All Episodes
Previous Next
Jan. 21, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
52:22
STOP BEING SO OFFENDED: CROWDER AND DAILY WIRE
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Well, hi everybody. Stephen Molyneux from Free Domain.
Hope you're doing well. And, yeah, I had some interesting questions, which I wanted to get to.
To some degree about what I was talking about last night.
Let me see if I can bring those up, like a day-old anchovy from the belly of a pelican.
And remember, for those of you who are subscribed on Locals or Telegram, you get...
I'm doing edits on my new book.
And for those of you...
I know there's a lot of people out there who want to write or are interested in writing.
So... What I've done is I've written the first draft and I'm going through doing all the edits and changes and updates, teasing out the themes and putting in the layers that are needed for the drama later and explaining the purpose of the scene.
Now, I know it's kind of lame to explain the purpose of a scene because, like, explaining a joke, right?
What does it matter if you explain a joke, right?
But to explain the purpose of the scene is...
Oh, my volume is low? From where?
This is on the gram.
Alright. Let's see here.
Settings. Alright, we'll get there in a sec.
Let's see here. Done.
Yeah, that might be your side.
I don't see any particular...
I mean, it's fine for everyone else.
Yeah, so explaining the scenes I think is kind of important because...
Also, local stream not working.
No, I don't think that's the case.
You guys can hear me. Oh, are you hearing an echo?
Alright, let me know if that helps.
Testing, one, two, three.
Audio is quite low. It's a delayed echo.
Maybe it's because I'm getting sort of feedback here.
That's interesting. That's very interesting.
I've muted my audio here.
That should solve it, but it could be that I'm just streaming to too many places at the same time.
So I've muted my audio here.
That should solve it, but it could be that...
Delayed echo, about seven seconds.
All right, well, just hang on tight, and we'll see if that shows up here.
Delayed echo, about seven seconds.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I can see that.
Okay, hang on. I can see that.
I don't know why that's coming through because I'm muted.
Let's see here. Close that.
Yeah, it is like the same.
Forever jacket or may food don't well with the ding-dang-dong ding-dang-dong.
All right, let's see where things might be playing Oh, yeah, yeah, I just I don't know where it's playing from Okay, I'm going to try hanging up on the Telegram side.
Maybe that's it.
Yeah, it looks like that was it, right?
Yeah, okay, so sorry, for some reason Telegram is looping around.
Thank you.
That's good, right? Okay, sorry about that.
I'm just, you know, messing around, streaming to a bunch of different places.
No biggie. We will sort it out.
I just really wanted to make sure...
R&D Live.
Let's see here. Oh yeah, that's the wrong one.
Okay. Yeah, we can solve that.
Okay, so that should be better on DLive.
For some reason it changed my mic settings.
Why? Well, just because.
Just because.
All right. So, let me restart everything here.
My recordings. All right.
So, hi everybody.
It's Saturday. I had a little bit of time.
Just wanted to drop in, do a little tech test, and also...
Sort out all of the enjoyable and exciting tech issues.
So, yeah, for those of you who don't know, I've written a new novel.
My last novel, I have the least imaginative titles.
I used to have these great titles, The God of Atheists and Just Poor and so on, but...
And I wrote a science fiction book set 500 years in the future, and it's called The Future.
And people wanted to know, well, what was the prequel, right?
How did we get to that world of the future?
And so what I did was I... I've changed.
I've just written a prequel about how we ended up getting to that world, or at least the present sort of time circumstances.
And because that novel was about the future, and it was called The Future, this novel is about the present, and it's called The Present.
And the general idea, let me tell you the theory behind the book.
For me, I have to have some reason to write the book.
It has to be something that's not already out there.
It has to be something that is not...
A market need that's already been served.
It has to be something that is interesting to write for me and different.
The general idea comes...
As you scale up in power, historically in fiction, as you scale up in power, so do you also scale up in morality.
In other words, the moral choices are kind of reserved for the kings, the emperors, you know, you name it, right?
There's a lot of moral stuff that is focused on the very high.
The generals, you know, the superheroes and so on.
A lot of moral stuff is focused on the very sort of top of society.
Now, I'll just make sure I've got enough space everywhere for this stuff.
Yeah. So, then what happens is, and there was kind of a revolt in the 1950s, sort of led by John Osborne, Look Back in Anger, and it was basically a revamping of the sort of high, the noble, the lawyer's speech, and it was down to the everyday, and they were called kitchen sink dramas.
And what they were was people's everyday lives.
That instead of going to the high, the mighty, the noble, the kings, the generals, the big men and women in history, you were going to focus on the smaller lives of the individuals.
And of course, everybody knows death of a salesman and all this kind of stuff.
And Bertolt Brecht was involved with this with Mother Courage and her children to just show the lives of the proletariat and so on.
But the problem was, at least what happened was, as you scaled down from social, political, and military power to the everyday lives of people, you lost your morality.
The moral arguments, the moral elements were no longer being focused on or discussed.
So high morality or low-brow amorality or immorality.
And if there was a morality, it was really cheesy leftist morality, like we have a mean boss and we're all banding together, like all this.
It was all about furthering the revolution.
It wasn't about sort of personal ethics or personal morals, which was terrible in many ways.
So what I want to do, and I know that I've done it, right?
I know that I've done it. But what I'm doing with this book is I'm focusing on average people, but...
The powerful moral choices that average people make in their lives.
Or the powerful avoidance of moral choices that people make in their lives.
So I want to do every day, but I want to do the grand moral decisions and moral dramas usually reserved for the top of society bring it right down to the core of people's everyday lives.
Because the whole point of the show has been trying to get philosophy to the lives of everyday people so that it's a value to you and helps you and all that kind of stuff.
So... So, for those of you who are subscribed, you can do freedomain.locals.com, free to subscribe, UPB2022, all caps, the promo code.
You can subscribe on Locals in lots of different ways that you can get through to this stuff.
But for those people, I'm going through, and I've got about eight hours of this so far, I'm going through the whole editing process, right?
There's not much point going through the first draft process because that's just me following the book outline and writing the first draft, right?
So, So the editing process, though, I think is really interesting.
And I like the editing process.
Like when I used to do art, I used to enjoy the sketching part, and then I would enjoy the detailed part, but what I would most love is when the picture is finished and you're just putting in the last details to make it really spring to life.
That was sort of my favorite time of drawing.
And that would take like a week on a face, right?
So I was really into the detailed stuff that way.
The process of editing, if you're interested in writing, and this, you know, you may not write a novel, you may not write a whole book, but the process of editing is really interesting.
I find it really interesting.
And it's very, it's quite technical in a way.
You know, make sure that things follow, that this is not jumping ahead of that, and the general themes are highlighted to, like, you want to put in foreshadows, right?
There's a brutal scene near the end of the book.
I need to put in foreshadows of this, but not so repetitively that it's eye-rolling.
So it's got to be kind of subtle foreshadowing.
Anyway, I'm going through that whole process and you can get...
I've just released the eighth one today.
I'm about maybe 25% of the way through the book.
So yeah, if you're interested in writing, you're interested in...
And again, creative writing, technical writing, it doesn't really matter.
Then that's a real value, I think, that you can get a hold of freedomain.locals.com if you want, or you can sign up on Telegram at freedomain1.
It's the bot. All right. So, if you have questions, if you have comments, I'm more than happy to answer them.
But while we're waiting for those to accumulate, let me bring up something here, which I was sent, which I found most interesting.
Most interesting. And pretty sure that should be booting up at some point.
All right. Task kill is your best friend.
All right. So, somebody said that they were happy with this comment being followed.
They said, I've been frustrated by conservatives failing to understand economics for a long time.
This is the Crowder versus Daily Wire stuff.
Crowder is demanding a guaranteed amount of money.
Of course, that will come at the expense of something.
Then, of course, you're dependent on Daily Wire.
I think the create-a-different-business model is about him not understanding the value of capital, also with the Kanye West stuff that music deals are supposedly unfair.
Well, it wasn't just Kanye West.
I mean, didn't Prince tattoo slave on his forehead?
And George Michael had issues with all of that, although George Michael had a lot of issues.
So, I thought that was interesting, and I had some more thoughts about this stuff as a whole, so let me just...
Alright, so this is somebody, it's an interesting email that I wanted to go with, and so this is somebody who had issues with what I was saying, and I really like.
Oh, Conservative Inc.
thing? So Conservative Inc.
is, we'll make sure that no actual change occurs, and I'm not saying that this is my view, I'm just saying that this is a general criticism.
You know, people say, well, the Republican Party has never actually lowered the size of government, and in fact, social spending tends to go up when Republicans are in control.
And so they promise all of these things and then they don't actually deliver.
And this bait and switch, you know, donate to me and I'll do X, Y, or Z that you really want as a conservative.
And it doesn't, nothing really ever comes to pass.
It doesn't really happen. And so the general criticism is that the conservatives, it's kind of a grifty thing that they make promises that they don't end up fulfilling, but they'll keep taking money, that kind of stuff.
Okay, so this is somebody who wrote to me who said, I agree with 90% of what you're saying about Crowder versus Daily Wire.
There are a few points I don't agree on.
And I love the people who disagree with me because obviously that's where I can learn if they're right and learn if I'm right and how to explain it better.
He says, you never took advertising money as you wanted to be as truthful as possible.
That's very true. Crowder doesn't want to have to water down the truth and compromise.
Well, nobody wants to water down the truth and compromise, but you have to live in a volatile world full of aggressive people who don't know how to think.
I mean, I can't be alone in noticing.
Sorry, I don't mean to laugh. It's a serious topic, but I can't be alone in noticing this, that you have to live in a world full of volatile people who don't know how to think.
And they don't know that they don't know how to think.
And they are programmed to attack truth-tellers.
You know, I mean, my public speaking career, you know, drowned a wee bit to a halt because of the government program called COVID and also because of just the violence that was being unleashed against me, against my followers and the people who would come to see the speech, even those who disagreed with me.
And I always loved those.
I would have debates at the end of every show for an hour or two sometimes.
So, nobody wants to water down the truth and play their cards close to their chest.
Nobody wants to do that. But...
I mean, nobody wants to swim in the ocean in a shark cage, but if there are sharks around, it's probably a good idea.
So, yeah, we, the Daily Wire, Stephen Crowder, everyone, we live in a world full of volatile and aggressive people who will turn to violence, and they don't know how to think, and they don't know that they don't know how to think.
It's just a reality. It's just a reality.
I wish it were different. I've certainly worked hard as hard as I can to help people learn how to think, but that's just a reality.
All right. So, I guarantee you that Stephen Crowder and The Daily Wire and a bunch of people, I guarantee you that they do have to water down the truth and compromise, because the truth is a dance with the world.
You don't get to inflict it on people.
It's a dance, it's a seduction, and sometimes that seduction is with the future rather than the present.
So, the truth is a dance in the world, right?
I mean, some people have really self-immolated for truth, right?
There was a guy, the first guy, I think it was 19th century, the first guy who figured out that doctors, and in particular surgeons, should wash their hands before operating on people.
He ended up being attacked by his profession.
He ended up being institutionalized, and I think he was killed by an orderly in the institution.
So it was pretty rough.
It was pretty rough.
Look what happened with Lysander Spooner and...
The American postal system.
So, yeah, there's a lot of, it's a dance, right?
And the people who just, you know, fools rush in where angels fear to dread, right?
So, he says, obviously, this is the email, obviously, if you're morally for the people, and then you get terms that indicate losing money if strikes or deplatforming happens, that would be a slap in the face when Crowder and Daily Wire knows that he gets strikes every year.
Right, but the context was that the Daily Wire said, if it's a strike that prevents you from streaming for 90 days, right, so it's not just a little strike here and there, right?
I'm 100% certain that you wouldn't have liked the same clauses in your offer if you were in the same position.
Well, if I were being offered $50 million, I wouldn't be me.
Right?
For better or for worse, right? It wouldn't be me.
I wouldn't be me. I would have not talked about particular issues.
I wouldn't have talked about voluntary adult relationships.
I wouldn't have talked about anti-spanking.
I wouldn't have talked about my foundational opposition to child abuse.
I wouldn't have talked about, I mean, just millions of things I wouldn't have talked about.
My bargain is with the future, not with the present, right?
Because you shock the present, and then in the future, they're shocked that people were ever shocked.
That's just the way that things evolve in the world.
You shock the present, and that's a dangerous occupation.
To shock the present is a dangerous occupation.
So you shock the present and then in the future they look back and say, I can't believe how crazy people were back then that hitting children, like the evils of hitting children was even controversial.
I can't believe that people back then were shocked and appalled and attacked people for saying you shouldn't hit children.
I did see something from Crowder from 2014 where he seemed to be pro-spanking.
Again, that's eight years ago.
He's probably, he may have changed by then, whatever, right?
So just wanted to mention that. So would I have liked the same clauses in your offer?
I... I'm sorry, I mean...
I don't know what liking has to do with anything.
As far as...
I mean, liking is for ice cream, it's not for business.
It's not for business. So, of course, Steven Crowder has things in that contract that he doesn't like.
Why? Because everybody has to make compromises in a negotiation.
I remember Mad Magazine, actually it was quite a moral magazine back in the day, and I remember reading an entire book a theologian wrote about the ethics of Mad Magazine.
So Mad Magazine used to have this series, it's infatuation when, it's love when, it's a relationship when, right?
And I remember this one.
It just burned in my brain from like 40 years ago, right?
No longer, maybe closer to 50 years ago.
And it was something like this.
It's infatuation when it doesn't matter where you go on vacation as long as you're together, right?
It's love when...
The husband wants to go to the mountains, the wife wants to go to the beach, so the husband goes to the beach.
Or maybe the wife goes to the mountains or whatever, right?
So it's infatuation, but it doesn't matter where you go on vacation as long as you're together.
It's love when you have preferences and one of you compromises with the other, and then it's a relationship when the husband wants to go to the mountains, the wife wants to go to the beach.
So the husband goes to the mountain, and the wife goes to the beach.
It's not compromising, right?
This is why I find this stuff very interesting.
I guarantee you this.
Look, it's me.
Be real, right? I guarantee you this.
Whatever issues are coming up for you in the Crowder vs.
Daily Wire debacle, and it is a debacle, These are issues that are highlighting what you need to work on in your personal relationships.
Because personal relationships and business relationships, all your relationships, are all about negotiation.
Because it's almost never the case that you and the other person want to do exactly the same thing at exactly the same time.
So there's compromise, there's deferring things, there's I scratch your back, you scratch mine.
The simultaneous need is almost non-existent.
So, there's a lot of negotiation.
And so, if somebody says, you wouldn't have liked the same clauses in your offer if you were in the same position, there's no offer you will ever get where you like all the clauses.
I guarantee you.
And if you have brains, and you're the smartest audience in the known universe, I fully believe on that.
I fully believe that. But here's the thing.
If you get everything you want in a negotiation, you should run away from that negotiation.
You should never, ever take everything you want in a negotiation.
So let's say in some alternate universe, people are offering me $50 million, right?
And it's like, oh, that's the perfect...
And I say, no, no, no, $100 million.
They're like, okay, $100 million. And I want all these clauses struck.
Okay, we'll strike all these clauses, right?
And they just say yes to absolutely everything that I want.
I would never, ever, ever get into business with someone like that because they don't know how to do business.
They don't know how to negotiate for themselves.
And if they're a pushover to me, it means they'll be a pushover to other people.
And that's going to be bad.
It means their organization can't possibly succeed in the long run because they don't know how to get their needs met.
They don't know what's best for the organization.
They just say yes to everything, and that's a disaster.
Like, this is true in relationships as well, right?
It's called being the chameleon, right?
So the chameleon phase is when a man states particular preferences in a relationship and the woman just kind of goes along with it.
It could be the other way around.
And she's like, oh yeah, yeah, no, I'm fine with it.
Oh yeah, that's great. Oh, you want to go here?
Oh, absolutely. Let's go see this band.
Oh yeah, well, you want to go here? Oh yeah, absolutely.
I say yes to everything. Well, you can't date someone like that.
Because they're self-erasing.
And it means that they won't be able to negotiate with your kids, which means your kids will grow up to be spoiled or self-destructive.
So, the idea that you're supposed to like everything in a negotiation is...
I'm not saying this guy is deranged, but the idea is deranged, right?
So, yeah, there would be clauses that I wouldn't like.
But if there were no clauses I wouldn't like, that would be something I wouldn't like even more.
Now, you may have counter-offered.
This is the writer, right? And I appreciate the emails.
Great. Now, you may have counter-offered.
And yes, I agree. The most simplistic way in what I was thinking also that he should have counter-offered on I will take 35 to 40 million but take out the strike clauses.
Right. Right.
Now, here's the thing.
Sorry, I keep saying here's the thing, like the previous things weren't important, and they are, right?
This is about negotiation, not about Crowder, not about Daily Wire, it's about your life and how you negotiate.
Economics tells us, teaches us very strongly, foundationally, There are no solutions, there are only trade-offs.
And I'm not talking morally.
In life, there are no solutions, there are only trade-offs, right?
Should you exercise today?
Is there a solution? Nope.
Is there an absolute 100% answer?
Nope. If it's your last day on earth, if you're in a coma, if you just broke your leg, then you shouldn't.
If you haven't exercised for a while and you really feel the need and it's good for you, then maybe you should.
But of course, if you exercise, all the other things that you would be doing instead of exercise are not going to get done.
And I remember reading this in a book that had quite an influence on me many years ago called The Undercover Economist, where he said, no economist can tell you whether to save or spend your money.
Now, of course, I was raised Protestant, and you hang on to your nickels until they weep blood, right?
You just, you know, hi, Scottish, right?
And the English Irishman and Scotsman jokes were pretty common when I was younger.
Some of them are pretty wild.
But one I remember...
Well, there's two that I remember.
A Scotsman were notoriously cheap.
I'm not Scottish.
I'm half Irish, half German.
But I understand this mentality.
I'm a bit of a saver that way.
And so an Englishman and an Irishman and a Scotsman are walking down the street and a robber runs out and says, give me all your money.
And so the Englishman and the Irishman give him the money.
And then the Scotsman turns to the Irishman and says, ah, is that 20 quid I owe you?
We're just going to lose it anyway.
I paid you the money!
And that's number one.
Number two is Englishmen, Irishmen, and Scotsmen are around a grave of a beloved friend.
And... The Englishman takes out a 20-pound note, throws it in and says, here's for a drink in the afterlife, my friend.
And then the Irishman takes out a 20-pound note, throws it in the grave and says, here's for a drink.
And then the Scotsman writes out a check for 100 pounds and throws it in, right, because you can't cash a check.
So anyway, it's just, I kind of get that kind of saving mentality.
But I remember the economists saying, nobody can tell you whether you should save or spend your money.
Can't tell you that. Can't tell you that.
Why? Because it's a trade-off.
And he railed against somebody who said, well, of course you should invest in real estate because otherwise you're just renting and you've lost all the money.
It's like, the people who compare the benefits of one thing with only the costs of another thing, they're just manipulating you.
They're attempting to hijack.
It's possession, demonic possession almost.
They're attempting to hijack you by saying, well, if you save money, you'll have money, but if you spend money, you won't have money.
Or a penny saved is a penny earned, right?
That's what I was raised with and it had a deep impact on me.
Of course, as you get older, you realize, well, you can't take it with you, so you might as well trade in some money for some experiences.
Otherwise, you just leave a bunch of numbers in a bank and it doesn't do you any particular good and may, in fact, not do great things for your kids, Marie Ostman style and all that.
So, an economist can't tell you whether you should invest in real estate, whether you should save your money, whether you should buy stock.
No, because it's all costs and benefits.
If you buy a house, yes, you are no longer renting.
But if you invest the money you used to buy a house, especially the down payment, you might get an even better return.
Renting might be a totally sensible thing to do.
So, this idea that there's a solution, right?
This is what troubles me in this whole interaction, right?
Again, to roughly characterize things, Stephen Crowder says, forget advertising, I want subscriptions.
Because with subscriptions, there's a...
it's harder to target subscribers.
They won't know who they are, whatever, right?
Okay.
And Daily Wire says, okay, yeah, with subscriptions, we have subscriptions, but we also want ad revenue, right?
And Stephen's like, well, no, ad revenue is bad because then you can target the advertisers and so on.
It's like, okay, but, you know, there's debanking, right?
So even if you have subscriptions, you can get deplatformed from payment processors, right?
So is there a solution?
The idea that, well, this model has no flaws and your model is all bad.
It's just costs and benefits.
And this is my biggest gift to you in terms of free will, honestly.
Obviously, knowing morals and knowing the truth and trusting your senses.
But my biggest gift to you for free will...
You can't make choices if you allow yourself to be programmed by selective presentations.
You cannot make choices if you allow yourself to be programmed by selective presentations.
So if you've got some money and people are saying, well, you should just invest in real estate because it always goes up.
One thing they're not making more of is land.
It always goes up and you don't have to pay rent and blah, blah, blah.
It's like, okay. But you have to pay property taxes and you have to maintain the thing and it's going to decay and it's time consuming and you have to put down a lot of capital as a down payment usually.
So anybody who says to you, there's only upside to this, is lying to you.
I mean, other than integrity, virtue, truth, blah, blah, blah.
Well, I mean, there's a downside to truth, right?
Which is the counterattack from people who are profiting from lies, right?
So if you wish to retain your free will, right?
And of course we all do.
The purpose of philosophy is to increase your choices, right?
To show you the truth of the morals and the propaganda you're facing.
So propaganda will always say, it's all plus and no minus.
It will never show you the downside.
We'll never show you the downside. So when people come to you and say, advertising is terrible, subscription is better, and they don't say the downsides of subscriptions and the upsides of advertising, they don't say that. Unconsciously, I would assume, they're trying to program you into doing what they think is best without telling you any of the downsides.
Is it better to buy a new car or a used car?
Nobody can tell you that. Well, you've got to buy a used car because it's going to save you money.
Well, of course it's going to save you money.
The option wouldn't even be on the table if it didn't save you money.
I mean, if a used car costs more than a new car, nobody would buy a used car.
So it's just kind of, oh, well, of course it costs you lots of money.
You should buy a house because otherwise you're just wasting money on rent.
Well, of course you're not paying rent if you buy a house.
You're paying a mortgage. It's different. You're accumulating value.
Well, of course you're accumulating value.
Otherwise it wouldn't even be an issue.
If you had, I don't know, what can you even say, right?
So anybody who says to you, here's the upside, and never mentions the downside, is attempting to bypass your rational faculty and literally, half-demonically, take possession of your brain and get you to do what they want.
Don't do it. Don't let it happen.
So this is important. This is why it's really important.
All right. Alright.
The problem is, Steph, that when you first make an offer, it mustn't upset the other party.
This is an important rule and affects the term of negotiations.
If a first offer is far too low, it will hurt the negotiations as value is being overlooked.
I don't agree with that at all.
I don't agree with that at all.
Let me make the case.
Let me make the case.
You should offer what you think is a reasonable offer.
Thank you.
Because that's being honest.
Now, knowing that negotiations are going to go upwards, you should offer lower than you're willing to pay.
You should offer lower than you're willing to pay.
So as the guy from Daily Wire Boring said, we could have gone maybe to 75, maybe to 100 million, right?
So they put in a low-ball offer.
Everybody knows that. Everybody knows that.
Everybody knows that when you're buying a car, you're paying sticker prices only if you've got so much money that your time is always more valuable, right?
So of course they're going to come in low.
Of course they don't. Why would you get offended?
They're going to come in low because they know you're going to go up.
I don't know why people would be offended at the most obvious thing in negotiations that has ever occurred.
I mean, as a kid, right?
If you want a raise in your allowance, you'll ask for more and settle for less.
You want to stay up later, you'll suggest later and settle for less.
When you trade your candy, you know, everyone sits around after Halloween and all the kids will trade your candy back and forth, right?
Of course you put in a low offer.
If you play Catan, right, you'll offer one card for another card, and if that doesn't work, you'll offer two or three.
You don't start with three. So the idea that the most obvious thing is you're going to get kind of a lowball offer, you don't take it personally because it's going to raise.
It's going to go up. I don't know why you'd be offended.
Do you know what it strikes me as?
It strikes me as like, if you're a really pretty girl, I talk about this in my book, right?
So if you're a really pretty girl and some homely guy comes up, some fat homely guy, some unattractive guy comes up and asks you out, you're offended because doesn't he know what you're worth?
And that chiseled jaw over there with the chin dimple should come over instead, right?
How dare you, right?
How dare you? I mean, this is Greta stuff.
How dare you? This is where they're experienced negotiators.
Obviously, they've negotiated a bunch of contracts.
They're a very successful organization, Daily Wire.
So, of course, they're going to make this offer. The idea that you can't upset the other party.
I don't know what that means.
The only way to not upset the other party is to signal that you're completely incompetent in business by giving them everything they want.
Of course an initial offer is going to upset the other party.
How could it not? Of course it is, because if it doesn't upset the other party, if they have everything they absolutely want, then you're saying you're terrible at business and they should run away from you anyway.
Again, if I'm missing something, let me know.
And of course... For a lot of people, I mean myself included, the amount of money sloshing around these people is really quite stunning.
It's really, really quite stunning.
It's really quite stunning.
I mean, obviously I look at the road less traveled, though I'm very happy with my choices.
But if you are out there saying, you know, the mug club is what, a hundred bucks?
A year? Some people are paying, what, 30 cents a day or whatever, right?
And you're out there saying, well, 50 million is insulting!
That's not...
You know, a lot of people in the realm of ideas or news or whatever, it's the big question.
Is it a calling or is it a gig?
Is it a calling or is it a gig?
So, anyway. So, no, I don't agree that your initial offer mustn't upset the other party.
Because that's saying you should not tell someone the truth because it might upset them.
And isn't that the whole issue that people have with the left and the triggered thing and they're getting mad just because you said something?
I mean, no. You honestly say, here's my first offer.
Here's what I think is a reasonable place to start.
Right? This was not a contract.
It's not a contract.
Nobody was asking Stephen Crowder to sign on the dotted line.
This was an initial term sheet, an opening offer.
Otherwise, you know, let's say you want to eat Italian, you say to your girlfriend, I really want to eat Italian, and she gets upset.
Does that mean you've done something wrong?
No, it means that she's immature, right?
So, yeah, it's an opening offer.
Why you would want to have the other person not be upset with your opening offer.
Now, of course, being on the receiving end, you say that's a low number, right?
But you don't take it personally.
Like everyone. I mean, listen.
The prettiest girl you've ever asked out, did you want her to go out with you?
Yes. Of course you did.
Did she go out with you?
Maybe, maybe not. But you want more than you can get.
Everybody does. All boys, teenage years, all boys, we start at the top and we work our way down until we find someone who'll be with us.
Everybody has to start at the top.
Everybody aims at the top. Everybody wants more than they're offered.
Everyone. So I don't understand why you'd be upset at something that's so foundational to life.
I don't understand. All right.
Daily Wire, he says, should have had multiple offers when it comes to the strike situation, only because Daily Wire isn't dealing with a guy that is super focused on money.
That's where we disagree.
Like, no, like you, Crowder isn't taking the easy way out.
Just take a check and compromise his morals.
Well, first of all, he is compromising his morals in terms of truth and integrity.
Everyone has to, because we live in a dangerous world full of volatile people who don't know that they can't think.
There are human predators everywhere when you're a truth teller.
So, the idea that nobody has any compromise on what it is that they're going to say?
He wants to tell the truth and not be watered down by advertising money.
Right. Now, I also, I don't know, and maybe you guys can tell me the truth about this or not.
I don't know, right? But...
Let me just... Okay, it's still running.
I'm running. So...
What I've heard, I don't know if it's true or not, but what I've heard is that the Daily Wire said, oh, you've got all of these Mug Club subscribers.
Obviously, we'll need to see proof of that, evidence of that.
It's not that we don't trust you, but we need it for our own due diligence, right?
You need it for your accountants, you need it for your lawyers, you need it for your shareholders that you've done due diligence and all that, right?
It's not personal, but we need proof, right?
So, as far as I understand it, our good friend Mr.
Crowder had some challenges getting the actual numbers, because maybe it was run by the Blaze, I don't know, whatever it is.
So he said stuff, and they asked for proof, and could he provide proof?
There seems to be some challenge about that, so that's an issue, right?
That's an issue. Alright, so let's see here.
Imagine that he came back, this is Stephen, imagine he came back with a counteroff for 120 mil to perhaps counterbalance the strikes and loss of fees that were inevitably going to happen.
Steph Daly, why I knew that if Crowder gets strikes common, they wanted him to take the money and push him into line with penalties and water down the truth.
Yes. Yes.
Welcome to the world.
I don't, I mean, throughout history.
If you are telling the truth to the world, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, right?
So if you are in the business of telling the truth to the world, there are challenges, and you have to be in that dance.
I mean, this is not an Ayn Rand novel.
This is actual life. So crowd is doing that anyway.
Guarantee you. Guarantee you crowd is doing that anyway, right?
Okay, so let's say hypothetically as to Daily Wire gets 100 million over four years with revenue dollars.
Clearly they have made 50 million, so for the sake of truth, Daily Wire could incur these costs for the sake of truth.
We will never know the amounts, but I hope you can see the point.
So Daily Wire gets 100 million over four years with revenue dollars.
They've made 50 million.
Okay, so I'm trying to sort of understand that.
Daily Wire gets $100 million, so they're paying him twice what he would accept, but he wouldn't accept $50 million.
It's an opening offer. It's an opening offer.
Clearly they made $50 million, so for the sake of truth, Daily Wire could incur those costs for the sake of truth.
Okay, but where are they getting the $100 million from?
Where are they getting the $100 million from?
A lot of it's coming from advertising.
So, you're basically saying if Steven Crowder doesn't get strikes or deplatformed or anything like that, doesn't get banned, then Daily Wire makes a lot of money.
Okay, but then those clauses are never invoked.
So, I don't understand.
Then those clauses are a non-issue.
So, anyway. I get it.
Why shouldn't Crowder lose money if advertisers leave?
Well, that is where negotiation is needed.
If Daily Wire is going to own all of Crowder and his intellectual property, then that risk of advertisers leaving should be Daily Wire's risk with the terms that were set.
Well, I don't know if you've ever engaged in something where you take the risk based upon somebody else's decisions.
Right? So, Daily Wire is taking some risks just by having anyone come on board, right?
I mean, maybe you had a movie set with Jeremy Rimmer and he, you know, got his leg half cut off by that snowplow or something like that or whatever, right?
So... Daily Wire is saying, look, you've managed to negotiate it for however long he's been running.
You've managed to negotiate not getting banned, not getting de-platformed from everywhere.
And so... We're going to assume that that's going to continue.
But if for some reason that shouldn't or that won't continue, then we have to share the risk, right?
So Daily Wire is saying we've got 90 days to try and find a way to recoup the income.
That's three months of trying to find new advertisers, of trying to get people to come to other platforms and so on, right?
But if you're asking someone else to make the fundamental decisions, in other words, if you're giving them total freedom, and as far as I understood it, they gave him total freedom, right?
You can do whatever you want, and the people who work for Daily Wire say that nobody's interfered with their choices or decisions, and Matt Walsh said they totally supported him and were enthusiastic about what is a woman, and Candace Owens, Jordan Peterson, they're all saying they don't interfere.
Okay, so you're giving people free rent.
You can do whatever you want. Does that mean that you should be the only person who takes risks when you give people freedom?
When you give people freedom, they have to assume some of the responsibility.
When you give people freedom, they have to assume some of the responsibility, some of the risks.
Now, if Daily Wire wrote a script, I mean, I'm not saying they ever would, but if Daily Wire wrote a script and said to Stephen Crowder, here's what you can say today, then they would never do this because they would be taking ownership decisions for all of the content.
So because Daily Wire is giving him complete free reign, he might screw up, or something might happen, or whatever, right?
Maybe there's something buried in some old tweed, or like, who knows, right?
So because they're giving him freedom, with great freedom comes great responsibility.
And they don't own all of Crowder and his intellectual property.
No. They will own what they pay him to create, just like all companies.
And they will be able to monetize his past stuff while he's under contract with them, but after that it reverts back to him.
Somebody says, if I'm at work and I make a mistake and I cost the company $30,000, I don't have to pay the company $30,000.
Well, that's not always the case, right?
If you think you have a sale and you take the revenue, but it turns out you don't have the sale, you have to return the revenue.
So that can happen. But the company is telling you what to do.
Now, a mistake is a mistake, right?
But if you keep making mistakes, right, then that's an issue, right?
So if you make a mistake, but you can find a way to fix it, that's a good thing.
If you keep making mistakes that cost the company $30,000, you will get fired.
So that's what they're saying. Look, if you get a strike, that's no biggie.
But if something significant happens, but it's three months or more, that's a big issue, right?
Steph, you are more like crowded with your business model than you are Daily Wire.
I'm surprised that you don't understand.
Yeah, I'm surprised that you don't understand.
That's a bad way to communicate to people.
My daughter calls it smuggins.
Very smuggins. So yeah, I'm surprised that you don't understand your own business models.
I mean, that's just an annoying way to be communicated to.
I mean, I'm not a big triggered guy, right?
So I'm just pointing it out for you that...
I've managed to survive some pretty wild things over the years, and I'm still going and all of that.
So if you tell me, like, I'm surprised you just don't understand this basic, obvious business model that's the one you follow, it's like, that's just an annoying thing to hear, you know?
Just by the by, just in terms of how to communicate to people.
Don't, like, just smug them, especially when you're getting a lot wrong, right?
So... Yeah, I prefer my business model.
I prefer donations.
I absolutely have from the very beginning.
I've never taken ads. I prefer donations.
But I'm not one to say that donations doesn't have its costs and its benefits.
Donation has its costs and its benefits.
The advertising model has its costs and its benefits.
That's all. And for people to say, well, the donation model is just infinitely better, not necessarily.
Not necessarily. There's costs and there's benefits.
It works for me, I think.
I mean, I'll never know what would have happened otherwise, but I think it's worked for me all right.
But, I don't know.
Crowder didn't even mention Daily Wire's name in the first video.
They added themselves plain and simple.
Yeah, you know, when you say to people who've done some research and stuff, well, just plain and simple, it's like, no, it's really not that simple.
I mean, people figured out very quickly who it was, so...
Let's see here. Crowder doesn't want future conservative voices being watered down by deals and contracts.
Yes! And I think that's great.
I think that's great.
I mean, I admire his perspective on that.
I think it's wonderful. So why doesn't he become the Daily Wire?
I mean, if he says 300,000 people paying him $100 a year, that's 30 mil.
Isn't that enough to start his own network?
Isn't that enough to... I don't understand.
Again, maybe I'm missing something, but I don't understand.
If he thinks things are being done badly and other people don't want to do what he wants to do, that's a perfect market opportunity to do it yourself.
Why doesn't he become Ben Shapiro?
Why doesn't he become Glenn Beck?
Why doesn't he start the magical, wonderful, subscription-based, free speech, ultimate universe himself?
I just... Now, you may say, look, I'd rather do shows than do all the infrastructure.
I'd rather do shows than handle all of the business side.
It's like, okay, fine. Then if you want to outsource things to other people, then they get to have a say on it.
On the terms, that's just the deal, right?
If you want other people to take a load off you because you don't want to do that kind of work, that's fine.
Then they, you know, if you want an accountant to do your taxes, they get a say in when you deliver them and they get a say on how much they're going to charge you.
I don't know where to do that.
Anyway. Let's see here.
Okay, that's about it. Hopefully I've swayed you, if only a little.
Yeah. No, it's interesting.
Again, I can see Stephen Crowder's point from a business standpoint.
Maybe he's got a great idea.
Maybe it's the right thing to do.
I mean, there's costs and benefits, right?
It's not what Daily Wire is all about.
And asking a car company to become a boat company, maybe they don't want to do it.
Especially when they have all these contracts with...
Like, they have all these contracts with existing talent, right?
So it's not just all about Stephen Crowder.
They have existing contracts with all of this talent, which I assume have similar things in them.
And so they can't switch to a subscription model because they have all of this business dealing set up with their existing talent based upon a certain advertising revenue expectation.
It's like they can't drop the advertising revenue for their existing people.
I assume that's in the contract.
They can't drop the advertising model.
Maybe he just wants a subsection of Daily Wire that's entirely focused on his business model.
But again, if you're going to say to people, you don't need...
Any advertising revenue because I've got the mug club, then you better have some pretty detailed breakdowns of what's going on with the mug club and retention and drop-off rates and all of that and how you get the people.
Because here's the thing too, if you're on the mug club, there's going to be attrition on the mug club, right?
People are going to cycle out as they generally do.
And if he gets deplatformed, then the mug club revenues are also going to be impacted, right?
If he gets deplatformed or he gets significant strikes or whatever it is and can't broadcast, can't livestream, it doesn't magically solve the issue of Subscription revenue, because that's going to decay over time.
It may not be as immediate, but it's going to be an issue.
Anyway, it was an interesting email, which I really appreciate having sent to me.
Please always send me emails or send me messages.
If you disagree with things that I'm saying, you absolutely could be right.
I always appreciate the corrections and the time and energy that it takes to do all of that.
All right. That's mostly what I wanted to get across.
Let me just see if there are any other questions.
Questions that I have missed, that I may have missed.
All right, let me just go here and let me go here.
All right, so let's see here.
Questions. It's so important to know how to deliver written messages.
Yeah, I think that's very true. All right.
Really loving this. Well, thanks.
You can, of course, tip me over there on Locals.
I would appreciate that. To make a first offer, you have to have good information on both sides.
Then your offer is a relatively fair offer that leans your way.
You don't want to make a first offer if you haven't good information about your opposing party.
Well, they have, right?
So, the Daily Wire understands...
I mean, they understand both models, right?
They understand the subscription model because they have that and they understand the advertising model.
So, they have advertising revenue calculations, very detailed spreadsheets, databases, Lord knows what they've got.
And there's entire proprietary apps for managing this stuff, by the way.
So... What they did was they looked at his social media reach, I guarantee you, again, which is what they did, right?
They're smart people, right? So what the Daily Wire did was they looked at Stephen Crowder's advertising reach as a whole or his audience reach and then they factored in any demographics they could find out about that audience reach and then they ran it through their program, compared it to the existing people and how much...
I mean, they didn't come out this number, you know...
Next week, a physician with a flashlight shows you where the 50 million came from.
No, they ran it through and they tried to figure out how much they could make from him because they're business people and they're responsible for staying alive, right?
So, they do have good information based upon an advertising model.
Okay, so he says, somebody else says, you can only start from a reasonable place if you know where that place is.
If you open with a place that is wildly off base, an insulting offer, again, I don't get the insulting thing.
I really don't. Then you expose the divide between your position and your partner.
Offers give information to the opposing party and whoever opens shares their position first.
Yeah, again, I don't get the insulting thing.
I genuinely don't get the insulting thing.
Let's be real. Steven did this as a marketing just to get more eyeballs on him and create an us versus them.
Yeah, I don't believe that. I know that a lot of people say this is 4D chess kind of stuff.
I don't believe that.
I don't believe that the reason being that Steven Crowder secretly recorded and then released a business a private business call so that is that's not marketing That's very self-destructive.
Alright, so yeah, I just wanted to drop in and say hi for all of that stuff, and I got this interesting email, and love to hear your guys' comments about it also.
Alexander Duggan and Heidegger?
Yeah, I really can't.
I know something about Heidegger, of course, right?
I read him in university, but I'll wait until I do my, continue my, after I finish my novel, which I really feel is pressing at the moment.
Then I will get back to my History of Philosopher's series, which I'm really looking forward to, and I'm going to try and do a documentary this year or so.
Maybe two. Maybe two.
Let's see. If people want me to, and if it's a value.
So, all right. Could you go further on how a crowd is recording is self-destructive?
Oh, well, yeah, because if you're known to be privately recording business conversations, people are going to be concerned that you'll be recording conversations and releasing them to the public, which means people are going to have to self-censor around you, which means you're not going to get good information from the people around you.
So, yeah, it's to privately record and publish conversations.
In a very visible way.
It wasn't like he published it to some obscure thing on his subscriber channel.
Like in the middle of a firestorm, he releases recorded conversations with people who not only is he in business or he might be doing business with, but he's also friends with, right?
I mean, the Daily Wire guy says he's Stephen Crowder's friend.
So... If you're recording private conversations with friends and broadcasting them, it just means that nobody can be frank with you, nobody can be open with you, nobody can be honest with you.
Everyone's going to filter and self-censor around you, because that's the funny thing.
He's like, well, how dare they want me to self-censor?
And it's like, well, now everyone who talks with Stephen Crowder is going to have to self-censor, because he could be recording, and he could be publishing it at some point if something goes awry.
So it's a very, very poor idea, a very poor decision-making process, to put it mildly.
Alright. Thanks everyone so much.
FreeDomain.com slash donate.
You can see that right there in the low bar.
If you would like to help out the show, I'd really appreciate it.
Of course, I've taken my own buckshot for my beliefs and I don't have any regrets, but you could certainly help ease some of the challenge.
FreeDomain.com slash donate.
Love you guys. Thanks a million.
▲
Export Selection