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Sept. 1, 2022 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:29:50

HOW TO ENTREPRENEUR! Wednesday Night Live 31 8 2022!

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	Hey everybody, how are you doing?
	It's Steph. Oh, pinch punch last day of the month.
	It is next month.
	Boy, in five hours and change, it is my birthday month.
	It is a family celebration that is inflicted upon my family for the entire month.
	It's my birthday month, therefore I have to get my way.
	It's my birthday month, therefore you have to agree with me.
	It's my birthday month, therefore I deserve a snack.
	And it's a good thing that it's only a month, because after probably 32 days I would be strangled in my sleep.
	No, no, not yet! But on the 24th of September I will be 56 years old.
	56 years old in Minecraft.
	In the real world, I'm still 22.
	56 years old, that's like...
	Two times and six years from the maximum age of Leonardo DiCaprio's girlfriends.
	Quarter century and done.
	I guess the girl that Leonardo DiCaprio is going to dump when he's 73 is just being born right now.
	Happy birthday month. Yes, thank you very much.
	I appreciate that. Freedomain.com slash donate.
	So hit me with a Y if you have kids in their teens.
	Hit me with a Y if you have kids in your teens.
	Because it's hugs, not drugs.
	Yeah, that's fair. That's fair.
	All right, so just some.
	Okay, so my daughter is very funny and very fast, you know, with the humor.
	And I'm just like a real delight.
	And as she gets into her teenage years, the jokes become sharper and tauter to the point where it's like lemon juice in a cut over the funny bone.
	And anyway... So you've listened to her and she knows she's very sweet and affectionate and all of that.
	But here's the acidic teenage wit, which I think is hilarious.
	Anyway, so she joined a...
	We're in a homeschooling group, blah, blah, blah.
	And they have a park day, which is, you know, the kids all show up at a park and all of that.
	And... I was like, yeah, no, I'll come and I'll arrange games.
	I'll arrange all the games. I'll arrange for the games to happen.
	I'll make the games happen. And she said, Dad, Dad, I don't want to be the weird kid with the over-involved father.
	I'm like... That's accurate, fair, funny.
	Oh, jeez. Because, you know, that's the phase.
	You know, that's the fall away of the rocket pass that gets you into orbit, right?
	Because, you know, in the past I was always the guy because I have lots of experience with kids in daycare and all that.
	Because I was a daycare aide for years.
	So I'm just used to, you know, getting games going and having all of that.
	And, yeah, that's...
	I don't want to be the weird kid with the over and fall father.
	That is very funny and quite apt.
	I know, of course, I miss it, but, you know, you kind of do want that phase to fall away at some point and for the peers to take over and drag your kids down to hell itself, as you understand.
	So, a quick note, if you are listening to this, obviously those of you on Locals, thanks for dropping by.
	If you're listening to this later, I have started probably a long overdue series of shows, which is History of Philosophers, not History of Philosophy.
	I'm going to do that. I'm going to do History of Philosophy after I do the History of Philosophy.
	But yeah, I've done the Buddha, Siddhartha.
	I've done Confucius, and we're starting with the Presocratics next.
	And so you can get that at freedomand.locals.com.
	I'm sure it will make its way to the mainstream as a whole, and you can get the second one, which I just did this morning, on Confucius, which I was incredibly pleased and proud and happy about.
	You can get that at freedomand.locals.com.
	So, really, really great series.
	Some of my best work to date, and Lord knows I'm very happy with my own work.
	But as the old say from Han Solo goes, you know, sometimes I even amaze myself.
	So that's where we're at.
	All right, so if you have questions or comments, I'm happy to hear them.
	And let's see here.
	Let me just copy it to something with a larger font because I'm getting mid-50s SquintoVision.
	Let's see here. Like you, Steph, I worked in the restaurant industry.
	I was a dishwasher, a bar back, and a bartender.
	As you know, restaurant staff tend to have a disproportionate number of vices.
	They swear constantly.
	Most of them smoke, most of them drink to excess, engage in promiscuous sex, and some even take illegal drugs.
	What is it about serving other people food that attracts people of such leanings into the industry?
	Well, I would get...
	I mean, I worked in a number of different restaurants.
	I worked in a Pizza Hut.
	I worked in a Swiss chalet. I worked at a high-end seafood restaurant and so on.
	And I did this from about the age of...
	Gosh, maybe 18 or so.
	No, maybe 17.
	Into my mid-20s.
	And I had other jobs as well.
	But if I could get a restaurant drop, it was great.
	So what is it about restauranting that attracts...
	Unusual people. Well, I think it's got a lot to do with the fact that it's high reward, low risk.
	And so you get a lot of money from tips, you get a lot of money from, and you have a fairly flexible schedule.
	So if you want to be an actor or something, you know, the traditional thing, like I'm an actor, but I'm hoping to break into waitering.
	So, it's high reward.
	Like when I was a waiter, you could make some pretty good coin over the course of an evening.
	I mean, I was obviously fairly charming and funny and upsold and all that kind of stuff.
	So, yeah, I could make some good money.
	And actually, you know, that seafood restaurant, probably, I don't even know if it's still running anymore, but that seafood restaurant, which is downtown, That was my sort of first real view into some seriously wealthy people.
	Like, wow, seriously wealthy people.
	A guy came in one night and just said, give me your most expensive champagne.
	Our most expensive champagne was $1,500, which, you know, back then, I don't know, be like, I don't know, close to five grand or something now, right?
	And I said, do you want to know the price?
	He's like, no, just, and I was like, wow.
	He's like, yeah, I just closed the deal or whatever it was that he was celebrating.
	And he didn't even finish the champagne.
	It's just wild. And so I really did see some pretty wealthy people there.
	And just knowing that it's possible, in a sense, probably gave me a little bit of ambition to work harder.
	So you get in there and you can get a job fairly easily, not a lot of training, and you can make a good deal of money.
	Now, this was back when people paid cash, right?
	This was really before a lot of credit cards, so people would pay cash.
	Now, I declared everything, as you can imagine, but of course a lot of people wouldn't, and so you get some tax-free income and you can make a fair amount of money, particularly if you're attractive, you can make a fair amount of money Pretty quickly, but you have to kind of work vampire hours.
	So, you know, the serving jobs are when everyone else is spending money.
	In other words, when it's their leisure time, it's your work time.
	So you kind of live this inverse.
	You live this negative, in a sense, like you got photographs from the old school and then you got the negatives.
	So you're living kind of the opposite.
	When you're in a service industry, you're working when other people are playing.
	And so you end up with nobody who has a regular life in your life.
	Because if you're a professional waiter...
	I mean, I had a split shift when I worked at this seafood restaurant.
	So I'd work like 11 to 2 and then, you know, 5 to 11 at night, right?
	So a split shift is, you know, what are you going to do?
	You just, you know, went home and listened to some doors and wrote a little and then went back to work.
	That was my summer of the doors for some reason.
	But... So you end up in an alternative life, like a parallel dimension, where when everyone else is working, You're not working, right?
	Because there's nobody in the restaurant when there's a regular nine to five hours except for lunch.
	And then so when everyone else is working, you're not working.
	When everyone else is not working, you're working.
	So who is it who chooses those kind of lives?
	Well, people who just don't fit into regular society.
	And again, I'm not talking about if you're young and you wait for a couple of years as a sort of gig and with no particular intention of staying there.
	But yeah, you live in a world with no regular people.
	And only people who are, quote, not regular would want to be in that world, and then they tend to get locked into that world because they really can't do that much with people out of that.
	So... Yeah, and so if you're looking for fast benefits but no progress, that's sort of a low IQ thing, and lower IQs tend to be associated with higher vices.
	And so, yeah, if you want quick money and no training and so on, and then you get kind of addicted to that, and then you end up in this life that's like this inverse of everyone else's life where they're working, you're playing, you're working, they're playing, and all of that.
	So, it is, you know, it's tough to, like, I'm in a service industry, like, I'm in the business of, so to speak, supplying philosophy to y'all, and so having, you have to have a positive relationship with your customers in order to have a generally happy work environment, so a lot of waiters don't, right?
	All right, let's get up here.
	Let's get this over to our big font mid-century text pad.
	Okay. What to do if your spouse refuses to acknowledge reality concerning situations arising in marriage?
	A contribution, effort, finances, responsibilities, division of labor, etc.
	Struggling to communicate.
	As I become frustrated at the moving goalposts, deflection, ad hominem when brought to attention.
	How can I communicate the seriousness of the situation at my level of losing interest?
	Thanks. Looking for strategies to try, Steph.
	Ooh, well, I'm sorry about that.
	I really am. I'm sorry about that.
	Because... This should be done before marriage.
	Right, so... The word entitled is really, really important.
	Some people feel just entitled to stuff.
	They feel entitled to good marks.
	They feel entitled to positive feedback.
	They feel entitled to praise.
	They feel entitled to other people's resources.
	I mean it's just a form of narcissism.
	And the way it develops is these people tend to be horribly exploited as children.
	They just take, take, take.
	People just take from them, take from them, take from them.
	They use them to watch their younger brothers.
	They use them for endless amounts of chores.
	They use them to raise money for the family.
	They just use them as an emotional dumping ground for dysfunction.
	And so when people are used and exploited as children, then in a sense a bipolar world is set up.
	Which is, look, I mean, you either take or you get taken from.
	That's it. You either take or you get taken from.
	There's no win-win negotiation.
	So some people, of course, become...
	Weak-willed enablers who just allow themselves to be exploited for the rest of their lives.
	But of course, to be exploited, you need exploiters.
	And other people say...
	I mean, I know this from my own experience, right?
	So some people, if they're raised in a really chaotic and crazy and violent household, they're like...
	They go the opposite, right?
	Then I went the opposite.
	I'm like, you know, reason, evidence, peaceful parenting, like I'm just going to learn from this experience and go the opposite.
	But some people, when they're exploited, they go the opposite.
	And they say, look, I am never going to be taken from again.
	Never am I going to allow myself to be taken from again.
	I'm not going to surrender anything.
	I'm not going to be, quote, nice.
	I'm not going to give things to others because all people do is exploit you.
	So I'm going to exploit them before they exploit me.
	Now, if you are married to someone like this, and of course you know your spouse's background obviously infinitely better than I do.
	If you're married to someone like this, then when you say...
	I need you to give something to me.
	Because they put a huge wall around their own childhood experience and say, I'm never going to be exploited again.
	I'm only going to exploit others.
	Well, then what happens is the moment you ask them for reciprocity, they perceive that as exploitation and they would just fight you on it.
	So never fight in marriage about anything on the surface.
	Never, ever, ever, ever fight about anything in marriage that's on the surface.
	If it's like, well, you said you'd do the dishes, but you didn't do the dishes, right?
	Never fight about doing the dishes.
	The fight is never about doing the dishes.
	The fight is never about doing the dishes.
	The fight is always about something else.
	The fight is always about something early, something deep, some principle that was pounded in or embedded or reacted to in childhood.
	So... Take a typical example, right?
	So if you're a man and you contribute more to the household income, then the woman should contribute more to running the household.
	I mean, and if the woman is contributing more to the household income, then the man should contribute more to running the household because things got to even out.
	I mean, things have to even out.
	Otherwise, the relationship is unsustainable.
	I believe and truly accept that my wife and I both provide equal value in our marriage.
	And it's not always the same.
	I don't like the tit-for-tat stuff.
	You know, like, I did one nice thing for you.
	Now you've got to do one nice thing for me.
	That's just a lack of trust. So yeah, my wife and I provide equal value to our relationship and we both really appreciate the areas where she's better at stuff.
	I really appreciate it. The areas where I'm better at stuff, she really appreciates it.
	So yeah, never ever fight at the surface.
	Never fight at the surface because it's never about the surface things.
	And the surface things are there to help you avoid the foundational issues, right?
	The deep childhood issues.
	And of course, you know, the people who hurt you don't want you to know how much they've hurt you, right?
	So if you were hurt as a child by a parent, that parent or those parents, they don't want you to know how much they hurt you because if you figure out how much they hurt you, you will...
	Have a negative judgment. You will ask for honesty.
	You will ask for apologies.
	You will ask for reparations or something like that.
	And they don't want to do any of that.
	So you're programmed by the people who really hurt you to deal with surface crap that doesn't matter at all.
	In order to avoid the deep stuff that goes back into your history and implicates those who hurt you.
	So, talk about childhood.
	Talk about, you know, what lessons did you learn from childhood?
	It's a very foundational and essential question to ask someone you're dating.
	What lessons did you learn from childhood that you still think are true today?
	Now, if you're, let's say you're a man, right?
	You're married to a woman, and she says, oh man, what I learned from childhood?
	Oh, let me tell you, man.
	You know, my mom sacrificed everything.
	She's slave for everything. And then when she got into her later middle age, when she got to be 52, my dad left her for a younger woman and she was kicked to the curb.
	So, you know, I've just learned that you just don't give.
	Just don't give and give and give.
	You'll just be exploited and kicked to the curb.
	All right. So she has...
	She internalized her mother's story.
	And it's very dangerous. Everyone around you, seriously, this is really, really, this is the pandemic of the world, for real.
	That everyone around you, with very few exceptions, everyone around you has had things get completely messed up in their life in one way or another, at one time or another.
	And what they do is they have a story about that that exonerates them.
	I'm a victim. I didn't do anything wrong.
	It was done unto me, right? So the woman who says, the mom who says to the daughter, oh, I gave him the best years of my life and I slaved my fingers to the bone to that man and he just kicked me to the curb and he's just a bad guy, right?
	So, you know, things went wrong.
	She got divorced. And, you know, when we're hurt, when we're wounded, we want to create a story that exonerates us and blames other people, that we are the innocent victim and they are the bad people who did stuff to us.
	I mean, this is human nature.
	I mean, I do it, you do it, everybody has it.
	You've got to be pretty strict about that temptation because, although it's a drug, right?
	It'll give you some satisfaction in the moment, but my God, it will just eviscerate your life.
	In the future, right?
	And the other thing too is they, because they want to escape the consequences of their own choices, they will say all men or all women, not the man I chose.
	The man I chose, the woman I chose.
	Because they don't want it.
	They can't, I mean they grew up in a family that was very critical and so they don't have a balanced relationship with criticism of themselves.
	Right? So, the mom could have said...
	Well, I chose the wrong man, and I just did everything for him.
	I kept him like a child.
	I didn't ask for reciprocity, and I'm sorry about that because that gave you a very unfair and uneven view of what relationships should look like.
	And just to avoid conflict, I just never made any demands.
	And then, of course, because I was kind of invisible and kind of a ghost because of my own childhood, I couldn't stand up for myself.
	I ceased to exist fundamentally and psychologically in the relationship, so he got bored and moved on.
	I chose wrong, because he should never have let that happen, but then I enabled, right?
	You know, like the woman with the alcoholic dad, right?
	The Michael Weston dad, right?
	Your father was just a drinker, and I had to keep the peace, and I had to...
	You know, if he didn't get drinking...
	If he didn't have drinks, he'd get violent, and he'd hit the kids, and he had to work, so I'd have to get him drinks, and all of that, right?
	Just things that were done unto you.
	In other words, people take their adulthoods and recast them as if they were still children and had no control over their environment, right?
	If you grew up in a crazy household, you don't have any control over that craziness as a child.
	So then what people do is they say, as an adult...
	I had no more control over my environment than when I was a child.
	So ask people, what lessons did you learn from your childhood that you still believe now?
	I mean, I'll go. There's a whole bunch of them, right?
	But I've learned that there are people out there who can really, really imitate and mimic good people and yet have no shred or soul of goodness in them.
	Because, you know, it's like if you can imitate a good person, why not just be a good person?
	Which is sort of like saying to the tiger, if you can imitate grass, why not just be grass and don't eat anything, right?
	That's not the way the tiger works and the camouflage is there.
	So yes, people can camouflage themselves enormously.
	That very funny people can be extremely dangerous.
	Very funny people can be extremely dangerous because they develop humor, not always, but a lot of times they develop humor.
	In order to disarm people, to give you endorphins, to make you lose your sense of caution around them.
	So, what is it?
	There's an old Tom Hanks line from a movie where he plays a comedian.
	He says, I am a comedian because I think nothing is funny.
	That's kind of a truth in that.
	The people who can be very funny can be extremely dangerous.
	Not always, but people who are very funny can be extremely dangerous, and oftentimes they're just using the humor to disarm you and lower your defenses so they can exploit you.
	Anti-rationality leads to madness.
	To offer up sexual access in return for love leaves you bitter and alone and hostile.
	And if you don't take responsibility for your life, you will gain immediate relief and long-term disaster.
	I mean, I could sort of go on and on, but these are the lessons that I learned from my childhood that I still accept are true to this day.
	So, yeah. Sit down with your wife.
	Say, hey, you know, I know we're talking about this surface stuff.
	It's not really about this surface stuff.
	It's got to be about something deeper.
	Let's revisit childhood and tell me more about your childhood and tell me What happened and what lessons you think you got from it?
	And she may not know consciously, right?
	But what lessons did you learn as a child that you still believe now?
	And what lessons did you learn as a child that you don't believe anymore, right?
	So, yeah, it's important.
	And don't ever fight at the surface stuff.
	Fighting at the surface will usually end the relationship.
	Do you have any thoughts on Amazon's The Reason of Power Abomination?
	No. No.
	I mean, this is just boring, right?
	I mean, let's say you're a minority and you want a big...
	Write your own fantastic art.
	Stop pillaging off the past, right?
	I mean, that's not really going to happen, right?
	Let's see here. What else have we got?
	My friend's paintings are done in grotesque style.
	It is very disturbing anatomy, done in a creepy way, and when you look at it, it provokes a shock, at least for me.
	My friend is pretty chill, and he's a good guy and a good friend, but looking at his paintings, I would think they were painted by a psychopath.
	I can't figure out why he makes that kind of paintings.
	Have you any thoughts on grotesque style of art in general?
	Oh, yeah. I mean, when I was in my early teens, I would go to a friend of mine's house after school almost every day, and we'd sort of hang out and play and all that.
	And, yeah, he had a chalkboard down there, and he used to draw zombie heads with eyes coming out and severed necks and holes in the cheeks and teeth missing and all that.
	Why? So someone would notice and say, well, what's going on in your life that's grotesque that you need?
	It's a cry for help. It's a cry for somebody to...
	Now, it could be a cry that he's going to ask you.
	He wants you to ask you so you can reject him.
	He might want you to ask him about his grotesque paintings and say, hey, man, it's just a style I like.
	There's nothing big in it. There's no problem with it.
	What are you getting so worked up for?
	So he could just be there to manage his own dysfunction.
	And there's nothing wrong with being good at doing grotesque art.
	I mean, every writer worth his salt needs to write both a good character and an evil character.
	But if that's all he's doing, yeah, it's a cry for help.
	So just ask about the childhood.
	Or it could be a cry for rejection, in which case he's promising that there's going to be a bad payout at some time or another for being friends with him.
	All right. Okay.
	Oh, I've been a dishwasher.
	Okay. Steph, will you be going over the great theologians in your philosophy series?
	Men like Thomas Aquinas, Jonathan Edwards, Osiris, and Kierkegaard.
	I would like to very much.
	I would like to very, very much.
	And I do believe that theology is as much...
	In fact, theology is closer to the heart of the history philosophy than philosophy is.
	Because theology accepts the objective universe, theology accepts absolute morals, and the capacity for human beings to pursue and capture virtue.
	So, because I believe that philosophy is fundamentally about morality, and the purpose of theology is morality, universal morality, I think that the theologians are closer to the history of philosophy than most philosophers.
	Steph, my fiancée lives in Russia.
	We've been engaged since October 2019 and have been trying to get her to the U.S. But COVID sanctions and now war has kept her visa held up.
	Government is keeping me from my future wife and future family.
	Her and I have essentially been stuck in a holding pattern, waiting to move forward with our lives, but we're stuck.
	Any advice? Am I missing something?
	What am I missing? What am I missing?
	Go to Russia. I mean, if you love her, go to Russia.
	I mean, assuming you can get to Russia, I'm sure getting to Russia is okay, then go to Russia.
	Again, help me with what I'm missing.
	All right. How to get over a girlfriend cheating on you.
	The way that you get over somebody cheating on you is you figure out why the hell you chose someone in the first place and why you didn't vet them properly.
	So one of two things happened.
	Either you chose a disloyal woman, in which case you've got to figure out why you're blind to disloyal women, mom, or you chose a loyal woman and drove her away in some manner, in which case you need to figure out what's going on with that.
	And look, I don't believe at all this story that if a man cheats, he's just a pig and he's gross and it's horrible and he's evil.
	But if a woman cheats, it's because the man wasn't taking care of her and she just felt lonely and she was just reaching out and she was vulnerable.
	I get all of that nonsense, right?
	So I don't believe that if you don't pay attention and woo your partner and a romantic with her, that that gives her free license to cheat.
	However, however, are you telling her how much you love her?
	Are you telling her how much you care for her?
	Are you showing your physical, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual desire for her on a daily basis?
	Does she feel treasured?
	Does she feel wonderful?
	Does she know how much you worship her?
	Like, this is so important.
	You know, there's no point leaving anything in the chamber, so to speak, right?
	I mean, we go to the grave either way.
	You might as well let your heart pour out across the universe.
	And if you do that, then the odds are if a woman is receiving, you know, wonderful love from you and feels sexy and treasured and happy and all of that and knows how much you really care about her and knows that you're loyal, What's she going to leave for?
	Now, if she has a self-destructive streak, then she's going to leave because you're too good and she doesn't think she's worth it or anything like that.
	So yeah, you either got to vet your choices or you've got to vet your behavior in the relationship.
	Now, all of this is without saying, it's my fault she cheated on me, right?
	But it's your responsibility for not being cheated on again.
	And what that means is you've got to examine how it came about.
	All right. Hey, Steph.
	Great questions, by the way.
	Thank you. Hey, Steph.
	Any advice for 26-year-olds who didn't do well with grades in high school, about 65% to 70% average, and do not hold any post-secondary education or certification degree?
	Currently working at a drilling company in Alberta.
	Yeah, we've talked before.
	We've talked before. Any place you're working, if you're ambitious, any place you're working, Find out how the business works.
	Talk to your boss. Take him for lunch.
	Ask him questions. Talk to your superior.
	How did you get this job?
	What's the most difficult thing?
	What's the toughest part of the job?
	How do you deal with downturns in the business cycle?
	How much cash on hand do you need?
	What's the cash? People love to talk about what they do for a living.
	Lord knows I do. And I've never pursued greater knowledge from a manager and have the manager say, I'm not telling you.
	Even when I worked as a COBOL programmer, I would ask my boss how he did what he did.
	So... That shows that you're curious, it shows that you want to learn things, and it also shows to your boss that you can do more than you can currently do.
	So, just ask.
	And there's nothing you can lose if you end up working in the place.
	You've got industry-specific knowledge.
	If you don't, you end up with general knowledge about how to run a business.
	All right. Let me just zoom this up a smidge.
	Oh yes, I can zoom.
	All right.
	I didn't want to get into politics.
	I wanted your insight why the IRS is hiring 87,000 tax collectors.
	Well, small businesses vote for the right.
	Okay, I'd like to hear your take on experience with sleep training kids from a peaceful parenting perspective.
	I know you've spoken about potty training and using Skittles as a mild bribe with Izzy.
	How did you handle sleep issues in the toddler in earlier phases?
	Do you consider the cry it out or Ferber method to be the use of force and or threatening of the parental bond?
	No. I don't.
	So I'll touch on this briefly. I've talked about it before.
	Izzy was an absolutely delightful baby and an absolutely terrible sleeper.
	And I read a book.
	I think it was called Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.
	And in that book, it said that children who don't learn how to sleep well into their 20s still have significant sleep issues and that it might be a lifelong thing.
	And, you know, having sleep issues, really bad for your health.
	Really bad for your health.
	Like, only one in ten people get enough sleep.
	In America, I'm sure it's the same as true in other places.
	So, you know, you need your seven to nine hours.
	Too much is bad, too little is bad.
	It just wears you down. Bad for your health, bad for your immune system, you name it.
	So, teaching children how to sleep is really important.
	And, you know, it's as important as teaching them how to brush their teeth and wipe their butts or whatever it is, right?
	So, and you have to have sleep to be a good parent, right?
	It doesn't help your child if you don't get any sleep and you get sick or you crash the car because you're tired or whatever it is, right?
	So yes, there's nothing wrong with a couple of months of letting the child adjust, but yeah, the child has to learn how to self-soothe.
	And what that means is the child has to know that when she goes to sleep, if she's upset, she can handle it, she can manage it, and she can get herself to sleep.
	You want to teach self-sufficiency to children.
	And, you know, if your kid is 20 and you're still making all their meals and doing all their laundry, then you've done bad things.
	And teaching children to learn that they can trust themselves to self-soothe, they can trust themselves to get to sleep.
	It's not fun, it's not easy.
	But, yes, I think that...
	Cry it out. The child's not going to get hurt.
	The child is not in any physical danger.
	And the, you know, as long as the child knows that she's loved during the day and you sort of explain, you know, we're not going to come in tonight and, you know, we love you so much, but you need to learn how to sleep on your own.
	I know it's going to be upsetting, but we'll get there and all that.
	And then I think it's important.
	All right. In the name of Stefan of the House Molyneux, first of his name, Lord of Philosophy and Speaker of the Truth, I hereby sentence you to critical thinking.
	I need a throne. I need a throne.
	Who doesn't? All right.
	I really like these Q&As.
	I have a lot of questions. Well, if it's any consolation, so do I. All right.
	So... I'm interviewing with two companies.
	One has a higher salary range and I'd be a senior engineer.
	The other would be a mid-level engineer with lower pay.
	But I'd be the only internal front-end engineer, which I think would give me a lot more leverage and ownership and sway in the long term.
	Where if I get to the offer stages with these two, which do you think would be a better choice?
	It depends where you are in your career.
	When you're earlier on in your career, I think it's worth sacrificing pay For skills, because the skills will pay off down the road, whether it's in your own business or whatever, right?
	But I gotta tell you, I mean, just in general, I can't recommend enough self-employment.
	I can't recommend enough being your own boss.
	So, I mean, I'll make a confession.
	Yesterday, for the first time, I can't even remember in how long, I didn't do any FDR work.
	I didn't do any work on philosophy.
	I mean, maybe I made up for it by doing four shows today.
	But I didn't do any work.
	And it's odd.
	You know, it's fine being your own boss unless you're a workaholic, which I can be a little bit.
	So just yesterday, for the first time in forever, I just...
	And I was like, during the day, I was like, oh, I should do something.
	It's like, no, I feel kind of relaxed and...
	And I think I'll just mellow out and hang with the family and all that.
	And it was really nice. So I would say that being your own boss is fantastic.
	It takes you out of all of the woke stuff.
	It takes you out of all of the mandate stuff.
	And it's well worth pursuing that as a whole.
	So whatever you can do to get to entrepreneurship, and if you've got a job with less pay, a bit more responsibility, then that might be a very good thing.
	Hey, Steph, appreciate everything you've done.
	I've emailed Colin at freedomain.com with my Skype and a question.
	Is there anything else I need to do?
	do.
	No, I will be in touch.
	All right.
	Are you familiar with the Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ by Levi H.
	Dowling?
	No. You have any thoughts on Seneca the Younger?
	I don't. I was explaining anarchy and voluntarism to someone today.
	Good God, some people are resistant to logic.
	Oh, yeah. I mean, there's this woman in Europe who posted online her electricity bill, which was like 9,000 euros, which is a staggering amount.
	She runs a small coffee shop, and she's like, I don't know how we're going to survive this, that, and the other.
	And she has her Ukraine, support Ukraine, defend Ukraine in the bio.
	You can virtue signal all you want, the bell comes to you.
	You can virtue signal all you want, the bell always comes to you.
	Alright. Thoughts on Gorbachev?
	Nothing in particular.
	I mean, obviously, Perestroika was a good thing, and the fact that he resisted that.
	I remember being at a friend's wedding in British Columbia when he was kidnapped, and we all thought that it might be going back to the Stalinist era.
	But I would like to know more about Gorbachev's childhood.
	Because I bet you Gorbachev...
	I mean, we know Hitler's childhood was a...
	His father would beat him into a coma.
	God knows what brain damage and hell went on in his head.
	And... I think?
	When you beat children who have significant talent for chaos and language and destruction, particularly when they weld themselves into politics, you get a mad and evil world.
	So I assume that Gorbachev was not raised in a brutal and authoritarian manner in the way that other dictators tend to be.
	The hand that rocks the cradle truly does rule the world.
	All right, let me get to Tother, Tother Place.
	Tother Place. Where the questions are floating around.
	How are you guys doing, by the way?
	Having a nice evening?
	Well, I hope with me you're having a nice evening.
	All right. Questions.
	Yeah, I've got to hit me up with questions on freedomain.locals.com.
	All right. How can you tell if a person has self-knowledge?
	I can see fakeness and false egos relatively easily, but it's a little harder with truly authentic people.
	Maybe because they're rare?
	So a person with self-knowledge, you would generally feel more relaxed around them because they're not looking to grab your attention to shore up their own ego.
	There's not a neediness about them.
	There's not a desperation about them.
	And, you know, I mean, to take a sort of silly example, you know, you're at a bar and some girl and some girls in multicolor clothing and short shorts are lifting up their shots at tequila and going, woo, woo, woo.
	Well, that's kind of desperate.
	Like, pay attention to me and pretend that I'm attractive.
	And that's all very desperate.
	And I'm sure you've been around people who just have this shimmering instability to them and they're just like hanging over a canyon or a well or something like that, ring style.
	And I mean, those people are just, you know, approve of me or other people who will like put you down or condescend to you with those cocktail eyes because they need somebody of high status to make them feel good.
	So when you're with people who are inauthentic, people who lack self-knowledge, They're always trying to get you to do something for them, or they're trying to do something for you.
	There is no equality.
	And this is back to Kant's thing, right?
	He did this deontology of morals conversation about the differences between UPB and Kant's categorical comparative.
	And Kant said we should treat people as ends of themselves rather than as means to our end, which I get, you know, but it's not the case when you go to the dentist, right?
	So... How can you tell if a person has self-knowledge?
	Two things. First of all, you tend to be more relaxed around them.
	And secondly, I mean, you've heard this a million times when I do a call-in show, right?
	Somebody's, oh my God, I'm so nervous at the beginning.
	And then, you know, they relax literally within five or ten minutes, right?
	And people talk to me and have for 16 years.
	Because they know that I'm genuinely interested in them and I'm not running an agenda of my own.
	I'm not running some sort of plan or, you know, like I'm always saying, I don't know if this is true.
	And I always say, you're the expert on your life.
	Correct me where I go astray.
	I say, this is just a hypothesis.
	It might not fit. Let me know if this fits with your experience.
	I'm not trying to run an agenda and say, well, you're this way because of this, this, this, and this.
	Or if I do say that, I say, is that true or does that fit?
	And I always check in at the end, find out if the conversation...
	It was valuable because people want to talk to me because I'm genuinely interested in them and their life.
	And I'm not trying to show how smart I am.
	I'm not trying to show how wise I am.
	I'm not trying to show how helpful I am.
	I'm genuinely just interested in them and what's going on with them.
	Now, it means I have some feedback and I have some thoughts, obviously.
	But... If you're relaxed around someone and they genuinely seem interested in you with no agenda, I would say they have self-knowledge.
	Steph, I've been listening to you for 10 years.
	I love and appreciate your dedication to the show.
	Thank you. I want to share philosophy with others through my life, but come across too serious.
	Is there a way to combine philosophy and humor?
	Well, less and less every day, it would seem.
	Less and less every day.
	Philosophy and humor. I think that there is, but the more important the topic you're talking about, the less it is amenable to a humorous presentation.
	So to me, humor can be very good at disarming defenses.
	So if somebody's being really defensive and you can find a joke that undermines that or lowers the intensity in that, then that can be great.
	So to me, humor can be a way of disarming people's defensiveness, but it's not usually a great way of getting particularly moral philosophy across.
	Because the more you joke about moral philosophy, the less people take it seriously, but moral philosophy is kind of something you really do have to take seriously.
	Ah, let's see here.
	I know a guy who laughs about his past misdeeds and even the tragic death of his father.
	What's up with that?
	I've heard you talk about people inviting others to laugh about serious things, but could you please elaborate on that further?
	Well... People who don't take themselves seriously will often invite you to not take them seriously.
	Don't take the bait. Don't take the bait.
	So if somebody's laughing about his past misdeeds, look, you know, if it's embarrassment or whatever, what is it?
	Comedy is just tragedy plus time.
	The tragic death of his father, yeah, that's not really something to laugh about.
	You know, when I talk about the violence that happened to me as a child, I don't do it with humor or laughter because it's not funny, right?
	So, it's messing you up because he's telling you desperately sad things, but laughing about it.
	And what he's saying is, deep down I think, what he's saying is, do you love me enough to save me from myself?
	Do you love me enough to notice the disparity between my words and my deeds, call me out on it, and have me settle down and be more serious?
	And the way this, you know, this is this horrible, I really hate this, this cowardly shit that people pull, where they'll insult you, and if you get upset, they'll say, hey, man, it's just a joke.
	You can't just take a joke.
	Don't be so serious, man.
	Just lighten up. Lighten up!
	Yeah. Lighten up like the endless plumes of ash arising from the crematoriums where all the people are going these days.
	So there's no evidence of what killed them.
	So... Yeah, the lighten up stuff means turn into a vapor, cease to exist, be blown by the wind, be nothing, be ash, be death.
	I really dislike that.
	Or, you know, if you've been in social situations with some competitive guy who wants to one-up you, then he'll tell you stories that are negative towards you and then just claim it.
	It's all in good fun. You've got to learn to laugh at yourself and blah, blah, blah.
	Yeah, I think it's important to laugh at yourself but not about the serious stuff.
	What you want to laugh at is your foibles, at your silliness, at, you know, being over-concerned with things that are all in passing.
	I think that's fine. But, you know, I don't laugh at my own desire to save the world from catastrophe by bringing reason and evidence to the forefront.
	I don't laugh about that.
	I don't laugh about that.
	So... I've been reading a lot about gifted children and their various interests.
	It seems you have an IQ, I'm guessing, of about 140.
	Is there an ethical way to increase the average IQ or G of Western nations?
	Yeah, eugenics is a terrible, terrible thing.
	Horrible, ghastly, monstrous thing that's corrupt and brutal and violent and evil and all that.
	But it doesn't seem that you can do much to budge IQ. But IQ is not the sin qua non.
	It's not the essence of what makes a good life.
	I mean, plenty of evil people have very high IQs, although decent, reasonable social behavior does tend to increase with IQ. It's not a straight line with no exceptions, of course.
	So, I mean, this is the old intelligence-wisdom dichotomy, right?
	Would you rather be super smart but unwise, or would you rather be wise but less smart?
	I would rather be wise but less smart.
	And so, for me, I can't raise anyone's IQ, because nobody knows how to, I think.
	But, I mean, they know how to lower it, right?
	Lockdowns and masking and distance learning dropped kids' IQs about 22 points, which is, by the way, a complete catastrophe.
	Hopefully it will recover. Probably will.
	So... To give people wisdom is to give them powerful, often allegorical, pre-packaged knowledge that they can actually use in their life.
	And it's really what art is supposed to do, ideally.
	And so, yeah, philosophy is a way of...
	Sorry, I keep saying you now.
	I'm the user interface to deep philosophy.
	So, I mean, I've been around computers since the ZX80 with 2K of RAM. My first computer had 8K of RAM. And I used to cart home the PET computers, which had 4K of RAM, and only ASCII. And I remember programming missile command in ASCII, right? So ASCII is just letters and symbols.
	And I remember someone, gosh, let me know if this is around anywhere, someone created the entire Star Wars movie with ASCII characters.
	I remember seeing that, just like, good lord, get outside.
	It's called a woman.
	So... The whole purpose of making things more user friendly is to the point where you don't just boot up a computer and you just see a black box, c colon backslash and a cursor.
	Good luck. Good luck making things happen.
	Good luck making things work.
	Now we have computers and cell phones, smartphones, touch and, you know, verbal voice type and all of that.
	And games are simple to install and easy to learn.
	So there's been a massive amount of complexity that has been removed from the end user because of the complexity in the programming, right?
	That which is easiest for computers is hardest for people.
	That which is easiest for people is hardest for computers, which is why you need 40 billion lines of code for a modern operating system, right?
	So my purpose is to take away the flashing cursor that doesn't really help people that much and give you practical...
	I mean, it always is my purpose to give you practical, useful information that improves the quality and particularly the moral quality of your life.
	That's the goal. That's the goal.
	And philosophy is very amenable to a better and easier user interface.
	It's not easy to do that because a lot of the purpose of philosophy has been to obscure its workings and its clarity to obscure it so that people can exploit you by telling you to be good while they do evil.
	You've got to respect property.
	I'm going to take your property.
	So philosophy has been created to be crazy complex and you can't get anywhere.
	What was it Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris were talking for hours and hours and hours about what is real?
	Just went round and round in circles.
	That's appalling. It's absolutely appalling.
	But, yeah, it's been purposefully mucked up in the same way that, you know, most religions or cults maybe have these mysteries, right?
	These mysteries that can't be explained and you've just got to defer to the priests or the leaders or whatever it is, right?
	Well, I don't want to be any of that.
	Good Lord, that would be terrible.
	It's not about me. It's not about my vanity.
	It's not about my, ooh, I'm so smart.
	It's nothing that I need to do with helping you with philosophy so that the world gets better.
	So, yeah, I don't know that there's much we can budge in terms of IQ, but wisdom is more important than intelligence when it comes to a happy life.
	Let's see here. Has your motivation for the show always been the same or has it changed over the years?
	Curious what it is. Oh yeah, absolutely.
	The show's gone through many phases, many phases.
	Whether you care about me opening the kimono when talking about the phases, you can let me know and I'll think about that.
	But are there any goals for the show you'd still like to reach?
	Any end goals? I'm also curious if there are any reasons that you could see yourself stopping the show.
	I know. I don't think that I would stop.
	It's, you know, I mean, I sat down this morning to talk about Confucius and just ripped off the most amazing monologue.
	And every monologue I do, you know, I hate to say it, it kind of amazes me.
	And I don't say this out of any particular, it just happens, right?
	It just happens. And, you know, we know this, right?
	Freddie Mercury wrote a crazy little thing called love while sitting in a bath in Hamburg.
	It took him about ten minutes. The guy who wrote Goodbye Mr.
	Chips to the three-day rainy weekend, just boom, right?
	Sometimes it just happens.
	Sometimes the mountain emerges fully formed.
	Sometimes the art comes out fully polished.
	The pleasure that I get in the process of being a mouthpiece for the origin of philosophy that I do not understand.
	Like, I don't know where some of these speeches come from.
	I don't know where these connections that occur in my mind, I don't know how they connect and I tie things in from ten years ago and create new insights and new power.
	Like, you know, when somebody said, if someone has self-knowledge, I have to sit there for a moment.
	I'm not thinking through things.
	The answer is coming to me now.
	I validate it as I'm talking with reason and evidence.
	But, you know, when I say, well, there's three things, it's like those three things are just kind of an instinct.
	And pursuing the explication of that instinct is just unbelievably fascinating to me.
	So I'll tell you a little secret here.
	Maybe it's a secret, maybe it's not.
	Sometimes I don't have the answer, and a lot of times I don't have the answer till the question comes along.
	Like, I would stop the show if every question that I was asked I had answered 10 times or 100 times before.
	I mean, some people are fine with that kind of repetition.
	But as long as the questions keep coming that are fascinating and as long as the answers are generated within me that I get to see in my mind for the first time before the world gets to see it on the screen or in the ears for the second time.
	I mean, if you go to a beautiful concert and go and preview a beautiful concert Every day or several times a day.
	And then you could play that beautiful concert to other people.
	Why wouldn't you? I mean, what else would you be doing with your life that's better or more important?
	Let's see here.
	What is best in life?
	I mean, love. Love is best in life.
	And to remember that love is not lazy, that love is earned through virtue.
	Does keeping dysfunctional people out of your life apply to the internet as well?
	What about people online in forums, chat groups, and social media?
	You can encounter unsavory types, and they too can affect you through the screen, right?
	Yes. Well, of course, right?
	Because our brains don't know that it's a distant conversation, right?
	Our brains don't know that it's a distant conversation.
	Our brains don't have any clue deep down.
	The lizard brain doesn't have any clue about social media or distance, right?
	If you're having a conversation with someone, it feels like they're right there in the room with you because that's how we evolved, and the capacity to not have that happen is relatively new.
	I guess you telegraph, well, letters, telegraph, and phones, internet.
	So, I mean...
	There's nothing wrong with that. It's just fine.
	That's why movies work, right?
	Which is you care about the characters even though it was years ago and far away and you'll never meet them and it's all fake.
	But you get into it, right?
	So I think that's fine.
	So yeah, be aware that your brain doesn't really know the difference between people being in the room and people being online.
	So, if you're online in forums, chat groups, social media, I mean, you do.
	I think in most things in life, you kind of need to ask about your purpose.
	You kind of need to think about your purpose.
	Why am I doing this? Now, for me, I mean, it was my gig, it was my life, it was my occupation, so I had a reason to do it in that way.
	It's like when people say to me, how do you write fiction?
	Well, first of all, you have to know why you're writing fiction.
	What's it for? Why are you writing a story?
	What's it for? We can educate people with stories even more powerfully than we can with syllogisms.
	So stories are very powerful.
	I mean, we don't get philosophy lectures at night.
	We get dreams with stories and plots and characters because that's how we learn.
	So, yeah, if it's not your job, if it's not something where you enjoy it and you enjoy the tussle and the back and forth and so on, I generally did, so it's fine with me, but that's not for everyone and there's nothing good or bad about it.
	It's not right or wrong about it. It's just a thing.
	But I think you do have to limit your exposure to toxic things.
	I don't read much about politics anymore.
	Why? Why?
	I mean... When I'm no longer, like, do you watch, do you have as much interest in the soccer game when you're watching rather than playing?
	Well, I hope not. I'd hope not.
	So, yeah, I mean, because I've been largely deplatformed, I'm observing, and why would I want to observe something when I can't have any effect on it, if it's negative?
	Wouldn't make much sense, right?
	So, all right.
	Have you read about the Milgram experiments?
	I didn't find anything on FDR podcasts.
	I would think it would warrant its own show, if you're familiar.
	Do you think the results would be worse today if the experiment was repeated?
	All right. Well, I guess I do know quite a lot about the Milgram experiments, and I think I've mentioned it once or twice on the show.
	But let me return to our good friends who are watching live and ask me, Wait a minute.
	Oh, we're back. Please tell us about the phases of the show.
	What have we got? 35 minutes left.
	It might be too short.
	All right. Surely, Harrison Peterson are arguing about the definition of truth.
	Yeah. Yeah, that's really tragic.
	I mean, if you can't sort out the truth stuff, what are you doing with anything at all?
	I mean, everything else is a con, isn't it?
	If you can't figure out what's true and what's real, everything you're saying is just a bunch of nonsense, isn't it?
	As a whole. All right.
	Let's see here. Our thoughts on Andrew Tate being a hot topic on the internet and then being banned from the mainstream social media platforms.
	Well, I mean, obviously I disagree with a lot of what he says.
	It doesn't really matter. But, you know, to me it's like free speech, make your case, right?
	But, you know, if you have a whole bunch of men, a whole bunch of boys being raised by single moms and daycare teachers who are all women and primary school teachers who are all women and they don't have any exposure to masculinity, they don't have any exposure to male authority figures...
	What do you expect? Nature abhors a vacuum, and if you remove male authority figures or male inspiration figures from boys' lives, they will have a great hunger for it, and they will look for it, and sometimes they'll look right, and sometimes they'll look wrong, but it is...
	Let's see here.
	What do you think of people who act cold and rude to co-workers they don't know very well, but like their best friends with the ones they know and laugh like hyenas?
	Yeah, so I mean the people, there's a lot of...
	Yeah, I talk about this in...
	My novel. I talk about this in my novel.
	How seemingly having a good time can be punishment for someone.
	And, you know, it's been a while since I read a bit from my novel.
	So let me get you there.
	And again, free domain. I mean, it's freedomain.locals.com.
	You can use the promo code UPPERCASE UPB2022 and you can get this for free.
	So you have no excuse to not listen to it or read it because it's a great book.
	And let me just get here.
	Let's do a search.
	I really should have this more handy.
	Okay, we can open that version.
	Why not? Okay, so yes, this is the book.
	Oh, I do, in fact, have this word, unless I've typed it wrong.
	Ah, yes, yes, okay, okay.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Ah, yes. My father had one hell of a temper.
	There was a pattern, you know.
	A bunch of kids would be over to the house, a huge house, And we would take over the upstairs and invent our games, our limits, ourselves.
	And the noise would increase, and the dangers would escalate, and then something would be broken.
	Someone would crack a knee, someone would burst into tears, and my mother would come up the stairs with her usual shrill exasperation, which we refused to listen to.
	It was always vaguely shameful to submit to a woman's upset.
	And she would angrily and ineffectually nag at us from the top of the stairs, while we silently bragged by continuing our mayhem.
	And eventually we would summon the dark force of my father's footsteps and he would holler from the middle of the stairs, the phone hanging by his side on mute.
	And he would never say, listen to your mother or anything like that.
	He might as well ask us to play on the ceiling, but he would demand that the noise and commotion cease right now!
	We took a deep, visceral pleasure in freezing in place.
	I know now it was a way of humiliating our mother.
	But there was more to it than that.
	I didn't know any children, any sons who were close to their fathers in my world.
	In fact, I remember a silly joke from those days.
	Two boys sitting on the steps.
	One says to the other, I bet my dad could beat up your dad.
	The other replies, really?
	How much would that cost me?
	We wanted our fathers to pay attention to us, but they only intervened when we jacked up the chaos to light speed.
	Mothers couldn't teach us how to be men.
	And it was a maternal world in those days.
	Nannies, daycare teachers, school teachers, they were all women, all frazzled, all overwhelmed and perpetually frustrated by boys.
	They basically viewed us as broken girls.
	Male authorities were an oasis in the desert, the endless quicksand of the feminine.
	I chased my father like a dog chases the mail truck with no idea what I would do if I actually caught him.
	And he had, let's be frank, a very heavy hand.
	I didn't check the weather when I was young, so every day was a surprise of sun or rain.
	I didn't know the impact of the outside world on my father, so I couldn't predict his moods.
	All kids are pretty selfish, boys especially, so we take everything personally, as if we are the only influence on those around us.
	I guess my father had his good days and his bad days.
	On his good days, you got ice cream, tickles, bad jokes.
	On his bad days...
	Yeah, I got beaten.
	No point in beating around the bush, I suppose.
	My friend and I... When was I? Five or six years old.
	We're playing some imaginary spaceship game.
	And I put a glass of water on an antique cabinet.
	And my mother burst into tears when she was cleaning up later because it left a pale ring on the dark surface of the wood.
	Children know nothing of history.
	Of course, the world was created when they were born.
	But I vaguely understood that this was a family heirloom and a treasure of some kind, which made me resentful that I'd been allowed to play around it unsupervised.
	My father came hurtling into the room like a satellite entering the atmosphere— With his left hand, he slammed the door shut.
	With his right hand, he lifted me up by the neck of my T-shirt.
	The fabric on the back cut into my neck savagely.
	And he hurled me against the wall.
	I couldn't tell whether my mother was crying for the cabinet or for me.
	And he slapped me across the face, back and forth, like a blur.
	I don't know how many times.
	And he told me to take care of my goddamn things!
	I was not in pain.
	That's the great secret of being hit as a child.
	It almost never hurts in the moment.
	But I remember truly understanding that things meant more than people.
	Cabinets meant more than children.
	Stains trumped bruises.
	I sagged against the wall, not even holding up my hands, my body signifying bottomless compliance, a total void of resistance.
	I suppose he felt me go limp under his blows.
	This appeased him. I thought for a moment that he was going to go and get me a towel, throw it at me, and tell me to clean myself up, as if I had made the mess.
	Or in the next moment I hoped that he would burst into tears and apologize for his rage and that the power would then swing to me.
	But nothing of the sort happened.
	He got up, brushed his hands as if they were covered in chalk, walked out of the room.
	I expected my mother to come in, tend my wounds, and apologize profusely, but I didn't want her to do that, because it did me no good to have power over her.
	I've always, always hated small talk.
	Years later, in college I saw a meme about the trolley problem in philosophy.
	If you threw the switch and saved ten people, you then have to engage in small talk about saving them.
	I remember feeling a savage desire to not throw the switch and let everyone die so they wouldn't have to congratulate me on my virtue.
	I then imagined that my mother and father were downstairs, racked with guilt and promising to change.
	But when I heard footfalls on the stairs, I crept to the snow-white banisters and peered through them like a convict in a prison of icicles.
	And my heart froze as I saw them step into their tennis shoes, grab an athletic bag and head out to play a game.
	I knew there was a nanny in the house.
	I knew that my sister was asleep.
	I knew that I was not being left alone, but Really, I was.
	I was being told very clearly that the drama of the assault was not even a comedy.
	It was not out of the ordinary.
	It gave me no power. It was not unjust.
	It was not wrong. It was the ultimate power play.
	And it told me a hell of a lot about how the world worked.
	So there, the parents, obviously, the violent, abusive parents, they beat the child and then go and laugh and have a good time and go play tennis, right?
	So people who pretend to have a good time are often doing it in order to punish those they've excluded from that, quote, good time.
	So that would be my guess.
	Thoughts on the relationship between ethics and aesthetics.
	I noticed that often moral virtues are described as beautiful by you as well.
	Yeah, so beauty motivates us, right?
	Physical beauty motivates us.
	The beauty that men's resources can buy, the house, whatever, motivates women.
	Physical beauty, female beauty motivates men.
	And so, yeah, we're motivated by beauty, and without an end motivation, we don't suffer injury in pursuit, right?
	Yeah. When you start to exercise, it's painful and it's difficult, and you stick with it.
	Your diet, it's difficult and painful, you stick with it, because you have an end goal.
	So, beauty is...
	I mean, happiness, yes, is our end goal, but happiness is facilitated by beauty.
	That's why they make ugly art, so that you don't have a culture that you're willing to fight to defend.
	So, yeah, love is beautiful, and love is the goal that we aim for, the happiness that love engenders, and we achieve that through being mature and wise and virtuous.
	Have you ever been ghosted by a girl?
	A girl stops replying. Or have any thoughts on why a girl would do that?
	Yeah, I've ghosted.
	I've ghosted girls. Simply because I came across something.
	It was very early in the relationship, or really there wasn't even a relationship, maybe just a date or two.
	And I just, I came across something that's just like, nope, not going forward.
	And it wasn't enough of a relationship for me to sit down and explain things and all of that.
	So, yeah, I... I mean, I remember dating a girl who, on the second date, she told me about her last boyfriend, that they'd lived together for a couple of years, and then she just came home and he had just completely moved out.
	All this stuff was gone. He just vanished from her life, from being living together.
	And she had no idea what happened.
	And Noah's like, okay, well, I can't, right?
	All right.
	Alright. Oh, sorry.
	So sometimes people will ghost you because they think they're better than you, or that they have attributes that you don't have, and then you might want to try and gain those attributes.
	Sometimes people will ghost you because...
	They don't feel that they deserve you, right?
	So a very pretty woman who's pursued for her beauty, and you're a quality guy, but she's made really bad decisions with guys in the past, and she's shredded her heart, and maybe she was exploited as a child or exploited as a teenager, so she doesn't feel like she has much self-worth.
	So if you treat some women well, they will recoil from you because it brings up a lot of pain about how badly they treated others, how badly they've been treated, and how badly they treat themselves.
	Somebody says, I listened through...
	Your novel, The Future. Loved it.
	At first felt it ended a little too abruptly, but now I feel armed with a sufficient understanding of its world to imagine how the world continued to evolve.
	Are you planning to ever write a sequel or prequel?
	Yes, I am interested in that.
	It would be interesting to write The Trial of the Sun.
	All right. All right.
	Some people I've met in the freedom movement seem really superstitious, feel there are spirits around, think they can channel from the other side, are convinced of the great awakening that will overcome the globalist agenda.
	It seems like a disconnect and not a way to get to the future.
	Comments? We all want the unearned, and mysticism is a way of believing that you have value without actually having to prove things.
	So if you believe that a prayer heals people, and according to double-blind experiments it doesn't, but let's say that thoughts and prayers go to you, right?
	Okay, so it's a way of feeling like you're doing something without actually having to do anything.
	So people who are mystical have a great desire to contribute something to the world, But a great lack of desire to do the hard work necessary to produce things that are of value to the world.
	You can give people, through a strenuous self-examination and reason and evidence, you can give people wisdom and virtue and at least give them the tools to achieve those things.
	Or you can say, I consulted with my spirit animal and things are going to be fine.
	The kindest thing you can do to someone who won't listen to reason is let them fall.
	Why don't you think some people listen to reason?
	And even if they understand the reason, why do you think they don't act upon it and instead fall?
	Well, because reason hasn't been proven to them.
	Reason hasn't been proven to them.
	And this is because of the Cartesian-Devon argument and because Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson are spending hours and hours and hours talking about what is true.
	Oh my God, can you imagine?
	Did you show up on time? Yes.
	Well, that's true, you showed up on time.
	It's not that complicated.
	I mean, it's messed up by history and power and all of that, but why don't people listen to reason?
	Because they think they can get away without doing it.
	Reason listening to reason is hard, very hard.
	It won't be in the future, like my novel, The Future, where I talk about how easy it is to listen to reason, how hard it is to not listen to reason.
	But yeah, I mean, listening to reason is hard.
	Listening to reason has you...
	I mean, it turns what you thought of as a decently moral society into a horror show hurtling to disaster.
	That's pretty tough for people. But of course, it's hurtling to disaster because people won't listen to reason.
	So people think there's an escape, right?
	I mean, if you're on a plane and...
	It's heavily damaged.
	And you've got to grab someone who's got a parachute and hold onto them and jump out into the snowy mountains and so on.
	You'll only do that if you're certain that the plane is going down.
	If you believe that the plane is not going down, the pilot's like, don't jump, I got it, you know, I'm pulling it up, I've got the engine back online, things are going to be fine, right?
	Then you won't do it. The people don't listen to reason because they think there's an alternative that will work, and they're, you know, well paid to, and well bribed and well rewarded for thinking there's an alternative that will work, and they're well punished, harshly punished for, right?
	We're going for reason. All right.
	I recently had a conversation with an 18-year-old who rejects subjective reality and claims everything is subjective.
	I brought up the brain in a VAT theory, but then it occurred to me.
	Whether we're just a brain in a VAT or not, it's irrelevant because we interact with the world as if it's really here and things are objective.
	So functionally, we exist assuming reality is subjective.
	Your thoughts? It's a very tempting argument, but it's a false argument.
	It's a false argument. I just wrote an essay on the truth about metaphysics and we're not a brain in a vat.
	We're not a brain in the vat.
	Reality is objective. So let's say, okay, we are a brain in a vat.
	What does that mean? That means some external demon has put our brain in a vat and is stimulating our electrodes.
	That external creature or being lives in an objective universe.
	Otherwise, he or she or it would never have been able to develop the science necessary to wire up our brains and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	So the whole brain in a VAT theory requires reason, an objective universe, facts, logic, empiricism, science, and everything, right?
	So you have to accept that objective reality exists for the brain in a VAT theory.
	You say, ah, yes, well, but it could be infinite regression, blah, blah, blah, right?
	At some point, there has to be something that starts the course, right?
	Somebody who puts somebody else's brain in a tank.
	So, the law of parsimony, or Occam's razor, right?
	If you accept objective reality exists, then you don't need to layer in this brain and tank which has no proof and demon.
	It's just you reject it completely.
	There's no evidence for it.
	There's no proof of it. Everybody lives, as you point out, to the opposite.
	The person communicating to you is communicating to you only because they think that you exist.
	Because... I don't lean over to the person in the movie theater and say, hey, we're watching a movie.
	Just in case you didn't know, we're watching a movie.
	Because he's like, I know we're watching a movie.
	I'm in a movie theater. What are you talking about? You don't tell me something I already know.
	So if he thinks that you're a creation of the demon who put his brain in a vat, he would never try and convince you of that because you already know it.
	So even his interactions show that he doesn't believe it at all.
	So, no. The brain in a vat theory requires objective reality.
	It requires other minds to exist.
	The mind of the creature putting your brain in the tank and the science he uses which he could only develop through objective reason.
	So you already accept the existence of other creatures, objective reasons, science, facts, reality.
	All of that is accepted by the theory, so you don't need the brain and the fact, because it's a completely unnecessary and unproven layer.
	And if people remove all standards of disproof, you just discard the argument.
	You just discard the argument, right?
	Like if I say, ooh, I've got an invisible spider on my head.
	And you say, oh, wow, an invisible spider, that's cool, can I touch it?
	No, can't touch it.
	Oh, well, I've got an infrared attachment to my camera.
	I'm going to point the... No, no, no. It's also immune to infrared.
	Oh, well, can I see it eating something?
	No, it doesn't eat anything.
	Oh, you know, and you simply run out of all the senses, right?
	There's no spider. If every standard of proving the existence of the invisible spider on your head is rejected, there's no spider.
	Simple as. No spider.
	All right. Steph, I just wanted to let you know that in terms of gender for today, I identify as a green orb.
	I'm kidding, but I really heard someone say that.
	What do you think of people like that? I feel a combo of pity and the desire to laugh when I heard it.
	Well, it's very sad. It's very sad.
	Of course, I mentioned this in a show.
	I don't think I've even released it yet.
	I mean, I'm trained as a philosopher.
	I have studied philosophy for 40 years.
	I got an A on my graduate school thesis in the history of philosophy, which was a hard thing to get.
	I have been practicing as a philosopher, reasoning from first principles for 16 years straight.
	And yet people say, he's not a real philosopher.
	He's not a philosopher. He's not a philosopher.
	So, if I can't self-identify as a philosopher, I'm not sure who can self-identify as what.
	I mean, it's not even self-identifying, it's like a factual thing.
	So, if we're just going to allow...
	I mean, I'm not a racist, I'm not a eugenicist, some people identify me as that, but it's like, no, I'm not.
	There's no evidence for any of this stuff, other than weird things taken out of context and snipped from larger sentences.
	So... If people call me names and I say, well, I'm not those things, and they say, oh, yes, you are, then I'm not allowed to self-identify even in things that are factual.
	So the rule is just not consistently applied to whatever you can self-identify as.
	He's not a real philosopher. What if I self-identify as a philosopher?
	No, you could self-identify as a green orb, but you can't self-identify as a philosopher even though there's as much evidence as you could possibly have that you are one.
	All right.
	Let's do, we got another 13 questions.
	All right.
	I'm a filmmaker who wants to add more of the philosophical thoughts being had here at Free Domain.
	What advice would you give to make the stories more appealing to the masses while still containing the philosophical ideas?
	By the way, I cannot wait to obtain the necessary resources to make a film adaptation of Just Poor.
	Love it so far. Just Poor would be a fantastic...
	Well, Almost would be a miniseries of the gods, almostnovel.com.
	A huge budget, but man, it would be exciting because, you know, it's a war story, fundamentally.
	So yeah, Just Poor would also be a fantastic story to adapt.
	Not the cheapest thing in the world, but...
	How do you make great stories?
	It's like saying, how do you write hit songs?
	You know, you just keep practicing until you get it right.
	It's a Ray Bradbury thing. He said, look, you write 50 short stories.
	You write a short story every week.
	You write 52 short stories in a year.
	One of them is going to be good. And sometimes it is just repetition.
	All right. There's a teen boy, 16 in my family, wants to be a dictator.
	Had no voluntary relationships ever.
	Only family in school, never a girlfriend, never a job, violent parents.
	How would you approach a young wannabe dictator?
	Would I? I don't know.
	I think what you want to do is take away the drug called power and therefore work against oligarchical tyrannies as a whole, but I don't think you can fix that.
	I don't think you can fix that.
	I mean, what lessons did you learn from your childhood that you still believe today?
	Hey Steph, any tips on how to process and move forward after a breakup from a long relationship?
	You won't be able to get over it until you know you won't repeat it.
	Simple as. You won't be able to get over it until you know you won't repeat it.
	So you have to be really harsh with yourself about how you ended up in a situation where you couldn't sustain the relationship.
	Did you choose wrong? Did you choose the wrong woman?
	Did you drive a good woman away?
	You need to be really harsh with yourself and only then will you feel secure you won't repeat it.
	Really enjoying just poor.
	It seems much more complicated than the future, and I'm having trouble understanding Mary.
	I'll need to listen to it another time.
	Yeah, so every novel has my themes, right?
	So every novel has its themes.
	The theme of almost is betrayal.
	The theme of...
	The theme of the future is ostracism, and the theme of just poor is vengeance.
	So if you listen to the story, understanding that sort of theme, I probably shouldn't have to say it, but yeah.
	Somebody says, yeah, that's why I don't listen to some reason, though I know it's likely true.
	Arrogance and thinking I can get away with it because I haven't suffered the consequences yet, like a woman in her 20s thinking she could sleep around consequence-free.
	Yeah, yeah, that's true.
	And this is why I don't have an escape hatch in virtue.
	I don't have an escape hatch in philosophy.
	Let's see here. All right, let me make sure I've got everyone.
	Oh, yes, we were going to talk about Milgram, right?
	We're going to talk about Milgram.
	Okay, let me just make sure I get it right, because it's been a long time since I read about it.
	Okay, let's not go to Wikipedia.
	you.
	Yeah.
	What do you say? Wasn't it a...
	Didn't it turn out to be a scam?
	A scam? All right. So, here we go.
	The Milgram experiment was a famous and controversial study.
	Explored the effects of authority on obedience.
	So, it was a Yale University psychologist named Stanley Milgram.
	He did these obedience experiments.
	So, authority figures ordered participants to deliver what the participants believed were dangerous electrical shocks to another person.
	And... So the prediction model was...
	So you were sitting there, and there was a glass window, and then on the other side was a guy hooked up to electrodes.
	And the basic story that you were told by the windmill...
	He says, look, we're researching how people learn, right?
	So when you ask someone a question, when they get the wrong answer, you deliver an electrical shock.
	And it started off real low, real dial.
	It's just like, oh, you know, a little thing like that, right?
	And then the...
	The person in the white lab coat would then tell you to dial up the voltage of the electrical shock to the point it went up to like 450 volts, which is kind of fatal.
	And you never bullied anyone.
	They said, it is necessary for you to increase the voltage.
	The experiment requires you to increase the voltage.
	Now, and the number of people, according to the story, right?
	The number of people who went up to fatal...
	was staggeringly high.
	Staggeringly high. And it went up in 15-volt increments.
	So the switches were labeled like slight shock, moderate shock, danger severe shock.
	The final three switches were just XXX, which is like Death, right?
	Now, this is all actresses. This is all fake.
	The actresses were only pretending to be shocked and all that kind of stuff.
	And when you went over 300 volts as you're dialing up the volts, the learner would bang on the wall, demand to be released, and so on, right?
	Beyond this, the learner became completely silent, refused to answer any more questions.
	The experimenter then instructed the participant to treat this silence as an incorrect response and deliver a further shock.
	So... The response was please continue.
	The experiment requires that you continue.
	It is absolutely essential that you continue.
	You have no other choice. You must go on.
	Now... The guess ahead of time, and a lot of this came out of the horrors of Nazism and of course the Holocaust and so on, but a lot of people, a lot of psychologists were asked ahead of time, and I think Milgram was with this opinion too, that only like 2-4% of people would go to fatal levels.
	Only the complete sociopaths with no guilt and no conscience and all of that.
	But 65% of the participants in the study delivered the maximum shocks.
	Of the 40 participants in the study, 26 delivered the maximum shocks while 14 stopped before reaching the highest levels.
	So, the physical presence of an authority figure dramatically increased compliance.
	The fact that Yale, which is this big trusted academic institution, sponsored the study, well, that must be safe.
	And... This is why conformity is so important.
	When other people refuse to go along with the experimenter's orders, 36 out of 40 participants refuse to deliver the maximum shocks.
	This is the difference, right?
	So 65% of them deliver the shocks, the maximum, the kill shocks.
	But if one person said no, then 36 out of 40 refuse to deliver it, right?
	Just one person breaking ranks.
	This is why people who break ranks have to be deplatformed, because otherwise they can inspire other people.
	You can look at A Bug's Life with the nuts for more on that.
	So, yeah, there were ethical concerns, of course, which is basically you walk out of there knowing that you would kill someone if told to.
	What does it mean?
	Oh, you'll kill someone.
	So, they tried changing it up.
	In 2009, they made several alterations to the Milgram experiment.
	The maximum shock level was 150 volts as opposed to 450.
	Participants were also carefully screened to eliminate those who might experience adverse reactions to the experiment, well, anybody with a conscience.
	The results of the new experiment revealed that the participants obeyed at roughly the same rate that they did when Milgram conducted his original study more than 40 years before.
	So, that seems fairly important.
	Are we here?
	Are we running?
	Yes, we are running. All right.
	So, there is...
	I know the prison experiments, I think, had some significant criticisms and so on.
	So, he said, Milgram said that the subjects were debriefed, but of the 700 or so people who took part in different variations of his studies between 61 and 62, very few were truly debriefed.
	So, the statistic that 65% of people obeyed orders applied to only one variation of the experiment, in which 26 out of 40 subjects obeyed, In other variations, far fewer people were willing to follow the orders, and in some versions of the study, not a single participant obeyed.
	So, this guy, researcher, tracked down some of the people who took part in the experiments as well as Milgram's research assistants.
	What she discovered is that many of his subjects had deduced what Milgram's intent was and knew that the learner was merely pretending.
	Such findings cast Milgram's results in a new light.
	It suggests that not only did Milgram intentionally engage in some hefty misdirection to obtain the results he wanted, but that many of the participants were simply playing along.
	So, yeah, I mean, I think like most people, I heard about this fairly young, and it was one of these things where you say, ooh, that's not ideal, to put it mildly.
	So, of course, let's just take the results at face value that 65% of people are willing to kill someone if someone in authority tells them to.
	Well, we know that's an experiment called war, where people will kill other people if someone in authority tells them to, people they have no particular beef with.
	Sorry, there we go. So, yeah, we already know this because of war, and what this should do, of course, is it should cause a deep and abiding and resounding tsunami of tidal wave shock all throughout society, saying, oh my God, if we take this experiment at face value, 65% of people will murder.
	If someone in authority tells them to, we've got to really jig our entire childhood, our entire educational system.
	Everything has to be rewritten from the ground up.
	But, of course, nothing of the kind happens.
	In fact, things just get even crazier in the educational and parenting system.
	Yeah. All right.
	Yeah, that might be post-facto reasoning on the part of the test subjects.
	Yeah, that's very true. They might just be justifying it after the fact.
	But, yeah, you hear these kinds of experiments, like the prison experiment, where you divide people into prisoners and guards, and, you know, you have to stop the experiment in a couple of days because the guards are, like, beating hell out of the prisoners, and the prisoners are getting depressed and hangdog and turning on each other, and it turns into really, really savage stuff.
	Okay. And, you know, there are issues with these studies, and there's a lot of back and forth about how valid they are.
	I do think that people are bred to murder.
	I mean, just think of the evolution of the species.
	The tribal chief says, kill this enemy who's not part of your tribe.
	The tribal chief says, attack or kill this enemy.
	What happens if you said no?
	Well, would you survive?
	Would your tribe survive? Would those genes survive?
	Would those obedience things survive?
	So, you know, this is the reality that our evolution has not exactly drawn us to be independent thinkers with abstract moral values that will never compromise.
	That's not a thing in evolution.
	And so because of that, government control of education, government control of this, that, and the other is just a bad idea because we're born to conform and we're born, or at least we are evolved to...
	Do violence at the behest of the rulers, because certainly evolutionarily speaking, if you didn't do violence at the behest of the rulers, you'd get killed or ostracized and your genes would end.
	Or you'd get such a bad reputation, like if you didn't fight in the First World War, the women would give you the white feathers of cowardice and not date you, so you might as well go take your chances on the front for your genes.
	50-50 chance of dying at the front, maybe it's 85% you don't get to breed if you don't fight, so your genes would tell you to go fight.
	All right. Thanks, everyone, so much.
	AlmostNovel.com, JustPornNovel.com, FDRURL.com, forward slash TGOA, and last but not least, FreeDomain.com, forward slash donate.
	Please, please help out the show.
	It's been a rough couple of years, and I would really, really appreciate your support and help.
	So have a wonderful evening.
	Thanks for dropping by. Thanks for all the great questions.

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