Nov. 22, 2015 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
02:41:28
3133 Self-Harming Monks Who Listen to Bad Music - Call in Show - November 18th, 2015
Question 1. [1:22] - What is the purpose or goal of doing ethics? How is universal preference - as defined in Universally Preferable Behaviour - different from an indicative conditional?Question 2. [47:55] - How do you solve the problem of public morality in the realm of your philosophy? For example: showing pornography in the public – it doesn't look like a form of active aggression but is still harmful to the general public, particularly to the children. From the philosophy of law standpoint, I'd look at it as a violation of the parental power, but I think there might be more to it than just that.Question 3. [1:20:17] - What is your opinion on voting for the least terrible person on the ballot? Question 4. [1:43:11] - Could the rise of Donald Trump's popularity be a sign of a tendency towards populism in the United States? I ask the question because I have seen - both historically and first-hand - the same happen in other countries as well as my own.
Hi everybody, Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
Tonight, quite a good smorgasbord of philosophical questions.
Number one, what's the purpose or goal of doing ethics?
I mean, how is UPB not just an appeal to vault over the question of subjectivity or cultural preference and so on?
Make the case that it proves morality objectively.
I love that challenge and took upon it with great relish.
Number two, In the realm of UPB or my philosophy, you don't like the phrase, but there it is.
How do you solve the problem of public morality?
Showing pornography to the general public or around kids.
Not exactly the initiation of the use of force, but could be considered harmful.
How do you deal with that?
Good question.
3.
Defensive voting, dude.
I mean, why not just vote for the least terrible person on the ballot in hopes of maintaining your freedoms for a little bit longer?
Fine question.
Been asked many times, but always worth addressing.
Took a good shot at that.
4.
A huge question.
Could the rise of Donald Trump's popularity be a sign of a tendency towards populism in the United States?
Well, first question, of course, what is populism?
The listeners' answers may surprise you, and we had a very rousing discussion based on that.
Without any further ado, let's dive in to the meaty, juicy intellectual buffet of another Freedom Aid Radio call-in show.
Alright, up first today is Lawal.
He wrote in and said, what is the purpose slash goal of doing ethics?
How is universal preference, as defined in the book, Universally Preferable Behavior, on page 33 and 34, different from an indicative conditional?
He has a bunch more questions, but that's good to start off with.
Alright, nice to meet you.
How are you doing?
I'm doing fine.
How are you?
Well, thanks.
Let's start with the first question.
What is the point of doing ethics?
Is that right?
Yep.
Well, ethics gets sexually frustrated and it likes to be done.
Just kidding.
All right.
Okay, tell me what you mean by doing ethics.
I assume we're not talking about roofing ethics.
This is a seduction-based scenario.
What do you mean by doing ethics?
Um...
It's a little hard to explain.
It's sort of the notion when someone, I guess, does something like, I guess, theology.
I guess what I would...
Hang on.
No, no, no.
What are you dragging theology in for?
You're talking about ethics.
Yeah, I know.
I'm giving an analogy because it's a little hard to sort of explain.
So if someone does that and I say to them, what's the goal of doing it?
I would imagine they would give an answer of the sort that they're trying to understand, I guess, what God is, right?
Right.
But then in doing ethics, I suppose, I guess, why would someone, I guess, want to figure out, or at least why would you even conceive of a notion that there are certain behaviors people ought to act, I guess, in accordance with?
Right.
Right.
I mean, it's an old question.
And it goes a little something like this.
Good people don't need an ethical theory to be good.
I don't wake up in the morning seething with a mad desire to torture animals and set fire to buildings and so on, but I'm like, ugh!
Evil blocked by UPB. Damn it!
If only I hadn't developed that theory, I could unleash all the Anglo-Saxon pointy-headed evil in the world.
And so good people don't need a system of ethics to be good, and bad people...
Won't become good because they've heard a good system of ethics.
So it kind of leaves ethics, as they used to say when I was a kid, at sixes and sevens, which means it's kind of like halfway in between a useless place and another useless place.
Is that something to do with what you're asking?
Yes, but well then if you sort of explain it that way, then it seems like a sort of, I guess, pointless endeavor.
Because even if you do do a good job, the people that I guess you're...
That would take it already don't need it, and the people that do need it won't take it.
Like we're waiting for Luigi, the pockmarked mafioso hitman, to call into the show and say, I decided to stop shooting people because I read UPV. That, to me, I gotta think that'd be kind of a killer scoop in the world of philosophy.
Now, to be fair, we have got people out of the military, we've got people to convince others to get out of the military, we've got people out of abusive relationships.
So, you know, all of that is great.
But, um, I think that there is a very important foundational, fundamental reason as to why we would do ethics, and I can give you a little rant about that, and then you can tell me what you think if that helps.
Sure.
All right.
So, I have not instructed, say, my daughter on a complicated system of ethics because she is an incredibly nice person to begin with.
And not nice like, oh, can I offer you some more tea?
Would you like anything from my savings account?
You know, not a sort of one of these drippy people, but a really nice person who also knows when it's time to be firm and, oh, you know, I like to think that I've modeled some of that behavior and so on.
So...
I don't need a system of ethics for her because, you know, she's been treated gently and kindly and respectfully and peacefully her whole life, so she doesn't need a system of ethics.
However, I am instructing her in ethics as a whole.
I don't need to instruct her in ethics for her to be a good person, but I need to instruct her in ethics because of other people.
Okay.
The question is not, will ethics make a good person good or a bad person good?
No.
Ethics is self-defense against bad people.
That's the missing part.
We look at individuals in isolation not as an aggregation or not as a social collective or as social atoms that are continually trying to influence each other.
And...
So, outside of hunting, why do people have guns?
Why do people have guns?
They have guns because bad people have guns, right?
It's self-defense against bad people.
You didn't just own a gun if you lived on a desert island.
Maybe you want to shoot a coconut out of the air or something, but wing a turn and eat it.
But we have ethics as self-defense against those whose, the evil people, their greatest power is the redefinition of ethics, right?
Right.
The redefinition of ethics.
I mean, I've talked about this before on the show, just touching it briefly here, the question of guilt.
If you can make people feel guilty, in particularly European case-elected people, it creates a situation of discomfort, which they will then pay to be alleviated of.
So if you can convince someone that they have, you know, white privilege or patriarchy or that they're responsible for slavery or they profited from colonialism and so on.
Like people always say this in the comments whenever I talk about Europe and the rest of the world.
Well, Europe got all of its money from pillaging and so on.
Yeah, that's right.
Because nobody pillaged before Europe came along.
Boy, everybody was just, it was one giant robot city of infinite bliss before Europe came along and took a giant dump on the glorified hippie kumbaya group hugs of everybody's sharing and cooperation.
So, of course, every culture pillaged and raped and slaughtered and murdered and conquered and all that when it could.
But there was something quite different about the Industrial Revolution and some still existing vestiges of human freedom that Europe developed.
But if you can make people feel guilty, then they'll give you stuff, right?
But you make good people feel guilty by applying collective standards of bad behavior.
Like, they're bad because they're in a category.
The category is bad, right?
So if you're a Catholic, then if you're born, you're born into original sin and you're tainted with the disobedience of Adam and Eve.
You didn't have to do anything, right?
That's the key thing.
Corrupt people will convince you.
You didn't have to do anything.
In order for you to be guilty.
It is not an individual action on your part that has caused the guilt, the bad behavior that you are guilty of.
It's because you're part of a category.
You're a white male, so you're privileged.
You're a European, so you profited from slavery and colonialism.
There's just this whole category that you must feel guilty because you are part of a particular category And therefore, you must give people things in order to make that guilt go away.
And of course, it's basically emotional blackmail.
And I don't know how we can break that word down even more.
But it's emotional blackmail.
And the way that it works is appeasement brings more demands.
Appeasement brings more demands.
And, you know, maybe that's why Charlie Sheen went positive with his HIV status and he's playing off all these blackmailers.
Although he did actually.
So there's this general collective guilt that people can try and impose upon you.
And so they'll say basically, particularly, and they won't say it explicitly, it has to be just generally implied and so on.
And with a weight of hysterical passive aggression behind it, which is a clear warning that if you defy, they're going to escalate until you comply.
Verbal attacks or whatever.
So there's this general...
You are part of this race category, and therefore you are bad.
Or you are part of some other race category, in which case you are good.
You are a victim, you can't be racist yourself, and you're always right in any conflict and so on, right?
Or there are Asians who nobody likes to talk about because they don't fit the mold of white racism because they generally do better in white countries than white people do.
So...
Why should we care about ethics in that situation?
Well, it's self-defense against racism in this case, right?
Because obviously to say white people or white males are collective recipients of institutional privilege, which they get by oppressing other people, Well, of course, the rational response is, okay, well, I haven't oppressed any black person.
No, no, it doesn't work that way.
You don't have to actually do it.
You just, you know, the numbers have to deviate in some manner.
You know, like there are fewer blacks making more money or fewer blacks in college or fewer blacks in high levels of occupation and so on.
And therefore, oppression clings to you like, I don't know.
Some media ex-girlfriend won't take no for an answer.
Like what?
Like white on rice.
Like white on rice.
That's pretty good.
That's pretty good.
So, of course, the lunatic thing here is that when people say, well, you know, white males are wrong, white males are oppressors and this and that and the other, they're making a collective judgment about race that is somehow – I'm sorry, it's hard to say this in a straight way.
They're making a collective judgment about race that is somehow supposed to be anti-racist, right?
Yeah.
I mean, I can't think of anything, I literally cannot think of anything that I could say about blacks or Asians as an aggregate.
I mean, even the categories are kind of fuzzy.
So, like, I couldn't honestly say, well, blacks are this or Asians are that, you know, but people can say this about, you know, why it's the last legitimate group left to hate on the planet.
Yeah.
And so why would you need ethics?
You need ethics because you need self-defense against manipulations.
Or, you know, the idea that, well, the government is here to protect you from aggression, from the initiation of force.
It's like, oh, how is this government funded?
By aggressing against you and initiating force.
Hmm.
I think, like, if there was no government and you put this forward in a philosophy course, you wouldn't even get past the intro to philosophy stuff, right?
Is that right?
Naomi Campbell is half black, half Asian?
Tiger Woods?
I mean, obviously he's half mammal, half foliage, so that's really confusing.
But is that right?
Half black, half Asian?
That's what the internet tells me.
It does.
I'm not sure why you have Google alerts for half black, half Asian, Michael, but I'd really like you to forward me those links if you don't mind.
Yeah, it's Photoshop.
That's right.
So, I think that we study ethics for the same reason that you carry a gun in a bad neighborhood, if it's legal, right?
In that there are other people out there who are going to try and do you harm through appealing to ethical norms or standards, and you need a way to defend against them so that they'll not be able to trigger guilt in you, right?
So that would be my sense.
What do you think?
Yeah, it seems pretty good.
And also, it's sort of interesting because if you put it that way, then it's sort of like evil people do ethics so they can, I guess, acquire more power and get away with doing things.
And so the good people have to do it in order to defend themselves.
Dude, you know, you just finished the show.
I'm going to go for a smoke.
That was stone genius.
Yeah, absolutely right.
I couldn't agree with you more.
Because we agree, we know we're right.
Oh yeah, and getting to the second question, which really has to do with the book, on page 30, should I just read the part?
Are you currently calling from a shower?
No, it's just I'm close to a kitchen.
Oh, okay.
It's not the end of the world, but if there's any way the person could wash their feet later, that would be excellent.
I'll take a burger, if we're going that way.
Remember, you have to talk something about bad taste in music.
Let me have that pickup artist about that.
All right.
So, do you want me to quote from the book?
I'm saying, can I just read those parts?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And...
On page 30, you define universal preference, and then again in page 33 to 34.
And there's a slight difference in the definitions you put forward, and I'm not sure which one, I guess, we should go by.
So the first one says, when I speak of universal preference, I'm really defining what is objectively required or necessary, assuming a particular goal.
And on page 33 to 34...
It's defined as, when I talk about universal preferences, I'm talking about what people should prefer, not what they always do prefer.
To use a scientific analogy, to truly understand the universe, people should use the scientific method.
This does not mean they always do so, since clearly millions of people consult ancient fairy tales rather than modern science for answers.
So there's a slight difference in those definitions.
I'm not sure if it's the same, and I'm just confused.
Well, I don't see the slight difference, but because it's my book, maybe I'm not as objective about it as you are.
So, let's go through the first one and just make sure we understand it.
Go through the second.
Sure.
And then see if we can find the difference.
So, sorry, the first quote again?
When I speak of a universe of preference, I'm really defining what is objectively required or necessary assuming a particular goal.
Okay.
So the sentence is here.
Sorry, you've read it.
I just want to give the whole paragraph.
When I speak of universal preference, I'm really defining what is objectively required or necessary, assuming a particular goal.
If I want to live, I do not have to like jazz, but I must eat.
Eating remains a preference.
I do not have to eat in the same way that I have to obey gravity, but eating is a universal objective and a binding requirement for staying alive, since it relies on biological facts that cannot be wished away.
So there are three categories here, right?
One is preferences that are not central to living, like liking jazz or not liking jazz, but still a choice, obviously.
Second is preferences essential for living that are a choice, like whether you eat or not.
And the third is things that are not open to your choice, like whether you can choose to obey gravity or not, right?
Yeah.
Okay, universal preference, objectively required or necessary.
Now, we always have to assume a particular goal.
I don't think you can have a preference that is in any way universal that can avoid the need for a particular goal.
So, I just, that's why we have to assume a particular goal.
Otherwise, there can't be any universality in the preferences.
Sorry, because if it's not tied into anything objective or out there or a goal that is preferred, then it is just a subjective preference like, I like jazz, which can't really be part of philosophy then.
So, okay, we've got universal preference if you want to assume a particular goal.
Now, the way this works in ethics, at least as far as I see, is that if you are claiming that If you are putting forward an ethical theory or an ethical proposition, then it has to fall into the categories of universal, preferable, and behavior, right?
That's sort of my argument.
And for those who want the book, it's at freedomainradio.com slash free.
You can get audiobook or PDF or HTML or any of those sort of things.
And so that first aspect is pretty clear, at least to me, right?
And again, I make the whole case in the book.
But if you say that something's ethical, then it has to be universal.
Because if it's not universal, then it's a personal or subjective preference, like I like jazz or I like ice cream.
If it is universal, then it has to be something that can be preferred.
Like you can't have as your universal system of ethics defying gravity.
I mean, you can, but it'll be a pretty short-lived movement with a lot of splatter marks.
And so it has to be universal, it has to be preferable, and it has to be behavior, not thoughts, because thoughts can't be verified objectively.
And this is why there's no such thing as thought crimes outside of Missouri University.
So that's the first sentence.
I'm not saying that's perfect, but that's the first paragraph.
And can you give me the second again?
The second one is at the end of page 33.
Which is, does when I talk about universal preferences, I'm talking about what people should prefer, not what they always do prefer?
Yes.
Okay.
And why are these...
So what I'm saying, okay, if you have a particular preference, there's objective ways to achieve it.
And then when I talk about universal preferences, I'm talking about what people should prefer, not what they always do prefer.
Because if people always did prefer something, you wouldn't need a system of ethics, because it would be involuntary.
Like, there's no system of ethics that involves obedience to gravity, because obedience to gravity is involuntary.
So it has to be something about that people have a choice about preferring, if that makes sense.
And that's why I say I'm talking about people should prefer, not what they always do prefer.
Yeah, I understand that.
But I'm saying the difference, I guess, I perceive is that the previous one sort of denotes assuming some certain goals, but this one doesn't necessarily include such a clause.
When I talk about universal preferences, I'm talking about what people should prefer, not what they always do prefer.
To use a scientific analogy to truly understand the universe, people should use the scientific method.
It doesn't mean they always do, they consult Bibles and stuff.
There is no way to achieve truth about the universe without science, but people are perfectly free to redefine truth as error and content themselves with mystical nonsense.
So, I don't include the goal thing here, but I don't deny the goal thing here.
Does that make sense?
Yes.
So I've said, okay, well, we need a goal.
And here I say, okay, well, I'm making sure that people understand that it is preferable.
In other words, people can prefer it, but they don't always prefer it.
And again, I can't think of anything in this life that people always prefer.
I mean, maybe you can.
I've given myself this thought exercise a couple of times.
But, you know, what do people always prefer?
Sex?
No, there are monks.
Money?
No, there are monks.
Life?
No, there are suicides.
You know, good music?
No, there's Nickelback.
Oh, I don't even know why I say these things.
I don't even have any particular opinion about Nickelback.
But they're just a band that people like to make fun of, and who am I to not follow the craft?
So, I can't think of anything that people always prefer.
So, I'm not...
I'm not denying the preference part here or the goal part here, but I don't think it denies it.
Now, if I said, well, you know, you don't need a goal or a goal is bad or whatever, that would be in contradiction to the earlier part.
But the fact that I don't remind people of the goal here when I'm talking about something else, I don't think is a contradiction.
It may be somewhat incomplete, but again, you can't pull everything together.
I'm not saying I was just getting the idea that is it the same thing and now you're sort of confirming that it is in fact the same thing Yeah, I mean if you I mean it is almost a tautology, but not quite I think which is to say that I mean if if you if people accept that that ethics have to be universal universally preferable behaviors Then the behaviors have to be universal and preferable and behaviors right?
I mean, it sounds like a tautology, but it's not because I do go through the reason as to why ethics has to conform to these three standards, that it's universal, that it's preferable, and that it's behavior.
So it's not quite a tautology, but once we accept that, so if people want to put forward an ethical theory, ethical theories are binding on other people.
Yeah.
Otherwise, they're not ethical theories.
It has to be something that, can you go to jail for it?
Do other people have the right to defend against it?
Do they have the right to shoot you if you violate it?
Break into their house or gnaw on their leg or something like that?
And so if ethics is something which is enforceable upon others and binding upon others, then there must be a mechanism by which that can be established and proven.
And again, people can act against it.
But the purpose to me of ethics is to give people the right of self-defense intellectually, right?
Because if you can defend yourself intellectually, for the most part, you won't need to defend yourself physically.
The physical defense is always the end result of a lack of an intellectual defense, right?
Like, I mean, the sort of, quote, compatibility between Western European female-friendly, maybe over-friendly cultures and, say, something like Islam...
Well, there's a lack of intellectual clarity and defense about that first, and as a result, there's a need for a physical defense which is not achievable because people aren't allowed to have weapons.
So, I hope that makes some kind of sense.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Now, given that definition, my, I guess, question then is, how is it different from an indicative conditional, which is the if-then statement?
Like, if this is true, then this must also sort of follow.
Like, if you want to find out The truth about I guess the physical world you should use the scientific method sort of statements.
Okay, and just because people indicative conditionals is not always particularly clear for people.
So here's something from Plato.Stanford.edu It was first published Wednesday, August 8, 2001.
Oh no, it's been revised since, so I assume it's still valid.
All right.
Take a sentence in the indicative mood suitable for making a statement.
We'll be home by 10.
Tom cooked the dinner.
Attach a conditional clause to it, and you have a sentence which makes a conditional statement.
We'll be home by 10 if the train is on time.
Or if Mary didn't cook the dinner, Tom cooked it.
And they go into, you know, you can look this up, just indicative conditionals.
And it is people who have a lot of time on their hands and, I guess, enjoy drawing logic trees rather than going out and helping people in the real world spend a lot of time on this kind of stuff.
And so my way of saying is that if you wish me to be bound by your system of ethics, you must establish that your ethical theory is...
Universally preferable behavior.
Okay.
Right?
And that's my self-defense.
That's my self-defense.
You know, if people scream at me that I'm privileged and I need to groffle before them, I would question their knowledge of the word privilege because that does not sound like very privileged behavior to me.
Or when people say, well, as a white male, have you ever experienced racism?
It's like, you know, there's a lot of people who don't get hired who are white males because people are trying to hit particular quotas.
And so, you know, this...
I just...
Need that defense because people will constantly come at you and try and define discomfort into your limbic system so that you'll pay them off, you know?
It's like this old...
It's an old thing in movies where someone injects you with a poison and you have 24 hours to find the cure or you're going to die and so on.
And that's what people do is people will come up to you and it's not...
It's every race and every culture and every creed and every...
It's all over the place.
They'll come up to you and say...
You're bad.
Yeah.
And you'll say, well, what did I do?
Oh, it's not something you do.
It's something you are.
It's like, what?
So, I'm bad because reasons?
No reasons.
You're bad because category.
I don't think a category can be bad.
Can I be judged as an individual?
No!
You can't be judged as an individual because category.
Or whatever, right?
I mean, and this could be the case in many different contexts.
And so the defense is...
Okay, well, so you're saying that you have a category of ethics.
Is it universal?
Right?
In other words, does it apply to everyone equally all the time and in all circumstances?
Yeah.
Okay, that's the first, right?
Are you talking about something that people can prefer or not?
Now, I can't not prefer to be a white male.
Look, man, I took dance classes in theater school...
Trust me when I say, world out there, I cannot choose to not be a white male.
People would actually come to watch me do dance routines because they just found it funny.
Basically, it was like a fast-fed compilation of failed videos watched on acid.
And so, clearly, I can't choose to not be a white male.
And therefore, the second part is not valid.
And if it's behavior...
If I'm supposed to have done something that's bad or oppressive to women or minorities or something, she'll point to me the behavior that I've done.
So this sort of social justice warrior stung, SJW versus UPB. One of them is Ronda Rousey.
Well, Ronda Rousey before the last match.
And then it switches.
Anyway, I'm going to overuse that metaphor, but analogy.
So yeah, someone comes up to me and says, like, you're a bad guy because you're a white privileged male who's racist because category or something.
Okay, I say, well, is it universal?
No, because it only applies to white males.
Is it behavior that I've done that has rendered me to be bad?
Well, no, because they can't point to any specific behavior that I've done that is racist or exclusionary or something like that.
And is it something I can prefer or not?
Well, no, because I'm in a biological category that I can't hop out of no matter what my thoughts may be.
I can't will my outie peepee to suddenly become a burrowing anteater innie.
And so that fails, right?
And people say, well, how can you stand up?
Because I have UPB. The cavalry is riding in.
And when people say, oh, you're a bad guy...
Because X, Y, and Z category, it's like, okay, I just put it through the UPB mill, and it fails at every conceivable level, so that's my self-defense, and that's kind of the gift that I try to put out to the world, to give people the self-defense of...
People coming up to you and saying, well, you're bad!
You're bad!
And by the way, can you give me money?
I won't say that you're bad.
Well, I'll stop saying you're bad for about 12 minutes.
Then I'll come back saying you're even worse until you give me more money and then repeat until society collapses.
But it is giving people the gift of saying, okay, well, this person's making a moral proposition.
Does it pass the test of universally preferable behavior?
And if it doesn't, I don't have to listen to it at all.
That's my fundamental reason as to why.
It's not going to make bad people good and it's not going to make good people get better but what it does is it blocks Okay.
grabs resources from good people and deposits them in the lap of bad people.
So it ends the subsidy for bad people from good people.
And that's my particular goal.
Okay.
Yeah, just to be sure, it's the question about how it's different from indicative conditional.
You say it's because of, I guess, logical complications that it was easier to present it this way.
Well, I mean, when I say if you want to achieve a particular goal or there's a conditional, then it's in that category, right?
It's not gravity is, right, which is not a conditional.
Yeah.
And so whenever there's an if, right?
If you want to do X, ABC is the way to go.
If you want to head north, go that way, right?
If you don't want to head north, whatever, right?
So it is within that category, but if you sort of take the long view out, Logic itself is in that category.
If you wish for your statements to even be potentially true, they have to be internally consistent.
First and foremost, they have to be logically consistent.
And secondly, they have to be in accordance with empirical reality.
So everything that has a value attached to it has that kind of if-then statement.
You know, if you're hungry...
Go get something to eat, right?
If you're not hungry, then you don't, right?
There's no commandment that says, go get something to eat, unless you happen to be in Florida and you're American, in which case that seems to be their UPV. So I think everything that, but people make the mistake of thinking, well, because it's conditional, if then, then somehow it's subjective.
I don't think that's the case at all.
There are some if-thens which are subjective.
If you like jazz, then go and see Yanni play whatever that weird hippie stick is that he beats up music with and go do that.
But that's not an ethical statement.
Aesthetics perhaps is another matter.
But there are absolutes out there.
Which are entirely around if-then.
And they're around choice and preferences and so on, right?
If you want to not have a stomachache, don't eat gravel while listening to Nickelback.
Anyway.
But it doesn't mean that they're subjective.
Yeah, I understand.
Okay.
And which brings me to page 35, premise 4.
And it says...
There's really one statement in it that I guess I'm interested in, and it's in the last line, which is that truth is universally preferable to error, and that truth is universally objective.
Given, I guess, the definition of universally preferable we're going with, when you say truth is universally preferable to error, it's unclear, at least to me, what this statement is.
I guess means because again going by the notion that it's it's sort of conditional What I guess universal preference is sort of pseudo conditional then once the truth is universally preferable to error as opposed to what?
As opposed to error Like you can't say I'm wrong Therefore, I'm right.
That would be too obvious a contradiction, right?
So nobody puts forward an argument that says, my facts are wrong, my reasoning is wrong, and I'm just plain wrong, so I'm right.
That would never happen, right?
So truth is always perceived as universally preferable to error.
And of course, again, it's almost tautological, but if you want to achieve the truth, then you have to pursue the methodologies that allow you to achieve the truth.
And truth is universally preferable to error in that the way that philosophy works is that once you've admitted to error, then you have to change your perspective.
You have to change your opinion.
And like if I say, oh, my podcasts, I'm going to sell them for $1,000 a second, right?
Then I can put that out there if I want and see if the market will bear it.
And I will find that the market, in fact, won't bear it, and I will not make any particular sales.
So I've got...
I think it's true that people will pay $1,000 a second for my podcasts.
I can put that out there and find out whether or not it is true.
Now, if it's not true, I don't get to go and hold people up with a knife to their ribs and say, here, listen to these five seconds, now give me $5,000, right?
I mean, that would not be valid.
So if I have a hypothesis...
So, if I admit that I'm wrong, then the rule is that you...
Stop putting forward that particular argument you stop holding that particular position you can revisit it and you can refine it and so on but If if you go out in science and you try to establish a particular correlation and you can't Then you can redefine the experiment, but that experiment has been a failure I mean doesn't or not a failure because you've proven that there's no correlation at least in that circumstance so truth is universally preferable to Error because that's the deal when it comes to having a debate or having a conversation and I've
had hundreds of debates in my life and a couple of dozen probably here on the show and that's the way it works is that people try to say that my logic is incorrect or my data is invalid and that way they hope to dislodge me from my particular position and at the same time I'm trying to show that their logic is invalid or their data is incorrect and I'm trying to dislodge them from their position.
In my experience, very few people get dislodged from their particular positions no matter how much evidence and reason you bring to the table.
Which is why I would, you know, not usually have these kinds of debates unless it was in a public space where I could help other people.
You know, I'm not going to go to a dinner party and chat about the flat earth with someone, right?
But...
If it's a public way of showing, you know, how you can be patient and reasonable and hopefully helpful to people who have, let's say, divergent methodologies of achieving truth.
So I think to say that truth is universally preferable is one of these things that you really can't argue against.
Because either you can say, well, truth is not universally preferable, because then you have to say, okay, well, is that a true statement?
No, it's a false statement.
It's a false statement that truth is not universally preferable.
It's like, okay, well, you've just disqualified yourself from that position, right?
And if you say it is a true statement that truth is universally preferable, then you've just self-detonated your argument, right?
Because you've said that I am putting forward a universally true argument that truth is not a universally preferable.
Valid or valuable thing.
In which case, why would you bother?
It wouldn't make any sense.
By the way, I would like to invite flat earthers to dinner and just have to eat off the globe.
I just wanted to mention that.
That would be a lot of fun.
Yeah, I understand the argument, but there is the...
For instance, there are some people that I guess I've met that are sort of the...
I know that I guess my belief in some sort of higher being might be irrational, but it gives me sort of satisfaction, so I'm fine with it.
Where it seems to them truth doesn't appear to be, I guess, universally preferable, so it sort of creates...
Wait, hang on.
Are you saying that people say, there isn't a God, but I choose to believe one because it makes me feel better?
They say they don't care if there is one, but believing in one does make them feel better.
Well, okay, so they're saying that their feelings have a higher standard of value than sort of empirical or objective truth?
Yes.
Okay, so then they've put forward a proposition and you'd say, does it actually make you feel better?
And they'd say, well, yes.
So it's true that it makes you feel better, right?
Because if it was false, you'd hold something else.
And then they would say, feelings are the highest standard of value, right?
And people can say that.
And quite often they do.
And quite often they're in heels, right?
And so you, but again, we're back to this thing where it's like, yeah, people can have some other methodology for, it's not really a methodology, they can have some other approach for the universal value, but feelings can't be, you know, we put, okay, the statement, whatever makes me feel good is the highest standard of value.
Okay, well, let's put that through UPB. Are your feelings universalizable?
Well, clearly they're not.
People have opposite feelings.
People have no feelings.
And people have...
They're asleep and they're having dreams and they're having other kinds of feelings.
Feelings come and go and so on, right?
So clearly it's not universally.
Is it preferable to have certain feelings or other feelings?
I don't think that that's entirely the case because feelings are not under direct conscious volitional control.
You can't order yourself to be happy.
Otherwise, you know...
Therapy would just be a boot camp of screening at people to suck it up and be happy, dirtbag, or something like that.
You can't order yourself to be happy.
And feelings are not behaviors.
Feelings are, they may result in behavior, but they themselves are not behaviors.
So the question of, well, can feelings be the highest standard of value?
Well, I don't see how that passes none of the UPB standards.
And then people may say, well, I'm going to hold it anyway.
And it's like, okay, well, then you just...
But you're claiming that something is true outside of yourself, which falls into the universal standard, right?
There is a God.
And that's what makes you feel better.
Because if somebody genuinely did not, or accepted that there was no God, then the positive feelings they would get out of believing in God would vanish to some degree over time, right?
Yeah.
And so...
They are basing their emotions on a truth claim outside of themselves.
Now, they may avoid examining whether or not there is a God in order to maintain their feelings.
They may just want to hang around with other people who believe the same emotional stuff.
So they may have all of that.
But it doesn't pass UPB. And they are containing a contradiction because they're saying, well, the happiness that I have from believing in God requires that there be a God out there.
Otherwise...
I won't get the same level of happiness.
So they're making truth claim outside of themselves.
And then they're saying, but I don't want to examine that truth claim.
And that's fine.
You know, again, that's just people who say they know something about reality by consulting chicken entrails.
And that's, again, you don't have to follow the methodology that you claim is valid, but you can't win an argument that way.
Yeah, the reason I ask that is because if I substitute, I guess, the earlier No, no, they are though, because if somebody says, I'm happier when I believe in God...
Then they're saying that they need to believe that there's a God outside their head that operates in the universe that they have some relationship with and who cares about.
Like, there's a whole bunch of things that they need to establish in order to achieve the emotional benefit that they want, right?
Yeah.
And so those are truth claims that exist independent of consciousness.
And so if they then say, well, but I don't care if he exists or not.
I mean, you know, people can say whatever they want, but there's still implicit truth.
Axioms or claims, there are implicit claims embedded in the proposition that God exists and it makes me feel better when he or she does exist.
That is, God exists is a truth claim that is outside of emotions and preferences and mere mortal consciousness.
I understand that, but again, I guess I'm having difficulty.
Again, if I substitute the definition, like I said, truth is objectively required or necessary, I guess it would interpret necessary to error, which I'm not sure I doubt would, I guess, substitute.
Well, no, if you're making a truth claim about something in the universe, then it is not up to your feelings whether that is true or not.
Like, if I say, I feel happy, okay, well, I could make that claim, maybe you could record it on some MRI or something like that, but I say, I feel happy, I'm not making a truth claim about the universe, right?
Yeah.
But if I say that God exists, I'm making a truth claim about the universe that is independent of my consciousness.
Yeah.
I'm not proposing a subjective truth like I am happy, but an objective truth like God exists, right?
Yes.
Now, if you wish to make an objective truth claim, then you have to follow the rules of making an objective truth claim.
Because you can't say, well, I want God to exist, therefore God exists, right?
I mean, that's not a valid way of, you know, I guess otherwise there'd be a whole lot of instant karma Kim Kardashians appearing in 14-year-old boys' bedrooms at about 1130 at night, right?
Yes.
And so if you're going to make a truth claim that is independent of consciousness, then you need to submit to the rigor of making that truth claim valid, right?
You know, again, back to the debate with the flat earther.
He says that the earth is flat and, you know, we have some questions about that.
And so he's not making a claim like, I have a feeling called the world is flat.
He thinks the world is flat.
Yeah.
And so if you wish to make a truth claim about reality, then you have to follow the methodology of reason and evidence for establishing something that exists outside your consciousness.
If I say I'm happy, I don't think I have to follow an objective method.
I could still be lying or whatever, but I'm not sure how many people would care.
But you don't have to follow that objective methodology to report a subjective state of mind.
But if you're claiming that something exists independent of consciousness out there in material reality, Then you have to follow the rules, which has to be logically consistent and there have to be some evidence of the thing itself or at least its effects on nearby matter.
And that's the rule, right?
I mean, so if you want to say something true about the universe, you have to follow the methodology that establishes whether what you're saying is true or false.
You can't just say it and wish it and will it.
I mean, you can, but you're wrong.
I understand that, but I guess the claim isn't about whether or not they want to make a claim of truth.
It has to be whether truth is in fact objectively required or necessary.
Because again, even going back to the example you gave, there are some people who do content themselves on mystical nonsense.
And certainly, I'm not sure if they would say truth is necessary for them.
Well, you know, this is all hearsay, right?
I mean, we're trying to argue perspectives of crazy people who aren't on the call.
So I think we better stop at this point, because I don't mind arguing with crazy people directly if there's a good use to it.
But I think you and I are both pretty sane people and trying to figure out what crazy people would say under certain conditions may not be that helpful.
Yeah, it's really to get at the point that truth is universally preferable, which is, again, assuming it's a conditional, truth is universally preferable to error if you have what goal in mind.
Well, so for instance, if I'm making, I'm just going to say this one last time and move on because I made the same argument five times, which either means you're not listening or I'm not listening, but it's not about to change, right?
So if you're going to make a claim of a truth statement external for consciousness, you need to follow that methodology of reason and evidence or you're invalid, right?
You're not saying anything in particular, so...
The question is slightly, I understood that part, but the question isn't whether or not you're making a truth statement, it's why do you even, I suppose, why do you objectively require a truth statement?
What do you mean, why do I? What do you mean, why do I objectively require?
Again, if universally preferable does mean objectively required or necessary, why is truth objectively required or necessary?
Well, it depends what truth you're talking about.
If you're talking about, I feel happy, okay, well, that may not be objectively verifiable.
But if I'm saying, look, there's a tree over there, that's something that's objectively verifiable.
So if I'm making a statement about objective reality that I want people to accept as true, then it needs to conform with the principles of objective reality, which means, you know, tangible and logically consistent, right?
I can't say it's a tree and an elephant at the same time, right?
And so, if I'm making a truth claim about something external to consciousness, then I need to follow an objective methodology.
Otherwise, the claim can be dismissed without further investigation.
Okay, I've got to move on to the next caller, but great chat.
You're welcome back anytime.
I certainly do love me a tasty ethics eggwich sandwich in the morning.
So, thanks for your call, man.
Okay, bye.
Alright, well up next is Christoph.
Christoph wrote in and said, How do you solve the problem of public morality in the realm of your philosophy?
For example, showing pornography in the public, it doesn't look like a form of active aggression, which libertarianism condemns, but is still harmful to the general public, particularly to children.
From the philosophy of law standpoint, I'd look at it as a violation of the parental power, but I think there might be more to it than just that.
That's from Christoph.
Hi Krista.
How are you doing?
Well, I'm doing great.
God bless you.
Well, thank you.
Is this a big problem in your neck of the woods?
In your life?
Well, not particularly in my personal life, but I'm treating philosophy as a way to establish good principles for creating law.
Sorry, good principles for creating what?
For creating law.
Law?
You mean like government law?
Yeah, like the government law.
I know you are an anarchist, so this might be a bad question to ask you, but...
Yeah.
I mean, if you want to call in and talk theology, this may not be the show for that.
If you want to talk in about how to make government law good, then you're basically saying, how can we turn rape into marriage?
And my answer is, I don't think we can.
How can we turn an involuntary imposition of Violent power into something that is virtuous and chosen, I don't think we can.
Now, if we want to talk about the ethics of it, then that's a different matter.
Or we can talk about ways in which these problems could be solved in a free market, but I don't see how we could end up...
I don't want to jump over the initiation of forces foundational to government law and then pretend that we're just going to deal with law as if that hasn't happened, right?
Well, then we can take this example of this Of the, how do you call it?
Voluntary society, yeah?
And how do you solve this problem in a voluntary society where you have children and you don't want them to be raised up around pornography and well,
you can't coerce people Just by yourself to not place those things around.
Right.
Another example I thought of was, let's say you live in a neighborhood with a lot of kids, and you put some giant screen in your backyard and play, I don't know, The Ring or When a Stranger Calls or Alien over and over again while pointing...
Your giant screen at the playground until the children are so traumatized that they're just standing there, you know, shaking themselves and twitching, you know, like Lindsay Lohan, four days out of rehab.
So it is...
I mean, they're pretty outlandish scenarios.
And in general, to be in a society and to function within that society and to be an adult within that society...
To a large degree means that you have accepted the rules of that society as a whole, right?
So if you live in some neighborhood and that neighborhood, like most people, doesn't want pornography played in a public space.
Well, first of all, the question is who owns the public space, right?
And we are, of course, you know, if you want to watch pornography in your basement, I guess more power to you.
But if you want your media, if your media ends up spilling out beyond your property, then that's a different matter.
And this doesn't have to be pornography or scary movies around kids or anything.
anything it could be as simple as you know i'm practicing the bugle at four o'clock in the morning with a with a uh a rooster attached to the end of it loud music you know um nickelback the running gig um so there are of course community standards around these kinds of things and in a lot of places of course this is the case in in condos and so on like you sign some big ass contract when you move in that says okay this is your property and all that
but there are certain conditions for being in the property that you have to maintain in order to continue your good standing in the community and so on right you can suffer sanctions um from that uh entity and there will of course there may be some communities where it's just the quote wild wild west where you can do anything that you uh want right yeah that's right i'm just jealous of whoever i don't know
gets to hang with avril levine and her tick borne illnesses but um um So there could be people who are just like, ah, I don't like the overhead.
People are going to be reasonable and they just want those kind of communities.
And I think that's all fine.
But there will be other communities where people say, look, I mean, I don't want...
You know, painted black to be paying at volume 11 at 4 o'clock in the morning from the thin-walled condo next door.
I remember when I lived in a place once, there were these three women who lived upstairs from me, and they had hardwood floors, and they always wore heels, and they were always late for work.
And they'd be sort of running back and forth in their heels on this hardwood floor, and basically it was like, you know, a pencil-footed devil doing the Macarena on my brain.
And so, yeah, we had to go and talk to them, and once, you know, they...
I said, listen, in the morning you guys are now kind of waking me up.
It's pretty loud.
They were like, oh, sorry.
And they would instead clod around on their feet instead, which was better, but, you know, not perfect or anything.
And so normally you can deal with these things in terms of negotiation and so on.
Of course you can ostracize people who are acting really badly and the ostracism could go even further.
In so far as, you know, you could go to extreme lengths to have their power cut off if they're doing something really egregious because all the economic relationships that allow you to flourish and survive in a free society are voluntary and people can withdraw their services at any time.
You can quit the phone company, the phone company can quit you too.
So those things can occur.
And so economic and social ostracism, I think, is the way to go.
And also another way to go, of course, is to privatize as much property as humanly possible.
Like when I was a kid, there was a streaking fad that was going on in England.
And I remember I used to go with my mom to a pub Back when you could do this kind of thing.
I used to go to a pub, and I had the most fantastic times at this pub.
They had this garden with hedges, which was like unbelievably great for tag and freeze tag and other kinds of games.
And I remember so many happy, joyful hours.
Because, you know, for kids, when you're young, whenever the sun goes down, magic comes out.
This is when all the cool stuff happens.
And so, yeah, my mom would go to the pub and we'd sit in the garden in the late spring and the summer and the fall.
And I'd play with the kids all these great games.
And I just have so many happy memories of that.
And one day, I remember hearing a cheer going up.
And I looked to the pub, which you could see.
It was sort of an open awning.
And there was a tall, skinny guy with dark brown hair and a mustache.
Always a mustache in the 70s.
The porn stars, as they call it, I think.
And he was walking in naked.
And everybody was cheering.
Now, clearly, they didn't mind that, right?
I'm not sure you'd want to try that at Chuck E. Cheese or anything, because you're probably going to have a pretty short visit.
But the pub owner was okay with this guy coming in naked.
Maybe he gets to keep the barstool.
I don't know.
Maybe that's how it works.
But you wouldn't have that in other situations where you can't walk in naked.
And even if it was, you know, there's no government or whatever, it's private property.
And so people won't want you being naked on their property.
And of course, they have the right to order you off their property if you're not conforming to their standards.
So among places where you're walking down the street and if there's a particular neighborhood, it's privately owned.
So there can be rules about that.
And in the private neighborhoods, there can be economic and social ostracism for behavior that goes outside the pale.
But frankly, I mean...
Of course, the whole purpose is prevention, right?
I mean, we wish to benevolently and positively socialize human beings.
Because if you're someone who sets up a big screen of horror movies in your backyard and plays them really loud in the neighborhood, you clearly are very disturbed emotionally.
Like, you are really off the rails as far as that goes.
And how do people end up like that?
There's a whole series and a whole process that leads towards people ending up in that kind of crazy, aggressive, psychotic mindset where they'll just do something like that that's just so off the wall.
Maybe the guy's got a brain tumor.
Maybe this is a cry for help.
His spinal cord is sending up a signal saying, please watch these horror movies because I'm being invaded by cancer cells into my brainstem or something.
So, of course, in a free society, you aim to have benevolent and positive Socialization occur from the very beginning.
Society has a very strong interest on people who obey reasonable rules in society, like the don't kill, don't rape, don't steal, don't murder kind of stuff, and don't show porn to kids.
So, I think that there's lots of ways to solve these kinds of problems, but in a free society, it's really all about prevention, and that if your kid is having big socialization problems, The school is going to notice that or whatever organization would be there instead of the school and they'd work with the parents to try and deal with it to make sure that somebody didn't end up just so weird as an adult that they do all of these wildly inappropriate things that are really upsetting to people.
And that kind of intervention works really well in a free society and really doesn't work at all well in a status society.
Okay, so some of this Answers are very interesting to think about particularly the prevention.
But why I'm asking this question?
It's because it's frankly doesn't seem like this case of pornography in public or like the loud music or anything of that sort.
It doesn't seem like this active aggression thing you have in libertarianism and in liberalism as well.
Yeah.
I'm not sure what you mean, like loud music is not an act of aggression.
Of course it is.
I mean, it's used as a torture device by the military.
I mean, if you jar someone awake, that is aggressive.
I mean, you're interfering with their sleep and that's interfering with their health, right?
And so if you shoot a gun into your ground in the middle of the night and startle awake, Half the people in your neighborhood, well, they're disturbed.
They're upset.
Their sleep is disturbed.
And, you know, there are these, Mike, if you can look these up, believe it or not, there are these studies that show that daylight savings time, when the hour goes forward, like when you lose an hour of sleep, there are significantly more accidents on the road when that occurs.
And so not only are you disturbing people's sleep, which if Once in a while, right?
But if it happens on a regular basis, it actually interferes with your health and your happiness and your well-being and so on.
Continuous sleep degradation, quality of sleep degradation is very bad for you.
The Monday following the start of daylight savings time is a particularly bad one for heart attacks, traffic accidents, workplace injuries, and And accidental deaths.
Like, just a shave in one hour of people's sleep.
And you can see a marked uptick in these kinds of situations.
And again, it doesn't mean that everything...
You have to have a perfect night's sleep no matter what.
But if it happens regularly.
The Monday following the start of daylight savings time is a particularly bad one, as we said.
Colorado researchers last year reported finding a 25% increase in the number of heart attacks that occur on the Monday after...
Daylight savings time starts as compared with a normal Monday.
Hospitals that typically saw about 32 heart attack patients were treating eight additional victims on that day, one hour less of sleep.
A cardiologist in Croatia recorded about twice as many heart attacks than expected during that same day.
Researchers in Sweden have also witnessed a spike in heart attacks in the week following the time adjustment, particularly among those who were already at risk.
Workplace injuries more likely to occur on that Monday, too.
Too little sleep.
Researchers at Michigan State University used over 20 years of data from the Mind Safety and Health Administration to determine that three to four more minors than average sustained a work-related injury on the Monday following the start of daylight savings time.
These injuries resulted in 2,649 lost days of work, which is a 68% increase over the hours lost from injuries on an average day.
No effects following the nation's one-hour time shift back to standard time in the fall.
This is the spring.
Drivers are more likely to be in fatal traffic accidents.
21 years of data, again, found that following the start of daylight savings times, drivers are in 83.5 accidents as compared with 78.2 on the average Monday.
This is a phenomenon not just in the U.S., but in Canadian drivers.
And British motorists.
Accidental deaths...
Of any kind are more likely in the days following a spring forward.
1996 analysis showed a 6.5% increase, which meant about 200 more accidental deaths occurred immediately after the start of daylight savings time than would typically occur in a given period of the same length.
There's 200 people dying because people can't get decent curtains.
Okay, okay.
So I don't want to belabor the point, but it is actually an act of aggression to interfere with people's sleep in a conscious and volitional manner.
Okay, so you've probably convinced everyone and their mothers that it's the case, but I want to go back to this case of pornography in public.
Because it's a bit more complicated one, I believe.
Because we have this giant poster of a naked lady as an advertisement, for example.
We have young children looking at it, and it's difficult to measure the effects that it will have on their mental state afterwards.
Though, we can safely say that it won't be too good.
And we would want to protect children from this stuff.
At least children, well, the adults are free to do anything they want.
But there we have this liberalism, at least in this classical conservative liberalism we have here in Europe.
Well, we have the thing called parental power.
It's about the fact that If parents don't have power over their children, then inevitably you're going to give the state the power to decide over those children.
And this we are trying to always avoid.
Wait, so there's something called parental power wherein the government wants to give more power to the parents?
No, it's...
Well, particularly, we want to always make sure that the parents have the power.
So the government doesn't take the power from...
Well, I'll give you an example.
Yeah, but I'm just curious why you'd be focusing on, you know, the semi-hard permanent boner that guys under 80 have when walking around the Vegas Strip.
Or when I went to Amsterdam for a speech last year, I went down to the red light district just out of curiosity and...
I wouldn't be taking children down there.
But, I mean, as far as parental power goes, I mean, wouldn't we be focusing on public schools, government schools, rather than some potential poster in a future society?
Well, of course, that's the main target of our focus, but we have to think about other things as well that aren't.
No, no, no, we actually don't.
We really don't.
Okay, okay.
No, we don't have to apply our intellectual energies to future potential scenarios that are extremely likely to occur.
No, look, if some advertiser, if some advertisement is, let's say they put some full frontal nude right next to a school, right, in a free society, I mean, what kind of negative publicity is this company going to get?
And how many boycotts are they going to experience?
I mean, it would destroy their brand.
No CEO of any company would say, yeah, let's put giant tits pointing at a school.
Well, daycare just makes the kids hungry, right?
But I mean, no company would do that because they'd say, well, that's really inappropriate and it's going to really upset the parents and it's going to freak out the kids.
We're going to get nothing but complaints and people are going to stop buying our product and they're going to boycott us.
Why?
Why would they do that?
And it's not a market we want anyway.
Yeah, okay.
So I don't see how the free market incentives would be.
Such that, why would anybody want to do that?
I mean, you can deal with all of this stuff in a perfectly voluntary manner.
If you do things as a corporation or as a business entity that are highly offensive to a significant portion of the population, well, you know, now, if, on the other hand, you say, hey, kids, let's go to the Amsterdam Red Light District as a school trip when you're in grade four, you know, okay, well, Is it the red light district's fault that the kids are like, whoa, what the?
I think I recognize that where I came from.
No, I think people would say, what the hell is wrong with the teacher organizing a trip to the red light district for kids in grade four?
That's not right.
That's not the way to go.
So these things can be dealt with in a perfectly voluntary manner and you don't need the government involved.
Well, you certainly make a good point, Hugh.
But we have this street in Warsaw, here in Warsaw, that's called John Paul II Street.
That's the name of the street, because we have a famous pop.
And on this, it's a big street, and everyone is constantly moving through it.
And on this street, there are particularly many, there are many, like, Broadels and similar places that are advertising themselves in a very bad manner, like putting the leaflets everywhere and the children are walking by and they pick up those leaflets.
What's this?
Well, of course, this is a complicated topic.
Have you ever been to a brothel?
No, no.
Okay.
I haven't either, obviously.
But, you know, the idea that where does someone have to be in their life that that's where they end up?
You know, paying someone for sex.
To be on the receiving end and to be on the delivery end.
Again, prostitution should be legal and so on.
But I think we can all agree that it would be nicer if it was not a paid transaction.
You know, of the two, it's not like I could cook at home or I could eat out, right?
So, the question is, okay, how does somebody end up in a situation where they feel insecure enough about their capacity to attract and keep a woman that they want to just go and pay?
For sex.
And again, I don't want to get into a whole prostitution debate.
Lord knows we had that years ago and it was very exciting.
But I'm wondering in a free society, I don't know the answer.
I don't, right?
Big complicated question, but I wonder in a free society, the degree to which there would be a paid sex trade.
I don't know.
I don't know because, again, we're talking about peaceful parenting and raising people with respect for themselves and raising people with good social skills and, you know, a very sort of K-based society with pair bonding and so on.
You know, I've only known a few people who've ever visited prostitutes and it's not...
It just doesn't seem to have been a very pleasant experience all around.
It's sad.
Well, I think there is that aspect to it.
I remember years ago, and this was overseas, talking to a guy who went to a prostitute.
And, you know, he was lonely.
And he went and he paid for the sex.
And then he tried chatting with her.
And she was like, look, I already took your money.
I'm not your girlfriend.
You know, what you're looking for, you're not going to get from me for 50 bucks.
And off she went.
Did this help cure his loneliness?
Why, no.
It really didn't.
And so, I think that, and again, I don't want to, this is just, and I don't want to get into all the stories, because they're pretty universally unpleasant or depressing.
Or, you know, another guy was, again, this is all, I don't know, mad travels overseas, but another guy was at a brothel, and he tried to touch the woman's breasts he was having sex with.
That was okay.
Then he tried to kiss her, and she's like, no, no, no, no.
No kissing.
Oh.
So, you know, just this, you know, don't do anything that, like, just don't.
It's a very rigid and controlled experience.
And, again, it's people's choices.
And, you know, I don't want to stand all Victorian and fuddy-duddy.
But in a free society, you know, like Lamar Odom, who I believe is a basketball player or the name of a Norse god.
I'm still trying to figure that one out.
But he goes to a brothel.
And he pays $75,000 for the full girlfriend experience.
The full girlfriend experience.
They're chatting with you.
They're just pretending to be your girlfriend.
But they are just pretending in the end.
Of course they are.
Of course they are.
And they're paid well because they're good at pretending.
But how much do you have to dislike yourself to say, I want to pay people $75,000 to pretend to like me?
It's kind of missing the point, right?
Well, and how...
Yeah, how...
How dissociated do you have to be to pay somebody $75,000 to be nice to you and then pretend that they're being nice to you?
Do you know what I mean?
Like how...
How crazy do you have to be?
Charlie Sheen, you know, apparently one of the ladies he was with took a picture of his, what do they call, retrovirals or something he was using to treat his HIV status.
She took a picture of his medicine after they'd had their sex and then she said, as far as I understand it, she said, okay, well, give me money or I'm going to publish this.
I'm going to give it to the papers, right?
I mean, I honestly don't even know what planet these people are living in that this is how they roll.
I mean, and the people that they're with.
And Charlie Sheen himself said, he said, you know, well, I had people in my inner circle and I trusted them and I told them about my diagnosis and they basically just turned around and shook me down for money.
And he seemed like really offended by this.
And I mean, I get it's offensive and all that, but holy crap.
I mean, you know, when you're paying $25,000 a pop for someone to spend a night with you, they don't like you $25,000 worth.
And if you're a good looking movie star...
Who's in pretty good shape and you still have to pay someone $25,000 then they don't like you $25,000 plus great hair plus good looking plus movie star plus famous and then if you like that's what you have to throw into the bucket for them to be level with you in terms of willing to spend time with you so again Controversial subject,
but I just wanted to point out, I don't know, in a free society, in a rational society, a peaceful parenting society, with all the interventions that society needs for these kinds of things, will there still be these kinds of situations?
To sort of go with this guy who's been on the show twice, I love this guy, Dr.
Gabor Maté, who talks about addiction and so on, will there be blow-your-brains-out Kind of heroin addicts in a free society where just about everyone is raised peacefully and rationally in a loving, resource-rich environment.
I don't think so.
Will there occasionally be people who will, you know, I don't even know if there'll be enough of a market for it to even exist.
So I don't know the degree to which, like, we've got this presentation...
Which talks about the warrior gene.
There's certain, I won't get into the details, certain genetics that are very predictive of increased aggression and criminality, but the gene is fundamentally activated by child abuse.
Without the child abuse, the gene basically has no effect.
Somebody who doesn't have that gene but experiences child abuse, eh, they're pretty much okay.
Somebody who has this gene and experiences child abuse, are almost 10 times more likely to become criminals.
So without child abuse, I mean this is the big hook at the beginning of the presentation, what if we had a way to reduce criminality by 90% that was perfectly legal and free?
Would you be interested?
Well, hopefully society would be.
So right off the bat, right off the bat, We can reduce this aspect of criminality 90%.
And that's just with not abusing the kids.
That's still with them in crappy schools and maybe being yelled at.
But that's just physical abuse triggers that reaction with these people.
And so would people still be aggressive if they were raised peacefully?
I don't know.
Wouldn't it be lovely to find out?
Well, we might in the future.
I hope so, man.
I'm certainly busting my butt to get us there.
Yeah, it's like the whole peaceful parenting thing.
Well, you don't really have to even watch your presentations.
It's enough to have some basic psychological knowledge about people, about children in particular, to know that the physical punishment It's no good if you want to raise your children to, like, have a good start in life, have a good future, to not become violent.
So, you know, that's why, to me, if a child is raised in a peaceful and positive and negotiated manner, without aggression, without violence, if they're not told scary stories about heaven and hell and jail and that they don't live in this Desperate, uncivil war of democratic manipulation and hysteria, will they grow up to want to play pornography to children?
Like, I just can't imagine that they would.
And so, if we deal with the parenting, I think that we've dealt with most of it.
Let's just see what happens afterwards.
And, I mean, if we can get bad behavior, criminal behavior...
Down to the level of lung cancer not caused by smoking.
If we want to reduce lung cancer, let's just focus on smoking.
Will there still be lung cancers afterwards?
Yes, there will be.
I don't know, like a couple of percentage point of people get lung cancer who never smoke.
Sorry, Andy Kaufman, bad luck for you, right?
But that is...
Let's deal with the smoking and then let's see what happens afterwards.
Yeah, so...
Okay, so in the end, do you think that These giant pollsters of nude ladies in the public are active violence, how do you call it?
Offense?
I have a tough time with visual stuff being the same as auditory stuff.
It's difficult, right?
Yeah, because auditory stuff is invasive, right?
I mean, if someone starts shooting a shotgun into the flower beds, whether you like it or not, you're there, right?
You're interfered with.
The auditory stuff is much more invasive than visual stuff.
But...
I think that the free market would deal very ably with people who violated general community standards to that degree.
And anybody, like, you simply wouldn't, you wouldn't be a CEO of somebody who had an advertising budget if you didn't understand that full frontal nudity facing a kindergarten is not the way to go.
Like, you know what I mean?
Like, I've worked with a lot of people in business, and I can't imagine anyone saying, you know, at a board meeting or, you know, you go to, and also the advertising company, they wouldn't want it either.
Like, if you were Coca-Cola and you said, you know, I want Kate Upton, you know, a slow-motion gif of her shaking her moneymakers in front of a kindergarten, and I'm going to pay you $100,000 to create this ad campaign...
You wouldn't want that.
The advertisers wouldn't want it.
And the people who made the poster space wouldn't want it.
So there at least is three layers.
Somebody's got to want to do it who's got a lot of money to spend.
Somebody's going to want to do the ads at the advertising agency who wants that money.
And somebody's got to be willing to put those ads up.
So you have layer upon layer, dozens and dozens of intelligent, skilled business people Anyone of whom can say, eh, bad idea, right?
I just, I can't imagine this kind of thing happening.
I mean, people do make gaffes when it comes to advertising and so on, but not those kinds of gaffes.
I just, I can't see that happening.
People are put into positions of authority in business where they get significant advertising and budgets because they're not idiots.
And only an idiot would think that's a good idea.
So I think that is kind of how it would work.
Like, To be a corporate executive, you need at least an IQ of 120, 130.
And I don't think it takes even an IQ of 85 to say that's not a good idea.
So I think it's not going to be a big deal.
I'm going to move on to the next caller, but thank you very much for your comments.
Alright, up next is Jace.
Jace wrote in and said, My question to Steph is this, what is your opinion on voting for the least bad person on the ballot?
Also on this topic, what is your advice to someone in a place like Australia, where voting is compulsory and enforceable by a hefty fine?
Well, hi Jace, how you doing?
Not bad, yourself?
Well, thanks.
Just to deal with the last one, obey the law, right?
I mean, if they force you to go vote, go vote.
I mean, I don't see what the point is in going to jail or, I mean, just go do what they say.
You know, I mean, they say pay your taxes.
I pay my taxes.
Got a family to raise.
I got a show to run and, you know, pay them off and go about your life.
So that's my, you know, I always cancel obeying the law.
And as far as the least bad option goes, well, that's something we can look at a little bit more philosophically, assuming that you have the choice about voting or not.
And you don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but who did you think was the least bad option in the last Canadian election?
Personally, I thought it was the Conservative Party, although when I got into the ballot box and noticed the Rhinoceros Party was back on the ballot, I was a little torn there.
Alright.
So, when you vote for someone, they don't know That you're voting for them as the least bad option.
Yes.
They take your vote as an endorsement of all their policies.
Okay.
Right?
Because there's no checklist.
Right, yeah.
Right?
You don't get a checklist which says, I want you to do negative things, right?
I don't want you to do more stuff.
I don't want to spend more money.
I want you to do negative things.
I want you to withhold or withdraw or minimize government spending or anything like that, right?
There is no...
There is no option.
And of course, if you're saying, well, I like this guy, I like Bob more than Doug, and so I'm going to vote for him.
I still hate them both, but I hate Doug a little bit less.
Doug doesn't know that you're voting just because you hate Bob a lot more.
He's going to be like, woohoo!
They love me!
They want me to do everything I promised, right?
He doesn't know that.
And of course, they'll make promises to you.
People, I won't go into all the truth about voting stuff, but they're in no way bound by those promises.
Yeah.
Right?
I mean, Stephen Harper used to be a...
I think he was in the Paul Ryan camp.
I think he used to be a fan of Ayn Rand, if I remember rightly.
Oh, is that so?
Okay.
Right?
I mean, this is not where things seem to be heading when it comes to a political democracy.
So, I think Paul Ryan had to walk back because of the atheism issue with Ayn Rand.
He had to walk back some of his respect for objectivism and so on.
So, you know, I mean, it's the media who's...
In so many ways in charge.
And so I, you know, you can go and vote and, you know, obviously it's fine.
I don't have any particular issue with it, yes or no.
I just want to make the case for it one way or the other.
But they're not going to say, well, I'm just the least hated guy and they want me to do as little as possible.
I mean, they approve my mandate.
I'm going in, baby.
I'm going in full tilt boogie.
So I think that's, I mean, there's lots of reasons, but that's sort of one of the One of the issues now I I do get like I kind of understand This argument and I I put it forward just to admit of course that it's complex, right?
So the argument goes something like this Obamacare is a disaster and if Mitt Romney had gotten into power Obamacare would have been much less likely or A lot of Americans don't want The Syrians To come into America from, obviously, the Civil War and the regions and Turkey and the camps and so on, right?
A lot of Americans now, if Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders gets in, they'll be welcomed with open arms and, you know, truckloads of welfare.
If Donald Trump gets in, they won't.
A lot of people in America are concerned that the European Judeo-Christian foundation of the society is kind of being deluged by people coming up from Mexico.
And...
If you get a leftist in, then there'll be more people coming in from Mexico.
And if you get Donald Trump in, and he does what he says, these are not always the same things, then he's going to act to not only stem that flow, but to reverse it as well.
And he says he's going to deport a lot of people and then set up turnstiles for them to come back over time.
So this is the complexity.
I don't know that we face this quite as much In Canada, right?
Because in Canada, you could say, okay, well, Justin Trudeau has made some noises about legalizing pot.
Now, to me, legalizing pot where there's still welfare?
Oh, man.
I don't know.
I'm not entirely sure.
Oh, my back hurts.
Right?
I don't know about that so much.
I mean, the war on drugs, I'm not obviously a fan of the initiation of force and so on, but I'm not sure that...
Ending the war on drugs without ending welfare is going to necessarily end up with the money.
Who knows?
This is a topic for another time.
This is the old problem that you face when you have the left versus the right.
They're basically the back and forth that soars through the legs of your freedom.
You think they're going for your leg irons.
No, they're just going for your leg irons.
So, if you vote for the left, you may get some more social freedoms, but you'll get fewer economic freedoms.
And if you vote for the right, you may get more economic freedoms, but you'll get fewer social freedoms.
Yeah, sort of the false dilemma there.
Yeah, so, of course, people on the left, if you vote for them, they think that you're voting for their economic policies.
And the people on the right, if you vote for them, they think you're voting for their social restriction policies.
That's because it's infinitely easier to expand government power than to contract it, right?
And so when you vote for someone, they think that you're for their big government programs, whether it's on the left with the welfare state or whether it's on the right with the military-industrial complex and all their social tyrannies and so on.
So whoever you vote for You're generally going to get more government, right?
I mean, this whole Tea Party thing, you don't hear that much about the Tea Party in the United States.
I think that was the last hope that Americans had for the Republican Party before bringing in the, you know, the weirdly inherited airstrike of the Donald Trump machine.
They were like, okay, we really want smaller government.
We really, really want smaller government.
Okay, let's do the Tea Party.
And, you know, as soon as the Tea Party guys got into power, and I've done shows on this before...
All you saw were their little piggy swirly tails as they knelt down and sucked at the same trough of government goodies that everyone else had before them.
And so the Tea Party was the small government Americans' last chance for the Republican Party to actually do something to reduce the size and power of government.
And they've completely given up, I believe, in general on the traditional Republican candidates or any existing Republican incumbents to do that job.
And so this is why people are just going to Donald Trump.
I mean, Donald Trump is their weapon against the betrayal of small government principles that the Republican Party...
So when you think about it, like all the people who put their time and energy and efforts, and it was, millions and millions and millions of dollars and countless hours and activism and signatures and all of that...
There's a reason why the top two guys in the Republican Party are both non-establishment non-politicians, Trump and Carson.
So you think of the amount of time and energy that small government people put into the Tea Party, taxed enough already in small government guys, which has, I don't know, been going on for...
Eight to ten years?
I don't know the exact time that it started.
Sorry, go ahead.
Did not a lot of sort of small government-minded Republicans, especially in the 2008 and 2012 elections, sort of support Ron Paul and a lot of his policies as well?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I mean, he drew his, because he'd run formally on the Libertarian ticket, and so he drew a lot of Libertarians into his fold as well.
So all of that effort, you know, I mean, I'm an empiricist.
I guess I still am.
I'm an entrepreneur and a businessman.
So I look at effort and results.
That's all.
You know, you can think of it as a drug trial.
We've got the drug to shrink the state.
And we're going to pour hundreds of millions of dollars and countless hours into getting this drug into the mouth of the state.
And then we did successfully, right?
I mean, Tea Party has did pretty well, and Republicans have been in control of significant portions of the government for quite a while now.
How's it working?
It's getting bigger.
Looks like the disease came back.
I mean, that's all.
It's as simple as that.
And I predicted this close to 10 years ago.
That political action was not going to work.
Dear God, almighty, you don't even know what it's like to know the truth, to speak the truth, and have...
Everyone mock and attack you for speaking the truth and then never circle back and say, hey, you bald Canadian bastard, you were right!
Close to 10 years ago.
Political action's not going to work, people.
We need to focus on peaceful parenting.
Focus on peaceful parenting.
Focus on peaceful parenting.
Forget all this stuff.
It's not going to work.
It's not going to get you what you want.
How many people are saying, gosh, you know, he was pretty correct about all of that.
Nope!
Nope!
Let's just try it again.
Something else.
Gary Johnson, right?
I mean, I don't know.
I don't know the degree to which libertarians are actually that empirical.
Anyway, it's neither here nor there at the moment.
Like, I had a debate with Michael Badnarik in 2009, I think it was, in Philadelphia at a university.
It was a good, long debate.
I'm sorry we didn't get the good video for it.
But...
Michael Batnarek has been, I think, a couple of times presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party.
And he is an expert, as far as I understand it, on the Constitution.
He gives like a nine-hour course on the Constitution and so on.
And he was their front and center guy for a long time.
And I like Mike.
I like Mike.
And we've had very positive interactions over the years.
And, you know, I was glad that his health seems to have gone back in the right direction and all that.
But the reality is that, of course, I put out my series on Ron Paul saying, okay, you can run to politics and hope that's going to save you, but it's not going to work.
And here's all the other things we can do instead that you personally have control and authority over.
This is back in the red room, back in the day, right?
Lo, those many moons ago.
And...
Was I right?
Yeah.
Yeah, I was right.
I was...
As right as I expected, which is to say I was more right than anyone thought.
Right as I expected.
And...
Is anybody circling back?
Well, no, because this is...
It's a magical dance called politics that they do to avoid bringing the real ethics into their own personal lives.
If I can get a politician to do it, then I don't have to confront people with the against me argument or any of that kind of stuff.
And...
What do you mean by the against me argument?
Oh, the against me argument, that was, I think, my first speech in New Hampshire.
It was my first big speech in 2008 or early 2000.
I think it was early 2009.
I gave a speech in New Hampshire.
The against me argument is basically the argument that if you support the state, then you support me going to jail for disobeying your preferences.
You support the use of violence against me.
It's personal, and it's real, right?
Because the violence of the state remains hidden in propaganda and conformity, and you make it real to people, and you've got to look them in the eye and say, do you support the use of violence against me if I disobey what you consider to be the social good, right?
I prefer charity.
You prefer taxation.
Do I have the right to disagree with you without being thrown in jail?
Now, I don't know if that's a basic sociopath test.
It kind of seems that way, because if somebody is willing to look into jail, oh, yeah, you know, you better give money to the welfare state, or I support you being thrown into jail, right?
Well, that's going to make the turkey go down a little bit sideways, right?
And the argument, again, the analogy that I made is that the government, of course, exists to exercise power.
It exists to grow.
I mean, that's its basic function, is to buy more votes, to gain more allegiance, to make more people dependent on it.
The government is a drug dealer which doles out an addictive substance called fiat currency.
Which steals the future health of the economy in the same way that all dangerous drugs steal the future health of the individual.
That's what the government does.
That's what it's all about.
And the idea that you're going to go and take it over and turn it against its fundamental end.
It's like saying, well, there's a KKK chapter.
I'm going to go and infiltrate it, get in charge, and then turn it into a pro-black charity.
I mean, it's not...
I'm going to go into the gay student club in my college and make them homophobes.
That's not how change works in society.
You don't try and hijack an existing institution and turn it entirely against its whole purpose.
I mean, it's not...
Why don't you just do peaceful parenting and confront people in your life about the evils that they support?
No!
And I get it.
That's difficult.
You know, I've lost friendships over it and it is...
It is a challenge for sure.
I guess, I don't know if I'm just smart enough or okay enough or whatever to just recognize that the amount of suffering that occurs now if we do this stuff is a whole lot less than the amount of suffering that's going to occur in the future, right?
You know, this is just something that, I don't know, cold climate gene pools kind of get.
You know, if you eat your seed crop, you won't be hungry over the winter, but you're dead come next fall, right?
So a little pain now Versus a lot of pain later is kind of the balance, right?
And it certainly is a lot easier to have challenging conversations with family and friends about the violence that they may or may not support against you than it is to try and survive in an increasingly fractious and authoritarian state.
You know, and I think of these I mean, I think of all the people In the European slash Middle Eastern conflict.
You know, if the people who were anti-war, like anti-intervention, if they had threatened to ostracize and dissociate from people who continued to support the war, maybe, just maybe, they would have provoked enough of a social discussion that the war could have ended.
I don't know.
It's possible.
And it certainly has not been roundly tried.
Now, if that had occurred, then the blowback, I would argue, would be significantly diminished.
Of course, now enough damage has been done that it's going to be a generation or two, even if the war stopped now, enough damage has been done.
But maybe that would have happened.
Maybe that would have happened.
Maybe if the people who are skeptical of mass Muslim migration into Paris, if they hadn't been screamed down as racists and so on by xenophobes or whatever, far-rights, crazy Nazis or whatever, maybe a lot of people last Friday would have made it to see last Saturday.
I mean, we either...
Take some social discomfort now or we take a lot of discomfort later.
Yay, verily.
Unto death itself.
And I'm the kind of guy who's like, I'll go to the dentist rather than wait for the toothache.
You know, every time I go to the dentist, I'm like, wow, your teeth are great.
It's like, well, yeah.
Because I have this obsessive, I'm going to floss, and I use the water pick, and I brush, and I use the Listerine.
I've got to take care of the chompers.
I've still got my wisdom teeth.
I don't want them growing out sideways.
I'm like a bore.
Well, that's B-O-A-R rather than B-O-R-E, which some people still find me anyway.
But yeah, a well-organized campaign.
Of attack.
And we see this from the left.
Just learn from the left.
If the left is winning, you learn from the left.
And the left provoke ostracism all the time.
The left provoke ostracism all the time.
They try to isolate and segregate and turn people against other people all the time.
And they're willing to go to the wall for their values.
They're willing to smash relationships, destroy the very society that they live in, you know.
And I hate to say it, but you know.
If you want to do something that works, look at something that's working.
And, you know, the left screams racism or sexism or homophobe or Islamophobe.
I mean, they're designed to create social conflict and turn people against people.
And, you know, like this guy, Wolf, who just quit from the University of Missouri, the guy in charge who was facing these hunger strikes and so on.
Why did he quit?
He quit because he knew that the media was going to report him as an unrepentant racist and destroy his life, his reputation, his career, and just, you know, relentlessly devour, you know, like a snake on an ostrich egg, his entire being.
So he was probably going to lose anyway.
I mean, just ask Officer Wilson or other people where the media just relentlessly was cannibals.
I mean, it's like, you know, throwing somebody with a certain kind of integrity into the media.
It's like throwing a bound cow into the Amazon where the Piranha are.
I mean, it's like a whole bunch of white water and then some bones.
And so, yeah, I mean, so they very much around this kind of attack.
And I'm not saying attack or anything like that, but, you know, you need to, you know, it's like those old Invisible Man movies where you got to shake the talcum out so people can even see the Invisible Man in the room.
Well, I'm...
It gives me argument it's that talcum.
Sorry?
I'm too young to know what those are, so...
I'm sorry, what?
Are you speaking to my ear horn?
Oh, sorry.
No, I'm just kidding, I'm kidding.
So does that help at all?
Yeah, yeah, I think so.
I kind of thought of another question here.
So do you see sort of the end of government coming about sort of quickly or slowly through individual choices?
Well, it's up to everyone.
I mean, it's not up to me.
I mean, I still focus on the primacy of individual choice.
You know, if everyone who listened to this began to talk about the against me argument resolutely with the people around them, then the reality of state coercion would be visible from space.
It would be impossible to miss it.
And...
That's why I make these cases, because it comes down to individual choice and individual conscience.
And I can't control that.
All I can do is make the very best case that I can, and then obviously it's up to people to decide for themselves.
And if people say, well, you know, I don't want to make my social functions awkward, and, you know, maybe I'll do it in a while, or maybe I'll just read some more up about the Federal Reserve or whatever it is.
Okay, well, then it's going to take a long time.
And if people don't do that, sorry, if people decide to bring up these topics and these conversations with people, then, you know, it's something that Bill Maher talks about.
He's a liberal, and liberals drive him nuts, which is, you know, I mean, oh, we're supposed to be so tolerant, but should we be tolerant of people who are intolerant?
And these are basic questions that need to be addressed.
And people will either choose to address them or they want.
It comes down to individual choice.
And, you know, I think that when you don't have knowledge, you don't have choices.
Like, if you don't have antibiotics, then you can't treat someone with antibiotics, right?
So, I don't think that...
It's easy to make these choices or even possible to make these choices in the absence of knowledge.
But everybody who's heard about the against me argument or who've heard about my comments about Ron Paul or political action and so on, they can't claim ignorance.
And they certainly can't claim that I was wrong.
I would have loved to have been proven wrong about all of that.
Dear God!
I mean, wouldn't it have been wonderful to be proven wrong about all of that?
Wouldn't it have been wonderful if I had been talking out of my ass and that, you know, Ron Paul had swept into the presidency and dismantled the Fed and ended aggressive foreign policy and reduced government spending and eliminated the welfare state?
And like, if he had done that, if that had been possible, I mean, God, I would love to be wrong.
I would love to have been proven wrong.
I knew it wasn't going to be proven wrong, and history has certainly borne me out.
I would love to have been proven wrong.
But peaceful parenting and the against me, and if you don't want to do the against me argument, at least go with peaceful parenting.
At least talk to the people around you and tell them that, you know, show them the truth about spanking, get the facts, make the case, just go make the case.
If you find it too controversial to talk about the against me argument, at least go and talk to people about the need to reason with and negotiate with their children to not aggress against their children.
At least do that.
And if you're not willing to do that, then accept that you're siding with the enemy.
And you're cranking the handle that is flushing the remnants of our freedom down the toilet of history.
I mean, that's all.
I just want people to be honest with themselves.
If you don't have reasonable arguments against what I'm saying, and if you still think that political action is going to solve everything, well, then you have enough knowledge, you know better.
And it's just a pose for you, then.
It's like a hobby.
Just be honest.
Does that help at all?
Yeah, I think it does.
All right.
Thank you, man.
I appreciate that.
And let's do Uno von Mori Collier.
Thanks for having me on.
All right.
Well, up next is John.
John wrote in and said, Could the rise of Donald Trump's popularity be a sign of a tendency towards populism in the United States?
I asked the question because I have seen, both historically and firsthand, the same happen in other countries and in my own as well.
That's from John.
Hey, John.
How are you doing?
Oh, hello there, Stefan.
Glad to be back at the show.
Nice to chat with you again.
And also, I forgot to say this on the last show that I just found your program and what you are doing, and Michael as well, pretty fantastic job.
A bit nervous and forgot to say that.
Well, I appreciate that.
And pretty fantastic is very kind.
Obviously, Mike brings the fantastic.
I bring the pretty.
So I appreciate that.
It's very, very kind.
So could the rise of Donald Trump's popularity be a sign of a tendency towards populism in the United States?
I don't know because I don't know what you mean by populism.
Yeah, I know.
The concept's a bit firm.
It's hard.
You have to define what you're saying.
Well, I think I used the first definition that comes from the dictionary.
I think it works just fine for the situation.
Or I could just say what definition I'm using, if that's all right.
Sure.
All right.
When I'm talking about populism, I'm...
I mentioned a political or intellectual movement that the danger...
Sorry, it's been a while since I've spoken in English.
No, you're doing well.
Doing a lot better than if we switched to your language.
Yeah, I know.
Portuguese is not the easiest one to get to it.
But anyway.
Populism refers to working class activism, appeal to the common person rather than according to the traditional party or partisan ideologies.
Unorthodox solutions, policies, I would say an outsider to the political establishment is what I'm referring at the start to populism.
Yeah, but I don't know that saying, let's say that it is a sign of a tendency towards populism.
I don't think that answers anything because then we have to say, well, why is there a tendency towards populism?
Yes, and I want to get to that point too.
I say that because, well, first I'd like to mention that, well, here in Brazil we had two major populist governments that, one in the past, two in the 30s, and one where I'm having to deal with it, still dealing with it.
But anyway, why I think there's a tendency to that, because I have noticed that one of the things that I think the American public has shown support for Trump It's because they currently have the stakes for the political establishment, as well as for political correctness behavior, and America is losing its status as the most powerful nation on Earth.
And the current situation, the current government isn't doing anything to change that at all.
So, well, I think there is...
Being said that, I think they're looking for someone who is independent, who speaks his mind, and he does that really well, actually.
Well, I mean, again, I'm not sure that we're really getting to anything that's core.
You know, he's independent and he speaks his mind.
I mean...
But about what?
I mean, some crazy street preacher is independent and speaks his mind, but he doesn't get the kind of popularity.
There are particular issues that Donald Trump is touching into that are of great concern to a significant number of Americans.
And so it's, you know, populism.
Why is he popular?
And is he an outsider?
And he speaks his mind and he takes on the media.
But about what?
Right.
That's the question, I think, around Donald Trump.
What is he supplying that other candidates are not supplying that is fueling his popularity?
Thank you.
Well, from what I've noticed, like I said, maybe it happened, but the fact that most politicians right now are very...
American politicians, for the record, are very bland.
They don't seem to offer anything at all.
They're always stitched to assertable PC behavior as well.
And the fact, I mean, America is on the late Roman Empire thing, not really on the boom or going down a slight.
I think people notice that and see him as a chance for change, I suppose.
Well, again, you know, he's offering a chance for change.
I mean, again, I feel like we're just circling around the elephant in the room, so to speak, and I don't know if you even know what it is, but this idea that he's, you know, outside the party system, he's independent, he speaks his mind, he offers change, and these could be applied to just about every claim that every politician makes, and we're not talking about the core issue.
What was it that first made Donald Trump explode into the media scene as a politician?
Well, let me think.
What's the comment he made that people thought the media thought was racist?
That they weren't at all, but I mean, the media fell on that, like a vulture on a corpse.
He talked about the higher crime rates of immigrants.
Yeah, that's true.
And that is indisputable as far as these things can be measured.
That he talked about the higher crime rates of immigrants.
And I don't know if he has or hasn't talked about the higher welfare consumption of immigrants.
Particularly, you know, not people who've come over from Scandinavia, right?
And so he talked about problems with immigration in America.
And that is something...
That the general population as a whole in America has been desperate and dying to talk about for about 40 years.
And so there are entire political advocacy groups in the United States where all they do is talk about the statistical dangers of mass immigration from third world countries.
The higher welfare consumption, the higher criminality, the higher costs as a whole.
The fact that the immigrants from Mexico and other places in Central and Southern America almost exclusively vote Democrat.
The fact that the country is being displaced by cheating, so to speak.
The Democrats are just importing people who will vote for them in return for free government goodies.
And so the fact is that America until the 1960s, until the mid-1960s, America was like a 97% white European country.
And I know this sounds all like, oh, my God, why he's talking about white European and so racist.
It's a fact.
It's a fact.
I mean, outside of the black population, right?
But it was an overwhelmingly white, largely Protestant European Christian population.
Now, in 1965, as we know, Ted Kennedy sponsored a bill that changed the rules so that far fewer immigrants came from Europe and far more immigrants came from third world countries.
And those immigrants have very high crime rates.
They have lower IQ scores than the general population.
You can say, oh, well, you see, it's because they...
Had really bad upbringings and were deprived of X, Y, and Z in their home countries and so on.
No, sadly, that is not the case because this lower IQ reality persists over generations, right?
First generation, lower IQ. Second generation, slightly higher IQ. Doesn't change after that.
So whether it's cultural or genetic, it doesn't really matter.
It's not changing.
America was founded on the assumption that everybody would have largely an IQ of 100, at least those people who came from Europe.
And that's where Europeans kind of end up on the IQ scale.
And bringing in lower IQ people fundamentally changes the character of the country.
And so that reality...
That the character of America is fundamentally changing underfoot, with no consultation from the public at all.
And that is a basic reality.
Now, whether we agree with it or not, whether we like it or not, the reality is that the majority of white Europeans in America do not want to live in Hispanic or black neighborhoods.
And given the crime rates and given the illegitimacy rates and given the welfare rates and all of that, it's hard to say, okay, you should, right?
And certainly the politicians who are in favor of this stuff generally don't, right?
According to a recent study by the Center for Immigration Study, 62% of households headed by an illegal immigrant participated in at least one welfare program in 2012, compared to 49% of legal immigrant-headed households and 30% of native-headed households.
And those native-headed households, of course, could be anchor babies who grew up and so on, but it is more than twice the welfare consumption is occurring for illegal immigrant households as compared to native-headed households.
So where's the benefit?
They're driving down wages for lower-skilled Americans because when you get this endless sea of low-skilled people coming in, and a lot of them work, of course, It drives down wages.
All other things being equal, increased supply drives down the price of something.
And increased supply of low-skilled workers means lower wages for these workers.
And we talked more about this IQ stuff in our interview with Dr.
Jason Richwine, which you can find on this channel.
Richwine, spelt exactly like the highfalutin way you'd expect.
Big business, of course, loves these H-1B visas.
The big business loves the H-1B visas and they love the immigrants because it means they don't have to spend money mechanizing and they don't have to pay higher wages.
And the H-1B visas, you know, you get pretty high skilled employees coming in and they don't have a lot of negotiation power because the H-1B visa is tied to some degree to their existing job.
So they don't have a lot of negotiating power.
They become just, you know, 24-7 code monkeys who you basically just have to, you know, give them an assful of jolt for them to just keep going for another two weeks.
The media is not threatened by the immigrants, right?
I mean, as someone has pointed out, If a whole bunch of English-speaking reporters were coming swarming across the border and taking jobs away from New York Times reporters, they might have a different view of it.
But these supposed lefties who care so much about the working class and lower-skilled people in the economy are letting huge amounts of people come in and driving down wages.
Now, I don't want to get into this libertarian, open borders, closed borders kind of thing.
I'm simply talking about the economic reality of it.
It's driving up taxes.
It's reducing the quality of education because when you get a bunch of IQ85 kids in a classroom situation where they don't even speak the native language, you are driving down the quality of education that the native population can expect to receive, which isn't that high to begin with because it's a government system. you are driving down the quality of education that the But you bring all this stuff in and it gets even worse.
So you've got more crime.
Again, not everyone, but, you know, in general, statistically, you've got higher welfare consumption.
You have more crime.
You have higher taxes and you have cheat votes for Democrats.
And you have a non-European free market based Judeo-Christian group.
Greco-Roman culture coming in.
And that's not great.
You know, people talk about this exploitation, like some seven-year-old kid is making a t-shirt in India and everybody freaks out, but some 70-year-old Hispanic guy working in a Farmers field for 12 hours for small wages, apparently that doesn't bother people that much.
So, sorry, you were going to say?
I'd just like to say they're also importing voters, like using welfare to buy votes, on that case for the Democratic Party, right?
Yeah, and look, I mean, for a lot of people who want kids and they say, well, my taxes are too high and I can't afford houses and I can't, you know, I can't get my life started.
And then they look over and they see a bunch of people on welfare who are having, you know, four or five kids a pop.
That's kind of frustrating because there's a demographic shift in there as well.
You know, I mean, society, I think as a whole, generally benefits when there's a free market for a variety of reasons, but more so because smarter people can afford more kids, which helps improve intelligence overall.
Again, whether you think it's environmental or genetic, it's obviously some combination of the two, doesn't particularly matter.
But the dysgenics of the welfare state means that you take resources from highly intelligent people and you give them to less intelligent people or at least people who are making less wise decisions and you pay them to breed.
And that is very much eugenics.
You start talking about the welfare state as eugenics and people are like, wait, that's Nazi?
It's like, well, I don't know about Nazi, but definitely you are affecting the genetic makeup of the population as a whole.
And if you look at The Jewish population around the world, about 600-700 years ago, they started to really focus on marrying for intelligence, and they got basically a standard deviation and a bit up in terms of intelligence just in a couple of hundred years.
And wouldn't it be great if we had a society that focused on the, that's a very long-term view, but it's a very important aspect of things.
And now I'm not saying, of course, that the American public knows these issues because, of course, the generally leftist media wants to keep any knowledge of any intrinsic differences between cultures or ethnicities far away from the general public for their own nefarious reasons.
But the American public, you know, people like their own tribes, you know.
You know, I don't know why this needs to be said.
People in general, we're a tribal species.
You know, I saw this picture the other day of, a picture of Ireland.
And it was some, I think it was some place in Dublin where, you know, all there were, it's like, okay, meanwhile in Somalia, because it was just a bunch of Somalis around, right?
Some blacks from Africa.
That's all you could see.
Meanwhile in Somalia, oh wait, that's Ireland, or whatever, right?
I mean, there's this fundamental confusion.
Nobody knows the magic secret sauce to get different ethnicities to work really well together.
Look, we all have the ideal, and we all grew up with the ideal of multiculturalism, and it's great, and everybody can work together, and it's kumbaya, and we can eat each other's foods, and you can introduce white people to spicy food, and non-white people into bland food.
We're going to have this wonderful, and it's a lovely thought, You know, it's a lovely thought.
It's entirely unbiological.
In fact, it's so unbiological it's actually anti-scientific.
Because tribes evolve and organisms succeed by having in-group preferences, genetically.
Sorry.
I mean, if you want everyone to suddenly forego any in-group preferences, you're basically saying to people, you parents should be completely indifferent as to saving your own child or the child of a stranger.
Two kids are drowning, and you flip a coin, you have no preference for your own kid versus other people's kids.
Now, anybody who made that case would simply be insane.
Of course you care about other people's kids, but you care about your own kids more.
Why?
Because biology, because genetics, because evolution, because reality.
And so people care about their own tribes and there's nothing wrong with that.
It's just the reality that kind of puts multiculturalism at fault.
You know, when you see a black politician get into power, he appoints a whole bunch of black people to positions of power because they have an in-group preference.
When you see women dealing with each other, they generally have an in-group female preference.
And when you see Hispanics dealing with each other, they, you know, you have an in-group, you probably have it with Portuguese, you meet a Portuguese person overseas and you want to go and mix it up and so on.
But, you know, there's generally a kind of in-group preference that is a biological imperative and the only reason why evolution could conceivably work, right?
There's just no other possible way that it could work.
Now, this reality, whether you like it or not, is a challenge to the doctrine, which is in fact more of a religion now that evidence keeps rolling in.
It is a challenge to the religious superstition of pure egalitarianism, multiculturalism.
And the data is very solid, Mike.
I know we've done this before, but you give me a couple of highlights.
The data is very solid and researchers have been studying multiculturalism over and over from 17,000 different angles, all trying to find the value of multiculturalism in a particular society.
And they, you know, one guy, he spent half his career just trying to find some way to work the data on multiculturalism.
To show multiculturalism as a positive.
And by that I don't mean, well, you know, you don't listen to any...
You don't listen to Natasha Atlas and, you know, you don't eat couscous and all that kind of stuff.
But it is just...
It's terrible.
Multiculturalism as a whole reduces social trust, reduces social cohesion.
And it even reduces social cohesion for similar groups, right?
So if you have a bunch of Indians who move in with a bunch of Chinese...
It reduces social trust even among the Indians, right?
Even among themselves.
It's almost impossible, at least I've not found, you know, outside of food and music, it's impossible to find any cohesive benefits for multiculturalism that are worth the cost, right?
That are worth the cost.
And that is a big challenge.
And until that problem is solved, Until someone can come up with the magic source that doesn't just involve shaming white people, which doesn't really do anything other than tie into Catholic history.
Until someone can come up with the magic source that deals with significant challenges of different ethnicities trying to live together, which is not working.
You know, it's not working in the way that was promised.
And this doesn't mean, of course, that I have friends with different ethnicities and different cultural backgrounds, and so it doesn't mean individually.
As a whole, in society as a whole, it doesn't work.
It doesn't work.
And until we can solve that problem, Donald Trump is going to remain popular.
Because Donald Trump is saying, whoa, something's not working here.
Now, it's working for the Democrats because they get free votes.
They gave up trying to appeal I mean, in the 60s was the end of the fantasy that Stalin was a good guy, right?
So they lost the argument in the 1960s.
The Democrats and the leftists were on their way out, so they decided to cheat.
They couldn't win the intellectual argument anymore, particularly with Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon and the stuff that came out with Nikita Khrushchev talking about how evil Stalin was.
They lost the argument in the 60s, so they had to turn to stuffing the ballots with Imported people that they didn't have to convince but only bribe, right?
So it's one of the great, horrendous intellectual betrayals of a culture and a society and an ethic of limited government and pro-freedom that has ever occurred in the history of mankind.
And so, you know, we can talk populism, we can talk all of it, but the reality is that there are people who are outside Of the politically correct hysteria of leftist academic indoctrination, which is to say academics, right?
The leftists say that they're all into multiculturalism, which is total bullshit, because they don't ever hire people from the right to come and join them and culturally enrich their conversations, right?
All they do is hire photocopied hysterical leftists just like themselves.
I mean, the idea that the left is into multiculturalism is completely insane.
You know, north of 90% of Washington journalists vote Democrat.
Do you think that they're saying, well, you know, we've got to balance this out.
We've got to get a whole bunch more Republicans in here because we're not diverse enough, right?
I mean, they don't care at all about diversity.
They want this photocopied monomania of leftist prejudice.
That's all they care about.
It's the same thing with academia.
When was the last time you saw a really leftist bunch of academics say, whoa, whoa, whoa, we can't hire another leftist.
God, we've already got enough of those.
Let's hire some good old Republicans.
Let's get some Tea Party intellectuals in here.
Because we're just not there.
We're just not there in terms of equality.
No, they're like, a Republican?
Are you kidding me?
They're morons.
Why do we want those in here?
Good heavens.
Good heavens.
They don't even know how long a teabag should stay in the tea, for heaven's sakes.
And they have funny ideas about evolution, that somehow ethnicities that are separated by 50 or 100,000 years suddenly end up somehow different.
And they keep bringing up these highly inconvenient facts, these horrible writers.
I mean, they bring up these highly, highly inconvenient facts, like the fact that the further that human populations live from the equator, the bigger their brains.
I mean, okay, it's Oxford University that did the study.
And they measured the eye socket and brain volume from a variety of skulls dating from the 1800s.
Twelve different populations from across the globe.
The volume of the eye sockets and brain cavities were plotted against the latitude of the central point of each individual's country of origin.
Researchers found that the size of both the brain and the eyes could be directly linked to the latitude of the country from which the individual came.
Because it turns out you need to be a little smarter to deal with six months of bloody winter in the world.
Thank you.
And so they have no interest in bringing alternative perspectives.
Just one thing, they also call everyone else an elitist.
They're complete elitist because the common man in America is not a leftist.
Same here in Brazil.
The only left is on the media, academia and politics.
Most of the population, I would say like 80 to 90, are like conservatives with tendencies towards free market.
But there's no such thing as a world-class leftist.
It's rare.
It's rare.
I mean, there are a few.
I'm thinking Howard Zinn for one.
And we've got John Enten, Ian Tine.
J-O-N-E-N-T-I-N-E. We did an interview with him.
Well, he pointed out, like, okay, so there are differences between the races.
Whites and West Africans, they differ in their proportions of body fat.
They differ in the width of their hips.
They differ in the thickness of thighs.
They differ in bone density, which is why you don't get as many black swimmers, because their bones are very heavy.
They're different in the proportion of fast and slow twitch muscles.
Even East and West Africans differ in important ways.
That's why they excel at different sports.
Black people reach sexual maturity earlier than white people, who reach sexual maturity earlier than Asian people.
By age 12, 19% of black girls had full development of breasts and pubic hair, where only 2% of white girls do.
Black American women menstruate at an earlier age than white women.
The distribution of the common blood types is different from race to race.
There are some rare types that are unique to certain races.
Only blacks have U-negative blood.
Only whites have Val-negative or Nan-negative blood.
And blacks and whites and Asians, they have twinning rates at very different rates.
Blacks have many more twins than Asians, like multiple times more.
Different number of vertebrae, different skull sizes, different IQs.
I mean, average gestational period development of black babies is far faster than white babies, which is far faster than Asian babies.
I mean, there are differences.
This doesn't mean we can't get along.
It doesn't mean we can't work together.
It doesn't mean we can't enjoy each other's company.
And there's, of course, much more that unites us in many ways than divides us.
But nonetheless, we are a tribal species and we are instinctively drawn to promote our closest genetic proximity.
And anybody who denies that just has to go back to biology 101.
Genetics simply can't work without proximate genetic preference or preferences for proximate genetics.
And again, if you were a doctor who pretended there were no medical differences between the races, you'd get sued for malpractice.
I mean, it doesn't work, right?
There are Jews who are susceptible to particular diseases.
There is twice the rate of prostate cancer among blacks, which has been linked to higher testosterone among blacks.
There are wide varieties of differences in medical requirements and treatments and susceptibilities between the races.
And of course, I mean, how could you separate populations by 50 to 100,000 or more years, expose them to wildly different climates and requirements and have one be hunter-gatherers and some be farmers and some farm barley and some farm rice, which is incredibly difficult, and think that over that 50 to 100,000 years, there'd be absolutely no change in any of the genetics of Outside of the external obvious characteristics and so on.
So, that having been said, the question of whether we can jam different ethnicities into the same geographical area and expect a very functioning and positive society.
See, that is really a fundamental question.
That is a fundamental question.
Because there's sort of a known quantity, and this is the case I made in the, what pisses me off about the European migrants.
there's a known quantity.
So if you're in France and some Swedes come in, some sort of white Swedes come in, you kind of know what you're going to get.
And you're going to get a population that's going to blend into the French population, certainly within a generation.
They're going to be roughly the same IQ.
There's going to be a cultural history and a cultural compatibility there.
Right.
And, you know, if you look at the majority of immigrants into America throughout the 19th and early part of the 20th century, mostly European.
And they blend in, you know, the Irish blend in, the Italians blend in, and the Portuguese, I'm sure, blend in and so on.
And the Eastern Europeans, constant problem.
No, I'm kidding.
That's just for stallion.
But...
So you have that choice and you can have people come in who historically are going to blend in and who historically come from, you know, the same kind of genetic stock and the same kind of cultural history and all that kind of stuff, right?
Or you can get a bunch of people who don't generally assimilate, who have different genetic histories, who have different levels of IQ and an entirely different set of cultural baggage and history.
And the question is, which do you want?
Now, I know what would happen in a free society.
And we can talk about that at no particular point getting into it now because it's not the situation that we're facing.
But there is a huge fundamental question, which is, how is America's massive experiment in race relations going?
You know, what is the lunchroom test, right?
I mean, when you don't force people, force different ethnicities to live together in prison, what happens in prison?
What happens in churches?
People generally go towards their own particular ethnicity.
Now, I think, let me be clear about this.
I don't think that the genetic aspect is foundational.
It certainly is there, and it's very real.
But I think that The degree of hysteria about race relations that is constantly being pimped, the amount of race baiting that's being pimped largely by the left, has made race such a huge issue in American society that, I mean, I don't even know what to say about it anymore.
I think that it would have fallen out a lot better and a lot more relaxed if the free market had been able to take care of it and if the government hadn't been funding various racially focused groups and the affirmative action and the welfare state wasn't being so highly disproportionately used.
By blacks and so on, then I think a lot of this stuff would have come together and racial tensions would have been a lot lower.
Racial harmony is just another goddamn government program, which means you're going to get racial strife and disharmony as a result of the government's commitment to racial harmony.
And so the reason you can say populism and things like that, and I don't obviously have the complete answer.
I may not even have a good answer.
But my answer, for better or for worse, is this.
That if you want to understand why America...
It's because America has had 400 years of racial tensions.
And are they getting better?
Or are they getting worse?
Well, you could make cases for a lot of different answers to that, but it certainly doesn't seem like That race is about to be solved or anything like that or where people can just look at each other without seeing race and without seeing hysteria and without seeing institutionalized racism and like this stuff has been ginned up so much that I think it's pretty impossible to just have like you can't have an honest conversation about race in America unless you're willing to just say I'm bad because I'm white or whatever it's boring stuff and
so the reason I think why Donald Trump is popular is that there are a lot of people saying I don't know.
I don't know.
And this isn't just whites.
Black people are saying it too.
Like, ah.
I mean, Hispanics are saying there's significant support for Trump among Hispanics because Hispanics are saying, we didn't leave Mexico to have it follow us here, you know, because...
And the blacks are like, I don't know that I want a huge amount of illegal immigrants or illegal immigrants pouring in from Mexico, driving down the wages of black youths.
So, again, it's not sort of a white or black issue.
There's a huge question that is hanging over the entire world.
Well, it's not hanging over Japan, and it's not hanging over the Middle East, but it's hanging over Europe and North America.
And that question is, and that question is, Can we live together?
Can different ethnicities live together when government is in charge of them getting along?
Who knows?
In a free society, lots of different ways that it might work.
But right now, the evidence is saying that it is not advantageous for different ethnicities to attempt to jostle together under the same, right now, right, with the government being in charge of everyone getting along.
Now, again, I go back to separation of church and state, where you simply look at ethnicity.
We need a separation of ethnicity and state, right?
Because when there was no separation of church and state, all of the various religions in post-Catholic Protestant Christendom, right after Martin Luther in the 16th century—let's get that wrong— After Martin Luther nailed his 94 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg and began to attack the indulgences and other forms of corruption within the Catholic Church,
when there was no separation of church and state, every single religion was trying to grab control of the state to impose It's version of Christianity on everyone else by force and after you know a couple hundred years of religious warfare They said whoa everybody back to their corners.
Let's separate the church and state we need to separate Ethnicity in the state we need to have truly race race blind Policies no affirmative action and nothing which disproportionately benefits or punishes any particular race.
This all has to stop This all has to stop Because right now, because the government has so much power to redistribute income and because there's in-group preferences we have where we used to have religions trying to take over the state, we now have various ethnicities trying to take over the state to impose or get resources or bludgeon other people or whatever.
And don't even get me started on gender.
It's sort of in a similar kind of situation.
I'll agree.
Could that make a few points, though?
Let me just finish up and then it's all yours.
And I appreciate your indulgence in this lengthy bit.
But, you know, I really want people to sort of understand at least what I think is statistically going on.
So people are like, you know, we're just marching ahead like there are no problems with a multi-ethnic society.
Or we're just marching on like there's no problems with multicultural society.
And the evidence is the opposite.
The evidence is that the more multiculturalism, the more problems.
The more race mixing, the more tensions.
Again, this is just the data.
People can get mad at me all they want, but just look it up for yourself.
We'll put some links below in the show.
This is the data.
And people kind of know it in their gut.
People know it in their gut.
Now, until we can find a way to solve it, I think the solution is a free society, but that's neither here nor there right now.
That's not imminent.
Until that problem is solved, Trump is going to be interesting to people because Trump is saying there's a problem.
And Trump statistically is right that there is a problem.
And so as far as populism goes, is the appeal in populism and so on?
No, I think he's reflecting a basic reality that there are significant challenges I'm not making them up, right?
I'm not forcing this on society.
This is just the way that things are unfolding.
And he's saying we've got problems.
And until we know how to deal with these problems, I don't think we want to keep adding to them.
And I think that's why he's popular.
Yeah, diversity and social trust.
Just do a search for that on Google.
And, you know, you'll be as shocked as I was when I first read this.
I mean, I was a committed multicultural advocate for most of my youth, certainly up until my 40s.
And, boy, when you look at the data, I mean, it's horrible.
It's like taking this giant Band-Aid off your brain.
I think it was Milton Friedman.
He was saying, why is crime so high in America and so low in Scandinavia?
And what he said was, well, crime is very low for Scandinavians in America, too.
And that's kind of all you need to ponder on to try and figure out why Trump might be so popular.
Okay, John, thanks for your patience, please.
All right.
I'd just like to make a few points.
Well, first of all, it's kind of weird that people tend to forget that humans are, well, they're an animal.
The laws of biology still apply to them.
So it's kind of weird that they think that genetics wouldn't be applied to them.
They're like a soul in the body or just a mind, a body in the...
And they don't mix together, right?
I'm sorry, that's why I say it's a religion, because it denies the biological basis of evolution.
But sorry, go ahead.
Yeah.
And also, I'd like to make a few points because regarding multicultural, well, cultures mixing together, I think in Brazil there's an interesting example I think I can use.
It's the fact that slavery, I mean, in the United States, people will talk like, oh, slavery, the whites enslaved so many blacks.
Well, it's like nothing compared to Brazil.
I think there's 200,000 slaves in the US. There was about 7 million overall here in Brazil.
Slave tribes from Africa.
And even then, the groups, they kind of mingled sort of well together, I mean, after slavery ended, before the government started to intervene with welfare and affirmative action, which was actually pretty recent.
So I think there is a good case to make that the That the free market or aspect of it, because Brazil is a pretty stated society, can make people to get along somehow.
I mean, we got a lot of refugees from wars, like from World War I, World War II, Korea War, actually.
And, well, those folks from very different cultures, eventually they, well, they had to assimilate to Brazilian, kind of Brazilian culture, because they didn't have a safety net.
Well, yeah, I mean, you're the place where Hitler's brain is still in the jar, the mason jar, I think, if I remember my documentaries from my childhood.
Sorry, just kidding.
Go ahead.
No, Edmangelo.
You know, the angel of death, the Nazi doctor.
I think Auschwitz, Nazi capital.
Anyway, what I meant by populism is that I'm kind of afraid of the fact...
What I mean by populism and saying that Donald Trump is an independent figure is because he has no restraints from People like, for example, Obama was being backed by I don't know the military industrial compass the financial sector on many lobbies well well they put us those candidates that there
I mean this that sounds confusing I'd just like to say that there's no one financing Donald Trump's campaign but him.
And I'm kind of worried that if he gets power, he can do stuff that might be damaging to America.
That's what I was afraid of populism, because populist figures, they didn't have some of the state institutions to kind of control them, because as bad as the status quo is...
Okay, hang on a sec, sorry, just before we go too far.
So, is there a big Jewish population in Brazil?
Well...
More or less.
There were some in the northeast.
Now they're mostly on the south.
More or less.
Just not that much, I'd say.
Because the average IQ in America among the dominant European population is 100.
The average IQ in Brazil is 87.
So one of the things that happened, I would assume, that when slavery ended, this is the great challenge when looking at America.
And it's so tough to remember because it's politically incorrect, although the The data is completely solid as far as these things can be ascertained, and the American Psychological Association, along with 54 intelligent experts, have put out papers affirming all of this.
But of course, in America, the average black IQ is 85, the average white IQ is 100, and the average Asian IQ is, I think, 105 or 106.
So when slavery ended, you had the blacks in America attempting to compete with a general population that was a full standard deviation higher in average intelligence.
And in Brazil, of course, again, I don't know the average IQ by ethnicity, but if the average IQ is 87, not 100, then there's going to be much less divergence.
A research article published in 2011 indicated that 63.7% of Brazilians believe that race interferes with the quality of life.
Of those earning less than the minimum wage, 63% are black and 34% are white.
Of the richest Brazilians, 11% are black and 85% are white.
The salary of whites in Brazil is on average 46% higher than the salary of blacks.
So again, whether this follows the IQ differences between the races, I would assume it does to some degree.
I don't know that in general we could say that it's been a multicultural success.
No, no, it's not.
But I just mentioned the fact that welfare and, until recently, affirmative action were not a problem we had to deal with.
We have to deal with them now because we have a leftist party in power that has been using that to gain support.
At least those two things, they haven't been an issue as much as they are, I mean, I could say, in the United States and Eastern and Central Europe.
That being said, could I say something?
I know there's Donald Trump getting support in the US, and somehow there's this Bernie Sanders guy, this socialist, getting support as well.
I don't know how the American public can go behind that guy, but could I say something to people that support that?
To the average leftists or Democrats, I'd like to invite them to Brazil because we have everything they would love to get.
We have gun control, we have public health care, we have public education and free college.
Here, racism is actually considered criminal offense.
They have huge taxes.
The workers have plenty of labor rights.
And you know what?
Everything's in common with those things, Stefan.
They all suck.
Not a single one of them work.
I'd just like to say that because it's kind of annoying.
The Bernie Sanders' campaign as a whole is just a government program that's in effect of another government program.
The other government program is leftists really want to put unqualified people into college for a variety of reasons.
One is that They want to indoctrinate anybody with half a brain.
And the best way to do that is to get them into the softest, quote, sciences, right?
Sociology and women's studies and so on.
And so the leftists want to get unqualified or less intelligent people into college to indoctrinate them and also to ensure votes because these people go into significant debt and they forego years and years of earnings and they end up...
They say, well, the degrees are worthless.
It's like, well, no, I don't think that's true, because I think if you've got an IQ of 130, you can get a degree in basket weaving, and you're going to end up doing all right in life.
And so there's been this policy as a whole on the left of jiggering with admission standards and admission requirements.
Oh, let's not just do academics.
Let's look at the whole person.
Yeah, right.
You know, when a guy's operating on my neck, cutting out a tumor, I really care what his golf swing is like and whether he knows Portuguese.
I just want to know if he's good at cutting open my neck without killing me.
But he was.
Great doctor.
And so they stuffed a whole bunch of people into college who now are graduating, and they don't have the intellect to get the kind of income that would justify their time in college.
I'm a smart guy.
I went to college.
When I got out of college, I did work for a while and then co-founded a business, went out and made some coin.
Smart guy, right?
I could pay off my college debts and all that.
Now, Oklahoma Surgery Center.
That's where you gotta go.
That's your bat phone, right?
That's your red phone to the Kremlin.
Oklahoma Surgery Center.
Anyway.
So you had a whole bunch of people stuffed into college who don't have the brains or abilities or capacities to go out into the workforce and earn enough money to pay for their investment in their college degrees.
So you got a bunch of general dunderheads going through college, they're graduating, and they're freaking out about their student debt.
You know, it's like degree by genius, brain by Starbucks, right?
It just doesn't match.
And so there are all of these people out there who are just desperate.
And you go, oh, I got a college degree, you know, I got a college degree.
So when he offers free college and debt forgiveness and low interest loans and so on, they're just harvesting the natural result of putting dunderheads into college.
And please understand, I'm not complaining about dunderheads at all.
There's nothing wrong with them at all.
They just shouldn't be in college, right?
College should be an elite institution for the top 5% or 10% of smart people, which is kind of what it used to be, right?
And then they stoked up their envy and they said, there's no such thing as IQ.
There's no such thing as brain differences.
There's no such thing as faster reaction times.
And there's no such thing as racial differences in IQ as a whole.
So everybody gets a car, you know, it's like the degrees are like audience members and the cars in an Oprah show.
Everybody gets a degree.
So you've got all these lost souls who have been dragged into and propagandized into and blinded into thinking that since in the past people who got degrees made a lot of money, And we're really productive.
Then if we just get people to get more degrees, they're going to make a lot of money and be really productive without understanding that the degree was an effect of their intelligence.
And nobody knows how to shift your IQ. Nobody knows how to change your basic capacity for intelligence.
We know how to change people's knowledge base, of course, and teach them more things.
But you cannot find...
Nobody knows how to improve raw processing power.
Your basic IQ is 98% constant throughout your adult life, particularly after your brain settles down in your early to mid-20s for women and in your mid to late-20s for men.
When it settles down into its final form, I mean, it's going to stay the same for a guy basically from the age of 15 to 85, but certainly from the age of 25 to 30.
So basically, it's just this...
This massive fantasy that, you know, tall people play basketball, so if we just get a bunch of short people to play basketball, they'll get super tall.
And it's just this stupid nonsense.
No cause, no effect, no rationality, but a lot of manipulation.
And of course, saying to people who have got an IQ of 95 or 100, oh yeah, maybe 90 to 95.
Saying to those people, saying to those people, We're going to get you into college and you're going to do great and you're going to do just as well as everyone else you know who went to college and ended up graduating into a job and quickly made $75,000 or $100,000 a year.
You can do it too.
We'll lend you this money and here's what the graduates of this college has made in the past and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Even when they took basket weaving.
Because you've got 130 IQ, you're going to end up making a lot of money in general.
And so...
The reality is that they lured a whole bunch of people into thinking that they could go be captains of industry or philosophers or historians or entrepreneurs or whatever by just lowering the standards and jamming them into college.
And it turned out to be a complete lie.
And this is a big constituent of people who have really been screwed by leftists.
You know, leftists claim that they care about Well, luring the poor into college by promising them all these benefits that only don't occur to rich or poor people but accrue to smart people, which they don't know how to change, has really shafted the poor because they've lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost earnings, in deferred earnings, and in not getting started in their career.
And it's given them delusions of grandeur about their capacities.
And that is very cruel.
You know, giving people delusions of grandeur about their capacities is extremely vicious and cruel because it sets them up for a life of delusion and discontent and bad decisions.
Whereas these people could have gone out into the world and been very productive in the trades or very productive in, you know, and again, trades, you can do really well if you're smart.
You can start your own company.
You know, one of my best friends when I was a kid, his father ran a heating, ventilation and air conditioning company.
Gig and big house, smart guy, nice family, you know, really phenomenal.
Another one of my friend's fathers was a doctor and they both seem to have about the same kind of lifestyle.
It's just that one of them was in the trades and a smart guy and another one was a doctor and a smart guy.
But giving people delusions above their capacities is an exquisite kind of sadism.
So that's a lot of Bernie Sanders constituency is these truly lost and harmed souls who have been told that they can have all of the fruits of high intelligence without possessing that native high intelligence.
And, you know, intelligence like a singing voice.
You know, if you don't have a great singing voice, you ain't going to open the mat in verdict.
And you just got to be honest with people about that stuff.
But then the market is very honest about it.
But politicians love to jig it around.
Because, you know, it's a lot more fun to go and study, I don't know, gym or sociology than it is to go out and start apprenticing in the trades.
And so you tell people, oh, you're just the same as everyone else.
You go to college.
You get out super smart.
You're going to get a great job.
You're going to make a lot of money.
It's going to pay for itself.
And then these guys graduate with these entirely made-up disciplines that have no economic value.
And then the only thing they can get is hopefully queue up for a government job, which, you know, have been cut to some degree under Obama.
So these lost souls who've been put through this sausage maker where their futures have been destroyed and their delusions of grandeur have upped and no one's telling them the truth.
So they just resent capitalism for not rewarding them for attributes they don't have, like extremely high intelligence.
You know, like the goddamn music industry never gave me a recording contract because I'm not that great a singer.
And everybody's lied to them.
And that's particularly egregious because there are generally lower intelligence.
they're more susceptible to being lied to by people in authority.
Like, the amount of exploitation that has gone on here is horrendous.
The amount of falsehoods, the amount of entrapment, the amount of income-destroying massive...
I mean, it's one of the reasons why the American economy is doing badly, is that people who could have had very productive and happy and positive lives in non-academic environments...
Are being sucked into academics, massive amounts of money are being poured into trying to make short people tall, and they're not going out there and being productive in the economy.
And then we wonder why China's pulling ahead.
Yeah, well, that's a phenomenon that's happening here in Brazil, and, well, I actually can understand that happening here, and what worries me, and actually why I ask that is because, well, I know countries are actually real, just an abstraction, and the American foreign policy is really bad, but look, America is only the greatest countries in the world, I see, historically, the amount of things they have produced, and to see it fall down, it's kind of sad, as well as Eastern Europe.
No, but see, in China also, they can let people fail without accusations of racism.
Oh, yes.
China, not an enormously multicultural society.
There are a few big-nosed foreign people there.
So if people fail in China, they don't get to scream racism because everyone is kind of the same race, right?
It's the same thing in Japan and so on.
And this is the other thing, too.
We're talking about what's the problem with multi-ethnic societies.
Well, if there are significant differences between the races, then there's going to be significantly different degrees of success between the races.
Now, in a multicultural society, everybody just screams racism all the time as the only and sole cause for all of that, because they don't want to deal with the fact that there may be incompatible ethnicities in a particular mix or less than fully compatible, or at least we could say ethnicities with different overall success outcome metrics.
Oh, that's a title for the most boring book in the universe.
But so when you have a more of a mono ethnic culture, then people can succeed and fail.
And not everyone screams racism and oppression and prejudice and white privilege or Asian privilege or whatever.
And, you know, I assume that there is Japanese privilege in a Japanese culture.
I get that.
I mean, if you go into Chinatown as a Scotsman and trying to get a job in a Chinese restaurant as a waiter...
You know, there may be a little bit of Asian privilege there.
And, you know, I don't know.
Does it really keep everyone up at night?
Probably not.
So, all right.
Is there anything else you wanted to mention?
I'm sort of running low on steam here.
So, I'm going to wrap this up.
It's just a final thing to say then, after this one.
I'm curious to search for rebuttals then.
I just asked this question because I'm actually worried.
I'm seeing the decline of the West and, well, the West lifts up human civilization.
Seeing it going down, it's kind of depressing, really.
You think?
Yeah, it kind of is.
And well, we got to Portuguese.
It's not the greatest Eastern Europeans you can get.
I'd rather have the British or the Dutch.
But still, it's something.
And seeing everything falling down, it's, well, kind of sad.
I think that's, well, that's it.
Yeah, boy, if you think it's tough being oppressed by white culture, try not having white culture and see how things work, you know?
You know, that's just sort of, I try not to be, you know, obviously I'm white and for what it's worth.
And I never really think of myself in those terms, which I guess is part of my white privilege, I don't know.
But yeah, as far as history goes, you know, it's kind of a one-way track to white countries.
And It would be great if other ethnicities could come to European history or European cultural countries and blend and merge.
And that, of course, was the hope for many decades.
And to circle back to the original position, the concern is that, you know, the hope has been that you bring a third world population to a first world country and you get a first world country.
That has been the hope that they adapt and grow and improve and That the bad state of the countries they come from is entirely environmental and if you put them in a better country with more opportunities and better education that they'll become just like the domestic population.
The problem, of course, is that if there are genetic aspects to intelligence differences and if there are any kind of genetic aspects to particular cultural differences, which is a complicated topic I don't want to get into, but we've got, you know, we'll put some links to the interviews we've done below, just so you don't have to take my word for it, but listen to the interviews we've done with Eric Turkheimer, with Charles Murray, with Jason Richwine, one we've got coming up with another lady and others.
The concern now is that the data seems to be quite strong, that when you bring a third-world population to a first-world country, you end up with a third-world country.
You can also look up our interviews with Kevin Beaver and James Flynn.
These are all experts in the field from both the left and the right and everywhere in between.
And they're all talking about the same fundamental biological differences.
Again, some ascribe it more to environment, some less to environment, but the reality is there.
Don't take my word for it.
Look it up for yourself.
But the concern is you bring a third world population to a first world country, you end up with a third world country.
And that is, I think, where people's concern is.
And people can say, well, it's just racist to have those concerns.
But that's just using a magic word to attempt to wave away a very validated statistical and empirical reality, which is that there are differences in behavior.
There are differences in criminality, differences in intelligence that are not remediated by generations, differences in criminality, differences in education.
And it's not just as nobody knows how to fix it.
Nobody knows how to fix it as yet.
And to continue on the path, which seems to be heading down a very bad path, which nobody knows how to fix, as if it's just the only thing to do, Well, that is.
That is cultural suicide.
And I think that's one of the reasons why Trump, in his willingness to talk about some of these things, and his willingness to say, these are the facts, and you can call me racist, but then all you're saying is that facts are racist, which makes you both insane and a racist.
So I hope that helps.
Thanks everyone so much for calling in.
We look forward to your comments below.
We will, of course, glean through them and come up with some stuff to rebut.
And I apologize if any of this has shocked you when you're new to this information as I have been.
Over the years, it is shocking and disheartening.
Let me have your feedback.
Let me have your comments.
Freedomainradio.com slash donate to help the show out.
Thanks to Mike for setting this up as always.
Thanks to you, the listeners, for supporting and conversing about these exciting and challenging topics.
And thanks to the world for being part of the conversation.
