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Feb. 18, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:29:09

STOP TRYING TO CHANGE PEOPLE YOU LOVE!

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	Wow. Yeah, my mind is kind of blown.
	I guess they've extended the time I can live stream.
	Right. Good evening.
	Good evening, everybody. Thank you so much for joining.
	And you can actually read my new book, my new book called The Present.
	You can read at freedomand.locals.com.
	You don't have to subscribe, although I wouldn't say no.
	And if you would like to tip me on this show this evening, I would also appreciate that.
	I tell you, man, this book took just about everything out of me.
	I don't know exactly why.
	Maybe when you read it, you can let me know.
	But it really just knocked me out.
	I disturbed my sleep and just, I mean, wrecked me in a way that a book has not wrecked me since I wrote Almost, which is a sort of family history story from 20 years ago plus.
	It was before I did the show.
	You can get that book at almostnovel.com.
	I hope that you will check it out.
	That book is also for free.
	Boy, if you really want to hear me do some vocal acrobatics and acting chops, you can listen to me do that book, which has some pretty famous historical characters, such as one W. Churchill in it.
	So I hope that you will check that out.
	Let me just remind people that we are live, baby, live.
	And yeah, hit me with your questions, man.
	Hit me with your questions.
	And just by the by, you might want to watch this Chelsea Handler video on her life as a child-free woman, because I'm going to be chatting about that tomorrow in pretty intense detail.
	So I hope that you will have a look at that.
	Not now. Obviously not now.
	Not right now. But at some point, probably worth looking at before I get to it.
	So... Alright.
	Minds you feel like letting me in?
	We'll see. We'll just see.
	So yeah, hit me up with your questions.
	And also, if you have topics, if you have topics that you would like me to do, I'm resurrecting the Truth About series.
	I am resurrecting the Truth About series.
	And if you have topics you would like me to cover, Boy, you should really hit me up.
	Just let me know below. Or let me know to the right.
	Just let me know what you would like for the Truth About series.
	Alright, so let me just put one last place here where we are live-streaming.
	Yeah, sorry, it's funny, you know, it's like Valentine's Day today, but it's a bit, it's a wee bit mournful.
	There's been a death in, I won't say, sort of won't get into details because they're not really my details to give, but there has been a death in the environment, which is just a reminder to everyone to love people, to tell them you love them, to... Make amends when you go astray, as we all do.
	And do not let pride swallow your heart.
	It is a wail that will eat you alive.
	So, I hope that you remember these things.
	Alright, let's see here.
	One other place, one other place.
	Alright, a force of one.
	We will get to it, my friends.
	Alright. Valentine's show.
	Well, it's funny, yeah, because you'd think that I would take today off, but I would go tomorrow because it's Valentine's Day today, but this is the way that things have worked out, and it's not too bad.
	It's not too bad at all, and of course, it's a great, great pleasure to chat with you guys.
	You complete me.
	You make me feel mighty real.
	Now, I have a topic that will blow your mind.
	Guaranteed. A topic that will blow your mind.
	But, this show is a live stream and it's about you.
	Alright. Let's get to your questions.
	Hi Steph. A couple of years back, you had a call-in show with a couple who fought because the girlfriend wanted a man to be strong, assertive, etc., except when standing up to her.
	This reeks of the same foul odor as men who want an innocent virgin who will fulfill all their sexual fetishes.
	Why do so many amongst both sexes cling to these contradictory desires in a partner?
	Well, the messaging from whatever elites you care to...
	Think of, the messaging for many generations, at least two, probably a little bit more, has been to be as unattractive as possible.
	Now, one way that you lower the birth rate, one way that you prevent conscientious, smart people from having a lot of kids, It's you give them contradictory desires.
	You give them things that can't be fulfilled by anyone, right?
	So you expose them to these wild ideal standards of body images.
	You say to women, be as mannish as possible.
	You say to men, be as feminine as possible.
	And you just undermine the birth rate that way.
	And so whatever...
	That you see going on in society as a whole.
	So if a man says, well, I want an innocent virgin who also has great and powerful sexual technique, it's like, okay, well, you've just been set up to fail.
	You've been set up to fail. So one of the ways that they make women super unattractive as a whole, or not just necessarily unattractive, but one of the ways that they make women unappealing is And hard to marry.
	Is they say to women that you should become the men you desire.
	You should become... This is actually some feminist quote with a glorious sign.
	It says, we become the men we wanted to marry.
	And that's just a way of making women unappealing, unattractive to men as a whole.
	A man does not want...
	Another man. Unless he's gay, right?
	A man doesn't want another man.
	He wants something different. He wants someone.
	A feminine. Now, femininity has kind of been...
	It all started with Tennessee Williams and Blanche DuBois and so on, but femininity has been really skewed up by a variety of aesthetics to the point where feminine now means soft and gooey and frail and materialistic and shallow.
	And there's not...
	It's not at all. You know, my aunts, on my father's side, my aunts are very solid, sensible women, went to church, could work on a farm and did great deeds in their community, and very robust women and very feminine women.
	And so femininity, you see the feminine, they were very strong and positive women as a whole.
	Not moral heroes, but you know, that's pretty rare.
	So, if you see people who have these contradictory goals in dating, right, they want something contradictory, like they want a woman who's really attractive but doesn't know that she's attractive.
	Well, That's a line from Stanley Kowalski from Streetcar Named Desire.
	Stanley Kowalski says to Blanche Dubois, and she says, do you think it's ever possible that I could have been considered attractive?
	And he says, I don't go for that.
	I don't, no, don't do it.
	Do what? I don't go for complimenting women about their looks.
	I've never, ever known a woman who didn't know exactly how attractive she was.
	And some women give themselves way more credit than what they deserve.
	So... Women know exactly how attractive they are.
	They're designed and evolved to know that.
	So, you know, the sexy librarian, the...
	I remember the movie The Fisher King.
	It's a pretty boring movie, but there was one scene in it where there's this really hot girl reading Nietzsche.
	I can't remember which one it was.
	It might have been an anthology.
	And I said, it burned in my brain.
	I've got to find a really hot girl who reads...
	Who reads Nietzsche? Now, again, it's not impossible, but, you know, not necessarily the closest coincidence.
	So one of the ways that you get people to have fewer children is you give them impossible standards.
	One of the ways that you get women to have fewer children is you tell them never to settle.
	Never settle. And what you do is you get these really attractive women on the internet saying, Honey, I don't settle.
	I don't settle. Neither should you.
	I don't know what accent that is, but hot girl accent.
	I don't settle. I neither should you.
	So... Yeah, just saying, don't settle.
	Don't settle, right? I saw this hilarious meme the other day.
	It was a control...
	It was something on Reddit or whatever.
	More than a meme. And it was a men's improvement book.
	Control F. You deserve...
	You have to.
	You have to. 347 hits, you know?
	Women's improvement book.
	Women's self-improvement book. Control F. You deserve 750 hits.
	You deserve the best.
	Just don't ever settle.
	And don't ever settle means just don't ever settle down.
	Thank you.
	Because women can subsidize.
	I've talked about before, women can subsidize their dating opportunities by offering up the V-bomb, right?
	They spread their legs and they raise their number on the sexual market value.
	And so because women can get these subsidies, you know, it's literally like a guy who inherited $10 million telling you, well, don't settle for a job that doesn't fulfill you perfectly, right?
	Well, you can afford to do that.
	You can afford to not settle for a job that won't fulfill you perfectly because you inherited $10 million.
	The rest of us have to bust our ass to make rent and...
	Yeah, you're going to have to settle.
	You're going to have to settle. I'm going to have to settle.
	So when you see people who are like, the woman wants a man who's strong and sensitive but totally obedient to her, well, she's just been programmed with that nonsense because she's not been told the rational facts of life, which is that everything has a cost and a benefit.
	I want a really assertive man who's going to go out there and make money.
	I also want a man who's going to be soft and sensitive and available to me 24-7.
	It's like, no, no. No, that's not how it works.
	I want a woman who's super hot, but not hypergamous.
	She doesn't want to trade to a highest value man.
	Nope. If she's super hot, she's focusing on hypergamy.
	Super hot means hypergamous.
	She's focusing on her looks to get herself the highest quality men.
	So I want a woman who can get any man she wants, but I want her to choose my sorry ass.
	Nope. That could happen.
	So, I mean, I'm not saying settle for somebody who's crazy or settle for somebody who's unstable or settle for someone who's not compatible in any way.
	I'm not saying settle, but in terms of like, yeah, you can have it all.
	Because the people who have it all have choices that probably don't include you.
	Or me. Or me, right?
	I understand. I'm on some pedestal here.
	But women who have everything going for them have a lot of choices, and those choices probably don't include you.
	Now, they might. They might, in which case don't settle, but they probably don't include you.
	I mean, it's like somebody who's starting up a movie career.
	They just wrote their first movie.
	And a friend of theirs says, man, don't settle.
	Until you can get Emma Stone and Brad Pitt, don't settle.
	Until you can get Leonardo DiCaprio to star in your movie, your first-time amateur shot on an iPhone movie, until you can get...
	Sting to come out of movie retirement from Brimstone and Treacle and Frankenstein and star in your movie and do the soundtrack and go on tour with you.
	Well, good luck with that, right?
	No, of course you have to settle. All right.
	Hi, Steph. I got one.
	I'm stumped. My stateless society needs national defense, but how do I fund a military with no tax revenue?
	Will the tax protection insurance enter the marketplace?
	Okay, I mean, dude, you have to look at what's going on in America right now and say, do you really think a state and a society would have trouble with borders relative to America, say, as a whole at the moment?
	And if you want more, you can read my free book, Practical Anarchy.
	Or you can sign up at freedomain.locals.com and you can get my book, The Future, which goes into all of this in great detail.
	All right. Hi, Steph.
	I was trying to rehash the you can't get an ought from an is today.
	When someone says you can't get an ought from an is, they contradict themselves by saying what someone else ought not to do.
	Yes. The Humean argument implies ethics are somehow beyond us, as our physical senses and empiricism tell us what is by observation, and everything we think, refer to, etc.
	is mainly derived from this sense data.
	Okay, I'm with you for the first two paragraphs.
	Alright, let's continue.
	If all our relatable experience is communicated by what is, and what is comes mainly to us from sense data, then excluding this is sense data from being foundational to ethics is nonsense.
	No, I don't follow.
	Sorry, if you want to take another run at that.
	What did you get for Valentine's, Steph?
	I had a lovely day out with my wife and my daughter.
	We picked up some cupcakes, which I never have.
	Like, I never have cupcakes.
	And it was a store with these wild cupcakes.
	So we picked up some cupcakes.
	I had like two bites and put it in the fridge because I can't eat that much sugar.
	And yeah, I just had a really, really lovely lunch and a walk around in the brisk air and all of that.
	It was really nice. The Present, my novel, The Present is awesome.
	I can't wait for the audiobook.
	The Truth About the Train Derailment?
	I covered all of this stuff years and years and years.
	This is why I don't bother with politics anymore.
	I covered all of the stuff that was going to happen, predicted it all.
	I don't mean it's not brain surgery, but the IQ stuff.
	The truth about Kanye West, the truth about the Rothschilds.
	See, this is stuff that people have already written about a whole bunch of times before.
	Let's see here. Steph, what are your thoughts on self-deprecating humor?
	How and where do you draw the line?
	Thanks. So, I think self-deprecating humor is fine.
	It's very... So, this is really the Aristotelian mean leaning to the left of the bell curve.
	So, self-deprecating humor is fine.
	You do have to have the ability to laugh at yourself, but you still have to take yourself as a whole seriously.
	So, we all have little foibles, right?
	Little things. I'm a stickler for audio quality, right?
	Right or wrong, I've got this whole...
	This is a very nice microphone, and I've got a whole processor here, and I really am quite a stickler for audio quality.
	And this is a bit of a running joke among some people.
	And it's kind of funny, and I understand that.
	It makes sense and all that.
	So I think that's fine.
	And having things about yourself that you find amusing, wonderful, wonderful.
	It shows that you're not super serious, that joy is driving some of what you do.
	Morality has to be driven by joy, because otherwise it's condemnatory and often abusive and destructive.
	So, if you take deep joy in your existence, you will find things about yourself funny.
	I find things about myself that are funny and amusing and enjoyable and all of that.
	So, I think that you want to have that things, but nothing fundamental.
	My addiction to philosophy is not a source of comedy, right?
	Because it's not affordable. So self-deprecating humor is fine if you have little quirks and so on that is in a good-natured way kind of ripped, not mocked, but ribbed.
	And how and where do you draw the line?
	You have to sort of follow your instincts about that.
	So if somebody is mocking something that you're really passionate about, I mean, let's take an example, right?
	You love your wife, and somebody makes fun of your love for your wife.
	Well, that's clearly a very important and deep and holy value of yours, so it's not something to be mocked.
	It's not something to be mocked.
	So... Blow our minds, please give us your topic.
	The truth about the Renaissance Age and or the Dark Ages.
	That's a very good one.
	That is a very good one. The Dark Ages are very misunderstood.
	And truth about the Wild West.
	I'm going to make a truth about the Wild West that it was not wild.
	The Wild West in America was just a myth invented to justify the state because it was not wild at all.
	Very safe. Oh, truth about...
	Pirates. Pirates are fantastic.
	Very fascinating topic.
	Steph, why are your fiction books not on the books section of the Free Domain website?
	I know that some of them are behind a paywall.
	Yes. Okay. I will do that.
	Thank you for that. I will make that happen.
	That's a very good point. Is that what is happening to Oliver?
	He wants a 10, so he won't get married.
	Well, the answer to what is happening to Oliver in my book is in the book, so I can't say it without...
	It's a scene with his mother later.
	So I can't say it without giving a spoiler.
	So in terms of the show, have you explored every topic you've wanted to now that the big tech overlords have no power here?
	Are there ever topics you're hesitant to breach or self-censor?
	Or is it the case that you've done everything you have set out to do?
	No.
	Of course I self-censor, absolutely.
	I'm a sane human being, but I have not done everything I have set out to do, because that's to say that there's an end to philosophy.
	There's no end to philosophy.
	There's always something, some more association, some more rationality, some more virtues, some more communications, and so on, and different ways of presenting it.
	So, no, I am not.
	Happy International MGTOW Day.
	Yeah. Happy and MGTOW? Generally not.
	Not the way to go. Not too in accord.
	What are your thoughts on asking for a prenuptial agreement?
	Well, I don't know.
	I mean, obviously talk to a lawyer.
	There are a lot of times when prenuptial agreements are kind of unenforceable.
	So, I wouldn't assume that they're sort of bulletproof at all.
	And... If you are doubting your partner to the point where you feel the need for a prenuptial agreement, it may not be the right partner for you.
	Saying that you want the government to dispense or protect your property is to say that the government is somehow interested in protecting property does not seem to really be the case at all.
	So I would say to the woman, if you're a guy, I would say to the woman...
	Okay, well, what are your thoughts on, we have no plans on splitting up, and that's never the goal, but if we do split up, what should we do, right?
	What should we do? And just get a sense on how she is.
	Now, I mean, if you're super wealthy and, you know, you're marrying for looks, then, yeah, I mean, talk to a lawyer and so on.
	It's not the end of the world, but, all right.
	I recall, somebody says, I recall you talking about birth order as being a factor that could be a part of someone's success in life.
	The firstborn is an only child, even if that is a short time before the next child is born.
	My oldest sister, firstborn, is the most successful in a family as far as children, marriage and intelligence goes.
	Does the last born or baby of the family have any advantages or disadvantages statistically from birth order?
	Birth order, you know, I've heard it both ways.
	I've heard anecdotally and so on.
	And from my own experience, I've sort of heard that birth order has an effect, but I've also read studies that say birth order really doesn't have much of an effect and so on.
	Certainly not as much of an effect as, say, IQ. I will tell you about a little thing that I've noticed.
	Purely anecdotally, not a proof thing of anything.
	If you come from a dysfunctional family, the elder siblings will often fight with the parents more, and the younger sibling fights with the parents less, because they see the older sibling fighting with the parents and see that it doesn't really go anywhere and doesn't really achieve anything.
	And the younger siblings who don't fight with the parents often end up better off in life emotionally down the road.
	So... My husband, this woman says, my husband has never gotten me flowers.
	You don't bring me flowers anymore.
	Alright, my husband has never given me flowers or a card in a way of expressing his love.
	He doesn't believe in materialism, and I totally understand.
	But I think thoughtful things are important once in a while.
	He isn't sentimental at all.
	And I feel he's emotionally unavailable and doesn't understand me.
	Whoa, that escalated quickly.
	When he and I talk about it, he says, I'm not happy with what I got, but I'm only asking for flowers or some kind of gesture to show he cares.
	What are your thoughts? Yeah, there's quite a lot to unpack here, my friend, so I will spend a moment or two on your question.
	All right, so let's go through this line by line.
	My husband has never got me flowers or a card in a way of expressing his love.
	Which means that your boyfriend didn't do that, and your fiancé didn't do that, and so you got married to a guy who doesn't bring you flowers or a card.
	And you didn't make it a condition of being married to you, right?
	If you don't show your affection, I can't marry you.
	It's not an ultimatum, it's just saying what are required for you to be in the relationship.
	So, you met him, you dated him for probably a year or two or more.
	You got engaged maybe for a year or so, and you got married.
	And during that whole time, he has never bought you flowers or a cart.
	What the hell are you doing?
	Rewriting the deal after the deal is sealed.
	I'm a little confused here.
	He doesn't believe in materialism.
	And I totally understand. So he was clear.
	He doesn't buy you...
	He didn't buy you flowers or cards when you were dating or engaged and then stopped when you were married.
	He's never gotten you flowers or a card as a way of expressing his love.
	And he's very clear as to why.
	He's not material, blah, blah, blah, right?
	Okay. So he was honest.
	He didn't get you cards and flowers.
	You loved him.
	Love him. You married him.
	And now you're saying, be someone other than who you are.
	So you feel rejected, right?
	But you understand, you are absolutely doing the rejection here.
	He is who he is.
	You said, I love you so much.
	I want to marry you.
	You'll be a father of my children, the love of my life, together, together, forever, forever.
	Now, I don't like this part of you that you were totally honest about and very upfront about before we got married.
	No, no, no. No, no, no, no.
	No a thousand times no you do not get to rewrite people's personality after you marry them.
	Don't get to do it. I mean, you don't really get to rewrite anybody's personality anytime, but you sure as hell don't get to do it after they marry you.
	I mean, your husband, right?
	Assume you have a monogamous relationship.
	Your husband comes to you and says, yeah, I want to have an affair, but I don't want to cheat, so I'm going to tell you ahead of time.
	And you say, well, we're married.
	We're not monogamous. No, I just want to sleep with other women.
	You'd be outraged, right?
	You can't do that.
	You can't just step up to me and say you want things to be totally different.
	Get where I'm coming from here?
	Get where I'm coming from here? You chose him.
	You chose him. Would you shop for a car?
	Let's say you had a million dollars, you shop for a car, you buy a car for forty thousand dollars.
	Doesn't have a sunroof. You take it home and you get really angry that it doesn't have a sunroof.
	You could have chosen from any number of guys.
	You chose a guy who doesn't demonstrate his affections in this way.
	And now you're mad at him for not demonstrating his affections in this way.
	He was honest about it. He never did.
	He was upfront. He told you why.
	And you chose him. It's not a buffet.
	It's not a pick and choose thing.
	You don't get to design people.
	It's not like character generation in Skyrim.
	You don't just get to pick and choose things and assemble them together.
	I got a tail of a cat and an eye of a newt and tiger ears and a belly button composed of the eye of Sauron.
	He is the total, complete, unique, universal package.
	And you chose that guy!
	You chose him! And he was upfront.
	He was honest. He didn't lie.
	And now you're mad at him for being who he is.
	You're mad at him for being who he is when you chose him for who he is.
	You are Playing with the pin on a grenade.
	Really, I'm dead serious about this.
	And you can see in the rest of this statement, you can exactly see where this leads.
	I think things are important.
	Thoughtful things are important once in a while.
	Now, I'll tell you what you've done here.
	You've gone from flowers and a card to thoughtful.
	So, if thoughtful equals flowers and a card, and that's it.
	The Venn diagram is a total overlap.
	Or thoughtful flowers and a card are larger than thoughtful or the same thing.
	He never got me flowers and a card.
	But I think thoughtful things are important once in a while.
	Okay. So what you're saying is, because he doesn't get you flowers and a card, he's not thoughtful.
	He's not thinking of you. He's not considerate towards you.
	he's not got you in his mind.
	But these aren't the same thing.
	There's many, many different ways of being thoughtful towards someone without buying them flowers and a card.
	Many, many different ways to be thoughtful without buying flowers and a card.
	So you've gone from flowers and a card.
	He doesn't give me flowers and a card.
	Therefore, he doesn't care about me.
	He doesn't love me.
	You, I'm telling you, you're going to destroy the marriage.
	You're going to destroy the marriage with nonsense like that.
	It's pure nonsense. Because if you believe that flowers in a cart are being thoughtful and loving you, and he's never done it, then you chose to marry someone you defined as not thinking of you, of not being thoughtful, of not being caring, of not loving you.
	So you chose a guy, based upon your definition, who doesn't love you.
	What? Flowers on a card means he loves me.
	He never got me flowers on a card.
	But I think thoughtful things are important once in a while.
	well, okay, if you genuinely believe that flowers in a card means he loves you, and you never got your flowers in a card, then you married someone who doesn't love you, who's not thoughtful, who doesn't care.
	That's, with all due respect, with all due, I mean, I'm really working hard to try and help you here as best I can.
	Sigh.
	This is what is called projection.
	You are rejecting him by defining his lack of flowers on the card as he doesn't care, he just doesn't love me.
	And then you feel that he's not caring about you when the fact is that you're rejecting him.
	You are rejecting him.
	And he was honest. This is who I am.
	This is who I am.
	If you met a guy, let's say you didn't want kids, you met a guy and you said, I don't want kids.
	And he's like, okay, I don't want kids either.
	Right? Then you get married.
	And then you say... He doesn't love me.
	He won't give me a child. He doesn't want kids.
	It means he doesn't care about me.
	I mean, that would be nuts, right?
	And I'm not saying you're nuts.
	I'm just saying that this is a crazed perspective.
	That's very dangerous. All right, so let's go on.
	I think thoughtful things are important once in a while.
	So what that means is that you're going to bully him.
	And you are bullying him, I guarantee it.
	And I'm not saying you got him up against the wall, but you're going to be bullying him.
	Because what you're doing is you're saying, if you don't give me cards and a flower, cards and flowers, if you don't give me those things, you don't care about me.
	Let's say he's a guy who's got some basic pride.
	And you threaten to withhold affection unless he goes and gets you flowers and a card.
	You go get me flowers and a card.
	I'm mad. You don't care about me.
	You don't give me flowers and a card.
	You understand? You put him in an impossible situation.
	Because if he goes out and gets you flowers and a card, you know what you're going to say?
	Oh, you don't have a spine.
	I can just bully you. I can just push you around.
	I can just tell you that you don't love me and I can make you jump through your own eyes.
	So you'll lose respect for him.
	So he's either you're mad at him for not buying the flowers and the card or because you bully him by withholding affection and disapproving of him.
	He doesn't love me. You don't care.
	Then he goes and does it and then it won't be satisfying for you and you'll say, no, no, no, no, no.
	I want you to want to get...
	I don't want you to get me the flowers just because I'm mad.
	I don't want you to get me flowers and a card just because I'm mad.
	I want you to want to get me the flowers and the card.
	He knows it's a trap. It's a trap!
	It's a trap. He can't win.
	He can't win. He can't win.
	So then you say. He doesn't believe in materialism.
	I totally understand. But I think thoughtful things are important once in a while.
	He isn't sentimental at all.
	And I feel he's emotionally unavailable and doesn't understand me.
	That's not a feeling. That's a judgment.
	He is emotionally unavailable.
	Well, if my theory is correct and you're bullying him and saying, well, you don't do these things that you never did, therefore you don't care about me.
	But even if you do them, I'm going to criticize you.
	You have to want to do them.
	But even if you say, I did it because I want to, I won't believe you, I'll reject you for that.
	Boom! Right? Quicksand, doom.
	Doom. Pin out of the grenade.
	Lawyers, assemble.
	Okay. What was it I had a line in my novel The God of Atheists about a guy considering divorcing his wife?
	His lawyers assemble, powering up ungreased dildos.
	This is the guy who says of his wife, if you can find some affection in that over-tanned raisin you call a heart, they don't have a good marriage.
	So, he doesn't understand me.
	So you're claiming that he...
	Well, first of all, if you feel unloved and then you claim that he's emotionally unavailable, right?
	You have a standard. Say, you have to be the opposite of who you are or I'll reject you.
	But if you do act in the opposite of who you are, I'll reject you for just trying to placate or please me.
	So you put him in an impossible situation.
	You say, he's emotionally unavailable.
	No, no, no, honey. You're emotionally unavailable because you're judging him as not even caring about you because he doesn't buy you flowers in a cart.
	So you're the one who's emotionally unavailable.
	You say, oh, he doesn't understand me.
	No, no, no, you don't understand him.
	I guarantee you, I guarantee you, he's probably not a perfect guy, Lord knows none of us are, but I guarantee you that he expresses his care for you in countless ways.
	He expresses his caring and his affection for you in countless, countless, countless ways.
	Maybe he pays the bills, maybe he fixes your stuff, maybe he mows the lawn, maybe he takes care of the bills in terms of physical payment.
	There's a lot of ways in which he shows he cares about you.
	Offers to give you back rubs when he's horny.
	So, lots of ways he shows he cares about you.
	And yet you say, well, if he doesn't get me flowers on a card, which he never has, and I married him anyway, then he's just not thoughtful.
	He doesn't care about me. So you don't understand him.
	Because you're not understanding how he's showing his affection.
	So you say, when he and I talk about it, he says, I'm not happy with what I got.
	Well, he's right. You didn't get a husband.
	You chose a husband. When he says, you've got to be the opposite of who you are.
	Why aren't you happy with what you chose?
	Well, I'm only asking for flowers or some kind of gesture to show he cares.
	No, you're not. No, you're asking for dominance.
	You're asking him to obey you.
	You're asking him to submit to your discontent.
	Hmm. Guys, hit me with a why if you've ever been in this situation and if a woman is discontented and then you appease and submit to her discontentedness, hit me with a why if that's ever worked for you and her discontent has been instantly solved and never come back.
	Because you feel that he's not affectionate towards you and you've pinned this on flowers and a card, but if your feeling is that there's something he does that is not caring towards you, Then bullying him into buying you flowers and a card will not solve that.
	It will simply displace to something else.
	You have to figure out why you chose a guy you feel is not affectionate, doesn't love you, or doesn't care enough, is not thoughtful.
	You have to figure out why you chose that guy.
	But asking him to change to manage your insecurities is something no sane man will do.
	He will resist that.
	He will resist that.
	Because he doesn't want to be bullied.
	He also knows, A, he doesn't want to be bullied because he's a human being.
	B, he doesn't want to be bullied because he's a man.
	And C, he doesn't want to be bullied because he just feeds you bullying and it will never stop.
	It will only always escalate.
	You get me flowers in a car or you don't care about me.
	Nope. No man or woman with any self-respect and any care or concern for you.
	Now, he may not, I'm Mr. Articulate, so maybe I'm articulating a little better than he would.
	We're only asking for flowers or some kind of gesture to show he cares.
	If you feel unloved, flowers ain't going to fix it.
	I'm only asking for flowers that I can use as a crutch for the rest of my life because my leg is missing something.
	It's like, no, you need a real crutch.
	You need to see a doctor get a prosthetic, right?
	If you feel unloved by the man you chose, flowers and a card, I'm not going to fix it.
	They're just going to make it worse because it won't solve the problem.
	So he's going to buy you flowers and a card and you're going to find something wrong with that.
	You know you will. You know you will.
	You will find something wrong with that.
	Well, you didn't really want to.
	You only did it because I was upset.
	No, no, no. I really wanted to.
	I don't believe him. No.
	And then it's going to be something. It's going to be a moving goalpost.
	Oh, now you have to do this.
	And now I'll feel loved if you get me a tennis bracelet.
	I'll feel loved if we go to Aruba.
	It'll never end. Never end.
	And then you just push him around.
	And then you know what happens? You lose respect for him.
	You fall out of love with him.
	You lose your sexual desire for him.
	Because you can't respect a man who just gets pushed around by your pouting.
	So, have a real conversation about why you feel unloved.
	And it can't...
	You chose the man.
	You can't blame him.
	This is what happens when we choose things.
	You can't blame him if you chose him!
	Oh, all the men you could have dated, all the men you could have married, all the men you could have got engaged to, all the men, or none.
	All the men, any reasonably attractive young woman has literally hundreds of men she could date, especially with social media apps and dating apps.
	Any reasonably attractive young woman has hundreds of men she could date.
	You chose this guy! To choose a mate and be dissatisfied with a mate is mental.
	I'm not saying you're mental.
	I'm just saying this perspective is mental and I'm really trying to make sure that you save this marriage because right now you guys are heading to an exit strategy.
	Do not leave your actions in the looks.
	You chose him. You chose him for who he is.
	Don't try to change him.
	Don't try to change him.
	The moment you try to change someone, they feel unloved.
	And they're right. Now, I'm not saying, you know, it would be nice if whatever, whatever, right?
	Some little thing. Like, maybe you could dress a little nicer when we go to a nice restaurant.
	No, little things, right? We went out today, my wife was like, are you going to wear those shorts?
	I'm saying, yes, no, you're right, you know, I need to not wear trackband shorts when we're going to a nice restaurant.
	You're totally right. I'm not talking about that.
	Like, you change him fundamentally, right?
	He's not materialistic.
	He's not sentimental. I want him to be materialistic and sentimental.
	And you feel rejected?
	You're rejecting him left, right, and center.
	You're taking a sandblaster to his sandcastle, man.
	You are just knocking him down.
	You are rejecting him fundamentally.
	You literally, you honestly, you could probably pass a lie detector if somebody said, you think your man is emotionally unavailable?
	You are absolutely punishing him for not dealing with your insecurities, which he did not cause.
	Look, we all have our insecurities.
	I understand that. I mean this with great love, great sympathy, great empathy.
	You absolutely have these insecurities.
	Makes sense. You're a young woman.
	It's a tough culture. I sympathize.
	I empathize. But manipulating him into trying to appease your insecurities and your neuroses, if that's what they are, That's a hole with no bottom.
	You can't win that.
	Nobody can win that. Don't try to change the people you choose in your life.
	Don't spend six months choosing the perfect picture for your living room And then bring it home and try and turn it into a sculpture.
	If you want a sculpture, get a sculpture.
	You want a car, get a car.
	You want a boat, get a boat.
	But once you bring something home that you've chosen, you don't change it.
	You don't change it. You have a, oh, I've got to go and buy the perfect television.
	And you bring it home, and it's like, man, this television makes a terrible carpet.
	It's all crunchy. It's uneven.
	It's The remote control doesn't cause it to roll up.
	This is the shittiest carpet I've ever had.
	It's like, yes. Yes.
	Because it's a television.
	My car is the worst hotel ever.
	My microphone is the...
	My microphone is the worst straw known to man!
	So... You know, I keep pedaling this bike.
	It just won't fly. This is the shittiest airplane in the world.
	If you want an airplane, you can afford an airplane.
	Go get an airplane. You got a bike.
	Use it as a bike. Don't try and change it into something else.
	I don't... I don't get this.
	Choose someone. Change someone.
	It's a flex. You're trying to flex power.
	It probably comes from your own mother, how she dealt with your dad or whatever, right?
	But no, please, please, Lord above, Lord above.
	You ever want to ruin a relationship and wreck a relationship and destroy a relationship?
	Try to change something fundamental about someone you chose.
	My God. That's the one-way ticket to misery and solitude.
	A one-way ticket to misery and solitude.
	Do not ever, ever, ever try to fundamentally change someone you have chosen.
	Now, maybe you chose someone totally wrong.
	Okay, then maybe you have to end the relationship.
	I don't know. I'm not talking to you.
	Let's say you're dating someone and for whatever psychological reason, historical reason, reasons of lust or whatever, you chose someone who's the wrong person for you.
	Okay, okay. Don't try and change them into the right person.
	Let them be free so they can find someone who loves them for who they are.
	And you can find someone to love for who they are.
	I tell you, man, I've been on the receiving end of these, you better change Karen style relationships.
	They never work. Never work.
	Never can, never will.
	No chance. Zero chance.
	I mean, it doesn't mean you break up. It just means the relationship can't work.
	Can't work. And you literally feel that you're unloved.
	You fundamentally are rejecting the man you chose.
	And you're saying, you're wrong, you don't even care about me.
	You're fundamentally rejecting the man you chose.
	And you literally, genuinely feel that he needs to show you that he cares for you.
	No, no, no. Stop trying to change him.
	If you stop trying to change people, you can actually deal with your own issues.
	If you stop trying to change people, you can actually deal with your own issues.
	But if you're stuck in this delusion that somehow your insecurities, your neuroses, it's all the fault of the other person and they just need to change their behavior and you'll be fine.
	Good luck with that.
	Good luck with that. Hey man, you need to work out because I want to be ripped.
	You need to wear a mask so I feel safe.
	You need to stop eating because I need to lose weight.
	You can't control your own insecurities by controlling other people.
	It just makes your insecurities work and decent people will flee from your environment, your vicinity.
	My husband has never got me flowers.
	Not thoughtful. How about you love the man you chose?
	There's nothing I would change about my wife.
	Zero, zero, zero, zero.
	Nothing. Never has been, never will be.
	There's nothing I want to change about my wife.
	There's nothing I want to change about my friends.
	There's nothing I want to change about my daughter.
	I mean, there's a little, you know, I'm a parent, right?
	So there's a little guidance here and there.
	There's nothing I want to change. Anything that I felt needed to tweak in my daughter, I've had conversations with her about it and we've either found that it's a good thing for her to pursue or it's not.
	I don't understand this.
	You choose someone out of a multitude and then you just want to take their legs and jam them on their forehead and take their ass and staple it to their armpit and take their bully button and put it on their ear and it's like, I'm going to reassemble you and make you into what I want.
	It's like, the fuck?
	Don't try to make people into what you want.
	It's bullying. It's rejecting.
	It's destructive. And in more extreme forms, it can actually be abusive.
	I'm not talking about you here. I'm just talking about the extreme forms.
	I'm not saying this is the case. Here.
	You will waste your life trying to change people into what you want.
	You will waste your life trying to change people into what you want.
	Nobody with any spine and any character will let you do that to them.
	Ever. Ever. I remember a girlfriend saying, you ought to be this.
	It's like, well, you should have chosen that.
	Should have chosen that. I am who I am.
	And listen, I'm willing to listen to good advice.
	I'm willing to listen to, you know, you should do this.
	That makes sense. Yeah, absolutely.
	I'm open to hearing, but not fundamentally change my character.
	I remember a girlfriend.
	Because, you know, at parties, I'm very chatty, I'm very funny, and I really enjoy interacting with people and so on, right?
	She's like, you just...
	You dominate the space too much at parties.
	The funny thing is, she was very attracted to me because I was very...
	Very prominent at a party.
	I was like, you've only met me because I was prominent at a party.
	Now you're complaining that I'm prominent at parties?
	Now, I get it. She was insecure that I'd meet some girl better than her, and of course, eventually I did, married her.
	So I get, but you know, the entire reason we met is exactly what you should stop doing.
	Oh my, oh my, oh my.
	No, don't do it. Don't do it.
	All right. Could you do more stuff like the truth about vampires, ghosts, and zombies?
	I really enjoy finding out about why these sorts of myths last so long.
	I will make a note of that, and thank you very much.
	I've done some of that stuff, but I will do it again.
	I will do some more.
	All right. Thank you for your tip.
	Are you considering putting yourself or a parody of yourself as a character in the present?
	No. No.
	No. I don't mind some self-referential stuff in a book.
	I think it's good, but I'm not going full being John Malkovich and that.
	What you said about the older sibling fighting with parents more lines up with my experience really well.
	Yeah. Yeah. I'm so confused about getting an ought from an is.
	So if somebody says you ought to smoke, does that mean smoking is okay?
	You ought to smoke.
	No. Ought is something that you must do.
	So we're talking about moral oughts.
	You ought not murder.
	You ought not steal. You ought not rape.
	You ought not assault. We're talking about moral oughts.
	It's not, oh, you ought to exercise.
	It's not a moral ought. So the moral ought, so the ought you ought to exercise, that supposes a precondition.
	If... If you want to be healthy and strong, you ought to exercise.
	If you want to lose weight, you want to eat less.
	If you want to move to Montana, here's the route you should take.
	If you wish a certain goal, here's how you get there, right?
	I mean, it's like your GPS. You punch in your destination.
	If you want to get there, here's the route you take.
	Now, you can drive anywhere you want.
	Recalculating, you can drive anywhere you want.
	But if you want it, that's where you go.
	So that's the conditional ought.
	If you want to live as long as possible, you should watch your diet, you should exercise, you should get good sleep, you should see the doctor and stay healthy and get blood work or whatever, right?
	Whatever is necessary for health.
	I'm no doctor, but if then, right?
	If you want to be moral, your morals have to be universal.
	If you claim a moral universal that people have to obey, then it has to be universal.
	It has to be universalizable, right?
	So if you say a charity is a universal moral goal, universal moral absolute charity, giving money to other people is a universal moral absolute, well, you're wrong.
	It can't be universalized.
	Why? Because you've got a giver and you've got a receiver.
	It's asymmetrical. Anything that is asymmetrical cannot be a moral thing.
	In other words, if there's one person who gains their moral status by doing the opposite of what someone else does, it can't be universalized.
	It's like saying, well, these two creatures are mammals.
	One is a mammal, one is the opposite of a mammal.
	Logically, it can't work. Whatever you say is a universal moral value must be universalizable, which means it must be attained by all people at all times, under all circumstances, no matter what.
	Now, is it possible for all human beings to not murder other human beings at the same time?
	Yes, it is. Now, self-defense is not murder.
	That's a homicide, but it's not a murder.
	Homicide is causing the death of another human being.
	Murder is when it's immoral.
	So, Can all human beings respect each other's property rights at the same time?
	Yes, they can. Yes, they can.
	If you make it a positive action, such as, you must give to charity, that's moral.
	It's like, okay, well, you're giving to charity, the other person is receiving charity, they're not giving to charity, they're receiving.
	Also, a guy in a coma is not giving to charity.
	Is a guy in a coma immoral or evil?
	Is the guy giving charity moral, but the guy receiving charity evil because he's not giving charity, but rather receiving it, which is kind of the opposite?
	blah, right?
	You ought to smoke?
	Because morality is or what?
	Right? You ought to not murder.
	Or what? Or people are justified killing you.
	Justified in shooting your ass to keep themselves alive.
	You ought not steal.
	Well, that can be universalized.
	Not stealing can be universalized.
	Therefore, it can be moral.
	Not everything that can be universalized Is moral, but everything that is moral has to be universalized.
	That's what morality is.
	It's not aesthetics. It's not personal taste.
	It's not my favorite color. It's universal moral absolutes enforceable by coercion.
	It's what morals are. Universal absolutes of behavior enforced by coercion.
	You ought not steal. Why not?
	Because if you go into someone's house to steal, they can shoot you.
	You ought not steal. Now, ought not steal is a logical thing, but also there's a consequential thing, right?
	If there's no or what, then it's not really morality.
	You ought to like country and western music.
	Or what? Well, or you don't.
	Yeah, shoot people for not liking country and Western music.
	The way to defeat is odd is if-then, outside of it being a self-detonating argument.
	If you don't want to be obese, then don't overeat and sit too much.
	Yeah.
	If somebody sent a $1 tip. .
	Just curious if you've ever tipped a waiter a dollar.
	Anyway, being a waiter is a lot easier than this.
	If you agreed with the first two paragraphs of my attempt at the ought-is argument, perhaps the third paragraph was superfluous.
	The way you argued against the ought-is makes sense to me.
	So I've solved a fundamental moral issue for you, and that's worth a dollar.
	All right. Favorite Cat Stevens songs, if any?
	I'm not a huge fan of Cat Stevens songs.
	I remember when I was in Morocco, my Muslim driver bragging about Cat Stevens' conversion.
	No, I've never been a big fan of Cat Stevens, and Ooh Baby I Love Your Way was just vastly overplayed and overcovered and all of that, so I don't really have much...
	Look at me, I'm old, but I'm happy.
	No, I've never been a fan.
	Oh, so people are like, it got worse when you appeased a woman or a man who was bullying you for exactly who you are.
	Yeah, of course it gets worse, right?
	All right.
	That marriage is going to derail like a train in Ohio over some flowers.
	Yeah, and nobody's talking about the cause for the Ohio train crash, right?
	It's brutal. And of course, you know, 75% of the people in the region voted for Trump, so it's not an issue for the media.
	And it's boring, boring stuff.
	All right. What is that old saying?
	Men marry women hoping they won't change.
	Women marry hoping they will.
	Yeah. Yeah, no.
	Plenty of time for evaluation when you're dating.
	Plenty of time for evaluation when you're dating.
	Plenty of time for evaluation when you get engaged.
	You get married, done.
	You're done. Changing the other person is done.
	When you say, I do, you're done with change.
	It doesn't mean people won't listen to you or won't grow and it's like, but, nope.
	Once you say, I do, once you say, for better or for worse, till death do us part, Alright.
	Let me just get caught up here.
	Let's see here.
	There's an invention for you there.
	The TV carpet now you can stand right in the middle of the action.
	Being thoughtful, cloudy ass fake virtue right there.
	Yeah, yeah. Well, so she feels she's got this thing set up and I sympathize and I'm, you know, no hate on the woman.
	I appreciate her asking the question and I hope that my sternness is just firmness and not meanness.
	I mean, I hope that it's perceived that way.
	That's how I mean it. But she wants to feel cared for, and she set up these rituals to feeling cared for.
	So the fact that he married you, wants to spend the rest of his life with you, probably pays a good portion, if not most, if not all of your bills, comes home to you every day, is monogamous, doesn't date anyone else, doesn't, right?
	The fact that he does all of that doesn't convince you that he loves you, but if he buys you some sugar, that's, you know, 100%, right?
	It's 0% with him actually marrying you, but it'll go to 100% with some chocolate, No, nobody believes that.
	That's an inner issue that you have to deal with.
	I have been guilty of trying to change people in my life.
	It only made things worse.
	I eventually figured out I got it from my mother as she is a micromanager.
	Yes, a lot of mothers, all they do is manage their own emotions by controlling the people around them.
	And there are men who do that too, of course.
	You want a girlfriend who's six foot tall and blonde, then dating Asian girls may not be your best bet.
	Steph, what was the topic you said would blow our minds?
	Should I? No, Baby I Love Your Way?
	I think it is Peter Frampton.
	He did a cover of it, the live album, but I'm pretty sure it was originally Cat Stevens.
	Tell me if I'm wrong. All right, let me just check before I get to that topic.
	Okay, the topic you said would blow our minds.
	Okay, so I did a show on this this morning, but I'll touch on it briefly here because it's something that repetition won't hurt.
	So, one thing that is common, I talk about Christianity in particular.
	So one thing that is common to Christianity, most other religions common to Christianity, is...
	A sense of near infinite humility combined with supreme importance.
	So you are, in a sense, nothing relative to the size, might, power, and virtue of God.
	You are merely mortal, and you are passing, you're coming and going, you're limited in your intellect.
	So even relative to the virtues of Jesus, but certainly relative to the size, power, and strength, and morality, virtue, and power of God, you are nothing, really.
	So there's a deep humility in it.
	But, but, you also partake of eternity with the possession of a soul and your moral journey to heaven or to hell is of supreme importance to God and to the universe.
	So you are nothing and you are everything.
	At the same time, and all religions have this in common, that you are nothing and everything at the same time.
	So why are people drawn to this?
	Why is this a reflection?
	It has to be a reflection of some foundational human experience that remains largely unconscious.
	Why would we have this formulation in just about all religions?
	If you look at Zoroastrianism, this Manichaean view that there's gods and devils and they're both fighting for the soul of the world and human decisions tip to balance either way, right?
	So you're nothing compared to these gods and these devils, but you're everything in the fate, the moral fate of the universe.
	How can it be that we're nothing in everything?
	At the same time. Okay, now think about your brain.
	Your brain is three pounds of wetware.
	Three pounds of wetware relative to your city, relative to your continent, relative to the Earth, relative to the solar system, the galaxy, the galactic cluster, the universe as a whole.
	You've got three pounds of wetware between your ears.
	You're infinitesimally small in the scope of the universe, right?
	Infinitesimally small. That's the humility.
	You, to God, are as nothing.
	You're nothing.
	Less than nothing.
	But, but, the entire fucking universe fits in your head.
	Because you can conceive of the length and breadth of the universe.
	You can go through time.
	You can discover universal laws that apply consistently all across the entire universe.
	The entire universe fits in your mind.
	You are infinitesimally small relative to the universe.
	You are infinitesimally small.
	And yet, this three pounds of wetware, the human mind, is larger than the universe because it contains the entire universe and it also contains things not in the universe.
	So our mind contains the universe.
	We can conceive of and see and view and have physical laws and properties that transfer across the entire universe.
	So the entire universe fits in her head.
	Wild.
	And things that aren't even in the universe fit in her head, like dragons and whatever, square circles, things that can't exist and things that could exist but we have no proof of and things that are self-contradictory.
	So, we're bigger than the universe because the entire universe fits in our head.
	And things that aren't in the universe fit in our head.
	There are no dragons out there that we know of, but there are dragons in our head.
	So we have the universe plus all the things we can come up with to populate the universe that don't exist there.
	We're way bigger than the universe.
	The universe doesn't contain Middle-earth or Ragnarok or heaven that we know of, but it's in our minds.
	So we have this perception as human beings of being infinitesimally small and yet larger than the entire universe and we're right in both counts.
	It's an absolutely accurate statement to say we're infinitesimally smaller than the universe and we are infinitely larger than the universe because there's almost nothing we can conceive of that can't exist in our mind.
	We can imagine the universe to be the complete opposite of what it is, but the universe is not the opposite of what we think it is.
	We can imagine it. This has nothing to do with subjectivism or anything.
	Well, that's the first step. Now, this explains why, in religion, we are both infinitesimally small and infinitely large.
	We are both absolutely unimportant in the physical scale of the universe, and yet we are larger than the universe.
	We have a conception of a consciousness called God who is larger than the universe.
	That's because Our concepts are larger than the universe because they include things not in the universe and the universe as a whole.
	And I think this explains why this is common to all religions.
	Test number one. When I was a kid, I was in my early teens, I remember standing with some friends out in the woods.
	We used to go into the Don Valley in Toronto and hang around in the woods.
	I look into the woods, you got to a clearing, you look up, you see the stars, and one of my friends was like, oh man, we're so tiny, right?
	Like the entire universe is literally inside your head.
	Right?
	I'm not kidding. The entire universe is literally inside your head.
	When you're looking at a star 300 light years away, that star is almost infinitely larger than you are, almost infinitely further away than anything you've ever touched or seen.
	But the image of that star only exists in your head.
	You look at the Milky Way, you look at Saturn through a telescope, I had a telescope when I was a kid.
	You look at Saturn. You look at the moon.
	Those images only exist in your head.
	The universe, as we experience it, is a movie in our mind.
	Everything that is conceived of in the universe is conceived because the universe is recreated as an image in our mind.
	You can't... Your brain can't perceive anything directly.
	It can only gather the information provided by the senses.
	It's like a king locked in a dungeon with no windows, getting messengers bringing news about the battle.
	He can't see the battle, can't hear the battle, but he's getting news of the battle from messengers streaming in and out of the dungeon.
	He can't see anything.
	He can only get, and your senses are the messengers.
	The universe is a movie in your mind.
	Now, I'm not saying that objectively, I'm not being subjective, I'm not being simulation therapy, I'm not being red pill, blue pill, matrix nonsense.
	But everything we know about the universe is because of the messages the senses bring with data about the universe, raw data about the universe to our mind.
	And this is what I mean when I say the universe exists within our mind.
	And existence is key there. The universe exists independent of us, but the concept of existence Only occurs in the universe because we exist and we think it.
	A rock doesn't think or wonder whether it exists or not.
	Neither does a star or a galaxy.
	None of these things. The law of gravity or electromagnetism or the inverse square law or 9.8 meters per second per second falling towards the earth.
	None of these things exist out there.
	You've got four coconuts. There's no number four except for human beings.
	So the universe only exists within our mind.
	That's an accurate statement.
	Because the universe plus existence is only in our minds.
	The concept of existence is only in our minds, not out there.
	It's only in our minds.
	So the universe and existence only occur within our minds.
	Now, You can't go too deep down this rabbit hole, in my humble opinion.
	That way madness lies.
	Because if you just sit there and say, yeah, my brain doesn't have tentacles that can go out and reach and touch things, it just gets these messages from the senses.
	And the universe is a movie inside my mind.
	I mean, it's pretty trippy, man.
	If you really think about it, it's pretty trippy.
	But I think it explains a lot about religion.
	All right. Where did all my comments go?
	There is the debate about whether the universe exists without observers.
	Well, no, the universe exists without observers because the universe existed prior to observers, right?
	This is evolution, right?
	13 billion years for the universe, 3 or 4 billion years for life.
	So the universe absolutely exists without observers.
	Because this is the question, like you probably heard this from a bunch of people about, if a tree falls in the forest, it doesn't make a sound.
	Is it real?
	Does it sound like, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody's here, does it make a sound?
	Depends how you define sound.
	If you define sound as somebody hearing it, then no.
	If nobody's there to hear it, it does not produce a sound.
	If you say sound is vibrations in the air, well then, yes, it does produce a sound.
	Because you can measure it even without hearing it, right?
	I'm going to check this. I could be wrong.
	Baby, I Love Your Way. Oh, you're right.
	Baby, I Love Your Way. Absolutely correct.
	Thank you. A song written and performed by Peter Frampton.
	Why, thank you. I appreciate that.
	All right, so what am I thinking of?
	Yusuf.
	Yusuf, can't even sound so...
	I'm thinking of one. There's one that I know is a Cat Stevens song that just kind of drives me nuts.
	Let's see here. Peace Train.
	Yeah, that was the one. Oh, Wild World.
	That's the one I was thinking of. Ooh, baby.
	See, I got the, baby, I love, ooh, baby, I love your way.
	And then, ooh, baby, baby, it's a wild world.
	So, hard to get by, just upon a smile and go.
	So, yes, that's the baby.
	Wild World. Thank you very much.
	I appreciate it. Wild World.
	Thank you very much. This reminds me of my experience reading The Call of Cthulhu.
	Ah, yes.
	Yeah, Wild World. That's an annoying song.
	It's just an annoying song. Some songs, they get played a lot, but, you know, I never got too bothered by...
	Outside another yellow moon was punched a hole in the nighttime mist.
	That Robbie Robertson song that was redone by Rod Stewart.
	Never mind that too much.
	That got overplayed a lot for every young.
	A lot of Rod Stewart stuff I don't mind so much.
	All right. Why is this the first time anything has been floated over mainland USA? Oh no, I doubt it's the first time.
	They got caught, and then they had to talk about a whole bunch of UFOs to distract everyone from the client list coming out and stuff.
	Alright, somebody says, another couple of questions.
	I'm not going to do too long a show tonight.
	Much though I love you all. Much though I love you all.
	It is... Valentine's.
	All right. Is it also true that the universe is completely unorganized and cause and effect are fiction, but our minds organize it all and create principles of prediction from them?
	No. So this is the challenge, right?
	So cause and effect, right?
	So you think of dominoes falling down.
	The physical properties of dominoes falling down occur independent of consciousness.
	And we know that because there had to have been, quote, cause and effect in order for consciousness to arise.
	You need life. You need a brain.
	You need nutrition. You need energy, whatever.
	So the dominoes falling, that's purely physical.
	But when a human being says, you say, well, why did the last domino fell?
	You say, oh, well, because the first domino fell over here and they all went down and then the last domino fell.
	So that's your cause and effect. That cause and effect, the concept of cause and effect does not exist in the universe outside of the human mind.
	And peeling apart the senses from the concepts is one of the big challenges of philosophy.
	So, cause and effect are fiction?
	No, they're not fiction because they're not arbitrary.
	You can get cause and effect right or wrong.
	If you set up, as I did with my daughter when she was younger, set up these domino things, these domino going down.
	And if you say, well, why did the last domino fall down?
	Well, because the domino before it.
	Well, why that all the way back to the beginning, right?
	And then why did the first one? Because you flicked it, right?
	Cause and effect, right? Why did I flick it?
	Because I wanted it to fall down. But if you were to say the last...
	The last domino fell down because of the orbit of the moon.
	Well, that would be incorrect, right?
	That would be incorrect. Unless the tide started it or something.
	That would be incorrect. A sunlight made the last one fall down.
	No, no, it didn't, right? So, course and effect is not arbitrary.
	It's not subjective. Correlation and causation, blah, blah, blah, right?
	So, no, course and effect are not fiction.
	But they don't exist in the universe.
	The physical effects, they exist in the universe.
	But the concept of cause and effect, right?
	If you think of trees in a forest, one tree falls down, another tree falls down, lands on another tree, tree A falls down, lands on tree B, tree B falls down.
	Okay, why did tree B fall down?
	Because tree A fell down. Well, we can make that judgment as conscious living creatures, human beings, we can make that assessment and we're accurate.
	But the concept of cause and effect doesn't exist in the forest or in the trees or in the wind or anything like that.
	Right.
	If backwards time travel and reverse causality are a thing, but either way we don't know or can't know yet, but that is deep, deep physics.
	But things like that led me away from religious faith, two small ideas for the universe.
	That's a comment. I don't really know what to say about that.
	We have choice about the way we frame the data we get from the universe, how we turn that data into a story.
	I think the way we handle that choice is what's important.
	We have a choice about the way we frame the data we get from the universe.
	Do we? I mean, we have a choice.
	How about the way we frame it?
	Yeah, I mean, we have a choice, but those choices aren't all equal, right?
	Those choices aren't all equal.
	If you say, well, we're not getting any rain because we have displeased the gods, unless the gods are Greta Thunberg, right?
	If we say, well, we're not getting any rain because we've displeased the gods, okay, that's the way of framing the data.
	No rain. God's angry.
	But it's not correct, right?
	It's not correct. So we have a choice of the way we frame the data, but we don't have a choice about whether it's correct or not, right?
	That's something that's more objective.
	I'm sure you meant that, but...
	All right, um...
	Oliver says something great.
	Somebody criticizes him for being too Old Testament.
	He's a men's rights activist. He says, that's the man's testament.
	It's my favorite testament. It's the man's testament.
	New Testament's a bit more girly.
	Which is not to say were so bad.
	It's just different, right? All right.
	Are you still adding philosophers to your History of Philosopher's series?
	Yes, I've just started reading the next one, but it'll be a little while.
	I just, I've been, man, I just, I finished this book late last week.
	I've just been flattened, man.
	I've just, I've had very little energy for stuff.
	I've just, you know, I've been waking up and like two hours later, I'm like, oh, I need a nap.
	I'm recovering from it, but this book was like, I was like birthing a watermelon from my nose.
	Boy, that would be a video that would get some views.
	All right. Thanks for the advice you gave me.
	Last week, about journaling, Steph, it took me a while to get the first sentence out, but I've been riding up a storm since.
	Yes! Okay, so journaling...
	I won't obviously repeat what I said last week, because I never repeat myself.
	Ever. But...
	I never repeat myself.
	So journaling is beautiful for your mind because journaling is like, oh shit, he's taking us seriously.
	Oh my, the thoughts that are down here, he's taking us seriously.
	When I first started journaling, I had this wild vision of...
	The barrier between my conscious mind and my unconscious mind as being like really tight, muscly tentacles on the floor of some kind of spaceship.
	You know, like some sort of pink, lower intestine, hardened, muscular barrier like the alien ship from Alien.
	But different, right?
	So... Jeez, I had a flash where I thought light had really gone brighter.
	I guess I had inner illumination.
	So... I had that sense and it was really hard for me to get down into my unconscious and figure out what was going down there.
	Why? Because I hadn't listened to it.
	I'd be like, unconscious, serve me up with characters and stories and arts and poetry and give me some cool dreams.
	But when you're journaling, you're saying to the parts of yourself that don't get a voice, talk to me, please listen.
	I want to listen, please talk to me.
	I'm going to take you seriously. Like the whole process of therapy is the process of taking your inner life and your inner mind very seriously.
	And when you do that, when you take your inner mind, your inner life very seriously, then it becomes your ally rather than your enemy.
	I don't know if you've ever read Douglas Adams.
	Some unhelpful comments.
	Anything that happens, happens.
	Anything that in happening causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen.
	Anything that in happening causes itself to happen again, happens again.
	It does not necessarily do it in chronological order, though.
	My other favorite philosopher...
	No, he's not a philosopher.
	He was an entertaining comic writer with some interesting ideas, of course, right?
	And very creative. But, no, not a philosopher at all.
	But, again, an entertaining guy.
	I actually read... It was probably a couple of months ago I went through Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with my daughter, which was, you know...
	It was a book that...
	So I used to go to bookstores and just...
	Oh, I would just pick up books and I remember when books used to be $1.25, $1.50, they got to $2 and then they got to $2.50.
	And I remember going to, I was really into science fiction.
	I went through a long fantasy phase, I went through a long science fiction phase, really into science fiction in my sort of early mid-teens.
	And I remember going to Kohl's, the bookstore in the Don Mills Mall, everything's gone now.
	But I would go there, and I remember picking up The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and I read the first couple of paragraphs about the digital watches and Jesus and so on.
	And I was like, oh, because, you know, when I would buy a book, I would have to, in my mind, because, you know, I was poor and working and paying bills, and when I would pick up a book, man, I would have to say, I have to get at least three readings out of this to make it worth my while.
	I can't just get one reading. And I do remember...
	That I never got around to read.
	I couldn't because it was a short book, too.
	I like nice, thick books, like Istvan the Archer stuff, right?
	Nice, thick books. I love the Hitchhiker series, but by the end of it I felt weirdly depressed by the story.
	Yes, it is very depressing because there's no morals in the story at all.
	And his cool people are generally antisocial sociopaths.
	Yeah. What does Steph mean by not repeating himself?
	He's told some of the same stories of his life for many years.
	Yes, it is sarcasm because I actually said I'd never repeat myself ever and then repeated myself right afterwards.
	The fifth and sixth books are super depressing.
	Yeah, well, of course, the whole book starts with the entire destruction of the human race, so that's kind of depressing.
	That short video you did about the guy running into the glass door racing a woman was great.
	One of the best educational short videos on the internet.
	Oh, thanks. The fifth book, Douglas was depressed when he wrote it.
	The sixth book was written by someone else.
	Yeah, I didn't get the sense that he really enjoyed his success very much.
	Is lack of curiosity a signal for lack of empathy?
	No. No. No, there's lots of things I'm not curious about.
	Like, I get endless messages from people saying, my brother-in-law does these crazy things.
	Why do you think he does them?
	It's like, you can't...
	Like, why would you bother trying to plumb the depths of crazy people or evil people or immoral people or destructive people or abuse?
	Like, why would you bother trying to plumb the depths of their motivations?
	Because you'll never know. You'll never know.
	Because if somebody's...
	If you're abusive, then whenever you show a need for that person, they will use that to torture you.
	Right? I mean, you know the old thing that happens in schoolyards, right?
	So you've got a hat, right?
	Some kid snatches your hat.
	Oh, you want the hat, right?
	And then you go to get the hat.
	He throws it to his friend. You go to that friend to get the hat.
	So you want the hat, and they use your desire to torture you.
	Fundamental to sadism is why it's very difficult, it's very self-destructive to have desires around sadistic people because they'll just use those desires to torture you.
	So... If you say to somebody who's abusive, either explicitly or implicitly, I really, really need to know your motives, well, then you're expressing a need around that person, they're just going to torture you.
	They're never going to tell you their true motives, even if they know them, and they probably don't.
	So if they don't know their true motives, they can't tell you.
	If they do know their true motives, they're never going to tell you, because that would be to be vulnerable themselves, and then they would be giving you what you want, and the whole point of...
	Sadism and abuse is to not give you what you want, to give you the opposite of what you want.
	Oh, you want my true motives? I'm never going to give those to you.
	So, I'm not curious about the motives.
	I don't know why my mom did what she did.
	I don't really care why my mom did what she did.
	I don't know why my dad did what he did.
	I don't really care. I mean, if somebody were to give me some drone footage or some video or some objective thing, I'd be interested, but that doesn't exist, right?
	So... Yeah, I'm not curious about why abusive people do what they do, but that doesn't mean that I lack empathy.
	I have empathy for myself, so I'm not going to waste my time and energy trying to probe the depths of people who will never tell me the truth about what's down there.
	Steph, I believe you talked about this a few years ago, but any thoughts on meeting women in the current year, or men for that matter?
	Yeah, I do have thoughts about that.
	I have a whole series coming about how to be attractive.
	Which, you know, people are going to take snips of me to make funny faces.
	Oh, this guy's going to tell you how to be attractive, right?
	That's pretty attractive in the world as a whole.
	All right. Let's see here.
	Yeah, curiosity is intimacy.
	Yes, absolutely. With good people, with people you care about, people you love, people who are good to you, people who are honest, empathy and curiosity and intimacy all go hand in hand.
	But you have to guard who you are curious with.
	Because curiosity is, I want to know, and there's a lot of people who will take any...
	Intimation that you need something from them as a way of lording it over you and bullying you and controlling you and manipulating you.
	And you've got to be really careful who you need things from because the majority of people in this world, if you need something from them, they will use that to torture you.
	All right. Should we do a last question or two?
	I still like a lot of the old sci-fi stuff, but finding good sci-fi now is almost impossible to find.
	Even the older stuff with an agenda outstrips most new sci-fi.
	Yes, well, it's been decades since artists have at all been able to talk about generalized human condition issues.
	Now it is all about pushing the revolution, pushing the agenda, or avoiding attacks from woke people and self-censoring.
	So everything gets hijacked by people wishing to push an agenda, and you either conform to that or you lose your career.
	I mean, that's just the way.
	That's just the way it is.
	Go to Castalia House or Arkhaven Comics.
	Vox Air is bringing sci-fi back in a big way.
	Yes, I would certainly recommend looking at those things.
	Why do you dislike Led Zeppelin so much?
	The music has always struck me as dark, demonic, and fairly evil.
	I know that music can't be evil in particular, but it's very dark, it's very negative, and it's very destructive.
	And again, I know they have the Battle of Nevermore and things like that, a couple of Tolkien-inspired things, but for the most part, it's really grim and dark.
	Like, their leaden, Satan-footed base is similar to the tinkling, half-mad, It's just dark.
	I was just listening to a great song of 90215 or whatever it is, the Yes album from the 80s with the owner of A Lonely Heart.
	There's a great song on it called It Can Happen.
	You can cut the wires.
	You can bring your soul to life.
	I mean, John Anderson, for all of his rather nutty mystical faults, is a very positive human being.
	He's a very positive human being and has some very uplifting and positive lyrics.
	Met me a stranger. He came here to town, bearing gifts full of memories, discoveries of light.
	He told me many reasons why my merry tale could be justified and just, both together entwined.
	Justified and just, right? You can justify your existence, but you want to do it in a way that is just and not at the expense of others.
	Not self-justification and virtue signaling and so on, right?
	So on. What does it mean if I really enjoy heavy metal music?
	I'm nervous if Zeppelin is what is considered evil sounding.
	No, no, honestly, I can't have any particular proof for this.
	And some dark music.
	I mean, I was a big fan of the album The War.
	And, you know, I was listening to a live version of Careful With That Axe Eugene the other day.
	So, you know, dark music is fine.
	You want to mix it up, but...
	There is... I'm actually...
	I'm reading a biography of the band Led Zeppelin because I'm trying to figure out why I have this particular impression, but Led Zeppelin to me really was associated with the general black-hearted spiritual darkness of the 1970s.
	The 1970s were just an unbelievably evil decade as a whole, and a lot of the problems that we have in the world comes out of this darkness and evil of the 1970s, and the...
	The chaotic, wild optimism of the 60s really dissolved into this just black-hearted, nasty stuff in the 70s, and the Zeppelin had a lot to do with that.
	It was certainly the biggest band in the world for a while, so I'm going to withhold.
	Please don't let my particular opinions interfere with any of your love of the music that you love.
	You've got to see...
	Go listen to a song by...
	It's called Quartet.
	Q-U-A-R-T-E-T. Quartet by...
	I mean, it was a bunch of guys from Yes.
	It was Anderson, Wakeman, Bruford and Howe.
	H-O-W-E. And that's the name of the album and the band, I think.
	They were just a bunch of guys who couldn't, for whatever legal reasons, use the term Yes.
	Listen to that song Quartet.
	You know, I want to learn more about you.
	We haven't spoken in quite a while.
	It's a lovely, positive, energetic song.
	Listen to Tique Bois. Which is a very peppy, carnival-style song.
	Just see how you handle really positive, energetic music.
	But Zeppelin is shrill, it's stressful, it's kind of demonic, it's got a real heaviness to it, and there's very little joy in the music.
	There is just...
	Boy, you're going to carry that weight a long time.
	All right. Let's see here.
	Do you think the political spectrum model with right wing and left wing on opposite sides is useful to explaining political ideas?
	Or is it just a way to propagandize that if Nazis are the ultimate bad, then commies are the ultimate good?
	Yeah, I mean, the left-wing, right-wing stuff, mostly it's around blocking thought.
	Because left-wing good, right-wing bad.
	So basically it's about creating labels and then infusing them with as much negativity as humanly possible and then attaching those negative labels to people who are interfering with the commie revolution.
	Yeah. All right.
	Okay, well, listen, I'm going to close off for tonight.
	I'm going to do an hour and a half, but it's good to know we can go longer in the future.
	And happy Valentine's Day.
	Listen, guys, thank you so much for dropping by tonight.
	What a pleasure it is to chat philosophy with you.
	And to the fine lady who called in about her husband, I hope that you understand what I'm saying.
	If you have any other questions, you can email me, call in at freedomain.com, and we can talk further because...
	Please don't lose your marriage over this.
	Thank you for answering my question.
	I would love to give more when I get my income up.
	I appreciate that. Thank you for your tips tonight.
	And please don't send anything to me that you can't afford, but pay something decent for the value that I provide, which is very, very, very high, very good value.
	All right. Lots of love, guys.
	Take care. I'll talk to you soon.

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