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Dec. 24, 2015 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:46:01

3162 Space Alien from Planet Happiness - Call In Show - December 23rd, 2015

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	Good morning, everybody.
	Hope you're doing well.
	Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Main Radio.
	So, just before we start, of course, FDRURL.com slash donate to help us out.
	You can also go to FDRURL.com slash Amazon to help us out with your Christmas shopping or any kind of shopping you've got throughout the year.
	It doesn't cost you anything.
	It helps us out.
	So I had some really, really good callers tonight.
	The first was a very wise and gentle and concerned father who was basically saying, look, I've got a whole bunch of kids who are kind of bullied into being good at stuff.
	How on earth are my peacefully parented kids going to compete with these children who get their fingers wrapped if they get...
	A note wrong on the piano, and my kid's kind of trying to learn guitar in a very gentle and positive environment and is having trouble with motivation.
	It's a great question.
	We had a good, good chat about that.
	A second caller, a little bit on the unusual side, sort of a push of the limits of a theory, right?
	So there's mutually assured destruction is this theory that says that America and...
	Russia did not attack each other because they both had nuclear weapons, so what if really extremist groups like ISIS got a hold of nuclear weapons?
	Would that not promote this kind of non-conflict, mutually assured destruction scenario?
	And right at the edge of a theory, which is not bad, but I had certainly had some problems with it as we went forward, so you can see that.
	And then we had two guys calling in asking about roofing, about date rape drugs and how they might be controlled or made illegal, so to speak, in a free society.
	And other than one time when I lost my temper, it was actually a very good conversation and I appreciated them calling in.
	So...
	Without any further ado, let's get on with the call.
	Have yourself a very Merry Christmas if I don't talk to you before then.
	And we'll see you very soon.
	Alright, well up first today is John.
	And John wrote in and said, I've appreciated your recent shows on the subject of intelligence.
	As a parent and a professional teacher, the subjects of ability and IQ are something that we regularly discuss.
	My question has more to do with the parenting ramifications of this information.
	My wife and I both test high on intelligence tests and we've had our children tested and they're high as well.
	The problem that we face is that neither of us were exposed to good parenting role models of how to become excellent at a skill.
	I think we sort of figured it out in our own way, but the results of our family background have certainly kept us from reaching our full potential.
	Our children are in a completely different environment.
	We've raised them peacefully and we've tried to bolster their skills as much as we know how, but it still seems like their peers are achieving levels of skill that are above them in many areas.
	In these cases, one of the things I've noticed is that the peers are achieving high levels of skill are not being peacefully parented.
	They have parents who are consistently harping on them about their effort, their work, their character, using shame and physical punishment to get their children to achieve high levels of skill.
	These parents are the helicopter tiger parents.
	So how do peaceful parents compete with these parents when it comes to preparing your children for the well-paying careers of the future?
	How can peaceful parents raise children to become excellent at something?
	And that's from John.
	Hey John, how are you doing?
	Pretty good, pretty good.
	Can you hear me?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Excellent.
	Great set of questions.
	It sort of reminded me, when I first read 1984, There's a sequence where the woman in the telescreen is yelling at Winston Smith.
	And she's sort of barking at him.
	He's trying to touch his toes, right?
	Yeah.
	And she's like, put your back into it!
	Work harder!
	And the writer says, Orwell says, and with a violent lunge, Winston Smith succeeded in touching his toes for the first time in years.
	That you can bark at people and get them To do stuff, and you can get them to learn mechanical skills.
	And I don't just mean sort of physically dexterous skills, like, you know, whapping them with a ruler if they play a wrong note on the piano.
	But you can get them to learn mathematical skills, like everything which is sort of rote, repetitive learning, you can get them to do with threats and bribes, right?
	Right.
	That's how you train a dog.
	But I don't know that those are necessarily the high-paying careers of the future.
	What do you mean by those?
	What kind of careers do you think are the high-paying careers of the future?
	Well, one thing that pops out to me is careers in the STEM fields, because you've got to show some success in school, and a lot of the way that school is structured now is that there's a lot of repetition, there's a lot of memorization that's involved with that, and when it comes to...
	I guess a little background on this.
	I live in Hawaii, and in...
	In our state, there's a lot of Asian parents there.
	Tiger moms are everywhere.
	Sorry.
	No, it's fine.
	It's fine.
	I get the phenomenon.
	I did a whole video on it a couple of years ago, so I'm certainly with you there.
	They bark and they drill and they work harder and work harder and so on.
	There is, of course, an accordant amount of success, whether that's from the innate IQ that Asians have slightly higher IQs than whites and slightly lower than Ashkenazi Jews, whether that's innate or whether that's the result of training, I don't know.
	So you have people around who you think are going to succeed in the STEM fields because they're barked at and controlled and Punished and rewarded, right?
	Yeah, well, they definitely, they'll get their children tutors, and, you know, they have, like, the whole phenomenon of, like, an Asian fail, which is, like, a B-plus or A-minus, you know?
	And, I mean, that's very real.
	And, you know, just because of the success in school, and, you know, because of this, I think it's definitely a cultural thing.
	It just seems like, you know, You definitely see a lot more Asians going into the STEM fields, I think, because of that success.
	Yeah, but I'm sorry to interrupt you.
	You're a teacher, right?
	You said you're a teacher.
	Right.
	So you think that the road to success is formal education.
	So for you, the STEM fields means getting a science, technology, engineering, or math degree, and that's called getting into the STEM fields, right?
	Right.
	That is not...
	True.
	It's not necessarily false, but it's not the only truth.
	And I would argue that, I mean, I mostly know about the technology field as sort of an entrepreneur and so on.
	I did not take an engineering degree.
	I hired people with an engineering degree.
	So, if you look at the pioneers of the technology fields, How many of them have PhDs in computer science?
	Not as many as you would expect, but definitely they have those people working for them.
	Well, okay, but let's take this one step at a time.
	One thing that struck me in reading the biography of Steve Jobs is that his father...
	Did not spank him.
	And his father actually stood up against other fathers who were aggressive with their children.
	That always struck me as a very powerful statement.
	I don't know much about Donald Trump's childhood other than his father said, look, you're just the smartest guy in the room.
	Like everywhere we go, I watch you interacting with the other kids.
	You're just the smartest kid in the room.
	Yeah.
	Now he has a degree in business and obviously that had some help in the beginning.
	But then he became an author.
	Did he get a degree in writing?
	Did he go to journalism school?
	No.
	He just sat down and started writing.
	And then he went into television.
	Now did he go and get a degree in broadcasting arts?
	No.
	He just started a television show and created one of the most successful television franchises in history.
	Now he's deciding to go into politics.
	Did he say, well, no, first I've got to go and get a degree in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government, right?
	Right.
	Barack Obama went into politics out of academia.
	Guy had, what, a couple of years' experience as a community organizer and pretending he cared about the Constitution to students.
	So, I don't know much about Bill Gates' childhood, but I do know that he had the flexibility to work With computers as much as he wanted.
	And that when he was negotiating, like he, when he was, he bought up DOS, right, I think for $75,000, and then he ended up selling it to IBM. And when he was negotiating with IBM, his father was on the phone, like he'd sort of run out of the room and talk to his father, who was a lawyer in this area.
	And his father didn't say, son, you're 20 years old, you can't negotiate with IBM, I'm going to step in and do it for you, right?
	And he didn't say, well, you know, I got to get a degree in Corporate law before I can negotiate with IBM. His father obviously had the confidence in Bill to let him negotiate and only be there available as a resource.
	So when you say, well, how can children raised peacefully with confidence and with courage and with independence, how can they possibly compete with children bullied into mere repetitive excellence?
	I'd say, well, they don't compete with them.
	They hire them.
	Yeah.
	I wish there was some more data beyond just the anecdotes, though, because I just wonder about a lot of homeschooling families and unschooling families.
	How successful is that approach?
	I mean, I wish there was a way of...
	Well, you know you're talking to me, right?
	Right.
	You know what's funny?
	I was just thinking about this the other day.
	Actually, I was thinking about this as soon as Mike sent me your question.
	The funny thing is, when I sort of think about my life...
	There were only a couple of things that I was actually trained for.
	And I don't do anything.
	I went to the National Theatre School for acting and playwriting.
	I guess I do a little bit of drama in my shows, but it's nothing to do with anything I was taught.
	Not a lot of sword fighting in podcasting.
	It feels that way sometimes, but it's not, right?
	And...
	I took some English.
	Now, I do write, but not nearly as much as I speak.
	And then I took some history, and that's been somewhat helpful, although for the most part the history that I study would never ever be taught in the schools that I went to.
	So, you know, we run the biggest philosophy show here.
	Not a one of us has a PhD in philosophy.
	I did some aspects.
	Aristotle took a course on medieval scholasticism.
	I did some logic.
	I did do some training in that area, but I think that the idea that you lay these train tracks of education in front of your kids and they're going to do really well, when you're a radical of any kind, it is suicidal to aim for the middle.
	So what I mean is that if you're off the bell curve as far as parenting goes, which you are, you're way off on the peaceful parenting side, right?
	Yes.
	So if you're off the bell curve in your parenting, you can't aim for the average in your children.
	I mean, it doesn't make any...
	It's like saying, I'm going to go study under Jackson Pollock so I can paint like Michelangelo.
	If you're off the bell curve, you can't aim for the middle of the bell curve anymore with your outcomes.
	I wasn't going to be content with, I'll get some beer money from this show and fund it myself.
	I wanted to go big or go home.
	Aim for the top or Aim to win big or aim to lose big.
	That's sort of my philosophy, and I think it's a good philosophy.
	So, how do you compete with rote memorization skills?
	I don't know.
	Look, the Asian culture, I'm no expert.
	These are just thoughts that I have, you know, from people who've called in, from my Asian friends.
	There's a great mystery, which is why white European cultures are so ridiculously inventive versus the Asian cultures, which are not.
	And I talked about this in the Tiger Mom presentation, so I'll touch on it briefly here.
	There's lots of theories, right?
	There's some theories which say, Asians have less testosterone.
	I don't know what it is.
	But I think that to some degree the Asian cultures get, deep down, that they're better at copying than they are at creating.
	And so I think they get that they don't have the creative fecundity of the European cultures.
	And so they aim for technical excellence because they cannot have generative brilliance.
	These are very broad statements and exceptions all over the place, right?
	Right.
	But I think that whether it's cultural or genetic or something, something, maybe it's the parenting, maybe it's repetitive this way.
	But I think they say, well, you know, we're not going to be quite as innovative as the Europeans, but we can be technically better.
	At a variety of things.
	And I think that sort of drives...
	I think...
	When I look at...
	I'm going to assume you're white, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So it's sort of funny when I look at whites and the white people say, how are we going to compete with the world?
	It's like, I don't know that that's necessarily the right question to be looking at, right?
	If that makes any sense.
	How are the other kids going to compete with your kids?
	Now, if you put yourself into...
	You know, sort of blind, repetitive skill development.
	And as far as I understand it, there are fantastic Asian pianists, violinists, and so on, but not so much with the composing.
	Right.
	Right?
	Fast typists, not a lot of poetry, right?
	And so, how are they going to compete with what it is that you're doing?
	I think that would be the focus.
	If you want your kids to be composers, it doesn't really matter how well technically they can play piano.
	What matters is how creative they are, how much they can trust their own creativity, and how much they can be the generators of their own dreams and goals and ideals and destinies.
	I've always thought of excellence, developing excellence as something like, first of all, the child or anybody has to choose to want to become excellent at something.
	And they need to have some way of getting feedback to know if they're getting better.
	And then they need to repeat it and repeat it and repeat it and just keep going through that feedback loop.
	And that's how you can generate some excellence.
	One of the things that I've seen in some of my Asian peers, in terms of parents, is that just with their parenting style, they can get that...
	It's almost like the will to want to do something repetitively.
	What I see with my children is maybe not so much that.
	Maybe it's more of a An impatience with repetitiveness, with going through the iterations to get something better and better.
	I'll give you a good example.
	My son and I, we just started learning how to play guitar together.
	He started playing and he was kind of struggling with it and I was taking the lessons and then he just looked at me one day and he said, Dad, you're so good at everything.
	This is just too hard.
	I don't know how anybody can get good at playing guitar.
	And I said...
	How old is your son?
	My son is 11.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	And I told him, nobody starts off getting good at something.
	And I decided that I was going to play guitar with him that day.
	So we started jamming together because I figured that's...
	If at least I can model that behavior, you know, I mean, I've gotten really good at things in my life.
	Maybe not so much as a child, but I'd like to at least pass on some kind of modeling and then hope that it catches, if that makes any sense.
	You're anxious about your son's follow-through, right?
	Yeah.
	Now, you get his brain is still two decades away from maturity, right?
	Almost.
	Right.
	And look, I mean, my daughter's the same way.
	I mean, frustration tolerance is not hugely high.
	And of course, you know, I want to give her the same boring lecture that you do, right?
	Well, you know, it takes time.
	I mean, of course, right?
	Right.
	But would you say that you are a success?
	Yes.
	In your life?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And you had...
	A bad childhood, if I gleaned that from not exactly between the lines of your question, right?
	Yeah, it was not my...
	Yeah, we could go into it, but I mean, it was probably three or four indicators on the A scale.
	That's the Adverse Childhood Experience Scale or the ACE scale, which people can look up if they want.
	And I don't mean to skip over your childhood, but since your primary concern is your kids, unless we need to, I want to focus on your kids.
	Now, so you didn't get the kind of encouragement that you're providing to your children, you didn't get the kind of stability and peace and positive examples that you're providing your children, right?
	No, no.
	So your children already are way ahead of the curve than you were as a child, right?
	Yes, very much so.
	So you're fine.
	So don't worry about anything else.
	Seriously, seriously, don't, I mean, I just don't, look, you're providing them such an advantage.
	They're not being hit.
	They're being negotiated with.
	You've got a parent who listens, who cares, who concerns, who loves them to death, who's vulnerable, who's open, who's communicative, who's expressive.
	They're already so far ahead of the curve.
	It's like you're racing against turtles and you're giving your kids jetpacks.
	And you're saying, but I need them to win.
	It's like, they already have jetpacks.
	Already got jetpacks.
	You have already provided such an advantage to your children Yeah.
	That worrying about how they're going to turn out is more a legacy of your childhood than their future.
	Yeah, I was wondering about that.
	I would argue.
	I was thinking about that actually when, you know, as I was waiting for the call, I'm like, you know, how much of this is my issue?
	And, you know, and...
	I have some anxiety issues.
	You had to worry about your future just as I did.
	You're an icebreaker of history and what I mean by that is that where you are is not where you were statistically expected to be.
	You are an icebreaker because if you come from a repetitively traumatic family history, it's been going on for thousands of years probably.
	Right.
	You know, we go down to the dungeons.
	We are the Morlocks.
	We are the abusers.
	We are the neglecters.
	We are the wastrels.
	We are the addicts.
	We are the immature.
	We are the explosive.
	We are just the Morlocks down in the dungeons.
	Right.
	And you're burrowing your way up to the...
	Eloy planet, right?
	You're burning your way up to the air, to the clear skies, to the beauty of peace and serenity.
	So you're an icebreaker.
	You're like going where no gene in your gene pool has gone before.
	And you only get that because you're terrified of ending up like your parents.
	You're terrified of ending up like the people around you when you were growing up.
	So that fear, that anxiety, is kind of what got you to where you got to.
	And, you know, if you're If you're not a good swimmer and you fall off a boat in the middle of a stormy sea, you might have to swim and struggle for a day to get to the shore.
	And then you lie on the shore and your body will still keep moving, right?
	Right.
	Because you've just been doing it for so long, your body doesn't know when to stop.
	It can't process the transition, right?
	Yeah.
	You have...
	Sorry, I'll just shut up and I don't mean to be dominating here, but I'll just...
	This last point, then I'll...
	I'll be all ears, I promise.
	So you have created a sanctuary in a cold and hard world for your children.
	That is such an incredible gift that you and your wife have provided based upon where you both came from.
	That the reward for providing that is don't worry.
	You know, here's a t-shirt.
	My peacefully parented kid will hire your honor student.
	If your honor student is very, very lucky.
	Your kids will find their bliss.
	They'll find their joy.
	And all the worrying in the world won't budge anything because all your kids get when you worry about them is that you're afraid for them.
	Yeah.
	You don't think they can do it.
	You think they need to change.
	You think they need to be altered.
	You think that they need to be somehow different than who they are.
	And that difference is not going to arise simply through growing up in a peaceful and happy and intelligent and productive household.
	That somehow they've got to be fundamentally changed and altered.
	And that doesn't mean, you know, I have it out with my daughter from time to time when we have Repetitive conflicts and stuff like that.
	We hash it out.
	It's not like there's no guidance of any kind.
	I'm for peaceful parenting, not unparenting.
	But when you worry about them, you say, well, you know, you've got to do this, you've got to look at it this way, you've got to approach it this way, you've got to approach it that way.
	All you're saying is that you think that there's something wrong with them that they fundamentally need to change.
	And that's how the worry or the insecurity jumps like electricity from one person to another.
	You know, when I was when I was 15 years old, I came to a realization that, you know, the one the one way that I could change my situation in my life, because if, you know, just being in my family.
	it was a pretty horrible experience, and I knew that I could change my circumstances by doing well in school.
	And so I applied myself from that point on and was a really, really good student, got great grades, went through college.
	But I always had that idea that I was becoming successful and doing the things that I needed to do to change my circumstances because of where I was coming from.
	And my children, they don't have that They don't have that same place where they're coming from.
	There's sometimes a disconnect.
	I don't know if we didn't necessarily understand each other's motivations because of this.
	Then I'm listening to you, and it seems like you've used the idea that when you grow up in a traumatic childhood, it's kind of like having your feet bound, and they never really get better.
	I'm watching my children basically Operating in a natural setting and their feet are perfectly fine and they're...
	I don't know, maybe it's a...
	I'm kind of mourning my own bound feet and trying to straighten them out, you know, wishing things could have been different.
	Why don't you envy your kids?
	Sometimes.
	I wish I could have been my own parent.
	Is there a time when you don't envy your kids?
	Oh, I wish I... You ever feel that way, Steph?
	Are you kidding?
	Every day?
	Okay.
	I mean, she has the best life on the planet, my daughter.
	I'm sure your kids have their fantastic lives too.
	I mean, I'm immeasurably proud of the degree to which she doesn't know the difficulties that she's shielded from through my hard work on self-knowledge and all that.
	I'm proud of that.
	I'm happy for that.
	Yeah.
	But yeah, you're kidding.
	I wish I were her.
	At times, of course.
	So, you know, the big thing that I... I just...
	I think maybe I just need to let that go.
	You know?
	They'll be fine.
	Your children's outcomes are largely determined by factors beyond your control.
	Yeah.
	Now, it doesn't mean you have no influence.
	As far as I'm concerned.
	You need to keep an eye on their peer group.
	And you need to keep an eye on what they're exposed to through the internet.
	To put it mildly.
	But the modeling of behavior...
	Are they good with English?
	Yeah, very good.
	Yeah, very good with English, very verbally fluent, I would imagine, given that you and your wife are teachers, that probably would pass down, verbal fluency.
	Did they have to work very hard at that?
	They struggled with it?
	You know, we just sort of developed that with them by talking and having good conversations and just having a, you know, from a very young age, they've been able to talk and speak and, you know, they've learned how to read kind of joyfully and It's really...
	I feel really uplifted watching them grow and learn.
	But again, I think the It comes back to some of these anxieties that I'm facing, I guess.
	Just having this conversation with you, it's making me face that and think about that.
	That this is not anything to do with them.
	I don't imagine that it does.
	Think of all the children across the world and all the children throughout history.
	Your children are probably one in a million or one in ten million in terms of good fortune.
	They've got good genes.
	They live in a relatively free country.
	They have great parents.
	You have some resources.
	I mean, you're both employed, right?
	Not living in a cardboard box down by the river on a steady diet of government cheese.
	So, as far as children throughout history go, Where the giant spaceship of fetus dropping occurs, can you imagine how much crowding there was over your house?
	Please, God, let me land there.
	Let me land with John and his wife.
	Oh, God, please.
	Next door, they drink, and they watch a lot of reality television.
	So your kids, they've already won the lottery.
	More people win the lottery than have great childhoods.
	Your kids have already won the lottery.
	They're already so far ahead.
	Yeah.
	The idea that they're going to compete with children whose knuckles are wrapped if they play a wrong piano note, they're not even in the same game.
	Your kids probably, almost certainly, will not end up in a cubicle.
	Yeah.
	That's true.
	Excellent.
	You know, the real fattening pens of corporate servitude...
	I don't know that that's where you want them to go.
	Right?
	But they'll be fine.
	Right.
	And if there is a lack of material success, for whatever reason, things are outside, they may decide to, you know, like, I mean, I got into the computer field when there was a big boom.
	Right.
	And then I got out of the computer field right before the big crash.
	And there have been people who've stayed in the computer field that I know who've had a very tough time of it.
	Because there's a lot of outsourcing now to India, and people coming in on immigrant visas.
	It's brutal.
	And I got that.
	When I was in the computer field, salary went up, and then I was like, getting to go further up.
	It hit a ceiling.
	It wasn't a bad ceiling, I'm not complaining, but they're not going to end up In the middle.
	They're not going to end up as a corporate drone, to put it as harshly as possible.
	But they'll be fine.
	And let's say that they put some money into a business and it doesn't end up working out.
	It's not a matter of virtue.
	You put the hard work in.
	It's a matter of timing and tastes or some competitor comes out of...
	You start some business and then Microsoft decides to enter it.
	It's like...
	Unless you can get bored out, it's bye-bye.
	So let's say that they have their financial successes and their financial failures, but what you and your wife have provided for them, John, is a template of joyful, loving, and happy relationships.
	Maybe they may not make that much money, but there's a lot of people...
	Who make a lot of money, who are miserable as hell.
	If money, beauty, fame, and talent were enough, Marilyn Monroe wouldn't have died the way she died.
	Jim Morrison wouldn't.
	The guy was beautiful until he porked out.
	All Elvis on everyone's cream pies.
	Michael Hutchins.
	Would still be alive rather than doing whatever god-awful thing he was doing in that hotel room while waiting for Bob Geldof's ex-wife's kids to come for Christmas.
	So, you have done more than almost every parent across the world and certainly almost every parent throughout history to provide a positive and healthy and peaceful environment for your children.
	More than that?
	It's sort of like, okay, I just won $10 million in the lottery, but I'm not going to be happy unless I win again tomorrow.
	That might be asking a bit too much of fortune.
	My dream is...
	I want to try and...
	And do something.
	Maybe make my own school to help pass this on.
	To try and say, hey, here's a place where you can come and learn how to peacefully parent.
	And children can come and learn at this school in more of a free schooling model.
	Something where they're not necessarily have to go through Just the rote schedule of schooling in general.
	And I always wonder...
	Sorry, I don't mean to probe and you don't have to answer anything, but are they in government schools at the moment?
	They're in a private school, actually.
	And I work there.
	And so it's a really good arrangement for them.
	Because I know all their friends, I teach all the children that they're with, and they come to me for advice, and we can talk it out, and we can help with any kind of relationship issues that they're having.
	So it's a good situation.
	But I always think about...
	What would be the next step?
	Like I said, my dream is to possibly start this school where I could help more people have the experience that they're having, at least at home.
	And then the way I see learning in general is I want to see something That's freer, where children have more of the ability to study the things that are interesting to them.
	Because I see, in my field especially, there's so much waste of time when it comes to children and things that they're learning and what they're going through in school.
	When we look at the statistics of what students actually remember, if you go a year out, They've forgotten 90% of it, unless they're interested and they have some kind of passion driving them.
	That's just one of the things I struggle with, this idea of...
	Sorry, I'm having a hard time putting my words together.
	You want to provide the world what you provided your children.
	You want everyone to be like you.
	I want them to at least have that experience, right?
	To have more kids that are peacefully parented, to try and take it to the next level.
	I feel like we've created something really wonderful in my family, and it would be nice to try and get more people to do this, to create a community.
	Yeah.
	No, I get that.
	I mean, of course.
	I mean, you're talking to the guy who's, that's my life's work, so.
	Right.
	I understand that.
	I mean, obviously, you're doing a lot of good just being available as a resource to the kids in your class, right?
	Right.
	But yeah, I mean, if you wanted to start something more public, a podcast or video series or something like that.
	So, I don't know.
	I'm not sure exactly how to take this.
	Yeah.
	I just wanted to, because this sort of cloudy ambition, I respect it, but, you know, act on it or let it go.
	Yeah.
	If it's floating around you, it's sort of like, you know, if you're trying to listen to music and you think there's a wasp flying around, you know, you either find the wasp or go inside or whatever, forget about it.
	No, that's good advice.
	So that's, you know, when it comes to cloudy ambitions, act on them or let them go, but just having them floating around is just a recipe for discontent.
	So here's some STEM information that's come from Stephen Camerata, who's been...
	Doctor, I should say, Stephen Camerata has been on the show a couple of times.
	Total STEM employment in 2012 was 5.3 million workers, immigrant and native.
	There were 12.1 million STEM degree holders, immigrant and native.
	Hmm, we say.
	I should go over those numbers again.
	5.3 workers, 12.1 STEM degree holders.
	Right?
	So more than double.
	So that's not great.
	Only one-third of native-born Americans with an undergraduate STEM degree are holding a job in the STEM occupation.
	There are more than five million native-born Americans with STEM undergraduate degrees working in non-STEM occupations.
	1.5 million with engineering degrees, half a million with technology degrees, 400,000 with math degrees, and 2.6 million with science degrees.
	An additional 1.2 million natives with STEM degrees are not working.
	They're unemployed or out of the labor force in 2012.
	That's not good, right?
	Yeah.
	It's 10%.
	Despite the economic downturn, Census Bureau data showed that between 2007 and 2012, about 700,000 new immigrants who have STEM degrees were allowed to settle in the country.
	Yet, at the same time, total STEM employment grew only by 500,000.
	Right?
	In STEM fields, you are competing with low-wage accepting immigrants with STEM degrees.
	It's not just fruit pickers who are having trouble with this kind of immigration.
	Of these new immigrants with STEM degrees, only a little more than a third took a STEM job and about the same share took an armed STEM job.
	The rest were not working in 2012.
	Overall, less than half the immigrants with STEM degrees work in STEM fields.
	Only 23% of all immigrants with engineering degrees work as engineers.
	Here's the thing.
	If STEM workers are in short supply, we all know from supply and demand that their wages should increase rapidly, right?
	Right.
	But the wage data from multiple sources show very little growth in STEM wages over the last 12 years.
	Real hourly wages grew on average 0.7% a year.
	That's adjusted for inflation from 2000 to 2012.
	And annual wages were even worse.
	So real hourly wages 0.7% increase, 0.4% increase per year in annual wage growth.
	And is there a stem worker shortage From the Center for Immigration Studies, our good friend Stephen Camarota, you can check that out.
	But, you know, you've got to really confront your prejudices or your preferences with data.
	I mean, I have to do this all the time, and it's bloody annoying, and times are completely dizzying.
	But STEM is not...
	It's far from a sure thing anymore.
	I don't know how old you are, but certainly when I was younger, it's like, whoa, ka-ching, I get my own money printing press, right?
	But STEM is not what it used to be.
	I mean, with immigration and outsourcing, well, it's far from a sure thing.
	So, maybe then, being peacefully parented and having that That kind of background where you can be creative and flexible, maybe that's going to be the new currency for the future.
	Something that sets all the children apart who are being parented like that and brought up like that.
	Right.
	I mean, to put it as concisely as possible, If your kids get a STEM degree, they'll be competing with all the people coming in with STEM degrees from other third world countries.
	Yeah.
	However, if they're peacefully parented, I can pretty much guarantee you there won't be a lot of kids coming in or young people coming in from third world countries who were also peacefully parented.
	Right.
	Hmm.
	Yeah, that's interesting.
	That's really interesting.
	The one thing that's true about economics as a whole It's that if you are authentically yourself and people find that valuable, you have an automatic monopoly.
	Peaceful parenting allows children to grow up to be authentically themselves because they're not worrying about pleasing external authority figures.
	They are authentically themselves.
	If you can find a way to make money by being authentically yourself, Like me, right?
	Then you have a monopoly automatically.
	I've used the example before, but Brad Pitt has a monopoly on Brad Pitt.
	It doesn't mean, of course, that you have to hire him to make a movie or he's the only movie actor, but if you want Brad Pitt, there's only one place to go.
	Yeah.
	And so your children are going to be authentically who they are.
	And there certainly is ways to make money by being authentically who you are.
	And if you can find a way to make money being authentically who you are, since you have a natural monopoly, there will be money in it.
	And there may be a lot of money in it.
	Depending on what your kids do.
	Right.
	So you want to try and give them skills that make them indistinguishable from other people.
	And I would say, your style of parenting allows them to be authentically who they are.
	Which is the greatest differentiator and concentration of monopoly power that there is in economics.
	Yeah, that's a good point.
	Maybe I just need to stop...
	I feel like there's some control that I just need to let go of.
	Yeah, look, and it's natural.
	You want them to take your route, but they're not starting from where you started.
	That's true.
	You're like, you need to...
	Grab an underground digging machine and then you need to get some blasting caps.
	You need to get some dynamite because you've got to blast through the ceiling of discontent and abuse.
	And it's like, no, Dad, we're already on the mountain top.
	I don't think this dangerous Donkey Kong mining shit you've got going on is going to help us that much.
	Right.
	You know, Dad, we live in an igloo.
	I don't think we need all this sunscreen.
	Whatever it is, right?
	I mean, they don't need this, right? - Yeah, so, okay.
	You weren't allowed to be who you were growing up, and I'm sure your wife wasn't either.
	And so you needed to acquire skills because you didn't have authenticity, or you weren't allowed to have authenticity, so you needed mere skills.
	It was definitely a gathering of skills through necessity, you know?
	Yes, absolutely.
	But you don't need to hoard food at a buffet.
	Steph, when you look at your daughter and you see how happy she is learning things, can you put yourself in her mind to really try and understand her motivations?
	Is that difficult for you?
	What do you mean understand her motivations?
	Just to understand where she's coming from in terms of Just how different her circumstances are from yours.
	No, I get it.
	I get it.
	I'm not saying it exactly.
	I know.
	She's like a space alien from Planet Happiness.
	Yeah.
	I'm an anthropologist.
	I'm mapping completely unknown territory.
	I'm like Dr.
	Livingston jet-bombed into the darkest depths of Africa.
	She's an alien being to me, and it's wonderful.
	I would not want her to be intimately familiar based upon my own experiences.
	That would be a tragedy.
	That would be a failure.
	Do you have any misunderstandings ever that are based off of those differences?
	How do you navigate those?
	That's a good question.
	I'm just thinking about how I navigate those.
	I find it fascinating her equanimity.
	I find it fascinating how completely unintimidated she is by anything.
	I was chatting with her about this question when we were talking about this style of parenting.
	I said, can you imagine waking up every day nervous about what kind of mood I might be in?
	Or whether I'd be grumpy or surly or snarly when I came down the stairs in the morning or whatever, right?
	Yeah.
	She just laughed.
	I can't fathom that.
	And I said, I said, I don't know, you know, some people achieve really good things if they're bullied.
	I said, I wonder, do you think it's too late for me to start ruling by fear?
	And she's like, Dad, it totally is.
	She's laughed at me.
	Now of course we were joking.
	I would expect her to do that.
	But it's fascinating to me.
	I mean she has wonderful sensitivity and empathy and emotional openness and vulnerabilities.
	You know, good stuff, right?
	Emotional honesty.
	But she's absolutely unintimidated by people and by things.
	And I find that fascinating.
	I mean that's my Shrine to self-knowledge is her equanimity, her peaceful joy within her own skin and her lack of fear of authority.
	She's never had to be afraid of anyone in her life.
	And she's never seen me be afraid of anyone in her life.
	She doesn't know what it means to be scared of people, to be anxious around people, to be nervous of the random flaming Pinballs of bounce, bounce, fight, fight, attack, attack, defend, defend, obscure, obscure, avoid, avoid, neglect, neglect, rage, rage.
	Just know what it's like to be thrown into this wild electrocuting pinball machine of dysfunctional interactions.
	Yeah.
	She's never had anyone raise their voice at her.
	And what that means, of course, is that it's very unlikely that anyone will.
	Because the bullies sense that.
	They know that.
	Yeah.
	And so this is the great tragedy.
	Those who need the most comfort because they have no support from their parents are those who get the most aggressed against in school.
	People sniff the lack of bond.
	They sniff the lack of protection.
	Yeah.
	You know, the wolves pick off the children distant from the tribe.
	Yeah.
	So it is fascinating and I'm thrilled to see what it's like.
	The child's unafraid.
	The child whose existence is such a genuine pleasure.
	She can't stop singing.
	She can't stop dancing.
	I mean, she writes songs now.
	Butterflies.
	Dragons.
	Happy dragons.
	Helpful dragons.
	Birds who carry children off to magical lands.
	Rainbows.
	I mean, I want to live in her brain.
	I want to move in.
	I want to move in.
	It's beautiful.
	Yeah.
	It's a beautiful place.
	And I'm honored.
	I'm honored to have had a pot in clearing the rubble of history so that she can live in that place, which is right now an anomaly.
	Which one day will just be called what is.
	It's strange now.
	We all hope it's commonplace in the future.
	Yeah.
	Well, hopefully we can raise a whole bunch more aliens in this world and make it a better place.
	Will you keep us posted?
	Yeah.
	You know, I appreciate the conversation, Steph.
	I think I just needed a pep talk to kind of hear it.
	I connect with you, Steph, because we've had similar childhoods and tried to do some different things with our family.
	Thanks for the call, Steph.
	Thanks, John.
	I appreciate it.
	And thanks for everything you're doing for your family and the world.
	And all my best to your wife as well.
	Take care, man.
	And...
	Up next is Andrew.
	Andrew wrote in and said, virtue is written in scarlet letters.
	The objective of my call is to make the case that ISIS, society's scarlet letter, should be trusted to have nuclear weapons.
	The past 70 years have proven mutually assured destruction is an empirically valid incentive for resolving conflict.
	Allowing WMDs, including nuclear weapons, to be traded on the free market would provide the checks and balances to render organized combat obsolete.
	Even if it meant allowing ISIS to have nuclear weapons, the wave of K-selected individuals spawned by this incentive would surmount any threat.
	You society's scarlet letter is fuel for humanity's next great advancement of K-selection.
	The darkest night can dawn the brightest day.
	That's from Andrew.
	Well, Andrew, surprising comment of the week.
	But hey, I'm open to entertaining.
	After Flat Earth, I'm happy to entertain any possible...
	And I kind of get the argument, right?
	Which seems virtually certain that...
	America and Russia would have gone to war over Europe, over Western Europe, or had more aggressive proxy wars throughout the world.
	If they hadn't had nuclear weapons, then there would have been probably a third world war between Russia and America, but the mutually short destruction kept, and it may have been sparked over the bear pigs, it may have been sparked over the Cuban Missile Crisis.
	It could be any number of things.
	Could be something in Turkey.
	Yeah, exactly.
	So your argument is that the more that these nuclear weapons are proliferated around the world, the less likely it is that people are going to get into.
	Or it's because of this mad, mutually assured destruction phenomenon.
	Is that right?
	Well, yeah, more like to end the monopoly of force, you have to end the monopoly first, I would say.
	I really came up with it.
	Do you watch the new Sherlock Holmes at all?
	Is that the one with Lucy Liu?
	No, no, no, no.
	It's with Benedict Cumberbatch.
	Oh, Benedict Cumberbatch or something, right.
	I think I've watched one or two, but his sexless sociopath doesn't really work for me too long.
	But yeah, I've watched one or two.
	They seem fairly entertaining.
	The villain, Moriarty, comes up with the ultimate code cracking, has the ultimate weapon, and he's really able to He's able to leverage it to do whatever he wants.
	He steals a crown jewel and doesn't even post a defense and gets away not guilty by leveraging threats.
	I was just wondering, what's the ethics of leveraging WMDs to achieve a stateless society?
	You mean, could WMDs help us achieve a stateless society?
	Yeah, yeah.
	I have to go fairly negative on that.
	I have to go fairly negative on that.
	I mean, the only country that has had WMDs dropped on it is Japan, and Japan has not become a stateless society.
	Far from it.
	I mean, they're stuck in this Kizian broken record nightmare of an endless recession that's been going on for more than 20 years.
	Their population is dive-bombing to the point where they may even start accepting Muslims, whether they want to or not.
	And so I would say that it does not seem very likely that the deploying of WMDs would.
	Do you mean just the possession of them or the deploying of them?
	Well, no, no.
	I'm saying maybe the standard of philosophy should be to inspire, you know, weaponry, you know, a free market WMDs, you know, because it's centralized.
	Sorry to interrupt.
	I don't understand.
	It's never going to happen.
	I'm not sure.
	Why would you...
	Why would you focus on this?
	Governments are never going to start selling WMDs to each other.
	At least not unless they're already in possession.
	And you certainly are going to have no influence on that potential policy.
	So I'm curious why this is even remotely important to you relative to all the other things you could be doing in the world to achieve virtue and peace and goodness and so on.
	Well, I feel that the free market's the ultimate weapon.
	That should be really the standard of value for philosophy.
	We should be trying to create the free market.
	And it's not going to happen when you have centralized...
	No, I'm sorry.
	Don't give me such an abstract answer because I don't know what the hell you're talking about.
	That may be my limitations.
	But I don't know if you've listened to much of these shows.
	But, you know, talk about the promotion of the non-aggression principle and peaceful parenting and voluntary relationships.
	So these are things that you can actually have an effect on.
	You can really change people's lives and change people's minds about this.
	I'm just curious why you'd lead off in any conversation.
	I don't know if you're just doing it with me or with other people.
	Why you'd lead off with, let's give ISIS nukes.
	I mean, I just don't know why.
	Why would you bother with that when there's so many other more fruitful and productive things you could be talking to people about?
	I mean, you're a big show.
	I think I might have sensationalized it a little bit.
	I actually edited the question and emailed a new one.
	But yeah, I think I tried to get recognized.
	Like, so I could be on the show, I kind of sensationalized it, I guess.
	Are you saying that this is not an argument that you stand behind?
	No, no, I completely think, you know, mutually assured destruction is, like, empirical.
	You know, I mean, you look at...
	Oh, okay, I get that.
	But so why did you want to be on the show so badly that you would come up with some, you know, highly provocative and impossible-to-effect...
	Did you not think that if you had a more genuine question that you would get on the show?
	I really wanted to discuss the UPB of leverage.
	Is it ethical to risk everything, to rescue everything?
	Sorry, I didn't quite understand that.
	Is it ethical for To leverage, like say you came up with a nuclear, you know, the ultimate weapon.
	Is it ethical to leverage that to end the state?
	I don't understand why you would even care.
	Are you working on some ultimate weapon?
	No.
	Are you going to meet someone with an ultimate weapon who doesn't work for the government, who's going to give you this choice?
	It seems so ridiculously abstract.
	It's like, how many stomachs do unicorns have?
	I don't know, but why would we even bother talking about it?
	It's not about to happen in your life.
	It's the mother of all incentives.
	No, but it doesn't matter.
	If you can't possibly create the situation or affect the outcome, then what does it matter?
	It's like saying, well, look, if I dig in my backyard and I find a 500-ton diamond, that would be the mother of all diamonds, right?
	Well, I think when you just put the blocker of I can't, you don't...
	I understand there's limitations and...
	But by never saying can't, you define the limitations and you get a clear picture of what the limitations, what the actual power the state holds over us is, rather than ignoring the limitations blindly, not even testing.
	I don't understand what you mean when you say ignoring the limitations blindly.
	I'm struggling to follow, but I don't know what that means.
	You said that...
	I don't know, you said you can't challenge a state, you know what I mean?
	No, no, no, that's not what I said.
	I'm sorry, can you repeat what you said?
	Well, I said when you're talking about situations that you cannot bring into being or influence any of the outcomes, what does it matter?
	I think defining it matters.
	Not ignoring the limitations matters.
	I'm not saying...
	What limitations are we talking about?
	Like the immense power the state has over us.
	I think by at least challenging it or looking forward to it is helpful.
	I'm still not sure what you're talking about.
	If you're talking about if there was some ultimate weapon, would you use it against the state?
	Well, you're not going to have that ultimate weapon.
	I'm not going to have that ultimate weapon.
	I don't know anyone who's going to have that ultimate weapon.
	In fact, the most likely...
	If there's an ultimate weapon to be created, the most likely entity to create and possess it will be the state, by far.
	Yeah, but shouldn't we be trying to come up with it before the state?
	You know what I mean?
	What?
	What do you mean?
	Are you seriously suggesting that it's a good idea for us to try and start working on some ultimate weapon?
	I don't think it's a...
	Have you taken any steps towards the creation of this ultimate weapon?
	No, no, I just think it's a...
	Okay, so why the fuck are we talking about it?
	If it's not something you're doing, or will do, or plan to do, or know anyone who's going to do it, and you have no chance of affecting the policy of whoever does create it, why on earth would we talk about it?
	I'm trying not to be rude.
	I'm genuinely curious.
	Why is this important?
	Well, what are we supposed to do?
	Because the more things are going...
	What are we supposed to do?
	How about we not spend a huge amount of time coming up with abstract nonsense we can never affect?
	Like you're saying, there's a world of deer.
	You're really hungry and there's a world of deer around you that you can go and pretty much strangle with your bare hands if you want.
	And I'm saying, go strangle some deer if you're that hungry.
	And you're like, but I'm hunting unicorn.
	I say, well, why the hell would you hunt unicorns?
	They don't even exist.
	And you're like, well, how the hell am I supposed to eat if I'm not hunting a unicorn?
	I'm like, there's deer all around you!
	There's so many things that you can do that are tangible and effective to advance freedom.
	Why are you talking about all those weapons and mutually assured destruction and giving nukes to ISIS? I simply can't figure it out.
	I'm not saying give nukes to ISIS. I'm saying you could leverage whatever the society's scarlet letter is.
	The give nukes to ISIS is not really the core of what I'm talking about here.
	Yeah, I understand.
	I think it's...
	An important way to, incentive to be brought up that, you know, the odds are astronomically bad, but you still can't rule it out, you know?
	What do you mean you can't rule it out?
	Are you going to take any steps in your life to create an ultimate weapon?
	The answer to that is no.
	And therefore, I can completely rule out that you are going to be in possession of an ultimate weapon.
	Right, right.
	But I think just that the attitude of never saying can't is...
	Oh no, that attitude is essential.
	You know, that attitude is essential.
	No, listen, listen.
	Because if you're, let's say that you're running out of money, right?
	And I say, well, you know, you should probably get a job.
	Or find some way to make money.
	Go mow people's lawns.
	Go bag their groceries.
	Whatever it is.
	Go find a way to make some money.
	And you're like, well, but a giant meteor of gold could land right in front of me.
	And I'd say, is that possible?
	I guess so.
	Is it something you should plan for?
	No.
	And you say, well, but you wouldn't want to deny that it's possible.
	Well, probable is pretty important in life.
	Probable is pretty important in life.
	You know, who's cute?
	Avril Lavigne is cute.
	If I wasn't married, would I say, I'm going to wait for a call from Avril Lavigne so that we can do a duet?
	Yeah, yeah.
	And I'd say, well look, no, because I'm out there on the internet, I'm probably not, you know, six degrees of separation.
	She might click on my picture saying, maybe I'm into giant foreheads full of freckles.
	Right?
	So I'm just going to wait for her call.
	Is it impossible?
	Why, no, it's not.
	But is it probable?
	No, it's not.
	But for you, this is impossible.
	You're not working on this weapon.
	You don't know anyone who's working on this weapon.
	You will never be in this possession of this weapon.
	And you will never be in a position to influence anybody who is.
	Guaranteed.
	100%.
	I mean, the dialogue that could be sprung could be influential to engineers.
	But mainly, I just...
	Wait a minute.
	Let's say the government does develop some weapon.
	who will own it?
	Well, I mean, say...
	Who will own it?
	The group who will own it will be the government.
	And the government will not give up that weapon because of our podcast conversation.
	If you think you have the power of rhetoric to get the government to give up its ultimate weapon and give it to its greatest enemy, then what you need to do, my friend, is you need to get yourself on down to Revenue Canada or to the IRS or whatever tax collecting agency you have there, and you need to talk everyone who's a tax collector out of collecting taxes.
	Because if you have the incredible ability to talk people out of using the power of the state, then you need to go and talk to cops and tell them not to arrest people for laws that you disagree with.
	You need to go to soldiers and tell them to stop taking government money.
	You need to go to people who've retired in the public service and tell them to stop taking their money.
	Retirement pensions, you need to go to customs agents and tell them that their job may not be perfectly moral according to the non-aggression principle.
	You need to go to the tax collectors and get them to stop being tax collectors.
	That's stuff that you can actually do.
	But when bagging on about theoretical weapons in the hopes that somehow someone's going to listen to it, it's going to change their mind.
	Hey, if you think you have that power, there's six million things you can do, far more important than that, which you're never going to do.
	So forget it.
	Why would you waste everyone's time?
	All you're doing is you're saying, hey, you know what philosophy is?
	Philosophy is completely fucking useless.
	No, no, no.
	Hey, you know what theoretical questions are?
	Theoretical questions are a complete and annoying waste of time.
	Hey, you want to join me on my philosophical glide off the edge of the earth into complete inconsequentiality?
	Why don't you take philosophy and try applying it in your actual life where you can actually make a difference?
	Oh, I do.
	I do.
	Absolutely.
	And I didn't mean to steer this conversation like that.
	I really wanted to focus on...
	What do you do with philosophy in your life?
	Well, I'm a commercial diver.
	I own my own little diving business.
	I've learned to use leverage and just to really appreciate virtue to the fullest.
	That's not really very tangible, right?
	Well, I mean, like in day-to-day dealings, you know, it's tangible.
	You have to, you know, leverage your customers and, you know, be honest and forthright.
	And like what you do underwater is all about your virtue, what you see and tell the customer.
	They have to take your word for it.
	Your show, Philosophy, has been a major help for that for me.
	Great.
	Well, I'm glad that you are finding some tangible aspects and value for philosophy in your life.
	It's mostly about you and not about other people in terms of helping them become more philosophical, but that's probably just a stage in sort of where it is that you are in the journey, and that's obviously perfectly fine with me.
	But I'm going to move on to the next caller, but I really do appreciate your call, and perhaps we'll talk again.
	All right, thanks.
	Appreciate it.
	Thanks, man.
	Alright.
	Up next, it's the two-person team of Eric and Jeremy.
	They wrote in, and the question is, Personal responsibility and freedom don't really apply to a drug whose sole purpose is to harm others.
	I struggled to answer this question and was wondering if you could facilitate some discussion on the topic.
	Is it consistent with libertarianism to legalize date rape drugs?
	From a pragmatic view, would it be too harmful to legalize?
	These are some of the things I have struggled to answer myself.
	Why?
	Do you have...
	Do you have a big backup storage that you're trying to find a way to get rid of?
	Please legalize it because it's just taking up space under my bed.
	Well, no.
	Basically, I try to persuade people towards libertarianism quite frequently by using legalization of drugs is obviously an important topic.
	But Jeremy, who is also on the call, he brought up day rape drugs.
	Would I legalize that?
	And I said no.
	But I was just wondering, what is your opinion?
	Well, hopefully nobody cares about my opinion.
	I think the doors are great.
	But first of all, the question is legalization or not is not the answer, right?
	The question is, does it violate the non-aggression principle?
	Yes.
	Right?
	Now, disabling somebody else's consciousness is a violation of the non-aggression principle.
	Agreed.
	Right?
	It's a form of poison that disables somebody's control over their own body.
	Right?
	I mean, if you shot one of those little blow darts from the Amazon, you know, shot into someone's neck while they were driving a big rig down an icy road, and that disabled them, and they crashed, would that be a violation of the non-aggression principle?
	Obviously, yes.
	Yeah.
	Of course, right.
	And if you did it while they were just walking down the street and they fell down and they bumped their head, that would also be a violation of the non-aggression principle.
	If you did it while they were sitting comfortably in their chair and disabled them for a couple of hours, that would also be a violation of the non-aggression principle.
	Because you are initiating the use of force.
	In this case, force doesn't have to be stabbing, it can be poison, right?
	You're initiating the use of force to disable somebody's control over their own body.
	So, of course it's immoral.
	It's evil.
	To do.
	So the idea, whether it's legalized or not, I'm an anarchist, these terms don't mean much to me, but it would be absolutely immoral.
	I don't think there's much doubt about that.
	But my question would be, is it the role of the state to prevent the sale of substances?
	The role of the state?
	Jesus Christ.
	I mean, the whole goddamn government education system is one 12-year-long roofie that you can't even get out of.
	It's like being mentally raped without being able to pass out.
	So, no, I mean, the idea that the state is going to control mind-altering substances when it has government schools to begin with, no, it's not the role of the state to do anything like that.
	So, then at what point would you consider to be, in your terms, if you don't want to talk about legality, then immoral?
	No, it's immoral no matter.
	I mean, if you don't administer it...
	If things which violate the initiation of force are immoral, then you can't solve violations of the initiation of force with the government because the government is by definition a violation of the initiation of force.
	Sorry, it's a violation of the...
	It's the initiation of force.
	It's a violation of the non-aggression principle.
	So, if you don't like violations of the NAP... Then you can't solve violations of the NAP with the government because the government is by definition a violation of the NAP. Whatever objections you have to the initiation of force will be infinitely greater against the government than anything private.
	Okay, so you would argue that obviously using the initiation of force would break the non-aggression principle, but then isn't it a case of which is worse?
	Because is it worse to have these drugs legal, in which case people would use them to break the non-aggression principle?
	Just because there's no government to enforce these rules doesn't mean that rules are not enforced.
	Explain.
	Well, let's say that you want to become a cell phone company, right?
	Will you want to exchange information with other cell phone companies?
	In other words, will you want people on your cell phone bandwidth or whatever your service provider, would you want them to be able to call other people?
	Of course.
	Okay.
	Would anybody forcing you to obey those rules?
	No.
	It's just in your economic advantage to do so.
	Let's say that you're building some roads.
	Would you want to switch, just randomly, in the country that you're building them, the side of the road that people drive on?
	No.
	That'd be pretty exciting.
	Yeah.
	Wow, those are a lot of close encounter headlights, right?
	And nobody would be forcing.
	Let's say you want to build railways in some country.
	Would you build it to a different gauge than everyone else?
	No.
	And we could go on.
	If you want to build an ISP, would you want to exchange information with other ISPs?
	Of course, right?
	There were actually ISPs way back in the day that you could only go to their own portals, so to speak, but that's really early on.
	So here's examples of how you want to cooperate with other people and you want to follow rules established by society because it's your economic advantage.
	Like, you could write a book in a made-up language that only you knew, But most people try to use a language that other people have some familiarity with, right?
	Nobody forces you to.
	It's just kind of in your economic interest to do so, right?
	So then how do you effectively prevent people that may be immoral or non-rational from breaking the non-aggression principles while still following them yourself?
	Okay, so would the example be roofing?
	Exactly.
	How would you go about after the fact if you were someone that you knew had been administered a date rape drug?
	Okay, the question is why do people administer date rape drugs first?
	Because we don't want to just assume these problems are there forever, right?
	Okay.
	Like, if you say, well, I have to put chains around the ankles of my agricultural workers because they keep trying to get away, and it turns out that they're slaves, then the problem is not that the agricultural workers are trying to get away.
	The problem is that they're slaves.
	And if you stop the slavery, then you won't need to worry about balls and chains on the agricultural workers.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah, yeah.
	In other words, if you can figure out the root cause of the problem, then you won't have to deal with the effects.
	So then what would you say is the root cause of that problem?
	Why does somebody want to administer a date rape drug?
	I think it's in the name.
	Rape.
	Okay, fine.
	So why does somebody want to rape someone?
	That's a lot more complex.
	But it's important to answer.
	Yeah, okay.
	Because if we can prevent the problem, then worrying about its cure becomes...
	Much less of an issue.
	In other words, if you were to say in the 1930s, how much money do we need to set aside to treat polio, you'd say, well, hundreds of billions of dollars, right?
	And modern dollars or whatever, right?
	But if you come up with a cure for polio, then you don't have to worry about it.
	So the question is to figure out the cause of these kinds of behaviors.
	Yeah.
	And if you can, and then you can apply a cure, then dealing with the effects is going to be vastly reduced.
	It doesn't mean that in the future there won't be any violence.
	It just means that if we can figure out the root cause of violence, then we have a much more manageable problem if we can prevent it.
	In the same way that if we inoculate everyone against smallpox, Then we don't have to worry about smallpox as a public health problem that much anymore, right?
	So how would you deal with those, even if you, with your best efforts, were able to drastically reduce the propensity of people to commit those crimes?
	How would you deal with the small people that do still commit?
	Well, no, no, hang on.
	Because we still don't know what the cause is, right?
	Okay.
	What would you say is the cause, then?
	Well, I think that the facts are fairly clear that the cause is child abuse.
	Okay.
	We've got a bit of a cheat because it's not out yet, but we've got the truth about crime where there are credible, very credible estimates that you could immediately reduce violent crime by 90% in certain communities simply by avoiding physically abusing your children.
	There's 90% and that's just the start.
	That's still putting them in shitty schools, in shitty neighborhoods.
	That's still verbally abusing them and neglecting them.
	But if you just stop hitting this group, then you would achieve a violent crime reduction of 90%.
	That's just one aspect.
	If you combined them all, it would be pretty much everyone would stop committing these kinds of violent crimes.
	So I guess basically your solution to this dilemma would be towards fixing the cause of rape rather than actually addressing the drug itself.
	Well, I mean, there are certainly great ways of dealing with these problems.
	Yeah.
	But if the problems appear to be overwhelming, then it's harder to believe in the solutions, if that makes sense.
	In other words, if there's one case of smallpox Every ten years, rather than a million cases every year, then dealing with the solution to the problem of smallpox, it becomes much more credible, if that makes sense.
	To reduce the incidence of a particular dysfunction is to render the solutions much more practical.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah.
	Alright.
	So if we could reduce, of course, criminality enormously by promoting peaceful parenting Then there would be very few people who would end up being violent.
	And there would still be some because there can be certain brain diseases, brain degenerations or perhaps a tumor in the brain or something that could produce violence or aggression in a formerly peaceful person.
	These things have been evidenced or noted before.
	So, you know, it could happen.
	You know, some guy gets a brain tumor, goes through a restaurant with a machete and hacks up a bunch of people.
	I mean, that could happen, right?
	But this is not a moral crime, right?
	That's a disease, right?
	You'd give the person medical treatment for that.
	It would not necessarily be a crime in terms of moral choice, right?
	So these things would be more like akin to a rabid dog rather than it would be a moral crime.
	So there would be a very, maybe, maybe, just maybe, I mean, I'd never say never, at least in the realm of biology, although I'm very, very tempted and have in the past, you know, let's just say for the sake of argument that every now and then some cold-blooded sociopath is going to pop out of the womb and even if you treat them wonderfully, they're, you know, I don't believe it, but, you know, let's just say that could happen.
	That would be an extremely rare.
	Extremely rare situation.
	So the question is, how does someone, let's say that in a free and peaceful society of the future, where people are parenting peacefully, let's say that there's a mean family out of nowhere, right?
	A mean family.
	Well, you live in a community.
	And in a community, in a free society, generally most people would like to get some kind of insurance, some kind of security, right?
	And this doesn't have anything to do necessarily with the immorality of their kid.
	It's just wise to have insurance for a happenstance.
	So for instance, you have a very nice kid who throws a ball over a fence, it knocks someone on the head and puts them in a wheelchair, right?
	Right.
	Well, that's some expensive stuff.
	And that's not out of any immorality, that's just a bad accident.
	And most people in the future would have insurance for these kinds of things.
	Insurance for accidents their children would create because in a rational society the parents would be liable for the actions of their children, right?
	Yeah.
	So what that means is that if you have a whole bunch of insurance companies, insurance companies in a free society wish to minimize that which they have to pay for, right?
	That's their rational advantage, right?
	So, you know, if I get some...
	Nine-dimensional, 15,000-camera alarm system in my house, then my home insurance will go down, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	And if I have a safe driving record, then my driving is going to go down.
	If I take some driving course, my insurance costs are going to go down and so on, right?
	So the insurance company wants to not pay things out, which is why they charge smokers more for life insurance and so on, right?
	Or you're from Ontario, so you know some of the insurance companies where they offer lower rates if you hook your car up for a month or so and they get to monitor your driving?
	Yeah, that's right.
	Oh, it's an invasion of privacy.
	No, it's not.
	It's a contract.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Of course, if you get a bunch of speeding tickets, they have all of this stuff, right?
	Although, I think in Ontario, they have no fault, right?
	Because they can never figure out, trying to figure out who's at fault in a traffic accident until everyone gets a dashcan is pretty impossible.
	Anyway, so insurance companies want your children to not be dangerous.
	Right?
	Right.
	And if a child is being abused, it shows up very clearly on brain scans because if the child is being abused and neglected, the neofrontal cortex, the seed of reasoning, tends to be shrunken, the fight-or-flight mechanism deep down in the amygdala tends to be expanded, there are deviations in the hippocampal volume and so on.
	I'm getting overly technical and what the hell do I know?
	This is just things that I've learned, but it shows up very clearly on brain scans.
	Now, children who are being abused are much more likely to be dangerous to other people.
	And so, the insurance company will say, look, you've got to bring your child in for a checkup for health or, you know, vision, whatever, you know, the usual things, right?
	Get them weighed and all that.
	And while you're there, we're just going to do a painless, non-intrusive, totally safe scan to check their brain, right?
	Again, I don't know what the actual answer is going to be.
	This is just something that I could see being very effective.
	Now, if they see any signs of a problem in the brain, and certain kinds of sociopathy you can tell with certain tests as far as I understand it, so they'll leap into action.
	They'll say, look, your kid's heading the wrong way.
	He's not developing empathy.
	He's got an increased fight-or-flight mechanism.
	His impulse control is very poor.
	So you need some help.
	And they're going to say, listen, we're going to put you on a free course on how to parent better.
	And we're going to monitor your kid.
	And if you do all of this, your rates ain't going to go up.
	But if you don't, we can't enjoy you anymore.
	Or your rates are through the roof, right?
	Now, people could then say, well, screw you, right?
	They probably would if they're abusive parents.
	They say, well, screw you.
	I don't want to be part of your damn system anyway, right?
	Well, maybe the kid's in school.
	Would the school like the child to be insured?
	Yeah.
	Of course it would, right?
	So the school's going to say, oh, sorry, got a flag.
	You're not insured, so your kid can't come to school here, right?
	Well, that's kind of inconvenient, right?
	If they've got their whole life structured around the kid being in school, the kid can't be in school anymore, it doesn't work out very well.
	So that might be enough incentive or pressure for them to get into some sort of better parenting, right?
	And so, maybe other parents might find out about this, and they might say, ooh, you know, this sounds kind of ridiculous, but I could totally see it happening.
	Parents might say, listen, I don't want you playing with that uninsured kid.
	No, seriously, I mean, it sounds like a ridiculous joke, but the uninsurance means something.
	It means that the kid is going weird, and the parents are resisting any free and helpful correction.
	Right?
	And maybe this floats up to the guy's boss.
	And maybe the guy's boss says, wait, your kid's not insured?
	Maybe they won't insure the parents if the kid is not insured.
	Because if the parents are making such bad decisions that they won't take free help to improve the mental health of their child, maybe the parents are uninsurable because they've clearly indicated that they make terrible, selfish, brutal, ugly, and abusive decisions.
	So maybe they yank the insurance from the parents.
	And then maybe The boss says, oh, listen, I just got pinged.
	You're not insured anymore.
	What the hell's going on?
	Oh, they said my kid was getting all weird and mean and aggressive.
	Fuck them.
	I don't want to take any goddamn parenting courses, bunch of fascists.
	Well, maybe he's not such a great employee.
	Maybe the boss can't get any insurance if one of his employees is uninsured.
	You see these domino effects, right?
	And it's a very tight web, and none of it involves the initiation of force.
	Now, maybe this guy is in an apartment that he rents.
	Maybe the landlord gets pings that the kid and the parents are no longer insured.
	What does that mean?
	Eviction.
	Yeah!
	Because he can't...
	If they're not insured, if they break up and bust up his place, then he's got to pay for it out of his own pocket.
	Maybe they're leasing a car.
	The guy is not insured.
	Maybe they say, listen, you've got to be insured to be part of the car lease arrangement.
	We've got to take your car.
	So right now, these kids have lost their kids' school.
	He's lost his job.
	He's lost his home.
	He's lost his car.
	Do you not think that people might change with all of this amount of pressure?
	Yeah.
	And it simply could continue escalating until they either conform or they simply leave the society and go and live in a cave in Montana somewhere.
	No, seriously.
	I mean, they could go all kinds of Roberts and Crusoe if they want, which is really sad for the kid.
	But given that the kid's going feral, better for everyone else, right?
	But my question is that, I mean, what you're describing is the perfect society and a free society in my work.
	Wait, wait, wait, hang on.
	Where does the word perfect come from?
	I don't understand what you mean.
	Well, not perfect.
	That's a free society.
	Yeah, your ideal society.
	No, no, no.
	I know, no.
	See, you're automatically moving this into the realm of unreality by using these words.
	That's not fair.
	That's not a fair debating tactic.
	Okay.
	It's utopian.
	It's ideal.
	It's perfection.
	None of these.
	These are all predicated on imperfection and a realistic assessment of human behavior.
	If I said perfection, it would be like, guys, I have a magical Richard Simmons fairy wand and I'm going to wave it over the whole world and everyone's going to be lovely and they're going to fart rainbows and Indian food won't make them gassy.
	Now that, you could say, would be utopian and idealistic and unrealistic and perfect or whatever, right?
	So this is based upon the fact that people are going to make bad decisions and they need social and economic cues to get them back on the right path.
	And people need to be driven by self-interest rather than the imagination that some universal group of people with a monopoly on the initiation of force are always going to act morally.
	So I don't mind if you've got rebuttals, but you can't start rebuttals by saying perfect, utopian, idealistic.
	Those are not arguments.
	My point is that the society that you're describing doesn't currently exist in that form.
	We still have the state.
	There's still the initiation of force.
	It does exist to some degree in some areas.
	There's certain aspects of it in house insurance.
	There used to be until Obamacare and health insurance.
	There are certain aspects in car insurance and life insurance and so on.
	So there are aspects where in Better decisions are promoted based upon the economic incentives of insurance.
	So it's not wildly out of step with that which occurs in reality.
	But the thing with the insurance example is, you know, you have to have a society where everyone acts rationally, which I don't think we have right now.
	In Ontario, for a way of car insurance, again...
	Sorry, just repeat that.
	Cut it out for a sec.
	Oh, I'm sorry.
	It's all based on the idea that everyone is rational with the insurance.
	What?
	Oh my God!
	Who are you listening to?
	Jesus, this is annoying.
	I just put a whole 20-minute example together of people behaving irrationally.
	Of not taking free parenting advice and free parenting courses to improve and resisting even when their kid gets kicked out of school and when they lose their job and when they lose their home and they're still persisting in this irrational course.
	So when I've just spent 20 minutes describing Somebody's increasingly irrational and erratic actions and you say, this somehow assumes that everyone is perfectly rational, I don't know who the hell you've been listening to.
	Did you not hear, did I cut out for 20 minutes?
	Did you not hear me describe increasingly irrational behavior on the part of a family here?
	Yeah, I heard them, but when we were talking about reality and whatnot, some of those consequences you were talking about seemed kind of unrealistic, that they would lose everything, like their house, their job, their car, just because they weren't insuring their son.
	These are potentials.
	Potentials, yes.
	Yeah, these are potentials.
	And for sure, insurance companies do not like irrational and destructive and abusive people.
	Because they're insuring against irrational, destructive, and abusive actions, right?
	Like if I go to my insurance company and say, I'm planning to drive blindfolded, what are they going to say?
	You're not getting insurance.
	You don't know how cars work, right?
	And if I go to the insurance company that protects me from my child's destructive actions and I say, I'm going to beat my child and lock him under a cupboard and expose him to wild amounts of gay beluga porn every day...
	Well, you guys don't have the collection too, such as me.
	Anyway, one story for another.
	Then the insurance company is going to say no.
	Insurance companies like predictable behavior.
	They like rational calculations.
	They like people who have self-interest.
	They like people who listen to reason and evidence because those people are predictable.
	And you can't be an insurance company with people who behave unpredictably.
	Because in aggregate, you have to be able to make Money, right?
	Which means there has to be some predictability.
	So it's not some weird idealistic vision.
	You asked how these something like Criminality could be dealt with.
	Well, the first thing is, let's have a system.
	Random destructive and abusive behavior is very expensive to society.
	It's right now, the private emotional profit of satisfaction and of sadism or whatever motivates these abusive parents, well, they get the private pleasure of their abuse.
	There are a lot of people in the world whose brains are so weirdly wired that they gain happiness from cruelty, called sadists, and there's a lot of people out there like that.
	I mean, more so outside of the West, but still quite a lot of people in the West.
	They just tend to be social justice warriors, but that's a topic for another time.
	They get the private pleasure of abuse.
	But who pays?
	Yeah, who pays?
	Who pays for the price of society?
	So the profits, the emotional profits are privatized, but the social costs are, well, the costs are socialized, right?
	And so in a free society, the costs of abuse accumulate to the abusers directly, immediately, viscerally.
	And we all know, you guys seem well-versed in economics because you're talking about externalities, we all know that people respond to incentives.
	And so, if the abusers have to pay for the full and total costs of their abuse, then that will reduce abuse.
	Anything you tax, anything that costs, is decreased, right?
	Yeah.
	And so, how long would parents be responsible for their child's actions?
	Until 18, like it is today?
	Because I don't know what kind of responsibility children will have when raised peacefully.
	When children are raised being negotiated with and being reasoned with and not being aggressed against from day one, maybe they'll be capable of adult decisions at 12.
	I don't know.
	I do know, of course, the brain maturity takes a lot longer, but it's not like everyone's brain is mature at 18.
	I know mine wasn't.
	I don't know the answer to that, but the answer to that would be based upon the best available science and general predictions of behavior.
	I think that's a fair point.
	So I guess the way I would summarize your argument, and at least what I took away, is that we're asking the wrong question, right?
	That we shouldn't be focused on the non-aggression principle and the use of force, but rather the driving causes of it and how we can move away from it.
	Well, yeah.
	I mean, look, prevention...
	An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, is the old saying when I was growing up.
	And for my European listeners...
	I don't know, that's ORC numbers or something.
	I don't know how that works exactly.
	But what it means, of course, is that the real visionaries in the medical field don't say, how do we deal with the hundreds of billions of dollars a year it costs to deal with polio?
	I think the real visionaries say, how can we prevent polio?
	And my goal in this show has not been, how do we take our existing system and deal with all the costs that arise out of child abuse?
	What I say is, well, how do we prevent the violence and brutality in the world that arises out of child abuse?
	Well, clearly we have to.
	The inoculation against violence is peaceful parenting, which is why I'm out there promoting it and libertarians get confused.
	I don't mean you, right?
	Libertarians get confused because they're like, well, why the hell is he talking about parenting?
	You know, we've got a polio epidemic and he's talking about preventing polio.
	Well, we're in the middle of an epidemic.
	Yes, and that epidemic will never end until we prevent it.
	I've got a free audiobook of Lloyd DeMoss' The Origins of War and Child Abuse.
	We've got interviews with experts.
	We've got lots of data.
	A significant majority of rapists are raised by single mothers and they have displacement rage issues towards women.
	Even rape is not randomly scattered.
	The tendency towards rape is not randomly scattered throughout the population.
	But it's concentrated in a particular group of people with a particular kind of childhood.
	Single motherhood, displaced rage.
	So why does somebody want to roofie someone?
	Well, clearly they hate whoever they're roofying and they hate themselves and don't believe that they can get a woman or a man to have sex with them voluntarily.
	Now why would a man grow up hating Women and fearing women.
	Well, most likely he's raised by a woman.
	Women are part of the cycle of violence, as I keep saying, and most people try to la-la-la that one away, but why would a man grow up and say, oh, he's such a misogynist, he hates women.
	Okay, well, who raised him?
	Well, if a black kid was raised by a white racist who constantly beat and castigated and ground him down and Broke his balls every day, and he grew up hating white people.
	We'd at least say it's an unjust response, but it's not completely incomprehensible, right?
	And so, what would the insurance be for kids of single moms?
	Holy shit!
	Let's take all the alimony and all the child support and give it straight to the insurance company.
	Hey, look, it becomes a little less profitable to get divorced or to not have a father to begin with who sticks around.
	And so, yeah, the causes of violence are rooted, and I've got a whole bomb in the brain.
	You can go to the whole presentation, including interview with subject matter experts, laying all of this out biologically and genetically.
	It's very clear.
	It's very clear that the cause of violence is child abuse.
	And if you eliminate child abuse, which is the major goal of what I do, then You're eliminating the vast majority of violence in the world.
	I think it's basically going to eliminate all of it, but again, for people who are Brain tumors and stuff, this is not a moral crime, but a physiological problem, like somebody who just suddenly gets epilepsy and hits you in the face.
	It's not like they're knowingly punching you.
	The first time they got epilepsy, you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
	You wouldn't charge them with a crime, you'd get them some medical treatment, right?
	So, that's sort of my focus.
	Now, how do you deal with somebody who roofies?
	Well, of course, you prevent, prevent, prevent.
	But, as an adult in a free society, you would buy insurance against Violence.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	And so if you got roofied, you'd call up your insurance company.
	I call it a DRO, a dispute resolution organization, whatever you want.
	You call them up and you say, I got roofied.
	They leap into action.
	Right?
	Because they got to pay you $100,000 for being roofied.
	Which means they've got to go find someone who's going to pay that $100,000 to them, right?
	And take whatever sanctions would be involved in that.
	So they'd go over to the bar, they'd get DNA off your clothes, whatever it is that they...
	I don't know, what the hell do I do, right?
	For Michael Connelly, books under my belt, and what the hell do I know, right?
	But they would go and do all of the stuff, and they'd either find the guy or they didn't.
	Now, if they didn't find the guy who roofied you, or the girl, Then they'd pay you the $100,000 and be like, well, sorry, couldn't find him, right?
	But if they can find him, then he's in trouble.
	Because his insurance, and he'd have to have insurance to function in society, at least until we were sure that everybody was peaceful, in which case it would be an unnecessary overhead, right?
	Any more than atheists buy insurance for demonic possession, right?
	So the insurance company would go to the guy and say, listen, We've got to put you on trial for roofing.
	And then, you know, they go through that whole process.
	I don't know how it would work, how it would look.
	I think lie detectors are better than lawyers and more reliable, but that's just my thought.
	But anyway, go through some process.
	And either he's found guilty or he's not, right?
	If he's found not, well, you still get paid the $100,000, right?
	But if they find him guilty, well, then he at least owes them $100,000.
	And there may be other sanctions.
	In other words, maybe they say, listen...
	We're not going to insure you for a year.
	Which maybe means no house, no job, nobody selling him groceries, nobody delivering food.
	Like maybe he's exiled because nobody will interact with him economically.
	And then people say, oh well maybe there'll be some sub-layer that will interact with him economically and so on.
	But then those people won't be insured by anyone else.
	Like there will be these domino effects.
	Because it used to be the case that we had these little tribes and everybody knew everybody's business.
	The great thing about the internet is that that can happen again.
	There's been this phase where there's this giant anonymity.
	But that can change with reputations.
	Yelp for people, as it's been called.
	And so if you get a really bad reputation, if people won't insure you and so on, maybe you can't get a job.
	Maybe nobody wants to fill up your gas.
	Maybe nobody wants to rent you an apartment.
	Maybe nobody wants to sell you food or water, electricity.
	Maybe you can't function in that society.
	Unless, maybe, there's a cure.
	Maybe there's some kind of therapy.
	Maybe there's some kind of, I don't know what, right?
	Talk therapy or physical therapy or gene therapy.
	I don't know if you're that messed up.
	Maybe there's some kind of cure.
	Maybe you've got to pay the money and submit to the cure in order to restore your capacity to be part of that society again.
	Again, these will be very rare because this will all be hopefully prevented.
	But where it shows up, It can all be done.
	So through the devices of societal pressure without the initiation of force, that would tackle this problem better than any...
	Well, force is perfectly acceptable in a society in self-defense.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	Remember, in a free society, there's no government saying you can't have guns.
	Right.
	So, you know, you go and try and rob some.
	Why don't they shoot you?
	Well, you'll probably get a bonus from your insurance company, right?
	If you're part of a stick-up, some banks will pay you a bonus.
	So there is always going to be risk because you don't know who the hell's got what weapons, right?
	And so the violence may still be used in self-defense.
	It's not a violation of the initiation of force to defend yourself.
	It's called the initiation and not just force.
	But I generally believe that economic ostracism It's by far the cheapest and most effective way to bring about compliance to reasonable standards of behavior in a society.
	It's how it used to work.
	You go along with the tribe or the tribe doesn't go along with you.
	Economic ostracism generally also includes sexual ostracism which goes very much against our genetic nature.
	In other words, if we don't have any resources, we can't have kids and those genes very quickly get wiped out of the gene pool.
	This is why ostracism is so powerful because not only are we a social species that needed other people to guard us while we slept and we needed to hunt in groups.
	We're a tribal species, a social species.
	Ostracism has been shown to provoke the same physiological response as physical torture.
	It lights up the same parts of the brain for obvious reasons of survival and reproduction.
	You need to try to do both, right?
	And so it's a very powerful weapon.
	It's easily reversible if you make a mistake, unlike something like the death penalty.
	And it is cheap because all it requires is people not to do something, not to rent you an apartment, not to sell you food.
	That's all it requires.
	It doesn't require massive infrastructure of the state.
	And not doing something is something most people are very good with.
	Great.
	Thanks.
	Yeah, I hope that helps.
	And for more on this, you know, if you're interested in this, you can go to freedomandradio.com slash free.
	I've got practical anarchy and everyday anarchy.
	These are just some examples.
	There's other, I think, someone wrote a book called The Machinery of Freedom, which you can look into as well.
	There's some stuff that's been done by Murray Rothbard and a bunch of other thinkers.
	David Nozick has done some, I think.
	So there's lots of, you know, I don't claim any massive originality in a lot of this area.
	But if you want to find out ways that this has occurred, and it's occurred many times in history and across the world and so on.
	But that's a great question.
	I appreciate you guys bringing it up.
	It's been a while since I've talked about it.
	Thank you.
	Bye.
	Thanks.
	And that's it for tonight, Steph.
	No.
	No, you know what, Mike?
	We finished the show, I know.
	No, just phone someone.
	It feels so incomplete.
	Call someone.
	Just dial something randomly.
	Hello?
	Pizza?
	No, I'm calling the whole phone book as we speak right now, Steph.
	Come on.
	Beep, beep, beep.
	Hello, hello, hello.
	Are there any women here?
	That's something from The Simpsons, I think, when they're on the chat line.
	Fulfill your wildest dreams.
	There's all these guys talking.
	So no, thanks everyone for calling.
	I hope you guys have a very...
	We probably won't be talking to you all before Christmas again, so I hope you have a great Christmas.
	I have a very important Christmas message which I'm putting out tomorrow.
	And the Grinch who steals social conformity.
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	Thank you to all the callers.
	Thank you to Mike.
	Have a Merry Christmas.

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