...
	Skin is boundaries.
	Skin is what separates you from other people.
	Skin is the first line of defense against infection.
	So skin to me signifies emotional and intellectual robustness.
	Right?
	That's how you know where you end and someone else.
	So it's individuation.
	It's not being part of a collective.
	And it is a defense against, you know, bacteria, right?
	Because I have a daughter, I know that there are these frogs that you can handle.
	But if you have a tiny cut in your skin, they have like enough poison to kill 10 men or something, right?
	So your skin is your defense against infection.
	And it is your individuation.
	It's where you end and the world begins.
	When you're hugging someone, you know you're hugging them because your skin is touching.
	Right?
	There's you, there's the other person, and the skin is the boundary of yourself.
	I think we can sort of understand that.
	I'm not saying that's perfect in the dream, but you sort of...
	No, actually, it connects to something in the dream I didn't...
	Bingo!
	Hole in one!
	It's like the only detail I think I left out is like what I was thinking toward the end of the dream like as they were grafting on skin I mentioned that you know I wonder if there was enough like healthy skin on me to still like fully heal me but one thing I was wondering is like well it doesn't feel so bad to be without skin it's not painful it doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would but I'm wondering if I'm more vulnerable to infection.
	Right.
	Right.
	Well, you would be, of course.
	Yeah.
	You know, cats and hospital is like sepsis, right?
	I mean, there's this sort of blood infections and so on.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	So, your brother has nearly managed to scrape off nearly all of his skin.
	And this probably would be, in my mind, if he's married to a woman without boundaries.
	And stalking is fundamentally a boundary violation, right?
	It's a property violation.
	It's a self-ownership violation.
	It's invasive, right?
	Uh-huh.
	And the way you get into other people, you know, you can't crawl inside them in some Isaac Asimov, shrunken down, tiny healer way, but you can put memes into their heads.
	You can try and inject self-doubt into their head, right?
	You know, that horrible internet habit that people have of saying, you know, you suck, you're terrible, go kill yourself, right?
	I mean, that is like, it's a voodoo-style remote-control murder attempt.
	If I can get this person to hear, kill yourself over and over and over again, is that going to activate the self-destruct button in their brain?
	So your brother has managed to scrape off nearly all of his skin.
	Now you don't know, if I understand this right, Scrape-off is ambiguous.
	Does it mean that he was in an accident, like he fell off a bike at high speed, naked, a motorbike or something, or did he actually do it to himself?
	Do we know?
	No, I think it's the first one.
	I think he fell and skid across the ground and scraped off most of it.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Now, my brother seemed to be feeling okay.
	Yeah, again, he wasn't smiling, he wasn't screaming or anything.
	Yeah, because without your skin, Or if your blood is going to fall to the ground like a water balloon that hits a spike, right?
	Uh-huh.
	So he's like a zombie.
	He's dead, but he seems to be feeling okay, right?
	Yeah.
	He's not panicking.
	He's not freaking out, right?
	Now, why do you try to take the remaining shreds of skin?
	Why should he look more uniformly skinless?
	Yeah, this is a weird part.
	I thought I was helping, so I came up to him.
	And I see these little shreds of skin, mostly skinless.
	And I'm like, well, this...
	Doesn't look uniform.
	These threads of skin don't seem to fit.
	It's not symmetrical.
	And so I just start peeling them off.
	And for some reason, I think I'm helping.
	But I'm also wondering if he might want these pieces of skin in case he does want to grow his skin back out or something.
	But I just keep peeling away and think I'm helping.
	That one is the most confusing part of the dream to me.
	I like uniformly skinless is a very powerful set of words.
	It's a very powerful two words.
	I'll tell you what they evoke in me.
	Does your brother have any job or has he had any job which involves a uniform?
	No.
	No, he doesn't.
	What about an outfit, you know, like fast food or something like that?
	He worked at fast food at some point.
	But he doesn't have, like, something he has to put on that's like a uniform or an outfit or anything like that for work, right?
	No, I mean, the most is his new wife now dresses him in this preppy clothes that he never would have worn in a million years before.
	Take off all your preppy clothes.
	Now, what about...
	And the reason...
	Has he ever been interested in the military?
	No, no, he wasn't.
	Policing?
	Fireman?
	No, nothing like that.
	He always wanted to be a businessman.
	Okay.
	No, and so just what was popping out of my head is a uniform to me is the skin you wear when you have no identity.
	Because it's the barrier between you and the rest of the world, but it's the same as everyone else.
	So uniformly skinless.
	Uniform also has unform as part of its word.
	But anyway, okay, so I don't think that's going to lead anywhere particular.
	It's just what I was thinking that So he decided to have a skin graft from a remaining patch of skin on his back to the rest of his body.
	So that's insane, and it's never going to work, right?
	Yeah.
	Right?
	A skin graft works...
	I know, no doctor, but a skin graft works when they take a couple of top layers from a healthy part and put it where a burn or a wound is.
	But you can't...
	You know, you can't do hair transplants if you only have three hairs, right?
	You just move them around, I guess, like playing whack-a-mole.
	So he decides to have a skin graft, a remaining patch of skin on his back to the rest of his body.
	As soon as the process of skin grafting was about to begin.
	Now, interestingly enough, in the dream, did you ever say, Hartz, that can't work?
	No, in the dream, I wasn't sure if it was going to work.
	So what that means is that you were in the mind of a crazy person.
	Yeah, actually, I guess so.
	Similar to when this woman was stalking you and lying to your brother about having a relationship with you and you're like, yeah, they should get married, right?
	Yeah.
	That's because you're in the mind of your mom.
	You're in the mind of a crazy person because all of that serves your mom and harms your brother, right?
	So, as soon as the process of skin grafting was about to begin, the roles switched.
	Now, I was the one without any skin.
	My brother was standing next to me as my doctor.
	He was wearing a white lab coat.
	Now, that's a uniform, right?
	Yes.
	And everything.
	In his hand, he had a tool which he was going to use to peel off thin layers of remaining skin from my back and graft it into the rest of my body.
	But instead of using the tool himself, he hands it to my wife.
	She's confused as to why he hands her this surgical tool.
	And what's your relationship?
	What's your brother's relationship with your wife?
	Pretty much non-existent.
	They don't talk.
	And I think at one point, we all thought we could all, again, way back in the day, we all thought we could be friends.
	So we hung out a couple of times, had a couple of brief, shallow conversations.
	But then he actually yelled at Rose once for upsetting his wife.
	And since then, they've not really spoken directly.
	Okay.
	Right, and I think that all makes sense.
	So you're in this unreal world, and you don't protest, and you think it might somehow work out.
	And then you lose your skin, right?
	You lose your containment, you lose your separateness, you lose your identity, and you lose your defense.
	Because crazy people, they kind of just want to rush you along, they don't want to pause, they don't want to go deep.
	Things just kind of hurry, or they stay relentlessly shallow.
	So they're just kind of hurrying you along.
	And it takes real strength of character to say, wait, stop, this is some crazy stuff, right?
	Like when your brother got married, you were there, and I don't know if he had a traditional wedding, but at some point they often say, is there anyone here who knows of any reason why this marriage should not proceed, right?
	Did he have that?
	No, they didn't have that part.
	Yeah, I can imagine why.
	But if they had had it, you probably wouldn't have, but you could have said, yeah, she's nuts.
	Yeah.
	So everyone with this, everyone was just like going along.
	Oh, you know, they love each other.
	He gets along with her kid.
	They've been together for a while.
	And so everyone, you're on this conveyor belt of crazy.
	In my own mind, literally, I've called it the conveyor belt of crazy.
	Crazy just keeps you moving along.
	It's like whitewater rafting.
	You're so busy managing everything.
	The next thing you know, you're in another continent called insanity and there's no way back.
	And so with crazy people, there's this This insistency, this urgency, and it usually is opposed to anything that's deep or slowed down.
	You know, rush is, you know, is disaster.
	And so you're just kind of going along here.
	Like, you don't have an identity because you're not saying, A, how can you still be alive?
	B, you can't have a skin graft from a tiny piece of skin.
	And you're like, yeah, it could work or whatever, right?
	Right.
	And so you're kind of going along with this crazy thing.
	And also after crazy people have been crazy long enough.
	Then any reality.
	Is incredibly destructive to them.
	Thank you.
	And so for you to assert reality in the face of crazy people is in some ways almost literally to take your life into your hands.
	Crazy people can be murderous when confronted with reality.
	When they're deeply committed to and have acted for many years on really bad, nasty, evil, immoral premises.
	Because it's win-lose.
	I've confronted some crazy people in my life and I'm glad I'm a big strong guy because they're pretty volatile, very volatile when that happens.
	Particularly women.
	Anyway, so you're kind of going along with this crazy thing and Now you're the patient and you don't have any skin.
	Do you see?
	The skinlessness has now transferred itself.
	The crazy, the lack of identity, has now transferred itself to you because you didn't stand up and say, what the hell, right?
	Yeah, that's true.
	So he hands it to your wife.
	Confused as to why she has a surgical tool when she has no medical experience, he has a doctor.
	She felt too awkward to say anything.
	Ah, you see?
	This is the thing, right?
	This is part of the lack of identity.
	Started using to peel off layers of my skin from my back.
	Ended up bunching up.
	She then handed these pieces to my brother.
	He would straighten them out and slap them onto my body in random places.
	Do you mean actually slap?
	Yeah, he would slap them on and if the old piece starts peeling off, he'd just give it another slap and hope it sticks.
	Did that hurt?
	No, it didn't hurt.
	Right, so you have no identity, and even more terrifyingly, you have no pain.
	You have no pain.
	Having no pain is the worst thing in the world.
	Having no pain is, I think, why people kill themselves.
	Having no pain is why people go to war.
	Having no pain is why people cut themselves, just to feel something.
	And so you have no skin, and skin stuff, I mean, burns are apparently just about the most agonizing thing that you can experience.
	Skin grafts are incredibly painful, and the pain just goes on and on and on.
	And so this would be horrifyingly painful, and it's not, right?
	Yeah.
	You said your emotions are very muted.
	I seem to care very little about the condition I was in.
	And you are not pushing back against...
	Like, things are getting progressively crazier, right?
	Yeah.
	Your brother's standing there with no skin.
	You don't say, you know, let me hold you while you die, you empty bag of distant blood.
	And then he goes for the skin graft which can't possibly work.
	And then, you know, you switch roles.
	And then he's like, says to your wife with no...
	Like, more and more crazy stuff happens.
	And you never push back.
	Yeah, that's true.
	It gets progressively more insane.
	Like not only is your doctor, sorry, not only is your brother giving an incredibly delicate operation to your wife who has no skill and experience, but he's doing things really badly as well.
	Yeah.
	He's just putting them on your body in random places and all that kind of stuff, right?
	And you're feeling mildly scared and mildly confused.
	Now that is a warning from your unconscious.
	Because what should you be feeling?
	Absolutely terrified.
	And enraged.
	Yeah.
	Right, so...
	Your emotions are very muted.
	So when you...
	When you don't push back against crazy, you dissociate.
	You zone out.
	You detach from your own emotional core of self-protection.
	Yeah, which is something I'm very well practiced at.
	Of course.
	I mean, if you were raised with a crazy mom, you swallow and suck up the crazy, right?
	I mean, what are you going to do?
	She's your food provider.
	She's your shelter provider.
	I mean, what are you going to do?
	You can't push back against the crazy mom, at least until you get into your teens, right?
	So, Bob, is there anything circling around in your life that's crazy at the moment that you're hoping is just going to go away or that you're not reacting to in a way that would be protective of you and your family?
	There was something crazy circling my life over the past year, which I left behind when I took this new job.
	Oh, it was a work crazy thing?
	Uh, yeah, I was in an, well, I still am in an academic setting, but I was in a very different academic setting full of like literally packed with like social justice feminists whom I got into direct conflict with and they've made my life miserable.
	Right.
	Right.
	So you push back more there.
	Now you're in a position of, of less danger that way, right?
	Yes.
	Now, the fact that your wife is in the dream is important as well because your wife is conforming to this crazy stuff too, right?
	She felt too awkward to say anything and starts using the tool to pee off layers of your skin, right?
	Too awkward to say anything, this could kill you.
	But I don't want to be awkward, so I guess I'll...
	Is there anything in your wife's environment that is...
	Pushing her someplace crazy that she's feeling too awkward to push back.
	That's something that we've been wrestling around with.
	Well, I think there's two things.
	One is the general degree, like the general way that we want to choose to relate to other people as a whole.
	And try to find the more sane people around us.
	And the other one is the degree to which we want to relate to our parents.
	Both mine and hers, where there's, you know, different kinds of crazy in each one.
	Right.
	I know it's a very vague answer.
	No, no, it's perfectly fine.
	Perfectly fine.
	Perfectly fine answer.
	So how much, if 100% authenticity and honesty is our ideal, Bob, when you're with your parents, what percentage are you at in terms of honesty?
	And openness and self-expression?
	With my parents, I would actually say probably about 80%.
	It's pretty high.
	I've just stopped holding back.
	And kind of stopped caring about their reactions.
	Not necessarily the healthiest relationship, but that's kind of what I... Wait, so you are 80% honest and open with your mother?
	I have been recently.
	Not through most of my life or anything.
	No, I get it.
	So recently, you are 80% honest and self-expressed with your mother.
	I'm not saying you're wrong.
	I just want to really make sure that I understand it.
	The more I think about my ideas, yes.
	About my feelings, less so.
	So probably maybe 50-60%, yeah.
	Okay, so if you're with your mother for half an hour, for 15 minutes of those half an hour, you are very self-expressed.
	Thoughts, feelings, ideas, perspectives, ethics?
	Yes, actually.
	Okay, I think that's fantastic.
	And how has she been responding to that?
	I think she tunes out most of it and throws back ad hominems every now and then.
	And a couple of times every now and then it leads to an escalation, but usually I think she just tunes it out Or sometimes if it's like really abstracted from our own lives, she might agree.
	So she tunes it out.
	What does that mean?
	Does she just stare at you and not respond?
	Yeah, actually, sometimes she just kind of sits there and does her own thing.
	Like she might be on her computer or watching TV and she just keeps doing whatever she's doing.
	So you're trying to talk to your mother about something really important and she continues to watch TV? Yes.
	And how does that make you feel?
	Good question.
	There's not exactly an answer to the question, but I'm not aware of feeling anything at those moments.
	Other than occasionally I feel some frustration.
	that's why you're having this dream your mother was a spanker um No.
	From best I remember, I think my memory is a little hazy because Rose says that at one point I told her about this one instance of spanking I had, but Presently, I can't remember any.
	So I think maybe there was one, maybe there was none.
	She usually dealt with me through shaming and manipulation.
	Okay.
	And, you know, I'm sorry to bring this up, but you have an ACE of three, one of which is molestation or sex or rape?
	Yeah, and I was kind of iffy about how to Have that because I've had, as a child, way too many unwanted sexual experiences and most of them were with older peers.
	So just slightly older.
	But there were two instances where a much older, like a teenager when I was a child, exposed me by force.
	So there was no touching in those instances.
	So again, I wasn't sure...
	Oh, you mean like, sorry, sorry.
	They sort of rip your pants down and expose your penis and...
	Yes.
	Well, one of them told me to do it, and another one kind of, yeah, forced me, and I was struggling against it, and it was her and her friend forced my pants down.
	Right.
	And this is something that happened, you said, fairly regularly?
	Something like that.
	Most of it has been just with different people here and there.
	I've been to a lot of different summer camps.
	And this is, you know, summer camps in Russia where, you know, parents just dump their kids off out of town for a month and don't see them at all.
	So these were, like, Lord of the Flies, has nothing on it, kind of places ruled by children.
	I didn't go to summer camp in Russia, but I went to a whole bunch of summer camps.
	Yay, Camp Bolton!
	But...
	Anyway, okay.
	And I'm incredibly sorry about all of that, of course.
	Now, of course, you didn't tell your family?
	No, no, I didn't tell my family about any of that.
	Do you know if your mother has had any sexual dysfunction in her history?
	I do not.
	The most I know is at one point, she...
	Like, this was after my dad died.
	She had sex with one of the guys that was fixing up our apartment, presumably so he would charge her less for it.
	And as a kid, I just happened to walk in on that, and that's all I know about her sexual history.
	And do you know if these things ever happened to your brother?
	I don't know if they ever happened to him, no.
	Have you ever talked about the subject with your brother?
	No, never.
	This is an important part of what happened to you as a kid.
	I'm not saying it defines you, obviously, but it's an important part of what happened to you as a kid.
	Yeah, I agree.
	And what did your mother say when you told her about all this stuff?
	Oh, I'm sorry, maybe I got confused.
	I never told my mom, I never told anyone until I met Rose about any of that.
	Your mother still doesn't know about your serial molestations?
	No, she doesn't know about any of that still.
	So where are we getting 50% honesty from, Bob?
	Okay.
	Maybe I need to revise my answer a second time.
	I feel like I'm getting a whole series of unemployment statistics from Botswana.
	No, you're right.
	I was thinking about like I'll I'll tell at her my ideas about peaceful parenting and voluntary relationships and libertarian ideas, but I don't talk to her to this day about anything that happened to me unless we're already in the midst of a heated argument and I throw something out there almost to spite her.
	Right, which is using your experience as a weapon rather than being honest and open about it.
	Yeah.
	And the neglect.
	How did the neglect show up for you, Bob?
	Well, some of it, I went ahead and classified these instances where in summer she would drop me off at these summer camps and then just leave me there for a month and then I'd come home for a week and then she'd drop me off at another summer camp right afterwards for another month.
	And this was the case for years.
	Was your brother with you at these camps?
	Sometimes, half the time, he was in half these camps, but not the other half.
	And even when he was, these were age-segregated, so he was usually in a different building, and I'd almost never see him.
	And there were also other times in which, well, later, eventually when she was working two-plus jobs, I would just never see her.
	her.
	I'd be at home by myself, kind of taking care of myself, and she would just leave me some money.
	Right.
	Great.
	Thank you.
	Okay, so I'm going to give you a bigger picture view of this.
	Please, as always, I'm not here to tell you your experience, Bob.
	I'm not here to tell you what the dream means, because I don't know, right?
	All I can do is tell you my thoughts about it, just to be very clear about that, right?
	I mean, if I say something that doesn't make any sense to you, it doesn't fit emotionally, you can completely discard it.
	Just be aware of that, right?
	This is your dream, your life, all right?
	Please go ahead.
	This is not medicine.
	This is sadism.
	Right?
	What is?
	The dream is about sadism.
	Because it's a medical procedure that can't possibly work.
	And it's not even close to working.
	And everyone's continuing.
	Well, the only reason you continue to do something that's destructive to another person that can't possibly work is because you're a sadist, right?
	And sadists, one of the most delightful and delicious things for a sadist is to turn someone you love against you.
	Because your brother is undergoing a procedure or is inflicting a procedure upon you that can't possibly work and is only going to damage you further, right?
	Yeah.
	And he engages and enrolls your wife into participating with him in this sadism, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So someone around you, Bob, is trying to turn your wife against you.
	In other words, you're in a win-lose situation with someone.
	You're on a seesaw.
	They go up, you go down, and vice versa, right?
	Someone around you is invested in your wife harming you.
	I don't know if it's her family, or if it's your family, Or maybe it's your brother's wife who still has a thing for you, whatever, right?
	But you are defenseless around crazy sadists at the moment.
	And they will disassemble you if you don't start feeling some pushback, some kickback.
	Your wife felt too awkward to say anything and started physically peeling off layers of your skin.
	She is conforming to crazy sadists and it's going to harm you.
	And it's almost too late.
	It's almost too late, because you're not dead in the dream.
	You could die in the dream, and the dream would then say, it's too late, you've crossed over, you've passed the point of no return.
	But the dream has left you feeling unsettled.
	In other words, you're more unsettled about the dream than you were about being tortured in the dream.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah.
	It's bothered you more afterwards than it did having your wife participate in your torture.
	This is torture.
	This is sadism.
	This is not health.
	And I know that because I know not that you're consciously doing it, but you're lying to me and to yourself when you say you're 80%, no 50%, no whatever it is.
	Perfectly open and honest.
	With your mother.
	I mean, I'm sorry, that just is not true.
	Because if your mother is this kind of person where she's saying, hey man, babe, Bob, don't go with Rose.
	She's not insane.
	Go with the stalker who's lying to your brother.
	That kind of personality Who wants to inflict that kind of damage on you for the sake of her own narcissistic needs, that kind of personality cannot take a shred of emotional truth.
	Now, if you lecture her about libertarianism and peaceful parenting, well, it's in one year and out the other, right?
	It's more abstract and it doesn't connect and whatever, right?
	Yeah.
	And she can ignore you.
	And this is another reason, like, I tell you, if I'm telling something honest and open and important to someone else, And they're continuing to watch TV and ignore me.
	I asked you, how does this make you feel?
	You said, I don't know, I guess maybe mildly irritated.
	Mike, how would you feel if that was occurring?
	I'd be enraged.
	That is so unbelievably rude.
	Somebody's pouring their heart out to you, and you're not even saying, I'm so sorry, can you hold off five minutes?
	I'm just at the end of the most gripping They found space aliens.
	This will never be rebroadcast.
	I've been waiting for this my whole life.
	Just wait five minutes till this is done, which is all bullshit because you can get everything on YouTube anyway.
	But you're pouring your heart.
	I'm pouring my heart out to someone talking about stuff that's really important, and they're finding the television more important than me?
	That is incredibly rude.
	It's a giant fuck you to you.
	I mean, Your relationships are more important than a TV show, right?
	I hope that's not a radical statement even in this digital age, right?
	Yeah.
	So you're not having pushback even against incredibly rude behavior.
	I'd be tempted but I wouldn't put my foot through the television set and say, hello!
	Let's get some priorities straight here.
	I am your son.
	If you wish to have any contact with me, my thoughts and feelings must be more important to you than a TV show.
	Hello!
	TV show.
	Not that important as your son's openness and honesty for the first time in his life.
	It's...
	When you're honest and open, Bob, it's like you're dying of thirst in a desert.
	And someone...
	Has a bottle of water, and they're four feet from you, but you're too exhausted and dehydrated to even get up.
	Because listening after years of a neglected and dysfunctional relationship, someone listening to you is like them giving you water just before you die of thirst in the desert.
	And you're reaching and croaking, water, water, give me water.
	And they're just glug, glug, glug, glug, glug.
	Oh, man, that's good.
	Want to play some volleyball?
	They're directly ignoring your desperation, your imminent death and your undying thirst, right?
	Dad is a giant, fuck you.
	But you're muted in that response.
	Which means that your emotions are being dictated by crazy people around you.
	In other words, if you get angry...
	About something as fundamental as, I'm trying to talk to you about something important and you're pretending to ignore me.
	It's just a pretense, right?
	She's listening very, very carefully to what you're saying.
	She's just pretending to ignore you as a way of hoping that you'll stop doing what you're doing.
	It's a signal of disapproval that's designed to have you back off from whatever the hell it is that you're doing, right?
	But...
	Your response is, first of all, nothing and then maybe some mild annoyance.
	I don't not think...
	I don't think that that's an appropriate response because that is incredibly insulting and enraging behavior.
	It's like trying to chat with someone at a party when they keep looking around the room and smiling at people.
	You know they're not listening, right?
	They're just passing time with you until they can find somebody more important or beneficial to them to talk to or something, right?
	Yeah.
	What if your wife did that to you?
	How would you feel?
	I would feel very pissed off.
	Aha!
	Okay, okay.
	Mr.
	Double-standard.
	I wish I knew how to say double-standard in Russian.
	Wait!
	Communism.
	There we go.
	You get gulags.
	We on the Black Sea have our Dachaus.
	Anyway, so why would you be really angry at your wife if you were trying to talk to her about something really important and she was just watching TV and wouldn't turn it off?
	Because I would actually want her to hear.
	Thank you.
	So why don't you have that same emotional reaction with your mom?
	I...
	Okay, I feel like this doesn't make sense even as I'm saying it.
	So maybe you have some thoughts about it, but I don't think I want her to hear.
	So she's serving your needs by not listening to you, because if she listens to you, what happens?
	Let's say she turns the TV off, she turns to you, and she says, Bob, tell me.
	Tell me everything.
	Is there anything that you're not telling me about your childhood?
	I feel that there's some stuff you're keeping from me.
	I want to hear everything, and I promise not to get upset.
	Well, that's the thing.
	If she actually heard me out and responded, what she would say is...
	She would give some kind of a denial of responsibility, blame society, she did her best nonsense, which I've heard from her a couple of times before, and that freaking cuts like a knife.
	So I think that's the response I don't want to hear.
	Right.
	Right, so she's actually doing you a favor by not listening to you.
	Yeah, I guess so.
	No, no, don't give me guessos, man.
	If we're not on the right track, don't fog out on me, bro.
	Don't disassemble yourself on me.
	Yeah, I'm glad she's not listening.
	I don't want her, like, I don't feel safe with her knowing this stuff.
	Right.
	So you're only pretending.
	And then this is why you say it, stay on safe abstract topics, right?
	Yeah.
	What would happen if you told your mother that you'd been molested?
	Repeatedly.
	Or there'd been sexual inappropriateness.
	I don't know what the phrase would be called, but that stuff.
	She'd probably tell me something like I should have told her sooner.
	She would have pulled me out of there.
	Which I know is nonsense because there were literally times in which I would call her from these camps in tears, begging her to take me home.
	And she would say, oh, just give it another week.
	See how it feels.
	Plus, she had sex with a guy she just met in her house, right?
	Yes.
	So, that's not a lot of boundaries, and that's very, very dysfunctional sexually.
	It's not like you get to find out whether the guy has an STD, whether he's got AIDS. He had a wife.
	Oh, he had a wife!
	Yeah, and he was a family friend, and he had a wife.
	I'm sorry, I think I heard something.
	I think something sat on a seal.
	Did you hear that, Mike?
	It was a family friend and he was married.
	I've known him since early childhood.
	Wait a sec.
	Bob, let me rewind this for just a moment, Mr.
	Bob.
	Yes.
	Do you remember why you said that your mother had sex with this guy?
	He was helping fix up our apartment.
	And she didn't want to pay him as much?
	No.
	So she ka-chinged the old poontang register.
	Wait, do we have a show title, Mike?
	I must research this thumbnail.
	I will take that burden on.
	Hello, Tor.
	Anyway.
	So...
	This family friend was charging your mom?
	Well, it was him.
	He was in charge of a team of contractors.
	So yeah, they had a fee.
	Okay, so he was in charge of a team of contractors.
	So it's a good thing there weren't a couple of other contractors over.
	Otherwise, you'd have walked into quite the game of Twister.
	Oh, God.
	All right.
	Okay, so I just thought family friend, I mean, I don't know that they charge for...
	Anyway, it doesn't really matter.
	Okay.
	That wasn't any kind of long-lasting affair, was it, that you know of?
	That I know of.
	It was a one-time thing, or maybe just while he was fixing the apartment.
	I don't know.
	He never came over after that.
	I just tell you, I mean, I'm not an expert on porn, but that sounds like every porn scenario I've ever heard of.
	Oh, I don't have enough to pay for you.
	How about these?
	Mike, let's go to the expert.
	I have nothing to add.
	Of course, nobody knows what porn plots are, other than the place you fast-forward.
	Anyway, it just cuts down on their cleanup costs to have more plot, right?
	To spend more time writing this dialogue.
	That's right.
	I am not sneezing my own personal jurgens under your tramp stamp in this scene, so there's less cleanup.
	Anyway.
	So, you prefer that your mother not listen to you?
	Yes.
	And can you think of a time when you've been completely honest with her about something?
	Where you would prefer that she actually be listening rather than feeling nothing when she doesn't.
	Okay, this might not be exactly what you're looking for and you can tell me, but there's for some reason one thing that immediately comes to mind.
	I was about seven years old.
	And I remember at the time, there would be, you know, this was in the 90s, a whole ton of American movies flooding the market suddenly.
	And I would see all these American movies, and there would be kids telling their parents, I love you, and the parents saying it back.
	And I'm like, huh, I wonder why no one does that in Russia.
	That sounds really cool.
	So one time, my mom was picking me up from school, and I decided, huh, maybe I should do it.
	And I bet she'll say it back.
	And I run up to her, and I give her a hug for the first time ever.
	And I tell her, I love you.
	And she laughs and says, let's go home.
	Wait, what was honest about that?
	I honestly felt it, and this is something, well, maybe I thought I felt it, but I felt affectionate toward her, and I wanted to establish that kind of relationship.
	Well, I was hoping to establish that kind of relationship.
	And, sorry, how old were you when that happened?
	About six or seven.
	Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, okay, I get that.
	No, I pretended to myself that I was homesick for my mom when I was six in a boarding school.
	So wait, from 80% honesty, we've got down to like one time when you were six?
	Yeah, I can't remember anything.
	I literally can't.
	I know I intentionally did not tell her about some of the biggest events in my life, some of the most important relationships.
	When I was eight years old, looking back at it, man, it's a dark childhood.
	But when I was eight years old, I tried to kill myself.
	And I tried to do that.
	Again, I watched a lot of American movies, so I thought if you just dropped stereo into a bathtub, it would do it.
	And I did it, and the stereo just ended up getting soaked.
	And she saw the soaked stereo, and I told her, oh, I just...
	I was drying myself off and some water dripped from my hair on it.
	And I knew she didn't believe me.
	She was like, that doesn't make sense.
	But she just kind of...
	And she was giving me this funny look as though she knew what was really happening.
	But then she just kind of walked away, and I'm like, huh, I'm glad she didn't realize.
	Now, Bob.
	Bob, Bob, Bob.
	You just dropped the S-bomb into the conversation, right?
	Oh, yeah.
	I'm sorry.
	It was so bad.
	No, no.
	Don't apologize.
	It's your honest experience.
	I'm not watching TV. I'm watching you.
	I wasn't trying to shock you.
	I understand who came out.
	No, I know.
	That's the more alarming part, that you, A, weren't trying to shock me, that you kind of rattled it off like it wasn't that serious, and then you said, whoa, pretty dark childhood, I guess, right?
	Like it just struck you for the first time.
	Well, it didn't strike me for the first time, but I think this is the first time I'm having a conversation with anyone about this where I say it all in one conversation outside of times I've talked to Rose.
	And why did you try to kill yourself when you were right?
	Let's see, this was two years after my dad died.
	I started out in one school for first grade, and I really loved it.
	And then I got moved to another school and I absolutely hated it and I fell behind and I never got caught up.
	And pretty much the other kids just were terrible to me.
	The other kids treated me really nicely at the first school, but as a newcomer they treated me absolutely like crap and picked on me in the second school and I just felt really hopeless at the time.
	Yeah, none of that is true.
	Okay.
	And I'm sorry because this is your suicide talk and I apologize for being so blunt.
	None of that is true.
	Look, the reason you were bullied is because you kept it to yourself.
	The reason you were bullied is that you had no emotional connection with your mother.
	And the reason that you were bullied is that your mother may have suspected you trying to kill yourself and didn't even ask you about it.
	That's why you were bullied.
	Because you talked about your father died, which I'm incredibly sorry for, of course, although he was the guy who married your mom.
	But you didn't mention anything about your home life.
	You didn't mention anything about your mother telling her or what her reaction might have been or what her response might have been.
	I assume that you begged her to not have you go to school and she's like, just stick it out in the same way you begged her to bring you home from summer camp and she said, just wait another week, you know.
	Mommy's got some repairmen coming over this afternoon.
	And so, did your brother not defend you?
	Did he not say, I'll beat these kids up?
	I'm not saying that's the right solution, but whatever.
	Like, that's Russia, I assume, right?
	No, back then he was in a different school.
	Well, yeah, but he knew who these kids were.
	He knew where they were, right?
	I mean, you weren't going to school on the moon.
	No, no, yeah.
	Did you tell your brother you were being bullied?
	I didn't, no.
	Right.
	That's why there were so many problems.
	Because you could tell no one because you're carrying an incredibly heavy burden on your tiny eight-year-old shoulders and you're surrounded by people who, if you tell them, they will jump on that burden and make it heavier.
	You understand?
	Yeah, I do.
	And you must be blaming yourself for this.
	Right?
	Because I asked you why you tried to kill yourself and you didn't say, because I was surrounded by people who didn't give a shit about me.
	It was all this.
	The bullies, and again, the bully's bad, no question, right?
	The question is not, why are there predators?
	It's why do they attack you?
	And they attack you because you have no support at home.
	So you made this about you, right?
	Now, in the dream, your brother is the one who has no skin, and this doesn't land for you, and you don't freak out about it, and you kind of go along with it, and he's got this crazy plan, which is never going to work, and you go along with it, and you go along with it, and suddenly, bang!
	You're the one without any skin.
	You blame yourself.
	You remove your own protections.
	Because you cannot push back against crazy.
	Now, when you were a kid, of course, you can't really push back against crazy.
	If you happen to be born into that viper's nest of unreality, you can't really push back against it because we bond and we survive with whoever's around, right?
	I mean, there are kids raised by wolves who say...
	Right?
	I mean, they don't even speak, I mean, they just bond with, hey, wolves will raise me, fine, I'll be a wolf, right?
	And they run around on all fours, and they growl, and they never learn to speak properly when they're discovered, usually in Germany.
	But if you're raised by wolves, I'll be a wolf, right?
	If you're raised by crazy people, I'll be a crazy person.
	If you're raised by a Muslim, I'll be a Muslim.
	You bond.
	This is the great danger of culture.
	You bond with whoever is around.
	But you were in such an agony of disconnectedness from others that you wanted to take yourself entirely out of the gene pool.
	I mean, the amount of courage and despair it takes to drop electricity into your bathtub, I mean, it could have paralyzed you, it could have half-killed you, it could have blown your eyeballs out, it could have, who knows, right?
	The cry for help, right?
	Yeah.
	No one answers.
	No one answers.
	So you never told your mother you were molested, you never told your mother about your suicide attempt, you never told your mother about bullying, and you still haven't.
	So don't give me 50%, okay?
	I'm just trying to move the goalpost for you, right?
	You need to have the same standards for your mother that you have for your wife and your friends and yourself.
	Universal is universal.
	Don't create these alternate universes where crazy people get out of jail free cards.
	One rule for all.
	I think that makes sense.
	See, I feel like I've already blamed my mother for everything under the sun and I felt angry and enraged at her.
	I think I'm maybe still giving her passes.
	Why are you there?
	What value does she provide to you?
	What great things does she bring to your life?
	What happiness and what joy does she bring to you?
	How does she earn your time?
	You know, I assume you're not a communist, right?
	No.
	Are you a socialist?
	No.
	So you don't give subsidies, right?
	No.
	So what subsidies are you currently handing out?
	How has your mother earned your time?
	How does your brother earn your time?
	I try to earn people's time and attention through what I do here.
	How does your wife earn your time?
	By being caring and attentive.
	Yeah, by being a good person, right?
	Yeah.
	Are you subsidizing bad people?
	I guess I've always looked at it as my mom subsidizing me because, you know, we can come over anytime.
	We stay for free.
	She cooks all the food.
	She takes care of everything.
	I was like, hey, it's like a free vacation in this house.
	I'm sorry.
	I just feel kind of at a loss for words.
	Her parenting drove you to suicide, man.
	Her parenting, in conjunction with your brother's blindness, ended up with a highly crazy woman jumping into your gene pool and having control over your ended up with a highly crazy woman jumping into your gene pool and having control over your brother Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Yeah.
	If you were my friend, and you were my friend because I was a good and virtuous person and we enjoyed each other's company and we had lots of fun and we could talk about whatever was on our mind, And then you said, now I'm going over to the house of the woman who drove me to suicide and exposed me to endless amounts of child sexual inappropriateness and never tried to help me out when I begged for salvation.
	Thanks, Steph.
	Been great hanging out with you.
	I'm now going to the complete opposite place.
	As a friend, what would I say?
	I don't know if you need to say anything.
	You'd at that point try to drag your friend out of there by force if necessary.
	I'd say, why?
	What about if one of the bullies offered you free food?
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Would you go?
	No.
	I hope you have a higher price in the future than that.
	Thank you.
	I think I know why she's still in my life.
	Go on.
	I, over the past year, have been talking with Rose about the idea of defooing.
	And we were kind of back and forth on it.
	And there was even a time in which we were both like, you know what?
	Yeah, we need to cut both our parents out of our lives.
	But then, pretty much last minute, right before we were about to do it, she said, no, she said she can't.
	Which is why she's participating with your brother in the dream.
	Yeah.
	Wait, so she said she didn't want to separate from her?
	From her family, yeah.
	From her family, but what does that have to do with you and your family?
	Hmm, actually nothing.
	So...
	I think I used that as an excuse to...
	Yeah.
	Because I was like, well, if you're not going to do it, I'm not going to do it, kind of thing.
	Right.
	If you're not quitting smoking, I'm going to keep smoking.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	And please understand, I'm not saying whether you should or shouldn't, right?
	This is not like separate from your family of origin or whatever.
	I'm generally not huge fans of people who drive kids to suicide at the age of eight or suicide attempts at the age of eight and then don't even inquire why the hell the stereo is wet when you've just had a bath and it's in a different room.
	I assume you all don't keep stereos in the bathroom.
	So I'm not a big fan, but this is your family, your choice, right?
	But you need to be conscious of why people are in your life.
	And you need to be conscious of why people are in your wife's life.
	And obviously, you know, my suggestion has always been, you know, if you're thinking about separating from your family of origin, it's a big, big decision.
	It's bigger than getting divorced from a spouse.
	Because at least the spouse you chose and you haven't had 20 years or more history with them and so on.
	And of course, if you separate from an abusive spouse, people say, good job!
	Separate from abusive parents, and suddenly you're just like a crazy evil person, right?
	I mean, it's just the double standard that we have with regards to parents.
	It's the subsidy that society gives abusive parents, right?
	So the relationship that you chose that you got out of because the guy was abusive, good for you.
	The relationship you didn't choose that you got out because it was abusive, Bad guy, right?
	Although, to be fair, that's changing.
	There's lots of people now who are talking about this more openly.
	And the giant subsidy to terrible parenting is starting to be lifted.
	So, you know, my suggestion has always been, you know, get involved with a therapist and go and talk to your parents and tell them everything you've been...
	Well, in this case, talk to your parent and tell them everything you've been withholding over the time.
	Be honest, be open, and try and get a connection with...
	And all that kind of stuff.
	But I think you need to talk to your wife about why your wife is comfortable with you going over to a woman.
	I mean, I assume she knows about your suicide attempt, right?
	Yeah.
	Right.
	And my first question, if I'm your best friend and you say, hey, let's go to my mom's place, right after you told me about your suicide attempt, I'd be like, Why are you going over to someone's house as if it's no big thing when she actually drove you to suicide at the age of eight?
	Help me to understand all of that, right?
	I wouldn't say don't go or go or whatever.
	I'm just like, I'm baffled.
	Help me understand, right?
	You know, like if I was some woman and I was married to a guy who was so abusive that I tried to kill myself and then I said, let's go over for his birthday!
	What would you say?
	Help me figure this one out, right?
	The reason she's probably comfortable with me going over...
	Well, I'm sure, in fact, the reason why she's comfortable with me going over to my mom is probably because she still sees her parents and her father is a sociopath.
	I'm sorry, what now?
	Her father is a sociopath.
	Right.
	How do you know?
	I'm not saying you're wrong.
	I'm just curious.
	Just the most recent example, he was talking about his mother's sister died when she was four years old, burned down in a fire.
	And as he talked about this four-year-old girl burning down in a fire, he was laughing.
	Wow.
	Like a joke.
	Yeah, like it was supposed to be funny, like she died at four years old, I guess that's...
	I don't know what he found funny about it, but he was telling it like a joke.
	Mike, you wanted to mention something?
	Yeah, Bob, it struck me, you talking about this.
	You've called into the show before with a couple of parenting-related questions, because you are a father.
	Yeah.
	And are your kids around these people?
	Yeah, only with our supervision and for limited periods of time, but yeah, they are.
	I just, I kind of got the willies thinking of that aspect.
	Someone who, you know, drove you to thoughts of suicide at eight, being around your children.
	Well, they didn't hear the story of the kid.
	They didn't hear that giggling about the kid in the fire, right?
	No.
	But they still deal with you after you've been exposed to that, and they still deal with Rose when she's been exposed to that, because that's very disturbing, right?
	I mean, that drive home's got to be a little quieter than it would have been if you'd just gone to the movies or something, right?
	Well, usually that drive home is followed by us talking about how crazy our parents are.
	But that doesn't seem to stop us from going.
	Well, okay, so what are your kids internalizing from that, right?
	What are your kids internalizing?
	I mean, crazy people, you go and hang out with them.
	Evil people who laugh about a child burning to death at the age of four are really great social companions.
	Nothing wrong with those people.
	Dave Barry once was talking about how after he became a father, he's like, I gotta quit smoking.
	Man, I got so stressed about thinking about dying early now that I have kids, I had to go have a cigarette, right?
	He's gotta quit smoking.
	He's gotta quit smoking because, you know, now, if you're a parent, yeah, you shouldn't be smoking because it might make you die earlier and you're a parent, right?
	Of course you shouldn't be giving your children nicotine and chemicals and smoke.
	Of course not, right?
	But you also shouldn't be taking poison yourself because you're a parent.
	Yeah.
	So, is it good or right for you to expose yourself to historical environmental toxins like sociopathy and people who make you want to kill yourself when you're a parent?
	Do you not think this has an effect on your capacity to be emotionally present to your kids?
	Do you not think your kids are looking at you and saying, well, wait a sec, you guys are really confusing.
	As you say, I don't hit my kids, I don't yell at my kids, I'm a peaceful parent, I negotiate, I assume you love your kids, you play with them.
	You're a good person.
	And then it's like, let's go over to the crazy zoo, to the evil zoo, to the nasty people, and hang with them.
	Like, it ain't no thing.
	And then let's joke about how crazy they are on the way home.
	It's kind of confusing, right?
	Yeah, it is.
	Like, I can tell you all the ways that we've rationalized this to ourselves, but it's still crazy.
	Well, your dream is saying that it's incredibly dangerous.
	In my opinion.
	Mm-hmm.
	That's a lot to think about.
	You just, you know, talk about it with your wife, go talk to your parents, or just, it needs to be more of a conscious decision, and you, I don't know how old your kids are, it doesn't matter at the moment, but at some point you're going to have to explain all of this stuff.
	Yeah, and actually, Rose and I have been talking, it is a very still conscious decision, Why we stay with them and we constantly talk about the degree to which, right down to how many days in a year we're comfortable with them being around our kids, how closely supervised they need to be.
	All of that we constantly talk about and talk about the influence that our parents' behaviors and manipulativeness and potential for destructiveness, how to minimize all of those behaviors.
	Okay, I'm going to give you a little outro speech here, alright?
	Okay.
	So, bye back, get comfortable.
	I shan't call on you again, but I really appreciate the call.
	Thank you for the topic.
	Alright.
	There is a...
	Five words of human liberation.
	Five words of human liberation.
	That you should...
	Wake up and ask yourself that you should think about when you look at how you allocate your time and your energies and your resources and your attention and so on.
	And here it is.
	Are you ready?
	When I say this, you're going to react negatively.
	I guarantee it.
	But it is essential.
	Hear me out.
	Bear with me.
	Five words of human liberation.
	You ready?
	Wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, think about your day, think about your choices, think about your plans, and you can say to yourself five words.
	And those words are, what's in it for me?
	What's in it for me?
	Your Aunt Grelda says you gotta come to the christening.
	What's in it for me?
	You could say, well, that's being selfish.
	Well, Aunt Griselda wants you to come to the christening.
	Is her expressing her wishes?
	She wants you to come to the christening.
	What's in it for her?
	Whatever benefit she gets from you coming to the christening.
	So she is only giving you a choice because she is asking herself what's in it for me and wants you at the christening.
	Say, Aunt Griselda wants you to come to the christening of her kid.
	You say, uh...
	What's in it for me?
	People hate when you ask that question.
	Honest people, good people, they don't like it when you don't ask that question because then you become this ghost invisible doormat of facilitating narcissistic tendencies in others.
	I don't want people in my life to never think about their relationship to me I'm never going to think what's in it for me.
	I'm just going to sacrifice myself for whatever Steph wants.
	That would be horrible.
	I would never want that in a bazillion million years.
	Because that is to be surrounded by skinless people with their guts and blood pouring out, as per Bob's dream.
	And the only stability in relationships comes out of self-interest.
	Mutual self-interest.
	Look, if you're hired by someone and they love the fact that you're really underpaid and you hate the fact that you're really underpaid, you are not in a stable relationship.
	Right?
	You are in a relationship where you are constantly looking For another job.
	You're constantly looking for more money.
	You're constantly resenting being there.
	That is an unstable relationship because the boss is getting what he wants, but you're not getting what you want.
	When you negotiate for what you want with people, you are laying the foundations for a house that stands.
	As the Old Testament says, you build your house upon rock, not upon sand.
	Maybe it's the New Testament.
	When you say to people, we both have to win, right?
	What's in it for me?
	Well, that's your job.
	What's in it for the other person?
	That's their job.
	But if they forget, you can remind them.
	And you remind them because you want the relationship to be sustainable.
	If Mike hated working here, or I hated working here, or I thought Mike was making too much, or Mike thought he was making too little, or whatever it was, right?
	That's an unstable relationship until we reach some kind of equilibrium.
	So we discuss these things and we talk about it because we're laying the foundation for a long-term relationship.
	Same thing with my family.
	Same thing with my friends.
	I don't want to exploit them.
	I don't want them to exploit me because exploitation is fundamentally unstable.
	Can't last.
	Always volatile.
	Always uneven, unequal.
	Everything's shifting around.
	It's a storm.
	You can weather it, but you can't have it permanent or you'll sink.
	Now, if people get angry with you because you say, ah, what's in it for me?
	If they're like, well, that's you being selfish.
	What they're saying is, your feelings are inconvenient to me.
	So your feelings, I'm going to shame them away so that you do what I want.
	You should do what I want because I'm not being selfish.
	But if you do what you want, you're being selfish.
	That is narcissists speak for, don't be inconvenient to me, or I'll hurl word bombs at you until your house of cards collapses.
	And you comply.
	You know, like some moron with an old-style vacuum tube television set.
	Doesn't work that well, he just thumps it on the top until it works.
	I'm just going to hurl word bombs at you until you collapse and surrender.
	And then I'm going to mysteriously call you selfish wanting to get your way.
	Oh, it's madness!
	There is no greater test of whether people give a shit about you than saying when they want something from you, what's in it for me?
	It doesn't obviously have to be money, but what's in it for me?
	People who love you, people who respect you, people who aren't using you or exploiting you, We'll welcome you saying, what's in it for me?
	You go to buy a car, and they say, we want $20,000, and you say, what's in it for me?
	They'll say, a new car!
	Right?
	I mean, that's how it works.
	And you say, I want the car, and they say, what's in it for me?
	$20,000, right?
	Which is good.
	The person who doesn't ask you what's in it for you or what's in it for me, well, that's the guy who comes and steals your car.
	I've got a new car!
	What's in it for you?
	Nothing, because you just lost your car, right?
	The negotiation of two people in a room, both with needs, both needing to get their needs met, that is called a mature and sustainable relationship.
	The only sustainable relationships are those in which both parties benefit and are happy.
	Steven Spielberg is making his 12 millionth film with Tom Hanks.
	Because Jewish privilege!
	I don't think Tom Hanks is Jewish, but...
	Why?
	Because Tom Hanks is a great actor and Steven Spielberg is a great director.
	Just because in E.T. they play Dungeons and Dragons, which I thought was cool.
	But anyway.
	And because Close Encounters of the Third Kind is about fatherlessness after divorce.
	But anyway, another way.
	So they're doing it because it's mutually beneficial.
	That's why they make films together.
	What's in it for me?
	What's in it for me?
	Can you imagine Donald Trump going into a business meeting and saying, Well, I'm only here to give you what you want.
	I don't care.
	I have no needs of my own.
	Pay me a penny for a million dollars.
	I don't care.
	I'm only here to give you what you want.
	I don't care what I want.
	Can you imagine that?
	That would be insane.
	Madness.
	And so, the society works and is sustainable and is civilized.
	The degree to which everyone runs around saying, what's in it for me?
	You should not listen to this show Out of a sense of self-sacrifice, I hate this show, but I'm going to give him views anyway.
	I think he's an idiot, but I'm going to listen to him anyway, right?
	If you don't like this show, please don't listen to it.
	I'd frankly be happier with fewer views because, you know, equality over quantity accepted the number of shows for Freedom in Radio.
	I don't want anyone to be my friend because they pity me.
	Well, in which case they get a sense of their own self-importance and pompous helping of others and all that for being around me, but I don't want anyone.
	Do you want pity sex?
	I know your sperm does.
	Do you and your heart want it?
	No.
	What's in it for me?
	Mom calls you up.
	I want you to come over for Thanksgiving dinner.
	You don't have to say, what's in it for me, right?
	But you have to ask yourself, okay, what's in it for me?
	And there may be a good reason for you to go, even if you don't like it that much in the moment, right?
	You know, maybe she's been unwell.
	She needs a bit of cheering up.
	You don't really feel like doing it.
	But, you know, we all do things in relationship for the long-term good of it that you wouldn't necessarily do for a stranger in the moment.
	That's all right.
	You build up capital and you have your withdrawals and your deposits and it all works out.
	But what's in it for me?
	If you don't ask that question, you don't exist.
	You don't have an identity.
	You're not alive.
	You're not there.
	You're not in the room.
	You're not in the boardroom.
	You're not in the bedroom.
	You're not at the wedding chapel.
	You're not driving the car.
	You're not buying a pack of gum.
	You're a ghost.
	You're a zombie.
	And if you never want other people to ask what's in it for them, well then, my friend, you're a vampire.
	Alright, so let's move on to the next caller.
	Police.
	Alright, well up next is Jonathan.
	Jonathan wrote in and his question was, does socialized healthcare create a moral hazard where individuals do not prioritize health, nutrition, and fitness because they are financially penalized for doing so?
	If I have guaranteed subsidized insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act, what is the extent of my responsibility for my future wellness?
	Great question.
	The answer is yes and no.
	Can we move on to caller three?
	Don't!
	Hello, Stefan.
	Hi.
	It is my...
	What was your name again?
	Jonathan.
	Jonathan, nice to meet you, John.
	Can I call you John?
	It's a lot of syllables.
	Sure, go for it.
	Yeah, it's a pleasure to speak with you, sir.
	Well, thank you.
	Good question.
	Good question.
	I still have your last question posed in the first call ringing through my head.
	What's in it for me?
	Right.
	Well, I hope people are calling in with that question.
	What's in it for me?
	I hope something useful.
	So, as it stands, do you think my question can lead to some conversation right away, or would you like to hear what's No, I mean, I've been thinking about it for two days, so let me give you, and I've actually managed to distill a few things, God help me, or actually God helping the audience, but can I give you like a minute or two on what I thought and then tell me if it makes any sense?
	Absolutely.
	Okay, so yes and no.
	Smart people will take care of their health.
	K's, in particular, go back and see the gene wars.
	I can't keep repeating this often enough.
	It's really essential.
	So the K brain, which has the physical brain processes to project into the future and figure out what's good or bad for it, the K brain will do pretty well.
	And longevity and intelligence tend to go hand in hand.
	And so for smart people, you know, it's not like, I get subsidized healthcare.
	Great.
	I can start smoking.
	Right?
	They don't...
	They don't usually say that, right?
	Ours, the rabbit people who don't have the brain capacity in general, the physical brain mechanism to really get uneasy about things that happen a long way down the road, you know, Democrats in debt and idiots for smoking and so on, those people Will change their decisions based on this.
	And so, for instance, it's projected that within a couple of decades, I think it's 20 or 25 years, a third of the American population is going to be diabetic.
	Like, full-on Mexico-style, wide chairs, revamping airlines and buses and shit.
	They're going to be diabetic, right?
	Now, in a free society, if you're overweight, you're...
	Insurance is immediately going to go up.
	Now, smart people don't need for their insurance to go up to go, hey, maybe I shouldn't gain weight, right?
	But less intelligent people or people who are intelligent but who are ours, they need that feedback.
	Less intelligent people need more visceral and tangible feedback to make good decisions.
	And this is why I say yes and no.
	Smart Ks will still have good and healthy decisions.
	Habits in their life doesn't mean they never get sick or whatever.
	That's why you have insurance because you never know, right?
	But 70% of health problems are lifestyle related Which is another way of saying bad choices lead to bad health 70% of the time but among smarter people they make better choices about their health as a whole and Smarter people tend to buy insurance.
	I Can't even tell you how much insurance I have.
	It's ridiculous, right?
	but Less intelligent people, and again, there's lots of different ways of putting it, I'm just going to put it that way, but less intelligent people need that feedback.
	Many, many years ago, this is way back in the dawn of the internet, I read some guy's blog, and he's like, man, I didn't realize how fat I was getting until my insurance company upped my premiums after my annual checkup, because apparently I'd gained like 45 pounds in two years, right?
	I've never understood that.
	Like, do you not have a mirror?
	Do you not notice that your penis is setting over your gut like the sun going down over a Sahara desert?
	Do you not notice that your toes have become largely sense-based and semi-fictional to your eyeballs?
	How do you not notice that?
	But he didn't!
	How do you not notice that your clothes aren't fitting?
	How do you not notice that your knees are hurting?
	How do you not notice that your back is hurting?
	How do you not notice...
	That you're fleshing out like a kid extra in the mincemeat section of Pink Floyd's The Wall movie.
	Yes, it's Pink Floyd Night.
	What can I tell you?
	I've been listening again.
	Got a little black book with my poems in.
	Anyway, how do you not notice?
	Well, he didn't notice.
	He didn't notice.
	But his insurance company, this is back way back before, I don't know, this is like, oh gosh, over maybe 20 years ago?
	Back when there was still some market forces left in insurance in America.
	And so his insurance company said, dude, 45 pounds.
	We're going to charge you a lot more money.
	And that was his like, holy shit.
	I didn't notice that I was 40 pounds heavier, 45 pounds heavier.
	I have noticed that my wallet is a tiny bit lighter.
	So he went to, you know, he did good stuff for him.
	I changed his diet.
	He walked and then he started running and he got himself back down and trim again and so on.
	He probably didn't stick because, you know, 1% of people lose weight and keep it off.
	But And so, fat attracts, you know, gets into our bodies like termites get into a house.
	I mean, you can't use that shit on your own body, so you just got to live with them.
	So, smarter people are going to make better health decisions.
	Dumber people need more feedback.
	And when you take away market mechanisms that, you know, your health costs are going to go through the roof if you gain a lot of weight.
	I mean either directly because you got to pay more at the doctors or indirectly because your insurance is going to go up and that's one of the great things about insurance.
	Insurance is just like this free checkup because they'll pay for your checkup and based upon the money you pay you can tell how healthy you are.
	It's beautiful.
	It's free health care prevention that the market provides when you have insurance.
	I remember when I was an executive at the software company I founded we had to get insurance for all the executives.
	Right?
	When we had investors, the investors were like, well, you know, if this guy or this guy or both of you go down in an airplane, the company's value goes down by like 80%, right?
	And so, you know, like they pay, I want to say three quarters of a million dollars a year just for security for Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, right?
	And...
	So, I would guess they'd give me free blood tests, free urine tests, and they would tell me everything that was going on with my health, all for free!
	Well, I mean, it's obviously part of the insurance package as a whole, but you need that kind of stuff for people who aren't that smart.
	They just need that kind of feedback.
	So, that's why I say yes and no.
	Smart people don't sit there, right?
	There's this old joke in...
	In The Simpsons, they go to visit Canada and he's just running into walls because it's like, hey, free healthcare!
	And that's a joke because he's an idiot, right?
	And so if you take away market feedback for health in the form of insurance premiums or doctor visits, then people who are idiots will sail on until they get really sick and Whereas they probably or at least had a better chance of stopping beforehand, but smart people probably won't change their behavior that much.
	Does that make sense?
	Did you mean less smart people will probably not change their behavior?
	No, smart people.
	You lost me right at the end there.
	Sorry, smart people won't change their good health habits.
	Oh, I see what you mean.
	Less smart people, like this guy who was told by his insurance company that his insurance was going to go up like 30% because he gained 45 pounds, he changed his behavior.
	Sorry, what I mean is people with good health habits won't change their behavior if they get subsidized healthcare.
	Like they won't suddenly say, well, I'll take up smoking because my lung cancer treatment is going to be subsidized in the future, right?
	So probably what I should say Is that smart people don't get dumber when bad behavior is subsidized, but dumb people do.
	Gotcha.
	Yes.
	Yeah, sorry, that was not overly clear.
	I have to admit that I come from a mixed bag of these two categories of people, the R versus K and the more intelligent versus less intelligent.
	Because I feel as though I've straddled the health question for a long period of my life.
	And I only recently have discovered that many of my lifestyle choices were very detrimental and harming me.
	And I also made a rather dramatic turnaround in weight loss.
	And I've been working to build upon that, to capitalize upon my great change in happiness, fortune and health.
	Good for you.
	How much did you lose?
	I was around 200 pounds, dropped to around 155 and I put on About 10 pounds since then of pretty much all muscle mass.
	Good for you.
	Wow, that's great.
	Yeah, it's been a game changer.
	It's a different body, right?
	It's like it's a different body.
	It's a different person.
	I actually feel like I'm a different person.
	Yeah.
	You know, mentally and physically.
	And I would definitely like to explore R versus K with regard to my upbringing, if you would and you have time.
	I know the last call was kind of long.
	This may be the last call because there's a meteor shower tonight, which I really want to see.
	Oh, right.
	Yeah.
	But no, listen, this is your call.
	What's in it for me is that you enjoy the call and that it's instructive for other people too.
	So if you want to talk about that, that's fantastic for me.
	Awesome.
	Yeah, so probably the most influential factor in my life choices is my father.
	And he had a heart attack at 48, I believe, back in 1998.
	It was minor, and he survived.
	But since then...
	He's suffered from various complications like heart arrhythmia.
	He's probably going to need a pacemaker at some point.
	So, cardiologists and him have a very long working relationship together.
	But has he done like health stuff?
	Yeah, he has followed the advice of physicians over the years.
	I remember changes in diet, stuff like that.
	And this was back in 2011.
	He was telling me about this book that he had read.
	And every time I talked to him on the phone, he's like, oh, you got to take a look at this book.
	And it was, for reference, it was The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson.
	The what now?
	The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson.
	It's one of the...
	He's a paleo guy, right?
	The paleo diet guys.
	He lives in California.
	He looks like a surfer dude and he's like 50, 55.
	I think he's vaguely libertarian too, isn't he?
	You might be thinking of Rob Wolf.
	Oh yes, my apologies.
	Rob Wolf, the paleo guy?
	Bob Squirrel's book.
	Bob Squirrel's book completely flopped in the paleo market.
	Joe Sharkhead!
	I'm not pulling names out of a hat here.
	Sorry?
	I'm really not pulling names out of a hat here.
	That's just amazing, you know?
	Bob Seal Arms!
	Do not let him hug you!
	If you are a mackerel!
	I'm sorry, I could do that for quite a while.
	So the names in the literature aren't quite as important yet.
	Oh, come on!
	They're important for my fun!
	What's in it for me?
	Stupid, stupid jokes.
	Anyway, go on.
	That happened to be the book that a physician had passed along to my dad.
	This kind of stuff is a little bit outside the mainstream, even three or four years ago.
	He read this book, made some changes in his diet, and really enjoyed his better triglyceride and cholesterol numbers on his lipid panel.
	So, I eventually read it, and it really struck a chord with me.
	And this was my progression into getting more and more healthier, losing weight, and I eventually completely gave up drinking, and that was 14 months ago.
	But my dad has since kind of given up that previous passion he had for his newfound health, and I think he's kind of relapsing into a complacent, oh, I've got my Social Security, I've got my Obamacare, I'll be taken care of, kind of attitude.
	And since he was the one that turned me on to the book and kind of helped me change my life, to see him do kind of a slow 180 back the other direction has affected me.
	Were you a big drinker?
	Yes.
	Was that a lot to do with your weight gain?
	Yes, it had to do with my weight gain.
	Because, you know, alcohol is just basically sugar, isn't it?
	Right.
	And when I... I also remember this picture of Alice Cooper.
	Alice Cooper, I don't know, 70s or 80s or something like that.
	I mean, that guy was a ferocious drinker.
	And like, skinny as a rail.
	Not like Iggy Pop, visible skeleton skinny, but skinny as a rail.
	I just remember thinking like, wow, if you drink that much, don't you get fat?
	But anyway, I guess it's a metabolism thing.
	But you think that your drinking head...
	Will you be a beer drinker?
	Uh...
	Whiskey, wine, beer, you name it.
	When I made the switch from less sugar to more paleo, I cut out the soda and the beer and replaced it with wine and whiskey.
	Like, you know, that's a lot better.
	It's got less calories at least.
	Wine and whiskey has less calories.
	Oh, is that because of the hops and stuff?
	I'm not much of a paleo expert at all.
	Well, because beer is usually brewed from grain, wheat, and it's not as potent, it's not as refined, so it has less alcohol content by volume.
	And I think that's what makes whiskey and wine generally less calories consumed and more alcohol enjoyed.
	Right, higher alcohol content.
	And it's the wheat stuff that paleo is pretty negative towards, right?
	Yeah, there's a lot of physicians and doctors and nutritionists and enthusiasts that are coming out against grains and legumes like soy in particular, soy, corn, wheat, and sugar.
	Well, sugarcane is okay in small doses, I would say, but it's the high fructose corn syrup derived from From corn that we probably want to try to get out of our diet, and that's what's found its way into sodas, especially salad dressing.
	Oh yeah, because the sugar taxes are very high, so they got rid of sugar and put in this other evil stuff.
	I was reading the other day, there's 600,000 food items in America, of which like 80% have sugar added.
	Right.
	And many of the processed foods on the shelf have some form of added sugar or added wheat.
	For appetite stimulants, sugar and wheat tend to stimulate people's appetites, make them eat more.
	But yeah, I didn't really want to focus so much on the nuts and bolts nutrition discussion of it, but Wait, sorry.
	I mean, no, paleo is okay with nuts, but bolts as well?
	That seems...
	Just kidding.
	Sorry.
	Go on.
	Mike, did you want to add anything?
	I know you've read more about this stuff than I have.
	Oh, we don't have to go into a paleo conversation now.
	I don't want to distract.
	Oh, no, Mike.
	Go ahead.
	Oh, I'm a little more familiar with the paleo stuff than stuff is.
	I've read Gary Taub's Good Calories, Bad Calories.
	I've read that.
	But their argument, I think, is that we evolved without agriculture, right?
	And we can't eat grass, and we don't eat wheat in its native form.
	So the human body evolved without agriculture, and therefore the carbs, which is not really part of a hunter-gatherer diet, is not what our bodies are designed for.
	I know that there's probably an oversimplification, but is that the general idea?
	Well, especially not in the quantities that we're currently consuming them.
	Because it's been going up for the past 40 years or so.
	For different reasons, whether it's a nutrition fad in the diet circles or literary circles, or whether it's been released as government food policy.
	There's some of that that has come out of the Nixon administration in the era of the 70s.
	Yeah, there was this anti-fat kick, and then when you took the fat, and so feminism plus anti-fat means that you can't make meals from scratch because you've got two parents working.
	You get a lot of processed food.
	People don't want fat in their processed food, so you have to substitute sugar and carbs.
	Is that the very brief view?
	Yes.
	The feminism plus That Fats Are Bad ended up with us getting a lot of auxiliary preservatives, sugars, and other ingredients in our TV dinners and the like.
	Yeah, because if you take fat out of food and then you freeze it and freeze dry it and ship it across the country with no fat, then it's seriously lacking in flavor, right?
	It becomes like space paste.
	And so to put the flavor in, they add sort of sugar and carbs, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	Yeah, for palatability, preservability, and just general enjoyment, I think people have a more or less positive response to the sweet and the sugary and Apparently there's also a psychological response when humans eat wheat.
	There is a chemical that we break down from wheat that will plug into our opioid receptors in our brain and actually stimulate our desire to eat more of it.
	It's almost like agricultural mind control.
	Revenge of the wheat!
	You cut us down, we cut you down!
	Well, I also think that life has become much more stressful in many ways, particularly for parents.
	I mean, when one family member was home, of course, it was usually the wife in the 50s and 60s, it was less stressful.
	I mean, there's a lot of stuff that needs to get done when you've got kids.
	And if you have You know, kids leaving school at 3.30, if there's a woman at home, it's a lot less stressful.
	When do you get the chores done?
	When do you get the groceries done?
	When do you get the house clean?
	I mean, it's just a huge amount of work and everybody's scrambling to catch up.
	And I think that stress in general leads people to eat worse.
	And I think that...
	The increasing levels of stress in a largely crumbling North American society, you know, where the schools are getting worse, where the houses are getting more expensive, where the amount of debt that people are carrying is becoming bigger, where incomes have not budged upwards for the last 40 years, where there's national debt, where there's an increased predation in terms of war can reach across the internet into...
	Servers in a particular country where there, of course, is social media bullying and internet bullying in general, trolls, and particularly for young people.
	I think that there's a lot of stress in people's lives now that it's hard to remember, like the Leave it to Beaver time, which, of course, had its stresses and so on.
	It's not trying to paint everything backwards in this rosy way, but I think that stress has increased, and I think that as people have increased, as stress has increased for people, Then they generally tend to eat more.
	And then when they gain a little weight, particularly for kids, they tend to be less interested in exercise.
	We kind of got this paranoia about the outside world.
	Ooh, it's dangerous out there.
	It's like Mad Max out there.
	There's radiation out there.
	Of course, the reality is that children are safer now.
	That they've ever been in any other time ever before in human history.
	But there's this genuine, general fear.
	Because, you know, multiculturalism and various other factors such as moving have destroyed neighborhoods.
	So people don't know their neighbors as well.
	They don't have that level of trust relationship.
	So, kids then, you know, they gain a little weight.
	Their parents don't really want them to go and play.
	It's like, oh, we'll go play in the yard while I can see you.
	It's like, mom, the yard sucks.
	I want to go roam the neighborhood.
	Like, when I was a kid, I was just roaming the neighborhood.
	We'd go to some friends, we'd roam the neighborhood, and we'd just find something to do.
	We'd be gone for hours, come in when the street lights come on.
	And so then...
	Parents are kind of making outside a whole lot less fun.
	And inside, you know, with tablets and video games and all that kind of junk, becomes a lot more enticing.
	And so I think that becomes this vicious circle, right?
	Bad eating leads to less exercise, leads to preferring video games, leads to less exercise, leads to more bad eating, leads to whatever, right?
	And families as a whole, I think, are eating worse than they used to.
	And these addictions tend to really snowball.
	Sorry, that's just a minor rant, but I just wanted to sort of pass over those kinds of thoughts.
	Oh no, that's completely congruous with my childhood.
	Like, I came in right when that was all happening.
	Children still got together and played outside and rode their bikes around, but the Nintendo, Atari, and the personal computer were making inroads on the family home.
	And they were boring.
	I mean, how many times can you play Star Raiders, you know?
	Oh, God.
	I think I pushed the envelope.
	But now it's like, it's so completely engrossing and immersive.
	And with VR coming, it's going to get even worse.
	But sorry, go ahead.
	As a child, I played more than enough Star Raiders, believe me.
	Because anything was fascinating for me as a child when I didn't have as much parental supervision as I would have liked to have had.
	Being a child of two full-time working parents and growing up as a latchkey kid, video games.
	Were you like an 80s kid?
	Yeah, I was an 80s kid.
	Right, right.
	Yeah, latchkey kids.
	I mean, it really changed.
	I bought my first computer.
	My grandmother left me a little bit of money when she died, and I used it to buy a computer.
	Which kind did you have?
	Atari 800.
	Oh, yeah, baby.
	800XL? Yes.
	The one with the keyboard, the 400 had the membrane keyboard, which sucked, but it had the 800.
	It came with 8K of RAM. I remember going to buy for $150, 32K of RAM. Can you believe it?
	Upgrade.
	Yeah.
	That was the same one my family had, yeah.
	Yeah, like you had a word processor.
	Z-O-A Ford.
	Anyway, but you had a word processor, which you had to count down the characters, like how many characters can I still type before I'm out of memory?
	You had to tape drive.
	It took me forever to get.
	I never ended up buying a floppy disk.
	I got a floppy disk.
	Couldn't buy a hard drive for it.
	That just was ridiculous.
	But I started off with a tape drive.
	Which was something else.
	It was a minute a K to load something.
	You had to find the right place on the audio tape and then start playing it.
	And, you know, 20 minutes later, galaga, right?
	But, yeah, I mean, it's hard to explain to, you know, to kids, right?
	What they call digital natives, like people who've grown up with this stuff, but they're also called screenagers, right?
	Because they're just eight hours a day on their screens.
	It is hard to explain to my daughter, like, when I was a kid, you know, because this has been just such an unbelievable change.
	Like, I don't think there's been a bigger change than, you know, pre-technology to post-technology, maybe ever since you left the farm and went to work in the city as a family or as kids.
	And so it's really hard to explain.
	You know, when I was a kid...
	And this happened all the way through my teenage years because the games were really dull.
	Like, they were fun for a little while, but they weren't nearly as absorbing and immersive, and you couldn't play against other people and all that.
	There were no multiple online games or anything like that.
	You'd have to get creative to do that if it wasn't a split-player game.
	Yeah, and you'd have to...
	Yeah, you could do a split-screen two-player game, but, you know, they got kind of boring, too.
	And you just...
	You would run out of...
	So, for me, you'd start programming because you could still do that, right?
	And...
	It didn't take like 200 people a year or five years or whatever it takes to make an Xbox game or whatever.
	You'd go out and make a game and share it with your friends and all that.
	But because it got kind of dull, you'd still go back outside.
	And there was, you know, I was explaining to my daughter three television stations of which two sucked.
	And cartoons once a week.
	Like that's incomprehensible, right?
	To people, right?
	It's cartoon channels now or just every single cartoon is on a tablet on your fingertips and all that.
	And it is a completely unbelievable change.
	And I sort of can't explain to people who weren't around pre-digital what it was like that you were just outside.
	Like I was reading this story about why has crime gone down so much?
	One of the theories is because kids are home.
	They're not out bored roaming the neighborhoods.
	And it's like, okay, let's say that they're home playing video games or watching YouTube or maybe creating content to give credit where credit is due.
	But holy crap!
	I mean, they're not...
	Okay, they're not out committing crimes.
	Great!
	But they're not out, you know, and they're not exactly playing World of Warcraft on their treadmill, which would actually be kind of a sad way for a kid to get exercise.
	And now, everything has to be so structured.
	I remember an old boss of mine way back in the business world saying, You know, when I was a kid, again, you just go out and find some kids.
	And because everybody was bored at home, and there was nothing on TV, and there were no video games, all the kids would be out looking for something to do.
	So you could go get a pickup game of anything going.
	Someone always had a ball or a bat or something like that.
	You could always get something going.
	And, of course, now he's saying, you know, every time my son wants to go somewhere, it's $20 to $40.
	You know, hey, we're going to go to Chuck E. Cheese.
	Let's go to Sky Zone.
	Let's go to Palladium.
	It's always got to be something structured that's expensive, which requires a parent to drive you to pay to stay and all that kind of stuff.
	And so in a weird way, you know, back in the Lord of the Flies days of my childhood, your parents were basically just, I have fed you.
	I have now fulfilled my parental obligations.
	I do not want to see you until bedtime.
	And by the way, you're six, so pay your own damn self, right?
	And brush your own teeth, right?
	Basically, parents were like zookeepers, you know, just shovels and bales of hay into the cage and keep moving.
	And so it's just hugely changed.
	This holic helicopter parenting didn't exist.
	And when you went outside, There were many, many, many children out there.
	Now, it's like exploring Mars or something for kids to go outside, you know?
	It's like there was an old Ray Bradbury story about a guy going for a walk and all he could see in his town was the flickers that everybody glued to their television sets and nobody was out walking around.
	He finally gets stopped by a cop car.
	Turns out the cops are robots.
	There isn't even anyone in the cop car.
	And it has become a bit of a neutron bomb that's gone off in neighborhoods where you go out as a kid to find other kids to play with and you're not guaranteed a much.
	Yeah, and I have a feeling that if in today's society if someone were to see a kid outside unescorted climbing a tree or something they would think the worst.
	Oh, they might go nuts.
	Like, where is this child's parent?
	I need to call 911.
	A child is unattended.
	You know, and the kids are picked up by the cops because some busybody neighbor is, oh, children!
	Children unattended!
	Flee!
	Run out!
	And the cops pick them up, and the kids don't come home, and the parents are freaking out, and it takes hours for the cops to get in touch with the parents, and now they've got child services, all of them.
	I mean, this is not like some crazy drug-addled memory of mine.
	Like, I absolutely, completely, and totally, distinctly remember walking for more than half an hour To get to school when I was eight years old.
	And crossing major roads and lights and, you know, just going.
	Just get up and go.
	And I remember even younger going off to play.
	I remember being completely unattended in playgrounds when I was five and six years old.
	I don't even remember how I got there because I was so young.
	But it's just radically changed.
	And...
	Talking about it isn't with any agenda to change it, because it can't be changed.
	It is what it is.
	But it is a real theory.
	And, you know, I think the kids are learning a little bit less empathy because I've got a podcast about this.
	I don't know if it's gone out or not yet, but just about how when you read a novel, it's an exercise in empathy because you get to know what all the characters are thinking, which you don't get to do in video games or in real life really that much at all.
	You can't know for sure what other people are thinking, but in novels you can because the author tells you.
	So it's a great exercise in Understanding how other people, what they think and the consequences of their thoughts and feelings.
	And kids don't read novels anymore.
	I mean, I think that's pretty much gone by the wayside.
	You know, Harry Potter accepted and so on.
	But they, you know, you got three minutes to spare, grab a tablet.
	Got to go to the washroom, grab a tablet.
	They don't do the stuff that gives them a deep insight into other people's thinking and also into their own thinking.
	And...
	My daughter's great with imaginative play, but I think that it's not quite as much for other kids because your imagination is outsourced to a two-dimensional screen.
	And I think that's a bit of a shame.
	Again, there's lots of great opportunities, lots of positive things.
	I don't want to sound like some old crotchety guy, you know, kids these days, the world's going to hell in a handbasket.
	I mean, it is, but not for those reasons.
	But because there is, you know, massive amounts of knowledge.
	No, it's not the kid's fault.
	You know, there is this, you know, Skype and video calling on everyone's tablet and phone has brought the world a lot closer together in many ways.
	And we've got instantaneous news that gets to bypass the monstrous prostitutes, the mainstream media.
	And so there's lots of great stuff about it.
	But I'm more like anthropologically examining the changes rather than from a activist standpoint, trying to change them because it's sort of pointless.
	I mean, the only thing, the only way to try and resist change is to nag, you know, can't put down the tablet and go outside.
	And it's like, Until they upgrade the outdoors, forget it.
	It's got to come with dragons or I'm staying here on Dragonvale.
	And unfortunately, right there is where John and Steph got cut off due to some internet connectivity issues.
	So what we decided to do is John's going to be up first on this Saturday's show to finish off his question, and we'll go from there.
	But thank you, everyone, for listening.
	As always, if you can go to freedomainradio.com slash donate to support the show.
	If you find this stuff helpful, valuable, entertaining, engaging, it's always appreciated and desperately needed.

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