3708 I'M DISAPPOINTED IN YOU – Call In Show – May 31st, 2017
Question 1: [3:16] – “I was very disappointed to hear your hard stance on illegal immigrants, generalizing them as dishonest moochers on tax-payers dollars who shouldn't be given sanctuary or the chance to naturalize, work, receive an education or benefit from government assistance. Most illegal immigrants are from impoverished, war-torn, dangerous countries simply seeking better lives for their families but are rejected because they lack the education or the financial means. Immigrants - legal or otherwise - contribute greatly to the economies of countries receiving them, working the fields and farm lands locals refuse to work, understanding the value of education and social services in ways many first world locals do not. If, hypothetically, Canada became war torn, dangerous and access to essential resources were difficult, Stefan wouldn't you do everything necessary to get your wife and daughter to a country of safety even if that meant illegal means if other options weren't available?”Question 2: [1:03:36] – “This entire issue with the left seems to boil down to fear, fear makes them grow big govt, fear drives every response, fear is literally the root, primal fear. What’s the deal with fear? What’re they afraid of? Fear had a purpose in nature, avoiding deadly predators or poisonous food, etc. In our society as it exists currently in normal life there’s no place for it or the horrible acts that can be justified from it. My question is ‘Why all the fear?’.”Question 3: [1:15:22] – “I've toyed around with the idea of imagining the market without a federally enforced minimum wage. The pros seem pretty self-evident to me as it would increase competition between employers to provide the best possible wages to their employees. However, after giving it some thought the cons may be the increase in the cost of goods and services thus placing the burden onto the consumer. I'm no economist and not particularly number oriented so I would like to know your thoughts on what the market would look like without a federal minimum wage.”Question 4: [1:25:10] – “The first time I ever listened to your podcast, and many times since, you've shut down a caller when they use the phrase: ‘I feel that...’ by telling them how that isn't an argument. You're right, of course, feelings aren't arguments. However, my limited knowledge of psychology is that the unconscious mind is doing a lot of work in the background crunching through data at a much higher speed than the conscious mind is able to. And, when the unconscious arrives at a conclusion, this may be presented as a feeling or an intuition. This could be an experienced electrician who can just point at a wall and know that the problem is behind it, or a football quarterback that knows he has to throw the ball right now. I've always pictured your unconscious as a savant who is hogtied and gagged in the trunk of your car and his only way of getting a message to you is to bump his head on the back of the seats.”“When you ask someone to tease out why they believe what they do, you often uncover incorrect data or assumptions. But, my question is regarding what value you think "having a feeling" or intuition about something might have both generally, and in philosophy in particular.”Question 5: [1:39:02] – “I'm 24 and been with my wife for almost seven years. Upon starting a relationship, we mutually decided we were not going to have children. The last few years I've started to change my mind eventually reverting my decision. Not too long ago, we became pregnant and had completely different reactions. I was exited but she insisted of getting an abortion. This was the beginning of our breakdown. The way she handled the situation sickened me and I have trouble seeing her the same since. I know that she would be an excellent mother if she only gave it a chance. Nonetheless I let the abortion happen because I had strong doubts of our future together. I backed out of the original agreement and it's not fair to her. Now I face a decision to stay childless with the woman I love, or to seek someone to have a family with in the future?”Question 6: [1:58:50] – “I have a deep respect for the true heart of a man which I believe is at the pinnacle of every man's ability for his own evolution (that’s including women also). I believe man is the tamer of nature and women is the tamer of man, he makes the world livable and enjoyable while woman reminds him that he has a heart just as important as hers. Do you agree? If not, how would you describe this most interesting and important aspect of relationship and civilization itself in a simple explanation and if so how can women like me who extremely appreciate men, go about reminding men this?”Question 7: [2:09:34] – "While your logic is sound that self-contradictory entities cannot exist, and if gods are defined as self-contradictory entities then gods cannot exist, doesn't the square-circle argument neglect or have nothing to say about entities which are not self-contradictory? If we could talk to all the theists in the world and find that a significant percentage of them believe in entities which are not self-contradictory, you can say that such entities don't fit your definition of ‘gods’, but functionally what would be the difference? Aren't you indirectly saying that many theists don't believe in gods even if they think they do? Isn't the square-circle argument insufficient with regards to the whole range of hypothetical entities up to but just short of your very literal definition of ‘omniscience’? Doesn't it fail to provide usable information with regards to the god-like entities that regular people actually believe in?"Your support is essential to Freedomain Radio, which is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by making a one time donation or signing up for a monthly recurring donation at: http://www.freedomainradio.com/donate
The first caller was a woman who was appalled at my moral and intellectual relationship to illegal immigration.
Everyone in the world has a right to live in peace and security and safety.
So what am I doing having any qualms about illegal immigration?
She was very very disappointed in me.
I think probably even more so by the end of the conversation than at the beginning.
The second caller wanted to know, why is there so much fear porn coming out of the left?
This fear, this anxiety.
The world is going to end.
Everything's racist and bigoted and you're oppressed and victims.
And why all the fear?
And we talked about that.
Now, the third caller wanted to know, what is the story with minimum wages?
What are the effects of minimum wages to the economy, to automation and to the market?
It was a great conversation.
We haven't talked about that.
For a while.
The fourth caller wanted to know why I dismiss people for merely having feelings or saying feeling statements when at the same time I seem to give a lot of respect to emotions, to feelings in philosophy.
And it's a great question, a great contradiction, it seems on the surface, but I think we unpacked it very nicely.
Fifth caller didn't want to have children and now really, really does.
Problem is he got married to a woman and they both agreed they didn't want to have children.
Now he really, really wants to have children and she's so opposed.
She actually went through an abortion when she got pregnant.
So should he stay with a woman he loves and give up having children or should he go and try and find someone to have children with a very, very painful question and decision?
Sixth caller was a woman who believed that man is the tamer of nature and women is the tamer of man.
And why is it so hard for modern Western women to find things to admire and respect about masculinity?
And that was a great, great question.
Something which you really need to ponder as we sort of fight for the survival of everything we've inherited.
Caller seven.
Well, frankly, he got me.
He got me good.
He wanted to know, isn't the square circle argument insufficient with regards to the whole range of hypothetical entities?
Up to, but just short of your very literal definition of omniscience, which means, I guess, if you strip self-contradictory characteristics from a god, can't you then end up believing in a god?
He got me well on this one, and I was very, very pleased to be corrected.
You'll see it when it comes up.
I make no bones about it, and it was a really, really great conversation.
So thanks, everyone, so much for calling and for listening.
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Because of your willingness to support this show, this conversation, this essential philosophical interaction with the world.
It's all because of you.
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Just go and do it.
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Alright, up first today we have Roxanne, who called into a previous show wanting to discuss mysticism, but had to leave midway through the conversation.
She has another question she wants to talk about.
She said, quote,"...I was very disappointed to hear your hard stance on illegal immigrants, generalizing them as dishonest moochers on taxpayer dollars, who shouldn't be given sanctuary or the chance to naturalize work, receive an education,
or benefit from government assistance." Most illegal immigrants are from impoverished, war-torn, dangerous countries simply seeking better lives for their families but are rejected because they lack the education or financial means.
Immigrants, legal or otherwise, contribute greatly.
To the economies of countries receiving them, working the fields and farmlands locals refused to work, understanding the value of education and social services in ways many First World locals do not.
If, hypothetically, Canada became war-torn and access to essential resources were difficult, Stefan, wouldn't you do everything necessary to get your wife and daughter to a country of safety Even if that meant illegal means, if other options weren't available.
That's from Roxanne.
Hey Roxanne, how are you doing tonight?
Hey Stefan, how are you doing?
Well, and you?
I'm good, I'm good.
I'm glad to get a second chance to get to talk to you.
Sure, I'm glad you called in.
Yeah.
I never want to disappoint someone.
Ever.
Because, you know, that's what philosophy is all about.
It's just making sure that nobody has any negative emotional experiences to your audience.
Right.
It should all be positive and good and dandy.
That is such a girly way to start things off.
I just wanted to point that out.
It's not so much that I'm angry.
I'm more just sad than anything.
I'm just disappointed.
Yeah, my euphemism for my intense rage.
Yeah.
Okay, so tell me, when have I ever said that all illegal immigrants are dishonest moochers on taxpayers dollars?
Well, okay, I'll give you that.
You never did say that.
But on the call where a young man had called in, he had been an illegal immigrant, went over with his parents at six years old, and then repatriated back to Mexico.
And You know, you did do a rant and it was confessed as a rant about your frustrations with illegal immigrants.
I can certainly understand a lot of the frustrations because immigration, and this is sometimes even regardless of whether it's Legal or not, but it definitely brings, they definitely bring the cultural issues and problems.
Roxanne.
Yes?
What was my question?
Sorry.
Yes.
You're filibustering already and we're not even one minute and a half into the conversation.
I'm sorry.
You said, when did you describe all illegal immigrants as dishonest moochers on taxpayers' dollars?
And I said, you never used those words.
So not only you disappointed in what I said, I didn't even say it.
No, but, alright.
I didn't say you said that, but I felt that you were making some generalizations.
I'm going to read to you back to your comment.
I was very disappointed to hear your hard stance on illegal immigrants, generalizing them, this is referring to me generalizing them, as dishonest moochers on taxpayers' dollars who shouldn't be given sanctuary or the chance to naturalize, work, receive an education or benefit from government assistance.
So this is my stance, according to you.
Well, that's what I understood from it.
So those were your impressions about what I said?
Well, the impression came from, you know, well, certainly you did make some comments on the moral stance of the young man's mother, You know, when you did say that, you know, she knew what she was doing was illegal and immoral and she did it anyway.
And, you know, and you did do a rant on your frustrations.
Wait, are you saying that illegal immigrants, it's not illegal?
No, not at all.
Okay, so me describing it as illegal is actually kind of buried in the title, right?
Illegal immigrants.
Yes, yes, yes.
But you did mention that, you know, the fact that you had a problem with some of the policies of the sanctuary cities allowing these immigrants, these illegal aliens, to work, to benefit from getting an education and government assistance.
And I see that as almost, it's really...
I don't want to use the term counterproductive, but certainly the immigrants that are causing problems and causing criminality are not the ones that are seeking out work and education.
That I know for certain.
Okay.
So if you're a European immigrant and you come to America, the household, you have a 26% rate of welfare usage if you come from Europe.
Mexican immigrant households, this is legal immigration.
Mexican immigrant households consume welfare at a rate of 73%.
So close to triple the amount.
Right.
United States welfare usage, natives 30%, immigrants 51%, illegal immigrants 62%.
Okay.
So very, very high.
Use of welfare.
Right.
Right.
Roxanne, do you pay a lot in taxes?
Well, because I'm from Jamaica, so I am in the process of immigration.
I'm living in Toronto right now.
So all I can tell you is my experience of taxation in Jamaica, which is about 25% of my income.
I know that in Canada, Canadians are certainly taxed a lot more.
So I personally don't have the experience of You're not paying taxes.
Let's just cut to the chase.
You're not paying taxes.
Well, I'm not even working, so no.
So you're not paying taxes.
So you're not paying for this stuff.
Paying for what stuff?
Illegal immigrants.
They consume massive amounts of tax revenue from the domestic, hardworking, taxpaying population.
Okay.
And if you're not even paying taxes...
What does it matter what you say?
You've got no skin in the game.
You get to parade around your moral excellence.
Nobody sends you a bill for it.
You're not paying for it.
Well, what I would say, though, Stefan, is that, yes, that's true.
I don't have the experience of a Canadian paying for the welfare of immigrants and In Canada.
But to say that, I mean, you did say that, listen, they just need to go and start revolutions in their own countries.
No, listen, listen, you've got to stop.
You've got to stop just characterizing what I'm saying.
Okay.
Okay.
You're not paying any taxes, so it's free for you to have these opinions.
Let me ask you this.
Let me ask you this.
How many illegal immigrants are you putting up in your home?
None.
Why?
What do you mean?
Well, because it's illegal and I wouldn't do something illegal.
Oh, it's illegal?
Yes, it's illegal.
And you wouldn't want to participate in something that's illegal?
You wouldn't want your resources being provided to something that was illegal?
Well, no, I wouldn't.
Okay, so that's the perspective, I would assume, to some degree, of the average taxpayer who does not want his or her taxes being stripped from his or her wallet in order to fund something that's illegal.
Well, I certainly understand that, Stefan, but...
We're ignoring the causes that contribute to the fact that people are immigrating anyway.
Okay, let's say that someone came up to me and demanded a percentage of my salary going towards helping or aiding persons who are impoverished and don't have rights in this country.
Certainly, I would contribute to that.
Sure, you could, hang on, you could have a charity Which, hang on, hang on, you could contribute to a charity that would help people, right?
Now, of course, it's called foreign aid, or you can do charitable contributions to countries overseas to help people get access to education, to get access to food and shelter and so on.
You can set up a lovely charity to help people overseas, and that should be enough for all the compassion that you need.
Really genuinely helping people overseas in their own country.
Where it's perfectly legal for them to live and to stay and to work and to build their society.
Well, Stefan, the thing is that, you know, ideally that would be great, but the fact is that many of these countries that people are escaping from are war-torn and their lives are in danger, either from violence, either from war crimes.
People are literally dying Literally dying to get to places like America, meaning they're getting into these boats that capsize the ocean.
Wait, wait, wait.
What are you talking about?
Which South or Central American country, which is the vast majority of illegal immigrants to America in particular, which South or Central or North American, if we include Mexico, which of these countries is currently at war?
Well, I wasn't...
Okay, so you're only talking specifically about South and Central American immigrants.
Well, if we're talking about illegal immigrants, they generally don't stow away on airplanes.
They generally walk across the country, which means South, Central, or North America when it comes to Americans.
No, they're smuggled in from all over, Stefan.
No, but the vast majority of them come overland.
Not necessarily.
And maybe they come over land because they came from another country to a borderland and then cross over.
No, I wouldn't say that that's 100%.
Yes, the illegal immigrants are the ones that are traveling over the land borders, and so they're from Central and South America.
I wouldn't say so at all.
I mean, I've certainly been following what's been going on in the Middle East.
Hang on, hang on.
Europe is another matter, but in North America, in Canada, and well, let's talk about America.
There are millions and millions of illegal immigrants.
There are some estimates that it's 20 or 30 million, and there's some numbers behind all of that.
You can't possibly think, Roxanne, that 20 or 30 million people were smuggled in on boats.
I'm not saying that all of them were smuggled in on boats It's a tiny minority I wouldn't say it's a tiny minority.
You're saying that the majority of the illegal immigrants are from Central and South America.
That's what you're saying.
The majority of illegal immigrants in America are Mexicans from Mexico.
So let's just deal with people walking across the border.
Otherwise, there'd be no point building the wall, right?
No, but I would definitely disagree because, first of all, there are many ways to immigrate Illegally, if you want to call it that.
For instance, people who come in on visitors' visas and then don't go back.
That is illegal immigration.
So they can come in via plane.
They come in on visitors' visas.
Okay, so I mean, I understand all of that.
I understand all of that.
There are many countries in the world that are at war.
And I'm not just talking about war either.
I'm talking about cultures of criminality and violence.
No, I understand that.
I understand that.
So how many people do you think outside of Western countries, and we did originally talk about war-torn countries, now you're just talking about dysfunctional countries.
The majority of countries in the world are dysfunctional.
I mean, outside of the East Asian countries and the European and European-derived countries.
There are hundreds of millions of people, if not billions of people, in those countries who would like to come, let's say, to America or Canada, right?
Right.
So how many is too many, do you think?
What's your top limit?
What's your ceiling?
How many do you think is too many?
Well, you know, Stefan, I think that everyone should have the right to life and safety.
Because the thing is, Stefan, I'm coming from a country where violence is At your doorstep.
Jamaica is not at war.
We have so many social issues, right, that this is something that I see, and just because, yes, I've been grown up in the middle class and I'm educated and have had access, but this is something that has affected my life.
It definitely affects people who are poor.
So, I feel like I can speak because I know what it is like living in a country where, you know, you go out the door, you don't even know if you're going to get raped before you come home.
I understand that.
And Roxanne, do you know what the average IQ is in Jamaica?
No, I don't.
71.
That's terrible.
71.
That's borderline retarded.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Average IQ is 71.
IQ is significantly genetic, right?
Well, I would say, Stefan, that things that affect IQ are not necessarily genetic, but have a lot to do with the social issues that are going on.
I know that you had done a video on...
Child abuse and spanking and how it affects the development, mental development of a child.
Sure, you can, let's say, hang on, so let's say theoretically you can, and there are some arguments for this, that you can get a couple of extra IQ points by not spanking and by breastfeeding, which might get it to 75 or 76.
But of course you have to convince the IQ 71 parents to breastfeed and not hit their children.
Right, right.
There's no magic soil that changes the genetics of a population, right?
Well, I would suppose so.
I suppose so.
Well, no, the thing is that, Stephan, I would say, though, a Jamaican child, you know, coming from poverty, if they were adopted by a baby and raised in a loving home with access to the resources that they need, you might see the next, what's his name, that doctor, that's the neurological pediatrician surgeon.
What's his name?
And he ran for president.
Ben Carson, exactly.
I mean, well...
No, I'm sorry.
I mean, I'm sorry to, you know, you can check through my whole playlist on IQ differences and so on, but it does not appear to be the case.
It does not appear to be the case that you can...
Like, people in Denmark are very tall.
If you take someone from mainland China and you have the Denmark people adopt the baby from mainland China and mainland Chinese people are often quite shorter...
They will grow to their maximum height that is constrained by their genetics, but they won't end up as tall as the Danish people.
And they've done twin studies and so on that particularly later in life, IQ is about 80% genetic.
So the idea that if you've got an average IQ in North America...
I'm thinking Canada and America.
In the high 90s, 100.
And you've got an average IQ in Jamaica of 71.
That's two standard deviations, right?
That's almost 30 points of IQ. Right.
I don't think that it's going to be closed environmentally.
And there's no scientific indication that it could be.
So it's absolutely been scientifically proven that IQ is definitely genetic and not based on any social surrounding issues.
No, Roxanne, what did I just say?
What percentage as adults, what percentage did I say was genetic?
I forgot.
I'm sorry.
80%.
80% is okay.
Which means that you've got 20% to work with environmentally, and nobody knows how to change that 20%.
Okay.
Well, um...
Okay, I mean, you're giving me some statistics here.
I'll do my own back check and just see, because I've just seen where environmental factors have drastically changed the lives of children coming from very bad situations.
Okay, let's go back to, sorry, let's go back.
No, you just have to study the science, right?
So without anecdotes.
Let's go back to Jamaica.
So in Jamaica, people vote, right?
Yeah.
And is it fairly safe to say that they vote for bad policies, bad government ideas, bad policies?
Well, the thing is that government in Jamaica is definitely very different from government in Canada and in the United States.
With regards to how policies are made, the heads of government are very corrupt.
And it's not even like in the States where if a government official is found guilty of something, well, they have to Sorry, sorry to interrupt you.
I understand the corruption of Jamaica, and the corruption is very much associated with the IQ71 average.
Average, which means that half of the people are below that.
But why don't, if people have the capacity in Jamaica, since they have the vote, why don't they vote out corrupt politicians and vote in honest politicians?
Sorry, Stefan.
Sorry.
Yes.
So you're saying, could you repeat that?
Sure, no problem.
Why don't people in Jamaica vote out the corrupt politicians and vote in honest politicians?
Oh gosh.
Well, first of all, To find the honest politicians is one thing, because even getting out the corrupt ones, well, who will replace them with the morals and standards that would keep it from being corrupt?
Wait, wait, wait.
Are you saying, hang on, are you saying that Jamaicans are generally corrupt and immoral and that's why they can not either recognize or vote for honest politicians?
I would say that the social and economic climate that gives a small portion of educated upper middle class Jamaicans a lot of resources and the majority of Jamaicans are poor and don't have access to anything, it leads to a climate where people take advantage of that situation.
Wait, so are you saying that the Jamaicans as a voting population cannot tell the difference between an honest politician and a corrupt politician?
And by the way, for those who don't know, Transparency International Corruption Index for Jamaica, Jamaica ranks out of a score of 100, it gets 39.
It is zero being completely corrupt.
So it's a very corrupt place.
But my question is...
Are Jamaicans as a whole able to identify bad politicians and vote in honest politicians?
I'm sure that they are able to identify persons that they would hope have the moral standing that is needed to put in place good policies, right?
But even so, I can tell you that My father went to school with former Prime Minister Bruce Golding and he told me of a conversation where former Prime Minister Bruce Golding said he came in with the intentions of changing the country and bringing honesty and transparency and his very own bodyguards that
were assigned to him had illegal arms.
Okay, I'm just going to have to...
I'm sorry, because this is not relevant to what I'm...
I mean, it's an interesting story and all that.
So if people in Jamaica are able to identify and vote for honest politicians, then...
Jamaica should become honest, the Jamaican political system.
If people in Jamaica are unable to either identify or vote for honest politicians, then it explains why it's corrupt.
But then why would a first world country want people come in who regularly vote for dishonest politicians and join the voter rolls of the first world country?
They are not voting for dishonest politicians.
They are voting for the only politicians that are available to be voted for.
So then there's something fundamentally corrupt, if I understand what you're saying correctly, there's something fundamentally corrupt about the Jamaican personality, in which case, why would they necessarily want a lot of them in a First World country?
Well, that certainly is...
Logically speaking, right?
Okay, I would not say that the average Jamaican is corrupt, but those who are, you know, ironically enough, it is the Jamaicans who have access, have resources, have education.
And, you know, for some reason, take advantage of a system that's easy to take advantage of.
Okay, so then it's easy to take advantage of Jamaican voters by promising them various goodies or by whatever it is, providing them various incentives.
It's very easy to take advantage of Jamaican voters by corrupt politicians.
So why would you want a bunch of Jamaican voters in a first world country if they're so easy to take advantage of and corrupt?
All right.
Well, here's the thing, though.
I mean, the thing is that they are being taken advantage of because of circumstance.
And to say that if those circumstances changed, you know what I'm saying?
I'm saying, all right, first of all, I totally, when you said try to start change in your own country, that's actually something that I have been striving to do.
Because I work in media and have access to some resources and research and information about legislation.
And that's something I've been trying to do in terms of how things are done in institutions and things like that.
But I'll tell you that, you know, Persons at the top will outright threaten you if you even say that, listen, you know, what's being done here is wrong and I will alert the media to it or alert people to what's going on here.
And I've been personally threatened when it comes to doing things like that.
So, you know, I'm just saying that some people cannot affect the change necessarily In the situation that they're in...
No, no, no.
Come on.
Voting is anonymous, right?
If they wanted honest politicians, they'd vote for honest politicians.
But they're no honest politicians.
I know you say that, in which case you're saying there's something fundamentally corrupt about the Jamaican character or the Jamaican culture, which does not exactly make the case for immigration, right?
Well, I certainly wasn't saying that because...
If you were living in a country that was corrupt and that had a lot of bars for you making change, would that mean that therefore your character is corrupt or not smart enough to do anything about it?
I don't think so.
These circumstances that people are facing...
You know, are really difficult circumstances.
They are.
They absolutely are.
Listen, I mean, I understand.
I have great sympathy.
And when you have a population with an average IQ of 71, there are a few people who are very smart, who are off the right side of the bell curve, and they end up dominating the society.
This is often why you end up in a lower IQ country or culture.
You end up with a small group of people who have a disproportionate amount of political power.
And it's not fair.
It's not right.
But I don't know how it can be solved by immigration.
Well, but the thing is that...
All right.
Immigration...
To say that...
Okay.
Well, I will say that definitely if people have cultural issues and social issues and problems that they take with them to wherever it is they're going...
That causes a problem for the countries receiving them.
That's certainly true.
But a lot of people, they do not.
They certainly see the immorality.
They see the way things are done.
They don't agree.
And they're living in a circumstance that can't change that.
And they want better for their children.
They don't want their children to absorb the toxic culture.
No, no, no.
Sorry to interrupt you, Roxanne.
I completely understand why people want to come to first world countries.
Of course.
You don't have to make that case for me.
Right.
That's not the question.
That's not the question.
Like, if you're a beautiful woman, the question isn't, does anyone want to date me?
The question is, who should I date?
Okay.
And knowing that you're going to say no to a lot of guys.
Well, let me ask you this, based upon our last conversation.
Where is the father of your child?
He is in Jamaica.
And why is he in Jamaica?
I can't really go into the details of that right now, Stefan, because I can't go into the details of that, certainly not on a public show.
Sure, sure.
Is he your husband?
Yes, he is.
All right.
And is he sending you money to survive in Canada?
Somewhat.
And how are you surviving in Canada?
Well, personally, I had some funds and some family members have been helping me.
And are you taking government assistance?
Not at the moment.
When were you?
I have never been on Canadian government assistance.
Ah, okay.
I just came to the country, so I have been here.
I mean, how is this going to work?
You're in school, you're going to get a job.
I mean, how does it work?
Well, I will tell you this, that my immigration process is completely legal.
And I am looking to work.
I have applied for a work permit.
And, you know, once I'm able to work, hopefully I will start working, you know, and I've made a lot of strides to do so.
So, but I can't really go into the details because it's complex.
No, that's fine.
I understand.
I understand.
And, you know, I appreciate and respect the fact that you're taking a legal approach to this.
You know, that's a good thing.
Yes, let me assure you.
No, I'm not standing up for illegal immigrants because I'm an illegal.
No.
No.
But I can understand when a person is absolutely desperate and their lives are at stake and their children's lives are at stake, if they don't have the means necessary, meaning the education, they don't have the funds or whatever,
but someone is offering them, listen, I can smuggle you into the country on some forged papers, you know, but I can certainly understand why somebody would make that decision based on the desperation that...
Of course I can understand why people make that decision.
I mean, I can understand why people make any number of decisions that I disagree with.
The question is, why should the hardworking local taxpayers be forced to pay for illegal immigrants?
Because, Stefan, I would say...
That morally, everybody should have the right to life and to safety.
Why?
Why should everyone have that right?
I don't quite understand.
Are you saying that billions of people should come to America and Canada?
And that the taxpayers should be forced to pay for their health care, their housing, the education of their children, and all of that stuff?
And that is true for everyone in the world who is living less well or has less potential in their home country than would be the case in, say, Canada and America.
Are you saying that a billion or more people should come to these countries and the taxpayers should be forced to pay their bills?
That's pretty extreme.
No, you're saying everyone in the world has the right to safety or whatever it is, which means everyone has the right to come to safe countries or to countries not currently at war.
No, but salvation doesn't rely on two countries, you know?
I mean, peace and safety, life and safety...
Should either be gotten either by maybe aid with working with the country to ensure- No, no, no.
You're not answering my question, Roxanne.
How many people should be allowed to come to first world countries?
Is there a top?
Is there a ceiling?
Is it a billion people?
Is it a billion and a half people?
Is it two billion people?
Is it three billion people?
How many people, given your framework of rights, how many people should be allowed to come to first world countries?
Well, I'm sure there definitely needs to be a limit because you can't...
Okay, good.
What is the limit?
What?
What is the limit?
Well...
Alright, that's a really, because I don't even know how many immigrants are coming into the country, period.
And I don't know the monetary effects on the government or the percentage tax going to what and what.
So I really couldn't give you a number.
Okay, so you don't have any idea.
You're just throwing out these ideas of rights and you haven't given a single thought.
As to what it means in practice.
Now, let me ask you this, Roxanne.
Why should I have less money for my family, for my daughter?
Why should I have less money because other people want to come into the country illegally?
Why should I be forced to pay for them, thus having less money available for my own family?
Well, I don't think that...
All right.
What I gather...
I have a limited...
I have limited information on what Canadians are taxed.
I understand that it's basically the government taxes persons based on how much money they make and the lifestyle that they're able...
It's very high.
I know I was having a discussion with one person who lives here, and because he said he's single, he doesn't have any children or anything, and so...
The money that he works is taxed a lot versus somebody who, you know, has a family and the money...
Okay, I don't know what you're talking about.
Why should I be forced to pay?
Why should I have less money available for my family and for the charities that I want to participate in, the good work that I want to do in my philosophy show?
Why should I be taxed at the rate of thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars a year to pay for people...
Who are here illegally.
Tell me what's in it for me.
What is the benefit for me?
How does it work for me?
Okay, I can definitely tell you the benefit of money going towards this because when there are no...
There's no social infrastructure made for these immigrants that come across illegally for them to get a job, get education.
I see it for myself in my own country.
When there are no social services, people are driven to violence and criminality.
No, no, no, no, no.
Come on.
Are you saying that I should pay people who are here illegally so they don't rob me and this is your ideal solution?
They don't break into my house and steal from me?
They don't beat me up?
They don't key my car?
They don't steal from me?
I've got to give them money to pay them off like the mafia so they don't attack me and this is your ideal solution?
All right, well, that's kind of flipping it a little bit.
No, you said if the social services aren't there, people will turn to crime.
So we basically have to give people money so they don't steal from us.
So the government has to steal from me so other people don't.
Tell me how it's good for me.
How does it benefit me?
What's in it for me?
Well, for one thing...
Having them here at all.
Having them here.
Once they're here, the question is, what's the benefit of having illegal immigrants in the country for me?
Well, first of all, I know a lot of companies, of private companies that certainly have benefited from the fact of...
Hold on for just a second.
I'm sorry.
Sorry.
Sure.
Other companies benefit.
There are farmers who benefit from cheap labor and there are people who get cheap maids and there are people who get cheap gardeners.
Exactly.
That's not me.
I asked you how it benefits me, and they only get those people because my taxes go up.
So the farmers get cheap labor, and the people get cheap maids, and other people get cheap nannies, and other people get cheap gardeners, but my taxes go up to pay for all of that.
So the fact that they get cheap stuff is negative for me.
So, I want you to tell me, how does it benefit?
For me, I mean, farmers benefited from slavery.
That doesn't mean that somehow that's good for the country, right?
All right, no.
But I will say, though, that the social services that allow these immigrants to get an education means that you have productive persons now in your society that have the skills necessary to contribute to your economy.
73% welfare usage is not productive citizenry.
Come on, Roxanne.
We already went through these numbers.
Well, okay.
All right.
Well, all right.
Listen, I... I don't know how many people are just sitting on welfare and...
73% welfare usage for Mexican immigrants versus European immigrants in the low 20s.
And you know for sure that these people are not trying to get an education and improve themselves.
They're just sitting on this welfare and not doing anything.
How does it benefit me to have illegal immigrants in the country?
Well...
All right, illegal immigration does not benefit anyone, okay?
No, it must benefit someone, otherwise it wouldn't happen.
No, but the fact is that illegal activity happens a lot, okay?
One second, right?
Illegal activity happens whether we want it to or not.
So what are we going to do to safeguard this from becoming even worse?
Where illegal immigrants are here, they They've come into the country regardless because there's somebody who's smuggling them in, right?
And then they're running amok because they don't have access to anything.
It's a safeguard.
Illegal immigration ideally should not happen, but the fact is it does.
And if it does happen, You need a safeguard to say, okay, what can we do to stop the crime?
Hang on, hang on.
This is very passive, right?
This is just saying, well, you know, there's a lion in town.
What can we do?
We just have to try and not get eaten, right?
I mean, if welfare and government benefits and if education and so on were not available to illegal immigrants, there's a general principle, which is you don't get to keep the proceeds of the crime, right?
If someone goes and robs a bank for a million dollars and they go to jail for five years, They don't get to keep the million dollars, right?
Otherwise, they just got paid $200,000 a year to go to jail, right?
Okay.
And so there's this general idea that you don't keep the proceeds of a crime, how that affects birthright citizenship is another matter.
But if you're committing a crime, you should not get the benefits of that crime.
And so if there was no welfare, theoretically, no welfare, no health care, at least no subsidized health care, no subsidized education, and so on, then the value of illegal immigration would be far lower.
And then there would be much less.
Well, probably.
That's true.
That's not probably.
People respond to incentives.
It's absolutely true.
I mean, it doesn't mean it would completely stop it, but it would be a huge disincentive, right?
I mean, as you know, even with Trump talking about a border wall and so on, the amount of illegal immigration into the United States has gone down enormously just this year alone.
So if illegal immigrants were dealt with according to the laws in general, as far as I understand them, I'm no lawyer, which is you catch an illegal immigrant and you deport them back to their home country and they don't get to put their kids in school.
And I know that there are some places where it's legal and so on.
But if there was no welfare or government subsidies, grants, whatever it was available or education available for illegal immigration, then illegal immigration would be far lower.
And then taxes could be lowered enormously.
And then with the reduced taxes, we always see this in the West, when taxes go down, charitable contributions go up.
So then people could get, desperate people could get help in their home countries from people who would be charitable towards that.
I beg to differ there because certainly in...
In the Scandinavian countries where the taxes are ridiculously high, those countries are definitely experiencing where education is next to nothing.
It's next to free in places like Germany or Sweden and places like that.
There are a lot of social services.
The population benefits from these social services.
So the taxes are high and it's not just because of illegal immigration.
The taxes are high in these countries generally and They are benefiting from these high taxes because these social services, the locals of these countries are benefiting from these social services.
Wait, hang on a second.
Roxanne, are you saying to me that European countries don't have any problem with migrants or refugees or illegal immigration from third world countries and for the Middle East?
No, they certainly do have problems with certainly from what's been going on recently with the Syrian refugees.
Which is the result of the welfare state, which is kind of what I'm arguing against.
I mean, the welfare state is disastrous for just about everyone in my humble opinion that I made this case before.
So, these are countries that are having great problems because of government redistribution of wealth.
Well, if you compare the crime rate in countries like Sweden to the crime rate in countries like America, where the Swedish are taxed to the teeth, and Americans, you know, the taxation is in debate, and oh, this is that.
You know, I'm sorry, but I do see a difference.
But we know what the difference is.
We know what the difference is historically between Sweden and America.
The difference in crime rates between Sweden and America is that you have, at least historically, you had almost a completely white, high IQ population.
And high IQ populations in general, there's very little crime.
With low IQ populations, there tends to be a lot of crime.
So whites in America commit murder, for instance, at the same rate as whites in Belgium, as whites in Sweden, as whites all over the place.
And blacks a lot of time will commit crime rates similar to other blacks around the world.
East Asians will commit crime rates.
So it's around IQ and it's around other things to do with testosterone and so on.
But if you look at South Korea, there's almost no crime, despite the fact that Seoul is a city about the same size as Mexico City.
And so the idea that it's just this welfare state that produces no criminality is not really true at all.
Well, I would definitely...
All right.
Well, I wouldn't say that, oh, you know, once you have a welfare state, there's not going to be...
Because there's not going to be any criminality.
And maybe it is because the country has a very homogenous...
I mean, if you look at Sweden, as I'm sure you're aware, the crime rate was very, very low for many, many, many years.
And rates of rape have gone up, I think, 1400% just over the last few years because of the welfare state and because of the migrant crisis.
Well, is it the welfare state or the migrant crisis that's causing the criminality?
The welfare state is forcing the Swedish taxpayers to subsidize the importation of the migrants.
Well, then it's the migrants that's causing the crime, not the welfare state.
No, the migrants are only there because of the welfare state.
Well, but that, you see, the thing is that, well, if you look at the migrant countries, they're...
All right, for instance, okay, Jamaica certainly is not a welfare state.
There are hardly any social services at all.
And we have quite a horrible crime rate.
So, you know, what's causing the crime?
But that's a function of the IQ-71 population, right?
Okay, so you're saying, okay, fine.
But clearly, welfare state does not equal crime.
It's the people that cause the crime.
It's the people that are causing the crime.
It's the immigration that is causing the crime.
It's people bringing in the social dysfunction that they had in their countries, bringing them into these countries, and that's what's causing the crime rate.
Hang on.
So what you're saying is that immigration brings in enormous problems of dysfunction, incompatibility, and criminality.
It depends on which culture is immigrating.
That's actually true.
I agree with you.
And we've seen the statistics.
People from Europe use welfare very little.
People from Mexico use it a lot.
And that's because the average IQ in Europe and cultural compatibility of like average IQ in Europe is about 100%.
And the average IQ in Mexico is in the high 80s.
And it's just going to have an effect on that.
So it is a challenge to bring in IQ differences, ethnic differences, religious differences, cultural differences.
How does it...
And again, I can sort of back to your question.
How does it benefit the domestic population?
How does it benefit the people who were there?
How does it benefit the people who are going to be forced to pay for all of this?
Why would you want it?
All right.
The thing is that immigration...
It's something that is happening because of the social unrest and dysfunction and all the dysfunction that is happening.
So immigration itself is not what is causing the problem.
It is a social dysfunction.
The social dysfunction that exists in these countries and these social dysfunctions are causing people to emigrate, to leave, right?
And unfortunately, they are leaving, but they are bringing with them these social dysfunctions.
So I would say the social dysfunctions is what we should focus on here and not, you know, well, My taxpayer dollars.
Well, not so much that the welfare state is causing criminality.
Social dysfunction is causing criminality, not the welfare state.
So you're saying that criminality is environmental in origin.
There's no choice, no morality, that it's entirely due to...
I mean, this is a very Marxist argument, right?
That negativity, negative human behavior is simply the result of...
You know, crime is produced by poverty and so on.
And it's not.
It's not true.
I mean, if you look at the Appalachian region in America, it's about the poorest area in America, and its crime rate is virtually non-existent.
And if you look at somebody like Bernie Madoff, right?
I mean, hugely rich and massively criminal.
There has, of course, been social dysfunction all across the world, all throughout history.
There was social dysfunction in the Middle Ages, but that didn't necessarily mean there was mass migration from the Middle East to Europe.
No, no.
And look, I agree with you to some degree, which, you know, doesn't mean either of us is right.
I just wanted to point out the confluence, Roxanne, that what has happened is that The several Muslim countries, several Middle Eastern countries, have been attacked, undermined, decimated, and destroyed by Western powers.
In particular under Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Libya, Syria, and before that under Bush with Afghanistan and Iraq.
And so these countries have been destabilized at the same time as there has been an open borders movement, the Schengen Agreement and the EU and an open borders movement and a high welfare movement in Europe.
And what that means, of course, is that the incentive to leave these countries is very high and the incentive to go to Europe is very high.
It's basically like you put a bunch of marbles on a tabletop and you lift up one end, right?
Well, they're going to roll.
They're going to be in motion.
And that, I think, is one of the basic courses.
It's not poverty.
I mean, during the Great Depression in the 1930s, crime rates did not increase, even though unemployment was like 40%.
I would agree with you.
Right.
So it is really that crime causes poverty.
Now, the destruction of these countries is a terrible crime, and I think a horrible crime.
And I think that the people who are responsible for it should face legal justice for their actions.
But one of the terrible solutions or one of the terrible problems is because the welfare state in Europe pays people 10 times or more what they could make in their local economies.
They have a huge incentive to go to Europe.
And the vast majority, like in Italy, recently they did a survey of the refugees who were coming to Italy.
Less than 3% of them were genuine refugees.
The rest of them, you know, just...
I mean, you just look at the boats.
It's all young men.
Oh, our country was so war-torn and so horrible and so horrifying, we had to flee and leave all our women and children behind.
Come on.
Right.
Come on.
It's not anything to do with that.
It's that because the welfare state is drawing out people from the Middle East.
Now, either it's drawing their best, in which case you could make some kind of argument to an economic benefit for Europe, which does not seem to be materializing at all.
If they're sending their best, it means that there are fewer people there to rebuild the Middle East.
If they're sending not their best, then it's not going to be of benefit to Europe.
If they are sending their best, it means that the Middle Eastern countries are not going to be fixed or improved. - Good.
Right.
Anytime soon.
And what that means is, as the smartest and best people leave the Middle East, and there's fewer people to competently run the governments there, which means the governments are going to get more corrupt and destructive and despotic, which means more people are going to leave, there's no end to that process, because they're constantly making massive numbers of babies in the Middle East, right?
So that's never going, that flood is never going to end.
And so what the European system is doing by being such a great magnet and such a great pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for the migrant crisis is it is basically blocking off any capacity for these originating countries to improve.
And that's never going to be a situation that ends.
What's going to happen is more and more and more people are going to pile into Europe and cause a collapse of the welfare state and then you can have a whole bunch of people there who came all this way and have very different ideas about how a society should be run who then don't have any money around and then what happens, right?
And just by the by, and I'll stop in a sec, there is a study called the Association Between Country-Level IQ and Country-Level Crime Rights by Dr. K.
Kevin Beaver, who's been on this show a couple of times.
The criminality does not arrive from poverty or concentrated disadvantage or anything like that.
The facts are fairly clear.
And so each individual actor...
From the other countries, I completely understand why they're doing what they're doing.
But how does it benefit either the people who are left behind, or how does it benefit the people whose countries they're going to?
That's the question that nobody seems to be able to answer.
Well, all right.
First of all, I would say the chicken or the egg here in terms of the welfare state is causing people to immigrate.
No, what is causing people to immigrate is the crime and violence, all right, or whatever, crime regarding war crimes or crimes just criminality in general.
No, oh, come on, Roxanne, I'm sorry to interrupt you.
The majority of people coming to Europe are not coming from war-torn countries.
It is not the case.
No, no.
When I say crime, No, listen, I'm putting war-torn and crime, drug-related, gang-related crime, in the same batch.
It's danger to your life.
People's lives are endangered.
So whether it's fear of genocide or whether it's fear of a rapist coming in...
Are you saying 30 million illegal immigrants came largely from Mexico to America because 30 million people, their lives are being threatened by drug gangs?
You can't expect me to believe that.
What?
There are 20 to 30 million illegal immigrants in America, mostly from Mexico, and you're saying they're fleeing drug gangs and they're fleeing death.
Are you saying that 20 to 30 million people left Mexico because they were being directly threatened by drug gangs or something else?
So you're saying that they weren't having their lives in danger or serious desperation or just coming across to mooch off your dollars?
I wouldn't say that's the case.
You can't just not say things are the case.
You have to bring some facts.
You feel passionately about this subject.
Why don't you have any facts?
You just have a bunch of feels.
Well, they're fleeing oppression.
No, they're not.
Well, they're not coming here for welfare dollars.
73% of the families are on welfare.
Well, okay.
Why in Europe do the migrants keep hop-skipping and jumping to countries where they can finally get to a country with the highest welfare rate?
Of course they're coming for welfare.
It's the only reason they're there.
Oh, no.
No, Stefan.
Come on.
Come on.
Looking at the circumstances.
No.
Give me some facts.
I don't want any more of your opinions or your feels, Roxanne.
With all due respect, you need to bring me some facts.
I've given you facts and facts and facts.
If you don't have any facts, we can suspend the conversation until you get more.
But you have to stop bringing some facts.
I am certainly lacking in statistics and facts, Stefan.
I would agree with you there.
I have not...
I've done the research in regards to the number that are escaping from war-torn or from dangerous situations.
But what I am saying is that, me personally, why I do see people taking the jump to do something as desperate as immigrating illegally and being smuggled into a country is that I'm seeing the desperation that the majority of Jamaicans are living in.
You know, and I see why persons would do that.
And here's what you should do, Roxanne.
You should learn about freedom.
You should learn about liberty.
You should learn about the free market.
And you should go back and help people in Jamaica.
Certainly, that is my aim, Stefan.
Certainly, 100%.
Because you're coming to a country and saying, well, I have a lot of sympathy for people who are breaking your laws.
All right, no, listen, there are people breaking the law.
All right, no, I'm not just saying anybody who is breaking the law for illegal immigration needs to be sympathized with.
I am specifically looking at persons who are escaping desperate situations.
So that's the thing that I'm looking at, right?
Personally, Stefan, I had to learn a lot about Canada before coming here to even find out what resources are available to me.
So you're saying that these uneducated IQ 71% point Jamaicans are coming across because they know that this social welfare and that social welfare is going to be available to them.
Personally, that doesn't make much sense to me.
You think that people aren't aware of welfare or social programs when they come?
A lot of people are not aware of the...
You should hear some of the ridiculous ideas I've heard when it comes to immigration and what people think it's all about and what the process is and things like that.
People don't even understand.
Well, certainly a lot of persons that I've talked to, people don't even understand the process of immigration.
So this is your anecdotes.
We'd have no facts here, right?
All right.
All right.
It's an anecdote again, Stefan.
I'm just saying that, yes.
I'm just saying, Roxanne, if you want to have opinions that people can take seriously in these matters, you need to get more facts.
Like just having the feels, having the sympathy, people in difficult situations, let's take everyone in, let's take care of everyone.
That's not how a rational process for solving problems can possibly, possibly work.
Some of these people are coming from desperate situations that need to be sympathized with.
I'm not saying everybody is in that.
I'm not saying all illegal immigrants.
And how are you going to tell?
What ability do you have, Roxanne, to tell people who are coming from desperate situations versus people who aren't?
And there are rules around these things, which, as I pointed out, regarding Italy, only 3% of the migrants even began to fit the standard for being a refugee.
So how are you going to...
If you say, well, we'll let desperate people in, then everyone's going to pretend to be desperate.
Everyone's going to fake desperation, and then where are you?
I mean, are they showing empathy for me?
Are they showing empathy for the amount of money that I have to spend on them versus my own family?
Are they showing empathy for the civilization that my ancestors built?
Are they showing any sympathy or empathy for the laws when they come in illegally to break them?
Why should I show a lot of compassion for people who aren't showing any compassion for me and are coming in knowing ahead of time?
That they're going to be taking my tax money.
Why should I show a huge amount of empathy for people who are coming in to take money from me against my will through the force of the state?
Stefan, first of all, only a fraction of your taxes is going towards the welfare of illegal immigration.
You're sounding like all of your taxes are being taken and given to these illegal immigrants.
That is such a terrible argument.
I'm not even going to let you broadcast it on this show.
I'm sorry.
It is a principle.
It doesn't matter if it's one penny or $10,000, but it's a lot of money.
It's a lot of money.
I'm sure you're being taxed a lot of money, Stefan.
That's not in question, but you're making it sound like 100% of that is towards...
Okay, Roxanne, if you're going to still make straw man arguments like it sounds like when I never made that assertion, I think we've come to the end of this conversation because I keep pushing back at you and I, you know, at the very beginning of this conversation, I was saying, well, what did I actually say and what are the facts?
And it's all feels and straw man and so on.
And that's not something I can really entertain in a philosophy show.
Some of them were generalizations that you said about the circumstance of the young man that was on there.
No, I never said the 100% of my tax money is going to illegal immigrants.
So for you to create that, it's not even a remotely rational perspective.
Sorry, I'm going to have to move on to the next caller, but I do appreciate you calling in.
Alright, up next we have Joshua.
He wrote in and said, Fear had a purpose in nature, avoiding deadly predators or poisonous food, etc., In our society, as it exists currently in normal life, there's no place for it, or the horrible acts that can be justified from it.
My question is, why all the fear?
That's from Joshua.
Why all the fear when we should just have love?
Joshua, how are you doing tonight?
Joshua, you may need to unmute.
Stop miming.
I am unmuted.
I was talking to you, but you weren't there.
It was my fault.
Wait, no, it was your fault.
I don't know, it was my cat's fault.
Okay, so what is the issue with the left that you're talking about?
Pretty much every single thing they do is based that's rooted in fear.
It's the birthplace of why they do it.
They're attacking and accusing constantly of exactly what they're doing because they're afraid the other side is doing.
They're rejecting their problem directly onto whoever's the opponent, whoever that wants to be.
Right.
And everything reflected inside and outside is all based in fear.
It seems utterly absurd how they don't notice this.
I don't see.
I don't see how they...
Right.
Do you think women experience fear in general more, or men?
Like if you were raised, I don't know if you had two parents who raised you, but do you think that in general, women tend to be more cautious and fearful, or men?
If you walk it back through, I mean, this is like before culture as we understand it right now.
The man was the one getting the food and protecting him in the home.
They were only protected by something outside of themselves, which was the man.
They were not protected within themselves.
They were not using their own skills to protect themselves.
And by that, automatically they're going to have fear.
They're going to have much deeper fear and constant fear.
Something that I'm assuming is still a very invasive part of our culture.
But again, still, it's not.
So, when it comes to women, Women, of course, evolutionarily speaking, historically speaking, incredibly dependent on men, right?
Constantly pregnant, constantly giving birth or recovering from giving birth and breastfeeding and then pregnant again.
And so for a woman, she is going to feel a great deal of anxiety when not protected by a man.
And that anxiety is going to be to help propel her into being pregnant.
protected by a man and so when women are outside the sphere of male protection i think they generally feel quite a lot of anxiety i mean it's not an argument but there's a um a show the mindy project on tv and when anyone ever surprises her in her apartment or comes in without thinking she like grabs a knife axe murderer you know she's living in terror you know that she's
And so women's fear of being without protection doesn't...
I mean, it ends materially to some degree when they get the welfare state or they get free health care or they get all the things that generally benefit women more than men.
But I don't think it ends emotionally, if that makes sense.
I don't think it ends for women who...
I don't think it ends for women if they get resources without the male protection.
I think that women generally flourish within the circle of male protection.
And I think if we look at, I mean, single moms in particular, I remember I was thinking about this just the other day, for reasons that pass my understanding.
I was thinking about this the other day, Josh, which was years ago.
Oh, lordy.
This would be over 30 years ago.
I went with a friend of mine to his mom's friend's cottage.
Now, he was a single mom.
Son of a single mom.
I was son of a single mom.
And we went, no, gosh, it was, oh my goodness, no, I'm sorry, 35 years ago.
I was in my mid-teens.
So, and these were two women.
I think that she had gotten...
This little cottage out of some divorce settlement or whatever.
Anyway, so I went with these two women and I was like a very good swimmer.
I came in like six in the entire province.
Like I was a killer swimmer.
A dolphin!
Let me tell you, I had my own patented blowhole.
And so I dove off the rocks and I swam across the bay and I swam back.
As I was swimming, and it was easy.
It was easy.
It's like Prue, the easy 10K, right?
And I came back, I climbed out, and my friend's mom went mental.
I genuinely couldn't understand.
Like, you know, sometimes when you're a kid, you're like, ah, you know, this might get me in trouble, or, you know, I know this is going to cause me, you know, it's going to cause some stress.
I had no idea.
Like, it was such an easy swim.
And she just thought, oh, you could have drowned and, ah, you know, just freaked out.
Never had that from a man my entire life.
Never once.
And the fact that I said, look, I mean, I've been swimming for years.
I get up at six o'clock in the morning and I swim for an hour and a half and push myself hard and I'm a champion swimmer.
It didn't matter.
She was just sitting there the whole time watching me swim, waiting for me to drown.
And so, that's an anecdote.
That's not proof of anything, but I think if people search in their hearts and their histories, they'll kind of understand.
You know, there's this America's Funniest Home video.
There's a little clip that I remember where the host is sort of making comments on the videos, and there are a bunch of kids at the top of a set of stairs, you know, and they're all piling on this mattress, you know, to take the mattress down the stairs like a sled, right?
And the...
The host of the show is saying, well, here are all the kids.
Where's the dad?
Where's the authority figure?
Uh-oh, there he is, right?
And the dad piles on with the kids and takes them all plummeting down to their doom, right?
And, I mean, if you've been a father or had a father and been a mother or had a mother, you understand that, you know, there's a certain amount of caution and fear.
And that makes perfect sense to me.
Because...
Anything inside of yourself that meets you.
Yeah, history, of course, in history, the women generally had at least the sons, and sometimes the daughters, until about the age of six or seven or eight, and then they'd sort of be passed over to the men to raise.
And of course, when you have babies and toddlers, you need to be paranoid of everything, because they're tiny little adorable death magnets.
Yes, they are.
And so I think that this general...
If you can separate women from male protection, and there's nothing sexist about this and nothing better or worse, I think just historically we understand that women were dependent upon men to protect them and provide for them, and that's how the emotional nature of women runs,
that when a woman is separated from male protection, she feels an enormous amount of anxiety, which is one of the reasons why I think antidepressant and anti-anxiety meds are so prevalent among Western women, particularly in In middle age, because you have to use your sexual market value in order to gain male protection.
And so when women get into their 30s and 40s, they don't have the sexual market value to gain male protection.
And when they get even older, they end up, I guess, talking about blowing up the White House and or posing with a picture of Donald Trump's head by their side.
And so when women get older and they can't use their sexual market value and fertility in order to be able to gain I think they get pretty stressed and pretty anxious.
And so when there's this fear mongering that goes on in society...
Climate change is going to kill us all and killer bees and, you know, there's this myth that there's razor blades in the candy at Halloween.
There's something about women who are not in a secure and happy place relative to male protection.
I think that metastasizes this fear and it becomes kind of overwhelming.
I mean, if you look at the reactions that people on the left or the Democrats are having, To the presidency of Donald Trump.
I mean, it's astonishing.
It's monstrous.
It's huge.
Astounding.
They can't sleep.
Their psychiatric visits are up.
Antidepressant use is up there.
Can't...
Can't handle it.
And, you know, there's an old thing in self-knowledge, which is...
Unprocessed fears tend to reproduce, tend to escalate.
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Like, you know, if you've ever been around someone or talked to someone or maybe even been that person who's like, oh man, I love my girlfriend.
She's great, but I'm just not good enough for her.
She's going to end up leaving me.
She's going to cheat on me.
She's going to find a more attractive guy.
And you worry and you pester her and you check her phone and you're freaking out and you're paranoid.
And then what happens?
Let me give you some history.
Hang on, hang on.
It's still in the middle of a story.
I was asking you to join me on the rhetorical question, but I'll finish and then you can go ahead.
So what happens if you're really paranoid your girlfriend's going to leave you is you act in such a horrifyingly obnoxious and insecure way that she ends up leaving you.
And I knew she was going to leave me.
I knew that I wasn't good enough for her.
I knew she was going to cheat on me.
I knew she was going to leave me.
And it's the same thing when women...
Are afraid of things, then they want all of this security.
They want the welfare state.
They want free healthcare.
They want all of this old-age pensions.
They want all of this security.
But that's security.
The welfare state creates this glittering prize for other cultures to come in and take over.
And that is how I'm so afraid of being treated badly.
And then you bring in cultures that aren't going to treat you as well as Western men do.
And it's the unprocessed fear that provokes an outcome that's worse than your wildest fears could have imagined.
All right.
Sorry.
Go ahead.
History.
I was raised by a single...
I was a single mother for a couple years, maybe four years when I was very young, so like the Love Map according to all the psychology documents.
Love Map was formed when I was with my mother.
She got married again when I was five.
I basically lived almost like a girl in my head.
I was like a girl in my head.
And then about ten years ago now, I got MS. It was a happy day.
Actually, it wasn't actually a happy day.
It took away my ability to walk, talk, think, remember.
Everything was pretty much wiped away.
I had to rebuild everything in the ground.
I was very excited about that, because it actually gave me an opportunity to take my life apart and decide how I want my life to be defined, instead of someone telling me, you've got to be a Democrat.
I was a Democrat for 30 years, and then Trump.
I was like, holy crap, no, no, no, we're following him.
He's the one that's walking away.
And it sounds to me like what you're saying is that the resolution of correcting the family unit would actually go a long way to fixing this for the entire culture.
Which again, says Trump is walking the right way.
Right, right.
Well, let's hope that is the case.
Like, anxiety can serve a very productive and useful thing in your life.
You know, if you're walking down the woods in the middle of the night and there's a sound behind you, you kind of want to feel anxious.
Otherwise, you might not notice the bear that's attacking or going to attack or something.
You run up a tree or something.
And so anxiety is very helpful.
But if you attempt to deal with your anxiety through some external ritual, then you tend to reinforce anxiety.
That anxiety.
You feed it.
And that is a real challenge for people.
And I think we're seeing that sort of play out as a whole.
So I hope that was helpful.
Thanks a lot for the call, Josh.
I appreciate it.
And let's move on to the next caller.
Alright, up next we have Brett.
Brett wrote in and said, I've toyed around with the idea of imagining the market without a federally enforced minimum wage.
The pros seem pretty self-evident to me as it would increase the competition between employers to provide the best possible wages to their employees.
However, after giving it some thought, the cons may be the increase in the cost of goods and services, thus placing the burden onto the customer.
I'm no economist, and not particularly number-oriented, so I would like to know your thoughts on what the market would look like without a federal minimum wage.
That's from Brett.
Hey Brett, how you doing?
I'm pretty good.
Washington's getting pretty warm right now.
All right.
Swamp.
Swamp duff be heating.
Well, there is no market with a federal minimum wage, right?
Not D.C., Stefan.
I'm living in Washington State on the West Coast.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Not D.C. All right.
So, yeah.
I mean, you say, what would the market look like without a federal minimum wage?
When there's a federal minimum wage, there is no market.
Because there's a floor to it, right?
I suppose.
So, the real question is, why is there a minimum wage?
And there's two fundamental reasons why there's a minimum wage.
The first is because the money has been so corrupted and debased that inflation has eaten away at wages to the point where, without a minimum wage, the corruption and degradation of the currency would be much more obvious to people.
There's an argument that says that back in the 60s, there was actual silver in the quarters.
And if the silver content in the quarters had remained the same, then the minimum wage equivalent to what people were getting in the 60s would be over $20 an hour.
But because they've corrupted and debased and deflated the currency away so much by printing and borrowing in order to pay for imaginary, well, the promises they're never going to be able to pay for in the long run, then they have messed up the currency so much.
Like, you know, when I first came to Canada, candy bar was a dime.
And very shortly thereafter, it was a dollar.
I mean that's insane A tenfold decrease in the value of currency in a pretty short time frame.
So there has to be a minimum wage to prop up, or in people's minds, the value of the currency that's been degraded.
And the other reason why they need a federal minimum wage, or any minimum wage, is to cover up how bad government education is.
You've had people for 12 years, or 10 years, or whatever it is, depending on your location.
And they come out and they're barely competent to flip a burger and show up to work on time, wear a hat around their head.
I mean, government schools are so terrible.
Yeah, I can attest to that.
I went to public school out in Michigan.
Do you want to know something?
We had several different math classes that were required as part of the curriculum, like algebra, geometry, the usual.
Personal finance was offered as an elective.
It was an optional class.
Wow.
Now, I don't claim to be an education expert, but I don't know.
Shouldn't personal finance be something that every student should know right out of the gate?
Right.
Or just how to be an entrepreneur, how to add value, and so on.
And, I mean, they're so absolutely terrible.
Sorry, go ahead.
I don't think I learned anything useful from any of the math courses I was required to take back in high school.
I almost wish they just stuck with personal finance, because, you know, at least then I would have been learning something useful.
Right.
Here's an example.
I just saw this.
This came out recently.
At six Baltimore schools, no students are proficient in state tests.
Zero!
The Project Baltimore Investigation has found five Baltimore City high schools and one middle school with not a single student proficient in the state-tested subjects of math and English.
Not a single one.
Now, it's Baltimore, right?
There's the race and IQ stuff and all of that, but...
That doesn't mean it has to be that bad.
If anyone's listening, let me tell you something.
The Wire is not fiction.
It's a documentary in disguise.
Right.
Yeah, it's astounding.
The Wire is a great television show.
I guess, what, is it 12 years old now?
10 years old?
Something like that?
I believe so.
But yeah, the original reason I was asking why to imagine a market that doesn't have a minimum wage is The argument I'm coming at more from now that I've had time to mull it over is that it's more to act as a counter-argument against Bernie Sanders and his like who are all for giving everyone a $15 federal minimum wage.
Sure.
Sure.
And that makes perfect sense to people who've never been taught anything about economics and have no common sense, or as rather as had the natural common sense we're all born with, knocked out of them by ridiculous government schools.
You know, what is it?
Was it $15?
Yeah, well, that $15...
Okay, Washington says it has a $15 minimum wage, but it sort of depends on...
Which part of Washington you're in.
If you're in Seattle, oh yeah, it's definitely got a $15 minimum wage, but I'm on Tacoma.
I think where I started at was like $10 an hour.
Sure, I mean, if you're out in the country, you don't need the same wages as you have in the city, because everything else is much cheaper, with the possible exception of groceries and so on, but your living costs are much lower.
And having a $15 minimum wage, it does not make the value Of what you provide to the business change, right?
You're not paid on some arbitrary whim of the business person.
The owner is not just sitting there rolling dice and spinning the wheel to figure out how much he wants to pay you.
You're paid based on the value that you provide.
So if you're Brad Pitt and you can open a movie and people will come and see the movie just because you're in it, then you're going to get paid a hell of a lot.
If you're some extra in the background and people don't even care if you're there fundamentally, then you're going to get nothing more than a couple of bucks an hour.
It's based upon the value.
That you provide to the business.
Now forcing the business to pay you more does not magically increase the amount of value you're providing to that business.
It's sort of like saying, well a girl who likes me goes on a date with me.
So if I drag a woman around and handcuff her to me and take her to a restaurant, she must really like me because she's performing exactly the same actions as if she did.
It's like, well, with the exception that you have to chain her.
So forcing employers to pay employees $15 an hour doesn't change magically.
The amount of value that person is able to provide to the employer.
It's just this magical thinking.
Hey, if we introduce violence and coercion to the scenario, we've magically changed everything.
And this is just people who don't have any basic sense of reality or morality.
And of course, all that happens is, if you drive up people's wages, then...
If somebody's only producing 10 bucks...
An hour of value to you and you're forced to pay him 15 bucks?
You're just not going to hire him.
Now, if it's something that absolutely has to be done, you'll hire fewer people and work them harder or you'll automate, right?
I mean, you've seen these big giant auto teller machines, these big giant tablets or whatever it is at McDonald's where you push everything and beep, beep, beep.
I think they're kiosks, but yeah, I know about those.
A couple of McDonald's up in Seattle are doing that right now.
I think there's even a Wendy's or two that are doing it.
Yeah, that should be a hint, right?
All I'm saying is, well, what did you motherfuckers think was going to happen?
Well, they don't think.
They don't think because they've not been taught how to think.
They've not been taught how to reason.
I view a lot of the younger people who are—I mean, I'm sort of of two minds about it.
Number one, they've been propagandized to hell and gone, and they don't have any competent person teaching them basic reality.
Magic!
Magic extra value.
But at the same time, it's just a click away, right?
It's just a click away, right?
I mean, they can just go and look at the stuff for themselves.
And now that the internet is everywhere and everyone has it pretty much 24-7, the idea that people are going to say, well, I just didn't know, that's getting progressively harder and harder for me to believe.
Well, I did find out about you at least until, I think, a year or two ago.
Oh, but...
Right.
But apples to oranges.
Yeah, if you want to increase your Wage, increase your value.
You know, it's pretty simple.
If you want the hot girl to go out with you, then be someone she wants to go out with.
You know, you don't get to kidnap her and lock her in a van or anything.
I mean, just go and work out or get resources or get smart or read your Goethe, whatever she's into.
I mean, just if you want...
But, you know, there is a laziness around the left that...
It's one of the reasons I like...
I'm sort of warming more and more to Christians, particularly Protestants, is they've got this work ethic.
And on the left...
They're just kind of lazy.
Well, you know, I want to get more money, but I don't really want to go to night school.
I don't want to work at getting more value.
So I'm just going to vote for shit, right?
I mean, this is the divide between those who work for a living and those who vote for a living.
There's just a kind of laziness to it.
It's like an R-selected thing as well.
So I hope that helps.
Thanks very much for the call, Brett.
I appreciate it.
And move on to the next caller.
Alright, up next we have Scott.
Scott wrote in and said, You're right, of course.
Feelings aren't arguments.
However, my limited knowledge of psychology is that the unconscious mind is doing a lot of work in the background crunching through data at a much higher speed than the conscious mind is able to.
And when the unconscious arrives at a conclusion, this may be presented as a feeling or an intuition.
This could be an experienced electrician who can just point to a wall and know the problem is behind it, or a football quarterback that knows he has to throw the ball right now.
I've always pictured your unconscious as a savant who is hogtied and gagged in the trunk of your car, and his only way of getting a message to you is to bump his head on the back of the seats.
When you ask someone to tease out why they believe what they do, you often uncover incorrect data or assumptions.
But my question is regarding what value you think having a feeling or an intuition about something might have both generally and in philosophy in particular.
That's from Scott.
Hey Scott, how you doing?
Good, yourself?
I'm fine.
I feel that most times it bothers me because people aren't being very honest about what they feel.
They're trying to take a shortcut.
Like, I feel that you're wrong.
It's like, that's not a feeling, that's a thought, right?
Like, if somebody says to me, you're wrong, then we would expect them to prove it or get lost, right?
But if somebody says, well, I just feel that you're a jerk, you know, like, that's not a feeling.
So if people are genuinely communicating their feelings, I don't really have a problem with it.
But if they try to wrap a non-argument in the mantle of feelings, then I will tell them that's not valid, right?
Like, if somebody says, I feel sad, I'm not going to say, that's not an argument.
It's like, no, that's an honest statement of how you feel.
But if somebody says, I feel sad that you're such a jerk and you're wrong, it's like, no, no.
That's not how feelings work and that's not what they're for.
So, feelings aren't arguments.
Now, if somebody calls in and says, I feel something and I'm not sure what it means, then great, we'll have that conversation.
I mean, I do that with myself sometimes as well.
But if somebody comes in...
And starts talking about their feelings in a manipulative way.
That is not going to fly.
A feeling of unease, a feeling of concern, and all of this kind of stuff is very important.
And it's a starting point for wisdom.
It's a starting point for figuring something out.
Like, I felt uneasy for years.
About the objective explanation of ethics.
And because I felt uneasy about it for years and I kept returning to it in my mind, you know, like you're missing a tooth and your tongue keeps going back there.
And so because of that unease, I really, really wanted to go back and figure things out from the ground up, which is where my free book, Universally Preferable Behavior, Irrational Proof of Secular Ethics, available at freedomainradio.com slash free, came from, and for those interested in more of my thoughts and feelings about thoughts and feelings.
I have a book called Real-Time Relationships, The Logic of Love.
It's free.
Also available at freedomainradio.com slash free.
So, for me, feelings are very, very important as a stimulant to thought, but they are not a substitute for thought.
And that is a very, very important, I think, distinction for people to have.
And so if somebody comes and says, I'm uneasy about this, or I don't like this, or I feel this way about something, fantastic.
We have, I think we've had on this show many, many times, great conversations about that.
So the fact that you feel uneasy, the fact that you feel sad, the fact that you feel anxious or depressed or whatever, very, very important.
Again, assuming there's no underlying physical cause or whatever it is, some, I don't know, testosterone deficiency or something, then it's an important signal from your unconscious to start looking at something.
It means your unconscious is probably processing a risk to you that is probably being covered up by a conscious mind or by people around you.
Right.
Go ahead.
No, I was just saying right.
I was just agreeing with you.
So, when I go to a restaurant, these calls are for falafels.
These calls are for philosophy.
In the same way that when you go to a restaurant, you don't want the chef to just dump a bunch of ingredients on your table and say, enjoy!
It's like, no, no.
Those are ingredients.
Those aren't the dish.
Those aren't the meal.
I don't want you to just walk up a cow to me and say, here's a...
Here's some cherry dynamite.
Go to it, right?
And so when people come, if they have ingredients and they don't know what to make, like I have these feelings, but I don't know what the dish is, so to speak, then sure, let's talk about the ingredients and figure out what dish can be made.
But if people come with me and they think that their ingredients are the dish, that their feelings are some kind of argument, then we have a complete disconnect.
And that's what I have to push back on, if that makes sense.
Yeah, absolutely.
So what you're doing is you're distinguishing between feelings as an argument versus a feeling of something that the person isn't able to vocalize.
Yeah, like if the football quarterback knows he's got to throw the ball, knows right now.
There is something in sports, having done a lot of sports in my life, there's something in sports that's very important, which is you train and you train and you train and then you forget your training.
And you just have to then be in the moment and assume that your training is going to work.
So the quarterback has done a lot of practice and a lot of training.
He doesn't just throw the ball where he feels like.
His feelings or his instincts or his intuitions are trained by 10,000 plus hours, countless years of practice.
So he doesn't just throw based on a feeling because everyone can do that.
I mean, a two-year-old can throw based on a feeling.
He throws based upon his finely tuned instincts that have been trained for years and years.
And his instincts would include things like he knows how often the defensive coach orders a rush and stuff like that.
You're including all that.
Right.
And so the defense, like let's say he does a really bad throw, right?
He throws...
Away from the guy who could have caught it and gets caught by the other team.
It doesn't do him much good to say, but my instincts or my feelings told me to throw it there because they're wrong.
And so feelings are a great place to start.
I mean, there are stories of people who've had scientific breakthroughs by thinking of a snake.
Like one guy figured out the structure of an atom by having a dream about a snake eating its own tail.
So he had this vivid experience, snake eating its own tail, but he didn't go to a presentation at Science and say, look, here's a picture of a snake eating its own tail.
I'm a scientific genius.
It was the beginning of his process of trying to figure out what the dream might have meant, how it might have given him.
It could have been a complete coincidence.
I mean, it's not like we know the structure of things, but, you know, maybe it had an intuition based upon his research.
And so having a feeling is fine, and it's a good place to start, and it can help focus you on what's important.
Having a feeling is like having an ambition.
People say, well, I have this ambition to be an entrepreneur.
Okay, well, maybe we can get you started or figure out the right way to approach this or whatever.
But the feeling is not the achievement.
The ambition is not the achievement.
The desire is not the training.
And so people who start and end with their feelings aren't really going anywhere productive.
In fact, I think they're wasting a lot of their own time, and in particular, other people's time, perhaps even in this very call, this very show.
But it's a fine place to start.
It's important for self-knowledge, but it is not philosophy.
It is philosophy.
A starting place or a stimulant to philosophy, but feelings are not philosophy, which doesn't mean there's no philosophy of feelings, so to speak.
Right, and that's kind of, I understand that, and I like hearing you say that.
I guess the reason I was thinking about it was because so often I've heard, and I mean, obviously, I don't have the training in philosophy that you have, but Where the person will say, I feel that.
And what they're trying to do is get out an unformed idea.
And you tell them that it's not an argument and you move on rather than teasing it out.
And you have a couple of times.
No, no, no.
I'm teasing it out.
If they're presenting feelings as an argument, I have to tell them that's not an argument.
Not because I want to shut them down, but because I actually want to talk about their feelings, not their feelings masquerading as an argument.
Like how many times when somebody says, Steph, I just feel that you're mistaken.
And I say, that's not a feeling.
You know, mad, sad, bad, and glad, or, you know, whatever it is it's going to be, right?
And then I say, well, what were you feeling?
Not, what is your intellectualization about it?
So when I say, somebody says, I feel something, I say it's not an argument, that's not because I want to shut them down and have them not feel.
It's because I want them to actually feel and not intellectualize their feelings in a pseudo-argument.
Right, yeah.
I've never heard you explain it to somebody like that before, so I didn't see that as what you were doing.
Although there was one other example, actually, it was the first time I ever listened to you.
The woman said, I feel like you said what she was trying to verbalize.
Well, what she was trying to verbalize was what she'd inferred from what you had said.
No, it's a straw man.
People say I feel so they don't have to prove.
I got the impression that you said this, or my understanding, or my perception was, it's like, no, no, no, no.
Do the work, look the damn thing up, and get a fact or two in your head.
That, to me, is just intellectually lazy and insulting, and a time waste.
You know, my time is very precious to me.
You know, and this is not about...
You, Scott.
Just in general, my time is very precious to me.
You know, when my daughter's hanging on to my legs saying, can we do something fun?
And I'm going down to do a show.
That's in my head, people.
I could be spending time with my family, with my friends.
I could be going to play badminton.
I don't know, it could be cutting my toenails.
Occasionally I end up with these grizzly bear claws that allow me to dig for roots and climb trees with just a clatter, clatter, clatter.
But my time is valuable.
And everyone knows it's a philosophy show.
Everyone knows that you need to bring some reason and evidence.
Everyone has time to prepare.
You know, the waiting list to come on this show is ridiculous.
I mean, this is like, we're close to like, son, now that I'm on my deathbed, I need to pass down to you my prized and precious possessions.
Here is my baseball collection.
Here is my collection of Commodore 64s.
And here is my invitation to be on the Freedomain Radio call-in show.
I couldn't make it because I am only mortal, but this I pass to you, my son.
And in time, should you not end up on the Freedomain Radio call-in show, you will have the chance to pass it along to your son and so on down the line.
I mean, this is a big...
Big wait to get on the show.
So people have lots of time to prepare.
So look up some facts, build some arguments, read some books.
And so people who don't do that, who just call in and think that their feelings are just all they need.
Don't need any facts.
Just sentiment, sympathy, emotion, compassion.
Feels.
No.
Like, you have time to prepare.
This is a philosophy show.
I don't do that.
I speak passionately, but I try to make arguments.
I mean, arguments can be informed by passion, and it's important to not just have good arguments, but to present them in a way that is compelling to people.
But no, I don't, you know, when people have a lot of, they have long time to prepare for these shows, they have, they know what the standards are, and if all they do is come wading in with their, Steph, I just feel that you're wrong, or I feel you said this, or it's like, I'm sorry, I'm just not going to have a huge amount of patience because there are other people who are going to actually respect my time and respect the time of my listeners by reasoning.
I don't want all the calls to end up being...
Here's how you deal with people who don't have any arguments because, you know, that's kind of boring for the listeners after a while and for me.
And so, yeah, there are times when I'll push back on the people who come in and say, well, I just feel you said this about illegal immigrants.
It's like, well, did I? Well, no, I felt you did.
It's like, come on.
I mean, you had a long time to prepare.
If you heard about it, you could go back and you could get the quote and you could read it back to me.
Some people do that, and I really respect that.
I mean, that's a very, very helpful thing to do.
But I don't have time.
I mean, when you hear...
How people come back with what you say, if you're a sort of public intellectual, and people come back to you, and you said this.
It's like, when?
I don't know.
I just had that impression.
I don't know.
I thought you did.
Come on.
I mean...
Well, you don't always have time to do the research while you're actually on a live call-in show.
I mean, in this particular case, I think...
Will your caller call in?
No, you've got a long time to prepare.
No, no.
Well, I mean, except if you're having a conversation and then something comes up during the call that you're just trying to recall from a previous conversation that you couldn't possibly have known was going to come up.
Well, if they give me quotes about myself, then I can go and listen to myself in context and I can prepare.
Is there anything else that you wanted to mention with regards to thoughts and feelings?
No, thanks for coming.
All right, thanks, man.
I appreciate your call.
Cheers.
Oh, right up next we have Daniel.
Daniel wrote in and said, I'm 24 and have been with my wife for almost 7 years.
Upon starting a relationship, we mutually decided we were not going to have children.
The last few years, I've started to change my mind, eventually reverting my decision.
Not too long ago, we became pregnant and had completely different reactions.
I was excited, but she insisted on getting an abortion.
This was the beginning of our breakdown.
The way she handled the situation sickens me, and I have trouble seeing her the same since.
I know she would be an excellent mother if only she gave it a chance.
Nonetheless, I let the abortion happen because I had strong doubts of our future together.
I backed out of the original agreement, and it's not fair to her.
Now I face a decision to stay childless with the woman I love, or to seek someone to have a family with in the future.
That's from Daniel.
you Oh, hey, Daniel.
How you doing?
Not too bad, Steph.
How are you?
I'm all right, and I'm sorry.
What a horrible, horrible experience to want a child and to have your wife get an abortion.
That is heartbreaking.
I'm just really wondering.
I mean, I'm trying to tell you your own experience.
I'm just telling you, I experienced that as just...
Yeah, the days I don't think about it, I consider, you know, good days.
Right.
How long ago did this happen?
I want to say in March, the first half of March.
Right.
How long did you guys talk about it before she did it?
I want to say two weeks.
Two weeks.
And I guess she didn't waver, right?
I... I don't know what you mean by that.
Did she ever think that there was any possibility of not getting an abortion?
Possibility?
Yes.
We had a big disagreement with the parenting scenarios, what would happen.
We differed.
We vary.
Well, I mean, not hugely, I guess.
If she doesn't want to have kids at all, that's not really a parenting style, right?
Right, but, I mean, she humored the scenario, I guess is what I want to say.
She had her own way she would go about it.
We talked about it back and forth.
You know, what would...
Now that she's pregnant, how about them?
She said, now I have to change my whole life around it because we'd have to do this and this and that.
So to some extent, I'm sure she thought about it.
She just didn't like the idea.
Right.
Why doesn't she want to have kids?
This is all according to her, of course.
I think she's just not a kid person, in the least.
I'm sorry, I should say not.
Did she not enjoy her own childhood?
It's got a...
I'd say it has some rocky parts to it.
Right.
So...
Does she think she would be a bad mom?
Does she think that kids would, I mean, I assume she's viewing it as a negative experience, that kids would not be enjoyable or enriching or productive in her life?
So according to her, I think she used the words career suicide.
She really values her career really above most everything.
Ah, okay.
And that would really put a dent in it.
And what does she do?
Director for the state, lost my words, health department.
Oh, so she works for the government?
Yes.
Right.
Right.
And she prefers working, of course, to being a mother or some combination of the two, right?
Correct.
And she was that way since you met her when you were 17, I guess?
Correct.
Yes.
And you were that way too, right?
Yes.
And what do you think changed for you, Daniel?
Well, around the time I was 20, I started my career.
That's what I'm doing now.
And I work with my brother.
He lived quite a ways from where I lived at my parents' house.
So I kind of moved out, pretty much left everything behind and moved in with him.
And I got...
I guess what I would say, the ideal family.
I saw what the ideal family looks like.
Yeah, because you have an adverse childhood experience score of five, which is far from good.
If your wife had negative experiences too, then it's tough to think of it as a positive thing, so to speak, right?
Right.
I had her actually look at that...
That test, too.
And I think she scored a six.
Oh, gosh.
Yeah.
Oh, gosh.
I'm sorry.
I mean, please pass along my sympathies for her regarding that as well.
Yeah.
Yeah, thank you.
Like I said...
And my brother has a beautiful, beautiful family.
And that's, you know, hit me like, hit me right in the face.
I didn't, I'd never seen that before.
Outside of TV, you know, outside of 80 sitcoms, I didn't think that was, you know, that was within my realm of possibility.
Right.
And how much, on a scale of 1 to 10, Daniel, how much do you want to become a father and have children?
11.
11?
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
Isn't that your answer?
See, this has been going on for a while, and I'd like to think that I want to...
I want to go through every possible... anything I could do before I press the nuclear button on that.
I mean, I don't...
We talked to a therapist recently, and one of the questions I was asked is if I could see myself doing the same thing with somebody else.
And I really couldn't.
I mean, she's my first girlfriend.
Sorry, doing the same thing.
What do you mean?
Like getting married?
Yeah.
Do I see myself being a father and...
Okay, because it's not the same thing, right?
If she doesn't want to allow you to be a father or doesn't want to be a mother herself, and you get married to someone who you do become a father with, that's not the same thing, right?
Right.
Well, I misspoke.
Okay.
Can I imagine my ideal scenario is somebody else?
Right.
That was the question.
And your thought was...
I can't, I don't, I don't know what that would look like.
Right.
Right.
So it's, I mean, you've been with her for seven years, almost seven years, you say.
So for sure, it's going to be very tough to figure out what it's going to look like otherwise.
But if you want 11, you want, and she's immovable on the subject, is that right?
Right.
Right.
Does she have siblings who have kids at all?
No.
Does she spend any time around kids at all?
No, she's the youngest, like myself.
Her brothers, I mean, I don't want to talk bad about anybody, but they're not, they're never going to have children or get married, or even that, have girlfriends.
They're odd dudes.
Her parents are never going to have grandchildren.
Wow.
Wow.
It's only been 4 billion years of evolution and we could all end here, right?
Yeah, I was listening to that.
Wow.
That's rough.
That's rough.
Yeah.
This is not a philosophical question.
And so, obviously I can't give you an answer.
I mean, I can reason through arguments and so on.
This is very much a thoughts and feels, very much a feels thing.
Which is important, right?
Correct.
I would not, myself, hang on to the relationship with the idea she's going to change.
If she had an abortion...
When she's married to a husband who wants kids on the scale of 11 out of 10, and she had an abortion, she's pretty much, in my view, kind of committed, Daniel, to not having kids.
Right.
You know, if she can kill the life growing in her belly, so to speak, I think that is...
I mean, can you imagine the amount of pain it would cause her if she changed her mind later on?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
So I would go with the assumption that she really is not...
Like, she's not going to have kids.
Is she a feminist?
Uh, no.
Okay.
Just curious.
Because, you know, the worky thing and no family thing.
Anyway.
Yeah.
So the question is, if being with her means no kids, is that what you want?
And this is a decision, right?
You're 24 and...
You've got to kind of make a decision to some degree, guessing on how you're going to feel when you're 84 and 94.
One of you is going to die most likely before the other, right?
Yeah.
And then if you don't have any kids, you know, if you don't have any kids and your friends and siblings have kids...
It's kind of different.
Because, like, I mean, I just, I have to be honest, right, as I always try to be.
Daniel, you know, when I became a father, I had less in common with my single friends, with my married but childless friends.
And I was busy, busy, busy.
And we just, we couldn't do the things that we used to do.
And so, I mean, you say that her siblings aren't going to have kids, but they're weird dudes, as you said, so maybe you don't want to hang out with them too much.
But it's, you know, it's real hard to maintain, but it's impossible, in fact, to maintain what's been going on with your friends before you have kids, with after.
So if you guys stay childless, then if your friends have kids, they're gone.
For the most part.
I mean, you'll see them, maybe, but not much.
Now, if you and your friends have kids, then you're going through the same things.
They're hanging out together, play dates together or whatever.
But I'm just telling you from my experience and from what I've seen and heard and read, if, you know, you say, well, you know, we have this great social life.
We don't have kids and so on.
It's like, well, if your friends start having kids, you ain't going to have that great social life so much anymore.
In my opinion.
Okay.
That's an important thing to think about.
Now, of course, when you're young and new to your career, it does feel like a very big deal.
It does feel very important if you're new to your career.
And later, though, it just becomes a little less important, if that makes sense.
It's something that...
It's not like it wears thin, exactly.
But you understand how transitory it is all going to be.
When you, like I've said this story before, but I read something many, many years ago about a woman who was, she wrote in a letter, an article, an essay really, to the newspaper and she said, you know, I was retiring, I worked in HR my whole life and I was retiring and I was going through it and I was shredding all these files.
And I came across the file.
Ah, yes, I remember having to do this presentation.
I remember having to deliver this data.
And because I had to stay all night to deliver this data, I missed my daughter's recital.
And then I gave the presentation.
My daughter is still upset about it, and I'm shredding this paper.
It means nothing now.
Nobody even remembers it.
But my daughter remembers that I wasn't there.
But in the ebb and flow and whitewater rafting of an organization in motion...
It's gone.
It's gone.
And there is, you know, there's an old cliche that says there aren't many people who later in their life say, boy, I wish I'd spent more time at the office.
Actually, there are.
There are people who die poor, probably wish they'd spent a little bit more time at the office.
But...
When you have this career and everyone needs you and it's immediate and you have this big effect and so on, you feel powerful.
You feel important.
But that level of importance will diminish over time.
And I would say that not having children is going to be more important later.
Possibly.
Even more important for you, and maybe it'll become more important for her.
I don't know.
But it sounds like she's, again, she's really committed.
I mean, she kind of put a thumbtack in that memo.
So if you want it out of 11 and she doesn't want it at all, like if you're plus 11 and she's minus 11 about one of the most important decisions, that seems like a big bridge to me, Daniel.
Yeah.
Something I'd like to add, too.
It came up right now.
For some reason, I was reminded.
She has brought up the option of adopting.
I'm not too sure how serious she was.
I don't know if that was just talking out of the blue.
I don't know too much about that.
I haven't educated myself enough about it.
I'm not sure if that's...
Just from her telling me, it just doesn't turn me on the same way.
No.
You want your kids, right?
Yeah.
You can have them.
And listen, don't get me wrong, there are people who adopt who do wonderful things and I think it's great and so on.
But I mean, if you can have your own kids, why the hell do you want to raise someone else's?
And you really roll the dice.
You really roll the dice.
You don't know what the mom was like when she was pregnant.
You don't know what the father was like.
You don't have the whole history.
You don't, I mean, you don't know.
You know, maybe you get some kid with some behavioral problems.
Maybe you get some kid who doesn't end up that smart and then all of the problems associated with that.
I mean, you just...
It's a huge commitment and you really don't have much control over the variables.
And that's not something I feel particularly comfortable with.
Yeah.
I think that probably came about from health class in school.
They tell you if you have kids, it's going to be, you know...
Tear everything apart and hellfire and brimstone is the worst thing ever.
Yeah, they don't seem to say that to a lot of third-worlders now, do they?
No, they do not.
No, they do not.
So, I don't know.
I mean, this to me is just to kind of, in a dark room, assume the lotus position and sink into yourself and stretch your mind forward through time.
I think that the right answer will come to you, but I think it's going to take a lot of internal reflection and imagining your life either way.
Because if you're waiting for someone to change, it's really tough to be with them emotionally present in the moment, right?
Yeah, yeah.
That's really, really tough.
So I would say if you're waiting for her to change, it's going to deteriorate the quality of your relationship.
To me, I don't know, again, this is just my particular perspective, but it's based on some pretty good facts, I think.
But if you have the capacity to have your own kids, just control the variables.
But, you know, with the understanding that you guys got together with the understanding that you didn't want kids.
So, I mean, you're changing the deal and, you know, you're free to change the deal, but it's a tough thing to do.
It's like that old song, you know, there ain't no good guys, there ain't no bad guys, there's just you and me and we just disagree.
I think that song flew by me.
So I think introspection and figuring out how you're going to feel in the future and being real present to what's happening in the moment, that's not much of an answer, but I think that that answer is going to lie within you.
I don't think that there's any particular philosophical argument that's going to reveal it to you.
Right.
But I'm really sorry that you're in a situation where heartbreak is on either side of the T in the road, right?
Yeah.
I'm really sorry about that.
Will you let us know how it goes and what you decide?
Yes, absolutely.
All right.
Well, thanks for the call, Daniel.
I wish you the very best of luck and, again, my sympathies for the situation.
If I may say one thing unrelated, this show has really helped me out to solve a lot of problems.
Issues I've dealt with family.
And it's kind of eerie how some of these situations, some of these people you talk to, they're very similar to something I go through with either family or friend or what have you.
It really put a lot of things in perspective.
And what I donate, it doesn't compare value for what I get in return.
And I want to thank you for that.
Oh, man, I really appreciate that.
That's very, very kind.
And it is funny, you know, I mean, and I appreciate what people, the kind words that people say about this show, and in particular, the call-in show.
But as always, you know, massive kudos to the listeners.
I mean, it's your honesty, it's your openness, it's your curiosity that drives this conversation.
And I, you know, particularly respect the people who are open and honest to the point where...
They illuminate other people's lives through their own struggles.
And I appreciate what you're saying.
And just massive thanks to the listeners, yourself, of course, now in that number included.
All right.
Well, thank you, Steph.
Thanks, man.
Take care.
Alright, up next we have Emma.
Emma wrote into the show and said, That's including women, also.
I believe man is the tamer of nature, and women are the tamer of man.
He makes the world livable and enjoyable, while woman reminds him that he has a heart, just as important as hers.
Do you agree?
If not, how would you describe this most interesting and important aspect of relationship and civilization itself in the simple explanation, and if so, how can women like me, who extremely appreciate men, go about reminding men this?
That's from Emma.
Oh, hey Emma, how you doing?
I'm doing really good, thank you.
How are you?
Very well, thank you.
It's a great way to put it.
I like the...
The language, the color of the language and the vividness of the analogies, it's a great...
Is there something you wanted to add to that?
And I'll certainly tell you what I think.
I think I actually summed it up pretty well.
Well, I think...
That men make stuff and women make beauty.
That's been sort of my experience in many ways.
Women are a wonderful way of transforming raw materials into a beautiful home.
And I think that's wonderful.
And you know, there's this old cliche about how bachelors live.
Yeah, that's true.
Sometimes they won't even take the futon out from the box that came in because they can just use that to sit and watch the 90-inch screen television while eating popcorn out of a football helmet.
Exactly.
So, and I think that there's been real truth in that from what I've seen.
Real truth in that from what I've seen that men are pretty good at making stuff and men can make beauty as well, just as women can make stuff.
But men are pretty good at making stuff.
But women make that stuff beautiful, at least when it comes to a home.
And that is something not to be underestimated.
Because having stuff is important.
It's necessary but not sufficient for a happy life.
But being surrounded by beauty and organization and all this sort of stuff, it really makes life enriched in a way that I've never seen men in particular find a substitute for.
Awesome.
Yeah, no, that's exactly how I feel.
And you definitely...
Added a little bit more depth to how I was, or actually, you made it a little more simple, because I guess I was thinking it a little bit, maybe too, I guess I generalized it a little bit more then, and I was trying to make it a little more simple, if that makes sense.
Right, right.
Women are, I mean, as far as the nesting instinct goes and the beautification of personal spaces goes, I used to have much more cynicism or, I guess, a lack of appreciation for this stuff when I was younger.
I think even on this very show, you know, like my rants about why are there soaps shaped like starfish that you can't take out of the wrapper in the world.
You know, I kind of feel like that too.
No, and I think it can go a little bit too far, but as far as just having a nice and beautiful living space...
I'll tell you this.
I'll tell you this, Emma.
Since I got married, never once have I woken up with a pigeon on my chest.
Never once.
When I was a single man and did have a very large television.
Actually, it was a projector, an LCD projector, way back in the day.
640x480, baby.
And I was projected on the wall.
I had friends over to watch movies and play games and stuff.
But yeah, I left my balcony open.
Woke up.
With a pigeon about to pick my eyeballs.
I hear about this.
I didn't think that was actually possible.
I've heard about this.
I didn't think that was actually a real thing.
And you know why you didn't think that was possible?
Because you're a woman.
It would never cross your mind to live in any situation where that might possibly happen in any way, shape, or form.
Exactly, yeah.
There you go.
Right.
Yeah, no, I mean, why get a new sofa when you have duct tape?
Exactly, yeah.
The important thing is to have two cracked bowls and a very expensive car.
So, no, it's a different world.
You know, I live in girly world, and it's a beautiful and wonderful place to be.
And I hugely respect the beautification that women bring to my world and to the world of most of the men I know.
And I really now feel like slipping into a hazmat suit when I go and visit a bachelor's place.
I've become like a hothouse flower.
I mean, I used to be able to like, eh, I spilled the pizza face down.
When did you last vacuum?
Do you have a vacuum?
Ah, let's just eat it.
But so I think I've become too frail now to survive in the post-apocalyptic bachelor world of, you know, man, if you can survive this, you're bulletproof.
You're a superhero if you can wade through this bacilli.
I remember when I, gosh, this is many years ago, I was doing, myself and a couple of other coders were building the next version of the software that we sold, this environmental modeling software.
We were building the next version and it was really intense and really complicated and great fun.
And one of the women from the office came over.
Listen, I'm not a gross guy.
I clean things and all that.
But this was a particularly fastidious lady who came over to the show.
The coding vault.
And so she's coding away, she's coding away, and she's like, oh, I'll be right back.
And she comes back like 20 minutes later.
Coding is coding, coding.
Often it goes away, comes back like 20 minutes later.
It's like, where are you going?
It's like, oh, I just, I went down to the local sub shop to go to the washroom.
I'm like, there's a washroom right there.
It's a bachelor washroom.
It's a bachelor washroom.
I don't even want to open the door, she said.
The seat, you can sit on it.
You just can't sit off it.
So I understand.
And, you know, in hindsight, you know, it's three guys.
There's a little shake and bake, you know, not always sitting, and not necessarily something that's scoured by fastidious estrogen-based robots on an hourly basis, so I can really understand where she was coming from in hindsight, but at the time it was like, what are you talking about, I can't, you know, but I understand, I don't even want to open the door.
What's behind the shower curtain?
It's got to be somebody in a clown mask with a big knife.
So, yeah.
So, I mean, before I go over to my friend's bachelor places and, you know, you sit on the crunchy sofa.
It's like the sofa that's made on a beach out of sand, you know.
What is that?
You know, I could reach into the couch.
I could.
I'm just not sure the same number of fingers are coming back out of the couch because I don't know what's down there.
I don't even want to know.
The only thing that's clean in the house is the television.
So there is that, you know, the kind of thing where, you know, Miss Congeniality style, you have to jam the fork or the spatula into the microwave just to keep it closed.
And good luck!
Good luck opening the balcony door.
Never going to happen.
Because the only time the balcony is ever opened is to throw something out there that you can't decide if you want to keep or not until the rain ruins it and you have to toss it out anyway, in which case you're just throwing it over to the balcony and aiming for the bin.
So, no, it is rough.
And also, you know, when I go to married friends' houses, I never have to check the expiry date on the tins.
But you go to a bachelor's place and it's like, whoa!
There's a tin of peaches in here.
That looks like a font from the 1950s, I'm afraid.
And it's faded on one side, you know, the side that's facing the back of the cupboard.
It's like vivid.
And then the side that's facing the front, because he leaves the cupboard open all the time, it's kind of faded just from the fluorescent flickering dungeon light of the kitchen.
And also, Bachelor Place, you can't ever use the stove, because there's just stuff on it.
Hey, Dungeons& Dragons, don't turn on the stove!
That's my character sheet.
And there are drawers in the kitchen.
There are drawers in the kitchen, in the fridge.
You can't open them.
Oh, yes.
You know?
That's true.
And you don't want to.
Because some tentacle's going to come out and attempt to rip your nose off or something.
So, yeah, no, it's...
It's pretty rough.
I've never been to a married woman's house and known the depth of her bath.
You know what I'm talking about?
Not entirely, no.
Okay, so when you go to a bachelor's place, if he takes baths, he's going to fill up his bath a certain amount.
It's going to be about the same, like a foot and a half off the bottom or whatever, right?
And how do you know that?
Little smoky rings all the way around the bathtub, just at the level that he normally comfortably stews in his own filth and juices as a bachelor.
Now, of course, you don't know this about married women's places because they clean the bathtub on a regular basis.
Plus, they prefer showers because of the aforementioned stewing in your own juices stuff.
Look at my own French onion soup, honey.
I feel like diving in.
So anyway, it is...
And the bachelor's bedroom?
It is not a swinging pad.
Do you know it's possible to sleep on a camping cot for most of your 30s?
Not only will you never get married, no woman will ever see this bedroom.
And also, especially if the guy's a bit of a hoarder, hey man, I need my math test from grade 7.
That's part of my history.
Whoever is going to see this, you're never going to get married, never going to have kids.
Whoever is going to care about this, this is going to be shredded when you die.
Why are you keeping it?
Exactly, yeah.
So anyway, women, yeah, men make stuff, women make it beautiful, and I think that's a, at least in my experience, and it's a good yin and yang combination, I think.
Actually, like a balancing out.
Yeah, yeah.
All right.
Well, thanks, Emma.
Appreciate the call.
And let's move on.
Oh, my goodness.
Are we getting to seven tonight?
Thank you very much.
Dun-dun-dun.
I really super appreciate that.
Thank you.
All right.
Up next, we have Kevin.
Kevin wrote into the show and said, While your logic is sound that self-contradictory entities cannot exist, and if gods are defined as self-contradictory entities, then gods cannot exist, doesn't the square circle argument neglect or have nothing to say about entities which are not self-contradictory?
If we could talk to all the theists in the world and find that a significant percentage of them believe in entities which are not self-contradictory, you can say that such entities don't fit your definition of gods, but functionally, what would be the difference?
Aren't you indirectly saying that many theists don't believe in gods even if they think they do?
Isn't the square-circle argument insufficient with regards to a whole range of hypothetical entities up to but just short of your very literal definition of omniscience?
Doesn't it fail to provide usable information with regards to the godlike entities that regular people actually believe in?
That's from Kevin.
Hi Kevin, how are you doing tonight?
Doing great.
How are you doing, Steph?
I am having an esoteric and Bohemian Rhapsody-style show, so I am having a good time.
I'm having a good time.
Yeah, I'm impressed you've made it through so many callers so quickly, actually.
Yeah, just tonight I'm a combine harvester, what can I tell you?
Quick harvesting and crap and some bread.
So self-contradictory entities cannot exist, so the question is, is it a valid definition of God to include self-contradictory characteristics?
Is that fair to say?
Is it a valid definition of God to include?
More my question, I think, is particularly with regards to a line that you have in Against the Gods.
The line says, what if a God is invented which does not possess self-contradictory characteristics?
Ah, then it is not a God.
So I'm more responding to sort of how you've defined God in such a way that it excludes any entities which are not self-contradictory.
Okay.
So if you can give me the definition of a God that does not include self-contradictory entities, we can examine that.
Okay.
So you had a caller on the show a few weeks ago, and this question came up of omniscience versus omnipotence.
Are the two concepts self-contradictory?
And you were explaining how if a God is omniscient, then he must know the future for certain and therefore cannot change it, which means he can't be omnipotent.
And the caller...
Basically responded by saying, well, my God doesn't know the future for certain.
My God knows multiple potential futures and chooses from them.
And I don't know that the call ever really circled back to that line, but basically what the caller had indicated is that he doesn't necessarily agree with the same definition of omniscience that you were using, which would that not mean that the God that he believes in is not self-contradictory?
Well, no, because multiplying potential futures and then saying his God knows which future he's going to choose still doesn't mean that he's omnipotent.
Right?
So let's say there are 10,000 different futures and the God knows he's going to pick 5,000.
Number 5,000.
What's behind door number 5,000?
Your future.
He still doesn't have...
Omnipotence, then, because he can't choose 4,000 or 10,000 or 8,000, right?
So multiplying the futures, or the potential futures, and then saying that God knows which future he's going to choose doesn't solve the problem of omnipotence, because if he knows which future he's going to choose, let's say he knows for sure he's going to choose 5,000, the future number 5,000.
He still can't change it.
Okay, so then let's just say that from a theist's perspective, we just say, okay, then My God is not omnipotent based on your definition of omnipotence.
No, no.
See, you can't personalize it.
I don't have my definitions.
I don't have my philosophy.
I don't have my ethics.
I don't have my truth.
I have my particular aesthetic preferences and so on, but I don't have my truth.
It's either a valid definition or it's not.
It's either true or it's not.
I'm not going to say, well, you can have your two and two make four and I'm going to have something.
That's not how it works, right?
Okay, then let's make up new words, whatever we want to do.
Oh, no, no, no.
I'm with you completely with what you said until you said, like if you said, well, we can make up a definition of God that does not include omnipotence, right?
And I'm fine with you.
We can explore that concept.
It's just that when you say omnipotence as defined by you or your definition of omnipotence, that's not valid because it's either a valid or invalid definition of omnipotence.
Now, omnipotence means all-powerful.
That's not my definition.
That's not just something I made up, right?
Okay, but I would definitely say that atheists, whenever they use words like omnipotence to mean all-powerful, they're kind of meaning all-powerful, including things which are paradoxical or make no sense.
And when a theist uses the word omnipotence, they mean all-powerful minus things which are paradoxical.
Right, so the definition here is important.
I've never heard a theist say that all-powerful means all-powerful except for any contradiction.
Now, I mean, don't get me wrong.
This is not to say that you're wrong or anything.
I'm just telling you by surprise, which I'm sure is entirely due to my own ignorance of the subject matter at hand, but I've just never heard that.
It doesn't mean it's not a great approach to take in an argument.
I'm just being honest about my surprise factor, if that makes sense.
Yeah, and I definitely think that when these conversations come up, that clarification is probably not included, but I do think that that is the general understanding that a theist has in mind whenever they use that word.
So, God can be all-powerful and all-knowing, except for the future.
He can't know the future, because that would be a paradox relative to all-powerful, right?
Yes.
So, he's all-knowing about things in the past, And all-knowing maybe even about things in the present, depending on how, you know, to what degree of granularity you slice it, but has no certain knowledge of the future.
One way that I've heard this put by theists is that, and this would sort of lead to the idea that God doesn't know for certain the future, but the idea that God knows so much about the present that he can simply infer the future.
Well, sure.
I mean, human beings can do that too, right?
I mean, stock traders try and do it all the time.
Weathermen do it all the time.
You know, they know so much about weather patterns or stock patterns that they believe they have some reasonable capacity to predict the future, right?
Yes.
Right.
So, what this does is it removes a particular self-contradictory characteristic, right?
Yes, that's exactly the point I'm trying to get to.
Right, and that's a great point, and I appreciate you bringing it up.
And we can continue to do that until we remove all of the self-contradictory characteristics of a deity, right?
Yes.
And then what we've done is we've moved a deity from something which cannot exist to something which can exist.
So I've got these three categorized, right?
Things which do exist, things which could exist, and things which can't exist.
Things which do exist, like horses, things which could exist, like horses with horns on their heads, like biological unicorns, and things which can't exist.
You know, unicorns that are fire and ice simultaneously, that can travel backwards through time by singing songs, you know, whatever it is, whatever nonsense that you could come up with, right?
Yeah.
And so we can, the third category, self-contradictory entities cannot exist, we can take away the characteristics of a god and move him or her or it from things which cannot exist to the category of things which can exist, right?
Exactly.
Right.
Is it then a god?
That's why I included my line in the initial question, well, functionally, what would be the difference?
Of what?
Because the difference between...
Like, if we come up with a hypothetical entity which is not self-contradictory, but can still do all of the things which we attribute to God's being able to do, like answering prayers or whatever, then there wouldn't be a functional difference between whether or not we say it's a God.
Well, there would be, because what we've done is...
Well, first of all, is being able to listen to everyone's prayers and answer them, I guess that would be a function of omniscience, or something close to it, and something close to, but maybe not exactly, omnipotence, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
So, we could then create a category called something which could exist, and then the question is, we have to say, okay, what would this We'll call him, I don't know, and I'm trying not to think of a silly name, because I don't want to disrespect the conversation, which is very important, and I appreciate you bringing it up.
Can you think of a phrase that we can use to refer to a god without self-contradictory characteristics?
Other than what we're already using?
Can we say demigod?
Well, I think kind of the point that I'm trying to make is that There's probably a significant percentage of theists in the world, or at least people who call themselves theists, who believe in entities which they call gods, which if we were able to have this type of conversation with them, we would find that their beliefs are not actually self-contradictory.
Can we just say god too, then?
I don't want to say demigod because that's a diminishment of the idea, although we have taken away certain characteristics often associated with a divinity.
Can we just, and I don't want to, again, I'm not trying to diminish over, can we say god too for the one without self-contradictory characteristics?
For the purposes of this conversation, sure.
Okay, I'm trying to be respectful, and again, I appreciate the conversation.
Yeah.
Okay, so if we have something called God too, which has no self-contradictory characteristics, then if the question then becomes, does God too exist— Then we have to say, okay, well, what is the definition of existence?
And the definition of existence must be something which can be perceived by the senses or some surrogate of the senses.
You know, like we can't directly see infrared rays, but we can see them on a wavelength.
Or we can put on goggles which are heat-sensing and we can see them that way, right?
So there is some way to measure the presence or absence of infrared rays.
Rays or solar radiation or whatever it's going to be, even the background radiation of the universe and so on.
So the question then says, okay, well, for something to exist, it must be differentiated from something which doesn't exist.
Obviously, it needs to be a binary state.
Now, we know something doesn't exist if there's no way to detect it or have it impress itself upon our senses.
Now, there are things which...
We cannot say don't exist for certain, but could exist, like the unicorn with the horn on its head.
Like if we define a unicorn as a horse with a horn on its head, we can't say they don't exist, because they could conceivably exist.
But we also can't say they do exist, because we have not observed them in the world or anywhere in the universe.
So if we create God too with no self-contradictory characteristics— Then we have created a potential category for existence, but we have not proved the existence of anything.
Because if one of the characteristics of God, too, is that he exists, but there's no way to measure his presence or absence, then we have another self-contradictory characteristic, which is existence that conforms to the very definition of non-existence.
In other words, we say, God too exists.
Is there any way to detect his presence or absence?
Is there any way we can determine his existence or not?
And if the answer is no, then we have a self-contradictory characteristic, which is a claim of existence that conforms to all of the definition and characteristics of non-existence, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, and I would just point out also that the realm that we're kind of shifting into now is more of a lack of evidence type of argument.
Would you say that's true?
Well, we cannot say that the unicorn exists, the horse with the horn on its head.
We can say that it's possible for such a unicorn to exist, but we cannot say that it does.
Self-contradictory entities can exist, right?
So if God too...
Has characteristics called non-contradictory.
Then that entity could exist, but that does not mean that it does exist.
Now, when the positive claim is made that God exists, then...
The challenge is, where's the proof or evidence that God exists?
Now, if there is no proof or evidence that God exists, then we have a self-contradictory entity, which is something that claims to exist, but which conforms to all of the characteristics of non-existence.
So to take this out of the abstract realm, if...
You have a doorway with no door in it, right?
And you hire me to come and put a door in.
And I go and appear to be doing stuff.
There's hammer noises.
There's noises of it, right?
A drill with a Phillips head on it.
And I say, I'm done.
And you come down and you can't see a door, right?
And you stand there and there's no door and you feel it and there's no door.
And I say, there is a door there.
And you say, well, there's no door here.
And I say, there is a door there.
You just can't feel it.
Then we have a contradictory definition, right?
Because if the door can't impress itself on your senses in any way, then it's not there.
There's no door.
I can tell you there's a door, but there's no door.
And so the door is not a self-contradictory concept.
If I say, well, the door, you know, it's a wood, it's a handle, it hinges, and The door is not a self-contradictory concept, but there's no door in the doorway because you can't feel it, you can't touch it, there's no conceivable way to detect it.
So if I say this door exists, this door is real, the door has no self-contradictory definition.
It's just a door.
And doors do exist all over the place.
But this door, the door that I'm claiming exists, I'm claiming it has a self-contradictory definition.
Characteristic, which is I say it exists, but there's no evidence that it exists.
So I'm saying that existence and non-existence are both the same thing, which is a self-contradictory definition for that particular door, if that makes sense.
Yeah, and I will agree that there's a contradiction involved, which is that you're saying that there is a door there, but there's not a door there.
There's no evidence that there's a door there, but this is still somewhat different from the self-contradictory concept of a square circle.
And I would also point out that the square circle argument is what allows you to have the conclusion that an object or an entity cannot exist, whereas the lack of evidence argument, as you pointed out, puts us in the realm of could exist, but we don't have evidence.
Yeah, like if I said I've installed, Kevin, in your house a door that is both a door and an elephant at the same time, You wouldn't need to go and check whether such a thing existed, right?
But if I say I've hung a door and it's just a regular old door, you actually have to go and see if it's there or not, because it could exist.
So then the question comes, if we take away...
Self-contradictory characteristics of God too, we then have to have some proof or evidence that God too exists.
Otherwise, if we say God too exists with no evidence, we've created another self-contradictory characteristic, which puts him back in the realm of not existing, which was saying, well, he exists, but there's no evidence that he exists.
But that's a self-contradictory characteristic.
Existence is the same as non-existence, which contradicts itself.
Well, you're using the word self-contradictory.
And again, that's where I'm in trouble.
Sorry to interrupt.
You're perfectly correct.
And thank you for that correction.
That is wonderful.
Because here, yes, it's not self-contradictory like a square circle.
It's contradictory relative to the concept of existence.
Yeah.
Okay, thank you.
That's great.
Well, I think we actually led to the conclusion I was going to try to get to a lot more quickly than I was anticipating.
I have notes written down and arguments I was going to make, but that was the general point that I wanted to get to, that many theists, and I say many because I don't actually know the percentage, but many theists, I think is entirely possible, have a belief in what we, for the purposes of this conversation, would refer to as actually God too.
Which means that we can say that there is a lack of evidence for God too, but we cannot necessarily say that God too cannot exist.
Would you agree?
I would certainly agree with that.
And in the past, and this I apologize for the terminology, but this is back when I was younger and coarser, I referred to such a thing as a superdude.
A superdude like, and this is not to conflate The idea of a god with a space alien, but, you know, this idea that there's someone out there who can will himself in and out of interdimensional space and can wave his hand and the seas part, because he's got some magical technology.
It's real technology, but, you know, that old any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic and so on.
But that could be some entity that would have powers that would dwarf anything we could conceive of at the moment.
But would still be within the realm of existence and still within the realm of explicable scientific principles and manifestations.
So Superdude absolutely can exist, and I have no doubt about that.
I actually have no doubt whatsoever that there's other life in the universe.
I have no doubt whatsoever that there's omniscient—oh, sorry, that there is sentient life.
In the universe out there.
Just not in Washington.
So yeah, I have no doubt that it's out there.
I'm not sure we're ever going to meet them because it's pretty rare.
But it may not be as rare as we think.
They seem to be finding a lot of M-class type planets these days out of the universe.
So absolutely, I think that is the case.
But I also think that if we start looking at...
Questions of a deity through sort of Old Testament, New Testament, and other types of religious writings, we do run in quickly into the self-contradictory entity.
And if people shave down the self-contradictory aspects of that entity to the sort of God-to situation, then to me it does manifest into the realm of potential existence.
And then the challenge is the proof.
Yeah, I would agree.
All right.
Well, I really, really appreciate that clarification.
And thank you so much.
Is there anything else you wanted to add to that?
No.
I just want to say I really appreciate the show, and I don't know of anywhere else that I can go to find as good of reason and evidence in today's society with lots of challenges and political opinions that I think your show is spectacular.
Thanks, Kevin.
And I also, to return the compliment, I do get a little shiver of delight when I'm corrected.
Oh, it's good.
It's good.
I really, really appreciate it and really enjoy it.
So thanks, everyone, so much for your calls.
A delight and a pleasure, as always, to have these essential conversations with you.
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