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Sept. 27, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
02:07:30
5269 Stop Bullying and Bribing!

Freedomain Livestream 22 Sep 2023!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/UPB2022

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Welcome to your Friday Night Live.
Oh, is it the 22nd of September already?
So this is Friday.
What is it on Sunday?
What is it on Sunday?
It's my birthday month!
Yes, it's my birthday.
I will be doing a show
At 11 o'clock, maybe just for an hour or so on my birthday.
I had a very nice day.
I hope your day was nice as well.
I got up, had a nice coffee with my wife this morning, got up a little earlier, and then I did some work.
I did, well, I mean, yes, I did a couple of shows answering questions from freedomain.locals.com.
I did a walk in the woods, and then it was just so nice out.
I sat outside and recorded some more, and I did a little show with my daughter where we played some Baldur's Gate and had some fun and made some jokes, so I hope that you'll check that out.
I worked with The Fine James and The Fine Jared on the Truth About the Wild West, which is available right here!
freedomain.locals.com for subscribers!
It is really cool.
We have a video for one of my presentations, so I hope that you will enjoy that.
I really enjoyed doing that one.
It's been one of my favorite presentations for a while, so I hope you'll check that out at freedomain.locals.com, and you can... Was it steftacular?
Oh, and then this afternoon, some friends came over from friends of my daughter's that we've known, and ours too, that we've known for many years.
We vacationed together, we've been all over the
Well, Clint Eastwood make an appearance in my birthday?
I don't know, maybe.
But it is absolutely pitch and picture perfect fall weather up here in Canada at the moment.
It is just beautiful.
Oh, will Clint Eastwood make an appearance for the Wild West Show?
Well, I do a couple of accents.
I don't think Clint does.
But I remember I did create a character once after I ate too much Indian food called Clench Eastwood.
Clench Eastwood.
Clinch Eastwood almost didn't make it in from the parking lot, let me tell you.
It was tough.
It was tough.
The legend of Josie wailing on the toilet.
Yeah, fall is beautiful.
Will you get any happy birthday wishes from celebrities?
I think I will not.
I have been liberated from responsibility for the world by an utter lack of companionship.
Now, I had an interesting question, and fine, we can get to your stuff later, but what about me and my stuff?
It's always about you, you, you.
Just kidding.
So, I have a question that I was mulling over.
Now, I... Let's hope Hillary Clinton doesn't call me for my birthday.
The truth about the Wild West image.
Yes, thank you for the person who came up with the thumbnail.
It's genius.
So, I try to evaluate myself according to Babylonian Christian standards.
No, I mean, I try to look at some of my strengths and weaknesses.
Now, tell me
I don't know what to make of that entire statement, but it could be trolling.
So I think I have a fair amount of charisma.
I generally have been likable for most of my life and I'm pretty good at talking people into things.
I always try to talk them into the right things and use it for the power of good and all that.
But I definitely do, I think I have a reasonable to high amount of charisma.
But I was sort of thinking, because I did this show about Russell Brand and all of the people that other people are standing up for.
And I was just wondering the difference between someone like Russell Brand that people are sort of willing to go to the wall for and defend and all of that and me.
It's an interesting kind of difference.
I suppose one of the things that I'm not good at, well one of the many things I'm not good at and you guys let me know what you think, I think one of the things that I may not be good at
is engendering loyalty.
I'm just curious what you guys think of that.
I mean, I have loyalty in friends, I have loyalty obviously in you lovely listeners, I have loyalty in my wife, and so on.
But in general, in the public world, in the public sphere, I wonder if I might not be a little bit too prickly to engender that kind of professional loyalty?
Because he has hair and you don't?
Oh boy, it's hair jokes!
Please try not to dip too deep into the well of originality, my friends, because Lord knows bald guys who went bald in their 20s have not spent 40 years or 30 years listening to bald jokes.
I think you're more divisive, but the loyalty you do have is stronger.
What do you mean by divisive?
What do you mean by divisive?
I don't feel divisive at all, but I'm curious.
I mean, I know that that's sort of said, but I'm not sure what you mean by
I say this without any offense, of course, I'm just curious what you mean by the word divisive.
Russell Brand doesn't really talk about childhood, does he?
I think it may be from the aversion to living universally and non-hypocritically.
Russell Brand won't hold anyone to high standards, easier to keep him round.
Your moral realism puts people in the camps of good and evil.
That is interesting.
Interesting.
I have, I mean, I think these are all excellent points, and they may well be infinitely superior to what I thought, but I wonder if it's because Russell Brand talks about things that people can't change.
And look, he does have a lot of charisma, and you've got to have a soft spot in your heart for somebody who regularly uses the word
What was it?
Pulse of crudeness?
Pulse of crudeness or something like that.
It was like some real... And he uses baroque attacks and all of that.
It was really, really good.
But I think that he talks about... He talks about immoralities in the world that you can't do anything about.
And I've always really tried to focus on talking about evils in the world that you can do something about.
Boy, if there's one thing I hated, that feeling of helplessness.
Oh, don't you just hate that feeling of helplessness where you see this slow-motion tsunami of bad things coming your way and you're kind of helpless to do anything about that?
Libertarians do too, and most people hate libertarians.
I'm not sure that libertarians talk about morals that you can affect.
I mean, libertarians, I guess some of them kind of begrudgingly talked about child abuse when I was holding their feet to the fire, rhetorically, but once I was yeeted out of the public square, it seems like they've gone right back to drugs and the Fed.
You talk about childhood abuse, you focus on the source problems, whereas others focus on the symptoms.
There's no call to action from brand.
Yeah, I think that's true.
I think it's true.
You know, one of the things that people do like, and there's a big market for this.
I was aware of this very early on.
Boy, there's a big market for this.
Not here, because we're action-oriented people, I think.
But there's a huge market for selling people the idea that
Being aware of evil or being aware of immorality is the same as being good.
So they'll turn the lights on and say, oh there's this bad thing, there's this bad thing, there's this corrupt thing, there's this immoral thing.
And people genuinely feel, they genuinely seem to feel that they become more virtuous by the identification of corruption.
You ever seen that?
Well, there's this corrupt thing going on the world, let me explain it, let me detail it, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Okay, and there's like, people go, yeah, yeah, except that there's this, oh, you know, yeah, this is bad stuff.
And then they feel like, woof, man, I've done my moral good for the day.
Woo!
I have smoked that deep moral bowl of virtue because I have objectively identified ye olde immorality.
And it's like, ah, I don't really think that that's,
I don't really think that that's doing any good.
I really don't think that it's doing any good.
It's sort of like saying, well as a doctor I've seen a lot of sick people, or I want to be a doctor, I look at a lot of ill people.
And so I'm a doctor.
Like, I remember a friend of mine, I was good friends with him in junior high school.
I used to go to his place every day after school, because I was a latchkey kid, and I wanted some place where there were people, because I like people.
And his father was a doctor, and he had one of these books.
Because, you know, everyone's kind of curious about, you know, what it's like to be a doctor, and so on.
At least I was.
So, and I remember his father was a doctor.
He had one of these books of human ailments.
Here are human ailments, and elephantitis, and pustules, and boils, and all of that.
And I remember looking at that like, oh, that's not very nice.
I would pay good money to not have to do that for a living, to be, you know, sort of armed deep in human pustules for my life.
But I do remember flipping through that book and saying, wow, that's really, that looks unwell.
Boy, that looks really bad.
That looks negative.
I'm going through Hamlet with my daughter and we're talking about the scene where the, spoiler, it's okay, where Claudius pours the poison into the king's ear and the pustules break out and sort of explain all of that, right?
And so looking at illness doesn't make you a doctor.
Here's another really sick person.
Oh yeah, that person looks really sick.
Here's another.
Here's a different kind of illness.
Like me flipping through that book, looking at all these pictures of ill people and diseases and problems.
It doesn't make me a doctor.
I don't really understand the illness.
I certainly don't know how to cure it.
I've just turned my stomach a little bit looking at it.
Does it sort of make sense?
I've just looked at the evil.
It definitely looks bad to me.
It looks negative to me.
Have I understood anything?
Do I know how to cure anything?
Do I know the source of anything?
Nope!
I mean, human beings are pretty good at identifying illness.
We have to be, right?
To stay safe.
Human beings are pretty good at identifying illness.
We've been doing it for hundreds of thousands of years, but until pretty much the 20th century, you were healthier not going to a doctor at all.
So...
I think there's this whole, it's on the right, it's on the left as well, there's this whole industry of, look at evil, look at evil, look at evil, look at evil, this is evil, this is evil, this is evil, this is evil, like a conveyor belt of malfeasance and corruption just whipping past you, whipping past, next thing, next thing, bad, bad, bad.
And people looking at all of that and saying,
Well, I guess I've... I guess I'm better, I'm moral, I'm doing good, because I've looked at this whipped-past ADHD conveyor belt of rapid-span evil for 40 years.
Evil, evil, evil, evil, evil!
When I was a kid, I used to take these train rides.
I was six when I went to boarding school.
And I used to take these train rides from London to where the boarding school was.
And I always loved to stay awake and cup my hands around the window, which you couldn't see out, right?
It was kind of dark because there was light inside.
And I would cup my hands and I would, at the age of six, I went from six to the age of eight, six, seven, and eight.
And I would watch intently.
Everyone else was, you know, passed out like all the other kids or whatever, right?
And I would sort of watch intently, and I wrote about this in my novel, The Future, about a kid pressing his hands against the window of a train.
And you'd see these little flashes of things going by.
Houses, and you'd see people in the houses just flash, and they would go by, and they'd be doing something.
You'd see, and often I would travel at night.
And you'd see like one tiny train station.
The train didn't even stop.
Maybe it was an express.
I guess it was an express.
And he would flash by and he'd have like way too many suitcases.
And I would come up with stories.
One guy in the middle of nowhere.
Tiny train station.
One yellow pool of light.
Way too many suitcases.
What's the story behind him?
What's the story back there?
I remember seeing a couple fighting in the window.
What are they fighting about?
What's the conflict?
You see, and I would occasionally see, like the old, there's old men usually on their upstairs balconies, and you knew that they were watching for the trains, right?
And I'd wave for them, like they couldn't see me, or it was too fast, or whatever, I had light behind me.
Saying, okay, well, wouldn't it be sad?
I remember even at the age of six, thinking, wouldn't it be sad to end up in life
So alone that you look for a train to flash by in the night and that's your contact with people like those old women who go to the doctor with unidentified, quote, aches and pains just so they have someone to feel their lymph nodes and talk to for five minutes, right?
That's a sad, sad place to end up.
So, I remember just these flashes, that I would see these flashes, and I used to have this when I would be hiking sometimes.
I would hike in this ravine near where I lived, and there would be these houses back here, and occasionally when you'd hike along, you'd see things in the houses.
I wasn't, like, staring at the houses, but you'd see stuff.
And you'd get this little window into people's lives, which I've always been quite fascinated by, and now, of course, I get to do it in Call-In Shows and all that sort of stuff.
But...
That seeing things and think you know them, seeing things and thinking that you are combating them.
I just, and I, you know, I did some of this for sure.
I mean, I did some of this with True News and so on, like here's more corruption, here's more immorality.
But there is just this huge market, this massive market for show and tell evil.
And thank you for the tips, by the way.
If you would like to help out and tip, I would really appreciate that.
Sorry, I just need to refresh for a second here because I don't seem to be getting any more text.
A little tough to fly without the text.
I also want to make sure that we're still cooking here.
We have just rebooted.
Excellent.
Excellent.
Well, thank you, everyone.
Sorry for that.
Hiccup?
But we're good, we're good.
All right, so listen, you can wait to find out later what I was chatting about, but it basically was this idea that there's this whole industry where they just give you this conveyor belt of immorality, just goes past you like scenes out of a night train flashing in the middle of nowhere, that you get these scenes and they just show this is corrupt, oh this is corrupt, oh this is corrupt, oh this is so corrupt, and that is so corrupt,
And people just absorb all of this stuff and they think that they're doing some good, that there's some virtue going on, so that they're not just looking at illness and think that they're learning how to be doctors.
So I won't get into any names in particular.
So yeah, it's wild.
I don't know why it is people think that just looking at immorality makes you virtuous.
You know, we're not going to try and take the ring to Mount Doom.
What we're going to do, though, is we're going to look at some Nazgul, maybe a couple of orcs, and yeah, Sauron's Eye.
We're going to show you Sauron's Eye is darting across the sky, man.
Aren't you good?
Hey, does anyone want to actually... No!
It's just kind of funny that way, right?
That looking at immorality
Just is considered to be virtuous.
It's something to do with childhood helplessness with regards to evil.
That I'm gonna observe my parents but I can't change them.
And I think because I gave people... Now look, what you can do... Yeah, somebody says, notice this all over YouTube.
Channels which just document the endless doom and provide nothing to improve society.
Right.
Right.
So, what happens in general is the more you dial up opposing evil, the more danger you end up in, right?
So you dial up evil, you end up in more danger.
And people, and I think justly and fairly, they recoil from that, right?
You've got a life to live, you've got kids to raise, and you, you know, can't be going down in a sheet of holy glory into the abyss, right?
And, you know, we all have to make our compromises, and that's fine.
I don't in particular mind that.
But I think that what I did, though, which I suppose is absolutely unforgivable by friends, right?
The enemies, blah, blah, blah.
But what was absolutely unforgivable was I said, here's how to combat evil safely.
Here's how to combat evil.
Safely.
You talk to your parents, you talk to your family, you promote virtue, you don't put up with vice, and the against me argument and peaceful parenting and the voluntary family.
I'm like, hey, you know what?
You don't have to go to the wall to fight bad stuff.
You can do it in your own life.
You don't need to be staring at the doomed porn of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet and going, damn, we're fucked.
I'm like, no!
You can do it!
Right now!
Right here!
Vroom!
You can do it!
Stop listening to me!
Make the phone calls!
Go meet with the people!
Go talk to the people!
Go look and deal with the immorality that you have experienced in your own life!
Nope!
I'd rather get back to Dan Bongino talking about the DOJ!
Oh boy.
I prefer to stare at an immorality you can't do anything about, rather than actually have words with immoral people I can do something about.
That.
Does this tell me if this makes sense?
Does this make sense?
So Russell Brand, with his charisma and his good humor and his low-rent, skeevy Jesus persona, is telling you all these things that you can get outraged about, right?
You can get outraged about this, that, and the other that he's talking about.
Boy, that's outrageous!
Yeah, crazy, man.
Whoa, yeah, that stuff's crazy, right?
And then you go about your day, and maybe you feel like a better person, a good person.
Yes, makes sense.
It's all talk with these people.
Those people I'm tired of it.
I checked out.
I'm just here at Free Domain.
Feels like the only truth anymore.
Yeah, I don't know.
Pharmaceuticals, Ukraine, Vax, Federal Reserve, foreign policy, blah, blah, blah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Russell Brand maybe said, don't get the vaccine.
That's pragmatic.
Uh, does that, uh, combat immorality?
Really?
Does it?
Does it?
You know, I talked to, um, I don't know, that was about a year ago, I talked to a younger person.
I just love dropping into conversations in the world as a whole, so I was talking to this younger person, and she was saying that she lost, like, ten friends.
Over the Vax, right?
And, you know, families have been split up, wrecked, destroyed, set against each other on all of this stuff, right?
You remember when I was complained that I was breaking up families?
Wow.
Someone says, do you think this arcs over into people's consumption of mainstream media and their aversion to talk about anything meaningful?
Well, the opposite of meaning is moral vanity, right?
So moral vanity.
I wish conservatives organized like the left does.
Sorry, with all due respect, are you crazy?
Instead it's Facebook complaining.
You wish conservatives organized like the left does.
A quick question.
What happens when conservatives organize as a whole?
What happens when they try to have meaningful conferences to affect change or they protested the streets?
I mean just out of curiosity what happens when conservatives organize?
Just out of curiosity.
The left shout them down.
Well, shouting would be a significant and civilized improvement.
Yeah, so you can't compare the left and the right.
I mean, it's just unfair.
Yeah, I mean, sorry, I don't want to talk politics, but it don't, you know, people are like, oh, the Republicans are so useless.
It's like, try being useful, see what happens.
You know, just try being useful and effective, see what happens, right?
So, yeah, so why can people not process depth?
Why can people not process depth in conversations?
Because depth would reveal their moral vanity.
So moral vanity is when you want to feel good without the risk of actually doing good.
You want to feel like you're doing good without the risk of actually doing good, right?
So if you start to have deep conversations about good and evil, then I have no other ideas.
I'm just talking about all the things that you can do to combat immorality and promote virtue in your own life.
Oh yeah, you can go and do good in your own life.
Oh yes, you did promise a donation at 40 likes.
Thank you very much, I appreciate that.
That's very kind.
And if you're finding this helpful, I always try to do my best, but there's a certain amount of eruption that is beyond my control, and donations help.
People respond to incentives, I'm an economic being like everyone else, so I always try and do my best, but donations can help tip it over the edge.
So, okay, do you know people in your life who have
Of course you do.
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay.
With consequences!
Talking to people without consequences is... It's baby babble.
It's nonsense words.
It's syllable slashing for no particular purpose, right?
Okay, so are there people in your life who are or were immoral?
Whether you've talked to them or not, and they are or were immoral, they have not made restitution or amends, are they still in your life?
Yeah, so it's a scattering.
Yes and no.
Yeah.
Some are, more aren't.
I pay taxes makes me feel immoral.
What is done under the law is not up to your choice, right?
Keeping the arms length.
I mean it's funny, I mean this is a question I asked myself back in the day and I mean I still ask myself.
Can I expect others to take morality more seriously than I do?
Can I expect other people to take morality more seriously than I do?
I don't think so, right?
I don't think so.
So if I have unrepentant immoral people in my life, then I don't take morality that seriously.
I don't.
I don't.
Now that's fine, but let's not pretend that it is something other than what it is.
So for a lot of people, and listen, I put myself in this category for many, many years, so this is not any kind of superiority thing.
And with less excuse than most, I was in this category for many years.
Morality was like a fun, puzzle-challenging hobby.
Right?
It was interesting.
I was fascinated by it.
Non-aggression principle.
I was starting to play around with universal ethics even before UPB, and I loved studying ethical theories, and boy, it was just 3D chess.
Fun, challenging, intellectual hobby.
Boy, if I could have turned it into a career back in the day, I would have, but man, morality was really interesting and fun.
But I'll tell you one thing, it wasn't.
It wasn't serious.
It wasn't serious.
Serious is when you start making actual decisions based upon it.
Enough studying, start doing.
Enough studying, start doing.
Now, doing is in your life.
Morality is in your life.
So I was like, wow, you know, child abuses are immoral.
So I got to talk to them.
And if they won't change, if they won't reform, then I have unrepentant evildoers in my environment.
Well, that's fine, you see, because I've got to have some place to go come Christmas.
Right.
And if I don't take morality, if I study morality and consider it one of the most important things in my life, but I don't take it seriously enough to act on, then I'm actually discrediting morality.
So, I mean, that's just honesty, right?
If you like studying ethics and virtue and UPB and all of that, but you don't want to put it in practice in your life, then just say, yeah, I don't take morality seriously, but I sure love puzzling around and thinking about it and arguing about it and debating about it.
It's a fun puzzle for me.
But, I mean, I don't take it any more seriously than a rousing game of Catan or Roblox or
Oh God, what's that one where you spin the shapes in the Tetris, right?
It's, um... Sudoku.
With syllogisms.
It's something I think about, something I read about, something I write about, something I argue about, but it's not something I actually live at all.
Do you know what a huge relief
It is to people in your life that you don't take morality seriously.
I took it seriously when it came to my birthday yesterday.
I spent it alone, even though I was angry, I was alone.
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday, dear SK.
Happy birthday to you.
I'm sorry that you spent your birthday alone.
If it's any consolation, I've spent some pretty important days on my own.
And this is always the big question.
It's the big question.
Please, yeah, please wish him a happy birthday.
Happy birthday, man.
Please wish him a happy birthday.
I hope that next birthday is less solitary.
But this is sort of the big question, right?
The big question is, do I want to be isolated with other people or alone with myself?
It's always the big question.
Quantity over quality.
I prefer time alone to time faking.
See, to me, time faking, where you're smiling and glad-handling and talking about nonsense and sports and weather and sometimes politics and all that sort of unactable trash, to me, I would much rather be alone than faking.
Tell me.
When I'm alone, I don't have to fake!
I don't know, maybe fake an orgasm or two.
But for the most part, I don't have to fake.
You know, just shake up the Ready Whip and hit the ceiling.
Right?
So, I just don't have to fake anything.
I don't have to fake anything.
So, let me get a sense of the age range here.
Give me the decades, 20s, 30s, 40s.
Like, what decades are you guys in?
20s, mid 40s, 30s, early, okay, 50s, late 30s, 40s, 20s, 20, 46 on the 24th, well that's a fine day to have a birthday.
Right, 39, 20, late 20s, 30s, okay, alright.
You sound like an auctioneer.
That's right.
Or, you know, if I'm further away, an auctioneer.
Oh yes!
And you feel the dad joke goodness flowing through your veins.
All right.
Yeah.
Felt that deep inside.
That's right.
All right.
1 to 10.
1 to 10.
1 to 10.
Do you think about how much time you have left?
What you have to do?
And that you're gonna fucking die.
1 to 10.
7, 10, 2, 3, 10, 9.
Yeah, yeah.
All the time?
Okay, well you don't want death eventually to be paralysis in the present, right?
So.
Look at that, I have so much passion I have spittle on my screen.
You've lived 11,000 out of 30,000 days?
Yeah.
I mean, listen, I don't mind getting older at all.
And I've worked pretty hard to stay healthy and I can still do an hour of pickleball and whatever it is, right?
So, not too bad.
Not too bad.
But I'll tell you this, man.
Steph bought no Nike to waste time.
Steph bought no Nike.
to waste time anymore now I'm not been a huge time waster in my life I mean I've wasted obviously some and that's fine you gotta rest and you gotta recharge and all that but man I'll tell ya I have 57 if I'm lucky I get to 87 right that's that's a good that's a good age that's average-ish and all that right I mean I'm post-cancer so the odds are a little lower but alright so I got
57, 67, 77, 87, right?
So 57 to 67, 10 years.
67 to 77, 20 years.
77 to 87, 30 years.
And
It ain't like the past.
Like, 77 ain't like 27, obviously, right?
You don't know what issues, what health, you know, you hear about.
I remember Scott Adams saying many years ago that something about, like, he was talking about this old guy.
It's like, yeah, nobody gets into the 70s without health issues and so on.
And he had this, what, spasmodic dysphonia or something like that, but he couldn't talk to the point where he didn't even want to live anymore.
So, I don't know.
I don't know what's going to happen.
I don't know how much energetic, productive time I have left.
But I sure know there's a lot more in the rearview than there is in the headlights.
A lot more in the rearview than there is in the headlights.
I mean, I ain't getting to 114, so there's no double in me, right?
There's a lot more in the rearview than there is in the headlights.
And what's on the headlights is some seriously bumpy shit.
What's been in the rearview is pretty smooth.
Henry Kissinger is 100, you must live that long.
Yes, but who knows what he drinks?
I ain't drinking that.
I don't, and I view time that I have to fake things, I view time with dishonesty as catastrophically hacked off the time that I have left.
Right?
You follow?
If I have to fake it,
That is time that is catastrophically subtracted from the time I have left.
Does this make sense?
30 years is gonna fly by?
I don't think so.
Honestly, I don't think so.
I don't think so.
For me, time passes just right.
Right?
Time passes just right.
If you're too busy, it flies by.
If you're just manic and a workaholic, then you look back and it's like, oh my god, I was just in this hamster wheel, blah, blur, right?
If you're doing too much, time flies by.
If you're not doing enough, time drags.
So to me, time goes by just fine.
Plus, I have a lot of markers.
Maybe I'm too busy?
I don't know.
I'm just telling you my particular perspective.
What percentage of your free time do you have to bullshit?
What percentage of your free time do you have to lie and fake and make small talk and connect with people that you don't particularly care about?
Zero!
That's fantastic.
Zero!
Wow, amazing.
25, 10, 20, at work 40 percent.
Okay, I said free time.
A good day, a good day.
Five percent.
Very little.
Oh, free time.
Zero percent.
Zero percent.
Right.
One tenth of that.
Probably five percent.
Usually meaningful conversations.
Forty percent.
Five percent just holidays when visiting family.
Ha ha.
Yeah, I don't think that's funny.
I'm sorry about that.
Used to be 90%?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm alone so it doesn't feel like a meaningful management.
No friends, work alone, lots of time for deep thought and spiritual growth.
But you can only go so deep alone, right?
You understand a bath escape is a two-man operation.
You can only get, you know, people say, oh I want to work on myself, I want to work on myself.
But you can't work on yourself all the way by yourself.
You can't work on yourself all the way by yourself.
Because sometimes you need some deep surgery and you can't do it on your own.
Sometimes you need that objective view of yourself, you can't do it on your own.
Yeah, lone wolf mentality, ain't it?
No man is an island.
Am I a zero, Stan Fleck, in terms of faking it?
No, of course not.
Of course not.
I gotta tell you, I think the zero is bullshit.
I mean, I could be wrong.
I think the zero is bullshit.
I mean, I make small talk just about everywhere I go.
You know, you've got to cross a border.
You've got to go and talk to people.
And you know, so yeah, I don't know about the zero.
I think people just type that stuff to sound cool, but it's a little vampiric.
It's a little parasitical, right?
No, I don't ever, ever make small talk.
I don't ever inhibit myself.
I don't ever not tell the complete and total truth.
It's like, no, you don't.
No, you don't.
No, you don't.
Um... So, I'm fairly low, but... My wife has told me incredibly revealing things about myself.
So glad to have her.
Yeah, you need... It's like saying, well, I'm working on my appearance, but you can't really see your ass.
You need somebody else to see your ass, right?
So...
I can't just, you know, flip into and out of empty mode, hollow mode, nothing mode, headpieces filled with straw, alas, mode, wasteland mode.
I can't just flip in and out of that.
So what happens with me is if I'm in a situation where I have to dissociate from depth and be helium balloon
Bumping atop the jagged, easy, soft spikes of acceptable interactions.
I kind of got to prepare for it.
And then I'm doing that.
It's a strain.
And afterwards, I'm tired.
I'm tired!
Small talk is like endless mosquitoes on your jugular.
I'm tired.
It drains me.
There's a recovery time for tininess, isn't there?
Life, time, energy, depth, virtue, humanity, passion, power, boom!
Gone.
Gone.
It's exhausting to be small.
I don't know why people think it's a relief.
It's exhausting.
And you know why?
This is why small talk is inflicted on society to drain you.
It's to drain you.
It's to exhaust you, to enervate you, to disable you.
That's what small talk is for.
It's to hollow you out, to empty you out, to render you inert, to diffuse you.
Somebody says, it drains me too.
I deal with it for 10 hours a day at work.
It's nearly unbearable.
Yeah, I just check out when people are small talking.
That's so true.
I feel like small talk is so taxing as opposed to having a deep and meaningful conversation.
That's invigorating.
Yeah.
Do you talk about UPB with Tim Horton's employees?
I don't know if that's a snarky question or not.
I don't know if that's a real question or not.
Sent your recent Roman Empire episode to a friend and told him about women think deeper, men think further concept.
He enjoyed that.
You're serious?
Do I talk about UPB with Tim Hortons employees?
Ah, let's see here.
I think it's a serious and very valid question.
I mean, I'm happy to talk about that.
I'm just, I'm a little, I'm a little baffled.
Doesn't mean anything bad is happening.
I'm just a little baffled.
So in a lineup, do I interfere with people's ability to make a living by lecturing them about abstract moral philosophy?
I mean, have you never worked in a customer-facing business?
I don't understand why you're asking these things.
You're articulating exactly how I feel.
Thank you for the tip.
I appreciate that.
Yeah, there's nothing wrong with small talk, absolutely.
The problem with small talk, it's when it's inflicted.
The problem is not being small, it's when you're small because you're punished for being large.
That's the problem.
That's the problem.
No, I don't talk about UPB with Tim Hortons employees.
However, you know, if it's not too busy and, you know,
My daughter's there in the day, and, you know, we're chatting and joking around as we generally do, and, you know, I'll mention, oh yes, my daughter's homeschooled, and, you know, we're a peaceful parent, we don't use any aggression.
I'll definitely drop that stuff for sure.
Small talk is a passive-aggressive towards the other person subject to boredom and insignificance.
Well, isn't small talk generally combined with a threat?
Isn't small talk generally combined with a threat?
Which is, if you ain't small, you're toast.
Be small, or be toast.
That's... Maybe I'm misunderstanding what your definition of small talk is.
Well, small talk is not, I'd like a coffee.
That's not small talk.
Small talk is when you're stuck in a conversation and depth is...
Frightening to you, the other person, the interaction, or whatever, right?
What do people talk about when small-talking besides the weather?
That's my go-to.
I'm sorry, have you never heard of sports?
Oh my god!
Sports, oh man.
Because when I was in sales and marketing, did a lot of travel and would meet with corporate executives and in high-level corporate sales you've got to get to know each other because you're gonna have a long-term relationship that's quite involved.
So we would go places and a lot of time people wanted to take me to sports games or take me to sports games or go to sports games.
I'd be like, please, no!
Please don't take me to a sports game.
I guarantee you, you'd take me to a hockey game and I'd be like, icing?
It's all ice!
Oh, please God, don't take me to a basketball game.
A basketball game.
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, because all you can hear is those shoes squeaking on the, on the wood, right?
Oh, God.
Oh look, they threw the ball!
Oh look, they bounced the ball!
Oh look, they threw the ball!
Oh look, they bounced the ball!
It's like they're dribbling my brain cells and killing them slowly on the ground.
Oh my gosh.
I mean, when I would have people up for... because, you know, when large corporations are buying from a small corporation, they will often come up and want to see your operation and see your outfit and so on.
So they'd come up and I would take them out.
We'd go out for dinner and have a good conversation or sometimes I would take them to comedy clubs and things like that and all of that.
Soccer better but not enough scoring for our impatient culture.
Yeah.
Oh look!
The ball's in the middle of the pitch again.
I've been to one soccer game my whole life.
It was over two hours.
Nobody scored.
And I was like, God, please.
I would like, I just wanted to throw myself on the pitch just so I could get knocked out by the ball and wake up sometime after the game was over.
I try to get deep with people as soon as possible.
Usually that scares small talkers away.
Yeah.
Small talk is usually an aggressive assault on human potential.
An aggressive assault on human potential.
Well, you could have a big and deep conversation, but I'm going to get really hostile if you try to bring any deep facts to me, man.
Because it's not small talk or deep or anything like that.
It's just honest versus lying.
It's just honest versus lying.
That's all it is.
Small talk generally emanates from people who have crushed and killed their own deep human potential and wish to spread their tininess like a virus.
You know what small talk is?
Small talk, fundamentally, is censorship.
Who the fuck wants to talk for 20 minutes about the weather?
It's censorship.
That's all it is.
Have you checked your ancestry?
Are you sure you were born in England?
I wasn't born in England.
I have a pal, an ROI, massive Liverpool fan.
Takes all kinds.
There's tinnitus and then there's tininess.
He's a massive Liverpool fan.
I like this outfit!
It's kind of gay.
The outfit with this logo is the one I like.
The outfit with that logo is bad.
Bad.
This.
This.
Sock.
Good.
This sock.
Bad.
Yay this name.
Boo this name.
I mean it's so sad.
Oh my god.
Oh my god.
People from this foreign country playing soccer in close proximity to me are the shit.
They're just fantastic.
People from this foreign country playing a game funded by me at gunpoint in close proximity, but not quite as close proximity as this team, this other team, is bad.
I mean, talk about cheering your masters.
I mean, they take the money for sports.
I did this whole thing on the Olympics and the NFL.
You know, they take money for sports for you at gunpoint and people... They cheer this shit.
They literally cheer this stuff.
This jersey team ball head happy...
AstroTurf giant stadium thing is really good.
Okay, it has put my children approximately $100,000 in debt, but yay!
I can't believe the lack of pride that people have.
We're gonna take your wallet out through your fucking ass and we're gonna give
Hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies and grants and tax breaks to multi-billion dollar corporations and you're just gonna suck up to it like a giant sky titty forever and ever amen.
You're just gonna cheer that shit on and waste your time.
Oh and by the way, you're gonna watch people run around while you sit on your fat ass with endless ads for dubious medicines being shoved up your nose on a regular basis.
Why talk to people when you can look at men in tight pants?
Oh my god, it's hilarious.
And literally the entire Roman Empire.
Bread and circuses, all that needs to keep the masses happy is bread and circuses.
Well that's outrageous.
Oh, is there something on TV?
A four hour game with a cozy three and a half minutes of game time?
Boy, that sounds great to me!
Oh my God.
Oh my God.
What can you even say to people?
Well, it's true that my entire country is being sold out to globalists.
My children are being indoctrinated and we're all being slowly shoveled into the endless moor of international banks through debt.
But!
But!
On the other hand, I can also be taxed to watch overpriced manboys kick around a ball for twelve dollars a beer.
Oh my god.
Oh my god.
Okay, listen.
There's one exception to all of this.
Who can guess what the exception to all of this is?
Ice hockey?
No.
No.
Racing?
No.
Curling?
No.
Although, I love watching sports where Shiva's regal and cigarettes are your warm-up.
Rugby?
No.
Participating?
No.
If you are the player.
Nude sumo wrestling?
Okay, now you're getting close, obviously.
There is one exception to all of this.
Chess?
No!
Engineering?
What?
Tennis?
It's fun to watch.
Debating horseback polo?
Duck racing?
No!
Oh my god.
Do we have any men here?
Men!
Golf?
Golf is a good walk spoiled.
Golf is leaning on a stick and cursing your life for one tiny micrometer of wrong hitting.
Combat.
MMA.
God no, MMA is completely psycho.
No.
I'm gonna type it in.
This is not hard.
There is one exception.
That it's okay to watching sports.
What is the one exception?
That red-blooded men will make for sports watching.
That's right!
Women's beach volleyball.
In slow motion.
I don't even care what the score is.
Like, it's like pole dancing, but they jump more.
So it's very, very different.
And it's one of these sports, like, obviously there's a lot of questionable decisions in sports attire.
But the one thing that you absolutely know about women's beach volleyball is they simply couldn't do it if their bikinis weren't painted on.
Like, it's just impossible.
You know, like, male sprinters can run in shorts, but female sprinters have to have butt-floss wedgies in order to do anything.
It's just, it's a fact.
It's science, and you can't possibly argue with it without being kind of gay.
So... 240 FPS jiggle.
Well, see, here's the thing.
It's not jiggle.
That's the weird thing, right?
Okay, I'll give that to you, Steph, with the Miami Vice theme playing.
So it's just yourself, for sure, not gay.
I only watch that for the strategy.
Women's pole vaulting is pretty neat, too.
You know, I can't watch women's pole vaulting.
Like, in all seriousness, I just, I can't watch it.
I can't watch women's pole vaulting.
Anyone, I mean, anyone want to guess why?
Yeah, women's pole vaulting.
I can't.
I can't.
It's too close to my sex life.
It's what's necessary for the reproduction of the species.
In my environment, it's too much.
They barely make it over, they need a mat to land on, and it is that much man meat that they're wrestling with, so I can't get to women's pole vaulting.
It's just too much of a flashback.
Women's tennis are paid the highest for women's sports, yeah.
If they break the pole, I flinch.
It's literally that projected for me.
They always land on your back.
It's weird.
Quite right.
Quite right.
So yes, you don't.
And honestly, I think I've watched maybe 10 minutes of Women's Beach Volleyball my whole life.
I'm just making the joke.
I can't.
I can't even.
I can't even.
I'd rather watch my wife cook.
All right.
Let's make sure that we stay serious, people.
We can't do small talk unless it involves Dick and V jokes.
My mom got stung by a bee while pole vaulting.
There's two opposite sex jokes there about large and small penises there, but because it's your mom, I'll let you make those yourself.
What's your thoughts on how female sports are subsidized by male sports?
No, female sports aren't subsidized by male sports.
No, I know this for a fact.
I will donate the like count at the end of the stream.
Send some love for the comedy and philosophy.
Do you know, female sports are not subsidized by male sports.
I mean, it's a common misconception in the realm of economics, but no.
Female sports, do you know what female sports are in fact subsidized by?
Simps?
No.
No, because simps would voluntarily give the money.
A simp is somebody who voluntarily gives money to a woman who will never ever have sex with him.
The state?
No.
No.
The WNBA is subsidized heavily by the NBA.
That's a surface-level thing.
Okay.
What are female athletes even better at than the best at their sport?
The best female athletes, what are they even better at than their sports?
That's right!
Female sports is subsidized by whining, by complaining, by nagging, by self-pity, by eternal cries of masculine injustice.
Because no matter how good you are at bouncing a ball, you're much better at breaking them.
Am I wrong?
No matter, you can be the number one elite rapinoe excellent sports queen of the galaxy, but there's still one thing you're better at.
Whining, nagging, aggressively begging, or bad men-ness vibes will result.
That's the one sport, if it was ever in the Olympics, I mean, men would just be toasted, right?
They would just be completely toasted.
Absolutely toasted.
Because I
Well, let me ask you this.
What percentage of my show... Yeah, the best was the media demanding John McEnroe apologize for daring to suggest Serena Williams was not as good as top male players.
So Chris Everett was a top-seeded female player, and I did a whole show on this back in the day, you can look it up.
But yeah, female athletes.
I mean, by male standards, they're just bad.
I mean, obviously they could kick my ass, but that's not the point.
The point is with regards to the best male athletes.
Chris Everett, she's a top-seeded female player.
Her brother just plays casually in college, and he just beats her regularly, without even any effort.
Serena Williams was going up against some guy who was in his 50s and had taken up smoking, but was a former good tennis player, and he beat her.
Look, I love women for what they're doing and all of that, but oh my god.
I mean, come on.
I mean, it's fine for female athletes, but they're LARPing when it comes to men, right?
As a whole.
Except in the whining and complaining department.
Whining and complaining, and things are unfair if I don't get resources.
I will just make your life unpleasant until you cough up resources.
That is an Olympic-level sports.
That is really, really something.
Ultra-marathons?
Yes.
Except for men's beach volleyball players.
Okay, so what percentage of this show, and I'm happy to hear this, this is not a sensitive topic for me at all, but... Oh, that's funny.
Oh, that's pretty cute.
Sorry, I just noticed this.
This is from some time ago.
My daughter put something in my mouse pad.
It's a clear mouse pad.
She drew a picture of a dragon, and she said, have a great show!
This is from a while ago.
I just noticed that.
That's pretty cool.
What percentage of this show do I spend whining and complaining?
And I'm happy to hear, it could be a surprising figure for me, what percentage of this show do I spend whining and complaining?
And asking for things.
We got 20%, 20%, 5%, 1% on tech grants, 7%, 15%, 2%, 25%, 10%, 9.35.
Is Russell Brand the topic?
Just when Bitterstaff guest hosts?
I don't know if I've heard you complain.
No, rants don't count.
Rants aren't whining.
Rants aren't whining.
Well, that's interesting.
So 20%.
So 20%.
So that's interesting.
So if I do a two-hour show, half of it, half hour of it, if I do a two-hour show, 25 minutes of it is whining, kvetching, and complaining.
Is that right?
Is that what you're... Yeah, we're not counting rants.
5% usually on the decline.
If rants are whining, then 5%.
No, rants aren't whining.
Anger is not whining.
Complaining is not whining.
It's when you're asking other people to solve your problems by giving you resources.
Now, I don't count asking for donations as whining because I'm providing value and all of that.
I think probably maybe 3%, maybe 5%.
Sometimes it overwhelms me and I do complain and I'm human and blah blah blah.
But I think for the most part, I certainly didn't really complain about being deplatformed.
Kind of inevitable, given the truth that I wanted to get in the world, and I don't have any regrets about any of that, so... You haven't done that at all since dropping politics, and I don't know that there was a lot of whining in politics.
I can't think of you ever complaining.
Do you have an example?
All right, do I- let me ask you this then.
I'm, again, happy to hear the answer.
Do I nag?
Do I nag?
Nagging is insistent complaining in order to control someone else in an unjust fashion.
Only when people make stupid comments, lol.
I don't, yeah, I mean, obviously I'm sure that there are examples over the time, but I try to, I try to kind of avoid that stuff.
Now, why do most men avoid this kind of complaining?
Why do most men avoid this kind of complaining?
It doesn't work?
Um, I think it does for some people because other men will mock you for it because it's weak and no one gives a shit.
It's unproductive.
It doesn't work for men and may make people think more poorly of you.
It doesn't do much good for men to complain.
It's a sign of weakness.
Less sexually attractive.
Boy, and if there's one thing I want to do is turn you people on.
Nipple time!
Females are more controlling, it's against self-ownership.
For me, these are all great answers, could be much better than what I'm thinking of, but for me, it's just a matter of pride.
It's just a matter of pride.
For me, complaining and whining and kvetching and nagging is just so
It's just a matter of practice.
I can't do it.
I can't live with myself.
It's icky, right?
Now, I'm not surrounded by people who whine and complain.
I'm just not.
My wife is very stoic, my daughter is even more so, and it doesn't mean they're not vulnerable or anything like that, but we're not much of a complainy kind of group.
And I feel, even if I were, because you know what it is?
When do we whine most?
When do we, and men, right?
When do we whine most over the course of our life?
Yeah, for months and months during COVID, I never asked for donations.
I think it was for about 18 months, I did not ask for donations during COVID.
I did, I mean, I'm proud of that.
Honestly, that was not easy.
I really had to shuffle and rearrange, but I...
I think it was about 18 months.
I didn't ask for donations at all.
And very much told people to enjoy the show without it, because I know it was tough.
It was tough.
Even when asking for donations, you're very fair.
If you can't afford it, I completely understand.
Yes, I don't want anyone to suffer for supporting the show.
If you can afford it, and it's fine, great.
If you can't, if you're really broke, enjoy the show.
Your life will turn around.
You can catch me later.
That's fine.
All right, so when
When do men whine and complain?
When we're toddlers.
When we're toddlers.
I'm also fairly sensitive to it as a younger sibling.
Like, as a younger sibling, it's not really a great strategy.
Male nagging evolved to get food from better hunters.
Well, no.
Men, we don't nag.
What we do is we thunderously morally condemn people for being blasphemers
Unless they give us that really nice piece of meat they got over there.
And then, you're saved!
I'm gonna clear your path to heaven, and you are just so virtuous.
But if you don't give me that nice piece of meat, you're going to hell!
Right?
So.
Men threaten existentially, and bribe existentially, but we don't whine as a whole.
We don't whine as a whole.
I mean, some soy boys do this and that, but we don't whine as a whole.
We have too much pride for that.
We get our gods to complain for us.
Does that make sense?
I mean, we have religion because men are too proud to whine in many ways.
My two-year-old doesn't whine as much now that he learned to negotiate, right?
And my daughter, when she was very little, she wouldn't, she would say, I really want that.
But she wouldn't say, you have to get it for me and I'm going to whine and complain until you get it for me.
She's very persistent when she wants something.
She's very persistent, but not aggressive and not escalating and anything like that.
She's just very frank about what she wants.
And, you know, that's, of course, I mean, if I can provide it and it's reasonable, I will certainly do so.
Would you change the topic?
If you guys want, I'm happy to go wherever you want to go.
I'm your willing philosophy thumb puppet.
If you want, I have a seriously bitchy
I got a seriously bitchy message today.
I'm happy to paste that and we can talk about it.
Or I'm happy to answer whatever questions you have around.
But it's seriously bitchy.
From a supporter?
You killed my complaining a few months ago when you pointed out this is the easiest time to be alive.
Oh yeah.
Did we conclude on the small talk discussion?
Yeah, I think so.
Don't censor yourself.
You saw it?
You want me to go off?
You saw the message?
Now, this is partly my fault.
Absolutely.
This is partly my fault.
So what I did today was I haven't even tried to log in to my Twitter account.
I haven't tried to log into my Twitter account, didn't care about it, didn't write.
So anyway, I just happened to boot up an old phone because I needed to get something, and I just saw Twitter!
I was like, wow, Twitter!
And I booted it up, and there it was.
I booted up Twitter, and there it was.
There it was.
And, you know, I was like, oh, it's almost 400,000 people just waiting for the staff bot to spew venomous, wise, fabric-tearing syllables across the scattershot
Ricochet Canyon of the Human Experience!
That's the thing, baby.
And it was just like... And the voice came.
I will take you to the mountaintop.
I will give you the world and all that is in it.
You just need to reject your values.
And...
I was tempted.
I was tempted.
I haven't really felt tempted, but I was just like, oh, did they check your messages?
One or two people said, hey, welcome back, you know, but so I like booted up and it was right there.
The big trumpet, the amplifier, the skywriting, all of it was like right there.
I could have just bing, bing, bing, bing tweeted.
I'm back!
Ooh, just a couple little tweets.
Push, push, push, tap, tap, tap, go!
Go for the banhammer speedrun, yeah yeah yeah.
Let's hear the tweet that was going to go out in that moment.
You can type it in the chat for a real immersive experience.
I will type out the tweet I thought of.
All right, here's the tweet I was going to... No, I'm back, baby.
That's what I was going to tweet.
I was going to tweet, I am a ridiculous hypocrite who has fallen for temptation.
The crack was too much.
The line of coke was too long.
The nose was too hungry.
And he had to snort it all up.
The devil has won.
Fame was too strong a pull.
Because, you know, if you're going to tweet after saying you're not going to tweet because it's just not moral, you might as well be honest about it.
Yeah, fuck it.
I'm just a ridiculous hypocrite who's fallen for temptation.
I welcome back the world even as I wave away my own morals and standards.
Oh yeah, no, I mean, literally, like, I could feel, like, the horn twitches, like regrowing twenties hair, the horn twitches, spirals coming up.
Have AC change your password and keep it secret.
I don't want to have to beat it out of her, that would just feel wrong.
Why not tweet about peaceful parenting?
Yeah, see, you've got the Satan temptation thing going there.
You're showing me a lot of leg, a lot of fishnet stocking, some cleavage, you're swinging your purse under the lamplight, and you're just back-o-ing me over.
I just want to talk.
I just want to talk.
Why not tweet about peaceful parenting?
Don't you want to do good for the children of the world?
Think of all the children you could save.
Come on, do it, do it, do it!
Just posted a sponsored deal with Pepsi or Free Domain or something.
Since you're all so into vaccines, how about I vaccinate you against bullshit?
Start tweeting and then claim you were hacked?
I think people might know.
I think people let the hate flow through you.
Freedom Apes, sponsored by Raid Shadow Legends.
Let the sand of my morals be washed away by the winds of Twitter.
That's right.
You know, I was good for a long time there.
You know, it was... I mean, gosh, I've been good for decades.
Some habits, they just get easier with time, and some habits are like... Oh, fuck it.
That's... Some habits, you just, like, the muscles, they get stronger, and some habits are like pulling this giant elastic.
Just eventually, it's like... And you're gone, right?
My father thinks you should go back to Twitter.
He's an FDR normie who just didn't keep watching after the de-platforming.
Yes, let me take advice from a guy who just couldn't go one website over.
Oh my god.
So, if you stuck to things like finances, you could keep an account so long as you avoid anything meaningful.
Yeah, man.
Go back on Twitter.
Just avoid anything meaningful.
I'm sure that would be well worth it.
Oh dear, oh dear.
Uh, just do small talk on Twitter, yeah, yeah.
It's ironic, yeah, it's a good point.
I didn't miss a beat, says Ground Beef.
I was gutted when your YouTube was gone, but then you were right back.
Don't get it.
It was so easy.
Do the verbally abusive comments on social media affect you?
Oh yeah.
Does Steph have a secret women's speech volleyball alt fan account?
Please, camera, be off.
Let's see here.
Do the verbally abusive comments on social media affect me?
Absolutely.
They hugely affect me.
They are hilarious.
They affect me like, you know what it is?
I don't mind most exercise, but I'll tell you what I hate.
And if I stood up and took my shirt off, you'd see clearly just how much I hate them.
I hate abs.
Doing anything to do with abs.
Plank, I just feel like an epileptic dachshund.
Sit-ups are ridiculously boring, and I just... leg lifts make my hips click because apparently I'm 900 years old, I'm a Thusler, but...
Yes, Defcourt with his morality showing on camera.
Well, you remember the pole vaulting comment, like, I'd needed distant fish islands.
Yes, verbally abusive comments on social media are hilarious.
They are hilarious.
And shall we do one?
So it's my fault.
I take ownership for this because I posted
A picture of me holding my phone.
Now I could, I should have done a video with me holding my phone and shaking, like shaking my phone.
Like, like, I don't know, setting fire to my hand so I don't, I don't touch the great Babylon beast of Twitter.
Oh, God.
Am I precious?
That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
Cast it into the fire.
And I was just like... Because, you know, ethics are all kind of theoretical until it's right there in front of you, right?
Ethics is quite theoretical until it's right there in front of you, right?
I should have... No, I won't say that.
It's too rude.
Apparently now we've hit my limit.
All right.
So, this is the bitchy message.
I can't remember where it was from, but whatever, right?
Say the rude thing?
Oh, the great instigators are continuing, right?
Okay.
Hit me with a Y if I do this with bitchy voice, or should I be fair and read it straight?
Y for bitchy voice, F for fair.
Smuggins.
Bitchy voice.
Always why.
Oh, there's one or two people who want it to be fair.
Read it straight.
Fair.
Oh, you know me.
I'm just a slave to democracy.
Put those acting talents to use.
All right.
All right.
So I'm afraid this one's gonna need a full-on nose pinch.
Because that's just the kind of voice that there is.
All right.
Are you ready?
Nose pinch, yeah.
The reason I'll never subscribe to your local page and never donate to you is because I refuse to help people who don't help themselves.
Since getting deplatformed, you barely get any views or engagement, but you still refuse to go back on Twitter and engage with your 300,000 followers.
Oh God, that's kind of snooty.
And snotty.
Holy fedora Batman.
That's boarding school for sure.
I could do it Valley Girl.
Damn, that was good.
Marriage material right there.
That genuinely hurts my ears.
Sorry about that.
Well, what was it when I first did Diamond and Silk?
I remember the comments were RIP headphone users.
Is this a reason?
Is that a reason, editor?
Damn, his single mother.
Was that a chick?
I think it's immaterial either way.
Your mic was struggling with those high frequencies.
Yes.
How to get sting on helium to read your bitchy messages, right?
Okay, so the reason I'll never subscribe to your locals page and never donate to you is because I refuse to help people who don't help themselves.
It's interesting, I mean, I do find this an interesting thing to unpack, right?
Because you get these messages, and people think that they're controlling me, but all they're doing is they're revealing themselves, right?
They're just revealing themselves, right?
So what's the first thing he says is, I will consume your content, I will watch your live streams, I will read your books, I will watch your presentations,
I will listen to your call-in shows.
I will consume your content.
But I'm not paying you a penny.
Right?
I'm withholding money from you.
I'm withholding money from you.
Does that make sense?
So does he start off with an appeal to some sort of moral principle?
Does he start off with a rebuttal of the arguments I put forward about why I wouldn't go on Twitter?
I'll never subscribe to your locals page and never donate to you, right?
So the only thing that he has to offer in his moral analysis is he's a giant freeloader.
Well, I'm going to rely on the fact that other people donate to you so that I can continue to enjoy your content.
But I'm not going to do it.
Okay, so you're a freeloader, right?
And his only thing to try and get my attention is to not pay, to withhold money from me.
So the only reason I'd listen to him is because I want his money.
But if I wanted people's money to the point where I'd break principle, I'd already be on Twitter!
God, I can't believe it.
People are like, what do they think?
What do you think?
Oh, well, I'm not going to give you money because money's all that really motivates you.
And it's like, look, if money was all that motivated me, I'd be back on Twitter.
I mean, Twitter's literally paying people now.
You don't think I'd get engagement?
I mean, Twitter's literally giving people thousands of tens of thousands of dollars a month, so I'm not gonna pay you.
It's like, if paying was my motivation, you wouldn't even need to write this.
I don't know what people think about this.
Like, what do they think?
Since getting deplatformed, you barely get any views or engagement.
Well, I don't think that's true, but, you know, he doesn't know the numbers, right?
But that's fine.
But you still refuse to go back on Twitter and engage with your 300,000 followers.
Again, no arguments, no this or the other, right?
So clearly, getting views or engagement is not my highest priority, right?
Like clearly, clearly, I mean, do you know how much money I could make if I wasn't interested in moral excellence?
I mean, come on, my skills, I know some of this because I was in the business world.
I was an entrepreneur for a long time in the business world.
So I know how much money I could make with my skills if
I wasn't interested in moral excellence.
But, you know, there's tons of people out there who grub for money without morals.
We don't need another one.
We don't need another one, right?
So, you refuse to go back on Twitter and engage with the 300,000 followers, despite the fact that Twitter has new owners.
So, what does it matter that Twitter has new owners?
If Twitter's new owners are more moral, then they should apologize when they spread falses about people.
Then you can only blame yourself for your drop in engagement and drop in income.
I can only blame myself for my drop in engagement and drop in income.
So the fact that in general, in the social media platforms that de-platformed me, they didn't give me good or objective reasons.
They didn't give me warnings.
They didn't give me guidance.
They just blanked me out.
To me, against their own terms of service, that's... I can only blame myself for what other people did.
Right?
I can only blame myself for what other people did.
All right.
Can you imagine if some woman is complaining about being assaulted, that he would say, but you can only blame yourself.
I mean, he would never say that, right?
So it's kind of funny, right?
You need to stop being so petty and pathetic.
So, if I can't bribe you and insult you, perhaps I can abuse you.
And perhaps that will get you to do what I want.
I mean, don't you find that funny?
Oh my gosh.
I have standards, he says.
I refuse to help people who don't help themselves.
So now you see he is in the lofty and grand and powerful position of knowing what helping me looks like.
Right?
He knows what would help me and he knows that I'm not helping myself.
I'm not helping myself because I'm not going and talking to 300,000 followers.
So, when somebody claims to know you better than you know yourself, that's... I mean, you hear me a million times in call-in shows, right?
I always say, this is my idea, this is my thought, but you know your life infinitely better than I do, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
So, I refuse to help people who don't help themselves.
So, I'm just not helping myself.
Now, what is helping myself is getting more views or engagement.
So, the only thing that would help me is views or engagement.
So he's going to threaten me with not paying for me, and he's going to try and bribe me with views or engagement.
Now this, I understand this, this is sort of a male-to-male thing, or a pseudo male-to-male thing, which is, I'm going to offer you higher status.
I'm going to offer you more clout and higher status, and so that will help you, right?
Since getting deplatformed, you barely get any views or engagement.
Let's say that's true.
I don't think it's particularly true, but let's say that that's true.
Okay?
So, views or engagement is the only metric I should judge by.
Right?
You refuse to go back on Twitter and engage with your 300,000 followers.
So, refuse is interesting.
Refuse is a word that sort of summons up, and you understand that people who try to manipulate you are always trying to paint a word picture because they don't have any actual arguments.
And so they're trying to paint to you this word picture.
And this word picture is, you just refuse, right?
It's like denier or a refuser, anti-vaxxer or anti-science.
It's just, it portrays you in a negative without engaging with any arguments, right?
Despite the fact that Twitter has new owners.
So whether Twitter has new owners or not is not the key part.
Getting more views or engagement.
And it's kind of funny because I mean clearly I've given up a lot of views and engagement.
Oh yeah thanks I appreciate that but you know please don't send me a dollar tip.
Like I just feel bad about it because if you're down to your last dollar please save it for
I don't know, whatever you can buy with the dollar these days, but if you could do me a favor, I'd appreciate that.
And of course, after deductions, it's pennies, right?
Oh, not pennies, but very little.
So, clearly I don't want the 300,000 followers at some price, right?
Then you can only blame yourself.
So blame yourself is the key sentence there, right?
I'll paste this into you guys and watch it and follow along.
Blame yourself is the key part of that next sentence.
He's trying to get me to view myself as I just won't help themselves.
I'm humiliated because I barely get any views or engagement.
I refuse to go back on Twitter.
Twitter has new owners.
You can only blame yourself for your drop in engagement and drop in income.
You can only blame yourself.
So blame yourself is the key, he wants me to blame myself.
So he's trying to apply negative pressure, right?
He's trying to say you're inconsequential, you're humiliated, you're dropping income, dropping in, of course been dropping income, dropping engagement for sure.
I am superior, he would say.
I'm never going to help you out because you won't even help yourself.
So this is him from a superior standpoint trying to deal with me, the recalcitrant toddler who just doesn't know what's right for himself and so on, right?
So he's like, I'm never gonna help you because you're not even helping yourself, right?
You barely get any views or engagement that's like, humiliating and it's bad and I'm losing out and I'm not in the party and all of that.
But you still refuse to engage with Twitter.
Twitter's new owners, only blame yourself.
You need to stop being so petty and pathetic, right?
Why the fuck would I listen to anybody who's just this full of bizarre hatred?
So, let me tell you, let me tell you.
Yeah, he's trying to induce self-criticism and attack.
Yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure, for sure.
I can tell you why people are bothered by me not going on Twitter.
Would you like to know why people are really bothered by me not going on Twitter?
I know this one in my bone marrow.
Oh, did you send a $2 tip?
Oh, no?
Okay.
All right, all right.
All I can do is make a request.
All I can do is make a request.
No, so...
They have succumbed to temptation and they're enraged that I haven't.
Right?
They have succumbed to temptation in some area in this in the some area and this I mean look he succumbed to temptation by just verbally abusing someone he's trying to help like in what universe in what social engagement in what environment just just screaming at people and insulting them get to do what they want so this guy's a verbal abuser and it works in his
World, I guess, because he's still doing it or whatever, right?
So he is really, really, really bothered by the fact that I've resisted temptation.
And this came in response to me saying, yes, it's tempting.
Right?
And I was posting this saying, I'm not, I posted saying something like, I'm not going to pretend I'm not tempted.
And I was, I'm looking at that like, oh, that would be cool.
Big entrance, you know, back from the wilderness and back from the dead and whatever you want to call it, right?
So the fact that I'm saying I'm tempted but I'm still not going to do it enrages him.
So why does it enrage him?
It's got nothing to do with me.
It's got nothing to do with me.
Why would I have anything?
I'm just a podcaster.
I'm a philosopher, and I'm making my choices.
I think they're the right choices.
I've got good reasons for them.
That's my preference.
I've made a good case for them, I think.
So why would he be so enraged?
Why would he be so enraged at me saying, I'm not gonna pretend it's not tempting, and showing my... Because that's right there, right?
That makes it kind of immediate, right?
There's 350 or whatever it is, 2,000 people.
Boom!
Right?
And so,
I'm resisting temptation.
I'm not perfect, I don't always do it, but I resisted temptation in this point.
So why would he be so enraged that I resisted temptation?
Because he can't even resist the temptation to rage at people and verbally abuse them.
Right?
He can't even resist the temptation to rage at someone.
And this is the guy I'm going to listen to about the right thing to do.
This is the guy I'm supposed to listen to about the right thing to do.
It's this highly manipulative, weirdo, verbal abuser guy.
Please tell me more about the right thing to do because you are so wise in your hysterical, girly, grandmotherly-like manipulation and verbal abusing.
Please tell me more about virtue and ethics.
How to engage people in a positive way.
So what happened was he's ashamed of some temptation that he succumbed to.
I mean, we all know this, right?
A guy who ends up sleeping outside of his marriage, he ends up sleeping with a girl outside of his marriage.
When he sees his friend being married for 30 years, been faithful, he's going to be angry.
Right?
He's going to be angry.
He's gonna be angry.
So, this has nothing to do with me because the idea that verbal abuse is the way to get me to do something, it's like, dude, I grew up with verbal abusers.
I can handle that shit, right?
So, the idea that
Straight-up bribery, attempted humiliation, and verbal abuse would get me to change my mind?
You understand, it's fundamentally hilarious.
It's like if I can resist the temptation of 350,000 willing souls to listen, if I can resist that temptation, how do you not let verbal abuses affect you?
They're not talking to me.
This guy's not talking to me.
He's raging.
Rage doesn't have anything to do with me.
Like 99.9% of the things that people have to do with me don't have anything to do with me.
I mean, I'm a nice guy.
I want what's best for the world.
I'm a good dad.
I'm a good husband.
I'm a good friend.
I'm a good philosopher.
So, the idea that people go and nuclear on me, because, and here's the other thing too.
So, you understand, I confess to vulnerability, right?
Because look, I'm honest.
I was tempted.
I looked at that phone and it was like, oh, that's Twitter.
Boom.
Oh my God, my account is right there.
Right?
And that's, you know, that's in your face, right?
And I wanted to share that, yeah, it's tempting.
I'm not, I'm not gonna lie.
I'm not, I am made of stone and never tempted by anything negative or potentially against my values.
So, so it, it's not about me.
It's nothing to do with me.
This guy is talking to himself.
You understand?
So the way that I deal with it, it's just accurately.
You need to stop being so petty and pathetic.
Do you think he's talking to me?
Do you think he's talking?
He's not talking to me.
Well, first of all, this is his father talking to him.
This has nothing to do with me.
And
He has succumbed to the temptation of being manipulative and raging and abusing people, because obviously he's doing this because it works, right?
And so he's got people around him who falls for this kind of stuff, which means he's trapped in this underworld of self-attacking people.
And so I just look at this as somebody yelling in the rain, like they're out there
In the rain, yelling at the sky.
They're punching a tree.
Like, it's nothing to do with me.
Honestly, this is absolutely essential to get.
It's nothing to do with me.
Like my mom, yelling, screaming.
It's nothing to do with me.
I was a good kid.
I was a nice kid.
I was a friendly kid.
I was a fun kid.
Nothing to do with me.
This has nothing to do with me.
This has nothing to do with me.
This is straight up semi-devilish bribes and threats.
Right?
Bribes and threats.
Never gonna donate to you.
You never get any views or engagement.
You refuse to go back.
Only blame yourself.
Stop being so petty and pathetic.
What series of events need to occur for a happy Twitter return?
Yeah, I've told that.
I've said that, you know, they accused me of cheating and gaming the system of fraud, in a sense.
They'd need to withdraw that, and I've already said I'll sign a document saying I won't sue, right?
I just need to, right?
Some publicly accused me of some pretty significant wrongdoing, and I don't think I did it, so they would need to tell me that they withdraw that, right?
Somebody publicly insults you, then they need to withdraw that insult for you to have anything to do with them, right?
Like, let's take a business scenario.
Come on, this is not complicated, guys.
Let's just take a business scenario.
Your partner publicly accuses you of embezzling.
Right?
Publicly accuses you of embezzling and stealing from clients.
And then he wants to go back into business with you.
Do you just like, oh yeah, that's fine.
I mean, come on people, isn't that complicated?
This really isn't that complicated.
You say, oh, yes, but thank you very much for the tip.
Yes, but it's a new owner.
So?
So?
The fuck would that have to do with anything?
New owners.
Oh, really?
So it's new owners.
So they just started from scratch.
They didn't inherit any existing user base.
They didn't inherit any advertising contracts.
They didn't inherit any employees.
They didn't inherit any income whatsoever.
They just completely wiped the slate clean and started from scratch.
No!
No!
If you got regularly poisoned at some restaurant,
And they kept most of the staff, but had a new manager.
Are you going back?
That's funny.
They inherited all of the assets and all of the liabilities.
Right?
When you buy a company, you get the assets and the liabilities.
And the liabilities of publicly accusing people, in my view, of wrongdoing where the wrongdoing did not occur.
So you gotta fix that.
You gotta do the right thing.
You inherit the income.
You can't take the income without the liabilities, that's retarded!
That's not business!
That's not business!
I mean, try that!
Try that.
Try buying a business that's being sued, and saying, oh no, just drop- the lawsuit is gone, because I bought- it's new ownership, man!
People just don't understand how business works.
I don't know what to say.
I mean, literally people will lecture me about corporate purchase and sale when I've actually been involved, directly involved, personally involved, in the sale of a corporation twice.
Twice!
Twice.
So, do you know how you get rid of liabilities?
Right?
How do you get rid of liabilities in a business?
You know the process of getting rid of liabilities in a business, right?
No, you don't fix them.
You want to get rid of them.
You want to erase your liabilities.
Bankruptcy!
Thank you, O'Brien.
That's exactly right.
You declare bankruptcy.
Quick question.
Has Twitter declared bankruptcy?
Nope.
So they still have all of their liabilities, all of the existing liabilities that they have inherited.
And what's that Elon Musk said?
Yeah, I think Elon Musk said something like he felt like he bought a crime scene or something like that, right?
So where's this transparency?
Where's the transparency?
Where's the transparency?
Well, here's what was done.
Here's the bad things that were done.
Here's how they... Where's the transparency?
And they say, ah, well, we can't do that because of lawsuits.
That's like, okay, fine.
Right, so they won't do the right thing if there's liability there.
That's fine.
What if you ended each tweet with, Twitter still owes me an apology for publicly lying about me?
What about that?
Here's the conditions under which I should not tweet, but I will tweet under all the conditions by which I should not be tweeting.
Well, and this Linda Iaccarino or whatever, come on, man, I mean, the idea that there's, right?
I wonder how many of those 300,000 followers don't know about your new platforms?
Oh, some very rude thoughts just went through my head.
Why would I care about 300,000 followers
Who couldn't be bothered to go to a new site.
Come on.
Come on, people, please have some pride.
Well, what if they just don't know that I still exist?
I mean, the website didn't change.
John 6, Jesus didn't care when most of the crowd left hearing the truth.
Yeah.
Well, Steph, why wouldn't you want access to the 300,000 people who just don't care really that much about philosophy?
Someone says, downloaded an app and paid for a subscription because Steph's content is worth it.
No time for the I miss him crowd as if you just disappeared into the abyss.
Yeah.
Hey, listen.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
I mean, you know the Spartan 300 principle, right?
You know the Spartan... And I know the Pareto principle, right?
Which is that it's you guys who keep the show going.
It's you guys who keep these live streams going and so on, right?
Your naggers should tweak clips from your shows if they care so much about you being on there.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, you don't need many people to change the world.
And in fact, the more people you have, the less likely you are to change the world.
Tom Trump also lost a ton of followers when he moved to Truth Social.
Right!
Right!
Somebody says, I was following on my band account and my backup account and I followed on ThemTube and BitChute and Gap.
Yeah, so here's the thing too, like there was a gap between being banned from various platforms, right?
I mean there was YouTube and then a little while later there was Twitter.
So there was a, I mean people saw that it was happening, they could have easily just gone to freedomain.com, bookmark it and checked it out, right?
Look, why would I want people who don't care that much about philosophy?
You understand, there would be a noise, a distraction, and they would detract from the concentrated quality of what we're doing here!
They would dilute the conversation.
Oh, tell me, let's say that we were broadcasting to, I don't know, what did I get, 7,000 people sometimes on live streams, right?
So let's say that we were broadcasting to 100 or 500 times more people, right?
Would this show be better?
Would the show be better if I couldn't find these great messages in amongst all this normie waterfall stuff, right?
I'm curious.
I mean, I'm happy to hear.
I'm happy to hear.
Less intimate, less focused, less concentrated, and there would be way more to manage.
99% of the posts would be trolls, that's right.
You get more $1 tips.
It's a close engagement we have now.
I think it's great.
You know, you can play your stadiums, which I've done, and then you can play your jazz clubs.
I wouldn't have got word in Edgewise.
Like, for you guys, this is kind of funny, right?
You guys would not at all benefit from a bigger show, right?
I don't think I would fundamentally either, but you guys certainly wouldn't, because you'd be lost in the shuffle, right?
You'd be lost in the shuffle.
And here's the thing.
Ooh, should I talk money?
I'm still so British, I don't want to talk money.
Should I talk money?
No, probably not, right?
Yes?
Yes?
No.
You used to charge money for each message you responded to?
What?
I don't remember that.
I don't know what you're talking about.
So, would more people mean more money?
Would it be proportional?
Right?
You understand there's a law of diminishing returns, right?
If I have more people, but the core donors are already here, I'm harming the core donors for the sake of people who don't support the show.
Do you follow?
Right?
Marginal revolution, right?
You sort of follow?
This way I'm giving the best value to the core supporters.
If I get more people I give less value to the core supporters because I'm giving more value to the people who aren't going to pay.
Does it make sense, right?
This is an 80-20 rule in business.
80% of your income comes from 20% of your customers.
This is true for just about every business known to man.
80% of your income comes from... And I read... I used to read Harvard Business Review back in the day, even in my early 20s, even before I got into business, I found Harvard Business Review very interesting.
Now I think it's just woke crap, but... So back in the day.
And they said it's absolutely essential to fire your customers.
You must fire your customers.
You must find, because it's the other way around, 80% of your costs come from 20% of your customers.
Tiny business here.
It's true, right?
I feel so good being a top donor, and thank you so much, my friend.
I really appreciate it.
So, 80% of your costs and losses come from 20% of your customers, and they said... And I remember this like it was yesterday, reading this decades ago, how essential it is to fire your customers.
You must go identify those customers that cost you more than they bring in, and fire them ruthlessly and relentlessly, because otherwise they'll drag everything down.
Trying to find the quality comments and the quality questions in a tsunami of weird dissociated abuse and torrents of nonsense and distractions and links to hate sites and like trying to concentrate on doing great positive work in this tsunami of nonsense that would come with a larger audience.
And I've been there.
Listen, I'm not talking about something I don't know about.
But why not use it for rare announcements like the new Peaceful Parenting book?
Ah, but don't you want to help children?
Do you understand?
This is just bribery!
My God, stop bribing me!
And stop bribing people as a whole!
Come on, I've been patient about this!
Oh, but what about the children?
You've got to help the kids!
Stop bribing me!
It demeans us both!
I've got principles here.
You can argue me out of the principles, but stop bribing me and stop bribing me with regards to helping children.
You know how tough that is.
That's unfair.
That's wrong.
I've made moral arguments.
Find a way to overthrow them.
I'd be thrilled if you do.
But what about the children?
It's not an argument.
That's a torture device.
It's cruel.
You don't know I don't think I'd love to help the kids?
Of course.
That's what I'm all about.
You think I'm helping the kids by compromising my moral values?
I don't think so.
So stop!
And I'm saying this out of frustration because I know this is what you're doing in your life as a whole.
Stop bribing people.
And certainly stop dangling in front of them that which they treasure in order to manipulate them.
As a whole in your life.
Because I've said now this has been the bribery thing and help the kids and you've got to help the kids has been like I've had like ten of these over the course and it's like you're not just listening.
You're not listening.
Break your values to do good is the oldest fucking temptation in the book.
Destroy your virtue in order to do good.
The ends justify the means.
Give up your virtues, give up your values, and do good.
Socrates, you should just agree with those who say you are an atheist who corrupts the young.
You should just agree with them.
Because think of all the people you can talk about with philosophy later on.
Can you go on the Tom Woods Show instead?
Let me check my inbox for invitations on the Tom Woods Show.
Yeah, I mean, my God.
I mean, understand, it's cruel.
It's cruel to say, well, you could help more kids, Steph.
Just give up your virtues and your values.
Betray all the listeners you've told to not be in abusive relationships.
Just, you know, just help the children, help the children, help the children.
But you can ask him if you can go on instead.
Why?
Why would I?
I mean, I like Tom, but why would I do that?
Why would I?
Why would I do that?
See, you have to ask yourself, why are you so compelled to get me to break principle?
Why do you want me to do that?
Why is it so important for you to do that?
That's important.
That's an essential question.
Why is it so important for you to get me back on Twitter?
Why is it so essential for you to get me to break principle?
This is for the people in the audience here too, and the people listening.
Why?
I know why.
I know why.
But you need to ask yourself why.
Why is it so important for you that you'll dangle in front of me the thing I want to do the most, which is to help the children.
Why would you want to dangle that in front of me, which is cruel, to get me to break principle?
Why do you need that so much?
What is it about me holding the principle
That tortures you.
So why would you want to torture me by dangling the thing I want the most, which is to help the children?
Why does it torture you?
Just read the Fountainhead for this, right?
You don't need to, right?
Just read the Fountainhead.
Why does it torture you that I'm holding the principle?
Why?
Because you know how to get me to change my mind, right?
How do you get me to change my mind?
How do you get me to go back on Twitter?
Or whatever you want me to do.
How do you get me to do that?
It's not complicated.
Yeah, just prove me wrong.
Make better arguments.
Address my arguments.
Tell me how I'm wrong.
So when I've openly stated, here's the reasons why I'm doing something and it's a moral principle for me,
And you know exactly how to change my mind.
But you bribe and threaten instead.
You won't have any credibility with good people.
Like you won't have credibility with good people if you resort, when somebody says reason with me and you resort to threats and bribes.
Why do you want to do that?
It's like the girl says, hey, just ask me out.
I'll go on a date with you.
And you're like, no, I'm going to kidnap you instead.
Why?
She's already said she's gonna go out with you.
I've already told you I could change my mind.
I'm not wed to a position, I'm wed to a process of moral reasoning.
Peter Keating tried to bribe Howard Rock, yeah.
Why does it trouble you that I'm not on Twitter?
Oh, it's for the good of the kids!
No, no, no, no.
Come on.
Come on.
Come on.
No.
It's not that.
Because if you really cared that much for the good of kids, you'd be out there running conferences on peaceful parenting, and you'd be out there writing your own books and art.
It's not about that.
I'd rather you go on with people like Alex Jones, who stands on principle.
He has had you on after banning.
Alex Jones has never done you wrong.
Or the audience.
Principles matter.
But I'm not doing politics.
And Alex Jones is a political guy.
He's a politics guy.
And honestly, like I don't, I did other people's shows for like 15 years.
And I've no regrets about it.
I think it was great and enjoyable.
But you know, I gotta tell you, I don't mean to overly praise you guys or anything like that.
I'm just being honest about like, you'd have to work pretty hard to sell me something better than tonight.
Did you see what I mean?
You'd have to work pretty hard to say to me, well, you know, these live streams that you do with great questions, and funny, and engaging, and warm, and passionate, and powerful, and virtuous, and interesting, and like... Tell me how going on somebody else's show is gonna be better than this!
Right?
Why go out for steak?
Sorry, why go out for hamburger when you have steak at home?
Well, I mean, tell me, what's better than this?
If I could think of something better than this, I'd be doing that.
Thanks, Chris.
Chris says, I think you're producing phenomenal content here.
Some great content has come out of these live streams.
I don't know what the up, like, you know, I got married to my wife and it's like, well, I'm not going to upgrade from this.
And isn't this like what we're doing here?
What's the upgrade from here?
What's the upgrade?
I'm happy to hear.
I think because we love you and want to show you off like a man with a beautiful girl.
I appreciate that thought.
But...
I'm not an object in that kind of way.
If you want to show me off, show off your own virtues in your own life and don't even mention me.
That's the best way to show me off.
Live in a way with integrity and curiosity and passion and sympathy and virtue and empathy.
Live in a way that's just admirable and noble to people.
And I know you do, so I'm not saying that you don't.
But I don't want you to show me off.
I want you to show off philosophy.
The power, the grace, the depth and the beauty of truth and reason and virtue.
You show off that glorious virtue and the inspiring fiery wings that it can unfold in your heart and in your life.
Throwing evil into sharp shadows of deep relief.
Passing the torch of virtue to those around you through inspiration.
It's like, let's say I've written a great diet book, and it's like, well, I want to show off Steph's abs.
It's like, no!
Show off your abs, not mine!
That's why I'm doing this publicly.
I already have enough virtue in my life.
I'm doing this publicly so you all can get the benefit.
Don't show me off.
Show yourself off.
So I appreciate the thought.
It's very kind, and I appreciate the thought.
I don't ask my jujitsu fighter to fight for me, he's taught me to fight for myself.
I think so.
We are at the top with this show, and we're growing together.
Spending lots of time watching other shows feels like missing out on growth opportunity.
Thanks, Steph.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
I agree with your argument, but I have an e-jerk reaction to not giving you big ups, Steph.
Listen, I appreciate the praise.
I'm not going to be like, oh, it's nothing.
I think I'm doing great work.
I know I'm doing great work.
I'm very proud of the work that I'm doing.
I swear to great gods above that I feel more in the flow now than I've ever felt before in my life.
This is like
I did a show this morning.
I did a show with my daughter today.
I did another show this afternoon answering locals' questions.
I'm doing two-plus hours here.
I feel more in the flow with eloquence, comedy, depth, passion, power, clarity.
I feel more in the flow now than I've ever felt before.
The Peaceful Parenting book is finally erupting!
As a subscriber, that's certainly my perception of you too.
So I'm getting better.
The shows are getting better.
I was pretty damn good to begin with.
I'm getting better.
The shows are getting better.
I've got enough money to live on.
Thank you guys so much.
Appreciate your support.
FreedomEnd.com slash donate if you'd like to help out.
What could be better?
I'm loving the access we have to you now.
Direct conversation has been awesome.
Yes.
What could be better than this?
Monogamy to core supporters is the most fertile marriage we have.
Monogamy to core supporters is the most fertile marriage we have.
And the closer and deeper you and I get in these conversations, the longer this conversation and these conversations will last into the future.
Come on.
How many people a thousand years from now are going to be watching my interview with person XYZ from 2014?
The depth of this conversation is the height of the light in the sky.
It's going to be visible from the furthest, the highest it is.
Does this make sense?
Barbecuing with you would be better?
Well, that sounds a little sinister.
No, I'm just kidding.
That would be nice.
But it makes sense, right?
The depth and passion and power and connection of these conversations is what will last the test of time.
First time I was on here, I was shocked.
You were reading all comments.
I've watched you for years.
Before, I never thought it would be this intimate.
Isn't this cool?
This is the good stuff.
This is the good stuff.
This is the stuff that will last.
Again, I have a 500-year business plan, at least.
It's a 500-year business plan.
This is the stuff that's gonna last.
Not another, oh my God, the Federal Reserve deficit is really big.
Did all that.
It was fun, it was fine, and no regrets about it.
A lot of big streamers see every 100th message.
Well, if this was some waterfall... I don't know.
This, to me, is the best it can be.
This, to me, is the best it can be.
And people are like, yes, but you could engage with a lot of indifferent, neutral, concern troll haters on Twitter.
Okay?
It says, I have other people who delve into shallow waters on subjects.
Now I try to get them to go deep, not with any success.
But I do try.
I have a light in the dark.
God commands us not to hide our light under a bushel.
Right.
And that's so other people with light can find you, not so you spend your time chasing the moles into the darkness.
All right.
Any last donations?
I think we've done some great work here tonight.
Any last donations or comments?
What is the purpose of praise?
I get intense anxiety when people praise me.
When I got my latest raise from work, I wept in my car.
A lot of times the purpose of praise is to train you into obedience.
Good boy!
Good doggie!
So my guess is that you were praised for conformity rather than virtue and therefore you are nervous about praise.
A few more likes guys!
Come on get those likes up!
Get those likes up!
Like index fingers in the middle of a bankers conference.
Just waiting for any last tips to roll in.
I can only do it once per night.
I guess you're not 20 anymore.
All right.
Thank you so much.
Really appreciate that, Josh.
Do you encourage some people to stop listening to you?
Oh, I don't need to do that.
No, I don't need to do that.
Looking forward to the next 80-minute rant about not returning to Twitter.
Well, you know it's not about that, right?
Like, tip, subscribe.
Thank you so much, guys.
If people are in the middle of typing some big thing, I hate cutting people off, I really do.
Great show.
Yes, you guys are fantastic.
What a great privilege it is to spend the evening with you.
And lots of love from up here.
Thank you so much, Michael.
That's very kind.
I really, really appreciate that.
And I love you guys so much.
Look forward, if you're a donor and a sub... Actually... Oh, no, we can't.
We don't have that ready yet.
But, yeah, if you're a subscriber, please check out
The post-livestream, please like and get this to 100 likes!
Yes, please.
Yeah, so please check out freedomain.com slash books.
Listen to my books.
The novels in particular, I think, are fantastic.
And you will get The Truth About the Wild West with great visuals and a great soundtrack, audio, music, and everything.
It's really, really cool.
And thank you so much for a wonderful show tonight.
I will see you guys on my B-Day.
My BJ day.
On my B-day, on my birthday in two days at 11 o'clock for our European friends on the 24th of September.
Lots of love.
Take care, everyone.
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