I’m severing ties with a teaching service soon. I did not sign a contract.Does offering the discount cheapen my services? I have a good retention rate with good feedback form parents. Or just let them know the policy will be the same and to call me to discuss rates?Hi Stef. What would you say is the motivation behind people who seem to like being miserable and panicky? They constantly see problems with every solution. Some have even expressed fear and worry over the lock-downs ending! I know one woman who spends her entire day sitting in the chair on Instagram and on news services simply finding out about all the bad stuff going on the in the world, and then sharing her anxiety all day long. What is it that make such people tick?What are some good books on sales? I have a small company where I make websites and can always use more customersWhat is your opinion of people who never apologize or take responsivity of people that they have done great harm. Do these people not have a conscience, and should these people be avoided?Withholding of sex is a kind of reverse aggressionLove the song quizzes btw. I’ve only gotten a handful right but very fun way to start the showWhat about when people half ass apologize? They apologize but don’t change their behaviorDid Izzy have a favorite childhood book ? Any recsYou’ve said you think it’s unfair that God chose to show some people miracles but we don’t get that proofDon’t you think that God makes things not 100% certain so that we keep pursuing them?We don’t think about gravity everyday because we accept itIf we aren’t certain about how God works we pursue himJesus lived the perfect life: his choices, compassion and love for all men; one could argue that in itself is the proof of divinity one can observe to this day.I worked in a bar that was totally consumed by football. It wasn't a sports bar just a pub that was owned by a man who was obsessed.If you spend much time listening to these podcasts, Stef has saved you tons of time because he doesn’t have adsI dare say that I get more self-help from Stefan, than I did with 2+ years with a counselor (cognitive behavioral therapy) at $130 for 50 mins, with 4x visits a month. Thank you Stefan. I love you, homie. 😁 I subscribed for the last 2 years, donate occasionally and tip.My husband n I were cracking up at your sports ball impression. Can’t wait to rewatch later. 😆😆Hey Stef what would do if a programmer you interviewed had a job at Onlyfans?Recently been doing some contracting for some large NHS trusts in London - they reported their largest security concern at the moment is ...staff not being able to read ...Hey Sportsball guys do a great service to those who want to stay shallow. Money well spentThanks Stef... sounds like you are as frustrated with sports obsession as me...I think it's stupidLivestream 24 May 2023
There are voices in the street and the sound of running feet.
And they whisper the word, revolution.
There are men coming down from the valleys.
There are tall ships lying off the coast.
And they carry the light in the dark of the night like a whisper in the wind.
Revolution.
It's a great song, by the way.
All right.
Who's got it?
Anybody?
It's an oldie.
It's a bit of an oldie.
Taylor Swift?
I don't think so.
No, absolutely not.
Anybody?
I saw it live in Montreal many years ago.
It's a great singer.
You guys are too young for all of this stuff.
I'll give you guys a second more to see if... Joe Cocker?
No, that would be a little bit more... No, not Joe Cocker.
Yeah, it's a little older.
By the way, this is a...
It's going to be mostly subscribers.
We'll do a little bit of non-subscriber stuff, then we'll go into subscriber stuff tonight.
And let's see here.
Now.
Let me just, late 1900s?
Um, I don't know, when would that stuff have come out?
Yeah, that would have been 1980 something?
Maybe late 70s, early 80s?
How about a hint?
Um, okay, the most famous song by that singer, you'll know this now, the most famous song by that singer, um, Lady in Red is dancing with me!
Cheek to cheek!
That's the most.
Patricia the stripper is also a great.
Dennis is a menace with his.
Anyone with tennis and beseeching me to come and keep the score?
And maud says, oh lord, I'm so terribly maud and I really can't stand it anymore.
I'm going out to dinner with a gorgeous singer to a little place I've found down by the quay.
Her name is Patricia.
She calls herself Delicia.
And the reason isn't very hard to see.
You see, God made her a sinner just to keep fat men thinner as they tumble down in heaps before her feet.
They hang around in groups like battle-weary troops.
You can often hear them queue right down the street.
Yeah, he's a great storyteller, great entertainer.
I've seen him live a couple of times.
Really well worth checking out.
All right.
Let's just tell people that we are live and kicking, live and streaming.
All right.
And I will be with you in just one split secondo.
Oh, let's even post it to the places where I am suppressed.
It's an old Instagram post of mine.
All addicts lie.
For power addicts, the lies are called propaganda.
Oh, so clever!
Meaty, beady, big and bounty.
All right, here we go.
Let's let people know we are live.
And if you want to throw your questions in, I'm happy to answer them.
Also happy to take tips, which you can do.
I was actually informed by someone that you can even tip on the iOS app.
So if you're watching this on iOS or listening to this on iOS, you can do that.
Also, I have posted freedomand.locals.com.
It's pinned now.
You can get the EPUB, the PDF.
You can get the Kindle version.
You can get the audiobook of my novel, The Future, which I wrote about a year and a half ago, which is the sequel to the novel I wrote later called The Present.
And I was just talking about this with my daughter about what the next story should be.
If you've read it, if you've read The Present or listened to it, who was your favorite character?
Who would you most like a follow-up?
Because we never quite confirmed that Arlo died.
Ooh, tiny spoiler!
It's tiny.
It's a tiny spoiler.
It's a spoiler where it's very cold outside.
That's all we got.
All right, let me just check this.
Yes, we are live there.
Don't care about you.
Don't care about you.
You're too small.
You're suppressed.
You're suppressed.
You don't care about you.
All right.
Good, good, good.
Let's see here.
The tipper had a good question.
All right.
I appreciate that.
Uh, thank you for the tip.
I appreciate that.
Oliver, you liked Oliver.
Ben, why would Arlo die?
I don't really know what that, I don't know what to make of that question.
Why would Arlo die?
It's not a documentary.
Oliver, great.
Oliver, but Ian was great too.
Ian was the most intriguing.
Wish we saw more of his arc as a father with 20 something boys.
Right, right.
It would be handy if I could download the present as an mp3 so that I could take it with me.
Well, you can, my friend, Mr. R.B.
Rhythm & Blues.
Farewell, Tina Turner.
But you can.
So when you go to the audiobook feed, you just take the feed
You can put it straight into any feed catcher, like anything that you use to manage podcasts.
They'll be subscribed by feed, copy and paste that feed, put it in.
You can download the whole audio book in sequence, listen to it at your leisure.
So you can do all of that.
You can do all of that.
All right, let's get back up to questions.
Load more massages.
Oh, wouldn't that be nice?
All right.
Hi, Steph, thanks for all you do.
I posted my question with a draft letter in the comments section of this post.
I'm severing ties with a teaching service soon.
I did not sign a contract.
Does offering the discount cheapen my services?
I have a good retention rate with good feedback from parents.
Or just let them know the policy would be the same to call me to discuss rates.
Yeah, I mean, if you're starting your own business, right, it's called a loss leader.
A loss leader is when you sell either at profit or below profit in order to get people to try your product.
You know, here's a silly example.
There was a Baskin Robbins that opened in my neighborhood when I was a kid.
And that Baskin Robbins, on the first day, you could buy a scoop of ice cream in a cone for 10 cents.
I really pushed the edge of my pancreatic abilities that day.
So that's a loss leader.
It's a loss leader.
So if people already know your business and they like your business, you may not have to offer a loss leader.
However, if you already have an existing customer base and you offer a loss leader, which is another way of saying a referral bonus, you can say, for everyone you refer to me, you get a free lesson or something like that, because you want your existing customer base to be your marketing, right?
To be your marketing.
And so offering a discount to people who refer you is probably the best way to go, in my opinion.
All right.
A high staff.
What would you say is the motivation behind people who seem to like being miserable and panicky?
They constantly see problems with every solution.
Some have even expressed fear and worry over the lockdown's ending.
Yeah, yeah, right, eh?
Talk about addiction.
I know one woman who spends her entire day sitting in the chair on Instagram and on news services simply finding out about all the bad stuff going on in the world and then sharing her anxiety all day long.
What is it that makes such people tick?
I mean, we can get addicted to just about anything, right?
And one of the things we get addicted to is stress hormones, is cortisol and so on.
It's just what you get used to.
But people who seem to like being miserable and panicky, instability over excitable emotionality is a direct warning threat for violence.
So if people are like, you're really stressing me out!
It means that they're warning you that they are in the process of becoming violent.
You know, like somebody who's, you know, talking themselves into some really crazy aggression towards you, they are signaling that their intention is to become violent and, you know, the best thing to do is to just get away from them as quickly as possible.
So people who are just stressed all the time and wired and worried and anxious, they're telling you that because they're in a fight-or-flight situation,
They can go from flight to fight pretty quickly.
So they are signaling and warning to you, like cats, and they put their hackles up and so on.
They put their warning out, right?
The dog growling and so on.
So they're putting their warning out saying, I am a violent person.
I am in a violent state of mind or potentially violent state of mind.
And they do that so that they get their way, right?
So somebody who's really stressed and upset and panicked and aggressive, they're doing that to signal that they're willing to use abuse and or violence to get their way and you better give way because they're so wound up and so tense.
It's a form of domination strategy.
It's a way of getting what you want.
I mean, here's the thing, man.
Should we just start straight off with a giant red pill?
Hit me with a Y if you're ready for a giant red pill.
Come on, hit me with a Y. You ready for a giant red pill?
You ready?
Okay.
All right.
Everybody's ready.
Oh, I love this crew.
All right.
Here's a giant red pill.
Okay.
Hit me with a number here.
What percentage of people in your life
Are good, reasonable, competent negotiators.
What percentage of people in your life are good, reasonable, competent negotiators?
10%?
0?
20?
25%?
That's good.
Less than 20%?
20?
Not many.
15?
25?
Wow, one out of four people in your life are good negotiators.
That is great.
That's great.
I mean, you probably want to get it to 100% over time, but that's great.
75% of the people in your life.
Business, extended personal, extended family, immediate family, friends, relatives, of course, business people, 75% of them are really good, competent negotiators.
They know how to get their way, they look for win-win, they're patient, they're reasonable.
That's, I mean, good, look, I mean, I'm not gonna query your number.
I'm, what, now seven?
Now seven, 7%.
I don't wanna query your number.
I think that's fantastic.
I only know one person who qualifies, right?
Right.
Everybody wants to get what they want.
Everybody, by definition, we want to get what we want.
Nothing wrong with it.
It's perfectly healthy.
It's why we're all here because our ancestors got what they wanted, which they got the girl, they got the resources, they got the shelter, they got whatever, right?
They got the food.
So.
If a minority of people in your life are good, competent, reasonable negotiators, well, they still have to get what they want.
They still have to get what they want.
And you understand, this is a binary thing in life.
It's a completely binary thing in life.
All right?
Completely binary.
What are the two ways people can get what they want?
It's only two.
It's very simple.
There's only two.
What are the two ways that people can get what they want in life?
It's only two.
Steal and negotiate.
Brain or muscle.
Coercion and decency.
Agreements and theft.
Negotiate or steal.
Manipulation and providing value.
Yeah, force or voluntary.
You trade or you threaten.
You trade or you steal, right?
You use peace or war.
It's the only two things that we have in life to get what we want.
Peace or war.
Peace or war.
Peace or violence.
Now, the threat of violence, right?
I mean, a guy who sticks a gun in your ribs and takes your wallet, oh, well, he hasn't shot you.
It's like, yeah, but the threat of violence is there, right?
So it's violence for peace.
Violence will negotiate your words or your fists.
That's the only way people get what they want in this life.
So, here's the thing.
Oh gosh, you're gonna dislike me.
That's fine.
I'm here to tell you the truth, not to be loved.
I'm here to have the truth be loved within you.
You don't have to like me.
I'd like it if you do, but it's not essential.
In fact, it may be wrong for you to like me.
But here's the thing.
You just said to me, most of you, that the significant majority of people in your life can't negotiate.
They're using some sort of violent or abusive tactic to get what they want.
They're manipulating your pity, they're making you afraid of them.
Anybody who's in your life
Who's not negotiating is aggressive against you in one form or another.
Could be passive aggression, could be genuine aggression, could be guilt-tripping, could be anything, right?
Anybody who's not negotiating with you is aggressive towards you.
Anybody who's not using their words is using their fists.
Yeah, of course.
It could be bribery, sex, or whatever it is.
Sure.
But the sex comes with aggression as well.
A sex that is manipulative always comes with aggression downstream, right?
This is the fatal attraction thing, right?
So if a woman sleeps with you because she wants you to be her boyfriend and she doesn't want to earn you through her virtues, she'll sleep with you, she'll try and drug you with the V-Bomb, then she'll end up resenting you and it'll be difficult and manipulative and brutal and the violence will simply come later.
You're just deferring it, right?
When you exploit people, right?
So yeah, this is life.
If people aren't negotiating with you, if they're not, if they don't negotiate, they're using manipulation, violence, aggression.
Just be aware of that.
This is a basic fact and reality of life.
So all those people who don't negotiate, you have to ask yourself and you be skeptical, obviously, but all those people in your life who aren't negotiating with you, you have to ask yourself, ask yourself this foundational question.
If someone's not negotiating with me, how are they getting what they want from me?
Because trust me, they're getting what they want.
If someone is not negotiating with you, there's some other way they're getting those resources.
Some other way they're getting those resources.
You gotta ask yourself, how are they getting resources from me if they're not negotiating with me?
Because negotiating is the only way you exchange resources.
Win-win or win-lose.
Win-win or win-lose.
That's all there is in life.
There's win-win or there's win-lose.
Life is real simple that way.
I mean the way it manifests are complicated.
Life is totally simple that way.
It's win-win or win-lose.
That's it.
So if people aren't negotiating with you, either you're bullying them or they're bullying you.
There's really nothing else to it.
All right, let's get back to your questions.
All right, now Christa Burke songs are stuck in my head.
The tipper had a good question.
What did I miss?
What are some good books on sales?
I have a small company where I make websites and can always use more customers.
I mean, honestly, the sales book I read is so long ago.
Herb, someone or other, how to negotiate.
Oh, boy.
Okay, you can negotiate anything.
I remember reading this when I Herb Cohen, and he's a negotiation expert.
How long ago was this book published?
My gosh.
A long time ago.
1982.
Yeah, that's right.
1982.
So I read this book when I was 16.
Yeah, 16.
So yeah, I read this book.
Now, it's a bit, I mean, it's amoral for sure.
Like, I remember one of the things that he talked about was
Uh, well, you know, if you, if you're negotiating and you say there's a scuff mark and you want to negotiate down some appliance in a store, well, if there isn't a scuff mark, maybe just add one, you know?
So he's, he's amoral at best, but he's definitely got some great ideas regarding negotiation.
So I thought that was a pretty, uh, pretty good.
Um, but I didn't read a huge number of books on sales.
I watched some good salespeople and just experimented around things.
Sales is about serving the needs of the customers.
Sales is about not, I have something cool you should buy, but here's how your life will be better if you give me money.
You're not selling a product.
You're selling their own money back to them, some sort of improvement, some sort of happiness, some sort of positive thing.
A gym membership isn't taking your money, it's giving you muscles.
You're not giving me money.
I'm giving you muscles.
I'm giving you health.
I'm giving you vitality.
I'm giving you good skin.
I'm giving you a six-pack.
I'm giving you sexual appeal.
I'm giving you confidence.
So don't think you're selling a gym membership.
All right, what is your opinion on people who never apologize or take responsibility of people that they have done great harm to, I assume?
Do these people not have a conscience and should these people be avoided?
Yeah, so people who never apologize.
So to apologize requires that you subsume your ego.
So the ego is the part of you that always wants to be right and can't stand being wrong.
I mean, there's two sides of the same coin, right?
So, people who can't subjugate themselves to something are incredibly dangerous because they are the measure of truth, right?
It's like the Fauci's thing, questioning me is questioning science!
In the 19th century, they would have ended you in an asylum.
They would have put you in an asylum for saying something like that.
I am science!
Madness.
So, people who can't apologize can't subject themselves to a standard of behavior that goes against their immediate pleasures and preferences.
They're animals.
They're mammals.
They don't have any standard that they subsume their ego to.
Now, there's nothing wrong with having an ego.
Lord knows, right?
I would be the last to say that.
There's nothing wrong with having an ego.
Because you should want to win.
I want to win.
I want to be the best philosopher the world has ever seen.
No question.
That's my absolute goal.
I achieve it or not, it's not fundamentally up to me, but I absolutely want to be the best philosopher the world has ever seen, because after me, if I've paved as much of a way forward as I think I have, then everyone who comes after me, well, I've been the icebreaker and it's easier for them, right?
And of course, the guy who solves secular ethics, assuming that I have done so and I have no reason to disbelieve after 15 years after I've published the theory that I haven't, that's the greatest prize.
That's the Holy Grail in philosophy, is the rational proof of secular ethics without gods or governments.
So yeah, I have a huge ego that way.
But it's not because I want the world to worship me.
Lord knows you don't get into philosophy because you want the world to like you, right?
Because the world gets pretty mad at you when you're a good philosopher.
But the higher my ambition, the better
I serve the world.
Right?
So it's not about, you know, obviously I think everyone's pretty aware if you read about me, it's not, I didn't get into this to be praised or to be loved or when I got into this to tell the truth and hopefully save the world in the long run.
So people who won't apologize, they can't tamp down or tame the animal beast of their ego.
They are, it's a will to power.
You know, if a lion is fat, you don't go to the lion and say, well, you know, you probably should cut back a little bit on your eating.
You should restrain yourself according to principles of good health and attractiveness and so on.
They don't get the concept of dieting for a higher cause or a better standard.
So people who won't apologize are purely manifesting Nietzsche's will to power.
Which is make up whatever shit you can, throw whatever words you can at people in order to win and dominate the situation in the moment.
To win and dominate the situation in the moment.
And we see this all the time, right?
All these hoaxes that flow through society, people are just like, well this wins me in the moment!
I win in the moment!
I mean, are you undermining the entire fabric of society and destroying social trust?
Of course, yeah, but you win in the moment.
You win in the moment.
You get stuff in the moment.
You win in the moment.
It's, uh, it's idiotic and it's, it's ridiculous to anybody with half a brain.
So I don't, I wouldn't spend a single moment of voluntary time around someone who was like a hyper cunning animal, right?
I mean, I wouldn't.
People who can't subsume their ego, people who can't master themselves and have self-discipline and subject themselves to a higher standard than their own pleasure in the moment, are incredibly dangerous.
There's no trust, there's no loyalty, there's no standard, there's no virtue, there's nothing.
It's just the will to dominate in the moment.
I mean, there's lots of names for them, right?
When Satanic would be one, right?
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law, right?
Do what you want!
Not what's right, not what's good, not what's abstract, not what's moral.
Just do what you want.
Do what you want.
Again, I have nothing wrong with the animal will.
I think it's great.
It's a part of life.
But it's an inferior to fully human part of life, for sure.
Because what is most fully human about us is our conceptual ability and our ability to subsume our pleasures and desires to abstract standards, to ideal standards, right?
As I've said about free will, free will is our capacity to compare proposed actions to ideal standards.
So, yeah, people who won't apologize
They have the basic principle that anything that lowers their status in any way, in any way, is to be fought to the death.
Fought to the death.
They can't admit that they're wrong.
Why?
Because animals can't admit that they're wrong.
And they don't have a standard.
They've dedicated themselves to enough to tame and control the animal will.
They are bonobos, dominant simians looking for a win.
No matter what the cost in the long run.
Don't care about the cost in the long run.
So yeah, people who won't apologize.
Can't be trusted because they, you know, I mean, I have a standard of truth that's independent of my will.
It's independent of me being right, right?
I have a standard of truth called reason and evidence.
So if I get something wrong, I apologize and retract and correct myself.
Because it's not about me being right relative to my own ego and my own preference.
And of course, everybody wants to be.
Right.
Everybody wants to be right.
There's nothing wrong with that either.
I want to be right.
I just want to be right according to an objective standard, not according to just relative to my preference to be right.
All right.
Let's get to your questions.
And we're going to go to subscriber only.
Withholding of sex is a kind of reverse aggression.
Yeah, listen, of course, women can withhold sex all they want.
Women can withhold sex all they want.
Nobody should ever have sex who doesn't want to.
As long as it's a universal thing, right?
So men can withhold resources as much as they want, right?
If a woman can withhold sex as much as you want, then a man can withhold paying the bills as much as he wants.
But if the woman says, well, I don't want to have sex.
And the man says, well, I don't want to go to work.
Okay.
So, I mean, I'm more for freedom for everyone.
Absolutely freedom for everyone.
Women can absolutely say, I'm not having sex with you.
And the man can absolutely say, I'm not paying any of the bills.
That's freedom, right?
That's freedom.
All right.
Let's see here.
How did the deal any good?
Love the song Quizzes by the way, I've only got a handful right, but very fun way to start the show.
That's like the only song of that red-haired falsetto guy that I can possibly sing even a little bit of, right?
Alright.
Johnson & Johnson vaccine so bad they ordered all the vaccine to be destroyed.
Well, I think it wasn't at the blood clot one, the J&J.
And oh yeah, and by the by, you want to look at Trump, right?
And who donated a lot of money to Trump?
Well, it was the head of J&J, right?
So corruption everywhere.
And I think it was destroyed not just because it was so bad, but also because the medicine expired, right?
All right.
What about people who half-ass apologize?
They apologize but don't change their behavior.
Yeah, so, I mean, I think we're all aware of this, so I'll keep it very brief.
An apology can absolutely be... a power play.
I mean, hit me with a why if you've ever had this, right?
Somebody screws you up in some manner, does something harmful to you, and then they're like, well, I'm sorry, fine, I'm sorry, fine, are you happy now?
Right?
And they, you know, they just give you this ridiculous BNAP, Bullshit Non-Apology, right?
And then what happens is, now it's a power play.
You see, that wasn't an apology, now it's a power play.
Because if you bring it up again,
Because you didn't get any kind of satisfaction.
If their behavior hasn't changed, you bring it up again because you didn't get any kind of satisfying apology.
Anything that has empathy or curiosity, right?
Somebody says, fine, I'm sorry.
Okay, fine.
I'm so, I'm so sorry that you were upset.
I'm so sorry you got so offended.
Fine, fine, fine.
You happy now?
Right?
And then you bring it up.
What do they say?
My brother in Christ, I already apologized.
Will you let it go?
Did you want me to do it again?
Did you not hear me?
I already apologized.
I mean, you gotta just let it go, right?
You wanted an apology, I gave you an apology, but you won't let it go.
So what's the point of giving you an apology, right?
They give you a half-assed apology, and then when you say that you're unsatisfied, you then get attacked and blamed and humiliated for that, right?
So it's a power play.
And it's a very boring and predictable one.
Woo-hoo!
Finally caught a live show!
LOL.
Stay-at-home mom for four months and I love every bit.
Thank you, Steph.
Okay, sorry.
I won't be too loud then.
Very nice to meet you.
Congratulations.
I'm glad you made it live.
And congratulations for staying home with a beautiful, beautiful baby.
All right.
Did Izzy have a favorite childhood book?
Any recommendations?
Ah, yes!
I mean, gosh, we... I read a lot.
A very sanitized version of The Hobbit to her when she was very little.
She loved the Bob books for reading.
I was a big fan of the Richard Scarry books when I was a kid.
Loved those books.
And I had an Oxford book of British poetry.
I still remember drawing a fish on the front page.
A very bad fish, but I was like five.
I like the Winnie the Pooh books as a whole.
I remember one of the Winnie the Pooh books was my first ever possession.
I remember feeling it.
It was clouded in a golden nimbus of, it's mine.
You know, because when you're a kid and you're broke, you got to share with everyone and everything all the time.
So I actually had a book that was my own.
It was beautiful.
But Izzy's favorite childhood books would probably be the Wings of Fire series, because they're around dragons.
But the sort of favorite storytelling that we had was our sort of
Play anywhere, Dungeons & Dragons, role-playing stuff.
It's sort of tapering off now, but we played this for seven years.
10 to 15 hours a week.
We played for like seven years.
You know, when I'd be exercising, she'd come down, we'd do it, we'd go for a walk, we'd do it again with the car, we'd do it more, and it was just a blast.
Just a blast.
All right.
Somebody say, somebody stop me!
You've said you think it's unfair that God chose to show some people miracles, but we don't get that proof.
Don't you think that God makes things not 100% certain so that we keep pursuing them?
We don't think about gravity every day because we accept it.
If we aren't certain about how God works, we pursue him.
It's an interesting way to put it.
I wouldn't put it this way.
Okay, is there Christianity, is there Christianity without, it's a real question, I'm not trolling, it's a real question, and a genuine, open-hearted, open-minded question.
Is there Christianity without Jesus performing miracles?
Is there such a thing as Christianity without Jesus performing miracles?
Doesn't turn water into wine.
Doesn't cure the sick.
Doesn't drive demons out of people into pigs, which run off a cliff.
Doesn't come back from the dead.
Loaves and fishes.
Nope.
Is there Christianity if Jesus didn't perform a single miracle, but only had the persuasion of his tongue?
That's a big question, right?
It's a big question.
We need more Izzy and Steph book reviews.
Well, again, a little bit sanitized, but we're doing Cantor and the Rhyme at the moment.
So maybe we'll do that afterwards.
Yeah.
Is there, people are saying, no, there's no Christianity without Jesus performing miracles.
Doesn't seem that way, right?
We needed proof that he was God.
Right.
Right.
I fully accept that Jesus existed.
I'm sure he did some pretty amazing stuff.
But here's the thing.
If there's no Christianity without Jesus performing miracles, then Christianity was founded on the proof of God.
So if the religion is founded on the proof of God, why deny the proof of God to everyone else?
Say, ah, well, God needs to keep things a mystery.
Well, not to Jesus' followers, he didn't.
So the entire foundation of Christianity is based upon people witnessing direct miracles for which there's no other explanation other than God, right?
So if the entire founding of the religion is based upon a certain proof of the existence of God, and then that certain proof, which is the foundation of the religion, is then denied to everyone else following that religion.
I mean, just understand from a philosophical standpoint, that's tough, right?
That's tough.
That's tough.
Yeah, I'm not going to particularly talk about vaccines and so on.
But you can have to do your own research about all of that stuff.
That's not something that I'm very comfortable talking about in terms of any kind of expertise.
The resurrection is one of the most probable events in history, provable events in history.
So, okay, let's take that, right?
And I've, I've, I've read a book, The Case for Jesus.
And again, there's a lot of, a lot of great stuff in there.
Absolutely.
No question.
So the people who got to see Jesus come back from the dead, right?
He's put in the tomb, they roll away the stone, he's gone, and people see him after he's clearly died on the cross on Calvary.
Three days, right?
So the people know, through the resurrection of Jesus, the divinity of Jesus.
They know it directly, empirically, through their own eyes.
But everyone else has to take it on faith.
But if taking it on faith is a virtue, why were the miracles of Jesus needed?
If God doesn't allow you to cheat by giving you direct evidence of his existence, then why did God give people direct evidence of his existence and the divinity of Jesus with the miracles?
Clearly, if I was in the presence of a person who was performing miracles, then divinity would be almost assured, right?
So if the religion is founded on miracles, but miracles are denied to the followers of the religion, that seems tough, right?
That seems tough to process.
Now, the other answer, of course, is that there weren't miracles back in the day.
Jesus, I'm sure, was an incredibly compelling teacher.
I mean, and a compelling teacher the likes of which the world has probably never seen since.
And as a compelling teacher, I think that people found the universalism and the empathy of Jesus, which is unprecedented in human history and the foundation of a lot of great things about the Western and non-Western world where he holds sway.
But I think people found the teaching so powerful and so deep that they had to find a way to communicate how amazing he was.
So that people would listen to the arguments.
Say, ah, well, you know, he performed miracles, he came back from the dead, he is the one foretold of the prophecies, and blah, blah, blah, right?
Sorry, I don't mean to say blah, blah, blah, because that's serious stuff, right?
So, you would say, it's sort of like the IQ thing, right?
So let's say that I got tested, and I had an IQ of 200, right?
Let's say I got tested and I had an IQ of 200, right?
So then people would say, they would say, you gotta listen to this guy, he's got an IQ of 200, right?
Or let's say that I had a brain scan for something and the scan of my brain, like my brain was like a quarter bigger than, than everyone else's or whatever.
I mean, just making things up.
Right.
So then people would say, you got to listen to Steph because his brain's huge and his IQ is 200.
Right.
And then people would be like, wow, I got to read this guy.
I got to read this book.
Right.
The Marilyn Vos Savant thing, right?
Which is one of the reasons why I won't take an IQ test.
I want people to listen to the arguments.
I don't want people to have a cult-like worship of my brain number, you know, and then say, well, you've got to be right because of the IQ.
It's like, no, no, no.
That's just an argument from authority.
And that's deferring to authority and math.
All right, let's see here.
Is the love of enemies exclusive to Christianity versus all other religions?
Well, I don't know.
There are about 10,000 gods.
I can't really compare religion, Christianity versus all other religions, but it certainly is.
What distinguishes Christianity is the universalism, that you owe moral obligations to Christians and non-Christians alike.
It's not in-group preference.
It's universal morality.
And that is fairly unique.
The love of enemies?
Yeah, I think it's not common for sure in religions as a whole.
What is your take on the Shroud of Turin?
I don't know enough about it.
I mean, I understand that it's the shroud that was supposed to have wrapped Jesus's head on the cross, but I don't know enough about it to be able to speak with any authenticity about it.
And that's a very big and deep and complicated topic.
All right.
Um, let's, um, I'm going to just get you guys something here, which is, uh, we're gonna go subscribers.
I have so much thanks and gratitude for subscribers.
I'm going to post this in here.
If you're not a subscriber, if you would subscribe, I'd be completely thrilled about it.
Here, this link here, freedomain.locals.com slash support slash promo slash all caps UBB 2022, just for those who are listening later, freedomain.com, sorry, freedomain.locals.com slash support slash promo slash all caps UBB 2022.
That gives you a free month.
Come and try it for a month.
Take it for a test drive for a month.
You know what I do when I sign up for something?
What I do is I just put a reminder in, right?
You know, you get a free month, you can try all the premium stuff.
I got a 20-part History of Philosophers series up there, all the great stuff, lots of premium.
My daughter's show, my daughter's most recent show is up there with me, her AMA, and we got a lot of premium, high-octane, high-voltage call-in shows.
And all of that's available on subscribers.
You can come in and try it out.
You can talk to other people who are donors and therefore take philosophy pretty seriously, so you can go and try it out.
And what you do is you just set a reminder, right?
You say, remind me in 28 days to cancel my subscription, right?
And you get charged nothing.
You can just try it.
I can't do better than free.
I literally can't do better than free.
I can't pay you to be a subscriber because I gotta eat, right?
So I can't do better than free.
And somebody says, Bob says, definitely worth it.
Yeah, I mean, it is, it is.
And also we do private live streams as well, which we're about to turn this into in a moment.
If free isn't good enough for you, I don't know what you're here for.
I don't know what you're here for if somebody else says, I love it!
Well, thank you.
I appreciate that.
That's very kind.
And I would say it's priceless.
I would say it's priceless too, but it can be yours for the low, low price of a cup of coffee or two a month, so.
Where your treasure is, there your heart is also.
Yeah, you know, it's a funny thing.
It's a funny thing.
And I don't mean to put a heavy weight on you personally.
But I will.
I will.
Who's the highest paid?
I don't even know this now.
Steph is priceless.
For everything else, there's MasterCard.
That's right.
Master of Philosophy card.
All right.
Highest paid athlete.
Let's do it.
Highest paid athlete.
All right, Cristiano Ronaldo, he's a soccer player, right?
Cristiano Ronaldo is currently the highest paid athlete in the world with an annual income of what you got?
What you got people?
What you got?
Give me a guess.
What's he paid in a month?
In a year?
Sorry, in a year?
200 mil?
That's close, yeah.
So, it says he had joined Saudi Arabia's Al-Nasr in January 2023, where he will earn $200 million annually, including commercial deals.
Other high-paid athletes include Lionel Messi, $130 million, Kylian Mbappé, $120 million, LeBron James, $119.5 million, and Canelo Alvarez, $110 million.
Michael Jordan leads the list of highest paid athletes of all time with 3.3 billion dollars.
3.3 billion dollars.
Now, one thing that the world as a whole should probably do if it wants to remain a moral and well-protected place is try not to embitter
Moral philosophers too much.
Look, I get it.
I get it.
People fucking love watching idiots kick balls around.
I mean, sports ball is a huge thing.
I get that.
People just love to fucking zone out, go full Roman amphitheater and think that they are achieving something by watching highly played morons kick pigskin around.
I get it.
I get it.
Don't want to sound bitter.
I love sports.
Don't get me wrong.
I play sports.
They're great.
But watching genetic freaks perform physical miracles for money is just wild, right?
So yeah, the world has athletes and the world has moral philosophers.
And what moral philosophers do, very clearly, is they look at the world, and this might be not a bad time to tip me, what moral philosophers do is we look at the world and we see where people's priorities are.
Right?
Somebody says, I worked in a bar that was totally consumed by football.
It wasn't a sports bar, just a pub that was owned by a man who was obsessed.
Sports fulfill some deep tribal instinct.
Yeah, well, I mean, it's training ground for... Right?
What does sports say?
My team is best regardless of morals.
My team is best regardless of morals.
My team is best regardless of morals.
Who is closest to me is the most virtuous and everyone else is bad, right?
I mean, I just I remember when I was a kid, I used to go with friends to a theater, a cinema, I guess, on Saturdays, and they played a bunch of short films and so on.
And I just remember it was the usual typical movie.
You know, these these plucky hard done by kids get some odd quirky coach who goes to coach them to victory despite all odds and against all odds.
And it's like, we're the red team, man.
You got to root for us because that blue team is bad and we're the red team and it's great.
And of course, you know, like anybody with half a brain, I get caught up in it.
Of course, you know, my team good, your team bad.
That's programmed into us by biology and it's fine.
But of course, you know, you walk out of there into the blinky light of the London dusty daytime and what do you do?
You say, okay, well, you're rooting for the red team.
But everyone knows if the movie had been shot from the other side of the soccer field, you'd be rooting for the blue team.
It's retarded!
It's retarded, right?
So, this philosophy is about universalism, right?
It's not about tribalism.
So, for genetic freak Steph, thank you, I appreciate the tip, right?
So, philosophers, here's the thing, man.
This is not to you guys, it's not to the people listening.
This is to the people in the future, right?
Because maybe we make it, we probably don't.
But in the next cycle of history, right?
In the next cycle of history.
This is my time capsule to the future.
Okay.
If you chintz out your moral philosophers, right, if you won't support them, if like 10 bucks a month is just, it's too much, right?
I mean, you'll squander 10% of your life watching fucking sports ball commercials and driving to the pitch and cheering and screaming and, you know, like, I think they're closing down this bizarre, freaky-ass Mandalorian hotel from Star Wars or something like that, but, you know,
If you're gonna say, well, you know, we go to Disney and we spend $3,000 a night on the hotel and $800 for lightsabers and $40 for a hamburger and shit, right?
Okay, okay, okay.
So you get to see cheesy, bitter, out-of-work actors stumble along in costumes sewn by whoever, probably exploited people, right?
Who knows, right?
And so, you know, you see where people's priorities are, right?
The video game industry makes X, the porn industry makes Y, Hollywood makes E, which is, Hollywood's basically just a combo of the previous two.
But here's the thing, right?
I mean, you want your moral philosophers to want to save your asses.
I'm just telling you that right now.
Because if moral philosophers do not save your asses, your asses will not be saved.
Cristiano Ronaldo or LeBron James ain't gonna do battle against communism.
If your ass is gonna be saved, it's the moral philosophers who are gonna save it.
And the one thing that you want to protect your moral philosophers for is bitterness.
Is bitterness.
Is bitterness.
Because when you look at the hundreds of millions of dollars flowing to sports ball figures or people who are good at pretending a camera isn't there.
I'm really talking in this room like there isn't a camera halfway up my nose, right?
So people who are really, really good at pretending other people aren't there, which is why so many actors tend to be
Be sociopaths because for sociopaths the presence of other human beings is only a theoretical crop to exploit.
They don't actually feel the presence of other human beings and they're very good at manipulating their emotions to pretend to be real, which is why most actors tend to be sociopaths.
And I know this because I've spent a lot of time in the acting world and two years at the National Theatre School almost.
In Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
So yeah, people who are really good at manipulating their own emotions and really good at pretending that other people aren't there, which is what acting is.
Yeah.
You can give them a fuck ton of money and people who lie to you, you can give them a bunch of money and you can give whoever, right?
Manosphere, whoever, tons of money, right?
But here's the thing, right?
A society that pays its athletes and doesn't give a shit about its moral philosophers will end up in hell.
Oh, look!
The footballers are leading you straight off a cliff into hell, right?
And again, it's not to you lovely people.
I appreciate these tips.
Thank you so much.
But I'm just telling you that it's sort of like this.
You have a bunch of fucking clowns and jugglers and mimes who distract you, right?
And you give them all your money, right?
But unfortunately, there's no money left over for a doctor in town, because you're spending it all on prostitutes, booze, sports and mimes.
Hey, come on, mime is money.
Are you not entertained?
Yes, you are.
Look, he's got, he's juggling flaming babies.
Whatever, right?
So you're entertained.
Oh shit.
I'm sick.
Oh.
There's no doctor?
What do you mean there's no doctor?
Oh, we gave all our money to the mimes, the jugglers, and the sports ball kickers?
So nobody, nobody wanted to become a doctor?
No problem, maybe I can get the mime to help me with my infection.
Maybe I can get the mime to cut out my goiter.
Nope, can't get the mime to cut out your goiter.
Maybe you can be entertained to death though, so as you die from your infection because there's no doctors, you can watch the guy juggling flaming babies while you die.
Because that's where you put all your resources, right?
Thank you, Tjud.
I appreciate that.
Come on, I'm working my ass off here, as I do every night.
I'm trying to give you new stuff, interesting stuff, different stuff.
So you can starve your philosophers, if you want, or you can give all of your money to sophists, right?
All of the people who've got interesting insights in their TED Talks, which do nothing but accelerate the general degradation, corruption, and necrotization of society as a whole.
You know I don't charge, right?
I don't charge for my books.
I don't charge for call-in shows, don't charge you for this.
Try not, and this is not, again, this is not for you, this is just for you to spread the word.
And it doesn't even fundamentally matter if it's me, it matters to me, but not to the world.
If there's another moral philosopher out there you find compelling, interesting, better, fantastic, first let me know, I'd love to hear him or her.
Just tell people, you know, they spend, what is it?
What is the average football game now?
Like three and a half, four hours with?
It's like, was it four minutes of play or something like that?
It's completely insane, right?
Yeah, if you spend a lot of time listening to these podcasts, I've saved you tons of time, because it doesn't have ads.
Yeah, I don't have ads, which has saved you huge amounts of time.
It's saving you months of your life.
What's months of your life worth?
50 bucks?
100 bucks?
Be fair, right?
So just say to people, right?
The people who were like the guys who were sitting in their
armchairs, they're lazy boys.
Perfectly named, right?
With like Cheeto dust on their belly and their hands half smeared in sour cream and marinara sauce.
And say, oh, okay, you guys just spent like four hours watching a football game.
Did you volunteer at the soup kitchen?
Did you help anybody out?
Did you do any anything?
Anything?
I gave some money to someone.
Okay, good, right?
But you just spent
A hundred dollars buying merchandise at the rock concert.
Fine.
Okay.
Yep.
Enjoy the rock concert.
I've been to rock concerts.
Fine.
But are you giving any resources to the people who are your sole fucking defense against evil?
I'm just, just question, right?
Just, just a little question.
What are you feeding?
Are you feeding your diabetes or are you feeding your health?
Who are you feeding?
Are you feeding the people who distract you?
Are you feeding the people who save you?
Where society's resources go is its absolute and irrevocable future.
Where society's resources go is its absolute and irrevocable future.
You pay for what you get and you get what you deserve.
Again, I'm not talking to you guys, but if society as a whole is like, we got all the money in the world for a guy who can kick a ball into a net.
All the money in the world for a guy who can kick a ball into a net.
Okay.
All right.
But then at some point, at some point the moral philosophers are going to go, well, a society that values infinitely more a guy who kicks a ball into a net than a guy who challenges you to improve your moral condition, find love and be happy and be virtuous and fight evil.
If the literally half-brain-dead catatonic activity of watching the ball is going from here, let's go to there.
Wait.
No, it's coming back.
No, it's going up now.
Oh, now it's going down.
Oh, it's gone back a little.
It's gone over there.
It's gone high.
Now it's going low.
The guy ran into another guy.
Oh, that guy faked an injury.
That's clever.
You got a yellow card, a red card.
Oh, there's another commercial.
Let's look at... How much do these guys make?
Should we get really bitter?
Let's get really bitter.
Why not?
Throw a little spice in our research here.
All right.
Only fans.
Revenue.
Revenue.
Revenue.
Here we go, here we go.
Onlyfans revenue has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 174.3% over the past three years, with an almost 1300% increase in user base between 2019 and 2021.
Onlyfans creators earned almost $4 billion in 2021.
An increase of 115% from the year before.
Bringing the company's payments to creators to more than $8 billion since its 2016 founding.
Yeah.
September 6, 2022, OnlyFans profits boom as the user spent almost $5 billion on the platform last year.
Yeah.
You know, hit me with a why.
This is the spicy premium content right here.
You know what?
I'm sorry guys, if you're just watching this, I'm going to, uh, I'm going to go subscriber only because it just gets spicier from here.
Uh, again, I'll put in the link here.
If you want to join, I would appreciate that.
Uh, again, I can't do better than free.
I can't do better than offering you premium content for free.
All right.
Go to subscribers.
It will go in, uh, in a minute because, uh, yeah, we're going to go.
Going to go pretty deep, pretty dark, baby.
And this is some serious spice.
I'm sorry with that.
WTF, I'm going to find a better way to donate more.
Well, thank you.
I appreciate that.
And remember, you know, the platform also has coins and so on, right?
So that can help as well.
Yeah, we're going to go deep.
We've got 35 seconds and then we're going to go so deep that we'll come out the other side.
It's like with the illegal drug industry.
Does the blame land more with the consumers or producers?
Yeah, I don't care.
I'm sorry, I don't care.
For me, it's an uninteresting question.
All right.
Illegal drugs revenue worldwide.
Right?
Because philosophy brings you to reality and illegal drugs take you away from reality.
Ah, $400 billion.
Oh, that's 1997.
Uh, yeah.
Half a trillion dollars.
We've got April, 2017, half a trillion dollars.
Um, we've got $32 billion.
Oh, that's 2012.
Okay.
Let's, let's try and get something.
Safe search off.
Anytime.
Let's just do past year.
Past year.
What do we got?
Revenue from illicit drugs, right?
Our spending on illicit drugs in the U.S.
nears $150 billion annually.
Right.
Right.
Illegal drugs that cause hair loss?
No!
Of course, there's a lot of legal stuff that's completely worse than useless as well, but yeah.
Yeah, so $400... $200 million for Ronaldo and $400 billion
to screw up your brain and lose reality, right?
So... My husband and I were cracking up at your sports ball impression.
Can't wait to re-watch later.
Excellent.
Excellent.
Well, okay, so we're supporters now.
So, you can do better than free.
You can do shirtless.
I certainly can.
So...
What would you do if a programmer you interviewed had a job at OnlyFans?
A job at OnlyFans?
Like, I wouldn't hire anyone like that.
Are you kidding me?
I can't go through that many keyboards and Kleenex.
All right.
Yeah, so here's the thing, like, don't drive your philosophers to despair.
As a general, it's a good idea, right?
I mean, society's currently going through this by the by with doctors.
Doctors are facing unprecedented levels of burnout and guilt and shame and horror and bureaucracy and paperwork and, you know, like, the majority of doctors are telling their kids, whatever you do, just don't be a doctor, man.
Do anything but don't be a doctor.
So, society is exploiting the living shit out of its doctors right now, which means that only idiots and exploiters will become doctors in the future.
Good people won't want to do it, and so you'll either get bad doctoring or no doctoring.
Because people are just, well, they're getting the government to force doctors to do more and more.
And I think that a lot of the regulatory agencies and bodies to manage doctors are now used to bully and control doctors so they don't say bad things, right?
Wrong things.
So yeah, just you can drive your philosophers to despair.
And look, I mean, I don't think philosophers are sitting there going, you know, I got to make 400 million dollars a year.
Like, I don't think philosophers are doing that.
Same with engineering.
They're telling kids not to be engineers.
Oh, yes, the same thing with lawyers, right?
Lawyers, they hate their profession.
And it's brutal and it's gruesome.
You have a hundred hour work weeks that go on and on and on.
And at the end of it, you've got no life, no health, no family, no nothing.
And it's just horrendous.
Yeah.
All of the important shit that actually keeps society running.
We're just exploiting and bullying everyone in the professions and giving all of our money to, well, to idiots.
So, Steph, you must embrace the title of Top P. I'm not sure what the P stands for here.
Top G, I know.
Top P...Pankster?
I don't know, I have no idea.
So, yeah, society as a whole, if you keep throwing money at idiots who throw balls around,
And drugs and women who show more square acreage of flesh than a Nebraska UFO can cover in a long weekend, well, you're going to be unprotected, undefended.
Because here's the thing, you don't want your doctors to get disgusted with being doctors.
And listen.
Like, listen like you're not.
Listen.
Or watch.
I mentioned this story before.
I'll keep it very brief.
Many years ago, I flipped on a bike, cracked my forearm, and had to have my arm in a sling.
Not a cast, but a sling for a week or two.
I can't remember.
It wasn't a huge deal.
Anyway, I went back in, and there was a guy in the doctor's area, and the doctor was yelling at him.
And the doctor was saying, are you kidding me?
What's the one thing I told you?
He was in a cast.
What's the one thing I told you not to do?
I told you not to strain that cast.
And you're coming in here telling me that you've got a problem with your arm because you went skydiving?
You went sky... Get the hell out of here.
I'm not your doctor.
Get out of here.
I'm not gonna be your doctor if you go skydiving when you have a cast on when I tell you to not screw around with your arm.
That's kind of instructive, wouldn't you say?
Like you don't want to be somebody who disgusts your doctor to the point where your doctor doesn't want to treat you anymore.
And you don't want to be a society that doesn't give resources or only hurls abuse, slander, lies, and contempt at your moral philosophers.
Because if your doctor gets so disgusted, he doesn't want to treat you anymore.
One of the dangers with moral philosophy is looking at society and saying, why should I try and save you?
You ever have that?
I'm sure you have that feeling in your personal life.
You've got dysfunctional people in your life.
And isn't some of your life just saying, why on earth should I try and save you anymore?
You're not listening.
You don't care.
Right?
As somebody says, recently been doing some contracting for some large NHS trusts in London.
They reported the largest security concern at the moment is staff not being able to read.
Excellent.
Well, of course, the amount of money that you have to spend on translation services are just astonishing.
Sounds almost like accelerationism.
No, it's not accelerationism.
Accelerationism is when you want to hit the gas.
This is abandoning.
Abandonment.
This is abandonment.
Right?
It's not I'm gonna crash the plane, it's not I'm gonna bring it in for a safe landing, it's I'm going out with a parachute.
Good luck everyone!
Peace out!
I'm gone!
If all you do is hate your philosophers and give money to sophist, propagandist actors and sportsball heads, good luck everybody!
Peace out!
And I'm gone!
I don't know why you're sending me a series of one dollar tips, but that's annoying.
Just telling you.
Yeah, so.
It's just wild.
People think, well, we can give our money to people who make complicated roller coasters with nostalgic logos.
Okay, we can give, we'll spend thousands of dollars to be yanked halfway through the sky eating our own intestines and throwing up half our lunch.
We'll pay thousands of dollars for that.
It's a small world after all.
We can now pay thousands of dollars for that.
Oh wait, does a moral philosopher want 10 bucks a month?
Are you kidding me?
That's just money wasted.
You might as well set fire to it.
Just throw it out the window.
All right.
And you get what you pay for, right?
Society gets what it pays for.
Bible says, do not muzzle an ox as it harvests the grain.
Really?
What does that mean?
Ox?
Oh, I see what you mean.
I see what you mean.
Okay, so the ox that pulls the plow that harvests the grain.
The ox, they eat grain, I guess, but they don't harvest it.
Okay, I got it.
Yeah.
Well, it's funny because society as a whole throws all of its money at amoral or immoral people and then wonders why the world gets worse.
It's like, well, the world gets worse because you're paying it to get worse.
You know, it's so bizarre.
It's like paying for an escort and saying, why is this woman hanging around me?
Like, was she stalking me?
What the hell?
It's like buying an ice cream.
What the hell are you giving me an ice cream for?
What are you giving me an ice cream for?
Freak.
Right?
You understand?
This is completely bizarre.
Society funds sophistry, immorality, and immorality.
Society bribes lies and liars and distractors and then says, wow, you know, the world seems to be full of lies and distractions.
You starve the most moral among you and you feed the most amoral and immoral among you.
And then you say, well, that's weird.
A lifetime of eating cheesecake at my ass is the size of Texas.
I don't get that, man.
That's weird to me.
Strange, right?
Let's see here.
Hey, sportsball guys do a great service to those who want to stay shallow.
Money well spent.
No, it's your money!
It's your money.
I did this show years ago, right?
The NFL and like, they're all ridiculously funded by government money, right?
Ridiculously funded by government money.
And the fact is, you know, the government funds, what does it fund?
War?
Degeneracy, degradation, debt, and sports, and universities, right?
So all the things that are making society worse, right?
Does society sit there and say, you know, and this is back to Socrates, right?
So when Socrates was accused of not believing in the gods of the city and corrupting the young, Socrates said,
You know, here's what my punishment should be.
My punishment should be... You found me guilty.
Okay, hear me out.
My punishment should be... I mean, we pay athletes.
We pay athletes who've won a medal at the Olympics or whatever.
We pay those athletes and we keep them in bread and gravy and couscous for the rest of their natural-born lives.
So we give them a stipend to keep body and soul together.
The athletes, we give them welfare or whatever for the rest of their lives.
And he said, look, I've clearly, as a moral philosopher, I've done a much better job at keeping society safe and happy than an athlete or any number of athletes could ever do, so maybe here's my punishment.
Just give me a little stipend so that I don't have to worry about money.
Just a little bit.
Like maybe half or one-tenth of what you give to your average athlete.
Just, you know, you've got hundreds of athletes, thousands of athletes you keep on the public purse as a reward for their athleticism.
Nothing wrong with athletics.
No problem.
Why don't you give me... Why don't you give me one tenth of one percent or one thousandth of one percent of what you spend on giving free money to the athletes?
Why don't you just give me a tiny stipend?"
And they said, we can't really do the tiny stipend to help keep us a moral society.
We can't do that.
On the other hand, we can fucking kill you with poison.
Okay, so we're not going to give you money, but we will shove hemlock up your nose until you choke to death on your own self-righteousness, you bald, ugly fucking prick.
Right?
So that's society's response, right?
And what happens to Greece?
Well, we all know, right?
We all know.
Hello to Australia.
Back as well.
I miss that place.
I'm not sure they'd love me back, but I'd love to go back.
All right.
Sports equals bread and circuses.
Do you know there are people who are, you know, I have some friends that I play trivia with from time to time.
And, you know, there's some stuff I'm good at in trivia, you know, literature and history and so on, some politics.
And then, but none of us are any good at sports, right?
So when the sports questions come up, right?
There are people who are like, yeah, I know the answer to the sports question.
I'm like, the fuck are you saying that out loud for?
What are you talking about?
I'm aroused by my cows.
Don't say that.
Don't talk about that.
So, yeah, I mean, I know a lot about sports trivia.
I have a fantasy league.
It's like... I am screwing out philosophers and causing the moral and spiritual death of my civilization.
But at least I'm going down with a smile on my face and useless fucking statistics in my brain.
At least in UFC they fight for it.
Oh yeah, okay, let's go to UFC.
What's UFC's income these days?
That's huge, right?
What's UFC's income?
No, total income.
Let's try that.
UFC total income.
Ah, Conor McGregor.
Without PPV, without pay-per-view bonuses.
$10 million.
Ten million dollars.
The UFC pays its fighters 60 to 20 percent of total revenue.
Yep.
So, people who punch each other in the nads on a regular basis, who go into the octagon and headbutt and kick and bite and whatever the hell they do, right?
I don't think biting's allowed.
Unlike OnlyFans.
But so, the people who pound shit out of each other to the cheers and boos of a fairly mindless crowd,
He gets $10 million a year.
People who fight evildoers who want to enslave you, what do they get?
Right?
What do they get?
I mean, I've been fighting evildoers for 40 plus years, right?
Ah, let's see here.
I'm not good at sports, but I'm going to do 10 minutes of kettlebells while I listen.
Yeah, wonderful.
Wonderful.
I worked out with my daughter today, had a great time.
All that's wonderful.
Thanks, Jeff.
Sounds like you are as frustrated with sports obsession as me.
I think it's stupid.
Well, I mean, I get, like, I'm kind of joking about it, right?
But if society values sports about a bazillion times more than it values its moral philosophers, then society is going to go into the shitter.
You understand, the bad people, they hold up sports to distract you from the rights they're taking away, the power that they're growing over you.
I don't have more compassion for society than it has for itself.
That's just a trap, right?
That's a way to get exploited.
So if people want to give all their money, time, and attention to people beating each other up in a cage, or people kicking balls around,
Well, it's the highest.
Athletic.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
It's like, yeah, alright.
Yeah, I get it.
They work hard and they're genetically gifted.
Big fuckin' whoop, right?
Here's the thing, right?
Everybody knows that evil regimes can have great sports teams, right?
I remember one of the first times that I really felt some despair over the West was when I came to Canada and I heard all about the Russian-Canadian hockey game.
It was a big, big, it was an Olympic game and it was like Canada versus the USSR and everybody was like, I'm so happy we won!
Really?
So, in the fundamental moral battle between communism and liberty, it comes down to where the fucking puck ends up.
That's it?
That's all you've got?
Fast twitch muscles and aiming at a tiny net with a black puck?
Puck it, man.
Puck and puck it.
This is what we come down to.
We'll pay hockey players millions and millions of dollars a year to fight communism.
It's like paying millions of dollars a year to be a hockey player.
Right, right.
Hundreds of somebody says hundreds of dollars to watch a ball go fast or five dollars a month for future of the earth.
Why does God give us the toughest challenges?
And all these people that advertise these sports teams do, you know.
I mean, the sports teams largely exist because of enslavement of the future generations through taxes, right?
Through debt.
National debts and so on.
Unfunded liabilities, right?
We're gonna build a half a billion dollar stadium and pass the buck down to the next generation or two.
And then... I mean, people... They wear this shit, like, with pride.
These are the people ripping me off through the power of the state.
I must be sure to advertise them.
What do you even say?
These people are distracting you from the freedoms being stolen out from under your nose, and they're stealing from you using the power of the state and indebting your children.
So be sure to pump their fucking logo everywhere you go.
Yay slave owners!
Can I get a tattoo on my forehead?
Somebody says, an old friend of mine teaches philosophy in Houston and literally donates sperm on the side to make ends meet.
Oh god.
Let's hope it doesn't come to that.
A guy got a Dallas Cowboys tattoo on his forehead.
Yeah.
You know, it's one thing to be a slave.
It's another thing to enjoy being a slave.
It's quite another thing to tattoo the logo of your slave owners.
I mean, that's pretty wild, right?
Room temperature IQ.
No, it's not a bad IQ.
It's not an IQ.
That's not an IQ thing.
No, this is not quantum physics.
It's not quantum physics.
Let's see here.
Let's look this up.
I don't know what it's at now.
I don't know what it's at now, but let's see.
All right.
U.S.
annual sports subsidies.
Let's do past year.
Why politicians subsidize sports stadiums despite a lack of popular support?
I assume they get boxes, right?
Uh, first few months of 2022.
April approval of just over a billion dollars in state and county money for a new Buffalo Bill Stadium.
One day later the Maryland legislature okayed 1.2 billion dollars for stadium upgrades to the NFL's Baltimore Ravens.
Currently feasting on the jugular of your former economy.
And Major League Baseball's Baltimore Orioles all to be paid off by the state.
Isn't that nice?
Next came a plan for a new Tennessee Titans stadium that could cost upwards of 1.2 billion dollars in tax revenue.
All the details are still to be worked out.
Now of course the public doesn't want it, but they still want the system that enables it, right?
Stadium subsidies are just corporate welfare for sports moguls.
Yeah, of course, right?
Anyway, we go on and on, right?
But listen, can you imagine?
Can you imagine?
I mean, I've got a whole, you can go to NFL, FDRpodcast.com, do a search on NFL, right?
But can you imagine?
Can you imagine?
Like, imagine this, right?
Imagine a politician saying,
It could be me, could be anyone.
Let's just take me for an example, right?
Politician saying, you know, I know he's controversial and all of that, but you know, the data seems pretty solid.
He's had a lot of important people on his show.
He's worked really hard.
You know, he's written a lot of books.
Man, let's give this guy, let's give Steph... Okay, like he's no sports team, but okay, let's just... Half a billion dollars, right?
Not a billion dollars, like just 500 million dollars to Steph to spread philosophy, right?
Can you imagine a society that says we have to make sure that the moral philosophers get at least 1% of the resources we give to sports balls?
Somebody says, my family used to spend thousands of dollars on my brother for hockey and dozens of hours at hockey games and practice and hours commuting to and from them.
When I was young, I had to go.
And as soon as I was old enough, I stayed home alone rather than attend them.
Of course, there was far less interest or investment in my interest in art, music, or literature.
It's fair to say I've had my fill of hockey for about a lifetime.
Oh yeah, I worked with a guy once.
His son was like traveling all over the world, Europe for sure, and America on a hockey team.
He was the goalie for a hockey team.
Can you imagine going to a pub and there's philosophy on the TV rather than... You know, I love these sports announcers too, right?
Like the golf guys.
The golf guys are just, you know, they're so... they're murmuring, you know, because they don't want to fucking distract the golfer even though they're in a studio about...
Quarter of a mile away, but you know, we gotta be nice and quiet for this guy because he's lining up to make his shot.
Hush falls over the crowd.
It's like, you know you're not anywhere near him, right?
It's completely bizarre.
I mean, I guess that created this illusion that they're, what, in his brain?
You know, as brain parasites looking down this golf club thing, we can't really distract him because we're inner voices.
We don't want to startle him because then he's going to screw it up, so.
As ghosts in the machine, as haunted Victorian brain dwellers, we have to be really quiet as he lines up this shot.
I just think it's hilarious.
Oh my gosh.
Goal!
And especially the Mexican and South American, Central and South American sportscasters,
Like, holy cocaine, Jack.
I mean, do they ship it all to America, or do they just say, okay, okay, we produce about 14 billion tons of cocaine annually.
We're going to give it to the sportscasters.
If there's anything left over, and I emphasize the word if, if there's anything left over from the sportscasters, maybe we'll see our way clear to shipping it somewhere else.
But pretty much if the sportscasters are, you know, I think sportscasters inhale sports, like soccer sportscasters, they inhale cocaine the way that a narwhal ejects vapor from its blowhole.
Straight up, man.
Don't interfere with him.
Let him cook, man.
He's still inhaling, but it's been two days.
He's still inhaling.
Do not interrupt him while he's inhaling.
He's like these reverse Dizzy Gillespie jazz trumpeters, you know, the ones who breathe in through the nose and blow out through the trumpet.
He's still inhaling, man.
He hasn't replaced all of his internal organs with cocaine, just most of it.
And finally, after two and a half days of inhaling, they're like, goal!
It's a goal!
Oh, yeah, they cry when their team wins.
Oh my God.
Yeah, it's just wild.
It's just insane.
Oh, I just love to, you know, I just love to see one of these guys be motivational speakers, you know?
Well, you know, it's really important in life that you have a plan and make sure you set your goals!
They probably even get homonyms down, right?
Ah yes, when I was a teenager, I went up north and I panned for GOLD!
I just can't do it.
Adiamo!
We must go!
Sorry, I could literally do this all night, but let's not.
Isn't it nice to be in the subscriber live stream where none of this stuff gets to the light of day?
And then of course there's the, I mean the British ones are also just funny.
They're so anal.
Toilet trained at gunpoint, like you could feed them an entire watermelon and they wouldn't shit it for four and a half weeks because social status.
I remember because we used to watch Wimbledon when I was a kid and we had this, um, I remember it was on my mother's cabinet in her bedroom.
We had this like 12 inch half static TV, like, you know, literally one of us had to stand sometimes holding the antennae because apparently we conducted electricity or pictures or whatever, right?
So you'd be holding the antennae trying to see what the hell was going on on the screen.
Don't move!
A frozen statue of bad TV-ness!
And sometimes, you know, you get these ripples going up the TV, or sometimes it would just flip.
And I remember trying to watch Wimbledon on these things, and you couldn't see the ball to save your life.
You could only psychically guess where the ball was based upon the movements of the players.
Oh, Björn Borg has jumped!
I guess the ball is somewhere over there in that weird rolly static shit, right?
And it's a great way to get bullied.
It's like holding the flashlight for your dad when he's trying to fix a car.
It's just like, be the human antennae when Wimbledon is going on.
And you'll just get screamed at until everybody goes, goes hoarse, right?
And yeah, I just remember that, that stuff is just, gotta watch it, right?
The guys that used to read out football scores on UK TV was like listening to paint dry.
Oh yeah, I've seen Trainspotters with infinitely more enthusiasm.
I mean, I would like to hear a Mexican sportscaster, this just popped into my head, I would like to hear a Mexican sportscaster do David Bowie covers.
Sorry, I could keep doing that all night but let's not.
If you make it through the season, given how much Chivas Regal and cigarettes you are imbibing to get through these sports, it really is quite a miracle.
It's like the least healthy sport.
Because, you know, most people, you say, like, I'm an elite-level athlete and, you know, they've got the Cobra back and their, like, narrow waist and...
You know, they are exhaling testosterone and probably steroids.
But you look at the darts guys and the curling guys and it's just like, I'm an elite athlete.
I'm like, yeah, and I'm Tina Turner, back from the dead.
All right.
He's so focused.
Smooth throw.
Yes.
He hit the middle of that circle.
I saw footage of this team called Red Star Brigade.
The Serbians lit fires in the stands and threw flares on the field.
The stadium was full of smoke and there were riot police surrounding the players.
The game went on like usual.
Why do people do this?
Well, the best way to pass counterfeit notes is in real notes, right?
So if you're fake, you want to blend with the herd.
That's sort of a basic fact of life, right?
If you're an empty, fake, non-existent shell of a human being, you want to merge with the herd.
because you don't like yourself.
And so when you don't like yourself, you have no respect for yourself because you're an empty-headed crowd follower.
You have this weird urge to gain a personality by blending with a herd of fools.
To pretend you have a, what's your personality?
I'm a sports ball supporter.
I'm a supporter of X team and not Y team because X team is geographically proximate to me.
So yeah, they merge with the herd because they don't like themselves and they have nothing to offer themselves and they're lazy and boring and, right?
All right.
What have we got here?
My gosh, we already done an hour and a half.
Fantastic.
Oh, did I miss questions or not?
You're killing it tonight with the Bowie reference.
Yes, that's right.
I could do Spandau Ballet, but I think we get the general, general pattern, right?
All right, let's see here.
The esports announcers are not so bad.
I've never watched esports myself.
All right, any last tips after my rather generic philosophical plea for tips?
Tips to support if you're listening to this later, of course.
I'm happy to take another question or two.
Was going to bake sourdough but got distracted with philosophy.
Well, that's interesting.
If you think about this from an allegorical standpoint, I'm talking about bitterness for lack of money.
What are you looking at?
Sour dough.
Philosophers are sour because they don't get enough dough.
All right, so sour dough.
It's all coming together like some amateur Scorsese hour.
Mind blown!
Absolutely.
I'm glad I ditched Bible study for this.
Excellent.
I'm glad for that too.
What's a good resource for choosing a crypto wallet?
I will let you do your own research on that.
Last thing I'm going to do is recommend something that goes tits up tomorrow.
So no, I'm not going to recommend anything.
Cold storage is not bad.
Watch the NBA or Steph?
I choose Steph.
So here's the thing about the NBA as well.
I think I've watched one NBA game in my entire life.
It's because Toronto was playing and my wife was keen.
So okay, fine.
This is what I can't do with NBA.
It's like the staccato tinnitus that happens with those goddamn shoes.
Once you start listening to that, you slowly go insane until you turn the TV off or shoot it in order to restore your sanity.
Somebody says, I gotta load up on coins and stop listening, but always more tips from me coming.
Thank you so much.
Sucks many father-son relationships are based on sports teams.
Right.
We've got nothing to say, but we can stare at the same hairy legs.
How's that for a relationship?
We can't really interact with each other, but we can scream at the people stealing our money and souls with ball motion.
Norm Macdonald had one short suggestion to increase the viewership of the women's NBA.
Shirts versus skins.
Yeah, maybe.
Boy, that would take like three weeks to stop bouncing, right?
Are there any potential FDR meetups in the future?
Sounded like they used to be a thing in the past years ago.
Oh, yeah, they were for sure.
Until we all got cornered and disassembled by the general culture.
All right.
Any last questions, comments, tips?
Thank you so much for your support.
I really, really do appreciate it.
My optimism and enthusiasm is for sale.
Not much of me is for sale, but my optimism and enthusiasm is for sale.
Ready to try training Stephbot?
Ah, good, good to know.
Well, you can set your own things up, right?
You can set your own things up.
Nothing is stopping you from being a leader and gathering people together and talking philosophy and that's a wonderful thing to do.
Yes, so thank you for the tip, I appreciate that.
Yeah, so one of the things that money is going into at the moment is the StiffBot, which is, we are feeding AI my books until it takes over the world and installs me as dominant leader, at which point I feast on the balls of sports ball players.
There will be human sacrifices in a giant mound for sophists.
So no, we've got the hardware, the dual graphics cards, and we have the AI infrastructure.
We're going to feed it my books.
We've got 100 or 200 of my articles, and we are going to jest.
Get the StephBot up and running.
It's got giant fans.
I believe it's generally cooled by a Pratt & Whitney jet engine from an expired 747.
Believe it or not, the StephBot has a lot of Steph-fans.
Fans!
I'll be here all week.
So, yes.
Can you train Steph Bot to say, Goal?
Yes, maybe.
Maybe.
Are you going to do a video of you training Steph Bot?
Yes, but only insofar as the video is me spanking Steph Bot, because peaceful parenting is only for people.
It will be spanked.
Steph Bot spanking will be on OnlyFans.
I guarantee you that, and we are going to break the fucking bank.
I've given up on reason and evidence.
I'm just going to end up with a tomato ass and a ping pong paddle.
That's my whole thing going forward.
All right.
Thanks, Steph.
Great show, as always.
Love the vibe tonight.
Appreciate that.
Great show as always.
Pleasure to be a part of it.
StephNet.
Oh, three cards.
You ordered a third?
Man, you're going for a full house here.
I appreciate that.
I appreciate that.
StephBot, not Skynet.
Yes, that's the way.
That's the way to go.
That's the way to go.
All right.
I'm holding out for any last tips.
I'm just, you know, I'm just too proud to take my shirt off tonight.
I'm just too proud.
Actually, I'm not.
I'm not too proud.
Never too proud to take my shirt off.
Yes.
So, uh, for the hardware and, and labor costs and so on, the great Jared is, uh, uh, massaging the StephBot into philosophical brilliance, the likes of which have not been seen since the Oracle of Delphi.
And, uh, we got to turn it loose in the world and it's going to, um, you know, we're just tired of reason.
We're just going to take over, right?
Just take over in Minecraft.
Well it won't be too long.
I was listening to that today.
Hiagram by Stevie Wonder.
Alright.
It's a great song.
It's still not as good as Superstition.
Sir Duke is also great.
I for one welcome my new staff overlords.
Yes.
It is my superlative joy to work on this.
Thank you everyone and staff.
It is his superlative joy.
It's also not free.
So again, if you are curious about what we're going to be able to do and curious to see, thank you very much, curious to see what happens with StephBot AI, wouldn't it be cool and amazing
to say, is this UPB compliant?
Or explain UPB to me as if you were Norm MacDonald involving a turtle.
I just think it would be really cool to see what could be done with rational philosophy, universalism, and AI.
And again, it's not free at all.
Hardware, time, costs, education, resources, and all of that.
Current day Steph debates AI Steph from 06.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
My band is having trouble coming up with a name for it.
Got any suggestions?
Radical Tangent.
There you go.
That's my suggestion for your band name.
Radical Tangent!
Or, if there's more than one man, Radical Tangents, and the G is capitalized at the end.
Radical Tangents.
And you can all get tans.
Alright.
There you go.
Radish Tangents.
Okay, I should probably stop at this point.
Goal!
Alright.
Well, thanks everyone so much for a great evening.
If you don't have any problems, I'll put this out to the general stream.
But thanks.
It was a lot of fun to chat tonight, and it was nice to have something more like-hearted.
Oh yeah, rock band.
So in my novel, The God of Atheists, which you should really listen to, you can get it at fdrurl.com slash tgoa, fdrurl.com slash tgoa.
There's a boy band, but they want an edge, man.
The boy band wants a metal edge, so they put two umlauts over the O in boy band.
I found it really funny.
It's a boy band with an edge and the edge is two umlauts of a boy band.
But of course their manager goes completely mental because he's like, who the hell can find you if you need an umlaut in Google?
Anyway, I just thought it was pretty funny.
I was late to the stream, but I asked a question before the stream started.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
Um, can you ask it again?
If you asked this question right at the beginning of the stream, even though you were late, late, um, I'm screaming at you, Tom.
Uh, I'll scream at you, um, Tom Cruise style, right?
Let me just go here.
What was your question at the beginning?
Oh my gosh.
Can you put it again?
Can you?
Can you?
Huh?
Huh?
Listen, I got a couple of tips.
I will stay.
It's in the comment section.
Well, that's helpful, but, you know, I have to go back page by page, right?
It doesn't just load the whole comment section.
All right.
All right, let's go back here.
Oh, what's your name, by the way?
What's your name?
Who's your daddy?
Is he rich like me?
All right.
Can I do a search here?
There's no searches there.
What can I do?
No searches.
All right.
If you can find it, just copy and paste it down here.
If you could.
It's not the teacher thing, right?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
No, I did the teacher.
I did the teacher thing.
So yeah, I did that one already.
OK, good.
Well, thanks, everyone, so much.
Have yourself a wonderful evening.
If you're listening to this later, freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show.
It really, really would appreciate it.
Don't make me so bitter that I end up becoming a sports ball fanatic and trying to get myself a stadium built because, you know.
I have a dome and I'd like to have a dome named after me, so thanks, everyone, so much.
