Sept. 6, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:13:33
5254 Locals Subscribers Questions!
Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!Get access to StefBOT-AI, private livestreams, premium call in shows, my new book and the History of Philosophers series!See you soon!https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022I have a problem of talking so much about FDR with the guy I dated he felt like he wouldn't be the "alpha" in a relationship with me and didn't wanna continue dating.... Should I bring this up in some more delicate way? Avoid mentioning stefan so that the guy doesn't realise he's a man XD I could pretend I just came up with everything by myself.Hi Stefan! How does one overcome trauma stemming from parental neglect? What does it mean to have processed said trauma?How do I spot propaganda from truth? My thoughts are that if one side provides unbiased info and does not try to hide info then it's probably not propaganda, am I right?I read The Fountainhead almost 2 years ago and loved it. But I'm not sure I really understood the character of Ellsworth Toohey. Why he chooses to be evil? Could you give us your take? Maybe refer to a podcast where you talk about it in length. Thanks!Hi Stef. My wife tells me that while I’m at work our 18m old will scratch and throw things at her when he doesn’t get his way. She wants to smack his hand. I tell her that is not an option and why. She’s resenting me for not letting her do it. I try to give her other options, but she says those options will only make him angrier. For example a room divider in our living space so she can do her duties in the kitchen and not be within his reach. He’s not like this when I’m around because I’m, “the fun dad” that can give him full attention when home. I could use more solutions/options for her, but even then she might persist at being a victim. Typing out this message has been helpful already because some of what you’ll say is coming to me. Thank you.Our 4 year old daughter has been acting out lately. She is drawing on walls, shredding up paper or toilet paper, etc. It’s my understanding she’s acting out to communicate something but I can’t figure out what it is. It does not seem like it comes from a place of anger or rage, just mischievous behavior. Any advice?Why does the idea of freedom cause anxiety in a lot of people?Can you heal your capacity for pair bonding after refraining from hedonistic behavior and pursing a more virtuous path through self work and responsibility?Hi Stefan, do you think having practical skills is important for example being able to fix and make things, do you teach your daughter these things? Also If you had a son do you think it is more important that you do so?
Sorry, it's taken me a little bit of time to get to these questions, but I have, oh, joys and joys of paperwork.
So these are questions that I asked from subscribers.
They're going out to General Population and freedomain.locals.com, freedomain.locals.com to join what is the greatest philosophical community in the history of the world, bar none, for all time.
Because after this, they have us.
So that's good.
Template.
All right.
So, a woman says, I have a problem talking so much about FDR, Free Domain Radio, with the guy I dated.
He felt like he wouldn't be the alpha in a relationship with me and didn't want to continue dating.
Should I bring this up in some more delicate way, avoid mentioning Steph, so that the guy doesn't realize he's a man?
I could pretend I just came up with everything by myself.
Yeah, that's a big question.
One test of love that I think is pretty important is, is the other person interested in what you're interested in?
Look, you are going to spend decades and decades and decades together.
And the problem is that if you don't share interests, you're going to, you're going to fight.
Like seriously, you would not believe
How much fighting comes out of boredom, incompatibility, a feeling of shame, a feeling of embarrassment over falling for lust rather than quality of character.
Oh, it's brutal!
I've seen so many relationships so obviously founded on lust, incompatibility, and what happens, of course, is that the lust runs dry, self-contempt
Sets in and boredom and incompatibility.
But now you are stuck together.
Oh, Lord, it's horrifying the way that this plays out.
See, people think that fighting comes from all of this stress and tension and anger and hostility and betrayal.
And it's like, no, no, no, no.
I mean, obviously that's there.
But for the most part, at least in my experience,
Fighting comes from self-contempt and unbelievable levels of boredom, of incompatibility, and, of course, the concomitant shame that comes from falling prey to lust.
So if you are content, like, you know, we've all had this, right?
You're content with what you've eaten, you've eaten all right, and then someone says, hey, how about some peach cobbler?
And you're like, oh, peach.
I guess that's got the word peach in it.
So it's kind of fruit based and all this.
So what you do, you have that piece of peach cobbler.
You don't really need it.
You don't really want it, but it's just kind of in front of you.
And we've all done it.
I'm sure you have.
I have.
We've all done it.
And then afterwards, you're like, oh, that wasn't that wasn't a super great idea.
And you just don't feel great.
Or you have, you know, whatever it is, one too many coffees and then you kind of jittery or something like that.
Right.
So a lot of that feeling of conflict with the other person is there's lust, you give in to lust, you have sex, you pair bond, and then you wake up to the fact that you don't really like her and she doesn't really like you, you don't respect her, you don't treasure her, you don't value her, you don't admire her, she doesn't manifest any particular virtues, but now you're stuck together because you've had sex and your bodies have bonded and you're
You've gotten involved and your lives start to wind together like a vine on a wall.
And then you get stuck with the person.
And then you've got to kill time.
And how do you kill time?
Well, how do they kill time in prison?
They fight.
How do they kill time?
They have conflict.
Because you can't really get anything positive out of the relationship.
But you need stimuli and you need to feel like there's something going on.
So, like, don't underestimate the amount of fights and conflicts that come out of boredom and contempt.
Boredom and contempt.
And the two, contempt for the self, but of course, you know, most people don't take responsibility for themselves.
And so they have contempt for the other person.
Like, why do people rage against people they claim to love?
Why do they condemn them?
Why do they criticize them?
Why do they keep putting them down?
Well, of course, for the simple reason that they never loved them, of course, right?
But the most compelling and powerful and deep aspect of this is simply that they have taken their self-contempt for choosing someone based on lust.
And look, here's the funny thing, right?
So choosing someone based on lust isn't the worst part of it.
I mean, lust is a great part of life and the mind-body dichotomy doesn't play here.
So lust is fine.
But why is it that people
Get so enraged if they bond with someone over lust because they've lied their way into it and they continue to lie themselves, lie to themselves, right?
Again, most of us who've dated more than a couple of people have been in this situation one time or another.
So again, I'm not, you know, this is no sort of big ivory tower thing where, Oh, I've never, but you can't be honest about the lies that you take.
Because you say, I care about you, I love you, I'm interested in you, not just I'm lusting and want your body and want to get my rocks off or whatever.
So what happens is you end up with this lying relationship.
Again, it's not the lust.
That's the problem.
It's lying to yourself about the lust.
Lying to yourself about the lust is the real problem.
And it's the lying that brings out the contempt.
And of course, the reason why lust makes you lie, and I've talked about this on the show before, so just touching it briefly here.
The reason why lust makes you lie is you can't be honest about it.
You can't say to the woman, well, you know, I don't really like you as a person.
You've, you know, kind of crazy troubled background, but boy, you really are sexy.
So, um, you know, I don't like you as a person, but I would really like to use your body as if it was
A piece of meat which wasn't even haunted by your personality.
Well, you say that and you're not going to get what you want.
I mean, God help you if you do, right?
If you say to the woman, I really don't like you.
Let's have sex.
And she's like, sounds good.
I mean, you're setting yourself up for a real bowling ball bunny boiler there.
So let's hope that never happens to you.
So you've got to lie about it.
And the lie imprisons you.
So because you lied your way into the relationship by saying, I care for you, when you don't like the person, but you only want to have sex with their body, you lie your way into the relationship.
And then, you know, it's like those lies that you just get deeper and deeper and more and more committed.
Right?
So there was some meme about someone at the airport, like, I wanted to go to Portland, but I accidentally chose Poland.
So here I am in Eastern Europe, setting up a new life, right?
Just really committing to the mistake.
So, the problem is, if you are really interested in philosophy, and it's not this show, and it's not me, just saying, like, I'm really interested in philosophy.
Like, if there's some great physicist you follow, and you don't say, I'm into Bob Job Weisenberg, physics head, you say, I love physics, this guy's really good at explaining it, and all of that.
Now, if your boyfriend is threatened,
By your passion for philosophy.
Not for me, right?
Just don't follow me.
The whole point is to think for yourself, and I'm just providing you, hopefully, some tools for doing all of that.
But if you are really passionate about philosophy, and I happen to be a good source of that for you, I think I'm the best, or we're the best, or this approach is the best, or whatever, then it's your passion for philosophy that you should love and respect.
Now, if he says, I feel threatened, emasculated, and less,
Because you love philosophy, it makes you really passionate, and somebody explains it really well, then that's a problem.
That's a problem.
Because, you know, in general I hate these kinds of explanations.
Like, oh, the reason why a man wouldn't date a sex worker is because of his insecurities.
It's like, no, no, it's not.
Or maybe his immune system is insecure and doesn't want all of the rampaging tsunami of STDs flowing in.
But
You know, of course, the other thing about the OnlyFans or sex worker stuff.
I mean, the OnlyFans stuff, it's all kind of based on a lie, right?
I mean, oh, I love you.
You know, the lie of sexual access.
Your brain doesn't know that this is a woman in Budapest, right?
They think she's in the same room, Paris, Texas style.
Sorry, Paris, Texas, the movie, not the location.
So, Rycooter, great guitar in that soundtrack.
By the by, I just wanted to mention.
So,
But I think in this situation, if you're really passionate about something, you need to find someone who has, at least to some degree, they share the passion or they respect your passion.
They either share the passion or they respect your passion.
Like, my daughter is very passionate about writing movies, getting her friends to act them out, and animating them, and she pours months into these things.
Now,
Animating to me is like really fussy, really detailed and it's not my thing.
But I love watching her do it and I love her enthusiasm for it.
I think it's just great.
And we, we trust each other on, on things like this.
If she says she wants to try something and I'm not particularly keen, I'll give it a shot and I'll give it a good honest shot.
We'll give it a couple of shots.
And a lot of times that really works out and vice versa and so on.
So you don't have to have exactly the same passions, but you really do have to respect your partner's passion and
In this area, if it's about integrity, honesty, morality, and so on, you do have to really respect morally your partner's interest in philosophy, of course, particularly moral philosophy.
So, I think, like, if you were really into fitness, and there was some guy who was, like, the best and most motivating fitness and nutrition guy or whatever, and you followed that person,
The boyfriend who respects you will listen to you, will be enthusiastic about your enthusiasm, and will certainly try his very best to get into it.
Will certainly try his very best to get into it.
You know, like if your girlfriend likes a show, then you should really try and get into it, right?
And give it a good honest shot, and you know, if you give it a good honest shot and it's really not for you, then you do have to be honest about that, but
If he's just like, well, if you're taking moral advice from a philosopher or you're taking moral perspective from a philosopher, then I'm not the alpha in this relationship.
Then he's saying that his alpha-ness is the imposition of will.
Right?
I don't impose my will on anyone.
I don't bully people.
I don't bribe them.
I don't threaten them.
I mean, sometimes a little harsh, but that's, you know, I'm honest and they're certainly welcome to be harsh back at me if that's what they're feeling.
But I don't tell anyone what to do.
I don't tell anyone what to think.
I don't bully anyone.
I don't use that kind of influence.
And Lord knows I could.
I'm a pretty convincing fellow, but that's a temptation resistance that I'm pretty keen on maintaining.
Resistance, that is, not the temptation.
So if a boyfriend feels displaced by my personality, then what does that mean?
It means that he wants to impose his personality and I provide a resistance to that.
Now, if I'm really good at teaching physics or math and he opposes that,
Because he wants to teach physics and math, then clearly he should point out to his girlfriend where me, as a physics and math teacher, where I'm wrong, where I'm incorrect, where I don't have the right answers, and I'm teaching in the wrong way, to the wrong purpose, with the wrong methods, and the wrong tools, and all that, right?
So he should out-argue me, which would be fantastic, right?
I mean, that would be excellent.
I love being out-argued.
If he's saying, I can't be an alpha if you're influenced by someone else, then that's because he wants to influence you.
In other words, he wants to dominate you with his personality, and that's not going to go well.
Now, if you say, well, Steph says X, Y, and Z, and he listens and he says, oh, that's interesting.
Here's my perspective.
I disagree because of A, B, C, or whatever, then he's not trying to impose his will.
He's just trying to counter something that I'm saying.
But if I say 2 and 2 make 4, and you enthusiastically report to your boyfriend that 2 and 2 make 4, and he gets annoyed, what's he annoyed at?
Like, what's he annoyed at?
Is he annoyed at me?
No.
Is he annoyed that I'm saying 2 and 2 make 4?
Well, yeah.
So why is he annoyed at me saying that 2 and 2 make 4?
Because he wants to tell you that 2 and 2 make 5, or 3, or something else, right?
So he wants to impose his will against reason and evidence.
And so he's hostile towards what I'm saying or what you're listening to, or you agree with, because he wants to substitute his personal authority, which usually means bullying or aggression, for my reasoned arguments.
And that's not great.
Like, what is it that he thinks I'm saying that is shoving him aside?
Well, we shouldn't use violence to get what we want.
I mean, I'm like the least controversial.
This is a funny thing, like, I'm the least controversial guy in the known universe because the moral arguments I make are all in kindergarten.
Like, this is not like the... I saw this meme, like, the first time you read Hegel and it's a guy looking really confused, and it's like the 50th time you read Hegel and it's a guy looking really confused.
I mean, this is... it's embarrassingly simple, right, in many ways.
Which is, don't use force to get what you want and respect people's property rights.
It's really so embarrassing when it comes down to it.
But this shows you just how complicated and convoluted sophistry is.
That this is radical and crazy and all of that.
And we should respect science and we should respect reason and evidence and we should respect biology and all of that.
So, well, good science anyway.
The science that doesn't immediately lead to state-sanctioned profiteering.
So what is he so upset about?
He's like, oh no, I'm mad that Steph says that we shouldn't use violence to get what we want.
I'm mad that Steph says that we should respect property rights.
I'm mad that Steph says we should be honest in relationships.
It's kind of funny when you think about it.
Oh my gosh, this radical cult leader who says we should be honest in our relationships and speak the truth.
Oh, the horror.
So what's he mad about?
What's he mad about?
You know, I don't want to say good riddance, because I know, like, relationships are tough.
And if this guy has boogied because he's concerned about my, quote, authority, well, I don't have any authority.
All I have is reason and arguments.
And if he's upset at me, he's upset at reason and arguments, which means he wants to substitute personal aggression for reason and evidence when it comes to negotiations.
So, not great, in my opinion.
All right.
Hi, Steven.
This is Adam.
How does one overcome trauma stemming from parental neglect?
What does it mean to have processed said trauma?
Hmm.
Great question.
Great, great, great question.
And of course, I just recently wrote a whole section on neglect to the peaceful parenting book.
So let's, uh, let's dig in.
Uh, I will tell you in advance, in advance, this is gonna, it's gonna, it's gonna sting a lot.
It's going to leave a mark.
Maybe don't listen while you're driving or operating heavy machinery.
So,
Neglect is a tough thing to identify.
It's the absence.
It's the missing.
You know, when I was in my teens, it was like, I used to sort of joke like, oh, I miss my dad.
I never even knew he was here.
How can you miss what you have never had?
All that kind of, you get this kind of tough front.
Now, what's tough to understand about neglect is how sadistic and rageful it is.
How sadistic and rageful it is.
So neglect comes about when you force someone or confine someone in a position where you are their only survival and then you withhold that survival.
So of course we can imagine some crazy John Fowles collector style guy who kidnaps a woman locks her in his basement
In the middle of nowhere, and she's dying of thirst, she's starving, and he holds the bottle of water over her, but she can't reach it.
It's just so much rage and viciousness and bile and destruction and sadism in all of that.
Now, children, absolutely.
Love, need, are desperate for, hungry for,
And reach for bonding with their parents all the time.
I mean, I love my daughter enormously and one of the things that's great is I say, I'm going to do X, Y, or Z chore or errand or something like that.
Would you like to come?
And she'll jump up and, you know, we'll find a way to enjoy, have conversations, make jokes, and she'll come.
I mean, that's just, you know, she's
Pushin' 15, so it's really nice that, you know, this eye-rolling teenager phase.
I mean, there's a little bit of it, which I actually quite like.
I think it's very cute and funny, but she very much enjoys my company.
I absolutely love her company, and my wife and her get along very well, and all of that.
So, your kids just really need you, and they're stuck with you, right?
They're stuck with you.
I mean, to take a dog home from a pet store
And then starve it, or lock it in a very tight crawl space so it can't move very much, or deprive it of water and so on, is such a raging, vicious, vile, sociopathic, sadistic, ugly, mean, evil, vicious thing to do.
I mean, it can scarcely be comprehended.
And we can understand that when we think of pets or other things like that, or kidnap victims and so on.
Now, with children,
You choose to engage in activities, whether it's pregnancy, you choose to keep the child, you choose to bring the child home, you choose to keep the child at home.
So the child is in a situation where the child desperately needs you, right, as a parent.
Now, when you withhold that which the child desperately needs, there is such a rage and cruelty in that, that it's very easy to miss.
And of course you kind of have to miss it because
When you're being neglected as a child, you're still getting your food and you're still getting your water.
You're still getting your shelter.
You're still getting your health care.
And you get some, I guess, some levels of attention, even if it's mostly negative.
So you're getting things.
And I don't know exactly what the phrase is, but it's like, Oh, don't rock the boat.
Right?
Don't rock the boat is sort of the phrase.
And this is refers to like, if the boat is really low in the water and it's uncertain and it's stormy seas,
Don't rock the boat.
Just deal with what you've got.
Hang on to what you've got.
What is it?
Somebody said Bon Jovi.
At this point in life, they've got to be at least three quarters of the way there.
So don't rock the boat.
So you don't want to annoy your parents if you believe or feel or know or understand that
Their neglect means that they can take you or leave you, they're not bonded, they're not attached, so if you annoy them too much, then they will just leave you behind or they won't protect you from a predator or you won't get any food or whatever it is, right?
So you're like, okay, my parents don't really like me that much, they don't really care about me that much, so I really better not rock the boat, right?
So you get this kind of stasis, this paralysis, and you just kind of get by, you get this
You know, big fantasy creativity life, and you know, the lack of external stimuli produces the internal stimuli we call creativity, and so on.
This also happens with an excess of negative external stimuli drives you into your own self, like nails into a wood.
So...
How did you heal from neglect?
Of course I don't know, relative to you as an individual.
There's some principles that I found helpful and I'll sort of pass those along and you can see if they fit into your history and your circumstance.
So how do you heal from neglect?
I mean the first thing that you have to view, do in my view, again just my particular view, let me just make it not you have to, right?
But what I think is, healing is
How do you heal from trauma?
Well, you have an accurate view of what it is.
Right?
You have an accurate view of what it is.
When you have the truth about something.
I don't know exactly what that's called healing, but they say the analogy is like trauma is like a wound and you don't want to keep irritating the wound or, you know, walking on the twisted ankle.
So you have to do something to heal the trauma and the trauma.
I don't particularly view it that way.
This is the moral philosopher in me, but I don't even like the word trauma too much.
And of course, I'm sure I've used it in the past, but this is sort of how my thinking is in this split second.
That's sort of how I'm evolving.
I don't view it really as trauma.
I view it as evil.
Right?
Did you suffer trauma?
Nope!
You suffered evil.
And neglecting children is evil.
Because you have the child, you've confined the child, the child desperately needs you, you owe the child.
And you won't provide.
You won't provide.
You trap the child with you and you don't provide the emotional sustenance your child needs absolutely the most.
Like we understand this.
If dogs need to be walked and if you don't walk dogs, they kind of go crazy and it's really cruel because they need their movements and they love to move.
And so if you have a dog, particularly one of those wiry hyper greyhound dogs in like a small confined space and you never take it for a walk, it's really cruel.
It's very cruel.
It's abusive, it's immoral, right?
So a trauma, how do you heal from trauma, to me is not the right nomenclature because it's specifically amoral, right?
And you don't see a lot of psychologists dealing with objective definitions of good and evil.
There's a lot of like
So, for me, how do you heal from trauma?
Well, this is exactly the same language you would use if you had a traumatic
Injury to your body.
Some of you broke your arm and say, how do I heal from the trauma?
Well, you know, you get your arm set or whatever, you bolt the bones if you need to, you untwist the fracture or whatever funky stuff they do in a medicine these days, and that's what you do.
The heal from trauma.
So it's a specifically amoral, it's a specifically amoral formulation.
Now, to recover from evil,
Must mean to identify that evil.
Because if you don't identify the evil, then you will just keep getting exploited and acted against by evildoers.
Right?
So if there's cholera in the water supply, but you think that the cause of everybody's cholera is dancing, then you'll ban dancing.
And then when that doesn't solve the problem, you'll ban drinking spirits.
And when that doesn't solve...
If you believe that the source of the cholera is not the germs in the water, but something else, you can't solve the problem.
You just keep getting sick, right?
So, my concern with healing from trauma is it's an amoral medical term, and if you've actually suffered from evil, if you've suffered from evil, if you do not identify that evil, you will continue to suffer from
Uh, that evil in the same way that if you don't identify the source of an illness, uh, you will continue to suffer from, uh, that, that illness.
Right.
So I would sort of reframe this and say, it's not so much healing from trauma.
That is the key issue.
The key issue is identifying evil.
And neglect is one of the worst forms of abuse, in my humble opinion.
I've made this sort of case for it before, so you can look that up.
I'm making the case in the Peaceful Parenting book, so it's kind of fresh in my brain.
But it's not so much healing from trauma as it is identifying evil.
Now, what is our response to evil?
Right?
So our response to a physical threat is fight or flight, right?
So what is our response
To evil.
There was a movie, gosh, with Holly Hunter and some young woman.
I think it was called 13.
And it was pretty hyper, pretty dramatic.
Not very good.
But this girl was like a real monster.
And Holly Hunter played the mother who just kept recoiling in horror from what her daughter was doing.
And of course, it's the culture and it's whatever.
I can't remember how they explained it, but it wasn't anything to do with... I don't think there was a dad around or anything like that.
So what is our response to evil?
What is our response to evil?
Our response to trauma, or threatened trauma, is fight or flight, right?
A bear runs into the woods, you try and fight it.
If you can't fight it, you run away, or vice versa.
You fight or flight, or freeze, right?
What is our response to evil?
What is our response to evil?
Well,
A lot of times it's significant anger.
But in my particular case, my response to evil was extreme anger and recoiling, sort of simultaneously.
To recoil.
To recoil.
So if you have been neglected, my view is that you have suffered from great evil.
An accurate identification of that evil is very important.
Is very important.
In general, the response to significant evil is rage.
Now, this is not rage you should act upon.
This is, you know, it's important to feel, but you don't act it out.
And we know that because animals that are constantly tortured will become very raging and spiteful and vicious and angry.
It becomes chronic, right?
It becomes chronic.
Now, neglect is an even more chronic condition than physical beatings or a molestation, right?
I'm not trying to rank them relative to each other, but I'm just saying that beatings are at least, you know, even if they happen daily, it's like 10 minutes a day.
If it happens once a week, it's 10 minutes a week or however long it takes, right?
But it's distinct.
It's not actually and absolutely
Chronic.
But neglect is different.
Because neglect is like this permanent state of absence.
Neglect happens instead of like the beatings which happen 10 minutes a day or 10 minutes a week or 10 minutes a month.
The neglect happens all the time.
And it happens even more often when you're sitting down with your parents or whoever is neglecting you, right?
Because then everybody's staring mostly into their potato
Leek soup or whatever and it's not talking and it's even more excruciating, right?
So they're punishing you with proximity so that you flee from them again.
And it's like this permanent state.
It's unrelenting.
You know, when you had your beating, you weren't going to get beaten for that day anymore.
But it's the difference between a thunderclap that startles you and tinnitus, which is permanent, right?
Or can be.
So, that's the big challenge, is that it is an absence that is permanent.
So, the trauma is permanent, and therefore it's easy to forget.
It's not vivid, it's not, oh yeah, I remember that time I got beaten, or, you know, for me, that time I got my head beaten against the door.
So, that stuff's very vivid, but it's very different with neglect.
It's more chronic, it's permanent, it's undifferentiated, and with
Beatings, the transmission from the parent to the child is, you're bad, you're disobedient, you're really naughty, you're evil, or whatever it is, right?
But with neglect, it's different, right?
The big transfer in neglect is, you're boring.
You're boring.
You're just not interesting.
Nobody wants to take any interest in you.
Passions are solitary and uninspiring, and you don't matter, and you're invisible, and we can't rouse ourselves.
And of course, you can say, oh, well, you know, my parents are depressed, and this, that, and the other.
But in general, violence is, I can't stand you.
And neglect is, you're not interesting.
I'd rather watch this TV show.
I'd rather play bridge.
I'd rather, whatever, right?
Clean the garage.
I'd rather, right, than spend time with you.
So, beatings are sort of a hyper-stimulation and produce at least scar tissue, but neglect is like this soft erasure, this soft erosion.
Neglect is like, you don't usually see the big clump of leaves fall from a tree, but fall they do, right?
So, it's extraordinarily evil, but it's the kind of evil where you get locked in a cage and they kind of forget about you and then just throw you some food once in a while.
They don't hate you.
They don't beat you.
They just don't even care to interact with you at all.
They just kind of forget you in the bowels of the basement of the dungeons, right?
And then, of course, that becomes a normalizing, self-fulfilling prophecy.
Because, you know, deep down it's like, well, if my parents who, you know,
If my parents went through the whole hassle of pregnancy and childbirth and, you know, labor, childbirth, and they breastfed me and got up three times a night and all of that, then how on earth could they possibly be ignoring me?
Obviously, they really wanted a kid.
They worked hard to have a kid or multiple kids.
How could they possibly be ignoring me?
I mean, you understand it's completely bizarre.
It'd be like if you said to your, your wife, if you said, I'm going to spend three months planning like the ultimate evening out for us and work night and day and plan for, right.
And then you kind of showed up and didn't, didn't pay any attention to her.
I mean, that would be insane, right?
It'd be very bizarre and incredibly hurtful and destructive to the relationship as a whole.
I mean, that would be insane.
So, and of course, you know, the parents keep you around and so on.
So, so the problem is if you're aggressed against violently, a lot of times you go out into the world kind of punchy and then that generates a lot more aggression, but that's a sea.
Use temperature, you know how to swim in, right?
With neglect, your parents transmit to you that you're boring, uninteresting, uninspiring.
And everything.
And then you go out into the world and you don't share because who cares?
And you don't make jokes because you're not funny and you don't tell stories because you're boring.
And so nobody pays any attention to you and neglect just goes around you like this little multi-dimensional moat that just seals you off like a cyst from the social world around you, right?
This is one of the reasons why it's so destructive.
It tends to be so repetitive.
Can't win.
Why try?
Don't bother.
Who cares, right?
So it's a great evil.
Your parents withheld from you the social modeling and social nutrition for years or decades that you absolutely essentially needed to survive and flourish in the future.
Kids who are beaten can often end up with a kind of punchy aggression that can get them ahead in life.
But the neglected kids are just wallpaper ghosts that pass by without anybody noticing.
Right?
That's the real crippling is
I mean, it's all crippling, right?
But to me, the most crippling is, number one, sexual abuse, number two, the neglect.
The neglect.
So, you were starved, you were... And every, every moment that your parents continued to ignore you, right?
Every moment that your parents continued to ignore you was an assault.
It was a permanent perpetual avoidance assault, in my view.
And that's a tough thing to process, but it was a great evil that you suffered as someone who was neglected.
And it's not healing from trauma.
It's identifying evil that they withheld from you.
That which was essential to your survival, that they trapped you in their home and then refused to interact with you, which was absolutely necessary for your survival and your flourishing and your future success.
That through their cruelty, they, in my view, and often successfully for a lot of people, sabotage you for the rest of your life and you sail through life feeling like a blown piece of dust bunny, a ghost and nothing.
A chameleon blending into the background, blending into the wallpaper, and you end up like that guy.
You know, the drawing of that guy at the corner of the party, it's like a line drawing, bad drawing of a guy in the corner of the party.
Everyone else is dancing, and he's like, yeah, but they don't know I found these really cool rocks in the driveway.
Oh, God.
Oh, God.
Oh, God.
Oh, like that other really depressing one, same kind of line drawing with the guy, the dad in the doorway, are you winning, son?
You know, just dropping in and no coaching, no feedback, no... Oh, it's horrible.
So yeah, that you were the victim of a great and perpetual evil is something to identify.
When you identify that evil, yeah, you'll feel some anger and, you know, that can be very healthy.
Again, don't act on it in any aggressive, violent manner or physical manner whatsoever.
But, you know, the feelings are probably going to erupt and that's a good thing to go through because that's when you get that anger, that recoiling, that is a way of sealing yourself against the future exploitation and so on, right?
All right.
Let's see here.
Hi Steph.
A while back I asked about vaccines to my son.
You rightly could not answer.
It's medical.
So I have had a long think.
I believe my true question is how do I spot propaganda from truth?
My thoughts are that if one side provides unbiased info and does not try to hide info, then it's probably not propaganda.
Am I right?
Yeah.
So, information can't be biased, right?
Because information is neutral, right?
So, unbiased info.
I hate to nitpick, but it's, I think, important to be clear about this kind of stuff.
So, yeah.
How do you spot propaganda?
So, propaganda
Always comes with an implicit, or it could be explicit, in which case it's pretty easy to spot, it's implicit or explicit bribes and threats.
Bribes and threats.
That's how you know it's propaganda.
So, you know, the vaccine thing, it's like, are there legitimate questions?
I don't know.
I mean, I don't like the fact that
Anybody who questions the efficacy of vaccines is anti-science, and putting people's health at risk, and an anti-vaxxer, and it's all of that.
So that's just like, you're a crazy person, you're a conspiracy theorist, so that's your threat, right?
Whereas if you accept everything that's claimed, and so on, then more everything that's shown, then it's like, well, you're a good person, you care about public health, and right?
So when the
The threat and the bribe.
The threat of a negative label, the bribe of positive acceptance.
When people are programmed to attack you for asking questions and applying negative labels to you for having doubts, that's propaganda.
Because what it does is it keys into our survival metric based upon social approval.
That if enough of people disapprove of us in society, we simply cannot survive.
So our genes
get tormented by social attacks, social rejection.
So whipping people into a frenzy of hostility towards group X, group Y, group Z, that is a way of torturing people.
Ostracism, as we know, lights up the same brain mechanisms as physical torture does.
And of course, right, of course, because
Ostracism means genetic death, right?
If nobody will mate with you, nobody will take care of your kids, nobody will hunt with you, nobody will look over you, nobody watch over you while you sleep in the middle of the night in the jungle or whatever, then you're toast, right?
So propaganda is always associated with threats and bribes.
And the threat is ostracism and the bribe is acceptance.
And these are very powerful things.
Of course, there are people who, oh, you should rise above this, that and the other, and, you know, I mean, this is just nonsense.
This sort of, oh, you just shouldn't be susceptible to these things.
You've got to integrally think for yourself.
It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And there are some people who are less susceptible to these kinds of threats and bribes.
I get that.
That's a random scattering of the emotional responses.
And there are some people that are really a lot more susceptible to this kind of stuff, where the threat of ostracism is unbearable.
Because when this ostracism grenade gets rolled into the tent of society, there are a lot of people who find even the threat of ostracism so unbearable that they will ostracize others for even bringing up any questions.
They'll ostracize and attack others because they find the threat so unbearable.
You know, in general, I would say it's a little bit more men who can handle ostracism, and that's the result of male disposability.
The men who couldn't handle ostracism couldn't do the long-range hunting and fighting that was necessary sometimes for the survival of the tribe.
Or risk themselves for the survival of the tribe.
So male disposability has something to do with men being able to handle ostracism better, slightly better, whereas women really can't.
Of course, women being more taken care of, very young children, babies and young children, they really couldn't afford that much ostracism at all.
So yes, this is why I think propaganda works, you know, maybe slightly a little bit better with women than with men.
So that's how you tell.
So when I see stuff that's out there, the first thing I look for is threats and bribes.
When there's an idea that's floating out there.
Threats and bribes.
Threats and bribes.
Threats and bribes.
And whenever you see negative labels attached to particular perspectives, that's just propaganda almost certainty.
Almost certainly.
I mean, of course, there's a probrium attached to things like murderers.
Okay, I get that.
But I'm talking about in the realm of science, right?
So if you're a climate change denier, then you don't care about the future, you don't care about the world, you want everyone to die.
So this person's belief poses a threat to your survival, right?
It's a threat to our democracy, right?
So you say, oh, this person's belief poses a threat to your survival, or to the survival of your loved ones, or institutions that you treasure, or the way of life that you enjoy.
This person's belief poses a threat, and therefore this person is like a virus, and they should be eliminated, or driven out of society, or whatever it is, right?
Whereas if you agree with me, I will lavish praise upon you and buy you a slice of pizza or something like that.
So that to me is the big thing to look for.
The moment I see, here's this perspective, the moment I see the threats and bribes, I've no interest in what's being said.
Because it's not about the thing itself.
It's about the threats and the bribes.
And I mean, other things, of course, you can look for rampant conflict of interest and
And so on, but to me, the threats and bribes is a pretty, pretty great way of figuring out where the propaganda is.
All right.
Let's see here.
I read The Fountainhead almost two years ago and loved it, but I'm not sure I really understood the character of Ellsworth Toohey.
Why is he, why he chooses to be evil?
Could you give us your take?
Maybe refer to a podcast where you talk about it at length.
Thanks.
Yeah, I did a book.
We used to have a book club many years ago.
We did like Nietzsche's The Antichrist.
We did The Fountainhead and so on.
So Ellsworth Toohey, I mean, again, please understand that I'm sure you're aware that Ayn Rand is not a naturalist writer.
She's a romantic writer.
So, her character's about as realistic as superheroes.
I mean, to some degree, right?
And there's nothing wrong with that.
I mean, we need those ideals to look for.
Like, most people who work out will never look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but it's fine to have that as an ideal to motivate you and whatever it is, right?
But I think he was pretty genetically gifted or, I don't know, biochemically enhanced or whatever happened to give him all of those meaty man muscles.
So, yeah, you won't probably meet someone like Ellsworth Tuohy, but... So, in The Fountainhead you have two classes of people, the individualists and the second-handers.
So the individualists think for themselves, reason according to empirical reality and facts and evidence and so on, and they say what is true, what is right, what is true, what is good, and they judge it for themselves according to reason and evidence.
The second-handers don't say
What is true, they say, what do people believe is true?
The second handers don't say what is right, they say, what do people approve of?
They don't say what is evil, they say, what do people dislike?
So, Howard Rourke works with physical materials, right?
He's an architect, so he works with, you know, steel and concrete and bricks and foundations and steel trusses and all kinds of stuff, right?
And Ayn Rand actually worked in an architect's office for five years to get what she wanted for the book.
So, he works directly with reality and he's not that interested in people.
Ellsworth Tuohy, on the other hand, doesn't manipulate things, he manipulates people.
Right?
So, an engineer manipulates things to create shelter and machinery and so on.
Ellsworth Tuohy, as a second-hander, is not interested in material reality, he's interested in people.
He gets his resources from people.
He's a manipulator.
He's a sophist.
He's a liar.
And so, these are two opposing characters.
And Peter Keating is the intermediary.
He's the character arc, the journey from one to the other.
The tragic figure who could have done better.
So, Ellsworth Toohey is somebody who has devoted himself to manipulating and controlling people and their opinions or thoughts, rather than manipulating and controlling reality, as Howard Roarke.
And as close as Dominique is tempted to do, because Dominique has great physical beauty, and therefore it's much easier for her to manipulate people.
And Ayn Rand said that Dominique is herself on a bad day.
And so on.
So, I mean, you can find this.
It's not hard.
Sorry.
I mean, when I say it's not hard, I don't mean that it's obvious.
I mean that once you see it, it's easy.
But seeing it is hard because there's so much that's put into not seeing this.
So when you meet someone, you ask them what they do.
And do they use words to manipulate people?
Or do they use their hands to manipulate things in the real world?
Do they use their words to manipulate people?
Or do they use their hands to manipulate things?
This is sort of the foundation.
Right?
Now, of course, I'm aware that I'm using words right now.
I'm not, I'm not digging a ditch for you or building a brick wall.
So I get all of that, but I'm not manipulating you.
I'm giving you facts and reason and evidence and arguments.
And you think for yourself and you evaluate them and so on.
And I'm sort of very careful to say, this is what's worked for me.
This is my experience, my perspective.
I can't tell you what to do, what to think and so on to make the case.
Right?
And so,
When you meet people and you find out sort of what they do, you find out their history.
And I've said this before, like, if a person that I meet has never had a job where they work with actual reality, right?
If they've been, you know, well, you know, I got a job as a summer intern at this think tank and
And then I went to university, and then I got a graduate degree, and then I got a job at a bigger think tank, and then I became a blah-blah-blah bureaucrat here and there.
It's like, okay, so you've not actually worked tangible material reality.
And again, a little bit more male-female, right?
Men like things, women like people, men like building, women like conversation, and that's all fine.
I'm just saying there's a little bit more this way, which is why Ellsworth Toohey has a kind of feminine character to her, and why Dominique Francon
So do you work with language to manipulate people or do you work with your hands to control actual things in the world?
Those are the two sort of broad categories of people.
All right.
So I hope that that helps.
All right.
My wife tells me that while I'm at work, our 18-month-old will scratch and throw things at her when he doesn't get his way.
She wants to smack his hand.
I tell her that is not an option.
And why?
She's resenting me for not letting her do it.
I tried to give her other options, but she says those options will only make him angrier.
For example, a room divider in our living space, so she can do her duties in the kitchen and not be within his reach.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to laugh.
He's not like this when I'm around, because I'm the fun dad, but that can give him full attention when home.
I could use more solutions slash options for her.
But even then, she might persist in being a victim.
Typing out this message has been helpful already because some of what you'll say is coming to me.
Thank you.
Okay, so he's 18 months old.
Interesting.
Interesting, interesting, interesting.
So let's break this out.
She's resenting me for not letting her smack his hand.
So her theory is that aggression
Okay, so she's resenting me for not letting her do it.
Well, um, I would, I would imagine that's your basic problem.
So she wants to do something.
You're not letting her do it.
She's resenting you for it.
Right?
Right.
Now she's saying, I want to hit my child and whatever they say, a smack on the hand, right?
It has to be something that's startling and aversive enough for him to change his behavior.
She said, I want to hit my child.
My husband isn't letting me do it.
So I resent my husband.
I'm sorry, that is an unbelievably childish response.
And, you know, I say this bluntly because this is something that needs to be, like, fixed now.
Like, no fooling, no delay.
This has to be fixed now.
So, she reserves the right to say that she wants to do something despite your good arguments, right?
So what does that mean?
What does that mean?
Like, if I think that 2 and 2 make 5, and somebody comes and says 2 and 2 make 4, and I'm resentful at that person and still really want to believe that 2 and 2 makes 5, I'm in a toddler state of mind.
Like, how on earth could you possibly resent someone for having you not strike your child, for convincing you to not strike your child?
So that means she's not on board with the morals, she's not on board with the reason and evidence.
And she's incredibly immature.
And I'd say this, not that, you know, this is hopeless or terrible.
I'm just saying this is, this is the situation that needs to be fixed right away.
Like she really, really, really, really, really, really, really needs to grow up.
And I hate using that phrase because, oh, grow up.
It just sounds so bad.
But this situation where she's, she's reacting to you as he's reacting to her.
Right?
So, so he's doing something she doesn't want to do.
Sorry.
He's doing something she doesn't want him to do.
And I guess she prevents him or stops him and then he gets aggressive, right?
And then you say to your wife, I don't want you hitting our kid.
And then she gets resentful and aggressive, right?
So the behavior is being modeled directly from her.
The behavior is being, the aggression is because it's being modeled directly from her.
Look, he looks into her eyes.
He knows she wants to hit him.
He knows she wants to hit him.
Right?
And he also knows that the dynamic is that she will resentfully submit to your authority without changing her mind and resenting you the whole way.
Right?
You understand?
She will resentfully submit to your authority without changing her mind, annoyed at you the whole time.
She hasn't agreed with you.
She simply submitted to you.
So she's modeling
This aggression, because she's resenting you not, quote, letting her hit your kid, which means she's not making her own decisions.
She's not thinking for herself.
She's not saying, look, I accept your arguments.
Of course we can't hit the children.
I'm sorry.
I thought that that's a really bad idea.
It was my frustration getting the better of me, because then she wouldn't resent you for convincing her to not hit your son.
She would thank you.
She would thank you.
And be kind of horrified that she ever thought of it.
If she agrees with you, if she understands and accepts your arguments.
Now, if you make the case to not hit your kids, and she doesn't accept your case, she counter-argues, she pushes back or whatever, then you need to resolve that.
Reason, evidence, morals, the data, Elizabeth Gershoff's work, whatever you want to work with, right?
But to resentfully submit to your authority, without changing her mind and being annoyed the whole time,
That's a terrible thing to model to your children.
It's a terrible thing to model to your children.
I mean, when you put your kid in the car seat in the car, you know, maybe you have that seat belt that goes in and straps it down or whatever, right?
Now, if I get in the back of the car and I say, whoa, hey, whoa, don't drive off.
This strap is loose.
Your kid's going to go flying all over the car whenever you hit the brakes, right?
What would you say to me?
Would you be resentful?
No, you would be incredible.
Oh my God.
Thank you so much.
I didn't see that, right?
You follow?
So I had done something that would help protect your child.
You would not be resentful of me.
You'd be grateful to me.
So the fact that she's resentful towards you means that she's viewing you as an authority figure and she has subversion as her methodology.
Well, fine.
I won't hit him, right?
But I still want to, and it's still the right thing to do, but I bow to your authority, or I'll accept what you say.
But that aggression comes out in some other way.
Because she hasn't internalized the value system which says, don't hit your kids.
It's wrong to hit your kids.
Like, fine, I won't hit them.
Fine.
Dammit.
You don't think that aggression is going to come out in some other way?
Right?
So she's probably complaining that your son is not listening to reason, is not
Respecting her boundaries or her or what she's saying or and but she's not respecting Your words in terms of internalizing them and becoming wiser thereby And you know this because this is exactly what you've said to me.
I'm not telling you anything.
You don't know, right?
Do you understand this?
This is what is happening?
So if you guys want to call in I'm happy to do that But she absolutely like here's the thing man.
If you're an adult and you're a parent you don't get
resentful acquiescence in your toolbox.
If you don't get that, fine, I'll do it, but I'll dislike you anyway, right?
That's not a thing you have, because that's going to model to your kids.
Your son is a sponge absorbing all of this stuff.
All of this stuff is being absorbed by your son, right?
And so if he sees his mother bowing down to your authority,
He will not have any respect for her whatsoever because she hasn't internalized any values.
She's just obeying you as the alpha.
And you say, oh, it's because I'm the fun dad.
No, that's not it at all.
That's not it at all.
Your son sees his mother bowing to your authority, wanting to hit him so he has no respect for her.
Because she's not doing what she thinks is right, but she's bowing down to your authority in a resentful kind of way.
No respect.
Now you, as the quote alpha in this relationship, right?
You're acting on your values, you've internalized your values, and you're not resentful at being ordered around and told what to do that goes against what you think is right.
So he's not aggressive with you,
Because he has respect for you.
And the only way he's going to have respect for his mother, in my humble opinion, I don't know for sure, obviously, because this is just a small piece of text that I'm working with here.
But the only way I think he's going to have respect for his mother is if his mother sits down with you.
He doesn't, of course, he wouldn't be present for this conversation.
And, you know, you say to her, okay, so why aren't you smacking the kid?
Right.
Why aren't you smacking her son?
Well, you've told me not to.
Okay.
So how is he going to respect you if he just knows you're doing what you're told?
How are you going to have any authority with him if you don't have any authority with yourself?
How are you going to teach him to be good if you're only doing what you're told?
Because what you're doing by acquiescing to me and not hitting him just because I'm strongly urging you not to,
What you're doing is you're teaching him that aggression works.
Because I'm aggressive with you telling you not to hit our son.
And you obey but resent me for it.
So you're teaching him aggression with mom really works.
Because mom will do what you want.
She won't agree with you.
She won't disagree with you.
But you can get her to bow down and do what you want.
By being aggressive.
Because he perceives that you're aggressive.
No, you can't hit her kid.
Absolutely not.
And she's like, fine, I won't.
Right.
Okay.
So aggression works with mom.
Aggression doesn't work with dad, but aggression works with mom.
And lo and behold, bingo, bingo, bongo.
Here we are.
So again, I say this with sympathy to her, but yeah, that's the reality of the situation as I see it.
Of course, if you guys want to call in and talk, I'm certainly happy to.
I'll talk further about this, but yeah, that's the deal as far as I can see it.
All right, let's see.
My four-year-old daughter, sorry, our four-year-old daughter has been acting out lately.
She's drawing on walls, shredding up paper, or toilet paper, etc.
It's my understanding she's acting out to communicate something bad, but I can't figure out what it is.
It does not seem like it comes from a place of anger or rage, just mischievous behavior.
Any advice?
She's drawing on walls, shredding up paper or toilet paper, etc.
So...
The way, in general, obviously, I don't know, right?
Again, happy to call in with anyone who wants them, right?
I mean, call in at freedomain.com.
I'll do my best to accommodate.
So, the way, I think, to approach children in this context or circumstance is you say, okay, how does the child's behavior make me feel?
And that's probably what the child is feeling and is not communicating.
So how does the child make me feel?
Right?
So, you know, in the early example of the boy who's, you know, throwing things or whatever, how does my child make me feel?
Angry!
Okay, well, then my child is probably angry and is not able to communicate it.
Or is, and I say not able to, it's usually not because they're physically unable to or don't have the words, but because there's no space for them to talk about it.
So, if you've got a very shy child, she's making you feel
Cautious or afraid.
So the child feels cautious or afraid and is not able to communicate it.
So they model it out.
That which we can't speak, but we're desperate to communicate, we hand sign and hand sign is a form of non-verbally acting out.
Right?
So let's say he's acting out.
Lately, she's drawing on walls, shredding up paper or toilet paper, et cetera.
Okay.
So what does that make you feel?
Because these are kind of like intrusive or invasive property violations.
Drawing on walls is kind of like a property violation in a way, right?
Four, she should know to not draw on walls.
Shredding up paper, she's damaging property in her environment.
Okay, so damaging property in her environment means that she's kind of trampling on communal rights.
So then you have to look at the environment and say, okay,
I feel a little violated.
I feel annoyed.
I feel like she's not respecting the communal space or whatever it is, right?
Okay.
So in what ways are the communal space not respecting her?
In what ways is, is you, your family or siblings or probably you and your, your wife or you and your husband, in what way are you not respecting her boundaries?
In what ways are you not respecting her sanctity, so to speak, right?
So she is,
defacing or invading or despoiling the communal space, which probably means that she feels invaded or disrespected or without boundaries or despoiled in a way herself.
So it means that something is happening in the environment that is a boundary violation for her, she's unable to talk about, or there's no space for her to talk about it, in which case she's acting it out and trying to recreate the boundary violations
With you.
That would be my first guess.
Of course, there could be other things, but that would be my thought.
All right.
Why does the idea of freedom cause anxiety in a lot of people?
Well, because they profit from coercion.
I'm sorry, I don't mean to... Why do security cameras and guard dogs provoke anxiety in people who want to break into your house?
Why does that upset them?
Because it makes it tougher for them to break into your house.
Right, so it's about 50-50 in a lot of places in the West.
About 50% of people pay the taxes and about 50% of people collect the taxes.
You know, men pay more taxes, women collect more from the tax system and so on.
So why do people dislike freedom?
Because they don't get to exploit people that way.
It's sort of like saying to someone who has a license from the king to transport spices from India, no one else can do it.
And it's like, why does he not like free trade?
It's like, because he can't profit as much, because he doesn't get to exploit people by banning other people from competing.
So, yeah, why do people dislike freedom?
Because they're profiting from coercion, and freedom would threaten that.
Now, of course, in the long run, they'd be better off, blah, blah, blah, but yeah, it's not good.
What do you think about Owen Benjamin?
Yeah, so he's a comedian, and he's got a community, I think, that's going on.
I don't.
I don't really think much about him.
I did a couple of shows with him back in the day, and he seems like a nice enough fellow.
I don't know much about what he thinks or believes.
I think he's criticized me for a free society not protecting children enough, but we've never really gotten into it, so I don't have particular thoughts about it.
What have we got here?
Thoughts on Gavin McGinnis and the persecution of the Proud Boys?
I mean, I'm not in politics, and I think that's enough said and pretty obvious as to why.
Can you heal your capacity for pair bonding after refraining from hedonistic behavior and pursuing a more virtuous path through self-work and responsibility?
So again, heal your capacity for pair bonding.
So our selected behavior is, right, so where you just sleep around and pursue hedonistic short-term pleasure goals.
That is the result of a significant contact with evil.
That sort of chaos and abuse and so on causes triggers these behavior.
So again, we've got this kind of Healy.
And, you know, again, I'm sure people can look back on my old shows and says, Oh, here's a show that says heal yourself from trauma.
I get all of that.
And I accept that and so on.
Right.
But I mean, I assume you don't want me to never evolve.
So this is by my thinking at the moment that I'm somewhat beyond or past this.
Heal your capacity for pair bonding.
So pair bonding occurs in a situation of virtue, because you're not pair bonding with the person, you're pair bonding with that person's integrity.
Because integrity means reliable behavior, and reliable behavior can be trusted, and pair bonding is deep trust.
So pair bonding isn't like something that while I heal my hedonism and pair bonding magically emerges.
Pair bonding, well first of all you have to be able to trust yourself.
So the first pair bonding you have to have is with your own integrity, right?
You sort of follow, right?
So you absolutely, completely and totally need to be able to predict your own behavior to a large degree.
I mean, I've done these shows for 17, 18 years, and I've been pretty consistent over the years and all of that.
And I think I've earned the right to be trusted in these areas, which is why people call in with these call-in shows and, you know, to some degree entrust some of their deepest, darkest challenges to the conversation that we have.
You know, I know that I'm not just going to start screaming abuse at someone.
I don't mean to laugh because it's not funny, but the idea is to me kind of laughable.
I know that I'm not going to sit there and scream abuse at someone the next time I do a show or anything like that or, you know, call them an a-hole or tell them to F off or whatever it is like that.
I mean, I think I've earned that sort of trust and that kind of consistency, right?
So you have to have integrity yourself so that you can predict your own future behavior.
So that you're not random, you don't just sit there and say, well I had a bad day so I yelled at people, you know?
I had a bad day so I kicked a dog.
I had a bad day so I just gave myself permission to storm around and be negative and mean and hostile.
You don't do that, right?
It doesn't mean you're perfect, nobody is, but you don't give yourself that kind of permission, right?
So, if you have consistent behavior yourself, because you have integrity and you have standards that, you know, you strive however imperfectly to meet, and you could be called out on that, right?
So, you know, I was talking about this in my Baldur's Gate 3 review with my daughter, that she's like, you know, sometimes you get a little petty when you get some bad dice rolls in a row.
And I'm like, yeah, you know what?
I'll do a whole show about luck, because I have a whole history with luck, in that I have felt both.
In general, I feel very lucky in life, but I definitely get irritated and somewhat take personally... a little bit irritated and somewhat take personally a string of bad luck, and I'll sort of unpack that at some point.
But yeah, she sort of made that point, and it's like, you know what, you're... I mean, you're completely right, and it's very silly.
It's very silly, because again, I do have a great life, and thank you everyone again so much for your support of all of this, but I'm very blessed in that way, and I feel very
Fortunate to be able to do what I do and it's a it's a great and glorious thing that we're engaged in here.
So so yeah, so Pair bonding I have to have some predictability in my behavior which is why you know, like, you know, there are these couples and I've had relationships like this in the past where You know, you've got a day together and it's like hope we don't roll snake eyes, you know Hope someone's not in a bad mood.
Hope things don't go badly.
I mean honestly, I mean I go out with my family and
We never fight.
I mean, people, you know, maybe don't really believe this or whatever, but we always know we're going to go and have a good time and it's going to be fun and great laughs are going to ensue.
And, you know, this is why, you know, when I'm going out to, as I mentioned earlier, to do a chore, my daughter's like, oh, I'll come because we're going to have fun.
We're going to enjoy each other's company.
We're going to talk about important things and funny things.
And it's going to be a great deal of enjoyment.
And I get to listen to her.
Talk about her social circle, which is very interesting to me, and all of that.
So, it's just consistency, right?
Consistency.
Now, how can I be consistent over the course of doing this show?
How can I be consistent over the course of my personal relationships?
Well, I mean, I have some standards that I really... I don't... At this point, they're kind of automatic, so I don't usually have to strive for them too hard, but, you know, I do have these standards that I try to achieve and work towards, and if I'm being called out on them, like, sorry, if I'm deviating from those standards,
Then, like, if I say, oh that's not right, you know, when I get three critical hits from the bad guys in a row at Baldur's Gate 3, and my daughter says, oh dad, you know, and I'm like, oh yeah, you're right, it doesn't make any sense, right?
It's not right to grumble about that stuff, because it is just dice rolls and whatever, right?
So she can point that out, and I'm like, yeah, you're right.
And it becomes a joke, right?
And so I'm not, like, upset or mad or anything, but it is unfair, you know?
The dice are rigged, or, you know, as one of my friends used to say, back playing on the Atari 2600, the joystick's defective, you know?
It's gonna rrrr, right?
So, pair bonding?
Well, you have to earn it.
And the way that you earn pair bonding is you have standards of behavior that you
Aim towards that you communicate to people and that you hold other people to those standards too.
Right?
You hold other people to those standards as well.
But first of all, you have to manifest it yourself.
So pair bonding is just a recognition of the predictable positive behavior from a fairly resolute commitment to virtue, consistency, and integrity.
So if you aim at those things, but it's not some sort of magical tentacle that just reaches out and attaches to people.
There's very sort of specific things you can do to increase its odds.
Let's see here.
Do you think, says someone, having practical skills is important?
For example, being able to fix and make things?
Do you teach your daughter these things?
If you had a son, do you think it's more important that you do so?
All the best.
T-I-A.
I don't know what that means, but I'm not particularly handy.
I mean, I worked in a hardware store as a teenager, and there's a couple of things that I can do, but I'm not particularly handy.
And, you know, heaven help our family when I'm involved in helping to put a chicken coop together.
I mean, I'm okay.
I'm not too bad, but it's not my particular thing.
So, yeah, I mean, certainly women seem to like it, and I think it's important to know some of the basics.
But, you know, I can't exactly strip down and put together a catalytic converter or anything like that, so... I think having some practical skills is important, but for me it's more important.
Using these abstract skills for, hopefully, the betterment of humanity.
So I don't think it's an absolute essential.
All right.
And, you know, it's not a virtue in particular that would drive love.
So thanks, everyone, so much.
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