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May 23, 2022 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:45:40
STOP BANGING WOMEN WHO HATE YOU! Freedomain Call In
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I'm afraid I lost touch with your show after IDFood in 2013 and only recently started to hear your thoughts again and follow you on Telegram.
I wanted to thank you because I read Real-Time Relationships and it made me realize that I did not have to put up with the abuse I was going through.
Real-time relationships and universally preferable behavior accompanied me through the hardest moments of my life and dissuaded me from committing suicide.
I eventually found a good community of friends and we became a family.
A healthy, happy, non-coercive family.
I grew up in South America, where my group of friends is.
Right now I live in the US. My father was an angel during my early life.
He got me into reading and science through sci-fi, showed me how wonderful mathematics is, taught me more than I learned in college about computers, a ton about cars, And was generally a very kind, peaceful man.
My mother, however, was the complete opposite.
She was physically abusive in my youth, and once I grew taller than her, she became emotionally abusive.
She is the archetype of the devouring mother, wanting my sisters and I to be under her control, and she actually got her way with one of my sisters.
To this day, I find any of her physical affection to stir deep bodily disgust in me, and that's still something I'm trying to figure out.
So right about the time I hit puberty, my father went into a major depression, so bad that it went on after I left.
And only five years back or so did he get on his feet.
That time, when I was spiritually alone and hanging out with bad crowds, is when I started listening to your show.
Since then, my dad and I have rebuilt some aspects of our relationship, but it's still quite hard.
I have two older sisters.
The eldest helped me defu and I helped raise her son, whereas it took me seven years to rebuild my relationship with my other sister due to my mother's lies, which is very strange considering that my grandmother did the same thing to her and her brother and she is both conscious and resentful of that.
I've tried to rebuild with my mother after understanding she's mentally a child and that her mother was much worse with her than she was with me.
But she refuses to respect my boundaries even to this day, so we don't really have contact anymore.
For about three years, I was a tuba player in an opera company, which was barely enough to live along with other side gigs, both with a tuba and, for example, as a bartender.
Eventually, I became a translator, and that's still my profession.
I focus on technical and scientific articles, especially ones with a lot of statistics.
So during the pandemic, I was busier than I've ever been, but good academic music has served to lift my spirits.
Three years ago, I decided I wanted to pursue philosophy as well and move to America.
I am currently researching computable methods of ethics for my master's thesis.
That being said, the idea I have is mostly related to AI. I have a master's in computer science, a bachelor in computer science, math, and philosophy.
And my thesis is for my second master's, computational mathematics and statistics.
I'm thriving through my research, started publishing papers on forensic linguistics, and getting educated in quantum computing.
And I won't stop until I have a PhD in logic.
I have slowly started to make good friends in the US, surrounded myself with people I respect, but I'm dating a daddy's money leftist.
Why do I do that to myself?
Well, you could say we're sharing a drink that's called loneliness, but it's better than drinking alone.
And that's about it for the email.
The rest is about the research, so never mind.
Right, right. Well, listen, first of all, I'm enormously glad that you're still with us.
Very happy. Thank you.
If this show had some of a role in helping you avoid suicidality, I'm beyond thrilled.
It puts a song in my heart and a spring in my step, so thank you for sharing that, and thank you so much for sharing.
Staying alive. That's a wonderful thing that you did, and obviously a brilliant guy, so the world is a much better place with you in it, so thank you.
Thank you for that. Thank you very much.
Okay, so do you want to break down your parents a little bit more for me and sort of what happened in your childhood?
So my dad has always been a future-facing guy, very bright man, very intelligent.
I would say he has an IQ of about 130 for him.
Different indicators has given me.
He is a computer scientist, and he gave me that love for computers, engineering, cars, and all that.
But also through sci-fi, he gave me a love for philosophy as well, especially things like Stanislav Lem, if you know about him.
My mother, on the other hand, is kind of a loose cannon.
She's been in several cults.
She's had us do fat diets, like, what's it called, a macrobiotic diet, for example, where you have to chew your food a lot, and it was disgusting food.
My sisters, honestly, they're from a previous marriage, so they're about 20 years older than me.
They had it way worse.
When I was born, she didn't really have the energy to do to me what she did to my sisters.
But the hard part is I don't even know my ACE score because, for example, my mother used to tell me that my middle sister was a junkie.
And I believed her, and she did seem to be out of it and doing drugs.
But only years later did I find out that she went to a psychiatrist and was diagnosed with bipolar.
And... My mother's lies set us apart for...
Oh, sorry. So this is back in the day.
Did she end up on, like, lithium or something?
Yeah, pretty much.
This was in the 90s, early 2000s.
And so it was very difficult for me because I thought the worst of my sister.
She had a son, too.
He's about 18 now.
Who is...
You know, he has severe trauma, too.
And I... Feel like I could have helped them.
But because of my mother's lies, I, for the longest time, rejected my sister.
Until I actually moved to the U.S., came back into contact with her, and we started dispelling all those lies.
You see, your show, my elder sister, now my middle sister, were the ones who showed me, hey, I am not overreacting.
I am not, you know, with my mother trying to gaslight me, I am not...
An ungrateful son.
The experience I've gone through, other people have went through, and my sisters have gone through, so there must be something legitimate in my pain.
Let's see. My mother was just pretty crazy all around.
She, I think, is still in a cult, but now she does it online, so it's kind of weird.
She does it what? Online.
Their meetings are all online.
I have frankly no idea and no desire to know what she's into and for all the lies she kind of burned me with, with all the abuse, it's just hard because I know her mother, my grandmother, who is also mentally a child and I cannot be mad at them.
I was very mad at them for the longest time, even against my father because I didn't understand that he went through a clinical depression.
I just thought he had abandoned me.
Right. But now, knowing what I know, and especially thanks to your work, I realize that there's nothing I can do at this point.
I tried my best when I was just a teenager to fix a broken family, and you can't do that.
The best I could do was to rebuild my relationship with the ones who were worth it and the ones who helped me.
No, I mean, the best you can do is if somebody's suffering through a real crisis and they want help, you can sort of suggest, you know, maybe talk to a professional and all that, but no, you can't.
You can't fix other people any more than you can diet on their behalf.
Right. It's funny because the idea of My mother being mentally a child is what influenced me in my research in ethics.
The idea that some people are not responsible for their own actions and how do we come up with a measure of ethicality, meaning how ethical they truly are or unethical.
Okay, now I'm sort of a little distracted by you referring continually to your mother as a child.
Yeah. I would challenge that.
I have a child and she's nothing like your mother.
Fair enough. That is true.
You are trying to strip her of moral responsibility by saying she's in a state similar to a child, but...
Children don't do what your mother did.
Children don't have children they can abuse.
Children can't force their will on dependent creatures.
And so it's almost like to rescue your mother, you end up insulting children, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, that's a good one.
I just don't know what better word to use to say she wasn't in control of her own actions because I firmly believe that she wasn't.
You know, you're a smart guy, studied philosophy, free will.
Help me... Understand or make the case, if you could, like you were in a courtroom or something, make the case that your mother is not responsible for her actions.
Well, I remember your analogy of if my grandmother was 600 pounds and my mother is only 500, she's done something right.
But she's still 500 pounds and incredibly oppressive.
So, how do I make that case?
It's hard because, to a certain degree, it's a story I tell myself to not be angry.
Well, that's what you wanted. You wanted the story challenged, right?
Yeah. And it is a story that I tell myself because it hurts.
If I give her moral responsibility, then it's hard to let go of the anger.
But at the same time, I don't think she's intelligent enough to have moral responsibility.
She's gone through her life like, you know, her life has gone by her, rather.
Just wherever it took her.
She never manifested agency.
She just repeated what her mother did to her.
Okay, so listen, we can go fairly quickly here, and I don't mean that the conversation needs to be fast, but you're a skilled guy in philosophy, so I'll hit the gas and you let me know if I'm going too fast, okay?
Hell yeah. So your concern is that if you give your mother moral responsibility that you'll be trapped in anger forever?
Yes, it's very hard to let go.
That's not the case, guaranteed.
In fact, I would say that the only way you can end up freeing yourself from anger is to give your mother moral responsibility.
Would you like to hear me make the case?
Yes, please. Okay.
So, the purpose of anger is like the immune system of the soul or of the body, right?
So, the purpose for anger is to define and identify...
Mental pathogens that are harming our interests, harming our moral capacities for good and virtue and integrity and happiness and love and all that, right?
So if you have a toxic personality around you, then the goal of anger is to repel that in the same way that the goal of your immune system is to diffuse any potential So, if you're concerned, what you're basically saying is that if I accurately identify an evildoer, I will be trapped in anger forever.
Which is like saying, if I mount a response to a virus, then I will be sick forever.
If I successfully repel a virus, I will be sick forever.
At least on the physical level, that analogy wouldn't make any sense, right?
Right. So, the fact that you said you're dating some trust fund leftist woke woman, right?
Yeah. Okay. That's because, if you want to know, again, we're going fast here.
I'd normally do like half an hour on this.
Don't worry. The reason why you're dating the woke leftist woman is you haven't got angry at your dad.
Yeah, that is interesting.
I guess I can't be angry at him because I too went through major depression.
What do you mean you can't be angry at him?
I'm sorry, what's the law that says you can't be angry at your dad?
No, I mean, anger to him doesn't come naturally for me because now I understand that he was having a legitimate mental health issue.
No, no, no, hang on.
Oh my god, okay, you're such a nice guy.
So who brought your mom into your life?
Right, in a way, my dad.
What do you mean, in a way? Is there some way in which your dad did not bring your mom into your life?
Yeah, the way in which he brought him into my life.
So, yeah, he chose her.
You're right. He chose her.
So, he chose...
Listen, I'm glad he chose her because I'm glad to be having this conversation with you.
So, I mean, I just want to point that out.
But your father was the one who, A, brought your mother into your life, and B, kept...
Your mother in your life.
He did not look at her and say, my God, she's toxic and destructive and she's putting my kids on macrobiotic diets and she's in a cult and she's, I don't know, violent or whatever she did that was dysfunctional.
I have to protect my children.
So you say, ah, well, my father got depressed.
It's like, well, of course he got depressed.
Of course he got depressed.
If you sit there watching someone kick kittens 24 hours a day, seven days a week for year after year, of course you're going to get depressed.
So your father failed to protect you, and because you can't get angry at him, you're reproducing his behavior with this girlfriend of yours.
Yeah, I guess. Boy, that sounded like a sad illumination.
Yeah, fine. Okay, I guess.
It is still kind of painful to go at it.
Now I'm angry at myself, because why the hell does it hurt after all these years?
What hurt? The idea that, yeah, I have things to be angry at my father about.
Well, okay, so let's say that you're entirely right about your mom having no free will.
You understand that?
So let's say if your parents both have equal free will and they're abusive, they get 50-50 blame.
Yeah. Okay, so let's say that you give your mother 0% responsibility.
Yeah, and my father gets all the blame. Then your father gets 100%, which means that you can let go of your anger towards your mom because she's, you know, like if somebody's epileptic and hits us by accident, we may be hurt and upset, but we won't be angry at the person.
It's involuntary, right? Assuming that maybe that's the first time it happened.
So, okay, you say, well, my mother was just a child.
Okay, well, then your dad married a child and put a child in charge of children.
So then he gets 100%.
Yeah.
Yeah, kind of like when I was a kid and they put me in charge of my...
My eldest nephew.
And, you know, I was just a kid.
I didn't know what the hell I was doing.
Well, yes, but you weren't abusive, I'm sure.
Not that I can recall.
Right, right. I mean, he still loves me and admires me.
Okay, so let's talk about your dad then.
Tell me a little bit more about your relationship with him growing up and his depression and so on.
He was very present during my early years.
And mostly he did...
We spent a lot of alone time together because if my mother got in it, she would ruin everything.
So he was kind of an escape from her, but he would never defend me when she was being abusive, either physically or verbally.
Do you know how long they were together?
It was her second marriage, right?
Was it his first marriage? How long were they together before they got married and how long were they together before they had kids?
So, it was my father's first marriage, but he took in my mother's daughter's as his own.
And it wasn't longer, really.
They met way before they got married, but never really dated.
And then they met again, out of pure chance.
I think a year later, they got married and eloped to another country.
Where I was born.
But how long were you born after they got married?
A year, two, at most.
Okay, so he had almost 18 months to evaluate her personality as fitness from being a mother.
Yeah, and from what I can tell, she was partly a trophy wife because when she was younger, she was attractive, very attractive.
Well, I mean, this is the Amber Heard syndrome, right?
Yeah. Okay, so she's really pretty, so...
People defer to her, people pay for her, people clean up after her, and she never has to grow up.
Is that sort of the general theory?
Yeah. Okay.
Alright, so your father chose looks over quality of character.
Why? I'm guessing because he himself was tremendously abused by his mother and had No real moral idea.
To this day, when I try to talk to him about ethics and deeper philosophical points, he says, I don't care, I'm an engineer.
So he shuts himself down to that side of his life.
He doesn't care about morality because he's an engineer.
Is that right? That's his motive.
No, I get it. That's what he's saying.
I just want to make sure I understand.
That's a wild thing. So he doesn't care about morality...
So, any old bitch can be the mother of his children, is that right?
The way he says it, it sounds like it.
Okay, but it's not about him.
Right. I mean, my answer to him would be, but it's not about you.
Whether you care about morality is not as important as the fact that you gave children and power to an abusive woman.
So it matters to me.
And why wouldn't you say, well, I thought morality didn't matter...
But then I saw how my wife treated my children and realized morality did matter, but he still, with this bullshit, well, it doesn't matter to me, therefore it doesn't matter.
That's really narcissistic, isn't it?
Like, well, if it doesn't matter to me, it doesn't matter at all.
Yeah, you're right.
I mean, he would just ignore what my mother did for his own peace of mind.
The way I characterize it is he's saying better him, meaning me, than me.
So he basically dated, got engaged to, married, and gave children to a crazy woman, and then said, well, the children can handle it way better than me as an adult.
Right. That's called being a complete asshole, by the way.
I'm not saying your dad is a complete asshole, but that behavior of saying, well, I'll let my wife abuse my children Who didn't choose to be here rather than me who did choose to be here.
I'll let my wife abuse my children who are children and helpless and dependent and trapped versus me who's an adult and independent can leave her at any time because they can handle it better.
You know, they're kids. Yeah, I... That's literally like saying, look, this box is way too heavy for me as an adult to carry so let's just have that kid carry it.
Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty insane to think about it that way.
Well, I try not to think about things that way.
I mean, sort of try to think about things accurately, and if there's inaccuracy in what I'm saying, let me know.
No, it's just it's stirring up a lot of old wounds and feelings, so I know it's productive.
Okay, so your dad was around and you bonded a lot when you were little, right?
Yeah. Okay, so tell me a little bit about what went on going forward.
It must have been around the time I hit puberty, right?
Because when I was 13 or so, I was dating this girl, and she gave me the courage, so to speak, to grab my mother's hand when she was going to slap me.
Then she retreated.
I did not attack her.
I didn't do anything. I just stopped her hand.
And that's when the abuse turned psychological, when she started gaslighting me and attacking me.
And She would nag my father incessantly about the most inane shit.
So he kind of started shutting down and shutting down because now she had no outlet for her physical aggression.
She never hit him, she never attacked him, but she did verbally abuse him, especially when I was a teenager.
Then her rage passed.
I'm not sure how or why, but it completely passed on to me, and my father was just there.
Wait, sorry, what do you mean? Her rage kind of passed on to me and my sisters more, because my father, again, around that time when I was 13, 14, he just...
He was there, nothing else.
Sorry, he just wasn't there?
Yeah, I mean, he...
He would spend all day in bed watching TV or at work.
So again, he turned his children over to the crazy woman?
Yeah. And the fact is as well, the fact that you would have a 13-year-old girlfriend tell you to stand up to your mom rather than your dad?
Yeah, that was pretty pathetic.
Like, gosh, if only my dad had the fucking courage of a 13-year-old girl.
Yeah. Sorry, I'm laughing at myself.
No, it's a bitter humor.
I get it. Don't worry.
I'm also feeling the pain and the import of this.
Right. The situation is so ridiculous.
That girl, by the way, my parents never met her.
We dated in secret for the longest time.
She was a year older than me.
And she ended up committing suicide.
Oh, my God. Because, trust me, from what I know, her parents were worse than mine.
I mean, her father was sexually abusive.
How old was she? I don't remember if she had turned 15 yet, but very close to her 15th birthday.
Yeah, I just wrote about a suicide in my new book, but anyway, okay.
Alright. And...
Yeah, that's kind of where it gets rough, because she died, and...
Her little sister was still alive, and now she's like a little sister to me.
Because I was already, I tried with her, and then I had to latch on to her little sister saying, if I can help this girl, maybe I can do right by myself.
Right. It was a 13-year-old, well, 14-year-old taking care of an 11-year-old.
Well, I mean, being there when her sister kills herself was, I'm sure, a good thing to do.
It was the least I could do.
She was a wonderful, bright kid.
Right now, she's a chef. I'm so proud of her.
She's like a little sister to me.
Now, let me just jump out of this childhood video for a sec, just to sort of understand things.
Yeah. For some people, they say, well, you know, if they're in America, say, or California or some, you know, someplace where the divorce laws are kind of crazy, they say, well, I couldn't divorce your mother because, you know, she would have taken me to the cleaners, she would have, you know, like, so in the country, you don't have to tell me which country it is, but how difficult would it have been, do you think, for your father to divorce your mother?
Oh, he would have lost everything.
Oh, so the laws are bad there, too?
Yeah, they're pretty bad.
And most likely she would have had custody of us.
Well, of me, because I was the only minor at the time.
But, yeah, he would have ended up losing me, most likely.
Have you ever asked your father why he married your mom?
Yes, and he never gave me a coherent answer.
What was his incoherent answer?
One of the most memorable was...
We connected. She compliments me at a spiritual level or some bullshit like that.
I mean, yeah, there were the complete opposites.
That's some fortune cookie bullshit. Yeah, exactly.
And my best guess, and my sister's best guess, is just because she was hot.
Same way she trapped her previous man.
Right. Okay.
So you mentioned that she hit you.
What was that? What happened there?
Just when I was a kid, she would...
It wasn't consistent.
So some days she'd be all huggy and it was disgusting the way she hugged me.
But she would be all affectionate and then suddenly, I don't know, I... I was having chicken, right?
And I bit a cartilage, so I spit it out.
And she didn't like the way I kind of gagged, so boom.
Hit me. Like, across the back of the head.
And I have several stories like that, where she just hit me with minor provocation, where she went from being all bright and sunny to, let's say, dark and abusive.
She was just extremely inconsistent with both her violence and her affection.
Well, it was food that she'd cooked, right?
Yeah. Yeah, so she would perceive that as rejection.
Yeah, sounds right. And then she would self-criticize for giving you food that made you choke.
She wouldn't be able to handle any self-criticism, and so she would simply transform it into an attack on you.
So how often would you get hit?
Was it like open hand, closed hand implements?
It was usually open hand.
Then there's, you know, Latin American, the famous slipper.
All right. And how often would that happen?
I'm not sure. Again, it was very inconsistent, and I don't have that many memories.
But I would say at least a couple of times a week, just not every day.
So thousands of times over the course of your childhood.
Yeah. And what happened?
You said the verbal abuse kicked in when the 14-year-old girl helped you stand up to the physical abuse.
What would she call you? What would she do?
She would call me an ungrateful son.
She would say...
She always latched onto you, but you're my son.
And the my there was what really mattered.
She acted as if I completely belonged to her.
She didn't want me to have any independence.
She would punish me, for example, for not having enough friends or from going to a party.
And I don't mean a party where I drank or did anything weird.
I came home back at the right time, blah, blah, blah.
She criticized that and she humiliated me constantly for that.
But at the same time, she humiliated me constantly for not having too many friends.
And back then I was already kind of differentiating what is a good friend from a bad friend.
Or from just a person I don't want to be friends with.
I was going hard through that and I said, I prefer quality over quantity.
And she laughed at me and she said, yeah, that's because you can't really make friends.
Right. Did your father, is he still with her?
Yes. Right.
And what did he think or how did he process or what did he say when you stopped seeing your mom?
Well... So when I stopped seeing my mother, I defude completely and I moved out on my own, thanks to, in big part, to my sister's help and to the fact that I had a job.
Um... So...
For about a year, I didn't have any contact with any of them.
But I actually lived pretty close to where my father lived.
So... Eventually, I decided to go visit him.
Uh... I never broke contact with my elder sister, but I broke contact with almost everyone else except her and my aunt.
And he didn't mention her.
But then I gave him my number.
We had a very pleasant lunch.
It was as if nothing had ever happened, which kind of stung back then and still does, that he acted like nothing was ever wrong.
But he's a fun guy to be with.
That I cannot deny, and he's an interesting person.
So, anyways, I go back.
Okay, go ahead. No, I mean, intellectually, like, in his love for computers, he can be very interesting.
That's the one thing we have in common.
But anyways, I go back.
A couple of weeks later, he calls me, and he starts talking to me, and I'm like, okay, cool.
What I didn't know is that he was on speaker, and my mother was right there.
Oof. Whenever I wanted to have him over to my place, he wouldn't keep it from my mother.
Rather, he would try to insist to me, hey, if you want a relationship with me, you also have to have a relationship with your mother.
So he sided with your abuser and betrayed you to your abuser?
Pretty much. I mean, even now, when I've tried...
You know, being so far away, usually I call my sister, my middle sister, who's still dependent on my mother.
And I get to talk to my dad.
My mother's always there, like a hawk.
It's like she knows when I'll be calling.
But I do love my middle sister.
Okay, so hang on, we'll get to the sister in a sec.
So, you said your dad's fun to be around?
Uh... When we talk about his topics, he's kind of like an otaku in that sense.
No, no, but my point is that your father is fun to be around as long as you're kind of not there.
Oh, no, we're both very much there.
It's just, you know... Oh, no, no, you're not.
Hang on, hang on. The reason I'm saying that is you said about this lunch.
You hadn't talked to him for a year.
You hadn't seen your family for a year with the exception of one of your sisters, right?
Yeah. And you had a pleasant lunch But he acted as though nothing had happened, right?
Yeah, you're right. So the biggest topic that you have...
So he's a fun guy to be around as long as you're not there, as long as what's on your mind, the most important thing in your mind, as long as you don't express that, as long as you don't say anything about what's really on your mind, he's great.
Yeah, and you know what the worst part is about that?
When I was about to leave for the U.S., They wanted to come over to my place.
So I said, fine, truce, because I'm going to be gone so far away that you won't even know my address or be able to track me down.
My parents sat down, and only then, when I was 23, did they tell me that I had been sexually abused as a child.
They dropped this bomb a day before I had to go to the airport and get out of the country.
And they didn't give me any details.
They just said you sexually abused as a child, that's it?
Yeah, they just said that.
By a gym teacher in my primary school or elementary or whatever it's called.
Like when I was five or six apparently.
I don't even remember that.
They just dropped this bomb on me.
You don't remember any of this at all, right?
No. Do you think it's true?
No. I don't know.
I can't trust them. Sounds like more verbal abuse to me, particularly.
They're going away present, right?
Oh, you can leave us, but we can still fuck you up from a distance.
Yeah, pretty much.
My father eventually gave me some details, but I gave up.
And then it turned out my sisters knew about it, and they were much more open.
They just didn't think it was their place to tell me, which I find kind of stupid.
But they eventually told me that my eldest sister of the two found out because I was dancing and pretending to masturbate when I was, again, five years old. And I told them that This teacher made a stance for him while he did that.
Something of the sort, you know.
And that's how my sister found out about it.
My parents never pressed charges, never did anything.
They just removed me and took me to another school.
And the only reason I think it's true is because that's when I started seeing psychologists, mostly Lacanian quacks, who would...
They never tell me what was wrong.
I ask them over and over, why am I here?
What is wrong with me?
Why did my parents suddenly decide that I needed to see a therapist and they never told me anything?
Right, okay. So, okay, why do you think they told you just as you were leaving?
Well, it's Kind of like dropping an album, in a way.
It's just so that you either won't leave, or if you leave, you'll still be in touch, in my case.
Well, maybe.
Maybe. I don't know.
Obviously, I'm sort of feeling this out from a distance.
Yeah. Okay, so let me ask you this.
Is it good that you know?
So you don't remember the abuse, right?
Yeah. And you were treated, so to speak, at the time, right?
Yeah. Okay, so is it good or bad that you know this?
In other words, if you snap your fingers and go back in time, would you rather not know this potential fact about your history?
I don't think it's good or bad.
Now that I know, I know, and that's fine.
What hurts is the lying to me for years.
Okay, so hang on, so hang on.
Let's just go back for a sec here, okay?
I'd rather have always known.
Okay, well, okay, so obviously you would rather not have been sexually abused if this is what happened.
Let's just go, you know, your sister, your psychiatrist, your psychologist, you changed schools maybe.
So let's say that it's true.
Okay, I don't know, but let's say it's true.
Now, clearly you would rather not have been sexually abused, right?
So, if...
And let's say that the sexual abuse that happened...
Do you know any details?
Or did they give you any details?
As far as I hear, he masturbated on us, but apparently there was no penetration.
Okay. Okay.
So, I mean, it's bad, obviously, but it could have been far worse as far as that stuff goes, right?
Oh, yes. Definitely. Okay, so let's say that...
The psychologist did some good for you.
They helped you out. And let's say that you're relatively symptom-free from this, right?
Then if you're relatively symptom-free from this, then to not know would be not that far off from it not having happened, right?
Functionally, yes. Yeah, functionally in terms of like, so you wouldn't have in your head that you had been sexually abused if they didn't tell you.
Now, the reason I asked how severe it was is, you know, if it went on for years and it was like you were passed around for money and drugs and penetration, like all kinds of horrible stuff, then clearly it would be helpful to know all of this, painful but helpful because you would have some understanding of the symptoms that were manifesting in your life.
Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, apparently it went on for several months until my sister found out and told my mother.
But it was mostly him masturbating on us.
You mean climaxing on you or just in front of you?
Climaxing on us. Oh, gross.
I'm sorry. It's just like, ew.
I mean, it's all ew and horrible and, you know, there's no lake of fire deep enough for these sorts of people, but...
But, okay, okay.
So yeah, I mean, that's sort of my question, right?
It's why tell you right then.
There's a motivation, right?
Why tell you right then?
Because if you're relatively symptom-free, and would you say that, I mean, like when you were told, oh, I was sexually abused, was this like, oh, that's why I, I don't know, like playing with hot dogs on the subway or something like that?
Yeah, it didn't make a lot of sense back then.
So it wasn't something like, oh, that's why I'm drawn to drugs, or that's why I sleep with five girls a week, or like, did it explain anything about your life?
Oh yes, definitely.
Okay, so what did it explain about your life?
Well, it's hard to say because in a way it's all mixed with my parents too.
So I don't know if, for example, I went through a very promiscuous stage if it was because of that and me trying to patch that up with women to like affirm myself or it was because of The way my father was, and I thought, fuck it, I'm never getting married.
This is disgusting. Oh, because you didn't want to end up like your dad, so you might as well just sleep around because you don't want a pair bond to get married?
Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
There's a lot of things that could make sense in light of that.
For example, I'm still grossed out and I don't masturbate.
Not much. Well, of course, yeah.
I mean, that would have been a pretty unpleasant thing to experience as a kid.
So, yeah, okay, okay.
Alright, so there's some explanatory help with that.
Yeah. So you were 23, is that right?
Yeah. Okay, okay. Alright.
Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, it's the kind of thing where I don't know.
Is it good to know or not good to know?
I mean, self-knowledge is a good thing, but if you don't have any memory of it, I'm sort of thinking something like this.
Like let's say that you have a kid and that kid had cancer at the age of three, right?
And they were treated and they're better and there's very low chance of recurrence and so on.
When the kid grows up, do you say, oh, by the way, you had cancer when you were three?
No, you see, as a father, I would never have lied in the first place.
I would have been open about it.
Well, no, no. Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
So, withholding information is not lying.
Right. And, you know, so for instance, right, if your five-year-old kid sees two dogs humping in a park, right, Do you say, oh, they're having sex, and here's how it works, and here's where you came from?
No, you don't.
You say, oh, they're dancing.
Right now, am I lying?
No, I'm just withholding information that is not appropriate or helpful or productive or positive at the time.
Ever since I started going to psychologists, I always asked both the psychologists and my parents the question, What is wrong with me?
Why am I coming here? Am I crazy?
What's going on? Oh, when you were little?
Yeah. And they never told you, right?
Right. Yeah, see, now, I don't know, the ethics of all of that.
But, okay, so do you tell the kid you're a cancer survivor?
Again, they don't remember it.
It's not hugely affecting their behavior, if at all.
Nothing measurable, right? And is it going to make them worry about recurrence?
Is it going to make them feel differently about themselves, their strength, their robustness, their health as a whole?
And then, here's the thing too, right?
So let's say that your son has cancer.
We can make it at 18 months.
They just can't remember it, right?
So let's say your son has cancer.
If you tell your son, oh yes, you had cancer at the age of 18 months, then that's something they then also have to pass along to whoever they're dating or going to get married or whatever, right?
Now, the cancer thing, because there's a possibility of recurrence, let's just say there's virtually no possibility of recurrence.
I'm sorry to keep twisting the analogy, but just...
No, no, no, I understand.
Do you tell the kid?
Do you put that burden, in a sense, that fragility, that frailty, in your kid's mind?
Now, let's say that your kid grows up to be a total hypochondriac, right?
Like every surface they touch and they're terrified of getting cancer and they're terrified of hospitals.
Well, then you have to tell them, right?
Right. You have to say, look, that's perfectly rational because when you were 18 months old, we spent a lot of time in hospitals and you got your chemo and you threw up and you lost your hair.
Of course, but I don't know if they're better.
It's a tough question.
To me, that's not an easy answer.
But if no one told you at the time and no one told you since, that's my question.
Why tell you just when you're about to leave?
Yeah, that's a huge question.
I would say that it's probably not because they have your very best interests at heart.
God, no. Because there's no evidence for that on a consistent basis.
Does that make sense? Yeah.
Okay, so if we can put as a reasonable hypothetical that they did not have your very best interests at heart, right?
Then the question becomes, what were they doing it for?
My best guess would be to keep me trapped, keep me dependent on them as they always try to, well, my mother's always tried to do.
My father, as she told me, he was completely silent.
Wait, your mother told you?
Yes. They were both at my place, but my father was pretty much completely silenced.
My father was pretty much completely silent.
Did he seem surprised that she was bringing it up?
No. So he knew ahead of time that this was going to happen?
Yeah. Okay.
I mean, I have a theory.
Go for it. It could be total nonsense.
Probably is, right? But I have a theory.
I think it's giving you a bomb to hold to disrupt your future relationships.
It's giving you a damage to your perception of yourself or whatever.
Do you feel like damaged goods?
It gives you something to fret about, to worry about, and something then that in a sense becomes a challenge for whoever you're going to date in the future.
Do I tell them? Do I not? All this kind of stuff, right?
I think it's rolling a bomb into your future relationships.
Yeah, sure. But that's kind of ironic because back then from when I was 19 to 23, I dated the best woman I've ever been with.
And she kind of immunized me against that.
What do you mean? Who immunized who against what?
Sorry, two abstracts. Can't follow.
You could say I was dating this woman and she's the best woman I've ever been with.
She kind of immunized me against that kind of bomb.
Against ruining my future relationships.
She... But my standard's so much higher.
This woman? Yeah.
Okay. Then why the hell are you dating this lefty lunatic?
If this is your argument, what am I missing here?
Well, it's...
It's pathetic.
I still want to get laid.
What are you, Pfizer? She immunized me against illness.
Oh dear, I'm very ill.
It's pathetic, but...
I'm looking for something better while I'm with her, and I just want somebody to hold me.
What happened with the best woman?
Why didn't you marry her? Because she was agoraphobic, so she couldn't come with me to the U.S., and I decided that...
What now? She was the best woman, but she's severely mentally ill?
She's the best I've been with, which may as well go far.
Right. Uh, so she couldn't come to the U.S. with me and I decided and she kind of pushed me to seek the best life that I could.
Okay. It was kind of the question of do I marry her or do I go to the U.S.? Well, if I marry her, this is going to be my life.
If I go to the U.S. Wait, what's going to be your life?
What's going to be your life? It's going to be not going out much.
You know, only me going out alone.
I couldn't take her anywhere.
The two of us, complete workaholics, just stuck in a room, smoking all day.
Hang on, hang on.
So, she's agoraphobic, like to the point where she wouldn't leave the house?
Yeah, pretty much.
We met online through work, actually.
Because we're both translators.
And I ended up moving in with her for two years.
Like slowly, you know, coming to her house, getting to know each other.
First as friends, it took us a year and a half to get together and then six months to move in together.
Mostly because that way we'd be making more money.
It was purely financial decision.
Alright. Now, do you know why she had the agoraphobia?
I'm not entirely sure.
The big detail that I know is that she was raped by...
Her father owned a textile shop, and she was raped by the people her father employed.
Good lord. Yeah, she had it even rougher than me.
Was she undergoing treatment for her agoraphobia?
She did see a psychiatrist online.
And was she making any progress?
Oh yeah, definitely.
But not enough to come to the US? Right.
Not enough to go to the airport, but enough progress to, if I held her hand, go shopping for food.
Right. And what was the...
I'm not disagreeing with you, I just sort of might understand.
Like, what was the quality in her that you saw as, you say, the best person?
She was very moral, sometimes misguided, but with a strict sense of right and wrong.
She was not abusive.
She was probably my first relationship that wasn't abusive.
She was incredibly kind and understanding.
Sure, a bit jealous, but she always wanted what was best for me.
And all she asked is that I had her best interest in mind.
We were very much reciprocating.
It was a very peaceful relationship.
We never fought.
Never. Not because there wasn't anything to fight about, but because she valued talking things out rather than taking things out on each other.
Okay, but you...
Okay, let me ask you this.
Did you ever have, I guess as an adult, did you ever have a significant conflict with your dad?
No. Okay, so for you, not fighting is not necessarily a good thing, because I think you got some issues with your dad, right?
Right, but I tried to talk things out with my dad, and he would shut down.
My girlfriend, whenever I tried to talk things out with her, she would be very open about it.
Right. Okay. Okay.
I will admit, however, that I am kind of conflict avoidant.
Right. Right. Okay.
Okay. And so you were with her for two years?
Yeah. We lived together for two years, dated for about two and a half, three.
And did she want to get married?
Yeah. I don't know how we would have done it, but she did want to get married and eventually have kids, which I realized would be incredibly dysfunctional because I was early 20s.
So when we started dating, I was about 19, 20, and she was 27.
Oh. Yeah.
And she did want to get married and have kids.
But it would have been so dysfunctional with, you know, mummies always locked in at home.
Wow. Yeah, look, people with, I mean, to me, that's, I'm not an expert.
That was kind of the sad part.
Yeah, listen, please don't settle down with somebody who's got a severe mental illness.
Sorry, you kind of cut off.
Sorry about that. Please don't settle down with somebody who has a severe mental illness.
Right. That was why I made the decision in BART. And the other one was just go and search for a better life.
The problem is that I, too, have my mental illness.
I have depression. It's just well-managed.
I'm kind of...
Well, yeah. I mean, and so, given that, sorry to interrupt you when you're talking soulfully about depression, but...
Okay, so what do you think depression is, right?
So we can ask where it comes from, but until we know what it is, what do you think, or what's your mental construct around depression?
What do you think it is? What do you think it's for?
Why do you think we have it?
Like we could look at, you know, if, you know, I remember once working up north and I ate some bad pierogies and I threw up.
And then I got better.
My friend didn't throw up and he ended up in hospital, right?
So I threw up because my body was like, hey, there's bad bacteria or whatever it was in the pierogies, so I'm going to throw up and get rid of it, right?
So the purpose of nausea is to eject bad food from your body without waiting for it to go through your bowels, right?
Because by then, as my friend did, he ended up in hospital and had to get his stomach pumped or whatever, right?
So... So when you look at nausea, we can say, oh, well, that's what it's for.
Throwing up is a reflex to whatever.
It gets bad stuff out of your body.
We can look at that. We can look at, you know, why do we have physical pain?
Well, To tell us that something's damaging our body and to prevent us from doing that thing again.
Why do we have headaches? To teach us better posture and not staring at a screen.
We can look at the things in the brain and in the body and in the neurological system and we can say, okay, they evolved for a purpose, right?
So depression, we all have the capacity for depression, I think, right?
What's it for? Why did we evolve this capacity?
What do you think it's for?
Well, if I look at my father first, I would say it was a status thing.
That he was the man of the family, but he had no status.
Only the dog respected him.
Okay, so your dad felt depressed because he had low status.
Is that right? That's what I think.
No, I think biologically you're right on the money.
I mean, I've mentioned this a bunch of times before, but there's this, you know, these monkeys that, bonobos or macaques or whatever it is, that, you know, when they go down in the social hierarchy, they get depressed.
And me on the other hand. Okay, so depression is something, it's a negative experience.
Now, negative experiences...
Are there to get us to change, right?
Our physiology doesn't just give us random negative experiences, right?
Yeah. If you eat really spicy food and you're shitting fire the next morning, the shitting fire is saying, don't eat such spicy food.
You're from England or whatever, Ireland, right?
You'd probably be okay, but for me, I can't do it, right?
So, what was your father's depression like?
Telling him to do. What was it trying to stimulate him to do?
I think it was trying to stimulate him to leave.
Okay, okay. So his father's...
So your father probably tried to fight for some kind of status, right?
And his wife, being kind of like a monster, his wife was just like...
Hey, man, I'm just going to escalate until you fucking shut up and lie back down, right?
Like, there's no negotiation.
I come out on top.
I win. I'll nag.
I'll do whatever. I will fuck you up until I win.
Right. Okay, so then he's like, oh, God.
I've married and had kids with a woman who won't ever let me have any status, right?
Right. In fact, she'll actively take it away and humiliate me, right?
Except maybe in public because that's her status as well.
Okay, so his depression was like, okay, I'm going to punish you until you change your behavior.
So why didn't he change his behavior?
You say because of his mom?
That's my best guess.
Because both my parents had way worse childhoods than I had.
Well, if you're saying that your father is like a domino, this is the domino theory, right?
Your father is like, well, his mom was really bad to him, and that's why he did what he did, right?
Right. Okay.
That's a disastrous opinion to have.
I mean, I was saved by my big sister, so that's why I think the chain was broken.
Are you saying that your father, there was nobody who had any positive experience in his life?
He never could have picked up a book.
He never could have gone to a therapist or found a therapist that would have helped him.
He never could have. There was nothing.
No positive influence ever was around or tried to reach or had impact on your dad.
Yeah, you're right. That's completely believing in determinism.
So this is the problem, right?
My idiot amateur opinion, if you want to know why you're depressed, it's because you give determinism to your dad.
But you're the son of your dad.
So you give determinism to your mother.
She's like a child. You give determinism to your dad, which means you're helpless in the face of Of negative stuff in your life like crazy girlfriends, depression, whatever.
Because it's just determinism. We're just dominoes, man.
My parents were just dominoes.
Well, I'm the son of two dominoes.
How could I be anything other than a domino?
But on the other hand, there's this asshole on the internet telling me about free will.
Ah! Right? Yeah.
And that's what helped me a lot.
Well, but it's a contradiction, right?
Yeah, definitely. And it's something I need to...
You have free... Sorry to interrupt.
You have free will and you have the capacity...
To choose better than what you inherited, right?
Okay. Your parents may not have had free will by the time you met them.
This is what's confusing about our parents, right?
Yeah. So, because I know my mother a lot better than I know your parents, talking about both my parents, right?
I think my parents effectively had no free will in particular by the time I came along, and certainly by the time I was, you know...
8, 9, 10, certainly by my early teens.
Because I never saw any evidence of free will.
Now, I can have this theoretical ghost in the machine and say, well, despite the fact that there was no evidence, it was still in there somewhere.
But I'm an empiricist, so if people don't show any evidence of free will, it's kind of tough to say they have it.
But that doesn't mean that they're not responsible.
And that's the paradox, in a way.
It's not a paradox when you understand the sort of flow of time stuff.
But it's sort of like if my mother was 400 pounds...
By the time I came along or was conscious or whatever, let's say by the time I was 10, right?
My mom's 400 pounds. Does she have the ability to run a marathon?
No. She has no free will to run a marathon.
She's barely free will to climb the stairs, right?
Yeah. She has no free will to play tennis.
She has no free will to run a marathon.
Okay, but why does she have no choice in these matters?
Because of the choices she made earlier to get to 400 pounds.
Yeah, like my father deciding she was the one to marry.
And then... So deciding she was the one to marry, deciding she was the one to have children with, deciding to betray his fundamental duty, fundamental duty of the father, even more than providing for his family, is to protect his children. Number one job for men is to protect their children.
Did he succeed? Yeah.
Yeah. So he's depressed because he's sitting in bed, as you said, watching TV all day, rather than protecting his children, which is the fundamental definition of his masculinity is the protection of children.
Right. And so if you fail at the fundamental task of masculinity and you fail about as disastrously as anyone can, he also failed to protect...
Countless other children from this pedophile gym teacher at the school.
He's like, hey, I'll move my kid.
Good luck all the other hundreds of kids this guy's going to whack off on, right?
Yeah. So he failed to protect his own children.
He failed to protect other children.
He betrayed the offspring he was sworn by gender to protect.
It's like, wow, he's mysteriously depressed.
And why he was depressed is he didn't get angry enough.
You see, depression, for me, again, no evidence, just my amateur nonsense opinion, right?
Depression is the exhaustion left behind when you fail to get angry, when you should get angry.
Whatever you're not angry at or won't let yourself be angry at, the shadow cast by that is depression.
Yeah, and I was angry for so long, though, that it tired me out.
You are absolutely wrong about this, and I'm not even going to put that out as a theory.
Sorry. No, no.
No, because you told me how wonderful your dad was at the very beginning of the conversation.
Yeah, but when I was 14, 15, I was so angry at him.
Okay, so what has he done to earn your forgiveness?
Nothing. Okay, so what the hell?
Yeah. I'm not saying...
So the purpose...
Remember I said the purpose of anger is to protect you?
Yeah. Is your father a dangerous or negative presence in your life at the moment?
Not anymore. Okay.
He's barely a presence in my life.
All right. You say...
You told me what a wonderful guy he was at the beginning.
I'm not trying to catch you out, you know, whatever.
No, no, no. Oh, gotcha.
I'm not trying to be some lawyer here, but...
And I remember, because at the very beginning, right, you said, he's a wonderful guy, he's a great guy, whatever, right?
Yeah, at least when I was a child he was.
No, you said only for the first couple of years, right?
Yeah, exactly. Okay.
Now, do you understand that, oh sorry, you do understand, I'm sure, that bonding is part of the abuse if it's followed by betrayal?
Yes. Right, you know the nice cop, nasty cop thing?
The one cop comes in and says, hey man, I really want to help you.
I want to set you free. We're just trying to catch this criminal.
Here's a cup of coffee.
Just tell me what happened, blah, blah, blah.
And then he goes out if you don't talk.
And then another nasty cop comes in and says, I'm going to give you 10 years in prison.
You're never going to see your kids grow up.
But you understand, the nice cop and the nasty cop are two sides of the same coin.
So if your father lured you into bonding with him and then betrayed the living shit out of you as a child by cheating, Allowing your mother to abuse you, never standing up for you, and then as an adult betraying you to her on a regular basis, the one thing you want to do is not have any contact or talk to your mother, and he puts you on speakerphone without telling you, right?
Yeah. That the bonding is part of the abuse.
It is. And it's also part of his way of gaining a positive regard from you without having to earn it through moral leadership as an adult.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I see that.
You still see your mother and your father as separate morally.
But there are two sides of the same coin.
Yeah, I couldn't have one without the other.
They both are the same.
I don't know if you've heard this before.
I can't remember if I wrote about it in real-time relationships.
But it's so common that...
That we're in a situation, I was in the same situation too, so I say this with all sympathy and with absolutely zero superiority because I was older than you, way older than you when I finally figured this shit out.
So, you know, this is no position of superiority here.
One parent gets away.
One parent gets the blame, the other one gets away.
And the one who gets away is the more dangerous one.
The one who gets your excuses is the more dangerous one.
Because the one who's abused you, and you say, because you said about your mother, you have very harsh terms about your mother.
I would disagree with none of them, by the way.
But you say, oh, my mother, she was abusive.
She hit me, psychologically tortured me, verbally abusive when she couldn't be physically abusive.
She's like a child. She's dangerous.
She's hostile and aggressive.
All of this stuff about your mom.
Okay. So there, your anger has served you well and said, this is a dangerous kind of person, right?
Mm-hmm. So, you know, the immune system, it has to identify the foreign object, it has to map it, it has to produce antibodies, and then you're okay, right?
Yeah. But the parrot who gets away is way more dangerous because it slipped past your defenses.
It's not identified as a danger.
Yeah, it's like the good cop.
Yeah, it's like AIDS. No, because AIDS lowers your immune system, right?
To the point where just about anything can get through.
So if you're like, well, my mother was blah, blah, blah, blah, bad, bad, bad, but my dad was great, wonderful, I like him, great guy to get along with, okay, that's your danger.
That's your danger. Because you're viewing your father as a victim.
Right, when he was also a perpetrator.
Yes. Yes. If your mother was out of control, let's say she was, right?
Let's say that because she had done all these bad things, because she had chosen, and you understand, she chose your father because she believed that he would let her abuse her children and not get in the way.
So let's say that your mother was out of control, right?
For various reasons, she was morally 400 pounds, and she could no longer choose to not abuse her children because she had done so many bad things, all right?
She'd lost, she'd destroyed her conscience.
Let's just say she'd gone total sociopath or no conscience, whatever.
Who knows, right? But then it falls on your father.
It falls on your father to protect you.
So let's say you have a dog, and the dog gets rabies.
Now, the dog ends up attacking the children, leaving scars, bite marks, you name it, biting off a finger, whatever, right?
Now, the dog is out of control because he's got rabies.
That's my duty to protect the children.
Do the parents then get to say, well, hey, if the dog was out of control, there was nothing we could do.
Yeah, no, you put the dog down and you get your children treatment.
Right. Right.
You don't just, every day, bring the kids home and let the dog chew on them.
And say, hey, that dog was great when we got it.
Maybe that's what your dad says about your mom.
mom.
She was great when I married her.
Yeah.
You're right.
Yeah.
No, your dad...
Listen, I'm not trying to turn you against your dad.
No, no, I understand. What I'm saying, though, is that if you think that your dad is a good guy, then he must be a victim, right?
Yeah. So what that means is that men can be victims, which makes you passive.
Why? Because you're a man. Everything you put on your dad, you put on yourself.
Right. Men are victims.
Right. Men are powerless in the face of women.
Men are just kite tails being pulled around by vaginas.
Right? Yeah, lovely image.
Yeah, let me ask you this.
How much authority do you feel that you have with your current girlfriend?
Oh, quite a bit.
It's not the kinder amount of authority I'd want, but I just don't care enough about her to, how should I put it, to bow down to her.
Okay, so tell me about, you said she was a leftist, right?
So tell me a couple of beliefs that she has that you strongly disagree with.
Universal basic income.
Uh-huh. So universal theft, right?
Got it. Yeah. In general, all the little shadows of theft.
She's a socialist.
She is pro-abortion.
She believes in the wage gap.
I could go on.
How is she on free speech?
Hate speech is not free speech.
Okay, so she would like laws around that could potentially, through misuse, which they're always misused, shut down people like me, right?
Yeah. Okay. So you're calling a guy, she would like to shut down, saying, oh, and a guy, I think you like and respect or whatever, right?
So you're calling a guy, your girlfriend would shut down, saying, oh no, I have authority in my relationship with my girlfriend.
I mean, I don't care about that stuff, so I let her know.
You don't care about that stuff?
No, I don't care about how she feels.
You don't care about how she feels?
Yeah, when I say I'm against the stuff she's endorsing.
Well, I'm sure that you've pointed out the moral realities of what she's advocating, right?
Yeah, and then if she gets her way, millions of people die.
Yeah, I pointed these things out and she just throws a hissy fit because apparently I am doting over her that I have studied more and that I have lived more and blah, blah, blah.
How old is she? 20.
Right. Okay, so why are you with someone?
Who holds opposite values, which I think, according to rational morality, she's in a state of nature until she's told.
Like, I wouldn't call her immoral.
You just get programmed by government schools and the media or whatever, right?
But once she's heard some arguments, some morals, then she gains moral responsibility, right?
And I assume you've made some reasonable cases against what she believes, and you said she just throws a hissy fit, right?
So she just gets emotional?
Yeah. Okay. So why are you with a woman...
Who believes, morally, the opposite of what you believe?
Because she's Cece and I haven't found anything better.
Is she pretty?
Kinda. Alright.
I don't really care much about looks.
Right. So, if she didn't give you sex, right?
If she said...
No huggy, no kissy till I get a wedding ring.
I would tell her to fuck off.
So you're using her for sex while despising her perspectives?
Yeah, pretty much.
Do you feel that this is going to help you get a better woman over time, or do you think this is degrading your soul, so to speak?
Yeah, it's just tough.
Honestly, ever since I moved here, I haven't met a single worthwhile woman, and it's been degrading me.
Do you think that using a woman, a very young woman, by the way, for sex, while not liking her personality too much, it sounds like, do you think that's going to help you find a good woman?
No. So...
What are you doing? You understand that your father did the same thing, right?
Yeah. Exactly.
Exactly the same thing.
You know exactly how this story plays out, right?
Yeah, and I was an accident, so I should really be careful because if I have an accident with the wrong woman, I'm not going to end up like my dad, but holy crap, I'm going to be repeating.
Are you having unprotected sex?
No. Okay.
And so you condoming, right?
Yeah. Okay. You're not just relying on her with the maybe sugar pill.
Okay. Okay. No, no, no.
All right. So your father used your mother because she was hot, right?
Clearly, there's not much that's likable about your mother.
Yeah. Yeah. She's not honorable and moral and friendly and kind and caring and decent.
So your father tried the thing of like, well, I'll just use a woman for sex and it's going to be great.
Because if you want a lifelong, happy, great relationship, you want to get married, you want to stay married, you want to love each other, You have to have to have to take sex out of the equation.
Right. Now, this doesn't mean you end up living like roommates.
Of course not. But you have to like the person absent sexual access.
That's what happened with the ex I told you about, the good one.
Yeah. It took a long time.
Oh, you had like a long time without sex?
Yeah. Right. But she would have been an exhausting handful for an active outdoorsy travel guy like yourself, right?
Yeah. Yeah, I mean...
I mean, I knew a guy once who had a girlfriend who was scared of the phone.
Hated being on the phone.
Wow. Well, what was his day?
What was his life? Making phone calls for her.
Kind of exhausting. I mean, you need a functional woman, right?
You need a woman who can pay your taxes and, you know, deal with paperwork.
Because there's a lot of, you know, especially if you're somebody who doesn't just work a desk job for the government, you know, there's paperwork, there's people to deal with, accountants.
You need somebody who's competent, right?
But you can't be honest with With this woman, right?
So if she were to say to you, why are you with me, what would you say right now?
Well, we have great sex and we have, you know, I'd start making up excuses.
I'd call her wonderful.
I'd lie. Right.
Right. How did you like it when your parents lied to you?
Oh, not a bit. And in the long run, of course, how much damage are you going to do to this girl when she finally realizes that you're just there, though you may despise her personality or her opinions, for sex?
Just using her for sex.
Yeah, that's not going to bring her to change or improve herself.
Well, quite the opposite, right?
You're basically creating an angry feminist.
No, you are. Yeah, I know, but it's still funny.
You use women for sex. If you want to know, women who get used for sex, You put that graph, right?
Women who get used for sex, growth of radical feminism.
It's the same chart.
You are creating an enemy.
And then you'll probably complain that the world's getting crazy, right?
Right. And at the same time, she's the one who puts herself out as, oh, I'm a feminist, I'm this, I'm that, but then she claims she's looking for love and I can't even trust her word as to who she is.
Okay, so if we were to imagine a conversation with her and to say, okay, well, why are you with this guy?
What would she say? I have no idea.
Like, she knows I'm...
According to her very high bar, I'm racist.
Right? So, you know, everyone who disagrees with you is a racist kind of deal.
So, she sees me as...
A racist, somebody who doesn't care about social stuff, which is not true, but...
She doesn't care about the poor and doesn't care about the sick, right?
Exactly. So she's got massive...
So you both dislike each other, right?
It gets fair to say, right?
So why is she with you?
There's an answer. When you're with her for sex, why is she with you?
It's not that women aren't motivated by sex.
They are, of course, right? Yeah, but not in the same way that men are.
I don't know, because I don't pay for shit.
I don't pay for anything.
So it's not money.
It's not status.
I don't know. How tall are you?
Um... 175 centimeters.
I'm not sure what that is in feet and inches.
But I'm not six feet.
Right, right. Good-looking guy, though.
Nice head of hair. You can see that, right?
So here's the thing, right?
Just so you understand why she's with you, at least why I think she's with you.
So women have a tough job with men for the most part.
So a woman wants a younger man, but younger men have yet to prove themselves economically, right?
Yeah. I mean, I remember talking about this with a friend of mine He married this woman and the woman said, I'll change some of the details, right?
But the woman said, oh, he's got this professional degree.
He's on television.
He's great at this and that and music and all of that.
And she's like, you know, when I married him, I thought he had this magnificent future.
And it just hasn't panned out.
She got kind of bitter about it.
So, a man looks at a woman and knows how pretty she is right away.
Boom. Done, right?
The prettiness being a marker for fertility, right?
So, again, there's no guarantees, but in general, right?
Whereas the woman, what she has to do is she's really got to roll the dice.
And she's got to look down through the tunnel of time, right?
Men looking for another tunnel. She's looking down the tunnel of time.
And she has to look and say, okay...
I'm 20. I want to have kids maybe by the time I'm 25 or 26.
So how much money is this guy going to make in five years?
Right. And since I'm getting published and all that.
Yeah, you're a master's degree, going for the PhD in computer science.
Man, you've got it going on.
You've got big dollar cleavage.
That's what I'm saying. If you want to understand the reverse analogy there, right?
So, she's looking at you, you're looking at her and seeing sex and getting sex, and she's looking at you and seeing money.
And look, I'm not saying that a woman shouldn't, like a man should want sex, and a woman should want money, because it's for the kids, right?
But we should also want more.
Yeah, these things can all be achieved honorably, right?
But you guys ain't doing it honestly.
So the reason she's with you is because you have markers of significant success going forward, and that's what she's aiming for.
Now she's trading sex in the here and now for income for her children in the future.
Even though she says she doesn't want children and she would have an abortion.
Well, that may be just something that she says because that's what you're supposed to say in those circles, right?
I guess, yeah. It's either that or she actually believes it and it'll last until she hits 25 or 30.
Right. Or maybe it lasts her whole life and she'll get a cat.
I don't know, right? Yeah.
And I assume you want kids, right?
Yeah, I do. The reason I assume that is I'm so kid positive that you would have probably told me if you didn't.
And it's fine if you don't. I assume you do.
Okay. So there's no conceivable overlap of your interests other than sex, right?
Yeah. Okay.
And you also do realize that you're kind of ruining her for other men, too, because you're probably her first serious relationship, and if you're just using her for sex, that is going to make her kind of bitter, right?
And it's also harming you, because you are now associating sex with being disliked.
That's the connection, right?
Yeah. Every time you have an orgasm with someone who dislikes you, you are programming yourself in the most fundamental way.
You are programming yourself to associate sexuality with being disliked or, in this case, hated.
I assume that when she says you're a racist, that this is about as worse a thing as she can.
So you're both programming your bodies To associate intimacy with being hated.
How's that going to work for you?
Yeah, it only works if it's a consensual kink.
But no. Well, it's going to become a kink if you keep going, right?
Right. Because then you're going to be like, wait a minute, I can't get a boner if somebody actually likes me.
I'm not kidding about that.
Well, I mean, case in point, whether...
The ex I told you about, I was so nervous when we first had sex that I had a lot of trouble because she was the first good woman.
Right, right. So then it's like, well, you're kind of going against what your programming is, what you've programmed yourself to do, right?
Yeah. Okay.
That's intense, man.
It is, yeah. And an orgasm It's just about the most outside of like cocaine or whatever.
It's just about the most positive reinforcement mechanism we have as human beings.
So you're going to end up with a fetish for you loathing and self-loathing socialists if you keep down this path.
You're right. I mean, the moral and the practical are kind of the same.
Don't have sex with women you loathe and have to lie to because it's pretty dishonorable and destructive.
And that's the sort of moral argument, but also you're programming yourself away from sexual interest in women who like you, who respect you.
And it's hard at this age because I'm How should I put it?
You're young and sex-hungry.
I get it. I understand.
Not only that. I'm actually not that sex-hungry.
I am travel-hungry.
I'm hungry to go to conferences.
Instead of spending the summer with this girl, I signed up for a workshop to be a speaker in another conference in Montreal.
So... I'm actually traveling a lot, and in her words, she has to be waiting for me, because I'm busy all the time.
I am absolutely more addicted to work than I am sex-driven.
Okay, got it. Now, saying that I'm going to stay with a woman who dislikes me, who loathes me, who calls me evil, right?
Saying that I'm going to do that absolutely will keep good women from you.
Yeah, definitely. So saying, well, I'm with her until I find a better woman is like saying, well, I'm going to drop myself in the middle of the Sahara because I can't find a better lake.
It's like, well, you can't find a lake in the Sahara, so you're just getting further away from the lakes, right?
Yeah, you're right. The hard part is to find a woman who can...
Vive with my workaholism, because that's not something that's going to change anytime soon, at least until I have a PhD and tenure.
Maybe, maybe for sure, and that's fine, but you can find a woman, if she believes in your mission, she'll be keen for you to work.
If she believes that you can do good in the world, and good doesn't necessarily mean moral good, it can be productive good.
If she believes you can do good in the world, she'll...
You know, the fundamental goal for a woman is to get resources for her kids, right?
And so if your workaholism is serving that, she can respect that.
She can live with that. And of course, if she's high enough quality and you love spending time with her, that will be a counterbalance at least to your workaholism, right?
Yeah, for sure. So, but yeah, first thing you have to do is...
I don't know what you would say to your girlfriend.
Again, I don't tell anyone what to do, as you know.
But it would be something like, look, our values are opposite.
I want kids. You want an abortion, apparently.
I want equality of opportunity.
You want equality of outcome.
I'm for the non-aggression principle.
You're for government redistribution.
We couldn't really be more opposite if we tried.
And I think it's It's not good for us to be in a relationship if we continue to hold these oppositional moral views.
So we have to find some compromise, right?
Because if, let's say that you sit down with her and you say, look, we both want to help the poor, right?
I mean, it's funny because, you know, people call me some capitalist who doesn't care about the poor and I've given away 16 years worth of philosophy for free.
Particularly because the poor often won't pay for philosophy but should have it, right?
So I really care about the poor enormously, which is why I give all my books away for free.
So you can say, look, you care about the poor and you believe that the government is the way to do it.
I believe that about you.
You want to help the poor. You believe the government is the way to do it.
Can you at least concede that while we have different opinions Like, different maps, we have the same destination.
Right? Like, we want to get to Vegas, and you think, well, we'll take this highway, and I think, well, we should take this highway.
We both still want to get to Vegas.
So, can you at least acknowledge that I do want to help the poor, and my approach to it is different from yours, but if you say, well, I'm just an uncaring person who doesn't care about the poor, and Right?
Then that's a totally different thing.
Then I don't know how we can be compatible.
Now, if you can say, well, she wants to help the poor.
This is the only way she knows how.
You want to help the poor.
This is the only way, or this is the way that you believe is right.
If you can at least get her to, you know, like, respect your destination, even if she disagrees with your path towards it.
But if she can't respect your destination, then, you know, if we're in the middle of America and you want to go to New York and I want to go to Los Angeles, well, we've got to split, right?
But if it's like, well, we both want to get to New York, we're just trying to argue about the best way to get there, okay, well, then at least the destination is the same, but the route may be whatever, right?
But if she's just like, well, no, anybody who doesn't want guaranteed basic income enforced by the state hates the poor, it's like, well, then...
You can't ever have respect for my moral character.
Right. That's why she says I'm racist and blah, blah, blah.
And listen, you know that you don't need me to tell you this, right?
You can't be with someone who calls you evil, right?
Yeah. I mean, you literally cannot be.
This is why I'm saying your dad is the one who slipped through your defenses because this is totally your dad.
Yeah. Yeah. Right?
Sexual access matters more than quality of character.
It doesn't matter if she's an evil person.
It doesn't matter if she's... And you understand that this is the same verbal abuse that came from your mom, right?
Yeah. So your dad got verbally abused by your mom to the point where he sits in bed, watches TV all day, because he places sexual access over quality of character, and he's willing to be verbally abused just for sexual access.
You're doing exactly the same thing.
Like, you're basically your dad at this point.
And that's why I'm saying the anger, like calling your dad a great guy, means that you'll just do what your dad did.
Yeah. Right?
And you are doing what your dad did, which is your trading, kindness, and quality of character.
You're saying, okay, she can call me evil as long as she spreads her legs.
She can be a horrible person as long as she gives me sexual access.
Well, that's your dad and your mom to a T, isn't it?
Yeah. Or a Y, if you think about the legs, right?
So... So you don't want to end up like your dad.
But whatever we praise, we become.
And if you say, well, my dad's a great guy because you completely forget that he enabled and supported the child abuse against you and betrayed you to appease his wife and stayed with her and continued to let you be abused.
He's a great guy.
It's like, okay, well, that means that you'll become him.
You're right.
And that's why I said if you don't get mad at your dad, so you basically had to uncouple from your anger because you couldn't get mad at the right object.
And getting mad at your mom, yeah, that makes total sense to me.
But letting your dad off the hook, that's a big opening in your heart where your dad will come in, move the levers, and turn you into him.
So... When we talk about moral responsibility, is it...
How should I put it?
Is it tied to intelligence?
I mean, how do you weight it?
Well, you weight it...
You don't have to judge anything in the abstract.
You simply have to judge things on behavior.
Right? So, your mother, you say, well, she was out of control.
She was like a child. Okay. All right.
So, did your mother physically or verbally abuse you in front of other people who had power over her?
Only my dad. No, your dad had no power over her, so let's try that again.
Oh, right. Yeah, so no. Did she do it in public?
Did she do it in front of a teacher?
Did she do it in front of a cop?
Did she do it in front of a bus conductor?
Anyone, right? Yeah, of course not.
Okay. So, she had total control.
She had total control to not verbally abuse.
Yeah. So she's 100% responsible.
She's not a child. You know, babies poop whenever, right?
Yeah. So you could be, you know, changing a boy's diaper and he pees in your face, right?
He's got to be a fireman, right?
Now, you don't blame the baby because the baby's going to do it.
The baby will do it with 10 relatives in the room.
Yeah. Yeah. So they're not in control.
Somebody who's having an epileptic attack isn't going to say, ooh, you know, somebody, my teacher's here, and I don't want to look, or my crush is here, I don't want to look silly in front of my crush, so I'm going to postpone this epileptic attack, right?
Right. Epileptic attack, that's how you know, right?
No control. Again, assuming there's no medication, blah, blah, blah, right?
So have you ever had it?
Everyone has, right? You've sat kind of funny, you wake up and your leg's gone to sleep.
Yeah. If somebody gives you a million dollars, can you sprint?
Probably not. No, definitely not.
If your leg's totally gone to sleep, you can't.
Yeah. You could hobble around a bit, but you can't, right?
Your leg's numb. You can't run.
So that's beyond your control.
It's within your control how you sit, but once your leg's gone to sleep, it's gone to sleep and you've got to wait, right?
Mm-hmm. Okay.
So your mother had 100% control on whether she abused you or not because she didn't do it in public.
Yeah. So when it was negative for her, she immediately stopped, right?
Did you ever have it where your mom's screaming at you, the phone rings, and she's like, hi!
Yes. Of course, right?
So she could change immediately.
She had total control, total control over her emotions.
That's why I said it's an insult to children.
Yeah. Because children can't do that.
Mm-hmm. Right, and that's also how you know the emotions are totally fake.
Right. If the emotions can be changed like that, the emotions are fake.
I'll give you an example. Me.
No, it's true. So I'm reading an audiobook, right?
Yeah. And the audiobook has a great deal.
It's a novel, right? So there's a great deal of passion and emotion in it, right?
So I imitate someone crying, and then the voice is all choked up and this, that, and the other, and then I have to do a descriptive passage, right?
Yeah. Crying, crying, he said.
Before turning... You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah. That's how you...
My emotion is fake.
Because I can change it in and out depending on whether I'm reading narrative or, you know, some guy's really angry.
And then some other guy's like, oh, you know?
So I'm switching from anger to fear like that, right?
Because it's not real emotions. It's acting, right?
Yeah, but then with my mother, then, you know, is it Anger?
What is it? No, it's bullying.
It's bullying. She's just faking anger and irritation and annoyance to get what she wants.
But then if someone knocks on the door and it's someone whose opinion she cares about, some neighbor she wants to become friends with, she totally changes.
There's no real emotions there.
Yeah, you're right. If you've ever seen somebody totally sobbing, like the worst thing in the world has just happened to them.
If the phone rings, they can't just be like, Hi!
Because that's real emotion. Yeah.
So it's all just manipulation and gaslighting and blah blah blah, right?
Mm-hmm. So your mother 100% responsible for what she did because she could not do it anytime she wanted.
Same thing with your dad. Mm-hmm.
So, yeah, they're 100% responsible.
I mean, that's how you know.
If somebody can stop what they're doing, they're responsible for continuing to do it.
Right. It stings.
Well, it does sting, but not as much as getting this girl pregnant and spending 20 years in baby jail.
Oh, obviously. Yeah, so, I mean, this is like the Band-Aid coming off.
Your skin's got to breathe, right?
It's going to hurt, but the alternative is worse, right?
Mm-hmm. So no, 100%.
And here's the thing, too.
You give your dad 100% responsibility.
Do you know what the great gift you get is?
Freedom. 100% responsibility.
Mm-hmm. Which is, to me, freedom.
Which is freedom. And also will hopefully get you some redirect on this toxic relationship.
Yeah. Where you're training yourself to have sex with people who think you're evil.
Mm-hmm. Because you said, well, I'm with her because I can't get anyone better.
Or there's nobody else better around.
I can't find a better person, right?
That's called an excuse.
I don't care if you can't find a better person.
Stop banging socialists.
But you said, well, I have no choice but to bang a socialist because there's no one better around.
You see, that's giving yourself no responsibility for the decision.
Well, fate hasn't given me the right woman, so I'll bang this monster.
It's like, don't talk to me about fate having given you the right or wrong woman.
Don't have sex with women who hate you.
Yeah. There's no excuse for that.
There's no, well, the conveyor belt of women didn't give me the perfect woman.
I don't have the combo of Ayn Rand and Kate Upton that I'm looking for.
You know, Kate Upton's brain, Ayn Rand's body.
It's my kink, anyway. So...
Like, you're giving yourself an excuse, well, you know, there's no one else better, so I'll do this, right?
Like, 100% responsibility is, it doesn't matter whether there's a better or worse woman around.
Don't have sex with a woman you loathe, and who loathes you.
There's no excuse for that.
There's no, well, better woman, better circumstances, nicer woman, I travel, but nothing.
100% responsibility is, nope, 100% on me.
No excuses. See, you give excuses to your dad, those same excuses land on you.
Everything you give to your dad, you give to yourself.
Everything you take away from your dad, i.e.
free will, you take away from yourself, which is why you gave excuses for your dad and his bad choice of a mom for you, and you immediately also gave excuses to me for your bad choice of a girlfriend.
Same thing. You give him excuses, you take those excuses.
And those excuses will turn you into him.
Does that make sense? Yes, completely.
And it's preventing you from finding a good woman.
Because a good woman will sniff this bad relationship coming off you like a stink.
Like you just shit your pants three days ago.
She'll smell this coming off you.
And she'll run away.
And you should, right? Yeah.
Yeah. Any good woman would not date a guy as I am right now.
Well, no. First of all, you're in a relationship.
So any good woman, even if you were in a decent relationship, even if you were in an okay relationship, a good woman would come along and say, oh, he's taken, so I'm not going to date him.
I'm not going to flirt with him.
I'm not going to get interested in him.
And if it's a bad relationship, she'd be like, well, he's staying in a bad relationship, so he's not the guy for me.
Yeah.
Because he's got way too much to learn to be able to handle a quality woman.
If he's willing to put up with a woman who calls him racist, in fact, he's willing to sleep with and stay with a woman who calls him a racist, then he's not a good guy for me to date, right?
Yeah. It's like you drive away all the dogs in the vicinity and say, well, I can't find a dog.
It's weird. Yeah.
Sorry. The dog-woman relationship analogy was terrible, but I hope you'll forgive me.
Sometimes, you know, I get nothing but net.
Sometimes I don't even hit the backboard.
Hey, it gives me interesting mental images, so that's fine.
Right. So that's, yeah, that's mostly what I wanted to get across.
Is that a useful place to start?
Oh, very useful.
Yeah. I would say, you know, if you're still in contact with your dad, which I think you are, then, you know, have a call with him.
Have a Skype with him. And just be truly, honestly yourself.
Why did you tell me right before I left about this thing?
You know, why did you marry mom?
Why did you stay with her? Why didn't you protect me?
Why did you put me on speakerphone without telling me, knowing that I didn't want to talk to her?
Like, be honest and real with him about your genuine questions.
And if he blows you off, just come back and say no.
And if he hangs up, call him back, right?
And just really try to get that connection.
Because if you keep conforming to your dad, you won't recognize the danger of your dad.
And if there's some breakthrough, fantastic, wonderful, then you get a great amount of knowledge.
And if there's nothing but blowback and gaslighting, then you see the danger, and then you won't become that danger yourself.
Yeah. Alright.
Good enough? Thank you so much.
You are welcome, man. And listen, I really, really appreciate the contact, the email, and I really hugely appreciate that the show has been so helpful to you.
And thank you for letting me know that.
Not always the easiest show in the world to do, but things like this really, really make it worthwhile.
And will you keep me posted about how things are going?
Oh, of course, yeah. And last I wanted to say, like, massive congratulations.
I know we've just been hammering you about the girlfriend and all that.
It's like blah, blah, blah. But, you know, massive congratulations on getting out of your childhood, on getting to a hugely more functional level, on having questions and curiosity and being a really good sport about this kind of feedback.
And I have such admiration for your intelligence, your drive, your ambition, your achievements.
I just wanted to end on that note because, my God, you are a hero of recovery.
And I think you should be incredibly proud and forever wear this medal with pride at what you've achieved based on where you came from.
It's incredibly inspiring to me, and I'm sure it will be for others as well.
That means a lot to me.
All right. You're welcome, brother. Keep me posted, all right?
Thanks for the call. I will.
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