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Jan. 17, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
58:23
The 3 Iron Laws of Relationships!
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Alright, questions from fine listeners at freedomain.locals.com.
So, let's start with the first great question.
What are the benefits of talk therapy?
And what should someone expect to do when starting talk therapy?
What do you expect from a session and things to do in between sessions?
Now, of course, I mean, the basic answer is, I don't know.
I can talk from my own experiences and some theories that I have, but I guess every therapist is different, and if you like your therapist, take your therapist's recommendations.
But this is my experience and my thoughts on it.
So, the benefits of talk therapy is that most people will literally go from cradle to grave with nobody listening to them at all.
This is tragically true.
As a whole, most people go from cradle to grave with nobody listening to them at all.
Just waiting for their turn to talk, waiting to inflict some belief or ideology or preference or exploit them or use them.
Most people just go cradle to grave, nobody listens to them at all.
Now, a therapist, a good therapist, will actually deeply and vividly listen to you.
Now, in my mind, the purpose of therapy is not to compare your thoughts to other people's preferences.
This is very important.
Most people, when you say something, they don't think about what you're saying.
They think about what you're saying in reference to their own particular preferences.
I like this.
I don't like that. You make me feel good.
You make me feel bad.
And so, I mean, to take an example, if somebody is arguing against the welfare state, People don't compare this against abstract moral ideals or virtues or vices or charity or taxation or coercion.
They don't think about any of that.
What they do is they say, well, this either makes me feel good or it makes me feel bad.
So if you're dependent on welfare and somebody's arguing against the welfare state, very few people are actually judging what you say relative to any kind of objective facts or reason or evidence.
Most people are judging it against their immediate self-interest.
I mean, this is the triggered thing, right?
So you talk against the welfare state, and people only judge what you're saying relative to their...
Does it make them feel good? Does it make them feel bad?
Does it help their interests, or does it threaten their interests?
Now, of course, people don't say that, because that would be kind of inefficient, because we're so programmed to respect and work with morality, ethics, virtue, and so on.
So what happens is, people say not...
I feel upset or threatened by the end of the welfare state.
They say it's cruel and mean and horrible and you don't care about the poor.
They can't just sit there and say, well, wait a minute.
I mean, my mother is a recipient of the welfare state and therefore if the welfare state ends, then I'm going to have to take care of my mother, which I don't want to do.
It's just a calculation of immediate self-interest.
That's all that's Some guy might say, well, my baby mama, the single mother of my kids, well, she's doing the welfare state thing.
And so if the welfare state ends, then I'm going to have to step up and take more responsibility for my kids.
They said, Or, you know, I'm getting directly paid for the welfare state or anything like that.
So they're not talking about abstract moral virtues or values.
They're simply processing what you're saying in relation to their immediate self-interest, how they feel in the moment.
And there's a very subtle and powerful calculation that goes on about all of this stuff.
Now, this of course occurs, I'm talking about the welfare state, easing you into the topic, but what actually happens in families, right?
So in families, most families, again, I'm not talking about all, right?
Most families. Most families and most people, let's say that you start dating a woman, like you have a messed up family, and you start dating a woman who's psychologically very astute and really cares about you.
Now, somebody who's psychologically very astute and really cares about you What is that person going to do?
Well, that person is going to say, well, wait a minute.
There's some really odd stuff going on with your family here.
Let's talk about it. And I care about you and I think that they're causing you pain or harm or something like that.
Well, your family will not judge your new relationship.
They will not judge this new woman or this new man.
They will not judge that person according to any objective standard.
What they'll do is they'll say, does this relationship, this relationship you're entering into, does it serve my immediate interest?
Now, immediate interest doesn't mean right now.
It means emotional interest, right?
So it could be, well, you know, if you keep going out with your partner, they're going to figure out all the crazy stuff about the family, and then we're going to have to confront it, or there's going to be a big mess.
And this could all take place over months or maybe even years.
So immediate self-interest doesn't mean...
Whether it's plus or minus for me in the moment, and I'll forget about it tomorrow, it means my immediate evaluation in the moment of whether this is good or bad for me as a whole.
That could be short-term or long-term, so I'm going to clear that up.
So, if you have these kinds of relationships, which are, you know, very common, this is the norm, and people are not evaluating you, or your statements, or your life, or your perspective, they're not evaluating you relative to any objective standards at all.
They're only measuring what you say and do relative to their immediate self-interest, whether it feels good or bad for them at the moment.
And those instincts could be very lengthy as a whole.
And that's what I mean when I say most people go from cradle to grave, nobody listens to them at all.
They're not listening to that person.
They're not listening to you. They're only listening to what you say and comparing it to their immediate self-interest.
Now, when you pay a therapist, that therapist, I mean, ideally...
It's not running an agenda, it's not trying to get you to do things or not trying to impose some agenda on you.
That person is supposed to just be listening to you and comparing what you say to reality.
So if you go to your mom, say your mom abused you, you go to your mom and you say, Mom, you beat me when I was a kid.
Well, is your mom going to be able to listen to that?
Nope. No, no, no.
Because your mom is going to say, okay, well, if I accept this, then I'm admitting that I'm wrong, I'm admitting that I was evil, I was admitting that I harmed my children, and what's going to be the status of the relationship going forward?
Especially as she's getting older, she wants, you know, people go from violence to manipulation when they age out, right?
That's the birth of philosophy and morality was in manipulation, not in ethics.
So, Your mother is going to say, okay, well, if I admit all of this, odds are it's going to really harm or maybe even break our relationship.
So, when you say to your mother, you beat me, your mother can't respond in any kind of objective fashion.
Can't. It's impossible.
Now, that doesn't dictate how she'll respond, although for the most part it's gaslighting and fogging and counterattacks and bad-mouthing.
So, the therapist, on the other hand, is, I believe, the goal of the therapist is to listen to what you say and compare it to reality.
Right? Not to compare it to immediate emotional self-interest.
It's epistemological, fundamentally.
A truth statement, my mother beat me, is interpreted by your mother as extraordinary danger, fight or flight mechanism kicks in and she loses objectivity and rationality, right?
She's no more relaxed than a man being cross-examined by the police for a heinous crime.
So, and in many ways, a parent confronted with significant abuse is in a worse situation than a criminal because a criminal has a lawyer and If the parent was abusive, they might lose resources for the last quarter of their life.
And that's pretty harsh.
So if you go to a therapist and you say, my mother beat me, the therapist is not implicated in the crime.
She's not invested one way or the other.
Right? She's just listening.
At least that's kind of the idea, right?
She's just listening to what happened and giving you sort of simple human responses back.
Now, on the other hand, if you go to the therapist and you say, My mother abused me.
Oh, what happened?
Well, when I was eight years old, she wouldn't let me stay up until two o'clock in the morning.
Then the therapist might say, Okay, I'm not sure.
I can't understand how that's abusive, but I'm happy to hear more.
So the therapist then is, again, it may not always be to side with your perspective, but the therapist is trying to, I think ideally, compare your statements to facts and therefore actually listen to you.
Listening to someone is comparing what they say to facts.
The first fact being that they feel this, right?
I mean, I think a good therapist, if you say I was abused because my mother wouldn't let me stay up till Two in the morning when I was eight years old.
I think the therapist wouldn't say, well, that's ridiculous.
You weren't abused, right? Because the important thing is the person is feeling that.
The first reality is that the person is feeling that.
That's their perception. That's their belief.
And it probably is masking something else.
So the value of talk therapy...
If you have someone actually listen to you because they're not running an emotional agenda and pretending to listen to you and then controlling you by appeals to universal morality, that's a mere cover-up for their emotional triggering and their immediate self-interest.
So that's the value, I think, of therapy.
Now, what were the other questions?
Oh yeah, so what can you reasonably expect from your first session?
Well, I don't know. I mean, I guess every therapist has a different approach, a different style, a different way of interacting.
So I can't tell you what you should expect from your very first session.
I mean, I had a therapist before my good therapist, and that therapist just seemed kind of bored and not connecting with anything and not really listening and not providing much feedback.
So, well, I didn't go back, right?
I didn't go back. The other therapist, the one who worked out, I remember coming in and I said, I really had a tough time finding her office.
And I think I was saying, oh, this is circling this place like a shark.
Try to find your office, right?
And she says, ah, a shark. Interesting.
Tell me more. So right away, we started unpacking the whole shark thing and all of that.
I was quite fascinated by sharks when I was younger.
So... That's because I was surrounded by predators and I needed to understand that.
So... Now, what you can do between the sessions?
Well, I mean, I viewed the sessions not as self-contained, not as encapsulated.
I viewed the sessions as a starting place, right?
I mean, when I was in theater school, we would learn something, and then I would practice it.
I learned Tai Chi, I learned sword fighting, and I just practiced all these things, right?
If you go to the gym and you get a trainer once a week, you don't just go once a week, right?
You go and practice what the trainer has taught you.
You get a nutritionist, you don't...
So I viewed it as a kickoff place.
So what I did was, you know, I kept a dream journal.
I wrote down wild conversations I was having in my brain.
I did just a lot of work to try and sort things out.
Because, I mean, therapy is wild because when you really are listened to...
And my therapist was a good listener.
And a therapist will take you seriously.
And again, like once you experience that process of somebody listening without an agenda, of somebody actually being interested in you rather than in how your choices affect their preferences, like it's wild.
Talk about a wild experience.
It really is just absolutely amazing.
And, you know, once you experience that, I'm telling you, man, there's no substitute.
There's no substitute.
Once you experience somebody listening to you and being interested in you without trying to run some agenda of their own, there literally is no substitute, and you can't go back.
You can't go back.
Now, of course, I'm no therapist, but I do try to listen to people And not try and run an agenda.
So I may have a theory and I always say, as you've heard me say it a million times, my theory doesn't matter relative to your experience.
Don't let me tell you about your life.
If there's something I say that doesn't fit with what you think, then tell me and I'll drop it and we'll try again.
I have to come up with some way to try and tie things together because they're asking for a philosophical view of their life.
But as an empiricist, the real empirical material is their life, not my theories, right?
So that's the stuff that really matters.
So I think that's really the purpose of therapy, and I think that good therapists just aim to listen.
And it's not without judgment, right?
So the other thing I wanted to say is that, yeah, therapists will listen without trying to run an agenda, but I think the best therapy is where you get moral backup.
I don't think it's particularly common.
If I were founding some school of therapy, I would found a school of therapy called ethical therapy or moral therapy, which is people are wounded by blindness to evil, right?
So evil is done unto you, and then as a kid, you are forced to nod and smile as if it's not evil, and then that continues throughout most of your life, throughout most of society.
So if I were founding a school of inquiry, I would find it.
It's a Socratic method of evaluating the evil that has been done to people, because once they can identify the evil, they can get themselves safe from the evil.
And I think that cure is just about the most trauma that could be cured.
So, again, if I were a therapist in founding a school of therapy, that's what I would do.
All right.
Hi.
Stefan, we need you to go back on Twitter.
We need an update on Taylor Swift's eggs.
Even if this is the one and only thing that you tweet, I need to see it because I want to watch and see the leftists go absolutely crazy.
I want to see Taylor's eggs, hashtag Taylor's eggs trending on Twitter.
Ha ha ha. Now, the funny thing is, I'm sure that at some point or another, because it was quite a big deal, and voted pretty much the worst tweet on Twitter, because it was quite a big deal, I'm sure that Taylor Swift, somebody mentioned this to her, and they had a good laugh about it.
But Taylor Swift went into politics, political action, or political activism, and remains childless in her mid-30s, as far as I know.
All right. Um...
Andrew, having Andrew Tate on Free Domain?
Yeah, I don't think that's good.
I'm not really doing interviews at all anymore.
I'm really focused on building core philosophy for the future.
And Andrew Tate is under investigation, and so he would be very unwise to come on any show and just speak his mind or whatever, because anything can be used against him, so that's not going to happen.
Okay. Does cyberbullying violate UPB? Let's see.
Various forms of blackmail are illegal, of course, much of which has been made easier in the social media age.
The abuse through texts and the digital manipulation games people play might be passive aggression.
Does that violate UPB? Well, so can it be universalized?
Remember, there's two kinds of UPB. There's aesthetically preferable actions, being on time and so on, and keeping your word in a non-legally binding sense.
There's aesthetically preferable actions, and then there's the core moral UPB, rape, theft, assault, and murder.
So with regards to bullying, Well, it passes the coma test.
To refrain from bullying is better, and somebody who's in a coma can refrain from bullying.
So that's certainly possible, right?
Now, bullying requires a victim.
It's asymmetric, right? So you are bullying someone.
Like, if you agree to meet someone at 7 o'clock on the street corner, and you're both there at 7 o'clock, you both have achieved that aesthetically preferable action.
It can be universalized.
When things are asymmetrical, it requires a victim.
Then I think that's a little bit closer to falling into violations of aesthetically preferable actions.
Because it can't be universalized.
Everyone can't be a bully because being bullied requires a victim.
Now, I get that there are other things that are asymmetrical, right?
Well, no, I guess not. So if you're buying and you're selling, it's trade, right?
Trade is... It's what is occurring.
The buying or the selling is less relevant than just the trade as a whole.
And both people are getting an advantage over not doing the trade, otherwise the trade wouldn't happen.
So things which are asymmetrical in this sense tend to fall into what you can examine through aesthetically preferable actions.
So aesthetically preferable actions are things which can be universalized So,
if you have a friend who keeps breaking his promises to you, And we're not talking like legal or material gain or loss, right?
So somebody who just keeps, oh yeah, yeah, I'll get around to doing that or whatever, right?
Yeah, I'll come help you move, right?
Then I'll come help you move. So somebody who keeps breaking their promise to you, it would be better if he kept his promises and keeping one's promises conforms to UPB. I mean, it passes the coma test, right? So somebody in a coma can't keep a promise, but he can't make a promise either, right?
So that's not really in the category.
But everyone can keep promises.
Now, the promise doesn't mean that you actually achieve it, right?
People don't break their promise when they fail to do what they say they're going to do.
That's not right. So if somebody says, let's take a silly example, right?
So somebody says, we're going to come help you move, and then they get into a car accident, break both their legs...
Are they breaking their promise when they don't show up to help you move?
Well, no, of course not. We would all sympathize and understand, and my gosh, I'm so sorry, and what can I do, and all that stuff, right?
So somebody's broken their legs, right?
So it's not that somebody fails to do what they're going to do.
Also, if somebody says, I want to help you move, I'm going to come help you move this weekend, and then midweek they get the job done, Offer of a lifetime, but they have to fly to the other end of the country on the weekend to take the job offer.
I think they would phone you up and say, listen, man, I'm so sorry, I can't take the job.
I can't, sorry, I can't help you move because I got this job offer.
They want to fly me out for an interview and, you know, I'm really desperate for this job or whatever, right?
So are they breaking their promise?
No. Right, so a promise is I will do it barring unforeseen circumstances and if I can't Do it.
I will let you know as soon as possible.
That's what a promise is.
A promise is not, I'm going to do it no matter what.
It's barring unforeseen circumstances.
I will do this. And if I can't do it, so let's say that the guy flies off and doesn't even tell you.
He says, I'm going to come help you move this weekend, and then he flies off to do his job interview but never even tells you, and you're just sitting there waiting, waiting.
That's breaking his promise.
Because implicit in the promise, the little asterisk in all the promises, Barring unforeseen circumstances, and I will tell you if I can't make it.
That's the promises, right?
Now, obviously, if you make a promise and you fall into a coma, that's unforeseen circumstances, so it gets you off the hook.
And you say, well, I can't tell you.
Well, I understand. I can't tell you, so if I can, right?
So, promises.
People get kind of messed up about these promises.
Now, The barring unforeseen circumstances is, you know, let's say that you say, I'm going to help someone move, and then you wake up the day of the move, and you have a crushing migraine.
Well, you can't help the person move, because migraines are pretty debilitating, right?
So you can't help the person move. On the other hand, if you wake up and you just have a very mild crick in your neck, and maybe a very slight headache, well, that's, you know, then that's not really...
Enough to say you can't help them move.
Or on the other hand, if you wake up and you're just like, I don't feel like moving today.
I don't really want to move. And then you phone the person and say, hey man, I said I was going to help you move, but I'm not going to.
Oh, what happened? Oh, nothing.
I just don't feel like it. Okay, well then that's breaking your promise.
There's no unforeseen circumstance that is higher priority than helping someone move.
Anyway, so aesthetically preferable actions would be keeping your promises, right?
So it's not asymmetrical, right?
So with regards to bullying, it depends.
Bullying a child, like if you're a parent, and verbally abusing a child, that is a violation of the non-aggression principle.
Now, I get there are gray areas.
Let's not, you know, screaming at a kid, you're nothing, you're stupid, you're a loser, you should kill yourself.
That's verbal abuse.
And that is a violation of the non-aggression principle because it is harming the child's brain and the child cannot escape it, right?
So the key difference between aesthetically preferable actions and full UPB, APA and UPB, Is that in APA, aesthetically preferable actions, they're not violently inflicted upon you.
Assault is violently inflicted upon you.
And theft is a form of violence.
It's a form of theft of your time and so on.
And you don't voluntarily participate in theft.
So if somebody says, well, hey, if you invite me over for dinner tonight...
I promise you I'm going to steal something from your house.
Now, if you then invite that person over, maybe it's a kind of weird game you're playing or whatever, but you are agreeing to it.
If somebody breaks into your house while you're away on vacation and steals your stuff, you didn't agree to it, and it's inflicted upon you against your will.
A friend who's chronically late, he's not violently imposing his friendship upon you against your will.
I mean, you're still participating in the friendship.
You may be annoyed, but you're still participating, right?
So, if you harm a child's developing brain, the child has no option to escape the relationship because he's a child, right?
He's stuck in the house. And then you're harming the child.
It's a form of violence because it does direct damage to the brain.
And you can see the stress hormones, right?
So, if you stress a child out enormously...
And repetitively, chronically, you can trace the damage that chronic stress does to the body.
More than 90% of illnesses are stress-related.
It doesn't mean caused directly by stress, but stress has an effect.
So you get the adrenaline dumps, you get the cortisol dumps, and it does harm to the heart, it does harm to the developing brain.
So it's an environmental toxin.
Verbal abuse is an environmental toxin.
Now, if you have a girlfriend who calls you a tiny weenie loser or whatever, well, you are in that situation voluntarily.
You can walk away at any time.
Marriage, I don't know how marriage looks exactly in a truly free society, so let's just hold off on that for the moment.
But if you have a friend who continually puts you down, Like I had a quote friend years ago, I mentioned before, who would tell stories about something foolish I had done.
Every time we would get together socially, he would just rip out these stories and so on.
And I was there by choice.
I didn't have to put up with any of that, so I told him I didn't want him to do that anymore.
He's like, hey man, can't you take a joke?
And he was a good friend for a long time, but then he fell in with the wrong person and got drawn into a negative lifestyle and all that.
So, I was in that voluntarily.
He wasn't inflicting anything upon me.
So, I just stopped hanging out with the friend.
I just stopped spending time with the friend.
So, well, I find it unpleasant.
I think it's kind of weird and creepy.
And I don't like it.
And you won't stop doing it.
So, there was no infliction of anything on me.
He's free to say what he wants and I'm free to be there or not.
It's freedom, right? Bullying as an adult?
Hmm. That's kind of tough, man.
Now, I mean, we're just talking about pure verbal bullying.
We're not talking about some boss saying, go out with me or I'm withholding your paycheck, right?
Because that would be more of a threat in that sense, right?
And that would be actionable. But, you know, somebody who just calls you a tiny dick loser on the internet or something like that, right?
Well, in most environments, most circumstances, you can block that person, right?
You don't have to interact with that person.
If they're truly stalking you or if they send threats, direct threats or dox you or whatever, that would be actionable in a free society, right?
But again, in a free society, we're not going to deal with bullying, right?
Because bullying results from verbal abuse and We won't have a free society if we're verbally abusing our children.
We have to have peaceful parenting prior to having a free society.
So, with regards to bullying, where it's not parent to child or guard to prisoner, so to speak.
You kidnap someone and you scream in their face all day.
That's a form of assault.
It's harming their health and they don't have the choice to leave, right?
So I would put it that bullying would be a violation of aesthetically preferable actions.
You couldn't shoot someone for bullying you as long as you had the option to not participate in the relationship.
So that would be my analysis.
I hope that helps.
Hello, Steph. An aunt in my extended family has recently shared that she was sexually abused by one of her siblings growing up.
The large number of siblings who are now all above middle age have not yet shown any signs of addressing this or treating the offender any different, which is greatly hurting the victim.
Thank you very much.
Yeah, well, I'm sorry to hear that, and please, I'm sure you see the woman, and please give her at least my very deepest sympathies, not just for what happened in the past, but what's all happening in the present.
So you've got to understand why the siblings are not dealing with this.
Because the siblings knew that something was wrong, and most avoidance comes out of guilt.
When you see someone avoiding a topic, it's usually because they're guilty.
Usually, not always, right?
Usually. So, the siblings knew that there was something wrong.
They knew that there was a change in demeanor, right?
Somebody who's being sexually abused has a significant change in demeanor, significant change in affect and emotional expression, and their grades slip, they get withdrawn, they hide in their room, they can't sleep, they're constantly exhausted during the day because they're trying to stay safe at night if that's when it's happening.
So, you know, there's a massive change in In somebody's life and personality and experience, and the siblings notice this at some level.
You can't miss it.
You can't miss it. So, the siblings are avoidant, I would imagine, because they feel guilty for not having done anything.
Now, what could they do?
Well, I mean, everybody has a superhero version of themselves, right?
Well, they talk to the father, they contact the authorities, they sit and ask the sibling who's being sexually abused, they ask the sibling, you know, what's going on, what's happening, and they don't rest until they get to the truth, right?
And they find out what's actually going on, going down, which they didn't do.
And they say, well, you know, we were kids and blah, blah, blah.
Okay, well, but as adults, did they ever circle back?
Did they ever, right? Now, look, I know that this is a high bar to set for a lot of people, but I'm just telling you what the conscience is probably saying to these siblings, right?
So, if the siblings won't acknowledge...
The pain of the woman who was sexually abused by another one of the siblings, and if they won't confront or question or ostracize or side with her against the abuser, if they won't have any negative impacts, if there's no negative impacts towards the abuser, or I guess you could say in this case alleged abuser, well, I sort of hate to say this, but it's just my opinion.
I can't prove it. It's just my opinion.
A family is beyond hope.
Can't be fixed. If somebody says, Bob sexually abused me for years when I was a child, and people are fine hanging out with Bob, what's there to fix?
What statement could be made?
What argument could be put forward that is going to evoke a conscience in people who seem perfectly willing to break bread with an alleged sexual abuser of children?
You say, ah, yes, well, but the boy was a child himself.
Yes, the boy was a child himself.
And that certainly gives us some context that's important.
But if the boy hit the crimes, then the boy knew that what he was doing was wrong.
Most parents have had this experience with one or more children that you're in some store and there's a lot of candy that's always annoyingly put at eye level, right?
There's a lot of candy and you walk out the store and your kid is just calmly munching on a piece of candy.
And you say, well, where did you get the candy?
Oh, I got it from the shelf.
And you say, oh, no, that's not candy.
That's not free candy. You've got to pay for that.
You've got to pay for that.
And then you go back in and you pay for the candy and whatever.
So that's a kid. She's not hiding the candy.
So she's not... You stole!
No, it's eating the candy right in front of you, right?
On the other hand, you've got a kid who takes candy and then eats it in the middle of the night and hides the candy wrappers in the Air vents or something like that.
Okay, well, that's a kid who knows that they're not supposed to be eating the candy.
And they may disagree with that rule, but, you know, in my family, you either obey the rules or you negotiate something different.
But you don't just disobey the rules.
Right? So, if we say, you know, no eating candy in your room, I mean, when my daughter was little, right?
Because then you can't monitor it, you can't measure it, and, you know...
It could attract insects or critters, and it could be messy and sticky, right?
So, you know, don't eat candy in your room.
Right now, it's not like, well, I've said it, therefore you can't think, and there's no negotiation.
It's like, it's not authoritarian in that way.
Sort of explain the reasons. And the child either agrees or the child doesn't agree.
Right? So I've always said to Izzy, like, We'll make our case, or I'll make my case, give the reasons.
You can agree with those reasons, you can disagree with those reasons, and we can negotiate from there, but we have to have something that we agree on.
Now, just because you agree on something on Tuesday doesn't mean you can't change your mind on Wednesday or Thursday.
So if you sit there and say, well, wait a minute, actually, on second thought, this doesn't make much sense.
Completely and totally, we reopen the discussion.
Right? I don't want her following rules.
That she doesn't agree to.
But she's perfectly free to change her mind.
It's not like I never broke up with a girl.
You're allowed to change your mind about things, right?
So, that's the deal, right?
Now, if this abuser, alleged abuser, I suppose, if this alleged abuser hid his crimes, Then he knew they were crimes.
If your kid sneaks the candy out of the store, hides it from you, and you find the wrapper in the vent the next time your HVAC guys come and clean out your house, well then, they know that it's breaking the rules that they've agreed to, and they haven't renegotiated, they've just snuck it.
Well, that's bad. I mean, that's not good.
And you have to have a real conversation about that, right?
Like, okay, what are our options?
If you agree to a rule, you don't renegotiate it, but you just break it anyway.
What are our options? How are we supposed to have a family structure or a family life?
Right? We don't want to turn this into a game that's kind of hostile where you try and get away with everything and we try and catch you.
That's no fun and it's annoying.
It's annoying to spend an hour or two hammering out rules and then you just break them without renegotiating them.
That's annoying. And it's perfectly fine, of course, as a parent, to be annoyed.
If that's what your genuine experience is, you should let your child know that.
It is annoying. And I said, look, if I had negotiated something with you, and if I had said to you...
You know, you do X, Y, and Z, you know, finish X, Y, and Z because I want to get to the arcade, right?
And we go to the arcade, whatever your kid likes, right?
And then they finish X, Y, or Z, and then you say, no, we're not going to the arcade.
Would you be annoyed? Well, of course, right, because, you know, we had a deal and you broke the deal.
Well, guess what?
Just as you're annoyed, right? So, you just try and help the kid understand all of that, right?
Now, if the alleged abuser...
Was hiding his crimes, which of course he was.
Then he knew that they were wrong.
He knew that they were disapproved of.
And he also knew that he was hurting his sister.
Torturing, really. Sexual abuse is a form of torture.
Now, say, ah, yes, well, but maybe the brother himself was sexually abused.
Well, that's important.
But I assume that the aunt who claims she was sexually abused...
We did not also become a sexual abuser of children, so that's not dominoes.
That's not something that strips you of free will.
So, I'm just telling you my particular perspective, because obviously this is just a summary.
I don't know the entire nature of the family.
But if I said, so-and-so sexually abused me, and my family was still totally fine with so-and-so, that would be it for me.
There's no words that can substitute for not having any particular issues with an alleged sexual abuser.
Now, the family could get together and say, listen, we need to figure out what's going on here because, you know, maybe for some reason the aunt is lying and, right, we've got to try and sort this out and you could have a whole family council.
It could last all weekend. It's pretty important stuff, right?
Last all weekend. Try and sort this stuff out, right?
But I... You know, if somebody claims sexual abuse as a child, and the abuser is still welcomed into the family, alleged abuser, and no effort is made to find out what the truth or falsehood is.
In other words, if everybody just wants to erase everything and pretend like the aunt never spoke, I mean, that would be my, you know, exit stage left pursued by a bear, as it says in a Shakespeare play, right?
That would be my cue to get out of Dodge.
The amount of therapy and stuff, not like...
Look, I mean, obviously I've never been a perfect person.
You should never have heroes in that sense, like the flawless, incorruptible, perfect heroes.
You should never have heroes in that sense.
You shouldn't even try and make yourself a hero, because the pursuit of heroism is generally an excuse to give up on ethics, because you're going to be disappointed by somebody, everybody, yourself included, and then...
It's like, oh, so-and-so disappointed me, therefore I'm giving up on ethics.
Or I disappointed myself, therefore I'm giving up on ethics.
Like, I didn't lose any weight this week, so I'm giving up on the diet, right?
Heroism is usually just an excuse to give up on virtue with the get-out-of-jail-free card, or the get-out-of-virtue card called disappointment.
But, yeah, I wouldn't...
How are you going to fix people who are fine hanging out and not questioning...
Alleged sexual abusers of children.
I mean, what on earth could you possibly say?
What language could awaken anything in anyone?
All right, so let's see here.
What is the take on the law of assumption?
I came across this as my girlfriend often assumes how I feel or think without asking.
And she's usually not accurate, so I find it irritating.
My line of work tends to take a mental toll on me, and sometimes it's hard to be upbeat and happy.
My partner then assumes I'm unhappy with her, or I take work stress out on her.
We've been together a year and a half.
We lived together in a house I bought before our relationship.
She was untrustworthy early in our relationship, where I'm certain there was an affair.
I felt a lot of resentment and it took me a long time to get over.
She still denies anything happened and wanted to continue the relationship.
I caught her lying a couple more times afterwards, but still foolishly stayed with her.
Now, I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh.
Now, this past August, at a high school reunion, I got way too drunk and ended up having a one-night stand.
I chose to say I got too drunk and don't remember what happened as part of the night.
I didn't actually remember.
But after people talked around town and she had heard things from her friends, I decided to come clean instead of to continue lying.
It was a terrible thing for me to do.
I think it had been easier for me to lie about it since I had been lied to multiple times by her previously.
She since doesn't trust me, understandably.
Lately, I guess I'm just feeling battered by work and home life.
Is it time to throw in the white towel, get her to move out, and start over anew?
We're in a vicious cycle for almost a year now, where I had trust issues first, and now it's her with the trust issues.
There's a lot more to it, of course, but I'm trying to keep it shorter for the question.
I guess I'm curious if your opinion.
Can the law of assumption help to overcome trust boundaries?
Yeah, I don't. I don't know.
I don't know anything about this law of assumption stuff.
It says, at 30 years of age, I'm starting to feel the panic of finding the right partner to start a family with, but I'm choosing the wrong person.
You often say, it's the individual's fault for staying with the person, and I do fear I may become one of those individuals who stayed with the wrong person.
Yeah, look, I mean, it's not a call-in show, so I can't really ask you questions, so obviously you're kind of shooting from the hip here, but...
Well, this is the live-in culture, right?
Hey, we're dating. Hey, we get along.
Hey, let's play house.
Let's live together. Let's...
Just waste time. Just waste time.
Waste time. So you've been together for a year and a half, all right?
So... If you've been together for a year and a half, there's trust issues early on.
It's been mostly pretty bad, right?
So it's a seven to one.
It's not obviously scientific, but it's a good rule of thumb, and I think it's been fairly well borne out by a variety of experiments.
It's a rule of sevens, right?
Which means that for every bad day, you need seven great days.
Not just good days, great days.
And this is because our bodies as a whole are more finely attuned, right?
We're far more attuned to negative stimuli than positive stimuli.
So, for every bad day, you need a week of great days.
And great days means a lot of fun, no problems, no conflict.
Not a little snapping here and there, but wonderful times.
So you've been together for a year and a half.
And it's been mostly negative, right?
So multiply that by seven, right?
So you've got ten and a half years of great times that you need.
And let's say that it was great for the first six months.
Doesn't sound like it was. We can work this math any way you want.
So, let's say it's been great for, it was great for the first six months and then for the last year it's been bad.
Okay, so you need seven years of great conflict-free relationship.
And by conflict-free I mean nothing, like you can have your disagreements, but nothing dissolves into any kind of negative, significantly negative fight.
So you're 30. So let's say it was bad for mostly a year and a half, so you need a decade plus of a great relationship just to make up for the first year and a half.
And this is if we don't even count the The fact that the first year and a half is significantly more important because it's your first impression, right?
Your first impressions tend to be, just go with rule of sevens, right?
Even though I think it's higher for the, you know, the first bit is bad.
I don't think it's recoverable, but anyway.
So you need 10 years of a great relationship in order to make up for the first year and a half.
Or let's say, first six months were great, you need seven years of a great relationship just to make up, just to break even, right?
Just to break even. And I remember this.
I remember, you know, when I was in a relationship in my 20s, and it was one of these, it was a tough relationship because there was a lot about it that was a lot of fun and good, but there was just, the wheels came off just on a regular basis.
Eventually, it was like, well, we're spending way more time fixing this car than driving it, so maybe it's just kind of a lemon.
But, you know, after a year or two of like, you know, gosh, this really just seemed to be just staggering along and we really can't get things sorted out and we can't find a groove that we can stay in that's positive.
And obviously, I didn't think it was my fault in particular for reasons that we don't have to get into here.
And also because, you know, I've now been happily in a great relationship for 21 years and just celebrated my 20th wedding anniversary, so I can do it, right?
So what I thought was, you know, after, I think it was like at the two-year mark of having troubles, I was like, okay, so 14 years.
I need 14 years of a great relationship just to make up for these last two.
You may disagree, but the rule is seven.
You can look it up. You can disagree with the rule of seven.
Maybe it's a rule of five.
Maybe it's a rule of three. Maybe it's a rule of one.
Let's just say it's a rule of one.
You need one good day for every bad day.
Well, if you've had a bad year, it means you need a good year.
And if you're not getting that good year, it ain't going to happen.
Now, if you've had a year and a half of bad times, what are the odds that it's going to turn around?
You think she cheated on you.
You cheated on her.
You're not getting along. She takes things personally that aren't personal.
You have a drinking problem.
Now, I'm not saying you get drunk all the time, but if you have a drinking problem to the point where you...
If you drink to the point where you get blackout drunk and sleep with someone, that's a problem.
How is she going to trust you?
Right? So, you have a drinking problem.
You have a trust. You have no trust in the relationship.
In fact, you have negative trust.
You mistrust each other.
So, let's say we go with the rule of seven.
You've got ten years. Of a great relationship before you even break even.
Well, then you're 40.
And every day, this is the thing, right?
We've got to think about this in a relationship.
Every day that you have a bad day, it's a week where it has to be perfect, or as close to perfect as relationships can reasonably get.
So the rule of sevens is an iron law.
Another rule that is absolutely iron is by far, statistically, psychologically, factually, by far the best predictor of future behavior is relevant past behavior.
If you want to know what someone's going to do tomorrow, look at what they did yesterday.
You're listening to me because of that exact principle, right?
That you assume that I'm going to provide something of value and interest and utility because you've listened to this show before.
If you want to know what someone's going to do tomorrow, just look at what they did yesterday.
Now, this doesn't mean that we don't have free will and, of course, people can change and they can hit rock bottom and they can decide to get into therapy.
They can turn their lives around like Mike Lindell style.
So, they can do some remarkable things.
But you can also win the lottery.
Doesn't mean you shouldn't put money in the bank.
You could jump out of a plane without a parachute and land safely.
But you shouldn't try.
Bucking the odds is not a great way to end up with a stable and predictable life.
It's a bad call, bad idea.
And again, it doesn't mean people can't change.
But here's the thing. So I had a whole pattern of change over the course of my life.
So the one thing that people could say was, you know, like, I started off as a Christian, I started off as a socialist, I became an atheist, I became a minarchist, then I became an anarchist, and so on, right?
And so I have been in a process of, I think, change, evolution, growth, hopefully.
I've been in that process my whole life.
So change and hopefully growth would be a characteristic of my life as a whole.
And now, you know, like I'm going to be 57 this year, right?
So I think I've got enough of a view to say, yeah, I can say that my life has been pretty chock full of change, right?
So if people aren't in a situation of change, then they will remain not in a situation of change.
Again, unless there's something really, usually really disastrous that dislodges them.
Like, I don't know, maybe one of you has an affair and gets someone pregnant.
Would that be a pretty big disaster?
It might cause you to change.
But to me, at least looking at it from, you're interested in change because you're asking these questions and you listen to philosophy, so good for you.
But it seems to me that you haven't said what you haven't said to me, which is the most telling thing, what you haven't said to me is, my girlfriend is really concerned that her lives are going in the wrong direction and is desperate to fix things.
She's really concerned that we're not getting along.
She's really concerned that she keeps projecting onto me.
She's really concerned that she keeps trying to mind-read me and get it wrong.
She's really concerned that our relationship might end and she's desperate to try whatever she can to improve it.
I haven't said any of that. So, third iron law.
Rule of sevens. Best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.
Third iron law. Ready?
Third iron law. Third iron law is this.
An unacknowledged problem will never be fixed.
An unacknowledged problem will never be fixed.
So if you say to someone, hey, you have a real problem with your temper.
No, I don't. You just provoke me.
Okay? Their temper will never be fixed.
In fact, it will probably get worse.
Because the temper is designed to achieve an effect, but because they have a problem with being bad-tempered and they're overly aggressive and angry, then...
Their aggression doesn't solve their problems, which means their aggression is going to escalate.
A problem that is not acknowledged will never be fixed.
So, you say to your girlfriend, you keep misinterpreting my motives, so stop imagining what I'm feeling and ask me instead.
No, I don't. I never do that, right?
Okay, so you just have to look at someone, ask them to say, this is the problem as I see it.
If they won't acknowledge the problem, you live with the problem or you get out.
There's no other choice. Just sitting there crossing your fingers hoping the problem is going to be solved when it hasn't even been acknowledged is crazy.
Like literally mad. It's deranged.
I mean there's hope, fine.
Delusion, not fine. If it's a problem for you, if it's a problem for you, the other person won't acknowledge that it's a problem, you learn to live with it or you leave.
But repeatedly, like, I mean, so my wife tidies things up.
This is a common thing in marriage, right?
My wife tidies things up. And she'll move things to, occasionally, she's pretty good for the most part, occasionally she will move things to incomprehensible locations.
Now, she likes to tidy things up.
And she keeps her place.
And I'm not a very messy person, and I definitely will tidy up for myself if the dishwasher's full, I'll empty it, that kind of stuff, right?
But She really does keep our place beautiful, right?
That's great. It's great for me.
I'll help my studio, but she keeps this place beautiful, right?
So, I live with her moving stuff from time to time.
I don't try and correct her on it.
I don't try and fix it.
It's not a thing. She is an anti-whirlwind of organizations.
It's beautiful. And it's, you know, maybe it's one, you know, for a painting, you need the light of the shadow, right?
So to create depth, right?
So this is something that's, you know, occasionally a minor annoyance to me.
I'm not trying to fix it.
I just live with it. It's become kind of funny at this point.
It's just kind of like a joke.
I'm not trying to fix it. It's not a problem.
So, you know, my daughter will hang on to a joke until it fossilizes, right?
She finds something that's funny, and, you know, Lord knows I can be this way a little bit too, but if she finds something that's funny, she'll just hang on to this joke until it fossilizes, and I kind of have to gently remind her, it's like, okay, you're a smart girl, you're a funny girl, might be time to move on a little, right?
That could be good for everyone, because, you know, I said, you're not really challenging yourself, you're just kind of doing the same quote funny thing over and over again, and of course it becomes less funny each time.
So, she hasn't acknowledged this as a particular issue.
I'm not trying to change it in particular.
I remind her from time to time, but it's not.
So, if somebody won't acknowledge something as an issue that needs to be fixed, I mean, it is an analogy.
Just think of it like this. Someone has just got their car freshly painted.
Right? They got the car freshly painted.
Now, if you go to them and say, you need to paint your car, what are they going to say?
What are you kidding? I just got this painted.
Get it painted again.
No, no, no. You need to get it painted again, but exactly the same color, right?
How much money would you bet that they're going to go get their car painted again, exactly the same color?
What odds would you put on that bet?
Well, it's like the guy who bet a million bucks trying to make 12 grand betting on a sports game where one team was 27-0 up, and then the other team ended up winning 32-30, and the guy lost.
So, yeah, that's...
Your neighbor comes, he's got his car freshly painted red, and you say, you've got to paint that car.
You've got to get that car painted exactly the same shade.
What are your odds that he's going to go and get that car repainted?
No, it's zero. Zero.
Odds are zero he's going to do that.
Now, you can invent some circumstance, blah, blah, blah.
But come on, effectively, how much money would you put on it?
Zero. He's not going to get the car repainted.
So, the car paint is not an issue for him because he just got it done.
So, this is most people in the world in life.
They're absolutely certain that there's no problem.
Or if there is a problem, it's you, right?
Like, if you were out for a hike with your girlfriend, right?
One more analogy. This is really important, right?
This is the difference between happiness and misery.
I'm going to do everything I can to help bring happiness to you guys, right?
We get enough slings and arrows from philosophy, we should at least get love out of it in return.
So, you know, here's another analogy.
You're out for a hike with your girlfriend.
And she stumbles and twists her ankle.
Like, badly, right? Like, it swells up.
It's purple. She can't walk in it, right?
And you say to her, I'm so sorry, man.
Lean on my shoulder. We'll get you to the car.
We'll get you to a hospital.
We'll get that thing straight. We'll make sure nothing's broken.
Maybe you need a cast or whatever.
And she looks at you like, what the hell are you talking about?
You're the one with the broken ankle.
And you say, what? Oh, man.
Are you delirious from pain?
Like, what?
Like, look at your ankle.
And she says, I'm looking at your ankle.
I can see bones sticking out of it.
And you say, no, no, no. You're limping.
I'm not limping. You're limping.
Right? So, she thinks that it happened to you when it actually happened to her.
This is projection, right?
She's in pain, but she thinks you're in pain.
Her ankle is hurt, but she thinks your ankle is hurt.
It's the same thing with bad tempered people.
Right? They're angry, but they think you caused it.
They think the anger is a just response to your provocation.
They think their anger came from you when it's actually coming from them, just as this woman thinks that your ankle is injured, not hers.
Now, how long would a relationship last with someone like that who would let you drive to the hospital and then what would happen is she'd come limping in and the nurse would say, oh, come this way, we'll x-ray you.
After an appropriate three-day wait in socialized medicine, and then the woman would say, me?
No, I'm fine. You've got to x-ray this guy's ankle.
It's like, well, what's wrong with his ankle?
Well, it's really broken, right?
This would be the act of a crazy person, and projection is the same thing.
I'm giving a physical manifestation of what happens psychologically.
Is this woman ever going to be someone you can rely on to stay safe and trust in a relationship?
If she doesn't even know whose ankle is broken, In fact, she knows, but she's completely wrong.
So you have a bad day at work, and the upset is coming from work, and your girlfriend thinks that you're mad at her.
I mean, that's like going to one of those arcades where they have that punching bag, and you punch the bag, and then your girlfriend calls security and claims assault.
Because you punch the bag, and then she claims you assaulted her.
She can't completely mistake what happened to the world with what happens to her.
You're going to have a relationship for long with someone like that?
Someone's complete lack of ability to process reality?
I don't think so.
So, yeah, listen, just in general, guys, I mean, I say this is a bit of a war veteran of the dating scene, but if you can't see marrying the girl, don't date her.
Don't move in with her. Like, if you can't see marrying the girl, that's not a thing.
It's mostly nonsense.
And it's predicated on this assumption of immortality that happens to people when they're young.
Oh, I've got forever to make my mistakes right.
Oh, I can kill a couple of years in this relationship.
No, you can't. You really can't, and you shouldn't.
All right. Sorry, I didn't get to more questions, but they were all very absorbing.
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