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Sept. 9, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:59:51

5258 Why You Will Never Get an Apology...

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	Good evening, hope you're doing well.
	It is the 8th of September.
	My third show of the day!
	That's right, that's right.
	Um, let me ask you this, let me ask you this.
	On a scale of 1 to 10, how hangry do you get?
	How hangry do you get?
	Do you get irritable when you're hungry?
	Is that a thing for you?
	Just curious.
	Two, five, eight, two, three, not too bad, right?
	Nah?
	Yeah, so we'll find out if we have any rants tonight, because tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight, oh, I actually had a meal.
	Oh, thank you, Henri, that's very kind, I appreciate your tip.
	Yes, I...
	I actually had a meal.
	So I've been obviously losing weight for a little while and so I have been doing that by just not eating meals really.
	I'll have like a little bit here and there.
	Anyway, so tonight, honest to godness, I went out with some friends and their kids and my wife and Izzy and a wonderful evening, really enjoyable, and I...
	Ate like a bear storing up for the winter.
	I had bread, I had an appetizer, I had a main course, I actually had half a dessert.
	It was... Ah, we're gonna find out!
	How does my mood go?
	I actually had to brush my teeth.
	The peach cobbler was a little sugary.
	But yeah, we'll see.
	Yeah, it's rare.
	It's rare for me to have dessert.
	Share the stream, y'all!
	I will tip the likes on the stream.
	Yes.
	I will tip the likes on the stream up to several thousand.
	Well, that's an incentive.
	Thank you very much.
	I went out for dinner.
	Now I have to pay for that, so I'll need about a million dollars in donations, because it's... Yeah, so actually, I literally had... I can't honestly remind... I can't tell you the... It's been months and months since I had a three-course meal.
	Did you work out today?
	I did work out today.
	Yeah, I did work out today.
	I was talking with one of my researchers and a good friend of mine about we're doing the history of sin.
	Sin, baby!
	Actually, he got it wrong.
	I wanted the history of sine, as in cosine.
	But no, he's doing the history of sin.
	Yeah, but so I generally will work out at least once a day, nothing hugely major, you know, maybe it's just 25 minutes of weights or whatever it is, but I did do about a half hour of weights today and then I did a bit of exercise with my daughter and that was about it.
	Tonight's gonna have myself a real good time.
	All right.
	Did you see the Freddie Mercury estate auction?
	His piano sold for two million dollars.
	Wow.
	I'm down another inch around the waist.
	You know, all the inches that you lose around your waist actually go to your penis.
	So that's good to know.
	Yes, absolutely.
	I need your donations so that I can go bid on Freddie Mercury merchandise.
	Can you imagine trying to fit into his Live Aid pants?
	The man had some narrow, skinny Zanzibar Indian legs.
	I mean, my God, the man was like a stork.
	He was like a pelican.
	Tea for One by Led Zeppelin is a great blues song.
	Oh, thank you.
	I will check it out.
	I actually listened to a biography of Led Zeppelin
	A couple of months ago, it was very interesting.
	Truly, truly, truly highly talented, deeply satanic band, in my humble opinion.
	So I'm not the only one to say it, but say it loud, say it proud.
	Baby, I'm gonna leave you.
	All right.
	So yeah, questions, comments, issues, challenges, problems, whatever's on your mind.
	Let's see if if
	A full meal gets me ranting or just has me... Let's find out.
	What's that great meme?
	You ever see this meme?
	It's like everyone says food gives you energy.
	Me after lunch.
	Do I have coffee?
	No, this is all decaf.
	This is just decaf.
	I have two cups of coffee a day.
	That's it.
	That's all I can do.
	I have one cup of coffee in the morning, sort of early, mid-afternoon, and I'll have another cup of coffee.
	But I really can't have caffeine after that.
	My sleep is very delicate.
	My sleep is basically like, I don't know, some combination of Oscar Wilde and Freddie Mercury.
	Well, and the Zeppelin boys were, well, they were rather partial to the underage girls, as was David Bowie, there were a lot of people back then.
	The 70s were, I mean, just, they were a sick decade.
	They were a sick decade.
	Did you see Elon Musk stopped World War III by disabling Starlink to be used to destroy the Russian naval fleet?
	Oh, those evil capitalists.
	What's wild?
	Yeah, not 13, they're not girlfriends, they're 13.
	What's wild is, you know, so let me tell you something.
	Have you ever, hit me with a why, if you've ever known someone just wildly self-destructive?
	Have you, have you known someone just like wildly, like you can't fathom?
	How they do what they do, like why they do what they do.
	Have you ever known someone like really just honest to goodness, self-destructive?
	It's wild, right?
	Do you think it's inconsistent for your listeners to support you, but also watch YouTube and use Twitter?
	I don't.
	Honestly, if it makes you feel any better, I watch YouTube and use Twitter.
	Uh, so yeah, honestly, it's, it's, it's not particularly relevant, uh, for, uh, changing the world as a whole.
	I'd much rather you inspire people with your virtues than worry about which social media companies you consume.
	So in what way were the people you knew self-destructive?
	Like in what way were they self-destructive?
	Looks like we might have a rant in us after all.
	I knew a guy who wore blackface and drank like 10 Red Bulls a day.
	Super obese.
	And no one liked him.
	The Red Bulls a day, super obese, I get that.
	The blackface seems like a bit of a non sequitur.
	Wait, this isn't Justin Trudeau, right?
	No, no.
	No, he couldn't stop lying.
	No, they couldn't stop lying.
	Yeah.
	Reckless with their life, driving very dangerously on motorcycles.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, that was my friend when I was a teenager.
	Yeah, I know someone who had a cancer growing on his neck and he just sat there drinking alcohol every day and let it grow so big he almost died.
	Yeah.
	Regular cuttings, online illegal drugs, constant injuries at work from no sleep.
	Someone else violent, binge drinking, verbally abusive mother when she didn't get her way.
	Yeah.
	Dating the wrong woman.
	Lost lots of money.
	Girls sleeping around with strangers getting drunk on their own in bars with men.
	Saying odd things at the worst times in front of the boss.
	Somebody says chronic alcoholism.
	He almost died in a boat accident from being so drunk.
	Yeah, so I mean, a guy I met at the gym drank heavily due to war trauma.
	That's certainly, that's certainly possible.
	That's certainly possible.
	So, hit me with a why if you've read Atlas Shrugged.
	Yeah, it's a great book, right?
	Am I?
	Fantastic book, right?
	Honestly, it was a lot of Jewish writers who taught me a lot about philosophy and economics.
	I just was thinking about that the other day.
	But it's worth doing.
	The movie was okay.
	The book does not have a great beginning.
	I remember reading it to a girlfriend when I was in my teens and being like, okay, it gets better from here.
	I don't think the beginning of the book was very good at all, but it is a great book.
	So, it's not much of a spoiler, I think, but one of the things that Ayn Rand writes about is
	People who are so hostile to that which keeps them alive we can only assume that they want to die.
	Does that make sense?
	Like people who are so hostile to the things that keep them alive that the only way to understand it is that they secretly want to die.
	They have what Freud would call the death impulse or thanatos, right?
	That they want to die.
	And I don't know if you've ever known
	I don't know if you've ever known someone like that.
	And what's wild to me is to look at some of the social media responses to Elon Musk.
	As you say, I don't know, you know, we probably don't know much of the truth about it at all.
	But Elon Musk, you know, potentially stopping World War Three, right?
	And people still hate the guy.
	I mean, do you know how liberating that is?
	You know, humanity, all they do is try to work to free you as assiduously and categorically as humanly possible.
	They are so
	Freeing.
	They just want to help you.
	They want to liberate you.
	They want to do all of this great stuff to just make your life.
	I know this sounds cynical.
	I'm not honestly cynical.
	They are just, they liberate you.
	If you listen, all you have to do is listen.
	All you have to do is listen.
	And they will help you so much.
	Anybody know what I'm talking about here?
	Anybody?
	What am I talking about?
	Tell me!
	Tell me!
	What am I talking about?
	How do human beings just liberate you all the time if you listen to them?
	They're just trying to set you free in their own way, 24-7.
	And it reminds me of that old Janis Jackson song.
	We'll get there in a sec.
	We'll get there in a sec.
	But Liberation Nation, man.
	They're just freeing you all the time.
	What is going on?
	Thank you for the double feature Friday, Seth.
	You're welcome, my friend.
	Yeah, like Trump too.
	Started no wars, really.
	How dare you prevent me from being vaporized in hellfire!
	What did he do to stop World War 3?
	He did not ship particular communications among Ukraine for them to attack the Russian fleet, which would have definitely, almost certainly, have resulted in some significant escalation of the war.
	They tell you the truth in their actions, they manifest their dysfunction,
	They would be willing to let the state harm you, yeah.
	Tony says, I think that self-destructive impulse is happening on a civilizational scale.
	Since we are at the end of a civilizational cycle, a significant portion are deciding to die.
	It will get worse before it gets better.
	Alright.
	So, this is how wrapped up their own
	Intestinal asses people are.
	So they've been told that African-American Elon Musk is bad guy.
	He's bad guy.
	He's bad guy because he's free speech guy and that's bad guy, right?
	So they've been told, in their inimitable NPC fashion, they've been told to dislike Elon Musk.
	Now, look, everyone over the course of their life, you, me, everyone, we've all gone off on the wrong foot with someone, right?
	We've all thought, oh, I don't think this person's very good.
	And then it turns out that they're either okay or actually positive.
	We just, maybe we were hangry, maybe we were just in a bad mood, maybe they were in a bad mood, maybe something about them reminds us of someone else.
	So we've all gone off on the wrong foot with someone.
	But, you know, hopefully we're able to listen and be open to having our minds changed and so on, right?
	When the media says to the NPCs, now, now you must dislike Elon Musk.
	And they're like, okay, why?
	Reasons.
	Okay.
	Oh, we hate that guy.
	Right.
	And then it's like, well, he did perhaps prevent a thermonuclear war that would have destroyed the entire planet.
	Is that
	Is that enough?
	Does that, you know, maybe you just got off on the wrong foot with the guy.
	You know, he literally, he could have, you know, saved the entire world and not just the people, but animals, the plants.
	He could have rendered our, the only MCAS planet we know that contains life uninhabitable for the next ever, right?
	So he saved all life in the world, right?
	Is that enough to maybe change your mind about Elon Musk?
	No!
	Do you know how freeing that is?
	Oh my gosh.
	Do you know how freeing that is?
	That you just don't have to care about people like that.
	Do you think World War 3 would probably mean nuclear war?
	Well, there's a reason the elites are buying up their bunkers in New Zealand, my friends.
	And it ain't because they like Kiwi.
	So, people can dislike you to the point, and I'm just gonna say he saved all life on the planet, I know, nobody knows for sure, but let's just say, right?
	So people can dislike you to the point where you literally could save all the life on the planet and prevent them from being vaporized and being nuclear shadows on their own shitty basement apartments and they're like, I'm gonna need more.
	I'm gonna, I'm gonna need more.
	You know, it's not bad.
	Don't get me... I'm not... I'm not... I'm not saying he's bad.
	Necessarily.
	Specifically.
	I'm not saying he's bad for saving all life on the planet.
	But is it enough?
	I mean, is it enough for me to really... change my mind?
	I mean, I've been told to dislike the guy.
	So the fact that he saved all life on the planet... I don't know.
	He still is a white South African.
	No, it's not enough, man.
	What else have we got?
	I mean, can you up the scale from there?
	Can you just give me something else good that he's done?
	I mean, saved all life on the planet.
	I mean, there are other planets, right?
	Other planets?
	I mean, there could be... bacteria on Mars?
	You know, maybe there are wind angels swirling around or the giant pimple storm on the face of Jupiter.
	I mean, other solar systems out there have M-class planets in the Goldilocks zone.
	I mean, has he even thought about what the nine-headed Zuck dragon heads of Aldebaran VII, that they might need their spines scratched?
	Yeah, just get back to me when he saves an entire galaxy, man.
	Saved all human life on the planet.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Well, you know, I gave a homeless guy five bucks the other day, so pretty fucking balances out, wouldn't you say?
	Come on.
	I mean, he may have saved all human life and other life on the planet.
	But,
	But you know, when you think about it, he was balding when he was younger.
	And now he's not balding at all.
	So... Yeah, I don't know.
	I don't know.
	Yeah, I can't get behind the guy.
	I just can't.
	I mean, someone said he was racist.
	Now, it's true that saving all life on the planet does involve saving actual races from being destroyed.
	But still!
	You know, he did save all life on the planet, but he could be a better tipper.
	Yeah, it's wild, man.
	I mean, to be angry at a guy who saved all life on the planet.
	Wild.
	Why do they do this?
	What's the payoff?
	Is it just to look good with their friends, to see whatever the media says as cool?
	Well, this is why I brought up Ayn Rand.
	So Ayn Rand says that they wish for death.
	That they're engineering a society where they wish for their own death.
	Like, whenever you have an ideology that's very much anti-life, you are wishing for your own death.
	Right?
	We have a civilization, in the West at least, entirely built on meritocracy.
	And that meritocracy is being dismantled brick by brick for the sake of ideology.
	Because men run on meritocracy and women run on egalitarianism.
	Right?
	Men run on meritocracy.
	Whoever's the best spear thrower is the one who gets the spear.
	So, because otherwise everyone starves.
	So men run on meritocracy, women run on equality of outcome.
	So we have a society built by the meritocracy of the masculine impulse that's being dismantled by the hyper-egalitarianism and pathological altruism to some degree of the female impulse.
	So, and of course there are lots of great women who prefer meritocracy and there are lots of beta males who just want the equality stuff, right?
	I love meritocracy.
	Meritocracy is as close to heaven on earth as we can possibly get.
	You can't get better than a meritocracy.
	So meritocracy
	is the only way you can get to maximum value, maximum meaning, maximum impact.
	Meritocracy is like this GPS that guides you exactly where you need to be.
	Ah!
	God alive, it's beautiful.
	It is beautiful.
	Meritocracy says, hey, Steph, don't sing, philosophize.
	Don't be an actor mouthing other people's words.
	Use your own words.
	They're better!
	Meritocracy says, don't go work for someone else.
	Do your own shows with this great, beautiful, wonderful audience and we'll build incredible edifices of truth, reason, and value to the future.
	Meritocracy says, yeah, there's tons of software executives in the world.
	Go be a philosopher.
	That's more value to the world.
	That's meritocracy.
	Otherwise, you're just twisting in the wind, following your own impulses and vanity.
	Well, I like to say... No, no, go be a philosopher.
	Well, I like to act... No, go be a philosopher.
	Well, I like the business world... No, go be a philosopher.
	That's the
	Meritocracy.
	Happy Star Trek day, Steph.
	Star Trek?
	Gelled space fascism?
	No, thank you.
	No, thank you.
	You know, I really hope that in the future, governments are really great and military vessels are just full of really noble people.
	That government employees are incredibly efficient, work together, are loyal.
	You understand, it's all proto-fascist propaganda, right?
	My God!
	You know, in Star Trek, the military-industrial complex is really great, is wonderful, does great things, follows the rules, is noble and honourable and moral.
	Our five-year mission to completely lie to you about the potential of a government program so that you'll just nod and smile and think that NASA is something other than money laundering for nerds with their pocket protectors and eyeglasses taped together.
	Resistance is futile.
	Resistance is futile.
	I may be incorrect, but isn't Ayn Rand responsible for the most books sold other than the Bible?
	But where are the feminists whenever she is mentioned?
	Always shitting on her.
	Well, this is, you know, I gave up on feminism when I was like, I don't know, 17.
	When, I can't remember exactly, Margaret Thatcher was a little later, but yeah, so it's not that she's sold more books other than the Bible.
	In terms of books that have influenced people, she's second to the Bible.
	In terms of books that are specifically and actually influence people, Ayn Rand is second only to the Bible.
	Again, this is an old survey, but yeah, pretty good, right?
	It's pretty good.
	Now, so yeah, feminists, and like just so you understand, just how
	Staggeringly brilliant she is.
	She wrote the most influential work of fiction ever penned in the West in a language she only learned as an adult.
	Do you follow?
	In a language she only learned as an adult.
	She did not speak English before she came to America fleeing the communist revolution.
	Almost not making it, which in We the Living she writes about this.
	Now, we the living, they lose.
	The fountainhead, they draw.
	Atlas Shrugged, they win.
	So please understand.
	Can you imagine going to Russia as an adult, learning Russian, and being one of the greatest writers in Russian ever?
	My God.
	Staggering, stone, absolute genius, and anybody who says otherwise is talking out of their ass and has just been programmed.
	Like, I don't even care if you hate her philosophy.
	The languages, and no government handouts, that's right.
	Yeah, I mean, she's staggering.
	She's absolutely staggering.
	And she was right!
	Atlas Shrugged published in 1957.
	She said, we're going to lose our rights if government keeps expanding.
	Government control of the economy is ridiculously inefficient.
	And remember, she was writing all of this in the 19... She took, what, 13 years to write Atlas Shrugged?
	So what's it, 44 to 57?
	Something like that.
	So please understand that she was writing at a time when people thought the government could do everything.
	That the government won World War One, the government got the world out of the Great Depression, the government was fighting fascism in World War Two, that the government could do everything and she said no it can't, it's immoral, it won't work, and it will strip us of our rights.
	It's one thing to say this in
	2007 or now or oh government program says she went against the absolute orthodoxy of the day.
	Yeah, and the Russian alphabet is Cyrillic, right?
	It's not like English.
	Yeah, it's unbelievable what she was able to do.
	And there were interviews where Ayn Rand, she said every single word in my book is there for a particular philosophical, every single word.
	And so some interviewer pulled out a chunk and said, well, why is all this?
	And she explained in detail why every single word was in that paragraph.
	And how it served the story, how it served the plot, how it served the meaning, how it served the moral.
	No, she was, uh, I mean, they broke the mold.
	She was just a stone, absolute, complete, and total stone genius.
	She also was very, she wrote a successful play, The Night of January the 16th, I think it was called, which I actually saw once.
	I mean, what an idea for a play.
	Check this out for a play.
	So it's a murder mystery, it's a courtroom drama, and the jury is pulled from the audience that night of the play, and however the jury votes is how the play ends.
	Boom!
	I mean, my god, what a brilliant idea for a play.
	It's a courtroom drama, you take the jury from the audience and the play ends differently depending on how the jury votes.
	The jury actually votes in the play of the courtroom drama.
	Come on.
	What if there's a hung jury?
	Go read the play.
	Go read the play.
	No, I mean, she was, I mean, she did burn herself out.
	She was addicted to speed for weight control and so on.
	She was almost a lifelong smoker, chain smoker, heavy smoker.
	She cheated on her husband, although she would say it was with his full knowledge and all of that.
	So, I mean, yes, she had her peccadillos in her private life and those were not good at all.
	And she slept with Nathaniel Brandon and this destroyed the movement which put lust above the good of philosophy?
	So, morally imperfect, but... I mean, Ernest Hemingway got so drunk that he used a machine gun to shoot up his toilet.
	Look at the life of Picasso!
	Look at the life of Bertolt Brecht!
	Ugh, repulsive!
	She was a okay public speaker.
	She was a writer of great short philosophical, almost pamphlet style works for the new intellectual, Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal, The Romantic Manifesto.
	She did art theory.
	She did metaphysics, epistemology.
	She did not so great on ethics in my view, but she did politics.
	I mean, amazing.
	Like an amazing woman, an amazing woman.
	And she saw her husband when they were both extras in movies as she was trying to learn English and trying to make her way in the entertainment industry.
	She was a wardrobe manager, I think, for some time as well.
	She sees this man.
	She falls in love with this man.
	She marries this man.
	She stays married with him until he dies.
	Now.
	After Atlas Shrugged, I think that she basically went into a multi-decade depression because of the reception that Atlas Shrugged got, she realized that it was going to come true.
	She did a lot of work to try and expose communist infiltration into the entertainment industry.
	A brave woman.
	Again, she had her flaws, we do.
	But yeah, anybody who's like, well her characters are kind of wooden,
	Characters are kind of wooden.
	So she wrote characters that embodied the core principles undiluted by hypocrisy.
	Right?
	The core principles.
	Exploiter.
	Creator.
	Innovator.
	Fighter.
	She just boiled people down to their core essentials.
	Which, if you see people long enough, you'll see that in them.
	You see that in them.
	There's a lot of flash and fireworks and fritz and frou-frou, but when you have known people long enough, don't you just see all of the bullshit falling away and you see their core principles?
	Do they lead?
	Do they follow?
	Do they think?
	Do they agree?
	Do they ask what is true or ask what do people believe is true?
	Do they pretend virtue while embodying conformity?
	People are core principles!
	Right?
	I mean, no, I don't mean right.
	Villains are a bit compulsively honest, but it's great.
	Villains, what do you mean?
	Villains are a bit compulsory honest, compulsively honest.
	So, you know, really bad people, and this is like the really bad Satanists or like really bad people, you know that they have a belief, right?
	You know that they have a belief that if they tell you what they're doing, they don't, they're not responsible for it anymore.
	If they tell you what they're doing, then that moral responsibility goes from them to you, the comma won't blow back on them, and they're not responsible anymore.
	Right?
	Yeah, no, this is a very real thing.
	This is why they're constantly telling you what they're doing.
	They're constantly telling you what they're doing.
	I mean, if you look at the World Economic Forum, you look at the World Health Organization, you look at... They're constantly telling you exactly what they're doing.
	There's no doubt.
	Constantly.
	They write books about all of this.
	They tell everyone everything, all the time.
	And you say, oh well, but Ayn Rand's villains, they're a bit too chatty.
	They don't tell you what they're doing.
	But that's exactly how bad people operate.
	Tell me one bad person in your life who didn't tell you ahead of time what they were going to do.
	Because they believe that you, if they tell you what they're going to do and you go along with it, you want it.
	Right?
	If they tell you what they're going to do and you go along with it, you want it.
	You follow?
	If someone says to you, get in my car, we're going to drive to Vegas and we're going to get totally drunk.
	Do you want to come?
	And you say, yeah, okay.
	Are you a victim?
	No.
	You chose to go, right?
	You chose to go.
	So they tell you, yeah we want central bank digital currency so we can track and control everything you own.
	Everything you buy.
	It's not hiding that.
	Tell me what terrible thing has come out over the last forever that you didn't completely announce ahead of time?
	I mean, come on!
	You think, you think Ayn Rand's villains, they're not chatty enough to be realistic?
	I mean, Klaus Schwab can't shut the fuck up.
	Yeah, you'll own nothing and you'll be happy, they want to destroy the oil industry, they want to control your gas, they, I mean... Oh my gosh, how does this, how does that differ from the universal principle that people are responsible for how they react to things?
	I have no idea what you're saying.
	I don't know how this ties into anything in particular.
	Yeah.
	I mean, half of America's manufacturing facilities are on fire, it seems, at the moment.
	They're literally setting fires everywhere to push the climate change agenda.
	I mean... Happy fucking True Friday.
	Thank you, Debronnie, for your tip.
	I appreciate it.
	Yeah, the whole book's written and published, exactly what they plan, how they go about...
	World Economic Forum is like, oh yeah, we've got, we got, we got politicians in our pocket all over the West.
	And yeah, absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	I don't know.
	I mean, they brag about it.
	They talk about it.
	They tell you exactly what they're going to do.
	Yeah.
	So yeah, so there is this general idea that if they tell you, right?
	How many people on the Jeffrey Epstein Island list, how many people from the Jeffrey Epstein Island list have even been interviewed?
	Danny Masterson just got 30 years for stuff that happened in the 70s for which there didn't seem to be an excess of evidence.
	The list is sealed and we can't talk about it.
	I think it's fairly knowledgeable who's on the... It's pretty obvious who's on the list, isn't it?
	Well, I'm just sort of pointing this out, right?
	I mean, their entire book's devoted to what's on the Hunter Biden laptop.
	Gates was asked and deflected.
	Well, he's dead!
	Yeah.
	I mean, they couldn't be more clear, right, what their priorities are.
	Julian Maxwell apparently is in jail for decades for trafficking children to precisely no one.
	And so, I mean, come on, I mean,
	I remember it was some years ago.
	It was at the State Department.
	I'm sorry to be fuzzy on the details, but this was like, I don't know, 15, 20 years ago.
	Some big agency, I think it was in the US, all of their personnel files with all the sensitive questions and so on that were asked were all hacked by some foreign entity.
	I think it was China or something like that, right?
	And I remember saying at the time, okay, well, they've got all the compromise and blackmail materials on every employee.
	So you just got to shut the whole thing down, right?
	Like, I mean, it's another reason I got out of politics is that I can't be more vivid than everything they're saying themselves.
	Like, didn't it get kind of boring to just show clips of people saying all the bad things that we're going to do and people saying, well, that's just a conspiracy theory.
	Oh my gosh.
	Yeah, no, I mean, it's one thing to be, you know, you don't go to like a brilliant diagnostician like, you know, the House character on House MD.
	You don't go to him with a knife sticking out of your head saying, I don't know, I got this odd stabbing pain in my head and I don't know why.
	He's like, hmm, that's interesting.
	Let me gather together my crack team of
	Pretty diversity hires and see if we can't figure out what could possibly be happening.
	You know, like that old joke.
	It's a very old joke now, I guess.
	Like, Doctor, I keep getting this pain in my eye every time I drink a cup of coffee.
	Really?
	Have you tried taking the spoon out?
	So when politics, to unpack politics was more of a subtle art, but now it's, I mean, right?
	What's the point?
	You know, it's like, I don't know, cutting open a shark, finding a body inside and saying, hey, I wonder if he was eaten by a shark.
	It's really boring.
	It's really boring.
	What are some of the reasons people go along with the interests of those who openly want to achieve an immoral end?
	I mean, that's demoralization, isn't it?
	But you can't win, so why would... Ignore it all, let them do what they want, because you can't win.
	You can't win.
	You can't win.
	So they demoralize you.
	They show such power that you don't want to fight.
	And if you don't want to fight, you might as well ignore the stimuli, right?
	It's like the old thing, would you want to know the day of your own death?
	How do we win?
	But you can only win personally.
	The Age of Reason is past.
	Oh yeah, didn't the Georgia Stones, right?
	The Stonehenge Stones in Georgia?
	I mean, I guess nobody really knows where they came from, but it's like, yeah, we want to get the population of the world down to 500 million, and it's like,
	It's not, you know, they're just saying everything, right?
	They just say everything.
	But of course, what happens is that the media keeps it away from everyone and all that for various reasons.
	And so people, they think what is blindingly stated is somehow mysteriously not present.
	All right, well, that's enough current events and current affairs because they are... Boring is one of Elon's drilling companies.
	I can't believe the Boring company is not the name of a porn studio.
	But hey!
	Yeah, somebody did detonate explosives at the Georgia Stones.
	Yeah, that's right.
	All right, questions, comments, issues?
	I will dip into the general question bag as a whole, and we can go from there, or if you've got... Please aim for community, man.
	Build bridges with people, build bridges with people, aim for community.
	It's going to be an ugly time.
	Thoughts on the diarrhea plane?
	Oh yeah, did you hear about this?
	A plane had to be diverted because somebody had explosive diarrhea on the plane.
	Holy Jetstream, Batman!
	That's the one plane I would actually wear a mask on.
	Like, without a doubt.
	I might just head to toe in masks.
	That's the one, like, I don't particularly care about airborne viruses on planes.
	Airborne shit particles?
	I'm down.
	Mask me up, baby.
	I want a full hazmat suit.
	Imagine the smell on that jet.
	It's okay, because they recycled the air.
	Also, I'll tell you this.
	If I'm in the back of that plane, what's my one prayer?
	If I'm in the back of shit sandwich awful tube plane, my one prayer if I'm at the back of the plane is, please God, don't go into a climb.
	Tsunami!
	I can smell the tika.
	Right, so yes, I would definitely want to... What did they eat to get that much diarrhea?
	I don't know what they ate to get that much diarrhea.
	I pretty much assume that's demonic possession.
	Taco Bell.
	Yeah, I don't know.
	I don't know, but...
	You know, it's when the captain comes off and says, I think we have enough thrust.
	Thank you.
	We don't need more jet engines.
	We don't need that, right?
	Reason to go first class.
	Fewer people per square foot.
	Have you ever?
	Have you ever flown first?
	I've done it once.
	Have you ever flown first class?
	I've done it once.
	It's, it's pretty nice.
	It's pretty nice, but my gosh, is it ever pricey?
	I mean,
	It's crazy price, like three times the price for some leg room.
	All right.
	What do we got here?
	Advice for recovering after divorcing a narcissist.
	How do you know that the person you divorced was a narcissist?
	I'm not disagreeing with you.
	I'm just asking you how you know that someone is a narcissist.
	Is feminism an aberration of culture from government?
	Or is there some aspect to male choice in women?
	Guys, don't give me false dichotomy questions.
	Is it this or this?
	I can go anywhere in the world.
	All right, north or south?
	Nothing is ever their fault?
	It's when they take zero responsibility?
	Yeah, but this person said advice for recovering after divorcing a narcissist.
	Is he taking responsibility?
	I mean, I'm recovering.
	I just, I just divorced a narcissist.
	I got, I need to recover.
	No, don't poor guy him.
	No, no, no.
	Don't poor guy him.
	No, no, no, no.
	Don't girl up.
	Don't, don't, don't tween up.
	Don't tween up the chat.
	Don't poor guy him.
	Oh, you poor victim.
	Oh.
	Yeah.
	No, don't, don't do it.
	Don't do it.
	Why do you want to fuck a narcissist?
	Why do you want to marry a narcissist?
	Why do you want to wind your life in together with a narcissist?
	That's the question you have to answer.
	Yes, I take responsibility for my choice.
	I ignored red flags because she fed my ego.
	So why didn't you say advice for recovering from my terrible choices?
	How do I make better choices, right?
	She fed my ego is another excuse.
	Look, everybody who wants to manipulate you feeds your ego.
	Come on.
	Every time you go into a grocery store, there's someone trying to feed your ego with a picture of how healthy this person looks eating this food.
	You go to the eyeglass store and everyone looks fantastic in their eyeglass.
	Everyone's trying to feed your ego all the time.
	That doesn't answer anything.
	I fell down because of gravity!
	It's like, no, gravity is a constant.
	People feeding your ego is a constant, right?
	You see these ads on social media now.
	A private jet is cheaper than you think and it's some woman in camel toe shorts walking away from a private jet like, do you come with the plane?
	Why are you susceptible to having your ego?
	Why are you so susceptible to flattery?
	And this is not a criticism.
	I'm not like, why are you like, that's bad.
	It's just a genuine, why are you so?
	Look, we all get flattered all the time.
	Do you don't think people try to control me through flattery all the time?
	Why, why, why are you susceptible to that?
	Saying that she manipulated you doesn't answer why you were susceptible to that.
	Do you think you're the first guy she tried to manipulate?
	Maybe you're the first guy to marry her.
	Why is that?
	Why were you so susceptible to being manipulated?
	And again, I say this with sympathy.
	I say this with sympathy.
	If somebody can easily pick your locks, if you leave your house door open and somebody comes in and takes your stuff, are they wrong?
	Yes.
	They came in and took your stuff.
	They're wrong.
	But you did leave your door open, right?
	If you leave your wallet on a park bench, Central Park, Friday night, you come back Sunday afternoon, your wallet's gone.
	Did the person who take your wallet, are they bad?
	Yep.
	But you did leave your wallet on the park bench.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I had this analogy, I don't know, like 15 years ago about walking through a bad neighborhood with a clear bag of plastic cash, and I saw this guy going into a bad neighborhood with a clear plastic backpack full of pretend money, and he got jumped within about 10 seconds.
	And he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, chill, bro, bro, you're tripping out, it's not real.
	It's not real!
	It's not real money!
	And they got really mad at him for having fake money, right?
	So you're saying, she stroked my ego, therefore I married her.
	That's not therefore.
	Everybody strokes each other's ego all the time.
	Whenever they want something from you.
	That doesn't answer the question.
	And listen, you want a call-in show?
	That's fine.
	Call in at freedomain.com, but I mean, we might be able to get it here.
	You see, oh my gosh.
	Minus 10 for deep, plus 10 for shallow.
	How deep are we going tonight?
	You want me to stay surface?
	Man, I can do surface.
	Minus 10.
	Plus 10.
	It's me calling you a hero of virtue.
	Manipulation.
	No, it's- I mean, look, that's praise, and that's very, very kind, and I appreciate that.
	It's not manipulation, because I can accept it as praise, and- but if you say, and therefore you should do what I want, then I won't, right?
	Uh, you guys with the pluses and minuses.
	Are we going- oh, we're really going deep.
	Bathyscape deep?
	Are we going Mariana Trench deep?
	I don't know.
	Can you handle it?
	Alright.
	Bioshock deep.
	Sub-Earth's crust.
	Deeper than the Titanic.
	Friday is where we get into the wet depths of philosophy.
	It's coming.
	Alright.
	Okay.
	You asked for it.
	This is what you wanted.
	This is what you're gonna get.
	Alright.
	Your girlfriend is never ever the first person to manipulate you.
	Ever.
	Well, she manipulated me.
	Nope.
	Nope.
	She walked through a door blown open by someone else.
	Someone else left you open, vulnerable, spilled entrails, blood in the water, shock, feeding, frenzy, vulnerable to exploitation.
	Somebody else pushed you out into the world with a big screw me sign.
	Not on your groin, which would be fine, but on your forehead, your heart, and your wallet.
	Now, why do we focus on the exploitation of the wife, the husband, the boyfriend, the girlfriend?
	Why do we focus on that?
	Why do we get angry at the person who steals what was stolen from us, right?
	So here's what happens.
	Somebody steals your wallet
	Takes all the cash, leaves the wallet out in the park bench, and you find out, the police say, hey man, somebody stole this thing from the park bench.
	And you're like, you only get angry at the person who stole it from the park bench, not at the person who stole it from you initially, took all the money and left it on the park bench so somebody else could come and grab and use all the credit cards or whatever the hell they do, right?
	You only get angry at the second or third or fourth or fifth or tenth person who steals what was stolen from you.
	Does this make sense?
	Somebody rubs you in blood and chum, ties your arms and legs and lowers you into shark-infested waters and you only get angry at the shark that bites you!
	Not the person who put you in that situation where getting bitten was absolutely inevitable.
	It's like you completely overlook the person who murdered you and you only get angry at the scavengers picking your bones.
	Yeah, you won't look at who is actually to blame.
	All right?
	Let me ask you this.
	Who is responsible for sending you out into the world protected against predators?
	Who is responsible for that?
	Your parents, of course, absolutely your parents.
	Absolutely your parents.
	Can you think of any other predator species that sends their offspring out into the world to get taken down, mauled and eviscerated and disemboweled by complete inferiors?
	Do you think of lionesses who chew one of the legs off their cubs so that the cub can be preyed upon by hyenas more easily?
	Do you know that?
	Have you ever heard of that?
	You ever heard of wolf fathers who gouge out the eyes of a wolf pup just so that the foxes can take them down?
	Which predator cripples their offspring to be exploited?
	We are singular in that.
	Humans.
	Now, why would you want to blind your child to the dangers of exploitation?
	Why would you want to do that?
	Happens all the time, all over the world, continually.
	Billions of children.
	Why would you want to cripple your child's ability to see and avoid exploitation and predation?
	To feel good about oneself?
	Nope.
	Yeah, so they can exploit the children themselves.
	Absolutely right, my friend.
	Yeah.
	How many people who are stealing from a store, they work the store, they're stealing in the back room, how many people want security cameras where they're stealing?
	Right?
	None.
	I just did a call-in show with a woman who's an auditor, right?
	So if you're, if some guy, Bob, is pilfering company funds, does he call in an auditor?
	No, he does not.
	Why would you teach your children to escape predation if you're preying on them?
	That's like sending advance notice to the police of exactly where and how you're going to rob the bank.
	Not a very good thief.
	Not a very good thief, right?
	So the reason that you ended up marrying a narcissist is because you were raised by a narcissist.
	Now, if you're raised by a narcissist and you meet a good moral woman, what does a good moral woman know about narcissists?
	A. They exist.
	B. They're dangerous.
	And C. She's in the fucking room right now.
	Your mother.
	Yeah.
	I know I'm right.
	I'm not... It's nothing psychic.
	It's just patterns, right?
	Yeah, so this man who married the narcissist says my mother.
	Okay, so your mother's a narcissist.
	She wants to exploit you.
	So you meet a quality woman.
	How does your mother's relationship go with you when you meet a quality woman who's like, you know your mom's a narcissist, right?
	Like you know that she's really toxic and destructive and dangerous and I care about you and I don't want to see you get exploited because I love you.
	Because I love you, I don't want to see you get hurt and exploited.
	This woman will destroy your life.
	She is in the process of destroying your life, right?
	So how...
	Good does your narcissist mother want you to be at spotting narcissists and evading them.
	In other news, counterfeiters don't often invest in counterfeit detection machines.
	She's going to want you to marry.
	Like, why did you marry a narcissist to camouflage your mother's narcissism?
	Your mother demanded that you marry a narcissist.
	And because your mother's a narcissist, as you say, because your mother's a narcissist, what do narcissists do to you if you disagree with them?
	If you oppose a narcissist, what does she do?
	As a child in particular, you oppose a narcissist mother, what does she do?
	Emotional meltdown?
	That's not accurate.
	What do they do?
	Sign?
	Shale?
	Insult, guilt, and name-calling.
	Shame?
	You mean shame, right?
	Yeah.
	Shame, insult, guilt, and name-calling?
	Not vivid enough.
	They accuse you of having an inherent flaw.
	Nope.
	I mean, yes, but right?
	Deny food, abandonment.
	I'll tell you exactly what a narcissist does if you defy her as a child.
	You're a child, you defy a narcissist.
	She escalates until you fear death.
	She escalates until you fear death.
	Am I wrong?
	Comply or die.
	Yeah.
	She escalates until you fear death.
	And you have good reason to.
	Correct.
	Plus 10 for Steph.
	What about an adult female narcissist?
	We have a lot of non-sequitur people in the chat tonight, which is fine.
	Interesting, because now my mother wants to support me.
	Offering me money, even invited me to move in with them, her.
	Large part of her is happy the marriage failed.
	Sure.
	Sure.
	Narcissists don't want you to succeed.
	Because if you succeed in life, then you're around successful people.
	And the only way you can be successful in life is not having crazy people in your life.
	Adult female narcissists, how do they respond?
	They escalate until you fear for your life.
	It's the same pattern everywhere.
	It's just that they have, adult females have less power over you, right?
	So the maternal narcissist, when you defy her as a child, she will escalate, scream, threaten, bully, attack, threaten to drive out, threaten to abandon.
	She will escalate until you comply or you fear death.
	The adult female narcissist, or male narcissist too, will escalate to the point where they'll say, I'll call the cops and tell them you beat me.
	She will steal your stuff.
	She will screw around with the brakes in your car.
	She'll just do any number of things, right?
	It's comply or die.
	False accusations, you name it, right?
	Spreading rumors about you did some terrible thing to her.
	Right?
	If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.
	I'm happy to hear how this is not the case.
	Comply or die.
	Wow, summed up nicely.
	There's a reason we have a state.
	And it's because how we are raised.
	Comply or die.
	Oh, well, she's not gonna kill you.
	It's like, but that's not how we evolved.
	It's not how we evolved.
	I mean, throughout most of our, throughout 99.9% of our evolution, if your parent didn't want you around, you weren't around.
	Oh, we need someone for the Aztec sacrificial ritual.
	Oh, I got a disobedient kid here.
	Yeah, go drug him up and rip his heart out.
	Yeah, she would run into traffic like a Sinead O'Connor mom.
	Yeah, so Sinead O'Connor
	Her mother, when Sinod O'Connor disagreed with her, her father, her brother wanted to leave and get out, put them in the car and said, we're going to drive into traffic.
	Comply or die.
	This man says, yes, I remember being so scared of my mother.
	My mother was mad at me that I would cry uncontrollably.
	And I'm so sorry.
	This is why I'm not, I wasn't criticizing you at all.
	I wasn't criticizing you at all, but
	You're not divorcing a narcissist.
	You're just trading one in for another.
	Right?
	No offense taken, I come to you for the straight truth.
	By the way, lions do occasionally commit infanticide if they're in cubs, pretty much only when there is one cub from the pregnancy.
	Ah, Sand in the Vaseline Guy has spoken.
	I know an exception to your general rule, and I'm going to show you how smart I am by putting my head over the parapet and reminding you that 99.999% is still .001%.
	Well, I can't really contribute anything of depth or substance, but I can find an exception to a general rule and call myself smart.
	Look, I'm glowing.
	I'm just glowing.
	In general, ah, but exception!
	On average, ah, but exception!
	Sometimes they... Listen, we all have that impulse.
	I'm not trying to be cruel.
	We all have that impulse.
	Resist that impulse.
	Don't be a douchebag.
	Like, resist that impulse.
	Resist that impulse.
	You were wrong about lions.
	No, I was not wrong about lions.
	You weren't listening.
	Because you were trying to figure out how smart you could get.
	Right?
	I was not wrong about lions.
	Can I tell you why?
	I said, can you think of a predator that has a habit or a predator that cripples its own children?
	Predator is a category.
	Not, and I didn't say there's not one single lion who's ever attacked their own cubs.
	Can you think of a predator that regularly or habitually wounds its own offspring?
	So your failure to listen is not my failure to communicate.
	When I'm talking about lions, I said lions, wolves as categories.
	And lions and wolves do not attack their own offspring as a species.
	Oh, but there are individuals, right?
	That's right!
	That's right.
	And you know what?
	There are white or albino alligators.
	Did you know that?
	There are white or albino alligators.
	You say, ah, well, alligators are generally, I mean, alligators are the color of the swamp.
	Alligators are dark green.
	Alligators as a category are dark green.
	There is a genetic mutation wherein occasionally alligators are born with white skin.
	But that is not the category of alligators and they tend not to live for very long because they get sunburnt too badly.
	So the category has these characteristics.
	Exceptions are not the category.
	It's a logical falsehood.
	It's a logical fallacy.
	Horses are born with one head.
	Well, I read once about a horse that was born with two heads.
	It's like, yes, and that's not in the category called horses.
	That's a horse with a mutation.
	It's not a different species, right?
	Male lions will kill other lions' cubs for sure, but not their own.
	And yeah, of course, yeah.
	Yeah, male lions will kill other lions' cubs for sure.
	Yeah, of course, I know that.
	But lions as a category do not, and I did say their own offspring, right?
	So lions as a category do not mutilate or destroy or wound their own offspring.
	Here's the other thing.
	Did I say that they kill their own offspring?
	Or that they cripple their own offspring?
	Right?
	I mean, I'm happy to, we can unpack this.
	It's fine with me.
	It's fine with me.
	I'm sure you guys remember.
	So the analogy was, yeah, I said cripple.
	Do the lions cripple their own offspring?
	Because here I'm talking about who's responsible for keeping you safe from predation.
	It's your parents.
	So this guy got out into the world, he wasn't killed.
	Right?
	So do lions torture and cripple their own offspring?
	Well, occasionally lions... No, do lions torture or cripple their own offspring?
	Well, lions will occasionally kill their own offsprings.
	That's not the fucking category I'm talking about.
	See, you're so eager to look smart you can't listen and you look stupid.
	And I'm trying to help you with that.
	Stop doing that.
	You're too smart to look stupid.
	You're so eager to find an exception because that's so smart that you don't listen.
	And because you don't listen, oh my gosh, here's the thing.
	Look, do you want smart people in your life or not?
	This is just a basic question for everyone in the audience.
	Do you want smart people in your life or not?
	Of course you do.
	Of course you do.
	Now, if somebody is giving you a pretty powerful analogy that's really designed to help someone in a desperately bad situation, right?
	So I'm giving someone an analogy to help them out of a desperately sad and tragic situation to the point where they got married to a narcissist who I assume almost destroyed them.
	Their mother was so narcissistic and abusive that this guy would not be able to breathe after his mom screamed at him.
	So here I am trying to deliver a powerful, compact, life-saving, life-changing message to someone.
	And what do you chime in with?
	An incorrect, useless, tangential takedown of something I never even said.
	Now, do smart people want to be around nitpickers who get it wrong?
	I'm just asking.
	As a whole.
	We've all been in that situation.
	Do smart people want to be around nitpickers who get it wrong?
	No!
	Of course not.
	Of course not.
	Now, if you want smart people in your life, stop doing that.
	Stop doing that.
	It's annoying, of course it's annoying, because it's narcissistic in a way.
	I'm not calling you a narcissist, that particular behavior is.
	No, no, no, the attention's off me.
	I need to get the attention back by showing everyone how smart I am, right?
	So it's kind of funny.
	This is why I'm pausing on this.
	We're talking about how to identify narcissistic or selfish people.
	And again, I'm not talking about you as like you're some big narcissist.
	I'm just saying, I was talking and you're very helpful here.
	I'm talking about how do we hunt for narcissists and you give me a perfect example.
	Perfect example.
	Can you admit that you're wrong?
	You were wrong, right?
	You can admit that, right?
	I was talking about lions as a category and I said wounding,
	Or mutilating their own offspring, not killing them.
	Right?
	So you were wrong about that, right?
	Can we at least accept that?
	You just have to type why, I don't know why you need all this time.
	No, I guess I do.
	I guess I do.
	Yeah, so you were wrong.
	Right?
	So you were interfering with what it is that I wanted to say because you hadn't listened and you were wrong.
	So what do you say?
	When you kind of interrupt, again, it's not some big interruption, I guess it's a text, right?
	What do you say?
	When I'm trying to really help someone and you're distracting people, what do you say?
	I'm not trying to humiliate you.
	I'm just curious.
	What do you say?
	I mean, if I correct someone and I'm wrong because I didn't listen, if I kind of pompously correct someone and I'm completely in the wrong because I didn't publicly correct someone when I'm wrong because I didn't listen, what do I say?
	What does any reasonable person say?
	Sorry for wasting so many people's time here and nitpicking Steph.
	No, you weren't nitpicking.
	You were wrong.
	You say, you know what?
	You want to be really noble and honorable about this?
	Here's what you do.
	You say, you know what?
	This topic really bothers me for some reason.
	I felt really this strong urge to interrupt and I just typed without thinking because I was having an emotional moment and I just derailed and interrupted.
	I'm really sorry.
	If I could get some advice on how to not do that, because you're really here to help people, I would really appreciate that.
	He was nitpicking your straw man.
	No, he wasn't.
	He was not nitpicking and it was not a straw man.
	It was an analogy.
	And he didn't nitpick because he wasn't listening.
	Because what he responded to is not what I said.
	Oh, you mean his, he, he, oh, so it wasn't my straw man.
	Sorry, Ben.
	I apologize for that.
	That, that I got wrong.
	What you're saying is he created a straw man that he was nitpicking.
	Well, but the straw man is just false, right?
	Yes, I'm one smart people.
	I have learned that not listening when the other person is typing so I can compose my own statement, that is rude.
	I hope I did not do that.
	Thank you for your advice.
	I am ready to listen.
	Well, let me ask you this.
	And I appreciate that.
	And let me ask you this.
	Oh, this is a different fellow.
	Okay.
	So, do we still have the fellow here who's divorced a narcissist?
	Is he still around?
	So I hope that you understand.
	Okay, good.
	And listen, I really appreciate the post.
	I hope that this is helpful.
	So here we saw someone, because what do narcissists do?
	I mean, it's narcissistic or kind of selfish or immature or whatever you want to call it.
	We've all been in this situation where the person invents something that we said and nitpicks at that and won't admit that they're wrong.
	Right?
	That's, that's kind of a habit that people have when they want to waste your time and your life and, and all of that.
	Right now.
	Were there any people in your life, my friend, who warned you against the woman you married?
	No?
	I'm so sorry about that.
	So either they can't see a narcissist, or they want you to marry a narcissist, right?
	Either they genuinely have no idea
	That there are mean and selfish people out there.
	They have no idea.
	I don't even know what to say about that.
	That's like Christopher Robin naive.
	I don't even know what to say about that.
	So either they don't know that there's evildoers in the world, or they know there's evildoers in the world, and they want you to marry one.
	I mean, if you're walking in the jungle with a friend of yours who's a hunter, you're both hunters, and
	You get jumped by a lion and he just stands idly by, then either he doesn't recognize that the lion is dangerous or he wants to see you get killed by the lion.
	You understand?
	Either they don't recognize the predator or they want you to be preyed on.
	Now, why do they want you to be preyed on?
	Because the price of teaching you about predators is revealing themselves as a predator.
	Do you follow?
	Why won't people tell you about predators?
	Because they are predators.
	The lion doesn't tell the zebra about the other lions.
	You follow?
	They hunt in a pack.
	Can you imagine a lion saying to the zebra, whoa, whoa, whoa, two more lions over there, and there's one over there, and there's one over that little bush, behind that little bush there, so I'm just telling you.
	Look, there's predation around.
	No, because they're hunting packs.
	Predators hunt in packs, and they don't tell you about the other predators.
	So why didn't your friends tell you?
	I mean, your friends, I assume, knew something about your mother, right?
	So if your friends knew something about your mother, they know that you would be in grave danger of marrying a narcissist because you were raised by one, right?
	So your friends know about your mother and they don't tell you about the danger of a narcissist.
	Somebody says, I dated someone who would literally believe the lies they told to avoid being accountable.
	I found it hard to believe that he was able to lie about something we both knew to be true with such complete confidence.
	How on earth would you know if this man literally believed the lies he told?
	I mean, how could you possibly believe anything about him because he's a liar?
	Want to take a walk with your sister in the rain?
	Want to talk about the things you can't explain?
	He behaved that way.
	So, you know, you said literally he would literally believe the lies they told.
	How do you know what he believed?
	He behaved that way is different from it literally being true.
	Kenneth Browning behaves as Hamlet doesn't mean he's Hamlet.
	See, this is a way of taking someone's... He just, he told lies and he ended up believing them.
	How do you know?
	Well, he told me.
	He's a liar.
	I would believe anything he says.
	Well, he acted that way, well...
	So liars are actors and manipulators.
	So why on earth would you believe anything?
	It's like watching Marlon Brando break down on the stand after his son shot his daughter's abusive boyfriend.
	Or a boyfriend she accused of being abusive.
	Like Marlon Brando's crying.
	He's an actor!
	Eventually I had to accept that the lies mattered more to him than our relationship.
	Yeah.
	Well, you, you offered him some status, right?
	You're probably a very attractive and accomplished and intelligent woman.
	And so you offered him some status and Devoni value.
	Like once you realize how little value you have to selfish people, it's very freeing.
	It's very freeing.
	I mean, they only care about you as far as you serve their interests.
	And if you don't serve their interests, they don't care about you.
	Right?
	You ever pick up the wrong remote?
	You know, like, I don't know if it's still as bad, but it used to be just terrible.
	That in order to have anything in this world that was electronic, you needed 12,000 different remotes, right?
	Oh, I'd pick up the remote.
	Oh, this is the remote for the VCR rather than the DVD.
	So you pick up the remote and the remote doesn't... you put it down.
	And you pick up the other one, right?
	I mean, I knew a guy had six remotes.
	So he was constantly picking up the wrong remote and he, Oh, that's not the right remote.
	So I'll just, that's what you are.
	If you pick up the right remote, if you, if the remote serves your needs, you'll use it.
	If it doesn't, you'll just drop it and get another one.
	It's the same thing with selfish people in relationships.
	You're just a remote to them.
	You're just a little piece of mechanical, whatever, provide them value.
	If you provide them value, that's fine.
	They like it.
	And if you don't provide them value, they'll just put down the remote and get another one.
	This guy says, I dated a narcissist.
	Friends and parents said nothing, meeting her.
	Sister warned me and she could tell I was not myself, walking on eggshells around her.
	It's not even been that long since I tried to talk someone out of a bad relationship.
	Not even been that long.
	It's very sad.
	Very sad.
	Even with all the credibility I think I've gathered, sometimes people won't listen.
	And that just means that they choose to learn through empiricism rather than through reason.
	Steph, how conscious is the decision of the predator to not teach their kids about predators?
	Oh no!
	Oh please, don't give me this one!
	Love you to death, brother!
	Oh no!
	Sorry, why is this the worst question in the world?
	I'm sorry, and I sympathize and I understand why you're asking it.
	I don't mean to be mean.
	Why is this the worst question to ask?
	How conscious is the decision of the predator to not teach their kids about predators?
	It's not obvious.
	No, it's not obvious.
	It doesn't matter if it's conscious.
	In fact, it's worse if it's unconscious.
	No?
	Okay.
	Is there an external metric by which you can determine that?
	So you say, how tall is my mother?
	You can measure her, right?
	So if you go to a predator and you say, oh, how conscious is your decision to not teach me or your kids about predators?
	I mean, you're going to a selfish person asking them to tell the truth about how bad they are.
	It's utterly ungettable information.
	It's utterly how many, uh, how many molecules of water are there in the ocean?
	You can never know what goes through others' minds.
	No, so the only people you should ever ask for knowledge about who they are is people who have a snowball's chance in hell of telling you the fucking truth.
	I love asking people questions.
	I'm always curious, bottomlessly curious about people.
	But you don't put a known liar on the witness stand, do you?
	When you can't punish them, they're just gonna lie.
	They're just gonna fuck you up.
	So, if you have a cruel person in your life and you say to them, gee, I wonder how much of your cruelty is conscious, what answer will you get?
	You've got a cruel person in your life, you ask them a difficult question.
	What is, I guarantee you, I know exactly what answer you will get.
	Insanity plea, zero, no!
	You do not understand cruelty as yet.
	What is the one answer a cruel person will give you if you ask them about their cruelty?
	What is the one answer they will always give you?
	You're looking for specifics?
	It's not specific.
	If you ask a cruel person how conscious they are of their cruelty, their answer will be, whatever fucking hurts you the most.
	That's what their answer will be.
	Whatever will hurt you the most for them to say.
	Do you follow?
	This is why it's the worst question in the world.
	Because it puts you in a vulnerable position of needing something from someone who wants to hurt you.
	Especially since they know you, if they raised you, they know every button to push.
	So you're putting yourself in a dark room, neck exposed, tied down and inviting the vampire in.
	So you're going to a cruel person with a desperate need
	And the answer the cruel person will give you is whatever hurts you the most in the long term.
	That's why, and again, I know it's serious business, I don't mean to be cruel, but that's why it's the worst question in the world.
	How conscious is the decision of the predator to not teach their kids about predators?
	Nobody knows.
	The knowledge is absolutely impossible to get.
	Because predators will not tell you the truth.
	I mean, does the baby zebra say to mummy zebra, but how hungry is that lion over there?
	Does he hate us?
	Or is he just hungry?
	Is he just scouting?
	Is he just curious?
	I think I'll go and ask the lion whether it's hungry.
	Because I want to know.
	Now, if the lion is super hungry, what will the lion say to the juicy baby zebra?
	The lion is super hungry and the baby zebra comes over and says, Hey Mr. Lion, are you hungry?
	What does the lion say?
	Not at all.
	My little striped foal, not at all.
	I'm just curious.
	Come closer.
	Doesn't say much.
	Too busy chewing.
	Quite right, Michael.
	Quite right.
	You want to know one great secret to happiness in life and security and safety?
	Need nothing from bad people.
	Don't go to them with any need or want or preference or desire or thirst for knowledge or hunger for an explanation.
	Go to them with nothing of any need whatsoever.
	People who do platforming say, oh, we take away his money.
	He'll do what we want.
	Oh, we take away his platform.
	He'll do what we want.
	Oh, we take away his reputation.
	We do.
	I don't want things or need things from bad people.
	Right.
	Find out if someone is good or bad.
	It's pretty obvious.
	But the moment you need things from bad people, you're fucked.
	You're completely fucked.
	Your life will be hell.
	The secret to happiness is imagining there's a multiverse where mom and dad said, sorry.
	Does the psycho really hate you or they're just bored and want to see you as entertainment as they torture you?
	It doesn't matter.
	Yeah, you end up in the same place.
	No, but you see wanting answers from the psycho delivers you to the psycho.
	Wanting answers from the narcissist puts you under the thumb of the narcissist.
	Wanting the truth from a liar lets the liar control you.
	That's why I'm harsh about this, the worst question in the world.
	I need to get the truth from the crazy people who want to torture me.
	Oh, great.
	So you're going to crazy people who want to torture you with a big, desperate, deep need.
	Ha!
	Wonder how that's going to play out.
	Badly.
	100%.
	Right?
	Am I right?
	I want to be fair.
	I want to be right and accurate.
	So tell me if I'm wrong.
	If you tried to reason with insanity, you will live with insane reasons.
	But that's you just trying to be a fortune cookie, my friend.
	I'm not talking about insanity.
	Did I say crazy?
	No, I said bad people.
	Narcissists, selfish, cruel.
	I didn't say insanity.
	Some say you can learn about someone by the lies they tell.
	Why?
	Why wouldn't you want to learn about someone by the truth they tell?
	Why would you want to map some liar's possible life by the lies they tell?
	Why the fuck would you want to waste your time doing that?
	Mom's trick was, well if I was so bad, why are you still around?
	Best advice she ever gave me, enjoying my own apartment now, yeah?
	Plus, Steph, at some level I probably asked it to excuse the predator behavior by suggesting it could be unconscious, not conscious.
	Right.
	Now, this is where you just have to know who you are and who the predator is, right?
	You know the predator is in your head, right?
	The predator is in your head.
	Of course, right?
	Like the lion is in the head of the zebra, right?
	That's why the zebra runs.
	So the predator is in your head.
	Now, why would you want to give excuses to someone who harmed you?
	Does it benefit you?
	Is it good for you?
	Is it healthy?
	Is it right?
	So who wants you to excuse the predator?
	I mean, you've heard this a million times in the call-in shows, right?
	But was that, did they consciously have that as a plan?
	I don't ask questions that are a waste of time and dangerous.
	You don't try and find out if the shark is hungry by putting your arm in its mouth.
	So why, the moment I point out something nefarious, you say, well maybe it was unconscious.
	Why would you want to do that?
	It doesn't benefit you, it just benefits the predator.
	So you're used to obeying predators, and that's why they prey on you, especially when you're a kid.
	So you're used to obeying predators, so what do you do?
	Well, if a criticism comes up of the predator, you are trained to make excuses.
	Because it's hard to believe parents were predators.
	No, it's easy to believe it's hard to survive that belief when you're a child.
	It's easy to believe.
	It's just hard to survive that belief.
	Parents, this guy said his mother screamed him to the point where he couldn't breathe or whatever he said.
	So of course he knew his mother was a predator.
	It's just hard to survive that belief.
	Right?
	That's the difference.
	You know it.
	You know for a fact.
	It's hard to survive that knowledge, both because of despair and escalation from the predators, right?
	Am I right about this?
	Again, I want to, I want to check if this is tracking and makes sense and all that.
	If the negative behavior is familiar, then rejecting it requires going against your instincts.
	It takes some faith that reasoning your way to safety is the right thing to do.
	If the negative behavior is familiar, then rejecting it requires going against your instincts.
	No, it's not going against your instincts.
	It's going against what kept you alive.
	You can say, oh, that's your instincts.
	But recognizing evil in a potential partner, or recognizing evil in a potential partner, if that also reveals evil in your parents, then you don't want to do that.
	It's not necessarily an instinct.
	It's your parents don't want you to do that.
	Because, you see, here's the big trick.
	When you get to be an adult, your parents are aging out.
	You're bigger, you're stronger, you're independent, and the roles switch.
	Right?
	The roles switch.
	Right?
	I mean, when my daughter was little, she just wanted to spend time with me.
	Now she's like, oh, are you seeing friends again?
	Can we, right?
	The roles switch.
	It's just the way it works.
	The roles switch.
	So as an adult, you have the power.
	You have the power, you have the independence, you don't have to call them, you don't have to see them, you don't have to spend one thin dime on them.
	I'm not saying whether you should or shouldn't, I'm just saying you don't have to.
	Like in the way that you have to when you're six, you've got to go home, right?
	Where are you going to go?
	Live in the woods?
	So how do they keep you when they can't keep you?
	It's one thing to be in a cage for 18 years, but then you're let loose from the cage.
	How do they get you to come back in the cage?
	How do they get you to return to a situation where you're exploited and harmed?
	That's a big problem, right?
	Bribes, threats, promises of change, chain you with guilt.
	Usually not.
	Usually not.
	Well, how do people get free-roam dogs to stay on their property?
	They're not chained up.
	How do they get free-roam dogs to stay on their own property?
	Electric collar, that's right.
	So, there's a base station, and the dog has a collar, and when the dog gets too far away, the collar gives a mild electric shock to the dog, and the dog then comes back, and then the dog limits itself, right?
	So how do parents get you to obey them when you have all the power?
	Well, they activate remote control agony in your mind.
	Right?
	They accuse you of doing what they themselves did
	They say that you're bad if you don't do X. They just activate all the stuff that they laid in.
	Remote control, just dial it up.
	They activate all of that stuff to control you.
	And this is where universal philosophy sets you free.
	Right?
	This is where universal philosophy sets you free.
	Because universal philosophy says, wait, do you even believe these values that you claim?
	I shouldn't laugh.
	I don't know if I've ever said this before.
	Do you know what my father said to me repeatedly over the course of my twenties?
	You must take care of your mother.
	You must take care of your mother.
	You must be loyal to your mother.
	Why was that a little tough to accept as a foundational principle of morals?
	You chose her, I didn't.
	You ran and left me behind.
	The fuck are you to tell me that I have to take care of a woman I never chose who was violent and crazy and you went to Africa and left me with her?
	You need to take care of your mother.
	Really?
	So it's really important to take care of the woman I didn't chose when you abandoned me and the woman you chose?
	I didn't make any vows.
	You're right.
	I didn't make any vows.
	So he's trying to create in me, I guess he was, trying to create in me a sense of obligation and of being a bad person if I didn't take care of my mother, right?
	Yeah, it's asking me to do something he wasn't willing to do.
	Wasn't willing to do, he ran away from it after promising to.
	I never promised to do it.
	I never made a vow.
	I never chose her out of a crowd.
	I never promised to do it.
	I never swore before God and man to
	Stay with her for better or for worse and sickness and health until death do us- I never said any of that!
	He did!
	Well, I, who chose your mother and voluntarily vowed before God and man to take care of her for the rest of life, I'm off the hook from taking care of her, but you who were born to her, who I abandoned you with, you have to take care of her.
	Do you see?
	Like, it's just not believable.
	How many teachers humiliated you and then said you need to show respect?
	Yeah, your dad screams for five minutes, you scream back.
	Who the F do you think you're raising your voice to?
	Yeah.
	I mean, yeah, how many tell you you need to respect others and the teacher who puts you in the corner with a dunce cap or something, right?
	Oh, the how dare you people!
	How dare you take my values and use them against me?
	How dare you demand that I live by what I inflict?
	How dare you universalize the values I claim are universal?
	How dare you?
	Yeah, the how dare you people are kind of boring, right?
	The two biggest points I get resistance on ethics being universal, peaceful parenting, or they show their colors.
	Yeah.
	Oh yeah.
	Like when I acted in self-defense against my mother's violence when I was 13 or so and she was just appalled, just appalled.
	The double standards of maddening, it makes it seem impossible to reason with a person.
	Well, it is.
	Yeah, of course it is.
	It's completely impossible to reason with them.
	So, don't.
	It's easy.
	And that which is impossible should not be pursued.
	I don't aim to be 40 again, because that's impossible.
	By the way, if this is helpful, useful, tips madly, deeply, humbly and gratefully appreciated, freedomman.com slash donate.
	Uh, if you're listening to this later, and I will give you just as a wee bonus, here's my AI.
	There's a link for my AI.
	You can go check it out, even if you're not a subscriber.
	It's really for subscribers, but if you, I appreciate everyone being here tonight, so you can go and check out the AI.
	It's very cool.
	Is freedomain.com the best place to donate?
	Yeah, it's pretty good.
	freedomain.com slash donators is the best place if you don't mind, although whatever is convenient for you is, is fine with me.
	It's fine.
	It's fine.
	No, I appreciate that.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	I do my best.
	All right, let's do one more.
	Father was a workaholic, never spent time with us, made threats if we ever challenged him.
	Now he tries to brown nose by buying food, making food, money spending, despite the fact that we told him we want an apology, not money.
	Why does he keep trying to light the candle of love by blowing on it?
	Yeah.
	So, um,
	Did your father ever expect apologies when you did something wrong?
	Did your father ever say, I expect an apology or you should apologize when you do something wrong?
	Did your father ever do that?
	Yeah.
	So you never have to listen to that.
	Like he was always lying.
	Because it's not a principle that he follows.
	It was just a power that he inflicted.
	It's not a principle.
	Like that's the great thing.
	Oh, it's such a relief.
	Let me tell you.
	It's such a relief.
	When people don't follow the rules they inflict on you, you're just liberated from everything they ever said to you on the subject.
	You're liberated from it completely.
	When people don't follow the rules that they inflict, you never need to listen to them in the future about anything important.
	And the beautiful thing is, you never need to listen to them about anything in the past.
	Anything.
	Do you know how liberating that is to realize that it was just moral hypocrisy?
	It was power control, brutality, abuse.
	It wasn't if this was what happened to you.
	It's nothing to do with ethics.
	They were never interested in being right morally.
	They were only interested in winning the battle in the moment.
	And they just kept hammering that moral button because that let them win.
	But they don't care anything about ethics.
	Isn't that wonderful?
	That the people who harmed you
	With ethical arguments, with moral arguments, you're bad, you're wrong, you're disrespectful, you're talking back, you're whatever, you're not honoring me, you're not being obedient, you're not being a good kid, you're not being... Like, that they just used these words because they, quote, worked, but they didn't care about them at all.
	Do you know how liberating that is?
	That every moral judgment ever placed on you by hypocritical people means nothing, less than nothing.
	It shames them, not you.
	I really need you to get this, understand this.
	Lift this load off your mind.
	The moment you go to someone who inflicted moral rules on you, and they dodged those moral rules themselves, it means everything they ever said to you about morality was manipulative bullshit.
	Filling your mind like super plain shitter guy.
	Yeah, button mashing, oh, does this work?
	Oh, does this work?
	They're just trying different keys in the lock, right?
	But, oh my God, you never have to ever judge yourself negatively when bad people call you bad.
	You understand?
	Because, you know, you got them in your head and, oh, you're bad and you didn't, you listened and you didn't respect and you're selfish and you're... The moment that they resent a moral rule being inflicted on them that they inflicted on you,
	You get to lift that entire weight off, that yammering little parental voice.
	How dare you raise your hand, says the woman who beat me half to death, it felt like when I was a kid, right?
	You got to take care of your mother, says my dad, right?
	You know, and you know, the parents who say, we just got to let it go and move on, right?
	Let it go, move on.
	And then they talk about something that their ex-husband did 30 years ago with the same amount of ferocity.
	Like my mom, when I first saw my parents together after like 30 years and my mom was like, my dad had a cold and she always used to complain that he never took care of his health and never washed his hands or whatever.
	And my mom was like, I bet you that's the same cold he had when we were together.
	It's like, oh yeah, I really get this whole let go and move on thing.
	Ooh, you're so good at that.
	When bad people call you bad, you don't need to listen to them.
	It may in fact be a badge of honor, right?
	But when bad people call you bad, you don't need to listen to them at all.
	It's actually incredibly unhealthy to do so.
	It's so strange to watch parents struggle in vain to do everything except make restitution, right?
	Right, now last answer.
	Why don't parents make restitution?
	I mean, it's really very common, right?
	For them not.
	So maybe there's exceptions.
	Just for that one guy.
	Maybe there's exceptions, right?
	Why don't parents make restitution?
	Why don't they apologize and work to make things right?
	They'd have to emotionally process their own parents' lack of restitution.
	They'd have to face the truth.
	Yeah.
	That's judgment.
	Have to admit they're wrong.
	Yeah, but they don't want to, right?
	I would love to know stuff in the weeds about my parents right now.
	Assuming they can, I'm stumped.
	They hope nobody knows they did wrong because they get away with it.
	Even when they don't get away with it, they still don't admit that they're wrong.
	It took me a long time to accept that I couldn't make moral exceptions for people based on how much I love them.
	Because if I did, I'd make those same exceptions for myself.
	Very wise.
	It was a choice between lying to myself and being a better person.
	All right.
	I will read to you a tiny bit.
	And this is my, my answer.
	Kay found Jonathan's company both exciting and unsettling, but she was distracted by herself.
	She was undergoing a phase in emotional recovery which could be termed perceptive paranoia.
	Having had her secret trauma so recently and dramatically exposed, she began to wonder about the number of people in the world with similar secrets.
	I appeared normal for so many years, she thought.
	I was criticized as flighty, nervous, and confused.
	Yet, I was really desperately afraid.
	And with good reason.
	How many people are like me?
	How much of society is really constructed around the need to keep these secrets?
	Walking through London, she saw furtive, flushed children keeping close to their tight-lipped mothers, and her heart ached.
	A twitchy man approached her one morning, begging for money, his eyes wide and fearful, and she suddenly thought, Veteran?
	And it dawned on her that there is a secret war in society.
	A war against the helpless.
	It is waged in homes and businesses, governments and clubs.
	The helpless are children, workers, soldiers, peasants, husbands, wives, all who find themselves dependent on cruel power.
	The tense polarity of unequal relationships creates a dense whirlpool of compliance, resentment, control, defiance, violence, rage, fear, and horror.
	A child is delivered into the hands of her mother, realized Kay.
	And often a separate world is created.
	A world far from the norms of society.
	A little prison of sick secrecy.
	A dank hole of endless stealthy destruction.
	When she read the newspaper, walked the streets, talked with people, wherever she looked, this secret seemed to be spilling from secret holes.
	She began to see veterans everywhere.
	The harsh noise of society, the racing evasion and silent desperation, all seemed like the distant rumblings of hidden trenches.
	Trenches where the helpless lay trembling before the trundling monoliths of cold, hard hearts.
	Kay had spent 26 years of her life in combat.
	She had learned all the habits of predators.
	Her senses had been strained almost to the breaking point trying to map the cause and effect of trapped violence.
	A lamb caged with lions learns a lot about lions.
	That knowledge lies buried until a safer time.
	When it comes out, it comes with such a sudden rush that the whole world seems to squeeze and distort itself into a wholly different shape.
	The accepted antonyms of truth.
	I caused my horror.
	I was wrong.
	I provoked.
	I am a coward.
	My mother is good.
	I cannot influence others.
	I am insignificant.
	I cannot give pleasure.
	I cannot be loved.
	These beaten cries of a broken soul become the elemental religion of the victims of violence.
	If overturned, the resulting crisis of identity is far greater than the loss of religious faith.
	For our parents are always closer to us than our gods.
	The soul becomes shattered in two.
	The one which knows the horror of violence and the one which cannot allow itself to know the reality of its world.
	This division sets the self at war with itself.
	The uncertainties, confused passions, the savage combination of wild noise and dismal silence are all symptoms of the veteran.
	The survivor of war
	Who knows no end to war, no armistice but blind hope.
	Kay had an odd, powerful dream one night.
	She seemed to be floating in a distant, insubstantial realm, a blur of possible life, jostling in a crowded room of potential souls.
	A tall, dark-cloaked figure called the souls one by one and offered them a life, presenting each of them with a book.
	Kay drifted through the emptiness, trying to peek at the book, but all the pages were blank.
	Finally, her name was called, and the dark figure asked her if she wanted her coming life.
	She asked what it would be like.
	The figure presented her with a book.
	This only goes to age 18, it said.
	You must make your decision based on that.
	Kay opened the book eagerly and visions seemed to spring into her mind from the blank pages.
	She felt herself pink and kicking on a change table, saw a woman leaning over her and shouting, Be still!
	Be still!
	The woman cried out, exasperated at Kay's struggles and struck her violently on the face several times.
	The scene faded and another came.
	Kay on the change table sometime later.
	She no longer moved.
	She lay frozen, silent, watching her mother's hands intently.
	Another view.
	Kay as a toddler, her mother trying to dress her.
	Kay went limp, watching her mother's hands.
	Her mother cried out at her passivity and struck her again.
	Older now, some change had occurred.
	She no longer was herself, but watched herself, as if floating some distance from her helpless flesh.
	She saw herself in an enormous bedroom, packing some biscuits in a little bag, sniffling, desperate.
	She followed herself as she crept down the stairs towards the front door.
	Her view leapt suddenly to the top of the stairs as her mother came thundering down.
	Ungrateful child!
	screamed her mother, descending on the little girl like a whirlwind, her hands striking, blurring like the wings of a hummingbird.
	Then, a period of strange calm.
	Kay saw herself at a party of her mother's, laughing with an oddly tense face, desperate to please, following her mother, clutching at her skirts, being snapped at, her hands constantly torn from her mother's flowing dress.
	She watched herself drift silently into a corner, standing, her hands folded over her stomach, staring at the wild hilarity of the party, at her turbulent father, driving jokes into his guests like spikes.
	Yes.
	Older again.
	In her dream, the visions had begun to take on a tired, dusty quality.
	A squeezing sense of slow demise.
	She saw herself as a young girl, trailing her brother without hope, swallowing his abrupt rejections without complaint, a fixed smile on her face.
	More and more, she heard the sandpaper scraping of turning pages.
	The dark figure loomed above her, watching silently.
	Kay wandered through the wilderness of puberty and adolescence.
	A quiet, lost habit of solitude.
	Friendless.
	Humiliated.
	A begging wraith of fearful need.
	She saw herself in a library, staring at textbooks, the words flowing and fading over the page.
	A sense of eternal falling gripping her.
	A trembling on the brink of the eternal demise of the unloved.
	Teachers railed against her, scathing her lack of concentration, her lack of effort, her lack of results.
	She felt a strange, drained exhaustion.
	The fidgety evasion of those who feel too much, whose burden is too heavy.
	As she aged, she seemed to drift further and further from herself.
	As time passed, it was harder and harder to even make out her own features.
	Boys ignored her.
	Friends met each other, passing her by as if she was some sort of cracked ornament.
	Kay saw herself watching the giddy pleasures of others, a distant smile on her face.
	Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the book slammed shut.
	You can know no more, intoned the dark figure waving a finger.
	This is to be your life.
	Will you take it?
	In her dream, Kay shuddered and wept.
	No.
	No, no, she cried in a formless voice.
	I cannot accept such awful hospitality.
	You will get no other chance, said the figure.
	Do you still refuse life?
	Without hesitation, Kay nodded.
	The figure lifted its hand, and Kay felt her soul trembling on the edge of annihilation, staring at the bottomless pit of nothingness.
	And then her soul pitched itself forward with a sigh of blessed relief.
	Kay had woken suddenly, her cheeks wet with tears.
	I am not sentenced to live, she thought, the heels of her hands pressed to her eyes.
	No matter what my pains, I always have recourse to the blessed nurse of nothingness.
	With that thought, something she had always perceived as solid within her, a dark bedrock of pain, seemed to give way.
	And she saw at once the panic of annihilation that had always been her core.
	I did not want to live, she realized with the sudden clarity of pure insight.
	I did not want to live, yet I never allowed myself to think of death.
	So that's a bit from the book.
	The reason I'm reading this, the reason I'm reading this,
	Is why don't your parents apologize and make restitution?
	Because they can't.
	Because they can't.
	If you could only see your life at the age of 18 before you were born, would you have taken it?
	I wouldn't have.
	I would not have taken my life if I'd only be able to seen it up to the age of 18.
	I wouldn't.
	I mean now, yes.
	Wonderful.
	Great.
	Fantastic.
	And fighting, this is what that part of the book is about, is fighting that knowledge that you don't want to live.
	If you're an abused kid, do you want to live?
	Not much.
	I hope you do.
	I hope you make it.
	Absolutely.
	You should fight for it.
	Life gets better and better and better.
	What is the restitution for treating someone for 18 years so that they don't really want to live?
	What's the restitution?
	Can you fix that?
	Can you undo that?
	Can't undo that.
	Can't fix that.
	How much money would you have taken to have the childhood you had versus the childhood my daughter has?
	How much money would you take?
	A million dollars?
	Ten million dollars?
	Would it be worth it?
	There's no amount, right?
	But you can't fix it.
	Restitution is impossible.
	Your parents don't apologize if they abused you for many years because they can't.
	They don't offer restitution because it's impossible.
	You might as well ask them to fly, unaided.
	Do you see?
	And this is what I was writing when I was 26 years old.
	No, 27 I think.
	So they're at least giving you that level of honesty.
	So yeah, freedomain.com slash books.
	Check out the book Just Pour.
	It's so good.
	It's so good.
	It's one of my faves.
	Do you know which one of your books is the most popular?
	I don't.
	I don't.
	I don't.
	And believe it or not, it's an action story.
	That's just one bit that's very introspective.
	All right.
	Well, listen, I'm going to stop here.
	Look at it.
	Eleven o'clock.
	Thank you guys for dropping by.
	So wonderful to have these conversations with you tonight.
	Thank you so much for giving me.
	These great conversations, Mike, I really think this is the best we can do to help the world, and I'm so thrilled to be able to do these shows live, I don't take it for granted because for like 15, 17 years, I did them
	Just record it and being able to do them live in this way is fantastic.
	And I think we just, the friction of it all produces some amazing stuff.
	And I really, really thank you for that so enormously and deeply and humbly and gratefully.
	I hope that my bluntness is not ever perceived as anything hostile or harsh or ugly.
	It is my passion for what we can all achieve together that drives this in me.
	And I hope that I do it in the right way.
	And if there's ways that I can do it better,
	I am your humble servant, and I will listen to all of your suggestions.
	And to the person who just got divorced from the narcissist, my heart goes out to you, brother.
	I am incredibly sorry for what happened to you as a child.
	Call in at freedomain.com.
	Just send me your Skype ID.
	We'll set up a call-in show, and we can talk all about it, because I am so sympathetic.
	And, you know, to Nitpicker Guy,
	I appreciate that too.
	It was really really helpful and I am glad that you were honest about your intentions in that moment.
	It was very productive and I hope that you take the correction in the spirit in which it is intended.
	I say all of these things because I want you to have quality people around you.
	I really desperately want you to have quality people around you so I will push back at the things that will keep quality people away in the same way that I want you to get exercise and sunshine.
	Have yourself a wonderful evening.
	Freedoman.com slash donate.
	Don't forget JustPoorNovel.com, AlmostNovel.com and Freedoman.com slash books is just fantastic.
	So thanks everyone.
	I will talk to you soon.
	No Sunday show this Sunday, but we'll be back early next week.
	So have yourself a great evening.
	Lots of love.
	My Peter, I'll talk to you soon.
	Bye.

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