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June 4, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:37:13

JUMP START YOUR LIFE! Stefan Molyneux Livestream

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	I appreciate everyone coming by.
	It's great to chat with you guys tonight.
	I was thinking about people who are stuck, particularly young men.
	Young women can kind of surf the hormones of male regard, but for young men in particular, it seems to be really, really tough to get your life going.
	I think this is even more true for young white men as it is for other ethnicities, but I I wanted to share with you some ways that I managed to get my life going.
	So for those of you who don't know, I grew up, and it's funny because, you know, there's rumors floating around.
	They're not entirely rumors, but they're rumors that are floating around that have to do with, you know, Steph, if you were so poor, why did you go to a private school for a couple of years?
	And yes, I did.
	From the age of six to eight, I went to A private school in England.
	It was a boarding school, so yeah, it's kind of early to be away from home, but I did go and that was paid for by my father.
	But after that, and particularly after we came to Canada when I was 11, we really fell down from sort of lower middle class to really, really poor.
	Like eviction notice poor.
	Have to eat questionable food kind of poor.
	I got my first job when I was 10.
	I worked in a bookstore starting at 11.
	I was a dishwasher.
	I worked in a bookstore putting newspapers together.
	I worked in a hardware store.
	I worked in a shelving store.
	I was a waiter.
	I did a lot of jobs.
	I was an office cleaner.
	I did a lot of jobs.
	And, you know, it's funny because at the time, this is sort of one of the things I want to get across, is at the time I hated that.
	I hated it.
	Like, you wouldn't even believe.
	I knew some of my family history, how we'd been intellectuals and aristocrats, and on my father's side there are well-educated, erudite people.
	One of my ancestors was best friends with John Locke, and on my mother's side, She's got an uncle who won a poetry award and wrote a book on unions and won an award and lots of intellectuals and so on and just illustrious and it just felt like we were doing this Victorian kind of tumble down into the evil Kenevial Stygian depths of there's no bottom to how far you can fall and kind of trying to rescue that was
	An important thing for me.
	And at the time, of course, I really envied the kids who didn't have to work.
	But of course, in hindsight, having that level of necessity, having that level of extremity, was really, really positive and instructive to me.
	I was Tempted to go another direction.
	I won't get into too many details, not particularly important so many years later, but I was tempted to go in another direction of less, how should we put this, less free market means of acquiring resources, but I stopped that pretty quick because it's not hard to figure out that that's not going to lead you anyplace good over the long run.
	So, getting my life started.
	I think the first thing that I really needed to understand, maybe you guys, like I'll watch the chat here and you guys let me know what you think.
	I'm going to do a little speechy thing and then I'll take questions.
	I really want to know where you guys are at with this kind of stuff.
	And by the way, super chats are very much appreciated, but it's slightly more helpful in terms of what I actually get to keep if you go to freedomainradio.com forward slash donate, freedomainradio.com forward slash donate.
	We are.
	And I think it really started with my generation.
	I mean, people call me a boomer.
	I'm actually technically too young to be a boomer and not a lot of radical anarchist boomers.
	But anyway, it really did start with my generation.
	So I was born in 1966 and then I sort of grew up in the 70s.
	Now the 70s were a nihilistic hellscape of rancid sexuality and hedonism and I remember being In a pub with my mother.
	That was actually a great pub, just not too far down the road from where I grew up as a kid in England and I have so many fantastic memories of going down to the pub
	as a kid with my mom and there was this great garden in the back with like hedges and mazes and great running areas and I just remember playing all night with the other kids who were there in this garden of this pub at just completely hysterically wonderful magical great times and that kind of childhood has largely been robbed from people through The video game cocooning generation through multiculturalism fragmenting neighborhoods and standards and so on.
	But I was, I think, one of the last generations to experience the genuine glorious anarchy of a free-range childhood.
	Like a childhood I would just go out and I would just roam around and we would build forts in the woods and we would play war games and we would explore.
	And you could just go, like one kid would pick up a tin of beans, we'd get a can open and we'd go make a little fire in the woods and we'd chat and cook and fart and it was just, it was a, outside of the home was a great childhood.
	I think that's largely been put by the wayside but we would spend of course a lot of time negotiating about The rules of how to play, right?
	So you play a war game, and you know, if you saw someone, you'd yell, bang, and you pointed your finger, and if you saw them, then you could, but you couldn't see me, I was behind the wall, like we did a, I spent half the game negotiating the rules, which is kind of life sometimes, but really, really positive for all of that.
	I think that's all been, a lot of that's kind of fallen by the wayside these days, and you know, kids are in all these organized activities, it's really sad, it's really strange.
	To sort of my way of thinking that kids are so much put into these organized activities or they're put into these hyper structured activities that are kind of together isolated like you're on a fortnight server playing with other people you're on a headset but you're not in the same room And you're not negotiating about the rules of the game.
	You're maybe planning strategy about what to do in particular ways to win the game.
	I like to onslaught in Unreal Tournament, but you're not negotiating about the rules.
	You're just negotiating about the strategy within fixed rules, which I think is less creative than negotiating the rules.
	But we are this ridiculously untutored generation.
	We are sort of like cavemen wandering The glittering, undecayed ruins of a former civilization.
	Like that scene in Fight Club, you know?
	That I'm drawing Deerhide under the shadow of the Chrysler building.
	We are ridiculously untutored.
	Now, that means that we don't have any standards that have really been imposed on us other than sort of politically correct stuff that nobody really believes.
	Like, if people really believed the politically correct stuff, you wouldn't need all of this vicious enforcement that goes on.
	You know, like poor Michael Shermer of Skeptic.
	He was on my show a couple years ago.
	And I guess he got a lot of pressure to sort of disavow being on my show.
	And he was like, oh, you know, he believes these bad things.
	And I'm like, here's all the proof.
	Here's the data.
	Here's the facts.
	You know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	And, you know, I feel for the guy.
	Like, not everyone is really constituted to hang out on the edge of the Overton window and work to enhance our humanity by pushing it wider.
	So, you know, I wish him good luck and godspeed.
	If people had good arguments, they wouldn't need to bully someone like Michael Schirmer, who seems like a nice enough guy, but this altitude may be a bit rare for his nostrils.
	But we have these fear-based rules that are kind of hysterical and bullying.
	But it's kind of like if you have a bad parent and you don't respect their rules but you kind of fear punishment or fear rage or hysteria or something.
	So you'll kind of obey it.
	Not out of respect for the rules but just out of fear of the consequences.
	That's kind of where we're at.
	We don't have rules in society that young people respect anymore.
	We just have these sort of bullying, life-destroying attacks that people run from.
	It's become sort of a zebra lion situation where the couple of predators out there are like the lions and we're the zebras.
	Now the zebra looks at the lion and says, well, you're dangerous.
	But it doesn't internalize that the lion is hungry and wants to eat the zebra and it's really, really good for the zebra to Give up its hide to the lion, right?
	I mean, it's just, the lion's a predator, so we'll try our very best to not get eaten by the predator.
	But there's no respect for the predation.
	And I think that's where we are in society.
	The government doesn't really command any respect anymore.
	That's been sort of whittled and chipped away over many, many years.
	It's really sad.
	just how, well, you could say really sad, or you could say, from my perspective, really positive, how people have given up respecting the government.
	So when I was growing up, there was some respect for the government insofar as, well, you know, I was growing up in England, you won the Second World War with the Battle of Britain against the Nazis in England's finest hour, and there was this pulling together under a big rubric or umbrella of great action.
	That really just began to fall apart in the 70s and the 80s, and then there was a kind of, you know, the beta for Donald Trump was Margaret Thatcher, and she just got, I think, corrupted and destroyed again at the end.
	And But we don't respect the rules in society as a whole.
	And we don't respect the sexual morality.
	And the sexual morality has likely gone by the wayside.
	I mean, I remember when I was a teenager.
	I mean, I'm sure it's the same now.
	Kids were just experimenting all over the place.
	And there was no sense of restraint or rules or planning.
	People were just trying to get laid.
	But no sense of like, well, you know, sex is the powerful adherent that keeps pair-bonded couples together for the productive raising of elementally childlike offspring of the species.
	You know, nothing like that.
	You would never suppose, like, it was never even talked about.
	There was sort of sexual morality was talked about in terms of STDs are dangerous and, you know, pregnancy is, if you don't want pregnancy, which you probably don't as teenagers, that's bad.
	But there was never any sense that there was a higher or deeper or love-based or quasi-spiritual nature to sexuality.
	It was just, you know, go out and try and start a fire with your naughty bits and hope that everything works out.
	And so this sort of pursuit of Sexuality and other forms of hedonistic activity.
	A little bit of drinking.
	I did a little bit of excessive drinking when I was a kid but I got pretty tired pretty quickly of just, hey, my Sunday is headachy and my eyes ache as well and I can't concentrate.
	I can't read a book and I can't really enjoy anything so it's just a real, it's like being half dead for the day.
	Zombie day.
	And I got kind of tired of that so I gave up on that fairly quickly.
	The other kinds of hedonism, drugs of course, were around and there was the Outback Gang, you know, they sort of lived in this fog bank of marijuana out back of the school and that was not something you particularly wanted to get into if you wanted to have much of a future or retain your Cognitive alertness.
	And I know, like there's lots of people who say, oh Steph, you know, you should take some drugs.
	It's going to really enhance your mind.
	It's like, nah, you know, like it's just not even remotely tempting.
	Certainly not now, but why would it be tempting for me?
	I mean, I already have the greatest drug in the world, which is philosophy and the coolest audience on the planet and a great conversation about philosophy.
	What's missing?
	What's short?
	So my life was just, I don't know how to put it exactly.
	Have you ever tried crossing a sort of fast-flowing wide stream or narrow river where there are these rocks?
	And it's kind of wobbly and it's kind of slippery.
	I used to do this when I was working up north, but you can do it sometimes for recreation, hiking and so on, right?
	And you're trying to get across the stream and you're just kind of moving from one of these rocks to the next.
	You don't really think of... I mean, you want to get to the other side of the stream, but you're not really thinking about The bigger picture, you're just like, I hope I don't fall on the next rock.
	And that's kind of what it was for me.
	Everything was kind of really tiny and short and just get to the next thing.
	Oh, can I get this girl to go out with me?
	Oh, can I get this job?
	Oh, can I make rent this month?
	Oh, can I complete this next assignment?
	It was just like, hop, hop, hop, like a little, the old Frogger game from the Atari.
	And this lack of a sense of a larger purpose, a larger perspective, a larger goal, Oh man, it was horrible.
	It was really horrible in hindsight.
	It's living at the level of Something below human.
	It's living at the level of Simeon Dolphin, or it's like, can I chew on a tuna and have sex?
	That was basically the mantra that was sort of floating around.
	And there were people who had these kinds of larger ambitions, but their larger ambitions were never for society as a whole.
	Never for society as a whole.
	It was always like, well, I want to be a professor because I like teaching and it's I get lots of time off in the summer, I get sabbaticals, and I like to read, so I'm going to be a professor!
	But it was never like, well, I have a larger purpose for society as a whole.
	There was no real sense of society at all.
	And in the absence of a larger purpose, we devolve to the merely hedonistic, and that's really a tragic way to live, and it kind of saps your drive, your ambition, and your desire to sacrifice anything.
	Which I think is where a lot of this lassitude comes from.
	A lot of the lassitude that you guys may be feeling in terms of your life may be coming from.
	So, here are some facts I wanted to look up in sort of preparation for talking to you guys tonight.
	I think are important to wrap your head around.
	This is stuff that, you know, you guys know pretty well for sure.
	But some of it may be new for some of you.
	Let me just grab this here.
	So screen time, right?
	Screen time.
	That is a big killer of life, of productivity, and so on, right?
	Screen time is a very big deal.
	In terms of how much of your life it can burn.
	Now, of course, you're looking to or listening to screen right now, so hopefully there's some exceptions, which is, you know, learning philosophy and all of that.
	That's really good and helpful.
	But, yeah, a couple hours a day on smartphones, sometimes a couple hours a day on television, a couple hours a day on video games.
	That is a problem.
	It's a problem for eyesight.
	It's a problem for posture.
	It's a problem.
	There's a reason why I do these shows standing up, if I can, right?
	There is a problem with an excess of screen time.
	See, the funny thing about screens, computers, phones, video games, and so on, they give you this illusion of achievement that isn't isn't real, right?
	Oh, I completed this level.
	I got this achievement on Xbox or whatever.
	You know, you can brag about it, but you're just bragging about it usually digitally as well, right?
	So none of it is real, right?
	Video games are going to give you about as much genuine achievement as pornography is going to give you babies, right?
	It's just not the way that kind of stuff works.
	Trying to cut down on that stuff is important.
	It's really, really important to get out and move around.
	And again, I'm sorry to start with such basic bitch stuff, but it is really, really important.
	There have been times in my life, I mean, I started working out when I was about 16, and I'm obviously no muscle man, but I work out.
	Um, half hour cardio, 45 minutes of weights, three times a week and four if I can get around to it.
	Keep moving, you know, play sports, be active, go swimming.
	You know, I met my wife playing volleyball, you know, just do something to keep yourself moving.
	It is hard to know when something that may be occurring for you, like just feeling sort of sad or feeling this kind of innervation or lassitude or whatever, that it might just be that you're just not moving very much.
	So keep moving.
	Get exercising.
	That's really, really important.
	Just in terms of having your energy and sleeping well.
	Get enough sleep.
	That's another very, very important thing.
	And if you can't get enough sleep, I don't know about you guys, it just starts to feel like you're dragging your way through the day.
	So just make sure you have enough energy.
	Just deal with the basics.
	Eat reasonably.
	Don't grab a face full of Cheetos while you're playing a video game or ordering a burger and fries and think that you're Powering yourself with excellent nutrition.
	Now, I'm no nutritionist, so you can sort of eat, but we all know the decent stuff to eat, you know, some, some, you know, veggies and some fruit and, you know, like stuff that's real, right?
	Stuff that is not shaped in colors not known to man or God, right?
	So just, you know, eat decently, get your exercise, make sure you get enough sleep.
	And here's the thing, here's the thing that I really want to sort of get across to you in terms of how to get your life really up and moving.
	Have a larger purpose.
	Have a larger purpose.
	You've got to ask yourself, what is the purpose of your life?
	Which is another question of saying, why be alive?
	What are you going to do with this unbelievable gift that you've been given?
	To be a walking, bipedal, vertical propulsion machine for the greatest This piece of wetware in the universe, the human brain, is an incredible gift.
	You are in possession of the greatest treasure in the known universe, which is the human brain.
	Our capacity to reason, to communicate, to dream, to create, to love, to abstract, to philosophize, to recognize evil rather than danger, to know the truth.
	rather than mere accurate sense impression which is available to a cave fish.
	So we are, all of us listening to this, watching this, we are in possession of the greatest gift that can be conceived of because we are the only beings that can conceive of it.
	So this is really, really essential to understand that you may feel down, you may feel rejected, you may feel lonely, you may feel isolated, you may feel depressed.
	I get all of that.
	And I'm not going to say a pep talk is going to make all of that vanish.
	But what I am saying is that first recognize that even the capacity to feel unhappiness or feel existential angst or bemused resignation or whatever it's going to be, all of that is part and parcel of this incredible gift, which we're still learning how to use.
	Right?
	Philosophy is catching up with the capacities of our minds.
	So we're kind of like on this incredibly fast motorcycle with the gas strapped out and we've got to figure out how to drive it on sand or rock, on snow, up cliffs, down valleys, across rope bridges, Indiana Jones style.
	We have to figure out how We manage and focus this incredible horsepower.
	I mean, it's incredible for the average human being, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the people who listen to this show are way above average in terms of potential.
	I don't think you'd really be interested and involved and engaged in philosophy if it wasn't the case.
	So, you are in possession of this incredible gift, and what are you going to do with it?
	What are you going to do with it?
	You have 60, 70, 80 years.
	With which to learn how to harness and express the incredible gift that you've been given.
	I'd like to say once in a lifetime gift, but as far as matter goes in the universe, I mean, it is not that much fun being kind of, you know, squished cheek by jowl, sardine to sardine being atoms At the center of a black hole, right?
	That is not... That's like being jammed in to one of those Japanese subway cars by those handlers with those giant spatulas, right?
	That's not a lot of fun.
	Being a piece of useless hydrogen floating around interstellar space, it's not a lot of fun.
	Being the ass end of a dolphin, not a lot of fun.
	Right?
	You get it, right?
	Being a sea anemone, not a lot of fun.
	Sea cucumber or sea slug, not a lot of fun.
	Even being your liver sucks!
	You're toenail!
	Oh, I grew!
	Oh, I've been thrown in the toilet, right?
	So, as far as matter in the universe goes, you, my friend, you as a human being who can think and reason and listen to this, you have completely won the lottery.
	And it's the kind of lottery that is truly incomprehensible.
	You know, you've got a population a couple hundred million people, someone wins the lottery every day.
	But think of how far spread matter is.
	Hundreds of billions of stars in the galaxy, hundreds of billions of galaxies, 14 billion light years across that we know of.
	It just goes on and on.
	And of all of that, and all the stuff we've explored visually and in person, we have one conscious mind.
	that has ever shown up.
	One truly conscious mind able to process abstracts, to be able to philosophize, to be able to fight for good, fight against evil.
	You, my friends, and I, have all won the lottery.
	And if you can't feel fortunate about that, you need to go over the math again.
	Because the odds of the matter in the universe coalescing into your couple of pounds of wetware human brain are so infinitesimal, so tiny, so small, That you literally are a recipient of the greatest gift that the universe has to offer.
	And what are you going to do with it?
	What are you going to do with it?
	If you can answer that question in a way that diminishes your ego, that diminishes your hedonism, if you can answer that question, what are you going to do with your life in a way that is more than just, enjoy myself!
	Have fun!
	Um, squirt my yogurt onto anonymous strangers.
	Whatever it's going to be.
	Get stoned!
	Get drunk!
	If you can answer the question, what do you do with the gifts you've been given in a way that isn't basically pretending that they don't exist.
	A squirrel can get drunk and I've seen videos where dolphins leap up on a platform and try and have sex with a human girl, right?
	Or there's a girl doing yoga and the dog comes up and humps her leg.
	Dog-humping-the-leg-of-yoga-woman is not dog-in-true-possession-of-and-pleasure-of-the-greatest-gifts-in-the-known-universe-of-philosophical-abstraction-reasoning-and-virtue.
	So, what can you do that is specifically human, that is related to your capacities as a human being?
	Well, it has to be something abstract.
	Philosophy, it works for me.
	Virtue works for me.
	Having courage in the face of evil and working to promote The good, the true, the valuable, the moral, that works for me.
	And listen, I mean, it's not like we have an overabundance of people willing to do that.
	So if you want to do that, I would love for you to help.
	I would love for you to join in that most amazing and most essential combat, which is the verbal and philosophical combat against evil.
	That would be a truly joyful thing.
	But if that's not your thing, right, not everyone is cut out for that or set up for that or has the fortitude or whatever.
	I mean, I don't want to make it like, well, everything I do is the best, but you know what I mean, right?
	Not everyone's set up for that.
	Maybe it's rescuing animals, right?
	Maybe it's helping kids.
	Maybe it's writing a book.
	Maybe it's writing something, right?
	Maybe it's...
	Becoming a great engineer and finding ways that people can live better.
	Maybe it's becoming a farmer and producing food for the world in a fantastic way.
	It's something that is bigger than your immediate bodily pleasures.
	And bodily pleasures... See, people think, oh, well, it's sex and food and all that.
	Yeah, those are great bodily pleasures.
	But one of the saddest bodily pleasures that we indulge in is the avoidance of our own potential.
	When you play a video game, and I want to put the caveat in that I like video games, so this is not hating on video games as a whole, but you know, they kind of get getting out of hand for the younger folks, right?
	And also for the middle-aged folks, some of them as well.
	When you plug into a video game, you are surrendering your imagination to the scripted worlds of other people, of other artists and programmers and visualizers and scripters, right?
	So you are not daydreaming.
	You are not creating something new.
	You are flexing minor muscles within a tightly prescribed existing world.
	And that's an important thing to understand.
	So when I was a kid, they still have these around, but there were these choose-your-own-adventure novels, right?
	And the choose-your-own-adventure novels were You know, you see a dragon.
	The dragon rears its head.
	Do you fight or run?
	If you fight, turn to page 3.
	If you run, turn to page 15.
	So, I mean, is there a certain amount of creativity in that?
	I guess you've got some choices, but they're pretty much within a very tightly confined and prescribed other world.
	That's not very creative.
	It's not bad, and we all need rests from creativity, but it's not very creative.
	Now, writing a novel is creative.
	Following a choose-your-adventure novel, not super creative.
	Maybe creating a video game is creative, certainly is.
	And when I started programming, you had to make games because there really weren't that many games around.
	I couldn't afford them, and so on, so those that were.
	So yeah, I basically started with programming computer games, not playing them.
	And that, of course, was a lot easier back when you were talking about an Atari 800 and a 4K PET and all.
	So find something that is going to exercise your potential in pursuit of excellence.
	And again, I don't necessarily mean moral excellence, philosophical excellence, but find something that you care about, that takes you out of your immediate physical pleasures and lusts and desire for dissociation.
	Video games, it's kind of like a self-erasure, particularly the fast-paced ones, because you're in there just focusing on everything.
	You're not really yourself.
	Deeply immersed in the richness of your imagination and creativity.
	You're not planning long-term goals for, you're not whipping together a team and making sure everyone's facing the same direction and charging with the right equipment for some goal, for some objective.
	You are feverishly self-erasing within a digital world That is tight and artificial and scripted.
	So there is a form of self-erasure in video games.
	Now that, of course, is one of the reasons why I think people who are depressed want to play a lot of video games, because it's this dopamine, right?
	Oh, I've achieved something!
	But of course, because it's not real achievement, it's like a drug.
	And a drug is used to often erase discomfort.
	Right, so that's another thing that I wanted to talk about.
	We have this weird society that's going on at the moment where, you know, pain is bad, discomfort is bad, anxiety, right?
	These things are essential in your life.
	It is really, really important to learn to appreciate and learn from being unhappy.
	Being unhappy.
	is so important.
	Think of emotional unhappiness like physical pain.
	Imagine if you were rolling around through life without any capacity to feel physical pain.
	You wouldn't have the feedback mechanism for when you had a sunburn on your back.
	You wouldn't have the feedback mechanism of, I stubbed my toe.
	Or you wouldn't have the feedback mechanism of, something's happened to my tooth, that's not good.
	You wouldn't have the feedback mechanisms you need in order to stay safe, to play safe, to be healthy.
	You just wouldn't have any of these things.
	So physical pain is a drag, but it trains you how to avoid the kinds of situations that can damage you, temporarily or permanently, in your body.
	It's the same thing with unhappiness.
	Unhappiness is your body's way of saying, your mind's way of saying, your soul's way of saying, to put it that way, something needs to change.
	Now, if you have a toothache, you can just mask it, right?
	You can just take painkillers and soldier on, right?
	Like there's nothing that's bad, right?
	But that can actually get you killed, right?
	Because a toothache can produce bacteria.
	You swallow that bacteria, it can go into your heart.
	I mean, it can be really bad.
	So you don't want to numb your pain.
	You want to embrace your pain and learn what your unhappiness and your pain is trying to tell you.
	I mean, so you've probably heard this story before, I'll just touch on it briefly.
	Oh boy, 20, 22, 23 years ago, a while ago, I just, I was in a relationship that wasn't working.
	I was in a business relationship that was, I was increasingly suspicious that it was corrupt, that was dishonest, that was predatory.
	I was not satisfied with my friendships.
	I was not engaged with my family of origin in a positive way.
	And I don't know why it happened.
	But what happened was, I just stopped being able to sleep.
	I mean, I've often been a little bit of a light sleeper, but nothing too bad.
	But I just, like, just lie there awake.
	And I wasn't, like, anxious.
	My heart wasn't pounding.
	I wasn't worried.
	I just, well, whatever the joy juice is that sinks you down into the Ophelia sleep just wasn't pumping through my veins.
	And I remember I would get up, I've never taken a sleeping pill, but I remember I would get up, and oh, maybe I have a bit of a cold, and I'd take, it was a neocitrine, you shake it, powder, and that would knock me out.
	But even when I would fall asleep, I would get this vision in my head of someone saying, uh-uh, uh-uh, that's not how it's going to get solved.
	But I didn't know what the problem was.
	And through that, just not being able to sleep, and this went on, oh Lord, 16 months I think it was, start to end.
	I mean, I got a little sleep here and there, but I just kept waking up.
	Kept waking up.
	Never happened before or since in my life.
	Now, that got me into therapy.
	That got me out of bad relationships.
	That got me out of a bad business arrangement.
	And then I remember, I started writing novels again, and I started being creative.
	And I remember I was drawn, I was offered, I was drawn back into this, the business that I had, that I was involved in.
	Somebody bought it up and they were like, hey, you know, just come on back.
	We'll pay you $150,000 a month for just three days work a week.
	Tempting.
	Don't get me wrong.
	Pretty damn tempting.
	But I said no.
	Because when I thought about it, I couldn't sleep.
	And yeah, yeah, actually I know, because I know it started to break around the year 2000.
	I went to Morocco for Y2K with a friend of mine, and then I went for a business trip to China.
	So I flipped from one culture to another, other side of the world, where neither of them had signs I could even parse out in any language, because, you know, Arabic and Mandarin.
	I'm not Jack Pasobic, so... So that unhappiness, which was just wretched for me at the time, and drove me to thoughts of self-destruction.
	Because life without sleep, I mean, and it's so funny too because when I was younger I played the lead in Macbeth, right?
	The character who kills the king and can't sleep.
	Now, if I'd just taken sleeping pills or something or I don't know what, right?
	I wouldn't have gone into therapy, I wouldn't have learned all the things that I needed to learn, I wouldn't have the great marriage that I have now, which comes a lot out of going to therapy and having my inner life taken very seriously for the first time in my life.
	So, that kind of pain, I wish I'd fought it less, I wish I'd gone into therapy earlier, but that is a positive thing.
	You know, what is it now?
	Yes, over 10 years ago, when I first started getting attacked in the media.
	Of course, at the time, I was like, well, that's not good.
	You know, I thought, oh, well, you know, people will stop listening to my show.
	But even that, which was a difficult little bit of time there, was positive because I had to stand and fight.
	I had to stand and fight.
	What are we going to do?
	I can't go back into the business world now.
	I've been called all these terrible names.
	So it gives you commitment.
	It gives you focus.
	It gives you... To hell with you!
	I'm fighting!
	Not to overcharacterize myself in a negative way, but a cornered rat will fight a saber-toothed tiger if it's got nowhere to go.
	And so all of these things which you think are negative, It's something Anthony Robbins said, where he said, you know, my mother used to beat me and I, in a sense, appreciate that now because my mother was abusive and in a sense I appreciate that now because she really taught me how to appreciate my current wife, who's wonderful, right?
	I'm not saying that child abuse is a positive, you understand what I'm saying, but this idea that suffering, unhappiness is going to ruin you, it's going to drag you down into whatever, death.
	I think that's, I mean, obviously if you're thinking or feeling that, call the Suicide Hotline, get help and all that, but to be able to appreciate the guidance The pain can offer you is so important.
	Now, we used to have a society that would help us avoid this kind of pain by giving us rules that made sense and that were positive and beneficial to us.
	But we don't have that society anymore, which means that we don't have any rules, which means that there's chaos, there's unhappiness, but there's also great potential for creativity and new solutions.
	I think that's important.
	A couple of practical things.
	Please save your money.
	Please save your money.
	Don't spend it on useless crap.
	You know, just a coffee a day.
	A coffee a day can add up to a thousand bucks a year.
	Save your money.
	That's important.
	Save your money.
	Don't spend it on things that are going to lose value.
	You want to spend your money on things that are going to appreciate in value.
	I think Bitcoin, other cryptos, houses have a reasonable chance.
	The cars?
	No, cars are going to cost you money and they're going to lower themselves in value.
	So try not to spend on things that are going to go down in value and try and make sure that you spend on things or have things or hold things that are going to go up in values and golds and whatever reasonable investments.
	So save your money.
	Saving your money is expressing faith in the future and when you express faith in the future you Realign yourself, right?
	So, if you say, well, I'm not going to save my money.
	I'm just going to go out for dinner and then I'm going to go on vacation.
	I'm going to have a latte tomorrow.
	You're telling your entire system to help with the future, right?
	You're like Jim Morrison style.
	Woke up in the morning, get yourself a beer.
	The future's uncertain and the end is always near.
	So, save your money.
	It reminds your entire system that you have a future that's worth preparing for.
	Don't go to college for some frou-frou arts degree.
	You're going to end up, what's the average debt?
	It's over $28,000 in the U.S.
	for student debt.
	You've got 40, what is it, 44 million people who've borrowed money and the grand total of their indebtedness for student loans is $1.5 trillion.
	It's a bad idea.
	You can start your own business.
	You can go into the trades!
	Be a plumber, be an electrician, go into the trades.
	It's good money, it's honorable work, and you of course can go through the trades if you have a restless intellect.
	You can continue up and through the trades.
	You can become a master.
	You can start your own business.
	There's lots of things that you can do, and it's good, essential, necessary, honorable work.
	So, something like that.
	Don't... Don't do drugs.
	Don't... Drink.
	Okay, yeah, I mean, I have a light beer once in a while, but, you know, don't drink, drink, right?
	That's... That's a bad idea.
	It's just, it costs a lot of money.
	It's hard on your health.
	It distracts you from the focus that you need to get things done in the world.
	Just don't do that kind of stuff.
	Don't be a player.
	Don't just get dick-napped and follow your penis into every available hole like you're some...
	Infinite tentacled octopus looking for a shellfish.
	Like, just don't.
	Don't do that.
	It harms women.
	It harms you.
	You think it's something to brag about, but it's really not.
	It's really not.
	The fact that you have often tricked low-rent, low-IQ women into having sex with you is not something to be proud of.
	You know, save yourself for a hero.
	Save yourself for a great woman.
	Save yourself for a great man, if that's your thing.
	Don't.
	Just don't go chasing holes.
	You chase holes, you're going to have a hole in your heart the size of your heart.
	It's just going to scrub you of your capacity to pair bond and it's going to leave this residue of broken people all over you that Lady Macbeth in her hand style, you will not be able to scrub off with a stench.
	So avoid that kind of stuff.
	Every dollar, every hour that you spend in hot pursuit of Low-rent sex is time that you're not spending doing something better, something more ennobling, something that you can be proud of.
	And, you know, when you pursue these kinds of things as well, it's like if you smoke marijuana, if you drink too much, if you pursue this You know, Alpha, I'll do a whole show on this at one point, Alpha is not having a lot of sex.
	Alpha is providing for and protecting your damn family.
	It's not just going around and breaking women with lies and testosterone.
	But if you are in hot pursuit of that, the problem is, let's say you get laid a couple of times a week or a couple of times a month or whatever, different women, Quality people will not look at you and say, good on you, mate.
	They just won't do it.
	They'll be like, that's kind of gross.
	That's dangerous and you're going to get a disease and you're going to get an unwanted pregnancy.
	You're going to trip wire over some stalker fetish and get pursued for the next five years and have to go to court to get restraining orders.
	So quality people will just look at that and be like, not really.
	No thanks.
	And low-quality people will cheer you on in order to keep you in that low rent.
	Because everything you do defines your entire social sphere, right?
	So, if you don't save any money, if you're out there just spending money on useless stuff, then smart people aren't going to really want to spend that much time with you, because they just don't have that much in common.
	Look for quality date, as if dating meant marriage and children.
	And even if you don't want marriage and children, date as if you do, Because that way you'll focus on the highest quality people.
	Be chivalrous, particularly with women.
	You know, hold their chair when they're going to go sit down at the restaurant.
	I know they could do it themselves.
	Hold the door open.
	I know they could do it themselves.
	Go open the car door.
	I know they can do it themselves.
	But what you're signifying is your willingness to manage and protect the environment the woman is living in, which she needs in order to feel secure enough To have great sex and maybe found a family with you.
	Be chivalrous.
	That's important.
	For women you just need to, you're going to need to have some money because women are going to need trust that you can provide when they're pregnant.
	Say, oh well, you know, she's 40 or she's 50.
	Doesn't matter.
	The hormones are the hormones and the evolution is the evolution.
	Focus on Focus on remembering the importance of the second half of your life.
	It's also really, really important.
	In the first half of your life, you've got a lot of energy, you're fever-driven a lot of times by ambition, whether that's ambition for a career or sexual conquests or travel or whatever.
	But you can burn yourself out in the first half of your life and have precious little available for the last half of your life.
	And the last half of your life is where the real sadness occurs if you haven't planned or haven't prepared, right?
	So I looked up a couple of things for Tonight and after this I will get to your questions and thank you for your patience.
	But here are some of the most common regrets people have in their 50s.
	Not traveling more.
	Yeah, I mean you can do it pretty cheaply and it can be a fun thing to do.
	Not being more adventurous.
	And you're not being adventurous when you're playing video games.
	Like, you're just not.
	Right?
	So, trying to live up to your parents' expectations.
	Well, I think that's a little less now because Who has expectations anymore, right?
	Not eating healthier.
	Oh yeah, see, you can grab a McDonald's burger, and you can wolf it down, and then you can go dance all night, and that's great, you know, once in a while, but if you don't eat well, you're going to pay for it in the second half of your life.
	Not saving more money, because you don't have as many choices if you don't have as much money.
	Worrying about other people's opinions.
	That's a very common... I wish I... You know, it's one of the most common people's... Most common regrets on their deathbeds.
	I wish I'd cared less about what other people were saying.
	Yeah, don't be a slave to other people's opinions.
	That won't be anything heroic and it won't breed any self-respect.
	And self-respect is an essential.
	It's really at the core of your capacity for happiness is self-respect.
	Not accomplishing more.
	Not taking risks.
	Take risks, you know?
	I can't emphasize this enough.
	If you like the girl, ask her out.
	So she says no, it happens to you, it happens to me, it happens to everyone except Brad Pitt when he's 28, right?
	So, just, if you have a great business idea, really work to explore it, really work to figure it out, really start to draw it out.
	Ask people for advice.
	Accomplish something.
	And that means taking risks.
	And it just means you don't have to be 50,000% better.
	You have to give 10% more than the other people and you will start to get ahead.
	I mean, look at how somebody who's in the 100 yards dash at the Olympics wins by, what, 1 tenth of a second?
	What's that old Seinfeld joke?
	The second guy's like, if I'd had a pimple, I'd have won!
	You don't have to be Twice as good.
	You have to be 5%, 10% better.
	Look at major league baseball players or basketball players.
	What separates the game from lower down is a few percentage points sometimes of consistency of being better.
	So, aim to accomplish stuff.
	It'll be tough and it'll be hard, but you're building for the satisfaction of the second half of your life.
	Tell people that you love them.
	Tell people that you care about them if you do.
	And if you don't have anyone in your life that you care about, Go be helpful and provide value to people till you find people around you that you will care about.
	Don't waste time hating your body, hating your face.
	Oh, you know, I mean, if you hate it, do something to change it.
	And if you're not going to change it, stop hating it.
	Right?
	So, that's more for women than for men.
	But yeah, that's wasting time hating your body.
	People don't care.
	People don't care.
	Let me tell you a funny story.
	When I was in high school, I went out for lunch with a girl and I was concerned because I had a pimple.
	It was one of those upper lip painful pimples.
	And I was like, hmm.
	You put your finger over the pimple like the fat guys fold their arms over their bellies like it makes it vanish.
	It's magic.
	And the funny thing was is that later I talked to her about it and she's like, oh yeah, you know that lunch?
	I felt so self-conscious I thought I was squinting the whole time because I forgot my glasses and I couldn't see a thing.
	So here I am hiding my pimple and she can't see a damn thing.
	We're like something out of a I know, Henry novel, but anyway, so yeah, don't worry about it.
	Nobody, people will judge you, most people will judge you how you judge yourself.
	Nothing more and nothing less.
	So these are my sort of tips on how to get going, how to get started.
	Just cast about until you find something that ignites you and then have the risk, the uncertainty of having hope and having dreams.
	It is better to fail than to not try.
	You don't regret the things that you do.
	You regret the things that you don't do.
	I don't regret asking any of the girls out.
	I don't think there were any that I really, really wanted to ask out that I didn't ask out.
	Because, you know, you just give it a try.
	So those are my bits of advice on how to get started.
	Now, let us turn.
	Thank you for your patience.
	And again, if you want to throw me up a super chat, that would be fantastic.
	But I will refresh here and you Can let me know what you think!
	Yeah, so Friendly Geordies, someone sent some very rude people over to a video I did in Australia.
	Yeah, I may get to it.
	Australia's a bit kind of in the rear view for me now because I'm, well, focused on other things at the moment, but I may...
	I may get to it.
	So I saw that and be at peace that I have received the message.
	So let me see here.
	Oh yeah, so there was one or two.
	Ah, okay, okay.
	So Jesse has a question.
	Thank you, first of all.
	Jesse says, Steph, how do I deal with incessant irrational rage?
	It's crippling my relationship.
	Sometimes I can't even speak with people and I often prefer being alone so I don't get annoyed with anyone.
	Ah, yes.
	Ah, yes.
	Listen, I hope I have some credibility in this.
	I used to have quite a temper when I was younger, and it took a little bit of wrestling to get those Mustangs all pointed in the same direction.
	But now, they give me protection rather than danger.
	Okay, so the first thing that you need to do, Jesse, is stop insulting your rage.
	It's very, very important.
	Your rage is there to help you.
	So listen to it, because right now you're viewing it as irrational.
	So what this means is that, I'm gonna just go way out on a limb here, but what the hell, I know I'm right.
	So here's the thing.
	At one point in your life, your rage was provoked, and then as part of the sadism of provoking your rage, your rage was labeled as irrational.
	So if you've been around someone who's passive-aggressive, who's annoying, who's like, Yeah, like I knew a guy when I was younger who used to have this habit of just kind of half-insulting people and then when they finally get upset he'd be like, well, you're getting mighty defensive, I guess I struck a nerve.
	You know, just like, really annoying shit.
	Really manipulative, mind-frackery, annoying shit to the nth dimension.
	And this issue where people may be frivolous with you, may be careless with you, And you get angry and then what they do is they label your anger irrational because they're being manipulative douchebags who are acting out their own immaturity so that they don't have to deal with their own problems.
	Trolls didn't just appear on the internet.
	Many of us grew up with trolls inside the house.
	The trolls are coming from inside.
	Before they were on the internet they were on the other side of the couch.
	The irrational rage, first of all, find out where it was not irrational.
	Find out where it was trying to protect you from some intrusion or some manipulation or some insidious undermining of your personality or sense of reality or logic or rationality or something like that.
	So, and you might want to watch the movie, it's called Gaslight.
	Gaslight?
	And there's a term, right, called gaslighting, where you try to make people feel crazy, right?
	So, you know, my mom's habit was to give me confusing instructions, and then if I did whatever she did, wanted me to do, quote, wrong, she'd get mad at me.
	But if I came back to ask her for clarity, She would say, but I already told you, weren't you listening?
	Right?
	So you can't win.
	You either do it wrong or you go back and try and get clarification from confusing instructions and then you're being annoying and not listening.
	And like, so there's a no-win situation, right?
	It's a no-win situation, which would make me angry, right?
	But because she was violent, I couldn't express my anger, at least until now.
	You get to be a teenager and you're bigger than her.
	Oh, well, then you can start to express some anger.
	And as I mentioned, I had quite a hell of a temper.
	Well, half Irish, half Half German, quite a pressure cooker going on down there when I was younger.
	So, it's not irrational.
	At some point your rage was perfectly rational and what's happening is you're in an environment where the same dangers are occurring.
	So, if you were provoked by a parent, you're still around that parent or someone like that parent.
	We feel, usually, you're in fight or flight, right?
	You're in fight of the fight or flight mechanism, right?
	The flight mechanism is more anxiety, the fight mechanism is more rage, right?
	So you're in that situation.
	So the question is, who's attacking you?
	Now, of course, in the past, when people attacked you, they would manipulate you to make you feel like you were just irrational and angry and crazy!
	You're crazy!
	I didn't mean that, I didn't say that, right?
	Like you get these, a typical situation is, you know, there was somebody in my life who was, when I was younger, who used to call me Fatty.
	Now, I wasn't fat, but he used to call me Fatty.
	Now, that's annoying, to be called Fatty all the time.
	What do you say?
	Do you say, like, stop calling me fatty.
	It's like, it's just a joke.
	It's just, it's a cutesy nickname.
	I know you're not fat.
	It's like, what the fuck are you calling me fatty for, right?
	You know, I mean, it's just a weird, stupid thing that people will do.
	And it's just designed to throw you off balance, to make them feel superior, to make you question and, oh my gosh, is my belly getting, whatever, right?
	So, just don't, I mean, either people like that need to change.
	Or just don't be around people like that.
	So at some point, your anger was provoked, and then you were called crazy for having that anger, and you haven't set up your life so that people like that aren't around.
	Someone asked Mike Cernovich on Twitter, they said, and I'm paraphrasing, but it was something like, is it worth learning how to deal with crazy people?
	And Mike was like, very rarely worth it, or something like that.
	Life is short.
	And even if people around you who are dysfunctional, even if they admit that they desperately want to change and they work hard to try and change, their odds of them actually changing are still pretty low.
	Right?
	98% of people who lose weight gain it back or more.
	And those are people who've identified that they're overweight, they've worked to lose the weight, and they still gain it back.
	98% of people.
	And it's a lot easier to not put cheesecake in your mouth than it is to change foundational, personal, or psychological dysfunctions.
	So, you know, maybe you guys have a magic wand out there.
	I certainly don't.
	I have not found a way to make dysfunctional people functional.
	You know, maybe there's a magic wand that you guys can buy a bag of car parts and turn it into a Lamborghini.
	I can't.
	So I just prefer to actually have functional people in my life rather than spend the rest of my life managing dysfunctional people.
	So that would be my suggestion.
	I hope that helps.
	Not crazy yet, says I'm a 25-year-old single male working in a high-paying in-demand job I hate, to be able to provide for a much-wanted future family.
	At what point do I change careers for my sanity but lose the stability of my current field?
	What happens to a dream deferred?
	Hmm.
	That's very interesting.
	Okay, so here's an example, right?
	So he's willing to sacrifice because he's got a larger goal, which is a future family, good for you.
	But risk is very complicated in life, which is why after a certain amount of understanding and analyzing risk, you just throw your hands in the air and say, I'm going to do what I want.
	I'm gonna do what I want.
	That's what I hate, what I hate to do.
	So people say, well, you know, if I quit my permanent job and I go and let's say you can go start your own business or a consulting shop or something, Well if I quit my job I'm going to lose all my security.
	Well...
	Going to work to a job you hate is bad for your health.
	I assume it's stressful.
	I assume you don't sleep.
	I assume you're miserable.
	That's going to wear you down.
	Psychologically, maybe physically.
	That's a lot of stress hormones, a lot of cortisol to dump in your system.
	So that's not good for you to do that.
	And we all do things we don't want to do.
	I understand that.
	But just going to a job you hate?
	day after day, month after month, year after year, that's bad for you.
	Maybe you get sick from that.
	Or maybe you just get careless.
	Or maybe you do something so that you get fired.
	And then you have to try and find something while dealing with the shame of being fired or, you know, without the, at least the self-respect of having quit and do something you like.
	So I would say, in your situation, I would say, okay, my goal is to get the hell out of this job.
	So how am I going to do that?
	Well, maybe I can start taking some contracts on the side.
	Maybe I can take some internet contracts.
	Maybe I can start to build up some sort of connection elsewhere.
	Maybe there's a guy I know who's starting a business.
	Or maybe I can sit down and talk with some friends.
	Or maybe we can start a business.
	Or just start my own shop.
	Or something like that.
	Because there's no such thing as perfect security.
	There's no such thing as perfect security.
	There's no such thing as the perfect answer.
	It's all just a matter of trade-offs, right?
	On the other hand, right?
	So you're looking at the visible gains of this job that pays well, and I guess has security, but you're not looking at the toll it might be taking on your health.
	And your health is more important than your income, and your health is more important than your job.
	And you're not going to do much good for your future family if you get worn down or whatever it is, right?
	Stability of your current field?
	If you view your body as this dumb, blind workhorse or a robot or a machine that's just going to do what you want with no need for maintenance, I think that's a bad idea.
	You've got to be in negotiation with that.
	You can't bribe yourself With money and misery.
	Because part of you is winning, right?
	The part of you that wants the money.
	And the part of you that hates the job is losing.
	And you can do that for a little while, but you can't sustain that for long.
	So find something that satisfies every part of you to some degree, right?
	Nicole Harris, thank you very much.
	The Master of the Frets says, why do we discourage smoking and drinking if it's truly my body, my choice?
	Well see here's the thing my body my choice is a really atomized as you know and narcissistic way of looking at things and I'm not obviously I know you're not advocating for this position so it is My body, my choice.
	So let's say I just start smoking tomorrow, right?
	Pick up smoking tomorrow.
	You know, like guys who are 50 too often do.
	My family's gonna say, what are you doing?
	Don't smoke, you're gonna die.
	And I'll be like, it's my body, my choice.
	It's like, but it's not my body, my choice anymore, because I've blended myself and united myself in with other people.
	So no, it's not my body, my choice anymore.
	Mitch Ray, Bitcoin up over 50% since Sherman spoke.
	I don't know who Sherman is there.
	Sorry about that.
	But yeah, Bitcoin's doing pretty well and I predict it will do better.
	So the Daniel says, I know that you are an atheist.
	However, I often feel that God is working with you.
	You're an intelligent and brave man.
	Thanks for all you do.
	Oh, you guys ready for a little bit of a story here?
	Oh dear, oh dear.
	Oh, I could just see this already being sliced and diced up.
	But I'm going to tell you, I have a little bit of a fascination on with this young singer-songwriter and performer, Billie Eilish.
	E-I-L-I-S-H.
	She is one dark, disturbed, and twisted soul.
	Sympathies, when she's young, and I said this on Twitter some time ago, one year or two from now, we're going to find out what happened to this Girl and it is not going to be pretty.
	But she comes up with songs that it should be impossible for a girl that young to come up with these kinds of songs.
	It really should not be possible.
	Unless she's being mentored by the ghost of LaVey, it's hard to imagine how These kinds of songs can erupt in this young girl's mind.
	So I'll give you, I won't sing it, I'll give you an example.
	There is a song called You Should See Me in a Crown.
	It comes out of, I think, a line from a Sherlock Holmes, sort of a modern Sherlock Holmes thing.
	And the animation for it is seriously disturbed.
	Don't watch it alone.
	And let me give you some of these lyrics.
	Let me give you some of these lyrics.
	It's wild.
	Oh, yeah.
	Okay.
	It's a pretty low song, right?
	So she sings this.
	She sings... Bide my tongue, bide my time.
	Wearing a warning sign.
	Wait till the world is mine.
	right so bite my tongue bite my time wearing a warning sign so she does videos with like dye on her t-shirt and and these crying bleeding happy faces like she's very nihilistic and murderous and she's got songs where she sings a I want to end me like suicidal and murderous and she's got songs where my her friends are the bodies are in the back of the car and it's like really nasty
	So she says, visions I vandalize, cold in my kingdom's eyes, fell for these ocean eyes.
	And so Ocean Eyes was a song her brother wrote that was one of her early hits.
	And it's a pleasant song, but it's like, oh, you fell for this pleasant song.
	This is pure Satan stuff, right?
	It's pure devil stuff, right?
	Bite my tongue, bide my time, wearing a warning sign, wait till the world is mine.
	Right, so then she says, you should see me in a crown.
	I'm gonna run this nothing town.
	Watch me make them bow one by, one by, one, one by, one by, one.
	Watch me make them bow?
	You should see me in a crown.
	Your silence is my favorite sound.
	Right, so she likes it when people are dead.
	Watch me make them bow one by one.
	And then she says, count my cards, watch them fall.
	Blood on a marble wall.
	I like the way they all scream.
	Ooh, like I like the, blood on a marble wall?
	Count my cards, she's cheating.
	Tell me which one is worse, living or dying first?
	Sleeping inside a hearse?
	And then she says, I don't dream, right?
	Okay, so like, you know, the old line about nuclear war, that the living will envy the dead.
	Is it worse when she's, when Satan is in control or Satan is in power, living or dying first?
	I mean, it's, it's just wild and it's mostly just I think it just repeats sort of after that, right?
	And her song, Bury a Friend, I mean, it's monstrous.
	And she was talking about making the video that she was getting poked in the eye.
	She was getting headaches.
	And I think her earring was ripped out, all these hens grabbing her head.
	And she likes, but I like it when I get punched and kicked around.
	It makes me feel good.
	Like, it's really, really dark and nihilistic stuff.
	And it's kind of hard.
	Kaya Jones, the great Kaya Jones posted about Doris Day today.
	And I was replying on Twitter like, yeah, compared to like Billie Eilish, she's got videos where she's drinking this black liquid.
	And then it's all pouring out of her eyes.
	And she's got this like haunted, desperate look in her face.
	I mean, she talks about selling her soul.
	She's got a song where she says, my Lucifer is lonely.
	I mean, it really is pure satanic stuff.
	And I was just thinking this morning, You know, as you do when you have your coffee.
	I was thinking this morning, like, she is a good argument for the existence of God.
	Because it's hard to imagine that there could not be any external source for these kinds of lyrics which this girl started writing when she was in her mid-teens.
	Like, this is not some shard of Satanism coming in from outside the ether into this girl That she says, you know, I sold my soul to get money, contacts, and fame.
	Basically what she's saying, right?
	Because if you were Satan, you would want to use this girl's physical charisma, her appeal.
	She's got a very nice voice and is a good songwriter.
	And you'd say, okay, I'll give you the tune, but you give me the words.
	Right?
	Satan would say, I will give you the tune because the tune will replicate these words out there in the world.
	I'll give you the tune to make you famous.
	You give me the words.
	I will write the words.
	You write the tune.
	And then Satan would write all the stuff which normalizes devilishness and Satanism and all of this kind of stuff.
	Right?
	She's even in Bury a Friend, she's got that arched back thing, which is all satanic.
	It's really, really clear.
	It's all this MKUltra stuff of being programmed for murder.
	The lyrics for Bury a Friend... Oh yeah, she talks about being the kind of girl who would seduce your dad as a friend of hers, right?
	Let me just get a couple of lines from this.
	Oh yeah, here we go.
	So, Bury a Friend.
	The album is, I think when we all fall asleep, where do we go?
	What do you want from me?
	Why don't you run from me?
	What are you wondering?
	What do you know?
	Why aren't you scared of me?
	Why do you care for me?
	When we all fall asleep, where do we go?
	And then she's talking about how she's paid a very high price to get fame.
	And she says, step on a glass, step on the glass, staple your tongue, bury a friend, try to wake up, cannibal class, killing the son, bury a friend, I want to end me.
	Now this cannibal class, in other words, learning how to eat people, killing the son, obviously a reference to Jesus.
	And then she says, I want to end me.
	And the blurring line between suicidality and murder are all very, very close.
	Keep you in the dark?
	What had you expected?
	Me to make you my art and make you a star and get you connected?
	I'll meet you in the park, I'll be calm and collected.
	But we knew right from the start that you'd fall apart because I'm too expensive.
	It's probably something that shouldn't be said out loud.
	Honestly, I thought that I would be dead by now.
	Calling security, keeping my head held down, bury the hatchet or bury a friend right now.
	The debt I owe, gotta sell my soul, cause I can't say no, no, I can't say no.
	Then my limbs all froze, and my eyes won't close, and I can't say no, no, I can't say no.
	Right?
	Debt I owe, gotta sell my soul.
	I mean, this is wild stuff.
	And the music is hypnotic, and she sampled a dental drill from when she was having her Invisaligns taken off.
	You should see me in a crown.
	She sampled the slice of a knife.
	Her father's knife was being sliced.
	He was sharpening his knives and she took that and it's beheading people.
	I was just thinking, like, holy crap.
	If she's not handled or managed by much older people who are writing her lyrics, then it's sort of like the...
	I think it was the singer for ACDC who was talking about them getting stuck on an album and then they made a deal that he wouldn't talk about in order to get hits for their next album or whatever.
	And I was really, really thinking about that this morning.
	It's not an argument, it's not syllogism or anything like that, but I guess it kind of is, right?
	So if Billie Eilish, in this obviously hypothetical scenario, right?
	is disturbed enough or is introduced into Satanism, she sells her soul in return for money, power, fame and glory.
	On the commandment that Satan gets to use her lyrical talents or her songwriting talents, her voice and her creepily compelling stage persona To spread his message to millions and millions and millions of people worldwide.
	And then you'd say, well, you know, because I saw Melissa McCarthy was sitting in for Ellen, I think, and was like, oh, I love Billie Eilish, she's the greatest thing ever, I want her to be my best friend, blah blah blah, it's like...
	This is like a very, very disturbed young woman.
	And again, I have sympathy for it, but it's almost like there's this whole thing, like if Hollywood was run by Satan or the media industry was run by Satan, which I'm sure some people would agree with, but you'd want to use this girl as a vehicle to plant these horrifying things into people's minds.
	Because it's one thing to watch a horror movie, but a song, people listen to it over and over, like it gets imprinted, right?
	It gets branded, it gets burned into people's consciousness.
	All of this horror.
	All of this terror, all of this rage, all of this violence and cannibalism and killing friends and suicidality and murder.
	I mean, it is really driving this dysfunctional, evil language deep into people's brains.
	And I thought, OK, well, if that would be a case for the existence of Satan, once you've got Satan, it ain't a long step to God.
	So, I'm just telling you what I was thinking this morning.
	It's really, really quite something.
	Thank you.
	Thank you very much.
	It was a really, really great chat.
	on the new version of Teddy's spaghetti?
	No, no thoughts on it.
	Did you say Bitcoin?
	I did.
	I did say Bitcoin.
	Tiffany Green says, thanks for our conversation this morning.
	Oh yeah, Tiffany, nice to chat with you.
	Thank you.
	I could have spoke to you for many hours and appreciate the time you spent.
	You made me feel comfortable as if talking to a friend.
	I believe you helped point out what was always in front of me.
	Thank you.
	Thank you very much.
	That was a really, really great chat.
	I appreciate that.
	David Franco says, Stefan, I tried to get conversation going about freedom from coercion-handed deals such as UPB.
	Somehow I'm generally viewed as the bad guy because to my opposition I'm trying to keep others from vital resources like health care.
	Yeah.
	No, it's very tough.
	It's very tough.
	This is the snowball acceleration of status control.
	It's really brutal.
	It's really brutal.
	Healthcare is hard to get for a lot of Americans.
	Healthcare is a big issue.
	Now, what was it?
	I think Bernie Sanders was recently tweeting out, this is off the top of my head, something like half a million families going bankrupt from healthcare expenses.
	It's not quite true.
	Any bankruptcy where healthcare is listed as any factor is considered a healthcare-related bankruptcy.
	But of course, if the government was so massively concerned With people going into debt, they would be less concerned about medical debt, or at least equally concerned with medical debt, they would be concerned about student loan debt, right?
	But they don't care about student loan debt in particular because that's used to program the young into socialism.
	So, it is tough.
	I would really recommend, as I have for many years, Dr. Roderick Long.
	I know, sounds like someone out of Monty Python's Life of Brian.
	Dr. Roderick Long has a great article why government health care is so expensive and it's well worth reading with that kind of information.
	I doubt we're going to unwind it, we're just going to have to push through it.
	Rambler says, I'm 28 and struggle with energy.
	Sleep is crucial.
	I learned that the hard way by not doing so when I was over the road trucking.
	Messed me up.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	I woke up a bit early this morning.
	I couldn't get back to sleep.
	And then in preparation for tonight, I had to have like a half hour nap.
	Here's a little trick though, which is kind of cool, at least for me.
	Have a coffee and then have a nap.
	And then when the coffee kicks in, it kind of wakes you up and it makes you feel alert.
	If you do coffee, right?
	I mean that or maybe a tea or whatever, right?
	But yes, sleep is absolutely crucial.
	Sleep is one of the... Sleep and food, right?
	Sleep is one of the biggest things that you can... If you get it right, your life is very much enhanced.
	And if you get it wrong, it's really just dragging yourself through, so... Alright.
	Nat Heisenberg says, How do you justify the life of the mother, exception for abortion, since these cases happen?
	Cancer treatment will kill baby.
	It seems that this places the baby fetus at a lower person status.
	Thanks.
	Yeah, I mean, I hear what you're saying.
	I mean, trying to make moral rules from the great exceptions is always a big challenge.
	Morality is not quite the same as physics, right?
	See, in physics you can't have a single exception to the rule.
	You know, if you've got a theory of gravity, you can't have some ball that flies up, right?
	Then you've got a problem, right?
	So we try to get that same exactitude of physics into the trickier realms like morality.
	If you can find a single exception to a particular moral rule, I don't think that invalidates the rule.
	That's like saying, well, because sometimes a dog has three legs, we have no idea whether dogs have four legs, right?
	I mean, it's not the way that things work outside of physics, right?
	In life, there's gray areas and overlap and so on.
	So the mother of the exception for abortion is Well, it arose historically, insofar as, and again I know abortion was not particularly common throughout history, but the idea would have arisen, which is that if the mother dies, then the baby probably won't do that well.
	Because the baby's not going to have a mother, right?
	And this is before the welfare state and so on, right?
	Also, the baby isn't going to do as well because the father's going to be depressed over the loss of the mother, and therefore may not have the energy to go out and hunt and feed and all that kind of stuff, right?
	And also, basically, the mother can create more babies, but the baby can't create more mothers.
	So there is just that priority.
	So that would be my guess.
	A Canadian conservative says, phones make docile people.
	I think there's some truth in that.
	People have lost the capacity to sort of sit with themselves and just think.
	I've done thousands and thousands of shows and a lot of that has to do with, it's not quite meditation, but it's just sitting and enjoying my own thoughts and puzzling over things and letting my thoughts chase each other round and round and explore new ground.
	It's like watching a bucket full of puppies spread out over a yacht exploring.
	It's kind of cool.
	If the first thing that you do when you have a moment is reach for your phone, it's going to holler you out after a while.
	So I think there is that.
	All right.
	Mr. Surrendered says, if you had to fight Mike Tyson, what would you do?
	Well, I would surrender.
	So it's right there in the title.
	Burke M.
	It says, you may have done videos on this already, but I'm looking for some ways to navigate relationships with semi-abusive parents in late teens, early twenties for myself and others.
	Thanks for all you do.
	I don't know, semi-abusive parents?
	Well, I don't know about navigate relationships.
	My suggestion is to sit down and talk with your parents and tell them what the issues are that you have with them.
	If you can do that in a safe manner, and they say semi-abusive, so I don't assume that they're, you know, Freddy Krueger strangle people.
	So, sit down and talk with them about the issues that you have.
	If you're in relationships where you can't be yourself, there's just a very high price to be paid, which is, if you regularly train yourself to not be yourself, there's not going to be anyone there when people of quality show up.
	So, I would very much focus on sit down and talk about things with your parents.
	All right.
	Part.
	Any advice for someone who can't afford therapy and is digging through podcasts to understand his own history?
	I was just thinking about this the other day.
	I used to do these really cool dream analyses in the past, which I think are kind of cool.
	I think the podcasts are categorized.
	A lot of the call-in shows are around self-knowledge, so that can be very helpful.
	And Nathaniel Brandon, The Psychology of Self-Esteem, to me is a very, very good book and really helped me get going on this whole journey.
	So I would say that, pick up Nathaniel Brandon.
	He has the workbooks as well as does Jonathan Gray.
	Is that right?
	No.
	Oh, gosh.
	Not Jonathan Gray.
	Oh, it'll come back to me.
	I'm sorry.
	It's popped my head.
	It could be John Gray.
	Anyway, just look for sense and completion books and so on.
	Nathaniel Brandon has a bunch of them that are really good, and that can be helpful as well.
	So I hope that is useful.
	Which volume of podcasts, says someone, are best for understanding our own corruption?
	Will the podcast app ever come back?
	I hope so.
	I hope it will and I'm not sure.
	Nothing comes to my mind in terms of understanding our own corruption.
	FDRpodcast.com, you can do a search and the podcasts are pretty well categorized.
	All right.
	Nano Horizon says, just turned 32.
	Saskatchewan, it's hard.
	I feel like I'm walking in the skeleton of an economy.
	Empty houses, empty uranium mines, empty farms, empty lives.
	Yes, it is.
	It is very tough out there.
	So from 1948 until 1973, worker productivity rose like 96% and worker wages rose over 91%.
	So it kind of went lockstep.
	Since 1973, for a variety of reasons, immigration, feminism, Fed control of the currency going off the remnants of the gold standard and so on, what's happened is Worker productivity has gone up almost 75%, but worker wages have gone up like 9%.
	Whereas if you take a bunch of women out of the household, you put them into the workforce, well, you're just going to drive down wages, right?
	Get a bunch of immigrants coming in who have lower skills.
	The wages of the people who are at the top have been going up.
	The wages of the middle class are stagnating or slight decline, but the wages of the poor have gone down considerably.
	It's brutal for the poor out there with the economic pressures being brought to bear of them.
	You're not alone in that.
	Master Rebel says, I feel like women are the main enemy of the West.
	Except, I mean, even if we were to assume that is true, the word enemy I think would be misplaced there because it would be not a conscious situation.
	Hamish McKenzie.
	Reminds me of someone I went to high school.
	Hi Steph, I sent you an email.
	If you could shoot me a response either way, it would be greatly appreciated.
	Yes, I will.
	Tom Aranda says, what curriculum do you use for homeschooling?
	What are your thoughts on the classical model?
	Oh, the trivium?
	It's good.
	And so we use standard curriculum.
	We have tutors and work with her ourselves.
	Eli Ben says, as a Jew, how do I push back against the Jewish question conspiracy?
	So yeah, I got a bunch of videos on that.
	You know, so Jewish Conspiracy Theories is the one video that I would recommend.
	I interviewed someone about this as well.
	And so...
	The other thing that, you know, if you're Jewish, what I would suggest is, you know, there is a lot of frustration out there and I don't agree with it, but what I would say, though, is what would be helpful is if you could talk to other Jews and say that it would be probably helpful to push back against some of the anti-white racism that's floating around because
	Jewish people do ask for help against anti-Semitism, which I certainly don't begrudge, but I'm not always feeling, and I don't think the sense is out there that it's like 100% reciprocal, that for, say, Christians to sit and push back against anti-Semitism, it's a fine thing to do, but I'm not sure that as many Jews are pushing back against anti-white racism, and I think that that kind of mutuality would probably be for the better.
	All right.
	What percent of your call-in shows do not get uploaded?
	Oh, almost all the call-in shows get uploaded.
	There are a very, very few which don't.
	But yeah, most of the call-in shows do get uploaded.
	And I hope that you guys like ... I mean, I used to do these sort of four-hour-plus call-in shows, and I've been doing sort of more individual ones, which are Good.
	Sam Beck says, love your content.
	Recently found out my dad listens to you also.
	You got a bit of an audio problem going on.
	Formless Geometry says, what free time activities make a man well-rounded?
	So, free time activities.
	I think sports are great.
	I would also Argue for listening to music, watching plays, chess.
	It's a great thing to work on.
	Some video games that are not just, you know, pew-pew can be kind of cool.
	This is from the last one.
	I didn't get to this one before.
	Sorry if you ever listen to this or hear this.
	What's your take on parents putting credit card debt upon their children?
	I'm 23 and have $7,000 of credit card debt on my name.
	Not even mine, but made by my mother.
	Wow, that is a lot of money.
	I am very sorry about that.
	That is really, really tough.
	Okay, so this is tough talk time regarding this.
	Well, generally it is.
	I try to be obviously as straight with you guys as possible.
	But let me tell you something.
	There are people in my life who've cost me money.
	And the way that I generally work it in my mind is I say, Would I pay this amount of money to never deal with this person again in my life?
	It's a big question.
	If your mother is going to dump $7,000 of credit card debt on you when you're 23 years old, that's your question.
	Would you pay $7,000 to never deal with your mother again?
	Guilt-free!
	Like, guilt-free!
	Would you pay $7,000 to have closure with your relationship with your mother?
	It's a big question.
	Now personally for me it'd be like so if somebody cost me a couple of grand I'd be like okay well now I don't have to deal with that person and I don't have to feel guilty about anything because they made themselves pretty clear.
	All right let me see if I can get another couple of super chats and thanks everyone so much of course a great pleasure to chat and I hope that these answers are Helpful.
	Tony says, how do I get on a show with you or get in touch with you, to chat with you?
	I feel it would benefit me greatly.
	I have a lot I'd like to talk about.
	You can go to freedomainradio.com, the email is there, and shoot it in.
	Listen, I am I literally could do call-in shows eight hours a day and not be done.
	That could be my full-time job, is just do call-in shows.
	And I'm really, really sorry to the people.
	I'm one human being.
	I've still got a parent and I, you know, all of that.
	So I will look for your email, Tony.
	I really can't guarantee anything.
	It is tough, and I'm torn because I want to talk to everyone.
	I really, really want to talk to everyone, but I just can't.
	Blunt in the belly of the beast.
	Well worth checking out the channel.
	Very nice to see you come by.
	Thank you very much.
	David Franco Jr.
	says, Beast system.
	No one can buy a cell without mark.
	Rising surveillance.
	Banks won't work with people who think wrong.
	China point system.
	Yeah, well, that's a big issue, of course.
	That is a big issue which is that there is of course the movement on the left now that we're coming into election season.
	There is movement on the left seeing how they are losing to some obviously middle-of-the-road populist political parties around the world.
	There is the move to not just de-platform people from particular social media but also to kill their ability to operate within A economic context.
	Now, the funny thing is that I wrote about all of this 12 years ago in my book, Everyday Anarchy and Particularly Practical Anarchy, which is exactly how a stateless society would work, which is that if people did not conform to social norms, they could be ostracized economically in society.
	It's a little bit different with what's going on right now, but it is actually kind of proof of concept and all that.
	All right, Matthew.
	Oh, sorry, I missed one there.
	My apologies.
	S.A.
	says, Hey, Steph, thanks for all the work you do.
	I like your old videos on the coming economic crisis.
	Would love to hear your thoughts on starting a family in the face of serious turbulence.
	Right.
	I actually did an interview not too long ago about this, where I sort of put my thoughts forward in this way.
	And let me just see if I can get the title.
	I think it's called Go Have Some Damn Kids.
	It's not out yet.
	Something interesting.
	When I upload a video to YouTube, it seems to process for about the length of the video.
	It gets stuck at 95% processing for about the length of the video.
	I'm sure when I was reviewing it, it's just kind of an interesting Here's Twinkie Dink, as they say, right?
	I will put that out tomorrow.
	And let me just get the title here.
	Now Billie Eilish songs are stuck in my head.
	They really are a kind of highly adept brain virus.
	Yeah, anyway, so the video will be out tomorrow.
	And let me just double check here.
	It's called, Go Have Some Damn Kids.
	I was interviewed at the 21 report conference.
	George Bruno interviewed me, and that will be out tomorrow.
	Also, you should check out this weekend.
	I'm going to put out a video called, Why I Bought a Dead Fox to School.
	Let's see here.
	Do I know why everyone is calling Vox Dei Teddy Spaghetti?
	I do not.
	Ewing McSee says, You ruined my childhood with your whole, hold your parents accountable for their actions BS.
	Love the show.
	Keep it up.
	Yeah, thank you.
	Joshua says, thank you for the best content out there.
	You know it's kind of true, isn't it?
	I mean, let's be honest with each other.
	This is great stuff.
	Luke Battiston says, is going galt coward?
	It's been working very hard at a stressful job in Canada, an even more redistributionist and inflationary country.
	Maybe it's just the harsh spring talking.
	Yeah, so I tweeted this, and of course you should follow me on Twitter, but I tweeted this that if Trump fails on immigration, and it looks like he's going to, then the next inevitable step is for people to just go galt and crash the system in the hopes of bringing down the welfare state that's bringing all the people into the country.
	No, it's not cowardice.
	At some point it actually just makes perfect sense to stop feeding into a system that is working to destroy you.
	All right, David Franco Jr.
	says, future seems increasingly uncertain.
	Rise of socialism, government power, automation, war, ability to get a partner seems low based on hypergamy.
	Well, that is what... That is why focusing on being a good man is so important, right?
	That's why it's so important.
	If you differentiate yourself in the marketplace with virtue, then you will, I think, be better off in terms of getting a woman who's not going to want to upgrade.
	So be as good as you can.
	It'll be almost impossible to upgrade from you.
	All right.
	Nicole Harris says, Expat for nine years.
	Family is coming for a first visit.
	Dad, his wife, and two half-siblings.
	Stepmom is awful, but I love the other three.
	How to deal with this with integrity?
	So I would say, make a decision ahead of time.
	And you would say, am I going to talk about the issues that I have or not?
	Now if you decide not to talk about the issues, then just keep the conversation light and Frivolous and frothy and nonsense and so on and you can sort of take the visit that way and then you won't feel bad because you're having integrity to your goals and plans.
	If you do decide that you want to talk about things in more depth and detail then make that happen early on and you can have integrity without telling the truth, right?
	I mean you could decide to not tell the truth about what you think and feel about this family and you still have integrity if you follow that.
	All right.
	Kenny O says, Steph, in New Zealand, call yourself Stéphane Polignou.
	What will you do if your daughter falls in love with a man of another ethnicity?
	Well, he will be a virtuous man, I believe, because she will model herself after the father, so that's fine.
	All right.
	Joost Lekkerkoeker.
	Hey, Stéphane, do you think it would change anything in terms of wanting to bridge our differences if politics, philosophy and business would be conducted in Basque like the Romans did?
	Thank you.
	That could be pretty funny.
	I think it would end up with a lot of Me Too towel movements.
	Men and women express their work skills differently?
	I'm sorry, that's not something I can really focus on.
	I'll do one or two more and I guess we'll close out for the night.
	These shows leave me on sort of a high side.
	I need to cool down.
	All right.
	Ice Physics says, speaking of Bitcoin, my uncle mentioned that he thinks that governments will inevitably ban something that could challenge fiat currency.
	I am skeptical, but what are your thoughts?
	Yeah, I mean, obviously if it really threatens to displace.
	I mean, there's an argument out there that both Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Gaddafi of Libya were both taken out because they wanted to create currencies that could compete with the petrodollar.
	So...
	I would say they may do something to challenge fiat currency.
	They may try to ban something, but if you know anything about the technology of Bitcoin, it's kind of impossible to ban.
	And I think that would be a hell of a battle.
	And the other thing too is that I don't know if they'd open themselves to lawsuits by taking something of value and destroying it.
	The governments have already committed to allowing it.
	So now that there's untold billions of dollars floating around in Bitcoin, they can't just pass a law.
	I mean, they can do anything they want, but it'd be very tough for them to just pass a law and invalidate hundreds of billions of dollars worth of value.
	That would be very tough.
	All right, smash the states.
	Thoughts on Mencius, Moldbug, and Neoreactionaries?
	None, sorry.
	Ask yourself.
	Looking forward to our debate tomorrow.
	Yeah, so tomorrow 6 p.m.
	Eastern Standard Time.
	I'm going to be on Discord on the politics server having a debate about animal rights.
	All right, Nevis.
	Anhedonia has left me really directionless, depressed, and difficult to find serious motivation for nearly anything, and I am struggling not to succumb to despair.
	Let's see here.
	What is that?
	The inability to feel pleasure.
	I guess I could get that from the... what is that?
	Grief?
	Listen to the beginning of this show where I talk a lot about the things I think that are important and necessary to get your life jump-started, and I'm very sorry for that.
	My deep, deep sympathies.
	Billy Eilish's brother is a huge leftist.
	Yeah, well, that would explain quite a bit.
	Thank you.
	All right.
	Well, I'm going to close things off for the evening.
	My friends, my friends, thank you so much.
	If you find what I do to be of value, it's a tough time out there at the social multimedia verse.
	As you can see from video views, they are down, down, down, which means... I mean, the plan is, I assume, is to sort of...
	A slow decline, right?
	Because people cycle out of the show for whatever reason.
	It's just going to happen, right?
	And if not new people are coming into the show, then there's going to be a decline in what I'm capable of doing.
	I mean, it's just the way that it goes.
	So if you can help out the show, really, really appreciate it.
	freedomainradio.com forward slash donate is the place to go.
	And again, thank you everyone so much for A really, really great joy and pleasure in having these kinds of conversations and I will try and set something up more regularly to do these live streams because they really are a great pleasure and I wish you a super, super weekend.
	Thanks everyone so much, of course.
	Love you guys.
	guys.
	I'll talk to you soon.
	Well, thank you so much for enjoying this latest free domain show on And I'm going to be frank and ask you for your help, your support, your encouragement, and your resources.
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