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Dec. 30, 2016 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
46:49
3546 2016: Year In Review with Stefan Molyneux
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Hi everybody, Stefan Molyneux here with our good friend Mike and we are going to talk about the year in review.
Are you curious how our show is doing?
We certainly are.
And so we have done some number crunching and we have found out some very, very interesting things.
I'm going to let Mike sort of step us through some of the numbers, and you can get a sense of the big stuff in this show, how we've grown, and what are the most popular shows that we do.
Of course, that's going to help guide us in 2017, but I think it's a very great interest, particularly for those of you who are supporting this show.
You know, at freedomainradio.com slash donate.
We work for you, and I guess like all good employees, we'd like to give you an accounting of how we're doing.
So, Mike, do you want to sort of step us through the blowout year called 2016? - Thanks, Dean.
Yeah, you know, a lot of these numbers pretty much snuck up on me because there is this giant blob called the election cycle.
I think 2015 and 2016 just kind of merged in my mind now, which is just pre-election and post-election.
The gelatinous cube of democracy ate us whole, and we just sort of hung there, suspended like flies in amber, frantically working away.
So as I compel these numbers, I'm like, really?
That can't be right.
Oh, no.
It ends up being right.
So to put in perspective, I've added 2014 in there, too.
So total podcast published.
Now, that's probably the best marker because we publish lots of the call-in shows, the separate calls and the call-in shows as separate videos.
But as far as total shows that we did, the podcast streams, the best way to determine that.
So 2014, we did 301 podcasts.
So 301 shows.
That's pretty impressive.
2015, we dipped a little bit into 286.
So we were slacking that year, Steph, clearly.
But 2016, and I still don't believe this.
And the year's not over yet.
This one counts as well.
We've done 378 plus.
Oh, no.
No wonder I'm a little tired.
Yeah, that would explain it, wouldn't it?
So that's 32% more shows from 2015 in this year.
Will we crack 400 next year's stuff?
But how many more people are working at the show, Mike?
Zero!
There would be a big fat zero.
So yeah, that would explain possible feelings of slight burnout over the course of the last several months.
That would explain it.
And a sense of the blur, this hamster wheel of studio time.
But if there was a year to do extra shows, then 2016 was in fact that year, just with the Brexit-Trump phenomenon, that was the year to hit the gas, right?
That was the year to pull out the afterburners.
Oh, you know, when the future of Western civilization is on the line, that's when you go without that extra hour of sleep.
You don't sleep in on the weekend.
You get down to the studio and put in some additional work, absolutely.
So now, obviously, more shows means more downloads, but it's more downloads by a significant margin, more than just per show.
So in 2014, in podcast downloads, around 19 million, about.
Not bad.
2015, that was up to 21 million.
Again, not bad.
That was a 10.5% increase from the prior year in just podcast downloads.
In 2016, we went from $21 million to $61 million, which is a 190% increase from 2015, or a 221% increase from 2014.
So yes, the podcast stream is incredibly popular, and part of this was aided by our most popular podcast without question are the call-in shows.
We added an additional call-in show during that time period, so lots of people are downloading the call-in shows, and we're getting...
Podcast downloads going through the roof this year.
So that seems like a big increase, and it is.
And this is one of the reasons why we are talking about the influence that the show is having and how much it's growing.
I'm incredibly proud of the work that we did this year.
On the tombstone, just 2016 is all that needs to be there as far as influence.
Moving forward, of course, we're going to continue to work to be even more relevant, and there's no reason why we can't continue with those kinds of numbers.
That is, I guess, one of the benefits that really digging into an election cycle can help give the show is to expose more people to philosophy because philosophy is embedded in everything that we do here.
So if we're doing something on current events, there's a philosophical element.
I mean, that's what we do.
We always talk about doing shows.
We say, well, what can we bring that's different?
And what we bring, of course, is core philosophical values and a methodology and a process of reason and evidence.
So everywhere that we reach, everyone that we reach with whatever show we're doing is an introduction to philosophy and draws them into the sticky web of the Socratic method.
So that is fantastic.
And you're right.
I mean, it did kind of creep up a little.
I was pretty shocked looking at those numbers this morning.
I was like, really?
Okay.
I knew it was an increase.
I didn't know it was that much of an increase.
Now, so that's on the podcast side.
And for those who, you know, just watching this on YouTube or know the show mostly through YouTube, that's handy and it's well worth.
But, you know, the key thing is, you know, it's people always complaining about the length of the shows and it generally happens on YouTube.
You can set up your smartphone or your computer or your tablet to automatically download new shows through the feed.
And you can do that through a variety of sources.
And that's a way to go.
Now, of course, on YouTube you can play the shows a little bit faster.
You can do that, of course, if you want through your podcast delivery mechanism, but for those who are used to seeing the visual free domain radio experience, remember that the podcast is kind of where we started and that really is.
There's a lot more material in the podcast and sometimes makes it to the video feed if we're not doing video for a call-in show and so on.
So just remember that's an important aspect.
How did we do on the YouTube side?
Okay, on the YouTube side, So for a baseline, in 2014, you did 23.5 million views, somewhere in that range.
So then in 2015, that got bumped up to around 29 million views, so a 23% increase from 2014.
2016, Up to just under 65 million views plus, because, you know, the year's not over yet.
So that's 123% increase from 2015, 175% increase from 2014.
So, yay for YouTube views.
They done gone through the roof.
Well, and I think the key metric or the key takeaway from all of that is just how much prettier I've become.
And I think that is really drawing the views.
I mean, I obviously get prettier every year, as most people do.
This, of course, was my breakout year of beauty.
And that is the wonderful aspect of the election cycle just happened to coincide with me being extra pretty.
All your donations are just going to buffing Steph's forehead on a daily basis.
The sheer amount of employees, the illegal immigrants that come in to operate the machinery to buff Steph's forehead, oh, it's a big convoluted process.
This bowling ball wax doesn't grow on trees, people.
Wee!
Gotta keep it shiny.
Well, another interesting YouTube thing is watch time, which is one of the key YouTube metrics.
So, in 2015, watch time, and this is tough to get your head around, we did 323 million minutes.
Okay?
So, 323 million minutes of watch time.
I'll break that down into something more comprehensible in a second.
2016, we did over 868 million minutes of watch time.
So, overall watch time, the number of times that people are actually, you know, minutes watching the videos has increased 168% this year from the prior year.
So, to put that in some level of perspective, that's 668 603,191 days of watch time or 1,651 years of watch time just on the videos alone.
So somewhere in the world someone is always listening to stuff and apparently he never shuts up.
You know, it's funny because I remember when I was younger listening to bands that I really liked and I would think, you know, these bands, like I remember thinking if somebody gave me the offer, To say, you can live until someone stops listening to whatever band it was that I was into at the time.
You know, until there's a moment in time where that music is not being played somewhere in the world, you can live until that time.
And I'd say, well, yeah, I mean, because that would mostly be immortality if you choose a particularly famous band.
And now, of course, that could be argued.
You know, just this last year, we've gone from the birth of Christ to the mid-17th century, just in terms of people listening, you know, laid end-to-end all these podcasts of people listening.
That is a truly astonishing thing, and that is an immensely powerful thing.
You know, multi-millennia, injection of reason and evidence, philosophy, clear thinking, empathy, compassion, curiosity, and sometimes the kind of moral toughness you need in debates.
That is a wonderful thing to have injected into the world because, you know, there are forces trying to make the world more crazy, and then there are forces trying to make the world more sane, and I think we have acquitted ourselves with great honor on the battlefield this year.
Oh, and the forces that are trying to make the world more crazy certainly seem to have a lot more resources than the forces trying to make the world a bit more sane.
They might have two webcams!
So thank you for everyone that supported the show and made this kind of work possible.
Well, and not just this year, but of course prior to, right?
I mean, success in general is like a hockey stick, right?
I mean, it's the 10-year overnight success.
So yeah, this has been a breakout year of a massive expansion and growth and creating networks and friendships and alliances that I hope will last a lifetime and I think will.
Prior to this sort of breakout year, well, you're why this breakout year occurred.
It didn't just occur because of the election.
It occurred because people gave me the space to get better at what I do over the years until this year.
So, you know, to win Wimbledon is a whole lot of training that nobody really knows about or sees beforehand.
And so I just really wanted to thank everyone who, from the beginning of this show over 10 years ago, has helped me train and prepare for this kind of breakout year.
Everybody who donated at the beginning, everyone who's donated all along.
Of course, the people this year, thank you.
Fantastic as well.
But there's a lot of unsung heroes back at the beginning who helped get me into fighting shape.
It's funny to think of it as a breakout year because it's not exactly as if you were wallowing in obscurity for the previous years.
But this year has just been mental on many different levels.
And another thing that I think people find interesting is what were the most popular shows?
Again, this is stuff that we think about because, oh, people like something.
We'd like to give them more of it if it's something they're interested in.
But I don't know that just the average person listening or watching to the show pays attention to this.
Sorry, you need to know this too, because when we make decisions about shows, they may rub against your gourd, right?
I mean, you might have some particular kind of show that you like.
And of course, we want to satisfy that.
We want to satisfy what we want to do.
But we're a market-facing organization.
We've got to please the folks.
So that's why this is important to know.
Oh, I was thinking, you know, when it comes to diversity, diversity is actually a strength when it comes to the number of topics covered on this show.
I still don't understand how certain shows, they focus on one topic or two topics.
I'd probably go mental over the course of the span of a week having to only cover one thing.
So I was even getting tired of the election cycle towards the end there, but, you know, the fight waged on.
But it's so great that we get to cover such a multitude of topics, and there really is no limit to topics that we can cover on the show if people are interested in them, because you can always apply philosophy.
To current events or situations, you know, philosophy is a big umbrella under which a lot of topics fall.
So when it comes to what was the most popular podcast overall, lots of people, this shouldn't be a surprise, but The Fall of Rome is pretty much 1A on that discussion.
And I can't tell you why that's so important for me, Mike.
How much time did you spend on The Fall of Rome stuff?
The Fall of Rome, you know, there are some roll-out-of-bed presentations, and then there are some which is just like, You basically have to read the internet and then start again in case anything new came along.
So that took so long to put together and was, of course, a three-hour recording, which is not sort of one fell swoop.
And so I'm very glad that the work-to-payoff ratio, which isn't always one-to-one in this show, I'm so glad that that work-to-payoff ratio really hit the big time with that one.
And, of course, it is, I think, a pretty timeless presentation.
Actually, you could say getting more relevant every day.
Yeah.
Well, and we're going to continue the Modern Parallels series, looking at historical events, given that it's so popular.
You know, you're already looking – well, I won't let the cat out of the bag, but we've discussed some other historical events that we're going to go through, and, you know, it's popular, so we're going to do it for people.
But I should also mention that, well, Full of Rome was 1A in podcast downloads.
The Christmas show, the five-hour Christmas show, was 1B. It is currently, I just checked before the show, it's 1,000 downloads away from the fall of Rome, so it's probably going to eclipse it.
Turn off the servers.
Turn off the servers right now so that the fall of Rome can win.
And what, again, I also appreciate about that was, of course, I mean, the guests were fantastic, and these are all wonderful new friends that we've, most of whom we've met this year, except for Alex Jones, And Bill Whittle.
And Bill Whittle.
These are all people we met this year, which is wonderful to reach out and make new friends.
It's shocking to me that we didn't do a show with Paul Joseph Watson before February 4th of this year.
I looked at that and I'm like, that cannot be true, but apparently it is.
Yeah, and congratulations to Paul for a fantastic year as well, as well as Mike Cernovich and other people that we know.
So the five-hour Christmas show, I mean, obviously most people downloaded it to get my minute ten song at the end and had to, of course, slog through a lot of great interviews to get there, and I really appreciate everyone who waited for that.
So, after those two, which are leading the charge, it's all call-in shows.
It is all call-in shows down the road until we get to several interviews, which we'll mention in a second.
But the most popular call-in show was one that occurred November 18th.
It was titled, Is America Headed for a Race War?
And Steph, I'm sure you remember this conversation.
It was a really engaging conversation with a black caller with his concerns about the black community and how he's going to fit in if there is continued racial strife.
And I just remember that.
It stands out to me as one of the most enjoyable chats on the show in quite a while.
Well, he had an Eastern European wife, if I remember rightly.
I believe so, yeah.
Yeah.
And so, I mean, yeah, that's fun.
You've got your ebony and ivory marriage and there's increasing racial tensions.
Yeah, he was a great caller.
And that was a great call-in show.
And, you know, people, of course, don't obviously agree with everything that goes on at the show.
I believe so, yeah.
That's natural.
I mean, it would be crazy too, right?
I'd be concerned if people did agree with everything I've said over the past 10 years, so I hope that you don't either.
But I do really appreciate that there is an open space for people to come in and talk about concerns where there is a lot of politically correct charged tensions around it.
And the fact that there's an open space where people can come in and talk about things which may get them in trouble in other shows or may get them in trouble with their friends and family.
People have called in and said, you know, I can't talk about this with anyone, but I feel there's a space here.
That is a wonderful thing because these are necessary and important conversations.
And the more we have them, the more likely it is we're going to find productive and peaceful So I am very thrilled that people have that space to call in and talk, and I just find it a wonderfully productive and electrifying sphere where we can just have conversations without waiting for someone's offense tripwire to sort of blow up the entire thing.
Yeah, great, great point.
And the most popular podcast interviews, which the podcast interviews are not nearly as popular as the Colin Joes, but the top ones without question are the recent discussion with Lord Monckton.
This surprised me.
I wasn't expecting this one.
The recent discussion you had with Dr.
Michael Woodley about IQ and all that kind of stuff.
Everything.
Yeah, pretty much.
The future of Western civilization.
He was great.
Innovation over time.
Oh, yeah.
He was fantastic.
I was thrilled to see that one do so well because that may be the most interesting interview for me that we've done this year as far as the sheer depth of knowledge that someone has.
And also on this list is Vox Day.
People love the long-form interviews with Vox Day, so those are certainly going to continue into the new year and beyond.
And we already got some stuff on the calendar.
And if you've only heard Vox Day, first of all, Go onto YouTube, watch it.
You have to see the chair.
You're twin?
You have to see the chair.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
You line Vox Day, Phil Collins, and I up, and it's like, sorry, I can't pick out who did the lineup.
I can't pick you up in the lineup, but yeah, see the chair.
You're the bald guy in the white room, and Vox is the bald guy on the throne.
In the giant vampire throne.
Versus...
Right.
Casually munching on the human skull.
But yeah, no, I appreciate that.
Now, he's a great guy to chat with.
Yeah, actually love the shows you do with Vox.
So now on the YouTube side of things, Steph, what's the top YouTube video we've done in views this year?
What is it?
The story of your enslavement!
Well, okay.
We first must say, videos released this year, not videos that have...
Yes, yes, yes.
There are some hits, there are some classics that continue to perform really, really well.
I guess you have to keep writing songs off to Bohemian Rhapsody 2, right?
So the story of your enslavement, again, is the most popular video from this year in overall views, but the most popular video that we've released this year, in 2016, was The Untruth About Donald Trump, which makes me...
I'm incredibly happy given the sheer amount of work.
This is my fall of Rome when it comes to preparation.
Actually, this is your prevention of the fall of Rome, but I know it's...
Great point!
So yes, the untruth about Donald Trump was far and away the top YouTube video, which I am absolutely thrilled about, and...
I still get messages from people that say, A, I found the show through the untruth about Donald Trump, and I was a Bernie Sanders supporter, or I was a liberal, or I was not political.
I didn't understand any of this stuff.
I thought the media was telling me the truth, and then I look at this video, and I'm like, well, this can't be right.
So then they go look at the source notes.
Oh, goodness.
It does appear to be right.
So a whole lot of skepticism of the mainstream media was...
Thrown into the minds of the average person through the untruth about Donald Trump, and I just couldn't be happier about that.
So I'm thrilled that that's the number one YouTube video, and it hasn't hit a million yet.
So there's a little part of me that's like, aww.
But if you factor in podcast downloads, it's well over a million.
Well, and don't forget, there is, you know, there's the...
The torrent threads and all of the stuff we can't even track, which is where a lot of people get their stuff from.
Oh, there's re-uploads and all that.
Yeah, if you factor in that stuff, it's without question.
Well, and if you go to Reddit, right, the Donald's subreddit, you can see, I mean, there's page after page of people saying it was the untruth about Donald Trump that woke me up.
So, to me, there was a huge plus that we bring out facts about a candidate that are very, very important.
And number two, of course, we reveal just how perfidious the media actually is.
So, you know, to me, that was such a one-two for the future that it was a great presentation.
And Mike was the one who worked very, very hard on pulling out all of that information together.
And, you know, he wrote the song, I Hit a Few Notes.
And it combined to really help bring a lot of illumination to the election cycle.
We still have not been able to confirm or deny whether Donald Trump is indeed Batman, but we're working on that.
And maybe in 2017, we'll get access to that information.
I'm sure Putin has it.
Well, the second most popular show was The Truth About the Orlando Terrorist Attack, which was, I mean, one of the top videos on YouTube regarding that whole situation at the time.
And not much more to say about that, but people do seem to look at us as the source for honest discussions and honest presentations of facts when it comes to the terrorist attacks.
Because if you look at our most popular videos, the top 25 list, which is featured on YouTube.com slash Freedom Main Radio, we've put together a list of the 25 most popular videos of this year.
It's a lot of stuff about terrorism, unfortunately, and the migrant crisis in Germany and Europe as a whole.
So people do seem to come to us as a destination source for that information.
And that was our number two video of the year.
Number three, Steph, I'm sure this will make you happy.
The Fall of Rome.
The Fall of Rome!
Number four was, this makes me happy, because I am not a fan of Ted Cruz by any means, and not particularly supportive of the idea of him being put on the Supreme Court, but that's a subject for another time, is the truth about Ted Cruz.
That was the fourth most popular YouTube video of all time, and there's a lot of people that have said, wow, I watched your truth about Ted Cruz video, and not so much with the supporting of Ted Cruz anymore.
So that makes me very, very, very happy.
And this is just a note to everyone in America, and around the world, It's very important that Mike likes you.
That is very, very important.
Do not annoy the Mike-ness or mass tragedy will ensue.
Well, I would hope the presentations rely more on just my whim in the moment as far as if I like someone, but I know what you mean.
But yeah, I am not a fan of Ted Cruz for reasons that we've laid out in the show over time, and if it comes up to the Supreme Court situation, especially given how he doesn't seem to understand what a natural-born citizen is, which he's got his own personal bias there, so I can kind of understand it, and he's kind of been wonky on several things regarding immigration in the past, you know, says the right things now, but not exactly so sure about it.
Yeah, we'll talk about that in the future, but I vote no.
If it means anything, I vote no regarding Ted Cruz and the Supreme Court.
It will mean something if you put a presentation together.
Let's just put it that way.
No, that'll happen.
And number five was the post-celebration of Brexit with Paul Joseph Watson that you had, which people enjoyed the song that you sung after Donald Trump won the election in November, and this was essentially a big...
A big celebration that Brexit, the referendum, actually went to those who wanted to leave the European Union with you and Paul Joseph Watson.
And it's a great chat even now.
And it's interesting because a couple days after Brexit, you and Paul laid out exactly what was going to happen as far as how they were going to try and prevent from actually conducting the Brexit.
You know, the number of steps and delays and things that were going to be thrown in the way.
I mean, you guys laid it out beautifully, and that's kind of what has happened.
So, again, you know, you can put that in the, boy, you guys knew what you were talking about folder, because you damn sure did.
We'll do a whole show on predictions that we got right and things maybe that we got wrong as well.
But the key thing about the Trump victory song is that the biggest crowd that Queen ever played to was close to 300,000.
I think it was in South America.
And the fact that it's almost the same number for the video views of my song means that I'm basically exactly the same as Freddie Mercury.
Oh!
My lifelong dream has been achieved.
I know, it was a great night.
It was nice, of course, a lot of this stuff, like the anti- Lefty, anti-establishment stuff, anti-mainstream media stuff, it's a slog sometimes.
It feels like you're running out of a greased up hamster wheel.
But when you have a time for positivity and celebration, I think that's nice.
That's the oasis that people like to stop at, to recharge.
Especially you're entrenched in battle, fighting against what I view as the forces of evil.
So often and so long, it's nice to have something to celebrate, because there's many times where it looks fairly dark.
It did not look good for Brexit, even the night before.
And that was kind of stunning in many ways, and really gave people a lot of energy for what happened in America over the summer and fall.
I certainly think so.
And oddly enough, the top YouTube interviews we did, it's Paul Joseph Watson and Paul Joseph Watson and Paul Joseph Watson.
Paul Joseph Watson is by far our most popular interview guest on YouTube.
And the two most popular ones, coincidentally, are the pre- and post-Brexit chats that you guys had.
Also, Milo!
That shouldn't be a shock to anyone.
People really enjoyed the Milo interview on YouTube, got lots of attention.
And it's not just podcast forum, so you get to see his gorgeous face.
Oh man, if Charm were sugar, that man would give you diabetes just by caressing you with his words.
So yes, that was great.
And as of recording this, he has the second most popular book for his new book release, which is coming out in March, on Amazon, on all of Amazon.
So it's a pre-release.
It's not even out yet.
And it's number two on Amazon.
Boy, they sure got rid of him by banning him from Twitter.
That sure was effective.
Good job, everyone.
You know, he's been testing the old adage that there's no such thing as bad publicity for years, and this is certainly proof.
I'm sure the book will be great.
I'm certainly looking forward to it.
I already got my pre-order in, so I'm looking forward to it as well.
And the third most popular interview guest on YouTube, and this kind of surprised me, not because it wasn't a great discussion, but...
It just kind of snuck up on me.
But the conversation about the state of Sweden with Ingrid Carlquist, she was one of our most popular guests on YouTube, and that also did really good in podcast downloads.
So we'll certainly have Ingrid on again in the new year.
It's not like there's a shortage of things to discuss regarding what's happening in Sweden.
But yeah, that was one of our most popular interview guests of the year, was Ingrid.
Well, in a place in the world where some women are reportedly dyeing their blonde hair black to try and avoid being preyed upon, I think it's a pretty hot topic.
And one of the things I'm enormously proud of What this show did over this last year or so was to give a voice to people in Europe who have some issues with current policies.
They don't have much of a voice.
And we really did help broadcast concerns to a much wider audience.
And that is part of a discussion that is very necessary and it's being fairly strenuously suppressed in certain places.
So I'm very, very pleased with that.
I wish it didn't have to be done, but I'm very glad that we did it.
And there's certain key European elections that are occurring this year, well, no, next year, this coming year, I'm already in 2017 in my head, that we will certainly be covering in exquisite detail because they pretty much are going to spell the future of those countries and possibly Europe as a whole when it comes to what happens.
So we will certainly be covering those.
You can expect more interviews.
You can expect more presentations.
But yeah, 2017, it's going to be a big focus without question.
So, I thought it was interesting, too, Steph.
I was going through, like, okay, when did we do our first shows with people?
And it did kind of jar me that many of my favorite guests we've ever had are all people that we met this year.
I mean, there's people like Bill Whittle and Peter Schiff and that, that we've been on the show previous.
But, like, even, I mentioned Paul Joseph Watson.
The first show you guys did together on our channel was February 4th.
Vox Day!
First show was March 22nd of this year.
Duke Pesta.
I love Duke Pesta.
June 9th of this year.
Mike Cernovich.
Possibly my favorite guest.
June 13th, first show.
Charles C. Johnson, love Charles.
July 13th of this year was the first show you guys did.
Scott Adams, gotta love Scott Adams.
August 18th, first show.
Dave Rubin, September 22nd.
Ann Coulter, first time we got you together with Ann Coulter.
I will just say this to lots of people, they're like, I can't believe you'd have Ann Coulter on your show.
I was in this camp.
The left has been so great as far as brainwashing people about Ann Coulter.
Do not criticize Ann Coulter until you've actually read her books.
I mean, read an Ann Coulter book and then come with the criticism.
She is an absolutely stone genius, brilliant woman.
The conversation that Steph had with her is, I think, one of my favorite chats we've had on the channel just for the sheer importance of it.
if you don't understand the demographic fallout from this election and what's happened since the 1965 Immigration Act, you don't understand American politics and you don't understand where Western civilization is headed as a whole.
So that chat occurred on October 5th.
Fantastic discussion.
And yeah, it was great to finally get her on the show this year.
And I'm sure we'll do some new stuff in 2017.
I've been a fan of her for so many years.
It's not often that I have to breathe into a paper bag repeatedly before doing an interview and not scream, scream like a 13 year old girl at her first Beatles concert.
So yes, that was a great thrill.
And Steph was the one that red-pilled me on Ann Coltrick.
I still remember we were at a libertarian event and sitting at lunch and he says, so I was reading the latest Ann Coulter book and I'm just like, Ann Coulter?
And my John Stewart-ingrained programming just like grabbed control of my brain and I'm like, I can't believe you would read Ann Coulter.
And Steph's like, no, have you actually read her stuff?
I'm like, well, no, no.
Oh, I appear to have some bias and I'm a moron.
Okay, great.
So then I actually read her work and it's, oh my goodness, some of the best research stuff you will find on central topics throughout the history of not just America, but some of the core issues facing the world today.
And a very elegant and witty and passionate writer.
You know, since I write, when you see someone else who does such a fantastic job, and nonfiction is not that easy, you know, to keep it sort of engaging and interesting and all of that.
And she's just, she drags you like a Wookiee with a robot behind her prose, you know, just fantastic engaging stuff.
Agree or disagree, it's incredibly thought-provoking, and she also takes angles that...
I've not heard from anyone else.
And that kind of originality is something to be greatly treasured.
And she's about 12, I think, now number one New York Times bestsellers.
New York Times, I don't think has ever reviewed one of her books.
And she's a great person, too, because it exposes the lie of feminism.
Feminists should be incredibly proud of this woman, but they're not, because they attack her regularly, because she's on the right.
And therefore, you understand.
She helps expose a lot of things.
So that was a great, great thrill for me.
And Anne does seem to be the lightning rod that gets it worse than just about any female on the right, without question, as evidenced by that roast that occurred for someone else where they spent the entire night calling Anne Coulter the C-word.
So, yeah, that's not great, but it certainly does expose the hypocrisy of the left when it comes to, we must treat women properly.
Well, not if they're on the right, of course.
And also did the first show with Milo this year, November 6th.
And again, one of our most popular interviews on YouTube.
And looking forward to his book.
That was a wonderful discussion.
So I'm sure there'll be more along those lines coming in the new year.
But yeah, it's 2016 overall.
I mean, you think of the election, you think of the U.S. election, you think of Brexit.
Think of all the people that we've come in contact to, Steph, or had on the show and relationships that we've forged.
I mean, 2016 is just a real kick-ass year without any and all question.
I mean, it's the favorite year of my life.
I can say that without even the slightest bit of hesitation.
And I am pretty jazzed to see where we're gonna go in 2017.
Not just the show, but where the world's gonna go, 'cause a lot of important stuff is on the line, and it seems like the side of good, the people that are not just massive pro-violence are gonna do pretty well if things fall the way they're looking and trending current day. - I think we'll be fine unless the Russians hack us.
If the Russians hack us, of course, then there will be big challenges and we'll have to explain to our donors exactly why we wasted all their money.
Oh, wait.
Sorry.
Sorry.
Wrong organization.
I'm back.
No, and I think the other thing that's great, too, and it's been a year of fantastic success for the show, for what it is that we're doing, and I'm very comfortable with it.
I'm very pleased about it.
I'm looking for more, and it hasn't destabilized me.
It's not like, oh, no, all these people watching, all these people listening.
That's sort of the point.
And I think that's partly because if something takes a long time to come and you work very hard for it, it doesn't kind of mess you up when it comes about.
I think some of the overnight successes and all of that I think could be really kind of dizzying.
But when you've spent 30 years and it's like, oh, 31st year, oh look, people are actually listening.
It's not something that's freaky, it's not something that's weird, it's something that I'm sort of very pleased about, very comfortable with, and very interested in engaging further and more down the road next year.
I mean, 2017 is going to be huge.
2016 is preparation, 2017 is execution, and that's where we're going to have to really get in there, get in the world's face and make the case that some people find uncomfortable but is absolutely necessary for various elections and all this political stuff that's going on.
So, yes, there will be some politics.
I don't think it would be because it's more rhythmic.
It's not going to be quite as, in a sense, 24-7 as 2016 was, but we are very uniquely positioned to be able to have the kind of effect on certain decisions in 2017 that we may have had in 2016.
And, you know, I sort of feel like the world has, you know, our sort of dance with the world has put us into a position where we can do quite a lot of good.
And again, that's a lot to do with listeners, the donations at freedomainradio.com slash donate.
It's got to do with people who like, subscribe, and share and talk about the show.
It's got to do with the people who push back on the occasional haters, you know, just...
Everyone who's participating should take a bow and be part of this most successful philosophical conversation in history, and I'm incredibly grateful to everyone out there who's taken the time to engage with us in whatever fashion.
It has been what has propelled us to where we are, and we are so well poised for 2017.
We couldn't have planned it any better, I think.
You said it beautifully, Steph.
And one thing, too, that I'll add is there's not many people that are in a good position to offer criticism of the new Trump administration that haven't gone completely off the rails previous regarding criticism of Trump.
So for the people that have, you've done lots of pro-Donald Trump shows.
Well, those are actually, let's talk about the truth and expose mainstream media lie shows.
I have immense respect for Donald Trump.
I'm not saying that I don't.
But in 2017, if there is criticism or course correction that is necessary, we are very well poised to offer very detailed, statistical, data-driven breakdowns as to the course correction that should happen, and the fact that we didn't just have emotional freakouts along the way regarding, you know, the mainstream media said this about Trump, or there was a van how many years ago, how many, how many, and this occurred, puts us in a great position to have...
A very fact-based discussion about what's important moving forward in the United States and Western civilization as a whole.
So, talking about being poised in 2017, I think that's a very important factor that is often underappreciated by some.
Well, you know, having influence on power is a long game.
It's a long game.
You don't just do it in the moment.
You have to...
Credibility as a whole is a long game.
Yeah, having credibility as a whole.
I don't know if people, if you're listening to this or watching this, I don't know if you've ever had a nag in your life, you know, but you stop listening to them.
Like, they have such a negative attitude that they simply have no influence over you anymore because, you know, all they do is sort of finger wag, and another thing, you know, and it's like, oh, God, you know, like, stop, stop.
And so the fact that we've sort of been a positive influence and positive effect means that if we have, and there will be, there will be criticisms, of course, just as there are course corrections that we have to make and criticisms that are We're
not just coming from a place of negativity and Here's my weird emotional bias.
Let me vomit it in your general direction.
Right.
Nope.
Yeah, so people don't understand that it's not some big strategy or anything like that, but the reality is that when you follow the truth wherever it leads, you just gain a certain amount of credibility that you can't replicate any other way.
And so when there are missteps, as there will be, naturally, as there would be if you or I were doing that job, then we're in a position to help people understand a better course of action, and they're going to be much more open to listening to us, and that's how you actually try to help people who are effecting positive change in the world.
And a lot of people don't understand that because they're looking at the next five minutes rather than the next five years.
Well, and on the credibility front, too, it really strikes me this year.
Like, if you go back, just go back 365 days and see what certain people were saying at the end of 2015 about, you can say, Donald Trump or just as a whole regarding the way culture is headed, this or that, let alone going back five years, let alone going back ten years, what people have said.
I think we're one of the few shows that I certainly encourage people to go back and look through our archives of the shows that have been done.
Even the shows that have been done long before I started working with stuff on the show.
There is so much stuff that is rock-solid, completely damn accurate, and predicted things exactly how it will go.
Eventually we'll put together the Stefan Molyneux Was Right show, which is shamelessly ripping off the Peter Schiff Was Right video that spread worldwide in a viral fashion after the housing crash.
But it's a long list.
It might be longer than The Fall of Rome.
It might take as long to compile as well, but it's a whole bunch of stuff.
And yeah, I encourage people to go back to the archives, take a look at previous predictions.
We're in the near future going to be putting out a video where Steph responds to his predictions for what happened to Barack Obama or what happened with Barack Obama's presidency eight years ago.
And let's just say you kind of nailed it.
So, Mike had also asked me what were my favorite shows over the last year.
And it's tough to, you know, I love them all.
This is a tough question.
But I sort of, I made a couple of notes.
So, Trump derangement syndrome triggered.
I love that guy.
It's not my favorite favorite, but, you know, this is in no particular order.
This is sort of just going back.
Thank you.
to say it's a little tougher for me to listen to those because it's people treating my friend very poorly.
It's got nothing to do with me, but no, I mean, I appreciate that.
But no, I like that.
And of course, a lot of people are finding that conversation very, We've gotten lots of great feedback, I will say.
The Christmas Spectacular, Five-Hour Christmas Spectacular, is a great show.
It's really, really nice to sit down and have a sort of fireside chat with people that I really like and get their thoughts about what their lives are like around Christmas.
It was great.
And we certainly, I believe that will be an annual tradition.
Oh, absolutely.
It was so popular this year that it's certainly going to aim to be an annual tradition.
So we will maybe make it six hours next year.
Who knows?
My hyper-compacted snark fest to liberals, democrats, and cultural Marxists was a lot of fun.
And some of the stuff, I know it was a little bit sort of the end of last year, but some of the stuff we did in the past about sort of making fun of liberals, to me, was a lot of fun.
Yeah, the interviews with a lot of the guests were great.
I enjoyed being able to break out the old vocal chords a little bit this year, then do some singing.
That was fun.
The Venezuela, you know, that's a very popular video of ours.
And the fall of Venezuela, one of the great tragedies and one of the great hypocrisies of the left.
You know, when Chile went one way towards the free market and Venezuela went towards socialism, right?
You had Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.
You had a Pinochet in Chile.
The left had a big problem and they had to demonize Chile and Pinochet as much as humanly possible, right?
Which is why you had, you know, books out about the shock doctrine and all that.
And even Sting was warbling about Pinochet and so on.
And Chile, of course, has ended up in a pretty fantastic position relative to, well, relative to just about anywhere, but particularly relative to a place like Venezuela.
And so the fact that the left all loved Hugo Chavez, Chavanistas, so they were just considered to be the next great thing.
And it was their answer to capitalism was to produce this wonderful society of these leftist doctrines.
And, of course...
Everyone who had any common sense predicted it would be a disaster, and it is a complete and total disaster.
The guy in charge, he put the army in charge of the food, and the army's just running the black market, as you can imagine.
So the fact that we talked about that, it's gotten considerably worse.
I'm not happy that we had to do that show, and I'm not happy at the outcome, but I'm pleased that we helped so many people, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people, I'm very proud
of how we dealt with The tragedies.
I'm certainly naturally a pretty happy person, and so is Mike.
The way that you respectfully and responsibly and passionately and accurately deal with tragedies is important.
There is a tension that the mainstream media has when dealing with terrorism, which is all the politically correct stuff, which means that it kind of gets empty...
I'm not reporting drained of any emotion, but I think it is important to be passionate about the things that are destructive, both going on in the Middle East and going on in Europe and other places as well.
So very, very proud and pleased with the way we did that.
And I'm going to sneak in the truth about crime, which I think is a great presentation.
And it's underviewed a little bit.
You know, I sort of hate the phrase underrated because, you know, when you say underrated, what you basically mean is, well, I like it and other people don't agree with me and they're wrong.
But I do think that is one.
Yeah, I mean...
We published that one, I believe, right at the end of 2015.
I'm sneaking it in under the wire.
Sneaking it in.
It counts.
You know, I think it was so close that we're actually sort of around a year anniversary, so...
So now that we've wrapped up the favorites, I do have a request for the listenership that in the comment section below, we normally don't ask for specific kinds of comments, but I think this is a great opportunity to.
I want to see...
From you, what shows, what guests, what you want to see in 2017?
And I mean, there's stuff like, you know, do another show with Vox Day.
I mean, I appreciate that.
That's not helpful.
We're going to do another show with Vox Day.
That I get.
But stuff that's kind of outside the box.
I want some crazy ideas.
I want stuff that's outside of my periphery.
I want people to throw some muck against the wall and we can see what sticks.
I want unique ideas, unique guest ideas, unique topics, subjects, maybe things we've never covered that you think we could add an interesting perspective to.
That's the kind of stuff I'm looking for and I hope people leave that in the comments below.
And I will, I normally don't read all the comments on the YouTube videos, because good God, who is the time?
But this is one I will make a dedicated effort to not only read the comments, but try to respond where applicable.
And yeah, I think I want to harness the entire muscle of the listenership to throw out some great ideas to jumpstart.
I got some big things planned in the back of my mind for ideas, and if you want to add to that pile, please do.
And I will also, and I will regret this.
I know I will regret this.
Steph and I earlier mentioned that it's the two of us working on this show, and it's a lot of work.
I don't want a resume.
I don't want anyone to send me, you know, I'd like to help.
That's not particularly helpful.
But if people want to, you know, create something of value to the show, Create something of value unsolicited without my feedback, without Steph's feedback.
Create something of value and go, here it is as, let's say, an audition.
And it shows up in my inbox.
I would be interested to see that kind of stuff.
Again, I don't have time to...
How can I help?
Those types of emails.
We can't do that kind of stuff.
Just the sheer volume of email I get and the time would be required to help people that oftentimes don't exactly work out and provide what they say they're going to provide.
But if you want to send me some demonstration of value that's like, look, I spent time on this.
This is what I'm capable of.
I would be interested to see that in my inbox.
And you never know where that kind of thing might lead.
So I want to put that out there.
And I can't tell everyone just how brave it is for Mike to do that.
Like, this is going against every historical instinct of Mike, so don't waste his time.
Make it fantastic.
Because, you know, people are always saying, well, what can I do?
What can I do?
Okay, you can influence us.
We can influence the world.
See how you have that kind of power?
Please try and use it wisely.
It's been a great pleasure, of course, working with our friends.
It's been a great pleasure having the callers.
It's been a great pleasure working with you, Mike, this year.
And it has just been a fantastic year, well-deserved, well-earned, well-executed.
And looking back, I can't really sit and say, well, we should have done this or we should have done that.
And the absence of the woulda, shoulda, couldas to me is a great benefit of, you know, we think through things ahead of time.
Not a lot of what we do is random.
Well, nothing of what we do is random, but it is not accidental that the positions that we take, we are looking deep into the future and trying to align what we do with having the most positive effect.
I think we did a fantastic job with your help and your support this year, and I just want to thank everyone so, so much for giving us the opportunity and the venue and the support to do what it is that we're doing here.
The world will never see anything like this again, because everything that comes after this conversation, after this philosophical conversation, has this philosophical conversation as its purpose.
So this kind of ice breaking, this breaking into new ground, this awakening a propagandized world to the value of the Socratic method of reason and evidence This will never, ever happen again in the history of the world.
And just a reminder, if you do appreciate what we're doing, and I hope that you do, and if we can do it better, let us know.
Please, please, go to freedomainradio.com slash donate and help us out.
We really, really appreciate it.
Thank you so much, everyone, for 2016.
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