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Dec. 30, 2017 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

03:22:16

3945 Shut Up and Man Up? - Call In Show - December 27th, 2017

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	Hey everybody, Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain Radio.
	Hope you're doing very well, very best of the winter season, winter solstice, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, whatever floats your boat.
	I hope you're having a wonderful winter so far.
	And we had some great callers tonight.
	Very exciting, very instructive, most illuminating.
	So the first is a Cuban couple who fled communism under Castro, who are now attacked for being fake immigrants because they are small government fans, as of course are a lot of people who have fled communism.
	I guess the tigers seem cute at the zoo.
	It's different when they're loose in your economy.
	It's a very great conversation.
	The second caller and I had a very robust and I guess somewhat tense debate about theories of knowledge.
	Do we just kind of agree on reason and evidence or is it something more objective than that?
	And I love that kind of stuff.
	So I was very, very keen to have that topic unpacked right there before your eyes.
	The third caller wanted to know if, you know, thinking about your childhood, examining your own history and pursuing self-knowledge, does it kind of get to be a bit of a navel-gazing exercise?
	I mean, do you really get to move forward if you're constantly circling back to examine the past?
	And it's a good question.
	You know, is it one of these things where you need the Aristotelian mean?
	Have some knowledge of your past, but don't get lost in it.
	And it actually went in a very interesting direction as well.
	Regret, the fourth caller.
	Living with a lot of regret in his professional and financial life in particular.
	Didn't get into Bitcoin and is not hugely happy with his career.
	And the question of regret is very, very interesting.
	It can consume you or it can instruct you.
	you.
	Of course, I aim to guide people towards the latter perspective.
	So I hope that you enjoy the show.
	Of course, thank you so much for all of your support.
	Freedomainradio.com slash donate.
	Thank you very, very much.
	And let's get started.
	All right.
	First today, we have Desiree.
	Desiree wrote in and said, I'm trying to create awareness about something I've been witnessing taking place lately.
	And I was hoping that I could perhaps speak to you about these issues concerning my university, my community, and the perception of Cuban Americans, such as my family.
	Essentially, fellow students, as well as other Miamians, have started widely referring to the Cubans of my grandfather's generation, those who fled the Castro regime, and their children as Gustanos.
	Gustanos meaning worm in English.
	They have also referred to their experience as immigrant light because their immigration to this country was legal and that they weren't on the receiving end of racism.
	The reason this is so appalling to me is that the term Gustano is actually the communist propaganda of the Castro regime meant to create a divide among Cubans and discredit those who left.
	I have had my family attacked on social media for being educated, hardworking immigrants and told that they were most likely Batista sympathizers or worse.
	The authenticity of Cubans, especially ones who originally fled the Castro regime, as Latinos and as immigrants is being questioned more and more, which I believe to be mainly because they are widely conservative.
	I am proud of my family and their achievements, accomplished despite their many obstacles, so I refuse to have their good name tarnished by today's community that is hell-bent against those who are conservative.
	However, I worry that if I were to go on the offensive on this issue, I could lose the scholarships I've worked so hard to earn if my university found out.
	What can I do to fight this intelligently without bringing myself down to the whining, complaining nature of the left?
	That's from Desiree.
	Hi, Desiree. How are you doing today?
	Hi, Stefan. I'm doing well.
	Thank you. How are you? I'm well.
	I'm well. This is fascinating stuff.
	Thank you. Fascinating stuff.
	And what a, yeah, what an interesting challenge.
	You know, somebody mentioned to me the other day, maybe you can sort of fill me in just before we jump into this, because I thought it was a point worth remembering.
	So, Obama, in, I guess, back in January, Of 2017, of this year.
	He ended this wet foot, dry foot policy that allows Cubans who arrive in the United States without a visa to become permanent residents.
	Now that, to me, is quite interesting.
	And the way that I understood that was that the Cubans who flee communism at great peril to their lives are not big fans of socialism offered by the left.
	So I thought it was really interesting that Obama ended this policy for people who had landed from Cuba, because I can only assume they want to keep Florida and people like your grandfather's generation.
	Well, they're not big fans of collectivism, of socialism, of central planning, of communism, of Democrats, and so on.
	So if they vote Republican, that would be one of the reasons behind that policy.
	Does that make any sense to you?
	Oh, no, yes, of course.
	It makes a lot of sense.
	But actually...
	Funny enough, when Obama did that, which, as you said, most Cuban Americans, my family, and the family of my fiancé, actually, do not like Democrats, and they did not like Obama.
	But one of the things that they were actually okay with was him repealing that, and that's only because now the mentality of a lot of older Cuban generations is that the people who are coming are doing so for money, And when they come here to earn money to send back, they're not doing anything to improve Cuba or to get the communism out of there, which is terrible to them.
	So if essentially the idea is, well, you need to learn that this is bad for you.
	So no, it shouldn't be easy for you to come here, earn money and then send it back and then still say that communism is a fantastic thing.
	No. But which of the, I mean, I can't imagine that there are many Cuban Americans, certainly not those who flee Castro's regime, who think that communism is any kind of wonderful thing.
	Yeah, yeah, I mean...
	I mean, that's literally like getting off the Titanic and saying, you know what was a great ship to sail on?
	The Titanic. It's like, well, why did you leave?
	Oh, it was going underwater.
	Well, is that a good thing?
	No. It's a wonderful thing.
	Well, why did you leave? You're a racist!
	Yeah, pretty much.
	No, actually, a big problem that my family had, and that also even today, actually, my fiance's family has, is that some people who are Cuban and do come here are still communists.
	And they talk about Cuba as though we're this fantastic island still and it's really sad for me actually because my grandfather who passed away many years ago but he used to talk about Cuba with such love and such passion and how it was gorgeous back when he was growing up and well then enter Castro and everything changed so For them to hear that,
	oh no, but Cuba's doing great, Cuba's fantastic, it's horribly offensive.
	No, because if you look at what Cuba was and what it is now, it's two completely different things.
	Oh, it's a sand-ringed prison.
	Yeah, it's poor.
	And that's kind of an insult to prisons, because prisons, there's some degree of due process, unless you're in San Francisco, and there is some chance of getting out.
	And you eventually, hopefully, will be released and there's, you know, time off for good behavior and so on.
	This is, it's a gulag.
	It's a very, it's a gulag with one of the best and most moderate temperatures in the world, but it is a horrible...
	I can't even imagine.
	Almost didn't engage because it's like punching a little girl guide, if you're Mike Tyson.
	It's like, they're so stupid.
	They're so retarded.
	They've never lived under this system.
	They've only read about it in books.
	They have never had any direct experience of it.
	And if you have grown up with that direct experience of communism and you've seen, you know, the secret police kick in doorways in the middle of the night, drag people off never to be seen again, people getting tortured, people starving, people waiting for five years to get their sinks replaced, people waiting 10 years for a phone or a car, no opportunities, no capacity to move forward, no independence, no freedom, no freedom of speech, no property rights, living in this horrible world.
	I mean, then for people who are like, let's liberate the proletariat.
	It's like, oh, God, you just do people with words and no life experience are I mean, they're a plague.
	They're a plague on the species.
	No, they truly are.
	And, you know, it's I mean, and to me, it seems almost childish of them because I actually had that moment with my grandmother.
	One day, coming home from school, I think I was in middle school at the time, I had just learned about communism, right?
	And they touched on the idealist aspects of communism.
	And me going, oh, well, I mean, equality for everybody, everybody having the same thing, that sounds fantastic.
	I wonder why they hate it so much.
	So I went home and I tried to talk to my grandma about it, and oh my god, she was like, what, are you a communist now?
	And I'm like, no, no, no, I'm trying to understand, I'm trying to understand.
	And it was just terrible because as a child, sure, you think, oh, well, this is great.
	It would be nice for everybody to have equal opportunities and equal everything.
	But it just doesn't work in practice.
	It can't.
	No. I read a story.
	I think it was in the back of the newspaper.
	I read a story many, many years ago, Desiree, that really, really stuck with me.
	And it was a woman was writing about her very elderly grandmother.
	And this is way back in the day when there wasn't even any recording of television.
	And there was a commercial about...
	A woman who just did the laundry and the towels were warm and her children came in from being outside in their bathing suits and it got chilly and it got cold and it was the idea, you know, these towels, they're so warm and they're so fluffy and they're so soft, you can wrap your children in these towels and they shiver with delight at being warmed up and so on.
	And She said, my grandmother wasn't much of a TV watcher, but after this commercial came on and she happened to see it, she got very quiet and she got very deep and she got very still.
	And she then would continue to watch television, watch the worst garbage, the stuff, like, why would you bother, right?
	Just on the off chance of seeing this commercial again, and every time the commercial would come up, she would get very quiet, her eyes would well up, and she would hug herself very subtly, watching this commercial of the mother wrapping her cold children in warm towels.
	And she said, like, I asked my mom, like, why does grandma, why does she care about this commercial?
	Why is she interested in this commercial?
	And my mother said, well, your grandmother was in a concentration camp under Stalin, and it got so cold that her firstborn daughter froze to death in her arms, could not keep her alive.
	And so when she sees this commercial of the mother wrapping the cold children in the warm towels, it takes her right back there.
	And this is just one of the many unbelievable tragedies, a hundred million strong, of people slaughtered by communism.
	And, you know, it's one of these, absolutely, like, we live in an asylum.
	We live in an asylum.
	And when I was younger, I grew up in a crazy family, but I had this fantasy I'd get out into a sane world.
	And I just went from a more localized asylum to an open-air asylum.
	I understand. Because there are no Nazis in academia.
	There are no Nazis in the media.
	But you've got 40% of anthropologists in America self-identifying as Marxists.
	You've got Marxists riddled all the way through the media, all the way through academia, all the way through Hollywood.
	There are just Marxists all over the place.
	So there are no Nazis anywhere.
	There are Marxists everywhere.
	So what does the media say?
	Nazi, Nazi, Nazi, Nazi, Nazi, Nazi, Nazi.
	Drives me crazy.
	So, this bigotry against those who fled, who risked their lives.
	I mean, to have disrespect for your grandparents who risked their lives to give you a taste of freedom is about as entitled and bratty and horrible and immature as I can conceive of.
	It's extremely offensive because, I mean, and one of the things, the attacks, right, on social media that I mentioned is that...
	There was this post on Reddit where they talked about how Cubans in Miami fell after Castro died.
	Which, that's a whole other thing.
	But it somehow got to people talking about how the ones who fled were all Batista supporters.
	Right. And just, you know, the aristocracy of Cuba.
	And that the rest of them who couldn't come and later came...
	On rafts, right, were the illiterates.
	And I was like, that is just so, so wrong.
	So absolutely wrong.
	My grandfather, he grew up on a farm.
	And actually, poor thing, he witnessed his father shot and died.
	He died very young.
	My grandfather had to basically care for his mother and his siblings, and they all took care of each other.
	And eventually, right, from those humble beginnings, he managed to get an education, become an accountant, and be doing fairly well in Cuba.
	And that was under Batista, but he didn't actually support Batista, and that's one of the few things that I remember him talking about.
	But then he came here.
	You know, when everything was happening with Castro, and this man who, honestly, I have met few people as educated as my grandfather, he was washing dishes.
	He did that to give my mother, her half-sister, and his sons a home.
	Someone who was an accountant.
	And these people are spurning what he went through because he did it legally and because people weren't incredibly rude to him.
	It's just beyond my understanding.
	What was it like for you, Desiree, when Castro died?
	Honestly, I wasn't one of these people that, you know, went out and paraded in the streets.
	But I felt...
	Just an ounce of relief.
	And it was as though my grandparents, I finally felt some peace for them in that.
	But it's not as though the death of that one man has changed anything.
	And actually, my grandfather swore that he would never set foot on Cuba again until it was free.
	And I feel I'm obliged to continue in that for him.
	And I don't want me or my children to go until it is free.
	And it's funny because me personally, I don't have any connection to this island.
	It's kind of like a mystical fairytale place for me, like akin to Avalon kind of thing.
	But I still feel that need that if it were ever free to go back, but not before.
	Right. Right. No, I mean, when I was younger, I mean, let's go.
	Let's go vacation in Cuba.
	It's like, let's not. And, you know, and this is what people, I don't think they fundamentally don't seem to understand this, I guess, because they've never been taught the real history of communism.
	You know, communism is like, it's the second most murderous doctrine in the history of the world.
	Far worse in terms of body count than national socialism, which is another form or flavor of leftism.
	And I don't think people, because they've not read the history, they don't understand.
	I mean, I'm very, very aware.
	If far leftists get in power, I mean, you know as well as I do, Desiree, people like you and I, we're going to be dragged out back into our gardens and shot through the head in front of our families.
	No, no, no. I mean, these people do not fuck around.
	They are a crime gang and they take no prisoners.
	And they will slaughter as many people.
	It is a death cult.
	It is a sadism Disney World when the Marxists get in power.
	It is a plaything for the pathologically cruel.
	And they will...
	They will just, if they don't like you, if they think that you're going to threaten their power, I mean, they will torture you, they will beat you, they will kill you, and they will bury you in unmarked graves, and then they'll probably take on your entire gene pool.
	So this is what has always happened when the Marxists get into power.
	And so this idea that they have any kind of moral high ground to stand on is incomprehensible to anybody with the barest shred of accurate history.
	Yeah, I don't know.
	My fiancé's grandfather, he was strung up and had his testicles electrocuted by the Castro regime.
	Yeah, it's psychopathy translated to economics.
	Yeah, I just can't.
	I had actually never heard of the term busano before.
	I mean, granted, worm, you know?
	That's one of the things you learn.
	It's basic language. But never that.
	In Miami, my grandfather's generation, they were just referred to as, you know, Cuban immigrants.
	What was the term?
	I'm trying to remember. It was just so long ago.
	I think it was the old guard?
	Yeah. Something like that?
	Yeah. So, um...
	That's what I had grown up hearing.
	Then suddenly Castro dies, and people becoming essentially more leftist, right?
	And I'm just going to go out there and say it, more communist, okay?
	They started referring to us as gusanos here, because that was what they called them in Cuba.
	And that's why I hadn't heard it, right?
	That's what the Cubans were saying about the Cubans who were here, you know?
	Yeah. Because it was Castro's propaganda.
	You know, look at these terrible people that left that did this to us.
	This is why we're poor, you know.
	Which, absolute bullshit.
	And then I'm in one of my classrooms, and I'm trying to talk to these classmates of mine.
	Who said that, oh, you know, they want me to be less Cuban, my family.
	And that struck me as very odd.
	Because one thing that Cubans are is extremely proud of who they are.
	And they want you to...
	Enjoy that culture, right?
	So that a Cuban family would be saying, no, no, no, you have to be less Cuban.
	It struck me as very odd.
	But then what she was describing, it was that they didn't want you to be kind of like the low-class Cuban, okay?
	Who Cubans refer to, like, you know, the refs, that.
	They didn't want you to be that.
	And then another girl spoke up.
	And very matter-of-factly, she said, no, yeah, because the Cubans that first traveled here are called the Gusanos.
	And then the Cubans that came later on ships are called Balceros.
	And I swear, my eyes widened, my jaw dropped.
	It was just, I couldn't believe it.
	I could not believe it.
	What I had just heard.
	And the fact that it was...
	What does your fiancé think of all of this?
	Sorry about that.
	That's all right. What does your fiancé think of all of this?
	Oh, he's absolutely furious.
	He... Me, it's more that I feel hurt and surprised.
	He gets upset.
	So upset. And actually, he has more...
	Honestly, to be upset about, because even though these things have happened to me, he's actually a teacher.
	He teaches world history in a school.
	And, well, I don't need to tell you about what's in our educational system.
	So he's just floored by the level of socialist beliefs just are infused into everything.
	And the fact that Our authenticity as Latinos, you know, is being questioned because we are Cuban.
	And the funny thing is that his dad has always told him, and actually has been telling him more now to kind of soothe him, it's that other Hispanics, thinking in Spanish, but he says que nos tienen envidia.
	That means that they envy us, okay?
	Because... Because we managed to do so much, because look at what Cubans have managed to achieve, you know, in Miami, alone!
	And that was what?
	50 years ago?
	You know, they climbed up so far, and yet that hasn't happened for others.
	So that's what he tells him.
	And honestly, it's just so frustrating.
	There's ways to make it less frustrating, but you won't like them.
	Oh dear. All right.
	Now, you're a very intelligent woman.
	I'm going to assume, obviously, that your fiancé is a very intelligent man.
	That he is. I'm sorry?
	That he is. Yeah.
	Now, how do you find these discussions with your average Cubans?
	Which discussions? There are many.
	The discussions about, say, the history of Cuba and the realities of communism and socialism, collectivism as a whole?
	I mean, family, people that we meet, either for me in the university or him in his school or just in these situations.
	No, actually, forget about the school thing, just in general, in socializing among extended family or community or wherever you can chat about these things or wherever these topics come up, even if you don't engage.
	Honestly, just in gatherings, it just always tends to come up, this concept of what they ran from.
	And what some people defend.
	It just seems to come up, honestly, for us, nearly on a weekly basis.
	And how would you say the intellectual level of the conversations is?
	I mean, are people talking about abstract political philosophy, property rights, individualism versus collectivism, statism versus the free market?
	I mean, are we talking like John Locke-style Conversations about political power or what level of the conversation is occurring?
	It's extremely anecdotal.
	So dumb. Yeah.
	Average IQ in Cuba is what?
	Oh, you know what?
	I actually don't know. 85.
	Oh dear. Yes.
	Oh dear indeed. And that's not out of the range for Hispanics as a whole.
	So here's the challenge.
	So if you want to understand one possible way of looking at this, and this is not final or proven, it's just a conjecture, a hypothesis.
	So the smartest people in Cuba flee communism.
	Because if you're really smart, you can't stand being in a communist country.
	Because your whole potential is crushed and you're marked and you have to dumb it down.
	And, you know, they always say, oh, you know, girls have to pretend that they're dumb to attract boys.
	It's like, nope. No, they don't.
	They really, really don't.
	I assume that you didn't play dumb to attract your fiancé.
	But you do have to play dumb when you're trapped in a collectivist culture surrounded by idiots.
	And in particular, in communism, in socialism, or in those kinds of environments, including government schools, which are fundamentally socialist, if not downright communist in principle, you really have to dumb things down so that you don't get attacked or beaten for being above your station or too good for people or an apple polisher or a teacher's pet or a suck-up or whatever, right? So the smartest Cubans get the hell out as soon as they can.
	And the very smartest ones see it even coming.
	And get out before the gates close.
	So the first wave of Cubans coming into America, creme de la creme.
	Fantastic people, hardworking, energetic, intelligent, can overcome just about any obstacles because they're probably at least a standard deviation above whites.
	They're probably cooking 110, 115, 120 for IQ. But then the next wave and the next wave and the next wave come and...
	It's the second tier, third tier, and of course Some of the smart Cubans end up having kids, and of course, regression to the mean means that the IQ is not likely to stay as high.
	Which is why there's this resentment towards the original, very smart Cubans from the Cubans, who are probably less intelligent statistically as time goes along.
	And that's one way to understand it.
	I'm not saying it's the final answer or the complete answer, but it's a way of looking at this phenomenon without hopefully driving you completely mental.
	Yeah, it helps.
	I mean, it's not like I believe that these people, well, clearly incredibly intelligent, but it's more that I actually had some issues with my identity as a Cuban or anything like that because while my mother and my grandparents were Cuban, my father and his parents are Costa Rican.
	So, and then I'm born in America, so I just saw myself as American and, you know, I'm a mix.
	I'm a lovely mix. That was my mentality.
	But I never really felt attached to these identities.
	But this recent, and honestly, it does feel like an attack.
	It just, it's more like I want to stand up and defend my identity.
	Grandparents and the people of their generation who suffered so much because they should not be tarnished.
	For everything that they went through, everything that they've done and managed to achieve.
	I just...
	No, but if the IQ hypothesis has some validity, then they are going to be unable to replicate the achievements of their grandparents.
	Oh, yeah, of course.
	Right? I mean, it's like if you're, you know, the stereotype that I use, like if your father is, if your grandfather is the Chinese NBA player who's 6'10", right?
	And you've regressed to the mean down to, you know, 5'6", or whatever, right?
	Mm-hmm. Then you're not going to be able to get into the NBA. You're not going to be able to replicate your grandfather's success because you're shorter.
	And so this is what happens is, They have this, and this is true for minorities and...
	I mean, it's true for non-whites, basically, who have the great racism card in Western countries, right?
	So if, because of regression to the mean, you're unable to replicate the successes of your grandparents, then you have to start screaming racism if you don't want to face the facts, right?
	In other words, if you believe that you're as tall and as competent as your grandfather, who was...
	Six foot ten and you're five foot six.
	If you believe that you are as tall and as good at basketball, then why you're not in the NBA? It must be because of racism.
	The NBA must have grown racist towards Chinese people since your grandfather's time.
	Of course. So this is inevitable.
	And this is why cries of racism get worse.
	And this is why the first generation of people who struggle and strive to get into the West, the first generation of non-whites, Don't complain as much about racism, but every successive generation complains more and more about racism.
	If there's a low IQ gene pool because they cannot replicate the successes of their grandparents, and therefore they have to say, well, racism is increased.
	And they have to start attacking their grandparents because their grandparents' lives are...
	A repudiation of the we fail because of white racism hypothesis, if that makes sense.
	No, it makes a lot of sense.
	And actually, if you can believe this, right, what you're offering to me is a solution, which honestly I see, and that's part of why I wanted to have this conversation with you and to try and do what I can to dispel that.
	Sorry, dispel what?
	To dispel the whole, you know, Cubans are not really Latinos because they're conservative and all that, you know.
	Sorry. I mean, oh my God.
	So basically they're saying that Cubans, because they're smarter than Latinos, are conservative and therefore, and it's like, I don't really think that's where you want to go from an argumentation standpoint, but what do I know?
	Oh, yeah. I don't know.
	That's why I'm telling you.
	Yeah. Honestly, my fiancé is here, and he's listening, and he just reminded me about his grandfather, and he just said, you know, because being tortured is immigrant light.
	Right, right.
	So the new generation is complaining about white racism, but your fiancé's grandfather was tortured by Cubans.
	Got it. Yeah. Oh, real hardship there for the new generation.
	And actually, it was funny to me also when they talked about, you know, racism and all of these things.
	And I was like, you know, it's funny to me because the only people who have been racist against me, because I'm very white.
	I don't know where that came from, but I'm super white.
	Ceilings? Curtains?
	Excessive sunscreen? I don't know.
	Wait, so are you, like, very white to the point where, like, past for white?
	Or where are you on the spectrum?
	I mean... Honestly, I've gone to Iowa and no one has noticed anything about me.
	I fit completely in.
	Well, okay. But you do have to eat a hell of a lot of potatoes to fit in there.
	So, all right. All right. So, you pass.
	And so, is there bigotry against more lighter-skinned Latinos in the community?
	Not necessarily.
	It's more that if you look white, right, white American, then they don't assume that you're Latino.
	And so they're going to be racist because they're racist against gringos.
	Okay.
	That's the term for, you know, white people, gringos.
	And.
	It's not, it's not a particularly positive term.
	It always seems to be associated with the CIA overthrowing your government and imperialism.
	If.
	But the only people who have been racist against me have been other Hispanics, assuming that I was white.
	And actually, one time was extremely, uh, horribly offensive because it was, uh, very sexual, and this was in my high school.
	And these guys, who actually were, uh, I'm sorry, I'm thinking in Spanish again, but recién llegados, right, they had just gotten here, like, um, from Cuba, um, They were saying some pretty pro-sexual things about me in Spanish because they thought I was white.
	And finally my blood boiled and I turned around and I just started cursing them out in Spanish.
	What did they say?
	Open this window for me a little, Desiree, because my Spanish is a little rusty.
	Although Mike and I did have a very nice Mexican dinner when we were in California together for host Mike Cernovich's movie, but what would they say about...
	And so they think you're a white girl, and what were they saying about you?
	Again, it was very sexual.
	I'm trying to remember exactly, because this was back when I was 16 years old, but...
	How, you know, like, look at esa mamacita, okay, which is...
	It's like...
	You're mixing food and sexual connotations, yes.
	Thank you, my love. Essentially...
	I don't know whether I'm going to be turned on or get hungry.
	Anyway, go on. Yeah, but that's a very Hispanic thing.
	Food is a very... Sensual experience.
	It is, though, if you've ever read...
	Except, except. Excessive sex, I don't believe, leads to mass diabetes.
	That's the only, I think, way that I would like to separate those two things.
	Yes, yes. So what did they say about you when they thought you were a white girl?
	Why can't I get this dirty talk out of you, Desiree?
	It's driving me crazy. No, I'm just curious because, you know, I mean, there are white girls around who may, you're 16, right?
	They may have heard this kind of stuff.
	I mean, what might be said? Um, okay, okay, so in Spanish, mira esa mamacita, me la gustaría echar, okay, which is, um, uh, look at that sexy, uh, sexy girl over there, which really it would be, not bitch, but just, it's not, it's not as polite, okay?
	It's somewhere in between bitch and girl, okay?
	Um, I'd like to fuck her, okay?
	Um, and then, what else was it?
	Something about, uh, like, making me, like, scream and me being, like, again, me being white.
	It was, A long time ago, but it was things like that.
	And finally I turned around and I was, well, my response was, mira, tu hijo de la gran puta, which is horrible, never say that.
	But basically I started calling them sons of bitches and like, how dare they, you know, all these things.
	And yeah, but it was bad.
	And how old were the boys?
	Seventeen. So it's sort of like, I really want to fuck that bitchy white girl and make her scream?
	Yeah, pretty much. That's lovely.
	I can feel the strength in diversity as we speak.
	Yes. And one of them actually grabbed my arm, and that's when I was like, oh, hell no.
	Those aren't real Cubans.
	No. No, to me they are not real Cubans.
	They're not real what?
	Cubans. Sorry. They're not real Cubans?
	I mean, they are.
	They are because they are from Cuba.
	But to me, right, when I think about Cubans, I think about people like my grandfather.
	You know? You think of high IQ Cubans.
	Yes, exactly. There you go.
	Right, right.
	No, and this is one of the great tragedies that, you know, a huge amount of suffering in the world.
	If people accepted this IQ stuff, or at least started to work with it as a way of dealing with disparate cultures and countries, a huge amount of suffering in the world could be eliminated or at least alleviated.
	When you have a low IQ country, you will have a small number of very high IQ people.
	And in a free market, those very high IQ people will end up having a huge amount of social resources.
	And they're the few, let's say it's like 5% of the population is really, really smart in a low IQ country.
	So in a free market, those people will end up having a lot of resources.
	And they're the few people in the country that can multiply and create lots of new resources and make everybody else wealthier.
	But there's going to be a concentration of wealth because of IQ. IQ and wealth.
	Wealth accumulates to high IQ, and so if you have fewer people on the right-hand side of the IQ curve, then there's going to be a smaller number of people with more wealth.
	But if it's a free market, then those small number of people are the only chance that the large number of people have to have enough to eat.
	To have access to healthcare.
	I mean, just look at South Africa before and after apartheid.
	And so that is kind of the reality.
	And it doesn't have to have anything to do with race.
	It can be just the smart Cubans and so on.
	If you have a very status society, then the smart people can be in charge of the government.
	And if they're not socialist, then they can create a more stable environment for the society.
	But when you mix a low IQ population with resentful socialism, with massive amounts of votes that can control property rights through the power of the state and its capacity to redistribute income and control the economy, then you get Venezuela.
	You get this.
	And then, you know, and I'm torn.
	I'm really, you know, I do this video on Venezuela and I feel great sympathy for the Venezuelan people.
	And it's heartbreaking and brutal and horrible that young women are having to sell blowjobs for 75 cents in order to be able to buy a patty to get one tiny meal or for their kids.
	So you've got these women who are streaming over to Colombia and Yeah, but it's an IQ85 population.
	Come on. Come on.
	You can't just say, well, you know, they just didn't invent Western political theory of free market capitalism all on their own.
	It's like, no, of course they didn't, right?
	I mean, come on. It's not a population populated entirely by...
	Ah, slightly bronzier versions of Ludwig von Mises, for God's sakes.
	I mean, this is, and so the intellectuals, to me, are the ones who have the most blame, because they're the ones sowing these seeds of resentment, because there's two groups that gravitate towards the left, the not smart and the very smart.
	And the very smart, who are corrupt, the very smart gravitate towards it because they, well, I'm going to end up in control.
	I'm going to end up with all the control and have all this power.
	People are going to kiss my ring and all this kind of stuff.
	And then the less intelligent people who have been lied to about the nature of society and free market and IQ, they get resentful.
	And they say, well, you know, in my country, there's a small number of people with a whole lot of wealth and it's because they stole it from us.
	That's what the socialists say. So now we're going to go and steal it back.
	And then the wealth gets liberated from the smart people who are maintaining and increasing it.
	And the smart people flee the country because they're being stolen from or being threatened or being jailed or they know people who are doing that.
	So the smart people flee the country.
	And then the less smart people are put in charge of everything and it all falls apart.
	And it's a horrible, horrible cycle.
	And if we understood IQ, and if we understood the free market, and if we understood the relationship between wealth and IQ, we would understand that in a low IQ country, there's going to be great concentrations of wealth, and there's nothing you can do about it except starve everyone to death.
	I'm not sure. And honestly, and this might be reaching of me, but I thought about it now that you are bringing up the issues with IQ, but there's actually, I think, a kind of reinforcement that Of, well, other ethnicities into higher positions.
	Because even in schools, right, and I actually want to be a teacher as well, there's this program in schools in Florida.
	It's called the gifted program.
	I don't know if it's in other states, but to enter into the gifted program, you need at least a 130 IQ. Now, do they do that through an IQ test directly?
	Yes, an IQ test.
	They administer, I think, a few.
	But then, right, if you are Hispanic or Black, they lower the IQ five points.
	Of course they do. Yeah, which...
	Which they have to do in order to get some approximation of population numbers.
	Yeah. And actually, my fiance, he was admitted into the gifted program.
	And it's now when I'm studying to become a teacher that I find all these things out.
	And I told him that and he was like, what?
	And I was like, yeah, that's probably what got you in then.
	Because his IQ was not 130.
	And so he was, well, upset.
	Well, no, he might be.
	He might be 140.
	Right? Just because they lower it doesn't mean that you're not higher, right?
	Yeah. I mean...
	That's not... No.
	Sorry. My fiancé just said that if he had a 140 IQ, he wouldn't be a teacher.
	And I said, no. But...
	And honestly, that is all things that concerns me.
	Because we should be trying to move past that.
	But you can't. No, you can't.
	See, until people understand IQ... We can't move past it.
	Because if people think that everyone's the same, then they can make the case that all disparities in outcomes are the result of bigotry from whites.
	So here's an example.
	If school, like regular old government schools, if they were objective and if standards were universal and so on, then this would be a lot easier to understand.
	Because You would get, of course, a massive number of Jewish kids graduating from high school with top marks.
	You'd get a smaller but significant number of East Asian kids, Orientals, graduating from high school with great marks.
	Then there'd be a middling amount of whites.
	Then there'd be Hispanics. Then there'd be blacks or whatever, right?
	And if, you know, there was some Australian Aboriginal in there, well, I'm not sure he'd be able to find his way out of the school.
	So what would happen is if we had objective marks, Then the IQ stuff would show up in school marks.
	And then what would happen is you'd get proportional to IQ, people getting into college, and then proportional to IQ. And it would all be very clear.
	Right? So this all has to be covered up.
	And so you have social promotion.
	Like, there are students who get...
	Like, they don't even show up for a test.
	And you know what the teachers have to give them?
	Well... Depends on where you are, but here it would be either a chance to take the test later or give them a pass that they don't have to take it and they just make it up with other work.
	Right. Mulligan, you know, just like in life, just like in the real world.
	So what happens is the students, they don't even show up for the test and the teacher is pressured to give them 50% on the test.
	And do you know what the logic behind that is?
	Well, for me?
	Well, no, what the official logic is, or the semi-official logic.
	The official logic? I honestly have no idea.
	So the logic goes something like this, Desiree.
	The logic is, well, you see, if we give this kid a zero on the test he didn't even bother showing up for, then he's not going to be motivated, because really it's going to be impossible for him to pass the course, so he's not even going to show up.
	So we won't get him at all for the rest of the school year.
	But if we give him a 50, well, you know, if he comes back and he works, he'll probably be able to pass the course, right?
	Yeah. And so you have to start monkeying with all these numbers, right?
	Jockeying with all these numbers. Let me give you this.
	This came out just recently.
	This will be, I think, very illustrative of what we're talking about here.
	So, there's a high school in...
	I'm going to get this pronunciation wrong.
	I'm now, like, scarred from pronunciations, like, Bayou, B-A-L-L-O-U. And this is a D.C. high school, right?
	Okay. I'm just going to call it the D.C. high school, right?
	All right. And...
	It was a miracle.
	It was a miracle what happened.
	So they had the usual, like, nobody's graduating, nobody's even showing up and stuff like that.
	But then what happened was, all 164 of the seniors got their diplomas.
	And every single one of them was accepted to college.
	Isn't that amazing?
	And this is in one of DC's poorest neighborhoods, right?
	Academically, struggle for years, horribly low graduation rate.
	2016, the school graduated only 15% of its seniors.
	And of course, before June, all of the media was focusing on this.
	National media attention, NPR, oh, look at this achievement.
	They're on track to have everyone graduate.
	And there's this history teacher named Brian Butcher.
	I can only assume he studies communism.
	And Brian Butcher was like, I gotta tell you, I'm not really sure how everyone's graduating from high school.
	So there was an investigation by the media.
	They reviewed hundreds of pages of the school's attendance records, class rosters, and so on.
	And one of the DCPS, what's that District of Columbia Public School, I assume, DCPS employees shared some emails and private documents.
	So the documents showed that half of the graduates at the school missed more than three months of school last year with no excuses.
	Half of the graduates missed more than three months of school.
	One in five students was absent more than present, missing more than 90 days of school.
	90 days.
	Absolutely.
	Now, according to the policy, school board policy, if a student misses a class 30 times, he should fail that course.
	That's pretty generous to begin with.
	Because the research says if you miss even 10% of school, which is only like two days a month, it negatively affects test scores, academic growth, and blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
	So it's ridiculous, right?
	This guy, Butcher, he says, I've seen kids in the 12th grade that couldn't read and write.
	Yes, actually. My fiancé, He has, I can't even tell you, it's more than half of his students have not even managed to pass the state test.
	Right. So, yeah, go ahead.
	It's atrocious.
	These kids, and actually, as I'm, yes, they pass the grade for one, right?
	Because, you know, no child left behind.
	Yeah. And they can't read.
	I've been working as a substitute while I go through school and I have felt indescribably sad when I've been in a class and there's a student who is rowdy and not really wanting to pay attention and I'm not one of those substitutes that just lets you do whatever you want.
	Even if I'm not an expert in science, I'm going to teach you that science lesson that day.
	Because you're there for a reason.
	But how can you if they don't have any prior knowledge?
	Oh, no, of course. Granted, that's why.
	It only works if I'm in middle school because presumably, right, if you are in any kind of teaching position, you should at least have enough to teach something basic.
	At least that's my mentality, you know?
	And so I've gotten students that can't read, right?
	And when I finally sit them down, because they're being so rowdy, and I go, okay, we're going to do this together then, while the rest of your classmates are doing it.
	They look at me with such shame, right?
	That they can't read it.
	And then I sit there trying to help them, and they're in eighth grade.
	Yeah. No, it's horrible.
	So according to an internal email, Two months before graduation, only 57 students were on track to graduate.
	But in June...
	What a miracle! I guess they were taking super male vitality brain-enhancing formula of the gods.
	Only 57 students were on track to graduate, but in June, 164 students received diplomas.
	Isn't that... And this is the fantasy that...
	This is the dangerous mind's fantasy that everyone wants to believe.
	Just get the right teachers in there.
	Just get the right... Everything's going to be right.
	Oh, yeah. And it's crazy.
	I mean, and there's all of this social promotion.
	And of course, there are all these bonuses for getting these kids to do better.
	And there's a lot of pressure to graduate these kids and not get into trouble.
	And then the parents get mad and all of that kind of stuff.
	And it's...
	It's atrocious. It's all smoke and mirrors.
	And now what's going to happen, of course, is these kids are going off to college.
	Now, what the hell are the college administrators and the professors supposed to do?
	What are the college teachers supposed to do with these kids?
	They can't read. They can't write.
	They're belligerent. They're confused.
	They're disruptive. What's going to happen?
	Well, you see, if you are a college teacher, and I'm going to assume that most of these kids are black...
	If you're a college teacher and you get 10 of these kids in your class and you got like 50 kids, right?
	And you're objective and fair, all 10 of those kids are going to fail.
	And then what happens?
	You're a racist.
	Because you're only failing the black kids, right?
	You're a horrible racist.
	So what's he going to do? Are you going to give a reality check to a system that has failed these children?
	And I'm not blaming the kids here.
	I mean, this is a horrible system all around.
	Horrible system all around. But what are you supposed to do as a college teacher?
	How are you supposed to pass these kids when they can't write?
	Yeah, you can't. Well, what do you do?
	You have to find some way to pass them.
	So now you've got to dumb down the course.
	And you're going to have to inflate their scores and you're going to have to try and give them some sort of remedial instruction.
	Maybe, you know, like there's a whole bunch of college students of every race that end up having to take these remedial introduction to writing classes because they've spent their whole time playing Minecraft and not learning how to read or write.
	And what happens too is if the teachers get mad at having to socially promote these kids, if they get mad at having to pass kids who aren't passing, what happens?
	The administration retaliates against them by giving them poor teacher evaluations.
	Uh-huh, exactly.
	Actually, if you don't mind, I think my fiance wanted to add a little bit now that we're on this conversation.
	Oh yeah, no, that'd be great. Hello, Mr.
	Molyneux. Can you hear me? I certainly can.
	How are you doing, man? I'm doing well.
	How are you? Well, thank you.
	Outraged, which for me as well.
	I wanted to thank you really quickly as a small tangent for the video you did on Fidel Castro.
	My father and I Really appreciate the information and the research that you did and putting all that out there.
	You're welcome. Thank you for watching.
	Yes. All right. So actually, I was listening in because I snoop.
	It's what I do. Got your ear up close to the wall.
	When I started teaching, and I actually have a fantastic example of the opposite of what is the supposed logic and how it works.
	The students are extremely rowdy.
	I didn't start with this class.
	I came in in the middle of the year.
	Drawing a line in the sand was difficult.
	Drawing a line in the sand is something I like doing.
	I did it. What ended up happening was the classes that retaliated the most were the classes that had the greatest Hurdles, academically.
	Wait, wait, the classes that retaliated the most?
	What do you mean? So the classes that had students that would rebel...
	Okay, they got the most mad at you for your rules, right?
	Threatened me, threatened me.
	Those are the classes...
	Threatened you? Wait, wait. I'm sorry to keep interrupting your story, man, but what threatened you?
	Like, what do you mean? Oh, yes.
	Like, physically threatened me.
	Like, I'm gonna beat you up?
	Didn't one student get in your face?
	Yes. Well, yeah.
	That, you know, wait till I catch you outside.
	And I just, I'm not sure the look I must have given them, though.
	But... The other students laughed.
	There was a silence. The other students laughed, though.
	I'm not sure the look I had on my face, but I do know that some people have said that I come off as cocky, arrogant.
	I know that I can't say something back to that.
	What do you mean you can't say something back to that?
	Can't you say, that's a threat against my person, and therefore I'm going to have to call the cops?
	That... I mean, I'd end up losing control of the class.
	What I know... What do you mean you end up losing control of the class?
	So someone comes along and threatens you physically to physically attack, to physically assault you, which is illegal.
	You can't go around threatening people and physically assault them.
	And you lose control of the class because there are consequences to threatening to physically assault a teacher.
	Well, the thing is that you might have to prove their intent.
	And... I mean, you've got this case of like this Native American woman in Canada, right, who said, I hate white people, and she punched the guy in the face.
	And the judge said that it's not a hate crime.
	From what she said, it's not clear what she meant.
	So, I mean, the same thing is going to inevitably happen to me, right?
	Oh, so if you say to a student, wait till I catch you outside, you wouldn't get in any trouble because nobody can tell your intent.
	Right. Well, I'm the one in the position of power.
	And as we know, bigotry can only come from positions of power.
	So, no, my tactic actually was, I did have, I mean, there's always a small cohort of students that are very interested in their grade.
	And they're athletic and what have you.
	I mean, I have students that want to get into military academies and they have very high aspirations.
	It's just, they drew the short straw.
	Well, what ends up happening...
	Wait, wait, what do you mean they drew the short straw?
	What does that mean? They ended up in this school.
	Oh, like geographically?
	They're in the wrong neighborhood kind of thing?
	Right, exactly. So even the students who are very bright, they're not challenged, and they're not prepared either when they get to college for the endeavors they want to undertake.
	Well, plus, if you show any enthusiasm around school, when you're surrounded by people who are...
	Not so intellectually gifted.
	I mean, you're going to end up being pushed through a fence, right?
	I mean, you're going to end up, you know, like, this is not a popular position to be in.
	Actually, and here's where my story leads to.
	One bad apple spoils a bunch.
	I've said that to my students before.
	And you guys are supposed to be a team.
	So if you can't police yourselves, all of you are going to have a more difficult time academically.
	And I did that. Whether it's pop quizzes, whether it's tests becoming harder, more specific, things like that, more work, reports, and instead of it being four pages, now it's six pages, now it's eight pages, things like that, your grade is on the line, and that's why I do have power.
	Suddenly the smart athletic kids, I had one student that actually had to get pulled aside because apparently she squared off against one of the students that was causing issues in the classroom.
	And she said, my grade is on the line.
	I'm not going to have you essentially fuck it up.
	And so what ended up happening by the end of the year was the classes that rebelled the most, and I had to become firmer and stricter with, they ended up doing the best for On average, when it came to my final exam, which I thought was pretty funny.
	These are the classes that had no more extra credit.
	They had no more lenient grades.
	They had constant pop quizzes.
	When it came time to the final exam, they ended up doing the best.
	Right. Right.
	Yeah. So, I mean, my sort of case is if Like everybody says, we want a colorblind society.
	Okay, well, it's like, but we don't.
	Because a colorblind society ends up with different outcomes for different groups, because IQ is not equally distributed among different groups.
	So everybody says, well, we want this colorblind society, but the moment that you have a colorblind society, what happens is you get accurate measures of intelligence, you get accurate measures of commitment, of focus, of ambition, and so on.
	And what happens is, if you have a truly colorblind society, then...
	This constant cry of racism gets undermined.
	Because if fewer, let's say, Hispanics, if fewer Hispanics graduate from engineering school than East Asians, then the fact that there'll be fewer Hispanics in engineering positions relative to East Asians, well, no.
	And so you could have just a psych-U test.
	IQ test is the very best way to figure out how people are going to be successful or not.
	IQ test plus mentoring is the way to go for complicated stuff.
	Schooling is ridiculous, in my view, as far as this stuff goes.
	Be a really smart person, shadow a doctor for a couple of years, get educated that way, pass some exams, go for it.
	You can make money and it's just all very efficient.
	You don't have to charge as much for your healthcare.
	This is the way you should do it. Like, you know, the way they do it in the trades, right?
	Trades full of very smart people, very ambitious people.
	You want to be an electrician, you should go and you shouldn't be as long as the unions want it, but you go shadow an electrician, then you take an exam and you're done.
	But all of that...
	It's very different. If you want to know how someone is going to succeed in your company, just give them an IQ test.
	It's all you need. But IQ tests are objective, and IQ tests undermine the whole cry of white racism that is the cover-up for group differences in intelligence.
	And so you can't just have an IQ test.
	You have to have something that can be manipulated, like test scores, like you can have all these people graduate.
	You can, as we know, and this is, I think, going up in...
	This is being challenged at the moment, all of the changes to marks of different ethnicities coming into places like Harvard, where they boost black scores, they boost Hispanic scores, and they lower East Asian scores.
	And I don't know what they do with Jewish scores, probably.
	Not much. But this can be manipulated, and this is so brutal.
	To particularly the smartest minority kids, like smartest Hispanic kids, smartest black kids are being chewed alive.
	And those are the people that really need to succeed so they can lead their communities and they can show the path to a better world for their communities.
	But they're being chewed up alive in the system because when you stuff a whole bunch of people in the pipeline, you know, like these kids who can't even read or write, let's say that they get passed upwards through college and then they graduate from college and they go out into the workforce and people are like, Damn, these young black kids, they can't even read and write.
	And they have a college degree.
	Well, there's some brilliant black guy out there who also got a college degree, but he's going to be lumped in with these guys.
	So the value of him getting a college degree has gone down because it's become politically correct.
	It's become a numbers game.
	And so the smart, ambitious black guys, smart, ambitious Hispanics get shafted by the system, as do the smart and ambitious white guys who aren't hired because of affirmative action, as do the East Asians who get their scores artificially reduced as a result of, you know, all this IQ stuff.
	It's a system that serves no one except the race baiters.
	And it is really horrible.
	And, you know, it's great what you guys are doing.
	As far as encouraging and inspiring these kids to do better.
	You know, you think of the stand and deliver teacher.
	I can't remember his name, but, you know, his kids went on to do fantastically.
	If you do have better teachers, then I think things can get a whole lot better.
	And the natural talents of every group has a chance to really get some traction and really move ahead.
	But right now, I mean, the system is, as you guys know it better than I do, much better.
	It's a mess. Oh, yes.
	Mm-hmm. Yeah, the things you're saying is that's one of the reasons I was really pissed off when I found out that my minimum IQ to get into the gifted program was lower because...
	Yeah, you want to get in honorably, right?
	Absolutely. And I think, I mean, if I was younger, I probably would have thought it was a great idea.
	Now, though, as I'm older and I see myself getting lumped in with particularly Cubans that come from Cuba today.
	And are just an entirely different animal from the old garden that I come from.
	We are not the same.
	That is a different Cuba.
	It's not as drastic a difference as the two Koreas, but you can't just call all Koreans Korean.
	There's a big difference between the two, and there's a big difference between us.
	And so I think that, if anything, it has made me value integrity much more.
	Yeah, you want to be judged by your own merits, and you certainly don't want to be collectively diluted into a pool of less qualified applicants because of PC quotas that need to be met, right?
	Of course. So what is it, I mean, when you heard about this, what was your feeling?
	What was your emotion?
	Rage. I mean, you know, my grandfather fought the casual regime.
	And he, I mean, his education was up to the third grade.
	So this is not a rich, wealthy, elite person.
	He just lived out in a town that doesn't appear on the map.
	I could find it for you on Google Maps, but it's got no name.
	But I know where to zoom in.
	And you can see the houses there.
	But, you know, this is a person who's a fisherman by trade.
	He built yachts. He's clearly much smarter than a third grade level.
	You know, my mother's a doctor.
	And she said that herself.
	His understanding, especially of math, was just super advanced.
	And he fought, and he was captured, and he was tortured.
	70 of his compatriots were executed.
	And he had to take what family he could get when he got out and flee to Mexico, and then from Mexico to here.
	And then here, he literally just For over the course of about a decade, saved up so that he could build a boat and he started fishing lobster here as well.
	And so that's, so, I mean, it's just a massive hurdle for him and a struggle all the time.
	And my father was a captain during the Mariel boat lift and, and there's just been a lot of struggles there.
	So for someone to tell me that that is immigrant light, to tell me that that's typical immigrant experience.
	Yeah, you're damn right. It's not typical immigrant experience.
	Or that your grandfather was some capitalist, Batista-loving exploiter.
	Well, actually, I had someone tell me that, and when I clarified him, he said, oh, so your grandfather was just illiterate.
	And I mean...
	Oh, so you're either exploiting the poor or you're an idiot.
	Oh. Yep.
	Now see, I... How do you guys get through the day without bloodied knuckles?
	Like, I've just got to figure this out.
	Like, how are you not, like, in a perpetual state of Bruce Lee, like, ninja-like, whirling, rage, dervish of death stuff going on?
	You know, it might be why I struggle with the nonviolence principle.
	I can't believe that. Holy crap.
	For me, right, and this is something that I think, right, You know, he can correct me if I'm wrong, but that I think I've helped him with, you know, controlling that.
	But it was my grandfather that actually, that taught me not to get upset at these things.
	My grandfather was actually just one of these people that always encouraged you to understand things.
	Don't just get upset. Understand them.
	Understand why things are happening.
	And then, not only will you not feel as upset, but you might be able to see a way that you can do something.
	You know? So he was very good at deferral of gratification.
	In other words, very high IQ. Yes.
	Actually, my uncle recently told me that, and I didn't know this about him, my grandfather passed away when I was 13, and it's very sad for me because I wish I could have had more in-depth conversations with him because he really was just unbelievable.
	He wrote a poem in response to this communist's book, A Cuban communist.
	Before Castro.
	And they actually ended up meeting.
	And he read my grandfather's poem.
	And my uncle said that this man cried.
	Reading what my grandfather wrote.
	And then basically signed...
	I can't remember what.
	I think it was his poem. Saying that he was a great Cuban poet.
	And I just wish I could have talked to him about these things.
	But these are lessons I've learned from him.
	And that's why this is so important for me.
	You know, it's never really been about my identity because I'm secure in that.
	And honestly, I feel like a big reason that these classmates of mine, you know, that this community is so, I don't know, just off on this Bend about, you know, like, oh, what it really is to be Latino, you know, it's that they're insecure in who they are, you know, but I don't want them to be questioned.
	Me? I'm fine. I know who I am, you know, but that's a different story, a different matter to me.
	But here's the challenge. Let me sort of close on this.
	And I really, really appreciate what you guys are bringing up.
	It's fascinating to me.
	I love this window into other cultures, other people's lives.
	But I'll give you this basic, very short speech, and hopefully it'll make some sense.
	You're looking for a tribe that is biological, and it's not going to work.
	And it doesn't work for you, and it doesn't work for me.
	Our tribe is smart people.
	That's the tribe. You're gonna have more in common with people as smart as you than with your biological group.
	It's true for me, it's true for you.
	So my suggestion would be, we are all drawn, you know, this is one of the great challenges of being very smart, is that we're all drawn to a tribe.
	And the easiest way to demarc a tribe is according to race or ethnicity.
	And I'm not saying that shouldn't be part of our lives.
	It is part of our lives and it is part of our whole history and so on.
	But as far as the hierarchy goes, I have much more in common with you guys than I do with a white person of average intelligence.
	And so the tribe is smart people.
	And I know this drives people crazy.
	It drives people crazy.
	But I think that if you start to look at your tribe as smart people rather than ethnicity, and it's not either or, but in terms of the hierarchy goes, intelligence is more valuable than race in terms of compatibility,
	right? Right. And so, for me, once I sort of recognize that the tribe is smart people, reorienting myself along those lines has taken a lot of frustration away from me.
	Because smart people often can be very open to new ideas and new arguments.
	There's a compatibility, there's a playfulness, there's an openness, there's a...
	You know, this getting offended is such a mark of idiocy, it's hard to even overstate it.
	Like the mere act of just being upset, getting angry, getting offended.
	It's just a low IQ phenomenon as a whole.
	That to me is the big IQ test.
	And it doesn't mean don't ever get angry, don't be offended.
	You know, what you guys have had to listen to from people is enough to...
	Try the patience of a saint.
	So I'm not saying like you can't ever, but this constant like, here's a fact, right?
	Because you're being provoked directly at people saying obviously horrible trolley things about very honorable members of your family and in your history.
	But when you state facts and people get offended, what they're basically saying is, I'm too dumb to handle the conversation.
	Look, we're talking about IQ stuff, and it's volatile for a lot of people.
	We're able to have a civilized discussion about it, and hopefully it's helpful and illuminating and interesting, and we're not screaming at each other and all of that sort of stuff, and nobody's screaming racism at anyone, and we're just having a discussion because we're smart people engaged in a dialogue of ideas.
	And if you're around people who are not so smart, they're going to be trolly, they're going to be provocative, they're going to take offense, they're going to escalate, all to avoid the basic reality.
	Like, it's kind of humiliating to not be that smart.
	Because everybody wants to engage in the realm of ideas because it's so damn profitable to do so, in terms of controlling social resources through the state in particular.
	And so everybody wants to play, but very few people are tall enough.
	To get the ball anywhere near the net.
	So, I mean, it's just a possibility.
	And I'm not saying don't have a Cuban heritage, don't have a Latino heritage.
	Do. I mean, where you came from is part of who you are.
	But I would invite you to think of your tribe more as smart people than just, or I guess layer in or net in the question of compatibility and intelligence rather than, well, these are my people.
	And I think that to me can get really, really frustrating.
	That's helped me a lot. I don't know if it makes any sense to you guys or...
	Is a perspective that's useful.
	Sorry, go ahead. My grandfather told my dad something, and my dad told me, and my dad, he struggles with it.
	He's very homesick. And my grandfather passed away a while ago.
	But he said, he told him, you know, when my dad was really struggling with what Cuba was becoming, he told him that we're American now.
	And this is our home.
	If you go back there, that's not the same Cuba anymore.
	So what you're pining for is a memory, not a place in reality.
	And so when I joked earlier in the conversation and I told my fiance that those aren't real Cubans, of course they are literally Cuban, but it's because, I mean, it's to put it in a word that you use, that's not my tribe.
	My tribe is this, the United States.
	And I think that what makes the United States special is that it's built off of a common value system, not necessarily culture.
	And I think that So that's why I'm so adamant about the stars and stripes.
	It's that that we need to preserve.
	Right. Yeah, when you move countries, you move cultures, there's no going home.
	I mean, if I ever really want to take my heart and put it through a cheese blender, all I have to do is go back to London.
	Oh dear. Where the demographics have entirely altered.
	I'm sure my original neighborhood is entirely overrun, where you have a Muslim mayor And there is no place I can return to.
	My homeland, my origin story is gone.
	And it will never return.
	That doesn't mean things can't get better in London.
	But when you leave the place that you started from, it changes everything.
	Beyond recognition, and there's no returning.
	And so to press on, we must find, and this is one of the reasons why I think people who are between two cultures, or between two countries, or between two ethnicities, or between a history that's gone and a present that is uncomfortable, this is why we gravitate towards ideas, because we all want to find a home.
	We all want to find a place where we belong.
	We all want to find a tribe that we can be loyal to, that we can care about, that we feel we've got people's back, they've got our back.
	Reality is harsh and there are enemies in the world if you speak any truth to power.
	And we need our brewing companions.
	We need our tribe.
	And there is no tribe for those in between, for those halfway.
	The only tribe is ideals.
	The only tribe is values. The only tribe is dialogue.
	The only ethnicity is philosophy.
	So I'd focus on compatibility for values, compatibility for intelligence.
	And for my own sanity, I had to detach from ethnicity.
	I mean, I had this whole speech recently about how frustrating it was trying to talk to Europeans.
	Trying to talk to whites is crazy.
	So I think it would be Values is the place to go, and I think that's where you'll get your strength.
	All right, I'm going to move on. I really, really appreciate you guys calling.
	I hope that our random whack about the bush of ideas came up with some useful stuff, but fascinating stuff, and you guys are welcome back anytime.
	Likewise, Mr. Molyneux. Thank you very much.
	It was a wonderful conversation, and I'm very happy we had it.
	Great. Thanks, guys. Right up next we have Charles.
	Charles wrote in and said, In your proposition, Christianity is epistemologically indefensible, are you referencing both models of epistemology, foundationalism and coherentism?
	Or are you basing your proposition solely on Christian apologists that argue from a foundationalist model of epistemology?
	That's from Charles.
	Hello, hello. Hey Charles, how you doing?
	Doing well. All right.
	Foundationalism versus coherentism.
	Why don't you step everyone through that for those who aren't familiar with the terms?
	Yes, sir. Yeah. So basically, foundationalism, commonly recognized with Rene Descartes, I think, therefore I am, of his meditations, beginning with a Select number of axioms and building upon those axioms to develop a more robust worldview.
	Where coherentism is slightly different as far as establishing a worldview, that school of epistemology is more similar to looking at knowledge as a web of beliefs.
	That each belief within the web gives justification to other beliefs in the web.
	So some common problems with foundationalist models of epistemology is the epistemological presuppositions have no basis for And no justification.
	For example, things such as the dilemma of Hume, of the uniformity of nature.
	That the uniformity of nature is a necessary element of empiricism.
	However, there's no Scientific or observational means to establish the uniformity of nature as being true.
	Other ideas as far as the rejection of solipsism or the laws of logic, the concept of numerical value or numerical constancy.
	Is that good enough for you?
	No, not really. I mean, it's fine.
	It's fine. But it's not the elevator pitch.
	You know, I mean, philosophy which takes six months to absorb is not particularly helpful to people.
	So, are you saying that arguments from first principles form under the umbrella of Humean skepticism, right?
	No, okay.
	Well, somewhat.
	So basically what I'm getting at is that there's two different schools of epistemology.
	Foundationalism, which would be that the elements of first principles and building upon those first principles to develop a more robust and full or complete worldview.
	Where the other school of epistemology is...
	Looking at those first principles as being justified by other first principles within a larger web network of beliefs.
	Sorry, I'm not sure that cleans up a whole bunch of stuff.
	Just help me, step me through it one more time and try and maybe boil it down a little bit.
	Maybe a couple of practical examples or two would help.
	Yeah, so let's see.
	And please accept this maybe entirely because I'm not getting it.
	So, you know, be patient.
	Sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah.
	So, let's see.
	You're familiar with Hume's dilemma of the uniformity of nature, correct?
	Well, so as far as I understand it, the idea that nature is predictable and universal, that the properties and behaviors of matter and energy and the relationship between the two, sure, it seems uniform.
	And that's based upon prior observation, that's based upon theory, but we can't say absolutely and for certain throughout all time and across the entire universe, no matter what, there is uniformity and consistency.
	Is that somewhat close?
	Yes. And so with that, just as a classic example of running into an obstacle on that, with the...
	The whole issue of the discovery of a black swan, right?
	Where all swans were recognized as being white swans.
	And then one day a black swan was discovered and so therefore the previously held belief that all swans are white came into conflict.
	And this goes a little further also into the elements of Platonistic forms where you have an ideal concept of...
	I just spent the last maybe 30 hours listening to your lectures on intranet philosophy.
	And You use the example of the orange several times.
	Where... And diving a little bit into platonistic forms with the illustration of both the orange and also the bundle of bananas and how a banana is always going to be a banana.
	But... There are no two bananas that are identical.
	So therefore, to say that the banana itself is just simply a banana based on a limited number of properties, It's not as simple as that.
	Yeah, so let's go back to the uniformity of nature.
	Sure. The properties of matter and energy appear to be consistent according to observation and according to, of course, one of the ways that we know a scientific conjecture is moved to hypothesis and so on is because it accurately predicts the behavior of matter, right? Yes.
	So we have the theory as to why matter and energy behave in consistent ways.
	We have the practical experience of measurement and prediction and, of course, with telescopes and radio telescopes and so on, we have the capacity to appear all the way across the universe and it's consistent as far as we can tell.
	Yes. One of the things that has polluted epistemology is the God hypothesis, which is true knowledge is omniscience, and anything which is not omniscience is room for doubt, which is to some degree Humean skepticism.
	We don't know everything about every atom for all time, therefore we can't be certain.
	Now, the God standard It's not a rational philosophical standard.
	It's sort of like saying, well, human beings are infinitely short because the standard for human height is infinite tallness.
	And therefore, relative to infinite tallness or infinite height, human beings are essentially two-dimensional, like we're flat puddles because we're not infinitely tall.
	Now, if you go to a biologist and say, well, human beings are all equal height, and that equal height exists only in two dimensions, he'd say, what have you been smoking?
	And you'd say, well, no, but you see, I have a stand at a human height called infinitely tall.
	And since all human beings fall short of infinite height, and they fall short of infinite height to an infinite degree, then they are essentially two-dimensional, and there's no differentiation of human height.
	And what would the biologists say?
	The biologists would say, I don't really think that the infinite human height standard is where you want to work from.
	And so I'm very concerned when I get the sense, and, you know, let me know if I'm astray here, Charles, but I sort of get concerned when people say, well, we don't know absolutely everything about everything through all time, for all atoms, for all characteristics of matter and energy, and therefore there's room for doubt.
	It's like, well, that's not a realistic standard.
	That's not a human standard. If we have universal consistency predicted by the scientific method, that's the best we can conceivably do.
	And if we say, well, maybe there's some higher omniscient standard.
	Well, you don't get to introduce doubt by the appeal to omniscience.
	And so where Hume says, well, we don't know everything about everything, therefore we should doubt everything, that to me is not a realistic standard.
	Human beings are X amount tall, and we have a standard of knowledge that is universal, and that is absolute, the scientific method, and which is shorn up by every conceivable measure that we have.
	That's certainty. There's nothing, like we can't get better than that.
	We can't go beyond that. That's got to be our cap for certainty.
	I don't take issue in any way at all with the scientific method itself.
	But I do question the...
	Let me try stating this slightly different.
	For you to better understand where I'm thinking...
	Trajectory-wise. Oh, let me just give a very brief thing on the black swan, and hopefully we'll clarify.
	So there's three categories of existence, or three categories of things which could exist.
	Number one is things we know that do exist, like white swans.
	Right. Number two is things which could exist.
	Black swans. They don't violate the laws of physics.
	They don't violate the laws of biology or evolution.
	You could have a black swan, right? And then there are things which cannot exist.
	So dinosaurs...
	Did exist. Komodo dragons do exist.
	Dragons could exist.
	Square circles cannot exist.
	Correct. Right? So, anybody who says there can never be any such thing as a black swan is incorrect.
	Anybody who says there can't ever be in the universe flying lizards that breathe fire, well, no.
	That's not a valid statement to make.
	However, if somebody says there is a being that can fly towards something and away from something at the same time, is made of fire and ice simultaneously and lives for 10 billion years, well, no, that can't exist.
	Right? By any law of physics and biology, such a thing cannot exist.
	So as far as those categories go, hopefully that clarifies how we went from physics to the black swan.
	Yeah, so...
	I guess to use a little bit of an illustration here, as far as different schools of approaching this with apologetics, Christian apologetics, defending the faith, typically the arguments within...
	In defense of Christianity, go as, here are a set of presuppositions in which we both agree on, and then we build from those presuppositions to a conclusion of, here is God.
	Where, for example, with a cosmological argument, in the beginning, all things that have a beginning must have a cause, the universe has a beginning, therefore the universe has a cause.
	But there's a flaw within that particular argument in that just because there's a cause doesn't necessitate that that cause is God.
	Not only that, but also— Well, and of course, as you know, God exists, therefore God must have had a cause, and you end up with turtles all the way up, so to speak.
	Well, then you end up dealing with the whole infinite regress thing, but that's— You can't just say, well, that's disproven it, right?
	If everything that exists must have a cause, then the universe has a cause.
	Sorry, go ahead. The reason I'm saying that I'm kind of reluctant to dive down that rabbit trail is that I don't rest in that particular school of apologetics.
	So it's kind of like somebody else's wheelhouse.
	Why don't we deal with the stuff you do believe because we can't really go far with the stuff you don't believe.
	I don't believe in vampires!
	That doesn't contribute much to our conversation.
	What I'm doing is I'm expressing the different schools of epistemology in defending Christianity.
	So that would be more of a foundationalist model for defending Christianity from an epistemological perspective, which I see the flaws within.
	A coherentist model of epistemology and use of Within defending Christianity would be more of how God is a necessary presupposition in the same way as the rejection of solipsism, as the uniformity of nature, as the laws of logic.
	And so if there is no God, In the same way, if there is no logic, then all we have is absurdity.
	So it's a consequentialist argument.
	And, I mean, I do see these arguments which says Europe is falling apart.
	Ever since it rejected Christianity, right?
	That we see degradation of the family and of commitment and of public ethics and of generosity and of cohesion and of community.
	And therefore, you know, like it or not, if you reject Christianity, you go down a very dark and dastardly path.
	Right.
	And I mean, in the same way, I mean, Peterson has somewhat of a coherentist epistemology when it comes to his approach to defending Christianity.
	Right.
	As far as his Christian beliefs.
	When it comes to dealing with how the Christian stories seem to be very present and very almost Yeah,
	they have evolved to match or mirror with peculiar power, fairly universal Or at least Western human themes, psychological themes, themes of life.
	And, I mean, for sure.
	I mean, from a sort of meme evolution standpoint, we would expect the most successful religions to have stories and mental concepts that have hooked into the greatest depths and powers of human consciousness.
	I mean, it would be, I think, impossible to imagine it would go any other way.
	Yeah, and I would say that where...
	Where Peterson goes with psychology and some aspects of ethics, I would actually go towards epistemology as the very foundation of knowledge.
	Not merely to the degree in which he's going, but much further to all knowledge hangs upon the presupposition of God's existence.
	All knowledge hangs upon the presupposition of God's existence.
	Would you mean all certainty?
	Yes. Okay.
	And there's an argument, of course, which I have by Dennis Prager of PragerU, that he said that you don't get ethics without God.
	And this is part of Humean skepticism, which is there's no ought.
	You cannot get an ought from an is, and therefore you cannot get virtue without divinity.
	You cannot get the Ten Commandments without a God to hand them to you and to some degree enforce them in the afterlife or even in the present life.
	Right. And so can you just boil it down to a question for me?
	I guess I have a few questions from listening to your lectures on intuitive philosophy.
	Are you setting metaphysics before epistemology?
	I don't think you can have a theory of knowledge without describing what the theory of knowledge is.
	It's like having a shadow without anything blocking the light.
	And so the metaphysics or the study of the nature of reality, like what is human knowledge or what is the study of knowledge comparing the contents of the mind to?
	You can't have a transaction in economics without a buyer and a seller.
	If you have one or the other, I mean, one implies the other.
	If you offer something up for sale and nobody buys it, then you haven't had a transaction.
	And so in the same way, I don't think you can have a theory of knowledge In other words, a theory that says what human beings can state with certainty without comparing it to something.
	And what you compare a statement, a knowledge claim statement to, must be something that exists outside of human consciousness.
	Like, if I say the world is a sphere, I'm making a statement Of objective certainty.
	And since objectivity exists outside the human mind, I must be referring to something outside the human mind when I make a statement of objective certainty.
	If I say, I like ice cream, well, I'm not making a statement of objective certainty.
	If I say, ice cream contains dairy, I'm making a statement of objective certainty.
	So to me, there's no point studying knowledge without having a conception of what that knowledge is referring to.
	And the only knowledge that really matters is the objective knowledge.
	The only knowledge that really matters.
	I mean, socially or collectively or philosophically speaking.
	Personal knowledge, your preferences, whether you like Beethoven or Bach or whatever, that's important to you.
	But philosophically speaking, it is the objective knowledge that matters.
	And so epistemology must be, in a sense, a shadow cast by one's View of metaphysics.
	What is reality? What is the nature of reality?
	When I say something is true, what am I talking about?
	What am I referring to? What is my truth statement referring to?
	Well, it has to refer to something outside of consciousness, because consciousness is prone to error, prone to subjectivity.
	As soon as I make an absolute statement, I must be referring to something outside of consciousness.
	Because there aren't absolutes within consciousness.
	We change our minds, we have our different ideas, we get brain damage, we get old, we get forgetful, we get spikes driven through our forehead and become different personalities or whatever.
	So when it comes to making a truth statement, we must be referring to something.
	Objective, universal, consistent outside of consciousness.
	So to me, you can't have any coherent epistemology without first the examination, description and definition of objective reality.
	Yeah, see, in my mind, I would think that the question of whether or not our cognitive faculties are reliable would be a precondition to metaphysics.
	Well, sure, but...
	No, no, but we don't need to go outside our conversation, right, Charles?
	Because you and I, to have this conversation of relying on the reliability of our senses...
	We are relying upon our capacity to hear, our capacity to speak.
	We are relying upon the technology that allows this information to be transferred.
	So we are relying absolutely on at least some degree of objectivity, on some degree of absolute rules outside of consciousness in order to even have the conversation.
	Right, but we're presupposing that.
	What do you mean? I mean, it's a presupposition in which we're holding to that our cognitive faculties are reliable.
	No, it's what we're absolutely relying on in order to have the conversation.
	How is that different from what I just said?
	I don't know what presupposing means.
	We are absolutely...
	Like, if you and I decide to have an email debate...
	And the email debate is, I come up with a proposition that says, emails never get delivered to the correct person.
	What would you say? So I would say that you've emailed me and obviously has gotten to me.
	Right. So you would say that my argument is denied by...
	The content of the argument is denied by the process of the argument.
	Right. And this is the way out of Humean skepticism.
	It's instead of looking at the content of the argument, look at the form of the argument.
	Look at everything that is required and implicit for the argument to even occur.
	Language has to have meaning.
	The senses have to have validity.
	Objective reality has to exist.
	Two consciousnesses need to exist to have the capacity to communicate to each other through language, through the objective medium.
	Of matter, energy, and the senses.
	All of that is implicit.
	It is baked into the very act of having a conversation, of having a debate.
	And so it's impossible to say, let's have a debate about objective reality when objective reality is necessary or required to even have a debate.
	It's like saying, let's have a debate about whether phones even work as a technology while picking up the phone to have the debate.
	Right, but those are still epistemological questions.
	No, no, no, it's metaphysics.
	Metaphysics. We have to accept that between you and I, Charles, is objective reality, which has predictable, stable, reliable, universal, objective properties.
	All of that is required for us to even have this conversation.
	Which still hinge upon epistemic beliefs.
	No, no, they're not beliefs.
	If you require them to have the conversation, they're not arbitrary beliefs.
	If I pick up the phone...
	I've never said arbitrary. Okay, hang on.
	I've never said arbitrary. No, but you're saying it's somehow optional or somehow we have to just put our faith in it.
	It's like, no, this is how we are actually operating in the conversation is with the absolute acceptance of absolute reality that is between our two consciousnesses.
	Belief is a category of knowledge.
	No, knowledge is certainty.
	Belief is not certainty.
	There are many things that people believe that are completely false.
	In fact, most things that people believe are completely false.
	Belief is simply a statement of truth.
	It is not a statement of knowledge.
	In epistemology, beliefs are a category of knowledge.
	Are you saying that all beliefs are true?
	No. Are you saying that knowledge that is false is somehow knowledge?
	Is all knowledge true?
	Of course not. If all knowledge was true, we wouldn't need philosophy.
	Right. So there's some knowledge that is, there are some beliefs that are true and pass into the realm of knowledge.
	Like if I say two and two make five, hang on, hang on.
	If I say that two and two make five, Charles, do I have knowledge?
	Is that a true statement?
	Am I factual? Do I have knowledge of two and two?
	You just said that some beliefs are true and passed into knowledge, passed into the category of knowledge.
	True beliefs are knowledge, right?
	A belief is a category of knowledge.
	What? Come on, this is like Logic 101.
	True beliefs are knowledge, therefore belief is a category of knowledge?
	No, true beliefs are not.
	No, you just...
	A false belief is not knowledge.
	Correct. If I say I know the capital of Canada...
	Right? I'm making a knowledge claim.
	If I say the capital of Canada is Toronto, I'm wrong.
	I do not have knowledge of the capital of Canada, which is Ottawa.
	Correct. So no, not all belief is knowledge.
	I never said all belief was knowledge.
	Okay, so some belief is knowledge, but that doesn't mean that belief as a whole is a category of knowledge.
	true beliefs are knowledge.
	I mean, there are people who believe in deities that are patently absurd.
	There are people who believe that if they cut their balls off and kill themselves, they're going to join a comet on an endless ride of paradise around the sun.
	These are... False beliefs, right?
	I mean, they're beliefs, but they're wrong.
	There are people who believe that they're being persecuted when they're not being persecuted.
	They're called paranoid because they're incorrect about their perception or their belief that they are being persecuted.
	So, no, I do not believe that beliefs are knowledge.
	Knowledge is a subset of beliefs that have been validated by reason and evidence.
	Say that last sentence again?
	I do not believe that belief is knowledge.
	There is a subsection, and it's a very small subsection, of beliefs that have been validated by reason and evidence that are knowledge.
	But it's like 0.0001% of what people believe is actually true.
	Oh, sure. All I'm getting at is that the use of the term belief doesn't immediately mean that it's a A belief of absurdity.
	Why would you say that?
	I just distinguished this whole...
	No, no, no. Why are we going in circles here?
	What the hell is going on? That's how we started on this whole train of thought.
	I've just defined beliefs like four or five times with clear examples.
	So if you don't have that, we have to move on.
	If you've not absorbed that yet, we have to move on.
	But I've agreed with you on that, though.
	So then why are we continuing to circle around?
	Honestly, I'm not quite sure.
	Good, then let's move on. Cool.
	But as far as elements of the rejection of solipsism or the accepting of the basic rules of mathematics, I mean, those are Presuppositions.
	I'm not sure what you mean by presuppositions.
	Do you mean just things we arbitrarily believe in order to get through the day or what?
	No, it's more of they don't have any substantial proofs in order to justify them.
	No, but the proof is in the conversation.
	This is what I've already said.
	The proof is in the conversation.
	If somebody says to me, language is meaningless, then they're relying on the meaningfulness of language to communicate something, and they've just created a self-detonating argument.
	Forget about what people are saying.
	Look at how they're saying it and what they're relying on in order to have a conversation, right?
	So if somebody says to me, Steph, you don't exist...
	Well, they're talking to me.
	So of course they accept that I exist.
	So they're just making silly sounds with their breathing hole, right?
	I mean, we can vault over all of this stuff.
	Because anyone who genuinely believes that I don't exist, anyone who genuinely believes that nobody else exists is never going to talk to them.
	So we're never going to hear from them. They have no impact in human thought, in human society, in human existence.
	But the moment somebody says to me, Steph...
	You don't exist. Well, okay, now they're having a conversation.
	They're using the objective medium of reality to communicate their thoughts, using, at least to some degree, the meaningfulness of language, and they're accepting that I exist and I'm worth having a conversation with.
	So all of those questions can be put deep in the rear view and can actually get on with the business of philosophy based upon what people are doing by just having a debate.
	Okay.
	So it's not just an arbitrary thing where we say, okay, well, let's just agree that we both exist and go on from there.
	But let's recognize that we're just making this arbitrary thing.
	No, no, that's not how it works.
	It's not how it works.
	No, but we both recognize that it's a necessary requirement to engage in the conversation.
	Great. And so, given that we both accept that there's an objective reality between us, and our senses are valid, and language has meaning, in order to have the conversation, we can put all of those questions behind us and get on with philosophy.
	And that would be a presupposition.
	No. That's how I'm expressing presuppositions.
	Tell me your definition of presupposition, because that sounds a whole lot different from things we just fucking know.
	Okay? So, what do you mean by presupposition?
	So, there are certain...
	No, no, don't give me a big lecture.
	Just tell me what you mean by this word.
	Be a dictionary for me, not a guy who says a lot of syllables.
	What does presupposition mean?
	Essentially, you're presupposing.
	Well, just using the word and putting the word ing in it doesn't help, so try it again.
	Right, right. They're knowledge claims in which we are both agreeing to in order to engage in rational discourse.
	What do you mean agreeing to?
	Can we disagree and still have rational discourse?
	I would say postmodernist.
	Hang on a sec.
	Sorry. Do you mean that I can say that you, Charles, don't exist?
	I don't believe that you exist.
	Can we still have a rational discourse?
	It depends on what the conversation is about.
	No, it doesn't. If I say that you don't exist...
	Okay, let me ask you this.
	Do you believe in ghosts?
	No. Okay. Would you have a conversation with a ghost if you didn't believe ghosts exist?
	No. Okay. So if you don't believe that something exists, you're not going to have a conversation with it.
	So if I don't believe that you exist, I'm not going to have a conversation with you.
	The moment I have a conversation with you, I'm accepting.
	Not presupposing, oh, we're going to somehow magically agree.
	I'm accepting that you exist.
	I'm accepting that our senses are valid.
	I'm accepting that language has meaning.
	I'm accepting that it's an objective reality between the two of us, through which I am—the objective properties of which I'm using to communicate—sound waves, typing, sight, whatever— These are all things I accept as true in order to have the conversation.
	It's not just some arbitrary, like, what color flag should our new country be?
	I mean, it's not, that's an arbitrary thing.
	There's no, you know, morally correct answer or even epistemologically correct answer.
	It's just, I don't know, what do you find pretty, right?
	I mean, but it's not just a presupposition, like, we're just kind of agreeing.
	Like, if you and I decide to play tennis, we agree on the rules of tennis, but the rules of tennis are not Objectively written into the nature of the universe, you know, like people play Monopoly.
	And some people say, well, if you land on Go, you get 200.
	And if you land, or some people say, if you land on Go, you get 400.
	Well, those are arbitrary rules that we just agree to in order to play the game.
	It sounds to me like you're saying reality is an arbitrary rule we agree on like Monopoly rules in order to have a conversation, but it's not.
	No, I'm not a postmodernist.
	But you keep using the word presupposition, which sounds to me like something we arbitrarily agree on in order to play the game called life or conversation or reality.
	Like life is so much simpler.
	The reason that I'm hitting this one so hard is not just for you but for everyone out there.
	Life is a whole lot simpler if you just accept what you're doing.
	You just accept what you're doing.
	What we're doing is having a conversation and therefore 95% of metaphysics and 80% of epistemology can be put deep in the rear view just by having a conversation.
	We've accepted so much.
	About the nature of reality, about the nature of knowledge, about the validity of the senses and the objectivity of the universe.
	We've accepted it so much just to have this conversation that we don't have to debate about it because we are only having the conversation or the capacity to debate because we've accepted so much about the nature of reality and consciousness and the senses and communication and objectivity and the meaningfulness of language.
	We've accepted it all. So we don't need to debate it because it would be impossible to debate it if we doubted it.
	So we can just move forward.
	It's like everyone gets stuck in this swamp of metaphysics and epistemology and what's real.
	And okay, well, maybe we can arbitrarily agree that reality is real, like we're agreeing on the rules of poker or pool or something like that.
	It's not how it works. We get stuck in this quicksand so often.
	So many people get stuck in this quicksand.
	No, we accept so much.
	Let's just move forward and actually get some philosophy down rather than just circling this drain all the time that people do, which, you know, to some degree is Hume onwards.
	And Descartes as well.
	So let me read just the standard definition of a presupposition.
	In the branch of linguistics known as pragmatics, a presupposition is an implicit assumption about the world or background belief relating to an utterance whose truth is taken for granted in discourse.
	Examples of presuppositions include Jane no longer writes fiction.
	Presupposition, Jane once wrote fiction.
	Have you stopped eating meat?
	Presupposition, you once ate meat.
	Have you talked to Hans?
	Presupposition, Hans exists.
	A presupposition must be mutually known or assumed by the speaker and addressee for the utterance to be considered appropriate in context.
	It will generally remain a necessary assumption Whether the utterance is placed in the form of an assertion, denial, or question, and can be associated with a specific lexical item...
	Yeah, okay. No, I got it. I got it.
	And it's exactly what I thought it was.
	It's an assumption rather than a proof, and it can be wrong.
	So if I say, have you stopped eating meat yet?
	Maybe you never ate meat.
	Sure. Right?
	So it is an assumption that is not...
	True. It's not absolute.
	It's not objective. It's not proven.
	It's just kind of an implicit assumption.
	That can be false.
	It's kind of implied. We can maybe accept it as conditional, but it's not something that is rock-solid true.
	But it's necessary for the claim to be true.
	Right, but the claim may be false.
	Like, if I say, have you stopped eating meat yet?
	Then the implicit thing is that you once did eat meat, but that could be false.
	Right, so going back to Descartes, as far as his standard, I think, therefore I am.
	So, in that initial statement, that initial proposition of, I think, there are several presuppositions packed into that initial claim of, I, there's a presupposition of existence, that he exists rather than he doesn't exist.
	Um... That there's a rejection of solipsism?
	Wait, hang on.
	Are these assumptions or absolutes?
	Well, the whole purpose of Descartes' meditations was to Get to the very starting point of knowledge to develop...
	No, no, no. Oh, God. Don't give me a lecture on Descartes, please.
	I mean, look, if I say, have you stopped eating meat yet?
	It's implicit. There's an implicit assumption, what you call a presupposition, that you at one point did eat meat.
	But I could be incorrect at that, right?
	Maybe I thought you were eating a burger, but it was a veggie burger, right?
	Right. So here we have things which we assume are true, but which we could be wrong about.
	Right. So that's why I'm annoyed, and I think it's ridiculously counterproductive to continue to use the word presuppositions about things which are true.
	Absolutely, completely, and totally true.
	Like, we're not just going to agree that, well, you know, these are the rules of the conversation based upon, you know, we're just going to agree to these rules like we're agreeing to how to play tennis, right?
	And so when Descartes says, I think therefore I am, it is not...
	A presupposition that he exists.
	For him to say, I think, or I, he must exist.
	And that's where he began to build his certainty of knowledge.
	He said, oh, maybe I'm being fooled by this demon that's manipulating my brain in a tank, but at least I know that I exist.
	That was not a presupposition.
	That was an absolute.
	And that's why I'm concerned that you're blending these two things together.
	If I'm talking to you, it is not a presupposition that you exist.
	It is an absolute that you exist.
	And you know that based upon...
	What do you mean, you know that based upon?
	It is required for the conversation to occur.
	I mean, you know that based upon on other presuppositions, such as you believe that your cognitive faculties are reliable.
	No, no, no, no, no. You see, you're missing my point.
	I require my cognitive faculties to be reliable in order to have a conversation.
	I require it.
	It doesn't mean that they're infallible.
	I can mishear something, or I can ask for clarification.
	But I require it.
	Like, if I phone you...
	I'm not just, well, the presupposition is that phones work.
	No, I'm assuming that phones work.
	That's why I'm calling you. And if my phone doesn't work, I'll try another phone until I get through to you.
	It is an absolute that phones work.
	I'm requiring it in order to call you.
	I'm requiring that reality to exist.
	This is where I need to get you to.
	It's not a presupposition.
	Well, you and I are just going to arbitrarily agree that phones work.
	No, phones work. It's an absolute.
	It's required for me to call you.
	I must accept the phone's work, and to pick up the phone and talk to me, you must accept the phone works, which means electricity works, which means physics works, which means there's two consciousnesses, there's distance between us, there's wires, there's physics, there's science, there's engineering, there's whatever, right? And there's energy in the universe, there's the reliability of the senses.
	All of this is not a presupposition.
	It is an absolute fact which we know we believe because we pick up the phone and call each other.
	It's not an assumption like we're just agreeing that phones work.
	Like the way that we agreed to play Monopoly where you land on Go and it's 400 bucks rather than 200 bucks, right?
	That's an agreement on rules.
	Agreement on reality, acceptance of reality in order to have a conversation is a very, it's a completely different category.
	It's not we're arbitrarily agreeing.
	Let's arbitrarily agree that phones work.
	We can arbitrarily agree that in Monopoly, we land on Go, it's $400 rather than $200.
	We can arbitrarily agree on that.
	Sure. It's not in the nature of reality.
	That's a rule we're both going to arbitrarily agree on.
	Fine. It makes the game playable.
	It makes it fun. It's more fun for us than the $200 one, and I think it is.
	But we don't just arbitrarily agree that phones work or reality exists.
	It's not an arbitrary agreement.
	That's real.
	You continue to use the word arbitrarily, and I don't know why you're using the word arbitrarily.
	Because presuppositions are not in the level of certainty.
	They're assumptions which are implied truths but not proven.
	So how do you prove the uniformity of nature Thank you.
	You have proven it by talking to me.
	No, I'm using the uniformity of nature.
	I'm assuming the uniformity of nature.
	But why would you bother talking to me if you did not accept the uniformity of nature?
	how could we have this conversation if nature was not uniform?
	No, I mean, the universe...
	No, think about it.
	Don't just react. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
	think about it.
	How could we have this conversation if nature was not uniform?
	I think the difficulty with the conversation is you're under the impression that I'm the one that's Now you're not answering the question.
	How could we have this conversation if reality was not objective and uniform and possessed of stable properties that existed contiguously throughout time independent of immediate space?
	How could we have this conversation if the universe was not objective?
	The universe is objective. Good!
	Fantastic. That's not a presupposition.
	That's not an agreement that we're both making.
	That's a fact. That's a reality.
	That's a truth. Because to disprove the evidence of my senses, you would have to assume the reliability of my senses.
	To disprove the objectivity of reality, you would have to assume the objectivity of reality.
	To disprove that I exist, you would have to assume that I do exist to try and convince me of something.
	And therefore we can put all of those questions in the rear view and get on with the actual job of philosophy, which is ethics.
	You understand? This is a big canyon.
	It's a big trap. It's a big trap that's been laid by a lot of people.
	To get people squishy, squelchy, drowned and confused in the morass and the muck of metaphysics and epistemology.
	And it's designed to trap you from getting to the real purpose of philosophy, which is ethics.
	It's like you're desperate because there's so many fat people in the world and so many people with diabetes in the world, Charles.
	You're desperate to become a nutritionist, but people can convince you that you don't know whether or not there's any such thing as food or reality or truth or human bodies or health or better health or worse health.
	And you end up getting all stuck in that rather than developing a diet, getting out there and helping people to eat better and not be sick.
	It's this big, giant trap that has been laid for people to get you all confused and subjectivist and mucked up with presuppositions and suppositions.
	No, no, no, no.
	Forget all of that. Look at what you're doing.
	Look at what you have to accept in order to have a conversation.
	Those questions are answered.
	You get to leap right over it and get to the actual job of philosophy, which is inspiring people to do good and teaching them about what virtue is.
	In the same way that the job of nutrition is to inspire people to eat better by teaching them what good healthy food is.
	I'm trying to have you not waste your life.
	I'm trying to have you, I'm like I'm leaning over with this big giant stick and you're like neck deep in quicksand and I'm trying to pull you out so we can get you to the shore so you can start building a house so you can start getting things done.
	Let me ask just one question before I make a...
	No, I've got to move on, but let's do the one question.
	Because I bet you it's going to be a mucky-up question, but go on.
	No, no, no, no. Based on everything I've heard you express on metaphysics and epistemology, I'm under the impression, and tell me if I'm wrong, that your epistemology is essentially empiricism.
	My epistemology?
	What do you mean? Would you say my science?
	My math? What do you mean?
	It's not my personal possession, right?
	No, I mean, but your approach to epistemology...
	No, no, no. There's no such thing as my approach to epistemology.
	This is what I mean by muckety questions.
	You cannot escape this quicksand of subjectivity.
	It's not my approach to epistemology.
	Who the fuck would care about my approach to epistemology?
	Okay, so let me ask it differently.
	The approach...
	To epistemology...
	That I take.
	That's where you're going.
	Let me just say it in a different way.
	I'm completely avoiding the whole aspect of subjectivity here.
	Are you under the impression that epistemology is empiricism?
	Or empiricism and epistemology are one and the same?
	No. I don't think that there's any need for two words when you already have one.
	If we already had the word empiricism, we would not need the word epistemology if it was exactly the same as empiricism.
	So, how would you differentiate the two?
	Empiricism is the evidence of the senses, and epistemology are the mental constructs that we derive from the universal and objective evidence of the senses in order to validate that which is not directly sensually evident, right?
	So, for example, you look around and you see stuff, it's propped up, it falls over, there's gravity, you know, stuff falls down and so on, and that's your direct sense evidence, and it's shared with monkeys and squirrels and all this kind of crap as well, right?
	So there's direct sense evidence.
	Human beings have this incredible, almost a divine ability to extract universal principles from direct sense evidence, right?
	Thank you.
	So, you know, the old Newton sits under the tree, the apple falls on his head, and he's like, oh my god, the earth falls around the sun, and the sun falls around the galaxy, and everything, the moon falls around the earth, right?
	And so, we use direct sense evidence, which is empiricism, in order to build these mental constructs that allow us To judge things which we don't have direct sense evidence of yet, or may never, right? So because we have principles of tensile strength and gravity and you name it, and weight, we can build a bridge.
	And we know for sure the bridge is going to stand.
	Right? So we're using principles derived from the evidence of the senses to create something which only comes into being later, but which we know everything about it.
	We know it's going to stand up.
	We use the evidence of the senses to build a spaceship which can sail past Jupiter and take photos.
	So, to me, empiricism is direct sense evidence, and epistemology is the models that we build to validate true statements about what comes through our senses.
	Now, it's a bit of a circle, right?
	Because we start with sense evidence, and we also end with sense evidence.
	So, for instance, we start with stuff stands up, stuff falls down, stuff has different strengths, right?
	Steel is stronger than wood, wood is stronger than balsa wood, balsa wood is stronger than paper, blah, blah, blah.
	Paper is stronger than a cloud, whatever you want to say, right?
	So we then, through epistemology, we build all these rules.
	Engineering, science, physics, and so on.
	And then what we do is we build a bridge.
	Now, if we've done it correctly, the bridge will stand and it will handle the traffic and whatever, right?
	And the waves and the storms and so on.
	And so we've gone beyond our sense data, two concepts, and we've used those concepts to build something that shows up in sense data called a bridge.
	Right? But then, if we watch the bridge and it falls down, we're back to sense evidence denying our hypothesis, right?
	Our theories. So, sense evidence is kind of like this sandwich, right?
	You've got sense evidence, which gives rise to principles, which then must be validated by sense evidence, which is why observation in science is one of the great proofs of a scientific theory.
	Right? I predict, based upon my knowledge of the solar system, that the sun's going to rise tomorrow, and then you look and see if it gets brighter in the east tomorrow morning, once you validate things with the senses again.
	So that's my way of explaining the relationship between epistemology and empiricism.
	Yeah, so...
	So what are you putting first, then, epistemology?
	Epistemology or empiricism?
	I'll tell you what I'm going to do. What I'm going to put forth is my desire to not be in this conversation anymore because I keep explaining stuff and then you keep asking me what I just explained.
	So what that means is you have an emotional resistance to practical philosophy.
	You want to stay mucked down in theory and hypothesis and conjecture and agreement and humanian skepticism and do I exist and Descartes, right?
	You have an emotional resistance, which I completely understand.
	Because going to practical philosophy, going to ethics, is challenging.
	You actually then have to confront bad people, you have to promote virtue, and you're going to get targeted by bad people who want to do you harm because your philosophy and your encouragement of virtue is doing harm to their evil interests.
	So you want to stay in the realm of theory and subjectivism, and you say you're not a postmodernist, but I haven't heard one certain thing come out of your mouth yet.
	So my suggestion is listen to this over and over again.
	If you then want to Keep doing this stuff.
	Don't pretend that you have anything to do with philosophy.
	You're just something in the way of the better world.
	So thanks for your call. I appreciate it.
	But let's move on to the next caller.
	All right. Up next, we have Tom.
	Tom wrote in and said, The reason I write you today is because after watching your video on why the left always wins, I found myself in thought about the many times I have won these arguments.
	Our mentality of using victimhood and whining about how things are not fair is never a winning argument.
	As men, shouldn't we be pushing other men to be stronger and more honorable?
	Instead of looking at the world as victims of our circumstances, shouldn't we be teaching other men how to conquer and not complain?
	I feel like focusing on what we can't do or how things should be, we should be teaching men to eat past it and not worrying about what happened to them in their past or their circumstances now.
	That's from Tom. Tommy, Tom Tom, how you doing tonight?
	All right. What's going on, boss?
	How are you living? I'm doing well.
	I'm doing well. Thank you. It's always good to get some deep philosophy into the chat.
	So, tell me more about your question.
	I'm not sure I've got a good map of its boundaries.
	Well, first, I want to make sure, do you exist?
	Yes, I do. And as we're going to agree with this rule called conversation, I'm just going to assume for the moment that you exist, but arbitrarily so.
	I'm pretty sure I exist.
	I hope so.
	I've been working my butt off for no reason if I don't exist.
	That's right. I was sitting there listening to your videos often.
	The majority of the time, I completely agree with what you're saying.
	I'm a libertarian myself.
	I was actually part of the Ron Paul thing and donated and phone banked and did all that back in 2007.
	Something like that when he ran for president.
	As a libertarian, I feel like the ideology of American people in general, this thought pattern of that we should look at what our parents did, how our childhood was, and all these things of looking to the past really harms us going into the future.
	As men, you know, trying to be, being a better man means I don't care about what happened.
	You got to do what you have to do.
	I need to go make money and handle my business and have a family and be the individual I need to be and do the things you have to do to move society forward.
	Okay, what's the question?
	Well, the question was, is...
	Why do we have to look at how our parents treated us and get into all the psychiatric stuff and the psychological stuff rather than doing what people in Britain do, just have the stiff upper lip and move forward?
	Wait, you mean we should try to emulate the enormous successes of modern British society?
	You're not really going to try and tell me that particular hypothesis, are you?
	Not modern British society, but more...
	I was reading a study about the British troops, how they don't have the high occurrences of PTSD that we do.
	They don't have the suicide rates of the veterans where they just kind of suck it up and deal with it and go on about their business when they get out of the military.
	You know, unlike us, we sit here and whine about it, you know, and well, not why I'm not trying to put down the veterans, but, you know, we sit here and we focus on these things and it makes us worse for it, I guess.
	So is your argument that self-knowledge is crippling?
	Well, not that self-knowledge is crippling.
	It's more focusing on the bad things that happen to us is crippling.
	Focusing on the bad things that happen to us is crippling.
	Okay, do you think that self-knowledge is simply staring obsessively at bad things that happen to you and reliving them?
	For instance, I went and did my laundry day while I was waiting to get on the call.
	I was talking with a lady and she's like, my parents were alcoholics.
	This lady, she has a kid who was 23 years old, was about to get married and killed himself because his fiancee canceled the wedding.
	I stand there and go, man, You're 50-something years old and you're still talking about what your parents did and how they were alcoholics.
	You know what I mean? At some point in our lives, we have to get past that and not worry about what our parents were.
	You know what I mean? Not worry about what happened to us when we were younger.
	So some guy killed himself and was talking about his parents?
	No, no, no, no, no. This lady was in the laundromat.
	I was over here doing my laundry. And the lady sits here and goes, you know, my parents were alcoholics or whatever, and she was giving me the rundown of her life story or whatever.
	Her son, she said her son killed himself like two years ago because his fiancée called off the wedding.
	Wait, but Tom, you can't come to me, I mean you can, but you can't rationally come to me after I've done a lot of work on explaining the value of self-knowledge and the reasons why I know thyself as a fundamental Socratic doctrine.
	And I do brave and courageous things out there based on self-knowledge.
	I don't think you can reasonably come to me, Tom, and say, well, yeah, but there was this woman in the laundromat, as your argument.
	Well, no, it's the heroin epidemic that's hitting right now.
	It's the amount of drugs that we're handing these kids because they're concerned about what they're, you know, like their upbringing or whatever the case might have been in there.
	Or they got post-traumatic stress syndrome or disorder or whatever the case might be.
	I understand knowing thyself is highly important.
	Know what you're not. I did a whole video series on this on my channel.
	Standing here, knowing what you're not good at, knowing what you are good at, standing here and knowing yourself inside and out, what you're able to do, what you're not able to do, that helps in your success and avoiding failures in life.
	That's awesome. The thing is that you can't focus on what It happened to you as a child.
	Childhood sucked. It sucked for everybody.
	You're little. You can't do anything.
	You can't make any money. You had to be in a house at 7 o'clock every day.
	Childhood was never good for anybody.
	It's not supposed to be a good time.
	You're growing the entire time, figuring things out.
	You have to go to a place where you're surrounded by people who you can't stand.
	You wouldn't talk to them in regular life if your hair was on fire and they held a monopoly on water.
	Childhood's awful. Okay, well, I think you may be talking more about yourself or people you know.
	My daughter's childhood doesn't suck at all.
	So, I just looked up something here.
	You say that in the British military, they have less rates or lower rates of PTSD, and I don't know what it is compared to America, but this is from the 1st of August 2014, so it's...
	Well north of three years ago.
	And it says PTSD rises by a fifth in the British military.
	Post-traumatic stress disorder among military personnel rose by 19% last year, so I guess this would be in 2013, as Britain prepared to end operations in Afghanistan.
	There's also a 12% increase in the rate of mental disorders as a whole, including depression and anxiety.
	The Veterans Mental Health Charity warned earlier this year it had seen a 57% increase in former soldiers, sailors and airmen needing treatment after serving in Afghanistan.
	And I'm not sure how we get to have this British stiff upper lip combined with pretty significant increases in the rates of PTSD there.
	Yeah, but it's nowhere near the rates of ours.
	Okay, so what are the rates in America versus England?
	I believe we're like 30% or 40% higher than they are, somewhere along those type of lines.
	And is that normalized for IQ? Well, not actually sure, to be honest with you.
	Because that's not important.
	I think the rates are higher among whites and they are among the blacks and Hispanics in our country, as always.
	And do you know if that's normalized by exposure to combat?
	You're in the military, so I'm assuming the majority of individuals with PTSD have been exposed to combat.
	Well, yes, but not everyone in the military is, I mean, few people in the military are exposed to combat.
	The number of support personnel is usually, and I talked about this with Eric Prince, that the number of support personnel for military Who are, like, enemy-facing military, military in the line of fire, the number of support personnel is many, many times the number of people who are in combat.
	Yeah, yeah. Well, that's normal, but for combat troops, I mean, the rates for us is much higher than they are in the British military or most other militaries on the planet, you know what I mean?
	And the fact that, and the reason why I'm sitting here having this thought pattern inside of my head is because I'm looking at America as a whole and we look at ourselves in decline.
	But the reality is we're not really declining.
	We're just kind of like stuck at the same level we were.
	Because we were the majority superpower for about 40 years because the rest of the world was bombed out.
	You know, like Germany didn't get done rebuilding until the 90s or 2000.
	I think actually Berlin didn't finish until like 2004.
	Japan didn't really get back up on their feet until the 1980s.
	And this is when everything started going sideways for us because we held the majority of the manufacturing ability because of the fact that everybody else were still recovering from World War II. And now that the rest of the world has caught up and they're back to normal where they're supposed to be at, we're going to have to work a little harder than everybody else.
	And I think having that victim mentality Of, you know, oh, you know, it's not fair, da-da-da-da.
	Like, it's not going to do any good for us.
	So we have to figure out the problems and get past them rather than sit here, you know what I mean?
	Yeah, I'm sorry, just to finish up this thing.
	So there's a paper published in the British Journal of Psychiatry finds that Canada has the highest levels of PTSD. Followed by the Netherlands, Australia, the US, and New Zealand.
	So it doesn't even look like the UK is in the top five, but Canada is higher than the US, and so is Australia, and so are the Netherlands.
	I think we're going to have to drop that as a general consideration, as proof of anything, because that's a big chunk of data and who knows what it's been normalized for and whether it's been, you know, relative to exposure, relative to IQ, relative to whatever, right?
	So I think if I understand you, Tom, correctly, you're saying that there are some people who continue to navel gaze at a difficult childhood, right?
	And don't move beyond it.
	And listen, I mean, I've seen and known people like this too.
	I've seen people who are 60 years old, I knew a woman who was 60 years old, who was still bitterly complaining about her mother who was 85.
	Now that's a whole mess.
	Of holding on to grudges.
	And she would go over and see her mom, and she would complain about her mom, and she'd come back and say, I can't believe my mom, she's just like this, she's just like that, drove me crazy, always drove me crazy, always mean, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
	Right. And there's a very simple explanation as to why people get stuck into that, which is that they're not changing their circumstances.
	Right. You know, if every morning I spend 10 seconds putting my hand over an open flame, am I going to be in pain every single morning?
	Oh, of course. Of course, right?
	And I'm going to be worried about that every single morning, and I'm going to be not looking forward to it every single morning.
	Why? Because I'm not changing my behavior.
	Now, if I stop putting my hand into an open flame for 10 seconds every morning, then I can begin to heal, I can begin to move on.
	But you have to change your behavior.
	Now, there are a lot of people who think that complaining about their personal relationships is going to change anything.
	It's not. If you continually complain about your personal relationships, your personal relationships will get worse and worse and worse and worse.
	And you may start off with very little to complain about, but you sure as hell are going to end up with a lot to complain about at the end.
	And the people around you are going to have even more to complain about because you're the one who's been bitching about your relationships for so long.
	If your relationships suck, fix them or stop.
	Get in or get out.
	Make them work or make them gone.
	That is what, when we ruminate over wrongs or problems or whatever, then what our focus is for is for us to change our behavior.
	So if you've got someone in your life that's continually driving you crazy, then you basically have one of two choices.
	You can change their behavior or you can change your perceptions in terms of working within the relationship.
	So if what they do is just kind of annoying, then you can, if the rest of the relationship is worthwhile, and look, we have to do this with people.
	People have to do this with me, with habits they find that I have that are annoying.
	I have to do it with other people.
	It's a natural rhythm of life and intimacy and living with people and so on, right?
	So we then say, I'm not going to let the fact that this person clicks their teeth, you know, or this person uses a fork to dig into their cuticles, or this person occasionally cracks their knuckles.
	You know, I'm going to mention it from time to time, but I'm not going to have it drive me crazy every single time that it happens.
	Or, you know, my daughter leaves the light on in her closet, and I grew up, and I'm working on it, man.
	I'm much better than... Better than I used to be.
	But because I grew up, you couldn't leave lights on because you couldn't afford the electricity.
	You know, I'm like the dad in Long Day's Journey into Night.
	It drives me crazy.
	And I will remind her.
	I know she's going to forget. She's eight and so on.
	And also, I don't have a very good argument anymore because I'm not stone broke all the time.
	So... You just have to let it go.
	And I agree with that. These things are not fundamental moral issues.
	It's not, you know, some big compromise of ethics and virtue and integrity and so on.
	It's just turn the light off, right?
	And I mean, geez, don't even get me started if I've gone out for the day and left a bathroom light on somewhere.
	So, or you can get the other person to change their behavior if it's genuinely objectionable, right?
	You know, like if they really fart at the table and you can't enjoy your meal, okay, like they need to stop doing that, right?
	And you can have that conversation.
	If there are really foundational things, really foundational things, you know, like there was a guy I knew before I got married to my wife.
	He didn't really spend much time getting to know her.
	And... The day before my wedding, he said to me, Well, I haven't really spent much time getting to know your wife, but I figure what's the point?
	You're just going to get divorced anyway.
	Shouldn't laugh, but I mean, it's just like, bye-bye.
	And you, my friend, are deep in the rearview for all time.
	Because you can't... I don't want someone around who doesn't have faith in my marriage.
	It's a confession about his own marriage anyway, so...
	Absolutely. Sorry, let me just finish this point up.
	If you're not willing to give up annoyance of people and they won't change their behavior and it's morally compromising to you, like maybe they're abusive or they're mean or they're undermining you or they're harming your heart or they're encouraging bad relationships and discouraging healthy relationships, if they're toxic and dangerous and deadly for you, spiritually or physically or emotionally, then there's not much point continuing to complain.
	Then there's not much point continuing to complain about people.
	If you can't fix the relationship and you can't change your perspective, then end it.
	For God's sakes, put everyone out of their misery and move on to something better.
	And that's the purpose of self-knowledge.
	The purpose of self-knowledge is action.
	The purpose, as I said to the last guy, the purpose of philosophy is ethics.
	The purpose of nutrition is to get you to change your diet.
	The purpose of doctors is to cure you or to encourage better health habits.
	And the purpose of self-knowledge is action.
	To improve your life.
	And the people who ruminate on old things without changing their behavior, yes, they get stuck.
	But that's not the fault of self-knowledge.
	That's like blaming a car because somebody refuses to drive it.
	No, the purpose of the car is to get you somewhere.
	And if people refuse to drive it, there's no point saying, well, cars are useless.
	It just means that those particular people are useless.
	What I'm saying is this, right?
	All right. If you come from a bad household, right?
	Your parents were drug addicts, whatever the case might have been.
	Your parents beat you, whatever it might have been.
	It shouldn't matter later on because you still have to do what you have to do.
	What do you mean it shouldn't matter later on?
	Let's say that your parents...
	Let's go to an extreme.
	Let's say that your parents sexually abused you, right?
	Right. Okay. If your parents sexually abused you...
	I don't believe that there is any amount of apologies or restitution that can make that okay.
	And so to me, if your parents sexually abused you, I can't imagine why you would have anything to do with your parents going forward, like as adults.
	When the child rapists... That's a given.
	Right, okay. So then if you've done the work and you've got toxic or abusive people out of your life...
	Then you have done with self-knowledge what you're supposed to do, which is to make changes.
	Yeah, I got you. But can you change what happened to you when you were younger?
	I mean, I assume that's a rhetorical question because I try not to answer questions that silly.
	I got you. You can't change it, right?
	My thing is this. All right, you cut the people out of your life who you don't want around, all right?
	You cut the people out of your life who harmed you, whatever the case might have been.
	But then you move on with your life.
	You have to go forward.
	You have to enjoy your life after that.
	You can't sit around whining about what happened to you and trying to act like it's going to rule what you do the rest of your life.
	And I find this happens quite often with people.
	And that's awful.
	That's a terrible way to live your life.
	But why do you have so many people around you who can't move on with their lives?
	Just run into anybody.
	They'll sit there and complain about what happened to a lot of kids.
	I'm telling you, Tom, I don't have that in my life.
	I have it everywhere.
	Everywhere I go, you can go to the grocery store, you can go to the grocery store.
	You go to, I don't know, Walmart.
	You go to work.
	You know, people will complain.
	Like, I was sitting and talking to my boss and that happened.
	You know what I mean? Like, everybody complains about how their childhood was.
	And because childhoods...
	Well, why do people complain to you about their childhoods?
	I'm not absolutely sure.
	I can tell you why. Because you had a complaining parent as a child.
	Did you? Did I have a complaining parent?
	Did you have a parent who complained about their life a lot when you were growing up?
	Not really. Really?
	Did you have a relative or anyone else?
	No, my mom's... Nah, I didn't really have, like, I got a ton of relatives, but I was never really around them.
	No. No, because, listen, I mean, why do people...
	How do people know that they can complain to you about their childhoods?
	How do they know you'll listen?
	How do they know you won't? I mean, do you give them this speech that you gave me just now?
	Like, man it up and stop complaining and move on, right?
	Well, no. Why don't you, hang on, why don't you, hang on, Tom, Tom, hang on a sec, hang on a sec.
	Why, if you feel very strongly about this, why don't you tell the people around you who continue to complain about their childhoods to shut up, man up and move on?
	Yeah, it tends to be what I do. Oh, you do do that?
	Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, there's no qualms about telling somebody, shut up, man up, come on, we gotta get moving.
	But you just said you didn't do that.
	Oh no, when?
	Just now. I asked you if you said that and you said no.
	When? Just now.
	No way, when? Just now.
	Like right before this, when you said you did.
	What, do I tell people to shut up, man up, move forward?
	Yeah. Yeah, I tell individuals this on a regular, you said, you know, you asked me if I stood here and asked them about their childhood and I said no.
	Okay, sorry. All right. So what you're telling me is that people tell you about their childhoods and you tell them to shut up, man up and move on, right?
	Yeah. Okay, so hang on.
	Sorry to keep interrupting you.
	I just really want to sort of understand this process, this pattern.
	So the people in your life, you don't want to hear them complain about their childhoods anymore, so I assume they don't do that, right?
	Oh, no. People still complain about stuff that happens.
	You know, people complain. It's what people tend to do.
	Well, hang on. You've told them that you don't want to hear it, right?
	Yeah, but I also tell them, you know, man up and move forward.
	Okay, so you've told them basically...
	Hang on. You've told these people, don't tell me about your crappy childhood because I've already given you my advice, right?
	Yeah. And they keep doing it.
	Yeah, because, you know, you'll have a conversation with an individual, and then they bring up, you know, the childhood again, because that's what everybody goes to as a go-to.
	No, no, no. Stop with this.
	Everybody. Tom, Tom, this is not everybody.
	This is the people around you.
	And my question is why?
	Why do they keep complaining about their childhood to you when you've told them you don't want to hear it?
	How is it?
	Why are you not able to establish these boundaries?
	Why are you surrounded by people who don't listen to what you say?
	Are you unable to be assertive with people and they just keep walking all over your preferences?
	Like, that's my fundamental question, is why are you surrounded by people who keep complaining to you about their childhood, which you have nothing but contempt for and tell them not to do?
	Why don't they listen to you and shut up about their childhoods?
	I'm not absolutely sure, to be perfectly honest.
	It's a good question, though. I mean, you'd rather they didn't, right?
	It is a good question.
	See, I think if you had more self-knowledge, you'd figure that one out, and then people would stop it.
	Or you'd stop hanging around the people who kept doing it.
	See, the reason I'm circling around this, Tom, is that this is the value of self-knowledge.
	Value self-knowledge is you say, people keep complaining to me about their childhoods.
	I tell them to stop it.
	I tell them I don't want to hear it.
	I tell them to shut up, man up, and move on.
	And they keep complaining to me and keep complaining to me about the same damn thing all the time.
	Why aren't they listening to me?
	Why am I not able to establish boundaries?
	Why don't they respect my preferences?
	Why don't they listen to my advice?
	And why am I keep getting stuck in this repetitively annoying situation with, as you say, everyone around me?
	Yeah, but you also have conversations about football or, you know, normal stuff, work, you know, whatever the case might be.
	No, no, no. See, now this is lack of self-knowledge.
	Now you're just minimizing. I'm pointing out an important principle and now you're minimizing and you're avoiding.
	You're saying this is a very big issue for you.
	It's really bothering you.
	And then when I point out that you may have some causal responsibility in it, you'd say you try to minimize it and you start talking about talking about football.
	Well, no, no. As a society, all right?
	No, no, no. It's your society, Tom.
	Don't blame all of society for something that keeps happening to you.
	How many females have you met in your life who complained and said they hated their father?
	Very few, in fact.
	Very few? Very few.
	See, you're thinking this is somehow universal to humanity as a whole.
	It's rare, in my experience, right?
	Because I have boundaries. Most people I know say the same exact thing that I do.
	What? About the people that they meet.
	So, okay, so you're stuck in this underworld of people who bitch about their childhoods and don't change anything.
	So, you see, you're not able to change anything.
	You're saying to other people you've got to man up and move on and so on, but you're not able to man up and move on from the people who keep complaining to you about their childhoods.
	Wouldn't you like to live among people or have conversations with people where they weren't continually bitching about their childhoods?
	Oh, absolutely. Okay, so you need to change your situation, your circumstances, and your environment.
	Right? See, other people have this constant complaint about their childhoods.
	You have this constant complaint about people complaining about their childhoods.
	You're telling them to change the circumstances, to man up, to move on.
	But you're not able to.
	They're complaining about something.
	You're complaining about something.
	And you seem to me as stuck as they are.
	I don't know. And I mean, it's not like that major of a thing.
	It's just, you know, it was something that I thought, you know.
	Okay, well, let's say this then.
	Okay, if it's not that major of a thing, my life is short.
	This time is valuable.
	So I'm going to move on to somebody who does have a real issue.
	Because if it's just like a really minor thing in your life, then I won't bother with it.
	So let's move on to the next caller.
	But thank you so much for calling in.
	Peace, man. Later. All right, up next we have Jason.
	Can we just point out, just very briefly, that somebody who complains that self-knowledge is worthless, I think just kind of proved the opposite case.
	I just wanted to mention that.
	Okay, let's move on. Up next, we have Jason.
	Jason wrote in and said, I'd like to define and make a distinction between nostalgia and regret,
	nostalgia being a fond reminiscence or sentimental longing for past life moments, whereas regret is the pain in acknowledging poor choices that have resulted in a disconnect between the reality I'm living and the reality that I could have been or should be.
	That's from Jason.
	I imagine many people have this question these days regarding, good god, why didn't I buy more bitcoin?
	Wait, hang on. I just saw this very, I think Mike shared it with me too.
	It's a pretty funny, I don't know if it's real or not, but it's a pretty funny series of text messages.
	And it goes a little something like this.
	So this is, conversation started March 28th, 2011.
	I guess this is a girlfriend talking to her boyfriend.
	James, we need to break up.
	Every one of your friends is doing something with their lives, investing in real estate.
	You just keep reading about your stupid bitcoins.
	That's March 28th, 2011.
	November 26th, 2017.
	Hey James, how have you been?
	I don't even know if that's true or not, but if it isn't, it really should be.
	And I'm sure it's true to one degree or another.
	All right, so sorry Jason, go ahead.
	No, Mike hit it a little bit too on the nose.
	Is it bitcoins for you?
	Well, that was one of seven things that I've identified.
	But yeah, that was kind of the instigator for the question is that...
	That was the most painful thing.
	It's like every time I thought of Bitcoin back in April, it was like, it was mentally as painful as stubbing my toe.
	You know, can I tell you something, Jason?
	Nobody's happy. Well, maybe Satoshi.
	Nobody's happy with Bitcoin. No, nobody's...
	Because everybody's like... Like, I've known...
	There are Bitcoin experts out there who...
	I mean, I just saw this tweet the other day.
	Bitcoin expert out there.
	Everyone assumes this guy's a zillionaire because he was, like, evangelizing Bitcoin years and years and years ago.
	Nah. Nah.
	Doesn't really have any.
	Everybody. Everybody is...
	Everybody's pained about Bitcoin.
	Nobody's happy. Because if you bought a bunch of Bitcoin, you sit and say, well, why the hell didn't I buy more?
	And if you didn't buy any, it's like, why didn't I at least buy some?
	When you get this kind of like, it's gone up a thousand times.
	I mean, nobody's happy.
	Just be aware of that.
	And I don't mean that that means, therefore, don't be upset about anything.
	But I don't know that anybody is truly satisfied with the whole Bitcoin experience.
	No, I appreciate that. Uh, yeah, I was listening to you and, uh, debate Peter Schiff, uh, four years ago when it was worth like 400.
	And I remember you guys laughing over the price.
	Oh my God, it's 400.
	Can you believe it? And, uh, you were thinking, you were telling people back when it was like worth 13 cents that they should get in, uh, consider getting involved.
	And, um, but you, you said the line and this kind of stuck with me, uh, that like, if you have hindsight when you're in investing, you, you just won't live.
	If you continue to have hindsight and think of what could have been, then it'll just eat you alive.
	We're still nobody at the top.
	I'll just tell you that, in my opinion.
	Oh, yeah. I think it still has potential to...
	It's a market capitalization of $300 and some billion right now.
	And it... As big money comes in, it could still go up 100 times over the next few years.
	Listen, it's not so much that Bitcoin is going up, it's that fiat currency is in a free fall and only Bitcoin is noticing.
	Right. So what pained me back in April, though, is that my family's company that they had spent a decade building finally sold.
	And as a 26-year-old I was given a piece of that because I had put some work into the early development.
	It was an educational video game teaching early literacy and I did the voicing.
	For one of the characters, and I wrote the music, and I got some of the share in the company.
	And it ended up being around $50,000 that I ended up getting from the sale.
	And that was more money than I'd seen in a single year of income in my whole life.
	So it was a big deal.
	And I put a lot of thought into how I was going to spend the money.
	And I thought, okay, I can take...
	80% and I'm going to invest in my business, so that's around $40,000.
	Well, I'm going to take 60% and invest in my business, take 20% into savings, and 20% and put it in Bitcoin, which is around $10,000.
	And then I'm thinking, okay, you know what?
	Bitcoin has been at roughly this price for about a year.
	It doubles about every year, it looks like, for the last few years.
	If this trend continues, What I should do is invest this extra $10,000 into my business.
	If I invest it properly, I could actually triple or quadruple the investment within a single year.
	I spend $40,000 on my business instead of $30,000 and spend zero on Bitcoin instead of $10,000.
	Then in the next month, Between April and June, I see the price go up from $1,000 to $4,000.
	And then I'm really kicking myself because my business is starting to flail a bit.
	I'm in farming, small-scale organic farming, and it was just a rough year weather-wise for us in our region.
	The business ended up kind of going down the toilet when all of my close friends in a new software business that I've also started had all invested pretty heavily into it.
	And they were kind of living the high life.
	And I was just, you know, spending eight, ten hours a day pulling weeds in the baking sun while regretting not investing in Bitcoin.
	So I got to really think and mull over for a long time about regret and, you know...
	Thinking through, you know, what could have been and kicking myself for...
	No, no, I appreciate that.
	I'm sorry to interrupt. I appreciate that.
	And let me just ask you a couple of questions.
	How's your health? My health?
	Excellent. Good.
	Okay. How's your love life?
	That was one of the things I wanted to talk about.
	I give it like a six or a seven.
	I could elaborate on that if you want.
	How could it be better? Do you have a relationship you're not that happy with, or you want a relationship and you're not sure if you're going to get it?
	The first one. I have a relationship not that happy with us, but working on it.
	Do you think it's saveable?
	Yeah, totally. I didn't want to dwell on all the things that have gone wrong.
	I wanted to actually focus on...
	Sorry I went on for so long about bad decisions I made, but what I wanted to focus on was That in recognizing these problems, how I've, you know, taken them as a motivation and rather than cursing myself for my bad luck, seeing them as an opportunity to kind of pull myself up and recognize how I could prevent myself from making the same poor decisions in the next decade of my life.
	So, yeah, I think it's savable.
	And we're working on strategies with a consultant and looking into counseling to try to improve things.
	And do you have enough money to live on relatively comfortably?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So you've got, you know, reasonable, reasonable income.
	So, I haven't talked about this, but I'm glad this is why we booked you, right?
	It's a very, very important topic, and it's somewhat personal, so hopefully the personal is, as it often is the case, the personal is what connects us.
	So, if you have enough money to be comfortable, more money will give you diminishing returns in happiness.
	And we'll give you additional stress.
	And this doesn't mean don't accumulate more money.
	I'm just, let's look at the positives and the negatives.
	So, growing from broke to, like, middle class is a huge deal.
	It's a huge deal.
	Going from middle class to upper class, eh, you know, going from upper class to super rich, eh, you know, there's pluses and minuses.
	I mean, the pluses, you know, financial security and so on, but the minuses are, okay, now you've got to figure out what to do with your money, how to protect it from the tax man, from inflation, from whatever, right?
	And the richer you get, the more people view you as an emotionally punchable ATM, right?
	It can be alienating, I think, for people.
	I mean, having talked to people who are very, very rich, it's hard for them to feel like people are interested in them just for them.
	It's sort of like if you're a woman and you're like a 10...
	How many guys are into you just for who you are, right?
	We all look at beautiful people and say, oh, wow, fantastic.
	You know how great that would be, all that attention and so on.
	But there's a reason why beautiful people have the resting bitch face, right?
	Which is they have reason to be suspicious about why people are interested in them.
	It's not the individual.
	It's not the virtue. It's the looks.
	And the same thing can happen with the money.
	So again, and I've known people who've been like crazy rich.
	Like, so many, many years ago, I, with a friend of mine, there used to be a deal where you paid a certain amount of money and you could fly anywhere as often as you wanted in Quebec and Ontario.
	For a month. So we did this.
	We got this month passed and we just flew all over the place.
	Got to visit really cool places I never would have otherwise gone to.
	And when I was in Quebec City having a great time, I ended up chatting with this table.
	My friend and I, we ended up chatting with this table full of...
	Young women. And we all went out dancing, and then we did some karaoke, and it was just, it was a blast.
	And I've always enjoyed...
	I'm not like a pickup guy that way, like, hey, you know, right?
	And I actually remember in Morocco doing the same thing, sitting down to eat alone, and there was this woman, and I ended up, I chatted with her and so on, and she was very attractive, my type, but she was a communist, and I'm like, nope, not sticking my wick in crazy.
	Don't do it. Don't do it. Stand back!
	From the boobs.
	And... So this woman and I, we stayed friends.
	We never really dated.
	You know, we just hung out. And she was cool.
	And I was very poor at this time in my life.
	I was going to... Theater school.
	Then I was going to McGill.
	Then I was doing a graduate degree.
	So I was broke. I was a broke-ass guy.
	Biking everywhere. And, you know, I was like...
	My rent was $270 a month for a room in a house.
	And, you know, it was...
	I was living close to the bone.
	It was lean, lean, lean.
	And I remember biking back from...
	I was a long way from a grocery store.
	And I remember going to grocery shopping and biking back.
	On some, you know, my rickety old rust bucket of a bike, seven different colors, you know, like only one side of the brakes worked and so on.
	Like you brake too much, you get sparks.
	And I was biking along King Street.
	And King Street is where a lot of the theaters are and, you know, the rich people were all lining up to go and see, I think it was Phantom of the Opera or Les Mis or something back then.
	And they all, you know, dressed to the nines and beautiful and bow ties and The women roll in expensive dresses and so on.
	And I was biking past them.
	I like $2 bike with all of my groceries hanging off plastic bags and I'm hoping like one bump and they're going to all pop out.
	And I was like, oh, I could just see it.
	You know, they're going to pop out. My groceries are going to scatter all over the slush and by the sewer.
	Great. And all of these rich people are like, oh, look, let's go into Les Mis because we seem to see one of the extras scrabbling about there in the dirt.
	And I just, I remember biking along, you know, broke and I kind of make rent next month and I got to buy a book.
	Yeah. And so on.
	And yeah, my rusty old bike, no car, no savings, no nothing.
	And looking at all these rich people thinking like, oh man, that looks great.
	So going from like that broke ass existence to something a little bit more stable is really good.
	But there is a law of diminishing returns when it comes to wealth after that.
	And I think that's... Kind of important to remember.
	And again, more wealth is more complications.
	Then you're worried about keeping your money and holding on to your money.
	And then you become a target for people like in America.
	I mean, wow, it's crazy.
	Like 50 million lawsuits are filed every year and the vast majority of them against rich people.
	So, you know, you just become a target.
	So there's lots of complications.
	So that's important to remember as well.
	There's an upside and downside.
	Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, I guess I kind of, through my childhood, I was always raised in sort of a, I wouldn't say middle upper class, but probably middle class.
	It was an entrepreneurial family.
	We were always very comfortable and never really wanted for anything and we were just treated nicely.
	So I guess I was spoiled by that and I went through the opposite where I thought maybe we had all the comfort we needed and more material Comfort wasn't a want that I craved to fill.
	I craved personal ambition.
	I craved fulfillment.
	I craved new experiences.
	And I put myself in situations in my late teens and early 20s where I was faced with self-imposed poverty.
	I said I was involved with organic farming.
	I basically threw myself into a business a few years ago where I hardly knew what I was doing.
	I never ran a business before and I put every dime to my name into an all or nothing gamble on whether or not I can make a farm business work.
	Luckily with 80 hours a week of work I was able to put it together.
	But through that hardship, I finally appreciated what my parents, what my family was able to offer me throughout my childhood and my teens.
	And I have a lot more respect for the nice things that just a financially secure lifestyle has to offer.
	So I don't want to say that I wish I grew up poor, but it's unfortunate that I didn't grow up with the respect for Wealth and comfort that you did when you experienced seeing those rich people on your rusty old bicycle.
	I had to experience that myself by putting myself in an unfortunate situation.
	Not against my family's wishes, but And ignoring their comments of concern through that process.
	I wish there would have been a bit more stern guidance through that.
	But I think you have to let people make their own decisions as well.
	Sorry, I mean, the stern guidance and so on, you wouldn't have listened.
	Neither would I, neither would anyone else.
	You just kind of have to sometimes hit the wall.
	In order to get these kinds of values.
	And there's an old saying, it's an old Arabic saying, which is, my grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a Ford, I ride a Lamborghini.
	My son shall ride a Ford, and my grandson shall ride a camel.
	Yeah, definitely. I mean, my grandmother's father was a farmer himself during the Great Depression.
	And she said, you know, one year, her family lived on $30.
	A year? Yeah, well, of course, yeah.
	They do a lot of barter, a lot of grow their own stuff, right?
	Yeah. And then she grew up to build and sell a multi-million dollar software business growing from a family who farms organic vegetables during the Great Depression.
	And then what does her grandson become?
	An organic farmer who's...
	We're economically struggling at times.
	But no, here's the thing. Okay, so just as a mental exercise, this is something which is worth going through.
	So let's say that tomorrow you had $5 million in the bank.
	Yeah. Right? What would change?
	Yeah, maybe not $5 million, but I've run through the similar exercise before.
	I did the math, and I figured if I did invest back in April...
	The $10,000 and guided it well over the past seven, eight months, I would have roughly $250,000 today.
	So, you know, $250,000, $5 million.
	Well, you wouldn't, though, because you'd have to pay taxes on it, right?
	Yeah, true. So $250,000 or $50,000.
	But, yeah, I see what you mean.
	Like, what would I do with $5 million?
	Yeah. I would probably still crave something that would provide meaningful fulfillment in my life.
	I think I don't really see myself letting go of farming altogether.
	What I mean is, if you have something in your life that you love, then money is not a bad thing and can be a very good thing.
	If you don't have something in your life that you love, then more money...
	Let's say you have some jobs that you really don't like.
	You know, you're working at a gas station or, you know, some job, some coffee shop or something.
	You don't really like it that much.
	And you win the lottery or your Bitcoin's payoff or whatever, right?
	So then you quit your job.
	And then what? It's a long series of hours in the day, man.
	Long series of hours in the day.
	And if you don't have something that you love, now, it doesn't have to be a business.
	Maybe you want to encourage other people.
	You want to patronize the arts or patronage.
	You want to be a patron of the arts.
	Or maybe you want to raise your kids and you want to travel with them.
	Whatever it is, right?
	I mean, it's something that you love.
	But if you don't have something that you love, money opens up a whole lot of empty hours in the day.
	And we've all seen this before, right?
	The people who win the lottery, I mean, the significant majority of them basically say it's the worst thing that ever happened to me.
	So the idea that money is going to solve all these problems and that you have this great life that you missed out on, it's just important.
	Here's the key.
	Here's what I want to say.
	Hopefully this will help. If you love what you do, Have enough resources to pursue what you do without restriction.
	Right? So if you love to make music, then have enough resources so that you don't have to make compromises in the creation of your music.
	Like, have enough resources to buy a good guitar, a good piano, a good mixer, whatever it is that you want to do, right?
	Have enough resources that you don't have to make compromises in what it is that you want to do.
	Now, does that mean you have to have an original Stradivarius violin?
	No, you know what I mean. Like, within reason, right?
	Where it diminishing returns from there.
	Like, if you want to be a painter, have enough resources that you're not sitting there saying, well, I can't really afford those paints or I can't really afford that canvas.
	Like, have enough resources so that you can manifest what you love without compromise.
	Now, if you can do that, If you can manifest what you love without compromise, it doesn't get much better than that.
	And I think that if you want money, keep manifesting what you love.
	Focus on the greatness that you can achieve.
	Not relative to money.
	Forget about the money. Relative to what you know deep down you're capable of.
	And let me tell you this. This is true for everyone.
	What you think you're capable of is nowhere close to what you're actually capable of.
	What you think you're capable of is nowhere close to what you're actually capable of.
	So aim ridiculously high relative to what you think you can do.
	And you're still...
	Be far short of what you can actually do.
	And if you focus on manifesting what you love to the best of your ability with the best tools that are available to you, that's your best chance of achieving something financially secure and sustainable.
	And recognize that it is Courage and clarity and commitment that produce victory.
	We're all in competition with other people for eyeballs, resources, attention, for you, customers for your products.
	And you just go the extra mile, take the extra step, do something more risky, do something more exciting, do something more interesting and Make that extra phone call.
	Put up that extra sign. Do whatever it takes.
	Because if you have something that you love to manifest in the world, whether it's beautiful food is what you grow, whether it's beautiful philosophy is what I produce, whatever it is, music, coffee, a restaurant experience for people, it doesn't matter.
	It can be great service as a waiter.
	Whatever it is that you love that you can manifest in the world, Honor it by working hard to bring it to people's attention.
	Like, it's the old saying, you don't serve the world by living small.
	You don't serve the future. Whatever you produce, honor it by recognizing that producing it is only the first step, and you must bring it to people's attention.
	Take those steps.
	Expose yourself to those risks.
	Do what is necessary to honor the beauty that you can create in the world.
	Don't There's an old quote of Nietzsche's that always strongly affected me.
	He said, don't leave your actions in the lurch.
	Like, don't commit to stuff and then back down.
	Don't say, I will, and then...
	And don't create something and then say, well, I don't really want to market it.
	I don't really want to push. I don't want to be pushy.
	I don't want to be in people's faces.
	I don't... No. Forget that.
	Don't leave the beauty that you create in the lurch.
	Nurture it. Bring it to people's attention.
	Be annoying if you have to.
	Be abrasive.
	Be obnoxious. Be...
	What do people call me?
	Arrogant. Be arrogant.
	Because people think that this is somehow about my ego and wanting to look good for me or anything like that.
	Yeah, I want to look so good.
	That's why I do 4k videos sometimes because I just want to look good.
	But... Be willing to be insulted, be willing to be scorned, be willing to be attacked, be willing to...
	Like, it doesn't matter. What matters is bringing the beauty of what you create.
	And you will annoy other people when you become pushy in what it is that you do to bring the beauty of what you create to the world's attention.
	But the world needs beauty, and the world generally can't figure out what's beautiful or not.
	They can only judge confidence.
	They'll judge you before they judge what you produce.
	So you must project the kind of confidence that is necessary for them to be interested in what you produce.
	If you pursue all of this, and this is Aristotelianism 101, that the pursuit of excellence, the manifestation of excellence in the production of quality, whether it's virtue or goods or services or music or whatever, That's the best we can do to achieve happiness.
	There's no other way to achieve happiness.
	Happiness is the satisfied exhaustion of marrying beauty to a skeptical world.
	That's all it is. It is introducing something of beauty to a world that doesn't care, doesn't want to know, and then lying back exhausted as the world and beauty run off into the sunset and live happily ever after.
	If you focus on the money, you drain away from the production of beauty and your commitment to bring it to the world.
	If you focus on beauty and your mission to bring it to the world, against the wishes of the world, beauty and the world have an uneasy relationship.
	It inspires and condemns.
	Beauty inspires the hopeful and condemns the decadent and the corrupt.
	If you focus on every moment...
	Creating things as powerful and beautiful as you can.
	And then spend even more energy than you did creating beauty, bringing beauty to a skeptical world.
	You will be satisfied and as happy as you can be, regardless of whether you have 10 or 10 million dollars in the bank.
	I think that's what you can aim for.
	The effects of it will accumulate.
	Does that make any sense? Yeah, totally.
	I'm definitely on the same page as you there.
	That really reframes the point of reference I was approaching this problem with.
	I guess I was focusing more on You know, a motivation of fear where I was focusing on a painful past in order, imagining it as like spikes below my feet so that if I ever sink down to that level again, I'll experience pain again.
	But it seems like you're more focused on the idea of aspiring towards a higher goal rather than focusing on what bad thing is going to happen to me if I don't achieve this or do this well.
	Speaking about money, I do recognize entirely that it's a tool rather than a goal.
	It's the means rather than the end.
	There's absolutely nothing in the human-created environment that didn't start off as a thought in a person's head.
	I recognize money is just a means of exchange.
	That is supposed to be used as a catapult for thoughts to become manifested into real-world results.
	I made my question about opportunity loss and sunk costs more thinking about where my time is spent and where my thoughts are.
	Rather than focusing on money, even though that's how I started this conversation.
	But you want the money to buy you freedom from what?
	What is it in your life that money will give you freedom from?
	Well, I was reflecting on whether or not I really have financial security.
	I guess I'm not at that stage where I'm really satisfied with the level of income.
	No, no, no. That's not what I'm asking.
	Sorry. Okay. Sorry.
	So, if you have a crappy job, you win the lottery, you say, well, now I'm free of them.
	Take this job and shove it.
	Like, you're free of the work, right?
	Okay. Or if, let's say, you hate your marriage, you win the lottery, okay, well now I can afford to get divorced!
	Or maybe you say you should have done it before you won the lottery, I don't know.
	So, what is it in your life that money would buy you freedom from?
	Debt. Debt, okay.
	Now, to pay off the debt, do you enjoy the work that you do to pay off the debt?
	Yes, absolutely. It's just too much.
	So if you pay off the debt, you're still going to work the same or similar amounts, right?
	No, I would hold back the amounts and I would spread out the time that I spend in farming and the time I spend in software and cryptocurrency investment.
	Okay, so more money would give you freedom from farming because there's other things you'd rather be doing, right?
	Yeah, I'd like to spend like a third of my time doing each of those things and still have like good work-life balance to spend with my friends and family and take vacation and things like that.
	And what is stopping you from doing more and the other things given the commitment that you have to have to your farm?
	The farm is a...
	Despite the difficulties I had earlier in this year, it's a surefire short-term income stream, whereas Bitcoin investment and the software development business are more in the future.
	Like the software is in beta, and in three months we're going to start taking on paying customers.
	What is stopping you from spending more time on these other activities?
	That's what I'm saying, is that the income is more immediate in farming, so I need to spend time on farming because that's what's actually providing me income.
	Okay, so how many hours a day are you spending on farming?
	Wrapping up the season, still around six to eight hours a day.
	Oh, are you kidding me? Six to eight hours a day?
	So you have eight hours a day.
	Why don't you spend two more hours on the other things each?
	I do. Why don't you spend three more hours on the other ones each?
	The work-life balance is still important, having time for my girlfriend and my family and friends.
	I feel like I'm getting to the point where I'm reaching near equilibrium for what I'm getting at.
	When I first sent in this question back in July, I was going through the real throes of all this self-reflection and grief that I felt I was going through.
	Now I feel like I'm digging myself out of that hole.
	The questions you're asking, like, what would the money do?
	You said it would give you freedom to pursue the other things more.
	Yeah. And so then you could reduce the amount that you spent on farming.
	Would you get rid of the farm or would you hire someone else to do it for you?
	I'm hiring someone else to do it with me next year.
	I have an employee who's lined up for next year.
	And so if you had more money, what would change?
	Um... I would just have a little less time on the farm and more time in the software business and cryptocurrency investment.
	And I would focus more on my personal relationships and spend more time on self-reflection and self-knowledge.
	But hang on, you already have someone starting next year who's going to take over the six to seven hours that you spend on the farm, right?
	Taking over some portion of that, right?
	Yeah, so hopefully by April when he starts, that's when I'll have the sort of life that I finally have been trying for.
	So the whole thing is going to be solved in a couple of months?
	Well, no, I still have a lot of work to do on myself in terms of time.
	No, no, no, I mean in terms of like you have the time, you will have the time for the personal stuff with your girlfriend, you'll have time for cryptocurrency, you'll have time for software, you'll have time for your farm by April, most likely.
	I still have a lot of debt to pay off first, but yes, if everything goes well over the winter.
	But I don't think this has been a waste of time, this whole conversation.
	No, no, I don't think so either. The other thing I'll say as well is that, let's say that you had made your quarter mil off bitcoins, right?
	Right. And let's say bitcoins go to $100,000 of bitcoin.
	Right. You think you will have escaped regret?
	No. No, because you will have sold your Bitcoins and you will have made a quarter million dollars.
	Then Bitcoin will go to $100,000 of Bitcoin.
	And you will go insane because you could have had millions and millions and millions of dollars.
	And you'll look at that $250,000 like it's a spit in your face.
	Yeah, and I've been trying to...
	Give myself that narrative because also over the past six months, I think the reason that I'm at this point where by April, I think I'm going to have the sort of life that I've been wanting for like the sort of feeling from my life and standard of living for my life that I've been wanting for the last few years is because by missing out on that opportunity, I realized, okay, I have to do XYZ. I really need to focus on, you know, better systems and methods for managing my time.
	Better ways to manage my relationships, though I have happier outcomes in my relationship.
	But if I had actually won all that through Bitcoin, I don't think I would be heading on to being as complete a person as I'm going to be if I had benefited from investing in Bitcoin back in April.
	Here's the thing too, Jason.
	Life is a long... Long-term business, if we're lucky, right?
	I mean, I'm 51, which, you know, is, I guess, for some younger people, it's like 51.
	I remember being 51. I was pretty old.
	But I'm good health and robust.
	And, you know, I'm planning on being around for, you know, maybe not quite twice as long, but certainly a good number of decades to go.
	So here's the thing. The important thing, Jason, is not to get money, but to keep money.
	And if you have regrets about having not done what you wanted financially, that is the best way to ensure that when you get money, you will actually keep it.
	So you are, in a sense, preparing yourself to retain money when you achieve it.
	Because you're looking back and saying, well, I could have had this, I should have made better decisions.
	That is strengthening your money retention muscle.
	Because one thing to make money, I mean, look at MC Hammer, the guy who's worth tens and tens of millions of dollars, blew it all.
	Blew it all. The important thing is not to get the money, the important thing is to keep the money.
	And if you go through this kind of financial regret, you go through this kicking yourself kind of thing, what that means is that you're really going to Hold on to that old eagle grin, as the song says, right?
	Nobody wants you when you're down and out.
	You're really going to hold on to it, because you will never, ever take it for granted, and you will always remember what it's like to have that kind of financial regret.
	And when I first made the transition towards broadcast student to on my way to the middle class, I remember it as As clear as this morning, I was sitting...
	So I had this little room in the house, and there was an even tinier room.
	It was like no more than six by five.
	It was like a little closet, basically, at the end of the hallway.
	That's where I had a computer. And I was just sitting there, and I was working away on something, and I just, you know how you get these big pullbacks, these flashes in life where you're like, oh man, this is a big picture view.
	We get so involved in the detritus and the details and so on, big picture view.
	And I was working away on something for school, and I just, I put my head down on my desk, and I'm like, I can't, I can't.
	No, I graduated.
	I'm so sorry. No, of course, I graduated by this point.
	It took me forever to get my final mark.
	My God. Anyway, I graduated, and I was kind of looking for work.
	You know, I'd make some phone calls. I'd march up and down.
	And I just remember thinking, like, I can't go on like this.
	Like, literally, financially, I can't go on like this.
	And there was this woman. I still remember her name.
	There was this woman. She's long retired now, I guess.
	But her name, Marnie.
	And she had gotten me some temp work.
	You know, I was good with computers. New, back then, were perfect.
	5.1. Reveal codes!
	I was king of reveal codes. Mail merge, no problem.
	And I called her up and I'm like, I said, Marnie, I gotta get a job.
	Like, I gotta get a real job.
	It's got to be with computers.
	Like, I don't care if I move computers.
	I don't care if I dust computers.
	I mean, I've just got to be around computers.
	I'll find a way to make it work.
	I've got to. And I, like, naked desperation.
	It's one of the few times I've, like, been on my knees.
	Been on my knees.
	Please, Marnie, help me.
	And it really connected.
	And she said, leave it to me.
	And this is the power of actually asking things for people, being vulnerable, asking things for people.
	It really clears up who's nice and who's not in your life.
	And within 15 minutes later, she called me back.
	She got me an interview. I got my first programming job on my way.
	And... That moment was like, I'm going to do my best to hold on to money.
	And of course, I've known people.
	My income's gone up.
	Great! Now I can borrow lots of money with this collateral.
	Like, my income's gone up.
	I'm moving tomorrow to a bigger house.
	My income's gone up. I'm going to upgrade my car.
	And it's like, I'm not doing that.
	I'm not. This is like, wow, my income's gone up.
	I guess I can jack up my expenses.
	It's like, no, no, no.
	Call me an old anal retentive Protestant, but...
	So my point is that this regret is important because it means that when you get money, and I'm certain that you will, it's an IQ thing, if you're smart, keep working away.
	When you get money, you'll keep it.
	And that's more important than getting it.
	Yeah, I went through that in microcosm when I started school and my parents really pressured me to go into business rather than taking a leap year.
	Like a gap year, I mean, a year off.
	And I hated it so much.
	I just did not have the entrepreneurial mindset at the time.
	I was very... Wait, wait. Are you saying that the business school has something to do with entrepreneurship?
	Probably not, no.
	No, they're very boring classes.
	A lot of classes didn't even seem to be relevant.
	Like they were teaching me... Very complex mathematical formulae in order for me to read statistics in another course and I don't have to do any of that.
	Just like Steve Jobs presented.
	Yeah. So I just stopped going to the classes all in all.
	I went to my critical thinking philosophy course but all the other four I stopped going to and I just failed them.
	And, you know, I wasted, you know, $5,000 or $10,000 of my trust fund baby account that year, and then...
	See, now, but I'm sorry to interrupt you, but you see, it's wasting.
	I don't. Because you avoided a path that would have been disastrous, and not only did you not waste that money, I would argue, but you saved it because you didn't pursue it.
	Right. And then I... Looking back on that a year or two later, seeing how much of my gifts from my parents that I kind of wasted around spent on other pursuits that I could have more wisely spent it on, I really saw the value of money through that experience.
	So I'm just saying That I've gone through a number of these experiences over time and just wish it didn't take me nine or ten years to really catch up.
	Right. Well, I mean, this is the challenge, and I've talked about this with people before, Jason.
	It's the challenge of, my parents want to do X, and they may be very well-meaning, and they may say, well, you know, this is a solid, stable, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	You know, the elder generation doesn't really understand the new economy, and it's really complicated.
	Like, I mean, if I go to my mom or my dad and said, yeah, I'm going to talk about philosophy in my car and build a business that way, what would they have said?
	What, are you crazy? You're an entrepreneur.
	You've got six-figure salary.
	You've got stability. You've got a career.
	You've been working on this stuff, computer, since you were 11.
	What, are you crazy? No, no, I'm going to yell into a microphone in my car, and I'm going to build a business out of that.
	What? You show me one show in philosophy that makes a penny.
	You show me any podcasts that make a penny.
	You'll be lucky to get gas money.
	It's okay, because I won't be driving anywhere after a while.
	It's hard.
	They always say that generals are fighting the last war.
	Well, people who are wealthy are always imagining that the last economy is the way the next economy works, and it's just not that way.
	Well, I made my money in horse and buggies, and you should too.
	I made my money off rotary dial telephones, and you should too.
	Anyway. Yeah.
	All right, well, I hope that helps.
	I'm going to close off the show.
	It's been a nice, what is it, cozy three and a half hours.
	So, thanks everyone so much!
	Of course, love you guys so much for giving me the opportunity to do this.
	I'm very proud. I'm very pleased.
	I dare say I'm a little privileged.
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