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July 13, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:06:03

Why Do People Have Children?

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	Hi everybody, Freedom Inn Radio, Sunday Philosophy Call-In Show.
	Thank you so much for your time and attention.
	It is the 23rd of December, 2012.
	It's almost time for Christmas, so don't forget to give a philosopher a little treat under his Christmas tree.
	I will take food or gift wraps, or thoughts or brains or kidneys, but most of all I like a few Federal Reserve notes to bathe in.
	No paper cuts for me.
	So, I hope you're doing well.
	I'm sure that we lost at least half the audience with that fine rendition.
	So, let's move on to the callers, and we'll start with Brian.
	How are you doing, my friend?
	Hello, Stefan.
	I've been a long-time listener and a big fan of yours for a few years now.
	Thank you.
	I have two topics I'd like to cover today, but depending on how much time we have, we'll see if I can at least get to the first one I have.
	And my first topic is a recurring dream I have, and I'm not sure if you want me to tell you my second topic now or just go into my first one.
	Which one do you want to do?
	I mean, if we can only do one, I don't know, but which one do you want to do?
	Well, the second one may take longer, but I get a lot more information if I go with the recurring dream.
	Okay, let's do the dream.
	So I'll start with that, I believe.
	So about, uh, three and a half or four years ago, I, uh, what's the term I believe I used?
	Uh, defruit for my family.
	I, uh, moved out of my house after some serious traumatic events.
	I'll probably get into that in a bit later in the phone call, but I've been living on my own and almost have completely, uh, discommunicated myself from my family.
	However, over these last three years, about once a month or even Every other week, I've been having a recurring dream that's been very, uh, happening very often.
	Now, this dream I would have basically starts out where I'd be with my family.
	And it'd be a real, we'd be at some really fun, like, amusement park, a really happy place, and everything would be actually really fine.
	I wouldn't realize that I'm in a dream.
	But the moment that I, and I would be having a, like, a generally great time, but the moment I would If I were to speak to any members of my family, especially my mom or my stepdad, it would turn into, like, this huge, powerful argument, and then I would wake up right away and complete almost cold sweat and, like, fear.
	And this dream has been happening very often, but it's strange because it starts out as such a good dream, and it turns into such a scary dream.
	The moment I would talk to my family members, I would realize it's a dream.
	Right.
	Right.
	So, okay, so do you, if you don't mind, we don't have to go into any particular detail, but what were the events that caused you to, or that triggered the separation from your family?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	A long time ago, my parents ended up divorcing when I was very young.
	I don't remember how old I was at the time when they divorced.
	I never even knew my real dad.
	I just knew my stepdad.
	Now I'm going to fast forward about 18 years or so, but I've lived under a very protective Roman Catholic-like family.
	Now my mom, she was very protective of me and disabled almost any content that I would see or anything.
	So if I would begin talking about topics that didn't support the religion, she would go and attack any of my friends in a way of like, It's your friends and your agents that are converting you and they're turning you against us kind of thing.
	It's all your friend's fault.
	Sorry to interrupt.
	I'm not sure that I would characterize that as protective.
	In some way I believe like in her head she thinks she's being protective but like it's hard for me to like rationalize exactly what was going on in her head.
	However, the event that actually triggered the separation was simply a curfew issue where I'm, I was eight, no, no, I was 21 at the time.
	And right after work, I went over to my friend's house to go play some poker without leaving a message for my family that night.
	And that very same night that my parents called all my friends, they found me with cell phone in my house.
	They were about to call the police, but I came back the next morning.
	And they were, like, absolutely terrified that I did not come home the one night.
	And I was very, uh, like, uh, confused just for the fact that as a 21-year-old man, I couldn't go out for a single night or go out for eight hours.
	That night at dinner, when my stepdad, uh, came over to me and he said that you will abide by the rules of the house so we can know when you're supposed to be fed and He, at the time, I said, no, but I have my own schedule.
	Like, this is between me and my mom.
	Like, this isn't an issue for yourself.
	And at that moment he snapped and we had a fight.
	But it wasn't much of a fight.
	It was more, he came over and pushed me off my chair at the dinner table and held me in a chokehold, at which time I, not sure how, but I very calmly asked him to let me go.
	Cause I somehow expected his behavior.
	Cause it's happened numerous times in my past where he has acted aggressively towards me.
	So I kind of expected it to happen, but after he didn't let go, I struggled, pushed away.
	He didn't continue after that, but in like a physical manner, but I pretty much got into a yelling fit and I ran away from my, and I ran out of the house.
	And then the next day I gathered my stuff and I was gone from there.
	I'm so sorry.
	What a terrible and terrifying event to experience.
	So he had you in a chokehold and you were struggling while he had you in a chokehold?
	Well, I'm a very small person.
	I'm about 5'5", and I weigh 100 pounds, and he's probably about 5'9", and weighs about 170 to 180.
	So this is a really big man compared to me, too.
	No, I mean, it's just that if somebody has you in a chokehold and you're struggling, I mean, that actually can be very dangerous, right?
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Well, it was like a burst-like struggle.
	I got out immediately when I attempted to because I wasn't attempting to for the first 10 seconds he was holding me.
	I was just trying to compose myself and casually ask him to let me go.
	He wouldn't let go.
	He was just kind of making this grunting and honing sound, just kind of honing.
	I don't know what he was thinking at the time.
	So your mother is, or at least was, very religious, is that right?
	She still is extremely Roman Catholic.
	How does that work with the divorce thing?
	It's really, I can't even, I can barely justify it for myself, or like, to at least understand it, but... She would always speak out about how my... Well, she would always speak about how my original father was very abusive and everything, and that's why we had to leave.
	But then, ever since I met my stepdad, like, all I've known is that when he would get angry at me, he would show, like, abusive symptoms towards me and stuff like this, so it's not like I could actually gauge, like, my original father to my new father.
	Yeah, you're like, okay, so this is the improved model?
	Holy crap, right?
	And I would assume that she witnessed these aggressions towards you, right?
	This is also one of the reasons why I ended up just communicating with my parents because a year after, like, I left the house and moved to my friend's house for a time.
	Then I moved into my own house, but I was still keeping contact with my mom.
	I wanted to see if I could repatch the relationship up somehow.
	But that very same Christmas, I even made a topic on this in the forums, was when she came to the house and I asked her some very serious and deep questions, such as, like, this man, like, he choked me in this.
	And like there were a lot of times when I was growing up where I felt like I was abused by him.
	And this was like, now the way my mother reacted or responded was a complete denial of all events as if she completely forgotten about it or rewrote the entire situation in her head.
	Like, what ended up happening was that she told me that I overreacted at the dinner table and I was freaking out.
	So my dad had to calm me down or stop me because I was getting very dangerous, which did not happen, of course.
	And that's how she justified the event and how he was just doing it to protect me.
	And so, like, when something would get dangerous, my mom would complete.
	So, sorry, it was sort of like putting a crazy person in restraints for self-protection.
	It was sort of a self-defense and protecting you kind of thing.
	Got it.
	Okay.
	I'm sorry.
	That's just wretched.
	Just wretched.
	But, sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, this has happened various times before.
	Like, when I mentioned, like, abusive methods, which I was spanked and stuff, she would completely deny... Like, I remember a time that I was fed soap for... I can't even remember the reason, but she completely denied that.
	But I have a lot of memories of being spanked or hit with a belt or something.
	And when I confronted her about, like, stuff like this in the past, she denied everything, saying that she's never spanked or hit me before.
	It was just completely denial of any kind of I don't know how she could completely deny these things, or the events that my stepfather did.
	When she denied these events, it was like a picture frame shattering in front of me, and I was like, I can no longer be around this person any longer.
	It was a very terrifying moment.
	Even in the Catholic morality, no forgiveness is possible.
	It's weird that my parents would classify them as very deep Roman Catholics, but I've never seen them ever go to confession once.
	So, I mean, even if we accept the Catholic theory...
	Sorry, go ahead.
	No, it's just, it's weird that my parents would like very classify them as like a very deep Roman Catholic, but I've never seen them ever go to confession once.
	Like I've only been to confession once myself over a very trivial matter, and I felt it was actually kind of scary and like being in a room with this man just once who I felt didn't have any care in the world about my plea at the time.
	But I've never seen my parents go to any kind of confession.
	So in the dream that you have, you say about once a month your family is doing, you're at a fun place like a This would also include my stepdad, not my real dad at the time.
	I would see my parents in the background and we'd all be having a happy time, but the moment that we'd engage in a conversation, somehow it would immediately go into something very negative fast.
	Right.
	Right.
	Now, can I make a wild-ass guess?
	A wag.
	Would it be fair to say that your mother and stepfather were quite concerned with outward appearance, i.e., the appearance of a happy family?
	Oh yes, very much so.
	I could definitely see that.
	Not even saying that, but I would definitely acknowledge that.
	Right.
	So, in a family that is abusive, or where abuse is occurring, Douglas Goldstein, CFP®, is the director of Profile Investment Services and the host of the Goldstein on Gelt radio show.
	He is a licensed financial professional both in the U.S.
	and Israel.
	Securities offered through Portfolio Resources Group, Inc., Member FINRA, SIPC, MSRB, NFA, SIFMA.
	Accounts carried by National Financial Services LLC.
	Member NYSE®, a Fidelity Investments company.
	around the elephant talking as if the elephant isn't there and avoidance is so fundamental to dysfunctional families that the number of topics that you can talk about are very small because so many topics will lead to dangerous areas particularly for the abusers
	And of course, if the areas are dangerous for the abusers, then they tend to be dangerous for the victims, because if the abuser starts to feel guilt or shame or remorse or attack, if they're capable of feeling guilt or shame or remorse, they certainly may feel attacked or feel threatened by any kind of truth, then they'll lash out.
	So that which is dangerous for the abuser is dangerous also for the victim.
	And so the problem is that the first requirement of any relationship, I don't mean proximity, I don't mean biology, I don't mean we share some DNA and we grew up under the same roof, I mean a relationship.
	And I mean relationship founded on the word relate.
	And relate means to interact with but also to tell.
	To relate a story, to relate an event, to tell, to speak honestly and freely and openly.
	Honesty is the foundation of any relationship and in an abusive household you know they say that the first casualty of war is the truth and of course the first casualty of abuse is honesty and as a result of that
	The domino effect of the lack of honesty and the effects that these falling dominoes have on any kind of capacity for relatedness is truly devastating.
	And I really wanted to just point out that if you were physically attacked by your stepfather, if you were spanked and spanked with implements by your mother, that is egregious violence within the home.
	And physically attacking your children is illegal.
	And certainly in the United States, hitting your children with implements is, as far as I know it, illegal.
	And I actually just saw this video of a woman who got on a school bus and slapped a child who she said was bullying her child and told him, was basically telling him not to bully her child.
	She slapped him and, well, she was convicted.
	of child endangerment or whatever it was.
	Felony, child assault, I can't remember.
	So she just slapped a child.
	And lo and behold, she is now a convicted criminal.
	So I think the first thing to understand is that this was criminal behavior.
	It wasn't just, oh, we say, oh, it's abusive.
	And of course it's abusive.
	But there's abuse that is not criminal, however destructive it may be.
	Like telling your child they're stupid or whatever.
	But this is I mean, this is assault.
	This is criminal behavior.
	I think that's the first thing to understand.
	The second, of course, is to understand that when this is occurring in a household, intimacy has become impossible.
	Intimacy and violence cannot coexist in any way, shape, or form.
	They are opposites.
	Violence is about the erasure of the other.
	and can only occur as a result of a complete void of empathy towards the other person.
	You cannot empathize with someone you are being violent towards in the moment.
	You might have some personality switch and flip out afterwards and hug them and promise they'll never happen again and burst into tears at what a terrible person you've been and so on, but in the moment of attacking someone, of assaulting a child, You cannot have empathy for that child.
	You're just filled with a cold rage and a desire to discharge your own evil and your own venom, and the child is an object, as DeMoss says, a poison container for your own sick dysfunction.
	So relationships are not possible.
	Sorry, let me just finish.
	Relationships are not possible in an environment of violence.
	And violence, of course, does not end when it ends.
	Violence continues.
	If violence ended when it ended, there'd be no such thing as post-traumatic stress disorder.
	Violence does not end when it ends.
	If you are only beaten once a month, it's not like for then 28, 29, or 30 of the rest of the days of the month, you're completely fine as if you've never been beaten.
	It has an all-pervasive effect.
	You know, having a non-violent time of month is like having a non-peeing side of the swimming pool.
	Well, it all mixes up, right?
	It doesn't separate.
	So if you have dreams wherein your family looks fine until they actually try to talk with each other, that to me would be understandable.
	Because if people use violence in relationships, they sacrifice honesty, they create these landmines, everybody has to edge around the big bloody sick disco elephant of violence in the room.
	And intimacy becomes impossible and honesty becomes the enemy.
	It's not just an absence of honesty.
	It's not just an absence of intimacy.
	The moment you start becoming violent towards someone, assuming that you don't immediately go and get help and apologize and take anger management and get therapy or whatever it is, right?
	But if you continue violence towards people, then empathy becomes your enemy because you've done egregious and permanent harm to a child.
	And therefore beginning to empathize with that child is going to cause you great suffering.
	Now I have received letters, I'm just telling you this, I don't know the truth of it but I believe it's true.
	I have received letters from parents who have stopped spanking and apologized to their children.
	I think that's incredibly heroic.
	I think that's fantastic, that is magnificent.
	Of course it would be better to not have spanked at all but propaganda is propaganda and I think that's incredibly noble but obviously that's not the case in this situation and I think by the time your children have grown It's a day late and a dollar short as they used to say.
	So in your dream your family looks fine and maybe even feels fine until you actually try to speak with them and then things go completely awry and I think that is the result of violence.
	Violence makes honesty and empathy and curiosity and a relationship your enemy because violence can only occur when these things are specifically eliminated from Any interactions?
	Does that make any sense?
	Yes, I've actually tried thinking in a very similar way when I was deconstructing my own dreams on my own about how I could possibly make sense of the events that are happening and I came to a similar kind of conclusion.
	But you're having the dreams because something is not clear to you, right?
	My guess would be.
	Maybe I want to have some kind of resolution to the event, more so.
	Because this event has taken place over almost four years now.
	And at the original event where I told my parents denied all actions of abuse to me was about two years ago.
	And at that very moment, I assumed, okay, They're in this very stressful denial moment and they'll come around in maybe like a year or half a year and then they'll apologize and they'll say that they've thought about it at all.
	But I've seen my parents multiple times because they know where I work and they know where I live now.
	So they've sent letters and all of the letters or every time they've come to see me or anything, they act as if none of the events had ever happened or even The initial event why I rejected them or haven't, they would say something, are you not seeing me just because of religion or something like this?
	Or are you seeing me just because of the, not because the government, but not because of anything to do with the family.
	And I wanted to have like some kind of like resolution or like family really, so I don't have to worry about this, but they've never even moved back to the moment.
	The concerns about the abuse that I mentioned are completely, I've forgotten about them.
	Right.
	And now, is that not closure?
	I know it's a little harder to get resolution without honesty from the other person or an admission of guilt, because that's all designed, of course, to push all of the... I just kind of wanted an admission of guilt from them.
	I just kind of wanted like an admission of guilt, like maybe something even from them, like we're sorry, maybe we have abused, like maybe, like saying maybe at least.
	But there's none of that, it's just a complete denial.
	Right, right, right, right.
	And do you think that they're capable of feeling guilt?
	I... Well, everyone is capable of feeling guilt, but I... No, that's not true.
	But I honestly don't know where they are in their mental state at all or anything.
	Sorry, it's not true that everyone is capable of feeling guilt.
	According to statistics, about 4% of the population are not capable of feeling guilt or remorse or shame.
	They simply don't have that capacity.
	I mean, they may fake it if they're cornered.
	They don't experience guilt, remorse or shame or self-criticism. - Yeah.
	It's just really hard for me to link if they actually do or not, because I somehow still feel that they do.
	It's just that they've never actually, in these recent years, shown it to me, but I feel like in the past they have.
	I can't recall any specific moments.
	Well, I think that's worth mulling over.
	You know, we have a huge amount of information about people when we grow up with them and so I think that's something to mull over.
	And, you know, has the person shown guilt or remorse or shame about actions?
	Have they admitted fault and agreed and apologized and agreed to change behavior and so on?
	These are all just information.
	Now, People who lack empathy, I believe, are impossible to figure out.
	And the reason that they are impossible to figure out is it's kind of like trying to turn a disco ball into a laser.
	You know, a disco ball, you shine it, it fragments all the lights all over the place.
	A laser is a very focused beam, of course, of light.
	And you can't.
	You shine the light at a disco ball, it just fragments and breaks up and goes into all these different spots.
	Because people who lack empathy can only interact through manipulation.
	They can't interact through love or care or concern or thoughtfulness or affection or sympathy.
	Those are just off the table because they lack empathy.
	And so all they can really do is manipulate.
	Because they lack empathy, other people are like crops or livestock.
	They just can get what they want from other people.
	I'm not saying this about your parents, I don't know, I'm just saying In general, people who lack empathy, if this does turn out to be the case in your evaluation.
	Right.
	But you can't figure out people who are always manipulative.
	It's like saying, what does a kaleidoscope look like?
	Well, it's always changing.
	It's like trying to paint a cloud.
	By the time you're halfway through, the cloud is gone.
	To figure people out requires that they have a principle of action.
	That is independent of manipulation.
	Because figuring people out who manipulate you, or who are manipulators, can't be done.
	Because everything, every conclusion you come to will simply change.
	Because there is no principle of the personality other than manipulation.
	And people who manipulate don't like to have any principles of behavior, because that interferes with their manipulation.
	So if I have a rule called, don't yell at people, And then I'm yelling, then whoever I'm yelling at can say, wait a minute, you don't yell at people, right?
	And I have to then say, oh, you know what?
	I'm so sorry.
	You're right.
	I lost my head.
	I really apologize.
	And we'll take it from there.
	So the moment you have a principle in your personality, a standard, then you can be restrained.
	You can be, quote, controlled.
	The principle can be appealed to and you must change your behavior.
	Well, somebody who manipulates doesn't want that.
	They don't want to have a standard that they can be controlled by, because that's going to interfere with their capacity to do what they want, do whatever they want, to get whatever they want.
	Of course.
	And this is why hypocrisy and manipulation go hand-in-hand, because you can manipulate people the very best by getting them to accept moral rules that you are exempted from.
	You know, so people who are Manipulative, if you do something that they don't like, they will say, well, that's so inconsiderate.
	Why don't you think of other people's feelings?
	Meaning you're supposed to think of their feelings and do what they want.
	And then if you point out that this is a principle that they have not displayed in their relationship with you, they will change the topic or get even more upset or become histrionic or change you or whatever, right?
	Do anything to throw you off the scent.
	And this is why, it could be why, your mother is not troubled by the fundamental sin of divorce.
	So, you cannot get closure from manipulative people.
	Because the moment they sense that you need something, then they will withhold it from you.
	Of course, your mother knows that you need her to admit fault in order to gain closure.
	And she is specifically withholding that from you.
	I don't believe that you can forget hitting your children.
	I don't believe that's possible.
	I mean, unless you have some monstrous brain parasite or something like that.
	But I don't believe you can forget that.
	But you can claim to forget it.
	And so, if you try to gain closure from manipulative people, from people who don't have empathy, Then you are, you know, rubbing yourself in marinade and wandering into the lion's den, in my opinion.
	It's all just my opinion, right?
	And so, if you need something from someone who's manipulative, then that need will expose you to danger.
	If you still have that habit as an adult, then I would argue that you remain unprotected from manipulative people in the present.
	And that's probably why you're still having this dream.
	Because the dream is saying, I believe, this is not a science, it's just my thoughts about the dream.
	The dream is saying, you keep trying to make contact with people who are dangerous and I'm going to keep giving you this dream until you figure out that you cannot make contact with manipulative people.
	That's like trying to hug a fog bank, an acidic fog bank with serpents in it or something like that.
	She makes my metaphors.
	And if you continue to feel that you need things from manipulative people, those manipulative people will still show up in your life and they will be dangerous for you.
	That's it.
	Okay.
	I'll try and...
	Well, tell me if that fits.
	Do you feel...
	Pardon me?
	Do you feel secure in your existing relationships, in your present relationships?
	I don't think there's any kind of repairing it at all.
	I don't see an actual win for it.
	I never actually figured that I would ever get closure on it.
	It was just some kind of dream that maybe I thought I would somehow but I could kind of fix it or something but I didn't want to go and fix it at all because I didn't because I believe it was entirely on them which it is of course.
	There's a movie called Shadowlands with Anthony Hopkins and Deborah Winger.
	It's not a great film but it's great and in it there's a line something like You're always waiting for your mother to come down the hallway.
	It's a sort of psychological state where we have served the ball over the tennis net and we're waiting for it to come back.
	We know it can't come back on its own but we're kind of waiting for it to come back.
	So we've taken a stand in something in a relationship or in a proximity thing And we're waiting for the other person to act.
	And we can flush a lot of years down the toilet waiting for things to come back.
	Waiting for things to return to us.
	Waiting for people without a conscience to get a conscience.
	Waiting for people... It's like waiting for someone to regrow an arm that they had removed as a child.
	And I think that waiting is pretty disastrous.
	Suspended animation, you know, like Sleeping Beauty takes the poison apple from the maternal figure and lies there until a new love comes along.
	And I think that kind of suspended animation is a grave danger, because it's not painful enough to change, but it's not rich enough to resolve anything.
	Oh, can you hear me?
	Yes, I can still hear you.
	Sorry, I didn't know if you finished your explanation or not.
	Yes, sorry.
	It actually seems like a very interesting and possibly accurate explanation of the events.
	I'm sorry to interrupt you, but it's also a way of avoiding the grieving, right?
	Right.
	So I could probably Contemplate on that for quite a while and see if I can calm myself down and probably think of a way that I can end this for myself and not have to rely on another person for this.
	I did a series recently called The Fascist That Surrounds You.
	You might want to listen to it because in it I mentioned that one of the things that people talk about is a soul, which is the conscience that can't be erased.
	And the fact that you said, well, everyone has a conscience and you grew up in a Catholic tradition is not surprising, right?
	And if everyone has a conscience, then at some point your mom or your stepdad will wake up and say, oh my goodness, I did wrong because I have a conscience, right?
	And then you're in the process of repairing the relationship, if you wanted to, right?
	And so there's a lot of waiting that comes from the concept of the soul.
	A lot of waiting for what is impossible.
	To my knowledge, there is no cure for people who have no conscience.
	They have no conscience.
	And you can't give them a conscience.
	You can't make... I mean, it's an arm that's gone.
	It does not regrow.
	And saying, well, I will get closure when my friend's arm regrows is a way of avoiding whatever grieving results, right?
	And of course, growing up, if it's true that your parents lack conscience, and there seems to be some evidence for that, but if it's true that your parents lack conscience, and you're waiting for them to act as if they had a conscience, then it's going to cost you a lot of years.
	Yeah, these four years have just been kind of quite hectic.
	It can't just always been like maybe one day or something, but no, it has never been anything like what I'd hoped it to be or anything at all.
	Also, just relaying what the experts have said, again, I'm just going to say, People always try to associate me with these opinions.
	For the most part I'm just relating what the experts have said.
	What the experts have said about detaching from people who have no conscience is that you shouldn't feel bad about it because they don't really miss you.
	Because they don't actually have a connectedness or relatedness to you.
	Right.
	And as manipulators do, like, people who have no, like, reason to empathy at all, they'll try and put the blame on you when you say that you're the ones hurting them, or they don't know why you're running away or rebelling against them. or they don't know why you're running away or rebelling Sure, sure, absolutely.
	Somebody said in the chat room, it may not be that she has no conscience.
	conscience, she just can't psychologically acknowledge it.
	But I'm not sure what the practical difference is.
	It may be that I do speak Mandarin, I just never choose to speak it.
	Well, what's the functional difference, right?
	Penn and Teller, you know, Penn Jillette, who's the big pony-haired guy.
	Yeah, so somebody asked him and says, can Teller not talk or does he just not talk in the show?
	Can he not talk in the show or does he just not talk in the show?
	And he said, what's the difference?
	What's the difference?
	So if somebody never acts as if they have a conscience, and won't give what somebody needs, and won't acknowledge the truth, and always acts to protect themselves, and always acts in a selfish manner at the expense of other people, Saying, well, they may have a conscience that they're just not acting on and cannot acknowledge.
	What the fuck is the difference?
	Excuse my French.
	What does it matter?
	Maybe he has an invisible ghost arm that, you know, replaces the missing one that he just chooses not to use.
	Whether somebody has no conscience or merely acts as if they have no conscience.
	The damage is already being done and done.
	Yeah, and what difference could it make?
	Either way, you're not receiving the actions of somebody who has a conscience.
	He is a licensed financial professional both in the U.S.
	and Israel.
	Securities offered through Portfolio Resources Group, Inc., Member FINRA, SIPC, MSRB, NFA, SIFMA.
	Accounts carried by National Financial Services LLC.
	Member NYSE®, a Fidelity Investments company.
	like moving away and leaving my areas I never have to feel like running into them again or completely or trying to use the same medicine that they've used I mean and just completely forget about their own existence or cut them out and just focus on myself well those are conclusions and I think that if you try to impose a conclusion without going through the process I think you'll still keep having these dreams right so I'm I mean
	I don't tell people what to do and I can't give you an answer.
	I'm giving you some possibilities that need to be explored.
	So if I were in your shoes, right, I mean this is what I would do.
	I don't know if it's the right thing to do.
	I'm just telling you what I would do.
	What I would do is I would sit down and I would try to list all the ways in which my parents did not show empathy or showed cruelty.
	And that would be sort of on one side and on the other side of the page, draw a line down the middle, on the other side of the page I would list down all the times in which they showed genuine concern and care and empathy for me.
	me.
	And I don't mean by that that they took care of me when I was sick.
	Great.
	I understand.
	Not obligation.
	Well, that's not the same as showing empathy.
	Right.
	Thank you.
	I mean, lizards will take care of each other when they're sick, that they have the advanced moral skill called empathy.
	Empathy is when you genuinely want to know the true unadulterated thoughts and feelings and experiences of another human being.
	when you are curious about that other human being as a separate whole entity and you are willing to listen to the truth of that human being not only even when it's uncomfortable for you but especially when it's uncomfortable for you taking care of another human being when they're sick or driving them to hockey practice or picking them up from the airport these are all fine things
	But anything you can pay someone for is not the same as genuine empathy, with the possible exception of therapy.
	You can pay a guy to take you home from the airport.
	You can pay a nurse to take care of you when you're sick.
	You can pay someone to drive you to hockey practice.
	But you cannot pay someone to genuinely be interested in you as a human being.
	Yes, I understand that.
	Times where they spontaneously would ask you what you thought and felt, ask you for feedback on how they're doing as parents, ask you for your experience with the family, ask for what's your favorite music, songs, bands, hobbies, things that you've experienced hobbies, things that you've experienced which don't affect them directly but are important to you.
	you know, what the major milestones and high points and low points in your life so far have been, all the things that are just basically trying to find out important things about another human being.
	That's me.
	So just list down on the things that they did that did not involve empathy or anti-empathetic and then the things that they did that were genuinely empathetic.
	And for me, you know, there used to be this show on many moons ago called The Newlyweds where couples would be sort of He is a licensed financial professional both in the U.S.
	and Israel.
	Securities offered through Portfolio Resources Group, Inc., Member FINRA, SIPC, MSRB, NFA, SIFMA.
	Accounts carried by National Financial Services LLC.
	Member NYSE®, a Fidelity Investments company.
	me, you know, who's his favorite author, a poem, what's his favorite song, what are his favorite clothes, which bands or which styles of music does he really dislike, what's his favorite style of literature.
	and I think What is the most inspiring thought he's ever received?
	And so on.
	Just giving those those questionnaires to the people around me and I would just mentally calculate how many of them would be able to answer even five or ten percent of those questions.
	Because if you ask someone something that is interesting to them or something that is important to them they'll talk to you about it.
	Somebody asks me about my favorite music.
	I'll go on for a while, at least until my empathy senses that they may be getting bored.
	And so it's not like we're shy about things that are important to us.
	And if other people don't know the things that are important to us, that's an important thing to know.
	So there's practical things that you can do.
	All right.
	I can certainly be able to think of a list and build upon that for the end of the day.
	empathy and non-empathy moments.
	Right.
	And the other thing that I would say, again, these are things that are useful to me.
	I don't know what the answer is, but these are things that are useful to me.
	Is I try to imagine under what scenario would it be possible that people in my life who had wronged me who I no longer saw, under what scenario would it be possible that they would have a revelation?
	Right?
	I mean, I certainly have revelations as I wake up, oh my goodness, He is a licensed financial professional both in the U.S.
	and Israel.
	Securities offered through Portfolio Resources Group, Inc., Member FINRA, SIPC, MSRB, NFA, SIFMA.
	Accounts carried by National Financial Services LLC.
	Member NYSE®, a Fidelity Investments company.
	whether in a sense I want them or not and so on.
	But I don't want to mistake that for other people.
	Mistaking other people for yourself is kind of not empathetic.
	It's the hangover of non-empathy if we've received it.
	So I would sort of sit there and say to myself, okay, so under what circumstances would those who've wronged me receive a revelation and enough that they'd be willing to sort of, wow, I did this wrong and so on.
	And make amends and go through that whole painful process of figuring out why they did it and because if somebody says they did you wrong but doesn't figure out why, then you're not safe because they've just basically mouthed, I did something wrong, but they've not done anything to protect you from recurrence, right?
	And I could not, you know, if I'm sort of strict and rational and empirical with myself, which I try to be with varying degrees of success at times, then I had to admit to myself, I cannot conceive under which circumstances these things could occur.
	So I'd say, okay, well, obviously the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.
	Have these people had insights before, which of course have changed their behavior?
	Well, no, not to my knowledge.
	Are they currently engaged in a process?
	of attempting to gain self-knowledge.
	Self-knowledge does not fall into your lap.
	Self-knowledge, actually, because self-knowledge is often costly to people around us who've done us wrong, it is something that is difficult.
	It is elusive.
	And so, are they actively in pursuit of self-knowledge?
	Well, no.
	Do they have any interest in self-knowledge and truth and philosophy?
	Well, no.
	Do they actually have hostility towards self-knowledge, truth and philosophy?
	So they don't regularly have insights, or at least I can't remember an insight they've had before that's caused them to change.
	They're not in pursuit of self-knowledge, they seem to be self-knowledge.
	So under what magical condition of circumstances can I imagine that these epiphanies will occur to people?
	It's, to me, it's as... expecting it and waiting for it is as irrational as somebody who is expecting somebody who eats 8,000 calories a day and doesn't exercise to just wake up skinny one day.
	Yeah, that's probably exactly it.
	It's like...
	I can agree almost wholeheartedly to that kind of statement.
	I really have to...
	Yeah, sorry, we die as a species waiting for the impossible.
	Waiting for a government program to work, waiting for taxation to be productive, waiting for the board to be saved, waiting for war to bring peace, waiting for debts to bring prosperity, waiting for counterfeiting to bring wealth, waiting for people without conscience to suddenly grow a conscience.
	You see, we aspire at anticipation.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Thank you.
	Well, I was just going to mention that, yeah, it just doesn't happen.
	Like, if you're waiting for it, like these impossible scenarios, they just never happen.
	Now, look, and the last metaphor I'll give you, and I think we'll have to move on to another caller.
	I'm sorry we didn't get your second question, but this is the last metaphor.
	So, empathy is a language, I believe, and we either learn it from our parents or, I guess theoretically, we could learn it later on, right?
	So, I don't speak Gaelic.
	So, I didn't learn Gaelic in the home.
	I learned German in the home, apparently.
	I don't really remember it very well.
	But I learned English in the home, so I speak English.
	Now, waiting for me to spontaneously wake up and speak Gaelic, you understand, would not be rational, right?
	I'm not going to go study Gaelic.
	I'm just going to wait.
	One morning I'm going to wake up with an epiphany in my head called Gaelic.
	And we understand that if I'm not studying Gaelic, And if I do not expose myself to Gaelic, I will never learn Gaelic.
	Do we understand that, right?
	Right.
	So I think it's possible to learn empathy.
	I mean this is, I think, as I talked about UPB is ethics for people who lack empathy.
	Hopefully it's clarification for people who do, but it is possible to learn some of the principles of empathy if you're really willing to work at it.
	Like it's possible to learn Japanese But the chances of that are just incredibly thin.
	If you didn't learn it in the home.
	But expecting people who neither learned Gaelic in the home, nor are actively studying it to the present, to wake up suddenly speaking Gaelic is crazy.
	But the chances of that are just incredibly thin.
	It's a zero.
	It's not slim.
	You will never wake up speaking Gaelic fluently.
	Right.
	Or if you do, we're hot on the heels of past life proof, right?
	and And so waiting for people to wake up with empathy when they have not displayed it in the past and are not studying it in the present is like waiting for somebody to wake up speaking a foreign language without ever studying it and without ever having learned it in the home.
	It's not possible.
	Thank you very much for that metaphor, Stefan.
	You're very welcome.
	What I do is I swing at about a thousand metaphors and I usually connect with one.
	Remember, freedom made radio.
	You've been very helpful for both delivering your jokes and your philosophy advice.
	Very big influence.
	Thank you so much, Stefan.
	I think that the art I studied and the creative writing that I did and the poetry that I wrote, I think, has helped work out the Metaphor Center.
	And given that bad philosophy uses lots of metaphors like the cave, then hopefully it can work with good stuff too.
	All right.
	Well, thanks for your help.
	I hope it works out and I would strongly recommend seeing a therapist to deal with these issues.
	I will say that as I always say it just because I think it's important and I want to say it.
	So thanks so much for your call.
	It's very useful, very helpful and let's move on to the next caller.
	Have a nice day.
	Bye-bye.
	Can you hear me?
	Yes, I can.
	Go ahead.
	Oh, sorry.
	Yeah, I recently found out about Neustathon and everything that you can do and all the amazingness of it.
	And I'm going through several changes in my life right now.
	I'm finally moving out and becoming a professional in my field, I guess.
	Graduating college, looking for a full-time job.
	Looking to, I guess, start my life.
	And, uh, there are several skills that I think it would be excellent that if I could work on where it would help me improve my career, both professionally and as a person.
	And, uh, I seem to be at a loss with these.
	Um, everyone tells me that I need to show more confidence when I go in for interviews, everything like that, and in general.
	I lack confidence in my daily life, and that's a skill I'd like to work on, but it's not easily done.
	Well, it's certainly not easily done.
	I would not agree with that.
	I would question that way of phrasing it to begin with.
	I lack confidence.
	That means that you have isolated yourself as the problem and that you just are missing something.
	And so hopefully this will make more sense as we go forward, but please continue. - Hi.
	All right.
	Well, after talking to a person who showed me who you are, he suggested I start with talking about my life with you.
	All right.
	Growing up, my parents were, well, my parents in general, their background is my father used to be in the army and my mother Both my parents met when they were in high school and married and blah blah blah.
	And then my father, growing up, he was addicted to gambling and drugs and because of that we went without a lot of things and we had to move around quite a bit and my parents got married.
	Say he was in the army.
	Sorry, can you hear me?
	When you say he was in the army, did he see combat?
	I don't believe so.
	Um, he was in the army before I was born.
	After I was born, uh, well, about a year after I think he got out of the army.
	But then, uh... And so, you were divorced?
	I just, you cut out for a sec there.
	Sorry, um, just growing up, my parents got divorced and married to each other twice.
	And, uh, that was odd.
	Um... God, I don't know how to go about doing this.
	Well, obviously, there's chaos and instability if your father's addicted to drugs and gambling, right?
	Yes.
	You know, there's that song, I'm going to love you like nobody loves you.
	Come rain or come shine is the name of the song.
	Whether we're in or out of the money has always been a phrase in that song that's always kind of interesting to me because it indicates such a chaotic, possibly parasitical, gambling-based lifestyle.
	Hey, we're in the money.
	Oh, we're out of money.
	We're up, we're down.
	Whereas if you actually have a job, I mean don't get me wrong, some days with donations I'm in the money and a lot of days with donations I'm out of money.
	So I'm gambling on the goodwill of the planet as a whole which is good because it causes me to constantly up my game.
	My father actually had a fairly well-paying job at one point.
	Whether we're in or out of the money, it comes in, it goes out randomly, not even like a tide.
	So I imagine there were times where you were up and down with that kind of stuff, but it makes it very difficult to plan and very difficult to predict, right?
	My father actually had a fairly well-paying job at one point, but we would wake up in the morning and some of our stuff would be pawned.
	Or we'd all just play dumb and say that we lost it or it got stolen or something like that.
	Thank you.
	But there were times where I remember I had pretty much everything I wanted and times where, according to my mother and sister, we were basically fighting to just try and eat.
	So that was always fun.
	And he's actually, now he's off the drugs, he quit gambling, and he's a very, very, very helpful person.
	The love for us has always been there, I guess, but he's just always had relapses for things that I guess would seem more important to him.
	My mother, on the other hand, she was molested as a child.
	You say your dad is a very helpful person.
	Is he helping you to process some of the chaos and instability of your childhood?
	In other words, is he asking you questions about it?
	Is he accepting responsibility?
	Is he apologizing for it?
	Whatever, if he's got money now, is he offering therapy or anything else that might help you overcome some of these issues?
	Well, we don't really talk about it that often, but when we do, he does apologize for it.
	He always says how thankful He is, but all of his kids turned out the way that we have, based on how much he screwed up as a parent, and he has apologized for it profusely, and things like that.
	Okay.
	Good, good, alright.
	Not too bad.
	Okay, so you were saying about your mom.
	My mother, on the other hand, she was molested as a child by her father, and she continuously, but this happened apparently frequently, And I love my mother very well, but she is quite controlling because of that.
	She's scared of a lot of things in the world, and that was very evident growing up.
	I'm sorry, too, right?
	Who told you that?
	My mother did.
	Your mother told you that she was molested, and when did she tell you?
	What was that?
	When did she tell you?
	Oh, it was my sister who told me first, but, um, I guess my mother told me about two years ago, or last year, rather, when, uh, she had asked me if, uh, somebody was molesting me because there was somebody in our town growing up who apparently got accused.
	And, yeah, then she told me that she was, and I'd already known at that point, but, Sorry to hear that.
	Did you know if she ever saw a therapist about this?
	She has not.
	My understanding is that therapy is optional for a lot of people, but I think sexual abuse, the professional standards, as far as I understand them, are that it's really essential to see someone if this has occurred to you.
	But anyway, it's neither here nor there, particularly at the moment.
	So your mother was, you say, quite controlling?
	Well, not controlling.
	She was She was scared of everything, I guess.
	She was, I guess, overbearing a lot of times.
	What do you mean?
	The fact that she always resorts to the immediate worst-case scenario.
	Like, if I say I have a cold, she wants to take me into the hospital.
	Things like that.
	Growing up, she was, I guess, scared to leave my father a lot of times because she lacked self-confidence herself.
	I think that that may have been caused from that.
	She doesn't like it when we leave the house for too long because she doesn't know what's going to happen to us.
	Yeah, right.
	Sadly, I wish I could say more, but I have a lot of memory issues of my own.
	I don't remember much of my childhood.
	What kind of bird is that?
	Hmm?
	What kind of bird is that?
	I have no idea.
	Oh, I thought that might have been a pet bird in the house.
	It's either a very old game or a bird.
	There's no bird over here, I don't think.
	So in your environment, I think it's fairly clear that a lot of events would have transpired that would not exactly have helped you to develop your confidence.
	Yes.
	Thank you.
	And that's why originally I was saying I lack self-confidence.
	It's talking about yourself in isolation and talking about a personal deficiency.
	Yeah, I guess that's it.
	Whereas I think the accurate description would be that as a result of my upbringing, right, I mean that's I think the first The first thing to understand is the causality, not just I lack.
	It's a skill I would like to improve greatly.
	I have some locally empirical data.
	Another interesting question is, do children naturally have self-confidence, or is it something that needs to be inculcated in them?
	I think that's...
	Sorry, go ahead.
	You go ahead.
	Go ahead.
	I would say that that's kind of a little mix of both, because my little nephews, there are times where they project immense self-confidence, or there are also times where they just flat out don't know and are not afraid to say it.
	Thank you.
	Well, both of those are self-confidence.
	If you don't know and you say it openly, that's self-confidence, right?
	If you pretend to have knowledge that you don't have, that's insecurity, right?
	Because if you pretend to have knowledge you don't have, then you're saying, I'm going to be attacked if I tell the truth and I want to manipulate people rather than be honest.
	That comes from insecurity.
	Openly saying, I don't know, is, I think, the act of a confident person.
	In the same way, if you say to somebody who's been confusing, explain it to me like I'm three years old.
	That's kind of a confident statement.
	Because you're saying, I'm not going to pretend to be smart.
	I'm not going to go along with these buzzwords and nod and smile like I have any clue what you're talking about.
	I'm willing to play a three-year-old.
	I'm not emotionally invested or self-esteem invested in appearing smart or whatever.
	I think that children are naturally pretty confident because they achieve so much so early.
	They go from being these blobs that can't even find their own nose with their fingertips to within a couple of years stringing together 25 word sentences, being able to count to 100, being able to run, jump, do gymnastics, all these kinds of cool things.
	I mean that's just in a couple of years.
	There is no greater growth in any carbon-based life forms potential than what occurs to children and what they're able to achieve and master.
	Douglas Goldstein, CFP®, is the director of Profile Investment Services and the host of the Goldstein on Gelt radio show.
	He is a licensed financial professional both in the U.S.
	and Israel.
	Securities offered through Portfolio Resources Group, Inc., Member FINRA, SIPC, MSRB, NFA, SIFMA.
	Accounts carried by National Financial Services LLC.
	I mean, for those of you who've had a challenging childhood, sometimes confidence can be a little stressful.
	You know, like I'm willing to stand up to people, but sometimes it can be a little stressful.
	But she has complete comfort with, you know, even when she's wrong.
	And, you know, I cut off some slack on that because she's, you know, she just turned four.
	But, you know, like we do in this game where we will try to find words that rhyme.
	So sometimes two words that rhyme together in a sentence, they rhyme.
	Even that's pretty cool.
	and Shabbat shalom.
	Douglas Goldstein, CFP®, is the director of Profile Investment Services and the host of the Goldstein on Gelt radio show.
	He is a licensed financial professional both in the U.S.
	and Israel.
	Securities offered through Portfolio Resources Group, Inc., Member FINRA, SIPC, MSRB, NFA, SIFMA.
	Accounts carried by National Financial Services LLC.
	Member NYSE®, a Fidelity Investments company.
	about being incorrect, right?
	So we were talking the other day and we were talking about animals and I said, and people are a kind of animal.
	She says, no, people are not animals.
	So she's up in her Catholic phase of intellectual development.
	So people are not animals and I said, why?
	And she said, she paused for a moment and she said, because people walk on two legs and I said, well, ostriches walk on two legs and she says, Well, I guess that means we're all ostriches then, doesn't it?
	But she knew she was wrong.
	She just thought it was a funny joke and in fact I thought it was a funny joke so naturally for the next two days I'd be an ostrich.
	So I think that children naturally do have confidence and it needs to be eroded.
	We're born mountains and to get down to the molehill stage takes quite a bit of Does that make sense?
	Yeah.
	But how would I go about improving that scale?
	Sorry, I need to rebuild my confidence that childhood adversity stripped of me.
	Yes.
	Rather than I lack.
	I think the precision is really important in these situations.
	He is a licensed financial professional both in the U.S.
	and Israel.
	Securities offered through Portfolio Resources Group, Inc., Member FINRA, SIPC, MSRB, NFA, SIFMA.
	Accounts carried by National Financial Services LLC.
	the we use to describe our personality to ourselves becomes our personality.
	I lack self-confidence.
	It's not an accurate description.
	I was born to self-confidence. - I'm going to pass up.
	I know I definitely need to go see a concert still about a lot of this.
	It's just finding the time, energy, and money for it.
	Well, I know, I know.
	But you know the argument, right?
	Which is nothing more costly than avoiding self-knowledge, right?
	Yes.
	That's the best time.
	I'm good.
	As I mentioned earlier, I really don't remember much of my childhood or a lot of things growing up.
	Right.
	Also, as far as I'm concerned, it interferes with the formation and retention of memories, particularly long-term memories.
	So that's also a result of – it could be, right?
	It is within the realm of symptoms of childhood stress and trauma.
	Oh, yes.
	Something I've thought about quite frequently.
	Let's go something in particular.
	So you said in particular, in job interviews, you say you lack confidence, right?
	Yes.
	Every time I go to a mock interview, I always get told I do a very good job, except I – Don't project any confidence.
	I'm too timid and shy.
	Right.
	Well, let me give you a theory as to why that is, and hopefully this will help you.
	And if it doesn't help you, I will apologize in advance for wasting your time.
	Confidence is, to me, fundamentally about the anticipation or exploration of reciprocity.
	And what I mean by that is when people go for job interviews, generally what they're saying is, please, Mr. Man or woman behind the desk, please, please give me a job.
	It's only that we're that easy.
	Well, no, but that's what's going on in the background, right?
	Yeah.
	And it's not an examination of reciprocity.
	And that, I think, is why it appears unconfident.
	Because it is.
	So an examination of reciprocity, which to me is the essence of confidence, is going in and saying, we might benefit from working together.
	And let's explore whether we will.
	Because a lack of confidence is all about, does someone like me?
	Which is about the weakest place that anyone can start with.
	So weakness is, does this person like me?
	Will they give me a job?
	And it's depressing.
	It's nothing weak about it.
	I'm not saying you're weak.
	I'm just saying that is a weak place to start from.
	A strong place to start from and a rational place to start from and something that is actually respectful to the other person is – I wonder if we will benefit from working together.
	And so, oh, interview must be mutual.
	It must be mutual in order to avoid wasting time, disasters, wrong career directions, bad references, debilitatingly stressful experiences, and so on.
	So the stance that is, I think, rational and healthy from the job applicant
	is are we are we valuable to each other and the value that you as the employer bring to me is not giving me a job but is it a good fit it is a mutual interview because that shows that you want to get your needs met as well and that really is about confidence
	That's what confidence is about.
	Are you, in the interview, exploring whether you want to work at the company?
	Well, right now I'd just be willing to work pretty much anywhere.
	You'd just be what?
	I'd be willing to work pretty much anywhere within my field.
	Well, I know it's tough.
	I assume you're someplace i.e. on the planet where it's a tough job market and so on.
	But I'm telling you that it's not likely to get you a job.
	To get a job in a tough market, you need to differentiate yourself.
	And if you're in there along with the drab other conveyor belt of people who will do anything to get a job and work anywhere and have no standards, then you will not differentiate yourself.
	All right.
	So to use a coarse metaphor, the ugly poor guy with the hot blonde must have something extraordinary, let's say, the ugly poor guy with the hot blonde must have something extraordinary, let's say, under the hood All right.
	Well, I mean, we all know that Crypt Keeper that Anna Nicole Smith married had hundreds of millions of dollars, right?
	That's why she married him.
	But if he's like a Danny DeVito with no money, then he must have something going for him that involves some sort of tantric whatever, right?
	Then he must have something.
	Maybe he's a great conversationalist, but he must have something extraordinary going for him.
	And so if in a job market that is tough, if you then lower your standards, then you're doing what everyone else does and you're undifferentiated.
	But if as part of the job interview, you were saying, I am here to sell my services to you.
	You must also sell your services, your company, your environment to me.
	It's not a problem.
	Is this a job environment that I want to work in?
	Now, I'm telling you, in a tough job market, somebody who does that will stand out.
	And if a potential employer is upset or...
	or offended or angry at you also looking to meet your own needs as well as meet the company's needs.
	Unless you're on the brink of starvation, you seriously do not want to work in that place.
	you will be used and exploited and harmed.
	I was there when I would get peppered with 20 questions about the work environment and the future of the company and how conflicts were resolved and what the culture was and, and you know, What work ethic was the essence of it and what the growth potential was and so on, right?
	Because that somebody is actually taking care to find out if it's a good fit.
	I thought that was highly respectful of my time, whereas the people who just sat there and answered questions and wanted work, I knew that they would be passive.
	that if they weren't working to find a good fit, that if and when the economy improved, if they got a better offer, they'd just be out of there.
	I guess this comes down to me not knowing what I want ultimately then.
	Yeah, and how could you know how to negotiate for reciprocity when your childhood was kind of the opposite of that, right?
	Yes.
	I spent something that feels like 10% of my day negotiating with my daughter to make sure we can both get what we want.
	it.
	And she's good at it.
	She's really good at it.
	I mean, I have to go in like, this is not something I can do on the side.
	This is not something I can do when I'm checking email, right?
	I have to really concentrate on it.
	And so to negotiate for mutual advantage is something I think that, again, children are naturally born with.
	But this is a language that is as important for me to teach her as the right word for Apple.
	So she will be used to negotiating for win-win advantage throughout her life.
	And she will not speak the language of win-lose.
	Now, your childhood had a lot of win-lose, right?
	Your parents' demons won and you lost.
	Yes.
	And for you to negotiate for mutual advantage would have been to say, I need some stability.
	And your parents would have said, that's a valid request.
	Let's work to make that happen.
	Thank you.
	But that didn't happen, right?
	No.
	Not at all.
	It's the self-confidence of a man who walks in covering his eyes to a room full of women and says, I will go out with anyone who says yes.
	That's not good.
	good.
	Yeah, some women are 80, some women are 20, some women are smart, some women are dumb, whatever, right?
	Anyone who says yes, I would go out with.
	How appealing is that going to be to the women of quality?
	They're not going to obviously like it because you don't really care.
	Yeah, because you have no standards.
	So if I have quality and you have standards, then I don't want to have anything to do with you until... I may sort of point it out with sympathy and say, raise your standards or whatever, but... Guess you never really thought of it like that.
	But I think that's the key.
	And it's even more the key in a tough economy when most people get beaten down to the point where they're like, well, I'll take anything.
	What do you need me to do?
	I'll be whoever you want.
	I'll take the job.
	I don't even have to ask about salary.
	I don't care about benefits.
	Just give me someplace to type.
	Well, no.
	That's walking into the room of women blindfolded saying, I will go out with anyone who says yes.
	Please, dear God, somebody say yes.
	I'm also in a rather special circumstance where I'm really, even though the economy may be tough, my degree is virtually 100% higher rate at my college.
	Oh, fantastic.
	Fantastic.
	Okay.
	So you have, what, a degree in the provision of internet porn?
	That seems to be the only growth industry.
	Well, chemical engineering.
	Stressed and looking for work.
	But, well, that's great.
	So, look, I know this is like.
	saying start at the top, but I I would, you know, this is why I think therapy would really be good.
	You need to get used to negotiating for win-win.
	And I'm telling you, an employer of quality, which is the only employer you really want to work for, particularly if you have your choice, the employer of quality will want you to negotiate for win-win.
	He will want you to ask 50 questions about the company to find out if it's a good fit.
	And not just say, hey, what shape is your company?
	I could be the water that pours into that.
	I am gas man.
	I can conform to any complicated container you name.
	Anybody who wants that, you don't want to have anything to do with.
	Generally, before I have an interview with the company, I go and find out all the questions that I have beforehand.
	I do my research.
	But you need to ask questions of the employer.
	How do you like working here?
	What are your career plans?
	That's important.
	If the guy is your immediate boss and he says, well, I want to do the same job for the next 30 years, then you're not going to have much of an upward path, right?
	True.
	That would be very helpful.
	I never thought of it like that.
	He's always looking to hire someone to do his job so that he can go do a better job or a bigger job or a wealthier job or a more complex job, right?
	Yes.
	So that's what I mean when I say, especially if you're in demand, you've got to go in and you've got to negotiate for the win-win, which means that you're hoping, of course, that you're going to fit their needs, but you really need to make sure that they're going to meet your needs, which means you have to know something but you really need to make sure that they're going to What kind of needs do you have?
	What kind of environment do you want to work in?
	Where do you want to work?
	What kind of boss do you want to have?
	What kind of schedule?
	Do you want to ever work at home?
	Do you want flex time?
	Do you want a culture that's sort of young and energetic?
	Do you want something a bit more sedate?
	Do you want to work on big contracts?
	You've got to figure out something about what you want and particularly the culture is very important.
	Do they promote based upon... I find it difficult to find out what I want without actually being able to go out there and experience it and try it.
	No, that's not true.
	determine...
	I can't really think of how to say this.
	Look, when you're hungry, you don't sit there and say, I wonder if a bucket of gravel would do the trick.
	You know, when I worked up north...
	There was a guy who would get really thirsty and he would get so thirsty he would actually drink from moose tracks in the soft mud, which would be filled with a couple of inches of water, the most fetid, bacteria-laden, festering water you could conceivably imagine.
	This thing would probably burn through, but he would drink it.
	I'm fairly convinced that it was a wise decision.
	It was never really an option for me.
	For instance, I would argue that given your history, you do not want to work particularly in a high-risk, high-stress organization right away.
	That would be a little too much like you chanted.
	Oh, well, I guess in that sense, I do know basics about what I want with jobs, but there's just so many different types of jobs that I could go into.
	I don't know which one I'd enjoy, I guess.
	The type is that obviously that's your decision, but I'm talking about the emotional environment and the principles, the philosophy of the company that you're working for.
	Oh, yeah.
	So, for instance, you could ask, do you generally promote from within or do you hire from outside?
	That's an important question to ask if you want up mobility, right?
	Yes.
	That's something I would like to know actually with companies.
	How does this company resolve disputes between, if they do arise, how do companies resolve disputes between management employees?
	Can you tell me, like they'll always ask you, can you tell me the best thing or the worst thing or whatever, but you can also ask them.
	Can you give me an example of a conflict with an employee and how it was resolved?
	Because you want to know if the person solved conflicts.
	And if he says, well, I just screamed at them until their spine shattered, I'd be like, okay, well, this may not be the environment for me, right?
	Yeah, that would probably not be that good.
	It's definitely not something I'd like to work at.
	So, I mean, this, and you know, what the great thing about therapy is, you know, therapy will help you with the self-knowledge and get you used to working Douglas Goldstein, CFP®, is the director of Profile Investment Services and the host of the Goldstein on Gelt radio show.
	He is a licensed financial professional both in the U.S.
	and Israel.
	Securities offered through Portfolio Resources Group, Inc., Member FINRA, SIPC, MSRB, NFA, SIFMA.
	Accounts carried by National Financial Services LLC.
	Member NYSENDT, a Fidelity Investments company.
	of your needs, right?
	And there was no possibility to negotiate for your needs to get met for win-win, right?
	Yeah, well, there was no negotiation, but my parents, well, my mother, tried to provide what she thought were my needs all the time. - Thank you.
	Right.
	I understand, but trying to provide what you think are other people's needs is not the same as negotiating for those needs.
	Not at all.
	I guess what she thought were my needs, but they actually weren't at times.
	Yeah, so you need to get used to the idea that are perfectly legitimate and healthy to bring to a relationship, whether it's personal, romantic, friendship, economic, you name it.
	All right, well, thank you very much.
	It's actually very helpful and I have a lot to think about now.
	I was like that big note of surprise.
	Hey, you know, Steph, that was actually very helpful.
	I was just really looking at the internet.
	But OK, good.
	I'm glad it helps.
	And do let me know how it works out.
	And give me a shout.
	We can try a mock interview where it's not about you landing the job, but it's about you finding the best fit.
	We can we can try that.
	And if you get really stuck.
	Alright, well thank you very much.
	Thank you.
	And have a good rest of the show.
	Next!
	How's it going?
	It's going well.
	Man, you've got an echo.
	So just speak slowly.
	Yeah, sorry, I was in a bit.
	Okay, yeah, I was in the hallway.
	Yeah, so I've been watching a lot of your podcasts recently, specifically the ones about the fascists among us, and also a pretty recent one Which talked about, like, why should we, what's our advantage for being rational, or what's the, how's it in our self-interest to be rational people, right?
	Can you still hear me?
	Okay, so, one thing that I've been thinking about lately regarding these issues especially, particularly the ones about the fashion and sociopaths, is that the reason why sociopaths are so proud of society and they're able to gain so much power is because a lot of people really love sociopaths, is that the reason why sociopaths are so proud of society and they're
	They do a lot of things for people.
	So, yeah, can you still hear me?
	Yes, go ahead.
	You're saying we love sociopaths.
	Well, I think that, I think a lot of people really just love sociopaths.
	I think that's a great question.
	Because they're useful tools for a lot of people who may or may not be sociopaths themselves.
	I mean, like for an example, like public sector unions, for example, or just like anybody who wants to use the muscle of a sociopath, Um, definitely has something to gain from them.
	And so, I feel like that's a big part of why sociopaths get defended.
	Even though they, even though I think a lot of people are aware of what they're doing is wrong, um, consciously, uh, they still accept it because they have something to gain.
	And how this ties into the other podcasts regarding How can our self-interest behave rationally with ethics?
	I was thinking about it and, you know, I started to think about my own life where, you know, most people in my life don't behave ethically.
	Often times they don't behave rationally either.
	And this has actually caused me a few problems in my own life, particularly in my childhood.
	My parents, also with my family, former roommates for example, people who I interact with in business, socially.
	Sometimes I feel like I've really internalized a lot of the lessons that you've talked about in various podcasts.
	I listen to a lot of your podcasts and I agree with everything.
	I agree with mostly everything that you say.
	But at the end of the day, I feel like what's the point of applying the principle that nobody else is going to play the game?
	And it's really depressing for me to think about that, because I feel like it's like the prisoner's dilemma.
	So if I'm behaving ethically and nobody else behaves ethically, then it's like I'm going to lose big every single time.
	But if I'm behaving Even though I'm cognizant of the fact, like, one thing I know that for certain, the reason why listening to you was such a great idea for me is because I was really introduced to this whole idea of self-knowledge and, like, how to explore myself.
	And this is, that's like, you know, and I really thank you for opening me, opening up my mind to that, because without that, I don't think that I would be the person that I am right now.
	No, what I'd really be I would never have explored my childhood.
	I would have never analyzed my parents critically.
	I wouldn't analyze my friendships, the rest of my family.
	But now that I know their flaws, and using this criteria of self-knowledge that I've applied to myself, it's just really depressing.
	First, because I feel like A lot of my friendships and a lot of my family ties are just, you know, more or less worthless now, given the fact that, you know, like I said before, many of them just don't behave rationally or ethically, or they sort of avert you.
	And I feel like I just know too much, if you can understand that.
	And in some ways I feel like I have an advantage over a lot of people Even the fact that I actually put in the work to acquire this self-knowledge and put myself through all the pain and come to these realizations and swallowing a bunch of different bitter pills.
	But I just don't have it in me to, you know, I've never really been an exploitative person and I just don't have it in me to behave exploitatively.
	But my only options, I feel like my only long-term options are, like, I would either have to, Totally exile myself from my social networks, or I'll just have to behave like they behave, because a lot of these people, they really want to be a part of a hierarchy.
	They like to be a part of a hierarchy.
	They don't like to be free thinkers.
	They don't like to confront the hard, bitter things about their life.
	Personally, I can't be around people like that.
	It's just too discomforting for me, and a lot of these people just aren't open to criticism.
	And if I do level criticism their way, or if I do try to, you know, really just like nicely open their minds to a new way of thinking, we just go around in circles.
	I've talked to a few people in my everyday life, like they'll talk to me about this or that problem, and I'll try to give them some advice.
	Using my own experience and a lot of the self-knowledge stuff that, you know, that I've acquired, and they're just simply, they're simply just not open to it.
	I feel like I'm on an entirely different level of thinking.
	They're still stuck on, like, as far as knowing themselves, they're like, probably like a centimeter deep, whereas I'm like a meter, like a meter or two deep inside my own head that I just know these things.
	More in control of my emotions.
	I know why I react to certain things.
	But like a recurring issue I get with my friends is they always ask me about their feet and their girl problems or their troubles with women and stuff like that.
	And I'll give them advice but they'll just totally ignore it and just continue repeating the same patterns.
	And it's getting to the point now where I just feel like I can't really I can't really hang out with these people anymore, and, you know, I'm just close to, like, cutting off a lot of my family ties, just because I just know that if I even brought up... I mean, I tried to talk to them in a rational way, and I got exploded upon by many of my family members.
	Like, it wasn't even a... I didn't even have a chance.
	I was immediately, you know, just set upon by Everybody in my family, the moment I try to have a rational discussion, because they see this as a hostile action.
	They see it as me trying to upset the existing hierarchy of the family or something like that.
	I feel like people are so sensitive to that, that I just have to dissociate myself from it entirely.
	I just really want to sympathize.
	I'm very sorry.
	I'm very, very sorry.
	Douglas Goldstein, CFP®, is the director of Profile Investment Services and the host of the Goldstein on Gelt radio show.
	He is a licensed financial professional both in the U.S.
	and Israel.
	Securities offered through Portfolio Resources Group, Inc., Member FINRA, SIPC, MSRB, NFA, SIFMA.
	Accounts carried by National Financial Services LLC.
	Member NYSE®, a Fidelity Investments company.
	His book Building Wealth in Israel is available in bookstores, on the web, or can be ordered at www.profile-financial.com.
	I'd much rather listen than read.
	I can understand people being startled.
	I can understand people feeling defensive and so on, but you hope that this blood is thicker than water thing, that there's going to be enough of a connection that people are going to be willing to work with.
	Yeah, I mean... ...work with the organization, right?
	Right.
	I mean, it's just that...
	I mean, my family is organized still in such a hierarchical fashion and being like...
	And it's organized by a seniority.
	So if you're not like 60, 50 years old, and you really mean nothing in my family to leave.
	So, like, the moment, like, if you bring up a rational argument, or if you correct somebody in my family, for example, like, it's immediately construed as you're trying to be cheeky, or you're trying to You know, show, like, advance in that hierarchy or something like that, which is, to me, it's ridiculous.
	And for whatever reason, I mean, I've never, I've never been one who's been, been a person who wanted to organize in any kind of hierarchy.
	Like, never, never really wanted to lead a hierarchy, nor did I ever want to be a part of one.
	And I don't know why this is, even though, even given the fact that I grew up in the family that I grew up in.
	But I feel like that's why I was so readily able to embrace a lot of the stuff that you've said in your podcast, because I feel like I already had some understanding in place of a lot of the concepts that you talked about.
	But I'll give you an example of one of my friends.
	So one of my friends, he was falsely accused of raping a girl.
	Um, and I don't think he did it.
	He just doesn't seem, like, I know that this kid wouldn't do it.
	And the girl in question who had accused him, um, was a pretty dodgy character herself, so... I was pretty confident that he hadn't done it.
	And he would come out, he would come talk to me, because I was basically the only person who would actually listen to him.
	Because he was, like, basically, you know, untouchable in his little group of friends, given the circumstance.
	Um, so I'm just trying to guide him through it.
	I asked him like, so what are you doing?
	And he tells me like, oh, I'm just trying to work things out, uh, and be nice and stuff.
	And I tell him like, you know, you really need to have some a little, you need to really take yourself seriously.
	You need to have some respect for yourself because if somebody is falsely accusing you of something as grave as rape, um, I think it's actually, The height of ridiculousness that you're trying to appease this person and trying to work things out, right?
	Because given the fact that I didn't believe that he did it, and I genuinely don't believe that he did it, and the fact that he's still behaving so passively towards the whole subject, I tried to get him to, you know, take himself a little bit more seriously, and I gave him, like, I felt like I gave him some pretty rational reasons why.
	One is that if somebody's lying, then You know, I feel like their case usually doesn't stand up against the truth, anyway.
	But what this kid did is he just... He went and did the opposite of what I told him to do.
	He just went on and kept being passive.
	He basically lost all of his friends in the process, other than me.
	But even now, I don't know, like, our own friendship has deteriorated, given the fact that, you know, like, I just... It's hard for me to respect him.
	He's given his attitude towards life and everything.
	And this is just an example of, you know, just people who want to be subordinate.
	And it's... And I think they do this because it's just so much easier to be subordinate than it is to, you know, take command of your life.
	And, you know, even... I feel like this was one of the main blockers to basically, you know, Getting to where you envision a free society and the rejection of sociopaths and where everybody is able to stand up on their own two feet and willing to fight on their own for what it is that they want and what they believe in.
	These attitudes are pervasive in my everyday life.
	I feel like these types of attitudes are also enabling for for these sociopaths that you talk about.
	It's not just a matter of, in my opinion at least, it's not just a matter of sociopaths manipulating people.
	I think people want to be manipulated.
	I think that it's easier for people to be manipulated than it is for people to stand up and fight.
	I'll just mention something here.
	Just a couple of thoughts that I've had.
	I'll try and keep it brief.
	First of all, sociopaths do well in the system because the system is fundamentally sociopathic.
	The system is all about the aggrandization of power and it uses sentimentality and pity.
	The sociopath's favorite emotion to evoke is pity, not fear, pity.
	Because people, it gets them to give you resources, fear paralyzes people.
	and so we want people's and the best way to get that if we're not virtuous is to look at pity and if you look at the whole welfare state and so on it is the welfare warfare state works on pity and fear and those are two of the primary emotions that sociopaths manipulate to get what they want.
	Oh, don't you care about the poor?
	Okay, give me all your money.
	Oh, don't you care about the sick?
	Okay, this is right and the effects of it on the poor and on the sick are immaterial.
	It teaches unions, don't you care about educating the poor people?
	Good, give us all your money, give us your children.
	They don't care about The poor kids.
	They don't care that education is getting worse and worse every year.
	They don't care that significant portions of those who graduate from high school are functionally illiterate.
	They don't care.
	It's all about evoking pity.
	So we have a kind of sociopath.
	And, of course, it requires violence but never talks about violence.
	Can I ask you something really quick, though?
	But it can never discuss some propaganda and manipulation to hide and to cover the brutality and exploitation of the system as a whole.
	talks about how it cares about the unborn, you know, like the Republicans all about their – choose lives, care about the unborn, but they're still running up to put the unborn in hundreds of thousands of dollars before they draw their first breath.
	So in a sociopathic system, sociopaths are much more useful.
	But in a non-sociopathic system, sociopaths stick out like a sore thumb and would be very quickly isolated from reproducing their pathologies, either physically through sexuality, right?
	For sociopaths to exist, women have to keep breeding with sociopaths basically, and so I think that's part of the cycle of violence that's important.
	I think women are highly attracted to sociopaths.
	I feel like women in general are very highly attracted to sociopaths.
	Many of them are, at least.
	I'm not going to say all of them, but I feel like there's a large segment of the female population who really do like sociopaths, and they're quite open to reproducing them, at least.
	Now, the other thing with falsely accused, statistics seem to be that up to 40% of rape accusations are false.
	Just talk to the Duke Lacrosse guys, right?
	But if he is falsely accused, I mean, it's just horrendous, and, I mean, it is such a bomb to throw into someone's life that, I mean, it's, Sanctions against false accusations of rape.
	He's a nice guy.
	He's an easy target.
	He's a nice guy, so he's like an easy target.
	No, he's an easy target because he's an...
	No, the question is, what is he doing with somebody who's capable of falsely accusing of rape in his social circle to begin with?
	Yeah, I mean, I try to...
	To blame the victim, I'm just saying that if you really want to help someone, which I know you do, then the question is not what do you do now, which obviously is important, but how did this come about in the first place?
	Prevention is always better than cure, right?
	So in what environment, in what circumstances, did he end up with somebody who could credibly accuse him of rape?
	What's he doing with somebody like that in his social circle?
	Yeah, I mean, I try to tell him, like, you know, you really need to dissociate yourself from these people.
	Like, why did you even hang out with these people in the first place?
	And he tries to tell me, like, this stuff came out of nowhere, and I'm like, yo, you know, I really think that you would have seen the signs of this kind of behavior, like, really early on.
	And, I mean, the fact that you still, like, basically marched headfirst into really, like, one of the most disastrous situations you can be in socially, like, short of killing somebody or, you know, going to jail, is what he's in now.
	Yeah, but a psychiatrist who works with abused women doesn't know any friend or your husband who abused you.
	What would be the signs that might be a clue ahead of time?
	And it's always, you know, he had a swastika on his forehead.
	He had tattoos all over his body.
	He'd never had a job.
	He just got out of prison.
	Whatever, right?
	I mean, it's always...
	It's always...
	Yeah, it's always something, right?
	He got divorced later on.
	on have said, I knew it wasn't going to work out when I was walking down the aisle.
	So these things are not impensible.
	They're not...
	Now, I understand why people say after the fact, I couldn't...
	I mean, because it's pretty horrible to admit that it could have been predicted.
	So that's another situation.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	People's egos get in the way.
	And another thing I wanted to ask you is when people basically dump these problems onto you and with no intention of changing, they're just looking to basically evoke your own pity.
	Would you consider that, like, a form of sociopathy?
	Like, when they have basically zero intention of actually internalizing whatever criticism that you level onto them?
	Like, sort of like, with me and a lot of the people that I talk to, who ask me my opinion on certain things or there's certain problems, like, I feel like it's just like, I'm just like a convenient, like, because I'm being nice and I'm I'm offering them my open ear.
	It's more like they're just dumping their problems down.
	They have no interest whatsoever in, like I said before, taking the criticism.
	Is it unempathetic and sociopathic as far as I understand it?
	Like you can be non-empathetic in a particular situation.
	It doesn't mean you're a sociopath.
	The diagnosis of sociopathy requires a checklist and long interviews and perhaps Dr. Robert Hare, the originator of the psychopathy checklist, in the chair.
	So the diagnosis is big, long, complicated.
	So I'm certainly not going to go anywhere near that.
	But I would certainly say that people who dump problems on you and resist solutions are not being particularly empathetic if that's a repetitive issue.
	If that's a repetitive issue where they're exploiting you and your needs are not getting met and it gets increasingly frustrating and negative for you and that doesn't change, then certainly they're not taking into account your needs in the moment, right?
	Right, and I've understood that and because of that I've had to cut out so many people just basically from my life to the point where the people I can talk to in general are just dwindling.
	Maybe like one or two people.
	And it's really frustrating.
	I feel like I'm on checks just for like probably just social isolation where I'll have to establish an entirely new group of friends.
	Because it's just that, you know, just genuine people who are taking themselves seriously and who are open to change and things like that.
	It's just so hard to come by.
	Yeah, it's extremely hard to come by.
	I mean, that's why I called in on the show, obviously, because I really needed somebody to talk to about this, and I really just don't have that in my own, like, personal environment.
	Right.
	Yeah, you know, I don't know these statistics, and I don't know that they could be reliably guessed or estimated, but I'll tell you something that I thought I've offered on over the years, and maybe it will give you some help and some comfort.
	What's on my mind?
	40-50% of marriages end up in divorce and it's not like all the remainder of those are happy, right?
	Even if people get the chance to choose from a variety of people and test drive them for years, get engaged, get married and have all of that legal barriers to exit, still let's say functionally about half of those relationships don't work out in the most formal and obvious sense and a lot of the remainder I don't know what percentage of marriages could be called truly happy and successful.
	I think all the marriages that I know that are still existing, like the husband and wife basically hate each other.
	They're just coexisting for the sake of the kids, basically.
	Right.
	So I don't know what percentage of marriages could be called truly happy and successful.
	I don't know what it is.
	So that's how relationships go when people get to choose each other as adults, have a test drive, have a big ceremony, get engaged, have all the social pressure to stay together, maybe even have kids together, have significant financial and legal penalties for leaving and so on.
	Well, this is just my personal note, but I think that women don't have so much of a financial penalty.
	It's mostly like the men, right?
	Well, that's not exactly true because 40% of the people 40% of female headed single households are in poverty.
	Maybe for Adam Lanza's mom who got a quarter million bucks a year in child support and alimony, it's not a bad deal.
	I mean, I'm just saying that they do get resources, of course, but, I mean, it's not like, you know, maybe for Adam Lanz's mom who got a quarter million bucks a year in child support and alimony, it's not a bad deal, but for a lot of women...
	She's actually getting that much money?
	$220,000.
	That's amazing.
	Anyways, so relationships, even when you're adults, you have independence, you don't have to be in the relationship, you get to choose and test drive and practice and, you know, all of that.
	Still, huge numbers of them don't work out.
	So, just logically, what would we expect that to be the case?
	Yeah, I mean, that's totally true.
	I mean, that's definitely my experience.
	like the family.
	Where nobody got to choose.
	There was no independence.
	Yeah, I mean, that's totally true.
	I mean, that's definitely my experience.
	Like, I don't really have a great relationship with my own family.
	But I say this as I'm sort of cognizant of that every day with Isabella, with my daughter.
	That, I mean, I try to do this as humanly possible to both my wife and my daughter, but it's even more important for me to be super nice and helpful to my daughter.
	For me, if voluntary, optional, chosen, test-driven relationships, if most of those don't work out, or at least some significant portion of those don't work out, aren't Then what would the statistics be with your average unchosen accident?
	Would they be better or worse?
	I think you could make an argument that the statistics would be worse.
	I mean, you can also make the argument that you basically tailor, you can tailor your kid's expectations to meet your own parenting style, right?
	Because I know for a while, that's how I I didn't even notice that I was being necessarily abused by my parents.
	I just thought, hey, this is what happens to everybody, right?
	Getting verbally abused and hit and stuff.
	Sorry.
	I don't think many people would say that that's a great, successful and positive relationship, right?
	It's not.
	Not looking at it from the outside, but when you're in the relationship.
	I'm talking about when you're a child.
	You're probably not cognizant of the fact that if you are being abused, unless it's like totally extreme circumstance, you're probably not even cognizant of the fact that you're under this kind of duress, is what I'm trying to say.
	I mean, I'm not trying to argue with you, I'm just saying like... No, no, it's fair.
	It's a good point.
	And the way that I sort of try to reframe it in my mind, right?
	So some guy called up earlier, the first caller called up and said, you know, I left my abusive family four years ago.
	You know, I was being choked and I got hit with implements and so on.
	And what I hear in my head, you know, and I think this is as charitable even as possible.
	What I hear is a woman saying, I was in an arranged marriage where I was beaten and I escaped four years ago.
	Yeah, I mean, I mean, yeah, that's pretty similar.
	Thank you.
	It's a pretty similar situation.
	And so, I mean, that's what I hear.
	And, of course, there's a lot of prejudice around this, and people sort of freak out, and you talk about voluntary adult parent relationships, but, I mean, that's just the prejudice of history.
	People freaked out when you said slaves should be freed.
	People freaked out when you said women should be equal.
	People freak out when you say we should not be pointing guns at everyone to get things done as a society.
	Yeah, I mean I feel like, sometimes I feel like a big reason why people even have kids is just because they want somebody to control.
	Like they want somebody to like, to mold and to like their image by force if need be.
	It's just like this really arrogant, narcissistic, like you've said it's pretty much narcissistic, which I totally agree with.
	I'm sorry.
	Sorry, what?
	Sorry, what's narcissistic, are you saying?
	You said I said something is narcissistic.
	No, not you.
	I didn't say that you said that.
	Oh, sorry.
	I just, I want to make sure I just follow the point you were just making.
	No, no, no.
	I said that, um, a lot of, I feel like a lot of parents, the reason why they even have children is, is for, for narcissistic reasons.
	So like they, they want, they want to control somebody, right?
	They, they want to, um, They want somebody who they can boss around and basically validate their own perceptions and their own way of doing things to the world rather than seeing this person grow on their own and learn things and pick and choose what they want to do.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah, it certainly could be.
	I'm not sure, to be honest, why most people have children.
	I'm not sure that they really think about it.
	The church wants people to have children because indoctrination is easier than conversion.
	The government wants people to have children because they need new taxpayers.
	The farmers want the livestock to breed, so there's propaganda about all of that, but I don't know.
	I guess it's now, right?
	I don't know.
	It's something where people say, well, what are my options?
	What are my choices?
	What else could I be doing with my life?
	Do I really want children?
	Am I prepared?
	Am I trained?
	You know, we don't let people operate a taxi without a license.
	We certainly wouldn't get into a taxi cab with a guy who had a blindfold on.
	A lot of people sit there and say, well, so I could have children if I wanted.
	It's going to be a huge amount of work.
	It's going to consume my day.
	It's going to be literally non-stop.
	It's going to cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars It's going to mean I end up with like 5% the adult conversations that I used to have at least for the first couple of years and it's going to cause strain on my relationships and it's going to really restrict my options and choices massively.
	There are obvious downsides and so what is the upside?
	Why do I want to have children and am I competent and prepared to have children?
	Did I learn enough from my own childhood to be a good parent?
	If I didn't or if I learned some wrong lessons, how am I going to address that before I have children?
	These would be the basic questions that people would ask.
	Frankly, people do more research into buying a tablet than they do into whether they should be parents and whether they're ready and whether they're competent to raise children.
	I think it goes back to the whole narcissistic thing.
	They're having kids because they think they already have the world figured out, and they're going to imbue these impressionable minds that they create with this grand philosophy.
	I'm not disparaging you, by the way.
	I'm speaking from my own experience with my own parents and my own uncles and stuff like that, where they feel like they have these great ideas that are going to make the world better.
	They're going to pass them on to their kids, even if they're totally ridiculous.
	Say it's religion or something.
	It's what they think that they're doing.
	They're not really analyzing what it is actually that they're indoctrinating kids with.
	On the plus side, it's certainly here in Canada that's diminishing considerably.
	All people are religious, half the general population.
	I'm in the US.
	I'm in the United States.
	I have no idea what it is here, but I don't think atheism, for example, is very commonly accepted.
	In the US, of course, this is another correlation between religiosity, which people don't really want to talk about.
	Everyone thinks that religion is the cure for violence, but I think you could really make a strong statistical case that quite the opposite is true.
	Obviously, we've talked about a lot here and I wish there was a magic wand that any of us could wave to make these problems less hard and to make the requirements of heroism less demanding, but it is a huge challenge.
	If there's a way for you to find value in the relationships outside of philosophical conflicts, then that's a possibility.
	So, in other words, if people aren't constantly in your face with egregious philosophical bad things, then I think that there's a way to have relationships with people where philosophical differences, to put it as nicely as possible, aren't constantly deriding things.
	Now, if you have people who are constantly in your face with philosophical absurdities, you know, come to church, respect your elders, vote, whatever it is, right?
	I mean, if they're just constantly, if they can't let the topic go.
	That's a big problem.
	Yeah, to my family it's basically a lost case.
	Some racist granddad.
	You know, if you could just get together and talk about things that aren't racist or aren't about race, then, you know, that's kind of not the best, but it's okay in some ways.
	But if Douglas Goldstein, CFPÆ, is the director of Profile Investment Services and the host of the Goldstein on Gelt radio show.
	He is a licensed financial professional both in the U.S.
	like that, I mean, then that's a little harder though. - Right.
	I mean, that's more or less like the level that I'm dealing at here.
	Like I said, I'm 23 and my, if I'm trying to have any conversation with like an elder in my family, for example, or even my dad, it's just my opinion is not taken seriously.
	There's no way that they'll take my opinion seriously, because they're basically admitting that their own seniority or their life experiences have failed them, because here they are, listening to somebody of the younger generation.
	It's totally ridiculous, but it's just something that I've accepted, and they're not going to change.
	For my family, at least.
	to go down the road of having philosophical debates with irrational people, it seems to me that you're lighting a fuse that sooner or later is going to disrupt the relationship, right?
	Oh, yeah.
	I mean, it already has.
	So, I mean, it's already long past that part.
	Then separation becomes more and more likely, right?
	And I don't know whether you should or should have.
	But I'm just saying that these are the consequences.
	If you want to not separate, right, then there is a possibility of dropping these conversations.
	He is a licensed financial professional both in the U.S.
	and Israel.
	Securities offered through Portfolio Resources Group, Inc., Member FINRA, SIPC, MSRB, NFA, SIFMA.
	Accounts carried by National Financial Services LLC.
	Member NYSE®, a Fidelity Investments company.
	I've been working tirelessly for the past three months just to save up money.
	I finally saved up enough money to move, which I'm pretty happy about.
	There's not much I can do.
	I'm not going to find respect within my own family, so there's really no point to try to push the issue.
	Very sorry about that.
	I mean, that truly is tragic.
	I mean, that's the same as somebody saying I'm going to have to leave my husband or a man saying I have to leave my wife because she's nuts or whatever.
	I mean, I'm very sorry about that, and I hope that you will take my general – I certainly can't tell people what to do, and I don't even really like to give advice that much, but I certainly would strongly recommend talking to a therapist during this time of transition and making sure that you have done everything that you could to try and save the relationship before you make that decision.
	But I certainly respect where you're coming from.
	I can certainly understand the impulse that's driving you.
	So I'm sorry that this is the environment that you're in.
	I'd like to say I'm sorry you discovered philosophy, but I really can't say that, however hard it may be.
	It is the only salvation that the agonies of the present can create in the future.
	So I'm sorry that it's circumstance, but I certainly respect your integrity in pursuing this.
	Thanks a lot.
	One more thing I wanted to say before I let you go.
	I know it's taken up a lot of time.
	But regarding the whole podcast you released talking about is rational behavior in my self-interest.
	I think that was at the time a little bit.
	Hello?
	Yes, go ahead.
	Yeah, the podcast regarding rational behavior and self-interest.
	Yeah.
	I was wondering if you're going to To come up with like a response of like why exactly we should be, why should we behave rationally if nobody else is going to behave rationally?
	Because like I talked about before, it's like a game, it's like a prisoner's dilemma.
	So if I'm not going to, if I'm going to behave rationally and ethically and somebody isn't, then I'm going to lose every single time.
	So how do we get to a state, how do we get, well that's a bad word to use, but how do we get to a position in society short of just the collapse of the entire system where people will We'll see the light and see that behaving ethically and with virtue is actually beneficial and in their favor.
	I don't know if you're going to release a podcast, I don't know if it's going to be in the documentary, but I was really hoping for an answer to this fleshed out.
	Okay.
	I would reject the premise that nobody else will act rationally.
	I mean, if that were the case, then rationality would not probably even exist because we'd all have to invent it on our own, which would not be possible, I think.
	It's really a collective endeavor.
	There are other people who are going to act rationally in the world, so it's not all or nothing.
	I think that's a false dichotomy.
	It may sort of feel like that at the moment, but we're having this conversation and I certainly have rational and virtuous people in my life.
	We had a house full of parents and children for Izzy's birthday party, parents have wonderful kids, so it is possible.
	Douglas Goldstein, CFP®, is the director of Profile Investment Services and the host of the Goldstein on Gelt radio show.
	He is a licensed financial professional both in the U.S.
	and Israel.
	Securities offered through Portfolio Resources Group, Inc., Member FINRA, SIPC, MSRB, NFA, SIFMA.
	Accounts carried by National Financial Services LLC.
	Member NYSENDT, a Fidelity Investments company.
	some other things I wanted to say, but like I said, we've taken up a lot of time.
	And I want you to get to whatever last caller that you have.
	But, yeah, thanks a lot.
	Yeah, keep me posted if you can.
	I hope that you'll really consider seeing a therapist and I'd like to apologize on behalf of the world.
	This is grandiose and I'm sure it does but nonetheless I would like to embody the planet and say really sorry man.
	It's sorry that it comes down to you.
	Sorry that it comes down to the environment.
	You have the environment that you have.
	I'm sorry that you have the choices.
	um, had a view that you have.
	I'm sorry that philosophers have not done more work in the past.
	Ring reason and consequences.
	Do no good long run, but I'm sure.
	And the future would like to say, thank you.
	But the present of the past would like to say, sorry, fucked up and you got to clean up a whole bunch of shit.
	And that sucks.
	And we're, we're really sorry.
	Well, you know, I guess, I guess I have to say thanks to that.
	But, yeah, thanks a lot for having me on.
	And, yeah, I mean, have a good day or a good show or whatever.
	Well, thanks.
	I apologize to the caller whose cold quality was quite low.
	I'm actually pretty hungry, so I'm not going to be able to concentrate that well on the next call, so I do apologize for that.
	But I'm going to see your next show next weekend, so enjoy your two weeks, your fortnight free of philosophy, and if you have any spare cash Floating around your Christmas tree, if you felt like throwing it this way, I would really appreciate that.
	The documentary continues to be a money pit.
	And if you'd like to help out, freedomainradio.com forward slash donate is massively, massively appreciated.
	And if we can get, you know, say one tenth of one percent of what the homophobic Salvation Army gets as far as donations go, I think I would be quite ecstatic.
	And so it would be really, really appreciated.
	I would really appreciate that if you would help out and I dare say that all the people who will end up seeing the documentary will thank you too because that is, I think, going to be a very positive experience for people.
	So thank you everybody so much.
	Thank you again, James, and have yourselves a wonderful week.
	Have yourselves a great Christmas.
	And I guess a happy new year.
	And I will talk to you, I guess, when we are on the other side of this planetary rotation.
	Have a great week everyone.

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