Oct. 30, 2015 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
03:02:54
3114 Getting Drunk Because Your Friends Suck - Call In Show - October 28th, 2015
Question 1: [1:26] - How do I approach my wife about being more choosy with the people that she chooses to associate with? While she has agreed to keep certain people away from our son, I am having trouble with her choices. While I do understand and support that she has the freedom to associate with pretty much whomever, some of her friends still bother me. Is this something that I need to work on within myself, or is it reasonable for me to have higher expectations of my wife?Question 2: [39:32] - I work with a customer acquisition company and in my daily interactions I speak with many people. Both in and out of my organization I've been approached by statists, theists - people I generally refer to as 'parasites', as their words and actions towards me create little but annoyance and apparent invitations to waste my time. I've been scolded and admonished by my team leaders because of the fact that I promote myself before my business, which basically means that I apply Real Time Relationships (RTR) in each of my interactions and, as to be expected, that a good number of people walk away. I feel that applying RTR is my prerogative as a human being/entrepreneur/free sovereign, however I would like to increase my client retention and wonder if perhaps I am not striking as healthy a balance as I could. I can pretty much boil down how most of these conversations go, so I'd like to run some by Stef and see what his advice would be as it pertains to my application of RTR as well as any ideas he might have as to how I could use RTR to my advantage in my team building?"Question 3: [1:22:01] - Is there a place for polygamy in our societies? You talk a lot about family structure and commitment to giving your own children a good future so I think that it's important to talk about why polygamy is illegal in most countries, what the reasons are and what it was like with polygamy in our societies. Is there a place for polygamy in the future when there's a scarcity of male adult providers?Question 4: [1:48:50] - I would love to discuss how we, as libertarians, can do a better job at reasoning with people of different belief systems. Libertarians share common ground with many different ideologies and we can use said shared beliefs to illuminate the issues present in the world. After reading "A Manual for Creating Atheists" by Dr. Peter Boghossian I think many of the strategies we use to try to reason with people about libertarian ideas and the non-aggression principle simply fail. How can we do a better job to save us all?
This issue in life, if we are thoughtful, if we are philosophical, which is how on earth do we get people around us to think more clearly, to be more compassionate, to be more responsible, to be more reflective, to know themselves better and to pursue virtue in a stronger way, in a stronger fashion, a more passionate way.
And that's kind of like the theme of the call-in show tonight.
And we're talking about how should I talk to people in my professional capacity about being better, being more virtuous.
We're talking about how can I get my wife to choose better friends without bullying her, without forcing her or telling her what she has to do.
How can I encourage people to be virtuous and Also, what's wrong with polygamy?
Hey, it's a fine question.
We've had it before, but we took a new angle.
Add it this time.
Under what conditions does polygamy make sense from a biological standpoint, from a civilization survival standpoint?
Why is there this bias against it?
And, of course, why is it so tough to get people to think about a stateless society?
Why is it so tough to get people to question government spending?
Why is it easier to get people to question religion than it is to question the state?
Well, we delve into all of this and more in tonight's show, which I think you'll really enjoy.
Alright, up first today is Brad.
Brad wrote in and said, How do I approach my wife about being more choosy with the people she chooses to associate with?
While she has agreed to keep certain people away from our son, I'm having trouble with her choices.
While I do understand in support that she has the freedom to associate with pretty much whomever, some of her friends still bother me.
Is this something I need to work on within myself?
Or is it reasonable for me to have higher standards for my wife?
That's from Brad.
All right.
Hey, Brad.
How are you doing?
I'm doing good.
How are you?
Doing good and doing well.
Now, so what are the issues that you have with your wife's friends?
Are they too hot?
Are they distracting?
Are they constantly wanting to give you back rubs?
Is there, like, lots of lingerie shows?
I mean, is it that kind of stuff?
I don't know that I would be complaining too much if that was the issue, but...
Well, it depends.
The launch rate shows are a double-edged sword.
It really depends on what kind of friends you want.
Sure.
So, I guess, they're just kind of unsavory characters sometimes.
And, you know, not all of them, but a few of her closer friends from childhood and high school are, you know, I mean, they party a lot and they're just...
Pretty bad influences.
One of them is, on top of the partying, is pretty well known for lying and cheating people.
She goes as far as putting Like, maybe a little bit of drugs and, like, people's drinks unbeknownst to them.
What?
Right.
So, you know, things like that.
I like how you think.
It's just a little bit of drugs.
So...
Yeah, and it's...
She's not actually turning them into Klingons, but...
Because that's...
That's criminal, right?
That's illegal.
As far as I know, yes.
Someone could be driving.
As far as I understand, we don't have necessarily any proof of this.
It's just rumors that go around.
As far as I know, it's people that would probably take it anyway, but still, it's not something that I would never do that to somebody.
And so that's just one.
Others are more run-of-the-mill, unsavory, not very...
Just partying a lot, doing drugs, and all that is fine if that's what you want to do.
I'm not here to tell them what they can and cannot do, but to bring those people into our lives is kind of a different scenario, I think.
And I didn't know.
I've talked to her about it, and especially the worst one.
Roofie girl.
Roofie girl, sure.
We'll call her that.
Especially roofie girl.
I've stated that we have a little bit older than a one-year-old son.
I've stated that I don't want her around him, and I don't want him going around her.
Through many arguments, she finally agreed, and I think that that might be dead, but I'm not entirely sure.
It might come up again.
She may have just said okay for that time being until it comes up again.
And so, I guess the issue that I'm having is, is there...
I think the roofie girl is, without a doubt, someone not to really associate with, no matter your history.
This girl, she goes really far back with her.
But what would be the...
How do I communicate better, you know, other than just putting my foot down and saying, like, that's unacceptable.
I don't know.
I'm trying...
I'm having...
Yeah.
Well, I mean, so first of all, I mean, the challenge to accept is that you're late to the game as far as setting standards go.
Yeah.
Right?
I mean, you want a convertible, you buy a convertible.
But it sounds like you're trying to upgrade your wife in terms of her moral sensibilities after you dated, after you got engaged, after you got married, and after you had a kid, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, and so while we're married, we only dated for a few months, and then our child, he was not planned, though we wanted...
And how did this exactly come about?
Just not...
Just give me a page number or chapter of the Kama Sutra, I'll flip through and check it out.
But I mean, what, were you all having unprotected sex?
Yeah, just not being careful.
Why were you not being careful?
Oh, I, you know, I just not, who knows, I mean, just, different time in our lives, just didn't find it.
No, no, no, no, no, come on, don't, don't fog me, bro.
Don't Clinton me, bro.
What are you doing?
Have an unprotected sex with a fertile woman before you have any kind of substantial commitment.
Like, what's going on here?
Was she encouraging it?
Were you like, yeah, let's go bareback?
What could happen?
I think that we both sort of ignored any sort of potential consequences.
Why, though?
I get that you ignored it.
Because it feels better.
It's more fun that way.
It was stupid, for sure.
And as far as why, I mean...
Other than just being stupid, I mean, we're both...
That's not an answer, man.
If you're stupid, then I can't have to call with you, right?
If you're a dumb person, then you're not going to...
You know, we have a high IQ audience, right?
Sure.
So if you're going to say, well, I'm just a dumb person, then I'm afraid we're going to have to move on because you won't be able to understand half of the words that I use.
And I'm not going to put you in that category.
Okay.
There's another reason.
So, I guess, can you help me sort of understand maybe like what kind of...
I mean, I'm obviously going to be...
I can tell you the reasons.
Okay, yeah.
I guess what kind of reasons would you expect?
I mean, other than stupidity, I mean, I guess that would be...
No, stupidity is not a reason.
That's an excuse.
A reason would be something like this.
That the mother of...
You married, right?
Is that right?
Yes.
Yes.
Okay, so your wife had a chaotic and disorganized life and she thought that having a child would give it some shape and structure and also would have you commit to her, maybe because you're a stable provider.
So her life is drifting or maybe going downhill.
And based upon her friends, I could certainly see how that would be the case.
So she's got friends in low places and her life is kind of going nowhere.
So she's like, well, if I get knocked up, I pretty much have a game plan for the next 20 years, and I have a stable provider to take care of me, and so that's one possibility.
Okay, yeah.
Both of our lives at the time were pretty chaotic.
I was just starting a new business, and she was jobless at the time.
She was jobless.
At the time, yes, she was jobless.
Now she is actually a provider, and I am a stay-at-home dad.
So the roles is reversed, but I don't know that she ever thought about it.
I mean, we were drinking a lot, so that definitely played a role in making poor decisions and sort of numbing the thought of what risks might occur.
So when you said that your wife had potty friends, You were one of them, right?
Yeah.
What do you mean, yeah?
You got so drunk, you had bareback sex and produced a kid that you weren't planning.
Sure.
Okay.
Yes, I will...
Okay.
Because the way you framed it at the beginning was, you see, my wife has these friends who are really into partying.
Yeah.
Of course, I did knock her up when I was drunk, and she was drunk, but, you know, her friends are the partiers, right?
Yeah, and I fully...
Admit, you know, my role in that and as far as, you know, we were both partying, we'll put it that way, and have since turned our lives around and that's not at all an aspect of our lives today and hasn't been for some time.
So she doesn't party anymore.
But she's breastfeeding or something, right?
I assume so.
Well, not anymore, no.
No, she's not breastfeeding anymore.
But no, we don't party anymore, for sure.
There have been occasions where we've gotten drunk, but not going out all hours of the night or anything like that.
When you get drunk, who takes care of your son?
If we were to just be at home having a couple of glasses of wine or something like that...
No, no, listen.
You said get drunk.
Don't talk to me about a couple of glasses of wine.
You said get drunk.
Okay, so getting drunk would be when we are back home and my mom or...
Yeah, usually my mom would be the one taking care of him.
Okay, because, I mean, if you're parents, you can't be home and drunk, right?
Correct, right.
Because if your kid suddenly has an emergency or needs to get to the hospital or you need your wits about you, they fall out of bed, like, you cannot be drunk at home unless you've got someone else there who can be a responsible caregiver.
Of course.
Okay, okay, got it.
That's more for the other audience members, I think, that you get it.
Now, how often do you guys get drunk?
Um...
Maybe once a month.
And why did you get drunk?
That's kind of...
I mean, you're in your fourth decade, right?
Not to get too specific, but...
Why are you getting drunk?
It sounds like...
And then, we go and buy beer underage, and then...
That seems like teen stuff.
Why are you still getting drunk?
I'm only 30.
She's 32, 33.
Yeah, that's your fourth decade.
Getting into your fourth decade.
Yes, you're right.
Why are you still getting drunk?
It feels good.
There's oftentimes a lot of...
We go to a wedding or something like that.
It's usually at some event that would happen.
It's not really something that we go out and...
I don't know.
It's not something I thought about.
It's hard to enjoy your social circle sober, I would assume, right?
When they are all having drinks...
I've done it sober before and, I don't know, I guess I feel more entertaining when I'm drunk.
An issue that I should probably, not probably, I definitely should work through myself.
But why would be maybe partially Getting drunk is something you're supposed to outgrow, and you're supposed to outgrow in your late teens and early 20s, in my opinion.
Okay.
I mean, your parents, your marriage, your stay-at-home dad, your kid needs your full attention.
Yeah.
And you can't be that much fun when you have a hangover.
Right.
You can't be as good a parent when you have a hangover as when you don't.
So...
I'm sorry, it's just like, stop.
It's enough, right?
You've had your fun, and you've got to find other ways to have fun.
Okay.
In my opinion, right?
Right.
It's taken away from your son's experience.
Okay, agreed.
Obviously, being hungover, and I've made that same argument, being hungover, and trying to take, you know, something is being taken away from him at that moment, for sure.
Yeah, and I mean, if you're hungover and he's banging his plate on his table, I mean, that's more unpleasant and it's going to be more likely for you to react in a short-tempered manner than if you were not drunk.
And at some point, he's going to realize that there's something wrong with you.
Right.
And just to be clear, I mean, as I get older, it is becoming more of an issue as far as the hangovers go.
It's been...
I've only had a handful of hangovers.
Usually the side effects for me have been just maybe lack of sleep, but very rarely...
Lack of energy, lack of sleep.
If you've got to drive somewhere, right?
And you're tired and you're maybe a little hungover.
I mean, it's...
I just think it's, you know, for me...
I'm 30 and I'm still getting drunk.
It's just, I don't know.
It just seems like I'm 30 and I'm still into Justin Bieber.
It just seems like something that should be outgrown.
But I just wanted to sort of get that point across.
So your friends...
Sorry, you were going to say something?
Well, I was going to say, so would it be...
I was going to also, I guess, maybe take it to a similar place.
But...
Is it something that maybe I should set the example by slowing down myself and then maybe lead by example?
Hang on a sec.
Let me just sort of frame it for you.
Who would be your favorite person in the world to have a conversation with?
Past, present, or future, I guess.
Favorite person in the world to have a conversation with?
Well, I mean, that's a really good question.
I'm I don't think anybody famous is as early, but maybe the first few thoughts that come to mind would be someone,
if we're talking about past, present, and future, maybe one of my parents when they were younger, or my son when he's older.
Right.
Okay.
So let's say you could travel and chat with your son when he was 18.
Sure.
Would you feel the need to bring along a couple of bottles of wine and drink them for that conversation?
Absolutely not.
Absolutely not.
See, this is what I'm saying.
If you're really interested in who you're talking to, getting drunk is an interference.
Right.
It's like saying, I really want to win this running race.
Best thing I can do is blindfold myself and run on my hands, right?
I mean, it doesn't make any sense.
If you're really interested in the people around you, then getting drunk would make no sense whatsoever.
So getting drunk in social situations is evidence of boredom.
Because if everyone else is getting drunk and you're sober, it becomes a whole lot of not fun pretty quickly, right?
Yeah, on the occasions that that's been the case, I did go home earlier than I probably would have.
Because drunk people are boring and stupid.
Yeah.
And they have these stories like, I got so drunk that, and it's like, I self-inflicted epilepsy to the point where I knocked over a bookcase.
Yeah, yeah, that's pretty much David Thoreau.
And, you know, there is that old saying that no great story ever began with I had a salad.
So just to be aware, like you have to know what's driving the problems socially that are being covered over with alcohol.
And the problem is people who have, who don't develop good conversational skills end up being very tempted to socialize with alcohol.
For two reasons.
One is that without good social skills, people are inhibited and they feel awkward and they don't know what to talk about.
But alcohol, of course, is a disinhibitor, right?
And so people then can feel more comfortable in social situations where everyone's, you know, shrieking or dancing or line dancing or whatever.
But the problem is, like everything that avoids a problem, it strengthens the problem.
Because what happens is people who grow up without conversational skills, and that is most people in the world, like 99.9% of people in the world grow up without having any kind of substantial conversations with their family.
At least very rarely.
You know, maybe, maybe.
But it's not sort of, you know, it's like, oh, what happened to school today?
Oh, not much.
You know, where's dad?
Oh, he's coming home later.
What do you want for dinner?
It's just empty, useless.
You know, it's the subtitles of the most boring film in the universe.
Yeah.
He did the same thing over and over.
And they don't sit down and have, you know, like Steve Jobs with regards to his kids, you know, what did you learn today?
And no, no, no, no iPads at the table.
I don't care if I invented them.
Right?
I mean, having substantial conversations with your children Welcome to my show!
know the give and take of good ideas.
And so alcohol interferes with that process considerably and therefore instead of enhancing your pleasure, like as you said it's fun, it reduces your pleasure.
And I mean I can't write.
Like, I even have half a light beer, I can't write a word.
That's just my, you know, I know some writers have written drunk and all that, but just for me, it's not possible.
Yeah.
So, when you grow up without knowing or learning how to have good conversations with people, then you end up having to be intoxicated clowns for each other and yourselves, and that takes the place of conversation, but what happens is then you get trapped in In an underworld of people who have no particularly good conversational skills which means that every time you get together you always have to be doing something that takes the place of conversation.
And if you look around the world this is not just you.
Man, you look around the world about 184.5% of human activity is designed to cover up the fact that people have very little to say to each other.
Why do people watch four hours of television a day?
Because they have nothing to say to each other.
Why do people play video games?
Because they have nothing to say to each other.
Now, if you're playing a video game, you're chatting online, you know, go get the rocket launcher, I'll cover the bayou.
I don't know what the hell do people say.
But they don't have anything to say to each other.
Why do people go to movies?
They don't have anything to say to each other.
Maybe they can talk about the movie afterwards a little bit, but that's not quite the same as having something to say to each other.
Why are there sports?
In terms of like, people pay ridiculous amounts of money to go and watch sports because they have nothing to say to each other.
So much of society is designed to have people sit side by side and stare at something that isn't each other and each other's brains and people will pay any price and bear almost any burden in order to avoid the reality that they don't know how to talk to each other.
I'll stop in a sec.
This is the big picture view of the challenge that you're facing, and you're a part of it probably less so than your wife, but that's what I wanted to sort of say up front, but go ahead.
Well, I was going to say, I was going to ask, do you think that there are, you know, I'm not super into sports, and I really hate watching them.
But, you know, going to movies and stuff like that is something that I enjoy doing, and just because it came up, I'm wondering, do you not see...
I mean, there must be some value to going to a movie with your significant other...
Well, you know, don't give a false dichotomy, right?
I mean, I'm not saying sit and stare at each other, don't blink, and come at us all day long, right?
But there's a balance, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, I go to see movies, partly for the show, and, you know, partly I'll even watch movies just for fun.
And there's nothing wrong with that, and chatting about movies is fine.
So I'm not saying you can't.
I'm just saying that when it becomes...
The default position.
When people are like, what are we going to do now?
As opposed to, okay, well, do you want to chat or do you want to watch a movie?
And people are easy either way.
Okay, I guess I wasn't real clear on what you meant.
If all you do is ever go see movies, then yeah, I can see where you're coming from there.
Now, there's another factor that is more theoretical, that is more gender-based, which I'll run through very briefly.
And if it doesn't apply to you, then obviously toss it.
But I think there's something in this.
I find it's easier for men to give up unsavory friends than women.
And I think that that's partly for evolutionary reasons.
Because women would generally stay in the village and raise children with the other women, which meant that ostracism was much harder.
Men went out in hunting parties, and so if you didn't like some guy, you'd either go in a different hunting party, or if nobody liked the guy, he'd stay home with the women, or they'd drive him out of the tribe or something like that.
But the women couldn't really leave.
They were tied to the kids, and they were very much tied to their horizontal social network.
You know, it takes a village and all that kind of stuff, right?
So I find, in my experience, women find it harder...
To give up destructive friend relationships with other women than men do with other men.
And so there may be a bit of a gender difference.
Placing one's values above one's friendships worked better for men evolutionarily than it did for women.
You know, kind of stuck in the village with all the other women and All that kind of stuff.
That's to be sensitive.
If that theory has any validity, then that is to be sensitive to the fact that what's easier for you may not be quite as easy for your wife.
Okay.
That all makes logical sense.
In my experience, to apply it to what I'm going through now, that has been the case, I think.
I still talk to A lot of the people from my past, you know, not actively, but if they called or texted or emailed or something like that, I would not necessarily ignore them.
But they're not people that I invite around or am seeking their company.
It's more just, you know, keeping up with them through social media kind of stuff.
But yeah, so in our relationship, that definitely holds true.
Right, right.
Okay, so as far as, you know, the sort of putting your foot down kind of stuff, now that you have a child, of course, it is your responsibility to keep that child's social environment as toxicity-free as possible, right?
Absolutely.
And...
So, if there is somebody around who's a destructive personality type, or negative, or abusive, or just difficult, or dissociated, or, you know, you could sort of go through the list of whatever.
Then, yeah, I mean...
You have to stand guard over your crib, right?
I mean, that's the job.
You're a dad.
That's the job.
Whether your wife agrees or not, I mean, your wife, you know, I certainly wouldn't force her.
You can't, really.
I mean, but I wouldn't sort of push strongly that she can't see people or whatever.
If she doesn't learn the lessons as to why these people may not be that beneficial to have in her life, if she doesn't know why, then putting a ban doesn't increase her wisdom, it just removes her choice, right?
And I guess to be clear, I've never said that she can't, you know, can't see these people or can't associate with them.
It's just been, you know, as far as, like you said, protecting...
You know, protecting my son from unsavory types, not really, you know, not wanting them around him is what I was...
Well, yeah, I mean, now that's the first point, but the second point is that what about your respect for her?
I'm sorry, what do you mean?
Obviously, you can't force her, and shouldn't, right?
Of course.
To socialize with non-crappy people.
Uh-huh.
But on the other hand, you should be honest about the consequences of her choosing to do so.
In other words, let's say that Missy Rufy calls up your wife and says, let's go out.
I just make up a ridiculous scenario.
Let's go to a frat and let's Rufy their drinks, right?
And your wife is like, great!
I mean, again, I'm putting a ridiculous scenario forward.
Yeah.
But obviously you can't force her not to go, although actually that would be an illegal action she was contemplating, so that might be a different matter.
But you know what I mean.
I get what you're saying, yeah.
But you should be honest and say that the price of you choosing to hang out with this crappy person will be significant portions of my respect.
Make the choice real for people.
And making the choice real for people is always just about and forever being honest.
You know, you have to put things on the line in a relationship.
Otherwise, you have no authority.
And by authority, I don't mean bossing people around.
I mean just having weight and needing to be considered in the negotiation.
You know, if you go in for a job interview and they lowball you in the salary, what you do is you say, I want more.
Because that's your honest experience.
And you saying, listen, I don't want you hanging out with low-quality people.
It speaks to your character, a person who's judged by the company that she or he keeps.
And you're choosing to hang out with a crappy person over your own family or someone who's better.
And you're preventing yourself from getting into a friendship with a person of higher quality because you're hanging around with these crap trolls.
And so being honest, and that's not being a bully, that's just being honest.
Look, I'm going to lose respect for you if you keep hanging out with this person.
And I would assume, or at least I would hope, you could say to her, you could say, I hope that my respect is an important commodity in your calculations, right?
Right.
People say, oh, tell me what to do.
You can't control who I see.
Yeah, I can't control who you see, and I also can't control my reaction to you hanging around with a bunch of mouth-breathing troll heads.
Yeah.
Which is that I'm going to lose respect for you, and I hope that my respect means something to you, and you're putting it at risk.
That's a really good way to put it.
I had not necessarily thought of it that way.
Now, she can say, well, I'm going to go do what I... And this is why it's dangerous to do this, right?
Just to give you the flip side, right?
There is a reason why people don't do this, because she might say, well, I don't care.
I'm going out anyway, right?
in which case you found just where you stand in the relationship which is somewhere lower than the mouse she's trying to trap in the kitchen because it's eating her pound cake so it's not brinksmanship exactly but you need to find that out I mean where do you stand What kind of weight do you have?
Like if my wife said to me, if you do X, I will lose respect for you.
Right?
Yeah.
Stop.
Bailout.
Full reverse.
The respect of the people who I love and who love me is why I get out of bed in the morning.
Right?
And, you know, I have this relationship with the listeners, right?
The listeners find the show interesting and entertaining, and occasionally it freaks them out.
And they get really upset.
What do you mean women are responsible?
Why are we talking about race again?
I mean, they kind of freak out.
They come here because they like one topic and then we take the same principles and apply it to a different topic and run smack dab into their hedge maze of insecurities and paranoias and preferences and confirmation biases that we all have.
And so I do want the respect of my listeners, but I don't want to buy it With compliance to their existing ideas.
We all need to be challenged.
So yeah, people love me because I confirm their prejudices and then they don't like me because the same principle applied to something else.
I end up with some sort of big problem in them.
But obviously, if I did something egregiously against my values, I don't know, I'm out there Beating up some kid in public and get arrested.
You know, something insane, right?
Yeah.
Well, then, yeah.
I mean, you lose my respect.
I get it, right?
It makes sense.
Of course.
To be fair to her, you know, she hasn't seen these people.
She hasn't seen...
I mean, you know, the two that I'm most concerned about, she hasn't seen them in quite some time.
And I don't know if that's a product of...
The conversations that we've had or if it's a product of different lifestyles.
Wait.
Is that because in the time it took between when you wrote in and when we're talking, the problem has been solved?
No.
So, we've had conversations about it and it always turns into sort of an argument and I think that I don't think that in her mind, and obviously not mine either, it's necessarily concluded.
So I think that once it comes up again, so the last time it came up was for our son's first birthday party, and I refused to invite them.
See, here's the thing, Brad.
This is the key to relationships as a whole.
Is that we must do two things to successfully negotiate in a relationship.
There are only two things you need to do to successfully negotiate in a relationship.
Number one, refuse to control other people.
Refuse to tell them what to do, to bully them, to try and control them, to tell them what they have to do, and refuse to control other people.
Number one.
Now, what people generally think is then, okay, well, if I don't try and get other people to do stuff or try and control them or whatever, then I've got...
No, no.
You refuse to control other people.
That's half the equation.
The other half of the equation is you must refuse to control yourself, your own feelings, your own responses.
And that's what I meant when I said you can say to your wife, you can see whoever you want, but it's going to have an effect.
And my respect for you.
Right?
That's refusing to control her and also refusing to control yourself.
Saying, my respect is going to have an automatic response to you hanging out with Chicky Rufy and I can't control that.
And I won't control that.
That's going to happen of its own accord.
So if you end up with low rent trolls, Then the consequence is going to be that my respect and love for you is going to diminish.
I'm not going to control you.
I'm also not going to try and control myself.
That is going to be the inevitable response.
Yeah.
And see, that's freedom for you and freedom for her.
And then she can make her choices knowing what the consequences are.
That makes sense.
Now she may then say to you, Well, it's wrong for you to love me less because I have friends.
Or, you know, something like that, right?
But then she's trying to control you and saying, you can't feel any less love and respect for me if I hang around with bad people.
And I say, well, I do.
And I will.
And I'm not going to control that.
I'm not going to try and convince myself that you hanging out with bad people has no effect on my love and respect and affection for you.
Like, that's off the table.
I'm not going to try and control myself.
I'm not going to try and control you.
I'm telling you the consequences emotionally that are going to accrue to you for making these bad choices.
Don't control her and don't control yourself.
And the way that people control you is they tell you that your feelings are bad and you need to Change them and you need to do something different and they're trying to get you to control yourself, to bully yourself, to say to yourself that your emotional reactions are wrong and bad and must be changed and immoral and immature and a real person, a real man, a real husband, a someone who loved me would accept me for who I am and it wouldn't change just because I went and had a drink with some...
Forget that.
Just say no to that.
Sorry.
I'm telling you what the response is going to be.
I'm telling you what my heart is going to do with this information.
You can make your choices, but one of those choices is not to try and convince me that my reaction should not occur.
Right.
Don't control her.
Don't control yourself.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
And I feel, I guess, going forward, I'm going to try to be more self-aware about this sort of stuff.
Listening to you talk, I feel like that's what I do.
I think I start off there and say, you know, this is how I'm going to feel if you do that.
And then perhaps later on I make excuses and to, you know, I guess, excuse her or, you know, anybody, it doesn't have to be her specifically, excuse her of her actions.
But yeah, that all makes a lot of sense.
And I suppose I didn't really think of it, think of making that sort of negotiation style approach to it.
It is.
It is important.
You know what the response is going to be if your wife hangs out with low-rent people.
And you just need to tell her that.
Then she can make a decision.
And the decision is, okay, is my friendship with roofie girl more important than my husband's love and respect?
Come on.
I mean, the father of my child, who has, you know, who has a legitimate reason for not liking her, right?
Yeah.
And of course, your refusal to participate is important as well, right?
I mean, obviously, she doesn't invite the two of you out together.
Yeah, I would never go, yeah.
Just having disapproval and saying, you can go, and you can go out with this girl, and you are going to take and shred some of my respect and love for you as you go.
Can't change that.
That's the consequences of what it is that you're doing.
And freedom, you know, if you have a boss who yells at you, he's free to yell at you.
And the reality is you'll start looking for another job.
He's free to yell at you and you're free to really not like it and change your behavior accordingly.
And this mutual freedom is really, really liberating.
Don't let people talk you out of your emotional reactions and responses because then they're just trying to get away with stuff that's Nasty without losing any love or respect from people around them.
Well, that doesn't make any sense.
I mean, actions have consequences.
And when we shield other people from the consequences of their bad behavior, we subsidize that bad behavior and erase our own moral compass.
And that's to the detriment of everyone.
And of course, including your son, who is more and more Looking to you for guidance on how to be as he grows up.
Right.
And that's more important than, you know, most everything else, I would say.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, like, lots of people, they get upset at their kids' friends.
You know, why is he hanging around with a bad crowd?
Hello!
Look in the mirror, people!
I don't mean you, right?
I mean, this is sort of an extreme example, but You know, how come he's not hanging out with nice people?
Well, do you all hang out with nice people as parents?
Usually not.
Alright, do you mind if we move on?
I don't mind at all.
I really appreciate that was awesome insight and thank you so much.
Thanks, Brad.
I really appreciate the question.
Alright, have a good night.
Alright, up next is Chris.
Chris wrote in and said, I work with a customer acquisition slash team building company and in my daily interactions I speak with many people.
Both in and out of my organization, I've been approached by statists, theists, people I generally refer to as parasites, as their words and actions towards me create little but annoyance and apparent invitations to waste my time.
I've been scolded and admonished by my team leaders because of the fact that I promote myself before my business, which basically means that I apply real-time relationships, RTR, In each of my interactions and, as to be expected, a good number of people walk away.
I feel that applying RTR is my prerogative as a human being slash entrepreneur slash free sovereign.
However, I would like to increase my client retention and wonder if perhaps I'm not striking as healthy a balance as I could be.
I can pretty much boil down how most of these conversations go.
So I'd like to run some of them by Steph and see what his advice may be as it pertains to my application of real-time relationships, as well as any ideas he might have as to how I could use RTR to my advantage in team building.
That's from Chris.
RTR is Real-Time Relationships, The Logic of Love, which is a free book available at freedomainradio.com.
A very fine book, if I do say so myself.
And it simply is the process of being honest about your thoughts and feelings in the moment, refusing to jump to conclusions, refusing to blame other people for your thoughts and feelings, but just being honest, which is, you know, sounds easy, but it actually can be a little tricky.
All right.
And what is a customer acquisition?
I thought the whole point of business was to acquire customers.
Is there some specialist thing that I'm not aware of?
No, no.
I mean, that's what it is.
It's a financial service-based business, and we focus on customer acquisition because it's also a network marketing company, so I just want to make that distinction.
I mean, that's what they all are, but it's different.
It's not one of those...
You know, potions, pills, power pack kind of things, you know, so we're interested in keeping people who are going to be in for the long haul, but I guess I've made an unnecessary distinction there.
Yeah.
Okay, no, I just was curious about what it is.
Sure.
So then when you deal with customers, you talk about your thoughts and feelings in the moment, and do you call them parasites?
No, no.
No, and it's more with people in my organization.
As far as the people, you know, when I say invitations to waste my time, it's usually people who, you know, set up appointments with me and don't follow through or I'll follow through with them and they'll just kind of, you know, fade away.
But it's more when...
We are a network marketing business, and so online, I see a lot of people in my teams using the business to promote theism or talk about God or the state.
And then when I say I apply real-time relationships, I say, hey, can I ask you a question?
I see if they're willing to have a conversation.
And then I tell them what I think honestly about whatever they were saying or ask them what they think about it.
And it usually degrades pretty quickly into some kind of name-calling thing, which I say I won't participate in.
It makes it hard because we rely on each other in our teams to promote one another.
But it's difficult when there's this kind of infighting.
And at the same time, I don't want to bottle it all up.
Because I did a lot of that during my childhood, during my youth development, and it created a lot of anger in me, which I don't want to repeat that.
So that's what I mean about striking that healthy balance.
But hang on, in the business context or in the context of business, are you trying to talk people out of their religion?
Are you trying to talk people out of their statism?
No, no.
The ultimate goal, and I've told people this, you know, the reason I want to build wealth for myself and gather resources is to first and foremost, you know, have my own family.
I'm 30 now.
I'm working on gaining resources so that I can do that.
As well, I want to use my wealth and influence to promote the message of peaceful parenting, which I feel like I can do without having lots of money.
So that's what it is.
As you've discussed with people in the show, inflicting kids with superstition is generally an unhealthy practice.
It all goes to that end, that peaceful parenting thing.
I don't come right out the gate saying, hey, telling kids God is real is not peaceful parenting.
I feel like they're going to go, huh?
You know what I mean?
Okay, still don't know where that sits in relation to my question.
So with your customers in the business context, you're trying to mention some things around the ideals that you believe in.
Is that fair to say?
Less with new customers, more so with existing team members, people who are in my side teams and things like that.
Okay, here's an example.
I'm a piano teacher also.
This is a different business I run.
I have a new rule...
That's come up during my teaching where I've had kids, one kid literally stopped the lesson and turned to me and said, hey, my parents are spanking me if I don't practice.
And I just stopped the lesson and I tried to explain to the parents.
I said, hey, look, I framed negotiation in these lessons.
You're using coercion if what he's saying is correct.
And it caused a big issue, a big stink, and they insulted me in front of their kids.
And then so I made a new rule, you know, that I wouldn't take new students if there was excessive amounts of spanking or yelling or punishments and things like that.
And I explained why.
I said because I'm going to frame negotiation for your kid.
If you guys are framing coercion, The kid's going to reject the lessons or whatever I'm showing them because they want to please the parent.
At least that's my opinion.
I told a lady that about a week or two ago, and she said, well, I do what the good book says.
And I was kind of like, well, I feel like any book that tells you you should hit your kids isn't such a great book, if that's kind of like an example that helps answer your question.
Right.
Okay, so I sort of understand.
Now, I just want to make sure, what's the question that I can most help you with?
Yeah, the question is, I'm trying to...
I feel like I sort of should put my business a little bit more before my personal preferences because it's not helping me gain money or influence just telling people right out the gate what I think.
You know what I mean?
I haven't achieved an extremely personally positive result through doing that.
You know what I mean?
And I'm kind of curious, like when you were an entrepreneur, did you have these kind of conversations with people or did they come up or did you just sort of move on to more valuable things and ignore it?
What's been your experience with that?
Well, I mean, obviously, I was not as frank and outspoken 15 years ago as I am now.
Sure.
And also, I was not as much into parenting, and I didn't know any kids who were spanked, like by my friends, you know, if friends had kids or whatever.
So it wasn't like I had to go over to someone's house and see them hit their kids and have to...
You know, I would have definitely intervened as best I could back in the day, but I just wasn't really...
Now, for me, it was politics, right?
So people would come up with political stuff and...
I would put my two cents worth in, for sure.
I would put my two cents in.
And, you know, if people were talking about the welfare state, I'd say, I think it's just been a huge disaster.
It's been a giant mess and keeps people tracting poverty while adding to the national debt.
And it just destroys the family and It's been really bad for minorities.
Right, so I would just say that.
Now, I wouldn't do like a 20-minute speech.
I would just say, because, you know, why can't you express your opinions the way that other people do?
Some people say they really like the welfare state.
Some people say they really like foreign aid.
Some people say whatever, whatever, right?
Right.
But the reality is that you have the right, you have the freedom to do this.
Nothing wrong with it.
Nothing wrong with saying what you think.
Now, when it comes to looking parents in the eyeball and saying, you hitting your kids is really wrong and really bad, well, that is a challenge, right?
Sure.
To put it mildly.
Yeah.
That's a big challenge.
That's going to cost you some customers.
Right.
Right.
No, I understand that.
I understand that.
And it's mostly, like you said, it's mostly when it comes to religion, you know, politics.
The funny thing is, most people in my business are very aware that, you know, taxation is theft and they don't like the welfare state either because we're in the business of helping people find, grow and keep money and plan for their financial futures.
But yeah, as far as teaching kids go, I mean, it's crazy, you know, working with them directly and you hear these horror stories and, you know, I don't When it happens right there in front of you, it's kind of hard to just say, I don't want to be that society member who the kid remembers, oh, this guy had the chance to say something or stick up for me, but he went along with the status quo and just kind of shrugged it off.
I had a lot of anger towards society growing up that I still need to get some good therapy for because I was hit by my parents, yelled at, punished, restricted, just generally made to feel like I wasn't worthwhile.
I built up a lot of anger towards them and also to the people who allowed it to happen.
It's not like I'm trying to just be a social justice warrior and tell everybody off, but at the same time, I I don't know.
It's just rough for me to hear that kind of thing and not have more empathy with the child.
And I try to be, you know, as delicate as I can be while not beating around the bush about the issue.
You follow what I mean?
Yeah, yeah.
Now, I think, you know, when it comes to I get spanked if I don't practice, then, yeah, you could say to the parents, look, I You have your beliefs and this is the way that you were raised, I'm sure, but I have found in my experience as a teacher that I can't teach kids who are practicing because they're afraid of being spanked.
It doesn't work.
That's pretty much how the conversation went.
And the mom said to me, you know, I don't need a lesson on parenting.
And I kind of told her, I was like, well, this isn't a lesson unless it's news to you, what I'm saying.
And I was like, just let's think about the kid.
Does he want to be spanked?
He says, no.
You know what I mean?
Does he want to learn piano?
He says, yes.
So I'm just kind of wondering why spanking is necessary.
But that's just a specific thing.
It's just...
Well, yeah.
If somebody says to me, I don't need a lesson in parenting, I'd be like, how do you know?
Right.
Right?
I mean, I'm not a perfect parent.
I'm constantly working to improve.
I'm not a perfect husband.
I'm certainly not a perfect podcaster, a perfect philosopher.
Good point.
So, what does it mean?
You have absolutely nothing to learn in terms of parenting?
There's no possibility you could do even 1% better?
Sure.
And if the person says, no, I'm a 100% perfect parent, be like, okay, well...
Okay.
Keep on keeping on, I guess.
Because, you know, if somebody, you know, who's just wrapped their drunken car around a pole says, I don't have a drinking problem, what are you going to do?
You know?
Sure.
You know, if I tell you about my wonderful head of lustrous hair, I don't know that holding up a mirror is going to help that much because I'm clearly not anywhere close to reality.
Right.
And, you know, I mean, there are tragedies all over the world all the time.
And, you know, obviously when they're in her face, it's unpleasant and it's difficult, but there are children during the course of this conversation who starve to death.
There are children getting raped, children being beaten up and all of this.
This is life.
You can't save everyone.
The progress of the species is slow and lurching at best.
Because so many people simply avoid listening to reason.
And there's a whole society out there who backs up them not listening to reason.
And so they've got plenty.
Like, there's very few people who say being a drunk is great, right?
Sure.
You know, beating up the homeless is fantastic.
I mean, very few people, right?
But as far as rejecting reality goes, rejecting the non-aggression principle with regards to kids goes.
It happens.
I mean, it's everywhere, right?
I mean, I have years ago, I don't really bother with it anymore because I sort of try and drop my seeds on more fertile ground, but the libertarian community very much accepts the non-aggression principle and believes it to be universal.
And yet, to a large degree, steadfastly refuses to accept that spanking is the initiation of force against children, right?
I mean...
How they can not see that requires...
So even people who fully believe in a principle, when it is emotionally difficult, just throw it out the window.
Sure.
Right?
And so, these are people who've spent their whole lives trying to reduce the initiation of the use of force in society, and someone comes along and says, you know, and I've got Right, case with the child.
And so, when, even if people believe in the principle, they can snap their fingers and wish away the consistency that they demand of others when it's uncomfortable to them.
Sure.
So, Libertarians literally get angry at giant farm conglomerates that don't want to give up their government subsidies Anyway, you get it.
So, it's very hard to change people's minds.
Very few people's minds can be changed.
But it's okay.
It's okay.
Because those people whose minds can be changed are the people who change society.
That's the way it works.
And so, it is tragic.
You see some kid and they're going to get spanked if they don't practice.
Then, it's sort of like...
You can't call the cops.
I'm not saying you would either way, but it's legal, right?
So they are legally free to spank their children.
And you are legally free to not want to have anything to do with it.
Right?
You could say, listen, you are legally free to spank your children.
But I will not teach children who are being threatened with that.
Like, I won't.
It's not my values.
And it's not effective.
You know, you I won't tell you to be a parent.
You won't tell me how to be a piano teacher, but I'm not going to participate in a system where if the child doesn't practice, they're going to get hit because I don't want to participate in any way, shape, or form with aggression against the child.
They say, well, it's not aggression.
I'm just telling you.
I'm not getting into an argument.
I'm just telling you why.
Or what you can do is, if that's going to be too confrontational, which again, no point being confrontational if you have no authority in the situation.
And it may make things worse, right?
Sure.
If the person is just escalating, then you don't even have to say that.
You can just say, okay, I'll be back next week.
And then a day or two later, you phone and you say, I'm sorry, I... I have to cancel and I'll let you know I'm suspending this part of the business for the time being in this area.
I'll let you know if I pick it up.
I'm so sorry for interruptions in the service.
Whatever it is.
Right.
And it's interesting that you say that.
I actually continued to teach this child and his older brother for about a year.
And then I spoke to the mother about this new business that I was doing, and we went over it, and that same day, it was like you were telling about people trying to tell me how to be a better teacher.
She was like, I was asking the kid what the speed of the piece we were playing was, because he didn't seem to have a grasp on the tempo, and then she just came out with this non-argument of, Oh, you've got to remember to make the lesson fun because they're kids.
And I was kind of like, how long have you hired me to teach your son?
It was about six years.
You know, so it's like now all of a sudden I seem to have forgotten today.
But I don't know.
I get what you're saying, you know, and you don't want to escalate it around where it could negatively affect the children.
And I'm aware of that.
It's just sort of like, I guess it's me holding myself to the standard.
You know, you say you can always judge the quality of a person's behavior by their adherence to their stated goals.
And I'm kind of wondering, you know, besides making a worldwide international podcast like what you guys have done, which I think is great, and I totally support you and, you know, I've donated and tell everybody about you guys, but It's like in my own personal life, I'm on that teetering balance between do I just say screw it and go live my own life and raise my own peaceful children or do I keep talking to people about this?
If you have the choice, I would go with the former because you want to apply your ethics in situations where you have the greatest control.
Or at least you could say the greatest influence.
I see.
Because you have to remember...
You know, there's an old George Carlin line that I try not to have it.
I just did YouTube comments today.
I try not to roll around.
I had too much.
It goes something like this.
Are you ready?
Hit me.
It goes something like this.
Think of how stupid the average person is.
Well, half of them are dumber than that.
When I was young, because I had no particular intellectual scintillating capacity when I was young.
I had obviously some indications and all that, but...
Within me, unlocked by philosophy, was buried, you know, fantastic rhetoric and great analogies and fairly rational thinking and compelling communication skills and all of the stuff that I bring to bear in this conversation.
Now, in the usual, I mistook the world for myself, I thought, oh!
See, there are lots of people out there with really buried but emergent properties.
If they just, you know, complete the current with philosophy, their minds will come alive.
Their cities, they're currently inert and inhabited by sand people, will growl and come up to life, and geistes of thought will erupt, and all the streetcars of reason will lurch into reason, and sparks will fly, and Christmas decorations will festoon themselves inside nice barionette-moving Christmas...
Displays and the subways will plummet through the city, bringing rationality and empiricism to the far-crossed city.
Like I thought all of this stuff, like I bring the city to life, you know, with the rousing capacity of rhetoric that I have.
I thought the people were kind of like me.
Oops.
Right, right, right.
Oops.
You have the capacity to change your mind to listen to reason.
Your ACE, Adverse Childhood Experience score, is a whopping six, for which I'm incredibly sorry.
Six out of ten.
Six out of ten is bad.
Right?
So, this capacity that you have to listen and to reason and to change is rare.
And I don't know, and it doesn't really matter, This debate about the degree to which intelligence is genetic or environmental.
You know, Charles Murray's argument is, does it really matter?
Because it's not like there's something we're thinking of doing that we haven't done yet to try and improve IQs around the world and in areas where people have some kind of control.
Now, are people incapable of listening to reason or they just don't?
I don't think it matters.
Because we look at the effects, right?
We look at the effects.
How many people are willing and able to listen to reason and change any foundational perspective that they have?
Very, very few.
And that's okay.
Again, it's fine.
It just is the way that it is.
How many people...
Are going to be able to fill Carnegie Hall with their wonderful singing voices and original music.
Very, very few.
And people, they have a great deal of difficulty with the bell curve.
And I do too.
The bell curve simply being the distribution of skills and abilities across the population.
You know, people get mad at, you know, the CEOs are earning 500 times what the workers...
Some of this is government and some of it is free market.
But I don't see people saying, God, it's horrible.
Pavarotti earned 500 times what the taxi driver earned.
It's like, well, yeah, because Pavarotti can fill a concert hall and sell millions of records and the taxi driver can't.
Freddie Mercury made 500 times what his roadie made.
Yes!
That's because people are paying $100 a pop to see Freddie Mercury, not to see the roadie, right?
And so, I can't believe it.
LeBron James gets paid thousands of times more than the guy who buffs the basketball court.
Yes, that is true.
So, you know, without a really highly polished and reflective basketball court, you can't sneak a look through reflection up LeBron's junk.
You can't see his heavy swinging balls as he bounces across the court, right?
You need that reflection, I'm telling you.
Sometimes you've got to zoom in, slow motion, YouTube.
Anyway, it takes forever.
Good point, good point.
So, you know, you're the superstar as far as thought and reason and evidence goes.
And most people, most people can't even see that you're smart.
They can't.
They can't even see that you're smart.
I mean, the number of comments that float around this show over the years.
Oh, Steph's just so obviously wrong.
It's so ridiculous.
It's so easy.
He just makes all these mistakes.
It's basic.
It's just ridiculous.
It's stupid.
They never make any actual arguments.
They just throw little idiot bombs at and hoping that they obscure the intelligence from the general view.
But they genuinely don't understand that I'm smart.
They have no clue.
It's called the Donning-Kruger effect.
You have to be good at something.
To know how good someone else is at something.
For intellectual pursuits in particular, right?
You know, it's the old thing.
Somebody gives me a physics paper, really advanced physics paper.
I don't know if it's any good or not.
Like, I don't know if they're any good.
I can't judge because I'm not good at physics.
Here's some really dense mathematical work.
Steph, what do you think?
Nice font!
This might make a nice paper airplane.
Oh, look!
I can put it between my thumbs and make a whistling sound.
Oh, ow, I got a paper cut.
You know...
This is like, I'm like, the gods must be crazy, but the coke bottle when it comes to this stuff, right?
If I sniff it, it makes me happy!
This is the old photostats from the 80s, right?
Every kid would get the photostat and, oh, please take me out of this classroom for a few minutes of imaginary bliss.
Right?
So, you know, I've been studying this stuff hardcore for like 30 years.
And I run the biggest philosophy show the world has ever seen.
You know, been on TV, been invited to speak places like I, you know, making a real impact, millions of downloads.
But then some guy just skims through some video and says, he's an idiot!
It's so sad.
I said in the video today, my experience of looking at the world is, you know, people think they're taking me down, but I'm on the other side of the bathroom mirror watching a bird attack itself and thinking it's Muhammad Ali.
I broke my beak!
I win!
It's so sad.
It's so sad.
I hear you, man.
And, you know, it's all part of wanting to, you know, I heard you mention something before, too, about I was one of those guys, I was going a little MGTOW, leaning that way.
For those of you listening, men going their own way, guys who don't want to have kids with women because they think they're going to divorce them or leave them or take their money or whatever.
But I realized you also said if you're more elevated in your thinking and philosophy and stuff, you kind of owe it to the world to bring things.
Kids into the world, and I agree with that.
And I also want to be able to look back and say to my kids, you know, when they get old enough to understand, it's like, oh man, there's people who are coercive, people who are violent, people superstitious, you know, crazy world.
And I just want to have something to say to my kids, like, here's what daddy's been doing about this.
You know what I mean?
And I think your guy's show is great.
I think I think you guys are right on target as far as all that goes in the whole spectrum of everything people need to know.
So I do appreciate that.
It's just like I'm saying, it can be tough in my day-to-day interactions with people because like you said, most people just don't The thought doesn't even cross their mind.
When they say they hit their kids, I see on Facebook, oh, this mama used to spank me.
Share if you like and agree.
It's so sad.
Kids these days got no respect because they're not hit.
It's like, you know that violent crime has been diminishing enormously since about 2000, 2001.
Well, idiot!
I mean, that's just where you are.
I mean, we are not...
I sort of genuinely believe that the similarity-lookingness of people is really confusing to everyone.
And we are the only species that I know of Whose primary survival mechanism has such a wide disparity that we have less in common with the extremes than any other species.
Like, there are some pretty strong chimpanzees.
There are some pretty weak chimpanzees, but the strength differential, you know, it's not massive, right?
It's not like this chimpanzee can lift an airplane.
This chimpanzee gets bowled over by a feather, right?
I mean, they're just, you know, some dolphins swim fast, some dolphins swim slow, but they can all swim and they can all catch fish pretty much, right?
But, oh my God, when it comes to the human mind...
I can't imagine that there are adult chimpanzees where you get a couple of chimpanzees together, even a couple of the weakest chimpanzees together.
Maybe two of the weakest ones can do the same as one strongest one.
So the one strongest one is like twice as...
As strong as the weakest ones.
And yeah, just off the top of my head, there's not that much disparity.
There's a tall chimpanzee, there's a short chimpanzee, but you know, a couple of inches between them and we'll call it a day, right?
But among human beings, the brain capacity, the intelligence capacity, the creativity capacity, the rational capacities, oh my god.
Like, who's your favorite singer?
Oh, goodness.
Hit me with that one.
I love Freddie Mercury, just like you, man.
Okay, that's all you need to say.
That's all we need to say.
Okay, if we were impressed, we'd cut FM into our hands, spit on it, shake hands.
Anyway.
So can you imagine?
You go back in time and you can buy a ticket to the Rainbow Room in 1974 and you can go, Freddie Mercury, can't wait to hear him sing, right?
And Brian May comes out and says in his shaggy hair at highfalutin voice, Hello everyone, I'm so sorry, Freddie couldn't be here today, but we got two roadies or two random members of the audience, they're going to sing in his place.
And you'd be like, No.
No!
Please, please don't do it in the lap of the gods revisited with the roadie.
It's so easy.
Right?
I mean, God, please don't do it, right?
You wouldn't want that.
You wouldn't want that.
You wouldn't say Nadia Kamenichi in her prime, right, before she got tortured by Ceaușescu, was one of the great gymnasts the world has ever seen.
And you wouldn't say...
She couldn't make it today.
Come and eat.
She couldn't make it today.
But we pull two random people from the audience and they're going to try and do some gymnastics because they're pretty much equal.
There's no proximity when it comes to talents.
Two average people, two weak monkeys are the equivalent of one strong monkey, but two bad singers are not the equivalent of one good singer.
Does that make sense?
Absolutely.
Two bad writers are not the equivalent of one good writer.
Let's stack them!
Right?
Let's get two people from Stratford-on-Avon to write the next 52 Shakespeare plays.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
That will not happen.
I'm sorry?
I was going to say, I feel like we're inventing the government here from the ground up.
Put it all together and hope it works.
Right.
Right.
So, yeah, giving a whole bunch of people a whole bunch of guns doesn't make magical, virtuous social organization.
Right.
And all of what I'm talking about, like in terms of...
Even someone who doesn't have a good singing voice can sing okay, right?
You know, like the Lou Reed, the...
Bob Dylan's, you know, the guy from the Pogues, Dirty Old Town.
It's a particular style of singing, you know.
Some people don't care.
The Tom Waits, you know, the sort of gravel voice stuff.
Coco Taylor, you know.
People who even don't have a sort of traditionally good voice.
They might fit the genre and so on, right?
I mean, Ringo Starr with his three notes.
You know what I mean?
It's okay, you know.
Can we go for four?
No!
No, it doesn't work.
It doesn't work.
So, when it comes to intelligence, there's no pile of non-physicists who can match Stephen Hawking.
And this, you know, there's this old science fiction stereotype, right?
You know, the people with the little bodies, the little gray people, the little green people with little bodies, how big are their heads?
Proportionate to their bodies, pretty big.
Very big, right?
Very, very big.
That's what I want for the human race.
I want smart people to have giant fucking moon heads.
Like, I want smart people to have heads so big that they need, like, greased and well-oiled Magic Mike papal trains to carry their heads around.
I want them—they need scaffolding to carry their—they need their own side of the airplane.
You know, I want their heads to be so big that people on a whaling expedition worry if they go from one side of the boat to the other because this is going to tip the boat.
That's what I want.
I want smart people to have heads so big that they need their own special cars and they're always riding at a 40 degree angle because their heads are so big.
And I want dumb people to have teeny tiny heads.
Little pinheads.
Basically their necks just go to a little pyramid point.
They can have eye stalks, that's fine, but they've got to get around.
They can have eyestalks and they can have, I don't know, let's throw in some bat-like sonar capacity so they can navigate.
They've got to have big mouths.
Because they're idiots.
They've got to have big mouths.
Big mouths, tiny pyramid point heads.
That's what I want.
And the reason why I want all of that...
It's so that when I meet somebody who's really smart...
So, you're in a sunny field.
You're in a sunny field.
It's a wonderful...
The sun's out, you know, and all that.
And suddenly, it darkens.
And it darkens because a smart people, a smart person is walking up the lane with their retinue of giant head holders with sticks.
Holding them up, you know, like those things that they, I don't know what they're called, those things they use to carry bricks up ladders.
That's what you've got to prop up the giant head with.
Mr.
Giant Moonhead scaffolding guy is coming, and the field becomes dark, and the very sun is blotted out.
And that way, you can turn and look at that giant head and say, holy shit, you are huge smart, man.
You've got, like, one of Thor's balls for a head.
That is really, like, holy shit.
Have you ever got some machinery going on in there?
That is...
I can't even see the rest of the planet.
Your head is so big.
That's what I really want.
So that...
The tiny little pyramid pointy dumbheads with the eye stalks and the bat sonar and the giant mouths can look up and they can't appreciate the smart person's thoughts, but they can at least appreciate that they can't see the sun because the head is so big and the brain is so big that there's just no doubt.
Like, I don't walk up to a tall person and say, wow, you're really short.
Let me rest my beer on your head.
Because it's like, Here's a hint.
If you're looking up and you can just see two giant Matt Damon-style nostrils, you may be in the presence of a tall person, right?
So, you know, if you're currently eyeballing their nipples, then you may be in the presence of a tall person.
So we all know that.
You're in the presence of a thin person or a fat person.
It registers right there.
Right there it registers.
Fat person, thin person, tall person, short person.
Pretty person, not pretty person.
It's right there.
But the greatest divergence among humanity is in the realm of intelligence.
It's in the realm of intelligence.
And yet, okay, apparently there's a 0.4 correlation between having a bigger head and having a higher IQ, right?
But it's not enough.
It's not enough.
It needs to be relative to the actual...
Spread of IQ in the population.
And the reason that I'm taking you on this weird fantastical journey is that this doesn't exist in the world.
This doesn't exist in the world and what that means is that because people of average intelligence have the same head size more or less as you and I, they think everyone's pretty much the same height.
Right?
And that is a big problem.
Intelligence is very hard for the average person to see because the different speed and organization and white matter within the very intelligent person's brain does not result in a physical characteristic proportionate To its excellence.
So it's like, well, I've got a head about this big, and you've got a head about this big.
And we both get one vote!
And this vanity comes, of course, from democracy.
All the politicians are like, you're special, and your vote counts, and you're a valued member of the society, and so on.
Again, you know, why not, right?
But then when stuff shows up, That breaks the vanity of the average.
Holy.
Holy.
When stuff comes up that breaks the vanity of the average, they recoil.
And that's why people can come on to my YouTube channel and just say, you're an idiot.
We have the same size head.
I don't have eye stalks and no pointy top.
Your head is not...
What is the productivity in terms of physics, right?
What is the productivity of the top 10 physicists in the world?
Or the top 10 chemists?
Or the top 10 songwriters?
It's not like, well, it's five times more.
It's virtually infinite.
It's virtually infinite.
What is the productivity of a really great singer as opposed to somebody who's just got a kind of mediocre voice?
It's not that they're a little better.
It's not that they're a lot better.
It's an order of magnitude.
It's standard deviation of stacked upon standard deviation, stacked upon standard deviation.
Now once you recognize that of all the species, human beings in the intelligence bell curve have the least in common with each other than any other species, that, again, I'm just making a case here.
I'm not saying I've proven anything, right?
But recognize that when you're talking to someone, I don't need parenting lessons.
Okay, my little monkey.
Okay.
I'll just keep talking to the other monkeys and hopefully your monkeys will grow up on the other side of the bell curve and realize that they were basically raised by simians.
The differentiation between a smart and a dumb monkey, not that big a gap.
The difference between a smart and dumb human being, is interstellar.
It is interstellar.
And recognizing that means, I think, that if you have the choice between trying to go out and find smart people to convert by talking to them...
I mean, if you wanted to audition a great front man for your band, right?
Like, great front men for bands?
Holy crap!
I mean, they're really, really rare.
And front ladies, including Hart, right?
But I mean, they're really rare.
I mean, I don't know who the great front men in rock and roll history.
Freddie Mercury and maybe Michael Hutchins, Robert Plant to some degree, you know, whoever they've currently got cycling in through ACDC. It's not, they're not really very common.
They're very rare.
Mick Jagger, to some degree, if you don't mind that sort of stuck-out, skinny-chest cock-walking crap.
Jim Morrison, okay, but not quite as spectacular.
Roger Daltrey just running in place with shaggy hair and tight pants.
I don't know.
It's not my particular thing.
Good voice, though.
Good, busy voice.
But anyway, as far as, like, frontmen go, they're very, very rare.
Now, if you needed a great frontman for a band, you're looking for, like, probably about...
One in 500 million people?
Maybe one in a billion?
Maybe even if it's one in a hundred million to be a great frontman for a band.
Very, very rare.
Would you imagine doing that by just seeing who you met?
So seeing who's capable of changing.
I don't know.
Tend to your own garden, as Voltaire says through, I think, Pangloss in Candide.
Tend to your own garden, grow your own happiness, and if you want to, then shine your light out there in the world and see what kind of fireflies you attract.
But the idea that you're going to find people capable of change in your own accidental social circles from where you grew up?
I don't know.
I mean, it seems...
Highly unlikely, if that makes any sense.
And that's why the more you commit to yourself to excellence, the more that you commit to yourself to growth, as time goes on, the less, in general, you have in common with the people you grew up with, for the most part.
It's not always the case.
It's not always the case.
Malcolm Gladwell has a bunch of friends from when he grew up that all achieved some spectacular stuff.
And that's rare, though.
That's very rare.
Does this make any sense?
Yeah, no, it makes a lot of sense, and it actually helped me out with my question, even though I know I gave you kind of a word salad there, and for that I apologize.
No problem.
We do word salad here.
Yum.
All right.
Listen, do you mind if I move on?
Absolutely, Stephan.
Thank you again so much, sir.
I really appreciate it.
Hey, man, thank you for your great question and your very kind support and your enthusiasm for bringing truth, reason, and virtue to the world.
And without you, without people like you, It ain't gonna happen.
So, thank you.
Wonderful.
Thank you, guys.
Alright, up next is David.
Let's talk polygamy.
Is there a good place for polygamy in our society?
You talk a lot about family structure and commitment, giving your own children a good future, so I think it's important to talk about why polygamy is illegal in most countries, what the reasons are, and what it was like with polygamy in our societies.
Is there a place for polygamy in the future?
When there's a scarcity of male adult providers.
That's from David.
Hi, David.
Nice to meet you.
How are you doing?
I'm doing great.
Thanks.
Now, help me understand why this would be a question with regards to philosophy, because polygamy is not a moral question fundamentally, right?
No, it isn't.
So, help me understand why I should care what other people's sexual relationships are.
I'm not saying I don't care at all, like it's a bad thing, but it's like you saying, I don't know, what's the philosophy of anal sex?
It's like, I don't know, gentle?
But I have no idea, right?
I mean, if you do what you will, as far as there's no initiation of force involved, and assume nobody's lying or whatever, right, it's all open, then why would I care what people's sexual arrangements are?
Because it feels like people in the West and most countries, it's just illegal and nobody knows why.
Oh, no, no, no, no.
People know why.
Maybe not the average man on the street, but there are very good reasons that people believe as to why.
Whether it should be illegal or not, I don't think it should be illegal because it's not the initiation of force.
But there are reasons why in general, but we don't have to sort of get into those now.
So, is your cultural background different from the places where it's generally illegal?
Well, I live in a secular country, but still, all the Western countries have polygamy illegal.
What's your cultural background?
Well, it's Scandinavian, or half-American actually.
Okay, so you're not from the Middle East or someplace where maybe that's frowned upon.
Okay.
And are you interested in having a polygamous relationship?
You know, it's just a thought.
And I'm not entirely sure on that because I still don't know if it's...
The downside is, it feels like it's much of a taboo, and that it's frowned upon, and that it's sexist, and the social aspects of how you're dealing with your family is just a negative downside to it, even.
What do you mean family downside?
You mean your family of origin or the family that you might create in a polygamous relationship?
Family of origin.
So they might not like it if you have a couple of girlfriends or wives, right?
Yeah, exactly.
And that's basically the huge reason for why I wouldn't do it because family acceptance is really important to me.
And are your parents polygamous?
No.
And do you know anyone else who is polygamous?
Not at all.
And where did you first find yourself interested in the topic?
Because when I was thinking about the eventual collapse of Western society, there's going to be a lack of, you know, primarily women and a lot of people, they cling on to the welfare state and they're dependent on it because it's a provider for them.
Now, when the welfare state collapses, they're going to need to find a new host.
Well, yeah, they're going to have to find some guy.
Who's going to help them out with the bills?
Or they'll have to go get jobs.
But people will...
We had an ice age and survived as a species.
Women will adapt, right?
In the chaos, the entire system will reassert themselves and adapt to the new situation.
Now, what will happen then...
It's that dating is going to go through the roof.
People are going to be desperate to find a new provider for them.
But since the welfare state has been kicking in and been in people's lives for so long, the amount of the remaining male adult providers, or female adult providers as well, but not as many of them as male, they or female adult providers as well, but not as many of them as male, they So there'll be fewer male providers around.
And of course, a lot of those male providers, this is again to go to the last caller's points about men going their own way, which is basically the argument that, you know, woman, tricky enough, woman plus state power, suicide, right?
Woman plus power of family courts and alimony and child support and all that kind of stuff, and, you know, as they say, half of marriages end in divorce, and it's like the remaining half are all happy, and so not worth it, right?
Not worth it at all.
And so a lot of the male providers We'll specifically avoid relationships as a whole.
And those providers, if there's some significant contraction in the size and power of the state, then what will happen is those providers may choose to re-enter the dating arena, but they sure as hell won't do it for single moms, right?
Because...
That's, you know, the alpha fucks, beta bucks stuff, right?
That the woman's gonna have a kid with some unstable, hot, unreliable alpha guy and then cuckold some beta guy into providing resources for her.
That's much less likely to work.
And of course, I'm really working hard to try and re-spine the men.
And lots of people who are working on this kind of stuff, as it had to be done to me.
I was raised in a female-dominated, single-mother household and environment and all that, and just getting men to fall back in love with their balls and the contents thereof.
It's your sperm and your children that you should be applying your resources to.
Don't be some dishrag for a woman to soak up Alpha male juice and have you pay for the resources for someone else's kids.
That's not how evolution works.
And unfortunately, that's sort of the way that men have been Yeah, and it's not just going to be single moms.
It's going to be any women who feel they're young or attractive enough to try and find a male provider.
And just a thought.
I don't know if it's going to happen or not.
I'm sorry, just before we move on, because I thought I maybe understood that last point, but I wasn't sure.
So women who are young and attractive enough, they want to find a male provider.
I'm not sure what you're talking about.
Finding a male provider that already is providing for a female.
That does not clear anything up for me, I'm afraid.
Sorry.
Oh, I'm sorry.
No, no, it's not your fault.
You may be perfectly clear.
I may just have a brain for it and not be able to follow it.
But just explain it, just break it down.
So, I was talking about, like, single moms are going to find it hard to get male providers.
Because when the welfare state falls, a lot of...
A lot of women, the relationship between men and women as a whole is going to normalize without the welfare state.
Because the old sex for resources paradigm is going to reassert itself and will fall back into more normal and healthy, non-coerced relationships.
And so, for single moms, it's going to be especially tough.
And because they'll be competing with the young unattached females as well, right?
And they will come with, hey, I'm older, I'm embittered, and I have two or three children with an unreliable guy.
Want to get involved?
I have less time, fewer resources, maybe some creepy ex floating around, and it's going to be like, ugh, right?
And then, you know, because men have generally been raised to serve women, as men always have had a tendency to do, because having a woman who's voluntarily into raising your kids very much raises their chance for sexual and economic and therefore reproductive success in the future, and therefore, you know, men are generally the slaves of women's preference because women as the gatekeepers Yeah.
For gene life or gene death.
In other words, if they're willing to give you an egg, your genes survive.
And if they're not, they don't.
Then it's going to really change.
And I get the challenge that single moms are going to face.
Is it because they're going to be competing with these young unattached, attractive women?
And not just that, but it feels like they're going to try to attract males that already are in a stable relationship.
It's just a suspicion.
Wait, so the young men?
Oh, so the young women are going to try and attract men who are already in a stable relationship?
Yeah.
Oh, so this is so, in the fall, when Soviet communism fell, there were lots of very attractive women who were trying to Get their way into a stable man's wallet, so to speak, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, it'll be nice in a lot of ways, right?
Women don't have to be that nice to men because they can get resources from the state.
And so women will simply...
Re-learn the largely lost art of being pleasant to men.
I hate to put it that way.
But women will rediscover, and very quickly too.
We're very adaptable as a species.
But women will simply rediscover the joyful pleasures of man-pleasing.
Which is not sexual, but millions of other things.
And they will just find a way to Be in a man's life and his life will become a much better place to be.
That's how it works.
Now, right now, women don't need to get any of that stuff done fundamentally because they get the resources from the state.
In the same way that government workers don't have to work that hard because they get their money from the state, women as a whole don't have to work that hard or be customer pleasers.
But, you know, if they privatize the post office tomorrow, Then most of the post office workers will go, okay, I guess we'll have to start pleasing our customers, otherwise they'll have no job.
And in the same way, when the welfare state falls, And normally the fall of the welfare state occurs simultaneous to an invasion of other countries or the starting of a war.
That's a little tougher to do these days, which is why Europe, towards the end of its welfare state, Europe is importing the war into itself in the form of migrants.
This is just another way of creating enough social conflict that the welfare state can collapse.
And there won't be a revolution, at least not that way.
So instead of going to invade another country, they're just having another country come and invade, and that will distract people from the end of the welfare state.
So, yeah, when the government institution of welfare falls, women will be like, oh, I guess we have to go and be pleasant to men now.
Okay, well, we know how to do that, so we'll go do that.
Go please our customers, right?
But anyway, so we can sort of move on to...
To the next issue with regards to polygamy.
So do you feel that because there'll be fewer male providers, those male providers will need to have more than one woman under there?
Exactly.
Because there's not going to be enough of them.
There's going to be a massive disproportion.
Right.
And there is, as you mentioned with Eastern Europe or post-Soviet Russia, Ukraine is an example, European example.
You know, they're currently going through a hyperinflation because of the conflict and corruption.
And the dating has grown to gigantic sizes because there's such a huge scarcity of male adult providers.
There's demographic disproportion and the average lifespan of men in Ukraine are decades shorter than women.
Then women are just getting absolutely desperate from places like Ukraine.
But when you look at the numbers, a lot of them, there's just not enough men if one man has just one female.
And it feels like a lot of A lot of people, especially a lot of men, they don't want to get into polygamy because there is a bit of a taboo or that it's somehow immoral.
And I want to kind of talk about it to get a better understanding of why people feel that way and why we should perhaps change our view.
You mean why do people feel that it's immoral?
Yeah, that's what it feels.
Yeah, I mean, I don't care about the sexist arguments.
I mean, the moment I hear sexism, my eyes just roll.
Because it's usually just such a one-sided, right?
Like, we're doing research on Japanese sex robots, which, of course, have been called sexist and all this kind of stuff, because male sexuality can be conveniently demonized.
Anyway, because, you know...
Nothing humanizes a man more than being replaced by a dildo.
At least male sex robots have a head.
Anyway, but I guess your question is why is it considered to be, let's just say, negative, if that makes sense.
Yeah.
Because people just usually paint stuff they consider negative with the word immoral because it's just a A nice fear-based emotional word that gets people to agree with them with usually no comprehension of what's going on.
Good points.
So I'd rather just say, you know, are there situations or circumstances under which society may not benefit from polygamy, right?
Yeah.
Well, clearly if...
Let's just say in a society where there's a one-to-one ratio, polygamy is very bad for social stability.
I don't know if you've ever heard the sort of arguments why, but they can be quite interesting.
It creates a two-class society, right?
Go on.
It creates a two-class society because there's going to be a huge bunch of people who are not going to be in a relationship if there's polygamy.
If there's a 50-50 between the gender.
Yeah, and so you end up with a lot of young men who don't have any capacity for sexual access and therefore remain in a highly frustrated, high testosterone state which produces criminality and lethargy and health problems.
Young masculinity is a beast that's supposed to be clubbed down by two things, a wife and children.
Young men are fundamentally feral.
I say this as a formerly feral young man, but young men are fundamentally feral, and they are tamed by tits and diapers.
It's the tits-diaper combo for taming the wild beasts known as young men.
And so if you have a 50-50 ratio or something close to it, And then you have no sexual access, no reproduction access for young men, then you very quickly get a highly destabilized society that usually self-destructs within a generation or two.
Does that make sense?
It does.
Now, there are people who...
There are situations under which polygamy can be very advantageous to particular people.
And one of those, of course, is if you're starting some new weird thing, then polygamy can be very helpful because it allows you to very quickly breed and indoctrinate a bunch of new adherents to whatever your weird belief system is, right?
Like the Mormon church.
Yeah, like the early Mormon church.
It's like, well, that's some pretty freaky shit you all got going on there, right?
Magic underpants and you get to die and end up ruling your own planet somewhere in the universe.
I mean, some pretty, pretty nutty stuff.
And so you can't sort of go to your average town square, offer people Magic underpants and the opportunity to be Xeon, the overlord of Alpha Centauri, and have people say, I think you're a little crazy.
But of course, if you raise kids in that environment, then they're all right.
So if you give polygamy to early odd institutions, then of course, given the disparity between sperm and eggs, right?
A man can have thousands of children.
Women max out at around 20, even in optimal conditions, and usually it's far less than that.
So if you give...
More eggs to the same balls, you will get a lot more adherence to your particular belief system.
And so, I mean, there are sort of pluses and minuses.
Of course, when there have been a significant decimation or when there's been a significant decimation of the men, of course, this is usually due to war.
And it's tough because, of course, in ancient times, if the war was lost...
Usually the invaders would come and take over the host country or whatever.
But if for whatever reason there's some parasite that attacks only men or something or some war happens and everyone gets exhausted.
But then polygamy becomes more – it's a relatively quick way to replenish the stock of male workers and worker bees and fighter bees and so on that society needs for the next war.
So polygamy can work in those sort of situations.
So I can certainly see from a sort of evolutionary standpoint where polygamy, which is a very fast way, and also see polygamy in a free market environment promotes intelligence, which regardless of what we think, right?
For the obvious reason that those who are the smartest generally have the highest incomes and can have the most children and so it tends to be highly productive towards the growth of intelligence and – But again, it has the challenge of leaving a stock of young men untamed by intelligence.
The tits-diaper combo.
And, boy, doesn't that sound like something?
The tits-diaper combo.
It's a jiu-jitsu move that nobody ever, ever wants to do.
Well, they want to do half of it.
So, yeah, I mean, I could certainly see where there can be some evolutionary advantages, maybe even to society as a whole for it.
And where I feel conflicted is that in most Western societies, it's going to be...
The proportion is still going to be the same, but it's just that there's going to be way, way less matured adult providers around, able to take care of just even one woman or partner.
And then when the choice comes to you, Will you accept it and have two partners?
Or is it better to just say no and let them find someone else so everyone gets a partner?
Yeah, again, I don't know.
I certainly would not want to initiate any kind of force in these areas.
I think in general it's better for there to be as widely distributed a genetic stock.
This sort of cousins inbreeding that takes place in a wide variety of cultures around the world has not exactly sharpened particular groups to the point of Olympic gold excellence as far as genetics goes.
So, of course, the problem with polygamy is that you have a more restricted gene pool because, of course, you have one father to a wide variety of children.
And those children, if they're growing up in a particularly close environment, are going to end up with More genetic defects as a result of inbreeding, so there is that challenge.
But I think just an awareness of this kind of stuff is important.
I think that for kids, the two-parent household is better.
Societies and civilizations flourish when there's more investment in children.
And if you have a two-parent household...
The likelihood is higher that more investment is going to take place in the kids.
You know, it's the old mother's baby, father's maybe, right?
A mother always knows.
I mean, a lot of society is structured around, and Strindberg wrote about this in a play, but a lot of society is structured around the reality that a woman always knows, that it's her genetic material being transmitted, but the man doesn't.
And this is why...
The worst thing in the ancient world was to cook old a man.
For a man to have an affair was bad, but for a woman to have an affair was even worse because it was considered, and it's considered in some ways the moral equivalent of rape to hook old a beta into having someone else's and raising someone else's kid because, you know, it's gene death for him to a large degree and so many resources get it's gene death for him to a large degree and so many resources get spent on another man's kids that he So it's the end of the line for a couple of billion years of evolution for his gene set, but I think it's better in general for children to not be raised communally but to be raised with two individual parents who are focused on their welfare because they have the highest genetic investment. but I think it's better in general for children to
Thank you.
In those kids and in polygamy the man certainly has less genetic investment in the kids.
But on the other hand The banning or bigamy has not been fully exterminated.
There's still men who went around and had several children with several females.
And instead, because polygamy is illegal, the option of marrying just both of them and making sure you're father to both would not be an option.
So one would have to be a single mother.
Right, right, right.
So you have that perspective as well.
Yeah, I think that, again, how this stuff would all get organized in a free society, I can't really imagine and I don't think it particularly matters.
I would have some mild disapproval.
This doesn't mean anything fundamentally, right?
I have a minor aesthetic disapproval of this, but it is not the initiation of force, and much though I may disapprove of it, I've got to grit your teeth and stick by your principles and say, well, if everyone's being honest and everybody is in agreement and nobody's being violated in terms of aggression or fraud, then, you know, Do what you will.
I don't think that it would last particularly long in a truly free society, but that's neither here nor there.
Because there wouldn't be this imbalance between the genders in a free society, and therefore I think you would settle into a mostly monogamous, pair-bonded relationship.
Okay, so there is more instability in polygamy relationship.
Sure.
And it's better in the long run to have a stability in a monogamous relationship.
It's gonna pay off in the long run.
Yeah, I mean, if you have two wives, you're always gonna like one more than the other.
Yeah.
And so that's going to create a winner and a loser, a first wife, second wife.
I mean, it's just never going to be the same.
And that may transfer to the kids.
How about identical twins?
Will you be able to favor one over the other?
What?
Will I be able to favor identical twins?
I have no idea.
Okay.
I mean, there are still some differences between identical twins, but I don't know.
But we're not talking about...
I hope we're not restricting things to polygamy with identical twins.
No.
Because now we're starting to really get spent on asteroids, right?
Do you mind if we move on?
Is there anything else you want to ask about this?
Yeah.
Okay, let's say that...
Let's say that the welfare state collapses and I am interested in polygamy.
What would I say to my family?
What would you say to your family?
Oh god, I don't know.
I don't know.
I have two penises and they can't both be satisfied with one woman.
I'm double pronged.
I'm a human spork.
No, I honestly, I try not to tell people what to say to their families other than be honest.
You just have to be honest and say, you know, you ever watch a tennis match and wish you could play both sides?
That's where I'm heading.
Yeah, I think that would just be, you know, just be honest and say, you know, maximum gene reproduction.
Boys like to spray and pray, and they need a place to land.
So, yeah, I just have to be honest about what it is that you want.
But this is assuming, you know, the welfare state collapses, polygamy becomes legal, you can find people to do it with.
Let's just say that's a series of barriers to go through that I don't think makes this an imminent issue.
No, it's a future issue, potential future issue.
Right, right.
Okay.
Well, I tell you what, if that comes up, call back in.
All right.
All right.
Thanks, man.
Alright, up is Joe.
Joe wrote in and said, I would love to discuss how we as libertarians can do a better job of reasoning with people of different belief systems.
Libertarians share a common ground with many different ideologies, and we can use said shared beliefs to illuminate the issues present in the world.
After reading A Manual for Creating Atheists by Dr.
Peter Boghossian, who's been on the show, I think many of the strategies we use to try and reason with people about libertarian ideas and the non-aggression principle simply fail.
How can we do a better job to save us all?
That's from Joe.
Joe, I appreciate you thinking that I might not suck at this.
Because, you know, that's always a possibility.
Like, you might be asking the exact wrong guy as to how to do a better job communicating to non-libertarians, because I might be terrible at it, you know, just to be perfectly frank.
I mean, I sometimes seem to have trouble communicating with libertarians, let alone non-libertarians.
I mean, that very well could be true.
I mean, I... For the past about probably six or seven years, at least I called myself a libertarian.
I guess when I got introduced to libertarianism, I was more of like the Glenn Beck brand of libertarianism, which is obviously not really libertarianism, but then I got exposed to Ayn Rand and guys like you, so I think that I think you appealed to me.
Maybe we think similarly or something along those lines.
But yeah, like I said, after I read a manual for creating atheists, I think most libertarians, we just try to spew the facts.
It goes straight to, it's either we go to the efficiency argument, or I think you've made good points in saying the against me argument, which I think is very effective, but I think almost it's too effective, if that makes any sense.
Like, it gets too to the point, and it causes a...
Since it exposes people's own immorality, when they realize, you know, like, wow, I'm a horrible person, they...
I think the term Peter Boghossian uses dalsastic closure to describe it.
It just closes people off to any sort of reasoning because...
Am I making any sense?
I'm undecided.
I'm happy to keep listening.
Yeah, so...
I think when we...
Like, for example, the against me argument.
When you tell someone, hey, if you support the drug war, and I have two grams of a plant in my pocket, you are advocating somebody with a gun, kicks down my door, and kidnaps and imprisons me.
Which is obviously 100% true.
And that's 100% aligned with reality and everything of that nature, but I think when sometimes, and I think certain people it works, and some people it doesn't, but when you make it that apparent, It can create this emotional tension within individual people and subconsciously they will close off to any sort of reason and evidence.
Right.
Right.
See, the reality is that you can be completely right and still be a terrible leader.
Yeah.
Right?
I mean, I'm not a very good leader.
I think I'm a good philosopher.
But, you know, I don't look behind me and see a trail of thousands of people all working night and day to achieve freedom and willing to pay any price and bear any burden to make the world free.
So, yeah, I think I'm right.
I mean, I know that I'm right about the against me argument.
Yeah, people support the government.
Yeah.
Then they're supporting you being thrown in jail if you disagree with what the government's doing and you want to act on it.
They're enslaving your conscience to their own political preferences.
That is entirely true.
Can't be argued, can't be dismissed.
That's the way the government works.
Absolutely, yeah.
And I'm a terrible leader when it comes to actually enacting that in the world.
And that's fine.
I don't want to be a good leader.
Because the whole point of being a good leader is to have other people substitute your judgment for theirs.
That's called leadership as a whole, right?
It's what Steve Jobs called reality distortion field.
And so I don't want...
So I'm right...
And I'm a terrible leader, and that's by design.
Well, that's okay.
I don't see why you'd want to be an anarchist and a good leader, because that's kind of the point of mine.
I want other people to think.
I certainly don't want them to follow me.
And right now, I mean, of course, you know, hundreds of thousands of people have heard the against me argument by now.
And a few people have done it.
And most people haven't.
And that's because they're crossing their fingers and hoping for a miracle.
They think that someone else is going to ride to their rescue.
They think that someone else is going to do the hard work and the heavy lifting of saving the world.
They don't think it's up to them.
They kind of want to hide out like mammals low down below the dinosaur legs and just hope that some giant meteor is going to put up enough dust in the air that the dinosaurs will die off and the mammals will flourish.
It's magical thinking.
It's not up to me.
I don't have to take a stand.
I just have to read a bunch of books.
Maybe I write a blog or two, but I don't have to take an actual moral stand because we will be freed by magic because unicorns are going to pour through the time-space continuum hole and free us all by goring people's irrationalities with their metaphysical forehead horns.
People are just in a state of suspended animation.
They're in a state of stasis.
And Unfortunately, I mean, I guarantee you that this is going to happen.
What's going to happen is all the people who've heard the against me argument who haven't done it will end up realizing why they should have done it too late.
They will end up realizing why they should have done it too late.
Right, so I mean, if you look at, this is an extreme example, but I'm just using it for the sake of illustrating something.
When the Nazis first began to rise in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, people were like, oh, I'm sure it'll blow over.
So yeah, maybe your brother was really into the Nazis.
And people were like, well, you know, I don't want to upset my brother.
I don't want to put it on the line for him and saying, you know, if you Nazis get in, my Jewish friend could be into it for some serious bad times.
I don't want to make family dinners uncomfortable.
So I'm not going to push things with my Nazi-leaning brother or cousin or aunt or whoever, right?
And they're like, ah, you know, miracles.
It'll never blow over.
It's not going to be a big deal.
Or the Nazis won't actually do what they say they're going to do or whatever it is that they're going to say.
And then what happens is the Nazis get into power because a whole bunch of people crossed their fingers and hoped bad shit wasn't going to happen.
And it did.
And then, well, the Nazis got kind of keen on starting a world war.
And then your brother got drafted.
And then he got his head blown off besieging Stalingrad in Russia.
And then it's like, damn it.
Now that his head is spurting aortal blood, rolling down a frozen Russian tundra, I guess I should have had some uncomfortable conversations with him ten years ago.
Yeah, I see what you're saying.
And I'm not saying that libertarians shouldn't speak their mind or anything like that.
In fact, I enjoyed that previous caller you had talking about, yeah, he was the piano instructor and had kids whose parents spanked him and things of that nature.
But again, back to Dr.
Peter Boghossian's book, he talks about these six stages of change, the trans-theoretical model of change, if you remember that part.
It talks about there's people in pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, and termination.
And I think that when we...
There's a lot of people who are in the pre-contemplative stage as far as contemplating the immorality and, frankly, ineffectiveness of the state.
They're just completely engulfed in the religion of statism.
And I think that is a...
I think...
I'm pretty young.
I'm 23.
There's a lot more people in my generation that are not of that state of mind.
I think the...
Hang on, hang on, hang on.
Sorry.
There are limits to the degree with which atheist arguments can be applied to statist arguments.
Okay.
And it's a significant limit.
Okay.
How many people profit from the church?
Okay.
As a percentage of the total religious population, what percentage of people are priests or administrators or something who directly profit from religion?
Speaking in purely economic terms, probably only 2-3% at the max.
Okay.
Yeah.
I mean, that probably seems about right to me.
Of all the congregation and everyone...
Sunday school teachers, you know, priests, administrators, and so on, popes, or whatever.
So a very small percentage of people are profiting from religion, right?
Yeah.
And in fact, if you cease to be religious, you will save thousands of dollars a year, and hundreds and hundreds of hours a year.
So you are a net cost.
Religion is a net cost to people, which they are willing to submit to, That loss of time and money because they will get heaven out of the bargain, right?
Now, this is not how it works with the state at all.
And this is why I don't agree that taking Peter's book, which is a great book and people should read it, but it doesn't work with the state.
So, There are a lot of atheists in society, a lot of agnostics, and so for any particular religion of a given population, let's say America, a third a percent, a half a percent of the population as a whole for any particular religion is profiting from that religion and everyone else is paying, right?
Yeah.
How does it work with the government?
What percentage of people are getting net positives from the government?
Is it a third of a percent?
Is it a half a percent?
No.
It's significantly north of 50%.
Absolutely.
And so if somebody gives up religion, they save time and they save money.
But for the vast majority of, I should say, for the significant majority of people, if the state ends...
They do not save time, they do not save money.
It costs them an enormous amount of time and money because they don't get these subsidies, right?
So it's a different matter to talk someone out of the state than it is to talk someone out of religion because the costs and benefits are almost completely reversed.
Which is why it's harder to talk people out of the state than it is to talk people out of religion.
Yeah, I hadn't thought about it that way, actually.
Also, because the government provides what people perceive as essential social services and military service and police and law courts and prisons and protection and health care and welfare and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, it has a tangible material essentiality to it, a necessity-ness to it, if that makes any sense.
Which, you know, I mean, okay, so I stopped believing in God, there are still roads, right?
But if you start, I mean, so what people do is they say, well, the government provides these services, and if there's no government, these services won't be provided.
But it's hard to say that with regards to the church, because when you stop believing in religion, you also stop believing in the services it provides, right?
So a religious person would say, well, you can't not go to church, because then you'll go to hell and won't go to heaven, right?
You've got to believe.
You've got to have faith because the alternative is...
So the service that's being provided is heaven and that's why you have to go to church.
Now when you disbelieve in religion, when you withdraw your faith, when you reject religion, then the service it provides also ceases to exist and therefore you haven't lost anything.
However, if you reject government, the services that it provides still need to be provided.
And that's a tougher thing for people.
It's not like, well, if I disbelieve in government, I no longer believe in roads.
If you disbelieve in religion, then the service it provides, which is the pathway to heaven, ceases to exist.
But with government, the service that it provides does not cease to exist even if you no longer believe in its moral legitimacy.
And that's another barrier for people.
Wow.
Have you thought about this before?
Oh shit, now all this stuff's on the fly.
Okay.
I don't know.
It's weird.
I don't know how it works every week, twice a week.
I have no idea how it works.
It just does.
I'm like, oh, there's this.
Oh, there's this.
Just pop into my head.
Yeah, that's pretty interesting.
I'd actually, before I called, I'd sit down and wrote certain...
Back to my question when I called in, I was trying to...
I think there is some value when we're discussing the notion of The dismantling of the state with a certain individual, who that person is and what their beliefs are definitely will influence how, like, maybe certain paths we could take that might be more effective with them.
Like, I would say, like, if you're talking to, like, for example, I was raised in the South in the church, like, you know, stereotypical Southern Christian Republicans.
You know, George W. Bush is the greatest thing since sliced bread, that sort of, like, mentality.
Of people.
And so, like, when I talk to my family, who are all still religious and still pretty Republican, when I talk to them about these ideas, I don't...
Like, I talk to them differently than I would talk to my girlfriend who's a...
She's pretty libertarian herself and also an atheist.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
Like, different people require different...
I guess you have to talk to different people differently, maybe, to try to kind of, I guess, soften them up To the idea of it?
Sure.
Does that make any sense?
Yeah, I mean, I agree.
You have to talk to different people differently.
I just don't know what that does in terms of helping anyone.
Well, I would say for a Southern Christian type of person, generally Republicans and people of that nature, I think the non-aggression principle is the way to go.
Alright.
And just go straight in and be like, Jesus...
Would not advocate shooting people for smoking marijuana.
And if, I mean, I don't think they're really congruent beliefs, but if we can have Christian anarchists, more power to them.
I've never met a Christian anarchist, but if we can have Christian anarchists, more power to them.
You know, because in an anarchist society...
Yeah, just remind people, it's like, have you seen a picture of Jesus?
He is the God of hippies.
Yeah, but, you know, in an anarchist society...
I think that's the unique thing about anarcho-capitalism is that in an anarcho-capitalist society, you can have a socialistic community if you want.
But in a socialistic or anarcho-syndicate, which I don't understand how people even get to that conclusion, but in an anarcho-syndicate society, you can't have anarcho-capitalists.
With Christians, Republicans, I would strongly recommend the non-aggression principle of And just go straight up, like, Jesus would not advocate the use of force, even though, I mean, come on, I mean, he's the son of the God who murdered every single human being on Earth, except for no one in his family, but that's not, honestly, people don't see him that way for some strange reason.
And, like, when I'm talking to atheists about a stateless society, I try to kind of go more of the rejection of authority, right?
consistencies with the idea that there can be an authority figure and then even if there is that authority figure like god even if god exists he's obviously not a moral moral compass because you know he did things like the great flood and i mean he's so if he's so damn smart like why did he write a book that was hard to interpret 6 000 years ago Something crazy like that.
If he's infallible, why did he apologize for drowning the whole world and put up a rainbow?
It's this way of saying, oopsie, sorry about all the kids and children who didn't have any moral agency, but temper got away with me and I drowned the planet except for you, Noah, and a whole bunch of mosquitoes whose gender you couldn't identify probably.
When I talk to atheists, I try to kind of go around that route because we have common ground there.
We understand that Even if God exists, which is highly improbable, he's not an authority figure that I should respect.
Just like government, they're supposed to protect me from thieves, but they steal from me.
They're supposed to make these absolute moral laws with the rule of force behind them, but they embezzle and they steal and they lie.
I mean, I don't have to tell that to you, obviously.
But...
I think the hardest one, like the hardest demographic of people to talk to is people in either veterans or active duty military.
I'm a Marine veteran myself.
Wait, you're a 23-year-old vet?
Yeah.
Did you really suck at that or something?
No, I did a four-year...
I was in six, maybe seven minutes, and I was like, they suck.
I was in the Marine infantry for four years.
I joined when I was 18.
Right.
When I was 19, deployed to Afghanistan.
And by this point, I had already been sort of introduced to libertarianism, but as I was saying before, it was more of like the Glenn Beck brand of libertarianism.
It's not some kind of libertarian ideas, but it's not really.
But my last year or so in the Marines, I really started to question a lot more of the foreign policy issues, things like that.
Hey, I came back from Afghanistan, I broke everything down in my head, sorted everything out for myself, and I realized we really weren't doing any good over there.
We might have done some good on an individual level, like me and some of the guys in my squad.
We might have given some candy or a bottle of water or a soccer ball to a kid or something.
But only after blowing up their soccer field first, right?
Well, yeah.
Not us in particular.
I actually was pretty fortunate in that matter.
Even though I was in the infantry, we didn't have a specially kinetic deployment.
You're part of the machine.
I understand that.
Speaking of my deployment in particular, my whole company, we didn't kill a single person while we were there.
Which is extraordinarily rare.
I understand that.
I'm very thankful for that.
Yeah, no, I can understand that.
The traumatic experience of having to kill someone, I don't know if I would be intellectually where I am today if I had to break down that first.
I might have gotten here eventually, but getting past all that emotional baggage and whatnot, it might have been tougher in that case.
Guys in the military, I think they're the people we want on our side for this libertarian thing.
Oh, listen, I've had lots of conversations on this show with people from the military, and I find you all a very tough-minded lot who really care about the use of force, because you have, well, been up close and personal with it, right?
Yeah.
So there's not a lot of illusions about government power from military people.
And I find the same thing is true when I have conversations with cops as well.
I mean, they're like, yeah, we're there to kill people and break things.
That's our job.
And so there's not, you know, some woman receiving welfare or some corporate executive who's receiving a bunch of subsidies, it's a little bit more abstract for them because, you know, it's paperwork and lobbying and shit like that.
People who are holding the guns of state power, they're like, yeah, of course it's an agency of power.
I mean, of course it's an agency of force.
No question.
Yeah.
I mean, have you had any luck?
Because I've been very hesitant to try to talk to someone.
I mean, I'm very close with a lot of them, obviously.
I'm sure you've read some Shakespeare and things like that, understanding the bonds that guys build in the military, but it's...
I guess it would be like a pastor talking to a bunch of guys he went to seminary with about like, hey, I don't think God exists.
A guy, like a former Marine, talking to some of his other former Marines about like, hey, what we did over there was wrong.
Like, we shouldn't have fucking been there.
Like, it was wrong.
Sorry for the language.
Yeah.
Listen, man, that's okay.
Don't you worry about that.
When we're talking about war, foreign policy, and mass murder, an F-bomb is like the least of our concerns, right?
Yeah, I guess in the grand scheme of things, yeah, the F-bomb is the least of the...
But, yeah, like, I think we both agree, like, these are people we want on our side.
I mean, they're...
I think there's a special quality about someone who's willing to die for what they believe in, because there's a lot of people that believe things, but there's a special group of people who would be willing to actually die for what they believe in.
Obviously, I would rather not die for what I believe in.
Well, hang on.
I mean, that seems to be painting the military in perhaps a tad too lustrous delight.
Yeah, I see.
To put it bluntly, terrorists don't get paid, so they're willing to die for what they believe in.
But the military gets good pay, free housing, free food, a place to shit shower and shave, as they say, and benefits if you stay in for the rest of your life, and free health care.
It's a little bit more than for the beliefs.
For the beliefs would be without huge amounts of remuneration as well.
Yeah, but do you see what I'm saying?
I mean, there are Because especially, like, I think guys in my generation, a lot of guys joined, like me, genuinely thinking that we were going to better those places.
Like Iraq and Afghanistan.
And I think maybe by the time, like the later years, like I deployed in 2012.
I think by that point, more people were kind of, like, the general attitude was kind of like, okay, yeah, this place isn't getting any better.
Or we knew that the Taliban, for us, we knew that they were hiding across the border in Pakistan.
We knew that as soon as we leave, they're going to come right back, and it was all for naught.
Well, Fallujah goes back and forth, and lots of blood on the ground, and what the hell's happened?
Yeah, but I also think that creates a special opportunity for the libertarian movement.
I mean, guys like Adam Kokesh, I know you've talked to him a few times, and as soon as I found him, I was like, oh my god, I'm not the only one.
For a while, I was thinking I was the only infantry vet guy that had come to this conclusion, but I think it's really hard to reason with these guys and try to get them, because obviously, I mean, I've listened to the Origins of War thing you did, and Obviously, people that do that are usually coming from extreme amounts of trauma, emotional and family dysfunction, and things of that nature.
How do we reason with these guys?
Ultimately, even if they're not on our side, if they just say, fuck the state, even if they don't come to the side of, we all need liberty and freedom, if they just say, fuck the state...
We're not serving those masters anymore.
I'm not serving the corporate interests, blah, blah, blah, whatever.
I mean, that's still a win because if all the cops and all the military guys stop doing what the government tells them to do, the government will lose its power.
Which is not going to happen.
Well, yeah, it's not going to happen, obviously.
A lot of vets need their pensions.
A lot of vets really need their health care.
Absolutely.
Even if it's all the way from PTSD to I don't have any legs, they really need that government health care.
The people who run the government, they're not dumb.
Once you start bribing enough people, Enough people will call that bribery virtuous in order to cover their own conscience and will continue to pillage the body politic.
And then when the government runs out of money, they'll get hysterical and they'll usually attack the people who said it was going to happen and said that it was wrong.
No good deed goes unpunished.
I don't know.
I might disagree with you on that.
I don't know.
Maybe it was just my isolated experience in the Marines...
And I don't know how much you know about the U.S. military, the cultures, but the Marine Corps is actually pretty unique in the fact that it's...
If, for example...
Now, I don't know why they haven't gotten to this point yet, but if there was ever a point when civil unrest in the United States got to the point where martial law had to be enacted on a massive, widespread scale...
I sincerely have doubts that...
I would say Marine Corps infantry units would probably...
There'd be at least half of them that would not participate.
They would refuse.
Right.
But...
Again, and that's just based off my...
I only served with one unit while I was in and things like that, but...
I don't know.
That's cool.
Honestly, that's really great that there's that differentiator.
My understanding of the differentiator between the Marines and most of the other military units was that the Marines felt confident enough in their masculinity to go into battle wearing lavender panties.
That was my, along with the SAS, of course, right, who mostly wore granny panties, but that was my understanding of the basic differentiation.
I'm really, really glad you cleared that up for me, and I'm really, really glad to have a drink thrown in my face by the next Marine I meet.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, there's a lot of overconfidence There's cockiness in the Marine Corps.
Well, of course there is, and that's exactly what you'd expect, right?
That's exactly what you would expect, absolutely.
And that's what you need, right?
We don't want socially awkward, very shy Marines, right?
No.
Yeah, you want people who are very confident and have no problem killing people and breaking their things, absolutely.
But, yeah, I don't know.
I mean, I think...
I don't know, and this is just kind of thoughts off the top of my head, and I've been rolling this around in my head for a couple weeks, and I haven't really had any breakthroughs, but I think...
When we're talking to people in the military, veterans, anything, or people who have family in the military, anything like that, I think there are certain, like, I don't like to use this because of all the political correct bullshit, but, like, triggers, you know?
Like, talking about a specific conflict, you know, whether it be World War II or Vietnam or Iraq-Afghanistan, usually you should, I would just say that that's not a good way to talk to Oh, no, I agree.
I agree.
Because...
And that...
If you focus on one specific conflict, you're kind of legitimizing the others you're not talking about, right?
Yeah, because, I mean, even if...
Like, you could...
I mean, there was a lot of guys when I was in who we were kind of like, yeah, like, Vietnam was bullshit.
We probably shouldn't have been there.
You know?
And...
But...
And I actually met one guy.
I've met one Vietnam vet who was, like, 100% on board with this kind of stuff.
But, um...
Yeah, I think where a lot of libertarians go wrong is they try to talk about the specifics of conflicts.
Especially talking to guys like me who have seen the bad things happen in those countries.
I mean, obviously there's going to be an emotional trigger right there.
It's going to close them off to any sort of reasonable and rational discussion of morality.
There's an intensity to a soldier's allegiance.
To the combat where he may have cradled his best friend's body while he bled out in the desert.
Absolutely, yeah.
And saying that not only was that not worth it, but it was a direct immorality, that is going to provoke in most people a pretty volcanic response.
And I can completely understand that response.
I see these pictures on social media.
Some of the freedom and liberty...
Facebook pages or websites or whatever, and they post these pictures.
I understand, because I'm kind of stuck in the middle, so I can understand and empathize with both sides.
I want to sit there and scream at these people, like, stop!
These people posting these pictures of some of these veterans that are disfigured, horrible scars, missing half their face, or something horribly gruesome like that.
They're like, this is what happens when you obey orders.
Or this is what happens when you, you know, listen to imperialistic American leaders, blah blah blah.
And I'm like, dude, like you, yeah, like you're not wrong, but you're not changing any minds that way.
Does that make any sense?
Yeah, of course.
Look, I mean, when you said military in the South, that kind of goes hand in hand.
Yeah.
In a lot of How many guys from Manhattan were in your troop, I gotta ask?
Like, I probably knew two guys from New York.
Yeah.
Right.
I said Manhattan because that ain't all of New York.
How many guys coming from Beverly Hills, right?
Yeah.
And so the reality is that the way that y'all, listen to me southerning it out, but the way that y'all were raised was, you know, God and country and And America is the shining city on the hill, and we fight over there so that we don't fight over here, and we're defending your freedoms, and this is what you were told.
And like everyone who was told stuff as a kid, you believed it, and I did as well.
And I believed the stuff that I was told as a kid long past the point where it made any sense.
So for me, it's sort of, oh, the soldier's like, I believe this is what happens when it's like, no.
This is what happens when you listen to people who raise you.
This is what happens when you listen to the people who raise you.
And that's the human condition.
Why are there Islamic countries?
Because that's what the kids are told.
Why do people in Scotland have nationalism towards Scotland?
Because that's what they're told.
And we all adhere to the belief systems of our elders.
That is natural.
That is how human beings survive.
That's how we gain the allegiance of the tribe and the support of our And so the fact that there are soldiers who are willing to go and fight for a cause that they have been told consistently is virtuous and moral and right, and anybody who questions it is like a cowardly,
backstabbing, liberal scumbag, well, I certainly as hell didn't get anywhere close to the real truth by the time I was 18, so the idea that I should have this standard for others would be ridiculous.
And...
It is a terrible, terrible moment in the life of every soldier who is involved in an unjust conflict.
And I have no problem with soldiers as a whole and I'd be happy to fund them in a free society because there are bad people out there and soldiers will probably be necessary for the foreseeable future of the human race.
And it's not a job that I can do well, and I hugely respect the incredible skill and stamina and dedication and competence that soldiers bring to the field of human combat.
But it is a terrible, terrible moment, as you know, like in the mind of a soldier, when you begin to fear that you may not be on the side of light.
That is a god-awful moment that I can't quite picture, but I can kind of get a vague sense of the enormity of it, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, I mean, it does.
It was a pretty shitty time in my life when I kind of started to realize it.
Yeah.
Yeah, am I... Am I on the side of the movie where there's no backstory?
Am I on the side of the movie where nobody understands why I'm doing stuff?
Like, I mean, am I Batman or am I the Joker?
I mean, that's a real, you know, dark night of the soul that can go on for quite some time.
And were you still in when you were having these thoughts or were you out when you...
Like I said, I was exposed to Ayn Rand and things like that before I joined.
But it was a year, probably a year or so after I got back from Afghanistan when I just started having the thoughts like, okay, I hadn't seen the light of statism is a disgusting religion.
I hadn't seen that.
I hadn't come to that conclusion yet.
But I had started to be like, hey, we were not doing any damn good in Afghanistan.
It was a slow, arguous process.
Which is, I think, maybe why it's hard for me to pinpoint down, because I want to emulate the steps I took and the realizations.
I don't want to say, you know, revelations, because it's not, like, coming to me.
It's reason and evidence, but I want to be able to recreate that experience for the guys I served with, because, I mean, like, quite frankly, I love those guys.
I mean, because, I mean, they would have died for me and I would have died for them, and And I think it's a unique thing that people don't understand too is that when guys are over there, it doesn't fucking matter about Afghanistan or America or anything like that.
All that fucking matters is, hey, I'm getting this guy home.
That's it.
I want these guys to understand that because I think it's tough for me to still communicate like, hey, I love you, but what we did was fucking wrong.
And we need to talk to everyone we know and be like, hey, like, the military needs to stop doing these things.
Like, yeah, like, I get it.
The Taliban are fucking scumbags.
You don't have to tell me about that.
They are scumbags.
They're horrible people.
But that doesn't justify what we do.
You know?
I mean...
I don't know.
Like, I just...
If there's one thing that keeps me up at night, it's how to reason with these guys that I served with.
I don't know.
I don't know either, other than when you connect with the passion that you have, I think that's your greatest chance.
Where I am the most successful as a communicator is when I'm really connected and uncensored.
Uninhibited.
Because if you try to pick a lock to other people's hearts, you're automatically going to come across as manipulative.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
There's no secret sauce.
There's no magic lock-picking combo that can open the heart and mind of another person.
You present your best case and then it's up to them.
Don't take ownership for other people changing their minds because then you can't be direct with them because you're trying to control them.
You present them the truth and give them the freedom to respond as they see fit.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
You know, trying to control Afghanistan and Iraq sure as hell didn't work out too well, right?
You should have just presented the case.
You should have sent philosophers over there.
We'll shield it from whips.
You should have sent philosophers over there to present the case and let people make their own decisions.
Yeah.
Huh.
Yeah, I mean, I've...
There's a select feature.
You still there?
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah, I mean, there's a...
I think starting points, I've tried to convince a couple of buddies of mine to read your book on truth.
I kind of think that's a stepping stone.
Because I don't think guys are...
Because my first step to getting past the propaganda, you know, the illusion that I was raised in was me realizing that every...
Not...
Okay, I'd say 99% of what my parents taught me was complete bullshit.
You know, the hypocritical...
Yeah, I mean, I'll say, like, everything in On Truth was pretty much my parents in a nutshell.
Besides outright physical abuse.
But, um...
So once I kind of started to see that, I guess it kind of created the conditions inside me, or inside my brain, to start questioning authority more.
Yeah, so I've tried to get some guys to read On Truth.
And Atlas Shrugged, but...
I mean, Atlas Shrugged is a doozy, and I think...
I mean, I liked your series on Ayn Rand, how she was kind of expecting this change overnight.
Like, she was expecting her book to come out, and two years later everybody's like, oh, we need freedom.
But, um...
And I kind of think that's where...
I think maybe if we kind of focus on, as libertarians, the...
Sort of the real-time relationships ideas, like all relationships need to be exchanges of value.
And if we can start getting people to accept that in their own personal lives, then it will sort of, I guess, reflect in their, in the way they behave just as a normal, in their normal daily life, you know?
I don't know.
Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty tough thing to write on a bumper sticker.
All relationships need to be reciprocal value.
That's not much of a flag to march behind.
And again, like I say, I'm a guy who's not, I've not started a movement.
So, you know, depending on how you want to play your time in making the world a better place for people.
That's your choice.
If you want to start a movement, then you're talking to the wrong guy.
Philosophy shouldn't be a movement.
It's like saying, I want to be a great scientist and I want to create a movement of scientists who follow me.
It's like, well, then you're not doing science, you're doing something else.
I just think that where possible, let's not use force.
Wherever possible.
Now, self-defense, whatever, okay, that's an extremity and so on, and that's sort of understandable, but wherever possible, let's not use violence to pretend that we're solving these problems.
The human brain, and you know this, I think, probably better than I do, far better than I do, we are really, really good at being bad as a species.
We are really good at being bad.
We are really good at violence.
And we are really, really good at telling the lies to ourselves that cover up the violence.
You know, calling it patriotism or self-defense or justice or helping the poor or roads, whatever, right?
We are very good at being bad.
And the badness that we're best at is the lies that make us think it's not bad.
That's our fundamental skill.
The lion will hunt the zebra, but he doesn't say that he's helping the zebra.
I'm helping to give its stomach a tan.
I'm helping to turn it inside out because red is prettier than stripes.
One of the reasons why the state is so dangerous for us It's because it is that ring of power.
It is a machinery and a weaponry that we are so good at using that to not use it would be incomprehensible for the vast majority of people.
You know, people always, Steph, you should run for political office.
You'd never make it.
No.
Oh, God, even if I could.
Especially now if I could, right?
No, you can...
I would be frighteningly good at political power.
Because I'm a rhetorician in a lot of ways, right?
I can make compelling arguments.
And our skill at evil...
And our capacity to use mental gymnastics and emotional alchemy to turn evil into good is such a strong capacity within us that the state will always and forever be something which destroys us.
We cannot resist free stuff.
You know, animals get tired of zoos, but people never get tired of being farmed, it seems.
You know, like we're so susceptible to this hierarchy.
You know, my daughter loves toads.
We got a couple of toads and we got a little container for them and filled it up with earth and gave them stuff to play with and food and all that.
And then we had to let them go.
Do you know why?
Why is that?
Day after day after day, they're climbing to get out.
Fucking toads have more spine than us.
They're like, it's day four.
I'm still in the banker's box.
I must get out.
Out there are bugs to eat and lady frogs to have pretty disgusting sex with.
I can't take it in here.
I've got to get out.
Day four and a half.
Still the same.
And, like, the toad nuke me and the toad break out.
It's like every single day.
They're on their hide legs.
Must claw to get out.
It hasn't worked for four and a half days.
Maybe four and a half and a bit.
It will all change.
I will claw until I am free.
You know, and that's a fucking toad, which has...
You know, the brain of a half a pea, right?
Yeah.
Get out.
And then we had to let them go, because I said, look, I don't think they like it.
They're not enjoying themselves.
Not enjoying themselves, right?
Yeah.
And, you know, so the moment we, you know, tipped over the, I'm free.
Like, they basically put on their little toady jetpacks and just headed straight to the hills, right?
Yeah.
Gotta get out.
And I believe that if we kept them there for...
It's day 622.
I'm still cloying at the side of the bankers box.
I believe that 623 is going to be the breakthrough day.
I still can't stand it in here.
I think I'm going to get sick if I have to eat any more of these blood worms.
Nothing is alive that I eat.
It is a living hell in here.
And they'd be the same thing, whereas for most people it's like, welfare?
Damn!
Yeah.
Fantastic!
Hey, can I get a free phone?
I can't get a free phone?
Great!
Do I want any freedoms?
No!
I got free stuff.
Why would I want freedom?
Freedom means earning shit.
Free stuff?
Why do I need freedoms for?
Who do I have to vote to get more free shit?
It is alarming how many people will trade.
I mean, they'll trade everything away for a little bit of security.
But, you know, I was one of those people.
And we always will.
We always will because we're not about freedom.
We're about fucking.
We're not about abstract.
We are animals.
We are mammals.
We are not about abstract virtues.
We are about, can I make some more of me?
Or at least perform the actions that may have that result, right?
Yeah.
And that reality that we are about maximizing our reproductive fitness, welfare, is really good for that.
Yeah.
A lot of resources for a little bit of work.
Yeah.
Like, I just put out a video...
Why black athletes dominate in sports.
I watched that this morning, yeah.
Yeah, so somebody posted, and I don't know how true the theory is or whatever, but they say, well, you know, the blacks were brought over as slaves and they were bred to be 50 years of breeding to be fit and strong and this, that, and the other, right?
And I'm like, okay, let's say that's true.
I don't know if it is.
Probably doesn't seem very true to me, but let's say it's true.
Well, what has the welfare state done over the last 50 years?
Isn't that kind of dysgenics from there?
And it's not to do with black or white fundamentally, but saying to people, don't take the welfare state, is saying to people, Do the exact opposite of everything that got you here.
Don't take advantage of resources.
Don't try and maximize your sexual market value.
Don't try and reproduce as much as possible to the point where you're just shy of starving the next child to death.
The whole point of evolution is to reproduce, to gain resources, and to get your kids to sexual maturity.
Whether your genes reproduce in a ghetto or a palace is fundamentally immaterial to them.
Fundamentally immaterial to them.
And so the welfare state is a petri dish of evolutionary perfection for somewhat less skilled people, let's say.
Less economically advantageous in a free market as it stands people.
And so saying to people, well, you know, you really should, the welfare state is bad and it's wrong and you shouldn't do it.
Okay, well, there's abstract moral arguments, which I fully accept and understand.
But abstract moral arguments?
Hey, man, have you ever had a friend who wants to have sex with a woman you just know is trouble?
I was in the Marines.
Come on.
Yeah, no, I mean, I'm asking a question knowing that you got, what do they call the girls who want the soldiers, they want to bang the soldiers?
Tag huntress?
I can't remember what they're called.
I mean, gold diggers is definitely a term used, but there is a big term.
Or, another word is southern women.
Yeah, I think the most common term is called jodies.
And jodies are the guys who bang people's wives while they're deployed, but...
Oh, no.
Here's a good...
Dependipotamus.
There we go.
That's the word you're looking for.
Dependipotamus?
Yeah.
There's kind of this stereotype that military wives are like welfare whores.
They just hang out at home collecting the paycheck from their husband who's off in training or out deployed somewhere and she's sitting at home watching Netflix, smoking cigarettes or something like that.
It's kind of a stereotype.
And I would say that there's definitely a high Well, you know, it can't be a long way from the couch to the fridge.
It can be, yeah.
I mean, I would imagine that has a lot to do with, like, I mean, I don't know if there's any truth to this, but I would imagine that obesity rates among people on welfare or lower classes are higher than that of the upper class.
Joe, here's a nice figure for you.
Okay.
And it's a nice figure about a not nice figure.
A whopping 90% of female military spouses, more than 600,000 people, are either unemployed or underemployed.
That sounds about right, yeah.
90% of them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That sounds about right.
Yeah, so the tag hunters are like, yeah, let's have sex because ka-chingo-rama, right?
Yeah.
And so when you say to people, oh, you know, the welfare state is bad, it's like for evolution, it's perfect.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I've heard you make the analogy before.
It's like telling...
Before the science of nutrition, it's like telling someone, hey, you shouldn't eat that whole pizza or that bag of Butterfingers or...
Yeah, but at least that'll make you sick.
Yeah, but our bodies are trained to intake as many calories as possible and things like that for survival.
I just wanted you to know that you've now made Mike hungry for pizza.
So let's start talking about porn.
See what comes up.
See what cravings we incite.
Can I get porn on my pizza?
Is that...
Actually, no, forget that.
I just thought about how that might work, and I've decided to not have that topping.
Anyway, so because the wealth or estate flows so beautifully into evolutionarily inescapable demands for free resources and all that, you can't have it.
We are eternally, as a species, addicted to power.
We are addicted to power.
We are addicted to control.
We are addicted to lying to ourselves and others in order to extract free resources from them.
Whether that's nationalism or it is religion or whatever.
This is what we are attuned for.
This is what we are continually addicted for.
You know, like somebody who's been a drug addict, like a coke fiend for like 10 years, he can't ever, ever Go hang out at coke parties again.
You know, you can't do it.
You can't do it.
And we are coercion and propaganda addicts because it's so insanely profitable from an evolutionary standpoint.
And...
The state turns evolution upside down, in that it makes the least successful the most successful, and the most successful the least successful.
Because, of course, the people who are smart have fewer kids, and this is well documented, and the people who are less intelligent have more kids.
So it turns evolution upside down, and we are so good at lying about coercion, Because those who weren't good at it didn't survive.
We are so good at lying about coercion that we are addicts of power.
As a species, we are addicts of power.
And therefore, every time we have the state, we're like the guy who just quit cocaine going back to a cocaine binge party.
The odds of us making it out there without donut-dusty upper lips, pretty low.
Yeah, I'd say that's a good analogy to the creation of the United States.
All these guys fleeing Europe for tyrannical government and all that, and they're like, okay, just a little bit more.
Only a little bit of coke this time.
Only a little bit of government.
One more regulation, and we'll have perfection.
Yeah, we'll just write this one constitution, and that will solve...
And we'll be okay, just one.
Just one.
Yeah.
Okay, I can go rubber titties.
I won't be unfaithful.
I can go to the champagne room, I can rub her titties, and I won't be unfaithful.
I can go to the champagne room, rub her titties, unzip my pants, and I won't be unfaithful.
And step-by-step stuff, right?
And next thing you know, oh shit, she's pregnant.
I think I might have been unfaithful.
Oh well, what could go wrong?
A stripper named Vixen with three X's is bearing my child and my wife is fat and well-armed.
Okay, I guess we're going into a Spanish soap opera time.
So we can't have a government because it so well aligns with all of the sneaky, evil, false, manipulative, lying, predatory, exploitive aspects of human nature, which I have, I dare say you have.
We all have it.
We all have it.
And the government having this power...
Having this capacity to coerce, is there any social agency in the world that can gain coercive control over the education of billions of children around the world and never propagandize?
Isn't that completely insane?
To even imagine that could be the case, that the government will have control over the education of children and will objectively teach those children about the nature of government That is insane.
That's like expecting a Pepsi commercial showing exactly what Pepsi does to a penny, your teeth, and your colon.
It's not going to happen, right?
So we can't have it because we will always use it to the enhancement of our own offspring.
To the extension of our own DNA and to the destruction of society as a whole.
We cannot handle coercive power.
There is no human being alive I would trust, including myself, that I would trust with the handling of coercive power.
From spanking to war.
No human being, once they cross the line of allowing themselves access to coercive power, will ever not be seduced by it.
It will always happen.
I can't think of a single individual that it could never happen to.
There's nobody who could ever be put in charge.
Ever.
We are too well adapted to using oligarchical hierarchies to buy votes, to corrupt the citizenry, and to create lies that disconnect us from reality.
So this is why.
I mean, it'd be great if we could find the philosopher kings who could handle the power of the state and use it for everyone's benefit and who could educate the children and have coercive control and power over all the education of children and would never use that power for evil.
It would be fascinating.
It's just never, ever going to happen.
What's the first thing they say to addicts?
If you are a hardcore addict, you...
Can never, ever, ever, ever return to your old life.
You can never return to your old life.
If you are a hardcore alcoholic, you cannot go and hang around with your alcoholic friends.
You cannot go to your binge drinking parties.
You have to change everything because when you are exposed to temptation, you will fall.
You will fail.
To remove the immediate stimulus is the first step to overcoming An addiction.
And so if we keep exposing people to the power of the state, we keep blowing coke dust into the air of the coke addict, what do you think is going to happen, right?
Absolutely.
Can I ask you another question?
Yeah, go ahead.
It's kind of changing gears, if you don't mind.
Hit me.
So, like I said, I was raised in Presbyterian Christianity, if you're familiar with it.
It's like Baptist, essentially.
Right.
I'm sorry.
Every time I hear Baptist, I just hear batshit.
I just want to let you know that.
Just to get it off my chest.
I was spanked as a kid.
I don't necessarily feel exceptionally traumatized about it, but I definitely...
My parents don't know I'm an atheist yet.
I'm waiting to have that conversation.
I live in Colorado right now, and they live in North Carolina.
Do you have any advice about how to have that conversation?
I mean...
I gotta expose two big elephants in the room like, hey, I'm not a fundamentalist Christian anymore.
And we need to talk about you assaulting me as a child when I was defenseless.
Right.
How do you think it's gonna go?
Which one?
Which one are you gonna have first?
Probably the atheism argument.
Right.
Because I think that can be a little more foundational.
And I would suggest that the temptation for you, Joe, like most intelligent people, the temptation is to escape emotions through abstractions.
Elaborate?
So what I mean is you don't want to sit there and say, through a rigorous process of intense intellectual examination, I have examined the following causes and effects of the arguments for and against God, and I've come down, blah, blah, blah.
With family, I think, in my opinion, you don't want to treat it as a treatise.
It's an emotion.
I'm scared to have this conversation.
I wish I still had faith, which I think everyone goes through from time to time.
But here's where I am emotionally, right?
Because if you get into abstract arguments, it's funny, you know, when you're emotionally honest and vulnerable, people tend not to get too angry.
I mean, unless they're just complete sadists.
Put your parents in that category, of course.
But if you get into abstract arguments, people tend to get more aggressive.
Yeah.
And if you, you know, let me ask you this, when you ceased to believe in a god, was it an intellectual process or was it an emotional transition?
I'm not saying it was 100% one or the other, but at the moment when it ended for you, and it always is a moment, there's a before, there's an after, was that an intellectual epiphany or was that an emotional change?
Not to boost your ego anymore, but it was actually after I read your book, Against the Gods.
Oh yeah, that's a good book.
That was kind of my transition from loosey-goosey agnosticism to be like, no, I don't believe he's there.
Like...
Yeah.
I mean, before it was kind of like...
Even when I was a teenager, I was dating this girl.
I was 16.
And we loved each other.
We had sex.
I remember I have a twin brother and I was talking to him one day.
And he was like, have you and the girlfriend at the time had sex?
And I was like, yeah.
But that's against...
God's law.
And I had kind of been like, you know, that was written...
I thank God.
He intended that for back 4,000 years ago.
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Because people were getting married at 13.
And obviously you shouldn't be having sex before you're 13.
I kind of always applied these logical processes to my own interpretation of it.
And then it just kind of grew into this...
I grew into...
If there is a God, he's probably not the Christian God, and even if he is, the Bible's a bunch of bullshit anyways, you know, through mistranslation and whatnot.
But yeah, I mean, I would say it was, I mean, the emotional sort of like, I guess, rejection of the authority was maybe 15-20% of it.
The rest was just complete logical, sort of like, it just can't logically be there, to my knowledge, right now.
So, yeah, I mean, but as far as your family goes, it's the emotional challenge.
Like, I mean, you don't have any trouble talking about this with me, but with your family, it's emotional because you're scared, right?
You're scared of what it's going to do to the relationship.
You're scared of how they're going to respond.
You're scared of how they're going to see you.
You're scared of maybe they get really hostile or angry.
You're scared of being rejected, which is all perfectly natural and perfectly...
Healthy.
I mean, to not care about that stuff would be kind of weird, right?
Yeah, I wish I could completely disconnect from it emotionally.
I've tried to start mentally preparing myself.
I figured I'm going home for Christmas this year.
And I figured I'm going to have the conversation while I'm home.
I don't want to do it over the phone or anything like that.
I want to make sure I can completely communicate with them.
And a lot of that is facial expressions and body language and But, I mean, I have entertained the possibility that, I mean, it could be a complete disaster and they kick me out of the house and tell me...
Sorry, when did they kick you out of the house?
No, I'm saying, like, it could...
Oh, you don't want that.
Sorry.
Okay, sorry.
You garbled for a sec there.
I got it.
I've entertained the possibility that that could be what happens when we have this discussion.
Right.
I mean, like, one scene I think of is in Atlas Shrugs when Hank Reardon...
it's not completely an Alex, but when Hank Reardon, uh, realizes that his family was just using him and things like that, and that he was not getting the reciprocal value from his family back.
And I think for the past, basically since I've joined the Marines, my relationship with my family has deteriorated.
And, and it was because, I mean, they weren't really giving me the value I needed personally.
I mean, and I, I would be okay if they weren't in my life.
I mean, Well, I have a question for you.
How necessary is it for you to have the conversation?
And I'm not trying to lead you one way or another.
I'm just kind of curious.
That's funny.
My girlfriend asked the same question, actually.
She was kind of like, why are you going to have to bring it up?
My family's very fundamentalist.
So they're going to ask you to do things that join us for grace or come to church.
I talked to my dad on the phone a week ago.
It was his birthday, and I called him.
We started talking about politics and things like that.
I've told them I'm an anarchist and stuff like that.
And it's so frustrating.
It's like every time I make a killer, perfect, legitimate argument against the state or something like that, my dad will be like, well, we can't change it.
We just gotta live...
To God's word and hope that, you know, if we do right, we'll be in heaven, so none of this will matter.
And, you know, I want to scream at him, like, that doesn't exist.
What does exist is all the people suffering right now.
You know, and I want to help the people who are actually suffering.
Yeah, why bother reforming prison when you're three days away from getting out?
Yeah.
And so, I mean, it's just not, I guess, with my family in particular, it's not an option to not talk about it.
Like, it's going to have to come up at some point.
If I continue the relationship with them.
Well, I mean, I've got, on Truth, of course, you know, Real-Time Relationships is sort of my book about how to use principles to achieve the virtue of honesty in your relationships.
Yeah.
And, I don't know, it's a tough call, right?
I mean, with regards to, because you never know what side of the salad bar religious people...
I mean, fundamentally, yeah.
I mean, I believe all relationships should be exchanges of value on some level.
Right, but what I mean by that is you don't know if Christians are supposed to love their, quote, enemies, right?
And so if you are going through what they would experience as a crisis...
Lost it for a second.
You still there?
Yeah, can you hear me?
Hello?
Hello?
Oh, yeah, sorry.
I'm sorry?
Lost it for a second.
You can hear me all right?
Yeah, I can hear you.
Right.
So, Christians, of course, are supposed to love their, quote, enemies.
So, if you're going through what your parents perceive as a crisis of faith, then they should love you and pray for you and listen to you and help you through this time, right?
Yeah.
Without calling you bad or...
Wrong or yelling at you.
I mean, they should, according...
But you never know what side of the salad bar religious people can land on, right?
Yeah, I mean, it's...
I mean, they may just be like, you turn to Satan, you're an evil sinner.
I mean, I don't know these people at all, right?
But if they are true to at least the Jesus side, like New Testament versus Old Testament, if they're true to the Jesus side, then Christians should increase their affection towards you when you're going through a spiritual crisis, right?
Yeah.
And they should quote lead you back to the ways of virtue through the love and kindness and strength and generosity of their support, right?
In which case it should not be a bad thing for you to talk to them about your existing skepticism, let's say, towards religion, right?
Lost you for a second there.
Sorry.
Yeah, so it should be relatively safe and secure if they take that approach for you to talk to them about this, right?
You shouldn't be scared of talking to them about your crisis of faith because they should be there to support and love and hate the sin, maybe love the sinner kind of stuff, right?
Absolutely.
But on the other hand, if they get sort of angry and defensive and upset and kind of Old Testament on you, then you're having a whole lot less fun over Christmas pudding, right?
Yeah.
So...
My approach is always to try and just be honest about the emotions.
And the reason I'm saying that is that, you know, if I'm talking to, I don't know, some, I don't know, I've got to go get my driver's license renewed or whatever, I'm not talking to them about my feelings because I'm actually not feeling that strongly either way.
It's like, yeah, it's kind of annoying, but what the hell, right?
When you have very strong feelings, which you will have during this moment in talking to them, when you have very strong feelings, one temptation is to escape into abstract arguments, but that leaves the feelings unexpressed.
And if the feelings are expressed, it's more likely to bring you and your parents together.
But if you go into abstract arguments without talking about your feelings, it's more likely to drive you apart, if that helps at all.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Yeah.
What you're going to feel is terrified and what you're going to feel is anxious and what you're going to feel is you wish you didn't have to do it and what you're going to feel is I wish I still believed in some ways and what you're going to feel is all of this stress and if you talk to them about all of that that's really very honest and I think that's where your heart will be coming from and when you can connect with your heart people are usually a lot more open to your ideas if you've connected with them at an emotional level first.
Yeah.
People will listen to me talk about the welfare state partly because they get that I really care about the poor and I really hate what's happening to poor people.
People will listen to me wax on about race issues to some degree because they get that I really want people who are disadvantaged in society to have as many opportunities as possible.
And I really care.
We just did this presentation.
We just finished it, The Truth About Gun Control.
Where we have some surprise facts in there, and I guarantee you people will listen to it because they get that I really care about communities that are not doing particularly well in America.
And I'm not coming at it from a place of superiority, but a place of really wanting things to be better.
So if you can connect with people at an emotional level, they'll be much more likely to listen to your intellectual arguments.
But if you pretend you're not feeling what you're feeling and jump straight into abstractions, for reasons sort of outside the scope of this conversation, that just generally tends to provoke quite a lot of hostility.
I'm glad I asked you that, because I had been kind of planning it out in my head, and I was going to go straight into the intellectual.
Yeah.
And that would be falsifying your experience.
What's going to be primary in that conversation is your feelings, not your intellect.
So I think that would be to falsify your experience with them, if that makes sense.
And as far as talking to them about spanking, should I go the same route?
Well, you have to be.
I mean, you don't have to be, but it's generally the best policy.
You know, honesty is the best policy.
It's what I was always taught when I was growing up.
And, uh, of course, you know, I got later that people, when they want, when people in power want information from you, they'll tell you that honesty is the best policy.
When you have information they don't want to hear, they'll tell you to be diplomatic and shut your mouth.
But anyway.
On truth right there.
Yeah.
It's on truth in one sentence.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So if, you know, if when you're bringing up this banking stuff, If you're feeling really scared and nervous and your heart's pounding, then say, I'm feeling really scared and nervous and my heart is pounding.
I really feel this is an important topic, but I'm terrified to talk about it, to be honest, right?
Yeah.
Hopefully that'll go well.
I've never really had too big of an emotional connection with my parents.
I don't know.
I'm sure it had something to do with it.
Like, my dad...
I don't know if I said it, but my dad's a retired Marine.
So, I mean, he was gone all the time and things like that.
So, I don't know.
Maybe I... My brother on the other hand, he definitely talks to them about how he feels and things like that, but I don't.
I've never really...
Yeah, and you might want to try a feeling conversation without bringing up the A-bomb of atheism or anarchism or spanking or whatever, right?
Yeah.
I mean, you may just want to test the waters and see how they respond to an emotional conversation.
If they can do it with your brother, then clearly they have some of those skills and that might be worth testing the waters with, something that's a little less explosive.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Will you let us know how it goes?
Yeah, thanks.
You're welcome.
Listen, man, I've got to wind the...
I really appreciate the call.
Oh, it's a real pleasure, Joe.
A great enjoyment to chat with you.
And I really appreciate you calling in.
And I'd like to thank you for your service to philosophy.
I switched that one out at the end.
So thanks everyone for a really enjoyable and great set of conversations tonight.
It's always such a pleasure to chat with you all and y'all, depending on where you're coming from in that neck of the woods.
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