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Oct. 30, 2022 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:26:48
FRIDAY NIGHT LIVE! 28 10 2022
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Are you going back to Twitter?
I have no intention of going back to Twitter.
See, I was a moderate force on Twitter.
I know people think of me as kind of out there.
No, no, no. I was a facts-based, reason and evidence-based moderate force on Twitter.
I was attempting to keep the right and the left in some kind of rational conversation.
And, you know, when various groups don't do well in society, the left always says it's exploitation, which is a conspiracy theory.
And the right always say it's laziness, which is a blame without reason.
And I'm saying, no, there are other scientific factors we've got to explore, talk to the experts, and so on, and try and bring facts to the conversation.
I am not at all convinced that Twitter is a place for facts-based conversation at all.
I mean, I held out as long as I can, and I was, I mean, just unjustly yeeted.
In my view, I didn't break any terms of service, and I didn't insult any people, never threatened violence, of course, and I'm always telling people to use reason and evidence rather than any kind of ferocity and...
So, no, I don't see, I mean, we'll see how the culture changes over there at Twitter, but it's, you know, it's like, Twitter's a little bit like, you know, if you're a man, probably if you're a woman too, but man, if you're a man...
I guarantee you've had this at one point in your life.
Some woman, super hot, super dangerous, and you know, you just know she's leading you down a dark path.
It's a fun path.
Don't get me wrong. It's a fun path, but it's a dark path.
And you just know.
You know you shouldn't.
You know you shouldn't.
And... So yeah, I don't have any...
I enjoyed my time on Twitter.
I have no complaints, I have no regrets, but I'm so enjoying the work that I'm doing at the moment, plotting out a new book.
I'm writing a love story set in the men's rights movement.
So yeah, I'm writing a really, really...
I'm not writing it yet.
I'm sort of just working out the plot and the story and the characters.
And the History of Philosopher's series, I really, really enjoyed doing an hour and a half on property rights.
And the stuff that I'm getting the most value out of at the moment is not conducive to 200-character limit tweets.
And that was fun.
Don't get me wrong. I have no regrets at all about my time there.
But, you know, it's like if you're...
Enjoyed yourself at a restaurant, and then they just took a slow dump in your soup without telling you, and you had a couple of mouthfuls, and you're like, God, this is the most horrible thing ever.
And then, you know, a year or two later, you're driving past, this is under new management.
It's like, yeah, well, still the same cook, still the same waiter, still the same, right?
So... All right, let me get to you, my friends.
How many philosophers remaining in your series?
At least 20, probably closer to 30.
Did anyone in the chat have a nudist show up at their house at 2 a.m.?
I would imagine not.
I would imagine not. But, you know, the things they expect you to believe two weeks before the midterms, right?
Do you think it's okay to let babies self-settle when you put them to bed, or should you always respond when they cry?
The experts all seem to say self-settling is a skill they need to learn, but it doesn't seem very peaceful and you just think if they're crying there must be a reason.
Well, yes, but just because you're crying doesn't mean you should be comforted, right?
Now again, they're babies, so 99 times out of 100, you comfort them.
So, I can sort of tell you my own experience, and I've mentioned this before, so I'll keep it relatively brief.
My wonderful daughter, who made me laugh so hard, I almost, like I wept and almost peed myself today.
She was, oh my god.
So, we were doing...
You ever do this game where you've got a bunch of people in a car?
We were on a day trip with some friends and there was a bunch of people in a car.
And you do this story.
Like, every person takes a word of the story once upon a time.
There was... You're right.
And we... We ended up doing, like, you could do three words at a time, like, once upon a time there was, right?
And anyway, the stories always get progressively more insane and actually quite hilarious.
And we came to at one point in the story where I said, and then he resurrected!
And I thought it was going to be his pet or whatever, right?
And then I said, and then he resurrected!
And my daughter said, the Soviet Union!
I don't know why. It just hit me so hard.
I almost blew my brains out of my ears sideways from laughter.
It was just... I'm glad I wasn't driving.
That's all. So anyway, my daughter, when she was very young, she was not a sleeper at all.
And I did the research.
And I looked it up. And if children don't learn how to put themselves to sleep, if babies and toddlers don't learn how to put themselves to sleep, even into their 20s they have sleep issues.
So it is something that you have to learn how to do.
And oftentimes the better the parent you are, the more your kid wants time with you at night because they miss you and they love the cuddles and the hugs and the playing and all of that.
So it's kind of a compliment, I suppose, to you as a parent.
We did end up...
We did some consultations with the sleep dude and all of that.
We did end up letting her cry out and it took a while.
She's been sleeping fine ever since.
You can't enjoy parenting if you're exhausted and you're going to be exhausted if you're up all night with a baby.
So, you know, give them as long as you can, right?
Until you start to feel your personality start to disintegrate Noriega style.
So give it as long as you can and then let them cry it out.
They'll learn that they can handle it, that they'll self-soothe and so on, right?
The inability to let children suffer is the root of a lot of problems in the world at the moment.
And I know this sounds odd coming from peaceful parenting, but if you think about, you know, you let your kids bike, they're going to fall down and hurt themselves.
You let my daughter learn how to skate, she fell down, she hurt herself, just as I did, just as everyone does in these kinds of situations.
How else are you going to learn how to trust yourself?
That you can survive discomfort, right?
So the prevention of discomfort is the job of mothers in early childhood and the allowance of discomfort is the job of fathers as you get older and because we have almost pure matriarchy for probably two-thirds to three-quarters of the population, single mothers or very absent fathers and then Women in charge of daycares and primary schools and so on, right?
So we have a radical matriarchy experiment going on for most of our kids, and they don't have the ability to suffer and feel they will survive.
So when they encounter a contrary idea or argument or opinion or perspective, they freak out.
Literally shaking stuff, like literally, like, I can't breathe, I'm literally shaking, you know, that kind of stuff.
It's just the result of...
Now, women are programmed to not let children suffer because you can't let babies learn how to navigate a dangerous world on their own, but as the kids get older, they have to get out there, they have to fall down, they have to navigate and negotiate social challenges and deal with difficult people and...
And they'll figure out how to do it, just as you did and I did.
And you can't have free speech if people are too hypersensitive, right?
If their entire life is like a skinned knee up against sandpaper, then they end up having to manage other people because they can't manage themselves.
Or to put it another way, they end up controlling other people because they can't manage themselves.
Right? So if every time someone lifted a little finger, you got a migraine, someone in your house, you'd have to really, really focus on controlling them from lifting their little finger.
Because if they lift their little finger, you get a migraine.
So you're just focused entirely on controlling them.
Because you can't control the migraine that they're lifting their little finger produces.
So if you can't manage your own emotions, you end up dictatorial towards others.
And this is one of the things that's happened.
Then, of course, women's natural sympathy for the underdog, which, again, I respect and honor, and I think it's wonderful.
As a younger sibling myself, it's really important that women care for the underdog and make sure that the underdog gets his share.
Because as the, quote, runt of the litter in my family, it was important for my mother to make sure that I got enough resources to survive and thrives.
So I think this sympathy for the underdog is a wonderful thing.
However, combined with the power of the state, what happens is you end up with an endless parade of sob stories and misery parties and pity parades and women just instinctively.
Oh, the poor dears and the poor victims.
And you end up with anybody who has a shred of pride doesn't play the victim and then gets pillaged senseless by the state.
And anybody who has abandoned any sense of pride or self-respect just plays the pity party and gets resources from female voters.
They'll be fine.
Ah, let's see here.
You pick them up and hug them when they're settled and put them down and sneak off while they're calm.
Yeah, but they'll get upset. They'll notice they'll get upset.
And if you do make the commitment that the child has to...
See, if the child is dealing with anything, if the baby is dealing with anything physically that they need, then you have to provide that.
If the baby's hungry or thirsty or whatever, you have to provide that.
And comfort and cuddling and playing and all of that, you have to provide that.
If the baby's upset, and I'm not talking about a very, very little baby, but, you know, eight months plus or whatever, right?
And it's to my opinion, right?
You can obviously check with your healthcare provider.
This is all just my opinion and my perspective.
But if the baby is simply upset, well, at what point does a child learn how to deal with being upset?
Right? Because if you are continually, externally upset, Managing the child's emotions for him or her, they will not learn how to manage their emotions themselves.
And then you end up with this squalling infant-adult problem that we face in society.
I mean, to take an example, right?
If your child is learning how to walk, they're going to wobble, they're going to fall, right?
If you're constantly holding them and keeping them up and propping them up, they'll never learn how to walk on their own.
And they may, in fact, miss that window.
And then it's really a struggle later on.
All right, let's see here.
How can I convince a Christian to not spank or yell at their kids if they cling to the spare the rod quote?
it.
So, Jesus says, whatever you do to the least among you, so do you also do unto me.
The children not the least among you, and he's come here to take care of the children, and he says, suffer the little children to come unto me.
You wouldn't spank Jesus, would you?
You wouldn't yell at Jesus. And if Jesus says, whatever you do to the least among you, which is the children, so do you also do unto me.
Well, if you wouldn't yell at Jesus and you wouldn't hit Jesus, don't yell at your children.
That's very clear. That's very clear.
And that's New Testament. I know it's anecdotal, but we co-slept with ours and none of them have sleep issues.
Listen, I think that's great.
There are some kids who sleep well early through the night and that's wonderful and some kids who don't.
I don't know. Co-sleeping is anti-marriage in a way to me.
All right. Why do you think governments are pushing the Great Reset?
Is it because governments are close to bankruptcy?
Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, I was talking about this like 15 years ago.
Yeah, I mean, 15 years ago I said we had 10 to 15 years before the crisis would probably come and that's pretty accurate.
So governments, whenever they run out of money, they go to war or they try and off a bunch of the population.
All right. How close sleeping is anti-marriage?
Because do you want a sex life?
That's what I mean. Sex life is founded and based on marriage.
Sorry, marriage is founded and based on your sex life.
Because that's the one thing you can't do with anyone else, right?
And that's fine. That's great, right?
Any child have explanation for having a dark or shock-seeking sense of humor?
Um... I mean, I would imagine that there has been some exposure to adult issues.
I mean, I remember, gosh, maybe somebody out there in the hinterland knows this, but I remember seeing a really weird movie with my mother when I was quite little.
And the only scene I particularly remember was it's a bunch of naked men shuffling along in a sort of human centipede.
It was a very strange movie.
And there was a song, call me a cannibal, call me a cannibal, I can't die, kill me if you can, I'll never lay down dead, or something like that.
The song sort of burned into my brain.
And if the child has had exposure to, you know, sinister, dark, weird, corrupting adult material, then they'd probably have had a couple of curveballs to their mitts, so to speak.
All right. Oh, jump to read some messages.
Oh, where are my messages going?
Oh, my messages have vanished.
If I remember rightly, I can refresh, so hold on.
There we go.
Continue stream.
All right.
All right.
Why do people intrude?
Not home invasion intrusion, but people who don't wait for an invitation to resort to intrusion.
Oh, yeah, well, that I know, right?
So, the reason that people intrude upon you is they don't believe that you will invite them, they don't believe that they deserve an invitation, and so what they end up doing is just, quote, imposing, right?
Just imposing. So, the people without boundaries...
They're terrified of rejection.
To recognize the other and to recognize the self is to basically end up with a situation where you have preferences, the other person has preferences, and you find a way to negotiate between the two of them, right?
But the problem is, of course, if you've been raised by a narcissist, you don't end up with much of an identity.
So the self and the other don't really exist for you.
So it's simply if you can get away with imposing your preferences, you will because you don't empathize with the other person enough to get at a deep emotional level that the other person has preferences just like you and you need to find a way to make the choices in your life work for both of you as best you can or have that kind of pendulum that goes back and forth.
Alright, hit me up with questions.
This is your show.
And I will dip over.
On Locals, there were some other questions which I wanted to get to and I hadn't gotten to, by gosh.
I'm also going to be putting out...
I found some source files for The Origins of War and Child Abuse, so I'm going to be putting that out as a blob file because that's really good.
Alright, let me get...
The questions from the locals platform.
All right.
Can someone be good and then become bad or...
Or has that person always been bad?
Or is everyone pretty much a mix?
Oh, everyone has the potential.
We're a very adaptive species.
Everyone has the potential to go either way.
Absolutely, people can be good and then become bad.
Yes, that's otherwise philosophy would be a sort of deist conception of fire and forget.
Like you create virtue and then you never need to tend to it.
It's like saying, can someone be healthy and then become unhealthy?
Yes, of course. And I'm talking about like based upon their own actions, not some sort of accidental thing.
But yeah, people can absolutely be healthy and then become unhealthy.
Everybody knows the sort of cliche of the teenage athlete, like the high school athlete, who continues to eat like he's working out two hours a day, but doesn't work out two hours a day.
When he gets his first desk job, then he just bloats up and And all of that.
So everybody's probably had someone, if you're middle-aged or older, someone in your life who was, you know, very attractive when they were younger and then you meet them again and they just blow-fished up in some manner.
And you can, of course, see this with Kelly McGillis from Top Gun.
Pictures of her, well, she didn't quite age like wine, a little bit more like milk.
So yeah, people can have good health habits and then they can lose those good health habits, get lazy, slow down, and then it becomes a sort of rolling ball of decay and things just get worse and worse.
It's the same thing with virtue because in your life you're just tempted by different things at different times.
So, when you're young, you're tempted by promiscuity.
When you are middle-aged, you're tempted by material greed.
When you are older, you're tempted by power over others because you've attained some level of authority or influence.
So, yeah, I mean, it's a constant shifting series of enemies.
It's like those kung fu movies where, you know, guys just come pouring in in sequence and they will never fight you all at once.
They just come pouring in in sequence.
So, yeah, it's a constant set of different temptations.
As you age, various forms of life have their own temptations and ills.
And just because you've successfully battled one doesn't mean you're going to successfully battle another.
And so you may have successfully battled the desire for promiscuity, particularly if you're a man.
And then you may end up succumbing to the desire for material greed and putting things above your relationships.
And then you may have survived those two, but then when you get older and you get some authority either at work or in your family or wherever, that you succumb then to the desire to have power over others and so on, right?
And then, of course, you can succumb to a fear of aging and a fear of death, which means that you become hyper-cautious and your wisdom is stripped from the world because you're too scared to say anything.
So yeah, there's lots of things that can happen.
Alright, I want to become a parent within one to two years.
I noticed a problem within myself I'd love feedback on.
Whenever my childhood, sorry, whenever children slash animals cry asserting their needs, I recognize this is totally normal.
Part of my brain reacts with an impulse that says, shut the hell up, be quiet, you're fine.
And I'm terrified of this impulse.
This is exactly how I was raised, which was terrible.
And I recognize that it's not an acceptable way to respond to a dependent person slash creature asserting their needs.
How do I put a stop to this impulse?
I do not want this impulse anywhere near my future family.
Please help. Ah, yes.
Well, in order to get through to, when you've been abused, to get through to sympathy, well, that's on the other side of anger.
And I'm not talking about a little bit of anger.
I'm talking about a lot of anger.
I'm not talking about destructive rage or violence or anything like that.
that, but you have to get really angry at the people who've harmed you and that sets up a moral line in your mind so that you then will not harm others.
If you aren't angry, right, if you aren't angry at the people who've harmed you, it's because they, in your mind, you say, but they haven't harmed you, right?
If you claim to love the people who've harmed you, then what they did must have been good and beneficial.
That's why anger is so important.
Anger says, I'm not going to do this.
I'm not going to do this.
Because when you get angry, it's a recognition that somebody really hurts you.
Somebody really harmed you. Now, if you recognize and have fully processed that somebody really harmed you, the last thing you'll do is go and do that to someone else.
But if you praise that person or still have them in your life and you don't talk to them and you don't recognize the harm they've done and you just kind of blur it out, well, then your emotional system is like, well...
We're not angry, so it wasn't harmful.
We're not mad. We're not confronting.
We're not telling the person everything they did wrong.
So I guess they didn't do anything wrong.
So if my parent didn't do anything wrong, then as a parent I have to do the same thing.
And if I'm still attached to this parent, if I still care about this parent, if I say they love them, then obviously they were good parents.
Our emotions are empirical.
Emotions are empirical. Think of a sense of pain.
Pain tends to be physical, right?
You have to have an injury. You have to have something that harms your nerve endings in order for you to experience physical pain.
And our emotions are empirical.
So we can say, ooh, I really, really hate that person.
But if we continue to let that person enter life and we don't tell them our issues, our emotions are like, deep down, like, okay, well, I guess they're okay.
I guess we're not that mad at them, right?
You know, you think of how angry your immune system has to be to attack a virus, to attack something that's really harming your body.
You know, one of the worst things that can happen is your immune system fails to recognize a virus, right?
Immunodeficiency syndromes, right? So then you end up with whatever virus comes along, just replicates and can harm you or kill you.
So you want your immune system to get, quote, angry, really angry, to identify a foreign threat, to surround it, to attack it, and to remove its threat, right?
Okay, so if your parents, like, screamed at you, shut the hell up, be quiet, you're fine, when you were upset, then they really damaged you.
They really harmed you, and I'm really sorry that they did that.
It's a terrible thing to do to a helpless, independent child.
So are you angry? Sounds like you are.
You said it was terrible. Okay.
So I'm going to guess that you haven't had it out with your parents.
You haven't had that honest conversation with your parents.
And if you haven't, you are likely going to reproduce the behavior.
Because you haven't given your entire emotional apparatus the chance to act upon it being bad behavior.
Think of the abuse as a virus, right?
If your immune system doesn't recognize and respond to a virus as a threat, it can harm or kill you.
And if you have been harmed by someone, seriously harmed by someone, and you don't react with anger, and either that person admits their fault and makes restitution, or don't keep them in your orbit, I'm just not saying what you should or shouldn't do, these are the consequences in my view.
If somebody's really harmed you, you don't have it out with them, And you don't push back on what they've done and you don't get angry, then your emotional apparatus is like, okay, well, we're just going to reproduce that behavior then, right?
It's not harmful. We're not angry.
We don't do anything about it. We don't establish any boundaries.
So it's obviously not that harmful.
This is why I've always said, you know, if you have issues with anybody, parents, anybody, then you talk to them.
Be honest, right? You talk to them about what happened.
And you expect restitution.
Sure. Nick says, I know you've done the podcast Fall of Rome before.
I'm glad you're no longer doing politics.
I'm curious about this idea of the meek shall inherit the earth.
Do you have a perspective about what that means, especially with the current global landscape?
I do, in fact.
So yes, the meek shall inherit the earth, right?
But not its mineral rights, apparently.
So the meek shall inherit the earth.
So meek here to me doesn't mean shy or self-effacing or self-erasing.
Meek means willing to subject your ego to an objective standard.
Because we all have the angry, dominant, ape-like ego that wishes to be its own standard, right?
Its own pleasure is its own standard.
Dominance, you know, to drive your enemies before you and to hear the lamentations of their women, right?
The Genghis Khan, just, you know, this really bonobo-style chest-thumping of victory and, you know, all the stuff that action movies kind of appeals to and degrades the higher self in relation to.
So we all have this.
To be human is to be a tottering edifice of superficial halting reason on a giant pyramid structure of animal impulses.
So we all want, in very many layers of our being, our pleasure and our dominance and the acquisition of resources and the procreation of genes to be the sole good.
The pleasurable is the good.
Now that's not an objective standard and it's not a standard you can negotiate or mediate with other people.
Because if you Are, well, my dominance is the good.
Me dominating others is the good.
And then you meet some other guy who says also, my dominating others is the good.
I write about this in my novel, The Future.
But yeah, you will either fight or have to both retreat.
You can't negotiate because if you dominating him is the good for you and him dominating you is the good for you, if you can't avoid each other and the stakes are high or maybe you're just in a pissy mood, both of you, then you're going to have to end up fighting.
Right? So what does it mean to be meek?
To be meek is to be human.
To be meek is to say, I subjugate my animal desires to an objective standard.
I tame the beast with philosophy.
It could be with scripture.
It could be with the Ten Commandments.
It could be with any number, but it has to be objective.
It has to be universal.
So think of the people who just want to dominate nature.
What do they do? Well, they go out and they hunt and kill a bunch of animals.
They dominate nature. Okay?
That's called subsistence survival.
That's hunter-gatherer lifestyle where you're lucky to get your 2,500 calories a day and your kids, half of them are going to die before the age of five and your population is never going to grow.
Right. That's indigenous populations of, say, Australia or New Zealand or North America or South America, for that matter.
So you're basically talking hunter-gatherer, very little agriculture, very little animal husbandry, very little development of crops.
I mean, look at the original version of the corn on the cob.
It was ridiculous. It was like a koala bear shit on a stick.
So, that's, you know, thump-thump, chest-thump, spear-chucking dominance of your fellow man and of nature.
And you win. I mean, generally you can take down the buffalo, the bison, the whatever you're eating, right?
The bear. So you win.
But you don't end up with any power.
Because the power of immediate dominance, which is an animal side, translates into a starvation level of subsistence.
Now, if you become meek, and if you say, well, I'm no longer going to try and command nature, but I'm going to control nature.
Well, control nature, right?
Nature to be controlled, nature to be commanded must be obeyed.
So it means you start studying universal principles.
Universal principles that may involve the domestication The primitive thing is, you know, if there's a rat around that may be threatening some stored food, you want to whack it with a club, right?
Okay, well, there's going to be two more rats, ten more rats, twelve more rats.
They breed like rabbits.
The other is, well, what if I domesticate a cat, right?
You're subjecting yourself to larger principles rather than an immediate smash-something-on-the-head thing.
And if you develop that long enough, then you get domestication of animals, you get animal husbandry, you get farming, you get property rights, you get contracts, and you end up with science.
And science is meekness in the face of nature.
Science is saying, and I just did Francis Bacon in The History of Philosophers, I hope you'll check it out, Science is saying we don't know what the answer is to why things are the way they are, but we're going to keep studying and learning, experimenting, assuming universal principles and properties until we figure it out.
Now, once we have figured it out, we really get to control nature.
So meekness is simply subjecting your animal dominance hedonistic desires to Which are a fine part of life.
I'm not opposed to them. I'm not hostile to them.
I'm not like Spock here.
I mean, I love dominance.
I love conquering bad philosophers and philosophy.
I love all of that stuff.
It's great. But you have to do it according to universal principles of civility, not just smashing people over the head or threatening or, you know, as I faced out there in the public, you know, death threats and bomb threats and all that, right?
So you have to...
I mean, and that's an example, right?
Go out and do public speaking and there'd be bomb threats and death threats and massive security and people would attack people coming to the venue and so on, right?
And that's animalistic, right?
That's just, well, thump someone on the head to make bad thoughts go away, right?
Or bad feelings go away.
You know, like a lion chewing on a zebra's ass because it's hungry.
Make bad feelings called hunger go away.
I'll kill this zebra, right?
And whereas the people who stand up to debate with me, well, that's more civilized, right?
Because we are both subjecting ourselves to a universal standard called debate.
Or at least a semi-universal standard called debate.
Or at least we're subjecting ourselves to the standard of language to resolve disputes or to try to.
So, yeah, the meek inherit the earth because the meek subject themselves to a universal standard, particularly a universal moral standard, but it also happens in terms of controlling science and so on.
Which is why fiat currency is not meek, right?
Fiat currency is medieval superstition with regards to money because it's all made up and enforced at the point of a gun.
So it's not meek at all. It's just another form of predation.
So yeah, the meek inherit the earth because only by subjecting yourself to universal principles do you gain any moral human control over your environment.
All right, let me get back to this...
Let me go back to the...
Did you see the Dr.
Phil episode on quiet quitting?
No, I used to watch Dr. Phil many years ago, but I have not found him at all interesting in many, many years.
It's the same show over and over again.
My God. All right.
Purpose of marriage is to have children, so if you've decided to raise your kids that way, co-sleeping is pro-marriage.
No, I don't agree at all.
Because marriage is pair-bonded through sexuality, right?
So, if you're not having sex, I don't really see how it's a marriage.
And sex is not just for the making of children.
I mean, sex is for the co-bonding of monochamous partners.
And, of course, a semen, a male semen, of course, contains antidepressants and mood elevators and so on, right?
So, I mean, a lot of the Karen stuff is, you know, I hate to put it this coarsely, but like women not having, not getting railed, so to speak, right?
I mean, it's hard for men.
I guess you get the blue ball stuff is for men as well.
But for women who don't have ejaculate vaginal sex, it's pretty tough to stay in a good mood.
All right. What do you think is a good way to deal with narcissistic people and more to the point overcoming the damage from them?
Well, if your hand's in the fire, you take it out of the fire.
You just stop dealing with narcissistic people.
I mean, you can't manage narcissistic people.
You can't. It's like bringing a wild animal into your house and trying to domesticate it with kids around.
It's just a terrible idea.
It's not going to work and can do a lot of damage.
No, you can't manage.
You can't deal with anti-rational people, narcissistic people, sociopaths, obviously psychopaths and so on, people who lack empathy, manipulative people.
You can't deal with them because you're not speaking the same language at all.
Let's see here. Avril Lavigne gained weight.
Well, Avril Lavigne got Lyme disease, didn't she?
It's like a year in bed.
You've got to hate your parents so you can love your kids.
No, I mean, that's too broad, right?
Because I'm sure that my daughter will be able to love her kids without hating me.
So you can't love others if you continue to encourage abuses in your life.
I know we've moved on to a different topic, but one more thing.
We are hardwired not to let babies cry, but leave your family open to attack.
Well, sure. But if you're going to go back in evolutionary terms, you can't type on a keyboard, so...
If the person who harmed you is passed on, would you suggest writing to get that internal monologue or dialogue out?
Yes, you'll need two, in my opinion.
You'll need one for that person who harmed you, and the other for yourself that avoided that conversation for so long.
I was really angry with my parents over the last two years, had some difficult conversations.
I felt kind of stuck still, but recently started to mourn my childhood, and I'm feeling much less anger and has made bad habits much more manageable.
I'm still unsure if just thinking that my mourning is enough.
Do you have any suggestions on how to mourn a bad childhood?
Well, so mourning is not just staring at the past.
Mourning is making something better in the present for others.
I mean, you could make the case that to some degree this entire show is me mourning for a really bad childhood, right?
Because the better childhood I can create in others, the more I'm rescuing good things out of a bad thing, and therefore the less I have to mourn.
So mourning isn't just staring at a picture of yourself when you were young, tears trickling down your face and all that.
That may be part of it, but you want to try and create good in the world, in the present, out of the harm that was done to you in the past, and that way you have less to mourn.
Like cut it off at the source, so to speak.
How to prepare children for the fact that most people are amoral?
Tell them. Tell them that most people can't be trusted.
And it's not because they're particularly terrible people.
They're just, you know, leaves in a stream, right?
Dandelion fluffs in a windstorm like it's any way the wind blows.
So you can't trust them with anything important.
I mean, you can trust them to, I don't know, deliver your pizza or whatever, and you'll be able to trust them at work to some degree, but...
In terms of, like, really difficult challenges in this world, particularly the moral challenges.
You know, if you ever want to find out who your friends are, just get relentlessly attacked by evil and see who's around when the smoke clears, if the smoke ever does clear.
And it won't be many people.
It won't be many people. I'm not too upset about that.
I just sort of recognize that most people are ballast in this sense.
They just go with the flow.
Like, why do terrible things keep happening in the world?
Because most people go with the flow, and when that corrupt people with a lot of power control the flow, then people will just flow in a bad direction, and it keeps happening over and over.
So you can get mad at people for that, or you can just say, well, most people are programmed to go with the flow.
Society couldn't have any stability, I think, if people didn't go with the flow.
So when we get a good society, people would go with that flow.
And again, that's what I write about in my novel, The Future.
If we get a good society, people go with that flow and it will sustain.
So that's good. Once we get there, it will stay good.
But yeah, now most people, they'll pretend to be moral because they have to look themselves in the mirror.
But as far as taking any real risks for moral issues, moral, no, I don't think so.
All right, let's see here.
There are 50 million YouTube channels on how to deal with narcissists, which means how can you stay in their orbit without having to confront or leave them?
Yes, that's right. That's right.
How do I deal with this knife that's sticking out of my chest?
Well, you've got to get it out of your chest, first and foremost, right?
All right. Avril did have Lyme disease.
Yeah, that's right. I mean, a lot of celebrities have had Lyme.
A friend of mine who's a celebrity had Lyme disease.
Did Justin Bieber have it or something like that?
It's really nasty. I think there are some pretty interesting treatments like mega antibiotics or something like that.
But yeah, it's rough. It's rough.
Is it ever acceptable to ignore a provision in the contract without the other party's awareness, like having a clean house cat for mental health when the lease says pets are prohibited?
Well, I don't think it's particularly moral to...
Like, if you've signed a contract, then you're kind of responsible for that contract.
And it's not so much like a clean house cat, so I think one of the issues...
And, you know, if you ever want to cry your heart out, just talk to...
Talk to your average landlord about, like a couple of friends of mine have been landlords over the years and just want to be heartbroken and never want to own a piece of property with anybody else in it.
Just talk to landlords about what it's like being a landlord and the issues and the problems that they face.
It's just monstrous. So one of the issues that landlords deal with, of course, is that an apartment building is a sealed-in situation, right?
I mean, COVID was spread by people flushing their toilets and it going from one apartment to the other in places in China, I think it was, whether that's true or not.
But I remember when I lived in apartments in England, and just before we left in 1977, this giant wave of people came over from Pakistan and China.
And India. I think there was some, like, it was the last chance you could get easy British citizenship or something like that.
And I just remember that the smell from the cooking was really, really strong.
And, you know, it took a lot of getting used to.
And so the problem with cats, of course, I mean, one of them, I assume, is that, you know, the fluff or the cat fluff or dandruff, whatever it is, kinds of go floating around you.
There are people in the apartment buildings who are allergic to cat hair, right?
Right. So you are in a shared environment and it's not like you can't prevent your cat from shedding and you can't prevent the ventilation system from moving your air around to other people's apartments.
So I would assume that that has something to do with it.
The question is, is it good for your mental health to break a contract?
So what I would do is sit down with the apartment manager and say, look, I know no pets, but I want to be upfront with you and so on.
And if he's like, oh my gosh, I got three people sneezing on your floor, it's driving me crazy.
Well, then like, I'm sorry, you're in a shared space and you made the agreement, you're going to have to Dump the cat or you're going to have to move.
And, you know, move to the country.
Lots of cleaner there probably is pretty good for your mental health.
If you're in a city and you don't have green around you and you don't have leaves and trees, like it's not good for your health.
Not good for your mental health. Being in nature, like hiking in nature, being in nature, being around trees and streams and bushes and non-geometrical shapes, like we're not designed to stare at squares all day, right?
And so having non-linear shapes that are green and...
Fresh air and squishing your feet in the mud and all of that is really, really good for your mental health, I believe.
Might be better for you to move out.
Alright, so let's see here.
This was a good quote from the CoSleeping article.
Alanis Morissette said it better than anyone in her blog, saying, I personally believe that the attachment stage done well can circumvent countless addictions later in life, because many of these addictions are often temporary attempt at feeling this sense of connection.
Yeah, I think that's wonderful.
Spend as much time as you can cuddling with your kids.
I think that's wonderful. And she, she was just unbelievably preyed on by senior people in the music industry.
Like, oh, it was just monstrous.
And Landis, like that song you ought to know, came out of just appalling treatment and hyper-sexualized treatment at the hands of music executives when she was shockingly young.
Well, maybe it's not shocking anymore, I don't know.
It's forgiving but not trusting.
Good for your self-esteem. Forgiveness is not willed.
You can't will forgiveness. Forgiveness is earned by the actions of others.
Now, closure is a different matter.
Closure, you can will, right?
So, if someone's harmed you, you sit down and talk with them.
If they get it relatively quickly and work hard to make amends, work hard to regain your trust, they go to therapy, whatever they need to do, right?
Okay, then they've earned your forgiveness and then you'll get closure.
Now, if you sit down with someone...
And they gaslight and they deny and they project and they blame you and this and that and the other.
Well, you can't forgive them because if you've got two people, Bob and Doug, right?
Bob does the right thing and Doug does the wrong thing.
You can't forgive them both equally.
You can't. I mean, you can pretend, you can try, you can woo-woo yourself into nonsense vapor, but you can't actually do it.
You can't actually do it.
But you get closure, right?
Because if Bob just treats you terribly when you're vulnerable and he's hurt you and he just escalates and makes you feel even worse and is just an asshole about it, well, you get closure.
So you stop expecting anything good from that guy.
You recognize that he's going to defend himself at your expense, that you don't really exist to him, that he's kind of narcissistic and only cares about his own protection.
Like that old Costanza episode, George Costanza on Seinfeld, where there's an alarm that goes off in a daycare and he shoves an old woman and pulls kids out of the way to get out.
Right? Because he's selfish, right?
So when you're selfish, other people's happiness doesn't mean a damn thing to you.
The only thing that matters is that you come out well in your own eyes in the moment.
So if you forgive someone, then you're back into a trusting situation.
If you claim to forgive someone but you haven't trusted them, it just means you haven't forgiven them, which means that you're hanging around for their convenience rather than spending time with quality people, which is going to keep quality people away from you, so...
All right. Are social credit scores inherently evil?
No. I mean, I've talked about contract ratings forever in my discussions on a stateless society.
I've talked about this sort of stuff forever.
And I think they're wonderful, but of course, they have to be voluntary.
They have to be not forceful.
Steph, why do you think the food pyramid was promoted even though it was wrong?
Oh, that's just lobbying, right?
That's just farmers wanting to make money and also the government wanting to keep his luggage, right?
Alright, let's see here.
Do you do a big Halloween thing?
Decorations get together with friends?
Actually, yes. I just tonight came back from my second big Halloween thing with friends.
I do love Halloween very much.
I think it's a really, really fun situation.
Alright, so...
Hmm, not designed to look at straight lines and squares because of evolution, but does not apply to babies crying.
Yes, that's right. Because babies can self-soothe, but you can't program your system to...
That's a fine question.
I get where you're coming from, and I appreciate the catch, right?
But babies can soothe themselves, and must, and should, right?
You have to learn how to self-soothe in order to not end up manipulating others because you can't manage your own emotions.
But you can't program your brain to enjoy looking at straight lines any more than you can will yourself to be colorblind.
One is a good path, the other one is an insurmountable path.
I find that on average that people living in small towns closer to nature are nicer than city dwellers.
Yes, that has also been my experience.
They also tend to stay there longer so they can get out better.
I heard Canada is rolling out a digital passport.
Well, it's like, yeah, the new Prime Minister who's declined to call an election because, you know, democracy is just so important, the new Prime Minister of England, that Indian guy is probably on the same path.
All right, all coming through the WEF. I joined in after 35 minutes, take on Twitter, return if unsuspended.
No, I don't have any particular desire to do that at all.
If somebody's, you know, harmed you and Twitter did eat me off for no, in my view, no legitimate reason whatsoever after I had spent quite a long time building up a lot of listenership on there and You know, always respecting, and I never was yelling at people.
I never swore at people.
You know, I put out things that were challenging for people, but, I mean, there's nothing that Twitter says don't upset people.
I mean, that would be crazy, right?
So, they would have to earn back my trust, right?
After being in an abusive relationship with them for many years, they would have to earn back my trust.
I'm not just going to go and do it, right?
Alright, what are your thoughts on Freudian slips?
Are they useful information or merely accidents?
I think that you can get a lot more out of honest conversations rather than trying to catch people on little Freudian slips.
Alright, let's see here.
Wishing everyone a low-carb Halloween.
Yeah, well, good luck with that. What was your costume?
I don't. My daughter is a dress-up person.
I'm not. I'm jumping in at questions, but have you ever imagined what you'd do if you woke up as someone else while looking at them?
I never have. What do you think is happening with Facebook and Amazon?
Well, I mean, I think I put out this prediction at the time.
Meta is a complete clusterfrak of an unbelievable disaster.
People... People aren't going to go virtual.
They're not going to go virtual. Now listen, I picked up a VR headset last year.
And the reason I did it was I wanted to write competently about VR in my novel.
Because VR is going to be an important part of our lives and so on, right?
But the idea that people are going to, you know, strap on a helmet and live these virtual lives, it's not going to happen.
And I remember when Zuckerberg was first talking about rebranding Facebook as Meta, I'm like, okay, you have literally one of the most recognizable and famous and profitable brands in the history of the planet.
Why on earth would you rebrand it?
On what possible ground would you rebrand it to something as unspecific as Meta?
Meta is a word that means, of course, you know, larger than and outside of, right?
And the idea, so Facebook, at least, you know, it's like a book with a lot of faces on it, right?
Because you see a lot of people posting selfies, and it's about personal information, a lot of Facebooks, that kind of stuff, right?
So you've got a really, really recognizable, highly profitable brand, whole great business model, and you're like, no!
And it wasn't because Facebook was failing.
It's just bizarre. It's like some...
This weird epileptic fit hit Mark Zuckerberg's brain and he's just like, you know what?
I think I'm just going to set fire to $100 billion.
What has he lost? He's lost the most over the last year of any human being in the history of the planet, including people who lost their cryptos in boating accidents.
So, I mean, this meta thing, I remember just looking at that like, okay.
I spent a lot of time in the business world and I spent a lot of time in the software business world as a chief executive and as sitting on boards and all of that.
And I was like, this has got to be one of the most ridiculously terrible ideas.
Like, it's worse than New Coke because at least New Coke was Coke.
I mean, this idea that you're just going to take Facebook and rebrand it as some...
I mean, VR is niche.
It will generally stay niche.
And I just have no idea what on earth was going through his mind when it came to all of that.
So I can't tell you the reasons for it, but the utter predictability of it being a completely financial disaster was just wild.
All right. Let's see here.
Oculus Quest was a great system.
They're trying to turn it into a crappy Facebook.
Yeah, I mean, listen, I explored it.
I tried things.
I set up my own little room, and it's like, yeah, that's interesting.
And then what, right?
How is VR better than...
Calling someone on Skype or Telegram or, like, how is it, like, get all strapped in and booted up?
And, of course, too, you've got an aging population and VR isn't as great because, you know, if you need glasses as I do, right, VR is kind of blurry, right?
And you can get these lenses, but then you've got to swap them out if anyone else uses it.
And it's like, oh, my God, forget it.
You know, it's just, yeah, it's just bizarre.
It's just bizarre. And I did find there was a game called Death Unchained.
It was like a bow game. And I quite enjoyed that.
I thought it actually could be quite a good workout because you're kind of dodging.
And I thought it was very neat, very interesting, very neat.
And I did play a little...
My daughter did some Beat Saber and so did I. And there was a mini golf game that was kind of fun and so on.
But I just never found a particularly compelling thing to do.
All right. I think you're wrong.
Ignoring your childhood and adulthood leads to fantasizing.
In essence, you're fantasizing.
So wouldn't VR offer the perfect way to live the life you want without the pain?
I really think VR is the future if graphics improve the way they have in other devices over the years.
Yeah, listen, it's compelling for sure.
Absolutely, it's compelling. But the idea that there's a huge profit center in it, I don't see it.
I mean, you know, you can sell.
Oculus Quest 2 is like, what, 200 bucks or something like that?
And then you make money from selling the games and all that.
But the idea that it's just this big, giant moneymaker in the way that Facebook would be...
I don't know. I do not see the business model.
Now, of course, I'm aware that, you know, there's things that I won't get.
Maybe it's an age thing or whatever.
And so that's why I did.
I really did try out VR. And I thought it was really well done.
You know, the Oculus Quest 2 is a great piece of hardware.
It's well done. It's not too heavy, and it is very immersive.
And it was really a neat thing.
I did try, and I couldn't keep doing this, I did try Skyrim, it's my favorite game of all time, and I did try Skyrim VR. And it was really compelling, and I could absolutely see, for me it's like standing on the edge of a cliff, right?
So I do a little bit of video gaming, mostly Twitch shooters, because it's good for your brain.
It's good for your reflexes, it trains your brain, and it's good, and it's fun.
I could see VR Skyrim.
It's like, oh man, I could get lost in here.
All right. Screens do a number on your eyes, so they'll have to fix that, I think.
Yeah, I think they will. But they can't, really.
I mean, unless they make some sort of dial-up or dial-down to zoom in, like the things they do with the eye doctors to check your eyes or whatever, that kind of stuff.
They maybe could do that, but I don't know.
Facebook censored a bunch of fun people, so it's boring now.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I like, here's what I like.
I like being shocked by new ideas.
I mean, I might be, you know, a bit different.
I might be different this way.
I think I am for most people, and I assume that you are as well, but...
I love it when a new idea just blows my hair back, like just blows my gorge right out of my ears.
I just think like, wow, holy crap, right?
I mean, I remember reading, Anne Coulter is great for this.
You read her history of the French Revolution.
You read how the Weather Underground terrorists all ended, well, a lot of them ended up becoming university professors.
I guess it blew my mind. I was like, how could that be possible that you go from terrorist to university professor?
And it's like, oh yeah, two sides of the same coin.
And she, you know, the writings that she had about the vanity of teachers and how they give all their awards, the fact that sexual abuse in schools per capita is far higher than it is in churches and the difficulties of single motherhood for society and so on.
And, you know, I could go the history of slavery that Thomas Sowell talks about and just wonderful stuff.
Wonderful stuff. I can't remember who it was.
It might have been Tommy Sotomayor.
It might have been Kevin Samuels.
I think it was before. Where somebody was saying single moms will always steer you wrong.
Like if you're a son, a single mom will always steer you wrong when it comes to...
Because she'll always tell you, oh, respect women, this, that, and the other.
Treat women like goddesses and so on.
But then she had sex with some doofus who then ran away.
And so she's telling you to do the opposite of what was attractive to her.
And she's just sentimental and will steer you wrong.
And this just blows my mind. That blows my mind.
I remember the RK selection theory coming up and the biology of conservatism coming up and IQ stuff and all of that.
It's just like, wow, this is like, blows my mind.
And I love reading people who just blow my mind.
And so I like that.
And I think a lot of people went to social media because they were trying to get things they couldn't get elsewhere.
And that blow your mind stuff is really important because it keeps you humble, right?
And it keeps your brain, you know, your brain's like a snow globe, right?
You want to keep it in motion.
If you just set it down and it's just an echo chamber, the snow all just settles and goes limp and sits on the bottom and there's no movement.
There's nothing. You've got to keep things shaken up.
And that's why I love reading.
I'm reading a biography of Spinoza at the moment.
And yeah, I've been learning a lot about the history and the relationship between Jews and Christians in Portugal and Spain and then of course in Amsterdam and Holland as a whole.
And it's blowing my mind.
It's blowing my mind.
And I just, I love that stuff.
And I think a lot of people went to social media, to Twitter, to YouTube, to Facebook, to other places, because they wanted to get their minds blown.
And, of course, what blows my mind seems to blows other people's views.
And so I think a lot of people have kind of given up on that stuff, right?
So... Why do you think Kanye West is being cancelled?
I don't think we really have to answer that one, do we?
All right. When I read The Man in the Arena...
Yeah, I published a bunch of my poems for my teens on Locals.
Thank you. Do you have an opinion on national parks?
Waste of time, money and effort compared to just going to local parks.
Well, the word national is a problem.
So, I mean, if people want parks, they should fund them themselves.
Right, so... Have you seen any recent TV or movies like House of the Dragon or Rings of Power?
I dipped a little bit into the...
What is that?
The... Oh, jeez, I should know this one.
You know, winter is coming, all that kind of stuff, right?
I did... Game of Thrones.
I did watch maybe a couple of episodes of Game of Thrones.
I found it, like, both kind of predictable and unredeemably repulsive.
Right? Just kids getting murdered and incest.
Like, it was just a horror show.
With what? No nice characters, no good characters, no redeeming story arc.
I thought it was interesting insofar as, you know, the endless summer is fiat currency and then the winter is coming is the correction and all that.
So, The Rings of Power?
No, I'm... Oh, my God, the idea that I'm going to go into that.
No, The Rings of Power.
No, it does not have anything to do with Tolkien.
I assume it's just a woke ripoff of a great man's work and I just...
I wouldn't even hate watch it.
I mean, that's how much I dislike that entire thing.
Alright. Do you have a philosophy on what the game Skyrim is about?
Well, what I like about Skyrim is it kind of mirrors the world, right?
There's good, there's bad, there's commerce, there's violence, there's exploration.
It mirrors an earlier stage of our civilization, sort of early medieval.
times.
So where there was adventure, you could be a sword for hire, you could trade goods, and there was lots of exploring to go.
So I think it's just, and it's very much about childhood as well.
So in childhood, exploring in combat for boys is very important.
Commerce is less so.
And so there's some commerce, but there's a lot of exploring and fighting.
And of course, when you're a kid, you have magical powers and you sling fireballs and lightning bolts in your So I think it's just about an earlier time in our civilization, but it mirrors still the way that the world is.
Whereas I didn't like Elden Ring because it just had no realism at all.
Like, they put all the realism into the graphics and took it all out of the world.
The world was unbelievably boring and empty and stupid, right?
Because, you know, everybody kills everyone.
Everybody tries to kill you for no reason that makes any sense at all.
At least in Skyrim, if people are going to try and kill you, it's because you have either attacked them, you're hunting them, or because you've stolen from them, or because you've stolen from everyone and the police are after you.
There's some cause and effect. So, yeah, Elden Ring was just...
I mean, it was a Kardashian of a game.
Very pretty, but completely empty.
You seem to be saying that Kanye was justifiably deplatformed?
I don't know what...
Did I ever say it was just?
My God! The things people get...
My gosh.
Did you ever read Will Durant's story of Civilization series?
I did not, no. No.
Let's see here. Yeah, see, that's the thing.
And I will say this not...
Let's see. It's 3 a.m.
I need some sleep. Suck it up, man.
Philosophy time is now.
It's so great to see you live.
I've always been terrified of doing a call-in show, but I've been listening to you for over 10 years.
Thanks so much, Steph. You've changed my life, or at least let me truly think for myself.
Good night, mate. I mean these words so genuinely.
Thank you for your work and sacrifice.
Thank you. I really appreciate that.
And you know, here's a funny thing.
I can guarantee you this.
I can guarantee you this. That if you want to do a call-in show, please call in at freedomain.com.
Call in. C-A-L-L-I-N. Call in at freedomain.com.
Uh, you will find it a whole lot easier than you think it is.
Honestly, it'll be like two old friends chatting because you've heard a bunch of these shows before and everyone's like, oh my God, I'm so nervous.
And within five minutes, you know, it's just wonderful.
So thank you.
I appreciate that. And you are welcome anytime to do a call-in show.
Just mention what you said here and I'll, uh, I'll put you to the front of the queue.
All right. Uh, yeah.
So just the thing. So when I say we don't really need to discuss the reason that Kanye is being deplatformed because it's too obvious, um, If you then jump to, I think it's somehow morally justified, look, it doesn't bother me.
When I correct people on this, it's not because I'm upset or offended or anything.
I don't even know you, right? But I will say this.
It's a cry for help. It's a cry for help.
So what you're doing is you're jumping to a radical conclusion and you're communicating that to one of the few people on the planet who will pause and point it out to you and help you, as opposed to just getting upset or storming off or banning you or nonsense like that, right?
Or just, ugh, right? This is not a habit that is confined to this chat room.
And I say this with great sympathy, right?
95% of conflicts, I think it's higher than that, but let's be conservative, right?
By really, really listening to people.
Really listening to people.
Stepping out of your own skin, stepping out of your own preferences and prejudices in history, which we all have.
Stepping outside yourself and really, really listening to someone.
If you really, really, really listen to someone, which means really trying to focus on their perspective about what they're saying, Almost all the conflicts in your life will vanish.
My daughter was saying tonight, we were just chatting about relationships, and she was saying, you know, she said, I don't think I've ever started a fight.
And I said, well, why would you?
I mean, if you love the people you spend time with and you have a good time with them, why would you start a fight?
And I've never understood that either.
I mean, people would be...
I mean, I never have documentarians in here, right?
But people would be unbelievably appalled at how conflict-free my life is.
It really would be absolutely shocked and appalled at how much fun we have and how, you know, this should be a time of high conflict, you know.
I mean, my daughter is going to be 14 in a month and a half and just, you know, this is normally the time where the teen storms come out and all of that.
And, I mean, yeah, she's more punchy and I think that's great.
But as far as, like, she is...
Well, of course she's hilarious.
Unbelievably funny. She's way funnier than me, which I think is...
And she has an instinct for it.
I have to kind of work at my comedy, like, you know, blowing bellows.
And she just... It just floats up and just floats out, man.
And it's just killer. So that's a big plus.
Because if you can make people laugh, you can get away with a lot.
Maybe that's why she doesn't. Probably not, but...
But yeah, I mean, my wife and I don't really have any conflict.
We have a lot of sort of joke conflicts.
We laugh about things, but we have a conflict of any significance maybe once a year.
My daughter, the last significant conflict I had with her was about a year and a half ago.
And it's not because we're avoiding stuff.
I mean, if we have an issue, we'll sit down and talk about it, but it's very, very rare.
And one of the ways, there's a couple of ways that I achieve that.
And it's not just me, right?
I mean, it's everybody. But a couple of the ways that I work to achieve that is just really listen to people.
If somebody's upset or somebody's got an issue or somebody seems to spit down, just really listen.
Just put your ego aside.
Put yourself aside. Just really listen to someone.
It's an incredible experience.
I mean, you hear me do this all the time in call-in shows, right?
I really listen to people.
I ask them more and more and more questions.
And sometimes I'm just listening for like an hour or an hour and a half before I even venture any kind of...
Hypothesis about what might be happening.
So it's really listening with your ego aside and just really trying to understand the other person with no distortion from your own preferences is incredibly productive.
Incredibly productive. And the other thing too is in your relationships, please, I'm begging you, check in with people.
I mean, every week or two, you know, if we're driving somewhere, I'm sitting and having a meal.
I'm like, okay, check-up time.
How's everyone doing? Is there anything I could be doing different or better?
Anything that's getting on people's nerves?
Anything, you know, whatever, right?
So, you know, when I was, when my daughter was younger, I would make some jokes and And when kids are very young, they like repetitive jokes, right?
So she wanted me to be Mater, right?
From the Cars movies, right?
With a bad Southern accent, right?
So she'd found that really hilarious.
And she would never tire of it, right?
So you get kind of used to doing the same jokes over and over again.
Of course, when your kids get older, then they start to become tired of repetition, which is good and right and exactly how it should be.
And she was the one who needed to tell me that, right?
Like, Dad, you made that joke already.
I'm like, oh, good.
Okay, so we're moving on to that. So, just check in with people on a regular basis.
You know, check in with people and how are they enjoying your company?
How are they enjoying your presence?
Is there more that they want from you in some areas?
Is there less than they want from you in some areas?
That is, you know, really, really listening, checking in with people.
Don't wait for problems to accumulate.
You check in with people and you see how they're doing and how they're experiencing you and ask openly and honestly and with great humility, right?
The meek shall inherit the earth. With great humility, ask them.
What could I do better? How could I improve?
How can I... So if your relationship needs better, right?
I want to...
I mean, I do this all the time with you guys as well, right?
What do you want to talk about? What are your thoughts?
This is why I do live streams more than solo shows by about 10 to 1.
So whenever you say to someone, well, it seems to me or it appears to me or it could be argued that or, you know, my impression is it's like, no, no, no, you've missed the boat then, right?
You've missed the boat.
All right.
Let's, uh...
You really like the Rings of Power?
All right.
Thank you.
Isn't Sauron like a...
Isn't Sauron like some whiny teen boy?
No, Sauron works much better as a shadowy presence.
You make him a physical presence.
It doesn't work. It's like when they took Darth Vader's helmet off.
It just doesn't work. All right.
What is the correct answer?
I was not making any assumptions.
I was asking a question. No, you weren't making assumptions.
Sorry. I've got to be pretty.
What's your favorite fantasy novel?
I mean, it would be Lord of the Rings.
My favorite science fiction novel?
1984. That's a very basic pitch, but I'll take it.
I am offering a call-in with you, Steph, but I'm going to listen to you.
I can use the practice, and it's time someone does that for you.
That's very nice thinking. If someone wants high-status credit card like Amex Gold when the math doesn't work, is this downstream from childhood deficit?
How to fix this? Yeah, so, I mean, somebody was asking me my opinion on Andrew Tate the other day, and...
I don't really...
I mean, I'm sure he's got some interesting things to say and so on, but he did not do a very good debate with Piers Morgan, in my opinion.
But Andrew Tate and people like that, you know, this arm of the alpha, right?
You're the alpha... You're the alpha to the degree that you build up confidence in other people.
You know, if you're flashing off your muscles and you're flashing off your car and you're flashing off your flex and you're flashing off your jewelry and you're flashing off your girls and your women, you're just making other men feel worse.
That's not being alpha. That's just being vampiric.
That's just being predatory. It's vanity, right?
I mean, if you're a good athlete and you agree to coach...
A little league team.
Do you just sit up there and have them watch you?
How well you hit the ball?
How well you kick the ball? How well you stick the landing and just have them clap and applaud?
Wow, you're such a good athlete.
They're not learning a damn thing other than they're not nearly as good as you.
No, no, no. You've got to subsume your own desire to show off into...
Your test as a coach is...
How well your students improve, right?
If you're teaching Kung Fu, doing all this blurry stuff while your students applaud from the sidelines, like, oh, look, I'm a piano teacher.
I can play Flight of the Bumblebee at triple speed.
It's like people are like, wow, wow, you know, but you're not teaching them anything.
So if you are out there, and Andrew Tate and people like that do seem to be out there trying to, what, get men to be more manly or whatever, and...
Some little bit of the things that I have with Jordan Peterson is that, you know, he certainly doesn't live by his own values.
That, I tell you for sure, does not live by his own values from every piece of evidence that I can see.
It is about getting down into the trenches with people and helping them up.
It's not about chest thumping from your height so that people can look up your nostrils and say, wow, you sure are tall.
It's about getting down in there in life with people and helping them up.
It doesn't matter how clearly I think.
What matters is, can I help you think clearer?
I mean, obviously it matters. I have to have some clarity of thought, but I don't want you to focus on me, and I don't want you to focus on my thinking, and I don't want you to focus on what I say, other than how it translates to helping you think more clearly.
I've said this a million times, right?
I don't want you to look at me, other than...
Like, the best glassmakers in the world, you don't even see the glass.
Like, you've got some...
I remember once being with a super-rich guy...
He had this beautiful view, and wow, you couldn't even see the glass.
You just saw this amazing view.
And I use that as an analogy, like philosophy is like...
So if I'm a sort of clear window pane that you can see philosophy through, fantastic.
I don't want you to look at me.
I don't want you to think about me.
I want you to use me as a portal, in a sense, to get through to philosophy.
Philosophy. If there's a way that I can take up the blinds and clean up the glass and you can see through, fantastic, right?
Wonderful. So, if people want the flashy stuff, they want the flashy car, they want the flashy, you know, they want to show off, they want to...
all this kind of stuff, right?
Why do they want to do that?
Because they want people to look up and envy them.
Now, we envy... Generally, we have envy because we can't achieve it.
Old people envy youth because old people can't be young again, right?
You know, bald guys might envy guys with great hair because they can't grow that hair, right?
It's impossible, right? To be inspired by someone is if you can achieve it.
To envy someone is if you can't achieve it.
So, I have concern about some of these, you know, hyper-alpha dudes.
It's like, okay, are they just preying upon other men's insecurities in order to make themselves feel better and stronger?
In which case, they're going to have to surround themselves with weak people and they never can have those weak people become strong because then they lose everything, right?
It's like the women with naturally great figures and beautiful faces and they say, ah, you know, but if you get this eyeshadow, you can look like me.
It's like, no, you can't. Every time I pick up glasses, I remind my daughter, it's like, hey, look at all these beautiful people with glasses on.
Do you think it's the glasses that make them beautiful?
Nope. Probably look better without the glasses.
It's not how good the person looks.
It's not how alpha or high status the person appears.
It's how much are they...
Lifting other people up with humility, right?
You've heard me say this a million times from the beginning of the show.
Whenever I correct someone, I will almost always say...
I was older than you when I learned about this.
You're doing better than me. You're further ahead than I was.
And I always say, please don't take this from any highfalutin place of perfection.
I learned this stuff slowly and painfully and usually later than you did, so I say this with all humility and this is not any kind of perfect guru answer.
And I'm always...
Reminding everyone that I'm down here in the trenches with you.
I'm not in any sort of elevated Buddha-like position.
I'm not floating three feet above the ground on my own philosophy farts on some high mountaintop like I'm down here in the trenches with you trying to slog through this battle and figure things out and get things right as best I can.
So I don't want people to look up to me because that's lowering themselves.
I mean, if you are unhealthy, And you're flabby, a little overweight or whatever, and you go to a personal trainer, and the personal trainer is like, look how fit I am, man.
Look, I can bench press this.
I can do this many push-ups.
And you just watch them.
They're just feeling fitter than you.
They're not helping you become fit.
They're just parasiting off that.
So, that's my particular impression.
Not of anyone in particular, but when this Amex Gold thing comes up, it's like, why do you want this high status stuff?
So that other people can look up to you and envy you, and you feel better, more important, stronger, or whatever, right?
But, nope.
It's wrong. It's wrong. It's wrong.
My cousin is getting married soon and she has announced her intention to elope rather than have a formal ceremony.
Her parents are upset by this.
I haven't been asked for my opinion, but I would be inclined to suggest that perhaps there is something wrong with her family that makes her want to exclude them.
But I don't know what that might be.
Am I off base? What is the morality of elopement?
It's your marriage. Is it a violation of the non-aggression principle?
Nope. Do you have you signed a contract?
Is it fraud? Nope. The parents should be the ones to fix that.
The parents should be the ones to fix that issue.
It's perfectly moral to answer.
How should I phrase the question?
I did not realize that the way I asked the question was so offensive.
Oh dear. Oh, doubling down.
Okay, well. Can a man and woman truly be close friends outside family?
I found that after puberty, every woman I've been close to with friends of one who secretly dare to hook up with.
Yeah, no, you can't. Men and women, of course, a man and woman can be friends outside of family.
Yeah, I mean, if it's your friend's grandmother and you happen to get along, I guess you could be friends.
But no, I mean, men and women of reasonable attractiveness and of reasonably similar ages, we're just too hardwired with that stuff.
It just doesn't work. It no worky.
All right. Last questions, comments, issues.
I am happy to hear.
You know, it's funny because this guy who was like, you seem to be saying that Kanye was justifiably deplatformed.
And he's saying like, no, I didn't.
I told you. I told you very clearly.
I wasn't offended. I'm just saying that you jumping to conclusions about other people's thoughts is probably a problem.
I'm sure it is a problem in your own relationships.
And so you have a guy who's pretty good at relationships, giving you some coaching, giving you some feedback.
You can listen or you can't.
Like, my day goes on either way, right?
Yeah. You can take the coaching.
You cannot take the coaching.
It's entirely up to you.
But, you know, not even admitting the possibility that somebody else might have something valid to say about your communication style, that's not being humble, right?
That's not being modest, so to speak, right?
You mentioned being down in the trenches, but you end talks with lots of love from up here.
Yes, well, that's location, not on the map.
Who's next in the philosophy series?
Spinoza. What's your favorite moments in Burn Lotus?
Oh, it was actually pretty early on.
The parent-child relationship in Burn Notice is really a thing of quasi-Shakespearean beauty, and I know that sounds ridiculous, but it really is, and that's mostly because of the acting.
The woman who plays the mother, she was Cackney or Lacey or something in some old show.
It's fantastic. And, I mean, gosh...
Donovan is just incredible as an actor.
And she plays dumb about, you know, he had a brutal, the main character, the spy, he had a brutal childhood with an incredibly violent father and an emotionally abusive mother.
And she plays dumb about the effects of all of this.
And she plays dumb about everything he does as a spy and everything he did for his government.
And he's like... What do you think I do, Ma?
Just that question just gave me goosebumps when I first saw it.
What do you think I do, Ma?
What do you think I do? Like, stop playing the innocent.
Stop pretending that the brutality of my childhood had nothing to do with the coldness of my capacity for violence as an adult.
Like, what do you think I do, Ma?
And you can see the acting, again, is magnificent.
And as is the writing and the directing, too.
But you can see just her like, oh, shit, I'm caught.
Oh, wait, playing dumb isn't working for me.
And that cunning, right? I've seen that cunning in people's eyes.
Anytime you confront a manipulator, you'll see that cunning.
And it's one of the most repulsive things about them.
it's when the alien comes out of the nose so to speak and tries to lay his egg in your esophagus alright almost done My favorite Queen song?
I think it's still Somebody to Love.
I just love that gospel.
And the soaring vocals are just incredible.
And that somebody to love.
Whatever he does with that wobble is just incredible, right?
I also like some of the lesser-known ones, I suppose.
See What a Fool I've Been, some of the live versions are fantastic of that.
And although I didn't like the recorded version, it was way too gay.
And Who Needs You, off News of the World, it's a lovely little John Deacon penned Caribbean number.
It's just really, really good.
You Take My Breath Away, but that ooh...
It's just lovely half falsetto at the beginning.
There's a song off the...
Not a very good album, Hot Space.
The first side is wretched, the disco trash.
The second side is a traditional queen sort of set of tracks.
And I like Les Palablas de Amor, which is the words of love, I guess, for their Spanish audiences.
And there's a pure falsetto number called Cool Cat.
It's just so good.
In fact, when he does...
He does a live falsetto in Rock in Rio, which is just incredible.
Just straight up falsetto, just soaring.
Amazing stuff that he does live.
And I went through a bit of a phase when streaming first came out of looking for live versions of Somebody to Love because he does different vocals at the beginning of every version of that.
And it's just incredible.
So other than that...
March of the Black Queen has always been a favorite of mine.
It's a very early one with some very light, airy vocals, which is really, really nice.
And Misfire was John Deacon's first song off Sheer Heart Attack.
I quite like that one. It's a little throwaway song, but it reminds me of the 70s.
I very clearly remember seeing Queen with the black fingernail polish doing...
Killer Queen on top of the pops in England.
I had a recording of it on a tape deck that I had.
I listened back to it back when Walkmans were like C60 cassette tapes.
Oh, gotta ask your grandparents by these days.
And Bijou of Innuendo is a very interesting song.
It's a complete reversal of a normal song.
So a normal song is like three and a half minutes of vocals and a 30 second guitar solo in the middle.
Innuendo is a complete reversal of musical norms because it's a three and a half minute guitar solo with 30 seconds of vocals in the middle.
It's really clever. That way.
And very, very mournful and powerful that way.
So yeah, don't get me started on Queen.
I'll be here all day. But yeah, so.
All right, let's see here.
It reminds me of Lawrence and his mother talking about his dad in Jaspor.
Yeah, Lawrence and his mother unpacking the father in Jaspor is really deep and powerful stuff.
At least it was for me, so.
Would you suggest buying a home in the country now or waiting for the market to crash?
Waiting for the market to crash?
I think it's crashing.
Alright, so...
Gosh, we've only got six minutes left.
Should we close off with another question or two?
We've got people typing! I have an idea to write a handbook listing virtues, the mean of each virtue, and start it with an argument about the minimum of non-aggression.
How does that sound? Well, I would say that the first virtue is honesty.
Because people will lie about non-aggression all the time.
So if you say, well, the non-aggression principle, people just lie about it, right?
I mean, in a very minor way, this showed up in this...
Live stream, right? Because the guy was like, well, you seem to be justifying it.
It's like, that's kind of aggressive.
And then when it was pointed out, he just falsified it and said, well, I didn't know.
So I think you always got to start with honesty.
Without honesty, none of the other virtues are possible or trackable or maintainable, and particularly self-honest honesty.
Hey, Steph, I acknowledge that your criticism...
Well, I said it was too obvious to talk about, so I'm not going to talk about it.
And I talked about Kanye before, so, yeah.
I mean, if I say I'm not going to talk about it, you can ask me again if you want, but I'm still thinking that it's just too obvious.
There's no need to talk about it.
All right, so do you think the housing market has bottomed or is still going down?
Again, don't take any advice.
It's all my particular opinions.
Don't make any decisions based on anything I'm saying.
It's all just subjective opinion, and I'm no expert, but no, it's got a long way to go down.
It's a long way to go down.
The interest rates are going through the roof, and they will continue to go through the roof as a result of some of Trump's ridiculous budgets and hyper-spending during the pandemic.
The bill is coming due. And the only thing that's...
And inflation is probably going to get a lot worse because diesel is running out, supply chain is running out, and yeah, it's...
So I think that the housing market has still got a long way to go down, and I think it's going to be even bigger a crash than it was in 07-08.
Because there just wasn't that amount of debt.
And whatever happens, of course, you know, it doesn't take much.
Only a couple of points going up for interest for people's mortgage payments to double, right?
So, yeah, it's going to be kind of ugly.
And I don't know, maybe that will slow people on the southern border of the U.S. Who knows?
All right. I believe we are out of time this year.
Were you working in 2008?
Did you experience a huge revenue drop?
Oh yeah, no, I had just started.
No, I had just started my show.
I had just quit my job making, you know, some pretty good coin.
I had just quit my job as a software executive and entrepreneur and I was doing FDR full-time and then the market just fell out.
So, yeah, it was very exciting.
How much do you think inflation will crush the average boomer's retirement plans?
Well, the devil always takes his scalp, right?
Do you believe a talent like an incredible singing voice could point to a personal creator who gifts us with such talents?
I don't. I don't.
It sits on the bell curve of what you would expect.
We listened to you for simple explanations on topics.
How do we get better doing the same for our children?
Always try to give people analogies from the world in which they live.
Right.
So if you're going to give analogies to children, give that to them in toys and playtime and climbing stairs.
And you just give analogies to people in the world in which they live.
And most of your communications issues will be solved.
All right.
Yeah.
So, I mean, as far as the listening goes, right.
So I said it's too obvious to talk about what's happening with Kanye.
And then you're like, but I want to know what you're saying about Kanye.
But if you're not acknowledging that I said I don't want, I'm not going to talk about it, then it's kind of tough to think you're listening to me at all.
So, again, I don't want to jump at it too much, but I'm just saying that.
Isn't virtuous behavior APA? Compliance with UPB must be assumed before considering virtue.
Yes, but how can you verify compliance with UPB if somebody's dishonest, right?
So if you say, let's say you're dating some girl, and you say, I accept the non-aggression principle, and she says, yes, I've always practiced the non-aggression principle, but if she's lying to you, you can't verify it really.
I guess you could go and try and find out about her past or whatever, but in terms of good and evil, yeah, you need compliance with UPB. In terms of personal relationships, Then you need honesty, right?
Very few people are frankly honest in relationships and this is where so much mess comes from.
Thanks, Steph. My love for you is great and involuntary, of course.
Well, thank you. Thank you.
I'm sure that we share a great love of my virtue.
And I share a love of your virtue and commitment and your support for this show as well.
All right. Lots of love from down here with you in the trenches.
Lots of love, everyone. I really, really appreciate you dropping by tonight.
And don't forget my free books, almostnovel.com.
And don't forget...
JustPoorNovel.com and FDRURL.com slash TGOA for my free novels.
They're really, really good. And the next one is going to be just killer.
It's giving me goosebumps even just plotting it out.
All right. Take care, everyone.
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