Nov. 22, 2016 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
03:19:55
3506 Escape From Feminism - Call In Show - November 16th, 2016
Question 1: [1:50] - “My Father was fond of saying ‘believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see.’ Sage advice for sure but why do humans have the tendency to rationalize or even ignore obvious objective reality”Question 2: [33:57] - “What are your thoughts on the coming fourth wave of feminism? Do you believe that feminism has created harm to women, men and children? What are your thoughts on "Women's Studies" programs in our current education system? Do you believe that they teach a female natural design or maternal feminist history without bias?”Question 3: [1:38:39] - “Being a 24-year-old female in a suburb of Philadelphia, I am almost alone in my joy of Donald Trump's victory. I have friends who are devastated at the results of this election and of my support for Donald Trump. How do I tell them the truth in a way that does not push them further into their viewpoints?”Question 4: [2:09:25] - “I would like to inquire about the proposition that Reason is a ‘higher power.’ Adherents of Judeo-Christian philosophy frequently say that we cannot have morality without a higher power such as God. I recently listened to one of Stefan's podcasts in which he stated that he surrenders to the higher power of reason and evidence every day. Some philosophical questions that were raised in my mind after listening to that podcast are: Is a higher power necessary to formulate and ethical system? If so, why is Reason a sufficient higher power? Is Reason self-evident? Does Reason have any limitations?”Question 5: [2:46:41] – “Why we use the word ‘deserve’ and what does it mean?”Freedomain Radio is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by signing up for a monthly subscription or making a one time donation at: http://www.freedomainradio.com/donate
Hey everybody, Stefan Mullen here from Freedom Main Radio.
I hope you're doing very well.
Great, great show tonight.
First, first caller was, why do we have, as human beings, a tendency to rationalize or even ignore basic and objective reality?
And had a great conversation about that and some of the evolutionary pressures and processes that might have produced that in people.
The second caller, a woman wanted to know what my thoughts are on the coming fourth wave of feminism and wanted to know if I thought feminism has created harm to women, men, and children, and if so, how so?
So we had a good chat on the history of feminism and where it might be going, otherwise known as Yikes!
Now, the third caller, another woman, she's a young woman who lives in Philadelphia.
And not many people she knows were very keen on Donald Trump's recent electoral victory.
And how does she share her enthusiasm in a way that doesn't blow up in her face?
And...
I don't think she's alone in that problem at the moment, so we had a good chat about that.
The fourth caller wanted to know if my subjugation of my thought processes to reason is akin to a religious person's or a Christian's subjugation to a deity.
Is reason a higher power?
It's a very, very good subject.
Question?
And the fifth caller wanted to know, what has the word deserve been?
Why do we say, I deserve this, or he deserved what he got?
What does it mean to deserve something?
And is it different from earning it?
And it's a great, great question, and we had a really, really enjoyable chat about that, which I think you'll...
Enjoy and appreciate as well.
So please, please don't forget to go to freedomainradio.com slash donate, donate, donate to help us out.
I really, really appreciate that.
You can follow me on Twitter at Stefan Molyneux and use our affiliate link if you've got some shopping to do at fdrurl.com slash Amazon.
Alright, well up first today we have Christopher.
He wrote in and said, My father was fond of saying, Believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see.
Sage advice for sure, but why do humans have the tendency to rationalize or even ignore obvious objective reality?
That's from Christopher.
Hey Chris, how you doing tonight?
Good, Stefan.
It's a pleasure to speak with you.
Thanks.
Hopefully we feel that way at the end, as well as at the beginning.
Always a good combo.
Well, so for those who don't know, and we've got a presentation on this very channel called The Death of Reason, because hyperbole is our middle name, and in it we can see that when people are given information that contradicts their illusions, it actually reinforces those illusions.
And somebody thinks Hillary Clinton is a good person, you provide them evidence to the other, and they come out thinking that Hillary Clinton's a better person, no matter what the evidence is that you provide to them.
It's a little frustrating.
Where does this philosophically reside?
Is it brain chemistry?
Can we go into the soul?
What makes you predisposed not to be able to look at something and say, okay, this is what it is?
Well, I don't think we want to go to philosophy or to the soul where we want to go.
Is evolution.
Right?
So the question is why?
See, the human mind is an exquisitely blank canvas.
There's no reason why it's one way rather than any other way in particular.
And that's an important thing to understand.
Everything that is in the human mind and everything that is in the human tendencies must first be explainable by evolution.
Because evolution is kind of how we got to be who we are.
Like the relentless sifting and choosing of most sexually or reproductively advantageous strategies is what has produced who we are.
Sure.
I mean, we can go into our...
Hang on, hang on.
Okay, go ahead.
So the fundamental question is, why would women bang...
A guy who rejected reality, right?
Because if women choose evolution, because we're not a rapey species, and so it is women who choose the evolutionary preferences that drive the development of the human mind, of the male mind.
So the question is, why would women prefer to reproduce with a man who would reject reality?
Reality.
Go in opposition to reality.
Why?
Can you think of anything?
Well, no, actually.
This confuses me.
Simply, obviously I was an early adopter to Donald Trump and spent the last 18 months or so dealing with all of the social media networks and arguing my point that Trump would make a fine president.
So what would predispose a person, now that the results are known, to say that Since the reality is known, that no, this isn't a truth.
That the majority of people...
Okay, no, you're just...
Sorry, you're just restating the question.
So, the question is, are there advantages to rejecting reality and there are disadvantages to accepting reality?
And of course, we have to remember that for almost all of human history, mysticism and a dominance hierarchy ruled the tribe.
Now, mysticism is specifically a rejection of reality, and the dominance hierarchy, which in apes is not considered a moral thing, but just an I'm bigger thing, because as soon as the young males get big enough and strong enough to overthrow the older males, why?
That's precisely what they do.
Now, of course, the older males in the human species don't like that.
Of course, right?
I mean, they want to be able to keep their dominance in the hierarchy.
So, The question is, when you are old as a man, you don't have the physical strength to compete with the young, but you are wily, right?
You are smart.
You're street smart.
You are able to substitute language for physical strength.
So the way that you do it is you say, there's a deity.
See, Chris?
There's a deity out there, and that deity is We're good to go.
If you overthrow me, that deity up there is going to punish you, is going to throw you in hell, is going to strike you barren, is going to kill your harvest, right?
So you create some giant imaginary friend that substitutes for your fading man muscles as you become long in the tooth and silver or bald of the pate, right?
And so you want to invent an invisible, imaginary, all-powerful friend that's going to be Siding with you as you age to give you imaginary strength against the very real strength of the younger men who want to rip your head off and stuff it on a pike.
So mysticism is something that is developed by the old to make up for their lack of strength relative to the young, to have a more or less violent transition of power.
And of course, it's wonderful for your bloodline too, right?
Because what you say is you say, ah, you know what?
God not only wants me To be in charge, but he also wants my son to be in charge.
And if you go against my son, he may be 98 pounds, dripping wet, 80% of which is his nose.
He might be weak.
He might sing or warble in a John Anderson-style falsetto.
Yes, not flute.
And so he may...
Have all of these non-warrior characteristics, but don't worry, our invisible backup friend is gonna punish you if you go against him, right?
So, now, what would happen is the gravity well of power that the deity would represent would draw the enforcers there, right?
Because the enforcers also know they're gonna get old, and if it's just brute strength that rules, then it's the young who win and the old who get taken out.
But all the young people want to hook into a power structure, That doesn't have their heads ripped off and stuck on a pike when they get older.
And so there's great attraction.
Now, this deity may be a god or a series of gods.
It may be a whole panthea of gods.
It may be collectivism.
It may be the good of the tribe.
It may be whatever.
It could be the world spirit.
I mean, it could be any number of things, and it has been throughout history.
But if you reject that, like if you say, I'm sorry, I just I don't believe in this invisible friend who is going to punish me if I rip your head off and stick it on a pike.
Well, what happens to you if you disbelieve in the gods of the tribe?
Well, certainly, certainly you're, you know, shunned at the least and exiled at the at the at the most.
And from a reproductive standpoint, it doesn't matter, right?
Either one.
If you're shunned, your genes don't reproduce.
If you're killed, your genes don't reproduce.
If your balls get cut off, your genes don't reproduce.
A whole series of things are going to happen if you disbelieve in the gods of the tribe.
So a woman would rather have stability than great risk, right?
Men are risk takers, biologically speaking.
Men are risk takers and women are not.
And of course, it's a bell curve and blah, blah, blah.
And the reason for that is the woman benefits from a steady supply of meager food because she's got kids to feed and she needs extra calories while she's breastfeeding and so on.
And so the all or nothing, the double or nothing stuff doesn't work for women, which is why women tend to prefer state power over the free market because the state power provides them a fairly minimal, at least throughout most of history, a fairly minimal but survivable.
You're never going to get rich off welfare, but you're not going to starve to death either.
It's not a double or nothing scenario, whereas men are more drawn towards the free market, which is why when women get the vote, you tend to get socialist redistribution, and when property owners get the vote, you tend to get a free market as a whole.
So the reality is that women don't...
Want highly risky endeavors.
Lady Macbeth, right, the woman who convinces her husband to...
Spoiler!
Well, it's been 400 years.
I think we can survive.
But who convinces her husband to kill the king and become king is rare.
It's very rare.
It's a wildly ambitious woman.
Normally, what happens is the woman will say, you know, get along and go along and don't provoke too much discomfort.
There's a British show.
I think it's called Outnumbered.
And...
The husband's a teacher and he offends some minority student and the woman is like freaking out.
Are you going to get fired?
Are you going to get disciplined?
What's happening?
We've got three mouths to feed.
Don't go in and make nice.
Go in and sort it out.
Go in and make it better.
We've got bills to pay.
Get that steady paycheck, right?
And you know, it's not an argument, but it's an example.
And so a woman has a choice of men.
Young, fertile women have their choice of men for the most part.
And there may be a man who has decided to disbelieve in the God's And so, if that is the case, she's going to choose the guy who gets along and goes along with the delusions of the tribe.
She's just going to choose that guy.
Because the alternative is to choose the guy who's going to disbelieve in the gods of the city, in the...
Validity of the hierarchy.
And that is not going to be good for him for the most part.
Most of the people who attempt to overthrow the king end up in small pieces being fed to fishes in the river.
And so the people who reject reality and accept the gods of the tribe have much more reproductive success than those who reject the irrationality of the tribe and adhere to mere reason and evidence.
And the other thing too, you know, there's an example which I sort of gave earlier, which is that people have this disconcerting habit of if you try to, if they have a perspective, A, and it's wrong, and you give them information counter to A, they end up extra A, A squared, A plus, you end up with a big fat poofy A. So negative or contradictory information to a belief system tends to reinforce that belief system.
Now we can understand evolutionarily how this would come about.
Because the king is always scanning for the malcontents.
The king is always scanning for those who might undermine his authority and his legitimacy, who might overthrow the illusions, the mysticism that keeps him in power, or perhaps try and overthrow him directly.
So the king has his spies out there.
The tribal leader, the silverback, he has his spies out there.
And what the spies do is they go among the people and they say, I'm not sure I really believe...
In the gods of the tribe.
I'm not really sure that there's this big invisible guy who is keeping the king in power.
Now, they don't believe this, right?
They're trying to flush out the rebels.
Now, the best survival strategy, since 99 times out of 100, this is not somebody who might be your potential ally as a rebel.
It's the king trying to flush out the traitors.
So 99 times out of 100 that's the case.
So what you want to do is when someone comes at you with information counter to the myths of the tribe, is you want to double down on the myths of the tribe as a way of protecting yourself against being caught out in any treasonous thoughts or any rational thoughts.
And so the idea that you bring information counter to people's delusions and they double down on those delusions, well, this is a perfectly...
Wonderful strategy to the problem of being set up by the king to promote treason and then being killed or exiled or the same thing genetically.
So you just have a look at what kept people alive, what kept them reproducing and it's not that hard to figure out why people have this relationship to objective reality that they have.
So if your point then is this is a, they're predisposed genetically Sure.
To wish this outcome, and they will ignore all objective reality, then there's no solution to this.
Oh yeah, no, there's a solution.
I'm just talking about the evolution of it.
I'm not saying there's no solution to it.
Well, I mean, at some point, we have to find a solution.
In the United States, we have a very divided country here at this point.
I think that we had gotten over a lot of the division prior to Obama becoming president, but at this point, he has gone to extraordinary means to recreate that, probably as a political strategy.
It's not so much a divided country as it's a sane country.
It's a country divided into the sane and the insane.
So what is the strategy to counter people who will...
I mean, I literally have people I am still arguing with that this election is...
We have won this election, at least temporarily.
The people who want America to return to some semblance of what I knew it as as a child.
And I think that's what Donald Trump, I mean, we're not a generation behind him perhaps, but I think that's what he hopes to do.
How do we convince those people who are rioting currently in the streets?
Well, look, I mean, like all things, It's a trinity, right?
There are people who will never, ever accept reason and who will double down on their irrationality.
These tend to come from more primitive cultures before Greek and Roman philosophy, before the sort of St.
Augustine integration of Greek philosophy with Christianity, before the Age of Reason, before the Enlightenment, before the Renaissance, before the scientific...
Before the scientific revolution, before all of this stuff, right?
So people who come from primitive cultures are going to double down on irrationality because they just haven't gone through the conditioning that Western Europe-based sort of societies have gone through.
Because at least in Western Europe, this is the cure, since you want to know the cure.
At least in Western Europe, people are ashamed to be irrational, right?
If you point out hypocrisy...
In somebody from a European culture, they will generally not like it.
They will not view that as a positive and benevolent experience.
Other cultures, you know, I don't know.
I mean, other cultures embrace contradiction, embrace irrationality, anti-rationality, and view it as a virtue.
And whatever somebody has defined as a virtue, you can never, ever, ever talk them out of it.
This is why I sort of have made moral arguments for many years until the emergency of the immediate crisis overtook that.
If you're not dealing with somebody from a European culture or somebody who respects European culture, you're not going to have much luck.
I mean, you're just not.
So, focus on that.
And if you're not talking to somebody who's trained in thinking, you can't teach it to them on the fly.
You know what I mean?
Like, you don't just jump out of an airplane and You know, hand someone a parachute and push them out of the plane if they've never been out before.
They're most likely just gonna plummet to their death, freak out, pass out, or whatever, right?
So you can't teach someone how to think critically while in the process of debating with that person.
It's not gonna happen.
It's not gonna happen.
But wasn't that part of the foundation of the United States was a group of people who were critical thinkers?
How have we gone so far astray from this?
Well, I mean, there's two waves.
I mean, number one, America was founded by educated white males.
And for a long time in America, it was educated white males who ran the country.
Now, not perfectly and certainly badly in a lot of ways.
But when you bring women into the fold, and when you bring third-world cultures into the fold, you're just not going to have a stronger commitment to rationality.
For reasons I've gone into a million times before, women tend to be more emotional and less objective, and third-world cultures don't have the same historical respect for rationality.
It took thousands of years for European culture to develop.
So, it's not that, you know, people are, oh, America has become irrational.
It's like, no, just imported and empowered irrational groups of people.
And sometimes anti-rational groups of people.
And we're going to be talking to a woman tonight who's got this sort of issue of how do I talk to my friends about reason and evidence.
That is, you know, I mean, that's sort of all I can say, that if people around you aren't trained in critical thinking, or aren't interested in critical thinking, then there's really no point debating them.
It's like me going to Japan, not speaking Japanese, and trying to debate people in Japanese.
Well, no.
I need to spend years learning Japanese first, and then I can go over.
And so people need to learn.
Critical thinking, we're born with it, for sure, but it gets sort of beaten and punished out of us so much when we're young.
The critical thinking is something that we should look at at the moment as a complex skill that very, very few people have.
And most people are frightened of and most people are angry because it's trauma, right?
We're all born rational.
And then what happens is we get punished into becoming irrational.
And...
The punishment for being rational is very painful.
So when you ask people to be rational, you're asking them to revisit very early childhood wounds where their natural budding rationality was attacked, shamed, humiliated, punished, beaten, whatever, verbally abused, and so on.
So it's a very, very difficult thing.
If you are very good at chess, Then you don't sit down with someone to play chess who's never played chess before and who was beaten repeatedly around the head with a chess set when they were younger and expect to have a productive game.
Especially if they have no interest in playing chess, view chess as immoral, and think that they're fantastic at it anyway, right?
I mean, you're just not going to have it.
So if you are very good at chess, then you want to sit down with people who are also very good at chess.
And that's not just they woke up, rolled out of bed one day and decided to Be good at chess.
Or they've read a bunch of books on chess.
I mean, you actually have to do it to become good at it.
And you have to subject yourself to the test of the chess marketplace or leaderboards or competitions or whatever.
And so when something is skillfully acquired and when you've mastered something, you recognize that you're really good at it and you're playing with children, right?
Like you're like Andre Agassi in his prime with his wig flapping in the breeze and...
There is drugs coursing through a system and you're sitting there with a bunch of people who don't know which end of the racket to hold and you recognize you're just not going to have a great game.
And people wading into debate and reason and evidence and philosophy as if it's not a very complicated thing that you need to spend years and years getting good at.
What it does, unfortunately, is it gives the average person the idea that they can do it, right?
Because, you know, well, this guy who's read a lot, this guy who's really good at thinking, this guy who's got a lot of critical experience and debating experience and studied philosophy and logic and so on, well, he's debating with me as an equal.
And it's like, no, you're not an equal any more than I wander out into a figure skating competition and do anything other than spiral headfirst into the boards, you know, leaving one skate flying through the air.
I recognize the expertise of skaters and I would never imagine going out into a figure skating competition and joining it in any way, shape or form because I'm aware I'm not good at it.
And the figure skaters would say, get off the ice, you're dangerous.
You don't know what you're doing, and you need to go and start from the beginning if you want to join us up here.
But...
It's different.
Hang on, I'm almost done.
I think it was Murray Rothbard who said this.
You know, there's nothing wrong with people being ignorant of economics.
You know, it's a complicated discipline.
You've got to study it for a long time.
The problem is people having very strong opinions about economics when they don't have a freaking clue what they're doing.
And this is the challenge, right?
We need to restore respect for critical thinking and recognize most people don't have it.
Most people think they have it, which makes them even more dangerous.
to get into critical thinking.
And you can see this all over the place, a comment section of internet comment section.
Sometimes there's people going back and forth.
They don't know what they're doing.
You know, they're just, they're like kids, you know, swinging tennis rackets at a set of bubbles and thinking that they've won Wimbledon.
I mean, it's ridiculous.
So that's my perspective.
Okay, so for those of us out here, you know, in, you know, I'm mid-50s, probably the best, our best efforts could be used on education of younger individuals.
Thank you.
Well, yeah, and just shaking people out of their vanity.
I mean, there's no point in me trying to convince a fellow 55-year-old that That being $20 trillion in debt might be a problem at some point.
That the misunderstanding that we have of economics and money and all of the plethora of problems that we have in this country are important because I'm not going to make any progress.
I might as well talk to a 14-year-old.
Well, no, you'll have much more luck talking to a young person because a young person is entering into the paying into the system aspect of their working life.
You know, especially if they're male, they're going to be paying taxes for the next 40 or 50 years or whatever, right?
Well, they're more greatly impacted than we are.
I mean, you know, social security.
Yeah, old people are just looking to sidle up to the giant government teat and suck the system dry and feed off the young people like ancient grizzled cryptkeeper vampires constantly in search of young, fresh, steaming, youthful tax blood.
Particularly when there's financial incentive involved.
There's an old saying that you cannot make a man understand something when his income depends upon him not understanding it.
Focus your efforts on the young and be critical of whether it's worth spending time trying to reason with someone.
The Bernie Sanders movement actually may have been good in a silly kind of way.
I think his points were valid though his philosophy was wrong.
I don't know what that means.
I think the Bernie Sanders movement was great in many ways in that it showed young people's willingness to want to think outside the box and it also showed that they were concerned about the flood of dark money, of lobbyist money into the American political system and of course a lot of them were able to make that transition to recognize that Donald Trump,
by self-funding his campaign, had bypassed Yeah, between Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Hillary Clinton and so on.
All of the collusion going on between the media and Hillary Clinton's campaign, between the DNC and Hillary Clinton's campaign, they're sort of working to make sure she got the nomination.
Fantastic.
You know, fantastic.
I mean, this whole election has been highly revelatory regarding democratic corruption, or as we just generally call it, Democrats.
I think it's going to be a synonym in the next Urban Dictionary.
Don't Democrat me, bro!
They've laid bare the essence of the socialist movement in this country.
Yeah, because what would have happened if there hadn't been Bernie Sanders?
Then this corruption wouldn't have been revealed.
And if there had been somebody who wasn't giving Hillary Clinton as much of a run for her money, then that person would not have alienated the youth voters into either staying home or voting Trump.
So the Bernie Sanders campaign helped to hand the crown to Trump.
And for that, I think reasonable people can express a slow clap and, you know, hand out a couple of buckets of ramen noodles for these people.
Well, that's interesting because I recall, I mean, you know, at my age, Ronald Reagan was the first election I voted in.
But there was another candidate, third party candidate at the time, John Anderson.
And he got a lot of the youth vote.
And those people later on became, you know, Reagan youth.
You know, once Ronald Reagan proved, you know, the theory that, you know, whatever you think of trickle-down economics or Reaganomics or whatever you want to call it.
But they warmed to it because it actually worked.
Well, young people, of course, when they get out into anything approximating the free market, That's when they realize, if they have half a brain, that's when they realize how unbelievably god-awful their education was.
I mean, all the way from kindergarten through graduate school, when they get out into the free market, they realize just how coddled, how spaced out, how alienated, how distracted, how pumped full of terrible information, resentment, and economic uselessness.
They get out into the marketplace and it's like, wow, the government just had me in its direct or indirect grip for, what, 16 years?
16 years!
I mean, that's enough to produce, what, three doctors?
And I'm coming out and I'm trying to get a job and I have nothing, nothing to offer my potential employees.
Yeah, well, we have a whole generation of those right now.
Yeah, I don't know how the market works.
I don't know how to please customers.
I don't know what a business is.
I don't really know what profit is other than something that snarily pear-shaped women in comfortable shoes spat at whenever they said it in my feminist classes or whatever.
So they don't have any clue.
They don't have any clue.
Now, dumb people, of course, of which...
College is producing more on the outbox than ever came in through the inbox.
But dumb people will then say, oh man, everyone was right about the free market.
They just won't pay you anything and they won't give you respect.
Because they become entitled and they feel they deserve.
And we'll sort of talk about this word later in the show.
They feel they deserve all of these wonderful things.
Whereas smart people say, my God, I spent 16 or 17 years in government schools and I come out and I'm worth nothing.
I have nothing to offer.
I remember, I was just thinking about this today.
When I was 15 or 16, I went for a summer job at an insurance company.
And they wanted me to type numbers in using a keypad, right?
Just enter a bunch of stuff.
And I thought, God, how sad.
How sad that is.
I've now been in government schools for over a decade.
And All I can offer is something that would take about 8 minutes to program a robot to do or maybe 15 minutes to teach a monkey to do.
I just remember thinking how sad that is that I have nothing to offer this potential employer other than I can look and I can type numbers.
That was a pretty sad moment.
So yeah, it's a way of making people more conservative when they realize just how much they've been used.
I mean, their livestock for Tenure, right?
They're livestock for teacher salaries.
They're livestock for...
I mean, they're kept in cattle pens so that the parents can...
I mean, the whole point of government education is not to educate children, but to legitimize the forcible transfer of trillions of dollars of wealth from parents to the Democrat Party.
I mean, there's a whole reason it's there.
The children, that's just the leverage.
That's just the hostages.
That's the excuse.
I mean, if I go kidnap someone and lock them in the basement, I mean, it's not like I want to give them a great time.
It's just they're the leverage to get whatever I want to kidnap them.
That's the threat.
The government becomes the deity that you were earlier talking about.
Sure, yeah.
I mean, the poor, the common good, the peace and stability of society, the liberation of the Iraqis, it's all just a bunch of nonsense.
And, you know, whatever works for people to get them to give up their freedoms is what the people in power and their mouthpieces will spew forth.
I mean, it's nothing to do with anything factual or real or anything like that.
Oh, do you care about the environment?
Okay, more power to the government.
Oh, do you want peace in the Middle East?
Do you dislike Saddam Hussein?
Okay, more power to the government.
Oh, you're angry at Afghanistan?
You're angry at the Taliban?
Okay, more power for the government.
Oh, you want your kids to be educated?
Okay, more power for the government.
Oh, you want the sick to have health care?
Okay, more power for the government.
They don't care about whether they're actually achieved.
Oh, you do dislike drugs?
Okay, more power for the government.
Sure, let's get that going.
They don't care about solving these problems.
They just care about what you care about in order to leverage drugs.
resources out of you by force.
To legitimize the use of force against you by creating some imaginary moral good that they never achieve and don't fundamentally care about and don't even care if it does the exact opposite.
It's just the excuse to get money out of you.
Yeah, so I think recognizing all of that, it's a big change for people.
You know, it's a big wake-up.
You know, you think you're running free in the forest, you know, like at the top of the mountains like The Sound of Music, and it turns out you're in some I mean, I can see why people don't want to unplug that particular USB port from the back of their brains.
So, yeah, I just recognize it's not going to be many people.
And we're still in the phase now where we're not trying to convert the masses.
We're trying to convert people who are good at converting the masses.
You're not trying to go out there and change people's minds as a whole.
It's way too early for that.
But what you are trying to do is go out and light the fire in someone's mind who then can spend a lifetime trying to convert other people.
And it might still be a few layers away.
Maybe we're trying to find the people who can find the people who can find the people who can then have enough of an effect.
So we have to move quick because time's running out.
But I don't think we're at the phase yet You know, we're training the priests.
We're not out there, I think, proselytizing quite yet.
Oh, you're probably right, because, you know, it's what direction do people like myself take to have the, you know, what's the biggest bang for the buck?
And so we'll see.
But I certainly appreciate your wisdom in this area.
Well, I appreciate that, Chris.
Thanks so much for calling in.
Alright, up next we have Jennifer, and she has quite a few questions on feminism.
The first of which is, what are your thoughts on the coming fourth wave of feminism?
Do you believe that feminism has created harm to women, men, and children?
If so, how?
That's from Jennifer.
Hey, Jennifer, how you doing?
Hello, Stefan.
Thank you.
Thanks for having me.
Whoa, that's a nice mic.
And a nice voice.
Thanks.
I feel sometimes we're gargling from 1950.
I like it though.
I like the forum.
It's nice.
You can pay more closer attention.
Yeah, very good.
Very good.
So what is the, dare I even ask, what is the fourth wave coming?
Oh, well, yeah.
Do I need to assume my crash position?
Protect the nads.
Anyway, go on.
It's a scary thought, actually.
I believe we're moving from the third wave into the fourth wave, and I just was wondering what your opinion was on that, and if you were aware of the three waves of feminism.
I'm sort of aware of the three waves of feminism, but I'm not sure what's rolling down the cleavage coming our way.
I just thought I would ask that just to start because a lot of people have never heard of the waves of feminism and I believe that the full history of feminism is not being taught and people have a very narrow education on what feminism was and what it has morphed into.
Do you want to just give us two minutes on the first couple of waves?
First, second, third?
Yeah, please go ahead.
Sure.
The first wave of feminism is probably the one that That most people refer to when they speak about, because between that and our time right now, not a lot of clarification has been given in schools.
So a lot of times they'll state the initial people who started feminism maybe for women's rights, women's voting rights, women's working rights, and there were two sides of this.
There was the egalitarian side, and then there was the maternal side.
And these two sides were, in essence, sometimes at war and then sometimes they worked together depending on who the leaders were.
And that's why when you hear about, you know, militant feminism, women who threw rocks through windows and did these kind of things, sometimes it depended on which side they were fighting and for what kind of rights they were fighting for.
And then over time it had kind of morphed into and maybe you would appreciate the word evolved into a more political movement where there was a solidifying of the voting rights, a solidifying of the Equality of working rights and those types of things.
And then, of course, the very big movement for Roe v.
Wade.
So you're kind of moving into first and then into the second wave.
And then in our modern day, we're kind of in between, I would say, the finish of the second wave and then moving into a full third wave where women are, you know, they've kind of moved into this, we can have it all.
They've morphed the maternal and the egalitarian together, and they're playing this superhuman woman.
And then there's, on that side, there is, I believe, not a heavy reliance on the maternal feminism, but more the egalitarian feminism with the neglect of the maternal.
And then you have the radical feminism, which I believe is at the root of why we had a female presidential candidate.
And that side of the world.
I would say, was strictly egalitarian in nature.
And so, from this point on, I think that between the third and fourth wave of feminism, I think technology will play a role.
Family structure will play a role for sure.
And then, of course, in terms of rights and things like that, I'm not sure how it's going to change.
But what is the fourth wave?
That's what's coming.
So if we were to continue, I've kind of written about this, if we were to continue down the road of this kind of egalitarian mindset where women cannot comprehend...
They don't listen to their nudge, their subconscious nudge of the maternal.
If they neglect that and we move more towards a scientific technology of family and family rearing, It's not going to be pretty at all.
Actually, it's very frightening because...
Oh, do you mean like the socialization of the family?
Like the typical totalitarian slash government thing where the state raises the family?
Oh, it's more than that, too.
I think what it does is it nullifies a male and a female sexual relationship in general.
And...
And it nullifies love, actually, is what it does.
Because love and love between a man and a woman and the family structure is beauty.
And I think that we're moving away from beauty.
I don't know if you've ever read Barzun's Barzan's Dawn to Decadence.
It's such a beautiful illustration of this that we're moving.
Oh, Jacques Barzan, yeah.
I love it.
Yeah, I actually, that's cool.
I actually, that was one of the first books I listened to.
I've been an Audible.com member since like 2006 or something, when you still had the damn part, multi-part, still like your 128 meg player or whatever.
But yeah, I have read from Dawn to Decadence.
I think he illustrated where we're headed in that direction.
And it's not pretty.
It's a nullification of beauty and of love and nurture, compassion.
And it's really why it's kind of making everything sanitary is what it is.
And it's scary.
Okay, if you don't mind getting comfy, I have a few thoughts on this.
So the question to me is, why do things happen in history at a particular time?
Why?
Why didn't first-wave feminism happen 300 years before or 300 years later?
Well, first-wave feminism came around as a result of the Industrial Revolution, that there were now excess resources enough to the point where women didn't have to.
Tee up and cue up a man in order to have a life, right?
And look, there are women out there who are stone geniuses, who don't want to have kids, and who can compete with the best men on the planet.
No doubt.
I mean, it's a bell curve.
There are fewer of them than there are of the men at the top tier, just as there are fewer women than men at the bottom tier, right?
The crazy homeless, whatever, right?
Nature rolls the dice with lots greater numbers when she creates a man's brain than with a woman's brain.
But nonetheless, so there are women out there who are really frustrated.
Now, throughout most of human history, they would have to settle down and have kids because you have to provide a man with sexual access and children in order to get his resources.
And there really wasn't much point in the Middle Ages having a feminist movement because women were constantly burdened with pregnancy and breastfeeding and pregnancy and breastfeeding.
And it was sort of completely pointless to have any kind of feminist movement.
Now, when excess resources were created and we moved above bare subsistence in the 19th century, 18th and 19th century, you can say 18th was the agricultural revolution, which everyone forgets about, which I wrote a whole novel about called Just Poor.
But the agricultural revolution led to the excess food that allowed for the urbanization and the factories and all of that in the cities.
Because you can't have cities if you don't have excess food, and you can't have excess food without private property and innovation in the countryside.
So when you started to get excess resources, then it became possible for women to...
Because only the aristocracy could outsource child raising, right?
I mean, in the French Revolution, I mean, there were these Terrible wet nurses who were just brutal to kids.
But, you know, women would have kids and hand them over to poor women to breastfeed like cattle.
But it became more common, more possible as wealth spread and as you got a middle class to outsource your child raising, which allowed women to free themselves from the shackles of maternalism and go out into the marketplace and write and, you know, George Sand and all these wonderful things that went on and do all of these.
And it's great.
You know, I have no problem with that other than I think if you're going to have kids, you should raise them yourself.
I don't I don't get married in order to travel the world and have affairs, and I don't see why people would have kids and then not raise them themselves.
But anyway, so the excess resources allowed.
Now, the question is, why didn't the first wave feminists say, hey, men, thanks for the last 150,000 years.
Man, that was really great.
You know, you're all fighting off the saber-toothed tigers, inventing fire and learning how to cook meat and learning how to keep us safe and building a civilization and keeping all of the other men of the other tribe who want to ravage us off our backs or fronts or sides or whatever their particular local preference is.
Thanks a lot, man.
And thanks for this free market stuff.
So, you know, we'd really like some more rights now that it's sort of possible and useful and helpful for us to have them.
Good job getting us here.
Well done.
Well, they didn't say that.
What they said, of course, was not, well, now we have the excess resources that allow us to do all of this great stuff in the marketplace and to participate politically and we want equality under the law and we want our rights of own contract.
Fantastic, right?
Women would be entrepreneurs, great, because there's enough excess resources that women can do more than just barely survive having kids.
But they didn't do that because feminism came out of the left.
And what the left does, of course, is it never says capitalism has produced good things which now give us more choices like female emancipation and female suffrage and all that kind of stuff.
What they do is they say, well, women have always had this possibility, but the capitalists have kept them down, have ground them down.
It's sexism against women, right?
They just have to invent this past where somehow magically...
Female emancipation, equality under the law, all of these things were somehow...
Could have been present, but were kept down by this evil patriarchy.
Because they can't say, wow, the free market that has grown in the 18th and 19th century has really produced these wonderful excesses that now give women a lot more opportunities and choices than they used to have.
And, by the way, it wasn't like in the Middle Ages.
Men had a lot of fantastic choices either.
Hey, do you want to fight in the king's war?
No, we're going to kill you.
Hey, do you want to have the same occupation your father had?
No, we're going to kill you.
I mean, it wasn't like men had all these great choices.
Feel like not having plague?
No, sorry, you get plagued, you're dead.
So, this, because it came out of the left, it couldn't say, good job, capitalism, and work to give women the opportunities in the free market that capitalism had generated the excess resources to allow.
No, they had, because they were from the left, they had damn capitalism, which meant they had to paint this portrait backwards that somehow there was this horrible patriarchy all throughout history that kept women down, and now only that the socialists have come along are women going to get any equality.
You can see the same stuff that happens with the races as well and all that, right?
So that's important.
The fact, of course, that throughout history in the West, rape was illegal and women weren't drafted and men got killed in wars and women had longer lifespans and women were protected and women and children first in the lifeboats and all that.
I mean, the fact that women were elevated and protected and all of that is...
Of course, completely erased from history because you have to make women angry and resentful, and that way you can start to undo the family, which is the foundation of the free market.
So that happened, and now the second wave came out of a denial of biological reality, which is, if you give women freedom, most of them Won't really take it in the way that you want it, right?
Because a lot of the feminists were like, women are exactly the same as men, and so when we give women freedom, women should behave exactly like men.
Right?
And it's like, that makes so little sense, I can't even tell you.
It makes no sense at all.
So, feminists have a particular way that they want women to use their freedom, which is like a sort of Gertrude Stein brainiac lesbian.
Right?
I mean, and you know, brainiac lesbians should be out there doing wonderful things in the world.
I have no problem with that at all.
I think it would be fantastic.
However, most women are not brainiac lesbians in the same way that most men are not Milo Yiannopoulos, right?
I mean, so when women were given freedom, it was because the women who most wanted the freedom expected all the other women to do what they did, and they didn't.
Right?
Particularly in sort of post-war period in the 1950s and so on, they were like, oh, great, you know, let's go have six kids because that's what's going to make me fulfilled and happy and pursue this wonderful life as a wife and mother and as a charity worker and as the cohesive glue that keeps the neighborhood humming and running and so on, right?
And this got really frustrating because the feminists were like, well, wait a minute, we didn't fight over all this freedom for you to do what your grandmother did.
We fought for all this freedom so you could do exactly what I did.
And this is one big problem.
I haven't talked about this in years, so I'll just sort of mention it here, and I appreciate your patience, Jennifer.
I'll only be another four days, and then you can chime in.
But intellectuals look at factory workers, and what they do is they project themselves into the lives of those factory workers and say, these people are having a horrible, horrible existence.
On EconTalk years ago, I was listening to a guy who was a writer for some hoity-toity magazine, and he went to work at Walmart.
And he worked there for, I don't know, a week or two to do research for his article.
And then he said, you know, I basically had to quit because it was driving me crazy, right?
So really intelligent people look at factory workers and say, oh, these people have – because they think everyone's the same.
And so they do.
They say, well, if I were doing that job with that machine for that long, I'd go crazy and therefore these people must be going crazy and we must go and free them.
It's like, no.
You know, they wouldn't want your life and you don't want their life.
That doesn't mean that either life is wrong.
There are some people perfectly fine for factory work.
They've got an IQ of 90 or 95 and they go to work and the time flies for them because they don't mind repetitive tasks and then they go and watch their kids' baseball games and they have a barbecue and then they watch TV and they go to bed.
They get up and do it again the next night.
Now an intellectual would go crazy with that kind of life.
But you put this guy in the library all day, he's going to go insane too, right?
So this idea that everyone should make our own choices, everyone should make the choices that we value is obviously just narcissism and a complete lack of understanding, sorry, of the bell curve of human achievement and human potential.
I sort of wanted to mention that sort of an important thing because the feminists, first wave feminists, second wave feminists, they fought for all these freedoms and then they found that women were not conforming to the freedoms that they thought they should.
And so what happened was they'd say, well, we want women to be able to go into engineering.
Okay, fine.
I mean, there really wasn't much point having women come into engineering in the past because the cost-benefit ratio wasn't that great.
Because if you have all of these women coming into engineering, then you have a whole different set of circumstances.
So why weren't women invited into engineering in the past?
Or law, whatever, right?
Well, I mean, even in Phyllis Schlafly's day, post-Second World War, I mean, she had to fight pretty hard to get into higher education.
And the reason why is pretty obvious.
Number one, if you're going to start letting women into engineering, just take engineering, well, then you have to build...
Extra bathrooms.
And you're going to have cultural problems.
And you're going to have people dating.
And it's going to be inefficient.
And the women are going to find men that they want to fall in love with them.
And the men are going to fall in love with women.
They're going to get married.
And the women, because there's no particular birth control and there generally is, they don't have sex until you get married.
The women will get married.
The men will be distracted, and you're going to end up with way fewer engineers per dollar of investment, right?
So if you've got, you know, a $10 million engineering faculty that produces 100 engineers a year, if they're men, well, you know, a bunch of them will bomb out.
Maybe you'll get 80, right?
But if you have women and men mixed in, well, the men are going to get married to the women, the women are going to get married to the men, the men are going to be distracted by the women, the women are going to be distracted by the men, and you might only get 60 engineers coming out who are going to be able to stay in the field, right?
Because you got knocked up, or you got married, got knocked up, is going to have kids.
So it was negative.
Oh, plus you've got to build women's bathrooms and, you know, all this other kind of stuff that goes on.
And everyone's going to have to watch what they say and lack of creative free flow and all that.
And also the women, you know, they might do badly and cry.
Sorry, Tim Hunt.
Maybe it's true.
So it just didn't make any sense for society to have women go into engineering because you just ended up with fewer engineers at a time where society desperately needed.
Now, when society has a lot of extra resources, yeah, sure, fine.
People can LARP as engineers all they want.
It's still bad for the economy, but it's just not as obvious and noticeable.
And so what happened was they fought for all of these freedoms and then the freedoms did not materialize statistically, right?
Women are half the population.
Women didn't become half the engineers.
Women are half the population.
Women didn't become half the lawyers or lumberjacks or fishermen or, you know, whatever, although it always seems to be the positive and safe occupations that women want to get into.
You don't say, well, where are the people cutting down trees?
Or miners.
Why aren't half the women miners?
Let's go get some grimy...
Plumbers.
Yeah, plumbers and all that kind of stuff, right?
If you're going to see a plumber's crack, I'd rather it be the non-hairy kind.
But anyway, so all of this stuff didn't materialize.
So then, rather than...
Because they were anti-reality, anti-free market.
So...
All disparities result from exploitation.
That's sort of the mantra of the left.
All numerical disparities do not result from biology, do not result from genetics, do not result from different choices.
All disparities result from exploitation and it's evil and the government must rush in to fix this exploitation.
So, first wave feminists, yep, equality under the law, voting rights and blah, blah, blah.
Second wave feminists were like, wait a minute, we're not getting the numbers we want.
So, what's the problem, ladies?
Why not?
And then they say, well, the problem is that women are getting married, so let's shit all over marriage.
Oh, the problem is that women are getting pregnant, so let's promote birth control and let's promote sleeping around without getting pregnant.
Oh, this, oh, that.
And they started breaking down all these barriers and trying to turn women into men with all the resulting dysfunction, neurosis, and frankly, psychotropic medications for women and men that result from that.
And they say, oh, well, the problem is women are taking care of children.
Women are actually being mothers, which we're not because we're, I don't know, genius lesbians or whatever.
And so we're going to get the government to take over daycare.
And now the women are going to be free and we're going to get maternity leave.
They're going to be paid for by men because men pay taxes and women collect the resources from the government.
And so they just said, oh, we've got to break down all these barriers.
Oh, is it that women are getting pregnant?
Great, let's have abortion.
And that way women can kill the fetuses in the womb, and that way they can go back to work and we can get these numbers to match.
Now, it never works.
It never works.
It hasn't worked now, and it's not gonna ever work in the future because nature has so ordained it that women like being moms.
A lot of women like being moms.
Now, the next wave feminism, I would assume, is, and so third wave, so first wave feminism is a quality of opportunity.
And second wave feminism is removing the barriers to equality of outcome.
Third wave feminism is just saying, to hell with it.
We're just going to use the government to force equality of outcome.
We're going to have equal pay for work of equal value.
We're going to have all these subsidies go to women, all these promote women stuff and all.
We're just going to move.
We're not going to have an even playing field.
We're going to tilt it towards women to get the same numerical outcomes.
It's not going to work!
So what happens then, of course, is that there's even more totalitarian things put into place in order to try and get this equality of outcome.
No, they don't care.
The feminists don't care about equality of outcome, but they care that people care about inequality of outcome, and this is why they do two things.
Number one, they always say that this government power, more government power will solve this problem of inequality, quote, inequality, right?
They say the free market is the problem, needs to be curtailed.
But they don't actually care about equality of outcome because, you know, they've been at it for 150 years.
They still don't have equality of outcome and they're not changing any of their basic principles.
So this is what the left does, right?
They reject choice and they reject biology, they reject genetics, they reject basic reality.
And then they say, well, all that equality is the result of exploitation, which makes the people on the downside of the bell curve feel annoyed, and the people at the upside of the bell curve feel guilty, and that's a perfect storm for the transfer of resources, the expansion of state power.
So, yeah, I mean, you know, they kind of...
They'll never achieve equality between the genders because of childbirth.
They just will never achieve equality between the genders.
Now, when childbirth is taken out of the equation, when marriage and childbirth is taken out of the equation, well, that's fine.
Then women actually earn a little bit more than men.
When marriage and childbirth, unmarried women with no kids, they make the same as the men.
But of course, if a young woman gets married, the risk of her wanting to become a mom is pretty high.
So you're going to have to discount that as you go forward.
Women who have children, if they are remotely responsible, have to leave and go and pick them up from school or from daycare and just not available to work all night.
I mean, there's nothing wrong with it.
It's beautiful.
It's a wonderful thing.
And it is why we continue to have a society at some point.
But, you know, the way they can't even keep drugs out of prisons, even if the government becomes completely totalitarian, they will never be able to erase these inequalities.
It's important to remember, again, they don't care about equality.
They care about the perception of inequality in order to destroy the free market and to portray choice and biology as somehow regressive and exploitive.
And that's my sort of brief sprint through the waves, if that makes sense.
Yes.
Yeah.
What you said about women, in terms of there are women who are extraordinary women, what came to mind was It was like, for instance, Kellyanne Conway.
She was a woman behind the man who is our president-elect, Laura Ingraham.
Melania Trump, I think about how she's been treated, vilified for prioritizing her marriage for her role as a mother.
But she's brilliant!
She's brilliant.
Donald Trump is not going to marry a dummy.
The woman speaks four languages, has great poise, is a great public speaker, and has the ego strength to handle these kinds of vicious attacks.
Not to mention Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, and all these other women who are very strong, very competent, very powerful.
But sorry, Jennifer, I had my ramble.
Please go ahead.
No, no, I love your rambles.
I just think about that.
There are extraordinary women.
And however...
Those women do not speak for—and you touched on this—they do not speak for the ordinary woman.
And I'm an ordinary woman.
There's nothing really special about me.
I'm a mother.
I'm a wife.
I prioritize these things.
But I think, you know, as there is a forgotten man in this current discussion that we're having politically in our country— There is a forgotten woman, and this woman is the one holding down the fort while her husband's working miles away in an oil field or on a fishing boat or on a combat deployer, even at the office.
There's a large percentage of our country where women, they're at home and they're not bitter.
And they're content to fulfill their roles without malice towards men and the children they're caring for.
More than content, wouldn't you say?
I mean, actively happy.
Yes.
And I think that this is not, this is a very, it's almost like this is a secret and people aren't talking about it.
But I think it will take the ordinary women really to turn the ship around, to take the malice out of relationships, to heal.
You know, a lot of men have been damaged by feminism and it's real.
The consequences are real.
The false accusations.
The humiliation.
There has been a lot of emotional damage that has been done in this country towards men and towards boys.
I really like the book War on Boys by Christina Hopf Summers.
Christina Hopf Summers.
Yes, and I'm thinking about the female brain.
You had me thinking about the book The Female Brain by Dr.
Brizendine, I think.
She basically explains some of the things that you talk about where there's something called, it's baby brain, where a woman just starts to have these chemical reactions where she wants to have a baby and she doesn't understand what it is.
And so there's this nudge that she is told by our society to ignore, to neglect.
And that's where a lot of the discontentment comes from and the pain and suffering.
And there's a disconnect between men and women when this happens because a woman is neglecting what she's having a subconscious nudge towards.
And the men don't understand where her conflict is.
So I appreciate your explanation.
It was a much nicer historical explanation.
It was beautiful.
And, you know, it made me think about C.S. Lewis.
One of the things he...
I love The Abolition of Man.
I've been thinking a lot about that book.
He said, we make men without chests and we expect of them virtue and enterprise.
We laugh.
We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.
He said, we castrate...
And bid the geldings be fruitful.
And I think, you know, he predicted that we created the problem that we have today, and we have to work at reversing it.
We have to turn the ship around if we want to heal ourselves.
And so I'm really passionate about that.
I'm trying to write a thesis on it and it's on my brain all the time.
So I appreciate just getting your perspective.
And yet you say that there's nothing special about you.
Nonsense!
If you're calling into the show and talking about this stuff, there is.
And let me just mention one other thing.
It's just sort of an example of how disastrous all this stuff is and how the feminists have no interest in helping women.
They just only have interest in destroying freedom and disposing of the free market.
You know, if you really – and if you're patient, right?
If you want to destroy a society, it's very easy to do.
All you do is you convince – well, you do two things.
Number one is you create entitlement programs that must be funded by the young.
And number two, you convince women not to have children.
It's as simple as that.
You get old age pensions and the old age healthcare schemes.
I can't remember if it's Medicare or Medicaid, but the old age pension schemes and healthcare schemes, which must be directly paid for by the young.
And then you convince women not to have children.
Well, you have just created a perfect storm a generation or so away.
And we can see all of this happening now.
It's been perfect in terms of destroying the West.
Because then the politicians panic.
And what do they do?
Well, they bring in Third world people who...
Start to undermine the entire freedoms that the European culture is built on.
So it's fantastic.
You know, there was this...
Italy is freaking out about its low birth rate, and the government has sort of put out some posters just gently reminding women that fertility declines and all this kind of stuff.
And of course, all the feminists come out screeching like harpies.
Ah, you're just treating us like breeding cattle.
Right?
Yeah, that's right.
Making a human life in your womb is exactly the same as giving birth to a cow.
Well, I guess for...
Mothers of family.
Anyway, so that's sort of a basic reality.
And if, you know, feminists who are generally socialists who want these big giant government programs, they should say, okay, well, you've either got to crank up the taxes like crazy to pay for them, or in order to pay for these programs, then we better convince women to have a huge amount of children.
Of course, feminists don't want to convince women to have a huge amount of children because then the explanation as to why there's a disparity in outcome becomes much more clear.
If you have six children, it's not very likely you're going to end up being CEO of Pepsi.
Down 5%, I might add, since our tweet went down.
But anyway...
So, you don't want any of this.
And then the temptation is to then say, well, you know, I guess feminists are not very good at math because they want all these big giant government programs that have to be paid for by the young, but then they convince women to not have children or to postpone it, which is kind of the same thing for a lot of women.
So they want programs paid for by a generation that they have prevented from coming into being.
And one way of saying, I guess the feminists aren't that good at math.
Well, they probably aren't.
They're not interested in old age pensions.
They're not interested in egalitarianism.
They're just interested in destruction.
They're just dedicated to the destruction of freedom and choice and liberty and property rights and so on.
And that's how they roll sometimes, literally.
I agree.
I think there's a propensity towards hatred.
And in order to hate a man, you really have to hate children first.
And so if you can convince someone to hate children, then you'll eventually convince them to hate the other sex.
And I think that's some of the root of what's going on between men and women.
Right.
Right.
And to me, as long as the government is willing to borrow and overspend, then women can LARP as men, live-action roleplay as men, as much as they want, and nobody can really talk about it.
I mean, it just doesn't really mean anything to try and...
The incentive has to change, right?
So this is a little bit of data I wanted to sort of point out, right?
And I'm reading this from...
a blog.
We'll put the link below.
Legions of feminists will ferociously type, smash the patriarchy at their internet rallies, calling out for the end of the male supremacy in all spheres of life.
Yet few of them acknowledge the fact that one of these spheres, the government, the institution granting them rights, is entirely funded by male taxpayers.
Economically women cost more to the state than they benefit.
The government is literally paying women to be alive.
As such, strong independent women are only that way because the state is transferring money from men to them.
Feminists are not seriously against being dependent on men.
They're just against men having the full control over their money.
And what I would say is that feminists are not against women being dependent on men.
They just don't want any reciprocal responsibilities.
You know, you're a mom, you run the household, so it's a job.
It's a real job and it's a hugely important job.
While the 77 cents for a dollar wage gap has been under the spotlight for the past years, the 200 cents for a dollar tax gap has by knowledge never been mentioned, at least not by our supreme feminist leaders Barack Obama and Justin Trudeau.
A quick glimpse of the data reveals a massive difference in taxes paid by men and women.
The first thing that comes to mind is that half of women might be at home raising kids, and this is a graph here, right?
And what it basically works is direct tax per capita by age group and gender.
This is from 2010.
And men are just paying way more taxes for way longer than women.
The workforce participation rate gap between men and women doesn't seem to exceed 10% in age groups as a whole.
And with the exception of the age group between 45 and 59, which is only a 15-year span, women cost more to the state than the tax they provide.
In contrast, men generate more tax revenue than they cost between 23 and 65, a 43-year span is almost three times.
So three times as long men are producing more than they consume with regards to taxation and government services.
In the brief period in which women generate more or as much tax money than they consume, the men outscore them by at least three times, right?
So 300% more.
By the end of her life, the average woman will have a negative fiscal impact of $150,000.
And that's pretty significant.
Men have a positive cumulative net fiscal impact from 40 until 80 years of age and so on.
This is why feminists want a stronger government.
Because they're trying to...
Well, the numbers, you know, the numbers actually...
When will men demand an apology?
That's what I'm wondering.
You know, there's a point where someone needs to stand up in a reasonable way, not in a malicious way, but say...
We're tired of being blamed for everything.
And we demand an apology for the way we've been treated.
It's never happening.
Well, I'll apologize.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry to any man who's listening to this show or who will in the future ever.
If you have been treated poorly by women in the name of feminism, I'm sorry.
And I'm sorry that you've been hurt.
I'm sorry that you've been treated unfairly.
And not appreciated, not respected for all of the things that you do.
And just take one apology from someone.
You might never get one your whole life, but at least there's one.
Well, and I appreciate that.
And that's a kind thing to say.
But this is why the feminists who claim to want egalitarianism have to want a bigger government.
So, you know, the sort of female independence and so on If feminists really wanted women to stand on their own two feet, then they would be railing against women getting money from men through the state.
I mean, clearly, that's putting women in a dependent position vis-a-vis male taxpayers, and that's not exactly being a strong independent woman.
But it's all...
Again, it's LARPing, right?
I mean, it's like, hey, if the government gives me a huge amount of money, I can go and buy some stuff and that's kind of cool and I can pretend to be rich.
I'm not really rich and I haven't earned it.
And this is why, of course, when women get the vote, well, what happens is you get huge increases in government spending.
This blogger said, the fact that feminists want a stronger government is not a coincidence.
While historically, women had to choose a wealthy husband for resources, they can now stay single, be lesbians, marry a poor man, or use the sperm bank, and the state will still transfer male taxes to them.
Interestingly, within 10 years of women's suffrage, the government doubled their tax revenue and expenditure in the USA. Now, going back to evolution, this is a perfectly respectable and valid, I would not argue moral, but it's a perfectly respectable and valid evolutionary strategy.
Because women...
You know this as well as I do.
What does it take to land a rich man, Jennifer?
Not very much smart.
Well, it may be.
Nah, come on.
I mean, rich men don't want an idiot wife.
I might beg to differ with you on that one.
I don't know.
Okay, give me an example of a rich man with an idiot wife.
I've never volleyed for one, so I actually do not know.
But give me an example of a rich man you've known about who you think the wife is not smart at all.
Um, I think a woman who pursues a man for his wealth is not smart.
I don't care what her IQ is.
Because I value, you know, she doesn't understand and value what's meaningful in life.
She's not smart.
She may be bright in terms of her education or different things like that, but a woman...
Okay, but who, okay, so who pays the bills in your household?
My husband.
So you need his wealth.
I'm not saying he's rich, but you need his wealth to be a mom, right?
There's nothing wrong with it.
It's just reality, right?
Oh, I think I'm misunderstanding you.
I think to be dependent on a man is not wrong.
No, of course not.
No, it's not.
Don't think of it as being dependent on a man.
Think of it as being a good mom.
Right.
It's necessary.
It produces stability.
It produces peace.
And to be able to depend on someone to provide for you, that's what I'm trying to do is to convince women it's not so bad on the other side.
It's great on the other side.
Plus, we get to have a civilization.
You see all these snowflakes who can't handle rejection.
It's because they're a daycare generation, because they've been raised in daycares, and they've been traumatized, and they don't have a parental bond, and they can't handle emotional difficulties.
So no, don't downplay.
If you want to sell something, Jennifer, don't say, it's not so bad.
I mean, isn't it great?
I mean, you get to create life.
Right?
They've been convinced though.
I mean, they're almost completely convinced that it's the worst thing that could ever happen to them.
And I'm telling you, being a devoted wife and a mother is the best thing that could ever happen to you.
It's the hardest thing that could ever happen to you.
It's the hardest thing you'll ever do your whole life.
It's harder than any job.
It's harder than anything you'll ever go through in your life.
But it's the best thing that could ever happen to you.
Because it stretches you.
It helps you.
To stop being so self-serving.
It helps you to learn how to serve someone else, which is a huge life lesson.
And you will be so much more content in the long run if you submit to what is natural in the long run.
And I'm not out there to convert people.
I'm just saying if you feel a nudge, if you just feel a nudge to do it, if you're feeling a deep discontentment, listen to that.
And it means something, you know?
Well, please be out there to convert people.
Don't be shy about that.
So, to get...
Okay, we'll just forget the rich man thing.
I understand there's this idea that rich men want bimbos.
But, you know, the rich men that I know of, who've married, have not married idiots.
They've not married, you know...
I mean, I guess there was that one guy, Anna Nicole Smith, wasn't he in a wheelchair or something?
Well, I actually heard she was pretty bright.
I'll use Melania Trump as an example.
She is incredible.
She's a wonderful role model.
Bill Gates' wife is smart.
Mark Zuckerberg's wife is smart.
I think that's kind of a cliche.
You're right, and I fell for it.
I think that they do need a confidant, and they do need someone that You know, they didn't get rich probably for no reason.
They worked very hard for it.
And they're not going to stay rich if they don't have somebody smart watching their back.
They're not going to stay rich.
That's right.
I mean, you know, behind every great man is a great woman.
I believe that's absolutely true.
You cannot succeed without the love of your life helping you keep perspective and stay humble and watch your back and look out for enemies.
I mean, it's just a natural part of the...
Of the process, which is why wives get half the money, because they are an equal part of the team of whatever is going on.
A man doesn't earn the money and give it to the wife.
I mean, the wife and the man earn the money collectively and give it to the children.
That's the way it seems to work.
But anyway, so if you want resources from a man, right?
So you have a husband.
You love your husband.
Your husband loves you.
And he shares his resources with you.
Because you do good things in the household, right?
You run the household, you raise his children and so on.
So you are providing value in return, right?
Right.
And it's not something that you could put a monetary number on.
I think, you know, in our house, we don't look at money that way.
It's ours and we work towards the same goal.
But I submit, I respect my husband.
I don't want to walk all over him.
I don't want to dominate him.
No, you can't break the provider.
I mean, you don't break the provider.
Sorry, when women are on the receiving end of taxes, then they want to break men because then men won't resist tax increases and they'll feel guilty and bad.
But if you're dependent upon your husband going out to get resources, you can't break him because then your resources will diminish.
I want him not only to provide for me, I want his protection.
And women who think that they don't need someone to protect them are naive.
And I think that they...
They're just socialists.
They want the government to protect them.
They're watching too many G.I. Jane movies.
It's just not real.
I try to use people, they say women...
My big beef, and I've been talking about this for a long time, is women in combat.
I think that's as far as you can take it.
We've taken abortion pretty far, but when you start saying that women need to be killers and they need to be trained killers, What you're basically saying is that women do not have a maternal value at all.
And you can use the example of hand-to-hand combat.
They'll say, well, women can do this.
Yes, I believe there are extraordinary women who are more built like men that they can endure combat, but in general, the ordinary woman needs someone to physically protect her.
If she's going to have kids in particular, right?
Both.
I mean, even if you'd never have children, you still want someone to physically protect you because there's, you know, you never know.
I mean, it's good to have someone who's stronger than you.
It's not a bad thing.
If there's a bump in the house at night, who goes?
Sometimes, I hear that sometimes the men make the women get up, but...
Not for long, I bet.
So let's just talk about what feminism does.
So let me go out on a limb here, Jennifer, and I'm going to assume that you keep yourself attractive for your husband, right?
I believe that has value.
Yes, I do try.
Yeah, you're not cooking 400 pounds in Cheeto dust on your chest, right?
I hate Cheetos.
Yeah.
Whatever.
You know, whatever.
So you keep yourself trim.
And that's part of the deal.
You know, they say, well, why are women getting fat?
It's because they don't need to stay slim for their husbands, right?
That's why.
Get them married and have a no-fault divorce abrogated and then, right?
Well, I like Milo's argument against this.
I mean, he argues against the health of it.
I mean, being grossly obese is you're killing yourself.
And that's what it's about.
It's a neglect of yourself.
Then at some point he might have an affair because some other woman is going to scoop in in the free market of attraction and say, hey, your wife is kind of a slob and look at me, I'm young, I'm trim, I'm unattached, I'm attractive, right?
So we all know that there's a free market of love and it doesn't end when you get married.
So you stay attractive for your partner and this doesn't happen.
So for feminists, right, what they want is they want resources from men That they can't compete for.
They cannot compete to get...
I mean, it's an old cliche, but if you just look at the average feminist, they're not physically that attractive, right?
And so, female beauty plus character, right?
And the less beauty you have, the more character you need to have, right?
And so, for women who aren't that physically attractive, and who don't want to put the work in, I mean, everyone can make themselves more attractive, right?
They don't want to put the work in to become more attractive, physically or as a person, right?
I mean, we can all become better people and more helpful people and, you know, somebody...
So they don't want to put the work in, but they want the resources.
So feminism is welfare for unattractive women, right?
Because men who...
Feminists want resources but don't want to go to work, they go on welfare and they get the benefit of going to work, which is resources and social programs and so on, without having to go to work.
And feminists want resources for themselves without having to go out and do the work to make themselves attractive enough to get a man who has resources, who will give them those resources.
They want to remain bitter and angry and negative and hostile and overweight and touchy and crazy and all that kind of stuff.
And that's natural.
I mean, it's like royalty.
Royalty progressively gets more and more insane because they're shielded from basic reality.
And so it's a perfect reproductive strategy.
I don't have no particular problem with it.
Whether the feminists reproduce or not is not particularly relevant.
What matters is that biological urge to gather resources.
And if you can go and nag a politician to give you resources, well, then you will...
You will get those resources and you don't have to make the politician's bed and you don't have to give him a foot rub and you don't have to cook him and you don't have to listen to his complaints and you don't have to give him advice and you don't have to put up with his whining sometimes.
Look, all the things that sometimes can be a challenge.
You don't have to do any of that stuff.
You just go and you whine, you complain, you hold a sign and you get a whole bunch of resources from tall, attractive men, which is generally politicians, Chris Christie accepted, and you get all these resources.
You get the kind of resources you would get if you were attractive enough to get A wealthy man.
But you don't have to make yourself physically or emotionally attractive enough to get and keep a wealthy man.
And of course, a wealthy man, you have to stay.
It's a lifeline.
You have to stay attractive.
I still work out three or four times a week.
I want to look good for my wife.
You have to stay attractive.
And this way, not only you don't have to get the man, but you don't have to put the work in to keep a man.
You just get all the resources.
And, you know, so you apply yourself to a theoretical construct that gets you the same resources that a rich man would give you, but you don't have to be an attractive enough person to get or keep the rich man.
I mean, it's a perfect plan B.
But it's self-sabotage.
And in the end, I mean, that's the thing.
If we could do any of these women any service at all, we'd get rid of women's studies programs in the universities.
I can't even speak about the universities.
But if we could do them a service-- No, no.
Well, if we could do them a service at all, we'd get rid of the women's studies program because they're not women's studies.
It's radical feminist studies.
Yeah, it's like all women want to be CEOs.
Like, where are the women's studies that teach you how to be a great homemaker?
Isn't that part of femininity as well?
Right, right.
And just, if we could do them any service, we would help them to understand that in the long run, it's self-sabotage.
They will be completely discontent In the long run, it's not worth it.
And so, like you said, I agree with you.
I think it's, you know, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free argument?
But in the long run, if they have a long-term, you know, if they're given a long-term perspective on what they're doing and how they're sabotaging themselves, you know, but that's not taught.
That's not taught in the university.
What's taught is self-soothing, self-soothing.
Self, self.
Everything is about the seeking of the self and it's an immediate self-seek.
So they want an immediate gratification.
They don't talk about the long-term effects of what you're doing.
And they don't talk about the damages that they're going to do to men either and how that will sabotage.
It will be a self-sabotage exercise in the end as well because you will be hated more than you hate.
I mean, when I talk about feminism with men...
They get really uncomfortable.
And a lot of them don't want to talk about it.
They're very quiet because they've been hurt.
And they have a deep hatred for feminist women.
And so these women, they think that they hate men.
But what they don't realize is that men are hating them more than they can even imagine.
Men are hating the women or the feminists?
The feminists.
Men love women.
I mean, men want to love women.
I mean, they...
That's why we're here.
Right.
And so, it's just...
It's a lack of historical...
They're not taught true history.
They're not taught to listen to that maternal nudge.
And they're creating a situation that will eventually...
They'll self-sabotage themselves.
And it will lead to a great discontentment.
And so that's where I see fourth weight.
Aren't we there yet?
You say it will lead to, I mean, was it 25% of women over 40 are on antidepressants?
I mean, aren't we there as far as misery goes?
Yes, I think we have a major, no one's talking about it either.
That's why, you know, I think it was Gavin McInnes, he was interviewing me, just a very brief interview, and he said, why don't we have these, you know, stay-at-home moms?
Why don't we have them on the news?
Why don't we have anyone talking about, you know, life as a wife and a mother?
I said, well, nobody wants to Hear that perspective because they want to continue this propaganda of how you're supposed to be a woman.
But that's why I'm saying there's this section of forgotten women who are not being heard.
And maybe if they were being heard a little bit more, then the women who are sensing that nudge might...
Reconsider the direction that they're going down.
I think it might be just airtime.
I'm not sure what the solution is.
We're participating in it right now.
I appreciate your show.
I appreciate using reason and logic and having a background in history.
And I appreciate all the voices that are out there, but I don't think there's enough ordinary women voices that are not, you know, coming from a perspective of a pushy religious perspective.
But more just a logical, fact-value kind of perspective, you know?
And I appreciate the opportunity to just share my thoughts and get your perspective.
It's really helped me think about what I want to add to some of my classes.
So, I appreciate it.
All right.
I appreciate your call, Jennifer.
You do last question, which I'll just do a few minutes on.
What is your advice for women who are realizing that radical feminism is not the ideal life pursuit and are considering a more natural approach?
Well, first of all, my advice is this.
Have women, sorry, have children when you're young.
Have children when you're young.
It makes no sense whatsoever to go from high school to college to maybe postgraduate work to then starting a career to then maybe trying to have kids in your 30s.
You haven't had time to date.
You haven't had experience dating.
And who's left over in your 30s?
Remember, all of the good models are being snapped up and you're left with the Junk.
You're left with the clunkers in your 30s.
So, you know, you meet a man and you can get married in your late teens, early 20s or whatever, right?
And they have kids.
And then in your mid to late 20s, if you want, you can go get educated and go out into the workforce.
And then you don't have this big giant, how do I fit in this massive interruption into my workforce career thing?
You can just Cruise straight on forward until if your kids grow up and have kids, you may want to take time off to be a grandmother, but that's a whole different kind of thing.
So that's sort of important.
The creation of life, look, everything that we make that is not sentient sucks.
That's really, really important.
I mean, you're a mom, right?
I'm a dad.
Everything we create that is not sentient, that doesn't talk back, that doesn't argue with us, that doesn't disagree with us, that doesn't enlighten us, that doesn't surprise us, Everything that we create that is not sentient, In comparison.
Yes.
I mean, I, you know, they said all, I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree.
I mean, that's crap, because trees don't talk outside of Lord of the Rings.
But the reality is, I will never do a show as great as having a daughter or a child in the world.
It'll never happen.
That's beautiful.
Never, ever happen.
I will never write a poem.
I will never write a book.
I will never have an insight or an analogy or a conversation or a metaphor or anything.
Anything that will compare to the creation of a living human being who you can hold close to your heart all the way through your deathbed and beyond in their memories and in their influence you have on their personalities.
The mere pursuit of stuff, the mere pursuit of success, the mere pursuit of materialism is beneficial to everyone Except you.
This is really, really important to understand.
And this isn't just like, oh, mid-century perspective and so on.
It's a basic reality.
The government wants women to work and not have children.
Why?
Because the government pays for children, but the government receives from women who pay taxes.
So governments have bills to pay.
They have, I guess, some small portion of their expenses to cover.
And so governments want you, as a woman, to forego Having children, because when you have children, you're out of the workforce, not paying taxes.
Governments have to provide more healthcare.
Governments have to build more schools.
Governments have to hire more teachers.
And all of the existing politicians, given that it takes about a quarter century for somebody to become a taxpayer, All of the politicians in power, none of them will see the benefit of you having children in their political careers.
Now, if they can convince you to, oh, have children later when my children's children are in office and I'm long dead, have children later.
When the expense accrues to the state later and the benefits don't, have them later.
Of course, they're convincing you to have children later because they want your money now and they don't want the costs now and children are expensive.
Children are very expensive.
You might as well just take money and flush it down a tiny port-a-potty.
And so recognize that the advice that you're getting from people about how to be a woman is terrible.
It is not disinterested advice.
So the government wants you to go to work and they'll pay a lot of people to tell you to go to work and have children later.
Because they want your money now and they don't want the expense of having children now.
So they'll say, oh yeah, go to work now.
Have children later.
You're young.
Go.
You've got a great brain.
Go to work.
Go to work.
Give her some taxes.
I mean, they're basically taking your ovaries hostage.
Probably never to release them.
And so that's important.
Now the radical feminists, or as they're also known as feminists, what they do is they want you to go to work so that they can close the gender gap.
That's why they want you to go to work.
And also because they don't want you to be a happy mom and a housewife and all that kind of stuff because they're generally miserable, horrible human beings.
So they want you to go to work to fulfill their ideological agenda.
And they're just running their own racket on you.
The politicians are running their own racket.
Pay us taxes, don't cost us money.
The feminists are running their own racket.
The people who are in media, people who are in media, look, the women who are in media, Very ambitious women, very competent women and so on.
But I can tell you one thing they're not, is great moms as a whole.
Of course not.
I mean, to be in the media, I mean, you've got to work at least a dozen hours a day.
You've got to do a lot of stuff on weekends.
And guess what?
I know this may come as a shock.
Can't be in two places at the same time.
And so if you're going to be in the media, you are not at home.
And I've known some women in the media.
I've known some women who have that kind of ambition.
And man, it sucks for their children.
You know, that lonely little rich girl, that lonely little rich boy, that's not just a myth.
And so the women in the media, they are heart-driven perfectionists, I think a little cold-hearted, and they prefer material success and fame and all of that to fill up an emptiness, I assume.
Within the pole-driven vacuum that used to be where their heart and soul would reside.
And so they want to convince you to Go to work.
Because if you're home and happy, they don't feel like they made the right choice.
Remember, most people in this world, when they're giving you advice, are just running their own agendas.
They're just running their own bullshit on you.
And they don't fundamentally care about what you're doing.
Now, the question is, do I fall into that category?
Well, I recognize that as a taxpayer, if you have kids, my taxes are going to go up.
Of course.
And I'm willing to say that.
I want you to pursue what it is that you want to do.
Do not let other people define your goals.
There is no enslavement as fundamental and foundational as letting other people be the hidden puppet masters of your future existence.
Do not let other people tell you what will make you happy, what will make you successful, what will make you content.
Do not let other people run their agendas on you.
Listen to people's advice, sure, but look for the conflict of interest.
Look for the conflict of interest.
And there are enormous swaths of human beings in the West who are single-mindedly, albeit often unconsciously, dedicated to destroying the West.
It has been a...
150-year process or more of trying to destroy the West.
And there's been attacks on all fronts, and one of the fundamental fronts has been male-female relations.
You see, if you want to destroy a culture, raise its children, in particular its sons, without father figures, without fathers.
And you then end up with a set of men who are constantly deferring to women who can't patrol the perimeters of the tribe and keep it safe from incursion and keep it safe from outsiders and keep it safe from those who would come in to do the tribe harm.
They're not particularly tough.
And...
When you put women in charge of boys and you don't lament at all, the absence of fathers from little boys' lives, well, in general, the boys become shiftless and lazy and unmotivated, and the girls become promiscuous.
This is, I mean, a girl raised without a father starts her menstruation about a year earlier than a girl raised with a father for the R versus K stuff that I've talked about in the presentation series Gene Wars, which people should check out if they haven't.
But don't let other people running their own bullshit political agendas or financial agendas or tax agendas, don't let them tell you when and how you can perform the most astounding feat of creating a nurturing life.
Don't let anyone tell you when your eggs should Unite with the tadpole.
I mean, don't let anyone do it.
The younger, the better in many ways.
You've got more energy, you have more resilience, you can play harder and longer, and you can bounce back from less sleep and so on.
And don't let anyone ever tell you when you should or shouldn't create life.
I think that there's a good argument to be made for younger is better.
It's not always the case, and it's not solidly the case.
But if you want to have kids...
It's annoying just from the outside.
It's really annoying.
I mean, I hear all these stories of like, oh, yes, you know, the women who they went to go and become doctors.
And then it's like, oh, you know what?
I actually really enjoy being home.
So it's like, okay, great.
So we're just down one doctor as a society, you know, because you displaced someone from medical school who was probably going to be a guy who was probably going to stay in the workforce.
And now you just became a doctor, worked as a doctor for five years, and now you're home with your children.
Okay, so we're just down one doctor.
That's kind of annoying.
Whereas, you know, if you have kids young, you can be a doctor, you can stay being a doctor.
So think, you know, a little bit of what's good for society as a whole.
And you may decide after getting really well educated and really well skilled in particular things that you enjoy being home.
And that just means that...
You've kind of robbed society of one productive person by displacing them earlier.
So just think about that ahead of time.
That's all I'm saying.
It's not a proof.
People are guilty.
Just think about it ahead of time.
But the most important thing, most important thing is think about what you want and don't listen to other people about anything foundational or As foundational as when you should choose to have children.
Of course listen to your husband and all that kind of stuff.
And listen to various perspectives, but it is your choice.
And as the old saying goes, you know, if you don't choose, you've still made a choice.
Your fertility as a woman is going to start declining in your mid to late 20s.
The eggs are fresh.
Eggs are good.
And this is true for sperm as well.
Oh, you can have a kid when you're 70s.
It's like, yeah, that's a pretty tight tadpole by that time.
It may not be that great.
And so do it as young as feasible.
And then you have all the time in the world.
If you love being a mom, you can stay home.
If you want to go out and work, you can go out and work.
And you've already put the time in to raise your kids for the first five years at least, which is the most crucial time.
But don't postpone.
Don't wait.
Don't imagine that, you know, when you're a young woman, you know, you can snap your fingers.
You're a reasonably attractive young woman.
You go to a club.
You snap your fingers.
There are 10 guys lining up to buy you drinks.
I'm telling you, there's no disco lights dim enough on the planet that that's going to keep happening when you're 35.
It's just not going to happen.
And reminding women that the sexual power, the sexual market value that they have when they're young is going to fade away.
Quicker than you can imagine.
And you can't get it back.
You can't go back in time.
And you can't ever regain that sexual market value.
And so if you're a woman in your 30s and you're trying to sort of settle down with a man, well, your sexual value is going down enormously while his sexual value is going up enormously because he's gaining more and more resources and the capacity to provide resources to his future wife, mother of his children, whatever.
So, just remember that and be afraid of that.
You know, they call it the wall.
And the wall doesn't take any prisoners.
There's no, like, the wall just...
Rides over people, uh, rides over women in particular.
And, uh, it doesn't hit men until much later.
The wall for men is when you start getting sick, you know, in your sixties or whatever.
And you, we had a woman called in, um, uh, it was quite a call about how she was just disgusted having taken care of her, of her, um, Nazgul boyfriend, uh, who was sort of half in and out of the shade.
And, um, Don't, you know, recognize that the natural narcissism and vanity of youthful female sexual attraction, attractiveness, is, you know, it's going to vanish.
It's like, hey, that's pretty mist.
You know, you look out the window in the morning, if you're up early, ooh, that's pretty mist.
And then 10 minutes later, it's like, hey, where did all the mist go?
I'm really attractive.
Ten minutes later, hello, echo, echo, echo.
And then, you know, and then maybe you try to increase your attractiveness by playing hard to get, but then you have to go back to that old basic question that women have.
Do I put out or do I not put out?
Does he want me for sex or does he want me for who I am?
And you really don't want to be asking that question in your 30s.
That's a pretty sad and humiliating place to be.
So those are my sort of final thoughts.
That's excellent.
And really good advice.
I think you've just created a whole new field of recovering feminists.
I appreciate it.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, Jennifer.
A great chat, and feel free to call back in anytime, but let's move on to the next caller.
Thank you.
All right, up next we have Rebecca.
Rebecca wrote in and said, Being a 24-year-old female in a suburb of Philadelphia, I'm almost alone in my joy for Donald Trump's victory.
I have friends who are devastated at the results of this election and my support for Donald Trump.
How do I tell them the truth in a way that does not push them further into their viewpoints?
That's from Rebecca.
Hello, Rebecca.
How are you doing?
I'm well.
How are you?
Good.
I'm going to try not to be one of those annoying people who calls you Becky, just so you know.
Just so you know.
So, what the hell are you doing in Philadelphia liking Donald Trump?
Do you not know what the city charter is?
That you just have to be a hater of the man?
How did this come about?
Are you crazy?
Well, my whole family supports him.
So, I would have to say that my mom maybe is a big reason being raised that way.
Also, I've been a big reader since I was a kid and I read Ayn Rand in high school.
So, I think that formed my beliefs well.
So you get the old Donald Trump, Hank Reardon thing that seems to blow some objectivist minds?
Yes.
Although closer to John Galt now, I'd say.
Yes.
Hank Reardon had some conflicts, to put it mildly.
Yes.
So I think the way I'm being raised, and there are some people in the suburb area that do support him.
I think in my county it was about a 60-40 split, 60 for Hillary, 40 for him.
But in my circle, and especially in my town, there's almost nobody who supports Donald Trump.
Right.
Right.
So give me a sense of how these conversations go, if you don't mind.
Well, actually, I had a friend who brought it up probably around March.
And she had just kind of asked me who I was supporting and why.
And, of course, I told her.
I explained kind of the issues of illegal immigration and the Syrian refugees.
And she just kept saying, you know, you have to have compassion for these people.
And I explained...
You know, how having compassion for them is actually affecting negatively a lot of people who already are in this country legally and everything.
And she just kept saying to me, well, I haven't done my research.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I'll look into it.
Hang on a sec.
Is she talking about...
Has she mentioned anything about how the...
Islamic governments out there in the Middle East don't seem to have a lot of compassion for the Christians, either the ones who are fleeing or the ones in their own countries.
If compassion for other religions is really important, shouldn't she hold the same standard to the Muslim countries, the Muslim governments and their relationship to the Christians and the Jews within their own borders?
Well, I think her argument is that maybe they don't understand or we need to be the bigger people.
And that's kind of where her argument lied.
Oh, so it's not a universal standard.
It only applies to white people?
Yeah.
You know what?
I really think that is a big thing that a lot of people around me think.
Okay.
So she thinks that white people are a lot better than everyone else.
So she's kind of racist to everyone who's not white.
Is that right?
I think it's the white guilt.
Yeah.
Well, it's a mindable resource, right?
And we've known that and we've talked about that before.
You find people who have a conscience and you sink your fangs into that conscience until they cough up resources.
And of course, compassion for...
We've talked about this before and Donald Trump talked about it as well.
But compassion for people in the Middle East, the refugees would be to settle them in the Middle East.
Exactly.
You can help more than 12 times the number of refugees by settling them in the Middle East and by bringing them to the West.
So don't think of the one person who's in the West.
Think of the other 11 people who are still stuck in this god-awful hellhole of the smoking remnants of Syria and Libya.
Think of those 12.
I have compassion for those 12 people.
The compassion for the other 11 people, not just the one person who's brought over in order to vote for the Democrats, but I think of the 11 people who aren't.
Yes, and I explained about Ben Carson and how he went and spoke to the refugees and how they were placed, and I believe it was Jordan, and how they seemed a little bit happier there because it was more closely aligned with their own culture.
But she just seemed to think, you know, we need to have compassion, and she kind of went on the Catholic attack for me, saying, well, you're a Catholic, you should have that compassion.
Is she saying that non-Muslims have more compassion?
Maybe.
Well, no, because if she's saying, well, we could be talking about the Muslims in the Middle East, and they should have, they should be opening their countries to the migrants, right?
Of course.
Yes.
I mean, they're all Muslims, right?
And so, and again, I know there's, you know, Xi and Sunni, right?
But...
Is she saying that the non-Muslims are kinder, more empathetic, and more compassionate than the Muslims?
Is she a Muslim?
No, she's not.
Oh, she's not?
Okay.
So she's saying that non-Muslims are more kind and compassionate than Muslims.
That's interesting.
That's interesting.
Does she have a religion?
Yes, she's Catholic as well.
Ah, okay.
Okay, so then should she not focus on bringing over the Christians from the Middle East?
A lot of Christians being persecuted in the Middle East, and wouldn't it be, you know, better to bring Christians into the West if you're going to bring anyone?
I agree, 100%.
All right.
Well, I then had another friend, and he's a Bernie supporter.
And so I was trying to explain economics to him and how...
The $15 minimum wage increase would end up raising the cost of everything, including food and housing, which they said would increase the most and actually more relative to what people are making now at the minimum.
And also, people and jobs would be replaced with machines.
This argument was lost on me.
What was lost on him, you mean?
On him, but his logic was lost on me.
What did he say?
Well, he just said that, well, businesses are going to pay for it.
And he kept kind of repeating that.
And I said, you know, the only businesses that may possibly be able to handle it would be like multi-billion dollar corporations.
But even those businesses, you're just going to drive out all of the smaller businesses and then you're only going to be left with a monopoly.
Is he in college?
No, he dropped out of college.
He dropped out of college.
Well, that may be one of the smarter things that he's done.
Do you remember, do you know what he was taking in college?
I believe it was English.
Oh, yes.
I did two years of an English degree until I realized I couldn't be wrong about anything.
And that got kind of annoying.
It's like, you know, I just feel like I'm fighting with fog here, like I can't be wrong.
Here's my interpretation.
Okay, here's an A. Okay, I can't be wrong about anything.
And I don't like that at all.
So I switched to something slightly more rigorous, which was history.
But anyway.
So he was taking English.
And what does he do now for a living?
He just kind of bounces from job to job.
I'm going to assume these are not the most skilled jobs on the planet.
No.
Right.
And when he's not working, does he do anything to increase his skills or his value?
No.
I've got to be honest, I don't think too much.
I'm going to go with a no on that.
I know you're hedging to be nice, Rebecca, but I'm just going to go with a no.
Because this is the thing, right?
If you want to raise your wage, I guess you can sit around and sit on your body fluid stained futon and smoke dope or whatever and then just say, well, I want the government to increase the amount of money people have given me.
But this is what I was saying with the feminists and trying to get a wealthy man.
It's like, do the work.
Do the work.
Go learn something.
Go learn something.
You know, when I was working at various places, I tried to really learn about the business.
Like, I'd read up on the trade magazines.
I'd try to understand what motivated my boss.
It took a little while because, you know, I was a clueless kid and had been indoctrinated by government schools for the most part.
Yeah.
But, you know, if you're working at Starbucks, it's pretty easy.
Just start reading up on coffee.
Start reading up on Starbucks.
Start reading up on the business and figure out what your boss is doing and how to help your boss.
And your boss is looking to move up and they're always looking for someone to promote.
And every time you hire someone, you should be hiring them to replace you at some point, except you, Mike.
But...
This is really important.
So if he wants to be paid more, there's something he can do about it.
He doesn't have to wait for the government to pass some minimum wage thing.
And he can just work to increase his own skill set.
And I did try to explain that to him.
I have a career and I pursued a career in the medical field.
And so I tried to explain, I'm able to make A decent amount of living and I just went to school.
I said, you don't have to love it if you're just trying to make more money.
I said, you know, he's very bright.
He's highly intelligent.
And I told him, you could just do this.
Go to school for even two years and you can make the same amount of money that I'm making now.
And I tried to explain, like, if you want more money, you have to work for it.
But he's got this option called the government will do it for me, right?
And because of that, this is the paralysis of this kind of hope.
Hope is a four-letter word for me.
Hope is a promise of inaction and fantasy.
And I really hate hope as a general emotion.
Optimism?
Okay, optimism says, well, I'm optimistic about the outcome and it generally motivates you.
Hope is a sit-in-your-fingers-pray-and-cross-your-fingers crap that is just paralytic to people.
I would like to take hope in the world to tear it up by the roots and throw it into a fire and then turn a flamethrower on it and then drop acid on it and then take a slow dump on it like I was some protester for Hillary.
And hope is...
Oh, don't worry.
The government's going to do something.
The government's going to make it better.
Oh, forget it.
Oh, don't worry.
Some guy's going to come around.
He's going to want to marry me by 35.
He's going to have lots of money and I'm going to be just like Bridget Jones or all of these other fantasy stories like...
Was it Trainwreck with Amy Schumer?
Yeah, that's right.
You can be a drunken slut in your 30s and, oh yeah, no, a doctor is totally going to want to marry you because it's not like he's got any kind of pick or choice or anything like that.
This is the fantasy that's being sold.
I mean, it's a hideous movie, by the way.
I mean, she can be pretty funny, but the whole message is just absolutely repulsive and it gives women this, oh, I can do it.
Don't worry, I'll just bag a doctor when I get older.
Yeah, yeah, sure you will, honey.
Absolutely, yeah.
You're overweight and you're drunk and you've got no relationship experience and you're unstable and you're narcissistic and you're a racist.
But don't worry!
A doctor would just love to marry you.
Just love to marry you.
Oh, it's so destructive.
It's so destructive.
It's almost like there's a plot or a conspiracy.
But anyway...
What the hell were we talking about?
Oh no!
I lost the thread!
I forgot to drop my crumbs in the wood and I can't find my way back home.
Well, what I was wondering is for young people my age, where is your pride?
Where is your desire for freedom?
Because I have too much pride to take money from the government when I'm completely capable of working and I'm young.
I would even at my work if somebody older than me Unless, like, you know, physically fit would be doing something more than me, I would be embarrassed.
I think, you know, I know I'm capable and so I want to do it for myself.
I want to be able to provide for myself and, you know, when I do have a family for my family and, you know, or be a mom and all that.
But I just, the idea that I would Sit around and just let the government take care of me.
I don't know.
That repulses me.
Rebecca, do you want me to guard your eggs?
I feel the urge to guard your eggs, Rebecca.
I'm going to be frank with you.
Are you ready?
Why are you friends with this type of person?
Let's say some great guy comes along.
He's the man of your dreams.
And you say, hey, want to hang out with my resentful socialist Bernie supporter who will bore you about the minimum wage?
What's he going to think of you?
Well, you know.
No, I don't.
I don't know.
That's why I'm asking.
I guess these are people I have known my entire life and...
There aren't many other people.
I mean, my boyfriend, he is a total Trump supporter as well.
And what does he think of your friends?
Is he there?
Can I talk to him?
He is here.
Do you want to speak to him?
I do.
John, come here.
I'll ask him.
I guess we kind of have friends from all over with the same ideas because we've been both raised in an area that is just so pro- Leftist and liberalism and indoctrination.
Right.
Is the boyfriend on?
Sorry, what was that?
Is he on?
Yeah, here he is.
How you doing, man?
How are you?
I'm well.
How are you doing?
I'm sorry to yank you in here.
We'll keep it brief.
I don't know if you're a public-facing kind of guy at all.
But first of all, you might need to rescue Rebecca from Philadelphia.
Just a possibility.
You know, if you love her, maybe yank her out to someplace where it's not like leftist cancer central brain.
And what do you think of these I don't know, I got this image of the little goatee, cocky, high-forehead dude in the sweater vest who's moaning on about minimum wage and socialism and Bernie Sanders.
I mean, how do you stand it?
I don't know, really.
My area, I live about 20 minutes from her, and my area is really Republican, and her area is more Democratic, so it's kind of weird because A lot of people in my area were big supporters on Trump.
And then when I come in her area, it's just like everybody's so biased.
And how do you experience when you're hanging out with her friends and if politics comes up?
I mean, what happens?
I try not to, like, involve myself into it because I just don't want to start any wars with anybody because they just don't see the truth.
They're brainwashed with, like, the mainstream media and And they don't really do their fact-checking when it comes to, like, talking politics when I'm around.
So they're idiots.
Try not to get into it.
So aren't they idiots?
Yeah, basically.
They have opinions about things and don't even know that they don't know.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
They just go off of what the mainstream media tells them, and they don't really invest their time on actually checking the facts.
Getting the backstories of everything.
John, can I ask you something?
Yes.
Are you Amish?
No.
No, seriously.
You say you're in a pro-Trump environment.
God love those medieval bastards.
God, they handed the Republic back from like the 17th century.
It's like time travelers.
They're bringing the future from the past and giving it to the present.
I just want to thank someone, but they're not on Skype.
Thank you, you crazy medieval bearded bastards for saving Western civilization.
All is forgiven.
I wish I was Amish though.
They did help us on this election.
You think?
Well, you know why?
You know why they stayed pro-Trump?
Because you can't get CNN in a wagon!
That is true.
None of the false allegations and lies and false flag insults and insults and...
None of the allegations come through on carrier pigeons and smoke signals.
Yeah.
I remember watching the movie Witness and laughing, and it's like, I'm not laughing now.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I'm going to join them.
One more round in elections, that's it.
I'm going to grow out this side beard, and I'm going to learn how to build a barn with my bare hands.
We don't live that far from the Amish area, so we won't have to join them.
All right, well, scream a thank you at them, and buy some butter.
That's all I can say.
Send me the bill.
I'll pay it.
No, it's absolutely...
Absolutely beautiful.
So, yeah, Jaundice, I mean, what are you going to do with these friends?
I mean, is this the rest of your life?
You're going to hang around biting your tongue saying, man, you people are idiots, but I can't say anything.
I'm going to have to because some of my family members are Hillary supporters and especially my brother, but I just try not to talk to them as much anymore because they don't really know.
The truth, really.
And it's hard to bite my tongue.
I want to tell them everything, but it's like talking to the wall because they don't really understand anything.
No, it's not really.
I mean, that's really an insult to walls, which do keep the rain out.
Talking to a wall is kind of meditative, don't you think?
Just chatting away with a wall.
It's not bothering you.
It's not demanding minimum wage.
It's not jacking up your taxes.
It's not giving you high blood pressure.
It's not raising your cortisol levels to the point where you're The entire blood vessel feels like a can of Coke bouncing around at the back of a pickup for 40 days.
I mean, talking to a wall is a pretty relaxing thing.
It's not going to bother you that much, and it sure as hell isn't going to vote for the end of Western civilization.
So, you know, with all due respect to your family, please don't drag the walls into it.
I think they're relatively innocent in the larger scheme of things.
Now that I look at that, now it actually...
Sounds better.
I will give you a choice.
You can have a political discussion with a wall, or your brother, or the Bernie Sanders supporter that Rebecca knows your choice would be.
I think I would just pass on either of them.
Yeah.
Well, no, listen, you don't have to tap dance around a wall unless you're Gene Kelly.
I mean, you can just, I like Trump.
Got anything to say about it?
Didn't think so.
Yeah.
I don't like Hillary.
Got anything to say about that?
Didn't think so.
Yeah, exactly.
Just wanted to point it out.
Masonry and plaster are relatively innocent in the scheme of things.
Now, maybe if you have a chat with the wall on the border, that might be a different matter.
A chat about a wall is different than a chat to a wall.
I don't know if you heard this.
It's just kind of a funny thing how I mentioned at some point that they should sell bricks on the wall.
To Roger Waters.
They should sell bricks on the wall.
You put your name on it.
Like, they used to have these for, like, Olympic Village.
You built...
And I donated way back in the day.
You get your name on the wall.
But they should...
And somebody took this idea and ran with it.
And said that the wall should have the names of people killed by illegal immigrants on each brick.
So, sadly, it's a lot of bricks.
Or assaulted or raped or whatever.
So, how long have you guys been going out?
What's that?
How long have you guys been going out for?
A little over two years.
What are your plans?
We're thinking about that, but not anytime soon.
Why?
I don't know.
Oh, wait!
You're young!
You're immortal!
You get to live forever!
So, yeah, there is that.
Those of us who are not young, as young, we recognize that mortality is rushing down upon us, so we have to organize and prioritize.
Do you love each other?
Yes.
Okay.
Do you want to be with other people?
No.
No.
Wait, you didn't say that at the same time.
I'm just messing with you.
I'm just trying to cause trouble because, you know, it's fun for me.
No, I'm kidding.
You guys sound great.
And look, I'm not trying to corner you.
I'm just genuinely curious and I'm not trying to pressure anyone.
But why not?
If you love each other, you don't want to be with other people.
You share the same values.
You hate the same people that you surround yourself with for reasons I can't quite fathom, but we'll get to that in a second.
But you could rescue her from liberal land, right?
I mean, I'm just curious.
Is it a financial thing?
Is it like a career thing?
Is it a hold now for something better thing or what?
Financial, I would say more than anything else.
You can't afford him?
Is he like a real himbo?
Like he's got to have his gel and his body butter and his liposuction and his Kelly Clarkson hair removal from his chest?
No.
Well, I think we both financially aren't making enough to afford our lives.
But, you know, people got married and had kids during the Great Depression, right?
And the Middle Ages, which is kind of why we're all here.
And two can live as cheaply as one, so I've never quite understood the financial argument.
Well, it's the area we live in.
It's really high value.
So we would have to like...
Speaking of the Amish area, we're preferring to moving to the Amish area because it's cheaper living.
And it's better.
You do get to save your electricity bills.
Because there's none!
I don't think we live as Amish just in that area.
Have you talked about having kids?
Yes, we have.
And?
Yes, we want children.
We do want kids.
By when?
I don't know.
When I can pay my student loans.
Oh, yes, right.
There's another depopulation matrix for people.
If you're really smart, we're going to burden you with a student loan.
Maybe you'll have fewer kids and we'll get to rule more dumb people.
But do you want to have them by 30?
Yes.
For sure.
And how many do you want?
Well...
Ideally three, maybe more.
No, that's great.
Okay.
How do you want to space them out?
Like every 18 months kind of thing?
Two years?
Probably two years.
Yeah, I don't know if I could do every 18 months.
Actually, it's not really you who'll have to do it.
I just wanted to mention that.
Well, I don't know if my body can take it.
It's tough.
I cut back on my sit-ups.
Okay, so you want three kids...
And you want them two years apart.
Now, I'm no mathematician.
You want them by 30.
Hang on.
Wait, wait.
Let me take my shoes off here.
30, 28, 26, 24.
Wait, wait.
Now, listen.
Do you guys have a webcam?
No, I'm just kidding.
Because you're going to get busy now.
But isn't this...
What is not adding up for me here?
At some point, you might want to get married.
At some point in the future, you want three kids spaced two years apart.
By the time you're 30, but you're 24 now.
I want to start having kids before 30.
No, you don't.
No, you don't.
You do not want to be having kids at 36.
I guess not.
No, I'm telling you.
Don't trust me.
Just go look up the facts.
Okay.
Listen, no, no, no, no.
You don't.
You ever have this thing?
For me, it's milk.
I like drinking milk.
And you ever have this thing where you pick up the milk and you give it a sniff and it's a little bit gamey?
This hasn't happened since I got married.
This is all bachelor days.
My wife's fantastic at this stuff.
It's a little gamey and you're like, man, I really want some milk.
Maybe that's just the stuff that's around the edge of the spout.
That's a little gamey.
Like maybe further in it's perfectly fine.
You know, like the bulk of milk protects it from something like that.
Where you're just like, I don't know, it's a little bit.
Or you ever have this like the last piece of bread and you just glance down and there's a tiny little bluish fuzzy corner and you're like, I have to rip that off.
I'm sure the rest of it's fine, right?
You ever have that thing where you're like, oh, I'm really hungry.
I really want this particular thing.
I don't know if it's going to be okay or not.
Yeah, I've had that before.
Yeah, it won't happen after you're married because Rebecca sounds like fantastic that way.
But that's eggs at 36.
You don't want to be cranking out the dust monsters.
You don't want to be giving birth to a raptor.
That's basically what I'm saying.
And if you can, you know, do it earlier.
Earlier is better.
You know, I just had this conversation with the last caller.
So she's already a mom, but I just wanted to sort of Point this out, that don't, you know, fertility rates are declining enormously and rates of birth defects and rates of Down syndrome and so on are going up.
Again, don't trust anything I'm saying.
Look up the facts, but don't just sort of wander into your 30s thinking that it's like your 20s when it comes to reproduction.
I understand that.
All right, just...
And, you know, I'm pretty much one for this.
Like, I met my wife after our first date together.
We never spent a day apart, and we got married 11 months later.
And we've been married now for like 15 years, 14 years, something like that.
And I'm just kind of like, if it's right, why not?
And you don't have to answer, obviously.
It's a lot of stuff to process, but I just kind of wanted to point this out.
It might be something that you don't want to live in the hazy.
And the reason I'm saying this, I wish someone had told me this when I was younger.
So I'm passing it along.
Maybe it's entirely projection.
Maybe you guys don't need it at all.
But you don't have forever.
If you want to have kids in particular, you don't have forever.
Plan for it now and start working backwards from that.
And, you know, a lot of women in their 30s have trouble.
Conceiving.
Have trouble.
Or bringing to term.
It could be miscarriages and so on.
And you don't want to have two kids and miscarriages.
You don't want to have two kids and sweating through pregnancies.
I mean, it's just distracting.
You'd be less effective as a parent.
And, you know, it's not guaranteed, right?
But it is something that I would recommend thinking about.
And I'll tell you the reason that this is all tied into the friendship thing is that when you decide...
If you decide, you say, we're going to get married, we're going to get on with our lives, going to become fully adults.
What happens is, you know your friends from youth and all of that?
I'm telling you, you get married, you sort of commit to being together as a couple and having kids whenever that's going to happen.
Then getting along with someone you knew in grade six, I'm just telling you, it doesn't matter as much.
You know, you make that big leap to being, you know, truly big person adult style stuff like getting married and having kids.
Then, you know, what your burnout friend from 20 years ago thinks doesn't really matter as much.
And I just sort of want to...
It's important now because, you know, you're young with the illusion of infinity ahead of you.
But it just...
It won't matter as much.
Plus, you'll have your best friend living with you and you'll share values.
And I'm telling you, when you've got your best friend living with you and you share great values and you have great conversations and all of that, it kind of feels like slumming it to go out and hobnob with the muggles.
You know, like it just does.
And it just becomes a whole lot less tempting because you have everything you want at home.
And, you know, like Paul Newman said about Joanne Woodward, when, you know, people said, well, you're a total rock star and a sex stud, you know, when he was younger.
You've never had an affair.
And he's like, well, why would I want to go out for a hamburger when I got steak at home?
And that's the case with not just, obviously, sex or whatever or companionship, but friendship as a whole.
You get that kind of bond.
You build that kind of life.
First of all, you'll meet other people.
Who share those values, particularly if...
It sounds like you're surrounded by people who are not going to grow up.
And they are going to be invested in you not growing up.
And I'm just concerned that they're giving you this infinity of time thing.
Like, the friend who's into the Bernie Sanders stuff and wants minimum wage and is bouncing from job to job is like, that guy's not going to grow up.
And he's going to try, unconsciously I'm going to assume, he's going to try and keep you guys from growing up and there's going to be this sense of timelessness.
But...
The Grim Reaper is coming on that conveyor belt, you know, that walkway that goes through the airport.
He's down at the end, and you've got a certain number of days.
That guy is coming down, and he's sharpening his scythe, and he's grinning his toothy grin, and he's winking at you with his non-existent eyeballs.
And he's coming down that way, hanging around with people who've got no time sense, who've got no future sense, who aren't panicking.
And I'm not saying you've got to panic about your life when you're 24, but if you want three kids, you've got to start planning proactive.
Don't hang around with the people who have no time preferences, who have no urgency, who have no panic, who are just living every day like they've got an infinity of things, who are spending each dollar like a billionaire who can never run out.
Well, every day makes us poorer and poorer and at the end we run out of money and fall into a hole in the ground and you want to make the decisions for the rest of your life now that are going to be a great foundation for the rest of your life.
And I'm sorry to put you in this awkward position and go off on this rant, But I just wanted to point it out to you and to everyone else out there listening.
Time's ticking away.
And it's not just a Pink Floyd song.
It is also something we are inevitably running out of.
So you don't have to give me any particular feedback, but it's just a conversation topic for you.
Perhaps later.
I just wanted to sort of share that.
Thank you.
You're very welcome.
Thanks so much for calling in, guys.
I hope it was somewhat helpful.
You know what?
It was helpful for me.
So to hell with it.
It was a purgative for me, and I'm sorry if it dumps on your life, but it was great for me.
It was good for me.
I apparently don't care about you.
I do, actually, and I hope that you'll let me know what you decide.
All right.
Thanks, Stefan.
Thanks so much.
Take care.
Alright, up next is Craig.
Craig wrote in and said, I would like to inquire about the idea that reason is itself a higher power.
Adherents of Judeo-Christian philosophy frequently say that we cannot have morality without a higher power and cite God as that higher power.
I recently listened to one of Stefan's podcasts in which he stated that he surrenders to the higher power of reason and evidence every day.
Some philosophical questions that were raised in my mind after listening to that podcast are, is a higher power necessary to formulate an ethical system?
If so, why is reason a sufficient higher power?
Is reason self-evident?
Does reason have any limitations?
Given that we can never be certain that we have access to 100% of relevant information or evidence when considering a specific issue, we can never be 100% certain of our conclusions.
But that says nothing about the power of rationalization itself.
Is reason fallible?
That's from Craig.
Hello, Craig.
How you doing?
Hello, Stefan.
All right.
I'm getting better every day.
Alright, alright.
Do you want to expand upon the theme by chance?
Well, what would you like to know?
So when I surrender to a methodology, I'm not sure how I see that as surrendering to an entity.
Like, if I surrender to the scientific method, that's different from being kidnapped by a scientist, right?
To sort of put it in blunt terms.
And I just wonder if you could help me understand how you would equate these two things.
Okay, well, let me go back to the podcast that I listened to.
Excuse me.
In it, a young man who had some kind of alcohol and addiction problems was talking about AA and how they...
He was an atheist and he was talking about how in AA they use a higher power to help in the 12-step program to cure you of alcoholism.
And he asked you – he was having trouble reconciling the higher power because that helped him with his atheism.
And you said that you surrendered to the higher power of reason and evidence every day.
Does that help?
That's not surrendering to An entity's will or a consciousness.
Obeying a person is the opposite of obeying reason, right?
Taking orders is the opposite of thinking for yourself.
Reason is empowering you to think for yourself.
Taking orders is the opposite of thinking for yourself.
It's surrendering your autonomy to another consciousness.
So it seems to me when you say, well, could you not equate reason and evidence with God or philosophy with God?
Then it's saying, well, if I take orders from an entity, that's the same as thinking for myself.
And I think that they're opposites.
Okay, I wasn't really trying to equate reason and evidence with God.
It was just, I get into discussions with, you know...
I've heard of religionists, theists about morality and they frequently say, well, you can't have morality unless you invoke God, unless you have some kind of higher power.
Excuse me.
And I say, well, I'm an objectivist and my morality is based on reason and rooted in that individual sovereignty.
They kind of poo-poo that and say, well, that just doesn't work because you have to surrender to a higher power.
Yeah.
Your comment is, I would like to inquire about the proposition that reason is a higher power.
Well, so if I say that my system of ethics is based on reason, is that a higher power?
Is that enough to satisfy someone who's a theist?
No.
No, because reason is a methodology that is enacted by an individual, whereas a theist would talk about a foreign consciousness that is perfect, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good, that you must surrender your will to in order to be good, right?
Right.
So no, I would not put the two at all as synonymous.
They're antonyms.
They're the opposites.
Okay.
Now, as to your other questions, now, that's not a proof.
I mean, I understand, right?
I'm just saying that as far as definitions go.
If I say, well, I... Now, when I say I surrendered to the higher power of reason and evidence, that's when I'm making truth statements that are objective, right?
Like, if I say I like ice cream...
Then I'm, you know, am I surrendering to the higher power of reason and evidence?
Well, I'm just, I'd like a coffee.
I mean, is it whatever, right?
Is that reason and evidence?
No, it's not reason and evidence.
It's just me expressing a particular, if I laugh at a joke, is that reason and evidence?
If I'm cutting, enjoying cutting snowflakes out of paper with my daughter, is that reason and evidence?
But if I'm doing philosophy, right?
If I am...
If I am making universal or objective truth statements or formulating arguments, then yeah, I'm surrendering to the higher power of reason and evidence.
But it's not a power like power over me.
It's just that I recognize the reality that if I want to make a truth statement, I have to use an objective methodology.
Right.
So I guess there are two different definitions of higher power.
Well, yes, and they're opposites.
So you don't want to use the same definition for two opposites, right?
So something which is thinking for yourself versus surrendering to an external consciousness, obeying an external consciousness you don't want to.
You don't want to use the same definition for two things that are not the same thing.
And the more opposite they are, the less you want to cloak that.
Now, when it comes to the 12-step program, and listen, the efficacy of the 12-step program is highly questionable.
But the one thing I think that is valuable about it is that the arrogance of the ego needs to be tamed by something.
The arrogance of the ego needs to be tamed by something.
And we...
We're all born with very strong egos that don't subject themselves to any particular methodology.
Like, we're all born as babies without the capacity to defer gratification.
If we're hungry, nobody can explain to us that, you know, mommy's out, she'll be back in half an hour with the giant milk bags of yumminess, so don't worry about it.
I mean, we just cry till we get what we want.
We don't have the capacity to defer gratification.
The ego is very strong, and there's nothing wrong with that.
It's perfectly valid for the early stage of life.
But...
As we grow we need to find some way to To subjugate or submerge our impulses, to civilize our impulses so that we don't live pure lizard brain, we don't live pure monkey brain, but we have that, you know, neofrontal cortex where we have like, I think it's a quarter or a third of a second to intercept an impulse from the lizard brain or the amygdala and sort of restrain ourselves or have restraint.
And civilization is really about the deferral of gratification, restraint and agreeing to resolve our disputes without resorting to violence and so on.
To find a way to subjugate the ego to something is the essential task of civilization.
Now historically, the entity that you subjugate your ego to is God.
Well, you may want to do this.
You may strongly desire this.
You may want to eat until you get fat.
You may want to laze around and not work.
You may want to use violence to get what you want.
You may want to go and have sex with some other woman when you're married.
You may want all of these things.
But God says no.
The Ten Commandments say no.
And that's what subjugates the base mammalian evolutionary drive for optimization, which I've sort of talked about off and on throughout this whole show.
And so, what submerges the ego into restraint?
It could be fear of social repercussions.
That's not particularly moral.
That's just, you know, I don't steal because I'm afraid I'm going to get caught.
It's not a statement of high ethical standing.
But, you know, for the person who otherwise might have got stolen from, it's fine.
You know, like if people don't come and strangle me because they're afraid of being caught, I'm fine with that.
I'd prefer it if they did it because it's an immoral thing to do, or didn't do it because it was immoral.
But nonetheless, if they restrain from strangling me because they're afraid they're going to get caught, okay, I'm I'm still breathing either way, so I'll take it as a fine plan B. And so, of course, if everybody was able to master their own emotions and their own impulses and their own drive to have something in the here and now, and if they were able to master their own impulse and control their own impulses for stuff in the here and now and defer gratification and all of that, well, we wouldn't need...
The police.
We wouldn't need court systems, really.
People would be honorable and decent and a huge amount of overhead for immorality.
Bad people are wicked expensive to society.
Think of locks.
Think of car locks.
Think of anti-theft devices.
Think of your password protections.
If people were just honest, we'd all be filthy rich.
If people were just not...
Jerks when it came to stealing or hijacking or fishing or identity theft or, you know, all that garbage and crap and violence that goes on and all of that.
If people were just moral and decent, we'd all have like five times the income.
There's a huge tax that...
It's the asshole tax.
I've talked about it before.
People are just assholes and it's very expensive because you have to now guard yourself against tools who are coming around working and trying to do you harm.
And so...
How do we get people to be better?
And generally, it should be modeled by parents and all of that, but of course a lot of time it's not.
How do we get people to be better?
Well, in the 12-step program, it's explicitly against the greedy ego, right?
The Grego?
The greedy ego, right?
I want it now, I want it all, and I want it now, as the song goes.
And Surrender.
I surrender myself to a higher power.
I'm going to let something other than my idiot ego that got me into this ridiculous addiction, I'm going to let something other than my idiot ego run things.
And, you know, I mean, to take a silly example, Anthony Weiner, who clearly seems to be a significantly perverted sex addict, was seen riding a horse in some sex addict treatment place, which seems kind of weird because I thought he was kind of broke.
But anyway, so I imagine that's something to do with you're not in control.
The horse is going to run.
The horse is in control.
And you go where the horse goes and it's a way of sort of letting go of the greedy ego.
How do we deal with the greedy ego?
How do we deal with the greedy ego and find yourself a higher purpose or at least not a self-destructive purpose?
Now, for me, reason and evidence is a way to manage the greedy ego.
I want to be right.
I want to be true.
I want to be prescient.
I want to be the smartest.
I want to be the best.
I want to be the one with the best predictions and all that.
So, if I want that, well, my greedy ego might be just, you know, go out and make a bunch of predictions and then just bully people who disagree with me and whatever it is.
I can just be a jerk about it.
And it might work in some ways.
But...
The best way for me to get what my greedy ego wants is to work through reason and evidence and be genuinely right in an important kind of way.
So you could say that there's some commonality that this sort of higher power is what people who can't handle philosophy have to...
It's the plan B, I guess, for people who won't live by principle.
They can live by surrender to a higher power, but even though it may have some similar effects in its outcome, It's not synonymous in terms of its intention or its methodology, I should say.
Does that make sense?
Yes.
So, I don't know if I want to go too far down this rabbit hole.
I mean, how do you have a conversation with a committed theist about morality?
It seems like what you're saying is there's no common basis for having that conversation.
I mean, I have had that conversation on this show, so I'm not sure what you mean.
Well, if someone asks you or says, well, you can't have morality without surrendering to a higher power, how do you answer that?
Well, I mean, I would start with what we agree on, which is the initiation of force is wrong.
Theft and murder and rape and assault are all wrong.
And...
We'd sort of say, well, if we come to the same conclusions, but there's a more consistent methodology, then we would sort of see that.
There's a great song, and it's an old song, I guess, by now.
It's way too high for me to sing.
But CeeLo Green sang the song, Crazy.
And the lyrics are, Who do you think you are?
Ha ha ha, bless your soul.
You really think you're in control.
And I kind of liked that.
You really think you're in control.
That's the angry ego, the fantasy of omniscience or omnipotence.
We need to be restrained by something.
Children are happiest when they have...
They play happiest in a fenced yard.
They play happiest and they are happiest when they have clear...
Boundaries.
Boundaries, yeah.
Thank you.
I was trying to think of the word.
Good, good, good.
I have three kids, so...
Okay, so you know the deal, right?
So...
And of course, you know, kids have their angry ego, right?
They want to eat all their Halloween candy sometimes the same night.
They want to stay up all night.
They don't see the future as clearly.
And that's fine.
That's perfectly natural for all of that.
But the reality is that we do need something to restrain the...
Angry.
Or the greedy ego.
And again, I have no problem with the greedy ego.
It's a wonderful part of our personality, but you need a balance between, you don't want to defer gratification and never have a moment's happiness in your life, but at the same time, you also don't want to burn the future for the sake of enjoyment in the present.
And it's, you know, it's a complicated mix.
So I can have certainly good conversations.
When I was younger, not so much, but now I can have much better conversations with religious people because We are both surrendering ourselves to a methodology.
Now, Christians in particular are not surrendering themselves to God's mere will.
Like if God tells them to go kill someone who's innocent, right?
I mean, I assume anyone, but if God tells them to go kill some innocent person, they're going to say, well, that wouldn't be God, that would be the devil, right?
So they don't just say, well, whatever the voice tells me or whatever the impulse is, that's got to be God.
They have a Methodology by which they can judge whether what they're being instructed to do or what they get the impulse to do through prayer or through meditation or whatever, through contact with the other universe, with the higher world.
They say, well, if God has asked me to do something evil, it can't be God, it must be the devil.
So then just surrender themselves to a higher power, like do whatever, right?
Sort of like in the military, like you're not...
You're not allowed to obey an immoral order, right?
If someone tells you to go shoot a civilian or shoot a wounded guy or whatever who surrendered and is unarmed, well, you can't do it, right?
You can't just obey orders.
You have to obey orders, legitimate orders.
You not only can't, you shouldn't obey illegitimate orders or immoral orders.
So if I say, okay, well, You wouldn't do something that was immoral.
If there was a voice in your head that sounded like God but said, go kill someone, you'd recognize that you were either crazy or schizophrenia or it was the devil, but you wouldn't go and say, oh, God told me to, whatever, right?
So they have a methodology of determining good from evil that is not just obeying a higher power because there is the higher power that is malevolent, right?
The devil, the lucifer, and so on.
So in the same way, I have...
Philosophy, and if philosophy tells me, oh, somebody's given me a great argument to go strangle a kitten, well, that's not right.
Let's go back to Aristotle.
He said, if you've got a moral system that justifies rape, I don't care what you're saying, you've made a mistake somewhere because it's just wrong.
It's just wrong.
So I think that there's a lot that we'd have in common, and I would sort of say, okay, well, what makes murder wrong?
I mean, this is a fundamental question that's kind of alarming for a lot of people.
And the answers that I would have versus the answers that a Christian would have would certainly not be the same, because one would be philosophy, the other would be theology.
But if it keeps me from killing people, I'm still okay with it, if that makes sense.
Right.
I mean, lately I've been starting from, you know, individual rights.
You know, if we both agree that we can start from individual sovereignty, life, liberty, property, Irrespective of how we got there, whether you say it comes from the Word of God or I say I derived that rationally somehow, we can start there and start talking about a system of morality and ethics.
Sure.
Yeah, I think that's fair.
You can't have conversations with people who aren't willing to surrender their thinking to some higher methodology.
Because otherwise, all they're going to do is make bold assertions.
And that's not having a conversation.
That's just batting back and forth, absolutes with no context.
Right.
So the other questions are kind of related to...
I've been told on more than one occasion by people who are believers that...
Who know that I'm not.
They feel sorry for me that I'm missing out on something.
And I think it's the other way around.
I kind of feel sorry for them because they have some limitations where I kind of believe that or I'd like to believe that using reason, using logic and evidence, there really is no limit to what we can know.
Certainly there are facts that we can't know because of proximity and space and time.
But being able to not be constrained by, well, that's a mystery that only God knows.
There's a whole – the universe is open to us.
And that's why I kind of went down the road of, is reason self-evident?
Does it have any limitations?
Is it fallible?
Right.
Okay.
So, I mean, this is a big topic, and we can sort of brush around the edges of it.
I've got a whole introduction to logic that I've got half done, which I'm sort of getting back to now the election is done.
But is reason self-evident?
Well, no.
No, because if it was self-evident, then you wouldn't need a discipline, right?
Like, so physical pain is self-evident, like you stub your toe assuming you don't have leprosy or something that's destroyed your nerves, right?
You stub your toe, it's pretty evident that you don't need to sort of consult a manual to say, does it hurt?
Right, but if you try to refute logic, you'd have to cite evidence and use logic to refute logic.
But you can't refute logic.
Because logic is a description of objective reality and is derived from the objective principles of reality.
So you can't refute logic.
Like if you point at something and say that's a tree, you can't refute that.
It is a tree.
Now again, is it a stone tree painted to look like a tree?
You know what I mean?
So you can't...
If sense reality is objective and empirical, obviously, and universal...
Then if reason describes that which is objective and universal and is derived from the stable principles of matter in reality, then trying to disprove reason is like trying to say that something that's read is not read.
It's by definition.
You can't reject that.
So doesn't that mean that it's self-evident?
Well, no, hang on, hang on.
Now, is the process of reasoning self-evident?
No, you need the discipline of rationality, you need the discipline of the Socratic method because the conclusions that you will come to will sometimes be startling, right?
So maybe it was just a definition of the question.
I don't think, and lots of people have tried to disprove reason, and of course the vast majority of people on this planet do not surrender to reason and evidence.
So I would say no, it's not self-evident because the vast majority of people reject it as the final methodology for truth.
Okay.
And what about limitations?
I mean...
Well, it's sort of like saying, well, does a sword have to limit...
Hang on, hang on.
It's sort of like, what are the limitations of a sword?
Well, if you're, I don't know, in a battle in the Middle Ages, it's pretty damn useful if you're trying to...
I don't know, thread.
If you're trying to use it to SOA address, it's not very helpful at all, right?
So does it have any limitations?
I would say that if it has limitations, it's not the purview of reason.
So you say, does science have limitations?
Well, it can't explain Why we have the dreams we have.
I mean, just making something up, you could probably find lots of different arguments, but it can't explain why I daydream about what I daydream.
Well, okay, but that's not really the purview of science, because daydreaming is a subjective experience that can't be reproduced by other people or measured empirically.
So it's not a limitation of science to say it can't figure out why I daydream about what I daydream because that's not the purview of science.
So I would say that reason doesn't have any limitations because it perfectly covers the job that reason is supposed to do.
And if it doesn't cover that job, then it's not what reason should be doing anyway.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
Are you familiar with the Gödel's theorems?
Gödel, Escher, and Bach was a book that weighed down my bookshelf when I was a teenager.
So yes, I have some – that there have been some arguments as to limitations on reason.
And now it's been so long since I've read it.
Perhaps you could refresh me.
Well, I'm kind of trying to get through them myself now.
But I think they have more to do with mathematical reasoning than logical reasoning.
Non-mathematical logic.
Does that make sense?
Right.
So it's not particularly relevant to philosophy.
Yeah.
Okay.
That's what I thought.
And so finally, what about the fallibility?
So we can never really be sure that we have all of the relevant evidence and information and we're considering something.
So we can't be sure about 100% sure about the conclusions, but that's just from lack of evidence.
So is there any kind of fallibility other than lack of information that you need to consider when reasoning and applying logic?
Maybe I'm missing something here, but what would reasoning and information have to do with each other?
Well, let me give you an example.
So, I have anti-abortion, for example.
Okay, I came...
Hang on, no, no, no, hang on.
What?
I mean, I don't know if we want to start with one of the most challenging and contentious moral abstractions when it comes to the limitations of reason, because is there anything else we can start with?
Well, I just want to talk about the...
We can if you want.
I'm just wondering if you have another example.
I don't really have another example.
Okay, go ahead.
So I came to this conclusion by doing some research into biology and embryology and that's the conclusion that I came to.
But I'm not an expert on biology and embryology.
I didn't exhaust – I didn't read every book there is on the subject.
I read until I thought I had enough information to make a conclusion.
So, you know, given that I don't have – I didn't – I'm not that expert.
I'm not sure what we're talking about.
Can you just give me something?
I don't know where we are right now.
What are we talking about with regards to limitations of reason?
Well, since I don't have all the information about biology and embryology – I'm not 100% sure about the conclusion of being anti-abortion.
Okay, but hang on, hang on, hang on.
So are you saying that if you had some more information about embryology, that it would affect your decision about the morality of abortion?
Is that right?
Possibly, yes.
And what kind of information...
Would you expect to receive that you don't have?
Something that would...
So I came to the conclusion that a fertilized egg is a human fertilized egg.
As soon as the two strands of DNA join, it's just a human in the fertilized egg form.
And if all goes well, it'll become a crying baby in nine and a half, ten months, whatever it is.
But maybe there's some information about That process that I don't know, that science doesn't know, that would, you know, make me say, okay, well, it's not really that until some other time later in the process.
But that wouldn't be, no, that's not a question of the morality of abortion, that's a question of the timing of abortion.
No, no, no, no, I'm not talking about the morality of abortion, I'm talking about the process of reasoning.
No, no, no, as soon as you're talking about abortion, you're talking about morality, right?
I mean, because the question is should or shouldn't it happen, right?
No.
The question is, is the process of reasoning fallible?
If I could be 100% certain that I had all the evidence and I applied logic and reasoning, am I 100% certain that my conclusion is… Certain of what, though?
Certain of what?
When the fetus is a human being?
No, I'm talking more abstractly now.
No, no, no.
We're talking about abortion, right?
So, I mean, I said you want to talk about something other than abortion.
You said, no, abortion is what we're talking about.
So, I'm trying to understand what information, Craig, you need...
That would give you a reasoning process with regards to abortion that would give you more certainty as to a conclusion.
What are you reasoning about with regards to abortion at all if it's not the morality of it?
Okay.
Well, so something you just said is interesting.
You said, what information would I need that would give me a reasoning process?
What would enhance your reasoning process to make it more certain?
Well, so that's the question.
Is there...
The reasoning process is sort of orthogonal to the information.
You have the information, you apply the reasoning process, you come up with a conclusion, right?
Okay, what conclusion are we talking about?
I don't even know where we are, language-wise.
What conclusion are we talking about?
The conclusion that an abortion is a homicide, let's say.
Okay, so we're back to morality, which you said we weren't applying.
Of course we're back to morality now, right?
Okay.
Come on.
You can't say homicide, but it's got nothing to do with ethics.
Otherwise, you're like a lunatic, right?
I mean, come on.
I didn't say murder.
I said homicide.
Homicide is a, you know, one human taking the life of another human.
Now, there could be a justifiable homicide or not a justifiable homicide.
Right?
Okay.
But a human taking the life of another human is a moral question, whether it's justified or not, right?
Right.
Is it justified or not?
So we're back to the morality of abortion.
Is it murder or not?
Well, we're making a distinction.
Why is this tough?
I mean, do you not want to talk about abortion?
You can talk about something else, but you're bringing up whether it's justified or not.
I'm trying to talk about the process of reasoning.
Okay, so what information would you need?
Because you're saying, well, I may not have all the information to decide whether abortion is moral or legitimate or not, or whether it's homicide or murder or whatever, right?
So my question is, what information...
What would you need in order to make that determination?
Some information that would prove to me that a fetus is not a human being until sometime later or after its birth or whatever.
Wait, do you accept that a baby is a human being after it's born?
Absolutely.
What about when the head's out?
I mean, yes.
So you can't saw the head of the baby off when it's halfway out, right?
Of course.
Okay.
What about if it's in and just, what if the hand is out?
What if the crown is out?
I'm just curious.
I mean, and these are tough questions, right?
But, you know, if we want to start to look at the limits of reason, at some point, going back through time, the argument is, right?
Because there's nobody who says, there's nobody who says, the baby's out, now we can abort it, right?
That's just murder, right?
It's murdering a baby, right?
It's murdering a human being.
Okay.
Okay.
Now, what if it's out, but the umbilical cord is still attached?
No, no.
Once it's out, right?
I mean, this is the partial birth abortion horror that Hillary Clinton talks about.
Although she doesn't view it as horrifying.
But anyway, so if the baby's in the birth canal, but it's just crowning, can you go kill it then?
And I think most people feel a little uncomfortable if you've got any kind of...
I know that's not an argument, but come on.
I mean, you know, killing the baby with a spear when it's just crowning, I mean, come on, that's pretty gross, right?
So at some point going back through time, at some point going back through time, and it's not a matter of the age of the fetus, right?
Because babies that are born prematurely can't be killed, right?
So if you have a baby that's born at five months or six months, Well, there may be places where that baby could be aborted, but once it's out, once it's out of the death chamber of the womb, you can't kill it once it's out.
So it's not the age of the fetus, it's the position of the fetus.
And basically if it's not visible, you know, the fetus that's underground is at risk.
The fetus that's made it to the top has come up like a gopher.
I'm here, don't kill me!
So at some point going back through time, Preventing the sperm from reaching the egg clearly is preventing the formation of a human being.
And this is why, you know, an IUD or a condom or a spermicide or whatever it's going to be, we don't consider to be killing a child.
Now, once the sperm has made its way into the egg, the egg is implanted and it's started to grow, well, clearly we have a...
We have a human being in the making, right?
I mean, that's where we all come from.
Right.
Now, again, we're sort of not trying to get to the answer.
And so you're saying if you knew the exact point at which science could define when it went from non-human to human, is that sort of your argument?
It's always a potential human.
It's not going to grow into a velociraptor, right?
Right.
I mean, it's a human in the fertilized egg form, and it grows, and it's a human in the blastocyst form.
Yeah, it's not something other than human, right?
Right, exactly.
Like, you know, you don't get pregnant and say, hey, hope I don't have a jellyfish, right?
I mean, it's a human being for sure that's growing in there.
Right.
I need to come up with a different example then.
That was my suggestion, right?
Because here, now, I don't think science will ever be able to tell you exactly when.
And even if science could tell you for one specific pregnancy, well, maybe the other pregnancy is a little faster or a little slower.
I don't think that additional information is going to help in that particular context.
Right.
But the question really is, is reason itself fallible?
If I follow the process of reason and using evidence, what mistakes can I make?
Well, the fact that you can make mistakes doesn't mean that reason is fallible.
Right.
I mean, the fact that I drive my car into a ditch doesn't mean that my car is broken.
Well, I guess it does, but I broke it, right?
It's not the car's fault, right?
So if people make mistakes, and we all do, right?
I mean, the reason we need reason is because our minds, and I went over this years ago with my 17-part Introduction to Philosophy series, which I still recommend people take a look at, but no, reason is a fallible process.
It is a tricky process.
We have our own confirmation biases, and we may not have heard a better argument and so on.
But when it comes to sort of basic syllogisms, All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal.
Well, I don't see what additional empirical information you would need to make that case.
Okay, so then there's a continuum from a simple syllogism to some complex analysis where it becomes fallible.
Well no, people even make mistakes on that first one, right?
The only reason you know that somebody's made a mistake is because reason is working.
So if somebody says, all men are mortal, Socrates is a man, but Socrates is immortal.
You say, oh no, no, that's not correct, right?
That's invalid.
Because that's how we know that people have, you know, if you're trying to drive to Albuquerque and you end up some other place, well, you made a mistake getting to Albuquerque.
Why?
Because you're not in Albuquerque.
That's how we know.
So if somebody has made a mistake in their reasoning, we know because of rational methodologies that they've made a mistake.
That's not a limitation of reason.
That's exactly how we know reason is working, that we can confidently say somebody's made a mistake.
Okay.
I guess I have no more questions then.
And so if there's a place where reason can't answer, like, can reason tell you exactly when the cells become a human being?
Well, I think asking reason to do that is fundamentally a question of biology, and I don't think it's fundamentally answerable anyway.
But let's say it could be.
Reason can't.
Tell you that, because reason is for analyzing concepts.
It's not for the empirical examination of reality, right?
What is the difference?
Like, some new animal, is it a lizard or is it a mammal?
Let's say you just see some animal out there crawling around the desert.
Is it a lizard or is it a mammal?
Well, can you reason that out?
No.
You can't.
That would be for a biologist to examine it.
You have to look at the evidence and then use...
Right.
But you can't reason it out ahead of time because that's what I mean.
If you need more information, you're not in the realm of reason anymore.
Okay.
You may be in the realm of biology.
You may be in the realm of physics.
You may be in the realm of, I don't know.
Is there oil under the ground here?
They just found, what, 20 billion barrels?
One of the largest deposits.
They found 20 billion barrels today under Texas.
Yeah, good.
Texas needs some more oil.
But you can't look at the ground and say, I'm going to use my philosophical reason to figure out if there's oil down there.
You can't.
You've got to use other methodologies, you know, whether it's drilling or sonar or whatever the hell they use.
I don't know.
Dowsing rods that are greased up, I don't know.
So you say, well, is it a limitation of reason that it can't figure out whether there's oil under the ground?
No.
And this is why when I talk about philosophy, I talk about reason and evidence, not revidence or evidence, right?
I mean, reason and evidence are two separate things.
They're correlated, of course, right?
But...
They're not the same thing.
So if you say, well, I need more evidence, and that's the same as reason, no.
Reason and evidence are two different things, which is why I've always described them as separate categories.
Okay.
All right.
Well, thanks very much for the call, Craig.
I appreciate it.
I do love me some abstractions, and it was really enjoyable.
So thanks for the call.
You're welcome back anytime.
Let's move on to the next caller.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Alright, up next is Carson.
Carson wrote in and said, Why do we use the word deserve?
What does deserve mean?
That's from Carson.
Hello, Carson.
How are you doing tonight?
Pretty good.
How are you?
I'm well.
I'm well.
Now, I assume you sent this in, assuming that you deserved an audience, right?
You deserved a hearing.
Not quite.
I sent it in because, like, I don't know.
I'm on the border of wondering if I'm...
A genius or just retarded at some point and sometimes...
That's a great question.
No, that's a great question.
That's a great question to ask.
I mean, it's from James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
It's one thing I remember is somebody saying, you know, I wonder if Jesus was in fact a bad man.
And somebody else says, well, the first person that that occurred to was Jesus himself.
So, no, listen, if you're worried you might be crazy, you're probably onto something great.
I don't know about that, but I appreciate it.
I mean, I don't know.
I guess I was probably thinking about something – probably something to do with hearing all the stuff on the news and seeing examples of people shouting their desires for things and saying that we deserve this, we deserve that.
And I was like, I keep goats outside my backyard, and I'm an animal lover.
And I'm looking around like, that doesn't even look like that's crossing their minds.
It's just an odd thing that we do.
It's not odd in a particular context.
Babies deserve to be taken care of and they shouldn't lift a finger to be taken care of.
At a particular point in our life, the expectation of being provided resources through no effort or will or even pleasantness of our own.
Babies have the stick in the carrot and The carrot is they're gurgling and chirpy and happy and smiling and laughing.
And the stick is that they'll scream until your soul dies and your eardrums bleed, right?
So tantrums and, you know, babies are kings, right?
I mean, insofar as when the king is in a good mood, everyone's relieved.
And when the king is in a bad mood, everyone's terrified.
And babies are the natural aristocrats of the family and it's perfectly fine and legitimate and wonderful that they should be exactly that way.
They are entitled.
They are narcissistic.
They don't care if you're tired.
They don't care if your nipples hurt.
They don't care if you've been up three times already.
They don't care if you'd really like to have a shower or a bath.
They don't care if you're having sex.
They just, ah, right?
I mean, they'll do that.
They don't care and they shouldn't.
They shouldn't.
So the natural narcissism and sociopathy of babies is a delightful and wonderful and very realistic state of mind for babies in, right?
And yeah, I mean, babies are like, ah, I just woke up!
And I want my giant utter feet bags in my face.
I'm going to scream until they appear.
And I don't care who's got them.
I don't care what they're being used for.
I don't care if daddy's making motorboat noises between them.
I just want them dangling over my face so I can get me some of that happy joy mother milk juice in my belly.
And now I think I'd really like someone to tickle my belly.
And I don't even know what my belly is.
It's some place with a hole that the feeding tube used to go into when I used to eat through my belly rather than get the giant milk bags in my face.
Really like someone to tickle my belly.
Oh, oh, just crapped myself.
It's a little one, though.
Can't smell it.
But it's kind of uncomfortable.
So let me just cry for a while.
No, I'm not thirsty.
No, I don't want my belly tickled.
I got something stuck to my ass.
So, now you can fix that.
And now, you know what would be great?
I really, really want to be picked up because I've been staring at the same mobile for like it feels like about 10,000 years, even though I don't know what a year is.
So, pick me up.
Oh, there's something cool on that shelf over there.
It's kind of bright and kind of sparkly.
So, I'm just going to vaguely reach and then almost topple out of your arms so that you'll fly me over because basically as a parent, you're my giant airplane.
I can't get anywhere on my own, but I can hitchhide a ride to you like an egret on the back of a hippo and get someplace useful.
So take me over to that shiny thing, which I'm then going to pull out and smash against your lip because I just want to see what your lips do if they make blood as well as pleasant sounds.
And now, you know what I really want to do?
I'd like some applesauce.
No, not that color.
No, not that size.
No, not in that container.
Sure as hell not with that spoon.
What am I, some kind of commoner?
Get me something gold.
Get me something serrated.
Something you could hack a pot of grapefruit with.
And I want to go and I want to get that thing.
And you know, you think, I didn't want to eat it.
I actually just want to face plant in it and then sneeze it into your eyeball.
That's because I'm a baby and that's what I'm all about and that's what I'm going to do.
And I'm going to get out for a little while and then I'm not going to be out for a little while, but I'm going to fall asleep in the most awkward thing.
Hey, you know what?
Lie down.
You know, you're tired.
Go on.
Lie down.
Lie down, daddy.
You're tired.
Lie down.
And now, you know, it'd be really cool.
Put me on top of you.
Yeah, it's going to be so cozy, so cuddly.
You know, yeah, I'm asleep now, aren't I? Punk.
Yeah, you feel like getting up now?
I don't think so.
Maybe mommy's having a nap for the first time in about four and a half years.
Really feel like getting up?
Oh, daddy, do you have to pee?
That's a shame because I don't think I'll be waking up for another three hours unless you want to pee the couch.
And blame it on me.
I think we're stuck together.
I could literally do that all day, because I was a stay-at-home dad for a baby for a long time, and she was a great baby.
But this kind of goes, I don't know why the baby was a southerner.
It makes no sense to me at all.
Yeah, I could do that for like 12 hours straight, and it still wouldn't cover it all.
But that's a wonderful thing for babies, and that's how they should do it.
Now, of course, the whole point is you...
Help babies outgrow that.
As they get older, you give them responsibilities, you remind them of other people, you know, and other people's needs and pleasures, and you get them to stop being narcissistically entitled and prepare them for adulthood, where narcissistic entitlement doesn't work very well outside of Washington and Hollywood.
So it's natural.
We all start off that way.
You know, the question isn't why are people entitled.
The question is how the hell do we stop them from the natural entitlement they're born with?
And so I would say that that to me is more of the challenge, not why they are, but how we get them to be less off.
I see what you're saying.
It's just, uh, huh.
But, I mean, where does, so, I mean, what you're saying is we kind of grow up, you know, once we're born with this Imperative in us that this is hard to work out in my brain.
Well, we're born knowing only our own needs.
Right.
And evolutionarily speaking, because you asked about evolution, well, the baby who deferred to other people's needs would not do as well as his siblings.
Remember when we were, resources were really scarce and you didn't want to be the Really polite run to the litter because you just would starve.
Because the other babies or the other kids would just elbow you out of the way and get the resources and so on.
And you see this with pigs, right?
I mean, the piglets are like the sows lying on her side and the piglets are sort of all squiggling to get up against the nipples and they're all kicking and fighting and pushing each other out of the way.
And that's how we roll.
That's how we develop.
Of course, babies should not be deferential to other animals.
Creatures, because it's their genes they're trying to maintain and provide.
And it's wonderful when you're an adult, you maintain genes by providing resources to babies.
But babies sure as hell don't maintain their genes by sharing.
You know, by, oh no, please, the nipple is all yours.
I'll get some later.
It's like, no, later might never come.
So you say, out of the way, boobs are all mine, and so on.
But enough about my honeymoon.
So I would say that it's perfectly natural and healthy.
And part of growing up is learning that that kind of selfishness is not even selfishness.
It's just exactly what babies should do.
But if you don't grow up, if you have parents who are immature, if you have parents who are basically giant infants themselves, then you're not going to have that modeled.
And if you're in the free market, tantrums are negative.
If you're in a political situation, then tantrums are positive, right?
So if you, let's say that you have, you're just some worker at a factory and you scream and you yell and you throw things and you, you know, stomp on things and you break machines, you're going to get fired, right?
On the other hand, though, if the government has granted you a monopoly and you are the leader of the union, then you can have a tantrum and you're going to have, people are going to have to put up with it because they don't have a choice.
Because they can't just fire you all and go hire other workers.
I know that Reagan did that with the air traffic controllers when he got into power.
But generally, that's not kind of how it works.
I mean, if you get really, really terrible service in a restaurant, you can complain.
Like I was out for dinner with some friends, out for lunch with some friends the other day.
No, dinner.
Sorry.
Not that it matters.
I was out for dinner.
And the burger came.
And my friend ordered the burger came.
And it was, you know, I don't know whether to eat it or sketch with it.
You know, it's a little bit overdone, kind of charcoal-y.
And so, you know, they sent it back, and they took it back, apologized.
The manager came over and asked if the new burger was fine, and so on.
And, you know, good service, problem was done, problem was fixed, and we'll head back.
And so people won't put up with tantrums.
Like, if the cook had come out and You know, throwing the saucepan at him or something, you know, or just yelled at him or whatever, then it would be like, okay, well, A, we're not paying.
B, we're out of here.
C, we're never coming back.
But on the other hand, if your kids are in government school and the teacher is loud or rude, people are like, ooh, I don't know.
I don't know.
Like, let's say you're a pro-Trump person and the teacher is like, Spending a lot of classroom time trashing Donald Trump and promoting whoever, right?
Hillary or Bernie or whatever.
Well, because it's a monopoly because, you know, kids are usually forced to be there.
You're certainly forced to pay.
People are like, eh, I don't know.
You know, if I complain, I don't know what's going to happen.
Plus, they might take it out of my kids.
So, you know, people will usually bite their lips.
I remember there was a John Stossel.
How is health doing?
Anyway, John Stossel was doing a show where some, I think it was some black kid in the inner city was doing really badly with reading and then they hired some private educational consultant slash tutor or whatever and the kid was like reading really, really well.
Just within a couple of weeks or a month or two.
And so why, you know, why aren't people demanding better service from the government?
Because the government has a monopoly.
Why are they afraid to confront teachers in government schools?
Because They have a monopoly, right?
Whereas, you know, they're usually fine with sending food back in a restaurant if they get the wrong order.
They don't just start to say, okay, well...
Or if, you know, they're trying to have a hot date with someone and the waiter hangs around just chatting about offensive things, they'll, like, get upset and won't come back, complain to the manager.
But it doesn't happen in government schools.
So in the free market, empathy is rewarded.
You have to figure out what your customers want in order to provide it.
Not sympathy, but empathy.
Sympathy is when you agree.
Empathy is when you really just understand what the other person feels.
Like a woman who's being followed in a dark alley, she's probably going to feel empathy towards the guy's negative intent, but it doesn't mean she sympathizes with it.
The more we can move people into the free market, the more that narcissistic infantile rage or entitlement or this feeling of deserving, the more that is punished.
And you get negative feedback until you change.
And the free market will work to reshape people into better images of themselves.
If their parents have failed to do it for them, then the free market will step in to reinforce that.
But if the parents have done a really bad job and there's this big giant government Area where you can go and have your tantrums and your hissy fits and be a crappy worker and be annoying and be immature and be whatever, right?
Irresponsible, drunken, whoever, right?
Well, then people have that choice.
They don't have to grow up.
They can just go public.
They can go into the government and then they don't have to grow up because they're not market facing.
So, you know, the free market is great for economic efficiency, but what I like about it the most is it just helps people really grow up and helps people become kinder and more empathetic.
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.
My ex-wife was Swedish, and I went through a pretty good bit of learning curve, understanding how the different societies value work ethic and reward and all that sort of thing.
Do you think there's any...
Wait, hang on a sec.
Did your Swedish wife go back to Sweden after you got divorced?
Yes, she...
Well, she's...
I'm at the tail end of...
I bet you America's looking pretty good right about now!
Good choice, honey!
Oh, dude, I know, right?
Like, so, no, she's over there, we're not divorced.
I'm leaving America!
You know...
Not rapey enough!
It was like the opposite of American Tail, where they're like, I don't know, there's so much opportunity, let's go back to the cats.
That's right, I shouldn't laugh, but I mean...
Boy, I bet you're looking pretty good right about now, given what's going on in Sweden and all.
But anyway, keep going.
Are there any instances of this, to your knowledge, of animals exhibiting this behavior?
Because it seems like this might just be a fluke of evolution.
Oh no, all animals that care for their young exhibit that kind of selflessness.
Oh, I mean, just watch the National Geographic.
Oh, who went weirdly anti-Trump lately.
But anyway, just go watch, maybe not National Geographic, or the David Attenborough milk you for white Westy guilt over the fact that the snail daughter is dying.
I did a whole rant on that.
But anyway, just watch.
I mean, the birds, all they do is they fly and get food for their babies.
Like, just insane how many calories they expend.
Hey, gotta go get a worm.
Baby's hungry again.
Hey, gotta go get a worm.
Baby's hungry again.
Hey, gotta go get a worm.
I mean, this is basically rinse and repeat, right?
So...
They're crazy.
You know, it's for the transmission of genes.
And of course, the birds that didn't have that particular instinct or impulse, their babies would die and those genes wouldn't get passed along.
So the OCD birds who just like constantly stuffing, you know, it's like the worst porn ever.
You know, worm goes into the hole, worm goes into the hole, worm goes into the hole.
I can't watch anymore!
Or can I? So it is displayed by a wide variety of creatures who are taking care of the young.
Of course not, you know, the frogs will eat their own offspring and so on, as I'm sure would Lena Dunham, but it is something that lots of different species exhibit that kind of, quote, altruism, which is basically just enhancing gene protection.
What about why we express it toward others?
Why do we give that opinion of some people, like, saying, like, oh, you really deserve that, or you really, you know, you really deserve...
Well, if you've earned it.
You know, like, I mean, I think that I've earned respect from my listeners.
It doesn't mean I'm perfect, doesn't mean I can't be corrected, but, you know...
Maybe listen to me for five more minutes before calling me an idiot.
If you've listened for a while, I'm not an idiot.
I mean, it doesn't mean I'm infallible, but I think I've earned respect from listeners.
And if they don't pay it, it's kind of a jip, right?
Maybe more so than negative connotations.
Why do you think we might say it in a negative connotation toward people?
I mean, where was the evolutionary spark in us wanting something negative to happen to something else?
Wait, I don't know what you mean.
Can you give me an example?
Uh, like, um, single, okay.
Oh, like the opposite.
Like, well, you would say, uh, you deserve cancer, or you deserve to get hit by a car, or you deserve whatever's coming to you.
You know, that kind of thing.
Oh, you mean when people say, like, I hope you die kind of thing?
Yeah, yeah.
Well, they're just sociopaths, right?
I mean, just nasty, evil, horrible people.
Not necessarily die, but like, you know, uh, You know, that ill will towards somebody in general.
Why do people have ill will towards other people?
Yeah, and think they deserve it.
Well, it's because when people have hateful impulses towards other people, and I'm talking unjust, right?
I'm not talking, you know, someone drove over your dog and laughed about it or whatever.
An unjust, right?
Somebody's making an argument or somebody's suggesting a Of course, a political action that you find offensive or whatever, or threatens your interest.
Well, what happens is, like the word racist, and I won't get into a whole thing about this because Lord knows we've talked about it a lot, but no, this is the sort of underpinning.
People can't say, I'm dependent on the state.
I need people to pay their goddamn taxes because I don't want to go and work for a living.
Now, that's not a very...
Good thing to put on a sign, right?
For a protest sign.
I don't want to work.
I don't want to work.
I just want to bang on the drum all day, right?
I don't want to work.
I don't want to get off the couch.
I'm really following this soap and I have three kids by three different dads or whatever it is, right?
So they don't want to be honest about why you want to.
Socialist programs or why you want big government.
You can't be honest about it.
You can't say, I want the government to go to your house with a gun, take your shit, and give it to me.
Because you should go to work and I don't want to go to work.
I mean, you can't sustain that even in your own mind.
You've got to find some way to hide it.
You've got to find some way to hide it.
So what you do is you scream racism or misogyny or ex-phobia or sexism or whatever it is, right?
You just scream that.
Because you're afraid that the gravy train is going to get interrupted and you're going to have to grow up and be an adult.
And because you're angry at your parents, you don't want to do that and you're stuck in this forgiving your parents and whatever.
So when people have hateful impulses towards others, it's because those other people are threatening their interests.
And those interests can be any number of things.
They can be financial, like I want free stuff that you pay for.
It can be emotional.
I don't want to go through the rigorous effort of growing up because I'd rather be vain in my ignorance than humble in my knowledge.
So it could be any number of reasons, but people can't be honest about it.
They can't be, like if I say, I don't know, I would like to privatize the welfare state, right?
Certainly would, but let's say I say that and people say, oh, you just hate the poor, right?
Oh, you just want people to stop in the streets, right?
They want to make me a bad person so that they don't have to accept that they're in fact bad people and want to use violence to pretend to solve social problems when in fact it's only going to make them worse, the people and social problems, and the violence for that matter.
So people can't be honest about their motivations.
It's like some of the never Trumpers, right?
The people are never Trump.
Well, the reality is that they're being paid by big business interests who want cheap labor to come into the country.
They want their H-1B visas and all this kind of stuff.
Like just over the last couple of days, like since Trump, four days after Trump was elected, tech stocks took a nosedive.
$35 billion was wiped off Amazon's valuation.
Why?
Why?
Because they might have to hire domestically.
They might have to hire locally.
They won't get all these cheap-ass H-1B visa people in there who they can exploit because they can't leave their job because they're tied to it, like some chained-up medieval surf.
They've stopped paying real market wages for their programmers.
Right?
Oh, no!
Now, of course, it's going to be better in the long run, for sure, because you want the code base and the code people.
I've been a coding manager.
I was a coding manager for like 15 years.
I mean, I know all about this stuff, and I won't get into the whole thing, but you want...
People to know the code and stick around.
There's a visa people come and go, right?
So you just get crappy code and the learning curve is huge.
So you save money in the short run, but it can cost you money in the long run.
It's penny wise, pound foolish.
So when you say, well, gosh, Facebook hired a whole bunch of lefty commies to curate their news feed and make sure it was all pro-Democrat, all pro-Hillary, all pro-lefty, all pro-socialism, right?
Well, of course they did.
Because Donald Trump threatens the cheap labor they want to staff up their coding farms.
Of course.
Apple also lost stock market valuation.
Why?
Because they might not be able to get really, really cheap Chinese workers to put together their hardware.
Because there may be tariffs going up.
There may be standards going up.
I don't know.
I don't know what's going to happen exactly.
But there's uncertainty.
So when you look at the billions and billions of dollars that get wiped out in tech stocks because Donald Trump gets in, it's not that hard to figure out why the tech companies were pro-Hillary.
It would be malfeasance for them not to promote Hillary because it would be taking a knowing hit at the value of their stock price.
They could get sued, I'm sure.
You knew that Donald Trump was going to hurt the stock price and you still were even-handed with him?
Bad, bad management, bad directors, bad CEO, bad CFO. You have betrayed your fiduciary responsibility to maximize the value of your stock.
We're suing your asses.
I don't know if they could.
I'm just, you know, it's a possibility.
Or you got a bunch of stock options or you got a bunch of stock and you know if you're even-handed with Trump and Hillary that if Trump gets in...
Your stock price is going to go down considerably.
Well, there's your incentive.
Now, do the tech companies say, well, you see, we have to oppose Donald Trump because he might interfere with our endless supply of cheap, surf-like, half-enslave foreign labor.
So we're going to promote Hillary because it's going to help boost our stock price because we don't want to hire American workers.
We want to hire foreign workers and Donald Trump might interfere with that.
Are they going to say that?
No.
They can't.
Because when you can't express your naked self-interest, you invent morality.
Right?
I mean, you invent morality.
Well, we're just inclusive.
It's got nothing to do with the fact that tens of billions of dollars could be wiped off for a stock price.
We're just into multiculturalism.
We just like Hillary.
I just love all of that head bobbing, falling into a van gel.
I love the fact that she leans against a lamppost and falls over like a sack of cement.
It just does something for me.
Whenever you can't speak about naked self-interest because it's humiliating and obvious and you'll lose the argument because you're clearly just a grasping grab bag of economic self-interest, you have to invent all this other bullshit.
All of this moral frou-frou, you know?
Oh yes, Facebook is so inclusive, it's so into diversity that everyone who staffed their news feed was a lefty.
Everyone!
100%.
Were there any conservatives in there?
No!
So of course they're not at all into...
Diversity.
Look at how much money the mainstream media is going to lose with Donald Trump in there.
Like, Hillary Clinton is like a retarded grandmother when it comes to technology.
Seriously.
Terrible.
Terrible stuff.
Doesn't know her ass from a hole in the ground.
I clicked on something and my screen went blue.
Blue, I tell you!
So it's pretty obvious that if she doesn't know how to handle technology, if she doesn't understand the power of social media, who's she going to talk to for the next four years if she gets into power?
She's going to talk to the mainstream press.
She's going to talk to the reporters.
Now, the reporters are going to make a lot of money by having Hillary talk to them and then talking to the American public.
Hillary will talk to them for free.
They'll have to charge the American public to tell them what Hillary said.
So having a bottleneck on Presidential communications to the American public is a huge, huge profit center.
Billions of dollars can be made that way.
Now Trump, he doesn't like reporters.
Why?
Because the man has integrity.
In the same way that matter doesn't like anti-matter, Donald Trump doesn't like reporters.
You know, vast majority of American population agrees with him.
So he starts, you know, there's been talk of him disbanding the White House press corps because, you know, your own personal prostitutes apparently is not the way to go and you want to get the facts and truth out to the people.
He might just do his press conferences on Twitter or YouTube or some other social media setting.
And so for the mainstream media, Donald Trump gets in, they're going to lose a lot of money.
Do you know what just happened with Univision?
The Hispanic station?
You just have to lay off 200 people right after Donald Trump gets in.
Why?
Well, that's not hard to figure out.
Because deportation means a smaller audience of Hispanics, which means lower advertising revenue, which means you've got to lay people off.
So why were they pro-Hillary and anti-Trump?
Because they didn't want to lay off 200 people?
I understand that.
It's not fun to lay off 200 people.
I get that.
It's not fun for the New York Times to see its profits drop 94%.
It's not fun.
If Donald Trump decides to bypass the mainstream media and talk directly to the people, which I damn well hope he does, well, they're going to be about as relevant as a horse and buggy in an un-Amish neighborhood.
So why are they pro-Hillary?
Because they want to keep making money!
Why are they anti-Trump?
Because he's going to put them out of business.
Why are they attacking the alt-right right now?
Why all these alt-right accounts, whatever the alt-right means, doesn't really matter.
But why all of these alt-right accounts being banned from Twitter?
Like it was like a hundred over the last 24 hours.
It's like a big...
It's a cull!
It's a purge!
Why is it occurring?
Well, for the very simple reason that the alt-right was right and the leftist mainstream media was wrong.
When you call the election so ridiculously wrong as the mainstream media and the alt-right got it right, Well, then guess what?
The alt-right has way more credibility than you do.
Now, do you want to openly compete and figure out what you did wrong and turn around and get it right?
No, it's too late.
Donald Trump's in.
Your days are numbered anyway.
But maybe you can purge the alt-right so the people who were actually correct when you didn't know your ass from a hole in the ground won't be around to continue debate you with how wrong you were and how right they were.
And that's what's going down.
So when people have all this hostility towards other people, they're pro these people, they're anti these people, It's about the Benjamins!
It's about the money!
It's nothing to do with any ideology for most people.
Some people, of course, it's massive abstract hatred of all things good and living and healthy and wonderful and happy.
But no, if you can't be honest about your bare-naked intentions, then you have to invent all of this social justice warrior bullshit to cover it up and pretend that you're doing something moral when all you're trying to do is continue in your position as the middleman of Making up bullshit to lie to the people.
I mean, I understand.
I understand why they're doing it.
It's not any more honorable, and this is why they can't be honest.
Once you're...
And I don't know if they're lying to themselves or just lying to others, but the reality is you just follow the money and it's pretty clear what's going on.
Do you really think this is the shift in the pendulum from the left to the right in terms of this...
Society and culture we live in in the West?
Oh yeah, absolutely.
You don't think it's going to come to the next part?
I mean, it looks like it might happen in Europe.
Look, if we do it right, we've got a generation, at least.
And if we do it really right, we've got forever.
So, it matters.
It matters what we're doing right now.
I've been really...
Yeah, no, we've got it.
I hope so.
I was kind of...
The pendulum's been that way, intellectually, for over a century.
I mean, since the progressives 100 years ago, and even earlier if you look in certain circles, they had a century, they fucked everything up, and now it's swinging back.
They did.
That's a good way of putting it.
But don't take it for granted, right?
You're working at it, but yeah, no, the pendulum is there for sure.
What about, I mean...
What about Europe?
I mean, they have such a huge...
I mean, they're a little bit more fanatic than people who are in the US. Or, I mean, if it starts pushing with the direction of, you know, nationalism and populism, they're going to have a pretty big beachfront to descend upon.
Well, I mean, Europe is going to go through a very tough time.
It's going to go through a very tough time.
They have had more...
Time to make mistakes.
And one thing I hope it's going to make Europeans is humble.
I mean, they've constantly looked down at America.
Oh, so unsophisticated.
Such a third world country masquerading as a third world, first world democracy.
Oh, the problems of violence.
They're so unsophisticated and backward.
And we're so liberal and sophisticated.
It's like, yeah, and you're screwed.
Some of the nationalist parties, I think the one in France, are only 4% behind the major parties.
So, it's coming along.
The nationalism is returning to Europe, but it's probably going to take a generation and it's probably going to take enormous conflict to clean up the mess.
Our only hope, of course, is that Europe, as I said before, has its Never Again movement when it comes to culture.
This nationalistic uprising in Europe has never had a really pleasant outcome.
Yeah, no.
I don't think that's fair.
The problem with Germany, It was not nationalism but internationalism.
The problem with Germany was this philosophy, and I've got this whole presentation on the rise of Nazism that's coming up, but very briefly, the problem with Germany was not nationalism but internationalism, just as the problem with communism was not nationalism but internationalism, but Germany felt that it had the right to expand unilaterally across other countries because of various mystical beliefs that had been generated and sustained for the previous couple hundred years in Germany, which I kind of traced through in this presentation.
But no, no, no.
Nationalism is not a problem relative to internationalism.
And this is why national socialism was international in scope.
And they didn't just want to...
They felt they had the manifest destiny to expand wherever they wanted and to get the living room they wanted and all of the other races were subhuman and so on.
That's internationalism.
That's not nationalism.
That crosses borders into invasion and that's not nationalism.
Right.
That might have been one of the things that ran off my ex.
I said one day, I said, everybody in your country would be boot-stepping, you know, goose-stepping right now if it wasn't for us.
And she laughed at me, and I was like, what was funny about that?
Well, this is going to be the big challenge, is that Europe is going to cry out for American aid again.
And I think it's going to be a challenge.
Anyway, let's cross that bridge when we come to it, should we ever come to it.
Those are my thoughts about it.
It's been a treat talking to you.
I listen to you so much, and I just thank you for the opportunity.
Well, thank you very much.
It was a great pleasure chatting with you as well, Carson, and I hope you'll call in again.
Thank you very much.
Have a nice night.
You too, man.
Thanks everyone so much for a great series of calls.
Most enjoyable to chat with Yowl.
And my next podcast, of course, will be The Mysterious Southern Baby talking for four hours straight.
So look forward to that.
Maybe even break into song once in a while.
But thanks everyone for a great set of conversations.
Please remember the usual outro that you need to hear and need to stay with us.
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Hugely appreciated.
If you could, of course, follow me on Twitter at Stefan Have yourself a wonderful, wonderful night.
