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Sept. 5, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:41:31

"I AM FAT, FORTY AND A FAILURE! - HELP!!!" Freedomain Call In Show

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	Hi everybody, it's Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Aid.
	Hope you're doing well. Let's go straight to the wonderful callers to talk about whatever is on your mind.
	So first of all, we have Timothy.
	Timothy would like to talk about child abuse.
	Timothy, are you with me live?
	I am. How are you doing today?
	I'm well, brother. How are you doing?
	Doing all right. Can't complain.
	All right, what's on your mind? Yeah, child abuse, you know, it's a very exciting topic.
	I myself have some experience, and I'd actually, I'd emailed in because my girlfriend has had some fairly significant and traumatic experience with it.
	And what aspect of it would you like to talk about?
	Sort of like long like long term effects and what sort of strategies are out there to overcome that or work around it in a way that you can just get more comfortable socializing with people because that's a problem for both of us.
	Right.
	And you also have had some experience with that.
	Child abuse? All right.
	I'm going to just have to continue.
	Sorry, you're clicking away here.
	So this is sort of my advice, right, to people who've suffered from child abuse.
	So the big question, big question around child abuse is this.
	Is it going to go on forever?
	Is the world...
	Is society as a whole abusive?
	That's just the big question that we have to ask ourselves when we are children.
	And it is a foundational question.
	Is an abusive household A prison that you can break out of?
	Is it an asylum that one day you will be released from and move about in a sane and rational world?
	That's the sort of foundational question.
	Now, if we answer this to the negative, in other words, if we say, my parents were not abusive, society is abusive, the world is abusive, people as a whole are abusive, well then, we never get out.
	We never get free. So the question, of course, is why would people want to say to themselves that the world is abusive, society is abusive, people are abusive, my parents weren't out of the norm.
	Well, it's partly, of course, to protect your relationship such as it is with your parents, right?
	Because if they're just normal, like nobody gets mad at their parents for being mammals, at least I hope not, or bipeds, or with two eyes, one nose, and two ears, you don't get mad at your parents for being mortal, right?
	I mean, assuming you're not Elvish, right?
	So you don't get mad at your parents for what is normal, right?
	So if you have abusive parents, had abusive parents, then one of the ways you can protect the vestiges of your relationship with them is you can say, well, everyone is that way, that is society, that is the world, or I deserved it, or I caused it, or I was to blame, or whatever.
	So then you get to protect this relationship with your parents, but the cost, of course, is that you never get to escape abuse.
	Because if all the world is abusive, if everyone is abusive, then wanting to be with a non-abusive person would be crazy.
	It's like saying, well, I'm not going to date until I find someone who is immortal, right?
	Anne Rice novels to the contrary, you're going to have a kind of slim pickings when it comes to dating because of that, right?
	So, that's the sort of fork of the road that you have to take.
	Now, so if you say, well, my parents are normal, abuse is normal, I deserved it, it was my fault, they were doing the best they can with the knowledge they had or have or whatever, well, then you never get out.
	Because what's the point of breaking out of a prison if you're just inside a larger prison?
	Better the devil you know or the prison you know than some other place you don't know as well, right?
	You don't run from a lion to a lion, right?
	I mean, there's not much point.
	Now, if, though, you're willing to say, no, no, no, no, no.
	Come on. Come on. Not everyone is abusive.
	Not everyone is dysfunctional.
	Not everyone is destructive. Well, then you are holding your parents morally responsible for something they could have changed, right?
	And sort of like if your dad's a chain smoker and you grow up kind of coughing out on Well, if you say, well, everyone's a smoker, then your dad's just normal.
	But once you realize, of course, that there are lots of people who aren't smokers, some people who quit smoking, then your dad is responsible for the air quality of your environment and for the fact that he couldn't run up a flight of stairs to chase you in a game of tag or something, right?
	So if you're going to make the leap over And you're going to say, look, not everyone is abusive.
	My parents were worse than the norm.
	They weren't doing the best they could with the knowledge they had.
	And that's just a big giant blanket excuse to say, well, abuse is now normalized, right?
	It doesn't mean anything to say, I mean, let's say that you got to study for an exam and you don't really study for an exam.
	And then you show up and say, hey, man, you can't fail me.
	You can't fail me. What are you, crazy?
	You can't fail me because when I sat down to do that exam, I did the best I could with the knowledge I had.
	That's kind of true, but it's not particularly relevant because the onus is upon you to gain the necessary knowledge and parenting is much more important than an exam.
	So if you're willing to say, my parents did wrong, they could have done better, then it's difficult for your relationship with your parents.
	But you do get this other great prize, which is well worth that kind of upset, which is you get to get out of the cycle of abuse.
	So I hope that helps.
	And let's move on to the next caller.
	I'm sorry we couldn't have more of a conversation, but you started kind of clicking up there.
	And I hope that helps.
	All right. Let us talk to Regret.
	I think this is a man or woman or in-betweener or both who has some regret.
	Can you hear me? Caller who seems to be 22.
	Yes, I can hear you.
	Alright, what's on your mind? Quite amazing.
	So, I was fired from a job on Friday, my first job out of college.
	And, you know, this was entirely my own doing, in hindsight, because, sorry, I was just charging my phone.
	Can you hear me, by the way? Yeah.
	Can you hear me? Okay, good. So, I started this job, and The thing is this.
	We were supposed to watch some videos in the beginning, training videos in the first two weeks, and I took it very casually.
	I didn't watch those videos to their entirety.
	So I made a lot of mistakes the first two weeks regarding procedure, regarding process.
	It also was because I was so focused on, I guess, getting tasks done that I didn't care to get tasks done the right way.
	And so I made a lot of mistakes, and this counted against me.
	And then I think, and then the next week I said, okay, I'm not going to make any more process mistakes.
	I know where I screwed up.
	Let me move on.
	However, the next week I then made, so this is a software development job, by the way, so you're a little familiar with that.
	The next week I made my mistakes, so basically my code, it had some extra lines in them, like wide space lines, and two functions I wrote weren't documented.
	And that was another sort of thing they counted against me.
	And then I started to improve because through these mistakes, I think I learned and I started to improve.
	And I was feeling a lot of pressure, you know, a lot of stress, I guess, during this time.
	And because I was starting to improve, I started to relax a bit, let my guard down and say, okay, you know, I'm out of the woods now.
	I can finally kick my feet up a bit.
	And so the next week, I got my two tasks done.
	They were commented. They were, you know, they were, I think, well formatted.
	But I made a mistake that I made in an earlier code review.
	It basically has to do with something called a magic number, which is when you have a loop and then instead of using the length, you use like a hard-coded number.
	And this was one mistake too far and I got fired.
	And overall, my whole life reflects a general sort of disorganization.
	It's sort of lack of detail, attention to detail, and sort of addiction to dopamine.
	I'm addicted to like all sorts of things that give me physical pleasure.
	And I really need to leave my parents' house because my parents, by the way, they're wonderful people.
	I love them. They do everything they can to help me.
	But it's just a matter of me not being disciplined enough, me not being organized enough.
	Do you have anything to say to this?
	Like, I mean, I'm trying.
	I say I'm trying.
	Like, I wake up and now I apply the job and I do what I can.
	But is there any sort of thing that maybe I'm missing about myself that you can see?
	Am I not being honest with myself?
	Maybe I'm not, you know, really, you know, making an effort to self-improve, and I just think I am, and I sort of, because I get distracted, you know, I've been diagnosed with what's called ADHD, but maybe you don't fully accept that, but I get distracted very easily by, like, everything around me, and I have a hard time really sitting down and grinding out things.
	I made it through school by, like, devoting a ton of effort, but I never really made an effort to, like, socialize with others that go out to parties or things like that.
	Do you have any advice regarding this, or Anything you could tell me, or not really?
	No, listen, I think that's great.
	So, I'm a little older, hopefully a little wiser.
	First of all, getting fired is not a bad thing.
	I mean, I know it feels like a bad thing, and I get all of that, and obviously you'd rather have this job, but getting fired is part of life.
	I mean, just about everyone and their dog Has been fired.
	I've been fired. Now you've been fired.
	So there are times where it's not a bad thing because it's not a good fit.
	Now the question is, of course, is it not a good fit because...
	It's a bad work environment or because you're a bad worker.
	Okay, so if it's not a good fit because it's a bad work environment, then better sooner than later, right?
	You don't want to work at some place for like six months or a year and then get fired because then you've got a big hole in your resume.
	The fact that you were there for a week or two means you can just throw that in the memory hole and move on, right?
	Now if... And usually it's a combo of bad work environment plus, you know, maybe you're not doing things the right way.
	So if...
	You got fired because you weren't being productive.
	Well, that's a good thing because now you have consequences, right?
	So you said this is your first job out of school, right?
	So when you get out of school...
	You're, you know, you're in the real world where there are real-world consequences, right?
	So you have been able to get through school without confronting your sloppiness, right?
	And listen, sloppiness, it all, it happens to all of us, right?
	I mean, so, like, being sloppy is, you can, this is mean, right?
	You kind of want to be in the middle.
	If you're too sloppy, then you make these kinds of mistakes, which makes you unproductive or negatively productive as a worker.
	Whereas on the other hand, if you triple, quadruple, you know, to infinity check everything, then you have something called obsessive-compulsive disorder, and you can't ever get anything done.
	So you've got to find that sweet spot which is good enough, right?
	And so you don't know where that sweet spot is, and that's partly because you've been coddled through school, right?
	So if... You got all the way through 12 years of government education, and then you go all the way through a couple of years of post-high school education, and then you get fired within a week or two.
	It means that you have been coddled.
	And I don't blame you for this.
	I mean, I blame the system, the schools, the incentives, the teachers, you name it, right?
	So this is your first fist bump into consequences, right?
	That... You are too much on the sloppy side if what you're saying is correct.
	And obviously I have no way of double-checking that.
	But if you say, okay, so you're too much on the sloppy side and you've gotten away with it to your detriment for 14 or 15 years and now you're hitting some real-world consequences.
	And, you know, that's a good thing because you don't want to go through life without consequences.
	It's one of these things that feels good in the moment.
	But is not good in the long run.
	So when you get your first professional job, you have to be paranoid.
	You have to be paranoid about making mistakes.
	You have to, like, getting your first professional job.
	I remember when I got my first job as a coder.
	This was in COBOL 74, although, of course, it wasn't in 1974, because I would have been eight.
	I got my first job, and...
	I stayed late. I read manuals.
	I learned up on COBOL. I learned up it was a tandem operating system, which I knew nothing about.
	It's like this weird infinite remote-controlled DOS. And, you know, I bugged the other programmers.
	I took them for lunch. I asked them for tips.
	Like, it's a job and a half when you get your first professional job.
	You just have to work so much harder to get up to speed because employers will see that.
	And if you make mistakes but you're working hard to get up to speed...
	That's great. The coach loves the guy who stays extra and does extra work, extra practice, throws that medicine ball around, runs up and down the flight of stairs ten more times.
	He just likes that guy because it gives him more to work with.
	So, unfortunately, you have been getting by doing the bare minimum in school, maybe in other areas in your life, and now you've hit a situation Where the bare minimum doesn't cut it, which is a wonderful opportunity for you to raise your standards.
	Now, regarding the ADHD and all this kind of stuff, I'll believe it when People can't concentrate on a video game or something like that.
	You can concentrate on certain things.
	You just have to have the incentive.
	If a guy is missing an arm, he can't clap.
	If a guy can clap, he's not missing an arm.
	If you can concentrate on things, then it's not like brain damage.
	It just means that you haven't found the right motivation, the right words to unlock your motivation to focus, right?
	So this job, okay, what's your motivation to focus now?
	Where do you get fired if you don't?
	So look at that.
	Now you have a video game called Life where you get to respawn but just not at the same job, right?
	Not at the same place.
	You've got a respawn button but it's in a new environment.
	And, you know, personally, I mean, I'm sure your parents are wonderful people but consequences are very important, right?
	I work with my daughter with consequences quite a bit.
	It's important to teach your kid all about real-world consequences before they actually have real-world consequences.
	Whether your parents allowed this sloppiness or lack of attentiveness to continue, well, okay, so they did, your teachers did, your schools did.
	But your boss isn't. And your boss is going to be someone you will look back at, the guy who fired you, and you're going to say, thank you.
	Right? Because those are real-world consequences, which you need.
	You can't navigate. Like, you know how bats navigate in the dark.
	They put out these sonar things that come bouncing back.
	If there's nothing to bounce back, we can't navigate.
	If there are no negative consequences, we can't navigate.
	And so...
	Getting fired is fine.
	Don't let it define you.
	Don't let it, oh no, now I can't get a job.
	Don't go from no negative consequences to beating yourself up with negative consequences.
	This is a negative consequence, which is natural in life.
	It's inevitable in life.
	And it's what happens when you take risks like you did, going to take your first professional job.
	Don't let it define you.
	Let it wake you up and enlighten you.
	Thank you so much.
	I hate to keep dragging this on, but what you said about consequences is so...
	I never thought of it that way.
	I know it's obvious, but I never thought of it that way.
	But that's exactly what happened.
	I mean, in school, all we have is the grade.
	And, you know, if you pass, if you do the assignments, then the assignments are answered well and they're typed up, you know, you pass and you get a good grade.
	And that leaves a lot of room for disorganization in your room, disorganization in the way you carry your papers.
	For you to be a complete dopamine addict who goes home every day and shews 12 packs of gum and watches all sorts of things, you know?
	So, thank you.
	Thank you for that. You need to find a language or a perspective in your mind that gives you the motivation, right?
	So, you know the old story about two bricklayers in the Middle Ages and some guy comes by and says, what are you doing?
	And one guy says, oh, I'm just...
	Ugh, I'm just putting one brick on top of the other, right?
	Okay. And says to the other guy, what are you doing?
	And the other guy says, I'm building a cathedral to God.
	Well, they're both doing the same thing, but one of them has a perspective that gives him a larger purpose and a larger meaning, right?
	Of course. Yeah, so you have to have some kind of perspective.
	There's an old story about Bill, sorry, not Bill Gates, Steve Jobs.
	And the original Mac was booting up pretty slowly, right?
	And I don't remember the math or anything like this, right?
	But this guy, Steve Jobs said, look, we're going to sell 10 million of these Macs.
	And if you can shave one minute off the boot up time, and people boot this computer up every day, that's 10 million minutes a day.
	And he broke down the math about how many human years were going to be saved.
	And basically it was like giving people an extra week or two of life.
	And if you were a doctor and you could extend someone's life by a week or two, imagine if you were dying and someone said, oh, you get an extra week or two of life, you'd be thrilled, right?
	Because people can look at that and say, oh, this is just Steve Jobs being anal and it's just a minute and who cares, right?
	But if you get the right perspective...
	Then you can do just about anything.
	This is an old quote from Nietzsche. Give a man a why, and he can bear almost any how.
	So if you're just like, well, I've got to get this code right and blah, blah, blah, right?
	Well, I don't know what you were writing, but let's say you were writing something to do with an antivirus program, right?
	Well, if I get this code wrong, someone could have their life savings stolen.
	They could lose identity theft.
	They could lose their identity to identity theft and spend years getting it back.
	It's not just about the typing.
	Like, when I was working on code for the environmental software that I wrote, I mean, I wasn't just sitting there like, oh, I've got to get this to work or that to work.
	It's like, this is going to prevent pollution from getting out into the world and can save people's lives, right?
	So if you have the right perspective, Then I think focus becomes so much easier.
	Where if it's just, well, I've got to get this piece of code right, and I've got to get on to the next one, and there's no larger purpose or larger picture.
	You know, I'm in the business of saving civilization.
	I'm not in the business of podcasting.
	So that would be my suggestion.
	Does that help? It does, yeah.
	I hate to keep drawing this off, but my whole perspective coming into the job was, you know, this job is finally, it was sort of triumphalistic.
	Like, After all these years of school and all the struggles and all the problems I have, finally I'll be out of my parents' hands, I have an independent life, and I can be free for myself.
	But that's very egotistical.
	That's not focusing on the work.
	That's focusing on the consequences of the work.
	Doesn't give one rat's ass about whether you live at home or not.
	Your boss doesn't care about your personal self-fulfillment and your triumphs and your, oh, I'm showing my brother how much more successful I am.
	Your boss cares about, doesn't even care about your code.
	Doesn't even care about the customers fundamentally.
	Your boss cares about profit.
	Now, of course, you writing good code and pleasing the customers is all foundational to the profit.
	But your boss is not there to help you self-actualize as a progressive human being.
	Your boss is there to make sure that you're cash positive so that he can afford to pay you.
	And if you serve the boss's needs, and again, that is good code, it's serving the customers and so on, but...
	Because you've had teachers who get paid whether or not you succeed, you're now in an environment where if you don't succeed, your boss doesn't get paid.
	And that's, you know, you've lived in socialism, you know, welcome to capitalism.
	Wow, fascinating.
	Thank you so much, and thank you, thank you.
	Yeah, you're welcome, man. And I know being fired sucks, but every time I was fired, and I'm not saying it was a huge number of times, but, you know, a couple times, every time that I was fired, I ended up in a better place.
	So I appreciate that.
	It's a very interesting question and stuff I wish that I had known when I was in the past.
	All right, let's see here.
	Oh, this is the word.
	I'm sorry. It's cheesy.
	I'm going to have to do it. Adrian!
	All right. Adrian, I believe that you are calling in to talk about conscientiousness more important than intelligence.
	Is that right? Yes, I think consciousness is more important.
	I am a communist and I don't undermine anything that you say about intelligence, I think.
	Everything you discussed about IQ is correct, but I think there's something more important.
	And I think in order to save society, we need to organize a society that prioritizes consciousness.
	What do you mean by consciousness?
	Just like awareness of things, awareness of yourself, awareness of why you do things, why you...
	You feel the way you do, why other people do a high level of empathy.
	All right, I just need to mention something completely off topic.
	I apologize for that. But for those of you who are not following my Twitter feed, at Stefan Molyneux, you may have missed the giant flurry of dad jokes, which was a huge relief to my daughter that I was, in fact, inflicting my dad jokes on the Internet rather than on her.
	And one of them, of course, was this.
	I taught a wolf how to meditate.
	Now, he's a werewolf.
	Oh! Alright, okay, so, because we're talking about awareness.
	So, consciousness being awareness, empathy, is that sort of what you mean?
	Yeah, and I'm just, like, aware of what's going on around you.
	Like, you could be aware that you're in a building right now, now you have neighbors, now there's cars out in the street.
	It keeps going further and farther.
	And I think that there's a maximum level of consciousness on the scale of infinity that we're evolving to reach.
	And I think in order to beat consciousness, you have to be smart.
	So I think consciousness is built upon intellect.
	It's like intellect is built upon being alive.
	If you care about IQ, then you really care about somebody breathing or somebody eating.
	That's extremely important to breathe and eat.
	In that sense, I think intelligence is important to uphold consciousness.
	When you're organizing society, it shouldn't necessarily be to make everybody smarter.
	It should be to make everybody more conscious.
	And as a result, intellect will fall, and as a result, you know, food plenty will result.
	I've got to tell you, man, when I hear a communist talking about organizing society, I get a little bit of the heebie-jeebies because, you know, that's been pretty costly in the past.
	Why does society need to be organized?
	Why can't we just be free? Because we're capable of doing so much more when we're together.
	If we're individuals, then No, no, no.
	This collective, I didn't say that.
	Okay, let me ask you this.
	As a communist, what does freedom, the word freedom mean?
	So for me, freedom means freedom from coercion, right?
	I don't want anyone pointing guns at me, whether they're private citizens or government employees.
	I don't want... Now, of course, there's a lesser sort of freedom from fraud kind of thing, but, you know, I can be pretty alert to fraud.
	Freedom from violence, freedom from the initiation of force, that's what I mean by freedom.
	But what do you mean by the word freedom?
	Well, I don't think freedom is so important, actually.
	But when I hear the word freedom, I think freedom to seek pleasure, to seek whatever makes you happy.
	Okay. For example, if it makes somebody happy to kill another person, then that's freedom.
	You'd be free to do that.
	But if it makes you happy to be nice to other people, then that's freedom.
	Wait, you're free to murder?
	When I hear the word, you ask me what I think freedom means.
	I think it means whatever results in pleasure and happiness for you.
	You're free to chase your own pleasures and chase your own happiness.
	Whatever that means for you as a person.
	So when it comes to organizing society, what does that look like for you?
	Well, of course, there'd be rules and laws.
	And so with...
	With consciousness, what consciousness allows us to do is...
	No, no, no, no, sorry. We did the consciousness thing.
	I'm just curious how you...
	Because, you know, you're a communist, right?
	So I have a certain idea about communism, and I'm sure you understand it's not a positive one, but I'm certainly happy to hear the case.
	How do you organize society in your ideal system?
	And don't give me just positive adjectives, you know, like people are free to pursue their self-actualization and achieve consciousness.
	It doesn't mean anything, right? Organizing society usually has to do with the legitimate use of force.
	Now for me, force is legitimate in self-defense and so on, and ostracism is something that is essential for society to organize itself without a state.
	But for you, what does it mean?
	Like, how does society work?
	I wake up in the morning, let's say that I want to start a factory or something, or build a school.
	In your society, like in the communist society, how is society organized?
	What are we allowed to do and what are we prevented from doing?
	Well, if there's a need for that, the government will permit and incentivize that.
	There will be ranks of people.
	The people who work slightly harder will be rewarded with better housing and stuff like that.
	But what I see is a large number of people at the bottom.
	It's more of a hierarchy of liars.
	And the most intelligent liars are the ones at the top of society and the most gullible people at the bottom.
	And your rank in society is based on your ability to be gullible or tell a lie.
	It kind of goes together. I see consciousness in lies.
	Sorry, in the government, you can tell lies and get away with it.
	It's tougher in the free market, right?
	Because in the free market, if you say, like you think of this woman, Elizabeth Holmes, who ran this shell company, this con company called Theranos, right?
	So she claimed, you know, pinprick of blood, you can get hundreds of accurate tests in something the size of a toaster and so on.
	This was all... Not true.
	Now, of course, the end result is she's lost her money, her business has gone bankrupt, and she's facing criminal charges.
	So that's one thing, right?
	As opposed to, you know, people who leak documents from the government or people who say there are weapons of mass destruction and start wars and so on.
	They don't end up in prison, right?
	So when you have a government, the government is like free evil or get out of jail free card, right?
	We can see this on how Comey is treated versus General Flynn, right?
	So if you're an enemy of the state, then they will...
	Do terrible things to you.
	And this, of course, was the title of Tommy Robinson's book, and I think we can all see how that played out.
	But if you're a friend of the state, you can pretty much get away with anything.
	And the state, of course, forbids private citizens to kill each other or to steal, whereas the government threatens death and steals from people as its basic definition through taxation and the threat of force.
	So when you say to me something like the government will incentivize people or the government will give those who are more productive...
	Better housing, what you're telling me is the government's in control of money and the government's in control of the housing.
	Is that right? Yes, of course.
	And, you know, people who seek that pleasure will go for it.
	But do you not think that the power to provide or deny housing to people when you have a monopoly on housing, do you not think that that power might corrupt people?
	Well, of course it might.
	But as long as they're really good liars, as long as they're highly conscious people, then their lies will satisfy everybody below them.
	It doesn't matter how corrupt they are.
	Everybody that they're ripping off will be perfectly happy.
	Wait, are you talking about communism here?
	Yeah, yeah. So communism puts the liars and the cheaters at the top.
	Is that right? Yes, what I'm saying is, I don't think...
	What are you talking about? Okay, you're just trolling me, right?
	Like, you can't be a communist and say, I love the system because it puts liars and cheats at the top.
	I mean, I think you're right, but you can't be a communist and believe that, right?
	I think society should be organized in a way that makes people feel happy.
	And if you cheat on your spouse and you hide it and you lie about it for the rest of your life, they're going to be happy and you're going to have a nice relationship because of it.
	I think lies can make people happy.
	And if you allow the ability to lie to expand to greater and greater levels as people get smarter and evolve, then you can organize a complete society of liars and it makes everybody happy.
	We could end war.
	Okay, that's pretty wild, man.
	Now you do understand that I'm anti-communist, right?
	So I would be happier if you weren't a communist, right?
	So you're not lying to me to make me happy.
	I don't understand when you say lies can make people happy.
	If you had lied to me and said, I'm a fervent free market person, I would have been happier.
	But instead you say, I'm a communist, so you're telling me the truth even though it makes me unhappy.
	But then you're saying, but lies can make people very happy.
	Well, why don't you tell me you're a free marketer to make me happy?
	I think I could learn a lot from you.
	I mean, it's for my own personal gain.
	All right. Well, you're not going to learn a lot from me on this call, but listen, I appreciate the...
	I don't know what that was.
	That's pretty wild. All right.
	Let's see here. I think we're going to move on to our good friend.
	Well, there are no strangers.
	They're only friends I haven't met through a call-in show.
	So I think we're going to talk to Anne, who wants to talk about her husband.
	Anne, are you with me? I'm here.
	I like that. That makes me sound like I'm having a seance, you know.
	Anne, if you can hear me, knock on the candlestick.
	It was my grandmother's name.
	Oh, okay. Okay. So tell me what's on your mind.
	So about 18 months ago, when my husband and I had our wedding, we ran into some struggles with his family and To give you the short and sweet, his brother betrayed him.
	Both his siblings, his brother and his sister, dropped out of our wedding three days before, and they haven't spoken to him since.
	They were present there, but it certainly wasn't a joyous experience to share with them, and they left after the ceremony.
	We've just had a bit of a difficult road with them.
	He's the oldest of three.
	A bit of a difficult road. You're such a nice young lady.
	That just sounds like a bit more than a bit of a difficult road, but you're obviously a very, very nice young lady, and I appreciate that, but this may not be the rational response to the provocations.
	But anyway, sorry, please continue.
	No, if it weren't this far in the past, I was filled with a lot of anger when it first happened, but thank you for your kindness.
	Anyhow, he's just expressed he's struggling with moving forward and just doesn't feel motivated.
	He has a career.
	He's an engineer. So he does well professionally and very well socially in that sphere, but has just really struggled to move forward.
	And I want to help him successfully.
	So I trust your wisdom and would love to know what you think.
	But we kind of got two sides of the barbell here, and I'm not sure what connects them because you're talking about difficulties with his family and then you're talking about difficulties with career.
	If you can just help me connect those two, I think I can maybe be a little bit more productive.
	Of course. I apologize.
	He does well with his career, but in terms of getting past the experience with his family, he's struggling to do that.
	He doesn't have a relationship with his siblings any longer, but for our family and our children, which we do not have yet, but looking towards the future, he really wants to have the cookie-cutter holiday again like he grew up with.
	I'm just not sure how to help him understand that That may not be the case, you know, that may not be what our future looks like.
	No, no, it can be the case. Absolutely, it can be the case.
	It's just in the future, not in the past.
	So how long have you guys been married?
	We eloped before moving in together, and that was in 2014.
	And then we had our wedding last year.
	So we've been married about five years.
	And what is your age range?
	You don't need to give me down to the date, but like mid-20s, late-20s, early-30s, what do we got?
	Mid-20s. We've been together, though, since we were about 20.
	So, why don't you...
	I mean, it's funny when I say, why don't you have kids yet?
	Like, there's some rule, or you have to, but I'm just curious.
	Because I think you want them to succeed more in your career because you want to have kids.
	I agree.
	I didn't grow up in the best background, so I worked with kids the first several years after finishing school just to kind of help me feel more comfortable with it.
	So we're kind of nearing that point where we're ready, but I'd say that's the biggest reason for the delay.
	Is his career?
	His career is going well.
	He is a civil engineer, so he, you know...
	No, no, no. Sorry to interrupt, but you said that's the biggest reason for our delay, but we were talking about career and kids and the family.
	So the biggest reason for delaying kids is his relationship with his existing family?
	No. The biggest reason is my relationship with my family growing up.
	Whenever my father was abusive, and so I didn't fully know if I wanted to be a mom growing up.
	I've since changed my mind about that.
	But I think the biggest reason for the delay was, you know, in my early 20s, I didn't feel confident in my ability to parent.
	I spent several years of my career working with kids to kind of help me gain that confidence.
	And to feel ready for that chapter.
	So we're now transitioning out and into parenthood.
	Okay. Hopefully. All right.
	So first of all, I'm sorry to hear about your childhood.
	I mean, that's...
	It's rough, you know?
	And I'm incredibly...
	You're admirable at how you've handled it, right?
	You've got a stable relationship and, you know, it sounds like you love your husband, you're calling in to help him and so on.
	So I just really wanted to kneel, you know, before the mecca of your heart to say, you know, great job in doing what you're doing, because it's a hell of a burden to start with, but it sounds like you didn't have it break you, you had it make you stronger.
	And that's, I just wanted to sort of pause and give you that admiration, if that makes sense.
	Thank you. I very much appreciate it.
	And I know you don't come from the best background either, so you understand the struggle it is to get out of.
	So, thank you. I truly appreciate that.
	I do. And the good news is that when you get out of that quicksand, you end up in the heavens.
	You know, you're in the quicksand or you're in heaven.
	You're in hell or you're in heaven.
	There's no earth. There's no middle earth.
	There's no central layer of the chocolate cake for those of us who are abuse victims.
	We either end up replicating hell or generating heaven.
	And... I think that you're joining me in the clouds, so I just wanted to thank you for that, not just for me and for whatever influence the show has had on you, but for the world, right?
	The more of us who get out of hell and go around making heaven, the more of paradise we can get in this world.
	So I wanted to say that. So regarding to your husband...
	Yeah, I fully agree. Yeah, so regarding to your husband...
	So you can play this part to him.
	I'll put the video out at some point, but probably today or tomorrow, but you can play this part to him.
	So, Bob, I know your name's not Bob, unless it is, in which case, fine.
	So, Bob, listen, I'm really, really sorry to hear about the difficulties that your family have brought into your life, the problems with your wedding, you know.
	I tell you, man, when you fall in love with a woman...
	You really find out who your friends are.
	I will tell you, Bob, a little tiny story about what happened.
	A family member of mine, I absolutely love my wife, and it's been going 18 years now, and it's stronger every day.
	It's a core joy of my life.
	But when I decided to get married, I noticed that a particular family member was not too thrilled, was not too positive about it.
	And that family member said to me, you know, I don't really want to take the time to get to know your fiancé because you're just going to get divorced anyway.
	What's the point? You know, there are certain words that you just, you know, it's like diagonal diamonds on a stake.
	You know, once they're on, they ain't coming off.
	Like that stuff just gets branded.
	Into your brain.
	I knew a guy.
	I don't really know him anymore.
	But I knew a guy who got married and his wife had a bit of a temper.
	Well, quite a lot of a temper. And within six months of them getting married, she yelled at him during a fight.
	Now I wish I'd never married you.
	Oh, man. Talk about a no-take-back.
	There are no mulligans on that.
	That sort of reminds me of that great line from City Slickers 2.
	If hate were people, I'd be China!
	China! And there's stuff that just gets burned into you, right?
	And this, what happened on your wedding day when it should be about you and it should be about joy and people should be making your lives easier?
	You know, when I was getting married, my family members just, they made my life more difficult, you know?
	And, you know, one of them said this terrible thing and there were other things that happened when you get into school.
	But the point is, you can't undo what they've done.
	Now, When it comes to freedom in this life, freedom is such a foundational and powerful thing.
	There's a reason I called my show Free Domain, right?
	Because freedom is the main thing and freedom should be your domain.
	Now, we always think of freedom like it's just freedom for us.
	And that's important, of course, right?
	But I'll tell you about emotional freedom.
	So emotional freedom, Bob, is freedom for other people.
	Your family must be perfectly free to be complete and total jerkwads on your wedding day.
	They have that freedom.
	And there's nothing you can do to take that freedom away.
	And there's nothing you should do to take that freedom away.
	They can be perfect jerks.
	On your wedding day, before, after, during, whatever, right?
	They have that freedom.
	You cannot undo the words and the deeds that they have planted in you any more than the ground can voluntarily cough up the trees you plant therein.
	They have planted their deeds and their words in you.
	You do not have the power To undo that.
	Except by self-erasure, which you don't want to do and is probably interfering with your progress at work, which you need so that you can knock up and raise yourself a happy brood of that perfect family you wish you had in the past, but you can't and won't get, but you can create in the future.
	So they have the perfect freedom to be complete dickwads to you.
	And you cannot undo the effect of that on you.
	They can, If they want, right?
	It could be the case if your family calls up tomorrow, it won't be, but it could be, that they call you up tomorrow and they say, oh man.
	I don't know what it was. I was just flipping through an old photo album.
	I came across pictures of your wedding and I suddenly felt my heart drop and I felt like a complete son of a gun.
	And I really can't believe what I did on your wedding day.
	The family has gotten together.
	We've talked about it.
	We've got a whole thing.
	We're going to pay for a new wedding.
	And you're going to get remarried.
	And we've got a beautiful venue.
	And we are going to hire the photographer.
	And we've resurrected members of the Eagles to come and sing to you.
	And... We're going to make this such a perfect day.
	It's not going to completely make up for what we did in the past, but we're going to do everything we conceivably can to make this remarriage the best.
	Because we effed up the first time, but we're not going to eff up the second time.
	We're going to make it right for you, and we're all incredibly, deeply, and profoundly sorry.
	Now, they're free to do that.
	It's just a phone call away.
	They can wake up tomorrow and do that if they want.
	And they're free to do it.
	And they're free to not do it.
	And they're not going to do it. You know, I mean, in my life, if you don't get an apology within 48 hours, it never happens.
	Because what happens is the brain starts to justify what was done.
	So if you feel bad enough, and I'm sure that Bob's family felt bad enough, if you feel bad enough and you want to apologize, do it, do it, do it right now.
	Because if you don't do it, your brain will start to justify everything you did and then you'll feel like a sucker for apologizing and the relationship will be ruined.
	So they're free to do whatever they want to do.
	Give them that freedom. Don't cover up for them.
	Don't erase yourself to cover up the bodies that they buried in your heart.
	Don't refuse to be a witness in the court of your own empiricism.
	They've done what they've done.
	Let them be free to do it.
	And you be free to experience it and do whatever you feel like.
	Because why we hang on to this stuff is we feel that things should have been different.
	They shouldn't have done that.
	Damn it, they shouldn't have done that.
	By God! It drives me crazy that they did that.
	You can do that if you want.
	But it's going to change nothing.
	Because they did it. And they refuse to apologize.
	And they refuse to make it whole.
	And they never will. You know, there are all these scenes in shows.
	Oh, the girl.
	She had a fight with the guy.
	And she's leaving on a long trip.
	And he runs to the airport.
	You know, maybe it's just me.
	Maybe there's something about me.
	But I've talked about this with a whole bunch of people, and you can chime in here too.
	Have you ever got a late-term apology from anyone for stuff that happened years ago?
	No, you're right. And if you do, it's certainly not genuine.
	No, it's one of these Kim Campbell, I'm sorry you were offended, garbage non-apologies, right?
	Never happens. You're waiting for a bus...
	That ain't coming. And there's tension in waiting for a bus that's not coming, right?
	So if you're waiting for an apology, and, you know, I know when I post this, people are like, well, you know, my brother-in-law apologized 10 years after the fact, and we now have a great relationship.
	Okay, fine. Absolutely.
	Absolutely. And I'm sure that if I say it's really, really important to shovel your driveway when the snow comes, you can say, well, yes, but one time a truck...
	I just rolled over and spilled burning gasoline on my driveway and just melted that snow away like that.
	It's like, yeah, but, you know, sometimes you win the lottery.
	Doesn't mean you shouldn't save for your old age, right?
	I mean, you've got to go with the vast majority of the averages here.
	And the vast majority of the averages, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.
	It's like if you declare yourself to a woman, you've got 24 hours to get out of the friend zone or you're stuck there forever, right?
	And... If people have done wrong by you, 48 hours, man.
	You get an apology within 48 hours or it ain't going to happen.
	It ain't going to happen. And you can sit there and wait if you want, but they've moved on and they've now justified whatever they've done and just sit in there waiting.
	So let them be free.
	Let people be free to be jerks.
	And wishing them to not be jerks is wishing them to be constrained by what you prefer rather than who they are.
	Wanting other people to be different is foundationally tyrannical.
	And when you're wronged and you're desperate for people to be different from you, or different, sorry, different from what you want them to be, that's a fundamentally tyrannical perspective.
	Let people be free to be jerks!
	You know, I think you said it very well when you said, you know, you learn who your true friends are when you fall in love with someone.
	I like it when my best statement was ten minutes ago.
	No, listen, there's no heartbreak if you simply accept the facts.
	What is heartbreak other than a rejection of data?
	It's a rejection of empirical facts.
	Your husband is heartbroken because he wants things to be different and he's got this expectation that things are going to be different.
	And they weren't. And they're not.
	And how you get over heartbreak is you just accept the facts.
	His family were jerks.
	Your father was abusive.
	It's a mess. And those are the facts.
	And it's not going to change. It's not going to change.
	The only thing that may change is your power relationship.
	I'm sorry? I said you're correct.
	The only way to move forward is to accept that it's part of the past and move past it.
	That's what I did with my experience as a child.
	And I think that's what we need to learn from this is we can't change the actions people had.
	And part of what I think he's been waiting for is that call that you're right will never come.
	Never come. And it's just holding him back.
	And I'll tell you one last thing.
	And this is a great topic.
	I really, really appreciate you bringing it up.
	So the first thing is acceptance.
	And the second thing, how you get over this stuff, is justice.
	Now justice means paying what you owe and not paying what you don't owe.
	Now we understand this in economic terms, right?
	You order something online, it gets delivered, you've got to pay for it.
	If it doesn't get delivered, you don't have to pay for it.
	So you pay what you owe and you don't pay what you don't owe.
	Now this It's very, very important when it comes to family of origin.
	If you have a good family of origin, and by good, I don't mean perfect.
	Everybody makes mistakes and, you know, decent, reasonable, nice, compassionate, considerate, take responsibility, work to improve, apologize when necessary, accept apologies when provided, all decent, basic, decent, common sense stuff, right?
	So they have delivered to you quality, and so you owe them respect, probably love.
	Loyalty, right? Because they've delivered the goods, so you owe them the payment.
	They've delivered virtue, so you owe them love.
	And to withhold that love to me is kind of selfish and mean, and it's not paying.
	When somebody sends you the iPad, you send them the 500 bucks, right?
	So pay what you owe.
	That's one side of the coin of justice.
	The other side of the coin of justice is don't pay what you don't owe.
	Don't pay for what people don't deliver.
	So if your family or your husband's family have not delivered quality, virtue, consistency, loyalty, decency, maturity, wisdom, aid, help, positivity, if they have not delivered, don't pay.
	You owe them nothing.
	Allegiance and loyalty and love and trust.
	These are all things that you pay when people deliver the goods.
	And if they don't deliver the goods, don't pay.
	Why does he want loyalty to his family?
	Because he somehow imagines that his loyalty will make them grow into good people.
	But it's the exact opposite.
	If you pay someone 500 bucks for an iPad they never delivered, they're never going to deliver any iPads.
	Why? Because they get paid either way.
	Don't love the free market economically.
	And then become a communist in your personal relations.
	Justice covers both spheres.
	And in fact, it's the personal relationships where you most need the free market.
	Pay what you owe.
	Avoid paying for what was not delivered.
	Because you're simply rewarding people for bad behavior.
	And save, Bob, your loyalty to the family that you and your wonderful wife can create, not the crap storm that accidentally birthed you.
	Does that help? Wow, so very much.
	Thank you so much, Stefan.
	That was wonderfully well put, and I've never thought about justice in that way before, and that really helps me feel like I shouldn't I feel like I owe anybody anything.
	Oh, yeah. All the bad people love the social socialism, right?
	They love the social socialism where to each, according to their need, I need your approval.
	I need your support. I need your love.
	Like, did you earn it? Well, no.
	So I ain't going to pay it.
	Everybody, like all the bad people, and then you get all this, right?
	If you don't reconcile with your father, you're going to be cursed and miserable and regretted for the rest of your life.
	Well, this is just a weird curse, right?
	How about he earns... My forgiveness, right?
	How about whatever? Oh, it's going to die!
	Everybody loves this weird, the bad people.
	They all love this creepy socialism of your immediate society.
	And no, absolutely not.
	The pay what you owe and do not pay for what was not delivered is a universal principle.
	And that's the way that you cure evil in the world is stop subsidizing it.
	All right. Well, I'm glad that it helped.
	Please let me know how it goes.
	And this is a general... Statement or note to all of my good friends out there in the world.
	And let's see here.
	I think we're going to talk to...
	Thank you, everyone, for your patience for waiting.
	We're going to talk to Cameron, the person, not the extra O country.
	Are you with me? Hey, how are you doing, Seth?
	I'm well. How are you doing? I'm doing well.
	Hey, I just got to let you know I've been listening for 10 years and I finally found something that's really worthy of asking, I guess.
	Well, that's great. Listen, I appreciate that, and thank you so much.
	I mean, you've added hundreds or thousands of views to the view count, and we've blown past 600 million, and it's incredible.
	And thank you so much to you, to everyone out there who's listening and sharing and all that.
	So thanks, Cameron. I really, really appreciate that.
	Yeah, and before I ask my question, I've got to thank you, too, for the peaceful parenting stuff.
	It's actually turned my girlfriend from pro-spanking into an advocate for completely peaceful parenting.
	Parenting with, you know, reasoning and talking through stuff.
	So I've got to thank you for that for my future.
	Oh, I appreciate that. Thank you.
	All right. So, but my question is regarding the way the culture has been shifting.
	My question really is we've lost so much culturally as the West.
	How are we going to start to gain stuff back, gain these losses back if we manage to Remain the West that we are right now, in the very least.
	Oh God, but why would you want the West right now?
	The West right now is a complete catastrophe.
	I would say, I mean, the fact that there are still lingering groups like, you know, your show and people and Westerners that appreciate the free market and appreciate liberty, that these people and these ideas still exist and still have a chance to gain foothold.
	And I think a big part of my question is, Now that we're, you know, slowly eliminating meritocracy, you know, in the form of, you know, affirmative action or diversity hiring or, you know, New York recently wanting to get rid of their gifted programs, when it comes to taking those things back, it's going to really look like trying to take people's rights away.
	It'll look more like taking people's rights away than it does now or than it did before.
	So I'm wondering what we can do as a culture to try to take back some ground that we've lost culturally speaking.
	Well, I mean, generally, if you're engaged in a battle, you go to where your enemy least wants you to go.
	Because that's where your enemy is the most vulnerable, right?
	And so where does the left least want people to go?
	Well, they don't want to talk about ethnic differences, biological, intellectual, all that kind of stuff.
	Because that's the actual scientific factual explanation on average.
	Again, you never judge individuals by group averages, but that's the answer as to why some groups do better than others.
	And... That is a factual answer that brings peace and understanding and reason and cools everyone's jets and cools everyone's escalation towards the kind of race wars that we're seeing in South Africa at the moment.
	Well, it's not really a race war, it's still one-sided.
	So, yeah, I mean, you have to go to your enemy's least defensible flank.
	Now, your enemy is aware of that, which is why they get really mad when you go there, right?
	But you have to go to the soft underbelly of your enemy's arguments.
	And, you know, the fact—I'll tell you this, man—so the fact that I'm out there talking about this stuff out of love, out of a desperate desire to prevent the rivers of blood— I was a British politician who talked about this in the past to prevent this kind of stuff.
	Because if we keep going on the way we're going, it's going to get really, really bad.
	Because if everything gets blamed on white racism, there's going to be a lot of blowback.
	There's going to be a lot of what is called radicalization.
	I'm really trying to cool everyone's jets.
	And the only way you can cool people's jets is with facts, with reason, with evidence.
	And, you know, coming from a place of love, as I do.
	Sure. So, hang on.
	So, you know, there are a lot of people out there who are claiming to love the West, and they're claiming to want to defend the West, and they want to defend free speech, and they want to defend free markets, and they want to defend separation of church and states and limited government, blah, blah, blah.
	And it's like, okay, great.
	Then this is a pretty key topic for that.
	Because you know the way it works, right?
	The way it works is when men and women do less well in various fields, if various ethnicities do less or well or better in certain fields, well, the left's answer is it's all bigotry, it's all sexism, it's all racism, it's all blah blah blah blah blah, right?
	And that is an argument which swells the government to infinity, right?
	Because you're asking the government to solve a problem which the government can't solve.
	I mean, even if you imagine there were problems that the government could solve, you're asking the government to solve a problem it can't solve.
	And it's the same thing that used to happen with Marxism, still does, I suppose, which is they say, well, if there's a certain group of people who own the means of production and other people who don't, well, that must be because of exploitation and predation and nastiness and class consciousness and all this.
	Whereas, of course, usually it's just to do with IQ and ambition and blah, blah, blah, right?
	So... You have to have an answer to group differences.
	Now, the left's answer to group differences is bigotry, racism, white privilege, exploitation, and therefore we need big, giant government programs who redistribute everything that was unjustly taken from one group to another, whatever, right?
	Now, because that will never solve the problem, and of course it hasn't solved the problem, and government intervention has made things even worse in many ways, right?
	Like in the 1920s, only 20% of black youths We're growing up without a father.
	Now it's 74% or probably even higher, right?
	So I don't know what the data was in the past, but now, according to some reports, half of black women are raped by a black man before they reach the age of 18.
	It's catastrophic in many ways, right?
	So when the government says, well, we're going to make all this stuff equal and even economically, it can't do that, which means that you get this.
	And of course, if you want to grow the government, give it a problem it can't solve.
	Because then its failure to solve it, which in the free market would mean a reduction or elimination of funding, means, well, you need more funding, you need more government power, you need more control.
	I mean, it wasn't like when the Bush administration and others spent $100 billion on the Head Start program to close the gap in achievement between blacks and whites in America.
	When it completely failed, they didn't sit there and say, well, I guess this is something we can't do.
	They're like, nope, now we've got to escalate, right?
	So that's what you do. To grow the government, you give it a problem it can't solve.
	And then you make it a moral imperative and the government can't solve it.
	And then you get to grow the government forever, right?
	It's the ultimate steroids for the might of the state.
	So, yeah, you've got to go to where the left wants you to go the least, and that can be a great challenge.
	And, you know, I keep looking around, man.
	I keep looking around saying, okay, well, I'm talking about this stuff.
	This is the solution to the impending social conflicts that could take down civilization as a whole.
	And I've made a really good case for it, and the data is impeccable, and the facts are the facts, and I keep waiting for people to sit there and say, you know, he's really got a good point.
	I guess I'm going to join him on this promontory.
	I'm not going to let him out there taking the bullets alone.
	And I'm not going to get into names, but some of them have been on this show.
	And they're just sitting there going, oh yeah, he's taking the bullets, I'm going to hide here in my inconsequential bunker of...
	Boring conservatism and basic bitch compliance with the increasing edicts of the left.
	Steph can take it. He can handle it.
	I'm not joining him up there because why?
	I mean, don't you care about the world enough to take a couple of metaphorical bullets for the greatest threat to peace the world has ever seen outside of direct nuclear weapons?
	Come on. But yeah, so you've got to talk about the tough stuff and of course I call on people to join me in helping get these facts out there.
	It's really essential.
	If we don't get these facts out there about the basic physical and biological and statistical reasons why there are differences in group outcomes, They're going to use these wedges to destroy everything.
	It's really that important.
	If you could talk people out of launching nuclear weapons, wouldn't you?
	And if you can talk people out of provoking these kinds of conflicts, shouldn't you?
	And the left knows that, which is why this is the topic that gets them the most hysterical, because it's the one thing that could take down their path to power.
	Does that make any sense? Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
	And the one thing that I think is one of the bigger barriers is the actual demographic shift, though.
	Because if you have illegal immigrants coming here from third world countries, they don't necessarily want to leave.
	And they're, of course, not the people that are going to vote, generally speaking, to decrease the size and scope of government.
	And I guess it's something that I haven't heard a lot of people talking about as far as I mean, as far as how all this stuff shakes out, the solution is always freedom.
	And of course, the question is, how do we get there, right?
	So, my answer to this, and this is the general answer to the differences in IQ that are...
	If you look at income gaps, like the income disparities, like the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer, everybody wants to look at capital, market, welfare, and those things are important, but basically what you're seeing is a divergence in IQ.
	It's a divergence in IQ.
	And the welfare state is dysgenics, as we know, and smart people.
	This is something that Charles Murray talked about, although I'm not saying that he supports any of this argument, but he talked about this in his book on What was it? Coming Apart or something like that.
	His book on how the elites are kind of scooping up all the smart people and taking them off to the ivory tower and getting them out of their community and so on.
	Whereas the welfare state is...
	You know, average IQ of single moms is in the 90s.
	And so you've got the welfare state with that just genics coming apart.
	I think it was coming apart.
	And so you've got this increasing fragmentation of society where the smart are getting smarter by being taken out of their society and put into these ivory league institutions and move to Washington and think tanks and all this kind of stuff.
	And the welfare state is paying people who are less smart to have more babies.
	You've got this general widening.
	Now, those people are there, and they're human beings.
	I mean, they deserve protection.
	They deserve sympathy.
	It's not their fault.
	You know, if you're some kid and you've got an IQ of 92 because your mom, who's got an IQ of 93, because of the welfare state, she ended up sleeping with some guy who's not so, It's not your fault.
	You shouldn't be punished for it.
	It doesn't make you less of a human being.
	It doesn't make you not valuable in your community and in your society.
	It doesn't mean that you shouldn't...
	Gain all the protections of law and human compassion and sympathy and so on, right?
	And this is why when you talk about this kind of stuff, it cools everyone's hostility and fear because now we just have a practical problem to solve.
	Now the way to solve that problem is to me quite simple, which is a combination of meritocracy plus charity.
	So if you allow the smart people access to the free market, they can generate more than enough wealth that charity can help out those Who can't succeed nearly as much in the free market, right?
	I mean, I wish I could make it longer.
	If we let smart people make a lot of money and we educate people about differences in IQ, then we can understand it's not because the lower IQ people are lazy or not because they're worthless or not because they're just making bad decisions for the hell of it.
	It's like, no.
	It's not their fault.
	It's not anyone's fault.
	It's just the way the world evolved.
	It's just the result of violations of thou shalt not steal and the wages of sin.
	Well, I don't want them to be death, right?
	So we educate everyone so that if they look at...
	There was a video floating around and it was a bunch of young kids roaming through an Apple store grabbing everything.
	A lot of people were like, well, the problem is the culture and the problem is the schools.
	And the problem is like, no, come on.
	I mean, we know what the problem is.
	And it's just the way things are.
	So if we allow smart people more access to the free market, which just means opening up the free market and reducing regulations and barriers to the generation of wealth, then we can generate so much wealth that we can take care of people through charity.
	Can't do it through the state because then it's just going to be vote buying and paying people to have kids, right?
	Right. But charity, charity can solve this.
	But to have charity, we need to be charitable, which means we need to understand that it's nobody's fault.
	Nobody should be blamed for the bell curve.
	It's not some nefarious plan.
	Here. So generate wealth through the free market, educate people to have sympathy for those less fortunate than themselves, and then charity can give us a soft landing to solve these issues.
	That's the only way that it's going to be resolved peacefully, and so that's my solution.
	Yeah, and I can appreciate the charitable aspect there.
	I go to a rather, well, when I lived in the center of the country and I went to a large church, it was Capable of donating hundreds of cars for Christmas and taking care of a lot of people in a lot of different ways just due to the size of their income on tithing.
	And I see it as such a better solution than coercion to move that money around because there's such a direct relationship between the person that is needy and the group of people that are giving that You know, there's an accountability there with that relationship.
	It's, hey, I'm going to give you something for free here that's going to really help you.
	You're in a tough spot, but let's talk more about what we can do to keep you from getting in this spot again, you know, more as a community.
	And this is where I have trouble convincing people, you know, even based on my anecdotal evidence that when you have Greater oversight or greater control over where your charitable money is going, you're going to enhance people's lives a lot more than if the state just takes it, it disappears and pops out somewhere on the end of some pipe 6,000 miles away where nobody really knows what happens to it.
	Yeah, no, it has to be based on knowledge and virtue and voluntarism and charity.
	And I fully believe that when people have a robust and deep understanding of these issues, they will not dislike, they will not fear, they will not hold in contempt, they will sympathize with the challenge that we, as a human community, have been dropped by nature and by multiculturalism and the state and...
	The free market can solve these kinds of issues.
	So thanks very much.
	I'm sorry, Kyle. I'm going to drop your call.
	Can I ask you one more thing to clarify? No, I'm sorry.
	I'm going to move on to the next caller, but I really do appreciate that.
	And I'm sorry, Kyle. I just did anxiety about a monetary future in the last call-in, so I'm going to not do that one.
	But let's talk to the 40-year-old who believes his life is, and I quote him, crap.
	Hello. Is your connection crap too?
	Yes. Hello. Yeah, it's not great.
	Are you on speaker? Yeah, let me switch to something else.
	Sure. Yeah, just in general, if you're calling in, please don't be on speakerphone.
	It picks up all the background crap, and it's not as good as stuff that's close up.
	Alright, is that better stuff? Much better.
	Alright. So, you're 40 years old, your life is crap.
	You know it's all your fault. How do you fix it?
	That's your question. Do you want to give us any more background on that?
	Well, sure. I, of course, started making bad decisions in my late teens.
	I mean, it's not drugs or alcohol, primarily.
	It's basically...
	I was overweight for a long time, so...
	for most of my life.
	And had a very, very bad...
	Very bad view of myself.
	So looking for love in all the wrong places kind of put me into picking the wrong women.
	Well, if you're overweight, you don't have a massive choice, right?
	Yeah, well, exactly.
	So, I mean, if you find somebody that's very pretty or very attractive that makes you feel better about yourself, then of course, you know, that makes you feel like you're going up.
	However, a lot of times, and I don't mean this brutally, but Sometimes pretty is crazy.
	And that's kind of left me raising a daughter by myself for the past 15 years.
	And, you know, I mean, I do make progresses.
	But then I let the depressions and the weights of the world.
	Are you still overweight?
	No, yeah, quite a bit, but I'm working on that still.
	Quite a bit. How much? I'm about 300.
	And how tall are you?
	Unless you're like 19 feet tall, I think that's a bit on the heavy side.
	And how tall are you? I'm about 5'11".
	Yeah, so that's very much overweight, right?
	And how's your weight been over the last, say, 20 years?
	Like, is it mostly the same or is it gopper down or what?
	Well, yeah, it went up and down.
	I do know that I have depression and stress, so my largest weight, I was probably around 32, and I was about 420.
	You've lost my wife's weight.
	No, she's less than that, actually.
	Wow, okay. Well, that's good.
	I mean, 420 to 300 is a plus, right?
	Well, minus, but it's a plus. Well, and...
	Whenever I was 14, I weighed 250.
	I went from 250 to 350 by 16.
	So, hang on, hang on. In my early 20s, I lost now.
	I'm sorry, I didn't get your name.
	What was your name? It's Paul.
	Paul. So, Paul, what...
	I want to say the word appalling, but what was going on in your family that you got that big so young?
	Well... The year my mom and dad split up, I gained about 150 pounds.
	In one year? Yeah, in one year.
	And how old were you? My grandmother, probably about 12 was when they split up.
	So I'd say... Oh, come on, wait. Seriously, I used 150 pounds in one year when you were 12.
	Really? Is that even possible?
	Yeah. Well, I mean, if it wasn't 100, I would say it was at least 70.
	I mean, it was close to 100 pounds because...
	Oh, I thought you said 150.
	I wasn't... Oh, no, 100 pounds.
	100 pounds. So I went from...
	I went to 250 pounds in the first year.
	Oh, wow. So I went from 150 to 250.
	Now, to back that up a little bit, now I know this doesn't...
	I'm not trying to say I'm big-boned and I'm full of gravy or nothing, But I am a country boy.
	So, I mean, from a young boy on, I mean, I was out there lifting and tugging and pulling.
	So my weight is some muscle.
	You know, I do have quite a huge base of muscle, which actually makes being fatter more difficult because you take a huge base of muscle and then you add 100 pounds on top of the big base of muscle and then you got both weights to deal with.
	Right, and of course, just for those of you who are trying to lose weight by working out, like exercise, your muscle weighs more than fat, so it may not feel like you're losing weight.
	And of course, if you work out, then your muscles continue to burn calories even while you're sleeping, sitting on the couch or whatever.
	Okay, but still, so your parents got divorced and you said something about your grandmother, Paul.
	What happened, again, to give you the 100 pounds in a year?
	Well, even before they split up, my grandmother was one of those types where she shoved food on you, even at the anger of the parents.
	You could have just ate a full-course meal at your house and she'd press your solar plexus where it dips in there and be like, oh look, you've got an empty spot.
	So she was a real big pusher.
	Yeah, pusher is right, right?
	She's like a food terrorist.
	Exactly, because it wasn't healthy stuff.
	And to look back, I know she loved me, but she was hurting us all as well.
	Because, I mean, it was always sugars and bad fats and all those things.
	And it's like, I wish I could go back in time and be like, Grandma thought you loved me.
	Was she overweight herself?
	Of course. She had an abusive husband.
	Yeah, so she had an abusive alcoholic husband.
	She was a food terrorist and she was obese herself, but you're going to make the claim that she knew all about love?
	Exactly. No, no, but you made that claim, right?
	You said, I know she loved me.
	How the hell do you know she loved you?
	Well, I mean, I'm saying I know that in her mind she loves me.
	How do you know that? Hang on.
	No, no, no. Don't give me this mind-reading the dead, right?
	What empirical evidence do you have that she loved you?
	Because she gave you a lifelong health issue that could kill you, right?
	She might as well have given you cigarettes, right?
	Exactly. Yeah, so let's say, if a mom is teaching, a grandmom is here, have some unfiltered camels.
	They're good for you.
	But I knew she loved me.
	It's like, really? How do you know that?
	Yeah. Very good point.
	See, that's why I called in.
	Yeah, no, listen, because everyone says this to me, and you've probably listened to this show for a while, and I bet you everyone calls in saying, I'm not going to make the same mistakes that everybody else makes in this show, and then it's like, but my grandmother, who kind of half-force-fed me into a massive health crisis and could have had my heart explode like a pinata, she loved me.
	And it's like, no, that's not love.
	And the other question is, the hell were your parents doing, man?
	If you've got a food terrorist on your hand who's giving your kid a lifelong health problem, you get that person out of your kid's life like that.
	Like you say, hey, you've got to stop feeding this kid, man.
	This is deadly. And if she won't stop doing it, it's like, hey, sorry, you made your choice.
	You chose your food rather than you can't get access to my son if you keep feeding him like this because it's really, really bad for him.
	Okay, so bear with me one second.
	I hope it's not snack time.
	No, I'm sure it isn't.
	isn't.
	See, that's kind of my problem.
	You know, the dysfunctions continue until the lies are revealed.
	That's a basic reality in life.
	The dysfunctions continue until the lies are revealed.
	And I think one of the lies is...
	My grandmother loved me.
	Because that is not love.
	If you are seeing a kid gain weight at the age of 12 and you're continuing, and you were gaining weight catastrophically and you were continuing to feed that child, that is rampant abuse.
	And it's one of the worst forms of abuse.
	Because if you hit a child to the point where the child, or you push a child down the stairs and the child breaks his arm, the arm heals.
	But fat, as you find out, is kind of forever, right?
	Unless you have extraordinary amounts of willpower.
	And you know, the people who lose weight, only a couple of percentage people actually keep the weight off.
	And, you know, 40 is tough because your metabolism is slowing.
	Look, I'm not sure. You can do it.
	You can do it. Right?
	But it's hard. Oh, yeah.
	And giving... Very hard.
	Yeah, destroying a child's self-esteem.
	Destroying a child's capacity for athleticism.
	Destroying a child's capacity for a reasonable or decent sexual market value.
	Destroying... Confidence in your child and giving them lifelong health problems and joint problems and knee problems and heart problems and mobility problems and all of that.
	And self-conscious problems, right?
	I mean, we've all seen these guys with these giant kettle drum bellies who, like, they fold their arms over their bellies like, now I can't see it.
	You know, it's just, it's like it's really crippling, right?
	And it's probably been one of the central things that has defined you as a human being.
	So, I'm sorry to be so frank, but to hell with the person who fed you that much.
	Literally to hell with them. That's an incredibly destructive thing to do, and I don't see love in it at all.
	I see rampant destruction.
	Sure. Well, see, and that's kind of my problem, is because whenever I look across all of the family that were supposed to be there for me, They all did the same things in similar ways.
	It's like, I love them all.
	And I know somewhere in them, in their brokenness, they love me, but also like me or didn't question on how to get better.
	Okay, so what do you love about the people who all participated in laden you with 100 extra pounds when you were 12?
	What do you love about them?
	And that's what I'm running off on to.
	It's like, how do I heal out of all this?
	Because I know what all of them are done.
	No, you heal through anger.
	You heal through anger. That's why we have it.
	Okay, let me ask you this.
	Sorry to interrupt, but you know, you want me to be decisive.
	That's why you called in. Okay. How old is your daughter?
	She's 15. 15, okay.
	Now, you know the effects of obesity on you, right?
	Depression, anxiety, uneasy relationship with food, joints, problems, knee problems, back problems, heart problems, risk of diabetes, all of that, which could have you drop dead just about any day, right? Okay, I want you to imagine this.
	I want you to imagine this. I want you to imagine...
	That someone was feeding your daughter a poison that produced all of the symptoms of being overweight but without actually making her overweight.
	In other words, somebody was feeding your daughter a poison that made her depressed, that made her anxious, that made her insecure, that made her joints hurt, that gave her heart health massive blows to the point where it could kill her.
	That put her at risk for diabetes.
	Somebody was feeding her A poison that produced the effects of obesity without producing the fat.
	You follow me, right?
	Oh, yeah, I'd smash them.
	Okay. Could you love a person who was feeding poison to your daughter?
	No, I couldn't. Could you ever say, well, deep down, that person who's feeding poison to my daughter loves her deep down, and I love that person.
	He just doesn't know how to express his love at a productive manner.
	Come on, right? The anger.
	The reason you're still fat is because you ain't angry enough.
	Because you got screwed over by your family.
	You should never let a child gain that kind of weight.
	Ever, ever. It's so easy to prevent.
	It's so easy to prevent.
	You just stop feeding so much and you go for walks and you take the child to playgrounds and you get the child enrolled in sports.
	It's so easy.
	It's so easy to solve.
	This isn't like you need chemotherapy to lose weight or not gain weight, which is the best solution, right?
	So you were poisoned by food, man.
	And that poison has given you a lifelong ailment.
	And I will not let the word love be tainted by being applied to people who poison children.
	That's not love. I never really looked at it that way, Steph.
	Tell me if I'm wrong, man.
	It's your body. It's your life.
	I'm happy to be corrected.
	That's how it looks from the outside.
	Well, no. Oh, no.
	I mean, you can't put it any other way.
	I mean, if it was, like you said, cigarettes, if it was drugs, if it was poison, I mean, there's no way to say love there.
	It is poison. Exactly. It is poison.
	And you're dealing with the lifelong effects of being poisoned as a child.
	Well, and my dad was no better with it because he was taught by the mother, the grandmother that fed me.
	And then my mom, she's just a whole different story.
	And, you know, she's the one that's still alive.
	Like, my grandmother and my dad both have passed away.
	My dad passed away about 15 years ago, right before my daughter was born.
	So, and my mom, she's a very broken individual.
	I love her with all my heart.
	I really do. But she's another one that like...
	Dude, you're driving me crazy here.
	We just had this whole conversation.
	You've got to stop pulling these goddamn Hurlmark cards out of your sentimentality slot.
	Your mother was responsible for your health as a child.
	And she participated in a lifelong poisoning of you.
	I love her with all my heart.
	Come on, man. Pull yourself out of country music cliches and into reality.
	Well, she was actually the one that she did try to, well, I can't say she did it right, but I mean, she even had me to the doctors a couple of times trying to get me on diet pills and stuff like that, which would have been way worse because that stuff was just methamphetamines.
	It's just speed, isn't it?
	What's that? Isn't that stuff just speed?
	Yep. So I'm glad that didn't happen, but...
	So rather than confront her own mother, I don't know if it was your dad's mom or your mom's mom, but rather than confront your grandmother and establish some boundaries and keep you healthy, she wanted to stuff you full of dangerous drugs?
	This is the woman you love?
	Come on, man. I'm not saying you've got to hate her, but Jesus, this is some crappy-ass parenting.
	Oh, no doubt. Well, and see, that's my main thing.
	I know I'm 40.
	And I know where my life's at because my parents didn't grow up, grow some cojones, do some research, and really try to get themselves better.
	My daughter's 15, and I know she's already seen a lot.
	I know she's already been through a lot, and I know I already haven't been the person that I need to be.
	And I don't want to waste the next five years.
	Right. So you've got to stop poisoning the word love around your daughter.
	Sure.
	and it's an analogy I understand it's not direct poison but it has ill health effects that last and also intergenerational right so obese people I believe have a higher chance of passing on obese genes So it's multi-generational.
	Quote, poisoning, right?
	Sure. So if you keep talking about how you love your love with all your heart, with all your heart you love this woman, right?
	She divorced your dad or didn't protect you from your grandmother or she tried to get you drugged instead of...
	Right, come on. I mean, you can't just say love with all your heart.
	No caveats, no qualifications, no whatever, right?
	Because... Sure.
	Then you're... You're eating the junk food of sentimentality.
	Of course you're depressed, because you believe it's a virtue to bond with people who gave you the greatest harm that you've experienced as an adult, I assume, outside of maybe the relationship with the mom of your daughter, which is obesity.
	It could cut 20 years of your life, could cut 10 years of your life.
	I mean, that's disastrous.
	And you have every right to be angry at the people who poisoned you as a child.
	You have every right. In fact, not only do you have every right, it would be kind of crazy to not be angry at that.
	Because if you love people who abused you, and this is what you're communicating to your daughter, and your daughter is going to want to grow up and fall in love with someone, who is she going to choose, man?
	You've defined what the word love is for her.
	Who is she going to choose when she wants to fall in love?
	What I show, or what I example is love.
	Yep. She's going to choose someone like your parents.
	Well, see, and the other thing with my daughter is her mom, her mom sees her about once a year.
	We have split custody, but she rarely, if ever, even gets her on the holidays.
	She waits until my daughter bugs her for two or three Weeks to two or three months to give her an answer whether she gets to come for the summer.
	And I know that plays a big deal on her heart, too.
	So, and I'm always trying to tell her, you know, listen, you know, your mom doesn't hate you, you know, because I don't want her heart to be broken.
	And from what you're just telling me there, I've been doing the bad thing there, too.
	Well, listen, it's really complicated with X's, right?
	Because if you tell the truth about them sometimes, you know, like, it's a whole blowback thing and all of that.
	But, you know, I refer you back to my earlier call with Fictitious Bob, right?
	Which is, her mother is completely free to be a cold-hearted witch with a capital B who doesn't seem to give half a rat's feces about her own daughter, right?
	She's free to do that. And she accrues the consequences thereto.
	But yeah, I mean, this idea, well, you know, I'm going to create this magical platonic world somewhere behind people's actions which are the exact opposite of what they did.
	That's not philosophical.
	Philosophy is reason and evidence.
	The evidence is that your daughter's mom doesn't really care about her.
	Now, you can create some alternate universe, some shadow mom back there, some penumbra, some black hole or some ghost or genie that follows her mom around, and somehow is the exact opposite of her mom.
	But that's a fantasy.
	It's a dangerous fantasy.
	And you can create this, well, my parents were really, they loved me, they wanted the best for me, they made some mistakes, but just look at the evidence.
	Otherwise, every murderer has a shadow guy who didn't kill anyone and kisses puppies and helps the poor and then we can't convict anyone.
	Because you can just create opposite guy in your mind.
	You can create opposite parents.
	You can create opposite mom of your daughter.
	There's a magical opposite person out there.
	But that's delusional.
	I'm not saying you're delusional.
	I'm saying this particular habit of, well, I don't like what I see, so I'm going to magically create the opposite in my mind and refer to that.
	That's not rational. People are who they are.
	They tell you very clearly, very explicitly.
	And I bet you, I'm glad your daughter's here, and I'm glad that you have a, it sounds like you have a good relationship, you're a caring dad, good for you, man.
	So I'm not wishing non-existence on your daughter, but I guarantee you that this sentimentality and this creation of opposite person that you can bond with, first of all, it goes right back to your family, which blah, blah, blah, but I bet you that if you had seen without, not even the rose-colored or the welding goggles, but like It's one thing to close your eyes.
	It's another thing to think you're seeing.
	If you close your eyes, okay, you're cautious and you feel your way along.
	But if you're very confident that there's a bridge over the canyon and there ain't, that's a problem, right?
	I mean, that's no good, right?
	And so, if you look back on the mother of your daughter, if you hadn't created...
	Opposite girl to bond with, and you had simply judged this woman according to her actions, well, I bet you it wouldn't have progressed to the point where you ended up as a single dad for 15 years.
	Am I wrong? Oh, yeah, I've already came to that realization.
	I actually tell people I painted red flags green.
	I walked around with a paint can, and the flags were dripping when we got married.
	Give me one or two of the big ones, just so everyone else can learn from what happened.
	Simply little things.
	In my opinion, I thought she was so backwards and so quiet and so shy-ish because of the way she was treated by a militant stepdad.
	But in interacting with her, any time that you tried to get her to clarify on things that didn't make sense, just the wanting of clarification was like you were questioning her and she wanted to go off on you or wanted to shell up or didn't want to talk anymore.
	That's just one example.
	Other examples is whenever she was clearly wrong on something, if she didn't want to take ownership of it, which she never really did anyways, and if she did, it was always with a justification, but it would be violent.
	And this woman was tiny, and I'm a large man, and she would swing on me like I was three times smaller than her.
	Very, very violent.
	I mean, that's actually part of the reason why I stayed so low income once we had her was because I didn't know what my child would be going through with a woman that was so unhinged.
	I mean, because it was like night and day.
	You would have some moments where she would talk so soft and so So, like, what would you call it?
	Genteel? Yeah, genteel and soft and almost scared that you would think that she'd be abused by me.
	Like, whenever we were out in public, if somebody asked her a question, she would turn to me before she would answer.
	Like, she was looking to me, can I answer?
	Yeah, I call it, sorry, just interrupt for a second there.
	I call it the kitten cougar continuum.
	Yeah. Without much in between.
	Oh, look at this lovely little...
	Where's my arm?
	Exactly. Exactly.
	And then, like, I mean, as things would progress, and when we would get into an argument, or any time we would talk, she was like, you know, why don't you hug me?
	Why don't you love me? I'm like, you've got two modes.
	You either don't talk to me, or, you know, you act like I'm, you know, around people, you act like I'm, you know, over you somehow.
	But yet, whenever we're going to try to talk about small things, I've got to dodge things being thrown at me or punches being thrown.
	Okay, okay. So, listen, I know I kind of unplugged the geyser here, so I'm sorry for interrupting, but here's the thing, right?
	This type of personality, to my obviously amateur way of understanding it, I mean, really physical brain dysfunction, who knows what the hell's going on, but not fixable, not better, right?
	So you've got to stop inventing fantasy mom for your daughter.
	It's dangerous. You know, we have to have the, I don't want to say the balls, but the resolution to look at reality and at people for what it is and who they are.
	This is her mom.
	It's tragic. And you have a lot to do with that because you chose her.
	And your parents have a lot to do with that because they ratcheted down your sexual market value to the point where you're just happy to grab anything that floated by.
	But you have some responsibility for that.
	Now you can't go back obviously and pick a better mom for your daughter.
	But what you can do is stop lying about her mom to her now.
	Don't create opposite person out there in the ether.
	That's really unhealthy.
	We've got to bond with reality.
	Because if you can just invent good people to take the place of bad people anytime you want, then what's the point of actually pursuing good people?
	It's like if you can just type whatever you want into your own bank account, why the hell would you bother getting a job?
	Right? So, you know, and again, it's all complicated, but it doesn't sound like her mom wants to have anything to do with her anyway.
	So, yeah, just creating...
	So, if you wanted to know, in my, again, obviously amateur opinion, why you're depressed, Paul?
	You're depressed because you make things up.
	You're depressed because...
	You don't want to face the imaginary disapproval of people you had to damn well bond with as a child in order to survive.
	But if you look at them clearly now, that's a hard process to go through.
	It's a difficult conversation with your mom.
	Like, why the hell did you let me get so fat?
	And don't take crap for an answer.
	Just keep digging until you get the truth.
	It's really, really important.
	You're depressed because we men...
	This could be equally true for women, and I think it is in some...
	I'm just, you know, man to man here.
	You know what we're born to do?
	We're born to process reality, man.
	You know, you...
	This is a book I read when I was a kid, where the kid says, this poor kid, kid says, I'm hungry.
	And the mom says, well, then eat a congry.
	And of course, that's not a real thing.
	As a man, you can't go out, when you have the responsibility to go out and get some food for your family, you've got to go and hunt a deer or something like that.
	There's no point coming back and saying, I didn't catch a deer, but you can eat this imaginary deer.
	You know, we men, we're born to process reality.
	That's why we have survived.
	That's why we're the apex predators.
	That's why we're the top of the food chain.
	By processing reality.
	And if you avoid processing reality, you avoid your identity, you avoid your power, you avoid your attraction in the world.
	And it's fundamentally humiliating to avoid reality.
	Anyone who can get you to avoid reality has crushed and controlled you.
	And you know what the word depress means?
	It means pushing something down.
	Depression is an emptiness. It's being pushed down.
	You know, oh, there's a weird depression in that carpet.
	That means there's a hole under the carpet, right?
	It's pushing something down.
	Think of depress. You depress something.
	You push it down. And you hold it down.
	You've got something spring-loaded.
	You push it down. You've got to hold it down.
	And so why are you depressed?
	Because you're being pushed down. Why are you being pushed down?
	Because you're not allowed to speak the truth.
	You don't allow yourself to speak the truth and you retreat into sentimental fantasies wherein bad people become good people, magic occurs, and you don't have to live in reality.
	But the reality is the people did what they did and you know as well as I do what that means and what that says about them.
	And if you continue to deny that, you never get to be a child who grows up because as a child you couldn't speak the truth, neither could I. But growing up and becoming an adult means to hell with it.
	I'm going to speak the truth. But if you continue to falsify your experience and your daughter's experience and so on, it's fundamentally humiliating.
	And I think that humiliation is very costly for you.
	And an accurate moral judgment of what happened is what it is to be an adult.
	And I dare say man to man, it's what it is to be a man.
	When I was able to look at my mom and say, she was evil.
	Well, that's a mature thing.
	She was, empirically, objectively, right?
	I mean, if she'd been caught, she'd have been thrown in prison, right?
	So my mom was evil.
	Now, was she occasionally nice?
	Well, yeah, but so what, right?
	I mean, what does that matter, right?
	I mean, if a guy steals a car, we don't say, well, look at all those times he didn't steal a car.
	It matters, right? You're defined by some things that you do.
	So if I was still a child, I would be sitting there saying, well, you know, but she had it tough, which she did, but I had it tough.
	I didn't turn into her, right? So there's choices that we can make.
	But the way that you grow up is you look at the world of your origins and you judge it objectively according to philosophical moral standards.
	That's called growing up. That's called becoming an adult.
	And I'm not saying you're a child, and I'm not saying you haven't grown up.
	Listen, you've been a responsible dad for 15 years.
	You get all of those points in my book.
	But when it comes to your sentimentality, you're saying, my life is crap.
	I don't think your life is crap.
	I think that you're being squished, pushed down, and depressed mentally.
	By the fact that you had to lie as a child and it's really scary for you to tell the truth.
	And I completely understand and empathize and sympathize with that.
	But if you were to ask me, which I think you are, how do you improve your life?
	Fundamental, man. Just tell the truth.
	Accept the truth. And stop living in a world where you can create angels out of devils and consider yourself an acolyte.
	You know, I really appreciate that because it does bring, I mean, the whole growing up thing because, I mean, at times I do still feel, I mean, I know I'm an adult.
	I know I have a daughter. I know I've done some good things for her and some bad because, I mean, I want her to know that, like, all of the things that I do wrong are because, you know, I need to fix them.
	It's not nothing she's done.
	Like, I don't want to pass the same things on to her.
	But I really do appreciate, like, you taking the time to speak with me because, like I say, I mean, you know, I do still feel like a child a lot because there's times where I'm sitting here and I feel like my mind still feels the same as a time or two whenever I was back whenever I was 10 or 11 or 12.
	Yeah. Listen, I understand that.
	I understand that.
	I really do. And please understand, I'm down here in the trenches with you.
	I'm not trying to cast thunderbolts of criticism down from some high mountain.
	I struggle with that stuff too.
	So listen, I'm down there in the trenches with you, brother.
	I really, really am.
	But if you want, you know, If you want to grow up and really feel like an adult, really feel like you've grown up, you have to do the opposite of what you did as a kid.
	Now as a kid, you had to lie and pretend that people were good who weren't good.
	Now if you continue to do that as an adult, You know, you have to do the opposite.
	You know, when you're a kid, you can't get a job.
	When you're an adult, you get a job.
	When you're a kid, you can't have sex.
	You shouldn't, right?
	When you're an adult, you have sex.
	When you're a kid, you can't live on your own.
	When you're an adult, you live on your own.
	When you're a kid, you know, you understand?
	When you're a kid, you generally can't choose your own companionship because you're just born into a family.
	When you're an adult, you have that choice.
	So adulthood is kind of like the opposite of childhood.
	So whatever you thought of as a child, you kind of need to examine and maybe think the opposite of as an adult.
	And You had to pretend that bad people were good people as a child because you were stuck under their power and you had to bond with them.
	You don't have to do that anymore.
	And in fact, if you really want to know how to stop your life being crap, just...
	Be honest, and that's, I think, the greatest gift that you can give your daughter, too.
	All right, well, listen, I'm going to drop it there.
	Thank you, everyone, so much. I'm really, really sorry to the people I did not get to, of course, as always.
	I'm liking it. I hope, you know, it's taking a little while to get used to it and all that, but...
	To the, again, 450 people who tried to call in, I'm incredibly sorry about all of that, but I will continue, of course, to do these kinds of shows.
	Let me know what you think.
	Let me know how they work for you.
	And please don't forget, freedomainradio.com forward slash donate, freedomainradio.com forward slash donate to help out the show.
	Thanks so much, my friends.
	I'll talk to you soon.
	Thank you.
	And I'm going to be frank and ask you for your help, your support, your encouragement, and your resources.
	Please like, subscribe, and share, and all of that good stuff to get philosophy out into the world.
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	So thank you so much for your support, my friends.

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