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Dec. 3, 2020 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:15:20

"How Can I Live in a FACT-FREE WORLD?" Freedomain Call In

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	Good evening, everybody.
	Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Main and a very happy, I know it's slightly past, Thanksgiving to our American friends.
	I hope you had productive conversations about the State of the Union with your family members so that they don't curse your name in later days.
	And I just wanted to mention something.
	A little tiny thing here, right, just before we get into the callers.
	And the little tiny thing is this.
	I just wanted to say to, I guess, places like YouTube and other places where there was un-Thanksgiving Day because of the native genocide.
	You see, the native genocide of the indigenous population, as it is called, the genocide in North America.
	Now, the natives.
	Gosh, wouldn't it have been great if it had gone better?
	No question. But you can really say that just about...
	Every single aspect of human history.
	Wouldn't it have been great if it had gone better?
	But we don't compare history to an ideal kumbaya, everybody hugs and holds hands version of some fantasy of the human condition.
	We deal with the realities of the way that things are in the world.
	Now, the indigenous populations back in the day did engage in genocide themselves.
	They did engage in rape as a weapon of conquest.
	They owned and traded slaves.
	And yes, they had some positive aspects to their cultures and civilizations, as all tend to do.
	But I just wanted to say, because everybody knows, with half a brain, that all that's going on is communist propaganda designed to demoralize the West.
	That's all that's going on with this.
	You know, if you really do care...
	About the mass slaughter of human beings.
	If you haven't talked about the holodomor, I really don't give two shits what you have to say about what happened with the indigenous population and the Europeans hundreds of years ago.
	I really don't care what you have to say.
	If you don't talk about the hundred million slaughtered by communists in the 20th century alone, I don't care what you have to say because you don't care about death.
	You don't care about murder.
	You don't care about human life.
	You are just using the sensitivity of Western Christians to ill historical wrongdoing and bad behavior by current standards for sure.
	You're just using that to manipulate and demoralize people into giving up their civilization.
	So please don't use the slaughter of people in the past to advance your creepy, shitty political agenda.
	Please don't use mass death to justify political control.
	Please don't use awful things that happened in the past to guarantee that awful things will happen in the future and fuck right off with that stuff.
	Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
	Alright, let's get to the callers.
	Alright, so our first caller tonight writes in.
	Lately, I have been feeling like I'm suffocating and not being true to myself.
	I work with a bunch of far-left maniacs, and I never know how to properly express my beliefs to them when they are spewing their daily nonsense.
	The majority of my family is the same way, but we don't really talk much anymore anyways because I live 14 hours away from them and my hometown.
	Back in October, I debated Vaush, and as he would probably put it, I was absolutely destroyed by that commie.
	I feel like the main reason for this was simply nervousness to be talking to him on his platform.
	However, something that I noticed reflecting on our debate was the similarities between that conversation and the reason why I often don't engage in conversations with the leftists at work and in my family.
	I don't know how to have a discussion when so many people don't see eye to eye with me on the facts.
	Vosh and everyone else in my life, in my personal life, who I mentioned before, are all so happy and willing to blindly follow the mainstream media narrative and accept it as the one and only holy grail of eternal truth.
	Vash himself called me one of those alternative facts types and said that CNN was neutral and unbiased.
	How do I get past this dilemma when I feel so outnumbered?
	How can I speak up about my deeply held beliefs when every time I do, I don't seem to make any progress and end up being ridiculed by my peers?
	That's a great question, and I guarantee you, of course, that you're not alone in this issue, in this problem.
	So I really, really do appreciate you bringing that up.
	Is there more that you wanted to add before we dive in?
	I don't think so.
	How did you end up getting into a debate with Vash?
	That's V-A-U-S-H. I had a debate with him, I guess, some months ago, and he's a fairly popular commentator on YouTube, and he's a communist.
	And so, yeah, how did you wind up squaring off against Mr.
	Manbun? So I saw your debate.
	That's how I discovered who he was, was because of your debate.
	And then I just kind of got like rubbed the wrong way.
	And I was like, you know what, I can take on this guy.
	But I mean, I definitely was not nearly as worthy of an adversary as you were.
	What happened with the debate for you?
	Well, I mean, it just went poorly.
	Like, it was a kind of certain situation where we, like I said, couldn't agree on the facts.
	Like, he was telling me that, you know, the mainstream media has accountability, but that they're not going to be as likely to lie to you as, like, a normal person would.
	So he's like, you just listen to YouTubers?
	And I was like, no, I think I read a lot.
	I like to do my own research. But he was saying, well, I can't do this because you're one of those alternative facts You know, and I'm sure that in Nazi Germany, the Nazis had great faith in the mainstream media of the day as well, and would say, well, you know, you can certainly trust the Nazi stations and the Nazi radio and the Nazi television.
	You can trust all of that stuff because they're unbiased, right?
	Because If it's lukewarm water, it doesn't really feel like water anymore.
	If it's caught or cold, you notice it, but it just shows you just how deeply the communists are embedded.
	In the media, if someone like Vash is saying, oh, yeah, you've got to go with the mainstream media, they're the unbiased ones who are giving the facts, especially CNN. Dear God.
	I mean, if CNN didn't have...
	I guess CNN's business model has kind of collapsed since people aren't forced to watch them in airports anymore because barely anybody's flying.
	But, yeah, it's rough.
	You know, I... I think if you understand, and I'm not saying you don't, but maybe this is something worth fleshing out for everyone else, but if you understand where all of this stuff comes from, then you'll understand why facts have so little power to move people.
	Facts have so little power to move people.
	I did a presentation years ago called The Death of Reason.
	You can find that on Bichut, on Library, and Brighteon is coming along.
	They're getting my videos in. So it's a big question.
	If you are someone who is motivated by facts, reason, and evidence, it's really, really easy to imagine that the world is even remotely close to who you are.
	Spoiler! It's not.
	It's not. It's not.
	Mistaking the world for yourself is so easy to do because what propaganda is designed to do Is to have good people think that bad people are like them.
	That's the fundamental issue with regards to propaganda.
	I want to repeat that so you kind of get that into your bone marrow, at least as a conjecture, as a hypothesis.
	But propaganda has as its primary goal to convince good people that bad people We're like them.
	So... If you look at something like...
	The children in cages, right?
	Trump puts kids in cages, right?
	And this is sort of the big...
	One of the big central myths and stories of the Biden campaign and of the media.
	Trump is colluding with Russia.
	It's bad, right? All of this stuff.
	Well, you know, good people...
	Well, they don't like kids being in cages, right?
	And so... Good people hear Trump puts kids in cages, and they say, well, that's really bad, and we have to vote out Trump and vote in Biden and all that kind of stuff, right?
	And so good people don't want kids in cages.
	You've got to let them out, right? That's sort of the basic idea.
	Now, do people on the left particularly care about kids in cages?
	Well, let's just figure out how they care or feel about child welfare in general.
	Do they care that children are exposed to massive amounts of violence, bullying, and sexual abuse in government schools?
	No, they don't!
	They don't care about that at all.
	A lot of leftists will wear Che Guevara t-shirts.
	Che Guevara was actually and literally a child murderer.
	He shot teenagers.
	Conscripted teenagers, children forced to fight, even children who were innocent of any of these crimes, he would just kill them.
	Do they care about the children who died by the tens of millions under communist regimes?
	Do they care about the children who were starving to death in the Holodomor, as I sort of mentioned earlier?
	Do they care about the children Who had to go around eating tree bark, eating insects if they could find them, finding leftover dried up skins of onions to eat during the famine in China under Mao's Great Leap Forward?
	Did they care that children had to rip open pillows and try eating the feathers within the pillows, hoping for any kind of scraps of food energy?
	No. Did they care about the children who were brutalized, murdered, raped, starved and killed under Pol Pot in Cuba?
	No, they don't care about this stuff.
	Do they care about the basic fact that why are their children at the border to begin with?
	The border crossing It's a cartel-controlled monstrous maze of rape, torture, brutality, murder, abandonment, starvation, and control.
	The majority of the women who make the border crossing are raped along the way.
	In fact, even the young women, even the teenagers, even some of the children, because of course in some places in Mexico the age of consent is 12.
	It's a bit of a different culture.
	In many ways, right? So do they care that by leaving the border open and now dangling the potential of a path to citizenship as Biden will be doing within the first hundred days, they're going to cause a massive swarm of people to cross the border, the dangerous border controlled by cartels, as I mentioned, the cartels that are celebrating the looming Biden victory.
	Do they care that the reason people have to, or what they do, is of course they rent or steal or kidnap or borrow children, and then pose as those children's parents to get themselves better treatment if they get across the border?
	Do they care? How do those children end up in cages?
	Well, the children end up in cages because border security is very lax, Because adults have a much better chance of getting better treatment if they show up with children.
	So children are dragged from their homes sometimes, bought, sold, like human chattel, stolen, kidnapped, and used as human props to get across the border.
	Do they care?
	No. I mean, if they cared about children, they would get rid of government schools.
	If they cared about children...
	The left would, of course, have not given, and it was Acosta too, if I remember rightly, but they wouldn't have given Jeffrey Epstein his sweetheart deal.
	They wouldn't be so slow and loathe to prosecute child sex abusers among the ranks of teachers, and of course there are Many, many times more per capita.
	Many, many times more sexual assaults in government schools than there ever were in Catholic churches.
	But of course, it's about opposing the Catholic Church.
	It's not about protecting children.
	It's about using children as a props in order to gain political power.
	So all of this...
	So the question is, okay, well, what the hell is going on?
	Well, they know that good people care about children.
	Bad people don't. Bad people are quite happy to kidnap children and use them as props pretending to be their parents.
	When they're crossing the border illegally.
	Criminals kidnapping children to pretend at their parents in order to more easily and productively get across the border.
	That's what the bad people are doing.
	But you see, good people see pictures of children in cages and they're like, aw, that's terrible.
	And of course it's not good.
	Who wants to see children in cages?
	Nobody wants to see children in cages.
	Why, we should get rid of government school.
	And of course the Cages were set up by Biden and Obama, blah, blah, blah.
	So all this sort of stuff, right? So they don't care about the kids.
	They don't care about the kids.
	And, you know, I mean, come on.
	When I started helping the adult victims of child abuse way back in 2006, 2007, 2008, this society that cares so much about children slammed me as a cult leader.
	For saying to adult children, you don't have to spend time with abusive parents.
	Which has kind of become more of a mainstay idea and argument now, but of course you never get any apologies from the people who do.
	And if you are of course a victim of child abuse when you're little, you totally understand how much society does or does not care.
	About children. Because what resources, what protections are really available?
	Go get bullied. I'm sorry if you were, but if you remember this, if you went into school and got bullied there, was the entire system, society, school, adults, parents, teachers, you name it, were they all aligned with, well, children shouldn't be bullied.
	We've got to deal with this right up front.
	No. You keep your head down like you're in prison.
	And you cross your fingers, maybe you work out, maybe you take some judo, and you just try and make it through.
	It's up to you. Good luck, kid.
	So, propaganda is just all about making good people think that bad people are like them and care about the same things.
	So then the question becomes, okay, well, what is this whole, what is this thing that's going on?
	Why are people so impervious to reason?
	Because it's not about reason. Human beings are never about reason.
	Sorry, that's slightly too cynical.
	Human beings are rarely about reason.
	Human beings, like the reason thing, is like you have, I don't know, a 14 to 16 ton iceberg, right?
	Seven-eighths of it is below the surface.
	And for some bizarre reason, a monarch butterfly gets blown out to the ocean.
	And lands on top of the 14 to 16 ton iceberg.
	And you've got this giant iceberg, most of which is underneath the surface.
	And then you've got this tiny little butterfly on top of the iceberg.
	Now in this analogy, the butterfly is reason.
	We got a big old four billion years of evolution in our cells.
	You know, our human cells are outnumbered by our bacteria in our bodies numerically.
	So we're really, really primitive shit, man.
	We are very, very primitive shit.
	And yeah, we got this little butterfly on top of the iceberg.
	But to think that the butterfly can steer the iceberg...
	To think that the butterfly adds much to the mass of the iceberg or affects its course by landing on it?
	Well, the butterfly, it's pretty.
	It's the most notable thing about the iceberg, and it would be a cool photo.
	But for most people, trying to reason with them is like trying to get the butterfly to look a different way in the hopes of steering the iceberg.
	It ain't gonna work.
	It ain't gonna work. It ain't gonna work.
	So, what's going on?
	Well, what's going on is that people want resources, and in a free market, competent, smart, ambitious, hard-working people,
	and it doesn't have to be all of those factors, usually one or two of them is enough, but Smart people, hardworking people, conscientious people, they do pretty well, pretty reliable, and they get paid and they get skills and they're whatever,
	right? Now, incompetent, lazy, dull, whatever people, or people who've just been hugely demoralized.
	Well, they demoralized incompetent people, they still want to eat, right?
	It's just that they don't feel or they don't believe or maybe they aren't worth that much in the free market.
	So you have to understand that this kind of propaganda, it's just a survival strategy.
	You know, let's look at single mothers.
	I haven't talked about single mothers for a while.
	And You know, if you can imagine a situation, and it's going to happen.
	It's going to happen, right? Where the welfare state runs out of money.
	And, oh man, we're going to have to cut, right?
	We're going to have to cut the money that goes to the single moms.
	Well, what are the single moms going to do?
	What about my kids?
	You've got to think of the children.
	My kids need braces.
	They're going to hungry. Right?
	So we're supposed to care about their kids.
	We're supposed to care so much about their kids, right?
	Now, My first question is, okay, how much did these women care about their children?
	Did they find a quality man who would be a good provider and a good husband and a stable partner?
	Did they get themselves into a good, secure, virtuous, happy, long-lasting marriage?
	Or did they just spread their legs on sheets like margarine on white bread?
	Get knocked up and use the kids to get money.
	Now, of course, there are some very hard-working, decent single mothers, but I'm not going to put those in the majority by far.
	I've been around them.
	I grew up with them.
	I've talked to them. I know.
	So, if you care about your kids, You don't have sex with some idiot who doesn't stick around, who's got a criminal record, who doesn't care, who doesn't make any money, who doesn't invest in his children.
	If you didn't care enough about your children to get a quality father from them, I'm not sure why I or anyone else should care so much more about your children than you do.
	Because I'm done with this shit.
	I'm done with all this stuff.
	Man, after 15 years and this last goddamned year, I am done with that.
	I am done with caring more about people's stuff that they care about themselves.
	If you don't care about your kids enough to get a quality husband and father into their lives, sorry, I'm not going to be controlled by pathological altruism anymore.
	Do I feel bad? Yeah, it's tough, man.
	It's tough. But everybody knows what's going to happen if and when the welfare state collapses.
	The women are just going to go, oh, well, that was a fun ride, and they'll go find some decent man, latch onto him, and actually start becoming decent wives and mothers, I think.
	Lots of simps out there.
	Lots of people who'll raise other men's children.
	Or maybe, you know, blended families or whatever, right?
	So, at a certain Tipping point.
	Because of the existence of the state and forced redistribution of income, because of that, and for almost no other reason, there's a tipping point where you get more resources by complaining and playing cry-bully than you do by working.
	It's just a calculation.
	That's all it is.
	It's a tipping point calculation.
	I mean, this is very easy to understand, right?
	So, one thing that's very predictable in politics, American politics in particular, is that if you are a married woman, you are more likely to be conservative.
	Small government, lower taxes.
	If you are a single woman, whether you're unmarried or divorced, if you're a single woman, you're more likely to be a Democrat or to be on the left, to be for redistribution of income.
	And it's not hard to figure out why.
	A married woman is more likely to have children, to stay home, and therefore she relies on her husband's income to pay the bills.
	And so if taxes go up and government gets bigger, then it is to the advantage of the married woman to resist that.
	Because she is on the paying end, collectively with her husband, of the tax bill.
	It is, of course, to the direct advantage Of the single woman to have a big free healthcare expansionist welfare state kind of government.
	Obviously she's going to get more out of the tax system than she pays in taxes.
	That's just a calculation.
	The married woman it costs her to have a big government.
	The single woman It pays her to have a big government.
	Now, of course, there will be lots and lots of bullshit around all of this stuff.
	And all this moral, sticky, web, Spider-Man, ass-blowing goop that comes out of people's mouths.
	It's like, shut up!
	You just want free stuff, or you want to keep the stuff you have.
	You want free stuff, or you want to keep the stuff you make.
	It's all about.
	So, the married woman is going to have a lot of ideology.
	Some of which I would agree with, some of which I wouldn't, doesn't really matter.
	She's going to have a lot of ideology around the fact that if taxes go up, she has less money.
	The single woman, and so she's going to talk about independence and hard work and patriotism and the markets and the Constitution and property rights.
	She's going to talk about that kind of stuff.
	And listen, I respect a lot of that stuff.
	I think it's cool and it's true and all that.
	But let's, you know, talk about what's going on deep down.
	Now, the single woman wants big government redistributionists.
	Why? Because she's just going to get way more out of the tax system than she's going to pay in.
	It's just free. It's like the lottery, right?
	You spend five bucks on a ticket, hopefully you win 500 bucks or 50 bucks, right?
	So single women pay way less into the tax system than they get out of it.
	So what do they talk about?
	Do they talk about, well, this is a rational calculation by which I get the most resources?
	No. Then it doesn't work.
	The Khan doesn't work.
	What they talk about is having a compassionate society that's devoted to egalitarianism and making sure that nobody falls through the cracks and caring for people.
	It's bullshit. It's all naked self-interest bullshit.
	And you can say the same for men.
	You can say the same for men.
	And this is why, of course, this is one of the reasons why, just to jump back to the previous topic for sex, one of the reasons why they want to get rid of marriage.
	Marriage is at its lowest rate ever in America because if you can destroy marriage, you make people dependent upon the state rather than husband by family, community, you name it, right?
	And for men, it's a similar kind of thing.
	So if you're an R-selected man, and you want to go around jumping from bed to bed, having a lot of sex, getting laid, doing drugs, maybe, being out late, overeating, what do you want?
	If you're a weak, low-T bedhopper, what do you want?
	We want the government to go and clean up your fucking mess, literally your fucking mess.
	The mess from your fucking, right?
	You want the government. You don't want the women to have high standards, and you don't, sure as hell don't, want to be responsible primarily for all the kids you might be making, or the STDs you might be spreading, or any of that.
	So what do you want? Hey, let's get free health care.
	Let's get a welfare state.
	Let's make sure that the government takes care of children.
	Why? So you can go screw yourself and your society into its component atoms.
	So that other people who are responsible can be forced at gunpoint to clean up the ungodly mess you create through your selfishness and irresponsibility.
	And the women who don't feel that they can get a quality man but still want to get laid, they're all about the redistributionist state.
	Because if a man is going to be held responsible for the children that he creates, And I don't mean through like the court system.
	I get all of that. And that's the family courts.
	There's a whole other topic. I'm talking about the really low rent stuff, right?
	Like the girlfriend farms that they talk about.
	Well, or to put it another way, if the woman was going to actually be responsible for the children that she created, well, she'd be a whole lot more careful and Where she fired her V-Cannon, right?
	Who she, you know, which low-rent rowboats she let swish into her snug harbor, right?
	And so, it's all, like, there's a whole lot of talk.
	We care about the kids in cages.
	We care about it, right? We want a compassionate society.
	We want low taxes and a small government.
	And some of it is heartfelt, but that's an old saying.
	It's an old saying. I think it was on Richard Nixon's desk or over his office.
	When you have a man by the balls, his heart and mind will follow.
	So, you know, I got a lot of messages from people over Thanksgiving.
	That's why it's such a good topic that you brought up.
	Got a lot of messages from people over Thanksgiving saying, oh man, I got these crazy lefties in my family.
	I can't speak reason to them. They don't listen to them.
	It's not about facts. The facts are a cover for the resource grab.
	And the people who are so demoralized that they have to turn to lying, manipulation, pretend virtue, hostility, hatred, undermining, attack, deplatforming, censorship, and physical attacks on the street.
	The people who are so demoralized, so broken, so smashed up And I say this with genuine sympathy.
	Genuine sympathy. Genuine sympathy.
	I mean, you see these mugshots of these Antifa types, these far leftists.
	I mean, this is heartbreaking stuff in a way.
	I mean, I get it because they're not beating up on me, at least right now.
	But it's really tragic how demoralized these people are.
	That the best they think they can do to contribute to society is scream at people and hit them and throw stuff at the police and smash stuff up and violently take over sections of cities.
	It's terrible.
	And this demoralization, this self-hatred, this loss of self and loss of ability to feel that you can effectively manage and deal with reality.
	Oh, man. It's brutal.
	And so when you come at them with, like, facts, reason, and evidence, it's like, it literally is like this.
	I mean, this is the analogy, right?
	Say you've got a brother-in-law who's running an accounting company, and he's been stealing from his clients, millions of dollars, stealing from his clients.
	And everyone admires him because they don't know this, right?
	He's high-flying. He's got a beautiful penthouse apartment.
	He's got a beautiful boat. He's got whatever, right?
	But he's been stealing, right?
	And you come up to him and you say, Hey, Bob, listen.
	You're an accountant, right? And you're a good, like, great, successful accountant.
	Fantastic. Okay, listen. I got a friend of mine.
	He's got a software, a piece of software, like it's on a USB stick.
	You plug it into your computer.
	And, you know, you've got some employees and all of that.
	Everyone's got to be careful of the stuff.
	Plug it into your computer. And it immediately, immediately...
	We'll tell you if anyone's been defrauding any of your customers, and it will immediately and automatically forward that information to the authorities.
	Now, of course, Bob, your brother-in-law, the fraudulent accountant, stealing, thieving accountant, well, he pretends to be an upright citizen.
	He pretends to be a good accountant.
	He pretends to care about his customers.
	To treat them with honor, dignity, respect, care, caution, professionalism.
	It's probably all over his website.
	It's on his business card. It's how he conducts himself.
	I'm a professional. But you see, that's all a lie, right?
	He just wants to fool people into giving him control over their resources so he can siphon up their money like he's some music manager.
	Now, you're sitting there at the dinner table saying, hey, you know what?
	Bob, okay, this is going to sound odd to everyone, but listen, Bob, do me a solid.
	You don't believe me? You got your laptop right over there.
	I can see it, right? Because you're working on some stuff before dinner, right?
	Boot up the laptop. You got to see this thing now.
	I got the USB key right here. Boot up your laptop.
	I'm going to plug it in. It's incredible stuff.
	And, you know, I know you've got some money.
	This auditing program, this is going to clean up the entire financial scam industry.
	And I'm saying this to you.
	I want you to see it work because you've got money.
	I know you've got money. And I'm telling you, I'm all in on this thing.
	I've invested everything. Everything I've got.
	I got a second mortgage out.
	Sold my car. I'm riding around on a soapbox derby.
	I'm throwing everything into this incredible program that a buddy of mine made.
	And I've, you know, I've booted it into a bunch of people's systems and man, it's got everything every time.
	It's perfect. And it's going to make, because fraud is like a multi-hundred billion dollar a year problem, just in one, like in America.
	This thing's going to clean that up.
	Plug it in, man. I'm going to show you how it works.
	And then you're just going to say, shut up and take my money.
	I'm going to make sure you invest in this because he's just starting out.
	And he doesn't have anything right yet, right?
	Like in terms of like, it's not marketable yet.
	It's not like, but got to show you how this thing works.
	Anyway, so long story short, probably too late for that.
	And here's where we engage in a conversation again.
	What's Bob doing? Going to say to your author of automatically scanning, automatically reporting, fraud detection software?
	No. A bit more than no, I think.
	I mean, that's, I think, I think you got that answer because I would be so scared if I was in this situation.
	Yeah. I would just can't even run away.
	Well, well, no, but you see, here's the thing, you can't show fear.
	Oh yeah, that's true. Because if you show fear, people are like, holy shit, right?
	So you've got to understand where the aggression comes from.
	Like, deep down under the aggression is truly tragic sadness.
	Yeah. So tell me what Bob's going to be experiencing.
	What emotions is he going to go through?
	I think, like, both opposite ends of each extreme.
	He's going to have to... Make up some bullshit, and then he's going to have to act like it's for a good reason.
	He's going to feel embarrassed, anxious, but then he's also going to feel that nervous energy, I think, to try to come up with something on the spot as to why he wouldn't do it or what would sound rational.
	I don't know what that would look like.
	I really don't. Now, more importantly, although what you said was very important, Tell me how Bob feels about you.
	Oh man, it's you or him.
	I would not let Bob walk me to the car or mix me a drink.
	I'm not kidding. It's you or him.
	He is going to hate your guts.
	Especially for doing it in a public place.
	Right? Yeah.
	You know what he's going to be?
	He's going to be, to take another very brief analogy, he's going to be like you've got a sister-in-law who's kind of a deadbeat, but she comes to you and she says, holy shit, you won't believe it.
	I just won.
	I've got a million-dollar tax-free...
	Lottery ticket right here.
	I'm just on my way. Have a look.
	and you take it and you burn it.
	You just robbed her of a million dollars, right?
	Yeah. Well, a lot of people on welfare, on free government programs, yeah, over the course of their life, they'll probably get more than a million bucks out of the government net.
	Way more. I mean, if you put healthcare plus...
	I mean, all the way, it's not just the welfare state, you know, the sort of, quote, free education for their kids and old age pensions and maybe unemployment insurance for their boyfriend or rent subsidies or free housing or whatever it's going to be, right? Braces for their kids. They're going to get way north of a million dollars, right?
	Out of the government. Net.
	So when you talk about, you know, the free market and ending the welfare state, like you're literally, you're bringing a lighter perilously close to their lottery ticket, man.
	So once you understand, it's not about ideas.
	They're just trying to fool you that they like you, that they care about virtue and ideas.
	It's just a different definition of virtue, right?
	Can you imagine? Let me just ask you this.
	I don't mean to pick on Vosh, but since we both debated him, can you imagine having Vosh as an employee?
	No, not at all.
	Can you imagine having Vosh as a manager?
	No. Can you imagine Vosh...
	Being dependent upon, say, selling something.
	Because look, we're all dependent on selling something, right?
	We could be selling our sexual attractiveness.
	We could be selling our services.
	You know, I'm selling the value of philosophy and you've got everyone selling, right?
	Now, Vash is selling government money.
	Vash is in the business of selling free lottery tickets.
	It's not really a very tough business, right?
	Hey, accept my ideas and you get two million dollars.
	Free! Okay.
	It's not the toughest business model in the world.
	I will pay you two million dollars.
	Well, actually the government, the unborn, the debt, whatever.
	The Chinese will pay you two million dollars.
	If you accept my ideas, you get two free million dollars.
	Free real estate, right?
	You know, people play this, um...
	I do this, Riley, so to buy a couple of tickets to charity, and I think I've never won anything because it's not really in it to win it, but you can win this $1.5 million cottage on Lake Blah Blah, right? Okay, well, of course, your odds are tiny, right?
	I guess it'd be kind of cool. I'd probably give that to charity, too, but I don't really want a cottage, but...
	So if you...
	Can you imagine?
	You should read The Art of the Argument.
	And if you read The Art of the Argument, I will give you $50,000.
	Do you think I'd get some readers?
	Of course. Of course.
	Of course, right?
	Of course. Of course.
	I mean, you could go out with either A, Rosie O'Donnell, or B... Sofia Vergara in her prime or whatever, right?
	I mean, you know, a lot of people would probably not go for column A. So, but column double D or whatever, right?
	So, with people like Vash, if you believe what he says, then you get two million dollars.
	Now, if you go with what you and I say, though...
	You get to pay a million dollars.
	Because the way the system is right now, if you go out and work in the free market, you get to pay a million dollars in taxes or whatever, but over the course of your life, maybe, or some number thereof.
	But if you believe in Vash's stuff, you don't have to pay a million dollars.
	You get two million dollars, or a million half, or whatever it's going to be, right?
	But it's net two million spread, right?
	Now, how good a philosopher do you have to be To get people to believe stuff that comes with free shit.
	Yeah! That's why I think I'm so good, because I've always been honest, right?
	I said from the beginning, yeah, it's going to make you suffer, man.
	It's going to hurt like hell.
	I just sent out a newsletter with the audio...
	Of my free book way back in the day on truth, the theory, and the illusion.
	And it starts with, you really don't want to read this book, I'm telling you.
	You really don't want to read this book.
	In fact, even by reading this paragraph, I've changed who you are.
	Because if you choose not to keep reading, you'll know that you're avoiding difficult arguments.
	And so I just...
	I respect people who swim against the current.
	I respect people who run up the hill.
	It's really not hard.
	Like Joe Biden. Jesus.
	I'm going to forgive student debts and you're going to get free this and free that.
	Okay, so he feels that he's such a crappy human being that if he doesn't offer trillions of dollars worth of free stuff, nobody would vote for him.
	Funny story. I don't think that many people did vote for him, even with all the free stuff, right?
	So this important thing to understand when you're dealing with Leftists.
	That you're dealing with people who are so unbelievably insecure in the value of their arguments that they need to shore it up with a million dollars or more free government stuff.
	I mean, this is something I talked about in the movie Hoaxed.
	You should get that at hoaxedmovie.com, where I was talking about how, I think it was the New York Times, talking about how, you know, women just got, they had really good orgasms under communism.
	I don't know, maybe it was that handle by a mustache, tickling there.
	But no, Stalin's, that is.
	But it's because the government took care of everything for the women, and so they could relax, and they could actually enjoy sex, and they didn't feel stressed, or they didn't worry, and they didn't have bills and medical this, and it was all taken care of, so women could actually just relax and enjoy sex and have great orgasms,
	right? I mean, how crappy, how shitty, how unbelievably bad do your ideas have to be that you've got to dangle a hard cum in front of a woman to make her believe it?
	That's just, that's so sad.
	I can't even tell you how sad and pitiful that is, right?
	So once you understand that you're taking a flamethrower to a giant pile of money these people have coming towards them, Does that help in terms of, okay, it's not about fact?
	Yeah, incredibly. I told him that, because he was basically getting to the point where he was like talking bad about the country, you know, other than America.
	And I was saying that, you know, I was really happy that I've been able to make my way and that I felt like I, you know, had every right to be because I know how much worse it's been in history.
	I'm a big fan of history, so I just, I show gratitude for that.
	And he was saying, well, there's all this country over here and this country over there where you could have a better life and this would be easier.
	And I'm like, well, I'm just talking about my life.
	I haven't traveled much outside of the country and I wanted to tell him, you know, I don't think you leave your room.
	But he talks like he knows about everything ever, and I was telling him from first-hand experience that I enjoyed it here.
	So that was just what really got confusing, but that does help a lot.
	Yeah, the teacher who tells you it's going to be hard and gives you the tough assignments is the one who actually cares about you.
	The teacher who says, you know what, I'll pay you $5,000 to just Pretend you're coming to the course and I'll give you an A at the end.
	Does that teacher care about you?
	No. Does the physical trainer who makes you sweat, maybe makes you a little sore, that's the one who's actually going to get you fit.
	The physical trainer who's like, oh man, I'll just email you a form, fill it out, tell me you exercised, and then just sit on the couch, man.
	That's not the guy who's going to help you, right?
	And it is...
	It's the devil, right? This is the old bargain.
	It's the old bargain. I'll give you free stuff, but in exchange for your soul.
	I'll give you money, power, fame, glory, sex, whatever, right?
	Soviet orgasms.
	Worst name. Actually, probably best name for a punk band ever.
	But the devil comes along and he says, I'm going to take from you what is not going to hurt in the short run.
	It's the thing that makes you essentially human.
	But in return, you get free stuff.
	Now, the devil could be fame.
	It could be physical beauty.
	It could be great athletic ability.
	It could be an inheritance.
	It could be, at the personal level, any number of vanities.
	It could be, honestly, it could be great hair.
	It could be great hair.
	And... In return for this free stuff, because, you know, you don't earn great hair.
	You don't earn physical beauty.
	I mean, you can work to maintain it, but it's usually only worth maintaining if you already have it to begin with, right?
	You don't earn an inheritance.
	You don't earn great athletic ability.
	Again, you train for it, but it's only worth training for if you already possess significant athletic ability.
	So, all this unearned stuff...
	Devil comes along and says, hey man, I'll give you stuff you didn't earn.
	You can found your identity on what you didn't earn.
	And in return, I'm just going to take these little tweezers, going to go in through your belly button.
	I'm going to take something out. You're barely going to notice it.
	It does happen to be what makes you essentially human.
	But hey, who needs the human side when you've got fame, money, glory, sex, whatever, right?
	That's the deal. Now the old deal...
	Was about materialism.
	Secular humanism is a great mocking phrase from the leftist media when I was growing up, probably still is.
	And he says, the devil comes along and says, okay, I will take from you that which makes you essentially human, but in return, you get a roof over your head and free healthcare.
	You didn't earn it. You're not bringing value to the world to the point where doctors and builders and superintendents and building owners will give you this stuff in return for the wonderful value you're bringing to them.
	And all you have to do is give up what makes you essentially human in return.
	That's all. You barely notice it.
	You may lose your soul, but you get a big-ass TV, man.
	And you won't ever have to worry about running out of money ever again.
	You won't have to compete. And you can have a pretty relaxed and fun life.
	I had a guy...
	I'm a very responsible property owner.
	So I had a guy come and...
	I get my furnace checked, right?
	My furnace checked. Because, you know, it's getting cold.
	I get my furnace checked. And we're having a good old stitch-and-bitch jawbone about...
	COVID and the government, this, that, and the other.
	And he goes to a lot of people's houses.
	And he says, without exception, without one exception that I can remember, every single person that I have been to their house, if this topic has come up, they're fine with lockdowns if they're either A, a government worker, or B, on unemployment insurance.
	It's called the POGI. I think they call it EI now or employment insurance.
	But they're getting free stuff. Or, if it's not free stuff, they don't have to worry about not getting paid if they don't work.
	It's kind of interesting, right?
	They're getting stuff for nothing. So the question is, what is it that you give up when you get something for nothing?
	And you're dealing with these people, right?
	And they're not just on the left.
	They're also on the right as well. Because on the left, we tend to think of the poor as being greedy, and there is a certain amount of that.
	But on the right, it often is the rich who are greedy.
	On the right, you know, it's the military-industrial complex.
	It's on the right a lot of times.
	It's the people who benefit from really bad laws in the finance industry, and it grows that way too.
	So it's not just on the left.
	It tends to be a little bit more visible, but it tends to be a little bit more spread out.
	It's more concentrated on the right.
	But what is it you give up?
	What do you give up? What do you give up when you get the free stuff?
	Well... What is it that characterizes us as human?
	Well, it is our capacity to compare proposed actions to ideal standards.
	Our capacity to compare proposed actions to ideal standards.
	This is my way of definition, free will, by the way.
	It's really, really important. Because earlier I was saying that they want to fool you into thinking that Bad people are just like you, the good person.
	How do they do that? Through a comparison of proposed actions or existing actions to ideal standards.
	A comparison of what is to what morally is ideal.
	Now, comparing what is to what morally is ideal is a great thing.
	It's a good thing. It's how we...
	You know, everybody...
	If you want abs, you've got to...
	Do the sit-ups or whatever, however the hell you get abs.
	I don't know. Ask Adam Kokesh, not me.
	But you lose the capacity.
	When you get free stuff, when you use pillaging, manipulation, whatever it is to get free stuff, then you lose your capacity to compare proposed actions to ideal standards.
	You lose your capacity for morality.
	Which is why the devil wants to give you free stuff in return for morality.
	And you go from a moral person to a manipulator of morals, which is quite the opposite of a moral person.
	Quite the opposite of a moral person.
	You lose your free will. And this is understood and kind of characterized by the NPC meme, right?
	They're just input-output.
	They can't process. Or the people who will, you know, like Vash, come on.
	CNN is a credible source.
	I mean, did he notice that CNN pushed for many years the Russia collusion conspiracy hoax theory?
	Come on. The idea that it's...
	or, you know, the impeachment sham and all of that.
	I mean, all the people who pushed the impeachment sham, who now know that the Hunter Biden laptop was in possession of the U.S. government during the whole impeachment scam, which I won't get into the details, but...
	Completely exonerated Trump from any impeachment proceedings, the idea that the impeachment thing, which turned out to be a total scam, or the idea that there's no election fraud, or that, I mean, good lord, the idea that there's no election fraud.
	Do you know how the Democrats got Kanye West off the ticket in certain places?
	Was they demanded that the voting cards be compared to, the signatures be compared to actual signatures and Now, of course, that it's Biden's turn.
	Oh, there's nothing like that.
	The evidence is destroyed.
	The USB drives are gone.
	They separated the ballots from the signatures.
	Anyway, you're on all this, right? So, you become a machine when you take something that you did not earn.
	And again, that can be material, it can be emotional, it can be sexual, it can be in terms of prestige and so on, right?
	It can be all of these things. I remember I knew a woman in university who was tortured by the fact that she won a poetry prize and she stole some of the lines.
	She plagiarized, stole some of the lines.
	She was tortured by that. Tortured by that.
	And the reason you lose your free will is that you lose your empathy.
	And The golden rule, right?
	Treat others as you would want to be treated.
	The moment you start taking something for nothing, using lies, manipulation of force, then you lose your empathy because it can't be universalized.
	It can't be reciprocated. Every predator needs its prey.
	And the only way that the predator can survive is by doing the opposite of empathizing with its prey.
	See, not having empathy for someone It's not the opposite of empathy.
	I mean, most people in the world I don't have empathy for and they don't have empathy for me because we don't know each other.
	I've never heard of each other. I've seen no pictures.
	I'm not opposed to the empathy idea with them.
	It's just I don't have anything practical, right?
	But when you think about a lion and a zebra, the lion has very deep empathy with the zebra.
	Because the lion has to anticipate where the zebra is going to run.
	What strategy it's going to make.
	When is it going to kick? When is it going to turn?
	When is it going to bolt? When is it going to hide behind another?
	How strong?
	How weak? How old?
	How sick? How young is the zebra?
	The lion has great empathy for the zebra.
	A sadist has great empathy, not sympathy.
	Sympathy is different from empathy. Sympathy is when you understand what someone else thinks and feels and you sympathize or you feel with them and you wish to relieve or alleviate their suffering.
	A torturer has to have great empathy for his victim because he has to know exactly what's going to hurt the most.
	A scam.
	A con artist has to know what kind of weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
	If he's calling up some old woman, he can probably figure out pretty quickly if she's lonely and stay with her on the phone for a while and chat with her and build a rapport and all that.
	I find out if she's isolated or has people looking in her and checking in her.
	Is she going to talk about this phone call and is it not going to work?
	All of these things, right? All of these things.
	When I used to work in business and people would call me up and say, hey, we've got this wonderful stock you should buy, right?
	They're trying to figure out my level of greed and...
	And whether I want to be seen as a big roller in the stock market or something like that.
	So the lion, the predator has to have great empathy for the prey.
	And that's the opposite of empathy.
	In other words, the scam artist has to figure out what your weaknesses and desires are in order to rip you off.
	So I don't have empathy for some guy in Sri Lanka or whatever, but I'm not going to go rip him off, right?
	But someone who's trying to cheat you or steal or lie, they're constantly figuring out – and I'm not theorizing about this.
	They actually do this, like political campaigns and, you know, the reason they settled on the fine people hoax for the basis of the Joe Biden campaign was because it tested really well.
	They probably tested it like crazy, figured out what got people the most – the strongest emotional response, the most pro-Biden and anti-Trump response and the kids in cages.
	This was all marketed or – You know, back in the 2016 election, when they were talking about this very dark energy, it's very dark, they just dark, dark, dark was this big thing.
	Well, that's tested.
	They figure out which phrase has the most emotional impact to get what they want.
	So there's, you understand, the people across from the table from you who are leftists or vash, like he's constantly feeling out you to figure out where your vulnerabilities are.
	He has great empathy for you, which he will then use to undermine your arguments and destroy you, whatever it is, like whatever stupid deflated cock puffery he does after the – I've seen it actually after the debate.
	I wrecked, I destroy, whatever, right?
	And so they have great empathy for you.
	But they have no sympathy for you.
	In fact, they have the opposite of sympathy for you.
	Because if the lion sympathizes with the baby zebra's desire to not be eaten, the lion will starve to death, right?
	Like, will die. So, sympathy...
	Like, empathy is a weapon.
	Sympathy is a vulnerability for a predator.
	Empathy is power. Sympathy is suicide.
	You've got to figure out where the zebra's going to go, how it's going to run, how it's going to turn.
	But if you empathize, that's empathy, right?
	Feeling at one with your prey is how you win.
	It's how you eat them. But sympathy is the opposite of that, right?
	And so if somebody has set themselves up that they require the government to steal from you and give to them, Well, they don't want it the other way around.
	They would hate it the other way around. So they can empathize with you in that they know that if they say inclusive and egalitarian and taking care of the poor and a sympathetic society, then they know that that's going to work for you to hand over the money, right?
	They know that. In the same way that the con artist figures out if the old woman's lonely, that if he stays on the phone with her for a while, it's going to be very profitable for him.
	So they empathize with you.
	But they only have to pretend empathy.
	Like they have to pretend to be in possession of virtues that they actually have vices.
	It's not like they don't have those virtues.
	It's the difference between I don't have $1,000, I have no money, or I don't have $1,000, I owe $1,000, right?
	There's a $2,000 gap between the first and second and the second and third is still a $1,000 gap, right from zero to minus 1,000.
	So they have to empathize with you And then pretend that they're sympathizing while exploiting you.
	I know it's a little complicated, but they don't have any free will after that.
	Because they can't compare any action to an ideal standard because their actions are so horrendous and exploitive and supportive of violence and predatory that they can't possibly compare their own actions to an ideal standard.
	So when you come along with your USB fraud detection and you want to plug it into their laptop, so to speak, I mean, they freak the fuck out.
	Of course they do. Of course they do.
	They look at you like a lion saying, you know what?
	I'm going to arm these zebras.
	I'm going to get them little lasers on their forearm, forelocks or whatever, their legs, front legs.
	I'm sure there's a word. I don't know what it is.
	So they don't have free will.
	They can't compare proposed actions to ideal standards.
	They will claim all this moral language.
	But that's the opposite of morality.
	It's using morality to steal.
	It's identifying emotional patterns in order to exploit people.
	It's sadistic. It's greedy.
	It's nature, as I talked about on Wednesday with what I think was a pretty great speech about lying in nature.
	So, like, once you understand this stuff, and I'm not saying it's simple to understand.
	I'm still working on it, right? But once you understand this stuff, then you understand that facts aren't going to matter.
	Facts aren't going to matter. I mean, if you start to become suspicious that a con man is a con man, and you say, I think you might be a con man, what do they say?
	Yeah, I kind of am. No, of course not.
	Because you could be recording.
	You could go to the cops, right? So, facts won't help.
	In fact, facts do the opposite of helping.
	And once you understand how desperately pitiful someone's ideology is that they have to bribe People to believe it with other people's money by force.
	Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord.
	It's pretty sad. So what do you think?
	I feel like I'm enlightened.
	Well, that's good, I guess.
	I guess I'll quit while I'm ahead.
	James, do we have another call? Yep.
	Let me get this pulled up. Alright.
	Thank you so much, by the way. Oh, sorry?
	Thank you so much, Stefan.
	I just wanted to say thank you. You're very welcome.
	Great question. Alright.
	So, we have another caller on tonight, and he writes, How do I take what I want in life?
	I like the prospect of finding a great woman to be my wife and having a large family.
	I'm not putting into motion the actions I know I need to take in order to find such a woman.
	The moments I do think to look at putting myself out there in a community, I find myself entirely uninterested in doing so, only to think more of my work.
	When I decide to go and do something, I'm occasionally hit with some anxiety, to which I'm yet to entirely nail down the source of.
	It subsides if I go through with it, but it stops me occasionally to my dismay.
	I find myself reflecting on my father's motivations, and whether or not I'm repeating the same damn pattern.
	He left his abusive and dysfunctional family only to find a dysfunctional woman and not invite not only his parents back, but welcome her dysfunctional parents as well.
	It strikes me that his workaholism is only a way to distract and cover the trauma of both his childhood and later the awful marriage and terrible woman he chose to be my mother.
	I find myself enjoying work, and now prioritizing work in comfortable male friendships rather than meeting new people and bringing value to the community in the area in which I live.
	It's also possible, especially since I've recently gone through a rather intense romantic relationship that abruptly ended in a way I should have, though did not expect, that my motivation to seek out women is hampered by that of amusings above are incorrect.
	Any insight as to how to approach this would be much appreciated.
	James, are you going to take this call or shall I? I'm sorry?
	James, are you going to take this call or having trouble finding a quality woman?
	Do you want me or you?
	It's up to you. I think that you should take it because I'm...
	I've stunned him! Yeah, I'm sorry.
	I've stunned him! I'm totally sus.
	I'm totally sus. I have this habit among us.
	This could be a caller or this could just be James.
	I'm just kidding. No, it is a caller, but I would also appreciate your thoughts.
	Yeah, yeah. Okay, you're on the line, my friend?
	I am on the line.
	Okay, so tell me about your vagina Krakatoa that just erupted under you, this relationship that kind of went boom.
	Yeah, so I met a girl in an online community and I drove halfway across the country after talking to her for a few months and I found out within a couple of days that she couldn't handle Some rather blunt feedback,
	but feedback nonetheless about how she was interacting with her family, and she proceeded to shove me out the door, and that was the last time I saw her.
	So, yeah, tell me a little bit more about the backstory.
	So you were in conversation for a couple of months, right?
	Were there red flags or warning signs ahead of time?
	Yes. Oh, yeah, there were a few that...
	Well, one of the more obvious ones was being brief on the phone and not wanting to voice chat, just text mostly.
	She didn't like voice chatting?
	No. And did she say why?
	She had mentioned some of the things with her family and abuse from her sister and that kind of thing, which seemed to make sense, but...
	Yeah.
	Wow, I'm sorry. This sounds like a...
	Kind of deflationary for you in a way, right?
	Which I understand. I do sympathize, right?
	So she was enmeshed or she had abusive relationships in her life.
	Is that right? When you were chatting with her before you went?
	Yes. Yep. Actively.
	She was living with abusive people and family members.
	Yes. Why was she living with abusive people?
	She was not working at the time, and when I asked about that, there were plenty of excuses that came on her end.
	And what was her rough age?
	26. Okay, so mid-20s, unemployed, In abusive relationships, living with abusive people, as she claimed, right?
	This leads me, of course, to one final question.
	You know what it's going to be.
	Why was I interested?
	No. No?
	No. How blank was she?
	She was...
	I'd say she was between a seven and an eight.
	Right. So pretty enough for you to ignore warning signs, drive halfway across the country and flame out, right?
	Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say that was my primary motivation.
	I also have some concerns about Being able to carry abstract conversations and intelligence in that regard.
	You know, not exactly a virtue I should be looking for.
	I'm sorry. Hang on, hang on.
	You're saying that you drove out there not because you were interested in having a girlfriend primarily or majorly, but because...
	You were concerned about your ability to have abstract conversations with a woman who texted mostly?
	No, I'm glad you put this out.
	It's okay to be attracted to a woman and it's also okay to make some very bad decisions while being attracted to a woman.
	We're dudes. That's what we do, man.
	Yeah. That's what we do.
	That's what we do. It's like we hope that we don't completely jump off a cliff if we think we see a pretty woman at the bottom of it.
	That's the best we can hope for.
	And hopefully friends can punch us in the nads if we start that way.
	But being dicknapped is the major male human condition.
	And so I've had it.
	You've had it. Everyone's had it, right?
	Which is – I mean that's just part of the pursuit is – Losing your reason for the sake of reproduction because our bodies are much more interested in reproducing than being rational because if we're rational but don't reproduce, we've just harmed the genes for rationality, right, by not passing them along.
	So, you know, we can be frank though, right?
	I mean, you were interested in her and you went out there because you thought she might be girlfriend-wife material, right?
	Oh, yeah. And you overlooked the red flags because she was pretty.
	Yeah. Partly, yep.
	Well, if she was a dude, come on.
	If she was a dude, would you be in that conversation for that long and drive halfway across the country?
	No, yeah, you're right.
	And again, I'm not trying to humiliate you, I'm not trying to embarrass you, but let's be frank.
	I mean, this is what we do. And there's upsides to it, right?
	Which is why do cool cars exist?
	Because they impress women.
	Why do we have air conditioning?
	Because women get hot.
	Why do we have hot and cold running water?
	Because women are more sensitive to hot and cold than men.
	We have really cool stuff to impress women.
	But you understand that we're panting running dogs after the eternal V, right?
	I mean, that's just – once you accept that about yourself, then you'll recognize where the danger is, right?
	Like, you know, the story of the guy who's like, oh, my dad's an alcoholic, so I've never touched alcohol.
	Yeah, okay, so he's recognized that there's a pattern and he's kept himself out of temptation's way.
	Now, we can't – I mean, I don't think it's wise to say, well, you know, I recognize that I'm a man-gina simp-cock extraordinaire deep down at heart, which we all are.
	It's just evolution, man.
	It's just evolution.
	There are many, many cultures where, you know, three to one, four to one, five to one, there were way more women who reproduced than men.
	Yeah.
	And if you weren't pleasing women, well, the genes to not please women or even to be honest with women generally didn't make it very far.
	So we've all inherited this, right?
	Like who you are as a man and who I am as a man in general is the result of hundreds of generations of women's choices.
	You know, if women wanted men who were frank and honest with them, then that's who men would be.
	Like, we're all just shadows cast by the eternal over, right?
	We're just, literally, we are, like, We're just shadows cast by women's choices.
	Now, women are shadows cast by male choices, but women have had much more say throughout most of human history about who gets to reproduce.
	I mean, outside of like some Genghis Khan flaming village Game of Thrones scenario, for the most part, women chose and we prayed and we begged, right?
	And so that's nature.
	It's nature. It's nothing wrong with it.
	It's perfectly natural. But knowing that, I think it's going to give you some power.
	Denying it is just going to have it happen again.
	You're like the addict who's like, well, this time, this time I can handle four bags of cocaine.
	Like, last time I couldn't, but this time I really think I can.
	That's how addiction is.
	This time I can handle it. This time I can do it, right?
	This time I can start smoking and I won't get addicted.
	This time I can start drinking if you're a drunk or you're an alcoholic and I won't.
	Like, so...
	We are all that way.
	And women know about this power.
	And so the woman knew that she could lure you halfway across the country to feed her ego, right?
	But then when you asked her questions that didn't feed her ego, what happened?
	Yeah, I was to be done with.
	Yeah. No longer serving.
	Like there's a reason why women, why vanity is considered the great sin of women, right?
	Or the great weakness of women. Because any reasonably attractive woman has guys following, like, throwing stuff at her and following her around and trying to get in contact with her and trying, like, oh my god.
	It's nuts. You and I, for better or for worse, we'll never know that.
	Like, even reasonably attractive guys.
	Okay, maybe, like, I don't know, the Top 1% or whatever, right?
	But even reasonably attractive guys, they still expected to pursue the woman to some degree.
	Maybe it's a little bit less now, but it's still like 90% of dates are initiated by men, right?
	Oh, yeah. So we don't know what it's like to be that much in demand.
	We just don't know. I mean, if you ever had a job, you're going out looking for a job.
	Have you ever had 20 companies all competing for you?
	Not 20, but more than a handful.
	Okay, that's good, that's good, right?
	So imagine that happened to you every day.
	Every day in your inbox pours in, hey man, I'll give you increased salary, I'll give you better benefits, I'll give you your own apartment, you can get a company.
	Everybody's trying to lure you all the time.
	Can you imagine what that would be like?
	Yeah, I think I'd just tune it all out.
	I don't know that you would, because it wouldn't be wise, because someone may have a great offer there, right?
	But this constant offer of upgrades, I mean, that's it, man.
	That's the reasonably attractive young woman's experience.
	It's just constant.
	Constant, hey, man, I'm better for you.
	I make more money. I'm taller.
	I'm better looking. I'm better for you.
	I'm right for you. I understand you.
	I care. I sympathize.
	I listen. Right?
	And this power to crack the whip.
	And have the running lapdogs of testosterone prop it up your every walk and move?
	Holy crap. Like, if you understand that, also understand too, this is not an ironclad law, but it's a really good rule of thumb.
	The more attractive the woman in general, the worse a partner she's going to be.
	I think it's kind of true for men too.
	It's kind of true for men too.
	But yeah, in general, we are attracted to...
	I mean, this is all the way back to Clerks.
	If you ever saw the original Kevin Smith movie, there's the hot girl and then there's the girl that actually brings him lasagna and listens to him, right?
	So we are attracted to fertility signals that are the opposite of good wife, friend, partner, and mother.
	And the more...
	It's not always the case, but the more attractive the woman...
	The less of a good partner she's going to be.
	And the reason for that is kind of simple, which is that she gets so many offers of upgrades all the time that she finds it almost impossible to commit.
	And listen, for women out there, like, you know, you met someone online, right?
	But for women out there, like, the women online...
	Dating apps are one of the primary reasons that marriage is dying in the West.
	Because the women are always...
	Like, you could never commit to a job if you had 10 better offers pouring in every day.
	Every job you say, okay, well, if I take this job, what if I get a much better offer tomorrow?
	I get 10 offers every day.
	Some of them aren't that great. Some of them are pretty good.
	What if tomorrow is the day?
	You can't commit.
	Because there's always better stuff pouring in.
	And the whole point of marriage in the past...
	Was to get men to stop screwing around and to clamp down on women's hypergamy, like the trading up thing.
	I can get a better man.
	I can get a better man. I can get a better man, right?
	So, to understand the modern woman, you've got to understand she's getting 10 to...
	If she's online, she's getting 10 to 20 interested men a day at least.
	At least.
	And... And that makes it impossible or virtually impossible for the woman to commit.
	Online dating is a constant dopamine rush that completely carves out a woman's pair-bonding capacity.
	Why would you pair-bond when something better could be coming along?
	And then, of course, what happens is she bleeds out her fertility years, her youth and beauty, constantly chasing after this mirage of better, better, better.
	And then she's toast.
	Because then the office stopped pouring in.
	Or if they do start coming in, they come from guys who are in their 60s saying, yeah, I got a bit of gout, but maybe we could go hiking.
	And he's basically saying, would you be my nurse as I age?
	And she's like maybe 40 or whatever, right?
	And then it all just comes crashing down.
	And that's where a lot of bitterness comes from.
	A lot of bitterness. And listen, I say this with all sympathy.
	I sound like I'm harsh on women. I say this with all sympathy for women.
	I really do. I don't know what it would be like.
	For me to get, I don't know, 10 nude pictures a day.
	I don't know if I was single.
	I don't know what that would be like. But it would be like you'd become hypercritical.
	And you'd say, well, what about tomorrow?
	And what about tomorrow? And what about tomorrow?
	Then tomorrow turns into 10 years, turns into no eggs, turns into bitter cat lady, right?
	So this woman, she's online.
	She's going to get 10 to 20 messages a day of men who want to offer her the world.
	Let me just go into the comments section of a Lauren Southern video or an Ashley Sinclair video.
	The thirst is real. The thirst is real.
	And that's what you're competing with.
	And if you do something that displeases her in the moment, well, there's...
	She can dump you and get right back on that dopamine merry-go-round of male attention.
	I mean, before your car even leaves the driveway.
	She's back and she's got 10 more messages.
	That make her feel good, that make her feel sexy, that make her feel wanted, that make her feel desirable, that make her happy.
	And man, it's tough.
	Because I don't want you to think that you did something wrong.
	Maybe you did, I don't know, right?
	But it's not automatically the case.
	You're in competition with something you can't compete with, which is the constant dopamine hit of male attention.
	So I just wanted to sort of point that out for you and for other people.
	I just read this article. I think it was last week or two weeks ago.
	I'll see if I can dig it up, maybe do a show on it.
	But it was just about how, you know, dating apps are just killing pair bonding.
	You can't commit to anyone.
	And you say, oh, well, what if there's some guy who comes along who's so perfect...
	So wonderful, so tall, dark and handsome and wealthy that the woman is like, okay, he's the one, right?
	Well, here's the problem. The problem is that he's now getting 10 to 20 messages a day of women in their lingerie.
	So even if he's perfect for her, the more perfect he is for her, the more perfect he is for other women, and then he's going to stray probably too.
	So I'm just, the more attractive the person, not always the case, the more attractive the person in general, the less they're going to be able to pair bond.
	Beauty is danger.
	This has been known, you know, I mean, the Helen of Troy, right?
	The face that launched a thousand ships.
	She started a war. Men fighting over women.
	Beauty is danger.
	I mean, just ask Brad Pitt, right?
	He married what many would consider the most beautiful woman in the world.
	This is Angelina Jolie, right?
	And now she's been sick and hyena lawyers on him for what?
	Close to half a decade now?
	But by the time the child custody is settled, the kids will be adults.
	It's crazy, right? I think their eldest is going to...
	I think he's Korean.
	He's going to university in South Korea because apparently he doesn't like diversity or something like that.
	So, I mean, does that accord?
	You don't know much about the woman, I guess, because it was mostly text, but does that accord?
	But did you feel when you went out there that you had to please her and that if you displeased her, you weren't long for this world?
	Well, and I didn't get that sense at all, but I never really tried my luck, so to speak.
	I did not...
	What do you mean? Before you went out? Yeah, I would...
	There were certain things that were said that wouldn't necessarily make sense or one thing one day countered to the next and I completely glossed over them.
	You are a truly, truly good liar.
	I say this with all respect and honor to you.
	You should really join us for the odd game of Among Us because that's really...
	Now, the question is...
	And I could be wrong. I could be wrong.
	Obviously, I'm just telling you what I think. The question is this...
	How do I know that you're lying when you said you never tried to push your luck with disagreeing with her?
	Based on what you've already said.
	No, no, no, before you went out.
	How do I know? Anyone want to chime in from the audience?
	Anyone? Sorry, I don't mean to laugh, but it's not like this is a massive relationship.
	I'm really confused right now. I'm curious.
	Okay, so I'll tell you what I think.
	Again, I could be wrong. I'll tell you what I think.
	So, I think that you did try to express a preference to her, and she denied it, just based upon what you said.
	And I think the preference you expressed to her was, hey, can we just talk on the phone?
	See what I'm saying? Oh, yeah.
	And what happened? It pretty much just went ignored until an explanation came along.
	Excuses mainly, yeah.
	Right. So you had a preference.
	And listen, when I call you a liar, obviously, I'm tongue-in-cheek.
	I didn't think you were consciously lying to me, which is a really dangerous lie.
	People who consciously lie to you are generally much easier to catch than people who lie unconsciously.
	And again, you understand.
	I say this with all affection and friendliness, but that's the reality of the situation, that you did express preferences because you said, you know, she didn't talk on the phone much.
	She just texted and I knew that you wanted to talk on the phone, right?
	Or at least Skype or whatever.
	You wanted to voice talk, but she wouldn't.
	Yeah. And that's your clue, right?
	I'm really glad you pointed that out. Yeah.
	Right. Right.
	So that's the key.
	So tell me, do you remember what happened when she would, like when you would say, can you, can we talk on the phone or anything like that?
	What did she say? It was usually, at first it was just incidental excuses.
	Oh, I was out, I got busy, or whatever.
	And eventually it turned into a discussion of her family situation, and the abuse she suffered, and that kind of thing, and her not wanting to.
	Right. Now, did you believe her?
	At first, yeah.
	But then it sort of became a bit of a pattern, right?
	Yeah. Yeah.
	Right. Right.
	Right. Right. And so, why didn't you?
	And I'm not saying you should have.
	It probably would have been helpful, though.
	But the question is, why did you press it?
	Why didn't you press it? Sorry. I don't know precisely.
	But what has come to mind previously when I thought about this is thinking back to what would happen if I pressed my mother on something.
	And we get it. Yeah, yeah. Okay, that's very wise.
	So let's talk about that.
	So whenever I would point out something she contradicted, you know, she says one thing and then another, or caught her in a lie, or She would be violent.
	She would yell and scream and throw stuff.
	Although that was rare, that was always running through my mind.
	So I just didn't bring things up.
	Can you think of an example that comes to mind?
	One of the earliest examples that was running through my head earlier, and this is just...
	This is only somewhat related in a sense that this is the first time I remember my mother being violent.
	I was messing around with the sink.
	One of the sprayers, I think I was, I don't know, five or something like that.
	And... I had pressed on the, you know, like the sink with the hose that comes out and spray.
	And I was messing with that and it had sprayed her in the face.
	And she immediately turned to me and backhanded me as hard as she could.
	I fell down to the ground and all of that.
	And it was not something I had done intentionally.
	And so, like, another example, too, would be, you know, like, dishes, say.
	She would tell me, oh, you know, when you're done with a dish or whatever, put it away and clean it and don't leave them in the sink.
	And then she would say, oh, well, don't leave them on the counter, put them in the sink.
	And she would tack up a ton of dishes and then, you know, not do what she told me to do.
	do and if i pointed that out she would get angry and um and did your father ever intervene with this stuff Never. And how would you treat him?
	Not quite as violent, but in much the same manner.
	And siblings or anything like that?
	Sure.
	I have one brother.
	He never lived at home.
	What does that mean?
	He never lived at home.
	He is half-brother, and he always lived with his father.
	I was essentially raised as an only child.
	Wow. Now, how did it work with you in...
	In school and things like that.
	Did you have decent relationships?
	Was there bullying or anything like that?
	A lot of bullying when I was younger.
	Not a whole lot in terms of good relationships or friendships until I got to high school.
	I was already I was getting involved in some exercise communities and that kind of stuff.
	It's the middle and end of high school.
	Cleaned up a lot of friendships around then.
	But before then, no lasting friendships.
	Right. And how do things stand with you and your mom at the moment?
	I'm not talking to her at all.
	I refuse to talk to her.
	The last time I saw her, she...
	I don't know if it was an accident or not, but the way she...
	I'll just outline the scenario.
	We were... We were essentially target practicing with some firearms.
	And she turned to me with a firearm in her hand and pointed it right at me.
	And when I said, hey, don't point that at me.
	Please just turn towards the range and set it down.
	She became hysterical and said, and was just screaming at the top of her lungs, I didn't point that at you.
	Don't talk to me like that.
	And she just ran inside screaming and yelling.
	Came out a few minutes later and screaming about how she threw all of my stuff that was sitting by the kitchen table out by my car and to never come back home again and never see her again and this and that.
	And that was the last I... Are you still with me?
	Yeah. Sorry, you said that was the last I... Yeah, I was the last I ever talked to her.
	Wow. How long ago was that?
	That was back in March or April.
	I can't remember, but earlier this year.
	What? I've never heard a story like this.
	You win? Holy crap.
	So, what's...
	I don't know where to start.
	So, you're at the gun range.
	She points a gun at you.
	And, you know, that could happen inadvertently.
	You obviously try to avoid it and all that, right?
	And then...
	And then I... Yeah, no, I guess...
	Sorry, I remember that. But what do you think was the trigger here?
	Like, what do you think it was?
	Well, I pointed out that she did something wrong.
	No, no, no. I get that.
	I get that. But why do you think it was with...
	Because I'm sure that it happened before.
	Or maybe you hadn't done it for so long because you were afraid.
	But this one, you couldn't not say anything, right?
	I mean, you could get killed. Yeah.
	And how pretty was she when she was younger?
	Oh, like, you know, eight and a half, nine, ten maybe.
	Uh-huh. Okay.
	And I guess she's, what, in her 50s?
	Late 50s? Mm-hmm. 50s.
	Right, right. And I hate to sort of ask this because, you know, it's your mom and all, but did she date?
	Or does she date? Did she get remarried?
	She's still married to my father.
	Oh, sorry. Sorry.
	For some reason I thought I got confused with your brother.
	Okay, okay. Okay.
	And she's just like run the whole roost the whole time.
	That's it. Like he just doesn't say boo to a mouse with regards to her.
	How are you feeling about what we're talking about?
	Oddly disconnected in some regards.
	I'm kind of getting that. Yeah, I'm kind of getting that.
	What can we do about that?
	Is there anything I can help with that?
	I'm not entirely sure.
	Thank you.
	Is this unusual for you when talking about this stuff?
	No, I do notice that when I talk about these kinds of things, I do end up with being somewhat disconnected.
	See, I can't even tell when you're finishing your sentences.
	Yeah, I was trying to think of how to finish that, but I'm sort of blank.
	Right, right.
	Okay. Okay.
	Do you remember any time as a child when you were able to affect your mother or get her to listen to what you were saying?
	No.
	Maybe there is something, but it's not coming to mind.
	you I'm pretty sure you'd remember that.
	Yeah, I'm pretty sure you'd remember that.
	So, I guess we can give her some marks for consistency?
	Yeah, I guess. And dating before this last...
	I guess it wasn't even really a relationship, right?
	But what happened before with you with dating?
	Well, the first...
	My first relationships were, you know, in high school.
	And they got serious rather quickly.
	And I ended up with somebody who was a lot like my mother in those regards.
	Suffered abuse at the hands of her father and mother and then, you know, cheated on me and I left that relationship and immediately right after that got involved with somebody else who did very much the same thing.
	And I stopped dating for a couple of years.
	Got involved with some short-term dating after that.
	Oh, no. No, I did skip over another.
	Well, that was the same pattern.
	So... Yeah, until I was in my early 20s, essentially, like 22, 23, I totally did not examine the women I was dating.
	It's just, oh, she's kind of pretty, and I ended up with women just like my mother.
	And then after that, I've gone on, you know, a few dates here and there, but nothing that's, you know, lasted more than a month or two.
	Do you feel depressed at the moment?
	I don't mean depressed, like clinically, I mean just kind of down, because you sound very robotic-y, automatic-y, or something like that.
	Yeah, I mean a little, yeah, definitely a little bit down.
	Can you tell me more?
	Is that something before this or something else?
	Just thinking of, you know, the past relationships that haven't worked out.
	I'm kind of frustrated and disappointed from, you know, not being able to find somebody by now.
	And, I mean, it's...
	I guess it's something I shouldn't be too frustrated by, but I am.
	Now, let me ask you this.
	Do you feel frustrated because you feel like you've been looking the right way but haven't found someone, or is it something else?
	Well... I think I was looking in the wrong spots before and now that I know the right direction to go in and instead of just looking online or looking at whatever horrible social circle I was in before,
	actually expanding my social circle and Putting myself out there in the community.
	Well, so that's what's interesting, right?
	So you're putting yourself out there by being on this show, right?
	Yeah, in a way.
	In a way, right? Yep. Now, how attractive do you think you're being?
	At the moment, not very.
	Okay, so I guess I'm just, because this is like an audition, because there's going to be lots of, I mean, I have a lot of female listeners, right?
	So it's going to be, you're going to be out there and women are going to be listening to this, right?
	And I mean, I don't facilitate any of this stuff, but you know, if people want to get in touch with you, it's not impossible to do so and all that, right?
	So... So what are you putting out there at the moment?
	And look, I'm not saying like you're coming in with a problem.
	So I'm not excited. Hey, I've got a problem.
	I feel great. You know, I don't want you to Tony the Tiger, this kind of stuff.
	But I guess my question is, how do you think you would come across to a woman or somebody who might be interested in a relationship?
	How do you think you would come across in this conversation?
	Like, like right now, this conversation.
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	This is this conversation so far.
	I don't, Just lost is springing to mind.
	Confused, sort of.
	Yeah.
	And completely emotionally unavailable.
	Hmm.
	Maybe this is why she didn't want to talk to you by phone.
	I'm just wondering, you know, to put it out there.
	It's just the thought that struck me because...
	I mean, you are spaced out, man.
	You're making me do all the work. And this is your life, right?
	I mean, I'm happy to do work, but I shouldn't be doing all the work for your life, right?
	Right, yeah. And you've been talking about difficult things in the past, but you've got no emotional connection to them at all, right?
	Yeah, that's correct. And please understand, this is not a criticism.
	This is not a negative. This is, you know, just something to be aware of, right?
	I'm not trying to make you feel bad or anything like that, but this is at least how it comes across to me.
	And I guess then what you have to do, because it's kind of funny how all this stuff comes in together, right?
	But I think what's interesting is...
	Remember earlier I was...
	I don't know if you were listening to the whole show, were you?
	Yeah, I guess so, right? Yes.
	Yeah, yeah, okay. So earlier I was saying how, you know, we all got to sell stuff, right?
	Mm-hmm. Okay.
	So sell me. Ask me out.
	Pretend I'm the woman of your dreams.
	All right? Yeah. I know it's goofy.
	I know it's silly, right? But just for the sake of it.
	it just for the sake of it take me to the moon sailor um i i i totally don't know I'm totally taken aback by that.
	Okay. No, but at least you're laughing.
	so we're getting somewhere, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I'm totally at a loss as to how to approach it.
	Okay, this is weird. Okay, let's try it another way.
	Let's try it that you can just explain to me how you asked a girl out in the past and how you would, like, what you would say.
	So pretend it's not me, whatever, right?
	Pretend you're sort of saying, or like I'm a younger brother and you're saying, I say, hey, how do you ask girls out?
	You say, well, try this.
	So, you know, this is what I do. Or like, how would you explain that?
	Usually I just, I try to get into some sort of conversation about the day.
	So like, hey, how's your day?
	You know, busy, this and that.
	You know, what do you think of this event or something else going on?
	And a little bit of back and forth.
	And then, hey, would you like to continue talking?
	You know, this evening or this afternoon or tomorrow, this weekend, that kind of thing is usually how I try to approach those things.
	No, no, but pretend you're actually doing it.
	If you don't want to ask me out, I can understand that.
	I'm taken, man. But just how would you...
	Like, you wouldn't say, well, you go and say, hey, you know, maybe we can go for a coffee tonight or this weekend or, you know, maybe sometime next week.
	I mean, that wouldn't be a way to ask a girl out, right?
	Unless you were trying to hypnotize her or something, right?
	So... Mimic, to me, how would you ask a girl out?
	Hey, you know, what do you think of, you know, the band that's coming to town this weekend?
	I think they're dreamy.
	Well, do you have any plans?
	It's kind of open-ended.
	You mean ever? With my life?
	What do you mean? Well, of course, you know, this weekend.
	You want to go? Okay, see, now you've broken out of the robot, right?
	Okay, good, good. Now, why does the imaginary girl get more energy from you than I do?
	Dear God. I don't know.
	Where's your brotherly love here?
	All right, okay, good.
	Now, so we shook a couple of composers because you were just like, you were like the walking vocal dead there for like an hour, right?
	So we got to shake that shit off, right?
	Because that's not going to help.
	Yep. So let me ask you this.
	Let me ask you this. In the online community of which you speak, were there anybody who said, you know, a couple of red flags?
	Did you lean upon your brothers and sisters in philosophy or wherever to help you navigate this?
	Or did you single childlike go it alone?
	I did not entirely go it alone, but when I asked about this person to somebody else who I trust, they gave me some feedback, and I promptly ignored it.
	You get the irony, right?
	No. Okay, here's the irony.
	You'll see it when you see it, and it'll be very funny in a sad way.
	So the irony is...
	That you went out and you said something that this woman didn't like and she just rejected you.
	But someone in this community gave you feedback you didn't like and you just rejected them.
	Boom! You see what I'm saying?
	See how rejection hops, skips and jumps you to the next rejection?
	Oh, okay.
	So now you know exactly what she was doing, because you did it too!
	You displease me, you shall be banished!
	Right? Yeah, I... Okay.
	So this helps you not be the victim?
	Do you understand? Oh...
	Because she did the same thing, right?
	Yep. Your advice is interfering with my immediate pleasure.
	Off with your head I'm very concerned I'm going to get stuck in 1930s vocal inflections After reading the longest audiobook Known to man, but anyway Alright So you only ended up being rejected Because you rejected, right?
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Because if you'd listened to the other person, right, whoever had said, here's a couple of red flags, and you tried to ask the woman about the red flags, you could have saved yourself a lot of carbon emissions, right?
	A lot of driving. Oh, yeah.
	Yep. Right.
	Right. Right. So then the question is...
	Why did you reject something that could have saved you?
	Because this was not a good experience, right?
	Every time we aim at love and miss badly, we lose trust in ourselves.
	We lose faith in ourselves. And we should, at least in our current way of thinking, because if you've got a plan and you get the opposite of what you want, you're doing something wrong.
	This is why you're calling me, right?
	Yeah, exactly. Why didn't you call me before you drove halfway across the country?
	Why didn't you email me?
	Or maybe you did text me or find, you know, whatever, right?
	I'm not impossible to get a hold of, right?
	Because I was going to tell you something you didn't want to hear.
	So, who is orchestrating all of this?
	And it's not the person you think or it's not the person the community is going to first think of.
	So much of what we do, particularly in our 20s, my friend, is puppet strings of parents or puppet strings of the past, right?
	Right. If you are trying to break a cycle, the people who didn't break that cycle will hate you and will want you to fail.
	They will want you to fail.
	Sabotage, parental sabotage is unfortunately, and it happens with siblings too.
	Sometimes it's even child to parent, although that's rare.
	So who wants you to fail in breaking the cycle of love or lovelessness within your family?
	My father. That's right.
	Oh, you're good, man!
	You're good! Telling me you're not good at abstract conversations.
	Boom! That's a bullseye.
	Okay, so break it down for the audience, please.
	So, yeah, if I go ahead and find a great woman and a great relationship, That's going to make my father look awful.
	And his choices to choose my mother are going to look just horrendous to everyone around him.
	And he's going to feel awful about it as well.
	Everyone who gets older has a great temptation, which is to say, everything I did was preordained.
	I couldn't have done any better.
	This is the people who are sort of – I'm past middle age.
	I mean sort of later middle age now, sort of mid-50s, right?
	Everyone who gets past middle age has the great challenge of, well, that's – my life has got a lot of shape now.
	There's not a lot of potential.
	I mean there's still potential. I can do still cool stuff and all that.
	But there's not the same potential in your 50s as there are in your teens or your 20s obviously, right?
	And so you've got a whole bunch of choices that you've already made.
	And if they're bad choices, you've got a problem.
	Because, you know, when you're young, if you make bad choices, you've got time to fix them, right?
	If you're in your 50s and you've been married to a bitch for 30 years or whatever, a quarter century, well, that's a bit tougher to fix now, isn't it?
	I mean, you went out there, you spent a couple of days and you came back out.
	Now, what if that had been said a couple of days, a couple of decades, right?
	Oh yeah, that would have been miserable.
	Right. So then, the older people, dad, right, the older people, they got a problem.
	Your mom's TFN, right?
	Totally freaking nuts, sounds like, right?
	And that's really, really insane, to point a gun at your son and then freak out and blame him.
	I mean, that's, I don't even know, that's an insult to toddlers.
	It is. So your dad has a problem, which is, holy shit, the fuck have I done with my life?
	I've been running around, queen deranged, picking up all the fragments of her bullshit and trying to assemble it into some statue of Venus to Milo-like beauty.
	That's a pretty tough life to justify.
	So what he's got to do is he's got to say, hey man, that's just marriage.
	You know, people with shitty marriages, they say, oh, that's just marriage.
	Like, no, that's your marriage, idiot.
	Well, it's just marriage. Something else that comes to mind is he said on multiple occasions, oh, well, all women are like that.
	That's right. All women are like that, but at least that got me a pretty one.
	Yeah, well, that's what people say.
	You know, it's like this saying that was around when I was a kid.
	Life's a bitch and then you die.
	It's like, oh my God.
	Get off my face, you nihilistic, warmonger, slaughterers of the future.
	So yeah, he's got all women.
	This is all women, right? All women.
	So he's like, well, if you want to have a marriage, if you want to have kids, this is what you got to put up with, man.
	And this is a little bit in the manosphere, too, like the Nawalt.
	Not all women are like that and so on, right?
	No. Of course not all women are like that.
	I mean, I have a wonderful wife and my daughter has an incredibly great company and all of that.
	So, yeah. I mean, it's not the case.
	Not the case. But your dad has got to say, not I chose a bad wife, but this is the price you pay for, you know, regular access to sex or...
	Having kids or whatever it is, right?
	It's the price you pay, man.
	It's what you got to pay. Now, if you disprove him, that's going to be brutal for him, man.
	I'm not kidding.
	People get suicidal.
	Parents get suicidal.
	When their kids do substantially better.
	I don't mean like they're standing on the edge of buildings, but there is a kind of, you know, the death of illusion feels like the death of the self.
	It really does. It really does.
	Because you don't know who the hell you are on the other side.
	I went through this in 2008 or something.
	I went through one of these. I've been through a bunch of them on this show.
	It's a pretty wild rollercoaster ride as a whole.
	And I've talked a lot, so I won't go into it.
	I'll talk about it maybe another time.
	Somebody can remind me. But it really feels like you're dying.
	There's a great song by Supertramp called Asylum.
	About a guy who's trying to break free of his false self.
	And he says, I believe I'm dying.
	It does. It feels like you're dying.
	Or, as I wrote when I was 17, it seems we have to bury ourselves in order to get resurrected.
	You've got to go down into death to be reborn.
	It's the Gandalf thing, right?
	Or the Jesus thing. I probably shouldn't have put those in that order, but you know what I mean, right?
	So your father...
	It's going to have, I imagine, something like a death anxiety if you break free of the prison.
	Yeah. Because it freaks.
	Can you imagine spending 30 years in a prison believing that you're locked in?
	And your kid comes along and just pushes open the door.
	Holy shit. That messes you up.
	You gotta keep that kid away from the door.
	Gotta keep him in here with you.
	It's dangerous out there!
	We're locked! No.
	No and no. So, your father was probably driving you towards this woman.
	Now, your mother too, to some degree, except things are more resolved with your mother, because she pointed a gun at you.
	Right? It's an unfortunate reality.
	Unless your dad's been dangling you by the foot over a tall building, you've probably not had the same kind of vivid thing, right?
	But your dad is like, oh yeah, you've got to go, man.
	Don't be assertive. Just go.
	And you'll find out.
	You'll find out, man. All women are like that.
	You think I've been a bad husband or a bad dad or you think I chose wrong, man.
	I may have chosen the best of the bunch.
	Most of them are even crazier than your mom.
	So yeah, you go.
	You go, man. You go find out.
	You go prove to me that I didn't fuck up my life.
	And we want to obey our parents.
	Off you go. I'm good to go, Father, and justify your entire existence.
	It will cost me a significant portion of my trust in myself, but it's a bullet I'm willing to take for you, Father.
	Hmm. You're being herded out there by history.
	Yeah. So it's your dad who says, don't listen to that person in the community.
	Come on. You know what red flags are?
	They're signs for the bull to charge.
	That's actually pretty funny.
	Red flag means lower your head and stomp.
	Charge. Oh, that's good.
	Good. Because you feel horny?
	I don't know how to extend this joke too much without screwing it up, and I think I just did.
	I think I just did.
	Oh, no! No, because you know what happens at the end of the bullfight, right?
	The bull, who's male, gets skewed and slashed and sliced up and carved up and torn apart.
	Yeah, actually, this does actually work.
	It does work soup to nuts certainly better than the iceberg and the butterfly.
	But anyway, you're hitting swing and a miss, right?
	So... Yeah...
	If you want to succeed in this life, you first of all have to figure out who's invested in your failure.
	Oh. That's a good way of looking at it.
	Yeah. And I tell you, I had to bite this bullet pretty freaking early.
	So many people in my early life We're incredibly, and probably still are, incredibly invested in my failure.
	Probably lapping up the articles about me like, oh yeah, he did fail.
	He followed philosophy and it turned him into a bad guy.
	I was so ripe not to listen to him when he was young.
	And that's part of the service that the media provides to people is to have them think that, oh, see, this philosophy will turn you into a cult leader, Nazi, blah, blah, blah, right?
	Stay away from philosophy, kids.
	It'll radicalize you, right?
	Unlike the endless rows of communists indoctrinating the kids.
	There's nothing radical about that. So, yeah, that's...
	Yeah, that's it.
	Yeah, Dad's...
	He's still in contact with you?
	Tough with one parent, right?
	He's still in contact with your dad? Yep, I am.
	Time for a chat, I would say!
	Yeah, I would say so.
	He's quite a ways away now.
	But yeah, I think you're right.
	Oh, now you suddenly can't do voice chats.
	The whole time with the woman, you're like, hey man, let's do voice chats.
	I mean, I guess it's an ideal face-to-face, but you could do it definitely through video, not through just audio.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Hmm.
	I think you've given me a lot to think about, Steph.
	Thank you.
	That's always the plan.
	That's always the plan. You didn't lose anything.
	And going out was not a bad idea.
	You know, I'm a big one for, you know, assuming it's not dangerous, right?
	Follow through, and then you learn.
	If you don't learn by theory, you can learn by empiricism, right?
	Mm-hmm. Right, so the theory is, okay, red flags, bad idea, and be assertive and see if she can handle it remotely, and then if she can't, don't bother showing up in person, right?
	That's the theory, right? Okay, so you didn't want to learn, or rather, to be more accurate, your father didn't want you to learn by that theory, because he didn't.
	And you know, I tell you this, you're not a parent yet, but as a parent, it can be a little tough when your kids outstrip you.
	No, it can be, I'm telling you.
	Mm-hmm. I'm telling you, I'm trying to catch up in my daughter's favorite game these days among us, and it's like, I think I get it.
	She's like ripping all over the place, winning left, right, and center, and it's, you know, she's better than me at some things.
	Now, of course, it would be pure vanity for me to sit there, I've got to be better than her.
	Okay, that would be pretty sad.
	Of course I want her to be better than me at a lot of things.
	I mean, I don't expect her to be better than me at everything, but no, she's...
	But that's a transition.
	Kids get better than you at stuff.
	And I just use a video game as a silly example.
	There's much more to it than that.
	But she passes me in some things.
	And some of them are pretty important.
	And she's not even 12 yet.
	But I think that's great.
	Although, I will be honest with you, you know what it's like?
	It's like... No, it's not like that at all.
	I was coming up with, I don't know what's happened to my metaphor generator tonight, but it's just, there's a wrench, there's a bit of a tear, because you're used to being better at everything than your kids, right?
	And then they start to pull ahead of you on some things, and it's just an adjustment.
	And of course, you have to remind yourself, say, oh, that's good, it's good that she's better at these things.
	But I want to be better at her than her at everything.
	That would be vanity, that would be silly, right?
	And that would be not a mark of good parenting.
	You want your kids to be better than you at some things, right?
	Yeah, no, that reminds me of my father's reaction to when he started to realize I knew more about computers than he did.
	Yeah, she's certainly more comfortable with assertiveness in some ways.
	Because, no, it's funny too because, I mean, I'm a fairly assertive guy.
	I wouldn't say I'm like top 1%, but, you know, I'm probably top 5-10% of assertive people.
	But she's better at it than I am.
	And, of course, that makes sense, right?
	Because I grew up like you.
	You can't cross the crazy witch in charge or she'll turn your weenie into a cucumber or something, right?
	And then who's the rabbits?
	Okay, I don't know what the hell's going on with my analogy.
	Rabbits eating cucumber penises is now the new name of the show.
	But yeah, she's really good at it.
	But of course, you want her to be better.
	If she was the same as me with assertiveness, and mine's kind of hard won, that would mean that she'd gone through some pretty bad parenting.
	Wouldn't want that. Wouldn't want that, so...
	Yeah, I would say have a chat with your dad and just try and suss out where – sorry, suss as in try and figure out, not suspecting out, right?
	Try and figure out where he's coming from.
	It doesn't have to – you can even be indirect.
	You know, how did you meet and what do you think of mom and has she said anything?
	Now, he may not want to get caught and quote the middle, although there is only one side to this equation at the moment.
	But I think it's worth having a chat with him and ask him about the all-women.
	I tell you what's probably the heart of it with your dad.
	I'll sort of close on this. So what's probably the heart of it with your dad is every guy, every guy who dates has the hottie and the order.
	The hottie and the order.
	So the hottie is the one you had, right?
	The age or whatever it is, right?
	She's sexy, she's vivacious, she's cute, she's...
	Pretty and smart.
	And she's just like a siren, right?
	Like the siren song that draws you onto the rocks and you smash yourself up, right?
	And that's the siren. And that's the hottie.
	Now, the order is...
	I order date this girl.
	This girl is like...
	She's like the mirage, right?
	She's the siren. She's the rocks I'm going to break my ship on.
	Now, this is the girl who would be great for me.
	This is the girl, it's the chicken soup question, right?
	It's the chicken soup question.
	You know, do you have the kind of girl, you know, you get the flu, which used to be a little bit more innocuous than it is now.
	You get the flu and you're laid up on the couch, right?
	And what does she do? She's like, is she annoyed?
	Is she impatient? Are you feeling better yet?
	Or, I just, I need to go out and get a little bit of air.
	I don't want to catch what you've got, so I'm going to give you a little space.
	I'm going to go shopping. Is she bored?
	Does she accuse you of malingering?
	Is she just a bitch when you're unwell?
	You know, everyone can have fun on the yacht, right?
	But every now and then, you get sick and you throw up, right?
	And how is she? Is she like, oh my gosh, let me go out and get you some chicken soup.
	I'll make you something. Are you comfortable on the couch?
	Would you like to listen to some music?
	Can I get a movie for you? How can I help you feel better?
	That's the order, right? Yeah.
	Now the hottie is just annoyed because you're not serving her ego.
	You're not serving her vanity. You're not giving her any dopamine.
	And you feel like, I've got to get off this couch because I've been sick for three more hours.
	She's back on fucking Tinder. That would be awful.
	An awful way to think about it.
	No, but it's the chicken soup question.
	The chicken soup test is absolutely essential.
	Is she an ornament or is she someone who's...
	my my
	hottie when I was younger I poured an ungodly amount of money into making a movie because she wanted to be a movie maker and then I asked her to read and give me feedback on one of my novels And she just never quite got around to it because she was, you know, she was busy.
	I don't know doing what. It wasn't like she was working in the film industry or anything.
	And then eventually I'm like, come on, like I made this whole movie for you.
	We spent a huge amount of money and time and effort and energy on it.
	I wrote the script. And, you know, you can't even, you don't have a job.
	You can't read my novel. And she's like, ah, you know, you're just, you're not motivating me to.
	And I was like, oh, I get it.
	So if I don't do something she wants, I'm deficient as a partner.
	If she doesn't do something I want, I'm deficient in motivating her.
	Aha. Bye-bye.
	Bye-bye. Yeet!
	Exit stage left, right?
	So, and she wasn't that great when I was sick.
	I'm not saying fake it, but, you know, fake it.
	I'm coming down with something.
	Oh, man, my grandmother has a great soup recipe.
	It's going to make you feel way better.
	It's got turmeric, it's got pepper, and it's going to clear you right up.
	I will go grab the ingredients and I will come right over, right?
	As opposed to, yeah, well, call me when you're better.
	Because, you see, your illness is a dry run for there being children in the house.
	Babies. Oh, yeah. Right?
	How she deals with you when you're sick is how she's going to deal with the baby.
	Oh.
	Yeah.
	Are there little things she does to make your life better?
	Are there little things that she does to make your life sweeter?
	Are there little things that she does to make your life nicer?
	Does she, you know...
	I mean, my night table gets organized every day by my bed.
	I mean, my wife is just incredibly thoughtful and is just continually just thinking of little ways to just Make my life better and make me happy.
	I do the same with her. But she taught me about that because I was used to kind of guarding from the hotties and didn't know about the orders that well.
	So these women are out there, man.
	And they are a delight to live with.
	And it's kind of like magic.
	The glory of femininity in this detail about life.
	How to make things better. And it's just little things, little things.
	Like I use a little baby oil in my bath because I have very dry skin and I hate putting lotion on.
	And it's like, I ran out the other night and I just noticed that it ran out.
	I looked to my left and my wife's hand is holding a bottle of baby oil.
	I'm not kidding. Like, it's eerie.
	It's like... I'd say get out of my head, but it's so great when you're in my head that it's fine, right?
	But that... I mean, there's little things like that, right?
	Just make sure that you have things that you need and, you know...
	Anyway, so...
	Like, you know, I'm peaceful parenting.
	I mean, we got a lot... You know, we're both parents, right?
	So... Anyway, it's...
	It's...
	These women are out there.
	And... They just make your life so much better.
	And when you have a woman like that in your life, even if you're just contemplating, oh, that woman is around, and you say, I prefer to talk by voice, what's she going to say?
	Absolutely. Sure.
	I'm sorry, I didn't know. As opposed to ignoring, pausing, hoping you won't bring it up again.
	You're not sure if you should. Oh, fuck that, man.
	Screw that noise. Life is too short.
	Life is too short to live and try and figure out somebody else's fucking Rubik's Cube of a bipolar personality or something, right?
	No, no, no. It's got to be simple, man.
	It's got to be simple because you've got shit to get done in life.
	You can't just be sitting there trying to solve this n-dimensional crossword puzzle of other people's defenses.
	You've got a world to save.
	You've got kids to raise. You've got stuff to get done.
	You can't be trying to puzzle out remote, difficult, distant, contradictory people, which is why you kind of came across remote with me because you wanted to see, okay, how do you break through the ice, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	You were to me as she was to you.
	I mean, I just keep hammering until I find some way through, right?
	But you were role-playing her the whole time, in the beginning, right?
	I wasn't even talking to you until, like, the last bit.
	That's a great observation.
	It's quite revealing.
	I'm sorry, say again? I'm kind of aghast by that.
	It makes sense.
	These conversations are so ridiculously complicated that we could literally spend another week talking about this interaction.
	We could go over every syllable. These are incredibly complicated conversations, which is why I'm completely confident to give up on politics because nobody else can do these kinds of conversations except you and I and you and the next caller and this kind of stuff, right?
	But, well, to be more specific...
	To be more specific, you were being your mom and you put me in the frustrating position of trying to puzzle you out or trying to make a connection and you were being emotionally unavailable.
	And then I just chomped the mom off you, so to speak.
	And I just kept pouring in energy.
	Now, if you do that with your mom, it's not going to work because she's going to keep retreating because your goal fundamentally was to get out from under your mom, which is an unfortunate Freudian metaphor, but your goal was to get out from behind or under her.
	And so I was able to break through in a way that you wouldn't be able to with your mom and may not be able to with your dad.
	I don't know. But...
	You know, you couldn't ask me out.
	I've kind of been asking you out the whole convo, trying to find some way to pick the lock, so to speak.
	Because if you look, when you listen back to this, you know, the difference between the first half and second half is night and day, really.
	You've just got to be assertive.
	And I said, how do you feel?
	And, you know, I feel that you're missing this or you're emotionally unavailable.
	You know, I have needs in this conversation, man.
	But, you know, express those needs and be honest about it and direct about what you want and the good people will get closer and the bad people will run away.
	You couldn't design it better.
	Thank you. Thank you.
	You are very welcome, my friend.
	Please let me know how it goes and I really, really do appreciate the call.
	I appreciate everyone's Chat here today, tonight, so don't forget the Wednesday live stream, 7pm Eastern Standard Time.
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	Hard to tell. Maybe I'll find out one day if I try to write another novel, but I really, really appreciate everybody's support.
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	Talk to you soon.
	Bye.
	Bye.
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