4079 Marijuana Addiction? - Call In Show - May 2nd, 2018
Question 1: [1:57] – “If we act out our beliefs in order to interact with the world and materialists don't see people as anything more than highly evolved animals, I don't think most Atheists actually believe in Atheism when they behave as though there is inherent value in life. It's as if, in the Atheist mind, we're working with a moral currency that we know isn't backed by the gold standard of inherent human value but act as if it is to keep the economy rolling. At some point we look at the pressures of suffering, the need to sacrifice for higher ideals, sacrificing for family, temptations of power and so on and get red pilled to either abandon the moral currency or accept a higher calling to withstand the trials. I am also having a hard time understanding Atheistic purpose and what I see as a square circle of free will and materialism. Is there a way to establish inherent human value in purely materialist terms?”Question 2: [30:27] – “I was somewhat interested in the topic of universal income, as it was discussed recently in your show. Living in Finland, I understand the philosophy of self-reliance and I support it personally, but as I am a lone island within an ocean of progressive thinking, I can hardly expect to sway the public opinion on social safety nets. The arguments for universal income are the following: 1. Streamlining support payment bureaucracy. 2. Make it easier to enter the workforce. 3. Potentially lower social benefit costs (or so some would argue).”“If I cannot live in a nation free of these wealth redistribution schemes, should I not support programs that could possibly yield beneficial results within the Finnish Pseudo-socialist system? I understand taking something from others for nothing is wrong, but this is happening already. If there is a chance that this new program could streamline government organizations (remove unnecessary agencies), help people get into the workforce more easily, and basically not add to existing costs, would it not be better to allow universal become a reality?”Question 3: [1:07:48] – “I’m in a touring theater company that specializes in improv comedy. It’s always been a fun occupation bringing a lot of joy to the people I perform for. However, over the last 5 years political correctness has encroached more and more on my work. It appears as if most if not all theater has become entrenched in liberalism to the point where a show that’s not about politics, particularly social justice, diversity, etc. is not considered real art. My question is, must art be innately political? Must our performance stand for something in order to be considered legitimate? The left seems to think so. How can I fight back against this terrible trend so I can go back to entertaining people for the simple joy of the laughter?”Question 4: [1:38:18] – “I started smoking cannabis about 17 years ago, when I was 17 years old. My abuse of cannabis greatly impacted my marriage. I would like to still be able to use cannabis in a healthy way, but I'm not sure if that's possible. Am I playing with a fantasy? As an aside to this: this sort of thing is not exactly talked about in "stoner culture", but the discussion is one that needs to be had. What is it going to take for cannabis culture to develop a sense of responsibility and moderation?”Question 5: [2:35:47] – “I'm a former navy sailor and specific skills I am qualified for make me a very in demand in a wartime scenario. This means that I can be recalled to service before a draft starts and my name is on the "get these guys quick" list. I am afraid of this happening but at the same time I know I won’t hesitate should the call come. Is it just a result of my life training as a disposable male drone for the female queens that makes me willing to fight in a war that I oppose with every reasoned thought I have on the subject, or is there something more going on?”Your support is essential to Freedomain Radio, which is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by making a one time donation or signing up for a monthly recurring donation at: http://www.freedomainradio.com/donate
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Five callers tonight.
Very interesting. A wide variety of callers.
The first caller wanted to know, how on earth can we establish the inherent value of human life in the absence of religion, in the absence of God, in the absence of the human container called the body which has within it the soul?
It's a great question. I took an approach that I have not heard other people take, which I think solves the problem.
Let me know what you think.
The second caller wanted to know about universal basic income.
Wouldn't it be a beneficial replacement for the welfare state?
Hmm, I wonder if you knew or could know where I would take that one.
The third caller is an improv comedian who tours with a comedy troupe and finds that the spontaneity of their comedy is getting kind of plowed under by the wet earth of political correctness.
What on earth should he do?
The fourth caller is a young woman.
She has called him before. And she is addicted to cannabis.
She is addicted to marijuana and has been for quite some time.
And we dug into what may be the cause of that.
And, well, I'll just let you hear the last third of the conversation where things get fairly riotous.
And the fifth caller, well, he wants to know why, given that he's out of the military now, he might jump at the chance to go back in and fight and wage war.
And it actually turns out to be quite a simple answer, though not an easy thing to change.
Here we go. Thank you again for all of your support.
Okay, well up first today we have Joshua.
He wrote in and said, If we act out our beliefs in order to interact with the world, and materialists don't see people as anything more than highly evolved animals, I don't think most atheists actually believe in atheism when they behave as though there is inherent value in human life.
It's as if in the atheist mind we're working with a moral currency that we know isn't backed by the gold standard of inherent human value, but act on it as if to keep the economy rolling.
At some point we need to look at the pressures of suffering, the need to sacrifice for higher ideals, sacrificing for family, temptations of power, and so on, and get red pills to either abandon the moral currency or accept a higher calling to withstand the trials.
I'm also having a hard time understanding atheistic purpose and what I see as a square circle of free will and materialism.
Is there a way to establish inherent human value in purely materialistic terms?
That's from Joshua. Hey Joshua, how are you doing tonight?
Hey, how are you doing Mr. Molyneux?
I'm well. Wait, you're on a last name basis with me and I'm on my first name basis with you?
No, no, just call me Steph.
Alright. Alright. Well, great questions of course and you are not the first to ask them.
Hopefully we will answer them for all time tonight.
Is there anything you wanted to expand on regarding these questions?
Um, well, I originally was thinking about a results basis with this whole type of thing because the more of the reading that I do with the Gulag Archipelago, the Cult of Reason in France, other readings of slavery.
Well, slavery was a Christian concept too.
No. Pre-Christian.
Well, yeah, but...
I mean, Christians engaged in it, so I can't really take that off the table.
Interesting that you would say Christians without including Jews and Muslims and everybody else on the planet.
Seems a little selective there.
Just wanted to mention that. But I don't want to get dragged off into that.
I just wanted to sort of point that out.
No, it's good. It's good.
It's good. I picked out Christians because it's the highest targeted religious group.
So, pile on.
Okay. All right.
So, okay, this question of inherent value in life.
Tell me what you mean by that.
Higher value in life?
No, the phrase inherent value in life.
What do you mean? Oh, like the idea that we can't get rid of personhood, like with what we see in abortion and abortion.
And the idea of human dignity, which led to the abolition of slavery.
That's kind of the big keystone because once we kind of act like mankind is just pegs in a machine or just part of a system that the state could just discard or we can just, you know, it becomes inconvenient that we could just discard them.
Like what we saw with the Alfie Evans, Charlie Gard, and, you know, basic...
And euthanasia that's been going on there.
Doctor-assisted suicide is becoming problematic, especially since it overrides the Hippocratic Oath.
I'm just trying to wonder if we have a better barrier that we can fall back on to address those type of things.
So the Alfie situation, this is the baby who recently died in England.
What's your understanding of that? I do understand that he was basically brain dead from That whole type of thing.
I have heard conflicting reports where it could have been preventable or was a misdiagnosis, but that was not confirmed as far as I know.
But the biggest outcry that I've seen is that it should have been the parents to decide what kind of treatment that you got.
And if they have the resources to do it, then why should the state prevent them from doing that?
Well, brain dead I don't think is an accurate – I'm no doctor, but brain dead is I don't think an accurate phrase because brain dead is when you have a healthy brain with no electrical activity left in it, right?
So you have a heart attack and your heart stops, your blood stops flowing to your brain, your brain dies.
I think brain dead refers to an intact brain that has ceased to generate biochemical energy.
This brain had been largely, if not significantly, replaced with cerebrospinal fluid and with water.
It's not the same to say, I think brain dead.
It's like saying my arm has gone numb versus I have no arm, if that makes sense.
Yeah. Now, the reasoning, whether we agree with it or not, the reasoning...
Behind whether the parents should have been able to take the child home is complicated.
It's complicated because there was no way of knowing.
Well, there was no recovery. There was no treatment.
There were no treatment options.
You cannot regrow a brain.
There were no treatment options that I ever saw suggested or imagined.
You cannot turn water...
Into a brain.
And so a cerebral spinal fluid cannot be taught to grow into a brain.
So there was no treatment that was possible.
And there was no way of knowing whether or not the child was in pain or not.
Now, the brain itself doesn't feel pain.
It can cut into the brain because, you know, why bother?
If something's cutting into your brain, it's not like pain is going to do you a lot of good at that point.
You get your hand on a hot stove, you want to pull it back.
By the time your brain is being cut into, you're probably not going to have a good day no matter what.
But with regards to the inherent value of human life, that is a challenging one because there really was no person left.
Now, if the parents wanted to take the child home but the child continued to be in pain, Then that would be a cruel decision on the part of the parents.
I think we can agree on that, right?
If there's no chance of recovery, if it's going to be a slow and painful death, and if the parents wish to keep the child alive, even if it's on their own dime or whatever, then that is a challenging situation.
That would be a challenging situation in a stateless society.
The answers are all complicated and need to be negotiated and will be to some degree different for each situation.
But I just, I get a little bit impatient.
I'm not saying with you, Joshua, in particular, but I do get a little bit impatient with some of the people, and it's largely conservative, saying, well, the state killed that kid, and the state, you know, like, it's not, it's more than that, and it's deeper than that.
And I just want to sort of point that out.
I still want to talk about the inherent value of human life, but, and the question of whether or not euthanasia violates the Hippocratic oath, which is do no harm, first do no harm.
It's hard to say.
It's hard to say. And the ethics of euthanasia is a big and complicated topic.
But to me, it's not as simple as do no harm.
Because if somebody is facing an economically debilitating and emotionally exhausting and physically agonizing death for which there is no possibility of avoidance...
It's complicated. I don't have an instant band-aid answer, but to me it's not as simple as, well, it says do no harm.
Well, do no harm may be the cessation of a life rather than its maintenance in an agonized, slow death march to death itself.
So it's complicated.
So I just wanted to touch at least my thoughts on those, but I do want to get into some of the challenges of the inherent value of In life, which is a very big and important question.
So the first thing, and I'll stop in a sec, I just want to...
So the first thing is inherent value in life.
We as a society, as societies, we make decisions about life all the time.
You know, the traditional example is, if on the roads, there was a speed limit of 20 kilometers an hour, Then almost nobody would die in a car crash, right?
So we allow people to whip along at 100 kilometers an hour or sometimes I think it's 70 miles an hour or 65 miles an hour in the States.
We allow people to whip along at high speeds to the point where if they get in a crash, well, their chances of survival are much worse or much less.
And we do that for the principle of efficiency.
And so we make those kinds of decisions all the time in society as a whole.
We allow a certain amount of cleanliness and purity in water, even though some people will get sick.
We allow a certain amount of impurities into our food because the cost of cleaning them even further might be prohibitive.
We make decisions all the time to allow a certain amount of suffering in return for a certain amount of efficiency.
And the efficiency may translate into less suffering and, you know, so on.
I mean, if there was a speed limit of 20 kilometers an hour and you're having a heart attack, you'd kind of want to go faster if you're in an ambulance.
So again, these questions are complicated.
We, of course, also allow for Self-defense, right?
In a rational legal system, self-defense is acceptable.
In other words, if somebody comes at you and is going to cause you harm physically, not even kill you, just cause you grievous bodily harm, you can kill them.
You can shoot that person and kill that person.
And so inherent value in life is quite complicated.
And so I just wanted to toss out a few thoughts and get your thoughts on the sort of opening salvo.
Yeah. Well, a lot of the stuff that you talked about can be solved pretty easily, and it also comes down to the problems with the state itself.
It's the idea of voluntary behavior.
You can't coerce somebody into somebody else, and that seems to be the biggest issue here with things like Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans there.
And the dangers of cost-benefit ratio, that should be determined by the individual, even though we do interact with each other over in the speed limit, you know, because there's other drivers.
But if you decide to speed, then you're taking your own life into your hands.
No, no, no. It's not speeding.
You can be going the speed limit.
But if the speed limit is 100 rather than 20 on a highway, then you're much more likely to die in a crash.
So we say we want people to go fast enough and we're willing to sacrifice, what is it, 30,000 people a year in the States die in car crashes?
So we want a certain amount of efficiency in our roads, and we're willing to spend 30,000 lives a year in order to achieve that.
And that's nothing to do with speeding.
I mean, certainly speeding doesn't help, but even if people are just going the speed limit, they're much more likely to die at higher speeds.
Yeah. So...
Yeah.
I'm not sure where else to go with this.
All right. So, inherent value in life.
Of course, in the religious context, that is solved...
Easily, almost axiomatically, because in the religious context, of course, we are made in God's image.
We possess an immortal soul.
And that is what gives us value and the preservation of value.
And that, in a sense, ghost in the machine is what animates the inherent value of human life in the religious context.
Of course, in the atheist context, it's a little more challenging, right?
Yeah. Right.
And atheism often...
It moves towards a kind of consequentialism or utilitarianism or pragmatism which says, well, you know, we'll spend these resources to save these resources and more people are kept alive.
So, for instance, for socialized medicine, they say, okay, well, people will give up their property, but in return we get to save lives.
And lives are more important than property.
And therefore, you know, if somebody is wheeling away your bicycle, Do you get to shoot them for stealing?
I think that would be a pretty tough thing to defend.
So we generally accept that human life is more important than mere property, which is one of the arguments for socialized healthcare, which is to say, well, socialized healthcare will save lives and all it does is interfere with people's property rights in the form of additional taxation to pay for the socialized healthcare.
And this kind of Machination of cause and effect is where a lot of secular philosophy goes when it's consequentialism.
Well, there's a better outcome, and we don't like necessarily the input, which is taxation, but we prefer the output, and human life is important, and that's one of the ways in which...
Secular philosophers tend to work with the concept of the inherent value of life.
And of course, there are lots of people, although not religious people, I think, lots of secular people who believe that there is no inherent value to human life.
Not from a sort of cold Nietzschean standpoint, but all life has...
Value. Like I saw this thread on Twitter the other day where some guy was publicly bullying a woman for – they were vegans.
And she had bought an ice cream for a kid.
And he was calling her out on that and shaming her and so on.
And so for them, well, the rights of the cows, the rights of the chickens, the rights – not the chickens they used to make ice cream because that would be pretty vile.
But even the rights of vegetables.
What was it? Notting Hill where the guy – Hugh Grant was on a date with some woman, and she's like, you know, I don't eat vegetables because they're alive.
And when I bite into them, I can hear them screaming.
And he's like, ugh, beastly.
And so these are complicated questions once you take religion out of the equation.
When the religion is in the equation, made in the image of God, you've got a soul, boom, you know, inherent value in life.
But the problem is trying to prove that is a big challenge.
And once faith begins to crack...
Where do you go? Is that sort of the challenge that you're looking at?
Yeah, that's pretty much the challenge that I'm looking at.
And I understand the atheist part of things where once you get kind of red-pilled out of the whole existence of God thing, you know, then the rest of it falls apart.
But, you know, that's where I said you have to act out your beliefs, you know, and If you're holding two opposing viewpoints where there's no such thing as God, but you still think there's inherent human life, then you have to kind of answer that.
But so far, I haven't really seen that.
Yeah. That's the square circle I'm trying to figure out there.
And it is really annoying.
I'm with you, Joshua, as far as that goes.
Really, really annoying.
I'll give you the tadpole example.
So here's... And this comes just from today.
So I'm glad that it fits into this question.
So today, I went on a hike with my daughter, who loves frogs, toads, tadpoles, and in particular, the unicorn, the golden...
Whale, the white whale of her hunting is what's called a salamander, which is like a little half a newt kind of thing, and it's got a beautiful red tail that's flat and tall, and it's got these little spider arms and so on.
She loves her some salamanders.
So we went for a chat and a walk, and we went to a pond, and I had a little cup, and we had a net, and we didn't find salamanders, but we did find tadpoles.
Like a half dozen tadpoles.
No, about 10 tadpoles.
So I, you know, fill up the cup with water and we're heading back.
And on the way back, I was saying to her, I said, man, I can't even tell you how terrible I would feel if I dropped this cup of tadpoles.
Because the only thing that keeps them alive is the water, right?
They're in the aqua phase of toadhood or froghood or whatever.
So the only thing that keeps them alive, like they have to stay underwater.
And I said, you know, if I dropped this cup and these tadpoles were like wriggling on the leaves, I would feel so terrible because we'd taken them out of an environment where they flourished and we were going to put them into an environment where they were going to flourish.
But in the middle, if we dropped them on the...
Floor of the forest, they would just wriggle and die.
And she said, Dan, you're super fast.
You'd grab them and you'd run to where we have water at home.
Or you'd run back to the pond if it was closer.
And although this sounds like an odd analogy, it fits because we had something that kept human value alive, which was called religion.
And then Atheist came along and smacked the cup of tadpoles out of her hand onto the floor of the forest and said, look, I've solved the problem because, you know, the tadpoles are no longer in the water, right?
So they smacked away. And then to me, the first thing is like, wow, we lost made in God's image.
We lost the soul.
We must now grab these treasures, the inherent value of human life.
We must now grab this treasure and bend every conceivable...
Ounce of energy to solving this problem.
And, well, they kind of didn't.
Which is one of the fedora-wearing douche moves of modern atheism.
So, inherent value of human life is impossible to establish philosophically.
Because it requires a ghost in the machine.
It requires a platonic essence to humanity that exists independent of Physics, independent of biology, independent of that which is real in the empirical sensual universe.
So that to me is one of the reasons why it's tough to solve is you can't will the existence of something called inherent value in a physical body.
You can't will it.
And so you have to try and take another approach.
To get where you need to get to.
I mean, we do want to recognize that life has value and we do want systems that protect life and so on.
And so the approach that I took, which I stand now, I guess almost 10 years later, as still being entirely successful, is what's called universally preferable behavior.
And there's a free book at freedomainradio.com.
So you can go and get the book and you can listen to it.
There's a print version.
There's a PDF. There's HTML. I've listened to the audio twice.
Oh, you've listened to the audio. Okay. So I won't go into all the details of it other than to say...
That that which defines humanity as humanity is our capacity for abstract universals.
That is the one thing that defines us.
And therefore, anything to do with humanity that is essential to humanity and unique to humanity must have something to do with abstract universals.
And so rather than saying there is inherent value in life, which is kind of a feels true, wish it were true, but can't be proven empirically or logically...
We say all universally preferred behavior has to be universal.
All ethical statements must be universal.
And grinding through that process, it's actually relatively quick and relatively easy to come up with a defense of property rights and rational universal oppositions to rape, theft, assault, and murder.
Now, once we have property rights, once we have justified self-defense, and once we have clear universal objections to any proposal that theft is universally preferable behavior, that rape is universally preferable behavior, that assault or murder are universally preferable behaviors, once we have a logical pushback against that, that is all we need to do.
Because if people are free to maintain their own property, to have property rights, if they're free to use self-defense, if we have social sanctions against the initiation of the use of force, then we don't need to wish inherent value into humanity.
Because we already have a rational, moral, legal framework for allowing self-ownership, for allowing ownership of the effects of one's actions.
In other words, property.
If you create something in the woods, you own what you create in the woods, a house or a treehouse or whatever.
Because you own your actions and therefore you own the effects of your actions.
So once people have property rights and we are very clear that the initiation of the use of force is wrong, but using force to defend yourself is perfectly moral, then we don't need...
Inherent value. So, I mean, to take a silly, another sort of silly analogy, but I think it would be illustrative.
If you are trying to sell a really crappy house, Then you have to downgrade something, right?
You downgrade the price. You say, well, you know, it's in a decent neighborhood, but obviously it's a bit of a fixer-upper.
Like there's meteor holes in the ceiling and there's, you know, like dusty furniture everywhere and the doors are hanging off half crooked like a bunch of dawn drunkards.
And you say, okay, well, I got to drop the price, right?
You have to find some compromise.
And then you could say, well, but there's inherent value in the house.
But people are looking at the house and saying, but if the house...
Is in a great location, it's beautiful, it's got a pool, it's got, you know, bowling out, whatever it is that people want in the neighborhood, then you don't need to say that there's inherent value in the home.
Because everybody's going to want that home anyway.
And so you don't need to create this inherent value.
So once we improve the glories of philosophy, I don't think we need to worry about inherent value as much.
Because once people understand property rights are valid, the initiation of force is immoral, self-defense is valid, rape, theft, assault, murder, all immoral.
Once we have all of that, I don't think we need to start injecting inherent value into human life.
Because once you have freedom and you have certainty in the ethics of freedom, You don't need magical value in your life because you have freedom from coercion.
And if I'm given the choice between some imaginary inherent value in my life or freedom from the initiation of force, I'll choose the latter every single time.
And I think that's the approach that has the most value.
I wish that would kind of work, but unfortunately, socialism is still going strong.
We almost had Bernie Sanders for president here, so...
I mean, I'd like to believe that we would all hop on board onto that whole type of thing, but I just don't see it happening on people as a whole.
And part of it is like, I don't think we could really escape religious thought entirely.
And in its entirety, because there's this one study that was going on there by Jonathan Haidt in Canada.
He was talking about social psychology, how especially with the social justice lawyers on universities, what they do is once they get into an in-group thing, they cling on to an ideal.
And once you get rid of the monolithic ideal of God, get rid of that, then A, what is it, a multi-god kind of thing comes around, like the Greek type of stuff.
Polytheistic. Yeah, polytheistic.
The word wasn't coming to me, sorry about that.
No, no problem. But, yeah, so that's where we get like a whole feminism, the ideal, you know, of women power, environmentalism, all that kind of stuff goes on there.
They do come together in kind of like that intersectionality, but they also sanctify the ground.
That's why they don't want any speakers on the campus because you're on their holy ground and they kick you right out.
No, but this is exactly what I was talking about.
That in the absence of philosophy, people will invent a polytheism called diversity or a polytheism called cultural appropriation or a polytheism called socialism or a monotheism called statism.
Yeah, I completely agree with you.
Yep. Well, I don't think anybody's immune to that.
I mean, even for...
What do you mean anybody's immune to that?
What does that mean? Well, I mean, you have to have some ideal in mind.
I'm immune to it, wouldn't you say?
I would say that your ideal is the truth.
And the parasite portion of the UPB is a good testament that superstition, the exact opposite of...
So the whole ideal system is, it's kind of a, what is it, for an agent, kind of like an immune system response.
You have it discussed towards what is the exact opposite of your idea.
I don't know what any of this means, but as far as I understand it, you came to me and you asked for an answer.
And I gave you an answer, but you're kind of a yes-butt personality.
So you didn't argue against the answer.
You just said that it's impossible to implement.
In other words, you are taking the atheistic approach of consequentialism.
You're not interested in the truth of a proposition.
You're interested in how easy it is to achieve.
Well, fuck that. Who cares about how easy something is to achieve?
All the benefits that you have, the free speech, property rights, a liberal society, all of these came about from people who said, I don't care how hard it is to achieve.
I only care about whether it's true or not.
If for you, hearing a good argument has you throw up your hands in despair and say, well, people are too irrational to listen, then why the hell are you calling into this show?
If you think that the truth doesn't matter because people are too irrational, I have no idea why you want an answer for anything.
It's like, well, I really, really want to study to be a doctor and learn a great cure that people will never take.
It's like, well, why would you bother becoming a doctor?
Why would you be interested in researching a cure if you were absolutely certain that no one was ever going to take it?
I'm not saying that nobody would take...
UPB has an application.
I'm just not saying that it's going to be a, you know, there's some people that will...
Okay, like part of it was the whole, you know, people should do these things.
It's the whole universal preference type, you know, we should prefer...
No, no. Stand by what you said or retract it officially.
You said that people are too irrational that they'll, right?
I mean, you said we almost had Bernie Sanders for president, which isn't true at all.
But you basically said people too irrational to accept UPB. I mean, did I misunderstand that?
I mean, I'm pretty sure when I listen back to this, that's what you said.
Like, okay, well, that's interesting, but people are too irrational to follow it.
I think we need to realize that people think religiously and then once we tackle that problem, then they'll be irrational.
All right. And how do we tackle that problem?
We have to look more into social psychology and understand how we think a lot better and then adapt to that.
And so what would you do in practical steps?
Let's say that you accept something like UPB. What would you do in practical steps to encourage its adoption?
For UPB, I would recognize that we have ideals that we view as a god, whether we recognize it or not.
And then we use UPB to make sure that we're not going into an irrational place or trying to use our personal preferences to use whatever group that we're in to get what we want.
Oh, good. Okay, then you should go and do that.
Rather than saying to me that people are too irrational.
Listen, if you have a plan to bring about the adoption of something like UBB or UBB itself, then you should go and do that and not publicly talk about how impossible it is, right?
Well, yeah. Yeah, I misspoke there.
I will admit that.
All right. Well, thanks very much for your call.
I appreciate it. I wish you the best of luck.
And listen, thanks a lot for taking UPB out to the masses.
The more people who do this, I think the better off we'll be.
But I appreciate the call. Thank you so much.
Thank you for your patience there.
Bye. That's all right. Sometimes these things aren't quite so simple, even though they may seem that way in a moment.
Yeah. Alright, up next we have Yoko.
He wrote in and said, I was somewhat interested in the topic of universal income as was recently discussed on your show.
Living in Finland, I understand the philosophy of self-reliance and support it personally, but I am a lone island within an ocean of progressive thinking I can hardly expect to sway the public opinion on social safety nets.
The arguments for universal income are the following.
1. Streamlining support payment bureaucracy.
2. Make it easier to enter the workforce.
3. Potentially lower social benefit costs.
Or so some would argue.
If I cannot live in a nation free of these wealth redistribution schemes, should I not support programs that could possibly yield beneficial results within the Finnish pseudo-socialist system?
I understand taking something from others for nothing is wrong, but this is happening already.
If there is a chance that this new program could streamline government organizations, remove unnecessary agencies, help people get into the workforce more easily and basically not add anything to existing costs, would it not be better to allow Universal to become a reality?
That's from Joko. So...
I mean, I don't know.
Okay, so first of all, universal income, streamline support payment bureaucracy, make it easier to enter the workforce, potentially lower social benefit costs and so on.
Here's the thing. You don't have any control over how universal basic income, UBI, how it's going to be implemented.
You have no control over it, neither do I. So we can say, well, there are these benefits for it and all of this kind of stuff.
But first of all, this is the reality.
The reality is it's not going to replace the welfare state.
Why? Because politicians don't want to throw hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats out on their ass, and they probably would be unable to, based on the contracts they would have, the job contracts, the unfireability of the public workforce.
And so, as you noticed in America, when they came up with the Department of Homeland Security, well, that was supposed to be the Department of Defense, right?
And so they just created a whole new bureaucracy and didn't touch...
The existing one.
And you see this all the time.
When governments come up with some new program, they just create a whole new bureaucracy.
So if there's UBI, there will still be the welfare state.
The idea of them transitioning at all would be incomprehensible.
I don't think it's ever happened. And so this would be an additional layer that would make everything more expensive.
Plus, of course, there would be – like once the leftists get – and it would be mostly leftists, I assume, would get involved in this stuff.
Then what will happen is – They will say, well, wait a minute.
We're not going to give $1,500 a month to somebody who's making a million dollars a year.
So they'll say, well, we got to cut that off.
Good Lord. And what about somebody who's ill and who has eight children?
We need more money for them.
It's not enough. We need more money for them.
And so they're going to start chipping away at benefits to the rich, they're going to start increasing benefits to the poor, and you're just going to end up with some second layer of welfare and bureaucracy and garbage.
And so, I mean, the same thing happens with immigration policies.
Well, we're going to not allow these people.
And then what happens is the lawyers all start swarming on the restrictions and chipping away at them until everyone gets to wander in and stay forever.
The other thing, of course, that's very dangerous about universal basic income, and I've talked about this with regards to the welfare state, is these things are extraordinarily dangerous because they create a giant pot of gold that migrants and pseudo-refugees can swarm into your country to get.
And so if you create free money for whoever's in the country, guess what?
A huge number of people And so, you know, you can design something on paper,
and then you hand it to a bunch of bureaucrats, and what comes out is completely Incomprehensible compared to the input.
I mean, it just doesn't make any...
And so what they want you to do is they want you to say, the people in power, they want you to say, do you think that UBI is better than welfare state?
And you'll say, sure. And then what they'll do is they'll tack UBI onto the welfare state.
They will chip away at it for rich people and they'll expand it more so it becomes a second welfare state.
And then it will attract all these migrants from the third world who will drown your entire culture in needy dependency.
So all they want you to do is say, yes, this is a good idea.
And then they're like, great, now you've given us the money.
We can do what we want with it.
It's like, hey, do you care about cancer?
Give me money for cancer.
And then, you know, whoever you give that money to goes off and buys a boat, right?
I mean, it's like, well... I don't think you should be buying about, what, don't you care about cancer?
Right? So the government doesn't care about the poor.
The government doesn't care about the needy.
I mean, if the government did, then they would be implementing policies that would do the most good for those people, and which is not dripping money down on them from here to eternity and creating a permanent underclass of state-dependent Toad-sucking, state-loving voters.
And so you can say if you want, well, there might be some abstract benefits to it.
But the input of theoretical UBI will have no relationship whatsoever to the output of what actually comes along.
So you have to keep going to principles.
Because there's always a reason.
To overthrow your principles.
There's always the temptation to compromise your principles and say, well, this initiation of the use of force is better in theory than that initiation of the use of force.
UBI is better than the welfare state.
And all they want you to do is give up your principles.
All they want you to do is say, okay, well, how about this initiation of force?
This is much better. Don't you agree with this initiation of force?
And you're like, yeah, okay.
Aha! Great! Now you have no principles and we can do anything we want to you.
It's the same thing with freedom of speech.
Don't you think that this joke is terrible?
Don't you think that this argument is terrible?
Don't you think just this tiny little one-tenth of one percent we should ban?
Boom! You have no freedom of speech, right?
If they can get you to surrender principle, which they'll do by dangling the lesser of two evils in front of you.
Wow, UBI is better than the welfare state.
Yeah, much better. It's the lesser of two evils.
Boom! Well, you still get evil.
And that's not how the great moral battles of the world are won.
In the days of slavery, when the Christians were working to abolish slavery, they didn't say, well, what we want to do is replace slavery with serfdom, because serfdom is more free than slavery.
It's better, right?
Wouldn't you rather be a serf than a slave?
And they didn't try that.
They didn't have a transitional object.
Away from slavery, they just said, well, slavery is wrong and equality under the law is right.
And they were correct about all of that, of course, and that's what they fought for.
And so you have, dangling in front of you, the great temptation of choosing the lesser of two evils.
Choose the lesser of two evils, guess what you end up with?
Still evil. So focus on principles.
The welfare state is immoral.
UBI is immoral.
And I don't care what shape they say.
I mean, don't you remember the American government saying that they're going to bring peace, reason, and a Jeffersonian constitutional democracy to the Middle East every time they overthrew some existing government?
And what's happened? You've got open-air slave markets, you've got ISIS sawing the heads off children, and you've got genetic destruction of entire populations in Fallujah.
And you have hundreds of thousands of people killed, and you have a massive migrant wave.
I mean, right now, the Turkey-Greek border is virtually porous.
People pouring in to Greece.
Because Merkel said, the migrant crisis is over.
No, it's just beginning. It's just beginning.
And so, whatever the government promises, it's going to have no relationship to what it is today.
That they deliver. It's like if you've ever spent time around somebody who's addicted.
Oh man, just give me this 50 bucks, one more hit, it's the last time, it's going to be perfect, I'm going to change around, you know, tomorrow everything's going to be better.
And it's terrible.
You give them 50 bucks, they go get high and wreck your car.
It's just like, they will never give you.
What you ask for. They will never give you what they promise.
All their promises are just designed to get you to crack principle and surrender to the lesser of two evils.
So don't do it. Don't do it.
Doesn't mean you can change anything.
But don't lend support to just another lie, just another failed government program.
And don't imagine that the next one's going to work any better than the last 500 have done.
Okay, so like this is the problem.
I absolutely agree with a lot what you're saying.
But there's a kind of a ominous dark cloud hanging over everything with that.
Because basically what you're just saying right now is that there's no way of changing the government.
I think changing the government is- No, what are you talking about?
Always amazes me what people get out of what I say.
Go on. Where did I say there's no chance of changing the government?
Well, not necessarily no chance of changing, but obviously from these two options that I'm presenting to you, obviously, neither one is good or appropriate.
And when it comes to principles, of course, I agree with you.
Principally, neither one really works because it breaks principles that are universally applicable and they work properly, demonstratively when used.
When used appropriately.
But the problem here obviously is that in Finland, in a sense, we already have what you would call universal income.
We actually do have that.
Like when the rest of the world looks at us...
Yeah, but then just oppose it on principle.
I'm not sure what's so complicated about this.
We have to oppose it, of course.
Dude, I'm alone here.
I mean, I don't know who to talk to about it because there's literally almost nobody who agrees with me.
So you need to up your game.
Or give up.
Don't be stuck in a place where you can't convince anyone you end up completely isolated and bitter.
If you can find a way to be enthusiastic enough and eloquent enough and passionate enough to begin to spread your ideas, then great.
Or what you can do is simply sow the seeds for credibility when the system crashes.
Right? So the system is going to crash.
The welfare state always crashes.
It always has throughout history.
Look at the Roman Empire. Look at Spenumland.
Look at a wide variety of other things.
Look at the welfare state of the French Revolution.
Look at the giant redistributionist welfare state called communism.
Look at... They all crash.
They all crash and eat themselves and destroy.
Wealth, destroy lives, destroy people.
So maybe you simply say...
This is a bad idea, morally and practically, and people don't listen until it crashes.
And then they say, hey, hey, hey, who was that guy who predicted all of this?
You know, Peter Schiff housing crisis style.
And maybe you get credibility after reality asserts itself over fantasy.
Alright, check this out though then.
What do you think about, because I feel like a lot of the leftist people, they always take these ideas and they kind of use that as a cover or a shill to promote programs.
That are far more overreaching than, you know, they want to make to appear.
Can not conservatives kind of use a similar strategies in a sense, because in a way that I look at the situation in Finland, it is way too expensive.
Like the bureaucracy and the systems that we have in place are way too expensive to go on with.
I mean, we're already getting into debt.
And that will continue in the future as well.
So, like, having a political party, even a small one, that could sell, like, an idea, like, say, universal income, kind of, and then kind of sledgehammer that in and force the retirement of, like you said, a couple of thousands or tens of thousands of government officials' programs that are basically Kind of stacked up against each other and like doing the same thing that the universal income is doing.
It kind of forcefully brute force that through first.
Trying to bring down the overall costs of our taxation system and then move forward from there when people realize that when you take layers of taxation and layers of these programs off, things actually get easier and better for you.
Can we use similar strategies?
Or are we absolutely forced to have to go with the Puritan idea that, no, it has to be exactly like this.
And then like try to make that jump from like really warm water to really cold water.
You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean the question of is there a political solution to the problems of the state?
Yeah, like doing it in reverse how leftists generally do it, you know?
They tell you this wonderful story of how this policy is going to help Save people and you know make your life better.
We basically do the same thing.
That's what we're aiming at, right?
But instead of adding we remove No, the leftists offer you free stuff, and a rational person offers you suffering.
Like, sorry, this goes all the way back to Socrates, who said, okay, there's two politicians.
One of them says you can live on candy, and the other one says you need to live on vegetables and exercise.
And the politician who says free candy is the one who's going to get voted in.
Because the state is a way in which low IQ people gather resources to themselves.
Because the resources accumulate to high IQ people in a free market.
And so the lower IQ people need to use the power of the state to redistribute resources back to themselves.
I mean, it's a fundamental survival strategy.
Can't blame them. It's just the way things work.
And the idea of voting down the welfare state or voting down old age pensions is not going to happen.
Because women outnumber men.
And because the old have a massive, massive incentive to keep the Welfare system for the old, right?
It is a welfare system. Yeah, they were forced to pay in for it, but the money's all gone, right?
They were forced to pay in for it, but they got all of this free stuff, right?
Because the government didn't take the money that they took in in old age pensions and just put it in the lockbox.
What it did was it spent it on free stuff for the existing population.
So it's a total Ponzi scheme.
It's a total intergenerational ripoff.
So old people are not going to vote out pensions.
Women are not going to vote out Benefits for themselves.
They're just not going to do it.
You can ask and hope, but it's not going to happen.
Yeah, I don't think it should even be presented that way.
In a way, I'm hoping there's a marketing strategy, basically, that you could use.
An idea to sell.
Because I feel like people, they grasp onto those things.
Ideals. They're just abstract things in reality.
But, I mean, if you can tell a convincing...
Emotional story that somehow encapsulates what you're trying to do.
No, but you're asking for people to act against their direct and immediate self-interest, right?
Yes, sometimes. But sometimes people do that.
Well, no, no, hang on, hang on.
But you are saying...
That you don't want to act personally in your life and put yourself at risk for speaking the truth.
Is that right? No, no, no, no, no, no.
Absolutely not. I think you have to be truthful.
It's just that there's a diplomatic way of presenting things in which I think you can appeal to even leftist people.
If you can rationalize things in a way that they understand where you're coming from.
Like in the end... I think for the most part, at least in Finland, we are not as polarized yet as the United States.
Okay, well, why don't you tell me what your pitch would be?
Imagine I'm a leftist.
No, seriously. I mean, I want to...
It would be something like this.
Yeah, go ahead. Because everybody wants to work.
No, but in Finland, I think it actually is a bit like that.
I mean, we do have a problem with unemployment, but in the end, people want to be useful.
We do want to be useful.
And the one way of being...
Okay, but hang on. How do you know?
What was it? I just was reading this article.
I can't remember which European country.
Like, after four years, 85% of the migrants are still unemployed.
I know, I know, I know.
But that's not...
Like, if you look at Finnish history...
There are specific times where people have really just taken the responsibility to grow the nation, and they've done really painful, hard work at the expense of their own lives to make sure that the future has a better life than they have.
Well, but they do that where there's benefit to them, right?
They don't do that in communism.
They don't do that in socialism.
They don't do that under fascism.
They do that in a free market, which is why a free market is productive, right?
Right. And there are, as I've talked about with an expert on this show, they're called employment-resistant personalities.
Now, you're smart, and so you probably know a lot of smart people.
You can look at the book. It's called The Welfare Trade, and the author is called Adam Perkins.
P-E-R-K-I-N-S. Like the restaurant.
Adam Perkins? Adam Perkins.
You should read the book called The Welfare Trade.
And The Welfare Trade...
One of the arguments in the book is that there are these employment-resistant personalities, and they tend to be lower IQ, and they tend to have a lack of capacity to defer gratification.
They tend to have high volatility, impulsiveness, and they are, in many ways, kind of unemployable.
Maybe in a free market, a truly free market, something could be tailored, some value could be added, they can take the slow steps up towards maturity.
But you're around a lot of high IQ people.
And you're around a lot of smart people, a lot of really able people, and so those people want to work.
But what you want to do is start spending time around people who aren't like you.
Start spending time, like I have the curse slash benefit of having grown up around some pretty low IQ people.
I know that world very, very, very well.
I've been there. Okay, so those people, they don't want to work because their jobs are going to suck.
I mean, yeah.
This is the thing, though.
I mean, yes, you are absolutely right.
Everything's like, all the odds, everything is stacked against us in that sense.
Do you think that this population then is the majority?
Well, A, there's enough of them.
And B, there's a lot of pathological altruism.
For them, to them, right?
Yeah. Because we don't fundamentally understand and process the bell curve, it's like we're trying to navigate while imagining the world is flat, or navigating the solar system, trying to get spaceships to Jupiter while imagining that the Earth is the center of the solar system.
We're just constantly getting things wrong.
Constantly getting things wrong.
Yes. And so, with lower IQ people, they're very real.
And they can't get smarter, and they won't get smarter.
And so we have this...
I was just thinking about this the other day, and I mentioned this, the movie Trading Places with Eddie Murphy.
Yeah. And Jim Belushi's friend.
Anyway, that movie is, you know, the guy who's the bum on the street can become like a fantastic trader.
Yeah, yeah. Right?
And think of the movie...
Actually, it was a book that I read, and I was just thinking about this yesterday, because I was thinking about...
The book called The Chrysalids, which is about surviving a nuclear war because you happen to be in New Zealand.
But there's a book called Flowers for Algernon that I read when I was in...
I think it was in junior high school.
I think it was a sign.
You had to read Flowers for Algernon.
Now, Flowers for Algernon is about a guy who is as dumb as a toaster.
And then he has some sort of treatment and he becomes super smart.
And then the treatment kind of falls apart and he...
This is the socialist fantasy.
I don't know about the author.
I'm just saying this is the general socialist fantasy, which is that the poor would be just like the rich if they had money, which is like saying somebody gets taller because you hand them a basketball.
And so this fantasy that you see, well, if we give poor people more money, they'll make better decisions, they'll be smarter, and they don't.
They convert the extra money into more babies.
They convert the extra money into stupid purchases of flashy consumer goods for idiot tribal status.
They don't. Or they convert the money into, I'm going to buy drugs.
Or they convert the money into, I'm going to pimp up my car.
I mean, you just go to poor neighborhoods, walk around, look around.
What's there? A whole bunch of garbage, a whole bunch of mess, some addicts.
And you've got your beauty salons and you've got your liquor stores.
And you got your taverns.
And you got your convenience stores.
They're food deserts for decent vegetables, right?
And I don't know what the answer is to all of this stuff, right?
You got your porn shops.
You got your payday loan shops because percentages can be tough.
Compound interest can be tough for people to process.
And you have loans to go to college to get an arts degree because you imagine that that's going to make you smart.
Well, you see, if we lower the standards for blacks and Hispanics and raise unrealistically the standards for East Asians, everyone's going to do well.
There's this fantasy.
If we give tons of money to the third world...
They'll end up like the first world.
How did the first world become the first world?
Was it because space aliens rained gold on the first world?
No! So the idea that the freedoms which were internally generated within the first world should be completely bypassed and you should just hand money to the third world so it'll become like the first world is completely false.
And what has happened is the third world has largely converted...
That extra money into payments to soldiers for brutal dictatorships and massive amounts of extra children.
I mean, get mad at me if you want, but prove me wrong with the data and I'll be happy to retract.
That's what I have seen. Massive amounts of corruption, massive amounts of theft, turning tribal societies into statist kleptocracies and under apartheid.
The black population from 1948 until the late 80s increased 800%.
Why are we so poor?
Stop having children!
It's a condom.
It's not, you know, which you can get for free.
So... I don't know what all the solutions are.
I do know that we need to start talking about the actual problems.
And the actual challenges.
Or recognizing them and seeing the problems as they are and try to stop making excuses for them.
Listen, I used to be more mad at the people I grew up with.
Like I used to be more mad.
At the people I grew up with.
I'm not really that.
There's great freedom.
And there's great liberty in the bell curve.
In understanding the bell curve of human intelligence.
There's great compassion.
There's great love. There's great sympathy.
The people who are low IQ, I sympathize with.
I don't say that they're moral failures.
I don't say that they're bad people.
I don't say that they're lazy.
That's wrong. That's It's like saying that epilepsy is caused by demonic possession because you were sinful.
It's like saying masturbation causes cataracts, right?
And so we don't want to ascribe moral causes to biological situations.
That's wrong.
That's cold-hearted.
That's immoral.
Somebody with an IQ of 80, we have sympathy for.
We understand. We don't just say, well, you're just not trying hard enough.
We don't do that.
We don't put somebody who's 70 years old into a ballet school and say, just work harder.
That's cruel. We have compassion.
We have sympathy. Because once I... I'm not saying there's no free will.
I mean, I'm just saying recognize the challenge.
It's a very shortened horizon of time preference.
Very much in the now.
And once we...
Like, I look at the families that I grew up with and all of the people making terrible decisions that I grew up with.
And if I believed that everyone was the same, I'd say, well, these people were just really terrible people.
They were just making really terrible decisions.
And they could just have made better decisions like that.
Easy peasy. Nice and easy.
Okay, can I actually, because I have a question regarding that.
I've seen that a lot myself.
The schools that I went when I was super young here in Finland, I feel like that was the kind of environment where everybody was very similar.
And so having new ideas, either that was kind of dangerous because you'd be pointed out, or it would be difficult to have those ideas because, you know, obviously you kind of go with, You become that cross-section of the five nearest people that you know or so.
But in a way, I've been thinking about like in Finland, I feel like there has been this attempt to try and probably not by the terms that you would say because I suppose here that would be considered politically incorrect, but you would take people that come from those lower ends of the bell curve, right?
And you would position them perhaps amongst those who are, you know, closer at the mid-range or the high ends.
And then you kind of have the good stuff rub off to that person.
Good ideas kind of rub off to them.
And they would be in an environment where they're constantly challenged a lot more than they would normally be in an environment where everybody comes, you know, from that low IQ range.
Well, but you see now you're talking about social engineering.
Well, in a sense, it is.
Yeah, but I don't like social engineering.
I am a massive foe of social engineering and of things like eugenics.
Like, you know, I see these arguments and people say, well, maybe you can be put on birth control if you take welfare.
And it's like, that's just two wrongs not making a right.
You don't bribe people with other people's money to forego having children.
That's wrong! Eugenics is wrong.
Social engineering is wrong.
And of course, we can't think of human beings like they're just chess pieces we can move around and try and improve through one.
Freedom. Freedom is the key.
Freedom is the key.
And I'm not saying that you have to take a government or some kind of a bureaucracy to make sure that this happens.
I'm not saying you have to force it to happen.
What I'm saying is like, even just for myself, like I've noticed that like, I had a brother-in-law who told me this.
He was like, dude, your friends are losers.
You need to cut them off. Which I then, back when I was super young, like a teenager, I didn't understand that.
But once I did cut the cord loose, and I actually started hanging out with different kinds of people, I noticed that.
I was like, holy crap, these guys are making absolutely horrible decisions constantly.
And I could have been there making those bad decisions as well.
But now, because I have new friends who have higher aspirations, their worldview was far more open to possibilities than mine.
I started to kind of like absorb those things.
And with that, I'm in my life a lot better.
And so I'm not saying...
So you upgraded your friends, but you had the capacity to attract the interest of smarter friends.
Yeah, I guess so.
I mean if you had an IQ of 85 and you're trying to hang around with people who've got an IQ of 110 I'm sorry, it's not really going to work out.
It's no one's fault.
No one should be mad at anyone.
And I went through the same process where you end up with a really, really smart group of friends after you upgrade from just the people who are around when you happen to jump off the boat as I did.
But the question is, what do people with an IQ of 85 have to offer people with an IQ of 110 in a social situation?
I'm not saying people got to be enemies.
I'm not saying you can't be cordial.
You can't be neighbors. You can't lend each other sugar.
You can't help each other shovel your driveway.
So you can do all of those things.
But as far as genuine companionship, it's going to be tricky.
I suppose you would look that as service in a sense then.
Because, I mean, I suppose you look this from the lens of objectivism, right?
Where there's like clear lines on everything.
Yeah, I really dislike that phrase, lens.
Like objectivism is just some way of looking at things.
Like you wouldn't say, well, you look at the universe through the lens of physics, right?
Okay. Like either arguments are valid or they're not, but calling them a lens is a little douchey.
I'm not saying you're trying to be, it just comes across that way to me.
Okay, well, I mean you can choose how you want, you know, frame it.
That's fine. No, no, no.
That's my whole point. You can't choose how you want to frame it.
An argument is valid or it's invalid.
Yes, true.
Okay, so if you have an objection to objectivism, then you should say that.
But it's not just a lens like a religion or a perspective like art.
Yeah, yes, of course.
Either something is true or it is not.
And yes, I respect that.
I suppose, I mean, it is incredibly utilitarian and useful, and it obviously should be employed.
I'm sorry, what is? Objectivism.
Is utilitarian? Well, it is useful, right?
I mean, you can employ that and use it very effectively to solve problems, because you see problems clearly.
Instead of having ideologies or, you know, thinking how things ought to be in your mind when there really aren't that.
No, but I said arguments are valid or invalid, and then you start to talk about utilitarian value like I didn't say anything.
You don't have to agree with me, but I'd appreciate it if you would recognize that I'd open my mouth and made some syllables.
Yeah, I might have actually used that term incorrectly then.
I'm sorry. That was not my point at all.
But what I'm trying to, I suppose, what I'm trying to say is, like, just seeing how life has changed for me by making choices that have better my quality of life considerably, I want there to be a way for other people to also experience that.
I want there to be a way for them to also see, like, The world in a better way so they can make better choices.
No, but you're like Josh Groban saying, well, you know, me being able to sing this well has really opened up a lot of doors for me.
I'd really like to help other people sing this well.
Well, not everybody can do that, right?
You're right, of course. No, no.
It's not that not everyone can do it.
One in a million people can sing like that and have the, you know, shaggy head, puppy dog eyes that women like and, and, and, right?
And have the desire, the drive, the ambition, the perfect pitch, the, you know, the opportunities and all of that, right?
So it's Josh Groban saying, well, you know, I just want everyone to experience what it's like to hold an entire concert hall in thrall with your voice.
It's like, yeah, maybe you just focus on cutting another song rather than imagining that you could be photocopied, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
But like for a stable society, and I'm not going to even use like equality or none of these terms, but for a stable society, I suppose like we want to find a place for all of us.
And like you said...
No, no. See, you're back to social engineering again.
We want to find a place for all of us?
No. No.
Freedom. Freedom.
Freedom. It's like central planning.
We need to find a place for all these resources to go and for all this money.
No, freedom. Let people decide for themselves.
Okay. But, yeah, I'm not trying to say that you have to, again, have a government to do that.
Well, it's kind of implied when you say, I want to find a place for everyone.
That's central planning in a nutshell, right?
That's just how I look at it.
Yeah, of course, but I mean, I can't be right about things.
My challenges, my ideas might be horrible.
No, but just focus on, like, it's so complicated.
Just focus on property rights and the non-initiation of force.
What plays out from that?
I don't care.
I don't care. It's unpredictable.
It's not only unpredictable, it's non-predictable.
What's going to happen from there?
What we need is freedom.
We need not to have guns pointed in our faces.
We need to not have mailed fists in our bank accounts rummaging through all of our treasure.
We need to not have people with the ability to sign us into generational bottomless debt.
We need to be free.
Now, you're all thinking, well, what are the consequences of freedom?
And what's going to happen with this? And what's going to happen with that?
It doesn't matter.
Yeah. Freedom will have the optimal outcome for everyone except the evildoers.
I can live with that. There are sociopaths, there are psychopaths, there are child rapists, there are rapists, murderers, thieves, evildoers in the world.
Freedom benefits everyone except the evildoers.
Because right now, the dumb evildoers generally get passes and the smart evildoers end up in control of government.
And that's what we have to face.
Taking away the power of free evil that the government provides.
And the government, if it can't find criminals, it will invent them with hate speech laws and anti-drug laws and you name it.
No, just keep focusing on the two basic principles.
Property rights and non-aggression principle.
Two sides of the same coin.
You've got a life's work just spreading those two principles.
For sure. For sure.
And then I suppose it's just that getting those ideas like crystal clear, I suppose it's just freedom actually scares people.
And I kind of understand that.
No, advocating for freedom scares you.
Well… It does. Come on.
It scares me. It should scare every rational person because it comes with the perils of social ostracism.
And it comes with the perils of being called evil and uncaring and racist and anti-poor and hating women, wanting sick people to die in the street.
It comes with all of these ostracizing brand label attacks on you.
So, of course, we should be cautious spreading freedom.
But rather than wrapping ourselves up into the complications of imagining we can predict the consequences of freedom, it's just principles.
I don't know what happens after the slaves are free, but slavery is wrong.
And if you keep hitting that central message, that is the best chance we have to actually achieve freedom.
But if you start getting complicated about the effects of freedom or what you want out of freedom, you're right back where you started, which is imagining that we can move people around like chessboard, chess pieces on a chessboard rather than set them free to find their own bliss.
Well, thanks very much for the call. I appreciate it.
But we do have a lot of callers tonight.
I'm going to move on to the next one.
Thank you. Okay, up next we have Ryan.
Ryan wrote in and said, I am in a touring theater company that specializes in improv comedy.
It's always been a fun occupation, bringing a lot of joy to the people I perform for.
However, in the last five years, political correctness has encroached more and more in my work.
It appears as if most, if not all, theater has become entrenched in liberalism to the point where a show that's not about politics, particularly social justice, diversity, etc., is not considered real art.
My question is, must art be innately political?
Must art performance stand for something in order to be considered legitimate?
The left seems to think so.
How can I fight back against this terrible trend so that I can go back to entertaining people for the simple joy of the laughter?
That's from Ryan.
Hey, Ryan, how you doing?
Hello, Stefan.
Thanks for having me on today.
I expect you to be enormously funny.
No, I'm kidding. Oh, I'm going to try.
Don't try. Do or do not.
Do not try. Yeah, improv is...
I loved improv in theater school, just by the by.
You know, I mean, it was a great joy.
Because improv is like big win or big fail.
There's usually not a lot in the middle.
And... I just wanted to point out, everyone should try it, I think.
Everyone should try it. There's lots of improv clubs that you can go to.
You can do amateur night and so on.
I think it's worth trying because it really does push you kind of face up against whether you can be engaging or not.
When it works, it is so incredibly great.
It's like a jazz...
Quartet all doing amazing music together.
It is a real mesh when it works out well.
But it's tough, right? You've probably watched this TV show, Whose Line Is It Anyway?
It's not around anymore.
I think it was Drew Carey before he tossed in his libertarianism for The Price is Right.
I guess The Price was right. And they used to do this improv and it would be like a 20-25 minute show, but they need to do like 12 hours of improv to get a 20-25 minute show out of it because a lot of it is missed.
And I remember, I very clearly remember in theater school, the first time that I did solo improv and it worked and I had traction and people were laughing to the point of tears and that's a really...
It's a great feeling and it can be like capturing lightning in a bottle to reproduce it.
But yeah, of course it shouldn't be political.
If it's political, it's not art, it's propaganda.
Yeah. I mean, the funny thing is improv, by its very nature, requires you to take risks.
It's not really possible just to sit back and only say things that you feel are going to be really safe.
I mean, there's a very strong correlation in entertainment between something that's edgy and something that's funny.
So the problem is, if you have to be too sanitized, the problem winds up being people just say, eh, you know what?
They really weren't that funny.
They weren't that great.
But if you start throwing out some, you know, Bill Cosby jokes and stuff like that, all of a sudden, whoa, whoa, you know, back off, pal.
That's a little bit racist. So you have to be careful, but you have to take risks.
And that's how you have to succeed on stage.
But not anymore. I mean, comedy has become relentlessly predictable and relentlessly boring these days.
I still remember the vague exceptions.
Was it Asif Manji?
I can't remember his name. But the high-voiced Indian guy did this great segment years ago on The Daily Show where he was talking to a union organizer about, you know, the union organizer was like how important it is for the working classes to have decent wages, to have benefits, and so on.
And it turns out they'd hired people off the street to carry the signs in the protest and were paying them like minimum wage and no benefits.
And it was like brilliant, brilliant takedown.
And I even remember like the entirely repulsive as a whole, Samantha Bee did a great thing about how many regulations you needed, how many courses you then had to pass just to do hair braiding on the beach.
And there used to be that kind of stuff that would push back against the hyper-regulatory state and against hypocrisy on the left as well.
But that has diminished over time.
It's gone. Yeah, it's diminished over time and now it's become boring and predictable.
And smart people get bored with the sameness, but less intelligent people desperately need it.
They desperately need the sameness, which is why you get this boo, you know?
And one of these tipping points was Michelle Wolf's performance of verbal fruit ninja on people's souls at the White House Correspondence Dinner recently.
And yeah, I mean, making fun of Sarah Huckabee.
Sandra's appearance is trashy and it's gross.
The reedy, annoying, kind of punchable voice.
And just this horrible nihilism, like this sneaky kid smearing feces on somebody else's food and hoping nobody's going to notice because it's just so funny.
I mean, it was really a vile character appearance from someplace very, very dark.
Very dark. I mean, when she's talking, she had this bit about Mike Pence.
Mike Pence is against abortion.
And I say, with regards to abortion, don't knock it till you've tried it.
And if you try it, really knock it.
You've got to knock that baby out of there.
And it's like you're talking about pulling a baby out by the brain with forceps and killing it.
That's just not funny.
I don't care where you stand on any human compassion matrix.
That is in no way, shape, or form funny.
But of course, she's more nihilistic than anything because she also went for the media for being addicted to Trump and profiting from Trump.
So it's more nihilism. But it is, of course, a massive smear.
Can you imagine trying to do anything about Democrats...
Mean and Republicans are interested in freedom.
It wouldn't even compute.
It depends on your audience. But yeah, I mean, if you know your target audience, I mean, if you're in front of a bunch of cops or, you know, kind of like a Republican group where you can kind of tell they're going to be a little bit on the right side, then, you know, they're going to love you for beating up on Hillary and making fun of Obama.
So if you know your audience, you can get away with pretty much anything.
It's just the ones that are kind of in the middle that make it really difficult to toe the line.
Yeah. No, no, but what about not the audience, but you're in a theater company, right?
So what that means is that you have to deal with the other people in the theater company.
Are they going to be comfortable with, you know, Democrats are the real racists and Republicans freed the slaves?
Well, in our theater company, a lot of them are more comics-oriented, more humor-oriented, more improv-oriented than, say, like a musical theater where everybody's dancing around.
It's a little bit of a different thing with this kind of a thing.
So a lot of the actors that we work with, they might be liberal, they might be conservative, but they all don't like being told not to say a joke.
Wait, so you have conservatives in what you're doing?
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely.
And what's the proportion?
It seems, I would say, roughly half and half.
And it's kind of unusual because when you think of an actor, you think of people that are literally quenched in liberal piss.
But the reality is, is that there are A lot of people that are more of a comedic actor and they tend to be more on the right, which is probably something that people don't really realize.
And the reason is because they are bold and they love to get reactions and jokes and they have to be in your face.
A lot of liberals sometimes have a hard time with that.
They do better under different circumstances than comedy.
I mean, that's a gross overgeneralization, but it is true that you see a little bit more on the comedy side, a little bit more conservative.
And in the musical theater, community theater community, you see a lot more liberal, a lot more liberal.
So, our problem is really the clients.
I mean, it's not the audience.
A lot of times we'll go to a show and the audience will be laughing.
We'll be throwing, you know, Kathy Griffith jokes out there and all kinds of stuff and they'll be loving it.
But what happens is whoever organized it or the client, sometimes they can be really worried and you'll see them in the back of the audience.
Oh, is somebody going to after the show yell at me for bringing these folks in?
Wait, the HR department, the women, what are we talking about here?
Well, it's true. I mean, if we ever do a company party, you really can tell the big difference.
I mean, if you go to do a company party like we do and all kinds of different things like that, they want like funny entertainers to come in and do like a company party, we have to really be careful because, you know, you walk up to a lady in the audience and go, hey, sweetheart, how you doing? You look like Stormy Daniels.
I love all your videos. That might get a great laugh in a general admission crowd, but you might have some people that literally say, he touched my shoulder.
That's harassment. So you really have to be careful.
I remember, oh gosh, I'm trying to think now.
Back in my entrepreneurial days, I got an award for my software from Microsoft.
And I went to go and get the award.
I still have the plate somewhere in the basement.
I went to go and get the award.
And there was a comic there who had really done his homework.
I mean, because he came up with like computer jokes, geek jokes, coding jokes, and so on.
And it was like, wow, that's really impressive.
And I just really wanted to point out, shout out decades later for that comedian for a job well done, because it's a pretty niche market.
And he really worked it like a pro.
But I don't know.
I mean, look, if you're going to go to a company event and you're being hired by the HR department, yeah, you're going to get lefty social justice stuff.
Push that envelope is really tough.
It's not like you're going to change anyone's mind in the HR department.
It's not like you're going to change the company culture.
I mean, if James Damore can't do it, I'm pretty sure that a group of improv comedians aren't going to be able to do it.
And maybe he will over time.
That seems unlikely. Well, the funny thing is – I hope he gets his victory.
You find a very – oh, I'm sorry.
No, go ahead. I'm just saying the one thing that you'd probably appreciate if you could be a fly on the wall is the discomfort.
Because the funny thing about humor is that it really taps into truth in a way that really obliterates bullshit.
Because if you're out there and you're telling jokes maybe that have a double entendre, maybe a tad of sexism in there or a little bit of ethnic humor mixed in there – If everybody's laughing their ass off, it's really hard for them later on to say – I'm so offended.
Right, right. How offended can you be?
You're laughing.
So – But what happens is politically speaking, sometimes afterwards, we might get a bad review out of nowhere.
You know, somebody, you know, you were doing hate speech or, you know, you were doing, you know, you were doing something that was a microaggression.
And we get that sometimes with colleges when we go to different colleges, which we do less and less of because of that reason.
So, you know, you have to be careful.
But it is funny to watch them squirm because the audience still loves that kind of humor.
It's just it's not politically correct to do it.
And if you do it anyway, you're a little bit of a defier of their kind of code of conduct.
Well, here's the thing.
So you can – society, the world, freedom desperately needs its court gestures.
Absolutely, because they can speak the truth.
To the king that nobody else can.
I've mentioned this before.
This goes all the way back to the fool in King Lear.
Thou shouldst not have been old before thou were wise.
He's got a way of getting through to the king that nobody else can.
And so the court gesture, society's court gestures, are absolutely essential for pushing back against the trappings of power.
Except... The fool in King Lear disappears after the storm scene because the play becomes violent.
People's eyes get gouged out.
Spoiler! It's been a couple hundred years.
People's eyes get gouged out.
There are murders. There are suicides, if I remember.
I mean, that's just a lot. I mean, I played the guy, Gloucester, who gouged out the eye.
He was probably murdered by the King's secret police.
Well, but here's the thing.
So once the violence comes, the humor stops.
Stalin didn't have any court gestures.
Hitler did not have any court gestures.
Nobody stood up to those guys and tried to tell the truth.
I bet you there's not a lot of court gestures in the court of the Saudi royalty, right?
So when naked violence comes out, when people get tortured and killed, thrown in prison, When that level of aggression comes out, it's not funny.
And it can't be funny.
And to try to be funny would be a form of suicide.
Not a lot of people with Kim Jong-un wigs on in North Korea, right?
Not a very funny place, right?
And we all know that the left is violent.
We all know the left has always been violent.
And the only time the left is not violent is when they're striving for power rather than having actually achieved it.
And then they sublimate their violence a lot of times into comedy and music and other great things, which if they could harness that creativity and go back to doing great comedy and great music would be a wonderful thing, but now they're so close to the ring of power they can't turn back.
And so the challenge is, of course, that when you're in a place where the blowback can be enormous, Then you can't be funny.
You can appease with jokes, but you can't be spontaneous and you're self-censoring because you're afraid of blowback, afraid of people getting mad at you, afraid of these bad reviews, afraid of people calling you racist or sexist or misogynistic or whatever it is, right? And so I would pick my gigs.
If I'm a comedian, I would pick my gigs.
And I would say, and people are doing this, right?
Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld and others won't play colleges anymore.
It's like, it can't be funny. Because there's so much rage there.
There's so much anger. There's so much potential violence.
Well, you can even see it even before you start the show sometimes.
I mean, we've been at...
And it's not every show.
I mean, we do like a hundred a year.
We do a lot. But... You know, when you walk into a room, you can pretty much tell, especially if they're in their young 20s and it's like a college, they'll be sitting back in their chair with their arms crossed, looking at you through the side of their eye.
You know, they're basically like waiting for an opportunity for you to say something that they don't like.
Go on, white boy.
Be racist for us.
Yeah, I mean, that's really what it is.
It's almost like a competition.
It's like the gong show.
They're just waiting to hit that gong.
Ah, you're a racist.
You're a jerk. You're an asshole.
So, you know, there's really not much you can do.
I mean, we still want to get the gig and take the money.
So, we go out there and do our best.
And sometimes we make, you know, 11, 8 out of lemons.
But... You know, you do your best, but you're definitely self-censor.
You definitely pull back.
And I think a normal person would say, you know, they weren't that funny tonight.
And it's just because, well, we had to put the governor on our comedy, you know?
Yeah. Yeah.
So, I mean, you can, of course, subsume your spontaneity for the sake of the almighty dollar and recognize that that's what the case is.
For sure. But...
If you really want the spontaneity, you're going to have to go to places where the violence, the blowback is not as strong, if that makes sense.
Oh, it does. And it's just an unfortunate thing because it's my job to try to get as many shows and gigs for the actors as possible.
And nobody wants to...
All these guys want to get out there and get laughs and make money.
So you really don't want to turn anything away.
But it is tough because you really get worried.
And it's only been the last couple of years.
For a long time, everybody's known celebrities were very, very liberal, but it never really trickled down to our level, you know, on the grounds where we are.
They spread, right? I mean, the metastasization of the left is spreading.
And that's the big battle that we have, you know?
And you don't want to be, you know...
To go back to King Lear, you don't want to...
I played the Duke of Cornwall.
You don't want to be like Yucky Gloucester giving his eyes gouged out by the Duke of Cornwall because you made the wrong kind of joke.
Now, of course, nobody's saying that, you know, they're going to throw bricks at you during the performance.
But when you're facing rage, hostility and anger in the crowd...
It's really, really tough to be funny.
And everyone, I think, instinctively understands that you cannot win over that crowd.
Right? You cannot win over that crowd.
Even if you win them over.
Even when you win them over, the person in charge, if they're like the HR lady or...
No, no, no. I'm talking about like a college campus where there's real leftists who are just waiting for you to screw up as they see it so that they can try and destroy your...
Your character. And then, you know, maybe one of those leftists is going to latch onto you and is going to try and destroy your entire career.
And it's going to write about you and it's going to figure out who might do business with you and send letters to them and try and get you never to be booked again.
Like, you don't know when someone's just – you're going to get the leftist professional income-destroying stalkers on you to try and destroy your entire life.
Like, it's really, really tough to pluck a joke out of your ass when you've got those kinds of threats around.
Well, I mean, it happens.
I mean, we've had a couple times where we, I mean, one particular college, I don't want to mention this name, but they actually sent us a thing saying that we were under investigation because, to make a long story short, we were doing a show at a college, and it was a couple years ago, and there was a girl.
At the show, she was apparently a lesbian, and she was dressed so convincingly like a boy that literally you couldn't tell.
I mean, it wasn't like one of the actors walked up and made fun of her because she was gay.
You literally couldn't tell.
She looked like a boy. And apparently one of the actors walked up to her and said, Hey, ladies and gentlemen, we got Justin Bieber here in the front row.
Isn't he great? He's a cute-looking guy.
Just joking around, she stood up, freaked out, screamed, ran out of the room, and the campus police had to come in and stop the show, and they put us under investigation, never going to be there again.
I mean, this is how insane some of this has become.
And let's say that for some reason, that went viral.
Right? Let's say somebody filmed that with their cell phone.
And that went viral.
And you got millions, like...
What are you going to do?
Well, you know what you're going to do is not work again.
Right? Right. Because everywhere you go, there's going to be massive protesters.
And like, that's tough.
Like this woman, this young woman, I just did the video on this, just went out this morning, just like a two and a half minute video.
This young woman wore a traditional Chinese dress to her prom.
And, you know, was as hot as Georgia asphalt, as the phrase goes, and looked lovely in it.
And, yeah, just massively attacked and bullied for cultural appropriation.
Yeah, because I've never seen anyone from Africa in a suit.
And, you know, I mean, it's just horrendous.
Horrendous. And the funny thing is that the people actually went to China.
People actually went to China, interviewed Chinese people and said, here's the picture of this woman wearing this dress.
What do you think? And they say, oh, she's lovely.
What a great compliment. How nice.
Yeah. Are you typing on the internet?
That's cultural appropriation.
So, yeah, you do have to...
It doesn't have to be rational or make sense.
It just has to be loud and...
Antibiotics!
That's cultural appropriation.
Two-story buildings, cultural appropriation.
Do you like the wheel? Air conditioning, cultural appropriation.
I don't know. So, if you just...
Because this thing can happen, like there's this rampaging mob roaming around the internet looking for something to get enraged about...
And if they fasten onto someone, man, it's a pretty alarming experience, right?
Like there was this woman many years ago, she tweeted about going to Africa and she said, I hope I don't get AIDS. Oh, wait, no, I'm white.
And, you know, it was not a great joke and, you know, mildly offensive, not nice and so on.
And then the entire outrage mob gathered while she was on the plane and just built this massive wave of hatred against her.
She didn't even know anything about it because she had no...
Internet access on the plane, this is back in the day, and man alive was her life ever turned upside down for years.
For years. It can destroy your social circle, it can destroy your capacity to go out unscathed in public, it can destroy your capacity to get a job.
I mean, this rampaging mob is a significant factor in most people's calculations.
And the idea that there's free speech Okay, there's de facto and then there's de jure, right?
So you can have free speech under the law, but not free speech in practice.
And the self-censorship that occurs because this rampaging mob, the whole point.
Of this kind of digital lynching and sometimes physical attacks is to prevent people from saying things that other people find offensive, right?
So, you know, Kanye West has been talking about his love of Donald Trump and his openness to ideas of Candace Owens and other people and Scott Adams and so on.
And so, yeah, someone, some guy says, yeah, my gang members in California, if you find this guy, F him up.
You know, I mean, now this is okay.
He's Kanye West. He's got security and all that kind of stuff.
But for a lot of people without that kind of luxury, well, they do want to be able to go to the mall.
They do want to be able to drive their car around and they would like to get some kind of income.
And so we all need to be honest that this rampaging mob is a huge problem in society.
The shaming goes one way, because these people, I think, are fundamentally incapable of being shamed, and so it's a fight where only one person is armed.
Sorry, go ahead. But do you give up?
And that's the thing is, do you just say, oh, well, there's nothing we can do.
What do you mean, do you give up?
If we try, you know, they're going to shut us down.
Who are you talking to, brother?
What do you mean, do you give up?
Do I give up? I don't want to.
No, you don't give up. Of course you don't give up.
We have to push against it. No, of course you don't give up.
But you recognize where you want to put your work.
Who do you want to put your work in front of, right?
And you judge yourself appropriately and accordingly.
Well, the other tricky part is that We tailor a lot of times the material to the crowd.
So I don't want to give the impression necessarily that we're always on the right.
The reality is we're kind of like comedy whores.
Actually, just the other day, we did a Democratic club, and they told us.
They said, hey, you guys can make fun of Trump.
You can do all that stuff.
Anything is good. So, you know, we walked in there and we were making fun of them.
So if somebody was in the audience that day, they may have said, oh, these Riddlesbrook guys, they're all liberal.
But if they would have went to another show where we were, you know, a fire department, you know, those kind of people are usually pretty conservative side, mostly guys.
They're going to love it the other way around.
So, you know, it really depends on which show they happen to play.
Yeah, the best comedians are equal opportunity offenders, for sure, because there's hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness and virtue posturing on every aspect of the political spectrum.
So, yeah, you definitely want to be equal opportunity offenders.
And the problem is, of course, I mean, you know, throw on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and throw on Stephen Colbert and so on.
You know what you're going to get.
You know what you're going to get.
It just became so predictable.
I knew the jokes that were coming.
I knew the perspective down to the last drop in detail that was coming down the pipe.
And it just got boring.
And this is one of the things that I've been very sensitive to.
Ryan, what I do that I try not to be repetitive.
I try not to be repetitive.
I am racking my brain for new ways to talk about things, for new topics, new subjects to evolve, to grow, and to continue to bring interesting perspectives and challenges and arguments to...
My audience. And that's because I couldn't stand doing the same thing over and over.
Like, I don't know how people do it.
Honestly, I have no idea. How does...
Stephen Colbert is a smart guy.
How does he get up and say...
Like, why doesn't he just come to work and say, God...
I can't do this. Like, I can't do these same jokes day after day after day.
It's so repetitive. It's so boring.
We're missing out on half the world.
We're missing out on half the perspectives of the audience.
Why don't we ever challenge people?
Why don't we ever push back against prejudice?
Why do we have to reinforce everybody's bigotry all the time?
It's so dull!
Well, clearly, his capacity for being dull knows no bounds.
There is no end to his capacity to be repetitive.
And it changed over time.
John Stewart used to be better, then became as boring as you could possibly imagine.
Trevor Noah started off as boring as you could possibly imagine.
Oh, white people be racist.
I mean, it's just, it's so boring and so repetitive and the obsession with race that comes from that.
Anyway, so, you know, I mean, people will get bored.
I hope. I mean, if people don't get bored, it means that the IQ cliff has already dropped us into idiocracy.
But hopefully people get bored.
And this is why people watch what I do.
Hopefully, while they'll watch what you do.
But you are doing your part, man.
You push back against prejudice with humor.
It's a very powerful thing to do.
Well, you said something that actually I really like.
You kind of likened us to the court jesters.
And I'm actually going to remember that because one of the things that we do do is we do disclose on our website, hey, you know, this is what we do.
This is kind of the kind of humor we do.
You know, we don't do any cursing, but we do these kind of things here and there.
But you know what?
The idea of speaking truth to power as a court gesture, that lovable character that can get away with poking here and there, but is some – at least a little bit protected from the flames that will shoot out of the eyes of the crazy liberal that's going to be standing there.
At least that seems to be something interesting that I'd like to explore that for us as a way to inoculate us.
Yeah, be likable.
Back in the Dungeons& Dragons days, I rolled triple sixes for Charisma.
And one of the reasons that I can, quote, get away with saying things that people find outrageous is that, I mean, I'm coming from a place of love.
I'm coming from a place of positivity.
And I'm coming from a place of compassion.
That, I think, is part of it.
But I'm just really likable.
Don't get me wrong. For some people, it's quite the opposite reaction.
They loathe me from the very pit of their soul.
But for most people, I'm...
Pretty likable. I mean, they maybe hear bad things about me and then they come and watch my show and say, it's pretty actually a lot more reasonable than I thought.
It's pretty likable and so on. The more likable you can be, and this is part of the charm of the court gesture, because it is impossible to be enraged and laughing at the same time.
It is impossible to feel murderous and giggle at the same time.
These are two opposite poles of human experience.
And so if you can dislodge anger with comedy, if you can speak truth to power, if you can work at being so likable, That people will laugh at you despite themselves.
That, to me, is the highest pinnacle of comedy.
Is not to play to people's prejudice and reinforce their bigotries and so on and, you know, play that same damn song.
Play that song from Titanic!
Over and over again. But if you can get people into...
To laugh despite themselves, to laugh against their prejudices, that is an incredible act of liberation for people.
Now, there may be blowback later.
Like somebody might say, oh yeah, this guy Ryan, he made this great joke and then they repeat it and people are like, you know, that's awful, that's so this, that's so that.
And maybe they'll be like, oh, oh no, I've said something that's bad.
I don't think it was that funny.
It's an example of prejudice.
But if you can get people to laugh against Despite themselves, against their prejudices, that is a very powerful act of liberation.
And I certainly wish you the best in pursuing that.
Well, thanks a lot, Brian. I appreciate the call.
Go be adjusted to the court because everything's a court these days.
And I wish you the very best of luck with your continued endeavors.
Thank you. Thanks, man.
Okay, up next we have Michelle.
She wrote in and said, I started smoking cannabis about 17 years ago when I was about 17 years old.
My abuse of cannabis greatly impacted my marriage.
I would like to still be able to use cannabis in a healthy way, but I'm not sure if that's possible.
Am I playing with a fantasy?
As an aside to this, this sort of thing is not exactly talked about in the stoner culture, but the discussion is one that needs to be had.
What is it going to take for cannabis culture to develop a sense of responsibility and moderation?
That's from Michelle. Hey Michelle, how are you doing?
Doing well, thank you. How are you?
I'm well, I'm well, I'm well.
So, tell me a little bit more, if you don't mind, about your history with the weed.
Of course. Of course.
Really quick, is it okay if I preface this with a few things?
As you like.
Okay, just really quick.
I have spoken to you before, and on the last call that I had with you, I fogged really bad.
I'm sorry about that.
I assume that was just the cannabis.
It might have had a role in it, yes.
But yeah, please hold my feet to the fire on that.
I don't want to do it again. Sure.
The second thing, once you described thought patterns as like laser beams all trying to focus on like the same point and like you're bouncing between laser beams trying to get to that point, my thoughts are a lot like that.
So I just want you to be aware that I'm going to try my best to focus.
And then just really quick, the third thing is that, and this is a Silly analogy for it, but you're going to be talking to me, and then there's the weed monster, which is what my husband and I call it, which is the pattern in my brain, the neurons I've connected that serve the addiction.
So I just want to make aware that that might come up.
Sure, no, I appreciate the housekeeping, and I will keep all of that in mind, and tell me about your history with marijuana, please.
Okay, so my ACE, the Adverse Childhood Experiences score, is a 10.
I grew up with my father.
He smoked marijuana in the home.
He grew cannabis.
So it's been in my life forever.
I'm a 90s kid, so we had the D.A.R.E. program going on when I was in school.
At the time, you know, it was the 90s, so they were like, you know, if you smoke cannabis, you'll be addicted right away, just like heroin.
And what was DARE? DRIVES REALLY EVIL? What was the acronym?
Oh, I'm sorry. I can't.
Oh, gosh. I remember the program.
I just say no kind of stuff, but I don't remember what the acronym was for.
It doesn't matter. Anyway, go on. Yeah, I'm sorry.
I can't remember. It's like DARE to say no, you know, all that stuff.
So, you know, the DARE officers would come in and they bring booklets and they try to educate the children on, you know, this is what your future is going to look like if you get involved and yada yada.
But like, you know, at the time, because, you know, the government prohibits Weed studies and all that.
You just kind of had to go with what they said.
And then as a teenager, I had friends that would smoke cannabis and I would say no because I don't want to become an addict and I want to deal with that.
And they were like, oh, you know, you can't get addicted to weed.
The DARE officers, they're full of, you know, BS, they don't know, blah, blah, blah.
And so eventually I was like, well, if you can't get addicted to it, then I don't really see the harm in like trying it and like doing it once in a while.
And when it started, I would only do it like once every three months, you know, do it for a day.
Couple hours and then eventually it became like every weekend, every week, three times a week, and then like every day.
And then what we call wake and bake in stoner culture, which is where you wake up, you smoke a bowl, and then you're stoned until you go to bed.
And is that where you are at the moment?
No, so...
Like I said, this has impacted my marriage very greatly and I have not been an adult for most of my time.
Being married with my husband and everything, I've been A stoner for a long time.
I'm sorry, I'm talking. So last year, I committed to not be a stoner anymore.
I can't live like this.
It's a deal breaker for our marriage.
My son needs a mom.
So no more being a stoner.
But I do want to smoke every once in a while because I do have chronic illnesses it helps me with.
I do like it for like, you know, that hard...
Week of work and you have a beer afterward and it's like, ah, the best beer you ever had.
I like it for that aspect. My fear is that I won't be able to control myself, that I start out that way.
And then it's like, well, I've done this recently, actually.
I was like, oh, I'm going to buy a little bit of weed and I'm going because it's legal here.
You can go to a store. So I'm going to buy a little weed and I'm going to smoke for Saturday night.
And then, of course, if I have a little left over, I'll go Sunday night.
I'll go, oh, you know, I'll just finish this off.
And then it's like, well, I wasn't being disciplined.
I did it two nights instead of one.
Or I'll do it for a few days and then I'll go, oh, you know, I'm getting out of hand here.
I got to stop. And it's like this back and forth breaks and green light like that for me.
Right, right. And so do you want to stop completely or is that a goal?
Honestly, I don't.
Honestly, I want to be able to smoke it once in a while.
I do enjoy it.
I tell myself, Jordan Peterson, he says, what does hell look like for you?
Get that in your mind. What's your hell?
My hell is being divorced from my husband, not being in my son's life, having to work shitty jobs.
I'd have to follow my husband around wherever he wanted to live just to be with him, be near my son.
Like, that's hell for me.
I'd be a stoner and just, you know, I don't want that.
So I tell myself, oh, I'm so afraid of that happening that I won't be a stoner again.
Oh, I can smoke weed.
And that won't happen because I'm too afraid of that happening again.
But, like, I don't ever go that far, but I'm afraid that I'm lying to myself when I say I won't.
Right, because the cost-benefit for you is so extreme that if it's going to cost you everything in your life...
Then the benefit can't be that big, right?
Correct. Like, when you're stoned and you're being stoned a lot, you're afraid of being sober on top of it, right?
You're like, oh my god, like, what's life going to be like sober?
What am I going to do with myself?
I'm going to be so anxious.
Like, you lie to yourself. It's really not as bad as you think it's going to be.
Like, once you sober up, it's actually fine, you know?
I'm sorry, I think I'm fogging there.
No, that's fine. What does your husband say about your occasional indulgence?
Okay, so he wants me to be disciplined.
He's okay if I do it once in a while, but he's not okay with me being a stoner.
Whenever I decide to purchase some cannabis, I'll tell him like, hey, I'm going to go get some or like sometimes I'll buy it first and then say, hey, I did this thing because it's easier to ask for forgiveness than it is permission, right?
And Well, not if your integrity is internally generated, then no.
But go on. True, true. I am trying.
But yes, that's true.
And that is something I've struggled with.
And that's also something he's not okay with.
So he tells me, you know, like, hey, you know, I don't go there again.
I'm worried about you becoming a stoner as long as you can control yourself and you're not going to go buy anymore after this is gone.
Okay. You know, but if I say I'm doing it for a couple days, he'll go, hey, you know, you're slacking the chores or, you know, groceries haven't been bought or like the kitchen's kind of a disaster, you know, like he's, he doesn't want me to slip down that slope again.
Right, right.
So let me just start off with some quote facts about all of this because I looked up a little bit.
And as you're right, of course, some of the studies are woefully incomplete because of the illegality for a lot of history since, I guess, the 1930s and 1940s.
But so compared to substances as a whole, marijuana is not massively addictive to a lot of people, right?
So about 32% of tobacco users become addicted, about 23% of heroin users, 17% of cocaine users, and 15% of alcohol users become addicted.
Those are actually pretty high numbers.
That's a lot of Russian roulette, because if you get addicted to these things, your life gets very, very complicated.
And so, you know, when you're looking at that first beer, when you're looking at that first smoke, recognize that, you know, 15 to 32% of you are going to develop massive problems with this, and it's going to be a big challenge.
Cocaine and heroin are more physically harmful.
Nicotine is much more addictive.
It's harder to quit smoking cigarettes than it is to quit smoking pot.
That having been said, there are problems.
Particularly daily users, about 50%, up to 50% can be expected to develop a problem with weed.
And interesting statistic, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, in the United States in 2013, among people aged 12 or older, 845,000 people reported receiving treatment for marijuana use.
845,000 people.
There is a biological basis for dependence on marijuana.
So there's a book in 2006 called Cannabis Dependence.
And human beings, it says, have a specific cannabinoid receptor in the brain and a compound that activates the same receptor sites in the brain as THC. It's called anandamide.
And a quote here is, with greater understanding of the neurochemical basis of cannabis's reinforcing effects on brain systems, the reasons for the persistence of marijuana use have become more apparent.
In the 2004 Marijuana Treatment Project Research Group, a sample of 450 chronic cannabis users seeking treatment as part of a multiple intervention trial determined that almost all participants, 96%, had unsuccessful attempts to quit or cut down.
95% said they continued to use marijuana despite recurring psychological or physical problems.
And 83% reported that large amounts of their time were spent using or recovering from marijuana use.
Withdrawal symptoms occurred in 77.6% of the sample.
So addiction, I've seen estimates as low as 9% of users end up.
But, you know, that's still a fairly big deal, particularly if it's illegal, because you're risking, of course, legal interventions every time and It's expensive and quality control can be problematic.
And of course, as you know, there are significant indications that marijuana concentrations, THC concentrations in marijuana have increased significantly by sometimes multiple times since sort of the 1970s, 1980s.
So it's not your daddy's marijuana, so to speak.
So that having all been said, You have an adverse childhood experience score of 10.
And of course, I remember this from the last time.
We talked, so for those who don't know, because I always get these questions when we put these out, the Adverse Childhood Experience score is a score of 10 questions that has been developed by Dr.
Vincent Felitti. And I interviewed him years ago, and you can check out thebombinthebrain.com for more on this.
But we don't have to get into a lot of details, but the Adverse Childhood Experience score, for you, less for all, yes for all, massive sympathies and horrifying stuff.
So, verbal abuse and threats, physical abuse, non-spanking, molestation, sex, and or rape, no family love or support, neglect, not enough food, dirty clothes, no protection or medical treatment, parents divorced, physical abuse towards female adults, lived with alcoholic or drug user,
household member depressed, mentally ill, or suicide attempt, Now, my understanding of how all of this works, and please understand, I'm no expert.
This is just my understanding of how all of this works.
Is that you have a childhood like that and you grow up pretty unhappy.
And then what happens is if you take mood-enhancing drugs, you actually feel close to normal for the first time in your life.
And then when you feel bad again, it's much worse than it was before because before it's just, well, the human condition is misery.
And then you get that pain taken away and then...
When it returns, you're really aware of it.
And then that's one of the reasons why you want to take the mood-altering substance again, whatever it may be.
So if normal people, what happens is, let's just say they start up with a happiness level of 100.
And then they go with some stimulant.
They go to like 120 or 130.
And then maybe they crash back down to 90 and it takes a couple of days for them to get back to 100.
Those people, I would assume, are fairly unlikely to get addicted.
But if you start off with a happiness level of 10 or 20...
And then you boost yourself up to 100, you feel normal for the first time in your existence, and then you go back down to 5 or 10, the gap is so enormous that you do crave the return to normalcy.
Like imagine if you had a chronic pain, some chronic backache or something, and you'd kind of almost just gotten used to it, and then you took some pill that took that pain away.
And you could dance and you could move and you would like be in such a state of bliss that most people would take for granted that then when that pain returned, it was even worse, you'd be desperate to get rid of it again, because you would be fully aware of it almost for the first time.
So I think that's one of the reasons why it may have become more chronic for you.
And let me know if that makes any sense to you.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, like I was saying earlier about the fear of being sober, that's kind of part of it, too, because, like, I'm really bad at, like, dwelling on things on top of it, you know?
So, like, to me, it's, like, always on my mind.
Wait, bad at dwelling at things?
Oh, you mean good at dwelling at things that are bad?
I'm trying, yes.
Okay, I'm just trying to, I wanted to thread that needle correctly.
Okay, go ahead. Yes, yes, thank you.
Yeah, it's one of my major flaws, and I'm trying to get better at it.
And it's one of those things where I have to put something on my headphones on my phone to fall asleep so I can have something to focus on.
Because if I don't, my brain focuses on my horrible childhood and things I've experienced since then.
So yeah, that is part of it.
And of course, it's like this horrible cycle because you stay fogged and high to not deal with your thoughts while you're sober, but then you're not fixing it at the same time.
And you're like, you're in this stasis.
And then on top of it, you have the delayed maturity, you know, like, so basically my, for many years, I've basically been stuck at 17 years old.
Right.
Yeah.
And so when the self-medication occurs, you don't go to the dentist if you take cocaine for your toothache in a way, right?
So there is, I think, an aspect of getting stuck in a particular level of development that occurs when you begin to use artificial substances to achieve the kind of happiness that a lot of self-work and self-protection would otherwise be required for.
Yes.
Right. - Good.
Yeah. Oh, and really quick, I was going to say on when you're talking about the studies, I know there was one that came up recently, because my husband was telling me about it.
So some people, they, okay, when you're smoking weed, cannabis, you will build up cannabinoids, they're stored in your fat.
Some people, when they reach a certain threshold of the cannabinoids in their system, it makes them sick.
So they'll become nausea, vomiting, like the withdrawal symptoms you have also.
Like when you go off of it, it'll be those same symptoms.
And some people will think, oh, I wake up and I feel nauseous.
And they'll go, oh, I'll smoke some cannabis so I feel better.
it's actually making the problem worse because you're putting more cannabinoids into your system and increasing your body's trying to reject it.
And then another study came out recently that said that if you wait until after you're 25 years old when your brain is done developing, you have a lower risk of becoming addicted to cannabis.
Yes, there certainly does seem to be the case that the earlier you start, the more the odds are that you become addicted, right?
Yes. Right. What was your first experience like of this?
I know that, I think Gabor Mate has talked about some of the people who take stronger stuff, right?
I mean, heroin and so on, that it felt like a warm hug, that it felt like a connection with the universe, that they felt a certain security or safety or comfort.
What was your emotional experience of taking it for the first time?
Okay. And just really quick on Gavir Mété in the realm of Hungry Ghosts.
Absolutely. When you were talking about that, I had just like marathon 13 seasons of a show called Intervention, where they deal with people that are addicted to these substances.
And that was what you kept seeing over and over again, was everybody had these horrible childhood experiences.
So, absolutely.
So, for me, the very first time actually was not the Warm Hug experience.
I remember... Because I had never smoked it before.
Depending on how you smoke it, it can be very harsh.
So like if you smoke it out of like a pipe or a joint, it'll be less harsh.
If you smoke it out of a bong, you can choke yourself.
And my friend was like, oh, smoke it out of my bong I made.
So I smoked it out of this bong and I just like, oh, I was choking on it really bad.
My throat hurt. And I was like, okay, no more.
And then like... I was getting really paranoid and I was like, oh, my boyfriend, who's my husband now, at the time we were just dating for a year, I was like, oh, my boyfriend's going to be so mad at me.
And I don't know where that thought came from.
And I was just really paranoid.
So I called him and then he came over.
And then by the time he came over, he said that I don't remember this.
He said that I was just kind of really relaxed on the floor and just like, whatever, like, you know, when you're really drunk or something.
Uh, after that, I didn't smoke for, like I said, probably about three months or something.
Cause I was like, ah, that wasn't that great an experience.
I was just paranoid and whatever.
And so my friends are like, oh, well, you know, that's very common.
Your first time you'll be paranoid and your cheeks get kind of tingly and stuff and your throat hurts.
Um, try it again and it won't be like that this time.
So I was like, okay, fine. Tried it again.
And then the second time it's like, ah, I could breathe.
The world was lifted off my shoulders.
I didn't care about what was happening around me.
I just felt relaxed for the first time in my life.
And you were free of the past.
For a moment. How long did that last?
Um, a few hours.
So like when you smoke Rish initially, I think like it takes about an hour for it to hit its full effect.
And then you're stoned for about a good two to three hours full effect.
And then on the fourth hour, it's waning off.
And did you ever have a bad one?
No, I don't think I've ever had a bad experience.
I've heard of people that say, oh, you know, I ate a brownie usually.
It's like a really concentrated brownie or something.
And they say, oh, I had this horrible experience.
And for me, not really.
The most it's ever been is some paranoia that cops are outside the window or something.
But I just go, oh, then you're being insane.
Knock it off. And then it goes away.
Right, right. Now, are you ready to dislike me for a few minutes?
Oh, I don't think that's possible, but go ahead.
I'll work at it. And not just you, but other people as well, because I have a rant about stoner culture in me that I have been wanting to unleash on the world for years.
Oh, hit me with it, and then I've got some things that I could definitely add to your rant.
All right. Stoniculture bugs the ever-loving crap out of me, my friend.
Just so much.
So much. Because this, like, it's 420, blaze it, faggot.
Like, it's wake and bake, you know?
Like, it's just become this...
So cool, and such a lifestyle, and anyone who doesn't, doesn't get it, and it's all natural, and why are you so square?
This level of defensiveness around using a mind-altering substance because you ain't happy with yourself.
And I have sympathy with not being happy with yourself, don't get me wrong.
Your childhood, my friend, wretched, horrifying, a massive amount of sympathy.
But this idea that it's cool to run from your problems, this idea that it's better to medicate yourself than educate yourself, this idea that it's better to drug yourself than know yourself, and that it's cool and it's hip and it's fun and it's all natural and it's a whole lifestyle.
It's a whole lifestyle.
You don't see that with other stuff.
Smokers say, hey, I'm addicted.
It was stupid and I'd love to quit, but I'm addicted.
They don't make this whole cool thing about smoking.
At least not anymore. I guess way back in the day, they did.
But it's this weirdly defensive, massive superstructure, this cathedral of bullshit that is built up around the fact that you're addicted to weed.
You're addicted. I sympathize.
You know, you had a terrible childhood.
You're trying to avoid it.
But they flip it into this cool thing where if you don't get it, you're just a square and a bad person.
Somehow wrong. You don't want to open your mind, man.
You don't want to trip. You don't want to trip balls.
You don't want to look into reality.
You don't want to have your mind bent and opened to the universe.
And it's just like, no, I just don't like fucking with my brain.
Sorry. It's a delicate instrument.
Don't take the hammer of opioid-derived substances.
Do it. And the idea that if you grit your teeth and you go to therapy and you get self-knowledge and you deal with your history and you get safe...
From the brutal people in your life, that that is somehow not the right path, but going to buy some skeevy little weed from some pimply-faced guy in the corner, smoking that up and thinking that you've achieved enlightenment, that that is somehow the height of human achievement, is really, really annoying as hell.
And it's not annoying like, wow, I'd really like to try it, but it's just too square.
It's just annoying. It's just annoying.
Because it is the avoidance of legitimate suffering.
It is the taping over and the masking of legitimate suffering.
And so much psychological dysfunction comes out of the bare and base avoidance of legitimate suffering.
You had a terrible childhood.
Deal with it. Learn from it.
Understand it. Get safe from it.
But the number of people who end up stuck in their lives because they don't allow pain to jolt them into action.
Ooh, I'm feeling upset.
Push it down. Bury it.
Drown it in smoke.
Kill it with fire.
Blaze, they say, right?
Like you're an arsonist to your own history.
I won't allow the pain of the past to motivate me into protective actions in the here and now, but rather I will wet finger the candle, put it out, put out the discomfort so that I don't have to change.
Rather than change my circumstances, I'm going to suppress my fight-or-flight instinct and not grow and not change from there.
And to call this cool, I understand, I understand, I understand the addiction.
But the real cowardice is making it a religion, is making it a lifestyle.
That's the real cowardice.
To be addicted because of a terrible childhood is a very unfortunate thing, and I massively sympathize with it.
But let's not pretend it is something other than what it is.
You're trying to cauterize a wound so you don't have to protect yourself, so you don't have to confront the evildoers in your life.
You are squelching your natural response to a threat, which is to fight or flight, and turning it into...
A worship of a mind-altering substance.
And you end up addicted to a mind-altering substance because you won't take the fundamental life-altering substance called self-knowledge and philosophy.
And that's what's always bothered me about all of that.
And I'm very glad that I had the opportunity to say that.
Thank you so much for indulging me in that.
Go ahead. No, I'm not taking it like you're saying this to me.
And you know what? I was that.
Absolutely. Potheads, God, they have no idea how fucking annoying they are.
And they are. Because they're like the teenager you didn't have yet, you know?
Oh, man. It's always an excuse.
And then when they brag because they have nothing to brag about in their lives, like, you know, oh, I wrote this great novel.
I have this great career. I've been smoking 24-7 since I was 15 years old, man.
It's like, that's not something to brag about, dude.
That's embarrassing to hear.
But that is like, you're not a real stoner unless you're like that.
Yeah, absolutely.
Cheech and Chong have a lot to answer for.
That's all I'm saying. Right.
I was just watching something the other day where, you know, like you were saying, going to therapy is denigrated and that's true.
Oh, only crazy people need to go to therapy.
You don't need therapy, man.
You just need peyote.
You can get 20 years of therapy in one phantasmagorical night.
And it's like, no, you really can't.
I don't need a therapist to tell me I'm fucked up.
I'll just smoke this weed.
It's like, dude. Self-knowledge is a very complicated thing.
Would you say to someone, well, you've never been a pilot, but if you take peyote and fly me, I'm sure we'll get there just fine.
Yeah. Yeah, but that is the thinking, right?
So nothing's ever their fault.
It's always like, you know, say you didn't get up for work on time.
Oh, well, they must have changed the schedule.
Oh, I didn't check it.
Well, my memory's good. Well, I don't want to be enslaved to the man, man.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm fighting the system.
It's like, no, you're just broken.
And you're patching yourself together with bullshit.
Not you, but you know what I mean.
Not only are you broken, but you're mooching off of everybody around you.
And you're breaking other people by making it look cool.
Yes. By trying to pretend that this is some sort of radical alternative lifestyle.
The only radicalism, the only revolution is thought.
Thought, reason, self-knowledge, virtue, courage.
That is the revolution. Everything else is a bullshit substitute and avoidance.
Yeah, and I think that's exactly how it's used.
I mean, like, really, when you talk to people in stoner culture, when you get down to it, it's shitty relationships, shitty childhood, things they're running from.
Oh, I was gonna say with the weed, when you were talking before, it makes you weak, too, right?
It makes you weak. For me, currently, I live in a state where I can just go to a store and buy it.
But before, um, okay, so before I was living in California, before they legalized it there, too, I had to get it through illegal means.
And one of those illegal means was I would buy it from my dad, my dad, who's responsible for seven of those 10 on my ACE score.
I mean, you know, responsible for marrying my mom and everything, too.
But, um, I would buy it from him.
I would put up with his abuse so I could get some weed so I could forget about his abuse.
How fucking crazy is that?
And so you can't get safe?
No, and I felt like a prostitute while I was doing it.
I mean, it's nothing sexual. He's not the one that molested me, but...
It was like, okay, hey, you know, come clean my house because I'm a slob and I'll give you some fucking weed for it, but I'm going to denigrate you the whole time and yell at you and make fun of you for being fucking...
He would make fun of me for being addicted to weed when he's the one dealing weed to me and he's addicted to, you know?
And you put yourself in that weak position because you're like, well, at least I get my weed.
Right. Right.
Right. Well, and you really can't be particularly safe when you're around a bunch of addicts.
Because they're not reliable.
They're not trustworthy.
And they generally care more for their high than for people.
And so when you're bonded to...
A mind-altering substance, you can't be simultaneously bonded to people because the two are at opposite ends of the intimacy spectrum.
You know, like, it's like trying to have an intimate conversation with a drunk.
They say in vino veritas, in wine there is truth.
Well, there may be truth, but the truth is usually that people are vicious and ugly.
And the thing that I find in particular around stoner culture is for all of this, hey man, hippy-dippy love and peace and unity and stuff, you try challenging some of these assumptions and You will get a face full of cold rage like a shotgun blast from a hunter.
Like they get really, really mad when you start pushing at any of this kind of stuff.
Any of the dysfunction, any of the avoidance, any of the emotional immaturity, any of the cowardice, any of the addictive potential, any of the...
Not staying safe or not getting safe in your life.
You get a huge amount of rage from these supposedly peaceful people when you begin to question the coolness of this whole lifestyle.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
And like, you know, my brother, for example, I love him very much.
We're very close. We can talk about anything.
But there's that Uh, landmine, always buried and it's weed is at the center of it, you know, because he's also addicted to it.
And, you know, same boat as me, same childhood experiences.
And when I like for me, I'm trying to stop and I'm going to therapy later this year.
He was going to therapy for a while.
And then he stopped, and I was like, why did you stop?
And he's like, well, it costs too much, but he's smoking weed.
And I'm like, well, if you stop smoking weed, you could afford the therapist.
I'd rather spend my money on the weed than the therapist.
Again, I don't need a therapist.
I got weed. And it's like, that's a lie.
It's not true. You're always going to need the weed, but you go to the therapist, you don't need it.
It's not that you actually need it.
You're telling yourself, no. Right.
Yeah, it is. It is tragic stuff.
And it also has not escaped my attention that weed and the welfare state rose simultaneously.
Because if you are really addicted to weed, I mean, you tell me, I don't know, I've never tried it.
But if you are really addicted to weed, doesn't that make challenging cognitive jobs a little more challenging?
Um, if they're, well, yeah, for most people, I'd say yes.
Um, okay, not trying to fog here.
Personally, um, I'm, I'm really high intellectually.
So, um, I'm high in intellect and high in IQ. So, oh, yeah, sure.
Yeah. So, you know, of course, because I'm smoking weed, though, that, well, first off, I don't really want a career.
I love being a stay-at-home mom and wife.
But when I go out to get, so once in a while, I need to pick up a job for a little while because we want to save up to, you know, get a car, do a vacation or whatever.
So I'll pick up a job. Well, if I'm smoking cannabis, that limits what jobs I can apply for.
So if it's a chain store that's in between states, it's under federal, they have to drug test, you don't get hired.
So boom, your job market's cut in half right there, maybe more.
So say you...
You do get the job.
For me personally, I don't smoke while I'm at work.
I just, I don't want to be paranoid.
I don't want to look like an idiot when I'm talking to customers.
Like, I just personally, my own personal pride, I don't do it.
But of course, I've been around people that are smoking while we're there at work, and they look like fucking idiots.
And the customer knows, like, something they write.
You know, they're like, why are you so slow, dude?
Why are your eyes squinty? Why are you got red bloodshot eyes?
You know, it's like... And then if you're working a job that's got machinery, you know, heavy machinery, you work at Home Depot or something where they got the machines, they're moving tile, you get hurt, you get drug tested, well, too bad for you.
No insurance, no help.
You get your crushed arm and your life is altered because you were an idiot smoking pot going to work.
Yeah. And those kinds of situations are where the cost-benefit just seems very hard to justify.
I mean, the risks that you're taking are enormous.
And when did you stop smoking daily?
I'd say I made a hard commitment to not smoking daily six to eight months ago, maybe.
I've had, like I said before, the last time I talked to you, I've had periods of not smoking.
So when I was pregnant and breastfeeding, there was like three, four years there where I wasn't smoking.
But yeah, for recently, I committed to not being an everyday smoker about six to eight months ago.
When you were smoking and when you were younger, the one thing that has also bothered me, and not to pick on marijuana, I mean, alcohol has the same problem as I'm sure do other drugs.
Drugs. But when you are not smoking, the people who are smoking Ain't so much fun to be around.
It's the same thing if you're at a party and everyone's drinking and you're not drinking.
You're like, well, these people are just becoming annoying and uncoordinated, you know?
And so this is one of the traps that happens socially, which is why, you know, they say when people quit alcohol, like you can't be around the people you used to drink around because they're probably going to keep drinking and they may encourage you to drink or whatever, right?
Or you may feel that slippery slope.
And that's something that, to me, is one of the big problems.
I mean, I've certainly, very, very rarely, but I would occasionally be at parties where people might drink too much or even smoke some marijuana, and they would find their hands fascinating to sort of take these cliches, or they'd close their eyes to the dark side of the moon and be transported.
And it's like, I'd be like, well, this can be boring.
Yeah. Your hand isn't that interesting, and I like the music, don't get me wrong, but I can listen to the music anytime.
I'm here to socialize.
And if people are doing these kinds of behaviors, imbibing these alcohol or drugs, if you're not doing it, it's really kind of a bummer all around.
And this is one of the problems that happens as well.
It's a very non-inclusive It's a very non-inclusive kind of environment or culture, because if you ain't doing it, you ain't feeling it.
Oh yeah, and that's part of the problem I had with my marriage and everything too, because my husband doesn't smoke, he just doesn't really care for it.
So... We're good to go.
Eventually, it was like we weren't really hanging out a lot.
I wasn't getting a lot of his attention.
He didn't really want to hang out with me that much.
And so it's like, oh, I told myself, oh, we just don't have that much in common.
You know, we're just interested in other things.
These things don't overlap. And of course, when I'm stoned, like my interest level dumbs down.
So it's like, you know, I'll be reading, you know, Shakespeare and watching cognitive great things when I'm sober.
And then when I'm stoned, I'm like, I just want to put on a stupid comedy, you know, and not think.
You know, and my husband's like, that's freaking boring.
I don't want to do that. You know, so after sobering up, it's like we rediscovered each other again.
It was like, oh, here I am.
You know, we're hanging out all the time.
We're talking about all these great subjects we both love.
What am I going to do with these Adam Sandler CDs now?
Yeah. Hey, don't knock on him, Sandler.
He's a conservative. Oh, is that right?
Actually, I shouldn't say. I thought the daddy, whatever it was, big daddy, was actually pretty good.
All right.
Seth Rogen? Can we go with Seth Rogen?
So what are the movies to watch when you're stoned?
Oh, who are the people? Oh, my God.
Well, yeah, it would be like those kind of, you know, dumb action flicks.
Like, oh, God, I love Arnold Schwarzenegger and I love Nicolas Cage.
And they're not good actors, but they're great entertainers.
I love them even when I'm sober.
But like those movies, a stoner movie, it's like anything, you know, like Seth Rogen, I think you said, like those guys.
I like Adam Sandler films personally.
Grandma's Boy is a great film, whether you're sober or not.
But yeah, it was a lot of stupid things.
Oh, I would rewatch cartoons I'd seen a million times, like old Simpsons episodes, Futurama, Rick and Morty.
The things that stoners tend to like, these cartoons, I've seen them all many times.
I could recite episodes to you probably, but I would just watch those.
And it's like, dude, I've seen this 30 times.
Can we watch something else? How about some Jordan Peterson?
I can't think about Jordan Peterson right now.
Is there a cartoon of Jordan Peterson?
Actually, you know, and it's funny, too, because this just popped into my mind.
I can't remember the name of the actor who played the bully in Back to the Future.
He also played a gym teacher in Freaks and Geeks.
But he did a little musical routine where he said he was asked the question, who is the nicest person I've ever worked with in show business?
And he said, Adam Sandler.
So I just wanted to put that out there that it seemed a very genuine moment that he was talking about.
So maybe he is the very nicest person to work with in Hollywood.
Who knows? Yeah, Owen Benjamin sings his praises all the time.
I have to just say this guy probably knows better than I do.
Oh, I was going to say...
Thomas Francis Wilson Jr.
It just popped into me, not because my producer typed it.
I just have such a great memory.
No, just kidding. Of course.
Okay, that's the guy. I was going to say, there was something you talked about recently, and I wanted to bring this up to you.
Okay, so there's a Futurama episode.
I don't know if you ever... It's the guy that made The Simpsons.
He had this other show called Futurama, where it's like a guy from 1999 gets trapped a thousand years in the future and goes on shenanigans.
Yeah. I just know, shut up and give me your money.
That's the only thing I know from Futurama, and there's some weird robot with a long neck.
Okay, go ahead. Anyway, there's an episode where the main character, his professor, nephew, and the robot, they get trapped in a time machine that can only move forward in time.
So as they're moving forward in time, they're trying to come across another time period where somebody else has invented time traveling technology so they can go back to their time.
And they get to a time where there's like these peaceful alien guys running around and they're like, hey, you know, you guys look smart.
Have you invented time machines yet?
And they're like, no, but, you know, come back in seven years and we'll have it figured out.
You know, we're at war with this other species right now.
And then they come back and the other species is called the Dumblocks.
And it's like the humans have split into these smart creatures in the Dumblocks.
And so when they come back in seven years to see if the machine's been built, the Dumblocks have destroyed everything and everything's on fire.
It reminds me a lot of what's happening right now with like SJWs and all this.
Right, right.
Nice civilization you got there.
Be a shame if prejudice happened to it and the past came up like a claw from a grave and took you down.
You know, yeah. And then honestly, in line with that, the stoner culture thing...
It's a strange new world where they're drugging the people to keep them happy and docile.
It's a lot like that, but we're doing it to ourselves.
I was going to say, there are people like Joe Rogan who say, yo, have some moderation in this.
Learn about it first before you go doing it.
But for the most part, when it comes to stoners, it's the, hey man, let it go, 24-7, wake and bake.
And they get so insulted when you say that about them too.
Yeah, no, I'm a big fan of if you can do it naturally, you should do it naturally.
And if you can achieve happiness and self-respect and peace of mind and a good conscience without drug use, call me crazy, that's the way that I think it should be done.
Now, do you notice, of course, I mean, you mentioned this earlier, Michelle, but did you notice or do you notice how much of your childhood arises in your mind when it's not being suppressed through marijuana use?
Yeah. So, like I said, especially at night when I'm trying to go to sleep is the worst.
And then just, you know, I'll be doing the dishes and then some thought will just pop up in my head and I'll sit there dwelling on the memory for a minute and then I go, wait a minute, why am I thinking about this?
So, it's a fairly often thing that this comes up.
And is there any area in your life where there's still any risky dysfunction or problems that can erupt against you?
So, I've defood from my paternal side of the family, so I don't really have that risk.
And that's actually helped a lot.
It helped with my getting off of cannabis too, because a lot of the stress just from keeping contact with them made it really hard to get off of it.
I don't really have stoner friends anymore because they're really freaking annoying now.
I don't really have stoner friends.
See, I'm always listening for the hedge.
I'm always listening for the...
I'm sorry. For the most part, I don't strangle hobos anymore.
In general, I am not stomping on kittens.
I'm sorry. I don't go hanging out with stoners or anything in my life, but it's like I have friends that are, you know, I've known them since high school that like I still have, you know, in my Hangouts contact list that I'll type to once in a while.
I don't mean like...
So do you have people in your life who are doing drugs?
It's quite a pause.
No. Yes, I have a roommate that smokes weed, and it's not like a situation we want to be in, but this will be ending soon.
You have a roommate? Yeah.
You're in your 30s.
Why do you have a roommate? Because my husband and I make stupid decisions.
Okay, so basically, when my husband and I moved from California to the state we're living in currently, finances were kind of difficult.
We had a friend that also wanted to move away from his situation too.
And we were like, hey, we can all move together and roommate for a little bit until we can go our separate ways and that'll make the move easier.
So that's the situation we're in.
And it's not that I dislike the person or anything, but he does smoke cannabis.
And yeah, I can say no to smoking cannabis, but then it causes tension because it's like, oh, you're better than me.
And it's like, no, I just don't want to do it anymore.
Wait, wait, wait. Okay. Why have we been talking for so long and this comes up only because I ask?
You've given me a lot of words and I appreciate those words, but you may have been withholding just a little bit.
Okay. You mean like from having somebody in my vicinity?
Somebody in your house who's smoking weed.
Well, yes, but I'm an adult and I don't have to do it and, you know.
I understand that.
I understand that, but you just said there's tension involved.
Quick question. How often does he smoke weed?
Like every day.
Is he around your child?
Is your child around when he smokes weed?
Okay, he has to leave the house to do it, but he is inebriated in the house, yes.
So you have a stoner around your child.
Yes, and we are trying to remedy that situation.
We've told him he needs to be, you know, moving out.
But I understand that was a bad decision in the first place.
Hmm. Yeah, nothing's more expensive than cheaper sometimes, right?
Yeah, and at the time I was smoking too, so it's not like I was making a great decision on that regard, you know?
I was like, well, I'm doing it too, it's okay.
And your husband was like, sure, two for one, that sounds great.
Well, he was like, eh, well, okay...
So we all had a sit-down before we did this move, and we were like, look, if we're all going to move, fine.
We're going to have to treat it like a partnership because we're all going to have to be paying rent and on the lease and making sure the bills are paid until we decide to go our separate ways in this.
So we had this sit-down and talk, and he was like, you guys can't be getting stoned 24-7.
To me, his wife, he needs a wife and a partner, and to this guy who's...
Our roommate, you know, we can't have problems.
We can't have problem people coming around.
We can't have him not paying his side of the rent because he smoked at all.
So far, he's been very good.
He does pay his rent and his bills, but...
And just out of curiosity, what does he do for a living?
He... I don't want to, like, say where he works or anything.
No, no, just the field. Right.
Package handling, I guess you could say that.
A what? Package handling, like shipping...
Oh, he moves stuff. He's like a human forklift.
Yeah, yeah, there you go. Excellent.
Excellent. So, sounds like it's working out well for him.
Right, right.
Human potential up in smoke.
Right. And that was part of the deal.
It was like, okay, you know, he and my husband were supposed to work together because like my husband does freelance work with computers and coding and everything.
And this guy was supposed to handle, he was supposed to do what he needed to do to get licensed in the field for the networking side of it.
And then they were going to work together.
But because...
He's not holding up his end of the bargain.
Wait, wait, wait. Hang on. I'm so sorry to interrupt, Michelle.
I apologize, but I just really want to follow this.
This is more for your husband than for you, or maybe for both.
Sure, sure. Sorry. So your husband is like, well, this guy smokes weed every day.
I'm sure he's going to be really great at getting his professional accreditation in the networking field.
Okay, so when we first had this conversation, this guy was like, oh, I don't smoke every day.
I just smoke on the weekends.
You know, he presented that he was more grown up than he was, and we didn't do our due diligence to make sure that that was the case.
So you have a stoner around your child and you and your husband who's also a liar about very important things.
Yes. Right.
So you wonder why you're having childhood flashbacks these days?
That's a good point. Come on.
Wow. Well, that's why when you have these kinds of flashbacks, it's because your fight or flight system is being activated by something.
Quick question. Your father who used drugs, did he also lie?
Oh, yeah. Of course he did.
So you have a liar and a drug addict in your house.
Like your dad. Yeah.
And then you wonder why you're drawn back and can't give up marijuana.
Ah. Boom, right?
Boom. Yes.
Boom. Listen, you'll always have your childhood.
It'll always be there. Because it's part of you, right?
You can't remove it anymore.
Then you can remove your spine and still walk around.
But the question is, what triggers you?
What triggers you?
I mean, I have, I'll tell you this, very consciously, very specifically designed my life.
No triggers for the StephBot.
That does not occur for me.
I do not get triggered.
I do not have people in my life who trigger me.
I don't put myself in situations where I get triggered.
I mean, occasionally, I'll get into some interview with someone where it'll be a bit of a...
Bait and switch, a little bit of a shiv, a little bit of a gotcha.
That's pretty rare. And it's not the end of the world.
But yeah, for the most part, I've very much specifically designed my life around...
I had enough of being triggered when I was a kid, when I didn't have any control over my life.
And I can't imagine, Michelle, for you, that a guy who works moving boxes and spends a lot of his money on weed is contributing a massive amount to your household.
No. No.
And that's also part of the stress, too.
Yeah. So it's charity and trauma.
And your kid gets to be around a stoner who lies.
Yeah. When's he moving out again?
What's the plan here? Well...
On that, it's like either way, my husband and I, we're leaving this place in a year.
And it's like, I don't want to give this guy a year to get out.
A year? Yeah.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
You know, he's good at moving stuff, right?
How about he grab his own ass and throw himself out the front steps?
Well, that's the way I see it.
But my husband is like, well, I don't...
Why should you deal with the stress of it better than my husband?
Why should you deal with the stress of it at all?
The guy lied. You owe him nothing.
He lied. No, I know, but it's not like they...
Okay, say, you know, we're in an apartment complex.
We're trying to say, okay, dude, you got to go.
Well, he can theoretically stand outside and yell at the top of his lungs until our neighbors call the police, you know, things like that.
It's like, I don't think he would do those kind of things.
Wait, what? No, no. If the guy...
Wait, are you being held hostage in your own home because you're afraid this guy is going to stalk you?
Well, no, that's the way I feel about it, but my husband thinks I'm being too neurotic, and my neuroticism is 98%.
No, no, listen, if the guy does that, you call the cops.
I don't quite understand the problem here.
That's the way I see it.
He's like, I don't want any of that involved.
He just doesn't want the stress of it.
Of kicking this guy out?
Yeah, of any fight that might ensue from it, yeah.
Well, why don't you guys move then?
That's the plan, but it's going to take us a year.
Oh, because you got a lease.
Yes, we have a lease.
And then my husband, like I said, he freelances, and he just went through some transitional stuff, and things are evening out again, which is great.
Oh, you mean he wasn't making much money, so you need this donor's money?
No, no, no. My husband makes enough money for us to survive.
I don't... Like, because he's a freelancer, so I don't want to, like, talk about his clients and stuff.
Basically, his biggest client retired, and so he had to ship to get more clients, and that's all taken care of now, so our income's fine.
It's just, like, now we're saving up to be able to move.
But why don't you just break your lease?
Because it's very expensive to do that.
Well, compared to what?
Fair enough. Compared to another year of stress, another year of appeasement, another year of you being tempted by drugs, another year of your son being around somebody who's a drug addict, compared to what?
Is the stoner on the lease?
No. That's part of the issue too.
Can't you just ask him to leave?
I mean, he's there at your pleasure, right?
He's got no legal standing to stay, right?
Yeah, and that's the way I see it.
But the problem is, like, what if he goes to the manager and is like, hey, I've been staying there without permission and yada yada.
Like, you know, we put ourselves in a stupid pickle.
Well, then stop appeasing.
Because if you appease your way out of this, you'll be more likely to get into a stupid pickle again.
Yes. Yes, that's true.
We're trying to avoid that. Now, the appeasement is the new drug, right?
Uh-huh. Yes.
Do you think this guy is going to go bunny boiler on you?
I don't think so.
Okay, well then just say to the guy, look, it's been fun.
How long has he been staying there for?
Oh, gosh. It's been a year.
So we've been here a year. We're going to be here for another year and then we're leaving.
Okay, so say to the guy, listen, it's been great.
But, you know, we're changing.
I don't know. Say you're going to try and have another kid or, I don't know, you want to have noisy sex when your kid's asleep.
I don't know, whatever, right? But just say that you...
You know, you're going to ask him to move on.
You're going to give him his two weeks or give him a month or whatever, but he's going to have to move on.
You know, like, you're in your 30s.
You shouldn't need roommates anymore.
Like, there's an old saying, there's anybody who's been seen on a bus after the age of 30 has been a failure in life.
That may be a bit strong. But, you know, or you can just call the cops and say, this guy broke in.
We don't know who he is. I'm just kidding.
Don't do that. Don't lie to the cops.
Just a joke. Right, right.
No, you can just tell them to leave.
You know? Yeah.
It's, you know, this...
It's not working out.
And it was never designed to be permanent, right?
You guys weren't going to live together until you died, right?
So it's like, yeah, you know...
You have to do it for your kid, right?
What would your kid prefer? What would your son prefer?
If he could, you know, snap his fingers and make whatever happens happen, what would he prefer?
Oh, he would definitely prefer that we didn't have a roommate.
Well, that's your answer then, isn't it, my friend?
Yes. Now, why is your husband not cognizant of that and acting on that?
You mean like how it's affecting our son?
Yeah. And you, for that matter.
I mean, he knows that your father was a marijuana addict and a liar, so he knows that this guy is going to trigger you, right?
Well, I don't know.
Like, honestly, I hadn't thought of it like that until you said.
I know, but that's because you've got the history.
It's his job to see that, right?
Okay. I mean, if your husband wants you to stop smoking so much, why is there a daily chronic wake-and-bake addict in the house?
Okay, so when I've had that conversation with him, basically what he has said to me is, well, it is your responsibility to be in control of yourself.
And I do agree with that.
No, no, no, no. If he's so much in control, how about he assert control over the apartment and get the guy out?
If control is so important to him, why doesn't he exercise control and just get this guy out?
And the whole point is exposure.
Everybody knows that when you're trying to quit an addictive substance, you don't put yourself in that environment.
You could say to the guy who's quitting alcohol, well, just go on to bars anyway and go hang around with people who are drinking all night anyway.
You've got self-control, haven't you?
It's like, well, no, because you're an addict, which means that you need to be in an environment where you're not constantly being stimulated with your drug of choice.
Okay, yeah, of course, that's...
So obvious. Wow.
And Mr. Wakey-Bakey is not helping at all.
No. And if your son wants him gone, get him gone.
Okay. All right.
Yes, yes. Thank you so much for this conversation.
You are welcome. And thank you so much for allowing me to find out just how many people in my audience are chronic users, because I'm sure I'll hear about it.
And do let us know how it goes.
Oh, absolutely. I would...
Sorry to interrupt. It doesn't have to be hostile with the guy.
I just sort of want to point that out.
I mean, obviously, the guy is comfortable with where he is, and I imagine he's getting away with not paying a whole lot.
But it doesn't, like, you can say, listen, you know, if you have a car, you can help him look, you can, you know, help him find a place, you can give him a decent reference if you want.
Like, it doesn't have to be Get out, you bum!
You can make it in a way that's going to be positive in the long run for him.
Because you realize if you're undercharging him for rent, you're enabling his addiction, right?
It's not good for him. Yeah.
No, we charge him the full amount.
It's just like he doesn't have to deal with other things.
Because I'm a stay-at-home wife, I tend to just do the dishes.
I don't make him do his own dishes, things like that.
So it's like he doesn't have to deal with a lot of the day-to-day stuff.
So cheap rent with live-in made.
Yeah, that's not... Yeah.
You know, help the guy to grow up a little.
I'm sure he'll thank you in the long run.
But it can be a positive and warm experience.
It doesn't, like, last time I, before I got married, I was living with a woman.
And when we broke up, she helped me find a new place.
And it was not a horrible and hostile situation at all.
And so, yeah, this doesn't have to be something negative and hostile.
But I hope it works out.
And do let us know what happens, all right?
Right. And if I come at it at that approach, then maybe it'll be more amicable and maybe even he'll think it's his idea.
So, yes, thank you so much.
I will definitely write in again.
And thank you so much. Have a great night, guys.
You're welcome. Thanks very much. Okay, up next we have Rowan.
Rowan wrote in and said, My question has come to me over the last couple days as I have been thinking about your videos on the Syria conflict.
I am a former Navy sailor, and specific skills I am qualified for make me very in demand in a wartime scenario.
This means that I can be recalled to service before a draft starts, and my name is on the get-these-guys-quick list.
I am afraid of this happening, but at the same time, no, I won't hesitate should the call come.
Is it just a result of my life training as a disposable male drone for the female queens that make me willing to fight in a war I oppose with every reasoned thought I have on the subject?
Or is there something more going on?
That's from Rowan. Rowan, how are you doing, brother?
I'm doing all right. How about you?
I'm well. I'm well, thanks.
I'm well. Disposable male.
Wow, there's a woke phrase.
Where did you first come across that idea?
Other than looking around this ship.
Ha ha ha. Actually, from you.
I've been listening in for probably about eight months now.
It's funny, you know, I was just watching...
There's a show, a Netflix show, Lost in Space, and I've been watching it.
And it really is fascinating.
I watched a little bit of it with my daughter, and Spot the Disposable Mail has become quite a...
Something dangerous needs to happen.
Okay, my daughter, do you think it's going to be A, a female, or B, a male?
And she's always like, it's going to be a male.
But she's also figured out the suspense is down because it's like, no, he's on the cover.
He can't die.
He's on the poster. He can't die.
So she's figured all that sort of stuff out.
But this disposable male stuff is really fascinating.
And there was a scene in it.
Sorry, this can be a bit of a spoiler.
It's not a huge spoiler, but it's a bit of a spoiler.
There's this, I don't know, she's like 15 or 16 year old girl who has some vague medical knowledge and they're desperately trying to get something that they need to get off the planet.
And it's in a fuel tanker and then the fuel tanker tips over and pins the guy under it.
And if they pull him out, all the fuel leaks away and they can't get on the planet and literally everyone dies within two weeks for various reasons.
I mean, the whole thing is you're stuck in a revolving door of disaster, disaster, disaster.
It's kind of exhausting, but you know, that's all right.
And so this tanker tips over, crushes the guy, and it's like, he's dead.
Come on. I mean, the whole tanker crushed the guy.
It's just a matter of time.
But the girl, who's very pretty and all, the girl is like, we have to save him.
And there's this rational guy with this, you know, entire shelf load of hair going on up there.
But there's this rational guy who's like, we can't save him.
And if we lift him, we're going to lose all the fuel and hundreds of people are going to die.
Like, sorry, that's not that complicated a calculation.
I'm sorry for the guy, but he's going to die anyway, but if we try and save him.
But anyway, so what happens is she literally is like batting her eyes, but he's unhappy, and I've got health knowledge and medical knowledge, and I can save him, won't you, please, please?
And the guy's like, okay, fine, and he lifts him up, but of course they lose all the fuel, and the guy dies anyway.
And the rational guy is like, to hell with you all, I'm taking off of the spaceship.
I can completely understand this perspective.
I had a long conversation with my daughter about this sort of very question.
And I just thought, you know, it's not a direct analogy for the migrant crisis, but it's not far off either.
So I just sort of wanted to point that out while we were talking about disposable mails.
Because, yes, but the disposable mail, it's kind of one of these things.
Like, this disposable mail meme is just...
Astounding. And when you see it, it's kind of tough to unsee it.
Did you feel that when you were in the Navy directly?
Or was it something you only figured out later?
Well, I'm in kind of a weird situation with that.
I actually went to basic and I was there for long enough to complete most of training.
But then I had a minor injury.
And got stuck in what they call a med hold unit, which is basically stare at the wall all day and go to meals.
And so after that, I had a mild psychotic episode, basically early onset depression, and they removed me for the time.
So I never actually made it quite that far.
Oh, okay. And what do you mean psychotic?
Was it like a psychotic break?
If you don't mind me asking, what happened?
Like I said, it was more kind of the early onset of depression.
It was mostly brought on because I ended up in the hold unit for a full week.
And after that...
I'm sorry, what is the hold unit?
Yeah. It's called med hold.
What it is, is if you sustain any injuries during training that aren't serious enough for them to send you home right away, they send you into a med hold unit to try to recover from that injury so you can go back to training.
You mean like if you sprain your ankle kind of thing, then they'll try and patch you up and get you back out there?
Yes. And that's actually very similar to what happened to me.
I ended up Pulling the arch of my foot.
Oh, that's nasty.
Oh, yeah. Oh, that thing, because, you know, you got to walk, right?
And it's like, oh, I've stretched it.
I've never broken it. But, oh, that's a nasty one.
Oh, man. And it throbs like crazy, right?
Oh, yeah. And the boots that they give you have no arch support in them whatsoever.
And they give you these cheap, the cheapest pair of tennis shoes they can get.
Um, for, uh, PT for exercise during training.
Oh yeah. And it's just horrible.
Like you're just pounding directly on any bunions you might have.
You'd be better off with like some, a couple of magazines and some duct tape.
Yeah. And, um, what ended up happening was, um, the actual injury, if I remember correctly, happened on, I think a Friday or Saturday night.
And, um, The Navy's training station is up in Illinois, and it's the only one they have for basic.
And there's a naval hospital literally right across the street.
So they took me to the hospital, did an x-ray to make sure I didn't break anything, and they put me in an orthopedic boot, of course, with no arch support again, and sent me back to go to the on-base orthopedist Monday morning.
And so I went there Monday morning.
Literally all he did was take an insole with a plastic high arch support on it, stick it in my boot, told me put my boots back on, see how it felt.
Next day I was up, I was walking around again after spending all weekend on crutches, and I was ready to go.
Well, it turns out the orthopedist decided that Tuesday, which was the next day, he was going on vacation for the rest of the week, which is why I was stuck there for as long as I was.
You'd think for the hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars a year for the military, they could get something that would protect the soldier's feet, right?
I mean, an army marches on its stomach but walks on its feet.
Yes. I mean, I guess maybe they figure it's the Navy.
We don't have to do that much walking.
We're on a ship all the time.
Yeah, tiny ships.
Don't have to walk at all of those ships.
Oh, Lord. But...
I literally...
I was supposed to go to physical therapy every day, which I did, to supposedly recover from this injury.
And... There was another orthopedist there that was working, but because I had not been assigned to her, she refused to even look at me and check me out to clear me to go back because I was not her patient.
Oh, and they want the government to run healthcare, right?
I know, right?
Just look at the VA! Oh gosh.
I dodged a bullet on that one.
We'll have that story in a sec, but go on with the foot.
But anyway, like I said, when you're stuck in med hold, you are in the Navy.
They don't call them barracks.
Your barracks room is called your compartment.
So you're stuck in the compartment.
You're not allowed to go anywhere.
You're not allowed to do anything except for go to meals.
So I'm sitting there.
I've already been going over the material I've supposed to have been studying a dozen times.
I'm so tired of it.
It's exhausting. And so I'm just sitting there staring at a wall.
The next Monday, the guy's back.
I get checked. My training division had gone past the point where I could rejoin and catch up.
And so after spending six weeks with these people, getting to know them, they become a lot like family to you.
And I do apologize.
I'm actually tearing a little bit just for...
You got a little pounding.
Sorry to interrupt you, Rowan.
You got a little pounding on your mic.
Are you thumping or touching something?
I'm moving around a lot.
I'm sorry. I'll... Yeah, I hate to ask you to not, but it's thumpy, thumpy.
I understand. You were saying that after six weeks, they're like family, right?
Yes. Because you're with these people 24-7...
You have no contact with the outside world whatsoever.
There's no news, there's no TV, anything like that.
So these are your only connections that you have.
And so after six weeks with them, being told you're going to get sent to a completely different division with people that you've never met.
Who already have their own bonds, right?
Exactly. Exactly.
I mean, you use the analogy all the time of, like, refugees from the Middle East coming over and trying to integrate.
It's almost the same kind of concept.
And so...
I got very depressed, started having thoughts about self-harm and suicide.
And so... I went to one of the drill instructors and I told them and so they sent me for psych eval and after that they decided to separate me.
Oh. Why would you put in a psych eval?
I went and told one of the drill instructors that I was having these thoughts and that I was scared of what might happen.
Oh. Yes.
Right. That was one of the first things they told us when we get there is if you ever start feeling anything weird or especially like with self-harm or suicide to let them know right away.
Sure. Just because of course they don't want to keep you in those stressful situations to the point where you might actually attempt something and then they can be held liable.
Right. So, I did not actually finish training, but I was there long enough to clear certain requirements for both the job that I had selected going in, and that job also required a security clearance, and so I had passed all those requirements, and so that's what makes me a...
I guess you could say a high-demand person.
Okay, so the security part is significant, right?
The security clearance, yes, but also the technical skills.
The job I was going for was actually to learn to operate the reactors for aircraft carriers and submarines.
I'm not a military man, but that does seem important as a whole, just from the outside looking in.
Okay, that seems significant.
Don't take any photos and send them to your girlfriend.
That seems to be the key. Oh gosh, no.
But it is one of the highest demand fields in the Navy.
Sure. They are always at a shortage.
To put it in a little bit of perspective for you, my training division was made up of 88 recruits, and I'd say probably at least 60 of them were slated for the nuke path.
What happened with the VA? Well, I've never actually had to go.
You said you dodged a bullet on that, right?
Well, the potential of having to deal with them in the future.
Oh, right. Okay. With all the issues that I've been hearing about it, I'm glad I'm not involved in that kind of bureaucracy.
So, what's going on with the rest of your life, Rowan?
How are things in work and love and so on?
Well, I guess I'll start with work because that's simpler.
I know you don't like specific details, but I've gotten in on the ground floor of a new company.
I don't think this is too specific.
We do lawn care, as far as taking care of people's grass through fertilization and taking care of weeds, that kind of thing, not just cutting grass.
We're growing very rapidly.
We're looking at adding our first new branch, I believe, next year.
It's an odd coincidence, second call about weed tonight, but anyway, let's keep going.
Different kind of weeds, and I don't think they would take very kindly to what I do to them.
But it's a great opportunity for me, just based on how rapidly we're growing.
They're going to have to promote from within to find qualified candidates.
And a management position pays very well for what it is.
So it's a really exciting prospect.
I've been learning and absorbing all the science and everything behind it like crazy.
For something I never thought I would really enjoy.
It's actually incredibly fascinating.
Good, good. And love life?
I am currently dating and living with my girlfriend.
That's a lot more complicated issue.
We have our good days. We have our bad days.
And I'm actually...
As of the moment, looking for options to get out of my current relationship.
You know what would be one option to get you out of your current relationship, Rowan?
War! What would that be?
Well, it is, but that's an absolute last resort.
No, no, no, I get that. But the reason I'm asking you this...
Is that you'd be willing to fight in a war.
Right? I mean, don't get me wrong.
I don't think that tens of thousands of Syrians should die just to you to get away from a potential bag of crazy, but some of the reasons why people want to escape their life is because their life is becoming too complicated.
And war, as you know, or the military, simplifies a lot for people, right?
Where are you going to be? I'm pretty sure I know that.
When am I going to get up? Where am I going to eat?
What's going to happen? It's pretty clear, right?
Yes. And I have a couple of things to say about that.
Number one, there is no potential to that crazy.
Wait, what do you mean? It is a crazy relationship.
How crazy are we talking?
What do we got here? Um...
On a scale of one to ten, I'd probably say about an eight and a half.
Woo! Man!
Okay, give me a scene.
You know, if this is like how they have these montages in movies, you know, like how they met, we're giggling, we're running through fields.
Now you know what the top of wheat feels like.
What do we got here on the montage of Rowan and the lady?
What's she doing? What's going on?
Okay. So I guess I'll start with how we met.
Online! Somewhat.
It's like I'm psychic. We met through a mutual friend online, but we did actually meet in person very soon afterwards.
And we went out and spent time together in person.
I'd say at least five or six times before actually getting together officially.
And what were the warning signs that you ignored, my friend?
Well, I really didn't take time to see them.
And I was really not in a good place.
And what were the warning signs that you ignored, my friend?
Just answer the question!
Don't make me give you an order!
No, I'm kidding. All right. No, what were the warning signs?
Yes, sir. Well, the biggest one probably going into it is that she is transgender.
Yeah. So all the craziness and mental instability that comes with that.
And at what point in the dating side of things did you find out or did she tell you that she was transgender?
I knew that going in.
I believe we discussed it earlier.
As one of the first things we talked about online before meeting in person.
And is this female to male or male to female?
Male to female. Male to female.
And do you want to have kids?
I would say...
As of right now, it's a total no.
Not to do anything with the relationship, but just because of how crazy the world's going and where I am currently in life, I'm just not able to support even a marriage,
much less a child. And as far as being concerned that the world is going in a crazy direction, do you think that the transgender relationship is either A, making your world saner, or B, making it slightly less sane?
You know, you can't control the direction of the world, but you can control the direction of your penis, right?
Correct. Well, I do have to amend, and this is another level of crazy, There is no penis involved because she is asexual.
Now, asexual, do you mean no sex drive or no sex desire or no sex organs?
Total distaste for.
Oh, total distaste for sexuality.
Yes. Okay. Does she come from an abusive childhood by chance?
From what I understand, very much so, yes.
Right. Was she sexually molested as a child?
Not that I'm aware of.
Most of it, from what I understand, consisted of verbal.
And what is it that you find attractive about this person?
I mean, and like I said, said I'm trying to find a way out of this because I've come to realize that the initial attraction that was there really isn't anymore.
And what was the initial attraction?
Initially, it was just really a desire to be with someone because I had just gotten out of a relationship that I thought was very good, but...
It ended very badly.
Oh, like this one. I mean, that's not a brain surgery pattern to detect, right?
Well, I don't think this one will end quite as badly because I don't think I'll end up being completely stabbed in the back from it.
And what happened with the last one?
The last one, we were dating about three months.
This was a long-distance relationship.
And the way he broke up with me was that he said, I thought that By dating you and making you happy because it's something you would want, it would make me happy, but that's not the way it worked out, and it was never really love for him to begin with.
Right. Okay.
Okay. And have you dated women at all, or is it men?
I've had a couple of dates before, never a real relationship.
Would you say that you're bisexual?
Yes. Okay.
All right. And where would you put yourself on the sort of 1 to 10 sexual market value scale?
Not very high.
I'd say 5, maybe a 6 on a good day.
And why is that? What do you feel is missing?
I'm not very attractive.
I'm probably about 30 pounds overweight.
I just, I've never been one for quote-unquote style, so I just wear whatever's comfortable, no matter, even if it doesn't look the best.
I'm very utilitarian in that aspect.
Right, I understand, I understand.
Mm-hmm. And what do you think the odds are of you being able to find love in the near future, given the track record of the last little while?
Not very high, which is why I'm not looking to move to another relationship.
I'm just trying to get myself to a point where I'm stable and I can get out on my own and support myself.
Right. And what do you think...
Do you think that there are steps that you could take, Rowan, to increase your sexual market value?
And by that, I don't just mean like being pretty or anything, but in terms of like romantic market value or soul partner market value, are there things that you could do to make yourself more attractive to people who are more stable?
I mean, appearance-wise, I could definitely work on that, work on losing some weight.
Try to get back down to a healthy level.
Like I said, with the job I'm working at, it's great.
I'm pretty high up on the list for promotion, so I'm working towards that.
Other than that, I'm not really sure.
Right, okay. Because...
We have to have things going on that are wonderful in our life in order to be able to resist, for you, the siren song of war, right?
You say you understand a sort of disposable male and so on, but there is a draw to a kind of structure in war.
And there are people, I'm sure you've known them as well, who look back and say that their time in war was the best time they ever had.
Mm-hmm. And...
Yeah, go ahead. Um...
I do have to say, one of the more appealing things about it, actually one day while I was in BASIC, I think I had a medical exam to go to, so I ended up going to breakfast separate from the rest of my division.
And when you do that, you have to check in with the civilian kitchen staff that's on duty, let them know what division you're with and everything so they can keep track of who's eaten and who hasn't.
Um, and I was standing there to check in and the guy working looked at me and he just said, you know, I could see you running this whole thing one day.
Right. And not gonna lie that that was a big prideful moment for me.
Right. Right.
So, if we can't organize structure in our own lives or have things to look forward to in our own lives, and look, the professional career, the lawn stuff, that is not...
I don't want to say that that's not consequential.
That's important, but that's not enough to live.
You know, we work to love, right?
We work so that we can enjoy our relationships.
And if your relationships aren't particularly satisfying or if you're scared of dating or if you've had a bad track record in the recent past and if you have complicated stuff going on at the moment...
Then escaping to a life of greater structure can be important.
I'm not putting you in the same category, but I think about the Antifa and other places.
How much love can they really have going on in their lives to the point where they want to come and attack people who are assembling for free speech, right?
And so if there's enough going on in your life that it would break your heart to be separated from civilian life, then that's going to be the barrier in a sense to being seduced by the goddess of war.
Whereas if you don't have quite as much going on, then it's like, yeah, okay, I could go do that.
You know, at least I know what that's all about.
There's structure in that.
There's companionship in that.
I won't be lonely.
Right?
Because this is the other thing, too, of course, in the military, companionship, friendship, comrades.
Comrades are everywhere, right?
Yes, to a large degree.
And one other thing I did want to bring up into this is as far as the disposability aspect goes, it's not just related to the military.
It goes into my everyday life as well.
For instance, like To tie this into recent events, the shootings and everything that have been going on.
Like, in my mind, I know...
Sorry, you mean the school shootings?
Yes, things like schools, businesses...
Malls and so on. Yeah, okay.
Yes. I mean, I've gotten to the point where in my mind, I know that if something like that were to happen...
I would be the first one running towards the sound of gunfire instead of away from it.
Don't try and get a job in Broward County then.
I hear that's not a big demand for them these days.
Yeah. Talk about things that piss me off.
But like, even in a situation like that, I'd rather put myself in line of fire first than let somebody else get hurt because I don't do something.
And that's how you're going to provide value to the world, right?
Is saving strangers rather than saving yourself for those who love you.
Yeah. And that's why the antidote to war is love.
If you have enough personal connection and personal contact and love and worship and adoration in your life and people who you love as well, then the question of sacrifice for strangers becomes a little easier to resolve.
You know, pro tip, I'm real sorry, bad things are happening to you, but I'm coming home to my family.
You know, I'll make the call.
I'll direct people, but I'm staying safe because I want to get home to my family and they want me to come home because my daughter wants me as a father, not a gravestone of self-sacrifice.
And my wife wants me as a husband, not an article in a newspaper about the hero who ended up holy.
Yeah. And you need people in your life who are going to stand between you and self-sacrifice.
But for that, you need love.
Because the phrase disposable male, does it not also apply to your last relationship wherein you were the disposable male to your boyfriend?
Yeah. So, to hell with disposability...
Go for love. Which means don't allow yourself to be used, which means don't use other people.
If you ended up dating this transgender person because you were lonely, then you're kind of using that, right?
Yeah, I definitely was.
So don't use people, don't be used, and you'll have less of a desire for war.
Bring value through virtue, not through self-sacrifice.
Thank you.
Beloved, and really dodge bullets.
I mean, I guess...
The problem I have is just trying to find these relationships that mean that much.
No, no, no. You can't find these relationships.
You have to be virtuous and the relationships will find you.
You can't go out and just say, well, I'm going to be the same person, but I'm going to massively upgrade the kind of person I'm dating.
There's a reason why you're dating people who you can't connect with and commit to, or who can't commit to you.
Yes. Right? There's a reason for that.
And once you figure out that reason, Once you figure out why you're putting your heart in harm's way over and over again, once you figure out that reason, you won't be attracted to those kinds of people anymore.
And not only will you be attracted to better kinds of people, but those kinds of people will be attracted to you.
This is always about working on the self.
It's always about elevating the self.
It's always about improving the self.
It's sort of like saying, well, I want to aim at a job that pays me $100,000 a year.
But you can't aim at that job.
What you can do is aim to improve your skills to the point where you're worth Well north of $100,000 a year.
If you're worth $150,000 or $200,000 a year, then you'll get paid $100,000 a year, minus the overhead of whatever, right?
So you can't just say, well, I want to make that amount of money.
If you have that goal to make more money, then what happens is you improve your skills.
You take risks. You educate yourself.
You develop a whole new talent stack, as Scott Adams calls it, or add to it.
So you don't aim and say, well, I just want to become healthy.
You aim at particular actions that are going to lead towards health.
You want to lose your 30 pounds, you know what to do.
Exercise and eat right. I mean, it's not complicated.
It's not easy to achieve, always, but it's not that complicated.
And so you can't aim at love.
You can aim at virtue.
You can do specific actions that are going to make you happier with yourself, make you have more self-respect and a higher regard for yourself and justified pride in your actions.
And then you are worthy of love.
And that's the only way of achieving it.
But you can't just aim at love any more than you can aim at health or you can aim You've got a $100,000 a year job.
You have to simply work on yourself and then you rise.
You rise like a helium balloon underwater.
You can't stop that rise if you work on yourself and you can't summon that rise if you don't.
And I've definitely been taking the first couple of steps down that road, especially since finding your stuff.
I mean, it's life changing.
Thank you.
I mean, that's what made me realize that I'm not happy in the relationship that I am now and that I need to be looking for something better.
Yeah, I mean, certainly if you're a young man who enjoys sex, asexuality may not be the highest level of compatibility.
You know, just a theoretical possibility.
Yes. So if you're using each other to avoid loneliness, you'll just end up with more loneliness, of course, right?
Mm-hmm. All right.
Well, I would recommend I have this book called Real Time Relationships that I don't talk about enough, which I should.
Real Time Relationships.
And you can find that book at freedomainradio.com and hopefully that will have some helpful stuff.
Nathaniel Brandon has some great self-help workbooks.
John Bradshaw has some as well and there are others that you can find, probably more recent, that can help you sort of map yourself.
Jordan Peterson has some great self-mapping work that you can look into as well that I think can give you a greater sense of your own...
Capacities and your own character and self-knowledge is the fundamental helium that drives the rise.
So I wish you the very best of luck moving forward with all of that stuff.
If you root yourself in love, you'll stop rooting for war, even at an unconscious level.
Thanks everyone so much for listening.
Please have a look at the video that I put out today.
I don't say this a massive amount, but the video called My Cancer Diagnosis Five Years Later is something that I promised myself I was going to do five years ago when I first announced my cancer diagnosis.
Now five years cancer-free.
I'm very, very happy with that, and I think it will be quite...
Inspiring and powerful for you.
The video is called My Cancer Diagnosis, five years after, five years later.
So I hope that you will check that out.
Thank you everyone so much for listening. Don't forget to pick up your copy of the book called Yes, it is well named.
The Art of the Argument.
You can find that at theartoftheargument.com.
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My lovelies, my beauties, my comrades in arms when it comes to philosophy.
I really appreciate your love, your support, your kindness, and your feedback.
