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Aug. 1, 2022 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:25:42

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Time	Text
	Good morning, everybody.
	Hope you're doing well. It's Steph.
	Oh, pinch-punch. Well, close to the last day of the month.
	Hope you're doing well. It is late.
	Late July 2022.
	And I hope you're having a wonderful day.
	Welcome to your Sunday. Welcome to our shared and collective Sunday.
	That's right. Make me feel like a millionaire.
	All right, so I got a bunch of questions from supporters.
	I will do the first question or two for everyone, and then, you know, just to give you time, if you want to go to freedomand.locals.com, you can join up, and then you can continue to watch the live stream.
	But I did ask supporters for their questions, the people who are supporting the show through freedomand.locals.com.
	So I'll do the first couple of questions for everyone.
	Give you time if you felt like moseying over to freedom.locals.com.
	Signing up, then you can join in for the rest of the conversation.
	I'll be taking questions here live as well.
	Good evening from Europe.
	Well, good evening. Hope you're doing well.
	Hope you're having a wonderful...
	I hope you had a wonderful Sunday.
	Hello, good morning. Just finished my coffee and it was so strong that my ears are ringing.
	Tinnitus, the joys of middle age.
	Alright, so let's get straight to the questions.
	The first one is a parenting question.
	It says, Hey Apple!
	Hey Steph, I have an 18-month-old son and whenever I have him, he's a joy, laughing and playing.
	But when his mom comes home, he will cry if left alone with me, like if she walks out of the room.
	I can't get him to calm down, and the only thing that works is his mother picking him up.
	We have never hit him, although I've had to raise my voice to get him to stop doing something that may hurt him.
	Is that the cause of this, and how would you go about rectifying the situation?
	Thanks. Well, I don't know if you're in the chat.
	If you are...
	Whoa. Uh...
	Oh, there we go. Yes, so if you're in the chat, please identify yourself.
	Name, rank, serial number, Frosted Flakes.
	So, yes, it's an interesting question.
	So, if kids have ended up with particular habits, if babies have ended up with particular habits, then what you need to do, I think, is you need to train them to drop those habits, to lose those habits.
	So, if his mother is there, now it could be that he's hungry, right, if she's breastfeeding or has been the primary breastfeeding source, which I hope she has.
	It could be that your child is hungry and simply wants food, but...
	And I guess the question is, has his mother ever raised her voice to get him to stop doing something that may hurt him?
	So, you can break the habit, right?
	I mean, you can get children to break habits.
	You simply have him not go to his mother, and he'll cry, and he'll realize that he's fine if he doesn't go to his mother, because he's got this association, right?
	Mother is comfort, mother is plus, better than father.
	So if you don't give him to his mother when the mother comes home, he'll cry, and then he'll realize it's not so bad, and he'll get over it, right?
	This idea that we should never allow our children to suffer in any way, shape, or form is a very bad idea.
	I think it raises, you know, maybe mildly spoiled, mildly entitled, and not...
	So my daughter and I once went to a resort for a couple of days, just her and I, Which is great fun.
	But she found the pool too warm.
	I don't know. I mean, it's one of the things when you grow up poor and underprivileged, then when, you know, if you can provide your kids some decent stuff, then...
	When they complain that the pool's too warm, it's just like, oh, is your majesty's pool not quite the right temperature?
	It's a little tough. So I think that you do want to make sure that your kids learn that they can overcome resilience, which means don't always accommodate their every wish, their every need.
	Now, that having been said, don't yell at him.
	Don't yell at him. To get him to stop doing something that may hurt him.
	Okay. The first, let's say, first two years.
	I don't know what the expert opinion is.
	The first two years. All right. Here's the thing.
	Here's the way it works. You are 150% interacting with your baby.
	150%. Babies can't self-stimulate and all that, right?
	So you're 150% interacting with your baby.
	If your baby's up, someone's interacting with him.
	Now you say, ah, but I have things to do, this and the other.
	Okay, well, bring him with, right?
	Bring him with, right? Put him on your hip if you're cleaning the kitchen.
	You know, just have him with you.
	Don't leave him unattended and don't get him, I'm not saying you're leaving him unattended, but don't get him into a situation where you've got to yell at him to get him to stop doing something that may hurt him.
	One sec. Sorry, little frog in the throat.
	So you've got to just stay with him at all times, interact with him, play with him, and then he's not going to be in a situation where he's going to be doing something that may hurt him.
	I just don't have that be the case.
	You say, ah, but that's a big investment.
	Yes, it is, but boy, is it ever going to pay off later.
	And all the time that you might save by leaving him somewhat unattended so you're not close enough to prevent him from doing something that might hurt him, all of that time that you save there is going to be expended on trying to deal with the outcome of perhaps this, which is you yelling at him, therefore he prefers his mother, therefore you've just shifted therefore he prefers his mother, therefore you've just shifted the burden to your wife.
	So just be with him, hold him, play with him, carry him around, talk with him.
	And you talk with him like I would explain to my daughter what I was doing when I was setting up a computer.
	You know, they're just around and like to listen, like to see what you're doing.
	They can't really understand what you're saying.
	So you just have to always be interacting.
	And then you have to sort of figure out, okay, if my son prefers my mother, what's the difference?
	And if the mother doesn't yell, then you have to figure out how to not yell.
	So that would be it. All right.
	Let's see here. How's everyone doing?
	Why do toddlers bite?
	And any tips on how to get them to stop biting?
	Toddlers bite... Based on aggression, I believe.
	And the way that you... Sorry, I moved my microphone to the wrong place here.
	The way that you get them to stop biting is to figure out what they're expressing through their aggression and try and find a way to address or resolve that.
	So, what would you say, Steph, to someone who says they are completely moral and a, quote, good person...
	But they are pulling a paycheck from a government institution.
	They had many discussions about taxation as theft and they openly admit they cannot argue about the logic of it, but they somehow don't think it's quite right to call it theft because we need government blah blah blah blah blah.
	The reason this came up is because the person kept insisting they're a moral and good person, but then they couldn't articulate further.
	They use examples of not breaking the law and not harming people as proof they are good.
	I mean, it's a big question about UPB. UPB is the identification of evil, and it is necessary but not sufficient to be good to not do evil, right?
	If you're not sick, that doesn't mean that you're very healthy.
	It just means that you're not sick.
	If you're not doing evil, it doesn't mean that you're super virtuous.
	It just means that you're not evil.
	I'd be perfectly happy to live in a world where just about everybody was not evil, not initiating the use of force through rape, theft, assault and murder, not committing fraud, not breaking contracts, not hitting their children.
	So I would be very happy to live in a world where people just weren't evil, but actual positive and moral virtues require the exercise both to inculcate good moral habits in yourself, and good moral habits are more than just don't do evil.
	So if you are somebody hugely committed to helping people be healthy, to expanding health, human health, physical health, to expanding health in the world, then it's necessary but not sufficient that you yourself be healthy, both for reasons of having the energy to do it and having credibility to do it.
	So the way that you would promote health, physical health in the world, is you would talk about good nutrition, you would talk about exercise, you would talk about no smoking, and you would talk about the habits that would be most likely to result in physical health for people.
	So if you think of evil as sickness, and the absence of sickness not being the presence of health, Because you could be 400 pounds, not physically ill at the moment, but you're not healthy.
	You could be somebody who smoked for 20 years.
	You're not physically ill.
	I mean, you've obviously damaged your cells, but you're not physically ill in the moment.
	You don't have lung cancer or COPD or emphysema or something.
	So you're not actually sick, but nobody would say really that you're healthy.
	So to be healthy, to have health as your core value, as a central value, you would both be very healthy yourself and work to promote good health in the world.
	So virtue is not just the absence of evil, in the same way that health is not just the absence of sickness, but health is the active promotion of healthy habits for yourself.
	And if health is your highest value, and you of course want to share it with other people, it's not just a value for you, it's a value for everyone, then you would work very hard to promote I have healthy habits and practices throughout the world.
	So the virtues that I have, such as they are, doesn't just mean, well, I don't initiate the use of force, I don't hit people, I don't hit my kid, I don't lie, I don't break contracts and all of that.
	And lying and breaking contracts is different.
	Lying is aesthetically negative behavior, but breaking contracts would be something that would be a form of theft.
	Fraud is a form of theft.
	Not keeping your contracts is a form of theft.
	So, lying is not necessarily a form of theft, you know.
	If somebody says they've lost weight, but they don't look any different to you, but you say, oh, you look good, right?
	Then that's not, you're not stealing anything from them.
	You're not initiating force against them or removing property from them against their will and choice.
	So, if you're a moral and good person, wonderful.
	That means that you have developed good moral habits for yourself.
	That you are surrounded by moral people and also that the pinnacle is that you promote moral excellence in the world as a whole.
	That you work to swell morality.
	Now that's partly for moral reasons and it's also partly for practical reasons.
	If you are moral, but you don't do anything to promote morality in those around you, it could just be your immediate circle, it could be friends, it could be family, it could be more general, more social, such as I do.
	But if you are moral yourself, but you don't do anything to promote morality, then evil will generally win and remove from you your ability to be moral, either by putting you in morally compromised situations at the point of a gun or by killing you directly.
	It is a form of self-defense to promote morality in the world.
	And it's a little bit different in the same way.
	So when you have socialized medicine, the promotion of healthy eating and exercise habits is a form of self-defense because when people get sick, they have their hands in your wallet through the agency of the state.
	So it's a form of economic self-defense in a socialized or collectivized healthcare system to promote morality So if somebody says you're a moral and good person, but the only thing they can say is, well, I haven't broken the law and I've not harmed people.
	Okay, so that is the existence of an immediate illness, although there have been plenty of people who did great evils in dictatorships or other tyrannical systems by not breaking the law.
	So, you ask them, okay, what is goodness and how are you promoting it?
	What are you doing to promote it?
	Now, if volunteerism is what they want to promote, you do kind of have to look at your own life from a certain credibility standpoint if you want to affect the world for the better.
	You just have to. I mean, this is so obvious, right?
	I would not... Put myself on the cover of a book I wrote on how to regrow your hair.
	Because I'm bald, right?
	A fat person can't be a personal trainer.
	A guy who chain smokes can't be an expert on quitting smoking.
	These are just basic facts.
	These are just basic facts. You can say, ah, but a fat person could be an excellent person to help you lose weight.
	And it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but...
	We have limited time being mortal beings, so we have to judge people pretty quickly.
	So if you want to promote virtue, then your life itself needs to be in accordance with your values.
	I could not promote peaceful parenting and be a violent parent.
	I mean, obviously, I could, but if it was clear that I was a violent parent who was promoting peaceful parenting, nobody would listen.
	I mean, there are people who dismiss Ayn Rand because she took old age pensions from the government when she was younger, even though she said, look, I paid into the system, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	So, and you know, one of the greatest compliments you can ever get as a moral person is that bad people have to lie about you in order to discredit you.
	Because if you're not a good person, but you're only pretending to be a good person, then people tell the truth about you and they discredit you.
	But if people have to lie about you to discredit you, that's a real sign of your virtue.
	So I would be curious with this kind of person.
	Sam, what's your definition of virtue and how are you promoting it and so on?
	As far as working for the government, I mean, if you're promoting voluntarism and working directly for the government, you are not really able to spread the ideal of voluntarism while working for the government.
	I mean, really, it's just like being a fat person.
	If you're a fat person, but you believe that you're an expert in diet and exercise and you really want to spread your values of diet and exercise to the world, the first thing you should do is lose the weight and exercise.
	And you should do that before.
	Or maybe you do it as part of the process, the before and after.
	But if you don't care enough about your diet and exercise program to follow it yourself, I'm not going to bother learning about it.
	Because if you don't believe in your system, why would I invest time in it?
	I mean, or you do believe in your system, you're following it and you end up fat.
	So, yeah, it's not a good plan.
	So, yeah, if somebody wants to do that, I think that's great.
	But you really do have to...
	Let's see here. Ah, um, skip a few.
	Okay, I'll do this last one, and then we'll go to subzoning.
	Remember, freedomain.locals.com, you can subscribe to these.
	Skip a few touched on this the other night, but can you elaborate on how your daughter never had a tantrum?
	I find it really difficult to be preventative about every potential conflict of our interests with my toddler.
	We are great at it in a lot of ways, I think, and in general, my son is very, quote, well-behaved, as others would call it, but I'm curious where we can improve on this.
	Um... That's a big question, of course, and it's hard to know without more details exactly what you're talking about.
	But I will say this.
	If you are the greatest prize your toddler can get, if time with you is the greatest prize your toddler can get, then as long as you're paying attention to your toddler, your toddler is getting...
	I mean, assuming you're fed and given health care.
	If you are the greatest prize your toddler can get or can have...
	Then spending time with you is the greatest benefit your toddler can have.
	And therefore, if they're spending time with you and you're playing, you're chatting, you're having fun, you're playing tiddlywinks or whatever it is that you're doing, then your child is getting, your toddler is getting what he or she needs and there won't be any tantrums.
	The big temptation, of course, is to say, well, there's things in the world that are more important than my care, time, and attention with my toddler.
	And this belief that you need to keep a reserved part of yourself that's just, you know, I need some adult time, I need some adulting.
	It's like, well, that you get from your spouse when your kids are asleep.
	I'm going to get your friends or whatever, right?
	But when you become a parent...
	I mean, your kid is your focus.
	I don't know how to put it more bluntly than that.
	When you become a parent, you've brought and summoned a helpless, dependent child, infant, human being, into your environment, wholly dependent upon you for everything.
	So that is your sole and only focus.
	That is your soul. There shouldn't be other things just kind of pulling you in different directions.
	I've got to do this. I've got to do that.
	It's like, no, no, no. You have to spend time with your kid.
	You get that bond down and you will have more than enough time down the road to get done what you need to get done.
	But for the first year or two for sure, it's just all about the kid.
	And if your son is enjoying your company or your daughter and you're spending time with them and you're interacting with them and you're engaging them, then...
	Why would there be a tantrum?
	They're getting what they want.
	They're getting what they need. So have a very positive, enjoyable, really focused relationship with your kid.
	And if your kid knows that they are your number one priority, that you really, really move heaven and earth to enjoy spending time with them, then where would they get their tantrums from?
	Where would they get their tantrums from?
	Alright, so let's see here.
	When my wife and I discuss UPB, she says the criticism of a moral rule to be universal is a subjective criterion.
	Sorry, the criterion. Sorry, one sec.
	Let me start that again. When my wife and I discuss UPB, she says the criterion of a moral rule to be universal is a subjective criterion.
	Therefore, UPB is subjective.
	The argument becomes this.
	We have to all agree on the subjective definition of universalism.
	Help, please. Really?
	We have to all agree?
	She's just created a universal rule.
	Right? The criterion of a moral rule to be universal is subjective.
	Therefore, UBB is subjective.
	So, is she saying that all universal rules are subjective?
	Did you see the contradiction?
	All universal rules are subjective.
	Okay. The statement, all universal rules are subjective, is that an A, subjective, or B, objective statement?
	Well, it's an objective statement. Therefore, your wife has created an objective statement.
	Moral statement that all universals are subjective.
	So once you've created one universal statement, and the moment you correct another human being according to things not of your opinion, right?
	I like blue, you like green.
	We can't correct each other. It's just a personal preference.
	But the moment that your wife has corrected you according to a universal standard and said you must abandon this and pursue the truth, the truth is infinitely preferable to error, universalism is infinitely preferable to subjective opinions, she's just UPB'd.
	She's tried to use UPB to get rid of UPB. So once she accepts, at the moment she corrects you, she's UPB'd.
	At the moment that she creates a universal rule of any kind and demands that other people conform to them, she's UPB'd.
	And then it's just a matter of arguing about the universals, not whether they exist or not.
	Anybody who corrects you is UPB'd.
	Are you doing call-in questions this live stream?
	I am not. I am not.
	That is not supported as yet on this platform.
	All right. I will read the next question.
	We're going to switch to supporters only.
	Some of these questions are some pretty hot takes.
	So if you want to join and continue the conversation, fantastic.
	Love to have you continue.
	And you can go, of course, read at main.locals.com.
	But yes, I am going to read the next question.
	And in a minute or so, we will switch to supporters only.
	Thank you again so much.
	All right. Hello, Steph!
	You inspire many people to have children and parent them wisely and morally.
	Thank you. But what are your thoughts on men in their 50s and 60s who aspire to become first-time fathers?
	Thanks for all that you do.
	Well, I'll tell you, I'm not a super high-octane massive fan of that.
	Now, if you're a peaceful parent and you want to do good things with your parenting, is it bad for you to become a parent?
	No. Is it a violation of the non-aggression principle for you to become a parent?
	No. But I think there are some significant challenges.
	So it's kind of like cheating, right?
	So let's say that you're 50 years old.
	Well, when you're 50 years old, you have a lot more money on average than people who are 30.
	And you're going to need a 30-year-old woman or a woman in her early 30s.
	So it's kind of like cheating.
	It's like a cheat code, that you have extra resources, but you're competing with men who have fewer resources.
	So that's a real challenge.
	The age difference is significant.
	You've got a 20-year age difference, usually, or more.
	Now, that's just a maturity gap.
	20 years is longer than I've been doing this show.
	I mean, it's a long-ass time, I'm telling you.
	It's straight-up long-ass time.
	And... If you have something in common with a woman 20 years of your junior, it's either because she's super mature, which usually comes from a bad childhood where you had to grow up too quickly, or you're ridiculously immature, like you've missed 20 years of personal growth or whatever, in which case she's most likely going to outstrip you.
	So am I reading questions from the post or from this chat?
	Both. Both.
	Both. Alright, and thanks again everyone for dropping by, and of course thank you so much for your support of Free Domain.
	And also, you know, when you get older, you start having a kid in your 60s, you know, let's say you're 60, then you're 80 by the time your kid is 20.
	And the problem is...
	Being a parent is...
	I mean, it's not exactly a triathlon, but it's not exactly an afternoon in the hammock either.
	There's a lot of roughhousing.
	There's a lot of play. There's a lot of running around in play centers.
	There's a lot of crawling around on monkey bars and so on.
	And... I didn't really have any issues with this when I was younger, but now I'm going to be 56 in a month or two, and I'm a little creaky.
	I mean, I'm still able to do just about everything I want to do, but recovery time is a little longer.
	It's just, you know, and that's 56, that ain't 80.
	So, I do have some concerns that because you're more fragile and your recovery time is a lot longer...
	When you're older, that you will have a tough time keeping up with your kids.
	And this, of course, doesn't even count the fact that it's a lot easier to get by on less sleep when you're younger.
	All right, so let's see here.
	Yes, you can ask your questions through text.
	I will be happy to take them.
	All right, this one's a little longer. It's very, very interesting, though.
	My dad is in his early 70s and nowadays gets very emotional about things.
	He fell for the COVID propaganda and felt upset and let down that I didn't take the vaccine.
	Obviously, neither did my wife and three children.
	It's a pattern that is repeated sporadically through my life.
	I'm now 40, where he gets angry and bitter when I don't do exactly what he feels is in my best interests, i.e.
	what he wants me to do. We've worked together in a family business for almost 20 years.
	And I have always just accepted he is as he is and tried to minimize conflict.
	But the COVID disagreement seemed to be a step too far, with him still having an anger bubbling beneath the surface.
	18 months after I explained that I wouldn't be getting vaccinated...
	This seems insane to me.
	Our work situation has changed more recently, with him being much less involved in some new businesses that I have started up, and I'm enjoying the newfound independence.
	I've been discussing the situation with my wife, who's very supportive and understanding.
	We have a great relationship and complement each other very well as a couple.
	And we basically feel that my dad has some quite manipulative tendencies that I now try to keep at arm's length for the benefit of my future sanity.
	He's made lots of sacrifices for me and my brother.
	I'll get to that. Who I have a sometimes strained relationship with.
	And my dad often reminds him of these sacrifices, many of which occurred before I was even born.
	So I feel guilty for thinking negatively about him.
	But the COVID shenanigans have opened my eyes to so many things.
	And I now have a different perspective on our relationship.
	If I deal with things sensitively and don't do anything that could seem overly confrontational or cruel to him, does my wish for continued...
	Does my wish for continued and increasingly independence seem selfish and ungrateful?
	I know that's how he will view it, and I'm stealing myself at how he reacts over the coming weeks and months.
	I feel like I need to think of my own wife and kids and make sure they get the best of me.
	Ah... Um...
	I'm afraid this may fall into the Crimea River scenario.
	And let me sort of tell you what I mean about that.
	Okay, so the Crimea River scenario goes something like this.
	So you took a massive accelerant in your business career called working for your dad.
	That's called nepotism. You got massive advantages.
	You didn't have to work your way up nearly as much.
	And I know everyone says, oh yeah, nobody started at the bottom of my work.
	Come on, he's your dad. He's your dad.
	So you had preferences.
	Other people couldn't compete with you because you're your dad's son.
	So you made a lot more money.
	You got a lot more promotions.
	You got a lot more experience. And you vaulted ahead of people.
	Is that cheating? No, it's not cheating.
	He's your dad. You can do whatever you want.
	But everything comes at a cost.
	So if you're just looking, oh, my dad's difficulty is kind of this, that, and the other, it's like, well, okay, and you traded a lot of money and a lot of career advancement in return for that.
	So I don't in particular have much sympathy.
	I mean, it's challenging what you're doing.
	But you've got so many advantages for this.
	You've got so many advantages for this.
	You know, it's like somebody who writes to me and says, you know, I borrowed $50,000.
	And I had a great deal of fun with it.
	I traveled the world with my family.
	We had a blast of this, that, and the other.
	And then they say, you know, I'm finding it really tough to pay this money back, man.
	It's really, it's cutting into my...
	Restaurant budget, it's a drag and the creditors are pretty aggressive and it's like, well, you got the benefit and now you're paying the price.
	And this letting people reap the rewards, I'm not criticizing anything you're doing, of course, right?
	You take the job with your dad, of course, and get that accelerant and get that extra money and all of that.
	But the fact that your dad can be difficult, well, but you got all the benefits, right?
	So yes, it's difficult to pay back the money, but you had a lot of fun when you had it.
	And here, you got a massive accelerator into your career and made a whole bunch of extra money, probably hundreds of thousands of dollars over 20 years or more.
	And you got that because you were willing to work for your dad, thus vaulting over.
	It was not a meritocracy, exactly, because you were vaulting over other people who didn't get those benefits.
	So yeah, everything costs.
	Everything costs. And the reason I want to point this out to you is I don't want you to feel like a victim.
	Like if you were a 20-year-old writing to me and saying, oh, my dad was difficult my whole childhood, it's like, yeah, total victim, total victim.
	But when you've made huge amounts of extra money and had huge amounts of career advancement because of choices you made as an adult and then you're saying, well, there are downsides to that.
	Well, there are downsides to everything.
	Everything has a cost and a benefit.
	So I don't want you to feel like a victim.
	You were well paid for dealing with a difficult father.
	Now, if you were a kid, you're not well paid, and you don't have any choice, you've had a choice for 22 years, right?
	You've had a choice for 22 years, whether you want to work for your father, you've chosen to work for your father, it's almost a quarter century of working for your father, certainly more than two decades, and you got well paid for it.
	Huge benefits, huge career advancements, huge extra experience, and other people were biting their tongues, biting their cheeks, and grinding their teeth at night because you were getting ahead while they weren't.
	So, I don't want you to feel like a victim.
	And if you look at the difficulties of your dad and forget about the benefits that you got, that you chose to accept by being his son, you're going to feel like a victim.
	Don't feel like a victim. And be honest with your kids about this as well, right?
	If you just say, oh, my dad's difficult, and someone is like, yeah, dad's difficult, but I'm hugely well paid for dealing with him, right?
	I mean, if you have a difficult grandmother who's a multimillionaire and you're hoping to inherit her money when she dies, you say, well, you know, she's difficult.
	It's like, well, yeah, but you want the money, right?
	So you want to get paid. You're being very well paid for dealing with this difficulty.
	Kids are not well paid for dealing with difficulties.
	I was not well paid for dealing with difficulties with my mother or my father.
	In fact, I rejected money from this.
	So, yeah, there are difficult people, but you can be paid for that.
	A harsh part of me, which is unfair, wants to say, you've been bought and paid for by your father and the bill is due and that's a drag, right?
	But you were up for sale.
	Now, again, you were 20 or whatever and you decided to work with your dad.
	That's a hard thing to say no to because he's your dad.
	He can get you ahead really quickly, pay you extra.
	But yeah, don't feel like a victim.
	You took what you want and there are costs involved with that.
	And help your kids understand that, right?
	And the real cost may be, of course, if your dad ages out, right?
	He's in his 70s, did you say now?
	Yeah, he's in his early 70s. So yeah, he might have health issues for the next 10 or 15 or 20 years.
	And... But always, always remember that you made the voluntary choice to get career advancement and massive amounts of extra money and responsibility in return for handling your dad's difficult personality aspects of your dad.
	If you forget that you've been paid for something, right?
	And of course, in the past, it's easy to forget these things, right?
	And you've got to pay back your $50,000.
	It's easy to forget how much fun the vacation was that you blew all that money on or spent all that money and it's not blowing it.
	But yeah, just remember you got really well paid and then you won't feel like a victim.
	Let's see here. What's with people who ask for your help, but are so impatient and do the task themselves anyway?
	Is it some sort of self-pity thing like, nobody ever helps me, or a sense of superiority?
	Everyone's so incompetent that I have to do everything myself.
	It's not like you have to be like a dog and obey commands immediately.
	The person in need should be able to wait for five minutes or more.
	Well, so this results from people who are over-criticized as children.
	Over-criticizing. I mean, I remember once sitting with a girlfriend, watching a girlfriend and her mother, and her mother was criticizing the way she made toast.
	Like, everything. Oh, it's too hot.
	You didn't clean out the tray.
	You didn't unplug the plug when you had to check something at the toaster.
	Just every single thing she did.
	Just nag, nag, nag, nag, nag.
	That's rough, man. So...
	Can you stand to see something done badly?
	It's really important. If you're a teacher or a mentor or you're trying to train anyone on anything, which we always have to do in life, can you stand seeing things done badly?
	What's your relationship or your historical relationship with seeing things done badly?
	Well, if any time anything was done badly in your family, people got their butts handed to them on a hot plate, then it makes you feel really anxious to see things done badly.
	You want to elbow people aside and do it better so that you can appease your inner critic, your inner parent usually.
	The task is never more important than the relationship.
	It's a really foundational principle in life.
	The task is never more important than the relationship.
	One of the most terrifying things for a lot of boys is to be in the garage with their father and hold a light for their father to do something under the car.
	Because they're always going to shine it wrong.
	Or for their father to say, get me this tool or that tool or the other tool.
	And there's this escalation.
	The task is never more important than the relationship.
	The relationship is everything. The relationship is the most important.
	So if you find yourself getting negative towards someone you care about because they are slowing down a task or doing the wrong thing, just forget.
	Forget the task. The relationship is what matters.
	Of course, a lot of people, a little bit more women, I think, have this thing like, if you cared about me, you'd do it properly.
	If you cared about me, you'd do it properly, and then it just becomes this whole escalation thing.
	So yeah, that's usually just a way of making sure that you'll never get loved at all.
	I wanted to go back to something.
	Sorry, I forgot to mention this from the last thing.
	This dad and the business thing, right?
	He says, he's made a lot of sacrifices for me and my brother.
	My dad often reminds me of these sacrifices.
	All right. Parents cannot make sacrifices for their children.
	Parents cannot make sacrifices for their children.
	It's abusive, it's irresponsible, it's destructive, it's hideous, it's devilish.
	It's devilish. Can you imagine?
	You mean you're happily married, right?
	You go to your wife and you say, Oh man, you owe me.
	You owe... I've made so many sacrifices for this marriage.
	Do you know how many women I could be out there banging?
	You owe me. You owe me obedience.
	You owe me sex because I could be out there banging all these other women.
	You owe me all the sacrifices that I've made.
	Can you imagine? You chose to marry the woman.
	You chose to be monogamous. There's no sacrifice at all.
	You chose to have children. You know children require resources.
	Zero sacrifices.
	Can be made by parents towards their children.
	Zero! Sacrifices can be made by parents towards their children.
	It is a bullshit, low-rent, white trash, wife-beater t-shirt sitting on the back porch sipping beer and flicking the bottle caps at raccoons.
	It is that trashy to say, well, I made sacrifices for you.
	Can you imagine me saying to my daughter, you know, I used to write one or two books a year.
	Since you were born, I've only written a couple of books because I'd sacrificed my literary career for you.
	Fuck! Oh man!
	That would be the most pathetic, awful, ridiculous, destructive, hideous thing to do.
	It is absolutely impossible for parents to make sacrifices for their children.
	You chose to have kids.
	You chose to keep those kids.
	That's the deal. That's the deal.
	There are no sacrifices from parents to children.
	None. Well, I could have been at this, that, or the other, but I chose...
	I had kids instead. It's like...
	Choices and consequences, baby.
	Choices and consequences. That's just really sad.
	I mean, that's really pathetic.
	I mean, how fucking lost and broken and pathetic do you have to be as a parent to claim your kids owe you stuff because you sacrificed for that?
	Oh my God, I sacrificed so much for you.
	I could have been a half.
	Your kids should want to spend time with you and want to provide resources to you because they love you, because you've been great to them, because you've had a lot of fun together, because you've given them good values, because you live in an honorable fashion that they can admire and all that, right?
	A parent who claims the virtue of sacrifice is as big a failure as a parent that can be conceived of.
	I mean, outside of directly evil parents, right?
	It's an unbelievable failure.
	You owe me because I fed you?
	You owe me because I didn't do X, Y, or Z, but instead was a parent?
	The fuck? Oh my god.
	It's just sad.
	I mean, that's a bankrupt human being.
	being.
	It's an absolutely bankrupt human being who says, I sacrifice for you and you owe me.
	I sacrifice my platform to tell You guys owe me car washes.
	I mean, I'd like it if you support the show.
	Donate. FreedomAid.com slash donate.
	I think that's fair and reasonable.
	But the idea that...
	Ah, that's just...
	You've got nothing.
	You've got nothing. You've got nothing of value to provide if you demand, based on sacrifice, to people you voluntarily chose to have in your life, like kids.
	All right. That's sad.
	Steph, do you have any advice for a couple who's moving out of the city to a small town where we don't know anybody?
	What's your experience with moving and how did you adjust to change?
	Yeah, I moved 18 times in a couple of years once I was going to school.
	So, yeah, I would love to say to that.
	So, join your local church.
	If you're religious, you'll meet a lot of people that way.
	Join sports leagues.
	Offer to help your neighbors.
	Offering to help your neighbors and getting a positive community with your neighbors is wonderful.
	You can join clubs.
	In America, I think it's the Shriners.
	In Canada, it's the Legion and so on.
	Read the local papers.
	Look up classifieds and homeschooling associations if that's your thing.
	If you have kids, your kids will meet other kids.
	You can meet the parents. And don't hide your beliefs.
	Just bite the bullet. Take the bullet because you'll just feel lonely if you have to hide who you are.
	What is the story of you going hunting?
	Never heard you talking about it before.
	I'll keep it really brief here. I mean, so the major story when I went hunting was when I was 16.
	I went to visit my father in Africa and we went to visit a farmer priest.
	And deer were eating the hell out of his crops and of course they chased away all the natural predators so we had to go and hunt some deer.
	So I got a rifle and snuck up on a deer and shot the deer but unfortunately I did not kill the deer and we had to track the deer and then kill it ourselves because it was working but it was bleeding enough to the point where we could kill it fairly.
	Quickly, and that was not a great shot.
	That was my first shot, but the second shot was really good.
	The second shot was I shot a turkey buzzard out of the air fairly far away, and we ate it that night.
	All right, let me just check back in here for people who may have questions or comments or issues.
	Alright. How young is too young to have children for someone who is very mature, such as a peacefully parented person?
	Um, well, I mean, I think you should be an adult, of course, right?
	But any time after that is fine.
	Hi, Steph! I just joined, but I wanted to let you know that I binged on your new novel, The Future, and loved every minute of the audiobook as a story, but I'll have to take the time to listen to it again to absorb the messages built in more deeply.
	Regardless, a great work of art.
	Boy, is it ever, you know?
	Boy, is it ever. I never call myself a great singer, but man, great novelist.
	Done. Done and dusted.
	How do I get over seething rage about something that happened years ago?
	Two years ago, I was discriminated against at work for ADHD and told I had to accept that I'll just never be a good software engineer because of it.
	That's interesting.
	I think if you look up, the symptoms of ADHD are pretty much indistinguishable from the It could just be a giant cover-up operation.
	Who knows, right? But...
	Why are you seething with rage?
	If someone treats you badly...
	I mean, they're free to treat you badly, aren't they?
	I mean, they're not abusing you.
	I mean, you could say that they're saying it's verbal abuse or whatever, but they're not physically abusing you.
	People are allowed to insult you.
	People are allowed to say you'll never be a good software engineer.
	You know, people have told me I'll never be a success my whole life.
	And they're just confessing their own failures and their own frustrations.
	Just give people the freedom to be jerks to you.
	Don't worry about trying to control a bully.
	People can be jerks to you.
	People can call me all kinds of names.
	People can... Discriminated against you?
	Yeah. So let's say that they didn't recognize your talents.
	Okay, so you move on to find people who do recognize your talents.
	I went from a junior programmer to a chief technical officer because the place I was working at as a junior programmer did not recognize my talents.
	Now, I'd only worked there for six months or so before I decided to really start working on getting a better place to go.
	But, you know, when I was in university, everybody recognized my talent.
	I was considered to be one of the top people in the university.
	I had professors read my essays out to the class as examples of perfect essays, but nobody sat there and said, because I was too much of a capitalist and so on, and too anti-communist, nobody sat there and said, you know, man, we've got to get you into a professorship, we've got to get you into a PhD program, we've got to get you published, right?
	I got an A on a huge, massive graduate school thesis on the history of philosophy with a really wild set of arguments, really powerfully supported by texts from original philosophers.
	And nobody said, and I remember talking to my thesis advisor, was like, well, this is really wild.
	I've never read anything like this big in scope and this big, this ambition.
	So I'm like, yeah, we should work to try and get it published.
	Yeah, I'll look into that.
	So, yeah, people have mistreated me and told me I can't succeed and I won't get anywhere and I'm not talented.
	Yeah, the whole life, your whole life, people, but it's just a shit test from society.
	It's just saying, do you really want it?
	Do you really care? So very few people succeed in the world, right?
	Very few people succeed at the top levels, right?
	You think of musicians, 98% of the money goes to 2% of the artists.
	You think of sports people, you think of just about anybody, right?
	You think of people who sing and all of that, right?
	I was at a farmer's market yesterday with my daughter.
	And there was a guy singing Hotel California.
	Really nice voice, great guitar player and so on.
	I'm like, yeah, if you can sing really well and you can play guitar really well, you too can be in the corner of a farmer's market with a little amp making, what, 20 bucks.
	So just recognize people are going to try and put you down.
	And it's like a shit test of society to see if you're really committed so that you don't waste your time.
	So don't waste your time.
	If someone saying you can't do something or you're bad at it is enough to have you stop doing it, don't do it.
	Because it means you won't nearly be committed enough.
	To go all the way with it.
	So I was hardened to rejection a lot by people telling me I couldn't do what I wanted to do, even though my talent was recognized, but my ambitions were opposed by something that's still occurring in the world, right? Somebody was a joke to you.
	Somebody, quote, discriminated against you.
	They didn't like you. They didn't want to work with you.
	They thought you'd be a bad star.
	So what? Let them have their opinions.
	What does that matter? Opinions are like assholes.
	Everyone's got at least one, and some people have multiples.
	So, yeah, just people are going to have their opinions.
	It's just a bunch of noise.
	What does it matter? If you believe in yourself, and you believe in yourself based upon objective things, like when I first started writing really well, Which was in...
	I mean, I started writing when I was six, but it takes you like decades, right?
	So in my mid-twenties, early mid-twenties, I started writing really well.
	I started to be able to actually write a novel with real characters.
	And that's just your 10,000 hours, right?
	It's just your 10,000 hours. Now, so with my first novel, Revolutions, a solid 8 out of 10, 7 or 8 out of 10 for me.
	Just Poor, my second novel.
	Boom. Done. Well, actually, no.
	There was a novel before all of this.
	Two novels before all of this. Three novels before all of this.
	I wrote one science fiction, one I never finished.
	I wrote one about my experience in boarding school I never finished.
	I wrote a novel about the First World War, which I did finish.
	Then I wrote Revolutions.
	Then I wrote Just Poor. JustPoorNovel.com.
	You can get it. Now, Just Poor is a 10 out of 10 for me.
	It's a perfect unity of form and content.
	Characterization, all the characters mean something.
	The central theme is powerful.
	The philosophy is united with the action, to me, in a perfect way.
	And it's dramatic and moving and all of that.
	And you can get it, again, justpoornovel.com.
	Now, once I started writing really well, and I self-published my own poetry books and sold them at university and was one of the first people to use a Mac and a laser printer to get this work out, and I remember folding the poetry books over and putting them under the corners of couches in order to fold them flat.
	And I just knew it's like, well, this is really great stuff.
	This is the kind of stuff that I wish was out there that isn't there.
	This is really the story of everything I do.
	This is the stuff that I wish was out there but isn't there.
	So if you yourself judge what you do to be excellent, then whatever people say about it, It's just noise.
	It's just noise. Now, if you are someone who stops because someone or a bunch of people say something negative, then you should probably find something else to do with your time and energy so that the excellence that you can produce is so unquestionable that it really doesn't matter what other people say.
	It really doesn't matter what other people say.
	And the more original you are, the more people will oppose you.
	See, society doesn't want a whole bunch of, I don't know what to say, radicals, revolutionaries.
	Society doesn't want a whole bunch of people running around who are trying to create a whole bunch of new stuff because it's really destabilizing.
	So society will push back, not just for reasons of entrenched power, although that's part of it, but society will push back like hell against you.
	If you come with new challenging ideas.
	And they push back like hell against you to find out if you're really committed.
	Because if you are not that committed, then people are going to get sucked in and they're going to fail.
	And, you know, like if you're going to basically, if you're in the First World War trench, you're going to go into no man's land and attack the enemy nest.
	You don't want to go out halfway and come back.
	You don't want to go halfway and then lose.
	You've got to go all the way. Otherwise, there's no point going at all.
	So, why do you care what other people think?
	If you've got the facts, like let's say you're a good software engineer, you write good code and you're creative and you love solving these kinds of problems and so on, fantastic.
	Okay, then what do you care what people say?
	I mean, the number of people out there who think, oh, Molyneux is a joker, is a philosopher.
	It's like, a joke is not an argument.
	Why do I care what people think? What matters is what I do.
	What matters is my evaluation of the quality of what I'm producing according to good standards.
	That's what matters. So...
	Yeah, that would...
	How was the turkey bus?
	That was alright. Kind of gamey, as you can imagine.
	Alright. Let me just see here.
	But yeah, you should get the future for sure.
	A friend of mine has a learning disability.
	She has a mental age of roughly 10.
	Wow, sorry. I do my best to help her in her life, but I find recently she's trying to manipulate me.
	It seems to me that she feels that if she has problems, I'll give her attention.
	As she fixes her problems, I won't give her attention.
	This is a rock and a hard place, and I don't know if there's a way that won't either hurt her or me.
	What do you think? I have questions.
	Why do you have a friend with a mental age of 10?
	What's your mental age? A friend is somebody...
	You admire for shared values and a mental age of 10 who's manipulative.
	You may want to think about asking yourself why you can't have a friend who's on an equal or challenging...
	Like a lot of people...
	I'm not saying this is you, but a lot of people will have...
	People have less ability around them so that they feel like the tallest guy in Japan, so to speak, right?
	So get people who are more accomplished and challenging around you and you might find that you don't have to worry about this stuff as much.
	All right. Somebody says, I was paid to have an easy job with my very difficult father and other costs where I had to unlearn a lot about how to work with other adjusted people.
	Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure.
	My mother once told me I should be grateful that she fed me, clothed me, and didn't beat me.
	Right.
	Again, that's somebody who has nothing to offer in a relationship.
	Somebody who has absolutely nothing to offer in a relationship will say, hey man, I fed you.
	I mean, that's the law, right?
	That's the law. And the moral law as well.
	If you keep a pet in your home, you have to feed that pet or you're guilty of animal torture.
	All right. Good morning, Steph and everyone.
	My first live after all these years.
	Still crazy after all these years.
	Love to you all from Tasmania.
	Oh, how nice. How nice.
	Love back. What I meant is there was specifically a boss at work who said that to me.
	Yes, and I agree with the ADHD being the same as child abuse.
	In fact, Gabor Matei has written a book about just that.
	Yeah, so you had a boss at work who was mean to you.
	So, this is way back in the day, right?
	I think I've told this story before, so I'll keep it brief.
	God, so many stories, I can't remember.
	When I first got a job at a hardware store in the Don Mills Mall, which is no longer, no more.
	No more, no more. Here lies Lester Moore, shot to death with a.44, no less, no more.
	And it was my first day and there was this guy a couple of years older than me.
	I was like 15 or so.
	I remember, $2.50 an hour.
	And I worked 5.30 to 9.30, Tuesdays and Thursdays and all day Saturday for 40 bucks a week.
	But sometimes we get time and a half for going on Sundays to do inventory and God help you if you've got the plumbing or nuts and bolts section.
	And yeah, I learned to cut glass.
	I learned to deal with customers.
	I went rather insane because they have these repetitive videos playing for various products that just go over and over again with cartoon voices, drive you a little mental.
	And I learned to mix paint and deal with different customers.
	A friend of mine, oh my God, it's a tough story.
	Tough story from many years ago, which will be resurrected in our last for all time.
	So, a guy came in and said, like, I just bought a new house.
	My family's coming over.
	My wife needs a key.
	So, be very careful. The only key I've got.
	It's a weekend, so I can't get a new one, right?
	So, this is the only key I've got.
	Be real careful. I need this key made.
	So with the key, you put the key in one side, you put the key in the other, and then you guide, and the up and down, it cuts the up and down, like the vertical parts of the key, the sort of peaks and valleys of the key.
	It's kind of fun to do when you go back and forth and make sure that you've duplicated the key properly.
	And some keys say do not duplicate for various reasons, but this wasn't one of those.
	So my friend put the key in backwards and basically took the key that had the indentations and shaved it down to a perfectly blank key.
	And the guy went to have lunch.
	He said he'd come back and he spent the hour.
	It was just like, oh my God, what's going to happen?
	And it was pretty rough.
	Make me a new key because my family's coming.
	We've got a new place. And yeah, it was pretty rough.
	And I was considered so trustworthy even back then that the manager used to give me...
	I was such a good little boy.
	The manager used to give me all the cash to deposit in the bank.
	He used to take a big envelope and a big bag with all the cash and I'd go and put it in the deposit box and all that.
	And never took anything, of course.
	I don't know if I'll ever end up with emphysema because, man, I used to spend a lot of time breaking down boxes in the basement of that hardware store.
	For some reason, there's a wonderful song by John Evangelos called Friends of Mr.
	Cairo. It's a beautiful, beautiful...
	I mean, John Anderson is an unbelievably great singer.
	And songwriter. Not a great performer, though.
	I saw him live once, and he basically just stood there like a squeaky-voiced helium statue.
	But... One and one to talk to you.
	Like film stars, they get close to you.
	You merit his appeal.
	He wants you so.
	It's a beautiful, beautiful piece with amazing vocals and a lovely piano.
	And I just remember I didn't listen to that song because I, of course, didn't have a Walkman or anything.
	The radio couldn't get reception down there.
	But I just remember that song going through my head over and over again while I was ripping up those boxes.
	So, yeah.
	So, anyway, first day I was doing this job.
	This older guy, maybe he's 20 or whatever, right?
	This older guy, I asked him where something was.
	Because, you know, hardware stores, it wasn't a huge hardware store, but it's tough to find things.
	I asked this guy where something was.
	And he was just scornful.
	It's like, you're paid to know that, you know.
	You're paid to know that. Why don't you know that?
	I was like, dude, it's my first day.
	He's just scornful, scornful, right?
	And, you know, it's your first one of your, well, it's one of my first sort of jobs with an official paycheck and all of that.
	I'd been a paper route guy and worked in a bookstore before and all that.
	That was all mostly cash stuff.
	But, um, so, you know, you think, oh my gosh, maybe I'm a bad worker.
	Maybe I should know more, blah, blah. Anyway, so I move on to the job, move on to waitering because it's better money.
	And, um, Years later, I went back.
	The guy was still working there. Okay, so you were mean to me, and your punishment is you never get to move on.
	That boss, the boss who's mean to you, he's going to get his.
	People get punished. Trust me, man.
	You don't need to be a Christian.
	You don't need to believe. People get what's coming to them.
	They get punished.
	And this boss, who's mean to you, What's his life like?
	Is he ever going to have quality employees who are mature and responsible and dedicated?
	No. He's going to end up with insecure jerks and he's never going to move up.
	He's going to probably end up getting fired himself.
	I had a boss who was kind of mean once and found out a little bit about his personal life.
	Of course, he was divorced and he was being dragged through the court.
	You know, the guy who was mean to me ended up being stuck for years working at $2.50 an hour in a hardware store.
	Don't worry about it, man.
	Don't worry. The people get what's coming to them one way or the other.
	I can tell you that from long enough.
	All right, let's see here.
	Any tips for understanding or overcoming voyeurism?
	Peeping Tom. The Russian five seconds of actually seeing something.
	A few months of unsuccessful peeping.
	I can't seem to break the cycle.
	Wow, that's interesting.
	That's interesting. I would assume that voyeurism is a confirmation that you will never participate in the positive behavior that you're watching.
	Right? So voyeurism is a confirmation to yourself that you've always been the outside looking in, that the best you can hope for is to look at other people.
	That would be the first thing. And the second thing that I would say is voyeurism is a significant and massive, please don't do it, please don't do it.
	It's a massive invasion of people's privacy.
	So that means that when you were growing up, there were massive boundary violations against you.
	Boundary violations against you as a child.
	And so you are replicating those boundary violations probably because you haven't processed the trauma of being violated that way yourself.
	Boundary violations can be verbal abuse.
	They can be people watching you.
	They can be people who don't knock before they come into your room.
	Like, I mean, with kids, right?
	You must knock and get confirmation before you go into the room, right?
	That's just a personal space respect thing.
	So... Even people screaming at you can be a boundary violation because it's overwhelming when you're a kid.
	So, yes, I would assume that you're confirming that you will not participate in whatever positive behavior you're voyeuristically watching and also you're replicating boundary violations from when you were a child.
	Morning, Steph. Good morning.
	Back to you. My father used to tell me that the debt of a son towards the parents is a debt that will never be repaid.
	Yeah, it will never be repaid because it doesn't exist.
	I'm angry at the idea that parents would demand payment for being parents.
	And the reason I'm saying that is that if you believe that your kids owe you because you chose to have them and chose to keep them, that your kids owe you forever, just giving yourself permission to be a bad parent.
	You're just giving yourself permission to be a bad parent.
	If you believe that you've got a winning lottery ticket, you're just giving yourself permission to be a bad employee or be badly motivated, right?
	All right. In real-time relationships, you mentioned how low self-esteem leads to underachievement.
	Could you get into that concept more?
	I feel like that could be the story of my life.
	So low self-esteem is a form of vanity.
	I know that sounds contradictory, but anytime you say to yourself, here's the ceiling of what I can do, here's the ceiling of my ambitions, you're wrong because you don't know.
	The unconscious is 8,000 times faster than the conscious mind.
	You have within you engines and machinery the likes of which you can scarcely imagine.
	So do I. So does everyone.
	Every single person has an unbelievably powerful, volatile, and sometimes dangerous form of processing and energy in their mind called the unconscious, the unconscious mind.
	For you to say you know what you're capable of is for you to claim to know, as close as you can, the mind of God.
	If you're a Christian, you say, oh, well, I know the mind of God perfectly, you'd be accused of vanity and hubris that would be kind of crazy, right?
	You don't know all the layers of evolution that gave rise to the base of the brain stuff that works with who you are.
	All single-celled organisms through fish, through lizards, through amphibians, through mammals, right?
	To us. It's huge layers.
	You don't know all these layers. You don't know what's going down there.
	I will say that you will know your potential when you know what your dreams are going to be like.
	You write down in detail what your dreams are going to be.
	If you can do that, then I would say you know yourself like you know the mind of God.
	But having humility in the face of your potential is what liberates your possibilities for excellence.
	I'll say that again. Having humility in the face of your potential is what unlocks your capacity for excellence.
	You do not know what you're capable of.
	I still don't know what I'm capable of.
	I know this sounds a little sinister, right?
	I could be capable of anything. But no, I still don't know.
	I was not sure that I was capable of writing a book like the future until I just put the self-criticism aside and just plowed into it and wrote it.
	So, low self-esteem, saying, well, I could never do this, or I could never achieve that, or no one's ever going to like me, or I could never get a girl that great, and so on, you don't know.
	How do you know? You're just limiting yourself for fear of provoking criticism.
	Attack. Criticism is fine.
	Attack is usually bad, right?
	So, yeah, low self-esteem is when you artificially put a cap on what you can do and then your unconscious says, okay, well, I guess we're not doing any more than that.
	But if you say to your unconscious, hey, man, show me what you can do.
	Show me the magic. Give me the gold.
	Give me the gusto. Give me the greatness.
	Give me the analogies. Give me the metaphors.
	I know you can do incredible stuff.
	You tell me stories every night with deep and powerful meanings about my life and virtue and the universe and humanity and the state of nature and the state of politics.
	You give me incredible dreams.
	Every night! Last night I dreamt that people could be turned into zombies like that, but every time they touched my skin, they said, oh, it burns, I don't like that skin.
	And how are they turned into zombies?
	Injected. So, very powerful things.
	Your unconscious creates entire universes for you every single night, not just for your entertainment or your distraction, but for your wisdom and edification.
	You have a vivid VR moral instructor deep within your brain who creates vivid and powerful realities for you every night and you're going to tell me you know what you're capable of?
	Fuck no, you don't know what you're capable of.
	I don't know what you're capable of.
	I don't know what I'm capable of.
	That's why I just keep pushing and just keep pushing.
	You don't know. People say, well, I couldn't be a director of a play or a movie.
	You're a director every night.
	You have a director within you who creates movies every single night designed to illustrate your life and instruct you on truth and virtue.
	Don't tell me you have a clue what you're capable of.
	Mom is simple, obvious. I shouldn't give birth to you both, me and my sister.
	So here it is clear, a big sacrifice.
	No, it's not a sacrifice. She could have given you up at any time.
	Shouldn't have given birth to you both, Jesus, H. She had unprotected sex.
	She knows what happens. If you have a test, in grade 8 or whatever, you have a test.
	And you forget about the test until 10 o'clock the night before, right?
	And then what you do is you stay up all night to study for the test.
	And then you get to say to the teacher, man, I stayed up all night for you.
	You owe me. You owe me an A. I stayed up all night for you.
	Why did you stay up all night? Oh, I forgot about the test.
	So if you make mistakes, right?
	Oh, I forgot that unprotected sex would make me pregnant.
	Okay, well then you end up with kids.
	And then you're legally responsible and morally responsible for taking care of those kids.
	And if you don't want to take care of those kids, you give them up to someone who do.
	For every child up for adoption, there are 33 couples who want to adopt.
	No. So here's the simple thing.
	Here's a simple thing. Simple equation, man.
	You ready to be freed up?
	Ready to be free? Freedom.
	Nothing is better than the freedom.
	All right. Somebody says to you, I don't want to be a mother.
	I never wanted to be a mother. I don't want to be a mother.
	It was such a sacrifice. I don't want to be it.
	It's like, okay, so you want me to judge you.
	As a not-mother. So you want to take the category of mother out of our relationship because it was such a sacrifice, you didn't really want it, you didn't really like it.
	The woman who said, I shouldn't have given birth to you both would say, I regret being a mother.
	It's okay, we can take that out of the equation.
	We can take motherhood out of the equation.
	We can take fatherhood out of the occasion.
	If father says, well, I sacrificed my career.
	If you, I sacrifice happiness.
	I never went fishing. I never played golf.
	I sacrificed. It's okay, so you didn't want to be a father.
	Okay, that's fine. Let's take father out of the equation.
	And I will judge you then not as a father, but as just a person.
	Just like somebody I met. Somebody I met on the bus.
	Somebody I met at a dinner party.
	Somebody I met at a sports stadium.
	Somebody I walked by on the street.
	I will simply judge you as a person.
	Since you don't like the category father, never want to be a father, I'll judge you as a person.
	Say, okay, well, if I judge you as a person, how do you fare?
	You want me to take the category of father out and just judge you as a person like we just met?
	Hmm. How's that going to go for you?
	I always remind my girlfriend and her kids that they do not have to call or see us when we're old, exactly the same way I don't call or see women who gave birth to me.
	Yeah, for sure. For sure.
	I couldn't be, if I had kept abusive people in my life, I couldn't be nearly as good as a parent for just about every considerate.
	Alright, do you have any tips for a dislike or nervousness for being literally on the stage?
	I play a musical instrument.
	I absolutely enjoy the challenge and reward of it personally and within the group or band.
	However, I struggle to play publicly and tend to let a lot of pressure on myself to play perfectly in that setting.
	Well, that's usually because the instruction is bad.
	And I've got a whole video on public speaking.
	Two, I think. So you can just go to fdrpodcast.com.
	It's not about you. You're introducing the music to the audience.
	It's not about you. And so, like if I'm giving a speech, I'm introducing ideas to the audience.
	The only thing that matters is the relationship between the ideas and the audience, not the audience and me.
	So you've just got to take yourself out of the equation and all of that.
	So... How much worse when it's adoptive parents trying to guilt trip you about the sacrifice of being a parent and think the abuse they subjected children to as parenting requires some debt upon the child.
	No, it's no debt. No debt.
	My daughter owes me nothing.
	My wife owes me nothing. I mean, I don't enforce costs on people here.
	I think if you consume, I think there's an obligation because there's a voluntary consumption.
	See, if someone...
	Imagine this. So, someone kidnaps you and locks you in a house and then says you owe them companionship for the rest of their lives because they fed and took care of you.
	Well, in a sense, we're all kidnapped because we're kids and we can't leave the house.
	So, we're all kind of in an ABC, accidental biological cage, right?
	In a family prison, so to speak, right?
	And because of that, we have to treat people super well in our families.
	Our kids in particular, they're not there by choice.
	My daughter's not with me by choice at all.
	So I have to parent as if she would choose me if she had a choice because she's going to have a choice in just a couple of years when she gets older, right?
	So you would have no obligation to somebody who imprisoned you.
	If you are in a dictatorship and they imprison you unjustly, Do you then owe the guards and the prison society and the prison government, do you owe them allegiance because they gave you room and board?
	No, because you weren't free to leave.
	So no. Nope, nope, nope.
	Not even a bit. All right.
	I've got to keep going here because I've got 20 minutes left.
	Alright, what is the purpose of fake insults among men?
	Well, you know, when women get together, you get fake compliments.
	When men get together, you get fake insults.
	So the fake insults among men are making sure that you're not too reactive, are making sure that you're not volatile.
	It's a gauge of toughness for times of danger.
	Are you going to freak out? If you can't handle an insult, then you can't handle a charging saber-toothed tiger and you shouldn't be out among the hunting party.
	Alright, how can I learn how to be proactive?
	Well, you have to start by setting goals, understanding that if you set goals, you will get sidetracked.
	If you're not proactive, we're all born proactive, all born proactive.
	Babies cry when they're hungry and laugh when they're happy and manage their parents with emotional feedback.
	So if you are reactive, not proactive, it got beaten or neglected out of you or abused out of you.
	So if you have chaotic people in your life, it's very hard to be proactive because you're constantly reacting to issues around that.
	If you have bad bosses, it's very tough to be proactive.
	If you live in a bad neighborhood, if your house is constantly falling apart, if your car is constantly falling apart, if your health is constantly falling apart, it's very hard to be proactive because you're not in a situation where you can really plan for things.
	So try and get all of those things sorted out.
	What is your definition of consciousness?
	So I would say the consciousness is the capacity of the mind to be aware of itself and its own operations.
	And as a corollary to that, after the mind is aware of itself and its own operations that you can think about thinking, then you can also compare your thoughts to an external standard or an objective standard, right?
	So you have to be aware. The mind has to be aware of itself and its own operations and then have the ability to compare those operations to universal standards.
	All right. Let's see.
	How to find a balance between aiming high and killing your useless dreams.
	How to know when to stop trying.
	So, if you love what you're doing and you really enjoy what you're doing, you keep going.
	I mean, don't starve to death, though.
	I mean, I wanted to be a writer.
	I wanted to be a philosopher, but I had jobs and then worked on it on the side.
	And recognize that whatever you keep at, you will get better at.
	Excellence is to some degree just attrition.
	That's all it is. A lot of people will fall by the wayside.
	A lot of people will find other things.
	You just keep going.
	You know the famous story of the 10-year overnight success or I was in philosophy for 20 years before...
	Oh, more.
	I was in philosophy for a quarter of a century before I went public with any philosophy.
	So just keep working at it.
	But yeah, definitely have a way to make an income at the same time as well.
	In your younger years, way before the show, what helped you gain confidence?
	Well confidence is just another word for certainty.
	Certainty. So, when I was writing my books, writing my novels, I was immensely moved.
	I laughed, I cried.
	Same thing when I was writing my novel, The Future.
	I mean, there are times when, and you can hear this in the audiobook, but it certainly happened because I was dictating the book.
	It was the first novel I've written with dialogue where I dictate it, so this is why the dialogue is, I think, so realistic.
	I mean, I laughed at times while writing the novel.
	I wrote the novel through streams of tears.
	At times, you'll know in the audiobook reading where those are because the emotion still struck me in the audiobook.
	So if what you're doing is moving and powerful to yourself, then you're certain about that.
	Now, the only way it would never be moving or powerful to anyone else is if you're some non-human singular entity that has nothing to do with the rest of mankind.
	So whatever is deep and powerful for you will be deep and powerful to other people.
	It doesn't mean they'll react positively.
	Deep and powerful morality causes evil people to freak out and become aggressive.
	But confidence is just certainty.
	I was certain that I was a great novelist.
	I am certain that I'm a great novelist.
	Does the world agree? Oh, I mean, I get lots of positive compliments on my writing.
	Is anyone about to film?
	Almost? Almostnovel.com?
	Nope, it's too anti-communist.
	Have you read about any other interesting true crime stories lately?
	Your last analysis about The Missing Hiker was fascinating.
	The truth about Charles Manson was amazing as well.
	Yeah, hit me with a Y in the chat if you would like me to do more true crime stuff.
	I do find it interesting. Looking back, would you do anything different in your parenting?
	I asked Izzy about this, if she would like me to have done anything different.
	No. Now, I think, see, one of the things, Izzy was a fairly good fan of my de-platforming because it gave me more time to spend with her.
	And so, if I hadn't been de-platformed and I had still worked on politics and the truth about and so on, which were all very time-consuming, she's happier.
	So... Maybe I would have given her a soother a little earlier so that she would sleep better when she was very little because she was a tough sleeper.
	Any tips on staying focused and confident when making and showcasing creative artistic projects?
	Music for me specifically. Thank you.
	Yeah, don't judge until you're done.
	Don't judge anything until you're done.
	You've got to plow on and be committed.
	I remember many years ago at an amateur comedian's night, It's one of the nights I didn't go up and try my hand at stand-up.
	But I remember this woman who was trying some risky comedy and just gave up on it halfway through.
	It just kind of collapsed. You could see it not collapsed physically, but just, you know, kind of the whole body language was just how I gave up on it.
	And it's like, nope, you got to go through the end.
	You got to commit and go all the way through to the end.
	So don't judge until you're done.
	How the hell do you plan on topping your novel, The Future?
	I might write a sequel, which is The Trial of the Sun.
	What do you think about the saying, I'm a parent, not a friend?
	Yeah, I mean, I'm a parent, not a friend, but that doesn't give you the right to be abusive or mean.
	If you could give your 20-year-old self advice, what would you say?
	Well, since I'm very happy with how I've turned out, I'm not sure that I would change much, if anything.
	Oh yeah, so I would say don't blame yourself for the corruption of the institutions you're in.
	Arts, academia, and business, and so on.
	What call-in show has the biggest personal impact on you, good and bad?
	Oh man, every single show.
	I know that sounds like a cop-out.
	Every single show has had amazing impacts on me.
	That's why I keep doing them. When I was younger, I was far too nice and always terrified to stand up for myself in confrontations, particularly in school.
	This always caused people to bully me and push me around.
	As I've gotten older, I always look back on those times I was bullied, thinking about things I should have said or could have done.
	How do I let go of this past and move on?
	So we obsess about things in the past until we genuinely understand them.
	You're taking ownership for your parents failing to protect you.
	If your parents do not protect you, you will be bullied.
	If your parents are not available for you as a resource to protect you and push back, if they don't street proof you, if they don't teach you, then you will be bullied.
	It's on your parents. And the reason why you're obsessing about it is you haven't made that connection in my opinion.
	And you say, well, gosh, if only I had done something different, I wouldn't have been bullied.
	It's like, nope. If your parents won't protect you, you will be bullied.
	The only way that you can get out of that is maybe you're really good looking or maybe you're really sporty and you're athletic and so on, then maybe it's a little bit less or whatever.
	But yeah, you will be bullied if your parents are not there to protect you.
	Let's see here. What's our time frame lag?
	Yeah, we got some time.
	Tell them that it's human nature.
	All right. Where do you think fascination or obsession comes from?
	I have this one guy I find just so fascinating as a person, and in my mind, and my mind always just goes back to him many times a day.
	This has been going on for many years.
	It's partly a crush, of course, but it's a level of fascination I don't have with other people.
	I don't know if you have some special way to look at this.
	Yeah, so there are some people I've been fascinated by, artists and philosophers and so on.
	And I think when you're fascinated by someone, they contain a fragment of potential that you admire but you haven't recognized yet in yourself.
	I mean, as you guys know, fascination with Freddie Mercury goes back decades.
	And because he was a consummate showman and artist and was considered to be the best rock front man in history, I, of course, have given myself the aim of getting the most and best philosophy out of the world, mostly because of the technology, and so I aim at the Live Aid standard.
	So I'm kind of fascinated by him because he manifests a kind of quality that I wish to manifest as well.
	So I think that you are fascinated when we see something that someone can do that we secretly know we could do, but we just have to give ourselves permission.
	Should I hold adoptive parents?
	To the same high standards as biological parents?
	Yes, absolutely.
	It's the same either way.
	What do you think of the origins of grim humor, gallows humor, etc?
	Well, I think grim humor, gallows humor is a response to a lack of empathy.
	Because you won't get sympathy, you have to make fun of things that normally you would require sympathy for.
	Somebody says, I'm approaching my mid-30s and it feels like my life is over.
	I spent my 20s doing things I thought I would appreciate doing in my later years, traveling, partying, etc.
	And I see now that those things were largely a waste of time.
	Yes. I had so much potential as a young person, and for some reason, I think it's too late for me to embark on anything new.
	Do I still have time to do something meaningful so that I will have something to show for my existence?
	Fuck yeah! Are you kidding me?
	You're approaching your mid-30s?
	Yes, absolutely. I mean, Grandma Moses started painting in her 90s, became a famous painter.
	Yes, absolutely. But you have to look at...
	So, if people let you just drift and party and travel throughout your 20s...
	Then you don't have people around you who are committed to your potential.
	In fact, they're committed to you wasting your life because they didn't stop you and intervene and deal with these things, right?
	So again, don't look at yourself in isolation.
	Look at yourself as part of a social network.
	This is a constant thing I have to keep telling everyone.
	Like the guy who was bullied.
	Oh, I was just bullied and if I'd have done this, I wouldn't have been.
	No, no, no. You're part of a social network.
	It's like if you're five and you're not getting fed, you're like, oh, I should have grown my own food like the Martian.
	And like, no, no, you can't feed yourself when you're five.
	Look at yourself as part of a social, right?
	So your concern is not about you.
	Your concern is about your social environment, your familial environment, your friends, everyone, extended family, you name it, who all let you waste your 20s.
	Well, they're going to let you waste your 30s unless you get better people in your life.
	Alright. Hey Steph, I'm 26, working as a service tech at a drilling company and I can't seem to stop constantly looking at the clock when I'm at work.
	Always wanting for it to be over.
	I don't think it's laziness because I work 40 to 50 hours a week.
	Nor do I think it's because I resent working.
	Could it be that I often feel I should be in a better career path than I am currently, thoughts?
	Yeah. So there's a fair amount of immediate relief when you avoid...
	Aiming for your highest potential.
	I mean, it can be scary to aim for your highest potential, for sure.
	There's a certain amount of immediate relief that occurs when you avoid that.
	But that can very easily become a habit that strips you of your highest potential.
	The highest potential that's not manifested is just a demon there to torture you.
	If you always loved music, you can sing really well, and you can play music, and you just never got, you know, I should write music.
	Oh, but writing music is tough, and I'm going to be bad for a long time.
	Yeah, you will be. I mean, I was in a garage band.
	I wrote songs when I was younger, and I still remember how they went.
	They were pretty bad.
	They weren't terrible, but they were pretty bad, and it would have taken me a long time to become good at that.
	So... Oh, is that right?
	Biggest example of 20 years in the making.
	Twisted Sister. We're not going to take it, guys.
	Long years touring the Northeast and Midwest until one song hit big and finally got international success.
	Yeah. Hugh Lewis, too.
	It goes on and on, right? So...
	Sorry, back to my question.
	Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Lost it.
	I'm sure it'll come back. I also asked for why before.
	Can you guys remind me what that was for?
	I've only had a half-calf this morning, so I'm relying on my own fuel.
	Oh, yeah, your potential. So if you have potential, like, you just, oh, it's too tough, you know?
	Yeah, I spent 15 years writing before I produced anything of quality, really.
	And it was only because I've been doing philosophy for 25 years before I did it publicly that I seemed to come out of the gate out of nowhere and have a lot of skill and expertise.
	I mean, the call-in shows are not wildly different from conversations I've had with people my whole life.
	Because I've always been fascinated by what makes people tick and how philosophy can help them and how I can learn from other people's self-knowledge.
	Fantastic. All right.
	All right. What do we got here?
	Could you expand on maturity coming of age with regards to being a moral agent, being 17 versus 18 years old, etc.?
	No, because the 17, 18 years old is to some degree arbitrary, naturally, and the way that it would work in a free society would be brain scans and things like that.
	All right.
	Given the statement about men using insults to judge the reactivity of others, what would you say about someone who uses those statements often with others?
	Is that a sign they were in multiple relationships with reactive people in the past?
	So, sorry, and that's a good point.
	So, for men, when men are alone with each other and the insults fly a little bit, that's just, you know, we're strong, robust.
	It's a way of toughening up so that you can handle rejection and criticism and not flake out, puss out, or blue hair it out.
	Now, but when men insult each other in the presence of females, that's a different matter.
	That's an attempt to manipulate the females into looking at the insulter as higher status.
	So men hanging out and barbecuing just a bunch of men around or whatever, and sports, changing in the sports, then that's just toughening it up.
	But when it's in the presence of females, it is usually a way to claim higher status.
	It's a form of mating display.
	And, you know, could you say it's mean?
	Kind of, right? Alright.
	What do you think of this criticism of parents treating their children like friends?
	Well, it's a false dichotomy.
	Parents shouldn't be brutal, but they shouldn't just be buddies because they're not.
	Alright. This is one of the best live streams I've ever heard from you, Steph.
	Hopefully that's not the guy who just joined the first one.
	Thank you very much. Expect to look back and cringe at your early days.
	No! No!
	No! Never cringe.
	Never cringe. Never cringe at what you have done.
	Never leave your actions in the lurch.
	No. Do not cringe at yourself.
	Do not cringe at yourself.
	Ever. Have you made mistakes?
	Yes, of course you've made mistakes.
	Is your early work as good as your later work?
	No, but it's not cringe. It's like, you know, when looking back at your drawings when you were three and saying, man, there's not a lot of perspective in shading those.
	They're cringe. No, they're not.
	They're perfect for three. Don't cringe at yourself, ever!
	That cringe word, I'm sorry, I'm not mad at you, but no, cringe is just a way to try and put a bomb in your brain to have you look at yourself skeptically and in a hostile and degrading manner.
	It's a form of trying to internalize verbal abuse towards yourself and saying that you're ridiculous and you're pathetic and you're this and you're that.
	No. Absolutely not.
	You know, if there was a recording still out there of me singing with a garage band in the early days, it was not good.
	No question. Am I cringe?
	No. Gotta go out and try.
	Gotta try. You'll see how you sound.
	See how it works, right? No, no, no.
	Please, God. Please, God.
	Do not... Use the word cringe with yourself and do not use it with others.
	It is a term of vicious abuse.
	And again, I'm not saying you're being abusive.
	I'm just because you're talking about yourself.
	But this is self-abusive to look back and say cringe.
	No, no, no. Absolutely not.
	You were where you were.
	Were you cringe when you were learning how to walk?
	No. Were you cringe when you were learning how to talk?
	No. Were you cringe when you went up and tried karaoke even though you didn't sound good?
	No. Got to give it a try?
	Why not? Absolutely.
	Because then you cringe if you avoid things.
	For fear of being cringe, it's even more cringe.
	So yeah, please try and avoid that word.
	I think it's just wretched.
	I think it's just wretched.
	When I listen to music I made a decade ago, it brings tears to my eyes.
	It's like a diary of sensations and emotions from that time in my life.
	Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
	I may have, as a project this fall, reading Revolutions as an audiobook.
	I'm curious. I'm curious.
	All right. I think we're...
	Let me just go back here and make sure I got these guest jars.
	Yeah, I think I got them all.
	Yeah, we can stop a little early.
	All right. Thanks, everyone, so much.
	Freedomain.com slash donate.
	Freedomain.locals.com.
	You can get my new book.
	Oh, man, it's great. PDF, e-book, mobile, audio book format.
	Fantastic. So thank you, everyone, so much for dropping by.
	Thank you to the supporters. Just hit me with a Y if you don't mind me releasing this to the general stream.
	Just hit me with a Y if you don't mind me releasing this to the general stream because I don't think there's nothing personal in here.
	Nobody's identifiable, right?
	Everyone's got a Y. Why not?
	Why not, you say? Okay, fantastic.
	So it looks like everybody's fine with me releasing this general stream.
	So you general streamers, this is the kind of great stuff we get going on here in the supporters section.
	So thanks everyone so much. Have yourself a wonderful, wonderful day.
	Lots of love from up here. And stay safe, stay frosty, and have yourself a great day.

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