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Oct. 22, 2017 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

03:16:31

3867 Ministry of Whoredom - Call In Show - October 18th, 2017

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	Hey everybody, Stefan Molyneux, Free Domain Radio.
	Hope you're doing well. Please check out theartoftheargument.com and freedomainradio.com slash donate.
	I really, really need your help.
	I really, really need your support.
	freedomainradio.com slash donate.
	I said five, five, five, count them, five callers tonight.
	The first caller...
	Was troubled by the idea that some of his personality, well, it's just plain genetic.
	As it is for you, as it is for me.
	What can he change about himself?
	And what aspects of himself is he just going to have to learn to live with?
	It's a great question. We chewed through it, I think, with great depth and sincerity.
	The second caller.
	Hmm... Well, what can I say?
	What can I say?
	Other than we had quite a conflict.
	So this is a woman who was upset with feminism and wants to figure out how to improve relations between men and women.
	I'm not sure that it actually manifested that much in our conversation, as you'll see as we went forward.
	Now, the third caller...
	Makes the case that DNA is so complicated, the building blocks of life is so complicated, that it does imply a prime mover, a god or superior intelligence that set things in motion.
	And I debated that for a little while and then took it in a direction that I strongly urge Christians in particular to listen to.
	I think it's a bit of a tip on how to take on the atheists, and Lord knows they need some taking on.
	Now, the fourth caller is concerned about her daughter.
	Her daughter, she is afraid, has what's called an employment-resistant personality.
	And she's concerned that her daughter, who's on the verge of adulthood, is not taking responsibility for her own life.
	Great conversation. I'm going to leave it at that.
	Really, really, you need to listen to that one with great, great attention.
	And the fifth caller drew out of me, shockingly enough, drew out of me a rant about Hollywood, corruption, sexual harassment, and Harvey Weinstein.
	It was a great conversation.
	Well, was it a conversation or just a rant?
	I'll let you be the judge.
	So here we go. Thanks again so much for all of your support of the show.
	Alright, well up first today we have Kevin.
	Kevin wrote in and said, In your recent video, The Unspoken Biology of Culture, you spoke at length about how our personality traits are to a large degree genetic.
	I've done a fair bit of research on this myself, and while I certainly can't dispute this conclusion, I would be lying to you if I did not wonder to exactly what extent my own personality traits were genetic as opposed to being shaped by my environment and upbringing.
	I look back at how I grew up and I believe that I've done a fairly decent job of piecing together how certain elements in my youth shaped me into who I am today.
	While I may take pride in certain aspects of who I am, there are also certain parts of my personality that I feel I need to work on to improve.
	I honestly feel these negative personality traits are holding me back, in many ways, from living a successful and fulfilling life.
	But if our personality is largely genetic, is there any point in trying to change or improve certain aspects of it?
	Am I doomed to be a slave to my own DNA, or can these obstacles be overcome?
	That's from Kevin.
	Hi Kevin, how are you doing tonight?
	I'm doing good, Steph. How are you?
	I'm doing good and well, I hope.
	I hope so. Is there stuff about your personality?
	Let's just say it's genetic.
	I mean, it's not 100%, but let's just take it for the moment as genetic.
	What are the aspects of your personality that you know likey?
	Yeah, so before we really get started there, there's this kind of one thing that I'd kind of like to get out of the way.
	Address if that's all right.
	Sure. Yeah, so first thing I wanted to say is that I do have a bit of a speech impediment, so if I kind of stammer a bit, if it gets hard to understand me.
	So far, if you hadn't told me, I wouldn't know.
	Yeah, well, if I get kind of tripped up, then I just wanted to apologize because I'm in advance, but yeah.
	As far as to answer your questions goes, I think that, I mean, I just wish I was more kind of outgoing and And charismatic in general, I guess. And what would you be willing to give up to get that?
	Because, you know, there's no addition in many things without subtraction.
	If you want more time with your family, that's less time at work.
	If you want to make more money, that's less time with your friends.
	If you want to have a hobby, that's less time for working out.
	So, what would you be willing to give up in order to get that trait?
	I guess time that I would be spending...
	Developing a sense of...
	Oh, no, no. Sorry, not time.
	What personality trait would you be willing to give up in order to be more outgoing?
	Oh, that's...
	What deal with the devil would you be willing to make to get what you want?
	Yeah. That's tough.
	Wow. I mean...
	I guess I don't really understand your question, because if I did develop certain personality traits, then I'm not sure I understand how other personality traits they already have when trying to go away, if that makes sense. Well, it's sort of a mental exercise, right?
	There are some personality traits that do seem to be kind of a win-lose, like you gain more of one.
	You know, like in video games, you have these attributes you can spend on your character.
	And if you add more to strength, then you get less for intelligence.
	If you add more for constitution, you get less for charisma.
	Now, that's a game, and personality isn't like that.
	But if we have the fantasy that we can somehow get the best of all personality traits, that's kind of an illusion, right?
	And so some people might like to say, I wish I was more outgoing.
	Well, if you're more outgoing and you endure socializing more, that means you're less comfortable sometimes with spending time with yourself, with being alone, with just reading or whatever it is, right?
	Going for solitary walks or whatever.
	Whereas if you say, well, I'd really like to be more comfortable in my own skin, sometimes that might mean giving up on some of your socializing skills.
	Say, well, I'd like to be more assertive.
	Okay, well, then that's going to mean, to some degree, a reduction in empathy.
	Because assertiveness is generally needed when...
	When you win and the other person, at least temporarily, is going to lose.
	And so if you have an excess of empathy, so to speak, it's going to be harder to be assertive.
	So if you want to be more assertive, are you willing to give up some of your empathy in order to get there?
	Like, I want to win. Okay, well, then you have to be comfortable winning and other people losing and maybe hating you for it.
	So are you willing to give up caring about what people think about you?
	And people say, well, I'd love to not care what people...
	Think about me. There's this fantasy that we can be out there and just do our thing and not care about what people think about us.
	But people who are like that to the extreme tend to be psychopaths, you know, who don't care at all what social standards are or what other people think about them.
	That is not a very healthy scenario.
	So that's my question.
	It is to, yeah, you know who didn't care what people thought about him?
	Harvey Weinstein. Actually, he did care that he would try and control the negative outcomes of his predilections.
	So what would you be willing to give up?
	Because if you think that your current personality is simply an ideal personality minus X, then you're going to feel deficient.
	But the reason we have these personality traits, the reason why they continue, It's that they are beneficial to humanity as a whole, right?
	So women tend to be more neurotic, and not a little bit, but quite a lot more neurotic, you know?
	Sometimes it seems like when I was younger, it seemed like women had, here are your two choices, ladies.
	You can be worrying, or you can be discontented, but you can't ever be anything else.
	And so people who worry say, oh, I wish I was less of a worrywart.
	Well, the reason why we have worrying is because particularly for those of us whose ancestors grew up in a cold climate, well, you needed to plan for the winter.
	You couldn't be a grasshopper.
	You had to be the ant to plan for the winter and to not eat too much to make sure that you planned ahead and you worried about having enough food for the winter because those who didn't, Starved to death.
	So worry is a very healthy trait to have.
	Now people say, well, I worry too much.
	It's like, okay, well, what would you be willing to give up in order to worry less?
	Because otherwise, if you say, well, I could be exactly the same but with less worry, then you can't be exactly the same with less worry.
	Because if you have less worry, you will probably end up with, like, who would you be If you had less worry?
	Or who would you, Kevin, be if you had more of an outgoing nature?
	Well, a lot of the skills and things about yourself that I assume you like were developed because you didn't have as much of an outgoing nature.
	So you can take on more passengers, but who are you going to throw overboard?
	Yeah, I guess that makes sense.
	So looking at the five big personality traits right here...
	Extroversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness.
	So if I was trying to improve my extroversion, I guess, to become more outgoing and charismatic in general, I'd say that maybe I'd be willing to sacrifice a little bit of conscientiousness,
	I guess. Mostly just because I feel like I kind of do just Overanalyze certain situations and think too much about certain things without actually doing anything, without actually taking action.
	Right, so you'd shave a little bit of excess in conscientiousness in order to add it to your outgoingness, right?
	Yeah. You know, that's not an uncommon correlation in my experience.
	The people who tend to be really outgoing don't tend to be very detail-oriented.
	You know, some of the best salespeople I knew, you couldn't get them to fill out an accurate expense report to save their lives, right?
	Used to drive me crazy. Yeah.
	Okay, so here's my question for you, Kevin.
	Why are you not more outgoing?
	In other words, if you have a preference for a particular way of being, when you're in a situation where you could be more outgoing, what is holding you back?
	Yeah, I thought you'd ask this actually.
	So, I think the main reason why I am not particularly outgoing, I think that was developed largely because of my stutter, because of my speech impediment.
	Growing up, I was always kind of a quiet kid for understandable reasons, because whenever I'd speak, you know, in class or in public, I'd, you know, Stutter here and there, stammer, and I would just get made fun of.
	Probably, really. I mean, you know how three-year-olds, four-year-olds, five-year-olds can be sometimes.
	They don't really understand, you know, oh, that kid, he has a speech impediment.
	All they really see is, oh, he talks funny.
	So, yeah. So I kind of got made fun of a lot because of that.
	People called me, you know, broken record and things like that a lot growing up.
	And so I think that In order to avoid being made fun of for the way I talked, I would just choose to not talk.
	So I was always kind of, I mean, once that got me talking, I think I usually had pretty useful stuff to say for the most part, but I didn't talk very much.
	I didn't put myself out there very much.
	I even remember Growing up, back when I was younger, at the beginning of every school year, I'd talk to my teachers on the first day of school and say, listen, I have a speech impediment, so unless I raise my hand in class and showing you a signal that I actually want to talk, I'd prefer if you just don't call on me.
	Yeah, I think that kind of Had a lot to do with why I never really was the most kind of outgoing.
	Right. And do you have any idea where your speech impediment came from?
	Well, yeah. I actually did a lot of research on this and a few tabs open about this now.
	So the research, as far as I understand it, for its tutoring in particular, isn't 100% conclusive one way or the other.
	100% genetic, if it's 100% environmental, or if they...
	I'm sorry, what was it?
	What was genetic versus environmental?
	Oh, yeah. The research isn't 100% there one way or the other.
	At least as far as my understanding goes, No one really knows...
	No, no, sorry. I just want a clarification on the number.
	Sorry to interrupt. I thought you said 10% genetic and 100% environmental, which, of course, doesn't make sense.
	I'm sure I misheard, but if you could repeat that.
	Oh, yeah, of course. So, to clarify, no one really knows if stuttering is 100% genetic or 100% environmental or if it's some combination of the two.
	There are...
	A lot of theories going one way or the other.
	There have been twin studies done, and certain genes have been associated with stuttering.
	People who do stutter have a presence of this certain gene here.
	Other people who don't stutter don't.
	In my own personal life, I know that my mom actually had a stutter when She was growing up, and I asked her about this all the time.
	She said that it just kind of went away when she got older, around the time when she was 18, 19.
	It just kind of went away on its own.
	She never went to speech therapy or anything like that.
	And by the time she had me, she didn't really tell her at all.
	So, I mean, that, to me, at least kind of speaks to a genetic Yeah, I did actually.
	I went to, well, I actually saw this really great woman who helped me out a lot.
	I went to her for class for the first time when I was about seven or eight years old, I think.
	I don't think that I really absorbed a lot of it back then just because I was so young.
	So I ended up Seeing her again going through the same sort of program when I was about 15 and since I was just older I had a lot I absorbed a lot a lot more but a lot more kind of uh just basic kind of skills and techniques that you can use to um mitigate the problem like if you certain techniques like certain techniques and breathing techniques and stuff you can use um if you are you know Stuttering really badly to kind of just speak more smoothly.
	So, yeah.
	Now, in your conversation with me, I've noticed no stuttering, so help me understand if there are trigger points or if it comes and goes or what, if you don't mind.
	Yeah, of course. So, the short of it is I really only...
	I really only stutter badly if I'm in particular situations where I'm really nervous.
	I mean, and right here, talking to you right now, I feel pretty comfortable and at ease, and I don't really feel nervous at all.
	And it's also another one of those things when I'm...
	So since I'm talking to you now about speech and fluency and stuff like that, since I'm consciously thinking about it, When that happens, I tend to really not tutter at all.
	It's really only in situations where I get really, really nervous.
	And it gets a lot worse from there.
	I kept in flashbacks of the primary debates with Jeb Bush and how he just turned into a stuttering mess whenever he'd have to answer a lot of the questions.
	Yeah, it's really only in situations where I'd be nervous that it really strongly kind of manifests itself.
	That's not genetic then.
	Yeah, well...
	No, just for people to understand, your height is genetic, right?
	And you don't get taller or shorter based on whether you're nervous or not.
	Like height is 100% genetic, right?
	Assuming that you get enough to eat and so on, right?
	And so height is not something that is affected by whether you're nervous or not in the moment.
	If you have some genetic issue, like you have one of those stunted arms or something, it doesn't get big or small depending on your state of mind, right?
	So if you have a particular nervous habit or you could say nervous tic called a speech impediment that only shows up When you are nervous, then it could be, of course, maybe there's a genetic predisposition to this is how your nervousness manifests itself.
	Maybe for other people, it manifests as blushing or excessive sweating or, you know, blurting or whatever it is, right?
	But the manifestation to me would not be genetic if the trigger points are environmental and emotional.
	Yep, that... It's actually kind of the way that I've thought about it for a while as well.
	I thought that, I mean, it's brought about by environmental circumstances, but the reason that it manifests itself as a stutter, I thought that that was kind of the genetic basis.
	Did you have, I'm sorry to interrupt, did you have a time before stuttering showed up in your life when you were very little?
	I honestly can't remember one.
	For the most part, basically as soon as I could talk.
	I really can't remember a time when I could talk and didn't have a stutter.
	And how old were you when your parents got divorced?
	I was 14 or 15.
	Right. Right.
	Well, I mean, as far as what I can talk about, it's not much.
	Because if you're saying, well, I wish I were more outgoing, but what's in the way of me being outgoing is my stutter, then that's not a particularly philosophical question.
	I mean, if there's a sort of self-knowledge question or a way of relaxing, and I'm sure you know infinitely more about this than I do, and you've worked with this your whole life.
	So I respect, and I respect the fact that your parents got you into early intervention and so on.
	But if you would like to have a particular aspect of your personality, more access to it, but what gets in the way is something you may have a genetic predisposition to or anxiety escalates and so on.
	There's not a philosophical question involved there, at least as far as I, since I'm certainly no speech pathologist, that I feel I can answer.
	Yeah, yeah. You know, sort of like me saying, well, I'd love to be a hair model, but...
	I'd love to be in the NBA, but I'm short.
	Whatever, right? So, as far as, like, you would like to have access to be more outgoing, but there's a genetic predisposition or some sort of anxiety-triggered speech impediment, then that's not a philosophical question that I can particularly do much with.
	Yeah, yeah. I guess that...
	I guess that makes sense. Yeah.
	And if it's been around since you were a little kid and if your parents didn't get, you know, if it was like, well, I was perfectly, I had perfect elocution until my parents got divorced and then I've had a study, you know, that could be something where you could look at a sort of causality.
	Yeah, yeah. It's a That's true, I guess.
	Sorry, just to answer your general question, as far as I understand the research as it stands, you said that you wondered to exactly what extent your own personality traits are genetic.
	You understand there's no answer to that.
	Yeah. Right. Exactly.
	I mean, there's no possible.
	I think even with all the knowledge in the known universe, you couldn't ever answer that question.
	Now, you can change and people can alter.
	I mean, I went through a very shy phase as a kid.
	So you can change and you can alter things.
	In your life, you can, I believe, work on, and I think that there's evidence for this, that you can work on, you know, if you have significant neuroses, then you can learn to, you know, this is part of cognitive therapy, right? Which is CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, you can interrupt or intercept the thoughts that lead to particular anxiety, right?
	And so there are ways to adjust.
	So if...
	I'll tell you what the difference is.
	So if you have no desire to alter a particular part of your personality, then clearly there's really not much...
	I mean, if you love being outgoing, you love being the life of the party, you love being the guy at the center of attention, being the center of attention, and it works for you, and it's bound up in your job, and people, you know, your wife married you because she loves that outgoing side of you, and your kids love it, and you love it, then, okay, I guess theoretically you could change it, but...
	Why would you? I mean, but if you want to express, this to me is where the genetics and the environment sort of collide, and I think we can look more towards environment.
	So if you want to be more outgoing and expressive, but you're afraid, then that to me is a part of your personality that is more genetic that has been interrupted or interfered with or suppressed through your environment.
	So if you want, if you have visions of being the center of attention and outgoing, but when you try to achieve that, you're scared of it.
	Well, fear is not a genetic predisposition, if that makes sense.
	I mean, there's some anxiety levels and so on that may be.
	But anxiety would be more general.
	But to me, if there's something really specific that you want to do, Then I believe if you want to do something, you probably have a chance.
	If you're not crazy, you're not crazy, right?
	So if I want to be a flower, okay, well, not going to work out.
	But I mean, so for myself, I always wanted to be somebody who stimulated thought in a public arena.
	And I always believed I could do it if I had the opportunity to.
	And I very much remember the first time that I was on somebody else's podcast show.
	I hadn't done any radio work since I was a DJ in college.
	And I was like, I can do this.
	I can do this.
	And so if you're scared, I think that means that you have maybe the capacity for that, that that may be more innate to you.
	But you're held back from expressing it because of some external or internal caution or anxiety about it.
	And so there I think you can, you know, progressive exposure.
	You can join Toastmasters.
	You can practice.
	You know, I practiced speeches long before I had a podcast.
	I just speak to a car.
	But like just turning the recording on was not that huge change.
	It came across I think as somewhat natural.
	So that would be, if you want to look, for me at least, the indicator as to whether something is genetic.
	Or environmental is that if you really want to do it but you're scared, that to me indicates that the genetic potential is there but something has interfered with the exploration and expression of that aspect of yourself.
	That is a really great answer, yeah.
	And I know that there's no...
	There's proplasticity and all that and that you can kind of train your brain to...
	Behave in certain ways, especially when in your younger years, a bit easier than when you get older.
	So yeah, that's really good.
	I'd say that...
	I'd say that just about answered my question.
	Well, fantastic. I appreciate your question, and I wish you the best of luck in exploring your more extroverted self.
	It's good to have options to these kinds of things.
	To me, if you want to have free will, then you have to be able to do things that you're uncomfortable with.
	Otherwise, you're just bouncing off emotional reactions, which isn't really the same as being free.
	So I like to have the option to be more extroverted if the situation requires it, or if it's more sort of solitary work, I like to have the option to do that.
	So I think if you have less fear, you have more free will.
	So I wish you the very best in exploring your extroverted self.
	I'm sure you'll do very well. All right.
	Thanks, man. Thank you very much, Zach.
	Alright, up next we have Jennifer.
	Jennifer wrote in and said,"...it seems an inevitable trend in culture for men and women to continue to separate into what looks like a clear fact-slash-value split.
	This complicates and most likely prevents the potential for healing between the sexes.
	I have been working to understand the history and reasoning behind feminism, and discouraged to find men and women growing more distant from one another." End quote.
	What would it take for men to realize and live out this truth?
	That's from Jennifer. So, how are you doing tonight?
	Great. How are you?
	I'm well. I'm well, thanks. So, let me give you a brief analogy, and then we can take it from there, if that's alright?
	Sure. Alright. Jennifer, I've noticed that the workers in the Stalinist factories I'm kind of lazy.
	You know, they don't show up really on time.
	They're drunk sometimes.
	They just kind of indifferently do their work.
	And, you know, what do you think it would take for workers in the Soviet-era factory under Stalin, what do you think it would take for them to become energetic, to become engaged, to become involved, to become hardworking and ambitious?
	Stefan, you're throwing the question back at me.
	It's always nice when people describe what I'm doing.
	It's like explaining a joke.
	It's great. Okay, I'm sorry.
	And that's because I'm slow.
	So do you want me to answer that?
	Yeah. Okay.
	It would take an invested interest in what they were doing.
	Okay, that's pretty abstract.
	What practically would it take?
	It's different for different people, but if you're talking about factory work, it's really hard for me to compare factory work to Marriage and family life.
	It's a hard comparison.
	Why? I mean, do you think that...
	Because, you know, when factory workers were working under Soviet Russia, they didn't show up.
	They did shoddy work. They were, quote, lazy, right?
	And then, when they got economic freedom, more or less, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and some shift towards more free market policies...
	Lo and behold, they started working hard, and they started showing up to work on time, and they started to become ambitious.
	Same thing happened, of course, in China, after the worst aspects of Chairman Mao's communist dictatorship were relaxed or withdrawn in the 1990s and onwards.
	People started to work. And when I was in China in the year 2000, I mean, there was a thriving and bustling market there that you could go down and haggle for just about anything.
	Same thing happened in India when India embraced free market reforms.
	And you no longer got paid for just showing up or maybe not even showing up.
	You got paid for how much you produced and how valuable you were to the company.
	And lo and behold, people sort of stood up straight.
	They came into work. They worked hard because they had freedom.
	They had freedom and therefore they had responsibility.
	You work hard. You work harder.
	You do better. And if you don't work hard, you don't work harder, you get fired.
	So people had freedom of association and they weren't guaranteed an income.
	And lo and behold, they went from lazy to hardworking because they were free.
	Okay. Now the analogy there, of course, why do women need men In the material sense, in the modern West.
	Give me the case as to why a woman needs a man.
	Now, I wasn't asking that question, but I heard a really good example of why men and women working together, the end result is actually an exponential benefit.
	We'll get to that, and I'm sorry to be annoying, but why do women need a man for material reasons?
	You could say, well, for love, affection, or sex, but from a pure material resource standpoint, why does a young woman need a man at the moment?
	I hate that question, but I will try to answer it.
	Some people who are materialists in their mindset would think they would need a man for provision, for protection, and for probably companionship would probably be a materialistic mindset to needing a man.
	Companionship's not too material. So let's just talk about the money, right?
	Okay. Yeah, we've talked about that before.
	So why does a woman need a provider?
	Or does she, in the modern West?
	Yes. Well, in the modern West, no, but she should.
	So, in the modern West, women get men's resources without having to provide anything in return.
	Right, so you're alluding to basically that for men to take on this traditional role that they used to have before the Industrial Revolution, that it's basically about return on investment.
	Is that what you're basically saying?
	I'm just saying that in the same way that Soviet-era workers can't get fired and get paid whether they work or not, whether they provide value or not, in the same way, Women get paid whether they're worth anything or not, whether they work on a relationship or not, whether they're mature or not, they get paid either way.
	So how can we expect women We're good to go.
	At a factory, right?
	And working hard at a relationship to improve it, to make it better, working hard to gather resources, working hard to get the best possible person you can to date you.
	Because, you know, when it comes to, like, we all aim high with regards to sexual market value.
	You know, we all want to date the people with the highest sexual market value.
	Whatever that happens to be. It could be looks, it could be character, personality, money, it could be any combination of those things.
	The best possible person.
	In the same way, we all want to get the best possible job.
	That we can get. Now, it's hard and sometimes, well, it's emotionally difficult.
	You know, like, if you're aiming for a 10 and the best you could do is a 7, well, you've got to look hard in the mirror and say, okay, well, where am I really on the scale of sexual market value?
	It's humbling, if not downright humiliating, sometimes.
	So let me finish then, all right?
	So why would you want to go through all that difficulty?
	Why would you want to go through all of that difficulty If you can just go to the government and say, I need, I want, and the government just sends you free healthcare, free education for your children, free housing, free food, free money, why would you bother?
	I completely agree.
	What's happened is the ambition for something better, something more whole, more wholesome has been taken away because these counterfeit solutions have been given to people that are very empty and easy and it takes away a depth,
	like a depth of character, a yearning for wholeness, a yearning for connection and Something better than yourself.
	And I agree, Stefan.
	I know what the barriers are.
	What I'm trying to say is, what I'm realizing is in this research I'm doing on history, because I've come at this problem through a narrow-mindedness, and I've blamed feminists, and I've taken things probably for granted.
	And I'm realizing that men have been pulled away from their natural roles the same way that women have.
	And I've been kind of harsh on feminists for that.
	And I apologize for those who probably are hearing me that might have heard that before.
	I'm realizing that it's very complex and that there's a yearning between men and women For wholeness and connectedness and intimacy.
	And there are complex issues in the Industrial Revolution.
	And as you say, Stéphane, this push for providing everything and yet providing nothing.
	And I want people to understand that it's possible for For men and women to come back together and build something really beautiful and really good together.
	And I want that for people.
	And I guess that's why I called in.
	I'm just looking for more...
	why men would be motivated to return.
	They used to write cookbooks for men.
	They used to write home building and home making books tailored towards men.
	They were involved.
	They were involved in the home and it wasn't like this part-time dad thing where I just come home from work and I spend my last few hours working It wasn't a weekend dad thing.
	It was a full-time life together.
	It was intimate. It was connected.
	And it's possible for us to get back to that.
	It takes so much sacrifice.
	And it takes a completely different mindset.
	And that's where I'm going.
	I don't quite understand.
	I mean, communism had to fall for the workers to have the right incentives to start working hard.
	Like, the entire system had to change because the incentives were completely screwed up.
	Right. Right? I mean, not only were you paid...
	For being lazy. But you were punished for working hard.
	You know, those people who've spent any time around sort of unionized productivity arenas.
	You know how this works.
	If you produce double the widgets as the guy next to you, do you know what he's going to say?
	Whoa. Slow down there, bucko.
	Slow down. You're making me look bad.
	Right? Because he doesn't want that possibility to be there.
	So not only are you rewarded for being lazy, you're punished for working hard.
	Now you can say, well, it would be nice if we could somehow get these factory workers to work hard.
	It would be great if they took a kind of innate pride in their work and blah, blah.
	But human beings respond to incentives.
	And as long as the incentives are so screwed up as they are right now in the modern world...
	There are women out there who hate men.
	There are men out there who hate women.
	Now, in the free market, they can make their case.
	But who cares? They'll be on the very margins of society.
	And nobody will really listen to them.
	But you see, when you have the government printing money and you have the government creating all of these massive debt-laden, unfunded liability-laden welfare state programs, and the welfare state is primarily aimed at women, just as the warfare state is primarily aimed at men in terms of benefits.
	And as long as you have these massive government programs and you're firing this cannon full of money at irresponsible women...
	Then saying women need men is just not true.
	It's like if the government had a ministry of whoredom, you know, and I'm not talking about mainstream media, something a little bit more subtle.
	If the government had a ministry of whoredom where a man could fill out a form and then, you know, every day the hottest woman that he could imagine came over and had like an hour of sex with him and left without charging, what would happen?
	Well, there wouldn't be a whole lot of romance.
	There wouldn't be a whole... Now, eventually, of course, men would get, you know, I'm tired of this, and I'd rather have some blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	But by then, they would have lost the capacity to have intimacy because they had prostituted for 10 years.
	And this is some of the stuff we talked about in the pornography, right?
	The pornography addiction conversation that I recently had on the show.
	And so you can say, well, I'd like men and women to come together and this and that and the other, but what's happened is that the wedge experts, right?
	So if someone comes to you and says, let's say you're happily married in a free market society, right?
	You're having problems with your husband, but you need him because you've got three kids and you need a provider.
	So what happens is you dig your...
	Heels in, you dig your feet in, and you work it out.
	You figure out some way.
	He needs you, and you need him.
	And it's the need that makes the compromise, right?
	Because you can't survive without each other, so you'll find a way to make it work.
	And that's how marriage used to work for the most part.
	Now, there may be people who come along in your life and say, oh, men are pigs, men are scum.
	And you shouldn't have anything to do.
	You're a slave to him and you shouldn't have any...
	Well, those people will come along and you'll evaluate what they have to say and then you'll say, okay, well, if I leave my husband, I've got three kids, so it's not like men are going to be lining up to date me.
	I won't have any source of income and I will be socially ostracized because I'm a terrible person who broke up a marriage for no very good reason.
	So you'll say, okay, well, it's terrible that you're putting all of this poison in my ear about how terrible men are, but the reality of the situation is I can't afford to have that kind of thinking.
	I literally cannot afford to have that kind of thinking.
	And so the wedge experts...
	Don't gain any traction, because practical material concerns drown out the sort of poison pill Iago stuff that they're spilling into people's ears.
	Now, once you get a welfare state—this goes back to your question, Jennifer, about—or your issue or comments about feminism—when you get a welfare state— Then if someone comes along and says, oh, men are pigs, you're a slave, you're not self-actualized, you've got to be empowered, and that means being independent of men, you've got to be free, you've got to earn your own money, you can't remain a child your whole life, you've got to grow up.
	Well, you can much more easily listen to those people because you don't need the men.
	And so you can listen to that person, the poison pill spreads, right?
	So feminism is not the cause of But the effect of the government redistribution of income.
	So once women are economically independent of men, not through virtue of their own hard work, but through virtue of outliving men and outvoting men, then feminism can spread because women don't need men.
	Or they do need men, but they don't have to work.
	To get a man's resources.
	They don't have to provide value.
	They don't have to run a household.
	They don't have to raise his children.
	They don't have to listen to his fishing stories.
	You know, whatever. They don't have to listen to a man.
	They don't have to negotiate with a man.
	They just get his resources anyway.
	Because the state will either print them or borrow them or go and steal them at gunpoint and deliver them without her even having to open the mail.
	Because now it's direct deposit into her bank account.
	So feminism spreads because...
	Like, think of feminism like laziness under communism.
	Laziness is just an ideology.
	Why bother? Who cares?
	It doesn't matter, you know, whether you work hard or whether you don't work hard.
	You're gonna die anyway. It's kind of a nihilism of productivity.
	And if you try and convince people in the free market, oh, you know, be lazy, who cares?
	Don't, you know, don't be a slave to the man.
	Go into work when you feel like it.
	If you don't feel like it, call in sick.
	Who cares? Well, people will say, well, if I listen to you, I'm gonna get fired.
	Then there's no money, right? I'm going to live in my car and then I can live under a bridge and then I'm going to have to try and get a role in a Hollywood movie.
	God help me. I'm going to be that low.
	That's how broken down I'm going to be.
	And so laziness or this sort of economic productivity nihilism, it doesn't really spread that much in the free market because you get punished for following that.
	But in a communist environment or in a sort of government piecework environment, then laziness spreads like crazy.
	And it's the same thing, once women get resources through the state from men through force, then feminism can spread, because it kind of makes sense, in the same way that laziness makes sense.
	And also, when you get enough people who are divorced and have crappy relationships, in the same way that if you work hard...
	In a communist environment, your co-workers will hate you, they will shun you, they will sabotage you, they will slash the cars on your tire, and you get punished.
	And in the same way, if you are in a single mom environment, and I've seen this too, if someone starts having a great relationship, all the other women hate her.
	I mean, they hate her. And then they start whispering, well, he's not that great.
	Oh, did you hear this? Oh, I saw this on his Facebook post.
	They just work to sabotage it in the same way that if you're really productive in a communist environment, the other workers will work to sabotage what you're doing.
	And this is why we know this for a fact, that divorce is contagious, right?
	If you have a close family member getting divorced, your chances of getting divorced go up like 70%.
	And if it's dose-dependent, if it's a more distant relative, it's like 50%.
	If it's a friend, it's like 30%.
	Misery loves company.
	And right now, we have so many people with so many crappy relationships who are doing so much bad parenting that anyone who's in that environment who improves...
	You are a target.
	So you have a whole variety of incentives.
	Like in communism, it's not just that they don't pay you more or less whether you show up or don't.
	It's that you actually get punished for being productive.
	And now it's not only you get resources whether you're a good or bad partner, but if you're a good partner, you're going to get punished by everyone around you.
	So, Stefan, how do we offer hope to people?
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	What do you mean? I'm not sure what you mean by hope.
	Everything you said is pretty depressing.
	I mean... What does philosophy have to do with hope?
	I don't know. It's like you go to the doctor and you say, how do you offer me hope?
	It's like, I can offer you hope.
	I can offer you facts. I don't know what hope means in this context.
	Okay. All right.
	I agree with you.
	If you drive your car into the mechanics and you haven't changed the oil in five years and you say, give me hope!
	I can't give you hope, I can just tell you the facts.
	There's got to be someone that will listen to this and say...
	I don't want that anymore.
	I want to change.
	I want something different. I want something better.
	And yes, that has something to do with philosophy.
	It's definitely related to philosophy.
	Hope is related to philosophy.
	Stefan, that's all I hear you offer people when I listen to you.
	When I listen to you speak to people, they're looking for hope.
	They're looking for meaning.
	They're calling in and looking for answers.
	But answers and hope.
	Not always the same thing.
	Like, hope is a very subjective experience.
	I can't offer people hope that's an emotional conclusion that is based upon particular perspectives.
	But it's interesting to me, I mean, this is a bit of a male-female thing, right?
	Like, I'm offering you facts and you want an emotion, right?
	No, no. I like facts.
	Believe me, I love facts and I love values.
	I just think that they work together.
	They can work together. You don't have to separate them.
	And actually, when they work together, it's so beautiful.
	That's the way it's supposed to be.
	It has been that way.
	Aristotle understood that.
	Plato understood that.
	Many great thinkers understood that facts and values can work and integrate together.
	And And so I'm not schooling you on anything philosophical.
	I have no ability to do that.
	I'm bankrupt in that department.
	But what I'm saying is, researching feminism, I think women are tired of hurting.
	They're tired of being lonely.
	And I think they're... I sense this...
	Identity crisis coming, where feminism is experiencing some sort of, they're having this cognitive dissonance experience where they're realizing, oh my gosh, this isn't what I thought it was going to be.
	I want something different, but I just don't know how to do it.
	And I think men too are like that.
	And they're seeking things like in the MGTOW movement and They're looking for answers.
	And so, you have a very prominent place in this, you know, world where people are looking for answers.
	And you can give people hope.
	They can hang up the phone and say, you know what?
	I think I'm not going to do that anymore.
	Or I'm going to change. Why would I want to?
	I'm not sure why. Like, let's say that there's a bunch of communists working in a factory or people working in a communist factory.
	The only hope that I can give them is burn down the whole system.
	I don't want them to have hope.
	I want them to have despair about communism.
	I want them to give up on communism.
	I want them to recognize it's always going to lead to destruction.
	So I want people to give up on state power.
	I want people to give up on violence.
	I want them to give up on coercion.
	I want them to give up government control over the currency.
	I want them to give up government control over debt.
	I want them to feel...
	All the black, inky-winged depths of despair that they're capable of so that they change.
	Like, if there's a guy who's a smoker, you don't want to give him hope he's going to be okay.
	You want to give him despair.
	You want to give him black, nihilistic, horrifying despair about smoking.
	And you want them to submit to freedom.
	Is that right, Stefan?
	Submit to freedom.
	Well, you speak about freedom a lot.
	But not submission to freedom.
	Freedom isn't Islam.
	Well, sacrifice.
	You have to sacrifice in order to have freedom.
	And that's, you know, marriage, that's what is required.
	There's great sacrifice in marriage.
	Why is there great sacrifice in marriage?
	We have to deny ourself in order to serve someone else and someone else's needs.
	Are you married at the moment?
	Yes. And what are the sacrifices that you make?
	I mean, not disagreeing with you, I just, I don't experience marriage as a sacrifice, but a liberation, but maybe I'm missing something.
	Well, do you do things when you're tired?
	Do you still wash the dishes?
	Do you help out when you don't want to?
	Do you act on something when you don't feel like doing it?
	Do you think about someone else's needs before your own?
	That's all sacrifice.
	Why? And why is it sacrifice?
	Which is mutual. Why?
	It's not mutual.
	Marriage is not mutual.
	It's not fair.
	It's not equal. Why is it not mutual?
	Some people give more than others.
	And like you said, men provide- Wait, wait, wait.
	Why is it not equal?
	What do you mean? We're different.
	Men and women are different.
	And we're different in many ways.
	That's not an answer. Difference doesn't mean unequal.
	Well, biologically we're different.
	Emotionally we're different. No, no.
	But how is it unequal for you?
	I don't look at equality like feminists do.
	To me, The soul is equal across the board.
	No, no, no. You've got to de-woo-woo this conversation.
	We're getting all kinds of fortune cookie stuff, right?
	And you want beauty and hope, not reason and evidence.
	But you said that marriage involves sacrifice.
	You serve other people and it's not equal.
	And that's the details. Give me some practical stuff.
	What are the details about how it's unequal, how you're serving your husband, and how it's not reciprocal?
	Okay, I'll give you something extremely practical.
	I hate clothes with grease on them, and I'll wash my husband's greasy clothes even though I don't want to.
	No, you do want to.
	If you didn't want to, you wouldn't do it.
	I mean, that's just a simple little analogy, but you do hundreds of those things every day.
	Let's stay on the one simple thing.
	Because this could be quite a liberating conversation for you, Jennifer.
	I promise you that. Because you'd love to not resent this, right?
	I have no resentment.
	Yes, you do. You said you hate to do it, but you do it anyway.
	And don't tell me there's no resentment involved in that.
	Stefan, stop.
	You cannot accuse me of something.
	And that's an accusation.
	I do not resent my husband.
	Okay, well, let's talk about something you do resent then.
	You said you hate to do it, but you do it anyway, and then you say you don't resent it.
	I resent being accused of something I'm not, but I was trying to speak about service and sacrifice, and you accused me of being resentful, and that's taking it to a personal level.
	I'm not accusing you of anything. I said, where is things unequal?
	Where are you serving someone against your wishes?
	And you said, I hate the grease stains on my husband's shirts.
	I hate washing them, but I'll do it anyway.
	Okay, I should probably have not used the word hate.
	Stefan, you try to tell me that men have to provide for women.
	Is that fair?
	Is that equal? Is the provision that men supply to their wives, is that equal to what the women give to the marriage?
	I don't know what equal means here.
	Like, honestly, I'm not being obtuse, Jennifer.
	I genuinely don't...
	Know what you mean by equal.
	Like, okay, have you ever played a team sport?
	Okay, if we want to talk mathematically, that's fine.
	No, no, no, hang on. Have you ever played a team sport?
	Yes. Okay, what was your team sport?
	Softball. Softball, okay.
	So, someone's pitching and someone's in the outfield, right?
	Are they doing different things?
	Yes. Are they unequal?
	Yes. Why?
	They have different roles.
	But why is that unequal? They're both equally valid and valuable to the team, right?
	One can't work without the other.
	It's got no one in the outfield, no one to catch.
	You've got no one pitching. You've got no one to throw.
	How is this unequal? They're different, but they're not unequal, right?
	If you've got a soccer team, you've got defenders, and you've got forwards, and you've got the goalkeeper.
	Now, they're all doing different things, but they're not unequal, right?
	What's happened, Stefan, is you've taken my point about sacrifice and And you've turned it into a linguistic argument against the word equal, and I didn't intend on that.
	No, you asked me. Don't stop weaseling out on me, Jennifer.
	You asked me very directly if it's unequal that a man has to provide for the woman.
	And I'm saying it's not unequal because he's providing, but she's running the household and raising the kids in the traditional setup, right?
	So it's not unequal.
	They're both doing different things in the same way that there are different roles on a team.
	That doesn't make people unequal. It just means they're doing different things.
	It just doesn't add up on a spreadsheet, Stefan.
	It's not zeroed out, okay?
	That's what I'm saying.
	I don't know what you're saying. There's sacrifice.
	There is sacrifice in marriage.
	Okay, now tell me what the sacrifice is, though.
	For a husband, paying the bills is not sacrifice.
	Because the woman is providing massive service in return in terms of running the household and raising the kids or whatever else she's doing.
	It could be any number of things. And it could be the other way as far as gender goes.
	It could be the woman who's working or the man who's raising the kids or whatever, right?
	But the fact that people are doing different things doesn't mean that they're unequal.
	But you can't look at marriage as a check the box.
	I did this, he did that.
	I did this, he did that.
	That's unhealthy. You can't do that.
	No, but that's what you're doing. No.
	Because you're saying that the man is doing this and the woman is doing that.
	There's sacrifice. It's not equal.
	You have to serve the other person.
	Isn't that a spreadsheet? What's your definition of service, Stefan?
	What's your definition of sacrifice?
	Why don't we just go there?
	Well, sacrifice is the exchange of a higher value for a lower value.
	Okay, do you ever do that in your marriage?
	I hope not, and I hope that my wife never does either.
	Do you ever give more than she does?
	I don't know what that means.
	No, listen, let me just give you a silly example, right?
	You go to a restaurant, and the restaurant cooks you the meal, and you pay for the meal.
	Is that a sacrifice?
	So everything to you is an equal exchange then, even in marriage?
	Well, if it's voluntary, by definition, both people are benefiting.
	So there's no sacrifice, in your opinion, in marriage?
	Not in my marriage. I don't even know what the term means.
	Like, am I saying, well, I could be with a much better woman, but I'm going to stick it out with you.
	It's like, ew! That would be pretty gross, right?
	I mean, are there times when I do things when I'd rather be doing something else?
	But that's not marriage.
	That's life. I mean, I've done these, not tonight, I've done these call-in shows when I'm tired and I have a headache, right?
	It's like, you know, that's just life.
	Life is, you've got to go to the dentist rather than do a rave, you know?
	I mean, sometimes. I mean, of course you have to do things that you don't ideally want to do in some abstract, platonic, perfect world, but that's not a marriage thing.
	That's a life thing. Wow.
	That's kind of sad.
	It's sad that my wife and I don't sacrifice for each other and consider ourselves lucky to be in the relationship.
	I'm not sure what you mean by happy, if that's sad to you.
	I don't think marriage is meant to make you happy.
	I mean, I don't know what your definition of happy is.
	What do you mean marriage is not supposed to make you happy?
	What's your definition of happy?
	Well, happiness is an emotional experience.
	And usually, to me, happiness is when you are living in accordance with your values when sometimes it can be difficult to do so.
	I'm loving this conversation.
	I really appreciate it.
	I do. I mean, I do, Stefan.
	I appreciate it. Are you willing to even go here with me?
	It's not hard. I brought it up.
	I brought all of this up because I'm realizing that I've been researching feminism for years and I'm realizing that men are really hurting now and they're wanting closeness and intimacy.
	No, no, no. We're not going to abstractions.
	Jennifer, you just told me you're not happy in your marriage.
	Oh my gosh! That's an abstraction right there, Stefan!
	Are you kidding?
	No! Do you want me to quote you back what you said?
	You said marriage is not supposed to make you happy.
	That's right. So does that mean you're not happy in your marriage?
	Stefan, do you...
	Okay, in terms of a concept of...
	It's just a yes-no answer.
	You don't have to answer anything, but I'm not going to pretend I didn't ask the question.
	No, no, no. It's okay. I would prefer to use the word content.
	So if that's okay with you, I'd like to take the conversation to the concept of contentment instead of happiness.
	So you're going to bring up personal stuff, but you're not going to answer any personal questions, right?
	No, no. That's a personal answer.
	I'm content. I am more content.
	That's what I'm trying to tell feminists, that you can be content in a marriage.
	You can be content as a wife, as a mother.
	It is good on the other side.
	And it's not easy.
	It's complex.
	And it can be a challenge.
	Every day can be a challenge.
	But you can find contentment in marriage, where a lot of feminists are afraid of getting married and You know, returning to this natural role.
	Why is it so complex, a marriage?
	Oh boy, that's a good question.
	Do you have an answer for that?
	My marriage is not complex.
	Your marriage is simple?
	Yeah. Wow, you should write a book on that.
	Real-time relationships, baby.
	No, it's not like, I mean, I have, I don't know, a significant conflict, which is usually very productive with my wife, maybe once a year.
	And we really enjoy each other's company.
	She's great fun.
	She's wonderful. She works hard.
	I work hard. Not at the marriage.
	I already have a job.
	I don't want a part-time job called holding up a marriage.
	And just between you and me, Jennifer.
	I've never understood.
	I've had relationships that are a lot of work.
	And they don't work out.
	Because a relationship is supposed to be Like a car.
	You don't buy a car just to maintain it.
	Well, having a car is a lot of work.
	Sure, you get to drive a couple hours a week, but the rest of the time you spend tinkering under a hood and trying to make sure it doesn't explode.
	You know, like that's not really having a car.
	Okay, every now and then something might go wrong with your car, you take it into the shop and you get it fixed.
	But you don't want to have a car that you're spending as much time Maintaining as you are driving it.
	Are you comparing your wife to a car?
	What kind of car would she be?
	No, I'm comparing my relationship to a car.
	I don't want a very complicated relationship with my car.
	I want a very simple relationship with my car.
	That doesn't mean the car has to be simple, but my relationship with it should be simple.
	And I would not want a complicated relationship.
	So can I take it back to your original points about how a society attacks and shuns those who are trying to, you know, do better and have, so basically if you compared it, so you were comparing a communist factory to marriage.
	If marriage were like that, and you, so if you are like an example, Stefan, your marriage is an example for others to emulate, and you want other people, you want to tell other people that it can be good, then are you saying, are you attacked?
	Is your marriage, your personal life attacked for being good?
	Do you experience that?
	Well, of course it is. So you're shunned for having a good relationship with your wife.
	Oh no, I preemptively shunned.
	Do people discourage you? No, I preemptively shunned because I knew people in my life who had bad marriages.
	I mean, I knew people in my life who...
	Man, I mean, oh, marriage is work, and it's tough, and I mean, I bought into that for a while.
	Well, quite a while.
	In fact, you know, marriage is a work, relationships are tough, and so on.
	And then... I met a woman where that wasn't the case.
	And now I think we've got enough.
	We've known each other 16 years.
	We've been married 15 years.
	I think we've got enough time under our belt to recognize and to understand that, no, it's not tough.
	It's huge fun and requires almost no maintenance and is more enjoyable every year.
	Now, the people in my life, like, I'll tell you something.
	Let me tell you something that happened before I got married, Jennifer.
	Never said this before.
	Let me tell you something. I was just thinking about this today for some reason.
	Oh! Premonition! But I was thinking about this.
	I won't identify the person, but let's just say close.
	And I was noticing that this person in my life wasn't really getting to know my wife-to-be.
	My girlfriend, she was only my girlfriend for a couple of months, we got engaged.
	And at one point I sat down and said, what's going on?
	Why aren't you getting to know my bride-to-be?
	And he said, why would I bother getting to know her?
	You're just going to get divorced anyway.
	Now, how long do you think my relationship with that person lasted after a comment like that?
	If you're in the milliseconds, you would be stretching it quite a bit.
	Because that's just like, nope.
	First of all, we're not going to get divorced.
	And I'm right about that.
	And secondly, I can't have someone like that around my marriage.
	Because our consciousnesses are socially constructed.
	And if I have someone around who's invested in being correct by...
	My marriage failing. Sorry.
	Can't have that around.
	Don't have tigers babysit my infant daughter.
	Don't have people like that around my marriage.
	Right. But do you have people that encourage you?
	Well, we don't need encouragement because it's great.
	Yeah. I'm just being honest with you.
	I respect your honesty.
	But are you basically saying that there's more people that are discouraging than there are that encourage?
	When people have a bad relationship, they find being around a good relationship unpleasant.
	Right. So, I mean, because our society is, it's plagued with bad relationships.
	I'm going to have to be blunt with you.
	No, I'm saying- No, I have to be blunt with you.
	I'm so sorry. Everyone can see it but you.
	And I'm not criticizing you.
	It's very hard to see yourself in these kinds of situations.
	You have an issue in your marriage and you like to talk about male-female abstractions because you don't want to talk about your marriage.
	Stefan, I have to stop you.
	I'm doing research for a master's degree and I'm focusing on feminism.
	And why do you think you're focusing on that topic, Jennifer?
	Because I think it's a need in our society.
	I think there's brokenness and I think that women are hurting and men are hurting and that's why I called you to say...
	That I think that both men and women are hurting.
	I didn't call for a psychological analysis and I didn't call for you to criticize and accuse me.
	I called to have a really decent conversation about the problem.
	I didn't call for you to accuse me and also to make presuppositions about something that you don't know anything about.
	So, I'm trying to be respectful.
	If you're interpreting my concern for things that you've said about your marriage, that it's unequal, that you hate doing some stuff for your husband, that you feel you serve him and so on, let me finish my thought.
	I'll just cut you off if you want.
	Let me finish my thought. Sorry. Sorry.
	Go ahead. Look, I could have ignored that.
	I could have pretended you didn't say that, but I care.
	And so I would much rather talk about personal experiences than abstractions, particularly if those abstractions are rooted in personal experiences.
	Intellectualism is a very strong psychological defense, and it's very tough to penetrate, as I think we can see.
	And so the fact that you would use this escalating language, Jennifer, like being accused, and it's like, no, I'm reflecting back to you what you said.
	I'm not accusing you of anything.
	In fact, you're the one who's being accusatory, but you don't see it.
	You're accusing me of negative behavior.
	I haven't accused you of anything.
	I've reflected back to you what you have said to me, and you're getting mad at me for repeating back to you what you've said to me.
	And that's a lack of self-responsibility that is not particularly pleasant.
	No, I'm not mad, Stefan, at all.
	I was really hoping that you would be able to relate to the problem that I see.
	And that's why I shared I shared Nancy Piercy's book.
	Those quotes were from Nancy Piercy, and it's a book called Total Truth.
	And perhaps, you know, I suggested some things that you've never heard before, that marriage is not meant to make you happy, and that it's not equal, and that there is sacrifice.
	And those things might have caused some issues there.
	I don't know. And I apologize for that.
	You're analyzing me and my emotional reactions to new information.
	No. No, no, I apologize if that's the case.
	I apologize if what's the case?
	If you've told me that marriage is not supposed to make you happy and I'm upset by that because my marriage is happy?
	Why on earth would I be upset by you telling me something that doesn't accord to my own experience and would be a negative for me?
	Well, because you turned it back on me, Stefan, that's why.
	So, I was making a point about that there's sacrifice in marriage, and it went way over to equality and things like that, and probably an area that I just don't have enough expertise to talk about.
	Okay, well, I'm sorry that we misunderstood each other, but this conversation is too much work for me, and I'm not married to you.
	So, let's move on to the next caller, but I appreciate you calling in.
	Okay, thank you.
	Alright, up next we have Sam.
	Sam wrote in and said, By definition, the atheistic worldview believes that all life is the product of natural forces.
	But with the discovery of DNA as a source of human genetic code, how can it be argued that the information that makes us up is purely natural, considering that information is independent of matter?
	And how can it be argued that life was made by nature when the components to make life are irreducibly complex?
	That's from Sam.
	Hello, Sam. How are you doing tonight?
	Doing all right. Have you been listening so far to the show?
	Yes, sir. Have been. All right.
	We have to shake off the feminine fog that we just clawed our way through.
	So let's keep going on with this.
	Okay. So can you give me the case about the rising of life that required immaterial forces?
	Well, what I would say is that Well, I wouldn't necessarily argue for a particular perspective on this, whether that be any one of the religions.
	I would say that since information is independent of matter, it would have to be created by an intelligent force.
	Because, you know, by definition, matter does not create information.
	Matter does not create information, but DNA is not what we would call information.
	Yes, it would be. The chemicals, let me see here, the nuclear bases that makes it up, you know, the A's, C's, T's, and G's, they would be considered in the long chain on the sugar phosphates, you know, that would be considered a form of information.
	No. No, it's described as information using science, but it itself is not what we would call information.
	In other words, DNA existed before the concept of information did, right?
	I don't follow.
	What do you mean? Well, DNA existed before people, right?
	I wouldn't say that.
	DNA did not exist before people.
	No. I would say that, well, I mean, human DNA, obviously, if you're arguing for- No, no, no, not human DNA. Of course not human DNA. But DNA as a replicant structure, DNA as a means of reproducing, that existed, right? I mean, protozoas and trilobites and Tyrannosaurus rexas and so on, right?
	They all had DNA and it was all part of how nature replicated, right?
	Absolutely. Okay, so DNA existed as a structure and as the basis of biological replication long before human beings did, right?
	I mean, hundreds of millions of years, if not billions, right?
	Well, I wouldn't necessarily place a timeline on how long evolution would have taken place or how old the Earth is.
	But I would say that yes, that there were creatures before mankind.
	So DNA existed before human beings?
	Yes. Okay.
	So DNA existed before the concept of information existed?
	No, because what I'm trying to argue is that a creative intelligence, something that had information, the definition of information, it would have created mankind.
	Or created the DNA that would make mankind and other creatures.
	So, okay, so what you're saying is that DNA is information because it was created by God?
	Yes. Okay.
	And so what's your proof of God?
	Well, I would say that, well, what I would argue would be that Information itself cannot come from material forces, and material forces act in two ways.
	They act in either a law-like structure, like any one of the mathematical constants that we see, or they act in some random process, a phenomenon, if you will.
	And so, there would be a third category that I would say, which would be specified complexity, is the way that authors have put it.
	It would be that it's just...
	It's specifically created with enough complexity to seem chaotic, but it is governed by some form of law.
	So I would argue that human beings and other animals would be specifically complex, similar to how a rock formation...
	Is not, you know, isn't as complex as a rocket ship, you know what I mean?
	Right. Why, so if God created life, why did God create life billions of years or hundreds of millions of years before human beings?
	I mean, if the point is human beings, then why would you go through all of this precursor?
	To human beings, like Homo sapiens, what?
	Like 150,000 years old or so, and life goes back billions of years.
	It's kind of like, you know, if you want a computer, you go out and you buy a computer.
	You don't, you know, hope that at some point, a billion years from now, we come across a silicon-based life form on another planet that you can use as a computer.
	Like, you don't wait that long.
	You just go and get what you want.
	If God wanted people, why didn't he just make people to begin with?
	Why did he need a billion or two billion years beforehand for stuff to evolve?
	Right, and that's the main gripe within the intelligent design community against the idea of assisted evolution.
	I personally do not believe in that form, although I don't have any strong opinions regarding the origin of life.
	I would just say that it was created by a creative force, and I believe that to be God.
	Is that a long way to say you don't know?
	Well, yes. I would say yes.
	Okay, so the purpose of creation is the relationship between human beings and God, but God created the universe and then 4 billion, I don't know how many billions of years, 13 billion years is it for the universe and a couple of billion years for life on this earth.
	That's kind of a slow walk to what you want, right?
	Now, you can, of course, say, as people do, well, it's all the same to God because he's outside of time and so on.
	But nonetheless, it seems like You're kind of slow, right?
	Like if you ask a kid to make a little horse out of Play-Doh, they don't take three weeks to do it, right?
	They'll just go make the horse out of Play-Doh.
	And if God wanted to create people, I'm just not sure why you'd need all of this backstory.
	Right.
	And that's why I'm trying to say that I personally don't believe in the idea of theistic evolution, the idea of guided evolution.
	I don't believe the earth to be and the universe to be billions and billions of years old.
	However, I would argue that it is, first of all, to ascribe human motives to this creative being.
	I wouldn't say that God is beyond human reasoning, as some theologians would say, but he acts in ways that may not be completely in line with human thought.
	But God gives rules to human beings, right?
	Yes. So, God understands human beings, and whereas human beings are supposed to understand God to the point where you respect and follow his rules, so human beings must have some capacity to judge and evaluate God's behavior.
	Because, you know, if it was Satan standing in for God and giving human beings rules that were bad, then human beings would want to know about that, right?
	So, human beings must be able to evaluate God.
	God's behavior to be certain that you're following the rules of a good God rather than the devil, right?
	Is that fair to say? Yes, but I would say that the concept of human—first of all, human morality is given by God, in my opinion, in the opinion of most, I would say almost all Christians— But God does not necessarily have to act in accordance with those rules.
	Now, I believe that he does willingly, and that's what makes him perfect.
	But I do certainly believe that if he...
	First of all, he's completely outside of all time, and he can do anything he wants.
	So, therefore, I don't think ascribing human morality to it would be correct.
	But if God gives moral rules, we would expect God to follow those moral rules, right?
	Not necessarily. I mean, I believe that God follows his own rules willingly, but he has the option to do whatever he wants.
	Well, are you saying that God follows the rule called thou shalt not kill?
	Yes. I would say that he does not kill unjustly.
	Or he did not in the past.
	And so the, I mean, the standard example, Sam, which I'm sure you've heard and discussed before, but we might as well mention here for those new to the conversation, is if we look at the flood, the Great Flood, right?
	The one that prompted Noah.
	Right. Including babies in the crib, babies in the womb, children, and so on, who prior to the age of reason, often given at the age of seven, could not have been capable of moral evil.
	And therefore it's hard to say that drowning a baby in the crib could be a moral or just murder.
	Well, you could argue that.
	I would say this. Now, pardon me, I've got to get rid of that phrase, I would.
	But what I mean to say is that it's a common fallacy in theological thought that God controls all, or since he is all, that he controls all events.
	Now, he did control the flood, and since he has foreknowledge of the events that could have been after the flood, He understood that the thoughts, it says, that the thoughts of mankind were continually evil.
	Therefore, the thoughts of the future progeny of evil people would be evil as well.
	And so it was a sort of preemptive measure.
	And I know that that is very morally murky in today's society, but that is what the main message is.
	So he knew that the babies in the crib were going to go up to be immoral and to shun God, and therefore drowning them was a justified act.
	Yes. Okay. The challenge, of course, is that if God knows what you're going to do, do you really have free will?
	Hmm. I would argue yes.
	Please do. Well, God gives free will, I would say, through—like I said, just because God predestines events— Certain events doesn't mean that we don't have free will, just because... Candidates.
	Candidates. If I know exactly what you're going to do tomorrow, down to the last detail, your free will is an illusion.
	True. I would say, but think about it like this.
	The big example people bring up is, you know, Judas Iscariot betraying Jesus, right?
	Right. No, no, I don't want to.
	We could just stay in drowning babies in the crib because God knows with 100% certainty exactly how they're going to act when they grow up, which means that he knows what they're going to do, which means it's a deterministic wind-up universe.
	They're basically robots, and you don't punish robots because they're just programmed, right?
	So if they don't have any free will, how can they have moral responsibility?
	The moral responsibility that is required to even remotely justify drowning babies in a crib.
	I believe you're mistaken.
	What I mean to say is that the drowning thing with God...
	Let me put it in another way.
	If... You know, if he predestined events like the flood, correct?
	He... Well, no, no.
	He has a choice, right?
	God has to have a choice. Because if God is a machine, there's nothing to worship, right?
	Well, of course. Okay, so God did not predestine.
	God made a choice to drown the world.
	Yes. Based on the idea, or based on the assumption that morally, the...
	The minds of the future progeny were corrupt.
	Right, which means that they're not corrupt, because they have no free will.
	Corruption and a fall from grace requires that you have a choice, right?
	Like, let me put it to you this way.
	If there's a guy named Bob standing at the top of a cliff...
	And he looks like he's going to jump and he says, I don't want to live anymore, right?
	We will try and talk him out of jumping because he still has a choice, right?
	After he has jumped, there's no point yelling at him to do some sort of Flintstone mid-air run to prevent his fall.
	Because once he has jumped off the cliff, he no longer has free will.
	Gravity has taken over.
	And he no longer has a choice about whether to fall or not, right?
	Right. Now, if, in a sense, for God...
	There is no free will for people because they've already, quote, jumped off the cliff, right?
	And it's all determinism and mechanism and physics and so on, right?
	Then if somebody's pushed off a cliff, we don't view them the same as somebody who voluntarily jumps.
	Because if they're pushed, they did not have a choice to jump, right?
	They were just pushed. And so we charge whoever pushed them with murder, right?
	And so the person is responsible for his own death if he jumps off the cliff, but another person is responsible for his death if he is pushed off a cliff.
	Because in one he has a choice, in another one he doesn't.
	And it's the same thing, like, I mean, down to things as simple as, or as complex as death benefits, right?
	Like, if you kill yourself, you don't get your life insurance.
	Because... It's not an accident.
	It's not bad luck or whatever, right?
	And so, you know, even as simple as that, right?
	I mean, you're not blamed for the life—by the life insurance, you're not blamed if you just happen to get some illness or you get killed out of nowhere or whatever, right?
	But if you kill yourself, then you're morally responsible for ending your own life, and therefore you won't get your payout.
	So I guess my question is, if people don't have a choice, if God knows what they're going to do in the future, then how can he blame them for something that they cannot choose?
	Well, just because he knows doesn't mean that they don't have any action.
	Doesn't mean that they don't have free will of their own.
	It does. It absolutely does.
	Because if God knows exactly what they're going to do, he can't then claim.
	Like, you can't say, I know exactly what you're going to do, and therefore you are 100% responsible for what you're going to do.
	If you're responsible for what you're going to do, then your actions cannot be known in advance.
	If your actions are known in advance, like, the guy...
	Who's thinking about jumping off the cliff.
	His actions aren't known in advance.
	You try and stop him. Once he's jumped, his actions, i.e.
	falling to the ground, is not under his will or choice anymore.
	And so if God knows what you're going to do tomorrow, then you don't have free will.
	I don't...
	And therefore you can't be punished.
	I guess I don't follow.
	I don't know what you mean.
	Well... If I know exactly what you're going to do tomorrow, can I then blame you for what you do tomorrow?
	I don't understand how foreknowledge I guess I just don't understand.
	Because if God knows exactly what we're going to do, we cannot violate God's knowledge.
	So if God says, I'm going to go and stand down on the waterfront in Toronto tomorrow, then clearly I'm going to end up standing down on the waterfront tomorrow, otherwise God has been incorrect.
	But because God is omniscient, He can't be incorrect.
	So whatever happens tomorrow, without a doubt, I'm gonna end up standing on the waterfront in Toronto, right?
	Yes. And so, can I really be said to have a choice if I have to be there to fulfill God's all-perfect knowledge?
	Do I have a choice? I mean, I can't choose to not be there.
	You understand? I can't choose to not be standing on the waterfront in Toronto tomorrow.
	I can't choose that. I can't choose to not be there.
	Because I have to be there because that's what God predicted.
	Right. I guess what I'm saying is I don't see how predestination is the same as foreknowledge.
	This is, you know, that's kind of the whole Arminianism.
	No, I don't understand. What does it matter what word we use for it?
	Well, what I'm trying to say is predestination would be the specific fixing of an event and foreknowledge would be knowing that an event will happen in the future.
	So, you know, God would have foreknowledge of many different events that could possibly happen.
	And human free will, I think, is perfectly fine within that sort of system.
	No, no, no, no, no. Come on, Sam.
	You said that God got to drown babies because he knew they were going to grow up to be evil.
	And I say if he knows that they're going to grow up to be evil, they can't be called evil because they don't have a choice in the matter.
	Right. Well, they wouldn't be considered evil either at their death because they had not committed anything wrong.
	Okay, so then if God kills babies who haven't done anything wrong, then God is evil.
	A human being would be, right?
	If a human being goes and strangles some baby in the crib or drowns him, then that human being is immoral, is evil, committed the sin of murder.
	Absolutely. But I don't think you understand what I mean by God is...
	You know, he prescribes moral virtues to mankind to follow, and, you know, mankind follows them, but because of God's omniscience, he cannot possibly be evil.
	Well, how do you know you're worshipping a moral God if God doesn't have to follow what he defines as good?
	How do you know you're worshipping God and not a devil?
	Well, because by definition, a devil is not omniscient.
	What? Yes, a devil's not omniscient.
	Like Satan's not omniscient?
	Any demon that you would think of in geology or anything like that?
	Yes, but if there was a devil teaching you these things, of course he would say something that excluded himself.
	Of course he would say, well, the bad guys don't have my powers.
	Yes. And you don't know whether the devil is omniscient or not.
	I mean, my question is, when you're worshipping God, this goes back to a very early podcast, are you worshipping morality or are you worshipping power?
	Now, if you're worshipping power, you cannot co-join that with morality.
	If you're worshipping morality, then God must follow the moral rules that he prescribes for mankind.
	Because if he doesn't and you're still worshipping, all you're worshipping is power, not virtue.
	Right, yeah, it's the old argument, the might makes right thing, right?
	That's what you mean. Right, so what you're saying is, okay, God drowns babies in the crib, but it's okay, because God knows they're going to grow up to be evil.
	Well, how do you know? Well, I don't know specifically.
	So then you're just worshiping power.
	Hmm. God has the power to kill babies of the crib, so I guess I'd better be on his good side.
	Okay, well, you may pay off the protection money.
	That doesn't mean you go to church and worship the Don, right?
	Right. I guess what I'm saying is, just because God is all-powerful, and I do believe that we worship power and we worship morality to some extent, what I mean to say by that is, Just because we worship something that is all-powerful, because it is all-powerful, doesn't mean it excludes virtue from that equation or, you know, morality.
	Well, no, because if you're worshiping power, which is not co-joined with virtue, you can't just tack on virtue afterwards.
	You know, that's like taking a shit sandwich, putting some icing on it, and calling it a cake, right?
	I mean, if what you're worshipping is power, then...
	Now, this Sam, you can't get out of these logical conundrums.
	And you may not believe me that now.
	You can read my book, Against the Gods.
	But I can solve them for you, if you want.
	And the solution is very simple.
	The solution, Sam, is a five-letter sentence.
	Word. The acronym of feel as if there's hope.
	And that word is faith. Sam, you are trying to co-join faith with philosophy.
	It will not work. It will not work.
	Now, if you want to believe in a God, what you have to say is, I have faith.
	And people are going to say, well, what about this?
	People are going to say, well, what about this?
	And what about that? And power and morality and evolution.
	And you say, nope, it's faith. I don't have a reason for what I believe.
	I believe it anyway. That is the test of faith.
	As Tertullian said, I believe because it is absurd.
	That the will you need to believe in a God against reason and evidence is called faith.
	But the moment you abandon faith and you try to use philosophy...
	You no longer have faith in God.
	You're trying to find some empirical, rational belief in a deity, and you won't be able to do that.
	Better minds than you and I have tried for thousands of years to find rational, logical, empirical proofs for God, and they failed every single time.
	Because what God says is have faith, not have philosophy.
	What God says is believe, not reason.
	And I don't know why it's hard for religious people to listen to what God says.
	And just have faith.
	Don't try and co-join it with science or evolution, biology, philosophy, reason, evidence.
	That's not what God says.
	God says, have faith.
	God says, I am three and I am one.
	Well, sorry, violated the first law of identity, Aristotle's law.
	No, you can't have three and one.
	I am three bananas and I am one banana.
	It's like, nope, sorry, you've got to pick one.
	Even in the Trinity, God is clearly saying, have faith.
	This cannot be understood by mortal reason.
	This cannot be understood by science.
	This cannot be processed by evidence.
	Have faith.
	And I don't know why.
	I mean, I guess people want some sort of justification, but that is the challenge, is it not?
	I mean, tell me if I'm wrong.
	Isn't the challenge that you have to say, I have faith, and then people say, well, there are all these reasons.
	And it's like, reasons don't have anything to do with faith.
	Faith is belief against reason, against evidence, independent of reason, independent of evidence.
	God exists independent of time, and my belief exists independent of reason and evidence.
	And so, I mean, is it hard to stay in that place that God commands called have faith?
	Do you feel this need to co-join what God commands with the opposite, which is science, philosophy, reason, and evidence?
	No, but I wouldn't say that science or, well, maybe philosophy, but I wouldn't say that science necessarily is a complete opposite to faith or science is a complete opposite to the idea of God.
	I called in originally to talk to you about information theory and the idea that information is independent of matter.
	I believe that that is good evidence that there was a first creative mind because you can't get the, you know, you have these complex lines of data, of information that are created in our own DNA. And I think that that's compelling evidence enough.
	Why do you need it? I don't understand.
	Why do you need evidence? I don't.
	Okay, then why are you bringing something up that you don't care about?
	Why do you need evidence? I'm saying that I don't need it.
	What I'm trying to tell you is that I find it particularly compelling, this piece of evidence, and I was wanting to share that with you on your show.
	But even if we solve that piece of evidence, all that we're saying is that there's some kind of first mind.
	That doesn't mean that it's someone you worship or can pray to or gets you to heaven or is good.
	It could be monstrously evil.
	It could be amoral. It could have died at the beginning of the universe.
	Like, it doesn't get you anywhere.
	So you're trying to get somewhere which is to your current theological and moral investment in a deity.
	Sam, listen, I'm not going to argue that.
	That aspect of things. But you have, I'm going to assume, and tell me if I'm wrong, Sam, you have a personal relationship with the deity you pray to, you hope to get to heaven, and is the seat of your moral certainty.
	Is that fair to say? Yes, sir.
	Okay. So this doesn't get you anywhere close to that.
	And so even if you get this, you're like 0.00001% of a near infinite series of logical contradictions to try and get to what you have right now.
	So if what you have right now is what you want...
	Why do you need this DNA stuff for?
	You have faith.
	This DNA stuff doesn't get you to where you are.
	Why not just be where you are and have faith?
	Hmm. I'm trying to make your life easier and not more difficult.
	You know what I mean? Man, I understand.
	And I'm not trying to...
	And obviously, I'm convinced.
	I have faith that there is a deity...
	And that his, you know, he goes by God and Yahweh and all that stuff.
	But my personal belief is not what I'm trying to prove.
	I'm trying to prove more or less that there was a first mind.
	And if you remember, at the beginning of the conversation, that is what I said, was that I'm just trying to, you know, whether you call that God or...
	Or some pantheistic, monistic force.
	It doesn't matter. What I'm trying to say is that there was something intelligent that created us.
	Or, at the very least, created the process that led to us.
	And, you know, that's what I'm trying to get at with the information.
	Does that help your faith?
	Like, let's say that I was able to disprove this, right?
	Would that affect your faith?
	I assume not, right?
	Because it's faith. Right.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	So if it doesn't matter in terms of what you currently believe, I'm not talking about this Aristotelian first mover or prime mover or whatever, right?
	I'm just talking about the way that you live your life for going to church and praying and having a moral certainty, which I respect.
	Don't get me.
	I mean, I respect the moral certainty that religion provides.
	The fact that George Soros is an atheist, probably not entirely unrelated to his perspective.
	So, I'm just trying to point out that if this doesn't really alter faith, which it shouldn't, because faith is faith, right?
	It's not supposed to need material support.
	If it needs material support, it's not faith anymore, right?
	And so, if the virtue is to believe against reason and evidence, I don't know why.
	I'm concerned, Sam, that you're going to keep pulling at these threads until stuff unravels, and maybe it should, maybe it shouldn't, I don't know.
	But you are playing a dangerous game here by trying to take your faith and rest it on reason, evidence, science, philosophy, because it will collapse.
	And that is not necessary, because if you have faith, you have faith.
	Well, right. That's why the intelligent design movement is called the intelligent design movement.
	It's not called the, you know, God created the universe movement.
	It is supposed to basically prove the idea that something or, you know, someone, a personal being, created us and that we came from an intelligent mind and not the Sure, but that intelligent mind could be Saruman from Lord of the Rings, and we could all be orcs aimed at killing hobbits, right?
	I mean, that doesn't get us to religion.
	It certainly doesn't get us to Christianity.
	Because even if we talk about this human genetic code being a form of information, that still doesn't prove that a man rose from the dead three days after he was entombed.
	Right, and although I believe that, I'm not trying to prove that at the moment.
	I personally believe that it did happen, and I'm...
	I think that historical evidence shows that that was the case, that somebody did rise three days, died and rose three days later.
	You know, even secular people noted that Jesus existed and that people believed at the time that he rose from the dead.
	But... See, now, I'm just going to give you a larger analysis here.
	Sam and I apologize for butting in, but I think this is important because...
	I think that Christianity in particular has made a big mistake over the last 150 years.
	Ooh, look at me with my small thoughts.
	I think that Christianity has made a big mistake.
	And since Darwin, Christianity has been trying to explain the origins of itself.
	With reference to, as you point out, DNA and evolution and so on.
	Right now, evolution is kind of a done deal, as far as that goes.
	Now, Christianity has been trying to play in the arena called science, philosophy, biology, reason, evidence, and so on.
	That is a losing proposition.
	And as you notice, it has not saved Christianity from decaying in its influence in social circles.
	So I'm going to give a tip to the Christians, which is very important.
	Stop talking about biology, and stop being defensive, and stop playing a retreat game.
	Hang on, let me finish, and then it's all yours.
	Pardon. Sorry.
	No, no, don't apologize. I took a pause, so it's totally fine.
	Stop playing a retreat game, Christians.
	What you need to do to gain cultural relevance and to challenge the atheists, which they bloody well need to be challenged.
	Challenge the atheists in saying, forget about the origins of God.
	Explain to me how you are moral and what morality is.
	And don't talk to me about the state and don't talk to me about force.
	Because atheists have been using Darwinism, evolution, to dismantle Christianity.
	And in so doing, they have dismantled ethics in the West.
	And now it's all consequentialism and sentimentality and feel-good bullshit.
	So Christians need to stop being beaten back through Darwin.
	And they need to start going on the counter of Offensive.
	Regarding ethics. Ethics is the Achilles heel of atheism.
	Because atheism can explain the origins of life, but it cannot explain the universality of ethics.
	And it has to devolve into a kind of consequentialism, and it has to devolve into fundamentally that which is good for life, which is just another example of evolution, which is amoral in its essence.
	Evolution is not A moral foundation.
	And saying, well, we should do things which are good for humanity, I mean, or good for the masses, or good for the majority.
	I mean, that's ridiculous. That's not an argument.
	That's just evolution portraying itself as ethics.
	It's like watching a bearded dwarf dress up as a woman, which I guess makes another bearded dwarf, but a female.
	But it's, you know, evolution as, like, consequentialism or pragmatism as ethics.
	Yes, it's like a man in drag.
	It's not even a good approximation of an imitation.
	So, you need to hit atheists on their Achilles heel, which is universal ethics.
	And don't talk to me about state programs, and don't talk to me about coercion, thou shalt not steal.
	Tell me, oh atheists, tell me, what is universal virtue, what is good, and why?
	Because atheists keep using this jawbone of an ass as a weapon.
	They keep using evolution to beat back Christianity.
	And it's ridiculous because Christianity has the answers which atheism doesn't.
	And so Christianity is exposing its softest flank to the sharpest weapon and not using its sharpest weapon against the softest flank of atheism.
	Which is to keep hitting atheists on what is good and why?
	What is virtue and why?
	And don't give me this, well, plumbing helps human life.
	Right? That's just evolution.
	So what? Plumbing helps human life.
	Dams help beaver lives.
	Birds' nests help bird lives.
	So what? Digging under the snow and hibernating helps polar bears' lives.
	We don't put those beavers and birds and polar bears in the category of ethics.
	So that which is good for life, that's evolution.
	Kill a man and take his stuff and have sex with his wife.
	Oh look, it's good for my DNA, which is my life.
	That's not an answer. So instead of exposing your softest Side to the sharpest weapon.
	Start using your sharpest weapon on atheism's softest side and make them damn well work.
	Rather than surrendering the entire discussion to things like DNA, you can't win.
	Get them to play the game they're bad at.
	Don't play their game that they're good at.
	You know, if I see Patrick Dempsey in a street corner, I'm not going to bet him six billion dollars on who can juggle better.
	Why? Because he's a great juggler.
	I'm going to have a rap-off.
	Right? Well, I saw your latest rap video, and I've got to say that I would be very wary to go against you in a rap battle.
	I totally, you know, like you kick yourself later, I totally missed the ending I needed.
	I had a tough time ending that.
	But I totally got the wrong ending.
	My ending should have been... I'm Eminem.
	I got $200 million in the bank.
	I still can't buy a clue.
	Anyway, so yeah, that's my particular advice.
	Don't get drawn into the atheist world of DNA and biology.
	Just keep hitting them on ethics, universality, virtue, and how they know.
	And that is my particular focus.
	I think you're playing by their game, and this is why Christianity keeps losing, and atheism and amorality keep spreading.
	All right, I'm going to move on to the next caller, but I really, really appreciate that call.
	It was very, very interesting, and thanks for taking the time.
	Thank you very much, Stephan. Appreciate it.
	Alright, up next we have Lana.
	Lana wrote in and said, Now that she's quickly approaching age 18, I worry that all my efforts will be for naught and she will inevitably end up like her father's side of the family, dependent on others or the state.
	She seems to share a lot of their genetic traits.
	Can you lend me some insight slash advice on how to combat or curb these personality traits before it is too late?
	That's from Lana. Lana.
	Lana. Lana.
	Lana. How are you doing?
	And I'm okay. Ooh, tricky question.
	I hope you have not come here for hope.
	Right. All right. Do you want to give me some of the concerns that you have regarding her behavior?
	Well, I do have noticed over the years that she does lack some empathy quite a bit.
	I wouldn't say that she has no empathy, but I can definitely tell that...
	Identifying with other people in that way is lacking.
	So, okay, here's an example.
	She will borrow money from her sister.
	I have another daughter. She'll borrow money from her sister with absolutely no intention of actually paying her back.
	Did she say she will?
	Yes. All right.
	So she's a thief.
	No, I mean, I hate the people who borrow and say they're going to pay back and they never get in touch with you.
	It's like, I'd rather just, you know, just hit me on the head and take my wallet.
	Like, just don't give me this crap.
	So that's my own personal piccadillo.
	I could be wrong, but I've had that in the past when I was broke as hell and I'd lend people money and they'd just vanish.
	And it's just like, God, so rank.
	All right, go on. Um...
	I don't know. There's been a couple times when we've had an argument, and I have told her, I've tried to explain myself in a way that, put yourself in my shoes, put in my position, how would that feel if you talked to me that way or you responded in that way?
	It seems to go overhead.
	Now, I do see sometimes that she does get it sometimes.
	I do see, like with her sister was upset.
	And they got into a fight, and she was overwhelmed with some schoolwork.
	And when I brought it back to my daughter, I explained to her, I said, she's really overwhelmed.
	And I explained her perspective, and she kind of got it.
	So it's not like she's lacking completely.
	It's just not one of her strong suits.
	You'd like it to occur without explanation, right?
	Yes. You'd like it to be a language that she speaks natively, not one that she keeps having to look up the dictionary, right?
	Yes. Okay. And then also, you know, comparing to my other daughter, who's just a little bit younger, she has high empathy.
	And so I think sometimes when I'm comparing the two, I see a And how did they get along, these two? Well, right now, okay.
	When they were younger, it was better.
	But they're teenagers. Both of them are teenagers.
	So it's hard to say, is this just a teenage phase?
	And of course, you know, they're eager to, no, no, please, you borrow this piece of clothing.
	It looks better on you. Yeah, right.
	I don't know. Teenage girls in clothing is like a whole other...
	You can bring peace in the Middle East before you can bring peace to warring closets.
	All right, go on. Um...
	Well, those were the two examples that I had.
	All right. So, empathy is an issue.
	What else? Well, she has had a job.
	If we're talking about the employment issue, I was encouraging her because this is what happens sometimes is...
	I think of what I was doing at her age, what my personality is, how to encourage her in a way that someone would encourage me.
	It's very difficult when you have a child who has a very different personality than yourself to know how to connect with them or how to encourage them.
	And when she turned 14, I was encouraging her to get a job because she is also the type of kid that wants more all the time.
	So I've thought to myself, if you know the book, if you give the mouse a cookie, he'll want a glass of milk.
	You know that story?
	I don't. Maybe you don't.
	Okay. It's a But I think I've dated the personality type in my youth.
	Right. If you give a mouse a cookie, he'll want a glass of milk.
	Then he wants a nap.
	Then he wants a bath.
	Then he just wants more, more, more.
	And this is very similar to her personality.
	Literally have bought her shoes, like new school shoes.
	And the next day she says she doesn't like them.
	She wants a different pair. Like she's the kid that always wants more.
	And if you give her an inch, she'll take a mile.
	No joke. So I was like, well, let's get you a job then.
	So you can buy these things that you want.
	And at age 14, we couldn't find a job that would hire her at 14, even though I was 14 when I had a job at McDonald's.
	So age 15, got her a job at McDonald's, went through all the motions, she got the job.
	I would drop her off and pick her up.
	We're saving for a car. So she's saved.
	Wait, you would drop her off and pick her up?
	From work. You know, I'd drop her off at work.
	No, but why? Pick her up from work.
	No buses? Not where we live, no.
	No buses? And she'd come back there?
	No, it was like...
	A few miles away.
	No. Hang on, hang on, hang on.
	You say this all like self-evident.
	So I grew up without a car and I biked everywhere.
	So, you know, I'm not saying you're wrong.
	Just, you know, step me through it.
	So she, like a couple of miles, you could bike easy, right?
	Yeah, but she wouldn't do that.
	Well, why not? She'd rather stay home than bike a couple of miles.
	Huh. We may be getting somewhere close to the problem here.
	Right? I mean, I used to bike, gosh, I used to live, I biked 20 miles to work.
	And I had an employee who used to bike about 14 miles to work.
	I mean, she could do it if that was the only way to do it, right?
	Correct. Okay.
	If she wanted to. I mean, I feel like I did- Because it's a lot of work.
	You go and drive her there, but she got like four-hour shift.
	You go drive her there and come back and pick her up and so on, right?
	I mean- Yes. That's not a particularly, you know, just working is only part of it, right?
	The commute is the other part. Yeah.
	All right. So, and then, I mean, there's a whole other issue with her getting a paycheck- And I had to be like a jail warden on her bank account in the sense that she'd get her paycheck, I would put so much in her bank account, and then I'd dole out her allowance of her money.
	But you would control her money?
	Yes. Why? It's her money.
	Because the objective was to save for a car.
	No, no, no, no. I don't understand.
	It's her money. That's what she would say, too.
	Okay, so far I'm with her.
	She's going to work. Okay, you're driving.
	Maybe you could take a little bit of cut for gas money or whatever, but it's her money.
	Right. Why does she have to do what you want with her money?
	Oh, I guess because I know better.
	Because I'm her mom, right?
	Oh, so you want her to grow up, but you also want to tell her what to do.
	Oh, sure. You want her to be responsible, but you also want her to be obedient.
	You gotta pick one from column A or one from column B. Right.
	Right? So it's her money.
	If she wants to save for a car, then she can save for a car.
	And if she wants to blow it all on, what is it, hand sanitizers, like the big craze or something, she's probably too old for that.
	But if she wants to blow it all, then she doesn't get the car.
	Isn't that life? I mean, isn't the whole point?
	She's almost an adult, right?
	Yes. Right, but I mean, my thought was, save up for the car, get the car, and then you can spend your money, whatever.
	I have told her that. I said, you can buy whatever you want, spend whatever you want.
	No, no, but you don't understand.
	Lena, sorry. I'm sorry to be annoying.
	Listen. It's okay.
	The best way for her to want a car is to bike to work.
	If you're driving her to work, is she going to want to get a car?
	Uh... Right.
	No, that's correct. If she's got a chauffeur, why would she want a car?
	You understand? So you're driving her to work and then saying, well, you really need a car.
	Well, she also needs a car because she's doing a program with school where she's going to have to drive herself this coming fall.
	Which she knows is coming up.
	Yeah, she got the car.
	So she's almost an adult.
	So she can figure that out for herself, right?
	And if she doesn't get the car...
	Then she can't do the program, right?
	Right. What am I missing?
	I really want her to do the program.
	No. No, you don't.
	You want to get her ready for adulthood.
	Yeah. Right? Yeah, which is part of the program.
	No! Adulthood is not the program.
	Adulthood is choices and consequences.
	Yeah. Right? If she doesn't save up for the car...
	Then she can't drive to the program.
	Then she's going to have to bus it, or arrange rides with someone else, or hitchhike, or I don't know what, right?
	Or, you know, if there's a bus, bike, whatever, right?
	So she's going to have to, or she doesn't go.
	That's the lesson, isn't it?
	Like, nothing that's in the program could be more important than that lesson, given that she's almost 18.
	Is that right? That's right.
	So what am I missing? I guess just the dilemma of me sitting by and watching her not do these things.
	Why is that a dilemma? Other than because you're a mom.
	Right. Okay, you know what my next question is, right?
	Maybe. Where's the daddy?
	Right. Oh dear, I think we just said an entire volume with one...
	You have to forgive me. I have a cold, too.
	Oh, that was a very specific cold.
	Let me put you that way. That was a very patriarchal-inspired cold.
	That was a cold cold, if you don't mind me saying so.
	Okay, go on. Her father and I are divorced.
	We've been divorced for a long time.
	How long? 2004.
	Ew! Cozy 13 years, right?
	So she was five? Yeah. Or four.
	She was four. Four. And her relationship with her father?
	It's been on and off.
	He's kind of around.
	He's been around sometimes and then sometimes he's not.
	He's been in and out of jail. What?
	Yeah. Yeah. All right.
	Let's go back a little.
	Let's go on the way back machine here, Lena, if you'll indulge me.
	Sure. Did you know he had any criminal proclivities when you were dating him?
	Yes. You did.
	Okay. And what were the criminal activities he was involved in when you were dating him?
	Gosh. Well, I was 16 when we started dating.
	And then I was 18 when I had her.
	Okay, let's just talk about 16.
	We'll take this one step at a time.
	Sure. So what was he involved?
	Was he your age? He's a year older, yeah.
	Okay, so he was 17 when you met.
	And what was he involved in?
	He would get into fights with other people.
	So he was violent?
	Yeah. Yeah.
	Okay. What else?
	And underage drinking.
	All right. He was like a big drinker?
	Like, yeah, there's always parties on the weekends and yeah, a lot of drinking, other drug use too.
	Like what? Marijuana? What else?
	Marijuana or acid and sometimes cocaine.
	All right. And how did he pay for all this?
	That's a good question. Did he have a job?
	He did, yeah. He had a job.
	He was, well, the whole thing is, like, he didn't finish high school.
	He dropped out his senior year.
	He started, like, working with his friends, doing construction.
	So he had some money, and it probably seemed like a lot of money for a 17-year-old.
	So he's a high school drunk, violent, underage drinker, and a druggie.
	Mm-hmm. And how pretty was he?
	Not. Not.
	What kind of troll were you then?
	I don't know.
	What the hell? I can only say, like I've explained it before, I was in a very self-destructive time in my life.
	And I don't know.
	It's hard for me to think of what I was thinking back then.
	What did your family think of him?
	I guess my mom didn't think that...
	It was that serious at first.
	Oh, God. Okay, so he's a violent, druggie drinker guy, but it's okay because it's not that serious?
	Come on. No, she didn't.
	I don't know. She didn't know all that in the beginning.
	Well, why didn't you tell her?
	You weren't close to your mom?
	Well, I wasn't going to tell her that we were underage drinking.
	So you weren't close to your mom.
	If I was underage drinking. Because you didn't come to her for advice and say, you know, this is what the cool kids want me to do, and this is what this guy's like, and I don't know, I'm attracted to him, what should I do, blah, blah, blah, right?
	Right. No, that's accurate.
	All right. We weren't that close.
	So how did you end up getting pregnant?
	No birth control? Correct.
	Why no birth control? I was on birth control.
	Why no birth control? Well, I was on it for...
	I was on it for a while.
	And then there's a whole story.
	I actually ended up moving out of my house when I was 17 and moved in with him.
	And I finished my senior year of high school.
	Did your mother get the idea that it might be a little bit serious at that point?
	Yeah. And I think I decided to do that after my – it was like a week after my 17th birthday because I heard somewhere that like the police couldn't come bring you home if you're 17.
	Like you can be a legal runaway or something.
	So you're – what was going on in your house, Lena, that you'd rather go with the druggie, drinky, fighty guy?
	Because you got an ACE, like Adverse Childhood Experience score.
	We've won, right?
	Right, right. So, I've seen a lot worse.
	What was going on at home that you were, like, desperate to get out?
	You turned 17, cops can't get me, I'm out of here.
	Right. No, I don't know.
	I just, like I said, it was a self-destructive time in my life.
	That doesn't answer me anything, and you know I'm not going to accept that as an answer, right?
	Right. So, what the hell was going on at home that you were so desperate to get out?
	Were your parents still together?
	No, no. They divorced when I was very young.
	Huh. Good, good thing.
	No patterns here. Right, right.
	Oh, there's plenty of patterns, actually.
	Yeah, all right. And did your mom have a boyfriend in that you didn't like, or what?
	So, my parents divorced when I was very young.
	She got remarried when I was 10.
	We moved to a different town.
	A very different town.
	We moved from the city to the country.
	And she was married to my stepdad till I was 15.
	And then she got divorced from my stepdad, but we stayed in the country town and finished, partly finished high school there.
	Then she got remarried when I was 17 also.
	So she was getting remarried.
	Now that I think about it, she was getting remarried.
	And I was like, fuck it, I'm out.
	I'm not going to stay here with you.
	And this guy, I don't know.
	And I'm doing my own thing, and you can't tell me what to do, basically.
	So, three marriages? Yeah.
	And what were the men like?
	Well, the first stepdad...
	He was a workaholic.
	I mean, I'm just going to talk about the basics here, even if it's not accurate or correct, but this is my interpretation.
	He was a workaholic and he was very controlling and not pleasant to be around.
	And so then the second, the third husband, I don't hang out with them that much because I moved out when they got married, so it's not like I ever lived in their house.
	But he's much different.
	He's like way more beta and has money too, so that's appealing.
	She hypergamied for that one.
	Would you say that the father of your daughter was a beta or an alpha or something else?
	Big alpha.
	An alpha? With the fights and stuff, he'd be like...
	Are you kidding me? That's what you call an alpha?
	I think so. He'd like...
	Oh, man. Like, okay, I guess he wasn't hot.
	Oh, my God. I'm enslaved to drugs and alcohol, but I'm a total alpha.
	I have no self-restraint and punch the hell out of people, but I'm an alpha, because that spells success.
	I guess he thought he was an alpha.
	Like, gorilla alpha. I don't know.
	I don't know what you mean, right? He threw poo magically, therefore alpha.
	Right. Right.
	Okay. Got it.
	Got it. All right.
	And why were you off birth control when you were 18?
	Oh, because I was gaining weight.
	You know, funny story.
	You know what else helps you gain weight?
	Getting pregnant. All right.
	So you went off the pill, right?
	Hello? Yeah.
	Yeah, you went off the pill when you were how old?
	18, 17? Not quite 18.
	Okay. And why did you not use other forms of birth control?
	You know, there are 18 different kinds, right?
	No, no, no. Please, please, don't talk to me about a little bit.
	I only played a little bit of Russian roulette, so I don't know what happened.
	I don't know why I have this giant hole in my head.
	Come on. I've been thinking about this lately, too, and part of it is just being stupid, being naive, being 17 and a half years old, but then also No, no, no, no, no, no.
	Lots of 17-year-olds don't get pregnant.
	In fact, the vast majority of them don't get pregnant.
	So whose needs were you serving when you didn't use birth control?
	He also, let me just say, he also, I think he tried to trap me, first of all.
	He tried, he was happy when I found out I was pregnant.
	I was not happy.
	I think he was trying to trap me because I was a good catch for him.
	And he wanted a baby.
	He wanted a family. He wanted a baby.
	He liked drama.
	So how did he put a hole in the condom and tell you it was fine or what?
	Well, he told me because he had a hernia a couple times or something.
	So he's like, oh, the doctor said I probably can't have kids.
	And I'm not saying that's a valid excuse.
	But the doctor said he might not be able to.
	I'm sorry. I shouldn't laugh because this is your daughter.
	But seriously, like he said, I have a hernia.
	I might not be able to have kids.
	And you're like, yeah, let's spin the dice.
	Let's roll those babies. Yeah, well, he I mean, I don't want to put all the blame on him, obviously.
	I'm trying to put any blame on him.
	He he he wasn't very nice to me either.
	So what are you saying that you had babies with him because he wasn't nice to you?
	I didn't want to have...
	I don't know. I didn't want to have...
	Look, come on, Lena.
	You're a smart woman.
	And 17 is not an excuse for everything.
	You can go to war at 17.
	So don't give me this, I was 17, right?
	So if you are having unprotected sex of any kind, you are risking pregnancy.
	You know that, right?
	I do know that. So trying to blame him?
	I don't quite follow.
	100% agency. You moved out.
	You say, wow, I'm 17.
	The cops can't grab. I'm an adult.
	Cops can't take me back home.
	I'm going to make me some adult decisions.
	Well, one of those is pregnancy.
	Right. And saying he had a hernia and therefore I went off birth control.
	I mean, come on. Because if you want, listen, the reason I'm saying all this is, A, I love torturing my listeners.
	And B, no, I'm kidding. But no, why is that you cannot expect your daughter to take one shred more responsibility at her age than you're willing to take when you were her age?
	Yeah. You understand?
	Yeah. So if you're like, well, he said this, and I was gaining weight, and hella, right?
	Then what you're doing is saying, poof, you're 17, you have no agency, no responsibility.
	You got no ethics. And then you want her to have responsibility, right?
	If you excuse yourself, you excuse her.
	If you don't accept the moral agency that you had at 17, you cannot give it to her.
	You have no credibility.
	Do you understand? I'm not trying to get you to punch your 17-year-old in the nads, so to speak.
	But what I am trying to say is that if you don't give yourself agency for the choices you made, Then you cannot expect your daughter to have agency.
	I mean, you can, but it won't work.
	You know that old saying about kids?
	I can't hear what you're saying over what you're doing.
	And in this case, she would say, I can't hear what you're saying over what you did at 17 and justify now.
	So what happened after 18 with the guy?
	Well, that's interesting because you were just talking to that last caller about predestination.
	And in my head at the time, because I was raised Christian, my mom's really into church.
	Wait, your mom's a Christian?
	Yeah. Yeah. I guess she's not one of these Christians that doesn't believe in divorce, though.
	Right. I guess she's not one of these Christians who doesn't support or doesn't make her daughter not live with a guy who's a drug addict and a drinker or a druggie and a drinker and a fighter and a violent guy.
	So she's not so much of a practical Christian as she is a theoretical, I like dressing up on Sundays Christian.
	She met the last two husbands at church singles groups.
	Sure. Okay. It's kind of like a social club with an occasional halo on the wall.
	I got it. She's pretty hardcore now, though.
	Yeah, it's called locking the barn door after the horse has left.
	Right. She's older now, anyway.
	But, you know, I thought at the time, I was like, oh, you know...
	I guess this is what God wants for me.
	I guess I'll marry him because this is just how my life...
	Hang on. Sorry, who was saying, I guess this is what God wants for me?
	Me. When I found out I was pregnant.
	Oh, so now it's God's fault.
	No, it's God's plan.
	No, it's God's fault. Yeah, it's not your agency.
	It's God's plan. Right.
	At the time, that's what I was thinking.
	And... So no choice for you, right?
	Right. Well, that's just what you were talking about with the last caller.
	Right. And it was relevant in this situation as to what I was thinking at the time.
	Please don't make me ask you what you thought of the female caller.
	Don't make me. Oh, I know.
	Okay, two minutes. One minute.
	30 seconds. What did you think of the female caller?
	I thought, you know, when you say, how you doing, or whatever you say, I'm well and I'm doing good, you are doing good because you got her good and she bailed.
	So anyway. I hope she listens again.
	Right. I hope she listens again.
	And I can see that there's some sacrifices going on in that marriage, but I'd like to talk to the husband at some point if he's allowed.
	Anyway. Okay.
	So God said, keep the baby.
	And you kept the baby.
	And then what happened? And then we got married.
	How old? So I was 18 when I had her.
	19 when I got married.
	And things were better.
	And I just accepted that as my, this is going to be my life.
	And I went to started college and had another baby at 20.
	Why did you start college?
	Because I had a career path, that's why.
	Why did you have a career path?
	You just had two babies.
	He wanted me to go to college also.
	Oh, his fault again. Well, no.
	He was very encouraging to me.
	He was like, women can't work in the trades.
	Women have to go to college.
	You've got to get some other job.
	I think he realized that we needed a dual income with the kind of income he was providing.
	So he knocks you up twice and then wants you to have a career.
	Yeah. Got it.
	All right. So math is not his big thing, right?
	No. Like the math of what you earn versus how much you pay to take care of the babies, right?
	Right. Now, did you want to go to college?
	Yes. Why?
	Because I'm a dental hygienist, actually.
	And I really...
	I always wanted to be a dental hygienist.
	And I got to say, I love all your dental analogies that you give out all the time.
	OK. I take care of my teeth.
	All right. OK. So the alpha knocks you up twice and then wants you to get a job.
	Because that's all kinds of alpha.
	Yeah. Because being an alpha is being a provider.
	All right. I guess I'm wrong.
	Now, but did you go to school?
	Did you study at home? Did you go to college?
	I mean, who took care of your babies?
	Yeah, so it's a community college, and it wasn't far away.
	And when we were together, you know, he's got a...
	His stepmom would come over and watch the baby or the babies.
	My mom retired shortly after I had the second baby.
	She's... Pretty good at doing the grandma thing.
	And then his sister lived with us for a little while.
	So it's not like I ever had strangers watching the kids.
	It was extended family that would come over.
	Strange, but not a stranger. Right.
	So that wasn't an issue in that sense.
	And one of my girlfriends, she was in college at the same time, and we would take classes at opposite schedules so we could swap kids and stuff.
	And were you breastfeeding your kids?
	I did, yeah. Okay, all right.
	All right, so how long did college take?
	Was it like two years? Well, it took me seven, but yeah, because I had to do it part-time.
	Seven? But it's an associate's degree, yeah.
	Well, no, no, I mean, I guess congratulations on that, but if you'd gone full-time, how long would it have taken?
	Maybe three years.
	So if you'd waited until your babies were older and gone full-time?
	Same schedule, right? Sure.
	Sure. Yeah. I mean, there was a waiting list to get into the program.
	You had to do your prereqs and then you get on the waiting list.
	But if I'd done it the smartest way ever, it would have been three years.
	Right. Okay. All right.
	And so then what happened?
	So you were saying that, if I remember rightly, it was 2004 that you divorced?
	Right. Yeah.
	So we were only married for three years, actually.
	And what happened to the marriage? Don't tell me God had another plan for you.
	Well, I think so.
	But... I just realized that I didn't want to be with him for the rest of my life.
	And that this is what I said, was that like...
	But why? Why? What happened? What happened?
	I was realizing that he was dumb.
	And... It was so hard to argue with him, and he had some problems with drugs and alcohol, which shouldn't be surprising.
	Oh, so he was still, as a father of two, he was still drinking and using drugs?
	Yeah. Was it, I'm just curious about this, and I'm sorry for drilling it in such detail.
	This is mere rampant personal curiosity, Lena, but did you sort of wake up, like, was it...
	There's an old thing which I don't think men understand.
	Men think that if they woo a woman, then she'll end up wanting to be with him.
	And I think the real truth is the woman knows within 30 seconds, right?
	Maybe. Now, another thing that I think happens with women is things are okay, things are okay, things are okay.
	And then she wakes up one morning and she looks at you and it's like, I think I'm going to kill you in my sleep if I stay here one more day.
	And once the woman is like, you hold on, you hold on, you hold on, and then, you know, it's like walking across that frozen pond, a little cracking, you can get there.
	When it goes, it goes.
	Yeah. Was it sort of like that?
	Like, it wasn't like, oh, I think I can hang on, I think I can, but it was just like you wake up one day and it's just like, uh-huh, no.
	Yeah, yeah, that's a sort of – and then men are like, well, can I fix it?
	It's like day before maybe, day after, not so much.
	Right. No, that's similar.
	So then we split up.
	I mean, I don't know how much detail you want me to go into.
	I got my own place, moved the kids out.
	They were young, four and two, and we were going to share custody 50-50.
	At that time, he was driving a truck, so he was gone Monday through Friday, and then he was home on the weekends.
	So I would have the kids...
	Monday through, like Monday night through Friday morning, and then he'd have them Friday through Monday.
	It was basically, and I'd work all weekend.
	So we could, it was really a nice split of 50-50.
	No, it wasn't a nice split.
	Well, compared to other things.
	Well, I mean, yeah, okay, compared to the ground opening up beneath you and you being sucked into a dantian inner hell, but...
	Right. I mean...
	Was he an abusive father?
	Was he a bad father?
	Was he a dangerous father?
	Was he a careless father?
	No, not necessarily.
	I mean, no. So why leave him?
	I mean, the kids needed him, right?
	I didn't want him.
	Yeah, but you have kids.
	Like, you know, as a parent, it's not about what you want anymore, right?
	It's not like I wanted to spend six years of my life getting all kinds of medieval diseases from play centers.
	Right. Like, because your concern is that your daughter is a little selfish, right?
	So I'm just trying to sort of figure out, right?
	Yeah. I mean, if he wasn't abusive, and he wasn't dangerous, and he wasn't careless, then...
	Well, he wasn't abusive to them, but he was very difficult to be with, and he followed me a lot.
	Yeah, but you know it's going in. Yeah.
	He had two kids with a guy.
	Yeah.
	Like, and they need him, right?
	But then you wanted what you wanted, which was out.
	Yeah.
	And what would your kids have preferred?
	Well, I think that's obvious.
	Well, I'd like you to say it.
	That we would have been together.
	Why would they have preferred that?
	I don't know if I can articulate that.
	I mean, I can't say it would have been better, you know, but...
	Well, no, it would have been better for them, I assume, if that's what they wanted and he wasn't abusive to them.
	Right. What they would have wanted would be for you guys to have gotten along better, right?
	Yeah. Yeah.
	And either you could have gotten along better but you bailed or you had children with a man that you couldn't get along with.
	Right. And of course you did get along with him well enough to have two children, right?
	And to move out from your home.
	So what changed? I mean, besides, I just feel like I was very young, and I felt like I was growing and changing and understanding things, that he was just stuck in that same 17-year-old mindset.
	I couldn't have a conversation with him.
	I don't... Could you have a conversation with him before the second child or no?
	His kind of conversation, sure.
	And what's that? I don't know.
	He would say things that just made me question his thinking.
	Like, um...
	He's...
	I don't... He's really dumb.
	Well, but he was interesting enough to be with for five years?
	I guess.
	Not really. And to have two babies with, right?
	So he wasn't that...
	I mean, if he was that dumb and boring, you wouldn't have been with him for half a decade, right?
	I mean, what do you say to young ladies who are in relationships with men who are very controlling?
	Ah, you haven't mentioned the controlling thing.
	So, I said he wasn't very nice to me, but...
	Yeah, I'm not accusing you with holding.
	I just want to make sure I understand what you mean by controlling and how it showed up.
	When we first got together, like I said, it was a very self-destructive time in my life.
	He was very...
	He would isolate me from my friends.
	He isolated me from my mom.
	Because he would get mad at me if I wanted to hang out with my friends instead of hanging out with him.
	And he didn't want to hang out with my friends, so I had to choose between...
	I'm trying to get you to...
	I'm sorry to interrupt you again, but I'm trying to get you to use some self-ownership language.
	It's... No, no, because you want to transfer this self-ownership to your daughter, right?
	Yeah. Okay.
	So you say, he isolated me from my friends.
	And then you say, well, he would get mad at me if I want to see my friends.
	That is not him isolating you from your friends.
	Okay. Isolating you from your friends is kidnapping you and locking you in some kind of Shrek tower.
	Right. Right, beyond the reach of the law in some magical way, right?
	Yeah. So he would get mad when you'd see your friends.
	You 100% make the choice then to conform to his anger and ditch your friends.
	Yes. This is what I need you to get, because when you listen back to this, as I hope people always do, you and self-ownership, you and self-responsibility, at least in this part of the story, not on speaking terms.
	It's like you divorced self-ownership at some point in your life and ended up with this mess.
	And you're still using that language.
	To excuse your own choices.
	So you say, he's controlling.
	It's like, no, no, no. He would get mad, but you wouldn't do what he wanted.
	But you chose to stay.
	Yeah. You chose to conform.
	You chose to obey.
	He can't control you unless he's got you locked in a trunk.
	Right. So you made the choice to submit to his preferences.
	Yes. You made the choice to empower people.
	His anger. You made the choice to give him two children, and then you say he did stuff to you.
	Shall I rephrase it then?
	No, I'm just going to be alert to it going forward, that's all.
	Sure. To be annoying.
	See, see, look, you're in another controlling relationship.
	I'm now trying to control what you say.
	Anyway, go on. So, should I continue with him isolating me from my friends and family?
	Yes, please do. Okay.
	So, and I'll tell you one thing, too, is in the beginning, I liked it because I felt like it was very important to me.
	Sure. Someone wants to control you.
	They really care.
	Well, he was like very concerned because I was talking to one of his friends and he took me aside and said that he didn't want me talking to that friend because I was going to sleep with his friend apparently.
	Oh, so he was jealous.
	Yeah. Because nothing spells out for like sexual jealousy.
	Yeah. And yes, you absolutely, definitely, double plus, want to take life advice on how to be successful and productive from violent drinkers and drug users, because they got it all worked out.
	Yeah, so I, like, remember that conversation, and I remember feeling like...
	Liking it because he cared that much.
	I mean, it's really just stupid teenage stuff that I'm recalling.
	Again, you're saying it's somehow the response of you being a teenager.
	You see? Responsibility!
	Lana, you're killing me!
	Aren't teenagers dumb?
	They don't know things yet?
	They haven't learned?
	Don't blame teenagers.
	Don't blame teenage-dom.
	Your brain had reached full physical maturity by the time you had kids.
	So who do I blame?
	My mom? Blame is the coward's words for responsibility.
	Yeah. Right? How about you just take responsibility?
	This is what you chose to do.
	You chose to get together for a half decade with a guy that a blind man could see was not going to be a good father.
	Right? The signs were there.
	There was no doubt.
	Violent, drug abusing, alcohol abusing.
	Come on. This is not brain surgery.
	This isn't like, well, he got a railway spike through the head and just mysteriously changed.
	I mean, this is continual behavior.
	You wanted the security of the relationship more than you wanted independence and responsibility.
	And are you telling me that there were no nice guys around who might want to date you?
	Not one. Plenty. Plenty.
	Plenty of nice guys.
	Because you know that nice guys are out there with their head in their hands saying, that Lena, she's cute, she's smart, she's funny.
	Why is she dating this guy?
	You know, you're basically poking some diamond-hard painful nipples into their sensitive spots.
	Because it's just like, why?
	You could have dated nice guys.
	Right. But you didn't.
	No. And you can't put any responsibility on your daughter, who's 17, if you don't take any responsibility for it.
	You did at 17.
	Because she can just say, hey mom, yours told me, teenagers are dumb, so don't expect me to be smart.
	Teenagers don't know what they're doing, don't expect them to be smart.
	Well, he told me that he wanted me to do stuff and yours said, well, men are controlling, so I'm just going to let him control me because that's what you said, men are controlling, you have no choice.
	This is how the virus of irresponsibility spreads.
	You give yourself excuses.
	You give your children permission.
	You could have chosen better.
	Listen, look, you understand.
	I made bad decisions when I was a teenager.
	I made bad decisions when I was in my 20s.
	But I don't blame it.
	On my age. I have lots of excuses to blame it on my family.
	I have lots of excuses to blame it on just about anything that I could think of.
	My adverse childhood experience score is off the roof.
	Yeah. But I don't.
	Because I want to model a responsibility for everyone.
	I don't think...
	Maybe I'm wrong, and I'm sure there's somebody out there who may find an excuse.
	I don't think I've ever said I was not responsible for the choices I made when I was younger because my childhood was so terrible.
	I know the deck that was stacked against me making good decisions, but I had philosophy from the age of 16 onwards.
	I had the tools to make better decisions.
	You knew this guy was a bad guy to have a family with, right?
	You knew this deep down.
	And for five years, you ignored that basic fact.
	And you are responsible for ignoring that basic fact.
	And you are responsible, Lena, for your daughters growing up without a father.
	It was not his fault. It was not the fault that you were a teenager.
	It was no one's fault, no one's responsibility.
	If you want to bring blame into it, I think that's sort of pointless.
	Acceptance is not blame.
	Accepting responsibility doesn't mean that you have to hate yourself.
	Because if you avoid responsibility, it is harming your daughter.
	Because you're expecting from her something you do not expect from yourself, even in hindsight.
	Right? Because you're in your 30s now, you're still looking back at your 17-year-old self with all of the knowledge you've had.
	In the intervening 18 years, or 20 years, I know my math's off, but let's just keep going with it.
	Right? So you're looking back with additional decades of knowledge and wisdom and experience, and you're still...
	Taking no responsibility for what you did at 17.
	And you're expecting your daughter to do it when she's 17 when you can't even do it with two decades of hindsight?
	Never ask more of your children than you have asked of yourself.
	Never, ever try to give more responsibility to your children than you take for yourself.
	Even in hindsight.
	Especially in hindsight.
	The problem is not with her.
	Okay.
	And that's great news.
	Yeah. Right?
	Yeah. Because if the problem was with her, you'd be largely helpless.
	But if the problem is with you, you get to feel bad and you get to feel great.
	You get to feel guilt and you get to feel empowered because those two things are the same thing.
	Everybody wants to be empowered.
	Nobody wants to feel bad.
	Right. Me too.
	I understand. I'm right down there with you.
	I'm not lobbing this down from some ivory tower of perfect behavior.
	I'm right down in there with you.
	This is not coming from any superiority.
	I made ridiculously bad decisions in relationships, in particular, when I knew better according to the values that I claimed to hold.
	I just didn't want the consequences of integrity.
	And that was terrible.
	And the only way it got better was for me taking responsibility And taking the guilt and the shame of having made bad decisions for a long time.
	It's like you're lost in a wood and you need a sword with a bright light to get out, but the handle burns when you pick it up.
	And people don't, oh, that hurts!
	Damn, that's hot!
	And they throw it aside and they wander in the woods.
	You've got to go back to the sword. You pick up the sword.
	You use it to cut your way out of the murk.
	You use its light and you take the burn.
	And your language, Lena, is of a done unto person.
	Things have been done unto you.
	It's a responsibility of...
	Your ex-husband, of your youth, of your environment, of your circumstances.
	But it was you. Because this was not subtle dysfunction that you were facing.
	Now, don't get me wrong.
	I could talk about your mom and her three marriages.
	I could talk about all of that kind of stuff, for sure.
	But here's the problem.
	If you talk about...
	Your mom being the cause of your problems, what is your daughter going to internalize?
	I'm the cause of her problems.
	It's you, baby. It's you, and you're going to just give her another excuse.
	It has to stop with you.
	The buck has to stop with you.
	Full 150% responsibility.
	It hurts.
	It's horrible.
	It's nasty.
	And I know that for women, shame and guilt and so on can feel overwhelming, right?
	Like if you look back and you say, okay, what if it was all of my responsibility, all of my doing...
	It's like this big giant Eiffel Tower-sized Jenga blocks come raining down on your head, right?
	Yeah. And that's why it's hard.
	And that's why it's hard to change these cycles in a family, right?
	Yeah. You can try and control others or you can accept responsibility for yourself.
	Either one will get the job done.
	It's just that one will stick.
	Only one will stick.
	Okay.
	And this is a great conversation to have with your daughter.
	Thank you.
	You can have a listen to this if you want, or you can just talk about it.
	And you can ask her, do you think mommy has ever described her past without taking responsibility?
	Do you think mommy has ever had a sort of tiny little habit of blaming others for her own choices?
	Sure.
	Ever happened?
	What a great conversation to have.
	What is the responsibility of a 17-year-old?
	It's a great question. I don't know the answer.
	It changes in various circumstances with various people.
	I don't know what the answer is.
	But if she's responsible, then so will you.
	Yeah. And you cannot ask your children to carry what you won't pick up.
	What you can't. But it won't work.
	Does that help? I think so.
	You all right? Yeah, I think.
	I don't know if this is like you're emotional or you've got a cold.
	Both. Or both. All right.
	Is there anything you wanted to talk about what you're feeling?
	Well, it's just been a hard week for me.
	And I just don't know where to go from here, I guess.
	You so know where to go from here or don't know?
	I mean, I don't know where to go from here.
	Like, I guess, you know, having that conversation with her, maybe having her listen to this conversation, she'd probably enjoy it.
	Because it's kind of like I'm getting scolded a little bit.
	But it's okay. I mean, that's where I'll go from here.
	Don't try and have the show do the work because then you're putting responsibility on me or the show or this conversation, right?
	No, that gives me a good perspective on how I've been phrasing things or thinking of things in that way.
	And there is an immediate reduction of discomfort to absolve oneself of responsibility.
	But it comes at the cost of the future and it comes at the cost of your kids.
	To some degree. I mean, you're not a monster.
	You've not raised terrible kids or anything like that.
	I mean, what it comes down to is me, like, let me just verbalize, check with you and verbalize if this is what it comes down to.
	Instead of saying, you know, making excuses for what other people have done, is it really just me saying I made a bad choice?
	I made a bad choice. It was my choice to do this.
	It was a bad choice. No, because you have to address her experience of 17 years of you not taking as much responsibility as you should.
	Don't change course with the kids without saying explicitly that you're changing course.
	And listening to them talk about what they've imbibed from your previous incarnation, right?
	Can you say that again?
	Yeah, that's not a good way to put it.
	So if you're now going to change your language from I was helpless and done unto to I'm now owning and accepting responsibility, that's great, but you have to take responsibility for the fact that you didn't take responsibility with regards to your life, with regards to your daughter for 17 years.
	Okay. So that can't just vanish.
	Now I'm taking responsibility, but you have to take responsibility for the fact that you didn't.
	I'm generalizing, but you know what I mean.
	Not 100%, but you know.
	That you didn't take responsibility with regards to your daughter for like 17 years.
	You have to take responsibility for that and its effects on your daughter.
	You know, like the analogy would be if you'd been an alcoholic, which I'm not saying is equivalent, right?
	But if you'd been an alcoholic, I'm not drinking anymore!
	Topic's closed. No, no, no.
	topic has just begun to open.
	Okay.
	Well, that can be a start and I can see how it goes, you know.
	I can see how it goes.
	Oh boy, this demon is tough to dig out, Lena.
	It really, really is.
	I can see how it goes.
	Did you get passive?
	Did you go rubber bones on me again there, Lena?
	Well, I just sometimes I don't know how things are going to go.
	Well, you see, no, but that's passive again.
	This situation is now going to happen unto me and I'm going to see how it goes.
	No. You are bringing this situation to your daughter.
	You're in control of what you say.
	You have influence on how she reacts.
	You're making this happen.
	It's not happening to you.
	I have some influence on how she reacts, but...
	Sure. But you certainly have complete control over what you say and do.
	Yes. And you have complete control over how you react to what she does.
	And she will be provocative, of course.
	It's tough to hear when you're 17 and have been programmed with helplessness.
	It's tough to hear that that was a mistake.
	Oops! Sorry, I may have given you 17 years of no human agency while demanding that you be responsible, but it's turning around right now.
	That's hard.
	But the only thing that's harder is not doing that.
	Because if she doesn't have agency, just as you didn't have agency, some strong-willed jerk is going to come and order her around, right?
	That's happened with you. Right.
	And then you'll be a very young grandmother.
	Right. And then she will end up raising her kids without a father.
	Or I will.
	Or you'll end up raising them without a father.
	Because you complain about the controlling boyfriend that you chose both to date and to stay with, right?
	And to have kids with.
	And to have kids with. Your daughter did not even choose you as a mother.
	Right. Right?
	She had no choice in the matter.
	You complaining and having no agency with regards to a boyfriend you completely invited into your life and chose to stay with every minute of every day for half a decade and chose to have two children with.
	How many more complaints is she going to have about you if she didn't even choose you?
	And owning up to one's foibles as a parent is very, very important.
	We need to have the capacity to have our children criticize us.
	Otherwise, they won't have agency.
	If they can't criticize us, they're just going to be open to be controlled by anyone.
	And as parents, we all do things.
	You know, I'm grilling you.
	Someday you may grill me.
	and my weaknesses will come up so that'll be my first step then Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Yeah. Okay.
	And you can be honest about the seductiveness of passivity.
	Passivity is the great drug that heals all and destroys all.
	I was done unto.
	I am a victim. I was controlled.
	I was bullied. Or sometimes he was just sexy and I had no choice.
	Like, whatever, right? Not in this case, apparently.
	But passivity, you know, doing too much is the great curse of men and doing too little or claiming too little is the great curse of women in general.
	Men think they can control too much.
	Women think they can control too little.
	And given that you want... Listen, for those who don't understand what Lena is doing, you need to understand that what Lena is doing is amazing.
	She is calling in to ask how to help her daughter.
	Now, if you're not a parent, you don't know how tough that is.
	If you are a parent, you know how tough that is.
	And what she's doing is very brave.
	And what she's doing is very thoughtful.
	And what she's doing is very loving.
	She made a positive choice to make a phone call to ask for help.
	Do you know how many people don't do that in life?
	Do you know how many people don't ask for help?
	Who just kind of soldier on making the same mistakes day after day.
	No review, no feedback, no consultation, no advice.
	I mean, just invite the listeners.
	Think of people in your own life.
	Think of people in your own life.
	How many of them, you know they're making mistakes.
	You know that they could do better.
	But they never inquire or ask for help.
	And if you bring up that they could do better, what do they do?
	They may lash out.
	They may snap back at you.
	They may, for instance, accuse you of accusing them.
	It may even have happened in this very college show.
	Not from you, you know what I mean?
	Right. Right, so the fact that she's calling in, this is like a very positive, and this is why I know you're ready for responsibility, because this was a very responsible thing to do, in my opinion.
	You made a positive action to ask for help.
	Beautiful. And the people who criticize people who ask for help You think you're doing something harmful to those people.
	It's not true at all. All you're doing is you're making sure that you can never ask for help.
	You know, Lena's calling up and being vulnerable and talking to people, to me, and knowing that people will...
	This is a vulnerable thing to do.
	It's a brave thing to do. It's a courageous thing to do.
	And you go, oh... It's like, well, all you're doing is meaning that you're never going to do it, and now you're going to be flying blind.
	You know, everyone thinks they're throwing cages on other people.
	Everyone thinks, oh, I got this, and I tortured this person with negative heart, right?
	Like the Price of Sex video that went out recently.
	People criticizing the callers.
	It's a torture chamber.
	Anybody can leave at any time except you.
	Except whoever is doing that to other people.
	They can just ignore you, close down their browser and go on, but you're stuck there.
	I'm saying this not to you, of course, Lena, but to the listeners.
	Yeah, it's easy to judge.
	Oh, Steph, you should have been harder on this person.
	It's easy to do that. Easy to do that.
	But the people who call in, whether to this show or other people, private conversations, doesn't matter, whether they think there's some wisdom and some good advice to be received.
	It's a very brave thing to do, a very difficult thing to do.
	And of course, if you've listened to the show for any length of time, you know that there are a hell of a lot of people who call in for help and don't take it.
	Yeah. Even when they can't prove me wrong.
	So I just wanted to express my intense admiration for that supreme act of self-ownership and responsibility of just even making the call.
	I mean, it's a bit nerve-wracking, right?
	It is. Right.
	Especially when I'm so vicious.
	Right. Will you let us know how it goes?
	Yeah. Let me see how things go.
	And if I have some more to bounce back at you, maybe I'll write again.
	Please do. Please do. And I wish you the very best.
	And I wanted to, again, just express my admiration for the courage of what you're doing.
	Sure. It's fantastic.
	All right. Last caller.
	Let's move it. I like to move it, move it.
	Alright, up next we have Justin.
	Justin wrote in and said, In a recent talk titled The Harvey Weinstein Scandal Aftermath, you mentioned the idea that everyone having a documentary and fantasy in their head, with the fantasy being an ideal to strive for, but if you just focus on the fantasy and live there, the documentary decays.
	In light of the Weinstein scandal, can't we say that Hollywood is using the fantasy to excuse their own behavior rather than create an ideal to strive for, which explains why they celebrate the churning out of naturalistic movies and attack and decry the production of romantic ones?
	That's from Justin.
	Hey Justin, how you doing?
	I'm pretty good, how are you?
	Well, I'm glad you liked it.
	I was very pleased with that analogy, and people should listen to that.
	It's a shame it kind of dropped its way into a current events thing, but inspiration hit, and I wanted to get the idea out.
	So I will say this, that the lion that dresses up as a zebra is not doing so because it loves zebras and just wants to be like them, right?
	Why does the lion dress up as the zebra if it can't?
	Because it wants to eat the zebras.
	That's right! It's called camouflage!
	Yes. And so when...
	So much of what Hollywood does is sadism.
	Sadism, pure and simple.
	You know, the Hollywood sign up on the hills should just be, we knew everything.
	And so if you humiliate a woman in order to give her a role, sexually humiliate her, Whether it's direct coercion, as in sexual assault, as has been alleged, or it's the soft coercion of, you'll never work in this town again.
	Take someone's greatest dream, greatest hope, greatest ambition, set fire to it right in front of them.
	That's an incredibly sadistic act.
	Should it be illegal? Well, I don't think so, because it's ostracism and so on, but telling the truth about what happened shouldn't be illegal either.
	given how long recording devices have been around, people should have just recorded it and published it.
	But if you create these movies where women are powerful and heroic, brave, strong, invulnerable, empowered, and you know that you sexually assaulted and you know that you sexually assaulted a woman to give her that role, that's a special kind of sadism, right?
	I'm going to humiliate you so that you can portray yourself as powerful.
	That is a mind frack of Old Testament biblical proportions.
	And that's an insult to the Old Testament, by the way.
	I apologize. And so I would say that they use the fantasy as camouflage as a cover.
	Well, we empower women.
	We show women being empowered.
	That's a way of making it harder to believe that they could prey upon women.
	It's camouflage. Their ideal of women who can beat up men, women who are, you know, Jennifer Garner in alias, just roundhouse kickboxing crap and this sort of stuff,
	right? If women have sold themselves, I'm not talking about Jennifer Garner in particular, but if women have sold themselves sexually, then they can't even stand up To one hairy-faced troll-like producer.
	But then you put them in movies and television shows where they kick butt an endless stream of guys.
	It's a special kind of humiliation.
	And a special kind of camouflage.
	Because you portray women as so strong when they're so fragile.
	When they're so breakable.
	That they will surrender their sexuality for ambition.
	That they will screw repulsive guys for fame and money.
	Some. So, no.
	It's a form of camouflage.
	You see this with the male feminists.
	A lot of them coming out as the sexual abusers and sexual assault, sexual harassment.
	Josh Whedon.
	Guy who wrote Buffy.
	Oh, strong female leads.
	Well... He writes a strong female lead.
	Because if he writes for women, he gets to audition more women.
	It's not because he thinks women are great.
	It's because he thinks they're sexy.
	It's not because he wants to empower women.
	It's because he wants access to women.
	If I write lots of female leads, I get to audition a lot of women.
	It's not feminism. It's predation.
	Now, his affairs and stuff are non-consensual.
	I don't think seems to be part of that equation, but it's kind of camouflage.
	And it's a form of additional sadism.
	So I don't think that Hollywood's Ideal, obviously it doesn't have anything to do with celebrating women.
	Because some of these women obviously are artistic concubines.
	And this goes back forever.
	Shirley Temple wrote about a guy who exposed himself to her when she was 11.
	Judy Garland. Marilyn Monroe.
	Lots of people have talked about it.
	It goes back a long way.
	This... Vicious orc source of predatory artistic power has been a central sixth stream running through the culture since Hollywood was created.
	And before that, it was the theater.
	There's a reason why acting was considered a contemptible profession in most cultures.
	The old saying that actors are people too lazy to be prostitutes.
	And there's a reason why, in Shakespeare's day, you didn't have women on stage.
	You had boys, and God knows what happened to them, you had boys who played the female parts.
	Wherever you get this kind of power imbalance combined with this amoralism, you're going to get these kinds of outcomes.
	And it is horrible what happened.
	It is a huge and unexpected win in the culture war that it has come out.
	Because the radiating effects of this, Justin, are astonishing how far they're going to go.
	Nobody has moral credibility in Hollywood anymore.
	Nobody. Because either you were part of it, you knew, you were willfully blind, or you're too stupid to breathe.
	None of those categories spell moral authority.
	Obviously, if you were part of it, you're a scumbag.
	If you knew about it but didn't say anything, you're a scumbag.
	If you claim not to know about it, well, I guess the Oscar next to you is going to go for the most convincing denial of an obvious fact, then you're not believable.
	And if you genuinely didn't know about it, then you're not successful at all.
	Because at that 2013 Oscars, when Seth MacFarlane made the joke that the five actresses no longer had to pretend to be attracted to Harvey Weinstein, the entire room gained a wonderful glow of moral responsibility.
	Because they're all like, that's funny.
	So which means they knew.
	They knew he had a costume couch.
	They knew that he was trading roles for sexual favors.
	They knew. Because otherwise they'd be like, I don't get that joke at all.
	And they'd be like, what?
	That's a thing? Why?
	That's terrible! We've got to deal with this!
	We've got to shine the light in these dark places!
	But, you know, the people who let Woody Allen continue working, the people who gave a standing ovation and an Oscar to child vaginal and anal rapist Roman Polanski, well, that's not where your moral center is going to come from, my friends.
	So, And Disney bought the Weinstein Company.
	Bought it. Run it.
	Managed it. Oh, Peter Thiel, the guy who funded the Gawker lawsuit, is now funding people who want to sue.
	Oh, by God, the shit that is going to come out is going to be absolutely astonishing.
	It's going to go deep.
	It's going to go wide.
	And it spills over into the media as well, of course.
	If you look at the companies, the media companies, the television stations, the newspapers, who knew, who had reporters begging to run the story and shut it down.
	Oh, shut it down.
	That's going to haunt them because of the alternative media.
	This stuff goes into the memory hole and they're constantly trying to stuff this into the memory hole because there's a lot about this story called stuffing into holes.
	They're going to stuff it into the memory hole.
	Do you know what's going to happen? They're going to throw these bodies in the swamp, hoping the alligators of time are going to eat them up and shit them out into unrecognizable lumps.
	You know what happens? Brave souls in the alternative media, we're going to go in, bring back the bodies, hold them up and say, sorry, that's not what you're putting them.
	We're going to hold them up, hold them up, hold them up.
	See this body, see this body, see this person, see this person.
	The Directors Guild kicked out Weinstein.
	Hasn't kicked out Polanski.
	Hasn't kicked out Woody Allen, I don't think.
	Where are their standards?
	Now they're going to put a task force together to investigate these nefarious...
	Come on.
	It's such sick, pathetic theater.
	This means they're done!
	No more windbaggery, pompous moral lectures from these people.
	None. They may be able to do it with a straight face because they're empty-headed, soulless automatons of imitation, but nobody will believe them.
	Michael Moore! Working on a movie with Weinstein says, Weinstein's a great person to do business with.
	So you see, he's the moral authority.
	He knows good and bad.
	He knows right and wrong.
	He knows honesty and integrity or corruption.
	And he's working with this guy.
	And you telling me he didn't hear any of the rumors?
	You've got to be kidding me.
	It's ridiculous.
	Of course he knew. Of course he knew.
	They all knew. And all these people now, talk about the bullshit courage that comes too late.
	It's not even courage at all. If you're not naming people, I don't care.
	Something happened to me, well, I'm not going to tell you anything.
	Like, I'm sorry it happened to you, but you had a long time to come forward.
	Molly Ringwald says it happened to her.
	Reese Witherspoon says it happened to her.
	All these people going back decades.
	Where is your compassion?
	Where is your empathy? Where is your concern for those who came after you?
	By staying silent, you enabled the serial sexual abuse and predation upon the young girls that you were once upon a time.
	And the silence has enabled the predation.
	People say, ah, well, you know.
	Now, I understand. Listen, it's complicated.
	So these women who are saying they're going back, what is Reese Witherspoon?
	She's like, in her early 40s, she's talking about stuff that happened when she was 16.
	It's a long time ago. Probably statute of limitations is long past.
	So if she says anything, she can't prove it, and she's going to get sued.
	Well, if you came by the money dishonestly, maybe you can spend it more honestly.
	If you came by the money and fame by being secret and silent about the sexual abuse of men, women, and children in the industry, maybe you should get sued because at least then you've named some names.
	You'll take some hits.
	But if the money Was accrued through corrupt and dishonest means of enabling serial sexual abusers and accused rapists.
	And I'm sure to God, about to come the pedophiles.
	Maybe you should give up some of that money.
	In return for exposing some of these people.
	Maybe. Maybe.
	Movie stars, they have a lot of sympathy.
	They have a lot of love. They can sell a lot of magazines.
	You really want to be?
	Suing Reese Witherspoon?
	Having her crying on the stand?
	In front of a jury who's seen her movies?
	I don't know why people don't know the power that they have.
	Don't know. I guess it doesn't matter how much money and power and fame and beauty and talent you have.
	Maybe you never get out of that horrible situation of ungodly compromise.
	Maybe you never escape that room with the sweaty, lumpy, middle-aged man groping and grabbing at you and your youthful perfection.
	Maybe you can get all the statues and fame and money, but you never get out of that darkening room of hideous self-compromise.
	I say this because I was offered artistic opportunities, maybe even success in return for sexual favors.
	Wasn't even tempting.
	If you want something that bad, it is painting a target on you.
	So, This is going to go deep.
	It's going to go wide. I hope it unearths the oft-talked-of pedophiles that are operating within Hollywood, within the entertainment industry, within the music industry, within the dance industry, within the theater industry, and other places as well.
	So... Maybe, just maybe as well, we'll understand why these people feared and hated and loathed even the possibility of a Donald Trump presidency.
	Maybe we will finally understand why they opposed this light going on to see the roaches that are.
	This is massive implications.
	That's why I did so many stories on it.
	That's why I'm talking about it now. There's massive implications.
	For the world, and not just America.
	I mean, this is a worldwide phenomenon, this Hollywood culture.
	It may in fact simply be a town, an industry, of demons and their handlers, of devils and their enablers, which are just two different kinds of devils.
	And if that ends, A great, grim, vicious and evil force will have been dispelled from the world.
	The ring will have gone into the fire, and the great cinematic eye will have fallen to be replaced with something far healthier and far better for the world.
	We can, but hope.
	What do you think? What do you think?
	I agree with everything you're saying.
	I hadn't quite thought of the angle of the camouflage, but I even agree with that.
	But what specifically appeals to me about what you said is when you're talking about never being able to escape that self-compromise, and then you're talking about Hollywood culture being far-reaching and the eye of Sauron falling down.
	Because what I was specifically driving at with my question was not just the way they're using art as camouflage, but also the effects on their psychologies of living this way that necessitates that they make a certain kind of art.
	And what I'm talking about is when you look at the Oscars and you look at the Golden Globes or any of these other award shows, and you look at the critics and what they celebrate.
	They all celebrate these pieces of art, and this actually fits well with The Last Caller, these pieces of art that blame the external world and see the hero as a victim of societal forces.
	And that obviously then seeps into the culture at large because those are the movies people are saying.
	That's the messages they're receiving since they're children.
	And I think that when you're talking about it going even further, I think that is a huge effect of this, that we basically have an entire industry of people who are complicit So, they can only think negatively of themselves so they make art about how the world is to blame and they're not to blame because that's the only way they can live with themselves.
	And that's why they think that's great art and that's why they think that art is real.
	When, as you've said, the real is using art to strive to better yourself.
	Right. Right.
	And, you know, if people want to see where the rabbit hole may be leading, check out a documentary called An Open Secret.
	Well, with having a look at, I think it's free now for a week or two, and you can look it up.
	But this goes pretty deep.
	This goes pretty deep, and it is really nasty stuff.
	And it really, you know, we can also understand why they went so hard after the Catholic Church.
	Diversion! The problem's over there, you see.
	This is why they go so hard against corrupt corporations.
	Why is it that people in Hollywood see corruption?
	Everywhere they look, why do they see an evil predatory patriarchy?
	Stein, everywhere they look!
	Because that's where they live.
	That's where they live. Yeah, I mean, it's basic projection, and that's the way I see it.
	I mean, I live out in California, I grew up on the East Coast, and moving out here It was the first time where I was like, wow, that's why they really write about these things, right?
	That's why we have movies that's all about global warming is going to destroy the world.
	Or we have these movies about where the rich go live in a place where they hole up and then the poor are all around them and they're all suffering.
	It's all dilapidated.
	I mean, that doesn't describe Los Angeles.
	I don't know what does. So that's the reality that they live in.
	So having all of this come out and finding out that this is what people are, it's not a surprise to me because this is what the art they make is.
	Well, and this is what you see in these movies, in these TV shows, and it's bothered me forever.
	Which is, what happens?
	Well, the characters meet, exchange a few words over drinks, and have sex up against the wall.
	The women are hyper-sexualized.
	They want it. They throw themselves at men.
	Well, of course, this is guilt.
	This is guilt at sexually exploiting women and saying, well, they want it.
	They're all sluts. All they want is sex.
	Now, that's an R-selected thing, too, a hypersexualization of women, but this everyone falling into bed, well, as Ben Shapiro says it, treating sex as a handshake.
	It's just a handshake. It doesn't mean anything.
	Women want it. They want it.
	They want it. What was it?
	Lea Michele in the first season of Glee, very beginning.
	She says, oh, yeah, no, women want sex as much as men.
	Talking about hypersexualization of women.
	It's not true. Hormonally, statistically, factually, it's not true.
	And, of course, Glee has its own dark corner.
	One of the actresses, was he just being convicted of having thousands of images of child pornography?
	Videos, I assume.
	God knows. Either they can see this immorality, in which case they're complicit, or they can't see this immorality, in which case they better stop fucking lecturing everyone else about ethics.
	Sorry, go ahead. Well, I was going to say just look at the kind of art Ryan Murphy makes, all of the shows he's made.
	I mean, Glee, he made Nip Tuck, he makes American Horror Story.
	This isn't a person making art about the beauty in life and what to achieve.
	This is about the dark side of things.
	Well, Glee was a bit surprising after the unbelievable nihilism of Nip-Tuck, but it was not quite as bad, but as it turns out, it kind of was in a way, so...
	Anyway, I hope that helps.
	I appreciate the calls.
	I appreciate the conversations. Love you guys all so much.
	Thank you for the privilege, the honor, the deep delight of having such important conversations with you.
	It's making up for all the boring people I was forced to chat to when I was younger.
	So I really, really appreciate it.
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