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July 14, 2022 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:54:36

HOW BAD WILL THINGS GET?

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	Yo, yo, good evening everybody.
	It's seven o'clock on the 13th of July 2022.
	I hope you guys are doing well.
	Hope you're having a wonderful day, a great week, and yes, it's time for us to talk philosophy.
	Now I have a wacky stacky of questions that came in today, dozens and dozens, so I could read those, but I could do those on a solo show too, maybe tomorrow, but here is the time to Where we engage in the Chatty Fest, in the conversation itself.
	So I am more than happy to hear your questions, comments, issues.
	If you would like to just unmute yourself and bellow.
	Just sitting here thinking, how bad do you think it's going to get?
	I mean, are people going to survive this inflation without dire consequences?
	Well, tell me what you mean by dire consequences.
	Make sure we're on the same page.
	I mean, right now, I'm pretty well off.
	I have a good government job and I have savings.
	So I am able to afford these prices.
	But what about, you know, the people under me?
	You know, the lower class who really can't.
	You know, because I used to live paycheck to paycheck.
	I couldn't imagine living in this, making it through.
	I just don't know.
	That's what kind of diet.
	And then when you have homelessness rise, crime will rise, you know, you'll have more murders and stuff.
	Just things are going to get really, really bad.
	That's what I think. Well, so what's your worst case scenario?
	How do you think it'll play? Massive homelessness.
	And you can't...
	It might even...
	I live in a county. I don't live in a city.
	What's happening in San Francisco?
	Happening maybe in counties.
	And then, you know, people...
	Who believe, you know, in the Second Amendment and who have weapons, they're going to be, you know, defending themselves.
	So I think a lot of, you know, criminals are going to be dead, you know, or hurt or something like that.
	And that's what I'm thinking about.
	Right, right. Okay, well, since you asked, I will tell you what's on my mind.
	So, yeah, I mean, yeah, there's going to be a lot of suffering...
	And there's no particular way around it at the moment.
	But when people refuse to think, right, there's always a price to be paid, right?
	There's always a price to be paid. So if you believe in the mainstream media, and the mainstream media says, oh, Donald Trump is this crazy evil guy, and Joe Biden is sensible, wise, moral stewardship, he's an elder statesman, he's, you know, what's it, Sam Harris was saying, the adults are in charge and all that.
	Well, it's kind of like if, you know, someone, you get a spam email that says, oh yeah, I can send you $10 million from a bank in Nigeria, you just need to give me your bank account number and $10,000 to facilitate the transfer.
	Okay, well, there's a price to be paid for being credulous.
	Of course, it's a shame that people are not taught how to be critical thinkers.
	But the tools now are so available for people who want to learn that that it's really on you if you don't know how to think critically.
	Just be skeptical.
	There's a price to be paid for believing liars.
	The fork is in the road and the fork is really clear.
	There was no fork in the road really when I was a kid.
	Because, you know, when I grew up, there were like three channels on TV. And there was BBC One, BBC Two, and ITV. And BBC Two, nobody watched.
	So there was two news stations.
	Now, when I came to Canada, I think there were 13.
	There was 13 numbers on the dial.
	We didn't get all of them because we didn't have cable or anything.
	You got whatever you got through the aerial, which in an apartment building was pretty tough.
	So we'd maybe get one or two.
	And if you wanted to think for yourself, well, you had to do what I did and burrow into the library and not come up for air for years.
	But now with the Internet, there's so much information out there.
	There's so much information that goes against the narrative, right?
	So if people, you know, the Charlottesville hoax, the, you know, Trump wants people to drink bleach hoax, like all of the nonsense, right?
	It's so simple to overthrow that in your head.
	Like back in the day when people said, oh, McCarthy was evil.
	McCarthyism is terrible. Oh, he's the worst guy ever.
	Just paranoid. Okay, well, to find out the truth about McCarthyism was really tough.
	You know, that McCarthy was not a lunatic, that he was absolutely right, and he was even more right than he knew or could prove at the time.
	He was massively, monstrously, unjustly treated for trying to warn people about dangers.
	But now it's real easy.
	There's so much information that's available for free.
	If you believe that Trump called neo-Nazis very fine people, it's one click away.
	It's one click away. And what that does is it gives people complete and total moral responsibility for avoiding information.
	Like, I can understand why some people haven't read the last books of the Bible in the original ancient Aramaic, because it's really hard to learn ancient Aramaic, I assume.
	And so it's kind of understandable that people wouldn't know that stuff.
	But if someone says, oh, Trump called neo-Nazis very fine people, it's about, what, a minute?
	It's one minute, one click away.
	Which people had available to them ever since Charlottesville.
	Which was, what, I don't know, 2016 or something like that, right?
	So, you know, it's one minute, one click away.
	You just, you go to...
	Rumble or you go to Odyssey or I guess back then Library, you go to Brighteon, you go to like any of the sites and you type in Donald Trump speech Charlottesville.
	Now if people are making the decisions to hate based on what they're told and it's hard for them to get the original information I can have some sympathy and some understanding.
	And with that comes some level of forgiveness.
	But the beautiful, terrible, horrifying thing about the Internet is it has made everybody 100% responsible for believing lies.
	It has made everyone 100% responsible for believing absolutely easily disprovable lies.
	Like when I was a kid, there were lies out there about tons of people.
	But trying to find the right book from a credible source with good footnotes and checking those footnotes were accurate.
	That was days of work.
	Everybody has the lie destroyer sitting in their goddamn pocket at all times.
	Lies about Trump.
	Lies about McCarthy.
	Lies about me. Lies about Lauren Southern.
	She's just put a movie out.
	You should check it out.
	So everyone has.
	People who believe lies about me.
	Got a link right on the homepage, what I believe, with evidence, with sources, with quotes from prior writings, texts, tweets when I was on Twitter.
	So if you carry around within you the 5G lie destroyer known as a phone, you got a tablet, you got an iPod touch, you got a computer, So everyone is now 100% responsible for believing lies.
	And an outsider came into American politics to shake things up, to reflect the will of the people.
	And then people said, no, no, that's not the guy.
	Let's go with a guy who's been a senator about as long as Methuselah lived.
	What was it, Biden was in 40 years or something like that?
	But he's just been waiting to solve all these problems.
	He was vice president under Barack Obama, been a senator forever.
	So, yeah, look, people are suffering.
	They really are. Really suffering.
	But they had four years to open their goddamn phones and look up the truth.
	Now, the truth doesn't mean being pro-Donald Trump.
	I mean, Donald Trump has some significant weaknesses.
	His Daughter and son-in-law being perhaps primary among them.
	He's not a great chooser of people, although his choice of people was somewhat hampered by the endless investigations.
	So I'm not saying that everybody who looked at the Charlottesville speech would automatically vote Trump.
	I'm not saying anything, but at least know the truth.
	At least know the truth.
	The Lie Destroyer is sitting in your pocket, most people's pocket, 24-7, like I walk down the...
	I mean, you see, you know, women have butts with squares, right?
	They got ridiculously tight pants with a little square of the Lie Destroyer.
	They got the facts right there, right there.
	When I was a kid, you had to dig like crazy.
	You had to invest a huge amount of time.
	You had to read. You had to find obscure books.
	I mean, I was around and studying before even Amazon came along.
	You had to go to second-hand bookstore.
	I used to have this route to this troop from second-hand bookstore, the Purple Village on Pape Street.
	It's long gone. Second-hand bookstores, I would just go from there and looking for obscure texts, looking for facts.
	That was tough, man. It was like being an archaeologist.
	So I could forgive people for not knowing what was obscure and took the labors of Achilles sometimes to find.
	So I remember very clearly having a debate with a friend of mine's boyfriend...
	About the causes of the great, well, the stock market crash, the boom of the 20s, the stock market crash in 1929, then a 13-year recession, right?
	And I said, well, the Fed lowered the interest rates artificially and then when there was a big boom on, they cranked up the interest rates enormously and then there was massive government intervention and so on.
	Now, I was not expecting him to know any of this stuff because it took me a long time To find credible sources that I could accept as to the explanation of what happened in the 1920s and the 1930s.
	But now, it's a click away.
	People have been hearing rumblings of inflation.
	People have been hearing rumblings of inflation for years now.
	Well, certainly since the pandemic, when they just cranked up the printing press to...
	Truly tsunami-like money printed go brrr status.
	You're just cranking it out.
	What, seven trillion printed over the last couple of years?
	It's mad. Forty percent of every dollar ever created is in circulation, right?
	I mean, it's completely insane.
	Now, so anyone can type into, you know, any reasonable search engine, right?
	None of the major ones, but any reasonable search engine, or even the major ones might have this, causes of inflation.
	And right there, they'll read very quickly, inflation of prices is only the effect.
	Inflation of the money supply is the cause.
	Boom! Printing too much money, creating too much money.
	Done! Done.
	Now, of course, a lot of it was under Trump, so again, I'm not saying the guy is in any way, shape or form, perfect.
	Lots of criticisms, but it's pretty easy to armchair quarterback when you're not in the game, right?
	So, for me, you know, because the question to me is not how much people will suffer.
	They're going to suffer. Even a couple of years ago, every human life on this planet is supported by 30,000 US dollars in debt and it's probably closer to 50 now.
	So people are going to suffer.
	That's outside of your control.
	That's outside of my control. It's outside the control of anyone at the moment because the debt and the deficit have come to such crazy levels that nobody can fix this.
	I think the real question you have to ask yourself, if you don't mind me saying so, It's a genuine question.
	I hope you don't mind me saying so.
	It's not whether people will suffer.
	That is the question.
	The real question is, will their suffering make you suffer?
	Will their suffering make you suffer?
	That's the big question.
	Yep, that is.
	So... Are you concerned for your safety or are you concerned, if you're out in the country, and I can't imagine why any sane human being would still live in a city like this just completely blows my mind, like why you would live in a city is just incomprehensible to me.
	So you're going to see most of it remotely, right?
	So what is your feelings, what are your thoughts about the people and the suffering that is coming?
	Well, I'm not in the city, but I'm not far from the city.
	And that's why I am concerned about crime, because the city is not far from me.
	And I've already heard stories of, you know, Aladdin, Georgia is terrible.
	The crime has spread it into some of their counties.
	So, and I mean, you know, some of the county residents are getting killed and everything, and the people are not being prosecuted.
	I'm sure some of the criminals have been killed because there's a lot of...
	In the counties, we defend ourselves, you know?
	So that's what...
	Okay, so your particular concern at the moment is for your physical safety, is that right?
	Yes, 100%.
	Okay, so if you could do anything that you wanted and make any choice that you wanted, what would you do to keep yourself...
	Safe in the face of rising crime?
	Just armed.
	Just be aware of my surroundings, which I grew up in New York City.
	I am very aware of my surroundings, so I just, I pay attention.
	And when, you know, my house is secure, it is armed, so.
	It's just something I don't want to happen.
	Yeah, yeah. Look, I think that's a fine precaution, but I don't think that's anywhere close to peak security.
	Because, as you are, I'm sure, aware, you still have the theoretical legal right to self-defense, but the practical right to self-defense is largely being eliminated by activist prosecutors, in my humble opinion, right? So I don't think you want to be in a situation where you're shooting an intruder.
	I mean, both for legal and personal reasons.
	Exactly true. So what else could you do?
	I don't know. I just live.
	I go to work. I come home.
	I go shopping. And like I said, I'm aware of my surroundings.
	And luckily, I live outside the city.
	Well, could you move further away?
	Not at the time.
	In the future, I would have to save up for it, definitely.
	And I plan to move further away.
	Okay, yeah, I mean, I think that's wise.
	I mean, you'd be surprised, you know, if gas gets ridiculously expensive or there are significant interruptions in the supply of gasoline, you'd be surprised at how few criminals want to walk for two hours to commit a crime.
	True. So I would say...
	And this is to the listenership as a whole.
	You have to get right in your relationship with the people who are going to suffer.
	You have to get right in your relationship with the people who are going to suffer.
	Because you're going to see a lot of suffering, right?
	And to me, getting right with your...
	Sorry, you'll need to mute while I'm talking.
	Getting right with your relationship with the people who are going to suffer, to me, is significantly involved with their level of responsibility for their suffering.
	I mean, if someone just gets lung cancer and they've never smoked and they exercise and they eat well, I think we all have a great deal of sympathy and it's bad luck and so on.
	But if somebody's been a lifelong smoker, they don't exercise, they're obese, and then they get diabetes from eating too much sugar and not exercising, they get lung cancer from smoking and so on, what is our relationship to that suffering?
	Because if we have sympathy for everyone, we insult those who have not chosen their own misfortune.
	Let me say that again.
	If we have sympathy for everyone, we insult those who have not chosen their own misfortune.
	We have to have separate moral categories for people who are victims of misfortune and people who have chosen their own misfortune, right?
	So if someone has a significant issue with their joints, right?
	And let's say that they're overweight and so on, their knees hurt, right?
	Okay, well, that's probably the result of being overweight.
	It's tough on the knees, right?
	So, what is our relationship now?
	Somebody else who, you know, exercise and eats well and so on, and then they just unfortunately get joint pain or some sort of arthritis and so on.
	Yeah, huge sympathy, right?
	I think huge sympathy. But we have to have different considerations.
	Not everyone who suffers is a victim.
	A lot of people who suffer, suffer because they've made bad decisions.
	So, inflation, look, Trump, Trump for whatever, again, lots of faults.
	There's not any sort of endorsement, right?
	But, you know, as a businessman and an outsider, he was fairly good At building some economic momentum, right?
	I mean, if the pandemic hadn't come along, and it's not the pandemic's fault that the lockdowns happened, right?
	That's the fault of the government choice and people unable to manage their fear and just, you know, if you make people afraid for long enough, then they'll just grab at anything to alleviate their fear.
	But The economy was doing fairly well and the sort of holy grail of a soft landing, right, where you grow the economy to the point where you can start to ease people off welfare and so on without a huge social set of catastrophes as we sort of think of, I think, as you're talking about.
	Okay, that was sort of within sight, that holy grail of public policy, of being able to find ways out of massive debt, growing your way out of debt and out of unfunded liabilities.
	I think there was a potential. Okay, but people didn't want it, right?
	They got into this weird abusive relationship with the media where the media just abused them with, you know, constant fear and terror and incipient fascism and dangers to democracy and Nazi and this and that and they're like, okay, fine, we'll just elect Biden and stop screaming at us.
	Well, okay, so that's called appeasement.
	And when I was growing up, appeasement was a pretty dirty word.
	You don't appease people doing wrong because they're just going to encourage them to do more wrong.
	Right? So people chose to listen to propaganda.
	And they chose a career politician over an outsider who had done some fairly decent things with the economy.
	Certainly better than Joe Biden.
	Was it Barack Obama who said never underestimate Biden's ability to fuck things up?
	Okay, that was his employer, his boss, for many years.
	So I think we could listen to that, right?
	So the media wanted Joe Biden in for various reasons, which we don't have to get into here.
	And to a large degree, they misrepresented the facts to get their boy into power.
	And people then chose to believe those lies.
	And if you choose to believe lies, and especially with, as I said, the You know, the two-ounce lie-repellent device in your pocket with which you can look up the facts in a moment's notice.
	But the people who are like, I'm going to stay glued to this or that media channel and absorb all their lies and I'm going to train myself into hatred and I'm going to hate and orange man bad and Trump derangement syndrome and so on.
	It's like, okay, well, I mean, Biden said he was going to shut down oil and gas, shut down the industry.
	It was right there in the debate.
	It was discussed and broadcast in the mainstream media.
	And Trump, I don't believe, would have sent arms to Ukraine.
	I don't believe that would have happened.
	The only thing that Trump did really that was aggressive was bomb a couple of airfields in Syria, and that was probably just to let off a bit of pressure from the military-industrial complex.
	So people had four years without war.
	Trump first U.S. president in God knows how long but a long time to not start a new war or escalate some existing conflict, right?
	So people had four years without war and then they voted in a guy who'd voted for just about every war known to man and now they have war.
	I mean, it's a proxy war.
	It's still a war. They have a war.
	They voted for the guy who said he was going to shut down oil and gas production and now they have massive gas prices.
	Right? They voted.
	They had the information and they voted.
	And one of the hallmarks of knowing you're in a relationship with an adult is you don't give them bottomless sympathy for the results of their own cowardly and or stupid decisions.
	I mean, you just don't.
	Now, with children, you do.
	Children make a bad decision.
	You give them sympathy.
	You... Hold them while they cry over their boo-boos.
	You get them a little princess band-aid.
	You know, all these kinds of nice things, right?
	You know, all of that stuff. Because they're children.
	But when you're dealing with adults, you don't give bottomless sympathy to people's bad decisions.
	Right? You make a choice.
	You take the consequences.
	That's being an adult. I don't want people to suffer.
	I really don't. I mean, I spent 14 years straight desperately trying to get reason out to people, and I did, out to millions and millions of people.
	Reason, facts, evidence, reality, truth.
	And for a lot of people, that spread of reason, facts, reality, and truth stopped with them because they didn't want to take things further to their family, to their friends, to wherever, right?
	That's another choice. That's another choice.
	So... Choosing the actions or the inactions is choosing the consequences.
	If you say to someone, stop smoking, eat better and exercise, and they don't, and then they get sick, you know, I mean, it's back to my mom, right?
	I pleaded with my mom for decades to think more clearly.
	I pleaded with my mom.
	For decades to find better ways to handle her stress and her tension and her anxiety and her paranoia.
	I pleaded with my mom for decades and she wouldn't do it.
	Now maybe she couldn't by the time I came along.
	It doesn't really matter, but she had a choice at some point to not be the way she was.
	So now she's alone and it's not a good life.
	I don't enjoy that.
	I understand. I'm not a vengeful person.
	I don't like that.
	I don't like that people are suffering.
	I'd get no satisfaction out of it.
	It's a sad thing to see.
	But sympathy? Oh, no.
	No, no, no, no.
	See, you've got to reserve your sympathy for people who are unlucky.
	Because if you give sympathy to people who've made bad decisions...
	Then they will make more bad decisions.
	If you give sympathy to people who've made bad decisions, they will make more bad decisions.
	It's really cruel. It's vicious and unkind to treat grown ass people as children.
	It's vicious and unkind.
	So when people...
	Inflation is monstrous.
	Monstrous. They're going to have to crank up the interest rates to try and cool down the inflation, but that's going to cause...
	Problems in the housing market and, you know, we're right back to where we were in 2007, 2008, except worse, because now there's an additional X trillion dollars of debt, right?
	So people could have found the truth out any time over the last couple of years.
	They could have looked things up for themselves.
	And, yeah, look, some of the criticisms of Trump, totally valid, absolutely true.
	Some of them, total lies.
	Total lies. So they could have looked things up.
	And they chose not to. They chose not to.
	They chose not to.
	Now that choice has consequences.
	If you choose to believe lies, your life gets worse.
	Now, if you choose to believe lies, your life gets better in the short run because you don't have to confront the other people who believe the lies and who founded their sense of morality and superiority and personality on the acceptance of lies.
	So in the short run...
	Your life gets better, like any addiction, right?
	If you're addicted to heroin and you take heroin, in the short run your life gets better because you're not suffering through the pain and agony of withdrawal.
	So in the short run your life is better, and in the long run your life blows chunks.
	From a narwhals blowhole, your life blows chunks.
	So it's an addiction.
	An addiction to lies makes your life better in the short run.
	Like all addictions, makes your life better in the short run.
	You're addicted to gambling. You go gamble, you get exhilaration.
	When I was younger and addicted to women, I'd go on a date.
	Exhilaration! But my life got worse in the long run.
	That's what addiction is. Better in the short run, worse in the long run.
	When you believe lies, you've got people saying, here are some lies.
	They're going to make you popular. They're going to make you secure.
	They're going to make everyone praise you.
	Comfortable lies versus uncomfortable truths.
	Popular lies versus unpopular truths.
	Well, you believe the lies, your life gets worse.
	People believe the lies, their lives are getting worse.
	I can't change that.
	I mean, I can do everything I can to tell them the truth.
	And I certainly feel very...
	I acquitted myself with great honor on that battlefield.
	Gave some blows, took some blows.
	But the important thing is it's sad when people choose that.
	Like it's sad if somebody decides not to go to Narcotics Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous or Gamblers Anonymous or take therapy or do whatever is needed.
	It's sad. It's sad when people start and say something is really pleasurable but they know it's bad for them.
	Like some gambler really gets high on gambling.
	He knows it's bad for him but then he goes back and he reinforces that.
	It's sad. And this is even different.
	It's not quite the same as some sort of ground in base of the brain, lizard brain, chemical, physical addiction that's going on here.
	People chose to believe lies and now they're suffering because you're going to learn the lesson one way or another.
	Lies are bad for you.
	Believing lies are bad for you.
	Being propagandized, swallowing bullshit and spitting up propaganda is bad for you.
	It's junk food. Everybody knows junk food is bad for you.
	That's why it's even called junk food.
	They keep eating it all the time.
	It's bad for them. So people swallow bullshit, spout propaganda, thump their chests, feel like virtuous people, put the flag of Ukraine in their bio, and feel like absolutely wonderful people.
	I guess it's a physical high.
	It's a real high. And then, as it always does, the bill comes due.
	Because people tell you lies in order to profit from you.
	People tell you lies in order to profit from you.
	So you believe the lies and then you pay the price.
	This is the deal manifested in the story of Satan from the beginning of time.
	Satan will offer you a short-term benefit, long-term benefit being you lose your soul, a long-term cost being that you lose your soul.
	So people took the benefits.
	They scorned people like us.
	They thumped their chest. They were morally superior.
	They were better. They were nice.
	They were inclusive.
	They were egalitarian. They weren't far right or whatever nonsense was thrown around, right?
	Not accurate, but whatever's thrown around.
	So they got the high and we got the low.
	And these things balance out.
	They got the high and we got the low.
	And now these things are reversing themselves as they so often do in life.
	If you think you're down, hang around.
	It will change. It's a cycle.
	Now, they took pleasure, I think, a lot of times in our discomfort, in our pain, in our exclusion or deplatforming or ostracism or whatever.
	I mean, a lot of people took real sadistic pleasure in that.
	Okay. Take what you want and pay for it.
	For those of us who hung on to the truth, who hung on to the facts, who hung on to the reality, despite massive, immense, terrible pressure, well, it was hard, wasn't it?
	At times. It was very hard.
	It was tough. It was unpleasant.
	It was difficult. It's hard not to feel a little crazy from time to time, right?
	Or to yearn to just dissolve independence and blend into the general chaos of the hive mind.
	Okay. So...
	They congratulated themselves on the moral superiority of believing bullshit and attacked us for thinking and questioning and providing counter-evidence.
	So, for some time, they won and we lost.
	Not necessarily objectively, but in terms of status.
	How many times when you don't believe the general bullshit of society, Do you have to bite your tongue?
	You're at work. You're at a dinner party.
	You're out with friends.
	You're at a bar. And somebody says something that's just patently false.
	And everyone's like, yeah!
	Yeah! All right.
	It's kind of painful.
	It's kind of difficult. Maybe you speak up.
	Maybe you bite your tongue. But it's difficult if you're in school, in university, high school.
	Post-grad, a bunch of stuff's being said that's just not true.
	All right? Do you speak up?
	Do you not? It's difficult.
	It's painful. It's challenging.
	And when you speak up and you tell the truth, all of the vapid fools band together to exclude you and feel secure and happy in their empty tribe of nothing syllables.
	So they win.
	You know, if you decide to lose weight, you get up and you go to the gym and you don't want to.
	You cut back, you're hungry, your stomach growls at 3 o'clock in the morning but you don't get up to eat.
	And you get up at 6.30 to exercise.
	Oh man, you suffer!
	It's unpleasant, it's difficult, it hurts.
	But the pounds come off and the strength returns and your joints ease and your lifespan extends.
	And you suffer. And then you get your rewards.
	You live longer, healthier, stronger, better.
	Well, people endlessly mouthing down the junk food of mainstream propaganda, yeah, they had it pretty fun for a long time, right?
	They had it pretty good. Pretty fun for a long time.
	When I was younger, I mean, if you're younger than me it sounds like considerably, so you may not have seen this arc, but the people I knew when I was younger Who were like the life of the party!
	You know, they had charisma, extroversion, alcohol-fueled loudness and confidence.
	Well, how did their lives play out?
	Seemed pretty good when they were younger.
	You think of Rupert Everett, this physically gorgeous Gay man.
	He was in The Importance of Being Earnest, I think.
	Or some one of Oscar Wilde's plays.
	And yeah, he said, yeah, when I was younger, I had all the sex I wanted and it totally smashed me up inside.
	Just got destroyed.
	And when people have all that fun, there's a price.
	There's a price. This is nothing new.
	I'm saying absolutely nothing new here, but it's important to get this perspective.
	So now people are suffering.
	How am I going to afford my groceries?
	Okay, but you listen to lies.
	I'm going to pay my rent.
	Rent's going up like crazy.
	Well, they told you everything they were going to do.
	There's no doubt here.
	They told you everything.
	You know, if you're making some quiche and it says right there on the page, put dark shit in it and you eat it and you get sick, it's like what's right there in the recipe?
	What are you doing? Putting dark shit in your quiche.
	Can't fix that. Can't fix the effects.
	So people are going to have to learn.
	They learn either way. I've said this from the very beginning of the show.
	You either learn by reason and evidence or you learn by suffering.
	That's it. There's no third door that you can go through.
	You learn by reason and evidence or you learn by suffering.
	Okay. So people will emerge from their suffering wiser.
	Because people generally do emerge from their suffering wiser.
	Now, would I have preferred they gained their wisdom through reason, evidence, and philosophy?
	Absolutely! And I worked myself to the brink of disaster to do that.
	Yeah, I would much rather people learn by reason than evidence, facts, logic.
	Sure! Sometimes life is, give me a PowerPoint or give me death.
	But they didn't.
	I can't force that choice.
	I can't make that choice. I'm not responsible for that choice.
	I think I'm responsible for putting facts, truth, reason, and evidence in as engaging, presentable, and enjoyable fashion as possible.
	Yeah, I'm responsible for that.
	Sure. Totally.
	But... I cannot reach into people's heads and neither can you and neither can anyone in this conversation or anyone in the thousand years listening to this in the future.
	No one can reach into somebody else's head and rearrange their neurons.
	That's a free will choice.
	Hey, you have your freedom.
	I respect that. You have your choice.
	You respect that. I cannot shield you from the consequences of refusing to listen to reason.
	I cannot. God alone, God Himself, all-powerful God cannot save you from the consequences of sin.
	And the only fundamental sin is the refusal to think.
	The refusal to examine evidence.
	I've had major revolutions.
	I've talked about them in this show.
	I've had major revolutions in my life where I've had to abandon prior beliefs.
	I was a Christian. I was anti-theist.
	Now I'm pro-Christianity.
	I was a socialist, became a libertarian, became a minarchist, became an anarchist.
	Major revolutions.
	I had to admit I knew nothing about what morality was.
	I had to invent a moral system from scratch.
	So, yeah, people are suffering.
	That's tough, man.
	But it is through that suffering they will learn to stop believing the liars!
	It is through that suffering that they will learn to stop believing the liars.
	They had the choice. They had the fork of the road.
	People who tell the truth or try to and people who lie and are committed to it.
	And they chose the liars.
	Okay. Choose the liars.
	You know, like your friend who...
	Date some super hot person that's just deranged and you're like, don't do it, man.
	Don't date her! Don't date her, man!
	It's a bad idea. Please, I'm begging you.
	Here are all the red flags. Here's the psychology.
	Let me talk to you. I'll try and draw her out.
	I've literally had...
	I've had double dates long, long ago before I met my wife.
	I'd have double dates. A friend of mine would be dating some crazy woman or wanting to and I'd just say stuff Not offensive or anything, but I would just calmly and politely contradict her beliefs.
	In a sense, she'd wind herself up.
	She'd get more and more aggressive, right?
	And even then, sometimes my friends would, oh, she just was having an off day.
	She was tired, man. That's not her.
	It's like, yeah, it is. Yes, it is.
	He would still date her. Okay, so then he dates her.
	He goes through hell itself.
	And then what? Ah, then he learns to listen, right?
	It is suffering that brings wisdom where reason is ignored.
	So people are going to suffer.
	I wish they didn't have to.
	I can't change it. And in the long run, it will help.
	It will destroy, with any luck, the monopolistic power of the bottomless liars who seem to run a lot of social discourse.
	Why? It's not even the fault of the media.
	It's the fault of the people who want those lies.
	The media can't sell you anything that you don't want to buy.
	I don't even blame the media that much.
	It's everybody's individual choice.
	So yeah, physical safety is important for sure.
	Have some resources, have some food, get out of the cities.
	But as far as looking at the suffering, as long as you've acquitted yourself fairly reasonably in the promulgation of truth and virtue, If you've known about truth and virtue and you've said nothing to anyone over, then okay, that's partly on you, right?
	But assuming that you've reasonably, I mean, you don't have to be out there screaming on a street corner 24-7, but as long as you've reasonably stated your case, the facts, the truth, given people evidence, sent a few dank memes, okay, well then your conscience is clear and people are just going to have to learn the hard way.
	I know that's not any kind of perfect answer, but I hope that helps at least with regards to...
	If the suffering is going to happen, then it's like watching someone who's a drug addict going through hopefully medically managed but painful withdrawal, and the withdrawal is so bad, you hate to see that suffering, but you know it's their best chance of getting off the drug is knowing how much they will suffer.
	When they're going through withdrawal.
	The more suffering they go through withdrawal, the less they'll want the drug in the future because they will remember the price they pay for that high.
	And the price people pay for the high of conformity is the destruction of the economy.
	All right? So where Rothbard has failed, where Hayek has failed, so to speak, suffering will prevail.
	So I hope that helps and...
	I will try to make my next answer shorter.
	I'll fail, for sure, but I will certainly try, and hopefully I'll get a couple of points for trying.
	All right. Thanks, Karen.
	Alan, you are on.
	Let's hope that we are able to hear you now.
	Go ahead. All right.
	I have a whack load of questions, so I will absolutely dig into those.
	Let me just get them all queued up here.
	Again, if you want to talk, I'm happy to do a...
	A call-in show and freedomain.locals.com if you would like to check out my new book, The Future.
	And this is somebody says, holy shit, The Future was good.
	I'm recommending it to everyone.
	Somebody else wrote, The Future is fantastic.
	I'm looking forward to sharing with my family and friends.
	Somebody said, The Future is the best book I have ever listened to.
	Nine out of ten. Somebody says, the future is really, really enjoyable.
	I love your audiobook renditions and I'm very happy to see more chapters come out.
	The characters really come alive and I see more and more how this is the peaceful parenting book.
	Somebody said, I exclusively read non-fiction because I just kind of seem to get drawn into stories, but I can tell already.
	I'm hooked on this one. Thanks so much, Steph.
	Somebody else wrote, great book, just finished after binge listening.
	Could not get enough. Steph is a really good writer.
	Very entertaining and intellectually interesting at the same time.
	One of my favorite books I've read so far, Spellbinding.
	DRO Head vs. Noble Savage is some of the best content I have ever seen.
	Debates are always more fun when there are real stakes behind them.
	Somebody else wrote, it's also fascinating hearing the concepts from everyday anarchy, practical anarchy, solidified while the world today is just a shadow in the past.
	It fills me with hope and drive to work for that future and maybe, paradoxically, reminds me what a privilege it is To be here now.
	So you can get that book.
	You can subscribe at freedemand.locals.com and you can get that book.
	And you can get it in ebook format, you can get it in audiobook format, and so on.
	It's really, really good.
	I strongly, well, massively, hugely recommend it.
	It's my first work of fiction in like 20 years or so.
	If you want to check out my other fiction, almostnovel.com, justpoornovel.com, and fdrurl.com, slash T-G-O-A, for The God of Atheists.
	All right. We do have somebody else who wishes to chat, and if I don't get to your livestream questions, I absolutely promise I will do them tomorrow.
	All right. Joseph, you'll need to unmute, and I'm happy to hear.
	Hi, Stefan. Yes.
	Why did you censor me?
	Why did I censor you?
	What do you mean? You banned me on Telegram.
	Banned me. Okay, how am I supposed to remember this?
	I have no idea what you're talking about.
	Do you remember what you posted or what the conversation was where you got banned?
	I was saying that cells don't exist.
	I'm sorry, can you say again?
	I was saying that cells don't exist.
	I'm sorry, I can't follow you.
	You were saying that self what?
	Cells, human cells, biological cells.
	Yeah. Sorry, man. I can't.
	Like, your audio is really bad, and I'm really having trouble hearing what you're saying.
	But, you know, in general, in general, when...
	So you got banned from Telegram, I guess, not to the point where you couldn't come back for whatever reason, right?
	Now, if you got banned, then...
	Yes, I understand.
	That's what you told me. That's what I'm addressing, so, right?
	And I'm saying so for people as a whole.
	So if you get banned, one of two things is happening.
	Either you're right and the community is unjust, or the community is just and you're doing something pretty wrong.
	Now, if people only rarely get banned, then you must be doing something particularly wrong, if the community is just.
	So, if the community is unjust, like, so if you get banned because you're an honorable person who's trying to tell the truth, you know, maybe you make some mistakes like we all do, but you're an honorable person trying to tell the truth, but you just get banned because the community is unjust, then why on earth would you want to be part of an unjust community, right? This is the basic thing.
	Like, if people are just banning you because you're telling the truth, right?
	You're saying something honest and honorable, or you're just being curious, or you're questioning certain things, or whatever...
	And you get banned, then you're in an intolerant, bigoted, unjust community that is dead set against the truth.
	Okay, so why on earth would you want to be part of that community?
	I mean, that would make no sense at all, right?
	That would be, I mean, why not go and be part of a community that is just and fair and decent and willing to entertain difficult questions and so on.
	So you would go and find a better community.
	Now, if the community is just or fair, and this doesn't mean perfect, right?
	If the community is just or fair...
	and you get banned then you have one of two choices you can say oh gosh I guess maybe I was being impolite let me read back what happened or let me think about what happened and you know if I did something wrong or I was really offensive or I upset people or I was manipulative or destructive in some manner or it's like something happened that was negative and again we all make mistakes but something happened that was negative enough to cause you to get banned Well,
	then you did something wrong, right?
	For sure, you did something wrong.
	Now, if you did something wrong, then you can apologize.
	Now, if you genuinely have no idea what you did wrong, but you got banned, then the community is unjust.
	You can also ask other people in your life, oh, this is what was happening, this is what I was talking about, and I got banned, right?
	Then other people can give you feedback and so on, right?
	Now, if you call me up on my show and you say to me, why did I get banned?
	What you're saying is, I have absolutely no idea why I got banned.
	Now, either that's because this community is just so terrible and horrible and unjust that you got banned for no reason, but then you would know why you got banned, which is, I know why I got banned from some social media platforms.
	And it's not because I was dishonorable or vindictive or mean or cruel or trying to incite violence or anything like that.
	I got banned because I was telling uncomfortable truths that people didn't want to hear.
	So that's an unjust community.
	I wouldn't call people up and say, well, why was I banned?
	Because people believed lies about me and didn't want to have me on their platform.
	That's fine. Now, but when you call me up and demand to know why you were banned...
	I don't know who you are.
	I don't know the circumstances that happened, right?
	So you're calling up and putting the entire onus or blame on me for you getting banned, which means that you have no idea why you were banned, which means you have no capacity to self-reflect on anything you might have done that was wrong, which means you don't have any self-knowledge, you don't have any inward look or self-criticism, and that's probably the biggest reason why you were banned.
	So, I'm sorry, again, I'm happy to talk another time when you have a better mic, but I really can barely hear what you're saying.
	So, yeah, it's just something to think about, right?
	Now, my guess is that you got banned because you did something kind of mean or abusive or nasty, and you don't want to admit that, so you just come off aggressive.
	That's not, sadly, it's not particularly uncommon.
	All right, we got Trouble Man.
	Please, dear God, let someone actually just unmute Trouble Man.
	When they can. Trouble Man, if you unmute, I'm happy to hear.
	Hey, how's it going? Well, look at you.
	You're unmuting at the right time and your audio is pretty good.
	Nice to chat with you. What's up, my friend?
	Yeah, yeah. I am a father to an awesome 11-year-old.
	Sorry about my voice. I'm just getting over a cold.
	No, no. It's sexy. It's very sultry.
	Great. He's awesome.
	He's a boatload of fun.
	He's right here, actually. But I just wanted to ask about...
	The later years. I'm kind of nervous or I have a bit of anxiety about years two and three when they really start to get mobile and asking questions.
	I spent time this past weekend with some friends.
	She's three. She's great too, but definitely a lot more challenging.
	I guess I'm just asking, do you have any...
	Tips, tricks, advice for, like, I guess I'm mostly anxious about, like, the intense bouts of, like, whining or anger or, you know, just, like, these intense emotions that come out of a two- or three-year-old.
	Yeah, anything there?
	Why would you think that a two- or three-year-old would inevitably have intense emotions, whining and rage or tantrums?
	Why would you assume that to be the case?
	Just because that's what you've seen?
	No. Yeah, probably just from what I've seen.
	I mean, I don't want to assume.
	I don't want to assume for my son or anybody else's children.
	But yeah, it definitely does seem to be the rigor for little ones.
	Well, okay, so with all due respect to your friends who I don't know from Adam, there's this pattern that parents have where they say they drive their kids crazy and then they say, well, certain periods of childhood just seem to be characterized by periodic bouts of insanity.
	It's like, no, you made them crazy.
	Okay, so... What are the emotions for?
	That's a fundamental question, right?
	See, the emotions are ways to navigate things that you need, right?
	So think of a basic sensation like hunger.
	Hunger keeps you alive because it tells you when to eat.
	Thirst keeps you alive, tells you when to drink.
	So those things are ways to navigate the world to get your needs met.
	In this case, it would be your bodily needs.
	So anger or whining, right?
	So why do kids whine?
	Kids whine...
	Because they don't agree that they can't get what they want.
	Right? So kids whine because they don't agree that they can't get what they want.
	Now, whining is an attempt to apply a negative stimuli to the parent until the parent gives in.
	Whining is the attempt to create a negative stimuli to the parent until the parent gives in.
	For adult married females or girlfriends, often, nagging is the same thing.
	Like, I'm just going to nag you until you do what I want.
	So, let's say that when you saw your friend and his kid, and the kid was whining or having a tantrum or whatever, do you remember the circumstances that caused this to come about?
	Yeah, I think it was...
	A few times I couldn't quite pinpoint the reason, but I think one of them was, like, she wanted to blow bubbles outside, and it was, I guess, a little bit too early in the morning for that to go outside, and they were saying, no, like, we're going to wait to do that later.
	Why was it too early to do it?
	I think they were... Was it four in the morning or something?
	I mean, would it wake the cows?
	I mean, why?
	Why? No, I think they were just both busy with other things.
	The mother was busy with the other child, an infant, and I think he was making breakfast, yeah.
	Okay, so the child, we'll just call her Sue, right?
	The child who was whining.
	Was it a male or a female? It was a girl, yeah.
	It was a girl, okay. So Sue was told, we'll do it later, right?
	Yeah. Now, do you think Sue believed that statement?
	No. Okay, okay.
	So the parents did not have credibility when they said, we'll do it later.
	Now, why did the parents not have credibility when they said, we'll do it later?
	Because they could do it then.
	No. Well, yes, they could.
	No, the reason why the parents had no credibility when they said we'll do it later is because probably 50 times in the past they said we'll do it later and it never happens.
	Yeah, I mean, I'm not trying to discount that theory.
	That is interesting. And so if the child believes that it will come later and also understands why it can't come now, Then the child will accept it.
	But if the child...
	If these two conditions are not met in particular, if the child does not believe it can't be done now, and the child also believes it will not happen later, then the child has no choice but to whine, to have a tantrum, to complain, or even worse, in a sense, to just give up completely and give up their desires or preferences or any attempt to negotiate, right?
	Yeah, yeah. I hear you.
	Okay. So, for the parent, it often turns into this strange battle of wills.
	So the parent says to themselves, I don't want to do bubbles right now.
	And that's just a feeling, right?
	Now, if the parent says to the child, I really don't feel like doing bubbles right now, I don't want to do bubbles right now, then that's a different matter.
	Right, because then you're just dealing with feelings, right?
	But if the parent says, there are these practical reasons why we can't do bubbles right now, then what's the child going to immediately do?
	Negotiate? Well, they're going to try and remove those practical reasons.
	Right, right. I mean, all children, and look, adults do this as well, right?
	Right, adults do this as well.
	So, when people say there are these practical reasons, like if the parent has had a bad night's sleep, if the parent is feeling kind of grumpy, if the parent just got bad news, and you don't have to tell all of this to your kid, but if you say, I really don't feel like doing that right now, but I promise we will do it in one hour.
	Okay, and then over the course of that hour, you say, it's 15 more minutes, it's, you know, or you, I don't know, you get a big hourglass, or you put a countdown on the phone or something like that, right?
	And then you stick to it, right?
	Then when you say, we'll do it later, the kid believes that you're going to do it later because you do do it later and you remember.
	But a lot of parents will just say, we'll do it later, and it never happens.
	And that Is lying to the child.
	Now, again, I'm not saying your friends are like big liars.
	I mean, all parents are tempted by these strategies and it's really understandable, especially when you have two, right?
	So, or the other thing is, why not, again, did they live in a house or an apartment?
	It's sort of like a condo.
	Oh, it's a condo? Okay, yeah.
	So they can't just say go into the backyard and blow the bubbles, right?
	There's no backyard, right? And they don't want to say go on the balcony because it's nerve-wracking to have a kid on the balcony at any age, really, at that age, right?
	Okay. Yeah, I mean...
	Go ahead. It was kind of an extenuating circumstance.
	We were on vacation.
	It's kind of a different area.
	New people, new everything, right?
	So I don't want to misrepresent anything.
	But, you know, they're like hyper-peaceful parents, too.
	They know the score. I guess I'm just like...
	I understand that all these instances are probably...
	Yeah, we'll be done in a sec.
	I understand these instances are probably very case-by-case, and it's like, well, you've got to look at the circumstances.
	What did you do here? Yeah, I know.
	What did we do there, right? There's a pattern, right?
	And parenting...
	I swear, 99% of parenting is credibility.
	If your children believe you, right?
	So, if you are enthusiastic to play with your children whenever possible, when you say, I can't play right now, the children never think that you're being difficult or being selfish or being mean because you genuinely...
	Like, you know, if you start dating some girl and...
	You just love every moment you spend together and then she says, Friday, I can't see you, right?
	I'd love to see you.
	I want to see you Saturday.
	I just can't see you Friday.
	You're not going to get all offended and think she's about to break up with you, right?
	Because she's expressed clearly and through her actions and words how much she wants to spend time with you and you recognize that there's some reason why.
	Maybe she'd tell you whatever, right?
	But you're not going to freak out about the relationship, right?
	Sure, sure. So if the child, oh, I'm dying to do bubbles, too.
	I mean, right in the middle of cooking right now, and we will do it as soon as humanly possible, but I would love to do some bubbles, right?
	I mean, bubbles with kids is super fun, so I get all of that, right?
	So if the child knows that you want to play and believes that you'll do it later because every time you've said, we'll do it later, it actually happens later, And then you do sometimes have to provide something to get the child off the train track, right?
	So the train track, it's like a little circular train track that kids get into, right?
	They get fixed, and people do this, adults do this, but let's talk about kids.
	They get stuck on this little fixated thing, and you remember this when you were a kid, right?
	I mean, I remember one night, I used to love going, I was on the swim team, water polo team, I was a fish, I was a big diver, and I just loved going to the swimming pool.
	I would meet friends there, we'd dive, we'd swim, you know, it would just be a blast, right?
	And one Friday, I had left my bathing suit at school.
	And I just, I was maybe 11 years old, and I just got stuck in this little train track.
	I have to go to the swimming pool.
	And, you know, my mom listened, and to her credit, right, it wasn't always bad, right, to her credit, we went across to the mall, we bought me a cheap pair of bathing suits, and I went swimming.
	Which is very nice. But I got it stuck into my head, and I sometimes get this, even as an adult.
	This is what I need.
	This is the next thing.
	This is what I'm going to do. And so if kids get into that little circular train track, bubbles are the only thing that will make me happy, ever.
	You get this lack of perspective, because they're kids, right?
	They're going to have a lack of perspective, otherwise they'd be out in the world.
	And so if the kid gets stuck in this...
	It's the only thing that will make me happy.
	It's the only thing that will make me happy.
	I mean, I had this wonderful babysitter when I was a kid.
	She used to give me a curly-whirly and let me stay up late to watch the 11 o'clock news.
	I loved it. And I was supposed to go one Friday night.
	My mom had a date, and I was supposed to go to the babysitter, and my mom's date canceled, and the babysitter was unavailable, and I just cried.
	Like all night, because I'm like, I, and I was like, I don't know, five or so.
	And I was like, I, I, I just, I just have to get to this babysitter.
	She's the only thing that will, so kids get stuck in this little groove about, this is the only thing that will make me happy.
	And when they get stuck in that groove, anything which doesn't get them directly to that thing.
	It's just unacceptable.
	And I understand that.
	You know, we have to sympathize with that and empathize with that and understand that.
	And kids have this, you know, in the checkout counter of grocery stores, you know, they see that big bright candy that's all fruit colored and they say, I gotta have it!
	And if I can't have it, it'll be terrible or whatever, right?
	And you can't ever solve these kinds of conflicts in the moment.
	It's all about the preparation.
	It's all about the preparation.
	So, the kids too, which means the kid can reason, the kid can negotiate.
	So what you do is you sit down with a kid and you say, you know what whining is, right?
	Yeah. Do you think that whining is a fair or good way to get what you want?
	I mean, would you like it if I did it?
	Or, you know, at some point the kid will say, yeah, it's probably not the best, right?
	Or something like that, right?
	And say, okay, listen, I want you to get what you want.
	I really do. As your parents, I really want you to get what you want.
	I mean, unless you want to pretend you can fly from the roof of a house, in which case I don't want you to get what you want because what you want will be a hospital trip.
	So I really do want you to get what you want.
	And sometimes we'll agree.
	Sometimes you and I will be like, bubbles, absolutely, let's go right now.
	Water balloon fight, done.
	Whatever we're going to do, we just want to do at the same time.
	And that's great. But, of course, there are times we're not going to agree.
	You're going to want to do something.
	I either won't want to do it or feel like I can't do it.
	Because parents will say, I can't, when they mean I don't want to or it's inconvenient.
	So if someone came into that household you were visiting and said to the parents, I would give you a million dollars if you go do bubbles right now, would they have been able to manage it?
	Yeah, yeah. I'm pretty sure they would have.
	Of course, right? And you've got to be really clear with kids.
	You can't lie to them.
	And again, I'm not saying your friends are liars.
	It's just habits that we have, right?
	So when they say, we can't, the kid knows whether it's physically possible or not.
	They know.
	I can't means it's impossible.
	If the kid said, I want to visit Africa and come back in the next five minutes, we'd say, well, that's not possible.
	We can't, right? It's not personal.
	It's just can't, right? But if they say we can't, when what they mean is it's inconvenient or we don't want to, then that's unfair to the kid.
	That's lying to the kid. And so that's manipulating the child by saying something is impossible when it's simply unwanted.
	Impossible versus unwanted.
	Kids know the difference. If they didn't, right, they would be jumping off house roofs or whatever, right?
	So if the parent is manipulating the child by saying something is impossible when it's simply unwanted or inconvenient, then the parent is manipulating the child.
	And then the parents get upset when the child manipulates them in return by temper tantrums or whining.
	And it's like, no, no, no, you started this ball of manipulation.
	You've got to say, we absolutely could, I really want to, but here's why I'm not going to at the moment.
	But you've got to talk about this ahead of time.
	Because if you get the agreement from the child ahead of time that whining is not fair, whining is not pleasant, and whining is not the right way to get what you want, and temper tantrums are difficult and unpleasant and not the right way to get what you want.
	If the child agrees to that ahead of time, your conflict is solved.
	Because there's no war of wills.
	There's simply a reminder.
	Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on.
	Is that whining? We had this conversation about whining, right?
	Now, we can have that conversation again.
	That's no problem. But, you know, for most kids, being lectured is like worse than just about anything.
	But if the kid agrees and says, look, temper tantrums are not the right way to get what you want.
	And whining is not the right way to get what you want.
	And lying is not the right way to get what you want.
	If you can get that agreement ahead of time with your child...
	And you can start at this about 18 months, two years, two and a half years, certainly by three.
	Then you don't have to have a battle of wills.
	You simply have to remind them that when they fall into the habit of whining, to remind them of two things.
	Number one, as a parent, the whining is your fault.
	Because if you're really strict with yourself, you realize that you've lied to and manipulated your child rather than just tell the truth.
	Which, again, it's all tempting and I'm not trying to...
	Get mad or blame anyone and, you know, I'm sure your friends are wonderful parents.
	This is just a little tweak, right?
	It's just a little improvement.
	Everyone can. I can. Everyone can improve a little on this stuff.
	So if your kid is whining, I mean, I've known a lot of kids over the course of my life.
	I worked in a daycare.
	I have a lot of friends who have kids.
	I've never seen a kid who whined when the whining didn't work and when the parents hadn't started the manipulation by saying something was impossible, when...
	It was possible. Which is a lie.
	You've got to be precise in your language with kids because they're very literal.
	When you say, we can't do it right now, the kid gets upset because he's being lied to.
	Because he knows you can do it.
	Because it's an insult to the child.
	It's an insult to the child to say, what you're asking for is impossible.
	Because that's saying the child is either crazy or selfish or like has no idea...
	You know, like, I've never seen a child in an airplane say, I really want to play outside right now.
	Like, ever. Right?
	So, if a child says, I want to do bubbles, and you say, we can't right now, that's a lie.
	And it's manipulative.
	And it's insulting to the child, so the child gets frustrated and angry.
	Makes sense. It makes a lot of sense.
	So, last thing. So, the parent has to say...
	I started it, and it only continues because it works.
	If winding doesn't work, it will not continue because children are just like, they're like water flowing down the side of a mountain.
	They're just trying to find the path of least resistance, so to speak.
	So you have to make that vow.
	If whining is happening or temper tantrums are happening, it's because I started it and it works.
	So I started it and I'm feeding it.
	Now, if you start a fire and you feed a fire, do you have any right to say, I can't believe there's this fire in my life.
	It's the worst thing ever.
	It's like, no, you started the fire and you're feeding the fire.
	And the other thing too is that Negotiating in the moment without pre-agreed rules is always a disaster.
	I mean, this is not just with kids.
	This is with anyone. Negotiating in the moment without pre-agreed rules is always a disaster.
	The whole point of relationships is you set up your rules ahead of time, right?
	I mean, when my wife and I got together, we started to become interested in each other.
	We said, here's the things we do.
	Here are the things we're not going to do.
	Marriage is forever. We're never going to do this.
	No name-calling, right? And that's the deal, right?
	The marriage vows are very serious.
	We took them very seriously. We wrote them ourselves.
	So that's the deal. That's the way the marriage works.
	That's the fact. So you've got to have these deals.
	Whining, manipulation, all this happens when you don't have pre-existing deals that you both agree on.
	And this is something, I mean, it's all about the preparation.
	Parenting is... And so once you have pre-existing deals, we don't lie, we don't manipulate, we don't whine, we don't nag, we don't have temper tantrums.
	We don't storm off in a huff.
	But it's tough because the parent then has to do that consistently as well.
	And the parent has to say, if you catch me lying, you tell me, because I don't want to do that.
	I have those habits.
	I'm not perfect, right? And then it becomes a game.
	Can the kid catch you lying? And you'd be surprised.
	When you tell your kid you have full permission to catch me lying, boom, they'll get you, man.
	And it's really healthy.
	It's really positive. So then if you commit to that, to being honest, direct, and not lying, And not exaggerating things.
	It's impossible for us to do that.
	Can't you see I'm cooking? It's like, yeah.
	Of course I can see that you're cooking.
	And I say this because my daughter doesn't whine.
	And my daughter, and people don't believe this when I say it.
	I mean, my daughter is a very passionate person.
	I think you can hear that when we do our shows together, right?
	Oh, and by the way, she wants to do a live stream with the audience as well, so we can maybe facilitate that for this weekend.
	My daughter has never had a temper tantrum.
	Never. Because we don't do that.
	I mean, we don't raise our voices.
	We don't yell. We don't call names.
	We don't any of that stuff. It doesn't mean we don't occasionally get annoyed, and she's very rarely annoyed.
	My wife's even more even-tempered.
	No, actually, they're both about as even-tempered.
	It's quite a challenge sometimes. It's great, though.
	But, yeah, she doesn't whine.
	And she's never had a temper tantrum.
	And that's because we have the rules and we have the consistency.
	And she has agreed ahead of time to not do these things and so she just won't do them.
	We've tried to, I mean, really consistently behave that way.
	So if you have a way of dealing with it, then you're not going to sit there because a lot of people are like, oh man, you know those terrible twos, and it's like, oh, you mean when your child started disagreeing with you and catching you out on falsehoods?
	Yeah, well, that's not the issue with the child.
	So I think that you don't have anything to worry about as long as you know when the kid is 18 months and upwards, depends, 13 months, I think, for some kids, but you just start to Really take delight in your children's, and it sounds like you do, and that's wonderful, and I'm sure your friends do as well.
	Really take delight in your children's existence and company.
	And once they know that, they'll know that anything that impedes what they want, it's got to be something serious, because normally you love to do things with them.
	If there's a later, always follow up, and there'll be times where you really don't want to.
	There'll be times when you really don't want to.
	It'll be like 8 o'clock at night and you suddenly remember that you were going to play a game of basketball with your kid, right?
	And you'll be like, oh, I'll just let it slide.
	Come on. I don't want to play Monopoly.
	It's late, you know.
	I don't want to have a game of Uno or whatever it is, right?
	But you have to just grit your teeth and say, no, no, no.
	I said it was going to be later.
	It's later. I've remembered.
	And you say, let's play that game of Uno now.
	Let's go play some basketball.
	I mean, I told this story many years ago, but I was driving down to do a conference in New Hampshire.
	And my daughter really wanted to go to the pool, but I've been driving all day.
	And I was like, I am tired.
	But, you know, I promise we will get up first thing tomorrow.
	We will go straight to the pool.
	Now, it was some pretty dingy Motel 6 or whatever with apparently geological samples for a mattress.
	And in the morning, I hadn't slept that well.
	I was kind of tired. I was headachy.
	I wanted a coffee. And my daughter said, hey, it's morning.
	Let's go to the pool. So what did I do?
	I went to the pool and it was cold.
	You suck it up, right?
	Because I made a commitment.
	Now, I could sit there and say, you know, let's at least have some breakfast.
	But I had said, we'll go to the pool.
	And it was my mistake. She didn't hold a knife to my throat and say, go on, punk.
	Say first thing in the morning.
	Go ahead. I dare you. It's like, no, I voluntarily said first thing in the morning.
	And so, yeah, it was cold, and the pool was cold, and it was about as unpleasant a thing as I've gone through, but it turned out to be fine.
	But the real benefit was, okay, so for like an hour of some discomfort or whatever...
	My daughter now knows that when I say first thing in the morning, it's first thing in the morning.
	She doesn't have to worry about whether it's actually going to happen.
	Anytime you let the later things slip or you don't keep your word, kids remember that.
	Like they've got bear traps for brains.
	They just remember that stuff.
	And it just becomes more and more difficult all the time.
	And that's just a general life thing.
	Just keep your word and all that, right?
	Sorry, it's a long answer, but does this sort of help?
	Absolutely. Yeah, I know. A lot of it was just good and timely reminders.
	And yeah, thank you for calming future me.
	You're very welcome. And now, of course, the other thing, too, is that now, you know, it's supposed to be really difficult with my daughter because, you know, she's 13 going on 14, right?
	She's 13 going on 14, so there's supposed to be all these difficult teenage years, right?
	Nope. She's as much of a delight and still as much fun to be with as she always was.
	And... So yeah, everyone says, oh, the next phase is tough, man.
	And I've heard this my whole life.
	And lots of people, when I was talking about peaceful parenting way back in the day, they're like, oh, yeah, it's fine when they're little.
	You wait till their teenage years.
	It's like, yeah. I said, no, the teenage years are going to be great fun.
	And they are. And yeah, she's now been a teenager for, I don't know, all of seven or eight months.
	And she's going to be 14.
	And No problems.
	It's great. I love this phase.
	I mean, I love every phase of parenting.
	Yeah, so it'll be fine.
	Don't, you know. And, you know, if your friends want to call in, you know, I'm happy to talk.
	I'm always happy to talk about parenting.
	And not from, you know, I make mistakes, and it's not a big lecture thing, but if they want to call in or anything, or if they want to pass along a question to you as well, I'd be happy to hear.
	Sure. I'll extend the invite.
	All right. Well, thanks, man. Appreciate it.
	And, yeah, thanks for doing all the peaceful parenting stuff.
	That's great to hear. Your kid is very lucky.
	All right. Take care, man. Bye.
	I'm afraid that his voice made me feel less masculine, so I'll be doing the rest of the show like this.
	Actually, that was really nice. Some atheist I did a show with many years ago had this amazing voice set up and a really nice voice as well.
	All right. Question number one.
	I sometimes get criticized for giving unsolicited advice, particularly by family, but I genuinely would want to know that information if I were in the other person's shoes.
	Am I in the wrong? If I'm okay, what's happening when I get criticized?
	I sometimes get criticized for giving unsolicited advice.
	If you can't take criticism, you don't really have a personality.
	That's one of the foundational aspects of being, you know, this meme like the NPC, right?
	If you can't take criticism, you don't really have a personality.
	Because you're just operating on the, I'm always perfect, I'm always right, and anyone who questions or criticizes me is a bad person.
	So, if you are trying to give advice to people who are foundationally incapable of self-criticism...
	Then you're trying to massage a statue.
	They're immovable. And to some degree, not hugely, but to some degree, the first half of the debate I had recently with the woman who really didn't like me and certainly didn't like my arguments on Roe v.
	Wade, again, freedomain.locals.com, it's available there.
	It's called Fairly Ferocious, the abortion debate.
	There is that. So if people...
	Don't have the willingness or the ability to criticize themselves.
	There's no relationship because you can't have any impact on them other than reinforcing their pre-existing fantasies.
	So you are a slave or a serf.
	You exist in servitude to their delusions.
	I do not like spending time.
	In fact, I don't. I'm trying to think.
	I don't spend any time with people incapable of self-criticism.
	It's not a relationship.
	Is removing choice the root of evil?
	I don't know.
	So the root of evil... Evil is defined by a knowledge of virtue with the goal of subverting it, right?
	So if you know that somebody cares about his or her good reputation...
	And then you attack that reputation knowing that it's false because they care about it and other people care about a good reputation.
	Then you're using the coinage of a good reputation which is a value in order to subvert and control and destroy people.
	If you know that other people want to keep their stuff but you steal it from them because ownership is pleasant.
	Owning their stuff is like you steal from them.
	Owning their stuff is pleasant.
	Well, that's evil because you recognize property rights because you want to keep the property rights.
	You want to keep what you've stolen. And so you are using virtue to subvert and destroy morality in order to gain the unjust rewards of immorality.
	So the root of evil is a deep knowledge of virtue with the goal of subverting it.
	How to deal with burnout or stop it happening?
	Well, you've got to pace yourself.
	You know, life is both very long and very short.
	So life is long to the point where you should exercise, you should eat well, and you should pace yourself because it's a marathon.
	Life is short, though.
	Life is short, so you've got to act in the here and now.
	You don't have forever to fix your mistakes.
	You don't have forever to turn things around.
	If there's a conversation you really need to have with someone, have it now.
	They could get hit by a bus.
	You could get hit by a bus. Life is short, so act now.
	Life is long, so pace yourself.
	But the best way to avoid burnout is to have a mission that's higher than your own ego and your own vanity and your own preferences sometimes.
	It doesn't mean do things you hate or do things that are self-destructive, but have a goal that is more important than your own ego.
	Because if you simply serve your own ego, you're too easy to manipulate.
	If you have a larger set of universal principles that you follow, you're much harder to manipulate.
	And if you're harder to manipulate, you don't end up with manipulative people in your life, which means your life is much better.
	How can you help a romantic partner or friend overcome spiritual bypass, i.e.
	avoiding real therapy in favor of the entire route of assigning a spiritual justification for their poor life choices or lack of accountability?
	Oh yeah, this is like this meme.
	I saw this really chilling meme recently.
	It really gave me pause, right?
	It said, oh, are you having a really tough time in life?
	No worries. Here's how to deal with it.
	Gaslight yourself and tell yourself that it's all for some greater good and you're being tested.
	And it's like, oh yeah, gaslight yourself.
	Maybe it is just a terrible time and you just have to get through it.
	But no, gaslight yourself. So, spiritual bypass.
	So, I could look at my deplatforming, right?
	And, because I just, I saw Lauren Southern's movie, The Whole Truth, about her experiences in the dissident rite, the alt rite.
	And, In it, she has footage from our tour in Australia.
	And yeah, she mentions it, so there's no harm in mentioning it here.
	Not only did I not get paid for the Australian tour, which made well over half a million dollars, not only did I not get paid, I ended up having to pay out of pocket, because the organizers were so, insert whatever word you want to hear, that they claimed that they were unable to pay us, and they were also unable to pay security teams and support staff and so on, So, mostly I ended up covering that out of my own pocket.
	Now, I have no regrets, and I don't, you know, it was my responsibility in some ways for not vetting them thoroughly enough, and there were some warning signs, but I just really wanted to go and do this tour.
	I wanted to have that experience.
	I wanted to speak to full halls.
	I wanted to get cross-examined and questioned.
	I wanted to get grilled in the media.
	Like, I just wanted to do all of that.
	I thought it would be enjoyable and vivid, and it was, and I have no regrets about it.
	But, yeah, thinking back, because that was only...
	Four years ago was the Australian tour.
	So yeah, I ended up not only not getting paid but going through death and bomb threats and all of that and then ended up paying out of my own pocket to make sure that people got paid because I wanted to make sure that the people who were on a salary, the people who really, really needed the money, that they would get paid.
	So I just paid them and I have no regrets about that.
	That was all fine.
	So, anyway, yeah, so the deplatforming, I could sit there and say, well, you know, that's God's way of telling me that I should focus more on the personal conversations, I should focus more on the call-in shows, I should focus more on connecting with people at a personal level regarding philosophy and spend less time on politics and current events and all that kind of stuff, right? So I could say that.
	This is the universe telling me where to refocus and so on.
	And it's like, yeah, that's certainly one possibility.
	There's one way of doing it.
	So the spiritual bypass or feeling that there's a larger plan for your life and that everything that happens for the best is tough.
	That is tough because, again, it's kind of narcissistic because it's saying anything that appears to be a giant mistake is actually the universe telling me the right way to go, even though I don't want to, right?
	And so it can be tough.
	So I think, I mean, you have to, like all of these things, you have to come up with a standard By which you can tell whether you've made a mistake.
	Right? Whether you've made a mistake.
	You have to come up with a standard by which you can tell whether you've made a mistake.
	Now, for me, one of the standards is if I knew the consequences, would I do it differently?
	Right? For me, if I'd known the consequences for The IQ stuff or whatever I did with American politics or other politics or some of the pro-family stuff or some of the, I don't know, whatever it was.
	If I'd have known that that results in the deep platform, would I still have done it?
	Yeah. Absolutely.
	And there's not even any doubt about that for me.
	Well, if I had avoided this topic or hadn't done that or hadn't done the other, then I'd still be there.
	No, no. No.
	Because then you're just a slave, right?
	You're just a slave. Because then you're just like, well, these things I know, absolutely, they're essential and important to talk about, but I'm going to be controlled to hang on to an audience so that I can avoid essential topics for them.
	No, no, I can't look in the camera and do that.
	I can't do it. I don't know how people can, but I can't.
	So no, no regrets as far as that goes.
	I mean, there are things that I do regret, but that's not it.
	So you have to have a standard by which, okay, so if everything is an ineffable plan of the universe to bring you to wisdom and truth, how will you know?
	That something isn't part of that, right?
	And if they don't have a standard, like, well, everything I do is perfect because the universe approves it in some ethereal manner, well, then you're just dealing with somebody who's kind of narcissistic and good luck.
	How can I confront my own abuser when that person is no longer alive?
	Well, you have to expand and refine your definition of what it is to be alive.
	You know, my father is dead but not dead.
	He's still alive in me.
	He's still alive in my thoughts.
	He's still alive in the effects he had on the people around him.
	So, I did a call with somebody the other day who was haunted by something he saw 25 years ago where he was a paramedic and came into a house where two children had been half beheaded by their father.
	Now, The caller, in talking about his own father, told two stories of his own father in World War II. His father was a World War II vet, and his father had to shine a light, was in a tank division, had to shine a light on a bridge to find out if there were mines on it, but was frightened to do so in case the light drew fire to the tank division.
	Shone the light on the bridge, and lo and behold, there were mines.
	So they didn't go over it and save their life.
	Another time, he was, as they were all doing, he slept under the bridge, particularly, he slept under the tank, particularly when it was raining.
	He got up in the middle of the night, had to go and pee, and when he came back, the tank had slipped its moorings and had killed everyone who was under, rolled over everyone who was underneath it and killed them.
	So, again, just...
	So, these events that happened to this veteran 70-odd years ago, 70-plus years ago, Now they're forever, right?
	These experiences, these stories, they now live forever on a podcast, on the computer, on countless computers and devices and in people's minds.
	So these stories, he's kind of come back to life.
	We resurrected his father to get two stories out of him before putting him regretfully back into the grave.
	So someone's dead?
	No, they're not. If it's your father, if it's your mother, they're still fully and perfectly alive within you.
	I mean, your mind is not even a graveyard of the dead.
	It's a living party of the dead.
	They're all in there talking with you, cajoling with you, arguing with you, encouraging you, insulting you.
	Everyone's there. And you've heard this a million times on this show, where I say to someone, oh, let's just role play.
	You be your mom, I'll be you.
	Boom! And they get it perfectly.
	Down to the cadence. I've said this many years ago.
	I'd love to do a research study where you...
	Do a brain mapping of someone, like how they think and ask them a bunch of questions, and then you ask their kid to imitate that person and to respond as their mother would.
	Let's say you do the brain imaging of the mother, answering the questions, and then you ask the daughter to imitate the mother and see if the brain patterns are pretty much the same.
	We can chameleon into other people at the drop of a hat.
	I mean, I know this as a novelist.
	I mean, the people in my novels are more vivid to me than many of the people in my actual life.
	So, he's not dead.
	Guaranteed. Absolutely, completely and totally not dead.
	He's in your head, and debate the shit out of him.
	And recognize that your abuser in your head is your protector.
	So you had an external abuser who attacked you.
	You internalized that external abuser in order to protect yourself from attack.
	In other words, if every time you sang, your abuser would hit you, you internalized that abuser so that when you think of singing, great anxiety hits you so that you won't sing, so you won't get hit.
	Your inner abuser is there to protect you from the outer abuser.
	And he does that by internalizing the trigger points of the outer abuser so you can navigate and avoid them.
	The deer internalizes the wolf.
	There is a wolf in the mind of the deer that makes the deer run when it smells wolf or sees grass moving or things go quiet.
	The prey internalizes the predator so the prey can survive.
	So find a way to get yourself to a place of safety so that your internal wolf can rejoin your personality.
	Because if you're still in a place of danger, your internal guards won't lay down their arms.
	You know, when I was in Australia and New Zealand, I needed a constant security detail.
	I was being hunted through the streets by leftists, had to hide and dodge.
	Very exciting. But once I was on the plane going home, I didn't need the security detail anymore.
	Lauren was rushed on stage.
	I'm a fairly big guy. Just under six feet tall.
	190 pounds and change.
	Not super muscular, but I work out.
	And nobody rushed me.
	But I remember going to the bathroom.
	I would go to the bathroom in a common area and people would come in behind me and I'd think, well, hope I don't get shivved while I pee.
	Because, you know, there was a lot of violence and threats.
	And the media just Sadly, only complaining about me, just kind of encouraging all this stuff.
	Just terrible. So, yeah, if you get to a place of safety, you don't need your security detail.
	You can incorporate those elements of your personality.
	They can lay down their arms, they can retire, and they can have some fun, which is kind of important.
	Thoughts on the Hunter Biden leaks.
	Is smoking crack through a Glock barrel with a Ukrainian hooker an effective form of gun control?
	I mean, it's a portal to hell, isn't it?
	It's a portal to hell itself.
	And yeah, this is the environment and the families of the people in charge.
	It's nothing that philosophy really has to say anything about that.
	How to maintain a healthy lifestyle and not neglect yourself while you have a toddler?
	Well... That you want to enjoy your toddler's toddler and therefore you have to take care of yourself.
	And recognize that parenting is not just interacting with your child, of course, right?
	Parenting is modeling the behavior that you want for your child from your child as your child grows.
	So if you completely cast aside your own preferences and your own desires in order to cater to your toddler, you're not teaching balance in the relationship and you're not teaching the toddler how to take care of yourself.
	Or himself or herself when he or she gets older.
	Right, so I would chat with my daughter and I would say, I'm going down to exercise.
	Now, I couldn't really chat while I was doing cardio because I cardio pretty hard.
	But if I was just doing a weight machine, like I have one of those little weight machines in the basement.
	So if I'm doing the weight machine, I'm like, yeah, come on down.
	Let's chat while I exercise.
	Would she rather not be down in the basement while I'm exercising?
	Yeah, but if she wants to chat, I'm saying, look, but what I'm doing is I'm showing her that you have to take care of yourself, and you have to, you know, and you can't just cater to other people.
	That's what you want, right? Does having a very strong emotional reaction to an issue result in one's arguments being necessarily less rational?
	I would not say that that's true.
	So, there's this kind of paradox, right?
	So, To have something that you care about, something that is a big issue for you, means that you're going to research about it, you're going to read about it, you're going to find out the facts about it, you're very passionate about it.
	So what that means is that the thing that you studied the most is the thing that you have the least credibility in.
	Because you study things because you care about them, right?
	I mean, my family was attacked by both Nazis and Communists, right?
	My family on my mother's side...
	Was suppressed and hunted during the Second World War by the Nazis because they're a bunch of free thinkers and intellectuals and all that.
	So, you know, getting in trouble with the powers that be is not exactly unknown.
	On my father's side, one of my ancestors, William Molyneux, who was best friends with John Locke, was hunted all throughout Ireland for criticizing the king.
	So this is not, you know, this is an old family tradition, getting in trouble with the powers that be for telling the truth.
	So, and I have it pretty much the easiest of most of my ancestors.
	My mother was terrorized by Russians when the Russians invaded eastern Germany towards the closing end of World War II. And I'm sure that absolutely horrifying things happened to her as a child from the Russians because rape was a weapon of war and all these awful things.
	So... When it comes to criticizing collectivism, totalitarianism, national socialism, communism, and so on, yeah, I take it pretty fucking personally.
	I care about it a lot.
	It triggers me, if that's a phrase.
	Yeah, I take it pretty fucking personally that my family that was hunted and murdered and raped by communists and national socialists I take that pretty fucking personally.
	Now, does that mean that I'm irrational on the topic?
	No. It means that I care about the topic enough to get it right.
	So if emotion means that you're wrong, then everything that you study, and the more you study because you care about it, the more, it means that the more you study, the more you're wrong.
	It's a way of making sure that people just don't have credibility.
	So, no. Strong emotional reaction to an issue?
	Now, if it's just triggering...
	Right, so in my debate with the woman about abortion, she said, well, education is the answer.
	You know, you just, education is educate people and you'll reduce teenage pregnancy.
	And I'm like, oh, do you have any data behind that?
	No, it's just common sense.
	Okay, well, that's different. So then her passion has led her, a defensive passion leads you to avoid information.
	A genuine passion leads you to pursue information.
	Defensive passion leads you to enjoy, to avoid information.
	Alright. I'm wondering what the ethical implications are of posting children on the internet, particularly when involving them in profit-generating social media content.
	Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of that stuff.
	I'm not. As you guys know, I haven't posted a picture of my child on the internet since she was a baby.
	Because it's not her choice, right?
	I mean, obviously, I'm a controversial figure and all that.
	So, no, I don't.
	I don't post any pictures of my family on the internet.
	And I'm not a huge fan of it myself because...
	Children can't give consent to being perpetually on the internet.
	Now, I mean, if you're just some average Joe and you're posting some pictures of your family on Facebook for your friends, I mean, okay, fine.
	But if it's like a...
	If you're a thing or a business or you're controversial or whatever, then children, they can't give consent to their image being used in perpetuity.
	So, I'm not a huge fan.
	Alright. To what extent can parents interfere on a child's bodily autonomy?
	Ear-piercing, forcing certain food and clothing?
	No, I don't think that children should interfere with a child's bodily autonomy.
	I don't think you can force children to eat particular foods.
	I don't think you can force children to get ear piercing.
	Children don't want to get their ears pierced unless they're subject to a lot of propaganda.
	I mean, who wants to get a needle stuck through their earlobe?
	That's crazy, right? And clothing?
	No. Wear what you want.
	I mean, if we're going to a nice restaurant, then I would certainly encourage you to dress nicely.
	And if you don't want to dress nicely, then we won't go to a nice restaurant.
	That's your choice. But no, you have to respect the child's bodily autonomy.
	Now, this doesn't mean that the child can just eat candy, but the conversation you have with your child is, you know, like, I'm responsible to deliver you to adulthood as healthy, as a healthy person, right?
	That's my job, right?
	As a parent, that's my job.
	I have to deliver to you, at the age of 18, healthy mind, healthy body.
	That's not a choice. That's not an option.
	That's the deal. So the way that I would say this to my daughter when she was younger, like all kids, she wants candy and all that, and I'd say, look, let's say that candy makes you overweight.
	Now, I have to answer to you when you're 18.
	So if she was 8, I could 10 years from now, you're going to turn to me and say, Dad, I'm overweight.
	And I'll say, but you wanted candy 10 years ago.
	Will you accept that as an answer or will you say, Dad, I would rather not have had the candy 10 years ago and not be overweight right now?
	Of course. I mean, of course you would, right?
	Let's say that eating too much candy gives you problems with your teeth and you have to go through, I don't know, dental surgery or something like that.
	Well... Would you say to me, I'm so glad you let me have that candy, Dad.
	I'm very happy to be going through dental surgery.
	It's like, of course you wouldn't, right?
	Of course you wouldn't. So I have to be able to answer the questions that you're going to ask me when you get to be 18.
	Now, if you have a joyless childhood with no fun and no candy or nothing, And you say, you know, Dad, I think we could have loosened up and I could have had a little bit more fun and had some candy, right?
	I think you would say that.
	So, you know, have some candy.
	That's fine. I like candy.
	I mean, only chocolate, really.
	It's the only thing that I really like.
	Hard candies are just...
	I have too many associations with old British women with hard candies from the Mesozoic era.
	Putting them in and basically they tasted like slightly sugared marbles.
	So... You have to get your children to understand that their adult selves are going to inherit the decisions they make at the moment, right?
	And I don't have to answer to you at the moment.
	I would say I don't have to appease you in the moment.
	My job is to deliver you to adulthood healthy in mind and body.
	Now, healthy in body means not too much sugar.
	Healthy in mind might mean, oh, have a little sugar, it's fine, you know, it's fun and all that.
	And that way, you know, you have to teach your kids how to manage temptation, right?
	Everyone has this thing when you're a kid, right?
	You're in a candy store, you're a tobacconist or confectionery store or convenience store or whatever, there's rows and rows of candy and you say, oh man, when I get older...
	I get a job. I'm just going to buy all this candy and eat it, right?
	And then, of course, you get older and you're like, no, I can't.
	So, I get it, right?
	So, no, you give your children bodily autonomy with the understanding that your job is to deliver them to adulthood, healthy in mind and body.
	And that's not a choice.
	Now, so, yeah, you have to expose them to some temptation and And help them learn how to manage it and all of that.
	I'm aware of Stefan's opinion on circumcision.
	It's not an opinion, but okay.
	And I wholeheartedly agree. I believe it's one of the worst atrocities committed en masse in the modern world.
	Yeah, well, circumcision is one of these things, as I was talking about before, that really helps you understand just how people don't care about men.
	Don't care about men. Female circumcision, totally illegal.
	Male circumcision, yeah, it's great.
	In a free society, parents would, I assume, be completely free to raise their children as they please instead of policing parents.
	It's a viable solution to allow adult children to sue their parents for circumcision or things like that.
	So, I'm afraid I'm going to refer you to my book, The Future, which deals with all of this.
	How do you want your corpse to be treated when you're dead?
	Will you donate organs? Thoughts on cryogenic freezing?
	Yeah, it's fine if you can afford it.
	Donating organs is a fine thing to do, I'm sure.
	I want my brain to be examined to figure out just how big my language center is.
	I think it's going to be pretty damn enormous.
	I stopped drinking earlier this year, says a listener.
	I'm in my early 40s and I'm struggling to make the same impact when out with friends slash dates.
	Is there a good way to draw out that charisma I used to have when a little drunk?
	Thanks. Yeah, so alcohol is a disinhibitor.
	And recognize that by using alcohol as a disinhibitor, you have inhibited your own capacity to overcome your inhibition, right?
	So if you used alcohol to loosen up, then every time you use the alcohol to loosen up, you were saying to yourself, I can't loosen up without alcohol.
	So you've lost those skills.
	You haven't had those skills. So just recognize that relying on the alcohol Cause you to lose skills where you needed to have them and just slowly learn to develop and then figure out what's inhibiting you from being charismatic and outgoing and having fun.
	What's inhibiting you? Usually it's a form of self-criticism.
	There are a lot of parents who so ego identify with their kids that if their kids act in ways that are, quote, embarrassing, the parents get crushingly embarrassed and so they just control their kids and that results in a lot of inhibition which can sometimes feel like the only way to overcome it is alcohol or whatever, right?
	And I was surprised at that when I became a parent, just how easy it is to slip into that mindset.
	Like, my daughter didn't like to share, and I was like, when kids would come over, she wouldn't want to share anything, and I would just feel crushed, and I had to really deal with that.
	It's really surprising just what a powerful thing that is, and maybe it's more of a British thing, I don't know.
	Thoughts on Stoicism? Well, you know, I think that there are some evils we have to bear and some evils that we can work to change.
	And so, Stoicism, I think, leads a little bit more towards accepting evils and a little bit less towards fighting them.
	I've heard you say that prayer is linked to self-knowledge.
	Does it have something to do with the MECO system?
	Well, for that, I will refer you to my free book, Against the Gods, at freedomain.com forward slash books, where I have my whole theory of God as the unconscious.
	How do you tell if teasing is malicious or not?
	By the emotions it brings up.
	What if I'm overreacting out of past trauma?
	So, teasing is malicious.
	If the person being teased is not enjoying it.
	If the person being teased is not enjoying it, but the teasing continues, then teasing is malicious.
	Without a doubt, right? I mean, it's like sexual activity, right?
	The person you're having sex with should be enjoying what you're doing.
	If they're not enjoying what you're doing and you keep doing it, that's pretty bad, right?
	So... Teasing?
	Also, teasing is often a form of passive aggression.
	So, what sort of childhood do you think produces someone like Descartes?
	I would assume neglect.
	Thoughts on insomnia caused by racing thoughts and non-stop dialogues revisited or imagined in your head.
	It stops when self-medicating with podcasts, music, or substances.
	Physical exhaustion helps too.
	Well, I mean, I'm not exactly a great one to help people with incessant racing thoughts, but what I would say...
	Is that if you look at dogs when they're sleeping, you can see them twitching and baring their teeth and half running a little, and they're practicing chasing.
	Dreams are a dress rehearsal for emergencies a lot of times, which is why dreams tend to be hazardous in many ways.
	So if you get yourself to as safe and secure a place in life as possible, then your mind will not race in this kind of way.
	If you're in a situation where you're in danger or threat or you've got unease or there's difficult or dangerous people in your environment or you're sedated at risk or whatever, then your brain is going to keep racing, right?
	So an example would be, let's say you wake up in the middle of the night and you think you hear a thump from downstairs, right?
	Okay, that's going to get your attention, right?
	Now, can you go back to sleep without checking the house?
	Probably not, right?
	I remember when I moved into a house once, the house was settling.
	And there'd be all these creaks and thumps and bumps, and it was kind of a house in the middle of nowhere, so it was kind of alarming.
	So yeah, I'd have to get up and check the house, and then I'd get back to sleep.
	But I couldn't get back to sleep without checking the house because I'm not sure if I'm still in a state of danger or not, right?
	Is there a bit of break-in or has something fallen or whatever, right?
	So if you get to a state that's as secure as possible, to a mindset that is as secure as possible, to a place in your life where you're as safe as possible, you get there, Then your mind will most likely race less, or race in a more productive and pleasant manner.
	Thoughts on cruelty from mentors when you're learning new skills under their supervision.
	It's an incredibly vulnerable position to be in, and some like to enact their sadism onto the apprentice.
	I've quit a job because of that, best decision of that year.
	I've tried to manage such situations by being friendly, getting angry, counterattack, or being extremely direct.
	All the varying success. Leaving is best if you can afford it, to be honest.
	Yeah, people are revealed by the vulnerability of those around them.
	Their true natures, their true souls are revealed by the vulnerability of those around them.
	If they are cruel to people around them when those people are vulnerable, well, then they're just kind of jerks.
	They're just kind of mean and just don't engage, don't write.
	I mean, I was a mentor for many years.
	I mean, I guess in some ways, when I have call-in shows, it's kind of in a mentor position in a way, right?
	So people are very vulnerable, and I'm very gentle with them.
	I'm very positive and encouraging and enthusiastic.
	In the business world, I was a mentor to programmers.
	I was a mentor. I trained salespeople.
	I trained marketers. I trained programmers.
	I trained the QA, QC people.
	And so I was very much a mentor for people and imparting information.
	And people would get staticky and frightened.
	You know, it took me forever to figure out how to ask people to come into my office without scaring the crap out of them, right?
	And, right, because if you say to someone, you know, can you come into my office now, please?
	Right, they get really, oh my God, I've done something right.
	So, you know, I finally figured on, can I just borrow you for a second?
	And that would make them come in and not be tense, right?
	Because every morning I'd have a meeting with people, the entire development team on progress and problems and so on.
	So, yeah, when people are vulnerable, other people's true self comes out and often it's not very pretty to see.
	What is the thought process of people who invite you somewhere and then, when you arrive, ask, how did you decide to come?
	Because they invited me, duh, but it made me feel extremely confused.
	It's if I hadn't received an invitation.
	It has happened to be twice at different people.
	It can't just be low IQ or lack of self-awareness, right?
	No, they're testing you.
	They're testing to see whether you will stand up and point out the absurdity of the position.
	They're trying to figure out whether you're compliant or not so they can figure out whether to bully and exploit you.
	I have a bad habit, someone says, of oversharing and rambling on longer than necessary.
	Oh, look at that. We're at two hours.
	It's difficult for me to be concise when I need to be.
	What do you think may be the cause of this behavior?
	Is it a lack of meaningful connection?
	So, how do you know that you're oversharing and rambling on?
	Is it because other people get impatient?
	Like, why would you assume that it's you?
	Maybe other people are getting impatient because they're impatient people, or they don't like detail, or They're easily distracted or they're easily bored, right?
	It may not be you. It may not be you at all.
	Why does domestic violence towards women get you a higher ACE score than the other way around?
	The survey didn't have a scenario where a man, a father or a male sibling, is a victim of female violence.
	Well, I mean, I've worked for many years on the issue of female violence.
	I've got a whole series on female evil and victims of female abuse and so on.
	Female violence is just not a topic that the world is very ready for.
	Which means that it's...
	So, power structures in the world, to a large degree, rest on female violence or female preference for violence, right?
	Because if a female marries and has children or raises children with a violent man, she has a preference for violence.
	So, female violence goes against our programming because to criticize women is to not be able to reproduce.
	So, to criticize women goes very much against...
	That is going to keep you going.
	Because if you just go with your preferences, you end up impotent, because you then end up like an animal, just following immediate instincts rather than larger principles that cause discomfort.
	Criticizing women will often get you ostracized from female company, and because there's female in-group preference and female tribalism, you can get shut out of reproducing.
	So criticizing women, pointing out immoralities or deceptions or problems with women, like this, again, this happened in this debate, Where I pointed out that 80% of women who are raped are raped by someone they know.
	It's not just strangers jumping them in an alley and then the woman got really angry at me and accused me of all kinds of terrible things.
	I'm like, no, there's a category that's more preventable and we should really work to try and minimize the prevalence of rape by helping women look for red flags and all that kind of stuff.
	But yeah, female responsibility, female violence, female dysfunction, female manipulation, female falsehoods, particularly in the legal arena.
	Criticizing women goes against the grain, because if women decide to shut you out from reproduction, that's it for your genes.
	Where to meet good women?
	I'll do a show on that. Many people speak of red flags in potential partners, but let's have some optimism.
	What do you consider to be green flags for a relationship, and how do you manage to sniff them out in people?
	So one of the big green flags is when there's a conflict, people don't escalate and they follow up.
	Not escalating means you have a conversation, you get frustrated and get annoyed, but nobody starts yelling or calling names or running out or getting hysterical.
	And also, if there is a conflict that remains unresolved, someone circles back and tries to resolve it again.
	That's a really good green flag.
	If the future was ever made into a movie, which actor would you like to have play the main character and who should direct it?
	Well, I should direct it.
	I mean, without a doubt. I mean, I actually have experience in directing plays, directing theater and so on.
	And of course, I was in theater school for close to two years.
	So I have some experience.
	I've directed a couple of plays and all of that.
	Now, oh gosh, I'm trying to remember the name of this actor.
	Oh, gosh. Do you know how long it was kind of sad?
	Do you know how long it took me to remember Office Space was the Mike Judge movie I was trying to remember from a couple of shows ago?
	Okay. The only thing I remember, he was in a movie I've never seen called Jade.
	Jade? The movie. I think it was called The movie.
	He was a big TV star in the 80s.
	And David Caruso.
	So David Caruso is someone that I vaguely had...
	But I'm thinking back in the view for David in the novel.
	Oh gosh, I don't know who could play Lewis.
	Oh, that is such... I mean, maybe a young Jack Nicholson, but I don't think he's got the intellectual acuity to play somebody that linguistically brilliant.
	So I'd have to sort of think about that.
	It's funny, I remember there was a movie, another movie I've never seen called Rush.
	Oh gosh. And Rush...
	I've never seen the movie...
	And it's an old movie.
	That's right. Rush, and gosh, who was in it?
	It was a male who was in it, and there was a photo.
	Jason Patrick. Yeah, so Jason Patrick in the movie Rush with a beard was how I pictured Lawrence from Just Poor, and that was much more vivid that way.
	So, yeah, so that would be a challenge finding the child actress for sure, but...
	Some child actors can be just fantastic, right?
	All right. Let's do one or two more.
	What do you make of people who need to have the last word?
	So the reason that people need to have the last word is so they can avoid the torturous mental chatter of continuing the debate for themselves.
	Right, so they're trying to avoid a form of self-torture.
	The self-torture is if they don't get the last word and consider the debate closed off and done and dusted and they've won and they can put it behind them, Then they're up all night trying to get the last word in and then they feel humiliated because then they have to come back and they feel humiliated because the person who comes back is always the one who's thinking more about the debate and is more upset and this and that and the other.
	So the last word thing is a way of just avoiding the mental torture of continuing the debate all night long in your own head.
	I think I will stop here.
	It's been a nice, long, old, juicy show.
	And yeah, I really, really do appreciate you guys.
	Dropping by and listening and supporting the show, freedomain.com forward slash donate.
	If you could help out the show, boy, would I ever appreciate it.
	It would be enormously helpful for me and I would really thank you for it until the end of time.
	And foot rubs available for free.
	Not from me, but from someone in your life who listens.
	So freedomain.com forward slash donate.
	Check out my free books, freedomain.com forward slash books.
	And you can, of course, join the community at freedomain.locals.
	And yeah, I've got some cool stuff coming up.
	Some cool new stuff that's coming up.
	And I'll keep you posted about all of that.
	And thanks everyone for dropping by tonight.
	A huge, deep and wonderful pleasure to chat with you.
	Have yourself a wonderful evening.
	We will talk on Friday night.
	Lots of love from here. Take care.

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